( ItlrfLo & THOUGHTS REVELATION & LIFE THOUGHTS ON REVELATION & LIFE SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT, D.D., D.C.L BISHOP OF DURHAM LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE, AND CANON OF WESTMINSTER ARRANGED AND EDITED BY STEPHEN PHILLIPS, M.A. READER AND CHAPLAIN OF CRAY'S INN EonDon MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK I 891 All rights reserved First Edition printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh, Reprinted 1891 PREFACE THIS volume contains, besides selections from the well-known works of Dr. Westcott, passages from his occasional Sermons, Essays, and Addresses hitherto familiar only to a few. To students of Divinity it is thought it will be an advantage to possess in a compendious form characteristic passages from Dr. Westcott's writ- ings on the theological problems of our time. The " Lessons of Literature and Art," with their unique teaching on the mission of poet and painter " to present the truth of things under the aspect of beauty," must have a special value to many. There is much also in these pages that cannot fail to be acceptable to a wide circle of readers, whose interests centre rather in the course of ordinary life. To all, it is believed, this volume will be welcome in proportion as they realise the truth 2066625 PREFACE which Dr. Westcott, throughout his writings, with so much force and beauty teaches that " Christi- anity takes account of the whole nature of man, consecrating to its service the natural exercise of every power and the fulfilment of every situation in which he is placed." For the choice of the passages selected the Editor alone is responsible. CONTENTS PART I 2Tf)e irUcorfcs of Hvefoelatton PAGE THE VISION OF GOD is THE CALL OF THE PROPHET ....... 3 THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES ... 8 THE MEANING OF REVELATION .. . . 13 THE REVELATION OF THE FATHER . . .14 THE REVELATION OF THE RISEN LORD . . 29 THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION . . 40 THE HISTORIC FAITH . . . .61 THE INCARNATION A DEVOUT STUDY . . 81 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS .... 85 CHRISTIANITY AS THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION . 93 THE BIRLE THE CHARTER OF HOPE . . 99 CONTENTS PART II (Efje Christian &0ctetg: its f6ce ant rofotfj PAGE THE Two EMPIRES: THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD . . . . . . 105 CRISES IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH . no THE FAITH ONE AND PROGRESSIVE. . . 118 MISSIONS AND THE UNIVERSITIES . . . 125 INDIAN MISSIONS . . . , . 131 THE COLONIAL CHURCH . . . . .136 THE INCARNATION INDEPENDENT OF THE P'ALL 139 COLLEGIATE LIFE IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH . 141 OUR DEBT TO THE PAST . . . -144 THE BENEDICTINE ORDER' . . . .149 KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE . . 152 "YE ARE WITNESSES" 155 COMBINATION IN DIVERSITY . - . x .. . 157 SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE ORDINAL . . 165 "FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH" . . 175 THE CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF THE MINISTRY . 183 WAITING FOR POWER FROM ON HIGH . . 187 THE SPIRITUAL OFFICE OF THE UNIVERSITIES . 189 CONTENTS PAGE THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE TRAINING OF THE CLERGY . . . . . . -197 THE MISSION OF THE SCHOOLMASTER . .200 THE MINISTRY OF THE LAITY . . . .202 THE TRIALS OF A NEW AGE .... 205 DESTINY FULFILLED THROUGH SUFFERING . . 211 THE KING-PRIEST . . . . . .215 THE UNIVERSAL SOCIETY . . . .217 PART III of 3Ltfc A POET'S VIEW OF LIFE BROWNING . .223 STEPS IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE . . -233 THE INCARNATION AND CREATION . . 244 THE INCARNATION AND NATURE . . .247 THE INCARNATION AND LIFE . . 249 DISCIPLINED LIFE . . . . . .250 LIFE CONSECRATED BY THE ASCENSION . . 258 MANY GIFTS ONE SPIRIT . . .261 THE RESURRECTION AS INFLUENCING THE LIFE 263 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY . . .265 CONTENTS PAGE ASPECTS OF LIFE . . . . . 290 TYPES OF APOSTOLIC SERVICE . . . .322 PART IV of ^Literature antj ^rt THE DRAMATIST AS PROPHET: AESCHYLUS . 331 THE DRAMATIST AS THINKER: EURIPIDES . 336 VENTURES OF FAITH : THE MYTHS OF PLATO . 342 DlONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE . . . -347 A CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER ORIGEN . . 349 A CHRISTIAN PLATONIST WHICHCOTE . -353 THE LESSON OF BIBLICAL REVISION .. . 356 THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO ART . 363 PART I Cfje iRecortis of HUtielation THE RECORDS OF REVELATION Esatafj's Ffsion ts Esaiafj'g (Call 1 HE vision of God is the call of the prophet. No- where is the thought presented to us in the Bible with more moving force than in the record of Isaiah's mission (Isa. vi. i-io). Isaiah, a layman, as you remember, was, it appears, in the Temple court, and he saw in a trance the way into the holiest place laid open. The veils were removed from the sanctuary and shrine, and he beheld more than met the eyes of the High Priest, the one representative of the people, on the day on which he was admitted, year by year, to the dark chamber which shrouded the Divine Presence. He beheld not the glory resting upon the symbolic ark, but the Lord sitting upon the throne high and lifted up ; not the carved figures of angels, but the seraphim standing with outstretched wings, ready for swift service ; not the vapour of earthly incense, but the cloud of smoke which witnessed to the Majesty which it hid. This opening of " the eyes of his heart," was God's gift, God's call to him. Other worshippers about the young prophet saw, as we must suppose, nothing but " the light of common day," the ordinary sights of the habitual service the great sea of brass, and the altar of burnt offering, and THE RECORDS OF REVELATION the stately portal of the holy place, and priests and Levites busy with their familiar work. But for an eternal moment Isaiah's senses were unsealed. He saw that which is, and not that which appears. For him the symbol of God dwelling in light unapproachable, was transformed into a personal presence ; for him the chequered scene of labour and worship was filled with the train of God ; for him the marvels of human skill were instinct with the life of God. Such a vision, such a revelation taken into the soul, was for Isaiah an illumination of the world He could at last see all creation in its true nature through the light of God. So to have looked upon it was to have gained that which the seer, cleansed by the sacred fire, was con- strained to declare. Humbled and purified in his humiliation, he could have but one answer when the voice of the Lord required a messenger, " Here am I, send me." 2Tfje Incarnation a fuller Uiston of @otn W HEN the prophet Isaiah looked upon that august sight, he saw, as St. John tells us, Christ's glory ; he saw in figures and far off that which we have been allowed to contemplate more nearly and with the power of closer apprehension. He saw in transitory shadows that which we have received in a historic Presence. By the Incarnation God has entered, and empowered us to feel that He has entered, into fellowship with humanity and men. As often as that birth rises before our eyes, all heaven is indeed rent open, and all earth is displayed as God made it. For us, then, the vision and call of Isaiah find a fuller form, a more sovereign voice in the Gospel than the Jewish prophet could know. VISION OF GOD THE PROPHET'S CALL 5 ftfje Eealftg of tfje Fwwn 1 HERE is nothing in life more real than such a vision. It is the pure light of heaven so broken by the shadows of earth that we can bear it. Do not then turn from it, or dismiss it as a dream. Meet it with the response of glad devotion. It is easy, alas, to question the authority of the greatest thoughts which God sends us. It is easy to darken them and to lose them. But it is not easy to live on to the end without them. There is, happily, a noble discontent which disturbs all self-centred pleasure. You are stirred with truest joy, and braced to labour best at your little tasks, while you welcome and keep before you the loftiest ideal of the method and the aim of work and being which God has made known to you. That is, indeed, His revelation, the vision of Himself. So He declares what He would have you do, what He will enable you to do. So He calls you to be prophets. THE 2Ef)e Interpretation of tfje Utefon prophet's teaching must be the translation of his experience. He bears witness of that which he has seen. His words are not an echo but a living testimony. The heart alone can speak to the heart. But he who has beheld the least fragment of the divine glory, he who has spelt out in letters of light on the face of the world one syllable of the Triune Name, will feel a confidence and a power which nothing else can bring. 2H)e (Sospel a rofoina; fKeggnrjf, not a Stereotgpeti (Eraottfon LET us thank God that He has called us, in the fulfil- ment of our prophet's office, to unfold a growing message, and not to rehearse a stereotyped tradition. THE RECORDS OF REVELATION The Gospel of Christ incarnate, the Gospel of the Holy Trinity, is new now as it has been new in all the past, as it will be new, new in its power and new in its meaning, while the world lasts. It was new when St. John at Ephesus was enabled to express its fundamental truth in the doctrine of the Word ; new when Athanasius at Nicsea affirmed through it the living unity of the Godhead without derogating from the Lord's Deity ; new when Anselm at Bee sought in it, however partially and inadequately, a solution of the problem of eternal justice; new when Luther at Wittenberg found in it the ground of personal communion with God; new in our own generation, new with an untold message, when we are bidden to acknowledge in it the pledge of that ultimate fellowship of created things which the latest researches in nature and history offer for consecration. Cfje ^Transformation of 5Lffe W E, as we behold the Divine Image under the light of our own day, must labour to bring to our view of " the world " the order for a time separated from God that thought of God which makes it again a fit object of our love as it is the object of the love of God ; to bring to our view of the present that sense of eternity which transfigures our estimate of great and small, of success and failure. The transformation of life requires no more ; it is possible with no less. And to us Christians the charge is given to bear this prophetic message to men. 2H)e Porjjet of Eebmnce a Measure of tfje joiner of Etsintj " T T 11 E that wonders shall reign ; " " He that is near me is near fire," are among the few traditional sayings VISION OF GOD THE PROPHET'S CALL ^ attributed to the Lord, which seem to be stamped as divine. Awe, awe the lowliest and the most self-suppressing, is a sign not of littleness, but of nobility. Our power of reverence is a measure of our power of rising. As we bow in intelligent worship before the face of our King, His Spirit a spirit of fire enters into us. We feel that we are made partakers of the Divine nature because we can acknowledge with a true faith its spiritual glories, and lay ourselves Passive and still before the awful Throne . . . Consumed, yet quickened, by the glance of God. SH)e Utston at once Ibnstnrj anti 1 N the stress of restless occupation we are tempted to leave too much out of sight the inevitable mysteries of life. We deal lightly with the greatest questions. We are peremptory in defining details of dogma beyond the teaching of Scripture. We are familiar beyond apostolic precedent in our approaches to God. We fashion heavenly things after the fashion of earth. If we are cast down by the meannesses, the sorrows, the sins of the world, it is because we dwell on some little part of which we see little ; but let the thought of God in Christ come in, and we can rest in that holy splendour. At the same time let us not dare to confine at our will the action of the light. It is our own irre- parable loss if in our conception of doctrine we gain clearness of definition by following out the human con- ditions of apprehending the divine, and forget that every outline is the expression in terms of a lower order of that which is many-sided. THE RECORDS OF REVELATION 2T|)e prospect of one purpose openetn to us 6g tije III Testament THERE are difficulties in the Old Testament, difficulties which perhaps we cannot explain. We have no desire to extenuate or to hide them. It would be strange if we had : for it is through these, as we believe, that we shall in due time learn to know better God's ways of dealing with us. But we are also bound to remember that the Old Testament offers to us something far higher, deeper, more majestic, more inspiring than materials for literary problems. The Old Testament, on any theory as to the origin of the writings which it contains, shews to us before all other books the philosophy of history in re- presentative facts and in conscious judgments. It opens to us the prospect of one purpose variously reflected in writings spread over a thousand years : of one purpose moving onwards with a continuous growth among the barren despotisms of the East : of one purpose fulfilled in an unbroken national life which closed only when its goal was reached. The records in which this history is contained are strangely contrasted in style, in composi- tion, in scope. They are outwardly disconnected, broken, incomplete : they belong to different ages of society : they are coloured by the natural peculiarities of different temperaments : they appeal to different feelings. But still in spite of this fragmentariness which seems to exclude the possibility of vital coherence : in spite of this variety which seems to be inconsistent with the presence of one informing influence, they show a con- tinuity of progressive life which is found nowhere else, even in a dream. They enable us to see the chosen people raised step by step through failure and rebellion and disaster to a higher level, furnished with larger con- ceptions of truth, filled with nobler ideas of a spiritual THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES g kingdom, fitted at last to offer to the Lord the disciples who should be the first teachers of His Gospel, and to provide a home where, as we read, " Jesus increased in wisdom, and in favour with God and man." The world can show no parallel to this divine growth, no parallel to this divine narrative of a divine growth, in all the stirring annals of time. The great monarchies rose and fell around the little Jewish state. Other nations shone with more conspicuous glory, but the people of God lived on. They were not endowed with splendid gifts, which at once command the admiration of this world. They appealed to no triumphs of victorious enterprise ; they showed no monuments of creative art. They were divided, oppressed, carried captive, " persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed." By the power of their consecration they lived on ; by the power of that " spirit of prophecy " which was in them they con- verted to the service of their faith the treasures of their conquerors; they lived on because they saw the invisible, and they were inspired to interpret, for all who should come after, the law of their life. What then, we ask, are the characteristics of this Spirit of prophecy, of this Spirit of the Old Testament of which we speak ? What are the main ideas by which Israel witnessed for centuries to the future advent of Christ ? Briefly, I think, these : that Spirit witnessed to the unity of the human race as made by God in His own image ; and it witnessed further to the belief that God would of His own love, and in His own wisdom, bring man and men into conformity with Himself. God is the one Creator of men : God is the one King of men. These thoughts breathe through the Old Testament from beginning to end. These thoughts Christ the Son of man fulfilled. By these thoughts "the spirit of prophecy," and " the testimony of Jesus " THE RECORDS OF REVELATION are shewn to be related as promise and accomplish- ment. not dHssenttallg (35xclu0ibe JN O view of Judaism can be more false than that which seems to be most common, that it was essentially ex- clusive. It was exclusive, and necessarily exclusive, so far as it was a beginning, a preparation, a discipline. But it was always pointing to a consummation. It was exclusive in its decay and fall, when general faithlessness had reduced it to the level of a sect. But from the first it was not so. of Scinisfj f^istorg IT is possible to find in the great teachers of other nations premature and fragmentary visions of truth, sometimes more attractive in themselves than the corre- sponding parts of the Old Testament ; but they are visions premature and fragmentary. The Old Testament teaches by facts, by the organic and continuous development of a body. The Lord is not an abstraction, but a King, speaking, chastening, saving. The theatre of man's highest energies is not an imaginary Elysium of souls, but the earth with all its trials and contradictions. The prospect of the invisible future is almost excluded, lest men should forget that the world and all the powers of the world have to be conquered. One eternal counsel is carried forward, interpreted, applied, as those can bear it to whom its practical fulfilment is intrusted. Let any one strive to concentrate his attention upon the life of which the Bible is the record, and not upon the record itself, and I venture to affirm that the thought will rise in his soul, to which Jacob gave utterance when THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES 1 1 he had seen in a vision earth and heaven united : Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. If it is certain that the writings of the Old Testament offer to us many grave difficulties which we are at present unable to overcome, it is no less certain that they offer a revelation of a purpose and a presence of God which bears in itself the stamp of truth. The difficulties lie in points of criticism ; the revelation is given in the facts of a people's life. &f)e QTesttmang foe are to Bear IT would have been hard and we may thank God that we are spared the trial to acknowledge a Galilsean teacher, as He moved among men in His infinite humility, to be the Son of God. It is hard still to find that He is with us, to discern His message in lessons perhaps as strange as those which startled His first hearers ; to recognise His form in those whom fashion despises. Yet is it not the duty to which we are called ? Is not this the office for which we have been furnished with a divine equipment ? The last voice of the Lord has not yet spoken. The last victory of the Lord has not yet been won. We have known the facts of which all divine utterances are the exposition : we have looked upon the end in which all other ends are included. For us the dark and mysterious sayings of lawgiver, and seer, and psalmist have been changed into the simple message of that which has been fulfilled among men : for us the language of struggling hope has been changed into the confession of historic belief : for us, not only as the confirmation of our faith, but as the guide of our Christian effort, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. THE RECORDS OF REVELATION &fje @lorg of tfje 3Lort> in tfje IK anfc j&efo Testaments y // -/ in 1 N the earliest ages God was pleased to satisfy man's instincts by transferring to Himself in a figure the senses and feelings of men. The saints of old time, with childlike minds, rejoiced to think that His "eye" was upon them; that His "ear" was open to their prayers. The thought of His "wrath" or "jealousy" moved them with wholesome fear ; the thought of His " com- passion " and " repentance " raised them from hopeless despair. It was as easy as it was vain for philosophy to point out that in all this they were extending finite ideas to an infinite Being. They could not surrender what was the soul of religion. And when the fulness of time came, all that had been figure before was made reality. Christ in His own Person reconciled the finite and the infinite ; man and God. God in Christ gives back to us all that seemed to have been lost by the necessary widening of thought through the progress of ages. We can without misgiving apply the language of human feeling to Him whom we worship. We can give distinctness to the object of our adora- tion without peril of idolatry. The limitations of our being do not measure the truth, but they are made fit to express it for us. Cfje Erb elation of a $efa 3Lffe 1 HE Resurrection, if we may so speak, shows us the change which would have passed over the earthly life of man if sin had not brought death. THE REVELATION OF THE RISEN LORD 29 Nothing perhaps is more surprising in the whole sum of inspired teaching than the way in which the different appearances of Christ after His Resurrection meet and satisfy the aspirations of man towards a know- ledge of the unseen world. As we fix our thoughts steadily upon them we learn how our life is independent of its present conditions ; how we also can live through death ; how we can retain all the issues of the past without being bound by the limitations under which they were shaped. Christ rose from the grave changed and yet the same ; and in Him we have the pledge and type of our rising. Cfjrist drfjangrti get tfje V^HRIST was changed. He was no longer subject to the laws of the material order to which His earthly life was previously conformed. As has been well said : " What was natural to Him before is now miraculous ; what was before miraculous is now natural." Or, to put the thought in another form, in our earthly life the spirit is manifested through the body ; in the life of the Risen Christ the Body is manifested (may we not say so ?) through the Spirit. He " appears," and no longer is seen coming. He is found present, no one knows from whence ; He passes away, no one knows whither. Thus Christ is seen to be changed, but none the less He is also seen to be essentially the same. Nothing has been left in the grave though all has been transfigured. It is not that Christ's soul lives on, divested of the essence as of the accidents of the earthly garments in which it was for a little arrayed. It is not that His body, torn and wounded, is restored, such as it was, to its former 30 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION vigour and beauty. But in Him soul and body, in the indissoluble union of a perfect manhood, are seen triumphant over the last penalty of sin. In Him first the corruptible puts on incorruption, and the mortal puts on immortality, without ceasing to " be " so far as it has been, that in Him we may learn something more of the possibilities of human life, which, as far as we can observe it with our present powers, is sad and fleeting; that in Him we may lift our eyes to heaven our home, and find it about us even here ; that in Him we may be enabled to gain some sure confidence of fellowship with the departed; that in Him we may have our hope steadfast, unmovable, knowing that our labour cannot be in vain. SEfje 3UijeIatt0n matoe of l&ecessi'tg to Belferjcra 1 HAT which is of the earth can perceive only that which is of the earth. Our senses can only grasp that which is kindred to themselves. We see no more than that for which we have a trained faculty of seeing. The world could not see Christ, and Christ could not there is a Divine impossibility show Himself to the world. To have proved by incontestable evidence that Christ rose again as Lazarus rose again, would have been not to confirm our faith but to destroy it irretrievably. 2Tfje flebelatton through 3Lohe LOVE first sought the lost Lord ; and in answer to love He also first revealed Himself. JSurswn (Cortia JN OT on the first Easter Morning only have those who have truly loved Christ, those who have felt His healing THE REVELATION OF THE RISEN LORD 31 power, those who have offered up all to His service, been tempted to substitute the dead Body for the living Lord : not on the first Easter Morning only have devout and passionate worshippers sought to make that which is of the earth the centre and type of their service : not on the first Easter Morning only have believers been inclined to claim absolute permanence for their own partial ap- prehension of truth : not on the first Easter Morning only, but in this later age I will venture to say more than then. For it is impossible, when we look at the subjects and method of current controversy, not to ask ourselves sadly whether we ourselves are busy in building the tomb of Christ, or really ready to recognise Him if He comes to us in the form of a new life ; whether we are fruitlessly moaning over a loss which is, in fact, the condition of a blessing, or waiting trustfully for the transfigurement of the dead past. It is impossible to open many popular books of devotion, or to read many modern hymns, without feeling that materialism has invaded faith no less than science, and that enervating sentimentalism is corrupting the fresh springs of manly and simple service. It is impossible not to fear, when in the widespread searching of hearts men cling almost desperately to traditional phrases and customs, that we may forget the call of Christ to occupy new regions of thought, and labour in His name. The dangers are pressing, but the appearance to Mary, while it reveals their essential character, brings to us hope in facing them. He made Himself known through sympathy. Such is the law of His working. His earliest words to every suffering child of man will always be, "Why weepest thou ? Whom seekest thou ? " 32 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION The sorrow which partly veils the Presence quickens the search. And if the voice, when it comes to each one of us, awakens in the silence of our souls the true conviction that we do want a living Friend and Saviour, and not a dead Body, some relic which we can decorate with our offerings or some formula which we can repeat with easy pertinacity, then we in our turn shall be strengthened to bear the discipline by which Christ in His glory leads us to a fuller and truer view of Himself and of His kingdom. We shall endure gladly the removal of that which for the time would only minister to error : we shall be privileged to announce to others that He whom we have found through tears and left in patient obedience, is moving onwards to loftier scenes of triumph : we shall learn to understand why the Lord's own message of His Resurrection was not " I have risen," or " I live," but, "I ascend:" we shall listen till all experience and all history, all that is in the earth of good and beautiful and true, grows articulate with one command, the familiar words of our Communion Service, Sursum Corda, " Lift up your hearts ;" and we shall answer in humble devo- tion, in patient faith, in daily struggles within and without, " We lift them up unto the Lord," to the Lord Risen and Ascended. JEfye l&e&elattan tfjraurrlj STfjaug^t 3Tfje jaurneg t0 (Srmmaus an ^Ulegcrjj of 3Ltfe 1 HE journey to Emmaus is, both in its apparent sad- ness and in its final joy, an allegory of many a life. We traverse our appointed path with a sense of a void unfilled, of hopes unsatisfied, of promises withdrawn. The words of encouragement which come to us, often from strange sources, are not sufficient to bring back the assurance which we have lost. Yet happy are we if we THE REVELATION OF THE RISEN LORD 33 open our griefs to Him who indeed knows them better than ourselves, if we keep Him by our side, if we constrain Him to abide with us. Happy if at the end, when the day is far spent and darkness is closing round, we are allowed to see for one moment the fulness of the Divine Presence which has been with us all along, half cloud, half light. But happier, and thrice happy if, when our hearts first burn within us, while life is still fresh and the way is still open, as One speaks to us in silent whisperings of reproof and discipline, speaks to us in the ever -living record of the Bible, we recognise the source of the spiritual fire. This we may do, nay, rather, if our faith be a reality, this we must do, and so feel that there has dawned upon us from the Easter Day a splendour over which no night can fall. &fje Eesutrectum interprets all 3Lffe 1 HE Resurrection of Christ is no isolated fact. It is not only an answer to the craving of the human heart ; it is the key to all history, the interpretation of the growing purpose of life : Christ hath been raised, not as some new, strange, unprepared thing, but Christ hath been raised according to the Scriptures. So God fulfilled the promises which in many parts and in many fashions lie written in the whole record of the Bible. STfje teat CHRIST comes not to sweep away all the growths of the past, but to carry to its proper consummation every undeveloped germ of right. Even so He sends us to take our stand in the midst of things as they are ; to guard with tender thoughtful ness all that has been consecrated to His service, and to open the way for the many powers which work together for His glory. 34 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION In Christ's name we take possession of every fact which is established by thought or inquiry. We fail in duty, we fail in faith, if we allow any human interest or endowment or acquisition to lie without the domain of the Cross. of all Beltcfctrs 1 HE greatest danger of the Church at present seems to be not lest we should forget the peculiar functions of the ministerial office, but lest we should allow this to supersede the general power which it concentrates and represents in the economy of life. Spiritual W E have not lost more than we have gained by the removal of the events of the Gospel history far from our own times. The last beatitude of the Gospel is the special endowment of the later Church. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. The testimony of sense given to the apostles, like the testimony of word given to us, is but the starting-point of faith. The substance of faith is not a fact which we cannot explain away, or a conclusion which we cannot escape, but the personal apprehension of a living, loving Friend. W E must notice how tenderly the Lord deals with the doubter who is ready to believe, and with what wise tolerance the Christian society keeps within its pale him whom a ruthless logic might have declared to be a denier of the Gospel. Doubts are not unbelief, and yet they open the way to unbelief. If they are not resolutely faced, if THE REVELATION OF THE RISEN LORD 35 they are allowed to float about like unsubstantial shadows, if they are alleged as excuses for the neglect of practical duties, if they are cherished as signs of superior intelligence, the history of St. Thomas has no encouragement for those who feel them. The Lord revealed Himself to Thomas not while he kept himself apart in proud isolation, or in lonely despondency, but when he was joined to the company of his fellow-apostles, though he could not share their confidence. Doubts are often dallied with : and still worse, they are often affected. It is strange that the hypocrisy of scepticism should be looked upon as less repulsive than the affectation of be- lief, yet in the present day it has become almost a fashion for men to repeat doubts on the gravest questions without the least sense of personal responsibility. Nothing is more common than to be told by easy talkers that this is impossible and that has been dis- proved, where a very little inquiry will show that these doubters upon trust have never even seriously attempted to examine the conditions of the problems which they presume to decide. For such hope lies in spiritual conversion. Christ has no promises for dishonest doubt any more than for unreal faith. Christianity shrinks from no test, but it transcends all. 2TIjc l&e&elatt'on in tfje OTtork of ILife W E must work. We must pursue our appointed task till a new command comes. It may seem a poor and 36 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION dull thing to go back from scenes of great excitement and lofty expectation to simple duties which belonged to an earlier time. But that is the method of God. Perhaps it will be through these that the higher call will come; perhaps no higher call will ever come to us. But our duty is still the same. We cannot tell the value of any particular service either for the society or for our own training. Much must be done to the end of the workman's life which is a preparation only. The Baptist continued to labour as he had first laboured, though he knew and confessed, / must decrease. He does not leave His people desolate, though they do not always or at once recognise their visitation. Not once or twice only, but as often as the cleansed eye is turned to revolutions of society or to revolutions of thought, to the breaking of a new day over the restless waters of life, the believer knows by an access of power, of knowledge, of love, that His words are true : / come to you. 2Tfje Setrjfce of TOorfctmj. J~L E saith to /um, Tend shepherd (not simply feed) my sheep (not lambs). If there are the young and the weak and the ignorant to be fed, there are also the mature and the vigorous to be guided. The shepherd must rule no less than feed. And to do this wisely and well is a harder work than the first. If we are to do Christ's work we must consider more patiently than we commonly do the requirements of those whom we have to serve. There is not one method, one voice for all. Here there is need of the tenderest simplicity : there of the wisest authority : there of the ripest result of long reflection. THE REVELATION OF THE RISEN LORD 37 Wz Serfcice of 1 HE comings of the Lord are not such events as we look for. Perhaps they are unregarded by those who witness them ; but they are not therefore less real or less momentous. No one who feels the sorrows of the age would wish to disparage the new earnestness which impels men at present even to undisciplined and self-willed efforts for Christ's sake. We say rather : Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets. But there are dangers in this tumult of reawakened life. Patient watching is too often treated at present with suspicion and stigmatised as lukewarmness. Judgments on the deepest mysteries are received without reflection and repeated without inquiry. Humility is interpreted as a confession of weakness, and reserve is condemned as a cloke for doubt. Nothing brings such sad misgivings as this hasty intolerant temper, peculiar to no one party or class, which is characteristic of the age. St. Peter, St. Paul, anto St. Soljn ST. PETER, St. Paul, and St. John occupy in suc- cession the principal place in the first century, each carrying forward in due measure the work to which he ministered. So, it is said, we may see the likeness of St. Peter in the Church of the Middle Ages, and the likeness of St. Paul in the Churches of the Reformation. There remains, then, such is the conclusion, yet one more type of the Christian society to be realised in the world, which shall bear the likeness of St. John. a fflartgrtiom W AITING, as we must recognise and remember, is a sacrifice of self, a real martyrdom no less than working. 38 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION St. John by his long life, as truly as St. James by his early death, drank of the Lord's Cup and shared in the Lord's Baptism according to His own words. To win the soul in patience, to bear the trial of delays, to watch for the dawn through the chill hours which precede it, to keep fresh and unsullied the great hope that Christ will come, without presuming to decide the fashion of His Coming, is a witness to the powers of the unseen world, which the Spirit of God alone can make possible. Cfjrist present all tfje HJags jL,O I am with you, Christ said, all the days all the days unto the end of the world. And this peculiar phrase in which the promise is expressed in the original turns our thoughts to the manifold vicissitudes of fortune in which the Lord is still present with His people. He does not say simply "always," as of a uniform duration, but " all the days," as if He would take account of the changing aspects of storm and sunshine, of light and darkness, which chequer our course. The sense of this abiding Presence of God in Christ both with the Church at large and with individual believers, brings patience, and with patience, peace. There is something deadening in the strife of words. The silence which follows controversy is very commonly the sign of exhaustion and not of rest. It is not by narrowing our vision or our sympathy, by fixing our eyes simply on that which is congenial to our feelings, by excluding from our interest whole regions of Christen- dom, that we can gain the repose of faith. It is a natural but false feeling which leads us to think that at some other time God was nearer to the THE REVELATION OF THE RISEN LORD 39 world than He is now ; that His voice was clearer and more intelligible ; that His government was more direct and uniform. He is, if only we will look, still among us, speaking to those who listen through the manifold discoveries of the age, guiding even our fierce and selfish conflicts so as to minister to His purpose. And we ourselves consciously or unconsciously are serving Him. He uses us if we do not bring ourselves to Him a willing sacrifice. departure in Bkssfncj IN ordinary life nothing is treasured up with more sacred affection, nothing is more powerful to move us with silent and abiding persuasiveness, nothing is more able to unite together the seen and the unseen than the last words, the last look of those who have passed away from us, the last revelation of the life which trembles; as it were, on the verge of its transfigurement. The last words of Christ were a promise and a charge. The last act of Christ was an act of blessing. The last revelation of Christ was the elevation of the temporal into the eternal, beyond sight and yet with the assurance of an unbroken fellowship. That promise, that charge, that blessing, that revela- tion, are for us, the unchanged and unchangeable bequest of the Risen Lord. His hands are stretched out still. His Spirit is still hovering about us. His work is waiting to be accomplished. THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION 2Ef)e Sfosurrectt'on 2Erue or jFalse no JHean 1 HE power of the Resurrection, as the ground of religious hope, lies in the very circumstance that the event which changed the whole character of the disciples was external to them, independent of them, unexpected by them. It is a real link between the seen and the unseen worlds, or it is at best the expression of a human instinct. Christ has escaped from the corruption of death ; or men, as far as the future is concerned, are exactly where they were before He came. Whatever may be the civilising power of Christian morality, it can throw no light upon the grave. If the Resurrection be not true in the same sense in which the Passion is true, then death still remains the great conqueror. We cannot allow our thoughts to be vague and un- certain upon it with impunity. We must place it in the very front of our confession, with all that it includes, or we must be prepared to lay aside the Christian name. If the Resurrection be not true, the basis of Christian THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION 41 morality, no less than the basis of Christian theology, is gone. The issue cannot be stated too broadly. We are not Christians unless we are clear in our confession on this point. To preach the fact of the Resurrection was the first function of the Evangelists ; to embody the doctrine of the Resurrection is the great office of the Church ; to learn the meaning of the Resurrection is the task, not of one age only, but of all. Wyi Falue of an f^ {statical i&ebelatfon A SUBJECTIVE religion brings with it no element of progress, and cannot lift man out of himself. A historical revelation alone can present God as an object of personal love. Pure Theism is unable to form a living religion. Mohammedanism lost all religious power in a few genera- tions. Judaism survived for fifteen centuries every form of assault in virtue of the records of a past deliverance on which it was based, and the hope of a future Deliverer, which it included. In proportion as the Resurrection is lost sight of in the popular Creed, doctrine is divorced from life, and the broad promises of divine hope are lost in an individual struggle after good. Like all historical facts, the Resurrection differs from the facts of science as being incapable of direct and present verification. And it differs from all other facts of history because it is necessarily unique. Yet it is not therefore incapable of that kind of verification which is appropriate to its peculiar nature. Its verification lies in its abiding harmony with all the 42 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION progressive developments of man, and with each discovery which casts light upon his destiny. Completeness, indeed, is but another name for ascer- tained limitation. The grandest and highest faculties of man are exactly those in which he most feels his weak- ness and imperfection. They are at present only half- fulfilled prophecies of powers which, as we believe, shall yet find an ample field for unrestricted development. Special prayer is based upon a fundamental instinct of our nature. And in the fellowship which is established in prayer between man and God, we are brought into personal union with Him in Whom all things have their being. In this lies the possibility of boundless power; for when the connection is once formed, who can lay down the limits of what man can do in virtue of the communion of his spirit with the Infinite Spirit ? That which on one occasion would be felt to be a personal revelation of God might convey an impression wholly different at another. The miracles of one period or state of society might be morally impossible in another. 2TfjeoIo(jrj| anti Science 1 HE requirements of exact science bind the attention of each student to some one small field, and this little fragment almost necessarily becomes for him the measure of the whole, if, indeed, he has ever leisure to lift up his eyes to the whole at all. For physical students as such, and for those who take their impressions of the universe solely from them, THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION 43 miracles can have no real existence. Nor is this all : not miracles only, and this is commonly forgotten, but every manifestation of will is at the same time removed from the world : all life falls under the power of absolute materialism, a conclusion which is at variance with the fundamental idea of religion, and so with one of the original assumptions on which our argument is based. Theology deals with the origin and destiny of things : Science with things as they are according to human observation of them. Theology claims to connect this world with the world to come : Science is of this world only. Theology is confessedly partial, provisional, analogical in its expression of truth : Science, that is human science, can be complete, final, and absolute in its enunciation of the laws of phenomena. Theology accepts without the least reserve the con- clusions of Science as such : it only rejects the claim of Science to contain within itself every spring of knowledge and every domain of thought. This holds true of the lower and more exact forms of Science, which deal with organic bodies ; but as soon as account is taken of the Science of organic bodies of Biology and Sociology then Science itself becomes a prophet of Theology. In this broader and truer view of Science, Theology closes a series, "a hierarchy of Sciences," as it has been well called, in which each successive member gains in dignity what it loses in definiteness, and by taking account of a more complex and far-reaching play of powers, opens out nobler views of being. While we admit that the tendency of a scientific age is adverse to a living belief in miracles, we see that this tendency is due, not to the antagonism of science and THE RECORDS OF REVELATION miracle, but to the neglect and consequent obscuration by science of that region of thought in which the idea of the miraculous finds scope. Arrogant physicism is met by superstitious spirit- ualism ; and there is right on both sides. The Resurrection is either a miracle or it is an illusion. Here there is no alternative : no ambiguity. And it is not an accessory of the apostolic message, but the sum of the message itself. The same principles which would exclude as impos- sible a belief in such a miracle as the Resurrection, would equally exclude as impossible a belief in anything beyond ourselves and the range of present physical observation. Thus the question practically is not simply, Is Christianity true ? but, Is all hope, impulse, knowledge, life, absolutely bounded by sense and the world of sense ? 2Tfj0 dDottttnuitg of 3Ltfe /\LL creation is progressive. It is a law as well in the moral as in the physical world that nothing is lost. All that has been modifies all that is and all that will be. The present includes all the past, and will itself be contained in the future. Each physical change, each individual will, contributes something to the world to come. The earth on which we live, and the civilisation which fashions our conduct, is the result of immeasurable forces acting through vast periods of time. There are crises in the history of nature and in the history of man, periods of intense and violent action, and again periods of comparative repose and equilibrium, but still the continuity of life is unbroken. Even when THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION 45 the old order is violently overthrown, the new order is built in part out of its ruins and not only upon them. Cfje Connection of Cfjrtsttanitg irittfj tfje CHRISTIANITY cannot be regarded alone and isolated from its antecedents. It is part of a whole which reaches back historically from its starting-point on the day of Pentecost for nearly two thousand years. It was new but it was not unprepared. It professed to be itself the fulfilment and not the abolition of that which went before : to reveal outwardly the principle of a Divine Fatherhood by which all the contradictions and disorders of life are made capable of a final resolution ; and to possess within it that universal truth which can transfigure without destroying the various characteristics of men and nations. It is then possible that what we feel to be difficulties in its historic form are removed or lessened if we place it in its due relation to the whole life of mankind ; and, on the other hand, the obvious fitness with which it carries on and completes a long series of former teachings will confirm with singular power its divine claims. There have been attempts in all ages to separate Christianity from Judaism and Hellenism ; but to carry out such an attempt is not to interpret Christianity, but to construct a new religion. Christianity has not only affinities with Judaism and Hellenism, but it includes in itself all the permanent truths to which both wit- ness. It was bound up (so the apostles said) with promises and blessings by which the Jewish people had been moulded through many centuries. It answered to wants of which the Gentiles had become conscious through long periods of noble effort and bitter desolation. 46 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION 2Tf)e Fictones of Cfjristtanttg (CHRISTIANITY conquered the Roman Empire, and remained unshaken by its fall. It sustained the shock of the northern nations, and in turn civilised them. It suffered persecution and it wielded sovereignty. It preserved the treasures of ancient thought and turned them to new uses. It inspired science, while it cherished mysteries with which science could not deal. It assumed the most varied forms and it moulded the most discord- ant characters. Cfttistiamtg centred in tfje IDoctrine of tfje parson of Christ 1 HERE have been conquerors who, in the course of a lifetime, have overrun half the world and left lasting memorials of their progress in cities and kingdoms founded and overthrown. There have been monarchs who have, by their individual genius, consolidated vast empires and inspired them with a new life. There have been teachers who, through a small circle of devoted hearers, have rapidly changed the modes of thought of a whole generation. There have been religious reformers who, by force or eloquence, have modified or reconstructed the belief of nations. There have been devotees whose lives of superhuman endurance have won for them from posterity a share of divine honour. There have been heroes cut off by a sudden and mysterious fate, for whose return their loyal and oppressed countrymen have looked with untiring patience as the glorious and certain sign of dawning freedom. There have been founders of new creeds who have furnished the ideal of supreme good to later generations in the glorified image of their work. But in all the noble line of the mighty THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION 47 and the wise and the good in the great army of kings and prophets and saints and martyrs, there is not one who has ever claimed for himself or received from his followers the title of having in any way wrought out salvation for men by the virtue of his life and death, as being in themselves, and not only by moral effect of their example, a spring of divine blessings. The reality of the Resurrection is an adequate explana- tion of the significance which was attached to the death of Christ. It seems impossible to discover anything else which can be. 2Tfje fKtracIw of tfje first Irje NOTHING indeed can be more unjust than the common mode of discussing the miracles of the first age. Instead of taking them in connection with a crisis in the religious history of the world, disputants refer them to the standard of a period of settled progress such as that in which we live. The epoch at which they are said to have been wrought was confessedly creative in thought, and that in a sense in which no other age ever has been, and there seems a positive fitness in the special manifestation of God in the material as in the spiritual world. The central idea of the time which, dimly appre- hended at Rome and Alexandria, found its complete expression in the teaching of the apostles, was the union of earth and heaven, the transfiguration of our whole earthly nature; and the history of ancient speculation seems to show that nothing less than some outward pledge and sign of its truth could have led to the bold enunciation of this dogma as an article of popular belief. 48 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION Wz Progress of Religion anb tfye progress of Science IT is said that while science is progressive religion is stationary. The modes of advance in the two are certainly not the same, but the advance in science is not more real than the advance in religion. Each proceeds according to its proper law. The advance in religion is not measured by an addition to a former state, which can be regarded in its fulness separately, but by a change : it is represented not by a common difference but by a common ratio. Viewed in this light, we can trace on a great scale the triple division of post-Christian history as marked by the successive victories of the Faith. The fact of the Resurrection is its starting-point, the realisation of the Resurrection is its goal. The fulness of the Truth is once shewn to men, as in old times the awful splendours of the Theocracy, and then they are charged to work out in the slow struggles of life the ideal which they have been permitted to contemplate. Thus it is that we can look without doubt or mis- giving upon the imperfections of the sub-apostolic Church, or the corruptions of the middle ages, or the excesses of the Reformation. Even through these the divine work went forward. The power of the Resurrection was ever carried over a wider field. At first Christianity moved in the family, hallowing every simplest relation of life. This was the work of the primitive Church. Next it extended its sway to the nation and the community, claiming to be heard in the assemblies of princes and in the halls of counsellors. This was the work of the mediaeval Church. Now it has THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION 49 a still wider mission, to assert the common rights and fellowship of men, to rise from the family and the nation to humanity itself. To accomplish this is the charge which is entrusted to the Church of the Present, and no vision of the purity or grandeur of earlier times should blind us to the supreme majesty of the part which is assigned to us in the economy of faith. &fyt Ecf0rntatfon an IT would be easy to point out the weakness of the Reformation in itself as a power of organisation. Its function was to quicken rather than to create, to vivify old forms rather than to establish new. But however we may grieve over its failure where it arrogated the office not of restoration but of reconstruc- tion, it was a distinct advance in Christian life. Where it failed, it failed from the neglect of the infirmities of men, and of the provisions which have been divinely made to meet them. On the other hand, the lessons which it taught are still fruitful throughout Christendom, and destined, as we hope, to bring forth a still more glorious harvest. What that may be as yet we cannot know, but all past history teaches us that the power of the Gospel is able to meet each crisis of human progress, and we can look forward with trust to the fulfilment of its message to our age. 2Ef)e fact of tfye i&esurrectt'an tfje central ^P0mt of IF the fact of the Resurrection be in itself, as it confessedly is, absolutely unique in all human experience, 50 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION the point which it occupies in history is absolutely unique also. To this point all former history converges as to a certain goal : from this point all subsequent history flows as from its life-giving spring. On a large view of the life of humanity the Resur- rection is antecedently likely. So far from being beset by greater difficulties than any other historical fact, it is the one fact towards which the greatest number of lines of evidence converge. In one form or other pre-Christian history is a prophecy of it, and post-Christian history an embodi- ment of it. s' Uiefo of tfje Ecsurrectton I HE Evangelists treat the Resurrection as simply, un- affectedly, inartificially, as everything else which they touch. The miracle to them seems to form a natural part of the Lord's history. They shew no consciousness that it needs greater or fuller authentication than the other events of His life. Their position and office indeed exclude such a thought. They wrote not to create belief, but to inform those already believing. 2Tfje ota of