j;:s;^^I:i EJliiljMMJliMimiy i i ii jJi i Mj i n.ii i ii mMMwi ■Mif«MliNMMIWjll|«#l^^ V ^^;^■^i^ri>^\''^\yJ\^ W<«Mt»9WN»i«e«««NNN«i^^ jiWtiiinililiLiiiiiiiiiiiii^iii ^/-^ nlversity of California. r^MK'l^ <)T^' t^ .^^ yH-7^^<^^>-'i^t.<_^ , Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/creedmodernthougOOfranrich THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. BY THE Rev. B. franklin, D.D., /I BECTOB OP CHBIST OHTTBCH, SHBEW8BUBY, NEW JEBSET. NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO., COOFEB UNION, FOURTH AVENUE. 1881. F7 COPYKIGHT, B. & J. B. YOUNG & CO., 1881. :is^s'y Trow's Printing and Bookbinding Company, 201-213 East \-ztJi Streets NEW YORK. PREFACE. MoDEEX thought is pervaded by lofty conceptions of ideal humanity. Individual, concrete specimens, or per- sons of men are not much regarded. The race however is acknowledged to be the highest known existence. Its progress, development, or evolution is believed to be ever onward, outward and upward ; not perhaps toward a fixed perfection, but rather along an endless pathway iu the direction of the infinitely perfect. This pervading instinct of Modern Thought does only just honor to human consciousness. It is also in ac- cord with mankind's position in the visible universe. History assents to it, discriminating reflection confinns it, and the dignity of manhood requires it. Whatever degrades, or cramps manhood ; and what- ever also assigns to man a sphere too narrow for the utmost outaction of all his single and combined facul- ties, has no status before Modem Thought ; and should have none. IV PREFACE. The Creed, i. e. The Apostles' Creed, and its enlarged form, commonly called The Nicene Creed, has adjuncts and a history, whose weight and value may fairly be claimed for Christianity. It has stood through centu- ries, wherein systems of science and of philosophy have chased one another across the stage, even more rapidly than tribes have supplanted tribes, and nations risen and fallen ; and it yet remains The Symbol of Christian Faith, being accepted as a basis even when mutilated or overlaid with new articles of religion. If, however. Modern Thought can do more to-day for man than The Creed can do, it has the right to set the Creed aside as superannuated and effete. The Creed, in order to sustain its enormous claim to the belief of all mankind, must show itself to every age, as the very charter of true liberty, and the sure guide for progressive humanity. It must take man in his completeness, and leave him whole, as he forges himself into a present link for binding together his own past and future, as well as — according to his measure — those of his race. Humanity at large as well as every human person, who is true to his own noblest, conscious ideal, may demand from The Creed all needful assurance re- specting the origin and continuity of the past, whole accord with the present, and guidance upon reasonable PREFACE. y grounds, towards worthy hope or just fear for the future. This essay attempts mainly to view The Creed, as one might were it just promulgated. Modern Thought is considered rather as to the normal and germinal ideas of its several schools, than as to their details of argu- ment and conclusion. The aim is to set forth The Creed, positively and directly, as the adequate answer and fuU response, to manhood's conscious constitution, capacity, cravings, and needs. One characteristic of modern philosophical writings — whether metaphysical or scientific — will not be found in this work. Neither notes will abound, nor wiU an array of names and quotations appear in the text. They serve certain purposes, with perhaps a numerous class of readers, producing in them an estimate first of the author, and then often of his views, entirely dispropor- tionate to the cause. Because every school of thought has its germinal idea, out of which grows the works of its head teacher and scholars ; and because this germinal idea can be traced even to its final dilution in popular thought ; therefore, after that has been set forth, nothing further is required in discussing its relations to Christianity. "Wlienever this germinal idea has, to the author's knowledge, been VI PREFACE. expressed in terms by any writer, it is quoted and credited. Whenever that of a school is referred to, the name of the school is given. An effort, however, has been made to deal fairly with every system that enters into the composition of Modern Thought, not omitting any essential point, and showing just what is true in it and just what Christianity supphes that it wants, or cor- rects that it states erroneously. This plan will, the author hopes, prove satisfactory to those of the learned who estimate propositions and views intrinsically, rather than relatively ; while it will avoid that obscurity which unknown or uncurrent names pro- duce in many readers' minds, as well as the distraction, from attention to the line of thought or argument, which quotations of even confirmatory repetitions cause. CONTENTS. IPAOB Pbet ACE iii-vi Man, iii ; the historic Creed, iv ; the Creed and man, iv ; germinal ideas, v. *'I," "We" 1-49 The Ego, 1 ; I, in relation to Science, 1 ; Science and Theol- ogy, 2; Metaphysics and Theology, 4; Positivism, as a philosophy, 5 ; Positivism, as a religion, 7 ; Self-love and selfishness, 7; Sacrifice, 8; Positivism and the Ego, 8; Hegelian Positivists, 8; the "I" of the Creed and the *'Ego" of Science, 9; I, in beginning, progress and ful- ness, 10 ; Individuality and Personality, 12 ; the potent and indestructible I, in, but distinguishable from, body, soul, and spirit, 13 ; the I, and Metaphysical Philosophy, 15 ; Biology, 15 ; the I, precedent of Science's first fact, and of Metaphysics' first idea, 16; the significance of anticipations, in the Theistic argxunent, 18 ; the doctrine of Cause, 18 ; Synthetical Biology, 19 ; attempts to define Life, 20; Idealism, 23, 24 ; I, in the first human conscious- nesses ; I, in the Creed, 24 ; We, 25 ; Organic humanity, 25 ; Faith in man, 26 ; the Creed in the vanguard of Prog- ress, 27 ; human personality and organic unity, in view of the Absolute Truth, 28 ; personality, persistent and everlasting, 28; the common human likeness, 33; Civiliza- tion, 34; the human constitution, threefold, 35; Body, 35 Soul, 36 ; Matter and Mind, 36 ; WUl, 38 ; the Brain, 39 the Soul-substance, 41 ; " the Soul of the Universe," 42 what is man's superiority? 42; Spirit, 44; the unity of Truth, 46; "Abstract Truth," 48; Truth personal, 48. *' I, We believe " 50-69 The Infinitesimal not discoverable, 50 ; Cause and the First Cause, 50 ; Belief and the Will, 52 ; no finite beginning to Cause, 52 ; Cause, and The First Cause, in Psychical Phi- losophy, 53 ; Belief, the basis of knowledge and ground of thought, 54; "We," assumed in all philosophy, 55; the Creed, therefore, at least philosophical, 50 ; Belief univer- sal, spontaneous, and personal, 57 ; Belief requires an ob- VIU CONTENTS. iect, 58 ; Idealism, 59 ; Identicism, 60-62 ; why " I," " We " begin the Creed, 63 ; the Concept of The Truth, 63 ; Truth and Error, Right and Wrong, 65 ; belief in the unity of truth universal, and unavoidable in both philosophy and religion, 67 ; complex belief, 68 ; the Creed's comprehen- siveness, 69. "I, We believe in One God " 70-76 The Primary Idea, 70; "The Unknown," 70; limit of in- quiry, 71 ; man on the outer limit, 71 ; One God, 72 ; unity of human intuition, in the Creed and in all philoso- phy, 74 ; the primary idea of God, universal, 75 ; from the *' I " of man to the personality of God, 75. The Father 77-91 Force, 77: Will, 77; Cause and Will, 78; the "Image of God," 79 ; Intellect, 79 ; Heart, 79 ; Body, 80 ; Form and substance, 81 ; Spirits, 82; the Divine substance, 82; cog- nition of God, 83 ; Body, Soul, and Spirit, 84; Man's call and God's answer, 84 ; the satisfactory Name, 85 ; the ' Divine Fatherhood and Conscious Manhood, 89 ; Dogma- tism, 90. * ' Almighty " 92-97 Omnipotence, 92 ; Omniscience, 92 ; Infinite, 93 ; Man lim- ited, but humbly bold, 93 ; the Pantocrat— not abstract, but a person — 94 ; Man, in view of a supreme abstraction, 95 ; the Krator, 96 ; Regal Man, and the Pantocrat, 96. Maker of Heaven and Earth, and op all things visible AND invisible 98-123 Creation, 98 ; Cosmical conceptions and the Positivists, 99 ; New old philosophies, 100 ; Idealists and Realists, 101 ; Materialists, 102; Nihilists, 103; Identicists, 103; He- gel's philosophy of " The Becoming," 105 ; the crux of all philosophy, 106 ; the involute circle of philosophic thought, 106 ; GoD-manifest, 107 ; summary, 109 ; theories of Cre- ation, 110; the Universe as a fact. 111 ; disorder in the Universe, 112; the origin of evil, 114; the origin of evil in man, 114 ; the origin of evil in nature, 115 ; the investi- gation of evil, 118 ; natural religion, 122. " And in Jesus ; " " And in One Lord Jesus " 124-139 Looking after God, 124 ; " I " and the Universe, 124 ; GOD far oflF, 125 ; God nigh, 126 ; Salvation, 127 ; relationship of man to GoD, 128 ; the human vpill, 128 ; Conscience, 129 ; Utilitarianism, 130 ; the Moral Sense universal and spontaneous, 131 ; personal freedom in view of right and wrong, 132 ; Sin, 132 ; the Saviour, 135 ; one Lord, Sav- iour, 136 ; the good of salvation, 138 ; the glory of salva- tion, 138 ; Jesus, the Incomparable, 139, CONTENTS. IX PAOS Christ 140-147 Who is He ? 140 ; His credentials, 141 ; our need of Hira, 142 ; Evidence of His mission, and Commission, 143 ; Di- vine love, 143 ; the Bible in the Church, 144 ; the Bible and human needs, 145 ; the ever-living Christ, 146. " His Only Son." " The Only Begotten Son of God " 148-155 The Divine Paternity, eternal, 148 ; nature of its proof, 149 ; first germinal, then developing, 149 ; present proof, 151 ; Christ's self-assertion real, tho' incidental, 151 ; His un- rivalled perfectness, 153 ; mode of belief in Him, 153 ; high humanitarianism, 155. ** Begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God" 156-160 Mystery, 156 ; begotten and ever-begetting, eternally, 157 ; its proof, 158 ; the essential Divine Sonship, 159 ; Light, 160 ; Very God, 160. Begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father 161-171 History of this clause, and present importance of the fact, 161 ; Consubstantiality, 163 ; Begotten, 165 ; Proof, 167 ; proof from the testimony of Jesus, 168 ; summary, 169 ; GoD-manifest, incomparable, 171. *' By Whom all things were made " 172-176 The Grea,t Artificer. 172 ; the Personal Word, 173 ; the Per- sonal Wisdom of God, 173 ; summary, 174. *' Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from Heaven " 177-1 80 The condescension of Christ, 177 ; this condescension self- chosen, and profoundly effective, 179. "And was Incarnate" 181-197 The veritable union of the Divine nature with the human, 181; The Incarnation unique, and incomparable, 182; reaching out to all humanity, 182 ; Christ, in person still Divine, 183; creation and servitude, 184; the image of God, 186 ; its test, 186 ; the first temptation, 186 ; sin and death, 187; education, 188; the finite, and the Infinite, 189; "the last Adam," 189; free communion with God, 190 ; the new root of all humanity, 190 ; man's unrivalled exaltation, 192; the mystery of the Incarnation, 192; the nature of the sin of Adam, 194 : its transmission, 195 ; personal liberty, 196 ; restoration, 196 : final perseverance, 197. X CONTENTS. PAGB *' Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost." "Incarnate by THE Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary " 198-202 Personality of Jesus, 19S ; the Immaculate Conception, 198 ; evidence, 199 ; the Trinity and the Incarnation, 200. " Born of the Virgin Mary," "And was made man " 203-220 Man, but not a human person, 203 ; union and communion with God, 204 ; Christ's perfect manhood, 205 ; •' the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," 206 ; the everlasting God-man, 207 ; universal humanity, 207 ; the first Adam universal, 208 ; the last Adam universal, 209 ; eflfect of the last-Adamhood, 210 ; 'this effect in view of human freedom, 210 ; the Divine-human personality of Jesus, 212; his humanity, bom of a woman, 214; the Blessed Virgin, 215 ; one Mediator, 21G ; the feminine ele- ment in humanity, in view of mediation, 219. *' Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified." "And WAS crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate " 221-226 Original Sin, 221 ; renewal and conversion, 221 ; the Re- newer, 222 ; the historic death of Jesus, 225. " Dead and buried. " "He suffered and was buried " 227-239 His death real and personal, 227 ; the Propitiation, 229 ; Scriptural evidence and testimony, 229 ; Faith, 280 ; Sacri- fice, threefold, 231 ; its bearing on manliness, 231 ; the death in sin, 238 ; the adaptation of the Atonement to manly men, 234; "The Tree of Life," 234; Jesus, and natural death, 285 ; His death compensatory for Adam's sin, 285 ; the Ransom, 236 ; .summary, 288. " He descended into Hell " 240-255 His human spirit, 240 ; Soul, 241; Body, 242 ; Soul- sub stance, 243 ; Man's body and soul, 244 ; Man's spirit, 244 ; Con- science, 244 ; Love, 245 ; tripartite man, 240 ; dissolution, 246 ; Man's unique superiority in the world, 247 ; origin and characteristics of the spirit-soul, 249 ; personal im- mortality, 250 ; person, separable from body, 252 ; soul and spirit inseparable, 252 ; the spirit-soul of Jesus in Paradise, 253 ; Scriptural proof, 254 ; Jesus, man both es- sentially and conditionally, 255 ; the period of Hades, 255. "The third day He rose from the dead." "And the third day He rose again, according to the Scrip- tures " 256-265 •yhe historic fact of the Resurrection, 256 ; its inherent pos- sibility, 256 ; the doctrine, in the Old Testament, 257 ; the doctrine, in the New Testament, 2.58 ; historic confirma- tion, 260 ; the centrality of the fact of the Resurrection, 261 ; its scientific possibility, 262 ; the Resurrection of the last Adam, 263. CONTENTS. XI PAGE **He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right HAND OF God, the Father ALMiGHTr " 266-274 The completed earth-work of Jesus, 266 ; His Ascension as a fact, 267 ; His Lordship, and the associate lordship of mankind, 267 ; Heaven, 268 ; philosophical objections, 268 ; Where is Heaven ? 270 ; the universal presence of the God- man, 271 ; His efficient presence, 271 ; Man's reception of this presence, 272 ; summary, 273. *' From thence He shall, come to judge the quick and the dead." " And He shall, come again with glory to judge BOTH the quick AND THE DEAD, WHOSE KINGDOM SHALL HAVE NO END " 275-284 Final judgment, in view of man's dignity and godlikeness, 275 ; origin of evil, 277 ; probation and freedom, 277 ; evi- dences of the judgment, 278 ; judgment, personal, 279 ; the judge, 279; the everlasting, human king Jesus. 281; summary, 282 ; unique splendor of man's destiny, 284. *'I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GhOST." " AnD I BELIEVE IN THE Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life " 285-305 Substance and person, 285 ; the primary knowledge of God, 287 ; relations of the three divisions of the Creed, 288 ; the consummating work of the Holy Ghost, 288 ; science and force, or energy, 288 ; human concept of the Divine pro- cession, 290 ; evidence, 291 ; the Lord and Giver of Life, a person, acting in the Creation, 291 ; the same in the Incar- nation, 293 ; communion with the Holy Ghost, personal though Ghostly, 294 ; the personal Life Giver, in Baptism, 295 ; the Trinity, 296 ; the Deity of the Holy Ghost, 297 ; the Holy Ghost, the efficient cause of life and grace, and the Inspirer of truth, 297 ; the Holy Ghost in the ordina- tion of the Apostles. 299; His three-fold manifestation, 299 ; the testimony of Jesus, 300 ; Man's need of the per- sonal Holy Spirit, 301 ; Man's need of the Trinity, 302. " Who Proceedeth from the Father and the Son " 306-314 The mode of the existence of the Spirit. 306 ; Procession, 306 ; the testimony of Jesus, 307 ; the Procession, eternal and infinite, 308 ; form and spirit, 309 ; personality through the Procession, 310 ; Filioque, 310 ; the essential and prac- tical agreement between the East and the West, 31 ; mis- sion of the Holy Ghost, 312 ; His help to manliness, 313. " Who with the Father and the Son together is wor- shipped AND glorified " 315-320 Worship, 315; distinctive worship, 317; glorification, 318; man's need of this worship and glorification, 319. Xll CONTENTS. PAOB '* Who spake by the Prophets" , 321-331 Why do not science and philosophy prophesy ? 331 ; Chris- tian prophecy, 333 ; the Historic Inspirer, 333 ; confirma- tions of prophecy, 334 ; the Ever-Living Inspirer, 335 ; communion with the Holy Ghost, 337 ; sin's void, 327 ; the Future, 338 ; summary, 330. "The Holy Catholic Church the Communion op Saints." "And I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church ".333-357 The organic form of Christianity, 333 ; its design towards man, before angels, and for God, 334 ; a church invisible ! 335 ; Church and Ecclesia, 336 ; the Unity of the Church, 337; Catholic, 340; Apostolic, 343; evil in the Church, 345; Holy; and the Communion of the Saints, 347; the Threefold Ministry, 349 ; Apostolic Succession, 350 ; Evan- gelists, 353 ; Ministerial Authority, 353 : where now is the Church ? 355. "The forgiveness of Sins." "I acknowledge one Baptism FOR THE remission OP SINS " 358-374 Evil, 358; Faith, a natural faculty, 350; Sin, 361 ; Sin per- sonal and transmitted, 363 ; Sin inherited, no man respon- sible for, 365 ; Sin, as set forth in Revelation, 366 ; Sin, and grace, both inherited, 366 ; Birth-sin, and the New Birth, 867 ; Baptism, formal and spiritual, outward and inward, 368 ; Sin actual, 370 ; Forgiveness, 371 ; Forgiveness formal and sacramental, 373 ; summary, 374. "The Resurrection op the Body." "And I look for the Resurrection of the dead " 375-393 Immortality, 375 ; Man and animals, 376 ; Man's spirit, 377 ; spiritual consciousness, ultimate, 379 ; the life principle in brutes, 380 ; the body, and self or person, 383 ; the germ of body, 383 ; Cycles, and new forms of life, 384 ; St. Paul's argument for the Resurrection, 386 ; evidence from Reve- lation, 387 ; personal Identity, 387 ; the resurrection of "the last Adam," and that of all mankind, 390 ; liberty to the last, 391 ; the living and the dead waiting, 392. " And the Life everlasting." " And the Life of the World TO COME " 394-399 The song of thanksgiving, 394 ; self-evolute, and personal life, 394; the life everlasting, personal union and com- munion with God, 396 ; the two sides of the perfect eternal life, 397 ; eternal life is eternal love, 398. " Amen " 400-404 The seal and the witness, 400 ; the oath, Amen, verily, 400 ; Jehovah, 401; the solemn significance of the *'Amen," 403 ; Holy daring, 403 ; final summary, 404. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. "3." "Ilk." English and other European Christians use, in the vernacular, the personal pronoun "I," with which to be- gin The Creed, Modern languages only bring forth this pronoun, into common and formal use, at the beginning of the One, only ancient. Symbol of The Christian Faith. The significance of this fact, with its historical accessories, and relations to a contemporaneous and coUocal devel- opment of the idea of personal, human dignity, including rights and duties, will be considered hereafter : at the same time the peculiar distinction, between the singular *' Credo" of the Latin and the plural " Fisteuomen" of the Greek, will be found suggestive. At present however it will be interesting to dwell upon this first utterance by EngHsh, French, German, and Italian, but not Spanish lips, in saying the Creed ; because it is a bold and strong position, takeii at the outset toward Modern Thought. Two departments of Modern Thought join issue with the Creed at this fii'st word-letter. Science, including experiment and induc- tion, and Philosophy, including metaphysics ; both agree in questioning the "I;" or the "ego" as it is com^ monly written, Scientific writers, in these moderu !2 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. times, by no means confine themselves to their own do- main. If they would do so, they might be fellow-helpers to the truth. Their domain lies within the boundary of empirical fact. Whatever they can discover by experi- ment, or positively determine by fair and full induction, must be accepted as truth, and therefore believed. Although their disccvaries have already modified the- ology, they have never yet sapped the foundation of the Gospel ; indeed they have always strengthened it, by adding ncAV buttresses to its walls ; or enlarged it, by ex- tending the horizon of its outlook. The best known instance in point is Galileo's discovery. He was perse- cuted, as if in changing theology he had assailed The Faith ; but who now does not perceive the vast gain, to man's conception, of the greatness of the Creator and Preserver of the Universe, derived from the knowledge of the revolving satellites and planets round their cen- tral suns, with the revolving solar-systems around far olf centres, and these cycle-systems making new revo- lutions around other centres, until at last lost in the infinite : and yet not lost to minds capable of following on and up to the thought, of the whole innumerable number of globes and systems and cycles, making the *' music of the spheres " and " singing together " round the Throne, or Central Manifestation to His Universe of The Most High ! The discoveries of Geology have dis- j)ersed the mists of certain theologic theories, about six measurable days of creation ; but they have confirmed the larger and clearer idea of great periods of succession, in which, one after another according to the order given in Genesis, the world has been made ; first in chaos and then developed, formed and reformed, until man came forth upon it. The gain to an advanced Theology lies in an expanded conception of the greatness of the Omni- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 6 scient, to Wliom Time is One Now, and Succession One Present. This view of God helps Theology wonderfully in teaching many of the lessons of the Gospel ; e. g. the practical unity of sacrifice and sacrament, without bring- ing Christ down from above, because of the ever-presence and ever-now of all divine acts and words of revelation to man. So far, therefore, from disturbing " The Faith once for all delivered unto the Saints," science has only disturbed some systems of human sacred philosophy or "theolog}'-," which had adopted erroneous constructional theories. So long as science keeps within its own do- main, it ought to be honored and left free. It need not even be reverent, for it deals not with Divine Providence, but with Nature ; which obeys law, and in itself shows no moral qualities, but acts alike on the just and the unjust. The facts of nature are true, and therefore to be accepted as facts when fully discovered and fairly shewn. As nature sweeps in and out inexorably, through both sanctuaries and the world, defiling or glorifying accord- ing to fixed relations of material cause and effect ; so may science follow her without awe, and question her strictly, either in common ways or sacred places. In fact science has nothing directly to do with religion, or morals, op even sesthetics. It has free range through experiment, may make any just use of induction, and, when its facts appear, should state them. There, how- ever, science ends. It deals with the past positively, but at most only probably with the future because it cannot know how soon a new development of nature may recur ; nor, what may be the future compUcations of existence. Its very principles must remain indeter- minate until nature's work shall have been completed, for then onl}' will all data for induction be furnished. If men use the facts of science, as grounds for meta- 4 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. pliysical deductions, they cease to be scientists, and become distinctively philosophers. If they use them towards religion they become Theologians — either an- tagonistic or loyal to Cheist and The Gospel. "Whenever, thereforcs a man comes into either philosophy or theol- ogy, he so far ceases to be a scientist. The " axioms," the "methods," and the "processes" of science are good only within its own sphere and scope. If they are trans- ferred, either to philosophy or theology, they cease to be effective. They are like fishes upon the shore ; not breathless, but oppressed with too much air. Again, Nature while studied scientifically demands the axiom, and imj^oses it upon all her students, "that all things continue as they w^ere from the beginning of the creation." "Whether this beginning were definite, singu- lar and germinal, coeval with the birth of Time ; or whether there has been or can be an eternally unbegin- ning series of events, is not and cannot be a scientific question. Metaphysics deal with the origin and begin- ning of things. As a philosophy it searches, not through experiment but through correlation of ideas. Hence Science, when reaching out of its sj)here, becomes science no longer. If legitimately, through experiment, it proves a fact, that fact must stand even against Theology. It must however be shown in existence before this can be claimed for it. If again by fair induction, according to its own axiom, it could show a positive necessity of the origin of things, this also should stand whatever else might fall. This positive necessity however should be absolute, not contingent, nor capable of being gainsaid. High probability is not proof of positive necessity. The long continuance, for example, of " the order of nature " may throw probability upon its indefinite extension from the present, either back into the past or forwai'd into the THE CKEED AND MODKRX THOUGHT. 5 future ; but it falls far short of proving that uninter- rupted evolution has ever or forever will j)ervade nature. In fact science, in its best forms, and as interpreted by its best students, discovers in the Universe of Matter, what the commonest things of daily observation reveal to ordinary lookers on and thinkers, viz. : that Nature is carrying the Material Earth and probably all worlds, through a systematic — though not unvarying, and seldom economical — course of germinal inception, progressive development, mature completion, deterioration, decay, destruction and reconstruction again. Science must allow that this "Law of Natui'e,"is subject to constant, self-consistent operations, which countei*vail apparently its own Order. Things, which according to that Order should pui'sue a regular line of development until per- fection be reached, not only are sometimes but very com- monly interfered with in mid-career. It is exceedingly rare to see anything come to perfection. Millions of germs die, where one organism is developed : millions of organisms die, early or late, and seem to fail of any adequate result. Perfect flowers, fruits, animals and men are sought in vain through the earth. Christians are not sensitive about the "imperfections" of nature's works. They are not left to struggle ever in doubt and difficulty, as all must who deify nature. There is a grim, unconscious irony, which would be ludicrous if it were not dismal, in the name self-adopted, by that large (?) class in Modern Europe and America, who profess to see and know nothing but what " natui'e " reveals to experiment or to induction from experiment; Their " positivism " is chiefly remarkable for the em- phasis with which they refuse to think upon thinkable facts. The magisterial tone they all adopt, when declin- ing to entertain' the idea of a Creator, upon the ground 6 THE CKEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. that as He cannot be experimented upon He is therefore unknowable, recalls the worn old saying about the will of man making, by arbitrary choice, his opinions. When "positivism" takes the position that we cannot know anything about the origin and much less of the Origina- tor of the Cosmos, and therefore declines to entertain the question ; the only answer of Common Sense is, that if men will look solely down towards *' Nature," and will not look into themselves and into adequate historic evi- dences, they may go by themselves out of the free air of the open firmament of thought, into their wall-en- closed, self-locked, little natural dungeon, and sound its walls, and keep each other in countenance, so long as they like. Humanity cannot spare much time for Posi- tivism. Man, whether avowedly or not, is in fact ear- nestly bent upon searching, through all possible avenues, after the real and the true ; nor will he give up any that lie open to him, upon the mere assertion of those, who will not enter, that it is useless to go in. In all ages men have searched after God. Positivism cannot stop them now. It may be remarked, in passing, that Comte himself could not rest in his own positivism. He felt the irre- pressible human yearning after The One, All ; and longed therefore for some kind of worship. For this purpose he did what all men do, who pursue truth as they will. He set up an idol, not of gold indeed, for he w^as not a worker in gold ; but one made of materials in which he was a worker, viz.: ideas, or "the stuff that dreams are made of." He set up an ideal "Humanity," for men to worship ; whose saints were the gxeat men of the earth, and whose holiest place was assigned to ideal womanhood. This idolatry is very rife now in periodical literature, wherein " successful men " ai-e j^re- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. i ssnted as the liigliest types of manliood ; as well as in popular fiction, wherein charming women are delineated a3 fit objects of devotion. He began by denying the l^jssibility of knowledge, that may not be tested by ex- periment ; and ended, in worshipping shadowy abstrac- tions of impossible human strength and beauty. His followers — according to the fixed law of deterioration — will of course worship humanity in their own way, by allowing themselves free range through all human pas- sions ; counting their gratification as the most acceptable because reasonable worship of the God, Humanity. This worship of humanity on the part of the Positi- vists, though practically tending towards a refined sensu- alism — to be succeeded, through inevitable degradation, by sensualism without refinement — is as yet, among their purest writers, a kind of fascinating mysticism. They reach it by deserting the hard ways of their own first principles, and substituting the emotional or feeling consciousness, for the intellectual They leave logic and betake themselves to sentiment Theh* ideal-humanity is a m^'th of the future, comprising all that is strong on its mascuUne side, and all that is sweet and beautiful in its femininity. This myth is evolved by intellectual process, not with- out but according to a fixed axiom, viz.: 'that every germ contains the invincible potentiality of its own per- fection. The human germ is ever evolving itself toward human perfectness. The time will come and the place, wherein humanity shall become perfect amid ample and entirely congenial environments. It is woi-th while to live for this ultimate evolution.' Self has, in this end and aim, the opportunity not only to deny itself as Christianity teaches ; so that every person, retaining forever his sense of and due valuation 8 THE CREED AND ItlODEKN THOUGHT. for distinct personality, may yet be harmonious "with hu- manity in all regards ; but it even has the opportunity of making a holocaust of self. It seems something very grand to this school, to talk of pure unselfishness. In- deed the objection is constantly urged against Christian- ity, that it cannot absolutely extinguish self-interest, and therefore is less exalted than Positivism, in its theory and practice of sacrifice. It may be worth pausing here to notice, that the primal cell of the germ of Positivism, one with its pervad- ing principle, is exactly that of Christianity itself, viz.: sacrifice. Now sacrifice is simply love's own manifesta- tion, responding to love's essential craving. Love must give, for its own vitality's sake ; and it yearns after re- sponse, for its own satisfaction. Thus sacrifice is love in action and reaction. The point of difference, between Christianity and Posi- tivism in this regard, involves the old question of the ex- istence of the unit ego, the "I." Positivism cannot it- self escape from it, for both its ideal humanity, and its notion of sacrifice include it. What can jperfect human- ity be, except an aggregate of individuals, or an organ- ism of which conscious persons form duly articulated parts! In either case the "I" is prominent as ever. Again the very idea of sacrifice is destroyed ; if the " I " be destroyed, for nothing would be left to manifest and receive love's expression. Beyond the positions already considered, there may be found or may arise, a kind of mixed school of Hegelian Positivists. These would believe not in a coming, ter- minal perfection of humanity ; but in one ever advancing, ever evolving, ever " becoming." Tliis class would be the natural successors of those whom S. Paul described as *' ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 9 of the truth." There need be no special consideration given to them ; for they also must get rid of the conscious "I," before they can find a conceivable ground for their principles ; and they cannot do this because, as has been shown, it is both impossible and inconceivable. A myth- ical humanity absorbent of all persons, is an idea des- titute of or at least rejecting all features or distinctions, i. e. of nothing : not merely the " no-thing " of Hegel, but the absolute and hardly expressible " 7wn-ens." Surely such being its consequence, Positivism, as a rehgion or system of worship of humanity, is not better than as a philosophy. As the first, it gives nothing to love and adore ; and as the second, nothing to believe or think. All these preliminary statements and discussions have been pursued, because they show, by example, the kind of contact with Modern Thought to which the " I " of the Creed is at first exposed. The Creed does not enter into the question of the constitution or origin of the *' Ego." It leaves science to search out the " cell " of all germinal life, and follow it up through organites, organs, organizations, and completed organisms. The Creed begins with the primal consciousness, or rather assur- ance of person, that underlies all these. The organism of man may have begim as a cell, which could not be distinguished from the germinal cell of a tree, reptile, fish, bird or animal. Science may have this gTound to itself. It may adopt any theory it thinks best fitted to all the facts. It may try "Evolution " or "Epigenesis " or any method expressed by any term it chooses. It may discuss whether vital force is or is not a property of mat- ter, and whether it develops from within, or imposes gTOwth from without. The field is all its own. Its facts, when found, must be accepted. Its theories must be tested, but not enforced until shown conterminous 1* 10 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. both with all facts and all possibilities. High probabil- ity cannot prove any theory in science, nor indeed in any other department of knowledge or wisdom. Histoiy is strewed with wrecked theories, every one of which stood upright long and floated well, until some unseen point of the rock of truth, pierced it, and left it helpless ; to be broken and blown about in fragments, or to sink wholly out of sight. No facts of science, have disturbed the Ego of man. I is the beginning of conscious- ness. *' I am " is a step beyond the beginning of con- sciousness, being the beginning of understanding ; as " I can " is the beginning of reason or at least of the use of logical faculty. After these come "I want and wish;" "I ought," "I will," and finally experience re- veals self -insufficiency^ and the " 1 " cries out for light, guidance, defence, deliverance, pardon, and peace ; all concentring in " I love " and " I would be loved." Before all these however is the unmistakable, inde- structible, inalienable, definite, single yet all inclosing, personal self- consciousness expressed by "I." It is in- capable of proof, because it is the basis upon which proof begins to build. It is incapable of division, be- cause it is the simple entity of self, first appearing to con- ciousness. It is not disturbable by any attainment of knowledge, because all knowledge presupposes it. If the search be backward, it is the "I" that studies the origin of things, the evolution of varieties, the epigenesis- of cells on cells and organs on organs. If the search be carried forward, it is the " I " that weighs probabilities, considers laws and predictions, forms decisions, mils, acts and is amenable to consequences. This I or Ego is the centre, and throne whence proceeds the energy of consciousness. It is not itself definite consciousness, for during apparent suspension of THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 11 consciousness, as in forgetfulness or in sleep, the I continues. It remains also in the sub-consciousness of indefinite apperception as well as in the indefinably con- scious apprehension of the Infinite, and even during, so- called unconscious thoughts and deeds. It cognizes body, soul, and spirit, and says *' My body, my soul, my spirit." It is aware of relationship, even of kinship, through the body, with matter, organic and inorganic. It has a fellowship with brutes, and a community with dust. Through the soul it is symj)athetic, even cognate, with all sentient individuals, which, instinctively or other- wise, think and feel and wilL Through the spirit it overleaps the present, on either hand, and lays hold of past and future ; distinguishing either fi'om each other, and yet bringing both before it in present contempla- tion. With either division of its triplexity it cognizes at will, the correlative of that division. Body touches, feels, and controls matter. Soul perceives thought and feeling, cognizes individuality, and rules, while it sympathizes re- ciprocally with, body. Spirit, encompassing and pervading both soul and body, has its own distinct and special classes of objects and fields of operation : it looks before and after, up and down ; and is alone capable of apprehend- ing The Infinite, of perceiving or believing in other created spirits, and of calhng forth the co-operation of the whole triplexity, or of engaging any part thereof, in any act, such as devotion or blasphemy, upon which it may decide. There is a reciprocity running, through all the departments of the I, and yet nothing is done by one upon the other except in exact accordance with the law of their relation, nor can this occur against the active, or passive assent of the will, which centres in the I and is only subject to that personality of which I is the name or designation. 12 THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. Hence the personal man is the link that binds together all known or indeed conceivable manifestations of finite substances. He is also the only known being, possess- ing a material part, who can both conceive of and com- mune with a Pantocrat, as well as share, according to his capacity, in all His works. Man thus appears not only as the chief mirror of the Universe reflecting the Pantocrat ; but also as a distinct person, to whom alone, among known earthly creatui-es, belongs the peculiar power of personally perceiving, and knowing the pei'- sonality of the Pantocrat. The indivisible unit, I, remains unconfused amid its constitutional triplexity ; and is ever apparent, and per- cipient, through every complexity of its environment, or history ; and yet this, I, is inseparable, during mortahty, from its body, soul and spirit. It is distinguishable in thought from either, and for aught that man has of him- self discovered or probably can discover, may be sep- arated from either, so that personal consciousness may be "in the body or out of the body ; " but it is certain that, in the normal Hfe of this mortahty, the I dwells in its own triplexity, and acts, through body, soul and spirit, at will, calling one or another or all together into sub- jective contemplation or outward action. This common, human, personal consciousness in- cludes individuality, but is not exhausted in it. Ani- mals have individuality, with an evident, if not conscious- ness, at least idea of its distinctions. The dog, or the horse, never mistakes another's individuality from his own. like the individual animal, the individual man has come forth from the primordial cell and from what further back we as yet know not. Like the individual animal's perception, the distinctive perception of man's individuality also came in at a stage of the growth. Was THE CREED AISTD MODERN THOUGHT. 13 this evolution, or epigenesis ? Did it develop out of the primordial cell, or was it placed upon or rather in the organism, at a certain stage of its progress ? These and all like questions may be answered in any way without affecting the present point. The "I," with which the Creed opens, is the primary as well as the all encompassing ground of consciousness. It underlies the beginning of knowledge, because the conscious " I " pre- cedes the idea "I am." Existence is a discovery, which may be examined and questioned, but the consciousness of self or " I " is unquestionable, indivisible, and impos- sible to escape. The farthest microscopic pursuit of an- atomy is only able to discover the material cell, and note its development. It cannot catch the principle of that development. At best it can only note its method and process. At a certain stage, viz. : that of the full out- come of the living human organism, the conscious " I " appears. Once apparent, it is more tenacious than mortal life. It begins to discriminate, and then its rapid and varied career of knowledge, judgment, con- science and will proceeds. The lowest human creature retains it. The highest intellect holds on to it ; even so far that those, who endeavor to resolve the human per- sonality into a mere congeries of material atoms working according to " law," are never able to express themselves in any language which does not assume the conscious "I" as the very basis of their systems. If we be asked how that which, as a material organism, began at a cell, is composed of parts wherein functions dwell, is evidently impelled by motives often mixed, and is guided by will, can be a single indivisible entity : we answer that we do not see the steps nor understand the processes through which this result can be possible, but we ai'e convinced that it is possible because we know 14 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUaHT. that it is actual, and so does every man, for the first human idea takes it for granted, the first attempt at speech assumes it as a fact, and all thought and word include it. If, as some have suggested, there may now be intelli- gences somewhere who can see how the innumerable constituents of the individual man have operated to- gether by natural law, and, reciprocally modifying one another, have resulted in the singly conscious I — made up of numerous factors, and like a chemical compound in being another substance than any one constituent, but unlike it in having every constituent normal — we an- swer ; first, that such intelligencies are as yet unknown, and therefore the question is of no practical use ; and secondly, that its solution either way would not help us, for the I would cease to be I, if it became conscious of parts component, not merely of its environing organiza- tion, but of itself. If it be asked, ' Is not this cessation possible?' the answer is, that it is inconceivable and inexpressible : its possibility may be allowed as we may conceive of blank nothingness, but as a definite idea we have no conception and can have none of such possi- bihty. The most probable future of man and of men who all ac- cord in this primary I, wiU come up for consideration fur- ther on in the Creed. Then we may have to meet Science again in discussion. The personality involved in the I, as well as the difference between the individual animal and the personal man, will also come under review when the distinctions between body, soul and spirit come up in the order of the Creed. Then again Science may pos- sibly have a word to say. Thus far it is surely evident that Science has nothing of experiment, and can find nothing by fair induction, THE CREED AND MODERN THO to oppose successfully against that Creed, the word-letter I. Metaphysical philosophy also joins Creed at its "I." Positivism, which we considered in connection with science, is j in the clouds between science and metaphysics ; across which philosophers and scientists pass and repass ; in such confusion, that it is hard now to say whether " pop- ular science " is most metaphysical, or metaphysics most involved in the now popular microscopy of science. Both are remarkable for their engrossment with the little point in the past, where the origin of all things is sought after in the fii'st geim of matter, or in the fii'st infinitesimal potency of life. Biology, or the logos of life, is a department of meta- physics, which has not quite escaped fi*om the dominion of science. In searching affcer the oiigin and into the basis of life, it does not start by acknowledging a begin- ning, and then seeking the cause. Did it do so, it would follow the old theistical course ; and, with aU religious minds, inevitably come to the behef that "in the begin- ning God created the heavens and the earth." Thence it would not be hard to force it on to Christianity's pri- mary and pervading fact, that "in the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God All things were made by Him In Him was life ; and the life was the light of men," S. Jn. I. "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light." Gen. I. 3. The Logos of life, is to the Chris- tian " The Word of God." If Biology can succeed in find- ing and showing another Logos of Life, it may establish itself without dependence upon Theism, or obligation to Christianity. It must however do this positively, and actually. It will not do simply to vai-y the old statement 16 THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. of the abstract "Vital Principle." An abstraction is not a power. It is simply a form of expression to denote the idea of power apart from its subject or medium. Abstract life is simply conceivable vitality, not yet active. There is neither self existence, nor potentiality in an ab- straction. This is a point which, on merely metaphysi- cal grounds, theists of all classes including Christians have a right to insist upon. They may hold the biolo- gists tightly to it. Even when they begin to slip out, by taking up the formula "Vital Force, or Energy," they should not be allowed to interchange that with " Abstract Life." The two are not even correlative terms, much less equivalents. In fact life is energy, but only objectively and experimentally as far as man can dis- cover : and the objective is not the side on which Biology stands. Biologists must not be suffered to claim, that they show the origin of life ; while their arguments and illustrations and even definitions are all on the objective or outside of that which they pretend from within to define, illustrate and prove as to its essence. Analytical biologists, at least from the time of Aristotle to this age, have utterly failed to exhibit the cause or the beginning, or the basis, or the essence of life. Both science, at the primordial cell, and metaphysics, at Vital Force or Energy, either unwillingly proclaim or willingly ac- knowledge that further back, than these first facts and ideas of -vital operation, there is a life yet undiscovered and unsearched. In them it is already operative. How long it has been in operation, and by what steps it has progressed towards the cell, or towards pervading energy, science has not discovered, nor metaphysics conceived. The " I " of the Creed stands far up above Vital Energj^, and far beneath the primordial cell. It can follow un- disturbed both science in its dissections even under the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 17 microscope, and metaphysics in their most subtle analy- ses. It need not be scornful towards these searchers after the essence of life, because they have failed. It may even praise the wonderfully patient industry, and close obser- vation of the experimenters ; as well as the exceeding acuteness of the philosophers. It may shut ear to then* reciprocal confutations, and their mutual disrespect. It may smile without bitterness at their one ground of unity, viz.: a common superciliousness towards Theism with scorn of Christianity. It may learn much from them about fact, evidence and laws. It may even bid them God speed in all their honest and true examinations, and in all their earnest and sincere searchings. There is now no nearer approach to discoveiy of the essence of hfe, than there was about three and a half thousand years ago, when Zophar said " Canst thou by search- ing find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? It is high'^as heaven ; what canst thou do ? deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? " Life is this great something which fiUs aU heights and depths. Modem Biologists are, in every essential par- .ticular, one with that class whom Moses, the Psalmist, fhe Prophets and the Apostles met, and answered in their time. The same answer is good now. The "I" of the Creed looks out upon the science and pliilosophy of to-day, as it looks down the vistas of history. It re- mains unshaken, single, concrete, and serene as ever. If it can be overtui-ned, let him do it who can find a ground beyond it. Meanwhile it stands for all men, as the expression of the conscious unity of concrete per- sonality ; the underlying, first course of the structure of knowledge ; the all sustaining upholder of one's whole capacity, attainment and development. It is assured by and contented in a subconscious rest — real, felt and 18 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. strong, thougji necessarily undefinable — upon tlie Life of the Philosopliers, the GOD of the Theists, and the Logos of Christians. Without we hope anticipating too much, it has been necessary to consider God and Christ in order to estab- lish before modern thought the very beginning of the Creed, Theism and Christianity yet remain for further and fuller and deeper consideration. The necessity we have been under, however, is worth remarking, as an il- lustration of the complete unity — not simply unison of agreement, but indivisible oneness — of the Creed. God fills it. Christ is its beginning and ending. Light and life pervade it. Every part stands out distinctively ; yet all parts are, like vital organs in one living organism, distinguishable but inseparable. The details, of biological experiment and induction, have not been followed out, because such a course would burthen without aiding our present argument. It is enough to have considered the one point, upon which all analytical biology hinges and turns. At the last, utmost, final verge of its investigation it comes upon the " pri- mordial cell " — or as some say to its " nucleus, protojolasm and integument " — . There it stops in the analytical d^ rection. Theism and Christianity both ask, "Whence this primordial cell ? " The Positivists say, " It is, and it is the beginning of life, and more than that cannot be known." The answer is that, " Cause positively precedes effect through all human experience ; and therefore when we have analyzed existence back to its first known form and beginning, we must either contradict all exj)erience by saying that this cell is self-caused, or we must believe in an as yet unknown cause." Thus believing Ave are at liberty to seek signs and evidences of this Unknown Cause. Physics having failed us, and metaphysics having thus THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 19 far failed also, we have a right to hold the doctrine of the Fii'st Cause ojpen for further investigation. The "I" still stands, strong in concrete self-consciousness, and asks, " "What more ! " Metajphysics have further proceeded in this investiga- tion of "Ufe" — in hope of disintegrating the "I" — not solely through analytical biology — which we have seen is half science and half philosophy, and altogether micro- scopic — ; but through Synthetical 'Biology. This also starts indeed at the primordial cell, but shps away from the question, " 'WTience this cell, what its origin, where its cause ? " and stai-ts off in the other direction. It synthe- sizes, or puts together the whole phenomena of life, and views it in detail, through its numerous classes and kinds of completed organisms. It treats of man as he is completed, and in like manner of animals, plants, min- erals, and finally of the whole universe or Cosmos. It will of course be understood that the term "com- I)leted " is here used, not in reference to the future. It does not assume the impossibility of further evolutions or epigeneses. It is used only to designate the i^resent, concrete existence of the Cosmos, with its mineral, vege- table, animal and human departments, and their per- sonal or individual developments — in existing form, force and order — within those departments. " Completed," therefore, as now used, may be understood as equivalent to 'perfected as far as human experience as yet has gone.' The Synthetical Biologists are obliged to face the question " What is life ? " Not only do Theism and Christianity press it upon them ; but the common crav- ing of human intelligence demands that it be answered. "Chance," "Law," and "Force or Energy " have had theu' day. Philosophers, in past yeai's, have strenuously 20 THE CREED AND MODERN TIIOrGHT. argued, now for one and now for another. All alike have failed to show either that these, or any of them, are self- caused and self-sustained. The analysts have not found the origin of chance, law, force, or energy, and the syn- thesists have failed to show them acting in self-support- ing and all-sustaining power. The latest synthesists have attempted to define and even account for life. They start with this, which they claim as an axiom ; " Life is only possible in relation to a medium." * The obvious defect in this statement, is that all we know and therefore all we can affirm is. That the appear- ance or manifestation of life " is only possible in relation to a medium," so far as human experience and man's present powers of observation extend. What is impos- sible, in or for Life, cannot be expressed until we know Life, not merely in its manifestations, but in itself i. e. in its essence. Again " Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." (Herbert Spencer.) -j* The effect confounded with the cause ! Manifested life is here defined, and its operation declared, but we are no nearer yet to the definition of the essence of life, nor to an account of its origin and principle or energy of continuity. If it be repHed that we cannot know the " noumenon," the essence of anything — life included ; — then the ground taken by the Biologists is abandoned. Upon their own principle their definition of life is a failure. Nor can they ever deny hfe's existence, since they cannot even define it. If asked for our definition of life, we answer with the philosophers that we do not know its essence ; we only * Physical Basis of Mind. G. H. Lewes, Boston, 1877, p. 81. t lb. p. 33. TPIE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 21 know that it is, by its manifestations, especially by tlie personal and common human consciousness of being alive. Why then do we affirm the fact of life ? As we affirm every fact, upon its manifestations. Hu- man nature is so constituted that it inevitably assumes substance under all accidents ; essence before energy, and noumenon, or the thing as it is, as the ground of all phenomena. The manifestations of life declare the exist- ence of life. They leave life itself indeed undefined and indefinable ; but only thus more assuredly and satisfac- torily real, because we do not hold, we only hold on to lifa, and are upheld by it. It is more than we are, and therefore not to be encompassed by so small a part of us as our understandings. Following still further Mr. G. H. Lewes because as yet he leads the van of the most advanced Biologists, and not to burthen the text too much, we quote his own definition of life. If that fails, then all lesser attempts to define, become buried in its grave. First he distinguishes between " Vitality and Life," making the first potential and the second operative, not abstractly or rather not in self-existence but both in re- lation to their medium, " as the statical and dynamical aspects of the organism." " To determine what Life means, we must observe and classify the phenomena pre- sented by living beings. To determine what Vitality — or organization — means, we must observe and classify the processes which go on in organized substances." Having, as he thinks, cleared his path he submits this definition, " Life is the functional activity of an organism in relation to its medium, as a synthesis of three terms Structure, Aliment and Instrument ; it is the sum of functions which are the resultants of vitality ; vitality 22 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. being the sum of the properties of matter in the state of organization."* The whole fallacy of this definition lies in the word *' is " ; which is given in italics — not by the author — . It is an assumption which runs through and vitiates this and all the many other wonderfully learned, acute and able writings of the Synthetical Biologists. The answer to one and all is the same viz. : the mani- festation of life is not the essence of life. "Life" indeed manifests itself in "the functional activity of an organism," etc., etc. ; but life is thus in effect or operation ; and its cause must be sought, or its essence sought and found, if found at all, farther back. It must not be supposed that these Biologists, both analytical and synthetical, are unaware of this objection now made to their definitions. Not one of them, how- ever, faces the objection. They " all with one consent " put it aside ; some refusing in terms to consider it, and some giving the reason of Positivism viz. : that a First Cause, whether considered as an outside Power or an inside Force, " must be rejected because it is metempiri- cal and unverifiable." Even accepting their own ground, what have the Biolo- gists to offer, beyond a mere confusion between essence and activity, a mere chaotic minghng together of cause and effect ? Like the old chaos all the elements of exist- ence are found among their thoughts and words but only the brooding Spirit can draw forth from them the idea as He once did the actuaUty of the living, concrete Cosmos, teeming with forms, and ruled over by godlike persons. Rejecting this Spirit of Life, they must of course wander hopelessly in their chosen chaos. * Physical Basis of Mind. G. H. Lewes, Boston, lb77, pp. 34-36. THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 23 Metaphysics — pure and simple — have a field quite apart from science, whereon they sometimes conflict with the "I" of the Creed. They have two departments ; I. that which concerns the common internal constitution of man, including all a priori reasoning ; " and II. that which concerns the whole environment of man, taking in the Universe or Cosmos, and including all d, posteriori reasoning. The second department touches the Creed most dis- tinctly at the article upon The Creation ; although both, in their final conclusions, contravene the self-conscious personality or I. They should rather j^erhaps be said to endeavor to contravene this self-consciousness, than actu- ally to succeed in doing so. Even the Idealists, who re- solve all man's environment into " a permanent possibility of sensation " ; (J. S. Mill) and make of his personality only a separate "permanent possibility of feeling" are unable to«depict even their shadowy conceptions, without always manifesting and often asserting the primary self- consciousness, or sub-consciousness of the indivisible, unavoidable I. When the Idealists argue that we cannot know any- thing as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us ; they state what appears to mortal, human understanding, a self-evident proposition. When however they proceed to argue, that all existence is ideal and not real, because it is now apparent to us through ideas, they simply do what we have already seen the Biologists persist in. They transpose or rather confuse cause and effect. When they push their point to the utmost and say that the per- son, or I, cannot know itself, but only the idea of self, and hence conclude that the I is unreal ; they only exhibit absurdly, what they have shown distinctly in all their reasonings, viz. : a chaotic confusion of abstract notions. 24 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. in wliicli cause and effect intermingle witliout either order or succession. Even the Idealist himself holds inconsistently to his own identity, though why the Cosmos should not hold him rather than he the Cosmos, he cannot tell. Nor when two Idealists meet, can either tell which one of themselves is and which only seems ; nor indeed whether they are not both together the most attenuated, shadows of nothing This pursuit will not be carried further at this point ; because we shall be compelled to return to the metaphysi- cal conceptions of the Cosmos, when we consider current philosophy as part of the bearing of Modern Thought upon the Creed's doctrine of the Creation. It is fair and just now at least to claim and assert, that our first, substanding consciousness, preceding all knowl- edge and all action, is the indivisible, concrete unity of assured, distinctive personality, universally kuQwn as I. Nothing has cut under, and nothing can cut under, this primary self-apprehension. Nothing has resolved it into further elements. It is, in its own nature, the element that holds ideas and concepts in solution or sus- pension, or the hand which touches or grasps realities, but which cannot itself be dissolved nor dissected by any. The primal nature of its constitution and position puts it before all else. Hence the Creed — which must, as it is true, go to the root of humanity — begins at this last verge of human consciousness, and teaching us first to say "I," sets its seal of sanction upon man as he feels himself to be. Thus the Creed begins to manifest its depth, as afterwards it shows its fulness, of accord with aU true humanity. THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 25 "Ilk." The initial pronoun of Tlie Creed is " I " tlirougliout The West, while all The East says "We." By this dif- ference, is set forth the characteristic distinction, that runs through the differing civilizations, of the two great streams of polities and societies, which have flowed out from the region about Jerusalem. Each is supplemental to the other, while both are essential semi-units of one great fact. The oneness of organic humanity, underlying eastern thought, has developed the Eastern Kingdoms and forms of oriental society ; while the dignity of the individual has been the idea, ever present but slowly emerging towards power and recognition, through all the political and social institutions of the West. Through all western forms of advancing thought, and expanding character also, may be seen the power of an intense, and irrepressible consciousness of distinct personality. It is true that egotism accompanies this egoism, weakens it, and lays it open to sarcasm. But in spite of the self- sufficiency and self-mil, which are growing wildly in this age ; and notwithstanding the pre-eminence, in this regard, ascribed to the American people ; there is under all a fact and a power of personal consciousness, from which evils are certainly arising, but out of which eveiy true man, conscious of his manhness, may hope for the emergence of a higher human dignity, and more resplen-? dent personal glory, than the world has ever yet beheld. Some sneer at "faith in man." The fearful tremble 26 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. at the degradation that may follow self-sufficiency and self-will, when left to operate alone upon possessors of human appetites and passions, amid the opportunities and temptations of this earthly life. The selfish and cunning flatter, that they may destroy. The earoest, and loving and hopeful may dread the coming fieiy trial ; and even the faithful may go forward with heating hearts. The time however has come, when man — in his distinct, personality, calling no man master — is contrib- uting his chapter to human history ; and making his indelible mark on the record of the ages. *'The Creed "stands out in this modern age, at this eve of a great crisis, like a Hving warrior armed with light ; and plants itself at the van of the vanguard. Its very first word, shows it to be in full sympathy, with man as man. It is a formula indeed, made up of words, but no man knows who constructed it. It came out early in the opening of the " last time," and thus far, through all its vicissitudes, has lain and worked like leaven. In its several aspects it has been always active, and often visibly effective. As leaven, it has helped the uprising of hu- manity, and promoted union, recij)rocal symx^athy and charity. As loord, it has proclaimed the unit}^ of truth. As power, it has grappled with mind, and touched con- science, and furthered i^rogress. Its germinal origin accounts for its energy, living utter- ance, and irrepressible ever-renewed uprisings ; but that point must be left, until what is necessary to consider of its history comes into view. Now we are regarding " The Creed " simply as a present fact, a real, effective and acknowledged element, among the forces of this age and land. It stands in the forefront of rehgion, and claims to show The True EeUgion, It is neither apologetic nor dogmatic, It asserts simply, definitely and broadly. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 27 It is a congeries of facts, set forth as facts and not merely as opinions. It would be riglitfully scorned, and re- - jected at the outset if it were merely the badge of a sect. Its whole is humanity's inheritance. Its parts correspond to essential and universal human needs. Unless all this is true, its very name " The Creed " becomes horribly gro- tesque, or hatefully presumptuous. They who stand un- der its banner, and follow its leadership, and support its claims, must therefore be enlarged so as to take all human- ity within the scope of both their charity and their zeal. They must also appreciate the dignity and worth of the individual person. Humanity must not absorb man, as if it were another being of which the individual is the food to be masticated and digested. Nor must the in- dividual use the mass, as a mine out of which to cut whatever his appetites crave, his passions desire, or his power can control. The organism should respect the members, and the members revere the organic whole, while in their rightful, reciprocal reactions the good of all, with the satisfaction of every one, will only be surely found and secui-ed. At the outset " The Creed " shows itself in complete harmony with both man and humanity. " I " and " We " are concentric words. Both are accepted throughout Christendom. Their acceptance is testimony to their harmony. Their repetition, by believing Hps, is an ex- pression of assurance that man, in his individuahty, is so dignified, so important and so great, that " I " is a proper term for him to use, when he begins his rehgious speech : and it is also an expression of conviction, that what is meet for one man is meet also for all men. Thus the complete entity of every human person, and his or- ganic unity with or in humanity at large, together with the oneness of truth — one to all men and to every man — 28 THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOTJGnT. lie inclosed in the singular and plural forms of the first, personal pronoun of The Creed. They are not proved because they underlie the very ground of aU argument. They are assumed axiomatically upon the common, and even when formally disallowed obviously acknowledged, consent of all men. Hence the necessity of j^rimarily setting forth the sure and strong ground of the assump- tion ! These three points, therefore, come first under re- view : I. The distinct personality of every human creature ; II. The conjunction, in organic unity, of one with all ; III. The absoluteness of truth, involving its essential, inherent, and immortal consistency ; as well as its objec- tive self-existence, self-causation and personality. I. The basis of all human knowledge is consciousness. "I am," not because "I think," but simply and without reason or explanation first I, then I am. Not only am I generally, as if part of a great aggregate of existence ; but I am, distinctively both as to and towards every other being or entity. Reflection supposes one reflect- ing. Obsei'vation is the work of one looking outward or inward ; and taking note of objects without, "or feelings within. It is impossible to escape this primary necessity. A mystic sense of absorption in universal being is con- ceivable, and sonjie say attainable ; but, even then, one cannot wholly escape from distinct personal conscious- ness. The very idea of such absorption involves, how- ever formulated, that of the person absorbed ; and this vitiates such mysticism wholly : for the faintest notion that it is " I " who am absorbed, sets the person outside the all-including ocean of existence ; and shows that this THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 29 "All " does not and cannot include, so as to destroy, dis- tinctive, personal identity. All, indeed, includes every part ; but every part, from tlie very fact tliat it is a part, is distinguishable amid The All. Follow as Tve may, in any direction, the idea of distinc- tive, individual identity, and all the way will go with us, or rather hold on, into and through us, the inevitable, pervading reality of personal consciousness. Even that old, yet ever reviving philosophy — that in one form or other, in every thinking age, has produced some theory of the origin and development of life — never fails to make the same assumption with which The Creed begins. Phi- losophy assumes indeed to speak to men at large, but its address is primarily to individuals. It asserts, dogmatizes, and reasons ; but presents all it has to say to distinctly individual minds. A late, yet prominent, but no longer latest form of philosophy or " science " follows the same track. Altho it assumes the primary existence of " Force " from which sprang matter ^ and thence the pro- gressive evolutions of form ; out of which have blos- somed, budded, and fruited the innumerable varieties of living and unliving entities ; yet, even the " Science of Evolution " is addressed to individual, human minds. It appeals to humanity, or rather to the common thought of man, but speaks directly to the conscious person ; even while attempting to convince him that he has no personal consciousness. It gathers and selects facts, on which it frames theories, addressed to personal under- standing, by which it attempts to persuade the person to believe that he is not person but merely an ebulKtion in, and of, the vast, complicated, oceanic, seething All ; or "force" as the favorite term was of late as "chance" was in the last century, and " energy' " is now becoming. It was long ago written, "Many shall run to and 30 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. fro, and knowledge sliall be increased." It is probably well that this should be. It is certainly inevitable. Every age has had its daring searchers. They are distinc- tively classed as "Philosophers." Without yielding to them the character of Lovers of Wisdom, there is no harm in allowing their designation to continue. It will be convenient to have a single term, and that acceptable to themselves, by which to designate that numerous class, with many grades, which have followed, now follow, and ever will follow solely or at least supremely the in- ventions of men. It is unnecessary to express any opinion upon the philosophers as a class. They profess no desire to rec- ommend their systems, by the weight of their reputa- tions. It is therefore not pertinent to the upholding of truth, that any should be charged with opposing it. What philosophy says and does is fairly open, and must take its chance in the melee of thought, and word, and action. Certainly, its runnings to and fro have increased knowledge. Christianity, owing to its assaults, has lost much dust and rust, and shone out brighter, richer and larger. The faithless may fear, and the timid tremble, and the half-hearted waver ; as one after another, and age after age, the runners to and fro, as they gather knowledge, try over and over again to " shoot an arrow '* into or " cast a bank against" the citadel of truth : but whoever possesses his soul in patience, has only to wait, giving meanwhile " an answer to eveiy man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." 1 S. Pet. III. 15. Although one, loyal to The Truth, need not always feel obliged to answer the particular form of opposition, that is current in his time ; yet the aspect of truth, which he himself presents, should be suited to his time. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 3i It has been often observed, that the real, fairly shown and set forth, demonstrates by its own standing the fal- sity of the unreal. Truth is not essentially dependent upon error. It stands on its own reality. Hence a direct and rather short way hes before those, who aim simply at setting truth forth. The truth of The Creed, once shown, stands fast. From time to time its relations to prevalent opinions, and courses of thought, and modes of expression, should be shown ; but this necessitates only the outbringing into light of such portions, as the mind of the age presently needs to know, and its con- science should peculiai'ly feeL Returning therefore to the primary condition of all knowledge, to the ground of aU obhgation, and to the foundation of both fear and hope, the appeal is confidently made to wise and ignorant alike, for confirmation of the facts of personal identity, and of humanity's common reciprocal unity. It has been remarked that every man's consciousness says purely, and without induction, singly "I." This, the simplest persons and the wisest perceive, in like manner. The first cannot conceive a doubt of personal identity ; and the last cannot frame an argument against it, which does not assume its existence in the very form of the argument, and thus contradict itself and stultify its author. However contemplation turns inward and dreams, or observation goes forth amid dis- crepancies, and mysticism utters dark oracles, the con- scious "I" remains, undrowned in chaos, unburied in clouds. Nor is this occasional, but constant and " com- mon to man." Probably the first, formed thought which enters and awakes to activity the mind of every infant, is the perception of its own distinctiveness among other exist- ences. Before birth and some little time after, the babe 32 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. approaclies " pHlosophic perfection " as nearly as any human being ever can. It is alive but troubled by neither thought, nor will. Its energy is spontaneous. As part of whole-humanity, it lives seemingly absorbed. It sees without perceiving, it hears without distingmisli- ing, it feels without thought of cause, and acts without notion of effect. It is more than nothing. It exists. Like a germ, if it can be destroyed, it ceases to gi'ow ; but, growing, it develops according to the law of its class. Growing in this world, it develops in mortal humanity. Transplanted to another world, it would doubtless develop there, in accordance with the laws of humanity ; modified by the substances assimilated dur- ing its growth in that other world, and influenced in character by its surroundings. In this world however, the living-babe, early, at one marked moment, looks out and in at once. Its eyes be- hold with wonder persons and tilings, while thought distinguishes them from self. That operation proceeds BO clearly, that speech is not necessary to disclose it. To lookers on, the babe's eye first expresses wonder, which, in language clear as speech, says, "See"! In- stantly afterwards follows another expression, which is only inward, and expresses the dawning of conscious- ness. This, in the same language completes the sen- tence, saying "I see." This distinctive, personal con- sciousness, thus manifested to observers, and common to both the I and the We, when once awakened, never ceases to live and act. It goes on from the first distinc- tion between self and the outer world ; through all the innumerably varied courses of education, and character ; building, until mortal life closes. Thenceforward we know not perfectly how it advances, nor how far ; nor need we now consider, yet through all mortal hfe every THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 33 human creature, once having attained it, never loses the sense and assurance of personal identity. He cannot reabsorb himself into unconscious humanity. He must stand and generally only wishes to stand, in fact cannot help standing, amid all simplicities or subtleties of thought, amid aU ordinary or extraordinary events, knowing, feeling and showing that he is a person, dis- tinct amid persons, and another than all other things. This personal consciousness continues the same. The man and the babe, whatever betide in age's progress, is and knows himself the same "I." He learns many things, and changes indescribably but he is ever one. Nor does the future promise or hint any essential alter- ation. What the future may have in store for him, he cares for as it may affect him personally. He has no conception of abstraction into a generality, nor of ab- sorption into a whole. It is he himself that has lived, now lives, and expects to hve, ever one and the same person. However enlarged or deteriorated, however happy or miserable he may be ; yet it is of himself — in complete, yet single identity — that he conceives ; while he conceives of eveiything else, as distinct from himself, however it may affect him for good or iU. H. What he is primarily or essentially, the like he spontaneously ascribes to every and all other human creatures. He assumes in all his thoughts their distinc- tive identity, and personal consciousness. He addresses them, and deals with them as such. He acts and re- acts upon them, unconsciously no doubt in many ways ; but, when* conscious, he recognizes their distinctiveness from himself. A wonderful likeness however is equally apparent ; in fact, more than likeness. We breathe one air, Hve by one sunshine, are parts of one another. What- ever touches one, through one affects all. Essentially, 3* 34 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. humanity is one, not only alike but united. The problem of human life involves harmonizing all men, without tyran- nizing over any man. The struggle of the individual for recognition of his rights, is none the less important than the willing union of all for the good of the whole. Human perfection is the harmony of all men with every man. It is impossible to represent perfection without har- mony. Harmony is simply the active unison of many in all. What is best for individuals is best for all. "What is good upon the whole, must be finally good for every person. The natural argument for this point rests upon the general conviction of the possible perfection of every existence. Nothing can possibly be intended to dwell in everlasting confusion. Unharmonious elements must cease to be. Humanity is now confused and therefore imperfect. W^hen perfect what remains of it will be free from confusion : i. e. all men and every man will be- come harmonized. Every one will live for all, and all will support, guard, comfort and keep every one ; or rather one and all will ever respond reciprocally through living organic unity ; both, consciously and uncon- sciously, being and doing mutual good. Therefore The Creed, being designed for all men and for every man, takes no note of the detailed stiniggles of civilization towards solving practically the hard problem of human life. It notices its two great currents, how- ever. In the East it begins with " We," thus recogniz- ing the fact, which underlies the progress of all Eastern civilization, that humanity is so one, that polities and social organizations should exercise governance over persons. In the West however, it begins with "I," thus recognizing the old, persistent and never to cease, efforts of man as man to attain personal rights, and assure free scope for full individual development. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 35 The consciousness of individuals, which, to them, is the foundation of knowledge and belief, is the same essentially in every person or in all humanity. AVhen- ever its details coincide, human consciousness is so far in unison. Whatever details of human consciousness agree together, become by that agreement axioms : they carry their own evidence, are not susceptible of proof and become authoritative upon their mere statement. If any one presumes to deny them, he cannot be argued with : he must be left to take the consequences of his denial, whenever and however truth shall vindicate itself. The common human consciousness of personal iden- tity, though single and complete, is also comprehensive. When one says "I," although he conceives an indivisible, or rather inseparable, single entity ; he is at the same time aware of parts, which combine in this single entity, Keflection discovers a threefold constitution in every person. The source and origin of this discovery need not now be elaborately searched out. Whether it came naturally or supernaturally, if it can be shown that every person manifests it, that will prove its commonness to humanity. This threefoidness comprises body, soul, and spirit. The senses take cognizance of body. Every human person knows that he has one body. All he may learn, through science or history, cannot disjDel his assurance that his body is essentially one and the same from in- fancy to old age. Though, in common with all other mortal, living organisms, the human body takes and gives, thus changing constantly its particles of matter ; yet through all changes it preserves its identity", continu- ing according to its own type and character. It is always an inseparable unit Every man sajs "My body." so THE CEEED AND MODEKN THOUGnT. Sick or well, paralyzed or Yigorous, whole or mutilated, the division of bodily identity is never conceived of. It is only known as one. All that it may have lost or cast away has simply gone back, from the bodily unit into the mass of matter, whence it was taken for the body's uses. Yet the possessive "My," when joined to body, shows that unity of body is not the completeness of personal unity. Man is something more than body. He has at least intelligence, affection and will. Like vegetables he has a body which takes up matter, uses it and casts it off. But like animals also he thinks, reasons, feels and decides. All these are processes, which tbe senses do not perceive. When they come forth into action, the body being their instrument, then the senses note their effects. In themselves however they underlie the senses, and hence in worth and dignity excel matter. Thus far we have set forth without argument the com- mon human consciousness, or rather sense of bodily and psychical existence. Some philosophers not long ago attempted to persuade mankind that matter secreted thought, emotion and will. Because, forsooth, they discovered that certain peculiar movements of molecules in the brain accompanied the action of thought, emotion and will, they argued that the former was the cause of the latter. All tests, that we are capable of making openly, show that the body obeys, and does not command. A man thinks, desires, and wills. The body receives his mandates, and executes them. He moves, speaks and rests when he will, within the limits of his bounded capacities and opportimities. The body may oppose its appetites or its inertia against action, but it evidently can neither originate nor prevent the spontaneous uprising* of the mandates of the wilL THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 37 Their source is consciously somewhere beneath matter, and their Hmit is the bound of personal power. It must be allowed that this is controverted by both analytical and synthetical biologists. The first have made minute, microscopic examinations of nervous tissues. They say they have found distinct nervous fibres only thousandths of an inch in diameter, made up in bundles together, running out from the brain and spinal column, and thence diverging to the various inside and outside parts of the human organism. (Bain.) With proud humility they declare their belief that they know as yet very httle of the divisions of the human nervous system. If to-day the microscope has revealed such attenuated nerve threads, who knows but some day some microscopic instrument will subdi\ide these threads infinitesimally ; and show them to be bundles pf yet more attenuated threads — say milHonths of an inch in diameter — and then what is to prevent the appearance of a sufficient num- ber of separate strings in this great human organization, to answer to every possible single note of thought or feeling by single vibrations, and by their combinations to every possible conjunction of ideas. Who knows ? All that these analytical biologists show by their searching, and positively prove, is that the human mech- anism is wonderfully complicated. They have not ad- vanced a point's breadth, towards demonstrating that life is a function of matter. The utmost they show is that when sensation leads to thought and will, or when thought calls out will and proceeds to action, there are certain known courses pursued through the comphcated order and relations of the nerves, and spinal marrow and brain. They have never yet seen this subtle essence of life. They have not even drawn it off, and stored it as 38 THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. they can electricity in a jar. They cannot recharge a dead body with it. They cannot force it to remain, when it is departing. It has no characteristics hke the quali- ties and functions of matter. It uses indeed the human organism, through waking and sleeping, and does not manifest itself on earth except through organisms ; but the most complex and delicate constructive ingenuity of man has never attained the production of a living or- ganite. The line is as marked now as ever between form and life. We can imitate any form, but only life vitalizes. This intangible life is in and with the person, the unit, indivisible I. The I wills, and knows it wills. One cannot apprehend an idea of a will composed of matter ; as he cannot that of personality made up of compounded elements. The two — the j)erson and his will— are inseparable ; yet distinguishable, like potenti- ality from potency or like being from a function of being. Every person is primarily conscious of his own power to will ; and knows that his life, or living force, is the en- ergy through which he wills. The utmost dissection of the nerve system can only display the delicacy and com- pHcation of the machinery. The motive power is not the machinery ; nor does machinery ever evolve power, it only changes its form or direction. The Synthetical Biologists have experimented with animals, and made observations of anomalous human subjects, which shake much of the old simple construc- tion of psychological argumentation. The brain has hitherto been a comfortable place of lodgment for psy- chologists. There they seated the soul, as in a centre, and replied successfully to the analysts, that however they dissected nervous fibres, or resolved into sej^arate constituents nervous substance, the result was only the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 39 unveiling of a better instrument for tlie soul to play upon. The great majority of the physiologists have accorded ■with the psychologists, to the extent of centering life in the brain. They have been disturbed however by cer- tain facts discovered by vivisection. On severing the spinal cord it has been found that the parts, thus sej)- arated from the brain, respond to irritation. The com- mon explanation is, that there is a "reflex action " ; by which nerves of voluntary motion respond to nerves of sensation, without communication vith the brain. Thus a sea turtle with an inch taken out of its spinal cord, would move its members as if to escape annoyance from irritation applied to sensitive j)arts. This theory of " reflex action " is evidently an expedient to escape a great difficulty. It still leaves such operations as selec- tion and judgment for the brain. Some late vivisections however, show that will-nerves, below the severed point in the spinal cord, not only respond to irritated sensory nerves in the shortest way, or through the lines of least resistance ; but that when this response is impeded other efforts are made to remove the irritation. Thus a frog, with severed spinal cord, while he would use his nearest foot to rub a burnt place would, if that were removed, resort after failure to his other foot. In this case there was evidently, trial, failure, and then trial of another expedient. These evidently involved sensation, reflec- tion, judgment, choice and will. Here is life evidently operating psychically, even when the brain — the supposed seat of the psyche or soul — is shut off. In the case of a man also, whose spinal cord was so injured that he had no conscious sensation in his lower limbs, the limb would respond to a pin-prick as it would in full health. These may be acknowledged and accepted as facts. It 40 THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. is for scientific men to test tliem. They may contend longer for their favorite reflex theory, if they please. It matters nothing to Christianity whether the physico- psychologists who have set the central seat of the soul in the brain, are driven from their ground or not. All Christianity asserts is individual soul-existence. It does not locate it, nor define its relation to body. Such a soul as Christianity contemplates can pass across a sev- ered spinal cord, though persons may be as unconscious of its operations in this passage, as they are of its oper- ations in sleep. Wl^^it are called spontaneous reactions are well enough known in the healthy body, and as they do not disturb the stability of soul-facts, neither need Buch reactions in an abnormal condition. The design of the Synthethical Biologists evidently is to destroy aU belief in soul, as an entity distinct from matter. They argue that such facts as they have given, prove that characteristics of soul appear always where nerve action occurs ; and, as the individual is uncon- scious, therefore his soul is either divided in tw^o by a physical cause, or the operations are purely and wholly physical. The obvious answer is that consciousness arising from sensation — i. e. sensory consciousness — has been long known as producing spontaneous motor-nerve response without at all impairing the evidence of the existence and unity of the soul. Nothing new arises from these experiments. They disturb indeed the theories of those who locate soul in the brain. Christianity is only inter- ested in keeping soul in the man. As it neither defines nor locates soul, the mysteries of sleep, and the perplex- ities of the vivisectionists, or even the great unconscious- ness of death itself, do not disturb its serenity, nor threaten its consistency. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 41 The common human consciousness stands firmly therefore upon the fact of the existence, in every person and in all mankind, of a something distinct from and beneath — i. e. substanding — matter in whatever bodily forms appearing. This something beneath matter, wherein and whereby these operations exist, is commonly called the soul. The body is manifested in material substance, and we only sensibly perceive body through its substance. As we have no senses, subtle enough to discern immaterial substance, we cannot speak with assurance of the sub- stance of the soul. It evidently feeds and gTows, and we may therefore argue that there is psychical substance — not matter — on which it feeds, and whence it draws renewal to its functions of thought, affection and will. This consciousness of soul we share with every hu- man creature that lives, or ever has lived. Degrees and vai'ieties of it reach fi-om the lowest type of the savage, through all grades of civilization, up to the highest, knowTi personal and social developments. Moreover we cannot conceive of a human being without it. If below it, he would cease to be human ; and, if above it, he would be more than human. Beasts how^ever are evidently not without thought, affection and will. They accumulate knowledge, dis- criminate between persons and things, feel love, hatred and indifference, and act according to individual and independent will. Have beasts souls ? Some have called the vital energy of vegetables, by which each selects its proper nutriment, evolves its dis- tinctive form, and brings forth its own products, the vegetable soul. Others confine the designation to crea- tures who have evident consciousness of individuality. It is hard to decide such a dispute. There is no objection, 4:2 THE CREED AND MODERN THOrGIIT. as far as Christianity is concerned, to belief in tlie vege- table soul, though d fortiori such concession would in- volve the conclusion that beasts have souls. The ques- tion is only one of definitions, so long as the proper dis- tinction between soul and spirit is preserved. The immortality of the soul of vegetables, and animals does not present any difficulties to Christianity. Indeed, the allowance of that belief rather clears the path of Christianity. For while we may not be able to prove the existence of veritable soul-substance, its possibility is undoubted. Indeed every thinking age has produced, through its philosophy, views that rest upon the idea of an existing, vast soul-substance ; surrounding the material universe to keep it in order, and pei'vading it to de- velop its various forms of life. It is true that this per- vading power of vitality has been called The Supreme, and has been j)ut in the place of God. " The Soul of the Universe" was its old name. Not long ago it was " Force." Now perhaps " Permanent Possibility " is its latest appellation. Belief in its existence is not necessarily faulty. The error and danger lie in that narrowness of thought, reflection and observation, which sees in this ground and room enough for all the facts of humanity. Vegetables and beasts and men alike, as they evidently take the matter of their bodies from earthly' material, may, for aught we know, take soul- substance from the "Soul of the Universe." Death resolves vegetable and animal bodies into incoherent matter, and they are lost in the mass. Their souls may in manner not wholly un- like, be resolved, and lost at death in some inconceivably vast ocean of vitality. Wherein is man better than the beast ? We must retui*n again to the common human con- sciousness. While every human person is conscious of THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 43 having all that belongs essentially to both vegetables and animals, he is assured that in every specific likeness he is sui^erior to them. In beauty of form and versatility of feature and member, the human is no less pre-eminent, than in grasj) and subtlety of intellect. Imagination so excels in man, that it is hardly recognizable the same vrith that tremulous fancy, which seems productive in beasts of little more than fearful starts, and groundless dread. The emotions and j^assions, though wonderfully ahke in causes and operations, are, through natural guards and limitations, productive of much good and little harm to beasts ; while to men they are constant sources of great danger. Indeed in every particular of resemblance, wherein beasts are comparatively safe, men are peculiarly liable to error, and wrong and hurt. If man were simply an advanced vegetable, or a supe- rior animal, we should have to lament his ascendancy. Progress would be retrogression, of direst consequence. Shut in by this inadequate world, and bound by the nar- row, possible attainments of this present existence, he would certainly be the worse for aspiration. His imagi- nation is mere torture, if his only sphere of existence lies among the hard realities around him ; at best it can only teach that the fanciful and unreal are better than the actual ; while the conclusion lies not far off, that whatever will stupefy his senses, and transport him by sweet intoxication into serene self-forgetfulness, is alto- gether best for him. Observation, upon any other animal faculty, shows like difficulties ; and proves that man is far worse off than animals, and therefore lower than they, unless some other characteristic belongs to him, that compensates for his suffering and assures the attainment and fulfilment of final self-serenity, with harmony amid and toward his surroundings. 44 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. It is said that man is now in a transitional state. Upon the evolution theory, he is the most eminent among instances of that partial development, which seems at present out of place ; but which, when fully evolved, will appear a needful stage in the unfoldings of perfection. They who believe this may, amid sickness, and loss, and unsatisfied yearnings of heart, and void of soul, and vanity, take what comfort they can, from considering that after they have become disintegrated, the "force or energy " by which they are constmcted, will make anew some other creature, who shall stand higher than man, on a broader plane of advancement. " I " and " we " agree that man mortal is transitional : but, clinging to the assurance of personal identity, I and We know and are assured of something within, lying deeper than the animal soul wherein that identity's es- sence exists or at least centres; Language names it " spirit." It is, ever single in its action, and yet so com- prehensive that it includes every particular of body and soul. It includes, but neither absorbs, digests nor assim- ilates them. It has exclusive functions also. Using sense as well as reason and imagination as stepping-stones, and making even the will its helper ; it stands under, in, through and over them, all and every one, and thence looks out and upward. Eeason demands a First Cause. Affection requires a person, loving, deep and full, that it may pour out itself wholly, and find response for all the heart's yearnings ; while back into itself shall reflow a river of sympathy that may refill its own unfathomable depth of loving receptivity. Will, demands, — not inde- pendence, which would be folly in one consciously self- insufficient — but free accord with higher will, by which it shall choose the higher, not by constraint but sponta- neously, as the right, the good and the true, The Spirit THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 45 of man, while distinct in the man, is inseparable from him. It is separable in idea from both body and soul, and conceivably separable in fact. It is distinct, like a central vital point in the entity of person. It may have its own consciousness, apart from material sensation. It however pervades the whole body, and is capable of perceiving and being moved by bodily reactions. It impels the body ; but it may also be impelled, so as to take on char- acter and incur destinies, through its willing communion with the body. It pervades also the soul and is capable of reactions from the understanding, affections and will. Operating in the soul, it may exalt the soul's faculties and enlarge its functions. Operating through the soul, it may ennoble and purify the desires, aj)petites and passions of the body. Keacted upon by the soul, it may be affected in its character by the soul's characteristics. This spirit, being human and a constituent in the sub- stantially tripartite but identically one person of eveiy man, while giving and receiving, is yet so united, to the man, that his character is its character, while one joint final destiny impends over the whole. It is conceivable that the spirit may temporarily leave the body. We know not, or at least not fully and clearly, what it may be without the body. Nor do we know what may be the permanency of its relation to that measure of the soul-substance of the universe, out of which the individual man's soul may be taken. All we are commonly and irrepressibly convinced of is, that personal identity is indestructible, and that the spirit, being the centre of person, must be the supreme seat of this identity. In a certain sense the human spirit is the man, inas- much as it is the central seat of personaHty. Tripartite though our consciousness reveals us it no less positively 46 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. asserts the unity of self. Common consciousness dis- plays not a confused agglomeration of divisible human units of personality ; we are not independent one of an- other, but rather so organized together, that humanity at large has coincident interest with every human crea- ture. Whatever is essential in one, is not only like the essential in another, but so united to it that both inter- ests and hopes are one. The spirit of every man responds to the spirit of humanity. In countless voices, on all subjects in common, this response opens interchangeably with "I" and "We." The single person and the aggre- gate or rather union of persons, are associated as parts of one organization. It is however an organization pe- culiar and unique. Its constituent persons are not sub- ject parts, but they have individual powers and wills ; by which they may either accord with the organization in all its right and wholesome operations, or through which introduce discord. The best good of aU, however, assures the best good of every one. Hence, in truth and goodness and beauty, the interests and healthfully responsive action of " I " and " We," of every person and all humanity, coincide. Body, soul and spirit, in the unit and in the whole, are like in reciprocal relations, concurrent in operations, distinct personally yet common in origin and destiny. m. Hence follows the unity of truth, involving its absolute self-existence, self-preservation and immortal consistency. Our consciousness, which is the basis of all assurance ; and the one ground of the distinctive sense of personality with the conviction of the organic union of humanity, cannot hold on to the idea of con- tingency or relativity in the essence of truth. There may arise questions of contingency, wherein we may see THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGITT. 47 relative bearings of one fact upon another, with relative operations of distinct j)rinciples towards each other : but we assume, and cannot help resting upon belief, that there is a best among all possibilities, and a right beyond all doubts. The alternative to all this we can indeed hold, as an idea, in the mind. We can conceive that truth may be not absolute but relative, not self-existent but a creation of man's conception, not self-sustaining but dependent upon the will of man for its support. Such an idea in- volves the absurdity of man's supremacy over, not merely superiority in, the universe. Even from that compara- tively low definition, that " Truth is what is," follows the consequence that the Universe is founded on truth. Hence, if man's opinion is to him the truth, then the uni- verse is subject to man's opinion. If what a man thinks true, is true to him, then " all things " must accord with the principle ; and whatever conflict and contradiction may exist between one man's opinion and another or between the same man's opinions at different times, they all must be truth together. It will not do, to attempt to escape this absurdity, by changing ground. It will not suffice to say, that all these confusions will be finally adjusted in one grand consonance of truth ; for this is simply a confession of truth's absoluteness, which is the whole point in controversy. Herein appears another common human assurance and testimony to the fact, that however we may wander in mazes of fancy, distilled from the overboiling of distorted wishes and self-indul- gent wills, we cannot persuade ourselves out of the axiom, or basis of thought, that truth is, at least, a reality and power existing absolutely in itself and of itself, everywhere, now and forever. We cannot however stop at this view of truth. Phi- 48 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGnT. losophy indeed, in all ages, lias attempted thus to stop ; and it has discoursed so long and confidently about " ab- stract truth," that even common men are beginning to think that there is such a thing. Indeed, a Princeton professor. Dr. Shields, in his late book entitled "The Final Philosophy," which comes as a sort of manifesto from one of the most distinguished seats of learning in America, first copiously analyzes and discusses the whole history of philosophy, then enthusiastically sets forth a plan, or at least a course of procedure, designed finally to reconcile science and religion. Assuming that the truth of science and the truth of revelation, are both ab- stract principles, or rather parts of one common abstrac- tion, he proposes to have them both reconciled finally, when philosophy shall have discovered and formulated that general abstraction, which shall be able to assimi- late all others, and develop the one great Truth. Let any plain but accurate thinker, take e. g. such evi- dent axioms, as 'Truth is an objective reality,' ' It is in- dependent on relations,' and let him draw the inevitable conclusions 'It is power,' ' It is absolutely self existent ;' and can he hold these as abstract ideas ? A self-existent, almighty, omnipresent abstraction is the veriest dream of mental inebriation. It cannot be grasped by the nor- mal mind of man. He can no more think truth an ab- straction, than he can think himself a bundle of abstrac- tions. The same d. priori concept of personality, which holds him to the unit, conscious I, not only suggests the unit personality of truth ; but also leads to the next in- evitable conclusion, that this unit personality of truth is also a unit, conscious I. When he carries out this concept, among the facts of himself and the universe, he first perceives that this per- sonality is the very greatest of all manifest existences. THE CKEED AND MODERN TIIOrGIIT. 49 Indeed it only now apprehends, and if perfect might com- prehend, all other existences. Matter and force are un- conscious effects or unconscious causes. Complex units indeed are found in animal individuality of every degree ; but none like man's in scope, compass, capacity, and above all in powers of theoretical and practical generahzation. In this last particular man is unique in the Universe. Not the verdure, nor the waters, nor the bowels of the earth, nor the air are separately his peculiar domains ; but all the world is under him with all its subtlest pow- ers, while space is open to his ken, time to his researches, reason to his understanding, and beauty to his sight con- ception and imagination. These and many other quanti- ties, quahties and relations being subservient to, and therefore lower than human personality, he argues that the consistency which binds all must be their source as well as support ; and since a producer must at least equal its own product, Truth must be also a person. Truth's own personahty is, therefore, a necessary conse- quence of man's personality. This conviction about Truth, fits everywhere into, and works in concord with the common assm-ance of human consciousness, that every person is a distinct entity and indivisible, undying I ; while all mankind are united so, that whatever is essential to any person is com- mon to all. Hence *' I " and " We " reciprocally respond to and support each other ; while both rest confidently, only upon One Truth, Who is Infinite, Absolute, Per- sonal, All. 3 50 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 3; lUc BcUcDc. From the unit-consciousness of the person I, the physical philosophers attempt to search back for the first scintillation of life ; hoping to find it under the last divisible molecule, or in the last indivisible "atom," of matter. Their utmost analysis only reaches organiza- tions, yet unresolved into primary organites. The re- vealing microscope itself stops at the verge of a depth of the infinitesimal, which the eye of the scientist can- not scan. Man's incapacity, to sound the unfathomable deep below him, is thus manifested. Here the baffled mind stops; and takes, because it must take, its choice between blank nothingness, or belief in an existent though unsearchable First Cause. In view of well known forms of scepticism, it is per- haps necessary, before proceeding further, to define such terms as Cause, and First Cause. It has been alleged that we cannot comprehend Cause, and much less the First Cause. There is no objection to allowing this. It is true that cause, like substance, is a relative not an absolute cognition. We know the one by its effects, and the other by its accidents, or both by what in a single tenn may be called phenomena. Hence in this, as in every other matter of thought, it ought to be fi-eely allowed, that Man can look only on manifestations not into things as they are. Kant uses a term which may be convenient, when commonly understood. He caUs " things as they are " noumena, as distinct from phe- nomena their manifestations. THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 51 Noumena can of course only be known to one con- versant with the origin, sustentation and development of things. All that things have been, are and can possibly become, can be known only by such an One. In the same sense, Causes can only be known by One Cause of all causes. We do not yet inquii-e whether such an One exists. We are only showing a position that it is impos- sible for man to fill. Whether or not that position is occupied, will come up for future consideration. Although we cannot comprehend noumena we can, and every man does, form a concept of them. Things as they appear having been thoroughly examined, the. human mind invariably rests upon things as they are ; not indeed forming of them a distinct conception, but laying hold of, or rather subsiding into a concept of what is not phenomenon but the real ground of phe- nomena. If any one says that he cannot apprehend this, what he really means is only that he cannot comprehend it. If he could not apprehend it, he would never speak of it. It is one of those things that cannot be denied. The very term itself is an assertion. When we have attained the idea of noumena, we have travelled far down the line of effects and causes. If one says that a cause is simply an antecedent, and that all we know of cause is that it is a precedent to effect ; the answer obviously is, that not merely the time but the quality of cause is always considered. It is not enough to make a cause that it precede an effect. It must also exhibit the quality of power or fitness. Hence we de- mand that a cause should be both previous and adequate to its effect. We lay hold of cause as we lay hold of noumena, not comprehending, for only One Causer of aU Causes can comprehend, but apprehending, we cannot possibly deny cause. Our whole pi*actical life is begun, 62 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. and everywhere interlinked with cause. Oui* whole thought runs along a chain of causes. Hence the denial of cause is impossible, because cause is granted in the basis of its denial. Every attempt at denial is so formulated, that belief in cause is assumed for its very purpose, e. g. * Why cannot we conceive the idea of cause ? ' ' Because we are unable to do so.' ' O, then our inability is the cause of our incapacity.' Cause to the last ! A man may say that he will not accept what he cannot comprehend ; and therefore will not acknowledge the force of any argument, based upon the existence of the principle of causation. A great many philosophers take this position. It is however, not an intellectual, but a moral ground on which they stand. When they say they cannot, they convict themselves by their own words. When they say they will not, they are no longer self-de- ceivers, but only wilful. Of course no man has a right to proceed further with them. They may believe or dis- believe what they v/ill. Others, however, may not like that position. Wilful self-blindness is not thought safe, amid material things, and the simple minded may think it is liable to dangers from other than material things. Now taking that universal and inevitable spontaneous concept of Cause and Effect, we find it impossible to stop at any definable point. We get behind phenomena, on to the idea of noumena, and find ourselves still seeking after cause. Every comprehensible cause is itself effect ; and yet it is inconceivable that the apprehensible source of causes can itself be an effect. We rest therefore finally, on what is called the First Cause, i. e. upon one into which all effects run, and out from which all causes pro- ceed. It will be observed that the actual existence of the First Cause is not yet considered. The idea, or concept THE CKEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 53 alone is now in view. It is not only a common but a necessary human conception. Man's intellect is so con- stituted, that the innate idea of cause compels him to conceive of One First Cause. Nor can he escape this conception. Every system of human j)tiilosophy has a germinal idea, whence all its developments spring. Every such idea is only another name for The First Cause. It is as impossible therefore to escape a Cause of all causes in philosophy as it is in religion. Both stand at last alike upon an axiom of human nature, an axiom of both thought and life. In this study of The Creed in relation to Modem Thought, the old term "The First Cause," wiU be adhered to. If its antiquity is an objection to some, it will be a recommendation to others. The thing meant is exhibited in all philosophy. It is the centre, source, origin and sustainer of noumena and phenomena, the ground of being, and the one only resting point of thought. These psychical philosophers pursue similar investiga- tions. Though never escaping the unit, personal, con- scious, I ; they endeavor to resolve it into constituents of sensation or feehng. The senses however always find a cause for every excitation ; and the feelings an impulse for every emotion. They too stop, some on one and some on another step of the backward descending way. towards the deep of all the past ; seeing steps yet below fading into dimness, yet remaining steps to the last, one lead- ing to the other in an unsearchable series. Here their baffled minds also stop, and take their choice between the nothing-Hke confufeion of a circle of causes, where, at some undiscoverable point of junction, cause and effect commingle ; or, else, acknowledge the necessity of the First Cause; or wilfully declare that "Nothing," is the 54 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. source of the " All " ; or finally, in asserting that the First Cause is " unthinkable," manifest that they are them- selves then thinking of it. Both these classes, including all searchers in the direc- tion of the infinitesimal, make evident that demonstra- tion is impossible. They thus add their testimony', some unconsciously and all unwillingly, to the fact that the final basis of knowledge is not "I know," but "I be- lieve." The two opposite classes of physicists and metaphysi- cists, who look not downward towards the infinitesimal but abroad and upward towards the infinite, begin with the common human consciousness expressed by " We " ; and inquire of the Universe, ' What and whence is it ; what is man, and how are the Cosmos and Humanity mutually related ' ! The physical Universe expands beyond their utmost telescopic vision. It divides beyond their last spectro- scopic analysis. Effect, as the final phenomenon, assures some yet undiscovered cause. Knowledge in this field also is never demonstration. It rests at last on belief. Cause must precede effect, and must be adequate to the effect. Belief is the soil out which springs all the growth of cosmical science ; and the ground in which all knowl- edge of the Universe is rooted. The ".World of Mind," in like manner, is traversed and searched by the metaphysicians. Their cosmical conceptions will come under review, when the article of the Creed upon Creation is reached. Now it is only relevant to consider, notice, and record the fact, that their utmost searchings into the origin and ground of thought, have never discovered anything lower than just such descending steps as science has found in the physi- cal universe. Demonstration eludes the metaphysicians THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 55 always. Their various schools, disagreeing with each other, adopt each its own ultimatum ; which, however, on examination, proves to be a last-point only because " they will have it so." Every school of metaphysicians rests finally not on *'I know," but "1 believe." Like all searchers after msdom, they begin and end with, not knowledge, but belief. Indeed all the knowl- edge attained in science and philosophy — rich, and varied and wonderful as it is — rests never on final dem- onstration. At the very most it begins with behef in the irreversible, natural order and harmony of cause and effect ; and closes with looking forward to endless con- tinuance of this Cosmos, or of some other duly correlated cosmical order and harmony ; assuming always some seK-consistent *' Tendency," "Force," "Energy," or what- ever may be invented as a term to express the inevitable First Cause, Furthermore the consciousness, assurance, and entire conviction of the common unity of Humanity, expressed in the opening " We " of the Greed, is just as effectually asserted and assumed by all schools of science and phi- losophy. In terms indeed they deny this, as pertina- ciously as th^y assert the unthinkableness of The. First Cause ; yet in terms that contradict themselves, as evidently as when they assert the divisibleness of the conscious I, in language that never gets rid of the expression of that consciousness. Experience of the methods pursued by men of Science and Philosoj)hy teaches us to look for their dee|)est convictions, not often in their express conclusions, but in their inadvert- encies. This one fact is evidently characteristic of them all : they are never satisfied to hold their views, in the re- cesses of their own consciousness. They are propagand- 56 THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOTTGHT. ists all ; and none the less when disavowing a desire to push their opinions. The active propagandists proclaim their conviction of the unity of Humanity, by their efforts to support their views upon arguments and illustrations ; while the passive propagandists are content with super- cihousness towards all who hold views contraiy to or inconsistent with their own. Why is the one contemp- tuous, and the other aggressive ? Evidently because both feel that other men ought to come and should be drawn to their positions. But why? Solely because of the unity of Humanity. The considerations of fact and probabiht}^ upon which their views are based, they would never think of presenting to dogs or elephants or even gorillas. However near relationship some claim to the latter animal, none argue with him ; and none despise him because he is not a positivist or an idealist, or any- thing else they may happen themselves to be ; but they cannot rest without either contemning or endeavoring to convince men who refuse to follow them. This Unity of Humanity therefore, is as much part of the common conviction of all classes of thinking and talking men ; as it is of the holders to The Creed. As with their utmost analysis the former cannot express themselves without the I, so, with all their synthesis, they come out always on the We ; and, as they never reach demonstration, they are compelled to say "I believe," and to assume the necessity and avow the obligation of "We believe." The Creed opens at the common point where science and philosophy close. It takes their own formula, when they have no power to use it further, and simply goes up higher. It is no enemy to knowledge. It has not a word of condemnation for any form of honest investiga- tion. It only avows, what aU thinking discovers, that THE CEEED AlTD MODERN THOUGHT. 57 "I, We believe," is the beginning of all wisdom, and the only portal to knowledge. Primarily, 'behef is not an attainment, but a spon- taneity. All human persons believe. They believe everything at first. Doubt is learned, but belief comes by natiu-e. However early doubt may spring up, when once developed it takes an important part in formation of mind and character. It is often allied with wisdom. Reason often ends in doubt, and frequently begins with it. The affections sometimes choose doubt, and some- times are rudely forced by it. The Will doubts, when allured by the affections, or moved by reason ; and some- times doubts independently, through assumed and proud self-sufficiency. Doubt being the antagonist of belief and able to infect all and every personal consciousness, it follows that belief, when full and complete, will include all the faculties and powers of both "soul and body." Very little self-reilection reveals that the body may yield assent when the mind rebels, and the mind may accept what the affections recoU from, and the will may be separated from either. As before negatively, so now posi- tively, it appears that " belief " must iuclude the whole person, in all due relation, and harmonious cooperation of parts. When it is said " I beheve," the whole person, assents and consents in the conclusion, taking all its consequences. In fulness of belief is rest, and only therein. The whole person in fully beheving gathers himself, or is gathered together, in conscious completeness of unity. He has " attained." He has ascended to a plane on which, in clear light and open space, he may pause and breathe, and look upward to the steps yet impending. Disintegration, as an idea and possibility, belongs to the past. He has thought that subject out, and found no 3* 58 THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. status for it in connexion with the unit person beHeving. Complex, yet one, he beheves with all his powers, attain- ments, character and faculties. He has chosen his way and his course. He has not enslaved himself. Not any part of himself has expanded beyond its measure, nor has he cramped any part. His unity, including all parts in due relations and comprising all in whole, is simi^le. Nor in the future does he fear to do, or suffer self- violence. In sweet accord, his whole nature believes. Liv- ing waters of Ufe refresh him now, and as he is assured will continue always to refresh him. Although he may not translate — to his mind for instance — the full signifi- cance of his present assurance, yet his mind has attained, received, and accepted all it needs. It is full, and all else in him is full also. This united human entity, or person, has some object of belief. It must be to him an object, and therefore distinct from himself. However discerned, whether through sense, reason, or spiritual apprehension, it is something apart from himself ; and recognized as exist- ing independently. Two schools of Modern Thought deny this position ; while they oppose each other. The Idealists, who assert that we cannot know things in themselves, but can only know certain impressions made on our senses, would have us beheve that it is impossible to have any knowl- edge, objective to, or outside ourselves. The answer to them is, that they confound two distinct facts or posi- tions. We cannot indeed know hoio we know external things, but the common assurance of mankind is positive that we do know them, and this common assurance is the basis of all axioms. If we could know how we know, we should comprehend all existence. If we compre- hended all existence, we should be ourselves superior to THE CBEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 59 it. It would belong to us, and we should be above all its conditions. Man, in that view, is not creature, but Creator and Preserver of all things ; and, as there cannot be two separate Supreme beings, every man can only be a constituent in one great unit of divine humanity. The Ideahsts should be left quite free, to show man, in humanity, thus supreme over all things, if they can. It is quite unnecessary to be shocked at such an attempt. It may be only one legitimate outaction of that godlike- ness which Christianity declares to be an essential char- acteristic, and the peculiar distinction of the human race. Indeed there is something noble in the daring displayed ; and grand in the position taken ; by one who, beginning with the unquestionable first principle of the Idealists — that ideas are all we know of things — pushes on to that giddy, sheer edge of thought, where he must advance but finds no ground further to tread. Here the Idealist does what all thinkers must do. He says " I believe." What he believes will be constituted not out of clear fact, for he cannot attain it in this direction ; but will be composed out of something within him. There is an old Book, which says " With the heart man believeth " (Rom. X- 10) ; or as the words may mean, " in the heart it is believed." Common observation and reflection, as well as the profoundest psychical analysis, all show that there is some organ or faculty in every man, deeper than Ms mind, upon which his belief finally rests. The Ideal- ist uses this and must use it because he is a man. Hav- ing used it he declares, not what he demonstrably knows, but what he believes. Then he shows his conscious unity in and with all humanity, by pix)pagating his belief. He gives liis reasons why others should believe with him. His own " I believe " is thus translated into " We beheve." He is at one with the opening of the Creed. 60 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Now comes the divergence. The Idealist chooses to stand and look out into space. He cannot demon- strate man's seK-sufficience. He does not disprove, he simply declines to believe, in external things, and d foi^tiori in any Being or Power beyond them. Those who follow The Creed can afford to leave him. They have followed him as far as he can go ; and heard him as long as he has anything to say. Now, when out of his heart comes his declaration of behef, the answer to him is, that he may choose for himself as he will, but every other man may do the same. The follower of The Creed accepts the proposition, that what may not be comprehended by man may be apprehended by him ; and further claims that apprehension is all man can aspire after, because he is not sufficient to himself for himself: the finite cannot overstep the bounds of his own being." He thinks it more reasonable to hold to the reahty of self, with the reality of objects or external things. He also says " I, We believe ", confessing the danger of "thoughts in the heart", but seeing only con- fusion without them. He walks warily, but he goes for- ward with the " me "into the " not me." The sheer edge whence, looking only down and out, no thoroughfare opens, is found to have a pathway along its edge, where a true believer may securely tho' not carelessly walk, self-conscious, with the universe on one side. Who or What lies in and through the deep profound on the other side, and what the Universe is to Him, and He to it, will come before as we advance further into The Creed. The school of Modem Thought, which stands on the opposite pole to the Idealists, acknowledges both the outward and the inward, the object thought and tho THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 61 subject thinking, but declares that they are idevtical. One of their latest writers says, "In my Feeling that which is not Me is Matter, the objective aspect of the Felt, as IVIind is the subjective aspect." * In another place the same author compares consciousness and its object, to the convexity and concavity of a curved line, claiming that both are only different aspects of the same thing. Evidently in his figure and in his definition, he either does not perceive, or would hide the fact that- he assumes a middle sometliing which is neither of the aspects but rather that on which both aspects impinge. Where would his concavity and convexity be, without the line to hold them, and show them forth? "Where would the " objective and subjective aspects of the Felt " be, without a being feeling and conscious? A vast amount of writing is spent, in tracing the innumerable combinations of impact and resultant feehng, through individuals and groups of both faculties and persons, but never is the real issue directly faced. The conscious I, is assumed throughout, and manifested even in the attempts made to disprove its existence. Indeed it is confessed in terms that in one sense consciousness is "an ultimate fact, which cannot therefore be made more intelligible than it is already." f It is not pretended that there may not be many varieties of fonns and man;jr degrees of intensity in consciousness. Indeed there is a distinct conception of existence, which is re- garded as the basis of all general and personal life, of ■ which we are indefinitely conscious ; we know it, but we cannot define it. This is sometimes aptly named Sub- consciousness. Distinct however from varieties of form, separate in idea from intensity of expression, and not * Physical Basis of Mind. G. H. Lewis, Boston, 1877, p. 389. fib. p. 401. 62 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. the same thougli nearly associated with subconscious-- ness is that intelligible but indefinite unit of conscious- Bess which is expressed by the I. This is the interme- diate "line," outside concave and inside convex: this is the " being " on whom the " objective aspect of The Felt" impinges, and in whom its " subjective aspect" arises. Thus even the learned, laborious, and acute advocate of the Absolute Identity of the substance and feeling, after doing good work against both materialists and ideaHsts, comes at last himself to the same final issue they also reach. Compelled to acknowledge the ultimate, conscious I ; he proceeds as they also do to propagate his opioions ; and, by assuming that what he thinks true ought to be so regarded by others, he also reveals his conviction of the common oneness of the human race ; and further, by failing to demonstrate, is compelled to resort finally to an ultimatum of belief : he shows that he is no excejotion amid philosophers, but, with them all and with The Creed, testifies that " I, We believe " is a necessity for all thinking, and the primary condition of all knowledge. If the unit}^ of person were susceptible of analysis, and if the common sense of the unity of humanity were an acquirement and not a si^ontaneity, then The Creed might fairly be questioned at the very beginning. It might seem to imj^ose by authority something doubtful or disputable. When, however on the contrary, it mani- festly starts where all thought begins, and when unaided also ends ; and when it simj)ly promulgates, at its open- ing, the condition precedent of all understanding and knowledge, there can be no just doubt that it is true to the honor and dignity of man and humanity. It respects the sense of liberty, the distinctive characteristic and strong assurance of man's unique nobility. THE CREED AND MODERN THOrGHT. G3 No doubt the confession of the primary necessity of belief, is also a confession of comparative inferiority. To know is more than to believe. Man therefore has not attained unto the highest, nor can he ever encompass the highest. He may develop wonderfully, but can never attain the unattainable sufficiency of self to self. Self- sufficience belongs only to one free by nature from all relations and conditions, and subject only to such as may be self-imposed. Man however is born under conditions and never escapes them ; and manifestly never can, be- cause there are no steps leading up to the Infinite ; the last step, within the finite, being jet infinitely far off from that which is The Infinite. It is possible to conceive of a Being so self-reliant and self-sufficient that He is The Truth with Power. Such a Being's Word must be always true, because the word is the utterance of consciousness, the outgoing of thought, holding the Speaker to all he says, and enlisting all his powers for the fulfilment of his utterance. He must also be, not only self-consistent tliroughout, but superior to all accidents. In Himself He must be perfect, and from Him all things must proceed. Essentially, there- fore, nothing is beyond or independent of Him. "By Him all things consist." This Being evidently cannot be a creature, He can only be The Creator and Preserver. Man is not this conceivable Being. AVe say conceiv- able, for we have not yet inquired if He is. Thus far we are only inquiring about man ; and we rest here with proving that man, being evidently neither creator nor preserver of all things, cannot be sufficient unto him- self. Fact or Truth therefore, in its completeness, is too vast for him to encompass, and too great for him to make. It is one, real, and outside of every man. What- ever he may think ; primal, concrete, and universal fact, 64 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. or truth, is unalterable. "Whatever man may think or speak, the word of truth tries and judges him. If two men disagree, one or both are wrong. If they agree they can even then only act together : their final confir- mation depends, not upon their own concord, but upon their several and joint accord with reality, i. e. the truth. Philosophic subtlety, although driven by hard fact to the confession of man's self-insufficience, has invented " ways of escape " from consequent moral responsibility. AVhile acknowledging a creator and preserver, it has de- nied His personality. Sometimes, it has discoursed of a good and evil principle, at conflict in creation and progress.* Sometimes, it has spoken of spirit and mat- * " With the conception of two antagonistic powers, which severally work good and evil in the world, the facts are con- gruous enough, (i. e. pain and pleasure). But with the concep- tion of a supreme beneficence, this gratuitous infliction of mis- ery on man, in common with all other terrestrial creatures capa- ble of feeling, is absolutely incompatible." Herbert Spencer. Princip. of Biol. I. p. 344. Appleton, N. Y., 1875. It is remarkable that the latest Modem Philosopher, should take his position exactly where the earliest stood. The sufficiert answer is the old one, that " mercy and truth have met together," however inadequate human understanding is to the discovery of their point of union ; and that without the antagonism man could never have been godlike, for he would never have had any choice, and hence would never have known liberty. In philosophy, pure and simple, this theory, of two original antagonistic principles of good and evil, is untenable. Both can- not possibly be equal, for that involves everlasting confusion. One must be the greater and therefore The Supreme, i. e. The First Cause. Supremacy is indivisible ; "it cannot give its glory to another." Thus all attempts to solve by reason the mystery of evil, fail. We must accept evil and pain as obvious facts ; and, failing to account for them, can only believe and wait. The argument for the First Cause lies in another direction, and re- THE CKEED AND MODERN THOrGHT. • 65 ter as two great antagonistic powers, struggKng into and through creation. Sometimes, it has made " chance " its ultimate rest. Not long ago " force " was its one, ever evolving, sufficient cause. There is little to choose be- tween any of its theories. One after another philosophic theories, about being or existence, have risen mth noise and shouting ; and, having increased knowledge by stimu- lating study of facts, finally found themselves too narrow to hold all facts, and then have subsided. These theories, when closely examined, ai-e found to be only new masks on old faces, new names for old things. The " force " theory is not essentially different from that of " chance," while neither is so nearly reasonable as the old one of the conflict between a good and evil principle. It will be obseired that all these theories cannot escape from, and therefore tacitly tho' often unwillingly assume, a primary and fundamental reality, or " truth," to which all views are referred, and by which they must be tested. Besides this coincident testimony, of both willing and unwilling witnesses, to the unity, absoluteness and ob- jectivity of truth ; the fact becomes further evident nega- tively from the consequences of its denial. As before intellectually, so now morally, we see that if truth were not thus absolute, it would be relative. Every man then might make right for himself : what every man thought and willed would be his right. Men have tried this theory, but always wrought out of it confusion. It is impossible to evolve harmony out of it. When tried by power, it has gone on through tyranny to anarchy ; mains philosophically unaffected by the mystery of evil. Reason cannot destroy facts. Faith only can deal with the apparently irreconcilable, by leaving them to the light of the future. 60 THE CKEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. while liberty has only come to those who have sought the one, outside, absolute, all including right or truth. "When tried by " philosophers," this theory has led them, through much supercihousness and dogmatism sustained by mutual admiration, to treat all who question it as per- sons hopelessly mystified by prejudice or naturally too narrow minded for great thought. Unmoved by personal considerations, and unimpelled to personal defence or recrimination, the true philoso- pher — the real wisdom-lover — should calmly hold this theory, of truth's relativity, in strong grasp, and compel it to reveal its essence and power. If truth is relative and not absolute, every man, at least, can make his own right. It follows that what any human person thinks right, is truth to him. It will only be necessary to evolve this principle in one direction, to show where it leads in every direction. * I think a house is mine and proceed to eject the occupant. He thinks it is his and resists. I prevail and he retires. Is he wronged ? By no means, for my thought about the house was truth to me, and I have by power succeeded in ejecting him, and establish- ing myself.' Eight and wrong have no place in this theory. Success is the only reality ; not so much evi- dence of right as right itself. Projected to the universe, and generalized, this theory is " the simple plan." Under it man has only to use all his force, and abide the conse- quences. He can neither wrong nor be wronged. He can therefore never be brought into judgment. All the universe is open to him. Conflicts, which rage on earth, can only go on everywhere, forever. There is no princi- ple by which adjustment is possible ; and therefore no adjuster. Eight is simply a misnomer ; and wrong is a myth. It is hardly necessary to consider the answer that may THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. G7 be made against this reductio ad absurdum. If any one chooses to say that th,is theory produces confusion tem- porarily and on the earth, while in the boundless uni- verse with all time for its evolution it will bring out harmony and peace : the answer is, that ujDon its own principle it has not produced confusion at all, and there- fore all talk of coming harmony and peace is a simple abandonment of the whole ground. What is harmony, but the reciprocal accord and communion of things ob- jective to and with one another : and what is peace but the reciprocal charity towards one another of persons, outside and distinct from one another ? Hence appears again the distinctive, objective, and absolute existence of truth ; which, through its principle of beauty, draws forth high and universal harmony, and, through its prin- ciple of power, gives victory to right and finally makes peace. In fact all attempts to escape the acknowledgment of the absolute, objective, unity of self-existent truth, have proved vain in every direction. The very deniers of the principle contradict themselves, in framing by language the form of their denial. The assertion that their view is true, is itself an acknowledgment of all that is claimed against them. Even in declaring that every person de- cides and makes his own truth, they take one or other horn of a dilemma. If they claim that this theory is true, they acknowledge an outside tribunal to which all are amenable i. e. they confess the absolute unity of self- existent truth. If they reject this, nothing remains ; and all reality must be a myth: not even "relativity" will save them, for the relative must have its antecedent, and that can only be the absolute — the self-existent. The same argument wiU serve toward those who raise a distinct issue, respecting moral right. Its idea, like 6S THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. that of the true, is, and, in the same manner, may be shown to be, not a result of experience but an original and innate principle ; because the very objectors them- selves always accept it axiomatically. They never " ac- count for it," without in very terms assuming it. One and all therefore bear testimony, positively or negatively, to the universal necessity of belief. Every religion conjoins with philosophy in this same testi- mony. The irrepressible, universal desire to propagate one's belief is unintentional but clearest proof that noth- ing can drive out of any person his fundamental convic- tion, that truth for one man is truth for all men. The philosophers of every school, in every age, with varying outward expression, have spoken as if "they were the people and wisdom would die with them." Why should they thus exalt themselves, if they did not think or wish to think that they are eminently the discoverers or pos- sessors of truth? This thought and wish, with their restless spirit of propagandism, wheels them into the common line of humanity, where they also take up the witness for the unity, objectivity and universality of truth. Belief is a complex operation, because Truth is vari- ous — not discordant but differing in subject object and operation — . Mathematical truth addresses the intellect ; moral, the reason and conscience ; sesthetical, the under- standing and taste ; economic, the wisdom and judg- ment. Eeligion alone presents its truth to the whole man. It comprehends his tripartite unity. It addresses him as body, soul, and spirit. It touches and enlivens every faculty. It guides and rules all. It includes all his interests. Time and eternity are its periods. This world and the next are its fields. However various, in creed and code, different religions THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 69 may be ; the religious idea, pervading all forms, is fun- damentally that of cause and consequence. As in com- mon experience, we never can be satisfied with a phe- nomenon, until its design is unravelled, and the designer sought for ; so in the study of the complex phenomena of " me and not me," of self and the universe, every active mind naturally and all inevitably look back per- sistently through causal effects, until a beginning is reached, a cause found which is not itself an effect, but the one source of all. The opening words of The Creed, "I, we believe," ex- press primarily a fact of all experience. The unity of truth — confirmed as we have seen by all mankind either through assent or denial — is involved in the conjunction here of the singTdar and plural form of the personal pronoun. The Eastern and the Western civilizations and modes of thought supplement each other. The Creed becomes complete, through conjunction of western in- dividuahty and eastern correlation. It opens not with a dogma, but with an axiom. Incontrovertibly, and self-evidently, belief must be in every person. Therefore one and all should hold to the one, absolute entity. Truth. 70 THE CKEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. "I, iViz hdunt in ®ne ®oir." The Original ! The First Existence ! The Cause alone causeless ! The Foundation of all reality ! The Source of being ! The Self-sustaining ! The Preserver ! " The Unknown," say the philosophers : The Unknown in essence, and in the fulness of His power the Incom- prehensible, responds fearlessly the Christian. Thought and expression must of course remain within the limits of human capacity. It would be vanity and folly to claim for man capacity to comprehend God. He only can comprehend Himself. Belief does not require of man comprehension. We search with our minds, and attain whatever intellect can encompass. We reach out with our affections and sensibilities, and attach to what they, apprehending, may commune with. Both intellect and affection demand a cause ; and, following back, can only rest at The First Cause. There is no escape from this searching and this rest. Every system has it. Even the deniers of The First Cause, invariably set up a first cause, however named. " Chance ", " Force ", " Vital Energy", "Principles good or evil ", "Permanent possi- bilities of sensation or feeling," "Abstract Law," and even " Nothing " have been assumed as the origin, energy and support of all things. Quiescence being self-contra- dictory and absTU-d, this primordial Some or No-thing is said to act, either as some say by creative operation, or, as others with solemn absurdity affirm, by endlessly cir- cuitous evolution. These theories, and all similar ex- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 71 pedients are manifestly notliiiig else than variations of the one, irrepressible, human testimony, to the universal, ineradicable belief in the Beginner of the Beginning, The First Cause, The One All, God. This One is the same to all. I believe and We believe. No dogma yet ! Only an axiom ! The mind, by searching, discovers knowledge built on axioms. ' What or who is God ' ? The Incomprehen- sible ? Undoubtedly to man ; for the effect cannot com- prehend its own cause. But man has capacities capable of large attainments, even though incapable of compre- hending i. e. taking in all. W^e never give up effort in things temporal, because we cannot encompass all. So, in searching after God, we may find much, and attain much, tho' not all. We can feel after Him, and touch His fulness, and draw our measure full ; and thus know Him, to the extent of our present powers, with the con- fident assurance of Urger receptions, as our faculties of apprehension grow. A clear apprehension, of the measure and limits of human capacity, is a prerequisite of all just discrimina- tion ; and hence essential to attainment in knowledge. The real is boundless, but discernible. We are capable of receiving it, while at the same time perceiving its overarching, all-pervading, incomprehensible fulness. We cannot explain this perception, because it is illimit- able and therefore indefinable. It is not inexpressible, because we are capable of apprehending it ; but the form of the expression is indefinite, though distinct. It seems to be dual. I and Thou ! I, conscious, relative, limited I Thou, One, All, Absolute ! We touch here the utmost bound of human knowledge. At that bound stands man in his completeness. Body, soul, and spirit all are active, and aU united in conscious 72 THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. unity of living. Personality is not lost, nor is it ab- sorbed. The "I," assuming because feeling existence, through all its wholeness perceives God. It does not ask the body to comprehend His providence. It does not require the soul to define His wisdom, and power, and love. It does not demand of the spirit a delineation of His being. But every part knows His presence ; and the whole person confesses Him, and believes. If the belief be willing, trust foUows and then obedience. If behef be unwilling, " many inventions are sought out ", by which to escape the obligations of belief. The conscious person, standing thus at the outer con- fines of his insufficience feeling after and believing God, knows that he himself occupies one place common to all humanity. The whole of mankind, like every one, stands there. Whatever is peculiar, in any person, follows its own bent. Whatever is common to all affects all equally, or rather without exception. All mankind, like every one, believes from primary necessity, and should believe in the One God from the impulsion and thro' the guid- ance of natural reason. Hence "I believe in God," in- volves "We believe in God." This All is One. Not merely does reason show that He must be One, because of the confusion and even con- tradiction of the idea of more than One being the ener- getic All : but the whole united complexity of the con- scious, human person— the I — cannot divide belief, and rest satisfied and filled, in more or less than One, caus- ing and sustaining All. Here the unity of man joins the unity of God. A recognition of complexity in himself does not involve the idea that personality is an aggrega- tion, a mere junction of parts. Personality, I, is known, perceived, felt, assumed, as a unit ; comprising parts, not comprised in, nor formed by the parts. It may be THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 73 called, in inaccurate but suggestive language, the Organic Principle, and The Germ. The one would suggest its assimilating power, and the other its nucleus to which all assimilations join. This however would be unsatis- factory, because it is an attempt at definition. The unity of the human person is indescribable. It is indefinable, and by the mind incomprehensible. Every part and faculty is in the L It pervades every part. Hence the whole human being is single, though both central and pervading. This single personality can accept one God only. It must have Him, not merely to account for its own being ; but to rest upon as its own cause, and to rest in as its own support, to ti'ust as its hfe-giver and preserver, to walk with, to hope in, to confide with, to obey willingly, in one word, to believe. To this belief, involving all its consequences, man brings all his parts. Faculty, power, affection, every constituent finds all it needs in the One, All : and yet it never stands alone. No one part goes out here after its God, while another finds its God there; but all are filled through the conduit of the single personality. The I and its all, together, coact in conception, reception, perception, apprehension and satisfaction. Again we come out to the verge of human knowledge. With all that composes him, alive, active, conscious, and searching, man stands on the edge of time and space, himself now a creature boimded by time and space, yet knowing that beyond both, is One, to Whom neither time nor space is a boundary. Out of time and space man can neither peer, nor reach ; but from beyond both, he knows and is assured, that the One can see and reach down to him. Thus again " I believe.'* 4 74: THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Moreover all men being like me and, beyond contro- versy, organically one with me ; what I require, mankind requires also ; what is essential to me is essential to every other human person, and therefore to all men ; what fills and only tills me full, fills them, evei-y one and all, in like manner. One God only satisfies me : One God therefore embraces the needy all. There can be no division of my belief, and hence none for all. My unity represents the unity of the One human family. There- fore " I, we believe in one God." Thus far there is substantial agreement between The Oi'eed, and al^l thought, modern or ancient. Philoso- phers indeed, now as ever, deny God. Indeed it is fash- ion at present among them to ignore Him. Their sys- tems do not need Him, they say. When He is named they decline to consider Him. And yet not one of them can escape the idea of a beginning and a Beginner, liowever impalpable their conceptions, or abstract their definitions. Every philosophical system starts from a primary axiom. Axioms involve the necessity of a sub- standing reality, as energy involves that of substanding power. When the philosophers get below axioms, then they will have demonstrated the self-sufiicience of man. He can then make his own axioms. He will then control and command, i. e. be all truth and all power. Let the philosophers do this if they can. Surely no one is able to prevent them, and no clear and honest thinker cares to try. Until they do touch that depth, and stand in it self-sustained, and clearly show their self- sustenance, sufficience and support ; they must allow, or be forced to confess, that the One God of the Creed is a reasonable name for that primordial All, on which or in Whom all axioms rest, and may only be accounted for ; THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. «0 on Whom all primary facta are founded ; and from Whom proceeds all concurrence of activities, with all correlation and conservation of forces. This primordial All ; whose existence alone accounts for those self-evident intellectual propositions, down, on, to which every philosophical system descends and stops ; and for those ultimate facts, where science also reaches its boundary ; is cognized by the conscious I. • Only God, the name in the Creed, satisfies this cogni- tion. " Nothing " cannot be God, because out of noth- ing, nothing can come. "Necessity" cannot be God, because necessity, being compelled and not self-com- pelling, must have some power beyond it. So of any other abstract notion of the primordial All, it assiunes something beyond or back of itself. Piercing, as with a spear of light, through all darken- ing counsel of words without knowledge ; every earnest, honest and persistent human person strikes resolutely at the one point, where all philosophical axioms, and all ultimate scientific facts converge. There it demands, * Who or Wliat is this substanding reahty, whence come forth all axioms, principles, and existences?' Sneering will not silence this question. Ignoring will not baffle it. Finding no answer from the wise of this world ; the self-conscious human person, speaking to himself, de- clares that — as his own I is the centre and circumference of his cognition, feelings, and volitions, as well as the foundation, the walls, the rooms and the roof of all his capacities with their attainments — this primordial All cannot be less therefore than he, its creature, is. He, its creature, finds himself a distinct, singly self-conscious person, component but indivisible, able in idea to dis- cern parts of himself, but never able to decompose nor outfathom his ever-present, unit, conscious L This 76 THE CREED AND MODERN THOrGHT. comprehensive, single personality is his noblest, and most valued human distinction. He, Who made the hu- man I, cannot be less than a person Himself. " I, the Lord and none else." Is. XLV. 5. The Creed is therefore profoundly true to, and grandly accordant with man's common, deepest self-conscious- ness. It leaves intact his noble assurance of personality, and puts before him the One God, The Person whence all personality sprang, towards "Whom every person yearning for personal communion may turn, assured that "He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." Col. L 17. THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 77 The One God cannot be received — hardly conceived — as a mere abstraction of force. Force is something that goes forth, and is opposed to and by all response. It is therefore cold, unattractive, and even repellent to the conscious human person. He may submit to force, if he cannot resist it. He may use it, when he may, to attain his desires. But for force itself no man has a feeling of regard, nor can he have ; and yet ihis feeling of regard is necessary to call forth that earnestness, upon which depends all personal satisfaction, and out of which flows all worthy life work. Nor again can the One God be conceived as a mere abstract will. Some writers indeed have attempted to express their behef in an abstract will ; and have en- deavored to show that personaHty is a product or attri- bute of will. Even they however bear, as all their less radical confreres do, unconscious, or at least unwilling, testimony against themselves. If will were the source of personality, the expressions "I will," "I think" etc., would be ludicrous transpositions. The form instead should be, "Will I," "Will think." The consciousness would of course rest in the concrete whole, and not in any one of its features ; and the fact that the person is conscious of will, and not the will conscious of person, shows that the I holds the will, and that will is a faculty of person. It is, however, the most prominent and very distin- 78 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. guishing faculty of person. Matter follows laws, animals are evidently governed by instinct and impulse witli little if any mere, dissevered, will-power ; but man knows, and cannot be persuaded out of the conviction, that his will, though self-subject, is objectively free, and is the responsible seat of his outgoing words and acts. What he says or does unwillingly — i. e. without the near or re- mote, definite or contingent, consent or assent of his will — he is not responsible for. What he does willingly is the declaration, and manifestation of what he is, in character and capacity. The high rank held by the will in the constitution of the person, and the governance it wields over the other faculties — being itself subject only to that concrete unit I — , makes* it the chief mark and sign of personality. Hence when we look on outward things, whether in whole when viewing the cosmos or in part when viewing its details with their adaptations, we must adopt some notion of their cause. They are evidently effects. They cannot have been self-caused, for that is simple contra- diction. It has been attempted, but never with success, to express the idea of an effect which was its own cause. Not one cunning master of style ever described an end- less self -enfolding cycle, that would account for existence without the First Cause, i. e. The One God. This one God, being the person of Whom every person is a type, cannot be in Himself less than his own creature. Now, in the creature, the will is the highest faculty, and the first subordinate ruler of all the faculties ; so that the distinctiveness of the person, and the essence of his character, are manifested through the will's operations. Hence in looking through His manifestations, by word or work, the creature man cannot find rest or confidence on or in anything less that One Supreme Will. Given THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 70 this Will, then creation, providence, grace, and whatever else the consciously material, psychical, spiritual creature man requires, follows on in linked connection. Yet we do not project our likeness out and upward to the Throne of The Universe, and call Him God, who is only a perfected human conception. There is not con- sciousness of such proceeding in us ; nor does the his- tory of the belief point out any time when this was done by man. The primary idea of God is a reception — commonly called an intuition — not a construction. There is no sense of outaction in us, when conceiving the Divine personality. Conceiving it, with all men of all ages, intuitively, we confess it spontaneously ; and by that confession become confirmed in the conviction, that the highest in us, — the comprehensive, the willing I — is, because The Supreme, the First Cause, God is One, Infinite, L This One, Infinite, I, is The One, Absolute L Logically the One Infinite excludes the Finite, and the One Abso- lute excludes the relative. Hence logically man has no existence. If we were pure intellect, we should rest here, and agree that rehgion is impossible, because a contradiction stands at its very threshold. But know- ing that I am, I know also that my intellect, as^ well as that of all men, is bounded ; and therefore conclude that its conception of the Infinite and Absolute, being neces- sarily incomplete, its sentence of contradiction amounts only to a confession of incapacity to perceive what lies beyond its own scope. Another and a deeper principle, or power, or faculty, or all combined, is in me and in every human person. We may call it affection, and locate it in the heart, i. e. in that known, but indefinable centre of life-warmth, 80 THE CREED AND MODERN THOTJGHT. wherein character is begotten, bom and bred. To its domain belong the emotions and sensibilities. Long- ings, yearnings and aspirations are its outactions. The senses and the intellect cognize affection, both acting on it and being affected by it. Through affection, acting as both power and receptive faculty, come in the stabilities and vagaries of beUef. If affection were all, or even su- preme, these stabilities or vagaries would have authority. Every person then, following his affection, might believe whatever it set forth ; and no one might dispute anoth- er's opinion. Hence every person would be his own judge, and truth could have neither authorized teacher nor defender. Thus we find another essential part of man, when taken separate and divided from its relation to other essential parts, leading to confusion. As the intellect, alone, is confused by the finite and The Infinite, the relative and The Absolute ; so the affections, alone, discard the unity of truth, as too h^rsh and severe for its sensibility. Yet both must accept, what they thus recoil from ; because both can fill their own deepest consciousness only with The Infinite, One. As " The SeM-existent " gives the intellect a perceptible, though incomprehensi- ble, basis; so also "The One, All-sufficient" can only satisfy the affection. This One, All-Sufficient, cannot be a force. Affection cannot attach to an abstraction. It loves. Love is the deepest form of its expression. Love is operative only between persons. The affection de- mands a person, as The One, All-Sufficient. The Senses occupy a domain distinct from both affec- tion and intellect. They are however closely allied to both. All act reciprocally, sometimes in harmony, and sometimes at variance, or even in conflict. The Body is THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 81 the seat and instrument of the senses. Form is insepa- rable from the idea of personal human existence. In- deed it enters even into any conception, that can be defined or delineated of God. Substance is that in which body takes or is given form, and through which it is made manifest. The body— living on earth — is in- separable from material ; though any or all parts of the material may be successively thrown off, and other or even the same particles reassimilated. Whatever the real essence of body may be, we only know it through manifestation : and yet we are capable of an abstract idea of a formal power or principle, that, existing in man, enables him to take up and throw off earthy mat- ter, and yet never sever the unity of his own manifest identity or conscious oneness. Matter, in organic union with his parts and members, he calls his body to-day ; although to-morrow he may tread particles of that very matter as dust under his feet. From the cradle to the grave man says "My Body," with complete conviction that from first to last he has, has had, and will have only one, essentially identical, same material manifestation. It is perfectly easy to carry, in thought and belief, this conception of form out and beyond the earth. Yet it is only possible to hold this conception in connection with substance. Spiritual substance, however, is conceivable and as satisfactory to thought, as earthy material. Hence there is no difficulty in conveying, to the sim- plest and youngest human creature, the idea of his own very body translated to a region of spirit, and there clothing itself, or being clothed, with immortal, ethereal, spiritual substance. Personal identity leaps without difficulty the chasm of death ; and nothing is easier than to conceive of the same "I," dwelling here in changing matter and there in immortal spirit. Sub- 4* 82 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. stance includes botli ; and the body, both here and there, never exists out of substance. Though distin- guishable in idea and terms ; form and substance, both here and there, are practically inseparable. As below us on earth we perceive bodies not human, "whose substance is earth, like our own ; so we can easily conceive and think of creatures, not human, above us, who have each his own body, manifested in spiritual substance. The perpetual identity of every one of these spirits, is as easy to conceive as that of our own ; and the perpetuity of spiritual substance, is as indubitable as the indestructibility of matter. How the individual spirit stands related to the whole of the spiritual sub- stance, or whether it bears any such relation as man to all matter, we need not investigate ; nor need we inquire what power over form and its changes, the individual spirit above may be allowed. What we have thus treated as possible in conception, is in fact actual according to common behef. It is hardly necessary to do more, than assert the common belief of mankind in the existence of spiritual ]3ersons. The exceptions, if they exist, are so few, and so easily accounted for, that only a curious subtlety would be gratified, and much time and labor misapplied, in search- ing through their details. It is certainly not necessary to turn aside now, for such exploitations. Most men do and all easily may believe in spirits, living an individual life of immortality, either above or below, in good or in evil, wherever the spiritual domain reaches. The idea of form is however not yet exhausted. Begin- ning at the lowest, organic, earthly body, ascending through humanity, and coming out into the habitation of THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. S3 spirits; it remains yet unfilled, and unsatisfied. Wlierever it came from, and however we received it, there is in all mankind capacity to conceive, and in most, to believe in Divine Substance, superior to matter and spirit, which consists in Divine Personality. These two are distin- guishable in thought, but indivisible in fact. Though we may not analyze the indivisible, we may take the dis- tinction to ourselves, as assurance and confirmation of that which is essential to all stability of hope, viz. : that The Supreme, is personal ; apart from His work, yet like us, and so approachable. The mode of the union of His person with the indivisible divine substance need not draw our attention, because it lies beyond our capaci- ties. BeHeving, we simply leave His own to God ; Who alone is, and should be confessed, exclusively self-com- prehensible. It is vain for modem thought to deny the human capacity to thus cognize a personal God. The Positivists indeed are quite remarkable for their way of meeting and putting aside this matter. They are constantly, even in their own investigations, coming out face to face with the fact of a Creator and Presenter of the Universe ; and their sole, common, ever-reiterated remark is, " We de- cline to consider that point : because we have no facul- ties capable of perceiving God." Children shut their eyes sometimes, and then they say they can't see. Men are very often like children. We can cognize, and every man knows that he can cognize, that is think of, and conceive ideas about, God. Hence every man can obtain knowledge about Him. The repetition of the old assertion that we cannot com- prehend Him, wiU sometimes come up in this stage of argument ; but it yet avails nothing. The confusion be- tween comprehension and apprehension, was probably as 84: THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. old as the time of S. Paul. It never yet lias left human philosophy. Christians however make the distinction, ever have made it, and ever miist make it. "VVe do not pretend to encompass the Infinite, nor to know com- pletely the Absolute ; but we do claim the power and the fact of such apprehension, as enables us to know Him, to the full extent of our capacities. " Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend." Phil, IH. 12. The hne of thought, that has been now followed under the terms " inteEect, affection, and form," might as well have been followed under the terms "soul, spirit, and body.** The end would have been the same. Now at last we stand, having the tripartite witness of human nature to the existence of one God, with all that is in man also gravitating towards Him, crying after Him, searching for Him, and iiTepressibly demanding Him as the prime, midst and final need of every creature. In the fulness of his best powers, and in the depth of his strongest, purest necessities Man cries out for God, and God surely answers him. Tliat answer will not, aye, cannot narrow nor cramp humanity. God must fill the deepest depth of humanity, and satisfy its loftiest hopes^ Body soul and spirit must rest in Him, and be satisfied. The First Cause, The Central Life of Love, The One Supreme, are included in the distinct and yet commingled Divine Idea, which man, as body, soul and spirit, con- ceives : but the central human person, the conscious I combines all, and demands "My God." Personal rela- tionship to God, in all fulness and all possible details is desired, longed for, needed, even demanded with yearning by mankind. Man must come nearer to God, than his mind can say, his heart express, or his sens© THE CREED AKD MODERN THOUGHT. 85 conceive. In the fulness of liis yearning personality, he must, to be satisfied, draw nigh to God. The name, Father, satisfies this necessity. "We need not ask whence this name came to be applied to God. Man, conscious of his complex constitution, and looking into the living depth of his self-need and capacity, encom- passes and outreaches the region of mere history, and mere logic. The living, feeling, yearning, complete man leaps at the thought of God as The Father, and finds, in His Fatherhood, satisfaction through all the breadth and length and depth and height of his own mysterious, per- sonal entity. This language the mere intellect cannot comprehend. God — Who, as Father, pours, thro' all his creatures' na- ture, the substance of hfe and joy — cannot be compre- hended by that creature, even when using aU his powers ; much less can any one faculty of the creature encompass Him, from Whom it came. And yet the intellect, with aU its various powers of intuition, induction, analysis, combination, and whatever else may be assigned to its domain, is expanded, enriched, and enfranchised more and more, as it studies God's Fatherhood. Only when it cuts itself loose from the other parts of human nature, does it begin to swell with pride, and rise by conse- quently diminished specific gravity from the hard ground of fact, to float hke a balloon towards or into the region of attenuated air, amid cold, in a meretricious light, where objects above and objects below are too remote to be discerned. Multitudes may gaze with wonder after aeronauts, and they themselves for a time may enjoy the novelty of new sights and sensations ; but, if their buoy- ancy is caused only by self-inflation, their collapse and fall are inevitable, while their short flight may not be, to themselves even, satisfactoiy as an exaltation. Pure mind, 86 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. indulging itself in mere speculation, has shown results that challenge admiration. Theories about existence have been broached by the lone-intellect, which have a kind of logic in them, with much accumulated fact around them. Every one, who knows the flavor of intellectual pabulum, will be willing to confess that it is stimulating and sweet. Only the^^, who know little or nothing of it, condemn it wholly, as if it were distilled over the fires of the Pit, and condensed in the dark caverns of human pride and self-will. Intellect is too grand, too strong, too patient, too rich, too powerful, too evidently celestial in origin, to be condemned by truth, and shut out from con- sideration in viewing God's Fatherhood. It is part of man, and must therefore be filled full by God, The Father. When man, in his completeness, calls on God, the answer will fill all his capacities and powers, full. Not a word therefore against searching, or even criti- cal investigation ! Every fair field be open to it, and all encouragement given ! But, for the sake of common sense, let not a part assume the functions of the whole. Let not mind alone act and think, and dogmatize, or with cold indifference set forth its facts, deductions and con- clusions, as if it were all of man, or as if it were the supreme autocrat, to which complex man should submit, with all his other faculties ignored, or enslaved. Surely these affections of ours, in which lie that mys- terious longing of love — deexDer than mind or even will, though pervading and reacting with both — must have voice in determining the true and the good. There is a deep "sense," in all men, that cognizes goodness and truth. With greater or less willingness, all confess its existence ; and consciously or unconsciously evince their assurance of the actual, objective operation of truth, and THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 87 of its eternal coincidence with good. And yet what in- tellect has ever encompassed truth, or even defined it ex- cept negatively ; and where has goodness been measured or analyzed ! Some part or faculty of every man, how- ever, apprehends truth and goodness ; and this part may fairly be called the affections. If a faculty it perceives and knows with deeper than intellectual apprehension, and more than the conviction from mental demonstra- tion. If not a faculty it is perhaps that substratum which bears, to the various manifestations of personal identity, a relation similar to that of substance to acci- dents. It is distinct from intellect, sensibility or will, and yet so pervades them all, that neither can act without either its impulse or cooperation. It is the living centre of satisfaction. When filled full, the whole man is fuU. With affection at rest, contentment flows over the whole person. The faculties, that are not already full, have their yearnings stiUed, either by the assurance of faith or the comfort of hope. It is not necessary to reply to those, who say that the affections are as variable as the inconstant winds, and as unsafe to build upon as the incoherent sands. All this is allowed, yet the ground of this ai'gument remains un- touched. The apparent manifestations of affection, are not now in view. Though aU men differ, and every man be inconsistent, so that we may not be sui*e what form of expression may be adopted, in any given case, for be- lief in goodness and truth : though we may not know what deity may call out the devotion of any distinct class of worshippers ; yet this all coincide in declaring, viz. that truth and goodness exist, are absolute, outside of every man and all creation, self-existent and almighty. Love is one of the manifestations of affection. In- deed, love is the highest faculty in man. It may dwell 8S THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. with its opposite in the substratum of human entity. It may flee away and hide itself in fear, or grief, or shame ; but its secret chamber is amid the most inner recesses of the soul, and its queenly authority is cheerfully ac- knowledged by the peaceful, and confessed with greater or less willingness by all. Now love cannot rest in the merely abstract. The abstract good and true, to it, are mist-like, frosty and unsatisfactory. Even when the beautiful is added to them, and their triune concomitance is shown through whatever wealth of illustration or felic- ity of description, still love remains unsatisfied. It cannot clasp an abstraction. Its vitality operates, not in receiv- ing only but in giving. It must bestow itself, as well as receive into itself. Eesponse is essential to its exist- ence. Now response is impossible between a person and an abstraction. It is no help to declare that abstraction to be the perfection of tinith, goodness and beauty com- bined. Love may plunge into an ocean, but not live therein satisfied with bathing forever. Its intense con- sciousness of personality abhors annihilation ; and, with hardly less intensity, abhors disintegration. Man, con- scious of the power of love, must be less than he knows and feels himself to be, if he can rest in any other view of God ; than as a person, who can hear and answer, re- ceive and give, respond and be responded to, through all conscious human needs, by and with every definite and indefinite, assured human power. Given however God a person, and God a Father, and all man's nature is satisfied. The relationship will sati- ate and yet outcompass his understanding. Even his imagination, painting to weariness, will fail adequately to picture it. But the heart, with its love-facult}", can take hold of it, and find responsive reaction from it ; by which THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 89 all the person — illumined and warmed — shall be exalted, suffused, invigorated, and enlarged. The assurance of faith and comfort of hope will follow, not enslaving but enfranchising, by giving all the man, in his unity, rest in Him, " One God The Father " Who is love. The Creed, in setting forth God, as The Fathee, im- poses not a hard dogma upon us. It simply presents a fact, which harmonizes with all the deepest powers, and best dispositions within us. Let its presentation be pictured, side by side, with that of the other gods men have invented! Let it stand out before the idols of superstition ! Compare it with the attenuated cirrus-like theories of philosophy ! Which shall man choose ? Which most fully and truly responds to all his conscious- ness? Which presents least difficulties to the mind? What other one even pretends to satisfy the yearnings, the longings, and the aspirations of every man's heai*t and of all human hearts ? However disposed towards the conclusion that follows ; surely no true and just person, with intelUgence un^ clouded, will refuse to acknowledge, as compared mth any other doctrine about God, that this of His Father- hood is the most satisfactory to the whole of any man, and to all parts in every man. It is not yet time to adduce the objective proofs that God is The Father. The Creed opens with assertion. It is however so arranged, that its progressive steps rest upon its opening ; or rather gTOW up out of it as from a root. Man's personal identity, and common unity, fol- lowing out not arbitrary choice, but the universal neces- sity of belief, comes first on God. Finding Him a Father, man is filled and satisfied. WTiatever may come after, this at least is a broad foundation fact, on which every human creatui-e may stand in company with all hu- 90 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. manity. Death and life, time and eternity, the seen and the unseen, all that man knows or conceives or fears or hopes, are encompassed by God, The Father. He sur- rounds them all, not only with light, and power, and love, but with Himself also. Hence, whoever says sincerely " I, We believe in God, The Father," not only repeats the belief, which has come down from the earliest days of man's appearance on the earth ; but gives utterance to the highest aspira- tions and deepest conscious necessities of humanity in its best estate. That best estate, alas ! we do not all abide in now ; but the essence of our being is yet un- destroyed, and therefore we know what is best, and may desire it. Most certainly we confess it, when, mid the common-praise of The Ages, we uplift our voices and declare ourselves in the ranks of that succession, which from time's beginning to its end bears witness to the beauty, the goodness, and the truth, aye ! even to the veritably real, personal, present existence, of God The Fati No dogmatism yet ! No imposition yet, on willing or unwilling men, of a mere formula of belief, resting solely upon a threatening word of power ! In one sense the whole Creed is dogmatic. It assumes the unity of ab- solute truth. So long, however, as it presents its facts to man, so as to call forth and satisfy all that is in him of purity and power, it cannot be charged offensively with the assertion of dogma. It does not leave us free to choose between its declarations, and some other form of truth ; for that would be the worst cruelty that could be inflicted on us. It would be equivalent to allowing that truth is relative and changeable, not absolute and unswerving : and then we should lose God, Heaven, and THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 91 Hope, for nothing would remain but man the maker of his own truth, the supporter of his own fortunes, and the ultimate refuge of his own longings. In escaping fi'om self-dependence, and from the in- sufficiencies of his present estate, man meets The Creed with its refuge of facts. If facts are too dogmatic for him, then, alas ! not only The Creed is not for him, but all, that can be his is Nothing ; for only Nothing is in that sense undogmatic. Free therefore, in respect to all human attainments or conditions ; joyful, in the full outactidn of every power that flows from all his faculties ; and, restful through the serene inversion of every longing on all his capacities ; man may, and if true to himself, must say, " I, We be- lieve in One God, The Fathek." My Father ! Therefore I and We are His beloved children. " Children, then heirs." Heirs, not of an estate left by Him, but of one in which He remains its central light, and life. 92 THE CKEED AND MODEKN TIIOTIGHT. 2llmtgl]trj. First Father, then Almiglity, Doer of all things ! This ability to do all things comes, most distinctly into our minds, as a negative fact or proposition. We understand it best, at least primarily, as superiority over and ex- emption from necessity, condition or relation. There is nothing that the Almighty cannot do. He is above all con- ditions. He is untrammelled by any relations. The limit — not imposed, but self-determined — in this direction, is consistency : *' He cannot deny Himself " — i. e. coun- teract His own acts or laws ; " He cannot lie " — i. e. His word is the utterance of His will, involving the outgoing of His power, the expression or outaction of His essence of truth and love, and the fulness of His person in oper- ation. As our heart's wisdom accepts God's fatherhood for the necessary, and only complete satisfaction to affection — that under-stratum, perhaps germ, of human nature; — • so the mind rests on His Omnipotence. Neither heart, nor mind takes either aspect for its sole study and de- light. Both rest on God, One throughout all His mani- festations. "We are conscious however of a colder, and dialectic operation, when considering Him as the Almighty. God's unity, love, power, wisdom involve the fact, and hence the necessity of believing, that nothing is beyond His power ; and by consequence nothing beyond His ken. He is the Omniscient, because He is the Almighty. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 93 No boundaries can shut in The Almighty ; He is there- fore Infinite ; therefore also Omnipresent, not solely pervading but encompassing all, holding all present to Himself. The converse, of any one of these facts, must be con- trary to the truth. If any one of them were not, then, through that one defect, all mankind and all the universe might slide to destruction. The mind of man cannot conceive of a defect in God. It must hold Him perfect. And yet when we attempt to grasp, and bound, and define The Almighty ; we come at once to the outer Hmit of our powers. We say. Able to do all things ; Uncon- ditioned ; Infinite ; Absolute ; everywhere present, i. e. all-pervading, all-encompassing ; The Almighty. But what definite conception do these words convey, to the finite mind of the unrivalled among creatures, yet com- paratively lowly, object-man? He stands under the vastness of God, however, both undismayed and uncon- fused. He lifts up eye and ear and front ; and boldly, with due humility and reverence, speaks before God ; somewhat thus : ' Though I comprehend not God, I per- ceive, and know and consciously commune with Him. He is incomparable, and I am satisfied, with being filled by Him, through all my capacities. Moreover, though I cannot express more than my present capacities hold, or conscious powers encompass, yet I rest in the assur- ance that, however they may be expanded, God will remain still fiUing, out-measuring, pervading and over- arching, them all. Moreover not only I, with my facul- ties and powers, but all other creatures with all theirs, amid any or all conditions, may ever approach but never reach, much less encompass or comprehend The Infinite. Therefore, "I, We beheve in The Almighty.'" The old Greek form of the Creed conveys a more defi- 94: THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. nite and practical meaning than the English, or even than the Latin. HavroKpaTopa, The Pantocrat, The All- ruler, is indeed none other than the Omnipotens, the Al- mighty ; but He is the Almighty Person, who puts forth omnipotence through the wiU of a distinct, oper- ating ruler. In this respect the Creed is very clear and very strong. It never deals in mere abstractions. Men attempt to deal in abstractions. The philosophers of all ages have argued, and discoursed, as if they could grasp abstractions. Some of the oriental religions teach that it is possible to attain abstract conceptions ; and that the highest aspiration, worthy the most advanced of men, is to attain the Nirvana, which is the perfection of ab- straction. Now, whether it appear in Buddhism or Modern Philosophy, this claim to abstract perceptions and abstract attainment, is surely one of the vanities of human wisdom. The Buddhists are at least consistent, •for they describe their "nirvana" as such entire escape from personal perception, the I, that all consciousness is absorbed in the one, indefinite, indivisible, unit-con- sciousness of The All. Modern Philosophers rush round the circles, that rise up from this bottomless-pit of ab- surdity like the gradations in Dante's Inferno, not seem- ing to know, and yet unwilling to learn, that it matters little what stage of abstraction they may endeavor to stand upon, all are alike abhorrent to nature, and equally impracticable for man's restful satisfaction, and assui'- ance of hope. ■ -An abstract almighty, may be partially conceived. From this partial conception, a practical evil may flow. The undevout among the philosophers are — some avow- edly and some indifferently — attempting to produce the practical conclusion that almightiness is "the necessity of things," or "the law of the universe," or "the aU- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 95 jprevalent force," or "the mere correlation between sub- ject and object, the order between media and environ- ments." As philosophical statements, all these pale before the grim consistency of the Nirvana : but as practical notions, working out in the words and actions of men, constituting character, and weaving destiny both in this world and the next, they put the person of God out of sight, and conveniently ignore personal re- sponsibility to Him. The Old Creed however leaves no such opportunity for mental stultification, and moral self-deception or in- sensibility. Its Almighty cannot be mistaken for an ab- straction of power and might, working resistlessly in darkness, and grinding out men, with their religions and civilizations into a vast heap of historic dust, and then kneading them over again forever, in never-ceasing unions and disunions of atoms. The conscious person, man, abhorring, repelling and rejecting a Supreme Abstraction, knows himself to be a ruler. His owa constituents, including bodily matter and functions, sensibilities and powers of soul, capacities and yearnings of spirit, are evidently not his superiors, but his subjects. He struggles indeed with and among them all. Mysterious influences, also, which for aught he can by himself discover may be unseen persons of angels or demons, operate upon him within and coop- erate with or counteract him without. Yet he knows himself as an entity ; not comprised in any of his con- stituents, nor composed of or by them all ; nor yet again irresistibly subjected to outward influences or persons. The Almighty is, also, in person, distinct from himself ; with whom indeed he may treat, with full preservation of his conscious manliness, but Who may not force him resistlessly to either good or evil ; for without fi-ee 96 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. choice, he can no longer be manly and real, true and no lie. This Kparoyp, rulerman, looks into himself and out of himself, without seeing his own ruler ; and yet he knows that he is not his own creator and preserver ; as before he has known that he is not the creature of abstract force or law, nor the mere present fortuitous emanation of concurrent media and environment. Knowing himself a ruler, and yet finite, his self-insufficience leaves him in unrest. Philosophy mocks him with abstractions, and he scorns it. He is perpetually inquiring, if the philoso- phers themselves really believe in a Supreme Abstrac- tion. He cannot find that they agree together in their own definitions. He cannot form a definite conception, from any or all their definitions. He wonders if, when they look in each other's faces, they laugh ; as the old Koman Augurs, it is said, must have done. The KpoLTOip, creature, man, may recognize and acknowl- edge a TravroKpoLTtop, all-ruler, God. In this recognition he none the less adheres to his own ruling position. This acknowledgment involves not any derogation of manliness. A king indeed may not, without debase- ment, submit to another who is only a king among kings; but under the One, necessary "King of kings," he falls into his relative royal position. So man, the ruler of himself and his surroundings, may have his own position assured, strengthened, and enlarged by, and only by, due subserviency to the Pantocrat, the All-ruler. In setting forth the Pantocrat, the Creed shows it- self true to humanity. The appetites, mind and heart, the body, soul and spirit of the concrete, unit, person, man, finds in the Creed, what mere philosophy cannot show him. With all that he is, and all that he can con- ceive possible, with his dear personality intact, with his THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 97 freedom undiminished, and Lis manliness whole, untar- nished and yigorous, he may bow in loving reverence before God, and receive from his Liege that patent which explains, confirms, and assures his rank as a royal per- son in the Universe. 5 98 THE CREED AND MODEKN THOrGHT. Maktv of i^camn, aiA (ffavtl) antf of 3111 (^I)ing0 toislbk anb JFnt)lslblc. The idea of creation cannot be eliminated from that of existence. Even if it could be proved that the uni- verse is a mere evolution from a primordial germ, that germ would require creation. Should the very farthest conception of the possible origin of objective existence be found in an indivisible, unorganized, simple atom ; that atom would involve creation ; and its further evo- lution would require creation of adequate environments. Or if evolution were potentially in this conceivable pri- mordial atom, that would have to be accounted for. It must either be self-caused, and self-sustaining, equal to all possibilities, therefore omniscient, omnipotent, omni- present, i.e. God ; or else it must have been created by the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God. These points are self-evident. Though some persons think they can conceive of an abstract force, containing potentially all divine characteristics, and hence rest their "cosmical conceptions" upon this abstract force, yet they cannot demonstrate its existence ; nor indeed prove its existence in any way. Every attempt at such proof can only be made by comparing it with all existence, and its requirements. Before it can be even probable, it must be shown adequate to all existence ; and this without any break of continuity, or any inconsistency in 23rinciple. Even then any other theory, equally well sustained, would have equal probability. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 99 In point of fact, however, any mere law of existence, if conceived as the universal, evolute force, must also be conceived as operative without design, without intention, and without vnll. Personality, the conscious I, the ob- served Thou and He, could have no place in the self- evolute universe. Its existence is a denial of supreme self-evolute force ; for every force is essentially incapable of evolving what is not even germinal in itself, and es- pecially is it incapable of evolving its own contradiction. If it be answered that the conscious j^erson, the Ego, is only a passing lie, a mere monstrosity of falsehood, like any other of the many known evils of existence ; the reply is, that this conscious personality is the dearest, deepest, strongest, and most universal human assurance, and any theory that denies its existence can only de- mand assent when it has been absolutely proved not only to be true but to be the only true primordial and per- manent possibility. In determining the question of the origin of things, whether they were created, or self-evolute, or results of chance, or mere manifestations of force and products of energy, it is important to hold one's own thought, and to demand every one's else attention, to the very first point of beginning. Science may pile up its facts at will, and frame whatever theories it can, and exhibit the consistent operation of all the laws it may discover ; but the creationist has the right to pass all science by, that does ^ot positively deal with the very first existence. i]very man has what the philosophers call " cosmical conceptions," i.e. thoughts, ideas or notions about the universe. The Positivist asserts that the "totality of existence " is all that can be known of the universe. He professes not only to be content with this notion — saying • ' I beheve " ; — but he declares that no other idea or 100 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. tliouglit about it is possible, and demands that all others shall say, ' We believe in existence only as a self-manifes- tation, without any question about first or final cause.* The Positivist thus acknowledges belief to be the basis of thought and ground of knowledge, and further shows his conviction of the fundamental and pervading unity of humanity, as to the faculties of thinking and willing. He chooses to declare, that Positivism embraces the whole field of possible knowledge. With apparent satisfaction, which to other men appears like childish self-blinding, he takes frequent occasion to say, that he declines to entertain the ideas of a first and final cause, of a Creator and Preserver of the Universe. He at- tempts to assert that man is incapable of cogTiizing these ideas, but every such attempt carries its own refutation. He expresses these very ideas, in the sentences he frames for denying their possibility. When he declines to en- tertain them, he becomes consistent. He won't accept them, because he won't. The Positivist has rights, which all other men are bound to respect. His manly freedom is his own and not another's. What he will think, he may think as far as he is able. No other man has authority or power, and no wise man has the disposition, to prevent him from forming his own creed. Having formed it, he may stand to it. Those who can hold it with him, may stand with him — gazing into each other's eyes mth mutual ad- miration or reciprocal laughter — so long as they and he remain comfortable in this mortal life. Should the Uni- verse, however, including the world and man mth all in- ternal and external, be an eifect, and God its cause, the whole creation will surely roll on to its destiny, wherein the Positivist will "go to his own place." Not quite so absurd as positivism, are the " cosmical THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 101 conceptions," of other philosophers. Their schools are very numerous, but the essential, fundamental or germi- nal ideas of the various classes ai*e not very numerous. By taking a central point, one can readily look out from one extreme to the other of philosophy ; and see enough of it to note its contrasts and relations to the Creed where both touch upon the Universe or Cosmos, and the fact of Creation. The philosophies of all ages and all lands, find representatives within the circuit of Modern Thought. Every philosophic position has modern occu- pants. There is nothing absolutely new in modem philosophy. The forms of expression, metaphors, group- ings of ideas, in a word the whole rhetoric of modem philosophy is different from any that other ages have Ijroduced. A marked, and somewhat successful attempt Jias been made to popularize both science and philosophy. A demand has arisen, in this age of smartness and ac- tivity, for popular summaries of the different parts of old j)hilosophies and new sciences. The Creed is subjected to criticism now, from every point of view. Many find objections and difficulties, new to them, which are ad- vanced as if the Creed had never before encountered them. In fact however they are only small measures di'awn out from old reservoirs, and diluted to the modern popular taste. The place of divergence for all philosophy is that line, on one side of which go the Idealists, and on the other the Beahsts. The common subject of both is Ontology, i.e. the science of being ; or rather the logos, word, or ten- tative description, of existence as it is in itself. The Ideal- ists, as we have seen already, declare that the impres- sions of the senses are only ideas ; and that they do not convey knowledge of any external reality. The ReaHsts, 102 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. on the other hand, maintain that we cognize things them- selves through the senses, and that we reason practically and truly about them, when we discover the laws which govern them, and make our instruments and machines according to those laws. The Idealists reply that this accordance of experiment and experience with principles discovered and with laws dra^Ti out from large and ade- quate induction, does not prove that the things observed and tested actually exist ; but only that there is a perfect correlation and harmony in our senses. Thus one stone hits and hurts us, and another does the same, not be- cause both are hard in themselves ; but only because " the permanent possibility of sensation " is so uniform in us, that we always have the sensation of hurt from a hitting stone, and hence obtain the idea of its hardness. It is not my intention, nor is it necessary for the ob- ject now in view, to discuss Idealism and Realism. Both, touching the question of the Creation, stand at last on the same ground. Whether the Universe is actual or only ideal ; the final question is the same, viz. : '* Whence the origin, or source, or cause of the primary fact of either reality or ideality ? Why, how, by what or by whom, is the whole outward system of reality, or the whole com- plex harmony of ideality, originated and maintained ? " The common human consciousness of self, or personality, is evidently receptive, and though constructive not crea- tive. Therefore its ideas, or rather ideality, demand an adequate cause, as much as does a real, outward Universe. Starting from this line between realism and idealism, philosophy has developed on either hand. It has been necessary for it to answer the common inquiry of all men, as to the origin and sustentation of all things. Next behind the Realists, foUow the Materialists. They maintain that everything, in the heavens above and the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 103 earth beneath, may be proved to be matter. "When pressed with the signs of inteUigence, emotion, sentiment, obhgation and the ]ike, they answer that these are mere functions of matter. They too still leave the great ques- tions, of origin and sustentation, unanswered. Even should it be true that the Universe is only matter ; and hence that vitahty, in all its forms and operations, is only matter in operation, they must yet tell us, 'Whence came the original germ of all matter, and how it has been preserved and developed into the Universe that now is.' Driven to the wall, having no answer to give, the un- satisfied philosopher, finding Materialism untenable, and not willing to settle down into the voluntary nescience of positivism, takes one step back of Materialism, and comes out on " Non-substantialism or NihiHsm," or in a good, strong English term, on Nothing. Gravely and solemnly, like the large-eyed bird of the night, the fitly chosen emblem of the pagan Goddess of Wisdom — philos- ophers have appeared and are yet appearing, who assign as the cause and sustentation of the Universe, the great power of Nothing. Oriental and Western thinkers, now and long ago, endeavor and have endeavored to hold on to the notion, and to convey it to others, that " Noth- ing " is the great immensity whence, and by which, something, anything and finally everything — i.e. the heavens and the earth — originate and continue. This is about as far as "philosophy " has gone in this direction. Modem thought has followed to the verge, but has not seen anything new to describe, or argue about, beyond. In the opposite direction, after leaving Idaahsm, the irrepressible searcher after the deepest depth of a possi- 104 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. ble "cosmical conception," thinks lie has got another position, when he substitutes for Ideahsm a sort of ac- knowledgment of the existence of the Universe coupled with its ideal in man's mind. He says that the actual exists. He adds that the ideas, man forms, of the actual, also exist. When asked the old questions, ' Whence the actual, and why the ideal,' he answers that they are re- ciprocal in appearance only, but in fact identical. For example, ' I perceive something outward, but that some- thing has not separately operated upon my senses ; it has not roused my consciousness, and my consciousness does not assure me of the existence of the outward thing ; but in fact my consciousness and the so-called outward thing are in reality one essence, not two but one in " absolute identity." ' Here we get back again to Positivism. The acceptance of this ground involves the necessity of taking the same moral position as that of the positivists. It never has been proved that consciousness aud its object are identi- cal. If it were proved, the human constitution would be false at its root ; for its primary, germinal notion of its own existence, i. e. its consciousness, would not be itself but something else. That which it cognizes and therefore distinguishes apart from itself would, upon this theory, be itself. Hence consciousness would lie to us ; we should be false in the very centre of our being ; and confusion not order would be the perfection both of ourselves and of the Universe. As Nihilism is the ex- treme on one hand, so this doctrine of Absolute Identity, between fact and consciousness, is the extreme on the other hand. Between these two points all merely human philosophy oscillates. When Creation comes into view, the step, ^n which the " philosopher " stands, determines his cosmical conception ; and he describes, from that THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 105 step, what he sees, or thinks he sees, or thinks about, *' all things in heaven above, in the earth beneath and in the depths under the earth." There is yet one more school of philosophy that is not ■without influence on Modern Thought. It cannot of coui'se stand on any ground outside Nihilism on one hand and Positivism on the other. It cannot go deeper than nothing, nor higher than the absolute identity of fact and consciousness. Between these two extremes the ground is all occupied. Yet Hegel's Theory of Om- nipotence manages to crowd itself in, and make itself quite as intelligible and fully as probable, as any other philosophical position. Indeed there is a sublimity in his theory, which transcends that of any other school ; inasmuch as it assumes the great work of binding them all together ; or, rather more accurately j)erhaps, it es- says the task of drawing out the essence of all cosmical ideas, and combining them anew in one. It denies every other philosophy separately, but affirms all as one whole. It accepts Nihilism on one hand and Absolute Identity on the other, and does not reject all between, at least in their relations ; but it sets up, in place of all, a theory of "The Becoming." Omnipotence, according to this theory, is simply the abstract force, or rather energy, of the evolution. Nothing is enough for its be- ginning. It is not necessary to assign any original or central seat to it. It is not even necessaiy to conceive it at all, as a distinct existence ; and it would be wholly erroneous to conceive of it as developed perfection. It is ever working, ever developing, ever expanding, and the Universe is its own self-evolving. Hegel does not answer the common human, and thercr fore necessary question, as to the Cause of all causes. He starts with the Omnipotence of the Becoming. 5* 106 THE CEEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. Going back to the origin of things, he finds— not perhaps as an object, but at least as a cognition — the first germ of the Universe, lying on the hither shore of the great Nothing. With it, he also cognizes the whole potential- ity of aU that has been, and all that may be ; and this he calls "The Becoming." Out of Nothing, this great Be- coming has api^eared in, through, around, under, and identical with the germ of the Universe, and thence have proceeded, are proceeding, and wiU proceed *' heaven and earth, and all things visible and invisible. Proof of such a position as this is of course impossible. It is like a scientific generalization, good only so long as it fits into aU facts. When any fact will not take it up, nor conform to it, then the generalization becomes a par- ticular, and loses all its distinction and authority. By this test every philosophy stands or falls. Hence the only, unquestionable proof of any philosophy can be found ; when, aU possible facts having been collated, it shall be shown consistent with them all, and compre- hensive of all their laws. The pursuit of wisdom, thro' mere philosophy, is therefore interminable. On its own principles no philosophy can be determined, i.e. proved and established, until the end and comj^letion of all ex- istence. It can be of no practical use, therefore ; for if existence be endless, philosophy will ever continue in- complete, tentative and hence doubtful ; while, should existence terminate, there would remain to philosophy neither domain nor subjects. Succinctly, though it may be hoped fairly, and fully enough for our present object, the limits of Modern Thought have been sketched, so far as it touches the fact and bearing of the work of the Creation. Every one of the schools mentioned has an immense literature, and a long history. Indeed, as investigation is made THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 107 more thoroughly into ancient and especially Oriental thought, it becomes signally, sometimes sadly and often ludicrously evident, that the " wise of this world " when immersed in speculative thinking, travel round and round in old, well worn circles. Individual thinkers and even schools often traverse their own tracks, as persons do when lost in the woods. As a whole, ** the wisdom of this world " consists in coming before a crucial question — e.g. * Is creation the origin of finite being? ' — , turning away from it in vain chase of some mocking Jack o' Lan- tern ; and, after much labor, leaving many footmarks coming back round again to the crux, on which the old legend hangs inscribed. With the same old decision to be made — whether to keep on sohd ground and follow the guide post, or turn away wholly again from the crux, and try over again the miry way of human discovery — the philosophers are always brought face to face with the central mystery of the Creed. It may seem an anticipation, but it is really only an- other illustration of the Unity of The Truth, that the primary question, of Creation itseK, can be answered fully and clearly only with a setting forth and statement of the point of contact between God and His works. This point is the One, Who is in The Fatheb. The seen and the unseen, the known and the indiscoverable, the creature and the Creator are linked together by One, Who enters creation at its loftiest point, becoming man yet remaining also God. All the Philosophies centre at this point. The Origin of Being is the crucial question of them all. They have explored every conceivable path, searching for a solution of the question. They have failed to solve it.- They are unable to discover God. They cannot make, nor conceive how to invent, the link between existence and its origination or cause. The 108 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. only idea which is at all practical, and with which all facts known or discoverable can be harmonized, is that the Creator Himself has come into His own creation ; the Unconditioned has voluntarily entered the Condi- tioned, and that the Originator of Being has Himself come to show the Origin of Being. This fact takes opposite ground to that of philosophy ; not opposite in the sense of antagonistic, but in the sense of a practical, working reality. Philosophy, as we have seen, must wait for its proof for the end of all possible existence. Until all facts have been tested, the generali- zations of any and every philosophy, may be found de- fective or erroneous. On the other hand, the taking hold of The Universe by its own Creator and Preserver, the grafting into Himself of His own works, makes at once a comprehensive centre for all thought, as well as a practical helper for all needs. Creation under philos- ophy, according to the wisdom of this world, is an ever- expanding limitless circumference ; which man must know wholly, before he can learn anything accurately. Creation, to be a fact of any use to mortal man, must show itself to him in its centre : He must know it where it begins. He must learn its primary fact, and dis- cover, or be taught, or be led out to thought and life on, the stream that flows from its fountain. This is the clearly defined, and distinctive position of The Creed. It begins at the centre, not with an argu- ment, nor with an assumption, much less with an imag- ined tentative abstraction ; but with a clear and compre- hensive fact, amply proved to man's " practical reason." The One God, the All, the Alpha and Omega, the Be- ginning and the Ending, incomprehensible to finite be- ings and therefore indiscoverable by man, has given Himself to fill all human capacities, and has come before THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 109 and into human cognition. "For the invisible things of Him, from the Creation of the World are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even His Eternal power and godhead." Bom. I. 20. The case therefore stands thus. Philosophy has not and cannot have any theory of existence, that may not in the next moment be overthrown by some new fact. It is therefore practically useless. The Creed j)resents a cen- tral fact, into which aU possibihties may be engrafted, and with which all discoveries agree. It presents its central fact, not as a mere dogma that must be accepted perforce, but as a solvent for all difficulties, which it still leaves open to investigation, test, tentation, and fair criti- cism. It has stood through all trials. It stands yet, re- answering old objections. Hitherto, at its central fact alone, has been found sure ground for human thought and action. Nothing else promises any conceivable, sure ground. It promises to continue, as now, through all the future. Demonstration indeed is not given of its central fact, because demonstration would destroy man's dignity. We are so constituted that enforced belief would render impossible that education, which begin- ning with our wills, runs out through all our faculties, and makes us finally, within fixed limits, what we elect to be. Sufficient proof, not any predetermined particu- lar kind of proof, we have the right to demand for the Creed. When sufficient proof is given, then we may take it if we like, or reject it if we like. The only con- sequence will be, that the creation, the universe, wiU roll on, and we will roll on with it. If we hold the truth about it, and live according to the laws, or in obedience to the requirements of its maker, we shaU finally be found in harmony with it. If we refuse to accept just proof of the truth, we shall fall into error and suffer the conse- 110 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. quences. If one should pronounce against belief in the law of gravity, and at any time illustrate his unbeHef, e.g. by plunging from a precipice, he will have vindi- cated his liberty, but the rocks below will mangle him none the less. Similar consequences follow from any error or falsehood we may adopt, or into which we may fall. We do not control the Universe, bat we move along with it. This, as a general fact or law, not only accords with all human experience, but has control over all common expectation of either hope or fear. We can never count upon escaping consequences, i.e. the effects of any cause we put in motion, or of any series of causes into which we voluntarily enter ; and we can only hope for deliverance, not exemption from effects whose causes we involuntarily evoke. Hence the practical impor- tance of right mental and moral views about Creation lies in the fact, that our lives will be ordered after, and therefore our destiny determined according to those views. Man cannot be man, he can only be a mere slave or machine, in any other kind of existence. There are, indeed, various theories of creation ; some of which have been already touched upon. It is here de- signed to attempt neither their description nor refutation. One answer meets all aspects of denial against the creator- ship, as set forth in the Creed. It is simply that nothing else accounts for it, in intelligible terms. Any man can grasp the idea of a primary, uncaused, or first — cause. He cannot comprehend it, for the obvious reason, so often already adduced, that the effect, being consequent on its cause, cannot encompass its own ori- gin. All effects, — i.e. "Heaven and Earth and all things visible and invisible " — cannot comprise that which gave them being. They are evidently not self-existent. Law THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Ill is not their life, for law can be only the rule of their mode of existence or operation. There must be a power under and in all law, i.e. The Law-giver, The Creator and Preserver. We look through creation as we look through any event — even a trivial one. We come for ex- ample upon a habitation in the wilderness. We think some inteUigent creature built it, but upon watching we find that creature is not man as we supposed. We are satisfied, when we find the builder in any creature, whose capacities are equal to the result. We cannot stop short of a cause or causer, whose understanding and will, or instinct, may be equal to the effect we have noticed. This same natural, necessary, universal, and inevitable operation goes on in the mind of every man, who thinks about creation. Even those who assert that such an operation does not go on in their minds ; and who boast that they cannot conceive of a first cause, are all the time explaining phenomena by causes. That is enough. No chain of causes can be endless, because such a notion is absolutely inconceivable. It answers nothing to human thought or human desire. The First Cause is not in- conceivable. It is only incomprehensible, or in other words large enough to hold its own effects. Again no line of causes can be circular, touching at however re- mote points of circumference, for then the junction would cause itself, and become reciprocally and identically both eff'ect and cause, which is contradiction in terms. The Universe comes into view as a fact. Whatever we may determine about our powers of cognition, we all agree upon the fact of the existence of the Universe. Realists and Idealists, and those who revolve round them, as contiguous centres, all accept the fact. We have already seen that merely human philosophy has no ex- 112 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. planation of the universe. Every school indeed promises to find an explanation, but it wiU come too late, even if it should come at all. What, living man wants, is some ground on vrhich to stand. He begins therefore with the Me, and the Not-me. I am. The world is. Two obvious facts ! The notion of causality at once rises in his mind. He asks whence the Me and the Not-me ? What caused the Universe ? All that is in the Universe must answer to some faculty of its cause. Beauty, power, wisdom, strength majesty, all known or possibly con- ceivable excellencies must dwell in the cause of their own universal developments. Must squalor, wretchedness, decay, destruction, shame, and even death and the like, also dwell in the Cause as they do in the Universe ? Fronting each other stand good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood ; and they penetrate all rela- tions of matter, soul and spirit. All the histories con- tained in literal records, and all those written in rock- records of the geologic ages, exhibit this same contrariety. Can the Creator of the Universe be an imperfect, self- contradictory, and self- conflicting Being? Is there more than One ? Ai-e there many Supreme Gods ? These are fair questions. They have been studied, and discoursed about, from the beginning, at least of philosophic thought. All ages and all nations have con- sidered them. The answers have been innumerable. One common acknowledgment has pervaded them all. The Universe must have had an adequate First Cause. That I'irst Cause which is sufficient, for the Universe, must be acknowledged. If the Creator of the Creed be accepted, He must be shown equal to and consistent with all existence. There is no difficulty in accepting the idea, and con- fessing the fact of a perfectly good, absolutely powerful, THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 113 and omnipresent Creator. If tlie universe were a mirror of only goodness, truth and beauty ; there would be a picture reflected from it of unblemished perfection. But this is not the picture we see. This difficulty, The Creed does not explain, at this point. It cannot however be pushed aside. All men perceive it. Some inquire about it in perplexity, and some in scorn. Reverent believers are sometimes ap- palled, at the apparent sternness and coldness of the Creed in this article ; while some of the self-confident, among followers of the wisdom of this world, think they can prove an inconsistency between One, God, Father, Creator, and the blemished Universe. Before looking into this difficulty it may be well to repeat again, that either the One, God, Father, is The Creator of the Universe ; or there is none known. The philosophers of modem thought accept the alternative. They say, not only that He is unknown, but unknowable also. The latter assertion has been amply refuted already, where it has been shown that God is known, and may be known more and more forever, tho' never fully compre- hended. The former is in square opposition to The Creed. The proof of this article, at this point, is simply the old course of argument from effect to cause. It is too well known to demand repetition. Its steps are regular, and easy to follow. They lead up fi'om fact, through marks of design showing inteUigence and power, and finally take us out, on, to the one, only adequate and satisfactory, conception of the First Cause, viz. : The One perfect and all powerful Person, manifesting Himself thro' I AM, I WHiL : not an abstraction, which would be a kind of mystic, nebulous incertitude, but a veritable Con- crete Person, in Whom centres all perfectness, and whose personahty alone satisfies, and explains man's own 114 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. primary, compreliensive, and unit-consciousness of per- sonality. Perfectness is essential to the First Cause. We can- not imagine an imperfect First Cause. Nor can we con- ceive of two first causes. The Universe, with its mingled and conflicting good and evil, must be shown possible under The Perfect, First Cause. There must be a rea- sonable account of things, as they are and have been on the earth, in order to leave this article of the Creed in- tact. Looking only at God, we do not see how it was possi- ble for evil and confusion to come into His Universe. This admission ought to be made in its broadest signifi- cance and fullest force. There are marks of God's i)Ower, love, mercy, goodness, indeed of every conceivable excel- lence, in nature. He alone answers to the necessity of a cause for all causes. Alas, however, not less distinct are the darkness and the evil ! "What is the conclusion ? Simply that Nature does not reveal God in His perfect- ness. We cannot find Him out through His works only. He has hidden Himself. There is something which exists, in apparent opposition to, and out of harmony with Him. Nature shows this discord and opposition. How came it ? What is a sufficient reason for it ? As by looking wp only, after God, we fail to find Him; we should next look down into ourselves, as constituting mankind ; that, if possible, we may get a clearer vision of Him ; or learn, if we may, something more than the Universe of outward nature shows, by studying Him in the relations discoverable between Him and man, the greatest of known creatures. It is at once evident that if the Almighty had acted ir- resistibly in creation, man could not have been made. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 115 The very essence of man's self-respect, and conscious dig- nity, lies in his position towards the good. If forced upon him, he would lose manliness : he would be something else than man. If we ask how God could have made such a creature, under such a relation to good that by refusing he might cause evU, we reply that God knows ; and that is the only philosophical reply possible to any question that judges about God. He, Himself, is the only person that can look out from His own stand-point. No danger- ous admission is made, in confessing that we do not know how it was possible, for the Good One, to suffer His creature to contract evil with its consequences. On the side where we can see, viz.: our own human side, evil is only the negation of good, arising from its refusal by one whose very manhood involves liberty to choose or refuse. Nevertheless man is such as he is ; and evil is in him as well as in the natural world. "What shall he do about it? What does it reveal to him about both himself and nature ? Before answering these questions, let us look at an- other aspect of nature. It is, and has been, from the earhest recorded period, an arena of conflict. Evident progress appears, but not from one completeness only to another of larger scope. Every step has displayed in- completeness ; while, all along the way lie strewed the wrecks of what look not wholly unlike attempts and fail- ures. There has never been any absolute cessation of the efforts of nature. The cataclysms, that have appar- ently intervened between different orders of things, have never broken nature's continuity. Her work has ever, both progressed, and advanced. Simple types, shown in early ages, are found developed into complex organs and organisms in subsequent ages. That which was beauti- ful or strong, or powerful at first, has expanded into 116 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. forms of greater excellence. Mere signs have existed in types, apparently useless to the living forms that then bore them, which, in a higher order of creatures, have been advanced to important members. Nature therefore, in itself, not only cannot show us the perfect goodness of God ; but it cannot declare His al- mightiness. Modem Thought is making great ado about these facts. Much argumentation has been expended upon them, and even some lightness of speech indulged in ; as if because Nature does not reveal God in His perfect- ness, therefore, forsooth. He is not perfect. Those who hold and are held by The Creed, need experience no difficulty with these evident " defects of Nature." Before replying to these objections of Modern Thought, it may be important to note that the zealous, and learned, and eloquent divines, who have endeavored to prove from nature the perfection of God's goodness and might, have only failed in their final effort. They have not failed in proving that, *'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handy work". They have traced, everywhere, signs of both His goodness, and His might. Indeed very plausible, elaborate argu- ments have been sustained, in proof that this world is the verj'' best world that could have been constituted ; that the vast excess of good over evil evinces the hand of su- preme goodness ; while the uprising of truth, out of the dust of many overthrows, shows the supremacy of an ever-consistent, and resistless power. It is best, however, not to demand more from Nature, than she is appointed and enabled to teach. It is enough that she provides the clear road, through which man may travel back from effect to cause until he comes out on the last conceivable effect, and there apprehends The first THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 117 Cause. He does not discover the First Cause, nor see Him, nor comprehend Him ; but he finds the primary germinal reality of all existence to be an effect. He can- not, by virtue of his natural, human constitution, rest in thought on an effect. He necessarily conceives, then cognizes, then believes in, then reflects upon, then with expanding apprehension lays hold of The First Cause. This First Cause must be perfect. God cannot be less than Infinitely good and powerful. Why then evil and conflict in Nature ? To God's side of this now doubled question we are not able, or rather perhaps not yet able to penetrate. We answer frankly, fully, and without embarrassment^ * We do not know.' Modern Thought can make the most of the admission. It maybe added further, for its delectation, that the numerous divines, who try to prove this world to be a mirror of Divine perfectness, as well as the phi- losophers among whom Leibnitz is prominent, who thought it the best of possible worlds, may in fact be as much mistaken as were the Christian Fathers who re- fused to accept the rotundity of the world, or the eccle- siastical powers of the middle ages who called physical science magic, and assigned to the facts of astronomy the doom of heresy. While claiming for Nature, power, capacity and mission for declaring very many beautiful and glorious things of God ; and insisting upon keeping open the road through her where men may travel back from effect to cause, until they naturally apprehend and may practically find the First Cause ; we freely and fully admit, that the Divine-perfections are not apparent in natui-e : nor do we yet know enough of the Divine side of nature, to say why God, for His own sake, did not display these per- fections either in nature or in natural man. By dechn- 118 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. ing to agree wholly with the Optimists, we do not there- by give up nature to the Pessimists. The controversy between these two schools is interminable ; for good and beauty abound in nature, and so also do apparent evil and discord. One line of investigation remains open. It is the only one that has ever been open to mankind. Moreover it is the only one that, from his very constitution can be open naturally to one, who is not the source of his own existence. Man, consciously self-insufficient in respect both to origin and continuance, can view himself and the world from the side of effect and not from that of cause. He mfxj observe and reason, but he cannot penetrate to the essence of fact. Yet he cannot accept a contradic- tion. It is impossible for him to beheve in God, unless he also believes Him perfect in goodness and power. Thus hemmed in, i.e. finite, he inquires about himself and nature. In the first place, because he knows himself to be the lord of nature, he does not expect external nature to be more perfect or exalted than himself. If therefore he can see any sufficient reason why incompleteness should exist in himself, he c£in see a stronger reason why it should exist in external natirre. He finds himself, in fact, incomplete in every faculty. His consciousness and history coincide in showing him to be a developing creature ; while his consciousness particularly evinces that he is in process of education, whereinto his own will enters as a large factor and strong influence. Moreover he discovers evil in himself, not merely physical ills, but mental maladies, and moral corruption.^ These produce much confusion within, and lead to much disaster without. Thus man finds that he is, as has been often said, a THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 119 microcosm i.e. *' a little world in himself ". His likeness to external nature explains nature's likeness to him. If therefore any reasons can be given why man should be afflicted with defects, out of which he may grow and reach thereby higher education or development ; it will be only the more reasonable that the field of his action — great, but relatively inferior nature — should also display a similar progi-ess from lower to higher grades. If moreover any reasons can "be given why evil should befal man, it wiU thereby become reasonable to look for evil in all the lesser surroundings of nature. Not to burden this discussion, we may fairly drop the lesser consideration ; because, if not involved in the greater, it can at least be easily shown why defects exist in nature, when we have once given a reasonable account of the evil that is in man. Now a person, who cannot do evil, and must do good, is certainly not such a creature as man knows himself to be. Moreover man has no wish to be such a creature ; and when he sometimes says so, what he means is only that he would be content to barter his manliness for the profit, that might accrue to him from enforced good. This is slavery, none the less but rather the more degrading because voluntary. It is totally incompatible with normal self-respect, and de- structive of the very essence of manliness. Looking only where he can see, viz. : on his own, finite side of himself and nature, man perceives labors and conflicts, vdthin and around him. Performing the one and waging the other he educates, i.e. draws out, develops and enlarges his own faculties. Evils and diffi- culties impose sore trials, hard toils, and severe endur- ances upon him ; but in facing them and battling against them, he exalts himself. Nor can he conceive of any other way or means whereby he might become educated, 120 THE CREED AND MODEEN TPIOTJGIIT. developed and exalted. So long as he keeps to liis own side of things, and does not foolishly attempt to pass judgment upon God, he learns and practices those les- sons of wisdom, which teach him to deal with facts as facts, and not vainly attempt to evade them ; nor to search after other shoulders upon which to lay their weight, that he may evade responsibility and escape duty. Thus, viewed from the mot-tal, human side, man and nature are exactly adapted to each other. Both are growing by similar processes. The scholar and the school coincide. This is evident not only of man, and contemporary nature ; but all the past also, even back to the first record in the rocks, shows that the school was, from the beginning, planned, according to the needs of the coming scholar. Craving knowledge, and searching after it wherever it may be found ; but wisely and resolutely keeping within the finite, man goes forth to his studies, toils and battles, and finds himself developing, according to his own true type, when he is most faithful to the truth and the right as far as he sees them. His natural capacities find ample verge and room enough, within the finite limits of the presently open, and the now possible. It is true that he does not find perfectness, either in himself or nature ; and hence cannot, within the whole scope of the finite, discover the Perfect Being. He can perceive shadows of His presence, though not clearly enough de- fined to reveal His aspect. He notes evidences of His power, though not enough to make clear His omnipo- tence. He rejoices in marks of beauty and goodness, though not so free from blemish and ill, as to prove His perfect love and ineffable glory. Yet both the effort and the failure develop the very highest possible human THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 121 faculties. The effort makes him manly, after the noblest conceivable type of manliness ; while the failure leaves him in a hopeful though humbled condition. At just this point comes into exercise another human faculty, higher than reason, and nobler than hopeful imagination. He never could exercise this faculty, were he and nature perfect. It is the faculty of faith. Standing in the midst, or stooping over the outmost verge of nature, man every- where finds occasion for faith. Faith is not a substitute for knowledge, much less its antagonist. It is also both the guide and supporter of hope. The Infinite, conde- scending to the finite, God, caring for His noblest crea- ture, leads him on through knowledge and hope, and finally as the last, best, ^noblest gift offers Himself to the personal trust and confidence of man. Accepting the offer, and putting forth faith, man learns all he may from himself and from nature ; is bafiled, but still hopes for perfection ; and then lays hold of the hand that comes down from above. That God does thus reach forth to His creature, touching his eyes that he may see, raising him up that he may walk, coming into all his person and illumining all nature, encouraging him in difficulties, and impelling him to conquer fear and even to meet death bravely, is a fact which every age and eveiy people have witnessed and to which amply testified, Without this power of faith man might be a beautiful animal, or a being of high intellect, or indeed a cultured social crea- ture, but he could not be a whole man. His spirit would be as nothing ; and all its grand, immortal aspirations would become only dismal deceptions. If thinking men would be content to think as men, and not vainly try to see, as if in their own right they were gods, nature would everywhere speak to them of The Creator ; while her very evils and defects would only 6 122 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. show the rung of faith in the ladder, that rising through things seen and known, still continues stretching on and up into the unseen. Nothing is now said of sin, because The Creed to this point does not mention it. Nothing is offered as proof from revelation, because to this point The Creed only presents those facts, which precede the written word. The visible universe, the cosmos of human dis- covery, and personal man as his own consciousness Imows him, are the facts on which are set up the reali- ties set forth, in this first of the three divisions of the Creed. The region of investigation traversed, is that which philosophy has endeavored to monopolize. Mod- ern Thought follows philosophy, and through all its branches is testing the doctrine of the Creed, and evi- dently endeavoring to shake its foundation. If it could have been shaken, it would have fallen long ago ; and with it would have fallen every hope that nerves man for the battle of life, and every assurance that shines with light through the grave. That modem philosophy has failed, as all ancient philosophy also failed, in attempting to shatter one stone in this foundation is sure, and prov- able if not already proved. Nothing more is required to establish the Creed, than is demanded for any and every " philosophical system". Both begin with axioms, and both start with " I believe". The only practical ques- tion is, * Shall we beheve in some figment of human fancy dogmatically asserted, or shall we confide in that fact, which alone answers all fair speculative questions, while at the same time it accords with practical life and fully satisfies hope ; and wherein alone man finds exercise, not for any one human faculty alone, but for all that he is consciously, and for all that he can conceive as possible in his normal development ? ' THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 123 Brief as this discussion is, when compared with the countless, light or ponderous, tomes of hostile philoso- phy, nothing has been intentionally omitted that was necessary to show fairly the central germinal idea of every school of Modern Thought. Every school stands or falls with its germinal idea. Great names, great learn- ing and great popularity go for nothing, with clear, manly and honest thinkers, when the primordial cell of the systems advocated is found incapable of the develop- ment claimed for it. Before and above all modem as- saults, The Creed stands as it has stood thro' the long past, unfractured and unshaken, on the estabUshed foun- dation, the fact, that The One God, Father, Pantocrat, is " Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things Visi- ble and invisible ". 124 THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. " anb in hms^ " 3lnb in ®ne Corlr Stsua." Two great facts now stand, in mutual relation to each other ; and yet, in a certain sense, over against each other, like sound and its echo, or like light and an object reflecting it. Man looks now on this fact, and now on that. He hears the echo, knows a sound caused it, and then listens that he may hear the sound. He sees the object, and looks away from it, upward after the light. God the First Cause, The Creator manifests Himself by His Word ; and the Universe, springing into being, re- echoes His voice. He, the Light shineth, and the Uni- verse reflects Him. Man, in the Universe and of it, cannot be subject to it. His consciousness, which is the basis of all his self- knowledge, will not permit him to rest in the idea, that the Cosmos, the great organism of matter and form and power, into which he is bom without choice or will of his own, and in which in like manner he is living and advancing, can be his lord and ruler. He is affected by it, in the matter of his body, through the thoughts of his mind, and by his senses and sensibilities ; yet he knows that he and his race are greater and nobler than the natural universe. Every place in it, that he can reach, he may own and use. Every animal, and living creature of lower degree, he may appropriate to his own use or pleasure. Yet the Universe is a material and forceful mechanism, too strong for his individual control ; and even too strong for control by his whole race. His- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 125 toiy is largely a record of the struggles of humanity against the inertia, or of sharp battles with the complex energies of the Universe. Indeed, looking only at his- tory, the Universe seems not unlike millstones, between whose upper and nether surfaces the generations of man- kind are ground up, with other animals and forms of matter, into a " pale unanimity ". Moreover, for aught man alone can discover, the future of destiny is a dust heap ; through which he may be scattered hopelessly, with his grand personal consciousness disintegrated, de- stroyed and made a lie, and all his subordinates of form and faculty scattered, and left indistinguishable amid the atoms, that were other men, or animals, or trees, or stones. Against this conceivable possibility every human crea- ture, who thinks, revolts. He will not, he cannot return to dust of matter, and to scattered mist drops of spirit ; destined to float through space, until some new hap of affinity or attraction shall construct another primordial cell, out of which shall grow some new being. His deepest consciousness of unit personality will not permit him to endure the thought of any contingency, wherein his "I " shall cease to be. Now and then indeed a de- graded man may declare himself willing to sell out his personality ; or one in despair may wish he could cease to be ; but such moral-wrecks are exceptions that con- firm the rule ; if indeed, on deep testing, it be not found that even they are self-deceivers, or experimenters on others' credulity. It is certain that every true and normal man, and even the immense majority of men as they are, cling tenaciously to their conscious personality, while pushing on through the vicissitudes of the battle of life. And yet here is the Universe, revolving and grinding ; 126 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. and here we all are every one of us in the hopper, jostled and torn and half smothered in the crush through which, sick or well, hoping or fearing, we are slowly sliding down to the little space, in which we are sure to be ground to death. We should have something to cling to, if the Creed had stopped at its first article. Creator, Pan- tocrat, Father are words of promise, out of which man, in life's extremity, may extract both comfort and hope : but they leave God far off, on a distant throne, caring for us indeed, but not coming down where we may lay hold of Him, and call confidently on Him present for help at hand. All human necessities however are met, and supplied in Jesus, the Saviour. It is not yet time to consider the proofs of His character, and coming and mission. We are as yet only viewing the Creed, in its relation to and bearing upon human necessities. Exceptions, also, be- long to considerations on subsequent articles. Only normal, true men, and mankind are now in view. Hu- manity finds in Jesus the binding link between God and His universe. Humanity, in and of, yet consciously superior to the Universe, has its highest hopes assured, its noblest aspirations vindicated, and its deepest self- consciousness verified in the person of the Saviour ; Who lays hold of the Universe, by entering into it, for the purpose of controlling it in the interests of man. Subse- quently the Creed tells us more about Jesus. We may not run before the record. It is enough for the present to contemplate the one fact, that the Christian Creed is the sole symbol, amid all philosophies and all religions, that sets forth the Saviour. It alone enables us to look boldly at the whirring wheels of life, and bravely to lay hold of them, with the knowledge and assurance that they are but doing a necessary work for us, and that how- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 127 ever they may wrench and grind us, they cannot destroy 113 ; but that we, with intact personality, shall pass through them because of the Saviour. Some things are necessary in the salvation wrought by Jesus. All men, because finite, must come under certain consequences, that necessarily result from His laying hold of the Universe for man's sake. Many things also re- main voluntary, touching this new condition of things. Both these points however touch the subject of sin, and therefore belong to a subsequent article. Thus far we have come only to the unique, and stupendous fact, that God, no longer remaining far off, has by the Saviour come personally into the Universe, to confer with per- sonal man, to vindicate humanity's consciousness of su- periority amidst and lordship over the universe, and to accomplish its management and control in the nature of man, for the utmost satisfaction of every man of good wiU. Not a compulsory salvation ! That would conflict with man's indefeasible right, and glorious consciousness, of personal freedom of choice or refusal. This also is pre- mature. We are yet only conversant with the fact, not with all the limits and relations, of the work of Jesus. This fact however is immeasurably glorious, and in- comparable. It stands alone, and unmatched, amid all realities of life and possibility. HoAvever any man may, in his freedom, use or neglect it, there is no fact more wonderful or more practical ; this Universe has known the Advent of its Lord, and by that Advent man is enabled to vindicate his conscious superiority over the universe, and if he will may occupy his rightful seat of lordship. He cannot escape, indeed, what are called *' the necessities of mortal existence " ; but he may go through, even under them all, confident that nothing shall by any means hurt him. 128 THE CREED AND MODEEK THOUGHT.' Turning round from the Universe, and looking up to God, in faith believing, we perceive that belief in One, Father, Almighty includes a sense of relationship to Him. Terms of language fail to express adequately the idea of this relationship. He, as the Absolute, is inde- pendent of relations ; but we, as finite creatures, must bear relations to Him, whom we believe to be The Infi- nite. We leave, as beyond our scope, the thought of God as He is in Himself ; and draw no conclusions in either way, as to the effect upon Him of our lives. Obedience or disobedience to Him — The Lawgiver, always true, just and consistent — produces effects in and upon us. We dare not, out of our own knowledge, say that they produce effects upon Him. Nor dare we say that they do not. We are simply, in and of ourselves, unable to affirm either way. We must however deny' all consciousness, and recoil on nothingness, unless we allow the sense or appercep- tion, in all mankind, of relationship to God. Within every human person is a will, through which he chooses or refuses. This will every person practically treats as free. However perplexing any theory about free-will be- comes, when viewed in connection with The Absolute Jehovah, it is appealed to univei^ally in all dealings of man with man : and, even when our minds become up- lifted towards God, motives are the first things considered as soon as thought leaves the abstract, and comes into any consideration of personal duties towards Him, or desires for gratifications from Him. With the first perception of motive, springs the irrepressible conviction, that we can and may accept or decline the motive. Whether explicable or not to the logical faculty, I know, and I know that every one else knows, that freedom to choose or refuse, even before God, is in every human THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 129 person. Moreover, this practical freedom of will is in- alienable. It cannot be put into the possession of another person. It is possible indeed to enslave it, in every detail ; and thus mind, heart, conscience, body, every part may do the mere bidding of another ; but the dig- nity and responsibility of free-will, has been already manifested in the act of primary submission : while every time the accepted authority is obeyed, there is a distinct moral act — consciously or unconsciously — done, viz. : that of willing to subject the will. This freedom of will is of more value to any person, than aught else. When given up, as to any detail, it is felt to be a concession, or a submission. The idea, of giving it up wholly, can only be endured by one to whom soul-slavery is indifferent. Every true man has that keen sense of personal dignity, which compels him to claim the right, aye the necessity, to say even unto God, ' I choose or I refuse, I will or I will not'! The believer in God having exercised this liberty, be- comes aware of possible and actual, personal estrange- ment from God. It is his better nature, a certain under- lying depth of interior consciousness, that assents to the first ai'ticle in the Creed. When uttered, the fact appears both solemn, and fearful. Two facts indeed stand over against each other. God, The True and Pure, is ; and man, the free and fallen, is also. The dis- cord between man and man, as well as that between man and his material surroundings, which all history pro- claims, is evidently now at work. Every person stands in the midst of it. Within, also, this discord reaches. It is allied to the sense of right and wrong. Discord, both without and within, is found to be the struggle of wrong against right. A faculty, or a voice, or a spiritual 6* 130 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. sense, called conscience cognizes right and wrong. Its cognizance is intuitive. Understanding perceives, but cannot comprehend it. The logical faculty cannot dis- sect it. The will is moved, though not controlled by it, and the affections recognize its authority. In return all our powers exercise influence upon it. Its position how- ever is in the foundation of our nature. Personal morals rest upon it. Some philosophers indeed attempt to explain this common human sense of right and wrong. They define right as ' that which is upon the whole most conducive to happiness ', and wrong as its opposite. Expediency is therefore the gist of both. Consequently, if any one chooses to risk doing wrong, it ceases to be wrong to him when it does not diminish his own happiness. The weak therefore can, upon this principle, be the only wicked ones in this world. In fact, however, the calculations for personal advan- tage, and even those which regard the happiness of the many, are totally distinct processes from thosiB arising from the sense of right and wrong. This latter, called the moral sense, is degraded by calculations of profit or loss. The advantage of one or many, when brought into view under a question of right and wrong, are sponta- neously objected to by the moral sense. Their consider- ation would be a felt degradation, like that of a bribe by a judge on the bench. This spontaneity is distinct and irrefragable proof, that expediency and the moral sense have essentially nothing in common. It is impossible therefore that the former should be the source of the lat- ter. A cause cannot contradict its own effect, and be- come essentially unlike and incongruous. It must con- tain the essential elements of its own effect. Hence the greatest advantage of the greatest number could never THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 131 have originated tlie right ; nor a regard for it have pro- duced the moral sense. Again it is impossible successfully to impugn the uni- versality, and spontaneity of the moral sense. That lowest descent of human degradation has not yet been found ; wherein the consciousness, of the inherent and ever-persistent antagonism of right and wrong, is lost. The power of the fact, over Hfe and character, is greater or less in all persons, and indeed in every person under varying times and conditions ; but the consciousness of both is never absolutely losi It has shadowy existence even in brutes. It is fully distinct, and imperative in 'babes. Indeed it is more than a consciousness in us, at the first moment of thought and sensibility. It is never a mere idea, like that of beauty, or sweetness. From the first, it carries both obligation and warning. In a word the natural conscience, from the very first, com- mands and demands, according to an innate cognition of right and wrong. Careful observation will discover in every writer upon the "evolution of conscience", an evident, though in charity we may hope unconscious, acknowledgment of the primary or innate idea of right and wrong. A late writer, for instance, argues after this manner. " I perceive that my existence is valuable to me. It is mine, and not another's. Other men's hves are theirs, and not mine. This mutual antithesis gives rise to a sense of private right and pubHc obligation ; out of which, in the roll of ages, grows conscience, and from which in the evolutions of civilization proceed law and public authority." The very point in dispute is herein quietly assumed. In fact one's own valuing of one's own Hfe, in relation to others valuing of theirs, instead of creating the sense 132 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. of right and obligation, feels this sense as a distinct, ob- jective, ruling power. Expediency may grow from such experience ; but expediency, so far from being one with the right, is in practice the constant antagonist of the right. Expediency is content with the " simple plan " ; and can evolve no higher law, than that which secures " the survival of the fittest." Moreover the very use of the term "right," in this style and course of argumentation, is always so made, as to prove that the very objectors themselves recognize its extra-human origin. It has authority from without ; which authority all men acknowledge. It is innate or spontaneous in every whole man. Every attempt to' analyze it manifests its indivisible, essential unity. Every attempt to account for its origin, assumes its ex- istence. It is also impossible to make even a definition of right, which does not assume the very idea itself. This sense of right and wrong naturally coexists, in every human person, with fi^ee power of choice. Thus endowed, every living, thinking, acting person has done something touching right and wrong. His conscience bears him witness. Hence the common confession, " We have left undone those things which we ought to have done ; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done ". All our doings, and omissions affect our character, and condition. The health of the body is no more suscepti- ble to injury, thix)ugh unwholesome physical causes, than is the health of the soul through wrong or evil. Hence evil doings, or neglects, produce disorder. Every part they affect suffers. Some are conscious of this, and con- fess, " There is no health in us ". Sin is the term used to describe these acts, and neglects of man towards God. It describes bis condition also. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 133 He is under a corruption or disease of sin ; and is placed amid influences and temptations to sin. How all this came into the good God's creation, we cannot fully explain. There is a dim vision of heroic ad- vancement, that may possibly, in the future, show how mankind have thro' it been made capable, as they could not otherwise have been, of exaltation through suffering. In this same line of vision, comes the possible manifesta- tion of a glorious human multitude, submitting freely their wiUs to God's, because they nobly confide wholly in Him. This multitude must be higher than any mere ministers of even Divine commands : for they will obey with ever active choice. Tho' refusal may never once enter the thought of their satisfied souls, yet their con- scious assent will accompany their every execution of God's will. They will never receive a threat, nor even forcible command. " Partakers of the Divine nature ", they wiU know God as they are known by Him. In do- ing His will, they wiU act out their own. Altho' now and here, while the warfare of sin is waging, we cannot per- haps conceive of a compensation, that will more than re- pay humanity for its darkness, and sorrow, and woe on earth ; yet we can at least dimly perceive, how such a compensation may be possible, in an exaltation to the right hand of The Supreme, far above the seats of all other creatures. They who have known evil, and have passed through it, can become consciously god-hke. Others may be glorious and beautiful and lovely servants ; but only these can be 'friends of God '. Compensation being a general law of both nature and grace, we may, through it, perceive the harmony amid all God's dealings which subsists between the exalted glory of friendship at God's right hand, and the sore battle of mortal hfe against sin and evil. 134 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Sin however exists, as a fact, irrespective of any opinions we may have as to its fitness in creation, or any estimate we may form of the compensations which stand over against it. Whatever aspect it may take, both the essence and the effect of it are man's estrangement from God. This estrangement is both in condition, and char- acter. As a condition it is fearful, because, in some sense, it is separation from The Father. As a character it is grievous, and shocking ; grievous as corrupting, and shocking as basely ungrateful. All this is easily shown by appeals to common con- sciousness. Excuses indeed are not wanting, by which even believers attempt to palliate the vileness, and dimin- ish or even remove the guiltiness of sin. Indeed some, trying to stand outside human experience, presume to view sin from the Divine position. These say that sin either cannot be at all, or cannot be radically j)ermanent and finally destructive ; because then, in God's own cre- ation, evil would have prevailed against His own essence of goodness and love. The answer to this argument is the old one, viz. : man cannot place himself where God stands, nor can he comprehend how the Absolute bears any relation to us ; and consequently, it is impossible for him to know, as God knows, how sin came, or what it is. Reverting therefore to the only tenable ground — that of human consciousness including perception and judg- ment — we find sin a reality. We know and are assured, that both as a race and as individuals we are out of har- mony with the good God. We wish it were not so. We desire to be brought back, to full and sweet accord with Him. The common sense of mankind confesses that in and with God are peace, and rest and joy. The deep and best affections yearn towards Him filially. No doubt many disturbances without, and some faithlessness within THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 135 all and every man, counteract common sense, and cloud tlie heart's yearnings : but they are not enough to de- stroy the consentient, conscious testimony of all mankind, that the best blessedness that could befall us, would be reconciliation with God. The Creed answers this conviction, this confession, this longing of mankind. It meets that strong and bitter consciousness of estrangement from God, by proclaiming The Saviour. Names in the Creed are things. Jesus means, and therefore He is. Saviour. We cannot save ourselves, for creatures have no stand- ing independent on the Creator. Self-saviours must be self-sufficient. Every one, who deeply knows himself, has no disposition to rely on self. Indeed, the desire of all is to be taken up by one who is able to save, placed where no danger can enter, and made fit for the peaceful region. It is conceivable, that man may become foolish enough to repose on pride. He may elect to follow his present desires, and to confine his hopes to materialism, or to the philosophy of the hour. Kef using to view with open eye, the underlying consciousness which he shares with all men ; or being actually blinded to it, by long neglect of the image it reflects ; or scorning it, because it is com- mon to all ; he may say and possibly think, that he has no conviction of sin, and hence no sense of need of Jesus. Such person, if he exist, is indeed beyond the reach c£ the Creed. " Believers " however do not believe he exists. They have enough knowledge of human nature, to per- ceive how they themselves — reposing on pride — might arrive at just that stage of scepticism. Hence the answer is both argument and exhortation: "The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom ; and before honor is humility". Prov. XV. 33. 136 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. To the common sense of human necessity, tlie Creed presents Jesus. He meets every want, and answers every cry. His name is a name of peace. It does not present on its front a menace, nor even a warning. It is the em- bodiment of mercy and tenderness. It descends through sin's darkness, and overspreads mankind : " The true Light, which Hghteth every man that cometh into the world." S. Jn. I. 9. What Jesus may prove to those, who reject Him, it would be premature now to consider. It is enough, at present, to show that His mission, primarily, to all men, is one of love and good-will. So the Creed sets Him forth by His name Jesus, The Saviour ! Nor does it leave His ability and power doubtful. He is not merely a merciful person, having only an in- tention to do His best to save us ; but he is also *' Lord ", even " One Lord Jesus". Not advancing too fast, or too far ; we leave to future inquiry, the evidence of the Divine Lordship of Jesus. Just here and now, we simply con- sider the comfort of the fact, and its profound adaption to the common sense of human necessity. Conscience, which speaks of right and wrong, is universal. Con- sciousness of error and fault, is almost equally extensive. Assurance of blessedness dies under this consciousness, and the comfort of hope departs from a burthened con- science. Nor can pity alone repair the great damage. "We must have a Saviour, not only pitiful but powerful. Sweet and comforting as the name of Jesus is, the ef- fectual Saviour must have influence at least, equal to the procurement of Salvation. As deliverance and comfort are not within our own power, nor within the compass of the powers of all crea- tures combined ; and even as they can only come from THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 137 Him, Wlio is supreme over all accidents and conditions ; it becomes evident that the real, effective Saviour of men must be Lord over all things. He must indeed be the One Lord, to Whom " all power is given .... in heaven and in earth ". S. Matt. XXVHL 18. The utmost need of every man, and of all men is sup- plied in the reality of "The One Lord Jesus." Con- science lays its burdens on Him. He bears them all "iu His own body ". Consciousness unexpressed brings the darkness of its deep before Him ; and the light of heaven illumines it, melting its frost, and calling forth, through hope, upspringing finictifying life. Consciousness uttered speaks its doubts, fears, or even confusions to Him ; and His Lordship answers it with wisdom, divine promises, and the gift of grace. In all the range of human philosophy, and through all the wonders of human history, where is aught to be com- pared to this simple utterance of the Creed? "What speaks, like it, to all mankind? What, hke it, so en- compasses all human necessities ; or goes down tlu-ough all human sense of need ? Is there anything that indi- viduals, communities, or the whole family of man living and dead requu-e, which lies beyond the scope of " The One Lord Jesus" ? Again we find The Creed true to man as man, respect- ful to his dignity, and equal to his needs. It does not enforce doctrines irrespective of man's rightful freedom of choice. It shows a fact indeed with the utmost distinct- ness of positive expression ; but it is the fact, which duly regards man's freedom, and nobly supplies his wants. To the self-sufficient, only, may its word have the sem- blance of arrogance. To all, who are insufficient for themselves, and honestly confess their need of helj), it offers that alone which free man can, with rightful self- 138 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. respect, receive ; and tliat only which godhke man, fallen, can with digniiied penitence accept. Salvation, whatever its accessories, is essentially har- mony in ourselves and with all that now does or ever may bear relations to us. This we can neither make, nor conquer. It must come to us as a boon. A Saviour must give it. "The One Lord Jesus" only offers it, specially to every capacity, comprehensively to the whole organic "I", and generally to the vast unity "We". The Creed therefore, in this i)art of its second article, stands alone, not simply pre-eminent but apart in soH- tary, yet all-attractive altitude, like the sun, shedding light, and awakening life. The truth of its declaration is assumed, not as yet proved by formal arguments. Be it true ; then the greatest, and the sweetest, and most em- bracing comfort, is a reality for all men to rejoice in, and for every man of good will to flee into to find peace. Take it away, and as well may the sun be blotted out of the sky. No other than Jesus " hath brought life and im- mortality to Hght ". The comparison between Him, and all other rehgious teachers, would be between good and bad guides to self-help, and Him, Wlio alone pours sal- vation into, through, beneath and all around self -insuffi- cient man and mankind. The originators of other reli- gions give curious directions about kindling the flame of wisdom, and shedding the warmth of virtue. Jesus only pours down light from beaven, and revives souls, help- less because dark and dead. Soil may possibly be made to bear within small heated houses, at great cost, with partial success ; but even then sunlight must be filtered among the fronds. Only the great Sun, that lights and warms the earth, can make the wilderness blossom, and the fertile fields yield fruit. We say nothing of results, for the harvest time of the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 139 Gospel has not yet come. We only appeal to the com- mon sense of the honest and true hearted, who look deeply into themselves and broadly over mankind ; as well as to the consciously self-insufficient, whatever their grade of intelligence ; and fearlessly ask, ' What other is comparable with Jesus : what other so saves, as to leave us whole, unlimited and unshackled, with every capacity and faculty, with aU their combinations, restored to perfectness ? ' The operations and influences which may effect the result of the salvation wrought by Jesus, are not yet sug- gested by The Creed. It opens with broad outlines. It exhibits first the vast, capacious and glorious fact of One Lord Saviour. In doing this, it at least suggests its own emanation from the source of wisdom. Its simplicity is matched by its comprehensiveness. It embraces all mankind, while it reaches down into and uplifts every living function of every human creature. Nothing else so comprehends " We," or so pervades, permeates and purifies " I ". The One Lord Saviour, only, offers to en- wrap all mankind in the arms of His mercy, and renew in every willing person sdl that by any cause has been decayed in body, soul or spirit. " Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." S. Matt. XI. 28. 14:0 THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. ^Whence comes this person, with claims so vast, and promises so comprehensive ? All mankind constitute in aggregate a vast load to be uplifted, while every human creature is weighted with an endless variety of both im- perious and delicate personal necessities. Who is this Being, that meets the general human sense, and intensely personal, common conviction of the need of help ; not simply by the obviously wise injunction to ' cast all care on God ', but by a call on all the human race to confide in Himself, with a promise to " embrace them in the arms of His mercy " ? Again we recall His words. They are of Divine import. None but the Almighty can make them good. They are either inexpressibly presumptuous, and cruelly deceptive, or they contain and convey the united mercy and power of God. " Come unto Me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." S. Matt. XI. 28. The individual man, who spoke these words, is a his- toric character, whose life and work on earth are more fully attested than those of any other person in history. So much is easily established. But a man, however in- comparable, if merely a man, may not be confided in as a sufficient Saviour for all mankind. The perfect truth of Jesus, which has never been successfully impugned, makes — so long as it stands — His most stupendous asser- tions credible. His vast claims sure, and His promises trustworthy. He must therefore stand on another plane. THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 141 as well as on that of natural humanity. In nature, or in office, He must excel every other human creature. A man, to whom all men in all time are called to '* come ", with all their burdens ; and Who promises " rest " to all that come, is surely some wonderful, godlike being. In- deed, long before these words of Jesus were spoken, Jewish ears had been familiar with exactly the same promise from God Himself. Their sacred books more than once declare, " The Lord upholdeth all that fall ", " The Lord raiseth them that are bowed do^vn." Ps. CXLV. 14. Herein lies the contact point of that practical necessity God is to man. Here human hope centres. Here man's salvation begins. Who is this, that stands thus at this most intimate, vital place, between God and man ? The One Lord Jesus — The Saviour ! Aye ! but what are His credentials, and what His authority ? All this inevitable questioning, which springs out of human reason and common sense, finds its answer in the next word of that one, most naturally ordered of all formulas of faith, " The Creed ". " I, We beheve in One Lord Jesus, THE CHEIST." God, our Father, in Whom we may confide, has anointed The Saviour. He is man, but not merely man. Ordi- nary, natural, human relations neither hold nor explain Him. His stupendous claims may be allowed, and His promises relied upon because Our Father hath chosen, ordained and anointed Him. Again the appeal is made confidently to the common sense, and common reason, of mankind. All established principles and known facts of human nature accord with, and therefore attest the possibility and fitness of an ap- 142 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. IDointment by God, Wlio is love, of One, Who shall bear His authority and be His Christ, His Anointed One ; commissioned to effect the salvation of men. We do not now revive the question, as to the absolute need of this interposition of a Saviour between God and man. It is impossible for man to discuss that question absolutely ; for that brings up its Divine side, whereon one of the factors, by which the need could be decided, is God, Who is too vast for our comprehension. Here again, coming to the shores of The Infinite, we take up what its depths cast forth. We confess that we know nothing of any " need " God had for interposing Jesus. We can frame certain harmonious conceptions, out of such apprehen- sion of God as finite mortals may attain ; and from them show how God comes nearer to man in a Divine-human manifestation and indwelling than He could as The far off Infinite One. But this would be unnecessary, and uncongenial with the line of thought in pursuit. It is enough to take the plain fact of the Creed, and accept The Christ, at the side where it takes hold on humanity. For us at least — human creatures, sinful and frail with a life battle raging around us, and a destiny to determine, every one for himself, yet all affecting all, and each the other — it is a clear and joyful fact, that The Saviour bears the anointing of the Father ; and that He comes not only with human sympathy, and power of lordship, but also redolent with the oil of gladness, whereby He is appointed and manifested as God's chosen messenger and medium of Salvation. As man's personal needs are met and answered by The Jesus, so is all assurance of His amplitude of authority, and fulness of power, given in The Christ. The Creed thus answers every just demand both of the human heart and mind : but the Anointed Savioub THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 143 must be a veritable, objective person. The reality of His existence is not proved by His subjective adaption to human needs. It may be thus shown probable, and a primary presumption given of its reality ; but tbe up- lifted cry of toiling, burthened, or imprisoned humanity, would be all in vain, unless the Christ stood out, in and with every generation, in greater or less distinctness, as the Deliverer, whom God has chosen and ordained. From the subjective common sense of the human need of a Saviour of mankind, and from the common reason w^hich demands that He be God's anointed, we turn and call next, naturally and imperatively, for adequate exter- nal evidence that God indeed ordained Him, and that He is in truth the One Lord Jesus. Were we organic machines only, designed to operate according to the mere forces applied to us, then we might do our appointed work, without any consideration or even distinct consciousness of the power that at first set and now keeps us in motion. But, believing in God, and knowing our own personality, reason, and freedom of will, we are enabled and compelled to inquire into the evidence of things. Evidence, of the authority and mission of Jesus Christ, must be external. Primarily it is only probable that He is all He claims, because He exactly meets and entirely fulfils human wants ; and again, primarily, it is only prob- able that our Heavenly Father ordained and sent Him because God is love. Love is always dual ; expressive and receptive. Both elements always exist in it, ever active and reciprocal. Tho' we may not know God's love in its fulness, yet we know that He is love, and therefore both a giver and a receiver. Hence the Divine Fatherhood includes not 14:4: THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. only the masculine element of love, wliicli might be con- tent with the outpouring of benevolence ; but the femi- nine element also, which requires the response of thank- ful communion. In order that man may respond thus, it is needful that God reveal to us, not merely His power and majesty, but Himself personally. A revelation out of Heaven is therefore primarily probable. The fact of such revelation must appear by such evi- dences as the subject admits, and its object is capable of receiving. It must coincide with the Divine perfections, as far as we can understand or apprehend them, and be adapted to human capacities. When first made, some man or body of men must receive it. Afterwards it must be transmitted. Organizations, symbolic ordinances, rites and words — any, but better all — may be media of transmission. It may develop thro' many stages, and grow by additions ; but the source must always be Di- vine, the media finally human, and the authority clear and strong. All these requirements are complied with and every essential part of them fulfilled by the facts assumed, as- serted, or necessarily implied in " The Book." If his- tory can be at all believed, The Bible has grown with the developing of a visible body or kingdom, to which the oracles of God have been committed. It is not a single composition ; such as a philosopher might have con- ceived, and evolved, or a mere earthly power have set forth. It is not a compilation, such as the wise of one age or of several ages might have thrown together. It is not a single work, such as one prophet or leader of men, might have composed for the support of a new religion. In a manner different from that of any other " sacred book ", and with a simplicity and openness that invites and answers all frank and honest criticism, the Bible THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 145 grew around a well attested and congruous evolution of a Divine Human Kingdom ; whose mission was to bear witness to God before the world, whose treasure was the truth of revelation, and whose assured hope was God's l^resent and everlasting favor. The superiority of The Bible over all other books, as to its profound wisdom, universal charity, and pure moral- ity, is not now dwelt upon. This internal evidence of its Divine origin, though clear and strong, is to be estab- lished by untiring patience of argument, and unending elucidation of its beauty and strength. Now we only have in view its central, objective fact. We are seeking for its revelations of man's Anointed Saviour. As Jesus once challenged all men, and no one yet has taken up his gage — " Which of you convicteth Me of sin ? " S. Jn. VIIL 43 — so may the challenge stand, daring men to convict His Book, The Bible, of inconsistency with truth and righteousness. Within this impregnable citadel, we search for what the Bible contains of revelation and his- tory about Jesus Christ. If this revelation shows forth a Being, great enough to encompass all human needs, high enough to gratify all human aspirations, lovely enough to fill all human long- ings, and near enough to meet all human yearnings, then must this Being be sufficient for humanity, and should be accej^ted by every human creature. If the history, con- tained in the Bible, presents such a complete Being in veritable personality, and sets Him forth as living among men, where He can be seen and known and tested by well-established principles and rules of just criticism, then whatever is real and true in Him must be allowed. Evidence concerning Him should indeed be weighed, and sifted and tried. Favors should be neither asked nor granted. Only may it be assumed and claimed, that 7 146 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. whatever is proved concerning Him, should be accepted upon adequate evidence, and followed both logically to its consequences and joractically to its requirements. It is not admissible to set boundaries, within the senses or the reason, beyond which man may not be permitted to pass if he can. Spiritual understanding is a distinct human faculty, superior to sense and above reason ; and to this faculty two functions belong — comprehension and appre- hension. The spirit of man may comprehend what can lie within its measure; but what exceeds that measure it may perceive and know, i.e. apprehend, only to the extent of its capacity. Hence while God must ever to man be in- comprehensible, He need not be unknown. Man's sjiirit may naturally know Him, as far and as fully as its natu- ral capacities can reach. Being created and finite the human spirit's capacities may grow, develoj), or be en- larged. Hence thro' apprehension they may continually know more and more about God. Through this channel a Divine Bevelation may flow down into man, and pour out into history. Leaving — as outside our present line of inquirj^ — the details of criticism, respecting the ample revelation and liistory of Jesus Christ contained in the Bible, and largely treated in many well known works ; we inquire now only into the adaption of that, its central fact, to men now living amid the habits of modei-n thought. The Christ is, to-day, needful as ever of old. Man's Jesus, now as then, can be only Christ of God. The historic personage, Who was manifested as the Divinely anointed Saviour, must be living now and saving to the -uttermost all who come unto God by Him. Belief, involv- ing active personal trust and reliance, cannot be placed on a mere hero of the past ; it must rest in a present, all- powerful heli3er. His credentials therefore must be both THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 147 historic and contemporary. He must be seen gleaming amid the gold and dross of earthly records, and perceived now and here operating through the deepest depths of humanity. Him The Creed only sets forth. Modem and ancient man alike can have only one Jesus Chkist. Man as man must have Him, or wander hopelessly through vain con- jectures, until finally, falling back on self, in self-insuffi- ciency he sink and die. 148 THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. "i5i0 ©nln 0on." "®l)e ©ulg-begotten Son of ®olr." Modern thought, as we have seen, must acknowledge a power of apprehension, by which man may know God. This knowledge obviously is finite, partial, and varied ac- cording to the capacity and development of the spirit of the person knowing. It can however reach any and all particulars, that lie within the scope of the spiritual un- derstanding. As man's natural perception receives, and his reason accepts with all consequences, the mortal human relationship of father and son ; so ma}^ the sjDirit not reject, as impossible, the fact of such relationship in the Divine Existence. There is nothing actually incredi- ble in God The Father begetting, and having begotten from all eternity, The Son. It might be incredible that God had begotten sons, because that seems to involve succession in time, or division in substance ; both of which ideas, would not simply exceed our apprehension, but be impossible for it to grasp. Though it would be great folly to attempt to form and set forth a complete delineation of God; and though shocking absurdities generally follow attempts to build up doctrine upon any single Divine attribute ; yet man may surely look up towards God through human analogies, and form just tho' partial conceptions of Him, b}^ com- parison with well defined realities of universal humanity. While therefore it might be presumptuous, and would certainly be vain, to inquire into the mode of the eternal THE CREED AND MODERN THOrGHT. 149 begetting ; and while it would confuse us to attempt to comprehend that timelessness of God, whereby the be- getting continueth forever and yet The Begotten ever is, existing in complete personality, and full fihal relation- ship ; yet both facts we are capable of accepting, through spiritual apprehension. All we ask is : firat, that the facts be proved ; and second, that they have some practi- cal bearing upon, or significance towards us. I. Proof of the facts, or rather two sides of the one fact, can of course only come through revelation. Such Divine secrets, can be known originally only by God Himself ; nor can any others know them unless, and ex- cept as, He declares them. "The Creed" stands vd\h. The Bible. It can be successfully maintained that the Bible contains the full record of revelation. This point lies however outside the line of present inquiry. Let it suffice here to remember that either The Bible contains the revelation of God, or else that revelation has never been given. Discoveries in science, whatever material- istic or spirituaHstic course they may take, evidently can- not supersede revelation. "Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty to per- fection ? " Job XI. 7. " No man can find out (even) the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." Ec. HI. 2. How much less Himself and the mode of His being. Therefore, without further digression, we read the facts and declarations of the Bible, in order to discover what is the Divine revelation, in regard to the son ship unto God of Jesus CmiisT. Like all great facts both in and out of revelation, this also grows from a primary germinal timth, up through accretions or developments, until it finally stands forth in the very words written in The Creed. It is unnecessary 150 THE CREED AND MODERN THOTTGHT. to ask -whether The Bible copied the historic creed, or The Creed followed the Bible. It is neither affirmed nor denied that The Creed was in terms formed out of the Bible. Its terms may be its own, either originally re- vealed or clearly drawn from "revelation." All that can be asked, or need be maintained, is that it accord with the one book of God's word. Without dwelling upon the plural original name of the Creator given in the first sentence of Genesis, and only touching upon the record of consultation, wherein *'GoD said. Let us make man in Our image after Our likeness " (Gen. I. 26), and passing by those numerous places in the Old Testament wherein " The Angel of God " is mentioned in terms and conditions, that suggest a higher post and nearer relation than that of a mere mes- senger, or servant of The Most High ; we come at once to the first uses of the very term Son, as applied to a person distinct from the person of God, The Father. In the second Psalm God is represented as saying, " Thou art My Son, This day have I begotten Thee," "Kiss The Son lest He be angry ". In Isaiah it is written " For unto us a child is born unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder ; and His name shall be called "Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." IX. 6. Let it be remembered that these passages were origin- ally utterances made by prophets, who appeared now and then amid the historic progress of a slowly developing hierarchical and national pohty. A church and a nation were growing around one central idea, and looking for- ward to a single definite consummation. A " Messiah which is being interpreted Christ" was beUeved in, as the real ruler of this pecuUar, elect people ; while His coming or manifestation was their common expectation THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 151 and cohesive hope. The unvarying, and universal tradi- tion, of this pecuhar peoj^le, conjoined the Messiah with " The Son " of the Psalms and the Prophets. n. — "When this Expected One came, His advent was public and clear as any fact of human existence. Through all His career, He was open to both friends and foes. Both heard His words and saw His works. The reality of His life is attested to this age, not merely through historic remains, as the great names of past ages are at- tested ; but patent to aU eyes exists now a visible body, or church, which is founded upon Him, could not have rested upon a myth or an error, much less a falsity, and therefore could never have come into existence without Ilim. The Christ of history is far more fully attested, than any Caesar of ancient times. Not merely do tradi- tion and monuments evidence His living ; but an active, vigorous and aggressive organization now offers and ever has offered His memorial, in eucharistic sacrifice, before God ; now preaches and ever has preached His word, as the word of God ; and now defies, as it ever has success- fully defied, all enemies to find one fault in Him, or to impugn His truth. However originated and trans- mitted—points to be hereafter considered — this church, in every age and amid all trials, has remained constant in its testimony to the both historic and living Christ. He was pre-eminent in wisdom and power of speech. *' Never man spake hke this man." S. Jn. VH. 46. His wisdom and His truth stand equally upon an immovable basis. He was neither deceived, nor could have been a de- ceiver. What He asserted He knew, and His words must therefore be taken as He meant them. It is not possible for man to weigh and measure His assertions, because He was evidently greater than all men. Others therefore 152 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. — not being able to convict Him of fault and sin — must receive from Him truth as tliey can contain it. What- ever He clearly declared about Himself, was therefore real because His wisdom assures it, and accurate be- cause His truth attests it. Now this unrivalled and unimpeachable person ha- bitually sanctioned "The Law and The Prophets," and claimed for Himself the testimony of the Scriptures: " They are they which testify of me," S. Jn. V. 39. " And beginning at Moses and all the prophets He ex- pounded unto them in all the scriptures the things con- cerning Himself." S. Lu. XXIV. 27. " Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil." S. Matt. V. 17. He stands out therefore, serenely and naturally, in His appointed place amid the revelations of God to man, and speaks out of the fulness of truth, and declares that He is " The Christ, The Son of the Blessed." S. Mar. XIV. 61-62. Through all His ministrj'^. He adhered to this claim. He admitted it, without rebuke from his ene- mies. S. Matt. IV. 3 : S. Lu. IV. 41. He gave it, as com- fort and assui-ance, to His friends. S. Jn. HI. 16-17. He entered into particulars, referring to Himself as God's " only begotten Son." Ih. His forerunner and messenger, whose office and preaching He distinctly sanc- tioned, attested Him personally ; while the beloved dis- ciple, either quoting or supplementing the Baptist's tes- timony, calls Him, " The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father." I. 18. In a great num- ber of instances, and with great variety of context, the same claim or rather high assumption is made or im- plied ; and this with no obtrusion of self assertion, but evidently for others' sake with reference to the good to mankind lying in and on the fact, or to the comfort of THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 153 those who were in want of it, or to the stern or sorrow- ful condemnation of those who "opposed themselves." The dignity of the divine relationship was shrouded in indescribable human sympathy, and whole self-sacrifice. He never abated aught of claim to His lofty rank. He never compromised with wrong, nor quailed before power. Yet, so veiled was His glory, men were drawn towards Him, as towards a companion. In every particular manifestation — whether as friend, teacher, protector, stern prophet or merciful guide — He was at one with God, while longing for unity among men. The Light of Heaven beamed from His person on at least one memorable occasion, and the word with power fell constantly from His lips ; yet His disciples were on easy, familiar terms with Him — one even resting upon His bosom — ; while all men had access to Him. His enemies recognized His manliness. Inquirers were answered by Him, sometimes pitifully, always tenderly, and ever' with remarkable adaptation of truth to themselves. A simpler, stronger, more beautifully complete and more exquisitely harmonious character than that of Jesus, has never been described. It was impossible to invent it, because even human imagination cannot create what to every seeing or perceiving faculty shows every human perfection ; and yet is evidently not exhausted. An inventor must exceed his invention. Because Jesus exceeds all understanding, while filling all capabilities. He must have existed ; and existed as He is set forth historically, and as He is made known to the human spirit of understanding. Modem thought is not unfamihar with that objection to Jesus, which — whether born of corruption and evil will, or honestly proceeding from perplexity — refuses Him and His claims, upon the ground that as perfection 154 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. exceeds Imman comprehensioiij therefore it is impossible to believe in one its possessor. The answer has been al- ready made to this same argument, when presented in an- other form ; and it is the answer to it in all forms. Com- prehension is not only unnecessary to behef in Christ, but impossible. We know demonstrably, only what we comprehend : it lies within us, and we encompass it. Hence a comprehended Christ — Saviour — is impossible, because He would be less than ourselves. It is surely no objection, that Jesus exceeds understanding. His meet- ing understanding at its first outgoings, and accompany- ing it wherever it really walks or soars, and filling it always, is an assurance of hope, rather than source of confusion. We have other faculties than that of under- standing : many others, e.g. the affections, which are superior both in strength and beauty to the understand- ing. All these work together into a sort of alliance or perhaps compound, which may perhaps be named reason. With this alliance, or compound, the whole individual man thinks, and feels, and acts. This whole believes. It does not refuse to any part its full scope. It says to the under- standing, ' Be satisfied with fulness, and grow in capacity and be full again.' It says to the affections, ' Go forth to give all, and open to be filled and so grow up towards The Infinite — the all of beneficence and of yearning.' It says to the will, ' Be free, nobly, in willing submission to Almighty goodness, and be content to grow great for- ever through expanding conformity to The Supreme'. In these capacities and their conjunction lie the prac- ticability of belief in Jesus. So far therefore from being impossible, it is essential to our being and growth. We must believe, in order that we may rely upon One, Who can touch us at aU points, fill us everywhere, and expand us ever towards the illimitable. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 155 Here again we find the Creed free from any just charge of violent assumption over man's rightful freedom, and dignity. This article — though presenting a fact dis- tinctly drawn from beyond the scope of human discovery, and in itself too great for human comprehension — is yet so simply set forth, that every grade of understanding is capable of apprehending it ; while all that is essentially in and of man cognizes it with satisfaction. Mind and heart and will take hold of the Son of Gt)D, and, being filled by Him, ever grow in capacity, power and scope. Surely "dogmatism" cannot be urged, offensively, against the presentation of the fact that the Anointed Saviouk of mankind was in origin The Only Begotten Son of The Father. Man is honored and uplifted in his own view, and in that of all creation, by having the very Son of God for his merciful deliverer. Modem thought cannot object yet to The Creed, for surely thus far it ex- hibits God, in relations to man most ennobling to the creature. Pride indeed may, in its assumed self-sufficiency, re- ject the whole idea of a Saviour. For the proud, the Creed is without word of instruction. But for honest and earnest modern thinkers, who feel the force on modern progress of the advancing earthquake wave of respect for man as man, and who are compelled to view truth through humanity as it is, the Creed is not an echo merely out of the buried past, but a li\ing utter- ance. It is a formula indeed, but one that will not cramp true humanity, not fetter any really human ca- pacity, not crush any right human longing. It is the in- strument of freedom and enlargement. The only Be- gotten, Whom it declares, is, as He ever has been, the Apostle of liberty. "If the Son therefore make you free, ye shall be free indeed." S. Jn. VHI. 36. 156 THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. " Begotten of j^is JFatijn* before all lDorlb0, (Bob of (&6b, Ciglit of Cigl)t, Ders ®oir of l)er2 ®oir." With the same natural capacitj^ through which we perceive the idea of God, we may also perceive any clearly declared fact touching the mode of His being. We may apprehend it, even though we may not compre- hend it. It may be accepted as a whole fact, consistent with all analogies, and harmonious with all principles, although we may not be able to follow out all the analo- gies, nor see its harmony with all principles. It is enough for us, when it stands without positive contra- diction to other known facts. The appearance of contra- diction is not an insuperable objection. That appearance may be only a result of our own finite incapacity. The fact may be so vast, as to reach the domain of mystery. Within that, as yet impenetrable sphere, the links which bind it to the great consistency of truth may lie. Therefore all we have a right to ask, respecting a fact of God, is that it be within the grasp of our capacity for apprehension, and that it do not in terms positively contradict any other fact or necessary inference. A clear perception, and honest allowance of this inevitable con- dition of the finite, is an absolute preliminaiy to all human understanding. It saves from the unwisdom, and protects from the danger of boasting ourselves " of things without our measure". The idea of The Divine Fatherhood is acceptable to human nature. When viewed from the moral stand- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 157 point, it readily finds acceptance in modem thought. Love responds to it joyfully. The mind willingly follows the heart, in conceiving the idea of One Supreme Lord of the universe, Who yearns affectionately over His crea- tures, and dehghts to manifest Himself not only as a ruler in righteousness, but as a tender, patient and sym- pathetic dispenser of mercy also. A deeper fact however is presented in the word " be- gotten." The heart at first does not feel its own inter- est in it. The mind is the faculty that first takes hold of it. It seems, when first viewed, to be a strange, re- mote and perplexing proposition. It touches the very Divine essence. It is a foundation fact, inhering in the very substance itself of The Godhead. The Creed twice uses the term. In the clause now under consideration, the point chiefly in view is the eter- nity of the begetting of the ever begotten. " Before all worlds " meant, when the sentence was devised, and has ever since been understood, as the equivalent of, " eter- nally." Literally it is equivalent to " before all time,"' for time is not an entity but relatively a succession, and, in the concrete, the sum of all successions. Relative successions came in with creation, and continue with its progress. Evolution, development and growth start from creation, and are themselves only its progressive steps. Time belongs to them all, and exists in and through their existence and operation. Before the fii-st world, or germ of a world — which is the same thing, be- cause the germ contains potentially aU that proceeds fi'om it — there was no time. Hence The Only Begotten was and is such eternally. In begetting Him, God did not, as He could not, subject Himself to time and its successions. There was no period, in which the beget- ting began. Our experience notes two distinct acts in 158 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. begetting and begotten : one precedes the other in time, and acts toward the other as a preceding cause. With the eternal God, no such succession is possible. The fact therefore is, that The Father, begetting eternally, has ever before Him His own eternally begotten Sou. This fact does not correspond to the analogies of human experience. We know nothing else like it. But human experience deals ever with temporalities. Time with its " succession, duration or simultaneity " are involved in all temporal realities. We, certainly, are capable of eliminating the element of time, from our mental con- ceptions. Though we may not see, we can certainly be- lieve in the eternal consistency of that, which would be inconsistent within the domain of time. Modern thought therefore, has no ground of valid objection, against the eternity of The Divine Sonship. It is apprehensible. It is therefore possible. Consequently it must be accepted, by all fair minds, upon adequate evidence. Revelation is the sole source, whence evidence of the fact mry be positively drawn. The mode of the Divine existence, is indiscoverable to finite capacity. The Bible — the one only authenticated, written Word of God — contains clear declarations of the eternal. Divine Sonship. S. John the Baptist was the honored prophet, through whom this fact was fully declared. Other prophets be- fore him, had dimly seen and proclaimed it. He first, however, sets forth the reality in wonderful, glorious completeness. "The Only Begotten Son, Which is in the bosom of The Father ". S. Jn. I. 18. The context applies these words to Jesus, and to Him only. The Baptist was attesting the presence of the personal mes- senger of God, about to enter upon His mission of man- ifesting or declaring The Father. "I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God ". I. 34. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 159 S. Jolin Tlie Evangelist records his testimony ; " and ■we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of The Father". I. 14 Subsequently to the witness of the Baptist, and to a " ruler of the Jews " known to be well informed of current events, and therefore doubtless familiar with the public fact of that witness, Jesus called Himself " God's only begotten Son", declared His mission of salvation, and asserted His own supermundane existence. S. Jn. HL 16-17. He even went so far as to assert the necessity of belief in Himself ; and to proclaim the danger of unbe- lief, not because of judicial consequences, but because such unbelief, by itself alone, shut off the saving efficacy of the one only name or power of salvation. *' He that beheveth on Him is not condemned : but he that be- lieveth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God '*. m. 18. All these, and like passages, reveal the essential unity of Jesus with God. The fact set forth is primary, and fundamental. It must be received fairly and honestly, according to its simple and full signification. Words cannot be framed to express more clearly the eternal sonship of Jesus. " In the bosom of the Father " ! "WTiat can be nearer God ? " Sent into the world " ! Whence ? From beyond the region of time, even from the bosom of the Eternal Father, with Whom He not merely was, but " is ". The eternal sonship being established, the essential son- ship comes naturally next into view. The Creed how- ever interjects, three glowing and significantly descrip- tive forms of Christ's Divinity. They flow necessarily from the truth, so far declared. " God " ! necessarily, because eternally begotten of 160 THE CEEED AND MODEEN TIIOTJGIIT. God! Not, like The Father, tlie original source and self-existent centre of the Godhead ; but though ever living, and " having life in Himself ", yet ever living and having this Hfe through The Fathee : " God of God " ! " God is light and in Him is no darkness at all ". 1 S. Jn. I. 6. This message of Jesus is the fact of facts, about God ; on which all burdened souls rest, around which perplexed minds gather, to which resolute faith clings, and out through which comes the cable that is bound to the anchor of hope within the vail. " God is light " ; or there is no such thing as light for man. *' In Him is no darkness " ; or some poor human creature may, by everlasting necessity, be compelled forever to grope in the cold horror of the ever impenetrable Divine shadow. Jesus also is " the light of men " ; even " the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world ". S. Jn. I. 4, 9. Not however, by possibility, can His light be other than the light of God. Eternally in the bosom of The Father, He partakes with The Father of the Divine light. In The Father it is original light. In the Son, this original light, from the one Divine source, is not separated from The Father to reach the Son, that it may thence shine out through Him ; but, in one effulgence the light of God shines forth and is mani- fested, through, by and in Him, Who is "Light op Light ". "Very God" ! Superlatively, the Supreme ! The ut- most bound, of possible expression through language, is not enough to declare the completeness of the Divinity of Jesus. Yet He is not the Father : nor does He in- vade the prerogatives of the great eternal, unchangeable, Source Divine. He is " Very God of Very God ". THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 161 " JJrgottcn, not iHabe, being of ®ne Subetance mil) The historic origin of this clause, and the theological controversy that occasioned it, are well known. With Arianism and its conflicts, compromises, victories and final utter overthrow. Modern Thought has no direct connection. It is now chiefly interesting as a chapter in historic theology. The important fact, however, set forth in this clause, is as much a living truth as ever. It is vocal now as then. Its word is not only true, now as then, but it is practically adapted to the present needs of the souls of this age and land ; while to the thought of modern times it convej^s a lesson of imperative meaning, as weU as of profound significance, and imiversal personal value. The Saviour, being needed and acknowledged. His Deity becomes a necessity. The practical object of truth is to bring man close to God. It may be well here again to recall that sense of dignity — inherent in humanity, and discoverable by any one who deeply and boldly searches himself — by which we know and feel, that we may, should and ever must, for peace' sake, commune with God directly, person with person. It is useless to attempt to repress this common sense, and consciousness of neces- sity. Undevout men exhibit it, in trifling words and acts towards God, or even in blasphemy. Devout men however do not, or at least need not, utterly repress reverent familiarity with God. Human nature demands, 1G2 THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. that the servile element shall not mingle with the highest advancement of man. Before God, man must be free. With God he must dwell, and that closely in near com- munion ; or he can never have the depths of his con- scious capacity filled, nor the height of his rightful dignity topped, and all his longings satisfied. A saviour, himself less than God, could not be the Saviour man's needs require. It would matter nothing how much he might excel all other creatures. He might be so exalted, that every other heavenly creature woiild stand immeasurably beneath him. Still, when he had lifted man up to his own elevation, and made him par- taker of his own utmost glory, man would chafe under the sense of his own godlikeness ; he would still per- ceive the incapacity of any creature to fill the deep needs of his common human consciousness. Such a saviour, would yet be infinitely remote from the Supreme God. The work of salvation — which, be it ever kept in mind, is essentially personal union and communion with God — would have to be done all over again. Actually no progress would have been made ; because, altho' there may be grades above present human development, these gi-ades are not ladders or successive planes reaching towards the Infinite : the last of them is as remote as the first. Humanity, being essentially the same in all ages, modern thought should perceive a living, practical fact in the Saviour's coessentiality with the Father. The men of this age are spoken to by The Creed, in this clause, with a voice significant, living and clear as ever. Indeed in all ages and lands men true to the common human consciousness, not irreverent but devoutly bold, not pre- sumptuous but humbly resolute, not self-confident but firm in self-convictions, do and wiU requtre a Saviour ; THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1G3 "V\Tio, in His own right, shall stand coequal with God, in order that He may lift up godlike man, and put him be- fore and with God, Whom he is, and feels himself to be, like. Man not only might, but if true to himself would re- ject a saviour not Divine. Hence The Creed in this, as in all its parts, is friendly and faithful to humanity. So far from laying a burden on the soul, or attempting to clamp an arbitrary dogma, like a chain, round the mind ; it exhibits a jealous regard for the true dignity of hu- man nature. It presents a fact, of the highest moment and most glorious promise, to all noble minded men of all ages. It calls them, as with God's voice ever audi- ble, not to deny their own consciousness, but to adhere to it bravely ; and to look out from it fearlessly, even up to the throne of The Highest ; and to be satisfied only with The Saviour, Who is one with God. This concrete reality of person, obviously, implies a substantial basis. As it is necessary for man that his SA\^ouR be God ; so, on the other side, the Divine Unity must embrace all its own persons within its own sub- stance. Human thought is able to perceive, and there- fore modem thought may fairly be required to accept, the idea of a substantial unity comprising several and distinct personalities. The fact is therefore not impossi- ble. It simply demands adequate proof. When substantial unity in the Godhead is affirmed, in connection mth tripersonaUty, the question will come up, 'What is substance'? Nor may it be passed by and neglected, in this metaphysical age. In the first place substance is not a separate entity. It exists in, not apart from, its manifestations. There is not a, one Divine substance, whence the Father comes forth. Who begets the Son, and from Whom the Sphut 164 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. proceedetli ; but all are of it, and in it, and it in them eternally. Again the Divine Substance is unlike matter. It has neither dimensions nor weight. It cannot be divided into separate portions. Its unity ever remains with it. It is all in one, and one in all. God is The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost ; " not three gods, but One God " ; " neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance ". This, be it observed, is not revelation. It is a philo- sophic, i.e. a humanly invented, expression of a mystery. It is not an explanation of mystery ; for a mystery ex- plained is a mystery no longer. It is simply impossible for the human mind to apprehend any existence, unless it be conceived as resting back upon substance. The substance of anything is unsearchable. What for ex- ample is the substance of iron. It is not hardness, nor heaviness, nor adhesion ; and yet all iron is hard, heavy and cohesive : by these and other invariable attributes we know iron, distinguish it from other things, and speak confidently though inexplicably of its substance. So of every form or idea of existence It is never in its manifestations alone, nor in its substance alone. Both coexist, the former being open, more or less, to sensible or ideal observation ; and the latter necessarily assumed, as the real though indescribable basis and ground. Hence we conceptually locate the Divine Unity in The Divine Substance ; not that we know that substance, apart from its Manifest Triunity, but because the Unity being a fact, and the tripersonality both a fact of revela- tion and a practical reality to all men, who would draw nigh unto God, we find the necessity here, as in every other sense or idea of reality, to conceive of substance. The substance of the Deity, therefore, as nearly as Ian- THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1G5 gufige can express it, may be called tliat indivisible unity, wherein the fulness of the Godhead is, was, and ever will be, manifest in the distinct but inseparable persons of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost. It is now necessary to face the starthng, delicate mys- tery of the term " begotten ". It is sanctioned amply by our Saviour's own use. It has had devout repetition continuously from holy lips, as in the present so throughout the past. It is a term full of associations from human experience, and touching upon analogies through aU created, animate and perhaps even inani- mate evolution and development. The process of beget- ting varies. The simplest chemical affinities or perhaps cohesion, may be taken as its germ. If any disciple of evolution wishes to trace this power or tendency, up from the lowest known natural operation of energy meet- ing response and effecting production through union ; and thence follow it until it culminates in the productive love of the most highly organized creatures ; he is quite free to do so, without detriment to, or difficulty with The Creed. All beams of truth shine from one central light. The Creed is concerned directly with the person of God, and man's relations to Him. It does not go out, to teach all knowledge in all forms. It must however be consistent with truth wherever discovered. It is suffi- cient therefore now, to take the term " begotten " in its simplicity and completeness of meaning. The operation of begetting, and realities of the begotten pervade all nature. It is obviously not impossible that God, having revealed Himself as Father, should also reveal Himself as the ever begetting Father of the Only Begotten Son. Now begetting, in all nature, is never the making of an- other creature out of other substance ; but it is the evolving of a distinct object, individual or person, out of 166 THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. one's own very self and substance. In tlie highest known form on earth, begetting and begotten come through substantial union of two persons. The mascu- line and feminine man, however, are only the most com- plex organizations among universal, natural correspon- dencies. As above suggested, it is possible to begin with the lowest form of attraction and cohesion and fol- low on, through inanimate and then animate creation up to man, the regularly ascending development — or " evo- lution" — of energy and response, of the masculine and the feminine powers, ever active, ever commingling, ever productive. Without pursuing this fact further, in the Divine di- rection, than bold yet reverent truthfulness demands ; we may hold it distinctly with pure minds, as a conceiv- able proposition, that what all nature reflects, as in a mirror, may be a great reality in the mode of Goo's own being. The separation of persons in humanity, let it be re- membered, was not created but made after creation. Man was created. Afterwards woman was taken out of man. The masculine and the feminine principles were not primarily, and are not therefore necessarily divided into distinct persons. This line of distinction was drawn between human persons, we are told, for specific and temporary purposes. Woman was taken out of man, and given to him as companion- and helper : while on both lay the temporary duty of replenishing the earth. Everything in revelation, about man, accords with human experience ; while both testify to the growth and decay — i.e. essential temporality — of the division of persons into masculine and feminine. The two principles that existed once in the single Adam, are certainly not even now divided characteristically always between the human THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 167 sexes. Some men are most feminine, and some women most masculine. When tlie temporal duty of replenish- ing the earth shall be over, then the original type of Adam may reappear again ; and, never marrying nor giving in marriage, men may everlastingly be masculine and feminine, in various proportions, through every person. As these two principles are one active and the other responsive ; the hving circuit and flow of love manifests itself in their vigorous mutuality. There is nothing impossible in the begetting by God, Wlio is love, out of His own veiy substance, an only Begotten Son. Time enters not into God's actions. He cannot have been once the alone Supreme, and after that FxVther : for the very idea of God includes unchangeableness. He therefore ever begetteth, The Ever only Begotten. Human thought is again seen capable of receiving an article in the Creed. Modern Thought therefore can only demand sufficient proof, that God The Father, of His own substance, begetteth ever the Ever Only Begot- ten Son. Proof of this fact, is only obtainable from revelation. One source alone of it is j^ossible. It can only have been made known originally by Him, Who knew and knows it personally. God Himself must declare it. Man could never discover it. God chose His own method and means of declaration. The Creed rests, wholly, and in all its parts, on God manifest. "The Only Begotten Son which is in the bosom of The Father, He hath de- clared Him*'. S. Jn. I. 18. "Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son wiU reveal Him". S. Matt. XI. 27. "For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness and shew unto you that Eternal Life, which was with The Fatiler and was manifested unto us". 1 S. Jn. I. 2. ljG8 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. " And without controversy great is the mystery of god- liness, God (or Who) was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory ". 1 Tim. m. 16. The testimony of Jesus is the one ground of behef, for those facts about God that lie necessarily outside the domain of human discovery. To say that such facts are beyond our capacity of reception, is to confuse thought. It denies, what the very form of the denial itself affirms. Viewing man as an independent discoverer, we must indeed acknowledge God to be "The Great Unknown " ; but, the very form of expression itself shows a distinct conception, in the mind of every one who uses it. Now, while acknowledging and indeed vehemently asserting the natural incapacity of man to find out God, we do not therefore allow that " The Great Unknown " cannot re- veal Himself to the finite capacity of His own creature, and fill that creature with such knowledge as he is made capable of receiving, and such grace as he is enabled to use. Whatever is revealed about God, so that hu- man thought may apprehend it, must in all fairness be always accepted by men, upon just and sufficient testi- mony. The unimpeachable man Jesus — unimpeachable both in wisdom and truth — testifies to the eternity of the Only Begotten Son. He refers to Himself, as " God .... his only Begotten Son ". S. Jn. HI. 16. He says " I and my Father are (cv) one substance ". X. 30. In prayer He solemnly claims eternal union with God. "And now O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was". XVH. 5. THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 160 These few passages are selected, not as all the evi- dence, but as only specimens of the evidence with which the New Testament — "the word of God" — teems. These and all other texts and contexts are amply dis- cussed and defended, in very accessible works on Chris- tian exegesis. They, who would study them honestly, have helps enough ; while they who would controvert the interpretation of them, here assumed, may find answers enough to all objections. This essay is not exe- getical. It assumes the common interpretation which is sanctioned by ages, and only aims or attempts to show that Modern Thought, not only need not reject it because of its difficulties, but in fact must have it for self-preser- vation : since it is true, now as ever, as practical fact reaching to every person, that self-insufficiency demands a Saviour, humanity a human Saviour, personality a per- sonal Saviour, godlikeness a Saviour who is God, while one name only fulfils all these conditions ; — " the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth " — "for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved". Acts IV. 10, 12. Thus the Creed sets forth God The Son, as partaker not merely of the Divine likeness, but of the very sub- stance of His Father. This great fact, as has been amply shown, being within our natural human powers of ap- prehension, is therefore ^rs^ possible, then susceptible of proof, and Jiiialhj proved upon the testimony of an amply authorized and accredited witness. The crucial test of the truth of Jesus, with His triumphant success under and through it, will appear later, in the article upon the "Resurrection." The links of confirmatory witness to His truth, with the evidence which brings it down to this age, and makes the word of God a living voice 8 170 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. to this generation, will also come up in place under the article upon "The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church ". Without advancing too fast, it is enough thus f ir to feel, without formally stating it, the strength of proof which flows from the Creed, as a single unity and wlioleness of revealed truth. At this point we contemplate The Divine Son, as Jesus The Saviour, and Christ God's anointed. We regard His Divinity, His Office, and the authority of His Mis- sion. As 3'et He stands apart, exalted before our won- dering vision. As a fact. He thus appears both amazing and attractive. He manifests God, in a mode of being that suggests a remarkable and winning likeness to man. Henceforth The Godhead is freed from that cold, remote, rspellent abstract idea of mere purity and power, which man can never contemplate without fear or dread, nor dweE upon with satisfaction ; and, to escape which, he again and again has either denied God's existence altogether, or else denied a human capacity for knowing God. The parental mode of primary Divine existence, when perceived and accepted as fact, at once begins, through human hearts, to work out hght, and warmth and joy, ill body and mind and soul. *' This God is our God ". We are not unlike him. There is a community of thought, and emotion between us. Great, and glorious tho' He be, and as such demanding our solemn reverence. He is also surely condescending, considerate and tender. Though sin cannot be viewed by Him, with allowance ; tho' presumption must be rebuked by His royal, heav- enly, dignity ; and tho' every lightness of thought or deed towards Him must be abashed by His pure and serene perfectness : yet '* The God and Fatheh of our Lord Jesus Christ " stands over us chiefly as the One Being, Whose essence is love. THE CREED AND MODEEN THOrGIIT. 171 In all the known range of fact, as well as througliout the golden cloud-creations of fancy, there is nothing else existing or conceivable, to be compared to The Father, as revealed by and manifested in The Son. As a mere form of knowledge, it taxes all human powers of thought and emotion ; and while developing them, fills them full always, yet ever continues to pour forth in floods of new light and joy. God in Christ ceases to be intangible and cold, like a cloud far off; and becomes a perceptibly near Being, to Whom man may go for communion, and for something like reciprocation. He is not merely a unity, full of self and self-suflS.cient, but He is one in a living circuit of persons. Of His own nature He is both active and receptive, outgoing and responsive, communing and communed with : such was He before the world began, such is He in essence, and such therefore will He ever remain, in Himself and towards His creatures. Man cannot afford to be without such a living, loving God. Once manifested, every generation must claim Him, for their own " Very God ". Modems and ancients, all, as true to the common human consciousness, have equal, indefeasible right to have and to know this God, for their Ever Merciful Father. The Creed, thus far, must in all fairness be allowed to be in real sympathy with all that is true and good in Modem Thought. So far from dogmatizing arbitrarily, it sets forth the most win- ning and glorious of all facts, when it shows Jehovah's fatherhood, and links that fatherhood with, and manifests it through, one ; whose office is to minister to our Salva- tion, and whose mission is attested by Divine anointment. 172 THE CEEED AND MODEKN THOIJGIIT. '^Bd lllljom all (£l)ing0 mxt illabc." The complete intimacy of the union between the Fathee and The Son, with their entire coincidence of will and communion of power, are shown by the corre- spondence or rather conjunction of their acts. The established principles of truth, as acknowledged by modern thought, are not incompatible with the idea of a Central Person in the God head, in whichevery attribute ■ — power included — centres. Nor are they any more in- compatible with the idea of an outaction of power, through any one of the Persons included in the Sub- stantial Divine Unity. Hence, while God The Father is " Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible ", He may be such as an architect is the maker of a building. Although it cannot be too care- fully considered, that human analogies are not sufficient to enable a full explanation of the relationship of the Divine Persons ; it must at the same time be allowed that we have nothing higher to resort to, when we seek for definite views, and clear statements of the mode of the Divine existence. It is legitimate therefore to speak of, and believe in The Father, as centring all power in Himself, and yet doing the work of creation through His Son. The fact rests upon evidence, i.e. revelation, which is the only evidence possible of the origin of that universe of which man is part. The Old Testament sets forth in shadowy outline, what the New Testament reveals in definite description or THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 173 clear terms of assertion. Several times, in the former, " The Wisdom of God " is personified ; and " The Word of God " is so used, that His personification was a famil- iar idea to Jewish interpreters ; as indeed it was, in their way, to Greek philosophers. On these points no argu- ment need be based : yet they are important as showing that, like all other realities, the full revelation of The Son, as operative creator, cast its shadows before. The creative Word of the Old Testament is first pre- sented, as if it were an emanation of speech, clothed with power, from God. It affords however to human reflec- tion, a germ of thought. It is not a fact that can be ac- cepted and laid away, as any dead value may be stored up. " God said ". The peculiaiity of that intervention strikes the mind at once : why " said " ? Why not, plainly and directly, God made the light and all things following ? What was the significance, and intention of the word of God going before the creative act ? As by the plural Elohim (which would make the first verse of the Bible read literally, ' In the beginning Gods created, etc.') thought is aroused and left unsatisfied, until finally set at rest in the revelation of the Trinity : so, with this term " said," thought is in like manner awakened, and now and then further stimulated until it rests finally in the Person of The Word, A\lio was in the beginning with God, Who was God, by Whom all things were made, Who was hfe and the hght of men. St. Jn. I. 1-4. The Wisdom of God is more distinctly personified in the Old Testament than the Word. Of this, one most striking instance, is contained in The Proverbs ; " I Wisdom dAvell with prudence I love them that love Me The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way When there were no depths I was brought forth .... before .... mountains, earth 174 THE CREED AlTD MODERN THOUGHT. . . . fields, . . fountains, . . heavens, . . . waters, , . . then was I by Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the habitable part of the earth ; and My dehghts were with the Sons of men". Ch. YHI. 12-31. There never appears any marked endeavor in the New Testament to accord with the Old : such, for instance, as would be found between writings whose authors felt that they gave ground of suspicion against themselves. Both show that sure sign of genuine conviction of truth, and strong confidence in its unity, wliich is manifested by substantial concurrence in connection with specific differences. Nowhere is it said in the latter, that the Wisdom and the Word of the former were and are Jesus Christ ; yet, while the one states that creation sprang up at the utterance of God's word, the other — as in S. Jn. I. — distinguishes the person of The Word from the person of the Central Godhead — yet declaring Him One with God — ; and ascribes to Him the creative ac.t, by as- serting that it was " His Son .... by Whom He made the worlds ". Heb. I. 2. Again, while Solomon's person- ification of Wisdom is not mentioned, yet St. Paul, who knew it well, calls *' Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God ". 1 Cor. I. 24. At this point the Creed concludes that portion of revelation, which makes known the relationship of Father and Son in the Godhead. This relationship sets forth God to man, as the great fact of which man is an image, or finite copy. That which in man and in all creation — viz. : love — is ever active, ever reciprocal, and ever mu- tual ; is also found to exist centrally in the very mode of the Divine existence. Surely a human creature, who knows enough of himself to perceive the supremacy of THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 17o love in Mm and over liim, cannot but experience peculiar gratification, at finding love active and productive, ever existent in the very source of all good. The Godhead is not a mere single unit of icy, adamantine power, but a veritable circle of living persons, united in one sub- stance, and capable of mutual council, cooperative action, and reciprocal communion. Modern Thought cannot successfully deny our power, to apprehend this mode of The Divine. It is impossible to conceive of any fact more attractive to truly human creatures, who live, or know they ought to live in love on earth. God, while still known and adored as the Majesty on High, is, in The Son of His Love, exhibited with a true and essential fatherhood. This fatherhood may easily in thought, as it is in The Word of revelation, be extended out thro' Cheist to all men, who choose to come unto Jesus ; and thus whoever will may take a son's place by adoption into the family of God. God indeed conceivably might save us without adoption, but then we should be only His servants. Man cannot be a mere servant, without violating not merely his pride but his very consciousness of essential dignity. God, in CmiiST His consubstantial Son, may lift us up to the post of children and friends ; but how He could do it, by mere merciful i^ower does not appear. A single personal Divine unit, could not be essentially a father. He could not appear, or at best only histrionically appear, as a father to men. But our God is The Eternal Father, and His fatherhood being without beginning or end, must be ever present and active, wherever His omnipresence is. The universal and irrepressible longing of man after God, through knowledge of Him, is thus most satisfac- torily answered by The Creed. Surely no other formula of faith presents God, so perfect, and yet so like man. 170 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. The very dearest and deepest, pure human affections are opened and filled ; the highest conceivable sense of hu- man dignity is aroused and gratified ; the loftiest possible conception of a Deity, satisfactory to all humanity and sufficient for every true man, is fulfilled ; while every con- ceivable possibility of iuture human development rests in, and grows up towards The Almighty Father, Who is love, dehghting in His own, eternal, consubstantial Son — His wisdom, word, and power — through Whom all goodness outacts, and in Whom all free men who choose salvation are " united in the adoption of sons ". " Where- fore thou art no more a servant, but a son ; and if a son then an heir of God through Christ " ! GaL IV. 7. " Children ! then heirs ; heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ " ! Eom. VHI. 17. The Creator, Son, is the preserver of all things, ever "upholding all things by the word of His power". Heb. I 3. Not only does He call forth the heart's best affections, but He fills also the highest possible hope. He alone does this. With the Son, The Creator, The Preserver, all human capacities find fulness of exercise and satisfac- tion. Without Him, there is no sure ground of confi- dence in this world, and no light shining beyond. In Him only the Cosmos dwells in light. In Him only mankind, looking both within and without, may every- where find light THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 177 "lUt)o, for U0 Men ani for ®tir Sabation, €ame Poron from i^tavm,'' Having presented the Most High in His fatherhood through The Eternal Son, named Jesus, The Christ ; the Creed next sets forth the starthng, enrapturing fact, that this anointed Saviour of men, " being in the form of God, regarded not His equality with God as a thing to be eagerly held, but divested Himself (of His divine glory) taking a servant's form, being made in likeness of men". Phil. n. 6, 7. This wondrous condescension resulted from that love, which is in the essence of Tlie Father ; *' God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever beheveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life ". S. John HI. 16. So famihar is this transaction to all minds, that its unique transcendence over, yet among, historic facts, is only perceived through reflection and comparison. Great events have occurred on earth, and men have been ex- alted by them ; but how do they appear, in comparison with that of the Son of God voluntarily laying aside His Heavenly majesty, moved by and filled with Divine love, coming down into this darkened earth, where mankind are groping after reaUties and seeking the light; and taking man's hkeness, that men may be enabled by Him to find, not merely coldly abstract truth, and guidance for groping mortal Hfe, but even Him, Who Himself is the truth, the light of life which lighteth every man ! Most vividly do these terms negatively describe the 178 THE CREED AND MODERN THOrGHT. world without Christ. If He had not descended, even the rays of truth, — spreading from Him over all the world, illumining with varying brilliancy the religions and phil- osophies which have been invented or preserved in frag- ments among historic peoples — would then have had no manifested, central sun to keep up the supply of light and warmth. Or if we allow, what Christians can well afford to allow, that there is truth mingled among the formulas of all religions, and found in the established principles of all science ; and if we accept the corollary that Christ — Who said " I am the truth " S. Jn. XIV. 6— therefore dwells wherever truth is, and may there in some measure be sought and found ; yet this is proof of the inestima- ble superiority of The Creed over all other religious formularies and principles of science : since it alone ex- hibits Christ, not merely as detached beams of reflected light, but as the Very Sun of Righteousness, shining in full revealing, open before the eyes of all mankind, and manifesting Himself as the Origin of Being de- manded by Philosophy, the source of power required by Science, as well as the personal link of communion be- tween man and Gon, Whom aU men need and long for. As, through reflection and comparison, the descending Christ of The Creed appears, transcending even while more or less illumining all other religious revealings or scientific discoveries ; so also, by meditation, every one who will may put himself within the compass of His vivi- fying presence. This fact, like all the other facts or rather parts of the one great fact, which The Creed sets forth, is not a merely cold dogma, for the mind alone to consider, nor a colder potentiality for the will to be awed at for fear of consequences. It is rather a suffusion of earth by Heaven, a do^vn-po^u.•ing of the Divine essence THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT^ 179 for our renovation, the love of God revealed for us to see and hear and grasp and embrace, that we may live. There is a dark side doubtless to this aspect of The Christ. The earth turns away its face from the material sun, and plunges into night. Man, not by necessity, but by His original liberty never to be taken away, may mis- use His noble distinction of freedom of will, and turn away from The Cheist. That point comes on later in The Creed, As yet it is showing truth on its divine side : and we are looking at it, under that common human consciousness which modem thought has chosen to champion ; and with those visual organs, which eveiy man has, wdthin and without, through all his complex unity of body, soul, and spirii Let any sincere person meditate, with sense, reason and affection, on the descending Cheist ! Has he seen any other fact so glorious ? Does history rival it ? Can imagination excel it ? Has discovery any shining reahty to set over against it ? Has denial dimmed it? Has re- jection ecHpsed it ? Have men's invented glasses, of va- rious colors, done more than theologically divide its beams ? Is it not shining still, and now as ever the one, incomparably brilliant sun containing in itself fill light, and being itself the sum, and the very source of all the power, and beauty of ever, everywhere, enlightening truth? Nor is the descending Christ of the Creed merely an emanation from God. Much less is He a glorious crea- tion of God. Very God Himself, He comes down in love and mercy, and stands among men. This alone would set Christianity pre-eminently above its rivals. But this alone would not satisfy such creatiures as we are. If there were nothing further told of Jesus, Modern Thought would say, and justly, that He would only thus 180 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. claim lordship over us, and make us his servants. It is not pride, that declares us incapable of being happy in mere servitude. Our natural godlikeness makes the sense of obligation, that even love may not repay, offen- sive to true, manly consciousness. Goodness, and glory, and beauty, and benevolence we may admire and be thankful for ; but their mere down- shining on us, alone considered, touches not in us that spring of love, which is the fount of satisfaction ; whereby the whole man rests, drinking forever immortal peace, and lifting up his refreshed heart joyfully, in willing submission, with adoration. THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. ISl ^nb yxias Incarnate. The Creed brings Cheist yet nearer to men. "Witliout diminishing aught of His divinity, and only veiling for a time His glory, He is shown, as investing human nature with the high honor, and almost inconceivable dignity, of union with the divine nature. The Son of God becomes one of us. He is no longer afar off, amid Heaven's glories. The beaming of His love no longer traverses the infinite distance, between the Father's right hand and this misty dwelling place of discordant mankind. He has come down to us ; nor that alone. He has entered into our nature. Humanity is taken by Him. The nature of man has been, and is united in His person to the nature of God. The terms are clear, and have a safe meaning when taken literally. It does not say that any compound nature was made. It does not mingle the substance of the creature with the substance of the creator. It does not merely infuse the creature with the divine spirit. He, The Christ, the person, the Jesus "was incarnate ". He does not merge His Divinity in flesh, so that henceforth He is another and compoimd person, partly human and partly divine. His complete personality, manifested before only in the Divine substance, has now taken into itself human sub- stance. The One, ever the same Son of God, in Whom "The Father of Heaven" eternally delights; "WTiom angels adore as the Beloved one, the Wisdom of God ; Who hitherto has been manifest only in the substance and 182 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. glory of God, now takes human substance, and is mani- fest before heaven and earth as man. Without anticipating what follows in the Creed, we may stand in view of the incarnation, and confidently call on Modern Thought to look critically at, if honestly into, that fact alone. As an idea, it is not perhaps totally new ; for other religions teach a kind of incarnation. Christians do not claim that the Gospel only contains truth. They claim that it is true in itself, that it com- prises all spiritual truth, harmonizes with all truth, and that its facts rest upon sufficient evidence. The mission of Christianity is positive, rather than negative. The Creed declares its points, without affirming facts else- where declared, and without denying errors. It does not enter into controversy at all. The Incarnation is simply stated. Ancients and moderns alike have it, as a fact man- ifested to the few who took part personally in effecting it, and proved to others upon sufficient evidence. This man- ifestation, with the proof, will come duly under considera- tion, under the next coming clause. At present it suffices to view the Incarnation, in relation to that dignity of hu- manity, of which pure Christianity has been ever a sincere advocate, and earnest supporter. Modern thought, how- ever jealous it may seem of interference with liberty of mind, and however sensitive as to the honor due man as man, is indebted after all, not to human progress for this culture, but rather to Christianity ; which first boldly pro- claimed that "God is no respecter of persons," Acts X. 34 ; " and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth," XVH. 26. This great unit of humanity, comprising all nations and individuals, in the dust and on the earth ; this one sub- stance, once created and since propagated ; this single nature, in countless persons, becomes itself joined to — THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1S3 not amalgamated with — the divine nature in the person- ality of the Son of God. A loftier honor for mankind cannot be conceived. Every stem, that shoots out from the one developing stock of humanity, shares in that nature ; v^^hich God's Son has ennobled by His indwell- ing, and has exalted into the honor and glory that of right, eternally attach to His own princely, heavenly, person. It will be noticed, that the Creed does not say, that the person Cheist was joined to. the person of a man. Had it been so, only that human person would have gained the benefit of the incEimation. He was made man, not a man, as we shall see hereafter. Man, or mankind, has sprung from one natiu'al root. That natural root was a person, named Adam. In him aU mankind potentially existed. The countless individ- ual men and women of the ages are partakers together, through Adam, of one humanity. While every one is distinct personally from every other, he is inseparable fi'om the one stock of humanity. Whatever is essential to humanity, is possessed by every person. In every person, underlying and supporting consciousness, is the germinal principle of unity. Life belongs to this ger- minal principle, and through hfe it grows, affects and is affected, assimilates, develops, and exhibits characteris- tics. Yet substantial humanity, being ever one, what- ever its Adam was by creation or became germinally by his own free will and act, every personal man becomes by inheritance. This is primary and universal. Tlie babe is bom, not created, and hence is in substance whatever procreative Adam was or became essentially. It is unquestionable that not only life was propagated by Adam, and through him has flowed on ; but character- istics even have descended from parents to children. 184 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Moreover the inlieritance of the Earth, with all its material developments and their external and internal consequences, belongs yet to man. Before entering upon the discussion of sin, it may be worth while to consider Adam and humanity as a crea- tion. Creation is under a Creator. Whatever comes to creatures, from a creator, must come as a mere gift, or boon. Creatures as such, however exalted, are and for- ever can be only servants. All benefit is bestowed, and all duty imposed. Adam was in Eden a servant. His "help meet for him," taken out of him and yet ever part of him, part necessary to the perfect functional action of his body, part responsive to his yearning heart, and part of his spirit as beauty supplements strength, did not take away servitude. The Loed was perfect, and the servitude as easy as infinite benevolence could make it. Its surroundings were complete, in both w^ealth and har- mony. Everything needful, for every sense and faculty, was supplied. Yet this dual unit, this masculine and feminine man, this rounded, complete, loving, and therefore contented crea- ture, attained not unto perfect satisfaction. This want or need was in his nature, and was not in itself a fault. It meant something and God was the author of it. Desire existed. It asked something more than the creature comforts of Eden. Even the Divine companionship, the walking with the Lord in the garden, produced nothing higher than the relationship of good master and good servant. Adam, like all his posterity, w^as incapable of satisfac- tion in mere servitude. It would not have sufficed merely to have obeyed, though Eden had remained, and man with all his posterity had walked, throughout life on earth, amid the gardens of Paradise. No conceivable THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1S5 amount of wealth nor any measure of culture, could place him at ease in a hfe of mere obedience to the mere will even of the Perfect One. "The image of Gon," in which he was created, Gen. I. 26-27. V. 1. IX. 6. 1 Cor. XI. 7, made him so " like God," that his wiU must be free, or he would ever feel servitude as a burden and a chain. God had so created him, that the right and power of choice was more valuable and delightful than aught or all else. It was necessary' to his own sense of manliness. It involved his essential dignity. He was hasty in the use of this right and power, as will appear when sin comes under review ; but in itself it was part of his nature, belonging to his godhkeness. In wonderful, yet exceedingly simple, indeed quite natural manner, the Bible's fii'st picture of God and man is presented. It is impossible to conceive a scene, more perfectly accordant with the best conception we can form of God's work of creation, completed, and pronoimced very good ; than that of the gorgeous, emerald earth, framed within the flecked canopy of the sapphire sky, lightened with the sun by day and moon by night, hav- ing a beautiful garden in it full of peaceful animals and bii'ds, and peopled by a pair of noble, and innocent crea- tures made after God's own image. And yet, this outward vision is not restful, and satis- factory. Eden might have been the home of slaves. Adam and Eve might possibly have had neither freedom, nor power of choice. If so, they would have been deficient, in that particular wherein lies man's noblest sense of per- sonal dignity. Take away his liberty to choose or refuse, and man is enslaved. If this power had not been orig- inally given him, he never could have been more before God, than the most perfect of machines, the most exalted of beasts, or at best a grade in the order of angels. 1S6 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. The Bible says that man was made in the image of God. The noblest power, with which that living image could be endowed, was freedom of will ; accompanied of course with responsibihty. Thus the godlike creature would be enabled to elect the good, the true, the loving and the perfect One, as his Lord. A lord he must have, because he did not create himself. He might choose however whom he would believe, trust, and follow. The relation between God and man was natural, sim- ple and perfect. The loving Father — " The Everlasting Father " — walked with trusting children, and they com- muned together, not mediately through His bounties, but directly person with person. Their exalted liberty demanded the opportunity of exercise, and God made the trial the lightest that was possible. His own consistency demanded that His human image and likeness should exercise that facult}^ through which alone it could be- come His friend and freely love Him : God therefore de- nied the human pair only one enjoyment, among many perhaps intrinsically equal or even superior. The temptation that followed was addressed to ambi- tion, and the trial was one of faith. The destiny of mankind was poised upon the balance. Mankind then and there exercised choice. It claimed, and used for it- self, the right to offer allegiance to the Lord of its OAvn choosing. It put into operation the liberty, through which even yet flows either ruin or salvation. As Adam and Eve did, so may and must all mankind decide, whether they vnll believe God or the Devil. Most intensely human is all this story of Eden, and the fall. Any innocent man and woman, in hke condition and circumstances, could have acted like Adam and Eve. Every human consciousness, when searching the centre of human dignity or traversing the circuit of possible THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 187 glory, knows and declares that man cannot live a slave even to God ; and that the essence of freedom is the ex- ercise of choice, whom to beheve, and trust, and follow. Out of this act flowed sin, whence came sorrow and danger. Death, the penalty, followed, as God said. Not probably mere material dissolution ! That might have been inherent in the natural constitution of Adam, as it evidently was and had been in the vegetable and animal kingdom. The " Tree of Life .... in the midst of the garden," Gen. 11. 9, probably bore the fruit of immortal- ity ; of which, in due time, eating, our first parents and their offspring — had innocence only continued — might have had natural decay counteracted, or their physical sub- stance sublimed, so that the body would have been *' nourished up unto everlasting hfe." The Tree of Life bore fruit which might have been and probably was " the sacrament of immortality." The mouth eating that finiit, and the heart believing, the whole nature of man might have been refreshed and nourished. Immortal life would have thus been secured against natural decay. Thus man, allied on the one side to perishing animals, would have Lad his mortality counteracted ; while in his spirit, aUied to God, he would never have felt the burden of the flesh. Among all these possibilities, Adam and Eve walked free. They must have been free, or they never could have been the father and mother of mankind, as it now is. No one of us would have owned them, had they been compelled to think and act and choose according to another's will. They might have consented to submit to another. They might have been satisfied of their own insufficiency, of and for self, and then freely placed them- selves under the loving guidance and sure pi*otection of the Lord. Convinced of His truth, receiving and recip- rocating His love, trusting His wisdom, relying on His 188 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOIJGHT. consistency, and fearlessly thankful under His power, they might have accepted the test of their constancy and shown themselves faithful. Had they done so, man's his- tory would have been different : freedom would have been manifested and developed, without the hard con- flict with death and sin. Finite creatures, even innocent, would have needed education. Godlike creatures would have needed edu- cation in godliness. While they remained infants, this education would have been dogmatic. What they were told, they would lovingly beheve and do. Dogmas alone however would be unsuited to manhood's season. Then the sources of love, wisdom and power would be sought into, and developing reason would ask its natural ali- ment. God, being the one source of all, would open Himself to manhood's ken. Then the finite would per- ceive the gulf, between itself and The Infinite. Yearn- ing, longing, reaching, it could not of itself find and touch God : and yet it must find Him, or do fatal violence to itself, by submitting to His word without as- sent of filled understanding, or consent of satisfied love. Man's godlikeness makes necessary such nearness of communion with God, as that God Himself should be in man, and man in God. Beauty, love and power coming down, across an abyss separating man from the Infinite, could otherwise only enter into a soul imj)risoned. Im- ages of heaven though borne on celestial light, and sounds of the Divine court though coming along purest aether, might delight with beauty or ravish with harmony ; but they would tell the mortal of his banishment ; he would know by them that God was a Master far off, not His own Beloved One, well known and communing, nigh at hand. A uniting link, between God and man, is evidently a THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 189 natural necessity. TJnfallen man, had he progressed be- yond infancy, would have felt that necessity. He could not have forged that link for himself. If made at all God must make it. The finite, pausing on the verge of the dividing abyss, feels and knows that such as he must remain incomplete and bound, or else dwell in and with God's fulness, where human will might coincide with and not merely obey the Divine will. God, Whose creation of man caused this necessity, might meet, fulfil, and re- move all imperfectness from it, by Divine incarnation. Taking not a man, but the Adamhood, the germinal and concrete man, into Himself, the deepest needs of the creature would be filled, the finite and the Infinite would be joined, the created image of God would rest satisfied in its own antitype. The " last Adam " 1 Cor. XV. 45, took an Adamic relation to all men, i.e. He so entered humanity that its germ, its essence, its whole potential- ity, became as much part of His person, as it had been naturally concentred in the person of the first Adam. The old dispute between the Nominalists, the Kealists and the Conceptualists, will here come into mind ; but we need not turn aside to consider it. The unity of real humanity is conjointly a clear conception, as well as a fact and a name. It exists in eveiy human person, but the personality is another and distinct conception. Every human person has all that is essential to human- ity. We may however conceive of all this essentiality, taken up into a higher than human person, and forming thereby part of that one's higher personality. Thus the humanity of Jesus is complete, full, and Adamic. He takes hold of all humanity, through His own body, soul and spirit ; and thus links every human person, through body, soul and spirit, to Himself. His own Self, or per- son, remains Divine however. He is not God in man, 190 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. nor man in God, merely, but Godman ; with retro-active efficiency, and everlasting effectiveness, of salvation for man. There was ona way in which the free manliness of Adam and of all humanity could be satisfied. Man could not be free in like manner as God is, because he could not control all contingencies and preserve universal har- mony.. In the midst of contingencies and subject to re- lations, man could be lifted above the possibility of mis- haps, only by being so joined to God that his will should coincide with God's will, and his choice be wholly, not subjected to, but united with the Wisdom and Word of God. This imj)lies more than willing assent to the word of God, when uttered. It involves such insight into what, for want of a term of deeper significance, may be called the motive consistency of God ; as woiild, in every perfect creature, fill the understanding, satisfy the heart and guide the assenting will. Thus the spring, whence the word of God goes forth in power, would be opened to man, and he would ever, in eager satisfaction, go forth with it, assenting, cooperating, and accepting or doing good. This gratified godhkeness would complete man's satisfaction. Not by a vain or presumptuous ambition was man impelled to desire godlikeness, in order that he might choose, and not be forced, to will as God wills ; but, by the very necessity of the Divine image, in wdiich he was created, he must desu^e that his manliness be recognized even before God. The Incarnation of The Son of God was His entrance into humanity, so as to become " the last Adam." There are two Adams, one the natural father of humanity, the other in human nature as a new root, through Whom all may be reached, and out of Whom evei-y human person THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 101 may draw life. The vital circulation of body, soul and spirit, as it sprang up with fhe first Adam, is, in and by the second Adam, joined with, or grafted into the hfe centre of the Divine nature. If this fact alone stood forth in the new creation, man would hardly be better off, than he was in Eden. The ingrafting of all hiunanity into Christ, if left to act naturally, would simply produce a compulsory salvation ; wherein the will of man would yet remain enslaved. His godlikeness would be shorn of its glory. His dignity would be gone. He would be a servant still. Hence this incarnation limits its own operation, as God has Hmited the inheritance of humanity tlirough Adam. "Whatever was in the first Adam flows naturally into his posterity. But every human individual retains the original godlikeness. He is free to choose and refuse. He is not compelled to all the consequences of Adam's choice and act. His own free will operates to the deter- mination of his own destiny. So, under the second Adam, the new life is not compulsive. It operates on all, counteracting involuntary evil, but not coercing the power of choice. It could not coerce that power, and leave us men. If Adam had remained sinless, he would have repelled .temptation indeed, but not by denying his desii-e to be like God. He would have repHed to the Tempter, that he had no wish to be " as gods." He would have acknowl- edged " the desire to be wise," but would have waited to be satisfied until God saw fit. He would have confided, i.e. put faith in The Lord, and not in haste changed his con- fidence. His whole fault was instability of faith. Had he held on and trusted God, doubtless the incarnation of the Son would in due time have been accomplished, and the utmost need of Adam and of all mankind would 102 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. thus have been met and filled. The Incarnation is there- fore no " afterthought of God." It was involved in the necessities of the first creation. It was originally neces- sary to complete the design of The Lord, in making man " after our likeness." Gen. I. 26. Thus the very highest dignity of human nature is not only left intact in its completeness, but exalted also, by the entrance into it of the "Beloved One," God's only begotten Son, our Lord. The Creed is here again not a forge of dogmatic chains to bind free men withal ; but the very jealous supporter, and defender of the largest free- dom and greatest gloiy of mankind. All accumulations of history may be ransacked in vain, to find a fact to par- allel the Incarnation. Philosophy, poetry and invention of every kind do not, with all their riches and with all their pictures, approach the transcendent fact, that man- kind is and every man may be so joined to the central life of God, that his human will, without coercion, shall assent and consent to all things — present and future in heaven and in earth-— that effect, or affect his own well being. The Incarnation is undoubtedly a mystery. Divine mysteries however are given, not for our confusion, but for our learning. It may be difficult for us to perceive the important distinctions, between the fact that Jesus was incarnate ; and the falsehoods, that ' He entered into the person of a man, or that His Divinity infused and vitalized the form of a man, or that He made a new com- pound, or that He in any way became something else than God's Son, in something imperfectly human.' In- numerable inventions have come forth, in ancient and modern times, intending to modify the incarnation ; but the old, simple, and full significance of the fact, not only stands, but is the only view that saves for man his origi- nal and essential glory of godlikeness. TIIE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 193 We may not see fully and clearly how a second Adam can enter into humanity, in the midst of its develop- ment, and operate upon it, from its first root to its last bud, with the efficiency of the natui-al first man. It is not enough *to say that He operates upon the mind, or upon the affections, for a very important part of every person is the body, while underlying body, heart and mind, and comprising them, is that "I" or personal identity, which must have Hfe given or restored to its roots. In some way, corresponding to the flow of the first Adam's life into every man, must the second Adam also flow through mankind. Although we may not com- prehend the process, we may accept the act, as within the possibilities of Omnipotence ; then, as a fact, we may use it to show how every individual partaker of the human nature, thus exalted, may, by rightly using the means thus extended to him, effect his own personal ex- altation to a position where God's will shall draw him into willing assent, and not, however tenderly, compel his submission. The Incarnation, as it unites human nature with the Divine nature, through the Only " Son of God " and the Only " Son of Man " — not a pei*son- man, nor son of a man — reaches thereby up to Adam, and down to the last babe that shall be born. It reaches with all effectiveness of life and restoration — that only excepted in which human dignity and hence human satisfaction is involved. It reaches to the outer verge of compulsion. It does every thing, but compel any person to receive the full blessing of its benefits. It alone declares man the most glorious of all creatures, and shows him how, restoring and reviving his godlikeness, he may ascend in body soul and spirit to the high post of friendship, S. Jn. XV. 15, and joint heu^ship, Rom. Vni, 17, with the Christ, and even become "partaker 9 194 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. of the Divine nature.' 2 S. Pet. I. 4. The Incarnation exalts humanity, through everlasting union with Deity in the one person of The Son, to the very throne of God. Every personal sharer in that one human essence, and substance, is reached by the Godmasn ; while his person remains intact, his freedom undiminished, and his dignity unassailed. The consequence, to any person, is left for that person in his freedom to determine. Had Adam and his posterity retained innocence, the Incarnation of the Son of God would have operated upon Adam and all his posterity without bar or hindrance. He and they would have known God in that deep of nature, wherein the fountain of life and spring of motive lies hidden. The first human consciousness would have shown coincidence, between the human and the Divine will. Obedience would have been willing acquiescence, and not mere subjection. Adam, however, was too impatient. His longing for knowledge was natural, but the gratification of that long- ing he basely sought through disobedience. His trial was necessary to his manliness. He was under the natural necessity, of choosing in whom he would be- lieve. Not being self-sufficient, he was obliged to choose a guide. God, in respect for human dignity, did not, and consistently could not compel man's choice. The truth was told. Then Adam was left to decide for him- self whether he would believe God, or tiTist the Tempter. The two guides were before Him. He chose to follow the one, who seemed to answer his need of free choice, rather than wait in faith until the other should, in His own time and in His own way, open a path, wherein man's assent to the Divine will would enable him to obey willingly. The occasion of sin, was also an occasion for faith, He should have trusted in the Loio) willingly, and THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 195 kept the commandment ; not because lie dared not dis- obey, but because the Lord's goodness was assurance that nothing would be requu'ed of him than what tended towards happiness and peace. The act of disobedience was the form of sin's first manifestation ; but the sin it- self lay deeper. Before acting, ou* first parents dis- trusted God, and believed Satan. The power of choice was exerted in putting faith, not in God but in the Tempter. The fall therefore was a suicidal separation from Him, Who is life and Hght. Death was the natural and inevitable j)enalty, or rather consequence. In turn- ing away fi*om God, man elected an opposite to union and communion with God. Death has many forms. The dissolution of the mortal body is only one of its forms. This, and every other constituent of death, is in- cluded in separation from God. Though the first sin was distrust of God and faith in Satan, the consequences were various and complicated. Disobedience followed in various forms, and the death- consequence developed through innumerable fatal mala- dies of soul and body. The whole nature of man was in- volved, because the tiu*ning away from God was a com- plete personal act. God could not, consistently with His own original grant to man of godlikeness, turn him back to obedience by force. Man, in that case, would have been only a slave forever. The chosen evil must be left to work through natural channels. All men come into being through natural channels. Every human creature, when born, meets and is affected by the evil of sin. The unity of the human race compels every person to share, not only in the corruption that poisoned the germ of humanity, but in the guilt incurred by that germ, together with the penalty declared against it. All mankind are Adam, in course and process of develop- 196 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. ment : " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all sinned." Bom. V. 12. The distinctive dignity of freedom is as natural and necessary to everj^ one of Adam's posterity, as it was to the first man himself. The circumstances, into which he is boi-n and through which his life passes, are different ; but the essential glory, and solemn responsibility of lib- erty of choice, the very requisite of manliness, the origi- nal godlikeness remain yet undestroyed. In every per- son's life the same two currents of power meet. Natural development brings on all that was germinal in Adam. The diseased germ transmits disease to all after growth. But the malady and penalty of sin, which nature brings, finds in us, everj^ one, fi-eedom of will. Through that freedom, sin originally entered into man ; and that same freedom is left, thro' which to repair the loss, and avert the consequences. The Incarnation, as it might have perfected innocent man, may now restore fallen man. The entrance into human nature of the Son of God is remedial. This fact is the assurance of all possible good, to the human race as it is ; besides being, as already seen, an unspeakable honour and harbinger of eternal glory. As every crea- ture born into the world incurs, through the first Adam, sin ; so, through the second Adam, he inherits grace ! " For if by one man's offence death reigned by one ; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ." Eom. V. 17. Viewed only on the side of natural development, the Incarnation is the cure for the fall and its consequences. But the power of the incarnation comes into contact with THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 197 human freedom of will. As the Creator could not con- sistently coerce man's will, even to save his innocence, so cannot the Redeemer compel his salvation. Thus, the abounding grace of the incarnation, respects human dig- nity. Its help is abundant and ready, and its natural operations active ; but the man must be a man still, even when restored through the incarnation. This vast circuit of cause and consequence, involving all human history, touching every one's destiny, and hnked to the very essence of the Godhead, however per- sonally regarded by any mind, must be allowed by all to reveal to mankind an unrivalled labor or conflict ; while it holds forth a crown of glory to victors, and splendor of reward to toilers, to which nothing else in heaven or earth — existing or conceivable — is comparable. The judicial questions about sin arise out of subse- quent articles in the Creed. "We need not anticipate them, further than has been required by the considera- tion already given to free will in connection with the In- carnation. We may pass now to the means and mode of effecting the Incarnation. 198 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. "lUl)o was concebA bg i\)t (Jolw ®l)ost/* "Jncar^ natt bg i\]t i^olg ®l)ost of tl)e iJirgin fllarn.'* The complete offspring of a human father and a hu- man mother is, and only can be, a human person. The offspring of a human mother, "conceived" by direct Divine power ; 1. Cannot be a merely human person, because he is not humanly conceived ; and may not in any sense be a hu- man person, because one factor of natural personahty, the human paternity, is wanting : 2. Cannot be a person with compound nature, part human and part Divine, because the Infinite essence can- not receive from, nor mingle with the finite : 3. Must, therefore, take the nature received from the mother into union mth His Divine nature, by extending His original, indefeasible, and indivisible personality around it. The mind of man is capable of apprehending such a fact as this. It may be stupendous, or comj)lex, or sus- ceptible of blasphemous perversions, or suggestive of heathen analogies, or even mysterious ; but it is possible. It may not accord with those notions of the fitness and sufficiency of a direct and simple operation of God upon man, which a disproportionate intellectual culture de- mands, but it may nevertheless be real. Whatever ob- jections may be made to it, the fact in itself must be allowed to declare an inexpressible advancement, in dig- nity and honor, vouchsafed to human nature. However THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 100 disinclined, theological prudery may be to look at the Immaculate Conception, or however a corrupt culture may turn away from it, there is a wonder of wonders, which " the pure in heart " may behold adoringly, in **'The King of Glory," *'the Everlasting Son," Who "didst not abhor the Virgin's womb." To this depth are we carried by the word " conceived." To this depth must we go in order to receive the fact, that the Incarna- tion was thorough, germinal, and complete. That all this is possible, cannot be questioned. That it verily may be, must be allowed. Therefore its credi- bihty is simply dependent upon evidence. The details are contained in the one record and assured Book of tes- timony and Divine revelation. The Bible. They are true because the Bible, as a whole, is estabhshed as authen- tic, and genuine. The authentic and genuine Book of God's word may conceivably be corrupted by interpola- tions ; but it is inconceivable that any great fact stated in the Bible, tested duly at its occurrence, accepted then by a capable body of believers, and ever after attested by an unbroken chain of endorsers who worked by power of the fact, can be other than the truth. More than seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah pubhckly proclaimed and wrote, " Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name ImraanueL" Like all the ancient prophecies, this was left shining in briUiant but misty light, among the nebulous truths floating undefined in- deed, but open and visible in the space of the old revela- tion. Men saw them, believed, and wondered. Their cohesion into hard facts, and their mutual relations were future. When the time came, fulfilment confirmed pro- phecy. " Mary .... was found with child of the Holy Ghost." 200 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. " The LoED appeared .... saying .... that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call His name Jesus : for He shall save his people from their sins." " Novsr all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, * Behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which being in- terpreted is God with us.' " S. Matt. I. 18-23. S. Luke, I. 26-38, relates the same fact, with beau- tiful adjuncts, wherein appear an Angel with a message, and a meek maiden fearlessly receiving the word, Avith pure frankness objecting, and then submissively bending to God's will. " Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea." S. Matt. H. 1. " Joseph also went .... unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem .... to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accom- plished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger ; because there was no room for them in the inn." S. Lu. H. 4-7. The conception by the Holy Ghost is entirely compat- ible with the fact, that the Son of God took, upon and into Himself, human nature. The Trinity, while con- current, is not actually one, in will and act. It apportions to every Person His own specific works. The initiative springs always from the source of Divinity, centred in the person of the Father ; but the operative functions act through " The Word " by " The Lord and Giver of Life," effecting the end directly through their personal agency. The love of the Father gave the Son, S. Jn. HL 16. The Son "made Himself of no reputation, and THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 201 took Upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the Hkeness of men," Phil. 11. 7 : though sent by the Father, He came of His own free will, and for designs, remedial and royal, of His own. St. Jn. YHE. 14, 42. XH. 47. XVHL 37. S. Lu. V. 32. And yet the creative SpniiT, the inspirer of the sacred artist, Ex. XXXI. 3, of the elders and kings and prophets of old, so wrought that " Mary was found with child of the Holy Ghost," and that which was born of her was called " The Son of God," "Immanuel," and was named "Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins." S. Matt. I. 18-21. The miraculous conception was an official action by Him, to Whom in the order of the working Trinity was committed the function of giving Hfe. He gave human life to the germ in the mortal mother, and the Son of God took that germ, with all its developments, up into His own personality. Thus all distinctions are pre- served, and the wonderful result is effected. There is neither confusion, nor incompleteness. In perfect har- mony with all other revelations about God, and quite within the powers of human apprehension, stands the fact of the Immaculate Concejption ; thus our Lord, The Christ, is shown to men in all ages, as radically united to humanity. The depth and completeness of this fact is necessary to be perceived, and accepted by whoever will under- stand the subsequent facts of the Creed with their con- sequences. The reahties of which it treats are not mere ideas for mental contemplation, nor solely wonders to be pondered devoutly. They are facts, which stand to- gether like stones in a building. They have each their place, upon which the perfectness of the building de- pends. The efficiency of the Saviour, as the one Jesus for all 9* 202 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. humanity and for every man of good will, depends upon the perfectness of His own manhood ; while that involves the necessity, of what the Bible definitely asserts, viz. : that the veriest, and farthest, essentially human germ was taken into Himself, and made part of his own per- son, by God's son. THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 203 "Bomoftl)el)irgmfIl "2lnb was maire man." Not was made a man. As a person man, He might have set a worthy example, and handed it down the ages for imitation. As such He might also have gone on through suffering to death, "even the death of the cross," for the purpose of showing to mankind the no- bleness and worthiness of the utmost endurance of shame, and pain, and loss, for the sake of the truth. He would thus have made Himself a name among men ; ex- alted according to the estimate made of His comparative greatness. As capacity to apprehend is an important factor in opinion ; so it might have happened that an individual man Jesus would, for want of capacity in his judges, have been classified high or low among other great men. Though it is true in fact that Jesus has been generally, though not by all, assigned the first place among men, by persons of knowledge and culture, who have regarded Him as merely a man, at least where what is called " Christian civihzation " prevails ; yet, beyond Christendom, He has been dishonored both by charges of imposture, and by the patronage of impostors. Of late days, it must be acknowledged, that some persons, even amid the wonderful persistency of Christianity, con- sidered merely as a culture or a power, risk their intel- lectual reputations, by proudly criticizing Jesus as if He were a personal man. If He were merely a human person, he could only af- 204 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. feet US externally. He could appeal to our understandings and affections and wills, if He designed good to us with due regard to our dignity of freedom ; or, if He did not BO respect us, He might force benefits upon us, in virtue of His superior knowledge and power. In tlie first case we might reverence, or love Him, and in the latter case take His gifts in irresponsive silence, coldly and thank- lessly ; but the deep of human nature could not be reached by such an one. An individual man is too nar- row a base on which to upbuild renovated humanity. That indefeasible, inalienable, and originally created godlikeness, into which every human creature is born, to- gether with that consequent sense of the self-necessity of liberty even before God, would have remained un- reached and unprovided for, had even God's Son become a human person, a man rather, than man. Man, in Cheist, is humanity taken into a Divine person. Eveiy partaker of humanity is thus practically, though myste- riously, made capable of sharing in both the benefit and the operation of that close communion with God, which the CnRisT-man has attained. Since humanity grows out naturally from the first Adam, therefore every human creature, however remote, whatever he may have assim- ilated, remains rooted in Adam. Humanity is germinal in the whole, and germinating in every portion, of the human organism. Every human person, because partak- ing of humanity, may live not only in Christ by organic union, but may also enter into and share His inheri- tance. The absorption, through disintegration, of human individuals into an organic human mass is prevented, by that distinctive personal completeness, which is as much part of the original godlikeness, as is the great dignity of freedom itself. This duality has mutual limi- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 2C5 tations. We must come organically close to God, in order that His will may spring up in us, and our wills may harmonize with His, before a command can be heard, or a fiat touching us can be proclaimed. This is only possible through an organic union of man with God, the efiicient cause of which is the Incarnation. Yet personahty, and even human individuality, cannot be absorbed. While willingly coinciding with God, through all the inward depths of consciousness, the man remains himself and no other, his own self, personally conscious, assenting, coactive and free. This duahty — of sub-conscious organic operation with conscious knowledge, affection, motive, will and action — is not to begin anew at " the restoration of all things." It exists now, and is operative every moment, in every living human person. It is also mutually reactive. Even in the mere sustenance of the body, conscious eating leads to sub-conscious digestion, whereby the organism is repaired and the functions invigorated. In every depart- ment the same operative mutuahty may be traced. Thus the whole man, in body, soul, and spirit, is in need of life, beneath and above, in order that his physical, psy- chical, and spiritual parts may be vivified and nourished at root, as well as kept active and harmonious in free, conscious vigor. Although not a human person, Christ was made man perfectly. He was not a physical man merely, in whom Divinity dwelt in place of a soul ; for then He could not humanly take hold of man in all parts of his essence and save the godlike creature that man is. Being under that supposition something else than man, he could not reach to the root of our organism. The soul, or psychical part of humanity, Christ must also have taken for the same reason. The spirit, that third constituent of humanity. 206 THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. ■wherein we have affinity neither with soulless material nor with the souls of animals, and which alone among creations is naturally integral and immortal, though won- derfully originated by " the breath of God," is yet part of essential humanity. As man, Christ must have had a human body, and soul, and spirit. That further distinctiveness of man, free wiU — through which character is formed, round which centre all possi- bilities of glory or disgrace, and on which now and for- ever depend our good or evil — must have been human in Christ. In all respects therefore He was man. Humanitj^, dis- tinct by creation from Deity, is in Christ conjoined to Deity; making "one altogether, not by confusion of substance but by unity of person." The Creed, in thus declaring the Godman, continues preeminently reverential to manhood. All other formu- las, and all other religions, scientific, philosophical, poetic, or the merely fanciful systems or fragments of belief, may be confidently challenged, to present anything com- parable to the Incarnation ; or to show any other way, by which the salvation of men could result in an exalta- tion more wonderful in external aspect, or more com- plete, perfect, and radical in internal operation. Now surely the Creed may rise above apologetics. It need no longer be defended against the charge of tyranny over free souls. Instead of a trammel upon human liberty, it is the very bulwark of human Uberty. Not only does it set forth the most perfect glory of mankind ; but it shows how that glory is attainable, and how only it can be attained consistently with that manhood's dig- nity, whose loss would make all things loss, and whose THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 207 preservation, amid surrounding harmonies, is the assur- ance of eternally restful satisfaction, with the fruition of all joy. The union of the Divine and human natures, in the person of the One Only Begotten Son of God, is an ad- vancement of humanity at large ; which, once perceived, can never cease to remain as a present fruition, and ever expanding vision of glory. "When that union is further seen to be, not a passing pageant, but an effective, per- manent means of every human person's possible exalta- tion into union with God ; then it takes rank at the head of all reaUties, as it is essentially the noblest of all possibilities. The Incarnation of Jesus, involving His full, perfect and complete manhood, is the one fact, which not only shows Christianity superior to all other systems of science or religion ; but makes it transcendent, as the only faith wherein man's true dignity is secured, his capacities filled in fruition and promise, his heart satisfied, his mind stored full yet left expanding with new stores ever inpouring, and his whole being harmonized. The sense of personal dignity, that inalienable right of manhood, is preserved through Cheist's manhood ; for in Him — the human nature being joined to God, and en- throned with God — every sharer in humanity may, and, if he cheerfully accept the lightly imposed but needful conditions of his creaturehood, will be uplifted to com- panionship with, not mere servitude under. Him, "Who sitteth upon the throne of the Universe. Modem Thought is familiar with an old question, which should be considered now, although it may lead US through some difficult metaphysical reasonings, or rather tentations. " If the humanity of Jesus was not a human personal- ity, what was it " ? 208 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. The question is undoubtedly a profound one, and can be answered, if at all, only at its own depth. It involves the old scholastic dispute about "Universals." Ai-e uni- versals real or ai-e they only names ? Tree, animal, man are universals. We do not mean by them any particular tree, nor any individual animal, nor any person-man. If — it is argued — they are names only, then all particulars belonging to them are also names only, and so the objec- tive universe dissolves away. If — it is again argued- — they are realities, then they must have existence apart from their specific manifestations, since all trees, animals and men are only numerable, measurable and agglomerated singles, not universals. There is an intermediate alterna- tive, which, denying both their reality and nominality, asserts that universals are concepts only of him who thinks them, be he God, angel, demon or man. This is a little more tangible than mere nominalism, but it is only after all a kind of idealism. Suppose we reply to these argumentations, that it is not practicable to assign the universals to either of these disputed regions, alone ; but that they all have some place for one or another of the aspects of the universals. They are real, and yet not specific. Tliey are nominal, yet not alone nominal. They are concepts, and yet there is a reality in them on which the concept reposes, as effect on cause. The Universal of Man is humanity. In Adam it prim- arily existed, with all those undeveloped potentialities, out of which came Eve first and then the whole human race, in ever increasing number, and ever repeating per- sonality. Adam was therefore once Universal Man, hu- manity. Has Adam ceased to be -what he once was? Bid he lose in obtaining Eve, and in begetting sons and daughters? Poes the flame of a candle grow less, by THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 209 lighting other candles ? In both cases the lighting, or vivifying capacity, simply goes forth, to take up and use by assimilation other particles of matter. The new flame is not individually the old flame, so also the son is not the father ; but neither could be without the other. The material light is not immortal. The one flame there- fore comes after the other ; but, when either has con- sumed its fuel, it ceases and its relations cease. But the characteristic of immortality belongs to humanity. Adam and the last babe born live together; here or there, within the embracing circle of one common im- mortality. Humanity comprises all human creatures ; but it shows nothing human beyond what existed germ- inally, essentially, potentially in Adam. Adam was a person. Every one born of human parents is a person. Every one's personality is his own and not another's. Adam's personality was, is, and ever will remain, his own' exclusively. Adam did not transmit his personality to his sons and daughters. They had each their own. He did however transmit humanity to all the race, and this transmission diminished naught of his own full com- pleteness of humanity. The same power, that made the " first Adam," could surely make a "last Adam " ; and so graft humanity into him, that he might become, both naturally and super- naturally, its second Adam. Naturally he might become a new root, which should circulate life forward towards new growth and backward through the currents of the old, still living, capillaries of stems and branches even to the one primal root. Many natural analogies confirm this possibility. It is not a difficult fact to apprehend. It is possible and therefore may be true. It is to be proved, however, before accepted. There is nothing in the science of human nature, to 210 THE CREED AND MODEEN THOtJGHT. tlirow doubt upon the uptaking, into His Divine person, by Jesus, of the universal, or integral essence of humanity. There is no more difficulty with this universal, than with any other. We must receive them, think them and act upon them. Science does so, and must necessarily do so daily in every direction. We do no more. Practically there is no difficulty. As a subject however it includes us, and not we the subject. As an object it comprises and enfolds us, not we it. It is another instance wherein we apprehend, use, and practically work out what in its completeness we cannot comprehend, nor therefore de- fine. The evidence of the last Adamhood of Jesus has been already gone over. It need not be repeated here. One thought perhaps will be in place, and that the practical one ; viz. : that the fulness of the Humanity of Jesus is the assurance, to every man of good-will, not only that he will not be overlooked in the salvation wrought, but that not one of his works well done shall perish, not one good thought be void, not one capacity fail of its fruition, nor one power die. The Gon-manhood assures the com- pletest perfection of every human creature, who wills to accept His Lordship, or does not wilfully frustrate His grace. His humanity is complete and perfect. All that the first Adam bestowed upon the race, was essentially taken by the last Adam. The union of this nature with the Divine nature — without mingling or confusion of substance, in, with, or under the one personality of the Divine Son — assures, to every partaker of that nature, all the good that can be possibly, i.e., consistently, done to him personally, both now and evermore. This Divine-human union would operate like a natural cause, if man's great freedom did not interpose. That great freedom, however, so far from being an impedi- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 211- ment in " men of good will," becomes a means of en- lai'gement. It does not however supersede the natural operation of the Incarnation. They go on together. The Incarnation, operating like a natural cause, brings every good that man can enjoy out of the fulness of the Godhead, and lays it down before his human body, soul, and sj)irit. All man's conscious, subconscious, and un- conscious capacities may be filled full ; and would be filled full, had God chosen to make man merely an or- ganism, or a machine, or even a slave. The freedom of choice insures the indefeasible right, together with the consequent responsibility, of accepting or refusing the personal lordship of Jesus over our persons. We exer- cise it, and take the consequences. This however does not impede the natural operation of the Incarnation. The light and life, that flow from it into universal hu- manity, are only perverted in and by the unwilling men. To willing men, it is still the channel for constant inflow of all good to the whole and every part, in this life, and in that which is to come. To unwilling men it also comes, but, not being accepted by them, its very coming is turned by them into discord within, and injury with- out. The Incarnation is not therefore a dogma, merely for the mind to grasp ; nor even a tender contemplation only for the heai-t to feed upon ; it is all these but it is even more : it is the fact and assurance of personal commu- nion, between " the last Adam," and all who do not use their freedom in refusing or neglecting His grace. This communion, or union together, between Jesus and His willing beloved, is the one practical fact, that surpasses all other possibilities of human satisfaction. The per- son, of every willing friend of Jesus, feels interested in the whole of- that share or portion of humanity, in which 212 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. his iDersonality dwells. Communion with Jesus is the means, by which every constituent of his nature gets all it can enjoy or use, as well as the assurance that this de- tailed fulness shall continue forever. The efiects of sin in ^ men, and of confusion in the world, are not yet definitely and fully brought before us. They will come up thus hereafter. Now, only the i)osi- tive teaching of the Creed, respecting the Incarnation, ia directly in view ; and it is safe, as well as instructive, to view it positively. Thus we are free to contemplate the Incarnation, as if it were operating in all the fulness of its power, and with all its channels open. The picture, we thus get, is only a foretaste and prophecy of what will be, when the school-time of man's training shall have ended. Then, self-will being willing to subject self to Him "Who is love, no impediment will remain to the perfect inflow of all good into all men of good will, its complete circulation through all their complex, im- mortal, human nature ; together with that response of cheerful devotion, which shall be acceptable worship to Him, Who became man, that mankind might become partakers of the Divine nature. At the risk of some repetition, it may be well here to answer specifically the question, 'What is the Divine human personality of Jesus ? ' As the Creed implies, and all catholic definitions ex- plain, this personality is Divine. His two natures be- long to it, retaining each its specific naturality, its own essence in full j)otentiality and manifestation. His per- sonality is therefore something distinct, in idea, from either nature. ideas, it will be noticed and confessed, are concepts of the human understanding. They must however have some corresponding reaUty, in order to hold position THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 213 among matters of fact, and become sure grounds for safe induction. The personality must be something, there- fore, distinguishable from the nature, or natures. A short cut across the difficulty, would be to call the per- sonality one entity, and the two natures, each one an- other entity. Then we should have a threefold compo- nent, one wholly human, another wholly Divine, and an- other something neither human nor Divine, but includ- ing both. Thus stated the absurd proposition appears, that the personality of Jesus is not only super-human, but super-divine. The reality of the idea — as will be presently shown — is not lost, even though it be not a real separate entity. Again, if the personahty be placed within the Divine nature then it will be less than divine, since that con- tained must be less than that containing. Here again we fall upon an absurdity ; unless indeed we adopt the old Oriental and late German philosophy of the " Un- conscious." If we adopt it, then the ultima-thule of all thought, all existence, all being, and aU becoming, God, would be the dimly conceivable, centre-circumference, inactive, universal. Unconscious, One — All. Out of this may come all will, intellect, consciousness; and, when concentrated in an individual, that individual would be- come a person. In that view personality is only a fortu- itous, fleeting speck, thrown off hke a sparkling drop from a crested wave, to be again absorbed in the great, dark ocean of nothingness, or its equivalent indefinable unconsciousness. Now the answer to this new-old philosophy is the great fact, on which all human philosophies beat and have beaten in vain, viz. : the first word -letter of the Creed " I ". Per- sonality — the Ego, the " I " — is the very primary ground of all knowledge, and of all thought. Consciousness 214 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. of it, as has been already amply shown, is not complex but single. It includes all constituents and relations of person, but is itself a single, unmixed, definite though indefinable unit. As the human person gathers into its unit of consciousness innumerable, constitutive organs, functions, and faculties, but is itself neither multiplied nor divided ; so the Divine person holds in Himself all that belongs to the Divine nature. As the human per- son is humanity, concrete and individual, yet possessing all that is essentially human ; so also the Divine person is very God. Essential humanity is in with and under the conscious, subconscious, and even unconscious "I" ; but as was shown, between the first Adam and Eve and their posterity, it is the nature only which is transmitted. The person of each individual human creature is his own and not another's. This is all that we can possibly know of personality, because to know more w^ould requu-e a person knowing, i.e. a person beneath person, and this interminably. "What we know of human personality we can easily transfer, in apprehension, to the Divine nature ; and thus obtain the conception of One Divine person " in Whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead " ; and, WTio, tak- ing essential humanity into Himself, so invests that humanity with His Divine person, that His unit-con- scious I includes both natures completely, so that He is not a god and a man, but One Godman. His humanity was not created anew, but was received of the substance of His mother. All nations call her Blessed. She conceived and gave birth to the Godman. What she gave was His humanity ; but this humanity, taken in her, was conjoined to the person of the Sou of God at its inception. The union continued through the process of birth. Jesus, in the fulness of His Divine THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 215 humanity, was bom of the Virgin Mary. All these steps belong to the essential perfectness of the Incarna- tion. His assent, as the ever preserving Word of God, was of course given ; but the vivifying, conceiving power was put forth by Him, in whose department it fell, the Holy Ghost, " the Lord and giver of life. " Thus the Incarnation is seen to be in harmony, with all Divine acts of Creation and Providence. The Creed, like the Bible, is silent upon all details respecting the blessedness, which was assured to the person of Mary. There are however certain points, that arise first in the philosophy of human nature, but have been thence transferred to theology, which ought perhaps to be con- sidered, in a review of the Creed in connection with Modern Thougjjt, Though not of modern origin, there is now a large and varied school of theologians, who, " philosophizing " upon the need of humanity for a femi- nine element in the object of Supreme devotion, have, some suggested, some excused, and some authoritatively enjoined the worship of the Virgin Mary. As the theological system, which goes farthest in this direction, includes all that is essential in lesser systems, as weU as all that belongs to those floating, nebulous ideas tliat hang around the orbits of other systems ; it will suffice to consider that alone. Modern Thought has of course no status, before a tribunal that claims infalli- bility ; but the worship of the Blessed Virgin, taught in the Roman Church, is, on its philosophical side, fairly amenable to human knowledge and judgment. Modern Thought therefore has a right to ask, at this point of con- tact with the Creed, what the truth is about the need of humanity for a feminine element in the object of Supreme devotion. 216 THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. In order to meet this question fully, it will be neces- sary to anticipate some parts of the Creed. The needful assumptions, however, will only be for the object in view. Proof will follow in due order. The cultus of dulia — a kind of lower form of worship — which the churches and persons under the Roman obedience offer to the Blessed Virgin, although some- times practically trenching upon the limits of latria — the worshii) due only to God — , does not necessarily amount to that idolatry. The principle of mediation, found in all religions, is fully accepted and required in Christian- ity. It culminates in the one, full and perfect mediation of the God man ; and becomes effective through His one, "full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satis- faction for the sins of the whole world." The true and trustworthy Mediator can only be the .one time High Priest, Wlio alone makes the sufficient propitiation in the one effective sacrifice ; and Whose presentation of that sacrifice, continually before The Father, forms the links of restoration through which jTardon reaches the sinner, and the sinner himself offers prayer and praise. Every work of Christ has its types and memorials. Men are priests under Him. Some are priests for others. All are in some sense priests for themselves. Every priestly act becomes effective, not directly towards and fi'om the Father, but tlirough the One High Priest. Mediation is only thus effective. Even a perfectly sinless, merely human, person cannot approach unto, and therefore may not directly address the Father, because his human nature is not yet, and may not become naturally, in itself, sufficiently exalted to enter even into the communion of spirits, much less into communion with the Father of spirits. *' God is a spirit ■', and though we should " worship Him in spirit," THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 217 yet our human spirits are conjoined, in one humanity, with soul and body. Spiritual worship therefore, though grounded in that pai-t of us wherein our godUkeness centres, must command the cooperation of every essen- tial constituent of our personal being. Worshipping God in spirit, we must worship Him also in truth, i.e. unre- servedly, in all we are, and with aU we have, including both soul and body also. It is evident that on earth, during mortal life, our threefold human complexity of person is prevented from ascending locally to the spmt-presence of God. Were we sinless we should still need help, through which to approach God. As creatures we could not make a way to Him. He only can furnish the way. We are not distinctly told, at least in the books of the Old Testa- ment, that Adam conversed with The Word of God, The Creator of the world ; but we gather this fact from com- paring the Old with the New Eevelation. That central perfection of the Deity, distinctively called God, Who is neither begotten nor proceeding, manifests Himself to aU creatures through His Son, the Logos, the Creator and Presei-ver Of the Universe. They who are made by either creation or birth, are made thus by the Second Person in the adorable Trinity. He is the primary and perpetual link between them and the central Godhead. The Father comes to them through Him. They can only reach the Father through Him. Eevelation clearly states this fact ; and human philosophy constantly man- ifests its necessity as a ground for all knowledge, and a sure basis for any possible science of being or *'becom- ing.» All this would be equally true had men been made spirits only ; for essentially the very same creative oper- ation would have brought them into being. Hence dead 10 218 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. saints, whatever beatific, dreaming vision they may now enjoy, are yet with God in and through Christ. Even the Blessed Virgin therefore, being in all respects hu- man, cannot overstep the bounds of humanity : she also must know the Father and approach Him through the one hnk of communication, between Creator and created. Supposing her sinless, the distance would not be de- stroyed. She would still be, naturally, infinitely far off from the Infinite One God. Under no circumstances therefore can she supersede, or even share the mediation of the one Godman. Nor can that lower stand of mediation, which puts her between the sinner and her Divine, human son, be as- signed to her. It is universaUy conceded that the writ- ten Scriptures, do not unmistakably give to her, or even mention such place. It may however fairly be inquired whether reason can point out any intermediate place be- tween man and Jesus. If it can be shown that there is a point, where the Saviour does not touch man ; if any one of mankind's constituent parts is unreached by Jesus ; if any human capacity of thought, sentiment or feeling is not filled by the Godman, then He would not be wholly The Saviour : there would be room for co-re- demption, and co-mediation. Not Boman theologians alone but others also have taken this very position. Indeed the Roman church it- self is surely committed to this kind of worship of the Virgin. It is at least responsible, for teaching that the Blessed Virgin mediates between the sinner and Jesus. If it does this, by virtue of its claim to infallibility, then argument is forefended. Whoever accepts that position can reason no longer. If God's voice is still audible through a human authority, nothing is left to man but to listen, hear, believe, and act. THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 219 Tlie reasonings however of Roman theologians, and others, remain for criticism. They must stand, upon their strength and legitimacy ; or fall, if shown to be neither strong nor legitimate. The key to the whole Roman and romanizing argument in favour of the cultus of the Blessed Virgin, is contained in the follovTing sen- tence, taken from the closing portion of " S. Baring- Gould's Polytheism and Monotheism," "A religious sys- tem which would provide man with a model, and leave woman destitute of one, is imperfect and inadequate to supply the wants of human nature." Fault is not found with this position, taken as an abstract proposition. The error lies in the conclusion that is drawn from a false premise. The false premise is that Jesus is a man, and therefore does not reach to the deepest depth of that possibly inferior but certainly essential part of human- ity, wherein the sentiments are rooted. As Jesus is not merely man ; so also in no accurate sense is He a man. His personaHty is Divine not human, and His humanity is complete, not masculine only but masculine and femi- nine both. As the first man Adam was created with the feminine in him and not separated until after Eve was made out of part of him, so the last Adam was entirely and completely human. Even prophecy foretold this very duality of His human constitution, when, adum- brating His office as the true shepherd, it named Him both " Beauty and Bands." It is of the utmost importance to adhere tenaciously, to the fact of the fulness and wholeness of the humanity of Jesus. It is on His human side that He touches and draws us. Not merely as sinners, seeking the benefits of propitiation, do we need a perfect man ; but as human creatures, whose salvation may hang on any link of our natures, or rather germinally centre in any part of our 220 THE CREED AND MODERN THOFGHT. nature, we need one, perfect and complete human per- son, who " was in all points tempted like as we are." Heb. IV. 15. We as yet only know the two great classes, into which mankind is divided, by their manifestation as men and women. The unity of this duality, as it was in the first Adam, and must also necessarily be, and have been, in the second Adam, may be a fair subject of inquiry ; but it does not necessarily demand consideration here. The only point of importance, in setting forth the complete- ness and perfectness of The Saviour of mankind, is the fulness of the humanity taken up into, and preserved in union with, His Divine personality. From this we know that the love which is of His Divine essence, because it is perfect love, is at once outgoing and responsive, bene- volent and yearning, giving fully and freely, and accept- ing nay naturally reqiiiring fulness of response, i.e. mas- culine in all that is strong and self-expressive, and fem- inine in all that is tender and responsive. The fall perfection, and detailed completeness, of the humanity of Jesus leaves no room for a co-redemptress ; while the closeness of His exclusive sonship unto the Father leaves no room for co-mediation. Under Him, as parts of Him in the unity of " His One Body," there is room for the communion of the saints, and for its manifestation in countless ways ; but all the holy ones of every degree, in that they are human only and entirely, stand together on one ground. They are saved only thro' Him. " No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." S.Jn. XIV. 6. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 221 " Suffered unbtv JJontittH pUate, was tvuti^tb '* ; " ^nlr was rrucificlr also for xxs unber })on-' tm0 JJilate." His human nature brouglit the Godman personally within the scope of fallen man's allotment, and made Him, by and through His body, soul and spirit, share the human mortal's essential condition and inevitable destiny. Not the individual Adam only, but concrete man incurred the fall. The germ of humanity became tainted and dis- eased by sin ; " wherefore as by one man the sin entered into the world, and because of the sin the death, so also into all men the sin permeated, in whom all sinned." Rom. V. 12. The human unit-nature fell, and every out- growth of that unit-nature partook of its condition, and entered into its mortal destiny, with all natural conse- quences. The subconscious spring of life was poisoned. The whole race was estranged fi*om God. Restoration of man to the favor of God demands two works, or rather two parts of one work. Man must be renewed and converted. The renewal belongs to the sub-conscious hfe, and therefore can be effected only by the grace of God. " But where the sin abounded, the grace did superabound." Rom. V. 20. The conversion involves manly exercise of free choice, with the vigorous exertion of free will ; and therefore must be elected and continued by every individual human creature, who would be saved : " for every man shaU bear his own burden." 222 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Gal. VI. 5. Thus the two-foldness, of all operative hu- man Kfe, characterizes every individual man. He cannot escape either the disorder of the condemnation, conse- quent upon the fall ; nor can he be holden of them, un- willingly, without violation of his original godlikeness. Had developing mankind been left alone, crushed under the natural consequences of the fall, the justice of God would not have been vindicated. Sin corrupted but did not absolutely ruin man. Every one, born into tlie world, was still like God. He felt this likeness in the consciousness of freedom. Hence he could not be a mere subject of necessity, nor consequently responsible for anything he could not help. Divine justice therefore it- self involved mercy ; or, to speak more accurately, God, in the perfectness of His essential love, while He would not enslave the creatures, made in His likeness, by en- forced innocence, could not leave any one of them under the mere force of unelected and irresistible eviL Though it would be foolishness to ascribe prevenient necessity to God, and blasphemous to say that He could not do any possibiHty : it is neither sin nor folly to assert, " that God cannot lie." Tit. I. 2. The conscious- ness of the necessity to true manliness of freewill — i.e. lib- erty of choice within creature limits — clings still to man, tho' he be corrupt and under condemnation. This is evidence of yet unruined godlikeness, and assurance that justice requires mercy. It is therefore proof, from prim- ary probability, that the true God has devised and does open a way of restoration, reconcilation and salvation. Into humanity, standing thus over against God, the Only Begotten Son descends. He becomes one of us, possesses every essentially human characteristic, shares our present lot, and is man both now and forever. If He had come with resistless, healing force, He would I THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 223 have ruined our manliness in saving our persons. If He had only averted sin's penalty, He would have grouped a thankless or sullen crowd, of pardoned but unrenewed, and consequently impenitent and unwilling servants, around His Father's throne. Hence the consistency of God's own character, His truthfulness assured a mode of salvation by which God- like man could be restored in his freedom. The fall and its consequences could not go on forever ; but for a time remedial forces might be permitted. So long as the will- ing were found, the way might be opened and kept open. Even this however involved the necessity of conditions, agreeable to both God's consistency, and man's dignity. Now he, who had stepped out of The Way, must will- ingly come back into The Way. However far he had wandered, the returning journey was unavoidable. Toil, and pain and suffering are the inevitable lot of retui'n- ing wanderers. No proof is needed of sin's wanderings. All Hfe on earth manifests them. Every man's experi- ence is full of them. Jesus stood with us, and shared our groping, but He shared it as a shepherd seeks, that he may restore, the lost. He became involved however in our condition. He was more than a shepherd, who could only guide or lead. He was a sharer of our lot, that He might not only turn our footsteps aright, but also — by His man- hood, and with His Divinity — enter into us, and dwell with us, and renew our corrupted life, making us inward- ly reconciled to God as weU as outwardly restored to His favor. Having entered discordant human nature. He felt the effect of this discordance. His very perfectness aggrava- ted this effect. Hence suffering fell upon Him, not merely for our example, but from the necessity of the 224: THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. condition into which all humanity had fallen : He be- came like us in all respects ; the guiltiness of sin — that being always a personal matter — only exce^oted. Sin, original and actual, He was personally free from ; though He entered under its consequences. Tliese involved suffering in many forms with many varieties of effect, influence and import. Incidentally, His sufferings are examples ; and most glorious ones, by copying after which men become noble heroes or glorious martyrs. Moreover, in following the walk and words of the historio Jesus, men everywhere in all ages may return towards, tho' not thus into, that communion with God which the first Adam lost, when he believed the serpent and doubt- ed the True One and the Just. Example and precept however are not enough for fall- en man. The godlike creature in falling had lost tho true life. He became involved in death, not the second death out of which there is no resurrection, but a death which consumed his innocence, and left him unable of himself to return to and walk with God. However the remnants of the sinless life glittered like broken gems in his liaK conscious memory, and however the deep of his nature might say "I delight in the law of God after the inward man," Eom. VII. 22, he felt also compelled to add, " But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into cap- tivity to the law of sin which is in my members.'* 23. From this point, the free men under God take devious ways. The fearful, the rebellious, the foolish and the self indulgent use their God given liberty, in doing wrong or leaving undone the right. God, Who did not make them machines, wiU not break them in pieces, nor indeed ruin them with slavery, and therefore leaves them to their choice. The lost may wish they had been en- THE CBEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 225 slaved, but no true man tHnks that heaven could be his home, if he dwelt there under enforced subjection to an- other's mere wiU. Thus Jesus found us when He became man. We needed such renewal at the root of human nature, in every person's subconscious life, that we might have our eyes opened to discern the light of God : and His incar- nation brought that to all humanity. "In Him was life ; and the life was the light of men." "That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," S. Jn. I. 4, 9. We needed also to " be renewed in the spirit of our mind," Eph. IV. 23, " and to " put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him," Col. HI. 10 ; and this Christ brought, and only could bring, to those will- ing to come to Him, and to take up his cross and follow Him. S. Mark VHI. 34. The complete humanity of CnBist, both in essence and condition — involving suffering both from human neces- sity, Heb. V. 8, and for our example, 1 S. Pet. H. 21 — was manifested in His sinless, suffering, mortal existence, and in His innocent death : " For it became Him for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one : for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying I will declare Thy name unto My brethren, in the midst of the chui'ch will I sing praise unto Thee." Heb. n. 10-12. Ps. XXH. The mode of the death of Jesus, and the person under whom the sentence was executed, are matters of mere history. They stand however not only like other historic 10* 226 THE CKEED AND MODERN TIIOUaHT. facts, upon evidence satisfactory to criticism, and in fact unquestioned ; but they share in that certainty, which is proved and manifested by the consentient testimony of a visible body ; prominent in every age from that day to this ; now as then bearing one witness, and which could have come into existence only with and through the fact to which it testifies. This historic fact has many associated points of fact and teaching, which students of prophecy, and of human nature, may delight in ; but their consid- eration here would lead somewhat aside from our direct line of investigation. They serve us however by show- ing the intense reality of Cheist's manhood ; confirming also the actuality of His life and death among us, and as one of us. It is extremely important however that the great dis- cussions that centre around Jesus should not cause us to leave unnoticed, nor to pass without due consideration, the plainer and more simply historical facts of His mor- tal sufferings and death. The whole of the truth about Him assimilates with, is built into and constituted by every part. The outward fact of His death, under Pon- tius Pilate, stands in the " Symbol of Faith," as one of the most easily assailable facts ; which, if overthrown, would make a breach in the whole structure and cause Christianity to topple ; but which, standing as it has through the ages and as it yet does, shows that Jesus was not a myth, not a deceiver, not a mere enthusiast, and above all not a witling ; but One, Who knew Himself, knew the work He had to do and endured whatever His mission required openly, simply, unostentatiously, bravely, and in every great and httle detail effectually. THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 227 As historic facts, these are unquestioned and unques- tionable. There have been many gratuitous assertions about them, drawn not from evidence but from precon- ceived opinions or mere fancy ; but that His body was a phantom, or that the whole story is a myth, or that He was in a mere trance, or that He had only a human ap- pearance, or anything inconsistent with the complete- ness and reality of His man's nature, in and thro' which He died and was buried, are simply unsupported by proof and insupportable. The evidence is all for the facts, as recorded in history, for the reahty of the tran- saction, and for the complete humanity of the person. Moreover, as has been already amply shown, mankind cannot afford to lose any shred out of the completeness wherein the Son of God becomes one of us ; for by that completeness we, not only through but in Him, may at- tain unto the restoration of that companionship with God, wherein alone man can become harmonious within, as well as now and evermore peaceful amid all surround- ings known or conceivable. Who died and was buried ? Not the personal man Jesus, for He neither was nor is, in person, a man. Not the nature of the Only Begotten Son, for the Di- vine nature is incapable of suffering, death and buiiaL 228 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGnT. Yet some person died and was buried, or the wliole transaction becomes meaningless, or worse. This person must hold God by one hand, and with the other reach and embrace mankind : othenvise, whatever the sacrifice, the reunion of man with God remains unaccomplished. As already seen, there was only One person Jesus, and He Divine. This Divine personality however, in taking human nature into Himself, took also all its essence and entered into its conditions. Hence the Son of God, being also the Son of man, suffered in His humanity, died and was buried. The dying Christ therefore, and indeed the dead Christ is inseparable fi'om the Son of God. This is a difficult fact to grasp, but only difficult not impossible. It lies outside the analogies of human experience ; but within the powers of human apprehen- sion. It is mysterious, but only more mysterious than our own conscious union of material and spiritual sub- stance, within the compass of our own persons. It is no objection to a fact, that we cannot comprehend its ful- ness. Taking this fact as presented to us, we view, now the Divinity of our Saviour driving out fear from us, and now His humanity reaching unto us, entering us, filling us, and making us one with Him to bring us unto God. Neither can we spare His humanity, nor dispense with His divinity. Everywhere they join each other, and reach us. If He were, now a man and then God, as the contingencies of life and death came round, we could not be sure that, in every contingency. He would remain at hand, able to save. But, being ever the Godman, through life and in death, we may trust Him confidently now and evermore. The death of the Son of God in human nature has a bear- ing on God, and a significance towards God ; which are THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHtJ 229 subjects of revelation. Man cannot discover this bear- ing and significance, because he cannot penetrate and see between God and Christ. Nor can man reason satisfac- torily about them, because he is incapable of compre- hending God. Fulness of Divine knowledge and under- standing are requisite in Him, Who perceives and appre- ciates the bearing of the death of the Godman on of- fended Divine justice, or its significance towards Divine mercy and truth. Every attempt ever made by man to comprehend God, has only resulted in a distorted image. One quahty or attribute has been rdagnified, while others were diminished ignored or displaced. Mercy has been exalted against truth, or righteousness made incompati- ble with peace ; and parties, following only one view, have made Him to appear now a weakling Whose pitiful- ness destroyed manly dignity and human consistency, and now a stem and relentless avenger. Both have failed to describe God, as He is ; not because either was altogether mistaken, but because the capacity of man is unable to comprehend how " mercy and truth are met together ; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Ps. LXXXV. 10. Hence any theory — whether positive or negative — of the atonemement, based upon a necessity in, or towards God, as it must be defective in argument from want of the major premise, cannot be justly imposed on man's faith. Divine revelation can be our only source of knowledge of the bearing of Christ's death on God, and of its sig- nificance towards God. The Bible contains God's word of condemnation against sinners. It declares all men condemned by inheritance, and although the inherited condemnation is done away for aU men, 1 Cor. XV. 21- 22, by the Incarnation ; yet that inalienable human liberty 230 THE CBEED AND MODERN THOTJGHTr remains intact. Hence " every one of us shall give ac- count of himseK to God," Eom. XIV. 12, God's ways are equal; "the soul that sinneth, it shaU die." Ezk. xvm. All through scripture God's anger against sin is de- clared, but His mercy is equally set forth. His mercy, however, with its consequence, His grace, is beneficial, according to the penitence of behevers as manifested by their deeds of obedience with works of righteousness. Nor is this aU. Sacrifice has been always accepted. Whether appointed or not from the very first, it was cer- tainly appointed by God under His earhest written reve- lation. This sacrifice included self-denial, even to the ex- tent of self-consecration, and sometimes of martyrdom ; but, distinct from and in addition to this, visible vic- tims in continual succession have been offered in sacri- fice to God, as propitiations for sin. Although perhaps wearisome, it may be well here ag£dn to repeat, that an objection to propitiatory sacrifice cannot stand upon any conceptions man may form of God. It is vain to argue that propitiation is unnecessary, because it introduces a machinery to do what infinite mercy could just as well effect, directly and without in- tervention. The answer is, that we know no more about infinite mercy than we do about infinite justice, and therefore have only to take what is revealed about them or touching them. Herein mankind undergoes essentially the same trial that Adam had in Eden. He could not see, why one tree should be forbidden ; but as God made the declara- tion, he should have believed and obeyed. Nor can we now understand the essential positive efficacy of sacrifice ; but our duty is to beheve, and obey. Nor is this an abandonment of manliness. We ai-e called to the obedi- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 231 ence of sacrifice, in faith not perforce. Faith, through patience, leads to hope that God, Whom we thus will- ingly confide in, will in and thro' this His chosen means restore us to that communion, wherein we may walk openly and lovingly with Him, in sonship and friendship forever. Eeverting to The Book, we find it full of doctrine and narrative about visible sacrifice. In this it accords with all the rehgions in all the world. Sincerity of heart and mind are equally enjoined, and indeed, when the one is contrasted with the other, shown to be more acceptable than sacrifice ; but they never supersede each other. The more sincere the worshipper, the more is he required to join in the sacrifice. Under the " Old Dispensation," sacrifice had at least three distinct characteristics. 1. It was an offering to God, as propitiation for the sins of the iDeoj^le. 2. It was a memorial before God,, in sight of the peo- ple, of His covenant. 3. It was a feast from the Lord's table-altar, in which the worshippers ate both singly and as communicants, in token of allegiance on man's part, and as means of grace from Him in Whom all power and goodness dwell. These points are amply set forth in and through the Old Testament. As critical controversy is not now in view, it is fair to assume them for present argument. We are now looking at the bearing of propitiatory sacri- fice, as a doctrine upon Modern Thought, and as a reality upon essential manliness. It only concerns us, at present, to see how the doctrine may now be received, and how the fact may save and develop manhness. Previously however to direct reentrance upon our 232 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. theme, we may call to mind the obvious fact that the sacrifices of the Jews were evidently all types, and that in the New Testament the antitype appears in "The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," S. Jn. I. 29 ; " The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Rev. XIH. 8. When by direct, critical study of the Word of God it appears, that " CmiisT Jesus Whom God hath set forth a propitiation," Eom. ITT. 25, "is the propitiation for our sins : and not for ours only, but also for the whole world," S. Jn. n. 2, then Modern Thought has no vahd objection to make against it either as doctrine or fact. It rests on its own evidence. It must stand as that evidence is strongly based, and consecutively build ed together. Not as a mere, arbitrary dogma is this point forced upon us J nor as a mysterious and cold fact, is it presented ; but it is rather set forth, distinctly and firmly indeed but in mercy and tenderness also, for it is written ; "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son, the propitiation for our sins." IV. 10. " God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." Rom. V. 8-9. Returning now to purely philosophical ground we remember that man, though incapable of perceiving, or of satisfactorily argu- ing about the atonement as it is on its Divine side, or towards God ; and though he must therefore receive rev- elation, as final, about it ; yet he may both perceive, and argue about it, on its side towards humanity. As both the least and largest observation show man- kind to be in a state of disorder, and conflict ; so the common consciousness agrees in acknowledging that, both within and without, eYerj individual human person THE OEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 233 is in disorder, and conflict. Moreover conscience puts us in the wrong, while nature yearns sorrowfully and impotently after the right, and the true. Manliness bravely struggles, but no mere presentation of goodness, or fitness, or beauty, or righteousness avail either to quiet conscience, or cure disorder. It is therefore more than useless, it is a mockery to such creatures as we are, in the condition we find ourselves, amid the stem and strong necessities that surround and p6netrate us, to hold up the good and the great, and bid us strive for their attain- ment. We cannot attain. Though perceiving and ac- knowledging them, we know and feel that they lie beyond us : and yet we must reach them, or we cannot become in fact, what we know we should be, and feel that we might become, " perfect men." God explains — i.e. makes clear, according to sound philosophy — this confusion and disorder. He enlightens conscience. He tells us that " we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God," Kom. HI. 23 ; " there is no man that sinneth not," 1 Kgs. VHI. 46. Come short of the glory of God ; not wholly lost or obliterated the glorious image of God, in which we were originally created ! Thus we stand in presence of the crucified Godman. " Dead in trespasses and sin," Eph. H. 1 ; dead thro' the law ; dead by inheritance from our first father who died by sin, guilty by personal transgressions ; and, not having life in ourselves, incapable therefore of raising ourselves again "into newness of life," Rom. VI. 4. Yet we are conscious that we may be restored to true life. Directly or indirectly, willingly or unwillingly, by sincere confession or bootless blasphemy, we all show that our glorious, godlike manhood, has, if not inno- cence, at least the germs of renovation. AU we need 234 THE CKEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. therefore is "the way, the truth, and the life," S. Jn. XIV. 6 ; the way, wherein we may "walk out of dai'k- ness ; " the truth, whereby we may attain knowledge inter- nal and external ; and the life, whereby, revitalized, we may put forth our manliness in growing up towards God. While therefore we may be only able to apprehend God's anger, and can only know what He tells us about the atonement of the death of Christ, as it touches Him- self ; we can see, on the human side, its adaptation to the essence and general characteristics of humanity. Of- fenders as we are against God, we yet cannot with true manliness cringingly ask merely for pardon. Shame deters us now, nor would the prospect of heaven enjoyed upon sufferance attract us. To be in full what we feel we might be, and know we should be, requires that some compensation should be offered to God, so that we might enter into an everlasting covenant with Him. This is a necessity on our side. It may or may not be the same on God's side ; or rather we cannot argue about it, as we have before shevm, on that side ; we can only be told by Him. - While however manliness demands the offer of com- pensation from us to God, we neither know enough to design it, nor could we construct it we are sure because we cannot even do the good that we would. Now death, germinal in sinning Adam, has become death universal in all his posterity. It is nothing against our argument, that death is natural, and that Adam and all his posterity were from the first subject to natural death. The " tree of life in the midst of the garden," Gen. n. 9. HI. 22, was his ' sacrament of immortality ' : God had provided its fi'uit for Adam's food : to be taken doubtless by mankind, when needed in order that hu- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 235 manity might escape death, -until the fulness of time should come, wherein the Incarnation might exalt the innocent, serving creatui*e into the high lot of a friend of God, being made partaker of the Divine nature. Sin shut up the way to the " Tree of Life," and the natural death of Adam was no less a penalty, because it became the thenceforth imobstructed result of a law, which, in common with all creatures, he was naturally under. The Son of God, in becoming the Son of man, came under the law of natural death. But His coming to earth was voluntary ; and moreover, even after He be- came man, He retained power over his own mortal life : *'For as the Fatheb hath life in Himself ; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself ; . . . . because He is the Son of man." S. Jn. V. 26-27. He was in Himself " the Tree of Life " ; immortal by self-support. The death of Jesus, though natural, like that of Adam, was yet voluntary. The perverse will of the first Adam left us all to natural death ; and incurred for us all spii'itual death, whereby we are shut out from God, and rendered naturally incapable of struggling back to Him : but the loving and obedient will of the second Adam endiu-ed the cross, to recover the loss, and repair the damage of the fall. The effect of His obedience reached at least as far as that of the first disobedience ; " where sin abounded grace did much more abound." Rom. V. 20. Confining our view for a time to subconsciousness, we perceive that the spring of life, poisoned in Adam, be- comes healed in Christ. The voluntary endurance of the death penalty, by the innocent second Adam, is a compensation at least equal to the original transgression. Again we repeat ; it was not as far as we can compre- hend a compensation to God ; it was a compensation as 236 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. we see it, because it was equal on the human side. As far as we can primarily know, God may or may not ac- cept or refuse this compensation. His acceptance of it is therefore evidence of His "loving kindness and tender mercy." We can lift up our heads to God without shame, when we can go before Him, bearing the memorial ofthe Sec- ond Adam to lay over against the first Adam's transgres- sion and its consequences. Manhood has at least ef- fected a ransom. In accordance with the great world- wide law of compensation, and perhaps in its fulfilment, we can offer an equivalent for the great transgression. Natural death of the body, and natural death in tres- passes and sins, as far as they affect the judicial standing of mankind, both collectively and individually, are expi- ated ; and, as far as they affect the subconscious spring and fountain of all human life and of every man's own life, are counteracted. Thus, " the sacrifice of the death of Cheist " is more than an objective equivalent, as man sees it, offered by man unto God. In a certain sense, indeed, it stands out between us and God. It has its objective uses, as an offering of ransom by which we are redeemed, and of propitiation by which our sin's penalty is averted. All this belongs to our external relations with God ; and rests chiefly upon revelation. It however agrees with the great, and probably universal, "law of compensation," and is also accordant with our common human estimate of natural justice, and mercy. But there is a deeper significance still. An individual man- saviour, standing between us and God, is not the perfect Jesus we are taught to believe in ; nor the one demanded by sound human philosoj)hy. We . are assured rather that our Saviour is humanity germinally; that His manhood THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 237 reaches unto every man, and that the work He has done — propitiation included — is effective for and through all mankind. As in the deep or spring, of subconscious vitality, we naturally inherit existence, characteristics, conditions, and consequences, from the first Adam ; so mutatis mutandis we receive life through the quickening spmt of the last, Adam, 1 Cor. XV. 45, and become par- takers of His life, sharers in His works, and inheritors together with Him. While therefore the single, central and in itself com- plete, " oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, once offered," is made on Calvary by the Son of God in and through His human nature ; and while no human person, as such, can claim active share or part in that single act of personal sacrifice : yet, as shoots and branches of the humanity then and thus employed, every man may claim so much of what was effected, as to make the propitiation his own offering ; not only by pleading it memorially, but by partaking of it personally. It may be in us, as well as outside of us. Again we must revert to the inahenable right, dignity and necessity of manly freedom. Even the restoration, made possible by the redemption, cannot be forced upon us. The pardon is secured for all. The ransom is paid for all. The revivification reaches into the subconscious fountain of every individual human creatui-e's life : but every one who grows up to conscious morality, who at- tains the sense of right and wrong, is left free yet to choose Whom he will serve, and will be judged doubt- less according to his light. They, to whom Christianity is offered, will be every one affected in the deep of his subconscious personaUty, as every other human being is ; and yet will be left free to choose his Lord, and will also be judged according to his light 238 THE CEEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. Wliile therefore everything possible is done for us by the Godman — suffering, crucified, dead and buried — and while we are gloriously, tho' mysteriously, made sharers in His sacrifice ; we do not trench upon His own, unique, personal self-offering, nor does He invade our freedom. Tho', conscious of sin, we bow penitently be- fore God ; and, knowing our incompetence for self-resto- ration, cling to the quickening last Adam ; and, confes- sing that we have nothing to offer, plead His voluntary sacrifice of Himself : yet it is the new Adam — not a mere man — on Whom we rely, and in Whom and with Whom we approach unto the Father. "No man cometh unto the Fathek, but by Me," S. Jn. XTV. 6. This being true, the doctrine of " the sacrifice of the death of Christ," stands out to Modem Thought, not as a mere dogma to be forced upon minds enslaved, but as a fact, at least not derogatory to any one's manhness. Admitting merely that man is finite, there is no shame in the help of The Infinite : while the acknowledgment of sin and sorrow involves the confession — by all except "the fool" who "hath said in his heart there is no God," Ps. TiTTI. 1. — of the need of Divine help. When this help comes to us not from another mere man, but from The Son of God, the one Godman ; and when in giving it The Son does not inflict it as a mere boon, but works it out for us in our own very nature, and develops it with our own cooperation ; then, not only the deep complete- ness of the work is assured, but the greatness and glory of it fills and satisfies the conscious dignity of our in- alienable godlikeness. Surely in this particular also, the Creed vindicates it- self, shows its vitaUty now as ever, and approves itself THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 239 the formula of truth most honorable to man. So far from being a clog of tradition, binding living souls to the dead past, it now, as in all ages, speaks to men as godlike ; and shows them how to return to God, that they may enjoy without bound and exert without limit — within creaturehood — their likeness to God. If the virtues, that spring from their specific truths, were under discussion, it might be apposite here to dwell upon humility. Doubtless that wide spread, and almost passionate love of liberty, which distinguishes Modern Thought, is not naturallj^ prolific of humility. It is true that " pride goeth before a fall." There is however an equally true and equally dangerous, "voluntary hu-' mihty." Neither presumption nor shame arises from " reaching forth unto those things which are before " : but the folly and fault of pride comes when " we boast of things without our measure." 240 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. '' Qe Ire0CtiiklJ into ^dV* This article was not formulated in the primitive Creed. Its history is fully treated by Bishop Pearson. Here, only its intrinsic truth, and practical importance will be considered. The nature and characteristics of spirit, its position in ' the person, and its relations in man to body and soul, demand consideration from both philosophical and theo- logical points of view. They are subjects which Modem Thought is evidently occupied with, but has not deeply penetrated philosophically ; while theologically they are less deeply studied, by far, than in patristic, or even mediaeval times. The distinguishing intellectual vice of modern times, not only in America but abroad, which like all prevalent vices is only a distorted or misdirected virtue, prevails against modest self distrust, that best keeper of the door of the soul through which truth en- ters. Modern Thought will, and should investigate with- out timidity ; but the fear, which brave hearts always feel when treading difficult or dangerous ways, should never be absent from a mind occupied with searching into the essence, and observing the manifestations of spirit. The Positivists ignore spirit altogether. "With char- acteristic self-contradiction, they say that we have no data on which to form an opinion of spirit, and not even the power of conceiving of spirit as an entity, and real- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 241 ity. They do not appear to see that they express the conception, in the very form of the denial ; for no man can deny that, of which he has no conception. Modern Thought has learned, from the Positivists, that easy and common trick, of affecting to despise what one chooser to ignore. Honest and brave thinkers, now as ever, cannot be sup- pressed. While honouring humble fear, they scorn timidity. Spirit is something. Modern Thought may and should search deeply, and enquire diligently, what, and where that something is. Spirit is evidently not material, for it cannot, as the Positivists weU say, be discovered nor analyzed by any of the tests of matter. Even the invariable characteris- tics of matter, such as persistence of weight and impene- trability, as well as divisibility and composite change- ableness, cannot be affirmed of spirit, and therefore is denied by most philosophers. It is commonly affirmed, by philosophers who accept spirit as reality, that it is es- sentially one, i.e. an individual, indivisible, and of course immaterial unit This, if put in another form, would perhaps not be objectionable. What spirit is in itself we cannot know, because it indwells and perhaps is the root or beginning of the human consciousness of person. This however does not prevent our recognizing it as a reality, and knowing its manifestations in both our- selves and others. We may come very near the philoso- phers, but nearer still to the truth, when we say not that spirit is a unit ; but that our most satisfactory con- ception, and clearest idea of it, supposes its unity. For all practical purposes of investigation we hold to the primary, and ever continuing indivisible unity of spirit. Soul is not spirit. Attributes of soul such as intelli- gence or affection, which characterize it in both man 11 242 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. and animals, render it capable of union and communion with spirit ; while its sensibility renders it capable of union and communion with body. Yet soul is evi- dently not endowed with certain lofty foi-ms of intelli- gence, by which, not only abstract conceptions are formed, moral principles perceived, and boundless scope apprehended, but even The Infinite One, Pantocrat, Father Almighty, God Himself is known. Nor again has soul that lofty form of affection, which looks through the enactments of law ; seeing in them not merely com- mands that must be obeyed, but the necessary order and organization of love, the one great harmonizer, and only sweet reconciler of cause and consequence, Creator and creation, God and godlike man. Body is not spirit. Its senses and its appetites turn primarily towards matter, and seek material gratification. In mere bodies, like the. vegetables, appetite stands high- est; vegetables best fulfil the end of their being, when most freely taking and using all the matter they can as- similate. Animals, the next higher in bodily order, pos- sess features of soul which, while not depriving them of material appetites, open a broader scope of mortal life. They have spheres of various kinds to fill, that material growth and nourishment subserve, but thereby become secondary and subordinate objects of life. Even wild animals, that always disappear with the wilderness, do not hve solely for grow^th and propagation. They roam, and explore, and devise, and execute, and strive, and dis- play many qualities of intelligence and affection, and use sense and appetite as servants for things higher. Ani- mals in civilization are put to many uses, that require the exertion of soul-faculties, and powers. It cannot bo doubted also that a perception of individuality belongs to animals. They distinguish themselves one from an- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 243 other, and show both selfishness and consideration in in- tercourse with man and other animals. Soul, like spirit, is not susceptible of material tests. It cannot be proved to be even a function of matter. Many such attempts have been made ; but, at every crucial point, it may just as well be said that the soul prompts the movement of matter, as that the movement evolves the soul-action. The crucible will not furnish a resi- duum " bead " of soul. The utmost resources of the laboratory cannot precipitate it. The knife cannot di- vide and exhibit it. The microscope can neither see it quiescent nor in operation. Surely it is reasonable, as it is undoubtedly accordant with the common opinion of mankind, to regard soul as another thing than matter ; something belonging to a distinct, and separate order, and condition of things. There may be a soul substance ; and hke matter it may be imperishable i.e. capable of endless combinations and changes of form, but not of annihilation. This cannot indeed yet be proved scienti- fically. Neither can it be disproved. We are left there- fore to probability, and should be bound by its laws. "We cannot for instance arbitrarily take position, and say according to impulse or the exigency of argument, that we either accept or reject the idea of a soul-substance in the universe, of which individual souls take part, as bod- ies do of matter. Whoever accepts the high probability of the existence of a soul-substance in the universe, will find it accordant with the analogies of knowledge. He will also find it reconcilable with whatever distinctive con- ceptions may be formed, and followed out variously, through all known existences, from man down to the least microscopic organite. If it be allowed that animals have souls, as well as bodies, it does not therefore follow that their individu- 244: THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. ality is preserved in immortality. Soul functions, like material particles, may, for aught we know, come together once in one form, and then divide to pass ever after through varying combinations. By thus setting soul and body, in idea, apart from each other, we can compare them one with the other, and attain reciprocally clearer conceptions of both. Practically indeed they are so associated in life, that the lines between are as imper- ceptible, as the divisions of the spectrum are to the natu- ral eye ; and will probably remain so, until at least a psychical spectroscope shall have been invented, which may exliibit their specific lines. Man is evidently possessed of both body and soul. He is fellow on his material side with the tuber, and par- taker of the dust. In soul he may be not only like but one with the animals. He partakes with them of both the matter and soul-substance of the universe. He now dwells amid, and cannot be ordinarily exempt from natural, material and psychical laws. The great consist- ency, running through nature, which men call Law, has its material and psychical operations, which may be studied by the intellect alone, and acted upon confidently within their scope. Man however is superior to all other mortal, and earthly, known forms of existence ; in that he has a constituent that is neither body nor soul, but something higher than either, though coexistent and even conjoined with both. This superior portion of humanity is named Spirit, and has distinct functions and attributes. One of its func- tions is conscience, which cognizes right and wrong. It is a universal function ; i.e. it pervades all humanity and penetrates all human relations. Some indeed among modem thinkers attempt to express the idea of right and THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 245 wrong, as if it were a residuum of human experience. They say that one course has been found upon the whole most satisfactory to all men, and its opposite unsatis- factoiy or unprofitable, so that what upon the whole is advantageous is called right and its opposite wrong ; and that out of this has grown, through the accumulations of the experience of ages, conscience. Verily there is no credulity to match that of sceptical minds ; and no argu- ment weak enough to be without advocates ! "What pos- sible room is there for that personal sense of guilt, which conscience has, in a merely ideal notion of relative profit and loss? Moreover conscience itself spontane- ously condemns all consideration of profit and loss, in a question of right and wrong. The two ideas are antago- nistic to each other ; hence the one cannot. have devel- oped into the other. There is a function of spirit, that is distinct from conscience. It is inseparable indeed from ideas of right and wrong, with their consequent hopes and fears, satis- faction and unsatisfaction ; but it is distinguishable, as is the top from the base of a mountain. This function lays hold of, i.e. apprehends God ; and, when in perfect de- velopment and full exercise, loves God. Now love, in its fulness, is the very singleness of personal devotion. Per- fect human love is the utter devotion, consciously, sub- consciously, and unconsciously, in the conjoint wholeness of the person, of the unit I to its object. Perfect love towards God is the outgoing of the whole singleness of person, including all functions in harmony, towards One \\Tio, Personal in being, is Love ; Who both satisfies the human function of love, and inspires its longings. Con- science is in abeyance under love, because " perfect love casteth out fear." 1 S. Jn. IV. 18. Inquiries into the functions of spirit need not, for our THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. present object, be pursued further. We have found its most prominent function to be both super-material, and super-psychical. Matter knows not God by itself alone ; nor does soul, when joined to matter as in the animals, love Him. The only earthly creature, who is capable of knowing, and fearing, or of loving God, is man ; and the functions in him, for such ends, are of his spirit. Such functions are just as much proofs of the spirit's existence, as attributes or "accidents" are of matter, and as thoughts and emotions ai-e of soul. Spirit, however, exists in man on earth ; not apart from, but conjoined with soul and body, in the unity of the person. Naturally it j)ervades, and therefore exalts, the whole man. Therefore the man is superior to all other animals, even in animal functions. He excels also amid all forms of matter. Even the highest function of the human spirit, that wherein it attains love-divine, reacts through soul and body so that the psychical and material man both join with it in the unit-consciousness of love, contributing thereto each its measure and kind of devotion. In all respects, the man is exalted natur- ally by his spiiifc ; and, according to his will, may ap- proach or recede from human perfectness, by j)i'omot- ing or opposing the due relations of spirit to soul and body. The human person is tripartite in substance, though one in the completeness of humanity. The three sub- stances may, for aught we know, be separable one from another ; so that for a time they may dwell apart and again come together. This is conceivable by man, but indiscoverable by science or philosophy, as appears from what we have learned about the soul and spirit. Its conceivability makes its knowledge possible by revela- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 247 tion. God may tell us, what we otherwise could not learn about body, soul and spu'it, tlirougli all tlieir known and unknown contingencies of life and death. The humanity of Jesus includes all that is found in every human person. Being " made man," He possesses a human body, soul, and spirit. They have in Him the same functions, and every part retains its own. The hu- man difference between Jesus and every personal man, lies essentially in the personality only. Every human creature is a human person, dwelhng in humanity only. Jesus is a Divine Person, Who has taken a human spirit, Boul and body up into the unity of His Godhead ; so that He is not only God manifest, but Qod manifest in our flesh. Every essential of humanity He retains, through all the contingencies consequent to that human- ity, whether in life or in death. Man is conscious of this complexity of constitution. As a material organism, he begins to exist, grows and develops, hke the plants, according to a principle, or formative law, of force. Like the animals also he feels, and thinks, and reasons, and chooses or refuses. He is like every other creature in some respects. Yet he knows, in the depths of his own self, and nothing can make him really doubt, that he is, not only superior to the rest of creation, but also specifically and essentially different from them. Obviously he cannot discover, and describe his own origin : yet he can understand such description when given, and can judge its sufficiency by comparison with other knowledge or assurance. He can form some idea of the adequacy of a cause to produce a known effect He assumes, because it is self-evident, that any cause must be at least equal to its own effect. His consciousness of distinction from, and superiority 248 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. over, and beyond all other earthly creatures, is not merely in degree — as being more beautiful, or intelligent, or sensitive or imaginative than they — but it is in kind. He is, not merely has, but is something that they are not. This something, in common philosophical and even scriptural language, is mentioned often as if it were a unit, and called " soul." Both Scripture and philoso- phy however recognize, and thus assert, its duality ; thereby distinguishing between soul and spirit. Since however both soul and spirit outlie the senses, and are not directly responsive to earthly tests, the lower term is often used inclusively of the higher ; the distinction be- ing for the occasion held in abeyance. In this sense it may be said that man is conscious of soul as part of him- self ; and yet so much the deepest and fullest part, that while he says of it " my soul " ; it may be also said of him " and man became a living soul." Gen. 11. 7. The soul of man is his and not another's ; and yet he is so comprised, that his soul — probably because it pervades, and rules the whole man — is in a certain sense himself. It is conceivable that the body may sleep in sensational unconsciousness, and yet the soul be active. It is con- ceivable that the body may die and yet the soul remain alive. In this psycho- material, mortal life, consciousness perceives both soul and body acting in unison. What Boul-consciousness is, apart from the body, we do not know, because it lies as yet outside our experience. We are however entirely capable of believing its existence upon proof ; and of forming some conception of it as fact, or reality. The great source of knowledge, of those facts that out- lie experience and transcend discovery, announces that after "the Lord God formed man dust of the ground," THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 249 He "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." Gen. 11. 7. This soul, as we have already seen, is complex, not only LQ its functions, but in its primary constitution. It has, not only emotion intellect and will as the animals have, and reason as they seem to have, and fear or hope leading to refusal or choice ; but it has also a moral sense of right and wrong, and an apprehension of spiritual re- lations to God, to eternity, and to other spirits. Modern Thought is obHged to acknowledge this, at least as a pos- sibihty, and with it the further possibility of the existence of the spirit-soul apart from the body, and of its exercise of consciousness otherwise than through the brain and nerves of the body. Though when the man is alive in the body, the movements of nervous tissues in certain ways, as we again allow, accompany specific thoughts or feel- ings ; these movements, we repeat, instead of being causes may be effects. Hence their origin may be spir- itual or psychical, we know not which, and cannot know, because they themselves belong to primary conscious- ness. The existence, the operation, and the constitution of the soul therefore cannot be discovered. \\^at we know must be made known to us. All we can require is that the facts be possible ; after that the whole depends upon evidence. The existence of the Divine revelation has been already abundantly proved. We turn therefore to it, for infor- mation about the soul. There, as we have seen, the cre- ation of the soul is described, and man is said to have become a living soul. Some functions of the soul are treated therein as spiritual ; and yet it acts in, with, and through the body. Sacred history, interwoven with and authenticated by Divine revelation, states that while men were Kving, angels communicated with them, and God 11* 250 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. talked to them. In one place the whole human consti- tution is described as " your whole spirit and soul and body." I Thes. V. 23. The afflatus of The Spirit, the breath of God — whatever that be — entered into the animal soul and material form of man, and he " became a hving soul " ; and henceforward, made not substantially but personally immortal, his complexity remains threefold. Disruptions, changes and even death — i.e. banishment from the presence of Him, Who is light and Hfe — become possible and even necessary, as we have seen, to perfect human freedom, but the immortality is indestructible. This immortality belongs to the essential person, that to which the terms, * "I, Thou, He" with their cases and numbers belong' {Waterland). It is true that matter may, in a certain sense, be called immortal, i.e. inde- structible ; but this is not what is meant in the phrases " man's immortality " or " the immortality of the human spirit-soul." They carry the idea of the indivisible, unit, the I, Thou, He, the person. Of this person we do not, as we at first showed, affirm constituent parts. It in- cludes body, soul, and spirit ; but it is the subject to which body, soul, and spirit belong. What it is essen- tially cannot, as we have already seen, be described, be- cause it indwells the j)rimary consciousness, to which all description is addressed. We know it not as an object of being, but as the being^subject, before which all ob- jects come, into which sensations and ideas pour, and from which " energy " proceeds. Nor, as a subject, do we assign to it an entity apart from its manifestations. We do not say of the human person, that he existed once alone, then received a body, and an animal soul, and a spirit from the breathing of God. These steps we believe in, upon the adequate testimony of the Divine-revelation. Therefore we hold that man is a person, to whom in his THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 251 completeness belong body, soul, and spirit ; each spe- cific, yet all comprised in liis identity. We do not, and, as "we have over and over again seen, cannot know the location nor any other objectivity of the essential person. We may know where it is not ; and, after exhausting negatives, may affirm positively that it is somewhere or rather somehow in what remains. We may for instance say it is not in the refuse of the body because they pass away, while the same person, in his identity and unit consciousness remains. It is not in the thought, or the operations of intellect, for they go on changing continu- ally, without disturbing the identity. When we get to the lower stratum of the human constitution, the spirit, we are evidently very near the seat of personahty. The distinctive human peculiarity of divine apprehension, with the consequent conviction of dependence and sense of duty, are attached to personality. They are not it, exactly, but they are its primary outactions. They are * I am ; I am not of myself ; I therefore, being under ob- ligations to another, owe thanks and obedience * ; but back of all still stands " L" This personality, dwelling in spirit, soul, and body, is conceivably distinct from either. We are therefore capa- ble of receiving information about its relations to one or other of these conjuncts, or to all combined ; and that information, being essentially indiscoverable, must come from Him, by Whom we are. Before seeking that information, it may perhaps be well again to remember that although Jesus, when " made man," took complete humanity up into His per- son. He did not become a human person : it will thence appear that whatever He may declare of His own " I,* may not therefore be affirmed of any other man's '*I, Thou, or He." 252 THE CKEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. Keeping this in mind, we turn to the one only source of information upon this subject. There we learn thfjt, while hanging on the cross, Jesus said to the thief, " To- day shalt Thou be with Me in Paradise." S. Lu. XXIII. 43. "We learn that not only His own personality, but the personality of the thief also should be that day in Paradise. The personality of the thief was only human. It held his body while in mortality, but evidently was susceptible of separation from the body, because it ("thou") was to meet the personahty of Jesus ("Me") that day in Paradise. We thus learn that the human person is separable from the mortal body. The heathen indeed generally, and probably always, believed this. Hence the common phrase " the immortality of the soul " ; a phrase which however belongs to philosophy ! Christian-theology does not teach "the immortality of the soul" in the philosophic sense. It teaches the fact of personal im- mortality. From the case before us, it teaches that this personal immortality continues and subsists apart from the body. Its inference is that the spirit is undying. There is no human power, yet developed, for distin- guishing between soul and spirit ; except, by comparison, thro' aoialogy with other animals. We can neither dis- cern nor analyze the substance of either. Nor does the Divine-revelation explain their distinctions one from an- other. We only infer the existence in man of an animal soul ; and, for distinctness of idea, speak of a soul sub- stance ; but we do not positively know of that soul sub- stance, and therefore cannot show it either apart from or in combination with so-called " spirit-substance." Hence we find the Scriptures using soul and spirit, not always meaning the one without the other. We know they are distinguishable i.e. distinct in essence, because THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 253 they are occasionally so mentioned ; but we do not know that they ever exist apart. Hence it is not an affirma- tion of the soul's immortality, as distinct from the spirit of man, when it is said that men may kill the body " but are not able to kill the soul," S. Matt. X. 28 : nor is it a denial of the soul's immortality when it is written that " the body without the spirit is dead." S. Jas. IV. 5. The language of Scripture agrees throughout with the account of the final creation of man. *' Man became a living soul." Gen. 11. 7. The " breath of the lives " in- breathed the dust-formed Adam ; and then his personal identity began, and was made inseparable from his liv- ing soul. His spirit and soul were conjoined forever. His animality, like his materiality, were vivified by this breathing of God. His spirit could leave his body. It does not appear that it would leave his soul. The thief went that day to Paradise. His body remained on earth. Hence we know that man is separable. We use often the heathen phrase, and speak of the "immortal soul," but the Scriptures declare the personal identity to be resident in the spirit-soul. Hence all we can positively now know of the personal immortality, is that it is sepa- rable from the body — we know not how or how long ; and that it is capable of paradisaical residence and bhss : and we speak not erroneously, though inadequately, when we say either that the soul or the spirit of one de- parted is at rest, in conscious peace in Paradise. What we mean is that the soul and spirit, or the spirit-soul, now absent from the body, is at rest in peace. It is the person, we mean, not fully equipped with all possible functions ; but the very person nevertheless who lived on earth. The person of Jesus undoubtedly laid aside His human body, as all men do at death. He doubtless being "per- 254 THE CEEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. feet man," took to Paradise exactly what any personal man would take. The person of the Son of God there- fore, when He said to the thief "with Me," meant that the thief should that day be with the human spirit-soul of Jesus in Paradise ; where that spirit-soul would be the human medium of His personal manifestation, as His body had been on earth. "We have no right to ask anything but evidence that Jesus descended into Hades. On the cross He said to the thief, " To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise " ; and yet, the third day after, He said to Mary Magdalene, *'I am not yet ascended to My Father." S. Jn. XX. 17. An interval had elapsed, during which the body of the Godman was lying in the grave, and He — the essential "I" as to the veritable, complete, and henceforth insep- arable humanity, in and of which He was speaking — had not ascended to heaven. Where was His " living soul," His conscious, disembodied, human essence ? " For Christ .... dead indeed in flesh but alive in the spirit, in which also departing He preached to spirits in prison." 1 S. Pet. HI. 18-19. He went therefore to the place where disembodied men i.e. spirit-souls, were in ward, waiting. While in human life on earth He had at least sanc- tioned the then common belief in the existence of Hades, or place of departed spirits, by the parable of Dives and Lazarus. He Himself went evidently to Paradise, where Abraham was. We know nothing surely about what He preached, or where in Hades He went, or how far His preaching extended. Nor do we know anything posi- tively about the location of Hades. The souls of the saints in it cry out to God, and He hears them. They are in some sense "under the altar," before God in Heaven, on which is burnt the incense with which their prayers ascend before God. Eev. YI. 9. YHI. 3-4. As THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. z5o Hades is, thus evidently, not in Heaven, tlio' under the eye and ear of God, it is also in some sense, even yet, in the presence of Jesus, for S. Paul writes "I . . . . desire to depart and be with Christ." Phil. I. 2-3. Thus the whole complexity of the human constitution was partaken of by The Saviour, while all, that time and circumstance require with regard to it, was met and fulfilled in Him. Not a point is wanting, to show His complete identification with the whole one human race. The work, He had to do for man, was done thorough^. Every essentially human characteristic was manifested, and all necessary experiences of humanity were under- gone. Everywhere, He treads the path, that we mast follow. No possibility can involuntarily befaU any man, that He has not provided for, by preceding us, conquer- ing as He went. The waiting time of disembodied men is plainly an incomplete existence. Though happy or miserable, ac- cording to the moral and siDiritual course pursued in mortahty, it precedes a consummation. This, the Creed hereafter declares. It is as silent, as the Scriptures are, about the occupation of the "spirits in ward." We are left therefore chiefly to reason, and the conjectures of analogy, if we wish to form any definite picture of its society and polities. The duration of the period of Hades, or the " Intermediate State," is not given in terms of time ; but it will evidently come to an end at the " times of restitution of all thiags." Acts HI. 21. 256 THE OEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. " ®l)e tljirlr bag ^t voBt from tl)e kab/* "2lnir tl)e tijirlr bag (^e rose again, accorbing to iljt jSanptur€0." As a historical fact, the resurrection of Jesus Chkist from the dead is authenticated more abundantly than any other fact of the past. It occurred openly. It was tested fully at the time by both friends and foes ; by the one as personal witnesses, and the other as unable to gainsay it or counteract its force. It has, in every age since, been witnessed to, attested, and confirmed by a visible society or " church ", whose origin and perpetuity are unaccountable without it. A fact must ever stand. Whatever opposition may be made to it, on the ground of singularity ; or whatever plausible argument may be constructed, to show its im- probability ; or however ingenious theories may be broached, to prove it a deception or mistake ; adequate evidence, that it is a fact, established it beyond fair con- troversy. An assertion, beyond this, that the resurrection of Jesus cannot be true because of inherent impossibility, is simply an assumption by the objector of all knowl- edge. When men talk of and pretend to judge of im- possibihties, they reveal either their own ignorance, or their inordinate and therefore absurd self-confidence. Nothing can be hopefully argued before those who tread or think they tread a plane, above that whereon simple I THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 257 lovers of truth for truth's sake humbly yet surely delve among facts. The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead was not unknown before Jesus came on earth. Instances of res- urrection are related in the narratives of the old Scrip- tui-es. Like all the facts of the Old Testament, and in- deed of all ancient documents, these instances are wrapped in shadows of age. We may be convinced of their inherent probability ; but, without the light thrown on them by subsequent words and events, they would be now hard to prove. This acknowledgment is made, not as an allowance of insufficiency in a Book of God, but as an assertion of the Unity of All Scripture. One part does not stand alone. The whole is necessary to the consistency of any part. Therefore it is waste labour to answer objections to lesser details, before the central fact — round which aU revolve and upon which all depend — is established. The resurrec- tion of Jesus being proved, all Scripture becomes authen- ticated. Its genuineness becomes then, in detail, a fair subject of criticism; but criticism has no right to assume the impossibility of evidence. Everything provable is more than possible. The very fact, that the resurrection of Jesus is unique, forms one of the signs that it is genu- ine. Its pre-eminence, and its overwhelming proof, mu- tually strengthen and illumine each other. It was evidently not the intention of the Old Tes- tament to reveal, in specific form and circumstantial detail, the life, death and resurrection of the Messiah. Prophecy does not anticipate, it foreshadows history. This foreshadowing varies in distinctness ; sometimes being a dim outline at first, filled in by additional pro- phecies as time passes and fulfilment approaches; and sometimes remaining a dim outline to the last. 258 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. The prophecies of the Resurrection are of the latter character. The coining of the Messiah was amply fore- told. His miraculous conception, His Divine manhood, His authority as God's anointed one. His death and even the manner and peculiar circumstances of it, are all fre- quently by various old prophets set forth. The Messiah was to be cut off, and yet He was to be possessor of " sure mercies," and a conqueror over His foes. A vic- torious, and a death suffering Messiah is now understood ; but, in the terms of ancient prophecy, they might justly have been esteemed not clear. In like manner the singu- lar utterance of David, " For Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy one to see corruption," Ps. XYI. 10, are very wonderful in themselves, tho' perplexing. In the light of subsequent facts however, they become a clear prophecy of the resur- rection of Jesus ; as S. Peter shows, when quoting and arguing from them, in his sermon on the great day of Pentecost. Acts H. 25-36. Other passages need not be reproduced, in support of the last clause of the article under consideration. This seals the fact, that the Old Scriptures did foretell the resurrection. The degree of their clearness is a subject, that belongs to another line of consideration than ours at present. In the New Testament, prophecy upon this point becomes more distinct, even crucial as testimony, and therefore irrefragable as evidence. The unique and unanswerable proof of the truth of Jesus, which no man can successfully gainsay, is contained in the following concurrence of facts ; 1. He openly, and unreservedly, challenged all to convict Him : " Which of you convicteth Me of sin." S. Jn. Vin. 46. THE CBEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 259 2. He made a direct appeal to God — even claiming it as evidence of God's love for Him — in asserting, " I lay- down My life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again." As fur- ther solemn asseveration of this stupendous claim ; and speaking officially, as the Anointed One who had accepted the subordination of mediatorship. He added " This com- mandment have I received of my Father." X. 17, 18. He had made the same claim before, with less distinct- ness, but equal publicity. H. 19. His enemies, as well as His friends, heard both. The fulfilment of the first part of the claim was made on the cross ; when, as all the four evangehsts declare, " He yielded or gave up the ghost." That " Pilate mar- velled if He were already dead," is unconscious, hostile testimony to the fact that Jesus laid down His own life. Nor does the physiological argument — that because water and blood flowed from the probably penetrated pericar- dium, when the soldier pierced His side, thereby indica- ting a material bursting of the walls of the heai*t, as the natural cause of the sudden dissolution — affect our posi- tion ; because the same power which laid down life would, as Lord of natui*e, command the cooperation of the powers of nature in effecting His great seK-immola- tion. His enemies did their utmost, and thereby sealed their own guiltiness, but He Himself retained life in His own hands. 3. Again and again, from early in His ministry to the very last. He declared that He would raise Himself from the dead on the third day. S. Jn. H. 19. S. Matt. XYI. 21. S. IVIar. YUL 31. S. Lu. YUI. 22. So pubHc had been this assertion and prophecy about Himself, that 260 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. even His most implacable enemies were aware of it ; for "the next day, .... the chief priest and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying. Sir we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, After three days I will arise again." S. Matt. XXVII. 62, 63. 4 Finally, the fact, that Jesus did rise on the third day, is attested in every way that such an occurrence needs for proof. Stern Roman soldiers, on guard, fled at the appearance of an angel. Loving women saw angels, and heard their testimony of His resurrection. They afterwards saw, talked with, and embraced Jesus. He showed Himself to His disciples for forty days, talking with them, eating with them, permitting even the hand- ling of His person and the touching of His wounded hands and side. At one time " He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once ". 1 Cor. XV. 6. No greater combination of contemporary proofs coiild be required, to confirm the resurrection as a historical fact. It was believed by multitudes. It stood against the utmost efforts of persecution to blot it out, thro' scourging and death. It became the central truth of a rapidly extending, visible, spiritual kingdom, or church. It became the keystone to a great arch of revelation ; that rises up to it on one hand from Genesis, and on the other from " The Eevelation ". It was the central life of the word of witness, coincided in by EvangeHsts and Apostles ; and asserted by them to be the fulfilment of Messianic prophecies — long and well known. It was early made a test truth, on which all Christianity is based, "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain". 1 Cor. XV. 14. The Church — resting on the truth of Jesus, of which liis resurrection is the final confirmation — has been a visible power from the first ; and, however corrupted, has ever THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 261 remained constant in her testimony to this one fact. This attestation is unanswerable proof to our age, as it has been to every antecedent Christian age, of the re- ahty, and complete actuality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As man He died, and His enemies sealed His tomb and set a watch over it. As man He burst the tomb, and took unto Himself His Ufe again. Certainty surrounds this fact. All reality and all truth — in heaven and earth whether reHgious, phi- losophic or scientific — stands only as it stands : for His personal truth, which is the assurance of the consistency of all things, has the arch of its attestation keyed by the reahty of His resurrection. The significance of the transaction accompanies its authenticity. First of all it seals the whole word of Jesus, Who Himself seals the whole Divine revelation. All the wonderful history of creation, concentring round man made after the likeness of God ; the Old Testament nar- ratives of God's intercourse with men ; the story of The Covenant, with the giving of the Law, and its authority, as well as the significance of the Temple with its priest- hood and sacrifices ; and finally, the inspiration of the Prophets, involving of course the authority of theu' mes- sages, and the sure fulfilment of their predictions, are all linked to the person and history of Jesus. They stand, or fall with His truth : and His resun-ection from the dead, as it was the crucial test, becomes, by its success and abundant authentication, the unanswerable vindication of His truth, and confirmation of all depending on Him. Moreover the authority, power, and claims of Chris- tianity stand or fall with the truth of Jesus, and are held together by the Keystone of the resurrection. The opponents of Christianity do not touch the strong- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. hold of " The faith once dehvered unto the saints," until they assail " Jesus and the resurrection ". In vain for ages have men hurled themselves against "this stone". Every attempt to disturb its fixity, or to displace it from history, or to assign it to the cloudland of mythical legend, or to represent it as a deception, or even as a mis- take, have all failed. The consistency of the laws of mere criticism — historic or philosophic — compel its acknowl- edgment. For, if it is not proved true, nothing in the his- toric past stands ; because nothing is so largely authen- ticated, contemporaneously and subsequently^ as it is. Of course the assertion at any time may be made — as it is certainly made by a class of men, learned in one line, who have just now the popular ear — that the resur- rection is inherently impossible, and therefore lies out- side the pale of proof. This school of objectors has been in existence always. Their one argument is, " all things continue as they were from the beginning ; " and therefore what they call interruptions of the regular order of nature cannot occur. The obvious answer is, that no one can use this argu- ment until he has comprehended and codified all nature's laws. When science shall have comprehended the " order of nature," and mapped out its limits, it will then be time enough to inquire into the scientific possibility of the resurrection of Jesus. Until then the fact must stand upon its own unexampled breadth, and firmness of evidence. True " wisdom-lovers " base theories on facts, not the contrary ; and when a fact appears, they hold it alone until the ripe time shall come wherein they may see it in its association and accordance with the self-con- sistent, all embracing, ever harmonious unity of truth. The resurrection of Jesus is more than an isolated in- cident, in the history of men. Jesus, being not a human THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 2G3 person, but the Divine Son incarnate, brought, as its last Adam, humanity itself through the grave and Hades out from the realms of death. Captivity is led captive, death hath no more dominion over mankind. As a general condition, of which every individual shall partake, the resurrection like birth falls to individuals, irrespective of their own choice. As they are bom and die, without willing either ; so shall they be raised again, without willing it. No interference with man's original and inalienable freedom of choice, arises from this fact. It w^as never pretended that man is free, as God is, by inherent self- sufficiency. His liberty, being that of a creature, is bounded. All he can fairly ask, in relation to the resurrection, is that when he is raised he shall be him- self, and have such an assignment given to him, as will accord with the election he has made of master and destiny during the just time for decision fairly allotted to him. Nor can he determine this just time. It must bear relation to all men, and all things, and all time. Hence it must be determined by The Omniscient One. God's power and love are joined to His knowledge. Man therefore, not only must leave times and seasons to Him ; but he may do so, with aU assurance of His coactive jus- tice and mercy. For those persons who use their liberty, in electing God as their master and Lord, the resurrection of hu- manity, in Jesus, brings the personal fruition of all vic- tory and glory. No doubt the whole power of death, with all that appertains to it of weariness and weakness and sickness, is overcome. "Nothing shall by any means hurt " " the men of good will." This side of the grave, they shall be compensated for what they endure of death and its adjuncts ; while beyond it, they shall be. 264 THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. exempted from every ill. This follows from the nature of the conquest. It is amply confirmed by " most sure word of prophecy." The reverse of this picture may be drawn, with the pencil and coloring of man's free will. "What is given to believers in Jesus, who seek the Loed aright, and choose Him for their King, is what is not given to those who make the opposite choice. All is fair, and just deal- ing. Those who elect life and seek it through Him, Who alone is "the life and light of men," receive it here in temporal measure, and hereafter shall enter into its ful- ness. They, who make the opposite choice, cannot es- cape from the immortality of humanity. They must exist, but not with Him, AVho being Son and heir of God takes those who have chosen Him to dwell with Him, and share forever His heavenly inheritance. Not only does all the good and glory of hope in this life gleam forth from the Eesurrection ; but all the future is so illumined by it, that even the grave and Hades be- come only a curtain, drawn for a little period before an assured immortality of life and light and joy. Nothing now lies immovable, and heavy, and dark upon the soul of man. Some individuals indeed may not attain the fulness of the blessings of the resurrection ; but the pos- sibility of full attainment is secured. It is the last final conquest, wrought in humanity over all dangers and all foes. It breaks away the door, which shut man out from God. It removes the great impedi- ment to that restoration, wherein godlike man may enter into the personal presence of God, Whom he is like. This entrance involves communion with God ; and secures free intercourse between God, Who is love, and man, whose highest, deepest, broadest self-development lies in the interchance of love's utterances : or rather in the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 2G5 flow and reflow of love itself. The boundless source of love flows over, into and through its creatures. Its crea- tures, made originally like it, respond to its outaction. The Almighty-will concurs with Infinite love. The will of the creature follows its heart. Thus the human is free before the Divine, and love solves all mysteries, re- moves all difficulties, and becomes the crowning result of the resurrection. Here on earth it gatheips some fruits ; while it is ever planting seeds of an immortal harvest. Through trial, chastisement, and even purifying fires, the bodies, souls, and spirits of the saints on earth pass ; but these only serve to bum the frail cords of temporal hope and earthly desire ; they then reveal the indestructible tenacity of that one union of hearts, whereby the believer i^ours forth His confidence unto God, and God makes sweet and sure His word, " My grace is sufficient for thee ". The close union of persons — made possible by the Incarnation, and cleared from all impediments by the Eesurrection — which exists, by Jesus, between God and aU " men of good will," opens up the unfathomable, ex- haustless Divine love, which flows not merely over or into them, like an ever outpouring fountain, but rather as the central vital organ gives and receives back the current of life. God loving man, and man loving God, their union is personal, and their communion complete. In all he is, and has, and hopes ; by prayer, by praise, by joy- ful acquiescence of will ; the godlike creature, here par- tially amid fears and difficulties, learns and leans on God's love ; while by Christ's resurrection He is assured that hereafter, he shall know the fulness of all good, in and by ever active and ever responsive love. He, in his own very self's completeness and identity, shall be in end- less enjoyment, not merely of boundless gifts, but of personal interchange of love with God. 12 266 THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. " ^t aBttnbtb into S^a\)tn aixb siiidl) an tl)c rtgl)t bani of ©Oibf, (El)e Iat\)n\ ^llmigt)!^/' Jesus, The Christ, had finished the work God gave Him to do. S. Jn. XVII. 4. XIX. 30. In the sub- stance of humanity, the person of the Son of God had repaired the consequences of the fall, had "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," Heb. IX. 26, had abohshed death, and brought life and immortality to light. 2 Tim. I. 10. He had won His Kingdom on earth, and dispossessed "the god of this world." 2 Cor. IV. 4. He appointed to this kingdom perpetuity ; He gave it disciplinary authority, priestly duties, and prophetical mission. S. Matt. XXVHI. 19, 20. S. Lu. XXH. 19, 20. S. Jn. XX. 23. His own threefold office, as prophet priest and king, He had transferred to chosen apostles a Jn. XX. 21. S. Lu. XXn. 29 ; " to whom also He shewed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." Acts I. 3. The completeness of the Gospel, embodied and estab- lished, is thus perfect as a revelation, as a polity, and as ample guide, help, and means of all needful grace or favor, to all men of good will in all ages. Every thing possible, for the salvation and complete restoration of free, because distinctively personal yet godUke man, had been finished. The past of humanity was reached, to its remotest recesses. Its future was provided for, to ita furthest development, Though aU this work of Christ THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 267 was done in time, as viewed on man*s side ; its efficacy towards God, or on its Divine side, was not limited to order and succession, because God, The Unconditioned, sees Jesus — so to speak — contemporaneously with both Adam and the infant that shall be bom as the last trum- pet is sounding. Thus "the Son of God," being also "the Son of Man," finished, completed, perfected, estab- hshed forever, opened to all men but forced upon none, " the inheritance of the saints in light." Col. I. 12. These profound truths and vast facts are amply at- tested, and stand irrefragable, as the Resurrection itself is proved. In them, man's least and largest dignity is jealously guarded ; while the fulness of possible human good is conserved, and the highest human glory assured. After this, " He was received up into Heaven, and sat on the right hand of God." S. Mar. XVL 19. Acts VH. 55. Ps. ex. 1. He had Himself foretold His ascension, S. Jn. YI. 62. XVI. 28. XX. 17, thus committing His truthfulness to another test among the accumulated, extraordinary and unexampled proofs by which it might be tried. Before the eyes of His disciples, in broad day, "while they be- held. He was taken up ; and a cloud received Him out of their sight." Acts I. 9. Upon His ascension, as a reward to Him through His manhood, for His human faith shown in perfect obedi- ence, " God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name : that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Chkist is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. H. 9-11. Thus humanity, in the person of the Son of God, wins lordship 268 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. over all creation ; and this, not only without infringing the Divine prerogative, but in glorious communion of j)ower and glory with the Father, Himself. Nor is this — as we cannot too deeply consider— a lordship of one man because Jesus is not a human person : it is the lordship of humanity at large of which every human creature par- takes, over which presides forever the everlasting God- man, in the power and glory of which every human per- son " of good will " shall share ; and from which only those will be excluded, and that by their own choice, who say, "We will not have this man to reign over us." S. Lu. XIX. 14. The Heaven, into which Jesus ascended, was either a place, or a mere state, or rather a mode of existence. The common idea of Heaven, prevalent among all nations in all ages, and sanctioned by usage in the literal Scrip- tures, is that of an exalted locality, where God sits, as on a throne, with the universe under His feet. The Bible sets forth gradations, not only of conditions to the in- habitants of Heaven, but in the place itself. Thus S. Paul believed that he was "caught up to the third heaven." 2 Cor. XH. 2. Solomon, in his prayer of dedi- cation, speaks of " the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens." 1 Kin. "Vlii. 27. The plural form is common in both Testaments, as an intensive of the singular. Every one familiar with the Bible is also familiar with the idea of some exalted locality, wherein dwells the central mani- festation of the person of the Father, having the God- man at His right hand, with the Holy Spirit before Him, and all surrounded by concentric circles of glorious hu- man and angelic personages. There is a philosophical objection to this view, which Modem Thought strenuously urges, and by which the opinions of some theologians are manifestly affected. It THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 269 is urged that God, being unconditioned and absolute, infinite and eternal, cannot dwell in any locality, however exalted, within the boundary of space, nor enter into any conditions that bind Him to time or times. The postulate, upon which this position rests, is un- doubted and unquestioned by all that beheve in the One God. The conclusion drawn from it, omits one impor- tant factor. If the argument were, that we cannot com- prehend any method or mode, by which the Infinite can enter into space, or the Absolute join in the conditions or relations of time ; then the conclusion would be, not that He could not so enter and join, but only that we cannot comprehend how He could. The first conclusion is self-destructive ; for it assumes a human faculty, hav- ing power to judge of the Absolute, the Infinite and the Eternal ; and to say of the first that there are some rela- tions it cannot enter into, of the second that there are some bounds from which it is shut out, and of the third that it is excluded from time. Some, assuming the above first conclusion, have ar- gued that the ascension of our Lord was not to an ex- alted place where God sits above the Universe; but rather into that condition of the Godhead whereby He is superior to all conditions of space and time. As Jesus carried His human nature with Him, it follows that the humanity was not merely thro' its Divine Person joined to the Father, but actually, .in itself, was made capable of in- finity and eternity. As these are Divine attributes, they can be possessed only by the Divine essence. Hence follows inevitably the self-contradictory conclusion, that the humanity of Jesus was actually transformed into the Divine substance ! This is not only unsupported by revelation, but is in itself an evident philosophic absurdity. 270 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. "Where then is the Heaven to which Jesus ascended, wherein now His person is manifest, in both Divine and human substance ; where He maketh intercession ; and whence He will return, in like manner as He was seen to go? It is not necessary to give an answer to this question, involving definite locations ; any more than it is neces- sary to name any particular time for Christ's Second Advent. All we know positively is that the Infinite Son of the Infinite Father has condescended to lay hold of the finite universe, by means of His Incarnation ; and that " being made man " he has entered into the tempo- ral relations incident to created humanity. There may be no end to the life time of humanity, but it must have had a beginning, nor can it ever cease to stand in due relation to this beginning. Only the Divine essence is without beginning, and therefore without relations of succession. Man may be everlasting, but God only is eternal. Man may rove through the utmost bounds of space. God only is infinite. Hence the Ascension into Heaven, including the ascen- sion of the human nature, does not conflict with the common idea of all ages and nations nor with the literal Scriptures, in that consentient opinion which pictures Heaven as some exalted place with countless gradations, in whose centre is the throne of God manifest ; i.e. of God, as He chooses to display Himself to His creatures. All philosophy is barren of the link that joins the seen and the unseen, the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. AU philosophy reveals, sometimes even confesses, never can give ground to deny, the necessity of this link. Man of course cannot forge it, because his limit is the boundary^ of the universe, and this link joins that boundary with the Beyond. Hence we can easily THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 271 conceive of Heaven as located just on tliis boundary, stretcliing away Godward into the Beyond, and reaching forth Christward into and through all creation. The humanity of Jesus, resting and interceding and "waiting in this Heaven of Heavens has the whole Uni- verse present to Him. His person therefore is present throughout the Universe. His person includes His hu- manity. Every portion of the Universe, in all time, is therefore present to His humanity. The presence which Jesus promised to His disciples *'unto the end of the world," is a personal presence, including the whole Christ, as He now is incarnate at God's right hand ; the presence of the Godman, the King of Kings, the Great High Priest. All this we know, but we know no more. We cannot reason from this as a postulate, because the presence of Jesus, in Heaven and in the whole universe, depends upon the Divinity that is His, and to which His humanity is joined. "We cannot, as has been often shown, argue positively from the Divine essence because we cannot comprehend it. The presence of Cheist is revealed. Only as it is revealed can we believe and accept it. The full extent of that revelation however is given us to profit withal. They who commune with Jesus, are in actual union with Him, as He stands at God's right hand, upholding the Universe and saving His chosen ones. One philosophical point is necessary to be clearly ap- prehended, and carefully considered in any theological expression of the presence of our Lord, through the Uni- verse, and in His church. His presence and manifesta- tion are both formal as to Himself, and efficient only through the Holy Spmrr. Every one, who is interested in accuracy of theological language, should keep clearly in mind the well-known philosophical distinction be- 272 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. tween the formal and the efficient cause. Tliougli Jesus and the Holy Ghost act in unison, they never invade each other's specific domain ; nor ever act apart. Hence the central presence of the Godman, at the throne of God's central manifestation to His Universe in the Heaven of Heavens, is a foiraal presence to the whole and to every part of that Universe. The efficiency of His presence, in general and in every detail, is in the hands of The Com- forter : " for He shall receive of mine and shall shew unto you." S. Jn. XVI. 14. Though hidden from mortal sight, and though " after the flesh now henceforth know we Him no more," 2 Cor V. 16 ; yet Jesus standeth at the right hand of God ready to succor His Saints, Acts YH. 56 ; " He ever liveth to make intercession," Heb. VII. 25 ; He re- maineth there also the victim of atonement, the "Lamb in the midst of the throne," " slain from the foundation of the world". Eev. V. 60. XHI. 8. These facts, tho' unexampled in splendor, are yet not far away reaUties, below which men may only stand and look up amazed. As already seen, they touch us closely at the point of the Incarnation ; and thence lead us on and up by gentle steps, until our faith can calmly view them in their loftiness amid heavenly brilliancy. We cannot deny that men may be dazzled, and turn from them in confusion. It must be confessed that the coldly analytical mind, in scientific pride, may courteously sneer at them, as myths born of fancy, and only fit for the play of the imagination. Moreover the sin stricken, and impure may dread them, and become " afraid with amazement.'* Multitudes alas have disregarded them, do yet disregard them, and probably will to the last. All these objections however do not shake the vast, ven- THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 273 erable, yet now as ever impregnable structure and fortress of evidence, upon which they objectivel}' stand : neither has any other system of truth penetrated, as this does, through all human consciousness, and satisfied in detail and amplitude every and all human wants and aspira- tions. Moreover the germinal, subconscious life, which every man knows he has, but cannot himself support as he could not originate, is reached by the Incarnation ; while the farthest possible, conscious or unconscious, human exaltation is provided for through the Ascension. The compass of all humanity is enclosed, and the necessi- ties of every person's perfection reached and filled, within the bounds of the Incarnation on one side, and of the Ascension on the other. The Creed cannot any longer plead, merely for suffer- ance. It is already evidently humanity's great charter of freedom, man's precious, documentary title to the just privileges of manhood. It is the one formula, unmatched in all the world, wherein, God condescends to us, as we are now conditioned, without abating aught of His majesty ; while at the same time we are shown " The "Way " of re- turn back from our wandering whereby we may reenter, without shame and without loss. His fatherly, loving, yet pure presence. However any one of us may regard or use the Creed, its claim to be God's Hving Voice, sounding now as ever mercifully through the world, must at least appear to those who read aright the story, thus far declared in it, of the Godman. Seated as man, in the personality of His Divine Sonship, at the right hand of the Majesty on high, our Jesus is our most benign Lord and elder brother. As the last Adam, He reaches the spring and centre of our being. As the merciful High Priest, He ever offers His effective sacrifice and makes intercession 12* 274 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. for US. As Son of Man, He sympatliizes with us. As humanity's head and Lord paramount, He holds the eternal kingdom^to the present assurance of hope, as well as the future fruition of all glory and joy — for every human person, who will freely render the ennobhng aUegiauce due unto Him. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 275 *' Jrom \\}tnzt @e sljall tome to ]ub%t tl)e quick anir tl)e kalr/* *'2lnjbf gc 0l)all tome again mil) glor^ to jitbge boti) tl)e quick axxb t\}t beab, tl)l)Ose kingbom sljall l)aDe no enlr." Unmitigated mercy excludes, or at least ignores truth and rigiiteousness. Therefore it is an imperfection, and impossible to God, Man could not receive it, without sacrificing manUness. It is possible to conceive of a slave of self-indulgence, who would like to elect sin and reject its wages. Such a person might be willing to barter hberty for gain, and part with self-respect for advantage. Every human creature however, while true to his innate instincts, would scorn profit bought at the cost of soul-freedom. Heaven itself would not be a home of peace, and rest, to one dragged in by chains of slavery. Moreover according to sound philosophy — which, pure and simple, is only crystalline common sense — it is an axiomatic truth, that personal freedom is the essential condition of personal existence. Should slavery be entire and perpetual reaching not merely the environment, but the whole internal nature, the person would cease to be : he would not exist as a distinctive I. Hence manliness involves the liberty of self-ruin. The same conscious person, in His dignity of godlikeness, who requires free choice, must, in his own vindication, not 276 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. merely accept but demand the full, natural consequences of the election. If the godlike creature chooses the Crea- tor, asLoKD, he confides himself with all temporal and eter- nal fortunes to God. He may be content, and as a creature of limited knowledge should be content, to rest in faith on the wiU and word of God. Not being able to calcu- late the consequences of his doings, misdoings, and omis- sions, his last resort is to leave consequences in the hands of Him in Whom faith is placed. While the details of temporal and spiritual fortune cannot be foreseen, nor provided for or against — at least fully and specifically — by a creature, finite and therefore limited in power and by circumstances; yet the unit or wholeness of his eternal destiny, is left to his own choice and must follow his own determination. All this is involved in the crea- ture's necessity of being under lordship, and flows from the needful consistency of liberty in choosing his lord. This whole subject concentrates in personal choice. As Adam was free to choose which he would believe — God or the Serpent — so will and must every man exercise his freedom, and vindicate his godlike manliness, by choos- ing freely as Adam did between the same persons. Everlasting restoration to Divine companionship not only results to every one who will thus reverse our fore- father's choice ; but, by virtue of the Incarnation, the glorious boon is added of communion with God, whereby, through love, the human will spontaneously moves, without command, coincidently with the will of the Father. This possibiHty involves its opposite. As man may elect the Lord for his God, and therefore be with Him forever ; so may he also not elect the Lord for his God, and therefore not be with Him forever. How all this is possible on God's side we do not know. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 277 and no man can discover. It is beyond human powers to perceive clearly how evil could ever enter into the domain of the God of love. We can only dimly conceive of it, not as an entity but as a negation ; a mere empti- ness, dark and horrible, where the rejecters of God are rejected by God ; Whose very essence of love is repelled by irresponsive souls, and thus made their own very wretchedness. It is one of the trials of faith, to leave unsolved this "mystery of iniquity." They, who trust God, cling with firm resolve to confidence in His perfect- ness. They deal with sin and evil as realities, and wisely treat them as they do other settled facts. As we see them, they stand together as cause and efiect. If they existed not, our distinctive glory of manly freedom could not exist : for there would not be two lordships for us to choose between. God will take care of His own con- sistency. It is wisest for us to acquiesce in what is, using facts and realities as we may while we have time. Individual experience confirms all human history, in showing universal and periodical probation. It comes to all successively in various forms, and at last ends. Time is full of opportunities of trial, but when the end has come trials are over, and efforts no longer avail The period of every one's probation, both with regard to special profit or loss, and with regard to the whole life account of profit and loss, is not determinable by him- self. As every one's fortune involves, or at least affects the fortunes of all mankind, it is obvious that the kinds, limits, and ending of probation must be ordered by One, Who seeth the end with the beginning. Hence the periods of any soul's, or of all souls' probation are assigned, and determined by the Merciful All-wise. Thus the way is prepared for the Judgment. - Man must stand before the judgment seat. His personality 278 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. makes it inevitable. His own conscious manliness de- mands it. Not only is there no invasion of his creature rights in calling him to judgment, but they are allowed and honored by the call. Humanity, spontaneously and with unanimous voice, demands an open and free assize : only slave-souls wish to escape it, while even they, in the deep of their consciousness, must perceive and confess its necessity. This article of the Creed, also, puts no arbitrary yoke on man. It respects him thoroughly. It proclaims a destiny, in full accordance with manly consciousness, and altogether in analogy with history and experience. It assures a final settlement and grand consummation, wherein good shall prevail over evil forever ; and truth, that maketh free, shall be enthroned in heaven and earth. There is a reverse side indeed to this picture. The reward to the faithful stands over against the award that falleth to the faithless. All however will be free and fair. Every one will be, forever, under the Lord he has chosen. Now we come to the evidences. They rest, like the whole revelation from God, on the assured truth of Jesus. All Scripture, old and new, declares not only the judg- ments of God inflicted in earth, on mortals, during the progress of mortal life ; but they concur in proclaiming a single, final assize. Indeed "the day," "that da}^" "the day of judgment " is a term of prophecy, common to both Testaments. In view of the infliction of their chosen destiny upon the wicked, it is called " the day of wrath," " the day of the Lokd's vengeance," " the great and terrible day of the Lord " ; wherein the Judge shall speak* finally, and cause to be executed, once and forever, the sentence "depart from Me, ye that work iniquity," THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 279 S. Matt. Vn. 23, " depart from Me ye cursed into ever- lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels .... and these shall go away into everlasting punishment." XXV. 41, 46. The explanations, accompanying this sentence, show that it will fall, not as a consequence of aggregated in- iquity, in which individuals are caught, and borne down together as by a resistless flood ; but as personal retri- bution for selfishness and self-wiU, that would not be- lieve in the Loed of love — supreme and ever watchful over His creatures — and therefore would not do, faith- fully, works of charity : " for I was an hungered and ye gave Me no meat .... Lord when saw we Thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not miinister unto Thee ? . . . . In- asmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not unto Me." lb. 42-45. " That day " shall be a day of final reward to the righteous — not to the sinless but to the penitently faith- ful. To them also it wiU be a personal judgment, wherein their trust in the person of the Lord shall be acknowledged, and attested by the charity of their mortal lives. lb. 35-40. Their sentence also shall be personal. Its form and substance will consist of an assurance and gift of personal reception into the Father's presence, with sharing in the kingdom of Christ, *' Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." lb. 34. S. Lu. XXII. 29, 30. Rom. V. 17. 2 Tim. H. 12. Rev. V. 10. Throughout both Testaments, God is called "The Judge." It is impossible that any other than God should hold this office, and exercise this Divine prerogative ; for all-wisdom only can encompass the limitless and endless 280 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. complications of judgment in man and tlie universe, and all-power only execute its decrees. Tlie same Scrip- ture however, that calls God " The Judge," assigns the office and dignity to the "LoRb Jesus," the "Christ," "the Son of Man." Is. XI. 3. Dan. Vn. 13, 14. S. Jn. V. 27. Acts XVH. 31. Eom. XCV. 10. Jesus proclaimed Himself the Judge. With that bold- ness which on fitting occasions He manifested, with that daring confidence which put His truthfulness to the se- verest tests, with a wonderfully contrasting harmony of manly meekness and bravery, in the presence of His ene- mies in the day of their power. He assumed, as once be- fore, S. Jn. Vin. 58, the very name Jehovah : *' and Jesus said I AM, and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of Heaven." S. Mar. XIV. 62. S. Matt. XXVI. 64. S. Lu. XXH. 69. With Jehovah's name. He claimed also His great prerogative : " When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory : and before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." S. Matt. XXV. 31-33. The relation of Christ's sonship unto God reconciles the Scriptures, in ascribing judgment to God and yet also to Jesus. The unity of the substance of The Father and The Son, with their diversities of person, explain both the distinctions and the harmonies. Moreover, the humanity of Jesus explains the commission given Him to judge ; while His Deity assures His ability, and war- rants the terms of original authority assumed by and ascribed to Him. Upon the whole, on surest warrant of Holy Scripture, THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 281 which is the only existing source of evidence in this par- ticular, we learn that the final judgment of all the world shall be spoken and executed by this One Saviour, "Who took our nature, retains it yet in Heaven, will come again in it as Judge and King ; nor will He ever lay it aside. He will even retain it after the "consummation of all things." He will remain " the King " of men forever. His humiliation, begun on earth, will be one of His rays of everlasting glory. He will share the fortunes of His beloved forever. Though nought is told us — doubtless because we could not understand it — of the ineffable glory He has, in and by personal communion, directly with The Father ; yet we are assured that this shall not break Him away ever from our nature. He will endure that union for ever, nor shrink from its final consequence : *' Then cometh the end, when He shall have given up the kingdom to God even The Father .... and when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Sox also Himself be subject unto Him, that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all." 1 Cor. XV. 24-28. Subject, yet King forever ! "Of His Kingdom there shall be no end." S. Lu. I. 33. "I saw .... one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of Heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days .... and there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peo- ple, nations, and languages should serve Him : His do- minion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be de- stroyed." Dan. YH. 13-14. God hath "set (Jesus) at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. but in that which is to come." Eph. I 20-21. Col. I. 18. " The kingdoms of this world are become the king- doms of our Lord, and of His Cheist, and He shall reign for ever and ever." Rev. XL 15. Thus the necessary dignity and glory of man individ- ually, and of humanity at large, are conserved, com- pleted and fully rounded out by the last judgment and its consequences. Man answers, every one for himself. Eom. XIV. 12. He pleads his own cause. He sees the justice, or confesses the mercy of his own sentence. The condemned are such on one ground. Because they would not choose The Lord for their God ; because they would not see Jesus in humanity, and show charity for His sake, they are told to go away. They who are received, are they who endured the same personal test. They have trusted in the Godman, and have shown their faith by their works. Personal dignity is preserved throughout. It is carried out equally, in the free men who are condemned to the everlasting bondage, result- ing from their refusal to be kept free by Christ, S. Jn. VIII. 32-36. 1 Cor. VH. 22. Gal. V. 1, and to the free- men who have made, with all diligence, their " calling and election sure." 2 S. Pet. I. 10. A lesser judgment could not fulfil the conscious needs of every man's free spirit. Arbitrary deliverance, from the consequences of the denial or acceptance of Jesus as Lord, would be in- sufferably degrading to man. The necessity of the whole transaction of the incarnation, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, judgment, and final glorification of the Godman ; is bound up in the godlikeness of hu- manity. Not only is there no other " name," no other "way" "truth" and "life", than that of Jesus; but THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 283 there is none otlier way conceivable whereby mankind, with personality intact, both knowing and feeling man- hood, could possibly be saved. Any other way would make salvation a mere outside, or objective boon, from a merely powerful Lord ; and would leave us His everlast- ing slaves; i.e. destroy manhood, and extinguish person- ahty. Jesus only offers salvation, in which every true faculty of every man, and every necessity of humanity are provided for, and fulfilled. The final condescension which He makes, after the warfare of good and evil shall have ended and the con- summation of all things been completed, preserves, to humanity, individually and collectively forever, its su- premacy in creation, and its unrivalled nearness to God. The Son also HimseK becomes subject. The All is su- preme. The All is in His Only Begotten Son. The Son of God remains Son of Man : not now any longer medi- ator as between sinners and God, but everlastingly linked as Son to the Father, Whose divine substance He par- takes ; and as Head over aU things, King forever over the whole body of mankind, whose humanity is kept in and retained by His own never ending, divine person- ality. *' I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in One." S. Jn. XIV. 23. Nothing is told us, or rather not much, of the course of nature, during the endless ages that shall follow the great consummation. The beginning, and the essential character of that consummation are revealed ; and these revelations put the finial on the great structure of the unity of man's mortal histoiy. At the end, as at the be- ginning, the glory and the greatness and the blessedness of man consist in union and communion with God — person to person. The means, by which this is effected, 284 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. is a person, both God and man. He finally becomes the king forever ; on the one hand receiving All from The All, and on the other imparting to every co-sharer in hu- manity whatever his capacities can receive. The King remains Divine, and takes care of His own union with the rATHEK. That must ever remain concealed. Man can- not penetrate between the Two in One. Attached how- ever everlastingly to the Godman, all of His that human- ity can receive, to its utmost and most specific fulness, will be poured constantly forth ; so that every one shall be filled all full of the beauty, and power, and glory, and sweetness, and perfectness of The All, forever. Here the second section of the Creed closes. The field left open to man's vision of hope is at least unri- valled in splendor. Nothing in science or even poetry- can be adduced to compare with a final kingdom, em- bracing all creation, presided over by The Son of God and man, and administered by the Saints of the Most High ; whose saintship shall have been determined by their own free choice of Jesus as their Lord, and be exer- cised endlessly in full communion thro' Christ with God. Beneath this kingdom " all things " expand. Above it is only the Throne of The Most High. Not only is this picture unrivalled, but its realization is necessary to humanity's normal growth, and develop- ment. Its every detail comes forth from the Creed. It proceeds wholly, from the facts therein contained. It is the mere expansion, of those facts, towards fulness. Not a point can be spared by man, without seK- violence in the deep of his consciousness, without wronging his own soul ; while the whole is the only whole in which he and all his fellows can stand, uncramped, unfettered, and free, to the very root of personal identity, forever. THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT.' 285 " I bduM in i\)t " 2lnir 3 bditvc in tl]c ^otn gitjer of life/' Unity of substance, existing in and manifested thro* distinction of persons, is a familiar fact, variously illus- trated. The unity of the substance of humanity — in- cluding material, psychical and spiritual manifestation in every individual — exists in innumerable persons : not indeed the same particles of matter in different persons ; nor, on the other hand, mere material likeness one with another ; but common participation and conjunction in the humanity, that was all germinal in Adam, character- istically complete in every one of his descendants, and yet one and entire in the whole human organization. The human persons differ in capacity, power, and wis- dom, but every one is of one stock and altogether man. Though beyond natural experience, it is not beyond mental conception, that all human power, dignity, and perfectness may be concentrated in one or divided thro' many personal instances. In this case, it is not necessary to conceive of the whole, as suffering diminu- tion, in supplying the means of perfectness to the parts. The whole source may be conceived of, as immeasurable. Hence whatever may be taken from it, while enjoying its range, may not diminish its substance. Human, like all natural analogies, help us in appre- hending God, as mirrors help in finding out forms. ' For 286 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. now we see by means of a mirror, in similitude/ 1. Cor. Xm. 12. Mirrors reflect images. Realities have as- pects like their reflected images. Substantially, how- ever, they are never known by their images. When per- son belongs to substance, the will of the person often modifies, sometimes controls, and generally directs both substantial and personal manifestations. Still the image is a true reflection. The form at least of the person, and some aspects of the substance, are shown in the image. This form and these aspects will inevitably ap- pear, when one turns from the reflection to view the thing reflected. More may follow, but the correspon- dence will remain. Granting therefore, indeed zealously maintaining, that God cannot be discovered by human analogies nor de- scribed within the compass of human forms or ideas ; it is nevertheless important and true, that our understand- ing of His revelation of Himself is helped by what He has written elsewhere than in The Book. Our famiUar- ity with the substantial unity of humanity, in connection with distinction of persons, makes it possible for us to 23erceive the same fact in the Divine existence ; and pre- ]3ai'es us to apprehend the further, and distinctive fact that, the Divine substance being indivisible, the Divine persons are not only respectively but wholly God, not each of like substance, but every one the very same sub- stance. It is no objection, that we cannot comprehend this mode of existence ; wherein the Father, the begotten Son, and the proceeding SPIRIT, each operates eternally, so that there never was a time when either existed alone. That cause precedes effect is so attested in nature, as to become an axiom of human philosophy. Cause coinci- dent with effect, is barely conceivable ; and yet we know by " intuitive reason " [Kant] that there must exist THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 287 somewhere a primordial unity of self-sufficient Omnipo- tence, in wliicli cause and effect, beginning and ending, source and proceeding, origin and succession, are — as language only can express it — contemporaneous, coinci- dent, coefficient, coiinited, one ; and this not by confu- sion, but by distinction too vast for creatures to encom- pass, and unity too delicate for creatures to discern. They can know it by faith. Whatever consistency we are capable of apprehending, altho' it far exceed our comprehension, may yet be true of God. We cannot comprehend God, We cannot even comprehend our own subconscious life. Its germ with its assimilations lie beyond our wills, and below our deepest introspection. Yet we believe in our life, and use it from the first layer of consciousness upward to- wards any or all possible developments. Much less can we comprehend the Lokd and Giver of Life. We can only perceive Him, when and where and how He emerges in His works, reveals Himself in His words, imparts His grace, or addresses us in person. Primarily therefore we can know God, only as He makes Himself known ; and when revealed we can only right- fully require that His word shall be consistent, in and throughout both nature and revelation. We may ask, not that the image reflected in His works shall be God, or even show The All ; but only, that what it does reflect concerning Him shall coincide, essentially, with what is seen and heard directly from Him. The possibility of direct revelation is suggested in the existence and ca- pacity of human language * ; while the personal owner- * " No langnage has yet been found into which, it was not pos- sible to translate the Lord's Prayer." — F. Max Muller, Orig. and Growth Relig., p. 69. N. Y., 1879. 2SS THE CEEED AWD MODERN THOUGHT. shiiD of his own tongue, by man, suggests that God also speaks as He wills. Our confidence in His love and mercy is assurance, that His direct revelation will con- tain all that can be of use to us, in any condition, with our finite capacities. He may not make every fact clear to each one's capacity, however disposed or indisposed that one be to receive the truth ; but He will surely put it so that the earnest, the honest, and the willing may, with due diligence, discover and learn, to the fuU extent of their needs or capacities. In the preceding two divisions of The Creed, God The Father and God the Son are set forth ; and the complete form, in outline and plan, of the Divine dealings with and designs towards man, is mapped out. At this point we are strongly reminded of that moment, wherein the form of man in " dust of the ground " stood soulless be- fore God. When Christ ascended, the work He had to do, in forming and setting up " His Body The Church," was finished. It was in the earth, fully formed but not yet vivified. AVhile far from presuming to judge, as to the necessity of another and further manifestation of God, are we not at least prepared to hear of a further manifestation? Having perceived and adored a duality in the Godhead, can we demur when such a department, as that of the vivification of all things, is found under its own personal Lord ? Must we not simply accept such a fact, if it be revealed ? Popular science, indeed, assumes that the processions in all nature are impersonal. They are called natural forces. Their laws are studied, and learned ; and, when formulated, the result is named generically "science.'* The science of astronomy, for instance, is not a mere accumulation of facts, but of facts that stand in harmo- THE CSEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 289 nious relation to one another through the laws of mo- tion, and of gravity. Throughout the sciences, when any "force" is discovered, its consistency and correla- tion are assumed, nor is the assumption ever rebuked by facts. Force indeed may meet force. Hence forces may modify, or even counteract each other ; but the equivalents are always reciprocally equal. There is a complete harmony or full compensation, in all the pro- cessions of force in the material universe. Note however the next step of " science " ! It is assumed, as if a point unquestionable, that na- ture's forces are mere evolutions or emanations of power. The attractions of the magnet or the outflow of heat from fire, or any other material effect of an apparently material cause, is confidently described as a property of the particular matter or of its condition. Nothing of all this is proved by science ; nor can it be until some fine test can be constructed, which shall catch magnetism between the magnet and its object, or heat between the motion it causes and the resultant sensa- tion, and subject either not to another division, but to a final and ultimate analysis, such as will show it as it is. This, being the one unattainable centre of all knowledge, is unattainable here. Hence the talk of science about the procession of the forces of nature, as if they were mere evolutions of necessity, is simply unscientific. We cannot know these forces in themselves, and therefore can only form conjectures about them. It is just as competent, for one man to believe that natural laws are the Divine consistency in action ; as it is for another to assume that they are blind forces, evolving their own es- sentiahty. The question does not belong to science at all ; or at least will not, imtil science shall have opened an entirely new field of research, 13 290 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Nor may metapliysics solve this problem ; for d priori it is certainly as probable that there is a great supreme power, ruling all the universe and acting through every detail or incident, as that matter governs its 0"svn prop- erties, or that force is self evolute. The operations in the universe of motion, and life, and those of all " force " or energy may, for aught man can say or gainsay, be simply the personal action of the Ever Present Supreme ; to Whom nothing can be great and nothing small, nothing remote, and nothing innu- merable. "We may call these Divine operations, by the common terms " life " and *' force" or energy. When we do so, the scientific fallacy is not always absent from our minds. We are in danger of thinking them both to be abstract influences, mere impereonal emanations. In this we err presumptuously, and therefore unwisely. Nor does it relieve us, when we discover that the " wise men of this world" are thinking with us. Neither should it disturb us, if they refuse to think otherwise. The fact is a fact nevertheless, that the procession of life and force, through the universe, is indiscoverable by human investigation ; and consequently, if known at all, must be revealed. We do not care to enter into any argument, drawn from any human conceptions of God, respecting the probabilities of the Divine procession. We will not even urge, that it would be much more in accordance with the Divine-personality, if His outgoings through the Universe should be personal, and not in the form of ab- stract life and force. We will not even urge that ab- stract life and force are mere empty names, of meaning- less things. We should be content to turn to the only source of super-human knowledge, and inquire what thQ Book of God tells of the Divine procession, THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 291 We do however claim beforehand that God, The All, being already known, as person, even as Fathee and Son, may certainly be still further personal. He may admin- ister universal life and force through a Third Person, co- essential, coequal, distinct in personality, concurrent in will and operation, and cotinited in being with One Tri- unity. Evidence is competent to establish the fact, of the per- sonally distinct existence of The Divine Spieit. Direct utterance from God is the sole, possible source of such evidence. He has chosen His own medium of transmit- ting the record of that utterance ; as He also chose, and must in respect for His own dignity have chosen, its time, place and mode. We are competent only to test The Scriptures, in relation to the Holt Ghost, by such canons of criticism as fairly apply to it. We may test genuineness and authenticity, through every text, radi- cally ; but what is clearly uttered in them, we must re- ceive as it is given; and add it to our store of knowledge, however we may esteem it in itself, or however easier it might be for us to accept false science and believe in an abstract force instead of a concrete person. Man, with all creation, was made at first lifeless. The earth was less even than man, for it was formless. *'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void ; and darkness upon the face of the deep". Gen. I. 1-2. The very next words are, " And the SpmiT of God moved upon the face of the waters". 3. His personality is more than suggested. The obviously simple meaning of the words reveals a person, brooding over the silent, dark creation. Reading these words, under the influence of later revelation, they present a vivid picture of the Lord and Giver of Life, surveying matter with its vast and 292 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. countless potentialities, and preparing to vivify its forms, as the Creator shall shape them, and to carry them on- ward, through life and light, to perfectness of beauty and power. The attractive suggestiveness of the coun- cils of the Godhead, which the literal earliest Scriptures in plain terms declare, becomes vivid in view of the per- sonal Spirit, moving as with outstretched wing over the void earth, and preparing to inaugurate time, with the motions and songs of living creatures at home in illu- mined land or sea. A mere abstraction of power, effect- ing this, is the most dismal, and coldest of all possible chaotic conceptions. It is not what is here revealed. In the subsequent Scriptures of the Old Testament, The Spirit is no where positively called a person ; yet many passages receive accessions of vividness and power, when we take them as speaking of The Spirit as a person. The mournful tone of wearied patience, with which the first prevalence of wickedness is mentioned by the mer- ciful yet consistent and just God, sets forth to those who wiU see it the same brooding Spirit, striving lovingly jvith perverse mankind, yet not yielding too far to per- sonal pity, nor sacrificing right and truth to mercy. "My Spirit shall not always strive with Man". Gen. VI. 3. In the prophet Zechariah, however, there is one dis- connected passage, thrown into the midst of a vision, by angelic voice, as "the word of the Lord," which in direct terms rebukes the abstract idea. It contrasts with ab- straction. It says, " Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts ". TV. 6. Tliese references to the Old Testament are preliminary tho' important. They serve to show how its adumbra- tions ai-e in accordance with the plain terms of the New THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 293 Testament, in relation to the distinct personality of the Holy Ghost. They are not taken as independent proofs. They may be fairly claimed as adjuncts, illustrations and confirmation of proof, because they are capable of an in- terpretation in accordance with the clear announcements of the fuller revelation. Thus to this point, as to all the Creed, the Old Testament contributes the more or less developed types or foreshadowings, of what the New Tes- tament presents more fully evolved and revealed. The first mention of the Holy Ghost, in the New Tes- tament, exactly accords with His first mention in the Old Testament. Where the Creation is the primary theme, and basal fact, He appears brooding, that He may inau- gurate life. Where the Incarnation with the consequent new-creation is basal, there the same life-giving Spieit comes, effecting the miraculous conception. From the central source of the Godhead the fiat goes forth, and the loving Father looks on. The self-offering Son descends to put into form the will of the Father, by taking on Himself the foundation, or rather into Himself the root of the new creation. The Blessed Virgin is called by the angelic messengei*, and comes wondering into the circle of the group. Then was fulfilled what was " said unto her. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ". S. Lu. I. 35. Assign these operations merely to different functions of the same person, and only a vague, remote vastness of power comes to mind ; working upon the virgin as flood- ing light and heat, or operating dynamically on the earth producing here a flower and there a glittering glacier. The dearest truth, the sweetest and mightiest fact, the most pervading and stupendous reahty, even the assump- tion of humanity into Deity would pass out of the grasp of the heart ; to lodge, and that not long, in the cold cham- 294 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. bers of the mind. The person of man, ever yearning for personal communion, would not find, in a merely dpmamic incarnation, a place for himself. Let the group however be perceived by man, let its harmonious action appear — with persons, communing to- gether out of Heaven, and cooperating on earth — and then, in heart lovingly, in mind vividly, quickened thro* aU his personality, he enters sympathetically upon the scene, praising God and calling the Virgin " blessed." The worshipful consequences of the personahty of the Holy Ghost, though not independent and much less ab- stract proofs of it as fact, are surely worthy of considera- tion, as accessories to proof. The adaptation it has to man as whole and concrete person, the way it enters into and fills him, the outcall it makes to his sympathies, and the infiltration by which it pervades him with warmth and light, meet all the wants of his nature. Power combines with sweetness. All that is strong in man drinks re- freshment from the Omnipotent Spirit ; while aU that is trusting and loving, instead of being chilled by an ab- straction, goes forth in eager personality to commune, in entire satisfaction, with the embracing and indwelling personal Spirit. The very dimness of the idea of His form, helps the apprehension of the possible intimacy of communion with Him. He appears less objective, tho* no less distinctive than the Father and the Son. He therefore seems nearer, and perhaps as the life-giver and link of renewal of life is, in that sense, nearer. He is not an abstraction, and yet not a defined form. He is a ghost, The Holy Ghost ! He is therefore especially fitted for our own spirit's confidence and trust. Man's spirit is not conceivable as form, and yet it lies at the very spring of his identity. "With this distinctive root of per- sonality, the distinctive Spirit of God communes. His THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 295 personality is as definite as man's own spirit's radical ex- istence is. As we know one, in primary subconscious- ness, so we perceive and rejoice in its communion with Him, Wlio is God's Spirit. At the baptism of Jesus ; whereby, for the fulfilment of all righteousness, He, sinless and pure, received initia- tion into the body of the faithful who were prepared for the coming Kingdom ; there was another appearance of The Spieit. Herein also He retains His office, as the life giver. From Heaven, the Father's voice is heard, de- scending ; out of the water the Godman is coming, " and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him ". S. Matt. HL 16. S. Mar. L 10. Again we have the approving Father, the consenting and cooperating Son, and the Spirit sealing and finishing the whole trans- action. The idea, the forming, and the vitalization, three distinct inseparables, which constitute the circle of all existence in harmony with the completeness of every creation, are here manifested as functions of distinct per- sons. The triunity of God is, together, for the first time distinctively shown forth. Man's eye is, this once, per- mitted to see that the divine institutions not only have outward visible signs, but inward spiritual graces also ; and that these graces are not abstract favors of the great God of mercy, but actual immediate and personal anoint- ings by the Holy Ghost, John's baptism, Hke all his work, was preparatory ; and therefore not perfect until supplemented. Until the time of the kingdom should have come, it was a rite obhgatory upon all, who would faithfully keep up with the covenant, then advancing under Divine revelations and special calls of God. Like every appointment, both in the Old and New Testaments, this had its side towards God, as well as its side towards 296 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. man. Man sees the manifested formal side. He lias faith in the existence, and some conception of the aspect of the spiritual side. At the baptism of Jesus this faith was helped by sight. As then the visible Spirit showed that His presence attends upon holy rites, making them divine ; therefore we may with all confidence use them, not as cold forms, but as forms made living by the pre- sent Lord of life. Whatever theological definition may be adopted of John's baptism, this at least must be granted — as God is not an actor of plays, but a doer of realities — that Jesus not only fulfilled an outward duty, but was veritably anointed then and there, with the ap- proval of the Father, by the life giving Spirit : Whose personal function is to infuse vitahty into persons, im- part authority to office, give efficiency to appointed means of grace, and make the whole complete. The tri-personahty of God was manifested at the bap- tism of Jesus. Of the distinction of the persons in this case, there can be no just denial, nor tenable doubt. Viewed on man's side, and we cannot view it on God's side, three distinct appearances are given. Each opera- tion is complete, such as a person only can perform. Now we must either believe those persons to exist distinc- tively, or must suppose that God made an unreal mani- festation. According to aU human conceptions of truth, it would have been inconsistent, and therefore impossi- ble, for God to so manifest Himself, as at this baptism, if in fact His person were one. Without venturing on the folly of attempting, outside revelation, to determine what is or what is not possible with God ; we may at least claim, that He would not have appeared as three before man, unless he was veritably three. The alterna- tive is the half ludicrous half shocking idea, that abstract love can call itself " I '* ; that abstract power can take THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 297 visible, tangible form ; and that abstract vitality can de- scend, on gentle, brooding wing, and rest visibly, on a visible man. The actual deity cf the Holy Ghost is impHed, and therefore proved in His operations at this baptism. We have akeady found the Son to be God. Harmony and fitness require that only Deity should take prominent part, officially in a great transaction, wherein the Father and the Son conjointly inaugurate the new dispensation. It was the first visible consecration, before man, of the Savioue of men. It was the concentration of prophecy on Him, of whom all the prophets spake. Acts X. 43. It was the Godman's official entrance upon the service, whereby God and man were to become reconciled. It was the binding link, in the greatest chain, of God's greatest series of works. Beyond creation and pro\d- dence, the re-creation and regeneration of godlike man towers, as the noblest memorial and monument of God in the universe. Hence, the appearance of the Holy Ghost and His cooperation, at both the laying of the comer of this structure and at its public inauguration, at least suggests His equality with, as well as distinction from the Father and the Son. In the grand progression wherein God reveals Himself to man, the Holy Ghost here again comes forward per- fecting that revelation. As before, so now also. He manifests Himself the Lord and giver of hfe. The work of redemption had been formally completed. The Prophet had fully spoken the word of God. Its enuncia- tion, by Apostles or messengers, was in abeyance. The Priest-victim had finished " by His one oblation of Him- self once offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice ob- lation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." The celebration of the memorial sacrifice, vvith its effi- 13* 298 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGnT. cacy for individuals and for the whole body of the faith- ful obedient, to continue through all generations to the end of time, was also in abeyance. The King had ascended, bearing His humanity with Him, to the right hand of the Fatheb. His royalty, altho' won in His human nature, on earth, and vindicated before the Uni- verse, was suffered also to be in abeyance. The formal Gospel was completed, like the formal man before " the LoED God . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ". Jesus had promised to send The Comforter — S. Jn. XV. 26 — another Comforter yet one with Himself — XTV. 16, 18 — Who should set the seal of His testimony upon Jesus and His truth, XV. 26, should inspire the mem- ories of the Apostles, XV. 27, XIV. 26. 1. S. Jn. V. 6, and endue them " with power from on High ". S. Lu. XXrV". 49. Jesus commanded His Apostles to tarry in Jerusalem. Ten days they thus waited, doing only one collegiate act and that a formal one, in associating Mat- thias with themselves in the Apostleship. Throughout this short period, they were faithfully waiting for the promise. They " continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Marj^ the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren ". Acts I. 14. This com- mon prayer showed their common hope and trust ; while their one official act was strong evidence of confidence in the j)erpetuity of the mission which had been given them, when after His resurrection " Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, ' All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing .... and teacHng'". S. Matt. XXVIH. 18, 19. Thus, continuing in the plain path of humble duty, anxious and wrndering no doubt, and comparing their lowly and apparently deserted condition with their freshly remembered hopes of the restoring again of the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 299 kingdom to Israel, they came together for mutual en- couragement, and walked together in the deep mental darkness that was the natural reaction of their dazzling hopes, not knowing what the dawn would show, but bravely waiting, confident that light would come down from above. " And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues Hke as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance ". Acts H. 1-4. The ordination which Jesus had given, when "He breathed on them and saith unto them * Receive ye the Holy Ghost ' ", S. Jn. XX. 22, was now not only sealed by the personal confirmation of the Divine Spirit Him- self, but vivified, made living and effective, by His per- sonal descent upon and into them. Not only were they different in character thenceforward ; but they began to exercise the full powers of their office, and soon went forth boldly on their world-wide mission. They bore brave witness everywhere to Jesus, and the Resurrection. They taught, they baptized, they bound and loosed, S. Jn. XX. 22. 1 Cor. V. 5. 1 Tim. I. 20, they celebrated the Holy Communion in obedience to the command *' Take eat this is My body Drink ye all of it, for this is My blood ". S. Matt. XXVL 26-28. They set forth the one great sacrifice, whenever, unto God before man, they presented the high memorial in obedience to the injunction of Jesus, " This do for My remembrance", S. L. XXH. 19. 1 Cor. XL 24. Thus, as Lord and Giver of life, the Holy Ghost three times manifested Himself, wonderfully. Doubtless He 300 THE CEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. had counselled at the first call of chaos into being ; but it was His distinctive personal operation that gave life to the forms of creation. He operated in the miraculous conception, effecting the Incarnation, and appeared in person, distinct from both Father and Son, when He in- fused the Godman with the baptismal grace that opened and set into operation His Mission of redemption ; and now, that mission being fulfilled and its transmission down the ages having been formally perfected, again the Life-giver appears distinctively, and bestows the light and life and vigor of " power from on high ". Many times Jesus — Who is the Truth — spake of the Holy Ghost, and distinguished Him from both Himself and The Father. Not merely was His work spoken of as Divine, but He Himself, both directly and indirectly, mentioned as a distinct person. S. Jn. XIV. 16. XV. 26. XVI. 7. St. Lu. XXrV. 48. Now this fact centres, as all the facts of Divine revelation do, in the truth of Jesus. As He is true, so are they real in every particu- lar assigned or ascribed to them by Him. Tlie person- ality of the Holy Ghost cannot be taken out of the Gospel, for the truth of Jesus is committed to it : nor, for the same reason, can His Deity be questioned. S. Jn. XTV. 17. XVL 13. Upon external evidence therefore, it stands, like the whole Gospel, impregnable. It is part of the unity of Diviae revelation. It rests firmly upon a foundation of which Jesus is the comer-stone. It is attested historically more than any other facts of the past. It is witnessed and confirmed to our generation, as to those of the past, by the visible existence of a king- dom or church, that never could have come into existence without the facts it bears witness to, and never could have been perpetuated had those facts been doubtful or in any particular defective. Thus the whole truth of the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 301 Gospel involves the fact of the personaHty of the Holy Ghost; and they both together stand on "that Rock Christ", "The Truth." This interlinking unity with reciprocal support of the parts of the Gospel, severally strong yet mutually de- pendent, here again is referred to, and its outline of proof repeated, because it attaches to the Creed, as the attestation of every portion, as well as the final seal of evidence set to it all. Yet further, modem man, indeed man as man, man imiversally, man true to his divine image cannot spare the fact of the personality of the Holy Ghost. The alter- native is an abstract power. The Lord of Life, as an ab- stract force going out from the " Great Unknown," does not touch even the deep of conscious human affection. To the subconsciousness of mere life, it fails to grant that real and comforting assurance, necessary to peace of mind and repose of soul, by which we commit our own self-insufficient and therefore dependent personality, in its germ and utmost possible development, confidently, to the care of a person ; or rather of the Person in Whom dwells the immortal power of life. Only a person can appreciate, and respond to a person. Man cannot en- dure the thought of losing his distinctive personaHty. Positivists and their congeners, with the evil disposed — content to bargain for indulgence at any cost — cannot persuade humanity at large, even if their loud assertions content themselves, willingly to sacrifice personal identity for any possible present or future fortune. Man may throw off matter, or even part with characteristics, but the essential "I" he clings to with aU that remains true and free in his heart and mind and soul and strength. He cannot therefore endure the idea of an abstract force, making and ruling the vital germ on which his whole 302 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. distinctive being depends. The yearnings of humanity are not proofs perhaps of the personality of the Holy Ghost, but they are responsively concurrent with its truth. They show at least that the fact — in and by itself so amply attested by external evidence — is practical in its bearing upon us ; so practical that, without it, our deepest consciousness would plunge at last into an ice- bath of dark abstraction ; while, with it, our mysterious subconsciousness of personal life is satisfied ; and, by it, our largest conception of possible perfection filled with responsive love. Moreover humanity, saved, re- united, and harmonized in organic wholeness, cognizes personality as one at least of its essential elements. Its harmony depends upon free personal responsiveness. Humanity, vivified in every constituent person by The Spirit of Truth, secures for every one not only his in- alienable dignity, but his restfulness in love and beauty. Confident that his distinctive "I" is sustained and kept living by the personal Spieit, the dread of disintegra- tion is taken away. Knowing that his own personality is thus secured against all vicissitudes, he is satisfied wherever his lot may be cast, and restful whatever mem- bership may be assigned him in the one organic family of the saved. We are not required to consider what might have been the state of consciousness, had God been revealed to us as a mere unity. There is a conceivable possibility, wherein the creature, standing forever apart from The Creator, should be evermore the mere recipient of bounty, and a merely obedient servant. No one can say that such a creature might not be happy and content. Man how- ever could not be happy and content, as might be such a creature : nor is he so constituted that simple happiness and contentment could, as a boon, be so bestowed as to THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 303 satisfy him. That sense of personality, that basal I, fol- lowed at once by " I will or I will not " ; all put him be- yond those limits, wherein he can be forever filled by mere gifts, and satisfied by enforced obedience. His conscious personality, and the evident need he has for personal inter-change and communion with other per- sons, prepares him to learn that the Godhead is capable in itself of personal responsiveness. Love, man's ruling and pervading faculty, is essentially responsive. It can- not be a mere unit. It must sacrifice and receive sacri- fices. It perfects itself in unlimited responsiveness of self sacrifice. That God might be all this as a mere imit, we need neither affirm nor deny. It is enough that, as such, man would not be His image. Indeed such a God would be not only incomprehensible by us, but we could not even apprehend Him. We cannot form a satisfactory conception, nor even a consistent idea, of a personal God as an absolute unit. Person de- mands person ; not only practically but even ideally. Love is dead, or rather is not, without response. Hence the Triune God, pre-existent, is conceivable. When therefore the Trinity is made known to us, it satisfies our minds with its unity of substance and of source ; while it fills our hearts by manifesting living, responsive love, as part of its essence, woven into its being, and eternally active in the counsels and communion of The Father, The Son and The Spirit. Not only may the wise forever advance in -Wisdom, by contemplating the Trinity ; and the critical find ever growing analogies, between the Divine Archetype and the human image ; but the feeling heart, sensitive as to its privacy, jealous for its dignity, assured of its inter- constitutional supremacy, yet yearning, in the conscious distinctiveness of person, for response that may fill and 304 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. satisfy itself — can willingly enter into communion with tlie ever communing Three. Man, thus, in his depths and in his wholeness, may willingly adore the loving Father ; rejoice humbly in friendship with the gracious Son of God and Man ; and share, through deepest per- sonal consciousness and widest vital outactions, the fel- lowship of the Holt Ghost. The greatest among men has thus every faculty filled, every power called forth, and every longing satisfied ; while the least, in his god- likeness, loves and trusts and communes, with less un- derstanding perhaps, but with fulness of joy. There is no middle ground, between the Trinity and a Divine abstraction. A Divine Unit is an abstraction. Man's personality is an ever present, irrepressible rejec- tion of an abstract God. Such a god would be mere force, whose creatures must ever be mere aggregations of elements, without any sense whatsoever of personality, without any longings of hope or yearnings of love. In plainest terms the One, abstract god of forces, is simply a lie ; or else all creation is a lie, and man's own deepest consciousness is the deadhest lie of all. The Tri-per- sonahty of the Godhead alone satisfies the whole man ; the Creed, in setting it forth, vindicates to Modern Thought its own truth, and speaks to the human essence, in every man, a voice of truest sympathy and assurance. Its fact of facts goes to the deep of subconsciousness with warmth of love, and follows reason and imagination to their utmost attainment or reach of aspiration ; aU along showing reverence for human personal dignity, and re- sponding lovingly to every question about the problem of life as it rises spontaneously in or is framed reflec- tively by that irrepressible personal I, which cannot help searching all the known. Indeed beyond the known the I must and wiU ponder the past, whence the crea- THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 305 ture*s first shadowy consciousness rises, and peer into the future whither its path is plainly tending. Thought rests primarily on the lowest stratum of subconscious- ness, viewing personaHty in germ ; and when, having climbed the utmost height of reason, it stands on the pinnacle of knowledge, there also is pei'sonality : indeed, when poised on soaring wing at imagination's farthest height, personality is held hard hold of still. In delving, and climbing, and soaring, satisfaction is man's object of search, and love only satisfies. Love assures person- aHty. Love is in the essence of the Godhead. There- fore God — revealed one in substance yet three persons — though mysterious, is a mystery that man, being such as he is, can begin with and end with. The human image stands firmly, upheld by the inter-responsive, re- ciprocally communing, substantially One, loving, tri- personal God, Creator. The complete Uring man finds . all his needs anticipated and wants satisfied, in the loving, formative and vivifying Preserver. While hope, man's soul-anchor within the veil, chngs to personaHty ; trusting in the future to be drawn openly within the life circuit of the personal Fathek's love, the personal Son's brotherhood and gladly accepted lordship, with the personal Spirit's pervading, vivifying, and perfecting, ghostly feUowship. Again we claim that, whatever else may be said of the Creed, it surely must be aUowed to be unrivaUed, and unique, in reverence for manhood. Its facts stand pre- eminent and alone. They reveal a necessity, which is no trammel, and open a future that affords ample scope and verge enough for aU men's or any man's expansion. Its wonderful perfectness is in its wonderful simpHcity. Not wealth and power and greatness, but love is its theme ; and this love it shows eternal, by revealing God triune, ever reciprocating Father, Son, and Spirit. 206 THE OEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. ** 1X11)0 |)roreebetl) from 2ri)e iatl)er, anb ^l)t Son;^ The mode of tlie existence of the Dmne person of The Spirit, being naturally indiscoverable, is in some measure revealed. Its assertion, as a fact, rests upon the truth of Jesus ; not merely upon the integrity of His intentions, but upon the amply supported reality and necessity of His complete and accurate knowledge. John the Bap- tist says of Him, " What He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth". S. Jn. HI. 32. He Himself said to "a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews ", " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we « do know, and testify that we have seen ", v. 11. The testimony of Jesus, in respect to the mode of the existence of the person of the Holy Ghost, is definite and clear, as in the following clause of a sentence, wherein His distinctive personality and Divinity are also plainly, though incidentally, revealed : " But when the Comforter is come. Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth. Who proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me ". XV. 26. Procession is a common fact in nature. Power, influ- ence, beauty, light, warmth and even authority proceed from innumerable, natural sources ; each carrying with it the whole potency of its source. But, procession in nature we are accustomed to regard as an abstract force. No one can describe an abstract force ; and, though many talk of it as a familiar idea, it never yet has been THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 307 observed, except as an emanation from some person, or- ganism, or form. Still it is familiar to us, ideally, as an emanation ; and, though abstraction may not be defi- nitely cognizable, emanation certainly is. It is a legiti- mate question therefore, * Whether the Holy Ghost may not be an emanation from God ; the outgoing from Him of potent Hfe, .and light, and power, and beauty ' ? There is no objection to answering that d prioiH, man being judge, it might so be. If it were further asked, ' Would not this simpHfy the Godhead to human conceptions ' ? it may be answered that it would simphfy it to the human mind : but it must be added, that to the common human personal consciousness it would present an un- satisfactory Lord and Giver of Life. As has been amply argued already, an emanation, calling into existence the conscious person, the I, and upholding supporting and defending man's person through the struggle of mortal life, and guiding his hope with comfort, is not a satisfac- tory conception. In the germinal consciousness, and central potency or capacity, of our being, we can only repose on a person. Our development also must pro- ceed, in and by personal fellowship ; while the fruition of love, which alone rounds out and fills hope, must be personal communion with One, Who, in the beginning the middle and the fulfilment of personal life, presents Himself ever in sympathetic personahty. These points, however, are only the confirmations of responsive Humanity to a fact, otherwise adequately es- tablished. " We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen ", S. Jn. HL 11, says our Lord Jesus. Every word of Him, Who is " the Word and Wisdom of God", bears weight. The plural form is the form of authority. "We" means more than one. It calls to 308 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. mind the creative conference, wherein " God said, Let us make man in our image ". Gen. I. 26. The Divine con- sciousness is manifested by Jesus. He exhibits assur- ance that what He says is confirmed by the concurrence of the Trinity. No other view explains His use of the phiral. Some other, or others were associated in His mind, with Himself. Not men surely, for no man stood on the same plane of knowledge with Him : moreover His discourse was of " heavenly things." Angels could not have been in His thought, for He never associates Himself on terms of equality with angels. He speaks ever as "the only begotten Son of God." In this in- stance, doubtless, the " We " is an expression of con- scious oneness with Goix The unreserved and unhmited assertion of His truth and knowledge that follows gathers, if possible, added force and accuracy from the evidently thoughtful consciousness that He was speaking, not with appeal to God, but in actual communion of word and power, as well as knowledge and unison of will, with God. Such an asseverator, making such an asseveration, is incapable of mistake. What He ever says is, essentially and always, simply real and definitely true. Simply and definitely He declares that the person, the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth " proceedeth from the Fathek." The singular verb in present tense is used. It is not 'proceeded as if it were past and done, but 'proceedeth, is proceeding, ever continuing to proceed. This is essen- tial to the unchangeableness of the Eternal One ; and belongs to the nature of the Infinite. Like the ever be- getting, *'only begotten Son", is the ever proceeding Spirit. Both are eternal. There is neither division in the sense of boundaries, nor succession in the sense of time, possible to the One Absolute. The end and the THE CEEED AND MODERN THOTiaHT. 309 beginning are to Him all here and now : or rather His here is infinite, and His now is without beginning or end. All this we hold in apprehension. We need not try to comprehend it. Only, where it touches us, need we set our thoughts upon it. It touches us as creatures, and vitally concerns us to know, that the Lord and giver of Life is eternal in His personaUty. We are accustomed to associate form with personahty. The personality of Jesus becomes clearer to our minds, through the human f onn He took when assuming human nature. It is possible however for us to receive the idea of a person, existing in spiritual essence, to Whom no specific form necessarily belongs ; but in Whom is the faculty of self manifestation, through any form or influence He may choose to adopt. The Holy Ghost came to earth first and *' moved upon the face of the waters ". It is in our power to conceive of Him thus, as an unseen, felt — not force — but presence, brooding in Hght over dark chaos, and calling forms of life into be- ing. He manifested Himself again, in the form of a dove, when He descended to anoint the Savioue, as He was coming up from the waters of Baptism ; Who went forth thence on His mission, assured of the gentle pres- ence, in and with Him, of the Spirit of power, through Whom He should, as man, fulfil His work, effect His seK-sacrifice, and win His kingly crown. Again the Spirit appears, mid the sound of a rushing mighty wind, and sat visibly in form of " cloven tongues of fire " ; on those who went forth thence, inspired to preach in various languages the one, coiinited and consistent word of the Gospel. Theu' tongues uttered the sounds, which He, in silent afflatus, inspired with truth. They spake what He directed. They remembered, but He was at the organ of utterance. Thus all their memory 310 THE CREED AND MODERN THOTJGHT. and all their thought were called into energetic action, but He kept the portal, that their* words should be only the truth. Personality as the result — so to speak — of procession, is conceivable ; and therefore possible for us to receive as a fact. When duly attested we must receive it, or else give up the whole foundation of all truth. Both the personality and procession rest upon the Word of Him, Who said, "I am the Truth " ; and of Whom it was solemnly averred, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ ". I Cor. IH. 11. . By His personality the Holy Ghost partakes of the Divine substance ; not by division, but by immanence. As a person, He transacts the specific works of the Lord of life. As substantial God, He is in the Father — the Godhead's centre — and the Father proceedeth Him. All this is revealed, and only this, concerning the mode of the existence of the person of the Spirit. In the East the Creed is unchanged. Its original form reads " Who proceedeth from the Father ". In a synod held at Toledo (a.d. 589), was added the clause " and the Son ". After a long controversy, even in the West, this clause became permanently incorporated in the Latin form of the Creed. It is asserted that its final accept- ance was due to force, or at least pressure, brought royally to bear upon a too subservient pope. It has never been accepted by the Oriental Church ; and it yet remains, as one of the grounds of the protracted schism between the East and the West. No one claims that it can be based upon the literal Scriptures. It is an inference, from the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. The form of the argument is: THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 811 1. The Father and the Son are " one," — as Jesus said " €V ", i.e. one thing, or one substance — infinite, and in- divisible ; 2. The Holt Ghost, is of the same substance ; 3. Therefore, He proceedeth from the Father and the Son. This argument rests upon the old realistic philosophy, which regarded substance as a realty ; not merely dis- tinguishable in thought, but distinct in existence, from its manifestation. The counter theory is, that substance and manifestation are coordinate, and inseparable. The whole discussion however is philosophic, and be- longs to the department of metaphysics. The practically sufficient answer is the common one in theologico-meta- physics, * that the mode of the Divine existence is in- comprehensible by other than the Infinite mind ; that the finite mind can only apprehend, i.e. accept and hold on to, what is revealed ; and therefore is hmited to the letter of revelation.* That letter is, in the words of Jesus, "The Paraclete .... the Spirit of the truth, WTio proceedeth from the Father " — . The difference, between the East and the West, does not impair their agreement upon, and consentient wit- ness to, the Catholic doctrine of the eternal distinction between the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost : nor is there any controversy, as to the Father's being the common central source of the one Deity. Moreover there is entire agreement as to . the Mission of the Holy Ghost : He is sent from the Father, hy the Son ! In Creation, the fiat of the Father, indu- cing the -willing executive action of The Word, coincides with the "moving" of the Spirit ; and results in a con- sistent, formal, and vitalized universe. In Eedemption, also, the love of the Father, responded to by the offering 312 THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. of Himself by the Son, and sealed by the operations of the Lord of life, opens and keeps the way of salvation, for free man to walk in to Heaven, if he will. The practical value of the fact of the Trinity, in its adaptation to the person of man, is not impaired by this difference with regard to the original procession. In any view. He is still the ever ready assistant of every human person ; who accepts for himself the love of the Father, by seeking it through the " one mediator be- tween God and men, the Man Christ Jesus ". 1. Tim. H. 5. Whoever accepts the Gospel hears, with opened ears in his spirit, these words of Jesus — living in all lands, through the ages — "Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe in God, beheve also in Me Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me I mil pray the Father and He shall give you another Comforter ; that He may abide with you forever ; even the Spirit of truth ; Whom the world cannot re- ceive because it seeth Him not neither knoweth Him : but ye know Him because He dwelleth with you and shall be in you". S. Jn. XIV. 1-17. "Nevertheless I tell you the truth ; It is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not away the Comforter will not come to you ; but if I depart I will send Him unto you ". XVI. 7. All these, and like passages among the recorded words of Jesus, show that the mission of the Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son. Something is revealed in them, as to the relations subsisting among the persons of the Trinity. Without separation from one another, in loving cooperation, with unity of substance yet dis- tinction of persons, having entire accordance of will, they each have their own offices, whose functions they each distinctively discharge. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 313 Througli this distinction, in fact and in operation, man's manliness is assured. The intervention of the Godman is a help, without which man, fallen and sinful, could not have found a way back to the loving God : he could at best have only called Him The Almighty, and bowed trembling before His justice ; he never could have known Him as Father ; his salvation, if given, would have cost him his manliness, and left his heart at best coldly grateful. Even this merciful Godman, had He remained on earth, would have been too potent an authority : man could not have freely developed his manliness, even under the Gospel, with the ever present visible, infallible Head of the Church, at hand to enforce doctrine by dogmatic decrees, and settle difficulties by pragmatic decisions. This might have saved from many mischievous errors, but it would have taken away the dignity of deliberation with freedom of choice, on which manhness depends. The expediency of Christ's depart- ure is thus apparent ; while the coming of the Holy Ghost, in His distinct personality, saves us from either premature judgment, or enforced obedience. His un- seen action is, like air and light, operative, but not op- pressive. Under it man — the creature — can pass the necessarily allotted period of his probation, with nothing to force his will. Hence, the procession of the Holy Ghost, from the central and pervading Divine substance, constitutes and assures His full capacity and willingness to help man in his utmost need. His personal mission, from the loving Father through the redeeming Son, assures such re- spect for man's godlikeness ; that, while He " helpeth our infirmities", and "maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered ", Rom. XH. 26, He yet will not force our acceptance even of His good offices, 14 ~ 314: THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. for ''the Lord said, 'My Spmrr shall not always strive with Man'". Gen. VI. 3. However dark the negative side of these positive facts may be, it is not to be denied that, in the light they shed on God as He is towards free man, they vindicate the preeminence of the creed, as a charter of glorious free- dom to all men of good will. If men choose not to walk with God, they need neither fear nor hope to be forced against their choice : but if they will return unto Him, they learn from the Creed, and from the Creed primarily and fully, that they may do so, with full protection to their dearest personal liberty, and strongest assurance of everlasting preservation in their godlikeness. Moreover the deepest depths of conscious manliness are filled and satisfied, with the ever present Person, Who is light and life, in and with us, secretly communing, having Divine sympathy. Every true man knows, in the secret centre of his inexpressible consciousness, that he is self-insufficient, yet too capacious for any satisfaction short of Divine communion. Into this secret centre, the presence-person of The Comforter may be admitted. Whoever willingly opens his heart's depths to Him, and into whom He enters, will find all his manliness con- served, all his faculties filled, and aU his aspirations as- sured : while even those lesser powers, which the world counts greatest, viz. : understanding, reason and imagi- nation, will be trained indeed or even pruned, but they will also be immeasurably expanded, and given to feed in immortal surety, on Him "The Truth," "in Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ". Col. m. 9. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 315 "illl)o tDitl) tl)e Sai\)cv anl tl)e Son togetl]er 10 tuoraljippcir antr glorlficb.'* "Worship is the deepest necessity of the human crea- ture. As love is his profoundest and largest faculty, while its expression — upsurging within, and outgoing towards some object, able specifically and fully to re- ceive and respond — is its very necessity, even its normal and vital action ; therefore God only satisfies the faculty, and God only is the worthy object of man's unbounded love. He is not merely a just Judge to be placated, not merely the Almighty to be feared, nor the Owner of all things and Dispenser of goods to be supphcated : He is all these, but He is far more, and that " far more " is ap- prehended by the true worshipper. The oft repeated idea and fact, of the Divine image in man, comes here again into prominence. That image was created for the prime purpose of communion with its antit;ype. Its own nor- mal development, and progressive enlargement depend upon, and grow by conformity to the original ; and that, not by force or even by "natural law," but by willing assent and lo\dng consent. There is nothing arbitrary in worship. It is not enforced, as a tyrant demands homage from his slaves. Homage, which one must ren- der or dare not refuse, may be exacted of enemies. No doubt the august Sovereign of the Universe, while re- specting the free creatures He has made in suffering them to choose their lord, will take care that those who refuse Him shall yet honor His throne by bending their 316 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT.^ proud and foolish necks before Him, and by ever render- ing unto Him trembling homage ; yet they, who *' shall be willing in the days of His power," will be glad wor- shippers. The deep of all their natures will break up, as a fountain of love ; and the rising stream, taking up full barks freighted with the mind's best stores, and re- flecting the forms of all pure fancies, and nurturing all the good things of hope, will float the whole man joy- fully into that presence, wherein alone every faculty can find scope, every attainment place, every aspiration sat- isfaction, and every pure desire fulness of delight. Nor will this complete the gift of communion with God. The perfectness of it will be personal conjunction of heart with heart ; and thus man's controlling and pervading faculty, going out towards Him who hath made him for Himself, will find full, normal exercise, in the flow and reflow of expressive and responsive love. Worship is expressive love, and its acceptance is re- sponsive love. Love lies low, in man's nature ; bearing up the whole person, as the fountain bears the stream, the foundation the structure, ot the root the tree. Therefore worship, on man's part, is the glad offering continually of all he is unto God ; while the response from God is the reflow — not merely the outward gift, but the upwelling — -of love divine. Worship is neces- sary for man's highest development. It is the means whereby his whole person — ^body, soul and spirit — finds its freest and largest, most noble and most joyful expres- sion. It is fit to be given to God only. God only can truly receive, and fully respond to it. The Creed takes issue with Modern Thought upon this point. Worship has no place in either science or phi- losophy. Therefore they are not capable of answering {ill the wants of man, nor of filling all his faculties, THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 317 They fail at the crucial test. They cannot satisfy the heart. They cannot deal with love. Yet the heart, or the loving faculty, is just as obvious as any fact in na- ture, much more obvious and certain than anything ex- ternal, for it is a fact of the common human conscious- ness. Moreover, it needs but the statement, to command universal assent to the position, that the full gratification of the faculty of loving is the f uU satisfaction of the per- son, in all his parts and powers. Having it, he feels no need of anything more ; or, not having it, he feels that everything is void. Now a finite creature, without defined capacities, but ever consciously expanding and aspiring, cannot rest his heart confidently on another finite creature ; for he can- not be assured that some of his yearnings and aspirations w^iU not transcend that other's powers. Confidence therefore, the very condition itself of love's rest and hence of its sure vitality, can be placed by the finite only in The Infinite. Man's conscious heart-capacities can repose only on God, "Worship, being this outgoing of personal love to the only One capable of receiving and responding, is the very- noblest outaction of manhness. Science and philosophy are dumb before the eager questionings and longings of the himian heart Only Christianity, as embodied in the Creed, repHes ; and that both in detail and fuhiess. Worship towards God, being so personal, belongs of right to all the persons of the Godhead. As there are distinctions between the divine persons, there maybe distinctions in the worship. To the Father may be offered the adoration of loving awe ; to the Son the ado- ration of loving gratitude ; and to the Spirit adoration with loving, reverent, deep and sweet conscious fellow- ship. Yet, while towards either person peculiar worship 318 THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. may be prominently offered ; every kind will, in some measure, belong to all. Fellowship even wiU be bad with the Father, and gratitude will ever be due to Him and to tbe Holy Ghost ; while awe should mingle with pure worship whenever and however it be offered. Still, peculiar satisfaction and blessedness will come through worshipful meditations upon the distinct per- sons in the Trinity ; and there can be no detraction, from what is due to all, in rendering unto either specific praise or prayer ; or in seeking, on fit occasions, for speci- fic communion with One, and through that One with All. Of course it is not permissible to withhold aught of worship due to any one of the Trinity : nor may we ven- ture to disregard the relations to each other of the Three-persons as revealed, nor our relations towards them. We may not, for example, presiune to ap- proach the Father directly. Not only does sin sepa- rate us — so that, as Jesus said, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me "— S. Jn. XTV. 6 ; but even the natural distance, between the Infinite and the finite, needs the natural bridge of the Incarnation. The God- man only hnks the Divine nature to the human, and makes it naturally possible for the lower to ascend to the higher : " Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him ". S. Matt. XI. 27. Hence the whole Godhead is to be worshipped ; none omitted, and none chosen to the exclusion of another, yet each may receive special worship ; while their unity will cause every special prayer or hymn of praise to be, severally tho' in \inison, accepted. Glorification is public honor to such as are worthy. It may be rendered to God on earth. It will be per- THE CREED AND MODERN THOTrg^/ 319 fected on tlie broader fields of the " worMl^ome/* amid^ the "innumerable company of angels ancr^pirits of just' men made perfect." Present and everlasting glory are due unto The Father, the Son, and the Holt Ghost. Each respectively may be prominently glorified for what He is relatively, and for what He does through the func- tions pecuHar to His person and office. Here also the Unity binds the Trinity. The glory of One is the glory of All. When on earth a man struggles out of darkness into light, his single voice may rise acceptably through Jesus "the Light of the World", by Him "Who is the Lord and Giver of hfe ", unto Him Who " is love ". When the congregation joins in prayer and praise and eucharistic memorial, the Three appear personally on the heavenly scene, which faith perceives, while the worship- per, joining the one chorus of all saints in communion, sings, " therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name ; evermore praising Thee, and saying Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and eai-th are full of Thy glory : Glory be to Thee, O Lord Most High ". Worship and glorification, duly rendered unto the Tri- une God, may be distasteful to the sin-blinded, or the world-blinded, or to those who have chosen proud Lticifer as their Lord ; but the truly thoughtful and the wise will perceive, not only no humiliation in them, but rather the opportunity and most effective means of giving deep ex- pression to all human needs, with normal exercise for all powers of spirit, and soul, and body. As creatures, our purest sentiments and deepest affections, our largest fac- ulties singly and united, our very personal self imaged after God, can only be satisfied in God ; and that satis- faction only adequately can, and therefore must express itself in worship and glorification. The universal con- 320 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. sciousness, that we are "fearfully and wonderfiilly made", Ps. CXXXIX. 14, makes adoration necessary towards Him by Whom, and after Whose likeness, we are made. Having elsewhere learned^ and found amply proved, the personality and deity of the Holy Ghost, this worship and glorification — needful for us and due to God — be- come due to the Blessed Spirit also ; Whom with the Father and the Son all manly persons ought, and all saints will, evermore, joyfully worship and glorify. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 321 I to ho spakt bg tljt propljcta. Peophect exhibits the glorious preeminence of the Christianity of The Creed, over the whole compass of philosophy and the sciences. They are as blind towards the future, as they are dumb before the eagerly question- ing heart of man. And yet why are they so bhnd? They pretend to discourse about the origin of things, and even to define life or the essence of being. Why have they not pushed their wonderful discoveries across that little, narrow line of the present, beyond which the ever receding future lies hidden. Instead of delving only in the farthest past, and speaking magisterially where facts are vague and continuities difficult to per- ceive ; why not put some of their great theories of the origin of being or of the essence of Hfe into working condition, and make a map even of a little of the near- est future ? It might be amusing, if it were not sad to follow the metaphysicians, through their ponderous sys- tems of obscure reasoning, and find them all at last oc- cupied only in collecting mists of the past, and endeav- oring to shape them into a tangible philosophy of being. Hegel, the boldest and acutest thinker of them all, by his " Theory of Omnipotence " becomes the least excusa- ble of all, for not uplifting the veil of the future. If he has truly discovered that the principle of " The Becom- ing ", is the principle of all existence ; why, in the name of common sense, does he confine his expositions to the past ? Surely such stupendous wisdom, as can discourse U* 322 THE CREED JlNI) MODERN THOUGHT. about the essence of being, ought to be able to look with clear vision forward, and show what this essential being shall evolve in the yet unknown future. " The Becom- ing ", if it be omnipotence, is omniscience as well. "Why then do not its votaries see its foreward ; why only, and that obscurely its way in the past ? It is wonderful, or rather would be did we not know the effect of the natural heart on the mind, that the nu- merous and varied and mighty scholars and teachers of Modem Thought have not demanded, of science and metaphysics, that they reveal the future. They cannot be of much practical use, until they show what is coming on the earth. The present, man can endure ; the past, he can unravel or forget ; but the future is a continual anxiety to him. He cannot rest, without providing for or against it ; nor can he be satisfied, until he has rea- sonable assurance of what it holds in store. Now Christianity, alone, answers this human craving. UnHke every merely human system, it has dared to com- mit its credibility to the test of the fulfilment of pro- phecy. It rests upon a long Hne, or rather a deep and varied foundation, of prophecy ; which is fuUy attested, in separate books, by authors known to live ages apart ; and it is throughout sealed by the Holy Ghost, as such sealing only could be given, and proved. The fact, that the Holy Ghost spake by the prophets, is frequently asserted in the amply attested written word of God. Like all the facts of the Creed, already consid- ered, it rests upon the truth of Jesus. He sanctioned "The Scriptures^" not only by the comparatively less impressive witness of positive assertions of their truth ; but also by the much more forcible, incidental reference to them in forms of language which not only involves His witness to their verity, but assumes their authority as a THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 323 point tmquestioned and unquestionable. A few in- stances are cited as specimens, " He that belie veth on Me, as the Scripture saith " etc., S. Jn. VH. 38. " Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures". S. Matt. XXII. 29. " But the Scripture must be fulfiUed ". S. Mar. XIV. 49. "He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself". S. Lu. XXIV. 27. From Moses to Christ constant, positive, direct, or incidental assertions are made, of the inspiration of the prophets by the Spirit. " The Spirit rested upon the seventy el- ders and they prophesied ". Num. XI. 25. " David said, the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was on my tongue ". 2 Sam. XXTTT. 2. " The Lord God and His Spirit hath sent me." " The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned". Is. XLVXH. 16 ; L. 4. " The Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and said unto me speak ". Ezk. XI. 5. " I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob, his trangressions, and to Israel his sins". Mc. in. 8. "The words which the Lord of Hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former prophets ". Zech. VIL 12. In the New Testament, Elizabeth, Zacharias and Simeon are declared to have been inspired by the Holy Ghost. John the Baptist, than whom there had "not arisen a greater prophet" was "filled with the Holy Ghost". S. Lu. I. 15. Jesus, when arguing against the Pharisees, asks " How doth David in Spirit call Him Lord ", S. Matt. XXH. 43 ; in promising the Comforter, He assured His disciples of prophetical in- spiration, " I will send the Comforter . . . the Spirit of truth. He will guide you into all truth, and will shew you things to come". St. Jn. XVI. 13. The Holy Ghost was with the apostles at Pentecost, at the judg- ment on Ananias, at the separation of Paul and Barnabas 324 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. for a specific mission. "The Spirit said to Philip go near and join this chariot." Acts YIH. 29. S. Paul, S. Peter, and S. John, in direct terms, assert their inspi- ration by the Spirit. The closing book of the New Tes- tament is a gorgeous and terrible prophecy of " things which must shortly come to pass . . . sent and signified by His angel unto His servant John " Who " was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard . . a great voice as of a trumpet, saying ". Rev. I. 1, 10. These instances are attestations of the fact, that the Holt Ghost spake by the prophets. Confirmations of the truth come through fulfilment of the things pre- dicted. As writings the prophecies were publicly known, long, sometimes ages, before the events hap- pened which they foretold. In many cases the prophecies related to specific circumstances, in themselves highly improbable, though when the time came signally ful- filled ; e.g. Isaiah, more than seven hundred years be- fore CmiisT, described His Divine Conception, His birth, His career and personal characteristics. His rejection by mankind and His meek endurance of it. His " being wounded for our trangressions, bruised for our iniqui- ties " taking "the chastisement of our peace upon Him," and that " with His stripes we are healed." Is. LHI. 6. The prophet even foretold the exceedingly improbable contrast, of a death among felons yet a burial with the rich and great : " He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death", v. 9. The Old Testa- ment abounds with ancient, disconnected, even when ut- tered apparently inconsistent prophecies ; of a suffering, conquering, dishonored and glorified One Messiah. Yet they were all fulfilled, alone, in the occurrences of the life of Jesus. These were amply attested at the time ; having borne, in a philosophic and cultured age, the THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 325 sternest criticism of both Jewish hate and Greek scoff- ing ; and confirmed since by an unbroken chain, with living links of seeing or believing and testing wit- nesses. The authenticity of the prophecies rests upon testimony, superior to that for any other utterances of the past. They are not and cannot be doubted. Nor — except upon a principle which would destroy all credi- bility, viz. : the d, priori assumption of their impossibility i.e. a mere petitio principii — can their wonderful concur- rence and accuracy be explained upon any other theory that the reason of man can encompass, than that which allows their claim to authority, as the voice of God through men to mankind. They do not compel assent, because that would be interference with man's dignity and freedom, and destructive of his divine image. They only pile up evidence, so that doubt can only come where beHef is f or ef ended or doubt is chosen. Their rejection involves vastly greater critical difficulties, than their reception. No additions of proof could strengthen them to those who love truth supremely ; while those, who have not this supreme love of truth for its own sake, must as the only alternative invent, or elect what they will or will not believe. Therefore, their divine origin being attested, the formal fact that The SpmiT was the Inspirer, the Divine One Who spake by the prophets, has a claim to acceptance, which Modem Thought may criticise to the farthest extent, but cannot, upon any just canons of criticism, reject. Besides being the historic Inspirer, the Holy Ghost is, in a specific manner, the personal inspirer of aU ^vill- ing hearts and minds and souls, as weU as the living pre- server of Hfe in the bodies of men. This kind of influence has a different object than had His inspiration of the prophets, historians, poets, and other holy writers 326 THE OBEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. of the Bible. Tliey were ministers, in their decrees and offices, of tlie Divine covenant. While as individuals, though under the Spirit's care, they were suffered to "work out their own salvation," through much weakness and fault with many falls and risings again ; yet as offi- cers, either prophets, priests or kings, they were guided officially into all truth. On individuals, now as then, the Holy Ghost descends ; doing, in all those willing to receive Him, His peculiar works of life-giving and en- lightening. He helps all, who so desire, to live with satisfaction in conscious fellowship with Himself, while into them He pours continually, by His presence, vitality and vigor. Their hearts glow, in the interchange of love ; their minds become illumined, with heavenly wis- dom ; even their tongues speak words which their own invention, though cooperating, could not independently frame ; while their whole being — body, soul and spirit — receives, and to some extent perceives His blessed in- dwelling. Nature — so called — works coincidently with the Spirit within, upon and around man and mankind. Individually, and all-together, men are affected by nature, according to natural laws. Hence faults produce evils, evolve errors, and even lead to sins ; imperfections grow more or less, according to one's own wisdom or unwisdom, watchfulness or neglect ; while the Spirit still remains patient, loving and helpful ; though never doing for us, what lies within the domain of our own duty ; never warding off from us those experiences, through which we may learn by suffering ; and especially not lightening those chastisements, which Our Heavenly Father lays sternly though lovingly upon His children. At the forming and thi'ough the development of char- acter, in those who choose the Lord for their God, the Holy Ghost is primarily and continually their Lord of tHE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT." 327 life. He abides in the fountain. He sits at the root. He does not make the man, as the moulder fashions the clay, or the graver carves the image. He dwells in the subconscious person, with the I, and thence works up- ward through all forms of normal development, coming on with evolving character, expanding His influence as the natural faculties and functions grow, and thus be- coming, to and in the faithful, their own not only adored but beloved Lokd of life. This fellowship with and communion in The Spirit, though common to all men of good wiU, is yet inviolably and inexpressibly private. So dignified is every human creature, that while in many perhaps most points he is like his fellow human mortals, there is a point or depth in him, where he personally touches the Infinite in his own way. The common oneness of humanity includes, but leaves intact, distinctive individuality. In this, not only " shall every man give account of himself to God," but he must come also — person with person — into the very presence divine, in order that his inexpressible privacy may enjoy normally manhood's great need of love. Only God can truly know this depth. Only God can still its yearnings. Only God can fill and satisfy and cause it to rest. Into this the Holy Ghost comes. Thus is man guarded in his profoundest rights and needs ; and thus is he respected by God, Who made him. There is a reverse also to this picture. The possible intimacy of man with God, with the fulness of the satis- faction of its enjoyment, is in contrast with the conse- quences incurred by those who choose not to lay open themselves to His indwelling. The mystery of iniquity penetrates the fount of human personahty, even the fount of the individual being. Man's choice determines who may indwell the deep privacy of his person. If he will S28 THE OEEED AND MODEEN THOUGHT.' not have The Spirit there, he may keep it forever a void. None else can enter it. He himself cannot express it. The point of contact, where the finite touches the in- finite, can only be reached by the man in God. Where the norm of personality palpitates germinally on the hand, close to the heart, of God, there the man may meet God ; and thence all glorious, and good, and blessed consequences may be evolved. But, if not God, then nothing shall keep this primal centre of life. In its final consequence sin is a void, an emptiness in the fountain of life, an ever gnawing sense of nothingness, chosen and irremediable. However deeply into man the devil him- self may enter, he can bring with him only the infernal void of his own insufficiency, to make more intense the human void in sinful man's own empty person. In the evil however, no less than in the good, is man's great distinction of freedom acknowledged and vindi- cated ; and this, not by arbitrary enactment — as if God could now make it otherwise if He would — but because man's original godlikeness, given and guaranteed by the God of truth, necessitates his everlasting freedom. Good of every kind would depart from man, and the ca- pacity to receive it die in him, if his dignity were de- stroyed by enforced submission. Both negatively and positively therefore the fact stands out, that God, " Who cannot lie ", will never even for good rivet upon any man the chains of slavery ; while, for evil, nothing worse can be conceived than everlasting estrangement from fellow- ship with " The Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life " . In some sense every human creature is a prophet. He has at least the prophetical instinct. Alone among creatures he kens, and as far as he may scans, the future. The official prophets bear their messages from God, but THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 329 they utter them to the common, human, prophetic in- stinct. Because every man asks, ' What am I ? whither am I tending ? where is this future before me ; and what is in it, for me and for mine ? ' therefore to man alone God's prophets are sent ; and their words convey all the needful knowledge that words can express. Words, however, are external. They convey ideas ; which, pass- ing through the mind, may move the will or even touch the heart ; but, after all, ideas are impalpable images, not living reahties. The prophetic instinct may get much learning, or even wisdom, from the words of the "prophets"; but its position is too near the centre of life, to be satisfied with the merely formal utterances of truth. He, Who spake by the prophets, speaks to every one's prophetical instinct. The primary questions, that spring up with the first human consciousness, and pervade it all thi'ough life, always touching the future, are answered by the Inspirer. Here, as ever, only those who choose, *' the men of good will " may hear the answer. But to *' wiUing hearers ", there is a voice of God in the soul of man ; more than a voice, even a living personal presence : " The Spirit itself beareth vntness with (or as the Syriac version of N. T. reads, " And this Spieit testifieth to ") our spirit, that we are the children of God : and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." Bom. VHI. 16-17. Out of the deep, of conscious personality, spring the questions of natural prophetic instinct ; and up from the same depth, where the Spirit indwells faithful men, true to their godlike- ness, rises the response. Question and answer corre- spond. The one is unlimited in search, the other un- bounded in depth and expanse. The faithful learn, 330 THE CREED AND MODERN THOTJGHT. hereby, all about person and destiny. The whole of need, arising from the relation of children unto God, is supplied. It is enough. The creature cannot even con- ceive of more. The person in all its fulness may be sat- isfied in, and only in, membership with God in His fam- ily. The fortunes of the possible future are also satis- factorily displayed. " Heirs of God " have all they can purely desire, and are sure of the continuance of their heritage forever "Joint heirs with Chkist," have the inexpressible satisfaction of sharing eternally the wealth and kingdom of "The Son of Man ". Suffering indeed lies before them, in this mortal existence. The Spikit prophecies always the truth. He gives the shadows with the lights. Even this suffering however appeals to the heroic sentiment, stirs up loyalty in the heart, awakens the soldierly courage that submits cheerfully to the duty, or even longs for the honor, of following where " the Captain of our Salvation ", has marched on before. Thus He " spake by the prophets." Man cannot afford to be without the treasures stored in words of the pro- phets ; nor can he be satisfied with less than the presence of the Holy Ghost, indwelling him, and there sanction- ing the outward words of the prophets, with the seal of the witness He only can give to every willing person, through and in the natural, human instinct of prophecy. Herein the Creed again vindicates itself. It is nobly congenial, sympathetic and true with man. It puts no clog on any part of him. Within and without it reveres, and honours him. Its facts are living now, as they ever have been, and ever will be. Men, to-day, need them, as did men of the past, and as will men of the future. They are the only series that bring God and man to- gether, while leaving both normal and complete. To Modern Thought, as to thought in aU times, the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 331 Creed speaks with the steady force of truth. It asserts and maintains itself. It asks no favors. It stands forth on the field of open criticism. It stands on the impregnable base of reality and fact. As it maintains its position, and only as it does, but to the full if it does, so it demands acceptance by Modem Thought, and, with that acceptance, allegiance from man to Him whose name it declares. 332 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. ** ®l)e ij^^ls (!Eatl)oUc €l)ttrcl), tl)e ffiommunion of 5lpo0toUc d)urcl) " ; One point Modern Thought treats, as if it were settled to general satisfaction. It is this : ' Granted the claims of Christianity, it matters little what visible form it has. The essence of Christianity being the love of Jesus, it matters little what organization is adopted for the com- mon expression of that love, or what order is followed in the promulgation of its faith *. The Creed does not contradict this dictate ; neither does it affirm it. Believers in the Creed are at hberty to assent or dissent from it. The article of the Creed, upon The Church, is not affected by it. Those who as- sent, and those who dissent, can equally accept the Creed. Allowing the broadest claim of Modem Thought, and not disputing the position that it is primarily of little moment what particular Church organization is adopted, or what ecclesiastical order followed ; there still remains the obvious necessity for some visible order, form or body. Religion cannot be expressed without a visible organization. Common prayer and praise are essential to any religious body. Revealed religion may present something else than the duty of prayer and praise. "Whatever revealed religion enjoins is obligatory upon all who have faith in God. In fact, Christianity in its first THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 333 promulgation, contained a commission to preach the Gospel, to baptize into Christ, and to make the memorial and administration of the Holy Eucharist. These are obviously not private duties but pubHc. They are also obviously rights as well as duties, to those who are capa- ble of receiving them — rights to have and duties to ob- serve — . They are moreover pure and simple duties of administration, intrusted to and enjoined upon those authorized to administer. If therefore the ver^' broadest allowance be made, as to the non-importance, primarily considered, of any par- ticular, visible form, or Church for Christianity ; it still remains necessary that it have some form. Hence the question is now one of fact, not one of fitness according to human judgment. The very non-importance of the thing in itself, makes the obligation universal to accept, defend, and be persistently loyal to, any visible form, order or Church organization, which can show a primi- tive title. Whoever believes in Jesus, believes that He was, is, and ever will be The Head of His Church ; aye, " The Head over all to the Church, which is His body, the fuhiess of Him that fiUeth all in aU ". Eph. I. 22-23, He certainly knew, as all thinking men confess, and as all their efforts for common works and advantages of every kind evince, that a visible organization was neces- sary, both for the propagation of the Gospel, and for the union of His people. St. Jn. XVH. 20-21. It seems therefore unquestionable, that Jesds must have given some form of organization to His Body, The Church : and that having given it. He has preserved it until now. It should therefore be traced through history ; found to-day ; and, when found, receive the allegiance of all His disciples. Modem Thought however has but Uttle respect for ex- 334 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. temal authority. Whether it is wise in this particular, is a question not now under review. The fact is clear, and the Creed takes Modem Thought as it finds it. This article of the Creed has a history, that those who respect authority may study with great advantage to learning, morals and faith. Now however the point is the bear- ing of this article upon individual and organic man ; upon man in the depth and expanse of his personality, and man in the complexity, yet unit of humanity. Having already seen the necessity, and learned the fact of an answering voice from God, responding to the sev- eral and imiversal outcall of men for light and truth ; and having found in this answer, not merely a revelation of words but an organic covenant ; the inevitable next question is, 'What is the practical intention of God's revelation ; what design or designs has He, in answering man's outcall ; why, or for what purposes, has He made Himself known as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ' ? It is obvious that two parties stand in presence of each other. Each has a coincident, but distinctive interest in view. God answered man for His own sake, as well as for man's sake. He seeks His own pleasure, in all His dealings with man : " All things were created by Him and for Him", Col. I. 16; "For thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.'* Rev. IV. 11. This primary fact includes, but is never subordinated to the correlative fact, that "the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared ". Tit. H. 11. The salvation of man has been provided for, and the ut- most means, consistent with the integrity and dignity of manliness, have been put into operation for the benefit of all men ; " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever beheveth in Him, THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 335 should not perish, but have everlasting life ". S. Jn. IIL 16. The pleasure of God and all possible good to man can never be actually separated from each other. Yet it is possible for men to fall into the error and fault of setting one against the other, or of setting the lesser above the greater, or rather setting the secondary before the pri- mary. It is important therefore to keep both in view, always, and to regard their due relations. The pleasure of God, in doing good to man, must ex- tend to all the departments of creation. He has pleasure in the visible universe, as well as in the unseen realm of spirit. The outward man, amid surounding men on the material earth, is an object as truly regarded by God, as are the " thoughts and intents of the heart ". The whole man, therefore, including all the constituents of his per- son, with all the essentials of his federal and organic human relations, as well as his due position in the whole universe of matter and spirit, is the subject of the cove- nant. God its author on one side, and man its subject on the other, have each something to do for the other in fulfilling the covenant. Not only has the Gospel — the good tidings, the new, supplemental and complete divine covenant — the utmost possible good of man and man- Idnd in view ; but it is equally, nay eminently, its "in- tent that now unto the principalities and powers in Heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal pur- pose which He purposed in CmiisT Jesus our Lobd". Eph. HI. 10, 11. If men were spirits merely, dweUing only in the realm of spirit, and having direct personal communion with God Who is spirit, then the Divine revelation might be wholly spiritual, and therefore inorganic, or at least invisible. 336 THE CREED ANT> MODERN THOUGHT. There is no proof however that even in the spiritual realm an abstract force of truth exists, which has the power of self propagation, with the faculty of assimilating what- ever substance it may require for the evolution of any form it may choose. In this world organism is always essential to propagation ; indeed force of every known kind manifests itself only in and by organites, organs or organism. For the sake of philosophic analysis we some- times talk of force as an abstraction, and think of truth as an abstract force taking, with one intent, various forms upon itself ; but it is not proved that any such existence is possible, and it is certain that God's revela- tion to man was not in fact, and in consistency with its whole intent could not be, a mere congeries of abstract principles addressed to man through his mind merely. The glory of God, before the visible and invisible uni- verse, being the primary intent in all the deahngs of God with man ; it becomes evident that His revelation of a covenant must exhibit that covenant visibly in the material universe, as well as spiritually. Only visibly and spiritually also could it reach the whole of every man, as well as all men, in this mortal existence ; and provide for every man and for mankind through all the possible, future fortunes of the one organism of human- ity. As the whole man — body soul and spirit — and not his soul only, is God's creature, made in God's image ; and as every man is a constituent part of the unit of hu- manity ; therefore man's very nature requires that God's revelation of the way of salvation should cover all his immutable parts, and irrevocable relations. It must be organic, and it must be visible ; as well as didactic and spiritually efficient. From two words — Church and Ecclesia — we get the common name of the visible organization in which THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 337 God did embody His revelation. The historic fact is in perfect accord with the necessities of the case. What God's glory demanded and man's needs required, are fully met, and only met, in the Church, the Ecclesia. The Church is the house of God, hence His household or family, into which, with all privileges and glories, men enter by "the adoption of sons". Gal. IV. 5. The Ecclesia is the congregation, the organized polity, into which men are called out from the world, and of which they become and continue members through their own free choice. 1 Thes. H. 12. The two streams of power meet and mingle, here as everywhere else in the Divine covenant, as indeed in all the mutual relations of God and man. Man chooses and God accepts. Man is called, and coming to God is received by God. The honour of man's person, and the necessities of his nature, are equally conserved ; while God's supremacy is maintained, His mercy illustrated, and His vivifying, re- generative power set into operation. The Ecclesia is perfected in the Church. The unity of the Church is essential to its very being. The whole idea, of a Divine revelation, is involved in the unity of the Church. The one practical object of that revelation — the glory of God in and by the reunion of man with God — is attainable perfectly only through the unity of the Church. Though innumerable in personal pecuHarities, men are all one in the essence of humanity ; and their restoration to perfectness comes primarily through the resurrection to life of the human essence, that had become " dead in trespasses and sins ". Eph. n. 1. Thi-s resurrection can no more be man's own act, than can his original life itself have been his act. Its consequences he may direct, at will, into the channel of good, or the channel of evil. The Divine-humanity of 15 338 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Jesus touches everywliere tlie liuman essence, and there- fore affects every individual human creature. That Divine humanity is not only memorialized in the Church, but manifested "with power" also. Though every man is made capable of salvation, through the incarnation of Jesus ; and, since He is "the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world ", S. Jn. I. 9, Poll the true light that anywhere shines comes from Him ; yet He came in all things to do His Father's will. The concentration and completeness of the Redemption, wrought by Jesus, must respect both the essential unity of God and the oneness of humanity. Therefore it centres in One Body. Indeed the burden of Christ's last prayer on earth-^for His disciples, " and not for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word " — ^was, " That they all may be one ; as Thou Father art in Llje and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us : that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me ". XVH. 20, 21. He also. Who spake by the prophets and to the Apostles taught " all things ", throughout the New Testament maintains the unity of the Church, even calling it " The Church which h His Body the fulness of Him that fiUeth all in all ". Eph. I. 22, 23. Language is exhausted in thus express^ ing the unity of the Church. Nothing can be said stronger, or fuller, than " the fulness of Him that filleth all in all ", The exactness, and completeness of the de^ finition admirably fit and fill the necessities of the case. The family of God, into which men are reborn, wherein their natural death in sin is overcome by the Divine adoption — including regeneration, engrafting into " The Vine ", abiding in Him, with the fellowship of the Spirit^ involves the circulation through one organism of the vital- izing All. This organic operation of grace, pouring THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 339 through The Body, and reaching every member in and by his subconscious personality, does not militate against his conscious dignity and duty of choice. It must enter him thus, or it would fail to reach the root and base of his existence, and would therefore be only a partial re- newal and an incomplete salvation: but "his calling" is ever at his own disposal, he may use or abuse his new-life, as he may use and abuse his mortal life. The unity however stands, in any case, upon the union of God with the unity of humanity. They two are brought together in the Gospel ; and the Church, being the em- bodiment of the Gospel, is and can be only one. There are "diversities of gifts" and "diversities of operations", 1 Cor. XII., but the creative energy does not belong to man at all, much less to any one of his gifts; nor can it become effectual through any of his operations. In questions of the day men may organize socially, or even politically, as they will ; but in the all including question of man's salvation — his restoration in the foundation and loftiest structure of his personal, and consociate or rather coorganic, human existence — he has neither the wisdom nor the power to construct the needful organism. If the Gospel were a mere code of laws, or system of doctrine, he might perhaps form his own religious societies, and call them Churches ; though even then it would be better for him, if God had formed to his hand the Divine household. But, as we have seen, and as eveiy truly wise and reflecting man, on self-scru- tiny, is solemnly convinced and deeply feels, knowledge is not what we need primarily, but grace : even the gracious impartation of renewed life, which, entering thro' the root of humanity, shall flow with vitalizing force into subconscious personality, and thence pour throughout all the faculties and powers, bearing gifts and 340 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. bringing opportimities. The root bears the branches, though the branches return the life-flow back again to the root. Both are necessary to the fully developed tree. So, in like manner, the Church bears her members. She is the house of the One God ; as has been said, "His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all ". Man's salvation is not only effected by, but consists in restora- tion to.union with Got). God's grace, or favor, or resur- recting, regenerating, renewing operations, are the means of this restoration. Its enlargement by personal growth, with its variations in aspect and power, are affected by every individual-partaker's free use of his own "gifts'* and " opportunities ". The original vital force however, is not of man, nor by man. The Gospel follows all the analogies of known creation, in showing the channel of this vital force of renewing grace, not as a floating in- tangible abstraction of powerful truth, but as a manifest, visible, and single organic body ; into which men are admitted, as branches are grafted into the vine. The analogy of the vine however is only, like all analogies, a partial comparison. As the tree of life " bare twelve man- ner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month ", Rev. XXn. 2 ; so are the mortal branches — made fruit bear- ing, by engrafting into Christ, in " the Church which is His body " — diverse in the manner of their manifesta- tions. There is no dead monotony in Christianity. The Church, like Her Divine Head, leaves ample verge for free development of every class and variety of mind and character, in those originally godlike men, who in Her are restored to union and communion with God. Hence the Church is not only one, but Catholic also. That unity — in and through which the depths of human- ity, the essence and basis of person, are revived — rounds out and completes itself, by embracing all who will be THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 341 saved, all " the men of good will '\ Its primal grace, its instructions, its memorials, all its functions and opera- tions, coming from the loving Father, organized by The Word, vivified by the Lord of Life, are intended for all men, and are sufficient for all. The men of good will everywhere, as they have one end of salvation, have also one means, viz., the One Catholic Church. "For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the mem- bers of that one body, being many, are one body : so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized unto one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member but many." 1 Cor. Xn. 12-14. The Catholicity of the Church embraces not only space, but time. It is one, on all the earth, and it is one, through all generations. Nay, we are assured, by both reason and faith, that its existence is not confined to earth and time. Its restoration of men is an everlasting restoration. They, who receive it and keep it, shall find it beyond the grave. Through eternity, the church will continue one, and Catholic ; embracing all Her children, and leading them in clearer light, on a broader area, onward in the same approaches towards perfectness and with the same Divine fellowship, that in time and on earth they enjoyed in Her communion. The apprehension of this fact is difficult to Modern Thought, because of the persistent uprising and common prevalence — in this age of abstractions — of the notion that ideas have the power of clothing themselves, and manifesting themselves in any form they please. Be- cause Christianity is largely doctrinal, it is supposed that it is capable of expression through abstract ideas of truth and beauty and goodness ; and that they can oper- 84:2 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. ate effectually through numberless forms. It is evident however that doctrines are only results, that spring from Christianity as fruits grow on the tree. Truth, beauty, and goodness, as intellectual propositions, aesthetic forces, or moral influences, are no where so abundant or so per- fect as in Christianity ; but they do not reach to the depths of humanity, nor lay hold on the person of God. "When however a man perceives that he is more than mind or heart, that he has something underlying intelli- gence will and affection, even a vital, organic, yet indivisi- ble unit self ; and that this self is organically joined to one human substance, of which all human individuals are like himself partakers ; then he steps beyond the realm of abstract ideas, and becomes capable of receiving the fact of the unity and Catholicity of the Church. Indeed, then only can he escape from that vagueness, which is the especial fault and feebleness of Modern Thought. He may sacrifice a false pride somewhat, in thus confess- ing that he is not a creator of organism ; that he cannot make a church, or churches, to suit his accepted religious ideas ; but he will advance to a much loftier position, and tread harder ground, than when trying to set up structures, on the frail mists of mere opinion. The one Catholic Church is not a despot over free man. It leaves him still, to stand in person and answer for himself to God. It only meets the deep necessities of his common humanity ; and, providing for these first, then acts as his spiritual mother. She bears children unto her Lord ; and is intrusted by Him, with their nourishment, defence, education, training, discipline and support. She is ever under Him, in Him, and with Him. Therefore she must be true to Him. The Church does not stand between man and God. She is the handmaiden, serving man for God. As a visible THE CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 343 body, slie has works to do towards men for God's sake. Yet in all respects — as the organic body of the united, faithful members of Christ, as the Bride, as the kingdom of God — she has the great commission of helping free men, to " stand fast . in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free ". Gal. V. 1. The One, Catholic Church is Apostolic also. It is " the household of God . . . built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone ". Eph. II. 19, 20. The association of the prophets with the apostles, in this foundation, shows the peculiar significance of the apostolicity of the Church. It binds it to the Trinity, and is an instance of the diver- sities of operations in the Three persons in the one God- head. As in the material creation, so in this greater work of redemption and re-creation, the loving Father sends, the merciful Son forms and orders and shapes, and the vivifying Spirit pours in the hfe. Jesus had completed His visible, personal work on earth. Having made the sacrifice, and conquered death, He returned " unto the Apostles whom He had chosen : to whom also He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God : and being assembled together with them com- manded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence ". Acts L 2-5. The re-creation was put into shape. It was not cha- otic ; but it was also not yet inbreathed with life. The AVord had spoken. The form and the frame of the Church were set up. Jesus confirmed His previous de- 34:4: THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. scription, by speaking of the Churcli, as " the kingdom of God ", as He had before called it *'My kingdom". S. Jn. XVULL 36. It was a body politic, as well as an or- ganic body. It was to discipline, as well as teach and dispense means of grace. And yet, at this time, it was incomplete, and not even understood by the Apostles. They still clung to their old, narrow, Jewish expectations. " They asked of Him, saying, Loed wilt Thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel ? *' v. 6. He replied — setting the seal upon His finished revelation, and making it formally complete — " It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which The Father hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth ". v. 7, 8. Here His visible earthly mission ended, for " when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up ; and a cloud received Him out of their sight ". V. 9. For ten days the one Cathohc Church remained only formed, not vivified. like the formed Adam, it waited for the " inbreathing ". When however the due time had come, and the Holy Ghost had descended, then this com- plete, formal "body", and "kingdom" and "household of God ", was perfected by the operation of " the Lord and Giver of Life ". In and through the Apostles, and by their ministrations, the vitalizing power went forth into and through the Church. Ever since that time the " Body " has been the eminent channel of the graces of the One Spirit. Its apostolicity is an especial mark of its governance by the Spirit. Not simply, because as men the Apostles were better or purer or vdser than other men, did the Spirit descend upon them ; but be- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 345 cause they were the persons -whom Jesus had chosen. Jesus had ordained them. S. Jn. XX. 22. He had in- trusted them with that delegated divine authority, ne- cessary for the temporal working of an earthly polity, or visible Church, v. 23. He had given them their mis- sion. S. Matt. XXVni. 19. He had taught them all they could receive, and said much that they could not under- stand until illumined from on High. These facts were sealed, by the work begun at Pentecost. The Apostolic Church became then, and of course continues thencefor- ward the perfected " Body of Chkist "; not only formally complete, but vitalized 'also by the Spiktt's constant in- dweUing. Thus the spiritual creation, like the material, was fin- ished through the seaHng and perfecting operation of the Holy Ghost. As when the world was made, the Trinity conjointly acted in due order ; so when the organism of the Church — the household of God, the Body of Christ — • was formed and made living, the same Three persons in the Godhead in like manner planned, and wrought, and vivified. As the created earth came forth and " God saw that it was good " ; so also the Church, from her Pente- costal bii*th in baptism by the Spirit, " looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as with banners ". Cant. VI. 10. The mystery, which spread a shadow over creation, and drew a veil between it and the visible glory of God's presence, was permitted also to surround and penetrate the Church, with its clouds and frost. Sin, the blot on God's good creation, was not precluded from assailing the nobler new-creation. Men, both as creatures and as redeemed ones, had their way of Hfe to follow, with sin in and around them, and within reach of the deceiver and tempter. The comprehension of this mystei-y is not . 15* 346 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. given to mortals. We may not know what possible com- pensations can follow sin, so that its very darkness shall, in due time, make the glory of the " True Light " only the more resplendent. We may only dimly perceive, how the freedom of godlike man may be intelligently ex- alted, while his loyal devotion to the One worthy to be his everlasting Lord may be most deeply set in his heart, by the experience of conflict against sin and the adver- sary amid the mystery of iniquity. We can only thank- fully accept the illuminating word of revelation, with the abounding grace, through which so much as is seen re- veals the noble discipline, to be gained by life struggles against sin ; while personal faith, in the personal God of love, brings the assurance of hope that good will finally and gloriously prevail over evil. As for the earth, so for the Church, we know and are assured that although the warfare of evil may be long, and the battles severe, wherein manly faith and patience and holy endurance will be tested as gold is tried by fire ; yet, The Creator and Preserver of things visible and invisible, is " Head over all things to the Church ". The One, Catholic and Apostolic Church had no war- rant of exemption from evil. Its characteristic as the *'Ecclesia" — the congregation called out of men, yet left to do its work and make its history among the successive generations — subjected it to the necessity, which accom- panies every' progressive organization, wherein the free will of mankind enters as an efficient cause or effective element. Growth and decay, success and failure, good and evil, light and darkness checker the area within the perfect outlines of the Church ; as they, in like manner, chase each other across the fair fields of God's good, ma- terial creation. THE- CREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 347 As the earth is no less tlie earth, however cursed for man's sin ; so is the Church no less the Kingdom of God, however its subjects, whether high or low, may often, sadly show faithlessness and disloyalty. It is not won- derful that the Apostles themselves, who were but men, exhibited occasional faults ; or that the first converts were sometimes " carnal." Indeed, in every age. The Church has been sorely wounded. Pride, folly and self-willed ignorance have tainted her with heresies, and torn her with schisms, on the ecclesiastical or human side of her constitution ; but, on the Divine side, the ingrafting has not been severed : her adherence " to the faith once for all delivered unto the saints ", Jude 3, has been pre- served ; her "laver of regeneration ", Tit. HL 5, has ever held the pure waters of baptism ; and the "bread of Heaven" has not been wanting on her Table of the XiORD. To man she has ever dispensed the *' means of grace," and before God has held up the " Memorial of He". The *^One, Catholic, Apostolic Church" is "Holy" also, being " the communion of saints ". This latter clause, tho' wanting in the earlier historic forms of The Creed, is only an amplification of the Ecclesia. It is not a distinct article. It is an explanatory supplement to the article on the Church, Its meaning is, that the Church is the Communion of the saints. It directs attention first to the ecclesiastical side ; and shows that the saints are united together in one Body. The holiness, which constitutes them saints, is their fitness for the commu- nion. Their fitness is not all, for then would the Church be an invisible abstraction, rather than the organic body, the divine polity, the objective, historical, teaching sac- ramental and discipliaary system it has shown and 348 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. proved itself. Holiness is known, only to Him that readetli the heart. It cannot be put in evidence before men. Its fruits may appear to men, and whoever shows its fruits, may claim admittance into the Communion of the Saints ; but obedience is one of the first fruits of holi- ness, and this leads at once into the Church, through the waters of baptism, and to a succeeding holy walk and conversation in devout worship, faithful partaking of the memorial sacrament, with consistent loyalty and charity. The Holy Church is edified, and duly manifested before heaven and earth, by the saints. In fact, however, this purest and brightest " note " of her legitimacy, is affected by the dreadful " mystery of iniquity ". As even the soul of her Lord, as well as His senses, were *' tempted of the devil ", so must she also endure his wiles even in her sanc- tuary. The holiaess of her Head the devil cannot tar- nish ; nor can he intrude within that hallowed line where The Spirit gives efficacy to the Word, efficiency to the sacrament, and effectiveness to rightful discipline : he may alas, however, tempt all mortal saints, and overcome them indeed, should they be faithless or unwatchful. The wiles of Satan have done evil to the Ecclesia ; but the Church is yet the Communion of the Saints. It is the One Body, into which the saints are ingrafted members. It is the one only body, to which their high or low degrees of saintship may gravitate, with which cohere, and out of which draw the vital current of organic life, to be re- turned in responsive reflow of holy Hving with worship. " The temple of God is holy, which ye are ". 1 Cor. IIL 17. ^ " The Lord is gracious. To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, be ye also as lively stones built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God, by Jesus Christ." 1 S. Pet, THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 349 n. 3-5. " Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens witli the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Chkist Himself being the chief corner ; in Whom all the building, fitly framed together gi'oweth unto an holy temple in the Lord : in Whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit ". Eph. H. 19-22. This One Body, with its fourfold notes — Unity, Catho- licity, Apostolicity and Hohness — like all bodies, is made up of members, and these members stand in fixed rela- tions to each other. "Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular, and God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers ". 1 Cor. XII. 28. This is the plainest single passage in Holy Scripture, where a threefoldness of ministry in the church is set forth. The abstract neces- sity of a ministry is nowhere formally declared. It is taken for granted. The common sense of mankind is reUed upon, for accepting the primary necessity of an order of ministers in a corporate, progressive, missionary body. This order, that of course must be, was in fact set up by Jesus. The formal completeness of His body the Church demanded it ; and He gave it when He ordained, granted disciplinary authority to, and commissioned His apostles. That apostle to whom he gave an extraordinary, even miraculous call, is the one quoted above. Though directly taught of the Lord Jesus, Gal. I. 12 ; Eph. HL 3, and inspired of The Spirit, and though naturally self-reliant, bold and free, claiming to be " an apostle, not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ", Gal. I. 1, he himseK set the example of due subordination to those in authority. Gal. H. ; Acts XV. His example and his words, taken together, show 350 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. llow the balance may be practically adjusted, between inevitable authority and inalienable personal liberty. Modem Thought must yield to common sense, by con- fessing the inevitable necessity of an authorized ministry in the Church. The functions of its office include all those " operations", in which all the members must be reached, or of which be made partakers. The "king- dom of the Lord " requires for its administration apos- tles, i.e., as the word signifies, *sent ones', * persons sent from '. Sent from whom ? Evidently from " The Head over all things to the Church". Eph. I. 22. The direction, the final discipline, the general oversight, and the ordinary conduct or control of the Church must have been at first in the hands of the apostles, whom Jesus appointed. The Church however was constituted a perpetual body, and Jesus promised to be with those He had commissioned "alway, even unto the end of the world ". S. Matt. XXVni. 20. The twelve di6d long ago. Has the promise of Jesus failed ; or are there to this day on the earth, in the visible Church, actual his- toric successors of the apostles, with authority not of man but of the Head, through historic succession ? Just such ordination, and commission as the first apos- tles received, is evidently impossible ; because the visi- ble ministry of Jesus has closed. The visibility of the Church being — ^as has been already amply shown — part of its essence, as the organism of salvation for men's bodies and souls ; and the visibility of an unbroken, his- torical apostolicity being one of its true notes ; wherever the Church is, there must continue a superior ministerial order, having both Apostolic order and unbroken succes- sion. Common sense shows, that the higher functions of the ruler in the Ecclesia are, tho' extensive, few. Hence, THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. a comparatively small number ma^B^S^^-Krl^-^ih Church. Multitudes however are nfleglirto ^mifli^elf'' the form of the Sacraments. Bapt though always spiritually made by\^ ever-present' Jesus (for *' the same is He Which baptazetk ^yith^|l:jeb' Holy Ghost ", S. Jn. I. 33), must be administered individual : and the Holy Communion must be cele- brated everywhere " in remembrance of Me ", and " the bread which cometh down from heaven", YI. 50, should be dispensed constantly. Moreover the message of pardon to penitents must be formal, authorized, and applied not only through general discourse, but in spe- cific assurance. Herein we find the exact function of the ordinary, prophetical, office. Prophets may or may not be inspired. They may or may not foretell future events. These are accidents to the prophetical office ; its essence is authority from God, to treat with men about the covenant of salvation. That covenant, being now completed, and at work in perfectness, ordinarily, in the world ; it is clear that the prophetical office must have visible and ordinary duties, and be administered by those duly authorized, under the successors of the apos- tles now somewhere ruling the Church, under Her ever- present Head. " Thirdly teachers ! " Teaching belongs to a society or organization. It presumes certain preliminary and pre- paratory proceedings. Classes are put under teachers ; and classes are formed in recognition of, or obedience to a power, that can select and arrange their members. Before coming under teachers such classes have gone through all needful steps, to make them full subjects of the authority to be exercised over them. Teaching is essentially authoritative. It imparts knowledge. It 352 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. begins with rudiments, and proceeds to the whole scope of instruction, within the limits of its subject. It is rudimental, but not radical ; complete, but not unlim- ited. It begins not in the soil, but upon a prepared foundation. It finishes, when its defined scope has been reached and filled. Thus the practical working of the organized Church, is finally provided for in the teaching office. The Apos- tle rules, and guides, and orders the body as a whole ; with such command of details, as the exercise of the ruling function may require. The Prophet does the daily duties of reception into, and guidance under the covenant ; which man fulfils on the ecclesiastical side and God seals to His Church. The members of this or- ganism com^ constantly before their Teachers, to be educated in the words of revelation, and edified in ho- liness. Thus these three ministerial functions, of which the higher includes the lower, occupy distinct fields ; yet each is needful for the other, while all together con- stitute an efficient and complete system for the practical working of the organized Ecclesia. The Divine King- dom also, or Church — set up in the world for the honor of God, with the building up of disciples in the most holy faith — has aU its departments filled by the varied operations of a ministry, included within this distinct yet united, functional threefoldness. We say nothing here of historic three orders in the Christian ministry. The point simply is that the func- tional threefoldness meets all the requirements of the Ecclesia ; and, as may be further suggested, carries out through the "members", the royal, priestly, and pro- phetical operations of the Head. Around the Church however the world exists. Out of the world, subjects ai'e to be called into the Kingdom of THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 353 God. Here is room for another, though temporary office. In that place, where S. Paul again speaks of the ministry, another function is referred to, and provided for. While Apostles and prophets, and pastoral teachers, are mentioned again ; and their authority is stated to be *' given " of Christ — as, in the instance above, said to be " set " by God — special provision is also made for the emergency of missions thro' a class of " Evangelists ". They are evidently not an order, for they have no place in the normal work of the Church. They exist for emer- gencies only. It may be that the emergency of missiojis will continue until the end of time, and evangelists may equally long be needed : but it is evident that their field of labor lies not in, but around the church. The w*ord3 of The Spirit by the hand of S. Paul upon this point, are " Christ .... gave some, apostles ; and some, pro- phets ; and some, evangelists ; and some pastors and teachers ". Eph. IV. 7, 11. The object of this whole ministerial machinery, is not to set up some men above others ; not to establish a gorgeous hierarchy for dazzling the world with derived splendors of heavenly authority, and for ruling over the souls of men by resistless. Divine might. The Church is God's house, and the Ecclesia is composed of God's people. His care is for them. His ministry was estab- lished, and is upheld for their sakes. He has not placed an organized society between them and Himself. He has not given, to His appointed threefold ministry, au- thority to stand between Him and His people. By nature and by grace, the personal union and communion of every "man of good will", with the person God, is not only an inalienable right, which neither party will nor can dispense with ; but it is also a necessity to that restoration of communion between God and man, which 354 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. the whole creation groans after, and the Gospel is sent to effect. The object and design of the ministry is given by Scripture in the words immediately following, the last quotation : " for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Chbist." v. 12. Nor is this to continue forever. A time is coming, when He, in Whom all offices of the ministry are concentred, and from Whom they flow, will resume them. Now indeed Cheist is the one, effective ruler, priest-prophet, and pastoral-teacher of His Church. He is not absent from His earthly kingdom. He is not separated from His brethren in God's great family of adoption. Only the visibility, of official ministry, is delegated. It suits the Divine-providence, that men shall minister under CmusT. With Him however, not instead of Him — they visible, and He invisible — the Apostles, Prophets, and Pastoral-teachers, with Evangel- ists serve : and this service is to continue only, " Till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ ". v. 13. This perfection need not be looked for in this life. Therefore the ministry shall wield the authority that Christ origi- nally gave to His apostles ; bear their responsibility ; and be the ordinary dispensers, of the " means of grace'*, so long as time shall last. At the consummation of all things, however, the real personal union between every saint and His Saviour, will be visible and complete and. satisfactory. Though gradations may exist, in the vic- torious Kingdom of Our Lord ; though some, among the glorified children in God's heavenly family, may be more full than others of the Divine Hkeness ; yet all shall be individually in communion with God, through the God- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT 355 man ;, while every one, filled to his full measure with life and light and grace, shall rejoice in the Lord. Thus, while every temporary exigency is provided for, and the Church on earth is a glorious thing ; yet, be- cause men in her are waging their life battles, she is not yet free from "spot, or wrinkle or any such thing". She is the mother, whom we now know, and to whom we owe love and fihal reverence. She bears us, not we her. She presents us, as children, to her Loed. She is not a society of our making ; but an organism of God's making ; even a bride, whom The Son of Man has es- poused. All this conclusion grows from the root of man's necessity — through his natural godlikeness^for complete organic restoration to union with God : and is not only not incompatible with, but equally preservative of and essential for, his own normal development, in freedom, towards manly perfectness. "Where now is this One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church? It is somewhere, or "the gates of hell" have prevailed ; evil has conquered good ; man is a dupe and slave ; and the dark present is only a prelude to an everlasting blackness of darkness, over which all creation is poising for a final, dismal plunge. We cannot lose this article of the Creed, without taking out part of the edifice of man's only consistent and congenial hope. Human hope is so based upon and built in together with the Divine Humanity of the " Head of the Church," that not a stone of the edifice can be spared. Out of human needs, in the track of their upbuilding towards God, one in and with them from foundation to cope, grows the organic unity of the Church ; which must be ApostoHc that it may link with her head. Catholic that she may embrace all who will to come into her. Holy in the com- iPleteness of all spiritual nurture through which the grace 356 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. of holiness may flourisli, and One as humanity is one in human substance and God one in Divine substance. The question of historical identity, does not come "within the limits of our present investigation. Enough has been written elsewhere on that point, to satisfy the needs of earnest and sincere students. Any line of his- torical investigation may be pursued, with abundant materials and all needful helps. Acknowledging the Church, which humanity needs, and God's word de- scribes, there cannot be insuperable difficulties in find- ing her. She is certainly somewhere, holding up her "cross", showing her "light", bearing her "witness", claiming her aposfohc origin, catholic scope, holy capac- ity, and unity with her Lord : suffering, perhaps ; torn, it may be ; perplexed, or sorrowful or hard beset ; but still true to her vocation ; confident in her divine origin ; and waiting, in faith, for vindication before men in ac- ceptance by God. "Wherever she is, there man may surely yet live in her ; and grow up with ever developing godlikeness, "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ ". Eph. IV. 13. The fundamental principles, of the Church and of the Ecclesia, must be ever maintained. Whatever visible re- ligious body, claims now to be the One, Holy Catholic, Apostolic Church, must show historic descent fi*om Christ ; so as to assure the efficacy of her sacraments, the power of her discipline, and the authority of her messages. With well proved continuity, through un- broken succession — either recorded link by link or as- sured by concurrence with laws and usages which must have been always in operation — the claim of the Church, to-day, to identity with the Church set up by Christ, can be estabHshed. This establishment and abiding THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 357 upon " the foundation ", assures always, everywhere, to the mihtant Church, all the authority, power, and effi- ciency which belong to her Divine side. On her human side, as the Ecclesia, the Church of to- day should be true and faithful to man. She should con- serve that " hberty wherewith Christ hath made us free ". She should respect those full rights of human godlike- ness, which Christian liberty has restored. Though on her Divine side she is as ever, authoritative; yet, like her Lord, she should appeal to, not enslave, soul-fi-eedom. The responsibility of the Church has the same hmits with her authority. She need not answer for men, who will not hear, and heed and do good. Nor may she treat them as imbeciles, to be saved without the exercised responsibihty of free choice ; nor as slaves, to be dragged, willing or unwilling, into the gateway of heaven. These two gi-eat, basal principles, being kept in view, the Church of to-day — as Christ's promise is true, and kept — can be found. In her on earth man may reach the highest human development of noble manliness, compatible with the limitations of time, and the sur- rounding darkness of sin. In her also, he may be as- sured of the fulness of grace. He cannot mould and make her, but he can and ought to find her, and re- vere her as mother, even the Bride of Christ. She can give him organic union with the Lord of life, and bind him to God forever, by a link fastened to his subcon- scious self. She can nourish him therein ; while he, faithful to his godlike human dignity, may never part with aught of true Hberty, nor diminish the glory and responsibihty of conscious, direct, and free personal ac- countability to the personal, Triune God. 358 THE CJREED AND MODERN THOUGHT, "Sri}e SoY^ivcntfSS of sins''; "3 acknotokbgc one jBaptism for tl)e remission of sins/' Evil, " moral discord, or moral friction " — call it by any name — is acknowledged, and its existence confessed ! Sin follows as a possible consequence to free men. Evil is a mystery, insoluble by human ingenuity ; while its accordance with the eternally supreme Good, and its mode of harmony with God's love are, as yet, incompre- hensible by man's understanding. It is nevertheless at least a temporal fact. Wise " men of good will " bring, not their understandings but their common human natural faculty of faith, to bear upon this, as upon all mysteries. Taking the position, that * God is the custo- dian of His own consistency ', they acknowledge facts, confess their inability to discover the links of all moral harmony, and deal with realities practically. One of the grossest follies of the " wisdom of this world " is the ar- gument, that, because God is love and His goodness su- preme, therefore evil must, at some period, terminate, come to an end and cease to be. The same premise would equally lead to the conclusion, that evil cannot possibly enter, or ever have entered into God's universe. This dilemma is sometimes met by the grimly grotesque assertion that evil is not, and that what we call evil is only distortion of fancy, corruption of imagination, or mere spiritual invasion by powers or men from without. Still the dilemma holds us ; for, supposing it all a decep- tion, the deception itself is an evil, real and practically THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 359 terrible, both in extent of influence and intensity of tor- ture. Thus at every hand evil baffles the human under- standing, and confuses human reason. Man however, when thus baffled and perplexed, is not " at his wit's end ". He may choose to say that he is confounded. He may even, at will, plunge into confusion ; and rest therein with desperate, or dogged, or proud despair. The downward ways, out of the strait and straight, nar- now, upward path of true manliness, are fearfully numerous and frequent at every stage of personal or general human progress. In fact however man's ex- tremity, here as everywhere, displays his natural depen- dence upon, and therefore imperative personal need of the personal God. Perplexed in mind and heart and soul by evil, and sorely distressed by it in body, the whole man — scorning the unmanly folHes of desperation, doggedness or despair — lifts up, and holds up himself before the veil, wrings out of his trembhng spirit the word of faith, utters Credo with strong though gasping voice, and casts all his care on God. This is the very loftiest, and yet the most humbhng, exercise of the hu- man will : loftiest, because it is direct, personal and com- plete consent with God ; most humbling, because it in- volves self-abnegation, with unreserved reliance on, and full trust in God alone. It is entire and willing, personal self-consecration of a free but self-insufficient creature to the One Creator, Euler, and only satisfactory. Fatherly Friend. From this mental and spiritual conflict the believers come forth, no more ready than before to account for evil, but strong in that which is the " substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ". Heb. XI. 1. Nor is faith a merely convenient excuse for perplexity. It is a natural faculty, and one most common, general, SCO THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. and indispensable. It acts in and through all the needs and operations of humanity, and belongs to all kinds of personal intercourse. We eat, and sleep, and clothe and shelter ourselves, and buy and sell, and travel and rest, all in and by faith. It is because we beHeve in and trust others, that we are enabled to hold intercourse at all. Now this general necessity, educing a common re- sponsive confidence, tho' limited between men, may be unlimited between man and God. On earth we divide our faith, and apply it in parts and degrees to lovers and friends and servants or served ones, and tradesmen, and guides, and all towards whom we stand in necessary re- lations, or with whom we voluntarily form relations, either temporary or permanent : but faith towards God, if true and real, is simply limitless. It extends even to trust complete amid apparent confusion. Not indeed that we can believe contradiction, in or of God, but can truly, even eagerly, trust in Him, when ourselves confused ; on the ground, that He is in Himself Truth, and may therefore be confided in, as surely consistent with Him- self, and deeply in harmony with all His Universe, how- ever to us, in our narrow sphere and short time, confu- sion may seem to prevail. Thus the fact of evil, properly viewed even by human reason, leads to enlarged, illumined perceptions of the one, common, human need of personal trust in God ; while the natural faculty of faith, called forth and guided to its highest object, refines, expands and ennobles god- like man ; and humility — the basis and condition of faith in God — leads man without servility to stand, open to the base of character, before God, "Who respects His own image, and delights in one who in dignified lowli- ness feels necessity, and claims "liberty, to enter into the Holiest ". Heb. X. 19. THE CREED AND MODERN THOtJGHT. 861 Sin however has grown out of evil. The mystery po- tent for good, has been and is by man's free will per- verted. Tlie dignity of human freedom must not be in- fringed. Godlike man can do as he will, even about evih This is not only a fact, clear to present observation, fill- ing all past history, and portentous towards the future ; but it is a necessity of our nature. Neither good nor evil can be forced into us, irrespective of our direct or indirect choice, for that would destroy the essence of manliness. Hence while evil, properly dealt with, leads, thro' confusion of human knowledge and judgment by the guidance of faith, to that noblest exaltation of man wherein, person with person, he casts all his care on God ; yet the same evil, remaining " the mystery of ini- quity ", may be perversely dealt with. Instead of turn- ing towards God in confidence, patience and deepest trust, man may turn away from Him. This turning away is actual and formal sin. Its consequence is per- sonal estrangement from God. Kesults flow from it, va- rious in kind and degree, innumerable as to instances or manifestations, as well as naturally endless in duration. The catalogue of possible, particular sins need not here be considered. It is only necessary to recognize per- sonal distrust of God, as the foundation or rather es- sence of all sin. It is hardly necessary to remark, that every form of sin starts from this beginning ; and is per- vaded throughout by this influence. In man however there is no help. When once he has exerted his necessary manly freedom, in choosing not to believe and trust God, he virtually and practically and eflectually chooses something, or some person, other than God. He may disbelieve altogether, and choose " noth- ing " in place of God. He may confide in '* nature " or "force", or "himself" or the "devil", according to his J6 8G2 THE CREED AND MODERN THOrGHT. faith. Realities however are not created by man's opin- ions. They exist, not indeed of themselves, but carry "svith themselves the full force of the law of the universe, under the resistless, ever-present, executive action of the Lord of the universe. Hence whoever distrusts and turns away from God incurs naturally, not only absence from truth and goodness, but whatever penalty may be appointed by Him " Who cannot deny Himself," " Who will not give His glory to another," Who must for the sake of His own consistency maintain His own royaltj'', and before Wliom willingly or unwillingly " ever}' knee shall bow . . and every tongue shall confess". Eom. XIV. 11.. Is. XLV. 23. Phil. n. 10. Bitter and fearful as sin is, therefore it must be possi- ble because man is godlike. The question, whether it were worth while to create such a godlike creature, like the question as to the economy of evil, is unanswerable by the human mind and heart. It is however unanswer- able, not because a positive contradiction meets us, but because the major premise of the argument is too vast for human comprehension. God only can grasp the compass of all things in all time, and therefore He only can estimate the economies of both evil and sin. Leaving therefore questions too high for them, all *' men of good will " turn to the human side of the fact of sin, and confine their investigations wholly to that rjide. There God is perceived treating with His free creature, and that free creature is seen turning away from God, The only history extant, of the origin and early career of man, exactly accords with universal hu- man consciousness. Every man testifies to himself, that his whole self — soul, body and spirit — can distrust and turn away from God at will. It is recorded of the first human pair, that they did this very thing. Sin therefore THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 3G3 waSj originally, a mere thought of faithlessness. The first act of disobedience was a consequence of preceding sin, as well as in itself sin. Thus, added to, sin began to accumulate. Its aUiances and consequences, with their complications, and the conflicts that have resulted, belong to the external history of human progress or re- gress. The Creed does not relate incidentally the ag- gregate of man's fortunes, but it deals directly with the unit of person and the unity of race, as to their practical bearings and receptive reactions. Now the first sinner was the father of all humanity. Adam was man. Po- tentially the whole human race existed in Adam. Never since has a man been created. Human persons are gen- erated and born. All nature is pervaded by the law of cause and effect, under which the essence of being is transmitted from progenitor to progeny ; and this so long as progeny continues to be produced. The man sinned. Not his mind merely, nor his heart or hand only ; but the person Adam distrusted God. The I, the complete and whole identity of the first man chose to disbelieve, and acted in disobedience. This mysterious, and to man — because he cannot stand out- side and comprehend himself— necessarily indescribable, but none the less known and felt, complex unit of per- son, entered into sin. It would be presumptuous to ar- gue, because sin thus penetrated the central person of Adam, that it therefore poisoned the germ of humanity ; and hence every child born into the world would be bom in sin, and would inherit not only the condemna- tion incurred by the first father, but the very taint of sin itself with its consequent diseased proclivity to evil. It is however not presumptuous, but inevitable, to conclude that such might be the natural consequence. Indeed all natural analogies suggest its probability : hence the bur- 3G4: THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. den of proof is not on those who accept, but on those who deny it. We should look for it, and any facts ob- served should if possible have their interpretation laid upon it. In truth it is the simplest and easiest way, by which to account for th6 universal prevalence in all ages and nations and persons, of the sinful proclivity, with its consequent transgressions. Herein the underlying fact of the unity of humanity — which all human investigation confirms, to which our consciousness assents — presents its clouded side to our consideration. We see ourselves overshadowed by the evil that is around humanity, and permeated by the sin that he, who first held in his own person the whole germinal principle of humanity, ad- mitted into himself. Sin therefore belongs to the human constitution, and is part of the human inheritance. It accompanies that mysterious development from the origi- inal human germ, whereby distinct persons continue to appear — constituting the successive generations — while yet the unit of race remains. There is another aspect of sin, which will come again into view presently. Now we are looking only at its na- tural transmission. That it is thus transmitted, both ob- servation and experience emphatically show. Not only do particular moral imperfections and faults of ancestors appear specifically in descendants ; but their conse- quences are developed, in remote lineal relations. Thus both the disease, and the penalty of sin follow the blood. Holy Scripture accords herein with human observa- tion and experience. It is only necessary to quote, in proof, the closing of the second commandment : "for I, the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me ". Ex. XX. 5. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 3G5 This natural depravity, or birth-sin, does not involve personal responsibility. Inasmuch as it befalls us with- out our will, it cannot of itself destroy us. "What God — as we have seen — wiU not do, He will not permit any other power to accomplish. As He respects His own image in us, and will not even save us without our own assent and cooperation, so also He now cannot and wiU not permit us to be destroyed, without our active or passive will. Herein, as ever, we find Holy Scripture in accordance with right reason. It is written : " For because through the offence of the one the many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by the one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto the many ". Rom. V. 20. Similar passages are numerous in Scripture, all agreeing with the results of deep study of humanity and profound experience of its condition. They all accord also with that great principle, pervading God's dealings with man, by which, tho' natural consequences remain in full operation, the will of man is kept free, while its resultant of personal right or responsibility is preserved intact. Thus Christianity stands us in front of facts, regard- less of their portents, and undismayed by darkness. Modem Thought is disposed to escape the force of birth- sin, by denying its existence. It thus displays its re- lationship with "worldly wisdom." Shutting the eyes is a common art, we will not say artifice, of the worldly wise. Man cannot afford to "bury his head in the sand ", until evil overtakes him. He can more safely, as well as more consistently with manliness, face it ; and try conclusions with it. Feeling his original godlikeness, and holding faithfully to it, he has the natural right to say, "Since God be for us, who can be against us". Rom. YIIL. 31. 366 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. Eevelation, coining down the ages like a banner of light borne up unfolding by the historic yet living Church, sheds its beams upon the dismal fact of birth- sin ; and shows it perfectly consistent with humanity as known, and with God both as man needs Him and as He is revealed. It hides nothing. It avoids nothing. It ignores nothing. It answers every real question and doubt, whether springing from longing human conscious- ness, or arising from bold reason backed by humble un- derstanding. It uses the plain word "sin", declaring forgiveness for it; and this, without any avoidance of deepest searchings into it, and into man as affected by it ; and without the least recoil from any questions that true and reverent boldness may propound. Christ ap- pears as the antidote to the disease of sin. " For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ", 1 Cor. XV. 22 : He also comes as humanity's " last Adam a quickening spirit ", " bearing our sins in His own body on the tree ", v. 45, " to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him ". Heb. VH. 25. The last Adam, the Christ, the Godman, entering per- sonally the germinal centre of humanity, ever bearing the full power of Divine grace, not only takes upon Him- self the sin-penalty of the first Adam, but plants in every person born into the world a revivifying force by which that person is raised out of death into life. Birth-sin therefore inherited from Adam is remedied, not removed as we shall notice hereafter, but remedied by the second Adam, Who was immaculate in birth, and victorious in fact over evil and the Evil One. Once more we are brought to the brink of possible human knowledge. Without however entertaining ques- tions that lie outside the scope of human understanding, THE CKEED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 3G7 and especially without answering 'how justice is recon- ciled witli the fearful consequences of sin's penalty, and of corruption proceeding from Adam's disbelief ' ; and merely reasserting and holding strongly the assurance of the Divine consistency — setting to our "seal that God is true ", S. Jn, m. 33 — we note and accept the two cor- relative facts, of the natural transmission of sin and of the coextensive remedy, sent forth by the great God, yet loving Father, through the Incarnation of The Son. It is not claimed, be it observed, that the Creed asserts this natural operation of sin, with its natural counter- action by grace through the Incarnation. Belonging to the Covenant between God and man, the Creed confines its formal expressions to the requirements of the Cove- nant It is only argued that, in this article on sin, it ii at agreement with all the facts of sin. God is over all. Even those who either know not or accept not His cove- nant, are subjects of His law, as well as objects of Hi3 love. As His law is wider than our understanding, and His love larger than our charity, we may be content to leave " the destinies of the heathen " in His hands. We may stand looking out on one hand upon the vast hordes — ^living, dead and unborn — of the sin stricken ; and on the other looking up patiently to Him of Whom it is wi'itten, He is " jealous", " merciful ", " long suffering ", *' angry with the wicked ", " God is love ". Birth-sin is met at the beginning of every entrance into covenant with God. The Church, as the household of God, receives children by adoption. Whether babe or man seek admission, his birth-sin offers the first impedi- ment. Already the natural counteraction of birth-siu has been considered. By admission to the Church how- ever, the person is taken up and out of the uncovenanted natural condition, and placed in one of sure hope through 363 THE CREED AND MODERN THOTTGnT. grace. His natural relation to the Second Adam is sup- plemented by a covenant relation to God. Both rela- tions are actual and germinal. A positive operation goes on in either case. In the one case, the human creature may indeed be plied hopefully, with motives and influ- ences for good ; but in the other, personal grafting into the Godman being assured, he may be tended and "nourished up "as an already living branch of '* The Vine". The Covenant, while consistent with the natural out- flow of vivification through the Second Adam, supple- ments it with a personal new-birth by adoption, thro* baptized membership into Christ. " For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ ". Gal. ni. 27. The operation is distinguished by definite- ness and certainty. Like generation, regeneration is not our own act ; and the following birth or new- birth, are also superhuman. In other words God generates and regenerates. He, only, gives birth and new birth. We have hitherto amply proved and illustrated the fact, that the Son is the actor in all Divine works and effects. Baptism is the only known door of entrance into the Divine-family. It must therefore have a Divine operation, hidden like the vitalizing force which only the " Lord and Giver of Life " bestows : as well as a visible sign, effecting and sealing visible admission to God's Kingdom on earth. Exactly these two provisions are made in the Sacra- ment of Holy Baptism. The closing words of the first gospel, taken in connexion with the literal testimony of St. John the Baptist, make this point luminously clear. In the first. Baptism is set forth by Jesus as the instru- ment of discipleship, while He promises His own per- sonal presence evermore. In the other. He is proclaimed THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 369 by The Spieit thro' the prophet as " The Baptizing One with the Holy Ghost " — 6 fSaTTTL^oiv iv TrvcvfxaTL dytw — S. Jn. I. 33. Hence the living Church, evermore invisibly but actually and effectively indwelt by " The Bridegroom," receives living children, thro' life bestowed by "The Baptizing One " ; Who, according to promise, is present whenever His appointed or allowed ministers, baptize with water "in the name of The Father and of The Son, and of the Holy Ghost ". Thus the outward and the in- ward parts of baptism are kept, with each part exclusively confined to its own administrator. The Church, being a reahty of God's own ordering, and a perpetuity by Christ's own promise ; her baptism comprises, both an outward visible sign, and an inward spiritual grace ". Birth-sin, hke all sin, naturally excludes from Divine favor. Whatever we may reasonably believe or hope about its counteraction, by God's mercy through Christ, in the heathen ; we know by the already quoted words of the New Covenant, that the baptism of the Holy Ghost, given by Jesus, is the actual bestowal of new life. About this there is in fact, and from the nature of the case can be no question. The only possible doubt relates to the times when, and the persons upon whom Jesus confers His baptism. When it has been conferred, then the union of the recipient with the "New Adam " becomes BO complete, that aU the renovating power of the God- man flows into him, and circulates as the vital fluid of the vine pervades the branches, and is returned to the trunk and root, for renewal and reflow. Hence the or- ganism of the Church, and the organic union and com- munion of every member with Jesus, Who " is the Head of the Body The Church " ! Col. 1. 18. This organic union with its vitahzing operations — though primarily suggested by birth-sin, for which they are especially designed, and of 16* 370 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. "whicli they are a complete remission and remedy — are effective, but not irresistibly so, when brought into con- tact with " actual sin " so called. Hitherto the sin of act, i.e. of consciousness and free will, has not been considered in connexion with baptism. It is time now to regard that connexion, both in its bear- ings upon mankind at large, and upon individual char- acter and destiny. Though inseparable from the unit of organic human- ity, and incapable of avoiding its natural operations, every morally conscious and spiritually perceptive human person " must give account of himself to God." This in- dividual freedom — already sufficiently considered as a constituent and sign of man's original godlikeness — , being untrammelled mthin the scope of the creature's capacity and opportunity, must be free to commit sin. This is evident from the only side on which man is capa- ble of viewing his relations to God. The liberty of choosing his leader or lord, being essential to every con- ception of manhood, that the common human conscious- ness accepts as satisfactorily accordant with its instincts, the corollary follows ; that any man may choose either for or against God. This includes of course all neces- sary consequences. An election not of God is choice of something or some power other than God. This is es- sential sin ; whence follows departure from goodness, beauty, purity and truth ; which is transgression, or re- sistance to order and law, the outactions of sin. So long as we hold thought to the human side of facts, and refuse to follow it to the Divine side — where it has no status — the whole subject of sin is clear to the human understanding. "We can neither know, understand, nor imagine, thro' any human powers of invention, how sin appears to God. Hence, if any knowledge comes from THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 371 that side, it must come through revelation. Revelation from God, as we have already amply seen, is not only pos- sible, and therefore probable ; but is a fact resting on the strongest proof ever given of any fact whatsoever : being repeatedly attested not merely by the abstract truthfulness of Jesus, but by Him saying. "I am The Truth " and verifying His word by consenting prophecy and history, by an ever visible, witnessing, organic body ; and by His personal constant presence in His Church, as shown by her wonderful preservation through all out- ward disasters and inward rendings ; as well as con- firmed by competent witnesses who, in every Christian age and now, testify that Jesus is personally known to them, thro' gi-ace, love and fellowship. This revelation from God, accords with the human instincts, and supplements human knowledge. It de- clares that the penalty of sin is the granting of man's choice. Nothing worse can happen to us. Hence thought abhors the idea of sin. Modem Thought how- ever is compelled, by awakened and freed human rea- son, to entertain it. It cannot be denied. It will not go into banishment. It clings to the conscience. It takes hold on the heart It clamors through soul and body and spirit. Man will have an answer to his ques- tions about it. All "men of good will "ask to be deliv- ered from it. Forgiveness faces this fact. Nothing else does face it. Lovers of truth come together at forgiveness. The mind searches, the heart cries out, the will freely submits, and forgiveness meets all difficulties. Man retains his dig- nity, in view of forgiveness ; because this forgiveness is neither compulsoij and thereby enslaving, nor uncon- ditional and thereby destructive of reverence for God, the great, the true, the holy and the just 372 THE CREED AND MODERN THOtTGHT. Forgiveness therefore is a matter for treaty, for a cov- enant. The Divine revelation so declares it. It takes its place, side by side, with all other facts of revelation. It is in harmony with all God's word, as well as accordant with the realities, and all true philosophy of human nature. It is essentially one thing, and bears alike on all men. Every degree, and character, and kind of men need forgiveness. Its outward aspect and formal details differ, but essentially it is in every case a personal matter between God and every human creature. The morally conscious must make, each his own, peace with God. Penitence and faith are the subjective conditions of for- giveness. God has declared these conditions, while human- ity perceives their necessity and confesses their justice. God shows Himself loving and merciful, by forgiving ; while He displays His consistency, even to our understand- ings, by requiring every man only to restore what Adam broke, viz. : personal trust or faith in Him. Sorrow for sin, or penitence, is the natural emotion and necessary princi- ple of the human heart, when convinced of sin. Penitence and faith are as necessary to man's dignity, as they are imperative for God's honor. They exalt the creature, in accordance with his essential natural nobleness in crea- tion, before God ; and they set forth, in newly revealed beauty and brilliance, righteousness and peace, mercy and truth as they beam from the glorious Trinity. If Christianity were an abstraction, the forgiveness of sin might remain as an idea, to work subjectively through the progressive line and mass of the generations. It might take its place in philosophy and poetry ; and develop amid the other ideas, that flit in and out through the forms of varying civilization and culture. No doubt forgiveness is working thus, as an idea with power, not only through thoughtful heatlien souls, but THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 373 througli many honestly perplexed minds in Christian lands. The Creed however presents not abstractions. It declares, under one form, simply " the forgiveness of sins " ; but, in the other form, it puts this article forth as part of that completeness of truth, which recognizes the organism of God's kingdom as the "pillar and ground of the truth ". 1 Tim. HI. 15. It declares therein "one baptism for the remission of sins". The baptism suggests " the Baptizing One." Forgiveness of sins, for Christ's sake, made possible by the Incarnation, effected in the Atonement, vindicated through the Kesurrection, assured at the Ascension, is bestowed in that gift of the Holy Ghost, which is the baptism of Jesus. "The Head of The Body" respects His own insti- tution. His appointed ministers administer to mortals, in His visible Church, the matter and form of words which He set forth. He is with them according to promise. In literal obedience " men of good will " receive from duly authorized ministers, and bring their babes to receive from them, " the water and the word ". The baptism is made complete, by that internal grace of spiritual gift, bestowed by Him, Who is both the New Adam and the Divine Lord. Into the perplexing questions about baptismal effects, under varying ages and conditions of the recipients, the Creed does not enter. They may be safely left to theo- logical research, and remanded to the arena of earnest and honest controversy. Only this we now rest upon, as surely set forth in the Creed, and boldly proclaimed be- fore Modern Thought, viz. : that forgiveness — having God's love for its source, and the Atonement as its propi- tiatory instrument — is not only assured through Christ, but bestowed upon the worthy by Christ personally in His baptism ; and further that this forgiveness, thus be- 374: THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. stowed, conserves man's natural dignity and illustrates God's liigh sovereignty. This article of the Creed, viewed at large, completes the account of sin's forgiveness. Inevitable penalty is met by universal redemption. Superabounding grace contravenes inherited corruption. Pardon, through peni- tential obedience of faith, is provided against actual transgressions. " The Lord and Giver of Life " is the vivifying source of grace. " The Word of God ", Who is God the Son, "the last Adam," "baptizeth with the Holy Ghost ". The visible kingdom of God, The Church, the Body of Christ does its appointed part of the work. God's honor is vindicated, before Earth and Heaven, His love illustrated and His justice signalized : while all "men of good will", humbled but godlike still, with those innocent of actual transgressions, become "par- takers of the Divine nature ", 2 S. Pet. I. 4, " children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heii-s with Christ". Eom. YHI. 17. Gal. lY. 6, 7. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 375 ** ®l)e Rc0itrrecttOtt of i\)t boir^-* ** 2lniJ. 3 look for i\]t ^tsnxxtction of tl)e htabr The immortality of the soul is a doctrine accepted by many wise heathen. They who follow "the light of Nature ", have riot failed to learn, or at least to conceive that personal identity survives death. That irrepressi- ble, subconscious, yet distinct perception of self — where- in fear centres, whence desire goes forth, whereon hope rests, and which all mankind alike possess — is inevitably productive of questionings as to the periods, places and conditions of self-existence. The mind will study the problem of personal life ; and will make, or discover, or learn some view of its future. The analogies of other human lives, observed or learned from the true records of history, shed Hght over the future probabilities of every one's existence ; but such light shines only on this Bide the grave. The dust of death covers and quenches it. Singularly, the distinguishing monumental symbol of the oldest people in the line of Western Civilization — the Obehsk — shows that the founders of modern thought saw the light of life expanding from an un- known centre somewhere on high, and going down in full shining, with still expanding beam, into the grave. The concurrent opinions of thinking men in all ages have consented in regarding every man's life, and all- humanity's existence, as coming from an unseen source, 37G THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT.' and reacliing here on earth not completion, but only a very early stage of development or expansion. Kaces, and nations, and individuals, hardly trace the outlines of their capacities, before the dust covers them, and their places know them no more. Pondering these things, many philosophic men of the old schools reasonably concluded that death was not the end of personal life, but only a door between two of its stages. That philosophy which views man as material in- essence, and therefore deceived in his common irre- pressible assurance of distinct personality, is both re- pellant to natural instinct and hateful to reason. It either ignores the fact of this assurance, or with bitter boldness asserts that it is a cheat, fashioned by distem- pered hope, and built of airy figments by restless imagi- nation. Hitherto this degradation of man to classifica- tion as a higher order of brutes, has been successfully repelled. It has been shown that while developments have occurred on the earth, wherein higher types of animal existence have succeeded one another in progres- sive order, yet the genera and species have fulfilled each its several ends of being, kept the blood of its life to itself permanently uncontaminated by crossing, and re- mained the same, individual after individual, until its career as a race was run. While on the other hand mankind has advanced, through varied civilizations, without evolving a tithe of its capacities, aijd individual men have felt and claimed and manifested the utter in- sufficiency, of either the arena or length of mortal life, for the outaction or expression of even their known ca- pacities, and still less for those capacities which lie swelling with germinating force in the common human sub-consciousness. Should the links be ever found, by which the doctrine THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 377 of evolution may be lifted out of its present unstable dangling amid ingenious theories ; and fastened to some principle supported by fact, then that argument for man's probable immortality which rests upon his pre- eminence over the brutes, would have to undergo some formal modifications. Until then however it will be a fair and full rebuttal of materialism — with its degrada- tion of man to a creature of instinct having no moral status, and no spirit-soul — to show, that while the eagle of to-day is the same in habits and ways as the one which was first seen rising from the waters, and every animal is and ever has been unprogressive on its original parental type ; man, while held to the unit of humanitj^ has manifested wonderful capacities evidently not ma- terial, by which though appearing the same outwardly, he has ever from within aspired and expanded until he has filled the earth with devices, some material, some psychical, some spiritual ; and, at the end of all his works, has still aspired, and yearned, and evinced or avowed his sense of immortality. That this spiritual distinction of man may be one species or form of secretion from material organism, some seek to prove by attempting to show that animal species have evolved themselves by natural selection. Assuming "force " (named by Herbert Spencer "The power mani- fested in evolution ") as the All, whence every existence springs and in which it survives, this theory attempts to solve the problem of personaHty, by conveniently re- manding it to the domain of false fancy. This is unscien- tific. The common human sense of personality must be received as fact, because it is universal. If the " All ", when called " Force ", or " The Power manifested ", can- not find place for this fact, it must be itself displaced. Contradiction is inadmissable in materiaUstic as well as 378 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. in theological science. Theology indeed admits mys- teries ; and teaches their reasonableness, while holding out prospects of their future solution : but materialistic science fails wherever it denies, ignores, or refuses to face fact ; and it confesses failure whenever it remands fact to the domain of fancy. Modem science is no more able, than ancient philoso- phy, to deal satisfactorily with the deep consciousness of man, or mankind. The spirit of man — which led the worldly wise among the ancients to worship according to various mythologies, or to soar to the comparative height of conceiving the soul's immortal existence, amid beauty and uncontaminating pleasure, on a boundless field forever — still continues in every man, to soar be- yond matter, and to claim, assert and manifest its origin above matter. It is impossible to remand this universal human con- sciousness of a spirit-sense, to the domain of material- ism. The most careful observation of the operations of the human brain, or of any or all the human material organs, while it may show specific motions in constant correlation with specified thoughts or feelings, can never prove that the material motion is the cause of the thought or feeling. It may be, with at least equal force, asserted that the thinking or feeling spirit has caused the material motions. The saying that " the brain se- cretes thought as the liver secretes bile ", not only vio- lates the great law of materialism itself that *' like pro- duces like"; but is a bald "begging of the question". The whole point depends upon the final ground of all thought, human consciousness. From our conscious- ness springs perception of matter, whence through rea- sons, opinions, and even happy guesses, we proceed into, and advance material science. Certainly the same THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 379 ground cannot be denied in spiritual investigations. As well deny thought altogether, as to assert that ma- terial perception is our ooly basis of knowledge. It is not a basis at all. It is a layer upon a basis ; and that basis is consciousness. They, who declare the existence in man of a spiritual substance, in which his personality centres, and by which he exhibits faculties and exerts powers not of the earth earthy, not confined to the scope of mortahty, but soaring even in mortal life away from earth, and assured — because of its felt need — of a larger, wider, endless and sleepless life hereafter ; only claim the right they accord to all, of starting from, and of aj)- pealing to the common human consciousness. Consciousness being the first layer in every structure of knowledge, and general consciousness being appealed to in proof of the existence of a spiritual substance in every human person, in which rests his idea and sense of personality ; it is evident that when thus appealed to, an end is reached. Reasons may be urged, why one should carefully examine his own consciousness ; but nothing further can be reasonably done by man for man. Eeligious influences may be resorted to, but theu* results are between God and his. free creature. At the end, the word of every one's consciousness must set forth his own formal acknowledgment of his own spiritual sense, or non-sense. They, however, who have and confess the consciousness of spirit, are easily satisfied of the fact of the soul's immortaUty. This single point has been the basis of many theories, especially among the Orientals, respecting both past and future soul-life ; but, because of their one basis and com- mon Hkeness, they do not here demand specific consid- eration in detaU. It moreover hardly falls within. the scope of present 380 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. argument to consider the spirit- soul of man, in compari- son with the life principles of brutes : It may not be a wholly useless digi'ession, however, to show that the in- stinct of immortality is neither observed in brutes, nor suggested by their racial or individual characteristics and careers. We see many signs in brutes, that accord with those of reason, aifection, and imagination in man. They are however without language, hence have no vehi- cle of abstracted thought ; and, because no means of ex- pressing, therefore no faculties for perceiving spiritual ideas. They have never manifestly developed beyond their earHest types. They have never traced out, nor wrought an abstract opinion into concrete form and suc- cession of forms. They exhibit nothing stronger than appetite, passion, and instinct. Even their imaginations are incapable of corrupting them. While men can stim- ulate appetite and passion, by pictures in words or colors ; and, by masking vice in attractive garbs, can destroy their bodies thro' excess ; brutes never fall thus : nor, on the other hand, do brutes ever control their de- sires by any notions of virtue, duty, decency, or beaut}^ There is undoubtedly in brutes something, underlying and directing the material organs of their bodies. There is an individuality among them, of which they are evi- dently conscious. They are selfish, combative and affec- tionate. They evince several qualities, which in man conjoin personality. If man had no other personal qual- ities, he and the brute might be brothers. If he were not distinguishable, as to his sense of personal identity and the subjects grasped by that sense, as well as by his egoistic consciousness, then indeed he might be con- fined, as the brutes, to a merely temporary sense or perception of individuality. But it is in his aspirations and powers of abstraction, as well as in his moral sense. THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 3S1 and spiritual apprehensions tliat man's personality is dis- tinguishable from, and not only preeminent over the brute's individuahty, but even shown to belong to an- other classification. It may be fairly asked here, if the soul is immortal, how do we know that the individuahty of brutes may not be also immortal ? It may be even argued, that the hfe-principle of brutes may be a substance, as well as the spirit of a man ; and, if a man's personality centres in that substance, whether in or out of matter, why may not a brute's individuahty also centre in a soul-substance, now in but hereafter out of matter ? Suppose it be answered that we do not know about these points ! What if the life-principle of brutes be part of an imponderable soul-like substance, as diffused as matter ; and like matter, when used up in an ending of individual brute life, resolved into the great mass of substance ! "What if there be place and room in the uni- verse for the endless reproduction of- ever advancing types of brute life. Any conjectures about brutes need not imperil the distinctive position of man in the uni- verse — set forth by the first pronoun of the Creed and already fully argued — as person, having body, soul and spuit, and being by nature godlike, and therefore not merely preeminent but unique in creation. All this, however, is only a summary of well known courses of philosophic thought. They have been touched upon, merely to show that the Creed does not require us to ignore, much less despise earnest questions about na- ture. We may foUow nature's lessons, as far as we can search her out. Facts without, in creation, are correla- tives of facts within. Matter suggests spirit, and spirit perceives matter ; while consciousness of personality underlies, or rather pervades, both. ♦ 382 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. The conscious human person ; perceiving the union and communion in himself of matter and spirit ; and be- ing convinced by the revelation — hitherto found first l^robable, then authoritative, then authentic — of his three-fold constitution of body, soul and spirit ; admits all these into his practical idea of person or self. "While perceiving his material oneness with minerals and soils and plants, and discovering his soul-Hkeness to animal Hfe, and learning his aUiance with immortal spirits of the upper sphere, together with his likeness to God, he gathers all these together into his central self-conscious- ness. He knows and is assured that he is not spirit alone, nor soul alone, nor body alone ; but that every one of these substances are taken up and unified in him- self. The whole range of creation centres in man. His consciousness includes this range. It is surely not im- possible, that his immortality may include the same. On Earth man is supreme. He has part in all known sub- stantial forms of existence. As matter is apparently in- destructible, and therefore probably destined to an end- less existence ; it is surely probable, at least, that man's immortality shall appear in a renewed body, as well as soul and spirit. Grossness and corruptibility are not of the essence of matter. Flesh and blood are temporal, and doubtless temporary forms, of which mortal bodies partake ; but every living mortal changes the particles and appearances of his material body, while he never changes his personal identity. At any age he knows his own body, though he cannot say that he retains a single particle of the matter with which he was born. Evidently while body is manifest through matter, and exists in matter, it con- trols matter and matter does not constitute it. Hence science haa no just objection to the doctrine of THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 383 the Resurrection of the Body. The germinal form, and central essence of bodily constitution are unknown. The relations of matter substance with soul substance and spirit substance, are also unknowTi. Indeed this very term substance, tho' used of either, does not prove an analogy between them. From facts of material substance we cannot argue about the others : e.g. divisibility, im- penetrabihty and gravitation belong to matter ; but may not at all belong to soul or spirit. It is vain to object against the possibility of the Resurrection, until aU sub- stantial characteristics and possibilities of material, psychi- cal and spiritual existencies, operations and combinations, are discovered and described. Though every sensible sign of the dead may be lost to mortals, God sees it. In- deed, it is possible even that a sub-microscopic germ of every body may exist, which God will revive and cause to clothe itself anew, as He pleases, out of the wardrobe of His creation. We have no tests by which to discover, much less to analyze spirit-substance, or soul-substance : nor can we so trace matter even, as to determine exactly where lies, and in what consists, the germ of form. Yet nothing is surer, or more variously and widely manifested than that germs do exist in matter, which are upon the whole practically unlimited in assimilating capacity. As a whole they take up all known materials, and make them up into forms. It is impossible to say of any germ, how, or how long, it may lie dormant, or what it may or may nor feed upon, or assimilate. What nature knows as death, is the return to germinal renewals. Man's death only follows the common analogy of nature, when its bodily germ sleeps. The Resurrection of the Body completes the round of natural revivifications. If it be said that seeds of plants reproduce the very same kinds of plants on which they grew, and if it thence 3S4: THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. be argued that the Kesurrection of the Body must be a mere return to mortal life such as we are now living ; it may be answered that plant-seeds, as known to us, die and revive not in a new but in the very same cycle or order of existence. Cycles must be confessed, whether great destructions or cataclysms and following recon- structions be- alio wed or denied. The " testimony of the rocks " seems to show a series of cataclysms in the mate- rial earth ; while the mental, moral, social and political progress of historic mankind has evidently been through a terribly sure recurrence of " overturnings." Those, who hold to a regular and orderly evolution of all things, do not condescend to outward evidence. They say, the " All ", or " Force ", or " The power manifested ", is so serenely supreme, that it would be inconsistent with its immeasurable omnipotence, and irreconcilable with its omniscience, to bring a whole natural order or cycle to sudden destruction, only to renew it again in another order destined to the same fate. This is a plausible argument, according to the common human conception of the Supreme ; but is there any assumption more absurd, than that finite man can conceive of the Infinite, further than to believe in Him, and to learn from Him, as He may choose to reveal ? Is the presump- tion most amazing, or the folly most preposterous, which governs those thinkers, who profess to stand within the centre of light and power, and dare to say what nature must be and must show, by their ovm view of what the Supreme must consistently be and do. Some believe in the possible future advancement of man to that position, close by God, whence he may look out on the universe, and know it, not as a mirror reflecting God and truth, but rather in and by its accord with that supe- rior and primary knowledge which may belong to those THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 3S5 who shall become " partakers of the Divine nature ". 2 S. Peter L 4. 1 S. Jn. m. 2. They who are convinced that the time of this union and communion of man with the Supreme has not yet come, escape self-complacency with its consequent "science falsely so called," by study- ing nature in the light of fact, not endeavoring to bend or break facts into accord with theories. Returning from this apparent, but perhaps not unneces- sary digression, we find in the existence of cycles wherein the details of natural order are changed, nature's own an- swer to the argument, framed against the resurrection of the body from the similarity of the plants of every season to those of the preceding. Whether or not the germs of one cycle are destroyed, as in cataclysms, and those of another created anew ; or whether a vital form lay dor- mant in the preceding cycle, which in the existing one becomes again vivified, so that the plant of the new era is only the naturally evolved issue of the worn-out plant of the departed era ; it is evident that nature is clothed anew in every great distinctive period of her progress, for which period past forms are not fitted. The revelation of " new heavens and a new earth ", 2 S. Pet. nX 13, exactly accords with the cycles of science. The man of this cycle will clearly not be adapted to the new heavens and new earth. Hence his resurrection cannot be to a renewal of the corruptible round of mor- tal life. As we really know nothing about how natural plant-seeds survive cataclysms, or how they overpass the sure even if indistinct boundaries of cycles, so we cannot push the argument from analogy across such chasms or boundaries. The dying plant, with the surviving germ reproducing again the same plant, only suggest or illus- trate the fact of the resurrection of the human body. It cannot explain, much less limit, its scope of reality and 17 3S6 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. truth. The Resurrection may be like seed and plant in one particular, but go vastly beyond it in many others. With characteristic abruptness towards "those who oppose themselves," and equally characteristic mental acumen or subtleness, mingled with and sealed by his consciousness of Divine inspiration, St. Paul deals with this very argument drawn from the analogy of the dying seed and the reviving plant. To those who deny the resurrection of the body, alto- gether, he says, with strong emphasis, " Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die ". 1 Cor. XV. 36. He could not have intended to be discourteous. There must be some reason, why he used such a severe term. That reason may be found in the first verse of Psalm XIV. " The fool hath said in his heart ' There is no God ' ". The fool is the unbeliever in heart, the per- son who would choose truth, not according to its essen- tial worth but according to his own wishes or fancies. To those, who deny the Resurrection wholly, as if it were in all respects impossible, the analogy of the dying seed and the reviving plant is a direct and sufficient answer. Every one should search his heart, and settle himself to the love of the tinith for the truth's sake. Otherwise he may prejudge the issue, and beg the question by saying in heart either, * There is no resurrection ' or " There is no God". To the subtler meaning in the question, ** How are the dead raised up ? and with what body do they come ? " v. 35, St. Paul proceeds to answer, in terms that are equally applicable to the same question as it reappears in Modern Thought. He replies, essentially, that all we know fi'om natural analogies is that we plant one body and reap another. Being able now to witness both the planting and the reaping, we know that wheat for in? THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 387 stance will produce wheat ; but the essential fact in the case is that " God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body", v. 38 : therefore when the reaping season lies beyond our observation, and outside our analogies, we have to fall back upon the essential fact of God's sovereign power and will. The Resurrection may call forth, from the immortal seed of man's dead body, form and forces adapted to a new cycle. There is nothing in this impossible, or even improbable, omnipotence being considered. The Kesurrection — being among the possibilities, suggested by many analogies of human experience, but containing that element of transition to another cycle or order of existence, which transcends aU analogies — must rest, as to its own speciahties, upon evidence. As we have already again and again considered, the Bible, as God's Word, is all bound up and authenticated in the overwhelming evidences of the truth of Jesus. The unity of the New Testament is part of the great mass of fact, that rests on " Christ, the Comer Stone ". Hence what S. Paul further declai*es, in respect to the Resur- rection, comes with the authority of the "Word of God." Fitting itself on to the last link of possible human knowledge, giving fuU force and weight to reasoning from analogy, the Apostle in addition reveals what is possible for the human mind to receive and understand, further, upon the future fact of the Resurrection. "God giveth .... to every seed his own body". Thus the identity, of the dead body and the body raised again, is declared, "His"! "Own"! The one person- ality of the dead and of the raised from the dead, is not only assured ; but the actual essential oneness of the body itself — once dead and afterward raised — is set forth. As flesh is the substance in which the body is manifested on 388 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. earth, " The resurrection of the flesh " is an expression of high authority. If we accept this expression, how- ever, we need not push it to the extreme of supposing that the resurrection of the flesh involves the immortal- ity of the flesh. Indeed S. Paul in this very discourse writes "that flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- dom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorrup- tion ". It is conceivable that natural objections may possibly be made to a fleshly resurrection. It must however be remembered that " the first fruits of them that slept ", v. 20, Jesus, had identically the same body in which He died ; and yet very remarkable powers belonged to it. It could vanish. It could transport itself, suddenly, from place to place. It could pass through closed doors. It could also eat and drink, be seen and handled. Since such possibiUties belong to flesh, any natural objections to the resurrection, made upon material grounds, can easily be answered in the well-known words of the poet of human nature : and yet probably the dreams of phi- losophy will continue yet longer to be urged against the plain revelations of God's word. It is all we can answer, and should be enough, for lovers of the truth for its own sake, that the Scriptures do reveal the Resurrection of the Body, and that the resurrection of the flesh is not a nat- ural impossibility. A distinct and sufiicient object for such resurrection appears in the Great Judgment : ** For we are all to stand before the judgment-seat of the Messiah, that each may receive retribution in the body for what he hath done in it, whether of good or whether of evil ". 2 Cor. V. 10, Syriac. After the Judgment, the raised flesh may then undergo, for aught we know, a transition ; as, for aught we know, did the flesh of Christ when " He was THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 389 taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their siglit ". Acts I. 9. . Finally, upon this point, S. Paul declares of the dead body, "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incon-up- tion It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body For the trumpet shall soimd and the dead shall be raised incorruptible ". The Judg- ment is here passed over. The Apostle touches only on the two boundary facts ; viz. the natural death and the final effect of resurrection. He confines himseK also to revealing the glorification of the bodies of "them . which sleep in Jesus," 1 Thes. TV. 14, as he elsewhere describes their triumph. All these revelations leave many things unknown ; but what is known accords, on one side, with mortal expe- rience and natural knowledge. It links the future to the present, and then leaves us. "We may imagine what we will, and paint pictures of hope according to our capaci- ties and tendencies. All this is lawful Only we are to keep vrithin our scope, and not be wise above that which is written. No limit is set, but such as belongs neces- sarily to our finite condition. As we are hke God, we may be told of mysteries. As we are not God, we can- not encompass all knowledge, and solve all mysteries. The combinations, disruptions, and reconstructions ob- served on earth, prepare our minds for greater things to come. We know not now the means of union between spirit, soul, and body ; and we cannot now comprehend, perhaps shall never more than apprehend, the assimilat- ing powers by which here on earth we take material sub- stance up in body ; while hereafter, clothed in spiritual substance, our personal identity may hold we know not what relation with the everlasting things celestial, and the indestructible though renovated things of earth. 390 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. The fact, of the resurrection of Jesus, is the ground of the " doctrine of the resurrection ". " The last Adam " holds the human race, by both germ and norm, to Him- self forever. Where he goes humanity, by nature and therefore to the full limit of merely organic operation, follows. He brought back His body from the grave, and became thus the " Captain of salvation " the restorer of the captives, the conqueror of death for all men : " Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam, all die, even so in Cheist shall all be made alive '*. 1 Cor. XV. 20-22. Though these and similar testimonies of revelation have a spiritual significance, they have also a natural meaning. The Scripture is often manifold,. in the instructions its words contain ; but one meaning neither excludes, nor becomes displaced by others. The death in sin and the resurrection unto righteousness are in so many particulars like the natural death and resur- rection, that the same words may be used to reveal and describe either. That the spiritual meaning did not ex- haust this passage, the writer, S. Paul himself, afterwards declares in describing some, " who concerning the truth have erred saying that the resurrection is past already ". 1 Tim. n. 17. In one also of those mighty discourses, ■wherein " the Son of Man " declared His prophetical office, and evinced His human perception of its derived authority, speaking of Himself, by authority of The Father whose mission He had accepted and was fulfilling, Jesus said : " For the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damna- tion". ajn.V. 28-29. THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 391 In this passage that distinction, between nature's or- ganic operation and man's personal right and individual necessity to determine his own destiny, is carefully pre- served. It says indeed nothing of those, who have done neither good nor evil. Therefore we are left to the analogies of love and truth, as to the hopes we may cherish concerning the future of infants, and of all who may have done evil in ignorance. The things of God are hidden with God. Only such facts as free men may understand, and such as their personal responsibility demands knowledge of, are revealed. God reserves to Himself the secrets of the great universal and final judg- ment. He will not only preserve, but perhaps in His own time manifest, the consistency of His infinite mercy with His infinite truth. The resurrection from the dead, of all mankind, stands therefore upon surest warrant. It must be sure, because Jesus is true. As an organic operation, reaching aU man- kind through the " last Adam ", it agrees with aU natural analogies; but it no more forces a fixed final destiny upon any one, than the spiritual making alive of all men, through Christ, forces every one to use that gracious gift well. To the last God respects human dignity, by leaving man's choice free to take finally one or the other course. Having chosen God as his Lord or refused Him, when his mortal probation period shall have passed, every person will proceed, through a wonderful but natural resurrection, onward to the endless destiny of his own selection. All experience accords with a periodicity in probation. Taken in time, any possibility may be hope- fully sought. Out of its time, the least thing is impossi- ble. The Book of the Word of God, clearly and often, states that this mortal life comprises the period of man's probation* It says nothing surely of any probation be- 393 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. yond the grave. It is clearly revealed that the doers of good shall enjoy " the resurrection of life ". Even the most compassionate lover of man, "the Man Christ Jesus *', Who came to seek and to save that which was lost, Whose mission of Salvation sprang from Gk)D's love of the world, cannot destroy the divine image in man, by forcing him unwilling into the pure presence of God eternally. " He that hath done evil unto the resurrec- tion of damnation"! "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the righteous into life ever- lasting ". S. Matt. XXEV. 46. The whole Creed holds together consistently, and this article upon the Eesurrection supplements that upon the Judgment. While agreeing together, however, eveiy part has its leading and special significance. In the article under review, the Creed — being both a formula of faith and a psean unto God — puts words of hope and everlasting assurance into Christian lips. "I look for the resurrection of the dead ". The multitudes of the living soldiers of the cross, with those who wait on earth patiently, together with the spirits departed — whose cry rises out from under that altar on high, whence all prayers ascend mingled with angelic incense, before Him, Who sitteth on the Throne — all join in these hopeful words, with longing expectation. Death has divested the departed ; so that one, of the three parts of their personal identity, sleeps. They are not yet perfect. Death lies also before us who are living. Yet, knowing in Whom we have believed, and being persuaded that He is able to keep that committed to Him against that day, we follow along, up the ages, with the one faith and one hope. As individual persons joined to God in Christ, and as members of the One Body — including all the faith- ful, living, to live, and dead — our song is triumphal over THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 393 the grave, and even over the happy but incomplete, wait- ing life in Paradise. The great Day of Resurrection gleams before us, as the occasion and period of the Con- summation ; when, restored to the completeness of re- newed humanity, we shall be fitted to enter into full com- munion with Him, after Whose likeness we " are and were created." This final conquest over the grave, and only this, opens and presents to man full and everlasting satisfaction, to all and to every part of his identity. The soul shall not be without the body, nor the spirit separate from either : but all, in perfectly restored identity, in conscious " I ", shall finally enter forever upon the scenes of whatever destiny shall have been — every one for himself — elected in time's probation season. 17* 394 THE CEEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. " 3lnir i\)t £ife £t)£rlastlng 2lnir% ji:ifeof% lUorlbto romc.'* As a song of thanksgiving unto God, the Creed closes with words fitted for a chorus. All the Church, on Earth and in Hades, shouts in unison this glorious acclaim. The Consummation is depicted. The shadows of sin and retribution, with the darkness of the destiny of the un- beheving, are thrown into the background ; not denied, but only not mentioned in this final burst of joyful assur- ance. Light, beaming from '* Jesus .... the Light of the world", S. Jn. YIII. 12, reveals its own source for " in Him was life ; and the life was the light of men ". L 4. Litensely and perfectly human is the " life ever- lasting of the world to come ". It includes the full efful- gence of all ideal perfection, in beauty, and sweetness, and power. It comprises whatever concrete forms of goodness and glory, pure imagination can picture to hope ; supplementing all and binding them together in the sure promise of personal, free communion with Jesus : "for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power ". Col. H. 9, 10. Modem Thought is familiar with two distinct ideas of human life. One, that it is simply " force " or " perma- nent possibility ", vitalizing the universe, calling up forms, either as individuals, or persons, into being ; and then remorselessly dropping them all, slowly, one by one, be- THE CREED AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 305 tween the upper and nether millstones of natural prog- ress, which revolve, grinding and grinding up forever. Personality, in this view, is only one element in the com- pound of existence : if it be an atom, it may come up again, perhaps ; and, if it be a composite of atoms, it may never appear again, but only give up its constituents, to enter into new combinations, and reappear in new form, or even in divided parts of various, ever changing forms. It is quite possible to project this idea into the future ; and, using these very words of The Creed, to mean by them nothing else than a horrible round of never ending evolution, through agonized living, unto inevitable de- struction. This dreadful notion, about the mystery of existence, may possibly suit beings, out of whom all af- fection, sensibility, and sensation have been ehminated. They, who have attained the lofty degradation of "pure mind", may possibly, perhaps, be able to picture ab- stract life, and feed such souls as they may have upon that idea : but if such persons exist, they may be ice- bergs — clear and cold and sparkling — they can hardly have the ordinary pulsations, and yearnings, and con- scious needs, and hopes, of men. The other, and the only alternative, idea of human life is the one clearly set forth in the common human con- sciousness, taken for granted in Holy Scripture, and de- clared in the first word of The Creed ; viz. : that of per- sistent personal identity. This includes body, soul and spirit, each distinct but all composing a unity that, how- ever disrupted for a time, remains undestroyed forever. It is the I, which in due time shall be readjusted and revivified, to live again forever amid an immortal harvest ever growing from mortal seed-plantings. Nor is this the whole of the Life Everlasting ; because it is not its 396 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. perfection. It is part, and no mean part. It is profit- able to dwell upon that great working of God's power, whereby cause and effect go on through time into eter- nity, slowly but surely rolling out the warp and woof of every one's existence, in accordance with his own capa- city, and skill and labor. Talents and opportunities are given, and with them doubtless men detennine and con- struct their everlasting fortunes, both in this life and for the life to come. This view however is designed for mortal discipHne. It may have very salutary effects in curbing our spirits, enlarging our minds, trying our faith, chastening our tempers, and purifying hope through pa- tience. Every truly Avise and prudent person will not fail to order his life, in view of the sure consequences to his immortality. Still, this whole conception is economic. It views rather what we may have, than what we may be. The riches, and power, and honors of heaven are indeed worthy our contemplation ; and worth striving after, by work of all kinds, through the various paths of wisdom and charity : but there is a loftier conception of the Eternal Kingdom, than that presented alone by the heavenly Jerusalem with its gates of pearl, its wall of gems, its streets of gold, and " the tree of life which bare twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fi-uit every month". Rev. XXn. 2. The *'life everlasting of the world to come" brings those, who attain unto it, face to face with God The Father, through their personal union and communion with the Godman. They stand in His presence. Being the greatest of His creatures, they rank not only higher than all others, but are placed next Him, "Of Whom are all things and we in Him". 1 Cor. VHI. 6. "Be- hold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sous of God: THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 397 » . . . Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is". S. Jn. HL 1-2. Love is the ever revealed, binding, linlf of everlasting union, through Jesus, between God and the human im- mortal sons of God. Love is only conceivable between persons. Identity is of the essence of personaHty. The very same persons, that were the sons of God on earth, shall, after patient continuance in well doing unto the end, enter into communion with "His Father and our Father ", through membership in Christ, the Head over all. In this consists the central fact, the vital germ, normal grace, and power of the "life everlasting." It is such union with God, as is possible between Creator and creatures made in the image of the Creator. What this union is to God, He only can know. What it is to us, we are capable of apprehending. We may not com- prehend it, we may not go all around it, and behold it as God beholds it. We may only accept it, as fact — existing, and actual, not without but apart from our own previous will and cooperation — which, when recognized, may ba grasped and held with all its ideal relations and practical consequences. Our apprehension, in the eternal life, will look out on two sides. On one side God will be with us. AU that is in us of capacity, function and force, all understanding, reason and will, all emotion, affection and pure senti- ment, all that we are, or possibly may be, will go forth on that side in response to Divine love, and receive that love, to the fulness of our consciously personal satisfac- tion, forever and forever. On the other side the ever- lasting life will present, to our apprehension, aU the ob- jective works of God. They will appear ; not like a mir- 398 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. ror, as now they do in mortal life, reflecting the Creator and requiring great skill and caution, lest we read the re- flection erroneously and thus form mistaken views of God, the Truth ; but they will be seen in the line — reverently speaking — of God's own vision. Instead of being primary facts, whence we get secondary ideas of God, they will be themselves secondary illustrations and exemplifications of primary knowledge of God. Directly, from His own unveiled effulgence of wise, potent and tender love, wherein centres His own dear and glorious self, wiU pour, into and through us and out over the everlasting world to come, the ever active Divine Hfe and light. Thus and then, though prophecies shall have failed, and tongues ceased, and knowledge vanished away, the tri- unit of man's perfect peace will remain. Faith, en- couraged by celestial sight, will only the more confi- dently cling to the exhaustless. Infinite One. Hope, though looking back over incalculable fruition of joy, and beholding the fulness of present satisfaction, will repose confidently upon the ever full and ever flowing bounty of the Omnipotent One. While charity — supreme love to God Who is love and boundless love to all His creatures — will ever fill all the saved in soul, spirit and body. Faith and hope will go out, forever, towards God. Charity will go forth, carrying the completeness and distinctness of person, as a willing oflfering to Him Who accepts and responds to the offering with the impartation of Himself, His love. "And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three ; but the greatest of these is charity". 1 Cor. XHI. 13. Eternal life is eternal love. The life everlasting of the world to come, as the Creed presents it and only as thus presented, overtops the very highest destiny that man can portray; while it yet only fills what, in his deep THE OKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 399 consciousness, he knows must be filled in order to the full development of his being. Love, free, full and boundless, is the prerequisite and the fulfilment of per- fect life. Only God is deepest, largest, ever living, love. Only persons can love. The Life of the World to Come is, and according to the Creed shaU ever continue, an unHmited personal reunion between God and the images of God. The Creator, having made free creatures and given them an education of trial, vrill reward the faith- ful with an everlasting hfe of loving communion, free allegiance, and glorious exaltation with Himself; next the Father, Whose "Word" He is, and Whose sons by adoption the saved become. 400 THE CJREED AND MODEKN THOUGHT. The -Beal of the document ! The witness of the Cove- nant! The reaffirmation of every particular fact and doctrine ! The reassertion of the whole I The one all embracing acceptance of The Creed, as an indivisible unity ! This ; but vastly more ! . Amen is the Greek for "verily." Our Loed Jesus fre- quently used this word, or rather its colloquial equivalent. As He spake it, as it is translated by the Evangelists, as it comes to us in English, it carries a significance, deeper far than that ordinarily assigned to it. Sometimes, in opening solemn assertions our Lord repeated it. Whether once or twice said, it was an appeal to the very source of truth. It was of the nature of an oath. K we call to mind the solemn dignity of the person and office of the Godman, we shall be impressed by the fact of His making oath. He could not have done it, without the deepest consciousness of its awful sacred- ness. Even the most reverent of mere mortals can hardly imagine the profound awe, and love, and strong assur- ance, with which the Godman would make His appeal directly to the God of Truth. It is impossible to translate, with due reverence, into the vernacular form of the oath, the Amen or Verily, in the connections in which Christ used the word : but one perhaps may, without irreverent presumption, for the Bake of the impressive lesson contained, think of the THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 401 weight of meaning carried by the oath-form in such pas- sages e.g. as "Verily, verily I say unto you, we speak that we do know, and we testify that T^e have seen". S. Jn. HL 11. "Verily, I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, tiU aU be fulfilled". S. Matt. V. 18. "Verily I say unto you. Whosoever shall not receive the King- dom of God as a Httle child, he shall not enter therein ". S. Mar. X. 15. "Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise". S. Lu. XXIIL 43. "VerHy, verily, I say unto you. Whatsoever ye shall ask The Father in My name. He will give it you ". S. Jn. XVL 23. When however we have devoutly imagined the serene and holy Godman, making these solemn appeals to God in connection T\4th his most stupendous personal claims, and setting them as seals to promises of eternal blessings to mankind, we have not even yet reached the depth of the significance of the word. Amen ! Verily ! Truly ! As God is true ! By Him Who is the Truth! Now put this depth of solemn significance by the side of that most stupendous self-assertion made by Jesus in these words, "I am"Vni. 58, "I am . . the truth". XIV. 6. Not *I speak always the truth,' 'I do always the right' but first * "I am " in MyseK' ; then ' in Myself "I am the Truth"'. If words can convey the meaning, the Jehovah of old is here declared one with the Chbist. He is the very truth itself; the nucleus of Hght and source of power. Reahty centres in Him. He is the ground of all possi- bility, the efficiency of all action, the efficacy of all Divine or true utterance. AVhat is the outcome, and full meaning therefore of Amen, as sanctioned by the use and example of Jesus ? 402 THE CKEED AND MODERN THOUGHT. It was an appeal to God, an oath by Him Who is true, by Him Who is the truth, by Himself. "He that swear eth shall swear by the God of truth". Is. LXV. 16. "Because He could swear by no greater He sware by Himself." Heb. VI. 13. The use of Amen, in the Old Testament as an appeal to God, for an oath-test of veracity, an end of controversy or seal of devotion, may be found in the books of Moses, in Kings and Chronicles, in the Psalms, and in Jeremiah. The most remarkable use of it however, appears in the passage just quoted from Isaiah. There the " God of truth " of our EngHsh translation which follows the Sep- tuagint, " is in the Hebrew — ' the God Amen ' ". [Cru- den.] This very name is assumed to Himself by Jesus, as re- corded in the Apocalypse. "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God ". Rev. HE. 14. Thus Amen becomes one of the links, uniting the Jehovah of the Old Testament with the Christ of the New ; and carries, on its front, the idea of the presence, and power, and consistency of God ; " not a god that hath pleasure in wickedness ", Ps. V. 4 ; but the One to Whom " lying lips are abomination ", Prov. XH. 22 ; and yet, "The High and Lofty One ", Who dwelleth "in the high and holy, with him also of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones ". Is. LVH. 15. Thus viewed, this word, so commonly used and often lightly defined, is found overflowing with significance and solemnity. It is always an appeal ; and that, not to an ideal of abstract truth, but to CnRisT^the concrete person of Truth — " for in Him dweUeth all the fulness of the God- head bodily ". Col. H. 9. At the end, as in the begin- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 403 ning, therefore, The Creed is intensely personal. It brings man face to face with the Godman. It puts into man's mouth the Godman's own chosen affirmation. It joins man with the Godman in the solemn oath. Man sets this seal to the formula of his faith, and rests upon Jesus. The One, Who binds the Divine and human natures to- gether in one person, is appealed to for the verity of the form ; and relied upon for the efficacy of its facts. The " Days-man " — not merely holding God by one hand and man by the other, but sharing both natures — takes us into organic union with Himself, and lifts our indestruc- tible persons up, so that with Him and in Him we may hold the truth in love, may accept the Creed — the cen- tral formula of truth — not through the intellect alone, but throughout understanding, will, and affection ; even in the unit of person, taught to know God, in, by and through love. No one knows better, than mindful and heartful be- lievers, that the grandest truth has a sheer edge beyond which fall precipitately the dark chffs of error. The highest adoration, overpast, becomes blasphemy. Exal- tation of humanity, beyond its divinely imaged creature- hood, incurs the sin of proud presumption vsdth the con- sequence — needful though fearful — of banishment from His presence, " Who will not give His glory to another." Is. XUI. 8. Yet whoever starts back from any lofty height, revealed and opened to human view, because just beyond it danger lurks, must be content, all his mortal life at least, to know not that sweetness and brightness of truth which pervades the soul of him who knoweth the love of God, for " he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him", 1 S. Jn. IV. 16 ; nor may such falsely humble or timid soul apprehend that nearness of the final future divine communion, 404 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. which Jesus foretells : "At that day ye shall ask in My name ; and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you ; for the Father Himself loveth you, be- cause ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God ". S. Jn. XVL 26. Now, finally, looking back upon the whole Creed, and viewing it as a unity ; some considerations, that came up specifically with its several articles, take form and force in respect to the whole. Christianity cannot afford to stand on the defensive. It is the very power of God, organized, endued with authority, entrusted with disci- pline, given a code, commissioned to honor the Most Holy Name, and through all successive generations to preach the Gospel, and dispense the sacraments of grace. The Creed is the formulated essence of Christianity. It is not an invention of men. History cannot reveal its origin. It was found, none can tell how early in com- mon Christian use. Even the full form — now known as the Constantinopolitan and commonly called the Nicean Creed — was not set forth as the common theology of its framers, but as the very truth or fact of the Gospel as it had been held from the beginning in the various parts of the Church Universal from which the councillors came. They did not create it ; they merely bore witness to its accordance with " The Faith ". Nor was this its final historic rest. It went forth, among the whole body of the disciples of Christ ; and, after much discussion and conflict, became acknowledged as THE CREED. It has of course been fought against, almost from the beginning. In this respect, it has fared as He fared, on Whom it rests. Its opponents however have never set up a rival against it. Whatever ci'eed- THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 405 forms have attempted to stand against it, have fallen as upon " This Stone ". S. Matt. XXI. 44. They have in no instance been preserved from being broken. Their fragments can be found, scattered along the historic roada and by-ways of men's opinions. Modem Thought is familiar with their powdeiy remains; for they blow about, on the numberless gusts of modern opinions, now like motes and now like missiles, having one common likeness in this age and all the past : they are obviously merely human in origin, evanescent, and though reap- peai-ing, never in detail exactly as before, nor ever resting in any compact unity of form. On the other hand, The Creed of to-day is, with few unimportant particulars, the same as that of the early ages ; for which was claimed, not that it was true according to the opinions of those then learned and having authority, but that it was the fact of the name of God, as revealed, and given to the world, viz. : The Word with power ! That the Creed stands forth, unrivalled in history for unity and perpetuity, is notorious. The point would have many attractions, were history at present in view. It is however only touched on now, and set forth without argumentative proof or defence. Though true, it is but the foil to the more brilliant and intrinsic fact, that the Creed, as the concentric reahty of the Gospel of Truth, is to-day a living power, standing before men and claim- ing their adherence, upon its own verity, fitness towards both God and man, and accordance with all knowledge. On this ground it has been discussed in detail. As in detail, so in unity and wholeness, it stands out before Modem Thought. It is the only fonnula wherein God is duly honored and man fully respected. Its corner stone, and pervading cement of unity, is The Name of God. The full revelation, it contains of that Name, in- 406 THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. volves and accompanies the noblest possible estimate of man's dignity ; accords with every truly deep fact of human consciousness ; fulfils all the common human aspirations, how loftily soever they soar ; agrees with all established science, and authentic history ; and, at the last, presents the most completely harmonious, as well as exalted, picture of a "final consummation." Therein God and godhke man stand together, as Father and children ; as Lord and loyalist ; as Benefactor and friends ; as The Word indwelling responsive persons, who accept in love, being themselves accepted in The Beloved. Around this everlasting union stretches, on every hand, the Celestial with the indestructibly material universe. One shadow only lies in it. The mystery of iniquity, with the mystery of retribution ! Human powers cannot dispel the shade ; but the Creed is the formulated " tes- timony of Jesus ", Kev. XIX. 10, and " he that hath re- ceived His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." S. Jn. HI. 33. "Men of good wiU " see, in the Creed, aU conceivable perfectness and glory in God; while humanity's exaltation is shown joined to "Jesus, standing on the right hand of God". Acts YH. 55. The shadow as well as the brightness of " The Truth ", "as the truth is in Jesus", Eph. IV. 21, draw us person- ally to God. We trust Him. His love is the assurance of all good to us. We confide in Him, the All Merciful, the Just, knowing that He is true, and that He will, in His own good time, open to us whatever mystery we ought, and may in loving reverence desire, to know. Nor is the Creed merely a code to die by. Though leading up to the Consummation, it sheds glorious light over all the "pathway of life." Men can Hve on earth more nobly, and more worthily of themselves, when they know their own natural godhkeness, and appreciate their THE CREED AND MODERN THOUGHT. 407 mission to adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour, by daily following Christ. Striving to grow up after the pattern of His perfect manliness, they may occupy what- ever station they win or fall into, as the fiiends and children of God ; doing, with theu' might, whatever their hands find to do, in loving service to Him, Who careth for us. Thus in every way, for time and for eternity, the Creed is ever the chart of direction and the Charter of Liberty. Man, as man, cannot afford to do without it. In detail, and in completeness, it embodies the central truth of God and man. In it, and according to it only, man and God come together in living harmony and full commu- nion forever. END. / ' ^i2«<'"HI» BOOK 18 PTT-r*, - 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. ■REcrr—zr OCT 1 7 1961 MAR14 196S 6 REC'D l . D mR-3' 6 6- g ^PM APR 1-196635 i "^^'O CO is -^2 ^* b