■^ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 JVo. 
 
 .2..5.2.J.&13.. 
 
 Library of the Berkshire if thenaeum. 
 
 Books may be kept two weeks and renewed once. 
 
 Charge for books over-due, one cent fof each day. Books 
 two weeks over-due may be sent for, aija a messenger's fee 
 collected. 
 
 Neither books nor cards are to be 
 rower's family. 
 
 Writing or marking upon books an 
 corners of leaves expressly forbidden. 
 
 Any person who does not take prop 
 who is in arrears for charges, will be de 
 the Library. 
 
 It is not enough to return books to thelAthenaeum building 
 they must be returned to the attendant at th| desk, and the CARD 
 MUST BE STAMPED. 
 
 Prompt notice of change of residence nfust be given at the 
 Library. 
 
 [nt out of the bor- 
 
 turning down the 
 
 care of books, or 
 ived of the use of
 
 I 

 
 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 OF THE INCARNATION
 
 Cfje iSaltitoht lectures, isw 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 OF THE INCARNATION 
 
 BY THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 ALEXANDER CHARLES GARRETT, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 MISSIONARY BISHOP OF NORTHERN TEXAS 
 
 , «, . . ' • ■....•• 
 
 -<- ,* ■> ° *> • *> 
 
 - ' > _ J '» 
 
 «,♦»'* 'I ' ' 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JAMES POTT & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 iSgi
 
 zaz'.'l 
 
 CorvRir,HTF.r>, 1S91, 
 JAMES POTT & CO, 
 
 1 . ( 
 
 ' , < < 
 
 TROW'9 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY} 
 
 NEW TOSK,
 
 CO 
 
 I' 
 
 3 
 
 in 
 
 (M 
 
 
 P 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE DEED OF TRUST, 
 
 IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS OF WHICH 
 THE BALDWIN LECTURES WERE INSTITUTED. 
 
 " Shis instrument, made and executed between 
 Samuel Smith Harris, Bishop of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Michigan, of 
 the city of Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, as 
 party of the first part, and Henry P. Baldwin, 
 Alonzo B. Palmer, Henry A. Hayden, Sidney D. 
 Miller, and Henry P. Baldwin, 2d, of the State of 
 Michigan, Trustees under the trust created by this 
 instrument, as parties of the second part, wit- 
 nesseth as follows : — 
 
 " In the year of Our Lord one thousand eight 
 
 ^ hundred and eighty-five, the said party of the first 
 
 part, moved by the importance of bringing all 
 
 o practicable Christian influences to bear upon the 
 
 ^ great body of students annually assembled at the 
 
 3 University of Michigan, undertook to promote and 
 
 set in operation a plan of Christian work at said 
 
 University, and collected contributions for that 
 
 purpose, of which plan the following outline is 
 
 here given, that is to say : — 
 
 " 1. To erect a building or hall near the Uni- 
 versity, in which there should be cheerful parlors, 
 
 Li 
 
 2 
 
 Li 
 
 -4 
 
 <
 
 VI EXTRACT FROM THE DEED OF TRUST. 
 
 a well-equipped reading-room, and a lecture-room 
 where the lectures hereinafter mentioned misht be 
 
 ■&' 
 
 given ; 
 
 " 2. To endow a lectureship similar to the 
 Bampton Lectureship in England, for the estab- 
 lishment and defence of Christian truth : the 
 lectures on such foundation to be delivered annu- 
 ally at Ann Arbor by a learned clergyman or 
 other communicant of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, to be chosen as hereinafter provided : 
 such lectures to be not less than six nor more 
 than eight in number, and to be published in book 
 form before the income of the fund shall be paid 
 to the lecturer ; 
 
 '■ 3. To endow two other lectureships, one on 
 Biblical Literature and Learning, and the other on 
 Christian Evidences : the object of such lecture- 
 ships to be to provide for all the students who may 
 be willing to avail themselves of them a complete 
 course of instruction in sacred learning, and in the 
 philosophy of right thinking and right living, 
 without which no education can justly be consid- 
 ered complete ; 
 
 " 4. To organize a society, to be composed of 
 the students in all classes and departments of the 
 University who may be members of or attached to 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which society 
 the Bishop of the Diocese, the Rector, Wardens, 
 and Vestrymen of St. Andrew's Parish, and all the 
 Professors of the University who are communicants 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church should be 
 members ex officio, which society should have the 
 care and management of the reading-room and
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE DEED OF TRUST. vii 
 
 lecture-room of the hall, and of all exercises or 
 employments carried on therein, and should more- 
 over annually elect each of the lecturers hereinbe- 
 fore mentioned, upon the nomination of the 
 Bishop of the Diocese. 
 
 " In pursuance of the said plan, the said society 
 of students and others has been duly organized 
 under the name of the ' Hobart Guild of the Uni- 
 versity of Michigan;' the hall above mentioned 
 has been builded and called ' Hobart Hall ; ' and 
 Mr. Henry P. Baldwin of Detroit, Michigan, and 
 Sibyl A. Baldwin, his wife, have given to the said 
 party of the first part the sum of ten thousand 
 dollars for the endowment and support of the 
 lectureship first hereinbefore mentioned. 
 
 " Now, therefore, I, the said Samuel Smith 
 Harris, Bishop as aforesaid, do hereby give, grant, 
 and transfer to the said Henry P. Baldwin, Alonzo 
 B. Palmer, Henry A. Hayden, Sidney D. Miller, 
 and Henry P. Baldwin, 2d, Trustees as aforesaid, 
 the said sum of ten thousand dollars to be invest- 
 ed in good and safe interest-bearing securities, 
 the net income thereof to be paid and applied 
 from time to time as hereinafter provided, the said 
 sum and the income thereof to be held in trust 
 for the following uses : — 
 
 " 1. The said fund shall be known as the En- 
 dowment Fund of the Baldwin Lectures. 
 
 " 2. There shall be chosen annually by the Ho- 
 bart Guild of the University of Michigan, upon 
 the nomination of the Bishop of Michigan, a 
 learned clergyman or other communicant of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, to deliver at Ann
 
 Vlii EXTRACT FROM THE DEED OF TRUST. 
 
 Arbor and under the auspices of the said Hobart 
 Guild, between the Feast of St. Michael and All 
 Angels and the Feast of St. Thomas, in each year, 
 not less than six nor more than eight lectures, for 
 the Establishment and Defence of Christian 
 Truth ; the said lectures to be published in book 
 form by Easter of the following year, and to be 
 entitled ' The Baldwin Lectures ; ' and there shall 
 be paid to the said lecturer the income of the said 
 endowment fund, upon the delivery of fifty copies 
 of said lectures to the said Trustees or their suc- 
 cessors; the said printed volumes to contain, as an 
 extract from this instrument, or in condensed form, 
 a statement of the object and conditions of this 
 trust."
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Philosophy of the Infinite i 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 Evolution — Spencer 24 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 Idealism — Hegel 45 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 The Person of Christ. ..<..., 66 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 Sin S7 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 Redemption in 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 The Kingdom of God 137
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 INCARNATION. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
 God, and the Word was God. The same was in the begin- 
 ning with God. All things were made by Him ; and with- 
 out Him was not anything made that was made."— JOHN i. 
 
 1-3- 
 
 THE following weighty sentences from Bishop 
 Martensen may serve as a fitting introduction 
 to these lectures. 
 
 The manifestation of the Son of God in the ful- 
 ness of the times points back to His pre-existence ; 
 by pre-existence, understanding not merely that 
 He had being originally in the Father, but also 
 that He had being originally in the world. As the 
 Mediator between the Father and the world it ap- 
 pertains to the essence of the Son not only to have 
 His life in the Father, but to live also in the world. 
 As the heart of God the Father He is at the same 
 time the eternal heart of the world, through which 
 the divine life streams into creation. He is the
 
 2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ground and source of all reason in creation. . . . 
 All the holy grains of truth which are found in 
 heathenism were sowed by the Son of God in the 
 souls of men. He is the eternal principle of 
 Providence in the tangled web of human life ; for 
 all the powers of existence, all ideas and angels, 
 are instruments to carry out the will of the all- 
 ordering, all-controlling Logos. . • . . In His 
 pre-existent state, therefore, the Son regards Him- 
 self as the One who is to conic in and through his- 
 tory ; who prepares beforehand the conditions 
 under which the revelation of His love can take 
 place, His incarnation in the fulness of the times 
 be effected, and the manifestation be made by 
 which the idea of Him as the mediating God will 
 first attain complete realization." — (" Christian 
 Dogmatics," p. 237.) 
 
 It is not too much to say that thoughtful men 
 are looking for a principle of unification which may 
 combine under one grand generalization faith and 
 reason, religion and philosophy, reverence for 
 sacred things and respect for the advance of science. 
 The purpose of these lectures is to contribute 
 something, however small, toward showing that 
 the Incarnation supplies this principle. No at- 
 tempt will be made to go over the ground so richly 
 tilled by Pearson, Liddon, and a host of writers on 
 the Divinity of Christ. The object is different. 
 The Philosophy of the Incarnation, to be of value, 
 must be able to unify knowledge, assimilate truth, 
 explain mystery; in a word, afford scientific con- 
 tent to the questioning intellect, accusing con- 
 science, and bleeding heart of humanity.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. 3 
 
 The argument will trace the bearing of the In- 
 carnation upon the great questions which agitate 
 our time. 
 
 The Philosophy of the Infinite must be exam- 
 ined. If it be indeed true that the human mind 
 can have no knowledge of the Infinite, the question 
 is settled to begin with, and nothing more need be 
 said. Philosophy has to do with knowledge, not 
 merely with sentiment. If therefore knowledge 
 be impossible in any case, Philosophy may wisely 
 employ its energies elsewhere. We cannot pro- 
 ceed until this grave question has been considered. 
 The witnesses for God must be called into court, 
 their testimony patiently weighed, and a decision 
 arrived at. 
 
 The theory of Evolution, as expounded by Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer, must be studied with an impar- 
 tial desire to ascertain the truth. Here we must 
 especially guard against the prejudice arising from 
 previous training, and habits of thought to which 
 we have been long accustomed. Truth, wherever 
 found, is precious, and a true Philosophy must be 
 prepared to receive and assimilate it. 
 
 The Religions of the world will next claim at- 
 tention and be passed in rapid review. The 
 " grains of truth " found in them must be sifted 
 out, and the bearing of the Incarnation upon them 
 shown. 
 
 The Person of Christ, as seen in the Gospels 
 and history, will then be reverently studied. Sin, 
 as the disturbing element in the harmonies of 
 the universe, must receive careful consideration. 
 
 Redemption, as exhibiting the antidote of love
 
 4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 to the irritant poison of sin, will demand atten- 
 tion. 
 
 The Kingdom of God will fitly conclude the 
 whole. 
 
 I. Knowledge is based on consciousness. It is 
 the business of Philosophy to examine the con- 
 tents of consciousness, systematize the results, and 
 lay them before us for our guidance. It is plain 
 that very large opportunity is here given for im- 
 perfect work. The history of Philosophy exhibits 
 a coast line strewed with wrecks. Here have 
 many of the greatest minds been stranded. Here 
 still the storm rages with unabated fury. We 
 launch our little boat with diffidence, but as we 
 commit her guidance to Him whom winds and 
 waves obey, we fear no danger, and confidently 
 expect to reach the " haven where we would be " 
 in due season. 
 
 Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is conversant 
 with what man can know, and plainly denies to 
 man any knowledge of the Infinite God ; yet, with 
 singular inconsistency the practical reason is af- 
 firmed to afford him a knowledge of God sufficient 
 for the government of his conduct. It is plain 
 that the good conduct thus ensuing, however 
 beneficial, must be without any adequate ground 
 of authority. Man is divided against himself. 
 To him religion is impossible and morality has no 
 sanction, if this confessedly profound philosopher 
 have correctly interpreted him. We do not deny 
 the value of what is called the " moral argument" 
 commonly derived from Kant, but its power is not
 
 The philosophy Of the infinite. 5 
 
 due to Kant, but to the knowledge of the Infinite 
 God which underlies it, and which he has denied. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton adopted the opinions of 
 Kant, with such modifications as seemed to him 
 desirable. He gives a summary of his views as 
 follows : " The unconditioned is incognizable and 
 inconceivable; its notion being only negative of 
 the conditioned, which last can alone be positively 
 known or conceived." — (" Discussions on Philoso- 
 phy," page 12, quoted in Calderwood.) 
 
 Dr. Mansel ("Limits of Religious Thought") 
 follows in the same vein : " The Infinite, from a 
 human point of view, is merely a name for the ab- 
 sence of those conditions under which thought is 
 possible." On this ground Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 has built up his most wonderful system, which 
 we will consider later. 
 
 Now, if Sir William Hamilton, and his theologi- 
 cal interpreter, Dr. Mansel, mean only, that we 
 "cannot by searching find out the Almighty 
 unto perfection " (Job xi. 7), no reasonable man 
 will find fault with them. But this is plainly 
 what they do not mean ; for it would involve ab- 
 solute nescience. 
 
 If we cannot know a thing unless we know it 
 exhaustively, it is plain that we have no knowledge, 
 for we know nothing exhaustively. The modest 
 violet is as profound a mystery in the ultimate es- 
 sence of its life as is the Power behind all phenom- 
 ena. The purpose of Dr. Mansel is to rest Religion 
 on faith in a miraculous Revelation sustained by its 
 own appropriate evidence ; which faith has no basis 
 of reason or knowledge other than Revelation ;
 
 6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE iNCAPATATlON. 
 
 and of which therefore science and philosophy can 
 take no account, whether for attack or defence. 
 However we may admire the motive and ability 
 of this really attractive writer, we cannot but 
 lament the result of his labors. The division of 
 territory thus sought to be established cannot be 
 otherwise than impossible of defence. The only 
 powers we have for settling any question are here 
 thrown out as useless when the very citadel of our 
 being is endangered. In opposition to this we 
 maintain that our belief in the Divine existence is 
 necessary; that this involves a knowledge of the 
 Infinite, real though imperfect ; that this knowl- 
 edge is present in consciousness as a root principle 
 of our nature ; and that it continues to grow and 
 expand as it is fed by observation and reflection. 
 
 I. Our belief in the Divine existence is necessa- 
 ry. The fact of the discussion so earnestly carried 
 on is sufficient to prove the point ; for it is absurd to 
 suppose that the greatest minds have been engaged 
 for so many years upon a question of merely 
 arbitrary speculation. Sir William Hamilton, 
 while denying us any knowledge of the Infinite, 
 repeatedly urges that it " must and ought to be 
 believed." Mr. Spencer urges upon the one hand, 
 that the " Power which the universe manifests to 
 us is utterly inscrutable " (F. P., p. 46), and on the 
 other, " We find that its positive existence is a nec- 
 essary datum of consciousness, and that so long as 
 consciousness continues we cannot for an instant 
 rid it of this datum " (p. 29). Here we have 
 faith and knowledge placed in opposition in a curi- 
 ous way. Belief we are told is necessary, where
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. J 
 
 even the least particle of knowledge is declared 
 impossible ! In what, then, do we believe ? Con- 
 sciousness must give the answer. Here are some 
 of its contents : — 
 
 (a.) We are conscious of our own existence. It 
 is a necessary belief quite incapable of proof, yet 
 resting upon the surest ground of knowledge pos- 
 sible to man. If any one should deny the fact of 
 his own existence who would think it worth while 
 to debate the question ? He would be a fitting 
 subject for sympathy but not for argument. 
 
 (d.) We are conscious of existence other than 
 our own and external to us. Some one might 
 deny the existence of the external world, but 
 would any one attempt to convince the poor vis- 
 ionary by argument ? And if it should be debated 
 forever it could not be made clearer than it was at 
 first. Belief in self and not-self is a primary fact 
 of consciousness, axiomatic in its character, and ex- 
 pressing self-evident truth. Demonstration can- 
 not make it plainer. 
 
 (c.) We are conscious of a distinction between 
 subject and object and of a necessary relation be- 
 tween them. We think, and we know ourselves in 
 thinking to be variously affected by the process. 
 Feelings and emotions are stirred in us according 
 to certain mysterious but profound laws of our 
 nature. 
 
 (d.) Consciousness pronounces a distinction be- 
 tween cause and effect and also a necessary rela- 
 tion. The mind insists upon the necessity of a 
 cause to account for every effect. By this is 
 affirmed the existence of power. I move this pen,
 
 8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 and in doing so exercise a mental power of which 
 I am conscious over a material thing external to 
 me. There is no necessary connection between 
 the pen and the strokes. The nexus is quite dis- 
 tinct from both ; the bond is mental, the relation 
 is of mind to matter. 
 
 {c.) We are conscious of moral distinctions. In 
 the words of Dr. McCosh (" Intuitions," p. 252): 
 " The mind is led by its very nature and constitu- 
 tion to perceive that there is an indelible distinc- 
 tion between good and evil, just as there is an in- 
 delible distinction between truth and falsehood." 
 And again (p. 255) : " The expression of this in- 
 ward conviction now is, not that we are under ob- 
 ligation to an unknown power, but under law, and 
 under law to God. It is thus indeed we get the 
 peculiar idea of moral government and moral law — 
 not from sense, nor from pleasure, nor from utility, 
 but from consciousness constraining us to feel ob- 
 ligation, and combined intuition and experience 
 leading us to trace up that law to God as the Be- 
 ing who sanctions it." 
 
 (/•) ^ e are conscious of a sense of dependence 
 and of a feeling of awe and reverence not due to 
 any external cause known in experience. We have 
 in history the record of their power and persist- 
 ence. However as individuals we may ignore or 
 repudiate these deep religious emotions they are 
 rooted in the race among the strongest of its na- 
 tive principles. They have been the most potent 
 factors in its development, and however they are 
 to be accounted for cannot be ignored. 
 
 2. Supplied with those six fundamental convic-
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. 9 
 
 tions given in consciousness, we examine their find- 
 ings, and with united voice they proclaim, " The 
 Hand that made us is Divine." We ask them sev- 
 erally, and this is what they say : 
 
 (a.) Materialism is not true : We have heard 
 the prophets of materialism proclaim before the 
 learned, by an effort of the "scientific imagination," 
 " Matter contains the promise and potency of all 
 life and thought." " I can discover," says another, 
 " no logical halting-place between the admission 
 (that the vital actions of a fungus or a foraminifer 
 are the properties of their protoplasm, etc.), and 
 the farther concession that all vital action may, 
 with equal propriety, be said to be the result of 
 the molecular forces of the protoplasm which dis- 
 plays it. And if so, it must be true in the same 
 sense and to the same extent, that the thoughts 
 to which I am now giving utterance, and your 
 thoughts regarding them, are the expression of 
 molecular changes in that matter of life which is 
 the source of our other vital phenomena." (Hux- 
 ley, " Lay Sermons," p. 138.) Yet we are told by 
 the same authority that these molecular changes 
 in the brain are separated from thought by a 
 chasm "practically infinite." Another informs us 
 that the passage in question is " unthinkable." 
 " Suppose it to have become quite clear," says Mr. 
 Spencer (" Principles of Psychology," vol. i., p. 624), 
 that a shock in consciousness and a molecular mo- 
 tion are the subjective and objective faces of the 
 same thing; we continue utterly incapable of unit- 
 ing the two so as to conceive that reality of which 
 they are the opposite faces." It is plain that con-
 
 IO THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 sciousness refuses to sanction the confusion of mind 
 with matter which materialism necessarily involves. 
 Mind antedates molecules, and cannot therefore be 
 the residuum of their interaction. Mind persists, 
 molecules perish every instant. Self remains the 
 same though every nerve and fibre of this mate- 
 rial frame is changed from day to day. Here is not 
 merely a difference of degree but of kind. Mind 
 cannot receive the conclusions of materialism ex- 
 cept by suicide. And the fact that some indivi- 
 dual minds have done this only throws us back upon 
 that Universal Mind which antedates them all. 
 " As thinking beings," says a lucid writer (" Philoso- 
 phy of Religion," p. 158), " we dwell already in a re- 
 gion in which our individual feelings and opinions, 
 as such, have no absolute worth ; but that which 
 alone has absolute worth is a thought which does 
 not pertain to us individually, but is the universal 
 life of all intelligences, or the life of universal, Ab- 
 solute Intelligence." 
 
 (b.) Idealism is not true. There is more than 
 mind in nature, although it be true that mind is 
 before all things else. It is curious to observe 
 the way in which the most pronounced material- 
 ists become idealists when it suits the exigency 
 of their position. They begin with affirming that 
 mind is a function of matter and end with affirm- 
 ing that matter is a phenomenon of mind. 
 
 Professor Clifford, who can only believe in God 
 upon condition evidence can be produced of the 
 existence of a gigantic " brain of the world," yet 
 tells us (" Lectures and Essays," vol. i., p. 288) : 
 " This world which I perceive is my perception
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. II 
 
 and nothing more." Thus again Mill (" On Hamil- 
 ton," i., p. 243) : " Matter may be defined a perma- 
 nent possibility of sensation." By this kind of 
 reasoning we are left suspended in the air. There 
 is no mind except as a function of matter, there 
 is no matter save as a manifestation of mind. 
 The whole universe is speedily blotted out. / am 
 only a function of matter. There is no matter, 
 nor is there any I ! To this superb result, " duly 
 advanced intellects" have brought us. Had they 
 listened to the voice of consciousness they would 
 have felt the reality of self and not-self, of subject 
 and object, of mind and matter, of cause and 
 effect. They would have found the distinction 
 as clearly marked as the reality is plainly vouched 
 for. It is indeed almost pitiable to see the efforts 
 of Mr. Spencer as he struggles with this difficulty 
 (" Psychology," p. 627). "We can think of matter 
 only in terms of mind. We can think of mind 
 only in terms of matter. When we have pushed 
 our explorations of the first to the utmost limit, 
 we are referred to the second for a final answer ; 
 and when we have got the final answer of the 
 second we are referred back to the first for an in- 
 terpretation of it. We find the value of x in 
 terms of y ; then we find the value of y in terms 
 of x ; and so on we may continue for ever without 
 coming nearer to a solution." This is sufficiently 
 unsatisfactory ; but when he finds rest in an " Ulti- 
 mate Reality," of which nothing whatever is 
 known, it only shows how a really great mind may 
 allow his ignorance to refute his knowledge. He 
 continues : " The antithesis of subject and object,
 
 12 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 never to be transcended while consciousness lasts" 
 — there every Theist will agree with him — " renders 
 impossible all knowledge of that Ultimate Reality 
 in which subject and object are united " — there he 
 must stand alone. In the words of Harris (" Phil- 
 osophical Basis of Theism," p. 433) : " We are no 
 longer obliged with Spencer to find the Ultimate 
 Reality in an Absolute Unknowable, in which sub- 
 ject and object, spirit and matter, are united. We 
 find that Ultimate and Absolute Reality in Ener- 
 gizing Reason. In this we find united and eternal 
 the Reason and the Power, which account for the 
 existence both of matter and finite spirits in the 
 unity of one all-comprehending and rational sys- 
 tem expressing the truths, conformed to the laws, 
 and progressively realizing the ideals and ends of 
 the Wisdom and Love of perfect and absolute 
 Reason." 
 
 II. All knowledge presupposes faith. In the 
 exercise of its powers the mind rests on the belief 
 that consciousness is a trustworthy witness. The 
 fundamental convictions previously enumerated 
 cannot be set aside. The mind recurs to them 
 with undiminished confidence, though they maybe 
 assailed every day. Indeed, if this principle were 
 disputed all knowledge would soon be done away. 
 Science must proceed upon the same admission. 
 Mathematics are as much bound as metaphysics 
 by faith in their axiomatic principles. Empiricism 
 cannot even catalogue its observations without 
 faith in the faculties employed to report upon the 
 facts. Speculative reasoning upon the Infinite and
 
 The philosophy of the infinite. 13 
 
 Finite must exercise faith in the intellectual pow- 
 ers engaged in the operation, if the result is to com- 
 mand attention. In all of these cases the basis of 
 faith is broader than the superstructure of knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 The science of the age is based upon this fact, 
 however unwilling to confess it. What is the 
 " scientific imagination " of which so powerful a 
 use has been made by those who believe " beyond 
 the powers of the microscope," except it be an un- 
 limited faith in the trustworthiness of those facul- 
 ties employed and the generalizations already 
 reached ? The faith which can carry Mr. Spencer 
 into the dim and shadowy regions of the Unknow- 
 able is surely much more credulous than that 
 which sustains the superstitions of uncultivated 
 minds. We are, therefore, entitled at least to re- 
 spectful silence from these champions when we 
 ask for a patient hearing on the ground of our trust 
 in the fundamental convictions and primary beliefs 
 of consciousness. However we may deserve criti- 
 cism on other grounds and from other opponents 
 it is precluded here. Let us advance as far as we 
 may in the exercise of our powers of thought we 
 must soon find their limit. In whatever depart- 
 ment of knowledge the effort is made the result 
 must be the same. We are, then, compelled either 
 to stop our research or accept the guidance of faith 
 into regions inaccessible without it. The ability 
 to proceed under its direction, and to verify by ex- 
 panding knowledge the results from time to time 
 obtained, is the satisfactory proof of the soundness 
 of the method. In the wise words of a reverent
 
 14 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 writer (Calderwood, " Philosophy of the Infinite," 
 p. 127), "We may not be able to discover how 
 God's unlimited knowledge and power harmonize 
 with the communication of freedom to a large race 
 of creatures, or how the absolute holiness of God 
 is to be reconciled with the permission of evil ; but 
 the fundamental belief implanted in our nature 
 distinctly involves the declaration that harmony 
 does exist, though we fail to discover it. This is 
 equally true concerning all the difficulties which 
 arise from the limited nature of the understanding. 
 The acknowledgment of the limits of the under- 
 standing as a controlling principle in all specula- 
 tion ; a careful regard to the actual boundaries of 
 thought, especially in every instance where it is 
 concerned with themes stretching far into the unex- 
 plored territory of faith ; and a uniform cultivation 
 of reverence and humility in all inquiry ; are alike 
 essential for a true philosophic spirit, and the right- 
 ful acknowledgment of that God, whose glory it 
 is our highest attainment to contemplate." 
 
 I. The difficulty confessed on all sides lies in 
 the fact of our complex nature. Compelled to 
 use material organs for the purposes of thought 
 and observation, we are driven from side to side in 
 the effort to explain the problems presented. The 
 observing mind refuses to be identified with the 
 eye quite as much as with the telescope. Both 
 are instruments adapted to special uses. The 
 mind knows itself to be distinct from both, nor 
 can any eloquence persuade it to the contrary. 
 It knows that intelligence fashioned the telescope. 
 It knows for the same reason that the eye was not
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE, 1 5 
 
 fashioned without intelligence. It knows that it 
 stands outside the eye, and is really independent 
 of it, quite as much as it is outside the telescope 
 and independent of it. In the same way it ex- 
 amines all other material organs, and concludes 
 without hesitation that it is distinct from the cells 
 and convolutions of the brain, however much it 
 may be compelled to use them in its contact with 
 the world. Mind knows that it is prior to matter, 
 that it uses things material as the curtains of its 
 tent, as the outward vesture in which it is clothed. 
 It knows itself to be possessed of power over mat- 
 ter, and to be able to modify its sequences, in 
 order to bring about results which otherwise 
 would not have occurred. Tabernacled in clay, 
 it nevertheless cannot find content therein, but 
 rises above it, soars to heaven, and sweeps im- 
 mensity with tireless energy. It knows itself to 
 be "but little less than God's image ruined," and 
 will not be robbed of its affinity with the Infinite 
 and Eternal Reason. Mind can love. It rises up 
 superior to the appetites, propensities, and pas- 
 sions with which it is associated, and holds them 
 in complete subjection to the higher law of moral 
 obligation. It recognizes a right superior to per- 
 sonal pleasure. It feels the sense of duty, and, 
 though it lead to the arena or the stake, will not 
 be deterred from its patient performance. It 
 knows its freedom and rejoices in it, yet it knows 
 also that this freedom must be limited by the 
 rights of others. It learns to identify itself with 
 the object of its love, and loses all thought of self 
 in the enthusiasm of unity.
 
 1 6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 I think, I will, I love, and in this trinity find per- 
 sonal unity and spiritual content. I tliink, and am 
 conscious of my affinity with the Absolute Mind. 
 I will, and know myself more than matter, and 
 possessed of power similar to that which made 
 and shaped it. I love, and realize my destiny in 
 indissoluble unity with the object of that love. 
 
 It will be in vain to turn the telescope upon the 
 glittering worlds and tell us of our smallness. The 
 mind which can weigh them is greater than they. 
 Equally vain will it be to bring forth the micro- 
 scope and try to confound us with the amoeba. 
 The mind which can measure its movements and 
 tell the chemical constituents of its environment 
 is not to be dismayed by the phenomena of life. 
 Again, it will be useless to point to the uniform- 
 ity of law, and tell us that we are nothing more 
 than the product of circumstances. The mind 
 which can discover the " law " and catalogue the 
 " circumstances " is possessed of a power migh- 
 tier than gravitation and more subtle than elec- 
 tricity, by which it compels those stupendous 
 forces of nature to do its bidding. Equally 
 without effect will "all the ills that flesh is heir 
 to" be recounted until the resources of pessimism 
 have been exhausted. The mind knows that 
 " love is stronger than death," and that a sublime 
 benevolence irradiates the darkest sorrows of our 
 experience. Thus whatever we are, and whatever 
 the mysteries of our nature and environment, we 
 carry about within us a personality which can 
 neither be crushed nor killed amid the crash of 
 worlds, however it may stand trembling on the
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. if 
 
 verge of problems yet unsolved. Yea, though no 
 answer could be given or hoped for to the profound 
 questions of whence ? and whither ? which press 
 upon us for solution every day ; yet, such is the 
 tenacity of consciousness, that it will continue to 
 hope against hope, resting on the knowledge it pos- 
 sesses; nor can all the powers of darkness expel it 
 from these defences. The " night " may be " dark " 
 indeed, and we may be " far from home," but we 
 know the " Kindly Light " is beyond the cloud, 
 and that He will surely " lead " us " on,'' when the 
 fulness of the time has come. 
 
 2. Philosophical reasoning and abstract specula- 
 tion afford valuable aids to the struggling minds 
 " seeking after God, if haply they may feel after 
 Him and find Him " (Acts xvii. 27). Yet the 
 spirit longs with a great yearning for a nearer view, 
 and through a medium better suited to the " dul- 
 ness of our blinded sight." 
 
 At this point we turn to the Incarnation. Al- 
 ready is the horizon burnished with golden glory. 
 Ruby, amethyst, and sapphire burn and glow with 
 the promise of the day as the Sun of Righteousness, 
 driving away the darkness, rises upon a benighted 
 world with healing in His beams. " Arise, shine ; 
 for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is 
 risen upon thee" (Is. Ix. 1). 
 
 Philosophy demanded of us an " Ultimate 
 Unity" wherein the Finite and the Infinite Sub- 
 ject and Object, Cause and Effect, might combine. 
 Science required as much. Speculation sought 
 diligently for the same. " Pure nothing becom- 
 ing something," is Hegel's grand solution. The 
 2
 
 1 8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 " Altar of the Unknowable Force " is to receive our 
 " worship of the silent sort," if Mr. Spencer may 
 be allowed to guide our wandering feet. " Collect- 
 ive Humanity" is the God of Positivism, and must 
 have its altars and priesthood. Nature, ruled by 
 Law, bound in fetters of fate, is sufficient for many 
 of the greatest minds. 
 
 In the midst of all this wild confusion there ap- 
 pears before us in the concrete the actual combi- 
 nation of which we have been in search. Here 
 is that "Eternal, Absolute Reason" to Whom we 
 were led before, actually " energizing in nature," 
 taking the manhood into God, clothing Himself in 
 " Flesh," and dwelling among us. He appears at 
 once as the Cause of all things, for " without Him 
 was not anything made that was made," and " He 
 is before all things, and by Him all things consist " 
 Col. i. 17). And also as an Effect; for " He took 
 upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in 
 the likeness of men ; and being found in fashion as 
 a man He humbled Himself, and became obedient 
 unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. ii. 
 
 7,8)- 
 
 The Incarnation thus reveals the solution of the 
 
 problem of the Universe. 
 
 The earthly life of Christ is the manifestation 
 of spiritual dignity. Divested of all extraneous 
 aids He stands out before the world in the unap- 
 proachable awfulnes's of His sorrows. Whatsoever 
 bitterness may be in poverty, loneliness, obscurity, 
 all were His. The wretchedness of being misun- 
 derstood and rejected by those for whom the 
 greatest sacrifices have been made ; the misery of
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE IN 'FINITE. 1 9 
 
 finding false friends even among those most trust- 
 ed ; the disappointment arising from being pre- 
 vented, by the cruel ignorance of misrepresenta- 
 tion, from doing the good so much needed by the 
 suffering; the shrinking of the sensitive spirit from 
 the brutal coarseness of the mob ; the horror of a 
 great darkness which fell upon the pure and stain- 
 less soul as the shadow of sin pressed upon it ; — 
 these, all these made the cup of His sorrow some- 
 thing with which happily our limited experience 
 can have but slight acquaintance. The tender 
 sympathy for the afflicted, the sweet compassion 
 for the guilty, the gentle patience with the dis- 
 ciples, the holy converse with the believing women, 
 the righteous indignation against the hypocrites, 
 the majesty of silence, the serenity of faith, the 
 calm of resignation, the meekness of wisdom — how 
 grand, how sublime are these ! We ask with one 
 of old " Lord, what is man ? " And this answer 
 comes : This is man : " Thou art my beloved Son ; 
 this day have I begotten Thee." 
 
 Yet this is not all. He must live as we are 
 called to live in pain, sorrow, tears and the severe 
 discipline of self-conquest ; but He must also die, 
 that He may round out the fulness of our experi- 
 ence. Lacerated nerves, torn muscles, wrenched 
 joints ; the scourge, the nails, the spear must do 
 their work. The solitariness, the horror, the chill, 
 the shadow of death — all must be drained out to 
 the very last. " Father, into Thy hands I com- 
 mend my spirit," the " Sacred Head, thorn-crowned 
 and bleeding," falls upon the pulseless Heart, and 
 all is over.
 
 20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATlOtf. 
 
 " All is over," did I say ? Far otherwise. The 
 Resurrection and Ascension follow in due course. 
 They are the visible proofs of man's immortal na- 
 ture and heavenly destiny. They complete the 
 whole wondrous scheme, and reveal the grand 
 purpose running through all the discipline of the 
 past. Again we ask with one of old, " Lord, what 
 is man ? " And the answer comes again : This is 
 man : " We know that, when He shall appear, we 
 shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him as He 
 is" (i John ii. 2). 
 
 Does Science hope to prove by elaborate induc- 
 tion the Unity of Nature, arranging in one grand 
 system its myriad phenomena, its progress and 
 retrogression, its pleasure and pain, its economy 
 and waste, its life and death ? Here in the Life 
 of the all-ordering Reason, at once Son of God 
 and Son of Man, is the profound explanation of 
 the problem. Has Positive Philosophy been 
 driven to the necessity of holding Humanity as a 
 unit and seeking in the perpetuity of the race some 
 satisfaction for the aspirations of the species ; 
 Here is Humanity gathered into its source and 
 presented in solidarity with life and immortality 
 brought to light, and flashing down the ages with 
 the brightness of the everlasting day. 
 
 Has Spencer labored to prove the existence of 
 an " Ultimate Reality " in which " subject and 
 object, Finite and Infinite shall be united," which, 
 indeed, " the universe manifests to us," but which 
 nevertheless is " utterly inscrutable : " Here is 
 One who can answer the requirements of this 
 abstruse statement. " No man knoweth the Son,
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. 21 
 
 but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the 
 Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the 
 Son will reveal Him" (Matt. xi. 27). "No man 
 knoweth the Son " in all the mystery of His 
 Nature. No man " knoweth the Father" in the 
 infinite depths of His Nature "save the Son;" 
 for no one else is both God and Man. The 
 " Power " is not " utterly inscrutable," for " the 
 Son will reveal Him." Here the Finite and the 
 Infinite are joined, " not by confusion of the Sub- 
 stance but by Unity of Person." 
 
 " In Christ the one God is seen in all His 
 absolute perfection and in all His eternal Majesty ; 
 but He is seen revealed in man and to man " 
 (Barry, "Witnesses for Christ," p. 223). On the 
 page before this the same writer thus : " Of all that 
 belongs to the true conception of the one God — 
 His creative power, His perfect moral nature, 
 His actual rule over all the universe — the declara- 
 tions ascribed to the Lord, startling as they are, 
 are literally true. ' No man hath seen God ; the 
 only begotten Son, He hath revealed him.' ' He 
 that hath seen me hath seen the Father.' There 
 is for vital religion an infinite difference between a 
 God, toward whose invisible and inconceivable 
 majesty man can but look up through the veils of 
 secondary causes, rather feeling than knowing that 
 He is, and a God Whom we know face to face, as 
 manifested to us visibly through the manifestation 
 of Jesus Christ " (p. 222). 
 
 Does Pantheism identify God with the world, 
 making in fact God a synonym for all that is in the 
 world both good and evil ? Here is One who
 
 22 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE IXCARXATION. 
 
 plainly condemns all evil as foreign to the nature 
 of God. Evil is not merely a negative good to be 
 absorbed, but a deadly poison to be eliminated by 
 the remedial agency of the Gospel. The Reason 
 which dwells and energizes in Nature is also 
 above Nature, overruling the evil which mars the 
 fair beauty of the free creatures to whom has been 
 given the dread prerogative of liberty. God is not 
 only immanent in nature, which no Theist will 
 deny, but also " God over all, blessed forever ; " as 
 the Apostle has affirmed of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 (Rom. ix. 5). 
 
 It has not been the object here to prove any 
 of the statements of Scripture on the Person of 
 Christ which have been referred to, but only to 
 point out how very wonderfully the Incarnation 
 as therein presented meets the conditions of some 
 of the deepest problems which have engaged 
 thoughtful minds. 
 
 The lock which guards the mysteries of the Uni- 
 verse is one of singular complicity. The genius of 
 Man has been engaged since the dawn of history in 
 the effort to find a key, or make one, which might 
 fit in some degree this intricate mechanism. The 
 History of Philosophy is very largely the history of 
 its failure. The Incarnation, at this stage of our 
 argument, is offered as meeting the requirements of 
 the case in a way as effective as it is unique. It 
 satisfies the contents of consciousness. It unifies 
 Thought, Power, and Love, by revealing their 
 fountain of origin in the Eternal Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost. It unveils the mystery of our 
 origin, and reveals the glory of our destiny. It
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. 2 3 
 
 thus spans the whole arch of being, and holds 
 within its comprehensive amplitude the Begin- 
 ning and the End. 
 
 And while we may well tremble exceedingly 
 as we touch the verge of this most awful theme, 
 yet we are reassured by the words which have 
 come to us across the centuries from the hand of 
 the beloved disciple : " And when I saw Him, I 
 fell at His feet as one dead. And He laid His 
 right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not, I 
 am the first and the last : I am He that liveth 
 and was dead ; and behold, I am alive for ever 
 more, Amen" (Rev. i. 17, 18).
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 EVOLUTION— SPENCER. 
 
 " In Him was life." — John i. 4. 
 
 A BRIEF synopsis of Mr. Spencer's system of 
 philosophy must now be presented. Ex- 
 tending over some 4,500 pages, and embracing the 
 whole universe in its grasp, nothing will be ex- 
 pected here except the barest outline. 
 
 I. The philosophy of Sir William Hamilton on 
 the " Unconditioned " and that of Dr. Mansel on 
 the " Limits of Religious Thought " have fur- 
 nished the ground on which Mr. Spencer has built 
 his theory of the universe. He begins with the 
 " Unknowable." Religion and science contain 
 some ultimate truth ; ultimate religious and scien- 
 tific ideas are alike unthinkable ; creation, self-ex- 
 istence, the absolute, the infinite, time, space, mat- 
 ter, motion, force, refuse to submit to thought. 
 These being, nevertheless, examined, yield to 
 thought this result : That " Persistence of Force " 
 lies beneath every other truth, is given in con- 
 sciousness, and explains all phenomena. With this 
 master key he unlocks all the mysteries of the 
 universe. The solar system, astronomical, meteor- 
 ological, and geological laws, light, heat, electric- 
 ity, magnetism, clouds, vapors, rocks, soils, tides—
 
 EVOLUTION— SPEXCER. 2$ 
 
 all appear as various modifications resulting from 
 the " Persistence of Force." We then have, with- 
 out any hint of difficulty, the gentle assertion 
 (First P., pp. 211, 212), the "forces which we dis- 
 tinguish as mental come within the same general- 
 ization." How motion, heat, or light can become 
 a mode of consciousness is admitted to be an un- 
 fathomable mystery, yet it is as calmly assumed as 
 though it were self-evident. Man is thus conve- 
 niently obtained as a necessary product of the 
 " Persistence of Force." From the principles of 
 mechanics it appears that " motion follows the 
 line of least resistance." Force from the solar ray 
 originating motion in homogeneous masses will 
 set up chemical changes which also produce mo- 
 tion ; which again, " following the line of least re- 
 sistance," will " differentiate " the " homogeneous " 
 and evolve the "heterogeneous" and finally the 
 '"' individual." Thus the stability of the most com- 
 plex and highly specialized is derived from the 
 homogeneous and unstable by the law of the 
 " Instability of the Homogeneous." 
 
 Having reached this satisfactory conclusion it is 
 not difficult to advance farther. The " Persistence 
 of Force " is then required to bridge the chasm be- 
 tween the inorganic and the organic. Life sponta- 
 neously arises from a happy combination of chemi- 
 cal adjustments. Development follows as a matter 
 of course. The physical basis of life once secured 
 and the persistence of " Force " still continuing, all 
 things are easily accounted for. 
 
 We pass to " Principles of Psychology." Here 
 the operations of nervous energy are examined
 
 26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 with great minuteness. The purpose is to show 
 that nervous action and mind at least synchronize. 
 All the broad features of mental action are said to 
 have their correlations in nervous states. From 
 this it is inferred that mind and nervous energy 
 are so closely related that they must have grown 
 up together, and are in reality only two sides of 
 the same thing. Sensation is thus identified with 
 mind. One mighty law embraces in its sweep 
 the intelligence which has worked out this system 
 and the sensations of the protozoa. 
 
 If this is not Materialism pure and simple it 
 would be difficult to say what Materialism is. 
 Yet Mr. Spencer is careful to repel the charge, and 
 through a long argument endeavours to prove that 
 the simple affirmation of consciousness of its own 
 existence is very much more certain than any truth 
 arrived at by reasoning. " No axiom of Euclid, 
 no observation of the senses, no generalization of 
 science is so certain as that Mind is a substantive 
 entity, and that no collocation of Matter or Mo- 
 tion can ever account for it " (" Structural Princi- 
 ples, Ground," p. 16). We have now reached two 
 conclusions : i, Mind and nervous energy are two 
 sides of the same thing ; yet, 2, Mind is a sub- 
 stantive entity which no collocation of Matter can 
 ever account for. 
 
 We pass to " Sociology." Some savage tribes he 
 admits may be degenerate descendants of nobler 
 sires, but this is of little consequence. All have 
 come from the chemical changes already men- 
 tioned. Untoward circumstances and the move- 
 ment of "currents on the line of least resistance"
 
 EVOLUTION— SPENCER. 27 
 
 may have facilitated this degeneracy in special cases, 
 while there is, nevertheless, steady advance all 
 along the line. An opposing wind, being invisible, 
 may easily have suggested other invisible foes ; 
 echoes, dreams, and shadows may tell of a second 
 self ; revival from a fainting fit might tell of the 
 coming and going of the other self ; death would 
 be only a protracted sleep ; spears, vessels, and food 
 placed by the grave indicate a belief of a future 
 awakening. The Christian doctrine of the Resur- 
 rection of the body and the immortality of the 
 soul is only a refinement on these notions of the 
 savage. Savages soon ascribed spirits to plants 
 and animals, then to the powers of nature. Thus 
 the world and all things in it became the outward 
 covering of spirits dwelling within. Fear soon 
 taught man to reverence or appease, beseech or 
 defy, worship or obey, as seemed most likely to be 
 profitable. It is contended that in this fashion 
 the notion of every god, not excluding the God of 
 the Hebrews, has arisen. 
 
 We need not trace his development of the fam- 
 ily. The " Data of Ethics " aims to establish the 
 main proposition that " conduct which most per- 
 fectly adjusts acts to ends " will be the best, for it 
 will produce most in length, breadth, and force of 
 life. From these will spring larger fertility. The 
 species which is better adjusted to its environment 
 will survive while others perish. Elaborate argu- 
 ment is adduced to prove that goodness, life, and 
 pleasure are the guiding principles of right con- 
 duct. Physically, higher morals and larger life 
 abide together. Biologically, morality conduces
 
 28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 to a larger life than immorality, and brings with it 
 a larger measure of pleasure and a smaller measure 
 of pain. Psychologically, the moral sense has 
 been evolved out of the punishments inflicted by 
 law ; but this sense of fear soon passes away in the 
 joy which right conduct gives. Righteousness is 
 then pursued for its own sake, and life and pleas- 
 ure are in proportion to it. Sociologically, a fair 
 division of the spoils of the chase being found bene- 
 ficial, a desire for mutual advancement speedily de- 
 velops, a basis of co-operation is quickly reached, 
 the proportioning of benefits to the services ren- 
 dered ensues. Evolution drives mankind along 
 until principles of justice have been established, 
 and a readiness to bestow unpaid services upon the 
 community distinguishes society. It is admitted 
 that some of these results are still future, but this 
 does not diminish the confidence with which they 
 are expected. Thus, out of the principle that the 
 life of every organism will be strong and happy in 
 proportion as it rightly adapts acts to ends we are 
 led up from the differentiating process originated 
 by the action of the solar ray upon the nervous 
 tissue of the protozoa to these grand results of an 
 unselfish Altruism. Selfishness, which has marked 
 every movement for the survival of the fittest 
 among the sponges onward, upward, outward, un- 
 til it develop the individual man and his family, 
 has been finally changed so radically as to find its 
 chief delight in the sacrifice of itself for the bene- 
 fit of its fellows ! 
 
 Thus far, then, have we been led by following 
 this system, which it is not too much to say has
 
 E J 'OL UTION— SPENCER. 2 9 
 
 larger influence to-day among educated people than 
 any other. It has all grown by a purely material- 
 istic process out of the " Persistence of Force," 
 which is described as the " Power which the Uni- 
 verse manifests to us," and which is declared to be 
 " utterly inscrutable." I say by a purely " materi- 
 alistic process," for although, as we have seen, Mr. 
 Spencer resents the imputation, very few will be 
 able to accept his statement to that effect, for if 
 " Mind and nervous energy are but two sides of 
 the same thing," it is difficult to see how " Mind 
 is also a substantive entity which no collocation 
 of Matter can ever account for." Undoubtedly 
 Mind has played a very important part in all the 
 vast process which has been sketched, but the 
 writer was not entitled to its presence, unless, in- 
 deed, the " Power " which is " utterly inscrutable " 
 be allowed to contain it. If the " Persistence of 
 Force" be allowed to be intelligent the whole 
 process of Evolution may be accepted as the best 
 supported theory of the method pursued in the Di- 
 vine operations carried on in the Universe ; but 
 if that " Force " be denied intelligence, then the 
 intelligence so plainly manifested all along the 
 line from the protogenes to man must be left out as 
 a factor gratuitously assumed and totally unac- 
 counted for. 
 
 II. The system involves a denial of will to man. 
 He sums the matter briefly in a dilemma : " Psy- 
 chical changes either conform to law or they do 
 not. If they do not conform to law, this work, 
 in common with all works on the subject, is sheer 
 nonsense : no science of Psychology is possible.
 
 30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 If they do conform to law, there cannot be any 
 such thing as free-will " (" Principles of Psych.," 
 Vol. I., p. 503). This seems an easy way of setting 
 aside all power of choice in us, and all consequent 
 responsibility. But the reasoning here is really 
 not formidable. The " law of liberty " is some- 
 thing quite different from the law of physical se- 
 quence. The attempted argument is only of force 
 on the assumption that the mind is nothing but 
 successive states of consciousness, and that these 
 again result from impressions. One or two sen- 
 tences will make this clear: " It is alike true that 
 he determined the action and that the aggregate 
 of his feelings determined it ; since, during its ex- 
 istence, this aggregate constituted his then state of 
 consciousness, that is himself." A little farther on : 
 " It follows, inevitably, that when an impression re- 
 ceived from without makes nascent certain appro- 
 priate motor changes, and various of the feelings 
 and ideas which must accompany and follow 
 them ; and when, under the stimulus of this com- 
 posite psychical state, the nascent motor changes 
 pass into actual motor changes ; this composite 
 psychical state which excites the action, is at the 
 same time the ego which is said to will the action. 
 Naturally enough, then, the subject of such psy- 
 chical changes says that he wills the action ; since 
 psychically he is at that moment nothing more 
 than the composite state of consciousness by 
 which the action is excited. But to say that the 
 performance of the action is, therefore, the result 
 of his free-will, is to say that he determines the 
 cohesions of the psychical states which arouse the
 
 E VOL UTI ON— SPENCER. 3 I 
 
 action ; and as these psychical states constitute 
 himself at that moment, this is to say that these 
 psychical states determine their own cohesions, 
 which is absurd'' (Vol. I., p. 501). 
 
 Comment is unnecessary. If a man is nothing 
 more than a " state of consciousness," or a " com- 
 posite state of consciousness," or the " cohesion 
 of psychical states," of course when these have 
 passed he has passed with them, and can in no 
 way be recalled for any purpose of reward or pun- 
 ishment. All the fine writing about " morality " 
 and " unpaid services " might have been spared, 
 for the " cohesion of psychic states" having passed 
 away with the services there was no one left to re- 
 ceive the payment ! 
 
 We have now traced the system of Mr. Spencer 
 as far as our limits will permit, and before passing 
 we sum results as follows : 
 
 1. The "Persistence of Force" by means of 
 which the universe has been produced is not af- 
 firmed to be intelligent or unintelligent. If it 
 be the former, no Theist will be found to deny its 
 adequacy to produce the effects, whether by the 
 method described or some other. But if that 
 " Force " be without intelligence the system hope- 
 lessly breaks down ; the most important factors 
 with which we are acquainted remain totally un- 
 accounted for ; and the genius of a Newton can- 
 not be distinguished from the solar ray he passed 
 through his prisms. This is pure Atheism. 
 
 2. Mind is affirmed to be a "substantive entity" 
 which " no collocation of matter can ever account 
 for." Yet Mr. Spencer spends a vast amount of
 
 32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 time and labor in the attempt to obtain mind from 
 matter. He leaps from dead matter to living by 
 the agency of a solar ray ; from this to a nervous 
 system and currents of nervous energy was easy 
 climbing ; from this to mind as only " another 
 face of the same thing" presented no difficulties ; 
 yet, himself being judge, the passage is absolutely 
 impassable ! 
 
 3. He does away with personality. Man being 
 nothing except " states of consciousness " is indeed 
 more evanescent than even the " morning cloud 
 and early dew, which passeth away." 
 
 4. He denies the freedom of will, and thus 
 destroys responsibility, and renders morality im- 
 possible and religion useless. 
 
 Eloquence and subtlety are thrown away in the 
 attempt to make mankind commit intellectual and 
 moral suicide in this way. In so far as the theory 
 of Evolution explains the method of unfolding in 
 time the Divine idea lying at the base of eternity, 
 and shaping itself in Cosmic ends from age to age, 
 every Theist will bid it welcome ; and none more 
 than those who reverently worship Him without 
 whom was not anything made that was made, and 
 who is emphatically the Life of the world. 
 
 III. It has been the business of Evolutionists to 
 trace resemblances, and from these to infer relation- 
 ship and identity of origin. While the inference 
 may be just, it is no more than an inference. Thus 
 Mr. T. Lauder Brunton speaks (" The Bible and 
 Science," p. 314): "A vertebrate animal, during 
 its development, does not become a starfish, a 
 worm, an insect, or a snail ; but at one stage or
 
 E VOL UTION— SPENCER. 3 3 
 
 another of its growth it is much more closely 
 related to these than when fully developed. In 
 its first condition it is a simple cell, and may thus 
 be looked upon as related to the lowest forms of 
 protozoa. It next becomes an agglomeration of 
 cells, and may then be regarded as related to the 
 higher protozoa, or metazoa, and through them to 
 the mollusks, and annuloids, and as development 
 goes on we come to a stage where the embryo, for 
 aught we can tell, may be that of a fish, amphibian, 
 reptile, fowl, or mammal. At successive stages 
 we can distinguish the fish from the others, then 
 the amphibian, next the reptile, next the bird, 
 while still we could hardly say whether the em- 
 bryo was to develop into a pig, an ox, a rabbit, or 
 a man." After this it is quite comforting to be 
 assured in the sentence preceding this quotation : 
 " Each embryo does not move from type to type ; 
 it retains always its own type, but it undergoes 
 specialization in function." A series of figures are 
 then given in which this similarity in embryonic 
 creatures is illustrated, and of course the conclu- 
 sion is drawn that notwithstanding the fact that 
 " each embryo " " retains always its own type " 
 still the evolving of the highest from the lowest 
 type is the only scientific conclusion ! 
 
 I. But is it ? Take two specks of protoplasm 
 and examine them under the microscope. The 
 most experienced observers cannot detect any 
 difference. Submit them to chemical analysis the 
 same report will be given by those best qualified 
 to speak. Yet the one speck was alive and the 
 other dead. Take two other specks of protoplasm 
 3
 
 34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 and examine them under the microscope. They 
 are both alike nor can the greatest scientist of 
 them all differentiate them ; yet, if allowed to 
 grow, the one will make a fish and the other a 
 rabbit. There is, then, some mysterious power, 
 which neither microscope nor chemistry has been 
 able to detect, which is the cause of the differen- 
 tiation manifested by the result. It is vain to 
 attempt to account for it by the " environment," 
 for myriads of creatures have lived along the coast- 
 line for ages in successive generations under the 
 same conditions of light, heat, electricity, etc., and 
 have " not moved from type to type." 
 
 We are willing to go back with Mr. Huxley and 
 Mr. Brunton to the primitive bioplast of each 
 creature "after its kind," and let them point out 
 the similarity of protoplasm in each, but unless 
 they can explain to us what that mysterious 
 "something" is which drives each kind along its 
 own lines, we will prefer the simple words of Gene- 
 sis — " And God said, Let the waters bring forth 
 abundantly the moving creature that hath life," 
 etc. ; " Let the earth bring forth grass," etc. ; 
 " Let the earth bring forth the living creature 
 after his kind," etc. — to any bold assumptions 
 which are made in the name of science. We 
 simply deny that similarity in the physical basis 
 of life is any proof of the identity of origin of 
 creatures. Nature, impregnated by the Divine 
 Word, " brings forth " everything after its kind. 
 The differentiating power is therefore " before all 
 things." Nothing can be evolved which has not 
 first been involved. The Divine Word gave earth
 
 E VOL UTION— SPENCER. 3 5 
 
 and sea and air His high commands, and obedient 
 they do His bidding. Not for nothing is it that 
 " He walketh upon the wings of the wind," 
 " weigheth the mountains in scales," and " holdeth 
 the ocean in the hollow of His hand." Nor does 
 He need perpetually to " interfere " with the 
 mighty forces He has created and assigned to duty. 
 No one I presume will accept the representation of 
 Brunton (page 319) : " According to the doctrine 
 of special creation, each species of plant and animal 
 was created at once, and has undergone no charge 
 since," etc. Such a method of interpretation may 
 have been in use at some time. Methods of in- 
 terpretation have to be revised in science as knowl- 
 edge grows. It is no great matter of marvel if the 
 words of the ancient record of Creation have been 
 misunderstood in times gone by. The point of 
 real interest lies in this, that these words like liv- 
 ing things adapt themselves to every real advance 
 which scientific knowledge has attained. Is it in 
 any sense true that " Nature brings forth all 
 things of herself spontaneously ? " Scripture says 
 as much in the words already quoted, but corrects 
 the error of Lucretius and his modern interpret- 
 ers by substituting for his atheistical conclusion 
 (" without the intervention of the gods ") the ra- 
 tional and sufficient exposition of the mystery 
 " God said, let the earth bring forth." 
 
 If, then, Evolution can be scientifically estab- 
 lished as the method of development illustrated in 
 the progress of ages, the Theist will only rejoice in 
 the corroboration thus given to his cherished con- 
 victions. Nor will the formation of man's body
 
 2,6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 from the " dust of the ground " disturb him. The 
 pleasantry which has been indulged in here by some 
 is sadly out of place. Nothing is said as to the 
 metJtod of procedure. The re-arrangement of pre- 
 existing materials is all the narrative affirms. By 
 what means this was brought about we are not told. 
 That man has ever been essentially different from 
 what he is now cannot be proved by science, how- 
 ever recklessly it may be asserted. Palaeontology 
 has not found a single relic to justify the accusation. 
 The Neanderthal skull, the oldest yet discovered, 
 "may have contained the brains of a philosopher," 
 if Mr. Huxley may be allowed to judge. In fact, 
 the men of the " Stone Age " must have been of 
 very superior intelligence. The "struggle for ex- 
 istence " is hard enough now, even among the high- 
 est type of the Caucasian family. What, then, 
 must have been the terrible trials of the " Lake 
 Dwellers " and " Cave Men " as they fought the 
 cave bear and hyaena of those days with their flint 
 arrow-heads and stone axes ? Every step lost in 
 the scale of intelligence, only increases the diffi- 
 culty of the hypothesis of Man's origin from the 
 " lemurs, or some creature even lower." A " Man- 
 like" infant among the " lemurs" could not pos- 
 sibly have survived, however " pointed " his 
 " ears," or " arboreal " his ancestral " habits." 
 The " less perfect foot," would have been an in- 
 calculable advantage to all his compeers in the 
 " struggle for existence." They must have dis- 
 tanced him in every nutting contest. Long be- 
 fore reason could have come to aid his duller 
 vision or move his weaker hand, he must have
 
 E VOL UTION— SPENCER. 3 7 
 
 perished miserably in the depths of his native 
 forests. Whatever may have been the process of 
 man's development there are stupendous difficul- 
 ties in the way of accepting that proposed by Mr. 
 Darwin and his imitators. 
 
 The " drafts upon the bank of time " made by 
 the hypothesis in question cannot be honored. 
 The law of differentiation in the physical basis of 
 life in embryos remains unexplained upon the 
 theory under review. 
 
 The sterility of hybrids still bars the way of the 
 "transmutation of species." 
 
 Evolution does not account for the " origin " of 
 anything, however it may be able to explain the 
 perpetuation of an advantage once gained. Every 
 "advantage" is a mere "accident" in its origin, 
 and is obtained, therefore, in violation of the rigid 
 law of " persistence in type." The origin of life is 
 as profound a mystery as it ever was. 
 
 Life is the differentiating principle which deter- 
 mines the organism, upon which the development 
 of the organism depends, and by which the destiny 
 of each creature is realized. 
 
 The human life shapes the foot, the hand, the 
 flexile tongue, the articulating larynx, the double 
 spinal curve, the occipital foramen, the sphenoid 
 angle, the frontal lobe, the convolutions of the 
 brain ; and thus furnishes an instrument, " fear- 
 fully and wonderfully made," which reason and 
 conscience may use for high resolve and holy pur- 
 pose. 
 
 In passing down the ages the circumstances of 
 environment have sometimes hindered and some- 
 
 4517;
 
 38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 times favored the growing power of the human as 
 of every other kind of life. As the Indians forcibly 
 compress the head and the Chinese the foot, so 
 have external conditions modified the outward 
 covering of flesh and dwarfed or developed some 
 powers more than others. Scarcity of food and 
 multiplied physical hardships have compelled de- 
 generacy in some, while larger opportunities and 
 happier skies have ministered to rapid advance in 
 others. But, though dwarfed and stunted, the 
 powers peculiar to man remain latent even in those 
 degenerate specimens of the race most hopelessly 
 brutalized. The natives of Terra del Fuego whom 
 Mr. Darwin carried to England on the occasion of 
 his celebrated voyage in the Beagle, possessed la- 
 tent capacities of intellect which were speedily 
 manifested under educational influences. Mis- 
 sionaries everywhere find the same conditions as 
 they travel from pole to pole and all round the 
 belted earth. The life within is still the same, has 
 shaped the organism for noble ends, and only 
 awaits the touch of favoring intellectual conditions 
 to display its native and original qualities of rea- 
 son and conscience. 
 
 Whence have come these latent powers ? They 
 have never been used in the " struggle for exist- 
 ence." They have not " survived " because they 
 were the " fittest." They have not grown along 
 the " lines of least resistance," for the possessors of 
 these latent intellectual powers were totally igno- 
 rant of their existence. They have not resulted 
 from " nervous currents " acquiring habits of run- 
 ning in the same channels, nor from "psychic
 
 EVOLUTION— SPENCER. 39 
 
 states" determining their "cohesions," for until 
 the touch of other life they were unknown and 
 could not have developed from sensation or ex- 
 perience. Manifestly they belong to the life of 
 man, and cannot be extirpated by the harshest 
 conditions of environment. They are not the 
 creatures of external circumstances, for they sur- 
 vive in spite of these ; and thus prove beyond con- 
 troversy that the life of man possesses inherent, 
 essential qualities which exert a differentiating 
 power upon the protoplasm which it uses, and out 
 of which it shapes an organism adapted to its pur- 
 poses. In the words of Reynolds, — " Living sub- 
 stances when dead can be converted into carbonic 
 acid, water, and ammonia; but it is impossible so 
 to bring them together that they give rise to the 
 living substance. Our organization transmits im- 
 pressions from without into sensation within ; but 
 life is not the organism, nor impression, nor sen- 
 sation, it is the master principle or secret of all — 
 an original, specific, self-propagating endowment " 
 (J. W. Reynolds, " Supernatural in Nature," p. 328). 
 Life cannot be weighed in a balance, nor measured 
 by a scale, nor tested in a crucible, nor brought 
 forth to view from brain or heart upon the point 
 of a scalpel, nor seen by a microscope. 
 
 Man's life is threefold. It clothes itself, as we 
 have seen, in a body, which it animates with a 
 soul, in which again it dwells in a spirit. Man is 
 not therefore three persons, but he has three nat- 
 ures in one person. Between the instinct of the 
 brute, not knowing itself, and the self-determining 
 consciousness of man, surveying the past and fu-
 
 40 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ture, there is an impassable gulf fixed over which 
 Evolution has so far failed to throw a bridge. 
 
 2. Human nature is now only in its inchoate and 
 imperfect condition. All other creatures find the 
 full content of nature in the life they live. Food 
 and shelter being sufficient, and desire appeased by 
 the satisfaction of appetite the brute lies down to 
 sleep until a recurrence of hunger prompt to fresh 
 exertion. The life of ox or hog is rounded with 
 a sleep. But in the beautiful words of Pritchard, 
 quoted by Reynolds (" Supernatural in Nature," 
 p. 336) : " There stir within us yearnings irre- 
 pressible, longings unutterable, a curiosity unsat- 
 isfied and unsatiable by all we see. These appe- 
 tites, passions, and affections come to us, not as 
 Socrates and Plato supposed, nor as our own great 
 poet Wordsworth says, from the dim recollection 
 of some former state of being : — 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. 
 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 
 And cometh from afar. 
 
 Still less do they come from the delusive inheri- 
 tance of our progenitors. They are the indica- 
 tions of something within us akin to something 
 immeasurably beyond us ; tokens of something 
 attainable yet not hitherto attained ; signs of a 
 potential fellowship with spirits nobler and more 
 glorious than our own ; they are the title-deeds of 
 our presumptive heirship to some brighter world 
 than any that has yet been formed among the 
 starry spangles of the sky."
 
 EVOLUTION—SPENCER. 4 1 
 
 If it be indeed true, that we are only im- 
 proved " lemurs or something lower," as Brunton 
 has affirmed, whence have these strange qualities 
 been obtained ? Assuredly they point backward, 
 notwithstanding the eloquence of the preceding 
 lines. They tell their own grand story of our 
 origin, while they also point forward to the glory 
 of our destiny. 
 
 Scientific content is simply impossible to man 
 in his present state. 
 
 In the lower walks of life we must search in vain 
 for the fulness of the soul. When toil is hardest 
 and the " struggle for existence " most severe, even 
 then the soul feels the pulse of spiritual desire, and 
 cannot be made content with the gratification of 
 the merely animal part of its life. Pass to higher 
 things, surround the individual with all the com- 
 forts of wealth and position, and still the same 
 aching void remains ; the heart is restless. The 
 aspirations of hope point to joys not yet reached ; 
 the forebodings of conscience tell of a judgment to 
 come. But the merest verge of life and its possi- 
 bilities have been touched. Can the scientific mind 
 rest in its achievements and lay down its instru- 
 ments ? Can the philosophical spirit be content 
 with its unification of the universe ? Has the 
 saint yet reached that point where faith is lost in 
 sight, and hope in full fruition, and love in abso- 
 lute unity with its object ? Scientific and philo- 
 sophical content are not given to man here. His 
 powers are only in their infancy. Moral and spir- 
 itual content are not given to him here. The 
 powers of conscience and spirit await their full
 
 42 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 maturity when the appointed time shall come. 
 To quote Reynolds again : " We recognize fac- 
 ulties in man possessed by none other; myster- 
 ious windings of intellectual and moral being; 
 powers elsewhere only found in feeblest resem- 
 blance, fill him with joy, or cast into depths of 
 despair, as he stands apart and alone in peculiar 
 responsibility. Conscious of duty, and the neces- 
 sity of self-sacrifice, he searches for the unseen, 
 and looks to the future. He not merely drifts or 
 floats on the stream of life, but controls weariness 
 and dissatisfaction by a joyful belief in the Eternal. 
 There are two worlds and two lives — he belongs 
 to both, whether he will or not ; he must not, can- 
 not sink to the brute." — (" Supernatural in Na- 
 ture," p. 340). 
 
 3. If now we look at Scripture and listen for 
 a moment to the Divine Word as speaking in the 
 Council of the Eternal Trinity — " Let us make 
 man in our image, after our likeness " — we can- 
 not but feel the sublime dignity of the announce- 
 ment. In the words of Westcott (" Christus Con- 
 summator," p. 104): "In this august declaration 
 of God's purpose and God's work we have set be- 
 fore us, clear beyond controversy, the primal en- 
 dowment and the final goal of humanity. We 
 are taught that man received, received inalienably 
 as man, a fitness for gaining, through growth and 
 discipline and continuous benediction, union with 
 God. God's image was given to him that he 
 might gain God's likeness. This original capacity 
 of man was the measure of the love of God for 
 His creature. Sin could not increase it : nothing
 
 EVOLUTION— SPENCER. 43 
 
 less than personal union with God could fulfil it. 
 The fitness and the necessity of the Incarnation 
 exist, therefore, from the moment when man was 
 made. The Incarnation, in other words, when we 
 use the term in the most general sense, apart from 
 every thought of suffering and humiliation, cor- 
 responds with the perfection of man as he was 
 constituted at first, and not merely with the res- 
 toration of man who had missed his end." 
 
 The purpose of God in the creation of Man is 
 thus made plain to us. The Archetype of human- 
 ity is seen in the Incarnation. The Manifestation 
 of God in Nature and the revelation of God in 
 Christ are thus unveiled as part of the original 
 plan of the universe, and not as an expedient 
 devised by Infinite Wisdom and Love to remedy 
 a defect or remove a curse. 
 
 The " Power which the universe manifests to 
 us," and which men groping in the dark have con- 
 fessed but failed to find, here draws aside the veil 
 which conceals from mortal view His " light in- 
 effable which no man can look upon and live," and 
 allows such modified vision through " the clouds 
 and darkness which are round about Him " as our 
 poor eyes may see in the " Face of Jesus Christ." 
 Have men of Science felt the throbbing energy of 
 some unknown Force, and tried to observe the 
 method of its working by carefully classifying 
 effects and noting phenomena ? Here is the 
 Source of all life and being revealed, " Who doeth 
 all things according to the counsel of His own 
 will." 
 
 Have men of philosophic mind, being unable to
 
 44 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 transcend the limits of finite faculties, been in- 
 clined to pronounce all knowledge of the Infinite 
 impossible to man ? Here is Man made the 
 medium of revelation, that we may " hear in our 
 own tongue," and therefore the better understand, 
 " the wonderful works of God." 
 
 Have some again denied personality to the 
 " Reason " they confessed as immanent and en- 
 ergizing in Nature, and thus confounded thought 
 with being ? Here is the Personality plainly 
 " lifted up from the earth " that all men may come 
 unto Him and listen to the words of gracious 
 assurance — " He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
 Father." 
 
 Have thoughtful men felt that the human lives 
 we are called upon to live are broken lives, 
 fragmentary things and hollow, offering no suffi- 
 cient fulness of content in any of their great 
 divisions ? Here is offered the solution. The 
 Incarnation is the model ; and the present condi- 
 tion of tears and trial is but the seed of an im- 
 mortal future.
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 IDEALISM— HEGEL. 
 
 " Christ is all, and in all." — Col. iii. n. 
 
 THE philosophy of Spencer, already briefly re- 
 viewed, has been called a " Transfigured 
 Realism." It assumes an unknown and unknow- 
 able Force outside of and underlying all phenom- 
 ena, yet operative continuously. As nothing 
 whatever can be known about this mysterious 
 power it is of value only as the expression of our 
 ignorance. 
 
 Finding material substance ready to his hand 
 with this Force persistent in it the philosopher 
 found no serious difficulty in unfolding or evolving 
 from this seminal principle the phenomena of the 
 universe. "No great difficulty," I say, because 
 he had carefully rolled up in the primitive " fire 
 mist," by the agency of the " Unknowable," all the 
 potentialities subsequently rolled out in the pass- 
 ing ages. This has been well described as " He- 
 gel ianism in physiology," worked out, indeed, by 
 observation instead of being developed h priori 
 from the depths of the inner consciousness. He- 
 gelianism is so vast and abstruse that any attempt 
 at a brief synopsis must be of little value. Yet by 
 the aid of Wallace and Stirling abroad, and of
 
 46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCAkHATIOtf. 
 
 Bowen of Harvard, we may gather a few salient 
 points not altogether useless. Those who wish to 
 pursue this philosophy farther than is here possible 
 are referred to the writers named, from whom I 
 condense in the main what is here presented. 
 
 I. Professor Bowen speaks as follows (" Modern 
 Philosophy," p. 361): "Beginning with the lof- 
 tiest of all abstractions, with pure and universal 
 Being, which, because absolutely indeterminate or 
 without attributes, is not distinguishable from 
 Non-being, the mere process of thinking develops 
 this shadow of a shade into the world of concrete 
 realities which appear to be manifested to sense." 
 Again (p. 363) : " The law of trichotomy, which 
 is the basis of the Hegelian logic, enables us to take 
 up any two contradictory ideas and melt them 
 into one synthetic notion, which includes them 
 both." Again (p. 370) : The absolute Idea of 
 Hegel, unlike the universal substance of Spinoza, 
 is essentially subjective ; it is Spirit or Ego. Hence 
 the proper name of the system is ' Absolute Ideal- 
 ism.' Now, all Spirit or Thought is one, individ- 
 ual differences . . . being merged in the uni- 
 versality of the Absolute. Hence, the mind of 
 man, because it is identical with the divine or 
 universal thought, can think over again, or recreate 
 in thought the movement which first constituted, 
 and still constitutes, the real and ideal universe. 
 . . . No finite being can exhaust in thought 
 the reality of all that exists, and still less can it 
 comprehend the possibility and reality of all 
 things. Then there must be an infinite intelli- 
 gence, which perfectly conceives all possibility as
 
 IDEALISM— HEGEL. 47 
 
 possible, and all reality as real; and this intelli- 
 gence is God. But according to what we have 
 now learned, all difference and plurality being done 
 away with, the divine and the human are one, and 
 man's spirit itself is identical with this infinite in- 
 telligence. We must say of everything which ex- 
 ists, that it exists and is maintained by an eternal 
 act of knowledge on the part of the x\bsolute ; and 
 the spirit of man, being itself the Absolute, has the 
 faculty of reproducing freely, through speculative 
 thought this eternal act of knowledge ; and true 
 philosophy is nothing else than such reproduction. 
 " The world," says Hegel, " is a flower which pro- 
 ceeds eternally from a single germ. This flower 
 is the Divine Idea, absolute and universal ; and 
 its spontaneous unfolding into full blossom is the 
 self-development of pure thought." 
 
 A few sentences from Stirling will illustrate the 
 "trichotomies" referred to : "In a word, Hegel's 
 system is a demonstration that sensation and un- 
 derstanding are virtually one, the former being but 
 outwardly what the other is inwardly, and each 
 the necessary reciprocal counterpart of the other " 
 (" Secret of Hegel," Vol. II., p. 38). Again, on the 
 next page : " If pure Being be the first, according 
 to the law of the Notion, its own opposite, or Non- 
 being, must be the second, and the third must be 
 a new principle that concretely contains both ; or 
 the third must be a species of which the first is 
 the genus and the second the differentia. . . . 
 Every Becoming at once is and is not, or is at once 
 Being and Non-being. Here, then, is the abso- 
 lutely first triad, the absolutely first form of the
 
 48 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 always triune Notion ; or here is the absolutely 
 germinal cell : it is impossible to go farther back 
 than to the absolute indefiniteness that at once is 
 and is not, but becomes. . . . Being, Non-be- 
 ing, Becoming. Here is the trinity as it must 
 have been — in its beginning ! " Again (p. 44) : 
 " Pure Being and Pure Nothing are absolutely 
 identical. It is useless to say Nothing is Nothing 
 and Being is Something : Being is not more 
 Something than Nothing is. . . . This, then, 
 is the truth of Being and Nothing : Neither is ; 
 what is, is only their union — and that is Becom- 
 ing; for Becoming is Nothing passing into Being, 
 or Being passing into Nothing." Again (p. 56) : 
 " Every finite object truly is, every finite object 
 whatever truly is not, every finite object whatever 
 truly becomes. Nor does any object receive such 
 determination from us ; it possesses such determi- 
 nation in its own self ; it has received such deter- 
 mination from God, it has been so thought by 
 God, it has been created by God on and according 
 to these thoughts, Being, Nothing, Becoming. 
 . . . They are objective thoughts in obedience 
 to which the whole is disposed. . . . They 
 are three of God's thoughts in the making of the 
 universe." 
 
 I add the criticism of Professor Bowen (p. 383) : 
 " Pure Being constitutes the first step : and this 
 is equivalent to Nothing, because it has no attri- 
 bute or quality whatsoever whereby it can be dis- 
 tinguished from anything. . . . To endow it 
 with any principle of motion or change, and thus 
 to render it capable of becoming any determinate
 
 IDEALISM— HEGEL. 49 
 
 existence, would be to take it out of the category 
 of Pure Being. Then it cannot become ; it is in- 
 capable of heterization ; it cannot either evolve 
 ' the other' from itself, or bring 'the other' again 
 into harmony with itself, through reconciling the 
 contradiction between them. It must for ever 
 continue to be that to which it was equivalent at 
 the outset, namely, Nothing. And the same diffi- 
 culty emerges if Pure Thought is regarded as the 
 beginning of the Process, for this also because it is 
 ' Pure'' is wholly vague and indefinite, possesses no 
 attribute whatever, and so cannot change, cannot 
 become any particular thought. In order to render 
 it capable of self-development, Hegel endows it 
 with an internal principle of activity, an ' Imma- 
 nent Dialectic ;' but he fails to see that it thereby 
 ceases to be ' Pure,' and therefore is no longer ' the 
 absolute beginning ' of things. . . . To endow 
 it with such a principle is already to create the uni- 
 verse in germ, through the agency of some unseen 
 Power. We are thus brought back to the truth 
 already enunciated, that nothing can be evolved 
 which was not previously involved? Again (p. 
 382) : " The one assumption is — absolute Ideal- 
 ism, that Thought and Being are identical, or that 
 Things exist only in Thought. Certainly it is easy 
 to explain the process, and repeat the act of cre- 
 ation, when there is nothing to create, except an 
 evolution of thought from itself." 
 
 This may suffice to give us a tolerably clear 
 idea of this system. It is plain that it is a sys- 
 tem of fatalism ; that it allows no place for per- 
 sonality; that God cannot be distinguished from 
 4
 
 CO THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 j 
 
 the universe ; nor man from God ; nor good from 
 evil ; that there is no permanent being, nor any 
 enduring substance ; that God is simply the sum 
 of all existence, evil included ; that all things 
 which happen are equally necessary and equally 
 good, for they are merely " Moments of the Pro- 
 cess," and are continually passing away ; that 
 Theism and Atheism are equally true and find 
 their synthesis in the Pure Nothing; that every 
 form of Religion, Philosophy, and Poetry, every 
 development of History and Politics, are but fleet- 
 ing shadows equally necessaiy while they lasted, 
 but also equally futile, and happily to be super- 
 seded by the continuous evolution, through the 
 power of the " Immanent Dialectic," of an endless 
 " Becoming." Yet so great a mind could hardly 
 have been engaged for so long a time upon the 
 deepest problems without bringing to light much 
 truth of the greatest value. While we read we 
 are charmed but not satisfied. The enthusiasm of 
 Stirling, and the patient admiration of Wallace 
 command our praise, but we cannot agree with 
 them. And when we pass to the brilliant pages of 
 Professor Caird we still find that, notwithstanding 
 the most hearty acquiescence along the main lines 
 of his glowing thought, even he has not been able 
 to escape what Professor Harris calls the " Pan- 
 theistic virus " of Hegel (" Philosophic Basis of 
 Theism," 529). Yet this judgment will strike 
 many thoughtful readers as severe ; for Professor 
 Caird spends much labor upon the effort to clear 
 his reasoning of this " virus ; " and if not quite 
 successful the fault is not his but that of his funda-
 
 IDEALISM— HEGEL. 5 1 
 
 mental premise — the identity of Thought and 
 Being. Aside from this, a few sentences will 
 prove both interesting and instructive as pointing 
 the attention to very weighty considerations (p. 
 238) : " When we begin to see in Nature and Mind 
 not two independent things, but two members of 
 one organic whole, having, indeed, each a being of 
 its own, but a being which implies, and finds itself 
 in living relation to, the other — then and then only 
 can we bring the two factors or members into that 
 union which any real knowledge of Nature im- 
 plies. Nature in its very essence is related to 
 Mind, Mind to Nature ; therein lies the possibility 
 of their coherence in one system." Again (p. 239) : 
 " As Nature is realized Mind, so Mind finds it- 
 self in Nature, and in converse with Nature has 
 awakened in it the consciousness of its own 
 manifold content. The speculative solution of 
 the problem which the opposition of Nature and 
 finite Mind presents is, therefore, that Nature is 
 not the hard antithesis, but the reflexion of Mind, 
 and that Mind discovers itself in Nature tanquam 
 in speculo." 
 
 He then proceeds to apply this principle of 
 " organic unity " to the problem of " Religion, or 
 the relation of the Finite Mind to God." These 
 are his words (p. 241) : " A true solution can be 
 reached only by apprehending the Divine and the 
 Human, the Infinite and the Finite, as the mo- 
 ments or members of an organic whole, in which 
 both exist at once in their distinction and their 
 unity." Again (p. 243) : " The true Infinite is 
 not the mere negation of the Finite, but that
 
 52 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION 1 . 
 
 which is the organic unity of the Infinite and the 
 Finite. . . . The religious impulse, the as- 
 piration after God and after union with Him as 
 the soul's true life, is grounded in the very nature 
 of man as a rational and spiritual being. . . . 
 My life as a rational and spiritual being would 
 be impossible, and my relations to nature and so- 
 ciety would be baseless, save on the pre-supposi- 
 tion of an Infinite and Absolute Intelligence on 
 which all finite thought and being rest." 
 
 These are indeed weighty words, and most help- 
 ful in the work we have in hand. 
 
 II. Historically the Idea of God has appeared 
 among mankind in two broad phases. 
 
 i. Innate. Scripture recognizes this quality of 
 our nature at the outset. Instead of proving the 
 being of God by any sort of argument, the sacred 
 writers assume that those whom they address do 
 not need any argument on the subject. As they 
 assume that man is intelligent, rational, and re- 
 ligious, and speak to him on that supposition, so 
 they suppose him to know of his own mind that 
 God exists and is the Creator of the universe. In 
 point of fact all tribes and nations have been found 
 in possession of the idea of God, however it may 
 have been depraved in the case of degraded races. 
 A point of special interest in this connection is, 
 that, in the great religions of the ancient world of 
 which records have been preserved, the idea of 
 God is purer as it is earlier. The root idea of 
 Monotheism has not been " evolved," as many 
 writers on this subject would have us believe, from 
 "dreams" and "shadows," "clouds" and "sea-
 
 IDEA LISM—HE GEL. 5 3 
 
 sons," and other mere fears and superstitions of 
 the slowly opening intelligence. On the contrary : 
 degeneracy marks indelibly the religions of the 
 Orient. 
 
 I quote from Cook (" Origins of Religion and 
 Language," p. 53) : " The moral spiritual system 
 which upheld the fundamental principles of righte- 
 ousness, of moral government, awarding success 
 and inflicting punishments simply and exclusively 
 in reference to those principles, was in no sense a 
 development or progressive advance from lower 
 forms of religious instincts, such as we are told 
 of by representatives of certain schools of specula- 
 tive philosophy, or so-called scientific thought. 
 . . . We are told by the worshippers of Indra 
 that he was recognized as a new deity long after 
 the settlement of the Aryans in India." 
 
 When these Aryans first crossed into India the 
 country must have impressed them in a way 
 altogether new. The towering mountains raising 
 their summits to the sky, capped with eternal 
 snows and buried in the clouds, or catching as on 
 shields of burnished silver the earliest beam of 
 opening day, or holding in the ruddy glow of fond 
 embrace the latest, lingering ray of departing 
 glory ; the mighty thunders rolling through their 
 gloomy gorges and reverberating from cliff to cliff 
 in sullen majesty ; the blazing lightnings leaping 
 from cloud to cloud and peak to peak ; the melting 
 snows swelling to the flood the ever-flowing 
 rivers ; the inexhaustible fertility under life-giving 
 rains ; the arid waste of scorching drought — all 
 must have had a most powerful influence in shap-
 
 $4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ing the religious sentiment of the new comers. 
 The God of their fathers was superseded by the 
 more terrible and immediate manifestations of 
 hidden power to which they were now exposed. 
 
 Dyaus, the God of living light, the fontal source 
 of all divinity, seems to be removed to too great 
 a distance, and his worship is abandoned for that 
 of Indra. As the Rig Veda says, " Before Indra 
 even Dyaus the Asura has bowed down." Out 
 of this debasement increasing evils grew until 
 almost all memory of the primitive purity was 
 lost. " The old order, with all its high, ennobling, 
 purifying influences, was first modified, then 
 superseded, and finally obliterated from the 
 national consciousness " (Cook, p. 70). In Egypt 
 a similar history is preserved. There is " complete 
 proof of an early, continually increasing, and 
 finally a total, degeneracy. We can put our finger 
 on the very point at which the coarsest, most 
 odious form of nature worship was introduced." 
 . . . In documents as old as the twelfth dynasty, 
 that is, about the time of Abraham, " we find the 
 fundamental principle of Monotheism, the self- 
 existence of the one deity, distinctly asserted ; 
 and although accompanying notes show that that 
 greatest truth had previously been disfigured by 
 superstitious accretions under the influence of a 
 corrupt priesthood, it is yet clearly and completely 
 separated from the fungus growth of monstrous 
 and childish superstitions by which it was gradually 
 and completely superseded " (Cook, p. 71). 
 
 Again (p. 141) : " In the cuneiform inscriptions 
 Auramazda stands out alone, completely distinct
 
 IDEA LISM—HE GEL. 5 5 
 
 from all lower manifestations of the divinity ; 
 he is the sole creator, the sole ruler, the sole 
 judge, legislator, and controller of the universe." 
 . . . " From the beginning to the end of the 
 inscriptions we find no trace of any being sharing 
 his power or approaching his majesty." 
 
 The dualism which placed a rival principle of 
 Evil as co-eternal and co-equal with Auramazda 
 was of later growth, and is a distinct proof of de- 
 generacy. See the discussion of this important 
 point in Cook, pp. 141-176. 
 
 In China a similar fact is observed. The Creed, 
 if it may be so called, of Confucianism recognizes 
 God as one and supreme, but removes him far 
 from ordinary life. Thus Legge (" Religions of 
 China," pp. 10, 1 1) : " Tien has had much of the 
 force of the name Jahve as explained by God 
 Himself to Moses. Ti has presented that absolute 
 deity in the relation to men of their lord and gover- 
 nor. Ti was to the Chinese fathers, I believe, ex- 
 actly what God was to our fathers, whenever they 
 took the great name on their lips. Thus the two 
 characters (Shang-Ti) show us the religion of the 
 ancient Chinese as a Monotheism." 
 
 The worship of the spirits of the dead and other 
 kindred superstitions are manifest proofs of a grave 
 degeneracy. 
 
 The school of Laotze is a reaction from this 
 system of Theism and is the true parent of our 
 modern Pessimism. Of kindred nature was the 
 reaction of Buddhism from the degenerate Mono- 
 theism and final Pantheism of the Hindoos. 
 
 Listen to the words of Schopenhauer, quoted
 
 $6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 by W. S. Lilly (" Ancient Religion and Modern 
 Thought," p. 134): "Oh, how thoroughly is the 
 mind here washed clean of all early-engrafted 
 Jewish superstitions, and of all philosophy that 
 cringes before those superstitions. In the whole 
 world there is no study so elevating and benefi- 
 cial." And again : " In India our religion will 
 now and never strike root : the primitive wisdom 
 of the human race will never be pushed aside 
 there by the events of Galilee." Every thinking 
 person will agree with Max Miiller's criticism 
 that here Schopenhauer " seems to have allowed 
 himself to be carried away too far by his enthu- 
 siasm for the less known," and also that he " wil- 
 fully shuts his eyes to the bright rays of eternal 
 truth in the Gospels." 
 
 We pass from these great Religions of the 
 scholarly nations of ancient times to a brief sum- 
 mary of the belief of savage tribes on the great 
 question before us. Professor E. B. Tylor, in his 
 " Primitive Culture," has treated the subject with 
 exhaustive ability, and a few moments cannot be 
 better expended than in listening to what he has 
 to say. " It is true, indeed, that the belief enter- 
 tained by savage tribes very often issues in most 
 degraded views of the nature of God and the wor- 
 ship due to Him. But this is only the natural re- 
 sult of the degradation of the savages themselves. 
 Two things must be remembered as we touch this 
 matter. There is abundant evidence that the 
 savage tribes now existing and best known are 
 remnants, in many instances sadly fallen from the 
 traditional memory of their ancestors ; and prob-
 
 IDEALISM — HEGEL. $? 
 
 ably in all cases the evidence of degradation is 
 greater than that of any improvement, except 
 when contact with a nobler race has arrested the 
 downward tendency. And the second remark is 
 that, as the recognition of God arises more fre- 
 quently in connection with the operations of the 
 moral faculty than of the intellect, the debasement 
 of man's moral nature was certain to affect his 
 thoughts, and in this way corrupt his notion of 
 God." 
 
 Mr. Tylor is careful to correct the hasty state- 
 ment of many writers who have affirmed that they 
 had found many savage tribes without any reli- 
 gion (see pp. 422, 423 American edition, 1874). 
 He defines the " minimum of Religion" as "the 
 belief in Spiritual Beings." " Animism " is the 
 title adopted " which embodies the very essence of 
 Spiritualistic as opposed to Materialistic philoso- 
 phy " (p. 425). "Animism in its full develop- 
 ment, includes the belief in souls and in a future 
 state, in controlling deities and subordinate spirits, 
 these doctrines practically resulting in some kind 
 of active worship." 
 
 This plainly involves the knowledge of person- 
 ality and the distinction between soul and body. 
 It does, indeed, confound the " life " with the 
 " phantom." " As both belong to the body why 
 should they not belong to one another, and 
 be manifestations of one and the same soul ? " 
 Breathing, dreams, and trances afforded opportu- 
 nities for the growth of opinions and beliefs as to 
 the soul's occasional absence from the body during 
 life. This same ground of deep-seated conviction
 
 58 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 is manifested in the language of all nations. That 
 the apparitional human soul bears the likeness of 
 its fleshly body is the principle implicitly accepted 
 by all who believe it really and objectively present 
 in dreams and visions. 
 
 The destiny of souls in a future state is either 
 a simple continuance, a physical retribution, or a 
 moral judgment. The chief continues a chief, 
 the slave a slave. The mutilated warrior is still 
 disfigured. The evil done pursues the criminal, 
 and judgment ensues according to the deeds done 
 in the body. The point of interest to us just now 
 is that even the lowest tribes believe that there is a 
 superior power deciding man's destiny after death. 
 
 We pass to the next stage in the ascending scale 
 of religious culture. The transition from the fetish 
 of the lowest savage to the idol is worthy of note. 
 Thus Mr. Tylor (p. 168) : " Idolatry occupies a 
 remarkable district in the history of religion. It 
 hardly belongs to the lowest savagery, which sim- 
 ply seems not to have attained to it, and it hardly 
 belongs to the highest civilization, which has dis- 
 carded it." 
 
 I add an acute remark from Calderwood (" Phi- 
 losophy of the Infinite," p. 506) : " In the history 
 of our race the spiritual takes precedence of the 
 material — the simple worship of an invisible God 
 comes before idol worship. That idolatry is a 
 lower form of religion than the worship of an in- 
 visible God does not seem open to doubt : If this 
 be granted, it seems inevitable that we conclude 
 that the higher was the primitive, and that the 
 first movements towards expansion of the religious
 
 Idealism— Hegel. $g 
 
 system tend to degeneracy of religious practice, in 
 so far as they favor the introduction of idol wor- 
 ship." 
 
 I sum up the whole in the weighty words of 
 Mr. Tylor (p. 332) : " Races of North and South 
 America, of Africa, of Polynesia, recognizing a 
 number of great deities, are usually and reasona- 
 bly considered polytheists, yet under this defini- 
 tion their acknowledgment of a Supreme Creator 
 . . . would entitle them at the same time to 
 the name of monotheists. To mark off the doc- 
 trines of the lower races, closer definition is re- 
 quired, assigning the distinctive attributes of deity 
 to none save the Almighty Creator. It may be 
 declared that in this strict sense no savage tribe 
 of monotheists has been ever known. Nor are 
 any representatives of the lower culture in a strict 
 sense pantheists. The doctrine which they do 
 widely hold, and which opens to them a course 
 tending in one or other of these directions, is 
 polytheism culminating in the rule of one supreme 
 divinity. High above the doctrine of souls, of 
 divine manes, of local nature spirits, of the great 
 deities of class and element, there are to be dis- 
 cerned in savage theology shadowings, quaint or 
 majestic, of the conception of a Supreme Deity, 
 henceforth to be traced onward in expanding 
 power and brightening glory along the history of 
 religion." 
 
 2. This historical review points to the second 
 phase of the divine Idea in the human mind. It 
 has been revealed to man. It does not appear to 
 have been reasoned out from a study whether of
 
 60 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 man himself or of the universe. It is a part of 
 man's original endowment, always present even in 
 his ruin and degradation, and, even when smoth- 
 ered in superstitions, still reasserting from age to 
 age its presence and power. There was written 
 both on intellect and conscience in the beginning 
 the profound conception of God as the Creator 
 and Moral Governor of the universe, as the all- 
 wise and all-holy Being Who would hear and 
 answer prayer, Who would reward justice and 
 punish iniquity, and Who would make known His 
 will to those who served Him. 
 
 Philosophical speculation may delight to talk of 
 God in abstract terms as necessarily existent, eter- 
 nal, immutable, and impassive, evolving creation 
 from His own essence, though without designing 
 it, without purpose, without affection, and even 
 without consciousness, or any distinctive attribute 
 of personality — all this philosophy may do, but it 
 will not be able to convince mankind ; for man is 
 more than mere intellect. He must find in God 
 at least all that belongs to the truth of his own 
 nature. The limitations of his knowledge can only 
 be measured by a tacit reference to a standard of 
 knowledge outside himself. His very imperfec- 
 tions imply and in some measure reveal to him the 
 perfections of which they afford a broken outline. 
 Man is filled with emotion, admiration of the 
 beautiful and true, ambition, emulation, wonder, 
 sympathy, pity, love. He feels awe, reverence, 
 need, trust, devotion. Surely no finite object can 
 satisfy these radical yearnings of the soul. These 
 are not of artificial or arbitrary growth. They
 
 IDEA LISM—IIE GEL. 6 1 
 
 have always belonged to man. The earliest annals 
 of his race are but the record of their workings. 
 Whence come they ? They are the shadow of the 
 Almighty passing by ! But man is more than 
 these. His "moral nature reveals to him a law of 
 inherent and imperative obligation, over-riding all 
 considerations of prudence or expediency, assum- 
 ing to bridle his most vehement desires and strong- 
 est passions, and asserting its own authority over 
 all other laws and precepts whatsoever " (Bowen, 
 p. 53). Whence have we this? Is it merely the 
 memory of past penalties surviving in changed 
 conditions ? It is not infused by education ; it 
 cannot be taught. It is not derived from observa- 
 tion ; for observation can only teach me what is; 
 while this proclaims something quite different, 
 namely, what ought to be. The voice of conscience 
 is the voice of God, Whose reflection in the human 
 soul is herein revealed, Who governs the world in 
 righteousness, and by this law written upon the 
 heart of His creature manifests His own nature and 
 attributes in holiness, justice, and truth. 
 
 Man's history plainly proves that he received 
 from his Creator a nature capable of knowing and 
 serving Him with a reverent intelligence and wor- 
 ship ; that God revealed Himself to man when in 
 the first freshness of his powers He assigned him 
 duty and responsibility ; that the elements of truth 
 found among all people, both savage and civilized, 
 are seeds of the primaeval revelation surviving and 
 persistent ; that man's tendency to degenerate has 
 proved too strong for the principles of truth and 
 duty implanted as root germs in his nature ; and
 
 62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 finally, that whatever progress the race has made 
 there is no evidence that man's intellectual powers 
 are greater now than they were at the dawn of 
 history. Abundant proof is forthcoming of de- 
 velopment in t\\Qjise of all his powers, of a growing 
 mastery over the forces of nature, of experience in 
 the adaptation of means to ends, and of the general 
 advance in the knowledge of himself and of the 
 world in which he has been appointed to live. 
 But this is quite different from the acquisition of 
 new faculties whether of reason or conscience. In 
 body, soul, and spirit he remains what he was at 
 the outset, neither more nor less of a brute, how- 
 ever he may have fallen through sin or risen 
 through grace. He knows himself as a person, 
 finite indeed and limited in many ways, but having 
 the knowledge of the Infinite Father Whose child 
 he is, and in Whose love he lives, and moves, and 
 has his being. He is conscious of this relation, nor 
 can sophistry ever rob him of this glorious birth- 
 right. He knows himself as distinct from God yet 
 dependent on Him. Conscious of his frail and 
 dying condition yet assured of his immortality, he 
 finds in God the only centre of rational and satisfy- 
 ing content. Compassed with infirmity yet filled 
 with the power of an endless life, he longs for the 
 touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice 
 that is still. He knows that the Infinite Being is 
 not the " sum of all existence" for he is conscious of 
 his own. He knows that God must forever remain 
 distinct from His works however he may be imma- 
 nent in them. He cannot answer all questions 
 nor solve all difficulties, but he confidently expects
 
 IDEALISM — HEGEL. 6$ 
 
 to find both answer and solution some time in the 
 unfolding future. The idea of this solution is 
 present with him in the very essence of his being. 
 The Ideal or Archetype he knows must be, else 
 the idea had never been born. The Saviour of 
 the world is the only actual Ideal which has ever 
 appeared to human vision. Being " God manifest 
 in the Flesh " He is at once the perfect archetype 
 and the most real of beings. As God, containing 
 in Himself not only the sum, but the unity, of all 
 attributes He is the most real of all that the human 
 mind can conceive of ; as Man, He brings sym- 
 pathy, tenderness, and love, as we can understand 
 and appreciate them, into the earthly scenes of our 
 chequered experience, and at once reveals in the 
 living unity of His Person the absolute harmony 
 of infinite power and pity, infinite freedom and 
 law, infinite holiness and sorrow, infinite purity 
 and pain. 
 
 Man being finite must forever find it difficult to 
 gain satisfying knowledge of the Infinite ; com- 
 passed with infirmity his mental concepts cannot 
 escape taking on the color of his woes ; hastening 
 to decay he is prone to attach perishable attributes 
 to every object of his knowledge. Hence the " or- 
 ganic unity " of the Infinite Mind and Nature, how- 
 ever worked out as a logical finding of the intel- 
 lect, can, only with the greatest difficulty, be held 
 steadily in view. But the Christ brings home to 
 the mind in actual realization the " organic unity" 
 in question. He stands out before the eye reveal- 
 ing to us in actual fact the " Divine and Human, 
 the Infinite and the Finite as the moments of one
 
 64 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 organic whole in which both exist at once in their 
 distinction and their unity." 
 
 The idea, I repeat, has been present with man 
 since records of his thought have been preserved. 
 Since that early time when they " heard the voice 
 of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool 
 of the day," onward through Hebrew and Oriental 
 history the same profound thought appears. The 
 incarnations of Vishnu and Krishna are the partu- 
 rient pains of the laboring soul. Struggling for- 
 ward from age to age the idea, seeking for fitting 
 expression, clothes itself in ever varying form await- 
 ing the ripeness of the years. As the idea of man, 
 laid down in its icthyic vestment in the old Silu- 
 rian rocks, continued to unfold in each successive 
 manifestation with greater clearness, until at length 
 the archetype, foreseen from the beginning, stood 
 forth in actual realization ; even so was it here. 
 The expectant centuries waited " the fulness of the 
 time," but the Eternal Reason was not forgetful 
 of Himself or them. He left not Himself without 
 witness at any time. However a degenerate race 
 may have perverted His goodness and buried the 
 primaeval truth in gross or senseless superstitions, 
 still some living seeds survived and bloomed in 
 such flower as they could. The very grossness of 
 that flowering was itself an argument to compel 
 mankind to " look for another." While they are 
 valuable as indicating in what direction deliverance 
 may be expected they are themselves the best evi- 
 dence of their inability to afford it. Nor must we 
 be misled into supposing these manifestations as 
 being in any sense the cause of that great event
 
 IDEALISM — HEGEL. 6$ 
 
 which in some small measure they prefigured. 
 Prevenient shadows we are willing to suppose them, 
 depending absolutely upon the substance. The 
 Ideal to be realized in the fulness of time accounts 
 for them, not they for It. The Archetypal Light 
 shining down the changing ages touches the mists 
 and vapors lying on hill and dale along the way, 
 illuminates their gloom and gilds their passing 
 brightness. To ascribe these occasional glimpses 
 of better things to the vapor and mist is to reverse 
 the truth. Much indeed has the beauty been dis- 
 torted, and often has the " glory departed " and 
 left one region or another in the darkness of debas- 
 ing superstitions; but the lustre fell finally upon 
 the face of Jesus Christ, and " we beheld His glory, 
 the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, 
 full of grace and truth." 
 5
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 
 
 "The Word was made flesh."— John i. 14. 
 
 THE point of view of the three synoptic Gos- 
 pels is different from that of St. John. They 
 see the dawn of the Gospel day, mark the rise of the 
 " Sun of Righteousness," trace His course through 
 tears and sorrow to His setting in blood, note His 
 rising again, and look steadily down the changing 
 centuries until they see Him coming in the clouds 
 with power and great glory to judge the world. 
 St. John does this indeed, but more also. He 
 looks backward to the eternity before the dawn. 
 Taking up the great truth of the three preceding 
 Gospels in which Christ is plainly set forth as the 
 final consummation of all things in heaven and 
 earth, St. John points out that He was also the 
 First, the Beginning, the Origin of all things. 
 Here is a truly profound harmony. The first 
 three Gospels look forward, the fourth looks 
 backward. They observe the goal, this the 
 Source of all power and life. They follow the 
 Son of Man to His seat upon the throne of His 
 glory, St. John beholds the Son of God ere yet 
 the world was. St. John thus goes back to the 
 very beginning and unveils the Eternal Son in
 
 THE PERSON' OF CHRIST. 6j 
 
 His Cosmic relation. The whole plan of the 
 universe, ere yet the foundations of the world 
 were laid, is thus seen to lie in its ideal germ in 
 Him in " Whom are hid all the treasures of wis- 
 dom and knowledge." As it unfolds in regular 
 order the various parts grow out into dictinctness 
 as the centuries advance. Creation is continuous 
 even as Providence is. " My Father worketh 
 hitherto, and I work," is true all along the ages, and 
 will receive fresh illustration while time remains. 
 
 I. Creative ideas unfold gradually. Within the 
 range of our telescopes nebulae still appear " with- 
 out form and void," mere gaseous envelopes assum- 
 ing spiral or other movements according to the 
 forces operating within and without them. In 
 our own solar system there are growing worlds, 
 and dying worlds, and dead worlds. The crust 
 of our earth gives abundant evidence of the va- 
 rious manifestations of a single idea. The four great 
 types of living creatures exhibit this fact clearly. 
 The Radiates dispose their spherical wedges with 
 great richness of variety. The Molluscs show the 
 symmetrical adjustment of their parts on each side 
 of a central shaft with much peculiarity of detail. 
 The Articulates display their rings and nervous 
 system with marked distinctness and unbounded 
 liberality of special adaptation. The Vertebrates il- 
 lustrate still more forcibly the preservation of a 
 fixed idea amid almost endless variety of arrange- 
 ment. In each case there is a fundamental theme 
 upon which the great Artist plays such multiplied 
 variations as to excite the wonder and admiration 
 of all intelligent observers. Creation is neither a
 
 68 THE PHILOSOPHY OP THE INCARNATION'. 
 
 growth without intelligence to originate and guide 
 it, nor a single act of power to be then left to the 
 operation of blind forces. Creation is continuous. 
 Each creature in its day and after its kind " is 
 good," yet it does not exhaust the wealth of the 
 originating purpose. Others built on the same 
 plan follow to be in their turn superseded by 
 others of still nobler qualities. The divine ideal 
 is slowly approached in all departments of the 
 universe. Nor is it different in the case of man. 
 The purpose is clearly announced. " Let us make 
 man in our image." And so man appears, made 
 indeed of the " dust of the ground," yet breathing 
 also a higher " breath of life " than any creature 
 which had preceded him. Placed in the world on 
 probation, man was to develop his various powers 
 in the school of experience, and to acquire quali- 
 ties of character not otherwise to be attained. He 
 was at once a climax and a prophecy ; the crown 
 of all which had gone before, and also the primor- 
 dial form which gave promise of that which was 
 yet to come. While he confessed his kinship with 
 the dust, the plant, the animal, he claimed also 
 affinity with God. Now as a man of mature years 
 differs from a child in that he possesses, not only 
 developed faculties and powers, but also habits 
 and virtues quite impossible to the child, so also is 
 it with the race. And as the child points ever be- 
 yond himself to a measure and stature not yet 
 attained, so is it with the race. And even when 
 man has reached the zenith of his ability there is 
 in him the ever present consciousness that his 
 ideal has not yet been realized. All this and much
 
 THE PERSOJST OF CHRIST. 69 
 
 more makes it plain that Nature is not a system 
 of laws and forces finally and eternally fixed, but 
 rather a system that is passing through a teleologi- 
 cal development, or in other words, a continued 
 creation. New forces are continually entering 
 into operation and modifying those formerly at 
 work. The preceding stages of creation prepare 
 the way for them, and often prefigure them, yet 
 are not the source of their power, but only the 
 vehicle of their manifestation. The original Pow- 
 er whence they all proceed is still continuously 
 operative, working onward toward the realization 
 of its Ideal, tarrying for a time now in this, and 
 now in that, type and symbol, but resting finally 
 nowhere ever until the Son of God became the 
 Son of Man. " In terming itself the new, the sec- 
 ond creation, Christianity by no means calls itself 
 a disturbance of nature, but rather the completion 
 of the work of creation ; the revelation of Christ 
 and the Kingdom of Christ it pronounces the last 
 potency of the work of creation ; which power, 
 whether regarded as completing or as redeeming 
 the world, must be conceived as teleological ; 
 operating so as to change and limit the lower 
 forces, in so far as these are in their essential na- 
 ture not eternal and organically complete, but only 
 temporal and temporary." (" Christian Dogmat- 
 ics," p. 20.) As the scheme slowly matured local 
 deviations and seismic disturbances would occur, 
 of which the natural history of the earth and man 
 gives abundant evidence ; but the energizing and 
 self-revealing Reason is not thereby disturbed. All 
 of these have been calculated in advance, and re-
 
 70 THE PHILOSOPHY 0E THE INCARNATION. 
 
 medial agencies planned to over-rule them to the 
 production of greater good. The lower must ulti- 
 mately give place to the higher, however for a 
 time the reverse may seem to hold good. Dead 
 material things yield to chemical forces as these 
 again are controlled by vital, and those in turn by 
 moral and spiritual. " A stone cannot die, a tree 
 cannot suffer, an animal cannot sin." Yet is there 
 no caprice, nor anything merely arbitrary in these 
 limitations. In the words of Professor Harris 
 ("Philosophical Basis of Theism," p. 531): 
 " God's thought is the archetypal, unchanging, 
 and all-comprehending thought of Absolute Rea- 
 son, and His purpose the all-comprehending pur- 
 pose of Almighty Will in harmony with reason ; it 
 is the purpose of perfect wisdom and love. But the 
 realization of that plan and purpose in finite crea- 
 tions is slow and progressive, and the hindrances 
 to its immediate and complete realization are not 
 of God's own making." The laws laid down by 
 Divine Wisdom for the development of created 
 beings must be allowed to work out the results 
 which are natural in the case. Things living and 
 dead, each after its kind ; plant, animal, and man, 
 each in its own sphere ; the bond and free, each ac- 
 cording to its own law — all are guaranteed by Omni- 
 potence space for development. To object against 
 the power and goodness of God that during this 
 process fire burns, or water drowns, or carbonic 
 acid stifles, or sin destroys, is only to argue that it 
 is unworthy of God to create the finite because 
 infinite power should not tolerate any limitation ; 
 or inconsistent with infinite benevolence that He
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. J I 
 
 should give life to sentient beings, because if cap- 
 able of pleasure they must also be liable to pain ; 
 or repugnant to infinite goodness to make man 
 free, because the possibility of sin (which is " the 
 transgression of the law ") is inseparable from free- 
 dom. Such a method of reasoning is altogether 
 erroneous. If carried out to its legitimate end 
 creation would be impossible, for it would neces- 
 sitate that God should create God, since He alone 
 possesses infinite perfection. But as things are 
 " space for development " is allowed to every 
 creature ; the plan slowly unfolds, and the Divine 
 Ideal is reached in the " fulness of the time." 
 
 II. The eternal Word occupies a cosmic rela- 
 tion to all created things, and for this reason 
 would have become incarnate even if sin had never 
 entered to mar the beauty of His work. The 
 manifestation of God in nature is not due to any 
 imperfection which may therein be found. It is 
 owing to this fact that those who fail to read the 
 lesson aright are held " without excuse." The 
 manifestation is clear enough. " The invisible 
 things of Him from the creation of the world are 
 clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
 are made, even His eternal power and Godhead." 
 (Rom. i. 20.) This remains true, not because of 
 the incomplete or arrested development occasion- 
 ally found, but rather notwithstanding these. 
 There is a teleological purpose which may be read 
 in the "things that are made" by the reverent 
 student of Nature, although from time to time he 
 be confronted with such difficulties as have per- 
 mitted occasion for the trial of faith. The eternal
 
 72 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 Reason is not restrained from manifestation be- 
 cause of the " intractable nature " of the material 
 universe, nor is It specially exhibited by this or in 
 consequence of it. God is working towards the 
 realization of the Divine Ideal and will continue 
 so to work whatever obstacles may intervene. 
 The purpose is fixed and must be reached ; the 
 difficulties by the way are dealt with as they 
 arise ; they have not been its cause, and they can- 
 not prevent its progress. Man is the most con- 
 spicuous manifestation of Creative Reason of all 
 the creatures known to us. He is rational, free, 
 moral, and spiritual, in all of which he reflects 
 the " image " of his Creator in a way peculiarly 
 his own. Here we have not merely evidences of 
 skill in mechanical adjustment, or exhibitions of 
 power in the control of gigantic forces, or results 
 of wisdom in the adaptation of complicated means 
 to ends difficult to reach, or traces of aesthetic 
 taste which covers the glowing summits and 
 gloomy gorges of the rugged earth with a thin 
 poetic haze. All of these and much more even a 
 superficial view of this poor world will make 
 known. But in man as rational, we have ex- 
 perience of the power which energizes in nature 
 and has created all things ; in man as free, we have 
 personal knowledge of the force we call will which 
 originates movements ; in man as moral, we hear 
 the echo of that " Power not ourselves which 
 makes for righteousness ; " in man as spiritual, we 
 recognize the offspring of the Infinite Spirit whom 
 we worship and adore. Here, surely, it is not too 
 much to say that as man was originally made in
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 73 
 
 the likeness of the Eternal Son, so even now in 
 his ruin he still preserves some qualities of kinship 
 with the glorious Prototype. But the Archetype 
 has not been realized. The manifestation of God 
 in the flesh has been but imperfectly attained. 
 Humanity cannot reach to the full revelation of 
 the Divine so long as it receive the Spirit in 
 "diverse times and portions." (Heb. i. 1.) The 
 full-orbed Ideal was not actualized in history 
 until in these last times, " God spake unto us by 
 His Son." The Incarnation is thus seen to be not 
 merely an ethical and remedial agency for the 
 recovery of the fallen, profound and august por- 
 tions of its purpose as these plainly are, but it lies 
 at the very foundation of the Universe as the 
 method of Gods choice for the full revelation of 
 Himself by the realization of Himself in human 
 consciousness. There is thus in the original con- 
 cept of the Universe a metaphysical necessity for 
 the Incarnation. The fall of man and all the 
 attendant horrors which have ensued upon it was 
 not the cause of the Incarnation, however much it 
 may have modified the actual experience of the 
 Son of Man. 
 
 Earthquake waves and the vast oscillations of 
 level which they occasion are not in any sense the 
 cause of gravitation, yet they give to that mighty 
 force a multitude of opportunities for its exercise 
 which otherwise had not existed, and in conse- 
 quence results of incalculable importance are ob- 
 tained. 
 
 It is indeed true that sin has shattered and 
 riven poor humanity to its centre, that it has
 
 74 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 poured out its withering torrents upon the fairest 
 provinces of our world, and spread wreck and ruin 
 broadcast over the earth. By so doing it has 
 given occasion to Incarnate Love to assume strange 
 burdens and become " acquainted with grief," and 
 out of it have grown the agony, and shame, and 
 horror which made His " soul an offering for sin," 
 but it is no more the cause of the Incarnation than 
 seismic shudderings are the cause of gravitation. 
 In the words of Martensen (" Christian Dogmatics," 
 p. 261): "If we recognize that apart altogether 
 from sin, the union of the human race with God 
 is involved in the idea of the perfection of the 
 world ; if, further, we are convinced that this 
 union is to be one not merely of sentiment and 
 thought, but also of human nature in its entirety, 
 that it must accordingly embrace the body of 
 man, which is to be fitted to become a temple of 
 the divine fulness ; we are led back again to the 
 Only Begotten One, who appeared in the midst of 
 the process of human development as the Incarna- 
 tion of the divine nature, as the beginner of the 
 world's perfection, and as the personal manifesta- 
 tion and embodiment of the goal of the ways of 
 God with man ; and who, by continuing to work 
 through the medium of the new economy of crea- 
 tion which He inaugurated, is still the Medi- 
 ator of the completion of the whole Kingdom, 
 and of every individual member thereof." 
 
 III. The testimony of pre-Christian history forc- 
 ibly illustrates the presence of this power. " The 
 whole pre-Christian world aspired after Christian- 
 ity; in it the common aenigma of all pre-Christian
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 7$ 
 
 religions is solved ; ... in it lies the key by 
 which all these religions may be better understood 
 than they could understand themselves." (Dorner, 
 " Person of Christ," p. 3.) Yet it remains true, 
 notwithstanding all which has been said to the con- 
 trary, that the ground-idea of Christianity cannot 
 be derived from any or all of them though it be 
 shadowed and desired in each. The Orientals 
 brought God down to earth and accounted for all 
 phenomena as modes of the divine manifestation. 
 A marked similarity to modes of thought with 
 which we are familiar is also a striking feature. 
 We find the incarnation of the second member of 
 the Trimurti ; Vishnu becomes man, and thus we 
 have the idea of the God-man as a divine conde- 
 scension ; but this incarnation is no true assump- 
 tion of humanity, for it is not permanent. The 
 same is true of Crishna who returns to his heaven 
 and lays aside the humanity which had been tem- 
 porarily assumed. Here the thought that God 
 must become man seems ever present as the shad- 
 ow of some profound reality, but every attempt at 
 its realization proves illusive. The ground-idea of 
 Christianity — the absolute incorporation in the 
 unity of the Divine Personality of the nature of 
 man in eternal and organic power — this was not 
 even dreamed of in Oriental philosophy. 
 
 On the other hand the Occidental nations sought 
 the solace of their restlessness in the elevation of 
 humanity to the skies. " Here the starting point 
 is not that of patient resignation, but that of the 
 self-consciousness of the free subjective spirit, which 
 seeks to bring forth its inner ideal world-form it-
 
 ?6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION: 
 
 self, and so to become worthy of participating in 
 the blessed life of the gods." (Dorner, p. 9.) But 
 this necessarily failed, for the multiplication of the 
 finite can never reach the Infinite, nor can the 
 creature by any conceivable elevation of its noblest 
 specimens attain to the rights of the Creator. Yet 
 the " coming event has here cast its shadow be- 
 fore ; " what the Occident could not attain it nev- 
 ertheless plainly yearned after with very intense 
 desire ; the Apotheosis was the nearest approach 
 to its ideal possible to Hellenism. " The Hellenic 
 setting out from man and his power ends where the 
 Oriental began — but there also found its grave." 
 (Dorner, p. 9.) The error of both was the same 
 — the failure to distinguish rightly between the 
 Creature and the Creator. The Pantheistic con- 
 cept confounds God with the world, the Polythe- 
 istic on the other hand confounds the world with 
 God. Between them they complete the cycle of 
 the heathen world. In the words of Dorner 
 (p. 10) : " Returning to its poor unsatisfying be- 
 ginning, it has pronounced judgment on itself — 
 and the sentence is one which all history confirms, 
 viz. : that it has not attained to the true idea of the 
 God-man, though its entire spiritual history has 
 unmistakably its meaning in this, that it seeks the 
 inner and true interpretation of the Divine and 
 the human." Again (p. 45) : " And so, in the 
 retrospect of all religious history before Christ, 
 we find this a Preparatio Evangelica in the fullest 
 sense, and as serving for a proof that Christianity 
 gives expression to that which all religions seek, 
 that it embraces within itself whatever is true in
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. J J 
 
 Heathenism and Judaism ; but not less for a proof 
 also that the idea of the God-man, which so pecu- 
 liarly characterizes Christianity, has not emerged 
 from without Christianity, but wholly from within 
 it. To Christianity this idea is original and essen- 
 tial. The beginning was the fact, and the fact 
 gave the knowledge." 
 
 The cosmic and historic significance of the In- 
 carnation must now seem sufficiently apparent. 
 We proceed to a more direct examination of the 
 
 IV. Birth in time. 
 
 It does not fall within our purpose to trace out 
 the evidences from prophecy and miracles or to state 
 the arguments by which these have been illustrated 
 and defended. Those desiring solid and reliable in- 
 formation on these topics are referred to the well- 
 known pages of Liddon and kindred writers. 
 
 Indeed prophecy and miracles seem to be rather 
 the small things which come in as make-weights in 
 the grand argument. They are necessarily depen- 
 dent upon methods of interpretation of ancient 
 documents and symbols which must vary more or 
 less with advancing knowledge. They are parts of 
 the grand movement of the universe towards its 
 goal, and appear as the fitting prelude and accom- 
 paniment of mighty epochs in its progress. But to 
 make the central fact towards which all history be- 
 fore and after points depend for its witness upon 
 these, is to mistake their purpose and value. The 
 fact is its own witness — the Life proves Itself — the 
 Christ is the Light of the world and is His own 
 grand demonstration. " If anyone will do His 
 will, he shall know of the doctrine."
 
 ?$ THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 i. The Ideal and the Real here unite in the 
 Actual. 
 
 The ideal of humanity was given in the result of 
 the original Divine counsel — " Let us make man in 
 our image, after our likeness." The " image," in- 
 deed, was attained at once, but the " likeness " 
 never, until " the fulness of the time." We find 
 in Adam a created life made upon a divine model ; 
 and we find this life required by the terms of its 
 creation to grow into the " likeness " in actual fact 
 which has been set for its goal. The Ideal is the 
 realization in the human of the Divine " likeness." 
 How far Adam failed of attaining to this is matter 
 of history. But the Divine purpose is not thereby 
 defeated. The abuse of freedom affords a new and 
 wider field for the illustration of perfect freedom 
 in harmony with perfect service. The Divine 
 Providence surveying things before and after over- 
 rules the moral obliquities of man and leads the 
 race upward through these to a purer air. The 
 cross was laid upon the heart of God long ages 
 before it was set up on Calvary. The Eternal Son 
 was prepared, even before the foundations of the 
 world were laid, to take upon Himself the awful 
 burden of Love for Love's sake alone. It is of 
 course quite easy to object, as is very commonly 
 done, that sin and the painful trial inseparable 
 from it is inconsistent with Divine goodness and 
 power. The answer to this is well given by Pro- 
 fessor T. R. Birks (" Difficulties of Belief," pp. 66, 
 6j) : " The highest and best gift to created beings 
 is freedom ; freedom involves choice, responsibility, 
 and the possibility of transgression." And again :
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 79 
 
 " To deny life to infinite numbers of holy and 
 happy beings, whom His power could create and 
 wisdom govern, and in whom His goodness might 
 delight itself forever, through the fear of the vic- 
 tory of evil in the abuse of His own gifts — what 
 were this but for the Supremely Good to play the 
 coward and the murderer, and thus to deny His 
 own being, and renounce His Godhead, lest the 
 abusers of His free bounty should suffer the just 
 punishment of their crimes ? " But it is in the 
 Incarnation, wherein the " Word was made flesh," 
 that we have the practical answer of Eternal Love 
 to all this class of objection. The Ideal of Love is 
 self-negation — the giving of itself over to its object 
 — the taking up into itself of its object — the abso- 
 lute losing of itself that it may find itself again in 
 transformed and transfigured beauty. And so the 
 Christ reveals to us, what else had never reached 
 our poor benighted world, the Ideal beauty of that 
 matchless power which stoops in shadowed Love 
 to human hearts, and gathering to it all their woe, 
 transfuses through their sunless depths the bright- 
 ness of Itself. All that is most real in God — for 
 " God is Love ; "- — all that is most real in man — an 
 infinite capacity of love, but broken like a shat- 
 tered vase; all that is most ideal in creation — the 
 reproduction in the creature of the Divine like- 
 ness ; all that is most Ideal in Providence — the 
 working out in the actual experience of time and 
 the prosaic reality of pain and tears and death 
 and life of the lineaments of that " likeness" — all 
 of this we find in Christ. The positive realization 
 on the plane of earth and history of the unity of
 
 80 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 the Divine and Human — the Ideal and the Real 
 united in the Actual — this is Christ. 
 
 2. Nor need we be alarmed by those who, hold- 
 ing a principle of multitudinism, are ready to deny 
 that a single individual can exhaust the full revel- 
 ation of either God or man ; this, if possible at all, 
 being capable of expression only as the sum of all 
 particulars. The concept is pantheistic, and may 
 at once be set aside. When it is affirmed that " in 
 Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," 
 it is not intended that all the manifestations of 
 Divine power in the universe were contained in 
 Him, but only that the Divine Essence was con- 
 tained in His Incarnate being. His Humanity is 
 at once the vehicle for the Revelation of God and 
 Man in the fulness of the perfection of both, and 
 the highest stage of existence and life. The ob- 
 jection is based upon the error of looking upon Je- 
 sus Christ as a Son of Man, rather than as the Son 
 of Man. It is humanity which has been subsumed 
 in all the breadth of its nature. The manhood has 
 been taken into God ; and thus has " God" been 
 made " manifest in the flesh." But, as is so often 
 the case, this objection is but the perverted shadow 
 of a profound and precious truth. I quote from 
 Martensen a beautiful and lucid passage (" Christian 
 Dogmatics," p. 262) : " As man was placed in the 
 middle of creation so that all other forms of nature 
 stand related to him as the parts to the whole, as 
 the scattered rays to the focus in which they are 
 all collected. . . . so is the human race with 
 its variety of individual antitheses, activities, and 
 powers, which find their point of union in Christ,
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 8 1 
 
 destined to be constituted into one great body, un- 
 der Him as the Head. . . . His individuality 
 stands in the relation to all other human individu- 
 alities in which the centre of a circle stands to all 
 the single points of the circle. No otherwise than 
 on the ground of this fundamental individuality 
 can the manifold members of the race be organic- 
 ally combined and completed so as to form a King- 
 dom of God." 
 
 3. To bring this new power to our race He emp- 
 tied Himself of His glory, and condescended to 
 be " born of a pure Virgin," The sublime wonder 
 here is, not that the Eternal Reason should be born 
 of a " Virgin," but rather that He who " created 
 all things and for whose pleasure they are, and were 
 created " should condescend to submit to bind 
 Himself by any limitations. The profound mys- 
 tery is not in the birth of a Virgin Mother, but in 
 the Divine Self-limitation which accepts any birth 
 at all. For we must not suppose that the divine 
 attributes were communicated to the human nature 
 in unlimited infinitude. If so wherein did the 
 Kevaxns consist ? The humiliation lay in this that 
 the Eternal Son was willing to experience growth 
 and to make trial of immature powers. If the In- 
 carnation is to be a reality, it must also be a real- 
 ity that God felt the limitations of human nature 
 as His own limitations. " In the measure in which 
 the human nature grew and developed, in that 
 measure did the divine nature also grow in it." 
 " He did not possess His deity outside of His hu- 
 manity but His true humanity was grounded in 
 His true divinity. His personality must, there-
 
 82 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 fore, be regarded as the free moral evolution not of 
 single powers, but of the fulness of the powers of 
 the deity. ... as the human revelation of the 
 undivided mystery of the divine essence." (" Dog- 
 matics," p. 270.) 
 
 A careful study of these few thoughts may easily 
 remove man}' of the greatest difficulties of our time. 
 
 (a) Although the consummate flower of human- 
 ity He is not its merely natural flower. He is the 
 beginning of the new creation even as He was of 
 the old. As then man was made as to the flesh 
 by a re-arrangement of pre-existing materials, but 
 not thus only; so here again as to the flesh, Our 
 Lord took human nature of the substance of the 
 Virgin Mary His mother. As in the first Adam 
 " God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 
 and man became a living soul ; " so here again the 
 " Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power 
 of the Highest shall overshadow thee ; therefore 
 also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee 
 shall be called the Son of God." And thus it is 
 plain, that there is no greater difficulty in this lat- 
 ter than in the former case. In the former we 
 have no experience as to the origin of life even of 
 plant or animal. They begin we know not how, 
 notwithstanding all our boasted science ; and the 
 origin of man has scientific difficulties surrounding 
 it peculiar to itself. In the latter, because we have 
 some experience of ordinary methods, we rush hast- 
 ily to the conclusion that the Power Who origin- 
 ated life must be limited to one mode of opera- 
 tion ! The rashness of this logic is only surpassed 
 by its irreverence.
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 83 
 
 {!?) The Holy Child grew. " He increased in 
 wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and 
 man." And as His human nature advanced, so 
 also did His divine. It was this submission to 
 slow development which so grandly ennobled the 
 whole transaction. It afforded an actual experi- 
 ence of the intellectual and moral trials to which 
 we are all exposed. The voluntary surrender of 
 the power and glory of God that He might in true 
 reality enter into our weakness, feel our tempta- 
 tions, and learn obedience in the school of disci- 
 pline and painful experience — it was this which 
 qualified Him to be our guide until death and af- 
 ter. 
 
 4. The advocates of material evolution may 
 search in vain through the annals of the past for 
 any natural source of these phenomena. The pow- 
 ers here characteristically exhibited have not been 
 found on earth before or since. Here, indeed, is 
 something quite other than the careful preserva- 
 tion of any trifling advantage in the " struggle for 
 life." Christ is not the resultant of opposing forces 
 following the " line of least resistance." He is not 
 the product of nervous currents which have be- 
 come " habituated to flowing together " until they 
 have established a new faculty of moral judgment ! 
 
 Nor can they shift their ground with any advan- 
 tage, and maintain that, if they should concede 
 Jesus of Nazareth to be a unique type — the first 
 of the kind, it would therefore follow that He 
 must be inferior to many who have followed Him, 
 because the earlier manifestations of the type 
 should be less perfect than those coming later and
 
 §4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 therefore more highly specialized. On this class 
 of objection three observations may be made : 
 
 (a) It is not always true that a unique type is 
 followed by individuals showing marked improve- 
 ment. Moses and Isaiah found no successors ; 
 Homer and Demosthenes failed to transmit their 
 eloquence ; the followers of Plato and Aristotle 
 fell far below their model ; Greek Art died with 
 Phidias, Praxiteles, and few others ; Roman power 
 and justice fell together : Washington is dead, 
 and no shoulders like his are found to carry his 
 mantle ; the Monks of the West have left a his- 
 tory, only that and nothing more. Poets, patriots, 
 philosophers, sages, saints, warriors, rulers, saviours 
 of mankind have been greater than we now behold. 
 Passing years and accumulated experience do not 
 always sustain the conclusions of the theorist. 
 The Christ may, therefore, have been both the 
 first and greatest of His kind notwithstanding the 
 generalizations of scientific reasoners. 
 
 {b) But there is a profound truth shrouded 
 under the objection. The Eternal Son became 
 Man not for His own sake but for the sake of 
 those whose nature He assumed. It was ex- 
 pressly in order that the human type might take 
 on a higher specialization that He filled it with 
 the power and unction of the Holy Ghost. For 
 the accomplishment of this purpose He still " ever- 
 liveth to make intercession for us ; " continually 
 pleads the great Sacrifice offered before the founda- 
 tion of the world, and realized in history on the 
 cross ; and thus reproduces in the Church the ele- 
 ments of character first illustrated in His person.
 
 THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 85 
 
 There is a growth in richness of specialized detail 
 as the common Life realizes Itself in an endless 
 succession of individuals. 
 
 (c) The objection might seem to have some 
 force if it were affirmed that the " Advent in 
 Humiliation " afforded the full manifestation of 
 the Type. On the contrary His manifestation in 
 time required, that so long as His earthly, histori- 
 cal life lasted, there should be a contrast between 
 the partial and the completed work. Glimpses of 
 the hidden glory are given, like rifts in the over- 
 shadowing clouds, whereby the true import of His 
 being and mission may be the better understood. 
 The first and second Advent form two parts of 
 one great whole. But surely this fact is forgotten 
 when it is required that Christ should have given 
 demonstrative evidence of His nature and office 
 when He claimed the allegiance of Jew and Gen- 
 tile. It is in fact to demand that He reveal Him- 
 self now in the same manner as He will when He 
 comes again in power and great glory. We must 
 not expect in the day of humiliation the manifesta- 
 tion of the day of exaltation. The Miracles of 
 Christ are tokens of His power and lordship over 
 Nature, and also proofs of the union of free-will 
 and law. His Resurrection from the dead is not 
 a contradiction of human nature, it is rather the 
 illustration of the law of that nature when restored 
 to its rightful power over itself by the conquest 
 of sin. It is in fact the solution of the mystery 
 of life and death. " Christ came as the world- 
 perfecting and world-saving Mediator, in order to 
 institute a new relationship with God ; in order
 
 86 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 to establish not only a new consciousness of God, 
 but a new life of man in God, whereby the abnor- 
 mal development of human nature might be 
 stayed, and a new development introduced, by the 
 progressive destruction of sin." 
 
 This enables us to see the fundamental distinc- 
 tion between Christ as prophet, priest, and king, 
 and all others bearing such titles. The words of 
 Christ derive their authority from the Incarnation, 
 whereas those of the prophets derive theirs from 
 Inspiration. Inspiration implies a fundamental 
 distinction between God and man, and cannot 
 therefore apply to Him in Whom God and Man 
 are united. Limitations, therefore, are self-as- 
 sumed for high moral purposes, and not imposed 
 by defect of nature as is universally the case with 
 prophets and apostles. Hence we rest with pro- 
 found confidence in the confession of St. John : 
 " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only 
 begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, 
 he hath declared Him." The power of His word 
 upon the heart ever depends upon the influence 
 and impress of His Person, and the acceptance or 
 rejection of His word cannot be separated from 
 the acceptance or rejection of Himself.
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 SIN. 
 
 " Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee." 
 — Luke xv. 18. 
 
 / n[~"*HE service which philosophy may render 
 -L to faith, consists in its endeavour to 
 gather and arrange the contents of the human 
 mind, which have their root in its tendency 
 towards God or towards the world, into one com- 
 plete whole. Its perfection lies in its attesting to 
 Christian faith the developed perception of its 
 harmony with all those other elements of life 
 which have an equally true place as constituent 
 parts of human nature. For the union of Faith 
 with all the formative forces of the age, so far as 
 these are true and contain living germs of the 
 future, constitutes Philosophy properly so called. 
 The affections can only be at rest when religion is 
 the measure and standard of all truth, and religion 
 receives its final solution when unchanged as to its 
 inner truth — for it is indeed unchangeable and in- 
 dependent of all the vicissitudes of time — it takes 
 up into itself all wisdom and all life." (Muller, 
 " Doctrine of Sin," vol. i., p. 25.) The attempt to 
 treat the fact of Sin in a serious way is likely to 
 bring down upon us the wrath and ridicule of
 
 88 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 scientific admirers of modern scepticism. There 
 is no room for " sin " in a system of materialistic 
 evolution. " Aborted " organs may afford some 
 puzzling difficulties on that theory, but they can 
 hardly be quoted as illustrative of any moral 
 peculiarities. " Aberrations of will " may indicate 
 some disturbance of the usual flow of " nervous 
 currents" but the word "temptation" could 
 scarcely be used to describe the cause. 
 
 In short it has become fashionable in certain 
 quarters to make light of sin or even to gloss it 
 over with softened phrase, because upon the 
 principles whether of materialism or pantheism 
 there is really no place for it at all. 
 
 But the most awful fact of human experience 
 refuses to be set aside by any such easy method. 
 It will not be cured by our refusing to see it, nor 
 cease its fearful ruin of our race by being ignored. 
 Nor can we allow ourselves to be deceived by hav- 
 ing attention fixed upon the physical ills we suffer 
 in common with the lower animals to the exclusion 
 of the moral evil peculiar to man. This, indeed, 
 is one melancholy prerogative in which no mere 
 brute can challenge equality with us. All the 
 physical " ills that flesh is heir to " we may share, 
 but this is painfully our own. Yet it is not 
 natural to man. Whatever hard conditions may 
 afflict our earthly lives, whether arising from 
 imperfect function, organic defect, disease or 
 what not, we may learn in some measure to 
 reconcile ourselves to a patient endurance of them 
 if no remedy can be found. But moral evil is felt 
 to be alien to our nature ; and to be reconciled to
 
 s/jv. 89 
 
 its presence is to confess ourselves degraded. 
 While this is true the prevalence of evil has 
 tended to blind the eyes of the multitude to its 
 baseness. 
 
 So intimately has evil entwined itself with 
 human nature that, judging from appearances, it 
 is not wonderful that many have hastily concluded 
 it to be essentially a part of that nature. Never- 
 theless the repugnance to it is radical. The 
 sense of moral obligation rules our life with un- 
 limited authority in so far as pronouncing judg- 
 ment upon the quality of our actions can rule. It 
 cannot always enforce its authority but it does not 
 fail to make it felt. While it cannot always 
 determine conduct, it does pronounce on what it 
 oueht to be. The moral law as the rule of the 
 human will is moral good. It possesses an in- 
 herent authority of its own. It rises in sublime 
 majesty above the mind, assigns in a general way 
 the course of right and duty, but leaves the 
 minute particulars of each case to be considered as 
 they arise. Here is the sphere of individual re- 
 sponsibility. Each particular case must be ex- 
 amined upon its merits, the general principles of 
 the moral law applied by the conscience, and the 
 decision reached through the self-determination of 
 a rightly instructed will. 
 
 The conception of good is native to the human 
 mind. To this the moral law, proclaimed by 
 authority, appeals. So true is this conviction of 
 an Absolute Standard of right of which the mind 
 has immediate knowledge that no amount of au- 
 thority could compel us to approve an immoral
 
 90 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 command. Kant, indeed, maintains the opposite 
 of this. He derives the conception of the good 
 from the law. But if this were so we could not 
 tell whether the law were good or bad. Duty on 
 which he lays so much stress cannot be decided by 
 any appeal to specific commands. " The principles 
 of the law demand the obedience of man in every 
 moment of his life, and yet they never descend to 
 the minute moral circumstances of his position ; 
 they can never tell him in detail and exhaustively 
 how he is to demean himself in relation to them." 
 (Muller, p. 33.) Yet if Kant's position were 
 sound such minute instruction would be impera- 
 tive. 
 
 The moral law is universal. There is not one 
 law for the civilized and another for the savage; 
 one for the Jew and another for the Gentile ; one 
 for the educated and another for the ignorant. 
 The individual obligation will vary in each case 
 but the law is the same. The Christian standard 
 is only the pure and perfect embodiment in the 
 actual life of the Son of Man of that one univer- 
 sal law. 
 
 Man's moral degeneracy entails endless difficult- 
 ies in the execution of this law. The allowances 
 which must be made for ignorance, the " hardness 
 of the heart," the weakness of the flesh, the power 
 of temptation — all give rise to manifold complica- 
 tions. Yet by none of these can the fixed stand- 
 ard be set aside ; even when failure to reach it is 
 condoned it is never commended. The conscience 
 must itself decide upon the definite duty at any 
 given time. " The internal perception of the
 
 S/jV. 91 
 
 moral law as a rule unconditionally binding, is so 
 essential a part of human consciousness, that were 
 it wholly wanting in anyone, we should be com- 
 pelled to doubt the completeness of his human- 
 ity." The review already given of the various 
 religions of the world has afforded abundant illus- 
 tration of the truth of this statement. 
 
 Moral evil manifests itself as opposition to this 
 law. Appetite, propensity and passion demand 
 a gratification which reason, judgment and con- 
 science forbid. Desire is opposed to duty. The 
 will holds the balance, inclines now this way, now 
 that, and finally yields for good or evil. This 
 subjective element of free-will is necessarily in- 
 volved in the very idea of sin. Do away with 
 this, as Mr. Spencer does, and sin is no longer 
 possible. Man is then only a doubtful improve- 
 ment on his cattle ! They at least are not the 
 victims of the moral turpitude which covers man 
 with shame and fills his spirit with the anguish of 
 remorse. It is quite impossible to define the 
 moral law, even in its broadest outlines, as distin- 
 guished from the laws of physical nature, without 
 specifying its exclusive reference to beings pos- 
 sessed of will. If man be deprived of freedom by 
 any defect of nature or restraint of force he is also 
 deprived of the obligation which liberty would 
 have entailed. While action is consciously self- 
 determined, if it be found to contradict the moral 
 law, it is sin ; but if the power of self-determina- 
 tion have been removed, the action may be per- 
 nicious in the extreme but it will not be rightly 
 named sin. The lunatic may kill his brother, but
 
 92 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION". 
 
 it is not murder ; the helpless may be compelled 
 to apply the torch, but it is not arson ; the weak 
 may be forced to submit to the brutal violence of 
 the strong, and remain pure. These important 
 principles being laid down we proceed to consider 
 Sin in various aspects. 
 
 I. " Sin is the transgression of the law." (i John 
 iii. 4.) St. John is arguing against sinful practices 
 which are not specifically enumerated in the Deca- 
 logue. His condemnation of them is that they are 
 nevertheless forbidden. " Whosoever committeth 
 sin transgresseth also the law." The law demands 
 perfect purity both of will and deed. Any viola- 
 tion of purity is therefore a breach of the law, 
 whether the special case be mentioned or not. A 
 sinless Example has been given to afford a lucid 
 interpretation of the law. To be " like Him " is 
 the joy of the future ; to purify ourselves " even 
 as He is pure," the duty of the present. 
 
 (a) The law applies, not only to the outward 
 act, as Kant and others maintain, but also to the 
 inward motive which prompts to the outward act. 
 In fact the Sermon on the Mount makes this so 
 clear that it is strange anyone professing to be in 
 any sense a Christian should think otherwise. 
 The law overrules the deed, but it goes beyond 
 this to the very being of the man, because it be- 
 gins with the inner part of the act, the sentiment 
 which includes the habitual tendency of the per- 
 son's will, his motives and state of feeling, his likes 
 and dislikes. St. Paul to the Romans (ii. 15) 
 plainly lays down this principle. The law is writ- 
 ten in the spirit of man, gives him knowledge of
 
 sin. 93 
 
 good and evil of which conscience bears witness, 
 and urges him to the fulfilment of the good by ar- 
 gument native and inborn. 
 
 {b) While the law always requires absolute 
 purity both of motive and action, it recognizes 
 the distinction between imperfection and sin ; and 
 allows opportunity for growth and development 
 in habit of thought, feeling and conduct. Moral 
 perfection is not realized immediately in any finite 
 creature. Even the holy angels are supposed by 
 Butler to have " acquired habits of virtue," and 
 thus to have reached a degree of perfection not 
 before attained, though always sin-less. Thus also 
 our Lord " increased in favor with God " — a point 
 seldom noticed. Doubtless unfolding powers on 
 the line of moral development have their own spe- 
 cial attraction. There is a moral integrity distinct 
 from moral perfection ; a state which has not yet 
 reached the ideal, though it does not contradict it. 
 There are qualities of character slowly acquired 
 during this process of growth not otherwise to be 
 attained. Our Lord " learned obedience by the 
 things which He suffered " and by this means 
 realized a virtue quite different from anything 
 possible to absolute innocence. Evil cannot there- 
 fore be defined as the " imperfection inseparable 
 from finitude," or as a " failure to reach the full 
 requirement of the moral law," or merely as an 
 " incomplete good ; '' it is different in kind from all 
 these, and is rightly characterized as " the trans- 
 gression of the law." 
 
 II. Sin is also disobedience to God. Reason 
 and conscience have already told us of God —
 
 94 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 Reason that He is the Creator and Ruler, con- 
 science that He is the moral Governor of the 
 world. Our own personality is also the evidence 
 of God's personality. The elements of personal- 
 ity are self-consciousness and self-determination. 
 These powers we possess though in the midst 
 of limitations clearly defined in consciousness. 
 Whence come these powers ? Can the self-con- 
 scious be derived from the unconscious ? As well 
 seek for the living among the dead, or attempt the 
 derivation of mind from matter. Both have been 
 tried with patience and marked ability, but abso- 
 lutely without success. The " impersonal con- 
 sciousness" of Hegel, and the impersonal " Force" 
 of Mr. Spencer remain forever in hopeless contra- 
 diction with the findings of human reason. Human 
 self -consciousness and self-determination which 
 constitute human personality imply similar quali- 
 ties in the Power which created them. Reason is 
 the appropriate guide of our self-consciousness, and 
 conscience of our self-determination or will. The 
 will only realizes its true ideal when it identifies 
 itself with the contents of the moral law, when it 
 makes conscience the continual guide of its mani- 
 fold activities. 
 
 We are thus led up to God as the author of the 
 moral law. In the beautiful words of Muller (p. 
 81), "God is the only immediate object of our 
 moral obligation, the foundation of all other obli- 
 gations; every moral duty is a duty toward God, 
 and whatever truly binds us in our conscience is 
 the will of God ; obedience to the law is obedience 
 rendered to the living God, "of Whom, in Whom,
 
 SIM 95 
 
 and to Whom " we are. The relation in which the 
 rational creature stands to God his Creator, when 
 it is true and normal, is the first and closest ; from 
 Him all moral life springs, on Him it depends at 
 every point of its development, and to Him it ever 
 returns from its manifold determinations as to a 
 fixed centre." ..." All morality is recog- 
 nized as unconscious religion, and true religion 
 proves itself to be the consciousness of morality." 
 The source of the moral law is now apparent. 
 Just as God has life in Himself and is the absolute 
 and only source thereof, so is He also moral by the 
 very necessity of His being. The moral law is the 
 expression of God's will because that will is itself 
 the exercise of absolute Truth and Right. The 
 will of God is no arbitrary power, but forever 
 moves in the freedom of perfect Reason. " It is 
 impossible for God to lie." He "cannot deny 
 Himself." Absolute Truth and Holiness are in- 
 separable from every exercise of the Absolute Life 
 and Power. The original source of the moral law 
 as thus revealed furnishes a sufficient explanation of 
 the unconditional authority which it asserts in con- 
 sciousness. Human passion may rise up in oppo- 
 sition, and in the wild fury of its tempest overthrow 
 all barriers of restraint. But in the midst of its 
 wildest rage the authority of the moral law calmly 
 reasserts its presence and refuses to be discrowned. 
 The categorical imperative of moral right remains 
 like some projecting cliff immovable against the 
 surge. Though the dreary waste of a ruined life 
 be strewed with the wreckage of broken vows and 
 shattered resolve, conscience will still abide to bear
 
 g6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 its unshaken testimony to the Eternal Will whence 
 it came. 
 
 Moral evil gathers now something more of its 
 true import. It is not only the " transgression of 
 the law " prescribed by the authority of the Crea- 
 tor for the government of the creature, but it is 
 antagonism to the very essence of God's nature, 
 deliberate disobedience to His will as expressed in 
 the human conscience, and a violation of the con- 
 ditions of human life. 
 
 III. It is the self-assertion of the creature 
 against the fundamental law of dependence. " Ye 
 shall be as gods " was the essence of the original 
 temptation. The self-will which denies the higher 
 claim of the Creative will is the root of sin. 
 " When man perceives the true relation in which 
 he stands to his Maker, his respect for the uncon- 
 ditional authority of the law is transformed into a 
 ready obedience to a personal God. All the con- 
 tents of the moral law are involved in the recogni- 
 tion of this relation " (Muller, p. 108). But how 
 shall this relation be made clear ? In man's im- 
 perfect state of moral development various mo- 
 tives affect him. The fear of punishment, a vague 
 dread of the Creator's power, the servile feeling 
 of the helpless servant to his master — all of these 
 constantly influence men, yet none of them can be 
 accepted as the real principle of the moral law. 
 There is something more potent than all of these. 
 Our Lord has both defined and illustrated it. The 
 real principle of the moral law is love. " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart." 
 This is indeed the first and great commandment.
 
 sin. 97 
 
 It embraces all others. For while the second is 
 plainly stated it is manifest that it is contained in 
 the first. God is not only the chief object of 
 man's love, but He is the absolute and all-embrac- 
 ing object of this love. All other love becomes 
 holy and abiding only as it is comprehended in 
 love to God. A love which lays claim to the 
 whole inner life — all the heart, the soul, the mind, 
 the strength — cannot stand on a level with other 
 commands however holy and just and good, it 
 must dominate them all, and by penetrating as- 
 similate and consecrate them. " Love is the ful- 
 filling of the law." It binds into one organic 
 whole the One and the All. It is eternal, while 
 other virtues having to do with man's temporal 
 state are temporal. It is the essence of moral 
 good, being in itself the pure willing of what is 
 good and right. Every kind of action is truly 
 moral only as it springs from love. " God is 
 good " (Mark x. 18) because " He is Love" (i John 
 iv. 8, 1 6), and His holiness and righteousness as 
 they are realized in His creatures are the practi- 
 cal communication of His love. 
 
 But love can only exist between personal beings. 
 Like so much else it is shadowed in nature both 
 in plant and animal life. Too often because of 
 our affinity with the lower portion of creation have 
 we been willing to grasp the shadow. Too often 
 have we listened to the voice of bird and flower as 
 though they summed the harmonies of the uni- 
 verse. Everywhere in nature are the indications 
 of some better thing to come. What nature 
 dimly foretells in these her deepest mysteries, is 
 7
 
 98 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 realized in consciousness, and raised to its full 
 truth in the region of personal existence. Here 
 we find an independent centre of being possess- 
 ing power of self-determination. Shall the person 
 gather to himself and hold for himself all faculties 
 and powers ? Being free he may, being good he 
 will not. God is Love. Therefore He creates, 
 voluntarily goes out of Himself in order to live in 
 and for others ; therefore also He redeems and 
 sanctifies. 
 
 Passing to man the same eternal principle holds. 
 We can only love as we voluntarily go out of our- 
 selves that we may live in and for the object of 
 our love. All sacredness of social relation has its 
 root here. All pure and profound affection whe- 
 ther of man or woman unfolds from this germ. 
 Religion and morals gather here their fragrance 
 and beauty. 
 
 Love can only become the principle of a higher 
 life when it makes itself manifest in its true char- 
 acter. It does not show itself in its fulness until 
 it becomes conscious of God as its absolute object, 
 and of all its other object ins their true relation to 
 Him. This is the very essence and life of faith. 
 " He that cometh to God must believe that He 
 is ; " but why should anyone trust Him if He be 
 not loved ? Love to God is realized when it 
 knowingly receives and appropriates the "grace of 
 life," and in return surrenders enlightened rea- 
 son and purified affection to Him so as no longer 
 to live unto itself but unto Him. 
 
 Indeed on the theory of Spencer all this must 
 sound as the wildest nonsense. We cannot bestow
 
 snv. 99 
 
 the homage of a grateful heart upon gravitation, 
 nor address " Persistent Force " in terms of affec- 
 tion. " Worship of the silent sort " is alone suit- 
 able before the throne of the " Unknowable," and 
 it must be as unfeeling and insensate as it is dumb. 
 
 On the principles of Hegel which regard God 
 in His relation to man only as a principle which 
 gives personality, and not as Himself a person 
 there is, of course, no place for love to God as a 
 living fellowship between personal beings. 
 
 This vagueness can never obtain the sanction of 
 our consciousness. We know ourselves as per- 
 sons distinct from God and from each other. 
 Human love is not absorption but unity. The 
 continued distinctness of each personality is essen- 
 tial to the existence of the love which unites them. 
 Man's individuality is not lost in perfect love to 
 God, even could that be reached. To " see Him 
 as He is," to be " changed into the same image 
 from glory to glory," to " know even as also we 
 are known," to be "perfect even as our Father in 
 Heaven is perfect " — these and multitudes of other 
 Scriptures attest at once the unity and difference 
 reached and realized by those who are " made per- 
 fect in love." 
 
 And as love to God is thus seen to be the high- 
 est moral good possible to man, it is plain that 
 moral evil must be the reverse of this. 
 
 St. Paul to the Romans (i. 23-28) plainly lays 
 bare the root of the matter. " They changed the 
 truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served 
 the creature more than the Creator." Those who 
 do not " wish to retain God in their knowledge "
 
 100 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION - . 
 
 are not compelled to do so ; but they will soon 
 find that they cannot maintain the supremacy of 
 the spirit over matter. The inner apostasy of the 
 soul from God is the root of all other moral evil. 
 The soul thus torn loose from its natural anchor- 
 age drifts helplessly at the mercy of every current 
 and gale. Attention, thought, love, are now cen- 
 tred on self. The Rights of God and man are 
 alike forgotten by the soul thus thinking only of 
 itself. Sin is manifest in its true character when 
 the soul withdraws from loving submission to 
 God and chooses its own way. Two consequences 
 ensue, the " foolish heart " becomes " darkened," 
 and corrupt passions grow by indulgence until the 
 perversion becomes complete, and the hopeless 
 reprobate is left to his own devices, " given over 
 to vile affections." Sin, therefore, in its inner- 
 most essence is selfishness. The sinner may be 
 diverted by many things from his true allegiance, 
 but these are only means by which he seeks a self- 
 ish pleasure. Nor need this pleasure be outward 
 indulgence in things condemned by the average 
 judgment of mankind. The positive essence of 
 sin is in the fixing of the soul upon itself. The 
 elder brother in the parable is free from the gross- 
 ness of the younger, yet is he also selfish in his 
 self-centred isolation, and is self- excluded from the 
 brightness of the Father's house. 
 
 Here we must distinguish between that self-love 
 which is essential to our healthy development and 
 that selfishness which proves both sinful and disas- 
 trous. 
 
 There is a respect which everyone owes himself.
 
 SIM ioi 
 
 In common with all other creatures the instinct of 
 self-preservation is present in man and commands 
 attention. This, however, has no moral character 
 whatever. It is simply a law of created nature 
 and obtains universally among creatures that have 
 life. But we are conscious of quite another feel- 
 ing alongside of this. The sense of moral dignity 
 arises from our conscious relation to God. Man 
 cannot respect his dignity in the high moral sense 
 here intended except as he realizes that he has 
 been made in God's image and is required to main- 
 tain it undefiled. This sense of obligation will 
 often force from his compressed lips the terrible 
 cry of anguish of St. Paul, " O wretched man that I 
 am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this 
 death ? " And the answer will come, as it alone 
 can come, from the great Source of all hope and 
 life — "I thank God, through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." Yes, a true realization of the principle of 
 self-love will urge us to give ourselves up to God, 
 that we may receive back again from Him the gift 
 of greater ability to love and serve Him. 
 
 IV. Sin involves guilt. 
 
 The conception of guilt implies that the sinner 
 is the real author of the sin. Upon him must rest 
 the burden of responsibility. This involves the 
 principle of causation. Man originates action by 
 the exercise of his will. In the sphere of morals 
 the wilful violation of the moral law entails guilt. 
 I say the " wilful violation ; " for if the will be 
 co-erced by superior power, it is deprived of free- 
 dom, and is not guilty. But here it will not do to 
 plead the strength of evil passions or other de-
 
 102 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 praved qualities of our nature in denial ; for our 
 moral consciousness bears witness that these base 
 attributes do but add to our condemnation. The 
 sense of ill-desert attaches not only to the act of 
 transgression or disobedience, or selfish indulgence, 
 but also to the weakness of moral resolve out of 
 which the action grew. Conscience will not allow 
 us to escape from a twofold condemnation : — We 
 have separated ourselves from God, and we have 
 disturbed the order of which we form a part. 
 
 The question of the different degrees of guilt 
 which occupies so large a place in theological 
 literature we cannot enter upon here. 
 
 It is more important to remember that the de- 
 gree of guilt by no means depends upon our cog- 
 nizance of it. We may so far harden our hearts 
 as to call good evil and evil good, but we are not 
 therefore freed from guilt. Even in such an ex- 
 treme case man cannot become so utterly depraved 
 as to be altogether insensible to moral distinctions. 
 It must, however, be confessed that guilt is far 
 wider in its range among men than the personal 
 consciousness of it would always lead us to infer. 
 Yet though often dormant, conscience is, happily, 
 rarely altogether smothered. It is the divine bond 
 which unites the created spirit — however fallen — 
 with its original. And while there is nothing 
 more awful than its despair, it is better to find it 
 trembling on the verge than sunk in the stupor of 
 insensibility. 
 
 But how can this view of man's guilt and re- 
 sponsibility be reconciled with the fact of Divine 
 creation and providence ? If God be immanent in
 
 SI2V. 103 
 
 nature, and if in Him " we live and move and have 
 our being " how can He be held free from partici- 
 pation in our sin ? Must we not modify the stern 
 doctrine here defined as to the nature of sin and 
 sense of guilt or lay some portion of the blame on 
 Him Whose all-embracing Providence ordereth 
 all things both in heaven and earth ? 
 
 To this we reply that we must distinguish be- 
 tween the original creation of man and the provi- 
 dence which sustains him. "As God's world-sus- 
 taining activity leaves all natures as it finds them, 
 compassing irrational as well as rational natures, 
 the evil as well as the good (Matt. v. 45), it in no 
 way destroys nor interferes with man's responsibil- 
 ity for his sins whether of act, of resolve, or of in- 
 clination." (Muller, p. 232.) "Man derives his 
 power to act, to decide, to desire, from God alone 
 every moment of his life; but he desires, or re- 
 solves upon, or does evil of himself ' (p. 233). 
 " God made man upright, but they have sought 
 out many inventions." 
 
 The grievous character of Sin is that it is an 
 abuse of Divine goodness. The mind which God 
 has made with powers of reason employs those 
 powers against their Author. " This is the con- 
 demnation, that light is come into the world, and 
 men love darkness rather than light, because their 
 deeds are evil." 
 
 The passionate denial of God's goodness which 
 " leadeth to repentance " because He does not 
 annihilate the wicked is surely sadly out of place 
 in those who are the subjects of His forbearance. 
 
 But in order to see sin in its real nature we must
 
 104 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 obtain a view of a nature absolutely free from sin. 
 It is by the contrast of the good that we shall 
 come to understand the true quality of the evil. 
 Abstract reasonings on the nature of God, crea- 
 tion and providence are invaluable and necessary 
 but they cannot bring home to our minds the true 
 import of the great theme. We must be privi- 
 leged to see absolute Innocence in actual contact 
 with sin if we are to learn the true meaning of 
 virtue and its opposite. Thus only can we hope 
 in some measure to understand how God may live 
 and suffer in the midst of human sin and sorrow 
 without annihilating the sinner or being stained 
 by contact with his sin. 
 
 The Almighty power of Love, going out from 
 the glory which He had with the Father before 
 the world was, that He might give Himself to 
 men in order to bring them back to God. This it 
 is which explains Divine forbearance, long suffer- 
 ing, goodness and mercy. An impersonal " Force" 
 may suit the intellect which forgets its origin ; a 
 pure "Nothing" may meet all the requirements 
 of a logic which ignores the facts of consciousness ; 
 a " Stream of Tendency " may satisfy the poetic 
 imagination ; but the poor Prodigal now " come to 
 himself" and conscious of his fallen and lost estate 
 will bid away from him all such " miserable com- 
 forters " and will cry in tones which will pierce the 
 clouds and darkness round about His throne — 
 " Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before 
 Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy 
 son!" And why? Love has shed its burnished 
 glory athwart the darkened windows of his soul.
 
 s/jv. 105 
 
 Love has touched the blinded eyeballs of his 
 reason. Love has filled with iridescent splendors 
 the riven chambers of his broken heart. Love 
 has flashed along the sickening pathway of his ex- 
 perience. Love has opened wide the portals of 
 immortality. Love, bathed in tears, and sorrow, 
 and blood and death and life, has taken him for 
 its own. 
 
 O death, where is thy sting ? 
 O grave, where is thy victory ? 
 
 V. Sin is also disease. 
 
 The laws of heredity cannot be ignored. The 
 sins of the fathers are visited upon the children 
 even to the third and fourth generation. Insanity 
 in all its forms, scrofula and brutal passions are 
 the natural offspring of depraved parentage. The 
 laws of nature visit penalties upon those who 
 violate them that posterity may learn wisdom. 
 Here it is emphatically true that no man liveth 
 unto himself. Though he spend his life in selfish 
 indulgence nature will warn coming generations 
 against a repetition of his crimes. The sin once 
 committed can never be forgotten. From age to 
 age it reappears in all the hateful malignity of its 
 true character ; the truly awful horror of it being 
 seen in this, that it withers the life of the innocent, 
 and blights with the sickening anguish of despair 
 the hearts which have been guilty of no crime save 
 the miserable accident of birth. 
 
 We may make what objection we please to the 
 Scriptural account of the Fall, but these hard facts 
 of human experience remain to be accounted for.
 
 106 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 On what theory may they be accounted for ? 
 Some better explanation must at least be at- 
 tempted before that we have so long considered 
 sufficient be set aside. 
 
 On the theory of Evolution and Survival of the 
 fittest these anomalies ought to have been elimin- 
 ated long ago. Hegelianism leaves no room for 
 their existence or their cure. Shall we ask the 
 Science of Biology ? Professor Drummond will 
 tell us that these evils are parasitic growths, to be 
 accounted for without the least difficulty on the 
 principles of Natural law in the Spiritual world. 
 Yet he will himself confess that parasites are the 
 degenerate scions of a nobler family. Whence 
 have they descended, and why ? are the very ques- 
 tions we wish to have answered. How such a very 
 awful degeneracy should exist is exactly the point 
 which science fails to make clear. Parasites it is 
 true afflict us, but they are not natural to us. 
 They come from without, create serious disturb- 
 ance, and even destroy life ; but still they are for- 
 eign enemies, and can by no means be classed 
 among our native properties. They are themselves 
 often a disease, always produce disease, are some- 
 times hereditary, but always unnatural and for- 
 eign. In these respects they wonderfully resem- 
 ble sin. If it first found life in the rebellious will 
 of a created angel, and thence degenerating more 
 and more, at length found lodgement in the soul 
 of the first parents of our race whence it has been 
 propagated to all succeeding generations, this is at 
 least as scientific as any other exposition of the 
 facts we experience yet offered. It has now be-
 
 SLV. IO7 
 
 come fashionable and passes for a sign of learning 
 to make light of the old account in Genesis as be- 
 ing quite unworthy the attention of all " duly ad- 
 vanced intellects." But plain common sense, to 
 say nothing of reverence, should induce us to pre- 
 serve what we have until something better is pre- 
 sented. Hence we maintain that sin is an heredi- 
 tary disease with which our race is afflicted. The 
 cf)p6v7](j.a (rap/cos of which St. Paul speaks is plainly 
 proved by experience to exist as a terrible evil in- 
 herent in the nature of everyone that naturally is 
 engendered of the offspring of Adam. It proves 
 its tremendous power by the tendency to degener- 
 ate which is so marked a feature of our race. Ad- 
 vancement in civilization and the Arts affords no 
 security against deadly poison. The civilization 
 which built the Pyramids fell before it. The 
 mighty monarchies of the Oriental world crum- 
 bled beneath its power. The profound intellect 
 and aesthetic culture of Greece yielded to its in- 
 sidious influence. The majesty of Roman power 
 sunk into a cruel luxury born of this fatal parent- 
 age. England's throne has trembled often because 
 undermined by moral evil. Our own boasted prog- 
 ress threatens to go to pieces from the internal 
 pressure of intemperance, impurity and insatiable 
 lust of gain. Individual lives are blasted, families 
 shattered and headless, and political agencies have 
 become so hopelessly corrupt that even our noble 
 and delicately reared women feel compelled to put 
 forth their hands to stay the tottering ark of a na- 
 tion's hopes. 
 
 Shall we be told that all this is the necessary re-
 
 108 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 suit of environment ? That the persistence of 
 Force follows the "line of least resistance," and 
 that therefore this state of things is the natural 
 course of development and the survival of the fit- 
 test ? That " aborted organs " and " parasitic 
 growths" are of small account and signify nothing 
 in the grand total ? That distortions, retrogres- 
 sions and anomalies, are only the " necessary mo- 
 ments of the process" by which the pure Nothing 
 becomes manifested in experience ? Yes, we have 
 been told all this and much more of the same 
 sort, but is anyone satisfied with this tale whose 
 experience of life has been shattered, withered and 
 torn by the misery of sin ; who has inherited the 
 curse of vile affections ; who has found within him- 
 self those evil " desires of the flesh and of the 
 mind " which have driven him from bad to worse 
 until life has become a burden grievous to be borne ? 
 Theories such as those under review may serve for 
 men quietly cloistered in secluded homes with leis- 
 ure for speculation and untouched of care ; but for 
 those who labor in the midst of this poor world, 
 and who come face to face with its struggling thou- 
 sands in the midst of all their wickedness and woe, 
 they are but artificial men of straw as perishable 
 as they are easily constructed. No, they cannot 
 meet the case. Sin is a dread reality, a dire dis- 
 temper which affects our nature, and which philo- 
 sophy and science have so far failed either to ex- 
 plain or remedy. Is there then no remedy ? God 
 forbid ! " God commendeth His love toward us 
 in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for 
 us."
 
 S/AT. 109 
 
 Thus the soul of man shows itself as divided 
 against itself. The law of the mind is found war- 
 ring against the law of the members. The ten- 
 dency towards God is opposed by the tendency 
 towards the evil that is in the world. Both are 
 real, but the one is native to humanity, the other 
 foreign. Can the broken unity be restored ? is the 
 question which philosophy must meet and answer. 
 The Dualism which makes the evil co-eternal with 
 good is plainly useless for this purpose. The Sci- 
 entific unity which ignores the reality of the evil 
 as a substantive virus poisoning the springs of hu- 
 man life is clearly inadequate. The Ideal unity 
 which denies the reality both of good and evil, 
 blending them in a perpetual " becoming," is equal- 
 ly delusive. The Materialist and the Pantheist 
 are alike unable to meet our needs, for there is no 
 room in either system for the profound reality of 
 moral distinctions. In all of these we drift hope- 
 lessly because each gives only a partial truth which 
 is counteracted and neutralized by a vast amount 
 of error. 
 
 Theism meets the case because it allows for the 
 creation of free beings capable of obedience or dis- 
 obedience, and therefore, of doing good or evil. 
 But lest we should look upon God as altogether 
 removed from interest in us because of our vileness 
 the Incarnation reveals Him as being, not only 
 near to everyone of us because He is immanent in 
 Nature, but as profoundly concerned for our re- 
 covery in that He has taken the limitations of our 
 Nature into union with His own in order to im- 
 part the virtues of the Divine Nature to ours.
 
 HO THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION; 
 
 He has bestowed upon human nature new gifts of 
 life and love to be the sanctifying and healing 
 power by which the poison of sin may be over- 
 come. Here we have, in the synthesis of a higher 
 unity, all the great facts harmoniously combined. 
 " There is therefore now no condemnation to them 
 which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the 
 flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free 
 from the law of sin and death." (Rom. viii. i, 2.) 
 " For he hath made Him to be sin for us, who 
 knew no sin ; that we might be made the righteous- 
 ness of God in Him." (2 Cor. v. 21.)
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 REDEMPTION. 
 
 " I know that my Redeemer liveth." — Job xix. 25. 
 
 ACCORDING to the view taken in these 
 lectures the Incarnation is held to have 
 been fundamental in the plan of the universe and 
 not merely an expedient to counteract the evil of 
 sin. 
 
 The Incarnation has been considered as the 
 method chosen by God before the world was for 
 the revelation of Himself. Sin is probably one 
 among many contingencies known and unknown 
 to us, which however, were foreseen and provided 
 for by the " determinate counsel and foreknowl- 
 edge of God " ere yet the morning stars had 
 tuned their first Matin song. These contingen- 
 cies have afforded occasion for the indefinite modi- 
 fication of the actual experience of the Son of 
 Man, but cannot rightly be assigned as the cause 
 of the Incarnation. The narrower view which re- 
 strains the Incarnation to the position of a con- 
 trivance devised by infinite wisdom and love for 
 the rescue of fallen humanity seems both unphil- 
 osophical and unscriptural. 
 
 I. Redemption must necessarily be governed 
 by the same principles as the Incarnation. Its
 
 112 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 base can be neither broader nor narrower, its pur- 
 pose neither less nor more. " Love's Redeeming 
 work " is infinitely more profound than any other 
 of which we have any knowledge. 
 
 The great question is : — How shall the Infinite 
 become known to the finite, how shall the Creator 
 reveal Himself to the creature ? 
 
 Scripture points out several methods by which 
 in "divers parts" this knowledge has been vouch- 
 safed. 
 
 i. Perhaps the most conspicuous is the account 
 of the origin of all things as given in the opening 
 of Genesis. Historians, prophets, poets and phi- 
 losophers have placed on record the impressions 
 made upon them by the external universe. For 
 simplicity, solemnity and grandeur nothing can 
 exceed the glowing language of the sacred writers 
 as they spell out the alphabet of the stars and 
 read in their lettered tracery the " handiwork " of 
 the great Creator. Their changeableness, evan- 
 escence, perishableness in contrast with the etern- 
 ity of God are marked features of their descrip- 
 tions. Thus the writer to the Hebrews sum- 
 marises : — " Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid 
 the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are 
 the works of thine hands : They shall perish ; but 
 Thou remainest ; and they all shall wax old as 
 doth a garment ; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold 
 them up, and they shall be changed : but Thou art 
 the same, and Thy years shall not fail." (Heb. i. 
 10-12.) 
 
 Providence is also a favorite theme by which 
 the prophets delight to exhibit the farseeing fore-
 
 REDE MP TIOJST. 1 1 3 
 
 knowledge of God " declaring the end from the 
 beginning." 
 
 Of His government too, as doing "according to 
 His will in the army of heaven and among the 
 inhabitants of the earth " they speak with rever- 
 ence and awe. 
 
 Of His majesty and truth, His " eternal power 
 and Godhead " as manifested by the " things that 
 are made " poets sing and apostles write. 
 
 Yet, it remains true that " no man hath seen 
 God at any time." All these "manifestations" 
 fall infinitely short of a " revelation." 
 
 2. If the Divine purpose in Creation were merely 
 to bring into existence millions of automata to be 
 guided by fixed laws, and ruled through all pos- 
 sible evolutions by almighty power and infinite 
 wisdom, the scheme of creation and providence as 
 traced in Scripture affords abundant illustration 
 with which science and philosophy may compare 
 their conclusions. But if this be only the least 
 part of the Divine purpose it will be well for 
 those who assume it as the whole to proceed with 
 caution. On the principles of Spencer and Hegel 
 already reviewed, Man is merely an automaton, 
 a creature of circumstances, without any more 
 freedom of will than the cabbage on which he 
 feeds, and no more responsibility than the whipped 
 dog from whose cringing howl he has learned to 
 pray ! On these principles there is no room for the 
 Incarnation and none for Redemption. It is only 
 as the veriest travesty of our most cherished con- 
 victions and most certain knowledge that the word 
 " Religion " can be used in connection with the
 
 114 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 system of Mr. Spencer. The shadowy vagueness 
 of Hegel allows it, as we have seen, but little more 
 significance. 
 
 But if our study of man's nature have been even 
 approximately correct we are in a position to find, 
 at least in much larger measure, the Divine pur- 
 pose in Creation. Various portions of the uni- 
 verse manifest various elements of this purpose. 
 Material adjustment, mechanical contrivance, spe- 
 cial adaptation of chemical and vital to the other 
 laws found operative in nature all display in 
 their respective spheres qualities of that " Force" 
 of which Mr. Spencer writes ; or changeful " be- 
 comings" of the "Thought" which antedates 
 them all, if Hegel may be allowed to speak ; or 
 " manifestations " of " God's eternal power and 
 Godhead, which are clearly seen, being understood 
 by the things that are made," if St. Paul may be 
 heard upon the question. But it is not in these 
 that we shall find the purpose of God in creation. 
 They seem rather like means to an end than the 
 end itself. Necessary perhaps as preliminaries 
 and to afford a theatre for the exercise of other 
 and far greater powers. In all of this there is no 
 tax upon Omnipotence, nor any test of inexhausti- 
 ble resources, nor any measure of the Infinite. 
 And just here has been the mistake of many 
 writers upon the argument from teleology. The 
 universe is wonderful as a piece of mechanism, but 
 it affords no evidence that omnipotence was needed 
 to create nor omniscience to guide it ; and there- 
 fore the attempt to conclude these attributes as 
 essential qualities of its Author is rightly con- 
 S
 
 kEDEMPTIOrt. 1 1 <, 
 
 demned as illogical. In other words there is 
 vastly more in God possible to be made known 
 to man than all the suns and systems of immensity 
 can unveil. 
 
 The Incarnation has already shown us great 
 fields of thought quite outside of those now 
 brought into view. " God " was " manifest in the 
 flesh " that He might take the " Manhood into 
 God." He laid aside His glory and " took our 
 nature upon Him " that He might " make us 
 partakers of the Divine nature" and raise us up to 
 share the "glory" which He "had before the 
 world was." The Divine purpose in Creation is 
 the revelation of God in all the fulness of His 
 love. But how shall the depths of love be 
 sounded ? How shall the creature be made to 
 know the meaning of the words " God is Love ? " 
 Love cannot be taught theoretically. It must be 
 experienced to be known, but may be indefinite- 
 ly illustrated, and its intensity and reality made 
 plain to those whom it may never bless. 
 
 3. Redemption sounds the depths of love. 
 
 (a.) In relation to God. 
 
 We have no sympathy with that class of 
 theology which represents a discord as being 
 introduced among the Divine attributes by sin, 
 and which finds place for Redemption in reconcil- 
 ing God with Himself by eliminating this discord. 
 Nor can we accept the teaching which hopes to 
 remove all difficulty by assigning to the work of 
 Christ the task of "reconciling His Father to us." 
 Both of these views, aside from other serious 
 objections, make " the sacrifice of the death
 
 Il6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 of Christ " an after-thought in the economy of 
 the universe. This we consider as being quite 
 inconceivable and unphilosophical. However the 
 eternal Son may have been made " manifest in 
 these last times " He was "verily foreordained be- 
 fore the foundation of the world." (i Pet. i. 20.) 
 Redemption is as much native and eternal in the 
 mind of God as Creation is, and as surely enters 
 into every movement of the " Force which the 
 universe manifests to us." 
 
 In touching what is called the " problem of 
 pain " all our reasoning will be unsatisfactory as 
 long as God is held to be incapable of suffering. 
 Doubtless this statement sounds startling. Yet it 
 is plainly true whatever difficulty it may make 
 among our preconceived opinions. If we ask 
 " Why do the innocent suffer ? " we shall probably 
 find ourselves unable to reply in a satisfactory 
 manner. As an " example of patience," for " ac- 
 quisition of habits of virtue," for the " development 
 of qualities of character not otherwise attainable," 
 for the " probation and testing of faith and love " — 
 yes, all of these have been rightly assigned as pre- 
 cious blessings accompanying the experience of the 
 most holy of God's suffering saints. But while 
 we value these as " peaceable fruits of righteous- 
 ness " matured in the school of discipline, it is be- 
 cause we are conscious of the " weakness of our 
 mortal nature " that we justify the means used for 
 the accomplishment of the end. In other words 
 it is because we are not innocent that such exposi- 
 tions commend themselves to our consciences. 
 The sense of ill-desert present in every " humble
 
 REDEMPTION. WJ 
 
 and contrite heart " consents to the justice which 
 it confesses has been rightly called into exercise. 
 But remove this sense of ill-desert and all the 
 boasted explanation will lose its power to soothe 
 the aching heart or silence the questioning intel- 
 lect. 
 
 And if we ask the farther question " Why do 
 the innocent suffer for the guilty?" we shall 
 find the answer still more difficult. Although we 
 have become accustomed not only to accept but to 
 defend the justice and equity of our experience in 
 this regard, yet we feel the grave inadequacy of all 
 our arguments. There is a feeling always latent 
 in spite of our best efforts to expel it that there is 
 a mystery in this which we have not solved. 
 
 But if we could broaden out our view to take 
 in the Divine Order as seen in every " family in 
 heaven and earth" (Ephes. iii. 15) — embracing 
 the many fatherhoods of the heavenly world 
 where sin has never entered — we would find there 
 a sphere for the revelation of the Divine nature 
 wider than that of our own experience. 
 
 It is plain from St. Paul's glowing language to 
 the Ephesians that the beings in heavenly places 
 have information given them on the mysteries of 
 Divine Providence through the agency of the 
 Church. The " manifold wisdom of God " can- 
 not be revealed to those radiant spirits save 
 through the Incarnation. 
 
 The duty of love to deny itself for the sake of 
 others may be urged on general principles among 
 weak and suffering creatures ; but how shall this 
 duty be made plain to those who are not weak
 
 Il8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 and do not suffer ? What sort of " acquaintance 
 with grief " is possible to holy angels ? What can 
 they know of self-denial ? What grace of sympathy 
 is open to them ? Whatever may be the extent 
 of their knowledge they must be ignorant of such 
 commonplaces of human experience as these; and 
 therefore they are strangers to the deepest char- 
 acteristics of the Divine nature. 
 
 Now if God submit to the limitations of His 
 own powers that He may show His creature some 
 qualities of His being not otherwise to be revealed, 
 and if He is willing to endure the pain which 
 comes of self-sacrifice, the mystery of pain will not 
 be removed, but all argument based upon it against 
 the goodness of God will be forever silenced. 
 
 It will be impossible to accuse of harshness the 
 Being who first endures whatever of deepest sac- 
 rifice He requires of His creature. The suppres- 
 sion of our profoundest emotions at the imperial 
 bidding of the higher law of another's good can- 
 not be cheerfully effected until the eye of the soul 
 has witnessed its august illustration in Redeeming 
 Love. When God imposes limitations upon Him- 
 self, and at once reveals His love for His creature 
 and measures its intensity by taking upon Him- 
 self the " imperfection inseparable from finitude," 
 He affords a practical manifestation of His " mani- 
 fold wisdom " which may well challenge the ad- 
 miration of Angels. 
 
 Upon the majestic splendor of the eternal, invis- 
 ible and all-wise God, who only hath immortality, 
 dwelling in the light, whom no man hath seen nor 
 can see, no creature has ever been privileged to
 
 REDEMPTION. 1 1 9 
 
 look. Hence they must have for ever remained 
 ignorant of His love, though all the universe were 
 filled with its radiance, had He not veiled the 
 brightness of His presence. The glory which 
 the eternal Son had before the foundation of the 
 world is counted as nothing if only by resigning 
 it the " whole family in heaven and earth" may 
 learn to know how much " more blessed it is to give 
 than to receive." The glorious and almighty Be- 
 ing was not willing to enjoy the vast resources of 
 His mighty empire in the solitude of undisturbed 
 repose. It was not sufficient that the " morning 
 stars sang together and all the sons of God 
 shouted for joy." There were deeper tones in 
 the Divine harmonies of the Blessed Trinity than 
 the symphony of Creation contained. God would 
 reveal these hidden mysteries. Holy angels must 
 learn deeper lessons of loving service than they 
 had been taught. The merely natural law of self- 
 preservation must yield to the higher law of self- 
 sacrifice for the good of others. 
 
 But how shall the Infinite, rich in the posses- 
 sion of inexhaustible resources, make known to 
 His creature this hidden law of the Divine Na- 
 ture ? The plan originally formed in the council 
 of the Eternal Trinity is carried into execution by 
 slow decrees. The " Lamb slain from the founda- 
 tion of the world " is revealed in the " fulness of 
 the time." " Love's Redeeming work is done." 
 God is shown to the universe as a suffering God, 
 taking pain into the Divine Essence that through 
 the ministry of pain all creation may receive the 
 higher life of God and gain a deeper view of the
 
 120 THE THILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 mystery of love. The " Eternal Sacrifice " seen in 
 its relation to God is the eternal self-revelation 
 of His love. Herein the deepest depths of the 
 Divine nature are brought within the range of 
 created intelligences. " The mystery which from 
 the beginning of the world hath been hid in God 
 who created all things by Jesus Christ ; " . . . 
 " is now revealed to His holy apostles and proph- 
 ets by the Spirit ; " . . . "to the intent 
 that now unto principalities and powers in heav- 
 enly places might be known by the Church the 
 manifold wisdom of God." (Ephes. iii. 5, 9, 10.) 
 
 (b.) Redemption must also be viewed in relation 
 to man. Here is no less of mystery than before. 
 We cannot help sharing the wonder of the Psal- 
 mist : — " What is man that thou art mindful of 
 him ? and the son of man that Thou visitest him ? " 
 (Ps. viii. 4.) St. John furnishes the explanation : 
 " God so loved the world ! " (John iii. 16.) 
 
 The perfection of the world is inseparable from 
 the perfect self-revelation of God. The realiza- 
 tion in time and history of the Divine Ideal is the 
 perfection of the world. In the sphere of human- 
 ity this realization involves the following particu- 
 lars : — 
 
 1. SELF-SACRIFICE. 
 
 On the principles of Evolution as presented by 
 Mr. Spencer there is no room for self-sacrifice. 
 As we have already seen the theory proceeds upon 
 the ground of selfishness. Every individual ad- 
 vantage obtained by accident or otherwise is made 
 the most of and used to the utmost power of its
 
 REDEMPTION. I 2 1 
 
 possessor. The attempt to derive altruistic moral- 
 ity from the fatalistic principles of Evolution has 
 failed, as may be seen by an examination of it in 
 the second lecture. 
 
 Indeed it is not easy on any principles of mere 
 naturalism to show why self-sacrifice should be a 
 virtue of such high order. All our natural in- 
 stincts point quite the other way. Maternal 
 tenderness may be urged in contravention, but 
 hardly with success. Offspring must fairly be 
 looked upon as part of the mother whose life and 
 substance it shares. The horror which we feel 
 when a mother forgets her true nature and spurns 
 the fruit of her womb, is itself a proof that such 
 action is unnatural and worthy of the severest con- 
 demnation on that ground. On the other hand 
 when she willingly yields her own life for the life 
 of her child she is considered to have done only 
 what nature requires of the lioness and the bear. 
 While this action may involve the very noblest 
 qualities of religion and morals it does not neces- 
 sarily do so. 
 
 But Self-sacrifice of which we speak is quite 
 another thing than this animal instinct. The 
 voluntary submission of our individual will to 
 the guidance of a higher law whose authority we 
 recognize may involve intense bitterness of soul 
 and pain of body, as has been abundantly illus- 
 trated in the martyrology of the Church. To 
 those who have thus " suffered for righteousness 
 sake" we gladly yield the homage of moral ap- 
 probation. But when called upon to explain the 
 grounds of our approval the task has not been
 
 122 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 always so accomplished as to escape rejoinder. 
 For why should not the All-wise and Good render 
 such penalty impossible to virtue ? 
 
 The Incarnation and Redemption of Christ do 
 not altogether remove the difficulty, but they ef- 
 fectually silence the objection. Here God en- 
 ters into our case and personally becomes familiar 
 with our experience. Bitterness of soul cannot be 
 known by God in His infinite wisdom, (we speak 
 reverently) it must be felt to be known. The 
 solitariness of desertion, the disappointment of be- 
 trayal, the grief of denial, the shame of nakedness 
 — all these and many more must be experienced 
 to be appreciated. The exquisite misery of lacer- 
 ated nerves, torn muscles and dislocated joints 
 coupled with the "sickening anguish of despair" 
 must be endured to be understood. Of all these 
 God would have personal knowledge ; and there- 
 fore took our nature upon Him, became a " Man 
 of sorrows and acquainted with grief," and finally 
 was " obedient unto death even the death of the 
 cross." Emphatically " He knoweth whereof we 
 are made." He enters into perfect sympathy with 
 us. He takes us by the hand and walks with us. 
 Do the thorns by the way wound our feet ? See 
 they are bound around His brow. Do want and 
 poverty afflict us ? He had not where to lay His 
 head. Do professed friends violate our confidence 
 and desert our person ? The one who fed upon 
 His bounty and dipped his hand in the same dish, 
 betrayed Him to His death. Does our burden 
 seem too great for us until flesh and spirit cry out 
 in bitter anguish ? He " bearing His cross " goeth
 
 REDEMPTION. 1 2 3 
 
 with us measuring every step by the fainting 
 agony of His own. 
 
 Now this is self-sacrifice. In the freedom of 
 absolute right to do or not to do as might seem 
 best to infinite wisdom and power Love takes 
 into itself the conditions of its object, tests each 
 one of them in turn, touches them with its own 
 sacred fire, and, while it does not remove, it 
 changes them into its own image. 
 
 2. SELF-CONQUEST. 
 
 It is not difficult to see that self-sacrifice might 
 be carried on to a great extent while the will re- 
 mained rebellious. History is full of such exam- 
 ples. Self will was the original error of our race, 
 and is not to be eradicated by any short and easy 
 method. Now if man be the mere creature of 
 circumstances, as some of our scientific writers try 
 to persuade us, this remark is, of course, absurd. 
 There can in that case be no such thing as will, 
 and it is idle to talk about its conquest or rebel- 
 lion. But if the arguments heretofore offered be 
 held of weight man's liberty of choice will not be 
 denied. The awful consideration in this whole mat- 
 ter is that God has placed Man over against Him- 
 self and given him the power to obey or disobey 
 as he may choose. The law assigned for man's 
 government is the expression of eternal and abso- 
 lute Reason. Man's will is influenced by many 
 things within and without his person. It may be 
 deceived, allured, biased ; it may be strong or 
 weak, obstinate or vacillating ; easily influenced
 
 124 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION: 
 
 for good or evil, intimidated or bribed ; and 
 through all the process retain its responsibility, 
 but it cannot be coerced without a forfeiture of its 
 fundamental characteristic. What man needs is 
 power over himself because that gives him power 
 over the circumstances of his environment. Self- 
 conquest becomes the conquest of all else. But 
 how shall man, whose history is only the record 
 of his defeats, learn this grand lesson ? How 
 shall the imperial power of self-control calm the 
 sullen waves of tempestuous passions, or command 
 the shrinking spirit to the torture, or steady the 
 vacillating soul to duty though at the cost of life 
 itself ? 
 
 Unless some new thing come to aid him man 
 will again repeat his history, for why should he 
 not yield to his scientific guides and follow the 
 " line of least resistance ? " Is there anything in 
 mere reason to justify him in seeking a remote 
 good of which he knows nothing at the cost of 
 present misery of which he is acutely conscious ? 
 Mr. Spencer, indeed, labors to make the affirma- 
 tive clear ; but it is plain to any impartial reader 
 that he is borrowing from the Christian conscious- 
 ness of his age without acknowledgment, while his 
 argument would make high morality as binding 
 on the mollusks from whose interesting " sensa- 
 tions " under the "solar ray" he obtains such 
 wonderful results, as on man. 
 
 Now just here Redeeming Love takes us by the 
 hand. " Watch with Me one hour " He says. 
 We enter the garden with Him in the moonlight 
 and watch beneath the shadows of the olive trees.
 
 redemption: 125 
 
 A great agony afflicts Him. The stillness of the 
 night is broken as the words are borne on the 
 dewy air :— " Father, all things are possible unto 
 Thee ; take away this cup from Me : nevertheless 
 not what I will, but what Thou wilt." (Mark xiv. 
 36). Here is indeed the climax of misery. " My 
 soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." 
 The horror of a great darkness is upon the sensi- 
 tive Spirit. The shame and indignity of the next 
 few hours have already touched Him with the 
 chill of the grave. The contempt and ridicule 
 and vulgarity of the rabble have enwrapped the 
 gentle heart in their clammy folds. The cruel 
 nails are already tearing the quivering nerves and 
 shivering muscles. Nature shrinks from the hide- 
 ous spectacle soon to be presented to angels and 
 to men. " Nevertheless not My will but Thine be 
 done !" A truly sublime victory over all natural 
 desire, all emotion, feeling, will. Here is the true 
 conquest of self in the absolute freedom of infinite 
 love. 
 
 Redemption herein reveals the human will as 
 restored to its original position of authority over 
 mind and body. It also plainly shows that the 
 innocent is more profoundly pained than the 
 guilty could possibly be. Body, soul and spirit 
 are sensitive in proportion as they are innocent. 
 Sin dulls our sensibilities. The disciples fell 
 asleep for " their eyes were heavy " and when the 
 critical moment arrived " they all forsook Him 
 and fled."
 
 126 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 3. SELF-SURRENDER. 
 
 It is easy to understand how under the pressure 
 of deep feeling or strong emotion one may find 
 the power to subdue every selfish thought and 
 desire, and thus stand master of himself. Yet 
 there might be no love to the power commanding. 
 A sort of armed neutrality in which the soul holds 
 its own against the world and submits to the 
 authority of God ; but in so doing holds itself 
 sufficient unto itself while confessing the power 
 and right of God to command it to " suffer and be 
 
 still." 
 
 With this Redeeming Love cannot be satisfied. 
 It must win the heart to an absolute surrender of 
 itself to God without conditions or mental reserva- 
 tions. 
 
 This cannot easily be made plain on any merely 
 naturalistic principles. Why should we be con- 
 stituted as we are by the Creative Will and then 
 required to surrender the liberty which most of 
 all distinguishes us from every other creature ? 
 Why should we be called upon to suppress every 
 impulse of our nature, to bind and fetter all 
 affections, personal preferences and " desires of 
 the flesh and of the mind ?" To these questions 
 moralists and philosophers as well as theologians 
 have attempted to reply ; but with what measure 
 of success we cannot stop to inquire. Suffice it 
 to say that on any supposition which limits man's 
 career to this world these questions admit of no 
 reply which will not overthrow the benevolence of
 
 REDEMPTION. \2"J 
 
 God. Hence materialistic philosophy tends to 
 atheism and pessimism almost as a necessary re- 
 sult of experience. 
 
 But here again Redeeming Love sheds its own 
 peculiar light upon the question. The utter de- 
 spair of separation from God is heard in the cry 
 of unparalleled distress — " My God, My God, 
 why hast Thou forsaken Me ! " This voices the 
 despair of humanity without God. It is the exact 
 presentation of the doom to which materialism 
 condemns the race ; for what in this case was the 
 result of only a temporary withdrawal of the 
 Divine presence becomes in that the necessary 
 condition of human experience. A philosophy 
 which can listen to that cry and call it nothing 
 more than the " natural aversion to dissolution " 
 is but poorly qualified to meet the needs of suf- 
 fering mankind. We must strain the ear and eye 
 to catch any other words which may come and to 
 note the change of expression upon that patient 
 face. Hope returns to the " soul now made an 
 offering for sin." Love beats again within the 
 broken heart. Confidence replaces the temporary 
 dismay. " Father, into Thy hands I commend 
 my Spirit " escapes from the stiffening lips, and 
 man is " redeemed from death and ransomed from 
 the power of the grave " by the surrender of him- 
 self to God in the unity of the Incarnation. 
 " Life and immortality are brought to light by the 
 Gospel ; " time and eternity are united ; the veil 
 of the temple is rent in twain from the top to the 
 bottom ; the holy of holies is thrown open to the 
 fallen race ; the past, the present and the future
 
 128 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 are fused into one ; for " God was in Christ recon- 
 ciling the world unto Himself." 
 
 These three self-sacrifice, self-conquest, and self- 
 surrender bring man into union and harmony 
 with God. Redeeming Love reveals God as a 
 suffering God that He may raise His people to a 
 share of His unspeakable joys. 
 
 4. LOVE'S TRANSFUSION. 
 
 Redeeming Love will not rest satisfied with this 
 work of leading us through the stages mentioned. 
 It will transfuse itself into its object. " The love 
 of God is shed abroad in our hearts." It enters 
 into our affections and touches all the common 
 things of our nature with its own glory. The 
 qualities which most distinguish it are imparted 
 to its object. Every valley is exalted and the 
 rough places are made plain. Saul the persecutor 
 becomes Paul the preacher of the faith he de- 
 stroyed. The qualities of the Christly character 
 are grafted upon the rude stock of poor humanity 
 and begin to yield the fruits of righteousness as 
 their natural product. Slowly it may be but 
 surely the good work continues. The Divine like- 
 ness, effaced by sin, is gradually restored. God 
 realizes Himself in the regenerated consciousness 
 of His people. Christ sees in these renewed 
 hearts of the " travail of His soul and is satisfied." 
 The angels looking down from heaven upon the 
 children of men find fresh evidence every day of 
 hidden mysteries in the Divine Nature now first 
 revealed. The redemptive process by which man
 
 redemption: 129 
 
 is raised up from " the death of sin to the life 
 of righteousness " could not be known by these 
 heavenly spirits until it was illustrated in fact. 
 Redeemed humanity becomes a mirror in which 
 the likeness of God is reflected, but now distin- 
 guished by qualities of human character made 
 " perfect through suffering." 
 
 5. THE GIFT OF LIFE. 
 
 This transference of character is the effect of 
 the communication of life. A new principle of 
 life is imparted to humanity in the Incarnation. 
 Therein God conferred this new gift of spiritual 
 life even as He had before bestowed natural. 
 (1 Cor. xv. 46.) 
 
 As we have seen creation is continuous. " My 
 Father worketh hitherto, and I work " has receiv- 
 ed abundant illustration all along the ages since 
 the world began. Certain great periods of special 
 manifestation have marked the progress in time 
 of the Divine working. 
 
 We cannot accept that theory of " Life in 
 Christ " so ably advocated by Edward White and 
 copied by a large number of imitators. It limits 
 the gift in effect to those who rightly use it ; nec- 
 essarily limits the benefits of the Incarnation in 
 the same way ; and finally it deprives mankind 
 of that immortality which is an essential element 
 of human nature not dependent upon character. 
 " Conditional Immortality " as a short and easy 
 method of disposing of the wicked, has no doubt 
 a certain fascination for some minds ; but such 
 9
 
 130 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 minds will usually be found weak upon the funda- 
 mental doctrines of the Incarnation and Atone- 
 ment. Every child of man is touched of these 
 mighty factors in the economy of the universe 
 whatever may be his life and character, just as he 
 receives the gift of natural life whatever use he 
 may make of it. Immortality is guaranteed to 
 humanity by the perpetuity of the hypostatic 
 union. The permanence of this union is the 
 ground of distinction between the Incarnation of 
 God in Christ and all other shadows of the idea 
 which have passed across the field of thought. 
 The union is eternal. The gifts of God's life flow 
 into humanity perennially. The life current flows 
 on for ever from the source of all life in God into 
 humanity in Christ. This cannot be hindered by 
 any contingencies. Use it as they may for weal or 
 woe it still continues. " As in Adam all die, even 
 so in Christ shall all be made alive." The In- 
 carnation guarantees the resurrection also. " But 
 every man in his own order : Christ the first- 
 fruits ; afterward they that are Christ's at His 
 coming." (i Cor. xv. 22, 23.) It is indeed true 
 that many find in all this wonderful chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Corinthians reference only to 
 the righteous. Without entering upon this ques- 
 tion it is plain from our Lord's words as quoted 
 by St. John that the resurrection of the body and 
 continued consciousness afterward was as distinct- 
 ly affirmed of the wicked as of the righteous — the 
 character of that consciousness being determined 
 by the character of the individuals. Its duration 
 depends upon quite other considerations. Man's
 
 redemption; i 3 1 
 
 immortality is not conditional but its quality is. 
 The life of humanity is an imperishable life ; but 
 whether it shall be an imperishable blessing de- 
 pends upon the use made of it. This quality is 
 involved in man's prerogative of liberty. While 
 it is true that the life determines the organism 
 and clothes itself with a body adapted to its uses, 
 (as may be abundantly illustrated in every depart- 
 ment of nature.) it is also true that man has been 
 given the singular power of directing his vital en- 
 ergies to good or evil uses. By the abuse of this 
 power he degrades his body and mind until he 
 falls below the level of the beasts that perish. In 
 the midst of his ruin there is often the memory of 
 a higher estate from which he has fallen. Like 
 the Prodigal Son happy is he if he now return to 
 his Father's house." Redeeming Love will nourish 
 the germ of new life and support it with new 
 supplies of grace each hour by the way. The ob- 
 structive bar of self-will and distrust being remov- 
 ed the new life of God flowing into the soul will 
 purify and strengthen it in all holy desire and 
 high resolve. Here natural law resumes its con- 
 trol. The poison of sin being counteracted the 
 holy powers of spiritual life assert themselves. 
 The things which are " true," " pure," " lovely," 
 " of good report," worthy of " praise," and full of 
 "virtue" appear as "fruits meet for repentance" 
 adorning and enriching the organism of whose new 
 life they are the appropriate result. This life like 
 all other life springs from its own source and can- 
 not be otherwise obtained. Redeeming Love is 
 its origin and cause. It comes to us from God
 
 132 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 through the Incarnation and not otherwise. It 
 is the gift of God in Christ. It grows and is 
 nourished and ripens according to its own laws. 
 Those who rightly use it come to " the measure 
 of the stature of the fulness of Christ " as natural- 
 ly as all men grow from childhood to maturity. 
 Each life is natural in its sphere. Both spring 
 out of the Eternal Word, who created all things 
 in heaven and earth, but who worketh according 
 to the " counsel of His own will," adapting His 
 operation in each department of the universe to 
 the profound laws which He hath appointed for 
 its government. 
 
 6. DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 In nature we observe that life is capable of great 
 improvement under cultivation. The condition 
 of plants and animals under the influence of do- 
 mestication is fruitful of most interesting infor- 
 mation. Here I must refer the inquirer to the 
 fascinating pages of Mr. Darwin as it is not pos- 
 sible to pursue the subject now. My purpose is 
 to call attention to one characteristic of the pro- 
 cess of development under such circumstances. I 
 refer to the tendency of every creature to revert 
 to its original type. The labors of the horti- 
 culturalist must be continued if he wishes to 
 maintain the high standard to which he has 
 brought his roses. The agriculturalist and stock- 
 raiser will confess that persistent vigilance is es- 
 sential to prevent degeneracy. The " fittest " will 
 not " survive " without the sleepless care of those
 
 REDEMPTION. 1 3 3 
 
 who have produced it. Nature, if left to herself, 
 will soon eliminate these fine products of human 
 contrivance and give back our gardens to the wilder- 
 ness. The vigorous life of the vine will drive its 
 branches over trellis and tree, spread out its rich 
 foliage to the dewy air, and catch the dancing sun- 
 shine upon its waving tendrils, but the grapes 
 will be few and of inferior flavor. Luxuriance 
 must feel the hand of discipline and yield its leafy 
 honors to the shears. Nature curbed by skill is 
 guided into other channels than she chooses for 
 herself, and produces results better than she knew. 
 The lesson from all this plainly is, that reason 
 observing nature's processes can encourage some 
 and repress others of her tendencies, and thus 
 largely, but within well-defined limits, control her 
 action. To say that God can do the same, only 
 in larger measure, is surely not to make any very 
 extravagant demand upon our powers of belief. 
 This is what Redeeming Love undertakes to do. 
 It recognizes all the natural powers of our race. 
 It does not supersede a single principle of mor- 
 al obligation or rational understanding. But it 
 brings man into closer relationship with God ; nay 
 it goes farther and makes us " partakers of the 
 Divine nature." It takes careful note of all the 
 tendencies within and without us ; takes us out of 
 the wilderness of unrenewed humanity and trans- 
 plants us into the garden of the Lord ; nourishes 
 our tender life with the refreshing dew of Divine 
 grace ; causes the " Sun of Righteousness " to 
 shine upon us with " healing in His beams ;" and 
 as we listen to the whispering leaves when the even-
 
 134 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ing light falls upon them we catch the unearth- 
 ly music : " I am the true Vine, and My Father 
 is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that 
 beareth not fruit He taketh away : and every 
 branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it 
 may bring forth more fruit." (John xv. I, 2.) 
 
 7. THE JOY OF LIFE. 
 
 Joy is the characteristic of life. The flowers 
 of the field smile upon the sunlight, and for sheer 
 gladness the "valleys do laugh and sing" and 
 " all the trees of the field clap their hands." The 
 lark shaking the dew-drop from his wings as he 
 pours out his morning song of praise, the lambs 
 frisking on the grassy slope, the petrel riding on 
 the crested waves, the eagle soaring on the elastic 
 air, the hum of bees, the chatter of sparrows, the 
 lowing herds hastening to the " cowslip'd vale " — 
 all proclaim the joy of life, the intrinsic pleasure 
 of mere existence. And when we pass from these 
 to man we find the case the same so long as youth, 
 health and innocence remain, and the necessary 
 means for the support of life are within reach. 
 Happiness is natural to man. And even in the 
 midst of all the ills and sorrows of life the sum 
 total of human happiness is much greater than 
 that of unhappiness. 
 
 Yet I fear it must be confessed, that for a large 
 proportion of mankind the elastic spring of joy in 
 life has been broken ; and this often by circum- 
 stances quite beyond the control of the individual. 
 It is impossible to ignore the facts of experience
 
 REDEMPTION. 1 3 5 
 
 as seen in " darkest England " as well as in " dark- 
 est Africa," and let us add in " darkest America." 
 The poverty, vice and crime which form conspicu- 
 ous features of life in whole sections of our great 
 cities cannot be considered otherwise than as 
 powerful factors in our civilization, and also con- 
 vincing arguments against its sufficiency. Science, 
 philosophy and politics as the boasted reformers 
 of our race have not so far been able to prove 
 themselves equal to the occasion. They may in- 
 deed suggest remedies and even prescribe specifics 
 of more or less efficacy for some most glaring 
 evils; but when they are brought face to face with 
 the more deplorable phases of human experience 
 which do not grow out of our environment but 
 out of our broken hearts their futility becomes 
 apparent. Alas ! they cannot " minister to a 
 mind diseased." They have no remedy for bleed- 
 ing affections. They offer no antidote to the 
 poison of sin. They cannot hush the voice of an 
 accusing conscience. They speak no peace to the 
 troubled soul. They offer no gift of life to the 
 dying. They cannot bring " life and immortality 
 to light" by all their humanitarian theories. But 
 just here Redeeming Love again asserts its pres- 
 ence and power to meet the needs of perishing 
 mankind. 
 
 The aged Patriarch in the midst of his graves 
 and ruins looks down the vista of the coming 
 centuries and gathers the only consolation which 
 can bind up the broken heart : — " I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the 
 latter day upon the earth : and though after my
 
 136 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION". 
 
 skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall 
 I see God : Whom I shall see for myself, and mine 
 eyes shall behold, and not another." And as we 
 look back over well nigh two thousand years the 
 words come in sounds of heavenly music over the 
 graves of buried generations : — " I am the Resur- 
 rection, and the Life : he that believeth in Me, 
 though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whoso- 
 ever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." 
 fjohn xi. 25, 26.)
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 "Alleluia : for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."— Rev. 
 
 xix. 6. 
 
 THE deeper moral and spiritual elements of 
 God's revelation of Himself to His intelli- 
 gent creatures have been made apparent through 
 the Incarnation. The " principalities and powers 
 in heavenly places" acquire knowledge of the 
 "manifold wisdom of God " through the agency 
 of the " Church." 
 
 The question of course arises immediately as to 
 what the Church can be through whose agency 
 such wonderful effects are produced. Clear views 
 on this point are absolutely necessary to any satis- 
 factory handling of the Philosophy of the Incarna- 
 tion. 
 
 We cannot accept the dictum of Mr. Latham 
 that our Lord " founded no institution " (" Pastor 
 Pastorum," p. 3) or again that He is " not a Mis- 
 sionary making converts " (p. 222). Such state- 
 ments may be accompanied by any amount of 
 childlike faith, and be embedded in much valuable 
 and suggestive teaching, but this faith will soon 
 evaporate like an evanescent essence distilled from 
 our early training. The Catholic Faith inheres
 
 138 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 in the Catholic Church and cannot otherwise be 
 maintained. If our Lord " founded no institu- 
 tion" it is difficult to see on what ground either 
 Church or Faith can stand. The faith so happily 
 held by this recent writer will not be conveyed 
 to his readers if they adopt his way of looking at 
 things. 
 
 I. In the profoundest sense our Lord is the 
 Church. Humanity in its solidarity is taken into 
 God in Him. All potentialities of the Divine and 
 Human radiate from Him as from the central 
 " Light of the World," (Cf. John i. 9) and after 
 passing through all the ages return into Him 
 " from whom are all things and to whom are all 
 things." (Cf. Rom. xi. 36, 1 Cor. viii. 6, Col. i. 16.) 
 Christ is thus seen to be the unit of Creation 
 and Providence. The Eternal Reason working 
 through all things in heaven and earth reveals its 
 method of operation in Christ ; and in nothing 
 more conspicuously than in the founding of His 
 Church. His absolute unity with His people is 
 expressed in such a variety of figures that it is im- 
 possible to ignore their force. The symbolism of 
 the " Vine " and of the " Bread " will at once occur 
 as indicating a unity of the most vital and intimate 
 kind. They imply an outward and visible unity 
 held for ever together by the imperishable life cur- 
 rent which flows through them. No such lan- 
 guage could possibly be used of any other teacher 
 whom the world has ever seen ; nor can we even 
 imagine any other using such language of himself 
 without exciting the ridicule of mankind. But 
 lest we should lean too much upon the outward
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 1 39 
 
 sign the intensity of the spiritual unity is empha- 
 sized in the memorable words : " That they all 
 may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in 
 Thee, that they also may be one in Us : that the 
 world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." (John 
 xvii. 21.) It is possible to adopt a method of 
 " free handling" by which these wonderful words 
 may be deprived of all their meaning. We may 
 easily enough approach their study with a settled 
 purpose of mind to make them square with our 
 preconceived theories. We may determine be- 
 forehand that they must mean nothing more than 
 similar words might be held to mean if spoken by 
 Zoroaster or Confucius. And since such words, if 
 spoken by these sages, would have to be inter- 
 preted with due allowance for the extravagant 
 enthusiasm of admiring followers, so here the 
 warm imagination of the " beloved disciple " must 
 be held to have overstated the case. The calm 
 judicial mind will not thus prejudge the cause. 
 It should also be borne in mind that if we set 
 down these and similar words of our Lord as being 
 merely the coloring given by the fervid imagina- 
 tion of His ad-miring friends, we only create new 
 difficulties which we are totally unable to ex- 
 plain. 
 
 1. It will not be denied that the sacred writers 
 have sketched a character of unique beauty and 
 unparalleled elevation. There is absolutely noth- 
 ing like the Christ of the Gospels in all the com- 
 pass of literature. Viewing Him simply as the 
 " Man Christ Jesus " He is not in any sense the 
 product of His age. All attempts to " account
 
 140 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 for Him " on the principles of natural evolution 
 and development have utterly broken down. He 
 is neither a "resultant" following the "line of 
 least resistance " of the opposing forces in Jew and 
 Gentile, nor a spiritualized personification of hu- 
 man thought and moral struggle, nor yet an ideal 
 picture of the mythical fancy. Not the first for He 
 was to " the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the 
 Greeks foolishness " (i Cor. i. 23) ; not the second 
 for to friend and foe alike He moved on the plane 
 of common experience, shedding human tears and 
 dying a human death of agony and shame ; not 
 the third for He lived in the light of history and 
 is inseparably connected with such men of mortal 
 mould as Herod and Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas and 
 the rest. The more we study His age the less can 
 we account for Him on merely natural principles. 
 What throbbings of Jewish life anticipated Him ? 
 For centuries the " word of prophecy " had been 
 still. For centuries the holy few had been wait- 
 ing for the consolation of Israel as foretold by the 
 long-hushed voices of the prophets. The sceptre 
 had departed from Judah ; the lawgiver had van- 
 ished from between his feet. The throne of 
 David had fallen into hopeless ruin ; his kingdom, 
 riven and rent, was ground beneath the heel of 
 the conquering Roman. The national religion was 
 practically dead ; the temple a " den of thieves ; " 
 the " law " made " void " through empty ceremo- 
 nies and "vain traditions;" the leaders of the 
 people righteously described as a " generation of 
 vipers." What is there here to " account " on any 
 merely natural principles for Him who "spake as
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. \\l 
 
 never man spake " ? Let him answer who can, 
 for the answer has not yet been given. 
 
 Who are the artists who have drawn this por- 
 trait in the Gospels ? It matters little whether 
 they be the same as those whose names the Gos- 
 pels bear. Although I think the evidence for the 
 " genuineness " of the Gospels quite unanswerable 
 I do not rely upon it here. The argument is 
 quite independent of the question of authorship. 
 It cannot be denied with any show of reason that 
 they are the product of the Apostolic age, at least 
 as to all the substantial features of their story. 
 The writers, whoever they were, are plainly want- 
 ing in scholarship and lack the polish which comes 
 of familiarity with letters. They sketch a char- 
 acter whom they do not understand. They re- 
 port His words but confess themselves ignorant of 
 their meaning. They are "amazed" at a spirit- 
 ual elevation they cannot reach and at profound 
 moral instruction they can neither appreciate nor 
 comprehend. They are plainly eye-witnesses tell- 
 ing what their "eyes have seen, and their ears 
 have heard, and their hands have handled of the 
 Word of Life." But they are as incapable of 
 creating the character as they are of creating the 
 world ! 
 
 If it be indeed true that this " Son of Man " is 
 also the " Son of God " as the angel announced 
 that He would be the whole case is plainly of a 
 piece. The living character went in and out 
 among the disciples who from the beginning were 
 eye-witnesses and ministers of the word. The 
 portrait is true in all its earthly and unearthly
 
 142 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MCARtfATION. 
 
 features because the " Man Christ Jesus " was also 
 4< God manifest in the flesh." 
 
 I assume then that the words quoted are His 
 own words, and that they are to be taken in their 
 plain meaning — a meaning not to be set aside be 
 cause it requires Divine attributes as of right per- 
 taining to our Lord. 
 
 Viewed in this way the Humanity of Christ 
 involves the whole race in solidarity. Every 
 single child of Adam is touched of the Incarna- 
 tion. Every physical element in nature which 
 enters into the human body is touched of the In- 
 carnation. Every moral and spiritual principle of 
 the soul is touched of the Incarnation. Potentially 
 therefore the whole human race is gathered up in 
 Christ and receives in Him the power of an end- 
 less life. 
 
 Practically the Divine Humanity is the vehi- 
 cle for the conveyance of this life to the world. 
 Through the media of Divine appointment the 
 Humanity communicates its inherent powers to 
 the children of men. The Apostles are " chosen," 
 " ordained," and " sent " by the Lord Himself. 
 They have their commission made to cover " all 
 the world " delivered to them by the sacred lips 
 of the risen Christ. The creed also which they 
 were to carry to " all nations " is clearly defined by 
 the same Authority. And finally, on the day of 
 Pentecost, they are fully empowered by the Holy 
 Spirit " to make disciples of all nations by Baptiz- 
 ing them into the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Matt, xxviii. 19.) 
 The organism constituted by the Incarnation
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 143 
 
 subsumes into itself and assimilates to itself the in- 
 dividuals gathered from " all nations " by the meth- 
 od appointed for its propagation in the world. 
 The Divine life which is to regenerate the race 
 descends from God to man through the Humani- 
 ty of Christ, passes into the Apostolic ministry 
 until it reach " all nations " and is brought home 
 to " every creature." The Church founded upon 
 the " Rock of Ages " stands for ever impregnable 
 against all the gathering storms of the growing 
 centuries, and the " gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it." 
 
 As is sufficiently indicated in these words the 
 Church is a Militant Church and cannot hope to 
 escape the trials inseparable from war. Her history 
 is the history of her conflicts ; but it is also the 
 history of her continuity from the visible Incarna- 
 tion of her Lord to the present hour. 
 
 Her polity was plainly outlined in the words 
 by which the Sacred Mission was given to the 
 Apostles — " As My Father hath sent Me, even so 
 send I you." (John xx. 21.) Her creed, as we 
 have seen, distinctly defined as the limits of 
 Apostolic duty were more particularly specified. 
 (Matt, xxviii. 19.) Her Sacraments two in num- 
 ber " ordained by Christ Himself," and in force 
 until He come again to judge the world. Her 
 discipline entrusted to Apostolic hands in the 
 "power of the keys "to remit and retain sins in 
 such sort as the Lord commanded. (John xx. 22.) 
 
 Before the Ascension the Church is fully 
 equipped with all authority, mission, doctrine, and 
 discipline, and only awaits the " power from on
 
 144 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 high " which was actually conferred on the day of 
 Pentecost. 
 
 When the Great Forty Days are ended and the 
 Lord withdraws His visible presence He has left 
 a visible Institution fully officered and constituted 
 for the perpetual preservation of His cause. 
 
 In due season the Holy Spirit descends upon 
 His Apostles according to His promise and they 
 are hereby qualified for the execution of the mis- 
 sion and authority already bestowed. They im- 
 mediately began to preach, and those who were 
 daily added to the infant community "continued 
 stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellow- 
 ship, and in the breaking of the bread, and in the 
 prayers." (Acts ii. 42.) 
 
 Christianity is thus seen to have come into the 
 world not merely as a life, though it is the very 
 Life of the world ; nor merely as a creed, though 
 it is a creed summarizing the profound mystery of 
 the Trinity ; nor yet as a code of morals, though 
 it requires the highest morality ever called for in 
 any system ; but as an Organism deriving its life 
 from the source of all life in the Eternal Word, 
 and maintaining and propagating itself in the 
 world by such media of Divine appointment as 
 the Incarnate Lord has commanded and His 
 Spirit vitalizes. 
 
 II. That it was the purpose of our Lord to 
 found a Kingdom, Church, Body, Institution — 
 call the organism by any name, may now be held 
 as sufficiently plain. That He actually did carry 
 out this purpose the history clearly states. That 
 the Apostles whom He commissioned and sent
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 1 45 
 
 understood His purpose and, immediately after 
 the gift of the Spirit, bent all their energies to 
 developing the seed germ entrusted to them is 
 abundantly evidenced in the Acts of the Apostles 
 and the Epistles. I cannot enter upon the de- 
 tailed examination of the Apostles' method of 
 procedure. Two points only can be touched as 
 illustrating the scope of the Church. 
 
 I. It fulfils the promise of the past. 
 
 From the garden of Eden onward the Divine 
 purpose was slowly unfolding. The promise had 
 been given that the " Seed of the woman should 
 bruise the serpent's head ; " and to its fulfilment 
 the faithful few looked forward through the earlier 
 days with such simple rites of external service as 
 we find in established use in the time of Noah. 
 In Abraham the covenant was visibly signed and 
 sealed. The Jewish Church as a visible Institu- 
 tion continued under theocratic rule until the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem by Titus and the extirpa- 
 tion of the national life. 
 
 Throughout this period it is impossible to ig- 
 nore the typical character of the sacred rites and 
 ceremonies. They are arranged in conformity 
 with the "pattern shown in the Mount." They 
 point to something above and beyond themselves. 
 Their imperative claims are as repeatedly stated as 
 their inadequacy, except as vehicles of something 
 greater than themselves, is urged by the prophets. 
 The severe censure so often poured in withering 
 scorn upon the superstitious and merely perfunc- 
 tory performance of these sacred rites, is only 
 equalled by the lamentations over their neglect. 
 10
 
 146 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 That they were not intended to be permanent but 
 only to act as guides for a time lies upon the face 
 of both Testaments. That the prophets looked 
 through them and beyond them to the universal 
 Kingdom ultimately to supersede all others cannot 
 be denied on any principles of criticism. That 
 the eyes of all the devout who " waited for the con- 
 solation of Israel " were ever looking forward for 
 the realization of these hopes is simply an un- 
 questioned fact, however it is to be accounted 
 for. While they felt the value of Jewish ordi- 
 nances they also confessed their insufficiency. 
 The " blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes 
 of an heifer sprinkling the unclean" "sanctified" 
 only so far as the " purifying of the flesh." The 
 "heavenly things themselves" must be purified by 
 some better sacrifices than these. The " Sacrifices 
 offered by the law " though of Divine appoint- 
 ment could not " take away sin " nor " make the 
 comers thereunto perfect as pertaining to the con- 
 science." (Cf. Heb. ix. x. passim.) 
 
 All this and much more of the same kind goes 
 to show the typical and anticipatory character of 
 the elder dispensation. And it does this in a 
 manner entirely independent of all questions of 
 the authorship and date of the Old Testament 
 writings. The canon was closed at least a cen- 
 tury or more before Christ. It is also independent 
 of nice questions of criticism of particular texts. 
 The broad general facts cannot be set aside by the 
 utmost stretch of critical acumen ; and these are 
 all which my argument requires. I am indeed by 
 no means prepared to admit the claims of what is
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 1 47 
 
 most unhappily called the " higher criticism," but 
 the line of my present thought does not require 
 the settlement of the questions raised by it. 
 
 The Eternal Reason is independent of all ques- 
 tions of time. The Eternal Sacrifice is also simi- 
 larly independent of such limitations, and is ef- 
 ficacious for the remission of sins under the first 
 Testament. Its latent powers slowly clothed 
 themselves in external form, awaiting the ripen- 
 ing of the ages and the gradual education of man- 
 kind. When finally the temporary garb of earlier 
 ceremonies is laid aside and the " only begotten 
 Son " is " presented in the temple and to the Uni- 
 verse in the substance of our flesh " (Cf. col. for 
 Purifn.) all promise of the past is thereby fulfilled ; 
 for He " came not to destroy but to fulfil the law 
 and the prophets." 
 
 2. The Church also contains the hope of the 
 future. There is in the Church a spring of per- 
 petually regenerative force having its origin in 
 Christ's continual presence — " Lo, I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world." (Matt, 
 xxviii. 20.) 
 
 Here is a profound mark of distinction between 
 our Lord and every other teacher of mankind. 
 There have been great leaders of men who have 
 appeared in the course of history. Lawgivers like 
 Moses and Solon ; poets like David, Isaiah and 
 Homer ; Philosophers like Solomon and Socra- 
 tes ; warriors like Joshua, Caesar and Wellington ; 
 Saints like the " noble army of martyrs " — all 
 have passed away and left their impress upon the 
 history of the world. But no one would be so
 
 I48 THE PHILOSOPHY OP THE INCARNAT/Otf. 
 
 extravagant as to affirm that these dead saints and 
 heroes can have any influence now upon the desti- 
 nies of their followers. Their present condition 
 whatever it may be is totally without effect upon 
 those who may have accepted their opinions. 
 They survive only in memory. " The evil they 
 have done lives after them, the good has been too 
 often interred with their bones." They have gone 
 the way of all the earth, been gathered to their 
 fathers, and their sepulchres alone remain. What 
 they are and where they are to-day makes no sort 
 of difference to those who may have adopted their 
 guidance on questions of law, philosophy, politics 
 or religion. A careful consideration of this broad 
 fact is sufficient to show the radical distinction 
 and difference between our Lord and every other 
 teacher who has influenced mankind. 
 
 It is not because we can look back to the his- 
 toric scenes of Galilee and trace in loving memory 
 the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth as He goes about 
 " doing good " that we are Christians. Nor is it 
 because the record of His words and deeds has 
 been preserved to excite the admiration of man- 
 kind that we love and trust Him. It is not even 
 because Jesus the Christ once lived to " bear our 
 sicknesses and carry our sorrows," and died to 
 " redeem us from all iniquity " that we hope to re- 
 ceive the "forgiveness of sins and life everlasting." 
 But it is because He is now at the right hand of 
 God " all power in heaven and in earth being given 
 into His hand ; " because He now appears in the 
 presence of God for us in the heavenly Sanctuary, 
 and because " He ever liveth to make intercession
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD, 149 
 
 for us." I do not merely look back with reverent 
 regard along the vista of past centuries and by an 
 effort of the historic imagination endeavour to re- 
 produce the " Man Christ Jesus " as He lived and 
 taught and died. All this, however instructive 
 and interesting as a study, would prove of little 
 avail to meet the needs of suffering humanity. I 
 need a living Lord who loves me now, who sym- 
 pathizes with my present griefs, and marks my 
 falling tears. If Christianity can only bid me 
 " Sisfh for the touch of a vanished hand and the 
 sound of a voice that is still" it can no more 
 satisfy my longing spirit nor fill my empty heart 
 than other memories of buried loveliness. Here 
 is the weakness of all other creeds and philoso- 
 phies offering remedies for human sin and sorrow. 
 They hold out a dead hand and smite us with the 
 chill of the grave. Their religion is but the re- 
 miniscence of the departed, their philosophy the 
 philosophy of despair ! 
 
 The Philosophy of the Incarnation is pre-eminent 
 and unique in that it presents Eternal Reason as 
 forever active in every department of nature ; 
 Eternal Love as continually present through the 
 evolution of the everlasting ages ; a Priest possess- 
 ing the " power of an endless life," offering an 
 eternal Sacrifice of perpetual efficacy ; an " Advo- 
 cate with the Father " who is the " propitiation 
 for our sins ; " a " Prince and a Saviour for to 
 give repentance and remission of sins ; " a sym- 
 pathizing Friend ; a living King. Here is the 
 absolute unity of faith and reason. 
 
 The Church being a life and not a memory is
 
 150 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 filled with elastic power, and is able to absorb and 
 assimilate all human needs both old and new. 
 Imperishable as her Lord she reaches every phase 
 of man's condition. She is Militant, Expectant 
 and Triumphant. " Both living saints and dead 
 but one communion make." 
 
 III. The Church Militant. 
 
 The Notes of the Church are as imperishable as 
 herself. They have always been the same even as 
 her Lord is " the same yesterday, to-day and for- 
 ever." 
 
 i. "The Household of God" is "built upon 
 the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, 
 Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone ; 
 in whom all the building fitly framed together 
 groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." 
 (Ephes. ii. 19-21.) This passage and others of 
 kindred import reveal the historic base on which 
 the living temple is erected. " Apostolicity " has 
 been rightly held as a "Note" of the Church. 
 As we have seen the first disciples "continued 
 steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellow- 
 ship." Acquiescence in these elements of truth 
 and order was the imperative condition of mem- 
 bership. Whatever religious societies might be 
 subsequently formed they could not claim to be 
 any part of the primitive community if they did 
 not share in the unity of its foundation or failed 
 to submit to its discipline. Voluntary aggrega- 
 tions of individuals soon became prominent as 
 self-will and personal ambition asserted their 
 presence, and variety of taste and opinion made 
 themselves felt. But such societies derived all
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 151 
 
 their power of continued existence from a real 
 or pretended adherence to the Apostolic base. 
 Derivation from the Apostles or from Apostolic 
 men was indispensable to any hope of life. 
 
 2. Sanctity is also a "Note " which has been at 
 all times held essential. Each member is solemnly 
 set apart to God's service by the Sacrament ap- 
 pointed. Every individual is thus made holy to 
 the Lord. It is the sanctity of dedication and 
 the gift of gracious life ; for " being by nature 
 born in sin and the children of wrath we are here- 
 by made the children of grace." Here again is 
 the great principle of the " gift of life" to be used 
 according to the law appointed for its growth and 
 development ; a life to be nourished and trained 
 for God in the school of trial and discipline, and 
 not to be otherwise brought to full perfection. 
 There is the general life of the whole " Body " of 
 which every " member " is a partaker and a general 
 sanctity in which each has a share. This life and 
 sanctity is not derived from the aggregate of the 
 members but is inherent in Christ and is conferred 
 upon the members from Him only. The common 
 life of the Vine is the source of life to all the 
 branches, yet each branch must draw up into itself 
 by an effort of the individual gift of life whatever 
 is necessary for its own growth. It must rightly 
 receive, assimilate and use the vital strength fur- 
 nished by the parent stem or it will wither and 
 be taken away because fruitless. A reciprocity is 
 established between the body and the members in 
 which they mutually co-operate to the attainment 
 of great results. As therefore the " whole body of
 
 152 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 the Church is governed and sanctified " by God, so 
 must each member exhibit in life and character 
 the same " Note." 
 
 3. Unity is equally essential. 
 
 The Body of Christ is one, nor would anyone 
 "diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient 
 authors " ever have questioned it had not human 
 vanity, ambition and pride proved too strong for 
 piety. 
 
 The statement put forth by the House of 
 Bishops on the great question of Christian unity 
 is so generous, philosophical and sound that I 
 here set down its substance as being better than 
 anything I have found elsewhere. 
 
 The essentials of Unity are four : — 
 
 (a.) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments. 
 
 (b.) The Nicene Creed. 
 
 (c.) The Two Sacraments with unfailing use of 
 the means appointed and of the words of Institu- 
 tion. 
 
 (d.) The Historic Episcopate. 
 
 Here the Church is viewed as a living Body 
 entrusted by her Lord with the sacred Deposit of 
 which she is the authorized custodian. She is 
 preserved a unit in her Episcopate. She is " the 
 witness and keeper of Holy Writ " — the witness 
 of its Inspiration, the keeper of its records. She 
 is the guardian of the Two Sacraments " ordained 
 by Christ Himself." She is the Mother of the 
 Creed which is the outward symbol of the " Faith 
 once for all delivered to the Saints." These four 
 she cannot surrender. They are the very condi-
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 1 53 
 
 tion of her life, and must not be given up in obe- 
 dience to the wishes of compromising friends or 
 the clamor of those who may have lost one or 
 more of the specified particulars. 
 
 4. Catholicity is the last general " Note " of the 
 Church. It means simply the Church of all or 
 for all ; all people ; all sorts and conditions of 
 men ; all ages. In it is no distinction of Jew or 
 Gentile, male or female, barbarian, Scythian, bond 
 or free, but all are one in Christ Jesus. Universal 
 adaptability to all states of knowledge and igno- 
 rance, and to every child of man whether civilized 
 or savage is the grand claim put forth in this 
 "Note "of the Church. It is not intended that 
 these notes have been always equally prominent. 
 There have been times in the militant history of 
 the Church when one or another of them have 
 fallen somewhat out of view. But that does not 
 in any way set aside the fact of their real presence 
 or essential character. The hope of the world is 
 bound up in their recognition. The regeneration 
 of the race can only be hopefully expected as the 
 stream of life is carried to " every creature " by 
 the Divinely appointed agency for its conveyance. 
 
 IV. The Church Expectant. 
 
 It is, however, a mistake to limit the constitu- 
 tion of the Church to her militant characteristics. 
 While it is true that our chief business is with the 
 duties and responsibilities of this present life, and 
 therefore we must be principally concerned with 
 the conditions of the Church Militant ; yet it by 
 no means follows that this exhausts either our in- 
 terest or associations. Scripture does not give us
 
 154 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 much information as to the faithful departed who 
 are awaiting in the sweet rest of Paradise the final 
 consummation. The following points are sugges- 
 tive by way of analogy : 
 
 i. Continuity of life. 
 
 We pass through many changes in the ordinary 
 course of our earthly life. At first barely to be 
 distinguished from a vegetable, and then through 
 many animal parallels until, with maturing years, 
 reason and conscience assert their presence and 
 power. During this long process many very won- 
 derful things have happened which fail to excite 
 our admiration only because of their frequency. 
 Nature's pre-vision of the future needs of the or- 
 ganism she is shaping is truly marvellous. The 
 adaptation of the eye in total darkness to the 
 light which it is to meet before its infant powers 
 have learned anything of self-preservation ; the 
 shaping of the ear in absolute silence to the nice 
 discrimination of the noises so suddenly to break 
 upon it ; the piercing of the lungs in the airless 
 chamber of the placenta with thousands of minute 
 cells for the special elimination of oxygen from 
 the atmosphere, and the consequent aeration of 
 the blood in its circulation immediately after 
 birth ; the formation of the delicate pores of 
 the skin under conditions of uniform temperature 
 with powers of contraction and expansion spe- 
 cially adjusted to sudden changes of thermic en- 
 vironment ; — all these and many other special ar- 
 rangements with a view to future contingencies 
 are indeed a prophecy of coming events under ab- 
 solutely new conditions. And long after birth
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. I 55 
 
 through youth and manhood there is a constant 
 renewal of the same prophecy. Intellectual, 
 moral and spiritual states are met from year to 
 year in the vigor of powers which have been slow- 
 ly prepared beforehand. Sometimes this prep- 
 aration has been planned and diligently matur- 
 ed ; but very often the process has been carried 
 on by the Providence of God without our per- 
 sonal consciousness of its progress or appreciation 
 of its method. 
 
 All this plainly shows the secret working of the 
 Divine Reason moulding changing powers to fut- 
 ure uses, and fitting us for ends, foreseen indeed 
 by God but impossible to be known by us until 
 the " fulness of the time." Through all the 
 changes the life remains the same, only as its 
 latent energies unfold it applies the resources it 
 can command to the production of new results. 
 
 What is thus seen to be a matter of daily obser- 
 vation in the common life of the world becomes 
 infinitely significant when carried beyond the 
 grave. For why should it be any more disastrous 
 to our real self to lay aside the worn-out tene- 
 ment of the body at what we call death than it 
 was to shed our infant teeth and hair when they 
 had fulfilled their purpose ? And if we can be 
 otherwise informed that the life we possess is an 
 imperishable life, the changes we have already sur- 
 vived will encourage us to believe that we will 
 also survive the power of the " last enemy." An- 
 alogy will enable us to conclude that our present 
 life in the Church Militant is in truth a most 
 natural and fitting preparation for the new duties
 
 156 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION: 
 
 and experiences of our life in the Church Expec- 
 tant. Our condition then may not be as different 
 from our condition now as our present is from our 
 past. 
 
 2. Development of life. 
 
 All life involves development. When develop- 
 ment ceases in one stage of an organism the energy 
 thus saved has other work assigned. When 
 physical powers have reached their prime mental 
 and moral are still crude. When these again have 
 gained ripeness the spiritual may still be in their 
 infancy. All through our earthly life there is a 
 continual growth as new energies find sphere and 
 opportunity. And when we lay aside the "bur- 
 den of the flesh " Ave do not therefore also divest 
 ourselves of the latent spiritual powers which have 
 failed to reach their prime before our change 
 came. The power of the " endless life " derived 
 to us through the Incarnation is not affected by 
 the accident of death, but only enters upon a new 
 phase of brighter hopes and larger possibilities. 
 Imperishable love, however it may have been 
 crushed and broken by the limitations of our 
 earthly state springs here into the full freshness of 
 all its greatest gifts. The crushing bitterness of 
 earthly separations is superseded by the reunions 
 here. Those we have " loved and lost awhile " 
 return to our grateful view and fill with the 
 heavenly music of their speech the vibrating sym- 
 pathies of our waiting affections. Problems which 
 have proved too difficult for our powers find here 
 their ready solution by our growing capacities. 
 Spiritual affinities long repressed by earthly con-
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. I $7 
 
 ditions of limitation leap into activity and tune 
 the soul in the Divine harmonies of life and love. 
 Increased knowledge and higher spiritual tone 
 generate a profounder gratitude as the ways of 
 Providence are better understood. The members 
 of the Church in Paradise are under the more 
 immediate personal training of the Lord Himself. 
 " The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 
 shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living 
 fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away all 
 tears from their eyes." (Rev. vii. 17.) 
 
 V. The Church Triumphant. 
 
 All of these are but preparatory stages. The 
 glorious evolution of Redeeming Love moves on 
 steadily to its goal. The mighty power revealed 
 in the Incarnation rises superior to all barriers. 
 The glowing language of the prophets still awaits 
 adequate fulfilment. " And it shall come to pass 
 in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's 
 house shall be established in the top of the moun- 
 tains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and all 
 nations shall flow unto it." (Isaiah ii. 2.) Or in 
 the inspiring words of the writer to the Hebrews : 
 — " Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the 
 city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
 and to an innumerable company of angels, to the 
 general assembly and Church of the first born 
 whose names are written in heaven, and to God 
 the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men 
 made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the 
 new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that 
 speaketh better things than that of Abel." (Heb. 
 xii. 22-24.)
 
 158 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 To this it only remains to add the grand an- 
 nouncement of the Resurrection and final Judg- 
 ment to complete the sublime panorama of Crea- 
 tion and Providence. 
 
 When we look back to the beginning and 
 listen to the music of the spheres as they come 
 forth fresh in the dawn of Creation's morning we 
 cannot but feel the grandeur of the scene. " The 
 heavens declare the glory of God and the firma- 
 ment showeth His handiwork." 
 
 When we look along the vista of the vanishing 
 centuries and mark the rise and fall of the mighty 
 tides of creative power as one grand system fol- 
 lows another in the stupendous cycles of the re- 
 volving universe we cannot but feel the contrast 
 between the pettiness of man and the majesty of 
 his environment. 
 
 When we look upon the tangled skein of human 
 lives broken and shivered in their passage through 
 this " vale of misery " we cannot but question 
 whether there be indeed any presiding Intelli- 
 gence gathering these ravelled threads and weav- 
 ing them into new designs. When we look across 
 the graves of buried generations and note the re- 
 cord of death's continued victories it is hard to 
 avoid the conclusion that the end has been in- 
 deed reached and that man's life is " rounded 
 with a sleep." 
 
 When we study the record of man's life upon 
 the earth and find it only the record of his crimes 
 too often committed against the light of reason, 
 the voice of conscience, and the very instincts of 
 nature we cannot fail to tremble and fear lest the
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 1 59 
 
 vengeance justly due to his offences should over- 
 take him without hope of rescue. 
 
 Were these the only sources of information our 
 religion must be the creature of fear, our philoso- 
 phy only that of despair. 
 
 But as our ears are strained to hear all the won- 
 drous music of Creation's glorious song mingling 
 as it must with the wild wail of the dead march 
 following the footsteps of the King of Terrors as 
 he sweeps the dying centuries to their burial we 
 catch the deeper tone of another of sweeter ca- 
 dence. Slowly rising amid the crash of life and 
 death, the cry of anguish and the shout of triumph, 
 comes the song of the angelic choir — like the 
 " sound of holy voices chanting o'er the crystal 
 sea " — " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
 peace, good will toward men." " For unto you is 
 born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which 
 is Christ the Lord." (Luke ii. 1 1— 14.) 
 
 And as we pass with Incarnate Love through 
 all the changeful scenes of our human experience 
 — through sorrow, disappointment, death, the 
 grave — we learn profound lessons in the nature of 
 God and duty, of Providence and destiny, of life 
 and death, of innocence and sin, of hope and faith 
 and love. We see the deeper spiritual agencies at 
 work (of which indeed all outward nature affords 
 multiplied types and symbols) by which the regen- 
 eration of the world is finally to be attained. Al- 
 ready we catch the light of the everlasting day, in 
 golden promise, upon the utmost verge of vision. 
 Already we feel the pulse of resurrection life begin 
 to thrill and throb in the faith and hope of all the
 
 l6o THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 faithful "family in heaven and earth." Already 
 the mighty anthem gathers volume as the time 
 approaches and we " hear as it were the voice of a 
 great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, 
 and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, 
 Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 
 O Almighty God, who hast knit together Thine 
 elect in one communion and fellowship, in the 
 mystical body of Thy Son Christ our Lord ; Grant 
 us grace so to follow Thy blessed Saints in all vir- 
 tuous and godly living, that we may come to those 
 unspeakable joys, which Thou hast prepared for 
 those who unfeignedly love Thee ; through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 5 - 1951 
 
 REC'D LD-URL 
 
 I MAY 071990 
 
 7 I 
 
 FormL9 — 15m-10,'48(B1039)444 
 
 f mfVEI?SITY of cauforwa 
 
 AT 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 -BX- 
 
 Garrett 
 
 220 The philosophy 
 
 JllSp of the incsr- 
 
 nation. 
 
 — — 
 
 BT 
 
 220 
 
 GISp 
 
 3 1158 00824 7594 
 
 ^ 
 
 AA 000 627 954 1