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THE CHRISTIAN FAITH i 
 
 1 
 
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THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 PERSONALLY GIVEN IN 
 A SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIN ALFRED CURTIS 
 
 PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY IN THE DREW THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
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 UNIVERSITY 
 
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 Salifobhs^ 
 
 LONDON 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
^FHERAL 
 
 Copyright, 1905. by 
 EATON & MAINS. 
 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. 
 
" VELLE BENE FACERS' 
 
 Z,o flD? 3fatbet 
 
 IReuben Curtis 
 
 **How oft have I, 
 A little child, hearkened my father's voice 
 Preaching the Word. . . . 
 Again I see those circling, eager faces ; 
 I hear once more the solemn-urging words 
 That tell the things of God in simple phrase; 
 Again the deep-voiced, reverent prayer ascends. 
 Bringing to the still summer afternoon 
 A sense of the eternal. As he preached 
 He lived; unselfish, famelessly heroic." 
 
 164868 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE 
 
 PART FIRST— HAN 
 
 DISCUSSION PAGE 
 
 I. The Man and the Animal 5 
 
 II. Personality 15 
 
 III. The Moral Person 25 
 
 IV. Freedom, Personal and Moral 37 
 
 V. Personal Morality 57 
 
 VI. Religion 77 
 
 VII. The Theistic Argument 95 
 
 VIII. Revelation 103 
 
 PART SECOND— THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 
 
 IX. The Christian Religion and the Moral Person 115 
 
 X. The Christian Religion and the Human Race 129 
 
 XI. Christian Certainty 143 
 
 XII. The Christian Book 159 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE 
 
 XIII. Systematic Theology 183 
 
 The First Doctrinal Division 
 Man's Need of Redemption 
 
 XIV. The Creation and Fall of Man 191 
 
 XV. The Doctrine of Sin 199 
 
 The Second Doctrinal Division 
 Jesus Christ, Otir Lord and Redeemer 
 
 XVI. The Deity of Our Lord 211 
 
 XVII. The Incarnation of the Son of God 233 
 
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 The Third Doctrinal Division 
 0«r Lord's Redemptive Work 
 
 DISCUSSION PAGE 
 
 XVin. The Holiness of God 257 
 
 XIX. The Moral Government 269 
 
 XX. The Christian Meaning of Death 281 
 
 XXI. The Teaching of Saint Patd 300 
 
 XXII. Our Lord's Strange Hesitation in Approaching Death 310 
 
 XXIII. The Racial Theory of Otir Lord's Redemptive Work. 316 
 
 The Fourth Doctrinal Division 
 Redemption Realized in the New Man 
 
 XXIV. The Personal Dispensation of the Holy Spirit 337 
 
 XXV. The Preparation for Conversion 347 
 
 XXVI. Conversion 353 
 
 XXVII. Personal Holiness 371 
 
 XXVIII. The Christian Doctrine of the Intermediate State. . . . 397 
 
 XXIX. The Resurrection of the Body 408 
 
 The Fifth Doctrinal Division 
 Redemption Realized in the New Race 
 
 XXX. The Church of Our Lord 415 
 
 XXXI. The Christian Sacraments 425 
 
 XXXII. The Church Militant 434 
 
 XXXIII. The Church Triumphant 445 
 
 XXXIV. Men Outside the New Race 457 
 
 The Sixth Doctrinal Division 
 The Tritme God Revealed in Redemption 
 
 XXXV. The Attributes of God 474 
 
 XXXVI. The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity 483 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Neither in claim nor in spirit is this book dogmatic. 
 As indicated in several ways by the book itself, there is 
 no attempt to speak the final word, no aim to be, or to 
 become, "the recognized authority" of any church, or of 
 any school, or of any man. After years of preparatory 
 waiting, I have, I believe, caught an important vision 
 of the Christian Faith as an organic whole of doctrine, 
 and I am eager to help other men to catch the same 
 vision. 
 
 In reading the book, many peculiarities of view and 
 method will be discovered ; but the main clue to all can 
 be found in one thing, namely, in the junction of the two 
 ideas, personal responsibility and racial solidarity. Every 
 man is a responsible moral person ; but no man is complete 
 in himself — he is made to be a fragment of an entire race. 
 Instead of being content with one of these ideas, I use 
 them both in junction, and with equally serious emphasis. 
 In this peculiar junction there may be, I sometimes hope, 
 a fair mediation between Arminianism and Calvinism. 
 
 From many teachers and authors I have received 
 suggestions; but there are four names that should be 
 amply noted in this preface ; for without the influence of 
 these four men the book, in all probability, would never 
 have been conceived. First, Dr. Daniel Whedon. He 
 it was, and he alone, who convinced me beyond possible 
 doubt that the necessitarian has no case in Ethics, and 
 almost no case in Psychology. Second, Thomas Carlyle. 
 For as much as ten years, in my early ministry, my mind 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 was dominated by Carlyle. And at last he compelled me 
 to appreciate the ethical appeal of the prophets of the 
 Old Testament; and from this appreciation the entire 
 moral fiber of my message has surely come. Third, 
 Professor Borden P. Bowne. As Whedon and Carlyle, 
 together, led me to see the moral significance of per- 
 sonality, Bowne led me to see its cosmic significance. 
 And this cosmic significance of personality is now basal 
 in all my thinking. This statement, though, is not to be 
 taken to mean that I pretend to represent Professor 
 Bowne in definite opinion or tendency. I wish simply 
 to pay an unstinted tribute to his influence without 
 allying him to my theology. Fourth, Bishop Martensen. 
 Not only did he create my confidence in Systematic 
 Theology, also he started my present conception of the 
 organism of Christian doctrine. Yet more ought to be 
 said — the courage to wait for a vision of the total faith 
 was kept alive in me by reading Martensen 's Christian 
 Dogmatics. 
 
 As to my discussions, there are, I am aware, places 
 where the items are not fully in harmony. Sometimes 
 this want of harmony results from my determination to 
 preserve every mood in which the book was written. I 
 would not cut out a passage to secure consistency, for I 
 cared more for a full testimony than I did for a flawless 
 argument. At other times the inconsistency is more 
 deeply rooted, and means that I have not yet worked 
 out all the implications of miy Psychology. In a few 
 most subtle situations I am not quite sure as to the real 
 data, and so I waver in my estimate. 
 
 Another matter — the scheme of quotation — ^requires 
 a word of explanation. The primary purpose of this 
 scheme is to provide an atmosphere for my discussion. 
 But under this primary purpose a quotation is, at times, 
 used to illustrate or confirm or enlarge a conclusion ; or in 
 
■ PREFACE xi i 
 
 justice to state an important view which is different from j 
 
 my own. In every instance where a quotation from a j 
 
 foreign language makes such a contribution as may be I 
 
 of large value to the reader, it has been carefully trans- ] 
 lated. In other instances, I have yielded to my own ~ ~ ^ 
 
 taste. j 
 
 Olin a. Curtis. j 
 
 The Drew Theological Seminary, | 
 
 Madison, New Jersey, \ 
 
 August, 1905. I 
 
 j 
 I 
 
 i 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE 
 
Fragment op a conversation between a professor op moral 
 SCIENCE in an American college and a student just about 
 TO graduate from a certain Theological Seminary: 
 
 Professor. "Are you entirely satisfied with your course in theology? " 
 
 Student. "No; the course has been of value to me, but it has one 
 lack." 
 
 Professor. "What? I am interested." 
 
 Student. "In studying the Bible and Christian doctrine no con- 
 nection was an5rwhere made with moral science." 
 
 Professor. "I am not surprised. The theologian is quite wont to 
 forget that a sinner is a man." 
 
THE INTRODUCTION 
 
 Part First 
 
 MAN 
 
FINDING A MAN 
 
 To have a note of reality in our theology, we must see what actually 
 takes place in the life of a man. In the last century much was written 
 about man; new search was made in psychology, in ethics, in anthro- 
 pology, and especially in sociology; and some of this search resulted 
 in positive contribution to our knowledge; but from nearly all of this 
 scientific work we turn away in disappointment. It is not merely 
 that the view is partial, that the selection of data is often arbitrary, 
 that the intrinsic human elements are never all vitally combined — the 
 root of the failtire lies deeper. These writers themselves care for 
 science and not for living men. They have not the eye of love, and 
 so they do not and cannot find a real man at all. It seems like "a 
 spacious phrase," but it is the truth, that in the poetry of Robert 
 Browning one can come closer to the whole reality of human life 
 than he can in any scientific treatise published in the last hundred 
 years. . . . 
 
 I too may fail, for the task is oftentimes baffling in the extreme; 
 but I am eager to find a man. I want to see, and then to help you to 
 see, a real man's real life — not to be caught and held fast in the acci- 
 dental overlay, not to be misled by the conventional estimate, not to 
 be swept away by the scientific tendency, but to see for myself a real 
 man's real life. . . . And to be true, patiently, comprehensively 
 true, to our own fellow, the common man, {God help us there/) to be 
 open to the meanings of all things in his experience, low things as well 
 as high things, high things as well as low things; to enter into his 
 most flashing and evasive moods; to commune with him as friend 
 communes with friend — yes, to love him with an everlasting love; 
 and out of all this, to tell the entire wonder of his story. . . . 
 
 And I would discover, not only what a man is by nature, but also 
 what he may become by the grace of God. To borrow a line from 
 John Bunyan's quaint Apology, I want to show you how a man 
 
 ' ' runs and runs 
 Till he unto the gate of glory comes." 
 — From the notes for a course of Seminary Lectures. 
 
THE MAN AND THE ANIMAL 
 
Lower than God who knows all and can all, 
 
 Higher than beasts which know and can so far 
 
 As each beast's limit, perfect to an end, 
 
 Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more; 
 
 While man knows partly but conceives beside, 
 
 Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact. 
 
 And in this stri\'ing, this converting air 
 
 Into a solid he may grasp and use. 
 
 Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, 
 
 Not God's, and not the beasts' : God is, they are, 
 
 Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 
 
 — Robert Browning, A Death in the Desert. 
 
 When I speak of transition I do not in the least mean to say that 
 one species turned into a second to develop thereafter into a third. 
 What I mean is that the characters of the second are intermediate 
 between those of the two others. It is as if I were to say that such 
 and such a cathedral, Canterbury, for example, is a transition between 
 York Minster and Westminster Abbey. No one would imagine, on 
 hearing the word transition, that a transmutation of these buildings 
 actually took place from one into another. — Thomas Henry Huxley 
 Life and Letters, ii, 428. 
 
 In the scientific sense evolution is neither a controlling law nor a 
 producing cause, but simply a description of a phenomenal order, a 
 statement of what, granting the theory, an observer might have 
 seen, if he had been able to inspect the cosmic movement from its 
 simplest stages tintil now. It is a statement of method and is silent 
 about causation. . . . The causality of the series lies beyond it; 
 and the relations of the members are logical and teleological, not dy- 
 namic. In that case much evolution argiunent vanishes of itself. 
 Survivals, reversions, atavisms, and that sort of thing become only 
 figures of speech, which are never to be literally taken. In a 
 phenomenal system these things can literally exist as little as they 
 can in a piece of music, for in such a system only laws and ideas abide. 
 — Borden P. Bowne, Theism, Deems Lectures for 1902, pp. 104, 108. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 L THE MAN AND THE ANIMAL 
 
 Necessarily here we touch the dominant theory of 
 evolution. There are, as Professor Bowne has pointed 
 out, two different ways of regarding the process of evo- 
 lution in nature, namely, as a causal process and as a 
 phenomenal process. For illustration take the series 
 ABC. Our questions are : Did A by dynamic efficiency 
 produce B, and then B in the same causal manner pro- 
 duce C? Or did A simply first appear in a progressive 
 plan which next required B, and then culminated in C? 
 Readily we perceive that these questions pertain to two 
 distinct provinces, the first question to that of meta- 
 physics, the second to that of natural science. Evolu- 
 tion as a theory of natural science, aiming to furnish an 
 account of phenomenal relations in nature, I can receive 
 and receive with enthusiastic gratitude toward such 
 naturalists as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wal- 
 lace; but evolution as metaphysics, aiming to furnish a 
 philosophy of causation, I must reject as utterly super- 
 ficial and unconvincing. 
 
 Perhaps we can handle the subject with more clear- 
 ness and interest by making reference to that popular 
 exposition by Charles Morris, called Man and His An- 
 cestor. In a brilliant chapter, "How the Chasm was 
 Bridged," Mr. Morris teaches that the ape may have 
 ''emerged into man" by means of his first use of tools. 
 
8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 To "some wise-headed old man-ape** there came, per- 
 haps, the idea of binding a stone to the end of a club. 
 Thus was made not only the earliest form of the battle-ax, 
 but, as "our progressive ancestor" soon perceived, a 
 veritable tool with which objects could be shaped. In 
 this fortuitous manner, it is imagined, began the long 
 and splendid line of human invention and manufacture! 
 This is exceedingly interesting; but even more inter- 
 esting than this event is the "wise-headed old man-ape" 
 himself. What is meant by saying that he "emerged 
 into man"? Is it that he passed from mechanical 
 volition into self-conscious volition? If so, then Mr. 
 Morris has missed the true point of emphasis. The 
 method of this passage into the experience of self -con- 
 sciousness is not the remarkable thing. It is no more 
 remarkable that a creature, if capable of self -conscious- 
 ness at all, should become self-conscious by binding a stone 
 to the end of a club than that Jean Paul should become 
 self-conscious by sawing wood. The true point of em- 
 phasis is the possibility of the fact and not the way in 
 which the possibility is at last actualized. And is it not 
 plain enough that the possibility of self -consciousness, 
 wherever found, implies an initial, an inherent, capacity 
 for self-consciousness? Could you begin with any hap- 
 hazard thing and bring it on to self-consciousness by 
 mere procedure and environment? Dropping details, 
 my contention will amount to just this : If ever an " ape " 
 became a self-conscious man it was because he was, in 
 initial capacity, in fundamental plan of being, not an 
 ape, but an undeveloped man. If Mr. Morris, or any 
 naturalist, prefers to name this undeveloped man a 
 "man-ape," wise-headed or otherwise, that is nothing 
 but a convenience in classification, and in no degree does 
 it impair or change the fact, the stupendous fact, that 
 now for the first time in the onward sweep of life we have 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 9 
 
 an individual creature with inherent capacity for man- 
 hood. This capacity, this basal plan, ''this possibility 
 timidly looking toward a zenith" — this, I insist, is the 
 one significant thing precisely as it is the one significant 
 thing in any child bom in any human home to-day. 
 
 Having in mind now this undeveloped man, the ques- 
 tion comes up, Was he an evolution from a lower 
 animal? More sharply. Was the first creature with 
 capacity for self -consciousness evolved out of a creatiire 
 having no such capacity? As already indicated, the 
 term evolution is ambiguous and so the question can be 
 taken in either of two ways. It might mean, Did the 
 lower animal, by inherent dynamic, cause the undeveloped 
 man? Or it might mean. Did the lower animal merely 
 grant the occasion, the phenomenal point of demand? 
 Was the lower animal simply man's immediate antece- 
 dent in a progressive teleological plan? If the causal 
 meaning be intended, we are estopped, and must in- 
 stantly answer. No! And we are estopped not by any 
 presupposition of a special creation, but by the one fact 
 that the lower animal, however similar to man in struc- 
 ture, appearance, and habit, evinces no adequacy for such 
 causation. The very feature of our natural constitution 
 which seeks a cause at all also requires an adequate 
 cause; and that an ape, or any lower animal, was an 
 adequate cause for the primeval man is, as far as I 
 can see, not only altogether without proof, but totally 
 inconceivable. 
 
 Nor are we aided by any formula such as the ''bio- 
 genetic process" provided by Professor Ernst Haeckel. 
 These evolutionistic formulcB are for the most part sheer 
 generalities, arbitrai?^^ and empty. They are more 
 vacuous, if that be possible, than those amazing scho- 
 lastic definitions which gave motive to the acid line in 
 Faust, *'Mit Worten ein System bereiten." Even when 
 
lo THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 a scientific formula is of value, it is but a description of a 
 natural method as observed, and can have no dynamic 
 efficiency whatever. Indeed, it is beyond imderstanding 
 how any serious thinker can ever believe that laws, proc- 
 esses, collocations, and concatenations in nature ever 
 do anything! 
 
 To many, though, the crucial question is this : Did that 
 undeveloped man have a simian parentage? This is a 
 clear-cut question ; but the answer given will depend not 
 so much upon the array of argument as upon one's per- 
 sonal valuation of the kind of evidence afforded. As the 
 significance of this personal estimate of the worth of 
 evidence is seldom appreciated, and as it must be ap- 
 preciated before the present theological situation can be 
 fully understood, I will single out and dwell upon an item 
 used in proof by both Mr. Morris and Mr. Darwin. This 
 item I have selected not because it is more finical than 
 many other items given, but because it is strikingly and 
 interestingly characteristic and quickly serves to show 
 the point which I have in mind. The hairs on a man's 
 upper arm grow in direction opposite to that of those 
 on his lower arm; and they all, above and below, point 
 toward the elbow. This peculiarity is not found, it is 
 said, in the lower mammals; but it is found in some of 
 the gibbons and in the larger anthropoid apes. Mr. 
 Darwin's ingenious explanation is this : These apes, when 
 in the rain, originally made a water-shield by covering 
 the head with the hands, "the hairs turning so that the 
 rain could run downward in both directions toward the 
 bent elbow." A man, of course, now makes no such 
 water-shield, but all the hairs on his arm still point 
 toward the elbow; and in this insistent peculiarity we 
 have a "survival" in proof of simian parentage. 
 
 To some men this kind of evidence is forcible, and for 
 full conviction they need only a quantity, larger or 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH ii 
 
 smaller; but to other men such an argument, however 
 enlarged, is but a pronounced material fallacy. Nature 
 is too vast, too complex, too secretive, and man's origin 
 is too remote in time, for us sanely to draw so positive a_ 
 conclusion from any number of similarities, whether 
 superficial or structural. Biology now seems to an on- 
 looker to be unusually hesitant; theories confidently 
 held only a few years ago have been given up; and no 
 man can tell what theory will fill the horizon ten years 
 hence ; but this much is certain — no theory based entirely 
 upon the kind of evidence now used by evolutionists will 
 ever satisfy all truth-seekers. 
 
 But this question itself of man's parentage, while im- 
 portant in certain lines of discussion, is not so crucial as 
 is usually, and on both sides, taken for granted. Estab- 
 lish, say, a tarsiid parentage for the primeval man, and 
 what would it amount to as bearing upon any profound 
 defense of the Christian faith? Nothing one way or the 
 other. The connection between parents and offspring 
 would be superficial — phenomenal — and the demand for 
 an adequate cause would be precisely as urgent as it was 
 before. Neither would this phenomenal connection re- 
 quire us to modify the fundamental Christian conception 
 of man's nature, condition, and destiny. 
 
 My own general position as to the theory of evolution 
 can be summarily gathered up in this way: In nature 
 there are two kinds of progress, one kind of the plan, 
 and the other of the individual. The progress of the 
 plan is by means of a series of concrete individuals, the 
 first making the start, then each one gathering up the 
 meaning of the past and fixing a new point of departtire 
 toward the final goal. The progress of the individual is 
 by growth, or development, until its inherent capacity, 
 or its primal scheme of being, is realized. No individual 
 can become another. No individual can efficiently 
 
12 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 cause another. But whenever an individual is a certain 
 thing, or has by development reached a certain condition, 
 then another sort of an individual may be required to 
 carry out the whole plan in its further reach. As phe- 
 nomena, transient or abiding, two individuals may be 
 closely connected under the plan; and this connection, 
 as in the case of a human mother and child, may be of 
 large and possibly everlasting significance; but funda- 
 mentally, in causation, every individual is as isolated, 
 and as utterly provided for by the plan, as though there 
 were no other individual in existence. The law of hered- 
 ity itself is nothing but the plan's method by which an 
 individual is made a deposit for the meaning of the past. 
 And the total plan is a bare method, too. It never 
 takes care of itself. It never does any dynamic task. 
 It has no secret, potent, resident forces which produce 
 things and push things. No natural law or power makes 
 either the corn grow or the winds whistle. On the one 
 hand, the system of nature is not a deistic machine, 
 wound up once for all to perform its own set task. And, 
 on the other hand, it is not a pantheistic organism, forever 
 self-sufficient for its own necessary process. It needs 
 God, the immanent and yet transcendent God. In every 
 point and in every movement nature needs the Absolute 
 Will. Outside of one very limited realm, which requires 
 no emphasis here, there is no causation other than that of 
 this Divine Will. Forces, laws, processes, evolutions — 
 they all but express the personal power and manners of 
 the Lord God Almighty. The poetry of the psalmist was 
 in direct trace of the ultimate truth when he said, "The 
 God of glory thundereth." 
 
 Most tersely said, evolution is but a series of individual 
 items planned for culmination ; each item, after the start, 
 getting from adjacent items an occasion for being, and 
 also all phenomenal relations; and the entire series 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 13 
 
 making one coherent, ever-moving scheme to manifest 
 in time the purpose of the Creator. 
 
 Once I saw the sketches used by William Morris Htmt 
 in painting the Flight of Night. With these sketches- 
 before me, I could grasp the underlying plan of the 
 picture, and see how and why one figure was related to 
 another. A certain figure grew under treatment until it 
 was filled out in form, color, and expression, and then its 
 completion made another related figure necessary to the 
 further development of the whole plan. Looking at a 
 consequent figure from an artistic standpoint, one could 
 properly say, "That figure was evolved out of those 
 before it." But the remark would mean only that the 
 consequent figure was occasioned — that is, it received 
 from the preceding figures a fitness of position and a pe- 
 culiar accentuation in form, color, and expression. And 
 even more might be said. Not only does the consequent 
 figure have characteristics which surely it would not have 
 as an unrelated item, but also some of these character- 
 istics are borrowed (inherited) because the underlying 
 plan requires a thematic emphasis by repetition. But 
 whatever was done, it was done with items under a plan 
 by the artist. The Flight of Night did not paint itself. 
 No item of the picture did anything. William Morris 
 Hunt did the whole thing. He alone was the efficient 
 cause. 
 
 A man is an animal. But this is because in certain 
 features he is like an animal. In other words, it is mere 
 classification. And man is like an animal not because he 
 was evolved out of an animal, or dynamically caused by 
 an animal, but because the underlying plan of the living 
 God, at this point in its progress, calls for a being that 
 gathers up the meaning of all animal life before rising 
 into the dignity of personality. 
 
PERSONALITY 
 
Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature, but he is a thinking 
 reed. It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to crush 
 him. A breath of air, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But 
 were the universe to crush him, man would still be more noble than 
 that which kills him, because he knows that he dies, and the universe 
 knows nothing of the advantage it has over him. — Pascal, Thoughts, 
 
 We here found that consciousness, when deeply scrutinized, is an 
 act of opposition put forth against our sensations ; that our sensations 
 are invaded and impaired by an act of resistance which breaks up 
 their monopolizing dominion, and in the room of the sensation thus 
 partially displaced realizes man's personality, a new center of activ- 
 ity known to each individual by the name I; a word which, when 
 rightly construed, stands as the exponent of our violation of the causal 
 nexus of nature, and of our consequent emancipation therefrom. 
 — James Frederick Ferrier, Philosophical Works, iii, 207. 
 
 Among all the errors of the human mind, it has always seemed to 
 me the strangest that it could come to doubt its own existence, of 
 which alone it has direct experience; or to take it at second hand as 
 the product of an external nature which is known only indirectly, 
 only by means of the very mind to which we would fain deny existence. 
 — Hermann Lotze, Microcosmus, Clark, i, 263. 
 
II. PERSONALITY 
 
 In his fragmentary book, Facts and Comments, Her- 
 bert Spencer notes a psychological problem. It is sug- 
 gested to him by those "invading melodies*' — "often 
 those vulgar ones originating in music halls and repeated 
 by street pianos" — which lodge in the consciousness and 
 are not easily expelled. Probably we all recognize his 
 fact — we have had our own attention to higher things 
 impaired by the insistence of some prowling tune! This 
 humiliating invasion, Mr. Spencer thinks, throws an im- 
 portant side-light on the dispute concerning the Ego^ and 
 renders dubious the contention that there is an innate 
 knowledge of personality. For, he asks, if there is a 
 distinct person, a central self, how will you explain this 
 invasion? You cannot relate it to the unit of the £"^0; 
 and if the rebellious thing cannot be unified with the Ego, 
 what is it? In a word, how can there be any unitary 
 person when there is no harmony in consciousness? 
 
 This skeptical puzzle would be amusing were it not 
 so extremely pathetic. It is something as if a man in 
 crossing Brooklyn Bridge should begin to doubt the 
 existence of the bridge, the one thing which enabled him 
 to be up there at all! Mr. Spencer's annoyance, his 
 effort to expel the "invading melodies," his quick dis- 
 cernment of the psychological problem — yes, his very 
 doubt itself — would be impossible were he himself 
 nothing but an incoherent series of conscious momenta, 
 "a loose bundle of mental states." There could be no 
 realization of the flying and conflicting elements of 
 consciousness were there not over against all these an 
 abiding point of personal unity. Paradoxical as it is, 
 
i8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 personality is never more largely evident than it is when 
 we begin to doubt its existence. 
 
 Herbert Spencer's primary failure, a failure vitiating 
 his entire system of philosophy, lies in this one thing : He 
 is never true to man's total experience. Every man has 
 a dual life. There is a coherent side and an incoherent 
 side. In this very instance, the invasion cited, there is 
 plain duality. The man, when invaded, is just as con- 
 scious of himself trying to expel the prowling tune as he 
 is of the invasion itself. Then, why not say so? A 
 philosopher ought to be true to both sides of man's ex- 
 perience ; he has no right to cover up one side, or to neg- 
 lect one side; he has no right to explain one side at the 
 expense of the other. Real philosophy is at the root an 
 ethical matter. It demands that we cherish all reality ; 
 that we treat every fact as if it had come, like a shining 
 spark, from the Moral Law. 
 
 This primary failure leads to another failure. Mr. 
 Spencer is unable to appreciate the significance of the 
 difference between the being conscious of things and the 
 being conscious of self. When merely conscious of 
 things, a man is, like an animal, a bare individual in 
 automatic response to all the influences which reach him. 
 As Dr. James E. Latimer once said, ''Nature passes 
 through him unhindered as water passes through a 
 spout." This individual response is, I repeat, automatic, 
 as much so as when a locomotive instantly "shivers" at 
 the first move of the lever. Not only sensations, emo- 
 tions, individualistic tempers are automatic; but even 
 thoughts and volitions may be automatic also. Man is 
 a highly sensitive machine, that is all, save in those upper 
 moods when he is conscious of himself. And even then 
 he is only "an inhabited machine." This self-con- 
 sciousness, admittedly, gets its psychological inception 
 in ordinary consciousness ; but there is no unitary worth. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 19 
 
 no personality, until self is held in consciousness with 
 such clarity as to provide a new, personal purchase for 
 the leverage of the will. And even now, with self clearly 
 seized, there is only a beginning in personal life. In- 
 self -consciousness there is a point of unity; but it is, 
 at first, a bare point, not only subject to such invasions 
 as disturbed Mr. Spencer, but now and again violently 
 and completely overwhelmed. And the surprising tor- 
 ment of the matter is that a man must be both the in- 
 dividual and the person, and so on both sides of his 
 own battle. In the striking words of Hegel, a man is 
 **both the fighter and the fight itself." And it is this 
 very peculiarity which makes human life so profoundly 
 sad, often so profoundly tragic, and yet so martially 
 glorious. If we tried in one swift sentence to sum up the 
 first inner meaning of man's life, we could hardly say a 
 better thing than this : To personalize the entire individual. 
 This personal mastery of the individual cannot be com- 
 pleted in this world; but we can begin, and then with 
 God's help do more and more. It is like a man who 
 "preempts a claim" on one of our Western prairies. 
 At first the settler is there with only one point of civ- 
 ilization — a stake fixed in the ground. Then he clears 
 out the tangle for a dooryard; then he builds a cabin 
 large enough for a home; then he enters into a long, 
 weary, unyielding struggle, until the man is master of 
 the wilderness! 
 
 Analysis of Personality 
 In psychology it is often taught that personality is 
 grounded in the power to become self-conscious. This 
 is true, but self -consciousness itself requires the most 
 searching analysis. In such a close analysis, we find two 
 features. The first I will name self -grasp; the second, 
 self -estimate. 
 
20 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Consideration of Self-grasp. Looking at man's attain- 
 ment of personality as a process, the preparatory thing 
 in the personal process is the start in emancipation from 
 the dominion of nature. In how Iowa phase of animal 
 consciousness this self -severance from nature begins, we 
 do not know. One modem philosopher says, "The 
 crushed worm writhing in pain undoubtedly distinguishes 
 its own suffering from the rest of the world." "Un- 
 doubtedly" is a rather strong word here; but, however 
 it may be with the worm, the higher animals do, un- 
 doubtedly, make a distinction between subject and ob- 
 ject. When, for example, the ponies in the Fife mines 
 steal and open the miners' piece-boxes, eat the bread and 
 jam, and then carefully return the boxes, each box to its 
 proper place, these ponies can hardly be considered as 
 mixing up the miners, the boxes, the food, and them- 
 selves in one opaque clutter. But this ability to dis- 
 tinguish between subject and object does not amount to 
 personality — ^is really no element of personality. Cer- 
 tainly it is the beginning of a movement toward per- 
 sonality; but it is only the end of the personal process 
 which has the quality of personality. A man just starting 
 up the Mount Washington road, eight miles long, is 
 surely on that particular road ; but he has no more of the 
 summit-experience than has a man fast mired in a distant 
 swamp. And it remains to be seen whether our man on 
 the mountain road shall prove himself to be enough of a 
 climber to achieve the vision at the top of the mountain. 
 So this Fife pony can be scientifically regarded as in the 
 personal process, but he is not thereby a person ; indeed, 
 for all practical discussion of reality, he is no nearer per- 
 sonality than is a juniper tree. All this needs to be firmly 
 said because the tendency now is to cheapen personality 
 in the name of a more scientific study of the animal 
 world. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 21 
 
 By this term ''self -grasp," then, I mean much more 
 than self-severance from nature — I mean such a com- 
 plete self -severance that the man can fully seize himself,, 
 can hold himself distinctly and steadily at the central 
 blaze of his vision, can think his way clear aroimd him- 
 self. " I lifted myself up out of the tinderbrush and said, 
 'There, there you are.'" In simple formula, the state 
 of consciousness in self -grasp may be expressed thus: "I 
 am not this — nor this — nor all these — I am simply I 
 myself." 
 
 In a passage of In Memoriam (XLIV) Tennyson has 
 remarkably sung the truth, exactly what I mean by 
 personal self -grasp: 
 
 "The baby new to earth and sky, 
 
 What time his tender palm is prest 
 Against the circle of the breast, 
 Has never thought that * This is 1/ 
 
 ** But as he grows he gathers much 
 And learns the use of ' I ' and ' me/ 
 And finds, ' I am not what I see 
 And other than the things I touch.* 
 
 **So rounds he to a separate mind 
 
 From whence clear memory may begin, 
 And through the frame that binds him in 
 His isolation grows defined." 
 
 Consideration of Self -estimate. In grasping self, though, 
 however strong the grasp, there is no finished import. 
 The personal worth of the seizure lies in the fact that it 
 renders inevitable some estimate of self. When I realize 
 that I am "other than the things I touch," I also, in the 
 very act, discern a certain peculiarity in myself. This 
 discernment of self-peculiarity is the basis of all self- 
 judgment. Right here allow me to hold our discussion 
 for a moment of emphasis. Do you not see a long out- 
 
22 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 sweep from this point where a person discovers a pecul- 
 iarity in himself? It is just now that we first hear the 
 breaking surf of the mighty deep of moral concern! 
 Not that this incipient self- valuation is moral at all, but 
 it prepares the way for a personal sense of responsibility 
 under ethical demand. Were a man unable to perceive 
 any peculiarity of self, he could never judge himself over 
 against an ideal, and so could never feel responsibility 
 toward the right, and so could never acquire moral 
 character. 
 
 Of course, this estimate of self is a changing, a growing 
 thing — ^is, in truth, never absolutely perfect. Surprise 
 after surprise awaits every man, especially at any crisis 
 of his life, when the unsounded mystery of his individual 
 being flings to the surface new things or new combina- 
 tions. Phillips Brooks once said (I condense it): "My 
 future is to me a perpetual cviriosity because I know so 
 little about myself." But this imperfection of self- 
 estimate matters not greatly, for all we now need is such 
 an estimate as will provide for the on-going of the personal 
 and moral life. We are not here seeking a perfect indi- 
 vidual, or even a perfect person, but simply a real person. 
 In convenient phrase, the state of consciousness in self- 
 estimate may be expressed thus: "I am not like this — 
 nor like this — ^nor like any of these — this is what I am." 
 
 Consideration of Self -consciousness. By self-conscious- 
 ness some writers mean no more than I mean by self- 
 grasp. The terminology is not of extreme moment, if 
 we only in some way keep self -estimate as an important 
 feature of personality ; but, after much testing, I must my- 
 self regard normal self -consciousness as having two sides, 
 necessarily interlaced, self -grasp and self -estimate. At 
 one stroke in consciousness you get both an entity and a 
 peculiarity. The instant you think, "I am not this," 
 you also think, " I am not like this." In every full act of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 23 
 
 self -consciousness, I hold, a person must consider himself 
 as existing — in peculiarity. 
 
 The Culmination in Self-decision. The final feature in 
 personality is the power of self -decision. So very im-- 
 portant is this feature that writers with the tendency of 
 Maine de Biran make it basal in personality. And even 
 Julius Miiller held that there could not be self -conscious- 
 ness without self-determination, the two always "making 
 their appearance together." To me, however, self- 
 consciousness seems to be psychologically the more 
 fimdamental; and I would say that sometimes there is 
 self -consciousness without any such volition as amounts to 
 self -decision. And yet self -decision is the most important 
 feature of the entire personal process, and for the simple 
 reason that it is the culmination. What, then, do we 
 mean by this term " self -decision " ? Whenever we will 
 anything, supremely conscious of self, that volition is 
 self -decision. It is not, as certain theologians teach, 
 the quality of the end-in- view, but just intense self -con- 
 sciousness alone, that turns an impersonal volition into 
 a self -decision. Nor is self -decision any decision made 
 by a person. A person can will and does will many 
 things, yes, and many important things, which are 
 not self -decisive. I would dare to say that in the last 
 third of the battle of Waterloo not one order came out 
 of the personality of Napoleon. In truth, the victory 
 was due not so much to the important fact that Well- 
 ington and Bliicher were there as to the much more 
 important fact that, in full selfhood. Napoleon was not 
 there ! We are not now considering personal responsibility, 
 but long before we are ready to consider it we need to see 
 that countless volitions are not true expressions of person- 
 ality. Again, then, what is self -decision? This : Whenever 
 a man sees himself out there as an existing, isolated, peculiar 
 individual, and then, in the flash of that vision of self, 
 
 I 
 
24 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 wills anything, that volition is self -decision. The person 
 first makes himself the clear, full object of his own thought, 
 and then makes that definite point of his person the 
 original initiative of his choice. And so the significance 
 of self -decision becomes tremendous because the decision 
 is charged with the conception, with the entire valuation, 
 which the man has of himself. The state of consciousness 
 in self -decision may be expressed thus: "I — just this 
 separate and peculiar myself — will do this." 
 
 FORMAL SCHEME OF THE PERSONAL PROCESS 
 I. The Process in Outline 
 
 1. The process begins in self-separation of the lowest degree; where 
 there is a bare distinction in consciousness between subject and 
 object. 
 
 2. The psychological basis of personality is in the power — 
 
 / V /^r i/^- ^ ^interlaced in self-consciousness. 
 (2) Of self-estimate ) 
 
 3. The process culminates in self -decision. 
 
 II. Definitions in Approach to Personality 
 
 1. An organism is a complex of essential parts; all the parts iti 
 dependent reciprocity; and every part making constant contribution 
 to a common end. 
 
 2. An individual is any item that cannot be divided without losing 
 identity. 
 
 3. A man, fundamentally considered, is an organic individual that 
 is a person. Or, a man is a personal, organic individual. 
 
 4. A person is any being having capacity for personality. 
 
 III. Definitions of Personality 
 
 1. Analytical Definition. 
 
 Personality is the power of self -grasp, self-estimate, and self- 
 decision. 
 
 2. Concise Definition. 
 
 Personality is the power of self-conscious decision. 
 
 3. Popular Definition. 
 
 Personality is the power to think, "Of myself I will do this 
 thing." 
 
 IV. Final Definition of a Person 
 A person is any being capable of self-conscious decision. 
 
THE MORAL PERSON 
 
On n'emp^che pas plus la pensde de revenir h 
 
 une id^e que la mer de revenir k un rivage. 
 
 Pour le matelot, cela s'apelle la mar^e; pour le coupable, 
 
 cela s'apelle le remords. Dieu souleve I'ame comme I'oc^an. 
 
 — Victor Hugo, Une Tempete sous lui Crane. 
 
 Men get embarrassed by the common cases of a misguided con- 
 science; but a compass may be out of order as well as a conscience, 
 and the needle may point due south if you hold a powerful magnet 
 in that direction. Still, the compass, generally speaking, is the true 
 and sure guide, and so is the conscience; and you can trace the de- 
 ranging influence on the latter quite as surely as on the former. — 
 Thomas Arnold, Life and Correspondence, from a letter dated October 
 21, 1836. 
 
 This secret consciousness it is, of variance from the only True, of 
 distance from the only Real, of alienation from the only Holy, which 
 wakes up at the touch of human suffering and fear, and ttims them 
 from a bare quivering of the flesh into a fruitful anguish of the spirit. 
 It is by appealing to this that the true prophet breaks the contented 
 sleep of instinct — rings the alarm in the chambers of the soul — flings 
 the animal nature convulsed with shame upon the ground, and by a 
 purifying sorrow lifts it up into responsible manhood. In vain 
 would the preacher light his torch from the fires of hell did he address 
 only physical susceptibility and abject consternation; it is the moral 
 history written within, the felt interval between what is and what 
 might have been, which these things passionately express and which 
 make them credible at all. — James Martineau, The Seat of Authority 
 in Religion, pp. 452, 453. 
 
 With regard to nature, it is experience, no doubt, which supplies 
 us with rules, and is the foundation of all truth; with regard to moral 
 laws, on the contrary, experience is, alas! but the source of illusion; 
 and it is altogether reprehensible to derive or to limit the laws of 
 what we ought to do according to our experience of what has been 
 done. — Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, the Mailer 
 translation, p. 259. 
 
m- THE MORAL PERSON 
 
 While fundamentally a man is a person, actually he 
 is more — he is a moral person. At times he is not only 
 self-conscious, but also conscious of a peculiar back- 
 ground of moral demand. This moral background we 
 call conscience. 
 
 In an address, delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, 
 March 25, 1879, James Freeman Clarke tried to prove 
 that dogs have conscience. In point, he told the au- 
 dience of a dog that was punished for stealing a piece of 
 meat. A day or two after the pimishment the dog stole 
 another piece. Mr. Clarke, unaware of the second theft, 
 came quite suddenly upon the dog and began to pet him ; 
 but, strangely enough, he slunk away like a culprit. 
 "This," said Mr. Clarke, "convinced me that the dog was 
 conscience-stricken." But it convinces me of no such 
 thing. It is nothing but an instance of associational 
 fear. The dog was punished for taking the meat; and 
 after that experience he associated the taking of meat 
 with the pain of the punishment; and Mr. Clarke's sud- 
 den appearance brought to mind the association as fixed ; 
 and the fondling was not sufficient to break the fixture. 
 When the dog slunk away he was in no moral distress at 
 all. 
 
 To understand the work of conscience it is first of all 
 necessary to see that moral distress never comes from 
 associational mechanism. In moral distress a man is 
 not afraid of any external tribunal. He is afraid of an 
 inner, spiritual tribunal. At times, indeed, a conscience- 
 stricken person seeks, actually seeks, exposure and public 
 castigation in his endeavor to escape the awful forensic 
 
28 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 condemnation within. Rather would he suffer any 
 possible external penalty than endlessly to endure this 
 mysterious, searching, unpliable presence that says in 
 his soul, '' You did wrong! " Moral distress is a feeling of 
 self -blame under the notion of right and wrong. 
 
 The Notion op Right and Wrong 
 The notion of right and wrong is a personal intuition 
 that there is the right and the wrong; that the two are 
 absolutely antagonistic; and that a person ought to do 
 the right. There is, therefore, in the intuition an insist- 
 ence upon three notes — existence, antagonism, and ob- 
 ligation. But this insistence upon the existence of right 
 and wrong is entirely empty of concrete indication. Con- 
 science never tells us what is right, or what is wrong. We 
 have simply the unfilled notion that something is right 
 and we ought to find it and take sides with it; and then 
 we ourselves fill up that empty moral form and get a 
 concrete moral obligation. This content — this "what of 
 moral concern" — is naturally a varying thing; sometimes 
 determined by powerful influences belonging to our en- 
 vironment; at other times determined by long, careful 
 personal search and practical tests ; and not infrequently 
 determined, as I believe, by desperate, willful dashes at 
 duty. Once clearly grasp this distinction between the 
 intuitive, unfilled notion of right and wrong and the same 
 notion applied, filled up, rendered concrete, and you can 
 begin, an3rway, to appreciate man's pathetic moral 
 history. Men have always agreed that there is a right; 
 but never yet have they agreed as to what is right. 
 
 Take the case of our civil war. Beneath the political 
 question which had come down to us from the conflict 
 between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson was 
 the moral question of slavery. But slavery as a positive 
 wrong was not the bottom of the ethical situation. That 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 29 
 
 bottom — "the unspeakable sorrow of the war" — lay in 
 the fact that the deadly struggle was between brothers, 
 all believing in the right, and all seeking the right, and 
 yet entirely unable to agree as to what was right. In one 
 of his later books Mr. W. D. Howells has written these 
 words: "In the South there was nothing but a mistaken 
 social ideal, with the moral principles all standing on 
 their heads in defense of slavery." It is as much as 
 twenty-five years too late to write such careless words. 
 They are inadequate and even misleading. We must not 
 for one instant fail to recognize the truth that there was 
 just as much moral purpose in the South as there was in 
 the North. The trouble was not in moral character, but 
 in the moral judgment by which the empty notion of the 
 right gets its concrete application. 
 
 The Institution of Taboo 
 This institution, found in the customs of certain savage 
 tribes, is, I believe, the crudest expression of moral life. 
 A "thing taboo" is considered dangerous, so very danger- 
 ous that one must not touch it or even look at it. A 
 corpse, a newborn child, shed blood, a sick person, and 
 hundreds of other things and persons are taboo. Mr. 
 Frazer tells of an Australian who discovered that his wife 
 had been lying on his blanket and "died of terror in a 
 fortnight." In his Magic and Religion, Andrew Lang 
 gives a utilitarian explanation of this institution. He 
 says that these taboos were sanctioned by the tribal 
 counselors as the result of experience, not their own, 
 perhaps, but that of the clairvoyants, and other ministers 
 of mystery. "Other taboos, as to women, are imposed 
 for very good reasons, though not for the reasons alleged ; 
 and broken taboos are not (in actual ordinary experience) 
 attended by penalties, which, however, suggestion may 
 produce." 
 
30 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Over against this utilitarian explanation, I wish to 
 quote a passage from Principal Jevons's Introduction to 
 the History of Religion: ''How primitive man settled 
 what things were not to be done there is no evidence to 
 show. We will therefore content ourselves with the fact 
 that as far back as we can see in the history — or rather 
 the prehistory — of man taboo was never grossly material. 
 It marked the awe of man in the presence of what he 
 conceived — often mistakenly — to be the supernatural; 
 and if his dread of contact with blood, babes, and corpses 
 appears at first sight irrational, let us remember that in 
 these, the three classes of objects which are inherently 
 taboo, we have man in relation to the mystery of life and 
 death, and in his affinity to that supernatural power which 
 he conceived to be a spirit like himself. The danger of 
 contact with the objects is 'imaginary,' if you like, but 
 it is spiritual; that is, it is the feeling that experience — 
 sense-experience — is not the sole source or final test of 
 truth, and that the things which are seen bring man 
 daily into relation with things unseen. For, once more, 
 the essence of taboo is that it is a priori, that without 
 consulting experience it pronounces certain things to be 
 dangerous. These things, as a matter of fact, were in a 
 sense not dangerous, and the belief in their danger was 
 irrational, yet had not that belief existed there would be 
 now no morality, and consequently no civilization." 
 
 Principal Jevons has, it seems to me, said the pro- 
 founder thing; but I am not satisfied with either of the 
 two interpretations of taboo. This institution is really a 
 complex thing. Sometimes it is nothing but superstition, 
 and in such cases it is to be explained as any superstition 
 is explained by man's natural fear of anything he deems 
 supernatural. At other times taboo rises into the realm 
 of the spiritual must and must not. And here, in the upper 
 region of the institution, there are manifested two very 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 31 
 
 different things: i. On the surface, the taboo item — the 
 blood, the corpse, the babe; and, 2. The taboo principle, 
 namely, that some things are not to be done because they 
 cannot be done without an inner, spiritual peril. And 
 when I try to analyze this sense of spiritual peril I find 
 not a mere fear of the supernatural as mystery, but a fear 
 of the supernatural as making a masterful demand upon 
 man's life. And such a fear of such a master in spiritual 
 demand is, I am quite sure, the first movement in moral 
 distinction — "the sunrise of the term Ought." Then, 
 the expression of this taboo principle in the taboo item 
 is determined in all sorts of ways ; now, as Mr. Lang says, 
 by the tribal counselors and clairvoyants and ministers 
 of mystery ; and now by pure accident worked over in indi- 
 vidual imagination. But the reason why there can be 
 any taboo item, the reason why it can be manufactured, 
 the reason why it can be accepted at all, is that the in- 
 tuitive experience of the savage has already yielded the 
 taboo principle. In other words, I discover in savage 
 life precisely what we find in higher htiman life, an intui- 
 tive, empty moral notion made concrete in manufactured 
 
 items. 
 
 Conscience Analyzed and Related 
 
 In conscience proper there are three features only, 
 namely: i. Moral distinction; 2. Moral obligation; and 
 3. Moral settlement. 
 
 Moral Distinction. As already stated, every man 
 makes an intuitive distinction between the right and the 
 wrong. In doubt he may be, or completely misled, as to 
 what is right or wrong, but ever is he personally sure that 
 something is right and its opposite is wrong. Notice 
 that I say "personally sure," for by this I wish to limit 
 the certainty. This distinction is possible to man not as 
 a conscious individual, but only as a self-conscious person. 
 I claim simply this much, that no man in a normal 
 
 ^ OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
32 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 condition is ever fully self-conscious without feeling moral 
 distinction; that no normal man is ever sure of himself 
 without at the same time being sure that there is a right 
 and a wrong. In another connection the notion of the 
 right will be more profoundly considered; here it must 
 suffice to say that to the ordinary man this notion is an 
 ultimate notion, like the notion of being itself, incapable 
 by him of further analysis and definition. To him the 
 right is right not because it is useful, not because it is 
 beautiful — the right is right simply because it is right. 
 
 Moral Obligation. Nor can a person, in a normal con- 
 dition, have this intuition of moral distinction and not 
 also have a sense of obligation toward the right. The 
 instant the right says to a man, "I am," it also says, 
 '' You ought.'' When we most searchingly analyze this 
 sense of moral obligation, we find in it three momenta, 
 the obligation of allegiance, the obligation of search, and 
 the obligation of action. In an ample moral life the 
 person feels that it is not enough to join the right when 
 seen; he should search until he finds out what is right, 
 and then express his discovery in the finest moral conduct. 
 
 Moral Settlement. After any personal volition under 
 the sense of moral obligation, there is always an inner 
 ictic settlement with the person. If he has willed against 
 his obligation, he has distress of spirit ; if he has been true 
 to his obligation, he has a flash of moral content. The 
 transient and partial nature of this settlement needs firm 
 insistence, for no man can come to abiding moral peace 
 by doing one right deed, however heroic that deed may 
 be. 
 
 The Coworkers with Conscience. With conscience there 
 are two coworkers, namely: i. The judgment, by which 
 the man decides whether a given matter is right or wrong ; 
 and, 2. The will, by which the man makes a choice 
 among the possible courses of action. In popular speech 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 33 
 
 the judgment is considered a part of conscience; but, 
 strictly speaking, there is no moral quality in the judg- 
 ment; it is moral only in the loose sense that it is now 
 dealing with moral matters. A man does not have two 
 faculties of judgment, but merely one faculty performing 
 two kinds of task. To make the judgment an integral 
 feature of conscience is no more reasonable than it would 
 be to regard the will as an integral feature because it 
 makes volition in moral relations. 
 
 The actual coworking in a typical situation would be 
 essentially like this: The man would come to his case 
 thinking, "There is a right course here somewhere, and I 
 must find it and take it." Then in search he uses his 
 judgment and sooner or later decides, "That is the right 
 course." The moment he makes this decision he feels an 
 inner moral urgency as definite as this, "You ought to 
 take that course." Then he wills one way or the other, 
 and the ictic settlement follows. 
 
 Conscience and Education 
 The question often comes up. Can conscience itself be 
 improved by education? If by the term education the 
 questioner means mental development, enlargement in 
 knowledge, and the refinement of taste, the answer must 
 be, "Not directly." We do not, simply by intellectual 
 progress, simply by knowing more and more, simply by 
 access of culture, get a clearer moral distinction, a larger 
 sense of moral obligation, and a swifter and sharper 
 moral settlement. Always is it possible, alas! to have 
 life filled with schools and libraries and science and 
 invention and art — yes, and even with philanthropy 
 "touching human suffering with its merciful hand" — and 
 yet not have much moral concern. Civilization and 
 morality are by no means interchangeable terms. 
 
 But conscience is strengthened or weakened under the 
 
34 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 law of use ; and for use there must be motive ; and motive 
 is entangled with opinion ; and opinion is often most 
 vitally related to the peculiarities of our educational en- 
 vironment. For example, there can hardly be any 
 serious question but that the modern man is losing the 
 most delicate sense of moral obligation; and I am very 
 sure that this loss is closely connected with the fatalistic 
 teaching of our time. Such books as Der alte und der 
 neue Glaube and Die Weltrathsel have been published in 
 popular form and sold by the thousand ; our colleges and 
 universities have made attractive those theories in natiural 
 science, and those theories in ethics, which do not leave 
 even a clinging-spot for any personal responsibility; and 
 the theologians and preachers have, some of them, added 
 an atmosphere of unethical impotence by their ceaseless 
 doctrinal mitigations. As to that masterly work in 
 superficiality, "the new psychology," it is difficult fairly 
 to estimate the sum total of its influence. There are 
 students who are not harmed by it in the least ; there are 
 other students, however, who cannot live so continuously 
 in the physical scene and not lose regard for the spiritual 
 springs of moral life. As one teacher has wittily said: 
 "Many a man feels himself discharged from responsibility 
 when once he can describe himself." 
 
 But in relation to education, the more important 
 feature is the judgment. So thoroughly is a man's 
 judgment in moral matters a result of the educational 
 influences about him that we could almost say, " Show us 
 fully a man's history and his immediate environment, 
 and we can point out the peculiarities of his moral judg- 
 ment." We cannot quite say that, for even in moral 
 judgment there is sometimes "a personal equation" of 
 large account. 
 
 Now we are ready, I think, to appreciate the full con- 
 sequence of this analysis by which the moral judgment 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 35 
 
 is separated from the elements of conscience proper. 
 With such a separated judgment, not only does a more 
 precise and fitting psychology become possible, but also 
 we relieve the moral side of man's nature from the charge 
 of being a shifting, worthless indicant, and place the inher- 
 ent weakness in his mental life where it belongs. 
 
 DEFINITIONS OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 Analytical Definition. 
 
 Conscience is the entire moral sense of the moral person, con- 
 sisting of three features, namely: 
 
 1. The power to distinguish between the right and the wrong 
 as two eternally antagonistic principles. This feature is moral 
 distinction. 
 
 2. The power to feel a personal obligation to join the right, 
 to find the right, and to do the right. This feature is moral 
 obligation. 
 
 3. The power to feel self-blame, or moral content, in conse- 
 quence of personal conduct. This feature is moral settlement. 
 
 Concise Definition. 
 
 Conscience is the power to feel the right and the wrong, with a 
 sense of personal responsibility, both before and after conduct. 
 Popular Definition. 
 
 Conscience is the moral voice in a man which says, " You 
 ought." 
 
 I 
 
FREEDOM, PERSONAL AND MORAL 
 
From all this, there results the conclusion that without free volition 
 there can be no justice, no satisfying the moral sense, no retributive 
 system, no moral government, of which the creature can be the rightful 
 subject, or God the righteous Administrator. The existence of a 
 system, and the existence in the soul of man of a demand for a sys- 
 tem combining these elements, demonstrates the reality of voli- 
 tional freedom. Either there is no divine government or man is a 
 non-necessitated moral agent. — Daniel D. Whedon, last words in his 
 work on The Freedom of the Will. 
 
 Freedom, then, is a point upon which we can allow no shuffling or 
 juggling in argument. It is unique, but it is self-evident; and every 
 attempt to explain it away can be shown to involve a petitio principii, 
 or begging of the question. — /. R. Illingworth, Personality, Human 
 and Divine, Bampton Lectures, 1894, p. 107. 
 
 The truth, I think, is simply this: All determinism, strictly con- 
 strued and logically carried to its issue, ends in materialism. Why 
 should its advocate be afraid or ashamed of the issue he has himself 
 forced? Surely, the last thing to go, in any system or practice of 
 morals, should be that honest manliness which stands upright in the 
 positions which have voluntarily and deliberately been assumed. 
 And to fear being called a name which one merits is as cowardly as 
 to call another an opprobrious name which is not appropriate or 
 deserved. — George Trumbull Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, p. 180. 
 
 Why, then, if law and order are only intelligible as the outcome of 
 intelligence, may we not regard each individual subject, everything 
 that is anything for itself and in itself, as a living law, or if you will 
 as an active essence or character, interacting in its own peculiar 
 manner with other subjects equally determinate? With experience 
 in the concrete, we can deal satisfactorily in no other way, and no 
 competent thinker dreams of interpreting the history of the world 
 by means of a scheme of universal laws. . . . Such a view you will 
 say is incompatible with the scientific conception of law, for that 
 postulates necessity, whereas this lets contingency into the very heart 
 of things. It is true : I not only admit it, but contend that any other 
 world would be meaningless. For the contingency is not that of 
 chance, but that of freedom; so far as everything that is, is a law in 
 itself, has an end for itself, and seeks the good. . . . No sane man 
 resents as constraint normal laws of thought, normal laws of conduct, 
 normal laws of taste; or demands that truth, goodness, or beauty 
 should be other than they are. Real freedom consists in conformity 
 to what ought to be. For God, whom we conceive as essentially 
 perfect, this conformity is complete ; for us it remains an ideal. But 
 were we created of a blind mechanical necessity, there could be no 
 talk of ideal standards, either of thought or of conduct; no meaning 
 in reason at all. — James Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, ii , 280, 28 1 . 
 
IV* EEIEEDOM, PERSONAL AND MORAL 
 
 Personal Freedom 
 Personal freedom is implicit in personality itself. By 
 personality I always mean the power of self-conscious 
 decision; and such decision is, in the very nature of the 
 case, free decision. In other words, in full self -conscious- 
 ness a man is thoroughly cut free, in thought, from the 
 overriding of nature, and can now make an original de- 
 cision from the standpoint of self-realization ; and this being 
 thus free from coercion, and so enabled to deal freely with 
 all motives and to make a choice in the very center of 
 selfhood, is precisely what I understand by personal 
 freedom. But let us come closer to the process by which 
 freedom is achieved. 
 
 The Achievement of Freedom in the Personal 
 
 Process 
 Motive. A motive is anything which urges one toward 
 volition. Usually many and fine distinctions are made 
 at this point, but they are not necessary in our discussion, 
 and are, moreover, likely to create confusion. The so- 
 called *' strength of a motive " is nothing but the charge of 
 sensibility by which a motive gets its peculiar degree of 
 urgency. It is the pushing power of the motive in feeling ; 
 or, to use Jonathan Edwards's exact words, "some sort 
 and degree of tendency or advantage to move or excite the 
 will." That is, the pressure of any given thing toward 
 volition is simply the amount of interest one has in that 
 thing. And so, what is a strong motive to one man may 
 be a weak motive to another man, inasmuch as one man 
 may have an intense interest where another man is not 
 
40 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 beyond indifference. Let us, then, hold this much fast: 
 not a motive's origin, not its position in a rational classi- 
 fication, not its force in the soul of a saint, but just its 
 urgency in this one particular man, is the really important 
 matter. A man now loves what he loves, likes what he 
 likes, feels what he feels ; and out of this present interest 
 he gets all the pressure he has toward volition. Neither 
 rational quality nor moral quality adds an atom to the 
 strength of a motive, if a man cares for neither. And so 
 you never can tell what the strength of a motive is by 
 abstract comparison and estimate under rational rule. 
 You must see the motive quiver and lift and urge in the 
 heart of the individual man. 
 
 The Blockade of Motive. This place is crucial. When 
 we feel the urgency of our present motives — ^when all 
 our clashing interests are pushing the will — why are we 
 not, as the necessitarians claim, driven by the strongest 
 motive irresistibly on to an immediate choice? Why is 
 it not necessary for a person to will the thing in which at 
 the moment he has the greatest interest? I answer: 
 Because in the protective action of personality under 
 pressure there is a complete blockade of all motive. 
 Personality is inherently obstinate. It is made to resist 
 all destructive influence. Whenever we are conscious of 
 self and are urged to make volition we first of all tighten 
 self-grasp, and this for an instant holds all inclination in 
 check. Stated in another way, I hold that any pressure 
 toward self-decision first so intensifies self-consciousness 
 that the vision itself blocks the urgent motive. Dr. 
 John Miley, in his discussion of the freedom of choice, 
 calls this blockade of motive *'the rational suspension of 
 choice." He has a strong hold of the fact, but he so uses 
 the word ''rational" that it is misleading. The suspen- 
 sion does render rational action possible, but the pause 
 itself is, I am convinced, as automatic as the instant, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 41 
 
 instinctive spring of a man to save himself in a physical 
 emergency. Indeed, the worth of the pause to the cause 
 of freedom lies altogether in its automatic necessity. It 
 is like holding an excited child quiet by sheer force. The 
 person is automatically held steady against the onrush 
 of feeling until he can get his bearings, until he can 
 be rational, until he can make a truly personal de- 
 cision. 
 
 But, it is asked, can the power of habit be explained 
 in harmony with this view? Easily enough. No person 
 is ever swept away by a habit when he is conscious of self. 
 In any self-conscious mood he gets an opportunity to will 
 against habit, and he can will against it, however strongly 
 fixed, provided that after the blockade any motive urge 
 him toward such volition. The difficulty is in carrying 
 out the man's free decision. And why is that so difficult? 
 Because personality itself may have become so weak that 
 the man cannot remain long enough in a self-conscious 
 state. The practical efficiency of reform is very largely 
 a matter of vitalizing personality itself. Right here we 
 can begin to understand why philanthropic schemes are so 
 often ineffectual; they lack the appeal to a super- 
 natural power that alone can energize the entire per- 
 son. 
 
 The Uplift of Self -supremacy. This blockade of motive 
 yields normally a potent result in consciousness. At a 
 glance it can be seen that if we are to make any self- 
 decision we need something more than the negative pos- 
 sibility, something more than relief from coercion; we 
 need courage. Motives might be blockaded forever, and 
 yet if the person did not appreciate the fact he would not 
 do anything ; he would loiter in a hopeless mood. Indeed, 
 this experience of loitering indecision is often found among 
 weary, discouraged men. They resist and resist, but they 
 do not value their resistance; they do not believe in 
 
42 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 themselves ; they do not rejoice in their manhood ; they get 
 no upHft from reaHzed self-supremacy; and then they 
 become so tired of the triumphant stagnation that they 
 welcome almost eagerly the old, wrong motives again. 
 Is this not a true account of an experience which men 
 sometimes have? Do they not return to sin, sometimes, 
 not because they cannot resist the temptation, but 
 because they are exhausted and hopeless? Never can 
 we comprehend men, never can we help men profoundly, 
 until we understand the dreadful impotence of this 
 ennui of negative, half -personal victory. Could a man 
 hold an avalanche in check, and just do that and no more ; 
 never once feel the joy of such resistance ; never once feel 
 that he could do other things and greater things because 
 the avalanche could not sweep him away — ^we would 
 hardly expect him to stay there forever just holding 
 an avalanche in check! 
 
 The worth, then, of self -consciousness lies not entirely 
 in the way it creates resistance to motive and so protects 
 a person from coercion, but in that protection together 
 with the hopeful uplift which comes to the man in his 
 new sense of self -supremacy. This uplift psychologically 
 amounts, of course, to a new motive; but it is a motive 
 which must follow the blockade when self-consciousness 
 is full, a motive which is inherent in the personal process 
 when that process is normal. And we need ever to bear 
 in mind that the personal process is not always normal 
 any more than the moral process in conscience is always 
 normal. 
 
 The Self -selection of Motive. In the uplift of this ex- 
 perience of self-supremacy the personal selection of 
 motive becomes possible. The person is now supreme, 
 all his motives have been restrained, and his conscious- 
 ness is astir with confidence, and he can look his motives 
 over to choose and use any motive he has. He cannot 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 43 
 
 create a motive, he cannot act without a motive ; but in 
 this state of self-conscious supremacy he can select any- 
 motive, high or low, weak or strong, which lies within his 
 range of conscious interest. The motive does not seize 
 the man, but the man seizes the motive. And let it be 
 said repeatedly, he seizes it not because it is the stronger, 
 or the strongest, motive. Such may be his practical 
 reason for the selection in a given case, but the practical 
 reason is not causal, is not coercive. It is not true that 
 a person must always will to do that which he has the 
 greatest immediate interest in doing. Again and again, 
 especially at the beginning of a moral struggle, a man uses 
 a weak motive when the antagonistic motive is so strong 
 as to be actually violent. 
 
 But we have not touched bottom yet. There is a 
 profounder sense in which it is true that a person always, 
 even in free action, uses his strongest motive. When a 
 man has that uplift of self-supremacy he begins to care 
 most for just that supremacy, and this new interest now 
 becomes his supreme motive. But this supreme motive 
 does not urge him toward any one of his definite inclina- 
 tions, but simply toward original action in selection. 
 Thus the person's very freedom is under the very law 
 the determinists constantly emphasize. 
 
 The Enlargement of the Circuit of Interest. We are now 
 come to one of the most interesting and valuable features 
 of the entire process. The self -selection of motive 
 granted, still the range of motive would often be narrowly 
 limited, and a man's personal life exceedingly barren, 
 were there no way to enlarge immediately his circuit of 
 interest. Some of the most painstaking students of the 
 will have failed to discover how there is made perfect 
 psychological provision for such enlargement; and yet 
 the method is entirely patent in ordinary human expe- 
 rience, namely, we harrow motives. While it always holds 
 
44 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 true that we cannot actually create a motive, yet the 
 motives we have we can use in new combinations, new 
 applications, new adjustments to the will. To make 
 personal volition in a certain direction, it is not necessary 
 to have a direct interest ; it will answer quite as well to 
 have an indirect or transferred interest there. Thus, 
 one large motive is often made to urge on many uninter- 
 esting items. Probably not one day of your life passes 
 in which you do not do some things under the urgency of 
 larger concern. You not only "hitch your wagon to a 
 star," but all sorts of uncoveted drudgeries are drawn 
 along, with some appreciable speed, by one motive, 
 splendid up there in your little sky. That great Christian 
 phrase, ''For Christ's sake,'' what does it mean but that 
 a Christian man can always get a personal motive for a 
 difficult deed by transferring some of his love for his 
 Lord? 
 
 Summary of the Entire Process. The achievement of 
 personal freedom can be summarized as follows: When 
 a person is self-conscious he meets all pressure upon his 
 will by instant and automatic obstinacy which amounts 
 to a perfect blockade of motive. Thus, there is secured 
 a suspension of choice. Resulting from this suspension 
 of choice there is normally in consciousness a personal 
 uplift, an inspiring sense of self -supremacy. With this 
 uplift into courage there comes into possibility the original 
 choice or the self -selection of motive. Now, any motive 
 in the conscious range can be selected, because it is not 
 the quality or strength of the motive, but simply the 
 choice of it, which satisfies the person's paramount in- 
 terest in self -supremacy. "It is not the motive, but the 
 motive as it bulges with the originality of the man!" 
 And even the range of motive itself can be forced out of 
 fixture and enlarged, because the person is able to borrow 
 and combine and readjust motives to the will. Such is 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 45 
 
 the process by which a man is cut away fully from the 
 coercive tangle of nature and achieves what we term 
 personal or volitional freedom. And is it not as evident 
 as sunlight that every movement in the process is but an 
 implication of the personal process itself? The auto- 
 matic obstinacy is the precise thing which renders final 
 self -decision possible. And the self -selection of motive, 
 the borrowing of motive, the original adjustment of 
 motive to the will, is the initiative and quick nerve of self- 
 decision. Technically, in discussion, the terms person- 
 ality and freedom are not exact equivalents, inasmuch as 
 in personality the emphasis is upon decision from the 
 standpoint of self -consciousness, while in freedom the 
 emphasis is upon decision from the standpoint of motive ; 
 but in either case there is both a practical and a psycho- 
 logical implication of the other. In its very nature per- 
 sonality is the power of volitional freedom, and this 
 freedom is actually achieved in the personal process. 
 
 DEFINITIONS OF FREEDOM 
 
 Analytical Definition of the Actual Process. 
 
 In the actual process of freedom there are four features, all 
 implicit in the personal process itself, namely: 
 
 1. The blockade of motive, or the suspension of choice by- 
 such a grasp of self as amoimts to a complete automatic resistance 
 of all motive-pressure. 
 
 2. The uplift of self-supremacy, or the new realization in con- 
 sciousness that the person cannot be overwhelmed. 
 
 3. The self-selection of motive, or the original choice, for 
 direct or indirect use, of any motive in the person's circuit of 
 conscious interest. 
 
 4. Self-conscious decision, or the preparatory self-selection of 
 motive together with the full volitional use of the motive se- 
 lected. 
 
 Concise Definition of Inherent Freedom. 
 
 Personal freedom, inherently considered, is the power to use 
 uncoerced any motive given in self-consciousness. 
 Popular Definition. 
 
 Personal freedom is the power to will to do anything in which 
 one has interest. 
 
46 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Moral Freedom 
 
 As personal freedom is the volitional freedom of a 
 person, so moral freedom is the freedom of that person 
 regarded as moral. That is, the question of freedom is 
 now to be related to the standard of right and wrong. 
 First let us be sure that we all understand the practical 
 contention. Dr. James M'Cosh says: *'It is implied 
 farther that the choice lies within the voluntary power of 
 the mind, and that we could have willed otherwise, if we 
 had pleased." The expression ''if we had pleased" is 
 pliable and can be made to lend itself to sheer necessi- 
 tarianism. We could say of a fishhawk swooping at a 
 trout, *' He could have willed otherwise, if he had pleased." 
 The trouble is that with the trout in sight the hawk cotild 
 not be pleased with anything else. So in the case of a 
 man, the first question is not. Could he have willed other- 
 wise, if he had pleased? but. Could he have pleased to will 
 otherwise? Could he, with crossing pleasures, have made 
 a choice uncoerced? And, then, what we insist upon is 
 precisely this: A self-conscious person, under moral de- 
 mand, can decide to do right, or decide to do wrong, 
 when in the same personal situation, with the same range 
 and condition of motives, he could will to the contrary. 
 Or this way: Given here and now any self-conscious per- 
 son under any appreciated moral demand, he can, just 
 as he is, will either way, for the demand or against it. 
 To keep Dr. Whedon's terse expression, the man has 
 ' ' either-causal power. ' ' 
 
 Moral Responsibility. Moral freedom and moral re- 
 sponsibility are so inextricably connected that neither 
 is possible without the other. It is axiomatic in morals 
 that no man can be held responsible for that which he 
 could not help. In one case there is a seeming exception, 
 namely, where the volition automatically springs out of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 47 
 
 habit ; but we must remember that habit itself is fixed by 
 a long series of volitions. A man may be responsible for 
 even an automatic manifestation of habit, if the habit 
 itself is a rut of inability superinduced by self-conscious, 
 intentional action. As Dr. Whedon says, ** A servant may 
 not cut off his hands and then hold himself innocent 
 for not laboring." 
 
 Responsibility for Personal Character. This reference 
 to habit opens up the way for the discussion of the larger 
 responsibility for personal character. The principle here 
 is that a person is responsible not only for what he 
 freely does, but also for all he himself is as a consequence 
 of what he has freely done. Our personal deeds not only 
 tend to fix those physical and mental habits which play 
 such a large part in external conduct — these deeds also 
 tend to fix the great inner habit of personal bearing in 
 indorsement. A man, as we usually find him, has two 
 kinds of character : First, he has his character as a bare 
 individual. This individual character comprises all his 
 individual traits, the entirety of his native characteristics. 
 For this individual character as such no man is responsi- 
 ble any more than a walrus is responsible for having 
 tusks. All argument to the contrary is a contribution 
 to chaos in ethics. Second, a man has his character as 
 a person. This is his personal character; or, if we are 
 regarding it from a moral standpoint, it is his moral char- 
 acter. Personal character does not necessarily com- 
 prise all of a man's individual traits, but comprises those 
 traits merely to the extent of their actual personalization ; 
 or only in as far as they have been indorsed by the person 
 when self-conscious. Soon we shall see how all self- 
 conscious action tends to fix the state of motivity; here 
 I wish only to make the point that a man gets at last an 
 habitual responsible personal bearing toward his individ- 
 ual characteristics. 
 
48 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 This difference between a man's individual character 
 and his personal character I wish more earnestly to urge 
 upon you. Do you not see that a man may inherit 
 characteristics which he himself condemns in every self- 
 conscious mood of his life? For example, take the 
 generous temperament. Oftentimes it is an inherited 
 thing purely and has no organic relation whatever to 
 personal character. Here are two men. One of them 
 is a saint, and that by the testimony of every man, 
 woman, and child living about him; and yet he says: "I 
 never give away money joyously, seldom easily, and at 
 times it costs me positive torment." The other man is, 
 by his own confession, a scoundrel, and yet he is so gen- 
 erous that it was said of him, " Only look at him, and he 
 will get his check book." The niggard, in spite of his 
 natural disposition, has, I say, moral worth in personal 
 character, while the scoundrel's easy generosity is no 
 more moral than the. dropping of a ripe pippin into the 
 grass. Matthew Arnold was never weary of reiterating 
 that "conduct is three fourths of life." I object to the 
 phrase. It is ethically shallow. Conduct is of large 
 moment when, and only when, it truly expresses personal 
 intention. Most seriously I say it, conduct full of flaw, 
 with a man behind the conduct hating the flaw, means 
 more morally, and so means more ultimately, than the 
 finest combination of native traits instinctively used 
 without any personal adoption. Browning somewhere 
 says it is "not what man does which exalts him, but 
 what man would do!" It is not the deed as mere per- 
 formance ; but the deed as an exponent of a man's purpose, 
 the deed as related to a man's longing, the deed as an 
 indication of a man's ideal. Nothing could be more 
 densely unfair than to sum up a man's inherited items, 
 and then to regard that irresponsible bundle of character- 
 istics as the precise quantum of his personal character. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 49 
 
 when there may not be one item in the whole bundle 
 which the person really wants or which he will finally 
 possess. 
 
 An Old Allegory Revamped. In an Eastern country a 
 young man was sitting by the sea, when there fell out of 
 the sky into his hands a basket full of various threads. 
 "Some were silk and some were cotton, some were stout 
 and some were rotten." Soon he heard a voice, low but 
 distinct, saying, ''Spend the day weaving, my son." 
 And all day long the young man wove, taking one thread 
 and rejecting another. At sunset a storm came up from 
 over the sea and blew wildly through the night. At dawn 
 the young man was still there by the sea, and with a 
 woven mantle; but all the loose threads the wind had 
 blown away. 
 
 How Moral Character is Fixed. To complete our 
 discussion of moral character, we need to see how such 
 character can be absolutely fixed by the free use of mo- 
 tives. I will state the case as concisely as possible. 
 
 1. In the motivity of every moral person there are, at 
 the beginning of test, two antagonistic groups of motives, 
 the good and the bad. That is, any personal interest 
 which can be related to conscience at all is necessarily 
 either good or bad. 
 
 2. By using any motive in either group, the motive so 
 used is made stronger, and also the opposite motive, if 
 there is one, is made weaker. Or, by rejecting a motive, 
 it is made weaker, and also the opposite one is made 
 stronger. That is, if you have an interest, and express it 
 in specific volition, you will increase that interest and 
 diminish any opposing interest ; or vice versa. 
 
 3. In this way, under the law of use, a motive can be 
 emptied of all urgency. Thus unurgent, it is what some 
 writers term ''an objective motive" ; but I prefer to call 
 it an exhausted motive. 
 
50 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 4. The exhaustion of any one motive tends to exhaust 
 all the motives in the same group. The moral life is so 
 related that if you touch it anywhere you must influence 
 the whole. For example, no man can lose all interest in 
 honesty and not begin to lose his regard for truth. 
 
 5. When the group entire of good motives, or of bad 
 motives, is exhausted, then the person's moral character 
 is fixed beyond any possibility of change. In other 
 words, when a self-conscious person has no interest in 
 any good thing he is unalterably bad. The other side 
 should be stated in a slightly different manner, thus: 
 When a self-conscious person has no interest in anything 
 which does or can antagonize the good he is unalterably 
 good. 
 
 This rationale of the ultimate stability of moral char- 
 acter need not be modified in the least to fit the fact that 
 motive can be borrowed ; for no motive can be so borrowed 
 as to create a moral interest where the entire group is ex- 
 hausted. Some hold, I know, that these exhausted or 
 ** objective" motives can again become personally opera- 
 tive as long as they are conceptions remaining in the 
 mind. For example, a man has lost all concern for 
 chastity, but he still has a clear idea of virtue, and even 
 remembers what the feeling was like when he himself was 
 chaste : can this man, merely because he retains this clear 
 conception and this vivid remembrance, will himself back 
 into personal virtue? I answer: He cannot, unless he 
 have remaining in him some moral feeling, some sense of 
 moral obligation, a spark at least of kindred concern. 
 
 The Proofs of Freedom 
 Volitional freedom is, as we have seen, bound up with 
 the personal process itself, but beyond all this there are 
 convincing proofs that man is free. Let us notice the 
 most important of these proofs. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 51 
 
 I. The Intuitive Sense of Freedom. Whenever a man 
 is self-conscious, he has an immediate, an intuitive sense 
 that he is free. Certainty as to this fact does not depend 
 entirely upon one's own experience, although that per- 
 sonal experience alone must end, does end, all practical 
 question. There is objective confirmation in the uni- 
 versality of deliberation over opposite courses of action, 
 for to explain such deliberation is impossible unless we 
 grant to men an inner consciousness of freedom. "An 
 intuition of freedom is the very nerve of deliberation." 
 Think of a citizen, for instance, trying to decide which 
 way wisely to vote and yet never once feeling that he is 
 able to make a free choice. Even such a fatalist as 
 Spinoza says, "They think themselves free." 
 
 In his work The Methods of Ethics, Professor Sidgwick 
 says: "I hold, therefore, that against the formidable 
 array of cumulative evidence offered for determinism 
 there is but one argument of real force, the immediate 
 affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate 
 action." Commenting upon this statement, the .writer of 
 a recent book says: " Now, if it were really true that we 
 have a consciousness of being free, in the sense in which 
 this term has been used, this feeling would have as little 
 weight, as a scientific proof, as the feeling that the sun 
 moves around the earth has for astronomy." Passing 
 by the false assumption concealed in that expression, 
 "scientific proof" — an expression which lives an opulent 
 life on extremely slender means — anyone looking closely 
 can see that the analogy made by the writer is altogether 
 misleading. The two things, the crude belief about the 
 sun and the feeling about freedom, are not fundamentally 
 alike. In one case there is an inference from appearance ; 
 in the other case there is a personal intuition. No man 
 ever had an intuitive "feeling that the sun moves around 
 the earth." Observing certain phenomena, he drew a 
 
S3 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 quick inference from the look of the thing. Surely the 
 inference was naive, almost as naive as a baby's finding 
 a playmate in a looking-glass ; but the principle used was 
 the same as that constantly employed, not only in ordi- 
 nary affairs, but also in scientific investigation. Now 
 and then, indeed, we find even among scientists an 
 exceedingly hasty inference which needs to be corrected. 
 Mr. Darwin himself once drew precisely such a precipitate 
 inference as to the sternum in poultry, and it was correct- 
 ed by George John Romanes. But man's intuitions are 
 never corrected by a larger experience or by a later search. 
 A savage immediately feels that a half is less than the 
 whole, and the most civilized man to-day has the same 
 instant, inner throb of certainty. Even our higher, our 
 moral intuitions, while they may be lived out of vitality, 
 are never corrected as our inferences are corrected. We 
 correct our opinions, our theories, our fine schemes of 
 harmony, our systems of theology, of philosophy, and of 
 science, but no man ever has or ever can correct a per- 
 sonal intuition. Were it worth the work, it would not be 
 extremely difficult to search the writings of that great 
 agnostic and heroic man who has now passed out into the 
 silence beyond us, and show that either by intention or 
 by accident he has expressed every intuitional feeling 
 which can be found in an Omaha Indian. 
 
 Our contention is that man as a person has an intuition 
 of freedom ; that whenever he is conscious of self, and by 
 just the strength, just the vividness that he is conscious 
 of self, he is conscious of freedom ; that only by destroying 
 or mutilating personality itself can he escape from this 
 intuition of freedom ; and, further, that the very men who 
 deny this fact for which we contend do, in spite of all 
 their finesse in argument, evince, in all the practical 
 matters of their life, the most unbounded confidence in 
 their own personal freedom. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 53 
 
 If, now, man as a person has such an intuitive sense of 
 freedom, we should regard it as founded in integrity. To 
 say with Spinoza that men have such a sense, but they 
 are deceived, is not truly philosophical; for philosophy 
 must fairly explain life, and such a fatalistic impeach- 
 ment of the basal integrity of man's experience leads to 
 no just explanation of anything. In fact, if such unfaith 
 were carried out to the utmost consistency, it would wreck 
 not only all philosophy and all science, but also every 
 practical department of human affairs. If we are to 
 sail at all, we must trust the bottom of the ship ! 
 
 2. The Intuitive Sense of Responsibility. I cannot 
 agree with Professor Sidgwick that against determinism 
 we have ''but one argument of real force, the immediate 
 affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate 
 action." After the action is all over, and oftentimes 
 long after the action is over, there is a sense of personal 
 responsibility for the action. Now, the bare testimony of 
 self -consciousness is in adjustment with conscience, and 
 the man regards himself as a free person under moral 
 obligation. We are told by Professor Wundt and other 
 psychologists of his school that the extent of the inner 
 testimony is ' ' that we act without restraint. ' ' But such is 
 not the testimony at all; self -consciousness testifies to 
 ''either-causal power," or that, in the given situation, we 
 can will in either direction. Allowing, though, this dubious 
 inexactness to pass, these mediating psychologists should 
 be criticized because they fail to realize that the full testi- 
 mony of self-consciousness is seen most clearly when 
 related to moral concern. Here, in this moral situation, 
 a person feels that he is free unto — all the way unto — 
 personal responsibility. Most tersely said, it is this: A 
 man feels responsibly free. 
 
 And now again our own isolated experience is reen- 
 forced when we look out upon societary life and try 
 
54 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 rationally to explain that life. Study the entire matter 
 of blaming men or praising men for their conduct; seek 
 a rationale of public opinion ; try to discover an adequate 
 foundation for criminal law ; and very soon it will become 
 evident that in judging men for their deeds society but 
 expresses, however imperfectly, an innate sense of man's 
 responsible freedom. It may be true, as the utilitarians 
 claim, that the purpose of a criminal law is the protection 
 of society. It matters not, though, what the purpose 
 may be, the possibility of such law lies in the fact that 
 a criminal may be justly punished because he is respon- 
 sible, and he is responsible because he, this very man 
 under these very circumstances, might have done 
 otherwise. Once prove that he could not have done 
 otherwise, that he was not personally free, that he was 
 insane or in any manner completely overwhelmed, and 
 whatever the technical outcome might be in the court, 
 the higher court of public moral sentiment would hold 
 the man as blameless. And every necessitarian on the 
 face of the earth would also hold the man as blameless! 
 And so we are come to this point : Not merely is volitional 
 freedom essential to the integrity of man's personal 
 experience ; it is essential to the integrity of that experi- 
 ence as it is related to his higher moral experience. 
 
 3. Freedom and Personal Loyalty. In a passage fre- 
 quently quoted as one of Professor Huxley's brightest 
 and most characteristic utterances he says: ''I protest 
 that if some great Power would agree to make me think 
 what is true and do what is right, on condition of being 
 turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning 
 before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with 
 the offer." There chances to be chiming at this very 
 moment a clock which makes quite an approach toward 
 Professor Huxley's ideal. In perfect conformity to a 
 number of physical laws, it does exactly certain very 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 55 
 
 intricate things. And it is altogether conceivable that 
 "some great Power" could exalt this mechanism into 
 something higher and more marvelous, so that the clock 
 would be forced to think and to will; and forced so to 
 think and so to will as everlastingly to keep in adjust- 
 ment with reality ; yes, and forced so to think and so to 
 will as actually to cooperate with the moral plans and 
 movements of the "great Power," and thus " like a planet 
 take sides with God." And yet this perfected clock, in 
 its precise, automatic expression of its Maker's purpose, 
 would lack one thing, and this the very thing which 
 Professor Huxley himself had in large measure, namely, 
 personal loyalty. Who would not rather have Huxley 
 as he was, loyal to the last fiber of manhood, writing to 
 Charles Kingsley, "Still I will not lie!" than to have this 
 Huxleyan clock, wound up every morning, mechanically 
 indicating truth and necessarily chiming moral maxims? 
 With the perfected machine there would be no costly 
 staying by the truth in self-conscious sacrifice ; no taking 
 sides with righteousness when one could take sides against 
 it ; no indorsement of an ideal in a free personal bearing 
 — in short, no loyalty, and so no true moral heroism. 
 Volitional freedom is not merely bound up with the 
 integrity of self -consciousness and man's sense of personal 
 responsibility; it is absolutely necessary for the achieve- 
 ment of any heroic moral character. 
 
 4. The Fact of Error. Hardly can it be necessary to 
 provide any elaborate evidence that there is error in the 
 world somewhere. Probably even our necessitarian 
 theologians would be willing to admit that their oppo- 
 nents are mistaken! Look where you will, in society, in 
 politics, in philosophy, in religion, and you will find 
 almost countless opinions and convictions which cluster 
 into contradiction. As to the fact of error, then, there 
 can be no question; but how can we explain the fact? 
 
56 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 If determinism have the truth, then all error is auto- 
 matic. Men are coerced into fallacy, yes, and into 
 falsehood, too. Our search for truth thus becomes "a 
 mock drama on a mimic stage," where every puppet acts 
 as the wires move. In such case there could be no stand- 
 ard of truth. ''AH we could do would be to take a vote 
 now and then over the question. What is truth f and even the 
 ballot would be automatic." Indeed, volitional freedom 
 is just as necessary for the explanation of man's rational 
 life as it is for his personal life and his moral life. As 
 Professor Bowne has said in his convincing chapter on 
 ''Some Structural Fallacies": "The only escape from 
 the overthrow of reason involved in the fact of error lies 
 in the assumption of freedom." 
 
 A Final Question. Inasmuch as personal freedom is 
 intuitively affirmed in self -consciousness considered alone, 
 and is again affirmed by self-consciousness when the 
 person is under moral demand; inasmuch as freedom is 
 essential to loyalty and moral character, and is just as 
 essential in the explanation of our relations to truth and 
 error — in a gathering word, inasmuch as personal free- 
 dom is vitally conjoined with every fundamental feature 
 of man's being and is the only commensurate explana- 
 tion of his experience, our final question amounts to this : 
 Is our whole life as men a phantasmagoria with cunning 
 deceptions everywhere, with cosmic equity nowhere? 
 Determinism is really a scheme of unfaith, unfaith in 
 man and unfaith in God. 
 
PERSONAL MORALITY 
 
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man 
 is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contem- 
 plation of his most elevated and critical hour. — Henry David Thoreau, 
 Walden. 
 
 Go, and demand of him, if there be here 
 In this cold abstinence from evil deeds, 
 And these inevitable charities, 
 Wherewith to satisfy the human soul? 
 — William Wordsworth, The Old Cumberland Beggar. 
 
 For it is to be remembered that moral qualities reside not in actions, 
 but in the agent who performs them, and that it is the spirit or mo- 
 tive from which we do any work that constitutes it base or noble, 
 worldly or spiritual, secular or sacred. The actions of an automaton 
 may be outwardly the same as those of a moral agent, but who at- 
 tributes to them goodness or badness? . . . Many actions materially 
 great and noble may yet, because of the spirit that prompts and 
 pervades them, be really ignoble and mean; and, on the other hand, 
 many actions externally mean and lowly may, because of the state 
 of his heart who does them, be truly exalted and honorable. — John 
 Caird, from a sermon preached before Queen Victoria; text, Rom. 
 
 12. II. 
 
 A feeble unit in the middle of a threatening Infinitude, I seemed 
 to have nothing given me but eyes, whereby to discern my own 
 wretchedness. . . . And yet, strangely enough, I lived in a con- 
 tinual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive 
 of I knew not what; it seemed as if all things in the heavens above 
 and the earth beneath would hurt me ; as if the heavens and the earth 
 were but boundless jaws of a devo\iring monster, wherein I, palpitating, 
 waited to be devoiired. ... I asked myself: What art thou afraid 
 of? Wherefore, like a coward, dost thou forever pip and whimper, 
 and go cowering and trembling? . . . Thus had the Everlasting 
 No (das ewige Nein) pealed authoritatively through all the recesses 
 of my Being, of my Me; and then was it that my whole Me stood 
 up, in native God-created naajesty, and with emphasis recorded its 
 protest. — Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus. 
 
V- PERSONAL MORALITY 
 
 Before we can wisely discuss intrinsic morality, we 
 need to eliminate formal morality, or those empty forms 
 of conduct which look moral but do not spring from right 
 motive. In a sweeping way morality can be defined as 
 conformity to the moral law as that law is understood 
 in a given community. With this comprehensive defi- 
 nition in mind, readily we can see that there is possible a 
 merely external conformity; and when we closely study 
 human life we find actual instances of such conformity. 
 Of these superficial forms of morality there are at least 
 two distinct kinds : 
 
 1. Morality based upon self -ad vantage. A purpose of 
 utility does not necessarily poison the quality of conduct. 
 Utility may sometimes, indeed, furnish our only reliable 
 test as to whether a course of action be right or wrong. 
 But when the personal aim is to obtain self-advantage 
 by using moral forms without having any moral intention, 
 then the conduct, however noble in appearance, is ethic- 
 ally worthless. For example, a short time before a close 
 and important election in one of our cities, certain party 
 managers yielded to public sentiment and checked a 
 crying vice; but we now know that their moral alacrity 
 was nothing but a political device. Not a man of them 
 really cared for the moral law. 
 
 2. Morality based upon inherited disposition. Already 
 we have seen (in the discussion of Moral Freedom) that 
 a man inherits many traits and that these traits do not 
 always express what he is in personal and moral bearing ; 
 but the point is of such practical moment that I wish to 
 touch it from another angle. One may inherit a dis- 
 
6o THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 position, I say, which in its very nature is a formal moral 
 bias, rendering it difficult for him not to conform at a 
 particular point in moral demand. A man, for instance, 
 might inherit a disposition so extremely gentle as to make 
 it well-nigh impossible for him to commit murder. Wen- 
 dell Phillips, as I once heard him tell it, tried one day to 
 shoot a plover, and the act made him suffer so that never 
 again would he engage in such sport. "That little, 
 wounded, fluttering, helpless thing just looked at me and 
 said: 'When did I ever do you any harm?'" Cannot 
 anyone see that a native disposition like that would 
 practically prevent certain kinds of wrongdoing? Surely. 
 But what we are not so sure to see is that under this very 
 gentleness a man might not be truly kind and noble in 
 person. He might be not only selfish, but actually 
 malicious, and even cruel in some subtle manner. Wen- 
 dell Phillips himself was a moral hero; but even in his 
 case his natural gentleness was not a reliable index of his 
 personal character. Any opponent relying upon that 
 mild disposition would have been subject to disabuse- 
 ment sudden and dire. Why, some of the worst women 
 in all history have been in disposition like the saints of 
 God, and because of this very fact they were the more 
 dangerous. Again and again (and you must be made to 
 feel this) the most noble features of individual character 
 have been utilized to get a victory for some ignoble 
 cause. And thus both kinds of formal morality can be 
 combined, conduct based upon inherited disposition 
 becoming conduct based upon both disposition and self- 
 advantage. 
 
 The Intrinsic Moral Deed. This deprecatory emphasis 
 has been placed upon formal morality for two reasons: 
 First, that we may be more discriminating in our esti- 
 mate of the morality about us; that we may not be de- 
 ceived and think that we are getting on in morals when 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 6l 
 
 we are only getting on in respectability. But, second, 
 that we may appreciate the intrinsic moral deed when 
 we have it before our eyes. Whenever a deed, whatever 
 its form, is done, not because it is the point of least 
 resistance, not because it receives commendation in 
 society, not because it gains money or votes or influence, 
 but directly and only because to us it is right, that deed is 
 intrinsically moral. This statement I refuse to modify 
 by so much as a stroke. Ethical teachers are constantly 
 telling us that deeds are moral when and because they 
 conform to standards of experience and contribute to 
 human welfare. These standards and contributions, 
 however, have to do with manifestation and not with 
 spirit. They are societary, but not personal. They are 
 important, but not profound. Deeds are moral, per- 
 sonally moral, intrinsically moral, only when they ex- 
 press a man's own conception of duty, or his own feeling 
 of moral love, as he has the conception or feeling when 
 self-conscious. 
 
 This distinction between spirit and manifestation is of 
 the utmost practical importance also. Given the moral 
 spirit, and you are certain finally to have the best ex- 
 pression of it, for it is deep in the nature of the moral 
 spirit to seek better and better ways of getting out among 
 men. But the appearance can be had without one spark 
 of the spirit; and when this is the fact — ^when you are 
 working merely for individualistic ends, or for a friction- 
 less society, or for an aesthetic paradise, or even for a 
 socialistic brotherhood — ^when you are working for any- 
 thing short of fundamental personal righteousness — you 
 are not doing one abiding thing either for the individual 
 or for mankind. Man is too great to live on your utili- 
 tarian schemes of makeshift. 
 
 Continuity in Moral Bearing. This intrinsic moral 
 deed has not, though, as an isolated point in conduct, 
 
^2 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 any sufficient et'hical worth. It is not enough to be true 
 once in a lifetime. Perhaps no wreck of a man ever lived 
 who had not in some flashing instant won a real moral 
 victory. Nor is sporadic morality, or the doing of in- 
 trinsic moral deeds now and then, of large ethical sig- 
 nificance. The deeds are not joined, and so they do not 
 express any continuity of personal intention. They are 
 like some summer nights when the scene is intermittent 
 with lightning. Now it is so light that one can pick up a 
 pine needle, and then it is so dark that he cannot find the 
 turnpike. In some way we must get out of our piece- 
 meal luminosity. If we are to make any moral headway 
 we need to have continuity in our moral bearing. 
 
 Allegiance to the Moral Ideal. We can, I am quite 
 sure, discover the steps by which a man passes out of 
 sporadic morality. In the first place, he gets a vision 
 of right as a totality. The earliest moral possibility in 
 performance is to do right at one definite point. Then, 
 as the developing person keeps on doing right, here and 
 there, at definite points, there comes to him sooner or 
 later a vision. He sees that to be honest and to tell the 
 truth express the same fundament ; he sees that rightness 
 is one and whole. All this was in his original notion, was 
 in the first beat of moral intuition, but it was infolded, 
 and only now, in this new vision, does the full import 
 open out. In the second place, the man obtains a moral 
 ideal. When he gets a vision of right as a totality he 
 realizes that it is not enough to do right here and there, 
 now and then, on concrete demand ; he ought to be ever- 
 lastingly committed to this total right. Thus he obtains 
 a lofty moral ideal. In the third place, there is the 
 actual commitment in personal allegiance to the moral 
 ideal. Now the man passes out of sporadic morality. 
 No longer is he satisfied with unjoined items of worthy 
 conduct — ^with trying to-day not to lie and then to- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 63 
 
 morrow not to steal; his aim is to be loyal to the right 
 all the time. This bearing of personal allegiance to the 
 moral ideal is the only thing worthy of being termed 
 personal morality. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF MORALITY 
 
 1. Morality. 
 
 In widest speech, morality is the individual conformity to the 
 moral law as that law is understood and expressed in the ethical 
 standard of a given community. 
 
 2. Formal Morality. 
 
 Wherever there is such individual conformity without right 
 motive the morality is only formal. 
 
 3. The Intrinsic Moral Deed. 
 
 Whenever there is conformity with right motive at any point 
 of moral demand there is an intrinsic moral deed. 
 
 4. Sporadic Morality. 
 
 Intrinsic moral deeds done, without continuity in moral bear- 
 ing, only to meet the demand of the immediate occasion, con- 
 stitute sporadic morality. 
 
 5. The Passage Out of Sporadic Morality. 
 
 A man passes out of sporadic morality by three steps: First, 
 the realization that the right is a totality; second, the realization 
 that a man's ideal moral life is nothing less than absolute and 
 everlasting loyalty to the right as a totality; and, third, the 
 actual, personal surrender to this ideal. 
 
 6. Personal Morality. 
 
 When a man aims to be perpetually loyal to all moral concern, 
 in deed, in word, in principle, and in spirit, his bearing is personal 
 morality. 
 
 The Expansion of the Moral Task 
 This is a place of extreme difficulty. But the difficulty 
 springs, not from the subject, not from any failure in 
 fact, but altogether from the incapacity of the audi- 
 ence. We live in a Christian atmosphere; and with 
 many the natural moral process has been taken up into 
 the swifter Christian process, and so the moral movement, 
 as a peculiar and complete movement, does not stand out 
 in memory. It is as though we attempted to describe 
 the final scenery of a long highway to a man who had 
 traveled the first third of the distance on foot and the 
 
64 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 remaining two thirds by express train. To him our 
 account would be too minute and clearcut to be con- 
 vincing. And, again, of the men about us who are not 
 greatly influenced by Christian teaching, only a few ever 
 grant the moral ideal full play in their life. Quickly 
 they hide away from the searching flame. This retreat, 
 this personal flinching under severe moral demand, is 
 fostered by the spirit of the time. We live in an age of 
 externality. In many ways the age is magnificent, but 
 its standards are conventional, its tests objective. We 
 no longer expect any great inner things of men. And 
 this externality, this sheer conventionality of mood, 
 means badly for the intrinsic moral life because it pays a 
 premium for moral cowardice. 
 
 The Servant of the Moral Law. If we try to find the 
 dominant feature of personal morality we shall most 
 certainly perceive it to be the realization that one is the 
 servant of the moral law. And the most extraordinary 
 emphasis should be placed upon that word servant. The 
 man is not, like Goethe, seeking to enlarge, to perfect 
 himself. He does not regard mankind as tributary to 
 his own supreme development. He does not even say 
 with Emerson, " That can never be good for the bee which 
 is bad for the hive." If you take personal morality in 
 any individualistic or in any utilitarian manner, you will 
 entirely miss the noble fineness of its spirit. It is directly 
 and constantly the spirit of service, the absolute service 
 under moral concern. 
 
 The Deepening of the Moral Deed. As a servant of the 
 moral law, the person demands that his deed shall express 
 the very spirit of righteousness. This does not mean — 
 at least, usually it does not mean — that the man must 
 reject the societary commonplaces as to ethical action. 
 Rather is it likely to mean that he must reinterpret, that 
 he must deepen these commonplaces. For example, hon- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 6s 
 
 esty in business cannot now be expressed by a transaction 
 of scrupulous legality, while within the transaction there 
 is concealed a plot to create an artificial stress in the 
 market which will ruin a score of men. No profoundly 
 moral man can plan the financial wreckage of a fellow 
 trader, no matter what the law may say, and no matter 
 what the societary view of it may chance to be. All this 
 covert manipulation of stocks into arbitrary values; all 
 this strategic campaigning to crush small merchants; all 
 this building up of huge fortunes without regard to the 
 daily needs of men, women, and children — ^yes, many 
 things which are sanctioned in the business world and 
 praised in the social world are to the servant of the moral 
 law positively immoral. 
 
 The New Test. In getting a deed adequate to express 
 the very spirit of righteousness, the servant of the moral 
 law must have a new test. Of course, he still uses his 
 own moral judgment, as he used it in doing his first, 
 isolated, intrinsic moral deed ; but he uses it in this new 
 spirit of service ; with a most righteous ambition, namely, 
 to glorify the totality of moral concern, to make the 
 moral law absolutely supreme among men. In this spirit 
 and with this ambition he feels what Immanuel Kant 
 termed "the categorical imperative." In various ways 
 Kant was wont to affirm that the one perfect test of 
 moral performance is that the embodied principle shall 
 be meet for universal legislation. "How would this 
 maxim, if universally adopted and executed, affect the 
 moral welfare of men?" Thus Kant appropriated the 
 only valuable thing (almost) there is in utilitarianism to 
 deepen the moral deed ; but he appropriated it without 
 dropping any of his emphasis upon moral intuition. 
 
 There is need here, however, of a word of close dis- 
 crimination. The regard for men by the servant of the 
 moral law is not a philanthropic passion for humanity, 
 
66 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 nor a Christian love for men because our Lord has re- 
 deemed them; no, it is precisely a regard for men as the 
 best method of serving the cause of righteousness. The 
 new test is to be related to all men because nothing less 
 comprehensive will fully express and exalt the spirit of 
 moral concern. Once catch this distinction, and you can 
 easily understand why, now and again, there is a great 
 moralist who will live for men and make constant sacrifice 
 for men, and yet not have any real sympathy for men. 
 Not every abolitionist loved the negro. To some of them 
 he was "a strange, tormenting incubus"; but the spirit 
 of righteousness was violated by slavery ; the principle of 
 slavery was not fit for universal application; and so the 
 negro must be set free. With this discrimination in mind, 
 it becomes possible to utilize the statement made by John 
 Stuart Mill: "A morality grounded on large and wise 
 views of the good of the whole." 
 
 The New Conception of Motive. But even Immanuel 
 Kant did not see the profoundest feature in personal 
 morality. The moral loyalist has now not only a new 
 conception of the moral deed, and a new test to use in 
 deepening the deed, but also a new conception of motive 
 itself. In the old piecemeal life it was enough, if the 
 initial motive-drive of an action was right, even if the 
 main motive did take on imperfect accretions. The man 
 never lit a lamp and held it steadily through the winding 
 caverns of his deed. He was hesitant of any intro- 
 spection. But now his consuming ambition is to serve 
 righteousness, and it never can be completely served 
 when a deed starts in the right and ends in the wrong. 
 The ethical demand upon him now is to keep the whole 
 complex motivity of his action as clean as blowing snow. 
 This is saying no more than that he must be loyal to his 
 ideal through the entire reach of his personal intention. 
 For illustration: Suppose that I tried to rescue a man 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 67 
 
 from debauchery, and my original motive was to make 
 him moral, but in the days of effort there came, as an 
 accretion, the desire to make out of the rescue ten thou- 
 sand dollars ; would that deed as a total satisfy the ideal in 
 personal morality? The question requires no answer. 
 
 But we are not done. This new demand as to motive 
 really means an absolutely righteous man. To have a 
 perfect moral deed, motived in purity from end to end, 
 there needs to be behind the deed a perfect moral man; 
 or, at least, a man whose entire motivity is so organic in 
 relation to his personality that it ever works for moral 
 concern. Here I barely touch the point to indicate the 
 merciless sweep in the expansion of the moral task. In 
 a word, I maintain that no man can pass through the 
 moral process to the end — that no man can follow his 
 moral leadings unflinchingly — and be personally content 
 with anything short of absolute inner righteousness. In- 
 stead of being an easy thing of palliation, real morality 
 is a thing of the most strenuous exaction. 
 
 The Expanded Moral Task Impossible for Man 
 Steadily we have been moving from the beginning of 
 personality on through man's moral life, until now we 
 reach a task for man which we instantly pronounce im- 
 possible. But can we precisely locate the cause of the 
 impossibility? Why is it that a servant of the moral 
 law cannot satisfy his own ideal? Why is it that he can- 
 not be a righteous man through and through? The 
 theologians are ready with an answer. The failure, they 
 say, is due to inherited depravity. Later we shall see that 
 this answer has some truth in it. But this truth lies on 
 the surface and does not expose the deep root of the fail- 
 ure. Another answer sometimes given is essentially this: 
 In a complicated situation the moral loyalist, truly to 
 serve the cause of righteousness, needs a moral judgment 
 
68 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 as nearly perfect as possible; and he cannot be certain 
 that he has such a judgment. Again and again in his 
 anxiety he says: "Can I rely upon my judgment? Is 
 my judgment what it ought to be? Have I so lived in 
 all my past, have I so sought all light, have I so used every 
 ray of light which has come to me, that my moral judg- 
 ment is at its best?" If the questions can be answered 
 by the anxious moralist at all they will be answered in 
 the negative, and so moral content to him becomes im- 
 possible. This answer is quite worth while, for it does 
 explain some of the ethical distress of the servant of the 
 moral law. Still it does not explain the fact that he 
 never comes to peace ; that even when there is no question 
 as to the adequacy of the moral judgment, he has moral 
 tinrest. The flaw must lie deeper. 
 
 In speaking of the new conception of motive which 
 arises as the moral task expands, we really caught a 
 glimpse of the profound flaw in personal morality. This 
 -flaw is the accretion of imperfect motive. Our initial motive 
 may be splendid in its purity ; but as we use it accretion 
 after accretion is formed until otu" deed comes into port 
 like a ship out of the tropics incrusted with barnacles. 
 There are, in man's natural experience, few things so 
 utterly impossible as to do a great moral deed and keep 
 it clean in all its relations to self -consciousness. In spite 
 of all you can do, your mood will slip and some taint will 
 steal in, and the very man who launched his deed in 
 righteousness will sail it with a lower purpose. Leaving 
 out the one motive of love, which will be considered soon, 
 never in all my life have I severely scrutinized a good 
 deed and been sure that it expressed from end to end 
 my ideal of righteous conduct. Good deeds are of large 
 value in several ways, but as a means of securing rest 
 under a lofty standard of duty they are simply worthless. 
 They may for a period keep a man so busy that he has no 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 69 
 
 time to live with his own soul ; but the first hour he looks 
 his whole manhood squarely in the face he is bound to 
 have distress. There are, I know, those who cultivate 
 this ethical busyness and call it peace ; but it is not per- 
 sonal peace. It is as superficial as the quiet and sense of 
 health a sick man may obtain by taking an opiate. Let 
 it be ever understood that sooner or later a man must 
 face his own soul and face it in the most searching mood. 
 He was not created to live merely an objective life, and 
 he cannot always be satisfied with bare busyness. 
 
 In his Philosophy of Religion, speaking of the contra- 
 diction between the lower and the higher elements in 
 man's nature, John Caird says: *'But morality is, and 
 from its nature can be, only the partial solution of that 
 contradiction; and its partial or incomplete character 
 may be said, in general, to arise from this, that while the 
 end aimed at is the realization of an infinite ideal, the 
 highest result of morality is only a never-ending ap- 
 proximation to that ideal." This is true, and yet it does 
 not strike the definite reality. Man's moral weakness 
 does not, exactly speaking, spring from his finitude, nor 
 from his finitude under an infinite requirement ; but pre- 
 cisely from this: Man cannot become an organic moral 
 person under the moral law. As a self-conscious moral 
 person, a man keeps yielding to conscience until he has 
 a moral ideal to which he gives allegiance. With this 
 [personal allegiance, his task expands until he must, to 
 [satisfy his own standard, be righteous through and 
 through. He tries to meet this demand, hut he cannot 
 organize himself about his main intention. He cannot 
 control the deeps of his individuality. He cannot gather 
 all his moods, all the flying moments of desire, all the 
 dim, basic longings of his nature, all the subtle interlace- 
 ment of body and soul — he cannot get together. 
 
 The Taproot of Moral Concern in Man. But why can- 
 
70 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 not the servant of the moral law organize himself about 
 his main intention? To answer this question, we must 
 greatly deepen our discussion. We have analyzed con- 
 science, and we have brought to light the process by 
 which the loftiest moral ideal is reached ; but now we must 
 do more, we must dare to ask the radical question, Why 
 does a man have any concern whatever for this inner 
 demand we call moral? To this most radical question 
 all sorts of answers have been given. What is perhaps 
 the most popular answer to-day amounts to this : We find 
 in ourselves this ''narrow and easily worried organ," con- 
 science, and simply try to make terms with it, try to get 
 a bit of comfort under the tormenting peculiarity, very 
 much as one might make frantic and idiotic gestures to 
 relieve the cramp. Then, there are various answers which 
 play a fugue about a thematic summum hcmum. Fairly 
 to treat all these answers and sift out the grains of truth 
 would be necessary in a work of pure ethics, but is neither 
 necessary nor helpful here. The positive path is better 
 for us. The taproot of moral concern in man is, as I see 
 it, this : His intuitive sense of belonging to the supernatural 
 overmaster. Whenever a man becomes self-conscious of 
 moral distinction he spontaneously feels that the right 
 owns him beyond all natural claim. It is out of this 
 sense of being owned that the definite feeling of obliga- 
 tion springs. If we try to analyze the whole mood we 
 shall find in it the following features : 
 
 I . There is a sense of the supernatural. What this term 
 supernatural really means to a man I will more closely 
 consider in another connection. Here it is sufficient to 
 say that every unsophisticated man projects a supreme 
 mystery beyond the realm of nature. His initial attitude 
 is dualistic. He does not feel that the mystery beyond is 
 " one with blowing clover and falling rain." He has two 
 worlds. 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 71 
 
 2. There is a sense of fitness. The word fitness is not 
 quite adequate, but it must be made to serve. The 
 man feels that this supernatural, this transcendent mys- 
 tery is his mvn place. I would say his own home, but 
 the word home is friendly; and the man does not feel, in 
 his primary mood anyway, that the supernatural is 
 friendly. No, it is just this and no more : *' I fit into that ; 
 I was made for that; my place is over there." Precisely 
 as a dolphin may feel that he is in fitness with the sea, 
 or as a petrel may instinctively feel that the wild fling 
 of the spray suits him, so a normal man intuitively feels 
 that he fits into the vast mystery beyond nature, that the 
 supernatural is in vital and necessary and everlasting 
 conjunction with his being. 
 
 3. There is the sense of the supernatural overmaster. 
 Both of the feelings, that of the supernatural and that 
 of fitness, are gathered up into one feeling, namely, that 
 this non-natural mystery owns him, and so has a bound- 
 less, unyielding claim to all he is and all he can do. Ecce 
 deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi. That this 
 feeling has both a theistic implication and a theistic trend 
 seems to me to be evident ; and yet it is a mistake to teach 
 that all men recognize in conscience the imperative of a 
 personal God. Some men feel only a solemn presence 
 or power, something in them and yet above them, an 
 unpliable overmaster. 
 
 Another thing should be noted: This feeling that 
 there is an overmaster with absolute claim upon us is 
 not the feeling of dependence, but a feeling many reaches 
 loftier. In the sense of dependence one feels need, but in 
 the moral mood one feels authority. It is not that I re- 
 quire something, but that my overmaster requires some- 
 thing. Homer says: ** As young birds ope the mouth for 
 food, so all men need the gods;" and the sentence would 
 make a suitable text for a large part of the moral and 
 
72 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 religious discussion since Schleiermacher. But the con- 
 ception is superficial and leads to sentimental weakness 
 in the religious life. Surely we do need God and the gifts 
 of God. Surely we have this sense of need and should 
 give it large place later. But (and I must urge this upon 
 you!) the fundamental moral feeling is that of authority, 
 and the supreme moral action is that of obedience. 
 
 If now we can succeed in keeping this taproot of moral 
 concern free from Christian and theistic interlacing, we 
 can, I think, perceive that the primary moral feeling is 
 essentially a feeling of fear. Under recognized super- 
 natural authority the truly moral man fears to do wrong. 
 But we must be extremely discriminating here, or we 
 shall plunge into a cheap utilitarianism. This moral 
 fear is not like the animal fear of pain. (Remember our 
 discussion of Conscience.) It is not, primarily, an as- 
 sociational fear of results. It is an intuitive fear of the 
 supernatural authority. The man has no reason for it. 
 He is made to fear conscience, that is all. The fear is 
 just as immediate, just as constitutional, as the sense of 
 moral distinction itself. Inasmuch, then, as the simple, 
 imenriched moral bearing is one of fear, the man of bare 
 morality is a slave; a slave not in the sense that his voli- 
 tions are necessitated, but in the sense that his motivity 
 is charged with fear. ''The crack of the moral whip 
 never ceases." Personal morality never can be any- 
 thing better than the most noble slavery. 
 
 Now we are prepared to come back to the question of 
 the accretion of motive. I said that under the moral 
 law no man can become an organic moral person ; and I 
 now add the reason. The impossibility lies in the fact 
 that the main motive of personal morality — fear — is not 
 an organizing motive. Indeed, fear is a motive of disin- 
 tegration. Make any creature afraid, and the result is a 
 scattering of all its forces like an army in flight. The 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 73 
 
 profoundly moral man, then, who is merely moral and 
 nothing more, is in this anomalous condition, namely, 
 the best thing in him, his motive enthroned, is all the 
 time rendering it less and less possible to bring all the 
 elements of his manhood into moral unity. Were there 
 nothing beyond morality — and I say it deliberately — ^it 
 would be much better to have no moral life at all, yes, 
 much better to have no personal life at all. An eagle, 
 or a tree, is a success, for there is organic life in small 
 range ; but a moral man is a failure ; never deeply at peace 
 with himself; constantly afraid of an abstruse, sublime 
 something with which he dare not fellowship ; a shivering 
 slave without a dream of freedom; an inorganic man 
 never once bearing toward the universe in personal 
 triumph. Moral loyalty is of large value ; but the value 
 is not that of a finality, it is that of an increment in a 
 spiritual process. Praise the moralist as we will, glorify 
 his heroism as we should, still we are to say unto him, 
 ** Go on! the end is not yet ! " 
 
 Only one motive is there which is capable of organizing 
 a man, and that one motive is holy love. We must have 
 love. It is not enough to have "morality touched by 
 emotion." Many a moral man can take fire at bare 
 thought of the supremacy of righteousness. It is not any 
 emotion, it is not any great emotion which we need, but 
 the one peculiar kind of emotion, the creative passion of 
 love. This — love in the heart — is the organizer para- 
 mount. It will dominate every mood, make all idio- 
 syncrasies coalesce, bring every wandering element of 
 manhood into organic simplicity and beauty. It is not 
 merely love's power of fusion, the fire, the intensity of the 
 passion by which other emotions are transformed into 
 blended urgencies, all driving toward the same object; 
 neither is it the fullness of love, its oceanic occupancy of 
 self -consciousness ; it is these, fusion and fullness, with 
 
74 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 the addition of psychic endurance, the staying-power of 
 love in consciousness — it is these three qualities which 
 make love the organizer it is. But, further, it is not any 
 sort of love which can organize a man. He must have 
 holy love. Man is a moral person, and he can be fully 
 organized only under moral terms. The love must be 
 just as ethical as that great fear which the moral loyalist 
 has. You must not throw that fear away. You must 
 take that very fear and make it over into a holy love, a 
 boundless passion for all moral concern, a passion so 
 ethical that it would be an awful fear were it for an instant 
 to stop throbbing with the joy of personal fellowship. 
 But how, pray, can this be done ? how can moral fear be 
 made over into moral love ? In some way the moral law 
 itself must be transformed into a personal Friend. 
 
 From Personal Morality to Religion. As a matter of 
 fact men do not to-day very commonly pass into religion 
 from personal morality. They are, as said before, too 
 cowardly to try to meet fully and patiently the require- 
 ments of their own ideal; and so they go back into 
 sporadic morality, or into formal morality, or into a life 
 immoral out and out. But whenever the loyalty is stead- 
 fastly maintained the man is certain sooner or later to 
 realize the impossibility of his expanding task, and with 
 this realization to experience ethical despair. An in- 
 stance we have in the life of Thomas Carlyle. It is, I am 
 aware, quite the fashion to depreciate Carlyle as "a 
 dramatic exploiter of abnormal emotions"; but with 
 sanity and verity he wrote out his own experience. And 
 his own experience was typical — ^was the experience 
 common to every soul morally in earnest. 
 
 The First Glimmer of Repentance. With serious ptir- 
 pose I have termed this despair of the hopeless moral 
 loyalist an ethical despair. It is ethical because the 
 ethical ideal is exalted by the very despair itself. The 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 75 
 
 hopeless man cares more and more for his ideal, cares 
 more and more for righteousness, in every moment of 
 his distress. And so his consciousness is flooded with 
 ethical quality. It is, I believe, this brave moral in- 
 sistence, this unflinching purpose rather to perish than 
 to cheapen one's life, which opens up the way for super- 
 natural help. Anyway, a wonderful change takes place. 
 The fierce determination turns into a personal sorrow for 
 failure, perhaps the most beautiful thing in the universe. 
 Yes, and, strangely enough, a hopeful thing, too; for the 
 despair begins to break up like a clearing storm. This is 
 not by any means so profound as is Christian repentance, 
 but it is morally the same kind of an experience. I call 
 it the first glimmer of repentance — and the dawn of 
 religion. 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or 
 
RELIGION 
 
Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest 
 and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the 
 belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in 
 harmoniously adjusting otirselves thereto. — William James, Gifford 
 Lectures, p. 53. 
 
 The origin of religion consists in the fact that man has the Infinite 
 within him, even before he is himself conscious of it. . . . Whatever 
 name we give it — ^instinct, or an innate, original, and unconscious form 
 of thought, or form of conception — it is the specifically human element 
 in man, the idea which dominates him. He gives it precedence over 
 the finite, . . . Even primitive man, as soon as he comes to appre- 
 hend the finite, regards it as perplexing and imnatural. — C. P. Tiele, 
 Elements of the Science of Religion, ed. 1899, Criticism of Max 
 Mtiller, ii, 228-233. 
 
 There is necessarily present in us, in virtue of the very fact that our 
 inner and oiir outer lives stand in constant relation to each other, 
 the consciousness of a Being or Principle which is above both and 
 revealed in both. ... A human consciousness cannot exist without 
 some dawning of reverence — of an awe and aspiration v/hich is as 
 different from fear as it is from presumption, from slavish submission 
 as it is from tyrannical self-assertion. And it is this reverence, this 
 sense of a subjection which elevates us, of an obedience that makes 
 us free, this consciousness of a Power which curbs and humiliates us, 
 but at the same time draws us up to itself, which is the essence of 
 religion and the source of man's higher life, — Edward Caird, The 
 Evolution of Religion, ed, 1899, i» 79. ^o- 
 
 I have never seen a satisfactory definition of religion. The idea is 
 too complex for a brief logical statement. . , . The past year or two 
 I have given my class two or three statements, partly introductory, 
 partly in the nature of a summation, ... In different text connec- 
 tions they are as follows: In its highest sense, religion is the normal 
 personal hearing of men in and toward God, the ground of all finite ex- 
 istence. In a wider sense, it includes all actual or historic endeavors 
 after such a hearing, however far short of the ideal they may come. . . . A 
 personal bearing over against the divine, true in its intellectual presup- 
 position, genuine %n its ethical presupposition, complete and symmetrical 
 in its forms of expression, is entitled to the name of absolutely normal 
 religion. In the perfect love of the perfect God is found the flower and 
 perfection of such religion. It presupposes a true knowledge, a right 
 impulse, and issues in a well-balanced expression toward God and man. 
 Should you desire to quote any or all of these statements, I should 
 prefer that you would not call them my definition, as that would 
 imply that I believe it possible to frame a satisfactory, logical defini- 
 tion of the term. — W. F. Warren, from a letter dated Boston, January 
 26, 1903. 
 
VL RELIGION 
 
 The conclusions in our discussion of religion have been 
 reached under a general method which may be indicated 
 in a few words. Three questions I have asked, in 
 the following order: i. What are the intrinsically sig- 
 nificant things in man's life, individual, personal, and 
 moral? 2. Taking it for granted that the Christian 
 faith is the highest manifestation of religion, how can 
 we philosophically relate that faith to the full life of man? 
 And, 3. Having thus secured a Christian-anthropological 
 standpoint, how can we explain all known religious data 
 from that standpoint? No claim is made that this 
 method is suitable for a science of religion; but surely 
 it is the only method feasible for an introduction to 
 systematic theology. 
 
 The Supernatural. Before we try to analyze religion, 
 though, we need to come somewhat closer to this tempest- 
 tossed term, supernatural. What is the supernatural as 
 man understands it? I answer: The infinite mystery 
 beyond the organism of nature. This answer, however, 
 but leads to another question. What is nature as man 
 understands that ? John Stuart Mill says : * * Nature means 
 the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which 
 produce them; including not only all that happens, but 
 all that is capable of happening; the unused capabilities 
 of causes being as much a part of the idea of nature as 
 those which take effect." This definition does not at all 
 express the conception of the average man. Men do not 
 regard nature as including all that happens and all that is 
 capable of happening. The conception is much more lim- 
 ited. Nature includes only what happens within the range 
 
So THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 of common individual seizure. Men call a thing natural 
 when it appeals only to their individual apprehension, or 
 when it appeals to any part of the man that falls short of 
 moral personality. Thus it is that the range of nature is not 
 the same to all men. The men are different and so the 
 appeal is different. And thus it is that as men change, 
 the contents of their natural world may change also. A 
 man may say, " Why, that is natural, but it did not seem 
 so before." In other words, the idea of nature is a rela- 
 tive and not an absolute truth. For their development, 
 men need to be dualistic ; they need two worlds ; although, 
 as a matter of ultimate fact, the two worlds make one 
 organism and not two. And yet, as we shall see later, 
 men are not deceived. A relative truth is not an un- 
 truth ; it is truth in circumscription. A man on the deck 
 of a steamship sees the ocean in circumscription, but he 
 does see the ocean and not a mirage. "Reality strikes 
 him full in the face." If we bear in mind this relative 
 significance, this educational value of the idea of nature, 
 we can see that it is not important that there should be 
 precise agreement as to what things are natural. But it 
 is important that every man, in all his development, 
 should keep the idea of nature as a background over 
 against which he can sanely and distinctly realize his 
 higher world — the supernatural. 
 
 In analyzing the idea of the supernatural as conceived 
 by the ordinary man, we find in it several elements: 
 I. The supernatural is beyond nature. The thought here 
 is not that it is further away, but rather that it is less 
 seizable, less subject to common apprehension, more 
 transcendent. 2. Involved in this transcendence is the 
 full notion of mystery. And this notion of mystery is 
 very peculiar. It is not at all the notion of a puzzle, 
 that now baffles us, but some day may be guessed out, 
 or worked out. No man ever expects to solve the mystery 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 8l 
 
 of the supernatural. He may apprehend it a little better, 
 but never can he master its depths, never can he com- 
 prehend it. In fact, this sense of mystery is probably 
 nothing other than a special mood of man's inherent 
 sense of finitude. He feels that he is *'a speck in the 
 center of the Immensities." 3. Involved in this sense of 
 mystery, or at least starting in it, is the notion of the in- 
 "finite. Out beyond nature there is not only a mystery, 
 but a boundless mystery. The supernatural is without 
 limits. In other words, the common man has the prac- 
 tical beginning of that tremendous conception which the 
 philosopher protects and partly expresses by the term 
 absolute. To some men, this infinite is an infinite person. 
 To a few men, it is an infinite law or order. And it would 
 seem as if instances had been found where the conception 
 is so vague that it should be called merely the notion of a 
 presence. But to the majority, in all the history of man- 
 kind, the infinite has been an infinite power. The in- 
 finite mystery out beyond nature has, in the end, its own 
 way, can do all things — ^is almighty. To coyer fairly, 
 though, the entire range of human experience, we may say 
 that to man the supernatural is the infinite mystery beyond 
 the total system of nature ; and nature includes all those 
 things which can be seized or apprehended by the indi- 
 vidual without the help of moral personality. Some 
 question there may be as to my right to use, in this con- 
 nection, the term system, or the term organism. But 
 I have such a right ; for the common idea of nature is that 
 of a realm, or kingdom, and never that of unrelated 
 confusion. The average man has no philosophical con- 
 ception of an organism, but he has a practical view which, 
 if fully analyzed, clearly amounts to the same thing. 
 Indeed, every fundamental notion of the common man 
 has a truly philosophical root. All men are philosophers, 
 whether they recognize the fact or not. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
82 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 The Origin of Man's Sense of the Supernatural. There 
 now arises the question which I deem the most crucial in 
 the discussion of religion, namely, How does this sense of 
 the supernatural originate in man? or what enables man 
 to fling out beyond nature a supernatural world? The 
 answer lies truly in our view of what the supernatural 
 means to man; but let us draw out the infoldment. 
 And it may be helpful to note with more emphasis the 
 peculiar conception we have of man, a conception under- 
 lying many of oiir discussions and cropping out again and 
 again. A man is an individual creature lifted out of 
 animal automatism only in those moods which are personal 
 or moral. A man is first of all an individual and has the 
 automatic experience of an individual. There are mo- 
 ments, hours, even days, when his life rises no higher than 
 that of a most wonderful animal. Again, a man is a 
 person, able to treat his individuality self-consciously, 
 with uncoerced volition. Now he is above the automa- 
 ton, and yet there is no moral quality necessarily in his 
 experience. Not every instant of self -consciousness must 
 be an instant of moral distinction and demand. There 
 may be in certain degenerate men, or in certain abnormal 
 situations, or in certain fragmentary moods, a quasi per- 
 sonal experience which is no higher. And again, a man 
 may live the full life of a moral person, not only conscious 
 of self, but also conscious of self under moral requirement. 
 
 These distinctions in mind, then, we affirm that man's 
 sense of the supernatural originates only in the experience 
 of the moral person. As an individual animal alone, he 
 would have no more sense of the supernatural than there 
 is in a zebra. Neither am I willing to grant the claim of 
 Edward Caird, that ''there is necessarily present in us, in 
 virtue of the very fact that our inner and our outer lives 
 stand in constant relation to each other, the consciousness 
 of a Being, or Principle, which is above both and revealed 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 83 
 
 in both." If I catch his meaning, it is that in the bare 
 experience of personaHty itself we bind the subject and 
 the object, the inner and the outer world, together by 
 means of our sense of an overarching infinite. But I do 
 not so understand man's personal experience. In the 
 experience of bare personality, the person is entirely oc- 
 cupied with himself. Nor do I think that a man is able 
 to spring this arch of the infinite even when he compares 
 his personal experience with his individual experience. 
 The more I study men, the more thoroughly I am con- 
 vinced that the human sense of the supernatural is 
 created by a movement in the moral life; and had man 
 no conscience, he never would have such a sense at all. 
 My own view may be stated in this manner : In man's con- 
 ception of the supernatural world there are really two 
 things : First, there is an intuitive moral center. This lies 
 in conscience. When, in conscience, a man first feels the 
 ultimate authority of the moral overmaster he gets his 
 first idea of the supernatural. To the man the over- 
 master is beyond nature, is a transcendent mystery, is 
 infinite — is the supernatural. Second, there is an arbitrary 
 augment. Because a man is a person he can treat this 
 moral center with originality. Never could he obtain 
 the idea of the supernatural in any mood less than the 
 ethical ; but he can keep it when once he has it, and he can 
 apply it, in any mood whatsoever. In this manner he 
 comes to regard all sorts of things, even non-moral things, 
 if mysterious, as supernatural, and projects a great realm 
 beyond the laws of nature. 
 
 Before we take our next step, I wish to call your atten- 
 tion especially to the extreme valuation which I have 
 placed upon man's sense of the supernatural by centering 
 it in the moral life. Auguste Comte, and many who do 
 not accept positivism as a philosophy, look upon this 
 sense of the supernatural as a crudity temporary in human 
 
84 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 development ; but I look upon it as the loftiest and most 
 abiding feature of man's spiritual constitution. Imper- 
 fect and abnormal expressions of this sense will pass away, 
 precisely as imperfect and morbid expressions of moral 
 distinction itself will pass away. All crass superstition 
 will disappear. Dante will not forever plan to use " the 
 mystic number nine." Samuel Johnson will not forever 
 be anxious " to go out or in at a door or passage by a cer- 
 tain number of steps from a certain point." But man's 
 sense of the infinite mystery will not pass away as long as 
 he has a moral nature at all. He will, as he develops, 
 exchange mysteries, that is all. In truth, man's appre- 
 ciation of the wonder of the supernatural is to be counted 
 as his supreme dignity; it is this which, as a being made 
 in the divine image, he ** brings trailing from afar"; and 
 it is this which, when all its imiplications are worked out, 
 renders possible his full and final fellowship with God. 
 
 The Religious Process in Man 
 
 Superstition. When in any stage of life, or in any 
 passing mood of his inner experience, a man separates 
 the moral center of his supernatural world from the out- 
 lying augment of mystery his bearing is one of super- 
 stition. He feels sheer mystery and is afraid of it. In 
 the folklore of Brittany we are told that when a fisherman 
 is drowned the gulls fly crying and beat their wings against 
 the casements of his house. Here we have an instance 
 of mere superstition. If we study this and like instances 
 we discover three things: a sense of mystery, a fear of 
 mystery, and a lack of all moral quality. This lack, 
 however, is entirely unlike the deficiency in an animal, for 
 at any moment it may change and express moral concern. 
 Again and again has a man's feeling begun in superstitious 
 dread and ended in the torture of conscience. 
 
 Morality — Is It Religion? Often it is said that J. H. 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 85 
 
 Fichte taught that morality and religion are one and the 
 same thing; but I do not so understand Fichte. In his 
 Ethik he says: ''Religion is conscious morality, a mo- 
 rality which in virtue of that consciousness is mindful of 
 its origin in God." Probably Fichte means as much here 
 as Kant meant in defining religion as ''the recognition 
 [Erkenntnis] of all our duties as divine commandments." 
 If he did mean as much as Kant meant, then his concep- 
 tion of religion is beyond anything possible within the 
 scheme of mere morals. But, in any case, I must regard 
 morality as a much lower experience than that of religion. 
 Both superstition and morality are, I grant, in the re- 
 ligious process, but neither of them reaches a point in the 
 process beyond fear. And surely it is not economy to 
 squander the noble term religion upon any sort of slavery. 
 Bare Religion. The principle of economy, though, is 
 not my only reason, nor, indeed, my main reason, for 
 lifting religion into a range beyond morality. The main 
 reason pertains to my chosen method of studying the 
 subject. Under this method chosen I study Christianity 
 itself, to discover the fundamental religious characteristic, 
 and find that characteristic to be not fear, but faith. I 
 therefore hold that the first thing in the religious process 
 worthy to be termed religion is a personal bearing of 
 faith toward the supernatural. Man naturally fears the 
 supernatural wherever he finds it, but because he is a free 
 person he can do a greater thing than to create the arbi- 
 trary augment, he can master his fear by a venture of trust. 
 This personal venture we call faith. With such faith 
 a man no longer dreads the supernatural, he reverences 
 it. And so fear is turned into awe, and the act of true 
 worship becomes possible. If now we note, in the reli- 
 gious process, the lowest situation where there can be this 
 venture of faith, we shall find the lowest kind of religion. 
 At once we perceive that this lowest situation is at the 
 
86 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 point of the augment. Separate the augment from the 
 moral center, and there is the supernatural as sheer mys- 
 tery. Toward this supernatural as sheer mystery there is 
 possible to man not only the bearing of fear, or super- 
 stition, but also the venture of faith. This is religion, 
 but inasmuch as it is without moral quality, I term it 
 bare religion. 
 
 Of this bare religion there are many instances, not only 
 in heathen lands, but even in Christendom. Be sure to 
 understand me fully here. I mean that there are men 
 who maintain a brave bearing of confidence toward the 
 awful mystery surrounding them, and yet their confidence 
 has resulted from a purely personal venture, and not 
 from a profoundly moral struggle. The self-decisions of 
 such men never bum with serious moral intention; and 
 their whole bearing toward the supernatural is, justly 
 speaking, nonmoral. Having in mind Emerson's fa- 
 mous address before the divinity school at Cambridge, 
 Professor William James said: "Now it would be too 
 absurd to say that the inner experiences that underlie 
 such expressions of faith, and impel the writer to their 
 utterance, are quite unworthy to be called religious ex- 
 periences.'* Surely that would be too absurd! Readily 
 I grant that Emerson's experience was religious, but 
 what I fail to discover in his experience is a Christian 
 element, or even any vitalizing ethical element. He had 
 large courage, large trust, and achieved a kind of content, 
 precisely the kind Littre achieved ; but to call Emerson's 
 placidity moral peace would be to leave no worthy 
 term for religious experiences more noble and more pro- 
 found. Take Emerson's Threnody (almost the greatest 
 lament in the English language) , which reaches its climax 
 of personal faith in these sublime words: 
 
 "Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye 
 Up to his style, and manners of the sky." 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 87 
 
 Study this poem from the beginning to the climax, and 
 you will find in it not one touch of Christian faith, and not 
 one touch of that moral atmosphere so evident in, say, 
 Sartor Resartus. The Threnody is religious, yes, ex- 
 tremely religious, but it expresses only the personal daring, 
 the venture into confidence of bare religion. And, in 
 this connection, I need to say one more thing: A re- 
 ligious faith which is not steeped in moral passion is an 
 exceedingly fragmentary and an exceedingly dangerous 
 thing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that 
 such faith has done more injury to men than any style of 
 mental aberration. Inherently, in the deep nature of 
 health, in the working out the full plan of human life, no 
 man has a right to any content which was not bom in 
 moral concern. To be easily religious, to be religious 
 without earnest moral intention, is as much out of plan 
 as it would be for an eagle to fly with only one wing. If 
 the eagle can do it at all he may reach a higher crag ; but 
 he was not made to fly with only one wing, and in such a 
 crippled state he never can fly high enough and long 
 enough to find his true home among the mountains. 
 Religion is intended to help a man to reach the loftiest 
 moral life. 
 
 The Religion of the Moral Person. Already, in our 
 study of morality, we have glimpsed the fact, but our 
 conclusions there we now need to place in larger relations. 
 What does a person do to get an experience which is both 
 moral and religious? — that is our question. He first 
 treats the supernatural, his entire vision of it, from the 
 standpoint of right and wrong. To him, that infinite 
 mystery, whatever else it may be, is ethical. It '* makes 
 for righteousness." Then, the moral person treats him- 
 self from the same standpoint, right and wrong. And 
 this leads to self-blame and ethical sorrow over himself. 
 The man's mood here is not defensive — is not discrimi- 
 
88 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 nating — he does not know and does not try to find out to 
 what precise degree he is at fault. He makes no excuse 
 before men and no plea in the inner court. He simply 
 feels that he has failed and that he himself is to blame 
 and that he is profoundly sorry. This ethical sorrow is 
 the first glimmer of repentance. Let us call it initial 
 repentance. Such repentance makes a complete cleavage 
 between bare religion and the religion of the moral person, 
 just as it makes a complete cleavage between the most 
 noble morality and the religion of the moral person. We 
 are wont to associate repentance with the Christian faith 
 alone ; but before a man can have moral faith of any kind 
 he must repent. Again, in the third place, the person 
 ventures out into a moral faith toward the supernatural. 
 For two reasons the faith is moral, namely, because it is 
 made with full emphasis upon the center of the super- 
 natural, and because it is made in the spirit of repentance. 
 I doubt not that there is in this faith, just as there is in 
 the faith of bare religion, a large appreciation of person- 
 ality. Indeed, I do not see how any faith can be possible 
 without an intense appreciation of personality. For to 
 have faith one must perceive the intrinsic worth of a 
 personal bearing over against any amount of external 
 performance. But, and this is the heart of the matter, 
 the loyal moral person is all the time, even in his faith, 
 testing himself under an ethical standard, and so his 
 valuation of himself never misses an ethical tone. It is 
 not what he means that is important, but what he means 
 under his moral ideal. Therefore, when Professor Seth 
 affirms that a religious approach is possible "only in a 
 person, in a relatively independent or self -centered being," 
 I quickly allow it ; but must add, that such an approach, 
 to have large significance in the religious process, must be 
 made with moral faith. The route to a worthy religious 
 experience is only by way of the moral law. 
 
k 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 89 
 
 We can now clearly see that in the religion of the 
 moral person faith can never be antinomian. Certainly 
 he does make substitution for conduct. He does substi- 
 tute spirit for letter, a personal attitude for external deed. 
 To his own soul he dares to say, "What I want to do, 
 what I love, is of more worth than what I can accomplish 
 now, here, under my ideal of duty." Note this, though, 
 he makes this substitution in his passion of concern for 
 the moral law ; and so, as a matter of daily fact, his new 
 moral faith keeps him striving as never before, to get his 
 inner purpose out into faultless conduct. The merely 
 moral man cannot live, even before men, a life so stringent 
 in noble service as is rendered possible to a person by 
 moral faith. 
 
 The Enrichment. Even this religion of the moral 
 person, this religion of moral faith, is not, however, "a 
 finished product." It is capable of vast enrichment by 
 means of love. Psychologically considered, this love ex- 
 ists when personal faith turns into awe. There can be, 
 indeed, no faith without a lift of the heart, and no awe 
 without a certain eagerness toward the object of it. But 
 practically considered, this affectional movement in faith 
 and awe do not amount to love. Nor is the affection 
 involved in moral faith worthy to be, in and of itself, 
 termed love. The word love should be economically, 
 sacredly kept for that definite feeling which the religious 
 man may have toward God as a Person in reciprocal 
 response. The possibility of love involves the possibility 
 of full reciprocity. You cannot love a mere thing. 
 
 The Consummation. But love itself is not the final 
 word in a complete discussion of the religious process. 
 Love is certainly the ultimate religious motive, but motive 
 is only one, the central, element in the ultimate religious 
 experience. Thus far we have intentionally placed the 
 most tremendous emphasis upon personality, and more 
 
90 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 especially upon moral personality. The individual we 
 have cast out into insignificance. Now we must bring 
 him back! Religion is intended to satisfy not merely 
 the moral person, but the individual as well. It must, 
 to realize its plan, gather up into perfect satisfaction the 
 total man with all his longings, even those which are the 
 most subtle and vague. The individual man, deeper 
 than any self -consciousness, has an instinctive craving for 
 God. As the person feels authority, so the individual 
 feels need. If you have ever watched a half -frozen ani- 
 mal, wandering about, not knowing what he was after, 
 but restless until he found the fire, you have at hand an 
 analogy for an individual's automatic craving after God. 
 The moral person wants God, but he wants to have an 
 active relation to him, he wants to know him, to obey 
 him, to serve him. But the individual wants to have a 
 passive relation to God, to be nothing in him, to rest in 
 him forever. This individual side of religion is seen not 
 only in every form of pantheism, but also in every form 
 of mysticism. And the Bible itself, in some of the Psalms, 
 in Saint John's gospel, and in Saint Paul's epistles, has 
 many a trace of mysticism. Outside of the Bible, we 
 could find the mystical temper not only in the writings 
 of those men known as ''the mystics," but also in the 
 writings of some of the most famous teachers of the 
 Christian faith. Furthermore, even in this age of exter- 
 nality and sensible performance, some of the finest poetry 
 is either charged with mysticism or at least alive to the 
 large significance of the mystical spirit in the deepest 
 religious life. One striking passage I will give, from 
 Johannes Agricola in Meditation : 
 
 *'For I intend to get to God, 
 
 For 'tis to God I speed so fast, 
 For in God's breast, my own abode. 
 Those shoals of dazzling glory passed, 
 I lay my spirit down at last." 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 91 
 
 In the consummation of religion the two sides, the 
 personal and the individual, the assertive and the quies- 
 cent, must equally find place, and must be entirely har- 
 monious in their coincidence. How, though, can there 
 be a joining and blending of such antipodal features? 
 The question can, I believe, be fully answered. After the 
 individual life is thoroughly personalized the probational 
 struggle is over, and the person's condition of motivity 
 has become such that he can and does yield his whole 
 being to God. This final and absolute yielding is the 
 culmination of a long series of personal decisions, and is 
 itself a self-conscious act, a veritable self-commitment. 
 The response to this final and absolute self -commitment is 
 an inrushing, an enswathement of the man by the divine 
 life, so that every fiber of his being is penetrated and vital- 
 ized. For the first time in his existence the entire man 
 lives. He is in organic adjustment to the Infinite. He 
 thinks God's thoughts, he feels God's emotions, he wills 
 God's volitions — in finite measure, he lives God's life. 
 And yet the man as a person is not overwhelmed. He 
 grasps himself, knows himself in every peculiarity, and 
 fills out ceaselessly every inherent indication of the plan 
 of his own being. In all the eternities he will never cease 
 to be his own personal self, will never come to be pre- 
 cisely like any other creature in the universe. In in- 
 dividuality the man is conjoined with God ; in personality 
 he is separate in self -consciousness, and yet also conscious 
 of his union with God. As a mote floats in the sunbeam, 
 so this bit of manhood quietly rests in God ; but he rests 
 there as a person who has deliberately chosen his ever- 
 lasting home. True it is that he will remain, that "he 
 shall go no more out " ; yes, true it is that he must remain ; 
 but he must remain, not because he is established by 
 coercion, but because he himself has freely exhausted 
 every motive to go, and nourished every motive to stay. 
 
92 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 And even his present establishment in rest is personal 
 and not automatic, for ceaselessly it throbs with the 
 supreme joy of self-consciously choosing to live forever 
 in God. In this manner, the two antipodal features of 
 man's nature find at last their harmonious coincidence. 
 Absolute personal unification with the Infinite God — 
 this is the consummation of religion. 
 
 ANALYTICAL SUMMARY 
 I. The Supernatural 
 
 1. The fundamental thing which renders religion possible to man 
 as a person is his intuitive sense of the infinite mystery beyond nature, 
 or his intuitive sense of the supernatural. 
 
 2. This intuitive sense of the supernatural is moral in its origin. 
 When a man first glimpses moral concern in its otherness, its suprem- 
 acy, and its boundlessness, that is to him the supernatural. 
 
 3. Then the man himself arbitrarily enlarges his supernatural 
 world until it includes many things having no moral quality and no 
 moral relation. 
 
 4. Thus there are in the average man's conception of the stipernatural 
 two things which should never be confused: (i) The moral center, 
 where the mystery is a voice in moral demand. (2) The arbitrary 
 augment, where the mystery is nothing but mystery — a vague other 
 world without moral distinction and urgency. 
 
 II. Bearings Toward the Supernatural 
 
 1. Whenever a man is in a nonmoral mood his bearing is one of 
 spontaneous fear toward the arbitrary augment of sheer mystery. As 
 this fear has in it no moral quality, never yields any pressure toward 
 duty, we place the bearing low in classification and call it superstition. 
 
 2. Whenever, on the other hand, the man is in a moral mood, his 
 bearing is one of spontaneous fear toward the moral center, or toward 
 the total mystery with his emphasis upon the moral center. His fear 
 now is vibrant with moral quality, yields constant pressure toward 
 duty, and so we place the bearing higher in classification and call it 
 morality. 
 
 3. But it is possible for a man to overcome fear by venture, to 
 bear toward the supernatural in personal faith. This venture of faith, 
 this "personal leap into confidence," is so intrinsically unlike fear, 
 so much loftier than fear, so much more fruitful than fear, that we 
 place the bearing still higher in classification and call it religion. 
 Not only so, but to term it religion also fits into our analysis of Chris- 
 tianity itself. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 93 
 
 III. Religion 
 Definition. 
 
 Religion is a personal bearing of faith toward the supernatural. 
 Analysis. 
 
 1 . Religion is a personal bearing. Religion is possible only to a 
 person, for it involves self-conscious decision. 
 
 2. A personal bearing of faith. The personal bearing must be 
 one of trust. 
 
 3. A personal bearing of faith toward the supernatural. It is 
 man's sense of the supernatural which renders religion possible to 
 him as a person. Sometimes a high mood of aesthetic sensitive- 
 ness is regarded as religious, but it is not religious imless the man 
 deem beauty itself supernatural. 
 
 Kinds of Religion. 
 
 1. The religion of mere faith, or bare religion. This is but a 
 personal venture of confidence toward the supernatural con- 
 ceived as sheer mystery. 
 
 2. The religion of moral faith, or the religion of the moral per- 
 son. This is a personal venture of confidence toward the super- 
 natural conceived as centering in moral concern. The moral 
 faith is consequent upon repentance, 
 
 3. The religion of love. This is the religion of moral faith 
 enriched by love toward the supernatural now conceived as a 
 responsive person. 
 
 4. The ultimate religion. This is the religion of love consum- 
 mated by absolute personal unification with God. 
 
THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT 
 
I hold, then, it is true, that all the so-called demonstrations of God 
 either prove too little, as that from the order and apparent purpose 
 in nature; or too much, namely, that the world is itself God; or they 
 clandestinely involve the conclusions in the premises, passing off the 
 mere analysis or explication of an assertion for the proof of it — a 
 species of logical legerdemain not unlike that of the jugglers at a fair, 
 who, putting into their mouths what seems to be a walnut, draw out 
 a score yards of ribbon — as in the postulate of a First Cause. . . . All 
 this I hold. But I also hold that this truth, the hardest to demon- 
 strate, is the one which of all others least needs to be demonstrated; 
 that though there may be no conclusive demonstrations of a good, 
 wise, living, and personal God, there are so many convincing reasons 
 for it, within and without, a grain of sand sufficing, and a whole uni- 
 verse at hand to echo the decision! — that, for every mind not devoid 
 of all reason and desperately conscience-proof, the truth which it is 
 the least possible to prove it is little less than impossible not to believe ; 
 only, indeed, just so much short of impossible as to leave some room 
 for the Will and the moral election, and thereby to keep it a truth 
 of religion, and the possible subject of a commandment. — From 
 Coleridge's Aids to Rejection, Works, i, 220, 221. 
 
 I am aware, of course, that among a large number of advanced 
 minds at the present time nothing is considered more absurd and 
 out of date than what is called anthropomorphism, or the endow- 
 ing of the Great Cause of things with human attributes. To believe 
 that the Deity is constructed after the model of our own mind is con- 
 sidered as ridiculous as to believe that the earth is the center of the 
 universe, and human beings the objects for whose special delectation 
 the whole galaxy of suns and planets and stars have been created. 
 Nevertheless, in spite of the agreement and weight of opinion on this 
 point, I shall venture to affirm, on the contrary, that to believe that 
 the cause of the universe can be conceived of in terms other than those 
 of our own personality (or a part of our personality) is as hopeless an 
 hallucination as to believe that by any effort whatsoever one can 
 jump off one's own shadow. ... I will tmdertake to show in any 
 system of philosophy whatever that has a coherent scheme where 
 the author's conception of the cause of things is drawn from theories 
 or experiences of the human mind. — John Beattie Crozier, Civilization 
 and Progress, pp. 192-194. 
 
 Now, to the plain man it will always seem that if our very notion 
 of causality is derived from our own volition — as our very notion of 
 energy is derived from our sense of effort in overcoming resistance by 
 our volition — presumably the truest notion we can form of that in 
 which causation objectively consists is the notion derived from that 
 known mode of existence which alone gives us the notion of causality 
 at all. — George John Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, pp. 117, 118. 
 
VII. THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT 
 
 The word demonstration, when exactly used, means 
 an argument of such cogency as to compel anyone who 
 understands the process to accept the conclusion. In 
 this exact sense the theistic argument is not a demon- 
 stration. A man of sanity, intelligence, and entire hon- 
 esty can follow the process step by step and yet not be 
 convinced that there is a personal God. In truth, there 
 are to-day many such men, men who are not carried by 
 any or all the proofs of theism, genuine agnostics who 
 say with Mr. Darwin, " I am conscious that I am in an 
 utterly hopeless muddle." And yet the theistic argu- 
 ment has real value as an explanation of the universe. 
 When we become more modest and look upon the universe 
 as a problem to be explained, then the theistic argument 
 grants us the most rational explanation of that, problem 
 from the standpoint of our personal experience. In the 
 first place, because man is a free person, he dares to as- 
 sume that his problem can be explained — that the uni- 
 verse is "not a farrago of nonsense," but is amenable to 
 rational search. Then, he further dares to take for 
 granted the reliability of his own personal experience and 
 to explain his problem in the terms of that experience. 
 What these terms are we will now try to discover. 
 
 Causation. Hume, it seems to me, never understood 
 the principle of causation. It is not, as he held, an out- 
 come of habit, a thing founded on the observation of an 
 invariable sequence of events. Time and time again 
 there is such sequence (as when day follows night), and 
 yet we do riot regard the events as cause and effect. 
 The two ideas, indeed, that of sequence and that of cau- 
 
98 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 sation, are altogether different. One is a surface relation, 
 and the other is an efficient connection. A mere prece- 
 dence may be inactive and even impotent, but a cause 
 must have inherent efficiency and must bring something 
 to pass. The pith of the idea is the idea of power. A 
 cause is power at work. But where does this idea of 
 power come from? How do we ever get the notion at 
 all.'* We get it from the experience of self-assertion, and 
 self-assertion in check. We ourselves make an effort to 
 do something, and it is done. Then we try again, and, 
 meeting an obstacle too great for our strength, our self- 
 assertion is in check. It is this double experience of doing 
 things and failing to do things which gives us the idea of 
 power and the idea of power at work. Thus, by means of 
 personal experience men obtain the notion of cause and 
 effect. Causation is the first term of personal experience 
 by which men explain the problem of the universe. The 
 universe is to them an effect produced by power at work. 
 And in the very nature of the case they regard this power 
 at work as will-power, for all the power they prof oundly 
 know is will-power. 
 
 Personal Intention. One of the most peculiarly inter- 
 esting speculations in theistic discussion is John Stuart 
 Mill's ''argument for a first cause." In the cosmos he 
 finds, he says, not merely a feature of change as events 
 come to pass, but also two abiding features, namely, force 
 and matter. In the feature of change, the events are caused 
 by the abiding, impersonal force acting upon the eternal 
 matter in fruitful junctures of collocation. This ** collo- 
 cation" reminds us instantly of "the arrangement and 
 position" {rd^t^ Kai deatg) of Democritus; and, given 
 in brave English, it means that the universe originated 
 in haphazard. Concerning such fortuitous origin Lord 
 Kelvin has said: "Is there anything so absurd as to 
 believe that a number of atoms by falling together of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 99 
 
 their own accord could make a crystal, a sprig of moss, a 
 microbe, or a living animal?" And the same absurdity 
 we must associate with Mill's most ingenious statement 
 of fortuity. But why is it so absurd? Why might not 
 a great, abiding, impersonal power, with a certain amount 
 of good luck in collocation, do everything? such a power 
 would be a cause, for the eternal force is at work behind 
 the events which take place. And perhaps Mill would 
 allow us the idea of will-power if we were able to chasten 
 it of true personal content. Let us, then, generously 
 state the question thus: Why may we not believe that 
 the universe is an effect produced by an impersonal will- 
 power acting in fortunate chance-combinations? I an- 
 swer : Because such a conception is in violation of man's 
 second term of personal experience, the experience of 
 personal intention. We ourselves not only do things, but 
 we also do things which we intend to do — things which un- 
 equivocally express our personal intention. These things 
 have often unmistakable marks of design. Not bare 
 intelligence, but intelligence in such complicated com- 
 binations of effect as surely to manifest self-conscious 
 purpose. Who, for instance, could examine a telescope, 
 and not be altogether certain that it was made by per- 
 sonal intention? Such a combination can be interpreted 
 in no other way without violating a fact of our own per- 
 sonal experience. Precisely so in regard to our interpre- 
 tation of the world about us. In nature we discover 
 countless marks of purpose. Some say that these marks 
 have been obliterated by modern scientific study; but 
 this is not so. Science has not even obscured the marks. 
 If it has, here and there, taken away an item, it has 
 given us a more purposeful combination than we ever 
 had. What does it matter if the theist lose the web-foot 
 of a duck, if he find about the duck a vast and compli- 
 cated movement which ceaselessly manifests personal 
 
100 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 intention? With a few unimportant modifications, the 
 argument from design can be made to-day much more 
 effective than it was in the time of Paley. I say, then, 
 that in nature we discover plain marks of purpose. And 
 these marks we treat in harmony with our own experience 
 as persons. To the charge that this is a plain case of 
 anthropomorphism, our reply is, that is just what it should 
 be. It is only a doctrinaire who would expect men to 
 explain the world from any standpoint other than that of 
 their own fundamental experience. 
 
 The Term of Unity. Following Kant, many writers on 
 theism have pointed out the inherent weakness in the 
 argument from design. With this argument, you can 
 show that the great cause of things probably is personal, 
 but you cannot make it evident that the personal cause 
 is one person. In the marks of purpose, superficially 
 examined, there is no trace of unity. To clearly bring 
 out the point, let us go back to our telescope. To ex- 
 plain the making of the telescope, we do need power at 
 work with personal intention, but we do not need one 
 person alone. There might be several, or many per- 
 sons, connected with the making, and even with the 
 designing, of the telescope, and still it would express per- 
 sonal intention. Just so when we try to explain the 
 cosmic problem, we do not require monotheism to ac- 
 count for apparent design. Thus we reach the question. 
 Why may we not posit a polytheism to explain the prob- 
 lem of the universe? In our day the trend in science and 
 philosophy is so monistic that our question is academic 
 rather than practical. And yet it should be thoroughly 
 answered. 
 
 In Professor Everett*s valuable lectures. The Psycho- 
 logical Elements of Religious Faith, he says: ''What 
 reason have we, then, for believing in a unity which can- 
 not be proved by induction? The only answer is that 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH loi 
 
 we cannot help believing in it. We cannot think of 
 causation without thinking of unity, we cannot make 
 large generalization without going beyond them to uni- 
 versal assumption. We receive a new thought, and we 
 must at once bring it into relation with all our former 
 experience. But no chain can support anything unless 
 it is attached to something ; an endless chain of reasoning 
 is powerless, and we cannot help recognizing unity as that 
 to which all reasoning ultimately attaches itself." This 
 is well said, but it does not express more than a part of the 
 truth, as I understand the matter. The first idea of unity 
 we certainly do get from our own personal experience. 
 Not only so, but because of our inner experience in self- 
 consciousness we have what may be called a proclivity 
 for unity, we want unity, we seek unity, w^e never rest 
 until we find unity. Even were there no moral condition 
 involved, no polytheism could ever seriously dominate 
 the convictions of men. It is not natural for men to be 
 satisfied with a crisscross of power and purpose at the 
 bottom of things. But it is not true that in the world 
 itself there are no indications of unity. When we more 
 closely scrutinize the marks of purpose; when we note 
 how things enter into intricate combinations and exist in 
 relations of harmony and reciprocity, we discover trace 
 after trace of underlying unity. No one can watch a 
 storm gather and burst, or a gull fly against the wind, or 
 a child grow into manhood, and not perceive a fitness in 
 things. And from this idea of fitness to the idea of unity 
 in a cosmic plan is not a long journey. I would not say, 
 though, that by induction alone we obtain or could obtain 
 a belief in unity. The two things I have said must be 
 joined. From our personal experience we have the idea 
 of unity and the bias toward unity; and with these two 
 alive and alert the marks of unity appeal to us convinc- 
 ingly. Then we add these marks of unity to our data, 
 
102 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 and explain our problem by means of a unitary, personal 
 cause. 
 
 The Transfer of the Infinite. There is one more ques- 
 tion: When we have explained our cosmic problem by 
 positing a unitary, personal power, why does the principle 
 of causation not demand a cause behind this posited 
 cause, and then cause behind cause, until we have an 
 infinite series? To this question several answers have 
 been given. One answer is that with our finite limita- 
 tion we find an infinite series unendurable. As a tired 
 land-bird in mid-ocean will light on the mast of a ship, 
 so we in our mental weariness must have a resting place. 
 Another answer is that in the experience of personality 
 we ourselves make an original beginning in causation. 
 We are, to that extent, out of causal connection; and 
 so there is a sense in which every free person is a first 
 cause. The longer I study the case the less am I 
 satisfied with either answer. The true answer is pro- 
 founder, I believe. We make at last a transcendent 
 addition to our personal cause. There is an effort to 
 satisfy the whole man, and so we utilize our sense of 
 the supernatural. Already, as we have seen, there is 
 in all our moral and religious life the conception of the 
 supernatural as the infinite beyond nature. This infinite 
 is to us a necessary stopping place, an almighty finality. 
 No man can or needs to urge his thinking on beyond his 
 sense of the infinite. I do not claim that to all men the 
 infinite means as much as the absolute means to the phi- 
 losopher ; but it does mean as much as the first cause 
 means to the theist. There is nothing beyond it, and it 
 is self-sufficient. Having, then, this great conception in 
 his own experience, it is natural for a person to use it in 
 dealing with his cosmic problem ; and so he transfers the 
 infinite to the Creator of the universe, and now he has a 
 cause that is potent, personal, unitary, and uncaused. 
 
REVELATION 
 
And I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts : a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting sims, 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 And mountains; and all that we behold 
 From this green earth. 
 
 — William Wordsworth, Tintem Abbey, July 13, 1798. 
 
 Men can as well subsist in a vacuum, or on a mere metallic earth, 
 attended by no vegetable or animal products, as they can stay con- 
 tent with mere cause and effect, and the endless cycle of nature. They 
 may drive themselves into it, for the moment, by their speculations; 
 but the desert is too dry, and the air too thin — they cannot stay. 
 — Horace Bushnell, Natiire and the Supernatural, p. 66. 
 
 Let us go still farther; nature is immoral, thoroughly immoral, I 
 may say immoral to such a degree that everything moral is in a sense, 
 and especially in its origin, in its first principle, only a reaction against 
 the lessons or counsels that nature gives us. . . . There is no vice of 
 which nature does not give us the example, nor any virtue from which 
 she does not dissuade us. This is the empire of brute force and un- 
 chained instincts — neither moderation nor shame, neither pity nor 
 compassion, neither charity nor justice, — all species are armed against 
 one another, in mutua funera; all passions aroused, every individual 
 ready to oppose every other. This is the spectacle that natvire offers 
 us. — Ferdinand Brunetikre, Art and Morality. 
 
 That this personal will is benevolent, and is shown to be so by the 
 facts of the universe, which evince a providential care for men and 
 other animals — this is just one of those plausibilities which passed 
 muster before scientific method was understood; but modem science 
 rejects it as unproved. — Sir John Robert Seeley, Natural Religion, p. 1 1 . 
 
I 
 
 VIII- REVELATION 
 
 The Cosmos and the Individual. To understand the 
 attitude toward the natural world of a man like Words- 
 worth, to appreciate his "fellowship with the fields," we 
 only need to remember that he was the deputy of the indi- 
 vidual as surely as Browning was the deputy of the person, 
 the moral person. But is this attitude of Wordsworth 
 legitimate and useful and wholesome? Certainly it is. At 
 times man needs such a deputy, some one who can give 
 utterance to all the cravings of his individuality. As an 
 individual, a man is a part, and a very important part, of 
 the natural universe. The cosmos becomes complete 
 only in him. And so man is sensitive to even the most 
 hidden currents in the cosmic life. Indeed, there is, 
 I sometimes think, a secret cosmic force, not yet 
 caught by science, perhaps never to be caught by 
 science, which binds together every created thing, and 
 makes us all from men to rocks into one vast mystic 
 organism. And as a factor, a responsive atom, in this 
 mystic organism, every man, not only the poet, but even 
 the most ordinary man, has a cosmic life, cosmic impres- 
 sions, cosmic moods, which are nonpersonal, and some- 
 times even contra-personal. As a ranchman expressed 
 it: "Often when I camp here it has made me want to 
 become the ground, become the water, become the trees, 
 mix with the whole thing ; not know myself from it ; never 
 unmix again." Keep this cosmic life of the individual 
 in mind, and we can explain the fact that when ;nen are 
 exhausted with work, or baffled by temptation, or over- 
 whelmed in sorrow, they turn with a pathetic eagerness 
 toward nature. Men may come and go, friendships may 
 
io6 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 wear to shreds, all the personal conditions of life may- 
 change ; but otir great cosmic mother is out there yet with 
 all her land and sea and sky. She will not fail us. She 
 will not misunderstand us. She will not become weary 
 of our importunate sorrow. She will swell our lament 
 into volume with her wildest winds. ** Nature never did 
 betray the heart that loved her." Yes, there are times 
 when a man needs a mountain much more than he needs 
 a person. And if you insist upon calling this impersonal, 
 mystical help from nature a revelation, your usage is 
 improvident; and yet I have no unyielding objection to 
 it, if we can only agree to limit the meaning and worth of 
 the revelation. 
 
 The Cosmos and the Christian. Another thing is neces- 
 sary in clearing the way for the point at issue : we must 
 eliminate the Christian interpretation of the cosmos ; for, 
 in any searching discussion of natural revelation, that 
 interpretation is of no significance whatever. Already 
 the Christian has had supernaturally given to him the 
 full divine message. Ever does he have in mind the 
 facts and doctrines and principles of the Christian faith; 
 ever does he have in heart a positive, a triumphant mani- 
 festation of grace; and with such realities and vitalities 
 in him, surely it is no wonder that to him the heavens 
 "declare the glory of God." 
 
 The Point at Issue. Let us, then, see precisely what 
 our real question is. It is not whether the cosmos affords 
 theistic indication. That question we have answered 
 affirmatively. Nor is our question whether nature does 
 not grant an uplift of solace to the individual in his 
 cosmic moods and needs. That question we also answer 
 affirmatively. Nor is our question whether nature does 
 not express to the Christian believer much of the majesty 
 and wisdom and purpose of God. That question is not 
 pertinent and should be entirely eliminated. The point 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 107 
 
 at issue is definitely this : whether there is in the cosmos, 
 for the moral person, such a revelation as is necessary to 
 enable him to move on in the religious process of his life. 
 
 A Frank Word Concerning Nature. A most striking 
 passage in the most forceful plea ever made for the ade- 
 quacy of nature is this: ''The creation speaketh a univer- 
 sal language. ... It cannot be counterfeited; it cannot 
 be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. 
 It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall 
 be published or not ; it publishes itself from one end of the 
 earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and all 
 worlds ; and this Word of God reveals to man all that it is 
 necessary for him to know." This passage from The 
 Age of Reason I quote to show how completely the as- 
 surance of deism has passed away. In point, compare 
 these words of Thomas Paine with the last published 
 words of Herbert Spencer. The fact is that the more 
 men know about nature, and the more they rely upon 
 nature, the more agnostic and hopeless they become. 
 For one thing, men need to be told a few plain things 
 about themselves, about their origin, about their spiritual 
 condition, and about their destiny. And in nature there 
 is no perspicuous anthropology. Even the few natural 
 hints are so dubious that they must be treated by religious 
 faith and coaxed into meaning. 
 
 This dubiousness in anthropology, though, is not na- 
 ture's main flaw, by any means. Her main flaw is that 
 she nowhere manifests righteousness. Of course, if with 
 many of the rationalists we regard the human conscience 
 as natural we can find a moral imperative in nature. To 
 me, however, man's moral life is supernatural. But were 
 we willing to pass over this difference of view the practical 
 question would remain, namely, Can a man discover in 
 the external world any supplement, or even any indorse- 
 ment, of his own moral concern? To this practical ques- 
 
io8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 tion I must, without hesitation, answer. No. I do not go 
 as far as Ferdinand Bruneti^re goes when he declares that 
 "nature is immoral, thoroughly immoral." I am not 
 altogether satisfied with that bitter indictment in which 
 John Stuart Mill says that "nearly all the things which 
 men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another 
 are nature's everyday performances." I simply hold that 
 nature is nonmoral, that she pays no tribute to righteous- 
 ness, that from her works alone no person could ever learn 
 that the Creator has any ethical interest. Sometimes we 
 are told, I know, that immorality is overtaken and pun- 
 ished under natural law; but the opinion is very super- 
 ficial. Strictly considered, the punishment falls, not upon 
 the immorality, but upon the incautious manner of it. 
 In discrete ways moral principle is constantly violated, 
 and yet the transgressor escapes as far as any cosmic law 
 is concerned. Nature ever says, "Thou shalt not bun- 
 gle." But she never says, "Thou shalt not do wrong." 
 
 I was intending to stop here, but I cannot ; I must go 
 farther and almost agree with IVIill and Brunetiere. There 
 is no equity in nature. She knows nothing of what is 
 meant by that noble English phrase, "Give him fair 
 play." She will herself cripple a man with all kinds of 
 weaknesses and then crush him because he is weak. Not 
 only so, but sometimes these weaknesses are a result, 
 under natural law, of the action of some other man for 
 whom the cripple is in no degree responsible. That is, 
 nature is so indifferent to equity that she strikes the wrong 
 man. Once study heredity in connection with the doc- 
 trine of the survival of the fittest, and there comes to 
 view a mass of irresponsible suffering and failure which 
 antagonizes every human idea of equity, and even moves 
 us to moral indignation by its pitiless cruelty. But we 
 are urged to expand our horizon and take a larger look at 
 life. A certain journalist has written these words to 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 109 
 
 stimulate joy: "There is great consolation in realizing 
 that even though we go to the wall it is by a great and 
 impersonal law, and just as surely as we do go something 
 better survives by our overthrow." To this I instantly 
 answer that to make inequity impersonal does not turn 
 it into equity ; and if we go to the wall unjustly, nothing 
 better can survive by our overthrow. There can be no 
 progress, no universal gain, by any procedure which is 
 intrinsically unfair. The only goal, yea, the only cosmic 
 goal, worth reaching must be expressive, absolutely ex- 
 pressive, of moral concern. There is no more expanded 
 horizon ; there is no larger look at life. We will be intol- 
 erant of any evolutionary scheme which tries to substitute 
 increase of potency and perfection in adjustment for per- 
 fection in ethical quality. If we try to explain the 
 mystery of existence at all, let us begin by refusing to 
 explain it in any way which violates our intuitive sense 
 of justice and debases our moral manhood. 
 
 A Perilous Crisis. This inequity of nature, or this 
 nonmoral attitude of nature (if you prefer the more 
 moderate contention) leads to a crisis of very great peril ; 
 and the crisis is precipitated logically in this manner: 
 To obtain a belief in the supernatural Person we make 
 use of our moral personality on the one side and of the 
 theistic indications of the cosmos on the other side ; but 
 the instant we have these two sides in juxtaposition there 
 stands out a pronounced contradiction. Our whole sense 
 of the supernatural, our whole moral constitution, de- 
 mands a God who is absolutely righteous, and yet we are 
 unable to discover even one trace of righteous intention 
 in the very cosmos which we believe he himself has made. 
 And so, after all our long effort to be thoroughly true to 
 our inner being, we are suddenly flung into a pit of con- 
 fusion. It is perilous. And when I call the situation 
 perilous I am not merely noting the dire logical outcome, 
 
 I 
 
no THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 I am not using the language of theoretical fright, but the 
 language of actual human experience. With many men 
 this crisis is the precise point where they have lost their 
 theism, their religious faith, and even their former con- 
 fidence in the reliability of their own moral intuitions. 
 Indeed, there is probably no strain so severe upon a sensi- 
 tive soul trying to live a profound life as that strain which 
 he experiences in trying to harmonize his moral ideal with 
 the brutal facts of the universe. More than six tenths 
 of all aggressive pessimism, like that of Schopenhauer, 
 and a smaller fraction of that dumb despair which has 
 been called ''the ache of modernism," have originated, I 
 believe, in the awful shock of the realization that the 
 holy of holies in man's nature is not only not indorsed, 
 but is even positively violated from pinnacle to crevice 
 by the natural methods of the cosmos. 
 
 The Religious Process in Stoppage. This apparent in- 
 equity of nature results, further, in a total stoppage of 
 the religious movement in man's life. Let us see how 
 this blocking comes about. Before studying religion we 
 examined, you will remember, the moral process taken 
 alone ; and we concluded that it had no possible outcome 
 in personal peace; and this simply, or mainly, because 
 the moral man had no organizing motive of ethical love. 
 Thus, even in morality, we discovered a basic need of 
 love. Then, taking up our task in larger relations, we 
 passed into the more comprehensive religious process; 
 and there, in the religious process, we at last came to a 
 personal bearing of faith toward the supernatural which 
 was so charged with ethical quality that we named it the 
 religion of moral faith. But even this, although truly 
 the religion of the moral person, we found to be an un- 
 finished thing — an ineffectual fragment straining toward 
 the ultimate religious experience. And here again the 
 lack, the one thing essential to progress, was the motive 
 
 J 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH in 
 
 of love. The religion of moral faith must be emiched 
 by love. Emphasize, then, this point: that man, to 
 organize his entire life as a moral, personal individual, 
 and to advance in religious experience, must have some- 
 thing more than ethical intention and personal trust — 
 he must have ethical love, he must actually love the super- 
 natural as the moral infinite. How, then, is such a love 
 rendered possible ? First of all, there needs to be a change 
 in man's conceptions. His supernatural, his moral In- 
 finite, must drop its vagueness and become to him a real 
 supernatural Person. And in our examination of the 
 theistic argument we saw how this important change 
 might fully and legitimately take place ; we saw how man, 
 by being deeply true to himself as a person and a religious 
 person, could, in his effort to explain the problem of the 
 cosmos, obtain a belief in the existence of a personal God. 
 Right here, though, we enter, I say, a situation which 
 is both perilous in its staring contradiction and a total 
 stoppage of the religious process. Why is it such a stop- 
 page? Because it is a situation absolutely uncreative 
 of love in man for God. Why so? Because there is on 
 God's part no revelation of an ethical love for man. It 
 is a waste of time to argue with the extra-optimist whether 
 in the cosmos there are not evidences of divine love as a 
 barely personal interest in man and consequent care for 
 man — say, some such interest and care as an artist or an 
 author has for his creations — for were there the largest 
 amount of such love, it would not have even the slightest 
 worth for the religious movement. The important mat- 
 ter is not the existence of interest and care, but the kind 
 of interest and care which exist. They must be moral. 
 The interest must kindle in the very heart of righteousness 
 and then burst out like leaping flame into a real care to 
 secure the moral welfare of man. Allow me to tear the 
 situation open. Man is trying to complete his life by 
 
112 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 reaching a perfect religious experience. To move on 
 toward that consummation, man must love God. To 
 love God, God must be to a man a Person. To love this 
 supernatural Person, man must be convinced that he, 
 man, is loved; yes, the Person must show such unques- 
 tionable interest in man as to overcome all the inherent 
 fear of the supernatural. But this is not enough. And 
 just here theologian after theologian has gone astray. 
 This revelation of divine love must itself be moral. The 
 love must not flinch away from supreme moral concern. 
 Man is a moral person, and he cannot love a God who is 
 less than a moral person, and the God indicated by the 
 inequity of nature is less than a moral person. There- 
 fore man's entire moral and religious movement is in 
 total stoppage — unless, in some extraordinary way, there 
 shall come help. 
 
THE INTRODUCTION 
 
 Part Second 
 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 
 
Kal tpis kvkX66cv rov 0p6vov 
 
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE MORAL 
 
 PERSON 
 
Die Offenbarung Gottes in Jesus Christus, auf welcher die christliche 
 Religion beruht, ist also nicht so zu verstehn, als handelte es sich um 
 ihn als eine isolirte Erscheinung in der Geschichte. Es handelt sich 
 vielmehr um den grossen geschichtlichen Zusammenhang, in dessen 
 Mittlepunkt er steht. — Julius Kaftan, Dogmatik, s. 39. 
 
 If Christianity is found to be matched to human nature as no 
 other system can pretend to be, and as cannot be accoimted for by 
 any wisdom of which man of himself is capable, then we are justified 
 in referring it to God as its author. In the proportion in which this 
 fitness of Christianity to the constitution, the cravings, the distress, 
 of the soul, to man's highest and holiest aspirations, becomes a matter 
 of living experience, the force of the argument will be appreciated. 
 It will be understood in the degree in which it is felt. — George Park 
 Fisher, The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, revised edition 
 of 1902, p. 89. 
 
 When two religions say the same thing, it is not always the same 
 thing. — F. Max Mtiller, Preface to collected works. 
 
 But the true originality of a system of moral teaching depends not so 
 much upon the elements of which it is composed as upon the manner 
 in which they are fused into a symmetrical whole, upon the propor- 
 tionate value that is attached to different qualities, or, to state the 
 same thing by a single word, upon the type of character that is formed. 
 Now, it is quite certain that the Christian type differs, not only in 
 degree, but in kind, from the pagan one. — W. E. H. Lecky, Rational- 
 lism in Europe, i, 313, 314, revised Appleton edition. 
 
I 
 
 K. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE MORAL 
 
 PERSON 
 
 Before taking up those discussions which, in our plan, 
 are definitely to lead up to the system of doctrine, we 
 should note and emphasize the profound connection 
 between the two parts of the Introduction. Let us, 
 therefore, relate the Christian religion to man, the moral 
 person. 
 
 The Work of the Holy Spirit 
 
 This is not a fitting place in which fully to consider the 
 work of the Holy Spirit ; but something needs to be said, 
 because the Holy Spirit is the real dynamic of the Chris- 
 tian religion. Surely there are historic facts and mental 
 conceptions which the Holy Spirit utilizes, but these facts 
 and conceptions are but useful pivots of power and not 
 the power itself. The power itself is the energizing will 
 of the Holy Spirit. Without him, the Christian religion 
 would be, at the most, but an empty intention to rescue 
 men. The rationalists, some of the extreme ones, are 
 wont to say that we need more truth, that truth will lift 
 men out of all their failure. We do need truth, more 
 and more of it ; but under all that need is the paramount 
 need of a vitalized moral personality. 
 
 The Holy Spirit and Personality. First of all, in this 
 new and extraordinary Christian dispensation, the Holy 
 Spirit affects personality itself. The Christian religion is 
 most intensely personal. As some one has said, "The 
 Christian message has a personal pronoun at each end of 
 it — it is, *I say unto You!'*' But the full fact is finer 
 yet — that personal You is so empowered by the Holy 
 Spirit as to be quite another person in possibilities. 
 
ii8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ** Arouse man," Schelling once said, *'to the consciousness 
 of what he is, and he will soon learn to be what he ought.'' 
 This is about half true, true in its appreciation of the 
 worth of full self -consciousness, false in its lack of ap- 
 preciation of the significance of personal freedom. You 
 cannot make any man right by intensifying his self- 
 consciousness. But it is true, and momentously true, 
 that no man can have a profound moral life until he has 
 a profound personal life. And the Holy Spirit does give 
 to man a profounder personal life. He invigorates self- 
 grasp, clarifies self -estimate, and enables a person to re- 
 main longer in self-conscious experience. Many a man 
 before the Spirit awakened him was constantly dropping 
 down into the individual, was constantly at the mercy of 
 the automatic overrush. He was, in fact, a person only 
 by right of classification, for hardly for a moment could 
 he stay in personal vision. His self -consciousness was like 
 the moon on a night when the whole sky is tossing w4th 
 clouds. Now and again, for an instant, there is a flying 
 gleam of gold, and then it is all lost in the overrush of clouds. 
 The Holy Spirit and the Conscience. In the closest 
 psychological relation with this vitalization of personality 
 is the greater influence of the Holy Spirit upon conscience. 
 I myself believe that all the featiires of conscience are 
 not a natural outcome of the personal process — although 
 they do give teleological eventuation and significance to 
 that process — ^but rather the immediate work of the Holy 
 Spirit. Conscience is God's living relation to man, medi- 
 ated by the Holy Spirit. In any case, though, it can 
 hardly be practically questioned that conscience is quick- 
 ened under the Christian dispensation. Moral distinction 
 is probably not changed; but moral obligation, and 
 especially moral settlement, are affected by what may 
 be called the Christian exertion of the Holy Spirit. Per- 
 haps I had better briefly give my full view: The Holy 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 119 
 
 Spirit does something for every man ; but he will do more 
 for the moral person who, in anytime, or in any place, 
 makes his best personal response to the initiative moral- 
 pressure ; and he will do still more for men in any situation 
 where the Christian message is declared; and he will do 
 still more for men where the Christian message is declared 
 in a situation which is quick with the faith and love and 
 sacrifice belonging to actual Christian experience. 
 
 The Christian Religion and Moral Love 
 The most unwholesome thing in the teaching of the 
 mediating theology is its unqualified assertion that the 
 dominating feature of Christianity is the love of God for 
 man. Here is a statement of the type to which I refer: 
 ''The possession in Christ of the supreme revelation of 
 God's love and purpose constitutes the distinctive mark of 
 Christianity." In a general way, this statement is the 
 truth, and might be adequate in certain parts of a popular 
 sermon ; but once placed and emphasized in theology it 
 becomes as harmful as poison. In the person and work of 
 Christ there is no manifestation of a divine love which is 
 nothing more than a personal interest, nothing more than 
 a going out of the heart toward men. There is love, in- 
 finite love, manifest, but it is moral love. It is love in, 
 though, and because of, perfect righteousness. Man is 
 loved as a moral person capable of moral response. He 
 is loved for moral ends. His only joyous outcome is 
 moral, moral, moral. The Christian religion begins, con- 
 tinues, and culminates in moral concern. 
 
 The Indirect Preparations. I have spoken of the sig- 
 nificance which nature has for the individual ; and I have 
 also indicated the educational value of man's conception 
 of nature over against his conception of the supernatural ; 
 but now there is more to be said. Nature, by the very 
 fact of her failure to show moral concern, makes it im- 
 
120 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 possible for the moral person to stay in nature. The 
 individual, the animal, could stay in nature forever ; but 
 the moral person must find another world. "He must 
 fly the awful vacuum." Thus, nature tends to create 
 an urgency in man's need of another revelation of God, 
 which shall fully manifest moral love. 
 
 This is also the point of view, I think, from which we 
 may see the true Christian interpretation of the heathen 
 religions. With certain exceptions, or at least with cer- 
 tain hesitations in decision, I cannot regard these religions 
 as mere combinations of superstition. Doubtless there 
 is in them much superstition, but to the superstition are 
 joined many elements which are truly religious. Con- 
 sidered psychologically, and not historically, and not 
 practically, they are like some of the debased forms of 
 the Christian religion itself, say like the Roman Catholic. 
 But, as far as I know, there is not in any one of these 
 heathen religions a conception of divine love as moral. 
 Speaking of the beliefs of men living under the ethnic re- 
 ligions, Professor Seeley has said, "They have believed in 
 gods that were beautiful, powerful, immortal, happy, but 
 not benevolent." As he uses the word benevolent, he 
 means a disposition to help men, to secure their well- 
 being; and this disposition must have a moral origin. 
 And yet I prefer to say that the gods of the ethnic re- 
 ligions have no righteous concern for men. If they show 
 any interest in men it does not spring from moral concern, 
 and does not amount to a righteous passion. And, when 
 I study these religions in a comprehensive spirit, with a 
 purpose to relate all things, under the providence of God, 
 to the Christian faith, it becomes evident that they, like 
 nature, are an indirect preparation for the ultimate man- 
 ifestation of God's moral love toward men. Here, again, 
 the moral person gets an urgency ; he cannot rest, he must 
 find another world. 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 121 
 
 The Direct Preparation. Of far greater importance, 
 though, than these indirect preparations, in nature and 
 in the heathen religions, is the direct preparation in the 
 history of the Jewish people. Even with the large place 
 the Old Testament has come to hold in Christian scholar- 
 ship, how few there are who realize its fundamental im- 
 portance to the Christian religion! For example, think 
 of a man so alert and open-minded as is Professor Adolf 
 Harnack saying this : ''Jesus Christ's teaching will at once 
 bring us by steps which, if few, will be great, to a height 
 where its connection with Judaism is seen to be only a 
 loose one." Could any utterance made by responsible 
 Christian scholarship be more careless, more superficial, 
 more deeply untrue? One would suppose that even an 
 ordinary examination of our Lord's own attitude toward 
 the Old Testament would lead to a conviction that his 
 teaching had close connection with the dispensation which 
 he came to fulfill. The ethical ground of the gospel of 
 Jesus Christ comes almost entire from the Old Testament ; 
 and the daring emphasis upon grace is made wholesomely 
 expedient by that long, unflinching, tremendous moral 
 imperative in the history from Abraham to Amos. In 
 truth, those very severities which we now pronounce 
 unchristian were for an ethical and preparatory end, for 
 they tended to shut out Jehovah's people from all the 
 insidious fascination of the deadly immorality about 
 them. How can any student of comparative religion fail 
 to realize that the mighty ethical momentum of Chris- 
 tianity comes from the life of the Old Testament? That 
 moral law, given in such definiteness and yet in such 
 forceful grandeur that it penetrates all our civilization; 
 that poetry in the psalms which always burns, and some- 
 times blazes, with the enthusiasm of righteousness; and 
 those towering prophets of moral insistence who stand 
 out like a range of mountains in a flat world — ^what, I 
 
122 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ask, could Christianity be or become or accomplish with- 
 out that direct preparation ? A loose connection ! Why, the 
 connection is so close that it is more than external, more 
 than historical, it is an historical connection made spirit- 
 ual in an organic plan, it is a connection through which 
 the Holy Spirit to-day brings Christian things to pass. 
 There is, probably, not a typical Christian conversion 
 in which the Old Testament is not effectively involved; 
 nor a typical Christian experience which is not by the 
 Old Testament nourished and balanced and enlarged. 
 
 The New Conception of God. In connection with this 
 direct preparation for the revelation of moral love, there 
 arises a new conception of God, a conception far beyond 
 anything possible in bare theism. God is regarded as a 
 person, holy, in action, for the moral rescue of his people. 
 The God evident in the Old Testament is not an '* Eternal 
 Somewhat," but an Eternal Someone, with personal plan 
 and self-conscious volition. The contention of Matthew 
 Arnold at this point is really not worthy of serious 
 notice. And, further, this personal God is holy. Later 
 we will try to find out just what is meant by holiness; 
 but, in any possible interpretation, holiness can be re- 
 lied upon to protect every moral interest. Again, this 
 holy God is conceived of as in action. He is in 
 earnest even unto the actual deed. It has been said 
 that the God of the Old Testament is no other than 
 the God of deism. But the God of deism is an in- 
 finite idler. "He sits forever doing nothing in the 
 sky-parlor of the universe." On the contrary, the 
 Lord God of Israel is ever intensely concerned with 
 events and ever strenuously doing deeds. Again, in the 
 center of all this interest and activity, we find the first 
 note of a divine redemption. God is active, God is in 
 earnest, to rescue his people unto righteousness. And 
 when this redemptional idea is augmented by the Mes- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 123 
 
 sianic idea there is a very direct and a very complete 
 preparation for the comprehensive plan of redemption 
 as unfolded in the New Testament. 
 
 The Christian Object of Faith. However much we may 
 make of this revelation in the Old Testament, it cannot 
 provide the true Christian object of faith. The Messiah 
 himself, as a Redeemer to appear on somewhere in the 
 years, is not able to meet man's entire need and to com- 
 plete the religious process. Nor is Jesus Christ as man, 
 or as an exalted creature, the Christian object of faith. 
 Nor is Jesus Christ as God, or as God-man, the Christian 
 object of faith. If we pause with only the person, we 
 shall altogether fail to catch the potent Christian 
 peculiarity. The new object, the Christian object of 
 faith, is Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, as the 
 actual Redeemer. The conception is two-ply: First, 
 there is the person who is God incarnate in man, who is 
 therefore both human and divine. On the one side, 
 Christ is so truly man that he is our own Brother, we own 
 him; never can he get beyond us, never can he escape our 
 humanity. And precisely because he is our own we have 
 no dread of him. Even in our sins he can get at us. 
 Thus, the terribleness of the naked supernatural, and the 
 isolation of the God of bare theism, and the ethical 
 rigidity of Jehovah, are taken away. And yet, on the 
 other side, Christ is so absolutely God to us that he is 
 our finality in power, in authority, and even in moral 
 ideal. All the moral concern there is we find in him. 
 Beyond him there is no demand whatsoever. It is the 
 wonder of wonders, but the moral law now looks toward 
 us in friendship, without dropping an iota of moral requi- 
 sition. Second, this divine-human person is our actual 
 Redeemer. He is not out there in the realm of expecta- 
 tion — he is here! The only Son of God has actually come 
 and has actually completed his redemptional work. By 
 
124 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 his death he has Hterally made full atonement for the 
 sins of all mankind. The Christian object of faith, then, 
 is Jesus Christ, God and man in one person, with the 
 finished work of redemption in his victorious hand. The 
 person and the atonement must be woven into one asser- 
 tion — ''Jesus Christ, and him crucified.''' Thus, in the 
 Christian religion, we obtain the perfect revelation of 
 moral love. 
 
 The Response of the Moral Person. Probably no two 
 men ever reach the Christian experience by the same 
 combination of features; and yet we can, I think, dis- 
 cover the main features which are combined in any 
 typical case. They are these: i. A profounder sense of 
 moral responsibility. This is the psychological start and 
 is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. When he em- 
 powers personality, the man is lifted out of the auto- 
 matic slavery and there is a keener sense of personal 
 freedom. But the result is not, as we might at first sup- 
 pose, a feeling of self-sufficiency. For the man's moral 
 nature is vitalized at the same time, and so the keener 
 sense of freedom is over against a severer moral demand ; 
 and the total result is a profounder sense of moral respon- 
 sibility. 2. A greater dissatisfaction with all the in- 
 adequacies. In this profounder moral mood not only 
 nature and morality, but all religious bearings and en- 
 deavors, if less than Christian, seem to the moral person 
 as empty and useless. 3. A conviction of sin. Grant 
 this moral person, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and 
 restless under all he has found and all he has done, the 
 new and severely ethical conception of God ; allow him a 
 swift vision of the awful holiness of God, a holiness which 
 searches like lightning and never condones any wrong 
 thing; show him how intensely angry God is over un- 
 righteousness, how he personally takes it to heart, and 
 grieves over it, and actively uses all the resources of the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 125 
 
 Godhead to destroy it — let the man once see God, and the 
 result is a torturing sense of sin. It is much more than 
 a feeling that conscience has been violated ; it is a feeling 
 that in our wrong we are against God, that we are in 
 willful antagonism with the Holy One himself. 4. Chris- 
 tian repentance. This, too, is very much deeper than 
 that initial repentance which we found to be possible as 
 a passage out of morality. It is thus deeper for two 
 reasons : In the first instance, because it begins in the con- 
 viction of sin, and so gets a tremendous moral momentum. 
 In the second instance, because it is a response to the 
 revelation of moral love in our Lord's person and death. 
 5. Christian faith. This is like and yet tmlike that moral 
 faith which we found to be possible in the religious proc- 
 ess. The likeness lies in the fact that the Christian faith 
 is also a bearing of trust ; and in the further fact that the 
 trust is moral in its nature. The unlikeness lies in the 
 fact that the Christian faith keeps a hatred of all sin, in 
 a peculiar ethical poignancy which originates in Christian 
 repentance ; and in the further fact that the heart-interest 
 belonging to any kind of faith has now become a positive 
 personal love with a definite object. No man, in sorrow 
 over his sin, can trust Jesus Christ without beginning to 
 love him. 6. Moral love. This Christian love for the 
 Saviour, however, demands separate and most emphatic 
 treatment. There are four points which should be care- 
 fully noted: The first point is psychological. The love 
 is inherent in faith itself; is, indeed, but a personal 
 accentuation of the heart-thrust of faith. You would 
 almost say that Christian love is moral faith made per- 
 fect. In any case. Christian love means the largest ap- 
 preciation of man's heart-life. Thus Christianity keeps 
 insisting that the greatest thing in a man is not his head, 
 but his heart. The second point is ethical. This Chris- 
 tian love is moral love. Not only does it express the 
 
126 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 consummate endeavor of the moral person over against 
 his ideal; but also it will, when once perfected, when once 
 fully enthroned, organize a man, make him one harmo- 
 nious being, a satisfied and passionate lover of righteous- 
 ness. In all the universe there is nothing more abso- 
 lutely moral than the perfect love of a Christian man 
 for his Saviour. The third point is religious. By means 
 of this Christian love the whole religious process is lifted 
 out of stoppage. The last point is Christian. This 
 moral love which enables the moral person to move on in 
 his religious life is purely a Christian thing. For it there 
 have been various kinds of preparations, to it there have 
 been various kinds of contributions; but the one thing 
 which has actually rendered it possible is God's revelation 
 of his own moral love for man in the person and death of 
 his only Son, Jesus Christ our Redeemer. 
 
 The Essential Nature of Christianity 
 We are now ready, I think, to gather into compact 
 statement the essential peculiarity of the Christian 
 religion. The most striking book about Christianity 
 which has been published in recent years is Professor 
 Harnack*s Das Wesen des Christentums, really a series 
 of sixteen public lectures delivered in Berlin University 
 during the winter semester of 1 899-1 900. Nothing could 
 more fully indicate the theological drift of our day than 
 the fact that this book has received, in almost all quarters, 
 an imstinted meed of praise. ** At last a true prophet has 
 appeared, and we have a voice of authority." To me, 
 however, the book is not so remarkable for what there is 
 in it as for what is left out of it. You can, in these 
 lectures, readily recognize Christianity ; and yet, after all, 
 it is not Christianity, at least it is not fundamental Chris- 
 tianity, which you recognize. It is as if a very skillful 
 artist had painted the contour of the body of a man so 
 
UNIVhrvO 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 127 
 
 perfectly as to make recognition instant and indubitable, 
 but had left out the man's face altogether, never once sug- 
 gested by so much as a stroke that the man had any face. 
 What, then, is Christianity? Not in its accidents, not 
 in its passing historical forms, not in its special applica- 
 tions to definite tasks and problems, however important 
 they may be; but in its intrinsic nature, in its basal 
 Wesen — when the Christian religion is laid bare to its 
 ultimate peculiarities, what are they? The true answer, 
 I believe, springs quickly from our discussion. They are 
 three : 
 
 1. A Peculiarity in Revelation. God has revealed his 
 moral hatred of sin and his moral love of man in the in- 
 carnate person and atoning death of his only Son, Jesus 
 Christ our Saviour. 
 
 2. A Peculiarity in Response. The Christian response 
 to this revelation is in a profound repentance which 
 culminates in faith in Christ as a personal Saviour, a 
 faith that is quickened by moral love. 
 
 3. A Peculiarity in Life. The Christian religion is a 
 life of moral love. The whole being of the Christian man 
 is organized about the central motive of love. First of 
 all, and through all, and under all, he loves his Redeemer 
 and his God ; then he loves all men, not as a philanthro- 
 pist loves all men, but as Christ loves all men, seeking 
 their moral salvation, and their everlasting rejoicing in 
 the kingdom of God. The Christian man has much work 
 to do, many tasks to meet, and many problems to solve ; 
 but in all work and tasks and problems his perpetual 
 purpose is to express his moral love for God and man. 
 This peculiarity of life, together with the peculiarity in 
 response, together with the peculiarity in revelation, is 
 the one convincing Christian apologetics. The true re- 
 ligion is that one which fits into man's nattire and com- 
 pletes his life. 
 
i 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE HUMAN \ 
 
 RACE 
 
 I 
 
There is such a natural principle of attraction in man toward man 
 that having trod the same tract of land . . . becomes the occasion of 
 contracting acquaintances and familiarities many years after; for 
 anything may serve the purpose. Thus relations merely nominal are 
 sought and invented, not by governors, but by the lowest of the people ; 
 which are found sufficient to hold mankind together in little frater- 
 nities and copartnerships: weak ties indeed, and what may afford 
 fund enough for ridicule, if they are absurdly considered as the real 
 principles of that union; but they are in truth merely the occasions, 
 as anything may be of anything, upon which our nature carries us on 
 according to its own previous bent and bias; which occasions, therefore, 
 would be nothing at all, were there not this prior disposition and bias 
 of nature. . . . And therefore to have no restraint from, no regard to 
 others in our behavior, is the speculative absurdity of considering 
 ourselves as single and independent, as having nothing in our nature 
 which has respect to our fellow creatures, reduced to action and prac- 
 tice. And this is the same absurdity as to suppose a hand, or any 
 part, to have no natural respect to any other, or to the whole body. — 
 Joseph Butler, Sermon upon the Social Nature of Man. 
 
 As the conditions of men become equal among a people, individuals 
 seem of less, and society of greater, importance; or, rather, every 
 citizen, being assimilated to all the rest, is lost in the crowd, and 
 nothing stands conspicuous but the great and imposing image of the 
 people at large. — Alexis DeTocqueville, Democracy in America, ii, 357. 
 
 Fraternity is undoubtedly a Christian idea, come into the world 
 with Christ, spread abroad in it by Christian agencies, and belonging 
 to the ideal that hovers perpetually over Christian society. — John Roe, 
 Contemporary Socialism, p. 219. 
 
 This is the fundamental truth out of which comes the regulative law 
 of Jesus about social life. Society does not exist for itself, but for 
 the individual; and man goes into it not to lose, but to find, himself. 
 . . . Nowhere do we find on earth that picttu-e of society reconstructed 
 by the idea of Jesus, society around the throne of God, which shines 
 out upon us from the mysterious promises of the Apocalypse; the 
 glory of which society is to be this — that while the souls stand in their 
 vast choruses of hundreds of thousands, and all chant the same anthems, 
 and all work together in the same transcendent duties, yet each bears 
 the sacred name written on the flesh of his own forehead, and carries 
 in his hand a white stone on which is written a new name which no 
 man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. It is individuality em- 
 phasized by company, and not lost in it, because the atmosphere in 
 which the company is met is the idea of Jesus, which is the Father- 
 hood of God. — Phillips Brooks, The Influence of Jesus, the Bohlen 
 Lectures, 1879, pp. 98, 99, loo. 
 
X- THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE HUMAN 
 
 RACE 
 
 Had otir aim been comprehensively anthropological 
 we should, in the first part of the introduction, have 
 studied man not only as an individual moral person, but 
 also as a social person. But our aim was narrowly 
 economic, yes, jealously economic; the single intention 
 being to emphasize man's moral life in such a manner 
 as to show, beyond the possibility of obscuration, the 
 teleological connection which exists between this moral 
 life and the Christian religion. But now that this eco- 
 nomic work is done we need to bring into full view the 
 social side of man's nature, for this social fact has very 
 extraordinary consideration in the Christian system. It 
 may be true, as Professor Ritschl has said, that *'all 
 religions are social"; but Christianity is peculiarly social 
 — indeed, so thoroughly social that neither its doctrines 
 nor its method nor its spirit can be understood and ex- 
 pressed in the terms of individualism. 
 
 The Social Fact 
 Of all of Emerson's Orphic sayings, the one most 
 arbitrarily untrue is this: "Man is insular and cannot 
 be touched. Every man is an infinitely repellent orb and 
 holds his individual being on that condition." Exactly 
 the opposite is the truth. Every man is planned for 
 human fellowship and can live his normal, his deepest 
 life only in relations of such fellowship. He must give 
 and take. He must divide his spoil with other men. He 
 must rob men of their experiences, their sorrows, their 
 joys, imtil his soul is like a camp full of captured treasure. 
 
132 - THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Just as the individual needs and craves nature — the trees, 
 the fields, the sky, the ocean — so the human person needs 
 and craves men. And the greater the person is in pure 
 humanity the more men it takes to satisfy his inner 
 craving. A man like Charles Sumner, unless enlarged 
 as Sumner was by a generous philanthropy, can get on 
 quite contentedly with a few cultured friends; but 
 Abraham Lincoln had to have all sorts and conditions 
 of men, and thousands of them. Sometimes, in selfishness 
 or by necessity, a man will isolate himself, perhaps will 
 dare to believe that his soul can better ripen, or that his 
 work can better be done, without any human fellowship ; 
 but the days become more and more sapless, and finally 
 his whole being springs into violent protest. In 1851 
 Thomas Arnold (the younger) wrote to his mother as 
 follows: *'I think the greatest mistake I have ever made 
 was that of fancying that an honest man was sufficient 
 society to himself, and that the growth and vigor of the 
 intellect was compatible with loneliness. I remember 
 well the first practical check that this feeling received. 
 It was at Otago ; I had made up my mind to go on foot a 
 journey of three or four days into the unknown interior. 
 I could get no one to accompany me, and I did not care 
 for anyone. ... As I struggled back over the mountains, 
 almost sick with hunger, I could not help remarking 
 within myself a longing to get back to the settlement 
 and the haunts of men equal to the desire which I had 
 felt a day or two before to penetrate deep into the silence 
 and solitude of the bush. 'No,' I said to myself, as I 
 leaned on a great bowlder at a spot whence the eye com- 
 manded a far-stretching plain, on which not the faintest 
 curling smoke told of the presence of man, 'thou wast 
 not made to be alone!' A sort of horror fell upon me, 
 the might of Nature seemed to rise up — irresistible, all- 
 pervading — ^and to press down upon my single life. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 133 
 
 From the hour that I reached the settlement I became, 
 I think, a wiser man." 
 
 Personal Loneliness. One of the most significant 
 things connected with man's inner Hfe is his experience 
 of loneliness. This experience is one of those common- 
 place matters which we take for granted, just as we 
 take bodily weariness for granted, but which on close 
 examination becomes indicant of a deep cause. Why is 
 a man ever lonely? Some writers have answered the 
 question in this way: A man, like certain animals, has a 
 gregarious instinct ; and so when he is separated from men 
 he simply is restless because the gregarious instinct is 
 not satisfied ; this restlessness is what we mean by loneli- 
 ness. This answer might possibly be adequate to explain 
 our loneliness when we are away from men ; but how can 
 it explain our loneliness when we are with men? On a 
 city street, in a throng of people, a man may be as lonely 
 as he would be if alone in the Black Forest. No, the 
 cause of human loneliness is not a gregarious animal 
 instinct, but is rooted in the very nature of personality 
 itself. What a lonely man seeks is not so much the 
 superficial human contact; the touch of a man's hand, 
 the look of his eye, the word of his mouth — these are but 
 means to an end. The end is personal companionship. 
 The lonely man wants a reciprocity in personality. He 
 wants to enter the life of another self-conscious being 
 who can understand him and "trade experiences." As 
 a man in trouble said to his faithful dog, "Yes, yes; but 
 you cannot help me, for you do not know anything about 
 it." So the need is personal ; but now we must go further. 
 Why does a man need this personal reciprocity? I an- 
 swer: Because the process of personality is a lonely 
 process. In self -consciousness a man is necessarily flung 
 into isolation. And in this personal isolation there are 
 two experiences: One of these, the first experience, is 
 
134 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 that joyous sense of freedom which we have termed 
 **the uplift of self -supremacy." This first experience, 
 though, is speedily followed by another which is not 
 joyous, namely, the initial realization of personal isola- 
 tion. It is in this second experience, when in self- 
 consciousness a man stands out to himself like one slender, 
 separate match burning under the vast expanse of the 
 night-sky, that the lonely soul cries out for men. Still 
 we are not done. Why does a man, in this mood of 
 personal isolation, feel such a need of fellowship with men? 
 Because one feature of self -consciousness is self -estimate, 
 and when a man comes, with any degree of thoroughness, 
 to place estimate upon self he perceives his own fragmen- 
 tariness, his own need of supplement. He feels as a 
 self-conscious leaf might feel blowing about away from 
 the tree. And a man feels in this way because his incom- 
 pleteness is a fact. He is an unfinished item, a splinter 
 of a comprehensive plan. And it is not merely that he is 
 finite and needs to be filled out by the Infinite God — that 
 is a larger point to be placed fully in another connection ; 
 no, it is that every man is made for other men — is pur- 
 posely created jagged so as to fit into other men — ^is 
 planned to be a reciprocal factor in a great social organism. 
 And this great social organism is the human race. 
 
 The Human Race 
 First of all, if it is possible, let us lift our conception 
 of the human race out of that crass and materialistic 
 realism which has ruined so much theology, and vitiated 
 so much philosophy, and colored the theories, nearly all 
 of the theories, of modern science. Realism is of large 
 worth as rhetoric — as the poetry of impressive speech — 
 but in fundamental thinking it is nothing but perni- 
 cious error. The human race has no solidarity in the 
 realistic sense — it has no cohesion in entity — no actual 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 135 
 
 coalescence like that of a body of water where the indi- 
 vidual drop is swallowed out of meaning and even out of 
 existence. All the various and sliding forms of realism 
 cannot be noted here ; but this does not matter, for realism 
 is so essentially false that there is not one sly form of 
 it which has any reality whatsoever. It must be cleared 
 out of theology root and branch. Mankind is solid 
 simply in the sense that all men belong to one special 
 divine plan where the design is to build a multitude of 
 self-conscious, responsible fragments into one mighty 
 organism socially and unselfishly interlaced. A man is 
 not a racial thing, but a racial person. 
 
 Nor am I willing to allow the racial idea to be entangled 
 with monogenism. There are to-day orthodox cham- 
 pions who seem to think that without Adam and Eve 
 there could be no unity of the race. I do not sounder- 
 stand the matter. That the race originated in one human 
 pair is a view in fitness with the doctrine of racial unity, 
 and a view essential to any fair and wholesome interpre- 
 tation of the Bible; so much I myself must hold. But 
 the idea of the unity of the race is profounder than mon- 
 ogenism. Indeed, it is not only conceivable that men 
 might make one organic race and yet not come from one 
 pair; but also conceivable that men might come from 
 one pair and yet not make an organic race at all. And 
 the apologetic entanglement of racial unity with mono- 
 genism is harmful because it tends to destroy Christian 
 perspective. 
 
 The Racial Organism. To understand the method 
 and meaning of the racial organism, there are four points 
 to be considered : i . The common experience. Inasmuch 
 as all the members of the race are persons, they have in 
 common a personal experience, their entire inner life 
 being interpreted through self -consciousness. Thus it is 
 that men can understand each other, and can act upon 
 
136 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 that great principle, ''Put yourself in his place." 2. The 
 personal service. Add to this common experience per- 
 sonal freedom, and we at once get the possibility of per- 
 sonal service among men. If I so understand another 
 man that I can really enter his life, and am free, I can 
 enter his life with a purpose to help him, and can turn 
 my appreciation of his situation into actual service. 
 3. The individual supplement. But, again, men are not 
 only persons, they are also individuals. And as indi- 
 viduals they are unlike. Even if the elements of indi- 
 viduality are the same, the combination of the elements 
 is so different that the result is unlikeness. And so no 
 two men are ever entirely alike. Nor do they tend to 
 become alike. Under the stress of certain external cir- 
 cumstances, men may take on an unvarying crust of 
 conventional likeness. It is, however, nothing but a 
 protective or imitative mannerism. Once crush the crust, 
 and you will find a man underneath as original as Plato. 
 Even the most commonplace man, "if you can only 
 catch him," will turn out to be a fresh wonder of indi- 
 vidual peculiarity. Thus it is that no living thing in the 
 universe is so exhaustlessly interesting as a man, just a 
 man. For sheer tonic, one common man is, to anyone 
 with patience, and especially to anyone with a purpose 
 of service, of more worth than all the artificial excite- 
 ments in existence. But the value of this individuality 
 in the racial organism lies not mainly in the fact that it 
 is intensely interesting, but rather in the fact that every 
 man can, by means of his own peculiarity, add something 
 to the size of another man's life, and so actually help to 
 complete that life. That is, we now have the principle 
 of individual supplement or complement. Most deeply 
 said, every man may become a larger being by the sym- 
 pathetic capture or social reception of another's peculiar 
 experience. Let us pause for a moment and try to realize 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 137 
 
 what a glorious law of compensation we have here. It is 
 one special operation of that greatest of spiritual laws, 
 he that loseth his life shall find it. Because a man is a 
 free person he can purpose to lose his own interests and 
 ambitions in the service of a fellow man; but when he 
 renders this service, when he enters the life of his fellow, 
 he not only helps him, but also is himself enlarged by all 
 the peculiarity of the man whom he has helped. Thus 
 by unselfish service one can add to himself man after 
 man until verily he lives the life of the entire race ! Is it 
 not, then, very clear that in such a personal interlacing, 
 that in such a tangle of social reciprocity, we have a better 
 basis for a racial organism than is anything which realism 
 has provided? Have we not a complex of members? 
 Is not every member essential to the largest life of every 
 other member? and also essential to the meaning of the 
 total race? 4. The racial plan. But our racial organism 
 is not yet complete. The common experience and per- 
 sonal service and individual supplement are but features 
 in a racial plan under which humankind gets all its in- 
 trinsic significance ; under which the race is created, and 
 redeemed, and providentially protected and guided, and 
 made to move on toward a distant goal. Thus there 
 is an end in view, a purpose in the organism, for which 
 every racial feature has been designed, and to which every 
 racial member may lend constant contribution. With 
 this racial plan noted, we have every element necessary 
 to form a racial organism. 
 
 Christianity and the Race 
 The Christian Method, In its method the Christian 
 religion is social. Sight is never lost of the fact that a 
 man is an individual, separate in personality and moral 
 responsibility. And probably, on the whole, the respon- 
 sible individual person is the more impressively in the 
 
138 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 forefront of the Christian message. But this responsible 
 person is ever treated as a social person, needing other 
 men for service and development and joy. Sometimes, 
 it is true, the Christian leader has been individualistic, 
 exclusive, ascetic ; but in this he has gone far afield from 
 the teaching and practice and spirit of our Lord and his 
 apostles. Other things being normal, the truest Chris- 
 tian is the greatest friend-seeker, but his friendships can- 
 not be merely personal, or merely philanthropic. They 
 must "let one anchor drop into the eternities." 
 
 Again, and more definitely, in the Christian church 
 there is the one supreme provision to meet all personal 
 loneliness. A man's social need may overlap his home 
 and all his special friendships, but never can it reach 
 beyond the efficiencies of a real Christian church, organ- 
 ized about the gospel and the two sacraments, dominated 
 by the Holy Spirit, and glorified by the transcendent 
 presence of our Lord, Take one item, the fellowship in 
 Christian experience. How quickly men having that 
 experience can understand each other, and how thor- 
 oughly they can commune with each other, and how 
 intensely they can love each other ! In such company no 
 man can wander *' lonely as a cloud." The personal 
 process goes on — indeed, it goes on more profoundly than 
 before — ^but all its lonelinesss is broken up by personal 
 fellowship. It is like exploring Mammoth Cave with a 
 company of intimate friends. The caverns and tortuous 
 passages are there as aloof and subterranean as ever, but 
 they are made friendly by the torches and faces and 
 voices of those you love. 
 
 The Racial Nexus. One of the most singular turns in 
 the history of opinion is the modern Christian deprecia- 
 tion of man's bodily life, a depreciation which is, I am 
 convinced, an indirect inheritance from heathen phi- 
 losophy. In extreme and pathetic inanity, this deprecia- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 139 
 
 tion is manifest in that vagary which has been deftly 
 named ''Christian science"; but none the less unmis- 
 takably evident is the depreciation in some of the pre- 
 vailing forms of belief and sentiment in the Christian - 
 chiirch itself. For example, one can hardly find a popu- 
 lar book bearing upon death and the future life, or even 
 attend a funeral service (leaving out the fixed burial serv- 
 ice), and be made aware that there are such Christian 
 doctrines as those of the intermediate state and the 
 resurrection of the body. In fact, judging from my own 
 large experience with preachers, they are rapidly coming 
 to reject these doctrines altogether or so to vaporize them 
 that they lose all Christian meaning. 
 
 That in the Christian view of man his body is placed 
 under emphasis is so fully apparent as to require no dis- 
 cussion. The emphasis is seen in almost every funda- 
 mental doctrine. Our practical concern is with the 
 reason, the rationale of the emphasis. In finding this 
 rationale, we need no metaphysical discussion. What- 
 ever the body may be in its final entity, we now have to 
 do with it merely as the fixed instrument of man's objec- 
 tive life. Without a body a man could be a person; 
 but without a body a man could not be a social person. 
 The philosophical significance of the body is that it is the 
 machinery of personal expression. By means of his body 
 a person breaks isolation, and goes out, and gets a com- 
 munity. This view, I am well aware, plows under all 
 the forms of spiritism ; but they should be plowed under, 
 for in no one of them is there an atom of Christianity. 
 Indeed, the few grains of indisputable fact which they 
 possess are so interpreted and so related as to become 
 positively antichristian. 
 
 Further : Man's body is not only social, but also racial 
 in its significance. The human body is the racial nexus. 
 It connects the individual human person with his race. 
 
 I 
 
140 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 A man is not granted what I may call a generic body — a 
 body to enable him to have social intercourse with any 
 person and every person who may live somewhere in the 
 outer spaces of the universe of God. No, he is granted 
 the body of a man, a special body which nicely and pre- 
 cisely enables him to get at men. Now, we can see the 
 relation which the body has to the racial organism. It 
 is by means of the human body that the racial organism 
 can be actualized. It is by means of the human body 
 that all those principles of social interlacing — the com- 
 mon experience, the personal service, and the individual 
 supplement — can, under the racial plan, be utilized. 
 The strength of this view lies in two things, namely, in 
 the way it fits into Christian doctrine, and in the way it 
 catches the Christian spirit. Let us say, then, this : The 
 Christian religion places extreme emphasis upon man's 
 body because his body was designed of God as the special 
 instrument to secure a racial brotherhood. 
 
 The Racial Brotherhood of Moral Persons. Only at 
 the end of the system of doctrine can we fully apprehend 
 the Christian plan concerning man, but we can glimpse 
 the plan now in its connections with our introductory 
 discussions. Man is a moral person, and the Christian 
 religion ever regards this fact as of supreme importance. 
 Not only is the plan so adjusted to every stage of the 
 moral process that it forcefully meets a man wherever he 
 may be in his development as a moral person, but also its 
 perpetual aim is to protect the moral law and to complete 
 man as a creature responsible under that law. Every 
 part of the Christian salvation is ethical through and 
 through. But when we come to method, when we con- 
 sider how it is that the moral person is rounded out into 
 peace and joy, there comes to view a most wonderful 
 piece of social strategy. The one man, the individual 
 person, is saved, but not alone — ^he is saved with others, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 141 
 
 by means of others, for others, into others — he is saved 
 in brotherhood. When his own entire life is at last or- 
 ganized about the motive of moral love, this love is not 
 for God alone, but for God and man ; and so the individual 
 event bursts its boundaries and becomes a racial event. 
 In a word, the Christian aim is to save separate men in 
 such a way that the final result will be a racial brother- 
 hood of moral persons. 
 
 Now and again the question is asked: Is the man 
 created for the race, or is the race a mere method of 
 completing the man? In a full Christian answer neither 
 the man nor the race will be sacrificed. The race is 
 planned to complete the man. In the final racial broth- 
 erhood there will be, as Phillips Brooks says, "Individ- 
 uality emphasized by company." But there will also be 
 company emphasized by individuality. The man is 
 created to exalt the race just as truly as the race is de- 
 signed to complete the man. The race itself has a teleo- 
 logical meaning and will as an organism finally express in 
 a peculiar manner the glory of God. 
 
^1 
 
CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY 
 
So, then, Reason rode fast on the straight highway, as Conscience 
 showed him, till they came to the King. — Langland, Vision of Piers the 
 Plowman. 
 
 Le coeur a son ordre; I'esprit a le sien, qui est par principes et de- 
 monstrations; le coeur en a im autre. On ne prouve pas qu'on doit 
 dtre aim^ en exposant par ordre les causes de I'amour: cela seroit ridi- 
 cule. — Pensees de Pascal, xxv, liv. 
 
 It is of slight importance for the person of the observer, whether 
 this physical object which I see before me is in truth just as I see it, 
 or other than I see it. But the whole constancy and strength and 
 worth of the personality depends upon the question whether this 
 moral good which I acknowledge as reality, or this moral demand 
 which I experience as real, has an actual existence or not; the per- 
 sonality cannot free itself therefrom without the innermost basis and 
 the supreme aim of its life being lost. . . . Whether the sensuous 
 objects, upon which the moral action shows itself, or upon which the 
 moral idea appears, are that which they seem or something else, does 
 not touch the truth of the moral relation in which I stand to them and 
 they to me, does not prejudice the reality of the moral facts which by 
 them become manifest for me ; nay, it may happen in the reverse way — 
 and this (as we shall afterward see) is the case with Christian cer- 
 tainty — that precisely the abiding moral certainty forms the basis for 
 the certainty as to the reality of historic, thus external and in the first 
 place sensuously perceptible, facts. But this is yet only the one side, 
 which the moral certainty presents to the observation. Along with 
 it stands the other, that that certainty by no means bears the char- 
 acter of universality and necessity in the measure and in the manner 
 which belong, for example, to the mathematical certainty. — Fr. H. R. 
 Frank, The System of Christian Certainty, pp. 104, 105. 
 
 Umgekehrt darf der Konsensus der glSubigen Gemeinde seiner 
 eigenen Gewissheit die stSrkste Sttttze sein. Wie nur innerhalb der 
 Gemeinde der Glaube des einzelnen entsteht, so ist das tibereinstim- 
 mende Zeugnis der Gemeinde dem Christen fortgehende Btirgschaft 
 far die Realitat und Normalitat seiner Erfahrung. — L. Ihmels, Die 
 christliche Wahrheitsgewissheit, u. s. w., s. 286. 
 
XI- CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY 
 
 Knowledge and Belief 
 
 Economically to reach the heart of the matter, we 
 will begin with the most simple forms of knowledge. A 
 teacher in a primary school, holding up four apples, two 
 in each hand, asks, " What are these? " A child answers, 
 "Apples." "How many in each hand?" "Two." "How 
 many in both hands? " " Four." " Why four? " " Be- 
 cause two and two make four." In these answers the 
 child touches the two great realms of which man may 
 have some knowledge, namely, the realm of reality and 
 the realm of truth. The realm of reality comprises the 
 entire range of beings or everything which actually is. 
 The realm of truth is more limited, lying within the realm 
 of reality, and comprising the entire system of rational 
 principle. To be real, a thing must exist, and exist ac- 
 cording to its nature. This expression, "according to 
 its nature," however, is merely a protective redtmdance, 
 for a thing can exist only in accordance with its nature. 
 A picture of an apple, for example, is a real picture, for 
 it has the nature of a picture ; but it is not a real apple, 
 for it has not the nature of an apple. Likewise, a re- 
 membrance of an apple, or a dream of an apple, is a real 
 remembrance, or a real dream, but not a real apple. 
 
 To be true, a thing must express rational principle. 
 That two and two make four does express rational prin- 
 ciple, and for that one reason it is true. If you wish to 
 inquire how the child gets this rational principle, I will 
 say that it is parcel in the fundamental make-up of the 
 child. He finds it insistent there just as he finds moral 
 distinction insistent there. And so he takes it for granted 
 
146 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 as a finality. If it be urged that the principle is a result- 
 ant of experience, we need not object to the point, 
 provided that the experience be regarded as necessary 
 and not accidental, that is, as an experience which is 
 intrinsic in the normal unfolding of the child's life. If 
 yet further you wish to inquire why this, or any rational 
 principle is a finality, I will say that the reason is in God 
 himself. He thinks rationally; rational principle is in- 
 herent in his holy organism. And we, made in his image, 
 affirm constitutionally some of the divine finalities after 
 him. Thus any rational principle is both universal and 
 eternal. Two and two make four, precisely four, here, now, 
 an3rwhere, forever. Mr. Mill's world where two and two 
 may make five is not a possibility in sane supposition. 
 Or, as one has cleverly said, " If there is a world where 
 two and two make five, the inhabitants do not mean by 
 two what we mean by two, or they do not mean by five 
 what we mean by five." 
 
 Unyielding we should also be concerning the child's 
 relation to reality. Probably to many it will seem to be 
 overweening, but I hold that he has knowledge of a real 
 apple just as certainly as he has knowledge that two 
 and two make four. Impressively we are told that 
 the child's apple is a mere phenomenal apple, and the 
 reality is hiding in behind like a timid sprite. But this 
 sprite, this lurking "thing in itself," we do not need. It 
 explains nothing. It is a dreamer's luxury. And it 
 cannot itself be consistently explained. And so it be- 
 comes a perplexity and a growing burden in philosophy. 
 Why not, then, in the name of sensible economy, away 
 with it? Inasmuch as, sooner or later, we must regard 
 the phenomenon as objective, as a point beyond us 
 where the work is done, let us fix the reality at that point 
 and in that point. Let us say that the very core of the 
 thing comes out in its attributes. Let us allow no idler 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 147 
 
 in behind the action. In other words, I hold that the 
 activity of a thing is never to be separated from the 
 thing itself. Every phenomenon is a reality — manifested. 
 The child's apple is the real apple. 
 
 Constantly we are reminded that our senses are im- 
 perfect, and therefore our seizure of an object must be 
 imperfect. Certainly this is a fact, but it does not 
 weaken our contention. The claim is that we know 
 reality and not that we know all reality. When a blind 
 man, for instance, touches a hot piece of iron, he does 
 not get all the reality, but he does most surely get 
 some of it. Even in the case of the child, it is not nec- 
 essary to affirm that he knows an apple totally. The 
 entire apple -reality may greatly overpoise what the apple 
 is to him. Nevertheless what the apple is to him is 
 reality and not fantasy. Nor does the further fact that 
 there is a subjective function, that the child adds to the 
 external object, that he ''treats" the apple, weaken our 
 contention. The apple is made on purpose to be so 
 treated, it is a part of a system of reality ; and, out of the 
 system, unrelated to the subjective side of the system, it 
 has no significance whatever. Alone, it would be as 
 meaningless as one blade of a pair of shears. 
 
 The question as to the method of connection between 
 the subjective function and the objective item is one 
 which has called out some of the most interesting and 
 some of the most curious speculation in philosophy. As 
 far as I am able to see, there is only one way adequately 
 to conceive of the connection, and that is in the terms of 
 what I will dare to call a Christian monism, such as is 
 suggested by Saint Paul when he says, *' For in Him we 
 live, and move, and have our being." If we can first 
 avoid all pantheism, by affirming both the personality of 
 God and the personality of man, and then avoid all 
 deism, by affirming the divine immanence, looking at all 
 
148 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 objective things as mere "causal points" where God is 
 and where God works in relation to mind, we can obtain 
 one system in which all the forces and connections are 
 by and in God himself. The only serious objection to 
 this view is a practical one. Our average man, whom we 
 aim to help, constantly ''thinks in pictures," and it is 
 extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make the mo- 
 nistic view lend itself wholesomely to that superficial 
 style of thinking. "What! do you mean to tell me that 
 these dangerous things and these obnoxious things and 
 these comical things are all activities of the living God? " 
 
 Personal Belief. The realm of reality is vaster than 
 the range of coercive objects, and the realm of truth 
 comprises many rational realities which cannot be dem- 
 onstrated. As one has said, "God thinks beyond geom- 
 etry and wills existence beyond our cornfields." It is 
 even doubtful to me whether in our final, eternal life all 
 that is true or real to God will be coercive to us. In any 
 case, there can be no question as to our condition now. 
 In this life there are many things, necessary to our highest 
 good, which must be seized by belief if they are seized 
 at all. 
 
 The main peculiarity of belief, as contrasted with 
 knowledge, is that it always involves personal decision. 
 Some of the higher forms of knowledge are personal to 
 the extent that they are interlaced with self -consciousness, 
 but they are never direct resultants of self -decision. 
 Indeed, the worth of knowledge lies largely in the fact 
 that it comes by coercion. You cannot, whatever may 
 be your character, stand out against a demonstrable 
 truth. If you try to resist the multiplication table you 
 will be given shelter in an asylum. Belief, on the con- 
 trary, is very largely a personal creation. Whether you 
 will have any belief or not depends, in the last issue, upon 
 yourself, upon how much you care for your ideals, upon 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 149 
 
 how much you are willing to venture in the name of a 
 finer manhood. And so in belief there is a daring, a 
 militant spirit, a resolute purpose to fling one's whole 
 being beyond the dusty commonplace of the surface ex- 
 perience. As James Russell Lowell says: 
 
 '* Experience is a dumb, dead thing, 
 The victory is in believing." 
 
 It is, therefore, belief and not knowledge which indi- 
 cates a man's personal character — yes, and helps to form 
 his personal character as well. Consequently, in a man's 
 development, in his movement toward perfect manhood, 
 belief is of the greater concern. The most momentous 
 thing (at least in this period of probation) is not one's 
 hold upon axiomatic truth and coercive reality, but one's 
 bearing toward his ideal. Not truth in the mind; but, 
 as Lessing said, the love of truth, truth in the heart, 
 what a man is ready to do or to suffer in behalf of truth — 
 it is this personal attitude which is the one extremely 
 significant matter. Even if a belief at last turns out to 
 be untrue, in part or altogether, it may not be an entire 
 waste, provided it expresses the longing and striving of a 
 person after a lofty life. 
 
 At this turn of our discussion, however, we need to be 
 most discriminating. Belief is never an arbitrary vagary. 
 Belief is never at all like presumption. It does not even 
 look like presumption. In presumption a man is willful, 
 egotistic, self-sufiicient. " He is not loath to fool with 
 facts." Presumption is enormously selfish, wanting 
 things for self at any cost. '' Even in prayer, it is only his 
 crop which must catch the miracle." In belief, veritable 
 belief, on the contrary, a man is a humble and reverent 
 servant of all reality. Toward men he may be as com- 
 manding as Martin Luther, but toward a fact he is as 
 docile as a child. He says, "If that is so, then I will 
 
150 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 yield my point." Often, indeed, belief is but knowledge 
 idealized. It is thus in friendship and in patriotism. 
 And even in religion, belief (now called faith) begins in 
 real self-knowledge and then springs toward the sky to 
 live an ampler life. 
 
 With all this firmly said and iterated, still we should 
 never lose sight of the limitation to which all belief is 
 necessarily subject. For the very reason that belief is so 
 largely a matter of self -decision, it lacks that power of 
 swift and universal conquest which knowledge has. 
 With any rational chance, my knowledge can gain do- 
 minion anywhere, for its truth can be exactly demon- 
 strated. But belief cannot make use of demonstration. 
 The best it can furnish is a probable argument of persua- 
 sive appeal; and before such an argument men are 
 always likely to hesitate. "Ah!" they say, ''who knows 
 how much caprice may be snugly concealed in this belief? " 
 That is, my belief must, among men, pay the tribute of 
 my personal freedom. I cannot be free without some 
 expense. I cannot be free and yet expect men to treat 
 me as if I were a thoroughly reliable automaton. Nor 
 does the individual personal character afford an unfailing 
 proof of the verity of a man's belief. Who, taking only 
 one case, would be convinced by Count Tolstoy's nobility 
 of character, of the truth of any one belief in his most 
 astonishing collection? "But think of his long self- 
 sacrifice." Certainly, but his self-sacrifice shows his 
 sincerity, that is all. Almost every kind of error beneath 
 the sun has been sincerely held. And sometimes, for 
 reasons which can be discovered, a most erratic and a 
 most dangerous religious leader has the most noble 
 character in an abnormal situation. But, remember, we 
 are now considering the character of the isolated person. 
 Once add, in a large enough measure, the element of 
 social confirmation, and the evidential import is entirely 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 151 
 
 changed. When we find a definite and adequate moral 
 character, typically evinced in an abiding community, 
 we possess, in such a character, forcible evidence for the 
 truth of the belief which lies fundamental in the life of 
 that community. But even this evidence, however forci- 
 ble, does not amount to a compelling demonstration. 
 
 The Rationale of Christian Certainty 
 Having made this preliminary study of knowledge and 
 belief, we are prepared to consider the philosophy of 
 Christian certainty. We will deal with its intention, its 
 method, and its sufficiency. 
 
 The Intention. The Christian intention is not, as many 
 seem to think, to make provision for knowledge. Every- 
 one, though, will surely understand that the term knowl- 
 edge is used here not in the loose manner of popular 
 speech, but in the narrow sense of our own previous dis- 
 cussion. Precisely speaking, we know a truth, or a 
 reality, only when it carries us simply as rational beings 
 beyond all possibility of sane dispute. As a rationalist 
 once stated the point, we know a thing when it is "so 
 clear and distinct that it cannot be doubted.'* And he 
 means when it cannot be doubted by any rational mind. 
 In this narrow, philosophical use of the term. Christian 
 truths and facts are not and cannot be known by men. 
 Christianity is not an exact science, aiming to force assent 
 by an irrefragable mathematical process. There is not 
 one Christian doctrine, not one Christian event, not one 
 Christian reality, securely beyond the possibility of some 
 man's personal rejection. Not only so, but this possi- 
 bility of personal rejection is the key to the entire worth 
 of the Christian religion. Were men coerced into a 
 knowledge of God and Christ and all the mighty matters 
 of redemption, personality would be overwhelmed and 
 there could be no personal repentance, no personal faith, 
 
152 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 no personal peace, no personal loyalty — no personal 
 service. No, no, the Christian intention is not to make 
 provision for knowledge, not in any fashion to compel 
 the mind — not even to satisfy the mind as an isolated 
 fragment, as a mere instrument of rationality. The 
 Christian plan is to meet the whole man with his mind, 
 his personality, and his conscience. More closely yet, 
 the Christian intention is to take a moral person who 
 dares, under the stress of his moral needs, and with his 
 ideal beckoning in the distance, to believe in Jesus Christ 
 and his atonement for sin — to take, I say, this venturing 
 Christian and satisfy htm — make him certain, in every 
 crevice of his manhood, that whatever of person or event 
 or doctrine is vitally coherent with his experience is 
 grounded in reality or vibrant with truth. 
 
 The Method. In the process of Christian certainty 
 there are four important features, as follows: i. The fea- 
 ture of self-knowledge. This is the basal start. In self- 
 grasp a man obtains the necessary fixed point; and in 
 full self-consciousness he obtains the realization of his 
 Christian experience. Often this self-knowledge is called 
 knowledge, and sometimes it is called personal belief; 
 but, in a searching discussion, neither name is entirely 
 satisfactory. The knowledge is of self, and differs from 
 ordinary knowledge in two respects: first, in that it is 
 possible only in the high, self-conscious mood ; and, second, 
 in that it cannot be transferred by means of demon- 
 stration. Your Christian experience may be very rich 
 and very profound, but you cannot, to another man, 
 make it resistlessly cogent that you have such an ex- 
 perience. The reality is not an object for universal 
 knowledge, but merely an object of self-knowledge. And, 
 again, self-knowledge also differs from personal belief; 
 for, inasmuch as the knowledge of self is a result of coer- 
 cion and not a result of self -decision, it is not fully 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 153 
 
 personal. It pertains to the personal process, but it does 
 not reach to the end of that process. 2. The feature of 
 moral concern. The certainty is ethical through and 
 through. And here I mean much more than that the 
 steps leading up to a Christian experience are thoroughly 
 moral. I mean this: A central reason why the Christian 
 man is sure of this or that is its fitness with his moral 
 ideal. No Christian, for example, accepts the fact of the 
 Incarnation on bare rational grounds. As an isolated 
 event in history, I doubt whether anyone could, in these 
 scientific days, believe that God had actually become 
 man. It is so out of range with rational expectation! It 
 is so in violence with the practical modem temper! How 
 easy, how supremely sane, it is for the Zeitgeist, in all his 
 robust health, to fling the miracle aside as "one of those 
 infantile myths"! But to a man with a profound 
 Christian experience the Incarnation is not an isolated 
 event in history. It is a related event in moral history. 
 It is '' an ethical deed of God." It is a necessary part of 
 a far-reaching moral plan to save man. The miracle, 
 stupendous as it is, is, for the Christian believer, lifted 
 into complete rationality by means of its ethical signifi- 
 cance. In truth, not only is he able to accept the entire 
 doctrine of the Incarnation, but also he craves it as a 
 starving man craves bread. 3. The feature of personal 
 belief. With all this start in self-knowledge and all this 
 influence of the moral ideal, there is still a personal ven- 
 ture, an actual self -decision involved in all Christian 
 certainty. The process (up to this point) by which the 
 certainty is obtained is this: The man knows himself; 
 gathers the deep richness of his Christian experience into 
 self-conscious realization; instantly perceives that a cer- 
 tain fact or doctrine is in living conjunction with his 
 inner experience (as a man once said, " I myself need the 
 virgin birth almost as much as I needed pardon"); as 
 
154 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 instantly perceives that this fact or doctrine fits into his 
 moral ideal ; and then makes the venture, yields his whole 
 being in personal belief. This venture is not rationalistic, 
 but it is rational; for surely a man has the right to take 
 some risk to satisfy the demands of his personal and 
 moral life. 4. The feattire of social confirmation. Rob- 
 ert Browning once wrote to a friend, " I want you to give 
 my conviction a clinch." The two words, conviction 
 and clinch, suggest the philosophy of certainty in belief. 
 First there is a personal element, the person himself gets 
 a conviction ; then there is a social element, the personal 
 conviction is clinched, or confirmed, by other men. 
 You believe in your country, in her history, in her con- 
 stitution, in her institutions, in her people, in her signifi- 
 cance among the nations. Your belief amounts to such 
 a conviction that you could gladly die to express it; and 
 yet every other patriot makes you a little more certain 
 that your country is worth dying for. 
 
 In the Christian faith this principle of social confirma- 
 tion has its finest and largest application. A Christian 
 is not a hermit. He is not alone either in his experience 
 or in the expression of his experience. He has a com- 
 munity, he lives in a testing and supplementing and con- 
 firming community. In every crisis of his life, in every 
 new turn of public opinion, in every phase of self-knowl- 
 edge, in every look at his moral ideal, before and during 
 and after every self -decision, he is hounded by a brotherhood. 
 And this brotherhood is singularly adapted to the needs 
 of the Christian man. It is made up of moral persons, 
 all trying to complete their life in truth and reality; all 
 these moral persons have had the initial moral and 
 Christian experiences; all have now the same profound 
 relation to Jesus Christ and his death for their salvation ; 
 and still all these redeemed moral persons come together 
 with countless differences in individuality, in mental 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 155 
 
 training, in position and occupation, in influence over 
 men, and in present religious attainment. Thus, this 
 brotherhod has mighty resources in social service and con- 
 firmation. It is too much to say that this confirmation 
 is coercive, turning conviction into knowledge; but it is 
 not too much to say that it gives to personal assurance 
 such ratification that the Christian consciousness is full 
 of certainty. 
 
 The Sufficiency. As the personal process is gathered 
 up and continued by the moral process, so the moral 
 process itself is gathered up and continued and completed 
 by the Christian process. Thus the Christian process is 
 one of synthesis and culmination. It is from the stand- 
 point of this synthetic, culminating process that Christian 
 certainty has sufficiency. It makes sufficient contribu- 
 tion to that Christian process. The certainty is, in the 
 first place, sufficient for the ongoing of the process. At 
 any point, a man can have confidence enough to move on. 
 Whatever of fact or doctrine he needs for moral progress, 
 he can be sure about. And so, inertia is never a necessity 
 in the life of the moral person. Right here I must take 
 exception to a view often implied, and sometimes de- 
 liberately taught, namely, that one can begin the Chris- 
 tian life, or go on to the richer kinds of religious expe- 
 rience, by making experiment under doubt. As though a 
 man should say to himself, '* I am not at all sure about 
 this thing, but it's worth trying ; and if nothing comes of 
 it I will be as well off as I was before." In a recent 
 book this view of Christianity, taken by hazard, is even 
 given apologetic significance: "I conclude, therefore, that 
 the true source of religious confidence is not primarily the 
 objective Christian evidences, but the Christian expe- 
 rience obtained through a voluntary trust in the gospel 
 when doubt is possible, or, what is substantially the same 
 thing, by acting in a state of some uncertainty as if 
 
156 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 the religion were known to be true. In other words, 
 Christianity is offered to the human race, not as a mere 
 contribution to religious knowledge, but chiefly as a body 
 of directions for a moral crisis, and is therefore to be used 
 like everything else of the same class, that is, it is to be 
 provedby making trial of it." These words touch reality 
 in several places, but, taken together, they are extremely 
 misleading. Not one genuine movement toward Chris- 
 tianity, or within the Christian life, can be made "by 
 acting in a state of some uncertainty as if the religion 
 were known to be true." To act in such a way is to 
 pretend, and such pretension would violate the ideal of 
 any moral loyalist. It is precisely this sort of teaching 
 which lends support to the superficial evangehst, and 
 fills our churches with powerless imitations of the Chris- 
 tian experience. Think of a man trying to become a 
 Christian, or trying to reach a higher plane of Christian 
 life, by means of a false personal attitude, and an attitude 
 which any true moralist would despise! "But did you 
 yourself not insist upon taking some risk, upon personal 
 venture?" Yes, but the personal venture which I insist 
 upon originates in regard for reality and is in the name 
 of the moral ideal and not against it. The personal ven- 
 ture which I insist upon is not a dubious experiment — 
 not an arbitrary and desperate leap at a passing possi- 
 bility. A Christian is not like — a real Christian is not 
 like a restless and reckless adventurer, who gambles with 
 opportunity, who sails for an unknown shore in a spirit 
 of hazard, thinking, " There may be gold there ! " Rather 
 is the real Christian like an immigrant who has shown 
 both confidence and courage. In the land where he was 
 bom he experienced poverty and tyranny. He learned 
 of another country where there was work and liberty 
 and appreciation of simple manhood. He made the 
 venture, crossed the sea, built a new home, and obtained 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 157 
 
 a new citizenship. And now, in his ample life and per- 
 petual intercourse with his neighbors, he is more and 
 more certain that in his confident venture he has made 
 no mistake. 
 
 The certainty is, in the second place, sufficient for the 
 completion of the process. The Christian life, as you will 
 readily remember, is to eventuate in a social organism, in 
 a racial brotherhood. In this organism neither the sig- 
 nificance of the moral person nor the significance of the 
 entangled community is to be lost. The one man stands 
 out as personally emphatic as though there were no other 
 man in existence ; and yet the community has a peculiar 
 and an everlasting importance as a community. With 
 this plan for a double outcome in mind, notice the nicety 
 with which the Christian certainty makes contribution to 
 the outcome. On the one side, the man, as an individual, 
 moral, responsible person, is exalted by his free venture 
 under his ideal. His certainty has come to him by a 
 method most intensely personal. Not for an instant has 
 his own independence, his own volitional freedom, been 
 overwhelmed. As he stands there now, satisfied in every 
 fiber of his manhood, he is more of a person, less of an 
 automaton, than ever before. His personal mood has 
 more vitality, more endurance ; he can stay longer in self- 
 consciousness. But, on the other hand, this satisfied 
 man has a larger and more wonderful interlacing with his 
 brethren, for his certainty has come to full bloom only in 
 a social soil, and his certainty is complete only in their 
 organic confidence. He is sure with the strength of their 
 total satisfaction. His self -consciousness is filled by the 
 entire community-assurance of truth and fact. Thus, 
 even the final mental life of the Christian man is to be a 
 life in fellowship. Not one opinion will he have which is 
 not, while fully his own, a part of the Christian consensus 
 of opinion. An ultimate Christian doctrine, therefore, 
 
158 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 is more than a personal belief — it is the belief of the social 
 organism of redeemed moral persons. It satisfies, not 
 the mind in isolation, but the -whole man ; not one man 
 alone, but a vast number of men ; not merely a vast nimi- 
 ber of men, but all these men, with individual difference, 
 and personal likeness, and one common relation to Jesus 
 Christ and his death for their sins, coming together in a 
 perfect reciprocity of thought and feeling and service. 
 Herein lies the philosophy of the stability of the Chris- 
 tian faith. 
 
 ESSENTIAL POINTS IN DEFINITION 
 
 Knowledge. 
 
 When a man is made certain by coercion of any truth or reality, 
 such certainty is knowledge. An unfailing mark of knowledge 
 is its capability of irresistible and universal transfer from mind 
 to mind. 
 
 Belief. 
 
 When a man makes a venture under an ideal of any kind his 
 confidence in the truth or reality of the object of his venture is 
 personal belief. Unlike knowledge, belief is incapable of any 
 irresistible transfer from mind to mind. 
 
 Christian Certainty. 
 
 This is a peculiar sort of belief. It is a personal belief, socially 
 reinforced, under a moral ideal. A full definition may be given 
 thus: Christian certainty is that personal, moral assurance which 
 a Christian man, in organic relation with the Christian brother- 
 hood, more and more profoundly has, first and most vitally of 
 the reality of his spiritual life in Christ, and then of the reality 
 or truth of the objects and events and doctrines bound up with 
 that life in Christ. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN BOOK j 
 
Weil denn Eure Kaiserliche Majestat und Eure Gnaden eine schlichte 
 Antwort begehren, so will ich eine Antwort ohne Horner und Zahne 
 geben diesermassen : Es sei denn, dass ich durch Zeugnisse der Schrift 
 Oder durch helle Griinde ttberwunden werde — denn ich glaube weder 
 dem Papst, noch den Konzilien allein, dieweil am Tag liegt, dass 
 sie ofters geirrt tmd sich selbst widersprochen haben — so bin ich liber- 
 wunden durch die von mir angefiihrten heiligen Schriften tind mein 
 Gewissen ist gefangen in Gottes Wort; widerrufen kann ich nichts 
 und will ich nichts, dieweil wider das Gewissen zu handeln imsicher 
 und gefahrlich ist. — Martin Luther, Sein Leben imd Seine Schriften, 
 Julius Kostlin, i, 452. 
 
 You easily observe, I therein build on no authority, ancient or 
 modem, but the Scripture. If this supports any doctrine, it will 
 stand; if not, the sooner it falls the better. — John Wesley, from a letter 
 dated February 5, 1756. 
 
 When it comes to be a question of psychological analysis, no doubt the 
 distinction of subjective and objective is a difficult thing. Still, we can 
 as a rule tell in a rough and rude way what is our own and what we owe 
 to others. And if ever there was a case in which there was clearness 
 of conviction on this head it was in the case of the prophets and 
 apostles. They knew perfectly well, and they make the distinction 
 perfectly clear, when they are speaking their own thoughts, and when 
 they are speaking thoughts and delivering a message which is not their 
 own. — W. Sanday, from a sermon preached before the University of 
 Oxford, October 21, 1894. 
 
 We are Christians and therefore occupy a position with regard to 
 Holy Scripture quite different from that which we take toward the 
 Homeric poems, the Nibelungen, or the treasures of the library of 
 Asurbanipal. Holy Scripture being the book of the records of our 
 religion, our relation thereto is not merely scientific, but also in the 
 highest degree one of moral responsibility. We will not deny the 
 human element with which it is affected, but will not with Hamitic 
 laughter discover the nakedness of Noah. We will not with vandalic 
 delight destroy that which is holy. We will not undermine the 
 foundations of Christianity for the sake of playing into the hands of 
 Brahmosamajic, that is, of Brahmanic or Buddhistic, rationalism. 
 For the notes that are struck in German lecture halls and books are 
 at last reechoed from distant Asia, and make vain the efforts of our 
 missionaries. We will not give up what is untenable without re- 
 placing it, wherever possible, by that which is tenable. We will 
 interpret Genesis as theologians, and, indeed, as Christian theologians, 
 that is, as believers in Jesus Christ, who is the end of all the ways 
 and words of God. — Franz Delitzsch, from the Introduction to his New 
 Commentary on Genesis. 
 
XII* THE CHRISTIAN BOOK 
 
 The Miracles of the Bible 
 Outside the range of conservative theology there are 
 three pronounced attitudes toward the miracles of the 
 Bible: 
 
 I. The attitude where all miracle is regarded as im- 
 possible. The whole case is settled beyond recall by an 
 a priori assumption. The criticism of Hume by Professor 
 Huxley is sometimes quoted to show that Huxley did 
 not deny the possibility of miracle, but merely demanded 
 adequate evidence. Such, however, was not his position. 
 What he did not deny was that any given thing might 
 exist, or any unusual event might take place; he only 
 asked for sufficient evidence ; but had you furnished the 
 sufficient evidence, he would have said that the thing or 
 event proven was not miraculous, but purely natural, 
 only formerly not understood. 
 
 Within the province of biblical criticism, this first 
 attitude toward the Scripture miracle is represented by 
 Professor Wellhausen, who, in his crude, frank rational- 
 ism, often reminds us of Paulus. Here is a passage taken 
 from the Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah : '' The 
 Hebrews, compelled to abandon the direct eastern road 
 (Exod. 13. 17, 18) turned toward the southwest and 
 encamped at last on the Egyptian shore of the northern 
 arm of the Red Sea, where they were overtaken by 
 Pharaoh's army. The situation was a critical one; but 
 a high wind during the night left the shallow sea so low 
 that it became possible to ford it. Moses eagerly accepted 
 the suggestion, and made the venture with success. The 
 Egyptians, rushing after, came up with them on the 
 
i62 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 further shore, and a struggle ensued. But the assailants 
 fought at a disadvantage, the ground being ill-suited for 
 their chariots and horsemen ; they fell into confusion and 
 attempted to retreat. Meanwhile the wind had changed ; 
 the waters returned, and the pursuers were annihi- 
 lated." 
 
 2. The attitude where the miracle is obnoxious to the 
 person. Some of the Ritschlians belong to the first class, 
 but some of them do not hold that a miracle is impossible ; 
 and their extreme hesitation can be fairly explained, I 
 think, by saying that to them the miracle is obnoxious. 
 Of course, we shall be required, sooner or later, to explain 
 our explanation; for some one is sure to ask: *'Why is 
 the miracle obnoxious to them?" Even in answering 
 this question, though, I am not willing to call these men, 
 as some have called them, "rationalists in disguise." 
 Rather would my own answer be this : Like a large number 
 of other thinkers who are alert and sensitive to modern 
 tendency, they are dominated by the scientific conception 
 of natural law, and they feel that a miracle is incongruous, 
 out of keeping with the quiet, steady majesty of the 
 imiversal order, an event unlike God, an event which can 
 be tolerated only by an immature mind — in short, miracle 
 means to them lawlessness, and so it is an offense to their 
 scientific habit of mind. 
 
 3. The attitude where the miracle is considered bur- 
 densome in Christian apology. There are men who have 
 not themselves given up the miracles of the Bible at all ; 
 but they are looking for something ** strategic in apolo- 
 getics.'* At the front as teachers or writers or preachers, 
 they feel the reality and sorrow of the fact that faith 
 after faith is yielding, that man after man is going down 
 into hopeless skepticism. They thus come to a full 
 realization of the entire strain upon thoughtful men in 
 this, the most critical period in Christian history. And 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 163 
 
 they try to relieve this strain; they try to see how 
 much they can give up, and yet save the essential content 
 of the Christian religion. As one writer stated it, in an 
 editorial on "The Recession of Miracle," **We still hold" 
 to the miracle, but we are looking for our lines of retreat." 
 Once filled with this apologetic purpose, it is not strange 
 that the Christian miracle seems burdensome to these 
 men. And once burdensome it is not strange that the 
 miracle is rejected outright or refined away. 
 
 The first of these three attitudes does not merit the 
 serious consideration of any real Christian theist; for if 
 there is an infinite personal God the question of miracle 
 cannot be one of inherent possibility, but must be merely 
 a question of method, or divine intention. The second 
 attitude results from a failure to appreciate the ethical 
 dignity of a Christian miracle. It is not incongruous for 
 God to break the universal order, if such a rupture can 
 be made to contribute to righteousness. There is majesty 
 in the natural law, but there is still greater majesty in the 
 moral law. As Cardinal Newman once said, "Miracles, 
 though they contravene the physical laws of the universe, 
 tend to the due fulfillment of its moral laws." The third 
 attitude is a most serious misapprehension from several 
 points of view: First, it is a misapprehension of the 
 present situation. The stress of the situation is not 
 caused by science, but by a superficial ethical life, which 
 has no force sufficiently to ethicalize the lordly demands 
 of science. Given a profoundly moral situation, and the 
 Christian miracle would not be burdensome in the least. 
 Science has not proven anything which tends in any 
 way to weaken man's moral openness toward the literal 
 resurrection of our Lord's body. Again, there is a mis- 
 apprehension of man's nature. A man is a moral person, 
 and he wants a great personal task. Arrange your 
 accommodations, plan out your compromises, exhibit 
 
i64 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 yotir mediating theologies, and at last they will be rejected 
 by men. The very hope of the Christian faith, in relation 
 to conquest, is the enormous demand it makes upon per- 
 sonality. Again, and last, there is a misapprehension of 
 the Christian religion itself. The miraculous cannot be 
 taken out of Christianity, for the simple reason that it is 
 fundamental in the Christian structure. Christianity is 
 an organized miracle. Suppose you could get rid of the 
 smaller miracles, you would still have to deal with the 
 Incarnation and the Resurrection. And if you tried to 
 get on without these, there would be remaining the pecul- 
 iar person of Jesus Christ, and he is the most stupendous 
 Miracle of all, ''the Grand Miracle of Christianity about 
 which all the others play as scintillations only of the 
 central fire." 
 
 The Christian Conception of the Supernatural. In our 
 discussions of morality and of religion we treated the 
 supernatural superficially, from the standpoint of man's 
 nature and development. To man, in his development, 
 that is supernatural which belongs to the infinite mystery 
 beyond nature, that is, beyond the realm of ordinary 
 individual seizure. In the Christian conception there is 
 no contradiction of this purely anthropological view ; but 
 there is a deeper interpretation of the facts. To obtain 
 this deeper interpretation, the standpoint is changed 
 from man to God. Both the natural and the super- 
 natural now have significance only as expressions of the 
 divine will. In one sense, the old dualism disappears, 
 for there is but one universe, of which God is creator, 
 upholder, and ruler. At the bottom of things, there is 
 one organism, working out one sublime intention. "The 
 one God shines in a star and whispers in a conscience." 
 All this can be readily and eagerly admitted. And even 
 more can be admitted. Had sin never come into the 
 world, the divine bearing in the universe, and toward 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 165 
 
 men, would be ever one, and that one bearing normal, 
 natural. But sin has come into the world, and that 
 awful event changes everything. God's relations with- 
 us, his plans for us, all are no longer entirely normal. 
 With sin once a reality, there comes into God's method 
 a kind of dualism. There are now two divine bearings, 
 one toward the lower individual, and one toward the 
 higher moral person. Thus, God makes, in a perfect 
 manner, precisely the same distinction that man (as we 
 found) makes in an imperfect manner. These two 
 bearings of God may properly be called the natural and 
 the supernatural. Whatever comes by the ordinary 
 volitions of God, whatever expresses the divine habit, 
 is natural; and whatever comes by the extraordinary 
 volitions of God is supernatural. The Christian super- 
 natural, therefore, is not a bare expression of the purpose 
 of God, but is an expression of his unusual volitions in 
 carrying out his purpose. This point is of extreme im- 
 portance. Sometimes the saint so easily finds God every- 
 where, so clearly discovers the larger intention of God 
 even in the most common objects and events, that he is 
 quite inclined to obliterate the distinction between the 
 natural and the supernatural, and to seek a philosophy 
 which recognizes such obliteration. But the moment 
 such obliteration is lifted into a philosophy of life, not 
 only is the philosophy practically unwholesome in rela- 
 tion to the religious experience, but also it fails to make 
 adequate provision for the costly feature of divine self- 
 sacrifice in redemption. If the Incarnation was normal, 
 if there was behind it only an ordinary volition, that 
 grants an event as philosophically inexpensive as the 
 making of a continent. But if the Incarnation was 
 beyond the normal unfolding of God's relation to man, 
 if there was behind it an extraordinary volition, that 
 grants an event which can be charged with a sacrifice 
 
i66 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ethically and intrinsically costly to God. It is because 
 of this moral and redemptional bias that we must regard 
 the supernatural as much more than a mere wonder, as 
 much more than that which is temporarily extraordinary 
 to man. Forever will it be extraordinary to man, for it 
 is extraordinary to God himself. ''It is extraordinary at 
 both ends.'' 
 
 The Christian Miracle. It remains to place the Chris- 
 tian miracle. It is not only supernatural, but also a 
 peculiar kind, we might say a peculiar degree of the super- 
 natural. When God so wills beyond his habit that his 
 volition is contrary to his habit; when the ordinary vo- 
 lition is not only outclassed but actually held in abeyance ; 
 when the habit must yield to make way for the extraor- 
 dinary volition — then the result is a miracle. Thus, a 
 miracle is intrinsically, and may be ethically, the most 
 expensive action possible to the Infinite God. The more 
 important features of my entire view can be gathered 
 up as follows: The supernatural is to be considered only 
 from an ethical standpoint, if we are to understand its 
 meaning in the Christian system. For moral ends, a 
 man's conscience is extraordinarily vitalized and pro- 
 tected — this is the first degree of the supernatural. For 
 further moral ends, for definite Christian experience, a 
 believing person is converted and assured and sanctified 
 — this is more extraordinary, is a higher degree of the 
 supernatural. Up to this point the action is beyond the 
 divine habit, but in no instance a contravention of that 
 habit. Now we come to the miracle, and we will first 
 take one which is as meager ethically as a Christian 
 miracle can be. To make his personal influence more 
 immediately eflicient, and thus prepare the way for his 
 redemptional message and work, our Lord turns water 
 into wine. This is not only supernatural, but also con- 
 traventional — it is actually against the divine habit to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 167 
 
 make wine in that manner. To urge, as so many timid 
 apologists do, that the miracle was done under a "higher 
 law" does not touch the reality of the miracle at all, for 
 this "higher law" is nothing whatsoever but a contra- 
 vening action for higher ends. Now we can sweep on to 
 the Incarnation. To render possible the moral salvation 
 of mankind, the only Son of God actually becomes man. 
 This is beyond the divine habit and against the divine 
 habit, but it is more than all that — it is a continued con- 
 travention, a breaking forever of the normal life of the 
 Godhead, an everlasting miracle. The whole ethical in- 
 tensity of Christianity can be expressed in a sentence: 
 The redemption of man has cost God a miraculous sac- 
 rifice which is never, never to end. 
 
 The Authority of the Bible 
 The possibility of the authority of the Bible lies in the 
 fact that a need for an objective standard is created by 
 the process under which the Christian experience is 
 reached and enlarged and completed. This need is an 
 important feature of the development of the moral per- 
 son himself. The nature of biblical authority, therefore, 
 is not arbitrary but inherent, not artificial but intrinsic. 
 The Bible, in a word, is in authority because it is a moral 
 dynamic. 
 
 The Dynamic Element in the Ohtainment. When we 
 examine the steps by which we have obtained the Bible 
 we find a dynamic element in every step. 
 
 First step: Our Lord himself started the Christian 
 community, but he did not do this in any arbitrary, 
 artificial way. He made himself morally necessary to a 
 number of men who were open to his spiritual influence. 
 His relation to his disciples was that of a moral dynamic, 
 constantly enlarged, until it mastered their total man- 
 hood. In this spiritual manner the authority of Christ 
 
i68 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 became at last for the Christian community, exactly and 
 in all matters, the authority of God. 
 
 Second step: After the death of our Lord a peculiar 
 authority fell to the apostles. In a sense they were, in 
 the Christian community, to take the place of Christ. 
 They were regents in authority. They were chosen and 
 inspired, not mainly to organize the church, but to in- 
 terpret and apply the message of redemption from the 
 standpoint of a finished work, that is, from the stand- 
 point of our Lord's death. It is an evident mistake to 
 teach that the entirety of Christian doctrine may be 
 seen in the blessed words of our Saviour. Before his 
 death only germs, hints of the full doctrine, could be 
 wisely revealed. The Sermon on the Mount should 
 always be supplemented with the deed of atonement and 
 its interpretation by the apostles. But their interpre- 
 tation, all their teaching, was dynamic. The ultimate 
 reason why it took hold of a Christian man was that it 
 vitally entered into, and fitted into, all the Christian 
 experience the man had. Of course, there was often 
 shown a formal authority ; but without the inner dynamic 
 little power would formal authority have had in any time 
 of test. 
 
 Last step : It was the death of the apostles which made 
 the Bible necessary to the Christian community. In the 
 profoundest sense the apostolic office was not continued. 
 Since the close of the apostolic interpretation not one, 
 not even the smallest item, has been added to the biblical 
 organism. The apostles completed once for all the body 
 of fimdamental Christian truth; and, through all the 
 complications and upheavals of the coming centuries, 
 this body of truth was to take their place. Notice, for a 
 moment, the profound method which is suggested here. 
 Christianity is to triumph by reaching and satisfying and 
 mastering the free moral person. But with such extreme 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 169 
 
 recognition of personal freedom there needs to be some 
 objective check — no coercion, but a check — or there will 
 appear vagaries as individual and countless as the grains^ 
 of sand. The needed check is provided in precisely the 
 suitable strength. The moral person is to live under the 
 check of a brotherhood, and the brotherhood is to live 
 under the check of the inspired Word of God. The full- 
 ness and efficiency of the Christian life depend upon the 
 perfect interplay of these three features, the personal, 
 the social, and the biblical. Now the obtainment. The 
 Bible was not obtained in any arbitrary manner. The 
 criterion of canonicity was essentially spiritual. It is true 
 that there was, in considering any given writing, the 
 question of historical connection; but the historical 
 question was really a means to an end. What the 
 Christian church was after all the time was to discover 
 and sanction those writings which to the Christian con- 
 sciousness revealed the person of Christ and the doctrines 
 and facts of redemption. Had any writing whatsoever 
 antagonized Christian experience, had any book failed to 
 win the inner Christian amen, such a book would have 
 been rejected. Therefore we can affirm that every step 
 in the obtainment of the Bible was not arbitrary but 
 dynamic. 
 
 The Dynamic Stages in the Authority. A thorough 
 treatment at this point would take us over the ground 
 alread}^ covered in our discussion of the Christian religion 
 in its relation to the moral person. We will, therefore, 
 barely outline the case. In reaching full authority for 
 the Christian man and the Christian community, the 
 Bible passes through three stages; and just as each step 
 in the obtainment of the Bible was essentially dynamic, 
 so here each stage in the process of influence is dynamic. 
 These stages are, we say, three in number : i . The stage of 
 moral experience. The Bible, by its revelation of God and 
 
170 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Christ, by all its tremendous ethical insistence, by its 
 vista of final things beyond the grave, is precisely adapted 
 to effect man's conscience. ''It hums a man.'' No 
 moral person can read the Bible and hide away from 
 moral requirement. There is no other instrument which 
 lends such ethical opportunity to the Holy Spirit. To 
 any moral person, at whatever place he may be in moral 
 development, the Bible is absolute authority as to his 
 immediate moral life. And it is to him thus absolute in 
 authority, not because some man, or some church, has 
 declared it to be so, not for any artificial reason, but 
 simply because it creates a moral urgency, because it 
 urges the man along the very course he was planned to 
 take. It is always to be granted that the moral influence 
 of the Bible can be augmented by true men, and especially 
 by a true church ; but what is done by the men, or by the 
 church, is to furnish an opportunity for the normal 
 working of the influence of the Bible. In any situation 
 the greatest moral thing which can be done is to give the 
 Bible a fair chance at men. 2. The stage of Christian 
 experience. I am now thinking of the isolated fact of 
 Christian experience. Why is the Bible authority to the 
 one man who has been converted? The answer is three- 
 fold : First, the Bible is profoundly involved in the whole 
 process by which the man has come to moral peace; 
 second, the Bible is the supreme means by which the 
 Christian experience is now nourished; and, third, the 
 Bible is the expression, the objective capture, of man's 
 entire subjective life. This last point needs, perhaps, a 
 word of amplification. Our inner world is subtle and 
 flashing; our finest moods are often as evasive as the 
 delicate perfume of a wild flower ; after they are gone, we 
 can hardly believe that we had them at all. But when 
 we read the Bible we are certain that we had such moods, 
 for there they all are, caught in God's Word as minutely 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 171 
 
 as a mirror catches the lines of a face. Thus, the Bible 
 serves not only to urge the moral nature, not only to 
 connect the Christian experience with all our moral 
 development, not only to nourish that experience with 
 rich facts and doctrines, but also as a sort of Christian 
 memory, to hold, and keep real to us, all that has taken 
 place in our inner life. 3. The stage of Christian ex- 
 perience in brotherhood. This is but a social enlarge- 
 ment of the second stage. In his new relation to his 
 brethren, the Christian man looks at the Bible through 
 their combined experience, and its dynamic influence 
 upon him is increased by them. If the Bible is dynamic 
 in authority to one man with a Christian experience it is 
 more comprehensively so to two men bound together in 
 Christian fellowship and service. The total philosophy 
 of Christian certainty springs in here. A doctrine might 
 not carry one man alone ; but to two men, in their con- 
 joined experience, it might appeal; and to a thousand 
 men it might be morally self-evident. Once lift the social 
 Christian organism out of formality and. secularity, and 
 the Bible will take care of itself. But we have not said 
 enough. The Christian brotherhood itself is not a thing 
 merely of to-day. It has, under the operations of the 
 Holy Spirit, a most vital connection with the past. We 
 have not only a Christian experience, but also a Christian 
 inheritance. Could we bring together all the men, in 
 this world and in the other world, who form the one 
 Christian kingdom, the one organic brotherhood in Christ 
 our Saviour ; and could we secure a perfect expression of 
 their Christian consciousness in its relation to the Word 
 of God, we would find that consciousness to be a de- 
 posit of all the Christian experience of all the Christian 
 centuries. 
 
 The pith of the matter can be given as follows: The 
 Bible is an ultimate authority to men because it appeals to 
 
172 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 them with spiritual cogency. This is the basal principle. 
 This appeal is cogent to the moral person, because it fits 
 into and stimulates and enlarges his own moral ideal. 
 This appeal is cogent to the Christian man, because the 
 Bible, as used by the Holy Spirit, has largely produced 
 his Christian experience ; and also because the Bible now 
 nourishes and expresses that experience. This appeal is 
 more widely cogent to the Christian man in actual 
 Christian fellowship and service, because he now ap- 
 prehends the Bible through the combined experience of 
 his brethren. The Bible is ultimate authority to the 
 Christian church for several reasons : first, because it has 
 come down to the church by a cogent spiritual method; 
 second, because it is authority personally to every real 
 member of the church; and, third, because it has been 
 made a part of the Christian organism. This last point will 
 be more clearly seen in another connection. Here I wish 
 only to glimpse the idea that the Bible is something more 
 to the organic Christian church than it can be to an 
 isolated Christian, or even to all separate Christians 
 added together. To have the profoimdest relation to 
 the Bible, Christians must so come together in Christ as 
 to live in full communion with him, in full fellowship 
 with each other, and in full service for mankind. 
 
 The Extent of Biblical Authority, In the very nature 
 of the case, if our dynamic view is the true one, the extent 
 of the authority of the Bible is not the same in all situa- 
 tions. To a moral seeker the authority is not the same 
 that it is to a converted man. To a converted man 
 with a meager religious experience the authority is not 
 the same that it is to a saint. To a saint living in holy 
 isolation, like some of the famous anchorets, the authority 
 is not the same that it is to a saint giving his whole being 
 to the joys and sorrows and activities of the church. To 
 a formal church, half breathing under endless ceremonies 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 173 
 
 and ecclesiastical ambitions and worldly conceits and 
 compromises, the authority is not the same that it is to a 
 chtirch with a present Christ and a penetrating Holy 
 Spirit. Not to waste our time in these situations of 
 spiritual poverty, let us say at once that to the real 
 Christian brotherhood, or to any man in organic relation 
 to that brotherhood, the Bible is ultimate authority on 
 precisely four things, namely: i. On Christ. The Bible 
 is reliable in its account of our Lord, as to his character, 
 as to his teaching, and as to his deeds. The Christian 
 consciousness can and. does take this reliability for 
 granted. 2. On the facts of redemption. The Old Testa- 
 ment preparation for Christ, the redemptional integrity 
 of its history, the actuality of its prophecies ; the miracle 
 of the Incarnation ; the death and resurrection and ascen- 
 sion and session of our Lord — all these redemptional 
 facts are given in the Bible in absolute finality for the 
 Christian brotherhood. 3. On the doctrines of redemp- 
 tion. But we must ever remember that a biblical doc- 
 trine is not the scientific doctrine of systematic theology. 
 The biblical doctrine is merely a practical statement of 
 the significance of a redemptional fact. For example, 
 the Bible has much to say about the necessity for an 
 atonement, to render possible the forgiveness of sin ; but 
 the Bible does not try to furnish a scientific theor}^ of the 
 atonement. Were we to work out this point completely 
 you would see that Christian certainty may, as the 
 Christian community develops, reach much further than 
 biblical authority reaches ; but the two, the authority and 
 tlie certainty, can never be in conflict. The Bible must 
 always supply the data for any doctrinal enlargement 
 of which the Christian consciousness becomes certain. 
 4. The principles of conduct for the daily Christian life. 
 The application of these principles is purposely left open ; 
 but the principles are binding, and they are so plainly 
 
174 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 taught that one can easily make out of them a practical 
 system of Christian ethics. 
 
 In a compact statement of the practical significance 
 of our view, we would say this: The scope of biblical au- 
 thority exactly coincides with the scope of the biblical purpose; 
 and the purpose of the Bible is to furnish in moral cogency 
 all the data necessary to understand, to accept, to assimilate, 
 and to preach the entire plan under which God redeems 
 mankind. In a word, the Bible is authority on redemp- 
 tion. And let us complete the matter by adding — to 
 every moral person who is willing to be redeemed. 
 
 As to Science. It follows from what has been said that 
 the Bible is not a final authority upon any scientific 
 question. The opinions of the author of the book of Job 
 on natural history are not, and, in the nature of the case, 
 cannot be, binding upon the Christian church. There is, 
 however, one clear exception, it seems to me : If a scien- 
 tific question, like that of the origin of the race, has a 
 real Christian entanglement, is bound up with a funda- 
 mental Christian doctrine (in this instance with the doc- 
 trine of sin), then the Christian doctrine must be pro- 
 tected. I will be plainer. As a man with a self-conscious 
 Christian experience, in full and open relation with Chris- 
 tian men, I can allow no abiding antagonism between a 
 Christian doctrine and a scientific theory. Always I have 
 the right to reconsider the case, and I may be able to 
 change my interpretation of the doctrine. But if I can- 
 not change it, if the antagonism still remains, if one view or 
 the other must go down, then for me the scientific theory 
 must go down. For the theory, however generally held, 
 is nothing but probability, and my experience in Christ is 
 absolute self -certainty. For me, as one person, the ex- 
 perience is an ultimate, like self -consciousness itself. I 
 am, first of all, not a scientist, but, first of all, and last of 
 all, a man redeemed by our Lord and living a life of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 175 
 
 unspeakable reality in him. A Christian man should ever 
 be open to all scientific discussion, but he will not empty- 
 out the content of his faith any more than he will try to^ 
 stop breathing. 
 
 As to Inerrancy. Even on matters not scientific, 
 absolute inerrancy in the Bible is not required, provided 
 the portrait of Christ, the facts and doctrines of redemp- 
 tion, and the principles of Christian conduct are supplied 
 in sufficiency for the Christian consciousness. For exam- 
 ple, it is a matter of no great Christian moment what was 
 the precise wording of the superscription of the cross. 
 On the other hand, such an arbitrary and rationalistic 
 reduction of the sayings of Jesus as that made by Pro- 
 fessor Schmiedel is a serious modification of the portrait 
 of Christ in the gospels and can therefore never be allowed 
 by the Christian church. '' But how are w^e to draw the 
 line?" Christian consciousness, simply grant it time for 
 comparison and practical test, will draw the line with un- 
 failing clearness and firmness. 
 
 The Regions of Liberty. In biblical discussion, within 
 the Christian brotherhood, there are four regions of 
 liberty: i. That of the canon. The question here is. 
 Does this book really belong to the Bible? 2. That of 
 the text. The question here is, Does this text belong to 
 the book? or, Does this word belong to the text? 3. That 
 of the literature. The questions here are several: Who 
 is the author? Is this passage or book composite? What 
 is the style, poetry or prose? Is this quotation used 
 precisely? What is the historic setting? 4. That of the 
 interpretation. The question here is. What does this 
 text, or passage, or total writing, mean? These four 
 regions belong largely to Christian scholarship, which 
 always in the Christian church is to have a place of ap- 
 preciation and untrammeled service. Only we must in- 
 sist that the scholarship be Christian. A Christian 
 
176 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 scholar is a scholar with a Christian experience, in full 
 relation with Christian men, who does all his work with 
 the profoundest sense of responsibility toward every 
 other man with a Christian experience. With such an 
 experience and with such a relation, and with such a 
 spirit, the Christian scholar is constantly under a double 
 check: First, the check of the entire brotherhood; and, 
 second, the check of the Bible as a whole, or of the Bible 
 taken as a redemptional organism of fact and doctrine. 
 
 Saying all this, still I have not given you any just ap- 
 preciation of the steadiness of the bibHcal situation. Not 
 merely is the Christian scholar under perpetual check 
 himself ; but his scholarship is a check upon the haste and 
 crudeness in the thinking of the common man. It is 
 this endless crossing of brotherly checks, this building a 
 consensus of opinion out of every kind of a man — it is the 
 vast democracy of Christianity which makes a general 
 Christian attitude so reliable. Thus, while the regions 
 of liberty are never arbitrarily closed, they are practically 
 closed in just the degree that we have Christian agree- 
 ment. 
 
 The Inspiration of the Bible 
 
 The inspiration of the Bible as a subject is often con- 
 fused with that of the authority of the Bible ; but the two 
 involve very different questions, and very different dis- 
 cussions, the discussion of authority being much the more 
 important, inasmuch as it presupposes the philosophy of 
 Christian certainty itself. The question of inspiration is 
 really this : How can we explain the power and peculiarity 
 of this Christian Book which is final authority on Christ, 
 and on the facts, the doctrines, and the moral principles 
 of the Christian salvation? 
 
 The Typical Theories. The theories of biblical inspira- 
 tion have become so numerous that they can be properly 
 classified, and fully discussed, only in a history of doctrine. 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 177 
 
 We can spare the space for only the bare mention of the 
 four theories which are typical ; and even with these we 
 must save time by avoiding their incrusted terminology^ 
 I . The theory that an inspired man is simply one with a 
 natural genius for religious insight and leadership. Ac- 
 cording to this theory John Wesley was as really inspired 
 as was Saint John. 2. The theory that an inspired man 
 is simply one with an overflowing Christian experience. 
 According to this theory, many an unknown man to-day 
 is as really inspired as was Saint Paul. 3. The theory 
 that an inspired man is one who is coerced by the Holy 
 Spirit into a precise utterance. According to this theory, 
 an inspired man is nothing more than a phonograph of 
 God. 4. The theory that an inspired man is one who 
 receives from the Holy Spirit extraordinary dynamic 
 help, but without any violation of the integrity of indi- 
 viduality and without any interruption of the action of 
 personality. According to this theory, the inspired mes- 
 sage comes from the Holy Ghost and the free man in 
 psychic conjunction — God speaks through the entire 
 peculiarity of a man raised to a higher power. 
 
 The Probability. There is, I am convinced, no worthy 
 reason for holding one of these theories to the exclusion 
 of the remaining three. The probability is that the 
 Word of God was given by a combination of all four 
 methods; but it is not now possible for us to decide in 
 every case precisely what took place. The data are not 
 sufficient. 
 
 The Indorsement Theory. With this probability in 
 mind, I will suggest a more comprehensive view of the 
 inspiration of the Bible, as follows: i. The standpoint is 
 tho process of redemption as an historic movement, 
 beginning with the preparation for the coming of our 
 Lord, culminating in the death of Christ, and completed 
 by the work of the apostles. 2. In this long historic 
 
 ^ OFTHt 
 
178 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 process men were chosen, each one in his own peculiar 
 situation, to speak, or to write, or to do, whatever was 
 essential to further the redemptional movement. 3. For 
 this furtherance, these chosen men received only such 
 divine help as was needed. At one time it was necessary- 
 only to emphasize a common moral fact before the people, 
 and any brave soul could do it. At another time it was 
 necessary to lift a commonplace into spiritual ideality, a 
 work which only genius can do. At another time it was 
 necessary to organize a nation, and it required the highest 
 order of statesmanship. At another time it was necessary 
 to have a Christian testimony, and it could be given out of 
 any overflowing Christian experience in the early church. 
 At another time it was necessary to catch and to express 
 a doctrine of grace entirely beyond the possibility of 
 natural discovery; and for this work a man was extra- 
 ordinarily helped, raised to a higher power, without being 
 erased as a free person. At another time it was necessary 
 for the man of God to have an absolutely transcendent 
 experience, an experience to which he could make no 
 individual or personal contribution whatever; and he 
 was, for the occasion, actually coerced by the Holy Spirit. 
 He had no more freedom than the sky has in accepting a 
 sunset. Perhaps he is a prophet, and he looks down the 
 centuries, in the swift, clear vision of God himself, until 
 he can see *'a man of sorrows" — ''smitten of God," 
 "wounded for our transgressions." Or perhaps he is an 
 apostle, and he is transported into a realm of immeas- 
 urable glory, and hears "unspeakable words, which it is 
 not lawful for a man to utter." There are, too, some 
 places in the Bible where the best explanation of the very 
 phrase is that it came directly from God. And when I 
 say the best explanation, I mean the explanation which 
 naturally grows out of the Christian conception of God's 
 relation to man in redemption. How extremely absurd 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 179 
 
 it is for any Christian thinker to hold that God could not 
 or would not, in the furtherance of redemption, give a 
 prophet or an apostle a message as definite as human 
 speech. Even the most incipient Christian theist should 
 be ashamed of such fundamental inconsistency. 4. This 
 psychology of inspiration, however — the precise psychic 
 connection between agent and word or deed — is not the 
 important thing. The important thing is that the Holy 
 Spirit accepted the word or deed, and actually made use 
 of it in the historic process of redemption. By indorsing 
 it the Holy Spirit made the thing his own. It was inspired, 
 or inblown, with his intention. As an illustration of my 
 meaning, take General Washington's orders when Alex- 
 ander Hamilton was on his staff. The psychology of 
 those orders is a very interesting study. Closely we 
 examine this order and that, to decide whether it came 
 from Washington's mind entirely, or only in part, or not 
 at all; and again and again we find it impossible to tell. 
 But the question is purely academic ; for the one supremely 
 important thing, in relation to the struggle for inde- 
 pendence, is that Washington was there, with a plan, 
 imder which he considered every order and then signed 
 it. It is the indorsement which makes the orders signifi- 
 cant. 5. But there is more than this first indorsement 
 by actual use in the history of redemption. The Holy 
 Spirit was the deeper Will of that entire dynamic process 
 by which the Christian church accepted and rejected 
 writings and so gradually formed the canon. The forma- 
 tion of the canon of Holy Scripture is a second indorse- 
 ment. 6. And there is also a third indorsement. For, 
 profoundly regarded, the present relation of Christian 
 consciousness to the Bible is an indorsement by the 
 Holy Spirit. 7. The Bible, therefore, is the Word of 
 God, because all the parts of it were actually used by 
 the Holy Spirit in the historic process of redemption, 
 
 I 
 
i8o THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 because he brought these parts together into an organic 
 record of redemption, and because he lives in the whole 
 Bible to-day, richly relating it to the Christian conscious- 
 ness. Holding this comprehensive indorsement theory, 
 we never say, ** The Bible contains the Word of God." We 
 say. The Bible is the Word of God. Just as parts of the 
 human body are less significant than other parts, and yet 
 all are required to make a complete bodily organism, so por- 
 tions of Scripture are less important than other portions, 
 and yet all come together to furnish to the brotherhood in 
 our Lord a full expression of the heart and mind and will 
 of God in the salvation of man. 
 
THE SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE 
 
We conclude that though it is always easy for thoughtless men to 
 be orthodox, yet to grasp with any strong practical apprehension the 
 theology of Christ is a thing as hard as to practice his moral law. 
 Yet, if he meant anything by his constant denunciation of hypocrites, 
 there is nothing which he would have visited with sterner censure than 
 that short cut to belief which many persons take when, overwhelmed 
 with the difficulties which beset their minds, and afraid of damnation, 
 they suddenly resolve to strive no longer, but, giving their minds a 
 holiday, to rest content with saying that they believe and acting as if 
 they did. A melancholy end of Christianity indeed! — John Robert 
 Seeley, Ecce Homo, pp. 89, 90. 
 
 Do I then utterly exclude the speculative reason from theology? 
 No! it is its office and rightful privilege to determine on the negative 
 truth of whatever we are required to believe. The doctrine must not 
 contradict any universal principle; for this would be a doctrine that 
 contradicted itself. Or philosophy? No. It may be and has been 
 the servant and pioneer of faith by convincing the mind that a doctrine 
 is cogitable, that the soul can present the idea to itself; and that if we 
 determine to contemplate, or think of, the subject at all, so and in no 
 other form can this be effected. — Samiiel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to 
 Reflection, Works, i, 222. 
 
 Biblical or New Testament theology deals with the thoughts, or 
 the mode of thinking, of the various New Testament writers; system- 
 atic theology is the independent construction of Christianity as a 
 whole in the mind of a later thinker. Here again there is a broad 
 and valid distinction, but not an absolute one. It is the Christian 
 thinking of the first centtiry in the one case, and of the twentieth, 
 let us say, in the other; but in both cases there is Christianity and 
 there is thinking, and if there is truth in either, there is bound to be 
 a place at which the distinction disappears. — James Denney, The 
 Death of Christ, p. 5. 
 
» 
 
 XIII- SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY 
 
 In our Introduction the aim was to sectire an 
 anthropological foundation for Christian theology, by 
 showing that man's personal and moral development can 
 be normally completed only under the terms of the 
 Christian religion. With that foundation laid, there now 
 comes to us a greater task, namely, to construct a system 
 of Christian doctrine. In using the term systematic 
 theology the emphasis is to be placed upon the word 
 systematic. It is not enough to discuss the doctrines 
 separately. It is not enough to show precisely what the 
 Bible, on the surface, teaches concerning every doctrine. 
 The doctrines are all interlocked at the root. Between 
 them there is an underlying philosophical connection. 
 This philosophical connection must be revealed. Not 
 only so, but the connection must be brought out in such 
 a way as gradually to exhibit the Christian faith as one 
 mighty organic whole. 
 
 This systematic view of Christianity, seeing it as a 
 coherent doctrinal total, is important for several reasons : 
 First, because it has an apologetic value. Dr. Wil- 
 liam F. Warren once said, "An adequate system of doc- 
 trine is the only adequate Christian apologetics." It is 
 only when one catches a vision of the Christian organism, 
 from an inside doctrinal standpoint, in such a work, say, 
 as Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, that he can begin 
 to feel the tremendous force of Christian evidence. And 
 yet we must at this point note a caution. Systematic 
 theology should never be an intentional apology. There 
 ought not to be in it even the tiniest trace of mediation 
 tactics. Rather should it be so steeped with the Chris- 
 
i84 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 tian severities — ^with all those Christian peculiarities 
 which tax the natiiral man — as to be positively obnoxious 
 to any man who is not straining himself in moral en- 
 deavor. A negative test of a worthy systematic theolog}'- 
 would be that its important message had incurred the dis- 
 like of two sorts of men, those who have a slender ethical 
 purpose, and those who are trying to make Christianity 
 "easier for this scientific age." But the man who is 
 morally open to Christian appeal, the man whose heart 
 is breaking under an impossible moral burden, the man 
 who prefers to confess that his life is a moral failure 
 rather than to compromise with any utilitarian make- 
 shift — if that man can be led to perceive the doctrinal con- 
 tinuity, the undersweeping granite ledge of the Christian 
 system, he will find the apologetics he needs for convic- 
 tion. Second, because it has a biblical value. Systematic 
 theology is almost as necessary to any comprehensive 
 biblical theology as biblical theology is necessary to any 
 worthy systematic theology. Often the profounder un- 
 derstanding of the Bible teaching involves a philosophical 
 grasp of all Christian truth. Who, for instance, could 
 ever master the Epistle to the Romans without such 
 philosophical grasp? There are in that epistle single 
 statements which are in root-relation to almost every 
 primary doctrine of the Christian system. Third, because 
 it has a practical value in balancing and steadying the 
 Christian life. A Christian experience which is nourished 
 by isolated, unrelated doctrine is likely to lose all balance, 
 and to become an exceedingly unwholesome thing. Take 
 the great doctrine of personal faith itself and tear it out 
 of its moral and Christian connections, and what a dan- 
 gerous transformation it undergoes! It was faith, but 
 now it is presumption of the most perilous degree. Can 
 you not see that systematic theology tends to prevent this 
 exaltation of the fragment at the expense of the whole? 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 185 
 
 Had that Christian man who has so eagerly accepted 
 '' Christian Science " only once been able to see Christianity 
 stand out in its total meaning and in all its bearings upon 
 life, could he, think you, have taken, in place of Christian"^ 
 ity, a weak trituration of pantheism? 
 
 In constructing a system of Christian doctrine the 
 source for all the data is the Bible, and the Bible alone. 
 The data, however, are not obtained by making a collec- 
 tion of ''proof -texts." Whether a text is to be used or 
 not depends upon its relation to the entire biblical organ- 
 ism. One text may tersely express a gospel trend, and 
 so may have the utmost worth, while another text may 
 express Imt a passing phase of the historic movement, 
 and so may contribute nothing to the final system. 
 First of all, the systematic theologian must have, as a 
 basis, a genuine biblical theology. And I mean here 
 something far beyond the fragmentary works which are 
 often published in the name of biblical theology. The 
 whole Bible must be philosophically grasped as a Christian 
 unity which is manifested in variety. The moment this 
 is done there will be seen a center to the Bible ; and without 
 doubt that center is the death of our Lord. There is no 
 possibility of any profound biblical study without instant 
 and constant recognition of that center. But even this 
 is not enough. Not only must all biblical values be de- 
 termined from the center; but also the result must be 
 regarded afresh over against the consciousness of the 
 Christian church. All the doctrinal struggles in the past, 
 all the great creeds, all the great works in theology, all 
 the Christian biographies, everything which expresses 
 Christian experience, must be studied by the systematic 
 theologian to get at the Christian consciousness. This 
 Christian consciousness is not a source, it furnishes no 
 data; but it lights up the data, it unfolds the norms, it 
 helps one to see the biblical truth more Christianly. ** A 
 
i86 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 man's eye is not authority on an elm tree, but it enables 
 him to see the tree." But even this is not enough. The 
 systematic theologian must study his own age day and 
 night, until he can distinguish between the real Christian 
 consciousness of his own time and the Zeitgeist. The 
 Zeitgeist is a spirit of the world always rationalistic, never 
 Christian, and seldom even profoundly ethical. Surely 
 that theologian is extremely unfortunate who ever needs 
 to say to the Zeitgeist, ''What will you allow me to be- 
 lieve?" But if the assertion in the real Christian con- 
 sciousness of oiu" day is beginning to change ; if men are 
 now actually converted, if they grow in grace, if they 
 possess the richest joys in Christian experience, if they 
 have large consolation in their sorrows, if they are in 
 constant Christian fellowship, if they are giving their 
 lives in self-sacrificing service — and yet in all this experi- 
 ence and fellowship and service they manifest no interest 
 in this or that doctrine, no need of it, no certainty about 
 it — ^we here have a Christian situation which demands the 
 most serious attention of the systematic theologian. 
 But even all this is not enough. The systematic theolo- 
 gian has something himself. He too has a new life in 
 Christ. He has a new conception of God, of man, and of 
 the universe. "Old things are passed away; behold, all 
 things are become new." He has personal certainties 
 which speak in his consciousness with the urgency of 
 thunder. He has a vision in which the Christian total 
 stands out like the outline of a continent. Can he 
 throw all this experience away? He dare not. By all 
 the moral worth and spiritual majesty of this new life 
 which God has given to him he must be absolutely and 
 sacredly true to himself. His task, then, is to take his 
 own Christian consciousness, together with that of the 
 present time, together with that of all Christian history, 
 and with the aid. of all these so to interpret and relate the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 187 
 
 normative biblical data as to reveal the whole organic 
 plan of redemption. 
 
 Now an admission should be made which may tend 
 to increase the prevailing prejudice against systematic 
 theology. No systematic theology, worth the making, 
 can be constructed without more or less tentative specu- 
 lation. The practical man has such a dread of speculation 
 that when the word is mentioned he instantly thinks of 
 the doctrinaire. But every great step in practical in- 
 vention and discovery, and even in the sciences, is made 
 by speculation. Professor Huxley called it '' the scientific 
 imagination"; but he meant exactly what I mean by 
 tentative speculation. You have the unyielding data 
 in the various facts. To all these facts you must tena- 
 ciously hold. Then you must imagine harmonizing con- 
 nections; you must fling bridges from fact to fact imtil 
 they are all interrelated. There is a test of the worth of 
 your work in its social confirmation ; that is, in the actual 
 use of your bridges by other men. Or, coming to Chris- 
 tian thinking, suppose that we can make a philosophical 
 connection between future punishment and the integrity 
 of moral personality, protecting every statement in the 
 Bible, and make this connection in such a manner that 
 every converted man responds to it, we will have in this 
 response a Christian confirmation of the reality of the 
 connection made by speculation. And there is further 
 confirmation if our speculative work at this point sug- 
 gests deeper meanings for other Christian facts, or tends 
 to bring out more sharply the significance of redemption 
 as a totality. 
 
 If you have fully caught my conception, you can 
 readily see that a genuine systematic theology is a work 
 having no formal authority whatever. It is a mistake, I 
 think, to call it dogmaticSy or to give it any ecclesiastical 
 position, or in any way to relate it to doctrinal lordship. 
 
i88 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 It is not your ruler, but your friend, trying to make 
 Christianity satisfy your entire manhood, by bringing 
 out all the profound moral connections, and by showing 
 that the redemption in Jesus Christ's atonement is the 
 one key to all there is in the universe. Saint Paul him- 
 self began to indicate the province of systematic theology, 
 for he could not keep from philosophical thinking in his 
 greater epistles; and he expressed the real spirit of the 
 matter when he said, ''Not that we have lordship over 
 your faith, but are helpers of yotir joy." 
 
 ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF THIS BOOK 
 The Introduction 
 
 1. Man as a moral person related to the Christian religion, 
 
 2. Man as a social and racial person related to the Christian religion. 
 
 3. The philosophy of Christian certainty. 
 
 4. The Bible as the basis of a system of doctrine. 
 
 The System 
 
 1. The Conception of Systematic Theology. 
 
 The interpretation of the doctrinal data of the Bible, from the 
 standpoint of Christian consciousness, with the purpose of re- 
 vealing the plan of redemption as an organic whole. 
 
 2. The Central Note. 
 
 The redemption of man as a racial brotherhood of individual 
 moral persons. 
 
 3. The Doctrinal Divisions. 
 
 First Division — Man's need of redemption. 
 
 Second Division — ^Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer. 
 
 Third Division — Our Lord's redemptive work. 
 
 Fourth Division — Redemption realized in the new man. 
 
 Fifth Division — Redemption realized in the new race. 
 
 Sixth Division — The Triime God revealed in redemption. 
 
THE FIRST DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
 MAN'S NEED OF REDEMPTION 
 
Starting, then, with the being of a God (which, as I have said, is as 
 certain to me as the certainty of my own existence, though when I 
 try to put the grounds of that certainty into logical shape I find a diffi- 
 culty in doing so in mood and figure to my satisfaction) , I look out of 
 myself into the world of men, and there I see a sight which fills me 
 with imspeakable distress. The world seems simply to give the lie 
 to that great truth of which my whole being is so full ; and the effect 
 upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing as 
 if it denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a mirror, 
 and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which 
 actually comes upon me when I look into this living, busy world and 
 see no reflection of its Creator. ... To consider the world in its 
 length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their 
 starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and 
 then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enter- 
 prises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquire- 
 ments, the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so 
 faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of 
 what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if 
 from unreasoning elements, not toward final causes, the greatness 
 and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the 
 curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat 
 of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prev- 
 alence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, 
 the dreary, hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so 
 fearfully yet exactly described in the apostle's words, "having no 
 hope and without God in the world" — all this is a vision to dizzy and 
 appall; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, 
 which is absolutely beyond human solution. 
 
 What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewildering fact? 
 I can only answer, that either there is no Creator or this living so- 
 ciety of men is in a true sense discarded from his presence. Did I 
 see a boy of good make and mind, with the tokens on him of a refined 
 nature, cast upon the world without provision, unable to say whence 
 he came, his birthplace or his family connections, I should conclude 
 that there was some mystery connected with his history, and that he 
 was one of whom, from one cause or other, his parents were ashamed. 
 Thus only should I be able to account for the contrast between the 
 promise and the condition of his being. And so I argue about the 
 world; if there be a God, since there is a God, the human race is im- 
 plicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with 
 the purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact 
 of its existence ; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called 
 original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that the world exists, 
 and as the existence of God. — John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita 
 Sua, pp. 241-243. 
 
XIV- THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN 
 
 The Scripture Account. By a number of mediating 
 theologians this biblical account of the creation and fall 
 of man is regarded as a myth. The term myth itself is 
 not precisely fixed in its meaning; but it may mean 
 something far beyond an intentional fiction, it may mean 
 even a crude expression of real belief. It is in this higher 
 sense that the term is used by the more conservative of 
 these mediating theologians. If they are evolutionists, 
 as is usually the case, the myth is to them the distinctive 
 mark of a necessary period in man's normal development, 
 "an inevitable product of the human mind in certain 
 stages of culture." Holding this higher view, they never 
 throw a religious myth away; rather do they study it 
 with large seriousness, expecting to discover important 
 data for anthropology. Belonging, as a choice inner 
 circle, to this conservative group, there are a few writers 
 who add a further and most important point, namely, 
 that the biblical myth, although it has no historic worth, 
 does have a Christian worth, inasmuch as it teaches such 
 moral and religious truth as tends to prepare the mind 
 for the full appreciation of the later Christian spirit and 
 doctrine. In all fairness it should be said that this view 
 possesses much apologetic force and is capable of an ex- 
 tremely conservative exposition. Possibly it is the only 
 view which now can be honestly held by a great many 
 thoughtful Christian men. And yet I cannot accept it. 
 It seems to me to be nothing but a restless pause on the 
 way to rationalism. There is a better view, I am sure — 
 a view which is reasonable, and which has in it the soul 
 of the Christian contention for the supernatural. Doubt- 
 
192 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 less we have here, in this Scripture account, a world- 
 tradition which is not to be taken in bald literalism ; but 
 I can see no forcible reason why it may not be a picttire- 
 narrative of actual fact. Why may it not be solid history 
 in naive drama? Neither the word poetry nor the word 
 symbolism is nicely adequate, for both these words sug- 
 gest a purpose too deliberately idealistic for this chapter 
 of the childhood of mankind. Could we hear an American 
 Indian (one not yet sophisticated by civilization) describe 
 an event of great importance to his tribe, an event per- 
 haps involving war, his whole power in single aim to tell 
 the exact fact, we would certainly understand the dra- 
 matic naivet6 of this biblical account. The rib, the tree, 
 the apple, the serpent, are a picturesque way of talking, 
 that is all, and just the kind of language men would 
 everywhere use had we dared to keep close to the glory of 
 our childhood. That there may be no chance for mis- 
 understanding, I will give an analytical statement of my 
 full view: i. This scripttiral account of the creation and 
 fall of man is a record of historic facts. 2. These facts 
 are given in naive dramatic form — ''the primitive style 
 of narration characteristic of the age in which it was 
 written." 3. The account was handed down from the 
 beginning as a world-tradition based upon an original 
 revelation from God. 4. This world-tradition was, at 
 last, tmder the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, cleansed 
 (an examination of the traditions in the ethnic religions 
 will show how necessary such a cleansing came to be), 
 cleansed for a redemptional use. 5. As thus cleansed this 
 world-tradition was established in the canon by the Holy 
 Spirit. 6. Thus, what we have is a world-tradition 
 cleansed and indorsed by the Holy Spirit for its redemp- 
 tional meaning. 
 
 The Significance of Man. If, with this conception of 
 the account, we examine it closely, we shall find that it 
 
\ 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 193 
 
 teaches certain things which are, from a redemptional 
 standpoint, of the utmost importance in bringing out the 
 significance of man: i. God himself made man. Man is 
 of divine origin. 2. Man was made as the summit of 
 creation. The whole universe is but a getting ready for 
 man. 3. Man was created in ''the image of God." 
 That is, man has moral personality like God himself. 
 The exegesis which makes this "image of God" to mean 
 man's delegated rulership over the animal kingdom is 
 exceedingly superficial. He was placed over the animal 
 kingdom because he was a moral person at the summit 
 of creation. 4. Man was created a social being under a 
 racial plan. 
 
 The Purpose of Creation, By noting all these items of 
 significance the divine purpose in creating man becomes 
 evident. God purposed to have not a higher animal, 
 not a more consummate automaton, but a moral person, 
 a creature free under supreme moral demand; not an 
 isolated moral person, but a race with the most intricate 
 social entanglement. Bringing together the three fea- 
 tures, the personal, the moral, and the racial, we may 
 concisely state the ptirpose of creation thus : The aim was 
 to obtain a racial brotherhood of moral persons. 
 
 The Motive of Creation. To hold, as many do, that 
 God's motive in creating man was love is perilously in- 
 sufficient. If we keep in harmony with the conclusions 
 reached in our Introduction, the least we can say is that 
 the divine motive was moral love. But even in saying 
 this we do not quite touch the root of the matter. To 
 touch this root, I need to make reference to a basal prin- 
 ciple which will come up again in a most serious dis- 
 cussion, namely, the principle of personal self-expression. 
 It is inherent in the very nature of personality to seek 
 objective expression. Personality must get out in some 
 manner, or violate its own law of structure. Pure sub- 
 
194 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 jectivity is a primal personal experience, but it is far 
 from being the entirety of a person's normal life. Nor 
 are we passing into what we considered under man's 
 social urgency. The need of self-expression is not a part 
 of that need of companionship which arises from personal 
 loneliness. Give a person all the companionship his 
 nature craves, companionship of the greatest variety and 
 of the finest quality, and still he will keep trying to 
 express his inner life. Again I say, and, if possible, a little 
 more emphatically, that a person is fundamentally a 
 creator. The moment he has self-knowledge of an inner 
 world he wants to make an outer world. This imperious 
 law, or principle, of self-expression is the very nerve of 
 great exploits, great art, great literature. I do not say 
 that utilitarian motives may not be added, I do not say 
 that utilitarian motives may not help. But the initial 
 thrust for any great creative work is the personal longing 
 for self-expression; and there are instances where this 
 personal longing furnishes the entire motivity. Recently 
 I heard, with increasing wonder, Beethoven's Fifth 
 Symphony. And after coming out of the rapture of the 
 bewilderment I said: "There is only one way to explain 
 the enormous prodigality of this symphony: Beethoven 
 was trying to fling out every thought and every feeling 
 of his soul! He wanted to express himself." 
 
 This principle of self-expression must ever be kept in 
 mind, to understand the divine prodigality in creating 
 the universe. There are countless things in the world 
 which burst the bands of all economy. "Every flower 
 is useful, if we only know enough to find it out." Yes, 
 useful as a part of the vast creation made to express 
 something of God's inner life. And this cosmic expres- 
 sion is a preparation for a later and more sublime expres- 
 sion of God's inner life. In that one comprehensive way 
 I can allow you to preserve the idea of utility. Now we are 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 195 
 
 perhaps open to the important point : The race of mankind 
 is, in plan, a brotherhood of moral persons created to express 
 the love of God which is both social and holy. In our final 
 discussion of the Trinity we shall try to see all that this 
 statement means. Now it is enough to affirm that it is only 
 from the standpoint of the full Christian doctrine of the 
 Trinity, as one organism of three self-conscious persons 
 with interrelations of holy love, that the creation of man 
 can be explained without yielding to the philosophy of 
 pantheism. From this Trinitarian standpoint, we can 
 discover perfect divine motive, and still not swamp the 
 motive in a divine necessity. In the words of Bishop 
 Martensen: "In a certain sense one may say that God 
 created the world in order to satisfy a want in himself ; 
 but the idea of God's love requires us to understand this 
 want as quite as truly a superfluity.'' 
 
 An Analytical Interpretation of the Fall of Man 
 
 1. With the New Testament teaching in mind, one 
 should, I think, give Satan historical position, and em- 
 phasis in any surface interpretation of the Scripture 
 account of the fall of man. But in any deeper philo- 
 sophical interpretation he has no significance other than 
 that of method in test. Man fell as a moral person 
 responsibly free, and the external form of the temptation, 
 whether this or that, could make no essential difference. 
 Satan could create no motive; he could simply bring to 
 pressure motives which man himself must sooner or 
 later feel. 
 
 2. Looking closely at the case of Eve, we discover 
 three essential motives for sin, namely: first, physical 
 craving; second, cosmic curiosity; third, the personal 
 spring toward self-assertion. 
 
 3. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good 
 for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes." This 
 
196 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 surely means that the senses were involved, that the 
 bodily life was bound up in the temptation. And this 
 is precisely what we would expect, for man can have no 
 bodily life, with a conscience, and not be tempted at 
 some time. Even our Lord did not escape this test which 
 comes from the body. There are several sorts of physical 
 craving, but, philosophically considered, they are all 
 equally significant. They, all of them, are natural ur- 
 gencies which are to be controlled under higher concern. 
 To have any worthy moral character a person must 
 master his entire body in the name of his moral ideal. 
 
 4. "And that the tree was to be desired to make one 
 wise." The thing meant here is not that larger wisdom 
 which is charged with moral quality, but rather that 
 experience which one gets by finding out for himself what 
 there is in the world. It is just the experience which 
 Goethe was ever seeking ; to find out all there is, whether 
 high or low — to exhaust the cosmos. The eager curiosity 
 which urges a person to make this quest I have called 
 cosmic, or world, curiosity. As a motive it is even more 
 fundamental than physical craving, and is very essential 
 to man's development and to the progress of civilization. 
 
 5. "Yea, hath God said. Ye shall not eat of any tree 
 of the garden?" This plainly means that the tempta- 
 tion was an appeal to the spring of self-assertion, which 
 is in our personal makeup even more profoundly than is 
 cosmic curiosity. Personal freedom itself implies not only 
 the power for self-assertion, but also the spring, the leap 
 of the person toward it. Take any boy, however noble, 
 and tell him that he must not do a certain thing, and 
 even if he submits to natural or moral authority his 
 first healthy impulse is to resist the command. The 
 entire psychological movement is gathered up by that 
 phrase of the common people, "It wasn't easy, but he 
 gave up." 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 197 
 
 6. The most convincing line in Milton's epic is this: 
 "From thy state mine never shall be parted." Of 
 course, this is, on the surface, a poet's large license in 
 dealing with the Scripture words: "And she gave also 
 unto her husband with her, and he did eat." But, in 
 the depths, Milton has found the fact of social influence, 
 an influence which often operates with the three inherent 
 motives already mentioned. If your wife, or any friend, 
 or even any associate, does wrong, it is harder, other 
 things being normal, for you yourself to do right. No 
 man, in personal health, wants to be holy all alone. 
 Thus, when any person sins, or when any person resists 
 sin, the whole psychological situation is suddenly changed. 
 No new cause of personal volition is produced, but the 
 occasional background is changed. 
 
 7. There are now two things which should be lifted 
 into the utmost emphasis: First, these four motives — 
 physical desire, cosmic curiosity, the personal spring 
 toward self-assertion, and social influence — are, in and of 
 themselves, not only good, but absolutely essential to 
 the development of the man, and to the progress of so- 
 ciety. Second, every one of these four motives becomes 
 at once bad when it urges a moral person to disobey God, 
 or to violate any moral ideal. In other words, the pos- 
 sibility of sin is necessarily involved in the fact of moral 
 personality itself. There cannot be a free person placed 
 under a moral demand without his having both the 
 volitional ability and the personal motive to violate that 
 demand. Either the universe must be altogether au- 
 tomatic, with no opportunity for moral character, or 
 there must be granted the possibility of personal sin. 
 This endless discussion of "the mystery of evil" — how 
 superficial, how lacking in all moral acumen, it is ! In any 
 serious home, in the upbuilding of the moral life of any 
 child, there is seen, again and again, the clue to this 
 
198 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ** mystery beyond all our wisdom." Let a father once 
 say to a child, in the name of higher concern, ''Thou 
 shalt not!" and there will be the personal battle of Eden 
 all over again. God did not want transgression, but 
 he did want the possibility of it, because he wanted per- 
 sonal sainthood. All evil in possibility is the awful price 
 which had to be paid for any personal sainthood. 
 
 But, it is often urged, the Edenic test was unfair because 
 our first parents had no knowledge of the dreadful con- 
 sequences of their disobedience. " Had they only known 
 they would have obeyed." This objection also reveals 
 a lack of moral grasp. Every moral conflict is a personal 
 conflict under an ideal; and never can the personal sig- 
 nificance of the struggle be changed by knowledge of any 
 sort or amount. Excepting this: There are times when 
 complete knowledge of results creates such an over- 
 whelming fear that all personal action, and so all moral 
 meaning, becomes impossible. In such cases, the moral 
 probation must be shifted to another point where there 
 is less knowledge. 
 
 The first sin was a personal act of disobedience. It 
 was a taking of self in place of God. In the startling 
 words of Philippi, "Man's self-assertion to Godhead was 
 his fall." Personal sin is the supreme egotism of a moral 
 person. It is getting one's own way over against duty. 
 It is selfishness. One of the characters in Tennyson's 
 Becket is made to say, *' If I had been Eve i' the garden 
 I shouldn't ha' minded the apple, for what's an apple, 
 you know, save to a child?" Every such treatment of 
 the account (and there are many) misses in the accidents 
 the supreme selfishness of the scene. Man did not care 
 enough about God to do his will. That was the fall of 
 man. 
 
XV- THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 
 
 The term sin is used in so many ways that it is, in 
 systematic theology, especially important to secure a 
 more rigid classification of phases under the general 
 term. The underlying idea of any kind of sin is that of 
 lawlessness, or dvofjiia. In the widest sense a sinner is 
 anyone who does not measure up to God's perfect law. 
 Taken in this generic meaning the Westminster definition 
 is perfect: ''Any want of conformity unto or transgres- 
 sion of the law of God." 
 
 Personal Sin. But when John Wesley said that sin is 
 ''a voluntary transgression of a known law" he was 
 not thinking of sin in this sweeping manner, he was think- 
 ing of a responsible violation of God's law. For such 
 violation it is evident there must be knowledge of what 
 the law is, and a personal intention to break it. Why 
 may we not say, then, that under generic sin there is 
 personal sin, or that sin for which the moral person is 
 accountable? Precisely analyzed, in relation to ethics, 
 there are three features in all personal sin, namely : i . A 
 moral standard; 2. This standard in actual grasp by the 
 personal judgment as to right and wrong; 3. Personal 
 intention. Surely you can see that this personal sin 
 cannot be inherited? No man can inherit another man's 
 personal bearing toward moral judgment. In fact, no 
 personal act, or activity, or experience, can be inherited. 
 Strictly speaking, nothing personal can ever be passed 
 from being to being. And inasmuch as the personal 
 deed, or attitude, cannot be inherited, it is inconceivable 
 that the personal responsibility for such deed or attitude 
 can be inherited. The theological conception of "an 
 
200 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 inherited guilt" results from a full failure to understand 
 what personal life is, on the one hand, and what moral 
 life is, on the other hand. With a few verbal changes, I 
 would adopt Bishop Foster's words: **Sin is something 
 which the individual man does ; it is an act. There is no 
 sin where there is not a sinner; and there is no sinner 
 where there is not an act committed by him which con- 
 stitutes him a sinner." 
 
 Individual Depravity. In considering depravity we 
 need to bring up again the distinction made in this work 
 between the individual and the person. Under the fact 
 that man is a person is the fact that he is an individual 
 being with body and soul. Before a babe comes to self- 
 consciousness he has a fundament of being with a com- 
 plex of characteristics which are some of them physical 
 and some of them psychical. The sum total of such 
 characteristics I call the individuality of the child. This 
 individuality is developed, and even modified, as the 
 child grows. Indeed, the whole complex of native char- 
 acteristics is at last treated from the standpoint of self- 
 consciousness. And the ultimate man is, as I have said 
 before, the individual personalized by the self -decisive 
 rejection and indorsement of original traits. 
 
 By depravity we mean that this basal individual life 
 of a man is inorganic. The native characteristics are a 
 clutter of items as unrelated as the odds and ends one 
 finds in an attic. The term total depravity is one of those 
 unfortunate phrases with which the scholastic theologian 
 is fond of weakening his message ; but there is a profound 
 sense in which a man is, as he comes into the world, 
 totally depraved. The point was brought out in our 
 study of morality, and is this: No man can organize his 
 individual life under the demand of conscience. He is 
 totally unable even to start an organism. And the greater 
 his development in moral personality the greater the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 201 
 
 impossibility of that adjustment which secures wholeness 
 and peace in manhood. It is this inorganic condition of 
 a man's fundamental, individual being which I tmder- 
 stand to be depravity. Every man comes inorganic into 
 the world. Concerning this inorganic condition of de- 
 pravity, there are two things so patent that they require 
 no proof whatever: The first is the fact that depravity 
 is universal. No organic man is ever born. The sec- 
 ond thing is that depravity is inherited. The person is 
 a new creation, personality is never repeated, no man 
 receives ability for self-consciousness and self-decision 
 from his ancestors. But the individual has his complex 
 of traits under the law of heredity. In other words, in- 
 dividuality is a racial matter and personality is not. 
 Thus, inorganic individuality is inherited. 
 
 This, though, only raises a larger question: "Why is it 
 that the free moral person cannot organize his individual 
 being under his moral ideal?" This question, you will 
 remember, we answered thus: The natural moral life is 
 one of fear, and fear is not an organizing motive; the man 
 needs to have for organization the motive of moral love. 
 In a simple word, no man can be complete imless he actu- 
 ally loves the Holy God. Now we must push the dis- 
 cussion into a further recess. Why does man have this 
 fear under moral authority? Because, I say, man now 
 lives under the dominion of conscience alone, and he was 
 not made so to live. Conscience itself is a ragged, un- 
 finished item. Man was planned to live in constant per- 
 sonal intimacy with God, and to have his moral life 
 perfectly saturated with that blessed holy fellowship. 
 Just as one of our children is born into a home, and 
 gradually, as the little human life opens into personality, 
 comes to the personal grasp and regard for the father 
 and mother, so it was intended that a man should be at 
 home with God. But now man is an outcast from the 
 
202 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 personal vision and intimacy with God. No wonder he 
 is afraid all alone out there under that vast, vague, ever- 
 growing, absolutely pitiless moral demand. "So he 
 drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the 
 garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the flame of a sword 
 which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of 
 life." This, then, is my understanding of depravity: 
 Man's entire individual being is inorganic in its relation 
 to the moral person. It is thus inorganic because the 
 moral person lives under moral fear. And he lives under 
 fear because he has been banished from the divine fellow- 
 ship and is but a lonely slave under moral law. 
 
 The Broken Brotherhood. In the Arminian sense (re- 
 sponsible transgression) there can be no such thing as 
 racial sin; but the race can be racially dvofila, it can 
 be out of joint with its under plan, it can be a failure. 
 This is what we should mean by racial sin. Let us urge 
 the meaning for a moment. The human race was de- 
 signed to be an organic brotherhood of moral persons, 
 in which every member would fit into the life of all, and 
 minister to the progress and joy of all, and receive 
 stimulus and social companionship and positive sup- 
 plement from all. But this great plan has been defeated 
 by sin. Precisely as the individual man is inorganic, so 
 the race is inorganic. The brotherhood is broken. Here 
 and there we have a pathetic group of men trying to help 
 each other, but often a large part of their effort is sheer 
 waste. Of course, it is easy enough to contribute to the 
 surface comfort of men; but to enter their real life, to 
 understand them, profoundly to enlarge them and bless 
 them, is an extremely difficult matter. Now think of 
 doing this for all men, and you will begin to realize the 
 awful extent of our racial failure ! The cause of this racial 
 failure is twofold: First, every individual member of the 
 race is born depraved, and many members of the race 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 203 
 
 are living in personal sin. Thus, the racial members 
 are not capable of racial coalescence. And, second, the 
 race has lost its center of organism. That center was to 
 be God in immediate personal companionship with all 
 men. To say that the race now exists only through the 
 omnipresence of God is to miss the point altogether. The 
 point is not that God is needed as a present power, but 
 that God is needed as a present personal companion. 
 Men need to enjoy the actual vision of God as their su- 
 preme Friend. And all aims should begin in this vision, 
 and all activities should feel the warmth of this vision 
 even as in a cloudless day every growing thing feels the 
 warmth of the sun. This conception is so sublime that 
 we are timid before it, but we must dare to seize it. 
 Never can we understand the work of our Lord until we 
 can see that the original purpose was to have a brother- 
 hood of men made complete by fellowship with God. 
 
 God's Hatred of Sin. When we try to explain this 
 recession of the divine personal companionship from the 
 race and the individual man there are several halfway 
 things which can be said in the spirit of euphemism ; but 
 it is much more wholesome to state at once, and with 
 plainness, the final fact. The recession is due to God's 
 hatred of sin. But this hatred must be carefully related 
 to our sentiment ; for this is one of those places where the 
 Christian feeHng is fully as important as the Christian 
 idea. We must not go to the one extreme of holding 
 that the divine hatred is arbitrary, is a thing merely of 
 God's naked and unrelated will. We must not feel that 
 *'God could have a different attitude toward sin, if he 
 only would.'' We must reaHze that God could not be 
 God, that he could not exist at all, without hating sin. 
 But we must not go to the other extreme of holding that 
 this divine hatred is but an intense smiting b}^ an imper- 
 sonal law, and that there is no personality involved. If 
 
 I 
 
204 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 in any way you drop the personal element out of the 
 hatred, you will lose, altogether or in part, its mighty 
 ethical stroke. In the deepest sense, no impersonal 
 bearing or performance can be ethical. No, we are to 
 think (and then to feel it) of the law of God's holiness as 
 plunging eternally into his absolutely exhaustive self- 
 consciousness, and there furnishing motive for an active, 
 personal hatred of all sin as a violation of that fundamental 
 holiness. Thus, God not only hates sin, but he means to 
 hate it. 
 
 This divine hatred of sin is expressed not only in de- 
 pravity and the broken brotherhood, but also in the nat- 
 ural world. I have said several partial things about 
 nature, but it is now necessary to give a thoroughly Chris- 
 tian view. The reason why nature is such a bewildering 
 jumble — now declaring the glory of God, and then be- 
 coming as voiceless as the sphinx; now as gentle as a 
 mother, and then as cruel as a monster; now suggesting 
 the most noble mood, and then actually violating every 
 known moral principle — the reason for this bewildering 
 jumble is that nature also is a broken organism. In a 
 low sense, it is an organism still, it is organic as a physical 
 system, and it appeals to the individual. But the world 
 of nature is no longer competent for man as a moral person. 
 God has not withdrawn from the cosmos as its cause, its 
 present force, its life, its beauty ; but as a divine revelation, 
 as a word from the Infinite, Moral, Personal Being, the 
 universe has been cast aside. Just as the individual man 
 and the whole race are broken, so the home of man and 
 the race is broken. Consequently the cosmos is to be 
 finally destroyed. There is to be not only a new man, 
 and a new race, but also a new universe. Redemption is 
 to cover the person, the race, and their perfect home. 
 
 Even now we have not exhausted the expressions of 
 God's hatred of sin. There is one more expression and 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 205 
 
 that the most dreadful of all — death. In relation to 
 the death of Christ it will be necessary to bring out the 
 full Christian interpretation of death ; but a general, ten- 
 tative word should be spoken in this connection. ^ A 
 most striking evidence of the success with which science 
 has eaten into the very vitals of Christian opinion is seen 
 in the typical modern Christian view of death, and even 
 of the death of Christ. If one ever could die of a broken 
 heart he might, I think, be justified in doing so after read- 
 ing some of those popular poems and sermons and books 
 which try to show that death is almost, if not quite, 
 the most useful and the most beautiful event in human 
 experience. But if I understand, even in the smallest 
 measure, the substance of the Christian faith, death should 
 be to the Christian consciousness an abnormal event, 
 a monstrous action of physical law against man, to ex- 
 press in every movement of its loathsome and appalling 
 process God's boundless hatred of sin. The race is a 
 failure, and therefore it is to be destroyed. Beyond the 
 grave there will be no Adamic race, but a new race in 
 which our Lord will take the place of Adam. This 
 racial destruction is by the method of death. The body, 
 the old racial nexus, is to be torn from the man, and then 
 to be made the starting point for another body, a new 
 and a glorious social nexus. The entire divine bearing 
 in death and depravity can, I think, be expressed in this 
 way : God so loves man that he will himself pay the most 
 costly price for man's salvation ; but he so hates sin that 
 he must secure, at every step of the way, a most 
 extraordinary and even abnormal expression of his holy 
 hatred. Man can be saved, because God loves him, but 
 the path of salvation must be one violently out of course. 
 Thus, we may say that depravity, and the broken race, 
 and the wrench in nature, and the death of men — cul- 
 minating in the death of our Lord — all manifest God's 
 
2o6 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 hatred of sin, but they manifest that hatred as an awful 
 background from which stands out the infinite love of 
 God toward men. 
 
 The Peril of Sin. Depravity in and of itself has no 
 peril. As related to the work of the Holy Spirit, all 
 depravity can ever do is to change the form of the con- 
 flict of the moral person. Nor is the peril of sin in a 
 habit of vice. Vice is really a superficial thing, and, 
 at its worst, but an expression of depravity or of personal 
 sin. The peril of sin lies in the fascination of personal sin, 
 in that extreme self-assertion which is selfishness. In 
 the very nature of the case, every imtested, every un- 
 subdued person wants his own way. And if you place this 
 untested person under a moral law he will have instant 
 interest in breaking the law. Personality itself must be 
 chastened by free choice into the enjoyment of lawful- 
 ness. But let the free person once break the law, once 
 get the taste of lawlessness, once have wildly throbbing in 
 consciousness the experience of an immoral freebooter, and 
 the untrammeled self-assertion is endlessly fascinating. 
 And just here lies the dreadful peril. For this personal 
 bearing in selfishness will soon stiffen into personal habit ; 
 to endure any moral restraint will become more and 
 more irksome; until finally there will be no motive to 
 submit to moral demand. This means, indeed, that the 
 moral demand itself has been emptied of all urgency. 
 And that means nothing less than everlasting moral death. 
 
 ^^^ DEFINITIONS 
 
 In the most comprehensive generic sense, human sin is any 
 nonconformity on the part of man to God's law. Most tersely, 
 sin is lawlessness. 
 2. Individual Depravity. 
 
 When this nonconformity to God's law is an inherited inorganic 
 condition of the individual man, the sin is individual sin, or 
 depravity. Most tersely, depravity is irresponsible lawlessness 
 in individviality. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 207 
 
 3. Personal Sin. 
 
 When the nonconformity to God's law is an intentional viola- 
 tion, in act or bearing, the sin is personal sin. Theologically, 
 personal sin is responsible lawlessness in self-decision. Ethically ,- 
 personal sin is a self-conscious violation of the moral judgment. 
 Practically, personal sin is selfishness. 
 
 4. Racial Sin. 
 
 When the nonconformity to God's law is in the rupture of the 
 racial plan for solidarity in human fellowship, the sin is racial 
 sin, or race depravity. Most tersely, racial sin is lawlessness in 
 social life. 
 
 Man's Need of Redemption 
 Man needs redemption in three ways: 
 
 1. As a moral person, a responsible sinner before God, 
 a man needs to be forgiven, and united with God. 
 
 2. As a disrupted man, individual, personal, and moral, 
 he needs to have his entire being reorganized and har- 
 monized and made complete. 
 
 3. As a shattered brotherhood, mankind needs to be 
 made over into a new race, with a divine center, and a 
 membership of perfect coalescence in love and service. 
 
THE SECOND DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
 JESUS CHRIST, OUR LORD AND REDEEMER 
 
At last the weapon which they had been seeking, to cut off the 
 head of their enemy, was suddenly drawn from his own scabbard. 
 A letter was produced from Eusebius of Nicomedia, in which he 
 declared that to assert the Son to be imcreated would be to say that 
 he was "of one substance" (ofioovocov) with the Father. . . . The 
 letter produced a violent excitement. There was the very test for 
 which they were in search. The letter was torn in pieces to mark 
 their indignation, and the phrase which he had pledged himself to 
 reject became the phrase which they pledged themselves to adopt. — 
 Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Eastern Church, p. 228. 
 
 . . . And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of 
 the Father, only begotten that is to say, of the substance of the Father, 
 God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not 
 made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things 
 were made, both things in heaven and things in earth — ^who for us 
 men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, and was 
 made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day; went up into 
 the heavens, and is to come again to judge the quick and dead. — 
 Translation of the passage as first read at Niccea. 
 
I 
 
 XVI. THE DEITY OF OUR LORD 
 
 There are five methods by which it is possible to 
 construct an argument for the deity of our Lord; but I 
 shall not make exact use of any one of these methods. 
 Indeed, my aim is not to build a formal, logical argument 
 of any kind, but rather to show how closely our Lord's 
 divinity is related to his work in redemption. 
 
 A word should be said concerning the use of Saint John's 
 gospel. To trace all the windings of the criticism of the 
 fourth gospel is not feasibly within the scope of the plan 
 of this book. A bald personal assertion must suffice. A 
 Christian scholar can master the entire range of critical 
 discussion down to the latest contentions of Abbe Loisy, 
 and still have unshaken confidence in the Johannine 
 authorship and in the reliability of the fourth gospel as 
 a record of the words and deeds of our Saviour. The 
 best Christian scholarship will never give up this in- 
 valuable, this greatest gospel. I shall, therefore, in my 
 discussion, make not even the slightest discrimination 
 in favor of the synoptic gospels. Perhaps, however, it 
 may be well to add that the force of this discussion 
 would be essentially the same, even though not one pas- 
 sage were quoted from Saint John. 
 
 The Consciousness of Our Lord as Related to 
 Redemption 
 
 His Mission. 
 
 I. It is clearly in the consciousness of our Lord that 
 his mission was to save men. His full conception of 
 his work is gathered up in these words, recorded by 
 Saint Luke (19. 10) : "For the Son of man came to seek 
 
^i^ THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 and to save that which was lost." If it be urged that he 
 came to establish ''the kingdom of God" the answer is 
 that his very conception of that kingdom (as related to 
 men) was not merely philanthropic but actually re- 
 demptional. The personal entrance into that kingdom 
 was only possible by being bom anew (Saint John 3.3). 
 And sinners were called to repentance (Saint Luke 5. 32). 
 
 2. For this mission of redemption he had given up all 
 the glory of his preexistent state. (Read all of the 
 seventeenth chapter of Saint John's gospel and compare 
 it with the passage in the Epistle to the Philippians, 
 2. 5-11.) 
 
 3. In carrying out this mission of redemption he is 
 to lay down his life for men. In the tenth chapter of 
 Saint John's gospel read the comparison of himself with 
 the "Good Shepherd." 
 
 4. More definitely, this laying down his life was to 
 be a ransom paid — a ransom for many. "For the Son 
 of man also came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Saint 
 Mark 10. 45; also Saint Matt. 20. 28; and compare with 
 Saint Matt. 26. 28). 
 
 If we now put together these four points, surely we 
 must affirm as much as this: It was clearly in our Lord's 
 self -consciousness that he had, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, 
 given up the glory of his original estate and come into 
 this world with the one purpose to ransom men from sin 
 by means of his own death. 
 
 His Relation to Men. 
 
 5. Jesus ever regards himself as the final authority for 
 men. Notice the tone of authority in his forms of speech : 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you;" "Ye have heard how it 
 hath been said, but I say unto you." Sometimes the 
 strangest thing in his speech is not its content, but its 
 manner, the way it manifests an absolute consciousness 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 213 
 
 that he himself is the last court of appeal. (See Saint 
 Matt. 5. 18-39 and Saint John 14. 2, 3.) 
 
 6. Jesus regards himself as the supreme Master of men. 
 As supreme Master he demands obedience. "And why- 
 call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I 
 say?" (Saint Luke 6. 46; compare with Saint John 21. 
 22.) 
 
 7. As a further revelation of the consciousness of 
 mastership over men, notice our Lord's claim upon their 
 love. "He that loveth father or mother more than me 
 is not worthy of me ; and he that loveth son or daughter 
 more than me is not worthy of me*' (Saint Matt. 10, 37 ; 
 and, as a significant background, read the passage in 
 Saint Matt. 22. 37-39). 
 
 8. In relation to man's spiritual needs, Jesus regards 
 himself as the ultimate and perfect supply. "Jesus 
 answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of 
 this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of 
 the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but the 
 water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of 
 water springing uj) imto eternal life" (Saint John 4. 13, 
 14; compare with Saint John 10. 10). 
 
 9. Jesus regards himself as the Race-Man. Of all the 
 .discussions bearing upon the term "Son of man," in its 
 meaning as used by our Lord, the discussion by Professor 
 Stevens, in his Theology of the New Testament, seems to 
 me to be the most nearly satisfactory. But, for my 
 purpose, this term " Son of man " has no large importance ; 
 and for the sufficient reason that we already have, in the 
 four facts noted in this connection, a clear revelation of 
 our Saviour's consciousness of his peculiar relation to 
 men. When we try to state this peculiar relation in a 
 compact word we can do no better than to say that Jesus 
 Christ is conscious of being the Race-Man. On the one 
 side, he owns the race. It is his race in such a final way 
 
214 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 that he has the absolute right to make his claim upon 
 all men. No man, high or low, rich or poor, this or that, 
 can escape him. In his consciousness there is a great 
 racial grasp. And, then, on the other hand, he belongs 
 to the whole race. Every man has a property in him. 
 It is his supreme business to live with men and for men, 
 all men. Therefore, there is a fitness in his redemptive 
 work. It is not extraneous. It does not come at men 
 from the outside. Our Saviour is not a stranger. 
 
 His Relation to the Moral Law. Now, holding fast to 
 what we have, namely, our Lord's consciousness of the 
 redemptive purpose of his mission and of his peculiar 
 relation to mankind, it becomes exceedingly important 
 to discover the content of his moral consciousness. How 
 was he, in consciousness, related to the moral law under 
 which man must be redeemed, if redeemed at all? 
 
 10. The first thing to be marked here is that Jesus 
 Christ never manifested any consciousness of being himself 
 a sinner. This point does not in the least depend upon 
 the minute exegesis of such a text as that in Saint John's 
 gospel (8. 46), where our Lord exclaims, "Which of you 
 convicteth me of sin ? " It is a matter of personal bearing. 
 Read the record in the gospels from end to end, and you 
 become positive that Jesus felt perfectly free from sin. 
 
 11. Even as the separate texts are overarched by the 
 general bearing of Jesus, so his general bearing is over- 
 arched by the one fact that he claimed to have the moral 
 authority to forgive sin. " But that ye may know that 
 the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins" 
 (Saint Matt. 9.6; read the entire passage in Saint Mark 
 2. 5-12). 
 
 12. But all — the separate texts, the general bearing, 
 and the forgiveness of sin — are overarched by our Lord's 
 assertion that he alone is to be the final Judge of men. 
 ** For neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 215 
 
 given all judgment unto the Son" (Saint John 5. 22). 
 " For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father 
 with his angels; and then shall he render unto every 
 man according to his deeds" (Saint Matt. 16. 27). 
 
 With these three cumulative points before us, we can- 
 not say less than this: In his mission of redemption 
 Jesus Christ regarded himself as the embodiment of the 
 moral perfection and authority of God's absolute law. 
 His bearing and utterance were precisely as if in conscious- 
 ness he felt that he himself and the moral law were 
 interchangeable equivalents. 
 
 His Relation to God. This surprising discovery of the 
 content of our Lord's moral consciousness leads us to 
 dare to ask a most crucial question: Did the conscious- 
 ness of Jesus, in carrying out his mission of redemption, 
 affirm any peculiar relation to God? If so, what was 
 that relation? 
 
 13. Jesus regards himself as alone able to understand 
 God the Father and to reveal him. " All things have been 
 delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth 
 the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the 
 Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 
 willeth to reveal him" (Saint Matt. 11. 27). 
 
 14. Jesus regards himself as the one and only way unto 
 God the Father. ''Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, 
 and the truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the 
 Father, but by me" (Saint John 14. 6). 
 
 15. Jesus regards himself as so essentially one with 
 the Father (eyw Kai b Ttarrig tv eofiev) that having seen 
 Jesus one hath seen the Father. "Jesus saith unto 
 him, Have I been so long time with you, and dost 
 thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me 
 hath seen the Father; how say est thou, Show us the 
 Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, 
 and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I 
 
2i6 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me 
 doeth his works" (Saint John 14. 9, 10; 10. 25-33). The 
 RitschHan view that Christ was conscious of merely an 
 ethical union with God, an agreement with God in moral 
 purpose, seems to me to be superficial even as isolated 
 exegesis. But we cannot rest in any isolated exegesis, 
 the passage must be treated in harmony with all the 
 other claims of Jesus. So treated, it is evident that 
 Jesus held in consciousness such a fundamental relation 
 to God the Father as to be able to be, in the redemptive 
 work, a complete equivalent of the Father's authority 
 and nature. Jesus does not regard himself as a mere 
 delegate from God, but as the actual presence of God to 
 accomplish their salvation. 
 
 16. In Christ's estimate the Holy Spirit is peculiarly 
 related both to our Lord's redemptive ministry and to 
 our Lord himself. Not only does the Holy Spirit wait 
 for the end of that ministry, but he is to be sent by Jesus 
 himself. "Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is ex- 
 pedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, 
 the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I 
 will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, 
 will convict the world in respect of sin, and of 
 righteousness, and of judgment" (Saint John 16; read 
 the entire chapter). Godet's comment here is so pen- 
 etrating that I will quote it: "His departure was the 
 condition of his restoration to his divine state, and this 
 would enable him to send the Holy Spirit. It is the 
 same idea which we meet with in 7. 39: 'The Spirit was 
 not yet ; because Jesus was not yet glorified.' That Jesus 
 might send the Spirit, he must possess him as his own 
 personal life, and that as man, since it is to men that he 
 is to impart him." This, though, is deeper than we now 
 need to go. What I wish to emphasize is that Jesus 
 Christ, while on the earth, working out his redemptive 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 217 
 
 plan, was conscious of being the condition of the redemp- 
 tional activity of the Holy Spirit and also of being the 
 personal authority to start that activity. 
 
 His Consciousness After His Resurrection. ^ 
 
 17. We have caught glimpses of our Saviour's re- 
 demptional consciousness, here and there, during his 
 active ministry; but the inquiry natiu-ally arises, After 
 his resurrection, does he manifest the same consciousness, 
 the same conception of himself? ''And when they saw 
 him, they worshiped him ; but some doubted. And Jesus 
 came to them and spake unto them, saying. All authority 
 hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye 
 therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
 them into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of 
 the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things 
 whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you 
 always, even unto the end of the world" (Saint Matt. 28, 
 17-20; compare with Saint Mark 16. 14-16; also with 
 Saint Luke 24. 44-49; also with Acts i. 6-8). The 
 rationalistic contention that this passage reveals an 
 altogether different attitude from that of Jesus before 
 his crucifixion is such a contention as we would expect 
 from men who have never caught the spirit and pro- 
 gressive method in ovac Lord's mission of redemption. 
 But I am quite sure that to the real Christian conscious- 
 ness this most extraordinary passage effectually appeals 
 as an indorsement, in succinct expression, of the same 
 redemptional consciousness which our Saviour had during 
 his active ministry. The passage is neither more nor less 
 than the conjoining, for the establishment and future 
 work of the Christian church, of all the tremendous 
 claims which our Lord had ever made. 
 
 By an examination of our Lord's miracles and of his 
 conception of his relation to Old Testament prophecy we 
 could enlarge our study of his consciousness ; but we have 
 
 I 
 
2i8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 done enough to show three things: First, he regarded 
 himself as on a mission of redemption ; second, this mission 
 to be accompHshed by self-sacrifice culminating in his 
 death; third, this sacrifice having peculiar significance 
 from his racial relation to man, from his self -identification 
 with the moral law, and from his self -identification with 
 God. As the Son of God, as the embodiment of all moral 
 concern, and as the Race-Man, he, having sacrificed his 
 original estate, will now die that he may redeem mankind 
 — that is the intrinsic veinage of the self -consciousness of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Apostolic Consciousness 
 For our limited plan it is not necessary to consider 
 every expression in the New Testament of the apostolic 
 mind ; it is quite sufficient to note the beginning and then 
 the fullness of the consciousness. In each instance, the 
 question would be. When this apostle became conscious 
 of self, what were the important, the characteristic 
 things, he held ? Or, more simply, what were his 
 primary convictions? 
 
 The First Trace in Saint Peter. In looking at Saint 
 Peter in the book of Acts, we should not expect too much. 
 He was a great apostle, but he was in a fever. He had 
 been well-nigh overwhelmed by the rush of mighty events 
 — the trial and death of Jesus, the resurrection, the 
 appearance of Christ, the ascension, the "tongues parting 
 asunder, like as of fire," on the day of Pentecost. His 
 very boldness is a hot, violent thing almost certain to 
 obscure the inner vision ; and no utterance of his at this 
 time is likely to contribute much to Christian doctrine. 
 And yet for this very reason, for the very reason that he 
 is in such agitation, his consciousness is to us of large 
 worth. For we want to find out the characteristic inner 
 seizures of an apostle in all the upheaval at the very 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 219 
 
 beginning of the Christian church. The points which 
 stand out clearly are these : 
 
 1. While Saint Peter blamed the Jews, he regarded 
 the crucifixion of Christ as no accident, but a part of the 
 divine plan. "Being delivered up by the determinate 
 counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2. 23). "But 
 the things which God foreshowed by the mouth of all the 
 prophets, that his Christ should siifler, he thus fulfilled" 
 
 (3. 18). 
 
 2. While Jesus is "a man approved of God" (2. 22), 
 yet Saint Peter sees in Christ's name the authority, the 
 divine power, the dynamic finality of redemption from 
 sin. "And Peter said unto them. Repent ye, and be 
 baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ 
 unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the 
 gift of the Holy Spirit" (2. 38). "And in none other is 
 there salvation : for neither is there any other name under 
 heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be 
 saved" (4. 12). 
 
 3. But there is more. In Saint Peter's consciousness 
 there is more than that Jesus Christ is a man approved 
 of God and chosen beforehand to stiffer and die as the 
 one potent means for the salvation of men. Saint Peter 
 calls Jesus "the Prince of Life" (3. 15). Also he calls 
 him "both Lord and Christ" (2. 36). Saint Peter works 
 miracles only in Christ's name. "In the name of Jesus 
 Christ of Nazareth, walk" (3. 6). The gift of the Holy 
 Spirit he connects with the name of Christ (2. 38, already 
 quoted). And, finally, Saint Peter thinks of Jesus as 
 exalted by the right hand of God: "Him did God exalt 
 with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give 
 repentance to Israel, and remission of sins" (5. 31 ; 2. 33). 
 
 Not for a moment would we assert that we find in these 
 three points any more than a moiety of what we found in 
 the consciousness of our Lord. But is it not clear that 
 
220 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 we have here the he ginning of the same thing? Was Saint 
 Peter not beginning to realize that Christ's mission was 
 the redemption of man by self-sacrifice, culminating in 
 death; and that this sacrifice was not made by a mere 
 man, but by one peculiarly related to men and to right- 
 eousness and to God? May we not say that Saint Peter's 
 consciousness was, at least in prophetic outline, a copy 
 of his Master's consciousness? 
 
 The Fullness in Saint John. Leaving out Saint Paul, 
 whom I wish to reserve for our discussion of the atone- 
 ment, the fullness of the apostolic consciousness is best 
 seen in Saint John. And if we take Saint John as revealed 
 in the book of the Revelation we find a certain maturity, a 
 certain richness and ripeness in Christian conviction, not 
 to be found in any other apostolic writing. The book of 
 Acts might be called the spring of apostolic experience, 
 Saint Paul's epistles the summer, and the book of the 
 Revelation the autumn — ^when ripe fruits drop as "gentle 
 airs come by." I will make a brief analysis of Saint 
 John's doctrine of the Lamb of God. 
 
 The Lamb Slain. The figure of the Lamb was not, 
 as many seem to think, selected mainly to suggest the 
 gentleness of Christ. Indeed, this conception of a gentle 
 Christ is, just now, a reality so overemphasized as to be 
 almost lifted into unreality. Saint John is thinking, not 
 so much of a lamb, as of a lamb slain. ''And I saw in 
 the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, 
 and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though 
 it had been slain" (Rev. 5.6). 
 
 The Blood of the Lamb. The conception of the Lamb 
 slain is involved also in the expression "the blood of the 
 Lamb" ; but "the blood of the Lamb" is most definitely 
 related to the salvation of men from sin. Such a con- 
 nection is established even in the first chapter — "Unto 
 him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 221 
 
 blood" (i. 5). And then of those before God in white 
 robes the elder says: "These are they that come out of 
 the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and 
 made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (7. 14). 
 And speaking of the conquest over "the accuser of our 
 brethren," Saint John says: "And they overcame him 
 because of the blood of the Lamb " (12. 11). 
 
 The Lamb and the Book. As to the meaning of this 
 "book written within and on the back, close sealed with 
 seven seals" (5. i), many opinions have been given; but, 
 with any possible view. Saint John is paying an extra- 
 ordinary tribute to the power of the Lamb. He alone 
 can open the peculiar book. And I think we may safely 
 say more, even that Saint John himself furnishes the 
 clue to his meaning. A little later, in the ninth verse of 
 this fifth chapter, we read: "And they sing a new song, 
 saying. Worthy art thou to take the book, and to open 
 the seals thereof : for thou wast slain, and didst purchase 
 unto God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, 
 and people, and nation." This, to me, means, when put 
 into simple phrase, that the Lamb of God alone has power 
 to save men, and he has this power because he died for 
 their sins. That is, the strange, difficult book was the 
 problem of human redemption. And, further, the elab- 
 orate description of the book is but a figurative way of 
 saying that the moral difficulties of redemption were 
 almost insuperable. In fact, all through Saint John's 
 peculiar imagery, there is a most intense moral em- 
 phasis. His throne of God is nothing whatever but the 
 moral law. 
 
 The Lamb and the Redeemed. The first thing to note 
 as to the redeemed is that they do not come out of the 
 twelve tribes alone. "After these things I saw, and 
 behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, 
 out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and 
 
222 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 tongues, standing before the throne and before the 
 Lamb" (7. 9). Thus, redemption is Hfted out of ethnic 
 locality and given a racial extent. Again, these re- 
 deemed men are in a relation of loyalty and fellowship 
 with the Lamb. ''These are they that follow the Lamb 
 whithersoever he goeth" (14. 4). And, again and again, 
 we have the idea that the redeemed absolutely belong to 
 the Lamb by purchase. They "were purchased from 
 among men" (14. 4, etc.). 
 
 The Lamb and the Throne of God. In almost every 
 part of the entire book the Lamb sustains a peculiar 
 relation to the enthroned God. And the emphasis of 
 this peculiar relation culminates in the ascription of 
 worship "unto him that sitteth on the throne and unto 
 the Lamb": "And every created thing which is in the 
 heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on 
 the sea, and all things that are in them, heard I saying, 
 Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, 
 be the blessing, and the honor, and the glory, and the 
 dominion, for ever and ever" (5. 13). 
 
 If now we are willing to make due allowance for the 
 difference in style of speech, I am sure that we can see in 
 this doctrine of the slain Lamb an expression of essentially 
 the same redemptional consciousness which was manifest 
 in the life and sayings of our Lord. To Saint John our 
 Lord's mission was redemption; this redemption was 
 accomplished by a sacrificial death ; our Lord's relation to 
 men, in this redemption, was as wide as the human race 
 itself; and the redeemed will treat their Redeemer with 
 precisely that worship which they will pay to God upon 
 his throne. At the end of this short study of the apos- 
 tolic consciousness the one point which I most care to 
 lift up is that the apostles, from first to last, did not 
 look upon Jesus mainly as their teacher, their master, but 
 rather as their Saviour from sin; and because he was 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 223 
 
 their Saviour their natural tendency was to exalt him 
 into the moral power and absolute nature of God himself. 
 They did not get at the deity of Christ philosophically, 
 but redemptionally. They did not even try to explain 
 redemption theologically by calling Christ divine. It 
 was much more simple. Jesus Christ had saved them 
 from sin, and in all the glory of the new life in Christ 
 their whole being rushed out to him as to their God. 
 This explains why we have no more in the apostolic utter- 
 ance; and it also explains why we have so much. The 
 absolute deity of our Lord is surely in the message of the 
 apostles, but it is in that message not as systematic 
 theology, but as a redemptional experience. 
 
 The Problem of the Early Church 
 Now let us come down to the beginning of the fourth 
 century and see if we can make real to our minds the 
 Christian problem. At the very start we need to re- 
 member that the Christian church had inherited the rigid 
 monotheism of the Old Testament. That ''Jehovah our 
 God is one Jehovah" (Deut. 6. 4) was to the typical 
 Christian as authoritative as ever it was to any man of 
 Israel. Indeed, it can be shown that a basal monothe- 
 istic conception runs all through not only the writings 
 of the Greek fathers, but also the New Testament itself. 
 Profoundly considered, the New Testament is as mono- 
 theistic as is the Old Testament. Therefore, with such a 
 didactic inheritance, the early Christian church, to exalt 
 Jesus Christ into the Godhead, must have had a motive 
 forceful enough to overcome a most positive natural in- 
 clination. Let us, then, instantly banish from our minds 
 the notion that we are dealing with men who are pre- 
 occupied with a doctrinal readiness to deify Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 But with this monotheism they had inherited pre- 
 
224 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH . 
 
 cisely what we have been considering, that is, our Lord's 
 conception of his own mission in its aim and method and 
 relations; and this conception essentially repeated in the 
 manifest consciousness of the inspired apostles. Of course, 
 the apostles could not, for the leaders of the early church, 
 add anything to the authority of their Lord ; but the apos- 
 tolic teaching could and did make them more sure in their 
 interpretation of the real meaning of Christ's life and 
 words. Had no apostle ever reaffirmed, so to speak, the 
 consciousness of Christ, the psychological situation, and 
 the practical situation, would have been somewhat 
 different for the early church. It would have been 
 Martin Luther's situation, only many times more per- 
 plexing. 
 
 Their relation to the Scripture was, however, not 
 artificial, but dynamic. It was mediated through their 
 own Christian consciousness. And their Christian con- 
 sciousness was resultant from their Christian experience. 
 And the center of their Christian experience was a vital 
 relation to their risen Redeemer. When now we search 
 out their own personal bearing, in this vital relation to 
 Jesus, we find it to be not merely one of faith, but also 
 one of actual worship. There can be no question about 
 this. Worship of Christ was so common to the Christian 
 daily habit of life that Tertullian, in writing his Apology, 
 deems it necessary to defend the practice (xxi). Canon 
 Bright says: ''AH through the antenicene period. 
 Christians who knew as well as any Jew could have told 
 them that the Divine Unity was the root-truth of true 
 religion, did one thing which spoke decisively as to the 
 purport of their creed. With equal deliberation and 
 fervor, habitually and as a matter of course, throughout 
 life and in the face of death, clergy and people, learned 
 and unlearned, alike and together, worshiped the crucified, 
 risen, and glorified Jesus as their Lord and their God." 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 225 
 
 ''The sea was heaving as if in the hotirs before a 
 storm!" And when the storm burst, it was, for the 
 Christian faith, the most crucial moment in the entire 
 history of the church. Every Christian man should 
 be trained to understand the conflict with Arianism just 
 as every citizen of the republic should be trained to 
 understand the Declaration of Independence. Allow me 
 to lift the struggle out of its confusing nomenclature. 
 Essentially the situation was this: First, the one nerve 
 of the whole matter is that these Christian men had been 
 saved from sin. Seize that fact with all your strength, 
 or you will never comprehend this mighty battle. Sec- 
 ond, this salvation from sin they absolutely associated 
 with Jesus Christ and his atonement. Third, they had 
 inherited their Saviour's own interpretation of the 
 relation existing between his redemptive work and the 
 intrinsic peculiarity of his person. Fourth, this con- 
 sciousness of our Lord they found essentially repeated in 
 the whole body of apostolic experience, the repetition 
 gaining in force and completeness from first, to last. 
 Fifth, this inheritance from Christ and his apostles 
 exactly fitted and satisfied their own Christian conscious- 
 ness which was resultant from their own Christian 
 experience. Sixth, out of this combination of features 
 they had gained a conception of Christ which they spon- 
 taneously expressed by worshiping him even as they wor- 
 shiped God. This is a fair practical statement of the 
 inner situation; and it all can be gathered up into a 
 sentence : While up to this time they had no metaphysical 
 view (the most of them) of Jesus Christ, yet, in their 
 redemptional experience, they so regarded him that their 
 hearts went out to him in full worship. Now, Arianism 
 offered to these redeemed men, worshiping Christ — what? 
 A creature — a being who actually had commenced to live; 
 a being made by a swift, potent volition of Almighty God ; 
 
226 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 a being that could be duplicated — yes, duplicated as 
 often as God might wish to will it — duplicated as easily 
 as archangels or men or planets can be duplicated — 
 Arianism offered to these redeemed men worshiping 
 Christ that creature! Surely they had to reject the offer. 
 In the name of all they had inherited, and all they had 
 experienced, and all they had done, they had to reject 
 the offer. Their rejection of all creaturehood in Christ 
 was not only a redemptional consistency, but also a 
 redemptional necessity. It was not so much their 
 theology which was in danger as their Christian experience 
 itself. Indeed, I myself believe that had Arianism been 
 triumphant the Christian faith would have been swept 
 entirely away. Our experience with later depreciations 
 of our Lord's person indicates what would have taken 
 place on a large scale, namely, the gradual devitalization 
 of personal experience in Christ, and then, with this 
 devitalization, the rapid yielding to rationalistic demand 
 until every Christian doctrine was emptied of its original 
 meaning. 
 
 Now we can understand why the Athanasians were 
 obliged to go into metaphysics. The Arian offer was 
 too fundamental in its relations, and too subtle in its 
 statements, and too ingenious in its scriptural defense, 
 to be met on the surface in a practical way. There is 
 nothing so slippery as a heresy trying to enter the church. 
 To check it, the practical mind and the Scripture method 
 have ever been completely helpless. There is not one 
 Christian truth which can be fully defended against her- 
 esy, save by using more or less of metaphysics, for every 
 final meaning lies deep in metaphysics. Every Arian 
 contention had an important metaphysical implication. 
 The very idea of creaturehood itself is at last a metaphys- 
 ical idea. 
 
 Let us, then, come at the pith of this metaphysical 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 227 
 
 work of the Athanasians, and try to make it clear to our 
 modern way of thinking. The pith of the matter is in 
 these few words: ''Very God of very God, begotten, not 
 made, being of one substance with the Father. ' ' The Greek^ 
 reads thus : Oedv dXrjdLvdv ek Beov dXrjOivov, yevvridevra, ov ttot/- 
 devra, bfioovaLov rw narQi. The Latin reads thus: Deum ve- 
 rum de Deo vero, natum, non factum, untus suhstantiae cum 
 Patre. To bring out the significance of these words, I will 
 make a somewhat arbitrary analysis of them. There are 
 two statements, and then each statement is briefly ex- 
 plained by a peculiar phrase. The first statement is that 
 Jesus Christ is "very God," or, as a theologian to-day 
 would say, absolutely God. The explanation of this first 
 statement is in the peculiar phrase "being of one substance 
 with the Father." Upon this term substance a surprising 
 amount of learned research has been expended with a 
 small amount of philosophical insight. The instant 
 meaning of the word is of little concern, for it was nothing 
 but a weapon, and an accidental weapon at that, to 
 protect an underlying and extremely important idea, 
 namely, that the Father and the Son are what they are 
 by means of one and the same organism; that they are, 
 therefore, structurally necessary to each other, so that 
 neither can exist at all without the other. 
 
 The second statement, indicating the method of this 
 organic divine life, is that Jesus Christ, the Son, is "of 
 very God." The explanation of this second statement 
 is in the peculiar phrase "begotten, not made." This 
 explanation is really twofold: First, there is the term 
 "begotten," which evidently had come from Saint John's 
 "only begotten." (See Saint John's gospel i. 14, 18; 
 and 3. 16; and i John 4. 9.) Then this term is itself 
 further and negatively explained by the expression "not 
 made." As if they had said: Jesus Christ is of God, but 
 not in the sense that a creature is of God by optional 
 
228 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 creation. Christ is begotten, but not made. Here again 
 they were compelled to use the weapon at hand, but it 
 is plain enough what they meant. They were trying to 
 say that our Lord has a derived being, hut the derivation 
 is necessary and without beginning and without resultant 
 inferiority. The Father is the causal ground of the Son's 
 existence, but the Father does not choose to will the Son 
 into existence ; he must eternally do so by the very process 
 of his own eternal life. This causing the existence of the 
 Son is the method by which the Father is the Father, 
 and without being the Father he could not exist at all. 
 It is loose speech to call this process of begetting the Son 
 creation, I think ; but we may do so, if we are only careful 
 to insist that it is necessary and eternal creation. Many 
 times, and even in recent years, we have been told that 
 this eternal generation, or begetting, of the Son of God 
 is empty verbiage, a sort of theological rhetoric, incapable 
 of conception by the human mind. I entirely fail to 
 respond to the objection; and I fail to comprehend how 
 any thinking man, familiar with the struggle over the 
 Athanasian contention, can ever have even the slightest 
 difficulty in clearly grasping the meaning of Athanasius. 
 Surely we may conceive of two real persons ; both of them 
 without beginning; both of them alike in attributes, so 
 that neither one of them is inferior to the other ; and yet 
 one of them is the cause, furnishes the power by which 
 the other one has all his life ; and then we may conceive 
 that the causal person lives only by giving just as the 
 caused person lives only by receiving; and thus they exist 
 by means of one and the same organism. And, now that 
 I am at the point, I will dare to affirm that this eternal 
 generation of the Son is not only conceivable, it is also 
 one of the most fruitful conceptions in all Christian 
 thinking. It helps us to understand all those sayings of 
 Christ where, at one stroke, he insists upon both his 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 229 
 
 equality with the Father and his dependence upon the 
 Father, for these sayings reach widely beyond our 
 Saviour's temporary condition of humiliation. And not 
 only this, the Athanasian conception helps us to enter 
 into the very atmosphere of the plan of redemption. 
 Devotionally, to a Christian man, this supreme Christian 
 creed is of more worth than The Imitation of Christ. 
 
 The problem of the early church, given in a word, was 
 to protect, under perilous attack, the whole significance 
 of their redemptional experience in Jesus Christ. And 
 they did this, in full consistency with all their Christian 
 opinions, by maintaining that our Redeemer, Jesus 
 Christ, is, in his own person, eternally, necessarily, and 
 absolutely — God. It was the greatest piece of work ever 
 done by uninspired men. 
 
 The Modern Christological Peril 
 The Arians are gone, but their equivalent is still here. 
 The modem agnostic movement in Christology I can but 
 regard as a most serious attack upon the deity of our 
 Lord, and, through that, upon the entire significance of 
 redemption. And the extreme peril of the attack lies 
 in two things: First, that our leaders in the practical 
 work of the church are so occupied, so busy with large 
 affairs, that they do not realize the nature of the attack ; 
 and, second, that some of our greatest teachers and 
 writers have honestly made up their minds, under the 
 pressure of the new demands of science, that the old 
 Christology is now untenable, even if it ever had any 
 reality to the Christian mind. It is one of those critical 
 periods when a small man can be pardoned for wishing 
 there were some process by which he could for a few 
 years become Athanasius. 
 
 Fairly to bring before you this agnosticism in Chris- 
 tology, I will quote a passage from an editorial in one of 
 
230 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 our influential, nonsectarian, religious journals, a passage 
 which I have selected out of a large number of statements 
 equally pertinent, because it is perfectly steeped in genu- 
 ine spiritual quality. That is, I want you to see the 
 agnostic bearing in its loftiest spiritual mood. The 
 passage reads as follows: "I will not and I cannot enter 
 into polemical discussions about him [Christ] ; I will not 
 and I cannot enter into metaphysical analysis of him. I 
 have no capacity to define with fine phrases his relation 
 to the Infinite and the Eternal God, and I have no wish 
 to do so. I rejoice in the mysteries of his being which I 
 cannot solve. But to be like Jesus Christ is my deepest 
 and sincerest desire, to have some share in the work he is 
 doing is my supremest ambition; in his teaching I find 
 the sum of all spiritual truth, in his spirit the secret of all 
 life, and in himself an object of love and reverence such 
 that all I have is too little to give to him. If I try to 
 put this experience into a form of words, I can find no 
 better phrase than to say that I believe that the Eternal 
 Presence, whom no one can see or comprehend, manifested 
 himself in this one human life that all might see and com- 
 prehend him, and that through him all might come to he 
 sharers of his life and conformed to his image'' [italics mine]. 
 Any student remembering Professor Ritschl's remarkable 
 chapter on ''The Doctrine of Christ's Person and Life- 
 work" will note at once that in this editorial utterance 
 we have an expression of one side of the Ritschlian view 
 of "the Godhead of Christ." The Ritschlian view, very 
 briefly stated, is this : Christ is divine in the sense that he 
 has the value of God in the Christian experience. When 
 we analyze this value we find two things, namely, that 
 Jesus is ''the manifest type of spiritual lordship over the 
 world" and "the perfect revealer of God." That is, 
 we ascribe deity to Christ because he shows us how to 
 master the world and because he is to us in our religious 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 231 
 
 experience a perfect revelation of God. Concerning the 
 last point Ritschl says: ** As Bearer of the perfect revela- 
 tion, Christ is given us that we may believe on him. 
 When we do believe on him, we find him to be the Re- 
 vealer of God." But when we ask for more, when we 
 ask what Christ really is in fundamental relation to God 
 the Father, or what Christ is in himself, say, whether he 
 is a creature or not, then Professor Ritschl gives us such 
 an agnostic answer as we already have in the editorial 
 quoted. It is true that the Ritschlian answer has, to 
 many, a profounder appearance because it is related by 
 manipulation to the Kantian theory of knowledge. But 
 this Kantian theory of knowledge actually adds an extra 
 burden to the agnostic position, for the theory is weak 
 in itself. To make hiatus between the action of a thing 
 and the thing in itself is nothing but gratuity in philoso- 
 phy. It is much more reasonable to hold that when we 
 have the work of a thing we have the thing at work. In 
 spite of the great name of Kant behind it, this positing a 
 ground of action which is not actually in the action is a 
 purely arbitrary performance. To meet the Ritschlian 
 Christolog}'- from the standpoint of a theory of knowledge, 
 I would contend that if Jesus Christ has for men the com- 
 plete value of God, either he must be a sheer automaton, 
 a projected theophany, or he must be God himself. He 
 could not be a free man, he could not be a creature, for no 
 creature, however inspired, however helped, can remain 
 in self-consciousness and act beyond the range of the 
 finite. Either the free personality of Jesus must be given 
 up or his absolute Godhead must be maintained. 
 
 But my main concern is not with the Ritschlian theory 
 of knowledge, nor even with the Ritschlian theology by 
 itself, but only with this agnostic Christology, however 
 and wherever manifest. And I am concerned with this 
 agnostic Christology, not as a scientific theologian, look- 
 
232 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ing at its bearing upon this or that speculation in a system 
 of doctrine, but as an ordinary Christian man, looking 
 at its bearing upon the Christian experience in redemption. 
 You cannot transform our Saviour into an interrogative 
 and not do violence to the whole extent of the redemp- 
 tional consciousness, from that of the man who has 
 found forgiveness and peace in Christ to-day, back 
 through the Christian centuries, back through the apos- 
 tles, to our Lord's own conception of his mission and his 
 person. This, though, is not all. This agnosticism tends 
 to empty the atonement for sin of its profoundest ethical 
 and sacrificial meaning. This meaning is deeper than 
 any of our theories, and more important than all our 
 theories — it is the root-peculiarity of the Christian faith — 
 and it is this: God, in his awful holiness, so loved men 
 that he gave, out of his own being, his eternal, uncreated 
 Son to save them from sin unto everlasting life. There- 
 fore, our salvation has come only by the most costly 
 self-sacrifice on the part of God the Father. And in this 
 expensive self-sacrifice in the name of moral regard and 
 love lies the ethical quality as well as the evidence of 
 infinite love. But once hold that Jesus Christ was a 
 creature, and you have thrown all this holy costliness 
 away. And this agnosticism says that it cannot tell 
 whether Christ was a creature or not. We must have a 
 Christology that can tell, or violate, and then vitiate, the 
 Christian experience in redemption. It is not systematic 
 theology, but the vitality of the Christian life, which is at 
 stake. 
 
XVII, THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD 
 
 The central idea in the doctrine of the Incarnation is 
 this : The Son of God given as man, for the redemption of 
 man. This means that we are to start, not, as many 
 theologians do, with the man Jesus, but with the Son of 
 God living personally, self-consciously, in the glory of 
 the Godhead. Jesus Christ is God become man, and not 
 man become God. We must instantly reject this view 
 of a very peculiar man, or even of a miraculous man, 
 gradually coming nearer and nearer to God, gradually 
 being more and more filled with divine potency, gradually 
 being more and more conjoined with God, until at last 
 Christ is very God (" ganz und schlechthin Gott " — Rothe) . 
 "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and 
 we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from 
 the Father), full of grace and truth" (Saint John i. 14). 
 
 In recent years the question of the virgin birth has 
 become one of "the points of fire" in theological dis- 
 cussion ; and there are some who hold the miracle still, 
 as a veritable New Testament teaching, and yet say it is 
 "only a minor matter connected with the Incarnation 
 and should have a subordinate place in the doctrine." 
 I do not think that this apologetic treatment is wise ; nor 
 do I think that it represents the real Christian conscious- 
 ness concerning the matter. It is true that the miracle 
 of the virgin birth is not necessary, philosophically speak- 
 ing, to the accomplishment of the Incarnation. There 
 are several other conceivable ways by which the Son of 
 God might have become truly man. The virgin birth is 
 also entirely unessential (many famous theologians have 
 taught the contrary, however) in securing our Lord's 
 
234 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 freedom from depravity. Becoming man in an3rway 
 whatsoever, our Saviour would have been able to organize 
 his whole being about his moral ideal, with the supreme 
 motive of moral love, and the real companionship with 
 God his Father. All this we may admit ; but the virgin 
 birth, nevertheless, belongs to the process of the Incarna- 
 tion by the most inherent fitness. To have the stupendous 
 miracle of the Incarnation itself actualized by a natural 
 method would be as much out of place as to have the sun 
 rise without manifesting its nature in heat and light. 
 The nature of the miracle should come out ; the method 
 should express the inner nature of the event. Not only 
 so, but the virgin birth is in fitness with the great miracles 
 at the close of our Lord's earthly ministry, the resurrec- 
 tion and the ascension. The profoundest Christian con- 
 sciousness will, I am very certain, more and more intensely 
 do two things, namely, banish all miracle after the 
 apostolic period, and demand every biblical miracle which 
 tends to emphasize the extraordinary ethical meaning 
 of our Redeemer's sacrifice for sin. The question for 
 Christian men is not a scientific question in the least, but 
 only a question of moral emphasis, a question of redemp- 
 tional ethics. We will at last have everything which 
 renders more real, more glorious, our salvation through 
 the Incarnation and Death of our Lord. 
 
 Although we start with the preexistent Son of God, yet 
 as a result of the virgin birth we come in our thinking to 
 the proper manhood of Christ. But this is the precise 
 point where we must begin to avoid even the faintest 
 color of humanitarian thinking. We should not allow 
 even the chill of the climate of that thinking to penetrate 
 our hearts. The humanitarian conception of Jesus 
 Christ is wrong, not only in theory, but in feeling also. 
 And the feeling is more poisonous than the theory. The 
 manhood of Christ is not that of a human person. All 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 235 
 
 the personality of our Lord he brought with him into 
 human existence. He takes on an addition, a human 
 addition, to his individuaHty, that is all. The manhood 
 is ever impersonal, never anything but a lower coefficient 
 for the abiding person of the Son of God. The Christian 
 value of this view is very great, for it means that the 
 human nature of our Lord will never come to personal 
 emphasis, never come to triumph, so to speak, but will 
 always stand out for the Redeemed as evidence of the 
 sacrifice the Son of God made for man's salvation. The 
 dignity of man, man's worth in God's sight, is not to be 
 found in the humanity of Christ, as if our nature were so 
 wonderful that even the Infinite One might be proud to 
 wear it. That method of magnifying man is humanita- 
 rian and not truly Christian. No, the worth of man is to 
 be found in the one fact that God cared enough about us 
 to redeem us at such awful cost. Thus, the best place 
 for a man to discover his inner value is not at Bethlehem, 
 but at Mount Calvary. The manhood of Jesus Christ is 
 ever to be regarded as a part of the humiliation of the 
 Son of God. 
 
 This prepares the way plainly to ask the question: 
 Had there been no sin, and so no need of salvation, 
 would the Son of God have become man? Bishop 
 Martensen says: "Are we to suppose that that which is 
 most glorious in the world could be reached only through 
 the medium of sin? that there would have been no place 
 in the human race for the glory of the Only Begotten One 
 but for sin?" This conception of a cosmic meaning of 
 the Incarnation — that the universe itself could be made 
 complete only by God's Son becoming man; that sin is 
 but an accident which gave a peculiar occasion for the 
 carrying out of a great original plan — is fascinating to 
 every Christian theologian having Martensen 's philo- 
 sophical cast of mind ; but the splendid thing should, how- 
 
236 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ever we may cling to it in our dreams, be given up. For 
 it is out of emphasis with the New Testament teaching 
 as to the appalling nature and consequences of sin; and 
 it tends to obscure the divine costliness of redemption. 
 Indeed, this cosmic conception, once fully held, would 
 entirely change the Christian mood, for it would lift 
 Christianity out of its tragedy by giving the Incarnation 
 place among the normal and majestic processes. The 
 ethical stress, the abiding moral sorrow, in the Christian 
 life must be preserved in the most jealous manner. No 
 grander view in philosophy shall be allowed to entice us 
 away from our rejoicing sorrow in our Lord — rejoicing, 
 that he so loved us as to rescue us; sorrow, that the 
 rescue cost so much — cost even the breaking up of the 
 normal plan of the divine life. 
 
 In his exceedingly helpful work. The Christian View 
 of God and the World, Professor James Orr has made a 
 suggestion with a purpose to mediate between the cosmic 
 conception and the purely redemptional conception of 
 the Incarnation. The passage reads as follows: *'It 
 seems to me that the real source of difficulty in thinking 
 on this subject lies in not grasping with sufficient firm- 
 ness the fact that, however we may distinguish from our 
 human point of view between parts and aspects of the 
 divine plan, God's plan is in reality one, and it is but an 
 abstract way of thinking which leads us to suppose other- 
 wise. In our human way of apprehension we speak as if 
 God had first one plan of creation — complete and rounded 
 off in itself — in which sin was to have no place; then, 
 when it was foreseen that sin would enter, another plan 
 was introduced, which vitally altered and enlarged the 
 former. But if we take a sufficiently high point of view 
 we shall be compelled to conclude, I think, that the plan 
 of the imiverse is one, and that, however harsh the ex- 
 pression may sound, the foresight and permission of sin 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 237 
 
 was from the first included in it." I do not discover any- 
 worth in Professor Orr's suggestion. Under all our 
 imperfect language about two divine plans, there is a 
 reality which is not affected in the least by ** the foresight 
 and permission of sin." The reality is this: Sin is con- 
 trary to God's ideal. Sin is foreseen and permitted as a 
 second best rather than to have no personal creatures at 
 all. The present plan, although from all eternity, is not 
 what Infinite Holiness wanted, but even this plan is 
 better than to have the whole universe automatic. And 
 when we speak of two plans we are thinking of the actual 
 plan over against the divine ideal. And, coming to the 
 point at issue, the Incarnation, the real question is: 
 Does the Incarnation of the Son of God belong to the 
 divine ideal, does it express the normal relation of God 
 to the cosmos, or is it a part of a plan which is the divine 
 ideal modified by the certainty of sin and the purpose of 
 redemption? My only possible answer has been given to 
 this question. No Christian man should allow any touch 
 of Hegelian philosophy to place the Incarnation in the 
 divine ideal, in the normal life of God ; for so to place it 
 gives it cosmic majesty at the expense of intense redemp- 
 tional import. 
 
 The Humiliation of the Kenosis 
 The Teaching of Saint Paul. The Scripture passages 
 involved are foiir: Saint John's gospel i. 14; 2 Cor. 8. 9; 
 Heb. 2. 17; and Phil. 2. 5-8. Inasmuch, though, as the 
 great passage in Philippians more than covers the other 
 texts, it is necessary to discuss that one only. Saint 
 Paul's words are: "Have this mind in you, which was 
 also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God 
 (ev fioQcfyq deov vndpxf^v), counted not the being on an 
 equality with God (rd slvai loa Oe^) a thing to be grasped, 
 but emptied himself (kavrdv e/cevoxjev), taking the form of 
 
238 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 a servant (jjLop<f)7jv dovXov Xal36v), being made in the likeness 
 of men (ev biioK^iian dvdpcjncov) ; and being found in fashion 
 as a man {ox'iifJ'O,''''' ^vgeOel^ wf av^pwTro^*) , he humbled himself, 
 becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of 
 the cross." 
 
 Fully to understand this passage, one first needs 
 firmly to grasp the distinction between the term jLtop^?) 
 and the term o%^/^a, a distinction so convincingly 
 brought out by Bishop Lightfoot in his commentary. 
 The term jttop^^ is the deeper term, meaning the essen- 
 tial form of being, while the term oxniia means merely 
 the fashion of actual life. As a most simple illustration, 
 let us take an ash tree, say a mountain ash. The jttop^^ 
 of this tree is the entire combination of essential char- 
 acteristics which are necessary to constitute and manifest 
 that individual thing we call a mountain ash. Take 
 away even one of these characteristics, and it would not 
 be a mountain ash, but something more or less different. 
 Thus, the jtiop(/)^ of the tree is the tree's typical or 
 mountain ash individuality; that is, all the peculiarity 
 which constitutes the tree just that sort of an individual 
 which is classified as a mountain ash. But this tree also 
 has a oxniiay or fashion of life, which has no necessary^ 
 connection with the fact that it is a mountain ash. It 
 is crowded, or it stands alone in the clearing; it has a 
 suitable soil, or an unsuitable soil ; it is bathed in the sun, 
 or struggles upward in the shadow — such things make up 
 the tree's axni^cb. The discussion is not complete here, 
 but it is full enough to suggest all that we now require. 
 
 To Saint Paul, God himself has an essential form of 
 being and a fashion of life. The divine jtxop^^ comprises 
 all of God's essential characteristics — all the interlaced 
 attributes which are necessary to make God what he is 
 and to express what he is. The divine <7%%a, on the other 
 hand, is but the manner of God's life, or, as he is per- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 239 
 
 sonal, we may say, more closely, the manner of God's 
 experience. It is, I think, precisely what Saint John 
 means by 66^a, that "glory" which the Saviour had 
 with the Father before the world was. If you say that 
 this "glory" is also essential to God, I answer. It is 
 necessary from the standpoint of inherent fitness in a 
 perfect divine experience, but it is not necessary to the 
 very existence of God himself. 
 
 Keeping in mind this distinction between the essential 
 form of being and the more superficial fashion of actual 
 life, we are prepared to study Saint Paul's conception of 
 our Lord's humiliation. Of what did our Savioiir, the 
 Son of God, empty himself? Of that thing, surely, 
 which he counted not a thing to be grasped, as one holds 
 fast to a great prize, whether or no, namely, the to 
 elvai laa de(o, "the being on an equality with God." It 
 is plain enough that the Son of God, according to Saint 
 Paul, gave up being on an equality with the Father. 
 Right here it has been urged, however, that originally 
 our Lord was on an equality with God in two ways : one 
 way as to the form of being, the other way as to the 
 fashion of life. If so, which of these two, the form of 
 being or the fashion of life, did he give up? Or did he 
 (keeping to the exegesis) give up both? Canon Gifford 
 has, as far as I am concerned anyway, forever settled 
 the grammatical question at this point, showing that the 
 Greek cannot mean that the jt^op^?/, or essential form of 
 being, was surrendered. And we also reach the same 
 conclusion under the principle of exegetical economy. 
 The aim of the passage is to teach a deep humiliation; 
 and to protect that aim completely we need to hold no 
 more than that the fashion of life was given up. In 
 other words, the ineffable glory of God's experience is 
 enough, certainly, to make a full contrast with the 
 limitation of a human life ending in death upon a cross. 
 
240 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 And, further, this double exegetical conclusion would be 
 confirmed were we to press the question into a philoso- 
 phial consideration. And, last of all, we have the con- 
 sciousness of our Lord, as given by Saint John, that to 
 redeem men he had given up the glory of God and not 
 the Godhead. 
 
 What did our Saviour, the Son of God, take on? 
 "The form of a servant." The word j^op^^ is again 
 used here, and it means precisely what it means in the 
 verse before. Our Lord took on the attributes of a serv- 
 ant, or that essential form of being which pertains to the 
 cramping existence of a slave. Not the accidental 
 experience of a slave ; but, profounder than all that, the 
 very juop^^, the essential form, the fundamental being 
 of a slave. The idea here is not that Jesus Christ lived, 
 suffered, died like a slave, but that he was a slave. He 
 had the whole essential structure of a dovXo^. And 
 now Saint Paul tells us the exact kind of a servile fioQ4>ri 
 which otir Lord took on, the exact kind of a serv^ant that 
 he became. "Being made in the likeness of men." 
 The word used here is not /^op^^, but bixotoyfrn, of which 
 Bengel says that it "denotes a relation to other things 
 of the same condition." Saint Paul means that the 
 Son of God became, not only a servant, but also that 
 special kind of a servant which men are. He was a 
 human SovXog. It is simply saying that our Lord be- 
 came a man, but saying it in such a way as to put ex- 
 treme emphasis upon the servile limitations of manhood. 
 Even this is not all. The humiliation is still greater. 
 Our Redeemer not only became man; he also took the 
 actual experience — the oxrjfia — of a man ; and a peculiarly 
 humiliating axvi^, one that ended in death, and even in 
 the shame and torture of the death of the cross. " Being 
 found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming 
 obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross." 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 241 
 
 Analytically given, the teaching of the apostle Paul 
 as to the humiliation of the kenosis is as follows : i . Being 
 originally, and continually subsisting in the essential 
 form of God, our Lord had an inherent right to enjoy 
 the actual manner of life, or the transcendent experience 
 of God. 2. But this transcendent divine experience he 
 would not cling to regardless ; but gave it up as an act of 
 redemptional humiliation. 3. This impoverishment of. 
 himself was not all. There was a second stage of humilia- 
 tion in the further fact that he took on the servile essential 
 form of being which men have ; and then lived the actual 
 life of a man. 4. And there was a third stage of humilia- 
 tion ; for our Saviour obediently lived this actual life of a 
 man down to the experience of death. 5. And this third 
 stage of humiliation was emphasized by the suffering 
 and ignominy of crucifixion. 
 
 The Teaching Transferred to Systematic Theology. By 
 making a few changes in the words, the Pauline con- 
 ception of the kenosis can be expressed in the spirit and 
 form of systematic theology : As a preexisting person our 
 Lord had two things, namely, first, a divine nature with 
 all the attributes of the Godhead; second, a divine per- 
 sonal experience equal to that of God the Father. The 
 divine nature he did not give up, but has it eternally. 
 But the divine experience he could and did give up in 
 redemptional humiliation. And, further, he not only 
 surrendered this divine experience, but also had, in place 
 of it, a servile human experience of the most humiliating 
 extreme, reaching down to death, and that death even 
 by crucifixion. The possibility of this servile human 
 experience was due to the fact that to his original and 
 eternal divine nature he had added a human nature 
 which is the nature of limitation and dependence. 
 
 A Deeper Study of the Kenosis. If we are ever to ap- 
 preciate the profound significance of our Lord's humilia- 
 
242 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 tion our discussion of the kenosis must be deepened. 
 This study is all the more important because the doctrine 
 of the kenosis has been so manipulated as to seem to 
 impair the supreme authority of Jesus Christ ; indeed, has 
 been so manipulated as to be made to lend itself to a 
 purely humanitarian view of him. 
 
 What do we mean by the term nature when we are 
 speaking of an individual? Some writers seem to think 
 that an individual's nature is a sort of inner pulp out of 
 which qualities are extracted as literally as pins are taken 
 from a cushion. Toward such a crude, materialistic 
 conception there is no worthy mood short of impatience. 
 The fact is that there are many Christians who are 
 materialistic, not as to man's destiny, but as to man's 
 constitution. By the nature of anything I understand 
 neither more nor less than that structural law by which 
 the thing is precisely what it is. With Professor Bowne's 
 idea of being as active, one would say that this structural 
 law is the law of the thing's action: "Now, this rule or 
 law which determines the form and sequence of a thing's 
 activities represents to our thought the nature of the 
 thing, or expresses its true essence." This view is, I am 
 convinced, the only full stopping place; but for our 
 present purpose it is quite enough to say that under every 
 individual existence there is a basal plan or law which 
 determines all individual difference in characteristics. 
 Coming again to Saint Paul, I would say that his fj^opcpri 
 is the individuality which expresses this structural law. 
 But we need to be cautious here. The fiopcprj is not a 
 separated consequence. The nature, the structural law 
 actually appears in the jt^op^^. The common people 
 come quite close to the fact when they say, "It's the 
 very nature of the thing to be that way." 
 
 Making now our application to the kenosis, we can 
 hold that the original structural law of our Lord's being 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 243 
 
 is exactly that law which makes God what God is — self- 
 existent in organism, omnipotent — in short, having all 
 the divine attributes. Then, we can make a distinction 
 between this law as actually in the attributes and the^ 
 attributes as actually in self -consciousness. Holding fast 
 to this distinction, we can, I think, at least begin to 
 apprehend what took place in the Incarnation. The 
 divine life as a personal experience — as "glory over glory 
 streaming" — our Lord could and did give up; but he did 
 not, and he could not, give up the original structural 
 law, the basal plan of his being, that intrinsic fundament 
 by which alone he had the possibility of the ineffable ex- 
 perience of God. Our Saviour did not achieve manhood 
 by a reduction of his deity. Truly he became man, but 
 after he became man he had every divine capacity, every 
 divine power, every divine attribute. I well know how 
 impossible it seems, at first, that a person can have a 
 complete attribute and yet not seize it in selt-conscious- 
 ness ; but perhaps I can convince you not only that such 
 is the fact, but also that the fact is quite common in 
 human life. Here is a mother, for example, who has the 
 full attribute of love. By this I mean that she has the 
 habit of love fundamental in her womanhood. Her 
 capacity for love, we will say, has been gathered up into 
 a definite habit of love for her child. If you take away 
 this habit of love for that child, what remains will not be 
 the same individual woman at all. The attribute of love 
 belongs to her very nature. Indeed, we can go further; 
 for this habit of love may have been so personalized, so 
 indorsed by crucial self -decision, that the mother must 
 love that child forever. The habit has become a part of 
 her everlasting individuality. And yet, basal as the 
 attribute is, it does not always appear in the woman's 
 self -consciousness. The child may be sick unto death, 
 and the mother, in sheer exhaustion, may have fallen 
 
244 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 asleep. Would you in such case say that she had lost 
 out of her nature her love for her child? Not a man of 
 you would say such a thing as that ; you would say, She 
 has lost the love out of her consciousness, but she has it 
 still deep in her heart. If it be urged that the mother 
 is only a finite creature, I answer, That fact does not 
 change the other one, namely, that it is possible for a 
 person to have an attribute in the individual nature 
 and yet not to have the attribute in self-conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 But some brother, who is thinking of the present bibli- 
 cal situation, says: ''You would not claim, though, that 
 Jesus Christ was, in his earthly life, omniscient?" That 
 is precisely what I do claim. By the attribute of omnis- 
 cience I understand the inherent power for the perfect 
 intuition of all reality and all possibility; and I believe 
 that our Lord never for an instant even lost that struc- 
 tural feature out of his being. But this does not mean 
 that the attribute of omniscience was aplunge in self- 
 consciousness all through that period of humiliation. As 
 men, we ourselves have the inherent power for some 
 intuition — ^for instance, that a half is less than the whole. 
 Do we drop the power out of our nature every time we 
 drop the intuition out of consciousness? Or take even 
 acquired knowledge, as we term it — does a learned man 
 need to carry in self -consciousness all the time, day and 
 night, every item which he has acquired? May he not 
 dare to take some rest from his terrible burden? Sir 
 William Hamilton, I have read, could banish from his 
 consciousness all his vast erudition, and live for hours 
 at some one delicate point in philosophy ; but I have never 
 read that when he came out of his mood of abstraction 
 he discovered that he had lost every other truth and 
 every other fact which he had ever acquired. In my own 
 thinking I have considered not only omniscience, not only 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 245 
 
 love, but also all the remaining divine attributes, and my 
 firm conclusion is that our Lord emptied himself of no 
 divine thing save the transcendent personal experience 
 of God. 
 
 What we have said now makes it necessary more 
 closely to study our Saviour's humanity. When we say 
 that our Lord took on a human nature, precisely what 
 do we mean? I mean this: He added to the original 
 structural law of his being another law, namely, the law 
 of a finite, dependent creature such as man is. Under 
 this new law man's limited existence could be real to him. 
 Under the law of his divine nature he had an infinite in- 
 tuitive knowledge of man, but he could not have human 
 life as an actual personal experience. In the absolute 
 God there is no normal capacity for the finite. This is 
 not an imperfection in God any more than it is an im- 
 perfection in the sun not to be small enough for a candle- 
 stick. Or, take this illustration in suggestion: John 
 Burroughs knows much more about a snow-bird than the 
 "little, nervous, fastidious" Junco knows about itself; 
 and yet the great, kindly naturalist cannot without a 
 miracle have the actual limitations and peculiar experience 
 of the bird. The miracle of the Incarnation, as I lay hold 
 of it, is the conjoining of two structural plans of being 
 so that the incarnate Son of God has now two inherent 
 capacities, one for divine experience and the other for 
 human experience. For example, he can actually be a 
 6ovX,og in spatial limitations, as when, on the way to 
 Emmaus, he "drew near, and went with them"; or he 
 can override these limitations, as when he "vanished out 
 of their sight." If it be objected that all this took place 
 after his resurrection, I answer, first, that the resurrection 
 simply made fitting a revelation of capacity which was in 
 his nature all the time; and, second, that the same 
 philosophical significance belongs to the scene on the 
 
246 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Mount of Transfiguration, or to the scene at the grave of 
 Lazarus. Indeed, time and time again, our Saviour 
 plainly showed a double capacity in nature. 
 
 Before thoroughly testing my conception of the incar- 
 nate person of the Son of God I wish to state it clearly and 
 succinctly. After the Incarnation otu* Lord was one 
 person, living under two abiding structural laws of being, 
 and thus having two kinds of capacity, one kind divine, 
 the other kind human. His impoverishment, therefore, 
 was not as to nature but as to personal experience. And 
 the degree of this impoverishment was due to his redemp- 
 tional aim to live a typical human life "down to its 
 dregs of death." For to live such a life there must be 
 either an erasement (as in infancy) or a modification (as 
 in the temptation) of his original seizure in self -conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 The Infancy of Jesus. Under this theory that the 
 kenosis applies only to self-consciousness, what is our 
 conception of our Lord's human infancy? There can be 
 no severer test than to answer this question. That babe 
 was not a human babe in a profound philosophical sense. 
 Never under any possible conditions could that child have 
 become a mere man, a human creature. We must instantly 
 banish every trace of creaturehood from our conception. 
 That babe was as truly God as when he was absolute in 
 the glory of God the Father. The self -consciousness of 
 the Son of God is now in total eclipse, but he himself 
 is still organic in the Godhead and has still all the 
 inherent divine capacity. Not one divine attribute 
 has he lost out of his nature. And yet there is not an 
 atom of docetic life here. He does not seem to be living 
 the life of a human infant, he is living it. His dependence 
 upon Mary, all the first tiny outreachings of a child's in- 
 stincts, the first perceptions crawling slowly into clearness 
 — all are completely real — ^why? Simply because the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 247 
 
 structural law of a human being is at this time in supreme 
 dominion, and there is no personal experience of his divine 
 nature. 
 
 But not yet am I fully understood — some one is think- 
 ing, *' Would you, then, say with John Milton, 'Our Babe, 
 to show his Godhead true, can in his swaddling bands 
 control the damnM crew'?*' Can this infant exercise 
 the prerogatives of his deity? Certainly not, for such an 
 exercise of prerogative would require self -decision, and 
 such self-decision would require not only a divine nature, 
 but also the self -grasp and self -estimate of that nature in 
 consciousness. 
 
 Repeated Personal Choice of Humiliation. As the child 
 Jesus grows the two structural coefficients of conscious- 
 ness are less and less exclusive, and at last (we cannot be 
 sure as to the time) Jesus Christ is in positive seizure of 
 the structural law of his divine being. From this point 
 on he can at will overwhelm the human side of his life. 
 He has taken on the human nature for time and eternity, 
 but this does not mean that he may not banish it from 
 personal experience. The Son of God does not now need 
 to be hungry and weary and powerless, he chooses to be so. 
 Thus, there is a perpetual ethical quality in his humilia- 
 tion ; and just before his death this ethical quality reaches 
 its loftiest point. The death of Christ is not a humiliation 
 which was chosen once for all before the Incarnation, but 
 rather a humiliation chosen again and again, and at last 
 chosen in finality in Gethsemane. The death of Christ 
 was not necessary because he had a human nature; the 
 human nature merely rendered the experience of death 
 possible. The death of Christ was necessary only 
 ethically, was necessary only redemptionally. Even here 
 there is almost no Christian emphasis upon the fact that 
 Jesus was a man. The manhood was but a means to an 
 end. Because he was man he could die, and because he 
 
248 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 was God he would die for an atonement. Thus, that cross 
 itself is perfectly saturated with moral meaning. 
 
 The Temptation of Christ. This point of repeated per- 
 sonal choice naturally brings our discussion to the ques- 
 tion of our Lord's temptation. And here we need to 
 satisfy two kinds of men: First, there is the man who 
 fears that we may destroy, or obscure, the reality of the 
 temptation. This man says: "If you emphasize the 
 Master's Godhead so greatly, you make, as far as I can 
 see, his temptation into a mere deceptive exhibition. My 
 own temptations mean life or death, and never can I allow 
 you to take away from me the courage which has come 
 to my heart from believing that my Saviour's victory was 
 a real victory in a real conflict." The feeling expressed 
 here is genuinely Christian, and it may partly explain 
 the extreme modem emphasis upon the true humanity 
 of Christ. I only wish that the entire humanitarian 
 emphasis could be explained in this manner, for an error 
 which grows out of a Christian sentiment is never deeply 
 dangerous ; at least, never so deeply dangerous as an error 
 which grows out of a rationalistic root. But the man's 
 fear is the result of a superficial understanding of the 
 psychology of temptation. The reality of temptation, 
 and the strength of temptation, too, depends simply upon 
 the consciousness of pressure in motive. At this point the 
 popular notion that a weak person has the greater temp- 
 tation is altogether incorrect. The greater the person, 
 the greater the clarity of self -consciousness, the greater 
 the temptation, provided there is motive for wrongdoing. 
 But, as I have already shown, the strength of a motive 
 never can, in and of itself, mean the defeat of a free 
 person. Our Lord had, at the time of his temptation, 
 very great motives to keep loyal to his ideal and to his 
 Father; but his human nature did furnish motives to 
 violate that loyalty, and these motives were actual in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 249 
 
 consciousness, and were felt with all the mighty seizure 
 of his personality. In short, our Lord was, in self- 
 consciousness, under real pressure to reject the demand 
 of his own conscience, and this made his conflict real. 
 
 Again, there is the man who is in theoretical fear of the 
 very reality which the other man dreads to lose. In 
 apparent desperation, he asks: " Suppose Jesus Christ had 
 yielded to the temptation, what would have become of 
 the plan of salvation? You dare not teach that his 
 temptation was real in the sense that he could have be- 
 come a transgressor!" And the strange thing is that 
 scholastic ingenuity has laboriously tried to meet this 
 theoretical fear, when the answer is as clear as a cloudless 
 sky. The premise of the whole plan of redemption is the 
 omniscience of God. Let a man once master the signifi- 
 cance of redemption in its relation to personality and 
 moral character, and he must premise omniscience; he 
 can no more believe that God is nescient than he can 
 believe that man is coerced. It was foreknown that 
 when the Son of God took on a human nature and thereby 
 came to have a human probation, because of the new 
 motives in consciousness, he would in his personal free- 
 dom come off more than conqueror. Our Lord's tempta- 
 tion was real, his triumph was real; but the result was 
 certain (not necessary), just as the final, total outcome 
 of redemption is secure in the absolute omniscience of 
 God. 
 
 The Authority of Jesus Christ. Some years ago I wrote, 
 in another connection, these words: "Practically, the 
 Incarnation has no bearing whatever upon the authority 
 of our Lord; for he had, in his human life, instant ac- 
 cess to the resources of his Father. With such resources 
 at command he might choose not to know; but in such 
 chosen ignorance he would never speak as if he knew. 
 Surely the Son of God did not become man that he might 
 
250 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 make false statements." Then I added a quotation from 
 Canon Gore's Bampton Lecttires, which runs thus: ''Let 
 it be said at once that we could not, consistently with 
 faith, hesitate to accept anything on any subject that 
 our Lord meant to teach us." The aim and spirit of this 
 former utterance satisfy me still, but the point of view 
 does not satisfy me. It is superficial. When we speak 
 of the authority of Jesus Christ we are not thinking of 
 his infancy, but of his manhood after he had obtained 
 his redemptional self -consciousness. And, I must hold 
 that this redemptional consciousness involved a self- 
 grasp of his divine nature, and therefore of all his divine 
 attributes, and therefore of the attribute of omniscience 
 itself. So much as to theory; now let us turn to the 
 gospel record. Those writers who emphasize the kenosis 
 with a humanitarian intention are ever eager to call our 
 attention to our Lord's saying that even the Son knew 
 not " of that day and hour," but why do they not call our 
 attention also to those places where, as in the case of 
 Peter's denial, our Lord evinced a vision of future events, 
 some of these events entirely contingent upon man's 
 freedom? The gospel account, I think, does not fit into 
 their theory, but does fit into mine. The record bears 
 out my contention that in his manhood our Saviour had, 
 and had in personal command, the attribute of omnis- 
 cience, sometimes using it, and at other times refusing 
 to use it, in order that he might experience human life 
 to its limit. His humanity did render it possible for him 
 not to know, but his humanity did not render it impos- 
 sible for him to know what he would and when he would. 
 With such a conception of our Lord, I cannot admit that 
 he ever mangled a fact. To a certain extent he might 
 accommodate himself to the ignorance of men and to the 
 imperfections of his time; to a certain extent he might 
 wish to have an inner world as poverty-stricken as their 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 251 
 
 own ; to a certain extent he might wish to compel himself 
 to live in the unopened scene of to-day ; but it is too much 
 to ask us to believe that Jesus Christ ever held a false 
 opinion or spoke a false word. 
 
 The Question of Two Wills. "After the Saviour took 
 on a human nature did he have two wills, one divine and 
 the other human?" The very asking of such a question 
 is indicative of crude thinking in psychology; but the 
 question has some historical importance in theology, and 
 is also troublesome to many students, so I will take the 
 time to answer it. My answer must be : In one sense, No ; 
 in another sense, Yes. The will is not a thing added to a 
 person, nor an item distinctive in a person, say as a main- 
 spring is distinctive in a watch. When we say that a 
 person has will, we mean, or should mean, nothing other 
 than that he can will, that is, he has the inherent capacity 
 for decision. The person is one all the time, now feeling, 
 now thinking, now making volition, and now, perhaps, 
 doing all three at a personal stroke. Our Lord, also, was 
 not two persons, but a unitary personal being ; and when 
 he willed anything, he did not have, lying in behind, a 
 second will like a machine's supplemental attachment 
 which is kept in reserve to do a second kind of work. 
 But inasmuch as our Saviour did have, added to his 
 original divine nature, a human nature; and inasmuch 
 as that human nature could at times dominate his con- 
 sciousness, we should, it seems to me, call that volition 
 human which was made under such domination. Taken 
 in this manner, I could agree with men like Canon Liddon ; 
 but I would, of course, need to add that there were oc- 
 casions when our Lord's decision was, exactly speaking, 
 neither all divine nor all human, but rather divine-human. 
 For there were occasions when both natures were explicit 
 in self -consciousness. But the entire question of two 
 wills, I apprehend, comes out of a blundering effort to 
 
252 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 protect the integrity of each nature in Christ; and I 
 believe that such protection I have secured. 
 
 The Incarnation and the Cosmic Process. The theory 
 of "the double life" is held by a number of Christian 
 theologians who, like Bishop Martensen, do not find any 
 way to provide for the ongoing of the universe without 
 the constant volition of the Son of God. Thus the In- 
 carnation is isolated from the cosmic process, and our 
 Lord is conceived of as living two lives, one life as God 
 absolute and the other life as God incarnate. At one 
 and the same time he is (Proclus of Cyzicus) ''in his 
 mother's arms and on the wings of the winds. ' ' Professor 
 Briggs seems to hold to this view, for he says: ''The 
 kenosis is conceived in its relation to the work of Christ 
 Jesus for man in this world. So far as the Son of God 
 has other relations to the universe, the kenosis here 
 mentioned does not apply. As the Mediator of the 
 divine government of the universe, in whom 'were all 
 things created,' and in whom 'all things consist,' he con- 
 tinues in the form of God, at the same time as in the 
 Incarnation he empties himself of the form of God." I 
 can accept any miracle which is essential to the Christian 
 faith, but this view of a "double life" is to me not so 
 much a Christian miracle as a psychological monstrosity. 
 It is like saying that a man can be himself and his own 
 elder brother, and then calling it a miracle. In fact, 
 there is in the view no serious consideration of the in- 
 tegrity of personality. And not only so, but I must 
 regard the view as peculiarly dangerous. In consistent 
 thinking, it is likely to mean no more than that Jesus 
 Christ is the under and necessary agent of the Son of God, 
 who remains intact in the glory of the Godhead. Held 
 in this way, it would, equally with Ritschlianism, destroy 
 the ethical import of the self-sacrifice in the Incarnation. 
 And, equally with Ritschlianism, it would be likely, in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 253 
 
 unskillful hands, to drop into an unrecognized humani- 
 tarianism. And not only so, but the view is not even 
 required to protect the cosmic process. For the ongoing 
 of the universe only two things are necessary, namely, 
 the organism of the Godhead in its entire integrity, and 
 this perfect divine organism brought to volitional point 
 by the infinite will. The organism of the Godhead is not, 
 even during our Lord's human infancy, impaired in any 
 structural way by the Incarnation ; and this perfect divine 
 organism is brought to volitional point by the will of 
 God the Father. In fact, the will of the Father is always 
 the primary efficiency, for the Son does not originate 
 anything, but merely carries out in obedient love the 
 Father's purpose. Whether the work is redemption or 
 creation, the volitions of the Son are but the will of the 
 Father accepted and made doubly personal in projection. 
 After the Ascension. Our Saviour never ceases to be 
 both very God and very man. He never ceases to have 
 the two structural laws fundamental in his being. But 
 after the ascension his life is different from his earthly 
 life. His body now is a glorified body (Phil. 3. 21), and 
 his human nature is lifted out of the cramping limitation 
 of the time process. And yet he has the memory of all 
 the poverty and slavery and suffering of his earthly life ; 
 and he also has inherent capacity for all the finite ex- 
 perience which redeemed men will have after their own 
 glorification. Thus, in the most literal sense, our Lord is 
 ''one of us everlastingly." 
 
THE THIRD DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
 OUR LORD'S REDEMPTIVE WORK 
 
./ 
 
 Crucifixus est Dei Filius; 
 
 non pudet, quia pudendum est; 
 
 et mortuus est Dei Filius ; 
 
 prorsus credibile est, 
 
 quia ineptum est: 
 
 et sepultus, resurrexit: 
 
 certum est, quia impossibile. 
 
 — Tertullian, De Came Christi, 
 
259 
 
 XVIII. THE HOLINESS OF GOD 
 
 In discussing the Christian religion as related to the 
 moral person we glimpsed the subject of the divine 
 holiness ; but that glimpse is not enough for our coming 
 discussion. Before trying to apprehend the supreme 
 Christian doctrine of our Lord's redemptive work we 
 need clearly to understand the root of that work; and 
 the root of that work is surely the holiness of God. First, 
 let us turn to the Old Testament. 
 
 The Moral Sovereignty of God. The most striking 
 characteristic of the Old Testament is its perpetual 
 consciousness of the fact of God. At every crisis, and 
 even in every smaller turn of history, the scene is filled 
 with God. You hear human voices and see human 
 forms, it is true, but they merely emphasize the dom- 
 inating presence of the Lord God of Israel. ''God was 
 the only force in the world." But when we would get 
 behind this fact of God, when we would learn the exact 
 conception of God held in the Old Testament, our task 
 is not so quickly performed as one might at first suppose. 
 There are very dim places where hardly two Old Testa- 
 ment scholars can agree as to the final meaning; and, 
 what is more confusing still, there sometimes seems to 
 be a shifting from one meaning to another. All this 
 granted, however, yet there is a line of certainty. If we 
 are willing to avoid the insignificant utterances and the 
 sporadic moods, if we are anxious to catch only the 
 general trend in teaching, there will sooner or later 
 appear one mighty intention to urge upon men the moral 
 sovereignty of God. In the Old Testament, God is, 
 primarily, the Divine Ruler, who ever rules with the 
 
i 
 
 I 
 
 258 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 n" ost strenuous moral regard. He does not, he will not, 
 'ne cannot palliate sin. 
 
 '. This statement, though, should not be made without 
 ?/.naking another, a subordinate statement. The divine 
 ? moral regard taught in the Old Testament, although in- 
 flexible, is never heartless. Again and again the ethical 
 strenuousness is relieved somewhat by a note of loving- 
 kindness. There are a number of passages which are to 
 the point; but I wish you specially to note that ''very 
 surprising ancient passage" in the book of Exodus (34. 
 5-7) where Jehovah descends in the cloud, and passes by 
 before Moses, and proclaims himself as ''a God merciful 
 and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving- 
 kindness." But even in making this subordinate state- 
 ment we must preserve the ethical environment. About 
 every gracious utterance in the Old Testament there is an 
 atmosphere charged with moral lightning ; and sometimes 
 there is more than the atmosphere, there is the actual 
 flash. Indeed, the actual flash appears in the instance 
 just cited, for the passage, you will remember, closes 
 thus : " and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting 
 the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the 
 children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth 
 generation." It has been said that such visitation is 
 injustice, and so cannot be moral, cannot reveal the 
 moral sovereignty of Jehovah. I admit without hesita- 
 tion that such visitation is downright injustice ; and were 
 it in no corrective connection, were there no supplemental 
 revelation, it would be clearly immoral. But in a crude 
 situation, where free and sinful persons are being gradually 
 trained toward a moral goal, injustice itself can be so 
 related to that goal as to become urgent for it, and thus 
 become moral, not in essence, but in effect. Practically 
 considered, anything is moral which in its sum total of in- 
 fluence tends to make men hate sin and love righteousness. 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 259 
 
 What I hold, then, is this: The cumulating sweep of 
 Old Testament teaching is insistent upon, not the majesty, 
 not the supremacy of God, but his moral majesty, his 
 moral supremacy. And, further, that the expressions of 
 divine tenderness do not weaken this moral insistence. 
 And, fiirther, that the so-called ** immoralities of the 
 Old Testament" are not like the same cruelties and 
 strokes of injustice left ambiguous, or uncorrected, in 
 the natural world; but are so peculiarly connected, and 
 so plainly supplemented, as ultimately to exalt the 
 moral sovereignty of God. 
 
 The Fatherhood of God. It is not worth the cost to 
 take sides on the question whether or not the doctrine of 
 the Fatherhood of God is taught in the Old Testament. 
 Even if it is taught there the teaching is out of the main 
 current, and results in a very different degree of em- 
 phasis from that which we find in the New Testament. 
 As Professor Sanday has said, "And yet the doctrine of 
 the New Testament assumes such different proportions 
 as almost to amount to a new revelation." Nor is it 
 worth our time to try to analyze the New Testament 
 doctrine of the divine Fatherhood to bring out exactly 
 all the elements in their perfect combination. Indeed, 
 after reading all the important special works on the sub- 
 ject I am far from certain that such an analysis can be 
 made. The one thing essential to us in this discussion, 
 however, stands out very clearly in the New Testament. 
 That one essential thing is this : God loves men as a perfect 
 father loves his children. The last word of revelation is 
 not that God is a moral sovereign, but that he is a sover- 
 eign Father. Mr. Lidgett's phrase is an exceedingly 
 happy one — God is ''the Father regnant.'' 
 
 There is no fundamental contradiction between the 
 conception of the moral sovereignty in the Old Testa- 
 ment and the conception of sovereign Fatherhood in the 
 
26o THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 New Testament, but there is an extremely important 
 difference in practical emphasis. In the one case, the 
 emphasis is upon enthroned righteousness; in the other 
 case, the emphasis is upon personal love. The righteous- 
 ness has in it loving-kindness, and the love is thoroughly 
 moral, and yet the change in emphasis creates another 
 world. It is something like the difference between a 
 bright day in January and a bright day in June. Both 
 days have the shining sun ; but in January plants freeze 
 even in the simshine, while in June they grow and burst 
 into bloom. The Old Testament is essentially a world 
 of moral sovereignty, and it is frigid. The New Testa- 
 ment is essentially a world of moral love, and it is creative. 
 Why is the emphasis in the New Testament upon God's 
 love? There are two reasons which readily come to mind : 
 I. There is a reason in what may be called the method 
 in the divine pedagogy. Man being what he is, a person, 
 and as he is, a sinner, the first thing necessary to be done 
 for him is to place the most tremendous stress upon the 
 moral fact ; but this tremendous stress is sure to generate 
 despair in the sinful moral person. He has the ability to 
 exercise faith, I admit ; but the faith exercised under such 
 circumstances cannot complete the man's religious life. 
 Therefore, this extreme stress upon the moral fact is first 
 modified by the Messianic expectation, and then trans- 
 formed into dynamic gladness by the full revelation of the 
 moral love of God in the gospel of the Son of God as 
 actual Redeemer. 2. The second reason is profounder. 
 The inspired authors of the New Testament are ever 
 writing from the standpoint of the redemptional con- 
 sciousness. And God's primary motive in redemption 
 is love. In other words, God does not make an awful 
 self-sacrifice to save men because he is a moral ruler, and 
 as a moral ruler is seeking to obtain subjects for his 
 kingdom. The point of view is not what God needs 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 261 
 
 rector ally, but what men can experience. Both in crea- 
 tion and in salvation God is profoundly thinking of men. 
 He wants them to have the possibility of moral character, 
 moral service, and moral fellowship ; and then to have the 
 glorious experience in everlasting joy. True it is, and 
 we need to repeat it again and again, that God's total 
 interest in men is a moral interest. He does not care for 
 a man whether or no. But this divine moral interest is a 
 vast beneficence, and is not merely an ambition to get 
 a new colony of citizens. 
 
 The Holiness of God. Our discussion thus far has been 
 of some worth, and yet it has been all on the surface. 
 When we ask what is meant by moral love, the expression 
 which we have used so freely, we come upon a large 
 problem in harmony, namely, the fundamental har- 
 monization of God's personal love for men with his 
 infinite moral concern. It is easy enough to join the two 
 things in a phrase, but such verbal work does not show 
 the principle of harmony. And, as a matter of fact, this 
 principle of harmony has not been seriously sought by 
 the conventional theologian. 
 
 The solution of our problem in harmony lies, I am 
 convinced, in fully grasping the ultimate, basal meaning 
 of the divine holiness. First of all, though, let us ttirn 
 to the Word of God. The primary significance of the 
 term holiness as used in the Old Testament (^1P) we 
 cannot determine beyond a doubt. Several times, in 
 the last fifteen years, I have been obliged to change my 
 tentative opinion, until now I am more and more inclined 
 to think that the word, in its earliest usage, had no dis- 
 tinctly ethical content. Probably it was merely a vaguely 
 reverent indication of the bare idea of Deity, and probably 
 the only definite thought always in the mind was this : God 
 j is unapproachable. Just as in going into the presence of 
 
 Koyalty upon the throne, men would not rush at their 
 
2(52 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 king, but would drop to the earth, or by some peculiar 
 gesture manifest their reverence, so in a higher degree 
 they regarded their God as not easily to be approached ; 
 and the term holiness was (not '*an otiose epithet") the 
 rhetorical index of their reverent hesitation before God. 
 But in the clearest personal moods there must have been 
 in the mind some reason for the divine unapproachable- 
 ness; and this reason would naturally correspond with 
 the conception of God which was held at the time. 
 Gradually, then, the holiness of God would itself come to 
 mean as much as the actual conception of God could fur- 
 nish of content. Then, as under the great ethical proph- 
 ets, the whole view concerning Jehovah was charged with 
 moral quality and with moral intensity, the holiness of 
 God would, at last, mean nothing less than his absolute 
 moral perfection. But, whether we accept this theory 
 or another, we can safely affirm that there are lofty places 
 in the Old Testament where the statement that God is 
 holy certainly means that he is absolutely and inflexibly 
 righteous. 
 
 The term holiness, as used in the New Testament 
 {dyiog, dyiorrjg, dyLc^avvrj) is one of those words taken 
 over into Christian thinking and filled with a new 
 spirit. Admittedly the word has a point of connection 
 in the old Greek usage, but in the New TcvStament it 
 gains ethical tone and fullness. Professor Stevens says: 
 "The Christian use of the word lifted it into accord with 
 the highest ethical conceptions, and gave it the idea of 
 separateness from the sinful world, harmony with God, 
 the absolutely Good Being, moral perfection. Thus 
 dyiog is, above all things, a qualitative and ethical term." 
 The prophets of the Old Testament were, I believe, the 
 teachers who made possible this final moral establish- 
 ment of the idea of holiness. In the Christian view the 
 holy man is the man whose entire being is organized under 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 263 
 
 moral concern. But when the term is applied to God 
 the full Christian meaning is, I think, something more. 
 It is that God is both absolutely perfect and absolutely- 
 moral. In God there is no blemish of any kind whatso- 
 ever; but this divine perfection is urged with the most 
 intense ethical emphasis. God is perfect and he is 
 righteous. The Christian conception starts with God's 
 perfection and culminates in his moral life. It is not that 
 God is perfect because he is moral, but rather that he is 
 moral because he is perfect. Thus God's moral life obtains 
 its awful unyieldingness, for it is rooted in the wholeness 
 of the Infinite Being. This point I must insist upon, for 
 it has, when we come to the doctrine of the atonement, 
 the most vital importance. The final Christian idea is 
 that God must be ethically satisfied, not because he 
 bechances to have a moral standard, but because he has 
 a moral standard and — and this moral standard is the 
 necessary expression of his absolute perfection. 
 
 This is the Christian view, as I understand it; can we 
 give to it any clarity by philosophical consideration? I 
 think we can in the following manner : The fundamental 
 individuality of God himself is under law, in the sense 
 that it is a complex of initial qualities made organic under 
 an eternal plan of harmony. An attribute, say that of 
 justice, cannot exist in God in isolated pulsation, but 
 must enter into modifying relations. Justice must come 
 to terms with all God is. Perhaps you will understand 
 me better if we think for a moment of the most noble 
 kind of a man. In fact, it was by studying such a man 
 that I first found the clue to the point. This most noble 
 kind of a man is never just, never absolutely just, for 
 his sense of justice is always chastened by other noble 
 qualities which he possesses. In truth, no Christian man 
 could be merely just for even one day and not cease to be 
 a Christian. No one thing in large manhood gets its 
 
264 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 own way entirely. I will not say that lofty character 
 is a compromise, for the word compromise has taken on 
 a flavor of weakness, if not of positive unrighteousness; 
 but I will say that every lofty character is a modification 
 of many qualities into harmonious reciprocity. Much 
 more, then, it seems to me, is the individuality of God an 
 organic whole where many items of attribute are modified 
 and adjusted unto complete harmony. This underlying 
 plan of adjustment, determining precisely to what extent, 
 and precisely in what connection, an attribute is to have 
 force, is what I understand by the law of God's holiness. 
 Therefore, the law of holiness, or holiness in the divine 
 nature, is the finality, the fundament of all God's being. 
 Holding fast to this view of basal holiness in God, 
 we have a clear entrance into the significance of his 
 moral concern. God is a personal Being and so is 
 both self-conscious and self -decisive. The law of holi- 
 ness appears in self -consciousness, and the result is 
 moral distinction with moral obligation. (This will be 
 considered under moral law.) Toward this moral dis- 
 tinction and obligation God bears in self -decision. 
 This self-decisive attitude toward the eternal distinc- 
 tion between right and wrong is the divine moral 
 concern. In intrinsic personal meaning this moral con- 
 cern in God exactly corresponds to a man's loyalty to 
 righteousness. But in application to God the word 
 loyalty is unsuitable, for personal loyalty implies the 
 pressure of antagonistic motives, and the absolute God 
 has no antagonism in motive. And yet the divine adop- 
 tion of the law of holiness is not mechanical, but a genuine 
 personalization of that law. Quickly you will catch my 
 meaning if you think of the life of a saint in the final 
 glory. He is established, perfectly fixed in moral character, 
 and so he has only one sort of motive urgent toward 
 volition ; but nevertheless his decision is not an automatic 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 265 
 
 Spring at a mark — it is a self -decision made in the full 
 vision of self -consciousness. 
 
 We are now prepared to deal directly with our problem 
 in harmony. Our question is this : How can we harmonize 
 the moral concern of God with his love for men? Or 
 we can state the question in another way : How can God 
 have toward man a unitary bearing which has in it both 
 personal love and moral concern? First of all, I must 
 entirely reject the pantheistic view that the love of God 
 has primary relation to man ; that man, or at least some 
 moral person, must be created to furnish an object for 
 the divine interest as an inherent and original yearning. 
 This view has crept into the very life of modem think- 
 ing, and the result is a sentimentalism which is most 
 unwholesome. God had no intrinsic need of men, or of 
 any created objects for his love. The love of God is 
 eternally complete, eternally infinite as an actual ex- 
 perience in the triune Godhead, an experience belonging 
 to the ineffable fellowship of the divine Persons. 
 
 Next, let us notice the wonderful relation which this 
 eternal love of God sustains to the law of holiness. Love 
 is the dynamic of the law of holiness. It is by means of 
 this very love that the organization of the Godhead is 
 effected. The law of holiness becomes personal in moral 
 concern, but it becomes dynamic in personal love. Thus, 
 love is the holiness of God absolutely actualized in per- 
 sonal experience. And thus, the eternal love of God is 
 the most intensely moral feature in the whole life of the 
 Godhead. 
 
 Coming now to God's love for man, what is it? exactly 
 how much does it mean? It is infinite moral benefi- 
 cence, neither more nor less. The love of God for man 
 (whether we have in mind God the Father, or all the 
 divine Persons in one individual organism) is but a moral 
 longing to have all men achieve the everlasting experience 
 
266 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 in personality of moral concern made dynamic in the 
 rejoicing fellowship of moral love. In other words, God's 
 interest in men is an unselfish reflex of the divine manner 
 of life. God wants men to have, in their finite capacity, 
 the same kind of moral organism, the same kind of 
 moral joy in fellowship, that the Persons of the God- 
 head have in their infinite capacity. Thus, our problem 
 in harmony is solved by regarding the love of God for 
 men as nothing other than an altruistic manifestation of 
 his moral concern itself. 
 
 The Wrath of God. Already we have considered God's 
 hatred of sin as expressed in depravity, in the natural 
 world, in the broken brotherhood of man, and in the 
 abnormal event of human death; but, if we are true to 
 the whole message of the gospel, we must go further, 
 and teach that this divine hatred of sin is also manifested 
 in a bearing of wrath toward sinful men. Often in our 
 preaching we say, ''God hates sin, but he loves the 
 sinner." The utterance is profoundly Christian in spirit, 
 but it should never be taken to mean that the immediate 
 divine attitude is complacent toward a man now in sin; 
 as if the man himself could be actually separated from 
 his action and motive. The plain Christian fact is that 
 the immediate attitude of God toward any and every 
 sinner is one of anger. While God will do all possible 
 things to rescue a man from sin, he bears toward the man 
 in positive wrath every moment of his sinful life, provided 
 that the sin is personal sin involving moral responsibility. 
 
 Sometimes this wrath of God is regarded as so purely 
 and so intensely personal that it amounts to hardly more 
 than a self-determined, infinite, personal grievance against 
 the sinner. And, again, the wrath is regarded as so im- 
 personal, so much a consequence of law, that it amounts 
 to hardly more than automatic fury. Bishop Martensen, 
 in his Dogmatics, gives us an illuminating word when he 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 267 
 
 says : The wrath of God is " a revelation of love restrained, 
 hindered, and stayed through unrighteousness." His 
 meaning is that God's love is like a torrent in mighty 
 rush, and when you try to dam the rushing stream it 
 beats in violence against the obstacle. But Martensen's 
 conception requires a most careful treatment, or it, too, 
 will drop all ethical quality in a mechanical movement. 
 In some way the wrath of God must be first lifted out of all 
 possibility of caprice and then filled with personal deci- 
 sion. It must be made a thing of both law and personal- 
 ity. As a protective enlargement of Bishop Martensen's 
 conception, I will state my own entire view of the wrath 
 of God: 
 
 1. The fundament of the matter is the law of the 
 holiness of God. 
 
 2. In every situation the primary demand is that this 
 law of holiness shall be expressed. 
 
 3. The objective expression of this law of holiness is 
 always by the personal decision of God, and therefore 
 the expression is a thing of both law and personality. 
 
 4. In a normal situation, where there is a response in 
 the yielding of the moral person, the law of holiness is 
 fully expressed by the unitary bearing of God in simple 
 moral love. That is, God's entire interest comes out in 
 one throb of infinite longing for the moral completion of 
 the man's life. 
 
 5. In an abnormal situation, where on the part of the 
 moral person there is actual resistance instead of a yield- 
 ing response, the law of holiness can be expressed only by 
 a twofold bearing, in which two things are emphasized, 
 namely, a desire to rescue the sinner, and an inflexible 
 regard for the law of holiness. It is a case where the 
 freedom of man throws God's bearing out of normal 
 tendency and makes necessary a separate emphasis upon 
 moral concern. 
 
268 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 6. In a situation which is not only abnormal, but also 
 irrevocably so, the law of holiness can be expressed only 
 by moral concern alone. In this hopeless situation God's 
 only interest is in holiness. I well know how out of 
 range it is with the temper of the Zeitgeist, but we should 
 firmly say this : The holy God does not, and cannot, love 
 a moral person who has in his freedom forever settled it 
 that he will have no moral life. Such a man must be 
 everlastingly under the full wrath of God. Moral love is 
 not now beating against an obstacle, it has been finally 
 rejected and flung back into the primary insistence upon 
 the law of holiness. 
 
XIX. THE MORAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 The Moral Law. As a starting point in rejection, I 
 will analyze that view of the moral law which was given 
 by Hugo Grotius in his famous Defensio, and which 
 became the foundation of the pure governmental theory 
 of the atonement. 
 
 1 . There are two kinds of divine laws : First, those laws 
 which are grounded in the nature of things; or the abso- 
 lute laws, such as, for example, the law against bearing 
 false witness. Second, those laws which were created 
 by the naked will of God ; or the positive laws, such as, for 
 example, a ceremonial law. 
 
 2. An absolute law is fully irrelaxable. A positive 
 law is not, in itself, irrelaxable, although it may be made 
 irrelaxable by a divine oath, or by a promise of God, or 
 by a special decree that it shall not be changed. 
 
 3. The law involved in the atonement is that sin shall 
 be punished according to its demerit, or with a punish- 
 ment "corresponding to the crime" (posnd tali qucs 
 culpcB respondeat). 
 
 4. This law that sin shall be punished according to its 
 demerit is not grounded in the nature of things, and is 
 therefore a positive law, and is therefore by nature 
 relaxable. 
 
 5. Now comes the question, Has this law, as to the 
 punishment of sin, ever been made irrelaxable by a 
 divine oath, or by a promise of God, or by a special de- 
 cree ? After a discussion of Scripture which is remarkably 
 shrewd even for a consummate lawyer, Grotius answers. 
 No; neither by oath, nor by promise, nor by special de- 
 cree, has this positive penal law been made tinalterable. 
 
270 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 6. The law, then, that sin shall be punished with a 
 punishment *' corresponding to the crime " can be changed 
 whenever God so determines. Thus, the way is prepared 
 for the Grotian theory of substitution. 
 
 One is tempted to criticise this Grotian conception of 
 the moral law from end to end, but we have no time to 
 spend on such wasteful work. I will say only this much, 
 If there is even the tiniest spark of reality in the view I 
 have no ability to make the priceless discovery. In the 
 one place where Grotius could touch reality (the idea that 
 something is deeper than the volition of God as personal) 
 his treatment of the place results in distinctions which 
 are as unreal as they are ingenious. 
 
 But it is not enough to reject Grotius; we need to find 
 a larger conception of the moral law. If we cannot lift 
 the view of the moral law out of this atmosphere of the 
 court of justice, there is not even the slenderest possibility 
 of effecting any conviction in the Christian consciousness. 
 The Christian man knows right well that the God of his 
 salvation does not deal with men like a justice of the 
 Supreme Court. In seeking this larger conception of the 
 moral law our work is not a minute biblical exposition, 
 but rather a philosophical study based upon the entire 
 sweep of Christian teaching. Were we to consider Saint 
 Paul alone, our final conclusion would be larger than any 
 which could be exegetically drawn from his use of the 
 term voiioq, although his use of that one word would 
 surely, in some passages, carry us far beyond the Mosaic 
 law. 
 
 Before stating my own conception of the moral law, 
 there is one important thing to be done in preparation, 
 namely, to trace moral distinction to its causal finality. 
 We touched upon the matter in our discussion of the 
 holiness of God, but the full consideration was, for peda- 
 gogical reasons, left over for this connection. Our ques- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 271 
 
 tion is this: Passing beyond the relative right, what 
 makes any absolutely right thing right, or any absolutely 
 wrong thing wrong? Where and what is the eternal 
 fundament of moral distinction? where and how is the 
 eternal fixture of moral fact? There are several answers 
 which I must instantly reject. The causal finality is not 
 arbitrary. It is not what Horace Bushnell once de- 
 nominated ''the bare almightiness of God." The sheer 
 divine will does not create moral distinction, and then by 
 naked volition fix one thing as right and another thing as 
 wrong. Nor is there a law of moral distinction and fact 
 beyond God, a law which can be conceived of as separate 
 from God, ''grounded in the nature of things." There 
 is no "nature of things" outside of God and in eternal 
 operation. God is the total ultimate. I will not try to 
 thrust even a point of imagination in behind God. All 
 this suggestion of "two Infinites," one of them being the 
 personal God, and the other being an impersonal some- 
 what, can have no lodgment in my philosophy of the 
 Christian faith. Nor is Dr. Dale's view that "in God 
 the law is alive'' — that "it reigns on his throne, sways his 
 scepter, is crowned with his glory" — altogether satisfac- 
 tory. Dale was, I am sure, on the track of the fact, but 
 he did not quite clear up his thinking. He does not 
 seem to be certain what and where this law is which 
 comes to life in God. Sometimes the law appears to be 
 placed in God, and then, again, outside of God. And 
 then, again, the law is treated as if it were a pure ab- 
 straction, an economical point of departure in thinking. 
 But the law which Dale needed, and which probably he 
 was seeking, is the law of God's own organism, the law of 
 holiness. This law of holiness is profounder than the 
 personal life of God, and yet it does come to dominion 
 only in that personal life. It has all the steadiness of a 
 necessary impersonal Infinite ; and yet it becomes ethical 
 
272 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 in personal experience and becomes completely effective 
 in personal love. 
 
 In closer work let us now see how this law of holiness is 
 personally ethicalized. You will remember that in our 
 study of personality we made a distinction between the 
 two beats in self -consciousness, self -grasp and self- 
 estimate? The same distinction is of worth in clearing 
 up the situation here. When in self -grasp God seizes the 
 law of holiness, or the basic plan of his own harmonious 
 life, he places an estimate upon it, and that estimate is 
 the personal beginning of the whole moral world. In 
 that estimate there are two features: first, moral dis- 
 tinction; second, moral obligation. That is, God both 
 makes in self-consciousness an eternal difference between 
 right and wrong and feels that the law of holiness insists 
 upon the right. The feeling of this insistence is the 
 original "sunrise of the moral ought." To this moral 
 ought, expressing the law of holiness in positive demand, 
 God gives himself in eternal self -commitment ; and this 
 self -commitment is moral concern, or the divine personal 
 righteousness. Now we are on the watch for the definite 
 moral fact. A moral fact, absolutely considered, is 
 anything in harmony with the law of holiness thus per- 
 sonalized. For example, it is wrong to tell a lie, not be- 
 cause there is a law to such effect '' grounded in the nature 
 of things," and not because God has arbitrarily willed it 
 so ; but because God must will it so to satisfy the person- 
 alized law of holiness. God himself cannot will a false- 
 hood, cannot will contrary to truth or reality, and not 
 violate his own moral concern for the law of holiness as 
 that law is grasped and estimated in the divine self- 
 consciousness. Words are poor tools here, but through 
 all their poverty you will not fail to note the important 
 thing which I am trying to do for Christian ethics by 
 tracing all moral life back to an unyielding fundament 
 
i 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 273 
 
 without sacrificing the philosophical and practical sig- 
 nificance of the personal God of the Christian faith. Of 
 course, my analysis is sheer speculation, but it is a 
 speculation which lends itself constantly to wholesome 
 Christian thinking and feeling. And, further, you will not 
 fail to note that my view supplies a clue to every element 
 in the conscience of man, and indicates how profoundly 
 man has been created in the image of God. In a final 
 brief word, then, a thing is absolutely right, not because 
 God wills it, but because God wills it in harmony with the 
 plan of his own being as realized in his own personal life. 
 Browning (as usual) is not far from the truth when he 
 says: 
 
 *' I trust in God — the right shall be right 
 
 And other than the wrong, while he endures." 
 
 I will now state, as succinctly as may be, my full 
 conception of the moral law. It is nothing other than 
 the law of God's holiness realized in his personal expe- 
 rience, and may be itemized as follows : 
 
 1. The law of holiness in the nature of God. This is 
 the bare plan of harmony according to which the entire 
 Godhead is one individual organism. 
 
 2. The law of holiness in the self -consciousness of God. 
 As the law is grasped it is estimated, and thence arises 
 moral distinction and moral obligation. 
 
 3. The law of holiness in the self -decision of God. As 
 the moral obligation appears, God eternally yields to it 
 in self -commitment, and thence arises the personal bearing 
 of moral concern, and all specific volitions determining 
 moral fact. In moral concern, God wills every right 
 thing to be a right thing. 
 
 4. The law of holiness in the personal fellowship of 
 moral love. The law of holiness is the plan of harmony; 
 but the plan is actually carried out, the holiness is per- 
 fectly effected under the supreme motive of love which 
 
274 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 the persons of the Godhead have in their fellowship. 
 For example, the law of holiness requires that the attri- 
 bute of justice shall be modified to a certain extent ; but 
 this modification is accomplished only under the impulse 
 of moral love, not God's love for man or any creature, but 
 that love which binds the persons of the Godhead together 
 in blessed fellowship. Just as we found, in our study of 
 the moral person, that moral love is the one motive pow- 
 erful enough to organize completely his whole being, so 
 the Infinite Being himself becomes an organism by 
 means of moral love. I say here, too, moral love, for the 
 love of God gathers up the entire moral process in per- 
 sonality and so has in it moral distinction, moral obliga- 
 tion, and moral concern. But these moral momenta are 
 all transmuted into rapture by a personal love which is 
 absolutely unselfish. In this way the divine moral life 
 is lifted out of the frigid dreadfulness of mere duty, the 
 moral ought is made a thing of rejoicing enthusiasm. In 
 moral concern no person of the Godhead is thinking of 
 himself; he feels that concern in his love for the other 
 persons. Thus, we are able to conceive of an inflexible 
 moral life which is also completely altruistic. 
 
 The Moral Law in the Moral Government. Again we 
 come to that great principle of personal expression. 
 When we urge this principle as a law inherent in the 
 divine personal life it may look at first as if we were 
 yielding a tribute, if not a full assent, to the pantheistic 
 idea of the necessary development of Deity. But we are 
 yielding no tribute whatever. According to our view, 
 no manifestation unfolds in any way the individuality 
 of God. Nor is any expression necessary to achieve, or 
 to develop, the personality of God. Already, God is a 
 Being absolutely perfect in both individuality and per- 
 sonality. The expression is purely personal. It is the 
 normal activity, you might almost say the vocation, of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 275 
 
 personality. Personality cannot be idle, it must be doing 
 something, it wants "to get out under the sky." This 
 is a totally different notion from that involved in pan- 
 theism, different practically as well as theoretically. I 
 will, however, admit this much: Were there only one 
 person in the Godhead, this principle of expression would 
 be entangled with a need of personal fellowship ; and the 
 solitary God would, in his awful loneliness, be driven to 
 create persons to satisfy this social need ; for it is simply 
 inconceivable that any self-conscious being could live 
 eternally alone. Even this would not lead (necessarily) 
 to pantheism, but it would make the universe of created 
 persons so fundamentally necessary to complete God's 
 life that a most unwholesome sentimentalism would be 
 the outcome in theology. But the doctrine of the Trinity 
 saves us from the sentimental entanglement. Moral per- 
 sons are created by the triune God of the Christian faith 
 under the motive of beneficence united with the prin- 
 ciple of personal self-expression. 
 
 The case as to the expression is, however, still clearer 
 when we begin to consider the moral government; for 
 the moral government deals with finite persons after they 
 have been created ; and there can be no question but that 
 God must deal with them according to the law of his 
 own inner life, and not according to an arbitrary plan 
 prepared for the occasion. God must so act toward 
 moral creatures as to express truly what he is in himself. 
 God could not create even a wake-robin as a mere whim, 
 much less could he be arbitrary in matters of moral 
 destiny. There are to-day writers who hold (if I under- 
 stand them) that the moral law was made by the will of 
 God on purpose to govern moral persons. Such a view 
 is entirely beyond my credence. The moral law is eternal 
 from its base to its summit, from the basal plan of holiness 
 to the crowning experience of moral love. There would 
 
276 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 have been the moral law, precisely the same, too, had the 
 universe of things and persons never been willed into 
 existence. But this eternal, this unchangeable law does 
 find a new expression in the moral government of God. 
 Indeed, the moral government is nothing other than the 
 moral law itself now related, in a scheme of perfect 
 economy, to all created moral persons. It is the holiness 
 of God made active in actual administration. 
 
 The Goal of the Moral Government. In this administra- 
 tion the moral government has an end in view, has a 
 definite goal which it is ever seeking to reach. This goal 
 may be conceived under the figure of three concentric 
 circles. The comprehensive outer circle is the cosmic 
 goal. At last, under the moral government, the entire 
 universe is to manifest the perfect holiness of God. 
 Often it has been affirmed that such a complete cosmic 
 expression of holiness requires that every individual moral 
 person shall ultimately become holy. I do not see any 
 force in the affirmation. What is required is this: The 
 final universe must express all God is. And therefore 
 every created person must at last be so placed and so 
 treated as to reveal the moral law in its long reach from 
 the law of holiness, on through moral concern, to moral 
 love. But it is interposed, ''A sinner forever unsaved 
 could not evince the moral love of God." Why not, I 
 ask, if God had loved him and used all the resources of the 
 Godhead to save him, and his everlasting condition and 
 placement manifested all the facts? 
 
 The middle circle is the goal of the individual holy person. 
 I am now thinking of angels, and all individual moral 
 persons, who have no racial connection. The outcome 
 in this individual goal is more than a bare expression of 
 divine holiness ; it is such an expression in all the joy of 
 actual fellowship with God. All holy persons are to be 
 admitted into the presence of God, and to witness the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 277 
 
 glory of God. It will not quite answer to say that the 66^a 
 is enlarged, but we can say that it is accommodated to 
 the moral creature, so that he can, in a finite measure, 
 take part in the ineffable experience of the Godhead. In 
 no absolute sense can a creature ever be like God, whether 
 in being or in experience ; but a holy creature can live in 
 the blaze of the infinite life and never be consumed ; can 
 gather into consciousness the supreme felicity and never 
 be overwhelmed. The innermost circle is the racial goal. 
 This innermost goal has all the significance of the other 
 two, as to expression of holiness and fellowship with God ; 
 but it has, further, a peculiarity of its own. Both the 
 expression and the fellowship are to be with a racial 
 emphasis. The race of mankind is to be made a holy 
 brotherhood; and in perfect social solidarity is to be 
 taken into the divine dd^a, and is there to enjoy all God 
 is and manifest all God is. Thus, the goal of the moral 
 government is one goal, as to the expression of holiness ; 
 but three united goals, as to the manner of expression. 
 
 The fact of a goal to be reached implies intentional 
 movement toward it; and this movement is the one key 
 to all method in the moral government. God does this 
 or allows that, all because he is trying to move. For the 
 sake of economy, let us now keep man alone in mind, 
 inasmuch as we are working specially toward man's re- 
 demption. Men are sinners and men are free persons, 
 and therefore holiness cannot be expressed at a stroke, as 
 omnipotence might be expressed. The full expression 
 can be achieved only by means of a gradual movement 
 which ends in the goal. This movement is secured by 
 augment in expression. That is, in every vsituation the 
 moral government is trying to get into concrete mani- 
 festation something more of God's moral law than was 
 evident before. Connected with this principle of aug- 
 ment is the principle of crisis. Now and again the 
 
278 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 history breaks into great points of meaning where 
 the moral law completely dominates the event; and the 
 movement under moral government fairly leaps toward 
 the goal. But the one supremely important thing to 
 fasten in the mind, before we take up such details of 
 moral government as penalty and moral requirement, is 
 this idea of movement by augment toward the goal. 
 
 Moral Requirement. The moral requirement is what 
 the moral government requires, as a moral demand, in 
 any given stage of the movement on toward the final 
 goal. In the Garden of Eden the requirement was: 
 " But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou 
 shalt not eat of it" (Gen. 2. 17). Whatever this was in 
 fact, it was a temporary demand suitable to the child- 
 hood of the race; but still it was the beginning of a 
 movement toward the goal, and never is it to be treated 
 out of relation to that movement. 
 
 Another stage in moral requirement is expressed in the 
 Decalogue, or the Law of the Ten Words, where mo- 
 rality and religion are knit together in "a charter of 
 ethical piety.*' For our present purpose it is not neces- 
 sary to discuss the relation this law sustains to the 
 different codes of Hebrew law. (See article by Professor 
 Driver in the Hastings Dictionary, vol. iii, p. 64.) All 
 we need is to note the loftiest point in the Hebrew con- 
 ception of moral requirement. On the one hand, we are 
 not to regard the Decalogue as an unimportant matter of 
 merely local significance ; and, on the other hand, we are 
 not to regard it as a finality. The Decalogue was fulfilled 
 by our Lord. Following Turretin, some theologians 
 have taught that the Decalogue needed no correction, 
 and our Lord only brought out its real meaning. But 
 our Lord's new interpretation amounted to a correction 
 of the whole spirit of the Decalogue, and was a mighty 
 movement toward the goal of the moral government. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 279 
 
 As Professor Paterson has shown (Hastings Dictionary, 
 vol. i, p. 580), it is quite ''possible to construct with 
 scarcely a gap the Decalogue according to Christ"; and 
 at every point there is movement toward the larger ideal. 
 Following the law of Christ, one does not cease to be a 
 moral man; but he passes into the spirit of moral love, 
 which now fills his consciousness and gives motive for the 
 most noble conduct. It is somewhat as if a man having 
 a lofty ideal of duty, but also having with this ideal of 
 duty a spirit of sheer legalism, should suddenly find him- 
 self in active possession of a great heart throbbing 
 warmly toward man and God. Would he not be sur- 
 prised? The exact truth is in the utterance of Saint 
 Paul when he says: "Love therefore is the fulfillment of 
 the law." (Read Rom. 13. 8-10.) 
 
 Penalty. There are two very different views of the 
 significance of penalty in the moral government: One 
 view is that penalty is the automatic visitation of justice 
 upon the offender in precise regard to his guilt. Just 
 as fire will burn you to the extent of your exposure, so 
 justice will reach you to the exact extent of your sinful 
 exposure. According to this view, when extremely and 
 consistently held, there is in penalty no reformatory aim 
 and no deterrent office. The other and opposing view 
 is that all penalty is really utilitarian — reformatory, or 
 educational, or in some way protective of moral interests. 
 In this connection Dr. John Miley did some wise work in 
 trying to weld the two views. In his Systematic Theol- 
 ogy (ii, 173) he says : '' There are the two offices of justice. 
 But they must never be separated. Penalty, as a means 
 in the use of justice, has an end beyond the retribution 
 of sin. But, whatever its ulterior end, it is just only as 
 it threatens or falls upon, demerit. And only thus can 
 it fulfill its high office in the interest of moral government. 
 It is the failure first properly to discriminate the two 
 
28o THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 offices of justice in the punishment of sin and the pro- 
 tection of rights, and then properly to combine the two 
 elements in the one doctrine of punishment, that the 
 rectoral atonement exposes itself to really serious objec- 
 tions, which yet have no validity against a true con- 
 struction of the theory." This is a complete answer to 
 those who claim that to hold the rectoral aim and worth 
 of penalty is to have "no ground of punishment but the 
 benefit of others." But my objection to the rectoral 
 theory is not in the least like the objection of those 
 represented by Dr. Charles Hodge. To me, the whole 
 utilitarian conception, even if so modified that "the law 
 of expediency [only] determines the measure of divine 
 penalties within the demerit of sin," is not profound 
 enough. It does perpetual violence to the awful note 
 of reality in redemption. I am not satisfied with auto- 
 matic penalty, nor with expedient penalty, nor with the 
 two kinds joined together to express the office of justice. 
 We must have, I believe, the larger conception that the 
 aim in all penalty is so to express, not the justice of God, 
 but the holiness of God, as to secure actual movement 
 toward the final goal of moral government. This ex- 
 pression of the divine holiness is not automatic, and yet 
 it is as necessary as though it were automatic. This 
 expression of the divine holiness is not an expedient 
 either, and yet it has more moral value in the moral 
 government than any expedient could have. Penalty is 
 for actual movement toward the holy goal. And so the 
 only way to do without a given penalty is to procure such 
 a substitute for it as will express more completely or more 
 intensely the holiness of God. 
 
XX. THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF DEATH 
 
 Before considering the teaching of the Bible which 
 bears directly upon the death of Christ, we need to de- 
 termine what meaning death itself has from the Christian 
 point of view. My plan is first to indicate the non- 
 Christian conceptions of death ; then to examine the Bible 
 in both Testaments ; then to furnish a philosophy of death 
 adequate to express and protect the Christian meaning. 
 
 Non-Christian Conceptions 
 The Idealization of Death, Death is idealized into a 
 friendly and even beautiful event by some of the modem 
 philosophical writers, but especially by the modem 
 poets. This poetic idealization is not to be explained 
 by the natural temper of the poet, which inclines him to 
 *' transform a stump into a stairway," but rather by the 
 fact that he is (with notable exceptions) a heathen mystic 
 made superficially hopeful by a Christian atmosphere. 
 He is an easy optimist who has never paid the ethical 
 price of a profound optimism. A perfect example of 
 this class is Walt Whitman, who has influenced modem 
 poetry in a most subtle manner. In a poem, written as 
 a protest against the thoroughly Christian painting, 
 Death's Valley, by George Inness, Whitman says: 
 
 *'Nay, do not dream, designer dark, 
 
 Thou hast portrayed or hit thy theme entire: 
 
 I, hoverer of late by this dark valley, by its confines, having glimpses 
 
 of it, 
 Here enter lists with thee, claiming my right to make a symbol too. 
 
282 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 *' For I have seen many wounded soldiers die, 
 
 After dread suffering — ^have seen their lives pass off with smiles ; 
 
 And I have watched the death-hours of the old; and seen the infant die; 
 
 The rich, with all his nurses and his doctors; 
 
 And then the poor, in meagemess and poverty; 
 
 And I myself for long, O Death, have breathed my every breath 
 
 Amid the nearness and the silent thought of thee. 
 
 "And out of these and thee, 
 
 I make a scene, a song, brief (not fear of thee. 
 
 Nor gloom's ravines, nor bleak, nor dark — for I do not fear thee, 
 
 Nor celebrate the struggle, or contortion, or hard- tied knot). 
 
 Of the broad blessed light and perfect air, with meadows, rippling 
 
 tides, and trees and flowers and grass, 
 And the low hum of living breeze — and in the midst God's beautiful 
 
 eternal right hand, 
 Thee, holiest minister of Heaven — thee, envoy, usherer, guide at last 
 
 of all. 
 Rich, florid, loosener of the stricture-knot called life, 
 Sweet, peaceful, welcome Death." 
 
 The Scientific View of Death. This scientific view Dr. 
 Newman Smyth has gathered up, for popular service, in 
 his interesting apologetic, The Place of Death in Evo- 
 lution. For our purpose here we do not require the 
 details of the discussion. The gist of it all is that, as a 
 result of scientific investigation, death is regarded as a 
 servant of life in the economy of nature. Death is not a 
 finality of failure, but a sacrifice to secure a higher process 
 of life. Death is a crucial feature in the normal move- 
 ment toward the finest vitality. Dr. Smyth says: *'As 
 life becomes more organized and complex, death pre- 
 vails. It comes to reign on earth, because it comes to 
 serve. At length in the history of life a living form arose, 
 so multicellular and so well organized that it ceased to 
 continue the course of life, simply by dividing and mul- 
 tiplying itself into daughter cells; it had acquired the 
 power of giving up its life for another ; it died in order that 
 its offspring might continue its life in forms struggling to 
 still higher organization and better fitted to survive while 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 283 
 
 it must perish. One parent form passes away in order 
 that others may catch up the motion of life, and in turn 
 transmit to others life's rhythm and joy. Thus death 
 comes in to help, and not merely to hurt; to help life 
 ftirther on and higher up, not to put a stop to life." 
 
 The Conception of Death in the Bible 
 In the Old Testament, By death the writers of the Old 
 Testament usually mean what we mean by physical or 
 bodily death — not annihilation, but the cessation of this 
 existence on earth by the separation of the soul from the 
 body. Professor A. B. Davidson says: *'By death the 
 Old Testament means what we mean when we use the 
 word. It is the phenomenon which we observe. Now, 
 all parts of the Old Testament indicate the view that at 
 death the person is not annihilated ; he continues to sub- 
 sist in Sheol, the place of the dead, though in a shadowy 
 and feeble form occasioned by the withdrawal of the spirit 
 of life." 
 
 Sometimes the objection has been raised that death 
 as used in Gen. 2. 17 (''for in the day that thou eatest 
 thereof thou shalt surely die") could not have meant 
 bodily death, inasmuch as Adam and Eve did not, ac- 
 cording to the account, die a bodily death on the day of 
 their disobedience. But the real meaning of the Hebrew 
 is not fully brought out in our English Bible, not even in 
 the Revised Version. The real meaning is (see Dillmann's 
 Commentary in loco): "Death will be certainly for thee 
 the consequence thereof." But even if the English trans- 
 lation were correct, the objection would have no force ; 
 for death is a long process which only culminates in the 
 final separation of the soul from the body. As a matter of 
 direful fact, a man begins to die as soon as he is born. 
 Our entire relation to the natural world is one of death; 
 and many of us have a hard fight of it to keep alive at all. 
 
284 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 As Martin Luther said in his Table Talk: ''Death peeps 
 out at every limb." 
 
 I carefully examined about two hundred passages, 
 where the term death is either used or implied, in the Old 
 Testament ; and I did not find one where the meaning was 
 not (plainly or probably) that of bodily death. In some 
 instances, though, it seemed to me that the whole meaning 
 of the statement was not exhausted by the idea of bodily 
 death. It was bodily death and sl peculiar background. 
 
 In the New Testament. We have in the New Testament 
 a much more complicated situation. But we can start 
 with at least two certain points: First, that in the New 
 Testament the usage is sometimes like the prevailing 
 usage of the Old Testament, the term death meaning 
 nothing more than bodily death; and, second, that in the 
 New Testament the usage is sometimes most compre- 
 hensive, the term death meaning the total present condition 
 of the sinner. Now the question comes up. Does the 
 term death ever mean in the New Testament narrowly and 
 precisely moral, or spiritual, death? So eminent an 
 authority on New Testament words as Professor Hermann 
 Cremer says, No (Worterbuch, in loco) . But I cannot be 
 so certain. There are a number of places where, as in 
 the second chapter of Ephesians, both text and context 
 would seem to require a meaning sharply beyond the 
 general idea of an abnormal total condition produced by 
 sin, a meaning exactly corresponding to that disintegration 
 of conscience which we are wont to call moral death. 
 
 Again we have, as a striking peculiarity of the book of 
 the Revelation, the expression, "second death." With- 
 out doubt this means, not the annihilation of the 
 wicked, but their everlasting punishment. In his Critical 
 History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, Professor 
 Charles says: "The second death is the death of the soul, 
 as the first is the death of the body. It is not the an- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 285 
 
 nihilation, but the endless torment of the wicked that is 
 here meant." 
 
 Death and Sin. As to the relation which sin sustains 
 to the " second death," and to every phase of moral death, 
 we need no argument whatever. Nor is it economy to 
 spend out time in proving that in the Old Testament sin 
 and bodily death are placed in a penal connection. Our 
 crucial question is this : Does Saint Paul teach that bodily 
 death is a penal consequence of Adam's transgression? 
 The test passages are i Cor. 15. 21-22 and Rom, 5. 12. 
 To economize, we will consider only the passage from 
 Romans. It reads thus : '* Therefore, as through one man 
 sin entered into the world, and death through sin ; and so 
 death passed unto all men, for that all sinned." The 
 matter is of such extreme importance that we will deal 
 with it through exegetical authority : 
 
 afford on Romans (The Speaker's Commentary). 
 "That death must here be understood in its primary 
 sense as the death of the body, is clear from the connec- 
 tion with verse 14, where no other meaning is admissible, 
 and from the unmistakable reference to the narrative in 
 Genesis (Gen. 2. 17) and the sentence there pronounced, 
 * Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return ' (Gen. 
 
 3- 19)." 
 
 Beet on Romans. "We have no indication that the 
 word death (chap. 5. 12-19) means anything except the 
 death of the body. The argument rests on the story 
 of Genesis; and there we have no hint of any death ex- 
 cept (Gen. 3. 19) the return of dust to dust. The proof 
 in Rom. 5. 14 of the statement in verse 12 refers evidently 
 to the visible reign of natural death. And the comparison 
 of Adam and Christ requires no other meaning of the 
 word. Through one man's sin the race was condemned 
 to go down into the grave ; and through one man's obedi- 
 ence and one divine proclamation of pardon believers 
 
286 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 will obtain a life beyond the grave. The whole argu- 
 ment is but a development of i Cor. 15. 22." 
 
 Vaughan on Romans. "Natural death, primarily, and 
 as the pimishment specially denounced; spiritual and 
 eternal death, incidentally and secondarily, as the neces- 
 sary consequence of the severance of a creature from the 
 service and love of the Creator." 
 
 Meyer on Romans. ''The ddvarog is physical death 
 viewed as the separation of the soul from the body and 
 its transference to Hades. Had Paul taken ddvarog 
 in another sense, therefore, he must have definitely in- 
 dicated it, in order to be understood." 
 
 Godet on Romans. That the meaning is physical death 
 Godet says "is confirmed besides by the obvious allusion 
 to the narrative of Genesis (2.17 and 3. 19) as well as by 
 the explanation in the following verses (13 and 14), where 
 the word death is evidently taken in the strict sense." 
 
 Orello Cone (Paul, the Man, the Missionary, and the 
 Traveler). "That the ddvarog of Rom. 5. 12 is prima- 
 rily physical death there can be no doubt, not only on 
 account of the analogy of the Jewish theology, but also 
 because the word is employed without any indication that 
 other than its literal sense is intended." 
 
 Bruce (Saint Paul's Conception of Christianity) . " When 
 Saint Paul says, 'So death passed upon all men,' does he 
 allude to the familiar fact of physical dissolution, or is 
 death to be taken comprehensively as including at once 
 temporal, spiritual, and eternal consequences? If my 
 conjectiire as to the Adam-Christ train of thought be 
 correct, we must understand ddvarog in the restricted 
 sense." 
 
 The Mood of the Bible. The exegesis of this or that 
 passage of Scripture does not, however, furnish us with 
 the full case. The Bible has a mood toward physical 
 death. This mood is expressed, for instance, in the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 287 
 
 ninetieth psalm, that "most pathetic description of the 
 drift of the generations of men into darkness." And 
 even such seeming breaks in the mood as we find in the 
 third chapter of the book of Job really only serve to em- 
 phasize the general attitude of the Bible toward bodily 
 death. In the Old Testament the mood is one of pro- 
 found sadness; but in the New Testament the mood 
 changes and is intensified into the most unmitigated 
 hostility to physical death. Death is not regarded as 
 **my good friend death," but as man's relentless enemy 
 to be overcome only by the power of Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God. And so, even if there were no definite text 
 in point, we would need to explain this mood from the 
 standpoint of redemption and the Christian conscious- 
 ness; and such an explanation would require the precise 
 connection between bodily death and the divine punish- 
 ment of sin. In one sentence, there is not the slightest 
 doubt but that the Word of God treats physical death as 
 an abnormal human event coming upon the race as an 
 immediate penalty for the Adamic disobedience of God's 
 command. 
 
 Conclusions. But our study of the teaching of the 
 Bible, more thoroughly gathered up, results in the fol- 
 lowing definite conclusions: 
 
 1. While the Bible sometimes teaches that the con- 
 dition of the sinner is a state of spiritual death, and that 
 this spiritual death eventuates in everlasting punishment, 
 it nevertheless puts the most significant stress upon 
 bodily death. 
 
 2. Bodily death is not regarded as a friendly or useful 
 event, as a normal feature in a beneficial process of 
 nature; but is regarded as abnormal and hostile and 
 terrible. 
 
 3. The explanation of this biblical attitude toward 
 bodily death is to be found in just one thing, namely, 
 
288 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 that this death expresses God's inflexible hatred of sin, 
 is the penal stamp which he has fixed upon the entire 
 human race because of man's original transgression. 
 
 4. The consequent Christian bearing toward bodily- 
 death is one of sorrow, dread, and hatred; and all this 
 lifted into solemn triumph by means of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ alone. Saint Paul has the exact, full Christian 
 feeling when he bursts out: ''But — thanks be to God, 
 which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 A Philosophical Study of Death 
 
 What is Death? In practical speech death is the 
 negation of life. Death is the absence of life. It does 
 not carry with it necessarily the idea of total annihila- 
 tion. Surely there might be death with annihilation, 
 but usually there is no such entire destruction of the 
 object in death. For example, here is a tree which has 
 been entirely dead for months; but it still stands with 
 trunk, branches, bark, and roots — the tree has not been 
 annihilated, but it is dead. 
 
 What is Life? But when we say that ''Death is the 
 absence of life," what do we mean by life? In his First 
 Principles, Herbert Spencer says, "Life is definable as 
 the continuous adjustment of internal relations to ex- 
 ternal relations." But such adjustment is rather what 
 life does than what life is. A better definition is that of 
 Bishop Dahle: "Life is that force in an organism which 
 places all other forces, working in it, in serviceable rela- 
 tion to its growth and preservation." This is very close 
 to the fact, but not quite complete. Let us begin with 
 the idea of an organism. An organism is a complex of 
 essential parts, every part making contribution to the 
 common end, and all the parts interdependent. That 
 is the lowest organic condition. In a higher organism 
 every part must be both means and end — ^by which I 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 289 
 
 mean that every part gets as much as it gives. In the 
 highest conceivable organism, Hke the personal organism 
 of the Trinity, not only is every part essential to the 
 organism, but also the entire organism is essential to 
 every part; that is, the very existence of every part is 
 possible only in and by means of the entire organism. 
 Now, what I understand by life is this : It is the power of 
 organic action. Or, it is the power which every organism 
 has to act as an organism. That tree is dead because its 
 power to act as an organic tree is gone. The parts of the 
 tree are still in action as separate parts, change after 
 change taking place, but the parts do not act together 
 to accomplish a common purpose, and so the tree as a tree 
 is dead. And the death of the tree began the very 
 moment any smallest feature of the tree went its own 
 way and no longer made contribution to the common 
 task. Thus, life is the power of reciprocity in action, 
 and death is the absence of that power. And so the 
 inevitable mark of death is the breaking up of an or- 
 ganism. In the beginning of death the organism begins 
 to break up ; and in the completion of death the organism 
 is entirely broken up. There is no need, with Bishop 
 Dahle, to emphasize the ideas of growth and preservation, 
 for the organism will take care of itself and exercise every 
 organic function, if it only has the power of organic 
 action. 
 
 The Organism of a Man. Already, in considering the 
 racial nexus, I have called your attention to the fact that 
 the human body has great importance in Christian doc- 
 trine; but here I wish to get at the same point from 
 another angle. The organism of a man is not completed 
 in the soul alone; full manhood requires both soul and 
 body. But we must be careful at this point not to yield 
 an inch to the materialists. The Christian conception is 
 squarely between the two extremes : i . That the soul is 
 
290 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 dependent upon the body for existence itself ; and, 2 . That 
 the man is complete as a bare personal soul. Speaking 
 of Saint Paul's teaching, Professor Charles says: "Ac- 
 cording to the apostle, on the other hand [over against 
 Philo's idea that the body is the enemy of the soul], 
 though the flesh is in antagonism with the spirit, there 
 is no such antagonism between the body and the spirit. 
 Nay, rather the body is indispensable to the completed 
 well-being of the latter. A bodiless human spirit is 
 'naked,' is in a state of weakness and deprivation." 
 
 The biblical emphasis upon the importance of the body 
 can be thus related to the conception which I have given 
 of life and death: Man is a personal soul, or a spirit, in 
 such vital fitness with a physical body that the two, soul 
 and body, make in their plan one organism. When the 
 organic relation is perfect, then there is the full manifesta- 
 tion of human life ; when the organic relation is impaired, 
 there is the first note of death ; and when the organism is 
 entirely broken up, then death is complete. 
 
 The Source of Life, Not yet, though, have we discov- 
 ered the root of the matter. Underlying all the utter- 
 ance and emphasis of the Bible there is one primal con- 
 ception, namely, God is himself the source of life. It is 
 not merely that life comes from God as Creator, it is 
 profounder — God is the life. No created thing has any 
 power to live. The organism does not create, but only 
 expresses the power. Now, I think, we can see the bot- 
 tom. Man as an organism is utterly dependent upon 
 God. It is only when man is in absolute correspondence 
 with God that he has the power of perfect organic action. 
 But man is a moral person, and therefore he cannot have 
 a purely automatic correspondence with God. The cor- 
 respondence needs to be personal and moral. In swifter 
 speech, a man, to live a full human life, must have con- 
 stant companionship with God in moral love. Man, thus, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 291 
 
 by his disobedience snapped the vital relation — ^broke 
 away from the very source of life — and so instantly the 
 human organism began to break up — away from God 
 man began to die. The whole case can be analyzed in 
 this way : 
 
 1 . The deepest fact of human death is that man is not 
 in vital personal companionship with God. 
 
 2. Thus, death is first of all evident in man's moral 
 nature, for right there is the point of personal rupture 
 with God. 
 
 3. But death is not only moral, but also human, in the 
 sense that it injures, and at last breaks up, that organism 
 of soul and body which is essential to a full human life. 
 
 4. The extreme biblical stress upon bodily death is for 
 two reasons : First, because bodily death has in its awful 
 event the entire significance of death. A man's organism 
 goes to pieces in death because he has not moral power 
 enough to keep the thing together; and he lacks this 
 power because the original vital connection with God 
 has been lost. And, second, because bodily death is the 
 consummate expression of God's hatred of sin — indeed, 
 the penal mark against sin. 
 
 The Bodily Death of Man and Death in the Natural 
 World. If we consider man's death as a consequence of 
 sin the question arises. How can we relate man's bodily 
 death to the universal and structural fact of death in the 
 natural world? Different answers have been given, of 
 which the most important are these: 
 
 1. The connection between death and sin is proleptic. 
 Foreknowing man's sin, God provided a world to fit the 
 fact. 
 
 2. The tree of life was intended to protect man, or to 
 lift him beyond the operation of natural law. In com- 
 menting on Rom. 5. 12, Dr. Whedon says: "Adam's first 
 organism seems to have been naturally dissoluble, and 
 
292 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 its dissolution to have been prevented by the tree of life. 
 His bodily immortality seems thus to have been properly 
 supernatural." A view something like this was held by 
 Professor Franz Delitzsch, who looked upon the tree of 
 life as having a kind of sacramental efficiency. 
 
 Dr. Latimer, the dean of the School of Theology in 
 Boston University, united the two views. In his lectures 
 on Didactic Theology he said: *' As to physical death, the 
 difficulty is removed when we consider that it is likely 
 that man was created mortal and the tree of life guaran- 
 teed his immortality. . . . Yet even this mortality was 
 the result of sin, proleptically, so to speak, since God's 
 foreknowledge of man's fall determined him to confer 
 upon man a mortal constitution." 
 
 3. The answer, however, which best suits the temper 
 and method of modern Christian apology is that sin 
 merely gives a new moral content to a normal event. 
 Death as a part of the process of natural law is a normal 
 thing, but the entrance of sin into man's life transforms 
 for him the event into a dreadful abnormal experience. 
 The most convincing statement of this view has been 
 given by Professor James Denney. I will quote a frag- 
 ment: ''Conscience, quickened by the law of God, has to 
 look at death, and to become alive, not to its physical 
 antecedents, but to its divine meaning. What is God's 
 voice in death to a spiritual being? It is what the apostle 
 represents it — death is the wages of sin. It is that in 
 which the divine judgment of sin comes home to con- 
 science." Of course, this view can readily be joined to 
 the proleptic; and this connection is skillfully made by 
 Professor Bruce in his Apologetics. 
 
 4. This last answer to our question, this conception of 
 human death as a normal event filled with abnormal 
 quality, I have most seriously tried to accept, for it affords 
 the Christian preacher "the line of least resistance"; but 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 293 
 
 I am obliged to reject it as insufficient. It is too easy. 
 It does not penetrate the awful tragedy of sin. Sin, I 
 believe, has spoiled the whole universe. Everything 
 from the flowers to the planets is a failure — does not work 
 out the full ideal. Nature is like a limping king. He 
 gets along, but his movement is out of keeping with his 
 majesty. Let the scientist investigate and induce his 
 conclusions; I will in my thinking and feeling make no 
 terms with death. I hate death ; I hate it everywhere- — 
 in garden, and meadow, and swamp, and forest — every- 
 where; it violates every noble thing in me; I long for a 
 world where there will be no dead thing, where every 
 created thing will just live, live, live forever! I must, 
 therefore, begin with the proleptic view. Man is the 
 center in cosmic significance. This does not necessarily 
 require that our earth must have the importance now 
 assigned to it in the speculations of Alfred Russel Wallace. 
 It merely requires that our earth, and the whole regime 
 of nature under which man lives, has been created with 
 fitting reference to his peculiar probation, and to his 
 terrible rejection of God. The world ever manifests a 
 shattered ideal, and one feature of this sad manifestation 
 is the process of death. From the standpoint of the 
 divine ideal, death is an abnormal thing. All its waste 
 and foulness and (in the higher ranges of life) suffering 
 and positive cruelty are, in the deepest thinking, entirely 
 unnecessary. The fact that death is now made to serve 
 in many ways a useful purpose is a point of no force, for 
 sin itself is made to serve in many ways a useful purpose. 
 And, further, we are, according to the Christian faith, 
 finally to have a universe with no death in it from side to 
 side. If the Christian man can believe in the reality of 
 an ultimate universe having no process of death, surely 
 he can believe that such a universe is God's ideal; and 
 that this world with death all over it is but the eternal 
 
294 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ideal accommodated to the awful history of human 
 sin. 
 
 This proleptic view will answer in application to the 
 world as the environment of man's probation, and in 
 application to man's constitution and placement in the 
 world ; but it will not answer as an explanation of man's 
 own experience of death. For it is perfectly evident that 
 the account in the Old Testament, and special references 
 in the New Testament to that account, demand a definite 
 historical connection between the first transgression and 
 man's bodily death. This definite connection I would 
 make in this manner: Man was created mortal; he was 
 placed under the possible dominion of all natural law; 
 but he was also created a moral person, with full freedom, 
 in a peculiar plan of vital relation with God. From the 
 very start, the intention, the ideal purpose, was for man 
 to develop as an actual self-conscious companion of the 
 living God. The realization of such vital companionship 
 would not require a high degree of mental life, but it 
 would require absolute obedience. Perhaps the tree of 
 life, of which Whedon and Delitzsch and Latimer made 
 so much, may be regarded as the picture-indication of this 
 vital plan of companionship with God. Had man obeyed 
 God, the companionship would have been maintained, 
 and in such companionship man w^ould have remained 
 organic, could not have died. In other words, the higher 
 possibility would have triumphed over the lower possi- 
 bility. Precisely what would have taken place we do not 
 know, but we can get a hint by thinking of the tran- 
 scendent event of translation, and by thinking of the life 
 of our Lord immediately after the resurrection. What 
 I hold, then, is that for man to live in a world of death 
 did not make it necessary for man to be a slave to natural 
 law, and to pass out of this earthly existence by the 
 rupture of the human organism. The possibility of this 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 295 
 
 rupture was proleptic, but the rupture was historical — 
 was entirely due to man's sin. Thus, there was a fall in 
 the most literal sense. 
 
 But it is urged, *'The perfect saint now on earth must 
 die." Yes, the saint must die because he does not, in 
 all his holy life, get back the connection of vitality. He 
 may come to love God supremely, that I beHeve ; and he 
 may organize all his motive life by means of that one 
 mighty motive of supreme love; but he has not a con- 
 stant vital seizure of God in self -consciousness. That 
 he cannot have before his glorification beyond the grave. 
 Man's perfection in self -decision is possible in this life, but 
 his perfection in self-consciousness, and so his perfection 
 as an individual person, is not possible in this life. 
 
 The Personal Significance of Bodily Death. You will 
 remember what I have said as to the social meaning of 
 man's body — that his body furnishes him with the ma- 
 chinery of personal expression. Keep that point in mind, 
 and bodily death will begin to take on a large personal 
 significance. In the experience of bodily death a man is 
 for the first time absolutely alone. As long as he had a 
 body he had to see something, or hear something, or 
 touch something. A man may have no fellowship with 
 men, and may think that he has exhausted the torture 
 of loneliness. But he has not exhausted it. He can still 
 see the sim, or hear the thunder, or feel the wind in his 
 face. These things do not meet his personal need at all, 
 but they do occupy his attention, and protect him from 
 the solitude of profoundest introspection. But in death, 
 the body is torn away, and the man has no protection 
 whatever. He is naked in the silence. All he has is just 
 his own isolated poverty of person — a single, impotent, 
 self-conscious atom of being — a bare needle-point of quick 
 personality all alone in the long reaches of the Infinite. 
 
 The Moral Significance of Bodily Death. The most 
 
296 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 dreadful feature of the isolation, though, lies not in the 
 fact that the sinner has lost his world of persons and 
 things ; but in this fact together with the further fact that 
 he has not lost his conscience. He is not only absolutely 
 alone, he is also alone with conscience. Not one person, 
 not one thing, can even for an instant shelter him 
 from the violence of the moral smiting. Now, of all 
 times, this lonely sinner needs the friendly presence of 
 God; but his death is empty of the friendly God. His 
 death expresses the holy anger of God. The man must 
 now meet the insistence of God's moral concern closely 
 and finally before the last door of destiny is forever 
 closed. God! if that isolated sinner had only yielded 
 to his Saviour, and now had him in personal fellowship 
 there in the solitude of death, how the whole situation 
 would be transformed ! 
 
 The Racial Significance of Bodily Death. As the human 
 body is the racial nexus, the loss of the body in death 
 must have racial significance. Not only does physical 
 death isolate the individual person, it also breaks him off 
 from his race. He is now a man without a race. The full 
 meaning of his raceless condition will be brought out in 
 other connections; but I want you to begin to hold the 
 point even now. The Adamic race, as a racial ground- 
 work of social solidarity, is gradually being destroyed by 
 bodily death. One by one men are by death wrenched 
 out of the racial relation, and flung out into the isolation 
 of bare personal existence, to await as responsible per- 
 sons the final judgment. 
 
 The Fitness of Bodily Death as Penalty. Although 
 bodily death is a divine penalty, still we are not to think 
 of it as an arbitrary penalty. It is not *'a judicial 
 execution, but a consequence involved in the nature of 
 the transgression." But this statement must not be 
 taken to signify anything automatic. God personally 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 297 
 
 indorses an expression of his hatred of sin which fits into 
 the nature of the transgression. You can see this in- 
 trinsic fitness the moment you bring to mind again the 
 essential character of personal sin. In personal sin the 
 normal independence and self-valuation of personality 
 are so extremely emphasized over against the demand of 
 the moral ideal as to become selfish egotism. The moral 
 person says: '*/ will do right." The sinner says: "/ will 
 do wrong." In each case the free and majestic person 
 is at the front; but in one case there is submission, and 
 in the other case rejection of moral authority. Bodily 
 death is in consummate fitness with this supreme selfish- 
 ness of personal sin. Bodily death is the strongest ac- 
 centuation of egotism. It takes this egotist, this sinner, 
 wrenches him out of the protective physical scene, breaks 
 him off from his race, flings him into absolute isolation, 
 and compels him to inhabit his own selfish fragment of 
 being. Death says to the sinner, ''You would not obey 
 God, you would not love your fellow men, you lived for 
 self, you wanted only self — then take it!" 
 
 Such an extreme accentuation of the inherent egotism 
 of personal sin is a most fitting end to a life of probation. 
 To see this point clearly we must note again the relation 
 probation sustains td personality, and especially noticing 
 the probational import of self -consciousness. Already I 
 have spoken of the fundamental motives which urge men 
 toward volition (in the analytical treatment of the fall 
 of man), one of these motives being bodily, one cosmic, 
 one social, and one personal. But while several of these 
 motives are not inherent in bare personality, yet it is in 
 the operation of personality that they all come to ultimate 
 deposit in moral character. For we must never forget 
 that moral character can only be achieved by positive 
 indorsement in self -decision. But for such self -decision 
 there must be self -consciousness. Now we are ready for 
 
298 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 our point. This self -consciousness which is essential to 
 self-decision, and therefore essential to the fixing of moral 
 character, is a sporadic experience in our earthly life. It 
 comes in broken flashes, now and then, here and there; 
 and it is only in these blazing moments of self -vision that 
 we have our strokes of destiny. But a man needs to 
 review the whole history of self -decision, to behold in the 
 flash of God's moral lightning all he has done, and all he 
 now is as a result of all he has done. He needs one 
 final crucial chance thoroughly to face his manhood, and, 
 in this fullness of self-conscious opportunity, to accept 
 himself, or to reject himself. Thus, death is the climax 
 of probation. 
 
 There are in your minds, I quickly perceive, two rising 
 objections to this large probational valuation of bodily 
 death. The first objection is that death is often such an 
 event of pain or confusion or lethargy as to be clearly 
 unsuitable for such pregnant work in self -decision. My 
 briefest answer to this objection is a personal one. My 
 own experience has taught me that the surface of death, 
 what the physician and the other bystanders observe, is 
 no indication whatever of the personal event beneath the 
 surface. The door of the inner chamber is shut. The 
 second objection is that such a valuation of bodily death 
 tends to discredit the sufficiency of life itself as a pro- 
 bation. My answer to this objection is again to call 
 your attention to the significance of personal habit — I 
 say personal habit, not automatic habit, but that bear- 
 ing of the responsible person which results from repeated 
 self -decisions and the continued narrowing of the range 
 of possible motive. With this psychology of moral 
 character clearly in mind, we see at once that, in any 
 typical instance, it must be life and not death which 
 practically determines destiny. But we can also see, I 
 think, that the probational process is only fairly and 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 299 
 
 fully completed by a last crisis in which the moral per- 
 son is solemnly alone with his conscience and his entire 
 history. In this last crisis the pressure toward righteous- 
 ness is exhausted (if there be any possible pressure re- 
 maining), and another probation beyond the grave is 
 philosophically inconceivable. 
 
 The racial fitness of bodily death does not require special 
 discussion, as such a fitness is involved in what has been 
 said concerning the racial nexus, racial sin, and the racial 
 significance of bodily death. 
 
XXI- THE TEACHING OF SAINT PAUL 
 
 A COMPREHENSIVE plan in biblical theology would 
 require us to begin with the Old Testament, and then to 
 study the New Testament entire, approaching it, not as 
 many do through the gospels, but through the apology in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews. But for our work in system- 
 atic theology the teaching of Saint Paul furnishes all the 
 more important data, and no further biblical study would 
 essentially change the outcome. 
 
 Professor Denney has said : " The doctrine of the death 
 of Christ and its significance was not Saint Paul's theology, 
 it was his gospel. It was all he had to preach." Ex- 
 ception has been taken to Denney 's view, and we have 
 even been told that ''Christ's death was but an incident 
 in his life" ; but Denney, beyond any other writer of our 
 day, has understood the apostle Paul, and garnered the 
 very life of the New Testament. Take out of the Pauline 
 message the death of Christ, and every element of his 
 teaching would become meaningless. Without his pecul- 
 iar emphasis upon our Lord's death, you cannot fully 
 appreciate even Saint Paul's practical opinions. 
 
 ''Made to he sin on our behalf,'' "Him who knew no 
 sin he made to be sin on our behalf** (2 Cor. 5. 21). 
 At the very start, we can be sure of one thing, namely, 
 that dfiaprla does not mean sin in the first clause, and 
 sin offering in the second clause. It means just sin in 
 each place. We can also see at once that the entire 
 expression ''who knew no sin" is a perfect equivalent of 
 this: one not a sinner. And we can keep the apostle's 
 striking contrast completely, if we consider the expres- 
 sion "made to be sin" (dfiaprlav knoiTjaev) as a strong 
 
THE CHRfSTIAN FAITH 301 
 
 rhetorical equivalent of this: one made or constituted a 
 sinner. Jesus Christ, then, according to Saint Paul, was 
 one not a sinner and yet one constituted a sinner. This 
 much seems to me to be entirely convincing. 
 
 Now, as to this seeming contradiction, is there any 
 clue? Yes, the clue is to be fotmd in the fourteenth 
 verse, "because we thus judge, that one died for all, 
 therefore all died." The idea here is that of substitution. 
 Christ died for all, or in behalf of all (vnep navrbyv) , and 
 so it is really, potently, as if they died. That death of 
 Christ belongs to them all as truly as if every one of them 
 had died that death. They all have title-claim to the 
 Lord's death just as one has complete right to the work 
 of a substitute. 
 
 We are now thus far : Christ's death did not belong to 
 him normally, but came to him as being a substitute for 
 men, as standing in the place of men. Now we are 
 ready for the sharp turn. In himself, Christ was not a 
 sinner, but as a substitute, standing for men, he was a 
 sinner. We can now touch the root of the apostle's con- 
 ception: How could Jesus be — ^how was he — a substitu- 
 tional sinner? Why, simply in the one fact that he died. 
 Death, this bodily death, was the exact, historic, divine 
 penalty for human sin; and this penalty of death came 
 upon our Lord precisely as it strikes every human sinner. 
 Christ was thus treated as a sinner is treated; by substitu- 
 tion he was "numbered with the transgressors" — he was 
 placed in the category of sin. And so he was not a sinner, 
 and yet at the same time he was a sinner — a made, a con- 
 stituted, sinner. 
 
 ''A propitiation, through faith, in his blood.'' "Whom 
 God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in 
 his blood" (Rom. 3. 25). Saint Paul's surface meaning 
 in this passage may be fairly rendered thus: Christ was 
 set forth, openly, in his blood, to be a propitiation. 
 
302 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 available by faith. The crucial word is Uaarrigcov. And 
 as to the meaning of the word, the exegetes have not 
 been of one mind. But for their scholarly discussions 
 we have no concern here. Whatever they do with the 
 word, they are unable to destroy the idea of propitiation. 
 As Professor Sanday says: *'The fundamental idea which 
 underlies the word must be propitiation." But deeply, 
 what is meant by propitiation? Surely a propitiation is 
 the means by which one is rendered propitious, or favorable, 
 or open to plea. Inasmuch, therefore, as Saint Paul says 
 that Christ was set forth, openly, in his blood, to be a 
 propitiation, available by faith, the apostle's full thought 
 is, I am confident, this : The death of Jesus Christ is the 
 sacrificial means by which God is rendered propitious to 
 one having faith. 
 
 We can now get the connections in Saint Paul's mind, 
 if we start with the twenty-fourth verse : '' Being justified 
 freely by his grace through the redemption that is in 
 Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, 
 through faith, in his blood." ''Being justified" — but 
 how? " Freely by his grace " — how do we get this grace ? 
 "Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" — ^but, 
 more closely, what is meant by this redemption that is in 
 Christ? The meaning is precisely this: The death of 
 Christ renders God so propitious toward us that when we 
 have faith in Christ set forth in his blood we can be 
 justified freely by his grace. Thus, Saint Paul's con- 
 ception is that justification is explained by free grace; 
 that this grace is explained as a feature of redemption; 
 and that redemption is explained by the propitiatory 
 death of Christ, made personally available only by 
 faith. 
 
 ''Reconciled to God through the death of his Son.** *'For 
 if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God 
 through the death of his Son, much more, being recon- 
 
• THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 303 
 
 ciled, shall we be saved by his life ; and not only so, but 
 we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 through whom we have now received the reconciliation" 
 (Rom. 5. 10, 11; compare with Col. i. 21, 22, and with 
 2 Cor. 5. 18, 19). The word translated "reconciliation" 
 is KaraXXayij] and our first question is, Does it mean 
 reconciliation by means of a change taking place in men ? 
 or is there an actual change which takes place in God? 
 From our English usage, it would, at first glance, seem as 
 if the reconciliation were by a change in men, God him- 
 self being favorable all the time. But our English usage 
 is altogether misleading. The change is primarily in God. 
 We know this conclusively for two reasons: First, this 
 reconciliation, Saint Paul says, was "through the death 
 of his Son." And, already, in this very epistle, as we 
 have seen, the apostle has taught that the death of Christ 
 was a propitiation, or means of changing God, or making 
 him propitious. That is, Saint Paul is but saying in a 
 new way essentially what he had said before. To say 
 that by the death of Christ God is made favorable to men 
 is essentially the same thing as to say that by the death 
 of Christ God is reconciled to men. And just as the 
 propitiation becomes available by personal faith, so the 
 reconciliation is completed by men becoming reconciled 
 to God. Second — ^but we do not need to go back to the 
 third chapter, for the decisive point is given in the passage 
 before us. Saint Paul here tells us that "while we were 
 enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of 
 his Son"; and then, a bit later, that we have "now re- 
 ceived the reconciliation." In the first place, that is, 
 before men did a thing toward it, God became reconciled 
 to men by means of the death of his Son; and now we 
 accept by faith the divine offer of reconciliation. 
 
 In this connection there is one further item of im- 
 portant suggestion. The fact that the reconciliation of 
 
304 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 God to men involves the bodily death of Christ is made 
 emphatic in the Epistle to the Colossians (i. 21, 22) where 
 we read: **And you, being in time past alienated and 
 enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath 
 he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death." 
 Bishop Lightfoot explains the passage in this way: ''In 
 Christ's body, in Christ's flesh which died on the cross 
 for your atonement, ye are reconciled to him again.'* 
 
 " That he might himself be just, and the jtistifier of him 
 that hath faith in Jesus.'" ''To show his righteousness 
 (diKaioavvTj) , because of the passing over of the sins 
 done aforetime, in the forbearance of God ; for the showing, 
 I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that 
 he might himself be just (diKacog), and the justifier 
 (diKaioG)) of him that hath faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3. 25, 
 26). This remarkable passage is Saint Paul's nearest 
 approach to a philosophical doctrine of the atonement, 
 and so it demands our most careful consideration. 
 
 We notice at once that the apostle makes a distinction 
 between God's forbearance toward sinners and his justi- 
 fication of sinners. This forbearance was best in times 
 past; but it could not satisfy God, and so it had to be 
 done away with by a very different thing, namely, by 
 justification — justification by faith in harmony with 
 God's being just. "That he might himself be just, and 
 the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." 
 
 But why does God have this end of justification in view 
 at all? Why does he want, under any conditions, to 
 justify the sinner? No one familiar with Saint Paul's 
 writings can possibly doubt what his answer would be — 
 Because God loves the sinner. And so, in the divine 
 depths, justice must be harmonized with love's demand. 
 How is this profound harmony to be secured? Saint 
 Paul's answer is this: By the manifestation of the right- 
 eousness of God in the death of Christ ("for the showing, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 305 
 
 I say, of his righteousness at this present season : that he 
 might himself be just, and the justifier "). 
 
 Now we reach the critical point. What does Saint 
 Paul mean by this righteousness of God — this dLKaioavvq 
 deov? That he does not mean bare justice is evident 
 for two reasons: First, a philosophical reason. God's 
 purpose is to harmonize justice with the demand of love, 
 and this harmony could not be achieved by expressing 
 justice alone. Second, a biblical reason, a reason in the 
 consistency of Pauline theology. Saint Paul's own usage 
 is contrary to the view that the righteousness of God 
 means bare justice. Turn, for a case, to 2 Cor. 5. 21: 
 '' That we might become the righteousness of God in him." 
 We find here the same expression, SiKawovvrj deov ; and 
 it cannot mean justice — that we might become the 
 justice of God in him. Righteousness is, I am sure, a 
 larger term than justice everywhere in the Bible. Some- 
 times it means moral concern; sometimes it means "the 
 sum of all moral excellence" (Sanday) ; and sometimes it 
 means moral love. Speaking of this very passage in 
 Romans, Professor Stevens says: ''Here Siicaioavvi] must 
 mean the self-respecting attribute of holiness in God, the 
 reaction of his nature against sin which must find expres- 
 sion in its condemnation. Holy love is the best definition 
 of Paul's conception of the ethical nature of God." A 
 full statement of the matter may be given as follows : 
 
 The righteousness of God is the holiness of God, some- 
 times in one bearing of emphasis and sometimes in 
 another; but in the complete bearing, perfect moral love. 
 And Saint Paul uses the term to express the complete 
 bearing. With this understanding of the apostle's usage, 
 the great passage in Romans can be paraphrased as fol- 
 lows: God cannot forever deal with sinners in a partial 
 way. Sooner or later, he must satisfy himself com- 
 pletely. To do this, he must, at one stroke, satisfy his 
 
3o6 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 sense of justice and his love for men. There is only one 
 way to accomplish all this, and that is to express his 
 entire nature as it is gathered up in holy love. This per- 
 fect manifestation of holy love is in the death of Christ. 
 
 Before going further, let us summarize what we now 
 have of Saint Paul's teaching : 
 
 1. Jesus Christ was constituted a sinner in our behalf 
 by the simple fact that he died a bodily death, and so bore 
 the exact historical penalty which belongs to man. He 
 was a sinner by substitution. 
 
 2. By bearing this penalty of death Christ rendered 
 God propitious; or he reconciled God to man, so that 
 individual justification by faith became possible and 
 ready. 
 
 3. The reason why the death of Christ was such a 
 propitiation, or means of reconciliation, was that it 
 satisfied, at one stroke, God's inherent sense of justice 
 and his boundless feeling of love for men. 
 
 4. And, last, the reason the death of Christ could do 
 such work in harmony, could satisfy God's sense of justice 
 and his feeling of love, was that it manifested the divine 
 moral love which is the holiness of God, the entire ethical 
 nature of God, consummated in the perfection of the 
 divine personal experience. In the death of Christ God 
 ceases to express fragments toward men, and manifests 
 all he is. And by manifesting all he is, he is supremely 
 satisfied. 
 
 ''A people for his own possession.'' "Looking for the 
 blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God 
 and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, 
 that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify 
 unto himself a people for his own possession" (Titus 2. 
 13, 14). In this passage Saint Paul passes clearly from 
 the idea of redemption from iniquity to the idea of 
 Christ's obtainment of a holy people for himself. The 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 307 
 
 same thought appears in Rom. 8. 29 — ''that he might be 
 the firstborn among many brethren . ' ' Besides this, under 
 the conception of Christ as the second Adam, there is the 
 thought that our Lord's redemptive work is to result in a 
 holy company of men. Besides all this, and in deep as- 
 sociation with it, is Saint Paul's conception of a glorious 
 church, "holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5. 27), which 
 Christ gave himself up for, and which he nourishes and 
 cherishes, "because we are members of his body." All 
 these teachings indicate plainly that redemption through 
 the death of Christ, as Saint Paul understands it, is to have 
 a great social outcome. Jesus Christ does not die to smite 
 sin in the abstract, nor to save, here and there, an isolated 
 moral person ; he dies to obtain a people, a church, a holy 
 community, so perfectly inherent in him that he and they 
 constitute one body. 
 
 We have the same idea of a holy social organism in 
 many places in the New Testament, and it is especially 
 noticeable in our Saviour's last prayer, "that they may 
 be one, even as we are one " (Saint John 17.22); but here I 
 desire only to bring out the social expansion of Saint 
 Paul's central conception of the redemptional significance 
 of the death of Christ. By his death our Lord not only 
 reconciles God to man, and renders possible the justifica- 
 tion of the separate sinner, but also obtains a people for 
 his own possession. 
 
 " That Jesus died and rose again.'' " For if we believe 
 that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that 
 are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him" 
 (i Thess. 4. 14). This association of our Lord's death 
 with his resurrection is often found in Saint Paul's mind. 
 It is found in Rom. 4. 25, where Jesus is spoken of as 
 "delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justi- 
 fication." It is found in that great fifteenth chapter of 
 I Corinthians, where the apostle says: "For I delivered 
 
3o8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 unto you first of all that which also I received : that Christ 
 died for our sins according to the scriptures ; and that he 
 hath been raised on the third day." And it is also found 
 in 2 Corinthians (5. 15), where Saint Paul says of our 
 Lord and his people "that they that live should no longer 
 live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes 
 died and rose again." By studying all of these passages 
 in their full connections it will be clearly seen that in 
 Saint Paul's thinking our Saviour's resurrection is not 
 merely an event which historically follows his death, it 
 is an event which teleologically follows his death in the 
 plan of redemption. 
 
 *' Conformed to the body of his glory.'' *' For our citizen- 
 ship is in heaven ; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the 
 Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of 
 our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of 
 his glory, according to the working whereby he is able 
 even to subject all things unto himself" (Phil. 3. 20, 21). 
 This passage is of the most intense interest. Speaking 
 of this passage, in his treatise on Immortality, Cyprian 
 exclaims. Who would not crave "to arrive more quickly 
 to the dignity"! It is in this very epistle to the Phi- 
 lippians, in the chapter before, that we have Saint Paul's 
 most extended reference to the Incarnation. Evidently 
 he looks upon our Lord's body there as merely a part of 
 that humiliation which was completed in his being 
 "obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross." 
 The natural body of Jesus had no significance to Saint 
 Paul save as it was the instrument of a supreme ethical 
 self-sacrifice. But how exceedingly different is Saint 
 Paul's conception of the significance of our Lord's body 
 of glory! That is the type according to which shall be 
 fashioned all the final, glorious bodies of his own 
 people. 
 
 Now I will give, as I understand it, the closer inter- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 309 
 
 lacing of the most important features of Saint Paul's 
 entire view of our Lord's red<:;mptive work : 
 
 1 . Jesus Christ died. In this bodily death our Saviour 
 bore the exact, historic, divine penalty for man's sin, and^ 
 therefore was a sinner in category, or a sinner by sub- 
 stitution. Bearing this penalty of death, our Saviour 
 satisfied the holiness of God by fully expressing that 
 holiness in its personal consummation of moral love. By 
 thus satisfying the divine holiness Christ rendered God 
 ethically open to the possibility of justification conditioned 
 on faith. 
 
 2. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. By this event of 
 his resurrection our Lord made justification more than 
 possible — he made it redemptionally feasible. And 
 through this process of justification actually carried out 
 our Lord is gradually forming, person by person, believer 
 by believer, a new spiritual community — a people organic 
 in him — Tolq kv j^piarw *l7jaov — one body in vitality of 
 moral life, in identity of aim, and in the service and 
 fellowship of love. 
 
 3. Jesus Christ rose from the dead with a glorified body. 
 This spiritual community of saints who live in Christ is 
 to be objectively completed in their organism when, in 
 their resurrection, every one of them shall take on, not 
 the body of the grave, but a spiritual body ** conformed 
 to the body of his glory." The saints are to be like 
 Christ, not only in moral person, but also in their actual 
 bodily life. 
 
XXII- OUR LORD'S STRANGE HESITATION IN 
 APPROACHING DEATH 
 
 His Primary Attitude. The strangeness of our Lord's 
 hesitation will stand out more clearly, if we first notice 
 his primary attitude, or the way that he as Redeemer 
 looked upon his own death. 
 
 I. He did not regard his death as a natural incident 
 terminating life; nor as an accident resulting from the 
 disposition and deed of man. After the confession of 
 Saint Peter ("Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God") our Lord began definitely to speak of his coming 
 death: ''From that time began Jesus to show unto his 
 disciples, that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer 
 many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, 
 and be killed, and the third day be raised up " (Saint Matt. 
 i6. 21 ; compare with Saint Mark lo. 33). The expression 
 ''that he must" {on del avrbv) cannot mean that the 
 circumstances, the hostile forces against him, render his 
 death inevitable. We are certain of this point for several 
 reasons: First, the rebuke to Peter implies that the must 
 is moral. Second, such statements as that in the tenth 
 chapter of Saint John (" I have power to lay it down, and 
 I have power to take it again") show that Jesus regarded 
 his death as a matter entirely within his own control. 
 Third, the scene in Gethsemane further shows that Jesus 
 regarded his death as finally a pure question of obedience 
 to his Father (also compare with Saint John 10. 18). It 
 is, then, beyond a doubt that our Saviour did not look 
 upon his death as incident or accident, but did look upon 
 it as a moral necessity, as an essential feature of his 
 mission of redemption. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 311 
 
 2. More precisely, our Lord regarded his death as a 
 means of ransom for men. In Saint Mark's gospel (10. 45) 
 we read: ''For the Son of man also came not to be min- 
 istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ran- 
 som for many." This passage has been dealt with by 
 Dr. HoUmann in a most radical fashion. The dvH 
 TToAAwv he separates from Xvrgov and connects with 
 dovvai. The term Xvrgov he renders freeing (Befreiung). 
 With these radical changes, Hollmann makes the passage 
 mean no more than this: "To free men from their stub- 
 born pride and bring them to the spirit of repentance, 
 Jesus gives up his life instead of many being obliged 
 to give up their lives." If this arbitrary ingenuity is 
 "advanced New Testament scholarship," then we must 
 look toward the immediate future of the Christian church 
 with deepening dread. But I have brought up this ex- 
 tremely radical interpretation by Hollmann to indicate 
 how impossible it is to empty our Saviour's conception 
 of his death of all redemptional meaning. Even in this 
 comparative moral emptiness furnished by Hollmann, 
 Jesus Christ considers his death as very important for 
 the spiritual liberation of men. 
 
 3. Our Lord regarded his death as a covenant. At 
 this point, again, there is such destructive work in crit- 
 icism that in systematic theology, anyway, it is best to 
 wait until some of the rationalistic caprice "is blown 
 into the sea," before we try to do any thorough work. 
 But we can easily get at a fragment of affirmation. 
 Professor McGiffert says: "There can be no doubt that 
 Jesus ate the Last Supper with his disciples, as recorded 
 in all three of the synoptic gospels, and that he said of 
 the bread which he broke and gave to his companions, 
 * This is my body,' and of the wine which he gave them to 
 drink, 'This is my blood of the covenant which is shed 
 for many,' and that he did it with a reference to his 
 
312 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 approaching death." Let us for the present be content 
 and ask for no larger admission. What is the meaning 
 of that expression *' blood of the covenant"? Probably 
 it refers back to the words in Jeremiah (31. 31-34) : '' Be- 
 hold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a 
 new covenant: . . . for I will forgive their iniquity, and 
 their sin will I remember no more." This much, then, 
 we can affirm : Our Lord, at the Last Supper, looked upon 
 his death as the instrumental establishment of the prophe- 
 sied new covenant of grace under which sin could be 
 forgiven. 
 
 Our Lord's Hesitation. We are now prepared to note 
 the strangeness of our Saviour's hesitation when in the 
 garden he cried out: ''My Father, if it be possible, let 
 this cup pass away from me." If, in his primary atti- 
 tude, our Lord regarded his death as an essential feature 
 of the very plan of redemption for which he came into 
 the world ; if he regarded his death as not merely impor- 
 tant, but even the definite means of man's ransom ; and if 
 he regarded this ransoming death as the actual inaugura- 
 tion of the new covenant and dispensation of grace; if, 
 in other words, every redemptional thing Christ was 
 aiming to do was, in his own estimate, to be achieved 
 only and precisely by his death, how could he, as Son of 
 God and Redeemer of men, hesitate, actually shrink back 
 from that death? Superficially, one would expect that 
 our Lord would approach death with solemn moral 
 eagerness, if not with such a spirit of joyous triumph as 
 that which made Saint Paul so ready to be offered. 
 
 Inadequate Explanations. Of this hesitation there have 
 been a number of purely humanitarian and rationalistic 
 explanations: By Thiess, that Jesus was suddenly ''at- 
 tacked by some malady" ; by Neumann, that "in addition 
 to his inward sorrow Jesus had contracted a cold in the 
 clayey ground traversed by the Kidron"; by Strauss, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 313 
 
 that ''Jesus on that evening in the garden experienced a 
 violent access of fear"; and by Renan — one refuses to 
 translate the sentimental indecency. __ 
 
 But a very different kind of an explanation, both in 
 spirit and in fact, is that given suggestively by Principal 
 Fairbaim in his Philosophy of the Christian Religion. 
 He says: 
 
 "And Gethsemane represents the struggle of Jesus 
 with the new problem which thus came before his im- 
 agination personified in Judas and the priests, and which 
 he had to solve in the very face, if not in the very article, 
 of death. 
 
 ''And what was this new problem? Jesus was holy, 
 and felt as only the sinless can the stain of sin bum like 
 a living fire upon his soul. He had conceived himself 
 as a Redeemer by the sacrifice of himself, as a Saviour 
 by death. But now, when he comes face to face with 
 this death, what does he find? That sin has taken oc- 
 casion from his very grace to become more exceedingly 
 sinful, to mix itself up with his sacrifice, penetrating and 
 effacing it, transmuting it from a free and gracious act 
 into a violent and necessitated death. His act of re- 
 demption becomes, so to say, the opportunity for sin to 
 increase. The thing he most hates seems to become a 
 partner with him in the work he most loves, contributing 
 to its climax and consummation. Or, if not so con- 
 ceived, it must be conceived under a still more dreadful 
 form, as forcing itself into his way, taking possession of 
 his work, turning it into ' a stone of stumbling and a rock 
 of offense,' a means of creating sinners while it had been 
 intended to save from sin. And there was an even more 
 intolerable element in the situation: the men who were 
 combining to effect this death were persons he was dying 
 to save, and by their action they were making the saving 
 a matter more infinitely hard, more vastly improbable, 
 
314 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 and changing the efficient cause of salvation into a siiffi- 
 cient reason for judgment. . . . From death as such he 
 does not shrink, but from its mode and agencies, from 
 death under the form and conditions which involve its 
 authors in what appears inexpiable guilt, his whole 
 nature recoils." 
 
 The spirit of this explanation is so large and sincere 
 that one dislikes to make any criticism. But there are 
 very serious objections, two of which I will indicate: 
 First, there is, under the explanation, a confusing of sin 
 with the expression of sin in crime. Sin is causal to 
 crime, but crime is not causal to sin. From the stand- 
 point of fundamental reality, the most dreadful thing, 
 as far as those leaders who brought about the death of 
 Christ were concerned, was not the crucifixion itself, but 
 the fact that they were the kind of men they were. And 
 a study of the life of Christ shows that he, long before, 
 knew all about them. While he pitied the deluded and 
 managed people, he branded the leaders with fiery 
 invective. Second, the explanation is redemptionally 
 superficial. It lies, like a sentimentality, on the surface 
 of the awful deeps of redemption. That the Eternal 
 Son of God could come into this world at infinite cost in 
 self-sacrifice because of sin — "whole ages upon ages of 
 bottomless sin" — and then, at the crucial point of his 
 atonement for that sin, could have his redemptional con- 
 sciousness exclusively occupied with one phase, one local 
 item of the huge chaos of wrong, is to me entirely incon- 
 ceivable. Principal Fairbairn is too profound a Christian 
 thinker to be long satisfied with his own explanation. 
 
 The Clue to the Hesitation. When we read the account 
 of our Lord's crucifixion, the clue to the hesitation be- 
 comes evident. It is in those words of agony: *' My God, 
 my God, why hast thou forsaken me? " Long before we 
 have any heart to try to understand the meaning of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 315 \ 
 
 these words of agony, we feel sure that they indicate the j 
 
 "cup" which Jesus Christ dreaded to empty. We feel \ 
 
 sure of this because the two notes of agony, that of the ] 
 
 prayer in the garden and that of the cry upon the cross, \ 
 
 have the same intense spiritual accent, and the same in- ,] 
 
 definable suggestion of the depth of redemption. 1 
 
3< 
 
 
 XXIII. THE RACIAL THEORY OF OUR LORD'S 
 REDEMPTIVE WORK 
 
 It may be helpful, as an introduction, to indicate the 
 steps by which this racial theory was reached. 
 
 1. For twelve years I had a double attitude toward 
 the three great historic theories of the atonement: On 
 the one side, I was sure that they all were alike untrue 
 to both the biblical data and the deepest Christian feeling. 
 On the other side, I was just as sure that every one of the 
 theories had a quality, if not a definite point, which should 
 be preserved at any cost. 
 
 2. For six years I tried to preserve these three im- 
 portant qualities by the method of eclectic synthesis; 
 but the result was so mechanical that I was at last obliged 
 to throw it away. 
 
 3. I had become hopeless, when there suddenly came 
 to me a vision of the full Christian meaning of the human 
 race. This vision not only vitalized, but actually trans- 
 formed, my entire theological situation. I saw not 
 merely the atonement, but every doctrine, and the total 
 combination of doctrine, in a new light. From that 
 supreme hour (on one of the hills near Marburg) my one 
 aim has been to get that racial vision into living ex- 
 pression. 
 
 4. My main work, after the vision, was to study the 
 Bible more profoundly ; and the consequence of this study 
 was threefold: First, a realization of our Lord's bearing 
 toward the one event of his bodily death. Second, a 
 realization of the tremendous emphasis which the Bible 
 places upon physical death as an abnormal human ex- 
 perience. Third, a realization that Saint Paul has in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 3^9 
 
 his teaching the very backbone of a racial view of oui 
 Saviour's redemptive work. •: 
 
 5. Then I took the old theories in hand to see how 
 much could be saved. And, to my astonishment, I 
 found that the three qualities which had appealed to me 
 could be preserved by a larger treatment from the racial 
 standpoint. The satisfaction theory required that the 
 attribute of justice should be exchanged for holiness, and 
 that the idea of automatic necessity should be exchanged 
 for the idea of a personal need of structural expression. 
 The governmental theory required that there should be 
 a profounder conception of the moral law, making it 
 reach into the structure of the divine nature ; and that the 
 moral government should be granted a racial goal; and 
 that penalty should be made a means of holy movement 
 toward the racial goal. The moral influence theory re- 
 quired that its conception of love should be so united to 
 moral concern as to furnish a new atmosphere of divine 
 holiness. If I understand the underlying intention of 
 such men as Anselm, Grotius, and Abelard, as Hodge, 
 Miley, and Bushnell, the racial theory has caught the 
 soul of all the theories. And, if I understand the New 
 Testament, the racial theory has caught not only its 
 formal teaching, but even its inner life. 
 
 The Purpose of God in Redemption. At the very 
 beginning we need to clear the way by answering the 
 simple question, What was God's primary purpose — 
 what was he trying to do in redemption? There is, I am 
 satisfied, only one final answer possible : To obtain a race of 
 holy persons. He was not trying to get, here and yonder, 
 a separate moral person ready to enjoy the divine glory. 
 No, God wanted an entangled race — a personal organism 
 of holy men — that was God's aim. In other words, God's 
 purpose was the same in redemption that it had been in 
 creation. The first plan, the ideal plan, failed because of 
 
3^8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 sin; but this failure is now, in redemption, to be made 
 jver into a triumph. Out of the Adamic race, broken in 
 organism, and doomed to destruction as a race, the work 
 of Christ is to sectire a new race completely personal, com- 
 pletely organic, and completely holy. Thus, the dis- 
 tinctive note in all we do must be racial. We do not 
 drop the note of the moral person at all, but our outcome 
 must be emphatically a racial redemption. This in- 
 sistence is not a matter of mere words, it is the very core 
 of the case. With this outcome in full view, a certain 
 change of emphasis naturally takes place. The atone- 
 ment itself, as a means to a large racial result, is to be 
 treated as only one necessary feature of the entire re- 
 demptive work of our Lord. Such a connective treat- 
 ment does not, in reality, minimize the doctrine of the 
 atonement, but it does prevent the extreme and isolated 
 emphasis which is found in theological works of a certain 
 type. 
 
 The Dynamic Center of the New Race. It is not neces- 
 sary to repeat what was said, in another discussion, con- 
 cerning the racial peculiarity of the Son of man. Nor is 
 it necessary again to affirm that the Incarnation was an 
 abnormal event entirely due to man's sin, and in definite 
 preparation for the atonement by the death of Christ. 
 But what I said before was fragmentary. The Incarna- 
 tion was more than a preparation for the atonement; 
 it was also the provision of a dynamic center for the new 
 race. Allow me to go back for a moment to the principle 
 of individual supplement or complement (''The Racial 
 Organism"). When all the saints have done their ut- 
 most to render every member of the race complete, the 
 completion is not entirely effected. Men are made ab- 
 solutely complete only through each other, and in Christ. 
 The finishing dynamic help comes only from the racial 
 center, and that center is our Lord. We cannot now 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 319 
 
 dwell upon this wonderful point ; but we need the mention 
 of it that we may appreciate the significance of the suffer- 
 ing of Jesus. The experience of Jesus Christ cannot be 
 fully understood from the standpoint of the single fact of 
 the atonement; to that single fact must be added the 
 further fact that he is, in all and through all, preparing 
 himself by suffering to be the everlasting race center, 
 the everlasting racial dynamic, the everlasting moral 
 influence. By means of his humiliation, our Lord obtains 
 that exhaustive human experience which perfects his 
 racial efficiency. As the reservoir of supplement, so to 
 speak, he has after the resurrection not only the power 
 of God, but that sympathetic comprehension of the need 
 of every man which could come to him only by suffering 
 for men, with men, and as God become man. 
 
 The Absolute Necessity of Atonement. The ultimate 
 purpose of Jesus Christ is to secure a new race of holy 
 men; but before he can found this race he must make 
 atonement for human sin. Is such an atonement an abso- 
 lute necessity? or is it a relative expedient, either to 
 protect moral government or to create a moral influence 
 sufficient to move the sinner ? The last two views I place 
 together because philosophically they belong together. 
 Practically they are not in the least alike. But philosoph- 
 ically they are alike ; for in each theory the atonement is 
 an expedient to produce influence, in one case an influence 
 to act upon the saint, or upon the saint and the sinner; 
 and in the other case an influence to act upon the sinner 
 alone. Thus both views are essentially utilitarian. And 
 because they are utilitarian I must regard them as super- 
 ficial. The atonement for sin was an absolute necessity — 
 absolute in the sense that the primary demand for it is 
 in God's own nature: is not in God merely as he is out 
 there, in relation to man ; but is in God as he is in there ^ 
 without any objective relations whatever. 
 
320 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 More definitely, my view of the necessity of atone- 
 ment is just as rigid as that held in the satisfaction theory. 
 The pure satisfactionist holds that the satisfaction of 
 justice, by the full expression of it, is absolutely necessary 
 in the very constitution of the Divine Being. I hold that 
 the satisfaction of holiness, by the full expression of it, 
 is absolutely necessary in the very constitution of the 
 Divine Being personalized. The further question whether 
 the self-sacrifice of the vSon of God was so absolutely 
 necessary that nothing else could have taken its place is to 
 be answered without hesitation in the affirmative. For 
 it is inconceivable that a method so costly would have 
 been chosen could God have entirely expressed his holi- 
 ness in any other way. 
 
 Now we can come a little closer to our pivotal conten- 
 tion. With sin a fact, the situation is abnormal, ren- 
 dering the complete expression of holiness, that is, the 
 expression of moral love, for the time impossible. In 
 such a situation God's holiness is expressed, but it is 
 expressed by the most tremendous emphasis upon moral 
 concern. The love of God cannot appear ^vithout an 
 ethical basis firmly fixed. This emphasis upon moral 
 concern is precisely what we find before the atonement is 
 made. The destruction of the Adamic race by the ab- 
 normal method of death is the expression of God's moral 
 concern, or of his eternal hatred of sin. In bodily death, 
 considered alone, God does not say, "I love men" — he 
 says only, '' I hate sin." 
 
 The pivotal point can now be given. It is this: In 
 establishing a new race, in a situation still abnormal with 
 sin, the holiness of God must be as fully expressed in moral 
 concern as it was expressed by the destruction of the old 
 race. There must be complete ethical continuity between 
 the two racial events. Not one step can be taken toward 
 the final expression of moral love until there is as much 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 321 
 
 hatred of sin manifested as was manifested before. This 
 is only saying that in all situations God must be true to 
 the law of holiness. 
 
 The Death of Christ. On the surface we have the 
 physical fact of our Lord's death. In this bodily death 
 he bore the precise racial penalty. Many contend that 
 there could be nothing penal in the death of Jesus simply 
 because he was not guilty. "Nor was Jesus punished 
 for man's sin, he suffered for it. He could not be punished, 
 for he was not guilty." Such a contention is properly 
 made; but it lacks in discrimination, and it also lacks 
 in any full understanding of the apostle Paul. Jesus 
 Christ was not personally a sinner, and was not personally 
 pimished; that is certain. But, on the other hand, his 
 suffering was not ordinary individual suffering — it was 
 official, representative suffering. He suffered, as the Race- 
 Man, for the whole race. He carried the race in his con- 
 sciousness. Thus, Christ's death is a racial event from 
 the double fact that he bears the racial penalty against 
 the old race and that he is the racial center of the new 
 race. And whether we consider the dying Saviour a 
 sinner or not, depends entirely upon our point of view. 
 From the Arminian standpoint of personal sin, he surely 
 was not a sinner. Nor was he a sinner from the stand- 
 point of depravity. But from the racial standpoint he 
 was a sinner, because he stood for the race, and allowed 
 himself to be shut into its category, and actually bore the 
 racial penalty, actually died, and was broken off from the 
 race like any son of Adam. It matters not so much 
 about the words you use, though, if you only catch and 
 firmly hold the idea that our Lord's death was a racial 
 event through and through. 
 
 But this surface fact of physical death has also with 
 our Lord a personal feature involved. By death he was 
 not only separated from men, but also thrust into per- 
 
322 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 sonal isolation. He, like any sinner, experienced the 
 awful loneliness of death. He, too, entered the "cham- 
 ber of silence" companionless. ''But Christ was too 
 strong, too regnant in personal resources, to feel such 
 loneliness." My reply is not merely that our Lord had 
 all natural capacity for himian feelings, and not merely 
 that the objection implies a misunderstanding of the 
 nature of personality — my reply is that our Lord had, 
 before his death, manifested an intense sensitiveness to 
 personal loneliness: ''What, could ye not watch with me 
 one hotir?" 
 
 With our Saviour, however, this personal isolation 
 would not have been actual had he been able to find 
 fellowship with his Father, but his Father had forsaken 
 him. I dare not be ingenious and accommodating here — 
 I must take these words to mean that God the Father 
 was literally absent from the consciousness of his only 
 Son. And, further, I think that the Christian conscious- 
 ness will never allow the critical mangling of the text. 
 The utterance, just as it stands, answers to the intuitive 
 demand of the profoundest Christian experience. A 
 sinner saved by grace shrinks back from the awful words, 
 but in his heart he is certain that his redemption cost all 
 that. The Eternal Father abandoned his own Son and 
 allowed him to pass through death all alone. 
 
 There has been in theology a long discussion as to 
 whether this divine abandonment was real, or only 
 apparent — ^whether it shows the Father's personal attitude 
 toward his Son, or shows a confusion of mind in the 
 Saviour resulting from his terrible experience. But the 
 entire discussion is on the surface. Under pressure, the 
 two views amount practically to the same thing. The 
 psychology of the terrible abandonment has no Christian, 
 no redem^ptional import whatever. Suppose there was 
 the mental confusion, and Jesus simply could not find 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 323 
 
 his Father — then the Father allowed that confusion; the 
 fact of the dreadful isolation was secured in the plan for 
 it, and so the abandonment does express the Father's 
 attitude toward his dying Son. In such a dire situation 
 we are unwilling to spin our fine distinction between a 
 bearing of sufferance and a bearing of exertion, for both 
 bearings express, and equally express, intention. Do you 
 all see it? Do you feel it? Suppose (to inflame the 
 point) that a strong man and his child are standing on the 
 brink of a precipice. The child is confused, cannot find 
 the father's hand, and in an instant will fall over into the 
 abyss. The father, standing there in his power, sees 
 everything, and yet does not reach out and grasp the 
 child's groping hand — the illustration is exceedingly inad- 
 equate, but it does suggest a situation where no one would 
 be allowed to urge the difference between a bearing of 
 sufferance and a bearing of actual exertion. The plain 
 fact is that God the Father intended that his Son should 
 pass through this awful experience of isolation, and had 
 insisted upon it in the garden. With his Son he was 
 ever well pleased ; but now his Son does not stand in his 
 own single selfhood. His Son is the Redeemer, the 
 representative Race-Man, standing in death for a race of 
 sinners, and the Father's attitude is an attitude of holiness 
 toward the entangled entirety of the atoning situation. 
 I am, after long, shrinking hesitation, unable to escape 
 the conclusion that the Son of God, as the racial Mediator, 
 met in the beginning of the isolation of his death the 
 whole shock of the wrath of God against sin, that he was 
 treated precisely as any sinner is treated. His death was 
 more than the tearing apart of body and soul ; his death 
 had in its experience the extreme ethical content of per- 
 sonal isolation. 
 
 John Calvin taught that our Saviour in his soul ex- 
 perienced the anguish of the damned {''quod diros in 
 
324 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 anima crucnatus damnati ac perditi hominis pertulerif') . 
 This view is to us impossible if held, as it was held by 
 Calvin and others, under the terms of the satisfaction 
 theory. Nor can we hold the view as an explanation of 
 our Lord's "descent into hell." But Calvin's primary 
 feeling here, if not his theological insight, was profoundly 
 Christian. Indeed, the day is sure to come when all of 
 Calvin's deep Christian vitalities will be sharply separated 
 from his formal contentions. John Calvin himself was 
 much greater than his scheme of theology. I am con- 
 vinced that Jesus Christ in his death actually suffered 
 infinite anguish. Toward this conviction I was started 
 by Calvin, but not alone by him. For a long time before 
 reading Calvin I had been growing dissatisfied with all 
 the little things which modem theologians are saying 
 about the death of Christ. It is the death of the Son of 
 God. It must be lifted totally out of the world of hu- 
 manitarian mitigation. It must be made a boundless 
 agony in the experience of God himself. It must be 
 made such a finality in awful self-sacrifice that no Chris- 
 tian man, and no saint in all eternity, can ever think of it 
 without suffering. 
 
 But we are told that Christ, inasmuch as he had no 
 consciousness of guilt, could not suffer even as much as 
 one unrepentant sinner will suffer. At first this seemed 
 to me to be a point beyond question ; but a larger contact 
 with the facts of life has led me to doubt the point. 
 Even among men, it is not the guilty man who suffers the 
 most, but rather the innocent friend who loves him and 
 wants to save him. Surely the friend cannot feel guilty 
 himself, but he can, in love and self-sacrifice and full 
 contact with the sinner, have something which the 
 sinner cannot have — purity's complete realization of the 
 condition and penalty and endless ruin of sin. This, 
 however, is but a suggestion to prepare us to look more 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 325 
 
 closely, and to appreciate more thoroughly our Lord's 
 openness to anguish over human sin. Let us carefully 
 note the combination of qualities and relations. As God, 
 our Lord had a capacity constantly available for the 
 intuitive seizure and mental comprehension of all reality 
 and all possibility. As God become man, he was abso- 
 lutely sinless and absolutely sensitive to even the faintest 
 touch of evil. As the Race-Man, he gathered up into 
 his consciousness the whole human race, so that mankind 
 was almost a part of his very being. As Redeemer, he 
 had come, with infinite love and at infinite cost, to save 
 men from sin. And now, with this combination of 
 qualities and relations — divine, human, racial, and re- 
 demptional — our Lord, without the fellowship of his 
 Father, is by his death brought into empiric contact with 
 the penalty and meaning of sin. Are we ourselves, with 
 the intuitions of grace, not able, in some small degree of 
 apprehension, to lay hold of the inner event? The Son 
 of God, as Redeemer making atonement for sin, and as 
 the Founder of a new race of redeemed men, will fully ex- 
 haust the possibilities of suffering, not merely the suffering 
 possible to finite men, but even the suffering possible to 
 the infinite God in human limitation. And so, there 
 alone, our Lord opens his mind, his heart, his personal 
 consciousness, to the whole inflow of the horror of sin — 
 the endless history of it, from the first choice of selfishness 
 on, on to the eternity of hell ; the boundless ocean of its 
 isolation and desolation he allows, wave upon wave, to 
 overwhelm his soul. 
 
 The Complete Expression of the Holiness of God. When 
 we remember who our Lord is, the only-begotten Son of 
 God the Father ; when we realize that the Father '' spared 
 not" his own Son, but delivered him up to this awful ex- 
 perience in death, surely we can begin to feel the ethical 
 intensity of the entire redemptional deed. By this sacri- 
 
326 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 fice of his Son God's relentless hatred of sin is expressed 
 as it could not be expressed by the total annihilation of a 
 universe of sinners. The death of Christ does not, could 
 not, express justice of any kind, or in any degree what- 
 soever. Never can you understand the death of Christ 
 if you cling to that vitiating idea of justice. But the 
 death of our Lord does express moral concern, does show 
 that God cares tremendously about sin. It is not a single 
 item, but the combination — the absolute deity of our 
 Saviour ; his personal preexistence in the eternal glory of 
 the Godhead; his personal obedience in giving up that 
 divine estate ; his continued obedience even while shrink- 
 ing back from the rending and isolation and divine aban- 
 donment and infinite anguish of death; the Father's 
 exhaustless love for his only Son; the Father's profound 
 need of his Son for full personal fellowship; and yet the 
 Father's unremitting insistence that redemption shall be 
 accomplished only by this measureless humiliation of his 
 Son and sacrifice of himself — it is this combination which 
 steeps the whole deed with intense ethical quality. One 
 drop of humanitarianism ; one drop of unitarianism, any 
 form of unitarianism ; one drop of agnostic Ritschlianism ; 
 one drop of even vagueness as to full self -consciousness 
 in the persons of the Trinity, and the ethical quality is 
 almost sure to vanish instantly. In one sentence, we 
 may say that it is the divine tenacity in holding fast to the 
 total penal event of death at such infinite cost in self -con- 
 scious self-sacrifice — it is this tenacity of God so expensive 
 personally which reveals his moral concern. 
 
 This supreme revelation of bare moral concern is what 
 we find when we consider the death of Christ out of its 
 teleological connection, or when we consider it as merely 
 an atonement for human sin. But the atonement itself 
 is not an end, but a means to an end. The end is the ex- 
 pression of the moral love of God, or the expression of the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 327 
 
 fullness of the divine holiness in a race of redeemed men. 
 Jesus Christ does not die to satisfy moral concern, he dies 
 to satisfy moral concern in order that he may be the 
 organizer of a new race. His death is an actual move- 
 ment in penalty toward the racial goal. In treatment of 
 this penal movement toward the goal, one can immedi- 
 ately make use of important features of the governmental 
 theory and the moral influence theory ; but these features 
 should be torn out of their utilitarian setting of expediency. 
 God's only aim and only method is to express all he 
 himself is in holiness. Utility is never planned, and yet 
 utility is necessarily involved. Every movement toward 
 perfect manifestation of holiness is as resultant of more 
 practical utility as every larger shining of the sun is 
 resultant of more heat. What we need is simply God, 
 God out, God entirely manifest in our sky. Such a 
 'manifestation means necessarily all moral potency, all 
 moral support, all practical interests. God is not like 
 a finite Ruler ever balancing efficiencies, ever ponder- 
 ing expedients. His life is one harmonious intuitional 
 experience crowded with complex deposits of related 
 attributes; and his one perpetual purpose is to satisfy 
 himself by expressing all that he is. In a situation ab- 
 normal because of man's freedom and sin, such a com- 
 plete divine expression may become temporarily unfeas- 
 ible or impossible ; in such case God's immediate aim is to 
 move toward the complete goal by expressing his funda- 
 mental holiness in moral concern. The history of re- 
 demption, in its sweep of divine action, may be conceived 
 in this manner: First, there is an ethical start in racial 
 death. Second, there is an effective ethical movement 
 in the death of Christ. Third, there is a racial start in 
 the resurrection and ascension and session of our Lord. 
 Fourth, there is an effective racial movement in the 
 actual formation of the new race by the conversion of 
 
328 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 moral persons. Fifth, the holy racial goal is reached when 
 the redeemed race, expressing the moral love of God, is 
 completed in organism at the final resurrection of the body. 
 The Atonement. The atonement is precisely in the 
 death of Christ, because it is the death of Christ which 
 ethically meets and covers the obstacle of human sin. 
 Thus, we may truly say that the death of Christ propiti- 
 ates God, or reconciles God to mankind, or is a moral 
 satisfaction rendered unto God's holy nature. Or, we 
 can state the matter thus : Because God is holy he hates 
 sin. Because he hates sin, the expression of that hatred 
 is fundamental to any expression of God whatsoever. 
 The death of Christ is the fundamental and exhaustive 
 expression of God's hatred of sin. But, as I have inti- 
 mated in several places, the death of Christ does not 
 satisfy God, or reconcile God, or propitiate God, as an 
 isolated expression of the divine hatred of sin. To grant 
 that point would, as you can readily see, imply that there 
 was an atoning efficiency in the inauguration of racial 
 death; for racial death also expresses God's intense 
 hatred of sin. The death of Christ satisfies God because 
 it is an emphasis upon moral concern unto the actual 
 salvation of the human race as a race. The event of racial 
 death could not satisfy God, and simply because it lacked 
 the tremendous redemptional potencies and racial con- 
 nections which belong to the death of our Lord. Racial 
 death is a start in moral emphasis, but it has no speed, no 
 possibility of ever touching the goal. The death of Christ 
 is, on the contrary, a swift, urgent movement toward 
 the actual expression of moral love in a race of redeemed 
 men. Thus, the divine satisfaction is not in the pure 
 moral stress of the atonement, but rather in the total con- 
 tent and bearing of the atonement as a potent ethical em- 
 phasis rapidly provisional for the ultimate manifestation 
 of all God is. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 329 
 
 Definition. 
 
 Jesus Christ, as the representative Race-Man, endured in his 
 death the precise racial penalty for human sin; and by the total 
 event and experience under that penalty so expressed God's 
 hatred of sin as to render possible the immediate foundation 
 and gradual formation of a new race of men which shall at last 
 perfectly manifest the moral love of God. The atonement is 
 exactly in the death of Christ, if regarded in this comprehensive 
 racial way. 
 
 Founding the New Race. The resurrection of our Lord 
 has a racial significance of much larger Christian conse- 
 quence than its bearing upon the doctrine of personal 
 immortality. Indeed, the idea of personal immortality is 
 but a small item in the Christian conception of the future 
 life. The racial significance of Christ's resurrection lies 
 in two things : First, our Lord in his resurrection com- 
 pleted that human experience which prepared him to be 
 the dynamic center of the new race. Second, our Lord 
 in his resurrection obtained that "body of glory" which 
 is the type-model for the spiritual body of every member 
 of the new race. Thus, by our Saviour's resurrection the 
 racial center of organism becomes a finished fact. 
 
 Saint Paul is constantly inclined to relate the resur- 
 rection of Christ to our justification. For instance, in 
 Rom. 4. 25 we read: "Who was delivered up for our 
 trespasses, and was raised for our justification." This 
 fits into what I have said about the connectional import 
 of the death of Christ. His death reaches into the resur- 
 rection to obtain its redemptional feasibility. The racial 
 center must be finished by our Lord's resurrection before 
 it is feasible to justify men and thus constitute them 
 members of the redemptional organism. 
 
 The ascension of our Lord is sometimes considered as 
 the culmination of the resurrection; but it is better to 
 regard it as the formal historic induction into the racial 
 office of session. All such formal historic events (the 
 
330 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 session, final judgment, etc.) are out of harmony with 
 the present drift in theology, but they must be recognized, 
 I believe, as real objective crises in the process of salva- 
 tion. Even if the Scripture language is panoramic, it is 
 panoramic of actual formal history. The session of our 
 Lord is as truly outward history as is his birth or death. 
 In the New Testament, and especially in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, reference is often made to the session of our 
 Lord ; but it is Saint Paul who brings out clearly the in- 
 tercessory nature of the office. His words are (Rom. 8. 
 34) : "Who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
 intercession for us." By this I understand that Christ is 
 become the perpetual Mediator between God and mankind. 
 As he has redeemed the race, and is now the center and 
 head of the redeemed race, it is through him — he is the 
 standpoint from which all human affairs are viewed. 
 Before this, all was tentative and provisional; but now 
 every human person and every human action and every 
 human experience — all are tested squarely and completely 
 by their relation to the person and work of Jesus Christ. 
 The whole world is now other to God because of what 
 Christ has done and because of what Christ is. Thus, 
 Christ is "seated at the right hand of God," that is, ex- 
 alted to the throne of divine power ; thus, we are forgiven 
 for Christ's sake ; and thus, prayer is made in Christ's name. 
 We have, then, in the redemptive work of our Lord 
 a connected series of racial deeds : 
 
 1. The Incarnation, by which the Son of God becomes 
 the Race-Man. 
 
 2. The Death of Christ, by which he bears the racial 
 penalty and makes atonement for sin. 
 
 3. The Resurrection, by which our Lord founds the new 
 race of redemption. 
 
 4. The Ascension, by which our Lord is inducted into 
 the racial office of mediation. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 331 
 
 5. The Session, by which our Lord is the mediatorial 
 authority in the actual building of the new race and the 
 final judge in determining the destiny of every human 
 being. 
 
 Building the New Race. An atonement has been made 
 for man's sin ; the new race has been founded ; and Jesus 
 Christ is established in his mediatorial office. With all 
 this done, there now begins the actual building of the 
 new race, by saving men one by one through Jesus Christ. 
 In a sense precise and full there was no Christian ex- 
 perience before the ascension of our Lord ; also in a sense 
 precise and full there is now and never can be any Chris- 
 tian experience where there is no faith in Christ as a 
 personal Saviour from sin. Remember, though, I say no 
 precise and full Christian experience ; I do not say religious 
 experience ; and I am not here thinking of the question of 
 ultimate salvation. I simply mean that the direct and 
 positive building of the new race into Christ Jesus, with 
 all the consequent personal experience, did not begin and 
 could not begin until all his redemptive work, all his great 
 racial deeds, were finished. In any fitting place, I am 
 ready and eager to make essential connection between 
 Christianity and the most worthy religious life ; but I am 
 not willing to becloud the splendor of peculiarity which 
 belongs only to a man's experience in Jesus Christ. 
 
 In the next doctrinal division we are thoroughly to 
 study the new man in Christ, but even now we need to 
 glimpse a few notable points : 
 
 I. How God can forgive a sinner. Here you will 
 miss much of the old terminology; but with a little pa- 
 tience you can, I think, adjust yourselves to the racial 
 point of view. By faith in Jesus Christ, a man does, 
 through the work of the Holy Spirit, make entrance into 
 the new race. The man is spiritually joined to Christ, 
 becomes a living part of that peculiar people organized in 
 
332 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Christ, and so is a part of that racial movement toward 
 the glory of God. Fundamentally speaking, the atone- 
 ment is the ground of forgiveness because the atone- 
 ment purchased the very possibility of such racial 
 union with Christ. But actually the sinner is forgiven 
 as making entrance into Christy which is precisely the same 
 thing as making entrance into the new race. Now that 
 the race is provided, God can forgive any man who does 
 the full ethical task which is his side of the act of entrance. 
 This task is a moral faith in Jesus Christ as a personal 
 Saviour, or in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who has 
 made in his death an atonement for all human sin. 
 Because of the peculiarity of our time, I must insist upon 
 the moral quality of the faith, by which I mean that it is 
 a faith growing out of the profound moral experiences of 
 conviction of sin and Christian repentance. Many a man's 
 faith takes him to Christ, gives him a large appreciation 
 of Christ, leads him to do countless deeds for Christ ; but 
 the man's faith has no moral quality, no driving urgency, 
 and so it does not take him into Christ. Personal salva- 
 tion is realized only in Christ Jesus. This is not rhetoric 
 at all ; we must make actual entrance into him, and must 
 actually live in him forever. There is no other way for a 
 sinner to be saved. 
 
 But does the faith save the sinner? Even if our answer 
 were Yes, it would not mean that salvation comes by 
 mere human ''works," for this moral faith required, is 
 itself a profound synergism, and would be impossible 
 without divine contribution. But our answer to the 
 question is No, positively, No. Faith has no redemp- 
 tional quality; strictly speaking, faith is nothing but a 
 condition, the conditional act of personal entrance. It is 
 what one must do to enter Christ, but there is no re- 
 demption in the hare act, redemption follows the act. It 
 is something like a man crossing the ocean. It is as a 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 333 
 
 condition exceedingly important that he have faith to 
 board the ship, but it is the ship itself which really lands 
 
 him safely on the other shore. _^ 
 
 2. ''Peace with God." Often the question is asked, 
 "How is a sinner's peace with God philosophically pos- 
 sible ? How can he ever be satisfied with his sinful past ? " 
 First, I will say that there is a large amount of false and 
 unwholesome teaching at this point. A sinner saved by 
 and in Jesus Christ is never satisfied with his sinful past 
 in the sense that he is complacent over it. To hear some 
 men talk, you would think that they had a sort of rich 
 rejoicing in the fact that they once were great sinners. 
 Whatever queer thing this may be, I have no interest in 
 discovering — I know that it has not in it even one pulse- 
 beat of real Christian experience. No Christian is satis- 
 fied with his sinful past ; he wishes it were not there ; he 
 hates it with untold might of hatred. But this hatred is 
 never a moral disturbance, never reaches into conscience. 
 Why not? First of all, because God has forgiven him. 
 But the redemptional psychology here is very profound. 
 It is not an arbitrary divine forgiveness which gives the 
 sinner peace, but a forgiveness based upon the death of 
 the Son of God for his sins. As I have said in another 
 connection: "A typical sinner is not a theologian; he has 
 no theory of the atonement ; he does not pretend to know 
 what God requires, or what the moral law requires, or 
 even what he himself requires for abiding peace; but he 
 does believe that, whatever is required by anybody or 
 anything, the requirement is satisfied, because the person 
 upon that cross is God the Almighty trying to save him." 
 This, though, but leads to another question : How can this 
 peace be kept under a constantly expanding moral ideal? 
 The answer can be given in a word: The redeemed man 
 lives in Christ, and his expanding moral ideal is nothing 
 whatever but his growing conception of what Christ is 
 
334 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 and what Christ wants him to do. Thus, his life is full of 
 effort to be more and to do more, and yet the more he 
 struggles the deeper is his peace. 
 
 The Characteristics of the New Race. The most eco- 
 nomical way to conclude our long discussion of our Lord's 
 redemptive work is to gather up into definite points the 
 characteristics of the new race. With these points before 
 us, we can, I think, understand why the holy God is 
 satisfied with such a race, or is satisfied with the death of 
 his Son as rendering such a race possible. 
 
 1. The new race is, by the death of Christ, so related to 
 the Adamic race, penally, as to express in perfect con- 
 tinuity God's condemnation of sin. 
 
 2 . The center of the new race is the Son of God himself, 
 with a human racial experience completed by suffering. 
 And so the new race must forever express the awful ethical 
 cost at which it was obtained. 
 
 3. The new race is formed in such fashion that a man 
 can enter it only on the most rigid moral terms. It is a 
 holy race by the very method of its formation. 
 
 4. This new race moves through history toward the goal 
 as the one thoroughly reliable servant of the moral concern 
 of God. 
 
 5. This new race grants to every moral person the 
 possibility of a holy completion of himself in his brethren 
 and in his Redeemer, and of coming to a perfect service, a 
 perfect rest, and a perfect joy. 
 
 6. This new race will, at last, be the victorious realiza- 
 tion of God's original design in creation. 
 
 ''And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 
 Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will 
 dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and 
 God himself shall be with them, and be their God." 
 
THE FOURTH DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
 REDEMPTION REALIZED IN THE NEW MAN 
 
Methought that the Lord showed me a heart into which he had 
 put a new song. Where the heart was I do not know; but I heard it 
 singing about the middle of its song. It had been singing, "What 
 profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit?" It had been 
 singing the fifty-first psalm, and Jehovah had now put a new song 
 into its mouth. He had done it; and the heart was trying to sing — I 
 heard it in the middle of its song. It had been reading the fifth 
 chapter of Revelation and trying to sing some of its numbers; and 
 now it was at these words: ''For thou wast slain'' and, O, how the 
 heart was sobbing and breaking! how it was melting with a joyous 
 grief and a grievous joy! O, how it faltered when it tried to sing, 
 ^' and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood''! It was the soijg of one 
 to whom much had been forgiven, and who, therefore, loved much, 
 but it was the song of the chief of sinners, to whom most had been 
 forgiven, and who, therefore, loved most. Yet it faltered and made 
 wrong music; it jarred, and there was discord; and it grated on its own 
 ear and pained it; and God was listening to the song — God who 
 knoweth all things. But the song was presented to him through 
 and by the Mediator: and if there was discord, it was removed by 
 grace in atoning blood, by the sweet accents of intercession; for it 
 came up as music in Jehovah's ear — melody to the Lord. It was 
 not discord in heaven. I would know, O God, whose soul that is. 
 O God, let that soul be mine. — John Duncan, New College, Edinburgh, 
 1843. 
 
XXIV- THE PERSONAL DISPENSATION OF THE 
 HOLY SPIRIT 
 
 The Question of Personality. When Professor Bey- 
 schlag says that the notion of the Holy Spirit as a third 
 divine person "is one of the most disastrous impor- 
 tations into the Holy Scripture," he is writing as a ration- 
 alist and not as a Christian scholar. We should admit at 
 once, however, that there is for the personality of the Holy 
 Spirit no such indisputable exegetical foundation as there 
 is for the deity of our Lord. The fact is, that this is one 
 of those peculiar places where Christian experience must 
 approach the New Testament with a certain bias. With 
 our Lord as a second person in the Godhead, the theolog- 
 ical problem finds no further philosophical difficulty by 
 making the plurality into a trinity. Indeed, for a certain 
 type of speculative mind, the trinity actually helps us to 
 understand the plurality. But the personality of the 
 Holy Spirit is much more than an easy addition for the 
 Christian man — it is almost a necessary addition. The 
 Christian consciousness is ever more and more inclined to 
 believe that the Holy Ghost is a person. In any time of 
 rich quickening and deepening of the Christian life you 
 will notice, in song and prayer and testimony, a con- 
 tinual dwelling upon the personality of the Holy Spirit. 
 And, as we would naturally expect, the bias of the Chris- 
 tian consciousness enters into the interpretation of God's 
 Word, as it certainly should. 
 
 All this frankly said, still the argument for the person- 
 ality of the Holy Spirit is not weak, if it is not over- 
 whelming. Separated from forced and dubious elements, 
 the argument may be outlined as follows : 
 
338 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 1. The most unartificial explanation of our Saviour's 
 own conception is that the Holy Spirit is a person. If 
 you study the sixteenth chapter of Saint John's gospel 
 you will notice that the Spirit is always treated in careful 
 separation from both the Father and the Son. Then, the 
 term iragdiiXriroq suggests much more than an impersonal 
 influence. There is personal peculiarity implied. He is 
 the intimate helper in danger, distress, sin, and all daily 
 Christian need. To all this must be added that our Lord, 
 after the resurrection, placed a separate stress upon the 
 Spirit, ** baptizing them into the name of the Father and 
 of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" (Saint Matt. 28. 19). 
 Some of the critics, I know, demand that this passage 
 shall be given up ; but I do not find their reasoning con- 
 vincing. My conclusion is that there is indication that 
 our Lord did not regard the Holy Spirit as a mere in- 
 fluence from himself, or from his Father, or from both the 
 Father and the Son; but rather as a distinctly self- 
 conscious Spirit. 
 
 2. In the early church the inspired Christian con- 
 sciousness, as seen in the book of Acts, treated the Holy 
 Spirit in distinction and emphasis just as he had been 
 treated by our Lord. There are many such expressions 
 as these: ''The Holy Spirit said" (Acts 13. 2); ''For it 
 seemed good to the Holy Spirit" (Acts 15. 28). Surely 
 these passages can be explained as figurative color, or more 
 profoundly as psychological dramatization; but to take 
 them as personal is less ingenious; and when connection 
 is made with our Lord's teaching the case is yet stronger. 
 
 3. The teaching of Saint Paul can best be obtained by 
 comparing Rom. 8. 26, 27 with the following: Rom. 8. 
 15, 16; I Cor. 12. 4-11; 2 Cor. 13. 14. To any student 
 making this comparison in full. Saint Paul will certainly 
 be regarded as holding and teaching the distinct per. 
 sonality of the Holy Spirit. And so the apostle Paul in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 339 
 
 his epistles must be added to the book of Acts and to the 
 teaching of our Lord. 
 
 •4. In the antenicene period the Holy Spirit was in 
 Christian consciousness clearly separated from the Father 
 and from the Son, as could not have been the case had he 
 been regarded as a mere impersonal influence from 
 either or both of them. I have space for only one quo- 
 tation. It is from Justin Martyr's First Apology (vi), and 
 has been translated as follows: "And we confess that we 
 are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned ; but 
 not with respect to the most true God, the Father of 
 righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who 
 is free from all impurity. But both him, and the Son 
 . . . and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore." 
 
 What I would claim, then, is this: If we carefully ex- 
 amine the body of Christian utterance from the teaching 
 of our Lord down to the most significant expression of the 
 Christian consciousness before the organized church had 
 any crucial doctrinal task on hand, we shall find that a 
 belief in the personality of the Holy Spirit is naturally 
 implied by that utterance. And I further claim that to- 
 day the case is, for the Christian man, not one of exact 
 exegesis and unbiased interpretation. For two reasons 
 he has a practical and wholesome bias, which turns the 
 above argument into personal conviction: First, the 
 philosophical victory of Athanasius really makes for the 
 personality of the Holy Spirit ; and, second, the increasing 
 deposit of Christian consciousness, for all the Christian 
 centuries, more and more requires the personality of the 
 Holy Spirit. It is not an instance of fundamental addi- 
 tion to the Word of God; but it is an instance where 
 Christian history and Christian consciousness have re- 
 jected certain possible interpretations of. biblical data 
 and have resulted in an interpretation which is not 
 satisfactory to any rationalistic scholar. But the ration- 
 
340 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 alistic scholar himself has just as much bias as has the 
 Christian scholar. 
 
 The Dispensation. When we speak of a "dispensation 
 of the Spirit" we do not mean that Christ Jesus is now 
 less in emphasis ; nor do we mean that until now the Holy 
 Spirit has been inactive; we mean simply that the pe- 
 culiar work of building a new race into Christ is the work 
 of the Spirit of God. This kind of work could not be 
 done before because the new race was not founded. 
 Thus, when it is said that the dispensation of the Holy 
 Spirit was rendered possible only by the atonement in the 
 death of Christ, the remark, however intended, is the 
 exact truth. Details of conversion will be dealt with 
 later; but, first of all, let us look at some of the general 
 characteristics of this dispensation of the Holy Ghost: 
 
 I. The Superficial Quiet of the Dispensation. A very 
 marked peculiarity of this dispensation of the Spirit is 
 that, as a rule, the surface of life is so undisturbed. 
 Now and then the Spirit's struggle with a soul shows itself 
 in noise and external indications of battle, but usually the 
 conflict is fought out entirely in the depths of the human 
 soul. The man talks and laughs and plans a shrewd trade 
 and takes his evening in pleasure and seems to be careless 
 of all spiritual demand; but there is another chapter 
 which you cannot read. Motives are being used, great 
 self -decisions are now and again being made, silently 
 there is deposit after deposit in moral character ; and all 
 this is watched and treated and lifted into full redemp- 
 tional bearing by the swift and profound agency of the 
 Holy Spirit. And there is a philosophy in this quiet, un- 
 dramatic method, too ; for were there constant noise and 
 upheaval and terror there could be no genuine self- 
 decision. It would be easy enough to make the whole 
 race extremely religious by external coercive expedient. 
 One crash of the planets would send every son of Adam 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 34i 
 
 to his knees. But this religion of coercion would not 
 have even an atom of ethical meaning, and all the test of 
 probation would have to be made in some other way. 
 One word of exception is necessary here, however. There 
 are times when it is needful to arouse pure fear to break 
 up the habit of torpidity and render the operation of self- 
 decision possible. But even in these torpid situations 
 the fear must not be turned into overwhelming fright. 
 It is to contribute to self-consciousness and not to 
 smother it. 
 
 2. The Supreme Moral Quality of the Dispensation. 
 But this quiet, although it lends itself to moral test, does 
 not furnish the positive ethical quality of the Spirit's 
 dispensation. This ethical quality comes from two things : 
 First, from the actual stimulation which the Holy Spirit 
 gives to personality. There could be no realization of 
 moral demand unless the person were made strong enough 
 to remain in self -consciousness. Thus, the foundation of 
 all ethical movement lies in personality itself. And 
 whatever makes for strong personality always makes 
 for ethical possibility. In this statement is infolded the 
 main principle of all wise effort in reforming men. Second, 
 from the supremacy which the Holy Spirit grants to con- 
 science. A full Christian experience involves the entire 
 man ; but the Spirit's point of pressure is the conscience. 
 No Christian thing can ever be secured until the con- 
 science is thoroughly utilized and thoroughly satisfied. 
 This does not conflict with anything that I have said in 
 our study of morality. No man can satisfy his moral 
 ideal when it is the cold, abstract, impersonal demand of 
 morality ; but the moral ideal in the Christian process is, 
 by the Holy Spirit, quickly related to the personal God 
 and to Jesus Christ ; and this Christian change profoundly 
 eifects the entire moral situation. But what I wish now 
 to make emphatic is this : In building a Christian man the 
 
342 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Holy Spirit places the utmost stress upon conscience. To 
 be a Christian man you must take all your conscience along 
 with you. It is true that we are not come unto a " tempest 
 and the sound of a trumpet," but the mountain unto 
 which we are come has in it just as much moral quality 
 as there ever was in Mount Sinai. And Mount Sinai had 
 in it just as much moral quality as there ever can be in 
 the loftiest pure morality. 
 
 3. The Infinite Gentleness of the Dispensation. There 
 are times when the Holy Spirit seems to be furious, and 
 he disturbs a wicked soul until there are no human words 
 which can describe the awful torture. But when we look 
 at the dispensation as a whole we find it full of gentleness. 
 How patient he is with us ! How he searches and searches 
 for every faint beginning of better intention, to lift it 
 more clearly into self -consciousness ! How he waits for 
 our final meaning, waits like an endless Friendship ! And 
 how extremely gentle his touch is ! He handles a soul as 
 a Great Mother handles a babe! He is so sensitive that 
 even one vile thought grieves him, and yet he clings and 
 clings to the worst sinner with the tenacity of holy love. 
 "Thy patient love, at what a cost, at last it conquered 
 me!" 
 
 4. The Inevitableness of the Test. From the very fact 
 that the dispensation of the Holy Spirit is so quiet and so 
 ethical and so gentle, the test of the moral person as to 
 intention is inevitable. No man, whatever his outward 
 life, whatever his individual inheritance, whatever his 
 opinions, can escape the searching questions of the Holy 
 Ghost. He is the one abiding Interrogator that cannot 
 be evaded and cannot be silenced. He is the augmented 
 Conscience bound to come to terms of clear understanding 
 with the sinner. Every external test, and every mental 
 test, can be avoided. A man may honestly believe a 
 half truth, and himself manipulate a falsehood into per- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 343 
 
 sonal conviction. He may inherit prejudices which he 
 cannot now even wish to overcome. He may live where 
 his environment is a lifelong disadvantage. But under 
 all — environment, inheritance, chosen opinions — under 
 all the Holy Spirit squarely and repeatedly meets the 
 man and says : *' What do you mean to do with your moral 
 ideal?" Sooner or later the man must answer that 
 question. 
 
 5. The Finality of the Test. If what I have said of 
 the Spirit's dispensation be true, then it follows that, in 
 the very nature of the case, there can be no further moral 
 test. The test under the Holy Spirit is final. Not be- 
 cause God is arbitrary and unwilling, but simply because 
 the dispensation of the Holy Spirit exhausts all moral 
 procedure. There is nothing more which can he done. Of 
 course, if sainthood were automatic, much more could 
 be done ; but inasmuch as sainthood is and must be moral 
 (to be sainthood at all), the notion of a second probation is 
 inconceivable. 
 
 ''The sin against the Holy Ghost.'' ''Therefore I say 
 unto you, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto 
 men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be 
 forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the 
 Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever shall 
 speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, 
 neither in this world, nor in that which is to come " (Saint 
 Matt. 12. 31, 32 ; Saint Mark 3. 28-30; Saint Luke 12. 10). 
 The clue to these seemingly strange words of our Lord is 
 added by Saint Mark: "Because they said. He hath an 
 unclean spirit." They could make an honest mistake 
 as to Jesus himself, they might not be able to look upon 
 him as their expected Messiah; but to say that all the 
 good Christ did was inspired by an unclean spirit re- 
 vealed a heart fixed in hostility to the right — an irreme- 
 diable turpitude of the personal motive-life . This sin could 
 
 I 
 
344 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH \ 
 
 never be forgiven because it was a finality in their inten- \ 
 
 tional bearing. In brief, the sin against the Holy Ghost J 
 
 is the full personal rejection of all the moral demand ' 
 
 which the Holy Ghost makes through conscience. In | 
 
 the sixteenth article of the Church of England, 1552, we ] 
 
 read, " Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is when a man \ 
 
 of malice, and stubbornness of mind, doth rail upon the ] 
 
 truth of God's Word manifestly perceived." Comment- ] 
 
 ing upon this article, Dean Mansel says, ''Thus inter- ' 
 
 preted, the sin is not a single act, but a spirit of hostility ; 
 
 to Christ, manifesting itself in continued acts." The I 
 
 article and the comment have caught the spirit of the j 
 
 sin, but they are not profound enough to fit into the j 
 
 Saviour's statement. The sin is not directly against him, \ 
 
 nor directly against the Scripture, but against moral ] 
 
 concern itself. It is the culmination of personal sin j 
 
 into a fixed attitude of willful unrighteousness. And I 
 
 so it is the complete exhaustion of the pressure of the J 
 
 Holy Spirit. And so it is not forgivable — it is everlasting ] 
 
 moral ruin. I 
 
ORDO SALUTIS 
 
BXnLDING THE NEW MAN IN CHRIST 
 THE TYPICAL PROCESS IN OUTLINE 
 I. The Preparation for Conversion. 
 
 A. The Human Side of the Preparation. 
 
 1. The bearing of persons. 
 
 2. The bearing of the Christian church. 
 
 (i) The preacher. 
 (2) The people. 
 
 3. The bearing of the sinner himself. 
 
 B. The Divine Side of the Preparation. 
 
 1. The ordinary work of the Holy Spirit in conscience. 
 
 2. The extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit in conscience. 
 
 (i) Enlightenment. 
 
 (2) Awakening. 
 
 (3) Conviction of sin. 
 
 (4) Invitation. 
 
 II. Conversion. The first point of Christian attainment — the 
 loyal person. 
 
 A. The Human Side of Conversion. 
 
 1. Repentance. 
 
 2. Faith. 
 
 B. The Divine Side of Conversion, 
 
 1. Justification. 
 
 2. Regeneration. 
 
 3. Adoption. 
 
 III. Christian Holiness. The second point of Christian attain- 
 
 ment — the holy person. 
 
 IV. The Intermediate State. The third point of Christian attain- 
 
 ment — the completed personal individual. 
 V. The Resurrection of the Body. The fourth point in Christian 
 attainment — the completed new man in Christ. , 
 
XXV. THE PREPARATION FOR CONVERSION 
 
 First of all, it may be well to remind you of the true 
 philosophy of influence in any consistent Arminian theol- 
 ogy ; for many an Arminian is quite ready, after insisting 
 that the influence of God cannot be coercive, to teach 
 that the influence of men can actually and efliciently 
 bring about the conversion of a sinner. Surely you 
 readily perceive the underlying inconsistency. Let 
 it be said, then, plainly and repeatedly, that no human 
 influence is ever compulsory to the personal acceptance of 
 Jesus Christ. But what, then, can we do by our influence ? 
 We can do very much. The Holy Spirit, in his dispen- 
 sation, allows us to work together with him in doing two 
 things : First, in clearing up the self -consciousness so there 
 can be self -decision. Second, in furnishing a motive for 
 immediate self -decision. Never can we coerce a moral 
 person, but we can make it necessary for him to do some- 
 thing instantly. We also can do many very valuable 
 things in relation to the surface of life ; but with these we 
 are not now concerned. For example, it is of worth to 
 keep the life of a child outwardly moral by personal 
 watchcare, but we are doing a superficial thing, after all, 
 a thing which should not be in any manner confused with 
 real conversion. 
 
 The Bearing of Persons. By the term hearing I mean 
 much more than word or deed, although these may mani- 
 fest the bearing. I also mean something different from 
 the quiet influence of moral character, although such 
 character is of the largest moment. "What you are 
 speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say." I mean 
 precisely this : You hold a certain noble ideal over against 
 
348 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 a certain man — that he shall be a Christian of the largest 
 and profoundest kind — and steadily you bear toward this 
 man, without dropping the ideal, and without weakening 
 the demand. To yourself you say, day after day, and 
 perhaps year after year: "Ah, you cannot deceive me. I 
 will believe in you more deeply than your own estimate. 
 And I will not be satisfied with any makeshift. You 
 simply must be this other man which I have in mind." 
 The important thing is not how this bearing is expressed ; 
 the important thing is that you really have it, that you 
 cultivate it, that you never give it up either before men or 
 before God. If we could only exchange our general 
 "passion for souls" for an unyielding heartache for 
 definite men, our influence would be greater. The mighti- 
 est thing we can ever do for a man is to insist upon 
 suffering for him until he is a new man in our Lord. But 
 it takes a great Christian to suffer, and to suffer wisely 
 and helpfully, for other men. 
 
 The Bearing of the Church. Here the problem is to 
 create for all the work of the church, and especially for 
 the church services, a Christian atmosphere. The first 
 thing to do is to unload the church of all its unchristian 
 features — music or ritual or anything which is planned 
 as a substitute for Christian pressure. It matters not 
 whether the church service is in form simple or complex, 
 beautiful or rugged, provided that every item makes its 
 positive spiritual offering to a Christian atmosphere. But 
 yet more important is the bearing of the Christian con- 
 gregation. Every Christian person in the congregation 
 should insist upon a Christian atmosphere, praying for it, 
 preparing for it, expecting it, and so making personal 
 contribution to it. But yet more important is the bearing 
 of the preacher himself. He can, in combination with the 
 Holy Spirit, do more than the entire congregation. Again 
 and again I have known Dr. John Hall to come into his 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 349 
 
 pulpit and before he had spoken one word change the 
 atmosphere from that of the world to that of the gospel. 
 He brought Christian urgency with him ; and personality- 
 began to rouse up, and conscience to make demand all 
 over the room. The preacher's bearing was fully as im- 
 portant as his sermon. 
 
 The Bearing of the Sinner Himself. It is of the utmost 
 importance how the sinner meets the different pressures 
 against his life, and how he treats the moral ideal which 
 he now has. Not infrequently we hear some man say: 
 " But I have never had any feeling that I should become a 
 Christian — I must wait for that." If the man's words 
 are true to the fact, the probability is that his bearing has 
 been unopen toward many small spiritual appeals. The 
 work of the Holy Spirit is- not arbitrary — it has root- 
 connections. Just as the bursting blossom has a history 
 which reaches down out of sight into the ground, so a 
 spiritual crisis is the outcome of many unseen things in 
 personal history. This I believe : any self-conscious person 
 can begin right where he is and bear toward God. There is 
 some right thing which he can choose — some moral beck- 
 oning which he can follow. This does not mean that con- 
 version is immediately possible, but it does mean such a 
 personal response to the Holy Spirit that more spiritual 
 experiences can be given to a man. But from what I have 
 said you are likely to infer that the work of the Holy 
 Spirit is always in this measure-for-measure method? 
 Such is not the case. The Holy Spirit will do, sooner or 
 later, every possible gracious thing for a sinner; but it 
 is in his wish to make use of people, and the sinner him- 
 self, as much as possible ; and so again and again he waits 
 for men, and precisely adapts his influence to their bearing. 
 It is almost impossible to give a perfectly balanced state- 
 ment of the entire case ; but there are two points which 
 you must tenaciously hold : First, that moral response is 
 
3SO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 always possible to a self-conscious moral person. Second, 
 that such response tends toward conversion. 
 
 The Divine Side of the Preparation. Every movement 
 in conscience is the work, I believe, of the Holy Spirit; 
 but it is impossible to obtain any exact and exhaustive 
 psychology of this work. We may, though, for the sake 
 of redemptional emphasis, fairly divide the whole field, 
 by making a distinction between the ordinary and the 
 extraordinary operations of the Spirit. What we find is 
 precisely this : Beyond all those common moral experiences 
 which I have covered with the phrase sporadic morality, 
 there are certain additional experiences which are so 
 momentously significant that they should be made to stand 
 out, in all practical Christian discussion, as something 
 more than the usual manifestations of conscience. These 
 additional experiences are in inherent correspondence with 
 the higher experiences of the moral process, but they are 
 deepened and augmented and corrected by grace. By 
 grace I understand neither more nor less than that special 
 intense action of the Holy Spirit which is his response to 
 the definite redemptional purpose of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ as the Mediator in actual session between God and 
 man. What we have now under the grace of Christ is the 
 filling out of the old moral indications. Even those 
 initial things are in the dispensation of the Spirit, and in 
 consequence (logically) of the atonement, and in teleo- 
 logical connection with the plan of salvation; but it is 
 only in grace that we perceive the crowning peculiarity 
 of the Spirit's dispensation. What I want you all to do 
 is this: First, ground the process of conversion in the 
 moral process itself. Then, lift the whole thing into 
 positive Christian peculiarity. Keep the moral basis, but 
 add grace. 
 
 These extraordinary moral experiences, in as far as they 
 belong to the preparation for conversion, are as follows : 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 351 
 
 1. A Vision of Righteousness. For the first time the 
 sinner sees that all separate items of wrong are but 
 splinters of one vast wrong which is in antagonism to one 
 vast righteousness. It is not enough to do right, here and 
 there, now and then. Thus, the man obtains a moral 
 ideal, and a sense of personal obligation toward his ideal. 
 Morally the man is in a new state, and the theological 
 term which expresses this new condition is enlightenment. 
 The sinner has been enlightened by the Holy Ghost. This 
 term enlightenment is very convenient ; but I would make 
 no battle for the word. The main thing is to keep hold 
 of the fact of this new conception of righteousness as a 
 whole. 
 
 2 . A Vision of the Holy God. In the bare moral process, 
 this vision of the totality of the right secures no adequate 
 outcome; but in the full Christian process it is but the 
 beginning of a larger vision, namely, the vision of the 
 Holy God. Righteousness is now made personal, but that 
 is not all. There is a further note of intense divine con- 
 cern for righteousness. The Holy God is not a mere 
 person who is righteous ; his whole being is on fire with it, 
 and the flame of his awful purity is unapproachable by 
 man. With this vision of the Holy God the sinner may 
 be considered as having been awakened by the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 3. A Vision of Sin. This is the completion of the vision 
 of righteousness and God. Sin is seen to be not merely a 
 violation of conscience, but an unnatural rebellion against 
 the Holy God, who is intensely concerned about it. Now 
 comes the real conviction of sin. ''Against thee, thee 
 only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy 
 sight." If we try to analyze the conviction of sin we shall 
 find in it two features: First, the feeling that our sin is 
 under God's absolute condemnation. In John Bunyan's 
 case there was such a keen realization of impending judg- 
 
352 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ment that he was literally filled with terror. He says: 
 ''There was I struck into a very great trembling, inso- 
 much that at some times I could, for days together, feel 
 my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter 
 tmder the sense of the dreadful judgment of God." This 
 is an extreme case, and it would seem almost as if the 
 terror were so great as to become coercive ; but in all con- 
 viction of sin there is deep distress over the wrath of God. 
 Second, there is a feeling of self -blame. When convicted 
 of sin, a sinner does not begin to excuse himself. He 
 does not blame his parents, the law of heredity, the people 
 about him ; he blames just himself. He actually joins in 
 the divine condemnation; and, to keep Wesley's phrase, 
 lets the law of God "glare upon him." 
 
 4. Divine Invitation. Were this conviction of sin the 
 end, the sinner's situation in the Christian process would 
 be more hopeless than it is in the moral process ; but the 
 end is not yet. Into this distress and severity and gath- 
 ering despair there comes the invitation by the Holy 
 Spirit. The form and outward circumstances of this in- 
 vitation may be one thing or another — a friendly Christian 
 look, a letter from home, a prayer, a sermon ; but what- 
 ever the form, the content is the voice of God's Spirit, 
 saying, *Xome, come, my son; Jesus Christ wills to save 
 you." The tenderness of this invitation is almost the 
 most wonderful thing in all the action of the Holy Spirit. 
 It is like a rainbow springing into the sky after a storm 
 and lending a quiet hopefulness to every frightened 
 creature and to every dripping thing. 
 
 With this invitation from the Holy Spirit, the entire 
 preparation for conversion is completed. 
 
XXVI- CONVERSION 
 
 The Human Side of Conversion 
 When we speak of a human side of conversion we are 
 speaking practically and not profoundly. In repentance, 
 as well as in faith, there is a synergism, where God's part 
 is much more important than man's part ; but for practical 
 reasons it is man's part that we seek to emphasize. 
 
 Repentance. This is another place where we have to 
 do not so much with the Greek words (jj^eravoecj — ^marpe^w) 
 as with the total teaching of the New Testament, and 
 with the total Christian consciousness. We will start 
 with a provisional " working definition." Repentance is a 
 personal sorrow for personal sin as against the Holy God. 
 In the first place, we should place the greatest emphasis 
 upon the point that repentance is personal. I mean this in 
 the most earnest sense. Repentance is not merely some- 
 thing done by a person, it is something done by a person 
 when he is self-conscious. It is not a feeling of disturbance 
 in consciousness, but a feeling of moral disturbance in 
 ^^//-consciousness. It involves a clear estimate of self 
 under a moral ideal. No man can repent without real 
 self-decision, and there can be no self -decision without 
 full self -consciousness. In the next place, repentance is 
 a personal sorrow. The sorrow itself is, I believe, the 
 gift of God ; but it comes to personal appropriation in self- 
 decision, and expresses at last the personal bearing of the 
 sinner himself. In the next place, this sorrow is over the 
 sinner's personal sin. The sorrow is not over vice. One 
 may be in distress over vice and not have the spirit of 
 repentance at all. Our vices may imperil our ambitious 
 plans, and ruin our friendships, and make us outcasts from 
 
354 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 society, and injure our health, and even limit our pleasures 
 — and we may be greatly troubled over it all. But such 
 trouble is not sorrow over personal sin. Nor is repentance 
 a man's distressing disturbance at being found out. Many 
 a criminal has been so extremely wretched, when caught 
 in his crime, as to be taken for a penitent ; but his penitence 
 proved to be over his misfortune and not over his vileness 
 of heart. In the last place, the sorrow is over the fact 
 that the sinner's personal sin is against the Holy God. 
 The final drop of bitterness in the cup of the repentant 
 sinner is that he is hostile to the Holy God. He looks 
 upon himself as a miserable rebel; and, without one 
 clause of extenuation, his cry is only for mercy. 
 
 It is now possible and may be helpful to enter some- 
 what into the philosophy of repentance. What we 
 really have in Christian repentance is the conviction of sin 
 made hopeful. After the Holy Spirit's invitation the 
 sinner still keeps his vision of sin and the Holy God ; but 
 the vision is not alone in self -consciousness, it is there 
 with the invitation. And so the vision is refashioned by 
 being shot through and through with hope. This gives the 
 sinner courage to make such a perfectly compliant response 
 that the Holy Spirit can do more, namely, break the man's 
 hard heart. This is contrition of heart, and it is the very 
 marrow of Christian repentance. But we are going a bit 
 too fast. Contrition of heart is, closely speaking, the 
 broken heart, the work of the Spirit, accepted, personal- 
 ized, made the sinner's very own act. And the vSinner 
 does all this by three personal attitudes: First, confes- 
 sion. I do not mean words, although words are likely 
 to be used, but an attitude of complete acknowledgment 
 of guilt before God. It is the hopeful enlargement of 
 the self -blame in conviction. And, second, a hopeful de- 
 termination to get right at any cost. This is what Dr. 
 Whedon was wont to call the " purpose of righteousness." 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 355 
 
 The whole feeling is this: "God himself wants me to be 
 right, then I can be right, then I will be right." And, 
 third, personal hatred of his sin as ungodly. The repent- 
 ant sinner begins to hate all his sin bitterly as a thing 
 in antagonism with the holiness of God. 
 
 Final Definition of Repentance. To complete our pro- 
 visional definition, we would say this : Repentance is a sin- 
 ner's personal sorrow over his responsible sin, both in 
 deed and in condition of heart ; and involves a confession 
 of the guilt of his sin, a purpose to get free from his sin, 
 and an intense hatred of his sin as against the holy God. 
 It is contrition of heart with three distinct notes — con- 
 fession, determination, and moral hatred. 
 
 Faith. As a matter of fact, there is a certain element 
 of faith necessary toward the Holy Spirit's invitation 
 before there can be any repentance; but the full, culmi- 
 nating personal bearing of saving faith is properly placed 
 here after repentance and in close relation to justification. 
 
 The Nature of Faith. The biblical writers do not aim 
 to provide any exhaustive idea of the inherent nature of 
 faith; but there is one suggestive passage, the familiar 
 beginning of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews: "Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a 
 conviction of things not seen." The meaning can be 
 given thus: Faith makes the unseen things for which a 
 person hopes certain to his soul. And I think we can go 
 further and analyze the meaning to some advantage: 
 First, the object of faith must be beyond the seizure of 
 the senses, and beyond the entire field of coercive reality. 
 You cannot have faith in anything which can be so ex- 
 actly demonstrated as to overwhelm the personal equa- 
 tion. Second, this unseen object of faith must be hoped 
 for. That is, the object of faith is a personal ideal which 
 calls out the heart. Third, this unseen ideal faith turns 
 into a personal conviction. The person is convinced that 
 
356 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 the ideal is not a vagary, but an object as real as the 
 objects which are seen. Indeed, sometimes to a great 
 saint the invisible world is much more real than is the 
 visible world. 
 
 But I want to examine more closely this term hoped for 
 (eXm^oiievov) . If I mistake not, the underlying idea is 
 the same that we find again and again in the New Testa- 
 ment, and especially in that verse of hot controversy in 
 the fifth chapter of Galatians: *'For in Christ Jesus 
 neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircum- 
 cision; but faith working through love" (di' dydnrjg). 
 I will not join in the controversy over this last clause; 
 still I have no doubt whatever but that a sound interpre- 
 tation requires the love to be regarded as a normal 
 feature of faith. There can be no full faith without love, 
 and no faith at all without some heart-interest. The 
 person's will cannot lay hold of the invisible ideal without 
 motive, and the motive is this heart-yearning which 
 idealizes the object and makes it attractive. Every man 
 of faith is a spiritual idealizer — a poet, if you will. 
 
 But even with this contribution from the heart faith is 
 a personal venture. 1 would state it in this way: Faith 
 is the personal venture by which we create that confi- 
 dence in an ideal which is necessary to satisfy our entire 
 being. My heart has turned the object into an ideal; 
 and now I need this ideal, not as a dream, but as a reality ; 
 and by the power of my personality I actually make the 
 ideal real to myself. Thus, in faith a man always takes 
 a risk. But he takes this risk in the name of satisfied 
 manhood. 
 
 You must not, though, suppose that the mind has no 
 place in faith. In all normal faith the mind is entirely 
 satisfied, only it is never allowed to make any demand 
 contrary to the needs of the whole man. For illustration, 
 take the idea of personal immortality. There is no 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 357 
 
 evidence adequate to satisfy the mind in isolation. But 
 if the mind takes its place in relation to all a man is in 
 conscience — in heart; if the man, as a moral person, 
 hopes for a world beyond the grave ; if he, out of a spiritual 
 life here, now, ventures on into perfect faith as to im- 
 mortality, then his mind is satisfied completely. Indeed, 
 there is nothing more thoroughly rational in all thinking 
 than a Christian man's faith in personal immortality. 
 He is just as rational as is the rationalist. 
 
 I am not quite pleased with what I have written con- 
 cerning the mind and faith. It is true enough, but too 
 vague. The fact is that in normal faith the person makes 
 his venture with a satisfied mind. He does not, as some 
 have taught, first believe in order that afterward he may 
 satisfy his mind. He never drops his mind; he never 
 lets go of reality for an instant. But the mind is not 
 allowed to work alone, and the reality is lifted into an 
 ideal for the whole man. Come back to immortality. 
 What we have there is not a sheer fancy, but an ideal 
 conception which is rooted in a group of things of which 
 the man is sure now in this life. For this ideal conception 
 there is no coercive evidence to reach the mind alone, but 
 there is enough evidence so that when the man dares to 
 make the personal venture, in the name of his ideal, and 
 out of genuine spiritual need, his mind goes with him, 
 satisfied all the time. 
 
 This is just the connection in which we may best grasp 
 the difference between normal faith and that abnormal 
 faith which is presumption. In presumption the mind is 
 never satisfied. The venture is made in the most arbi- 
 trary way without any regard to reality. A man of 
 presumption is bound to have his own way even if he has 
 to do violence to every fact in the universe. Thus, the 
 venture is likely at last to violate the moral nature. A 
 man of faith, on the contrary, wants nothing whatever 
 
358 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 as a willful capture at the expense of reality. But he 
 does believe that reality is vast enough to satisfy thor- 
 oughly an entire man, heart as well as intellect. Here in 
 one incident is the difference in spirit between faith and 
 presumption. After trying to control the will of a 
 severely wounded man a certain ** faith-healer" impa- 
 tiently exclaimed : " I cannot help you as long as you keep 
 believing that your head is cut open." The man answered : 
 '' But it is cut open. I will not believe a lie even to get 
 well." 
 
 Different Kinds of Faith. There are two things which, 
 either separately or in combination, differentiate one kind 
 of faith from another kind. These two things are the 
 relation to conscience and the nature of the ideal object. 
 Perhaps our most useful plan will be to secure two main 
 divisions from the standpoint of moral quality, and then 
 the subdivisions from the standpoint of peculiarity in the 
 ideal. 
 
 I. N on-Moral Faith. 
 
 1. Secular Faith. Such faith we find wherever there 
 is an unrealized object which is not a matter of exact 
 knowledge, and yet is in some way an ideal toward which 
 a man goes out in full but unarbitrary aspiration. There 
 may be such aspiration toward such an ideal in national 
 life, or in science, or in invention, or in discovery, or even 
 in the ordinary world of business. In truth, the very 
 great things in secular affairs are usually done by faith ; 
 sometimes admittedly by presumption, but more often 
 by such a combination of knowledge and hope and venture 
 as amounts to real faith. 
 
 2 . Bare Religious Faith. This has already been noticed 
 in our Introduction, and no further word is required in 
 this connection. 
 
 II. Moral Faith, 
 
 3. The Lowest Phase of Moral Faith. A secular faith 
 
 ^ 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 359 
 
 may (as in the finest patriotism, or in the most noble 
 philanthropy) involve the moral nature, and so become a 
 moral faith, expressing not only mind and heart-interest 
 and personal venture, but also a positive sense of duty. 
 
 4. The Lowest Phase of Moral Religious Faith. In 
 the religion of the moral person it is possible to have a 
 moral faith which is not definitely theistic, and so we 
 protect this fact in our classification. 
 
 5. Theistic Faith. Here the ideal is either the personal 
 God or the moral law considered as the manifest will of 
 the personal God. 
 
 6. Messianic Faith. The Old Testament faith, at its 
 highest, is much more than a theistic faith ; for the ideal 
 is saturated with a peculiar redemptional expectancy. 
 The Old Testament prophet, deal with him as critically 
 as the Christian consciousness will permit, is looking on — 
 on to a coming Redeemer from sin; and this Messianic 
 element gives to the object of faith a moral intensity 
 which is not possible to any form of naked theism. 
 
 7. Christian Faith. To the Christian man the Re- 
 deemer is no longer an expectation — He is come! And 
 this one fact lifts every phase of Christian faith into a 
 completeness which is merely suggested by other kinds of 
 faith. 
 
 The Faith that Saves a Sinner. In New Testament 
 usage, the word marig has a number of very different 
 meanings. Sometimes it means fidelity; again it means 
 a trust in a divine promise ; again it means a man's entire 
 attitude of confidence toward God; and again it means 
 the essential body of Christian teaching. But beyond all 
 this there is, especially in Saint Paul's epistles, a concep- 
 tion of a definite faith which saves a sinner; and this 
 saving faith is the root of every phase of Christian faith. 
 This saving faith is ** faith in Jesus Christ" (see the third 
 chapter of Romans). But the Christian meaning does 
 
36o THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 not all appear in the phrase. It is not Jesus as a person, 
 nor Jesus as a teacher, nor Jesus as a Master ; but Jesus as 
 the Son of God become our actual Saviour from sin. 
 Bishop Lightfoot, in his commentary on Galatians, says 
 that to understand the force, and to appreciate the leading 
 conception, of Saint Paul's teaching as to faith, "it would 
 be necessary to take into account the atoning death and 
 resurrection of Christ as the central object on which that 
 faith is fixed." In any normal situation the full object 
 of saving faith is this : Jesus Christ as God in self-sacrifice 
 become man; and having by his death made full atone- 
 ment for sin. This double emphasis makes the es- 
 sential ideal, but often it has been enlarged to cover the 
 resurrection and even the present mediation of our Lord. 
 I would not say, however, that in every individual case 
 to-day the sinner^s faith in Christ involves the entirety of 
 this double emphasis, and that without it there is no 
 real conversion. I dare not say so much. But I do say 
 that a sinner who has been convicted of sin, and who has 
 responded in thorough repentance, needSy in his object of 
 faith, both the deity and the death of our Lord ; and when 
 either is lacking his Christian experience is likely to be 
 
 extremely superficial. 
 
 Definitions 
 Concise. 
 
 Saving faith is the perfect trust of a repentant sinner in Jesus 
 Christ as his divine Saviour from sin. 
 Enlarged. 
 
 Saving faith is the perfect trust of a repentant sinner in Jesus 
 Christ as his divine Saviour from sin; and involves the entire 
 man — mind and sensibility and will. 
 Comprehensive. 
 
 Saving faith is a personal bearing of the entire man; pre- 
 supposing that sense of moral need which is completed by repent- 
 ance; and involving, normally, a conviction that Christ is God, 
 and that his death was an atonement for sin ; and further involv- 
 ing a feeling of both duty and love toward Christ; this whole 
 bearing being gathered up in a positive venture out upon Christ 
 as a personal Saviour. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 361 
 
 The Divine Side op Conversion 
 Those exact distinctions which are made in systematic 
 theology between justification, regeneration, and adop- 
 tion are not supported by modem biblical investigation. 
 In presenting the Christian life, not only has every New 
 Testament writer a way of his own, but, what is still more 
 confusing, no writer aims to secure any philosophical con- 
 sistency in his different statements. Saint Paul comes 
 the nearest to fundamental consistency; but when we 
 apply the modem method to his epistles, the most of his 
 assertions are seen to be practical and literary rather 
 than philosophical. Justification and adoption, for ex- 
 ample, are not separate and exclusive things in Saint 
 Paul's mind, as if God first justified a sinner before the 
 law and then adopted him into his family. The apostle 
 is all the time writing about the same thing, only with 
 two literary forms in mind, and so from two different 
 practical points of emphasis. 
 
 Still there is great advantage, for some minds at least, 
 in so lifting out of all vagueness the different practical 
 points of emphasis as to separate them into distinct 
 momenta of the divine side of conversion. Such separa- 
 tion gives us a clearer view of the magnificent total of 
 Christian experience, and need not mislead anyone, if he 
 only keep in mind that we are dealing not with several 
 basal things, but with one basal thing in its several prac- 
 tical relations. 
 
 Justification. The Greek word here is 6ikcu6(o. 
 Whether we hold, with some commentators, that the 
 word means to make righteous, or hold, with other com- 
 mentators, that the word means to pronounce righteous^ 
 is really of no great concern. In either case, the meaning 
 is merely forensic. The sinner's new condition is a legal 
 condition. The use of this term does not indicate in the 
 
362 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 least the present subjective state of the sinner, but only 
 that the law has no further claim against him. 
 
 In a most characteristic passage Cardinal Newman 
 admits that diKaiovv means only to declare righteous, 
 but adds that the divine declaration is creative. "It is 
 not like some idle sound, or a vague rumor coming at 
 random and tending no whither ; but it is ' the word which 
 goeth forth out of his mouth ' ; it has a sacramental power, 
 being the instrument as well as the sign of his will. It 
 never can ' return imto him void, but it accomplishes that 
 which he pleases, and prospers in the thing whereto he 
 sends it.* Imputed righteousness is the coming in of 
 actual righteousness. They whom God's sovereign voice 
 pronoimces just, forthwith become in their measure 
 just." How like Newman all this sounds! So original, 
 so uplifting, and yet so empty of reality and so distant 
 from Saint Paul I Through Newman's discussion one 
 can seldom catch even the faintest and most flashing 
 glimpse of the apostle. 
 
 What, then, does Saint Paul mean by the justification 
 of a sinner? He does not mean that God actually wills 
 the condition of subjective righteousness into the soul of a 
 sinner. Nor do I think that Saint Paul means that God 
 forgives a sinner, or pardons a sinner. Those words, 
 forgiveness and pardon, answer well enough in ordinary 
 speech ; but neither one of them is quite large enough to 
 express all the apostle means by justification. Perhaps 
 I can best bring out the Pauline view by a paraphrase: 
 " I am thinking of those who are in Christ Jesus, in him 
 by faith and the work of the Holy Spirit. How are they 
 now related to God? They are to him as righteous men. 
 The past is blotted out, and they are in a class now fully 
 under his favor, to be treated as men saved by the death 
 of Christ. In one word, they are justified, for no longer 
 are they under the condemnation of the law.'* 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 363 
 
 Definitions 
 Dr. Latimer's Definition. 
 
 "We therefore define justification to be that gracious act of 
 God, as Moral Governor, whereby, on the ground of the atone- 
 ment, and on condition of faith in Christ, he pardons the penitent, 
 and treats him as though he had not sinned, and receives him 
 into positive favor." 
 Popular Definition. 
 
 Justification is God's acceptance of a sinner who joins himself 
 by moral faith to Jesus Christ. 
 Descriptive Definition. 
 
 When a repentant sinner has faith in Jesus Christ as his divine 
 Saviour, God forgives the man's sin, and receives the man him- 
 self into full favor, because Christ died for him. Thus, the 
 sinner is justified. 
 Final Definition. 
 
 Justification is that change in personal bearing, whereby God, 
 because of the death of Christ, and on condition of a repentant 
 sinner's faith in Christ as his divine Saviour, receives him into 
 full favor. 
 
 Regeneration. I cannot agree with Professor Sanday 
 when he says that ''the Christian life is made to have its 
 beginning in a fiction." Such an idea of fiction in justi- 
 fication comes from failing to remember that justification 
 is but a phase, one relative aspect, of a fundamental ex- 
 perience. That fimdamental experience is union with 
 Christ. And, while one phase of this union is a new rela- 
 tion to God's favor, another phase is a new spiritual life 
 in the sinner himself, a new life which is obtained by a 
 new relation to the Holy Ghost. To use John Wesley's 
 words, " There is a real as well as a relative change." '' No 
 man is justified without being regenerated." 
 
 The Scripture Data. In coming to the New Testament 
 we are to seek only data, and not any philosophy of 
 regeneration ; and such data we find in great abundance. 
 First, we have Saint Peter's phrase, "having been begot- 
 ten again" (i Pet. i. 23). Then, we have Saint John's 
 words: ''Whosoever belie veth that Jesus is the Christ, is 
 begotten of God" (i John 5. i ; also see i John 2. 29 ; 3. 9 ; 
 
364 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 4. 7; and compare with Saint John*s gospel i. 12, 13). 
 Then, although Saint Paul is peculiarly the teacher of 
 justification, still he now and again seems to have in mind 
 the change which takes place in the sinner himself. In 
 Galatians (4. 19) he writes, ''imtil Christ be formed in 
 you." In 2 Corinthians (5. 17) he writes, "Wherefore if 
 any man is in Christ, he is a new creature" (KaLvrj KTimg) ; 
 and in Ephesians (4. 23, 24), "And that ye be renewed 
 in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, that 
 after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness 
 of truth." 
 
 Many students have difficulty in understanding our 
 Lord's words to Nicodemus: "Except one be born of 
 water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God." Our Saviour's meaning becomes quickly evident 
 when we note that the word water makes connection with 
 the peculiar mission of John the Baptist, which Christ 
 was eager to recognize. John's baptism was one of water 
 with the most tremendous emphasis upon repentance. 
 Our Lord said to Nicodemus in substance this: "To enter 
 the kingdom! of God you must have a new birth, a birth 
 which begins with repentance on your part, and is ac- 
 complished by the power of the Holy Spirit. You must 
 start with John's teaching, but go away beyond that, and 
 rely upon the Spirit of God, who can make you all over 
 again." 
 
 A Psychology of Regeneration. Can we, though, get 
 this fact of regeneration into any terms of psychological 
 clarity? I think so. When a repentant sinner, through 
 moral faith, comes into union with Jesus Christ, Christ 
 as his Saviour, in the very nature of the case, has some 
 place in the affection and in the conscience of the sinner. 
 There is some heart-interest in Christ and some sense of 
 obligation toward Christ. Were this not so, there could 
 be no moral faith in Christ. Now think your way back 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 36s 
 
 to otir discussion of motives, and you will see that this 
 introduction of Christ into the motive-life is an event of 
 large psychological possibility. My conception of regea-. 
 eration is simply this: The Holy Spirit takes this new 
 motive and vitalizes it, and organizes the sinner's entire 
 motivity, his entire range of interest, about it to this 
 extent, namely, that in every full mood of self -conscious- 
 ness the regenerate man cares more for his Lord than for 
 all other things. Not yet can we say that the man is 
 altogether organized, but the whole new plan of manhood 
 is established, and the center of this plan is loyalty to 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Nor is this all of regeneration. There is something 
 much more glorious. This new plan of organization in 
 motivity is kept vital by the actual indwelling of the Holy 
 Ghost. Recall Saint Paul's words (Rom. 8. 9): "if so be 
 that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (oIkeI kv mlv) . 
 The apostle does not mean here any ordinary residence 
 of the Holy Spirit in a man; but a residence of peculiar 
 Christian efficiency. When a sinner is really united to 
 Jesus Christ by moral faith, the Spirit of God makes his 
 own home in that man, and it is the Holy Spirit who com- 
 pletes the union with Christ, and vitalizes the new mo- 
 tive, and grounds the new plan of spiritual manhood, and 
 remains in the man, sending pulses of power through his 
 whole being. Regeneration is not merely a new motive 
 of loyalty to Christ, and not merely this motive vitalized 
 and placed by the Holy Spirit ; regeneration is loyalty to 
 Jesus Christ vitalized as a motive, made supreme as a 
 motive, and kept vital and kept supreme by the actual 
 indwelling of the Spirit of God. 
 
 Definition. 
 
 Regeneration is the primary reorganization of a person's entire 
 motive-life by the vital action and abiding presence of the Holy 
 Spirit so that the ultimate motive is loyalty to Jesus Christ. 
 
366 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Adoption. In the fourth chapter of Galatians (verse 5) 
 Saint Paul says, "that he might redeem them that were 
 under the law, that we might receive the adoption of 
 sons" (iva TTjv vlodealav dnoXdficoiiev) . This term vlodeoia 
 is peculiarly Pauline, and is used in at least three 
 of his epistles. By this term the apostle never means 
 sonshtp, but always and exactly sonship by adoption. 
 Unrelated to the work of Christ, men are sons of God 
 potentially, are sons by plan ; but actually they are slaves 
 and can realize sonship only by divine adoption. 
 
 More deeply, though, what is meant by adoption? 
 Saint Paul did not get the idea from the Old Testament ; 
 but, as Dr. Ball has convincingly shown, from the Roman 
 law, tmder which a stranger by blood could become a 
 member of a family as really as though he had been born 
 into it. *'He became identified with the family in a 
 higher sense than some who had the family blood in their 
 veins, than emancipated sons, or descendants through 
 females. He assumed the family name, partook in its 
 mystical sacrificial rites, and became, not on sufferance, 
 or at will, but to all intents and purposes, a member of the 
 house of his adoption." The question now arises, Have 
 we in this adoption nothing but Saint Paul's doctrine of 
 justification, given in a second forensic setting? I think 
 not. As stated before, the underlying Christian fact of 
 tmion with Christ is the same in all these relative phases 
 of experience; but adoption is a phase, and is just as 
 distinct from justification as justification is distinct from 
 regeneration. In the doctrine of justification the prac- 
 tical meaning is this: **When a sinner is in Christ Jesus 
 the attitude of the Holy God toward him is a new attitude 
 of positive favor." In the doctrine of regeneration the 
 practical meaning is this: "When a sinner is in Christ 
 Jesus he has a new motive of loyalty to Christ, about 
 which his personal life is reorganized by the indwelling 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 367 
 
 Holy Spirit." In the doctrine of adoption the practical 
 meaning is this: "When a sinner is in Christ Jesus he has 
 a new family, God is actually his Father, Christ is his_ 
 Elder Brother, all the redeemed are his own brethren; 
 and there is provided for him a great inheritance and an 
 everlasting home." 
 
 Definition. 
 
 Adoption is a legal term which Saint Paul borrowed from the 
 Roman law to express the social phase of conversion, namely, 
 that a saved sinner is not only justified and regenerated, but 
 actually incorporated into the family of God to enjoy its fellow- 
 ship and to share its destiny. 
 
 The Witness of the Holy Spirit to Our Adoption as Sons. 
 In the Epistle to the Romans (8. 15, 16) we find another 
 passage in relation to adoption: ''For ye received not 
 the spirit of bondage again unto fear ; but ye received the 
 spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The 
 Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
 children of God" (compare with Gal. 4. 6, 7). I am fully 
 convinced that this passage has been misunderstood by a 
 number of our greatest interpreters of Christian experi- 
 ence; but, in such matters, their judgments, and even 
 their intuitions, are usually so reliable that it is only with 
 very great hesitation that I undertake to give my own 
 view of what Saint Paul means by the witness of the Spirit 
 that we are the children of God. Perhaps, though, the 
 most economical way to reach a clear result will be to 
 outline my entire view of the Christian assurance of con- 
 version : 
 
 I . We may be assured hy inference. When Saint John 
 says that *'we know that we have passed out of death 
 into life, because we love the brethren," he indicates an 
 assurance which is by pure inference. Almost endless 
 are the combinations of this sort of assurance, but the in- 
 ner movement is ever the same : " I was that kind of a man ; 
 
368 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 I am this kind of a man — therefore." Naturally this as- 
 surance by inference increases as the Christian life ma- 
 tures by taking on the ''fruits of the Spirit." 
 
 2. We may be assured by conscience. When we have 
 what Saint Paul calls "peace with God through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ" it is the end of a struggle in conscience, and 
 for the first time the sinner can face his moral ideal without 
 any sense of condemnation. Thus, there is an intuitive 
 element of assurance in the fundamental operation of 
 conscience itself in moral settlement. But with my con- 
 ception of conscience, even this peace with God is not a 
 mechanical thing, but truly the work of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 3. The assurance by conscience may be augmented and 
 transformed. As we read the lives of typical Christians, 
 we soon perceive that sometimes, at conversion or later, 
 this peace in conscience becomes so intense and penetrat- 
 ing that it really amounts to a new inttiition that God has 
 forgiven the sinner and taken him into his rich favor. 
 This is what many mean by "the immediate witness of 
 the Holy Spirit." And while the language about the 
 fact is usually popular and inexact, nearly always the 
 language is essentially true to the fact. Indeed, it is 
 impossible to exaggerate the wonder and potency of this 
 experience. 
 
 4. We may have yet another assurance. But no one of 
 these three is what Saint Paul means when he says : " The 
 Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
 children of God." The standpoint from which Saint 
 Paul is now speaking is neither that of justification, nor 
 that of regeneration, but definitely that of adoption. 
 The assurance, therefore, is not that the saved sinner has 
 the forgiveness and favor of God, but that he is in the 
 family of God. If it be said that to be sure of God's 
 favor is also to be sure that he is our Father, I answer that 
 such is not inevitably the case. You must remember that 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 369 
 
 we are dealing with spontaneous personal seizure. A 
 man may come to full self -consciousness, may lay hold of 
 every item in the vision, may have the profoundest peace 
 under his moral ideal, and yet may have no filial sense 
 whatever. It is one thing to think " God is my Father! " 
 and quite another thing to feel it within. Many a man 
 has for years preached about the Fatherhood of God, and 
 never once intuited it in personal experience, never once 
 burst like the breaking day into the quick and inevitable 
 intuition, ''Abba, Father!" 
 
 The exegetes make much of Saint Paul's use of the 
 verb av^iMaprvQEG), but to me the synergistic nature of the 
 witness is more convincingly evident from a large study 
 of all the operations of grace, in connection with a close 
 study of human personality itself. What takes place is 
 essentially this : The moment the Holy Spirit begins the 
 reorganization of a man he begins to help the person to 
 recover the filial sense which man had lost in depravity. 
 The person, now loyal to Christ, struggles toward the 
 realization, but cannot fully achieve it, no, not even in his 
 loftiest mood. Then, there comes a crisis (not necessa- 
 rily an external crisis) when with a deeper sense of need, 
 or with a more thorough consecration, or with a greater 
 purpose to serve men, the man opens himself entirely to 
 the wish of the Holy Spirit. Into this new opportunity 
 the Spirit rushes eagerly and completes the broken in- 
 tuition ; and now the self-conscious person has the glorious 
 filial sense, and his home-life in the family of God is as 
 real to him as his peace in conscience. 
 
 I myself deem this intuitive grasping of the fact of adop 
 tion as the crowning experience in this world. I deem it 
 so because it lifts the saved sinner out of that extreme 
 emphasis upon his single self, upon his salvation, upon his 
 life with God, and makes him actually live in the fellow- 
 ship of the whole family of God. You cannot misunder- 
 
370 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 stand me if I say that sainthood has often shown an in- 
 clination to isolate its life of raptm-e, and to forget that 
 we are one organic brotherhood in Christ Jesus, with one 
 Father, one social relation, and one final home. Surely 
 there should be the most tremendous emphasis upon the 
 one moral person, upon what he is, upon what he ought 
 to do, and upon what he may become ; but that exaltation 
 of the person is not all of the Christian life, is not the 
 Christian finality. The finality is where the Christian 
 man finds himself all over again in the large experience 
 of the mighty family of God. And one important step 
 toward this Christian finality is that experience where 
 the whole vision of self -consciousness is luminous with 
 the spontaneous assurance that we have been adopted 
 as sons, and now belong in title and privilege and service 
 to the household of God the Father Almighty. 
 
PERSONAL HOLINESS 
 
I have made a little exposition of Methodism, but I see it will be 
 too long to present in full. I sum it all up in one or two sentences. 
 As to its theology, it takes the old theology of the Christian church, 
 but it takes one element which no other Christian church has dared 
 to put forward as a prominent feature of theology. In ours it is the 
 very point from which we view all theology. Now listen; I want 
 that to be understood. Knowing exactly what I say, and taking the 
 full responsibility of it, I repeat, we are the only church in history, 
 from the apostles' time until now, that has put forward as its very 
 elemental thought — the great central pervading idea of the whole 
 Book of God from the beginning to the end — the holiness of the human 
 sotil, heart, mind, and will. Go through all the confessions of all the 
 churches, and you will find this in no other. You will find even some 
 of them that blame us in their books and writings. It may be called 
 fanaticism, but, dear friends, that is our mission. If we keep to 
 that, the next century is ours ; if we keep to that, the triumphs of the 
 next century shall throw those that are past far into the shade. Our 
 work is a moral work — that is to say, the work of making men holy. 
 Our preaching is for that, our church agencies are for that, our schools, 
 colleges, imiversities, and theological seminaries are for that. There 
 is our mission — there is our glory — there is our power, and there 
 shall be the ground of our triumph. God keep us true. — John McClin- 
 tock, the first president of the Drew Theological Seminary; from an address 
 delivered at the Methodist Centenary Celebration in New York, Janu- 
 ary 25, 1 866; reported in the Methodist, issue of February 3, 1866. 
 
XXVIL PERSONAL HOLINESS 
 
 Psychologically this doctrine belongs to the general 
 subject of conversion, for holiness is really the completion 
 of regeneration ; but there are practical reasons for a sep- 
 arate discussion and formal emphasis. 
 
 Our wisest course is to avoid the many controversies, 
 and go back to John Wesley himself. We could not 
 fairly deal with the controversies without making use of 
 certain books which, while very penetrating and sugges- 
 tive, manifest a spirit so narrow and ungenerous as to 
 create an atmosphere unworthy of the theme. Of all 
 the places in Christian discussion, this is the one place 
 where it is more wholesome to have a weak argument than 
 to have a vitiating atmosphere. And, further, there are 
 three positive reasons why it is of the larger importance 
 to go back to Wesley: First, Wesley was the central 
 point of Christian consciousness in a special doctrinal 
 epoch. Historically, AVesley had almost the same 
 epochal relation to the doctrinal emphasis upon holiness 
 that Luther had to the doctrinal emphasis upon justifi- 
 cation by faith, or that Athanasius had to the doctrinal 
 emphasis upon the Deity of our Lord. Second, because 
 Wesley was the leader in such an epochal movement, he 
 had at hand quantity in data. The flaw in some of the 
 modern discussions of Christian perfection is not so much 
 in the reasoning as in the want of sufficient data to 
 reason upon. The author is like a botanist giving out a 
 dictum about a rare plant which he has cultivated in a 
 hothouse. Every word he says is the truth, but it is 
 not the typical truth. There is sometimes a genuine 
 Christian experience which is so individualistic as to be 
 
374 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 almost worthless for theology. Third, quantity of data, 
 however, is of small worth unless there be surety in 
 Christian discrimination. There are several recent scien- 
 tific studies of Christian experience which would be almost 
 priceless in value had the authors only known the difference 
 between reality and imitation. It is possible to obtain 
 a thousand answers to a list of set questions and have 
 only a himdred of them with any real Christian meaning. 
 It is just at this point that John Wesley was a master in 
 Israel. He did almost no fundamental thinking, not 
 merely because he was ceaselessly occupied with practical 
 affairs, but mainly because his mind, like that of Glad- 
 stone, was receptive and not creative. But Wesley had 
 such extraordinary spiritual insight, and such sanity in 
 judgment, that often his most casual statement, espe- 
 cially in his Journal, is more illuminating than many a 
 profound monograph in theology. 
 
 The Wesleyan Doctrine of Christian Perfection 
 Wesley*s Own Experience. John Wesley was always 
 loath to reveal the deepest things of his Christian life. 
 He freely gives you his opinions and delights to talk 
 about his work; but it is only now and then that 
 you can catch any glimpse of "the inner chamber of 
 introspection." And yet, by careful search, we can 
 discover a few very significant points of self-revela- 
 tion. 
 
 I. It is significant that Wesley was greatly impressed 
 by Jeremy Taylor's discussion of purity of intention. 
 Forty years afterward, in his Journal, May 14, 1765, 
 Wesley writes: "I was struck particularly with the 
 chapter upon intention, and felt a fixed intention ' to give 
 myself up to God. * " For a young man twenty-two years 
 of age, and having Wesley's ecclesiastical surroundings, 
 to lift this one idea of intention into potent emphasis is 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 375 
 
 not only remarkable, but also momentous. It is, indeed, 
 Wesley's prophetic start. 
 
 2. About five years later we find another significant 
 point. He has now become "a man of one Book," and 
 he perceives that love is the key to the full Christian life. 
 In his Journal, same date as already quoted, he says : " I 
 then saw, in a stronger light than ever before, that only 
 one thing is needful, even faith that worketh by the love 
 of God and man, all inward and outward holiness; and 
 I groaned to love God with all my heart, and to serve 
 him with all my strength." Let us now note precisely 
 what Wesley has: He has a clear idea that the person's 
 central purpose is an important feature of the Christian 
 life ; but he perceives that it is not enough to hold passively 
 this purpose, it must be positively expressed in a faith 
 which works by love. Further, he has a craving both 
 for a supreme love toward God and for a life giving out 
 that love in the largest service. 
 
 3. But did Wesley actually reach the experience for 
 which he yearned ? In his Journal, December 2 3-2 5 , 1 744, 
 we read this : *' I was unusually lifeless and heavy, till the 
 love feast in the evening ; when, just as I was constraining 
 myself to speak, I was stopped, whether I would or no; 
 for the blood gushed out of both my nostrils, so that I 
 could not add another word: but in a few minutes it 
 stayed, and all our hearts and mouths were opened to 
 praise God. Yet the next day I was again as a dead man ; 
 but in the evening, while I was reading prayers at Snows- 
 fields, I found such light and strength as I never remem- 
 ber to have had before. I saw every thought as well as 
 every action or word, just as it was rising in my heart; 
 and whether it was right before God, or tainted with 
 pride or selfishness. I never knew before (I mean not as 
 at this time) what it was 'to be still before God.' Tues- 
 day, 25. I waked, by the grace of God, in the same spirit; 
 
376 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 and about eight, being with two or three that believed in 
 Jesus, I felt such an awe and tender sense of the presence 
 of God as greatly confirmed me therein, so that God was 
 before me all the day long. I sought and found him in 
 every place, and could truly say, when I lay down at night, 
 'Now I have lived a day.'" To anyone familiar with 
 John Wesley's careful, realistic manner of speech, it is 
 evident that we have here the same sort of testimony to 
 the experience of holiness that we have in his Journal, 
 May 24, 1738, to the experience of conversion. If the one 
 is not quite so near a full definition as the other, it surely 
 is just as expressive of the fact. I find it almost impos- 
 sible to read Wesley's words in the light of all his later 
 utterance about the doctrine of Christian perfection, and 
 not consider this date, December 24, 1744, as the probable 
 time when he began to love God supremely. 
 
 4. In a letter (CCCLIII) from London, June 19, 1771, 
 there is another important reference to Wesley's own 
 experience: "Many years since I saw that 'without holi- 
 ness no man shall see the Lord.' I began following after 
 it, and inciting all with whom I had any intercourse to do 
 the same. Ten years after, God gave me a clearer view 
 than I had before of the way to attain this, namely, by 
 faith in the Son of God. And immediately I declared to 
 all, 'We are saved from sin, we are made holy, by faith.' 
 This I testified in private, in public, in print; and God 
 confirmed it by a thousand witnesses. I have con- 
 tinued to declare this for above thirty years; and God 
 hath continued to confirm the word of his grace." By 
 using this passage as a supplement to all we had before, 
 I think it would be possible to make out quite a probable 
 history of Wesley's movement in grace from the point 
 where he was impressed so deeply by Jeremy Taylor on 
 to his own actual experience of holiness ; but such a his- 
 tory is not what I am really after. I want these refer- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 377 
 
 ences by John Wesley to his own experience simply to 
 prepare the way for our better understanding of his teach- 
 ing, and for our better appreciation of the quiet intensity 
 and certainty manifest in his demand that Christian peo- 
 ple should be holy. 
 
 Wesley's Teaching Analyzed. 
 
 1. The Name. It is to be noted, first of all, that 
 Wesley called the experience of holiness ''Christian per- 
 fection, or scriptural perfection." (See especially Letter 
 CCCLI.) 
 
 2. As to Conduct. Such perfection does not mean 
 perfection in conduct. " But these souls dwell in a shat- 
 tered, corruptible body, and are so pressed down thereby 
 that they cannot exert their love as they would, by 
 always thinking, speaking, and acting precisely right. 
 For want of better bodily organs, they sometimes in- 
 evitably think, speak, or act wrong" (Letter CLXXXVI; 
 also see Letter CCXXIX). 
 
 3. As to Individual Character. The imperfection is 
 deeper than conduct and belongs even to the. individual 
 character itself. ''These very persons feel more than 
 ever their own ignorance, littleness of grace, coming short 
 of the full mind that was in Christ, and walking less 
 accurately than they might have done after their Divine 
 Pattern; and are more convinced of the insufficiency of 
 all they are, or do, to bear the eye of God without a Medi- 
 ator; are more penetrated with the sense of the want of 
 him than ever they were before" (Letter CCCLI). 
 
 4. As to Temptation. Nor does Christian perfection 
 secure freedom from actual temptation. In a letter to 
 the Bishop of London (vol. viii, p. 484) Wesley says: 
 "There is no such perfection in this life as implies an 
 entire deliverance from manifold temptations." And in 
 commenting on the Journal of Elizabeth Harper (vol. 
 xiv, p. 278) Wesley says: "She was exceedingly 
 
378 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 tempted, after she believed God had cleansed her from 
 inbred sin." (Also see Plain Account, sec. 25, question 
 
 14.) 
 
 5 . As to Sinless Perfection. Wesley himself avoided the 
 phrase sinless perfection, because, in a generic sense, sin is 
 any want of individual conformity to the law of God. But 
 Wesley's own final definition of sin was strictly personal. 
 In a letter (CCCCII) he writes: " Nothing is sin, strictly 
 speaking, but a voluntary transgression of a known law 
 of God." But I have found no way of harmonizing all 
 of Wesley's statements at this point; and I am inclined 
 to think that he never entirely cleared up his own thinking 
 concerning the nature and scope of sin. At first I be- 
 lieved that a path out of his seeming inconsistency might 
 be foimd by means of an exact chronology, but a severer 
 examination of all his writings forced me to give up even 
 that hope. 
 
 6. As to Love. While again and again Wesley makes 
 much of personal intention, this intention of the person 
 is not enough ; the intention must be gathered up into a 
 positive fullness of love. To be a perfect Christian is 
 nothing other than being perfect in love toward God and 
 man. In his Journal, August 27, 1768, Wesley writes: 
 " I mean, ' loving God with all our heart, and our neighbor 
 as ourselves.' I pin all its opposers to this definition of 
 it. No evasion ! No shifting of the question ! " And the 
 same statement, in slightly varying words, can be fotmd 
 all through Wesley's writings. 
 
 7. As to Time. In Brief Thoughts (January 27, 1767) 
 Wesley says: "As to time, I believe this instant is gen- 
 erally the instant of death, the moment before the soul 
 leaves the body. But I believe it may be ten, twenty, 
 or forty years before. I believe it is usually many years 
 after justification; but that it may be within five years 
 or five months after it, I know no conclusive argument to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 379 
 
 the contrary.** In another place (not taken from the 
 London edition) Wesley says that ''some of the most 
 imquestionable witnesses of sanctifying grace were sanc- 
 tified within a few days after they were justified." And 
 in his Journal, September 7, 1765, there is an account of 
 what Wesley deems a most remarkable case — **a person 
 convinced of sin, converted to God, and renewed in love, 
 within twelve hours." And Wesley adds: ''Yet it is by 
 no means incredible, seeing one day is with God as a 
 thousand years." I have found no testimony in Wesley's 
 writings that justification and entire sanctification ever 
 take place at the same time ; but it is plain enough that 
 in his last years he was unwilling to set any limit. As 
 his experience with men widened, and his pastoral intui- 
 tions deepened, he became less conservative on all ques- 
 tions of divine grace — ^was more open to new and aston- 
 ishing results in the work of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 8. As to Growth. On the surface there seems to be 
 a contradiction in Wesley's teaching at this point. At 
 times, apparently, he teaches that a regenerated man can 
 actually grow into Christian perfection. In Sermon 
 CVII, on God's Vineyard, we read: "And as, in natural 
 birth, a man is born at once, and then grows larger and 
 stronger by degrees ; so, in spiritual birth, a man is bom at 
 once and then gradually increases in spiritual stature and 
 strength. The new birth, therefore, is the first point of 
 sanctification, which may increase more and more unto 
 the perfect day." There are a number of passages to 
 the same effect. To harmonize this view of growth with 
 Wesley's other statements, some have said that he be- 
 lieved Christian perfection is obtained either by growth 
 or by instant and crucial faith ; but the truth, I think, is 
 that Wesley regarded the decisive stroke in attainment as 
 always instantaneous, growth being but a preparation 
 for the stroke, or an after work in utilization and enlarge- 
 
38o THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ment. In the Minutes of Several Conversations, Wesley 
 says: "The substance, then, is settled, but, as to the 
 circumstance, is the change gradual or instantaneous? 
 It is both the one and the other. From the moment we 
 are justified, there may be a gradual sanctification, a 
 growing in grace, a daily advance in the knowledge and 
 love of God. And if sin cease before death there must, 
 in the natiire of the thing, be an instantaneous change; 
 there must be a last moment wherein it does exist, and a 
 first moment wherein it does not" (viii, 328). Again to 
 the same purpose in the Plain Account (sec. 19) : "Is this 
 death to sin, and renewal in love, gradual or instanta- 
 neous?" His answer is in these very striking words: "A 
 man may be dying for some time ; yet he does not, properly 
 speaking, die till the instant the soul is separated from 
 the body ; and in that instant he lives the life of eternity. 
 In like manner, he may be dying to sin for some time ; yet 
 he is not dead to sin till sin is separated from his soul ; and 
 in that instant he lives the full life of love. And as the 
 change undergone, when the body dies, is of a different 
 kind, and infinitely greater than any we had known before, 
 yea, such as till then it is impossible to conceive ; so the 
 change wrought when the soul dies to sin is of a different 
 kind, and infinitely greater than any before, and than any 
 can conceive till he experiences it. Yet he still grows in 
 grace, in the knowledge of Christ, in the love and image 
 of God; and will do so, not only till death, but to all 
 eternity." Again in Brief Thoughts, Wesley touches 
 upon the method of attainment : " I believe this perfection 
 is always wrought in the soul by a simple act of faith ; 
 consequently, in an instant. But I believe a gradual 
 work, both preceding and following that instant " (xi, 446) . 
 9. As to Assurance. In the Plain Account, sec. 25, 
 question 16: "How do you know that you are sanctified, 
 saved from your inbred corruption?" Answer: "I can 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 381 
 
 know it no otherwise than I know that I am justified. 
 
 . . We know it by the witness and by the fruit of the 
 Spirit. And, first, by the witness. As, when we were 
 justified, the Spirit bore witness with our spirit that our 
 sins were forgiven ; so, when we were sanctified, he bore 
 witness that they were taken away. Indeed, the witness 
 of sanctification is not always clear at first (as neither is 
 that of justification) ; neither is it afterward always the 
 same, but, like that of justification, sometimes stronger, 
 and sometimes fainter. Yea, and sometimes it is with- 
 drawn. Yet, in general, the latter testimony of the Spirit 
 is both as clear and as steady as the former." 
 
 10. As to Losing the Experience. At first Wesley 
 believed that the experience of Christian perfection 
 could not be lost, but finally he was convinced that it 
 could be. In a letter to his brother (LXVII, London, 
 February 12, 1767) Wesley writes: ''Can one who has 
 attained it fall? Formerly I thought not; but you (with 
 Thomas Walsh and John Jones) convinced me of my mis- 
 take.'* In the month before (January 27) Wesley had 
 said: "By perfection I mean the humble, gentle, patient 
 love of God and our neighbor, ruling our tempers, words, 
 and actions. I do not include an impossibility of falling 
 from it, either in part or in whole. Therefore, I retract 
 several expressions in our hymns which partly express, 
 partly imply, such an impossibility." In his Journal 
 (July 25, 1 774) Wesley writes : " I went on to Sheffield and 
 on Tuesday met the Select Society. But it was reduced 
 from sixty to twenty; and but half of these retained all 
 that they once received. What a grievous error, to think 
 those that are saved from sin cannot lose what they have 
 gained! It is a miracle, if they do not; seeing all earth 
 and hell are so enraged against them; while, meantime, 
 so very few, even of the children of God, skillfully en- 
 deavor to strengthen their hands." 
 
382 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 11. As to the Primary Compromise. "From long ex- 
 perience and observation, I am inclined to think that 
 whoever finds redemption in the blood of Jesus, whoever 
 is justified, has then the choice of walking in the higher 
 or the lower path. I believe the Holy Spirit at that 
 time sets before him the * more excellent way,' and incites 
 him to walk therein, to choose the narrowest path in the 
 narrow way, to aspire after the heights and depths of 
 holiness — after the entire image of God. But if he does 
 not accept this offer he insensibly declines into the lower 
 order of Christians. He still goes on in what may be 
 called a good way, serving God in his degree, and finds 
 mercy in the close of life through the blood of the cove- 
 nant" (Sermon LXXXIX, on The More Excellent Way). 
 
 1 2 . Personal Conclusion. By constant association with 
 an author we may come to have a conception of his real 
 meaning in spite of all his inconsistencies. For our con- 
 ception has been gradually formed by a number of featiires 
 in a complex combination — ^by his peculiar silences ; by his 
 spontaneous repetitions ; by the way a certain paragraph 
 closes, or a certain discussion culminates ; by the instant 
 and eager answer to an unexpected question; and even 
 by his choice of phrase in a crucial situation. My view 
 of John Wesley's meaning is of this indefensible sort. I 
 am sure of his doctrine of Christian perfection, as sure 
 of its essential import as I am that I walk the earth ; but 
 I am unable to relate my view, in an exact way, to all of 
 his statements, or even to all of his very important 
 statements. I will give my own personal conception 
 without quotation and without defense. According to 
 John Wesley, a sinner has three things the matter with 
 him: First, he is guilty; second, he is morally powerless; 
 and, third, his inherent and inherited disposition is wrong. 
 Or, as I would say, the individuality is out of harmony 
 with the ideal of the moral person. When a sinner is 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 383 
 
 justified the guilt is canceled. When he is regenerated 
 he receives a nucleus of power, not enough to exterminate 
 his wrong disposition, but enough "to fight it to a stand- 
 still." In Christian perfection, there is no such fight 
 with the disposition, ''no civil war at all," for the wrong 
 impulse never enters the consciousness as motive. Now, 
 when you ask, " What becomes of the wrong disposition? " 
 Wesley can give no fundamental answer, for the simple 
 reason that he was all mixed up in his psychology. I 
 am not one of those courageous men who dare to say that 
 John Wesley had at the bottom of his thinking a consist- 
 ent psychology. My opinion rather is that he was 
 a very crude realist, but usually restless under that 
 unspeakable curse, and trying to break away, without 
 ever being fully able to accomplish his purpose. This 
 " slavery of the man to the lump" is not surprising, if we 
 only remember that many of the recent Christian books, 
 and many more of the modern scientific books, have been 
 written with an underlying realism so gross that any 
 serious thinker should have been unwilling to grant it 
 toleration at any time since the death of Immanuel Kant ; 
 and I almost said at any time since the death of Plato. 
 But Wesley does this much for us : he holds that the civil 
 war in the perfect Christian is rendered impossible by 
 love, supreme love toward God and man. Whether the 
 natural disposition is extirpated or only overwhelmed, it 
 does not appear in a consciousness full to the brim of pure 
 love. 
 
 It will help us all, probably, if I can give a concrete 
 illustration of Wesley's view. Here is a man, a Christian 
 preacher now, who has from infancy been naturally 
 jealous. He is not only converted, but is a noble Chris- 
 tian man, ready to sacrifice for his Lord, and equally 
 ready to serve his brethren. But he is still jealous in 
 disposition. Yesterday he heard another preacher's ser- 
 
384 THE Christian faith 
 
 mon receive large commendation, and, like an uprush of 
 mercury in the heat, that old feeling of jealousy rose into 
 consciousness. His volition, his personality, had no more 
 to do with it than his will had to do with the coming on of 
 night. But the moment our preacher realizes that he is 
 jealous he makes Christian battle, and forces the disposi- 
 tion back, back into its cave. Now, we have here an 
 exceedingly strange psychological situation, for the man's 
 struggle is plainly Christian in its revelation of the moral 
 ideal, and yet the struggle reveals a motive-life which no 
 Christian ought to have at all. Or, we can say this : The 
 victory is truly that of a Christian man — ^but as a Christian 
 man he should have been without the possibility of that 
 kind of a battle. Now comes a pivotal inquiry. As our 
 preacher grows what does his growth in grace accomplish? 
 According to Wesley, the growth does not affect the in- 
 herent disposition of jealousy at all; but it does bring the 
 regenerate man himself to a more potent attitude, both 
 of intolerance toward the disposition and of trust toward 
 Jesus Christ. With this more potent personal attitude 
 the man dares to believe that his Lord can and will take 
 that jealousy, and every wrong disposition, out of his life. 
 In full, simple faith he asks Christ to do it ; and, precisely 
 as when he was converted, it is all done at one stroke. 
 Now what is the man's condition? On the one hand, he 
 never is conscious of jealousy. Rather does he spon- 
 taneously rejoice in another man's success. On the other 
 hand, he never comes to self -consciousness without being 
 filled, like the prodigality of a freshet, with the love of 
 God. This, as I understand him, is what John Wesley 
 means by the conquest of inbred sin through supreme 
 love. And if there is one man here to whom Wesley's 
 view of inbred sin suggests no reality, no point in kindred 
 experience, he most surely is to be regarded as extremely 
 fortimate. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 385 
 
 Christian Perfection and Biblical Theology 
 Is there, though, for this Wesleyan doctrine of Chris-_ 
 tian perfection any support in biblical theology? In 
 Wesley's day there was such an arbitrary and fragmentary 
 and superficial use of Scripture, even by the finest scholars, 
 that many students have gained the impression, if not the 
 belief, that the scriptural argument for Christian perfec- 
 tion cannot endure the test of our modern method of 
 studying the Bible. I am certain that the test can be 
 endured; but, before taking up that matter, I wish to 
 enter a protest against the prevailing notion that before 
 we can accept a Christian doctrine every feature of it 
 must have exact Scripture proof. The Bible is not to 
 be used in that hard and fast manner. The Bible is the 
 normative authority on Christian doctrine; but we must 
 also provide for the larger and larger interpretations by 
 the developing Christian consciousness. For example, 
 it would be enough to show that Christian perfection is 
 not in contradiction of any Scripture, but harmonizes 
 with the trend of emphasis in the New Testament upon 
 moral love ; and is the loftiest ideal belonging to the most 
 normal and most thoroughly developed Christian con- 
 sciousness. If we can make it indubitable that the Bible 
 itself never allows the great saints to rest until they hold 
 and experience this doctrine of supreme love, we will 
 have secured quite as good a basis for the doctrine as 
 could be secured by any amount of precise scriptural proof. 
 Saint John^s Doctrine of Love. The essence of the 
 message of Saint John to the Christian man is in this 
 glowing passage (i John 4. 16 to 5. 5) : "God is love; and 
 he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth 
 in him. Herein is love made perfect with us, that we 
 may have boldness in the day of judgment ; because as he 
 is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love : 
 
386 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath 
 punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in 
 love. We love, because he first loved us. If a man say, 
 I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he 
 that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot 
 love God whom he hath not seen. And this command- 
 ment have we from him, that he who loveth God love 
 his brother also. 
 
 "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is be- 
 gotten of God: and whosoever loveth him that begat 
 loveth him also that is begotten of him. Hereby we 
 know that we love the children of God, when we love 
 God and do his commandments. For this is the love 
 of God, that we keep his commandments: and his com- 
 mandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is begotten 
 of God overcometh the world : and this is the victory that 
 hath overcome the world, even our faith. And who is he 
 that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that 
 Jesus is the Son of God?" 
 
 When we separate the real message of this passage 
 from its rhetorical mannerism, we find the connected 
 points to be these: First, in Saint John's conception of 
 God the finality is love. Second, we make entrance into 
 this love of God by being "begotten of God," and this 
 takes place when we believe "that Jesus is the Christ." 
 Third, we are prepared for the day of judgment by having 
 this love of God made perfect in us ; and this perfection of 
 love can be achieved in this life — "because as he is, even 
 so are we in this world." Fourth, the marks of this per- 
 fect love are that it "casteth out fear," that it makes a 
 man "love his brother also," and that it enables him to 
 "do his commandments," and to have that perfect faith 
 which "overcometh the world." 
 
 Saint PauVs Teaching. In coming to Saint Paul's 
 teaching, I wish to be sure of avoiding not only all personal 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 387 
 
 bias, but also all Methodist bias, so I will make use of 
 Professor Bartlet, Mansfield College, Oxford. In his 
 article on Sanctification in the Hastings Dictionary of the 
 Bible, Professor Bartlet writes of Saint Paul's teaching 
 as follows: "There is a state possible to Christians, cor- 
 responding to the ideal of their calling, in which they can 
 be described as 'unblamable in holiness* (dfiefinTovg kv 
 ayicjovvd) , and into which they may be brought by 
 the grace of God in this life. Therein they stand hal- 
 lowed through and through (bXoTeXslg), every part of 
 their being {bXoKXrigov vfioyv rd Trvevim kol rj ifyvxTj tcai rd a&fia) 
 abiding by grace in a condition fit to bear the scrutiny 
 of their Lord's presence without rebuke {dfiefinTCjg kv 
 T^ T^CLQOvaig, rov Kvgiov rjficov 'Iriaov Xqigtov rrjgTjdeirj) . Such 
 is the teaching of i Thess. 3. 13 and 5. 23. The 
 fidelity of God to his purpose in calling men to be Chris- 
 tians is pledged to this achievement (i Thess. 5.24), though 
 there is no definite time, as measured from the initial 
 hallowing of the Spirit in conversion, at which it must 
 needs be accomplished. God, who begins the good work 
 in the soul, also continues to work at its perfecting 
 {emTsXelv) right up to the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 
 I. 6); and yet, ere that day dawns, Christians may 
 become already 'pure in purpose' (eUf/cptveZf = Christ's 
 Kadapot Tj Kapdlg,, Matt. 5. 8) and 'void of offense,' 
 and so remain 'until the day of Christ' (Phil. i. 10). It 
 is this state of realized sanctification of conduct, or 
 'walk,' so as to 'please God,' that Saint Paul has con- 
 stantly in view in exhorting his converts to holy living 
 (for example, i Thess. 4. i). This is what he means, at 
 times, by his use of ayiaafiog. But the conception needs 
 to be carefully guarded and explained by other aspects of 
 his thought. Thus (i) it represents a growth in holiness 
 rather than into holiness out of something else; (2) it is 
 conceived as realizable by a definite act of faith — claim- 
 
388 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ing and appropriating its rightful experience by an act of 
 will informed by the living energy of the Holy Spirit — 
 rather than as the cumulative result of a slow, instinctive 
 process after conversion ; (3) it is not the same as absolute 
 moral perfection or consummation {TeXeiovaScu) , but is 
 rather the prerequisite to its more rapid and steady 
 realization.** 
 
 Our Lord's Injunction. **And he said unto him, Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and 
 first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two 
 commandments hangeth the whole law, and the prophets " 
 (Saint Matt. 22. 37-40). This one passage should forever 
 settle the entire controversy as to both the ideal and the 
 possible achievement in the Christian life. From the 
 Old Testament (Deut. 6. 5 and Lev. 19. 18) our Lord 
 takes the two items of supreme moment, and lifts them 
 into a Christian primacy of injunction. It has been said 
 that our Saviour did not intend to give an actual injimc- 
 tion, but only to suggest a Christian ideal. But I do not 
 imderstand how anyone can hold such a view ; for a study 
 of the Saviour's life will show that love toward God and 
 love toward man were the two tests which he used in 
 determining all religious values. And the fact is that 
 to-day the Christian consciousness anywhere grasps the 
 Master's words as injunction, and responds to them as 
 such, making them the final test of life. Every Christian 
 deed is Christian, every Christian thought is Christian, 
 every Christian feeling is Christian, precisely to the extent 
 that it expresses this supreme love. Ignatius clearly 
 apprehended the whole thing when he said: "The begin- 
 ning of life is faith, and the end is love. And these two 
 being inseparably connected together, do perfect the man 
 of God ; while all other things which are requisite to a holy 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 389 
 
 life follow after them. No man making a profession of 
 faith ought to sin, nor one possessed of love to hate his 
 brother. For He that said, Thou shalt love the Lord -thy 
 God, said also, And thy neighbor as thyself." 
 
 A Psychology of Personal Holiness 
 With my conception of a perfect Christian very much 
 more is required than perfection in motive, and so I prefer 
 the expression personal holiness. The holiness is personal 
 because it is holiness exactly from the standpoint of self- 
 consciousness and self-determination. What you have is 
 holiness in personality. 
 
 The Transformed Motive. As we have seen, the motive- 
 life of a regenerate man is organized about the motive of 
 loyalty to Christ. This motive of loyalty is not a simple 
 motive, but is made up of two elements, one of love and 
 the other of duty. At rare moments these two elements 
 are in self -consciousness with equal force, but usually the 
 sense of duty is paramotmt. The regenerate man, in any 
 typical situation, is seeking to do his duty. His common 
 remark is: **I will be true; I will not deny my Lord.'* 
 This loyalty is very different from the loyalty of the 
 moralist; and for two reasons, namely, it is loyalty to a 
 person, and it is rooted in the enthusiasm of a positive 
 personal affection. And yet the Christian loyalty has 
 some of the same psychological weakness which renders 
 morality so ineffective. Duty always implies a conflict, 
 a civil war. The sense of the ought is, like a bugle, in- 
 tended to call the person into battle. And while this 
 moral battle is great, it is less than the highest mood. 
 You will see what I mean if you think of a home where 
 husband, wife, parents, children are ever trying to do 
 their duty by each other. What a dreadful home that 
 would be! Not one day with the simple, rejoicing im- 
 pulse of dominant love. 
 
390 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Now we can quickly uncover the fundamental flaw in 
 the condition of the regenerate man. In his life of 
 struggle to do his duty he cannot organize his inner per- 
 sonal life. He has the beginning, the ground plan, so to 
 speak, of an organism, but he cannot carry out the plan. 
 And the reason of his failure is that when duty is para- 
 mount in consciousness, even though it be the most noble 
 sense of duty, the personal task is done under fear; and 
 fear is never an organizing motive. 
 
 In personal holiness this motive of loyalty is trans- 
 formed into the simple motive of pure love. There re- 
 mains all the ethical quality of duty, for the new supreme 
 love is a moral love ; but " the whip of the ought " is gone. 
 The holy person does not do things because it is his duty 
 to do them, but because he loves to do them. But note this 
 closely, the important thing here, psychologically, is not 
 the vastness of the love (that is a matter of endless growth) , 
 but simply that the love entirely occupies the self-con- 
 scious mood. Whenever the person comes to self-con- 
 sciousness it is crammed with love to the very edges. 
 Thus, there is a perfect personal organism, because all 
 the man's motivity is nothing but love in a variety of 
 shapes. In the man's personal life there is no antagonism, 
 no civil war whatever. He may be tempted, as we shall 
 see, but he cannot be tempted by his own inorganic con- 
 dition, by his own depravity. 
 
 The Exhaustion of Wrong Motive. The old question, 
 ** Suppression or eradication?" I cannot fairly consider; 
 for my psychological point of view is different from that 
 of the combatants about that question. But if you will 
 recall my early discussion of motivity you can see what 
 I think takes place when the motive of loyalty is trans- 
 formed. The new motive of pure love is not used in a 
 negative conflict, but is used positively; and by this 
 positive use the wrong motives are exhausted. There is 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 391 
 
 no longer any heart-interest in them. They are mere 
 ideas empty of all urgency toward the will. It is not 
 that they are for the time being shut out from conscious- 
 ness ; no, the work is profounder than all that, they cease 
 to have any existence as motives. The full use of pure 
 love has exhausted them. 
 
 The Question of Growth. Is this experience of personal 
 holiness obtained by growth? First of all, the practical 
 concern in the matter leads me to say that the very word 
 growth is a word which should be used, in this discussion, 
 only with extreme care. For to many people growth 
 means a natural, an unurged development from an im- 
 planted germ. Now, there is no such unurged develop- 
 ment in the Christian life. The whole thing is personally 
 strenuous from conversion until death. But is personal 
 holiness obtained gradually by earnest endeavor? Look- 
 ing at it in the most comprehensive way, our answer should 
 be in the affirmative; for the crisis itself is profoundly 
 involved in all that has led up to it. Some of the evan- 
 gelists to the contrary notwithstanding, no man can arbi- 
 trarily leap into that faith which is the condition of the 
 divine gift of supreme love. It may, now and then, 
 look like such a leap, but psychologically it is not so. 
 You can leap into self-assertive presimiption, but never 
 into real faith. 
 
 And yet John Wesley's emphasis upon the ultimate 
 stroke is exceedingly important. For there is a great 
 difference between the last phase of the regenerate life 
 and the first phase of the life of supreme love. As it is 
 only in the latter case that the motive of loyalty entirely 
 loses the note of duty; only in the latter case that love 
 absolutely fills self -consciousness to its rim; so only in 
 the latter case that all the wrong motives of disposition 
 are exhausted. 
 
 But the question has been asked, "Why, on the prin- 
 
392 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ciple of yotir discussion of motivity, may a regenerate 
 man, with his motive of loyalty, not simply fight his way 
 into personal holiness?" My answer is this: To exhaust 
 all wrong motive by a sheer negative fight would require 
 more time than belongs to our earthly life; and even if 
 there were time enough the victory would exalt the 
 element of duty and not the element of love in the motive 
 of loyalty. What we are after is so to escape sin as to 
 escape the bondage of conscience itself, and, like God 
 himself, live the life of moral love. 
 
 But I have yet one suggestion to offer. I can con- 
 ceive of another way of obtaining Christian perfection in 
 love. It is, anyway, a theoretical possibility that a man 
 might at the beginning of his Christian life lay hold of 
 the under element of love in his loyalty, and emphasize 
 that. He might by self-sacrifice express his love for 
 Christ in the most complete manner. He might in prayer 
 cultivate the mood of love for Christ. And so on and on 
 until his love for the Saviour absolutely filled his con- 
 sciousness, and his entire service was one of rejoicing love, 
 and not one of moral obligation. There are a few of the 
 saints whose experience is at least a hint of this kind of 
 earnest growth into the fullness of love. 
 
 Falling Away from Personal Holiness. If it be true 
 that the wrong motives of our depraved, inorganic indi- 
 viduality are thoroughly exhausted of their urgency, then 
 the question arises. How is it possible to fall away from 
 personal holiness? I answer: No Christian who is perfect 
 in love can fall in the same way that a regenerate man may 
 fall, by yielding to a motive which springs out of individu- 
 ality into consciousness in antagonism to the moral ideal. 
 But this higher life itself, as strange as it may seem at first, 
 is a life of the most extreme self-assertion. It is spiritual 
 self-assertion, but it is fundamental self-assertion, all the 
 same. And out of this spiritual self-assertion there may 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 393 
 
 come three motives, any one of which may bring on 
 struggle, and with the struggle the possibility of personal 
 defeat. These three motives are : First, spiritual discour- 
 agement. A saint in this world, in situations where Christ 
 is not triumphant, can have a sort of discouragement which 
 actually grows out of his supreme love for his Lord ; and 
 there is very great peril in such a mood. Second, spiritual 
 pride. There is no experience so lofty in this life to a 
 moral person as entirely to protect him from spiritual 
 pride. In studying the temptations of our Saviour you 
 see the whole method of its approach. A regenerate man 
 is not half so likely to have this temptation as is the saint 
 who is filled with love. Third, spiritual ambition. A 
 holy man may have an ambition to be a great leader in the 
 church, or a great preacher, or a great evangelist ; and his 
 ambition may have been created by his love for Jesus 
 Christ ; and yet there may come such a turn in his affairs 
 that he must choose between his ambition and his Master. 
 That is, his ambition is so interesting to the man now that 
 it stands over against the very love which created it. 
 
 I am inclined also to think that sometimes this supreme 
 love has created a subordinate love in some human per- 
 son, which has grown and grown, until at last, in an 
 abnormal crisis, the saint was obliged to make a choice 
 between his human friend and his Saviour. But beyond 
 all our psychological theorizing we positively know that 
 there are peculiar temptations which are characteristic 
 of the life of personal holiness; and, such temptations 
 once in force, there is ever the possibility of falling away 
 from the experience. The Christian battle is not over 
 until through death we pass into the intermediate state. 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 
 
Possimt etiam spiritus mortuorum aliqua quae hie agunter quae 
 necessarium est eos nosse, et quos necessarium est ea nosse, non solum 
 praeterita vel praesentia, verum etiam futura Spiritu Dei revelante 
 cognoscere. — Saint Augustine, De Cura pro Mortuis gerenda, xv. 
 
 Sometimes I think that those we've lost, 
 
 Safe lying on th' Eternal Breast, 
 Can hear no sounds from earth that mar 
 
 The perfect sweetness of their rest; 
 But when one thought of holy love 
 
 Is stirred in hearts they love below, 
 Through some fine waves of ambient air, 
 
 They feel, they see it, and they know. 
 
 As rays unseen — abysmal light — 
 
 Are caught by films of silver salt 
 When these are set to watch by night 
 
 The wheelings of the starry vault, — 
 So may the souls that live and dwell 
 
 In one great Soul, the Fount of all, 
 Feel faintest tremblings in the sphere 
 
 On which such footsteps gently fall. 
 No evil seen, no murmurs heard, 
 
 No fear of sin, or coming loss. 
 They wait in light, imperfect yet. 
 
 The final triumphs of the Cross. 
 
 — The Duke of Argyll, Our Dead. 
 
 Their kingdom is not one of works and deeds, for they no longer 
 possess the couditions upon which works and deeds are possible. ! 
 
 Nevertheless, they live a deep spiritual life; for the kingdom of the f. 
 
 dead is a kingdom of subjectivity, a kingdom of calm thought and | 
 
 self-fathoming, a kingdom of remembrance in the full sense of the | 
 
 word, in such a sense, I mean, that the soul now enters into its own p' 
 
 inmost recesses, resorts to that which is the very foundation of life, 
 the true substratum and source of all existence. — Ha^ts Lassen Mar- 
 tensen, Christian Dogmatics, p. 458. 
 
XXVIIL THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE 
 INTERMEDIATE STATE 
 
 Whatever one may think of the doctrine of the in- 
 termediate state from a merely religious standpoint, it 
 has large Christian importance. For no one can see total 
 Christianity, no one can grasp the philosophy of the 
 Christian faith, until he has caught the peculiar signifi- 
 cance of that personal experience between death and the 
 resurrection. The systematic theologian is wont to con- 
 sider the intermediate state as a doctrinal fragment of 
 eschatology; but to me the profotmder connection is 
 soteriological ; and I will, therefore, consider the interme- 
 diate state as a further stage in the progress of the realiza- 
 tion of redemption in the new man. 
 
 Guiding Principles. Before we try to construct the 
 doctrine, I wish to indicate the principles which should 
 guide us in our very difficult task. 
 
 1, Not merely the surface teaching, but also the 
 ethical spirit of the New Testament must be protected. 
 Take, for example, the utterance of our Lord. Suppose 
 we come to some word of his message, and there are 
 two fair exegetical explanations possible; then, I con- 
 tend, that we are bound to accept the explanation which 
 has in it the greater moral outcry, the more serious warn- 
 ing for sinful men. If we do not do this we cannot be true 
 to the severity of the moral insistence of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 2. We should give to this earthly life a full philosophical 
 significance. After reading certain books which teach 
 that the intermediate state is a continued probation I have 
 felt like saying: ''Then, my dear man, this life is a waste. 
 
 
398 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 It would have been economical, to say the least, to have 
 begun with the next life." Just as I would not expect a 
 chrysalis inside its silken cell to do all over again the 
 work of a silkworm, so I would not expect the probation 
 of the years to be repeated. No, we must keep a separate 
 Christian meaning for this period of temporal struggle. 
 
 3. In the same spirit of Christian economy we should 
 give also to the intermediate state a full philosophical 
 significance. We cannot allow any theologian to make 
 out that the intermediate state is a useless pause on the 
 way to glory. Something, in that state, must take place 
 of everlasting value. To borrow John Wesley's beautiful 
 phrase, the saints there "will be continually ripening for 
 heaven." 
 
 4. The view of personality and individuality and bodily 
 life, already gained, must be maintained watchfully. For 
 example, we must resist, on the one side, the temptation 
 "to put the person to sleep" ; and, on the other side, the 
 temptation to grant a social life to a bodiless person. 
 
 5. The doctrine must be so constructed as to protect 
 the awful Christian emphasis upon death, and also the 
 Christian note of triumph. In Christian thought the 
 intermediate state is not like Homer's dreary world of the 
 dead, where they flit about like shadows, and gibber like 
 bats, and "follow vaguely and emptily the old pursuits." 
 If we are thinking of the redeemed we are to think of their 
 bodiless life as one of triumph and rich experience in Jesus 
 Christ. But we are never so to regard the doctrine of the 
 intermediate state that it even suggests heaven. The 
 terrible stress upon death is yet lingering there, for no 
 man is complete, no man can be complete until the 
 resurrection. 
 
 The Construction of the Doctrine. 
 
 I. The intermediate state is not an unconscious state. 
 To a certain type of man there seems to be a fascination 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 399 
 
 in the idea of " soul-sleep *' between the grave and the final 
 resurrection. The idea took hold of Isaac Taylor, and 
 even Archbishop Whately had an evident fondness for it_^ 
 The idea is supposed by some to have scriptural support 
 in such passages as i Thess. 4. 14: " For if we believe that 
 Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are 
 fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him." But 
 even if such expressions as "fallen asleep" be taken for 
 more than a poetic turn of speech, to suggest the quiet 
 rest which the saint has after death, they could be fully 
 protected by saying that the intermediate state is a con- 
 dition in which all objective relations are broken. As a 
 matter of fact, it has never been proved that our natural 
 sleep is an unconscious state. I myself think that the 
 argument to the contrary is much the stronger. What 
 we know about natural sleep is that the person has 
 retreated into isolation, has lost his social connections, 
 has given up all objective relations. To get at him again 
 you must wake him up. In his System of Biblical Psy- 
 chology, in speaking of the ''false doctrine of the soul's 
 sleep," Professor Franz Delitzsch says: ''Scripture calls 
 death a sleep, so far as the disappearance of the soul of a 
 dying person out of the body resembles the retreat of the 
 soul of a person falling asleep out of corporeally evidenced 
 external life ; but it nowhere says that souls vanishing out 
 of their bodies sleep." 
 
 But my deeper objections to this idea of "soul-sleep" 
 are two: First, it passes beyond the real Christian em- 
 phasis upon the value of the body, and takes on the first 
 tinge of materialism. Second, for the important personal 
 task of the intermediate state self-consciousness is very 
 essential. 
 
 2. The intermediate state is not a second probation. 
 When we fairly study such a view of second probation as 
 was given by the Andover teachers in their Progressive 
 
400 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Orthodoxy, we see that the inner impulse of the discussion 
 is peculiar. It does not originate in the old spirit of 
 universalism, nor in the new spirit of critical biblical in- 
 vestigation ; but rather in a spirit of equity, in the moral 
 sense of fair play. Rejecting the idea of coercion, they 
 demand a fair, full probation for every responsible person, 
 but they can discover no way to provide such a probation 
 for every person in this life. Hence there must be a 
 probation beyond the grave for those who do not have 
 their opportunity of test here. Indeed, it is not too 
 much to say that the spirit of Christianity itself created 
 the inner impulse of the Andover discussion. And if we 
 regard the discussion as a strong echo from Dr. Domer, 
 the case is much the same, for his own discussion is 
 thoroughly Christian in motive. 
 
 While I am eager to grant so much, the work of the 
 Andover teachers seems to me to result from a serious 
 misunderstanding of Christianity. They condition per- 
 sonal salvation upon actual acceptance of the historical 
 Christ. This sounds intensely Christian ; but it is essen- 
 tially false to Christianity, for it turns salvation from a 
 moral thing into a mental thing. Finally the contention 
 amoimts to this : Whatever a man means morally, he will 
 be lost forever if he holds an imtrue opinion about Jesus 
 Christ. As I understand the teaching of our Lord, and 
 the teaching of his greatest apostle, precisely the opposite 
 is the Christian principle : a man is not saved by opinion, 
 nor lost by opinion; the ultimate test is in the person's 
 moral meaning. Surely the historical Christ may, as a 
 rule, be the immediate test, but this is so for a moral 
 reason, namely, because the man has in conscience come 
 to feel a moral obligation toward Jesus Christ. 
 
 Were the contention as to the historical Christ a soimd 
 one, the Andover teachers would need to widen greatly 
 their practical application. For not only the heathen 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 401 
 
 and idiots and insane people have no adequate mental 
 probation in this life — thousands upon thousands of 
 people, typical in both mind and situation, have never for- 
 one hour mentally apprehended Christ, never for one hour 
 seen him as he is. This precise division of men into two 
 classes, those who have heard of Christ and those who have 
 not heard of him, is so untrue to the facts. If any man 
 of you imagines that every person who has read a Christian 
 book or a Christian newspaper, or who has listened to 
 an average Christian sermon, has heard of Christ, with any 
 intellectual reality, such a man needs to make a larger 
 study both of the obstinacy of human bias and of the 
 impotence of human appeal. Why, there were a number 
 of the finest souls and greatest minds New England ever 
 produced, who lived for years almost within hailing dis- 
 tance of Andover Seminary itself, and yet they never 
 accepted the historical Christ — did they ever ''hear of 
 Jesus Christ''? If so, they are all lost, in spite of their 
 nobility in moral purpose. No, no, the Andover dis- 
 tinction is artificial. Hearing of Christ is not a matter of 
 catching in thought the phrases and idioms of Christianity. 
 As Dr. Domer himself says: "Even within the church 
 there are periods and cycles when the gospel does not 
 approach men as that which it is." 
 
 The true Christian view, as I apprehend it, is essentially 
 this: First, the entire possibility of personal salvation is 
 based upon the atonement of Jesus Christ. Second, the 
 actual Christian experience, in its definiteness and full- 
 ness, does involve the necessity of belief, a mental attitude 
 toward both the work of otir Lord and his person. Third, 
 but final salvation is a matter of personal moral bearing, 
 a bearing which is manifest in repentance and faith under 
 a supreme moral ideal. Fourth, thus every person with a 
 conscience has in this life a fair, full probation ; for he has 
 a fair, full test of moral intention. As I once wrote: " It 
 
402 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 is this test of personal moral intention which gives real 
 significance to this life. In all the differences of climate, 
 nationality, ancestry, environment, under all business, 
 in all pleasure, with the stroke of sorrow or in the tumult 
 of joy, there is just one thing being said: 'What do you 
 mean? What do you mean?' For this, the sun shines 
 and the winds blow ; for this, all formal history is made ; 
 for this, dreadful accidents are allowed and more dreadful 
 crimes are for now left unpunished. God is giving every 
 moral person a chance to settle it forever whether he will 
 love righteousness or not." 
 
 3. A Work in Adjustment. If the intermediate state 
 is not a second or continued probation, if it makes no 
 change whatever in moral intention or bearing, what, 
 then, is it for? First of all, and under all, its work is to 
 adjust a person's mental life to his moral meaning. This 
 world is planned merely or mainly for ethical test, and we 
 all reach death holding all sorts of false or fragmentary 
 opinions. These opinions do not determine our central 
 intention, do not even influence our personal attitude 
 toward our moral ideal ; but they do confuse the expression 
 of intention, they do prevent entire consistency at the 
 point of judgment. Therefore, in the intermediate state, 
 our relation to truth and reality is to be fully cleared 
 up. No longer will a perfect purpose be held back by an 
 imperfect judgment. No longer can any man's moral 
 meaning be hidden under a false opinion. 
 
 This clearing up of the mental life may result ir a new 
 formal adjustment to Jesus Christ. If a man rn his 
 earthly probation has really come to a spirit of repentance 
 and faith ; if he passes out of his probation longing for all 
 Christ Jesus is, although he has never known him, then, 
 in the intermediate state, the formal adjustment to his 
 Saviour will be instant and complete. As Dr. Shedd 
 once wrote: "For although the Redeemer has not been 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 403 
 
 presented historically and personally to him, yet he has 
 the cordial and longing disposition to believe in him." 
 Said in one positive sentence: In the intermediate state 
 every man must see Jesus Christ as he really is ; and seeing 
 him as he is, every man who is in harmony with Christ's 
 nature will accept him; while every man who is not in 
 harmony with Christ's nature will reject him. Thus the 
 intermediate state merely turns the essential experience 
 into the formal experience. 
 
 We have, though, another and a most difficult point in 
 adjustment, namely, to adjust to Jesus Christ those 
 children who die before they have any personal and moral 
 bearing. I now remember only one Arminian theologian 
 who seriously tries to say a consistent word concerning 
 this difficult matter. Indeed, the usual Arminian pro- 
 cedure is to make the stoutest contention against Cal- 
 vinism up to this point, then suddenly to borrow the very 
 pith of the Calvinistic philosophy, disguising it under 
 some such phrase as "unconditional regeneration," and 
 so to coerce the children into salvation. Whatever failure 
 we may have in our thinking, let us never do that! Never 
 should we admit that any human being can be saved by 
 omnipotence. Never, never, should we admit that any 
 human being will be saved by pure divine favoritism 
 worked out in a providential plan. I say it carefully, but 
 I say it with every atom of manhood I have, that if one 
 moral person can, anywhere, by any process whatsoever, 
 be coerced into righteousness, then all our sense of God- 
 given equity demands that all men shall be saved. Could 
 I be a necessitarian for one swift instant, I would have 
 to be a Universalist forever. 
 
 My own conclusions as to infant salvation are as fol- 
 lows : First, it is a fact of Christian consciousness that we 
 all now believe that those children are saved who die 
 before they reach personal responsibility. Our dis- 
 
404 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 cussion, therefore, is not for the purpose of getting a 
 beHef ; but merely for consistency, merely to harmonize 
 with the fimdamental principles of oiir theology a belief 
 which we already have. Second, these children are 
 persons. We cannot for one moment tolerate the teach- 
 ing, however poetically couched, that these children, 
 snatched from our homes, are nondescripts, more than 
 thing, but less than person. There can be no such non- 
 descript. In the intermediate state all these children 
 come to full personal experience just as surely as our 
 children do in this life. Third, these children are moral 
 persons. Not only do they come to self -consciousness 
 with all the motives originally intrinsic to created per- 
 sonality, but also they feel the urgency of these motives 
 as persons under moral demand. Fourth, under moral 
 demand and with this contrariety of motive, these chil- 
 dren apprehend and freely accept their Saviour; and, 
 in companionship with him, they achieve, in the inter- 
 mediate state, the full equivalent of a perfect Christian 
 experience. Thus, they are saved under a personal and 
 moral test, but not in a formal probation. Fifth, the 
 reason these children are treated in this special manner, 
 the reason for their being taken out of this life and 
 granted an essential test in place of a formal test, is, I 
 conjecture, this: They are exceptional persons who have 
 no need of a prolonged probation to fix their moral 
 destiny; and their death is so entangled with the pro- 
 bation, or with the development, of other persons as to 
 be of more providential worth than is their continued life 
 in this world. That is, they die not to get advantage but 
 to give service. And yet they are peculiarly honored. 
 To be so selected by our Lord, to be taken at once into 
 his profound life, to get their entire Christian education, 
 so to speak, directly from him, should be regarded as a 
 glory beyond our largest estimate in speech. 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 405 
 
 If to any one of you this view of infant salvation 
 seems to be, either practically or philosophically, the same 
 thing as to open up the intermediate state, as a formal 
 contingent process in probation, to persons who in this life 
 come to a clear realization of the difference between right 
 and wrong, I can only say: "I am totally unable to look 
 at the matter in your way, and totally unable to sanction 
 any sort of coercion." 
 
 4. Getting Ready for the New Race. But the quiet, rich 
 wonder of the intermediate state does not become manifest 
 until we relate it to the final social organism of the Re- 
 deemed. When at the resurrection all the saints take up 
 their full membership in that new race of which Christ 
 Jesus is both the dynamic and the formal center, they are 
 to serve each other, and to fit into each other, in the most 
 absolute fashion. This does not mean that personality 
 will be weakened, or that individuality will be given up ; 
 but it does mean that every member of the new race will 
 be made free from all that is untrue or unreal. . I am not 
 now thinking of the wasteful clashing in polemics. Cer- 
 tainly there could be no Christian organism were polemics 
 to last over into eternity. But polemics will not last over, 
 for the development of the Christian consciousness itself 
 will do away with every phase of polemics long before the 
 ultimate church begins her splendid history in this world. 
 No, I am thinking of completeness in supplemental fel- 
 lowship and service. Perfectly to enter the life of his 
 fellow men, perfectly to serve them, perfectly to aug- 
 ment their being with his own, the saint needs to 
 be at his best. And he cannot be at his normal 
 best if he thinks that which is untrue or believes that 
 which is unreal. It is not now a matter entirely of 
 personal motive and moral character; it is also a matter 
 of sound judgment, and integrity in the make-up of the 
 total manhood. I claim that service is injured anywhere 
 
4o6 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 by every particle of error held by a man ; and not even two 
 men can have absolute companionship, if either one of 
 them has an iota of untruth clinging to his mind. Moral 
 love and reality are both required for the organism of the 
 new race. Moral love is gained in this life. Reality is 
 gained in the intermediate state. 
 
 5. The Question of Method. In the method of the 
 intermediate state there are three features: First, revela- 
 tion. It is not necessary to hold that all truth and all 
 reality will be given in the intermediate state. We can- 
 not be sure that all truth and all reality can ever be com- 
 municated to finite creatures. But they can have 
 enough so that they will live altogether in the vitalities of 
 truth and reality. And, then, perhaps, there will be a 
 larger and yet larger revelation forever. Second, perfect 
 introspection. Many times I have made reference to a 
 man's substructure of individuality, that vast mystery of 
 being which is the basis of personal manhood. From an 
 ethical standpoint this individuality is mastered when it 
 no longer antagonizes the moral ideal in a self -conscious- 
 ness filled with love for God and man. And yet this 
 moral mastery is in a sense superficial, for by it no man 
 comes thoroughly to fathom himself, to know what he is. 
 Indeed, he cannot in this earthly life know what he is, 
 for his self -consciousness is too feeble, too flashing, too 
 fleeting. But in the unbroken quiet of the intermediate 
 state, with no body, no objective demand, no social dis- 
 traction, the man can enter the recesses of his individu- 
 ality and can find out precisely what he is, and so can 
 finish his great task of self -personalization. Thus, we 
 have in the intermediate state, the last triumph of per- 
 sonality in the completed personal individual. Third, 
 companionship with Christ. I will startle you with a 
 thought which you have never had before: In all his 
 Christian history, from his conversion on through the long 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 407 
 
 reaches of eternity, the intermediate state is the only period 
 when the redeemed man is altogether alone with his Saviour. 
 Saint Paul calls it being "at home with the Lord." Do 
 you remember his inspiring words? "We are of good 
 courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from 
 the body, and to be at home with the Lord." And this 
 thought of companionship with Christ is to lend its 
 inspiration to our consideration of the entire purpose and 
 method of the intermediate state. The revelation is from 
 Christ. The introspection is with the presence and help 
 of Christ. The minute preparation for the coming social 
 life in the new race is imder the constant teaching ot 
 Christ. His own people, whom he hath redeemed, he 
 prepares, now alone and personally, for their glorious 
 destiny. 
 
XXrX* THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY 
 
 This doctrine, like that of the intermediate state, is 
 usually discussed as an important division in eschatology. 
 And there are reasons why it should be discussed in such 
 a connection. Were we thinking of all men in their 
 relation to the last things, surely we would need to treat 
 the general resurrection as one of those last things. But 
 according to my view, we can best understand the totality 
 of redemption by keeping at the front its positive inten- 
 tion and actual accomplishments. Therefore, it is in 
 my plan to make emphatic the redeemed, and to give 
 merely an incidental reference to those who reject 
 Jesus Christ. Besides all this, it is, I am confident, 
 fairer, and more illuminating, to consider the everlasting 
 ruin of those who will not be saved, as a problem in 
 philosophical theodicy. As, then, my purpose is to em- 
 phasize the positive process of redemption, I wish to 
 bring out the important fact that the redeemed man, the 
 new man in Christ, is made complete only by the resur- 
 rection of the body. Here I will quote a striking passage 
 from Chancellor Bernard's article on *' The Resurrection " : 
 " Saint Paul's expression of Christian hope is not deliver- 
 ance from the body, but redemption of the body. The 
 redemption of the body is the last stage in the great 
 process of adoption (vlodeata) by which we are made 
 'sons of God' " (Rom. 8. 23). 
 
 Points in Personal Belief. The full discussion of the 
 resurrection runs necessarily into such complications of 
 detail as to be out of perspective with the plan of this 
 book. I will, therefore, barely state my personal con- 
 clusions : 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 409 
 
 1. The body of the resurrection is not produced by 
 the development of an indestructible germ which is 
 within the body of this life. 
 
 2. It is not produced by a natural force which in some 
 way belongs to the body of this life. 
 
 3. It is not an ethereal body which, before or at the 
 time of death, was within the physical body as the shell 
 is within the husk of a nut. 
 
 4. It is not the literal body of the grave reconstructed, 
 whether by using all, or many, or a few, or even one, of 
 the old material atoms. All this chasing through the 
 universe to get the identical particles of matter, or enough 
 of them to constitute **a proper identity," is not only an 
 absurdity in philosophy, but a serious misinterpretation 
 of Saint Paul. 
 
 5. The body of the resurrection is not the result of any 
 natural law, any habitual divine volition, such as brings 
 on the buds and blossoms of spring. 
 
 6. The body of the resurrection is a purely spiritual 
 body (not bound by the laws of this world) ; made by the 
 direct and new intention of God; but so made as to be 
 conditioned by the body of the grave. Every glorified body 
 is in occasional connection with a single physical body 
 just as really as my body to-day is in occasional connec- 
 tion with the body of my childhood. The child's body 
 conditions the man's body — is the start, the initial in- 
 dicative, the determining fundament, in God's own process 
 of identity. The body I have now is what it is because 
 the body of my childhood was what it was. I have lost 
 every old particle of matter, times and times, but I have 
 remained in my own category of identity. Not for an in- 
 stant has my body leaped into another man's category. 
 Precisely so a man's body of glory is his own body under 
 the law of identity, and can be traced back to its condition- 
 ing clue, namely, the body which that one man had at the 
 
410 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 time of death. Every abiding element, the entire intrinsic 
 plan and meaning of the material body, is by the resurrec- 
 tion brought again into fact and made glorious. Indeed, 
 were it feasible to enter into a thorough philosophical 
 discussion to show what matter actually is, such a dis- 
 cussion would, I believe, make it evident that the body 
 of the resurrection is nothing other than God's volitional 
 repetition of the body of the grave — with splendid additions. 
 
 Saint Paul's Analogy. ''But some one will say. How 
 are the dead raised? and with what manner of body do 
 they come? Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself 
 sowest is not quickened except it die: and that which 
 thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but 
 a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other 
 kind; but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, 
 and to each seed a body of its own" (i Cor. 15. 35-38). 
 
 Against bald literalism Saint Paul distinctly pro- 
 nounces when he says, "Thou sowest not the body that 
 shall be;" and his entire teaching may be gathered up in 
 the phrase, "resurrection by seed-process." Here is a 
 fair paraphrase of what the apostle says: "You place a 
 seed in the ground ; and by means of that seed you get a 
 precisely corresponding plant, you know not how ; even so 
 you place in the groimd a natural body, and by means of 
 that, in God's own mysterious process, you get another, 
 a spiritual body, which is to be identified with the buried 
 body as a plant is exactly identified with its own seed." 
 
 A Catholic Union in Him. It is not necessary again 
 specially to note the social significance of the body ; or to 
 show that the Christian doctrine of the resurrection gives 
 the most important emphasis to that social significance. 
 But we do need to look more closely at the structural 
 meaning of the saint's glorified body. It is, on the one 
 hand, a spiritual repetition of the body of his temporal 
 probation. Thus comes the accentuation of the distinct 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 411 
 
 person himself. Never is he to lose connection with his 
 own past. Not only by memory, but by his very ob- 
 jective life itself, he is to be reminded that he is the same_ 
 man who lived that life on earth. Most seriously I urge 
 you to work out the wholesomeness of this thought that 
 the line of identity is everlastingly sacred, that no maUy 
 in all the solemn eternities y can begin all over again. 
 
 Not only so, but this repetition of the earthly body is 
 a perpetual objective insistence upon the fact that every 
 redeemed man once belonged to that old Adamic race 
 which was broken up by death and because of sin. Thus, 
 the entire social Hfe of the new race will ever suggest the 
 sad history of the old race. No saint can ever make a 
 gesture, or look into the face of another saint, without 
 projecting large hints of the story of a costly redemption. 
 Indeed, the whole objective life of the saints in glory is 
 so planned that it has memorial force, like a great sacra- 
 ment. 
 
 The inspiring point, though, is now to come. The 
 glorified body is, on the other hand, made according to the 
 type of our Lord's own glorious body. And, as you quick- 
 ly see, thus comes the emphasis upon the new race 
 in Christ. The one distinct personal individual is kept 
 emphatic ; but he is, even in his bodily life, brought into 
 union with his Redeemer. Thus the new race is formally, 
 as it was before spiritually, given actual solidarity with 
 Jesus Christ. There is a mighty social republic, kingdom, 
 church, where every item of association is a tribute to 
 "Him who hath redeemed us." In the Gospel of the 
 Resurrection, there is one great passage which I am eager 
 to give you now: " In this way the doctrine of the resur- 
 rection turned into a reality the exquisite myth of Plato. 
 . . . And, at the same time the notion of civic union, in 
 which lay so much of the strength and virtue of classical 
 life, is freed from the dangers of party and class, and 
 
412 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 extended to the utmost limits of human brotherhood. 
 . . . Christianity satisfies the instinct and harmonizes 
 the idea of a special relationship to a divine Lord with 
 that of a catholic union in him." 
 
 The Three Cosmical Spheres 
 I had written a paragraph on "the three cosmical 
 spheres," when, to my surprise, I found it almost word 
 for word in Bishop Martensen's Dogmatics. Evidently 
 my own work was nothing but Martensen as held in mem- 
 ory through a number of years. And yet my own move- 
 ment in thought naturally would have reached the same 
 conception. Here is the passage from the Christian Dog- 
 matics: "According to the fundamental representations 
 of revelation, the life of man is to be lived in three cos- 
 mical spheres : First, the sphere in which we dwell in the 
 flesh, kv aapKi, our present life, whose prevailing bias is 
 sensible and outward — for not only is all spiritual activity 
 conditioned by sense, but the spirit groans under the 
 tyranny of the flesh ; next, a sphere in which we live, kv 
 TTveviiart, wherein spirituality and inwardness is the 
 fundamental feature, and this is the intermediate state; 
 and, lastly, a sphere in which we shall again live in the 
 body, but in a glorified body, and in a glorified nature, 
 which is perfection, the renewal and perfecting of this 
 world to its final goal" (comment on 2 Cor. 5. 2, 8). 
 
THE FIFTH DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
 REDEMPTION REALIZED IN THE NEW RACE 
 
Das Reich Gottes ist das von Gott gewahrleistete liochste Gut der 
 durch seine Offenbarung in Christus gestifteten Gemeinde; allein es 
 ist als das hochste Gut nur gemeint, indem es zugleich als das sitt- 
 liche Ideal gilt, zu dessen Verwirklichung die Glieder der Gemeinde 
 durch eine bestimmte gegenseitige Handlungsweise sich unter einander 
 verbinden. — Albrecht Ritschl, Unterricht in der christlichen Religion, 
 §5. 
 
 Our Lord nowhere simply identifies his kingdom, or the kingdom of 
 God, with the church which he came to found. As we have seen, 
 his kingdom is visibly represented in his church; but there are in- 
 superable obstacles to treating the two things as convertible. Our 
 Lord founded a society which was to be visible like a city seated on a 
 hill that cannot be hid (Matt. 5. 14), but the kingdom of God is visible 
 only to faith — the kingdom of God is within you — the church is 
 present and actual, the kingdom of God is present and yet future, 
 actual and yet ideal. The kingdom of God is the supreme end, the 
 visible church a means and instrument to that end. The kingdom of 
 God is in its essential idea the reign of God; those over whom he 
 reigns, and who answer to that reign by loyal allegiance constitute a 
 kingdom in the sense of a body of subjects, and this is the ideal toward 
 which the church must ever be advancing. — Archibald Robertson, Reg- 
 num Dei, the Bampton Lecttires, 1901, pp. 75, 76. 
 
 The kingdom of Christ, not being a kingdom of this world, is not 
 limited by the restrictions which fetter other societies, political or re- 
 ligious. It is in the fullest sense free, comprehensive, universal. . . . 
 
 It is most important that we should keep this ideal definitely in 
 view, and I have therefore stated it as broadly as possible. Yet the 
 broad statement, if allowed to stand alone, would suggest a false im- 
 pression, or at least would convey only a half truth. . . . The concep- 
 tion, in short, is strictly an ideal, which we must ever hold before our 
 eyes, which should inspire and interpret ecclesiastical polity, but which 
 nevertheless cannot supersede the necessary wants of human society, 
 and, if crudely and hastily applied, will lead only to signal failure. As 
 appointed days and set places are indispensable to her efiiciency, so 
 also the church could not fulfill the purposes for which she exists, 
 without rulers and teachers, without a ministry of reconciliation — in 
 short, without an order of men who may in some sense be designated 
 a priesthood. . . . But the priestly functions and privileges of the 
 Christian people are never regarded as transferred or even delegated 
 to these officers. They are called stewards or messengers of God, serv- 
 ants or ministers of the church, and the like; but the sacerdotal 
 title is never once conferred upon them. The only priests under the 
 gospel, designated as such in the New Testament, are the saints, the 
 members of the Christian brotherhood. — Joseph Barber Lightfoot, The 
 Christian Ministry, Dissertation I in Com. on Philippians. 
 
XXX. THE CHURCH OF OUR LORD 
 
 The Kingdom of God. Before stating my own view 
 of the significance of the "kingdom of God" I wish to 
 call yotir attention to a scholar's protest which has been 
 made by Professor Briggs against the modem Protestant 
 practice of sharply distinguishing between the meaning 
 of ^aaiXeia and the meaning of kKicXi]ata, as these terms 
 are used in the Word of God. He says : '* Let me say that 
 I have carefully examined all the uses of these and cognate 
 terms in both Testaments, and as a result of my investi- 
 gations I declare that nothing can be more false than the 
 distinction between ' kingdom ' and * church * asserted by 
 many modems. These are chiefly men who are dis- 
 pleased with the historic church and seek refuge in the 
 kingdom as taught by Jesus Christ in the conceit that 
 this is something larger and better. In fact, 'church* 
 and 'kingdom' differ only as S3monymous terms. There 
 is nothing of importance which can be asserted of the 
 kingdom of God which may not be also asserted of the 
 church of God, if we faithfully use biblical material with- 
 out speculation and theorizing. Jesus is King of the 
 kingdom, and he reigns over it, subduing all external 
 enemies under his feet, or transforming them by his grace 
 into citizens of his kingdom. He is also the head over all 
 things to his church. The church and the kingdom are 
 coextensive; both are Old Testament institutions and 
 New Testament institutions ; both are institutions of this 
 world, and both are eternal institutions of the world to 
 come; both are organizations in the midst of the world 
 and of the universe; both will eventually subdue and 
 absorb the world and also the imiverse; the one is as 
 
4i6 TEE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Spiritual as the other; the one is as external as the 
 other." 
 
 The conclusions of Professor Briggs as a biblical scholar 
 have, and should have, great weight with us; still I can 
 but feel that in this instance his entire study of the scrip- 
 ture teaching has been superficial. When, for one exam- 
 ple, our Lord says, ''Thy kingdom come," can we believe 
 that by kingdom he means exactly the church which he 
 came to establish and to which he committed the sacra- 
 ment of baptism? I cannot believe so. It is contrary 
 to the whole tone and drift of his teaching. I am quite 
 ready to admit that now and again the two Greek words, 
 as we see them in the New Testament, slip into each 
 other's province, and that a line of absolute consistency 
 in usage it is impossible to trace through all the various 
 writings; but I hold that there are plain indications of 
 facts which are not the same ; and that these facts should 
 not be confused in our thinking, if we are ever fully to 
 understand the Word of God and all Christian history. 
 
 My own view I can give economically as follows : 
 
 1. Let us start with God's unrealized plan to have an 
 ultimate kingdom. Most comprehensively considered, 
 the kingdom of God is the final, universal, absolute, 
 everlasting dominion of God, All persons, all events, 
 all creation will express the one fact — God rules. This is 
 the sublime ideal toward which the universe struggles. 
 But there is another sense in which the kingdom of God 
 is a present reality. It has already begun in the hearts 
 of angels and saints. And all its great spiritual laws are 
 in operation — "the world of invisible laws by which God 
 is ruling and blessing his creatures." The entire move- 
 ment in the moral government is in an important sense 
 expressive of the kingdom of God. 
 
 2. In this ultimate kingdom of God there is to be a 
 cosmic sweep. The final universe — everything as formed 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 417 
 
 and placed and used — every person in either his character 
 or his condition — ^will manifest the sovereign holiness of 
 God. I mean that in God's ultimate kingdom the entire, 
 cosmos will not merely conform to his will, but will show 
 forth his nature. The obedience will reveal something 
 more than power, it will reveal the perfect divine holiness. 
 
 3. Within this cosmic kingdom, there is to be **the 
 kingdom of heaven." This inner kingdom will be made 
 up of all holy persons, all those having **the vision of 
 God," and experiencing the ineffable felicity of the divine 
 fellowship. The beginning of this kingdom of heaven is 
 in the present life of the angels of God ; but the kingdom 
 will be fully realized only after the general resurrection. 
 
 4. Within this kingdom of heaven there is to be "the 
 kingdom of Christ." This is a very definite matter, even 
 that new race of men redeemed by the death of our Lord, 
 and organized in him, and glorified in bodily conformity to 
 him. This kingdom of Christ is also now in existence in 
 an incomplete way, and comprehends all those persons 
 who are by saving faith actually joined to Jesus Christ. 
 The test is this actual union with Christ and not whether 
 the persons are members of the Christian church or not. 
 
 5. These three, the cosmic kingdom, the kingdom of 
 heaven, and the kingdom of Christ, are to be conceived 
 under the figure of three concentric circles (recall our 
 discussion of the moral government) ; so that the kingdom 
 of heaven is the inner dominion of the cosmic kingdom, 
 and the kingdom of Christ is the inner dominion of the 
 kingdom of heaven, and also the innermost dominion of 
 the cosmic kingdom, and all three constitute the kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 6. This kingdom of God, taken in its entirety, is the 
 kingdom of God the Father, which is the kingdom re- 
 ferred to in the Lord's Prayer. The full consummation 
 of this kingly dominion of God the Father is to take place 
 
4i8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 when our Saviour ''shall deliver up the kingdom to God, 
 even the Father, . . . that God may be all in all" (i Cor. 
 15. 24-28). This does not mean that Christ is to become 
 anything less to his own people whom he hath redeemed, 
 but merely that Christ and his kingdom are to become 
 an integrant feature of the larger kingdom of God over 
 which only the Father is to be the absolute and everlasting 
 Ruler. It is the last extreme emphasis of that idea of 
 the inherent subordination of the Son of God which is a 
 fundamental idea in the whole system of Christian doc- 
 trine. 
 
 7. What, then, is the church of our Lord? It is the 
 concrete exponent of the kingdom of Christ. It is a 
 formal organization of men which stands for the kingdom 
 of Christ while that kingdom is in the process of forma- 
 tion. Not exactly, as Kahnis said, ''an aeon of the 
 kingdom" ; but rather, as Draseke said, "the workshop of 
 the kingdom " ; or, as Neander most beautifully said, " the 
 seminary for the heavenly community." I am willing to 
 allow just this much : The church of our Lord belongs to 
 his tentative kingdom ; but it is not coextensive with that 
 kingdom (even as that kingdom exists to-day), and can- 
 not be coextensive with it until, anyway, there is what 
 Saint Paul terms "a glorious church, not having spot or 
 wrinkle or any such thing" (Eph. 5. 27). But even this 
 admission is somewhat misleading, for to many it will 
 suggest that the difference between the kingdom and the 
 church is merely that one is perfect and the other is im- 
 perfect. That, though, is not the fundamental difference. 
 The fundamental difference is one of essential structure. 
 The kingdom is a simple personal and spiritual organism. 
 The church is a formal and complex organism. The 
 kingdom is a life of fellowship mediated only through 
 Jesus Christ. The church is a machine; at its best a 
 machine full of life and expressing life, and yet a machine. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 419 
 
 In its worship and in all its service the church has, and 
 must have, some sort of outward instrument — forms, 
 symbols, creeds, what not; but the kingdom needs only 
 the complete man. If, as some believe, the Christian 
 church itself is to be purified, completed, glorified, and 
 then taken into eternity for everlasting worship and 
 service, even then it will not be, strictly speaking, 
 the kingdom of our Lord, but merely the formal in- 
 strument of that kingdom. It will be, perhaps, to 
 the kingdom as a whole what the glorified body will 
 be to the one moral person — the instrumental means of 
 perfect objective manifestation. The kingdom of Christ 
 may, so to speak, show its life to the entire universe 
 through a glorified church — Saint Paul's evdo^og eKKlrjola. 
 
 The Holy Catholic Church. As Protestants we cannot 
 afford to surrender this great historic phrase. Nor 
 should we transform its original meaning into that of 
 "the invisible church of Christ." The holy catholic 
 church is precisely the visible church of our Lord, that is, 
 the entire body of persons who are in actual organization 
 about the two points, the gospel and the sacraments. 
 Whenever a company of men unite, in any way whatso- 
 ever, to maintain the preaching of the gospel of redemp- 
 tion, and to secure the administration of the sacrament 
 of baptism, and to have Christian communion in the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper, that company of men 
 constitutes a Christian church ; and the sum total of such 
 churches is the holy catholic church. Forms of ecclesi- 
 astical government, and preferences in ceremony, and 
 peculiarities of denominational belief, have no large 
 significance; the essential points of organization are 
 simply the two sacraments and the preaching of the 
 gospel. This church of our Lord is holy, not in the sense 
 that every member is now entirely holy in personal life, 
 but in the sense that the church is our Lord's own instru- 
 
420 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ment in building up a holy kingdom. The whole plan 
 and movement of the church are unto holiness. This 
 holy church is catholic in the sense that it is for all men. 
 In it there is no ethnic limitation. Its ambition is for 
 world-wide conquest. Catholicity is to the church just 
 what the racial plan is to the kingdom of Christ. It is the 
 humanity-note. In this holy catholic church there are 
 three kinds of membership: First, there is formal mem- 
 bership. In many situations there are men who submit 
 to all the tests used, and become members of an organized 
 church, and yet do not have any redemptional relation to 
 Jesus Christ. Of course the question soon arises, 
 " Are these formal members really members of the church 
 of our Lord at all? " I myself find it best to regard them 
 as in the holy catholic church, but not members of the 
 kingdom of Christ. This view renders possible large em- 
 phasis upon the absolute need of having a Christian ex- 
 perience ; and yet, with this emphasis, a certain practical 
 wisdom in pastoral work. And, further, the view is 
 helpful when we try fairly to estimate the situation in 
 any of the great national churches, or when we try to 
 understand the condition of the whole Christian world. 
 Second, there is dynamic membership. I mean by this 
 more than any one term can denote. The power of the 
 holy catholic church is due to the Holy Spirit. But his 
 action is (not wholly conditioned) largely related to those 
 members of the church who are also members of the king- 
 dom of redemption. They may be called the dynamic 
 personal points of his action. For example, the force 
 of a sermon, or the influence of a sacrament, depends, in 
 quite a measure, upon the reality and vitality of the 
 Christian experience of the congregation. And so every 
 member of the church who actually lives in Christ Jesus 
 adds a veritable dynamic to the church. Third, there is 
 membership by Christian claim. The church of our Lord 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 421 
 
 has the right and the duty to claim the helpless. She 
 should take into her atmosphere and association and (if 
 possible) service all people who are unable to make a 
 choice for themselves^ — not only all irresponsible children, 
 but all the feeble-minded, and all those unfortunate souls 
 who have been mentally wrecked by woes too terrible 
 for human fortitude. Of course, there are involved here 
 serious questions in church economy, but they all can be 
 met and mastered, if we are determined to make the 
 church of Christ a worthy instrument of the kingdom of 
 Christ. 
 
 But surely you will not misunderstand me here — ^you 
 will not think that I intend to teach the possibility of a 
 mechanical salvation. No human being is saved, or can 
 be saved, by membership in the holy catholic church — 
 salvation is only by personal imion with Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Organism of the Church. To appreciate the phi- 
 losophy of the organism of the holy catholic church, we 
 need to remember that, as the concrete exponent of the 
 kingdom of Christ or the new race, the church is also 
 designed to be a brotherhood of moral persons dominated 
 by Jesus Christ. Thus there are three features to be 
 protected and emphasized in the church-organism : i . The 
 personal. 2. The societary. 3. The spiritual, in fellow- 
 ship with Christ. I can get at these three features most 
 lucidly, I think, by comparing the organism of the church 
 to the structure of an ellipse, with its two foci and a major 
 axis. 
 
 First, in the church, there is the personal focus. This 
 is the preaching of the gospel. Not merely the Christian 
 sermon, but all personal testimony, everything which is 
 done in the church to show what the gospel means to 
 separate persons. The purpose is to bring about the 
 conquest of the world by the church through this personal 
 feature of preaching. And how wonderful it all is, this 
 
422 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 giving to the world the entire message of redemption 
 through the experience of men! The most effective 
 Christian sermon is really nothing other than a chapter 
 of the inner life of a person who lives in our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. The moment the sermon loses that personal 
 quality, that moment the sermon ceases to be effective. 
 Do you not begin to apprehend the philosophy — one 
 might almost say the strategy — of this personal focus? 
 Why, we reach the great Christian verities through each 
 other, our very apprehension of the finalities of the gospel 
 is only by entering the living personal experience of Chris- 
 tian men. And so every time you grasp a Christian truth 
 it prepares you to understand better the life of Christian 
 men ; and to live — helpfully, joyously, to live with them 
 forever. Thus, the whole Christian brotherhood comes 
 to its mighty certainties of faith in one great entanglement 
 of personal experience, the very emphasis upon person- 
 ality making a contribution to ultimate fellowship. 
 
 Second, the societary focus. But it is not enough to 
 preach the gospel through persons ; the Christian society, 
 as an organized body, must have a chance to express itself. 
 Hence the second focus, which is the focus of the Christian 
 sacraments. Not now are we to consider the significance 
 of each sacrament ; I merely wish you to note the fact and 
 worth of the sacramental idea in the organism of the 
 church. This focus is a perfect balance to the other. 
 As the aim of preaching is to stir up personality, to make 
 men think, to keep the personal life from stagnation, so 
 the sacramental aim is to fill consciousness with the sense 
 of Christian companionship, to make the person realize 
 that he is only a part of the large Christian commimity . In 
 both sacraments it is the holy catholic church which 
 dominates the scene. The person is there surely, but he 
 is there for submission and fellowship. His very medita- 
 tion and confession and consecration are in the midst. 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 423 
 
 Third, there is (to keep our ellipse in mind) a major 
 axis. This major featiire in the organism of the church 
 is, some would insist, the Holy Spirit. Such insistence 
 is a mistake. Indeed, there is, I fear, in our day, an 
 emphasis placed upon the Holy Spirit which is not quite 
 true to the New Testament. To protect with words 
 every side of the matter is extremely difficult ; but I will 
 say this : No emphasis is ever to be given to the Holy Spirit 
 which, in any moment or in any degree, shuts our Lord out 
 from the Christian consciousness. The real work of the 
 Spirit always exalts Christ ; that is his mission. As to the 
 church, the Holy Spirit is the very life of it all. The 
 preaching, the sacraments, the service, are literally 
 nothing without his presence and power. But the major 
 axis is only Jesus Christ our Redeemer. And just what 
 do I mean by this? I mean that the spiritual organism 
 of the church requires actual fellowship with Christ. 
 You have a complete organism to just the extent that in 
 the sacraments and in the preaching and in all the work 
 the people are in conscious union with Jesus Christ. 
 This implies, you easily perceive, that it is only 
 dynamic membership which contributes to the spiritual 
 organism of the church. O, if we all could only feel this ; 
 if every Christian preacher could only realize that size 
 is not what the organism requires for its completeness 
 and efficiency, but fellowship, actual fellowship with 
 Jesus Christ. If you say that conversions are the test of 
 church efficiency, I will say that conversions will follow 
 if the church is in living union with our Lord. 
 
 A further word of caution is necessary in this connec- 
 tion, owing to certain widespread tendencies : Fellowship 
 with Christ cannot normally be secured in the church by 
 exalting his person at the expense of his atonement. It 
 verily seems as if the whole realm of Christian scholarship 
 was trying to minimize the death of the Son of God. 
 
424 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 The tendency is not only wrong, but even pernicious. 
 Fully to enter into the life of Christ, one needs to be 
 overwhelmed by his death as Saint Paul was overwhelmed 
 by it until he could hardly think a thought which was not 
 colored by its sacrificial meaning. 
 
 Christian Unity. At this point I cannot speak an 
 effective word ; for I am out of sympathy with every effort 
 to crush out the denominational churches in the name of 
 Christian unity. I believe in uniting all those churches 
 where the fundamental interpretation of the Christian 
 faith is the same; but I do not believe in asking any 
 church to yield any real conviction. In the present state 
 of things there is more Christian vitality in these denom- 
 inational convictions than in all the superficial combina- 
 tions of forced external conformity. Solidarity is the 
 ultimate, is the Christian ideal; but real Christian soli- 
 darity cannot come by sacrificing personality to ma- 
 chinery. I fully appreciate the dreadful fact of waste; 
 but a waste of life is better than any artificial economy. 
 
XXXI. THE CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS 
 
 Coming now closer to the Christian sacraments, we 
 find that they have, without losing at all their societary 
 significance in the organism of the church, very important 
 ftmctions in relation to the Christian person himself. 
 
 ^ I. Each sacrament is a token of personal Christian in- 
 tention. In baptism the candidate expresses his personal 
 intention of entering the church of Christ. Here his self- 
 decision is something more than to submit to Jesus Christ 
 as his Redeemer, it is to acknowledge Christ's command, 
 and *'to be a Christian man before the world." Thus 
 baptism becomes a public profession of the faith. In the 
 Lord's Supper there is no less an expression of personal 
 intention, for the communicant, by his answer to the 
 invitation, declares that he intends "to lead a new 
 life." Thus the member of the church is made often 
 to recommit himself to the Christian purpose, and so 
 there is repeatedly a renewal of that intense personal 
 bearing in self -decision which he had as a candidate in 
 baptism. 
 
 2. Each sacrament is a symbol of an event in grace. 
 Baptism is to us the symbol of regeneration. To be 
 comprehensively true to all the different ways in which 
 the writers of the New Testament associate baptism with 
 salvation, we should, I think, use a larger fact than 
 regeneration, and say that Christian baptism is the sym- 
 bol of redemptional union with Christ. Allowing such 
 usage, baptism would be, first, a token of personal inten- 
 tion to enter the church of Christ ; and, second, a symbol 
 of actual entrance into the kingdom of Christ. But, as a 
 matter of history, the Christian consciousness has never 
 
426 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 treated all passages of Scripture as of equal importance ; 
 and, in this instance, the Christian tendency has been to 
 make baptism precisely a symbol of regeneration. The 
 Lord's Supper is the symbol of the death of Christ, or, 
 more exactly, a sign of the personal appropriation of the 
 person of Christ in his death. By grace the person takes 
 the crucified Saviour as a spiritual nourishment of soul; 
 and the use of the bread and wine symbolize that deep 
 event of grace. The phrase *'by grace" means that the 
 communicant receives the extraordinary aid of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 3. Each sacrament is a means of grace. We are to 
 understand this point, first of all, in the sense that the 
 full use of either of the sacraments enables a person to 
 open up his inner life more largely to the personal opera- 
 tion of the Spirit of God, and this more searching work of 
 the Holy Spirit always results in Christian growth. But, 
 in this connection, there also comes to mind the old 
 question of "baptismal regeneration," a question con- 
 cerning which a sane word is now very much needed. 
 Several Protestant New Testament scholars, in their ex- 
 position of "the washing of regeneration" (see Titus 3. 
 4-7), hold that Christian baptism is, in this phrase, most 
 closely connected with regeneration, not merely because 
 it symbolizes it, "but also, and chiefly, because it effects 
 it." At once we want to know what exactly is meant 
 by the expression "effects it." If the intention is to 
 teach that baptism is automatically effective of regenera- 
 tion, or even that baptism is a fixed and only condition of 
 regeneration, the view should be rejected; for it is con- 
 trary to the. trend of teaching in the New Testament, and 
 also is not the best interpretation of the Pauline passage 
 involved. If, however, it be held that baptism may be 
 such an energizing personal expression of the faith of a 
 repentant man as naturally to prepare the way, or to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH '427 
 
 render feasible actual regeneration by the Holy Ghost, 
 I can see no forcible objection to the view. In other 
 words, Christian baptism not only is a symbol of regenera-_ 
 tion, but also may be a means of grace unto the event of 
 regeneration. It does not practically follow, however, 
 that a pastor should always be willing to baptize any 
 repentant person. Indeed, as a rule, it is wiser, I think, 
 to baptize men only after complete conversion. 
 
 The Number of the Sacraments. The discussion of the 
 term sacramentum^ as to its history and meaning, is of 
 some interest, but of no great worth in reaching a decision 
 concerning the number of the Christian sacraments. 
 The question is, mainly, one of pure obedience in carrying 
 out our Lord's intention as to what features are essential 
 in the structure of his own church. He really organized 
 his society about the preaching of the gospel and exactly 
 two sacraments; and therefore exactly these two sacra- 
 ments the church should have. It matters not how 
 sacred and useful other rites may be, the Saviour him- 
 self did not place them in the organism of his church, and 
 we have no right to enlarge upon his will. The name 
 sacrament is not worth long contention, but baptism and 
 the Lord's Supper should together have a name which 
 is not given to any other feature of the church service, 
 or to any other rite in sacred ceremony. 
 
 How far the new discussion of the significance of our 
 Lord's last supper with his disciples and the origin of the 
 eucharist (by Hamack, Jiilicher, and others) may in- 
 fluence Christian scholarship, it is now impossible to sur- 
 mise ; but I do not expect to see any essential modification 
 of the consensus of evangelical opinion by this extremely 
 erratic discussion. For Christian men, it certainly would 
 seem that Saint Paul's statement to the Corinthians should 
 settle the entire matter forever. In an article on the 
 Lord's Supper in the Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, 
 
428 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Alfred Plummer wisely writes as follows: " In what sense 
 is the tradition represented by Mark and Matthew 'the 
 earliest*? That given by Saint Paul was written earlier, 
 and is the earliest written record of any words of Christ. 
 It had been previously communicated to the Corinthians. 
 And Saint Paul had derived it direct from the Lord him- 
 self (i Cor. II. 23). His words can mean no less. Had 
 he merely been told by apostles he would have had no 
 stronger claim to be heard than hundreds of other 
 Christians. The silence of Matthew and Mark does not 
 warrant us in contradicting such explicit testimony, 
 which would be sufficient, even if it were unsupported, 
 for the unvarying belief of the church from the earliest 
 ages, that it was on the night in which he was betrayed 
 that Christ instituted the eucharist, and gave the com- 
 mand, 'Continue to do this [pres. imp.] in remembrance 
 of me.' The proposal to place the institution of the 
 eucharist as a permanent rite later than the last Supper 
 is as unnecessary as the proposal to place it earlier." 
 
 The Formula of Christian Baptism. In i Cor. 6. 11 we 
 read: "And such were some of you: but ye were washed, 
 but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of our God." 
 Such references to Christ in connection with baptism, 
 together with the fact that in the New Testament there 
 is no mention of any person as being baptized in the 
 name of the Trinity, has led many to believe that at first 
 the trinitarian formula was not used in the Christian 
 sacrament of baptism. This belief I cannot regard as 
 well founded. These references to Christ are to be taken, 
 I am inclined to think, as mere statements of the fact 
 of Christian baptism, with the emphasis, in rhetorical 
 manner, upon Jesus Christ — an emphasis which under 
 the militant circumstances of the early church is just 
 what one would naturally expect — and not as exact in- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 429 
 
 dications of the formula used in the administration of 
 the sacrament. There stand our Lord's words, ''bap- 
 tizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son 
 and of the Holy Ghost"; and unless there is thoroughly 
 convincing evidence to the contrary, we surely must sup- 
 pose the apostolic church, so eager to do the will of their 
 crucified and risen Lord, would carry out his last com- 
 mand. 
 
 Nor is the recognition of the Trinity in baptism an 
 unimportant matter ; for it is of the greatest concern that 
 the Christian church fundamentally and perpetually rec- 
 ognize the fact that, while Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, 
 redemption is the plan and work of the entire Godhead. 
 The baptismal command of our Lord, in taking leave of 
 his disciples, is as if he had said to them, '' I have now 
 finished my work on earth, and provided for every man 
 the possibility of salvation, but you are ever to remember 
 that this free salvation is not a gift from me alone ; but is 
 from the whole of God, even the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 The Mode of Baptism. Exhaustively to consider the 
 question of mode in Christian baptism is a physical im- 
 possibility under the limited plan of this book. But, 
 fortunately, the old-style discussion, which spent pages 
 upon Panri^o) and the classical history of the Greek 
 pronouns, is no longer necessary. Christian archaeology 
 has changed all that. We now know what the early 
 church actually did. All reliable scholarship is, I think, 
 in agreement that the typical baptism in the apostolic 
 church was in the mode of trine immersion. But from 
 the very beginning, with the type ever at the front, there 
 was in use a principle of liberty, a deep distinction being 
 made between the essential act of baptism and the mere 
 mode. The whole spirit of the situation is expressed in 
 this passage from The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles: 
 
430 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 *' Having first said all these things, baptize into the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in 
 living water [that is, fresh-running water]. But if thou 
 have not living water, baptize in other water ; and if thou 
 canst not in cold, in warm. But if thou have not either, 
 pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of 
 Father and Son and Holy Spirit." This principle of 
 liberty has been used by different branches of the holy 
 catholic church until the typical mode of baptism has been 
 thrust into a practical banishment, and the exceptional 
 mode (and the most exceptional mode, too) has become 
 the type. As Dean Stanley said, " It is a striking exam- 
 ple of the triumph of common sense and convenience over 
 the bondage of form and custom." 
 
 From the standpoint of the Baptists, Dr. George Dana 
 Boardman says, '* The church has no more right to change 
 a divine symbol than to change a divine command." To 
 this I would answer: If the church decides that she can 
 better carry out a divine command by changing the form 
 of a symbol which she believes is not a divine command, 
 then she has not merely the right, but even the obligation, 
 to make such a change. Indeed, this same principle of 
 liberty has been used by our Baptist friends themselves, 
 for they do not practice trine immersion. 
 
 Dr. Boardman also suggests, as his irenicon, that the 
 Baptists shall give up their insistence on immersion as a 
 qualification for communion, and that the non-Baptists 
 shall return to the primitive mode of immersion. This 
 suggestion is made in such a large Christian spirit that 
 one can only wish it could be accepted and acted upon ; 
 but it is out of range with the urgency of the situation 
 which the Christian church is now facing. We are now 
 fighting for nothing less than the whole supernatural pe- 
 culiarity of Christianity, and such a question as the mode of 
 baptism is, for the time, of no great Christian concern. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 43i 
 
 The denominations would much better stay just as they are 
 until this serious battle is won — then there will be a new 
 Christian perspective, and we all shall be able to look at 
 our polemics in a new way, I believe. 
 
 ''A Communion of the Body of Christ.'' For the sake 
 of emphasis, I have kept for this place the deeper con- 
 sideration of the Lord's Supper. This sacrament is, as 
 was indicated, a general means of grace ; but it is also a 
 most peculiar means of grace, for it furnishes to the 
 communicant the possibility of an experience which is 
 properly called mystical. The modem Christian man 
 seems to be afraid of this term mystical, but it is the only 
 term which can indicate some of the highest Christian 
 experiences, those experiences which are so transcendent 
 that, like the peace of God itself, they pass all understand- 
 ing. Allow me, in this connection, to say that the teach- 
 ing of Zwingli concerning the Lord's Supper has been very 
 strangely misunderstood. He taught something much 
 more profound than ''the memorial view," for he taught 
 that the body of Christ was mystically present. And, in 
 the Methodist church, the mystical presence has also been 
 taught. Dr. Latimer's ''dynamical presence," by which 
 the communicants are "penetrated" so that Christ "as- 
 similates them to himself," was Zwingli's view stated in 
 a most inspiring manner. I say it was Zwingli's view; 
 but I am not sure but Dr. Latimer intended to go further 
 and to be almost as mystical as was John Calvin, who had 
 an exceedingly profound and spiritual conception of the 
 Lord's Supper. Had Calvin's influence only prevailed, 
 the superficial Socinian conception of our Saviour's table 
 would never have made such headway as it has made, 
 although it fits into the rationalistic tendency to cheapen 
 into clarity every feature of Christian experience. 
 
 In I Corinthians, the tenth chapter, Saint Paul says: 
 "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a commun- 
 
432 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 ion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is 
 it not a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, 
 who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all par- 
 take of the one bread." In all of Saint Paul's epistles 
 there is nothing more mystical than is this passage, and it 
 is extremely difficult to get at his exact meaning. But 
 let us earnestly try. The key to the passage is, I am 
 stire, the one word KOLvcovia, translated '"commimion" 
 in the English text quoted above. What does this word 
 mean? That it does not mean a mere ''partaking of" is 
 at once indicated by the fact that Saint Paul, in the last 
 clause of the passage, expresses that meaning by another 
 word ("for we all partake of" — fierexofj.ev) . Then, 
 again, when we study Koivcovla, in its derivation, and as 
 it is used in various connections, we discover that the 
 pith of its meaning is in the idea of active fellowship. That 
 is, a fellowship where both parties give as well as take. 
 Now, is it possible to interpret the Lord's Supper in terms 
 of an active transcendent fellowship? I think it can be 
 done in the following way : 
 
 1. The bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, when 
 used in a thoroughly Christian manner, become, under the 
 operation of the Holy Spirit, the means of a transcendent 
 realization of the death of Christ. That death not only 
 occupies the communicant's thought, it also dominates 
 his feeling. It becomes absolutely real to him. It is 
 reproduced in his consciousness. Spiritually, mystically, 
 in overwhelming effect, it is to him as if the crucified 
 Saviour, broken and bleeding, were actually there, in com- 
 plete grasp by the senses. This is the mystical presence 
 of oiir Lord's body and blood. And it has been the 
 actual experience of thousands of Christians who have 
 fully prepared themselves for this sacrament. This mys- 
 tical presence is the first stage of Saint Paul's Koivcovia. 
 
 2. This realization of the death of our Lord is a means 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 433 
 
 (again under the operation of the Holy Spirit) of an active 
 fellowship with Christ. The believer absolutely yields 
 his person to that transcendent vision of his crucified 
 Redeemer, and thus enters into communion with Christ^ 
 himself. Christ takes him, penetrates him, and ** assimi- 
 lates him to himself." Even the mystic's phrase, "He 
 becomes a part of the body of Christ," I do not deem 
 beyond the fullness of the experience. This is the second 
 stage of Saint Paul's Kotvcovia; and it is really only an 
 intense emphasis in personal consciousness of that 
 actual union with Christ which every truly Christian man 
 obtains in his conversion. 
 
 3. This active fellowship with Christ is the means 
 (still tmder the operation of the Holy Spirit) of a further 
 fellowship — a transcendent fellowship by the communi- 
 cant with the Christian people who are about him at the 
 Lord's table; and to just the extent that they are in 
 active fellowship with Christ. Thus, one man can gather 
 up into his consciousness all sorts and conditions of men, 
 and enter into their sorrows and their joys, and live large 
 moments of supreme unselfishness. And thus it is possible 
 for a Christian society, all partaking *'of the one bread," 
 to become ''one body." This is the completion of Saint 
 Paul's Koivojvia, the communion of the body of Christ. 
 And with a thought of the matter you will see that this 
 communion is for the church but a predictive foretaste of 
 the completed new race in Christ, as the members of that 
 race will live in glory. Forever will the death of Christ be 
 absolutely real to them; forever will they have active 
 fellowship with Christ ; and forever will they have active 
 fellowship with each other. 
 
XXXII. THE CHURCH MILITANT 
 
 Having considered the church in its sacraments, in its 
 organism, and in its essential relation to the kingdom of 
 God, we are now prepared to look at the church militant, 
 that is, the church actually at work in the great struggle 
 to conquer the world. 
 
 The Christian Preacher. It is with serious purpose that 
 I place the Christian preacher in just this connection, for 
 he has no significance save from the standpoint of the 
 militant aim of the church. The Christian preacher is 
 not an apostle. He has neither the authority nor the 
 inspiration to make any fundamental addition to the 
 word of God. Nor is the Christian preacher a priest, 
 excepting in the sense in which every Christian man is a 
 priest, "to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God 
 through Jesus Christ." The Christian preacher does not 
 belong (as do the sacraments) to the organic structure 
 of the church. There could be a real Christian church 
 without any minister at all. He is not even necessary to 
 preach the gospel.. But he is necessary for economical 
 and efficient service. He is an important feature in the 
 economy of Christian conquest. A careful study of the 
 Christian chiirch in the New Testament will convince 
 you that the difference between the clergy and the laity, 
 of which high-church writers have made so much account, 
 was merely a difference in practical service. To accom- 
 plish anything, without perpetual waste, the early church 
 had to have machinery, had to have some sort of govern- 
 ment, and had to have regular officers for this machinery 
 and for this government. But these officers did not have 
 any redemptional dignity in the church. Especially 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 435 
 
 note the words of Bishop Lightfoot, who wrote as a 
 master of the early history of the Christian church: " But 
 the priestly functions and privileges of the Christian, 
 people are never regarded as transferred or even delegated 
 to these officers. They are called stewards or messengers 
 of God, servants or ministers of the church, and the like ; 
 but the sacerdotal title is never once conferred upon them. 
 The only priests under the gospel, designated as such in 
 the New Testament, are the saints, the members of the 
 Christian brotherhood . ' ' 
 
 This false, imchristian sacerdotal importance once 
 entirely rejected, we are quickly and eagerly to place the 
 largest emphasis upon the worth of the Christian preach- 
 er to the church. I would go so far as to say that with- 
 out him a living, efficient church is practically impossible. 
 He is essential net only to the surface economy of the 
 church, in using its machinery to advantage — he is essential 
 also, and even more, to the deeper spiritual economy, in ad- 
 vising and developing and uniting and using in service the 
 persons who make up the Christian community. In any 
 church there are almost sure to be many kinds of people, 
 perhaps no two of them in the same spiritual condition^ 
 perhaps no two of them with the same conception of the 
 details of duty in Christian activity ; and there is pressing 
 need of " a master in Israel," who has the time and calling 
 to study the entire situation from the standpoint of the 
 ideal of a Christian church, and then has the definite pur- 
 pose to lead the people, by preaching and by pastoral 
 method, on toward that churchly ideal. To make out 
 of many elements a living, efficient church; a church in 
 which the sermon and the sacraments are ever quick with 
 the Holy Ghost ; a church with the atmospheric expecta- 
 tion of conversions ; a church where the tempted are en- 
 vironed with victory; a church where the imperfect are 
 made to see their larger need of Christ; a church where 
 
436 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 the peculiar consolations of God are given to the afflicted ; 
 a church where Christian men begin even on earth to be 
 a Christian brotherhood ; a church which constantly bears 
 toward the whole world with sacrifice in its heart and 
 conquest in its purpose — to make such a church, a church 
 of the long major axis, that is the work of the Christian 
 preacher. For such work in the church the Christian 
 preacher needs at least four things in qualification, 
 namely : First, a Christian experience so deep that it fills 
 the consciousness with urgent reality; second, a compre- 
 hensive knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; third, an un- 
 failing grasp of all the peculiarity of the Christian faith 
 as a system of redemptional doctrine; and, fourth, the 
 capacity and the courage for spiritual leadership among 
 men. Other qualifications the Christian preacher may 
 have to advantage, especially for the oratorical phase of 
 his service ; but these four things mentioned he must have 
 to build up a living and potent church of Christ. 
 
 The Christian Church and the Home. From the begin- 
 ning it has been a point in what may be called Christian 
 strategy to gain vantage in the home. When Saint Paul 
 teaches (see i Cor. 7. 14) that *'the unbelieving husband 
 is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanc- 
 tified in the brother," he is not thinking of personal holi- 
 ness at all. No unbeliever can be holy by proxy. But a 
 home itself is tmder the divine plan a little organism, and 
 to get into it even one point of Christian faith lifts the 
 entire home into a new category for the church. The 
 church can treat that home as its own spiritual property, 
 so to speak, and plan for it and even pray for it with a 
 sense of Christian ownership. The question as to the 
 worth of such Christian treatment of people who are not 
 actually Christians in their personal life, should be 
 answered from the standpoint of the philosophy of human 
 influence. While every man's decision must be at last 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 437 
 
 his own self -decision in his own freedom, yet we do in- 
 fluence each other ; for we can be instrumental in bringing 
 motive to immediate urgency. Thus there is a true sense_ 
 in which one can be a means in another's conversion. 
 
 On the whole, this is the connection which I deem the 
 most fitting for a statement of view concerning the bap- 
 tism of infants. My view as to the baptism of infants has 
 very naturally a close relation to my view of the salvation 
 of infants in the intermediate state, for in both views there 
 is involved their personal and moral condition. Already 
 I have given the one view, and the other may be suc- 
 cinctly stated thus: 
 
 1. Inasmuch as infants have not yet come to the pos- 
 sibility of personal volition, their baptism has not the 
 meaning which Christian baptism has in the case of adult 
 believers. That is, the baptism of an infant is not a token 
 of personal intention, is not a symbol of an event of grace, 
 and is not a means of grace. Of course, we can say that 
 the parent or sponsor has personal intention and all that ; 
 and we can also say that the child is in a spiritual con- 
 dition which is the equivalent of the regenerate state; 
 and we can also say that later in life baptism will become 
 to the child a means of grace. These things, or some of 
 them, I have myself often said in the past ; but they now 
 seem to me to be mere verbal ingenuities made for the 
 defense of a practice; and I deem it much fairer and 
 much more wholesome to place the baptism of infants on 
 a basis of its own. 
 
 2. Inasmuch as infants are not personal sinners, they 
 are innocent. It is, I believe, only of this simplicity in 
 innocence that our Saviour was thinking when he said, 
 "of such is the kingdom of heaven;" and his words are 
 not to be taken in a hard and fast doctrinal way. 
 
 3. These helpless and undeveloped and innocent chil- 
 dren the Christian church has a right to claim as her own 
 
438 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 wards, to bring them up on the inside of the rich life of 
 the holy catholic church. 
 
 4. But the best way (and often the only feasible way) 
 to do this is to do it through the home, which belongs to 
 the church entirely or essentially. And so the church 
 turns to the home and says: " If you will consecrate unto 
 your Lord this child, and act for us imtil we can get at 
 his personal life, we will baptize him into membership of 
 the Redeemer's church on earth." 
 
 5. And so the baptism of an infant is the most forcible 
 recognition and utilization of the home on the part of the 
 Christian church. 
 
 6. If now you ask what infant baptism precisely stands 
 for as a rite, the answer should, I believe, be this : It stands 
 for the sacramental acceptance by the church of the con- 
 secration imto Christ of a babe by a home. The church 
 officially joins in with the home in dedicating the child 
 unto the Redeemer, and does this by making the child 
 a member of the holy catholic church under the principle 
 of Christian claim. The two rites, infant baptism and 
 adult baptism, are alike only in that both are forms of 
 entrance into the church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Church and the Nation. "The nation is to work 
 in the realization on the earth of his kingdom who is the 
 only and the eternal King. It becomes, then, no more 
 the kingdom of this world, but the kingdom of Him 
 whose reign is of eternal truth — ^the reign in which, in 
 the realization of personality, there is the freedom of man. 
 Its advance is only in his advent ; its destination is toward 
 him. Its new ages are the days of the coming of the Son 
 of man. Its freedom is only in his redemptive strength. 
 It is no more the life of the first man, of the earth earthy." 
 
 It is certainly fitting that I begin with these seerlike 
 words quoted from the greatest tribute ever paid to the 
 significance of national life; for it was this tribute, in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 439 
 
 Elisha Mulford's The Nation, which, many years ago, 
 started a line of thinking to culminate in my present 
 conception of the profound relation between the church—- 
 and the nation as two coordinate features in the vast 
 work of God for mankind. But to bring out the full 
 conception, as it lies in my mind, I will refer again to the 
 family. For these three, the family, the nation, and the 
 church, belong to one divine plan, which through the 
 centuries moves steadily toward the distant goal. This 
 goal is that perfect brotherhood which is to be the ever- 
 lasting kingdom of Christ, the inner circle of the kingdom 
 of heaven, and the innermost circle of the whole kingdom 
 of God. For this final brotherhood there are these three 
 different ventures in social solidarity. They might prop- 
 erly be called the three educational movements toward 
 human brotherhood. First, there is the family, where, 
 as in a primary school, we learn our first lesson in soli- 
 darity. It is the first check on pure individualism. In 
 a home, even in a very imperfect home, the total family 
 must at times become the point of view. Not yet, per- 
 haps, is there any real unselfishness, but there is an 
 escape from the merely individual outlook, and a first 
 exercise in social entanglement. Then, in a finer home, 
 what chances there are to live in each other and for each 
 other, and to form an almost perfect social organism. 
 Next comes the nation ; and how all the utilitarians fail to 
 understand the grandetir of its meaning! They seem to 
 think that a nation is a union of men to secure material 
 prosperity. But a nation is a divine institution, like the 
 family; and its purpose is to give another and larger 
 check to pure individualism. Here again one may be 
 selfish; but he must combine with many men and in a 
 measure understand them and think of their interests 
 and yield to their judgment. Thus there is increasing 
 social interlacing all the time. And, in the most noble 
 
440 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 relation to the nation, in patriotism, there is a complete 
 surrender of the individual to the good of the whole, for a 
 patriot is a man who lives absolutely for his country in 
 feeling and thought and deed. Now, do you not see 
 what a preparation the family and the nation have made 
 for the Christian church? They have introduced and 
 emphasized the very principle of solidarity which the 
 church seizes and applies to all mankind. The church 
 cries out: "Yes, live for each other in the family; live in 
 the entire length and breadth of national concern; but 
 all mankind redeemed in Jesus Christ is the final family 
 and the final nation ; let us join together to express that 
 largest social solidarity even in this world.'* 
 
 Holding such a view of the significance of the nation, 
 we cannot tolerate the Romish idea that the nation is 
 subordinate to the church. Nor can we receive the 
 Erastian idea that the church is subordinate to the state. 
 Nor are we satisfied with the idea that each is supreme 
 in its own province, but the two provinces have no rela- 
 tion to each other save as they cross lines in material 
 things. The church and the nation are to be regarded as 
 two allies, each working by its own method, to prepare 
 the way for the kingdom of our Lord. Just as the moral 
 process is a preparation for the full redemptional process, 
 so the nation should be a real preparation for the work of 
 the church. Perhaps we would better say an indirect 
 preparation, as what we mean is that the nation should 
 aim to become a moral brotherhood, where every law and 
 every institution is for the benefit of all and tmder a moral 
 ideal. This view I myself carry out into many details, 
 some of these details involving action as a citizen; but 
 all I wish to urge upon you is the general conception 
 that the church is to look upon the nation, not as an 
 accident brought about by men, but as a sacred agency 
 of God in working out the plan of his final kingdom. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 441 
 
 The Church and Socialism. Some years ago, in one of 
 our great cities, I heard a socialist try to answer the 
 question, " What must I do to be saved? " Substantially 
 stated, his answer was this: "The Christian idea that to 
 be saved a man must be convicted of sin, have faith in 
 Christ, and be converted, and lead a holy life, is altogether 
 wrong. A man is not saved by what he himself does or 
 allows God to do. A man is saved by society. Let 
 society make a man's environment right, and the man 
 can't help being right. Let society make a man's en- 
 vironment wrong, and the man can't help being lost, that 
 is, being bad. Our task, men, is to put about every 
 brother man that which is true and beautiful and good.** 
 
 Not every socialist would make or entirely sanction 
 this statement as it stands ; and yet the statement brings 
 out sharply the main difference between socialism and 
 Christianity, namely, one emphasizes environment while 
 the other emphasizes personality. According to Chris- 
 tianity, the individual person must do something to be 
 saved; and all that is done for him (and Christianity 
 believes that much must be done for him) is done in some 
 under relation to his personal action. According to 
 socialism, the man is a product very completely of the sit- 
 uation in which he is placed. Indeed, I think it is not 
 imf air to say that all unmodified socialism is materialistic 
 either in fact or in tendency. 
 
 But when we go back to those pregnant times which 
 followed the French Revolution, when the workingman 
 woke up to the astonishing fact that he had not been 
 benefited by that revolution, and then follow the course 
 of socialism through all its intensely interesting history, 
 especially in Europe, we can discover, it seems to me, 
 that socialism has a personal root in spite of all its anti- 
 personal theory. The root of socialism is the personal 
 hunger for brotherhood. The disappointment over the 
 
442 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 French Revolution was deeper than any question of 
 material advantage. The man with money had shown 
 in the outcome that he did not care any more about the 
 workingman than royalty had cared for him. And from 
 that day until now the workingman has felt that no one 
 has any concern in his real welfare. Surely the Christian 
 church can never go over to the socialistic point of view 
 to any such extent as would tend to weaken our insistence 
 upon personality and personal salvation ; but it does seem 
 to me that the Christian church should make a much 
 more serious study of socialism and the whole industrial 
 situation; and should make a Christian contribution to 
 the settlement of such questions as involve a principle of 
 equity; and should find some way to convince the work- 
 ingman that the church of Jesus Christ is the very brother- 
 hood which he needs. But it is not of much use to try 
 to convince him, until we ourselves more nearly realize 
 the Christian ideal, and actually are such a brotherhood. 
 The Church and the City Problem. There is no place 
 where, as a Christian man, I come quite so near to dread- 
 ful discouragement as I do in one of the great cities of our 
 Christian civilization. I say to myself, "We have 
 preached the gospel here so long, and yet we have not con- 
 quered this place!" I have no heart thoroughly to enter 
 into the matter, endeavoring to make you see all that I 
 see. But there is one hopeful sign — a very hopeful sign, 
 I think — and that is the new Christian attack upon "the 
 slums." I know very well how superficial, from a 
 Christian standpoint, some of this work is. It is mere 
 philanthropy. But not all of it is so; some of it is as 
 profoundly Christian as any work done by the church 
 anywhere. And the movement, as a movement, has 
 taken the right method, namely, the method of a con- 
 vincing brotherhood. Even superficial things are no 
 waste, if in the end they make for brotherhood. The 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 443 
 
 greatest thing you can do for a man is actually to lead 
 him to Jesus Christ, but next to that greatest thing is it to 
 love the man and make him believe that you are his_ 
 brother. And often these two kinds of service are not 
 far apart. 
 
 What is now needed is to lift this slum work out of 
 what may be called its sociological stage, and to make it 
 truly Christian by placing it upon the conscience and 
 heart of the entire church. The church should have 
 much the same attitude toward the slum work that she 
 has toward the foreign missionary work — an attitude of 
 self-sacrifice, determination, conquest. The time shall 
 come when the Christian church will consider the great 
 cities points of such strategic importance that she will 
 master them at any cost. 
 
 The Church and Foreign Missions. In the very nature 
 of the case, the supreme work to a thoroughly militant 
 church is, and should be, in the field of foreign missions ; 
 for it is this field which most promptly utilizes the 
 aggressive Christian spirit of world-wide conquest. The 
 gospel is not for oiirselves alone, but for the whole race. 
 But there need be no antagonism between the work 
 abroad and the work at home. Neither one should be 
 exalted and cultivated at the expense of the other. The 
 truth is that all work really done for Jesus Christ is one 
 and the same thing, and must be done with that aggressive 
 spirit which cries out. Every human being has been pur- 
 chased by the death of our Lord, and we must reach them all 
 with his gospel. 
 
 I will state the true missionary motives, as I see them ; 
 but first I wish to quote a passage from Dr. D. D. Whedon. 
 I have selected this passage from a number, because it ex- 
 presses in a forcible way that view of the salvation of the 
 heathen which has been current in the teaching of the 
 Methodist church from John Wesley to John Miley: 
 
444 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 *' Bold assertions in missionary speeches and sermons that 
 all the world without the pale of Christendom is damned 
 in mass never quicken the pulse of missionary zeal. On 
 the contrary, they ever roll a cold reaction upon every 
 feeling heart and every rational mind. Our better natures 
 revolt, and, alas ! a gush of skepticism is but too apt in 
 consequence to rise in the public mind, especially where 
 precise ideas in regard to the question have not been 
 formed and fixed. We had far better argue the mission- 
 ary cause from the danger to our own salvation from that 
 low standard of Christianity which does not subdue the 
 world to the righteousness of faith; from the vast in- 
 crease of the number saved through a universal gospel; 
 and from the rich reward and unspeakable glory of win- 
 ning every isle and continent to Christ, secviring him the 
 crown of our entire planet." 
 
 Our true motives for foreign missionary work are, as I 
 see them, these : 
 
 1. A desire to obey our Saviour's command to go into 
 all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 
 
 2. A desire to furnish to all men the present blessings 
 of the gospel. 
 
 3. A purpose to keep the church at home so filled with 
 the militant temper of foreign missions as to render all her 
 members unselfish and aggressive. 
 
 4. A purpose to keep before the mind of the entire 
 chiirch the size of the plan of redemption. 
 
 5. A purpose to begin to realize the idea of a tmiversal 
 human brotherhood in Jesus Christ. 
 
 6. A purpose to hasten under all possible Christian 
 pressure the salvation of men^ and thus to prepare them for 
 the largest service and the largest destiny in the final 
 kingdom of our Lord. 
 
XXXIII. THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT 
 
 The Second Coming of Christ. This is the one subject 
 in systematic theology which I would gladly avoid, were 
 such a course possible in fairness, for the data are so 
 dubious as to meaning in important places that I have 
 been tmable to reach such conclusions as amount to 
 positive convictions. There are several discussions which 
 I value very highly (notably Bishop Merrill's for its sanity 
 and Dr. Terry's for its scholarship) ; but I have not found 
 a discussion which fathoms and harmonizes the whole of 
 the teaching of the New Testament. The best I can do 
 for you is to outline the case as it now stands in my 
 mind: 
 
 1. There are a number of Scripture passages often 
 marshaled in this connection which have no bearing what- 
 ever upon the question in dispute. For they refer to the 
 ordinary Christian event of the coming of Christ into 
 the human heart by means of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 2. There are other Scripture passages where the ref- 
 erence is (probably) to the appearance of Jesus to his dis- 
 ciples immediately after his resurrection. Such a pas- 
 sage is that where our Saviour says, " A little while, and ye 
 behold me no more ; and again a little while, and ye shall 
 see me*' (Saint John i6. i6). 
 
 3. There is one passage which may be quite reasonably 
 explained as a special coming of Christ to meet his dis- 
 ciples, each one at his death. I mean the passage in the 
 gospel of John (14. 3) where Jesus says, "And if I go and 
 prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive 
 you unto myself ; that where I am, there ye may be also." 
 
 4. The effort to explain such passages as that of Saint 
 
446 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Matt. 26. 64 as the coming of our Lord in an event of 
 judgment having no association with his personal advent, 
 seems to me to be entirely unconvincing. 
 
 5. I find it impossible to get all the teaching of the 
 synoptic gospels into one consistent view; but, on the 
 whole, this seems to be the teaching: At the end of the 
 gospel dispensation (''post-millennium'') Jesus Christ will 
 return to this world in person, visible and glorious, to 
 raise the dead ; to judge all men ; to punish sinners and 
 reward saints ; and to complete the formation and place- 
 ment of his everlasting kingdom. And, further, this 
 synoptic teaching is entitled to the theological right of 
 way, for it is not only exceedingly emphatic but also 
 bound up with important Christian doctrines. 
 
 6. This brings us to what has been called "the passage 
 of torment," in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation. 
 All I can say personally about this passage is that all the 
 attempts to fit it into the synoptic conception of our 
 Lord's second coming seem to me to be forced and there- 
 fore inconclusive. But the fairest thing for me to do is 
 to place two great specialists in biblical theology over 
 against each other. Professor Salmond says: "However 
 the circumstance is to be accounted for, and however it is 
 to be related to the general teaching of the New Testa- 
 ment, it must be admitted that this remarkable para- 
 graph in John's Apocalypse speaks of a real millennial 
 reign of Christ on earth together with certain of his saints, 
 which comes in between a first resurrection and the final 
 judgment." Professor Terry, in commenting upon verses 
 7-10, says: "It is a great symbolic picture, and its one 
 great teaching is clear beyond the possibility of doubt or 
 misunderstanding, namely, that Satan and his forces must 
 all ultimately perish. This is written for the comfort 
 and confidence of the saints. But that final victory is in 
 the far future, at the close of the Messianic age, and it is 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 447 
 
 here simply outlined in apocalyptic symbols. Any pre- 
 sumption, therefore, of determining specific events of 
 the future from this grand symbolism must be regarded 
 as in the nature of the case a species of worthless and 
 misleading speculation . ' ' 
 
 The New Race in Full Fact. This triumph of the 
 church at the second coming of Christ is not the Christian 
 culmination, but simply a final instrumental stroke unto 
 that culmination. Christian history culminates only in 
 the full fact of the new race in Jesus Christ. In different 
 places and at different angles of vision, I have tried 
 gradually to prepare your minds and hearts for this sub- 
 lime racial culmination ; but now that we are actually fac- 
 ing the culmination there are several things which should 
 be brought out with the greatest possible stress. The 
 first of these points for extreme emphasis is that in this 
 new race there is guaranteed the immortality of the person. 
 This new race is, indeed, conceivable only in terms of 
 personality. The very organism is personal. The mem- 
 bers are bound together as persons. The very glory of 
 their wonderful social life is that all the interchange of 
 blessing, all the interlacing in self-sacrifice, is self-con- 
 scious. Not only do they live for each other and in each 
 other, hut they want to. There is a sense in which the 
 individual at last is an expressive feature of the divine 
 life, but this does not come about by the pantheistic 
 method, it comes about by a personal union with God. 
 In all his earthly probation no saint was ever so intensely 
 personal, so intensely self-conscious, so intensely self- 
 decisive, as he is now in the new race. His whole being 
 is filled with the realization of where he is and what he is 
 and what he is doing for other men and what they are 
 doing for him. He loses his life ethically only to find it 
 personally. 
 
 If this conception of personal immortality in the new 
 
448 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 race is thoroughly before you, I will ask you to throw it 
 into sharp contrast with Herbert Spencer's benumbing 
 view of the outcome of human life. In his last book Mr. 
 Spencer wrote: ''And then the consciousness itself — ^what 
 is it during the time that it continues? And what be- 
 comes of it when it ends? We can only infer that it is a 
 specialized and individualized form of that Infinite and 
 Eternal Energy which transcends both our knowledge 
 and our imagination ; and that at death its elements lapse 
 into the Infinite and Eternal Energy whence they were 
 derived." 
 
 Another point which should receive extreme emphasis is 
 that the social intercourse is ethically achieved. It is pre- 
 cisely at this point that our modem imagination has most 
 widely gone astray. We cannot imagine what the life 
 of the redeemed is like without sentimentalizing the scene 
 out of its pure ethical quality. To illustrate what I mean 
 take John Milton's famous lines : 
 
 "There entertain him all the saints above 
 In solemn troops and sweet societies, 
 That sing, and singing in their glory move, 
 And wipe the tears forever from his eyes." 
 
 Here we have a most beautiful social scene surely, but 
 it is too soft, too empty of moral quality, to represent the 
 final life of our Lord's people. If you do not feel the force 
 of my criticism, read the last part of the seventh chapter of 
 the book of the Revelation, the very passage which prob- 
 ably suggested to Milton his lines. Saint John's picture 
 is strongly ethical, as every truly Christian thing always 
 is. In the new race, the whole motive of action is moral 
 love. The saint serves another saint not because he loves 
 him, but because he morally loves him. That is, the love 
 itself is a flaming passion for righteousness. And the 
 peculiarity of the social enlargement of the one man is that 
 it is his moral ideal itself which more and more deeply 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 449 
 
 drives him into the lives of the saints about him, until he 
 is in living intercourse with every person of the new race. 
 And so the size of the social experience of any one saint is 
 the size of his moral experience as well as the size of the 
 entire race. Nor does this mean a dead level in expe- 
 rience, for every person is rigidly himself with his own 
 native and acquired individuality, which was completely 
 personalized in the intermediate state; and the vast 
 social life is caught up in thousands of points of indi- 
 vidual peculiarity in self -consciousness. 
 
 As to the question of special individual friendships 
 within the new race, we need to speak carefully. But our 
 Saviour's relation to Saint John furnishes a hint; and 
 our principle of human complement or supplement 
 furnishes another hint; and our philosophy of probation 
 furnishes yet another hint. Putting together all there 
 is of such suggestion, I have reached this speculation: 
 The social life of the new race is to be a large network of 
 special friendships. Some of these friendships begin in 
 this life. Perhaps a mother gradually transfigures her 
 natural relation to her child into a moral fellowship 
 which can go on forever because it is worthy of the 
 eternal life. Perhaps a pastor becomes so much to a 
 young man that their spiritual intercourse can never 
 wear out. Indeed, I dare to think that every right 
 natural relation is an invitation, an opportunity, for an 
 eternal transaction; that, inside of a man's supreme 
 probation, are many subordinate probations, where the 
 voice of the situation is : " Will you let this thing fly away 
 with time? or will you pack it full of everlasting riches?" 
 Other special friendships may be rapturous discoveries 
 of the eternal life. I like to dream of two men doing 
 their work here faithfully, but with lonely person and 
 starving heart, suddenly meeting on some highway of 
 heaven, and finding out their mutual adaptation for 
 
450 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 intimate friendship, and exclaiming in one celestial 
 explosion, ''I have foimd you at last!" But these 
 special friendships do not weaken the service and the joy 
 of the larger social life of the whole race ; rather do they 
 strengthen it. Just as now and then we see a Christian 
 home where every secret gladness in the home circle 
 inspires every member of it into a more generous concern 
 for all the town, all the nation, all the world — so all the 
 little points of special heavenly joy shall only help the 
 whole race to live and rejoice in one another. 
 
 The main point,- however, for extreme emphasis is that 
 the dominating center of all this morally achieved social life 
 is Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Already I have urged upon 
 you in several ways this supreme position of Christ in 
 the everlasting racial and social organism of the redeemed ; 
 but now let us dwell upon it with lingering love. When 
 I try to put into a sufficient symbol our Saviour's final 
 relation to his own people, I find nothing quite so grandly 
 suggestive as Dante's figure of the many lamps all 
 enkindled by the one blazing stm : 
 
 *• In bright preeminence so saw I there 
 O'er million lamps a sun, from whom all drew 
 Their radiance." 
 
 Yes, that is it, all the cotmtless little lamps of friend- 
 ship throughout the society of the new race catch their 
 flame from the Lord Jesus Christ! But just what do we 
 mean by this figure here? We mean that the very 
 motive for all this friendship, the motive which urges 
 the saint out into social interlacing is his love for Jesus 
 Christ. It is because the saint loves Christ supremely 
 that he can love this or that man specially, and then give 
 himself to all the redeemed. The saint's capacity for holy 
 friendship is actually made by his love for his Lord. 
 But — you are thinking it — did I not say that in the new 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 451 
 
 race the whole motive of action is moral love? I cer- 
 tainly did say that ; but the redeemed man's love is moral, 
 not because he has gone back to Mount Sinai, or because- 
 he is seeking to be conscientious ; but simply because he 
 loves Jesus Christ with all his soul. It is Christ who 
 creates the ethical passion and makes righteousness to 
 the glorified an element of their spontaneous life. Let 
 me say, then, that for the new race Jesus Christ amounts 
 to the whole significance of eternity. Take him away, 
 and everything would lose its attraction, and immor- 
 tality itself would not be worth the having. It is only 
 your Christian longing to be with Him "whom not hav- 
 ing seen ye love" — ^it is only that boundless gratitude 
 which Christ gives you in the supernatural experience 
 of salvation — it is only that foretaste of glory which you 
 now have in communion with your Lord — brethren, 
 brethren, it is not the endless years but our blessed 
 Redeemer that draws us on toward the eternal scene! 
 
 But are there not purely natural desires for the life 
 beyond the grave? Yes, there are. Several such nat- 
 ural desires belong to the very nature of personality 
 itself. One of these is a normal person's quick interest 
 in self-assertion. In the clear vision of self -consciousness 
 no normal person can tolerate the thought of ceasing to 
 exist. He wants to assert himself and then to keep at it. 
 He is bound to live forever. He wills at immortality as 
 immediately as ten thousand creatures in the air will 
 themselves into continued and swifter flight. Now they 
 are flying they like to keep on flying. 
 
 Then, there is the motive of personal curiosity. There 
 are times when, however much we may wish to remain 
 here, we become impatient to find out what the eternal 
 life is. In this case the further world is attractive to us 
 not so much because it is a continuation of existence as 
 because it is an imexplored realm. 
 
452 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 "What a strange moment will that be 
 
 My soul, how full of curiosity, 
 When winged and ready for thy eternal flight 
 
 On the utmost edges of thy tottering clay, 
 
 Hovering and wishing longer stay. 
 Thou shalt advance and have eternity in sight! 
 
 When just about to try that unknown sea, 
 
 What a strange moment will that be! " 
 
 In this way we could go on, and out of our personal 
 life, and out of otir personal relations, especially those 
 relations which yield our finest earthly friendships, we 
 could bring into position quite a convincing series of 
 natural desires to live beyond bodily death. And often 
 this series is brought into striking position, in book or 
 sermon, and is allowed to stand in place alone, as if there 
 were no other side to the matter. But there is another 
 side, the individual side. The man as an individual is 
 not yet altogether personal. Many times he is in a state 
 of consciousness far below self -consciousness. Many 
 times he is but an individual dimly remembering his 
 higher personal experiences. And many times he is an 
 individual altogether exhausted by the intense personal 
 and moral conflict out of which he has dropped. Now, 
 this individual man, this man only partly personalized 
 but realizing in long, dreary reaction all the weariness 
 and sense of failure following the personal battle — this 
 tired individual, I say, does not want to live forever. Grant 
 him no supernatural reenforcement, no memory of asso- 
 ciation with God, no word from God, no habit of prayer, 
 no church ministry, no Christian fellowship; and, in his 
 weariness, he would be quite inclined to vote for annihila- 
 tion. Well does he understand the fascination which cer- 
 tain forms of pantheism have for men; for he himself 
 craves rest in the absolute extinction of all consciousness, 
 he himself longs to fall back into the silent, meaningless 
 abyss, even as a restless, storm-driven, foam-crested 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 453 
 
 wave becomes quiet at last as it falls back into the deeps 
 of the sea. 
 
 We are told that the men of our day are losing their 
 interest in the question of immortality, ''that the tide of 
 human interest is steadily ebbing away from the shores of 
 another life . ' ' This waning concern is just what we should 
 expect as a consequence of the perpetual exploitation of 
 the individual at the expense of the person, which has 
 taken place since the publication of Charles Darwin's 
 epoch-making book. In natural science, in psychology, 
 in ethics, and even in theology there have not been 
 (taking the four together) more than ten writers of in- 
 fluence who have given encouragement for the serious 
 cultivation of a personal life and a keen sense of moral 
 responsibility. And over against this, our dire poverty, 
 Mr. Spencer has had hundreds of able helpers in making 
 men believe that personal experience itself is an auto- 
 matic deception. Has there been anything quite so 
 pathetic and quite so enervating in the entire history of 
 human opinion? I think not. We must — we must find 
 some way to turn this tide, and to bring into general 
 appreciation the majestic meaning of man's personality, 
 and with that the tremendous responsibility of man's 
 moral life. Such appreciation will tend to banish the 
 present lethargy of the individual and so to recreate an 
 interest in immortality. 
 
 But I should say much more. The natural personal 
 desires for eternal life, even when they are at their best, 
 are not capable of long resistance tmder strong attack. 
 And in an experience of profound sorrow they are almost 
 certain to fail. We need the Christian hope, and we need 
 this hope in its apostolic purity. An urgent thing to do 
 is to lead the church of our Lord out of all feeble senti- 
 mentalities concerning the life beyond. Let us stamp out 
 every trace of spiritism. Our blessed dead should be so 
 
454 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 related to Jesus Christ that our thoughts of them are but 
 tender repetitions of our thoughts of him. Our Lord 
 must be in all and over all. Let us not have any longing 
 for anything which can exist outside of him. Let us not 
 only in our thinking and in our imagination build the 
 entire company of the redeemed into a solid race of which 
 Christ is center and source, but also find our interest in 
 eternity itself, as Saint Paul did, through our desire to be 
 forever with our Lord and those who love him supremely. 
 Such an interest in eternity will resist any attack; will 
 penetrate every affliction with consolation; will inspirit 
 the individual even in his lowest mood ; and will make the 
 Christian fearless in life or death. While so many are 
 seeking a "scientific demonstration of immortality," I 
 would urge the whole church to seek that kind of cer- 
 tainty which comes only through an apostolic passion for 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Entire Sweep of the Plan of Redemption 
 Now that in our thinking the church of our Lord is 
 made glorious by becoming the new race in full fact, we 
 are ready to place together all the points of Christian at- 
 tainment, and thus to have before us the entire sweep of 
 the plan of redemption. 
 
 1 . Starting with free personality and the moral nature 
 of man, the plan first secures, under the supernatural 
 work of the Holy Spirit, the loyal person. This loyalty to 
 Christ makes a positive connection between the old moral 
 ideal and all the new possibilities in Christ. That is, by 
 becoming a Christian no truly moral thing is thrown 
 away. 
 
 2. The compound motive of loyalty is turned into the 
 simple motive of moral love, and thus is secured the holy 
 person. By this method a perfect moral organization is 
 obtained, by which I mean that in self -consciousness there 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 455 
 
 is harmony under the new moral ideal. A holy Christian 
 does not violate the standard given by his moral judg- 
 ment. 
 
 3. In the intermediate state the total individuality is 
 personalized. And as the person is already holy the 
 result is the holy personal individual. 
 
 4. By means of the resurrection this perfect personal 
 individual obtains a glorified body, which is a perfect in- 
 strument of expression; and the result now is the perfect 
 man, body and personal soul, capable of an objective life 
 equal to his subjective life. This is the completed new 
 man in Christ. 
 
 5 . Here we make an important turn to obtain the final 
 Christian point of view. The perfect man is not to exist 
 alone. The glorified body is not furnished merely to 
 finish out manhood, it is furnished for actual social life. 
 Nor is social life the idea to stop at. The glorified body 
 is a racial body. It is made and given precisely to con- 
 nect this complete man, having all this social possibility, 
 with the whole race of redeemed men. Thus the plan of 
 salvation sweeps on and on until it provides a great racial 
 outcome for every man saved by means of our Lord's 
 death. 
 
 Having now this more comprehensive racial point of 
 view, let us for an inspiring moment look back and 
 quickly trace the preparatory stages for the racial consum- 
 mation. These preparatory stages are five, and may be 
 outlined as follows : 
 
 First, the free moral person becomes the person loyal 
 to Jesus Christ. 
 
 Second, the loyal person becomes the holy person, loving 
 his Lord supremely. 
 
 Third, in all the Christian life, from its beginning on to 
 death, there is provision for a probational training in 
 brotherhood. This training is by means of the holy 
 
4S<^ THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 catholic church, which, if not the new race in full fact, 
 is the new race in tentative expression. 
 
 Fourth, in the intermediate state the holy person, 
 alone with his Saviour, is utterly made ready for all the 
 fellowship and service of the ultimate brotherhood in 
 Christ. The intermediate state is the imiversity, where 
 the education for eternal brotherhood is completed. And 
 our Master is the whole Faculty! 
 
 Fifth, by means of the glorified body of the resiirrection 
 this completed saint actually enters into the vast com- 
 mtmity of the redeemed, not only a perfect man, but also 
 a perfect brother, capable of perfect fellowship and service. 
 This vast community of perfect brothers, all saved by 
 Jesus Christ, all completed by Jesus Christ, all organized 
 by Jesus Christ, all living in imion with Jesus Christ, is 
 his race in full fact. 
 
 Is there possible in all human thinking a more sublime 
 conception of destiny than this plan of redemption when 
 taken in its entire sweep ? And if we add the stupendous 
 price paid for its possibility, what shall we say? 
 
MEN OUTSIDE THE NEW RACE 
 
The idea of the endless conscious suffering of the wicked is the most 
 unwelcome thought ever suggested to my mind. My whole soul revolts 
 against it. There is no sacrifice I would not willingly make to get rid 
 of it. It is the horror of all horrors. Such is the attitude of my 
 mind to the question. But against my wish, and all the feelings of my 
 soul, I am constrained to believe that God sees it differently, and with 
 infinitely greater capacity to know what is best and proper, and with 
 infinitely greater love and tenderness than any of his holiest children 
 can claim, has incorporated the dreadful fact of permanent conscious 
 suffering as a possibility in his plan. — Randolph S. Foster, Beyond the 
 Grave, pp. 130, 131. 
 
XXXIV. MEN OUTSIDE THE NEW RACE 
 
 Rejected Views. The theory of second probation I have 
 already rejected in our study of the intermediate state; 
 and I am obliged also to reject three additional views 
 concerning those who die in a personal attitude of moral 
 antagonism to righteousness. The first of these views is 
 the restoration of the wicked by a coercive process. The 
 essence of this view was popularly expressed by this 
 remark: '* If God desire to save men and cannot, he is not 
 God." After all I have said in regard to the moral person 
 and God's dealing with him, it surely is unnecessary to 
 uncover the crude, false thinking which underlies this 
 remark, or to show why we should instantly reject the 
 idea of any sort of coerced sainthood. The second view 
 may be fairly called the agnostic view. For it amounts 
 to saying that we cannot come to any positive conclusion, 
 and the whole matter would better be left in the vague. 
 When handled with apparent piety and unapparent 
 ingenuity this view seems to be the high- water mark of 
 Christian reserve ; but it is practically a most dangerous 
 hesitation, for it serves to encourage those germinal 
 feelings which soon grow into some phase of universalism. 
 Indeed, I have usually found that in theology an agnostic 
 position is a wayside inn where men rest a bit on their 
 way to extreme liberalism. The third view is the anni- 
 hilation of the wicked. This view is taught in several 
 different ways and in several different relations to the 
 basal philosophy; but its most powerful setting forth is 
 in the theory of "conditional immortality" as held by 
 that growing group of men represented by Edward White. 
 That White's book, Life in Christ, is one of the real books 
 
46o THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 of modem times, actually throbbing with an earnest 
 message to men, I am even eager to admit. But I cannot 
 accept the message. There is much temptation to take 
 up the exegesis, but I will leave that work to the biblical 
 scholars. My own main objections to the theory of 
 annihilation, however it may be grounded and elaborated, 
 are just two: First, it is entirely lacking in that ethical 
 quality which belongs to every truly Christian doctrine. 
 Wherever we land in our theories, we simply should not, 
 will not, land in a bog of moral mitigation. And to me 
 this view is worse than mitigation. Preach annihilation 
 to a sinner, and you preach with his own inclination. In 
 his highest personal state the sinner would dread an- 
 nihilation, but in his more usual individual state he would 
 crave it. The statement will be contradicted by many, 
 but I am very sure that this theory of annihilation is even 
 less ethical than is the theory of second probation. Pro- 
 claimed generally in the church, it would rot the moral 
 fiber of the message of the gospel. Second, the theory of 
 annihilation is impossible in theodicy. That God in his 
 omniscience would create men only to throw them away 
 at last, a useless waste, *' as rubbish in the void," is to me 
 inconceivable from any standpoint possible in theodicy. 
 The harsh theory of an eternity of torture in physical 
 flame was surely hard enough to deal with in theodicy. 
 But one could discover at least the possibility of a moral 
 value in the torture. For it was barely conceivable that 
 the structure of the final universe required an endless 
 objective record of the sinner's dreadful rejection of God's 
 mercy. Annihilation, though, I cannot relate to theodicy 
 in any way whatever. Once I tried to see if it might not 
 be morally utilized through the memory of the saints in 
 their eternal life, but soon in earnest thinking the point 
 became finical and impossible. 
 
 A Purely Personal Problem. It may be that constantly 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 461 
 
 I should have reminded you of the limited claim behind 
 all my theological discussion. For pedagogical reasons 
 the method of presentation changes here and there; and 
 now and then the tone becomes almost one of authority ; 
 but all the time there is taking place only one thing, 
 namely, a personal testimony as to what is essential in 
 theology to enable a man to see the Christian faith as a 
 redemptional total. I claim merely that to apprehend the 
 Christian system consistently I myself need thus and thus 
 to interpret and relate Christian doctrines. Now, in our 
 consideration of the future condition of the wicked, there 
 are very peculiar and important reasons why I should ask 
 you to keep my moderate claim clearly in mind. 
 
 My own personal problem, then, I will give you frankly 
 and exactly. I have no problem whatever as to the 
 general content of the Christian doctrine. Not one word 
 have I to say in depreciation of the sincerity and ability 
 of such men as John Frederick Denison Maurice. I 
 simply say that for me the New Testament teaches per- 
 sistently the endless punishment of all men who die in 
 personal hostility to righteousness. The case does not 
 rest with the meaning of the one word aldyviog — ^whether 
 it is a quantitative or a qualitative word. I think that 
 it is (precisely like our own word eternal) sometimes 
 quantitative and sometimes qualitative, and sometimes 
 both at one stroke ; and so its meaning in any given place 
 is to be determined by the context, or by using larger 
 exegetical principles. But I have no great interest in 
 the discussion of this word. No Christian doctrine 
 depends upon the significance of a word ; or even upon the 
 significance of an isolated text. Every Christian doctrine 
 eventuates! It is a whole trend of Scripture come to 
 necessary issue. When we further ask whether this end- 
 less punishment is a conscious punishment or not, my 
 answer is this : To protect the tremendous moral lurgency 
 
462 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 of the New Testament, that awful voice of warning, I 
 require the feature of consciousness just as much as I 
 require the feature of endlessness. The content of the 
 doctrine, as I must hold it, is this : For all the wicked who 
 die obdurate there will be a divine punishment which will 
 be realized by them consciously and everlastingly. 
 
 My problem, the problem which for many years has 
 been not only in my mind, but also on my heart, is to 
 harmonize this awful doctrine of eternal pimishment with 
 our complete Christian conception of God. In other 
 words, my problem is to place the doctrine in a Christian 
 theodicy. 
 
 The Problem Met. With diffidence, because I well 
 know that many Christian ideas and feelings I have not 
 utilized, I will briefly indicate in what way it has been 
 necessary for me to meet the problem. And when I say 
 ''necessary for me to meet the problem" I mean both 
 that I had to meet the problem, and that I had to meet 
 it in this precise manner. Some of the safest thinkers 
 we have in the Christian church do not believe that it is 
 wise to try to push an inch further than the content of 
 the New Testament doctrine. I fully appreciate their 
 discretion; but I must see a doctrine touch some possi- 
 bility in theodicy or I cannot rest. I cannot carry about 
 in my Christian life a bundle of mysteries which seem to 
 hide an antagonism in doctrine. And I speak out only 
 to help men who are constituted as I am myself. No, 
 there is yet another motive for utterance ; for I am hoping 
 sooner or later to get some important indications at this 
 difficult point from the range of Christian consciousness 
 about me. 
 
 In speculation I have met my problem in the following 
 way: 
 
 I. Our stopping place, the point beyond which theodicy 
 does not require us to go, is the idea that, under the law 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 463 
 
 of expression, there is to be a vast final universe, which 
 shall absolutely manifest the holiness of God as cul- 
 minating in moral love. That is, the final arrangement 
 of all persons and all things must plainly evince the facts 
 that the structural finality in God is holiness, that his 
 personal relation to this holiness is one of intense and 
 unyielding concern, and that his infinite love itself is but 
 the supreme phase of this moral concern. 
 
 2. In this final universe there are to be, just as really 
 as there are in this world, two kinds of service — a vol- 
 imtary service given by the creattire in freedom, and an 
 involuntary service yielded by the creature under com- 
 pulsion. 
 
 3. Like the angels themselves, all men are created for 
 this final universe. In the plan of their destiny the 
 divinely fixed fact is that they must live forever, that 
 they must, whether or no, become a part of the final 
 imiverse, and make an endless contribution in service. 
 Are you holding this crucial thought? Within God*s ideal, 
 and having no item contingent upon personal freedom, 
 he has an inner plan, a primary teleology, which will be 
 accomplished entire ; and all men are as fast in this inner 
 plan as the Stanser Horn is fast in the Alps. In our usual 
 thinking about a man we ignore this primary design ; we 
 quietly assume that when God created the man his only 
 aim was to obtain a saint. And then when the man in 
 his personal freedom refuses to become a saint the result 
 appears to us to be a complete defeat of the Creator. 
 Now, I insist that in creation the idea of service is more 
 fundamental than the idea of a certain kind of service. 
 The saint may be; the servant must be. God will have 
 service — there can be no failure here; the final universe 
 shall be a universe of service; and every man is made 
 primarily to take a task in the eternities and endlessly 
 to serve the great ends of holiness. 
 
464 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 4. Although a man is created primarily for the final 
 universe, and must render an endless service in the 
 evincement of holiness, yet he is created a free moral 
 person, and in his freedom he can and must decide the 
 manner of his destiny. He can and must decide whether 
 he will render his eternal service under compulsion, as a 
 slave is driven to a burden; or in liberty and love, as a 
 saint does the will of his Lord. The significance of this 
 earthly probation lies not in that it determines whether 
 a man is to have an eternal existence or not, but only in 
 that it determines in which of the two possible categories 
 of eternal service he is to exist. 
 
 5. Before I closely consider this conception of invol- 
 untary service I wish to prepare our hearts for the point 
 by making a serious protest against the sweeping affirma- 
 tion that a final universe, with lost men in it, is not only 
 an idea obnoxious to Christian sentiment, but also an 
 idea inconceivable in a Christian theodicy. For my own 
 sake, to get my own point of departure, let me begin 
 with the creation of men. What does their creation mean 
 to God under the law of expression? In the creation of 
 men God expresses more than his purpose to have service, 
 he expresses his desire to have voluntary service. When- 
 ever a man is born there is the manifestation of a thing 
 deep in God, his ideal, his personal longing, so to speak. 
 In the very make-up of a man (or any moral person, for 
 that matter) there is trace of what we may dare to call 
 the divine finality in ambition. Every time a new man 
 comes into being fresh from God's will the event cries out, 
 "God will have this particular man added to his final 
 imiverse — and — God's desire, God's ideal, God's ambition 
 is to have this man there as a free, loving, rejoicing 
 saint." Thus, I hold that, whatever the outcome, what- 
 ever the man may do or become, the bare creation of him 
 as a free moral person manifests the divine ideal and so 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 465 
 
 must have for God the beginning of worth under the law 
 of expression. I do not say or intimate that such initial 
 worth taken alone could become the motive for creation; 
 but I urge the reality of the worth, nevertheless. I wisK 
 ever to begin with this emphasis upon the law of expres- 
 sion because it helps me to strike out a course of thinking 
 free from that humanitarian utilitarianism which has 
 poisoned so much of our theology. We all are inclined 
 to believe (and sure to feel) that the ultimate test of any 
 view is in its answer to this question : How much pleasure 
 and profit will man get? We never think of God. 
 
 Dropping those intermediate connections which are not 
 essential to our discussion, let us now try to look at the 
 final universe from God's point of view. His final 
 universe certainly will not be what he most profoundly 
 wanted, it will not be his ideal realized. God wanted a 
 final universe comprehending every moral person created ; 
 and all these created persons in a voluntary service of holy 
 purport; and all this eternal service resplendent and en- 
 raptured with the holy vision of God. In such an ideal 
 universe the involuntary service, all the tasks of com- 
 pulsion as far as such tasks might be needful, would not 
 be done by vitiated persons, but rather by automatic 
 creatures, even as coercive service is ftimished in this 
 world by beast and bird. But God saw his ideal plan in 
 wreck through the very freedom absolutely necessary to 
 its actualization. There is no "feltx culpa''! Sin has 
 destroyed the possibility of our finest eternity. The 
 final universe will be nothing but a second best, a drop 
 down from the wish, an ideal mangled. Sin will not be 
 triumphant, but sin has infringed the dream, has placed 
 the glory of the outcome in everlasting check. You are 
 not quite ready to say so ; but there is a minor voice which 
 can be heard in spite of our rejoicing ; a voice which sotinds 
 louder as the soul deepens in moral love for God and 
 
466 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 men; a voice which silences at last all our easy, un- 
 ethical optimisms ; a voice which will speak with a tender 
 but moral emphasis through all the ages upon ages of 
 human destiny: " This is not the universe God wanted!** 
 
 But, although the final universe will not be all God 
 wanted, it will tell all he wanted. As an everlasting 
 cosmic utterance it will be altogether sufficient. The 
 mitigating minds in theodicy seem to think that God in 
 his transcendent regard for his creatures has no inherent 
 rights, that all he is and all he needs should be sacrificed 
 regardless. Any speech which I am able to command is 
 too clumsy for the task, the very word rights is entirely 
 inadequate ; but the false notion ought to be contradicted 
 at once in some way, and so I will assert that God himself 
 has rights. He has the right to come fairly out into cosmic 
 fact. He has the right to manifest the whole range of his 
 holy life. He has the right to fasten into the eternities 
 his changeless hatred of sin. He has the right to have a 
 final universe which shall forever declare the entirety of 
 meaning in his moral love for men ; that it was moral love ; 
 that it was moral love. God loved these lost men pre- 
 cisely as he loved those who are now his saints. He 
 made them moral persons. He gave them freedom. 
 He provided moral pressure in conscience. He gave 
 them motive after motive toward righteousness. He 
 sent his only Son to render possible their redemption. 
 Their sin entered into Christ's infinite agony. God 
 watched their wandering steps with his sleepless provi- 
 dence. Their faintest moral effort he met with instant 
 help. Again and again, and yet again, he poured the 
 power of the Holy Spirit upon their withering moral 
 desire — yes, until there was no moral desire. To save 
 these lost men God the Omnipotent spent all the resources 
 of the Triune Godhead ; and the final universe should say 
 so — and it will say so! 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 467 
 
 6. More closely now, what do we mean by this in- 
 voluntary service? By using the word involuntary I do 
 not intend to teach or suggest that lost men are crushed 
 into mere "thinghood." They are, I believe, below the 
 possibility of any moral action, or moral concern. Their 
 conception of right and wrong is an intellection empty of 
 all feeling. And they are, I think, also below the pos- 
 sibility of any real self -decision. They are creatures of 
 fear. They are like persons in this life when personality 
 is entirely overwhelmed by the bare sense of what we 
 call "physical fear." The lost are in consciousness 
 totally occupied, a3 far as they feel the urgency of motive, 
 with a fear which has in it not one throb of moral meaning. 
 Their personal rebellion is all gone, and they obey God 
 swiftly; but they obey him not because they eagerly 
 recognize a moral obligation in his command, they obey 
 merely because they are afraid. As a frightened creature 
 cowers at the rush and thunder of an avalanche, so the 
 lost are afraid of God. Incapable of the vision of God, 
 incapable of the love of God, incapable of any moral regard 
 for God — and yet doing God's behest under the slavery 
 of torturing fear — that is the eternal punishment ; that is 
 the worm which '' dieth not " ; that is the fire which is ''not 
 quenched. ' ' And do you not see that this awful condition 
 is not an arbitrary infliction, but a punishment intrinsic 
 to the nature of sin? God does not build an environment 
 on purpose to torture the wicked. Hell (like heaven) is 
 in the Bible made real to us by an objective scene, and 
 those who need it may keep the scene; but the moral 
 message is much more terrible than the superficial scene. 
 The punishment of hell is the suffering of a man become 
 entirely and eternally inorganic. The man was made 
 to fear God ; but the original fear had in it great moral 
 possibility, possibility sweeping on, under the plan of 
 redemption, even into the lofty rapture of moral love. 
 
46^ THE CHRISTIAN FAITii 
 
 The obdiirate sinner, though, in his freedom, has emptied 
 all moral quality out of his fear ; and now the naked terror, 
 beating alone in consciousness, drives him on forever. 
 
 My thought is that in the final universe there is a 
 service of fear over against the service of love. Even 
 this obedience of fear is obedience, and can be so placed 
 and so used that God's holiness entire is expressed as it 
 could not be expressed by the annihilation of the wicked ; 
 yes, and is expressed as it could not be expressed, if no 
 one of these lost men had ever been created. It is the 
 sum total of the final universe which will project into the 
 eternities all that God is, all that he has done, and declare 
 all that he longed to secure. 
 
 7. If you have fully caught the significance of my dis- 
 cussion you surely see that I have been indirectly trying 
 to do several things: First, to meet the point of the 
 restorationist, that, to evince the love of God, the final 
 universe must be made up entirely of righteous persons; 
 second, to meet the point of the annihilationist, that the 
 obdurate sinners must be blotted out of existence as 
 having no longer any teleological worth; and, third, to 
 modify Calvinism into a system of true moral freedom, 
 and yet to keep the basal notion of divine decree. In- 
 stead of saying that God has decreed the whole destiny of 
 a man, I say that the coercion covers only the one fact of 
 everlasting service, and the man himself freely determines 
 the kind of service he will render. It may be urged that 
 under the attribute of omniscience my modification 
 amounts only to a matter of words ; but it amounts to a 
 moral reality, for it fairly introduces the element of moral 
 responsibility. According to my view, God is not causal 
 to any ultimate condition of personal character. And, 
 further, and in harmony with this view, the moral joy of 
 everlasting sainthood is not an automatic outcome, but is 
 a truly personal rejoicing won, with God's aid, by thor- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 469 
 
 ough ethical procedure. My thought can be crowded into 
 a sentence: The rim of destiny is by God's decree, hut the 
 personal center of destiny is by man's choice. 
 
 8. I cannot close this discussion without lifting into 
 notice another point, a point which I am anxious to lodge 
 in your hearts and to leave there. These lost men are 
 outside the new race. Their service of fear belongs to the 
 final universe ; but it belongs to the cosmic sweep of the 
 kingdom, and has no possible place in the kingdom of 
 Christ. They have lost their race. In the most whole- 
 somely rigid thinking, they are no longer men. Every 
 real man — every moral person realizing the essential scope 
 of manhood — every real man will yield to Christ and enter 
 the new race and love his Lord, and love all men forever. 
 The final brotherhood will have lost only those who 
 refused to be men complete. 
 
THE SIXTH DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
 THE TRIUNE GOD REVEALED IN REDEMPTION 
 
The doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity seemed to me most 
 absurd in my agnostic days. But now, as a pure agnostic, I see in 
 them no rational difficulty at all. As to the Trinity, the plurality of 
 persons is necessarily implied in the companion doctrine of the In- 
 carnation. So that at best there is here but one difficulty, since, 
 duality being postulated in the doctrine of the Incarnation, there is no 
 further difficulty for pure agnosticism in the doctrine of plurality. — 
 George John Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, pp. 174, 175. 
 
 Athanasius, then, held to a trinity of three personal Beings. . . . 
 But if Athanasius held to three persons in the strict sense, how did he 
 save himself from tri theism? I answer: In the same way as his prede- 
 cessors had done before him, by the doctrine of one supreme cause. . . . 
 The Latin fathers before Augustine universally held to a trinity of 
 three pergonal beings imited in a generic nature by community of 
 essence. They held to the real subordination of the Son to the 
 Father. — Levi Leonard Paine, A Critical History of the Evolution of 
 Trinitarianism, pp. 45, 47, 62. 
 
 Perhaps, however, one may be allowed to doubt whether, in all 
 respects, the term person may not be taken to signify "the same 
 thing" in us as in God. It is true, as before observed, that three 
 persons among men or angels would convey the idea of three different 
 and separate beings; but it may be questioned whether this arises 
 from anything necessarily conveyed in the idea of personality. We 
 have been accustomed to observe personality only in connection with 
 separate beings; but this separation seems to be but a circumstance 
 connected with personality, and not anything which arises out of 
 personality itself. ... In God, the distinct persons are represented 
 as having a common foundation in one being; but this union also forms 
 no part of the idea of personality, nor can be proved inconsistent with 
 it. — Richard Watson, Theological Institutes, i, 449, 450. 
 
 But how this community in unity is possible is one of the deepest mys- 
 teries of speculation. The only suggestion of solution seems to lie in the 
 notion of necessary creation. Such creation would be unbegim and 
 endless, and would depend on the divine nature and not on the divine 
 will. If now we suppose the divine nature to be such that the essential 
 God must always and eternally produce other beings than himself, 
 those other beings, though numerically distinct from himself, would 
 be essential implications of himself. There would be at once a numer- 
 ical plurality and an organic unity. — Borden P. Bowne, Theism, The 
 Deems Lectures for 1902, p. 288. 
 
 Each is necessarily and eternally one in Being with the Others; 
 there are not three Gods. Each is not the Others; there are three 
 Persons. — H. C. G. Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, p. 23. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 473 
 
 Theology, or the doctrine of God, is usually discussed 
 at the beginning of systematic theology, and doubtless 
 there is much formal advantage in the usual method ; but 
 there are several reasons why I have kept this great 
 doctrine for our last work together. In the first place, 
 this system of doctrine has been largely a study of the 
 divine movement in redemption, and now at the end of oiir 
 study it is fitting to ask the question, What is the con- 
 ception of God which has been gradually revealed in this 
 redemptional movement? In the second place, the at- 
 mosphere of our study has been intensely and intention- 
 ally anthropological, and I wish, if possible, to change the 
 atmosphere, and leave you thinking of our God who hath 
 redeemed us, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
 I want you, as the last thing in systematic theology, to 
 lay hold of that true Trinitarian conception of God which 
 is both the fundament and the culmination of all real 
 Christian thinking. And, in the third place, I have a 
 pedagogical reason. As a teacher I deem it a mistake to 
 discuss the Trinity with only the preparation which comes 
 from theism. The student needs that new world of ideas 
 and feelings which is created by following the stages of 
 salvation. The Trinity is not a doctrine which can be 
 made clear and vital in any situation and by mere rational 
 equipment. It is a doctrine among the finer culminations 
 of Christian requirement. And a teacher may wisely ad- 
 just himself to this fact. 
 
 Perhaps also I should add a personal reason. I myself 
 reached not only my interest in the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 but also my full conception of its meaning, by means of 
 my years of study of the ways of God with men in their 
 redemption. I had almost no interest in the doctrine of 
 the Trinity — it was a vague burden in my mind — ^until I 
 felt the significance of the work of Christ ; then I saw the 
 Christian doctrine of God for the first time. 
 
XXXV* THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD 
 
 Before taking up the doctrine of the Trinity, it is im- 
 portant for us to make a study of the divine attributes. 
 But our study will be a brief one, inasmuch as I consider 
 the subject entirely subordinate to our work on the 
 doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 What is a Divine Attribute f It is any characteristic 
 which we must ascribe to God to express what he really 
 is. The question comes up here: Does an attribute ex- 
 press a divine reality or merely a way in which we need to 
 conceive of God's nature? My answer, as implied in my 
 definition, is: Both. Surely an attribute expresses our 
 human conception, and so it is a relative truth probably ; 
 but there is a point of reality in the human conception. I 
 hold that the revelation of God in redemption is reliable. 
 By this I do not mean that we get the total reality; but we 
 do get some reality, and all the reality possible to us in 
 this life. Deeper down, this must be connected with our 
 discussions of knowledge, Christian certainty, and the 
 intermediate state. 
 
 Kinds of Divine Attributes. There are two kinds of di- 
 vine characteristics : i . Definitive attributes, or those which 
 are essential to an adequate definition of God ; 2 . Descrip- 
 tive attributes, or those which are essential when we aim 
 to describe more closely the Being that we have already 
 defined. 
 
 There is always a temptation to say that what I call a 
 definitive attribute is more fundamental than a descriptive 
 attribute; but I am not quite ready to say so. For ex- 
 ample, I am not sure that personality is any more funda- 
 mental, any more necessary to the very existence of God, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 475 
 
 than is moral love, although surely personality is more 
 primary in our own thinking about God. 
 
 Definition of God. The characteristics which we need 
 to define God are the following: i. Spirituality; 2. Unity 
 or individuality; 3. Personality; 4. Moral bearing; 5. Ab- 
 soluteness; 6. Triunity. 
 
 With these six characteristics we can so define God 
 as to have in terse speech the basis — not the practical 
 basis but the philosophical basis — of the Christian con- 
 ception of God, namely : The God of the Christian faith is 
 one Spirit, personal, moral, absolute, and triune. A better 
 definition for homiletical use is this: The God of redemp- 
 tion is a personal Trinity, one God of absolute moral love. 
 In many connections it is enough to say: God is moral 
 love. Or, where the moral background is entirely pro- 
 tected, we may say, with Saint John, simply, God is love. 
 
 PLAN OF THE DESCRIPTIVE ATTRIBUTES 
 
 I. Belonging to the Personal Nature. 
 Omnipotence, the characteristic of God's will. 
 
 II. Belonging to the Personal and Moral Nature. 
 Righteousness, the first characteristic of God's personal relation 
 
 to holiness. 
 Moral Love, the second and ciilminating characteristic of God's 
 personal relation to holiness. 
 
 III. Belonging to the Absolute Nature. 
 Aseity, the characteristic of God's absolute relation to causation. 
 Eternity, the characteristic of God's absolute relation to time. 
 Immutability, the characteristic of God's absolute relation to the 
 
 process of history. 
 Omnipresence, the characteristic of God's absolute relation to 
 
 space. 
 Omniscience, the characteristic of God's absolute relation to 
 
 reality. 
 
 IV. The structural characteristic of the one Triune Spirit is holiness. 
 
 Comment on Some of the Attributes 
 In other connections enough has been said concerning 
 ^ righteousness (moral concern), moral love, and holiness; 
 
476 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 but there are some of the attributes remaining which 
 require explanation, and others which require more or 
 less notice. 
 
 Omnipotence. By the divine omnipotence we are not 
 to understand that God can will anything whatsoever. 
 To will anything, even God must have a motive, and so 
 he never can make any volition contrary to his own nature. 
 Not only so, but all the features of his nature come 
 together in a perfect organism, under the law of holiness, 
 and so no volition can spring out of a fragment of God. 
 
 Asetty. This means merely that God causes himself. 
 ''God's essence is his own act." "God eternally makes 
 himself w^hat he is." Two things are really covered by 
 the attribute: i. That God is uncaused. He is (as in 
 theism) the First Cause; and so he is, in causation a se, 
 from himself. 2. There is a profounder idea, namely, 
 God is absolute life. All the infinite potencies of being 
 he has just in himself. He is life, life, eternal, absolute 
 life. 
 
 Eternity. As aseity emphasizes God's vitality from 
 the standpoint of the idea of causation, so the attribute 
 of eternity emphasizes that vitality from the standpoint 
 of the idea of time. In his own life God is timeless. The 
 surface thought is that God has neither beginning nor 
 end. The deeper thought is that his being is so absolute 
 that he is independent of the time process and has only a 
 living present. Dr. Latimer used to say that the succes- 
 sion in God's thinking was logical but not chronological. 
 And Saint Augustine, in commenting on the ninetieth 
 psalm, says: ''In the life of God nothing will be as if it 
 were not yet; or hath been as if it were no longer; but 
 there is only that which is; and this is Eternity." But 
 the attribute of eternity does not mean that God is in- 
 capable of taking our point of view, and perfectly treating 
 us under the terms of the time process. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 477 
 
 Immutability. When we say that God never changes, 
 that "He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever," 
 we do not mean that his personal bearing is ever the 
 same. For the record in the Bible indicates change after 
 change in God's dealings with men. And, in the very 
 nature of the case, man being free, the divine volitional 
 attitude must vary somewhat to meet the changing 
 conditions in man's life. The very joy of God over the 
 conversion of a sinner, for example, would mean some 
 change in the divine bearing toward the sinner. No, 
 what we mean is that in being, nature, character, motives 
 of action, God is unchangeable. You can always rely 
 upon him. In our employment of the term immutable 
 we are not seeking, we are not predicating a rigidity of 
 personal life, with no fresh pulsation in self -consciousness 
 and no new movement in self -decision ; we are seeking 
 simply a personal and ethical reliability. Such absolute 
 reliability, of course, implies perfection ever, and shuts 
 out the pantheistic notion of a developing God. 
 
 Omnipresence. This might well be called the spot of 
 ingenuity in systematic theology ; for right here the theo- 
 logian (even if he have not an atom of basal metaphysics) 
 tries to see what new thing can be said. Bishop Marten- 
 sen says : *' As the bird in the air, as the fish in the sea, so 
 all creatures live and move and have their being in God." 
 A striking amplification of Saint Paul, but not extremely 
 elucidating! Dr. Samuel Clarke taught that God is 
 omnipresent "by an infinite extension of his essence.'* 
 What that means I do not know. I always feel some 
 gratitude, though, toward Richard Watson for his hesi- 
 tation at Dr. Clarke's view! Dr. Shedd says : " The divine 
 omnipresence means rather the presence of all things to 
 God than God's presence to all things." This is an un- 
 intentional evasion growing out of an imconscious deism. 
 Dr. Miley says: " In the plenitude and perfection of these 
 
478 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 personal attributes God is omnipresent in the truest, 
 deepest sense." This is entirely true, and on the right 
 trace; but it needs as much explanation as the term it 
 aims to explain. 
 
 In considering the divine omnipresence we would better 
 quickly make distinction between the practical message 
 of the doctrine and the philosophy of the doctrine. The 
 practical message of the doctrine is very plain. It means 
 simply that space is no hindrance to God. Wherever a 
 thing may be hidden, God can get at it. Wherever in 
 the universe you may be, the whole of God is there avail- 
 able for judgment, or help, or companionship. The 
 underlying philosophy should begin with the swift banish- 
 ment of deism. How that unspeakable curse hides and 
 lingers in the Christian church! Already I have several 
 times suggested what I myself need as a substitute 
 for deism, namely, a universe entirely and constantly 
 dynamic of God, a universe which is nothing other than 
 God in cosmic action. If you are unable to accept such a 
 philosophy, then it is wiser to be content with the practi- 
 cal message of the doctrine of omnipresence, for the 
 rhetorical ingenuities in explanation will never land you 
 in any reality. Merely quote Saint Paul without the 
 bird in the air and the fish in the sea! 
 
 The Attribute of Omniscience 
 By the divine omniscience we mean that attribute 
 whereby God perfectly and eternally knows himself and 
 all reality and all possibility. The moment we say that 
 God's knowledge is perfect and eternal we are really 
 affirming that it is not acquired. There is no process, no 
 progress from what is known on and on to further knowl- 
 edge. In other words, the knowledge of God is intuitive. 
 The Point of Difficulty. How can God know a con- 
 tingent event before the event has any beginning? About 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 479. 
 
 this point of difficulty there has been hot dispute both in 
 theology and in philosophy, some of the strongest thinkers 
 claiming that divine foreknowledge of a truly contingent 
 event is impossible. For an elaborate discussion I can- 
 not afford the space ; but I will notice the most important 
 points. 
 
 Main Objections Noted and Answered. The main ob- 
 jections to the doctrine of divine foreknowledge of con- 
 tingent events are these: 
 
 1. An event contingent upon a future free volition is 
 not an object of knowledge, for there is nothing to know 
 until something begins to take place. 
 
 Answer: When it is said that there is nothing to know 
 the objector is really quietly asstmiing that God's knowl- 
 edge is acquired, and our claim is that God intuits the 
 contingent event. 
 
 2. Were there foreknowledge of what a person will 
 decide to do, the foreknowledge would necessitate his 
 decision, and so his personal freedom would be destroyed. 
 
 Answer : The idea that foreknowledge would be coercive 
 arises from the confusing of certainty with necessity. 
 A future event may be certain to take place, and yet it 
 may not be necessary. The foreknowledge is not causal. 
 "A thing will not take place because God foreknows it, 
 but he foreknows it because it will take place." Knowl- 
 edge of any sort is purely subjective and can bring 
 nothing to pass unless it can employ an efficient will. 
 Can you not see how entirely inoperative knowledge 
 alone is? If as a teacher I cotdd in any way come ab- 
 solutely to foreknow that Brother Z. will master one 
 lesson next week, would my secret knowledge, by just 
 being there in my mind, compel him to master the les- 
 son? If I had such knowledge, the event, his mastery 
 of the lesson, would be a certainty, but it would not be 
 a necessity. 
 
48o THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 3. In actual history God treats men as if he were un- 
 certain as to their ultimate decisions, for he treats all 
 men with redemptional urgency. 
 
 Answer: The supposition here is that God would not 
 try to save any sinner who will ultimately reject salvation, 
 if he foreknew the fact of the ultimate rejection. The 
 supposition is entirely wrong. Take this case : The Holy 
 Spirit urges a sinner to repent — what does that urgency 
 mean? It means just three things, neither more nor less : 
 first, that the sinner can repent; second, that the sinner 
 needs to repent; and, third, that God wants the sinner to 
 repent. Whatever God might know or not know as to 
 the final outcome, the moral love of God would never 
 give up striving with a sinner as long as there was any 
 conscience remaining. 
 
 4. Here the objector relates the doctrine of fore- 
 knowledge to the doom of the lost, and says : To create a 
 man foreknowing his everlasting doom is out of harmony 
 with the conception of God necessary in a Christian 
 theodicy. 
 
 Answer : Not to repeat my own discussion in theodicy, 
 I will meet this objection narrowly. The idea that an 
 adequate theodicy can more easily be constructed under 
 the terms of divine nescience than under the terms of 
 divine foreknowledge is precipitant and superficial. Even 
 a nescient Deity would now know that some men have 
 irretrievably rejected righteousness, and yet he con- 
 tinues to create free moral persons. And, deeper than all 
 that, conceive of the Creator starting a race of men, 
 every one of them having the possibility of eternal damna- 
 tion, and yet not having any certainty as to the outcome ! 
 The doctrine of nescience has in it no superior possibilities 
 in theodicy. 
 
 The Unanswerable Argument. Along the line of proph- 
 ecy a Scripture argument of great force can be formulated ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 481 
 
 but the argument which to me is unanswerably convinc- 
 ing is this: If God has no foreknowledge of contingent 
 events, then he not only arranged a vast and complex 
 plan of redemption without knowing that even one moral 
 person would ever be saved ; but in carrying out this plan 
 of redemption he actually sent his only Son as Redeemer 
 into the reality of human temptation without knowing 
 that this Son, Jesus Christ, would resist the temptation. 
 To accept this strange, strange doctrine of divine nescience 
 I would need to become a necessitarian, and once a ne- 
 cessitarian I would not have any need for the doctrine 
 at all. 
 
 Fact and Method. Of course, the divine foreknowledge 
 cannot be comprehended by us; but in this respect it is 
 not different from many features in God's life ; indeed, it 
 is not different from some features in our own life. How 
 extremely easy it is for shallow minds to think, be- 
 cause they are familiar with certain phases of human 
 activity, that they comprehend the deeps of manhood! 
 About all we can do in any chapter of search is to lift a 
 bit of reality up into apprehension. And that is all we 
 aim to do with the doctrine of God's foreknowledge — to 
 apprehend it, to make it seizable mentally. 
 
 In trying to apprehend the doctrine of foreknowledge, 
 there are several helpful things which we can do : 
 
 I. We can carefully distinguish between fact and 
 method. That is, we can narrow our difficulty. We can, 
 if convinced by the evidence that God does foreknow 
 contingent events, say, ''I grant the fact, but I do not 
 see how there can be such knowledge, I do not apprehend 
 the method of it." If you say that you cannot make this 
 distinction between fact and method, I will insist that 
 you can ; for you have already apprehended many facts 
 without even trying to lay hold of the method. What 
 I urge is this: It is not wise — neither is it fair — to let 
 
482 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 yotir difficulty vaguely spread all over the doctrine, and 
 to hesitate before the evident fact merely because you are 
 unable to get a clue to the method. 
 
 2. The fact once seized, we can do something in ap- 
 prehending the method. For one thing, we can get rid 
 of time. Even if you are not willing to touch the point in 
 metaphysics, you already, with the attribute of eternity, 
 have the idea that God himself is absolutely independent 
 of time. If God, then, in grasp of reality is unhindered 
 by time, why do you say that mere futurity, one phase 
 of the time process, can shut him away from an event? 
 Why do you require the Eternal God to plod through 
 your tenses? But you say, " I cannot think away time." 
 You mean that you cannot picture it away; you can 
 think it away. 
 
 3. One further thing we can do in lifting the method of 
 foreknowledge into apprehension. We can emphasize 
 the point that God's knowledge is all intuitive knowledge. 
 We ourselves have a certain degree of intuitive experience, 
 not very much, surely, and yet enough so that we have a 
 clear point of departure in our thinking about God. With 
 this point of departure, I find it possible to apprehend 
 God as having an absolute and eternal self -consciousness, 
 and this consciousness as being filled with the certainty 
 of all reality and all possibility. 
 
XXXVI. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE 
 TRINITY 
 
 The Doctrine in Essential Statement 
 The Aim. The aim here is to express the doctrine of 
 the Trinity in hare essentiality. How much is essential 
 to any real Trinitarianism? 
 
 Rejected Views. First, let us approach the case nega- 
 tively. All Trinitarians reject the following views : 
 
 1 . The Humanitarian view that the Trinity is God the 
 Father, the man Jesus Christ, and a divine influence 
 called the Spirit of God. There are a number of phases 
 of this view, but in every phase Christ is nothing other 
 than a man. 
 
 2. The Arian view that the Trinity is God the Father, 
 Christ a highly exalted creature, and the Holy Spirit a 
 less exalted creature. There are variations also of this 
 view, but they have no significance in this connec- 
 tion. 
 
 3. The Modalistic view (Sabellian) that there is one 
 God and three successive and peculiar manifestations of 
 him in history. Or, one person with three aspects, 
 modes, relations toward the world. 
 
 4. The Swedenborgian view that the Trinity is one God 
 with soul (the Father), body (the Son), and operation 
 (the Holy Spirit). 
 
 5 . The Tritheistic view that the Trinity consists of three 
 divine individuals. 
 
 All these five views are regarded as heresy by every 
 man who has the right to call himself a Trinitarian at all. 
 Essential Points of Belief. 
 I. There is only one God. 
 
484 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 2. Of this one God there are three historical manifesta- 
 tions, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 But these manifestations are not "mere masks." As 
 Dr. Dorner says, ''A trinity of Revelation is a misrepre- 
 sentation if there is not behind it a trinity of Reality." 
 Therefore, 
 
 3. These three historical manifestations express three 
 inner distinctions in the Godhead. ** The faces are turned 
 not merely outward toward the world, but inward toward 
 himself, so that they behold themselves in mutual re- 
 flection." 
 
 4. These distinctions are not only internal, they are so 
 fundamental as to be necessary to the ongoing of the 
 divine life. 
 
 5 . As these distinctions are thus fundamental, they are 
 eternal. God did not develop into them. They always 
 have been and always must be essential to his exist- 
 ence. 
 
 6. These three historical manifestations — ^the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost — expressing three inner, 
 fundamental, and eternal distinctions in the Godhead, 
 are in the Scriptures treated as personal; and so we name 
 them Persons. 
 
 Ways of Meeting the Trinitarian Problem 
 The Problem. The problem of the Trinity does not 
 come merely from an effort to interpret the command of 
 baptism and other passages of Scripture, but mainly from 
 a larger effort to harmonize with the unity of God the 
 Christian conception of redemption as involving the 
 Father who gave his only-begotten Son, the absolute 
 deity of Jesus Christ, and the personality of the Holy 
 Spirit. On the one side we must hold fast to monotheism, 
 to the rigid conception of one God, and yet, on the other 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 485 
 
 side, we must protect the three personal manifestations, 
 **the three persons out in history." To bring up the old 
 test, the Trinitarian problem is, ''Not to divide the sub^ 
 stance and not to confuse the persons." 
 
 Ways of Meeting the Problem. 
 
 I. The most popular way of meeting this problem is 
 not to meet it at all, but to declare the reality beyond 
 human apprehension. Of the many agnostic statements, 
 I will give only one. Dr. W. L. Alexander says: "What 
 I gather from it [the Bible] is, that there are three mani- 
 festations of God in relation to the created imiverse and 
 the work of human redemption, described severally as 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that these three mani- 
 festations of God correspond to distinctions in the God- 
 head for which we have no names, and of the nature of 
 which nothing has been revealed to us ; of which, in fact, 
 beyond the simple fact of their existence, we know noth- 
 ing. What is very plainly made known to us is the 
 economical distinction between Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit — a distinction that may be stated in the most 
 intelligible form, and made clear by a reference to the 
 works ascribed in Scripture to these three respectively; 
 and to this we are led to believe that a distinction of some 
 sort in the divine nature corresponds, but of what sort we 
 do not know and therefore do not pretend to say. This 
 way of stating the doctrine has the advantage of avoiding 
 modalism on the one hand by asserting a real distinction 
 in the divine nature, while on the other it keeps clear of 
 the unintelligible and self-contradictory statements of 
 the Catholic doctrine by simply asserting the fact of a 
 distinction in the divine nature without pronouncing 
 upon the kind of distinction as personal or capable of 
 being described by any term, direct or analogical, in use 
 among men; and by confining the distinction expressed 
 by the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to the 
 
486 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 economical distinctions in the divine manifestations in 
 relation to creation and redemption." 
 
 2. Another way of trying to meet the problem is to 
 consider these inner distinctions as less than personal. 
 Whatever the manifestations out in history may be, the 
 distinctions are not actual persons as they exist in the 
 life of the Godhead. For example, to Nitzsch they are 
 ineffable fundamental powers; and to Dorner they are 
 something between an attribute and egoity ("zwischen 
 Eigenschaften und Ichheit oder Personlichkeit," ch. 
 Glaubenslehre, i, 368). 
 
 3. The most speculative view is a theological dripping 
 out of the German philosophy, a view which is quite 
 often found in American theology. It is stated in several 
 slightly different ways, but essentially amounts to this: 
 In the full self-consciousness of God there are three 
 movements, each movement yielding an eternal reality 
 in being. God the Infinite Person makes himself {Thesis) 
 the object of his own thought {Antithesis), and then 
 identifies subject and object {Synthesis). The Thesis is 
 the Father; the Antithesis is the Son; and the Synthesis 
 is the Holy Spirit. 
 
 4. In this, the last view to be mentioned, the divine 
 persons are considered real eternal persons, each one ca- 
 pable of self -consciousness and self -decision, and yet all so 
 bound together as not to be separate individual Gods. In 
 Jonathan Edwards's Observations Concerning the Scrip- 
 ture CEconomy of the Trinity and Covenant of Redemp- 
 tion we find such a remark as this : '* And that there was a 
 consultation among the three Persons about it, as much, 
 doubtless, as about the creation of man (for the work of 
 redemption is a work wherein the distinct concern of each 
 Person is infinitely greater than in the work of creation) , 
 and so, that there was a joint agreement of all; but not 
 properly a covenant between them." How strange this 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 487 
 
 sounds over against all the recent timidities of theological 
 utterance on the Trinity! It almost seems as if Athan- 
 asius had spoken again! 
 
 A Study of Our Lord's Obedience 
 
 I. Our Saviour's bearing is ever that of obedience to 
 his Father. 
 
 This bearing appears even in Christ's boyhood. ** How 
 is it that ye sought me? knew ye not that I must be in 
 my Father's house?" (Saint Luke 2. 49.) Again: "My 
 meat is to do the will of him that sent me" (Saint John 4. 
 34). And yet again, in the Garden : " And he said, Abba, 
 Father, all things are possible unto thee ; remove this cup 
 from me: howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt" 
 (Saint Mark 14. 36). 
 
 This bearing of our Lord involves a discrimination in 
 his consciousness between himself as a person and his 
 Father as a cotemporaneous person; and then a distinct 
 self-decision of obedience toward his Father. Of course, 
 there can be obedience in the sense of doing one's duty 
 imder the moral ideal in conscience. But you cannot 
 study the life of Jesus Christ, and conclude that by his 
 Father he meant merely a moral ideal in conscience ; for 
 with him the Father had many associations, not precisely 
 moral, but intensely personal. 
 
 The significance of our Lord's obedience, then, should 
 in the very nature of the case exclude every form of 
 modalism. Whatever we may come to in our view of the 
 Trinity, that unbiblical idea, found here and there even 
 now in disguised forms, that the Trinity is one God with 
 three successive and exclusive historic attitudes must be 
 cast out of the church, not only in the name of Christian 
 doctrine, but also in the name of sane biblical scholarship. 
 There could be no obedience of our Lord toward his 
 Father, if that Father were a special historic attitude of 
 
488 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 God no longer in existence. To fairly interpret the 
 Scripture, the Father and Son can only be regarded as 
 real persons, now over against each other, one claiming 
 obedience and the other yielding obedience. 
 
 2. The background of our Lord's obedience, as the 
 entire matter is held in his own self -consciousness, is a 
 preexistent personal state which he had with his Father. 
 
 In Saint John's gospel (17. 4, 5) we read: ''I glorified 
 thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which 
 thou hast given me to do. And now, Father, glorify thou 
 me with thine own self with the glory which I had with 
 thee before the world was" (compare Saint John 6. 62 
 and 8. 58). 
 
 Here our Lord is thinking of his finished work of obe- 
 dience, and he prays that he may again experience the 
 glorious estate which he had given up in carrying out 
 his Father's command. The earthly obedience is to him 
 but a feature of the whole scheme of obedience that first 
 required the giving up of the life in eternal glory. We 
 have in this passage no mere longing for rest, no mere 
 desire such as the saint has ''to go home to God"; the 
 scene is too sharply cut to be explained in such a manner ; 
 there is every indication of actual personal remem- 
 brance. 
 
 I am loath to grant the time and space, but there is 
 sure to be a legitimate expectation at this point that 
 some serious reference will be made to Beyschlag's view 
 of our Lord's preexistence. According to Beyschlag, our 
 Saviour's preexistence was not personal, but merely ideal. 
 Jesus, in his own self -consciousness, was but the ideal Son 
 of man come down from heaven. "Jesus thinks of him- 
 self as preexistent, not because he knew himself to be a 
 second God, and remembered a former life in heaven, but 
 because he recognized himself in Daniel's image (Dan. 7. 
 13) as the bearer of the kingdom of heaven, and because 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 489 
 
 this Son of man as well as the kingdom which he brings to 
 earth must spring from heaven." This is the ordinary- 
 way in which our Saviour regarded his preexistence, but 
 now we come to the extraordinary way. The ideal taken 
 from the Old Testament is, in moments of spiritual exal- 
 tation, transformed into seeming personal remembrance! 
 ''Especially in the tense final period of his life, in excited 
 moments and conflicts, . . . and, above all, in the frame 
 of mind of the intercessory prayer, where he is raised 
 above the world and time, it appears quite credible that 
 such a consciousness of eternal existence should at times 
 flash up in him like a mental vision." 
 
 In plain terms, this view of Beyschlag means that Jesus 
 Christ could and did delude himself into seeming to 
 remember that he had lived before the world was created 
 and verily shared the glory of the Eternal God! And a 
 man — of that kind — actually founded the Christian faith, 
 and gained the following of men like Saint Paul! And 
 now undoubted Christian scholarship finds it easier, finds 
 it more rational, to believe that than to believe that our 
 Lord was God, and that he did share the glory of his 
 Father before the ages began ! Surely there are wonders 
 in psychology as well as wonders in grace ! 
 
 But my main objection to Beyschlag's view is not that 
 it is rationalism, and rationalism almost as irrational as 
 that of Paulus, but that it destroys the peculiar ethical 
 character of our Lord's self-sacrifice in his work of re- 
 demption. This brings us to the great utterance of Saint 
 Paul, which we must now look at from a second point of 
 view. 
 
 3. "Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ 
 Jesus: who, being in the form of God, counted it not a 
 prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, 
 taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness 
 of men ; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled 
 
490 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the 
 death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted 
 him, and gave unto him the name which is above every 
 name ; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
 of things in heaven and things on earth and things imder 
 the earth, and that every tongue should confess that 
 Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" 
 
 (Phil. 2. 5-II). 
 
 We do not need to recall my former exegesis of this 
 passage. I only ask you to read the passage over and 
 over again until its meaning and its majesty fill your soul. 
 Saint Paul traces back the life of Jesus Christ to its pre- 
 existent point in the Godhead. Back there in the eter- 
 nities there was somewhat in God that afterward became 
 the being "foimd in fashion as a man" and called Jesus 
 Christ. Now I ask every man who is a Trinitarian at all. 
 What was this somewhat f A mere ideal conception? A 
 phase of the one complete self -consciousness of God? 
 Something between attribute and egoity? An ineffable, 
 fundamental power? An agnostic entity which cannot 
 even be named? If you make any one of these answers, 
 then I must insist that when the Son of God became man, 
 in the event of becoming man, there was no obedience. 
 Nothing short of a person can obey. Obedience means 
 self-decision, and self -decision is impossible without self- 
 consciousness. And if there was no obedience there was 
 no self-sacnfice on the part of the Son of God in becoming 
 man. No ideal, no phase of self -consciousness, no some- 
 thing between attribute and egoity, no ineffable, fimda- 
 mental power, no agnostic entity which cannot be named, 
 could sacrifice itself, could empty itself, could voluntarily 
 give up the glory of God and take on the form of a servant. 
 No impersonal thing, describable or indescribable, could 
 with awful self -cost become man to redeem us from sin. 
 In the presence of all these hesitations and timidities and 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 491 
 
 ingenuities and evasions, I insist in the name of ordinary 
 consistency that every Trinitarian should clearly make 
 choice — either to give up the whole moral content of 
 the Pauline doctrine of the infinite self-sacrifice of the 
 preexistent Son of God in our behalf, or to grant to the 
 preexist ent Son of God self -decision, self -consciousness, 
 personality. 
 
 4. One more step we need to take. Our Lord's obedi- 
 ence was the obedience of a subordinate Son. He was not 
 obedient to God as an angel might be obedient to God. 
 He was the Son of God, and obedience was the expression 
 of the most fimdamental relation of his being. His 
 divine Sonship involved two things in relation to God the 
 Father : first, an equality in nature ; second, a subordina- 
 tion in person. And both this equality and this subor- 
 dination are ever manifest in the spirit and manner of his 
 obedience. 
 
 In Saint John's gospel these two things, equality and 
 subordination, are expressed again and again; but there 
 is one remarkable passage (5. 25-27) which I wish you 
 especially to note: ** Verily, verily, I say unto you. The 
 hour Cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the 
 voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. 
 For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he 
 to the Son also to have life in himself: and he gave him 
 authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of 
 man." 
 
 This passage not only teaches subordination and equal- 
 ity as clearly as do those passages which show our Lord's 
 obedience more definitely; but it goes further, it does a 
 profounder thing, for it reveals the fact that our Lord's 
 equality with his Father has been given to him. The Son 
 hath life in himself (that is, he is an absolute source oi 
 life) even as God the Father hath life in himself ; but the 
 Son's life is not original (no reference here to sequence. 
 
492 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 merely to causation) with him, it is derived from his 
 Father. 
 
 As a result of this brief study of our Lord's obedience we 
 have two conclusions which should have large considera- 
 tion in our final construction of the doctrine of the Trinity : 
 First, as the preexistent Son of God, our Lord was a 
 real person, having self-consciousness and making self- 
 decision. Second, our Lord's subordination is so funda- 
 mental that his very absolute fullness of life is itself a 
 derived life, a life which is an effect, a life which is caused 
 by his Father. In the profoundest sense, our Lord's 
 obedience is the obedience of a Son who is both personally 
 and essentially subordinate to his Father. 
 
 Consistency in Systematic Theology 
 One very glaring inconsistency is often found in the 
 conventional works in systematic theology. Their teach- 
 ing in Christology is that Jesus Christ is one person with 
 two natures, a divine nature and a human nature ; but the 
 human nature is impersonal, merely a bare nature added 
 to the divine nature of the one Eternal Person. Our 
 Lord is (to quote atypical statement) *'a conscious, in- 
 telligent Agent, who preserves from eternity into time 
 and onward to eternity his own unbroken identity. And 
 this we not inaptly or unreasonably term his undivided 
 personality." Some of these theologians, indeed, are so 
 anxious to protect the full personality of the Son of God 
 in the event of the Incarnation that they find it necessary 
 to reject every form of the doctrine of the kenosis. Not 
 only so, but in their discussions of our Lord's preexistence 
 these theologians are wont to maintain, and to maintain 
 with commendable energy, that his preexistence was not 
 ideal, but was personal. And yet to these very men, in 
 their cautious, theistic treatment of the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, the eternal Son of God, the second person in the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 493 
 
 Godhead, is "not what we mean by a person*' — no, he is 
 an agnostic nondescript to remain in mystery until a verita- 
 ble person is needed in Christologyl 
 
 Another inconsistency almost equally pronounced is 
 to be found in the work of many defensive theologians, 
 namely, an inconsistency in their teaching concerning 
 the Holy Spirit. In their theology, in the doctrine of 
 God, the Holy Ghost is viewed as something less than a 
 real person ; but in every other place, where any reference 
 is made to the nature or to the dispensation or to the 
 activity of the Spirit, he is regarded as having not only 
 fimctions of his own, but also a will of his own. Indeed, 
 some of the men I have in mind devote precious pages to 
 prove "the proper personality" of the Holy vSpirit and 
 look upon the point as essential to genuine orthodoxy. 
 Now, how the Holy Spirit can be a person making actual 
 self -decisions out in the application of redemption to men, 
 and yet nothing but a principle, or potency, or impersonal 
 entity, in the deep life of the Eternal and Immutable 
 God, is "a mystery so boundless that no man can under- 
 stand it, and I will therefore not pretend to understand 
 it"! 
 
 Construction of the Doctrine 
 
 Special Points to Be Protected. In constructing the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, under the demands of the Trini- 
 tarian problem as already stated, there are certain special 
 points which we must constantly seek to protect. These 
 points are : 
 
 I. The Feature of Structural Unity. It is not enough 
 to provide for a "moral unity," or the unity of three 
 persons who are united in moral and personal purpose. 
 Christian theism requires us entirely to avoid tritheism; 
 and we need, in some way, to conceive of God as one 
 individual structure with only one attitude of personal 
 will. 
 
494 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 2. The Feature of Subordination. We should protect 
 that profound bearing of subordination which the Son of 
 God ever shows in his obedience to his Father. And we 
 should also protect, at the same time, the subordination 
 of the Holy Spirit to both the Father and the Son, for 
 this is revealed in the Scripture almost as clearly, and the 
 point is fully confirmed in the history of the Christian 
 consciousness. 
 
 3. The Feature of Self-sacrifice. Not only are we to 
 protect the moral costliness of Redemption to God the 
 Father, but we must also protect the whole tremendous 
 fact of self -cost to the Son of God in becoming man to 
 carry out the plan of salvation. 
 
 4. The Feature of Equality. We must protect the 
 absolute equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit in every attribute of Deity. It is not enough to 
 construct the doctrine so that the three persons are equal 
 in such attributes as righteousness and love, and leave 
 the matter there : the divine persons are so to be conceived 
 as to be equal in the attribute of omnipotence, in the 
 attribute of eternity, and in every attribute belonging to 
 the absolute nature of God. In yet plainer speech, I 
 mean that the relation of subordination is not to be al- 
 lowed to impair, in our doctrine, the absolute deity of the 
 Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 5. The Feature of Moral Love. Just as I have em- 
 phasized moral love in my entire treatment of the phi- 
 losophy of the Christian faith, so now we must aim so to 
 construct the doctrine of the Trinity as to exalt the 
 divine attribute of love. 
 
 Relation to Athanasius. That no one of you may be 
 misled in even the slightest degree, I will, before going 
 on to more positive work, clearly indicate my relation to 
 Athanasius. For a number of years I was influenced — 
 yes, I would better say dominated — ^by the patristic 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 495 
 
 interpretation of a class of scholars converging in Dr. 
 Dorner ; and during those years I supposed that Athana- 
 sius, in his mighty struggle with the Arians, had no clear 
 conception of the nature and significance of personality. 
 And I actually came to think that Augustine's doctrine 
 of the Trinity (from which our present perilous Trinitarian 
 situation has largely come) was a normal development 
 out of what Athanasius probably meant at the bottom! 
 But after a long period of doctrinal unrest and search it 
 began to dawn upon me that it was they, my patristic 
 authorities, who had no clear conception of the nature 
 and significance of personality; and that, precisely be- 
 cause of their own lack of fundamental thinking in 
 philosophy, they were, in spite of all their fine, technical 
 scholarship, incapable of a complete mastery of the mean- 
 ing of Athanasius. Now there is not the touch of a doubt 
 in my own mind but that the view Athanasius held of 
 the Trinity was essentially this : The Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost are three persons, each having personal 
 consciousness and personal will; but the Father is the 
 Supreme Cause, and because of this the other two persons 
 are subordinate to him. 
 
 In getting at the bearing of the Christian consciousness 
 upon the interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 the important man to me is not Augustine, but Athana- 
 sius. For this choice I have two reasons: First, Augus- 
 tine seems to me never to have caught the Christian view 
 of God. In fact, much that he says about God and the 
 ways of God is Christianity so tampered with as to lose the 
 spirit of the New Testament altogether. Second, Ath- 
 anasius was providentially placed. He stood, in his 
 defense of the Christian faith, in a crisis where he had to 
 grasp the basal import of the Trinity. For, such a grasp 
 was necessary before he ~ could see how to protect in 
 statement the absolute deity of Jesus Christ. In other 
 
496 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 words, Athanasius was at one of those crucial tiiming 
 points in the development of doctrine, or, more exactly, 
 in the development of the Christian seizure of doctrine, 
 where the Holy Spirit finds a wise opportunity to deepen 
 one phase of the Christian consciousness. My idea, in 
 truth, of the progress in doctrine is that this progress is 
 seldom or never gradual, but rather zigzag, from crisis to 
 crisis; and that between crises the church may not only 
 make no headway, but even miss the route entirely. 
 Thus, the mere fact that one thinker or leader is later 
 than another in the years does not necessarily mean that 
 the later man has more doctrinal insight. It is quite 
 possible that he can see nothing beyond the indorsements 
 of the Zeitgeist. 
 
 While Athanasius is of the greatest importance to me, 
 and is really my point of philosophical departure, I shall 
 not be foimd clinging to him in a slavish literalism. I 
 will construct the doctrine of the Trinity to satisfy, in 
 Christian freedom, my own heart in its relation to our 
 Lord ; and my own judgment in its relation to the entire 
 utterance of Christian men, in so far as that utterance is 
 known to me; and my own mind in its relation to the 
 teaching of the Word of God. 
 
 The Use of Terms. My use of terms in this connection 
 is the same that it has been in every other connection; 
 but it may be useful to recall precisely some of the most 
 important of the definitions : 
 
 1. A person is any being capable of self-conscious de- 
 cision. Or, a person is a self-conscious, self-decisive 
 agent. 
 
 2. An individual is a distinct item of being (or a punc- 
 tual entity) that cannot be divided without losing identity. 
 
 3 . The nature of anything is the structural law by which 
 the thing is precisely what it is. 
 
 4. An organism is a complex of essential parts ; all the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 497 
 
 parts in dependent reciprocity; and every part making 
 contribution to a common end. 
 
 In a spiritual organism of persons there is a further 
 feature, namely, every person is in the organism both 
 means and end. He is a means by which the organism 
 works toward its end, and also a part of the end for which 
 the organism exists. He lives for the entire organism, 
 and the entire organism makes perpetual contribution to 
 his life. 
 
 Then there is an absolute organism^ by which I mean 
 one that is absolutely self-sufficient as an organism. No 
 feature of the organism is self-sufficient, no feature could 
 exist at all alone; but the organism as a whole is self- 
 sufficient. 
 
 The Full and Final Statement. 
 
 1. God is one individual. Taken as a total, God is an 
 indivisible finality. And so God is an individual in the 
 precise sense that a man or an angel is an individual — 
 that is, an itemnic being, a punctual entity, an actual 
 existence that cannot be divided without loss of identity. 
 
 2. This one divine individual has one nature. There 
 is only one fiop(f)7j, only one complex of attributes, only 
 one structural law of action. 
 
 3. In this one individual, with this one nature, or 
 under this one structural law, there are three Persons — 
 three Agents with self-consciousness and capacity for 
 self -decision. That is, the whole divine individuality is 
 grasped, and estimated, and consciously appropriated, 
 and used as the background of decision, at three personal 
 points and not merely at one. 
 
 4. But, while the basal nature is ever one and the same, 
 it is personalized in three very different ways. The First 
 Person is conscious of himself as the Father, and to him 
 every feature of the Godhead is mediated by that pecul- 
 iarity of self -consciousness. He thinks as the Father, 
 
498 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 he wills as the Father, he loves as the Father. In like 
 manner, the Second Person is conscious of himself as the 
 Son; and the Third Person is conscious of himself as the 
 Holy Spirit. This is the philosophy of the IdtorTjg in 
 general ; but this point of personal peculiarity I will con- 
 sider more definitely and more deeply somewhat later in 
 the statement. 
 
 5. Inasmuch, though, as the three Persons have the 
 one individual nature, are under one structural law; 
 inasmuch as they have the same attributes in quality and 
 quantity; and inasmuch as they are ever in the pro- 
 foundest personal fellowship, there is a constant inter- 
 communion, a currency of personal joys, an exchange of 
 personal experiences. And so each Person is vastly more 
 than his isolated self could be. He lives by augment. 
 He lives in and through the other two Persons. His 
 ineffable experience is the combination of three peculiar 
 divine experiences, of three different ways of personalizing 
 the Godhead. This is that sublime feature of God's life 
 which has been called the 7Tegix<^grjatg. 
 
 6. Interlaced in this infinite interchange of experience, 
 and living under one structural law, the three divine Per- 
 sons constitute an absolute personal organism. Not only 
 are all three Persons organically essential; not only do 
 they contribute to a common end; not only do they de- 
 pend upon each other in reciprocity ; and not only is each 
 Person both means and end ; but there is an eternal self- 
 sufficiency which is due to the organism and to that alone. 
 Not one of the three Persons, not even the Father, could 
 exist at all out of the organism. He partakes of the 
 attribute of aseity itself only as he is a part of the organ- 
 ism. Thus we make the unity of God fundamental to our 
 entire conception of God. 
 
 7. And yet the Father is original in supremacy as to 
 just one thing, namely, causation. All the process in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 499 
 
 organism originates with the Father. Again and again 
 we are told that to be thus the causal origin the Father 
 must have existed first, and then begun the line of causa- 
 tion. It is not so. The Father lives only as cause. To 
 cause is his method of existence — his eternal breathing, 
 so to speak. Creation proper, the making of stars and 
 men and all creatures, is a personal matter — an option 
 under motive and the motive urgent under the law of 
 personal expression ; but infinitely beyond all this personal 
 urgency to create is the Father's intrinsic and eternal 
 necessity to be the causal source in the organism of the 
 Godhead. Begetting the Son and causing the Holy Spirit 
 are not at all a matter of optional personal expression; 
 but are the method and means of self -existence. This is 
 but saying in another way that the whole triune organism 
 must exist or none of it can exist. 
 
 8. This prepares the way for our bringing out and 
 making emphatic the fact that the fundament of all being 
 is social. In our modern thinking there are two views 
 which are in perpetual clash. In one view the funda- 
 ment of all being is an impersonal somewhat; in the 
 other view the fundament is a solitary person. Either 
 view, if thoroughl}^ developed, should be a bottomless 
 horror to any man with a warm Christian experience. 
 The fundament of all being is not an impersonal somewhat 
 — a blind Infinite evolving into heartless and meaningless 
 destiny. Nor is this fundament a solitary person — an 
 isolated iceberg of self -consciousness — an omnipotent lone- 
 liness. No, no, no, the causal fundament of all being is 
 an actual Father who must he a Father to exist at all. 
 
 Nearly every vagary has in it the hint of a great truth 
 toward which the vagary is wandering; and this is the 
 case with that German vagary concerning the divine 
 Antithesis in consciousness. God the Father needs his 
 Son for the fullness of his own self -consciousness. He 
 
Soo THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 needs the Son (and they both need the Holy Spirit) 
 precisely as much as the Son needs him. Thus their 
 essential equality reaches into the very structure of the 
 divine organism. 
 
 9. We are able now, I think, to deepen our former 
 philosophy of creation, and perhaps to change our senti- 
 ment concerning that philosophy. In their effort to 
 protect such Scripture teaching as that found in the third 
 verse of the first chapter of Saint John's gospel (''All 
 things were made by him"), some theologians have 
 seemed to show a tendency to minimize the Father's 
 effectual relation to creation. If there really is such a 
 tendency it is all wrong. The clue to the entire truth 
 lies in the fact that all creation is a social act. The 
 Father is primarily the Creator ; but he creates, under the 
 law of personal expression, through his Son. And the Son 
 confirms the creative will of the Father in the fellowship 
 of moral love. And then this double will is carried out 
 into the event by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Not only so, but the race of man (and all creation that 
 pertains to man) the Father has created for his Son. 
 Whatever men might do to stay it, the Father made a 
 plan that his only Son should have an everlasting kingdom 
 within the vast kingdom of God — and the Son will have 
 it as an expression of his Father's love! 
 
 10. Can we not now see our Lord's obedience in a some- 
 what larger bearing? The Son of God must obey his 
 Father. The very organism of the Godhead involves the 
 absolute necessity of such obedience. Did I not tell you 
 that the idea of service under the supreme will of God is a 
 finality in the imiverse? Every created thing is made 
 to obey. Not even free personality can escape that 
 finality. But where does that final principle of doing the 
 supreme will come from? It comes from the Godhead. 
 The Son of God must obey the supreme will of his Father. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 501 
 
 The Son, though, does not obey his Father under the 
 motive of necessity. Nor does he obey his Father under 
 the motive of moral obligation even, he obeys him undgr_ 
 the motive of moral love. The obedience is thus ethical 
 and yet more than ethical. All the Son's moral concern 
 for the law of holiness is but the central fire of his personal 
 love for his Father, and this love for his Father becomes 
 the total motive of his obedience. What we find here, 
 then, in the case of our Lord, is exactly what will be found 
 in the eternal life of every saint, namely, a necessary 
 service lifted into a service of personal love and moral 
 love. 
 
 Probably this is the most fitting place to correct a 
 certain notion which you are likely to meet in crude 
 Christian thinking. God the Father and his Son, our 
 Saviour, are regarded as having two very different at- 
 titudes toward the salvation of men. The attitude of 
 the Father is one of holy obstacle, while the attitude of the 
 Son is one of eager mediation between sinners and the 
 angry Father. The same feeling, if not the same notion, 
 is repeated in the Roman Catholic conception of the 
 mediation of the Virgin Mary. As it is in Chaucer's 
 verse, ''Gracious maid and mother, help that my Father 
 be not wroth with me." It is exceedingly important that 
 this notion, and especially this feeling, about God the 
 Father should be crushed out of Christian life. For it is 
 false through and through. The moral obstacle to super- 
 ficial pardon is equally in every Person of the Trinity. 
 Not only so, but the plan of redemption is primarily with 
 the Father. He it was who gave his only-begotten Son. 
 The Father's plan was confirmed by the Son in obedience 
 and self-sacrifice, and again confirmed by the swift and 
 silent redemptional response of the Holy Spirit. Even 
 Jonathan Edwards has not, at this point, quite gained the 
 New Testament accent. It is true, however, that every 
 
502 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Christian heart in full health has, must have, a peculiar 
 love for Jesus Christ ; but this peculiar love has no neces- 
 sary relation to the origin of the plan of redemption; 
 rather does the love grow out of the four facts that the 
 Son of God in his self-sacrifice became man to redeem us, 
 that he actually did redeem us by his death, that in 
 conversion we are united to him, and that he remains 
 man, ''our Elder Brother," forever. 
 
 II. An additional word can now be given concerning 
 the idioTTjg, or personal peculiarity, of each Person in 
 the Trinity. The peculiarity of the Father is that of 
 origination. Not only is he the causal source of the divine 
 organism, but also his will is original and supreme. It is 
 his will that we refer to in the discussions of Christian 
 theism. It is his will that springs the worlds into ex- 
 istence and binds them into harmony in their majestic 
 courses. When we speak of " God " without qualification 
 we always mean the Sovereign Father. His will is con- 
 firmed, doubly confirmed, but it is his will that is confirmed. 
 Philosophically a Trinitarian is as rigidly monotheistic 
 as any Unitarian can be, or even as any deist ever was, 
 and as well prepared for any problem in theism. 
 
 The peculiarity of the Son of God is that of personal 
 obedience. Here we need to be intensely attentive, or 
 we will not get the idea truly. This obedience is active, 
 personal, self-assertive obedience. It is full of humility, 
 but the humility never fiings the Person into effacement. 
 Notice the ring of authority and dominion: "I will draw 
 all men unto me." "Verily, verily, I say unto you." 
 "The Son of man shall come in his glory." The fact is 
 that nothing can be more tremendously aggressive than 
 the will of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God. 
 
 Even more difficult is it to understand perfectly the 
 personal combination of quality in the Holy Spirit. His 
 peculiarity is that of personal self-effacement. His obedi- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 503 
 
 ence is net obedience merely, not loving obedience 
 merely, but personal effacement in obedience. I despair 
 of making this divine principle of voluntary, eager self- 
 effacement real and sublime to an age which refuses even 
 to try to understand Saint Paul's inspired conception of 
 a Christian home; and I will make no endeavor to do so. 
 An intimation, though, is necessary for the completeness 
 of my Trinitarian message. What we may term the 
 organic peculiarity of the Holy Spirit is that he is as 
 subordinate to the Son of God as he is to the Father ; but 
 his personal peculiarity is the wonderful way in which, 
 in moral love, he treats this organic limitation. He takes 
 hold of it with enthusiastic assent, he transfigures it, he 
 turns it into his everlasting rejoicing. Not only so, but 
 also instead of obeying by an aggressive self-assertion, he 
 actually obeys by self-effacement. Of men, for instance, 
 the Holy Spirit wants nothing for himself. He wants us 
 only to belong to Christ, only to serve Christ, only to love 
 Christ supremely. If your consciousness is totally oc- 
 cupied with love for your Saviour, the whole longing of 
 the Holy Spirit is satisfied. He for himself wants nothing, 
 excepting the infinite love of the Father and of the Son. 
 He rejoices not in obedience, but in that particular kind of 
 obedience which never blossoms into personal emolument. 
 He, too, is ever urged on by the law of personal expression, 
 but he expresses all he is, and all he desires, in bare service 
 — not service and something — not service and a universe — 
 not service and a final kingdom — the Spirit of God ex- 
 presses himself simply and totally in service. And what 
 a service, what a service it is! Whether God will send 
 a river flowing to the sea, or will set a sunset blazing in 
 the western cloud, or will quiet the fears of a terrified 
 child, or will break the proud heart of a sinner, or will 
 unite a willing man to Jesus Christ, or will add a further 
 grace to the triumphs of a saint, or will potir the siir- 
 
504 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 prising consolations of heaven into a hopeless grief, or 
 will take an old man who is timid before the gathering 
 mystery of death and fill his soul with the peace of God 
 and the certainties of faith — the work, the finishing vo- 
 lition, the efficient eventualization of it all is given over 
 to the Holy Spirit — he alone is sent! 
 
 The Moral Love of the Triune God 
 This, the moral love of the Triune God, is our last 
 theme, our last work together in this system of doctrine ! 
 First of all, I want you to get the entire force, and the 
 inner spirit, of that conception of the love of God as the 
 love of a solitary Infinite Benevolence, a conception 
 which is now apparent almost everywhere in the Christian 
 church, and which is almost certain to become dominant. 
 I have, therefore, selected two typical passages for quo- 
 tation, choosing one passage for its spirit and the other 
 passage for its meaning. Professor Ritschl, in his finest 
 ad hominem manner, says: " In a certain quarter of theo- 
 logical speculation we are met by the principle that per- 
 fect love requires the similar mutual relation of two 
 personal wills. In so far as love is the principle of per- 
 fect fellowship between two personal beings, this may be 
 true. But the perfect love, as motive power and guiding 
 principle of the individual will, is independent of respon- 
 sive love (Matt. 5 . 46) ; on the contrary, just there, where 
 it meets with no answering love, perfect love proves in 
 every possible case its peculiar sublimity." 
 
 The other passage comes from W. L. Walker's remark- 
 able book. The Spirit and the Incarnation, and reads as 
 follows: *'It is often argued that the love that God is 
 must eternally produce an object to which it can impart 
 itself, and from which it must be eternally reflected back 
 again. It is thus that some theologians have argued for 
 the existence of a Divine Son of God, and for what has 
 
I 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 505 
 
 been termed a ' social Trinity '. But this, if the love is not 
 to be a mere self -love, would imply such a distinct and 
 separate person in the Son as would be wholly incon- 
 sistent with the unity of the Divine Being, and as would 
 even savor of the mythological. This is not the inference 
 which we seek to draw from the existence of God as love. 
 The scriptural doctrine is that God is love, and * the Son ' 
 must be that same love in one mode of its existence. The 
 love that God is is not merely ' the affection of one person 
 for another,' as of individuals, but that holy, universal, 
 infinite love which forever seeks to impart itself, and 
 which causes all persons to arise. The Son is that love 
 as it goes forth to impart itself to others conceived in the 
 divine image. The Son in God is thus at once the ideal 
 and the potency of the creation. The perfect love that 
 God is, just because it is perfect love, can never keep 
 itself to itself, but must be eternally giving itself and 
 going forth creating." 
 
 Professor Ritschl (to take up the less important quo- 
 tation first), it seems to me, twists the Saviour's meaning 
 out of shape. Our Lord does not mean that the sublimest 
 love has no desire for response, but rather that such love 
 can and should be a motive when there is no response, and 
 even in the face of hatred. There is something lofty in 
 loving an enemy, but there is nothing lofty in being 
 content with the enmity. And, yet deeper, to love an 
 enemy requires a moral love, and, in the very nature of 
 moral love, it craves an answer of moral love. Then, 
 coming to God himself, it is not true that he ''maketh 
 his sun to rise on the evil" because he is indifferent to 
 response. He treats his enemies as he does because he 
 wants them to drop their enmity and love him in return. 
 I will deny the whole contention that the highest kind of 
 love is independent of response. On the contrary, I 
 believe that the more nearly perfect, the more nearly 
 
5o6 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 divine the love is, the more one suffers, out of sight, if 
 there be no response. How, then, is a love asking for 
 response to be protected from mere selfishness? The 
 answer is ready : By moral quality. 
 
 To the teaching (as I grasp it) of the second quotation, 
 I have three objections which are strong and unyielding: 
 
 1 . Inasmuch as this view of the love of God grants the 
 preexistent Son of God neither self-decision nor self- 
 consciousness, it would in our thinking entirely destroy 
 that ethical quality of self-sacrifice on the part of the 
 Son in his Incarnation, a self-sacrifice which is clearly 
 taught by Saint Paul, and which is vital to any really 
 Christian conception of redemption. Urge and reurge 
 this point I will upon the church, for it concerns the total 
 practical efficiency of Christian preaching. 
 
 2. Carried out in consistency, this view of the love of 
 God certainly means either one or the other of two things : 
 Either, first, that an impersonal ''seed" or potency of 
 Deity so develops under temporal conditions as to become 
 personal — in which case there is now personal duality in 
 the Godhead (the Father and the Son Jesus Christ), and 
 the old problem of divine unity must be faced and an- 
 swered by the very men who object to the Athanasian 
 solution — or, second, that our Saviour is but a man, or 
 at the most a personal creature, having in his nature a 
 deposit of Deity; in which case the outcome is nothing 
 other than Unitarianism, essentially akin to that kind of 
 Unitarianism (James Freeman Clarke) which regards 
 Christ as "divine by peculiar endowment." That the 
 second theological option is the one likely to be taken I 
 have been convinced by much observation, and especially 
 by a study of the effects of the Ritschlian movement 
 upon American and British theology. 
 
 3. A divine love which "can never keep itself to itself, 
 but must be eternally giving itself and going forth creat- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 5(V 
 
 ing, " amounts, precisely, I think, to that "infinite and 
 eternal craving to create" which so often comes to the 
 fore in the pantheistic philosophy. Under the terms-of- 
 such a view there could be in creation neither beginning 
 nor end, for the entire motive of creation is love as an 
 unsatisfied attribute. Indeed, the view seems to me to 
 be not only impossible in a rigidly Christian theism, but 
 also out of harmony with all the ftmdamental Christian 
 doctrines, and even inconsistent in its own structure. 
 
 Dropping all this negative work of criticism, I will now 
 give you simply and yet positively that conception of the 
 love of God which I look upon as belonging to the phil- 
 osophical fiber of the Christian faith. In doing this I 
 have an extremely delicate preparatory task, namely, to 
 make you all see and feel the deep difference between the 
 motive of unsatisfied love and the motive of satisfied love. 
 I am far from being sure that my modicum of literary 
 skill is enough for the task ; but the matter is so funda- 
 mentally important that I must do what I can. There 
 is many a human home where a child has been adopted 
 to meet the inherent craving of a hungry heart. Some- 
 times such homes are very noble, sometimes they become 
 very happy; but, profoundly regarded, always they are 
 abnormal and very pathetic. Right over against one of 
 these abnormal homes I ask you to imagine another kind 
 of a home, a home of the Bunsen type, where the father 
 and the mother and all the children are tenderly and 
 usefully and unselfishly entangled in a love well-nigh 
 boundless. Now, this home — all of them — adopts a waif, 
 let us say. Are any of you able to discover any deep 
 difference between the two cases of adoption? There is 
 a deep difference. In the one case, the motive is an un- 
 satisfied love — the home needs the child. In the other case, 
 the motive is a satisfied love — the child needs the home. 
 
 Now I will try to gather up into more definite point 
 
5o8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 my entire view of God's relation to creation. Searching 
 for creation-motive, I find that there are in the divine 
 life three main featiires which are to be considered : First, 
 there is the feature of personality. As I have said in 
 various ways, personality likes to create, is eager to ex- 
 press the inner secret. Because of this intrinsic personal 
 eagerness, there is divine motive to outplace objects of 
 actual expression. But this motive is purely personal, 
 and very unlike the ''imfolding instinct" of pantheism; 
 for the will of God is not driven into creation. God creates 
 because he would and not because he must. Again let me 
 borrow Martensen's fine thought, the creation is a ''super- 
 fluity'' for God. God has joy in the cosmos, but God 
 does not need the cosmos. Neither personality nor any 
 divine attribute gets, in creation, any new fullness. You 
 cannot do any thoroughly Christian thinking until you 
 lay fast hold of the idea that our God is eternally perfect 
 and so self-sufficient. He is not an infinite craving end- 
 lessly striving to satisfy his own nature and fill out the 
 underlying plan of his own being. Second, there is the 
 feature of moral concern. This second feature must be 
 quickly added to the first. It is inherent for personality 
 to want to get out into expression, but this inherent desire 
 is much more urgent in moral personality. Moral concern 
 mightily longs to spring into cosmic fact. The philosophy 
 of this is partly in the nature of righteousness itself and 
 partly in the way moral concern vitalizes personality. 
 Now, therefore, we have in mind another range of divine 
 motive. Personality alone is enough to explain a van- 
 ishing universe of things, continents, and daffodils tossing 
 in the breeze, and all that ; but to explain, to show motive 
 for a final, everlasting universe with men and angels and 
 archangels, we need to begin with personality and come 
 on swiftly to God's moral concern. Third, there is the 
 feature of moral love. But we cannot stop with moral 
 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 509 
 
 concern. To obtain a Christian conception of the final 
 universe, we must think of personality and moral concern 
 as culminating in the one divine motive of moral love. 
 In other connections and at differing angles in meaning 
 and emphasis, I have spoken of the final universe, and 
 probably I have left the impression that our extreme 
 point of emphasis should be that the final universe must 
 express the holiness of God as culminating through moral 
 concern in moral love. To correct this impression, I 
 have been waiting for this very place. My full view is that 
 the final universe is to manifest, in finite measure, the 
 entirety of God's life. To do so much, the final universe 
 must express, not merely the fact of God's moral love, 
 but additionally the fact that this divine love is a satis- 
 fied moral love. What do I mean by this? I mean that 
 the final universe will come to climax in perfect sainthood 
 — in personal moral creatures who have, in their freedom, 
 been made perfect in storm and pain and test. Freedom 
 was granted them simply because there is no other process 
 under which a finite being can become morally like God. 
 Because of this climax of sainthood, every other feature 
 of the final universe takes on its last touch of significance. 
 What, then, is God's relation to this sainthood? That of 
 Creator with the motive of a satisfied love. Forever will 
 it be evident that these saints were created, not because 
 God needed them to moderate his own craving for love; 
 but because, out of the eternal fullness of a satisfied love, 
 God wanted them to bring their little cups of finite pos- 
 sibility and fill them with everlasting joy out of his 
 shoreless ocean. Thus the very law of expression itself 
 becomes at last more than merely personal, even more 
 than merely personal and moral — ^it becomes absolutely 
 altruistic. 
 
 One last look at the new race, and our work is done. 
 Not yet, in this immediate discussion, have we provided 
 
Sio THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 for the finite expression in the final universe of the en- 
 tirety of the life of God. For we made no provision for 
 the expression of the absolute personal organism of the 
 Godhead. Do you not see what we need as our ultimate 
 feature? We again need the new race in Jesus Christ. 
 The cosmic sweep of the kingdom of God will manifest 
 the divine holiness as personalized in moral concern. The 
 kingdom of heaven will manifest the satisfied love of God 
 as benevolent motive. But the kingdom of our Lord will 
 express more — ^it will express the love of God — ^moral and 
 satisfied — in a personal organism which will be a finite 
 copy of the imity of the Persons of the Trinity, and will 
 have a racial imitation of the glory of their inter-com- 
 mimion. 
 
 ''Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also 
 that believe on me through their word ; that they may all 
 be one ; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that 
 they also may be in us : that the world may believe that 
 thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast 
 given me I have given imto them ; that they may be one, 
 even as we are one ; I in them, and thou in me, that they 
 may be perfected into one ; that the world may know that 
 thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst 
 me. Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that, 
 where I am, they also may be with me; that they may 
 behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou 
 lovedst me before the foimdation of the world." 
 
 And now unto the God of our redemption, unto the 
 Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, do 
 we ascribe all power and all dominion and all glory, 
 world without end. Amen and Amen. 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 I. The Man and the Animal 
 
 PAGE 
 
 7 Charles Morris, Man and His Ancestor, chap. viii. The 
 Macmillan Co., 1900. 
 
 9 Haeckel, Die WeltrSthsel, kap. xiii, the McCabe trans- 
 lation. Harper, 1901. One hundred and fifty thousand 
 copies sold in Germany alone. See Hibbert Journal for Jxily, 
 190S, p. 741. 
 
 10 The quotation from Darwin. See Man and His Ancestor, 
 p. 14. AlsoDescentof Man, p. 154, revised edition. Appleton, 
 1902. Mr. Darwin says: "If the above explanation is cor- 
 rect, as seems probable, the direction of the hair on oiu- 
 own arms offers a curious record of our former state ; for no 
 one supposes that it is now of any use in throwing off the 
 rain; nor, in our present erect condition, is it properly directed 
 for this purpose." 
 
 11-13 As to God's relation to the world, compare with state- 
 ment on pp. 147, 148. 
 
 11. Personality 
 
 17 Spencer's Facts and Comments. Appleton. Preface writ- 
 ten in March, 1902. See p. 12. 
 
 19 Hegel's statement in his Philosophie der Religion (i, 64) 
 is this: "Ich bin nicht einer der im Kampf begriffenen, 
 sondem ich bin beide Kampfende und der Kampf selbst." 
 
 20 "The crushed worm." See the Clark edition of the Micro- 
 cosmus, i, 250. 
 
 20 Fife ponies. See article by Kellogg Durland in Black- 
 wood's Magazine, January, 1902. 
 
 23 Julius Miiller, Lehre von der Stinde, ii, 32. 
 
 III. The Moral Person 
 
 27 The best discussion of the characteristics of the dog may 
 be foimd in chap, xvi of Romanes's work on Animal Intel- 
 ligence. Appleton, 1897. 
 
512 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGE 
 
 29-31 "The institution of taboo." Frazer's article in the En- 
 cyclopaedia Britannica, xxiii, 15. Jevons's Introduction to 
 the History of Religion, chaps, vi, vii, and viii. Methuen, 
 1902. Andrew Lang's Magic and Religion, chap. xiv. 
 Longmans, 1901. 
 
 IV. Freedom, Personal and Moral 
 
 39 Jonathan Edwards's conception of the "sjtrength of a 
 motive " is to be found on p. 8 of his Inquiry, London edition, 
 1831. 
 
 James M'Cosh, The Method of the Divine Government, p. 
 271. New York, 1856. 
 
 48 Robert Browning, Saul, xviii. 
 
 51 The Methods of Ethics. Macmillan, 1901. The entire 
 fifth chapter is of importance. Especially note the follow- 
 ing passage (pp. 74, 75^: "It is sometimes vaguely thought 
 that a belief in Free Will requires us to maintain that at any 
 moment we can alter our habits to any extent by a sufli- 
 ciently strong exertion. And no doubt most commonly 
 when we make such efforts, we believe at the moment that 
 thej^ will be completely effectual. We will to do something 
 hours or days hence with the same confidence with which we 
 will to do something immediately. But on reflection, no 
 one, I think, will maintain that in such cases the future act 
 appears to be in his power in the same sense as a choice of 
 alternatives that takes effect immediately. Not only does 
 continual experience show us that such resolutions as to 
 the future have a limited and too frequently an inadequate 
 effect, but the common belief is really inconsistent with the 
 very doctrine of Free Will that is thought to justify it; for 
 if by a present volition I can fully determine an action that is 
 to take place some hours hence, when the time comes to do 
 that act I shall find myself no longer free. We must there- 
 fore accept the conclusion that each such resolve has only a 
 limited effect, and that we cannot kno'vv when making it how 
 far this effect will exhibit itself in the performance of the 
 act resolved upon. At the same time it can hardly be de- 
 nied that such resolves sometimes succeed in breaking old 
 habits; and even when they fail to do this, they often sub- 
 stitute a painful struggle for smooth and easy indulgence." 
 
 51 "A recent book." Professor Frank Thilly's Introduction 
 to Ethics, p. 334. Scribner, 1900. 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 513 
 
 PAGE 
 
 52 "The sternum in poultry." The Life and Letters of 
 George John Romanes. Longmans, 1896. Letter to Mr. 
 Darwin dated November 7, 1875, p. 45. 
 
 53 Professor Wimdt, The Principles of Morality, p. 39. Swan 
 Sonnenschein & Co., 1901. 
 
 54 Professor Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry 
 Huxley, vol. i, pp. 352, 353. Apple ton, 1901. Compare 
 with passage in Collected Essays, i, 163. 
 
 56 Professor Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 
 p. 243. Harper, 1897. See also Professor Bowne's discus- 
 sion of "Freedom and Necessity" in part iii of his Meta- 
 physics, revised edition; and the chapter on "Will and 
 Action" in part i of his Introduction to Psychological 
 Theory. 
 
 V. Personal Morality 
 
 65 For a sufficient discussion of "the categorical imperative" 
 see chap, xiv of Kant, by William Wallace, Blackwood's 
 Philosophical Classics. 
 
 69 John Caird. The quotation is from the Croall Lecture for 
 1878-79, chap, ix, 291. 
 
 71 The translation of the line from Homer is by Max Miiller. 
 
 VI. Religion 
 
 79 John Stuart Mill. Read his entire essay on Nature. 
 
 82 The quotation from Edward Caird's The Evolution of 
 Religion is more largely given on p. 78. 
 
 84 Samuel Johnson. Boswell says: "He had another particu- 
 larity, of which none of his friends even ventured to ask an 
 explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, 
 which he had contracted early, and from which he had never 
 called upon his reason to disentangle him. This was his 
 anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage by a certain 
 number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that 
 eith:5r his right or his left foot (I am not certain which) 
 should constantly make the first actual movement when he 
 came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture; for I 
 have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly 
 stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnest- 
 ness ; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of 
 
514 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put him- 
 self in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, having 
 gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly 
 on, and join his companion." The edition in Macmillan's 
 Library of English Classics, i, 357. 
 
 84 "The folklore of Brittany." See Dealings with the Dead. 
 London, Redway, 1898. It comprises selections from La 
 Ldgende de la Mort en Basse Bretagne. 
 
 85 Fichte, Ethik, i, 23, quoted by Mulford. 
 
 86 Professor James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 
 p. 34. Longmans, 1902. 
 
 88 Professor Seth. There is nowhere a more penetrating dis- 
 cussion of Hegel's philosophy in its relation to personality 
 than is to be found in the last two lectures of Andrew Seth's 
 Hegelianism and Personality. 
 
 Vn. The Theistic Argument 
 
 98 Democritus. See Ferrier's Lectures on Greek Philosophy, 
 the lecture on the "Atomic School." 
 
 98 For a criticism of Mill's explanation of the origin of the 
 cosmos see Dr. Miley's Systematic Theology, i, 82-85. 
 
 99 For the bearing of modem scientific study upon theism 
 read the little book by John Fiske called The Idea of God as 
 affected by Modem Knowledge. 
 
 100 Professor Everett's book (Macmillan, 1902) is one of the 
 most suggestive discussions of the last ten years. See p. 164. 
 
 VIII. Revelation 
 
 107 Herbert Spencer's last fragment published, in Facts and 
 Comments, is on "Ultimate Questions." The intense gloom 
 of the fragment is manifest in this passage: "But it seems 
 a strange and repugnant conclusion that with the cessation 
 of consciousness at death there ceases to be any knowledge 
 of having existed. With his last breath it becomes to each 
 the same thing as though he had never lived." 
 
 108 In his essay on "Nature" Mill says: "In sober truth, 
 nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned 
 for doing to one another are nature's everyday perform- 
 ances. . . . Natiire impales men, breaks them as if on 
 the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 515 
 
 PAOB 
 
 bums them to death, crushes them with stones like the 
 first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes 
 them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow ven- 
 om of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hid- 
 eous deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of a 
 Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed. All this Nature 
 does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and 
 of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest 
 indifferently with the meanest and worst; upon those who 
 are engaged in the highest and worthiest enterprises, and 
 often as the direct consequence of the noblest acts; and it 
 might almost be imagined as a pvmishment for them. She 
 mows down those on whose existence hangs the well-being 
 of a whole people, perhaps the prospects of the human race 
 for generations to come, with as little compunction as those 
 whose death is a relief to themselves or a blessing to those 
 under their noxious influence." 
 
 108 "A certain journalist." Editorial on "Increase of Joy** 
 in Harper's Weekly, November 14, 1903. 
 
 IX. The Christian Religion and the Moral Person 
 
 120 Professor J. R. Seeley, the author of Ecce Homo. His 
 book Natural Religion is almost as important as the work 
 which made him famous. 
 
 121 Adolf Hamack. "Die Predigt Jesu wird uns auf wenigen, 
 aber grossen Stufen sofort in eine Hohe fxihren, auf welcher 
 ihr Zusammenhang mit dem Judentum nur noch als ein 
 lockerer erscheint, und auf der liberhaupt die meisten Faden, 
 die in die ' Zeitgeschichte ' zuriickflihren, unbedeutend wer- 
 den," — Das Wesen, i, 10. 
 
 126 Das Wesen des Christentums. Leipzig, 1900. Transla- 
 tion by Thomas Bailey Saunders, What is Christianity? sec- 
 ond edition. Putnam, 1902. There are two strong replies to 
 Hamack's book: a conservative reply by Professor Hermann 
 Cremer, and a rationalistic reply by Abb^ Loisy. The latter 
 has been translated into English, and may be found in the 
 introduction to The Gospel and the Chiu-ch. Scribner, 1904, 
 
 X. The Christian Religion and the Human Race 
 
 131 Emerson. An article on "The Personality of Emerson," 
 by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in the Outlook, May 23, 
 1903. The passage almost entire is as follows: " It is not the 
 sea and poverty and pursuit that separate us. Here is Alcott 
 
5i6 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGE 
 
 by my door — ^yet is the union more profound? No! the sea, 
 vocation, poverty, are seeming fences, but man is insular and 
 cannot be touched. Every man is an infinitely repellent 
 orb, and holds his individual being on that condition. . . . 
 Most of the persons whom I see in my own house I see across 
 a gulf; I cannot go to them, nor they come to me." Com- 
 pare with Emerson's essay on "Self-reliance." 
 
 132 Thomas Arnold (the yoimger). From an article in the 
 
 Century Magazine, May, 1903. 
 
 XI. Christian Certainty 
 
 This discussion has been worked out from starting points 
 which I gained, strangely enough, from the two antipodal 
 men, Dr. Fr. H. R. Frank and Professor Albrecht Ritschl. 
 
 148 "One system." Compare with what is said on pp. 11-13. 
 
 155 "Christianity taken by hazard." The quotation is taken 
 from the book The Rational Basis of Orthodoxy, by Dr. 
 Albert Weston Moore. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901. See 
 the first chapter, on "The Rationality of Faith." 
 
 XII. The Christian Book 
 
 160 Professor Sanday's university sermon is given as an 
 appendix to his Bampton Lectures on Inspiration. 
 
 161 Professor Huxley's Hume, English Men of Letters Series, 
 part ii, chap. vii. 
 
 161 Professor Wellhausen's Sketch, originally published in 
 the Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xiii, and then published 
 as a monograph by Adam and Charles Black. 
 
 163 "The Recession of Miracle." The editorial is to be found 
 in the Independent, December 4, 1902. 
 
 163 Cardinal Newman, Oxford University Sermons, sermon 
 X. on "Faith and Reason, Contrasted as Habits of Mind." 
 
 The present tendency to "reduce the miracle" is referred 
 to by Matthew Arnold in this way: "To reduce the mirac- 
 ulous in them [the Bible miracles] to what are thought 
 reasonable dimensions is now a favorite attempt. But if 
 anything miractilous is left, the whole miracle might as well 
 have been left; if nothing, how has the incident any longer 
 the proving force of a miracle? Let us treat so absurd an 
 attempt as it deserves. Neander supposes that the water 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 517 
 
 PAGE 
 
 at the marriage feast at Cana was not changed by Jesus into 
 wine, but was only endued by Jesus with wine's brisk taste 
 and exhilarating effects. This has all the difficulties of the 
 miracle, and only gets rid of the poetry. It is as if we were 
 startled by the extravagance of supposing Cinderella's fairy 
 godmother to have actually changed the pumpkin into a 
 coach and six, but suggested that she did really change it 
 into a one-horse brougham." — God and the Bible, chap, i, 
 sec. 4. 
 
 175 Professor Paul W. Schmiedel, Professor of New Testament 
 Exegesis, Zurich. See his article on "Gospels" in the Ency- 
 clopaedia Biblica, vol. ii. 
 
 XIII. Systematic Theology 
 
 183 In this connection I wish to quote a most significant pas- 
 sage from Dr. Abraham Kuyper's discussion of the "Liberty 
 of Scientific Theology": "Hence there is no question of 
 desiring to free the theologian as such at the bar of his own 
 conscience from his obligation to his subject, his principium, 
 or the historic authority of the church ; what we should object 
 to is that the study should be prevented from pursuing its 
 own way. That a church should forbid a minister of the 
 Word the further use of her pulpit when he antagonizes her 
 confession, or that a board of trustees should dismiss a pro- 
 fessor, who, according to their view, does not serve the end 
 for which he was appointed, has nothing whatever to do 
 with this liberty of studies. A shipowner, who dismisses a 
 captain because he sails the ship to a different point of 
 destination from what the shipowner designated, in no wise 
 violates thereby the personal rights of the captain. When 
 a church appoints a minister of the Word, she and she alone 
 is to determine what she desires of him, and when he is no 
 longer able to perform this, she can no longer retain him in 
 her service. And in the same way, when the curators of a 
 university appoint some one to teach Lutheran dogmatics, 
 and this theologian meanwhile becomes Romish, it is not 
 merely their right but their duty to displace him. Yea, 
 stronger still, a theologian who, in such a case, does not 
 withdraw is dishonest, and as such cannot be upheld. But 
 these cases have nothing to do with the liberty of studies, 
 and at no time does the churchly liberty of the theologian 
 consist of anything but his right to appeal to the Word of 
 God, on the ground of which he may enter into a spiritual 
 conflict with his church, and if he fails in this, to withdraw. 
 
5i8 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thus when the liberty of theology is spoken of, we do not 
 mean theology as attached to any office, but theology as an 
 independent phenomenon. The question simply is, whether, 
 after it has separated itself from this office, and thus makes 
 its appearance as theology only, it is or is not free. And the 
 answer is that every effort to circumscribe theology by any 
 obstacle whatever is antagonistic to her nature, and disables 
 her for her calling. The law of thought will not allow you 
 to call the thing black which you see to be white." — Ency- 
 clopedia of Sacred Theology, pp. 594, 595, the De Vries 
 translation from the Dutch. Scribner, 1898. 
 
 In a time when "mental reservation" is making meaning- 
 less so much public subscription to doctrine, these tmequiv- 
 ocal words from Dr. Kuyper are exceedingly wholesome. 
 And yet he does not seem to be aware of the extreme com- 
 plication of the present theological situation. Oftentimes 
 the church to which a theologian belongs is itself far from 
 being a consistent unit in theological trend and interpreta- 
 tion; and the man stays in place, not because he is dishonest, 
 but because there is no clear indication of duty. Dr. Kuy- 
 per's distinction, however, between theology and theology 
 as attached to an elective office is of the greatest importance. 
 
 XIV. The Creation and Fall of Man 
 
 192 "The primitive style of narration." Taken from a lecture 
 delivered by President W. R. Harper, of the Chicago Univer- 
 sity, reported in the Standard, and this report then sum- 
 marized in the Independent. His view is of so much worth 
 to me that I will quote more largely and from the summary : 
 "What Genesis really teaches is that man exists as a crea- 
 tion of God, that he received a nature superior to that of all 
 other animals, that he is in the image of God in his spiritual 
 nature. What portion of the narrative is to be taken literally 
 it is difficult to say. The account is not an allegory nor a 
 myth nor a mere legend or tradition; it is an historical fact 
 revealed by God to the first men and preserved in the primi- 
 tive style of narration characteristic of the age in which it was 
 written. He says the Eden story was intended to make 
 known the fact that evil in the world had its origin in dis- 
 obedience to the divine command. The account is historical, 
 but, as in other cases, is given in the narrative form. While 
 it is so referred to in the New Testament that we must accept 
 it as describing a real event, still it is not to be read or under- 
 stood in the method of bald literalism. Man fell into sin by 
 yielding to temptation and thus forfeited that which had 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 519 
 
 PAGB 
 
 been originally provided for him, and brought not only upon 
 himself but upon his posterity the curse of evil in its various 
 forms. He failed under the trial to which his Creator sub- 
 jected him. The description of the garden is to be held as 
 ideal, grounded in tradition, but not to be taken as geo- 
 graphically correct. The narrative has in this connection 
 an historical basis, but makes a free use of symbols in setting 
 forth the historical facts of the first sin and its consequences." 
 
 195 Bishop Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, sec. 59, p. 114. 
 
 XV. The Doctrine of Sin 
 
 200 Bishop Foster, Sin, vol. vi of his Studies in Theology. 
 Especially note pp. 33, 117, 119, 229, and 230. 
 
 200 In the history of Arminian theology there is no position 
 so entirely inconsistent and indefensible as that of Dr. Wil- 
 liam Burt Pope on "hereditary guilt." See his Compendiiun 
 of Christian Theology, American edition, vol. ii, p. 48. 
 
 XVI. The Deity op Our Lord 
 
 211 "Five methods." i. The historical argtiment, as used by 
 Dr. Domer. 2. The combination argument, as used by 
 Canon Liddon. 3. The scriptural argument, as used by Dr. 
 Miley. 4. The argument in biblical theology. 5. The argu- 
 ment based entirely upon the claims of Christ. 
 
 211 "Saint John's gospel." The literature is too extensive 
 for indication here; but the best recent discussion of the 
 subject is by Professor George Park Fisher in chap, xi of his 
 Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, revised edition. 
 Scribner, 1902. 
 
 212 "The kingdom of God." My view of this kingdom will 
 be precisely given in my consideration of the doctrine of the 
 church. 
 
 224 William Bright, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, 
 Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History. See Waymarks 
 in Church History, p. 65. Longmans, 1894. 
 
 229 "Passage from an editorial." "Who is He?" in the Out- 
 look, February 15, 1902. This editorial is signed "L. A." 
 Compare with an editorial in the same paper, "The Divinity 
 of Jesus Christ," Jime 29, 1901. This editorial, however, 
 is not signed. 
 
520 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGE 
 
 230 Professor Ritschl. See chap, vi of the second edition of 
 The Christian Doctrine of Justification and ReconciHation. 
 T. & T. Clark, 1902. The German of the quotation runs as 
 follows: " Als Trager der voUendeten Offenbarung ist Christus 
 gegeben, damit man an ihn glaube. Indem man an ihn 
 glaubt, versteht man ihn als den Offenbarer Gottes." 
 
 XVII. The Incarnation of the Son of God 
 233 Rothe, Dogmatik, ii, 22. 
 
 233 "Only a minor matter." Professor Briggs's The Incarna- 
 tion of the Lord, p. 217. Scribner, 1902. 
 
 235 Bishop Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, p. 260. 
 
 236 Professor James Orr, The Christian View of God and the 
 World, second edition, pp. 322, 323. 
 
 239 Canon Gifford, The Incarnation. Dodd, Mead & Co., 
 1897. Expositor, September and October, 1896. Critical 
 Review, October, 1897. 
 
 242 Professor Bowne. Read the entire chapter on "The Nature 
 of Things," in his Metaphysics. 
 
 249 "In another connection." The quotation is from an 
 article, "The Authority of Our Lord, and of the Bible to the 
 Christian Man," published in the Independent, November 
 II, 1897. 
 
 250 Canon Gore, The Incarnation of the Son of God, p. 212. 
 Scribner, 1896. 
 
 251 "Two wills." Canon Liddon says: "Christ has a Human Will 
 as being Perfect Man, no less than he has a Divine Will as 
 being Perfect God." — Bampton Lectures, eighteenth edition, 
 p. 264. 
 
 252 "The double life." See Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, 
 p. 264. 
 
 252 Proclus of Cyzicus. 
 
 KOI 'eiri TTTEpvyuv hvEfiuv — Oral, i, 9. 
 252 Professor Briggs, The Incarnation of the Lord, sermon v. 
 
 XVIII. The Holiness of God 
 257 "The most striking characteristic of the Old Testament." 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 521 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Read the remarkable article by Professor A. B. Davidson on 
 "God (in Old Testament) " in vol. ii of the Hastings Diction- 
 ary of the Bible. 
 
 259 Professor Sanday. In his article on "God (in New Testa- 
 ment)," written to complete Professor Davidson's article. 
 
 259 Mr. Lidgett. He says: "The Fatherhood of God therefore 
 means the Father regnant. The emphasis must be laid in 
 turn both upon the subject and upon the adjective. It is 
 the Father who reigns. Therefore his law is a law of grace 
 and love from beginning to end. Even that which is sternest 
 in its nature and administration is ordained in the interests 
 of love and life. And the Father is regnant; for he calls into 
 existence, constitutes, and maintains a world which is 
 absolutely and irrevocably controlled by his own perfection, 
 and controlled in the interests of that spiritual life which 
 love creates and would perfect. Love reigns, therefore, by 
 law in the interests of life." — The Fatherhood of God, chap, 
 vi. T. & T. Clark, 1902. 
 
 262 Professor Stevens, The Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, 
 vol. ii, p. 399. 
 
 266 Bishop Martensen on the wrath of God: "Though God 
 eternally loves the world, his actual relation to it is not a 
 relation of love, but of holiness and justice, a relation of 
 opposition, because the unity of his attributes is hindered 
 and restrained. There exists also a contradiction between 
 the actual and essential relations of God to mankind; a con- 
 tradiction which can only be removed by the destruction 
 of the interposing principle of sin. The expression, the 
 wrath of God, simply embodies this truth, that the relations 
 of God's love to the world are imsatisfied, unfulfilled. The 
 expression is not merely anthropopathic, it is an appropriate 
 description of the divine pathos necessarily involved in the 
 conception of a revelation of love restrained, hindered, and 
 stayed through unrighteousness." — Christian Dogmatics, 
 sec, 157, p. 303. 
 
 XIX. The Moral Government 
 
 269 Hugo Grotius, Defensio Fidei Catholicae de Satisfactione 
 Christi. Basileae, 1732. There is an excellent translation 
 by Dr. Frank Hugh Foster, but unfortunately it is out of 
 print. 
 
522 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGE 
 
 270 Saint Paul's conception of the law. See Professor Denney's 
 disciission in the Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii, 
 p. 77- 
 
 271 Dr. Dale. His view is given in lecture ix of his work on 
 The Atonement. 
 
 280 For a trenchant criticism of the governmental theory of 
 the atonement, see Professor George Nye Boardman's "Esti- 
 mate of the New England Theory" in A History of New 
 England Theology. A. D. F. Randolph, 1899. 
 
 XX. The Christian Meaning of Death 
 
 a8i Walt Whitman. As I remember it, the poem was first 
 published in the Century Magazine. But it has been added 
 to Leaves of Grass in the Boston edition of 1897. 
 
 281 Here is one more selection out of a number of modem 
 poems which I have collected: 
 
 "Do you think that I fear you, Goodman Death? 
 
 Then, sir, you do not know; 
 For your grim white face and your frosty breath, 
 
 And your dark eyes browed with snow, 
 Bring naught to me but a signal of love. 
 My Father sent you; he dwelleth above, 
 
 And I am ready to go." 
 
 282 Newman Smyth. The book was published in 1898 by 
 Charles Scribner's Sons. See p. 28. 
 
 283 Professor Davidson, article on " Eschatology " in the 
 Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, i, 739. 
 
 284 Professor Charles. Published by Adam & Charles Black 
 in 1899. See p. 353. 
 
 288 Herbert Spencer. The sixth edition, Appleton, 1902. 
 See p. 70. 
 
 288 Bishop Dahle, Life after Death. See p. 26 of the Bev- 
 eridge translation. 
 
 290 Professor Charles. See p. 415 of his Eschatology. 
 
 292 Professor Delitzsch: "Wie der Baum des Lebens die 
 Kraft der Unsterblichkeit in so zu sagen sacramentlicher 
 Weise in sich schloss." — Neuer Commentar, Gen. 2. 16, 17. 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 523 
 
 PAGE 
 
 292 Dr. Latimer. The quotation is taken from my own class- 
 room notes. 
 
 292 Professor Denney, The Death of Christ. Armstrong, 190^!."" 
 See pp. 127, 128. Compare with lecture iv in his Studies 
 in Theology, 
 
 292 Professor Bruce. Chap, ii, especially p. 64. 
 
 293 Alfred Russel Wallace, Fortnightly Review, March, 1903. 
 Also the book Man's Place in the Universe. McClure, 
 Phillips & Co., 1904. 
 
 XXI. The Teaching of Saint Paul 
 
 302 Professor Sanday, commentary on Rom. 3. 25. Note 
 his discussion of "The Death of Christ Considered as a 
 Sacrifice," pp. 91-94. 
 
 305 Professor Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, 
 part iv, chap, v, p. 378. 
 
 XXII. Our Lord's Strange Hesitation in Approaching Death 
 
 311 Dr. Hollmann. For a noteworthy criticism of Dr. HoU- 
 mann's view ("Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu nach seinen 
 eigenen Aussagen auf Grund der synoptischen Evangelien"), 
 see the Critical Review for November, 1901. 
 
 311 Professor McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the 
 Apostolic Age. Scribner, 1898. See note, pp. 68-70. 
 
 312 "Inadeqviate explanations." See in The Life of Jesus 
 by David Friedrich Strauss, George Eliot's translation, 
 part iii, chap, iii, sec. 125. 
 
 313 Renan. "Se rappela-t-il lesclaires f on taines de la Galilee, 
 od il aurait pu se rafraichir ; la vigne et le figuier sous lesquels 
 il aurait pu s'asseoir; les jeunes filles qui auraient peut-etre 
 consent! a I'aimer?" — Vie de Jesus, xxiii, 391. 
 
 313 Principal Fairbaim, The Philosophy of the Christian 
 Religion, book ii, part i, chap, v, sec. iv. The Macmillan 
 Company, 1902. Read pp. 430--432. 
 
 XXIII. The Racial Theory of Our Lord's Redemptive Work 
 
 321 *'Nor was Jesus punished^ "Nor was Jesus punished for 
 man's sin, he suffered for it. He could not be punished, for 
 he was not gmlty. He endured no equivalent for the appro- 
 
524 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGE 
 
 priate penalty of our wrongdoing; he did something far more 
 valuable. God the Father did nothing so immoral as punish 
 some one in the stead of some one else. It was sinftd man, 
 not God, who crucified Christ. Sin did its very utmost when 
 it took the life of the Son of God, but it could no further go. 
 It might have taken that life in any one of a himdred ways. 
 It might have hanged, or drowned, or burnt him; but it 
 chose the cross, and by so doing made the cross the symbol 
 of our salvation. But observe — ^it could not make him sin. 
 Here is just the point where the death of Christ saves us." 
 — R. J. Campbell, in British Weekly, March 31, 1904. 
 
 323 John Calvin, Institutio Christianae Religionis, liber ii, 
 caput xvi, 10. Edinburgh, 1874. 
 
 333 "A typical sinner." "The Authority of Our Lord, and of 
 the Bible to the Christian Man," the Independent, Novem- 
 ber II, 1897. 
 
 XXIV. The Personal Dispensation op the Holy Spirit 
 
 336 In a letter to Dr. Albert H. Plimib, written in 1888, Pro- 
 fessor Edwards A. Park says, concerning this passage from 
 the works of the "wonderful John Duncan": "I suppose I 
 have read it forty times. I shall probably read it many times 
 more. It has a great effect upon my mind." See The Memo- 
 rial Collection of Professor Park's Sermons, p. 9. The Pil- 
 grim Press. 
 
 337 See John Fletcher's "Portrait of Saint Paul," p. 170, 
 part ii, vol. iii, New York edition of his works. 
 
 337 Professor Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, vol. i, 
 p. 279. T. & T, Clark, 1895. 
 
 339 Justin Martyr, The Antenicene Fathers, American reprint 
 of the Edinburgh edition, vol. i, p. 164. 
 
 344 Dean Mansel. See his comment on Saint Matt. 12. 31, 32, 
 in The Bible Commentary (Speaker's). 
 
 343, 344 Also read the article on "Blasphemy" in the Hastings 
 Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i, p. 305. 
 
 XXV. The Preparation for Conversion 
 
 352 " Wesley's phrase . " " The inward , spiritual meaning of the 
 law of God now begins to glare upon him." — Sermon IX, on 
 "The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption." 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 52S 
 
 XXVI. Conversion 
 
 355 "Now faith is assurance." See Professor A. B. David- 
 son's Handbook on Hebrews. _ 
 
 356 "Great saint." In his Apologia pro Vita Sua Cardinal 
 Newman writes (p. 4): "In isolating me from the objects 
 which surrounded me, in confirming me in my mistrust of 
 the reality of material phenomena, and making me rest in 
 the thought of two and two only absolute and luminously 
 self-evident beings, myself and my Creator ..." 
 
 359 The best discussion of Saint James's conception of faith 
 as over against Saint Paul's conception of faith is to be 
 found in the introduction to Professor Joseph B. Mayor's 
 commentary on The Epistle of Saint James. Macmillan, 
 1897. 
 
 362 Cardinal Newman, Lectures on Justification, iii, 8. 
 
 363 " Dr. Latimer's definition." Taken from my notebook of 
 1879. 
 
 363 Professor Sanday. Read his entire discussion beginning 
 on p. 34 of the commentary on Romans. 
 
 366 Dr. Ball. Saint Paul and the Roman Law, by W. E. Ball, 
 LL.D. T. & T. Clark, 1901. 
 
 367 The witness of the Spirit. Read chaps, viii, ix, and x in 
 Professor Beet's The New Life in Christ. 
 
 XXVII. Personal Holiness 
 
 372 Concerning Dr. McClintock's statement Professor Faulkner, 
 of the Drew Theological Seminary, says: "I find this to be 
 true: (i) The Methodists were the first Christians who offi- 
 daily, and as a united body, without deviation, and with the pow- 
 er of a church behind them to make it effective, taught the New 
 Testament doctrine of Christian perfection. (2) Absolutely 
 they were not the first to teach it. Not speaking of indi- 
 viduals in the ancient and mediaeval church, the Arminians 
 taught the doctrine. But they were not a united and respon- 
 sible church in the same sense that the Methodists were, nor 
 did they continue to maintain the doctrine in a living way. 
 The Friends also taught it. Elsewhere I say: George Fox's 
 * opinion on Christian perfection is exactly similar to Wesley's, 
 excepting that he did not emphasize any special work of 
 sanctification, but said that faith in Christ would save from 
 all sin.' But the Friends are not a church at all in the New 
 
526 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Testament sense, much less in the ordinary Protestant sense; 
 and besides, they are broken up into schools, one of which 
 is almost, if not quite, rationalistic." 
 
 374 The quotations from John Wesley are, as a rule, taken 
 from the London edition, 1829-31, in fourteen volumes. 
 
 376 The expression "above thirty years" should, I think, be 
 "about thirty years." 
 
 387 Professor Bartlet, vol. iv, pp. 391-395. 
 
 Of the many books on Christian perfection the following 
 I regard as the most important: Love Enthroned, by Dr. 
 Daniel Steele; Growth in Holiness toward Perfection, by 
 Dr. James Mudge; Sin and Holiness, by Dr. D. W. C. Hunt- 
 ington; The Story of Gottlieb, by Dr. William F. Warren; 
 Thoughts on Christian Sanctity, by Bishop Moule; Christian 
 Perfection, by Dr. P. T. Forsyth; The Higher Christian 
 Life, by Dr. Alvah Hovey; Sanctification — Right Views and 
 Other Views, by Bishop Merrill. And among the old books 
 on the subject two are especially worthy of notice: John 
 Fletcher's "Last Check"; The Philosophy of Christian Per- 
 fection. A psychological study. Anonymous. Philadel- 
 phia, 1848. 
 
 XXVIII. The Christian Doctrine of the Intermediate State 
 
 399 "Progressive Orthodoxy," chap, iv in the book; or see the 
 Andover Review, August, 1885. 
 
 400 Dr. Domer. It is only justice to say that Dr. Domer's 
 Eschatology should never be separated from his full System 
 of Doctrine. 
 
 401 "True Christian view." Dr. Whedon says (Will, p. 349): 
 "Of the Spirit of Faith it may be said that though it is not 
 a perfect faith in Christ, yet it is a faith more or less distinct, 
 recognized by the searcher of hearts and trier of the reins, 
 in that of which Christ is the concrete and the embodiment. It 
 may be safely assumed that if the true Redeemer were 
 presented in proper correlation to that faith at the moment 
 of its full existence he would be cordially accepted." Read 
 the entire chapter, "Equation of Probational Advantages." 
 
 XXIX. The Resurrection of the Body 
 
 408 Of the more recent articles on the resurrection of the body, 
 I will name three as especially worthy of attention: i. "Oiu: 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 527 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Htimiliation," in the British Weekly, January 29, 1903. 
 2. "The Resiirrection of the Body," in the Expositor, 
 February, 1901. 3. "Resurrection," Hastings Dictionary 
 of the Bible, vol. iv, p. 231. ~ 
 
 410 " Saint Paul's analogy." The best study of i Cor. 15 is to be 
 found in The Resurrection of the Dead, by Professor William 
 Milligan. 
 
 411 The Gospel of the Resurrection. Macmillan, 1898. The 
 author is Bishop Westcott. See p. 155; but read the entire 
 chapter "The Resurrection and Man." The book is a most 
 important contribution to the philosophy of the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 412 Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, p. 461. 
 
 XXX. The Church of Our Lord 
 
 415 Professor Briggs. "The New Testament Doctrine of the 
 Church," an article in the American Journal of Theology, 
 January, 1900. 
 
 418 On I Cor. 15. 24-28, see the commentary by Principal 
 Edwards, and also the commentary by Professor Beet, and 
 also the commentary by Bishop Ellicott, to bring out a some- 
 what different view. 
 
 XXXI. The Christian Sacraments 
 
 427 "The new discussion." See commentary on Saint Mark 
 (14, 24) by Professor H. B. Swete; also Professor McGif- 
 fert's Apostolic Age, p. 68, footnote. In this note the impor- 
 tant German discussions by Hamack, Spitta, and Jtilicher 
 are indicated ; so it is tmnecessary to refer to them here in a 
 separate note. 
 
 428 Alfred Plummer, Master of University College, Durham. 
 See vol. iii, p. 147. 
 
 429 The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, chap. vii. The 
 translation is from the American edition of The Antenicene 
 Fathers. 
 
 430 Dr. Boardman, The Church, pp. 74, 75, and 91. 
 
 429, 430 In Professor C. W. Bennett's Christian Archaeology, as 
 revised by Dr. A. W. Patten, we find the following (p. 454) : 
 "The conclusion to which the evidence leads us is that a 
 large liberty has prevailed from the beginning as to the mode 
 
528 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGE 
 
 of administering the rite of Christian baptism. The root 
 idea is foimd in the cleansing prescribed by the Jewish cere- 
 monial purification, the application of water as a symbol of 
 moral renewal. No stereotyped forms are given in the New 
 Testament. Ftmdamental ideas are given, but the details 
 are left to be adjusted to varying conditions. In this con- 
 clusion the latest Christian scholarship concurs." This 
 statement seems to me to be almost but not quite fair to the 
 situation. A little more emphasis should be placed upon 
 trne immersion as the typical form. 
 
 432 Koivuvia. See the discussion by Professor J. Armitage 
 Robinson in the Hastings Dictionary, vol, i, p. 461. 
 
 XXXn. The Church Militant 
 
 435 Bishop Lightfoot. See dissertation i (181-269) i" com- 
 mentary on The Epistle to the Philippians. 
 
 439 Elisha Mulford's The Nation. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
 1890. A book which every preacher should master. 
 
 441 "French Revolution." See in the American Journal of 
 Theology, October, 1 901, an article by Martin von Nathusius, 
 on "The Duty of the Church in Relation to the Labor Move- 
 ment." 
 
 443 " The church and foreign missions . ' ' For Methodist opinion 
 on the salvation of the heathen I make reference as follows: 
 John Wesley, sermon cvi, on " Faith," London edition, vol. vii. 
 John Fletcher, vol. i, p. 40, " First Check." Richard Watson, 
 Institutes, ii, 445. Dr. Pope, Compendium, iii, 428. Dr. Sum- 
 miers. Systematic Theology, i, 342. Dr. Whedon, Will, chap, 
 xi, 343. Professor Terry, Methodist Review, May-June, 
 1889. Dr. Miley, Systematic Theology, ii, 436. Dr. Ray- 
 mond, Systematic Theology, ii, 316. 
 
 XXXIII. The Church Triumphant 
 
 44 S " The second coming of Christ . ' ' Most valuable articles and 
 books as follows: 
 
 I. Articles 
 By Professor Hamack on "Millennium," in the Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica, vol. xvi, 314. By Professor Fisher on 
 "Millennium," in McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, vol. 
 vi, 264. By Professor W. Adams Brown on "Parousia," in 
 the Hastings Dictionary, vol. iii, 674. By Professor R. H. 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 529 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Charles on " Eschatology " (New Testament), in the Ency- 
 clopaedia Biblica, vol. ii, 1372; see also his Jowett Lectures. 
 
 2. Biblical Theology — - - 
 
 The Last Things, by Professor Beet. Biblical Apocalyp- 
 tics, by Professor Terry; quotation from p. 455. Christian 
 Doctrine of Immortality, by Professor Salmond; quotation 
 from p. 440. Eschatology of Jesus, by Rev. Lewis A. Muir- 
 head. Saint Paul's Conception of the Last Things, by Rev. 
 H. A. A. Kennedy. The Parousia, by J. Stuart Russell. 
 
 3. Typical Discussions 
 
 Premillennial Essays (of the Prophetic Conference), 
 Chicago, 1879. Life After Death, by Bishop Dahle. Second 
 Coming of Christ, by Bishop Merrill. Christ's Second Com- 
 ing, by David Brown, sixth edition. Christ Came Again, by 
 Dr. William S. Urmy. 
 
 450 Dante, "Paradise," canto xxiii. Translation by Cary. 
 
 452 "What a strange moment." By John Norris, the English 
 Platonist. 
 
 XXXIV. Men Outside the New Race 
 
 459 Edward White. The full title of the book is this: Life in 
 Christ, A Study of the Scripture Doctrine of the Nattu-e of 
 Man, the Object of the Divine Incarnation, and the Con- 
 ditions of Human Immortality. 
 
 Another important book on Conditional Immortality is a 
 work by E. Petavel, published in Paris in 1891 (Le Probldme 
 de r Immortality), translation published (Stock) a year 
 later. 
 
 Also see the American Journal of Theology, January, 1900, 
 for a criticism of Professor Salmond's discussion of Condi- 
 tional Immortality. 
 
 461 Maurice. For Salmond's adequate answer to Maurice see 
 Christian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 651. 
 
 462 " Theodicy." See that still very valuable book, Bledsoe's 
 Theodicy, part ii, chap. iv. 
 
 XXXV. The Attributes of God 
 
 477 Samuel Clarke and Richard Watson, Institutes, vol. i, 
 p. 370- 
 
530 NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 PAGK 
 
 478 " The attribute of omniscience." The strongest complete 
 statement of the argument for divine nescience of contingent 
 events has been given by Professor L. D. McCabe, There 
 are two books by him: The Foreknowledge of God (Cincin- 
 nati, 1878); and Divine Nescience (New York, 1882). See 
 a review of Professor McCabe in Methodist Review, January, 
 1883. 
 
 482 "Get rid of time." See Professor Bowne's Deems Lectures 
 on Theism, pp. 186-190, and compare with the discussion of 
 "Time" in his Metaphysics, pp. 164-194. 
 
 XXXVI. The Christian Doctrine op the Trinity 
 
 483 "Bare essentiality." The question here is not, What is 
 essential to Trinitarian consistency? but merely, What is 
 essential to any view properly termed Trinitarian? 
 
 483 " Essential points of belief." Professor Edwards A. Park 
 gives us a definition from this essential standpoint: "The 
 Father is God ; the Son is God ; the Holy Spirit is God ; the 
 three are distinct from each other by a necessity of their very 
 substance ; neither is God without the others ; and there is 
 only one God." — The Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xxxviii, p. 335. 
 
 485 Dr. W. L. Alexander, A System of Biblical Theology, vol. 
 i, p. 109. 
 
 486 * * German philosophy. ' ' See Dr. Shedd's Dogmatic Theology, 
 vol. i, pp. 186, 188, for a discussion of the process of self- 
 consciousness in God. My statement is not quite just, for 
 there are kindred speculations further back than any German 
 philosopher. 
 
 486 Jonathan Edwards. This essay was published in 1880, 
 with an introduction by Professor Egbert C. Smyth (see 
 p. 55). In 1 88 1 (Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xxxviii, articles v ' 
 and ix) Professor Edwards A. Park published his "Remarks 
 of Jonathan Edwards on the Trinity." Then, in 1903, the 
 Scribners published An Unpublished Essay of Edwards on 
 the Trinity, with remarks on Edwards and his theology by 
 Professor George P. Fisher. The claim that all the state- 
 ments in the writings of Edwards on the Trinity cannot be 
 harmonized does not seem to me to be well founded. What 
 he did was to try to put a profounder philosophy tmder the 
 view of Athanasius without impairing that view. 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 531 
 
 PAGE 
 
 488 Beyschlag. See New Testament Theology, Clark transla- 
 tion, vol. i, pp. 249-255. 
 
 492 "A typical statement." The quotation is from Dr. W. B. 
 Pope's Femley Lecture (187 1) on The Person of Christ, p. 5. 
 
 494 Athanasius. See the first chapter of Professor Levi 
 Leonard Paine 's A Critical History of the Evolution of 
 Trinitarianism. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1900. 
 
 498 irepix<^prfatc. Compare with my conception of the process 
 of supplement in the Racial Brotherhood. 
 
 504 Professor Ritschl. See Justification and Reconciliation, 
 Clark translation, p. 453. 
 
 504 W. L. Walker. The passage is to be found on p. 239. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abelard, 317. 
 
 Absolute organism, 497. 
 
 Adoption, 366; assurance of, 368; denned, 
 
 367. 
 Advent, second, 445. 
 Age of Reason, 107. 
 dyiaofibg, 387. 
 Agnostic Christology, 229. 
 A^ostic eschatology, 459. 
 aluviog, 461. 
 Alexander. W. L., 485. 
 Altruism, in creating man, 509. 
 "Analogy of Saint Paul," 410. 
 Andover teachers, 399. 
 Annihilation, 459. 468. 
 Anselm, 317. 
 
 Apocalypse and the millennium, 446. 
 Apostolic baptism, 429. 
 Archaeology and baptism, 439. 
 Argyll, Duke of. 396. 
 Arianism, 225, 483. 
 Arminian consistency, 403. 
 Arnold, Matthew, 48, 123. 
 Arnold, Thomas, 26. 
 
 Arnold, Thomas, Jr., 132. 
 Ascension of our Lord, 35 
 
 329; a racial deed, 
 
 330- 
 
 Aseity, attribute, 476, 498. 
 
 Assurance, Christian, 367; by conscience, 
 368; by inference, 367; of adoption, 368. 
 Also see Witness of the Spirit. 
 
 Athanasian creed, 227. 
 
 Athanasius, 228, 229, 472, 487, 494. 
 
 Atonement, the, 328; and the death of 
 Christ, 328; defined, 329: expresses the 
 holiness of God, 326; is an absolute 
 necessity, 319; means, however, to an 
 end, 326; relation to utility, 327. 
 
 Attributes of God, 474*. aseity, 476; defini- 
 tion of an attribute, 474; definitive attri- 
 butes, 474; descriptive attributes, 474; 
 eternity, 476; immutability, 477; om- 
 nipotence, 476; omnipresence, 477; om- 
 niscience, 478; plan of the divine attri- 
 butes, 475. 
 
 Augustine, 396, 476, 495- 
 
 Authority of our Lord, 249. 
 
 Authority of the Bible, 167; its extent, 172. 
 
 Backsliding and Christian perfection, 381. 
 
 Ball, W. E., 366. 
 
 Baptism, and archaeology, 429; and Chris- 
 tian liberty, 429; apostolic baptism, 429; 
 formula of, 428; infant baptism, 437; 
 mode of, 429; relation to the Trinity, 
 429. 
 
 Baptists, the, 430. 
 
 PatrTi^tJ, 429. 
 
 Birtlet, J. v., 387. 
 
 Beet, J. A., 285. 
 
 Belief, 148, 158. 
 
 Bernard, E. P., 408. 
 
 Beyschlag, Willibald, 488. 
 
 Bible, the, 161 ; account of the creation and 
 fall of man, 191, 195; an organism, 180; 
 authority, 167; inerrancy, 175; inspira- 
 tion, 176; miracles, 161; relation to 
 science, 174. 
 
 Biblical theology and Christian perfec- 
 tion, 385. Also see Systematic theol- 
 ogy. 
 
 Biran, Maine de, 23. 
 
 Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, 344. 
 
 Boardman, G. D., 430. 
 
 Bodily death, 291 ; and death in the natural 
 world, 291; its fitness as penalty, 296; 
 its meaning, 320; its moral significance, 
 29s; its personal significance, 295; its 
 racial significance, 296. 
 
 Body, human. Christian view of, 289. 
 
 Body of the resurrection, 409, 411. 
 
 Body, our Lord's, after his resurrection, 
 329, 411. 
 
 Bowne, B. P., 6, 56, 242, 473. 
 
 Briggs, C. A., 252, 415. 
 
 Bright, William, 224. 
 
 "Broken brotherhood," 203. 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, 22, 130. 
 
 Browning, Robert, 4, 6, 48, 90. 
 
 Bruce, A. B., 286, 292. 
 
 Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 104, 108. 
 
 Bunyan, John, 4, 35 1. 
 
 Bushnell, Horace, 104, 271, 317. 
 
 Butler, Joseph, 130. 
 
 Caird, Edward, 78, 83. 
 
 Caird, John, 58, 69. 
 
 Calvin, John. 323, 43 »• 
 
 Calvinism, modified, 468. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 58, 74- 
 
 "Categorical imperative," 65. 
 
 "Category of identity," 409. 
 
 Catholicity of the Christian church, 430. 
 
 Causation, 97. 
 
 Cause, idea of, 97. 
 
 Certainty. See Christian certamty. 
 
 Certainty and necessity, 479. 
 
 Change in God, 477. 
 
 Character, moral, how fixed, 49; respon- 
 sibility for, 47. 
 
 Charles, R. H., 284, 290. 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 501. 
 
 Christ, abandoned by the Father, 322; and 
 church organism, 423; and heaven, 450; 
 and the moral law, 214; and the new 
 race, 450; a racial sinner, 321; at the 
 right hand of God, 330; "catholic 
 union in him," 410; his aggressive will, 
 502; his ascension, 329; his authority, 
 249; his body of glory, 329, 411; his 
 
534 
 
 INDEX 
 
 death, 321, 424; his death an expres- 
 sion of the holiness of God, 325; his 
 death a racial event, 321; his deity, 211; 
 his infancy, 246; his kingdom, 500; his 
 manhood, 234; his obedience, 487; his 
 
 Kreexistence, 488; his racial deeds, 330; 
 is resurrection, 330; his session, 329; 
 his subordination, 491; his temptation, 
 248; relation to the Father, 215; the 
 dynamic center of the new race, 318; 
 "the Race-Man," 213, 214, 321, 323 
 
 325; two wills, in what sense? 250; was 
 he punished? 321; why men love him, 
 502; work of Christ in the intermediate 
 
 state, 406; worshiped by the early 
 Christians, 224. 
 
 Christian archasology and baptism, 429, 
 
 Christian assurance, 367. See Assurance, 
 Also see Witness of the Spirit. 
 
 Christian atmosphere, 348. 
 
 Christian Book, 159. See Bible. 
 
 Christian certainty, 143; analysis, 151; 
 definition, 158. 
 
 Christian church. See Church. 
 
 Christian consciousness. See Systematic 
 theology. 
 
 Christian experience, 331. 
 
 Christian life, how tested, 388. 
 
 Christian meaning of death, 281. 
 
 Christian method, 137. 
 
 Christian miracle, 166. 
 
 Christian monism, 147. 
 
 Christian perfection, and backsliding, 381, 
 392; and biblical theology, 385; and 
 conduct, 377; and growth, 379, 391; 
 and individual character, 377; and love, 
 378; and motive -life, 390; and sin, 378; 
 and temptation, 378; and time, 378; 
 and wrong motives, 390, 393; may be 
 lost, 381; not sinless, 378; the name, 
 377; the philosophy, 389; the teaching 
 of our Lord, 388; the teaching of Saint 
 John, 38s; the teaching of Saint Paul, 
 386; the teaching of Wesley, 374. 
 
 Christian preacher, the, 434. 
 
 Christian religion, 113; and human race, 
 129; and man's body, 138; and miracle, 
 166; and moral love, 119; and Old Tes- 
 tament, 121 ; and supernatural, 164; 
 "essence of the Christian religion," 
 126; social in nature, 137. 
 
 Christian sacraments, 425. 
 
 Christian scholarship, 175. 
 
 Christian sermon, the, 422. 
 
 Christian unity, 424. 
 
 Christian view, the, of death, 281; of holi- 
 ness, 262; of the cosmos, io6; of the 
 human body, 289; of the intermediate 
 state, 401. 
 
 Church of our Lord, 415; a machine, 418; 
 and city problem, 442; and conversion, 
 348; and foreign missions, 443; and 
 home, 436; and kingdom, 418; and na- 
 tion, 438; and preacher, 435; and social- 
 ism, 441; "catholicity of the church," 
 420; "holiness of the church," 419; 
 "holy catholic church," 419; member- 
 ship, 420; "militant." 434; organism, 
 421; organism and Christ, 423; "tri- 
 umphant," 445 ; unity, 424. 
 
 City problem and the Christian church, 442. 
 
 Clarke, J. P., 27, 506. 
 
 Clarke, Samuel, 477. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 96, 182. 
 
 Communion. See Lord's Supper. 
 
 "Communion of the body of Christ," 431. 
 
 Comte, Auguste, 83. 
 
 Conduct and Christian perfection, 377. 
 
 Cone, Orello, 286. 
 
 Conscience, analysis, 3 1 ; and Christian as- 
 surance, 368; and education, 33; and 
 Holy Spirit, 118; definition, 35. 
 
 Consciousness, See Christian conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 Consistency, in Arminian theology, 403; 
 in systematic theology, 492. 
 
 Contrition, 354, 
 
 Conversion, 353; and church, 348; and 
 moral process, 350; and personal in- 
 fluence, 347; divine side, 361; human 
 side, 353; "preparation for conversion," 
 347. 
 
 Conviction of sm, 351. 
 
 Cosmic goal of moral government, 276, 
 
 Cosmic kingdom of God, 416. 
 
 Cosmic process and the Incarnation, 252. 
 
 Cosmos, and the Christian, 106; and the 
 individual, 105. 
 
 Creation, and Holy Spirit, 500; and Son of 
 God, 500; a social act, 500; "a super- 
 fluity" for God, 508; Bible account, 191; 
 motive for creation, 193, 508; philosophy 
 of creation, 500; purpose of man's crea- 
 tion, 193. 
 
 Cremer, Hermann, 284. 
 
 Crime, 354- 
 
 Crozier, J. B., 96. 
 
 Cyprian, 308. 
 
 Dahle, L. N„ 288. 
 
 Dale, R. W., 271. 
 
 Dante, 84, 450. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 7, 10, 52, 97, 283, 453. 
 
 De Tocqueville, Alexis, 130. 
 
 Death, 205; and probation, 297; and sin, 
 28s; a racial event, 321; Bible concep- 
 tion of death analyzed, 287; bodily 
 death, 291 ; bodily death and death in the 
 natural world, 291; Christian meaning, 
 281; conception of death in the New 
 Testament, 284; conception of death in 
 the Old Testament, 283; idealization of 
 death, 281; non -Christian conceptions, 
 281; philosophy of death, 288; "place 
 of death in evolution," 282; proleptic 
 view, 291, 294; scientific view, 282; 
 "second death," 284; what is death? 
 288. Also see Bodily death. 
 
 Death of Christ, 321, 424; a movement 
 toward the racial goal, 327; and atone- 
 ment, 328; and moral concern, 326; an 
 expression of God's holiness, 325; a pro- 
 pitiation, 328; a racial deed, 330; a 
 reconciliation, 3 28; a satisfaction to God, 
 ■328; "our Lord's strange hesitation in 
 approaching death," 310, 
 
 Decalogue, 278. 
 
 Decree, divine, as to man's destiny, 468. 
 
 Deism, 122, 499, 
 
 Deity of our Lord, 211. 
 
 Delitzsch, Franz, 292, 294, 399, 
 
 Denney, James, 182, 292, 300. 
 
 Depravity, 200; defined, 206. Also see Sin. 
 
 Design argument, 99, 
 
 Destiny, and free will, 464; and divine 
 decree, 468, 
 
 ScKaioaiv^^ 304. 
 
INDEX 
 
 535 
 
 diKaiovVy 362. 
 
 dLKaidu, 361. 
 
 Dillmann, A., 283. 
 
 Dispensation of Holy Spirit, analyzed, 
 
 340; explained, 340. 
 Divine foreknowledge, 479. 
 Divine invitation, 352. 
 Dogs and conscience, 27. 
 Domer, I. A., 400, 401, 484, 486, 495. 
 "Doable life," theory of, 252. 
 d6^a, 239, 277. 
 Draseke, 418. 
 Driver, S. R., 278. - 
 Duncan, John, 336. 
 Duty, 389. 
 
 "Dynamic center of the new race," 318. 
 Dynamic theory of inspiration, 177. 
 
 Ecce Homo, 182. 
 Education and conscience, 33. 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 39, 486. 
 kKKlijaia^ 415. 
 k?i,iTiCo/xivo)v^ 356. 
 Emerson, R. W., 64, 86, 131. 
 Enlightenment, 351. 
 Equality in the Trinity, 494. 
 
 Error, 55. 
 
 ' ' Essential Christianity, 
 
 [26. 
 
 Eternal punishment, 467; and theodicy, 
 
 462. 
 Eternity, attribute, 476. 
 Ethical spirit of the New Testament, 397. 
 Eucharist. See Lord's Supper. 
 Everett, C. C, 100. 
 
 Evolution, theory of, 7-13; and death, 282. 
 Experience, Christian, 331. 
 Extent of Bible authority, 172. 
 
 Fairbaim, A, M., 313. 
 
 Faith, 355 ; and forgiveness, 332; "bare 
 religious faith," 358; Christian, 359; defi- 
 nitions, 3 60 ; " faith in Jesus Christ, ' '359; 
 kinds, 358; moral, 358; moral religious, 
 359; nature of faith, 355; "saving faith," 
 358; secular, 358; theistic, 359. 
 
 Fall of man, Bible account, 191, 195. 
 
 Family, nation, and church, 439. 
 
 Father, God the, 497. 
 
 Fatherhood of God, 259. 
 
 Fear and lost men, 468. 
 
 "Felix culpa," 465. 
 
 Fellowship with Christ, 423, 
 
 Ferrier, J. F., 16. 
 
 Fichte, J. H., 85. 
 
 Filial sense in adoption, 369. 
 
 "Final brotherhood" and lost men, 469. 
 
 Final universe, and cosmic utterance, 466; 
 and divine rights, 466; and God's ideal, 
 46s; and involuntary service, 467; and 
 lost men, 464; and moral love, 466; and 
 service, 463; and service of fear, 468; 
 and service of love, 468; and two kinds 
 of service, 463; "Christian conception 
 of the final universe," 509. 
 
 First Cause, 102. 
 
 Fisher, G. P., 116. 
 
 Foreign missions, 443. 
 
 Foreknowledge of God, 479; and attribute 
 of eternity, 482; and our apprehension, 
 481; and our comprehension, 481; and 
 theodicy, 480; and time, 482; and work 
 
 of the Holy Spirit, 480; fact and method, 
 481; is intuitive, 482; is not coercive, 
 479; objections, 479. 
 
 Forgiveness and faith, 332. 
 
 Formula of Christian baptism, 428. 
 
 Foster, R. S., 458. 
 
 Fourth gospel, the, authorship, 211. 
 
 Frank, F. H. R., 144. 
 
 Free will and destiny, 464. 
 
 Freedom, defined, 45; error as proof, 55; 
 in relation to human destiny, 464; in- 
 tuitive sense of, 51; rporal freedom, 46; 
 personal freedom, 39; proofs, 50. 
 
 Friendships in heaven, 449. 
 
 "Fundament of all being social," 499. 
 
 Future punishment. See Eternal punish- 
 ment. 
 
 Gethsemane, our Lord's hesitation in, 312. 
 
 Giflford, E. H., 285. 
 
 Goal, racial, and death of Christ, 327. 
 
 God, and new race, 510; aseity, 476, 498; 
 definition, 475 ; eternity, 47 6; Fatherhood, 
 259; holiness, 475; how satisfied, 334; 
 "ideal of God," 465; immutability, 477; 
 "kingdom of God," 212, 415; moral life 
 of God analyzed, 272; moral love of God, 
 26s, 475 ; omnipotence, 476; omnipres- 
 ence, 477; omniscience, 478; one indi- 
 vidual only, 497; one nature only, 497; 
 purpose of God in redemption, 317; 
 relation to creation, 508; righteousness, 
 or moral concern, 475; "rights of God," 
 466; satisfaction, 328; source of life, 290; 
 unity, 493; wrath, 266. 
 
 God, the Father, 497; and redemption, 
 501; as cause, 499; his peculiarity, 502. 
 
 Godet, F., 216, 286. 
 
 Goethe, 64. 
 
 "Good Shepherd," 212. 
 
 Gore, Charles, 250. 
 
 Gospel of the Resurrection, 411. 
 
 Grace, 350. 
 
 Grotius, Hugo, 269, 317. 
 
 Growth and Christian perfection, 379, 391. 
 
 Haeckel, Ernst, 9. 
 
 Hall, John, 348. 
 
 Harnack, Adolf, 121, 126, 427. 
 
 "Hearing of Christ," 401. 
 
 Heaven, 447; and Christ, 450; friendships 
 of, 449- . 
 
 Heaven, kingdom of, 417. 
 
 Hell, 467. 
 
 Hesitation of our Lord, 312. 
 
 Heumann, 312. 
 
 Hodge, Charles, 280, 317. 
 
 Holiness, Christian view of, 262. 
 
 Holiness of God, 257, 325; and atonement, 
 326; in New Testament, 262; in Old 
 Testament, 261; the law of holiness 
 analyzed, 273; the philosophy of divine 
 holiness, 263. 
 
 Holiness of the church, 419. 
 
 Holiness, personal. SeeChristian perfection. 
 
 Hollmann, on Saint Mark lo. 45, 311. 
 
 Holy catholic church, 419. 
 
 Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit), 117, 498; 
 always a person, 493; and church life, 
 423; and conscience, 118; and creation, 
 500; and personality, 117; and the Chris- 
 tian religion, 117; his dispensation, 337; 
 his dispensation analyzed, 340; his gentle 
 work, 342; his moral work, 341; his 
 
536 
 
 INDEX 
 
 peculiarity, 502; his personality, 337; 
 his quiet work, 340; his self-effacement, 
 502; his test final, 343 ; his test inevitable, 
 342; "the sin against the Holy Ghost," 
 343; the sinner awakened by him, 351; 
 the sinner convicted by him, 351; the 
 sinner enlightened by him, 351; the sinner 
 invited by him, 352; " witness of the Holy 
 Spirit," 367. 
 
 Home, the, and the church, 436. 
 
 Homer, his underworld, 398. 
 
 Howells, W. D., 29. 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 26. 
 
 Human race, 134; and Christian religion, 
 129. 
 
 Humanitarianism, 483. 
 
 Hvune, David, 97. 
 
 Huxley, T. H., 6, S4. i6i. 
 
 Idealization of death, 281. 
 Identity, law of. 409. 
 'i6lqtt]^, 498, 502. 
 Ignatius, 388. 
 Ihmels, L., 144. 
 
 IlUngworth, J. R., 38. 
 
 Immersion, trine, 429. 
 
 Immortality, and Christian certainty, 454; 
 and Christian hope, 453; and curiosity, 
 451; and modem lethargy, 453; and 
 natural desires, 451; and personality, 
 451; and scientific demonstration, 454; 
 and the individual, 452. 
 
 Immutability of God, 477- 
 
 Incarnation, the, 233; and the cosmic 
 process, 252; and the death of Christ, 
 247; a racial deed, 330; its central idea, 
 233; its cosmic meaning questioned, 235. 
 
 Individual goal of the moral government, 
 276. 
 
 Individual, God is one, 497. 
 
 Individual sin defined, 206. 
 
 Individual, the, and the cosmos, 105; and 
 immortality, 452; definition of an indi- 
 vidual, 490. 
 
 Individuality of God, 497. 
 
 Indorsement theory of inspiration, 177, 
 
 Inerrancy of Scripture, 175. 
 
 Infancy of Christ, 246. 
 
 Infant baptism, 437. 
 
 Infant salvation, 403. 
 
 Inference, a method of assurance, 367. 
 
 Infinite, the, 102. 
 
 Influence, and conversion, 347; philosophy 
 of personal influence, 347. 
 
 Influence of the church, 348. 
 
 Inness, George, 281. 
 
 Inspiration of the Bible, 176; dynamic 
 theory, 177; indorsement theory, 177; 
 other theories, 177. 
 
 Intercession of Christ, 330. 
 
 Intermediate state, 395; and Christ, 406; 
 and companionship with our Lord, 407; 
 and heaven, 398; and Homer, 398; and 
 introspection, 406; and new race, A05; 
 and revelation, 406; and the resurrection, 
 598; and Wesley, 398; and work of ad- 
 justment, 402; construction of the doc- 
 trine, 398; its method, 406; not a second 
 probation, 399; not a useless pause, 
 398. 
 
 Intuitive, knowledge of God, 483. 
 
 Invitation of Holy Spirit, 352. 
 
 Involuntary service, 467. 
 Irenicon on baptism, 430. 
 
 James, William, 78, 86. 
 
 Jevons, F. B., 30. 
 
 Johannine authorship, 211. 
 
 John, Saint, his doctrine of love, 385; his 
 
 teaching on heaven, 448; his teaching 
 
 on the Lamb of God, see the discussion 
 
 of the deity of our Lord, 211. 
 Johnson, Samuel, 84. 
 Judgment, the moral, 68. 
 Jiilicher (Lord's Supper), 427. 
 Justification, 361; definitions, 363; the 
 
 view of Saint Paul, 362. 
 
 Kaftan, Julius, 116. 
 
 Kahnis, C. F. A., 418. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 26, 65, 85, 231. 
 
 Kantian theory of knowledge, 231. 
 
 Kara/l/iay^, 303- 
 
 Kenosis, the, 237. 
 
 Kingdom, the cosmic kingdom of God, 416; 
 
 the kingdom of Christ, 417, 500; the 
 
 kingdom of Christ and the church, 418; 
 
 the kingdom of heaven, 417; the ultimate 
 
 kingdom of God, 417. 
 Knowledge, 145, 158. 
 KOivcovia, 432. 
 
 Ladd, G. T., 38. 
 
 Lamb, Saint John's doctrine of, 220. 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 29. 
 
 Langland, William, 144. 
 
 Latimer, James E., 18, 293, 294; defini- 
 tion of justification, 363; view of Lord's 
 Supper, 431, 476. 
 
 Latin fathers and the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, 472. 
 
 Law of expression, altruistic, 509. 
 
 Law of holiness analyzed, 273. 
 
 Law of identity, 409. 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H., ii6. 
 
 Liberty, Christian, and baptism, 429. 
 
 Liddon, H. P., 251. 
 
 Lidgett, J. S., 259. 
 
 Life, God the source, 290; what is it? 288. 
 
 Life in Christ, by Edward White, 459. 
 
 Lightfoot, J. B,, 238, 360; on the Christian 
 ministry, 414. 
 
 Loisy, Alfred, 211. 
 
 Loneliness, personal, 133. 
 
 Lord's Supper, 431. 
 
 Lost men, 467; and final brotherhood, 469; 
 not complete men, 469. Also see men 
 outside the new race. 
 
 Lotze, Hermann, 16. 
 
 Love, and Christian perfection, 378; as an 
 organizing motive, 73. 
 
 Love of God, 47s; and the Trinity, see 
 Trinity; a satisfied love, 507; as solitary 
 benevolence, 504; true view, 507. 
 
 Lowell, J. R., 149- 
 
 Loyalty, 54. 
 
 Luther, Martin, 284. 
 
 Lycidas, 448. 
 
 Man, Christian conception of, 289; his 
 creation, 191; his fall, 195; his loneliness, 
 133; his social nature, 131; the purpose 
 of his creation, 193; the significance of 
 man in the Scripture account of his 
 creation, 192. 
 
 Manhood of Christ, 234. 
 
INDEX 
 
 537 
 
 Mansel, H. L., 344. 
 
 Martensen, H. L., 26, 183, 235, 252, 266, 
 396. 412, 477- 
 
 390. 412, 477- 
 Maurice, J. F. D., 461. 
 
 McClintock, John, 372. 
 
 McGifiert, A. C, on Lord's Supper, 311. 
 
 M'Cosh, James, 46. 
 
 Membership, church, 420. 
 
 Men, and God's ambition, 464; created for 
 the final universe, 463. 
 
 Men outside the new race (or lost men), 
 457. 467; and fear as a motive, 468; and 
 final brotherhood, 469 ; and final universe 
 464. 
 
 Merrill, S. M.. 445- 
 
 "Method of the intermediate state," 406. 
 
 Meyer, on Romans 5. 12, 286. 
 
 Miley, John, 40, 279, 317, 477. 
 
 Militant, church, 434. 
 
 Mill. J. S., 66, 79. 98, 108, 146. 
 
 Milton, John, 247, 448. 
 
 Miracle, Christian, 166. 
 
 Miracles of the Bible, 161. 
 
 Missions, foreign, 443 ; motives, 444. 
 
 Modalism, 483, 487. 
 
 Mode of baptism, 429. 
 
 "Modem Christological peril," 229. 
 
 Monism, Christian, 147. 
 
 Monogenism, 135. 
 
 Monotheism of early church, 223. 
 
 "Mood of the Bible on death," 286. 
 
 Moral character, how fixed, 49; respon- 
 sibility for, 47. 
 
 Moral concern of God, 264; and the death 
 of Christ, 326; origin of moral concern, 
 272. 
 
 Moral distinction, origin of, 272, 
 
 Moral faith, 358. 
 
 Moral government, the, 269; and moral 
 law, 274; and moral requirement, 278; 
 its goal, 276; its movement, 277. 
 
 Moral ideal, the, 62, 63. 
 
 Moral judgment, the, 68. 
 
 Moral law, the, 269; and Christ, 214; in 
 moral government, 274. 
 
 Moral life of God, analyzed, 272. 
 
 Moral love, and the Christian religion, 119; 
 and the final universe, 466; and the 
 Trinity, 494; in God, 265, 475, 504. 
 
 Moral meaning of bodily death, 295, 
 
 Moral obligation, origin of, 272. 
 
 Moral person, the, 25. 
 
 Moral process, the, 350. 
 
 Moral requirement, 278. 
 
 Moral sovereignty of God, 257. 
 
 Morality, analysis, 63; and grace, 350; 
 and religion, 74; defined, 63; formal 
 morality, S9. 63; personal morality, 59, 
 75 ; sporadic morality, 62, 63, 350. 
 
 fiop<f>Tj^ 238, 497. 
 
 Morris, Charles, 7, 10. 
 
 Motive, and Christian perfection, 390; 
 blockade of, 40; borrowing of, 43; defi- 
 nition, 39; for creation, 508; for mis- 
 sionary work, 444; new conception of, 
 66; of love, 390; of loyalty analyzed, 
 389; self -selection of motive, 42. 
 
 Moule, H. C. G., 472. 
 
 "Movement in moral government," 277. 
 
 Mulford, Elisha, 439. 
 
 Miiller, Julius, 23. 
 
 Miiller, Max, 116. 
 
 Nation, the, and Christian church, 438. 
 
 Nature (the natural world), 79, 204; is not 
 moral, 108. 
 
 Nature of an individual, 242. 
 
 Nature of anything, defined, 496. 
 
 Nature of faith, 355. 
 
 Nature of God, 497. 
 
 Neander, 418. 
 
 Necessity and certainty, 479. 
 
 Necessity of atonement, absolute, 319. 
 
 Nescience and theodicy, 480. 
 
 "New man in Christ," process of building, 
 346. 
 
 Newman, J. H., 163, 190, 362. 
 
 "New race in Christ," and Christ, 450; 
 and the entirety of God's life, 5 10; build- 
 ing of, 331; characteristics of, 334; dy- 
 namic center of, 318; founding of, 329; 
 "new race in full fact," 447. 
 
 New Testament, the, its ethical spirit, 397; 
 view of God's holiness, 262. 
 
 Nicene creed, 210. 
 
 Nitzsch, K. L., 486. 
 
 Notion of death in the New Testament, 
 284, 
 
 Number of the sacraments, 427, 
 
 Obedience, and the Godhead, 500; neces- 
 sity of, 500; of our Lord, 487. 
 
 Old Testament, the, and the Christian 
 religion, 121; its conception of death, 
 283; its idea of God, 257; its view of 
 God's holiness, 261. 
 
 Omnipotence of God, 476. 
 
 Omnipresence of God, 477; practical view, 
 478. , 
 
 Omniscience of God, 478; and contingent 
 events, 478; argument for, 480; is in- 
 tuitive, 478, 482; not acquired, 478. 
 Also see Foreknowledge of God. 
 
 ofioovaiog, 210. 
 
 Ordo Salutis, 345. 
 
 Organism, an absolute organism, 497; a 
 spiritual organism, 497"; definitions, 496; 
 organism of the Bible, 180; organism of 
 the church, 421; organism of the church 
 as related to Christ, 423. 
 
 Orr, James, 236. 
 
 Outlook, the, quotation, 230. 
 
 Pain, 107. 
 
 Paine, L. L., 472. 
 
 Pantheism, 499- 
 
 Paraclete, the, 338. Also see Holy Ghost. 
 
 Pascal, 16, 144. 
 
 Paterson, W. P., 279. 
 
 Paul, Saint, "analogy of Saint Paul," 410; 
 his teaching on Christ's redemptive 
 work, 300, 306, 309; on entire sanctifica- 
 tion, 386; on the kenosis, 237; on the 
 resurrection, 410; view of justification, 
 362. 
 
 "Peace with God," 333. 
 
 Peculiarity, of God the Father, 502; of 
 the Holy Spirit, 502; of the Son of God, 
 S02. 
 
 Penalty, 279; fitness of bodily death as 
 penalty, 296; larger conception of pen- 
 alty, 280. 
 
 Perfection. See Christian perfection. 
 
 TrepixoipjjaiCj 498. 
 
 Person, the, and immortality, 451; defi- 
 nition of, 496. 
 
 Personal holiness, 391. Also see Christian 
 perfection. 
 
538 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Personal influence in conversion, 347. 
 
 Personality, 15; and immortality, 451; and 
 the Holy Spirit, 117. 
 
 Pessimism, no. 
 
 Peter, Saint, 218. 
 
 Phenomenon, 146. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 60.^ 
 
 "Philosophy of creation," 500. 
 
 Piers the Plowman, quotation, 144. 
 
 TTiang^ 359- 
 
 Place of Death in Evolution, 28a. 
 
 "Plan of redemption," 254. 
 
 Plato, 411. 
 
 Plummer, Alfred, 428. 
 
 Positivism, 83. 
 
 Post -millennium, 446. 
 
 Preacher, the Christian, 434; and the 
 church, 43 s; qualifications, 436; signifi- 
 cance, 434. 
 
 Preexistence of our Lord, 488. 
 
 "Preparation for conversion," 347. 
 
 Presumption (not faith), 149. 
 
 Probation, 343; and death, 297; and des- 
 tiny, 464; and moral intention, 401, 402; 
 the philosophical significance of it, 397. 
 
 Proclus of Cyzicus, 252. 
 
 Progress in doctrine, 496. 
 
 "Progressive orthodoxy," 400. 
 
 "Proleptic view of death," 291, 294. 
 
 Prophets of the Old Testament and the 
 idea of holiness, 262. 
 
 Propitiation, 328, 
 
 Protestant view of the Bible, 175. 
 
 "Psychology of personal holiness," 389. 
 
 Punishment. See Eternal punishment. 
 
 Race-Man, the, 213, 214. 
 
 Race, the, and Christianity, 137. 
 
 Racial brotherhood, 140. 
 
 Racial deeds of Christ, 330, 331. 
 
 Racial event, the death of Christ, 321, 330. 
 
 Racial goal of_ moral government, 277; 
 death of Christ a movement toward it, 
 327. 
 
 Racial nexus (human body), 138. 
 
 Racial office of session, 3 29. 
 
 Racial organism, 13s, 137. 
 
 Racial significance of bodily death, 296. 
 
 Racial sin, 202, 207. 
 
 Racial theory of our Lord's redemptive 
 work, 316. 
 
 Rae, John, 130. 
 
 Rationalism, 161, 312, 337, 339, 489, 
 
 Realism, 134. 
 
 Reality, 145, 147. 
 
 Reconciliation, death of Christ, 328. 
 
 Redemption, analysis of its history, 327; 
 entire plan of, 454; God's purpose in, 
 317; need of, 207; realized in the new 
 man, 335; realized in the new race, 413; 
 the original plan of God the Father, 501; 
 Triune God revealed, 471, 510. 
 
 Regenerate life, weakness of, 389, 390. 
 
 Regeneration, 363; defined, 365; psychol- 
 ogy of it, 364. 
 
 "Regions of liberty" (Bible), 175, 
 
 Religion, 79; analyzed, 92, 93; and mo- 
 rality, 74; and the supernatural, 92; 
 "bare religion," 85, 93; Christian reli- 
 gion, 1 13; consummated, 89; defined, 93; 
 of love, 89, 93; of the moral person, 87, 
 93; "the ultimate religion," 93. 
 
 Renan, on Gethsemane, 313. 
 
 Repentance, analyzed, 354; final definition, 
 
 355 ; philosophy of, 354; provisional 
 definition, 353. 
 
 Requirement, moral, in moral govern- 
 ment, 278. 
 
 Responsibility, moral, 46. 
 
 Restoration, 459, 468. 
 
 Resurrection of Christ, 329; and justifica- 
 tion, 329; a racial deed, 330. 
 
 Resurrection of the body, 408; "by seed- 
 process," 410. 
 
 Revelation, 103, 112. 
 
 Right (and wrong) notion of, 28; origin 
 of, 272. 
 
 Righteousness, attribute of, 475. Also see 
 Moral concern. 
 
 "Righteousness of God" in Saint Paul's 
 epistles, 305. 
 
 Rights of God, and the final universe, 466. 
 
 Ritschl, Albrecht, 131, 230, 231, 414, 504. 
 
 Ritschlian Christology, 231. 
 
 Ritschlian theory of knowledge, 231, 
 
 Ritschlianism, 162, 216, 230, 252, 506. 
 
 Robertson, Archibald, 414. 
 
 Roman law and adoption in Saint Paul's 
 epistles, 366. 
 
 Romanes, G. J., 52, 96, 472. 
 
 Rothe, Richard, 233. 
 
 Sabellianism, 483, 487. 
 
 Sacraments, Christian, 425; their meaning, 
 42s, 426; their number, 427. 
 
 Sacramentum, 427. 
 
 Salmond, S. D. P., 446. 
 
 Salvation of infants, 403, 405. 
 
 Salvation of the heathen, 443. 
 
 Sanday, William, 259, 363. 
 
 Sartor Resartus, 58, 87. 
 
 Satisfaction of Ciod, 328. 
 
 Satisfied love of God, 507. 
 
 "Saving faith," 359. 
 
 aXVH-o.^ 238. 
 
 Schmiedel, P. W., 175. 
 
 Schopenhauer, Arthur, no. 
 
 Science and Bible authority, 174. 
 
 Scientific view of death, 282. 
 
 Second advent, or second coming of 
 Christ, 445. 
 
 "Second death," 284. 
 
 Second probation, 343, 459. 
 
 Seeley, J. R., 104, 120, 182. 
 
 Self-assertion of the Son of God, 502. 
 
 Self -consciousness, 22. 
 
 Self -decision, 23, 
 
 Self-effacement of the Holy Spirit, 502. 
 
 Self -estimate, 21. 
 
 Self-grasp, 20. 
 
 Sermon, the, 422. 
 
 Service, a finality in the universe, 500; is 
 fundamental, 463; service of fear, 468; 
 service of love, 468; two kinds of serv- 
 ice, 463. 
 
 Session of our Lord, 3 29 ; a racial deed, 33 1. 
 
 Shedd, W. G. T., 402, 477. 
 
 Sidgwick, Henry, 51. 
 
 Sin, 199; and Christian perfection, 378; 
 and death, 285; and God's ideal, 237; 
 conviction of sin, 351; definition, 206; 
 depravity, 200, 206; generic sin, 199; 
 God's hatred of sin, 203 ; is selfishness, 
 198; is unnatural rebellion, 351; peril of 
 sin, 206; personal sin, 199; personal sin 
 as related to ethics, 199; personal sin 
 defined, 207; racial sin, 202; racial sin 
 defined, 207; Wesley's definition, 199; 
 
INDEX 
 
 539 
 
 Westminster definition, 195. Also see In- 
 dividual sin. 
 
 Sin against the Holy Ghost ("the un- 
 pardonable sin"). 343- 
 
 "Sinless perfection," 378. 
 
 Sinner, awakened, 351; convicted, 351; 
 enlightened, 351; his own bearing, 349; 
 how forgiven, 331; how satisfied, 333; 
 invited, 352. 
 
 Smyth, Newman, 282. 
 
 Social act of creation, 500. 
 
 Social fundament of all being, 499. 
 
 Social life in heaven, 447. 
 
 Social nature of the Christian religion, 
 137. 
 
 Socialism, 441; and the Christian church, 
 442; and the French Revolution, 442. 
 
 Solidarity of mankind, 135. 
 
 Son of God, the, 498; and creation, 500; 
 and obedience, 500; his kingdom, 500; 
 his mediation, 501; his peculiarity, 502; 
 his self-assertion, 502 ; his subordination, 
 502. 
 
 Son of man, 213. 
 
 Sonship by adoption, 366. 
 
 "Soul-sleep," 399. 
 
 Speculation, 187, 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 17, 107, 288, 448. 
 
 Spirit, the, and the Incarnation, 506. 
 
 Spiritual organism, 497. 
 
 Stanley, A. P., 210, 430. 
 
 Stevens, G. B., 213, 262, 305. 
 
 Strauss, D. F., 313. 
 
 Subordination, m the Trinity, 494; of our 
 Lord, 491- 
 
 "Sum total of final universe," 468. 
 
 Supernatural, the, 70, 79; analyzed, 80; 
 and religion, 92; and the Christian re- 
 ligion, 164; origin of man's sense of the 
 supernatural, 82. 
 
 Superstition, 84. 
 
 Supper, last. See Lord's Supper. 
 
 Swedenborgianism, 483. 
 
 "Sweep of the plan of redemption," 
 
 454- 
 Systematic theology, 183; defined, 188; its 
 personal element, 186; its purpose, 183; 
 related to biblical theology, 185; related 
 to Christian consciousness, 185; related 
 to speculation, 187; related to the Bible, 
 18s; value, 184. 
 
 Table of our Lord, the. See Lord's Supper. 
 
 Taboo, institution of, 29, 31. 
 
 Taproot, the, of moral concern, 69, 72. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, 399. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 374- 
 
 Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 429. 
 
 Temptation, and Christian perfection, 377. 
 
 378; of our Lord, 248. 
 Ten Commandments, 278. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 21. 
 Terry, M. S., 445, 446. 
 Tertuilian, 224, 256. 
 Theism, 95, 102. 
 Theodicy, and eternal punishment, 462, 
 
 469; and foreknowledge of God, 480; 
 
 and nescience, 480. 
 Theology, 473- 
 Thiess, on Gethsemane, 312. 
 "Thing in itself," 146. 
 Thoreau, H. D., 58. 
 "Three cosmical spheree," 412. 
 Tiele, G. P., 78. 
 
 Time, and Christian perfection, 378; and 
 foreknowledge of God, 482. 
 
 Tolstoy, ISO. 
 
 "Total depravity," 200. 
 
 "Transformed motive," 389. 
 
 "Tree of life,'' 291, 394. 
 
 Trine immersion, 429. 
 
 Trinity, the, 265, 483; and baptism, 429; 
 and causation, 498; and equality, 494; 
 and German speculation, 486; and Latin 
 fathers, 472; and moral love, 494; and 
 new race, 510; and self-sacrifice, 494; 
 and subordination, 494; consistency re- 
 quired, 491, 492; doctrinal construction, 
 493; essential points of belief, 484; final 
 statement, 497; IdiSrrfg^ 498; fJ-op^fj^ 
 497; irepixupr/aK;, 498; rejected views 
 (agnostic, 485; Arian, 483; humani- 
 tarian, 483; modalistic, or Sabellian, 
 483, 487; Swedenborgian, 483; tritheis- 
 tic, 483); the Father, 497; the Holy 
 Spirit, 498; the Son, 498; three real per- 
 sons in one absolute organism, 497, 498; 
 use of terms in constructing the doctrine, 
 496. 
 
 Tritheism, 483. 
 
 Triumphant church, 445. 
 
 Truth, 14s. 
 
 Turretin, 278. 
 
 "Two Infinites," 271. 
 
 Two wills in Christ, question of, 251. 
 
 Ultimate condition of the wicked. See 
 
 Lost men. 
 Unitarianism, 499, 506.^ 
 Unity, Christian, 424; in the cosmos, loo;" 
 
 of God, 493, 498; of the church, 424. 
 Universe, final, and lost men, 464. 
 Unpardonable sin, the. See Sin against 
 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Vaughan, on Romans 5. 12, 286. 
 Verbal theory of inspiration, 177. 
 Vice, 35?. 
 
 Virgin birth, the, 233. 
 Virgin Marj^, the, 501. 
 Vision, of righteousness, 351; of sin, 351; 
 of the Holy God, 351. 
 
 Walden, 58. 
 
 Walker, W. L., 504. 
 
 Wallace, A. R., 7. 
 
 Ward, James, 38. 
 
 Warren, W. F., 78, 183. 
 
 Watson, Richard, 472, 477. 
 
 Wellhausen, Julius, 161, 
 
 Wesen, das, des Christentums, 126. 
 
 Wesley, John, 363, 373, 391, 398: his defi- 
 nition of sin, 199; his own religious ex- 
 perience, 374; his teaching on Christian 
 perfection analyzed, 377; his view of a 
 sinner's condition, 382; personal con- 
 clusion as to Wesley's real meaning in 
 his teaching on Christian perfection, 
 382. 
 
 Westminster definition of sin, 195. 
 
 Whately, Richard, 399- 
 
 Whedon, D. D., 38, 46, 47, 291, 294. 
 443- 
 
 White, Edward, 459. 
 
 Whitman, Walt, 281. 
 
 Wicked, the, ultimate condition. See Lost 
 men. 
 
540 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Witness of the Spirit, 367, 368. Also see 
 
 Assurance. 
 Wordsworth, William, 58, 104, 105. 
 "Works," 3^3. 
 
 Worship of Christ in the early church, 224. 
 Wrath of God, 366; analyzed, 367. 
 
 Wrong (and right), notion of, iS', origin of, 
 
 372. 
 Wundt, Wilhelm. 53. 
 
 Zeitgeist, z86, 268, 496. 
 Zwingli, 431. 
 
 SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 
 
 Genesis page 
 
 a. X7 378, 28s 
 
 5. 19 28s 
 
 Exodus 
 34. S-7 258 
 
 Leviticus 
 
 19. 18 388 
 
 Deuteronomy 
 
 6. 4 223 
 
 6. 5 388 
 
 Jeremiah 
 31.31-34 312 
 
 Daniel 
 
 7. 13 488 
 
 Matthew 
 
 5. 18-39 313 
 
 5- 46 504. SOS 
 
 9. 6 214 
 
 10. 37 213 
 
 11. 27 215 
 
 12. 31, 32 343 
 
 16. 31 310 
 
 16. 37 21 S 
 
 20. 38 213 
 
 33. 37-39 • 213 
 
 33. 37-40 388 
 
 36. 38 313 
 
 36. 43 312 
 
 36. 64 446 
 
 27. 46 314 
 
 38. 17-30 317 
 
 38. 19 338 
 
 Mark 
 
 3. 5-13 314 
 
 3. 28-30 343 
 
 10. 33 310 
 
 lO. 45 313, 311 
 
 14- 36 487 
 
 16. 14-16 2X7 
 
 Luke 
 2. 49 487 
 
 S. 32 313 
 
 12. 10 343 
 
 19. 10 311 
 
 24. 44-49 217 
 
 John page 
 
 I. 3 soo 
 
 I- 12, 13 363 
 
 *• ^4.-- .333, 237 
 
 1. 14. 18 337 
 
 33 313 
 
 3- S. 364 
 
 3- 10 227 
 
 4- 13. 14 213 
 
 4.34 487 
 
 5. 22 215 
 
 5- 25-27 491 
 
 6. 62 488 
 
 8. 46 214 
 
 8. 58 488 
 
 10 2X3 
 
 10. xo 213 
 
 10. X8 310 
 
 10. 25-33 2X6 
 
 14. 2,3 2x3 
 
 14. 3 445 
 
 14. 6 2X5 
 
 14. 9. xo 2x6 
 
 16 338 
 
 x6. 7 2x6 
 
 16. x6 445 
 
 17. 4. 5 488 
 
 17. 30-24 510 
 
 17. 23 307 
 
 Acts 
 
 X. 6-8 2x7 
 
 2. 23 2x9 
 
 3. 33 219 
 
 3. 33 219 
 
 2. 36 219 
 
 2. 38 219 
 
 3- <5 219 
 
 3. 15 2x9 
 
 3. x8 219 
 
 4. X2 219 
 
 5. 31 219 
 
 13. 2 338 
 
 15. 28 338 
 
 Romans 
 
 3. 25 301 
 
 4. 25 307. 328 
 
 5. 10, IX 302 
 
 5. X2 385, 386, 391 
 
 8. 9 365 
 
 8. 15, x6 338, 367 
 
 8. 23 408 
 
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 
 
 541 
 
 PAGE 
 
 8. 26, 37 338 
 
 8. 29 307 
 
 8.34 330 
 
 13. 8-10 279 
 
 First Corinthians 
 
 6. II 428 
 
 7-14 436 
 
 10. 16, 17 431 
 
 11. 23 428 
 
 12. 4-11 338 
 
 IS. 3. 4 307 
 
 15. 21, 22 28s 
 
 15. 24-28 418 
 
 15-35-38 410 
 
 Second Corinthians 
 
 5. 2. 8 412 
 
 5. 8 407 
 
 5. IS 308 
 
 5-17 364 
 
 5. 21 300 
 
 8. 9 237 
 
 13- 14 338 
 
 Galatians 
 4. s 366 
 
 4. 6, 7 367 
 
 4. 19 364 
 
 5. 6 3S8 
 
 Ephbsians 
 
 2 284 
 
 4. 23. 24 364 
 
 5. 27.... 307. 418 
 
 Philippians 
 
 1. 10 387 
 
 2. S-8 237 
 
 PAGE 
 
 2. S-Ji aia, 489 
 
 3- 20, 21 308 
 
 First Thessalonians 
 
 3. 13 387 
 
 4. 1 387 
 
 4. 14 307. 399 
 
 5- 23. 24 387 
 
 Titus 
 2. 13. 14 306 
 
 Hebrews 
 
 2. 17 337 
 
 "• 1 3S6 
 
 First Peter 
 I- 23 363 
 
 First John 
 
 2. 29 363 
 
 3. 9 363 
 
 4. 7 363 
 
 4-9 227 
 
 4. 16 to s. s 385 
 
 s- 1 363 
 
 Revelation 
 
 I. S 321 
 
 5. 1 331 
 
 5. 6 aao 
 
 5. 9 331 
 
 S. 13 332 
 
 7-9 323 
 
 7. 14 321 
 
 12. 11 221 
 
 14-4 322 
 
 20. 4-10 446 
 
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