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 THE 
 
 PROVINCE OF THE INTELLECT 
 IN RELIGION.
 
 Vxinm at tile ^Etitbersitp 9xtas.
 
 THE PROVINCE OF THE INTELLECT 
 IN RELIGION 
 
 FROM OUR LORD'S SERMON ON THE MOUNT, 
 
 AND CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO 
 PREVALENT ERRORS. 
 
 • BOOK I. 
 
 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT 
 
 DEDUCIBLE 
 
 FROM THE BEATITUDES, THE LORD'S PRAYER, 
 AND THE DECALOGUE. 
 
 Being the Christian Advocate's Publication for 1845. 
 
 BY THOMAS WORSLEY, M.A., 
 
 MASTER OF DOWNING COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
 AND RECTOR OF SCAWTON, YORKSHIRE. 
 
 Els oiKOVOfiiav Toi) TrXrfpcofiaTos rav Kaipav, avaKe(j)aXai(0(ra(Tdai ra navTii 
 (V rm XpicTTCi, ra re iv Tails ovpavots Kai ra eni ttjs y^r. Eph. I. 10. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. 
 
 M.DCCC.XLV.
 
 1^' 
 
 KOBERT PHELPS, D.D., 
 
 MASTElt OF SIDNF.V SUSSEX COLLEGE, 
 AND LATE VICE-CHANCELLOR 
 
 WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., 
 
 -MASTEC OF TRINITY COLLEGE, 
 
 RALPH TATHAM, D. D., 
 
 MAbI EH OF ST. JOHn's COLLEGE; 
 
 BY WHOSE APPOINTMENT ' 
 THE AUTHOR HOLDS THE OFFICE OF CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, 
 
 THIS PUBLICATION IS INSCRIBED 
 WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF RESPECT AND FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 O
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 Before concluding the Work of which this pubHcation 
 forms the first part, it is the Author's intention to point 
 out any such suggestions or confirmations of views con- 
 tained in it, as he may be conscious of having received 
 from the writings of others. He is desirous at present 
 of directing attention to an arrangement of the Lord's 
 Prayer, quoted from Dr. Weber by Tholuck, in his valu- 
 able Auslegmig der Bergpredigt (p. 390), as being nearly 
 coincident with that which he has himself been led to 
 adopt. This arrangement, however, though of service to 
 him both in the way of confirmation and suggestion, did 
 not fall under his notice till his own views of the order 
 and method pervading the whole Sermon on the Mount 
 were all but finally matured.
 
 CONTENTS OF liOOK T. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 PA(iK 
 
 Province of the Intellect in Religion defined 1 
 
 Objects of the Enquiry stated 2 
 
 Its leading results presented Synoptically 5 
 
 Its immediate Object limited 8 
 
 Further limited 11 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount sets forth the Relations which ob- 
 tain among the several distinct Elements of Christian Truth 13 
 Importance of clearly and practically discerning these Relations 14 
 
 Specially for our own period of the Church's Life 15 
 
 Illustration from the History of the Church 16 
 
 Athanasius and Arius 18 
 
 Augustine and Pelagius 20 
 
 Application to ourselves 22 
 
 Necessity for discerning Christian Truth as a living whole 28 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE SYNOPTICAL TABLE. 
 
 In what manner this Scheme denotes the revealed Realities of 
 the Being of God, of the Being of Man, and of the Communion 
 
 which in Christ subsists between them 30 
 
 How it denotes the Order in Time of God's Communications to 
 Man, and the Truth that in the Communion between Crod 
 
 and Man all Origination is from God 33 
 
 Patriarchal Dispensation, why chosen for the conmiencement of 
 
 the Synoptical Table 34 
 
 Principle that each preceding Dispensation is contained and 
 
 developed in that which succeeds it 30 
 
 DUpensations 1 . Of the Life of the Individual -» 
 
 2. Of the Life of the Family i 39 
 
 3. Of the Life of the Kingdom f
 
 \ CONTENTS. 
 
 Sketch of the First Dispensation, and reason for its not being 
 
 inchided in this Table 40 
 
 Principle of Symbolie Teaching •. 44 
 
 Cliisses of Symbols 47 
 
 The Divine Teaching by Symbols not arbitrary 49 
 
 Nor fragmentary 51 
 
 Symbolic Teaching through the Patriarchal Family 52 
 
 Its Special Considei-ation deferred. »5uch Personal Symbols 
 being more easily apprehended after their corresponding 
 
 Spiritual Realities have been considered 53 
 
 General Import of this Personal Symbol ib. 
 
 Explanation of the next Column of the Synoptical Table, on 
 
 which the Beatitudes are inscribed 54 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE RRATITUDES. 
 
 Preliminary 60 
 
 1st Beatitude of the Poor in Spirit 67 
 
 2nd of the Mourners 75 
 
 3rd of the Meek 83 
 
 4th of the Hungering and Thirsting after Righteousness 84 
 
 5th of the Merciful ib. 
 
 6th of the Pure in Heart 85 
 
 7th of the Peacemakers 86 
 
 8th of the Sufferers for Righteousness' sake 87 
 
 9th of the Sufferer's for Christ's sake ib. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 
 
 Prcliminaiy 88 
 
 (Jur Father, which art in Heaven 90 
 
 1. Hallowed be thy Name 95 
 
 2. Thy Kingdom come 96 
 
 3. Thy Will be done, as in heaven so in earth 102 
 
 4. Give us this day our daily bread 105 
 
 5. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that tres- 
 
 pass against us 108
 
 rONTENTS. XI 
 
 6. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil J 10 
 
 7. For Thine is the Kingdom 115 
 
 8. And the Power 117 
 
 9. And the Glory, for ever and ever. Amen 118 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DECALOGUE. Part 1. 
 
 Preliminaiy 119 
 
 Law, as a Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ 126 
 
 The Decalogue in the Christian fulness of its import is the 
 ordained Guardian of the Holy Name of God, which in Christ 
 is revealed to us, into which we are in Christ baptized ... 127 
 The First Table, the Guardian of Gods Name as revealed to 
 
 Man ib. 
 
 Why the First Table does not appear in the Sermon on the Mount 130 
 
 The Office of Law limited, yet necessary 131 
 
 Division of the Decalogue into Two Tables, of Five Laws each 133 
 
 I. Commandment ib. 
 
 II 135 
 
 III 137 
 
 IV 138 
 
 V 141 
 
 Transition to the Second Table 145 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE DECALOGUE. Part IL 
 
 The Second Table, the Guardian of the Holy Name as put upon 
 Man 148 
 
 Necessity for this Guardianship of (rod's Name, and in it of 
 
 Man's whole Life 149 
 
 Second Table as given by Mosea. 
 
 VI. Commandment or I. of Second Table 151 
 
 VII II 153 
 
 VIII Ill 159 
 
 IX IV 163 
 
 X. V 10(5 
 
 Object of the Decalogue as given by .Moses 168
 
 \M (ONTKNTS. 
 
 I'AO K 
 
 Secoufl Table ax given b}i oar Lord. 
 
 Outline of this Table in its Christian Fonn and Import 170 
 
 Ilelations of the Decalogue as given by Moses to the same as 
 
 modified and unfolded by our Lord 171 
 
 Specially with regard to the Vlth, Vllth, Vlllth, and IXth 
 
 Commandments 1 • ^ 
 
 Illustration from the Psychological Views common to Plato 
 
 and Aristotle 176 
 
 ( 'hristian Modifications of the Vlllth and IXth Commandments 176 
 
 Their full and final outward form 177 
 
 Their fuU and final inward import 181 
 
 Highest end and aim of these more Spiritual Laws 187 
 
 Covenant, an Unfolder of Truthfulness 184 
 
 Object of the Decalogue as perfected by our Lord 187 
 
 CHAPTER VU. 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 The Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, and the Decalogue, have now 
 been considered 190 
 
 The Blessed Tempers are the Elements of Personality which 
 
 constitute holy Being in its growth in Man ._ 190 
 
 VVhat i)art of the religious Province of the Intellect has been set 
 forth in their exposition 192 
 
 The Lords Prayer expresses the worthiest Acts which Charac- 
 terize Holy Being in its Growth in Man ib. 
 
 Its successive Clauses are the ordained God ward Voices of the 
 
 successive Blessed Tempers 193 
 
 Religious Office of the Intellect set forth in the Exposition of 
 the Prayer U). 
 
 Relations of the First and Second Tables of the Decalogue to 
 
 the corresponding portions of the Prayer 194 
 
 The several Religious Offices of the Intellect, as contributing 
 
 to form in Man the Elements of holy Being 197 
 
 How a Discernment of the Names which designate, and so of 
 the Elements of Personality which constitute holy Being in 
 its growth in Man, contribute to this end 198 
 
 How a Discernment of the Laws which determine and guard, and of 
 the Acts wliich characterize holy Being, contribute to this end 203 
 
 Christian Basis of Morality 204
 
 u
 
 Ml 
 
 
 mmtm^
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 18, line 10 from bottom, for zeal read real 
 
 25, line 14 from bottom, Augustine Athanasius 
 
 144, line 12 from top, those these 
 
 190, line 9 from bottom, tjOos ^6os 
 
 %h. last line, taken taking
 
 THE PROYINCE OF THE INTELLECT 
 IN RELIGION. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT DEDUCIBLR 
 
 FROM THE BEATITUDES, THE LORD S PRAYER, 
 
 AND THE DECALOGUE. 
 
 Chapter L 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 The Province of the Intellect in Religion might be briefly 
 and truly affirmed to consist in the discernment of holi- 
 ness, or of holy Being. More fully, and in more explicit 
 accordance with our Lord's teaching, we might define it 
 to be the discernment and exposition of the Truths which 
 concern holy Being ; of the Way or means by which those 
 truths are realized in man ; and of the Life in man which 
 results from their being so realized. 
 
 Since, however, a sustained examination of the Sermon 
 on the Mount has presented that portion of our Lord''s 
 teaching as possessing a comprehensiveness, a perfection of 
 form and import, and a living unity in itself, which give it 
 a peculiar value as the basis of our present enquiry ; and 
 since the same examination has led me to such a general 
 and formal Definition of the Province of the Intellect 
 in Religion as I believe to be at once in harmony with 
 
 1
 
 2 KKLIOIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 these great words of our Lord, and to have an inde- 
 pendent value of its own ; I will in the outset generally 
 define that Province to be — The discernment and expo- 
 sition, in themselves and in their mutual relations, of 
 the Names which designate — of the Persons, or Elements 
 of Personality, which constitute — of the Blessednesses 
 which belong to — of the Laws which determine and guard 
 — and, lastly, of the Acts which characterize holy 
 Being; as well in its birth and growth, as in its abso- 
 lute perfection. 
 
 This, let it however be observed, is presented as a 
 provisional rather than as a complete or final definition ; 
 as really deducible, indeed, from our Lord"'s teaching 
 on the Mount, and also as being in itself an adequate 
 formal and general definition ; but still as ever open to 
 such correction as the progress of this enquiry may 
 suggest. 
 
 Assuming then that this, if not a complete, is for our 
 immediate purpose an adequate definition of the religious 
 province of the intellect ; our first object will be to shew 
 its essential consistence with that special portion of Christ's 
 teaching which was delivered on the Mount ; our second, 
 to consider the results we may thus be enabled to arrive 
 at, in their bearings upon prevalent errors. 
 
 These two distinct portions of the entire subject will 
 be treated separately in the main ; under the conviction 
 that the Sermon on the Mount is, in a very important 
 sense, a complete presentment of revealed truth in all 
 its essential elements, and is also an instrument, or opya- 
 vov, directly available for the detection and overthrow
 
 CH. I.] 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 of the falsehoods which oppose, or which counterfeit that 
 truth. \ 
 
 This general division, however, will not be regarded 
 as precluding all notice of such forms of prevalent error 
 as the orderly examination of the Sermon on the Mount 
 may from time to time suggest ; nor even as preventing 
 such occasional notices from becoming somewhat fuller, 
 in proportion to the progress which shall have been already 
 made in unfolding this portion of Divine Truth, or to 
 the degree in which any element of that Truth may, for 
 its own illustration, require to be confronted with some 
 antagonist error. 
 
 Doubtless that special end and aim of our enquiry 
 which has seemed to have most of positive interest, is the 
 presenting this body of Divine Truth as constituting in its 
 integrity, a complete and living whole : and as in that 
 character possessing, more especially for our own times, 
 a value of a very liigh and peculiar kind. The accomplish- 
 ing such an exposition, even in its essential principles and 
 leading lines, of this portion of sacred Scripture, consider- 
 able as it is in length, and still more so in fulness and 
 variety of meaning, must necessarily occupy more than one 
 of the treatises demanded of the Christian Advocate by the 
 conditions of his office. Possibly those conditions might 
 have seemed inconsistent with such a division of the sub- 
 ject, were it not that one of the most effectual methods for 
 supplanting any error which has usurped the place of a 
 definite Christian verity, is the establishing that verity 
 in its genuine form and in its living connexion with the 
 great body of the truth as it is in Jesus : and were it not, 
 
 1--2
 
 4 RliMGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 further, that this method tends, least of all others, to the 
 excitement of feelings inconsistent with_ the sober investi- 
 gation and willing reception of such truths as stand 
 opposed to favourite notions or rooted prejudices. 
 
 It has on this account been thought expedient to fix 
 attention, in the first place, on our Lord's more special 
 teaching: with but slight, it may be, and occasional reference 
 to forms of error, which, however prevalent or pernicious, 
 will be more advantageously met after, than during^ the 
 continuous exposition of that teaching itself. A conviction 
 that error is by such methods most effectually dealt with, 
 may indeed well lead us to the Sermon on the Mount ; 
 for that this portion of His more special teaching, this 
 fair and closely-knit body of the truth as it is in Him, 
 manifests itself to us as ever more and more com- 
 pletely and admirably fitted for such a purpose, in pro- 
 portion as our discernment of it is fuller, — as the dehght 
 with which we dwell on its spiritual beauty is deeper and 
 more chastened. 
 
 In the course of an investigation of these words of 
 our Lord, continued now for many years, and sustained 
 as well by a growing sense of their high perfection, as by 
 a growing hope of results which might prove in the end 
 unimportant neither to the cause of divine truth, nor of 
 human blessedness, a certain definite order and method have 
 appeared gradually to emerge and present themselves ; — 
 an order and method which, when they dawned upon this 
 prolonged contemplation of the subject, seemed to shed 
 a light dubious indeed at first, then clearer and brighter.
 
 <-H. I.j DEFINITIONS. 5 
 
 on insulated portions of it* whilst the remainder con- 
 tinued to lie in darkness. Gradually however these gleams 
 grew stronger and broader, appeared at different points, 
 became confluent ; till at length the whole seemed to pre- 
 sent itself, in the fair light of an intelligible order, of an 
 applicable method, of real and attainable results. 
 
 These results, this order and method, it has seemed 
 advisable to present in the form of a synoptical Scheme 
 or Table ; though at some risk of undergoing, for a 
 time, the grave charge of having advanced a theological 
 novelty. 
 
 The real groundlessness of such a charge cannot be 
 fully perceived till the exposition of this synopsis of results 
 is completed. 
 
 Since however imputations of this kind, hastily made, 
 serve little to advance the cause of truth, it is perhaps 
 allowable to mention here my own personal conviction, that 
 nothing can be presented as fundamentally new concerning 
 religion, which is not also fundamentally false, whatever 
 doctrines of development inconsistent with this may have 
 been recently broached ; — and to mention further a cir- 
 cumstance, otherwise merely personal and unimportant, 
 regarding the previous investigation implied in this synop- 
 tical Scheme. Most of the results therein represented 
 were arrived at several years ago ; but at that time a cer- 
 tain portion of the subject seemed, as has been intimated, 
 to continue still unreduced and unexplained. The results of 
 this partial insight, though, as far as they went, perfectly 
 coincident, or demonstrably consistent with catholic truth 
 historically derived, did not present, in all its more im-
 
 6 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 portant principles, the whole body of that truth ; and, 
 in particular, whilst the reality, the order and method 
 of Sanctification seemed to stand out with its proper 
 force and clearness ; the reality, the order and method 
 of Justification remained in this comparative obscurity. 
 Under these circumstances, and with the most entire 
 personal conviction, on historical and scriptural grounds 
 unconnected with this particular investigation, that each 
 of these great realities, with its proper order and me- 
 thod, constitutes an essential, integrant element of the 
 whole living body of catholic truth, (to whatever extent 
 their real distinctness may, at any period of the Churcli''s 
 life, have been less clearly discerned or again confounded, 
 by individual minds,) this apparent absence of one such 
 element from these investigations was sufficient to in- 
 duce their entire suppression ; until at all events the 
 truth thus wanting to their integrity, should have mani- 
 fested itself as a further legitimate result of renewed 
 examination. Again, with regard to the form and order 
 of the synoptical table, which will perhaps, at first sight, 
 appear to have been unnecessarily or fancifully assumed ; 
 it may more truly be said that this Scheme grew out of 
 investigations independently made, as the simplest and 
 clearest mode of recording and presenting their results, 
 — than that it was arbitrarily imposed upon them. Indeed, 
 it will be found, on fuller examination, that this table con- 
 tains no really important deviation from our Lord's order 
 as recorded by St. Matthew; and that the object of any 
 apparent change is no other than the bringing out that 
 order, and the method which it implies, into a clearer
 
 OH. 1.] DEFINITIONS. 7 
 
 light. If, however, the really grave charge of affecting to 
 pi-esent anything fundamentally new in Christianity be 
 obviated ; if the reader will for a time take it upon trust, 
 that this examination of the Sermon on the Mount was 
 begun and continued in the firm belief that Divine Truth 
 is, in all its manifestations, essentially, and in the main 
 intelligibly, consistent with itself ; and in the growing hope 
 of finding in this portion of our Lord's teaching, among all 
 the other priceless treasures it contains, a valuable inde- 
 pendent witness to the great fundamental doctrines of 
 Christianity — to that whole living body of catholic truth 
 which we have received from our fathers in the faith, and 
 which is an inalienable possession for us and for our 
 childi-en for ever ; and if he vnh further believe that the 
 results of this enquiry would never have seen the light, 
 had they proved to be in any degree really inconsistent 
 with those inviolable verities ; — if, lastly, he should be con- 
 vinced in the sequel that some progress has actually been 
 made towards supplying such an independent testimony to 
 this living and quickening body of truth, and so towards 
 the weakening and discrediting its opponents ; it wUl then 
 be less difficult to bear with equanimity objections ad- 
 dressed rather to the form in which these results present 
 themselves, than to their real import and bearing. 
 
 The positive grounds on which it has been thought 
 expedient to give this synopsis in the outset, will appear 
 more fully in proportion as its meaning is explained : 
 though it may here be said generally, that an endea- 
 vour to present the Sermon on the Mount as a whole, 
 — complete in itself, and wherein each of its numerous
 
 8 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLhXT. FbOOK I. 
 
 distinct elements of Divine Truth exists in living con- 
 nexion with all the others, — seems to demand some such 
 aid to the memory and to the power of mental com- 
 bination, if only in order that this asserted unity and 
 vitality may be more readily tested, apprehended, and 
 referred to. Before this idea of a living unity has been 
 effectually realized, (and to aid in so realizing it is the object 
 of the Scheme, and of its fxeyeOo^ evavuoTrrov), the mental 
 effort required for retaining and combining so large a 
 number of distinct truths, and relations of truths, must 
 be far greater without such an assistance than with it ; 
 however real and discernible may be the links which 
 bind them together. Independently of these, and certain 
 other of its bearings to be afterwards noticed, I am 
 not without hope that this synopsis when fully explained 
 may to some students appear suggestive of a theological 
 scheme and syllabus, based on a real and living method, 
 as opposed to an arbitrary system — as well as of further 
 truths, and relations of truths, beyond those which it 
 directly presents. 
 
 With regard to the general title of this treatise, a 
 few words may now suffice so to limit its meaning as to 
 fix attention on those portions of the large field it pre- 
 sents, which are the more immediate objects of enquiry. 
 It will be seen at once from the terms of the provisional 
 definition already given, that it has not been thought 
 necessary or expedient to enter into any preliminary 
 discussions, metaphysical or psychological, concerning the 
 Intellect, as a distinct province of our inward Being, — as
 
 CH. I.J DEFINITIONS. 9 
 
 a constituent element of our humanity; still less into those 
 manifold strivings after an exact discernment of the sub- 
 ordinate distinctions which obtain in that province, as 
 e.g. between the Pure and the Practical Reason, between 
 the Reason and the Understanding, &c., and which, with 
 whatever positive results, have so largely occupied many 
 of the thinkers of our own and the preceding age. 
 
 It would, indeed, be inconsistent with the plan and 
 title of this enquiry into the religious province of the 
 Intellect, to present any definite metaphysical or psycho- 
 logical theory as its necessary ground. It is proposed, in 
 the first place, and in the main, to consider the Intellect 
 objectively rather than subjectively ; — as to what it does in 
 the outward field of its activity, rather than as to what 
 it is in itself; — as applied to specific objects, distinct from 
 its own essence, and as exerting its powers upon these, 
 rather than as being itself constituted of specific elements, 
 or even endowed with specific capacities, powers, and 
 energies; e.g. of Memory, Imagination, Judgement, &c., 
 — rather, lastly, than as constituting in its complete- 
 ness one of those integrant elements of the human mind, 
 whereof the other two are the Affections, say, and the 
 Will — if that sufficiently accredited psychological analysis 
 be for a moment assumed. Whatever light the enquiry 
 may as it proceeds be found to throw upon such points as 
 these, their illustration is not its primary aim. For the 
 present therefore, at all events, the Intellect will be re- 
 garded simply in accordance with the terms of our pro- 
 visional definition, namely, as that power, single be it in 
 itself, or complex — absolutely distinct be it, or in what-
 
 JO RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [iJOOK I. 
 
 ever manner combined or capable of combination with the 
 other constituent elements of our human nature ; — as 
 that power within us whereof the religious office is the 
 discernment and exposition of The Holy — of those 
 realities and conditions of holy Being which in that 
 definition have already been enumerated. 
 
 That this power of discerning The Holy, does, as it 
 becomes more and more genuine — more and more of a 
 spiritual and freely-resulting energy — necessarily act in 
 combination with other essentially distinct and important 
 elements of our humanity, is a proposition so far from 
 being opposed to the results of this enquiry, that one 
 of the main ulterior objects in view, is to present it as 
 a truth really deducible from our Lord's special teaching. 
 
 Assuredly, in the light of no teaching can it be more 
 clearly discerned that the mere Intellect, regarded as 
 a separate element of our complex nature, is not, and 
 cannot by itself constitute, the organ by which we may 
 solidly and fruitfully apprehend the realities of holy Being, 
 or the higher orders of those verities which concern it. 
 That appointed organ, as in the light of Christ we hope 
 to perceive and to make manifest, is more and other 
 than this. For such a genuine, such a solid discerning 
 and apprehending of The Holy, in its worthiest and most 
 real manifestations, purified affections also and a renewed 
 will — a will renewed from day to day — are of the last 
 necessity. To this highest end of his Being, the whole man 
 in all his genuine capacities, powers, and energies, must 
 conspire. Yea more, far more, even than this does it 
 demand of us. For what individual, what single and
 
 CH. I.] DEFINITIONS. 11 
 
 unaided mind, by whatever noblest means, in whatever 
 highest degree, harmonized and at one with itself through- 
 out all its before chaotic and jarring elements, can be 
 of power, worthily, or at all adequately, to discern that 
 perfection of Holy Being which in its fulness resides in 
 the Godhead alone ? If we would arrive at any truly 
 worthy discernment and practical apprehension of that 
 one great life-giving object of our entire humanity and of 
 all its living powers and energies ; a personality larger far 
 than that of the individual, — a personality ultimately com- 
 mensurate with the entire humanity — must be constituted. 
 Of that largest and worthiest human personality, indi- 
 vidual Cliristian men, Christian families. Christian nations 
 — in so far as they are Christian, in so far as they are 
 renewed, that is, in the spirit of their minds — are the 
 ordained, are the living personal elements : nor will that 
 one Holy Being be ever indeed worthily, practically, fully 
 discerned and apprehended on earth, until the kingdoms 
 of the world have in this sense become the kingdoms 
 of our God and of His Christ. 
 
 And so much may perhaps suffice to explain and 
 limit the immediate meaning of these first words of the 
 general title ; namely, " The Province of the Intellect 
 in Religion ;" and to reserve the right of further un- 
 folding their import, should this hereafter be found 
 necessary. With regard to the words which follow, 
 namely, " deduced from our Lord's Sermon on the Mount," 
 it may be requisite to observe, that the examination of 
 this special portion of our Lord's teaching having con- 
 tinued during several years, and run to considerable
 
 12 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [boOK I. 
 
 length, in its details and in collateral investigations ; our 
 intention is not to present the actual substance of that 
 examination as it has been already made and recorded ; 
 but rather such of its leading results as may seem to 
 constitute an intelligible and consistent whole — to possess 
 some positive value in themselves, and some important 
 bearing on prevalent errors. 
 
 From the general and comprehensive form in which 
 these results present themselves, it will perhaps be seen 
 that this examination of the Sermon on the Mount 
 was undertaken and persevered in with the purpose of 
 arriving at a clear perception of the positive truths which 
 it contains, and of their mutual relations ; rather than 
 of finding in it an armoury of weapons wherewith to 
 attack even abstract forms of error ; still less any special 
 views of doctrine or practice by whatever body of pro- 
 fessing Christians actually maintained. 
 
 Doubtless this appeared the most hopeful course for 
 arriving ultimately at a genuine discernment, not only 
 of such abstract forms of untruth, but of those portions 
 of error which may be mixed up with any specific body 
 of doctrines actually maintained; and, what is not less 
 conducive to the ends of charity and persuasion, at a 
 discernment also of the positive truths which any such 
 views may involve, and to which they must owe whatever 
 real power they possess over the hearts of those who 
 hold them. 
 
 Hence, although the present state of religious opi- 
 nions and doctrines, as well as of notions and systems 
 more or less clearly or confessedly irreligious, at home
 
 CH. I.] DEFINITIONS. 13 
 
 and abroad, made it impossible either to overlook, or to 
 contemplate without deep concern, many of the more 
 alarming forms of prevalent error, yet the hope of con- 
 tributing to the correction of these, lay, not in any 
 immediate and direct attack to be made on their abettors, 
 but in the more positive method of so presenting the 
 living body of Christian truth as that it should be seen, 
 even by themselves, to comprehend everything really 
 sound and valuable in the mingled mass of their own opi- 
 nions on religion — to exclude from that mass nothing 
 but the false and the hurtful. 
 
 It is a power of thus presenting to us, explicitly or 
 implicitly, the great body of catholic truth ; not only in 
 all its really distinct elements, but in their genuine re- 
 lations to each other and in their general co-ordination, 
 which has seemed, during this investigation, to stand forth 
 ever more and more distinctly, as constituting the special 
 value of the Sermon on the Mount for our own period 
 of the Church's life : inasmuch as the graver errors which 
 now harass the Church, as well within as beyond its 
 pale, will be found to turn mainly on a failure in dis- 
 tinctly apprehending the relations which bind into a living 
 whole, each constituent element of its inherited endow- 
 ment of Divine Truth. 
 
 Moreover, if what has been thus repeatedly ascribed 
 to it, be indeed a real and important, if not a primary 
 characteristic of the Sermon on the Mount ; and if further, 
 an impartial consideration of the errors now prevalent 
 will trace the more serious of them to the source just 
 indicated ; then, the value for us, of these words of our
 
 14 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 Lord, is still further enhanced by the consideration 
 that though a certain progress may be made in the study 
 and appreciation of special portions of Christian Truth, 
 independently of any clear discernment of their real re- 
 lations to other constituent portions of the same Truth, 
 this progress is necessarily limited^ unless the genuine re- 
 lations which these special portions of Divine Truth bear 
 to each other and to the whole, are also growingly dis- 
 cerned. Now though it may be unjust to assert that 
 the representatives and watchmen of the Church in our 
 times, if compared in this respect with many of their pre- 
 decessors, have failed in their contributions towards such 
 a discernment of these relations as might furnish a firm 
 basis for a real and practical catholic unity ; it may at 
 least be truly said, that they have not succeeded in so 
 discerning and presenting them as to satisfy the craving 
 which is on all sides felt, the demands which are on all 
 sides made, for such a unity, or for some intelligible and 
 hopeful approaches to it ; and that therefore, their labours 
 have not yet precluded the necessity for further contri- 
 butions to the same end. 
 
 So manifestly indeed do the several results of this 
 investigation conspire in presenting a genuine discern- 
 ment of the relations which obtain among the various 
 distinct elements of Christian Truth, as at once a 
 leading want of our own times, and a main religious 
 office of the Intellect; that such a discernment of these 
 relations might, with no very essential injury to the com- 
 prehensiveness of the provisional definition already given, 
 be regarded as kut e^o>^r)r, the office, as being, at least
 
 CH. I.] DEFINITIONS. 15 
 
 for our own times, the special and characteristic office 
 of the Intellect in religion. Indeed, on referring to that 
 definition, we shall be at no loss to perceive that a power 
 of discerning and setting forth, in their mutual relations, 
 the various elements and conditions of holy Being there 
 enumerated, does, of necessity, imply and involve the 
 power of discerning and setting them forth in themselves ; 
 — of discerning and setting forth, that is, each of these 
 several elements and conditions of holy Being in its 
 own distinctness, in its proper attributes and character- 
 istics. And a little further consideration will lead us 
 to the conclusion, that the discernment and exposition 
 of these relations, is the more special at once and more 
 comprehensive, is a higher and nobler office of the 
 Intellect : both because a genuine discernment of these 
 spiritual realities and truths themselves, in their indivi- 
 dual distinctness, is, of necessity, implied in a genuine 
 discernment of their mutual relations ; and because such 
 an insight into these relations is absolutely necessary to 
 the apprehension of all these distinct elements them- 
 selves, contemplated as a living whole. 
 
 Another reason why the religious province of the 
 Intellect consists, for our own period of the Church's 
 life, rather in a discernment of those relations, than of 
 the distinct truths, or distinct bodies of truth thus related 
 to each other, is the reason so frequently, and somewhat 
 quaintly, assigned by Lord Bacon, for the special culti- 
 vation of certain branches of learning; namely, that our 
 actual kn jwledge of the distinct portions or elements of 
 Christian Truth may be noted as not wholly inadequate :
 
 16 RELIGFOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 whereas our knowledge of the real relations which obtain 
 among them, must, by comparison, be reported deficient. 
 
 It would be premature to enter here upon any proofs 
 or examples of such a deficiency as actually existing — 
 as actually and deeply prejudicing the interests of catholic 
 truth among ourselves: inasmuch as the scheme of this 
 enquiry demands a previous investigation of our Lord's 
 special teaching ; and inasmuch as it is in the light of 
 that teaching alone, that we would willingly approach 
 either the controversies which at present vex the Church, 
 or the prevalent errors which have in our times con- 
 spired to mar the fair lineaments and proportions of 
 Christian Truth. 
 
 Perhaps, however, a single glance at the history of 
 the Church may not, even in this stage of the enquiry, 
 be out of place. For without stirring present contro- 
 versies, or prematurely dealing with existing forms of 
 error, such a glance may at least serve in part, to 
 illustrate what is meant, on the one hand, by " distinct 
 elements of Christian Truth," and on the other, by the 
 relations which obtain betvveen those elements and which 
 bind them into a real, intelligible, and practical unity. 
 Moreover, if we can perceive that a full discernment of the 
 relations really existing among the several elements which 
 together constitute the great body of catholic truth, — 
 really endowing that body with its living and spiritual 
 oneness, was, even in the earlier and simpler periods 
 of the Church's life, wanting to the complete integrit}' 
 of that life ; and if we can further learn from the 
 lessons of history, that this want, so far from decreasing
 
 en. I.] DEFINITIONS. 17 
 
 in proportion as hor life unfolded itself — as it gradually 
 took up into itself and glorified each vaiying form, each 
 new development of our manifold Being ; became, on the 
 contrary, ever more urgent, ever more intimately present 
 to the deep and secret feelings, if not to the consciousness 
 of men ; — shall we not be led to infer that this same want 
 cannot but have gone on increasing — cannot but be still 
 more urgent now ? For now the requirements of our 
 humanity are far more varied, its self-consciousness far 
 more fully developed; — now, even the rapidly-increasing 
 complexity of its mere civilization, demands (if we would 
 prevent it from becoming a godless civilization, and so 
 from crumbling into dust) an unfolding no less continuous 
 of all the real and intelligible grounds of a Christian 
 and spiritual, that is, of a genuine and solid unity. 
 
 If then we look back upon the history of the Church, 
 and of the heresies which from time to time have beset it, 
 we shall find, that at each period of its life, the weaknesses 
 and defections under which it has laboured, have origin- 
 ated rather in an undue strain on some special portion of 
 the whole body of Christian Truth, than on any funda- 
 mental misconception of such distinct portion itself. And 
 again, that this undue strain upon a part, may ever be 
 traced back to a failure of discernment as to the relative 
 importance of that part — as to the real relations which 
 bind it up into living oneness with the whole. 
 
 And if on examination, this principle should be found 
 to account for many of those weaknesses and defections, we 
 need not be deterred from availing ourselves of its light, 
 by any fear of being thus beti-ayed either into a sentence 
 
 2
 
 18 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [uOOK I. 
 
 of condemnation on the representatives and champions 
 of the Church at any particular period of her life, or into 
 an excess of lenity towards those who, at that period, stood 
 opposed to her. The history of the later and more com- 
 plex, as well as of the earlier and simpler portion of the 
 Church's life, was written for our instruction ; and in 
 studying it we are studying the method in which God 
 is ever mingling that once hidden leaven of Divine Truth 
 with the (pupafxa r^v avdp(i}iroTy]To<s — with the whole mass 
 of the humanity, until that whole mass be thoroughly 
 leavened. That we should find this process absolutely 
 completed at any one moment of the Church's life, either 
 for the whole humanity, or for that part of it which 
 is already under her influence, or for any subordinate 
 portion or individual comprised in that part, we are far 
 from being concerned to maintain, — we are, indeed, far 
 from being justified in maintaining, by the declarations 
 whether of revelation or of history. Nor could we, for 
 example, be justly accused of an irreverent estimate of 
 Athanasius ; nor of denying, or in the slightest degree 
 undervaluing, his zeal and effectual championship of God's 
 revealed Truth, were we to assert that his peculiar and 
 appointed office consisted in bringing out into a clear light, 
 in maintaining against impugners, and in permanently 
 embodying for the Church's use, those great fundamental 
 verities which regard the objective Being of the God- 
 head ; in laying thus the solid and enduring foundations 
 of a sound objective theology ; in refuting thus, and ex- 
 cluding by a real preoccupation, heresies which — though 
 they then came to a head in the person of Arius, and
 
 CH. I.] DRFINITiONS. 19 
 
 though their reappearance from time to time may be at- 
 tended with varying; modifications — are yet ever reappear- 
 ing, and are hardly, if at all, less rife in our own day than 
 in his. But were we to assert, further, that it was given 
 to Athanasius to possess an insight equally full and clear 
 into every other portion of Catholic truth ; that the real- 
 ities of the humanity, for example, the things which are in 
 man, stood out before his spiritual discernment with equal 
 distinctness ; so that he was of power to edify the Church 
 no less effectually with regard to this portion also of 
 the whole truth ; — or again, that he was further endowed 
 with thnt discernment which perceives and can unfold not 
 only the truths which regard, on the one hand, the real 
 Being of God, and on the other, the real Being of man, 
 but those also which concern the manifold relations 
 subsisting between these two different orders of truths : 
 — were we, I say, further to assert this of Athanasius ; 
 we should be maintaining what we are neither bound a 
 'priori to hold, nor justified by history in holding. 
 
 Nor, again, would it imply undue lenity to Arius and 
 his followers, were we to assign, as one ground of the 
 extensive development of that heresy, — not so much any 
 reaction directly caused by a strenuous enforcement of 
 those great fundamental verities of objective theology 
 which Athanasiu.s was raised up in the Church effectually 
 to proclaim, — but rather the state of comparative obscurity 
 and abeyance wJi rein those other elements of Catholic 
 truth as yet remained, which were in God's order and by 
 His Spirit to be shewn more distinctly and fully to the 
 Church at a later period of her earthly life : for that in 
 
 2—2
 
 20 KEI.IGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 this sense, Christ has ever many things to expound to us 
 by His Spirit energizing in the Church, which we cannot 
 bear now. 
 
 Such examples it were easy to multiply ; but every 
 one's memory will suggest a number sufficient for our 
 present purpose, which is rather briefly to exemplify a 
 principle, than to enumerate its historical manifestations. 
 Upon that principle, there is nothing inconsistent either 
 with reason or with revelation, in our holding, that even 
 as it was the ordained office of Athanasius to endow the 
 Church, for all succeeding periods of her life, with an 
 effectual exposition of the great fundamental truths 
 regarding objective Deity — regarding the Triune and 
 Tri-personal Godhead ; so, at a later period of her life, 
 was it the commission of Augustine to kindle that steady 
 light, which brightened in the hands of Luther, and which 
 it is not the least important of our own Church's intrusted 
 offices to feed, to trim, and to transmit ; — that light, 
 which brings out palpably and practically the most import- 
 ant and fundamental relations which, in the same divine 
 order, subsist between the Godhead and the manhood — 
 between the realities of the Deity, on the one hand, 
 and the realities of the humanity on the other, — and 
 which, in order to this, brings out into the same dis- 
 tinctness these latter realities themselves ; thus more 
 fully endowing the Church with those truths also which 
 especially regard the personal Being of man — the actual, 
 as well as the real, state of our humanity. For what, 
 indeed, are the great distinct, yet harmonious doctrines 
 of Justification and Sanctification, but the practical expo-
 
 Cll. I.J DEFINITIONS. 21 
 
 sition of those fundamental relations ? Or what was the 
 object and result of the great controversy between Au- 
 gustine and Pelagius, but the practical determination, 
 for the Church's perpetual use, of the actual or fallen, 
 as well as of the real or renewed, state* of the humanity^ 
 And here, again, may not the same principle be pleaded 
 in mitigation of our sentence on Pelagius? Are we pre- 
 pared to assert that in Augustine's age, and in Augustine's 
 mind, nothing remained in comparative abeyance and 
 obscurity regarding the freedom of the Will l Did he 
 discern and expound the whole truth relating to that 
 profoundly mysterious, and not less profoundly and prac- 
 tically important subject, with equal clearness ? or was 
 there no part of this truth which it was not yet in God's 
 order fully to unfold ; which the Church could not yet 
 bear to be fully unfolded to her ; and which, it may be, 
 she has yet to learn ? 
 
 If we be at all justified in such a view of the 
 Church's history — if it be indeed in God's order, that 
 at successive periods of her life, successive portions of 
 the whole Truth once delivered to the saints, are brought 
 out and unfolded with greater distinctness — with more 
 practical fulness, — in proportion to her ever-growing 
 and ever-varying requirements : — if, again, each of these 
 fuller unfoldings of any portion of revealed Truth, under 
 God's Spirit wrestling ever to that end with the spirit of 
 man, becomes, so soon as it is made, a permanent and 
 living possession of the Church : — if, lastly, no one of 
 these repeated accessions to her treasures of spiritual 
 knowledge can take its fitting and permanent place as
 
 22 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OK THE INTELLECT. [ HOOK I. 
 
 a living element of that Truth on which her own life is 
 sustained and quickened, excepting in so far as it is dis- 
 cerned in its real relations to the whole living body of 
 Truth which she already possesses, including all such pre- 
 vious unfoldings of it ; — then it is clear that the task of 
 discerning these relations, of assigning to each of these 
 great verities, its proper place and office in the whole 
 Christian scheme, its real bearings on every other portion 
 of that scheme, — must become a task of continually 
 increasing importance. And althougii charity may plead 
 for such as Arius or Pelagius, that their errors were 
 of the age as well as of the men, and that they might 
 have been in part misled by dim anticipations, and pro- 
 phesyings of something yet wanting to the entire circle 
 of realized Catholic Truth ; such indulgence can by no 
 means be extended to our own more practical heresies, to 
 our too frequent practical neglect of those clearly and fully 
 developed forms of revealed Truth wherewith we have been 
 endowed — through the very controversies which these men 
 to their own ruin provoked — by the spiritual wisdom 
 and energy, the earnest and persevering contention of 
 mind, of the great Catholic champions their antagonists, 
 who in the spirit and power of Truth prevailed .igainst 
 them. 
 
 And must we not, indeed, confess ourselves guilty 
 in this matter? Do we, on whom the ends of the 
 world are come, — before whose eyes so large a proportion 
 of the whole living complex of Catholic Truth lies un- 
 folded, — who have been thus endowed with the high 
 privilege of exercising ourselves effectually, in a reverent
 
 CH. I.] DEFINITIONS. 23 
 
 and discerning contemplation, not only of the deep things 
 which concern the Being of God, and which so fixed and 
 filled the adoring gaze of the earlier Church, but also 
 of those hardly less mysterious things of a man which 
 the spirit of man thus prepared and informed can appre- 
 hend ; yea, more than this, — of those spiritual links also — 
 those real and living relations, through which, having been 
 at twain, we are again in Christ at one with the Father — 
 do we, I say, being indeed, — through the manifold and 
 long-continued workings, in and by the Church, of the 
 Spirit which proceedeth from the Father and the Son, 
 — thus richly endowed ; either discern aright, or worthily 
 employ, the intrusted treasure ? 
 
 And let us, whilst answering this question, bear in 
 mind that there are many ways wherein we may fail in 
 such a genuine discernment and application of their 
 labours. 
 
 We may regard them simply as antiquated controver- 
 sies, in which, whatever might have been their importance 
 at the time, we have no permanent or practical interest : 
 the results of which constitute for the Church no real 
 addition to her store of available truth, and impose on 
 ourselves no real obligation to enter into the labours of 
 these our great predecessors — to build onwards, where 
 that is possible, solidly and practically on their foundation ; 
 clearly to discern and present, as effectually connected 
 with each other, as living elements of the great body of 
 revealed Truth, the several distinct portions of that Truth, 
 by their zealous labours successively brought out into a 
 clearer light, into a richer and more available fulness.
 
 24 RELIGIOUS OFFrCES OF THE I.VTEIJ-ECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 And as we are too liable thus to err in defect, so in 
 the direction of excess, are we not seldom prone to dwell 
 with an idolatrous affection, or with an exclusive reverence, 
 on some one of the possessions bequeathed to us by our 
 Fathers in the faith — with a reverence, it may be, whose 
 very intensity blinds us in part to the true character and 
 real value of that verj' spiritual possession which is its 
 object. Thus, with reference to those fuller unfoldings of 
 revealed Truth as it concerns the Being of the Godhead, 
 which are more especially due to Athanasius and the 
 teachers of the Eastern Church, we may err, not indeed 
 in regarding these important accessions to our objective 
 theology as matters to be received and contemplated in a 
 spirit of reverential faith ; but in permitting this reve- 
 rential faith to degenerate into a superstitious awe, blind- 
 ing us to the untold and inexhaustible wealth of knowledge 
 and wisdom which are at once veiled and revealed in these 
 fundamental and most pregnant verities — to their unnum- 
 bered bearings upon every other portion of theological 
 truth, yea, upon the whole of our complex life, practical as 
 well as speculative. 
 
 If, through such a spirit of slavish and superstitious 
 awe, these great living and quickening verities have 
 become for us, as it were, mere idols ; or if, again, through 
 any lurking and most unfounded preconception, that they 
 can have no real, at all events no large and fruitful, 
 bearing on our practical theolog}' and life, 'no living 
 connexion with every other element of our spiritual well- 
 being, we have suffered these life-giving verities to shrink 
 and wane into mere fading notions, slumbering as it
 
 CH. I.] definitions!. 25 
 
 were powerlessly among bygone memories, in some secret 
 chamber of the soul ; and, if not speedily refreshed and 
 sustained, ready to perish in this lethargy ; — if, through 
 such a want of living and practical faith in, and 
 consequent genuine insight into their reality and impor- 
 tance, we are any of us tending towards a secret per- 
 suasion, a fancied discernment, that these essentially 
 fundamental and all - important realities into which 
 we are baptized, are, if they be so much, not more 
 than purely speculative truths, the absence of which 
 from our scheme of faith might indeed impeach our 
 orthodoxy, but could in no intelligible or conceivable 
 manner affect our religious life and practice — if these 
 things, if any of them, be so with us ; can we be said to 
 have rightly discerned, to have duly entered into, to have 
 faithfully and effectually carried out, as we were bound to 
 do, the labours of Augustine and of his fellow-workers, 
 our earlier ancestors in the faith and family of Christ ? 
 
 Or, again, if another charge be brought against our 
 own times, and against ourselves as teachers and hearers 
 of the living Word — as men whose privilege it is, under 
 the guidance and monitions of the Spirit, to have all 
 truths, in whatever fulness hitherto unfolded, brought to 
 our minds, and to be led ever onward to a clearer 
 apprehension of the whole living body of truth; — have we, 
 as really entering into this high privilege and its corre- 
 sponding duties, in such wise discerned those two great 
 verities of Justification and Sanctification which unfold 
 the chiefest relations between the Godhead and the 
 manhood, as will enable us effectuallv to maintain and
 
 26 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I, 
 
 present each in its own essential distinctness, both in their 
 essential harmony with each other, and with all the great 
 leading elements of Catholic Truth l Or if we have failed 
 in attaining or in earnestly striving after the accomplish- 
 ment of this, can we be rightly said to have entered into 
 the labours of Augustine and of Luther ; or to have given 
 ourselves to the carrying out those labours, as by manifold 
 titles we were privileged and bound to do ? For indeed — 
 and we cannot too often repeat this — it is our great 
 privilege at once ajid duty, thus to collect and preserve, 
 thus to combine and apply, the fruits of those count- 
 less victories which the Spirit of God, ever wrestling 
 with, and prevailing over the spirit of man, has in all 
 periods of her life obtained for the Church. It is our 
 privilege to discern in these several conflicts, the battles 
 of one great war — in these treasures separately gained, 
 the spoils of one great victory ; and if, indeed, there be 
 in us no growing perception of this essential unity, as 
 well in the divine purposes of that one real warfare as 
 in its ever proceeding results, — to us may be righteously 
 addressed our Lord's rebuke, that we know not what man- 
 ner of spirit we are of. 
 
 Again, if we discern not, as thus constituting one 
 entire and thoi'oughly consistent scheme of truth, all these 
 clearer unfoldings of the revealed Godhead, as well in its 
 own objective Being as in its relations to ourselves ; how 
 shall we hope effectually to disentangle and unfold that 
 more intricate portion of Christian theology which 
 may be contradistinguished as its subjective element, 
 whereof " the main haunt and region" is no other than
 
 CH. l] DEFINITIONS. 27 
 
 the humanity itself — the heart and spirit of man, — the 
 humanity, however, not merely as in its simple and normal 
 condition, but in a condition the true nature of which 
 cannot in God's order be adequately and practically 
 apprehended without a previous or accompanying appre- 
 hension of the two other great constituent portions of 
 revealed truth which we have just been considering; 
 — the verities, I mean, first which concern the real 
 objective Being of God, and next, those regarding the 
 relations really subsisting between the so revealed Deity 
 and the humanity. For be it remembered, this part of 
 our Christian Theology presents no simple questions for 
 our solution. What we have here intelligibly and practi- 
 cally to unfold is not merely the Being of man in its real 
 or normal state — man, that is, as created in, or already 
 renewed after, the image of God : though this, indeed, is 
 one essential and important part of our subject matter. 
 Nor, again, have we only to deal with and expound the 
 Being of man in its unreal or abnormal, that is, in its 
 wholly unrenewed state : though such an exposition must 
 also take its place in this more subjective department of 
 our Christian theology. That department, in its com- 
 pleteness, further involves a practical discernment and 
 unfolding of these two states of the humanity con- 
 templated as co-existing, not only in the same societies 
 of men, but in the same individual minds, and that in 
 every possible variety and intricacy of combination. And, 
 lastly, it involves a similar discernment and unfolding of 
 the methods whereby these great revealed verities con- 
 cerning the Being of God and the Being of man, and
 
 28 IlELIGIOUS OFFICES OK THE INTELLECT. [coOK I. 
 
 concerning their mutual relations, are of power to trans- 
 form the false humanity, by renewal in the spirit of its 
 mind, and through the same renewal to conform it to the 
 image and likeness of God. Not till we have practi- 
 cally solved these problems can we be affirmed to have 
 adequately cultivated this special field of theology; — not 
 till we have shewn, intelligibly and practically, what are 
 the real bearings on man, of the great verities regarding 
 the Godhead, which are by Christ revealed to us; — what 
 are the real relations of those verities to our Being, in 
 virtue of which they are of power to transform that Being 
 from its e\'il and fallen state, and to conform it to the 
 image and likeness of God, — have we attained any effec- 
 tual solution of the main difficulties of this part of 
 Christian theology. 
 
 Hence it is that we may most truly regard the depart- 
 ment of theology which has to do chiefly with our own 
 Being as, in a practical sense, more intricate and difficult 
 than that which is mainly occupied with the revealed 
 Being of God : since, independently of the solution of 
 its own peculiar difficulties, it implies also and demands an 
 actual mastery over, a genuine discernment and application 
 of, those very fundamental verities with which that objec- 
 tive theology is specially and properly conversant. 
 
 Let thus much then suffice to illustrate, from the 
 Church's history, that necessity which is now daily mani- 
 festing itself more and more distinctly — that necessity 
 under which we ourselves are labouring with throes ever 
 more and more convulsive — the necessity of discerning, in 
 order that wo may be enabled to apprehend and receive
 
 CH. I.] DEFINITIONS. 29 
 
 into our spirits, as one living whole, that Truth as it is in 
 Jesus, which, so discerned, can and will make us free; can 
 and will bind us together in the unity of the Spirit, in the 
 bond of peace. By us, if we would be healed of our 
 deep and open wounds ; by us, if the breaches of our 
 Zion, of that great city set on a hill, which cannot be hid, 
 are to be closed ; by us must this Truth be discerned — 
 not as Truth broken into fragments, whether these be 
 fragmentary texts, or fragmentaiy doctrines, or frag- 
 mentary systems, — but as Truth at one with itself, as 
 Truth whereof each living element is discerned in its own 
 proper distinctness, in its own living form and import ; 
 wherein all these members of the living Body of Truth 
 are discerned in the genuine relations they bear to each 
 other. Thus at length may we hope, not only to speak, 
 but to do the Truth, — akrtQevovT^s. ev dyaTrrj ; thus, 
 and thus only, may we hope, with a hope that maketh 
 not ashamed, to grow up in all things unto him which is 
 the Head, even Christ.
 
 Chapter II. 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE SYNOPTICAL TABLE. 
 
 It will be observed that the vertical line passing through 
 the middle of this nearly circular Table, is inscribed, above 
 its central point, with repetitions in order, of the letters, 
 F, S, H, or of those letters combined into a single charac- 
 ter; whilst below that point, the same line bears the 
 names in order, of the Tempers or dispositions of mind, 
 pronounced by our Lord to be blessed. 
 
 Again : the other line passing horizontally through the 
 middle, bears inscribed on or distributed about its right- 
 hand portion, in definite order, not only the whole Divine 
 Revelation and Law explicitly given by our Lord on the 
 Mount, but (as implied at once and unfolded in this 
 Christian Law) the Law also which was by Moses, which 
 comes to a head, — and which here has its representative — 
 in the Decalogue. In the same right-hand portion of the 
 Table, and as also implied in the Sermon on the Mount, 
 that earlier Patriarchal Dispensation is represented by the 
 Names in order, of the Patriarchs themselves. 
 
 It will be seen therefore, that not only the whole 
 revealed Law of God, but the whole body of Divine Reve- 
 lation which has actually been given to man, — excepting 
 that earlier portion of it which was made through Noah, — 
 has, in this synoptical Scheme, its representatives. 
 
 If then we begin from the upper portion of the 
 vertical line, this column of the Patriarchs occurs first ;
 
 CH. II.] SYNOPTICAL TABLE. 31 
 
 and next to it, the Beatitudes in their proper order, and 
 as distinct from the Christian Law given on the Mount. 
 
 Whatever, indeed, be the real character, and what- 
 ever be the real bearing upon the rest, of that special 
 portion of this whole revelation which was effected 
 through the Patriarchal family, it had clearly a character 
 and bearing of its own, distinct from those of a Law 
 properly so called. And the same may be said of the 
 Beatitudes, as constituting a distinct portion of the entire 
 revelation made by our Lord on the Mount, and as, 
 together with the full and final Christian Law then pro- 
 mulgated, making up the whole of that Divine discourse 
 which is the immediate object of our contemplation. 
 
 Again, casting our eye on the left-hand portion of 
 the same horizontal line, we shall find similarly inscribed 
 on, or disposed around it, the Lord''s Prayer in its proper 
 order. 
 
 If, therefore, we take that upper portion of the ver- 
 tical line, which is inscribed, in a certain definite order, 
 with the first letters of God's Holy Name, (as the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost,) or with those letters com- 
 bined into a single character, — to denote the Deity — the 
 Triune and Tri-personal Godhead — in all that fulness of 
 its final revelation wherein it has by Christ been both 
 revealed to us, and at our baptism put upon us ; and if, 
 further, we take that lower part of the same vertical line, 
 whereon are written the names of the blessed Tempers or 
 dispositions, to denote the humanity — to denote, that is, our 
 own Being, according to its genuine idea as revealed and 
 commended to us by our Lord on the Mount — then the
 
 32 UELKIIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [kOOK I. 
 
 whole right-hand portion of the table, grouped round its 
 central line, may be conceived as presenting generally the 
 utterances of God to man — everything which has proceed- 
 ed, and is ever proceeding, to us-ward out of the mouth 
 of God : whilst the whole left-hand portion, similarly 
 referred to its central line, may be regarded as in like 
 manner presenting the utterances of man to God ; as, 
 when discerned in its fulness, really containing, whether 
 explicitly or implicitly, all the revealed and ordained com- 
 munings of our Spirit with His. So that, speaking as yet 
 generally, we have here denoted on the vertical line the 
 revealed realities of the Being of God on the one hand, 
 and of the Being of man on the other : whilst we have 
 similarly denoted on the horizontal line those relations 
 of communion which are, in and for themselves, the highest 
 and the most blessed of all the relations revealed by Christ, 
 as subsisting, or capable of subsisting, between God and 
 man ; and the full or the adequate realizing of which does 
 also, in the divine order, imply the full or the adequate 
 realizing of whatever other genuine, though less important 
 and less blessed, relations between our own spirits and 
 their heavenly Father, are in Christ revealed to us. 
 
 And now that we have obtained some general notion 
 of this Scheme as intended to present synoptically, first, 
 the revealed Realities of the personal Being of God and 
 of our own personal Being ; and next, the form and 
 import of that real and personal communion which in 
 Christ alone is finally revealed, as capable of subsisting, 
 as ordained actually to subsist through Him — of that 
 communion which virtually implies in itself all the in-
 
 CH. 11.] SYNOPTICAL TABLK. 33 
 
 ferior relations which can subsist between our spirits 
 and their heavenly Father; — we may proceed, and at first, 
 with the same generality, to point out the order and 
 method which obtain in this communion, whereof we have 
 already in its great outlines discerned the substance. 
 Now the order of these communings of God with man, 
 and the returns Godward which, in consequence of them, 
 become possible on the part of man, may be contem- 
 plated, first, as an order in Time — as that historical 
 order in which they actually took place and succeeded 
 each other : and the first important truth regarding this 
 order is, that the absolute origination and beginning 
 of the whole scheme of remedial religion, and all the sub- 
 ordinate beginnings which that scheme contains, are from, 
 God, not from trmn — from heaven above, not from earth 
 beneath: and that it is the words and things, 121'^^, 
 ■Traif prifi-a, not which man originates or utters as from him- 
 self, but which God originates and utters to him, which 
 alone man can again effectually and livingly utter to God, 
 and which thus return not empty, but are ever accom- 
 plishing the work whereunto they are sent. 
 
 This truth is denoted in the Table, by making all 
 such origination, whether primary or subordinate, take 
 place from that upper portion of the vertical line which 
 is inscribed with the Holy Name ; and by representing all 
 communications from God to man, all revelations of Holy 
 Being and of righteous Law, as passing from this upper 
 portion thus symbolizing the Deity, as proceeding in the 
 nearly circular direction of the writing downwards to that 
 lower portion of the same line which represents the huma- 
 3
 
 3 l< HKMGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTFLLECT. [rOOK I. 
 
 nity ; and as, in the same continuous course, returning 
 again from man to God, through the ordained and fitting 
 channels of holy contemplation, prayer, and praise. These 
 blessed returns of communion from our souls to God, 
 — these breathings forth to Him of the imparted spirit 
 of righteous Law, are represented as ascending to Him 
 clothed in the perfect words vouchsafed to us by our 
 Lord on the Mount, words which fitliest belong to, and 
 most fully express, those highest energies and acts of 
 devout contemplation and prayer, of which our humanity, 
 as in Christ renewed after the image of God, is capable ; 
 and in which all the other holy energies of that daily 
 renewed humanity are comprehended and perfected. 
 
 And here, with regard to the selection of that eco- 
 nomy of which Abraham is the head and representative, 
 for the commencement of this scheme considered his- 
 torically — considered, that is, as representing not merely 
 the substance^ but also the order in Time, and so, in one 
 important respect, the method^ of God's communications 
 to man ; it would doubtless have furnished a somewhat 
 fuller expression for that whole Divine Revelation which 
 it is intended to represent, had an earlier point of time 
 been assigned as the absolute and formal beginning of 
 remedial religion, properly so called. For, without 
 reverting to the yet earlier shadowings forth of the Great 
 Remedy, we may justly claim for the dispensation which 
 was by Noah, if not its own baptism, at least its own 
 witnessed covenant, its own blessing and its own law. 
 One reason for the later point of commencement adopted 
 in the tabular scheme, depends on a principle which
 
 CH. IF.] .SYNOPIICAL lAHLK. 35 
 
 throughout the enquiry will be found of weight — the prin- 
 ciple that each succeeding Divine Revelation implies in 
 itself, and carries out more fully, that Revelation which 
 in the order of time has preceded it. Thus we may rightly 
 regard this earlier, though real and important dispensa- 
 tion by Noah, as implied and involved in the succeeding 
 dispensation by Abraham. And, from the great simplicity 
 of the Noachic dispensation, we may do so in this case, 
 with little loss of absolute truth and clearness. 
 
 Doubtless, it is possible that we might also, without 
 important loss of absolute truth, similarly regard the 
 Abrahamic, including the Mosaic dispensation, as essen- 
 tially implied and involved in the Christian, and might so 
 make our absolute beginning with this last. Neverthe- 
 less, from the closer connexion of these revelations with 
 Christianity, and from their greater richness of real and 
 symbolic import, we could not do so without materially 
 detracting from the unity as well as the fulness of our 
 exposition. 
 
 This, however, though perhaps a sufficient ground for 
 beginning with the Patriarchal dispensation, as a fitting 
 point for the commencement of a general exposition of 
 remedial religion, might be thought an inadequate reason 
 for any direct reference to that dispensation, whether 
 in the outset, or during the course, of an exposition of 
 the Sermon on the Mount ; and might, indeed, have 
 appeared so to me, had I not, during the investigation 
 of this particular portion of Scripture, been irresistibly 
 sent back to that earlier unfolding of the Divine Mind ; 
 by the discernment of relations between them so deter-
 
 3() HICMGIOUS OFFICES OF THK INTELLECT. [hOOK I. 
 
 niinate and important, as to justify, if not to demand, 
 such an explicit reference. 
 
 How far I may succeed in conveying to others my 
 own sense of the closeness and importance of those rela- 
 tions, remains to be proved : suffice it at present to point 
 out the Call of Abraham, as the beginning in historical 
 order of that whole Scheme of remedial religion which is 
 presented in the synoptical table, as being explicitly 
 or implicitly contained in the Sermon on the Mount ; 
 and to assume the existence of such relations, so far as 
 is necessary for a general explanation of that table. 
 
 And here, before proceeding further, it may be well to 
 say a few words on the general principle just exemplified : 
 not merely because it allows a certain liberty of choice 
 in fixing on an historical point of commencement, but 
 also because it will be found to possess a real import- 
 ance in itself. It is the principle, that no word or thing 
 which issues from the mouth of God ever really perishes ; 
 and that therefore each preceding revelation of Holy 
 Being and of Holy Law, to whatever extent that reve- 
 lation may be symbolic, and to whatever extent it 
 may be real, has indeed, though it may appear to die, 
 its resurrection and its glorification, in the next suc- 
 ceeding economy. Thus, were we to take the Christian 
 revelation and economy as our point of departure, 
 we should, as it unfolded itself before our eyes, discern 
 the patriarchal and the Mosaic thus glorified and raised 
 in it to the power of a new and endless life. These 
 two last mentioned, indeed, though in a certain limited 
 sense they may bo regarded as distinct from each other,
 
 CH. II. J SY.VOPTICAL TABLE. 37 
 
 do yet essentially constitute one entire dispensation ; the 
 second, namely, in historical order — in the same sense 
 wherein that which is by Noah constitutes the first, and 
 that which is by Christ the third, of these successive 
 economies, or unfoldings and applications of remedial 
 religion. 
 
 Again : were we to begin with the dispensation which 
 is by Abraham and Moses, we should find similarly taken 
 up into, and glorified in these, that still earlier Noachic 
 dispensation which, though not without its important and 
 essential foreshadowings and preparations, was yet the 
 formal beginning of remedial religion ; having, as have 
 each of the two succeeding economies, its own covenanted 
 blessedness, its own sacramental symbol, its own reve- 
 lation of holy Being, and its own promulgation of righte- 
 ous Law : and having, further, its own enduring twofold 
 results. First, The endowing God's Church and world 
 with those things which it was fitted and ordained to 
 accomplish. Secondly, The manifesting to God's Church 
 and world what those things were which it was Tiot fitted 
 and ordained actually to accomplish, to whatever extent 
 it might be ancillary to their ultimate accomplishment. 
 
 In order to illustrate in some degree so important 
 a principle, it may be advisable, even in this stage of 
 the enquiry, to present a sketch, shght indeed, and as 
 it were in mere outline, of this threefold economy. The 
 general plan of the work does not admit of this sketch 
 being filled up, until the Sermon on the Mount has 
 itself been examined : inasmuch as the spiritual realities 
 adumbrated and symbolized in the earlier dispensations
 
 38 KKLIGIOUS OFFICES OF Tllfc: INTELLKCT. [bOOK I. 
 
 are not manifested — and cannot be rightly apprehended 
 and dealt with — as realities, until we have entered into 
 the spirit of that last and fullest dispensation, where- 
 of these great words of our Lord contain all the living 
 elements. 
 
 Let it then, for the present, be assumed, that the 
 dispensation which is by Christ, and under which we live, 
 may be rightly designated in itself and distinguished from 
 God's other economies to us-ward, as the dispensation 
 of the Life of the Kingdom ; and again, that the dis- 
 pensation which was by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or 
 Israel, and his children, may be rightly designated and 
 distinguished as the dispensation of the Life of the 
 Family : and, similarly, that the earliest formal economy 
 of remedial religion, that namely by Noah, may be justly 
 characterized as the dis^jensation of the Life of the 
 Individual. 
 
 Let us further arrange in a synoptical form these 
 three dispensations under the essential and Lading con- 
 stituents of each, which have been already mentioned.
 
 CH, 
 
 I..J 
 
 SY.NOPTICAL TABLE. 
 
 Si) 
 
 1^ 
 
 s 
 
 •*> 
 
 Results. 
 
 Entire failurein the 
 constitution oft he Life 
 of the Kingdom, in 
 Babel the city of Con- 
 fusion. 
 
 1 
 
 •J 
 
 •■SO 
 
 Reverence for and 
 partial constitution 
 of the Life of the 
 Kingdom, but ulti- 
 mate failure of that 
 Life. 
 
 1. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 a 
 
 <:> 
 
 •<!a 
 •fca 
 
 ?s 
 
 CO 
 
 1 
 
 Reverence for and 
 constitution of the real 
 andeniluring heaven- 
 ly and eiithly Life of 
 the Kingdom, each 
 real C'hristian being, 
 as Prophet, Priest, & 
 King, a true and in- 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 3J 
 
 E 
 c 
 
 Failure in any ade- 
 quate constitution of 
 the Family Life. 
 
 Reverence for and 
 adequate constitution 
 and preservation of 
 the Family Life. 
 
 Revcrence for and 
 true constitution of 
 the Family Life com- 
 ing to its head in the 
 Life of that great Fa- 
 mily which in heaven 
 and eaith is named 
 alter Christ. 
 
 Reverence for and 
 preservation of the 
 Indiviilual Life. 
 
 Reverence for and 
 preservation of the 
 Individual Life. 
 
 Reverence for, true 
 constitution and pre- 
 servation of, the In- 
 dividual Life; coming 
 to its head in personal 
 salvation. 
 
 Revelation of Right- 
 eous Law. 
 
 Law forbidding 
 the destruction of 
 human life. 
 
 Forbidding the 
 eating of blood. 
 
 The Mosaic 
 T^aw coming to 
 its head in the 
 Decalogue. 
 
 The Law of 
 Christ coming to 
 its bead on the 
 Mount. 
 
 1 
 
 
 Revelation of Holy Being. 
 
 By and through 
 Noah a perfect man in 
 his generation, and a 
 preacher of lighteous- 
 ness. 
 
 By and through A- 
 brahani, Isaac, .facol), 
 and the twelve Pa- 
 triarchs. 
 
 Real revelation in 
 and by (Jhrist at once 
 of the Holy Being of 
 God, and of the holy 
 Being or state of man. 
 
 Sacramental Symbols. 
 
 Symbolic and real 
 Jiaptism by the Flood, 
 as underlying and 
 pcrvadingall thethiee 
 Dispensations. 
 
 The Rainbow. 
 
 Circumcision and 
 symbolic baptism, in 
 theSeaiV in tlieCHoud. 
 Symbolic Fucharist 
 in the .Manna, ixin the 
 Rock they drank of. 
 
 Baptism. 
 The Eucharist. 
 
 •e 
 
 i-i 
 5" 
 
 The promise 
 not to destroy 
 but preserve 
 life. 
 
 That in A- 
 braham's seed 
 all nations of 
 the earth 
 should be 
 blessed. 
 
 The consti- 
 tution of a spi- 
 ritual and real 
 Kingdom in 
 the Heart of 
 man.
 
 40 RELIGIOUS OKFlCKsi Ol' THE INTELLECT. [boOK I. 
 
 Now this Noachic covenant and economy, though in 
 common with the succeeding dispensations, foreshadowed 
 as well by other means as more especially by the promise 
 to Adam regarding the Seed of the Woman, and the 
 acceptance of AbeFs sacrifice as a sacrifice of righteous- 
 ness, is yet clearly the first in historical order possessing 
 all those great characteristics of a formal dispensation of 
 remedial religion which have just been pointed out as 
 common to it and the two succeeding economies. And 
 our intuitive perception that this is so, is entirely con- 
 sistent with another principle sufficiently pervading all 
 these economies, to deserve here our special notice — the 
 principle, I mean, that the law restraining and punishing 
 any sin is not explicitly promulgated as a penal law by 
 the Divine Lawgiver until the sin itself has sufficiently 
 manifested, in its fruits, its evil and deadly nature. Thus, 
 for example, that first general form of the law forbid- 
 ding the destruction of human life, which constitutes the 
 moral, as opposed to the ceremonial and symbolic law of 
 the Noachic dispensation, was not explicitly and penally 
 promulgated, was not guarded at once by an express and 
 definite penal enactment and by an express and definite 
 revelation concerning the Being of God and the Being of 
 Man, till long after the first great violation of its spirit 
 in the transgressions of Eve and of Adam — not even 
 till long after the first complete violation of it by Cain, as 
 well in its abiding spirit, as in its letter not at that time 
 expressly revealed. 
 
 Down even to the time of Noah, through all the pro- 
 longed antediluvian lives, of Adam, Seth, and Enos, of
 
 on. II.] SYNOPTICAL TAIU.E. 41 
 
 Cainan, Mahalaleel,Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, andLamech; 
 nay, further, during the first six hundred years of Noah's 
 own Hfe was the venom of tliat old serpent permitted to 
 mix itself with and ferment in the mass of the humanity, 
 and to work its living death : to the end the deadly 
 nature of that venom might be the more feelingly appre- 
 hended and discerned. 
 
 Then, when the plague had arrived at its height, even 
 at the virtual destruction of the race — then, when the 
 earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence, 
 when all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth ; 
 God, by a dispensation at once penal and merciful, washes 
 away from its face the sinners with their sin — destroys at 
 once the destroyer, and the destruction he had wrought. 
 And even as Christ has no sooner risen from the waters 
 of baptism, and the fierce beatings of that storm of 
 temptation which He endured forty days and forty nights, 
 and fell not, than he reveals from the Mount those reali- 
 ties of Holy Being, which, as they are His holiness, are at 
 once the holiness of God and the holiness of man, — than 
 he promulgates with authority, from that more world- 
 commanding eminence than Ararat or Sinai, the full and 
 final form and import of that righteous law, which is at 
 once the law of His own and of all Holy Being ; — even 
 so, to Noah, and by him, as the sole representative at 
 once of the Church and world, after that primal and 
 mysterious washing away of sin, are uttered with Divine 
 authority the first great remedial revelation of Holy 
 Being, which has in it the living germ of all succeeding 
 ones — " In the image of God made he man" ; — the first
 
 42 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLI-XT. [hOOK I. 
 
 great remedial promulgation of righteous law, wherein, 
 as in their dark root lay hid all future unfoldings of the 
 same, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
 blood be shed," — the first promulgation, symbolic at 
 once and real, of the same fundamental law, in its yet 
 holier meaning, "Flesh with the life thereof, which is 
 the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." 
 
 The deep and far-reaching- import of this first great 
 remedial revelation by Noah, of Holy Being and of 
 Holy Law, will be seen more clearly and fully when 
 we return to it, (through the revelation which was by 
 Abraham,) from a more earnest contemplation of that 
 absolutely real or spiritual life of the Kingdom, which 
 comprehends within itself, and which alone j^can fully 
 expound to us, either the intervening Patinarchal and 
 Mosaic economy, or this primal dispensation of the Indi- 
 vidual Life. 
 
 But though we have on this account, and for greater 
 facility of synoptical representation,^ chosen that second 
 dispensation for the commencement of our Scheme ; and 
 though the dispensation by Noah may, from its extreme 
 unity and simplicity, be easily apprehended, and borne 
 in mind, as a whole; without such aid to the powers of 
 memory and mental combination as we have endeavoured 
 to supply for grasping, in their real unity and distinct- 
 ness, and in their real relations to each other, the two 
 succeeding dispensations ; — still it is, in the first place, 
 absolutely necessary that we should thus grasp and hold 
 this first dispensation as a vhole, in order to our adequately 
 discerning in it, as well as in each of the two distinct
 
 CH. II.] SYNOPTICAL TARLE. 43 
 
 dispensations succeeding it, one integrant element of the 
 entire scheme of remedial religion. 
 
 This primal revelation, then, which is by Noah, will 
 be found in both its branches — namely, the revelation 
 symbolic and real of Holy Being, and the revelation 
 symbolic and real of righteous and Holy Law — absolutely 
 and livingly fundamental. 
 
 Well, indeed, may that revelation of the realities of 
 Holy Being deserve this character : for if we are to search 
 anywhere for the true idea of the Being of man, whether 
 as an object of our contemplation only, or as an idea 
 regulative also of that Being, or as further, under God, 
 livingly constructive of it, — an idea in the light of which 
 we may " build up the Being that we are" ; — where, I 
 would ask, may we search with better hope of finding 
 this fair and fruitful idea of man, than in that deter- 
 minate counsel at once and decree of the Godhead, which 
 preceded the act of his creation, " Let us make man 
 in our image, after our likeness"? — or what other verity 
 than this can, by possibility, supply a real and living 
 basis for remedial religion — a real and living basis, that 
 is, for the apprehensible and so remedial revelation to man 
 of the Holy Being of God — for the apprehensible and 
 so effectual explanation of the methods whereby the ever- 
 unfolding revelation to him of that Holy Being has been, 
 can alone be, fruitfully accomplished ? 
 
 See we not that this great primal idea is itself the 
 idea of a mediator between God and man ? — that it 
 enables us solidly to apprehend those revelations of Holy 
 Being which clothe the attributes and characteristics of
 
 44 REUGions OFriCKs of the inteu-ect. [book I, 
 
 the Deity, in that language, symbolic at once and real, 
 furnished by the attributes and characteristics of the 
 humanity ? 
 
 It is this great fundamental verity, contemplated in 
 conjunction with that of the religious growth and unfold- 
 ing of the humanity, through these successive dispensa- 
 tions, which enables us at once to apprehend, and to see 
 the necessity of another principle of the highest religious 
 import, — the principle, 1 mean, of symbolic teaching; and 
 to discern and enter into the manifestations of that prin- 
 ciple, which meet us at every step in the sacred history. 
 
 Any general exposition of this symbolic teaching — of 
 the admirable richness, precision, and beauty of its lan- 
 guage, — would here be out of place : we shall therefore 
 limit ourselves, at present, to a few remarks on its general 
 character, and to such examples of it as the illustration of 
 our Scheme may require. 
 
 We have already defined the religious province of the 
 Intellect to be, a discernment and exposition, in themselves 
 and in their mutual relations, of the Names which 
 designate — of the Persons or Elements of Personality 
 which constitute — of the Blessednesses which belong to — 
 of the Laws which determine and guard — and lastly, of 
 tlie Acts which characterize, holy Being; as well in its 
 birth and growth as in its absolute perfection. 
 
 Now to whatever extent any or all of these things 
 regarding holy Being — specially regarding the one abso- 
 lutely Holy Being — cannot, at any particular period of the 
 religious education, whether of the human race or of the 
 individual mind, be discerned bv us in all the fulness of its
 
 CH. II.] SYNOPTICAL TAULE. 45 
 
 reality, and in that fulness brought within the sphere of 
 our effectual apprehension ; to the same extent there 
 must of necessity be supplied somewhat intermediate, be- 
 tween these reahties of the Divine Being, and the created 
 mind which would contemplate and apprehend them ; — 
 something which will so present to it these realities and 
 relations of Holy Being, that it may discern and appre- 
 hend them with the utmost fulness and truth whereof it 
 is actually capable. 
 
 Supposing then mankind, at any given period of their 
 religious education, or immediately before the first direct 
 and formal revelation of remedial religion, to have been 
 incapable of at all discerning or apprehending the realities 
 themselves of absolutely Holy Being — in other words, of 
 the Being of God — thev miorht nevertheless, even at that 
 darkest hour of their moral and spiritual degradation, 
 have been capable of discerning, in part, at least, some 
 of those acts which characterize and express that one 
 Holy Being — acts whereof the enduring results are con- 
 tinually present to their observation, and in great mea- 
 sure on a level with its actual powers. Of such a nature 
 is the divine and holy act of creation, amidst the daily 
 renewed and ever-sustained results of which man lives 
 and moves, and has that Being which was its most 
 glorious and crowning work. And though we may well 
 believe, from the Mosaic record, that before the first dis- 
 pensation of remedial religion by Noah, all flesh had so 
 corrupted its way in the earth, that the image of God was 
 no longer, for any good purpose, discernible in the race of 
 man ; still there remained that manifold reflexion and
 
 46 REMGIOUS oniCES OF THE INTELLECT. [ HOOK I. 
 
 expression of the Divine mind, presented by all those 
 other its creative works which reach not the dignity of 
 personal Being. Still, moreover, there was taken out and 
 preserved from the midst of a perishing world the one 
 man righteous in his generation, and a preacher of right- 
 eousness, to be, for a renewed race, a personal witness to 
 the blessedness of obedience, and a personal representative 
 of the one absolutely Holy Being. 
 
 And even if the corruption of that primal race had 
 proceeded to such an extent that they had ceased to be 
 capable of discerning, either in created persons or in 
 created things, any symbol or expression of their Creator's 
 essential holiness — any genuine token of that holy energy 
 which proceeds from the atonement of absolute wisdom, 
 with absolute power and love; still the coming generation, 
 partaking as it did of the righteousness of Noah its 
 progenitor, could hardly fail to discern and acknowledge 
 the more striking of these symbols, pointed out as they 
 were by the very ifinger of God : and even in so far as 
 they might thus fail, God had still another hold upon their 
 reverential awe and obedient fear, in that no less real 
 characteristic of his Holy Being vvhich He had then so 
 recently and appallingly manifested — I mean, his right- 
 eous, and exterminating hatred of sin. 
 
 Mankind, therefore, having now, in a language which 
 they could understand and remember, been taught the 
 first great lines and precepts of a holiness, which, for its 
 own vindication and for the enduring blessedness of its 
 creatures, freely creates — which, for its own vindication 
 and for the enduring blessedness of its creatures, hesitates
 
 CH. jr.] :i<YNOPTICAL TAHLE. 47 
 
 not freely to destroy, — required, for their further reli- 
 gious training, the constitution of some covenanted and 
 enduring state, or life, wherein they might trust, and find 
 their trust worthily reposed ; wherein they might ever 
 have fitting exercise for their newly-springing faith and 
 hope in God ; wherein they might he guarded and kept 
 from another avenging destruction of human life — since 
 with its destruction is destroyed all that can ever grow 
 out of it ; wherein they might feel themselves guarded 
 and kept from the ever-present dread of such a renewed 
 visitation on the sins, of which their now awakened con- 
 science was afraid : since under this dead palsy of the 
 soul there can be no healthy unfolding, no energetic exer- 
 cise of the capacities and powers, whether of the natural 
 or spiritual life. To this essential preservation of the 
 individual life, guarded by such revelations direct or sym- 
 bolic, as could then be adequately apprehended, of The 
 Holy Name, of Holy Law, of Holy personal Being, and of 
 holy acts or results of acts, — to this essential preservation 
 and hopeful constitution of the Individual Life, as now 
 under God a holy thing, and as the ordained condition 
 of growth in holiness, we shall find all the great elements 
 of the Noachic dispensation clearly converge. To the 
 somewhat obscure personal symbols of this earliest dis- 
 pensation we shall however be enabled to return, with 
 better hope of discerning their import, after our examina- 
 tion of the succeeding economies : but we may here remark 
 generally with regard to symbolic teaching, that though 
 we have enumerated four great classes of divine symbols, 
 these may again be reduced under two more general heads.
 
 48 RELIGIOIS OIFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [nOOK f. 
 
 For, in the divine order, the relations of the Name and 
 of the Person are so close, that we may generally desig- 
 nate the symbols belonging to both as symbols of persons, 
 or personal symbols : and on the other hand, symbolic 
 Laws and symbolic acts (though these reflect, and are in 
 harmony with, personal attributes and character, and so 
 with personal being) may be both not inaptly classed, 
 in contradistinction to the personal symbols, as symbols of 
 things or as symbolic things. Now it will be found, 
 as might be expected, that personal symbols — symbolic 
 language that is of which persons and personal character, 
 and even names of persons, are the medium of expression 
 — are essentially more obscure, require necessarily higher 
 powers for their adequate discernment, than that symbolic 
 language of which tkinps are the expression ; and that 
 therefore in each dispensation the latter class of symbols 
 subserve more especially the teaching and edification 
 of those to whom that special dispensation was given ; 
 whilst the former class of personal symbols are rather 
 witnesses to God''s wisdom and unity of purpose through- 
 out his whole great economy — witnesses whose testimony 
 is chiefly addressed to succeeding generations, and specially 
 (lest in these last days faith should wax cold) to ourselves, 
 on whom the latter ends of the world are come, and for 
 whose ever-increasing complexity of life and multiplicity 
 of relations, a basis of unity, ever becoming broader and 
 firmer, ever more deeply and truly discerned, is of the 
 very last necessity. Thus, for example, whether we con- 
 template the direct and ^actual, or the ultimate and 
 spiritual meaning of the Flood, of the Rainbow, of CIr-
 
 CH. II. J SYNOPTICAL TABLE. 49 
 
 cumcision ; the import of each of these symboHc things 
 is sufficiently obvious; whilst, on the other hand, the 
 import of the symbohc Name or of the symbohc Person — 
 of Noah, or of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob — is compara- 
 tively obscure and difficult to be discerned and set forth. 
 And here let it be observed, with regard to those great 
 symbolic words which proceed out of the mouth of God, 
 that we shall be much in error, if we regard any one 
 of them as a mere dead type, or as a mere analogon in 
 a lower kind, of the spiritual reality it presents. Rather 
 shall we find it true, that these are very far from being 
 the least important of the living words which proceed 
 from His mouth, which are also quickening or life-giving 
 words, and by every one of which man must live : that 
 the nobler and more personal of these symbolic words 
 are by Him endowed with a power of ever growing out 
 and passing into the more glorious realities, which for our 
 unpurged vision they at first adumbrate ; and that even 
 symbolic things, though in this respect less worthy than 
 symbolic persons, are perpetually tending to the same 
 result, and do always, if rightly discerned, minister effec- 
 tually to the bringing in of those hoher things — of those 
 worthier realities — which they foreshadow and present. 
 
 Hardly less to be avoided, on the other hand, is their 
 error, who regard these symbols as ordained arbitrarily 
 and without any real depth of meaning, any intelligible 
 fitness for accomplishing the work whereunto they are 
 sent. For not only is this view fatal to all growth of 
 symbolic insight in those who consistently hold it, not only 
 does it tend to degrade the hoHest ordinances of religion 
 
 4
 
 50 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OK THE INTELLECT. [[bOOK 1. 
 
 (wherein God's wisdom also is chiefly set forth) into mere 
 uninteUigible charms; but it is not seldom accompanied 
 by a proneness to brand with the stigma of rationalism, 
 even the most cautious and reverential enquiries into the 
 intelligible import of God's symboHc teaching — into this 
 portion, more especially brought down to a level with our 
 actual powers, of that revealed wisdom which is for us 
 and for our children for ever. 
 
 Another evil, having one of its deepest roots in this 
 erroneous view, is the evil of regarding the symbolic 
 language whereby God speaks to us, both in his works 
 and word, both in his spiritual and in his material crea- 
 tion, as purely fragmentary, as wholly devoid of any living 
 unity. Hence, though we may receive with reverence, 
 and undoubtingly hold, those interpretations which the 
 New Testament presents, of certain special symbols con- 
 tained in the Old ; still the foretaste thus vouchsafed to us 
 of the exceeding richness and beauty of that symbolic 
 language, whereof these are insulated expressions, fails — 
 so long as we remain preoccupied by this barren and life- 
 less notion, and continue thus to view all these " objects 
 unremittingly, in disconnexion dead and spiritless," — fails 
 to quicken in us that genuine and delighted discernment 
 of its fair and excellent fulness — that new and inward 
 symbolic sense, whereby we are enabled to perceive, with 
 ever-increasing clearness, how truly, and how much unto 
 edification as well as conviction, all things in the Old 
 Testament speak to us of Christ. 
 
 Thus, for example, there are not in our day wanting 
 those who have made the gratuitous assumption — or,
 
 CH. II. J SYNOPTICAL TABLE. 51 
 
 perhaps, have somewhat indolently acquiesced in a 
 vague notion — that the whole symbolic teaching of Scrip- 
 ture, consists of nothing more than a certain number of 
 distinct insulated Types of Christ. Such persons, having 
 further assumed that these individual Types are ordained 
 to be so, often without any real, still more frequently 
 without any by us inteUigible relations to each other, or 
 even to the spiritual realities they typify, — are prepared, 
 and so far most rightly prepared, as well by the authori- 
 tative interpretations of the New Testament, as by the irre- 
 sistible convergence of prophecy to the same interpreta- 
 tions, to receive certain insulated historical characters — 
 Abel, for instance, or Melchizedek, or David, as thus 
 ordained to be Types of Christ. Again, such persons are, 
 on similar grounds, prepared, and most rightly so, to 
 receive, as being also special Types of Christ, certain indi- 
 vidual members of the great Patriarchal family, Isaac, for 
 example, in that elder succession, Joseph among the 
 younger brotherhood of the same family. But, although 
 Abraham, in the same elder succession, Judah and Ben- 
 jamin, in the younger Patriarchal brotherhood, have been 
 in part, for similar reasons, regarded as Types of Christ ; 
 and though the relations in the actual history, of Joseph 
 to Benjamin specially, as well as to the remainder of the 
 twelve ; and, again, of Isaac to Jacob, as well as to Abra- 
 ham, are of the most marked and striking character ; so 
 that it is impossible, even in imagination, to insulate and 
 cut ofiP any one of these great real at once and symbolic 
 personages from the brotherhood wherewith the inspired 
 record surrounds him ; — yet these interpreters are hardly, 
 
 4—2
 
 52 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OK THE INTELLECT. [noOK I. 
 
 if at all, moved by the existence of such very close and 
 striking relations among persons of whom several are 
 confessedly symbolic, to look for any interpretation which 
 shall give a consistent spiritual import, not to one or 
 two only, but to the whole group of these historical 
 personages thus intimately connected with each other. So 
 far however, is this inadequate and meagre notion of the 
 symbolic teaching of Scripture from leading us to a 
 full discernment of that teaching, that it precludes any 
 consistent spiritual interpretation of all such nobler and 
 more living Types as approach the dignity and complexity 
 of this great Patriarchal symbol. 
 
 How far, and in what way, our Lord's teaching, with 
 open face on the Mount, furnishes the key to this his 
 veiled and symbolic teaching in that elder dispensation, 
 we may not at present pause to enquire. And the first 
 reason for deferring this enquiry is, what has been already 
 stated as to the greater difficulty of rightly discerning 
 those symbols wherein, not things, not acts or laws, but 
 persons or the realities of personal Being and character, 
 are the medium chosen, the language used by the Holy 
 Spirit, for conveying to our human apprehension those higher 
 and more spiritual Realities which concern the Name, the 
 Kingdom, and the Will of God. A second reason is, that 
 of all the personal symbols contained in the Old Testa- 
 ment, this, — wherein the names, the characters, and acts 
 of the living historical personages constituting the Pa- 
 triarchal family, are the medium ordained for the sym- 
 bolic expression of the highest spiritual Realities, — this 
 great personal and historical symbol has appeared to me,
 
 CH. II.] SYNOPTICAL TABLE. 5S 
 
 whilst examining it, to be at once the most important and 
 the most difficult. 
 
 Moreover, seeing the Church is now at length, in 
 and by Christ and the proceeding Spirit, really endowed 
 with the spiritual Realities adumbrated and inaugurated in 
 that great living symbol ; our more intelligible and prac- 
 tical order will be, to consider, first, our Lord''s direct 
 exposition of those higher spiritual Realities themselves, 
 and, after we have adequately discerned these, to return, 
 with our ears and understandings thus opened by Christ, 
 to that earlier witness ; and, lastly, having heard and 
 compared the testimony of both, to give our deliberate 
 judgement, whether indeed the two agree not in one. 
 
 Let it suffice then at present, simply to affirm, as a 
 result of previous investigation, that the spiritual Realities 
 and Relations thus set forth and set forward by that great 
 historical and personal symbol presented in the Patriarchal 
 family, and in the names and characters, the acts and 
 sufferings, and the mutual relations of its living per- 
 sonages, make up all those Realities and real Conditions 
 of Holy Being (with the exception of Holy Law), the 
 genuine discernment of which, we have in the outset 
 affirmed to be the Province of the Intellect in Religion. 
 
 More distinctly and fully than this, might it be 
 affirmed and sustained, that, even as the Names, the 
 Persons or Elements of Personality, the Blessednesses, 
 and the Acts, which in God's order are indeed those of 
 Holy Being, have been, by the whole symbolic import of 
 the Patriarchal economy, shadowed forth for the manifold 
 edification of the Church; even so, by the actual import.
 
 54 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 by the actual historical existence, doings, and sufferings 
 of these Patriarchal personages, there was indeed, under 
 God, brought in and grafted into the life of the world, 
 the closely-folded, yet living germ of these Holy Realities 
 themselves : though that germ had still to await the freer 
 breathings of the Spirit which is by Christ, for the un- 
 folding of its then hidden Spiritual Life. 
 
 Such a brief reference to the more spiritual import 
 of the Patriarchal economy seemed in this place neces- 
 sary, to shew the bearing on our subject of that economy ; 
 coming first, as it does, as well in the order of his- 
 tory, as in that of our synoptical table. And, among 
 other grounds on which we are emboldened to present 
 our general view of that import, if only as an affirm- 
 ation, at this stage of the enquiry, may be mentioned 
 the consciousness that the interpretation here indicated, 
 and to be afterwards explained, grew out of no definite 
 preconceived theory upon the subject, but, as will in due 
 time be seen, out of a direct and independent exami- 
 nation of our Lord's teaching on the Mount. 
 
 To proceed, however: it will be observed that the 
 succession of Names presented in the Scheme as desig- 
 nating the Persons or Elements of Personality which con- 
 stitute holy Being, begins with Poverty of Spirit — the first 
 of these personal Elements of holiness and blessedness 
 revealed by our Lord on the Mount; and that the upper 
 portion of this column due to the Great Names which 
 designate absolutely Holy and Blessed Personal Being, is 
 not inscribed with those Names. Such a verbal expression 
 for the Personal Realities of absolutely Holy Being,
 
 CH. II.] SYNOPTICAL TABLE. 55 
 
 though here refrained from, can in its perfect form be 
 none other than the Holy Name of God, as, in its entire 
 fulness, it is by Christ revealed to us ; as it is also by 
 the same Christ, and in the same fulness, at our baptism 
 put upon us, in order that it may sink into us and 
 become one with us — the Name of the absolutely Blessed 
 and Holy Father, of the absolutely Blessed and Holy 
 Son, of the absolutely Blessed and Holy Spirit — the 
 Name of the absolutely Blessed and Holy Trinity, Three 
 Persons and One God. And these highest and holiest 
 of realities are thus left unexpressed in words, to the 
 end we may ever bear in mind, that though this Great 
 Name has been indeed brought near to every one of 
 us, that it might be put upon us, that it may be 
 hallowed by us and in us, — though it has actually 
 been by Christ's special authority and injunction thus 
 and to this end put upon us, — though we have at our 
 baptism been as it were bathed and buried in it, circum- 
 fused and quickened by it, — though the Great Being 
 veiled and revealed in this Name is, not in name only, 
 but in very deed, in the power of His blessed Kingdom, 
 in the glory of His Holy Will, ever ready to come to us, 
 and dwell with us and in us, — still that these highest 
 ends, this most perfect blessedness of our personal Being, 
 are attained and attainable only according to the measure 
 in which we have seen and heard and been joined unto 
 Christ, as unto Him who alone can effectually reveal, and 
 present, — and bring home, to our heart and spirit, — that 
 Holy Name, that Hallowing Presence. This, I say, has 
 been left unexpressed in words, that their very absence
 
 56 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 may declare the essential impossibility of adequately ex- 
 pressing by any words these absolute Realities of Personal 
 and Holy Being ; — that we may be continually reminded 
 that this eir'iyvwai'i of the Godhead, this seeing as we 
 are seen, and knowing as we are known, this beatific 
 vision, is the crowning and all-comprehending office of 
 man's defecated Intellect, of his spiritualized Reason, of 
 his whole mind now absolutely at one with itself, abso- 
 lutely renewed in its spirit. 
 
 Further : it was intended thus silently to express 
 the truth, that this Great and Holy Object of our whole 
 Being and life may not irreverently or profanely, may not 
 in any fortuitous mood of mind, or through any self- 
 determined means, be approached and gazed on : but 
 only through Christ Himself, and through the means 
 by Him revealed and ordained. And if we carry our eyes 
 a little onward in this Scheme to the opening Address 
 of the Prayer, which is none other than that utterance of 
 our spirits which of right belongs to such a real and 
 fruitful beholding of the Godhead, we shall perceive what 
 those revealed and ordained means and conditions of this 
 right discernment and contemplation really are, in their 
 great principles, at least, and leading lines, if not as yet 
 in all their details and mutual relations, — we shall per- 
 ceive from that perfect Address, and from that perfect 
 Prayer w'herewith he has permanently endowed his Church, 
 that this beholding of God, this spiritual seeing, hearing, 
 being joined unto Him, which can only be through Christ, 
 and without which prayer has no life, — must itself be a 
 devout and prayerful, not a profane or indifferent and
 
 CH. II. J SYNOPTICAL TAULK. 67 
 
 merely speculative beholding : that in exercising it we 
 must bow ourselves down before Him with the deep 
 veneration man's Intellect owes to God, as well as 
 with the chastened and reverential love which is due 
 from his human Affections, and with the absolute and 
 preventing submission which alone can become his human 
 Will. 
 
 To a more and more perfect capacity for this one 
 true method of contemplating the Godhead, we must be 
 ever advancing. In this way, which is Christ, we must 
 be ever walking. In this way we must be ; — whatever 
 may have been our previous advance therein ; — or we 
 must be in some false and evil way : for in no other 
 way is it possible that we can in God's order and in 
 the order of our soul's health and edification, lift up the 
 eyes of our heart and mind and spirit, for the behold- 
 ing and contemplation of the glorious Godhead. To 
 behold Him aright, we must behold Him no otherwise 
 than as He is revealed to us in Christ — no otherwise than 
 as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost : and the 
 utterance of our spirits which fully and truly expresses 
 any such genuine act and energy of beholding the God- 
 head as revealed to us in Christ, can be none other than 
 that utterance wherewith they are to this very end en- 
 dowed by the same Christ, — " Our Father which art 
 in Heaven." 
 
 This Address, accompanying and representing as it 
 does, that noblest and most blessed energy and act of 
 our Being, wherein we lift up the eye of our Intellect, 
 Heart and Spirit, for the adoring contemplation of the
 
 o8 RELIGIOUS OFl-ICES OF THE INTICLLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 Godhead as revealed to us in Christ, is of an importance 
 requiring our most earnest attention — demanding, let us 
 rather say, the sustained exercise of our best powers of 
 spiritual discernment. 
 
 Of the considerations, however, which are necessary 
 for placing in its proper light this all-important Address, 
 and for explaining the manner in which our Scheme 
 presents it, we shall, following the order of that Scheme, 
 find more fitting occasion to speak hereafter ; though 
 it may be expedient even now to remark generally, that 
 the more unfolded form of this Address presented in the 
 Scheme, on grounds to be in due time set forth, will be 
 found to coincide very remarkably, with that full, noble, 
 and essentially Christian address to the Godhead, where- 
 with our own general Litany commences. 
 
 Well, indeed, were this proposed to our own unaided 
 efforts, might we shrink from the task of adequately dis- 
 cerning and expounding these words, IlaTep rjiiijov o ev 
 Tolfi Ovpavoh ; inasmuch as these words imply and in- 
 volve, not the mere discernment and contemplation, but 
 the devout, the life-giving, the frnitful, the blessed dis- 
 cernment and contemplation of absolutely Holy Personal 
 Being. Thanks be to God, however, that we are, in 
 Christ, delivered from the extreme arduousness, from 
 the utter hopelessness, from the spiritual impossibihty, 
 of adequately performing this office ; and are enabled, 
 by dwelling ever fixedly, with the eye of our spiritualized 
 Reason, on His pregnant and manifold exposition of these 
 words, to be ever attaining to a clearer and truer dis- 
 cernment of their blessed import.
 
 CH 
 
 . 11.^ SYNOPTICAL TABLE. 59 
 
 Under the light of that teaching we shall perceive how 
 the Great Name which in these words is revealed, at once 
 in its own Reality and in its real relations with ourselves, 
 pervades and quickens every revelation of Holy Being made 
 by our Lord on the Mount, whether regarding the Realities 
 which constitute, or the Laws which determine and guard, 
 or the Acts and Energies which characterize and flow forth 
 from that Being — whether, lastly, that Being be contem- 
 plated in its birth and growth, as in man regenerate and in 
 a state of renewal, or in its Absolute Perfection, as in God. 
 We shall perceive that when we utter these words dis- 
 cerningly, we do indeed address ourselves to no other God 
 than the God who is revealed to us by Christ — than the 
 God whose Holy Name is by the same Christ put upon us 
 at our baptism — to no other God than the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost.
 
 Chaptkr III. 
 THE BEATITUDES. 
 
 Having now given some preliminary explanation of the 
 general meaning and contents of the Synoptical Table 
 or Scheme ; and specially of that part of it which is 
 not explicitly presented in the Sermon on the Mount, 
 we arrive at that larger and more important portion of it 
 which is so presented. 
 
 In addressing ourselves to the exposition of this por- 
 tion, it will be expedient to recal our provisional definition 
 of the Province of the Intellect in Religion, and to shew the 
 bearing of that definition on each distinct element of this 
 our Lord's direct and special teaching, as each of these 
 elements is successively brought under our examination. 
 
 We have, then, provisionally defined that province to 
 consist in the discernment and exposition, in themselves 
 and in their mutual relations, of the Names which desig- 
 nate — of the Persons or elements of Personality which 
 constitute — of the Blessednesses which belong to — of the 
 Laws which determine and guard — and lastly, of the Acts 
 which characterize holy Being, as well in its birth and 
 growth, as in its absolute perfection. 
 
 Let us, then, apply our definition to the Beatitudes, 
 that portion of this more special teaching of our Lord 
 which in his order stands first, and which in the explana- 
 tion of our Scheme we are now arrived at. 
 
 This portion we may, in the terms of that definition,
 
 .1 
 
 THK BKATITUDES. 
 
 rightly describe as a revelation by our Lord, of the Names 
 which designate, of the elements of Personality which 
 constitute, and of the Blessednesses which belong to holy 
 Being, in its growth in man ; and we would affirm the 
 Province of the Intellect, with regard to this special por- 
 tion, to be a discernment and exposition of these Names, 
 elements of Personality, and Blessednesses, as well in 
 themselves as in their mutual relations. In other words, 
 we would affirm that, if and in so far as the Intellect has 
 performed for us this part of its religious office, we shall 
 be able ourselves to perceive, and to explain intelligibly 
 to others, what each of these elements of Personality or 
 of character, — each of these Tempers or dispositions of 
 mind really is in itself; and what is the Blessedness 
 which belongs to each : — and, as a necessary development 
 of this power, that we shall be able further to per- 
 ceive for ourselves, and to explain intelligibly to others, 
 the relations which really obtain among these several 
 Tempers, as well as those which bind each of them to 
 its corresponding Blessedness. 
 
 Such will be, in the main, the Province of the Intellect 
 for this special portion of our Lord's teaching, contem- 
 plated as what in one point of view it assuredly is — 
 namely, a portion distinct and intelligible in itself. Seen 
 from another point of view, the things dealt with in this 
 portion will be found to have most intimate and discern- 
 ible relations with the things dealt with in the other 
 portions of the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 That such larger and more comprehensive relations 
 subsist between these several portions of our Lord's dis-
 
 62 RELIGIOUS OFFICIOS OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 course, it will be well to bear in mind : for though our 
 partial and immediate aim is the discernment and exposi- 
 tion of the Beatitudes, in themselves and in their mutual 
 relations, our ulterior and more comprehensive object is 
 the discernment and exposition, of that whole Discourse 
 of our Lord whereof the Beatitudes are an integral por- 
 tion, and of the relations which obtain among all its con- 
 stituent elements. 
 
 We are desirous then of directing attention to our 
 Lord's Sermon on the Mount, as His revelation of the 
 several Tempers which together constitute the Christian 
 character — the mind which was in Christ, and which, so 
 far as we are in a state of daily renewal in the spirit of 
 our minds, must be in us ; — as His further revelation of 
 THE Name by which, as Christians, we rightly address 
 God ; — of the several Aspirations, Petitions and Ascrip- 
 tions, which are the fitting utterances to God, of these 
 several Tempers of growing blessedness, and renewal ; and 
 which daily bring down upon us from God an ampler 
 blessedness, a more intimate renewal ; — as His further 
 revelation of the several Rules, whose observance to the 
 uttermost is an essential condition as well of the real and 
 healthy growth within us, of these blessed tempers, as of 
 our truthfully uttering to God their genuine voices ; and 
 so of our continuing to receive from Him in return the 
 means of a further growth in blessedness. 
 
 That the Sermon on the Mount, however, does really 
 contain all these excellent things, all these glorious reve- 
 lations, in a thoroughly practical, though it may be in an 
 unsystematic, even a fragmentary form, few, perhaps, may
 
 CH. II.] THE BEATITUDES. 63 
 
 be disposed to deny. But we would further direct atten- 
 tion to it as containing more than this. A closer con- 
 nexion than is immediately discernible, will be found 
 to subsist among: the several Beatitudes which too^ether 
 constitute the first distinct portion of the Sermon. In 
 the same manner, definite and intelligible relations may 
 be observed to obtain, among the several clauses of the 
 Prayer, regarded as constituting in its completeness, 
 another distinct portion of the whole Sermon. And, on 
 further examination, similar, and important relations will 
 be found to subsist among the several laws, and bodies of 
 law, which together constitute the Christian rule of life, 
 as given by our Lord on the Mount. 
 
 And not only will such relations be found to obtain 
 among the several elements of each distinct portion of 
 this divine discourse ; but it will be further perceived 
 that these portions themselves — the Christian Beatitudes, 
 the Christian Prayer, and the Christian Law, however 
 distinct from each other, and however intelligible in their 
 distinctness, are nevertheless bound together by pervading 
 relations of a very close and definite character. 
 
 First then with regard to the relations which we 
 have affirmed to subsist among the several Beatitudes. 
 These Beatitudes, which constitute the first great portion 
 of the Sermon on the Mount, are more than mere decla- 
 rations by our Lord of the truth, that certain tempers, 
 dispositions, or frames of mind, belong to the Christian 
 character, and will be rewarded each by its own special 
 blessedness ; and our immediate object is to shew, that 
 the first of these blessed tempers, that of the Poor in
 
 64 KELIGIOUS Ol'FICKS 01' THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 Spirit, is first, in no merely cumulative or accidental 
 order, but in virtue of an order and a method the most 
 real and the most living; — that out of the first, as 
 rightly apprehended, and as progressively realized in our 
 souls, grows under God, and in Crod's order, the second of 
 these blessed tempers — that of Mourning ; and from this 
 again that temper or spirit of Meekness which occupies 
 the third place in this blessed procession : and so of the 
 rest, in St. Matthew's order, even unto the end. 
 
 In the course of our endeavour to point out the prin- 
 ciples, the leading lines, and transitions, of such an order ; 
 we trust it will appear further that the special blessedness 
 promised by our Lord to each of these tempers, has an 
 intimate and living connexion with that temper itself, 
 and is not held out merely as a reward irrespective of 
 the disposition to which it is promised. And if indeed 
 there exist, (as I am persuaded a sustained examination 
 of the case will force us to admit), — if indeed there exist 
 such a living connexion between each of these several 
 tempers, as together constituting the complete Christian 
 ijOo'i or character ; in other words, the realities of holy 
 personal Being in man ; and also between each of these 
 tempers and its appropriate blessedness ; — we would fain 
 claim the reader's indulgence, should we (when the field is 
 so ample, and when the argument now before us demands 
 a survey of it as a lahole), be compelled to pass more 
 rapidly from link to link in this chain, than the import- 
 ance of each might demand. If indeed, through the 
 reader's favouring attention, we be enabled so to present 
 these outlines, which can only be suggestive of the living
 
 CH. III.] THE BEATITUDES. 65 
 
 form, as that his own reflections may fill them up; 
 we shall the less regret any such limitations as may 
 prevent our diverging from what is necessary to awaken 
 the free exercise of his own mind on this subject, into 
 what might clog and dull it. Doubtless, we could wish 
 that all false or inadequate notions regarding these 
 blessed tempers might first be done away with ; but the 
 same desire for unity of impression will confine our pre- 
 sent notice to one preconceived and somewhat prevalent 
 opinion, which is fatal to any genuine apprehension 
 of these tempers, as indwelling, as living and growing 
 spiritual realities. I speak of the notion that any one 
 of these blessed tempers, even of those among them 
 which at first sight appear most so, is merely or mainly 
 of a negative character : — that for instance the Mourn- 
 ing here pronounced to be blessed, and endowed with 
 the promise of comfort, is so pronounced and endowed, 
 merely as a spirit of grief and dejection : that there is 
 in this mourning no element of a more positive, a more 
 living and quickening character, no element raising us 
 above self and selfish sorrow, above mere sorrow of any 
 kind, even though it be a sorrow for the poverty of 
 our spiritual estate : or, to take another example, that 
 the Meekness here spoken of by our Lord, which perhaps 
 at first sight might seem most of all the blessed tempers 
 to favour such an interpretation, consists merely or 
 mainly of a certain passive, unreluctant, uncomplaining 
 endurance. Such preconceptions even with regard to the 
 three first Beatitudes, which, yet have most of this 
 negative character, — that they enjoin, I mean, or recom- 
 5
 
 66 UELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 mend the abject and grovelling disposition which is cha- 
 racterized merely by readiness to yield to the will of 
 others : — that the really poor in spirit can be rightly 
 regarded, as, by enemies, or by undiscriminating friends 
 to Christianity, they have not seldom been regarded, as 
 differing from the poor-spirited in the ordinary accepta- 
 tion of the term, by no very marked or intelligible 
 characteristic : — such preconceptions, we shall do well at 
 once to discharge from our minds, as a preparation for 
 viewing the Beatitudes, in their vital connexion with each 
 other. If we are thus prepared, it will I trust require 
 but few words to shew that these Blessed Tempers have 
 indeed their own living order: that together they con- 
 stitute a living Whole, essentially distinct from, though, 
 as will afterwards appear, essentially and exactly har- 
 monizing with, each of tlje two other great constituent 
 portions of our Lord's discourse — with the Christian 
 Prayer, and with the Christian Law. We shall perceive 
 that each of these tempers has, what may not unaptly 
 be called its positive or heavenly, as well as its negative 
 or merely human element ; has an aspect towards God, 
 as well as towards our own Being ; and that it is in 
 this Godward aspect of each that we must look for, 
 and shall find, its true principle of life and growth. We 
 shall perceive that these Blessed Tempers not only con- 
 stitute in their living fulness The Being which in the 
 highest truth, that is in Christ, we are: — the Man 
 renewed after the image of God, renewed in the spirit of 
 his mind : but that they also present the order, and in 
 part the method, of our becoming so, the process of build-
 
 en. III.] THK BEATITUDES. 67 
 
 ing up the Being that we are : we shall perceive, in the 
 living unity and integrity of these blessed tempers, the 
 perfect idea of the divinely-human life, as it has been 
 revealed by Christ and realized in Christ ; to the end 
 that through Christ and the Spirit of Christ it may be 
 realized and revealed in us. 
 
 We have said that each of these Blessed Tempers has 
 what may fitly be termed its positive and heavenly, as 
 well as its merely human or more negative element — has 
 an aspect towards God, as well as towards our own Being. 
 What then, let us ask, are these aspects with regard to 
 Poverty in Spirit, the Blessed Temper which occurs first 
 in order, and which is therefore the immediate object of 
 our contemplation ? 
 
 If all genuine religion must be founded on a percep- 
 tion and practical acknowledgement of the real relations 
 which subsist between our own Being and the Being of 
 God, and on a knowledge of God and of ourselves, so 
 far at least as is necessary to a knowledge of these rela- 
 tions, — what tnith, I would ask, what knowledge can in 
 this matter be more absolutely fundamental than the 
 truth that God alone is rich ? For, in very deed, God 
 alone is rich. We, and all other children of Adam, 
 are and must be poor — poor in ourselves, rich only 
 in God : and the very first thing which concerns our spi- 
 ritual or real well-being is, that we should know and 
 confess this fundamental truth ; that we should be enabled 
 to discern Gods wealth, and in His wealth, our own 
 poverty. 
 
 It is, indeed, only in Gods wealth that we can rightly 
 
 5 — 2
 
 68 KELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [koOK I. 
 
 or safely discern our own poverty : it is only from the 
 depths of our own conscious and acknowledged poverty, 
 that we can rightly or safely discern His wealth. 
 
 Were we to divorce these two contemplations, — were 
 we to gaze fixedly and continuously on either of these 
 great fundamental verities, as standing apart from the 
 other, and alone ; we could not fail to lose the light 
 of our heavenly Father's countenance ; we could not 
 fail to perish miserably, though in each case by a dif- 
 ferent kind of death, from the face and presence of 
 God. 
 
 So to dwell on our own Poverty as apart and hope- 
 lessly separate from the boundless wealth which is in God, 
 must drive us to despair. So to turn away from our 
 own real poverty, as though it existed not, in order that 
 we may dwell unceasingly on our own imagined and un- 
 real wealth, — that we may dwell unceasingly even on the 
 glory of the Divine riches, as though any portion of them 
 were indeed our own, excepting as it is imparted to 
 us from moment to moment, at His absolute will and 
 pleasure ; — this leads not less surely to that precipice 
 of pride, whence our downfal is, if possible, still more 
 ruinous. 
 
 Nevertheless the practical discernment, the habitual 
 and believing contemplation of each of these fundamental 
 verities in its distinctness, — of both, as now in Christ 
 become for us one living and life-giving truth, — is abso- 
 lutely essential to our continuance and growth in the 
 Christian and Spiritual life. 
 
 Accordingly, our blessed Lord, knowing these to be the
 
 CH. III.] THE BEATITUDES. 69 
 
 two deepest needs of our souls ; knowing them to be the 
 cardinal realities, on which must turn all remedial religion ; 
 knowing also that the danger, the deadliness of error, in 
 matters so fundamental, is proportionate to the importance 
 of the verities misapprehended ; does, in His blended 
 wisdom and love, make the rightly setting them forth the 
 very first object of His teaching ; as it was also the para- 
 mount object of His life and death — of His victory over 
 life, and of His victory over death. 
 
 In His life and death. He was indeed more than 
 conqueror, specially in that throughout both He recon- 
 ciled what had hitherto ever been — what, independently 
 of Him, must still and always have remained, irrecon- 
 cileable : — the Wealth of God, and the Poverty of Man. 
 For He reconciled and atoned in His own Person the 
 Being of God with the Being of Man; and the Being of 
 God is in itself essentially rich, while the Being of Man 
 is in itself essentially poor : and we may safely affirm, 
 that unless the real reconciliation of two such apparently 
 disparate and discordant elements had been presented 
 to us in the living person and character of Christ, we 
 could by no mere verbal teaching, — not even by His 
 own — have grasped and held fast in our right hand this 
 wondrous truth, this wondrous reconciliation of essential 
 wealth with essential poverty ; still less have made any 
 approaches towards realizing that reconciliation in our 
 own lives and spirits. 
 
 With the methods by which this otherwise unimagin- 
 able union is presented to us in the actual life, in the 
 works and sufferings of our Lord, our concern, is however.
 
 70 KELlGlOUd OFFICES OK THE INTELLECT. [booK 1. 
 
 at present less immediate. What we desire now is, with 
 God's help, to fix our gaze stedfastly not on His practical, 
 but on His oral teaching : on its great leading lines con- 
 tained in His Sermon on the Mount, — and at present 
 especially, on this first Beatitude, which in no unimportant 
 or unfruitful sense, may be regarded as the living germ of 
 the whole ; and a true discernment of which will be found 
 to throw a strong light on the general scope and tenour 
 as well of our Lord's life as of His teaching. Indeed the 
 contemplation of this, in its necessary connexion with 
 the succeeding Blessed Tempers, which, under the light 
 and warmth and quickening energy of Christ and of the 
 Spirit, grow out of it, cannot but lead us onward, to the 
 further developments, and fuller apprehension, both of 
 His teaching and of His life : even as they cannot but 
 send us back to those earlier and more elementary mani- 
 festations of that teaching and life, with which God's 
 Church and world were endowed, before the Word was 
 made Flesh and dwelt among us. For if in any one 
 portion of His words, who spake as never man spake, but 
 who was and is the very Word and Wisdom of God, we 
 are enabled more especially to discern the pregnant truth, 
 on if Tw XjOtcTTcp aveKeCpaXaicoaaro o Geo? tu iravTa, 
 that in Christ God hath summed up all things, it is indeed 
 in this most Divine discourse. 
 
 We have already intimated that the Tempers or 
 Frames of Mind pronounced by our Lord to be blessed, 
 may be rightly regarded as following each other, not 
 casually, or by mere aggregation, but in a real and most 
 pregnant order. This order may be shortly, and for the
 
 CH. III. J THE BEATITUDES. 71 
 
 present perhaps sufficiently, characterized as the Order of 
 Groicth ; and if we err not in assigning the attribute and 
 character of Growth, as specially distinctive of this order, 
 it will follow that the first Beatitude cannot be clearly and 
 fully discerned, even in its own proper import, unless by 
 extending our view over the succeeding ones thus inti- 
 mately connected with it. Without this, we shall be 
 unable to contemplate even the first Beatitude, in its true 
 light, — namely as a distinct living and growing element of 
 a living and growing whole. 
 
 To such a survey then of these blessed Tempers, as 
 all having their roots or germs in the first ; — as all, under 
 God, and in God's order, capable of continually grow- 
 ing out of the first ; — lastly, as together constituting all 
 the genuine grounds of holy personal Being in its state 
 of growth in Man, the ever unfolding Christian temper 
 or character, in all its essentially distinct, yet perfectly 
 harmonized elements, the Man as being renewed in the 
 spirit of his mind ; — to such a survey, limited at pre- 
 sent, for the sake of unity of impression, to the utmost 
 extent consistent with clearness, we purpose now to 
 address ourselves. 
 
 It has been already said that God alone is in Him- 
 self essentially rich : that we, as in ourselves and apart 
 from God, are and must be essentially poor. Till we 
 believe and discern this twofold truth; — till we have a 
 grounded and practical faith in this fundamental reli- 
 gious verity, we cannot turn ourselves and be turned, 
 from Self to God. Till we have this conviction, the 
 sepulchre of our spiritual, that is, of our real and enduring
 
 72 UELIGIOUS OFFICES 01' THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 Being, remains sealed : — the stone is not yet rolled away 
 from its door. 
 
 The absence, I say, of this conviction is spiritual death, 
 or spiritual slumber nigh unto death : is the negation — 
 the impossibility of spiritual life. What then is its 
 presence ? 
 
 Its presence is Poverty in Spirit : — the firstborn in 
 the humanity, and elder brother, of all the spiritual reali- 
 ties which essentially belong to that humanity as being 
 in Christ spiritually renewed : which constitute its blessed- 
 ness, which fit it for its bliss. 
 
 This it is which ministers, to that before outcast 
 and wandering humanity, an entrance into the Kingdom 
 of God: — nay, which is that very entrance itself. For it 
 is not said, "the poor in spirit shall he blessed:" — "blessed 
 are the poor in spirit." It is not said, "theirs shall be 
 the Kingdom."" Christ Himself opens His mouth to tell 
 and to teach us, that the poor in spirit are blessed, for 
 THEIRS is the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 Our possession of this Temper, — rather say, our being 
 possessed by this temper, is our entrance into the Kingdom 
 of God. The great primary barrier, otherwise insuper- 
 able, — the real and spiritual barrier, which before made 
 all entrance hopeless to that real and spiritual Kingdom, 
 is now for us burst, and we are within it. 
 
 But because we are now in God's Kingdom, be- 
 cause we are thus brought back into God's order (for 
 God's order is Jirst the order of Absolute Truth ; and the 
 revelation of our own essential poverty, and of God's 
 essential wealth, is simply a revelation of the Truth, as
 
 CH. III.] THE BEATITUDES. 73 
 
 it regards both our own actual Being and the actual 
 Being of God :) because this first dread barrier has been 
 broken, and an entrance ministered to us ; is therefore 
 every barrier to our onward course removed? Do there 
 indeed remain no further hinderances to our progress in 
 that Kingdom ? Is not Christ the Way^ as well as the 
 Truth and the Life^ And if we have discerned His Truth, 
 and would live His Life, must we not walk in His Way? 
 And shall we vainly hope or imagine, that because we 
 have passed the strait gate, the way will for us cease 
 to be narrow ? 
 
 It is not so. It cannot be so. Have we indeed 
 safely passed this first barrier ? Have we faithfully be- 
 lieved, and in our inmost spirit practically discerned, that 
 in us, as apart from God, there is no health or wealth : — 
 that in ourselves there dwelleth no good thing : — that in 
 God alone and in His Christ are the fulness of the wealth 
 of all wisdom, of all righteousness, of all hohness ? If we 
 have done this ; if we really do this ; if this be indeed 
 our habit of thought and feeling, our real and growing 
 tempier and frame of mind ; it is well. But let us not 
 deceive ourselves by a vain notion that all is therefore 
 accomplished. 
 
 There remains another, and certainly not a less for- 
 midable barrier to be passed ; — a barrier more formidable 
 far, were it not that the having overcome the first, is an 
 earnest to our spirits that, by God's grace, we shall be 
 enabled to overcome the second also, — is an earnest to 
 our spirits, that we shall finally be found in Christ more 
 than conquerors.
 
 74 RELIGIOUS OKl'lCES OF THE INTEtLEUT. [llOOK I. 
 
 Be it that we now no longer say, " I am rich, and 
 increased with goods, and have need of nothing." Be it that 
 we believe and feel and confess that we are wretched, and 
 miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked : so far all is well. 
 
 But do we further believe, have we a firm conviction, 
 have we a living, rooted, practical faith, that it is a pos- 
 sible and a hopeful thing for ms, — for us here on earth, — 
 for us now in the time of this mortal life, to be really 
 enriched by this divine wealth ; indeed and daily to receive 
 of it into our needy souls; and to be filled by it to 
 overflowing ? 
 
 Is our faith of power thus to believe, even before 
 we are in any degree conscious of having already received 
 of this divine wealth ? Do we thus believe in the possibility 
 and in the reality of such an actual imparting and communi- 
 cating as from God to us, at all \ And if so, do we further 
 believe in it, according to the measures and methods of 
 this imparting which are revealed to us in Christ ? 
 
 If we do this, it is indeed well ; it is very good : — very 
 good for our souls and spirits, here and hereafter. For 
 if our faith be of such power, it is of povi^er to carry us 
 over this second barrier also, which is in itself and essen- 
 tially a barrier harder to be surmounted than the first : 
 and so it is of power to place us at once within the vail — 
 within the inner circle iof the Kingdom of God in Christ. 
 
 For in very truth God has the power and the will 
 so to impart to our poverty of His wealth ; yea, and has 
 ordained and revealed His own all-sufiicieut method for 
 effecting this communication : and our practical faith 
 therefore in that power and will and appointed method
 
 CH. III.J THE BEATITUDES. 75 
 
 is the only remaining condition requisite for the actual 
 taking place and realizing of this wondrous communica- 
 tion — of this imparting of His wealth to our poverty, 
 by God. For without such faith that we can indeed 
 receive of that wealth, we shall have no interest in learn- 
 ing, or in using the means and methods by Him ordained 
 and revealed for our receiving it ; we shall never use them 
 in real earnest at all ; and never effectually using them, 
 cannot but remain in our poverty and wretchedness. 
 
 Let us, however, for a moment assume, what I would 
 to God might be justly assumed of every immortal spirit 
 who may be led to ponder on these things, — that in the 
 secret depths of that spirit, this second great barrier 
 and stronghold of Antichrist has also been thrown down. 
 We are not now asking by what means, by what power or 
 energy, this has been accomplished. Our present demand 
 is, In what — in vvhat especially does the character and 
 condition of that immortal spirit, after the throwing down 
 also of this second barrier, differ from its character and 
 condition, whilst that high place still continued to exalt 
 itself therein against God and His Christ ? 
 
 I answer, it differs in this : that whereas that spirit 
 was before absolutely incapable of any such Godly sor- 
 row ; it has now become capable of this second Blessed 
 Temper of Christian Mourning ; yea, cannot but receive 
 into itself, both this second new spiritual reality, and 
 also The Christian Consolation, its appropriate and 
 inseparable Blessedness. For, what shall we affirm to 
 be a more essential and distinguishing characteristic of 
 the Christian Mourner, than that his mourning be for the
 
 7() RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [uOOlv I. 
 
 want of God''s presence to his soul ? — for the want of that 
 presence in Christ, and by the Spirit which proceedeth 
 from the Father and the Son ? — for the want of that 
 comforting, that blessed and blissful presence, to whatever 
 extent he has hitherto failed of realizing in and for his 
 own soul its covenanted, its abiding fulness I And if the 
 f,rst leading characteristic of the Christian Moumer"'s 
 Temper be, that he thus mourn for the absence of Christ 
 and the Spirit of Christ from his own soul and spirit ; 
 for the absence of Christ from His Church and world; 
 what, I would ask, is the second essential characteristic 
 of the same Temper? what, but that he mourn, not as 
 those who mourn without hope ? Or how shall he mourn 
 hopefully, that is Christianly, for this absence, unless he 
 mourn in the firm assurance of faith and hope, that God 
 in Christ and by the proceeding Spirit, both can and will 
 come unto him, and enrich him ever more and more 
 abundantly with all the fulness of the divine wealth ? 
 
 The mourning for the absence of Christ from our 
 souls, from our Church, from His universal Clmrch, or 
 from any branch of it, unaccompanied by a firm and 
 hopeful faith in, and anticipation of, that most blessed 
 of all realities, — His ever-growing and brightening pre- 
 sence there, is a mourning which must kill all spiritual 
 life within us, more surely even than mere worldly sorrow 
 can. So far is it from the Christian mourning, which has 
 within itself the promise and the earnest of consolation, 
 that it belongs rather to that godless sorrow which leads 
 directly to despair ; which indeed if unrepented of and 
 unremedied, is itself utter despair and final ruin. And as
 
 CH. III.] THE IJEATITUDES. 77 
 
 without this blessed element of assured hope, there can 
 be no deliverance from the mere writhings of a godless 
 and gi'ovelling despair ; so with it, we are at once placed 
 within God's order and method of salvation : for he that 
 hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as He is pure. 
 
 See we not then how this second Blessed Temper 
 grows out of the first, and carries us a step onward in 
 our spiritual life? 
 
 If we believe not that God is rich, why should we 
 come to Him? 
 
 If we believe that He is rich ; yet believe not. feel 
 not that loe are poor ; why should we come to Him ? 
 
 If again we believe both that He is rich, and that we 
 are poor; yet believe not that He both can and will 
 communicate of His >vealth to our poverty ; why should 
 we come to Him ? 
 
 But if we believe in Him, both that He «s, and that 
 He is even as He has revealed Himself to us by Christ, 
 in all the countless wealth of His wisdom and power and 
 holy love, — if in that revelation of His wealth, we have 
 discerned also what it indeed contains, — the revelation 
 of our own essential poverty and misery, in so far as 
 we are and remain apart from Him, and receive not 
 from moment to moment of that His excellent wealth ; 
 and if further we hopefully and lovingly believe that He 
 is, in very deed, the rewarder of them that seek Him, 
 that He is capable and desirous of really and continually 
 communicating to us of His wisdom and power and love, 
 yea, an exceeding weight of His glory ; — liow then can 
 we fail to come to Him ? how then can we resist His 
 compelling power ?
 
 78 RELIGIOUS OFFICKS OF THE INTELLECT. [bJOK I. 
 
 And thus, indeed, it is that God is continually draw- 
 ing us to Himself with the cords of a man ; — speaking 
 with the voice of irresistible persuasion even to that 
 obscurely-felt, but ever-present sense of poverty and need, 
 of want and misery, which lies within us deeper than the 
 fountains of our tears, deeper than the sources of our 
 consciousness ; — speaking with the same irresistible voice 
 to each nascent capacity, each growing affection, each 
 unfolding energy of our being ; so soon as each, in harmo- 
 nious order, is gently called forth by the same voice from 
 the sleep of death ; — speaking thus irresistibly to our 
 shrinking horror of an enduring and final misery ; of that 
 everlasting destruction from the light of His countenance 
 which must be and remain their lot, who, rejecting His 
 appointed order and method of salvation, remain in their 
 own unrenewedness and unlioliness, in the gall of bitter- 
 ness and the bond of iniquity ; — speaking thus irresistibly 
 to our yearning aspirations, to our growing hopes, for 
 a state of enduring and final blessedness and joy ; to our 
 unfolding sense of the inherent blessedness of all truthful 
 affections, of all truthfulness ; to our awakening and re- 
 joicing discernment of the beauty of holiness, of that holy 
 and self-sacrificing love, which can freely and joyfully 
 suffer all things for righteousness"" sake, for His sake who 
 is our righteousness, and who did for us first, and while 
 we were yet in our sins, freely suffer all things. 
 
 How then can we resist these things? how can we 
 fail to come to Him, when He thus ever speaks to the 
 hopes and fears, to the affections and desires, which lie 
 deepest in our souls ; which are the very foundations of 
 our Being?
 
 CH. 111. J THE nEATlTUDES. 79 
 
 In very deed we cannot resist this compelling power : 
 we cannot, that is, if we so believe. 
 
 Nothing can, — nothing ever does really resist it, but 
 practical unbelief in these great fundamental Christian 
 Truths. 
 
 With regard to ourselves, living as we do under the 
 immediate dispensation of Christ and of the Spirit, the 
 second of these forms of unbelief is our predominant hin- 
 derance — is for a vast majority of those among us who 
 come not to God, the barrier which shuts them out from 
 Him. 
 
 For us, with our manifold sources of knowledge with 
 regard to the wealth of God ; with our ever-present reve- 
 lation of His unsearchable riches in Christ, by whom also 
 He made the worlds. His material as well as His spiritual 
 creation ; with our ever-accumulating historical and per- 
 sonal experience of its reality and fulness ; — it is for us 
 all but impossible not to believe in the wealth of God : 
 it is hardly less difficult really to shut our eyes to our 
 own essential poverty as apart from Him : though too 
 many effect this indirectly, by dazzling them with the 
 false glitter of the earthly mammon. 
 
 Our besetting unbelief holds not to want of faith 
 in that fulness of wisdom and power and holiness which 
 reside in God : holds not essentially and in the main, 
 to want of faith in our own essential poverty. Our be- 
 setting unbelief lies in the want, however speciously con- 
 cealed, even from ourselves^ of any living and practical faith 
 in this real communicableness of God's wealth to our own 
 poverty.
 
 80 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [noOK I. 
 
 I may not now pause to dwell on any of the manifold 
 forms, speculative, as well as practical, in which this bitter 
 root of unbelief is perpetually coming to light, and forcing 
 itself on our notice. 
 
 As to our real character, cries the worldling, what- 
 ever superficial differences may be made in us by religious 
 teaching ; — to whatever extent we may thus become 
 better informed in doctrine, more regular in behaviour ; — 
 as to our inward temper and disposition, we are what the 
 good God has made us. We may be bad, or we may be 
 good : or, as for the most part is the case, we may par- 
 take of both these dispositions and tendencies. But as 
 to any real or fundamental alteration in our character, 
 such as we have received it from the hands of God, being 
 effected by the doctrines or the habits thus taught us ; — 
 this we know and are inwardly conscious is the idlest of 
 all the idle dreams of theologians. 
 
 The religious theorist, on the other hand, eludes this 
 faith differently, but not less effectually. This fulness 
 of God he does indeed admit to be communicable to man : 
 but then its actual communication is not the main drift, 
 is not the highest end and aim of man's existence here on 
 earth : this Divine righteousness will doubtless be really 
 imparted hereafter. In this life we may be well content 
 with the firm belief, that in Christ it is to us imputed. 
 So best, so only shall we preserve our souls in the sim- 
 plicity of faith — so shall we escape making shipwreck 
 of our higher hope, on the rocks of human merit and of 
 spiritual pride. 
 
 Others, again, evacuate and make vain this faith in
 
 OH. III.] THE BEATITUDES. 81 
 
 the real communicableness of the Divine righteousness, 
 by fatal errors as to the methods by which it is originally 
 imparted to us, and afterwards quickened and caused 
 to grow within us ; by overlooking wholly or practically, 
 the fundamental verity, that this Divine righteousness can 
 be really and effectually imparted only by being first 
 imputed: can become a righteousness actually and per- 
 sonally dwelling in each member of Christ, only in so 
 far as it has been first accepted by faith, as a righteousness 
 dwelling in Christ the Head : — or, on the other hand, 
 by regarding that imputed righteousness, (in which alone 
 our indwelling personal righteousness can have its living 
 root, its continuous life), as in itself constituting our entire 
 and perfected salvation ; as of power to save our souls, 
 not because it is the indispensable ground, and the essential 
 inaugural condition of their being imbued with personal 
 righteousness unto holiness, which is also blessedness ; 
 but as it were by some unintelligible charm, irrespective 
 of any such real inward change from unholiness to holi- 
 ness. Lastly, there are those who deprive this second great 
 Christian truth of all its living power by selecting certain 
 of the means which God has appointed for really impart- 
 ing to us that imputed righteousness ; by giving these an 
 undue prominence ; by presenting them in their turn as 
 charms by which that righteousness is imparted, irrespec- 
 tively of any intelligent apprehension of them; independently 
 of any conscious exercise on them, even of the spiritualized 
 reason ; by presenting them, emptied thus of their most 
 quickening spirit, as of themselves constituting the main 
 food, if not the verv marrow and essence of our spiritual life. 
 6
 
 82 KEUdlOns OFFICES 01' THE INTELLECT. [ HOOK I. 
 
 These then are some, though but a few, of the mani- 
 fold and ever-varying shapes, in which this, the most for- 
 midable of all the spirits which unbelief can raise between 
 God and our souls, does in our day more especially mani- 
 fest itself. And this is a spirit of evil which can be met 
 and overcome only by a resolute Faith, full of living hope 
 and energy, in the coming of Christ's kingdom on earth : 
 in its coming from day to day, with ever-growing powei-, 
 in the spirit, the life, and practice of each individual 
 Christian, of each united family of Christians, of each 
 Christian Nation and Church. Such a real and evek- 
 GROwiNG PRESENCE OF Christ TO His Church, is that Spe- 
 cial, that all -including Gift, which God has in the same 
 Christ given us, to be the very central object and aim 
 of all our most earnest strivings and aspirations. And 
 it is in order to our effectually realizing this His holiest 
 Gift, that He has endowed those ever-ascending aspira- 
 tions with their proper heavenward voice and utterance, 
 Thy Kingdom come; and, seeing the flesh is yet weak, 
 even though the spirit be willing, that He has further 
 endowed our understandings and lives with the holy and 
 perfect Law of His Kingdom, and our hearts with the 
 means of gTace for fulfilling the same. 
 
 Without this living and assured hope that God's 
 Righteousness in Christ, that God's Kingdom in Christ, 
 can be, and will be, imparted to us, can and will come, 
 both inwardly and outwardly, in daily-increasing mea- 
 sure; inwardly and silently in our own individual spirits, 
 and in His spiritual Church ; outwardly and visibly in 
 the outward and visible life of that Church, and in our
 
 en. Iir.] THK BEATITUDES. 83 
 
 own individual lives ; without this forward-looking and 
 purifying hope, there can be for us no mourning, in the 
 Christian sense of mourning : for the one real ground 
 of sorrow to our own spirits, to the Church, and to the 
 world also, so it but knew this, is the absence of Christ 
 from them; and the new element in this sorrow which 
 alone can convert it from Godless despair to Christian 
 mourning, is the assured hope that God both can and 
 will, really, and in daily-increasing measure, impart unto 
 us, in Christ and by the Spirit, His Kingdom and His 
 Righteousness. 
 
 So soon as we are indeed possessed by this living and 
 quickening hope, which rests on God's eternal Truth, 
 on His covenanted word, (for has not God promised that 
 He will put His Law in our hearts?) we have at once 
 THE Christian Mourning and the Christian Consolation. 
 And no sooner have we these, than all that remains to 
 complete our Blessedness must, under God, and in God's 
 order, follow. 
 
 Meekness must follow. For what indeed is this 
 real, this spiritual meekness, but the constant readiness, 
 the earnest desire and aspiration, to part ever with the 
 unrenewed and selfish Will of our own poor and evil 
 nature — with the corrupt Will we have in Adam; and to 
 receive continually into our spirits, for a new Will, the 
 Holy Will of God ? 
 
 And must it not be also that, in so far as this Holy 
 Will becomes our Will, we do (though it may be in the 
 deepest outward poverty) virtually, really, possess all things. 
 For do we not then possess whatsoever our all-seeing and 
 
 6—2
 
 84 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [roOK I. 
 
 all-merciful Father wills that we should possess ; and can 
 we, who have learnt to will only what He wills, desire for 
 ourselves, rather must we not indignantly reject, any- 
 thing more ? Being thus meek, we shall, in the highest 
 and truest sense, inherit and possess the earth — t}]i' 
 yrjp ; the promised land, the symbolic and the real, the 
 world that now is, and the world that is to come. 
 
 The hungering and thirsting after Righteousness must 
 follow : for what is this but the immediate consequence, 
 the continual result, of our thus unceasingly, under God 
 and in the power of His Spirit, casting forth from our souls 
 the evil Will of the old Adam ? so that being thus daily 
 emptied more and more of the evil that is within us, daily 
 endowed with a purer energy of spiritual health, we may 
 daily hunger and thirst after, and have our ever-growing 
 capacity daily filled with an ever-increasing measure of 
 that Bread of Righteousness which came and cometh 
 down from Heaven ; and, in the strength of that meat, 
 may be renewed from day to day in our Will, that is, in the 
 spirit of our minds. 
 
 The central Christian Blessedness of the Merciful 
 must follow : for can we, thus daily hungering for, and daily 
 fed with, the righteousness of God in Christ; daily thirst- 
 ing for, and having our thirst daily quenched by, His 
 pardoning love, His merciful loving-kindness, — that higher 
 and holier righteousness ever flowing forth through 
 Christ and the Spirit from the Throne of Grace; can 
 we, thus daily fed with the fulness of God, thus daily 
 living in the spirit of mercy and forgiveness, which is 
 in very truth t/ie Spirit of His Kingdom; — can we fail
 
 CH. III.] THE IlKATlTUUl'^. 85 
 
 both to extend mercy to our brethren and to obtain 
 MERCY from God ? 
 
 Purity of Heart must follow ; for if we be thus con- 
 tinually emptied and freed from our false and evil will ; 
 thus continually hungering for and fed with the righteous- 
 ness of God in Christ ; thus continually in Christ pardoned 
 for our unwilling offences, heartily repented of, against 
 God's holy Will and Law; are we not in His eyes, are 
 we not through His Word, pure in heart ? And if in His 
 eyes we be so, we are, unless He sees falsely, indeed pure. 
 Not as though we had already attained, either were 
 already perfect ; but as, through Christ and the Spirit of 
 Christ, daily growing in purity of heart ; and therefore as 
 being in a true and important sense actually pure, as 
 being really pure in His eyes, who despises not the day of 
 little things; with whom time is not, and who discerns the 
 end in the beginning. And if we be thus daily growing 
 towards purity of heart, must we not be also daily growing 
 in our power of seeing God ; of discerning Him more and 
 more clearly, more and more delightedly, in His word and 
 works ; in His spiritual and material creation ; and in 
 Christ, by whom He made both ; in Christ, the firstborn 
 and the heir of all things? For the Holy God is absolute 
 purity ; and we can solidly discern and apprehend purity 
 only in so far as we are ourselves pure in heart. And 
 again, in what can this blessed and daily-growing energy of 
 spiritual discernment have its full perfection, but in the 
 Beatific Vision — in the seeing God, no longer as in a 
 glass darkly, but in seeing Him as we are seen, and know- 
 ing Him as we are known ?
 
 86 KELIGIOUS OFriCES OF THE INTELLEC'J . [buoK J. 
 
 And further, must it not be that this ever-strength- 
 ening power of discerning The Holy, which is continually 
 growing out of the obedience of Faith and Hope, is also 
 continually growing into the obedience of Love : that in 
 so far as we are thus nourished, comforted, strengthened, 
 by the righteousness and mercy of God in Christ ; that 
 in so far as we are, by unbroken, or by still-renewed spiri- 
 tual communion with Him, kept within these purifying and 
 quickening streams of His bounty, we cannot but over- 
 flow on others with His fulness, we cannot but impart 
 to others of that purer life, of that unworldly peace, 
 which He has imparted, which He thus ever imparts, to 
 us 9 Then are we endowed with the genuine ministerial 
 power : then may we in Christ's stead effectually entreat 
 and persuade others to be reconciled with God in Christ, 
 even as He in the same Christ has reconciled us to Him- 
 self; then will Christ, recognizing us as His Ambassadors, 
 put upon us, in a more excellent way, both His name and 
 His power ; then, being peace-makers, we shall be blessed, 
 
 and CALLED CHILDREN AND SONS OF GoD. 
 
 Let us not, however, deceive ourselves by imagining 
 that these free and growing energies of spiritual discern- 
 ment, of a willing, a holy and loving obedience, can 
 stream forth from us upon others, without being met 
 by opposition, without being encountered by persecution, 
 without leading us to suffer for righteousness"" sake. It 
 is into the world that this light must shine ; and the world 
 knows not this light ; or if it knows, hates and would 
 quench it. There can be no discerning, no free and active 
 love of righteousness ; no free and active obedience to,
 
 CK. 111. J THE HKATITUDES. 87 
 
 and extension of its law ; without suifering. If we extend 
 that law over the lesser realm of our own individual being, 
 there is suffering. To follow Christ personally, we must 
 take up our cross daily, and deny ourselves. But if we 
 strive to extend His kingdom beyond our own heart 
 and spirit ; if we strive to win a higher blessedness, 
 by making peace for others, by reconciling others with 
 their Father, with their brethren, with themselves ; then 
 must we have counted the cost of a great and ceaseless 
 warfare : for when we speak to them of peace, and labour 
 for peace, they make themselves ready for battle. Then 
 must we be prepared to suffer for righteousness' sake : for 
 in doing this work of the peace-maker faithfully, such 
 suffering, in whatever shape it may come, is, through 
 the World's hatred of the Kingdom, inevitable ; is the 
 very mark and token that we are indeed members of 
 Christ, that the kingdom of heaven is ours. This is the 
 seal of that high Blessedness, which is removed but by a 
 single step from the very highest Blessedness, whereof 
 while on earth we are capable. Through this do we ascend 
 to that holiest blessedness, of suffering all false re- 
 
 VILINGS, persecutions, AND CALUMNIES, FOR ChRISt's SAKE; 
 
 in the strength of a full discernment of Him as the 
 object of our personal, of our grounded and unwavering 
 love ; in the free energy of that stedfast, cleaving, per- 
 sonal love, which rejoices to give all things, yea, life itself, 
 for His sake, who first loved us : who loved us, and laid 
 down His life for us while we were yet in our sins : — the 
 blessedness of that suffering whereby we are perfected 
 
 for OUR GREAT AND ASSURED REWARD IN HEAVEN, EVEN FOR 
 AN EXCEEDING WEIGHT OF GLORY.
 
 Chapter IV. 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER. 
 
 In the last Chapter we considered the Beatitudes ; and 
 more especially, and as being of primary importance, the 
 first two of them, Spiritual Poverty and Spiritual 
 Mourning. We considered these Beatitudes as together 
 constituting the complete series of the genuine Christian 
 Tempers, in the order of their Growth ; as presenting 
 to us OUR GENUINE HUMANITY — Man as in God's order he 
 is ; as in very deed he ought to be : Man as being 
 renewed after Christ from day to day, in the spirit of 
 his mind. And we also considered these Beatitudes as 
 involving our genuine earthly Blessedness; a Blessedness 
 ever fitting us for, ever growing out into, the perfect and 
 enduring Bliss of Heaven. 
 
 We further contemplated these Tempers and their 
 accompanying Blessednesses, as continually flowing forth 
 from a practical and living faith in the primary rehgious 
 truth of God's essential wealth ; in his unsearchable riches 
 of all righteousness, of all holy wisdom and love; and from 
 a corresponding conviction of our own essential poverty, 
 and absolute want of this holiness, and of its resulting 
 blessedness, so long, and in so far, as we remain alienated 
 and separate from Him. We contemplated these Tempers 
 as developing themselves under God, and in a divine 
 order, from a living faith in, and a growing discernment 
 and reception of, this twofold truth, God's wealth and
 
 CH. IV.] THK LOKo'si I'RAYKK. 8.9 
 
 man's poverty, as the primary and fundamental truth of 
 all genuine remedial religion ; and from a similar faith in, 
 and a similar inward and living reception of, that second 
 great religious and more specially Christian verity which 
 contains and completes the first : namely, the real com- 
 
 MUNICABLENESS HERE ON EARTH OF HiS DiVINE WeALTH TO 
 
 OUR HUMAN POVERTY. Whilst however we perceived that 
 the reception of these fundamental verities was an abso- 
 lutely indispensable ground and condition of the develop- 
 ment within our souls of the genuine and blessed Christian 
 Tempers, we contented ourselves rather with assuming the 
 fact of a real reception of these verities, and showing that 
 the Blessed Tempers could not but grow out of such a 
 reception, by what might be termed a spiritual necessity : 
 and we dwelt rather on this orderly development of the 
 Christian Tempers, and of the resulting Christian character, 
 and on their growth out of an effectual reception of these 
 fundamental verities, than on the question, by what special 
 means, that reception is to be realized and made indeed 
 effectual ? — the question, in what manner, by what methods, 
 must those verities be so livingly received, as to be effec- 
 tive in thus developing or causing to grow within our souls 
 those holy and blessed dispositions ? 
 
 Some contribution, indeed, we may be said to have 
 already made towards an answer to this important ques- 
 tion, by showing that the constant, the living and 
 quickening presence to our spirits, of these two great 
 primary religious truths is inseparable from the growing 
 and quickening presence there of the two corresponding 
 fundamental Christian Tempers or frames of mind, the
 
 90 KELIGIOCS OFFiCKS OF Tllli IN IKIXECT. [uOUlv I. 
 
 Temper of spiritual Poverty, and the Temper of spiritual 
 Mourning : inasmuch as the ceaseless contemplation in 
 spirit and in truth, the genuine discernment and habitual 
 consciousness of God's wealth and of our own poverty, of 
 God''s holiness, that is, and our own unholiness, is ever 
 leading towards, and as it were, passing into and becoming 
 this very fundamental temper of spiritual poverty : and 
 inasmuch as a similar contemplation of the real communi- 
 cableness, by ordained and practicable methods, of God's 
 wealth to our own poverty, is no less inseparable from the 
 existence and growth within us of that second fundamental 
 temper of Christian Mourning — the mourning which is 
 not without hope, not without comfort — the now hopeful 
 sorrow for the absence from our souls of God in Christ. 
 
 Now it is at this point that we may rightly turn to 
 our Lord"'s perfect Prayer : to the Christian Prayer : 
 which we shall find to be, in its successive clauses, no other 
 than the ordained voice, the fitting utterance to God 
 of these successive Blessed Tempers in that order of their 
 growth which we have already considered. It is here, 
 I say, that we may rightly turn, in the first place, to 
 this Address, or preliminary portion of it, our Father, 
 WHICH ART IN HEAVEN; that we may discern the truthful 
 and earnest utterance to God of this Address, as realizing 
 for us, as ever exercising and heightening, this effectual, 
 this quickening contemplation of those great verities 
 which we have already discerned to be the fountains of 
 our Christian and spiritual life ; to be the truths which 
 must make us free. 
 
 Do we not indeed at once perceive that the utterance
 
 CH, IV. j THK lord's I'KAYKK. 91 
 
 to God, in spirit and in truth, with the understanding and 
 with the heart, of this address, Udrep, ^/xwi', o ei/ rcii^ 
 ovpavol^. Father, Our Father, Our Father, which art 
 IN HEAVEN, not Only implies, but actually is, such a con- 
 templation ? The fixing on God the eye of our spirit, in 
 the truthful and earnest utterance of this address to Him, 
 is, I say, that very act of beholding Him, from which 
 act proceeds and flows forth our spiritual life : it is the 
 beholding and dwelling on the revealed objective realities of 
 the Godhead to the full extent whereof our spirits are from 
 time to time actually capable : it is the beholding and 
 dwelling on those very Spiritual Realities which bring 
 home to us the fulness of our Fathers wealth, the depth 
 of our own poverty. These words, Our Father, which 
 art in heaven, — these words, however few, are, in very 
 deed, the exponents, the brief expression, the avaKecpaXa'i- 
 wai^ or summing up, of the whole body of objective the- 
 ology : of that knowledge, that discernment and con- 
 templation, of the revealed Godhead, of that lore of the 
 Trinity in Unity, whereon the earlier Church dwelt ever 
 with so deep and so fruitful a delight. This is that re- 
 vealed Name of God, whereon we also must dwell, less 
 exclusively it may be, but, if we would remain in God's 
 order, not less earnestly and devoutly : as conscious that 
 every real accession to our genuine discernment, and so 
 to our life-giving contemplation of that great and holy 
 Name which at our baptism was put upon us — The Name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, — is 
 an accession to the truth and life and quickening power 
 of this beholding the revealed Godhead, of this primary,
 
 92, IIKLIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 and ultimate act and energy of all religion, of all Blessed- 
 ness, here and hereafter: and is therefore to the same 
 extent an accession to the truth, the life and fulness of our 
 insight into, of our grounded and practical conviction of, 
 the wealth, the holiness of God; the poverty, the unholiness 
 of man, as alienated and separate from God. 
 
 Were we of power to fill these few words with their 
 real import; to utter them unceasingly to God, as the 
 blended voice of heart and mind and life, in the entire 
 fulness and depth of their meaning ; all would be accom- 
 plished. And not less true is it, that to whatever extent 
 we actually possess the power to do so, — provided this 
 entrusted power has, by our faithfully exerting it up 
 to the full measure of accorded might, become for us 
 a living, an indwelling, a faithfully and freely exerted 
 energy — to the same extent all is for us actually accom- 
 plished. 
 
 For, in the revelation of the Holy Name and Holy 
 Being of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 as that revelation has been effected for us through Christ, 
 there is made manifest at once the full glory of the Divine 
 wealth, and the entire depth of the human poverty. 
 
 Both these cardinal verities are, I say, actually mani- 
 fest in Christ. For do we not in Christ, as he is the Son 
 of God, very God of very God, discern the wealth, the 
 holiness of God ? do we not in the same Christ, as he 
 is the Son of Man, emptied of the glory which he had 
 with the Father before the worlds, and filled with suffering 
 and shame for our sins, yea, made sin for us, because 
 that so only might our sins and the sin of the world be
 
 CH. IV. J THE LOKl/s I'UAYER. 93 
 
 taken away — do we not, I say, in the same Christ, discern 
 the poverty of man, discern our own unholiness and 
 misery as apart and separate from God. 
 
 And if this first twofold rehgious Truth regarding 
 the Godhead and the Manhood, which we have already 
 seen to be absolutely fundamental, be for us clearly and 
 effectually manifested in Christ ; shall we affirm that that 
 second more Christian, more living and practical, more 
 soul-sustaining Truth, of the real communicableness here 
 on earth of God's wealth to man's poverty, is less fully 
 and worthily manifested to us in and through Christ and 
 the Spirit of Christ? Rather let us thankfully and re- 
 joicingly acknowledge that this second life-giving Truth is, 
 as our needs require , brought home to us far more 
 closely and intimately, even than that first. This is that 
 chief thing of Christ which the Spirit the Comforter is 
 ever taking and shewing to our hearts; that in our 
 hearts we may ponder it continually, that we may un- 
 ceasingly brood over, and draw comfort from it. 
 
 And not only is it true that we are thus, thi-ough 
 Christ, endowed with the fullest revelation of the objective 
 Godhead whereof we are capable, of the Great and Holy 
 Name in its unity and distinctness, of the great realities 
 of Holy Personal Being which that Name veils and reveals ; 
 but it is no less true that we do in the same Christ 
 discern our own real as well as our actual relations 
 to God, our own real as well as our actual Being : our 
 actual Being as sold under sin, as children of wrath ; our 
 real, our permanent and enduring Being as sons of God 
 and joint-heirs of all things with Christ. Hence it is that
 
 .'J4 KKLiGio! .s orriCK.s ok thk intkli-kct. [rook I. 
 
 we cannot rightly discern and contemplate this Holy 
 Name of God, this holy reality of the Godhead as it is 
 to us in Christ revealed, without such contemplation, such 
 genuine intuitions or beholdings of the Name and Being of 
 God, unfolding and causing to grow in us unceasingly, both 
 these fundamental Blessed Tempers ; and so, in God's 
 order, all the others which, as we have seen, flow forth 
 from them. 
 
 Nor is this devout contemplation of the Holy Name, 
 this earnest and prayerful beholding of the Godhead, as 
 now finally and fully revealed to us by Christ, of power 
 merely to unfold and to quicken in us these blessed 
 Tempers. It is further of power, under the direct teaching 
 of the same Christ, though not without that teaching, to 
 endow each of these Tempers with its proper voice and 
 utterance to God : so that now at length they cease to 
 be mute inward dispositions only or frames of mind, to 
 be mere voiceless yearnings or aspirations. Through His 
 teaching and intercession, and through that of the other 
 Comforter, their groanings are now no longer unutterable. 
 From the depths of their blessedness they may now speak 
 to God, and receive from Him in answer a yet deeper 
 blessedness. 
 
 Let us for a moment conceive of ourselves, as thus 
 discerning and dwelling on this great and Holy Name: as 
 ever fixing on the glorious Realities it presents to us, the 
 stedfast gaze of our whole Being. Can we thus receive 
 into our souls the full beams of that Sun of Righteousness ; 
 without turning from our own darkness to welcome its 
 quickening light ? Can we discern in that great fountain
 
 CH. IV. j rHK LOKl/s I'KAYKK. [)') 
 
 of all good, its overflowing wealth of manifold wisdom and 
 of holy love ; without turning from our own conscious 
 poverty and barrenness of all good, to glorify that great 
 Glory : without turning away as it were indignantly from 
 that unholiness which, in this light of Christ, we have now 
 discerned within our own souls, to dwell on His perfect 
 holiness as manifested to us in the same Christ, to 
 hallow with all our heart and mind and strength that 
 adorable holiness ; without welcoming that first truthful 
 utterance to God, that first aspiration with which Christ 
 has endowed this conscious poverty of our now awakened 
 
 spirits, HALLOWED BE ThY NAME? 
 
 Again, let us imagine ourselves endowed with the 
 insight of those Spirits of Love, who desire and are per- 
 mitted to look into the things of Christ : so that we 
 behold, with the unsealed eyes of a pure spiritual dis- 
 cernment. Him, who is verily and indeed the Son of 
 Man, — who is verily and indeed the Son of God. With 
 this mysterious reality so discerned by us, so continu- 
 ally present to our spirits ; can we disbelieve, can we 
 for a single instant doubt, the real communicableness, 
 the actual communication, of God's wealth to our own 
 poverty ? Has he not communicated to us of his essen- 
 tial Being : has he not in Christ imparted to us, does 
 he not by the proceeding Spirit continually impart to 
 us, Himself: and will he not with this also freely give 
 us all things ? And can we fail, in this flood of light, 
 in this great glory which streams from the person of 
 Christ, to see at once the essential hopefulness of that 
 conscious poverty whereof we have now in the same light
 
 96 IJKLiniors OFKICKS OF THE rNTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 of Christ discerned the depth ? Do we not now see and 
 feel that the Father, who has given us his Son to 
 take our nature upon him, to be with us, to be our Im- 
 manuel here on earth ; who has given us His Spirit to 
 dwell in tis here on earth ; cannot but give us also here 
 on earth, so we refuse them not, the Kingdom, the 
 Righteousness, and the Blessedness of the same Christ : 
 the free energies of holiness which mark the presence, of 
 the same Spirit ? And if we believe and are intimately per- 
 suaded of this ; if we are conscious to ourselves that only 
 the fervent and effectual prayer of faith is wanting in 
 each of us, to the actual consummation of so blessed and 
 glorious a condition of the Church and of our own souls ; 
 in what words shall we find expression for that yearning 
 of our hearts, for that earnest aspiration to God, which 
 must arise from this inward conviction and consciousness ; 
 in what words, I say, shall we find more heartfelt ex- 
 pression for this now paramount and predominant desire, 
 than in the words wherewith Christ himself has clothed 
 THIS SECOND ASPIRATION, at the Very moment, as it were, 
 of its gushing forth from our hearts, — Thy kingdom come? 
 
 This is the genuine voice, the inspired utterance and 
 breathing forth to God, of our hopeful sorrow, of our 
 Christian Mourning, of the temper and frame of mind, 
 which alone God can bless with the coming, in daily- 
 increasing power, of His Kingdom in Christ : which alone 
 can receive into itself the ever-brightening sunshine of the 
 Day of Christ. 
 
 The absence, let it be repeated, the absence in what- 
 ever measure, of Christ and of the Spirit of Christ from
 
 CH. IV.] THE lord's PRAYEH. 97 
 
 that individual soul of man, from that Church, which, but 
 for its own fault and failure, or from its own spiritual 
 incapacity, however originating, might and would be 
 blessed by this ever-brightening presence ; which, on its 
 sorrowing repentance and earnest aspiration after that 
 greatest of blessings may and will yet receive it ; — this 
 absence is the one true ground of that genuine Cliristian 
 mourning, which is endowed at once with the promise 
 and the earnest of inward and abiding comfort. 
 
 Nor is this less true, rather it is more, and more 
 intelligibly true, concerning those tardier approaches of 
 His Kingdom, with which our feeble faith and lifeless 
 prayers content themselves. God forbid that, however 
 guilty in this respect, we should conceive of ourselves indi- 
 vidually, or of our Church collectively, as though Christ 
 and his Spirit were indeed wholly absent from either : 
 that we should even for an instant give place by subjec- 
 tion to the tempter, and to his unholy suggestions of 
 despair, so far as to admit or tamper with the thought, 
 that we or any one of us, on whom God's Holy Name 
 has been called in our baptism, who were then inaugu- 
 rated into his kingdom, and who have since lived under 
 its blessed influences and means of grace, are now 
 aliens and outcasts from the Israel of God, as though 
 none of these excellent and blessed privileges had been 
 ours. God forbid that we should thus wrest to our 
 spiritual destruction the very means of our spiritual 
 health : that, betrayed to our ruin by such unholy sug- 
 gestions, we should convert the grounds of our Christian 
 mourning, of our repentant and godly sorrow, of our 
 7
 
 98 KELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [hOOK 1. 
 
 zealous and indignant strivings after still-renewed, still- 
 growing obedience, into the occasions of a godless despair, 
 and so of a hopeless and reckless life. With those who 
 discerningly and rightly use this holiest prayer, wherewith, 
 as the type at once and absolute perfection of all human 
 and Christian prayer, our Lord has permanently endowed 
 his Church, — it cannot be thus. Its pervading spirit is 
 the spirit of Growth. Its order and method are the order 
 and method of Sanctification. It implies at every step our 
 birth in Christ : our inauguration into his Kingdom. 
 
 Even to go no further than the Address : He who has 
 given us to call him our Father, (as it has been well said 
 by St. Augustine) has with this already given us all 
 things. And accordingly, some of the more consistent of 
 those sectarians who have denied our real inauguration 
 at baptism into the Church and Kingdom of Christ, have 
 also denied to their children the use of this prayer, till of 
 age for a thoroughly self-conscious conversion to God. 
 
 If our discernment of what has actually been accom- 
 plished for us in Christ, were indeed such as we have 
 imagined it ; if we had a solid ever-present knowledge, 
 an e-rriyvwaii, not merely a yvwan, of the wealth actually 
 laid up for us in Christ ; if we knew, thus intimately and 
 livingly, how very much greater and fuller, both to our- 
 selves and to our Church and to the Universal Church, 
 our daily and most real enrichment from that wealth 
 might be, than it actually is ; than it ever has been (and 
 the more we have already received, the more clearly and 
 longingly shall we discern the inexhaustible store which 
 ever remains behind); then would the words thy kingdom
 
 CH. IV. J THE lord's PRAYER. 99 
 
 COME be for us the expression not only of the very deepest, 
 but also of the most hopeful yearning and aspiration of 
 our souls. For God is ever waiting to be gracious till we 
 are of power to receive this blessing. And our prayerful 
 Aspiration for it is and must be effectual, in proportion 
 as it is sincere and fervent : as it is the utterance of a 
 hopeful and living faith. For even the assured hope of 
 such a growing presence of Christ to our souls is itself full 
 of inexpressible consolation : of that inward peace of God 
 which passeth all understanding, which the world giveth 
 not, neither can take away. 
 
 With regard to the Beatitudes themselves, we have 
 already seen that so soon as these two primary Blessed 
 Tempers are born into the soul ; so soon as they are for 
 our spirits really inaugurated and brought in ; then, 
 though not till then, the other Tempers or frames of 
 mind which go to complete the full Christian character, 
 are capable under God of being from these continually 
 unfolded. 
 
 If then what we have referred to, and in part ex- 
 plained, as to the essential and intimate correspondence 
 between these successively presented Christian Tempers 
 and the successive utterances of the Christian Prayer, 
 be just ; we may hope to perceive not only that these 
 successive utterances to God correspond to those succes- 
 sive developments of the Christian character, and supply 
 in order, the distinct, the genuine, and easily recognized 
 voice and expression of each ; but that, like the blessed 
 Tempers whose godward voices they are, they also follow 
 each other in a real and intelligible order. And even as 
 
 7—2
 
 100 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 we then found it necessary to dwell longer on the first 
 two Christian Tempers, as in themselves essentially funda- 
 mental, and as involving, in their inauguration and growth, 
 the main difficulties which beset the constitution of our 
 genuine Christian and spiritual life ; so has it been with 
 regard to those elements of the prayer, which are the 
 ordained and fitting utterances to God, of these two fun- 
 damental Christian Tempers. So soon as we can rightly 
 utter these first voices, with which our spirits have been 
 endowed by the Spirit of God ; the remaining voices 
 with which that Spirit continues to endow us, will follow 
 from these, as in a spiritually necessary sequence and 
 order of growth : no otherwise than the remaining blessed 
 Tempers were seen to grow, in God's order, out of the 
 first two. 
 
 If then, taught of God, and having been led in Christ 
 to discern God's essential HoHness, and our own essential 
 unholiness as apart from Him, we have turned away in- 
 dignantly from that godless self, our former evil idol, 
 and from our own conscious poverty and wretchedness; 
 to fix on God as revealed to us in Christ, and on His 
 manifold, unsearchable riches, the earnest gaze, the ardent 
 longing of our hearts; and if in this new spirit of truth and 
 truthful lowliness we have learnt to desire and to strive, 
 that He who alone is holy, should alone be by us regarded, 
 obeyed, and honoured as holy; and so this first aspira- 
 tion of our Lord's Prayer, hallowed be thy Name, has 
 become for us the single breathing forth to God, from the 
 ground of the heart, of our whole Being, in Intellect, 
 Affections and Will : if. having further in Christ discerned
 
 CH. IV.] THK LORDS PRAYER. 101 
 
 and received earnest of the real communicableness of the 
 Divine wealth to our needy souls through Him, our second 
 Aspiration for the coming of his Kingdom in our hearts, 
 which was before an act of faith alone, is now become an 
 act of joyful hope also, because we feel that it has already 
 in part drawn down, upon us and around us, the blessed- 
 ness and the consolations of that Kingdom: — how fervent 
 and unceasing will then be our Aspirations for the more 
 perfect hallowing of his Name, for the further coming 
 of his Kingdom within us and around us, in ever-growing 
 power ; for the daily enrichment of our conscious poverty 
 by the daily imparting to it of His Divine wealth ? 
 
 Again, in what consists the very ground and core of 
 our poverty : the bitter root and the bitter fruit of evil 
 and misery within us ? In what, but in that unrenewed 
 Will which, blind to the true riches, is ever lading 
 itself with thick clay from the caverns of the earthly 
 mammon ? And whither shall we look for succour, for 
 deliverance from this evil Will of self, but to the Holy 
 Will of God ? To the end that by the indwelling in our 
 spirits of the Spirit of God, His Will, which is the Will 
 of absolute Holiness, may come and dwell with us, and 
 in us, for a new, for a free and abiding Will, to go no 
 more out for ever. And in what Temper may this be 
 accomplished, if it be not in that Temper of Christian 
 Meekness which is ever ready to cast forth this godless 
 and hateful, this evil and slavish, this blinding and defil- 
 ing Will of Self, of essential poverty and misery ; that it 
 may receive for a new Will, the Holy Will of God ? 
 Lastly, in what words shall our otherwise unutterable
 
 102 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OK THK INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 groanings for deliverance from this worse than Egyptian 
 bondage to the evil Will, find utterance, but in that earnest 
 intercession wherein the Holy Spirit pleads together with 
 our spirits, Thy will be done, as in heaven so in earth. 
 
 And here, before proceeding further, let us pause for 
 a moment to contemplate our position : for if our spirits 
 have indeed arrived at this point in their heavenward 
 progress, it may, in a very real and definite, though not 
 in the full import of the words, be asserted, that all 
 is acomplished. 
 
 In a subordinate sense this may indeed be said, after 
 the inauguration, after the birth within our souls, and 
 endowment with its proper voice and aspiration to God, of 
 the first Blessed Temper, that of Spiritual Poverty. In a 
 still fuller sense may it be truly asserted after the inaugu- 
 ration, and similar endowment with its fitting utterance 
 Godward, of the second in order of these new dispositions, 
 these new elements within our souls of holy personal 
 Being, the Temper, namely, of Christian Mourning. For 
 God's work in man's soul fails not when once it is really 
 begun : unless man again apostatize and fall off from 
 Him. God's word returns not to Him empty : but un- 
 failingly performs its appointed office. If failure there be, 
 it is ever failure in the receptivity of the soil, not in the 
 essential goodness and fruitfulness of the seed sown : and 
 the reason why we may pause here, as at a point where 
 our spiritual life, if it has indeed been thus far unfolded, 
 has already made some definite and hopeful progress, is 
 that the greatest as well as the primary difficulties to our 
 livingly apprehending and so realizing that life in and for
 
 CH. IV. ] THE lord's PRAYER. 103 
 
 our own souls, are difficulties arising out of failure in this 
 very receptivity ; and that so soon as our rehgious Hfe 
 has indeed been thus far unfolded, those special grounds 
 of failure have already been happily overcome. 
 
 So soon as by the means we have been setting forth, 
 the real yearning, the predominant Aspiration of our 
 spirits is that we may be delivered from, that we may bf 
 enabled to cast forth for ever, the evil Will of self, and 
 that, for a new and blessed Will, we may be endowed with 
 the Holy Will of God ; then, in a very high and important 
 sense, all is accomplished. If in real earnest we be ever 
 ready, ever anxious and eager to divest ourselves of evil, 
 to part with the very ground and root of evil in our 
 spirits, the evil Will of self which is enmity with God ; 
 He on his part will be, nay he is, ever ready to supply 
 this /ceVwcris, this emptying and divesting ourselves of evil; 
 to clothe upon and fill us with good, to penetrate and imbue 
 us throughout with the very soul and spirit of good. 
 
 One other remark, before we pass from this, the last 
 of the three aspirations, to the first of the three petitions. 
 This last and fullest of the Aspirations, which reconciles 
 and glorifies in itself both the preceding ones, is not 
 merely the expression of a general readiness on our part 
 that God's will may be done. This yearning Aspiration of 
 all that is spiritual within us, is more and other than a 
 mere vague, pointless desire that God's Will may be done, 
 in any indefinite place or manner. 
 
 Rather it is a blended Energy of Aspiration proceed- 
 ing from heart and mind and will, from the spirit of our 
 whole Being, as daily renewed towards purity and oneness,
 
 104 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OK THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 that His Will may be done on earth, by ourselves, and 
 by all His children ; done here even as it is done in hea- 
 ven ; that is, ever more and more fully, more and more 
 freely. So that this aspiration may not spend and lose 
 itself on the dimly-seen distance, on the easily-forgotten 
 future, but that its full practical force and moment may 
 be immediately received into the bosom of the actual life 
 we lead on earth, and may impart to that life its whole 
 quickening influence and energy. 
 
 Moreover, the Will cannot be thus done on earth, 
 unless it be on earth also that the Name is first hallowed, 
 on earth that the Kingdom first comes. Hence, with 
 regard to the real drift of each and all of these three 
 great Aspirations, we are at once delivered from that realm 
 of the vague and indefinite so dear to the double-minded 
 and half-hearted ; and all the holiest energies of our daily 
 renewed Will are led forth at once to practical living 
 obedience. 
 
 With regard to the remaining clauses of the prayer, 
 which may be distinguished as the three Petitions and the 
 three Ascriptions, we shall hereafter find occasion to speak 
 of them more at large : especially whilst considering the 
 relations which obtain between each clause of the Chris- 
 tian Prayer and the corresponding portion of the Christian 
 Law. 
 
 The general exposition of that Law in its relations 
 with the Lord's Prayer (and so with the Beatitudes) will 
 indeed necessarily involve a reconsideration of the Prayer 
 itself, under such new aspects of it as result from these 
 relations.
 
 CH. IV.] THE l.<H;li> I'RAYEK. 105 
 
 This necessity for agaiii iccuiTing to the Prayer 
 enables us at present to pass in review its successive 
 clauses, more rapidly than we should otherwise be justified 
 in doing ; and thus in this part also of our first general 
 survey, to aim rather at unity of impression from the 
 whole, than at any detailed exposition of parts. 
 
 Now, therefore, that we have already seen, in each of 
 these three great primal Aspirations of the Lord's Prayer, 
 the ordained and fitting utterances to God of each of the 
 first three blessed Tempers, in the order of our Lord's 
 teaching, that is, in the order of their real growth and 
 development ; we would address ourselves to such a brief 
 survey of its remaining clauses, namely the three Peti- 
 tions and the three Ascriptxoxs, as may suffice to explain, 
 if not to justify, our view of the manner in which each 
 successive clause of the Prayer is the ordained and fitting 
 Godward voice, the genuine utterance and expression to 
 God, of each of the successive Blessed Tempers, in the 
 order of our Lord's Discourse. 
 
 First, then, what clearer, what fuller and more 
 Catholic, interpretation, what interpretation recommend- 
 ing itself more immediately to our best powers of spiritual 
 discernment, can be applied, can be conceived as appli- 
 cable, to the first of these Petitions, give us this day 
 OUR DAILY BREAD, than the interpretation which is supplied 
 by our regarding it as the ordained and fitting utterance 
 to God, of that Blessed Temper which hungers and thirsts 
 AFTER righteousness? So soon as we are raised to that 
 height, whence this matter may be discerned and known 
 with a spiritual, not with a worldly discernment, we see
 
 i OH KELIGIOU.S OFPKKs 01 THE INI ELI.ECT. [hoOK I. 
 
 at once that so it must be. Thus was it seen by Christ. 
 His meat, a meat which the world indeed knew not, 
 which the world cannot know, was to do the Will of His 
 heavenly Father, and to finish His work. Our meat, 
 whether we be worldly and carnally minded, and so fail in 
 discerning this, or whether, being Christianly and Spiritu- 
 ally minded, we perceive and acknowledge it ; is no other 
 than was His. 
 
 By daily acts of Faith (which are also acts of obedi- 
 ence) in Him who is our righteousness, we are ever 
 receiving into our souls the daily bread, the growing 
 strength and support, of Christ's justifying righteousness. 
 By our thus daily receiving prayerfully, thankfully, and (as 
 not forgetting to distribute also and communicate the 
 heavenly gift) charitably, both of this justifying or imputed 
 righteousness of Christ, and of that living Body of His 
 sanctifying or imparted righteousness, which consists in 
 our ever faithfully, hopefully, lovingly aspiring and striving 
 after the hallowing of God's Name, the coming of His 
 Kingdom in Christ, the spiritual, that is the real and 
 free, fulfilment of His Will on Earth ; by our thus daily 
 himgering for, daily receiving of, that whole living Body 
 OF Righteousness, broken as it is for us by our all-seeing 
 Father into the fragmentary forms, into the fitting por- 
 tions of our daily Christian duties; we do indeed con- 
 tinually receive into our spirits both of the justifying and 
 of the sanctifying righteousness of Christ ; we inwardly 
 digest and assimilate it, so that it becomes for us at once 
 His righteousness and our own : and thus we receive also 
 into our spirits the real virtue of that real food ; strength
 
 CH. IV.] THE LOHO'S PKAYEH. 1 07 
 
 ever-renewed; ever-growing spiritual strength and energy, 
 to journey onward in our way to the mountain and city of 
 God. Nor does this interpretation in the smallest degree 
 exclude that which truly discerns in this first Petition a 
 prayer for the bread of our earthly life, yea, for every thing 
 which is necessary to our actual subsistence here on earth 
 from day to day. Rather it is the first more spiritual and 
 more real interpretation, which can alone give its full 
 import to this lower one, and by which this lower one 
 becomes of power also to enforce upon us the pregnant 
 truth which we have already noticed : the truth, namely, 
 that the whole prayer is in the order op Sanctification, 
 in the order of progressive renewal and spiritual Growth ; 
 that the act of our truthfully offering it up to our Father 
 and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, implies at every 
 step the fact that our spiritual life is already begun, and 
 that therefore the bread which sustains our actual and 
 earthly, sustains also our real and heavenly life ; sustains, 
 that is, our whole life in body and soul : that life no 
 longer at twain in Adam, but now, in Christ and the 
 Spirit, at one with itself. 
 
 Again, can we in our calmer and purer moments, 
 when the world's glare is shut out from our eyes, when 
 the world's din is stilled within us and around us, can we 
 fail to perceive, that only from the merciful and forgiving 
 SPIRIT, may that second Petition, which contains within 
 itself, which indeed by manifold titles actually is the very 
 heart and centre, the inmost spirit of Chi'istian prayer, 
 only from the essentially and distinctively Christian Tem- 
 per of mercy and forgiveness, whereof it is the genuine
 
 108 KELltilOUS OFFICI'S Ol- THE JNTELLECT. [boOK I. 
 
 utterance and voice, may that forgive us our trespasses as 
 
 WE fOUGlVE THEM THAT TRESPASS AGAINST US be truthfuUy 
 
 and effectually offered up I And if even of our ov^^n selves 
 we perceive not this, as a necessary consequence of that 
 larger truth that the unforgiving man can have no living 
 practical faith in the spirit of forgiveness, in the possibility 
 even of forgiveness from the heart ; if in our own minds 
 we can admit any doubt of it, must not that doubt at 
 once disappear when we see, not only that this condition 
 of a merciful and forgiving Spirit is by our Lord himself 
 insisted on, in His own immediate commentary on this 
 special clause of His prayer, as a condition without which 
 it will not and cannot be granted; but that in the very 
 substance and body of the petition itself, this same indis- 
 pensable condition (the only one, be it noticed, which the 
 whole prayer contains) is by the great Teacher of Prayer, 
 is by God's Word and Wisdom, permanently embodied? 
 
 And mark here the absolute fitness, the Divine 
 method which obtains in the order and sequence of these 
 PETITIONS, as well as of the aspirations which precede 
 them, and which are implied and presupposed in them, 
 even as poverty is presupposed and implied in hunger. 
 Mark, I say, the order which here obtains, with regard 
 especially to these first two petitions, the prayer for 
 continual supplies of that bread of God's righteousness in 
 Christ, which came once and cometh ever down from 
 Heaven, and the prayer for continual supplies of that wine 
 of heavenly consolation which refreshes and makes glad 
 the heart of sinful man, the wine of God's forgiveness 
 and pardoning love, through Christ poured forth not only
 
 CH. IV.] THK lord's PRAYER. 109 
 
 on our sins in Adam, but on the transgressions whereby 
 we daily provoke Him to anger, on those many offences 
 which in our best and ever-renewed strivings after a truer 
 and more childhke obedience, in our most faithful reception 
 of that daily bread which consists in doing our Father's 
 Will ; must still needs come. 
 
 And now that our faith in God's wealth of righteousness 
 as existing in Himself, as through Christ and the Spirit 
 actually communicable to us, has been strengthened within 
 us, and quickened into a believing hope, into a hopeful and 
 loving joy, by its proper exercise, the fervent and effectual 
 prayer of faith for our daily portion of that righteousness ; 
 by our thankfully and inwardly receiving, by our rightly 
 dividing to our brethren, of the same ; now that our 
 assured hope and trust in God, that we are indeed living 
 members of that His Kingdom in Christ, which is more 
 especially and centrally the Kingdom of FORGrvENEss, has 
 been fed and sustained, has grown out into a livelier and 
 more quickening hope, a more heartfelt thankfulness and 
 love, by the actual forgiveness, vouchsafed to our appointed 
 prayer for it, of those trespasses and sins whereof our 
 conscience is afraid: — after this real sustentation for the 
 day of our whole real Being in life, in health, in growth, 
 and in that most blessed result of a pure spiritual health 
 and energy, the power of discerning the Holy, the 
 vision and the faculty which are indeed Divine, whereby 
 we rightly behold God here, in his holy word and in his 
 holy works ; whereby we shall behold him hereafter 
 face to face with ever-increasing fulness and blessed- 
 ness : — after these things what remains but that we
 
 110 RELIGIOUS OKKICKS OK THE INTELLECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 should be kept ever thus? but that we should be kept 
 in this our genuine, our blessed state of life, but that we 
 should continue to be so progressively nurtured by our 
 Being's proper and unsating food ; so ever pardoned for 
 the errors and trespasses which in our ceaseless strivings 
 after a more and more perfect obedience must still needs 
 come ? 
 
 Of the whole essential body of prayer there now 
 indeed remains nothing, but that we should pray Hira 
 who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth to keep us in this 
 STATE OF blessedness, which, though it be confessedly an 
 imperfect one, is yet that state of ever-growing Purity 
 of Heart, of ever-growing Spiritual Insight and Energy, 
 beyond which state of real growth it is not given us here 
 on earth to advance : — to keep us from presumptuous 
 sin, and so from the necessity of being led into Tempta- 
 tion, from the spiritual necessity of a fall : to be our 
 defence on the right hand and on the left, against those 
 temptations common to man which are allowed to meet 
 us on the path, and in the conflicts, of our Christian duty, 
 that they may teach our hands to war and our fingers to 
 fight ; and to make for us a way to escape out of those 
 we are not yet of power to overcome : to deliver us 
 FROM all evil to the uttermost, for that all evil is, when 
 admitted, a sullying of our purity of heart, a lessening of 
 our spiritual stature, a marring of our actual blessed- 
 ness, of our capacity for bliss ; specially of that highest 
 energy of our blessedness, that utmost perfection of our 
 bliss, the perfection and the energy whereby we rightly 
 behold God : a perfection which, like all spiritual ener-
 
 CH. iv.J iiiK lord's pkaykr. Ill 
 
 gies, proceeds indeed freely, but proceeds only, from thk 
 PURE HEART : lastlv. to preserve from the Evil One, — 
 from renewed, above all, from final apostasy and falling 
 off from God, our goings out and our comings in from 
 this time forth for evermore. 
 
 And now again in passing from the Petitions to the 
 Ascriptions, we have arrived at another important tran- 
 sitional or tropical point. The prayer as prayer is here 
 essentially at an end. Nothing more remains to be asked 
 for. In so far as these PETmoxs are granted us by our 
 heavenly Father ; in so far as the Aspirations which we 
 have before been taught to breathe forth to him are 
 fulfilled for us individually and collectively ; all is ful- 
 filled, all is granted ; as well for our Christian Church, 
 as well for the universal Church, as for our own souls. 
 
 But has our rehgious Life arrived at its entire per- 
 fection, so soon as it has arrived at the real inauguration, 
 at the unceasing growth of those Blessed Tempers whereof 
 we have discerned the ^ices in these successive Aspira- 
 tions and Petitions I We have already contemplated the 
 first three Blessed Tempers, as finding utterance for their 
 Godward Aspirations in the first three clauses of the 
 Prayer, and as thus constituting the essential conditions of 
 a true Receptivity : of any real capacity on our part for 
 receiving into our own souls the Divine wealth. ^Ve have 
 discerned the next three of these Blessed Tempers as con- 
 stituting the indispensable and sufl&cient conditions of our 
 actual, daily, growing Reception of that wealth ; and we 
 have seen, in the corresponding utterances of the Prayer, 
 the successive goings forth of our spirits to God, which are
 
 1 1 '1 KELIGIOUS OFKICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 by Him returned to us, endowed with those daily portions, 
 with that increasing wealth of real Blessedness whereof 
 our spirits had thus become capable, and for which their 
 ardent aspirations and yearnings had first been kindled 
 into a self conscious want of the true riches, and then into 
 a vehement hunger and thirst after the true bread and the 
 true wine — the bread of God^s righteousness in Christ, 
 the wine of God's forgiveness in Christ; and after the 
 true spiritual health and strength and clear-sightedness 
 therefrom resulting. 
 
 But, let us ask again, has indeed our Christian and 
 Spiritual Life, arrived at its full consummation, and 
 brought forth its fairest and ripest fruits, so soon as it has 
 been blessed by the real implanting, by the ceaseless 
 growth of those Blessed Tempers only, whose proper voices 
 to God in prayer we have thus far been contemplating ? 
 
 Has that Life arrived here at its highest earthly per- 
 fection: may we finally rest here as after an accomplished 
 task: is this absolutely all? Is this wealth of God, now 
 actually received into our souls, now being received by us 
 ever from day to day more and more fully, to remain 
 in us as a buried treasure, as a hidden talent I Must 
 this daily, inward reception of the bread of God's righteous- 
 ness in Christ, of the wine of God's forgiveness in Christ, 
 issue in no daily increase of our Christian stature; in no 
 fuller and freer energies of our spiritual life and spiri- 
 tual discernment I Must the Holy Christian wisdom ever 
 fall short of that which even the Aristotelian, the less spi- 
 ritual of the two great elder unbaptized Philosophies, was 
 of power to discern; and, speculatively at least, to arrive at!
 
 CH. IV 
 
 ] THE lord's prayer. Ill 
 
 Can the free Christian Energy of action and of suffer- 
 ing, and with it the corresponding Christian Blessedness, 
 never, in any degree, grow out under the light and 
 warmth of Christ, from these new and real, though as yet 
 latent Powers of hoHness ; never, under the free energies 
 of the Holy Spirit, freely proceed from this inwardly- 
 formed Christian character and disposition ? Is mere 
 passive, or not essentially active purity of heart, how- 
 ever excellent and glorious an endowment ; however far 
 beyond what any unbaptized Philosophy ever could, or 
 ever can attain ; however far beyond what can by any 
 other than Christ's truthful and living way, be actually 
 implanted in the human soul; — is, I would ask, this all: 
 all that the Christian is bound to believe in : is privileged 
 rather, gloriously yet fearfully privileged, to have a living 
 faith in, as being by him under God and in God's order, 
 actually attainable : all that he is thus privileged, and 
 by every motive which can stir the inmost depths of his 
 Being, impelled, to aspire after and to realize? 
 
 Are there possible for his renewed Being, renewed 
 under the Spirit from day to day, no free and holy 
 energies of action, and of that suffering for righteous- 
 ness' sake and for Christ's sake, which is the very highest 
 form and reality of action : no fervent aspirations, no 
 effectual yearnings after the imparting to others also, 
 of this intrusted wealth ; of the purity and peace, of the 
 true insight and spiritual discernment, which he has 
 already in rich measure himself received ; which he is 
 from God, in Christ and by the Spirit, daily receiving 
 more and more abundantly into his own soul? 
 
 8
 
 114 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 Rather must not this purity, this spiritual health and 
 its accompanying spiritual energies, be too mighty and 
 expansive a power, too swelling a flood of blessedness, 
 for the narrow limits of the individual soul ? Can such 
 an one refrain his lips : can he hide within his own heart 
 this new righteousness of God, or keep back from the 
 great family for whom Christ died. His loving mercy and 
 truth ? 
 
 Even as he has freely received, must he not freely 
 give : not, it may be, of the treasures which moth and 
 rust corrupt, and which thieves break through and steal ; 
 but of such as he has; of the real silver and gold; of 
 the truth which maketh free ; of the inward peace which 
 is as that of brethren dwelling together in unity, as that 
 of a city at one with itself? Must not he whom Christ, 
 in the oneness of the Spirit, has reconciled with his 
 Father, with his brethren, with his own soul, freely and 
 rejoicingly devote himself (despite the losses, the suf- 
 ferings, and enmities which his strivings after peace draw 
 down upon him,) to the reconciliation of his brethren, 
 through the same Christ, with their Father, with their 
 brethren, with themselves : as knowing that if they be 
 not in Christ reconciled and at peace with their hea- 
 venly Father, they can never be reconciled and at peace 
 with their earthly brethren or with their own souls? 
 Is not indeed this Blessedness of the Peace-maker, this 
 delegated and intrusted, though at the same time real 
 and personal, power of making peace, the very first 
 genuine off-growth and product of our now perfected 
 adoption, of our now realized Sonship, of our deliverance,
 
 CH. IV 
 
 .J THE lord's PRAYEK. 115 
 
 through the truth in Christ which maketh free, from a 
 condition of merely or mainly servile obedience ? And 
 does not the very high and special blessedness of this 
 enlarged and nobler condition, consist in the actual exer- 
 cise, at whatever personal loss, through whatever personal 
 suffering, of this free and holy energy, for the ministry of 
 reconciliation, for the Christian ambassadorial power, for 
 the teaching and baptizing all nations ? 
 
 But, it may be replied, such a notion of a personal, 
 in-dwelling, and freely-proceeding, holy energy, tends to 
 spiritual pride. I grant it. It is most true that temp- 
 tations to spiritual pride are the temptations which beset 
 spiritual gifts. But must we therefore, in our spiritual 
 cowardice, abjure spiritual gifts, instead of zealously affect- 
 ing the very highest ? Or does God supply us with no 
 shield against these temptations, which are among the 
 fieriest darts of the evil one ? 
 
 How shall we, — who are in God's holiest truth, but 
 the accredited representatives of a Kingly Power, but the 
 ambassadors of Christ, but delegated holders and exer- 
 cisers from Him, of this essentially Royal prerogative, of 
 MAKING PEACE, — bo prevented from rebeUiously arrogating 
 to ourselves kingly power : that kingly power which is 
 of our own mere motion ; inherent, self-originating, inde- 
 pendent, godless? Or can we in any other way be more 
 effectually guarded and delivered from the peril of this 
 apostasy, than by the ceaseless breathing forth to God 
 from the ground of a heart daily becoming purer, from 
 our whole mind thus growingly renewed in its Spirit, of 
 
 that FIRST HOLT ASCRIPTION, ThINE IS THE KINGDOM.
 
 116 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I 
 
 Again, in proportion as this power, which at first par- 
 takes much of the purely transmissive and ministerial 
 character, becomes, through God's continued and ever 
 richer grace, more also of an indwelling and inherent 
 power; more of that genuine Power of the Kingdom which 
 IS INDEED WITHIN US ; in the same proportion is its free 
 putting forth, its energetic exercise, accompanied at once 
 by a more intimate sense of real and enduring Blessedness, 
 by a more rancorous opposition from the godless world 
 without, and by a temptation stronger, subtler, and more 
 spiritual. 
 
 For can it be a small temptation to have dwelling 
 within us this real power of the kingdom, as though it 
 were indeed our own : a power not of this world, far 
 above all power having its source and origin in this world, 
 and which, in having overcome persecution and suffering 
 for righteousness'' sake, cannot but be conscious to itself of 
 having indeed overcome the world ? 
 
 Now that the blessed and holy power of being more 
 than conqueror for righteousness'' sake over our own ever- 
 insurgent and rebeUious impulses of wrath and hate, over 
 our idolatrous cravings for lawless and selfish pleasure, our 
 deep-seated love of slothful ease, nay, over our natural 
 shrinking from pain and suffering, from loss whether of the 
 means of life or of the good name which gives it value — 
 the power of being more than conqueror over all these, 
 sharpened by the otherwise intolerable sense of wrong ; 
 now that this blessed, this Divine and marvellous power of 
 freely and gladly suffering even unrighteous persecution for 
 righteousness' sake, is, in a very high and real sense,
 
 CH, IV.] THE LORl/s PRAYER: 117 
 
 become for us an indwelling power ; is daily being more 
 thoroughly inwrought into our souls, even into the very 
 frame and essence of our spirits ; in what thought and 
 utterance of truthful lowliness, in what pervading sense 
 of our own essential nothingness as before God, in what 
 unceasing and free ascription and rendering to Him of 
 that which is indeed, and by manifold titles, His own ; 
 shall we, in this great peril of self-worship and self-glorifi- 
 cation, find safety, find perfect and holy guardianship ; if it 
 be not in that free and joyful confession, in that second 
 HOLY ascription, Thine IS THE POWER ? Or what other 
 Ascription can more effectually for our soul's health 
 proclaim, that we discern and acknowledge in this really 
 and freely communicated power of righteousness and 
 blessedness, that which indeed it is — the righteousness 
 and the blessedness, not of man, not of self — the riuht- 
 eousness, the blessedness of God in Christ ? 
 
 And when at length this indwelling power of Christ's 
 righteousness has taken full possession of us, of our whole 
 Being in Intellect, Affections, and Will ; reconciling with 
 each other, as it sinks more and more deeply into that 
 Being, and bringing into oneness, these its before jarring 
 elements; — rather let us more humbly and more truly say, 
 in so far as this great and glorious work of an inward 
 renewal in the power of God's Spirit, has been, and is 
 being fulfilled in any of His children ; — does not this holy 
 guardianship over such an one grow and heighten itself, 
 even more rapidly and effectually than his spiritual temp- 
 tation and peril heightens ? 
 
 For is not that holiest of communicable energies
 
 118 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 which can calmly, nay freely and rejoicingly, for Christ's 
 sake, suffer all bitterest and most unjust persecutions, 
 all falsest revilings, all sharpest stings of personal insult 
 and outrageous malice ; — is not this highest and holiest 
 spiritual energy already guarded from the leprosy of 
 self-glorification, by that accompanying energy of spi- 
 ritual insight which discerns and rejoices in the spiritual 
 beauty of Christ ; which discerns in Him, the absolute 
 perfection of a personal and communicable righteousness, 
 which discerns and loves in Him, that personal Lord and 
 Saviour who freely suffered all things that He might 
 
 bestow ETERNAL LiFE, RIGHTEOUSNESS that is UNTO HoLI- 
 
 NEss, AND so UNTO ENDURING Bliss, OH US, His euemies and 
 persecutors ? 
 
 And should our remaining unrenewedness interrupt, 
 at any moment of our hves, this loving consciousness, that 
 God, in Christ and by His Spirit, is in very truth for 
 us ALL IN ALL ; is most eminently and essentially so in our 
 own holiest and most intimately personal acts ; are we 
 not unceasingly recalled to this bhssful consciousness of 
 our absolute, momently dependence upon Him, by that 
 LAST CROWNING ASCRIPTION, which gathers into itself all the 
 manifold radiance shining from this holiest prayer, and 
 which, if it be ever rising to God in spirit and in truth 
 from the ground of our hearts, is of power to keep us 
 from moment to moment, through Time and through 
 Eternity, abiding in God's love — the love of the Father 
 and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Thine is the 
 
 GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER. A MEN.
 
 Chapter V. 
 THE DECALOGUE. Part I. 
 
 In the course of our review of the Sermon on the Mount 
 in its several portions, considered as members of a living 
 body of Divine Truth, we have already endeavoured to 
 unfold in order and in their leading characteristics the 
 Beatitudes or Blessed Tempers, as presenting the genuine 
 and essential Christian dispositions, the new realities of 
 Holy personal Being which under Christ and the Spirit 
 of Christ are born and grow within us ; as constituting 
 the mind that was in Christ ; the mind which must have 
 been implanted and must be growing in each of his true 
 followers ; which alone is capable of progressively receiv- 
 ing here on earth, and of finally inheriting in heaven, real 
 and enduring bhss. 
 
 Such was the general purport and design of our third 
 Chapter. In the fourth we presented these growing 
 Christian Tempers and Spirit, this mind daily renewed, 
 as ever flowing forth from that earnest and prayerful 
 BEHOLDING OF GoD, that lifting up to Him and fixing on 
 Him the eye of our Spirit, which is indeed one with our 
 truthfully uttering to Him that address, Our Father, 
 WHICH ART in Heaven, whcrewitli our Lord begins for us 
 his holy Prayer : and we further presented these Blessed 
 Tempers, this daily-renewed mind, as alone capable of 
 genuine prayer : shewing at the same time how each 
 new capacity, each new power or energy of this daily
 
 120 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OK THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 renewed and ultimately perfected humanity, has its other- 
 wise mute yearnings endowed by the same great Teacher, 
 even as they arise and struggle for utterance, with words, 
 wherein it can rightly pour itself forth to God ; with a 
 genuine voice and expression for that blessed and quick- 
 ening communion with Him, by which it is sustained 
 and unfolded, and without which it must shortly cease 
 from all energy of growth or life. 
 
 We have seen that these inward Tempers, these 
 personal realities of our daily-renewed Being, regarded 
 as thus daily going forth to God, in Prayer, as thus ever 
 returning from Him into our own bosoms, with a renewed 
 and multiplied blessedness, do, in their fulness, constitute 
 the whole of our spiritual or real Being and Life : that 
 were these blessed Tempers, and this holy communion 
 indeed fully ours, God's new creation by Christ and the 
 spirit in our souls, would then be perfect : then He would 
 see and declare that it was very good. 
 
 Whilst, however, we were thus led to perceive the 
 deep importance, the absolute necessity, to the fulness of 
 our spiritual and enduring life, of each and every portion 
 of the prayer ; there was one portion of it which claimed 
 a deeper reverence, a more sustained contemplation, as 
 presenting to our souls the very springs and sources of 
 that real life. I mean the name of God : His name of 
 THE Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost : His name 
 of our heavenly Father which he has now in Christ 
 revealed to us, to the end we may ever behold it and live; 
 which he has now in Christ put upon us, that it may sink 
 into us, to purify and to quicken us in mind and heart,
 
 CH. v.] THE DECALOGUE. PARTI. 121 
 
 in life and spirit, for that beholding ; which he has also 
 through Christ put into our mouths, that from our mouths 
 as from our hearts it may daily rise to His throne in 
 vigils of devout and hallowing contemplation, as the rea- 
 sonable expression, as the genuine sign and symbol, of 
 that true beholding of God. 
 
 We saw that in this holy contemplation, this spiritual 
 beholding of the Godhead as now at length by Christ 
 set forth to us, under his last revealed and holiest Name, 
 ALL must be contained : even our final sanctification and 
 blessedness itself, as well as every real step towards it : 
 for that in this Name so dwelt on by us, so kept pre- 
 sent to our spirits by the Spirit of God, we have that 
 inward and living sense of His Wealth and of our own 
 Poverty, from which must flow forth our growing renewal, 
 our mature and perfect bliss. 
 
 Has then God left this blessed fountain of our endur- 
 ing Life, this Name slowly and but in part revealed to 
 that long succession of the elder world, that our fathers 
 might look on it and live ; revealed at length in the 
 fulness of time to us and to our children in all the awful 
 beauty of its perfect holiness, that we also might look on 
 it and live ; has God indeed left this his great and holy 
 Name for which He has ever wrought that it might not 
 be polluted among the nations, with no guardian, of power 
 to assert its integrity, to vindicate its Holiness? And 
 will men refrain from misapprehending, from dishonouring 
 and violating this Name, who have not refrained from 
 misapprehending, from dishonouring and violating the 
 incarnate Word by whom it was revealed ? Or if, by the
 
 122 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 severity of Holy Law, by the terrors of avenging justice, 
 this great Name be indeed fenced round and guarded, in 
 its essential objective integrity and holiness, even as 
 it has been revealed to us by Christ for our live- 
 giving contemplation ; if thus effectually asserted in its 
 integrity and guarded from violation, it be indeed pre- 
 sented and kept present to our hearts and spirits, to 
 every faculty of our Being ; by what further Holy Law, 
 by what Divine discipline cleansing us ever in body and 
 soul, strengthening ever both the weakness of the flesh, 
 and the willingness of the spirit, shall our unwilling and 
 undisceming spirits, shall our hearts, blinded by fleshly 
 and worldly lusts, be purified for the effectual discern- 
 ment of this great Name, be enabled thus to turn to it, 
 to look on it and live? 
 
 Do we not indeed ourselves at every moment perceive 
 and feel our deep need of this guarding, this cleansing and 
 sustaining power of Holy Law ? Must we not confess 
 our own powerlessness so to maintain for ourselves invio- 
 late and unpolluted this living fountain of our real life, 
 this one great object of our spiritual beholding, this 
 revealed and Holy Name ? For such a genuine discern- 
 ment, for such a ceaseless and quickening contemplation 
 of this great Name, as revealed to us in all its wealth of 
 holiness, we are, in very truth, and must confess ourselves, 
 not sufficient. This great and Holy Name, presenting to 
 us as it does the full majesty of the triune and tripersonal 
 Godhead, as in Christ finally revealed to us, cannot be 
 grasped and held by our sin-enfeebled Being ; cannot be 
 worthily and effectually discerned, through our perturbed
 
 CH. v.] THE DECALOGUK. PART I. 1 23 
 
 and clouded Intellect, through our impure Affections and 
 unholy Will. The very worthiest contemplation of God 
 which we are at any time capable of, from the ground as 
 it were of our own actual Being, in the strength of our 
 own actual discernment of The Holy ; cannot but fail. By 
 such intuitions we shall never spiritually, that is really, 
 discern either how essentially rich God is in His Holiness, 
 or how essentially poor in their unholiness are our own 
 souls. Yet, as we have already seen, the real discernment 
 of these very truths, deepening into a permanent con- 
 viction of them, is alone of power to quicken and unfold 
 within us those fundamental Tempers of Spiritual Poverty 
 and Spiritual Mourning, without which there can for us 
 be no birth, no growth of this our real and enduring life ; 
 without which, the hallowed family of these Christian 
 Tempers, with their genuine utterances to God, in prayer, 
 with their appropriate and promised blessedness, can for 
 us have no existence. If therefore we be and remain 
 incapable of that true discernment, that effectual beholding 
 of God, out of which alone these quickening convictions, 
 these living realities, can grow ; there can be neither birth 
 nor growth of the renewed mind within us ; and so 
 neither can that holy prayer, which is the ordained and 
 fitting utterance to God of this growing spirit of renewal, 
 of all these blessed Tempers as at one with each other, 
 have for us any truth or meaning, any real Being what- 
 ever. 
 
 For what avails it that Christ himself should have 
 endowed us with the genuine Godward voices of these 
 holy Tempers, these new and blessed realities of our
 
 124 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [uOOK I. 
 
 personal Being, if within our souls these new realities have 
 no existence ? Or how can that grow, and have energy 
 for utterance within our spirits, which has indeed never 
 been born there? 
 
 Whither then or to whom shall we in this strait turn 
 for succour? When our barren souls, conscious of their 
 incapacity for these new and holy births within them, 
 cry with Rachel, " Give me children, or I die," who shall 
 be in God's place to remove the curse, to vouchsafe the 
 blessing? Or, if the blessing may not be at once vouch- 
 safed, or the curse at once removed, who or what shall 
 render possible, shall prepare the way for, its removal ? 
 
 Or again, if the beginning of this blessed state of son- 
 ship, if our adoption into that great family which in heaven 
 and earth is named after Christ has already taken place ; 
 if we have been received into God''s latest covenant, and 
 have had the great triune Name, in all the fulness of its 
 holiness, of its pervading and hallowing energy, put upon 
 us, and so these Blessed Tempers, these new spiritual 
 graces, these heavenly and holy children, have indeed been 
 born into our souls ; yet, nevertheless,-— from our remaining 
 unwillingness or powerlessness to turn ourselves continually 
 towards that Great Name, the source and sun of their life, 
 and under His quickening beams to have their birth daily 
 renewed by daily renewed growth — this their life is, as 
 it were, no life, is daily fading away and perishing ; 
 and if thus we ourselves, having a name that we live, 
 are dead before God ; by what means, by the faithful and 
 zealous use of what further means, shall we strengthen the 
 things which remain that are ready to die ?
 
 CH. v.] THE DECALOGUE. PARTI. 125 
 
 It is by THE FURTHER MEANS OF HOLY LAW ; by faithful, 
 
 ever-renewed obedience, up to the full measure of ever- 
 accorded might, to HOLY LAW : to that holy Law of God 
 which is the living and actuating soul of the body of our 
 obedience, even as prayer is its quickening spirit. This 
 Law it is by which all the inferior powers and energies of 
 our Being in body and soul, which ought to be, but which 
 through our remaining unrenewedness are not, as yet, in 
 free subordination to God's Will, to our own renewed 
 Will, are gradually, through many and painful strivings, 
 through much self-denial, at length subjected to and 
 brought into harmony with the Will of Holiness, and so 
 into harmony with each other, to the casting forth of all 
 inward falsehood and untruth. 
 
 This HOLY LAW then it is by means of which all 
 these subordinate powers and energies of our actual Being 
 are guarded from the desecration of evil, and for the 
 hallowing reception of good; no longer clog therefore 
 and hinder, but now aid and work together with, our 
 best and highest powers of discerning and communing 
 with God ; nay, become themselves fitting organs for 
 beholding, for contemplating and apprehending His Holy 
 Name : by means of which we receive through every 
 constituent element of our manifold Being and Life, a 
 growing sense, an inward conviction ever worthier and 
 more solid, of the unsearchable riches of God's holiness ; 
 of the depth of our own unholiness, poverty, and need, as 
 apart from Him. And if we are taught this one more 
 especially of God's great fundamental truths, by dwelling 
 on and striving to obey those requirements of Christ's
 
 126 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 Holy Law to which our growing powers of obedience are 
 as yet less equal, and even by our very failures in fulfil- 
 ling those requirements ; that second far more comforting 
 and quickening truth, that God both can and will com- 
 municate ever to us here on earth, of His righteousness 
 and Blessedness, is not less intimately brought home to 
 our spirits by every accomplished act, even though imper- 
 fect, of our growing obedience. For by such accomplished 
 acts, our hopeful faith, our living hope, is ever sustained 
 and quickened ; is ever silently passing into an intimate 
 consciousness, that this excellent and Divine wealth of 
 righteousness unto holiness, not only may be, but is being 
 from day to day, and in daily-increasing measures, actually 
 communicated to us. By such manifold titles is Holy 
 Law a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ — a guide to 
 bring Christ unto us. 
 
 But how, without entering into details incompatible 
 with that unity of impression which is our immediate 
 object in thus rapidly surveying the Sermon on the Mount 
 as a living whole, shall we present this Holy Law op God 
 in its exceeding breadth ? How, even in that one of its 
 manifold offices, which, as being its primary and funda- 
 mental office, first demands our attention : I mean as the 
 
 APPOINTED ASSERTOR AND GUARDIAN OF THE HoLY NaME OF 
 
 God : first, as that name is revealed to us, that it may 
 
 BE the one great OBJECT OF OUR SPIRITUAL BEHOLDING, OF 
 OUR DEVOUT AND LIFE-GIVING CONTEMPLATION ; SCCOlld, AS 
 THAT Name is put upon us, to the end that in us, ALSO 
 
 AND BY US, IT MAY BE HALLOWED ; to the end lastly, that 
 our own Being, so hallowed and purified, may daily
 
 CH. v.] THE DECALOGUE. PART I. 127 
 
 GROW IN THE BLESSED ENERGY OF SPIRITUAL INSIGHT ; MAY- 
 BE EMPOWERED TO DISCERN WITH DAILY-INCREASING FULNESS, 
 TO DWELL ON EVER MORE CONTINUOUSLY AND DEVOUTLY, THIS 
 
 GREAT Name of our Father which is in Heaven, this one 
 
 WORTHY OBJECT OF ITS LIFE-GIVING AND BLISSFUL CONTEMPLA- 
 TION ? Or can we hope to discern these primary and 
 ultimate offices of Holy Law more effectually, than by 
 looking first on the Decalogue, that Divine Code which 
 was given once through Moses, in fitting form and import, 
 to them of old Time — which was given again, in abso- 
 lute perfection both of form and import, (so far as it had 
 not been already thus given from Mount Sinai,) by our 
 Lord from the Mount of His final legislation ? 
 
 We would affirm then that the first, the unchanged 
 and unchangeable Table of the Decalogue, is that portion 
 of Holy Law which, in the Divine order, guards from 
 dishonour and violation, — which for us also, as for them of 
 old time, guards in its integrity and purity, the Holy 
 Name of God, not only as it was revealed to them, but 
 also AS it is revealed to us, as it is for us the one worthy 
 
 OBJECT OF OUR HALLOWEN'G CONTEMPLATION: whilst the highest 
 
 end and aim of the second Table, as that Table is by our 
 Lord on the Mount fully and finally set forth, is a similar 
 guardianship of this Revealed and Holy Name of God, 
 as it is now brought near to every one of us, as it is at 
 our baptism put upon us, to the end that it may sink into 
 us, for the purification of our whole Being in body and 
 soul and spirit ; to the end that thus our whole Being 
 
 MAY INDEED BECOME A WORTHY INSTRUMENT AND ORGAN FOR 
 THIS LIFE-GIVING AND BLISSFUL CONTEMPLATION OF GoD.
 
 128 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 These offices and powers of Holy Law, as they mani- 
 fest themselves in the full fonn and import of the Deca- 
 logue, enable us, through strenuous obedience, to realize 
 the primary and essential conditions for effectually dis- 
 cerning and communing with God, through all the faculties 
 and affections of our genuine human life : not merely 
 of that comparatively poor and feeble life which we pos- 
 sess AS INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIANS, but also through the larger 
 and holier feelings and relations of the more blessed life 
 we live as members of a Christian Family ; through 
 those still worthier powers and energies for action, for 
 endurance, for enlarged affections, and for genuine insight, 
 belonging to our still worthier life as members in Church 
 AND State of a Christian nation : belonging to our com- 
 plete HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE ON EARTH. 
 
 These worthiest and holiest energies of our complete 
 earthly life have indeed their living roots in a free and 
 conscious self-subordination to the whole Law of this 
 second Table (as implying in itself the whole Law of the 
 first) in all its exceeding breadth : not only as it has been 
 illuminated for us by the light of Christ and the Spirit, 
 but as it is ever growing out under that genial light into 
 the fuller details of all Holy Law, as well outward as 
 inward, — into the absolute perfection of the practical 
 human reason as reconciled with, as impregnated and 
 spiritualized by, the Word and Wisdom of God. 
 
 It would be inconsistent with our plan to anticipate 
 here any objections which may be raised to this general 
 view of the fuller and more spiritual import of the Deca- 
 logue. Our present object is rather to present the positive
 
 TH. v.] THR DECALOGUE. PART 1. 129 
 
 arguments for this view, arising from its intelligible con- 
 sistency with our Lord's teaching on tlie Mount. 
 
 There is however one objection, which may imme- 
 diately occur, and which, if not obviated, may prejudice 
 the direct arguments in favour of this view. It may 
 be said. We perceive indeed that our Lord*'s promulgation 
 on the Mount, of the Christian Law, begins with certain 
 injunctions having clear reference to the second half of 
 the Decalogue : nay, that it begins with two laws clearly 
 and expressly corresponding to the sixth and seventh Com- 
 mandments respectively ; the first two of this latter half. 
 But what trace do we find in it of the first five Com- 
 mandments: of the first half, that is, or Table of the Deca- 
 logue? Or how are you justified in assuming that to be 
 implicitly a portion of the Sermon on the Mount, which 
 is thus explicitly rejected from it? Without affirming 
 that the very terms of this objection suggest its refuta- 
 tion, suffice it at present to reply, that the first Table 
 of the Decalogue is not promulgated by our Lord from 
 the Mount, because it had already been promulgated 
 in its fulness, in its permanent form and import, from 
 Sinai, the mount of God's eariier legislation : and because 
 it was not consistent with the spirit of our Lord's teaching, 
 that He should disparage the inherent, and enduring, sove- 
 reign authority of any portion of the Divine Law already 
 given in its completeness, by a mere repetition of all or 
 any of the Commandments contained in that portion. 
 
 This reason is clearly not applicable to the second 
 portion or Table of the Decalogue, inasmuch as the full 
 form and import of that Table had not yet been given, 
 9
 
 \3() RELIGIOUS OFFICKS OK THK INTELLECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 and inasmuch as the giving these was evidently one import- 
 ant object of our Lord's legislation on the Mount. And 
 if it be further objected, that the office here assigned 
 as its primary one, to the first Table, (that, namely, of 
 vindicating in its integrity, and of guarding from desecra- 
 tion, the Holy Name of God, as that Name is revealed to 
 us), could be fulfilled by this first Table, only during the 
 period of an imperfect and symbolic revelation of that 
 Name ; I reply that this first Table does, on the contrary, 
 effect all which purely authoritative Law, can effect, for 
 the guardianship in its integrity, of that Holy Name, not 
 only as it was revealed to the Jew, but also as it is 
 revealed to us. 
 
 All that absolutely authoritative and compelling Law 
 can do towards guarding for us, towards presenting and 
 keeping present to our spirits, the revealed Name of God, 
 is actually accomplished by that first Table, as well for 
 our own, as for every period passed under explicit Law, of 
 the Church's life on earth. The great Realities of absolutely 
 Holy Personal Being which that Law was given to guard, 
 as well in order that we might discern them and live, 
 as in order to their own inalienable glory, — those great 
 living and quickening realities, it is not within the province 
 or the power of authoritative Law actually to place before 
 the eye of our spirit, actually to keep present to its 
 stedfast gaze. So to place those realities before the eye 
 of our spirit, is the office, and demands the power, of the 
 Son begotten before the worlds: so to keep those realities 
 ever present to our spirit's stedfast gaze, is the province, 
 and requires the energies, of the ever-proceeding Spirit.
 
 OH v.] THE DECALOrrUK. PART I. 131 
 
 But however impossible it may be, in God's order, for 
 these great and holy Realities effectually to reach and to 
 renew our minds, independently of the ordained Offices of 
 Christ and of the Proceeding Spirit ; it is no less alien from 
 that Divine order, that so blessed a work should be accom- 
 plished, independently of this guardian power of Holy 
 Law ; this power of vindicating in its integrity, and pre- 
 serving from violation, the Holy Name of God, both as it 
 
 IS REVEALED TO US, and AS IT IS PUT UPON US. 
 
 That this one great source of our enduring Life and 
 Bliss, can indeed, at any period of the Church's earthly 
 existence, be left without its own ordained and fitting 
 guardian, in Holy Law, may not for a moment be ima- 
 gined. For this Holy Name, as revealed gradually, at dif- 
 ferent times and with increasing fulness to the Church, as 
 completely and finally revealed to us in Christ, is for us the 
 representative and vicegerent of the Godhead; does indeed 
 present to the eye of our mind, so far as we are of power 
 to discern them, the Personal Realities of absolutely Holy 
 Being. So that if this Name be not thus, through the 
 ministry of Holy Law, guarded ever from violation in all 
 its actually revealed integrity ; be not, so far as the same 
 ministry can effect this, presented ever, in that inte- 
 grity, and ever effectually kept present, to our mind and 
 heart and spirit ; it will have been revealed to us in vain : 
 it will not have been glorified, but dishonoured by us; even 
 as Christ, who revealed it, was himself dishonoured. Hence 
 it will not be discerned by us and contemplated in its 
 essential integrity and purity : it will not be retained in 
 our thoughts, as the one object of our reverential awe, of 
 
 P — 2
 
 132 RF.MfilOLS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [boOK I. 
 
 our devout contemplation ; but will be rejected thence, or 
 debased there, by manifold idolatry. Thus shall we either 
 wholly fail to discern and apprehend that life-giving 
 Name ; to take and lay hold of it, that it may be put 
 upon us for our hallowing ; or, what is yet more fearful, 
 
 WE SHALL HAVE TAKEN IT IN VAIN. For thuS wiU the ob- 
 
 ject of our devout beholding, of our religious life, instead 
 of being the true form of God, become for us a false 
 form, an idol of Him : and thus we, forming ourselves, 
 and being formed on the contemplation, after the fashion 
 of this idol, and giving our hearts to it, shall indeed be 
 joined and conformed to the same; shall and must corrupt 
 ourselves in our own imaginations, more and more. 
 
 Now we have already seen that the opening Address of 
 the Lord's Prayer, Our Father, which art in Heaven, 
 presents to us the Holy Name, in all the fulness of that 
 final revelation of it by Christ, wherein it is our highest 
 Christian privilege and duty to contemplate and discern 
 it. So that if this First Table be indeed the ordained 
 Guardian of the Holy Name as it is revealed to us, it is 
 also THE Body of Holy La-w, directly and intimately cor- 
 responding to THIS Address. 
 
 By this body of Law, in its full spiritual import, it is 
 indeed provided that when we raise the eye of our spirit 
 to God, in the utterance of this Address, we should raise 
 it to no false form or image of God made for us by others 
 or by ourselves ; but indeed and only to that true God the 
 Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, who is revealed to us 
 in Christ. 
 
 And God has so guarded His revealed Name, not
 
 CH. v.] , THK DECALOGUB PAKT I. 133 
 
 only for His own glory, of which he is jealous, and which 
 He will not give to another, but in His great mercy to us. 
 For, as we have seen, this primal and fontal religious act, 
 this devoutly beholding and contemplating God, is the 
 source of our Life and Blessedness, if we behold and con- 
 template Him as He has revealed Himself to us in Christ ; 
 is the source of our misery and death if we behold Him 
 otherwise. 
 
 Setting aside then, for the present, any discussion as 
 to the exact point of division between the two Tables of 
 the Decalogue, which, in the silence of Scripture and the 
 uncertainty of tradition on this question, we have been led, 
 on grounds which will soon become apparent, to place at 
 the end of the Fifth Commandment; we shall proceed 
 to consider the first five Commandments as constituting 
 the First Table, and as ordained to fulfil the special ofiBce 
 which has just been assigned them. 
 
 With regard then to the First Law of the First 
 Table, I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none 
 OTHER Gods but Me, the more earnestly we consider it, the 
 more clearly shall we perceive that in this first and fontal 
 Law the whole Law is implicitly contained. For if we 
 will have any other God but Him who is the Lord our 
 God ; if we will not retain Him in our thoughts, neither 
 glorify Him as God ; if thus we live without God in 
 the world ; his hallowing energy reaches us not : we 
 are given over, and left a prey to the fatal necessity of 
 our own evil and unrenewed nature : we cannot but fall 
 off into idolatry. Whether we become " pupils in the 
 many-chambered school, where superstition weaves her
 
 134 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I, 
 
 airy dreams ;" or whether, despising these, we fall back on 
 the colder and more deadly idolatry of self; in either 
 case we cannot but corrupt ourselves and be corrupted 
 more and more. Our idols may be material and visible, 
 or they may be invisible and spiritual ; it matters not : 
 save that these last are more real, subtler, and deadlier, 
 " a cleaving mischief far within our guard :" save that 
 they are more skilled to clothe themselves in the form of 
 Angels of Light ; to deceive, if it were possible, the very 
 Elect, and to cause them to have taken on themselves 
 that Holy Name in vain. 
 
 Nevertheless, though these perils and failures of our 
 spiritual well-being are all generated from, and grow out 
 of, the first and deadliest, the not willing to retain the 
 true God in our thoughts ; the not actually retaining and 
 honouring there, as God, that Holy Being who has said, 
 I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none other Gods 
 but me ; still there are distinct grounds of peril and 
 failure corresponding to each of the first three Com- 
 mandments. 
 
 For we may indeed be desirous of having none other 
 God but the Lord who is our rightful God; and yet, 
 since He is not in His essence visible to our fleshly 
 eye, but can only be spiritually discerned, it is still possi- 
 ble (would it were for any of us not more than a barren 
 possibility), that we should fail to guard for ourselves 
 effectually, in all the fulness of their objective truth and 
 purity, the manifestations of Himself which He has vouch- 
 safed to us. And therefore again we have to fear and to 
 strive, lest these manifestations, however genuine in them-
 
 Cll. V.J THE UliCALOGUK. PART I. 135 
 
 selves, however fitted to perfect the work whereunto they 
 are sent ; should then, when they indeed reach our souls, 
 be found perverted or corrupted from that truthful purity, 
 that quickening energy in which they came forth from 
 God : and thus our souls, not dwelling on and fed by that 
 pure truth, not enlivened and sustained by that hallow- 
 ing contemplation, should remain unblessed by those holy 
 Tempers which can indeed be kept in health and growth, 
 or even in life, by no other nourishment tlian by the 
 genuine and fruitful Beholding of God. 
 
 What then is that special manifestation of the God- 
 head, wherein all others are for us summed up and 
 glorified ? What is that final revelation of the Holy Name, 
 which it is our primal and bounden duty, clearly to dis- 
 cern and jealously to guard : jealously, I say, and with 
 our best powers of mind and heart and life to discern and 
 to guard, in all that fulness of truth, in all that integrity 
 and perfection of holiness and spiritual beauty, wherein it 
 has been revealed and committed to us ? and the so assert- 
 ing and guarding which, if need be at the cost of our Uvea, 
 from every even the least idolatrous perversion, is for 
 us the very essence and spirit of obedience to the Second 
 Commandment. 
 
 That special manifestation, that full and final revela- 
 tion to us of the Godhead, can be none other than the 
 revelation which is by Christ Jesus. For in Him we have 
 the Brightness of the Father's Glory, the express image 
 OF His person; yea, he that hath seen and seeth Christ 
 hath seen and seeth the Father. And no man can call 
 Jesus Lord ; no man, that is, can rightly and fully dis-
 
 136 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 cern Christ ; except by the Holy Ghost : except through 
 the light shed abroad in his heart by the presence there 
 of the Spirit which proceed eth from the Father and the 
 Son. So that if Christ be present to our spirit and spiri- 
 tual discernment, then must there be present to them the 
 Father, the Son, and the Spirit, in all their revealed fulness. 
 And if this one worthy and final manifestation of the 
 Godhead be not indeed by us, to the uttermost of our 
 power, thus clearly discerned, and jealously guarded, in 
 all the living fulness of its truth ; if it be not indeed to 
 Christ himself, and to no false form or idol of Christ; 
 to Christ, very God of very God, the express image of 
 the Father's Person, the brightness of His glory ; to 
 Christ, as Himself the Comforter, as Himself with the 
 Father, the giver and sender of that other Comforter, in 
 whose presence to our spirits we are no longer orphans ; 
 if it be not to Him, as our Prophet, Priest, and King ; 
 to Him, as for our reconciliation with the Father, obedient 
 even unto death, the death of the Cross ; if it be not to 
 this Christ so lifted up, to the end He might draw all men 
 to Him, that we lift up our eyes ; — how, beholding Him, 
 shall we live ? how shall we be drawn to Him, that we 
 may be with Him there where He is I 
 
 Or if it be the Truth that maketh free, the Truth 
 Ay it in Jesus ; can that make us free which is not the 
 truth, or which is but a lifeless fragment of the truth ; 
 which turns the truth of God into a lie ? Rather must we 
 not be enslaved to this lie which we hold in our right 
 hand? and having fallen off from the true to the false 
 form of God; having made to ourselves some other image
 
 CH. v.] THE DECALOGUE. PART 1. 137 
 
 OF THINGS IN HEAVEN, OR THINGS IN EARTH, OR THINGS UNDER 
 THE EARTH, MUST WE NOT BOW DOWN TO THEM AND WORSHIP 
 
 THEM ? And if we have so turned from that great Light 
 which Hghteth every man that cometh into the world, to 
 the sparks which ourselves have kindled, shall we not fur- 
 ther have this at God''s hands, that we lie down in sorrow ! 
 And even as our true discernment of Christ, our 
 faithful and loving obedience to Him, is, and will be, a 
 
 BLESSING TO OURSELVES AND TO OUR SPIRITUAL CHILDREN, tO 
 
 the thousands whom our light, so shining before men that 
 they may see our good works and glorify our Father which 
 is in heaven, may have led into the way of truth and peace ; 
 so assuredly, if we fall off from Christ, or follow after false 
 Christs, WILL our sins be visited on our children also, 
 
 AFTER THE FLESH AS WELL A3 AFTER THE SPIRIT ; and be 
 
 entailed upon them for many generations, by the righteous 
 and intelligible laws of God's most effectually persuasive, 
 and so most wise and merciful, order. 
 
 Again, if we have thus subordinated ourselves to the 
 second of the three great primal Commandments, which 
 are ordained for the special purpose of guarding in its 
 revealed integrity the Holy Name of our Father which is 
 IN HEAVEN, of that onc worthy and satisfying object of 
 all our holiest energies, whether of devout contemplation 
 or of free and strenuous action ; if, and to whatever 
 extent, we have done this, we shall find that such obe- 
 dience to this second Commandment, not only implies 
 and contains within itself the fullest and most living obe- 
 dience to the first ; but that out of this true obedience 
 to the second, and indeed from no other source, will issue
 
 138 KELIGIOUS OKFICES OF THE IXTKLLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 a real and growing power of free self-subordination to 
 THE THIRD FUNDAMENTAL LAW Ordained for tliis holy guard- 
 ianship. If we have been, if we be and remain, thus obe- 
 dient to the second Commandment, this more especially 
 central and practical Law, it will be found that we shall 
 not have had revealed to us in vain, that we shall not in 
 vain have contemplated and apprehended that Holy Name. 
 And no less surely will it be found that without such 
 obedience to the second Commandment, we are powerless 
 to obey the third ; that, if thus disobedient to the second, 
 we shall then have had presented to us, we shall then have 
 TAKEN THIS HoLY Name IN VAIN, and that so we cannot and 
 
 SHALL NOT BE HELD GUILTLESS BEFORE GoD. By HO OthcT 
 
 reception and discernment of this Name than by its recep- 
 tion in Christ, by its discernment in Christ, can we so 
 accept and take it upon ourselves and discern it, as that it 
 may not be taken in vain; as that at length, and in God's 
 good time, it may be effectually hallowed within us also, 
 as well as tcithout us, on earth as well as in lieaten ; in 
 the hearts of His children ever becoming humbler and 
 purer, in their will, the spirit of their minds, renewed 
 from day to day. 
 
 And do we not here see the genuine transition-point 
 to THE Fourth Commandment, the Law of work and rest ; 
 wherein is realized for us what, without this Law, coidd 
 not and cannot be realized, and brought home to ever}' one 
 of us, at every moment of our lives. I mean the sacred 
 obligation, the blessed opportunity, the hallowing delight, 
 of actually discerning and dwelling on the Godliead in 
 his so revealed and so guarded Name : of thus beholding
 
 CH. v.] THE DECALOGUE. I'AHI I. 139 
 
 Him through every organ of our manifold hfe, through 
 all the living powers of our Being ; whether they be put 
 forth in works of duty and labours of love, in the dili- 
 gent and faithful exercise of our calling as before God ; 
 or whether these living powers, freely and gladly exerted 
 in praise and prayer, and prayerful contemplation of God, 
 become for us the free energies of a more immediate and 
 spirit-renewing communion with Him ? 
 
 For let us observe, this Fourth Commandment guards 
 
 THE ORDINANCE OF WORK, aS Wcll aS THE ORDINANCE OF REST, 
 
 from all violation, no longer now, as in the first three 
 Commandments, by the negative injunction, " Thou shalt 
 NOT," but by an injunction most positive and most com- 
 pelling, applied to each of its two distinct branches, — 
 Remember, that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. 
 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou 
 
 HAST to do. 
 
 Can we then in this Fourth Law, and especially in 
 its leading injunction, to hallow the seventh day, and on 
 it to rest from labour, fail to disceim that which indeed 
 was wanting to fill up the measure of the three preced- 
 ing Laws; to render at least possible, if not to ensure, 
 their observance; to bring them home to the business 
 and bosoms of men ; to give them a practical hold on 
 both those two great departments of labour and of rest, 
 which together may be regarded as constituting the whole 
 of our earthly life ? 
 
 What would it avail us that by these three primal 
 laws the Holy Name of the revealed Godhead were 
 guarded in all the fulness of its objective purity and
 
 140 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 truth, to the very end that we might behold, and con- 
 template, and in beholding it, might have our life ; if 
 yet for such hallowing and quickening contemplation of 
 this one great Object, no time were granted, no provi- 
 sion made 1 Must it not be, that without such a provision, 
 the unseen, which is yet the real, for it is the spiritual, 
 will soon be thrust forth from the world by the visible 
 and the actual ; by the things of time and sense ; by the 
 jarring and hurthng interests and passions of our selfish 
 nature, and of our worldly life ? See we not here a sacred 
 enclosure within the waste of time, wherein we may 
 gather together, to meet and to commune with our God ? 
 where we may behold, and stedfastly contemplate the 
 Father as he is : for he is as he has revealed himself in 
 the Son : and he that hath seen and seeth the Son, 
 hath seen and seeth the Father : where we may hear 
 him as he speaks to us by his Word and Wisdom ; and 
 our listening souls may say, Lord, speak, for thy servant 
 heareth : where we may ourselves also speak to him 
 in prayer and praise and thanksgiving ; offering, not unto 
 idols, but to Him who alone is, to Him who alone is 
 THE Lord our God, a worship no longer symbolic but real ; 
 the veneration of our understanding, the affections of our 
 heart, the obedience of our life ; those calves of the lips, 
 that free-will offering of the spirit, which is our reasonable 
 and spiritual service ? 
 
 Is it not here especially that we may be joined to 
 our Heavenly Father in that Eucharist, which is the 
 highest symbolic, and which, if rightly discerned, is also 
 the highest real communion with Him, whereof our spirits
 
 <^H. v.] THE DECALOGUK. PART I. 14] 
 
 are on earth capable : which transfigures and glorifies 
 the worshipper of God, though he be still in the highest 
 and most reverential sense a worshipper, into the friend 
 of God, with whom He sits at meat, who sits at meat 
 with Him ; who comes to him and sups with him : that 
 Eucharist which transfigures and glorifies the altar of a 
 symboHc, into the table of a spiritual, that is, a real com- 
 munion : not annulling the sacrifice, but consummating 
 it in the offering up of ourselves, through Christ, in body 
 and spirit to God, to be a reasonable, holy, and hvely 
 sacrifice : not saying to the Church, Arise and eat, lest 
 we should eat profanely and sell our birthright ; but, 
 Arise, sacrifice, and eat Qvcrov /cat (pdye I 
 
 Again, if the Fourth Commandment, the great fontal 
 positive ordinance of the Sabbath, must be received and 
 obeyed by us as being, independently of its other claims, 
 the primary condition essential to our actually realizing 
 here on earth, in and for our own souls, the practical object, 
 the special end and aim of the first three Commandments ; 
 shall we fail to perceive in the Fifth Commandment an 
 angel appointed to watch over and to guard from desecra- 
 tion, from pollution even in their source, those realities of 
 the purely human afiections, which are for us no unworthy 
 instruments and organs for the beholding of God? Is 
 it not indeed through this very medium of the more 
 reverential feelings, the purer and holier affections of our 
 family or domestic life, specially when under the light of 
 Christ their genuine purification and hallowing has been 
 effected, that we are enabled most livingly to discern God ; 
 even as it is by the very Name which they dehght in,
 
 142 RELUIIOUS OFFICES OF THK INTELLECT. [boOK. I. 
 
 that we are by Christ taught to call upon Him ! If we 
 be as yet so low in the scale of epiritual advancement, 
 as to be incapable of honouring and obeying and loving 
 our earthly father, whom we have seen, how shall we 
 be of power to honour, to obey and to love, our Hea- 
 venly Father, whom we have not seen ? Again, if we 
 discern not with the eyes of a reverential tenderness, 
 of a true and self-denying affection, our earthly mother, 
 who, through many and sore travail-pangs, through the 
 burdensome helplessness of infancy, through the trying 
 waywardness of childhood and of youth, has borne us ever 
 in her bosom, in her arms, and in her heart ; if from our 
 youth up we have not cherished and delighted in this 
 holiest of our human feelings, this fairest germ and symbol 
 of the divine vi^ithin us ; if to our parent in the helpless- 
 ness or the poverty, in the unfriended or unhonoured 
 estate into which age may fall, we have said it is Corban, 
 by whatsoever thou mightest be profited ; how shall our 
 mean and grovelling spirits be at the same time strong 
 and pure and free, for their higher heavenward flight? 
 How shall we with eagle-eye discern and gaze on that 
 Jerusalem which is above, and which is the mother of 
 us all? If this first pure and holy affection, which 
 nature does as it were conspire with grace to implant in 
 our hearts, to the end that a holier and more spiritual 
 affection may be ingrafted on it and grow out of it, be 
 in our hearts wanting ; then to us that more heavenly 
 affection must be wanting also. Being thus devoid of 
 the natural, childly affection and reverence, we are devoid 
 of the most living roots of the spiritual, childly affection
 
 CK. v.] THE DECAI.OOUE. PAKTI. 143 
 
 and reverence. Hence it becomes for us hardly less than 
 a spiritual impossibility, that we should really discern 
 and so really honour with our substance, (which is the 
 fundamental idea of this Tt/x/) both in its natural and 
 spiritual bearing), with our hearts and lives, our real 
 Mother, the visible and spiritual Church of God ? If even 
 our human hearts be thus unnurtured and unschooled, 
 how, when the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, shall our 
 spirits listen and obey, that we also may come quickly, 
 and our reward be with us ; that our days may be long, 
 even for ever and ever, in the land which the Lord 
 OUR God giveth us ; that ours may be one of the many 
 mansions which Christ has gone before into that real 
 land of promise to prepare for us ; to the end that where 
 He is, there we also may be with him; children, through 
 a blessed eternity, of that great family which in heaven 
 and earth is named after Christ l 
 
 We have now briefly considered the First Table, 
 including in this the first five Laws, of the Decalogue. 
 And we have endeavoured to shew, at such length as 
 seemed consistent with our general plan, how this first 
 Table determines and guards in its revealed integrity 
 THE Holy Name op God ; to whatever age of the Church 
 and in whatever degree of fulness the revelation of it 
 may have been made : how it guards this revealed Name, 
 I. from all rejection, ii. from all dishonouring and 
 idolatrous perversions, and so iii. from being vainly and 
 ineffectually apprehended ; how it further supplies the 
 
 CONDITIONS fundamentally NECESSARY FOR THE ACTUAL PRE- 
 SENTMENT TO OUR SPIRITS IN ITS FULL UNVIOLATED INTEGRITY
 
 144 RRLIGIOUS OKFrCKS OF THE INTELf.F.CT. [bOOK I. 
 
 OF THIS ONE GREAT HOLY AND HALLOWING OBJECT; whether, 
 IV. THROUGH THOSE POWERS OF DIRECT INTUITION, OF BEHOLD- 
 ING AND CONTEMPLATING GoD, WHICH WE ALREADY ACTUALLY 
 
 POSSESS, with regard to which therefore we further require 
 only opportunities and inducements to exercise them, and 
 which best grow out into ever heightened energies of 
 insight, by our thus ever faithfully and hopefully exerting 
 them ; or, v. through the medium of those objects of 
 
 OUR CHILDLY AWE AND CHILDLY' LOVE, WHICH DO FOR US 
 STAND AS IT WERE MIDWAY' BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 
 
 We perceived in cc^ntemplating this fifth Command- 
 ment, that those holiest and most fontal of our human 
 affections are also for us the grounds and roots of our 
 holiest and most fontal spiritual affections, of our reve- 
 rential and devoted love for God and His Church in 
 Christ. We perceived that the honouring of father and 
 mother is more especially blessed, not only as the first 
 Commandment with promise of earthly blessings, but also 
 as that fountain which under Christ's purifying Spirit 
 will assuredly become a well of waters springing up within 
 our souls into everlasting life. We saw that in our child- 
 hood, (and in Christ we must be ever as little children, 
 and then most when we are become strong men), these 
 first and holiest objects of our human affections are in- 
 deed for us as God and as His Church. 
 
 And now that we have discerned the order and method 
 of that primal and enduring, of that unchangeable, and 
 therefore by our Lord unchanged legislation, by which 
 God has seen fit to guard, for his own glory and for 
 our highest welfare, the absolute inherent holiness op
 
 CH. v.] THE DECALOGUE. PART I. 145 
 
 HIS Name; we arrive at a point, whence the transition 
 is natural at once and necessary, to the second half or 
 Table of the Decalogue. 
 
 For in this latter Table we discern the Body of 
 Law ordained to guard from violation and dishonour 
 that Holy Name, not as it is in heaven, but as it is on 
 earth ; as it is brought near to, and called upon, every 
 one of us, that it may become God with us and in us : 
 not as it presents to us the great fontal origin of our 
 spiritual life, the one worthy Object of our prayerful con- 
 templation ; but as it is, at our baptism, put upon each 
 of us for our hallowing ; as it is presented to us in 
 Christ, that we may lay hold on it and take it to our- 
 selves, and into ourselves, by all our energies of hfe, as 
 well as of discernment; and that so taking it, we may 
 not take that Holy Name in vain. 
 
 Such a further discernment of this Name as thus 
 in its own guarded integrity and holiness put upon us for 
 our hallowing, will again lead us onward in our discern- 
 ment of the Law of Christ ; and in our power of being 
 conformed to his Holy Life. We shall perceive that, if this 
 great Name as by the first Table of the Decalogue 
 guarded from violation, be thus taken upon us for our 
 hallowing, it will indeed penetrate and imbue us with its 
 own holiness : and further, that if it be thus hallowed, 
 not only in our thoughts and contemplations, but also in 
 our ever-renewed obedience to the second Table, in the 
 fulness of its Christian meaning ; this Holy Name will then 
 sink down into our inmost Being, no longer as the Name 
 ONLY OF God, into which we are baptized, but also as 
 
 10
 
 14(J RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK 1. 
 
 the living and purifying power in our hearts, of the King- 
 dom OF God, in Christ; as the free and holy energy of 
 the Will of God, abiding in our spirits for a new Will ; 
 for that new energy of holiness and spiritual discernment, 
 whereby we see and commune with our Father which 
 is in heaven, whereby our whole Being, now renewed and 
 full of light, becomes as it were a single eye for the blissful 
 beholding of God.
 
 Chapter VI. 
 THE DECALOGUE. Part II. 
 
 In the preceding chapter we spoke of the first Part or 
 Table of the Decalogue; briefly indeed, and, for any 
 purposes of detailed exposition, most inadequately ; but 
 at such length, and in such manner, as seemed con- 
 sistent with a general outline of what is contained or 
 implied in the Sermon on the Mount, regarded as a living 
 whole. We endeavoured to shew that this first Table is 
 ordained to vindicate and guard, for its own glorj', and for 
 our hallowing and quickening contemplation, the Holy 
 Name of God, as that Name is revealed to us, that it 
 may be the great primary source of our spiritual Life and 
 Blessedness ; and we inferred hence that this first Table is 
 the portion of Holy Law which specially corresponds to 
 the opening Address of the Christian Prayer, Odr Father, 
 WHICH art in Heaven. 
 
 The peculiar and important doctrinal bearings of 
 this part of the subject will be more advantageously con- 
 sidered after the completion of the general survey on 
 which we are now engaged. 
 
 We shall therefore at once proceed to contemplate, in 
 its leading principles, and main bearings on our Christian 
 and spiritual life, that second portion or Table of the 
 Decalogue with which, in its permanent form and in the 
 fulness of its import, we have already affirmed that our 
 Lord explicitly begins his final legislation on the Mount. 
 
 10 — 2
 
 148 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 This general exposition we shall endeavour to make 
 intelligible, without formal reference to the Synoptical 
 Scheme ; though the arrangement in that Scheme of the 
 FIRST and SECOND Tables of the Decalogue, as correspond- 
 ing respectively to the Address, Our Father, which art in 
 Heaven, and to the First Aspiration, Hallowed be Thy 
 Name, may suffice to shew the manner in which this part 
 of our exposition is represented in the Synopsis, and con- 
 nected with what has gone before. 
 
 This Second Table then, or Body of Law, given first 
 and in befitting form to them of old time, was yet so 
 given as to be in that earlier form also, absolutely binding 
 upon us, on our consciences and lives. The same Table 
 given again by our Lord on the Mount, in its final ful- 
 ness and perfection of form, and also unfolded by Him 
 there, into its highest spirituality of import, has, for its 
 most real end and aim, the guarding from all violation 
 and dishonour, the investing with all reverential awe, 
 the hallowing as being indeed holy, the Great Name of 
 God ; no longer only as the Name of our Father which 
 is in Heaven ; no longer only as the Name of God 
 revealed to us ; but as it is also and more especially 
 that Name put upon us, upon our whole Being; as it 
 is now TO be hallowed by us and in us, to be hallowed 
 as in heaven so in earth, with every genuine power 
 and energy of our manifold life. 
 
 What indeed does it avail us that this great Name, 
 this one holy and hallowing Object of our Being, has, in 
 all the fulness of its holiness, been revealed to us ; that 
 it has been guarded for us in its integrity, and in that
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART 11. 149 
 
 integrity presented and kept present to our spirits ; if our 
 spirits be, from their own unpurged impurity, from their 
 own inward and pervading darkness, incapable of contem- 
 plating or even of discerning it ? What avails this light 
 from God shining into the formless void of our darkness, 
 if we hate the light and receive it not ; turning from it in 
 haste, to our own aggravated darkness? To present for 
 our contemplation, this heavenly light, without at the same 
 time presenting for our obedience, a Law to aid us in dis- 
 pelling that inward darkness, would be only to increase our 
 misery and our condemnation : for this is the condemnation, 
 that light is come into the world, and that men love dark- 
 ness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. Their 
 deeds, their whole life, being full of evil and falsehood and 
 darkness; so also must be their discernment. Nor does this 
 state of soul result in a simple privation, in a mere negation, 
 of genuine spiritual discernment : it is, if we may so speak, 
 a positive negation. Even as the second or spiritual death 
 is a living death ; is the heightening, not the destroying of 
 our consciousness and of our suffering; so is this solid 
 and palpable darkness and blindness, not a mere absence 
 of spiritual sight and light ; it is the fearful and soul- 
 destroying idol of a genuine spiritual discernment; it 
 is the cppovriixa t^s aapKO's; a worldly, a carnal, and 
 devihsh insight, which will not indeed, and cannot see 
 God ; but which can, and must, and will gloat upon idols, 
 that, like Ephraim, it may join itself to them, and be let 
 alone, to perish in its idolatry. 
 
 Now, since this appalling perversion of that genuine 
 insight of our spirits, whereof God is the proper, the sole
 
 150 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 satisfying Object, grows out of, and continually results 
 from, that evil and false life which is the perversion and 
 idol of our genuine and true hfe ; the second Table has 
 for its primary drift and aim, the guarding our actual life, 
 our human life on earth, from such fatal perversion ; from 
 such essential and deadly falsehood and evil. This Body 
 of Law is ordained so to guard, in its very beginnings, in 
 the sources and origins of all its fundamental and essential 
 constituents, in its inward springs and in their outward 
 manifestations, that life of man which is revealed to be, 
 which is constituted as, holy and inviolable, by God's 
 having called His Name upon it, by His having indeed put 
 upon it His holt and inviolable Name. 
 
 By this Table, the whole of our actual human and 
 earthly life, in its full threefold development, is fenced off 
 from all profaner things ; is environed and protected by the 
 awfulness of a Divine interdict ; by the dread of Divine 
 vengeance, of God's righteous retribution, executed here 
 on earth also, by those to whom is committed, and not in 
 vain, the sword of His justice. And seeing this our actual 
 earthly life does in its genuine fulness consist of three dis- 
 tinct orders of inward realities, outwardly manifesting them- 
 selves under three distinct forms; the sword of Divine justice 
 guards the whole of that full threefold life, by first guarding 
 in the very root, each of these its essential constituents. 
 
 And first of these, it guards the life which each of us 
 lives, as an individual and distinct member of the great 
 brotherhood of God's children ; as one among many bre- 
 thren, each of whom was made after the likeness, in the 
 image of God ; each of whom, if he have not taken on him
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART M. 151 
 
 * 
 
 THE Holy Name in vain, is daily being restored to this like- 
 ness and image, through the putting upon hira, in all its 
 revealed fulness, in all its hallowing energ)', with all its 
 accompanying means of sanctifying grace, the Name of 
 THE Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The Second Table of this Divine code guards by its first 
 Law our individual earthly life, both as being in itself a 
 holy thing, and by manifold titles imiolable ; and as being 
 the ordained condition of all growth in holiness, the living 
 root of our spiritual and heavenly, as well as of our fuller 
 and worthier earthly life. This sacred gift of an earthly, 
 having in it the capacity for a heavenly life and blessedness, 
 God has guarded, by putting upon it His own inviolable 
 Name ; by encircling it with that primal and far-reaching 
 Law, Thou shalt do no murder; with the ten'or of that sharp 
 yet righteous sentence. Whoso sheddeth man''s blood, by 
 man shall his blood be shed ; and with the sanctity of that 
 primal revelation, for in the image of God made He man. 
 
 And far-reaching indeed is this Law, when we see, 
 what, without Christ for our expounder, we cannot effec- 
 tually see. For it reaches from without to within, from the 
 hand to the heart ; and by forbidding the consummation 
 and acting out of murderous wrath, implicitly forbids all 
 causeless anger : inasmuch as all causeless anger is in its 
 essence murderous ; and inasmuch as we are powerless to 
 restrain the outwardly- resulting act, if we restrain not the 
 inwardly-proceeding impulse. Still it is the inward Law, 
 as we have now learnt from Christ, to whom that outward 
 Law, our schoolmaster, has sent us, which is the very Sixth 
 Commandment itself, in its Christian and spiritual fuhiess;
 
 152 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 k 
 
 which is the Divine Law ordained to be a perpetual guar- 
 dian, outwardly and inwardly, of each man's holy and in- 
 violable life. Only it was necessary that Grace to fulfil 
 this Law, as well as Truth to expound it, should first come 
 by Jesus Christ, before this its full import could, in God's 
 merciful order,be explicitly and authoritatively revealed : for 
 God is not an austere or hard master, looking to reap where 
 He soweth not, to gather where He hath not strawed. 
 
 This prohibition then of causeless anger, together 
 with its necessary practical unfoldings, contained in the 
 fifth chapter of St. Matthew, and in the verses from the 
 22nd to the 26th inclusive, is the Sixth Commandment, in 
 its Christian and spiritual, that is, in its full and enduring 
 form and import. It is so, because obedience to it in this 
 sense as an inward Law, can alone endow it with life as an 
 outward Law, by making obedience to it in that earlier 
 sense, possible and hopeful. 
 
 So soon, however, as we have discerned that the end 
 and aim of Christ's teaching is the building up the Being 
 that we are, into a capacity, into a free energy of behold- 
 ing and of communing with God ; and that it is to this 
 end that He has put on us His Holy Name ; then do we 
 more clearly discern that this Law against causeless anger, 
 with all the developments here given it by our Lord, is 
 indeed no other than the Sixth Commandment against 
 murder, transfigured and glorified into the fulness of its 
 spiritual reality. If we be outwardly and actually the 
 victims of murderous wrath, we are indeed cut off" from 
 our earthly life : but we are still in God's hands ; and are 
 doubtless taken away in his good time, though by the
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART II. 153 
 
 means of evil violence ; and our spirits, our real selves, 
 cannot by such violence be destroyed or hurt. Mur- 
 derous wrath in another, can but destroy our body, our 
 bodily life : whereas murderous wrath in ourselves, if 
 unrepented of and unmortified, if not, at whatever cost 
 of suffering and self-denial, cut out and east forth from 
 us, destroys our soul, our real or spiritual, our enduring 
 and eternal life. It thus slays the life of our souls by no 
 slow and lingering process of destruction. It does this at 
 once ; by destroying in us the very capacity for that 
 genuine beholding and communing with God, through 
 which alone we continually receive from Him, the ceaseless 
 renewal and growth of our spiritual and enduring life. 
 
 If we be thus children of wrath, slaves rather of 
 wrath and wrathful hate, we have already ceased to 
 behold and to commune with God; we have already for- 
 feited and lost the very ground of aU genuine discernment 
 of God, of all real and living communion with Him. For 
 God is love ; and even His anger is the righteous and cor- 
 recting indignation of love, not the merely destructive 
 wrath of hate. God is Holy Love ; and to no adversary 
 of God can we bow down and enslave ourselves, more 
 spirit-blinding, more essentially incapacitating us for all 
 true discernment and worship of Him, for all true and 
 life-giving communion with Him, than to this grisly idol, 
 which in too many hearts has yet a secret shrine ; this 
 blood-stained Moloch of hateful, murderous wrath, of 
 
 CAUSELESS ANGER. 
 
 Again, the Seventh Commandment, Thou shalt not 
 COMMIT Adultery, the second of the Laws here presented
 
 ] 54 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT, [bOOK I, 
 
 in its essential integrity and fulness by our Lord, is no 
 other than the second Law of that code which is specially 
 ordained to guard the integrity of our human life ; to 
 effect the hallowing of God's Name as put upon the whole 
 of that life, that it may protect from all violation, that it 
 may pervade and thoroughly purify, each of its constituent 
 elements. This Commandment is the second of those great 
 fundamental Laws which are ordained by God to guard 
 our now hallowed earthly Life and Being, from irremediable 
 injury and wrong ; from deadly violation and evil : which 
 are ordained, and by dread penalties enforced, in order that 
 this our Being, so rescued from hopeless perversion, from 
 chaotic turbrJence and confusion, may, under the further 
 influences of God's still-brooding Spirit, become a fit instru- 
 ment, a worthy opyavov, for rightly discerning, for behold- 
 ing and communing with God : to the end that in such 
 communion, in such genuine intuitions of the Godhead, it 
 may receive that blessedness, than which there remains 
 behind none greater. 
 
 This seventh Commandment of the whole Decalogue, 
 as delivered to them of old time ; this second Command- 
 ment of its latter half, here given by our Lord finally and 
 in its full spiritual reality ; does, in guarding the sanctity 
 of marriage, guard from violation and destruction, in its 
 very source, the family or domestic life ; that life without 
 the existence of which, in its purity and truth, neither our 
 narrower individual life, nor our larger, reasonable and 
 spiritual life, can receive its genuine form and import, its 
 full energy and blessedness. 
 
 For without the fulfilment of this essential condition ;
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART II. 155 
 
 without the constitution in its purity, and the effectual 
 guarding from violation, of this central and fontal life 
 which we live as members of a Family, there can for us 
 be no worthy and permanent constitution of the complete 
 Christian and spiritual life on earth, in all its essential 
 realities and relations, inward as well as outward. AVith- 
 out this there can be no really worthy, that is, no really 
 Christian constitution of the National Life in Church and 
 State ; and therefore no genuine advance towards that 
 condition of consummate earthly Blessedness wherein the 
 kingdoms of the world shall, not in name only, but in 
 power, have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of 
 His Christ. 
 
 We may not, however, at present dwell on such 
 worthier unfoldings of our noblest, reasonable and spiritual 
 powers ; on the glorious and excellent forms in which our 
 earthly Being and Life could not but clothe itself, were 
 this Commandment, which guards the fountains of that 
 life, at once discerned and kept by all, in the entire fulness 
 of its import. Suffice it that we now point out, in passing 
 onward, the place and dignity of this Holy Law, as it is 
 indeed that central earthly foundation-stone, whereon is 
 to be built up the Being that we are, in its inward and 
 outward purity and truth, and so in its genuine capacity 
 for beholding and communing with God. 
 
 Nor, indeed, is it needful that we should dilate on 
 this : for do we not know that he who most shrinks from 
 sullying, even in thought, the purity of domestic life ; who 
 has best discerned and fulfilled the relations and duties, 
 who is most sensible to the affections and endearments.
 
 156 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I, 
 
 of that life ; is ever most rigorously, most freely and 
 hopefully obedient to the law of personal purity, and to 
 the laws of temperance also and of prudence, as in their 
 fullest and worthiest meanings ancillary to it : ever most 
 capable of manly and tender feeling; of all purely human, 
 as well as of all genuine heavenly affections? Is it not 
 such an one whom we should expect to realize most fully 
 in his own mind and heart, those larger and worthier, 
 those reasonable and spiritualized affections, which draw 
 out his Being beyond the narrow circle and interests 
 of self; beyond the wider, though yet restricted, range 
 of the affections of home and kindred ; which bind him to 
 the goodly land God has given him to till it, to dress 
 it, and to keep it ; which set this land of his fathers, 
 of his home, and of his children, with all its fortunes 
 for good or for evil, so firmly in his heart, that nothing 
 can tear it thence ; which lead him forth gladly, if need 
 be, to die for it ; which bind him to the time-honoured 
 Laws, to the time-honoured Church, of his forefathers ; 
 which whisper to his heart that even as his fathers have 
 delivered them to him, so must he, at whatever sacrifice, 
 deliver to his children both these lamps for the ordering 
 of their goings, undimmed, yea, brightened in his guard- 
 ianship ? 
 
 Is it not indeed ever the truest and tenderest hus- 
 band, the best father, who will be found to have most 
 honoured his parents, to be the kindest brother, the trus- 
 tiest friend ? Of such are good subjects and citizens made; 
 of such, good churchmen. With no other stones than 
 those which have in them this life, can we build an
 
 CH 
 
 . VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART II. 1 57 
 
 enduring city, can we construct that genuine and complete 
 Christian society, which is at once the civitas hotninum 
 and the civitas Dei. 
 
 Again, as these affections thus guarded in their 
 source, that they may be developed in their fulness and 
 truth, lead us to the worthiest unfolding of our entire 
 humanity, and so to the most real discernment and 
 contemplation of God ; to the largest and freest as well 
 as the closest communion with Him ; so, if not thus 
 guarded from violation, if consequently desecrated and 
 perverted, do they effectually alienate us from Him, and 
 plunge us into all the evils which are opposed to these 
 blessings, and which can beset our individual and national 
 as well as our domestic life. 
 
 We have seen that if our souls be darkened and 
 distempered by selfish and causeless anger, we lose thereby 
 at once the very power of looking towards God : that 
 this anger, being the offgrowth of hate, is itself enmity 
 to God ; since God is love. And not less effectually, 
 though in a different manner, are we alienated from God 
 and from the Divine life, by selfish and lawless lust ; by the 
 lusting and pursuing after selfish and lawless pleasure. 
 For such lust is indeed no other than the master-idol, 
 of that holy love which should pervade and quicken our 
 hearts, not only in those affections which have God for 
 their object, but in those also which flow forth towards 
 our fellow-creatures. And if we have bowed down our 
 hearts to this selfish and lawless lust, to this master-idol 
 of holy Love, there can for us be no holy Love, no living 
 knowledge or discernment of it : for Love, to be holy.
 
 158 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [[bOOK I. 
 
 must be first obedient to holy Law ; must be next free 
 and self-sacrificing. And as there can be no holy Love, 
 so neither can there be for our spirits thus debased, any 
 of that understanding which is the knowledge of The 
 Holy ; any of that genuine and blessed discernment, that 
 true beholding of God, which is the very highest and 
 worthiest energy of holy Love. If the god of this world, 
 if Mammon, specially if Belial, have bUnded our hearts, 
 we cannot feel or see the things belonging to our peace. 
 He that so liveth in pleasure is dead unto God. He is 
 dead to all holy and pure affections ; he discerns not their 
 sanctity : his conscience is branded and seared. The light 
 which lighteth every man that cometh into the world 
 has become for him great darkness. His eye offends him ; 
 and if he would not perish by that second death, if he 
 would not be cast body and soul into hell, he must pluck 
 it out and cast it from him. 
 
 Thus do we see that this primal law, Thou shalt 
 NOT kill, which we have called far-reaching, may be 
 regarded also, and in a yet deeper and broader sense, 
 as the law which likewise forbids adultery and adulterous 
 lust : for that such lust is indeed the destroying and 
 slaying our own individual, our own real and enduring 
 life, as well as the destroying and slaying, with all its 
 boundless wealth of promise, earthly and heavenly, — 
 the poisoning in its source, that family life, very holy 
 in God's eyes, which was blessed by Him in paradise, 
 which was blessed by Him in the patriarchs, which was 
 blessed by Him through Christ at Cana of Galilee : that 
 life of the Family, that domestic hfe, which is the source
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART II. 1.5*) 
 
 and home of our purest earthly affections, of our truest 
 earthly blessedness, which actually and historically has 
 been, which is really and spiritually, at once the symbol 
 and the germ of that great Family which in heaven and 
 earth is named after Christ. 
 
 And now we arrive at the Commandment, Thou shalt 
 NOT STEAL, the third in the Divine order, of these great 
 fundamental Laws of the second half or Table of the Deca- 
 logue : of that Table whose special office it is to guard from 
 violation, in all its essential grounds and elements, our 
 human life, as constituted under God to be a holy thing. 
 This Law, like the two former, has one deep root in 
 the Holy Being and the Holy Commandment of God, 
 another in the actual constitution of that nature which 
 He has bestowed upon man. 
 
 Without this third fundamental institution of Pro- 
 perty, individuals and families can neither peaceably 
 exist side by side within the hmits of a definite community 
 or nation ; nor, indeed, can they have any assurance 
 of the continuance from day to day of the means of 
 life itself. 
 
 But why do we speak of living peaceably, or of a 
 continuance of the means of hfe ? Without the institution 
 of Property, of the fundamental Law, Thou shalt not 
 STEAL, which guards it, and of the succeeding Command- 
 ment against false witness which reahzes this guardian 
 Law; individuals, families, nations, cannot exist at all, 
 still less have their life or being in any full and worthy 
 sense, in any sense which involves the means of unfolding 
 their nobler spiritual capacities and powers. Without
 
 160 RELIGIOUS OKFICKS OK THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 a father-land, a national territory, there can be no national 
 life : none, that is, continuously and worthily developed. 
 Without a kingdom, there can be a king only in name. 
 Without definite and effectually guarded appropriations 
 to families and to individuals of this national territory, or 
 of some form of property dependent on it ; neither the 
 individual life nor the family life can be worthily consti- 
 tuted and unfolded. 
 
 And if we may here be allowed for a moment to 
 anticipate one of the more Christian bearings of this in- 
 stitution of property and of its guardian Law ; there could 
 clearly be without these, no worthy development of that 
 very noble faculty of our unfolding souls, through which 
 we are under Christ enabled to make friends of the mam- 
 mon of unrighteousness, and to convert it into the true 
 riches. It is only in virtue of this third divinely-human 
 idea of property, realized in effectual institutions, and 
 guarded by effectual laws, that we become capable of 
 ascending from strenuous obedience to these Laws of the 
 Name, towards a willing obedience to those more inward, 
 those higher and freer Laws of the kingdom, and of the 
 WILL, which must be reserved for future consideration. 
 Without this Law as guarding the basis of property, as 
 making its assured existence possible; that distribution and 
 communication of our property, that sacrifice with which 
 God is well pleased, can have no assured existence. With- 
 out this Law, we can give to none that ask of us ; without 
 this, we must from all that would borrow of us turn away. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that without the great principle 
 of guarded property, our complete earthly life can worthily
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART II. 161 
 
 subsist in no one of its fundamental elements and con- 
 ditions : can grow out therefore into none of its worthier 
 forms, and can produce none of its nobler and more 
 excellent fruits. Without this institution of Property, 
 the true humanity, so far from being developed into a 
 capacity for worthily beholding and communing with God, 
 is ever repressed and kept under, by the baser necessities 
 of mere animal existence, and by the ceaseless and 
 bloody struggles to which these give rise. 
 
 But this Law throws back a further guardian power 
 on the two preceding Laws also. For though a man's 
 life and person are more and other than property, he may 
 also be truly regarded as having a property in his hfe 
 and person ; and though wife and children are more and 
 other than his dearest possessions, yet they are also his 
 dearest possessions. 
 
 All these personal realities belonging to man as an 
 Individual and as the Head of a Family, are indeed 
 actually contemplated by La-w divine and human, both 
 as Personal realities, and as Things, or possessions. So 
 that we are clearly justified in affirming that this Law is 
 
 1. THE ordained GUARDIAN OF PROPERTY, as of that funda- 
 mental institution without which no human society ex- 
 tending beyond the limits of the Individual and the Family 
 Life, and resting more especially on man's reasonable 
 and spiritual faculties, can be worthily constituted: and 
 
 2. that it is also an ordained guardian of both these 
 subordinate Lives as contained within the bosom of that 
 more fully developed human society. 
 
 We are, therefore, primarily concerned with this 
 11
 
 162 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 third fundamental Law of the second Table, as realizing 
 and guarding that third holy Idea, that Divine Institu- 
 tion, of Property, which lies at the root of the Na- 
 tional Life, (not, as we have seen, to the exclusion of the 
 two foregoing Lives ; for this fuller Life involves in itself, 
 and gives completeness to both), but as being a third 
 Law so essentially fundamental, that if it be not added 
 to the other two, the genuine National Life cannot, 
 even in its beginnings, be constituted; and can therefore 
 by no possibility arrive at its full perfection of develop- 
 ment. In this sense we may rightly regard this Com- 
 mandment, as that last of the three guardian Laws of 
 God's Name put upon man's whole Life, for hallowing, 
 which is ordained to protect from deadly injury the very 
 rudiments of any genuine National Life ; and thence 
 further to provide also conditions for a true and full 
 unfolding, in the bosom of this more complex and worthier 
 National Life, of its already noticed constituent lives, 
 that namely of the Individual and that of the Family. 
 
 From the Christian point of view this guardian Law 
 of Property will be contemplated as the third and last 
 OF the Fundamental outward conditions for constituting 
 such a reasonable and spiritual society, as may worthily 
 apprehend, and discern, and take upon itself, the Holy 
 Name of God ; and so may have its proper and enduring 
 LIFE : — for constituting such a luminous atmosphere of 
 created and renewed minds, as may effectually receive into 
 itself, as may heighten and quicken for all the ends of 
 spiritual life and joy, the offstreaming radiance of the 
 great Sun of Righteousness.
 
 CK. VI.j THE DECALOOUE. PART II. 163 
 
 And now as to the fourth Law of the second Table, 
 AGAINST FALSE WITNESS, wG would obscrvG, in the first place, 
 that the bearing of this fourth Law on the three funda- 
 mental Laws preceding it, is very closely and strikingly 
 analogous to the bearing of the fourth Law in the first 
 Table on its preceding three. We have already seen 
 that the Law of the Sabbath may be rightly contemplated 
 as that Law of the form, Thou shalt, which is requisite 
 for realizing the fulfilment of the three preceding Laws 
 of the form, Thou shalt not^ ordained to guard from dese- 
 cration the revealed Name of God. And no otherwise 
 do we find, with regard to this second Table, that its 
 fourth Law, against bearing false witness, has a similar 
 relation to the first three fundamental Laws which pre- 
 cede it. For what would it avail towards the actual 
 guarding from violation of our genuine Life in all its three 
 essential constituents, the Individual, the Family, and the 
 National Life, and of the Name of God as put upon that 
 THREEFOLD LIFE, that the Laws against murder, adultery, 
 and theft, should be enacted and promulgated ; if yet 
 there were provided no means for enforcing these Laws ? 
 Or how without an additional and complemental Law 
 bearing upon each and all of them ; how without a Law 
 enforcing at least the judicial form of truth, can these 
 previous Laws become really effective in guarding the 
 threefold root of our earthly, and so of our heavenly 
 Life ? Without such a provision for true testimony, how 
 are offences against any one or against all of these con- 
 stituent elements of that Life which is now a holy thing 
 by having had God's Name* put upon it, — how arc any 
 
 11—2
 
 164 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OK THE INTELLECT. [ BOOK I. 
 
 of these special and fundamental violations of that 
 great Name, as put upon man, to be avenged? how are 
 such unholy things to be cut off and thrust forth from 
 whatsoever land, whatsoever kindred and people, God 
 has chosen, to put His Name there ? Or if such deep 
 offences against that Holy Name, as now put upon, 
 and hallowing, and rendering inviolable, our whole earthly 
 and human Life, be not indeed thus vindicated by the 
 mouth of true witnesses and so by the sword of retri- 
 butive justice ; how shall that Holy Name be actually 
 guarded from violation, how shall it not be brought 
 into dishonour and contempt ? And how, if this be so, 
 will it remain possible that this Holy Name, the right 
 discernment and the hallowing of which, is the living 
 fountain of our whole genuine Life, should be any longer 
 either hallowed or even at all discerned aright ? Without 
 this complemental Law, which through the State's lawful 
 power of administering oaths and compelling judicial evi- 
 dence, becomes at once in its import (like the fourth Law 
 of the first Table), a positive^ though it be in its form, a 
 negative Law — without this Law, to guard the three fun- 
 damental guardian Laws themselves, Life may be violated. 
 Marriage may be violated, Property may be violated, with 
 impunity. Without this Law, these guardians of our 
 threefold Life are mere nullities. Nay, worse: for autho- 
 ritative Laws which yet fail to be enforced, dishonour 
 and desecrate the authority which enjoins them. Without 
 this fourth realizing Law of true witness, all enforceable 
 authority in the three preceding Laws would rapidly 
 decay and perish ; and with it all restraining fear of
 
 fH- VI ] THE OKCALOr.UK. I'ART II. 1 fi5 
 
 them: and, following in the train of this actual and 
 actually respected authority, there would soon disappear 
 that more inward reality of holy fear, of reverential awe, 
 whereof such authority is, and in all really living com- 
 munities must be, the ever-present underlying ground and 
 root, the necessary witness and representative in the eyes 
 of men. 
 
 And need we repeat that so soon and in so far as this 
 holy awe, this inward reverence for the great Name of 
 God, as really put upon man, as really guarding from 
 violation the now holy Life of man in all its essential 
 elements, in all its genuine offgrowths, as itself guarded 
 by holy Law,- — has passed away from our minds ; all has 
 PASSED AWAY : the very grounds and conditions not only 
 of the diviner Life of man, but even of all genuine social 
 Life on earth, have perished out of his soul. 
 
 Let us beware, however, of asserting too much, even of 
 this fourth Law of Judicial Truth. In this its primary 
 sense it is indeed of power to guard from violation the 
 sources of our threefold. Life, by guarding from violation 
 each of the Laws which watch over and protect them. But 
 can it supply those sources with the living realities of the 
 purified affections? can it throw into their waters the 
 healing branch of positive purification ? can it cleanse them 
 otherwise, more directly or more effectually, than by cut- 
 ting off in part the waters of bitterness ever springing 
 up to infect them ; than by stanching in part the sources 
 of wrathful hate, of lust and of profane falsehood, which 
 would otherwise mingle with them their deadly pollution ? 
 
 So far from having any such positive and creative
 
 166 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 power, this Law has neither in itself, nor as involving and 
 realizing all those which precede it, any creative power 
 whatever. Nay, it has no such effectually remedial power. 
 For by no outward Law can these perennial sources of 
 envenomed bitterness be effectually and permanently closed. 
 Out of the heart, not out of the eye, or tongue, or hand, 
 proceed the issues of life and death. 
 
 Can then the final Law of the Decalogue, Thou shalt 
 NOT COVET, effect this — that Commandment which, as the 
 shadow of the coming Christian Law, disappears in the 
 brightness of its rising, — that Commandment which is for 
 the inward movements of our Being ; which addresses 
 itself to the heart, to the affections and to the will, to 
 our nascent impulses and desires ? 
 
 We know that it cannot. We know that it is a 
 witness, the last and highest witness, to the powerlessness 
 in this respect of all mere outwardly authoritative Law ; 
 to the absolute necessity for this end of a new revelation 
 of the true form of Law, of a pouring forth from God of 
 some new and living energy of righteousness unto holi- 
 ness for its living accomplishment. 
 
 This last Law, Thou shalt not covet, shews us at 
 once WHAT must be done, and what cannot be done, in 
 order to the real fulfilment of the Decalogue. To fulfil 
 this last Law would indeed be to fulfil the Second Table, 
 — to have fulfilled the First : but to fulfil this last Law is 
 a gift which law cannot give. For its fulfilment, grace 
 and truth must come by Jesus Christ. 
 
 The intelligible fitness indeed, the spiritual beauty, 
 discernible even by us, of this last Commandment, con-
 
 CH. VX.j THE DECALOGUE. PART II. 167 
 
 templated as the true transition-point from the old to 
 the new covenant, as a living germ of the Christian, 
 rather than as a genuine offgrowth of the Mosaic Law, 
 is of the very highest order. It gives at once that hv- 
 ing soul to the now fully-formed but as yet inanimate 
 Body of outward Law, which awaits only the touch of 
 the Angel of the better Covenant to become a quickening 
 spirit : but which without that touch can never become 
 so ; can never as a spiritual body, be endowed with a free 
 and holy energy of action, of suffering, and of spiritual 
 discernment. Guard as you will from desecration the 
 Holy threefold Name of God : provide as you will for the 
 presentment to man of that hallowed and guarded Name, 
 through whatever powers of real and direct, or symbolic 
 and growing insight he may actually possess : guard 
 further as you \^-ill from desecration the threefold Being 
 of man, as originally created in, and capable of being 
 again restored to, the image of God : guard it, by so 
 placing upon it the Holy Name of God as that all vio- 
 lation of it may become a violation of that Holy Name, 
 a dishonouring of God himself: add, moreover, to this 
 manifold protection, the terror of immediate and inevitable 
 conviction and punishment for all such ungodly and unholy 
 violations : give a key-stone to your legislation by a Law 
 forbidding every the least inward movement towards such 
 unhallowed acts, by a Law which says. Thou shalt not covet 
 THY neighbour's HOUSE, Icst, bciug tempted, thou shouldest 
 slay and take possession ; thou shalt not desire thy 
 neighbour's wife, lest, being tempted, thou shouldest com- 
 mit adultery ; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's ser-
 
 1()8 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [liOOK I. 
 
 VANT, NOR HIS MAID, NOR HIS OX, NOR HIS ASS, NOR ANYTHING 
 
 THAT IS HIS, lest, being tempted, thou shouldest steal : 
 guard, I say, with all these manifold and accumulated 
 protections from violation and dishonour, the Name of God, 
 and with it, and by it, the Being of man ; and what shall 
 result? What but troops of trespasses? what but the 
 ever-deepening conviction, that the Law is a schoolmaster 
 to bring us unto Christ ? 
 
 From that elder Law which was by Moses, and 
 which comes to its head in the Decalogue as given from 
 Mount Sinai, this is indeed the great and chiefest lesson, 
 that though God''8 Law is, like his own Being, Holy and 
 just and good ; we, being evil and sold under sin, are, 
 and in so far as we continue alienated and separate from 
 God in Christ, must remain, absolutely devoid of that 
 Will renewed under His Spirit from day to day, without 
 which this Law cannot be fulfilled by us ; must remain 
 therefore absolutely incapable of fulfilling it. 
 
 Thus we see that in his dealings with the universal 
 Church, as well as with the individual mind, the first 
 operation of the Spirit is to convince man of sin, and that 
 the special instrument and means He uses for this purpose 
 is Holy Law. It is, indeed, by no other means than 
 the binding this righteous Law on our lives and con- 
 sciences, by inevitable commandments and stringent penal- 
 ties, that we can be led inwardly to feel our powerlessness 
 to obey it ; to feel how hopelessly our spirits are closed 
 in by the Body of this Death ; and so can be led to turn 
 away from our own conscious unholiness, our own absolute 
 and clearly-discerned Poverty, that we may be turned
 
 OH. VI.] THE DECALOGUK. PAKTII. 169 
 
 to God ; that we may lift up the eye of our spirit to tliat 
 one source of all holiness, and may breathe forth to 
 Him from the ground of our hearts that Name which 
 contains all the wealth of His Holiness, that aspiration 
 which expresses the depth of this our own conscious 
 poverty, Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed 
 BE THY Name. 
 
 At this stage of our enquiry it may be well to refer 
 to that part of the Synoptical Scheme which presents this 
 second Table of the Decalogue. We shall thus at a 
 glance perceive, that so far as the first two Laws of the 
 second Table, namely, those against murder and adultery, 
 are concerned, the outward form of that Table, as given 
 through Moses, coincides with the outward form of it 
 adopted by our Lord on the Mount, and expanded by Him 
 there into the fulness of its inward and spiritual import. 
 
 But at this point we seem to perceive a striking 
 divergence in our Lord's final legislation, from that 
 primal one by Moses, not only as to its inward spirit but 
 also as to its outward form. For the outward Laws 
 which in our Lord's order immediately follow that against 
 adultery, are not the Commandments against theft and 
 false witness, but two other Laws, having, indeed, rather 
 the character of a single Law, in its negative form Thou 
 SHALT NOT FORSWEAR THYSELF, and iu its positivc form 
 Thou shalt perform to the Lord thy vows. The more 
 inward and spiritual Law corresponding to the first of 
 these, and given by our Lord in Matth. v. 34-37, inclusive, 
 we have represented, for the sake of brevity, by the words. 
 Thou shalt deny and crucify all profaneness and lying ;
 
 170 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 — that corresponding to the second, and given in Matth. 
 V. 37 ; by the words, Thou shalt speak the simple truth. 
 
 On due consideration of this part of the subject in 
 its fuller and more Christian bearings, we shall perceive 
 that as the outward and visible Life of the Individual, 
 now in Christ a very holy thing, is guarded in its roots from 
 violation and destruction, by the negative Law, Thou shalt 
 DO no murder, even so is the inward and spiritual Life 
 of the Individual guarded in its roots from violation and 
 destruction by the negative Law (as given by our Lord 
 with its necessary practical developments), Thou shalt 
 deny and CRUCIFY ALL CAUSELESS ANGER. Further, that as 
 the outward and visible Life of the Family is guarded 
 in its roots from violation and destruction by the negative 
 Law, Thou shalt not commit adultery, even so is the 
 inward and spiritual Life of the Family similarly guarded 
 from violation and destruction by the similarly developed 
 negative Law, Thou shalt deny and crucify all lawless 
 lust. 
 
 And again, that as the outward and visible Life of 
 the full human Society is guarded from violation and 
 destruction in its tlireefold root, by the law, Thou shalt 
 NOT forswear thyself ; even so is the inward and spiritual 
 Life of the same Society guarded from violation and 
 destruction by the Law whose spirit is, Thod shalt deny 
 and crucify all profaneness and lying. 
 
 Lastly, that as the outward and visible realizing of 
 our full Christian Life on earth in each of its three 
 constituent elements — the Individual, the Family, and 
 the National Life — is provided for by the Positive Law,
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART 11. l7l 
 
 Thou shalt perform to the Lord thy vows ; even so 
 
 is THE INWARD AND SPIRITUAL REALIZING OF THE SAME COM- 
 PLETE Christian Life on earth, in each of its three great 
 constituent elements, provided for by the Positive Law, 
 Thou shalt speak and do the truth, as inwardly con- 
 scious of speaking and acting in the presence of God. 
 
 In order that we may perceive that this is indeed 
 so, it will be necessary to throw back a rapid glance on 
 the Decalogue as given through Moses ; and to compare 
 its form and import as so given to them of old time, 
 with its form and import as given to us by our Lord from 
 the Mount ; — specially on those portions of it which have 
 now from that greater Lawgiver than Moses, received 
 their entire fulness and spirituality of meaning. 
 
 And if we carry this retrospect a little further back, 
 to the formal beginning of remedial religion and of expUcit 
 Law in the Noachic dispensation (as given in p. 39), we 
 shall see at once in what sense this second Table, as per- 
 fected by our Lord on the Mount, is the summing up, 
 and simultaneous presentment, of those three fundamental 
 guardian Laws of the Individual, the Family, and the 
 National Life, respectively, which are the characteristic 
 laws of each succeeding dispensation, taken in historical 
 order ; that is, of the Noachic, of the Abrahamic or Is- 
 raelitish, and of that final Christian and spiritual Economy 
 to which belongs the full unfolding, under God, of the 
 now completely constituted human Life. 
 
 Such a retrospect will teach us that though the first 
 Table of the Decalogue, like the absolutely Holy Being 
 whose Name it is appointed to guard, is the same yesterday.
 
 172 ItKLIGIOILS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [noOK (. 
 
 to-day, and for ever ; it is not so with that second Table, 
 ordained to guard this great and holy Name, not in its own 
 abiding Objective Holiness, but as put upon man, whose 
 Being, essentially variable and mutable, essentially capable, 
 in God's order and under God's methods, of an ever- 
 heightening degree of spirituality, requires at one period 
 of its development a less spiritual, at another a more 
 spiritual form and import to be given to the Law under 
 which he has to live. 
 
 From that higher point of view on which Christ has 
 placed us, from the Mount to which he has taken 
 us up, but from no other, no humanly attainable eleva- 
 tion, can we make this retrospect. Only when the light 
 of the day-spring from on high has risen upon us, on 
 whom the ends of the world are come, does that light 
 stream upward through the night of ages, to illumine 
 and penetrate, to endow with a quickening spirit, that 
 living body of Law which was given to them of old time. 
 Only when thus brought within the offstreaming radiance 
 of the Son of Man, are Moses and EHas, the Law and 
 the Prophets, transfigured and glorified. 
 
 Under the brightness of this excellent light we dis- 
 cern, that in the primal form and import of the Decalogue 
 as given by Moses, its ultimate form and import as given 
 by Christ are implicitly contained ; and that even as 
 that earher revelation of Holy Law, under forms and 
 with an import which were at once symbolic and real, 
 was ordained to guard in its threefold root the Life, 
 SYMBOLIC AT ONCE AND REAL, wliicli it was a main object of 
 that earlier dispensation to constitute under God ; even
 
 CIl. VI.] THIC DKOALOGIIK. PART II. 173 
 
 SO was the full and final revelation of the same Holy Law 
 by our Lord on the Mount, ordained to guard in its 
 threefold root the absolutely real Life, which is now 
 at length constituted on earth under the Holy Name of 
 God, as in Christ revealed to us and put upon us ; ordained 
 so to guard in its sources that full human Life and 
 Being, to the end that it might be enabled to receive real 
 powers of communing with God, real and blessed energies 
 of spiritually beholding Him. 
 
 And this principle will at once give a key to those 
 modifications of the Decalogue which we find in the 
 Sermon on the Mount. The first Table, the appointed 
 guardian for us of the Holy Being of God in its Objective 
 Reality, remains unchanged, remains of power to guard 
 that Holy Being, in whatever fulness, by whatever 
 Name revealed, as the one great Object of all our reli- 
 gious affections and aspirations, of all our best and most 
 spiritual energies ; as the one great fountain of our whole 
 religious Life. The second Table does also in a most 
 important sense remain unchanged. For in its primal as 
 well as in its Christian form, it is still of force ; and in 
 that primal form it still supplies those fundamental Laws 
 on which must rest our genuine human Life, in each of 
 its three leading manifestations. Still for us, as for the 
 children of Israel, Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt 
 NOT commit adultery, Thou SHALT NOT STEAL, are the three 
 great primary Laws without the actual enforcement of tchich, 
 our human Life as Individuals, as members of a Family, 
 and as Members of a State, cannot be protected from 
 fatal violation : without the actual enforcement of which
 
 1/4 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [rOOK I. 
 
 therefore, the Holy Name of God as now put upon that 
 human Life to hallow and to guard it, in all its constituent 
 elements, cannot itself be guarded and hallowed. Still, as 
 under the dispensation of the elder covenant, the outward 
 conditions, without which our full social life can strike no 
 deep or sustaining roots, far less can have any genuine 
 or healthy existence — still, I say, those fundamental con- 
 ditions which are guarded from violation by the first 
 three great Laws of the second Table, can be realized, 
 can be brought home to the business and bosoms of 
 actual living men, of whatever Polity they may be 
 members, only by that fourth and complemental Law 
 of Judicial Truth, Thou shalt not bear false witness 
 
 AGAINST THY NEIGHBOUR, 
 
 But when the light of Christ is thus, as it were, 
 thrown backward on the Laws of the second Table, 
 specially designed as they are to provide for the hallowing 
 of God's Name as placed upon man ; for the hallowing 
 of man's whole Being as now by the placing on it of that 
 great Name rendered a Holy Thing; we at once see in 
 that light, the first two of these fundamental Laws, those, 
 namely, against murder and adultery, driven inward, 
 as it were, by a stroke of the Angel of the New Covenant 
 to pervade and to purify the whole of those two great 
 regions of man's Being, which, in conjunction with the 
 reasonable Intellect, do indeed actually make up that 
 Being in the full integrity of its primary and fundamental 
 constituents. And we further discern this more restricted 
 Law of judicial truth unfolding itself, at the touch of 
 the same quickening hand, into that full and perfect Law
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART 11. 1 7o 
 
 OF ABSOLUTE Truth vvliich is the appropriate Law of man's 
 reasonable Intellect, — of that third fundamental consti- 
 tuent of his Being, in which, as illuminated and spiritual- 
 ized by the Word and Spirit of God, both its other 
 constituents are reconciled and renewed. 
 
 And here, though the plan of our exposition does not 
 admit of any detailed reference at present to such sources 
 of illustration, we cannot but pause for a moment to 
 notice the strong and very remarkable confirmation given, 
 by this part of our Lord's Teaching, to that fundamental 
 psychological doctrine which was held in common by Plato 
 and by Aristotle, and which pervaded and influenced 
 throughout, both their otherwise distinct schemes of philo- 
 sophy; the doctrine, I mean, that the Ovfxoet^es, the eiri- 
 Ovu^jriKou, and the XoytaTiKov, the principles, that is, of 
 Anger, of Desire, and of Reason, are the three elementary 
 constituents of our human nature. Nor need we be surprised 
 if a legislation based on absolute Truth should lead us to a 
 no less true psychological analysis. For this Divine legis- 
 lation, as it singles out the individual man with its awful 
 and searching Thou, is of power also to single out in the 
 same manner the fundamental constituents of man's real 
 Being ; dealing with each separately, and applying to that 
 corrupt form or idol of each wliich is primary and fontal, 
 its own distinct and adequate corrective. 
 
 In estimating the importance of this coincidence, 
 which it may be necessary to dwell on hereafter at greater 
 length, let us remember that the matter on which these 
 two illustrious witnesses to our Lord's teaching agree, 
 is a matter relating to our own actual constitution as
 
 ]7() UKLIGIOIT.S OrriCES OF THK INTELLECT. [ MOOK f. 
 
 human Beings, not to any of those higher theological 
 verities which regard the Being of God, or even which 
 regard our own Being as raised to a capacity for real 
 communion with Him ; is a matter actually on a level 
 with their extraordinary powers and means of observing 
 and investigating man's inward constitution. Remember- 
 ing this, we may well regard these two great leaders 
 of the elder philosophy as the fitting representatives and 
 expounders of man's speculative Intellect ; the one, of that 
 Intellect under its more imaginative, the other, of the 
 same under its more logical form. We may well regard 
 them as in these characters bearing each his own inde- 
 pendent testimony, giving utterance each to his own 
 gradually-matured and deep-seated conviction, albeit un- 
 conscious to whom he was witnessing, that our Lord 
 knew what was in man, and needed not that any should 
 tell him. 
 
 But although this part of the legislation on the 
 Mount may be at once perceived to have such a remark- 
 able bearing on a most important element of the Greek 
 philosophy ; it may not be so immediately acknowledged 
 that our Lord is here really setting forth the second 
 Table of the Decalogue in its Christian and spiritual com- 
 pleteness. For when we arrive again at the third and 
 fourth Commandments of the second Table, as according 
 to our Scheme they reappear in this His absolute and 
 final legislation, it might seem, at first sight, that these 
 two Commandments are altogether changed, not only in 
 inward import, but in outward form ; not only in the 
 degree of their development, but in their very essence.
 
 OH. VI. J THE DECALOGL'K. PART U. 177 
 
 Thus, in the place of the third, Thou shalt not steal, 
 we find the Law, Thou shalt not forswear thyself ; and 
 in the place of the fourth, Thou shalt not bear false 
 WITNESS, we find a Law, positive now in form as well as 
 in import, Thou shalt perform to the Lord thy vows. 
 Whilst for the corresponding more inward and spiritual 
 Laws we have further presented to us the negative Com- 
 mandment, to deny all profaxeness, and all falsehood 
 AS profane ; the positive Commandment, to affirm all 
 truth, as conscious that we are ever really in the 
 PRESENCE OP God. 
 
 Such, I say, might be our firet thoughts, and we 
 might thus be led hastily to conclude that this part of 
 our Lord's legislation not only has no reference to the 
 primal and permanent legislation of the Decalogue, but 
 that it grows out of no inward and living principle : that 
 its distinct Laws, however excellent and wholesome in 
 themselves, derive no deeper import, no greater force, 
 when regarded as really constituting a Body of Law fitly 
 framed together ; and that, in fact, they possess no living 
 connexion \vith each other, no real and inward coherence. 
 
 If, however, rejecting all such immature conclusions, 
 we set ourselves to ponder this matter as it deserves, we 
 are led by degrees to perceive how entirely in the spirit of 
 that inward Kingdom which cometh not with observation, 
 but which imparts secretly its holiest gifts, our Lord here 
 presents the primal, guardian Law of Property, unfolded 
 into that fuU breadth and reality which alone can suffice 
 for the outward and visible foundations of a Christian 
 Polity or Kingdom, and which at the same time essentially 
 
 12
 
 ]78 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 involves, and naturally grows out of, that very primal 
 Law itself. For the more deeply we consider it, the 
 more spiritual and quickening shall we find this truth, 
 not only that the land is His, and cannot really be held 
 except in trust from God (Lev. xxv. 23) ; but that all 
 Property, of whatever kind, really rests, be it explicitly 
 or be it implicitly, on Covenant ; and that all Covenant is, 
 in the highest and most spiritual reality, whether it be 
 so explicitly or implicitly. Covenant with God. We shall 
 find that all so-called Property is, in the highest truth, 
 a covenanted trust with definite conditions, granted us 
 by Him ; and that all violations of Property are a breach 
 of such sworn Covenant : for a Covenant with God is 
 essentially a sworn Covenant, seeing He is a witness as 
 well as a party to it. Stealing, therefore, as being the 
 violation of the Institution, and of the Law, of Property, 
 is, in its real or spiritual bearing, in that bearing wherein 
 Christ presents, and we, as Christian and spiritual men, 
 are empowered to discern it, is, and must be regarded 
 as, an offence against God not less heinous than a breach 
 of His appointed and covenanted order ; a falsehood 
 whereof He is witness ; a lie before Him : and what- 
 ever may be the various measures of punishment appointed 
 by God, or by man as legislating under God and on 
 Divine principles, to deter men from thus violating Pro- 
 perty ; the sinfulness of such violations can, in a Christian 
 and spiritual point of view, be measured only by the 
 truth we are now affirming, namely, that they are 
 breaches of a real Covenant with God, having in it the 
 essential sanctitv of an oath. And further, what to some
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUB. PART II. 17J) 
 
 may appear a more practical position, by no lower, less 
 real, or less universal sanction than a practical faith in 
 this truth, can the holy bounds of Property be effectually 
 guarded from violation. 
 
 Hence we see that the primary Mosaic Law, Thou 
 SHALT NOT STEAL, may bo most truly regarded as a less fully 
 developed form of the final Christian Law, Thou shalt not 
 FORSWEAR THYSELF ; and that as the ordained office of the 
 former Law was to guard from violation, in its funda- 
 mental condition, the Life which under the Mosaic dispen- 
 sation men led, as members of the Jewish Polity ; so the 
 ordained office of the latter Law is to guard from violation 
 in its first, indispensable conditions, the fuller and more 
 real Life which under the Christian dispensation we lead 
 as members of a Christian Polity ; to guard, that is, the 
 more outward and legal, as contradistinguished from the 
 more inward and spiritual, foundations of our full social 
 Life as Christians. 
 
 Again, with regard to the fourth Law of the second 
 Table, against bearing false witness. This, as we have 
 already seen, is the complemental Law necessary for 
 giving actual and binding force to the three fundamental 
 Laws ordained to guard the outward and visible founda- 
 tions of our threefold Life. In the Jewish PoHty, this 
 Law, though negative in its form, was made positive in its 
 judicial bearing by the retributive Law in Deut. xix. ig, 
 and by the power of administering judicial oaths. And, 
 by some similar legislation, the same end is, and must be, 
 attained in every Christian Polity. In our Lord's final 
 legislation, however, this fourth, or complemental Law of 
 
 \2 2
 
 180 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTKI-I.ECT. [nOOK I. 
 
 the second Table, is no longer restricted in its import and 
 negative in its form. It reappears in that legislation as 
 an absolutely universal Law, Thou shalt perform to the 
 Lord thy vows ; positive now, both in form and import ; 
 and, like its Mosaic prototype, enforceable in the main, 
 under God, by human tribunals. 
 
 This Law, therefore, becomes for us, as members not 
 so much of a Christian Church as of a Christian State, 
 the form^ or rather, the expanded and living reality, 
 of the Law against false witness ; and it is, we see at 
 once, the genuine complemental and positive Law for 
 realizing the three negative Laws which precede it, in 
 all the fulness of their import. For by this Law we are 
 taught, if we know it not otherwise ; and in so far as 
 we have been tempted to forget it, we are continually 
 reminded, that even as the foundations of our National 
 Life really rest on Covenant with God, on that which 
 has the essential sanctity, if not the outward sanction of 
 an oath, so also do the foundations of our Family or 
 domestic, so also do the foundations of our Individual Life. 
 And is not, indeed, our Lord's legislation borne ^vitness to 
 by the experienced necessities, by the historical facts of 
 the case? Does not our threefold Life indeed rest, and 
 that not only implicitly and really, but explicitly and 
 actually, and in each of its constituent elements, on the 
 sanction of an oath ; of a solemn vow made in the presence 
 of God ? Does not, in the first place, our Individual Life, 
 both in itself and as the ground of all fuller and larger and 
 worthier Life, earthly or heavenly, rest on our baptismal 
 vow, as at once its visible foundation and its living root !
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART II. 181 
 
 Does not our Family or domestic Life, in the same manner 
 and with the same inward and outward reahty, rest on 
 marriage, itself essentially of a holy and sacramental 
 character — rest more explicitly and intelligibly on our 
 marriage-vow ? Lastly, with regard to our larger social 
 Life as Christians, our national Life in both its integrant 
 elements, outward and inward, that Life, in virtue of which 
 we are at once members of a Christian State and of a 
 Christian Church ? Does not this worthier and fuller Life 
 rest on an explicit oath of allegiance to our sovereign 
 as under God, and so essentially to God himself as Lord of 
 lords and King of kings : as the one Sovereign under 
 whom kings reign, and princes administer justice. 
 
 Here, then, we arrive at the genuine transition-point, 
 to the highest, the most comprehensive, and most spiritual 
 form and import of these two Laws forbidding the breach 
 of any Covenant, enjoining the fulfilment of all Covenants, 
 as being indeed made with God : the performing, not as to 
 men, but as unto the Lord, our vows ; and we see at once 
 that these two Laws, when presented in their utmost 
 fulness and reality, are no other than the Laws of absolute 
 TRUTHFULNESS AS BEFORE GoD, the Laws which require us to 
 affirm all truth as being God's truth, as spoken in the 
 ever-present consciousness that God hears and records our 
 every affirmation ; to deny, in the same consciousness, 
 all falsehood of whatever kind, as being of the devil, the 
 father of Hes, as violating God's Holy Name, by violating 
 the integrity of our human Life, on which that Name has 
 been called and placed, to hallow it and to be hallowed 
 in it.
 
 182 RELIGIOUS OFl'ICKS OF THK INTELLECT. TbOOK I. 
 
 By the negative form of this Law we are required 
 to deny all falsehood, whether it be such as finds its 
 outward expression in our words, or in our deeds and 
 lives : and this because we are essentially, whether ex- 
 plicitly or implicitly, under Covenant to speak and to do 
 The Truth as before God and to God. For observe, this 
 Law of simple Truth also, is twofold ; not only forbidding 
 us to speak and to do falsehood, but enjoining us, and 
 that quite universally, to speak and to do The Truth. If 
 we would obey it, we must, in the first place, rigorously 
 deny ourselves, at whatever cost, all breaches of truth as 
 expressed in words, all definite and palpable falsehood to 
 the essential covenants with God, on which is founded, 
 as we have seen, our genuine Christian Life on earth in 
 its three fundamental constituents : we must cut out and 
 cast from us all impulses proceeding from the heart, 
 and hastening to embody themselves in such outward 
 acts as will destroy or falsify the integrity and truth 
 of any portion of the Life which we live on earth as 
 under God and in His presence ; of the Life on which He 
 has put his Holy Name ; whether it be of our Life under 
 Him as individual Christians, or as members of a Chris- 
 tian Family, or as members of a Christian Community. 
 To thus much, at least, are we bound by the negative 
 Law of truthfulness. By the positive Law of Truth and 
 truthfulness we are bound to far more ; we are bound 
 not only to refrain from violating the sanctity of these 
 relations by definite and tangible falsehood to any of 
 them, but we are bound to be everywhere, always, and 
 in all respects, true, positively true, to them all : actually
 
 CH. VI,] THE DECALOGITR. PART 11. 183 
 
 to fill all these relations with those fair realities of the 
 purified and hallowed affections which belong to them, 
 and which, under the better covenant, are indeed im- 
 planted and caused to grow in us in fitting measure, for 
 this very end, that wo may so realize and fulfil them. 
 
 For what ultimate purpose, then, to what worthiest and 
 holiest end, are we to be thus disciplined in speaking and 
 doing The Truth as unto God? What portion of our 
 essential blessedness does it constitute, this growing faculty, 
 this inward power, this outstreaming energy of truth I Is 
 not communion with God the sum and substance, the very 
 crown and glory, of that essential Blessedness? And is not 
 the rightly speaking unto God a primary and indispensable 
 element of this communion? And can we speak rightly 
 to that God, to whom lying lips are an abomination, 
 unless we speak to him The Truth ? 
 
 As soon as our ears have been opened to hear these 
 his Commandments, that is, to obey them in spirit and in 
 truth ; as soon as our Lives have thus become truthful 
 Lives, our words truthful words ; as soon as our nay has 
 become nay, and our yea, yea and amen, before man and 
 before God ; so soon can God hear our prayer, that goeth 
 not now out of feigned lips; so soon can we hear and 
 discern, in whatever guise they may come, his answers 
 of truth and love, which to the blinded heart and the un- 
 purged ear of falsehood, are as a dark saying and a sealed 
 book. 
 
 And here also, as ever, if we be not truthful in smaller 
 things, in the things of our earthly Life, how shall we be 
 truthful in greater things, the things of our heavenly Life ?
 
 184 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 If we bo not true, and speak not the Truth to ourselves 
 whom we know, to our brother whom we have seen, how 
 shall we be true and speak the Truth to our Father whom 
 we have not seen, and whom, if we know, we know but in 
 part, and chiefly as a God of Truth ; as a God who cannot 
 lie, and who keepeth his covenant for ever? 
 
 It is to this end, to the end they might learn to 
 speak and to do the Truth, that they might learn to be 
 true to themselves, to their brethren, and to their Father, 
 that God has, in all ages of his Church, disciplined his 
 children by Covenant, Covenant with Himself, Covenant 
 with their brethren in Him : yea, that He has taught 
 them to make a Covenant with themselves; and in them- 
 selves with Him : with their eyes, and lips, and hands, 
 and hearts, and with the indwelling Spirit : that being 
 utterly purposed and sworn not to offend the Law of 
 Truth, which is the Law of Life as well as the Law of free- 
 dom, they might do the Truth and speak the Truth, and 
 in speaking and doing it have Life and have freedom, they 
 and their children after them ; a real, genuine, and blessed 
 Life and freedom on earth, a deeper and now inconceivable 
 blessedness, a far more exceeding weight of glory, a free- 
 dom from all evil and for all good, hereafter with Christ 
 in heaven. 
 
 It is to the end we may be daily more and more 
 fitted and enabled to speak to God with sincerity and 
 truth, in the language as well of our daily lives as of our 
 daily words and prayers, that we are bound to offer up 
 our hearts a daily sacrifice to Truth, to cut off and brand 
 all falsehood as destructive of any living power of com-
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE. PART II. 185 
 
 muning with Him. To this end we must be true in 
 word and deed to ourselves, and to our brethren, in the 
 unshrinking fulfilment of all duty. And we must be so 
 not only because God has put upon each of us individu- 
 ally, upon all of us as constituting Families and house- 
 holds, as constituting a Christian Church and State, both 
 his Holy Name and his Holy Law, but because now at 
 length in the fulness of time He has done more than 
 this, by making us temples also of His Holy Spirit ; by 
 making that great Name, that exceeding broad Law, sink 
 down deep into our hearts ; by renewing us, through that 
 Spirit, even in our Will, the spirit of our minds, if at 
 least we be not found fighters against God ; if we have 
 not taken on us his Name in vain ; if we have not grieved 
 and quenched His Holy Spirit. 
 
 It is that we may be enabled to fulfil this condition 
 of TRUTHFULNESS, this first indispcnsablc condition of that 
 living communion with God, which is the hoUest and most 
 blessed end of all our discipline and training, intellectual 
 and moral ; that we are led to reverence before all things, 
 to value and to cultivate Truth. We seek her thus 
 earnestly in all her forms, as being in all either the Truth 
 which God speaks to us, or which we speak before God 
 and to Him. We lay hold on her at any sacrifice ; in 
 the unshaken faith that in whatever form revealing herself, 
 she is great and will prevail ; that in all her forms she is 
 at one with herself ; in all, well-pleasing unto God. 
 
 This Truth of God it is, which, in whatever form 
 presented for our acceptance, must be the first great 
 object of our Lives : whether it be Truth to those great
 
 1 86 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 Covenants with Him, whereon, as on its hving roots, 
 our genuine human Life rests, and wherefrom it draws 
 strength and growth ; or whether it be Truth in all 
 our words and thoughts, in communing with Him and 
 with each other in Him ; or whether it be so-called 
 speculative Truth, the investigation, that is, and affirma- 
 tion of what is true, the exposure and rejection of 
 what is false, with regard not only to His spiritual 
 universe, but with regard also to His material creation. 
 For this also is constituted both to be itself a fair and 
 excellent reality and adornment, and also to symbolize 
 and expound to our spiritualized reason the higher and 
 holier realities of the invisible world. For the invisible 
 things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly 
 seen, being understood by the things that are made. 
 Lastly, it is to this Truth of God, whether manifesting 
 itself in these forms, or in the form of righteous Law, 
 or, last and holiest manifestation, in the Person of Him 
 by whom came Grace and Truth, of Him who is our 
 Righteousness, who is the Truth wherein we must walk, 
 the Truth that makes us free, — it is to this living 
 and Personal Truth, the incarnate Word and Wisdom 
 of God, that we must at every moment of our lives offer 
 up ourselves in body, soul, and spirit, our understand- 
 ings, affections, and Will ; all we are and all we have, to 
 be by Christ presented to the Father as our sacrifice 
 now in Him acceptable, as our willing and reasonable 
 service. 
 
 To conclude this portion of the subject. We have 
 already seen that the whole outward Law which corre-
 
 CH. VI.] THE DECALOGUE PART H. 187 
 
 sponds to the first aspiration of the Prayer, has for its 
 leading drift, for its main end and aim, the convincing 
 us of sin, through the sense wrought in us by its inevit- 
 able behests, of our powerlessness, as apart from Christ and 
 from his inward Law and Power, to obey it ; and the so 
 enabling us feehngly and trutlifuUy to utter the A spiration, 
 Hallowed be Thy Name, in so far as this Aspiration is the 
 expression of our conscious Poverty, of our turning from 
 Self as discerned to be unholy, to God as discerned through 
 His Law, holy and just and good, to be Himself the foun- 
 tain of all holiness. 
 
 And no otherwise shall we find that the whole inward 
 or Christian and spiritual Law, which corresponds to the 
 same Aspiration and which comes to a head in this Law of 
 Truth, has for its end and aim the enabling us to complete 
 our truthful utterance of this primal Christian Aspiration, 
 by enabling us under Christ and his Spirit to hallow God's 
 Name in our Lives also ; to hallow it by and through 
 every capacity, power, and energy of our Christian and 
 Spiritual Life, as now constituted imder the fully revealed 
 and Holy Name of God. 
 
 Thus, at length, does our whole Being become truthful. 
 Thus do all its subordinate powers become indeed, as they 
 ought to be, ancillary to that central and spiritual energy 
 of the daily renewed Will which is our Being, our real Self. 
 Thus, at length, are we enabled to utter this Aspiration 
 in spirit and in truth, not languidly and brokenly, but 
 fully and fervently ; not as from some fragment of our 
 Being, but with the blended energy of our whole Being ; 
 not with the understanding only, or with the heart only.
 
 188 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [[bOOK I. 
 
 but with Intellect, Affections, and Will ; with the united 
 and earnest voice of all our powers of body and soul 
 and spirit, to give truthful utterance to those blessed 
 words, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be 
 THY Name.
 
 Chapter VII. 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 We have now, at such length as our general plan per- 
 mitted, gone through two complete portions of the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount : the Beatitudes, namely, and the 
 Lord's Prayer ; and also through the first complete por- 
 tion of the whole Divine Law ; namely, the Decalogue, 
 as well in its original as in its full and ultimate form and 
 import. We have endeavoured to present in order these 
 several portions of our Lord's explicit or implicit teaching 
 on the Mount, as succinctly as was consistent with clear- 
 ness, in their most central and essential meanings. 
 
 It will not then, we trust, require much further ex- 
 planation to show, either what parts of our provisional 
 definition of the religious Province of the Intellect are thus 
 unfolded ; or in what manner each of these developed 
 portions, with its relations to the others, is presented in 
 the Scheme, or Synoptical Table 
 
 The Blessed Tempers, as by our Lord set forth, we 
 may now assert to be the genuine elements of Personality, 
 or personal character which constitute holy Being in its 
 growth in man ; and we may further affirm that our 
 Lord, by thus setting them forth, has furnished us 
 with the means (so we fail not in duly employing them) 
 of discerning and expounding these Blessed Tempers in 
 themselves and in their mutual relations. 
 
 That He has at the same time furnished us with the
 
 190 RELIGIOUS OKFICKS Or THE INTKLLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 NAMES which truly designate these genuine elements of 
 holy personal Being, of growing holiness in man, is too 
 evident to require insisting on, though this endowing us 
 with their real names will be found a condition without 
 which we could not be effectually and progressively en- 
 dowed with a solid discernment and inward reception of 
 the spiritual realities which these names designate — the 
 realities, that is, of holiness in man contemplated as being 
 daily renewed in the spirit of his mind. 
 
 We have further endeavoured to set forth the essential 
 character of each of these Tempers considered in itself, 
 and the real relations of interdependence which obtain 
 amongst them ; pointing out at the same time the appro- 
 priate Blessedness which belongs to each of these constitu- 
 ents of holy personal Being in man. 
 
 Accordingly the Synoptical Scheme will be understood 
 as presenting these Blessed Tempers in the real order of 
 their growth and development in man ; each of them being 
 accompanied by its own distinct and appropriate Blessed- 
 ness : and as further presenting them together, in their 
 integrity, as a living whole ; as the complete Christian 
 rjOos-, or character, accompanied by its full and proper 
 blessedness : not, indeed, as having already attained 
 its perfect holiness and blessedness, its full maturity 
 and ripeness for heaven ; but as being still and per- 
 manently in a state of growth, throughout all these its 
 essential elements of holiness and of blessedness. More- 
 over, it will be readily perceived that each of the Blessed 
 Tempers may be rightly regarded as implying in itself 
 and involving, as taken up into itself and as it were
 
 CH. VII.l RECAPITULATION. 191 
 
 glorifying all those that in this order and method (which 
 is indeed the order and method of growth) precede it, no 
 otherwise than in the growth of the natural man, the 
 state of perfect manhood implies and involves, takes up 
 into itself and glorifies, the preceding states of infancy, 
 of boyhood, and of youth ; or as any one of these distinct 
 states of our natural life contains in itself the completion 
 of all those which precede it ; and can neither be, nor even 
 be conceived, excepting in so far as it presupposes and 
 grows out of them. 
 
 Thus, as we have said, the idea and reality of growth 
 is, throughout this integrant portion at least of the 
 Sermon on the Mount, the ground-idea, the fundamental 
 reality. And thus we are enabled rightly to regard any 
 one of these Blessed Tempers — for example, the last of 
 them, — as really involving and perfecting in itself all those 
 which in our Lord's order precede it. 
 
 It will be obsen'ed, further, that these genuine ele- 
 ments of our real or spiritual Being, in its state of growth, 
 are presented in two different parts of the Synoptical 
 Table : first, as proceeding from on high, as a direct 
 revelation from God, of the essential elements of man's 
 holiness and blessedness ; next, as having been already 
 implanted, as actually growing in man. This latter state 
 of their actual existence and orderly development in the 
 human soul, is denoted in the Table by inscribing them 
 in their proper order of growth, on that lower portion 
 of the vertical line which, as has been already explained, 
 represents the genuine humanity : — man in his state of 
 renewal after the image and likeness of God. On this line
 
 192 REI,IGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. pHOOK I. 
 
 the Blessednesses which accompany each of these Tempers 
 are omitted, being hero tacitly assumed as properly be- 
 longing to, if not essentially inherent in, the Tempers 
 themselves. 
 
 So far then as the Beatitudes are concerned, the expo- 
 sition already supplied, however designedly rapid, in order 
 that their living unity of principle and method may be 
 more readily perceived, and however on that account defi- 
 cient in any fulness of detail, does, if it be indeed founded 
 in truth, both explain and exemplify that Religious Office 
 of the Intellect, which consists of the discernment and 
 exposition, in themselves and in their mutual relations, of 
 the Names which designate, of the elements of Personality 
 which constitute, of the Blessednesses which belong to, 
 and so in part of the methods also or means which realize, 
 holy Being in its growth in Man. 
 
 And thus the provisional definition given in the outset, 
 of the Province of the Intellect in Religion, appears to be 
 so far, consistent in the main with our Lord's special 
 teaching on the Mount, as that teaching is presented in 
 St. Matthew's order ; or, which we shall find to be essen- 
 tially equivalent, as it is presented in the Synoptical 
 Table. 
 
 Again, with regard to the Holy Christian Prayer, 
 given by our Lord on the Mount, it has been shewn how 
 this Prayer is, in the fulness of its import, the complete 
 expression and utterance of all our worthiest energies and 
 acts of communing with God : that is, of all the highest 
 and most absolutely comprehensive energies and acts of 
 holy Being, contemplated in its true state and condition
 
 CH. VII.] RHCAPITULATIOX. 193 
 
 of GROWTH in man — in man, as renewed from day to day 
 in the spirit of his mind. 
 
 It has appeared also in part, (though this portion of 
 the subject will be more fully presented when we come to a 
 further consideration of the whole Christian Law,) that the 
 actual exercise or putting forth by us of these energies of 
 a growing holiness, the real and continued performance by 
 us of these acts of prayerful communing with God, are, 
 and must be, among the very chiefest of the methods or 
 means ordained and fitted for the daily realizing this 
 growth of holy Being in our souls and spirits. 
 
 Moreover, from our contemplation of the Prayer, has 
 resulted a discernment not only of its own form and im- 
 port, as it consists of several distinct, yet intimately con- 
 nected clauses, and as it thus intelligibly constitutes a 
 living whole; but also, of its definite relations with the 
 Beatitudes, as it presents in each of these successive 
 clauses the utterance to God of each of the successive 
 Blessed Tempers ; as, in its completeness, it presents the 
 full Godward voice and expression of the entire Christian 
 character in a state of daily growth and renewal. 
 
 On these grounds we trust that the portion of our 
 exposition which has the Christian prayer for its object, 
 may be regarded as at once explaining and exemplifying, 
 in strict accordance with our Lord's special teaching on 
 the Mount, that religious Office, that part of the whole 
 religious Province, of the Intellect, which consists in the 
 discernment and exposition of the Acts which charac- 
 terize, and so again, in part, of the Method which 
 realizes, holy Being in its growth in man. 
 13
 
 194 RELIGIOUS OPFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 But neither can this portion of the subject be pre- 
 sented in its integrity, till we shall have gone through the 
 consideration of the entire Christian Law, as given on the 
 Mount, or as implied in what is there explicitly given; till 
 we shall have examined that Law, as well in itself and in 
 the mutual bearings of its several portions, as in its 
 definite relations to the Christian Beatitudes on the one 
 hand, and to the Christian Prayer on the other. For 
 these relations and bearings are, in our view, of far too 
 close and too living a character, to allow the possibility 
 even, of a really adequate and satisfactory exposition of 
 the Beatitudes, far less of the Prayer, which is indeed 
 the informing and quickening spirit of a living obedience 
 to the Divine Law, of a true lawfulness^ as opposed to 
 lawlessness (dvo/uLia); without a due examination of that 
 Law as a living whole in itself, and as connected through- 
 out with both, by most intimate and important relations. 
 
 Although, however, it is clear that the entering at any 
 length on this examination would be at present premature, 
 perhaps a few remarks on the relations which subsist 
 between the earlier portions of the Prayer and that part 
 of the Law (namely the Decalogue, in the Christian fulness 
 of its import,) which has already been considered, may 
 serve not unfitly to introduce, in a succeeding portion of 
 the work, a further consideration of the whole Law, in its 
 relations as well to the Beatitudes as to the Prayer. 
 
 With regard then to the Decalogue, in its Christian 
 and spiritual form and import, as that definite portion of 
 the whole Divine Law which has already come under our 
 notice ; how can that primary utterance to God, Our
 
 11. VII.] RECAPITULATION. 195 
 
 Father, which art in heaven, that Address which so 
 intimately pervades and quickens every other clause of the 
 whole Prayer, be truly uttered to God, in its Hving con- 
 nexion with that first Holy Aspiration, Hallowed be Thy 
 Name,... AS in heaven so on earth; how can it be the 
 genuine and truthful expression to God of our real Being, 
 of that which is most genuine and truthful, most real and 
 spiritual, within us; if, with all the less intimately personal 
 and essential, with all the more outward and subordinate 
 capacities, powers, and energies of this our real Being, «)f 
 this central and essential Personality, we hallow not that 
 Name, either as it is revealed to us from heaven, or as it 
 is called and put upon us on earth ? 
 
 The not actually doing this, the failing to do it in that 
 special manner wherein the Decalogue, in the Christian 
 fulness of its import, prescribes and enjoins that we should 
 do it, may be more and other than mere falsehood and 
 untruth ; more than doing that untruth which consists 
 in a practical violation of the living as well as true rela- 
 tions that obtain between the Christian Prayer and the 
 Christian Law. This failure may be, or rather it doubtless 
 is, our misery also, and our sin ; a sin against our own souls 
 and our own blessedness, as well as against God : but still, 
 in the first place and as the root of its other inherent 
 evils, it can be rightly regarded only as a practical false- 
 hood and untruth — a not speaking and doing The Truth. 
 If with our spirits we aspire after the hallowing of God's 
 Name, and yet with our practical powers strive not for 
 that hallowing ; there is falsehood, inward untruth, in our 
 Being : we are at twain, not at one, with ourselves. 
 
 13 — 2
 
 196 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT'. [bOOK i. 
 
 Obedience to the first Table of the Decalogue, in its 
 proper Christian meaning, and up to the full measure of 
 accorded might, that is, the most earnest obedience to it 
 of which we are, under God and in God''s order, from time 
 to time capable, is an essential constituent, or real living 
 element of our hallowing God's Name, as it is the 
 Name of our Heavenly Father revealed to us. 
 
 A similar obedience to the second Table of the Deca- 
 logue, in its Christian fulness, is an essential constituent, a 
 real living element of our hallowing God''s Name, no 
 longer as having been revealed to us only, but as having 
 
 BEEN also, in ChRIST, ACTUALLY PUT UPON US. And thuS 
 
 it is, that even as the words, " Our Father, which art in 
 heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name... as in heaven, so on 
 earth," constitute the utterance to God of a definite Aspi- 
 ration from all that is most spiritual and real within us, 
 of the spirit of our mind, in its genuine state of growing 
 renewal ; even so, and not otherwise, does our truthful, 
 earnest obedience to the whole Decalogue, in the now 
 Christian fulness of its import, constitute the utterance 
 to God of the very same complete Aspiration, from all 
 those practical powers and energies of our Being, which, 
 in the highest truth of that Being, are subordinate and 
 ancillary to the real self, that is, to the Will in this its 
 genuine state of growing renewal ; and which (if we be 
 indeed living in the order of God's Truth that maketh 
 free, and of our own progressive Blessedness) must be ever, 
 from day to day, more and more fully and freely subordi- 
 nated to this growingly renewed and emancipated Will, 
 this central and dominant energy of our real Being.
 
 CH. VII.] RKCAPITIJLATION. 197 
 
 But this again is a part of the subject which cannot 
 be fully unfolded, till wc have examined the remainder of 
 the Divine Law given on the Mount, that is, the more 
 specially Christian and spiritual portions of it, as well in 
 themselves as in their definite relations with the Beatitudes 
 and with the Prayer, and also with that earlier part of the 
 Divine Law itself, which has been already considered. 
 
 Such an examination of the Christian Law will there- 
 fore, if God permit, be resumed in our next Treatise. 
 
 Before concluding this portion of the work, we are 
 however desirous of again briefly referring to the general 
 definition with which it commences. 
 
 It will be observed that, in this recapitulation of what 
 has been already done, we have spoken more than once of 
 the methods or means which realize holy Being in Man : 
 whereas, on looking back to our definition, the discern- 
 ment and exposition of these methods or means, is not 
 formally included among the genuine religious Offices of 
 the Intellect. This most important and comprehensive 
 Office was, however, not inadvertently, but designedly 
 omitted, in order that attention might thus be pointed to 
 the truth, that each one of the religious Offices of the 
 Intellect actually enumerated in 'that definition, involves 
 the discernment of one appointed mean for realizing the 
 growth in man of holy Being ; that together they involve a 
 discernment of all the great leading means which God has 
 ordained and revealed for that blessed end ; in other 
 words, that, taken collectively, they present the Method 
 of man's real and progressive renewal in the spirit of his 
 mind ; the Method of his Sanctification.
 
 198 KICLIGIOUS OiriCKS OF THE INTELLECT. [nOOK I. 
 
 In SO far as this truth has not already manifested 
 itself during the separate consideration of each of these 
 several religious Offices of the Intellect, it may be well to 
 look back for a moment, and briefly reconsider them with 
 reference to it. 
 
 It is then by a discernment and exposition, in them- 
 selves and in their mutual relations, of the Names which 
 designate holy Being, in its genuine state of growth in 
 man ; by a discernment and exposition, that is, of the 
 reasonable language which truly expresses this Being, that 
 we are first enabled to discern and apprehend its Realities, 
 in order to their effectual reception into our own souls. 
 
 On the presentment of these Realities to our reason- 
 able faculties, by means of their Names and of the mutual 
 relations of their Names, that is, by the means of truthful 
 and intelligible language, by discourse of reason ; we may 
 not here enlarge. The extent and importance of this class 
 of means through which the Realities of Holy Being can 
 be primarily presented to us for our contemplation and 
 reception, are well known to be far greater than those of 
 any other class whatever. The Holy Being and the Holy 
 Wisdom of God are first revealed to us, for our contem- 
 plation and apprehension, through the Holy Name and the 
 Holy Word of God : and even so must all holy Being be 
 first revealed to us through the names and the words 
 which truly express it to our intellectual apprehension; 
 and without the fulfilment of this primary condition, it is 
 not in God's order that we should apprehend and receive 
 into our souls the living Realities of holy Being. 
 
 Further: it is thus that wc are indeed led, in the same
 
 CH. VII.] RECAPITULATION. 199 
 
 divinely-appointed order, from the Names to the Realities, 
 from the signs to the things signified, from that which 
 designates to that which constitutes, holy Being. 
 
 In virtue of what principles we are enabled, through 
 language and discourse of reason, as primary means and 
 instruments, to discern and expound the realities of holy 
 Being, is a question of the deepest interest, and possessing 
 the most immediate bearing on the general subject of this 
 work. Since, however, the detailed consideration of so 
 large a question would, at this stage of the enquiry, lead 
 us beyond our prescribed limits, a few remarks with refer- 
 ence to it must for the present suffice. 
 
 In the first place, it is hardly necessary to premise, 
 that language, though it is of power to present to us the 
 Names of the several Realities of holy Being, and of the 
 relations which subsist between them, has no direct and 
 immediate power of actually endowing us with these 
 blessed Realities themselves. 
 
 How then does it minister to our being actually 
 endowed with them 1 
 
 Without attempting at present to answer so large 
 a question generally, let us confine ourselves to a single 
 example. We have seen that the first real element of holy 
 personal Being in Man, is by our Lord named Poverty in 
 Spirit. The question is, in what respect are we nearer to 
 the possession of this first holy and blessed Temper, by 
 His having so named it, by His having revealed to us this 
 its real and appropriate Name I 
 
 One important ground of an answer to this question 
 we shall find in the fact that our Lord elswhere assigns
 
 200 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT, [bOOK I. 
 
 this fundamental blessedness not expressly to the Poor 
 in Spirit, but simply to the Poor : a fact which cannot 
 but lead us to infer that, whatever may be the essential 
 character of Spiritual Poverty, it must at all events have 
 some very real and intimate relations with Natural Po- 
 verty ; nay, that these relations must, in some important 
 sense, approach to those of actual identity ; for how 
 otherwise could our Lord ascribe the same blessedness, 
 at one time to the simply Poor, at another to the Poor in 
 Spirit ; and by His truthful word endow both these forms 
 of Poverty with no mere promise, but with the actual pos- 
 session, of the Kingdom of God ? And if this be so, we 
 have already made some advance towards a discernment of 
 that primary, Blessed and Holy Temper, of which Poverty 
 IN Spirit is the Name by Christ revealed to us ; inasmuch 
 as we have already learnt that this first element or state 
 of holy personal Being has the very closest relations with 
 actual or natural Poverty, a state with which we are all 
 familiar. For, even if we have ourselves at no period of 
 our lives felt it, yet the poor are always with us, and 
 we cannot have wholly failed to enter into their wants 
 and sorrows. 
 
 Pursuing this train of investigation, we shall find that 
 though Natural Poverty is not necessarily identical with 
 Spiritual Poverty, it is yet of power, if received as God 
 ordains that it should be received, actually to become so : 
 to grow out into the higher spiritual grace, as the hidden 
 and formless root, when it has once felt the breath and 
 the eye of heaven, grows out into the goodly stem, into 
 the fair and fruitful branches.
 
 CH. VII. J RECAPITULATION. 201 
 
 And thus we are aided, by the revelation to us of its 
 appropriate Name, not only in discerning, but in becoming 
 possessed of, this Spiritual Poverty, as a real element 
 within us of holy personal Being. For if poor ourselves, 
 we now know that, by a right reception and use of our 
 natural poverty, we shall become spiritually poor; if not 
 poor ourselves, we now know that the same blessed conse- 
 quence will result from our really entering into, and 
 taking part in, the wants, the sorrows, and the sufferings 
 of our brethren. 
 
 Having been led thus far towards a practical discern- 
 ment of Spiritual Poverty, we begin to perceive further, 
 how it is that Natural Poverty reaUy has these vital rela- 
 tions with it ; we perceive that as Natural Poverty makes 
 us feel our real dependence on God from moment to 
 moment, makes us ever feeHngly pray to Him for the daily 
 bread of our earthly Life ; even so Spiritual Poverty makes 
 us feel our real dependence on Him from moment to 
 moment, makes us ever feelingly pray to Him, for the 
 daily bread of our spiritual or heavenly Life. And still 
 closer are these relations drawn, when we remember 
 what has already been set forth, namely, that if our 
 spiritual Life of progressive renewal be in Christ already 
 begun, and if therefore the daily bread even of our natural 
 Life be ever by us prayerfully, thankfully and charitably, 
 that is, eucharistically received ; it becomks and is the 
 Bread of our whole Life, spiritual and heavenly, as well 
 as natural and earthly. 
 
 Thus Natural Poverty is itself a language, and, what 
 is of all importance, a feelingly and universally intelli-
 
 202 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK I. 
 
 gible language, which God has prepared, that He might 
 express in it the reahties of Spiritual Poverty, so that 
 all men should be enabled practically to apprehend, in 
 order to their really receiving into their own souls, this 
 first and most essential ground of their eternal well-being. 
 
 And thus it is that the very names and words which 
 in their primary sense truly express the familiarly known 
 realities and relations of Natural Poverty, become, in God's 
 order, capable of truly expressing the as yet unknown 
 realities and relations of Spiritual Poverty ; and of doing 
 this also with practical effect : with the effect, that is, 
 of actually furthering or setting forward the bringing in 
 of these new and blessed Realities into our souls. 
 
 Thus, moreover, we shall find it to be, with regard 
 to each of these Blessed Tempers, till we arrive at the 
 central Christian Blessedness of a merciful and forgiving 
 spirit — that Real Spirit of the Kingdom, which discerns 
 THE Real Things of the Kingdom. The Name of each, 
 the language which may be truly used of each, has a 
 twofold meaning; one expressing Natural Realities and 
 their Relations, such as are already famiharly known and 
 understood ; the other expressing Spiritual Realities and 
 their Relations, such as we have not yet discerned, but 
 such as we are, through this very language, materially 
 aided in discerning and receiving. 
 
 If then the revelation by our Lord of the Names of 
 these new and blessed spiritual Realities does effectually 
 and intelligibly further our inward reception of the Realities 
 themselves, the first and most difficult step towards their 
 actual reception into our own souls has already been
 
 CH. VH.] RECAPITULATION. 203 
 
 taken. For these Realities, when once themselves brought 
 in, bring in with them the earnest also, each of its own 
 proper Blessedness ; and thus engage our inward sense 
 of that essential Blessedness in their favour. Moreover^ 
 when once really brought in, still more, when daily and 
 progressively receiving increase within us, these new Reali- 
 ties of our enduring Life become themselves the objects of 
 our awakening spiritual discernment, of our most intimate 
 personal consciousness. Despite the reluctance of our 
 remaining unrenewedness, we are conscious of discerning, 
 of loving and desiring, their genuine spiritual beauty; of 
 understanding and rightly using their appropriate Names ; 
 we feel and know them to be the elements of our per- 
 manent Being, of our real and enduring Blessedness. And 
 thus, again, our discernment of the elements of Personality, 
 or of character, which constitute holy Being, ministers to 
 the realizing those elements in our own souls, and in the 
 souls of others. 
 
 By what means, and in what manner, a discernment of 
 the Laws which determine and guard, and of the Acts which 
 characterize, holy Being, tends to realize the elements of 
 that Being within our own souls, will, as we have already 
 observed, be more easily understood, so soon as the course 
 of this enquiry shall have brought under our review that 
 remaining portion of these Laws and Acts which has not 
 yet been considered ; though their general tendency to 
 realize and unfold within us these elements of holy personal 
 Being can hardly fail to be inferred from what we have 
 already seen of them. The very discernment, that certain 
 Laws really guard, and that certain Acts really characterize
 
 204 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK 1. 
 
 holy Being in its growth in man, cannot but lead us, 
 when once our Spiritual Life has begun, to subordinate 
 ourselves to those Laws, and to exercise ourselves in those 
 Acts ; and so to heighten the proper powers and energies 
 of that Spiritual Life, by duly exerting them. 
 
 Thus then we perceive in what manner the religious 
 Offices of the Intellect are connected with, and minister to, 
 the unfolding of our religious Life ; of our real or spiritual 
 Being: how it is that God's truth in Christ, really dis- 
 cerned, is of power to make us free. 
 
 And here our enquiry, having proceeded through 
 those portions of its general subject which we proposed 
 in the outset to consider in this publication, would, for 
 the present, naturally terminate. 
 
 We are, however, unwilling to conclude the first part of 
 this work, without briefly pointing attention to the essentially 
 unselfish, and so far essentially Christian, Basis of Morality 
 presented by this view of the Decalogue, as ordained to 
 guard from violation that Revealed Name of God into 
 which we are now baptized ; and, only as guarding that 
 Name, to guard also our own Being on which it has been 
 placed. On this view, the fountains of the whole Moral 
 Law, of our practical human morality, flow forth free from 
 all debasing reference to the Actual Self. Our eyes 
 are turned away from this Actual Self, with its inherent 
 evils and falsehoods, to contemplate and to dwell on that 
 One Holy Being, by contemplating and dwelling on whom 
 the Real Self must be formed and grow within us : without 
 contemplating and dwelling on whom, that new Adam 
 which is in Christ Jesus can never indeed be formed and
 
 CH. VH.] RECAPITULATION. 205 
 
 matured within us, can never effectually wrestle with and 
 thrust forth the old Adam of our unrenewed nature. 
 Seen in this light the Moral Law purifies and strengthens 
 that single eye to God's Crlory, which leads us in very 
 deed to do all things, not for our own sakes, but for 
 the sake of that great Glory. Thus, and thus only, are 
 we, in the very beginnings of our Spiritual Life, at once 
 and for ever taken out of the domain of this Actual Self, 
 as being in any sense a primary object of our religious 
 strivings. On this view, even Self-culture, if regarded as 
 a primary object, if not ever absolutely and consciously 
 subordinated to that abiding energy of the daily renewed 
 Will, whose truthful and earnest voice is. Hallowed be 
 Thy Name, becomes a deadly, all-corrupting poison ; a 
 poison which, when it has once pervaded our Being, fails 
 not to break out into the loathsome leprosy of Self-glori- 
 fication and Self-idolatry. 
 
 Is any one of us, for example, called upon to bear 
 witness to the Name of God as revealed to us in Christ, 
 the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; 
 to resist, and to frustrate, by whatever powers God has 
 entrusted to him, any attempts to desecrate that now fully 
 revealed Name, or to violate its absolute integrity ? Is he 
 thus called upon to witness against any of those fundamental 
 heresies which dethrone the Personal, the Absolute, and 
 absolutely Holy Lord of the universe, our Father and the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; or which deny the 
 Divinity of the same Christ ; or which reject the Holy 
 Spirit as a real and distinct Person of the Godhead ; or, 
 lastly, against any of those subtler and more insidious
 
 206 RELIGIOUS OFFICES OF THE INTELLECT. [bOOK 1. 
 
 forms under which these fundamental heresies do in our 
 day more especially clothe themselves ? 
 
 His first motive for bearing this witness, his primary 
 object in thus hallowing, and to the uttermost of his 
 power guarding from violation, the Holy Name, in that 
 full integrity wherein it has now been finally revealed; 
 is not, and cannot be, the preserving inviolate and intact, 
 for himself or even for his brethren, the real and priceless 
 possession with which he has thus been endowed, and 
 without which his life must be, or become a living death. 
 He shrinks by a spiritual instinct, if not through clearest 
 insight, from thus perversely erecting an essentially sub- 
 ordinate, into the highest end and aim of all his strivings. 
 He bears this witness, in order that first and foremost, 
 and whatever else shall betide, he may, with the best 
 energies of his Being, hallow that essentially Holy Name 
 of God, which has in Christ Jesus been revealed to man. 
 
 Again, is any one of us enabled to crush a rising of 
 godless anger : to crucify a lust which has no fellowship 
 with Christ : to wrestle ever with that spirit of untruth 
 and of lying, with whom the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of 
 Truth, cannot dwell ; whom that Holy Spirit can alone 
 effectually supplant ? His first, his noblest and most en- 
 nobling object in doing this, is not and cannot be himself: 
 cannot be even his own real blessedness, his own real and 
 personal holiness. Nay, if any of these genuine results, 
 if even this last, the most real and glorious to himself, 
 of all the results which can spring from the hallowing 
 God's Holy Name, from the doing all tilings to His 
 glory, be erected into an idolatrous substitute for that
 
 CH. VII.] RECAPITULATION. 207 
 
 genuine Object and End of his whole Being ; then these 
 excellent results themselves will assuredly never be for 
 him worthily realized. He cannot by this road attain 
 his own personal holiness, his oviai personal blessedness. 
 
 In all these witnessings then, in all these strivings, 
 his primary end and aim, his all-absorbing purpose, is and 
 must be The Glory of God ; and, as the first ordained 
 means to this highest end, the hallowing, the guarding 
 from desecration and violation, of God's Holy Name; 
 of that revealed Name of the Father, the Son, and the 
 Spirit, which at his baptism was put upon him, into 
 which he was baptized, and which now rests on and 
 broods over him for evermore, to guard, in proportion 
 as it is itself guarded, from violation and evil, every 
 capacity, power, and energy of his whole Being ; every 
 genuine element of his manifold Life. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST BOOK.
 
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