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CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES 
 
 AND 
 
 MODERN THOUGHT 
 
 THE BOYLE LECTURES FOR 1891 
 
 BY 
 
 T. G. BONNEY, D. Sc. 
 
 'I 
 
 LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S. 
 
 FELLOW OF ST. JOHn's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, HONORARY CANON OF MANCHESTER 
 AND EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO T4IB^ LOHJ». BISHOP OF MANCHESTER 
 
 ^^ OF THB*^^ 
 
 IWFiteesitt: 
 
 u 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST i6th STREET 
 1892 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
BT75- 
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I DEDICATE THESE LECTURES 
 
 TO THE SISTER 
 
 WHO 
 
 BY HER CARE AND COMPANIOKSHIP 
 
 DURING THE LAST TEN YEARS 
 
 HAS LIGHTENED MANY A BURDEN. 
 
'^•*^ OP THR^^ 
 
 ;UNI7ERSIT7' 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Knowledge has grown from more to more during 
 the present century. It is sometimes tacitly 
 assumed that this advance has been adverse to 
 all definite or systematic theology. In a certain 
 sense this is true. A scientific education develops 
 a habit of mind which is sceptical, in the better 
 sense of the word. By it men are rendered less 
 prone to accept, unless good reason can be shown, 
 either the ipse dixit of a teacher or the decree 
 of an assembly; they are led to assign a lower 
 value to ceremonial ordinances and the machinery 
 of an ecclesiastical system ; they are more fully 
 convinced of the inadequacy of the human mind to 
 comprehend, and of human words to express, the 
 
 h 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 things which belong, not to the phenomenal and 
 the temporal, but to the unseen and the eternal. 
 
 Men thus trained are slow to admit a finality 
 in any expression of truth. To them a creed or 
 a decree of a council represents no more than the 
 nearest approximation to the expression of a 
 thought which could be made by the best qualified 
 judges at that epoch. But since changes take place 
 in the meaning of words, these formulae may become 
 inadequate or even misleading. Moreover, since 
 the minds of men are modified by education, in 
 the wide sense of the term, their habits of thought 
 are changed ; thus, in the process of time, some 
 difficulties are smoothed away, but others may be 
 created. An argument which in one age was 
 convincing, in another may fail to satisfy; while, 
 as a compensation, it is possible to appeal to new 
 facts and to new considerations. In theology, as 
 in war, certain methods of defence and certain 
 weapons of attack become antiquated. At the 
 
PREFACE. VII 
 
 present day the bravest troops which ever went 
 to battle would be massacred by men of inferior 
 physique and tactical skill, did they take the field 
 with the muskets and artillery which did such 
 good service at Waterloo. In this age, though 
 we may not be superior to our forefathers in 
 dialectics or metaphysics, we have obtained a far 
 more comprehensive view of the natural world, and 
 a closer insight into its processes of operation. 
 By these our position has been materially altered. 
 They have, in a sense, brought men nearer to God 
 by indicating a latent unity in the varied pheno- 
 mena of the universe, and suggesting that these 
 proceed from and are the outcome of One Almighty 
 Power. But, at the same time, this advance renders 
 our conceptions of that Power less definite. As 
 our conviction of the omnipresence and omni- 
 potence of God grows stronger, our ideas of Him 
 become less anthropomorphic, less capable of Jex- 
 pression in words — in short, less definite. Still 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 they are not on this account necessarily less 
 assured. A child's conception of something which 
 is external to himself and partially beyond his 
 experience is frequently clear and definite, but it 
 is also, as a necessary consequence, inadequate or 
 even incorrect. When he has grown to manhood, 
 it may become much more vague, but at the same 
 time may be a much nearer approximation to the 
 truth. 
 
 A change of this kind is taking place in 
 the sphere of religious thought. Phrases which 
 formerly satisfied are now felt to be inadequate ; 
 arguments once deemed conclusive now fail to 
 convince — nay, in some cases, if resorted to, would 
 produce the opposite effect. The progress of 
 knowledge, even during the past half-century, the 
 discoveries in geology, biology, archaeology, and 
 philology, have compelled theologians to modify 
 their views as to the nature and function of inspira- 
 tion, and the date, the prigin, and the authority. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 historic or scientific, of some portions of the Bible. 
 Views are commonly held and expressed by men 
 of approved orthodoxy for which, five and twenty 
 years ago, they would have been denounced as 
 heretics and infidels. Science is now free to 
 investigate the early history of our race, and to 
 interpret the picture-writing of the Book of 
 Nature as best she can, without being under any 
 obligation to force the results into conformity with 
 the narrative in the Book of Genesis, or with 
 references to the same in later parts of the Scrip- 
 tures. Only those who can remember something 
 of the old days, who have themselves heard the 
 thumping of the drum ecclesiastic, and felt a little 
 of the storm of theological vituperation, can appre- 
 ciate the blessings of the present freedom. But a 
 price has to be paid — as it always must be — for 
 this rapid advance. Liberty, quickly won after 
 long thraldom, is liable to be misused, and some 
 persons now imagine that in the process of clearing 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 slw&j parasitic growths and accumulated encum- 
 brances the tower of our strength has been shaken, 
 and that Christianity in future must be counted 
 among the " creeds outworn." 
 
 With some of the difficulties, of which we now 
 hear much, I endeavoured to deal in an earlier 
 course of lectures ;^ but, as it seemed to me, another 
 aspect of them still called for consideration. It is 
 this. Supposing we are convinced, not only that 
 a revelation is possible, but also that one has been 
 made in the Person of Christ — supposing, in a 
 word, we believe the Scriptures of the New Testa- 
 ment, can we also accept the theological dogmas 
 on which the various branches of the Catholic 
 Church are generally agreed ? In the doctrinal 
 statements of the New Testament there is usually 
 no attempt at elaborate definition or minute 
 precision, but during the controversies which dis- 
 
 1 The Boyle Lectures for 1890, published in "Old Truths in 
 Modern Lights." 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 turbed the earlier centuries of Christianity these 
 statements were subjected to deductive treatment, 
 and the results were sanctioned by authority. 
 How far, then, has this dogmatic theology, a 
 system which has been the outcome of some 
 centuries of speculation and conflict, been affected 
 by the increase in our knowledge and the changes 
 in our methods of thought ? 
 
 I determined, therefore — though conscious of 
 many deficiencies — to attempt an answer to this 
 question; to examine some of the leading state- 
 ments in Christian doctrine or dogma/ in order 
 to see whether, as students of modern science, we 
 could still accept and remain satisfied with these 
 as the best approximations to the expression of 
 mysteries which in themselves transcend human 
 understanding and language. 
 
 In this attempt I am not concerned, since I am 
 
 * Between the one and the other no hard-and-fast line can be 
 drawn, since the dogmas of councils depend for their validity upon 
 the doctrines of inspired teachers. 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 a member of the Church of England, to discuss 
 dogmas which she does not accept, or to hold a 
 brief for any other branch of the Church. It is 
 enough for me if it can be shown that the ex- 
 pressions in her authorized formulae are not out 
 of harmony with the conclusions to which we are 
 led by modern science. 
 
 Neither do I feel myself bound by the dominant 
 . and popular views at this or at any other age of 
 the Church. I am fully aware that some of the 
 opinions expressed in the last two lectures will be 
 at present unacceptable to many — perhaps to a 
 majority — of the members (at any rate, clerical) 
 of the Church of England. But I have lived long 
 enough (as I have already intimated) to see 
 opinions once loudly denounced become generally 
 accepted, and the men, who were esteemed by one 
 generation as champions of orthodoxy, regarded by 
 the next as little better than theological knights 
 of La Mancha. Hence I care little so long as I do 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 not transgress the limits of opinion which are laid 
 down by the Church of which I am a member; 
 and if that which appears to my mind a truth be 
 ,^ unpopular, I remember the lesson taught in the 
 old saying, " It moves for all that ! " 
 
 The method of treatment which has been adopted 
 is necessarily one-sided. Some readers may be 
 surprised at finding that, practically, no reference is 
 made to the writings of eminent theologians, whether 
 of the earlier or the later age of Church history. 
 This is done, not because I am ignorant of what 
 has been written — though I have never made a 
 special study of dogmatic theology — but because 
 the point of view adopted in these lectures has 
 excluded any particular reference for purposes of 
 argument to authorities anterior to the present age. 
 It has been my endeavour to look at the questions, 
 if possible, from the standpoint not of an ecclesiastic 
 but of a layman who was generally acquainted with 
 the results of modem science, who had become 
 
 c 
 
XIV PREFACE, 
 
 familiar with its methods by the careful study of 
 one of its branches, and who was beginning to feel 
 uneasy whether he might not be compelled to quit 
 the communion of the Church of England for one 
 of simpler creed and vaguer definitions, could such 
 be found. 
 
 How imperfectly this design has been executed, 
 no one can feel more deeply than myself Each 
 subject is so vast that the compass of a single 
 lecture is utterly inadequate for its treatment. The 
 time which, in a life burdened, as is mine, with many 
 inevitable duties and engagements, could be devoted 
 to thought and study for this special purpose, was 
 wholly insufficient. But, inasmuch as at the 
 present day very few of the clergy of the Church 
 of England can also be numbered among the active 
 students of Natural Science, there may be some- 
 thing novel — if there is nothing else — in the point 
 of view which has been taken in these lectures. I 
 can only hope that my incomplete and, as I fear, 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 occasionally rather disjointed thoughts may allay 
 
 mental disquiet in some, and suggest ideas to others 
 
 which may ultimately bear good fruit. If only 
 
 they convince a few earnest seekers after truth 
 
 that Christianity is not to be reckoned among the 
 
 illusions of humanity ; that faith may grow stronger 
 
 in the process of putting away childish things 
 
 and of breaking the leading-strings which have 
 
 been twined and fitted by the hands of man : that 
 
 the same light shines from Nature and from 
 
 Kevelation, they will have served their purpose. 
 
 Speaking for myself, I have been led by science to 
 
 abandon some of the notions which I was taught 
 
 when a child ; to alienate myself from, and oppose, 
 
 a party in our Church towards which, as a young 
 
 man, I had a strong leaning ; but this mental change 
 
 has added a fresh consecration to the earth, to the 
 
 study of Nature, and to the whole work of life, by 
 
 showing that all comes from God, and all can lead 
 
 to God. 
 
 T. G. BONNEY. 
 
SUMMAEY OF THE LECTURES/ 
 
 LECTURE I. THE LOGOS (WORD). 
 
 Introductory — Difficulties in Christian doctrines — Those 
 which are novel are scientific rather than metaphysical 
 — The Trinitarian doctrine distinctive of Christianity — 
 Words only symbols — Sketch of the doctrine of the Logos — 
 Modem views on the subject of Matter — Connection of 
 Matter and Spirit — Matter a manifestation of God — The 
 Logos the Thought of God in its expression to Man — 
 The Logos as Creator 1 
 
 LECTURE II. THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 History of the doctrine — Significance of the word Pneuma — 
 Connection of Life and Motion — Energy — The sensible 
 universe is energy in action — Energy and Consciousness — 
 
 * The Boyle Lectures were formerly delivered in the Chapel 
 Royal, Whitehall ; but as that ceased to be used for Divine service 
 in the summer of 1890, the present course was given, by the kind 
 permission of the Rev. Harry Jones, at a special afternoon service 
 in the church of St. Philip and St. James, Regent Street. 
 
xviii SUMMARY OF THE LECTURES. 
 
 Views of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann — The Con- 
 servation and the Dissipation of energy in relation to 
 Pantheism — Without a Giver of life the universe would 
 come to ultimate death — The work of the Spirit ... 23 
 
 LECTURE III. THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 History of the doctrine — Discussion of the terminology — 
 Analogies in the phenomena of life — The separability of 
 individuals — Diversity in unity — Embryonic distinctions 
 — Eflfects of specialization — Illustrations from the inorganic 
 world — Pleomorphism — A noetic conception of it leads to 
 an assertion similar to that involved in the Trinitarian 
 doctrine — Conclusion 41 
 
 LECTURE IV. THE INCARNATION. 
 
 The Christological side of the doctrine — Parallels in non- 
 Christian religions — The Catholic doctrine of the Incarna- 
 tion — An analogy found in life — Difficulty presented by 
 the doctrine — The beginning of an individual — The law 
 of synthesis not universal — The law of heredity inevitable 
 ia case of ordinary birth — The Incarnation an answer to 
 the pessimistic suggestions of Nature and the anthropo- 
 morphic tendencies of humanity 61 
 
 LECTURE V. THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 The discord in Human Nature a fact — The sense of Sin grows 
 with ethical advances — The gulf between the Ideal and 
 the Actual, apart from Kevelation, impassable — Sacrificial 
 
SUMMARY OF THE LECTURES. XlX 
 
 rites man's effort to bridge the chasm — The Doctrine of 
 the Atonement — Consideration of various statements of 
 it — The impossibility of framing one which is perfectly 
 unobjectionable — The Life as well as the Death of Christ, 
 and the whole work of the Atonement, a lesson to man, 
 an exemplification of the union of Love and Justice . ,81 
 
 LECTURE VI. THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 The Resurrection a permanent diflBculty, but a cardinal 
 doctrine in Christianity — St. Paul's teaching as to the 
 Resurrection of the Body — The analogy of the Seed and 
 Plant considered — Scriptural statements as to the Resur- 
 rection Body — What is requisite for continuity between , 
 the present and the future Body — Continuity of conscious- 
 ness, what it involves — What the word "Body" necessarily 
 implies — Possible permanence of a Body — The future 
 Body — Consequences of disbelief in the Doctrine of the 
 Resurrection 102 
 
 LECTURE VII. THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 History of the word " Sacrament " — The place of Scientific 
 Thought in Sacramental Doctrine — The significance of 
 Sacraments — The Sacrament of Baptism: statements of 
 the Church of England— Its position in the Saviour's 
 Teaching — Baptismal Regeneration — The Eucharist — 
 Transubstantiation — Discussion of the doctrine — Remarks 
 on a fallacy and a contradiction in terms — The state- 
 ments in Scripture discussed and compared with prevalent 
 ideas concerning sacrifices — Conclusion 125 
 
XX SUMMARY OF THE LECTURES. 
 
 LECTURE VIII. THE CHURCH. 
 
 Meaning of the word " Church " — The definition in the nine- 
 teenth Article considered — Authority claimed for the 
 Church — What authority is given in the Scriptures — This 
 certainly not unconditional — Meaning of the terms to 
 ** bind " and to " loose '* — Meaning of the power to remit 
 and to retain sins given to the Apostles — Power has been 
 usurped by the clergy — The usurpation condemned by its 
 effects — Mistakes of the Church ; these often excusable in 
 the past — Its powers are limited, but they are real — The 
 duties of individuals — Comparison of the past and the 
 present at once a ground of hope and a solemn warning — 
 The needs and dangers of the present Age . . , . 149 
 
OP thk"^^ 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 THE WORD. 
 
 " In the beginning wa8 the Word, and the Word was with God, 
 and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by Him ; 
 and without Him was not anything made that was made." — 
 St. John i. 1, 3. 
 
 Another century is approaching its end. It has 
 been characterized by mental activity, exceptional 
 in its amount and very diverse in its manifesta- 
 tions. During this epoch, which indeed began 
 rather more than a hundred years ago, the me- 
 chanical arts have attained to a wonderful per- 
 fection, 'and thus, directly and indirectly the 
 instruments of scientific research, the methods of 
 investigation have become more refined and more 
 precise. Hence vast stores of exact knowledge 
 have been accumulated; results of more or less 
 exact induction are abundant. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 How do these affect our position as Christians ? 
 Has this been rendered more reasonable or less 
 reasonable by the advance in science, the progress 
 of knowledge ? Is it still possible — nay, easy — to 
 be not only a sincere believer in Christianity, but 
 also an honest man of science ? Are we now more 
 exposed than formerly to charges of mental in- 
 consistency ? Are we now involved in graver 
 difficulties than have always attended the accept- 
 ance of any form of theism, which applies to God 
 the attributes of personality ? 
 
 We must not expect, I warn you, a direct reply 
 to these questions. There are difficulties which 
 are inherent; which always have existed, and, so 
 far as we can see, always will exist. We must be 
 satisfied if we find that the number of these has 
 been reduced rather than augmented, and*the issue 
 narrowed and simplified in aspect. 
 
 Christian doctrines — I refer to those admitted, 
 practically by every branch of the Church, to be 
 of cardinal importance, and to the simpler sense of 
 these — present us with difficulties which may be 
 
THE WORD. 
 
 distinguished as physical and metaphysical, as 
 belonging to the region of sensible existences and 
 to that of mental "concepts. Of these, the latter, 
 for a long time, have not undergone, so far as I 
 can see, any very important change. Alterations 
 are in form rather than in nature. The old 
 questions, the old perplexities, the old arguments 
 reappear in modern phrase. Not a few of these 
 are more ancient than Christianity, and belong to 
 monotheism, if not to theism itself; others, if 
 slightly later in date than the rise of Christianity, 
 are independent in origin. In the works of Philo, 
 and Plutarch, and Epictetus, not to mention others, 
 we not seldom find speculations, arguments, and 
 conclusions as to the Divine nature and its rela- 
 tions with the universe, which might be accepted 
 gladly by Christians. 
 
 In the region of abstract thought the mind of 
 man appears to have reached, at a comparatively 
 early period, the limits to which it could attain. 
 It has even been asserted that no real advance has 
 been made since the a^re of Plato. Be that as it 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 may, there are some grounds for maintaining that 
 in this region practically everything has been 
 done which is within the range of the calculus 
 (to use a mathematical phrase) at our disposal. 
 If, then, any further advance is possible, it must 
 be in the modification of the symbols employed 
 or in our knowledge of nature and of the relations 
 of the concrete, upon which these symbols depend. 
 It will be some gain to have recognized clearly the 
 essential difference between concept and actuality, 
 between word and thing; for the confusion of 
 their provinces, the obliteration of the boundary 
 between the physical and the metaphysical, has 
 been a fruitful source of difficulties in the past; 
 especially when it is forgotten that the connotation 
 of a word, commonly employed in the one sphere, 
 cannot remain wholly unchanged when it is trans- 
 ferred to the other. 
 
 We must not expect that all difficulties will 
 vanish. How can this be when they have their 
 origin in the nature of things, and must be created 
 whenever the finite attempts to comprehend and 
 
THE WORD. % 
 
 define the Infinite ? But they may prove to have 
 been diminished rather than increased by recent 
 progress in inductive knowledge. We may find that 
 we have now to encounter, not a crowd, collectively 
 numerous, even if not always individually formid- 
 able, but one or two difficulties which are clearly 
 defined, and prove to be the inevitable results of 
 the conditions of the present life. We must admit 
 that we have to make some assumptions, but these 
 are few instead of many ; they are at the outset, 
 not at every stage ; while the methods of reasoning 
 which result from scientific investigation can be 
 employed in obtaining indirect confirmation of the 
 validity of our initial hypotheses. 
 
 I do not propose to consider the effect of scientific 
 progress on the belief in a God. The latter, even 
 in its most perfected aspect, is not characteristic of 
 Christianity alone. The thoughtful Jew, to name 
 none other, had attained, it matters not how for 
 our present purpose, to monotheism. But the 
 theology of the Christian is separated by distinctive 
 characteristics from the theoloofies of most Oriental 
 
6 LECTURE I, 
 
 nations, while in some respects it occupies an 
 intermediate position. They have diverged in one 
 of two opposite directions. Either they have 
 pushed the monistic idea so far as to affirm not 
 only that God is source and author of everything, 
 but also the converse proposition, that everything 
 which exists is God — that is, they have strayed 
 into pantheism-^or, by maintaining an eternal 
 distinction of opposites in the Divine principle 
 they have been led into Manichsean dualism, or 
 some form of polytheism. 
 
 Christianity differs from Judaism and other 
 forms of monotheism in its assertion of the Trini- 
 tarian doctrine ; thereby indicating an approach to 
 the principle of distinction which has just been 
 named. Thus, during the earlier stages of its 
 history, it obviously oscillated between an absolute 
 monotheism and some limited form of polytheism. 
 Gnostic philosophy is the record of a constant 
 struggle to reconcile the monistic and dualistic 
 ideas. It led back, almost invariably, however 
 ingeniously the fact might be concealed, to the 
 
THE WORD. 
 
 polytheism which it professed to have abandoned, 
 and on this account mainly was so strenuously 
 resisted by the Church. Though at one time only 
 a single letter seemed to divide the two great 
 parties, the Arians and the Orthodox, they were 
 in reality sundered by a hemisphere of theological 
 thought. ^ 
 
 In the^cotfbroversies which agitated the Church 
 from the second to the fifth century, the subject 
 which I am about to consider, the nature and 
 relationship of the Logos, was exceptionally pro- 
 minent. For our present purpose it is necessary to 
 indicate very briefly the origin and history of the 
 doctrine, so that we may be in a position to see 
 whether it is less congruous with modern than 
 with ancient thought. But I must make two 
 preliminary remarks, lest perchance we should 
 forget their importance. First, that words are 
 only symbols, to express ideas and to facilitate 
 processes of reasoning, and that these abstractions 
 cannot be invested with concrete properties. When 
 we find this done and difiiculties conjured up by 
 
8 LECTURE 7. 
 
 the metaphysician's art, we must remember that 
 they are only cloud phantoms, no more really alive 
 than a decimal fraction or an elliptic integral. 
 Secondly, that for these symbols, we have no other 
 basis than the experience of our senses. Abstract 
 ideas inay exist, innate ideas iriay be; this, as it 
 seems to me, we can neither prove ^nor disprove : 
 but we can prove that all those w^hich are employed 
 in our processes of thought are the results, direct or 
 indirect, of experience.. The only thing, as Descartes 
 has said, of which I can be absolutely certain is my 
 own consciousness. The only knowledge which I 
 can really obtain must be through the evidence of 
 my senses. Experience, then, is the basis of all our 
 knowledge, in the strict sense of the word, — it 
 provides the substratum of all thought. Without 
 it, so far as we are concerned, thought is no more 
 possible than is life without matter. This being 
 so, we must also remember that words, while they 
 continue in use, may part with some attributes 
 connoted by them, and acquire others ; may change 
 by intussusception and excretion, like a living 
 
THE WORD, 
 
 thing, so that their meaning in the course of 
 centuries is greatly altered. 
 
 Here let me ask you to remember that this 
 lecture is part of a series, and not to take offence, 
 if occasionally I may make use of a phrase which 
 would be consistent with Sabellianism or pantheism. 
 
 To return, then, to the history of the idea con- 
 veyed by the term Logos. We have no precise 
 single equivalent for it in English. It was used in 
 Greek in a variety of senses, at the one extremity 
 being that connoted by word (not in the sense of 
 a name or title), at the other that connoted by 
 reason. The theological idea which the term Logos 
 is intended to symbolize was not unknown to the 
 Jews. In the Targums, which, though later as 
 documents than the Christian era, embody teaching 
 which is at any rate somewhat earlier than it, 
 " God — not as in His permanent manifestation or 
 manifest presence — but as revealing -Himself, is 
 designated Memra" ^ which is the Aramaic equiva- 
 
 ^ Edersheim, "Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah," bk. i. 
 ch. iv. (vol. i. p. 47). 
 
 C 
 
lO LECTURE I. 
 
 lent of Word or Logos. The last term at a still 
 earlier period had obtained a place in Greek Philo- 
 sophy. It was employed by each of the two great 
 schools of thought, the Stoics and the Platonists. 
 The former regarded reason and force as inherent in 
 matter, the latter as external to matter. But the 
 Stoics admitted a certain antithesis in the monistic 
 conception — the existence of an active and a passive 
 in the unity of substance. By an extension of this 
 differentiation these two were conceived as standing 
 in a relation to each other, somewhat like that 
 of life and its physical basis, — the passive being 
 designated xikri (material, stuff) the active \6yoQ. 
 By some the latter was invested with personality, 
 and thus an antithesis admitted between matter 
 and God. But still the two terms of the antithesis 
 were regarded as "expressing modes of a single 
 substance, separable in thought and name, but not 
 in reality."^ In the dualism of the Platonists 
 reason and force were held to be external to 
 
 ^ Hatch, " The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the 
 Christian Church" (Hibbert Lectures, vii. p. 176). 
 
THE WORD. It 
 
 matter. On this God, as it were, operated, follow- 
 ing out thoughts which existed in His mind. This 
 pre-existent Form, Pattern, or Idea, was further 
 differentiated, and ultimately designated the Logos. 
 Thus, in the anterior history of this term, as has been 
 pointed out by Dr. WestcOtt,^ there were two con- 
 ceptions of different origin and different nationality 
 — the Palestinian (Memra), the Revealev ; and the 
 Greek conception, (sides, rather than differences of 
 which are represented by Stoics and Platonists) the 
 Reason. These conceptions respectively dominate 
 in the minds of the two great writers on the subject 
 in the first century, St. John and Philo ; dominate, 
 I 'say; for in neither writer is the other concept 
 excluded. To quote a summary of the doctrine of 
 Philo, he is monistic in teaching " that the world was 
 made, not by inferior or opposing beings, but by God. 
 It is the expression of His thought." But in this 
 thought (here Philo adopts the Platonic doctrine 
 of Forms) an ideal world had existence before that 
 the thought went outside God to create the present 
 * " The Gospel according to St. John," Introd. p. xvii. 
 
12 LECTURE I, 
 
 world. Thus the Logos represents the reason, will, 
 or word of God in a special form of its activity, 
 lb is His creative energy. It is the instrument by 
 which He made all things.^ 
 
 We see, then, that in the teaching of Philo we 
 come very near to the doctrine of St. John. But 
 there is this difference, that, in the former, the Logos 
 appears as a part of an elaborate philosophical 
 system; in the latter, as a bare statement, like 
 the assertion of an historical fact. St. John speaks 
 as one who reveals, not as one who argues. Like 
 his Master he teaches as one who has authority, 
 not as the scribes. This, then, leads us to one of 
 the fundamental assumptions of which I spoke. 
 Christianity, however congruous with reason, 
 cannot rest on reason alone, because it deals with 
 a subject which by the nature of the case ultimately 
 transcends reason. The latter may indeed lead us 
 to deem it highly probable that behind phenomena 
 there is a something yet more real, may enable us 
 
 ^ . Hatch, " The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the 
 Christian Church " (Hibbert Lectures, vii. pp. 182-187). 
 
THE WORD. 13 
 
 by deductive processes to give a philosophic con- 
 sistency to our hypotheses, but it cannot disclose 
 to us what this is. The " Word " of the Stoics and 
 the Platonists, after all, has only a metaphysical 
 existence ; if we claim to have any knowledge 
 which can be called certain, relative though this 
 must always be, we must admit that a revelation 
 from the Divine to the Human is possible. But, as 
 I considered our position in respect to this assump- 
 tion in a former series of lectures,^ I will not now 
 dwell further upon it. Admitting, then, that a 
 revelation in the person of Christ and His apostles 
 rests on an assumption, for that is needed to put 
 us in a position to weigh the evidence in its 
 favour, I pass on to see whether it involves us in 
 any new difficulties at the present time. 
 
 On the strictly metaphysical side the question 
 remains as it did ; but there is another side to the 
 discussion, which, of late years, has been much 
 modified. Those who are familiar with theological 
 
 * These lectures, with some other sermons, are published in a 
 volume entitled " Old Truths in Modem Lights." 
 
14 LECTURE I. 
 
 speculation, be it Christian or non- Christian, will 
 remember that not a few difficulties have centred 
 on the nature and origin of matter, as to whether 
 it was inseparable from the idea of God or was 
 to be regarded as apart from Him, by whatever 
 process we conceive it called into existence. 
 
 In olden time all notions of matter were markedly 
 concrete. Its objectivity was deemed unquestion- 
 able ; it was regarded as diverse in form, attributes, 
 and qualities. For long, all advances towards an 
 atomic theory (and this found most favour) by 
 introducing the notion of ultimate indivisibility, 
 gave to matter a very real existence as a popular 
 conception, whatever difficulties there might be in 
 framing a definition. Hence arose ideas of gross- 
 ness and the like with some, of indestructibility 
 with others — ideas very various and diverse, but 
 not seldom antagonistic to those associated with 
 Divinity. But of late years there has been a remark- 
 able change in opinion, which, however indecisive 
 the results, has certainly dispelled many of the 
 older and grosser conceptions. At the present time, 
 
THE WORD. 15 
 
 if we are asked what matter is, we must frankly 
 answer that we do not know — that is, in a scientific 
 sense. Matter is commonly supposed to be some- 
 thing which exerts force, but the latter term, as 
 has often been pointed out, "is a how and not a 
 wkyl' "a description of how bodies change their 
 motion." " So long then " (I am quoting) " as we 
 consider the universe made up of things moving and 
 altering each other's motion, we are on safe ground, 
 ... we may call the moving things matter, but we 
 must ever bear in mind that the moving things 
 may be the last things in the world which accord 
 with the popular conception of matter, they may 
 even be its negation. What if the ultimate atom 
 upon which we build up the apparently substantial 
 realities of the external world be an absolute 
 vacuum \ or what if matter be only non-matter in 
 motion ? . . . Descartes held extension, not impene- 
 trability, the essence of matter. ' Give me extension 
 and motion, and I will construct the world,' he 
 cried." 1 
 
 » Karl Pearson, " Matter and Soul," pp. 5-9. Published by the 
 Sunday Lecture Society. 
 
t6 lecture I, 
 
 But some hypotheses have denied even extension 
 to matter. Boscovitch assumed that its ultimate 
 
 elements were mathematical points — that is, points 
 without extension — endowed with attractive and 
 repulsive forces. Thus matter would only be dis- 
 tinguished from non-matter by the fact of its 
 motion.^ Others suggest that the supposed atom 
 of matter may be a void, the boundaries of which 
 are endowed with a certain amount of energy ; 
 others, that it is a change in the shape of space, 
 — an idea which it would take too long to explain, 
 but one which implies the existence of space of more 
 dimensions than three ; while others — and this 
 notion commends itself to many very thoughtful 
 minds — regard matter as a particular phase of 
 motion, a vortex ring in that impalpable some- 
 thing which appears to fill all space and which we 
 call the ether.^ 
 
 I do not profess to comprehend all these theories, 
 and the last obviously still leaves open the question, 
 What is the ether ? but I have recounted them to 
 
 » Karl Pearson, " Matter and Soul," p. 9. * Ibid., pp. 9-11. . 
 
THE WORD, 17 
 
 show that physicists of the highest ability regard 
 matter from a point of view very different from 
 that of the older metaphysicians, and that there 
 are those who would be prepared to consider it 
 as something very like a mode of manifestation 
 of energy. This, however, removes matter in its 
 origin into the sphere of spirit, to use the ordinary 
 distinction ; we have hunted it down through the 
 region of the knowable, believing its capture to 
 be inevitable, and lo, it has slipped away from us 
 into the region of the unknowable ! The man of 
 science and the Christian alike have to confess 
 their ignorance of what the ground-stuff of the 
 known universe really is, but the latter adds, "I 
 believe it to be a mode of the manifestation of 
 God." 
 
 We begin now dimly to understand why the 
 work of creation is ascribed to the Word. "All 
 things were made by Him." ^ Employing human 
 terminology — and here we cannot be too careful in 
 remembering its inadequacy — the word Tnanifesta- 
 
 » St. John i. 3. 
 
 D 
 
1 8 LECTURE I. 
 
 Hon implies at least an antithesis ; there must be 
 one to perceive and one to be perceived. God, not 
 revealing Himself, in relation to such a race as ours, 
 is not God at all. I do not say that He may not 
 be ; but I mean this : ^ Suppose you are thinking 
 and do not express your thought — then, so far as 
 the rest of the world goes, you might as well never 
 have thought at all. True, the thought exists for 
 yourself, and is not dependent upon our conscious- 
 ness ; but, as we can only be made conscious of it 
 by its expression, the thought, for us, is non- 
 existent. Thus, from our point of view, the abso- 
 lute existence of God is one thing ; the existence in 
 relation to man is another. It is with the latter 
 only that we have to deal ; and in this sense it is a 
 mere truism to assert that, for man, God only exists 
 through man's consciousness of His existence, which 
 consciousness I suppose, of course, to be set in 
 action by Him. 
 
 Thus, as among ourselves speech or its equivalent 
 is, or at least should be, the expression of thought, 
 and so is the only mode by which we can impart 
 
THE WORD, 19 
 
 of our own consciousness to our fellows, so the 
 Logos, in its double sense of word and reason, is 
 tile thought of God in its expression to us. As, 
 with ourselves, the uttered word cannot be recalled, 
 as it may acquire, in a certain sense, a life apart 
 from the speaker, and yet has a unity of nature 
 with him, for it was a mode of self-manifestation, — 
 so we can dimly understand why a personality is 
 claimed for the Word ; we can see the significance 
 of the analogies, more or less imperfect, which have 
 been so often stated by writers on the subject that 
 it is needless for me to repeat them. But in apply- 
 ing to the region which is beyond our experiences 
 and transcends our thoughts terms founded ex- 
 clusively on these, we must ever remember that 
 they are symbols only, and these most inadequate. 
 I have deemed it unnecessary to dwell upon an 
 aspect of the subject which has been often discussed, 
 the world as a manifestation of Order and Mind, 
 because, although the teleological arguments which 
 were once deemed satisfactory have had to be 
 abandoned, all, or almost all, thinkers would admit 
 
20 LECTURE I. 
 
 — however widely they differ in their terminology 
 and their theological opinions — that, in our sur- 
 roundings, we perceive the traces of a mighty plan, 
 as well as the working of an infinite energy. But 
 on this I do not enlarge, partly because it has so 
 often engaged attention, partly because it is a 
 question belonging rather to theism than to Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 Are we then losers by the progress of science ? 
 Its result during late years has been to extend the 
 reign of law, to indicate underlying unity in 
 apparent diversity, to replace imperfect anthropo- 
 morphic conceptions by ideas of a Creator which, 
 if more vaguely outlined, are grander far. 
 
 If, then, Christian theology asserts that in the one 
 God a distinction, to which we apply the term 
 Personal, existed before all time; this difficulty 
 began in theism, and is metaphysical, not scientific. 
 But the existence of an eternal distinction becomes 
 less startling when science aids in demonstrating 
 the inseparability of our methods of thought from 
 the order in which we live. Time and extension 
 
THE WORD, 
 
 21 
 
 involve the idea of change, development, progress. 
 Yet these may be relative ; local, not universal : 
 may be — to take a very imperfect illustration — as 
 it is with us v^hen Nature seems to be at rest and 
 the stillness absolute, yet within the closed petals 
 of a flower a colony of tiny insects is in full activity, 
 and their little world resounds with a hum of life, 
 inaudible to the most attentive ear. Moreover, 
 when science in the region of the phenomenal 
 begins to pass beyond the concrete, and mass is 
 replaced by potency, which from the first seems an 
 expression of purpose, it sounds less startling to say 
 that the universe itself is a manifestation of the 
 thought of God. 
 
 The old difficulty of course remains, which in my 
 opinion stands where it did: Does God reveal 
 Himself to man ? This we cannot 'prove, yet, we 
 can believe, because the indirect evidence is strong.^ 
 If this be so, then we can accept the statements 
 as to the Divine Nature made by the Founder of 
 
 * This subject was discussed in the Boyle Lectures for 1890. 
 See " Old Truths in Modern Lights." 
 
 ikifh^ 
 
22 LECTURE L 
 
 Christianity. We do not profess to understand 
 them, as we do inductions from our own observa- 
 tions, but we can perceive their meaning and be 
 content to admit that in this way only ideas tran- 
 scending our experience could be represented to us. 
 So doing, we are assured by watching the marvels 
 with which we are environed, that all is of God and 
 from God, that He " fulfils Himself in many ways," 
 and that if now and again He has spoken in tones 
 which were strange, and through expressions which 
 were unfamiliar, He is revealed to us, alike in the 
 stillness of our secret thoughts and in the round of 
 daily life, by means of the fair world which He has 
 made, and in which He has placed us for a season, 
 till it please Him to show us what the eye hath 
 not seen nor the ear heard, for such things belong 
 to the order, not of Time, but of Eternity. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 " When the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from 
 the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, Which procecdeth from the 
 Father ... He shall guide you into all the truth."--ST. John 
 XV. 26 ; xvi. 13 (R. V.). 
 
 Spirit and Matter, whatever the terms may mean, 
 generally connote ideas which are antithetical, if not 
 antagonistic. On the second of these I have already 
 made some remarks : the present occasion ^ invites 
 me to touch, however diffidently, upon the first. 
 That God is a Spirit is a principle of theism, not 
 of Christianity only. Hence, in accordance with 
 the limitation which I have imposed upon myself, 
 I shall not discuss this preliminary question, though 
 I may have to refer to it indirectly in dealing with 
 the doctrine of the Christian Church in regard to 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 ^ The lecture was given on Whitsunday. 
 
24 LECTURE II. 
 
 This doctrine did not assume a special pro- 
 minence at so early an epoch as that of which I 
 spoke last Sunday. As the founder of Christianity 
 had claimed to be, in the fullest sense of the 
 phrase, Son of God, the nature of the Logos and the 
 significance of this claim speedily became, as was to 
 be expected, a field for speculation and a subject 
 of controversy. At that time the intellectual 
 position of the Palestine upland, the birthplace 
 of Christianity, corresponded with its geographical. 
 It parted two areas of thought as it parted the 
 waters of two seas. Christianity could not move 
 outwards without coming into relations, whether 
 hostile or friendly, with Oriental mysticism on the 
 one side, and with Greek philosophy on the other. 
 Each of these, apart from historical necessities, 
 tended to force to the front the controversies which 
 have for their centre such a declaration as this : 
 "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." 
 But in regard to the Holy Spirit, the phrases of 
 Scripture were accepted, as a rule, without any 
 attempt at further precision of statement. This 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 2$ 
 
 is indicated, assuredly, though indirectly, by the 
 fact that in the Creed of Nicsea the elaborate 
 statements as to the Word Incarnate were followed 
 by the single simple clause, " I believe in the 
 Holy Ghost." But in a little more than half a 
 century the necessity of precision on this point 
 also became obvious, and the clauses were added 
 which conclude the Creed as it stands in the 
 Prayer-book, with the exception of one phrase. 
 Subsequently, in the Western Church, the words 
 ran thus : " I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord 
 and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father 
 and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son 
 together is worshipped and glorified. Who spake 
 by the prophets." The Eastern Church objected 
 to the addition of the words " and the Son " as 
 unauthorized, and liable to be misunderstood, and 
 the controversy at last became so sharp between 
 them that, just after the middle of the eleventh 
 century, they parted asunder. 
 
 On this, and other refined theological distinctions, 
 I do not intend to dwell. They are the results o^ 
 
 E 
 
26 LECTURE II. 
 
 deductive reasoning from the words of revelation 
 on the part of acute dialecticians, and thus are 
 not likely to be materially affected by progress in 
 thought which has been mainly due to inductive 
 processes. I shall content myself with a few words 
 on the broader aspect of the doctrine enunciated 
 in the Creed of Constantinople. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that, while in the 
 English version and in theological literature, two 
 terms are employed to designate the Third Person 
 in the Triune Godhead, viz. the Holy Spirit and 
 the Holy Ghost, — the substantives are renderings of 
 one and the same word in the original Greek. 
 This word is Trvfvjua. In its everyday sense it 
 means breath, or a wind, — in short, air in motion : 
 it may admit the idea of intermittence, but hardly 
 that of violence. Then, it is occasionally used 
 figuratively to signify life, and so is applied in a 
 theological sense to express spirit — itself a similar 
 extension of the Latin word spiritus. Pneuma 
 does not, as a rule, signify ghost, in the popular 
 sense of that word. Iii the New Testament it is 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 2/ 
 
 used, not only for the spirit of God (whether in 
 the minor sense as an influence, or the major one as 
 God Himself), but also for antagonistic influences. 
 It is used also for that element in the nature of 
 man which distinguishes him from the mere 
 animals, to which only body and life are ascribed.^ 
 In the discourse with Nicodemus the word is one 
 which is rendered here by wind, there by spirit 
 We may, then, say that the word jpneuma connotes 
 movement, viewed apart from the thing moved, 
 for the popular mind did not attribute materiality 
 to the air. It connotes life apart from its physical 
 basis, and influence, to use a wide term, apart from 
 its subject. In the theological sense life and in- 
 fluence are the dominant ideas. In the Nicene 
 Creed we speak of the Holy Ghost as Giver of 
 Life. 
 
 But what is life ? We have made long strides in 
 biology during the present century, but we do not 
 seem to be much more able to answer this question. 
 
 » See "The Threefold Nature of Man," in "Old Truths in 
 Modern Lights," p. 114. 
 
28 LECTURE II. 
 
 Scientific men of one school affirm their belief* 
 that, whatever life be, it differs essentially from the 
 forces called physical. To their minds the begin- 
 ning of life, no less than the beginning of matter, 
 requires an exercise of creative power. Others 
 place life in the same category as the physical 
 forces, like electricity, light, heat ; to them it is a 
 form of the manifestation of energy. They discern 
 in matter itself " the promise and potency of all 
 terrestrial life."^ They refuse to draw any hard 
 and fast line between man himself and the dust 
 from which he is said to have been fashioned, 
 though they confess that they know of no 
 synthetic process by which life can be produced, 
 no method whereby the known forms of energy 
 can be transformed into it. Still it is obviously 
 admitted by either school that life is a mystery — 
 the one affirming it to be inscrutable, the other 
 frankly allowing that its solution, if within the 
 sphere of hope, seems very far from attainment. 
 
 ^ Tyndall, Belfast Address to British AssociatioD, "Fragments 
 of Science," p. 524. ' 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 29 
 
 But whatever life may be, it is inseparable from 
 and underlain by the idea of motion. To this we 
 seem ultimately brought in all modern philosophical 
 speculation. As an example, I will quote some 
 sentences from an author whose bias certainly is 
 anything but favourable to Christianity or even to 
 theism.^ He writes thus: "It is no dogma, but 
 downright common sense to assert that if every- 
 thing in the universe were brought to rest, the 
 universe would cease to be perceptible, or for all 
 human purposes it would cease to be. The 
 sensible existence of matter is entirely dependent 
 on the existence of motion." Indeed, this matter 
 itself, as I indicated in my last lecture, is considered 
 by not a few as localized energy. But if it be 
 asked what is energy, we can only reply " the 
 power of doing work." This obviously is an ex- 
 planatory periphrasis, but it is not an answer. It 
 asserts a certain reality of existence to the universe, 
 as against an extreme idealism, but at the same 
 time it is forced to take refuge in what can hardly 
 » Karl Pearson, " Matter and Soul," p. 6. 
 
30 LECTURE It. 
 
 be distinguished from a metaphysical concept. But 
 on this aspect of the question I will not dwell ; I 
 desire only to insist upon this, that in the field of 
 science, the whole sensible universe, including life 
 and its phenomena, is at last found to be included 
 in this definition, " energy in action." 
 
 It may, however, be asked whether, in making 
 this statement, we have not overlooked conscious- 
 ness, than which nothing is more certain. But in 
 the field of pure science what line can be drawn 
 between consciousness and life, or, for the matter of 
 hat, between that which lives and that which does 
 not live? We can of course distinguish them as 
 objects of thought, as, for instance, we can mentally 
 separate electricity and light, or a cannon-ball and 
 the heat generated by its impact, but we come at 
 last to different modes of an underlying something. 
 
 I do not, for my present purpose, dispute the pos- 
 sibility that life may be either a special and unique 
 mode of the manifestation of energy or a special 
 synthesis of certain modes of energy — indeed, this 
 is my own opinion; — all I wish to emphasize is that, 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 3 1 
 
 in so far as science can deal with it, life cannot be 
 removed from the category of the physical. Its 
 differences, if such there be, cannot be demon- 
 strated by science. This must be agnostic in such 
 questions as the origin of matter, the beginning of 
 life, the existence of soul. 
 
 Do not, however, misunderstand me. It does not 
 follow that because we cannot "prove a thing to 
 exist, we are precluded from believing in it. In- 
 direct evidence may be strong, though the direct 
 evidence may be weak. As we do not become pure 
 idealists because we cannot accurately define or 
 comprehend either matter or life, so we do not 
 declare that the immortalit}'- of the soul is im- 
 possible because we do not know of anything 
 which does not die. 
 
 That a spiritual world is a reality, is a fact in 
 the order of the universe no less than the material ; 
 this, if you like so to call it, is a theological 
 dogma (or, as I should prefer to put it, a deduc- 
 tion from certain statements which we think to be 
 true, i.e. from a revelation). As I have already said, 
 
LECTURE II, 
 
 we are driven back to our original assumption — 
 the possibility and probability of a revelation ; 
 but we have found in the process of discussion that 
 all this material universe, that every phenomenon 
 of which we can take cognizance, that the physical 
 basis of this conscious "ego," proves to be only 
 some mode or form of energy in action. Without 
 this energy (be it what it may) there is no volition, 
 no consciousness, no life, no matter — nothingness. 
 
 Does this seem a mere outbreak of theological 
 mysticism ? Well, it is only stating in another 
 form the conclusions of philosophies, which at the 
 present day are in high favour with many. 
 Schopenhauer maintains that beyond matter, 
 behind force, constituting all existence, is will — not, 
 indeed, the will of a Personality, but a mere blind 
 impulse to live. Yon Hartmann adopts the same 
 view, but adds as a metaphysical principle of equal 
 value, that of unconscious thought in the All. So 
 potent is this will-force, that the redemption 
 suggested by each, the panacea for the miseries of 
 life, is " ceasing to will ; " then, in Von Hartmann's 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT, 53 
 
 scheme, which is the more comprehensive of the 
 two, "Consciousness will suffice to hurl back the 
 total actual volition into nothingness, by which the 
 process and the world ceases . , . without leaving 
 any residuum whatever, whereby the process 
 might be continued." " This," as it has been truly 
 remarked, "is salvation with a vengeance. The 
 universe is saved from misery by being reduced to 
 nothing." ^ 
 
 From the creative let me turn to another aspect 
 of this omnipotent energy. We learn that the 
 conservation of energy is an established and 
 fundamental principle in physics. It " asserts that 
 no portion of energy can be put out of existence, 
 and no amount of energy can be brought into 
 existence by any process at our command."^ Is 
 not this tantamount to admitting that energy 
 belongs to the category of the things unknowable 
 in themselves, though cognizable in their effects ; or 
 that, in theological language, it is a manifestation 
 
 » Bishop Moorhouse, " Dangers of the Apostolic Age," p. 67. 
 ' P. G. Tait, "Recent Advances in Physical Science," p. 17. 
 
 F 
 
34 LECTURE 11. 
 
 of the Divinity ? In matter we see, in one aspect, 
 thought in expression; in another, energy in 
 action; the one and the other centring in and 
 proceeding forth from the unknown God. 
 
 This, an objector may say, sounds very much 
 like pantheism. Undoubtedly it does. There is 
 a true side to pantheism which has often been 
 forgotten by overhasty Christians. The distinc- 
 tion between the statements, God is everything, 
 and Everything is a manifestation of God, exists 
 rather in the classification of thought than in 
 actuality. But I have not enunciated the con- 
 verse statement that, in the usual sense of the 
 word, everything is God. On this, the great 
 difficulty of human thought, the enigma older 
 than Christianity, we find, I think, that some 
 light is indirectly thrown by another statement of 
 physicists concerning energy. 
 
 They tell us that the quantity of energy can- 
 not be changed, for it remains the same, however 
 great the number of transformations. '' But it has 
 another and even more curious property : . . . 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 35 
 
 change is essential to the existence of phenomena 
 such as we observe; and that this change may 
 take place, it is necessary that there should be 
 constant transformation of energy. But some 
 forms of energy are more capable of being trans- 
 formed than others ; and every time that a trans- 
 formation takes place there is always a tendency to 
 pass, at least in part, from a higher or more easily 
 transformable, to a lower or less easily transform- 
 able form." ^ 
 
 Thus the universe, as it waxes old, is dying, 
 slowly dying. " In the far distant future . . . the 
 quantities of matter and energy will remain abso- 
 lutely as they now are — the matter unchanged 
 alike in quantity and quality, but collected 
 together under the influence of its mutual gravita- 
 tion, so that there remains no potential energy of 
 detached portions of matter : the energy also 
 unchanged in quantity, but entirely transformed 
 in quality to the low form of heat so diffused as to 
 produce uniformity of temperature." ^ 
 
 * P. G. Tait, " Recent Advances in Physical Science," p. 20. 
 « Ibid. p. 21. 
 
36 LECTURE II. 
 
 This second great physical principle — of the 
 Dissipation of Energy — limits the apparently pan- 
 theistic conclusions to which we might otherwise 
 be led. Suppose we regard matter as a localization 
 of Divine power, as " man's limitation of God's 
 Infinity," to use a bold similitude. We are at any 
 rate forced to admit that, in whatever sense we 
 apply the term, it is a manifestation of God. But 
 in the act of manifestation it incurs a liability to 
 the law of death ; each transformation lowers it, if 
 the phrase be permitted, in the scale of things 
 created; the effective power, the capacity for 
 adaptation is gradually lost, till at last it may 
 have deviated so far from its original likeness, that 
 to our limited vision it may seem to be arrayed 
 against the source from which it proceeded. 
 
 In the fantastic dreams of aeons and emanations 
 common to many Gnostic sects, there "was a germ of 
 true philosophy, for these tended to bridge that 
 seemingly impassable gulf between the conditioned 
 and the unconditioned. In the descent of the ladder 
 of existence no upward step is possible without the 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 3/ 
 
 help of an external power, for in every retrans- 
 formation from the lower to the higher forms some 
 energy appears to be lost. This, no doubt, is not 
 really the case. The energy is still in existence, but 
 is no longer available for our purposes. Thus, for 
 all progress, for all evolution, a price has to be 
 paid. Speaking figuratively, the universe is like 
 a man who is living upon his capital, and this 
 process must end in destitution. This, then, is the 
 alternative which confronts us: God must be our 
 deliverer, or the end inevitably is nothingness. 
 
 Which of these are we to accept ? We do not 
 hesitate what answer to return. We believe in a 
 revelation. From it we learn that through the 
 Divine thought the universe became. "Through 
 the Word He made the aeons," says the author of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews ; that — the making 
 manifest, the objective side of revelation, if we may 
 so call it — is the function of the Son, of the Second 
 Person in the Trinity. But the work of quicken- 
 ing, of vivifying, of infusing a new energy or 
 counteracting the natural tendency to dissipation — 
 
38 LECTURE II. 
 
 pardon the inadequacy of the term — that is the 
 work of the Holy Spirit, called emphatically " the 
 Giver of Life." 
 
 This is in full accord with the words of Scripture. 
 It is the Holy Spirit Who is said to work in 
 prophets and teachers, to guide, to influence, to 
 quicken the soul of every child of God. At each 
 new departure in the earl}'^ history of Christendom 
 his Name appears. In the mystery of the Incarna- 
 tion ; in the consecration, if the phrase be permis- 
 sible, of the Word made Flesh to the work of 
 Redemption at the waters of Jordan; in the first 
 ordination of the faithful disciples, when that work 
 had been virtually completed by the Resurrection ; 
 in that greater ordination of the complete twelve, 
 when it had actually been ended by the Ascension ; 
 in the command to Peter to open the door of the 
 fold ; in the mission of Paul and Barnabas to the 
 world ; — in each and all of these the agency of the 
 Holy Ghost is asserted. He spake — so saith the 
 Scripture — by the mouths of prophets, psalmists, 
 and teachers in the days of old, in the brightening 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 39 
 
 twilight of the dawn, before the sun of righteous- 
 ness arose. He spake again by the mouths of 
 apostles and preachers, of martyrs and saints — 
 men and women " full of the Holy Ghost." Shall 
 we say that His work is ended ? Nay, His voice 
 is yet heard in the thoughts that glow and in the 
 words that burn, in every call to men to rise " on 
 stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher 
 things." All that strengthens us to suffer, all that 
 nerves us to resist evil, all that encourages us to 
 hope — all is the work of Him Who can quicken this 
 frail human body with the life which is eternal ! 
 
 May we apply to the Holy Spirit the term 
 " Person " ? Certainly, if we exclude those ideas 
 of limitation which arise from its common uses 
 among ourselves, — if we regard it as a symbol to 
 express a fact of thought. But on this I hope to 
 say something more in my next lecture. Here it 
 will be enough to repeat that we accept the dis- 
 tinction in the Unity of the Trinity, not as a 
 discovery of reason, but as a revelation. It has 
 been my endeavour to indicate that even in the 
 
40 LECTURE II, 
 
 order of which our senses can take cognizance, we 
 can discern analogies, which render these mysteries 
 less startling, I dare not say more comprehensible. 
 In the Logos, we see the Divine Thought in ex- 
 pression, the Wisdom manifested, the realization — 
 to use a Platonic phrase — of the Archetypal ideas. 
 In the Holy Spirit we contemplate the Divine 
 Energy in action, the Lord and Giver of life, by 
 Whom, by Whose quickening influence man can 
 live not only physically, can know that there are 
 spiritual realities behind and beyond the things of 
 sense, and can venture to declare that his own 
 personality may be delivered from the common 
 law of death, and is not doomed to attain at last, 
 as its only possible goal, to the Nirwana of dis- 
 sipated energy, to the loss of individual conscious- 
 ness by absorption in the Soul of the Universe, to 
 an eternal silence and an eternal inactivity. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 THE HOLY TRINITY, 
 
 "Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the 
 Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."— 
 St. Matt, xxviii. 19 (R.V.). 
 
 " Christianity inherited from Judaism, together 
 with the Scriptures of the Old Testament, their 
 fundamental principle of the unity of God ; " ^ but 
 is distinguished from all other creeds by the 
 doctrine of the Trinity. In saying this, I do not 
 forget that there are triads in other theologies, 
 as in Neoplatonism and Ophite-gnosticism, in 
 Buddhism and Hinduism ; but the resemblance of 
 these to the Trinity of the Church Catholic is 
 little more than superficial, however important it 
 may be as a stage in the education of our race and 
 * H. M. Gwatkin, " Studies of Arianism," p. 6. 
 
42 LECTURE III, 
 
 a preparation for the fuller light. The doctrine 
 passes human understanding, it transcends human 
 powers of thought; it is by revelation, not by- 
 discovery. It has, indeed, afforded scope for the 
 most profound reflection, the utmost precision of 
 philosophic statement ; it may be called a triumph 
 of theology, to have steered between a mono- 
 theism which would have deprived the Incarnation 
 of its full significance, and a tritheism which 
 would have been only a limitation of the ancient 
 polytheism, and would have led back to the same 
 results : but for the ground of that theology, of all 
 that system of deductive argument, we must fall 
 back upon, " It is written." ? '? ? ? f 
 
 A Trinity in Unity at first sight seems, to a 
 mind which is scientific rather than metaphysical 
 in its bias, to be a contradiction in terms, the 
 assertion of an impossibility. Here, if anywhere, 
 we might exclaim, " Credo quia incredibile." This, 
 in a sense, is so; but it will be my endeavour, 
 I trust with all reverence, to inquire whether we 
 cannot find, in the order of which our senses can 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY, 43 
 
 take cognizance, some analogies which may render 
 the doctrinal statements of the Church Catholic 
 less startling to the scientific thinker. 
 
 It may be well to commence by a brief state- 
 ment of the doctrine, because its difficulty 
 naturally has a deterrent effect upon our minds, 
 and renders us readily contented with a very 
 vague conception as to what it really means. 
 The doctrine is nowhere more clearly or precisely 
 enunciated than in the creed which bears, though 
 erroneously, the name of Athanasius. In this 
 respect we must admit that ancient confession of 
 the Western Church to have a high value, what- 
 ever may be our views as to the propriety of 
 using it in public worship, or as to the validity of 
 one or two adventitious expressions of opinion 
 therein/ 
 
 These, then, are its statements as to the 
 "Catholic Faith:'* "We worship one God in 
 Trinity, and Trinity in Unity ; neither confound- 
 ing the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For 
 * I refer, of course, to the so-called " damnatory clauses." 
 
 I 
 
44 LECTURE in. 
 
 there is one Person of the Father, another of the 
 Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the 
 Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy- 
 Ghost is all one." A number of explanatory 
 clauses follow, in the course of which it is said, 
 " As we are compelled by the Christian verity to 
 acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God 
 and Lord: so are we forbidden by the Catholic 
 Religion to say. There be three Gods, or three 
 Lords." The whole^ concludes thus : " In this 
 Trinity none is afore or after other; none is 
 greater or less than another; but the whole three 
 Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal. So 
 that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in 
 Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be 
 worshipped." 
 
 It is obvious that the meaning of this elaborate 
 doctrinal summary is inseparably dependent on that 
 of two terms which are employed therein. These 
 are " Person " and " Substance." ^ *' Neither con- 
 
 * See Hatch, " Influence of Greek Ideas," eh. ix. ; Smith and 
 Wace, " Dictionary of Christian Biography, etc.," s.v. " Trinity ; " 
 and Gwatkin, "Studies of Arianism," chs. i.-iii. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 45 
 
 founding the Persons nor dividing the Substance." 
 " Person " is the rendering of the Latin word 
 Persona. This meant primarily a "mask" or "false 
 head " worn by actors, whence it might be employed 
 in a figurative sense. Thence it was extended to 
 designate the character sustained, whether on the 
 stage of the theatre or of the world ; and from 
 this to the actor himself, when it was sometimes 
 restricted like the English word "personage." 
 Also, especially in a legal sense, it signified 
 "persons" as opposed to "things" and "actions." 
 The other word translates the Latin Substantia, 
 which indicates that of which a thing consists, as a 
 subject of thought, rather than as an object of sense, 
 though the distinction cannot always be strictly 
 maintained. But, as speculative theology in the 
 Christian Church was more of Eastern than of 
 Western origin, we must go back to the terms in 
 the Greek lanofuaoje which the Latin words were 
 intended to represent. In that long period of 
 subtle speculation and stormy discussion which 
 began even before the second century and was 
 
4^ LECTURE III. 
 
 hardly closed at the end of the fifth, more than two 
 terms were employed in controversial theology, and 
 a greater precision of statement was attainable 
 owing to the distinction already drawn by Greek 
 philosophy between the <^aiv6\xiva, the objective or 
 physical aspect of things, and the voov/zcva, or 
 mental concepts of the same, which are not ac- 
 cessible to the senses. Terms expressive of the 
 latter are, to the scientific man, symbols ; to 
 the metaphysician, realities. The terminology of 
 Christian controversy was borrowed from Greek 
 philosophy, so that the above-named distinction 
 must be carefully borne in mind. In the disputes 
 on the subject of the Trinity, at any rate during 
 the period with which we are more particularly 
 concerned, three terms appeared in the fore-front 
 of the battle. These were Ousia (Ovctlo), Hypostasis 
 (YnoaTamg), and Prosopon (Upoaioirov). The last 
 had nearly the same sense as the Latin Persona, 
 but did not connote so emphatically an individual 
 separate existence. Hence it was even employed 
 by the anti-Trinitarian Sabellius to express the 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY, 47 
 
 three temporal aspects, the existence of which he 
 was willing to admit in the One God. Of the 
 other terms, Ousia (Ovaia) had been used in 
 philosophic diction in three distinct senses : namely, 
 as the material — the ground-stuff of things, equiva- 
 lent to hyle (vXr?) ; as a sensible material thing 
 which in a predication must always be a subject ; 
 and as the common element in the classes into 
 which sensible material things may be grouped — 
 the " form or ideal essence." ^ In process of time 
 the meaning of the term, owing to diversity of use, 
 became yet more uncertain, but in the Platonic ter- 
 minology, which represented one of the two great 
 schools of thought, Ousia designated the " idea " or 
 " form," the inherence of which makes any object 
 that which it actually is — its essence or being.^ In 
 Stoic terminology a noetic conception practically 
 identical was expressed by Hypostasis. But in 
 the course of later controversy a distinction between 
 the two terms was drawn, and generally accepted ; 
 
 » Hatch, "Influence of Greek Ideas," p. 278. 
 
 * " Dictionary of Christian Biography," s.v, " Trinity." 
 
48 LECTURE III. 
 
 and Ousia was defined as a " universal," denoting 
 that which was the common element in a group, as 
 in the various species of a genus, the difierent 
 individuals of a species, and the like ; while Hypo- 
 stasis expressed that which made the individual 
 what he is, " which in fact constitutes individual 
 existence." Thus Catholic theologians, in rejecting 
 both "the Arian Trinity of one increate and 
 two created beings, and the Sabellian Trinity of 
 temporal aspects (np6(Twwa) of the One," acknow- 
 ledged, "not three individuals, but three eternal 
 aspects (YTTocrrcKTeiO of the Divine, facing inward 
 on each other as well as outward on the world." ^ 
 Thus the word Person in the so-called Athanasian 
 Creed must not be fettered overmuch by its popular 
 use, but expresses the Hypostasis of Greek theo- 
 logians, and the clauses therein must be regarded 
 as an expansion of the statement of Athanasius 
 himself, that in the Godhead there were three 
 Hypostases in one Ousia. The distinction ob- 
 viously is noetic; it does not belong to the 
 * H. M. Gwatkin, '* Studies of Arianism," p. 9. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 49 
 
 Phenonfiena (^aivojuieva) of which science, strictly 
 speaking, can take cognizance, for it cannot be 
 tested by the evidence of the senses or by in- 
 ductions directly founded thereon. But is it so 
 absolutely contradictory to the analogies of the 
 order of the sensible universe that we may dismiss 
 it as a chimaera of a metaphysical cloud-land ? 
 
 Consider the world of living creatures. Here, at 
 first sight, distinct individuality seems a necessary 
 idea. But not seldom in plants this individuality 
 is, so to say, separable. Not a few of them can 
 be divided into parts, which will then become 
 separate individuals, incapable of subsequent fusion 
 into one. The value of this analogy may, however, 
 be disputed by refusing to admit that consciousness 
 can be attributed to plant-life. Turn, then, to the 
 animal world, wherein the existence of some form 
 of consciousness can hardly be denied. In certain of 
 the lowest organisms, as we call them, there is the 
 same separability. In what does the individuality 
 of some of the Protozoa consist ? Nay, here, I 
 believe, coalition after separation may occasionally 
 
 H 
 
50 LECTURE in. 
 
 take place. But also in those of somewhat higher 
 grade we find a diversity co-existent with a unity. 
 Such is the caae with some of the compound forms, 
 as they are called, among the Coelenterates. A 
 Hydrozoan, for instance, such as the sea-fir {Sertu- 
 laria)y consists of a number of polypites connected 
 by a common tissue, the one being related to the 
 other, to use a rough simile, as buds just bursting 
 from the bark of a twig are to the woody axis. The 
 life of the whole colony is a common one, yet it is 
 individualized in each polypite, though we may 
 express doubts whether even these can be always 
 regarded as complete individuals ; for the reproduc- 
 tive process does not invariably take place in them, 
 but may result from an independent action, the 
 formation of a new and separate group of structures 
 at some part of the common but less highly dif- 
 ferentiated stem. 
 
 Again, to take another group in the same sub- 
 kingdom — the corals. Here, also, a similar common 
 unspecialized tissue uniting the specialized parts is 
 often found. How, in such case, are we to form 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 5 1 
 
 a perfect mental concept of the individual ? We 
 cannot wholly separate the more specialized from 
 the less specialized tissues, nor any two of the 
 latter one from another. With these creatures 
 also, among the possible modes of multiplication, 
 is the following: — A single polypite gradually 
 separates into two or more, which ultimately 
 become perfectly complete in themselves. Follow 
 in thought the gradual change from one individual 
 life to two individual lives, and see whether the 
 continuity of existence does not bring you to some- 
 thing very like two aspects of a common essence 
 " facing inward upon themselves as well as out- 
 ward upon the world." I might carry on the same 
 line of illustration to the embryonic stages of 
 creatures much higher in organization, but, as there 
 are obvious difficulties in entering upon the dis- 
 cussion of some of the details, a suggestion of it 
 may suffice. 
 
 It may be urged as an objection that I have found 
 my analogies among the lowest organisms or lowest 
 stages of an organism. That is true, but w^e must 
 
52 LECTURE III. 
 
 not forget that the distinctive characteristics of 
 all living creatures are determined, how we know 
 not, at a very early stage in their existence. At 
 a time when it would be impossible for us, owing 
 to the absence of characteristics, to predict the 
 position to which the embryo will attain in the 
 animal kingdom, this already is irrevocably decided ; 
 the future organization is potentially present, is 
 hypostatically distinguished. We must also re- 
 member that in the present order the ultimate 
 result of high organization is death. Not only is 
 the highly organized animal more easily killed, but 
 also the race is more speedily destroyed by changes 
 in its environment. The very specialization of 
 function which is the cause of its temporary 
 prosperity, is also, inasmuch as the world's order 
 is not eternal, the cause of its ultimate destruction, 
 since, in the process of differentiation, it has 
 become less capable of further change. Pessimistic 
 as the statement may seem, it is true, in a certain 
 sense of the words, that self-improvement is only 
 another name for self-destruction. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. S3 
 
 But development and specialization belong to 
 the temporal order; they have no place in that 
 which is eternal. The thing with its potentialities, 
 the thing with these accomplished, may be one in 
 the sight of Him, in Whose order time and space 
 may have an existence which is equally objective 
 and equally subjective. If, to express our meaning, 
 we fall back for a moment on a Platonic phrase, we 
 may say that the pretemporal Form in the Divine 
 Mind admits of no comparative terms, and that in 
 the progress from the monad to man, just as in the 
 progress from the embryo to the adult, we may 
 only be witnessiug its evolution in the order of 
 the temporal and the phenomenal. Organization, 
 specialization, may be only the focusing, as it 
 were, of the archetypal idea on the screen of the 
 material ; the image grows distinct before our eyes, 
 yet it might be said to exist in reality, though it 
 was not perceptible by our senses, at every stage of 
 the process. 
 
 But I admit, as I said, that the analogy is 
 imperfect. I bring it forward only to indicate 
 
54 LECTURE 111. 
 
 that, in the order cognizable by scientific methods, 
 a personal existence is not so simple a question as 
 at first sight it might appear. However, seeing 
 that we are involved in difficulties whenever we 
 try to follow up the great mystery of life, let us 
 turn for a moment to the inorganic world, from 
 which this disturbing factor is eliminated. One 
 might reasonably expect that substances chemi- 
 cally identical would correspond in their attri- 
 butes, but this is by no means always the case : 
 they may differ so widely that their identity 
 would be unsuspected by any person who was 
 debarred from using those particular tests which 
 establish that identity. These diflferences, also, in 
 many cases are conspicuous, and are persistent. 
 They are, in short, among inorganic bodies the 
 equivalent of a personality among living creatures. 
 The physical properties — such as hardness, action 
 upon light, heat, electricity — the geometrical rela- 
 tions of the outward forms, and the internal 
 structures may be all different : they may be as 
 strongly contrasted as in the well-known case of 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 55 
 
 graphite and the diamond/ and yet they are 
 chemically identical, the atoms are the same ; 
 the bricks, so to say, of which the structure is 
 built, are the same; but some difference in the 
 method of putting them together, some difference 
 in the environment, as we say, cloaking our 
 ignorance by a phrase, or some difference in the 
 architect's plan, as we might affirm, not less 
 reasonably, has resulted in this marked and 
 persistent diversity. Of this allotropy, as it is 
 called by chemists, there are some cases where 
 there is no distinction of outward form or of ordi- 
 nary physical properties, yet the relations to other 
 materials are altered, as in the case of ozone and 
 oxygen. 
 
 I mention these cases as illustrations only. I do 
 not presume to measure the unconditioned by the 
 conditioned ; but if I were to adopt the termi- 
 nology of the metaphysician, and say that rutile, 
 
 * Graphite (the material of " black-lead " pencils) is among the 
 softest of minerals, diamond is tlie hardest; the one is opaque, the 
 otiier transparent ; they differ also in their crystalline forms, and 
 in other respects : yet each is crystallized carbon. 
 
56 LECTURE III, 
 
 brookite, and anatase ^ (three forms of titanic 
 oxide), or graphite, cliftonite,^ and diamond (three 
 forms of carbon), were three hypostases in one 
 ousia, it would be difficult to charge me with a 
 misuse of language. 
 
 But, in addition to this, the whole tendency of 
 modern thought has been to emphasize the under- 
 lying unity of Nature, and to refer its differences to 
 a difference of position rather than to a difference 
 of essence. The older views concerning matter, 
 namely, that the universe could be reduced to 
 groups of ultimate atoms, each essentially different 
 from the other, influenced the mind in the oppo- 
 site direction ; it favoured the idea of initial 
 diversity, independence, and multiplicity: but the 
 modern hypotheses concerning matter, which Ir 
 mentioned in a former lecture,^ have had the 
 
 * Not to mention other diflferences, these are crystallized in 
 accordance with diflferent laws. 
 
 * Cliftonite is a very rare form of carbon, in some respects 
 resembling graphite, but it is much harder, and takes the 
 crystalline form of the diamond. It has been found in meteorites 
 (Fletcher, Mineralogical Magazine^ vol. vii. p. 121). 
 
 » See pp. 14-17. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 57 
 
 opposite tendency. Suppose, for instance, that 
 Thomson is right, and that all matter consists of 
 vortex rings in an imponderable, impalpable 
 " something ; " then all its diversities, all its various 
 properties, must consist, in their later stages, in 
 differences of synthesis, but at an earlier one in 
 differences of relative position. In this case, also, 
 the unity of oiosia, or substance, the diversity of 
 hypostases might be affirmed. 
 
 In short, the distinctions with which our senses 
 can deal must be ultimately explained by differ- 
 ences of position — that is, of mutual relationship. 
 As we trace back, step by step, the history of 
 matter, whether by experiment or in thought, the 
 complex is simplified, the compounds are dissolved, 
 the distinctive attributes disappear, pleomorphism ^ 
 proves to be only a disguised unity. Still, as the 
 pleomorphic representatives of this unity are so 
 constant, so persistent, in the phenomenal world, 
 
 * The term employed in mineralogy to indicate the occurrence 
 of any one substance in diverse " forms," as in the cases mentioned 
 on pp. 65, 56. 
 
 I 
 
58 LECTURE III. 
 
 the metaphysicians could fairly assert for each the 
 existence of a noetic substratum ; otherwise they 
 might be reduced to the admission that there was 
 only a single noetic concept in the universe. 
 
 These concepts, then, in position, must be not 
 only relative to us, but also mutually relative to 
 themselves. That is, the varied hypostases in the 
 one ousia not only face outward on the world, but 
 also inward on themselves. 
 
 I do not presume to say that this is an adequate 
 explanation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. 
 We may do well to remember the vision of 
 Augustine of Hippo. As he wandered along the 
 shore of the Tuscan Maremma,^ wrapped in medita- 
 tion, and vainly seeking to solve this mystery, he 
 thought that he saw a child who was engaged in 
 filling a small vessel from the sea, and emptying 
 the water into a hole in the sand. He asked the 
 child what he was about. The little one answered 
 
 * At Torre de Bertaldo, by the mouth of the Minio. See Hare, 
 "Days near Eome," vol. ii. p. 317; Jameson, "Sacred and 
 Legendary Art," vol. i. p. 297. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY, $9 
 
 that he was emptying the sea. " That is im- 
 possible ! " exclaimed Augustine. " Not more im- 
 possible," replied the child, " than it is for thee to 
 explain the mystery on which thou art now medi- 
 tating." So it must be with us : the mystery of 
 the Divine relationships, of the Godhead itself, 
 cannot be grasped by our finite powers. Granted 
 the possibility of a revelation, if only we are satis- 
 fied that we have this in the person of Christ, 
 the doctrine of the Trinity can be established 
 deductively from the words of Scripture as it was 
 by the theologians of the primitive Church. It 
 receives an immense, though an indirect, support 
 from the fact that all other hypotheses can be 
 shown by logical necessity to lead us back to a 
 fruitless monotheism, to an immoral pantheism, or 
 to a degrading polytheism. It satisfies the deeper 
 cravings of humanity. To quote the words of one 
 too early lost to the Church of our own day:^ 
 " While philosophy with increasing hopelessness 
 
 * Aubrey Moore, author of the, singularly able essay on " The 
 Christian Doctrine of God," contributed to " Lux Mundi." 
 
60 LECTURE III. 
 
 was asking, ' How can we have a real unity 
 which shall be not a barren and dead unity, but 
 shall include differences ? ' Christianity, with its 
 doctrine of God, was arguing that that which 
 was an unsolved contradiction for non-Christian 
 thought, was a necessary corollary of the Christian 
 Faith." We may add, I trust, that the progress 
 of inductive investigation and deductive reasoning, 
 instead of making the doctrine of the Trinity in 
 Unity more startling and paradoxical, has light- 
 ened its difficulty by showing that in the order 
 of nature there is a unity in its differences, and 
 there may be relative differences in its unity. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." — St. John i. 14 
 (R.V.). 
 
 The Incarnation of the Word — God manifest in 
 man and as man, is the central mystery of Chris- 
 tianity. It can be contemplated from more than 
 one point of view. Assuming, for a moment, that 
 such an event is not antecedently incredible, it 
 may be considered in regard either to its signi- 
 ficance and place in the order of the world, or to 
 its purpose, if the term be permitted ; that is, 
 to use the technical phrases, in its Christological 
 or its Soteriological aspect. At present I restrict 
 myself, as far as possible, to the former. 
 
 A belief in an incarnation, in some sense of the 
 word, is not peculiar to Chris tianit3^ Polytheism 
 
62 LECTURE IV. 
 
 was thoroughly anthropomorphic in its conceptions, 
 and invested its gods with the form, the appetites, 
 and even the passions of men. This, however, may 
 perhaps be termed a personification, rather than 
 an incarnation ; for it was not supposed that the 
 bodies of the gods were identical with those of 
 men. And even when the former were asserted to 
 have assumed a true human body, this incarnation 
 would be termed, in the language of theology, 
 docetic rather than real 
 
 A nearer parallel is found in Hinduism, with its 
 avatars. It has often been pointed out, especially 
 by opponents of Christianity, that in Krishna, the 
 eighth' avatar of Vishnu, there are many points of 
 correspondence with the history recorded in the 
 Gospels. This, to those who believe that a unity 
 of plan and purpose pervades all the diversity of 
 this world's order, presents no special difficulty; 
 for it may be said that the history of man's de- 
 velopment is like unto a tree, which has not only 
 its branches in the future, but also its roots in the 
 past. But, in this particular case, there is good 
 
THE INCARNATION. 63 
 
 reason for doubting whether the instances of closer 
 resemblance are not comparatively late accretions 
 to the legend, which, instead of having an inde- 
 pendent origin, have been really derived from 
 Christianity. The latter certainly cannot have 
 borrowed from Hinduism, for it is organically con- 
 nected with Judaism. Two thousand years since 
 the Hebrew world was expecting — at the present 
 day it still expects — a Messias. He was to be, he 
 is to be, more than man, — one, who, if not quite all 
 that Christian theology affirms, should be, to quote 
 the words of a weighty authority,^ " far above the 
 conditions of the most exalted of God's servants, 
 even His angels : in short, so closely bordering on 
 the Divine, that it was almost impossible to dis- 
 tinguish him therefrom." 
 
 The doctrine of the Catholic Church on the 
 subject of the Incarnation cannot be more clearly 
 stated than in the words of the so-called Athanasian 
 Creed : " We believe and confess that our Lord 
 
 * Edersheim, " Life and Times of Jesus," bk. ii. ch. v. (vol. i. 
 p. 179). 
 
64 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man ; . . . 
 Perfect God, and perfect Man of a reasonable soul 
 and human flesh subsisting ; Equal to the Father as 
 touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father 
 as touching His Manhood. Who although He be 
 God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ ; 
 One ; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, 
 but by taking of the Manhood into God: One 
 altogether ; not by confusion of Substance, but by 
 unity of Person." Almost every phrase in this 
 summary is a symbol of past controversy, a monu- 
 ment of a theological victory. It gives in syste- 
 matic form the result of a deductive study of the 
 words of Scripture : needless to say, it expresses a 
 mystery deeper than the human mind can hope to 
 fathom. 
 
 It is not my intention to trace the history or 
 insist upon the importance of the above clauses. 
 Either would lie outside my present purpose. 
 Accepting them as an explanation of what is 
 meant by the Incarnation, let us ask whether 
 the great central mystery is so completely dis- 
 
THE INCARNATION. 6$ 
 
 cordant with our environment that, in accepting 
 it, we are compelled to silence the protests of reason 
 by the assurances of faith ? It does not so seem to 
 me, on the supposition that the ordinary views as 
 to the genesis of life and soul are in the main 
 correct. It is generally held that, whatever life 
 may be, it is not a simple attribute of matter, is 
 not to be classed with heat, electricity, magnetism ; 
 that between ordinary matter and living matter 
 there is a great gulf fixed. It is also held that 
 between animals and men, or at least some men, 
 there is another such gulf:^ that the death of the 
 body puts an end to the one, but not to the other ; 
 the latter possessing, in addition to a perfect animal 
 organization, a spirit which is of God. If, then, we 
 believe that man has become a " living soul " — ^and 
 in this belief, remember. Christians do not stand 
 alone — then, unless we claim immortality for all 
 animals, we must admit that in one person the 
 nature of an immortal being and that of a mortal 
 
 » See "The Threefold Nature of Man" in "Old Truths in 
 Modem Lights," p. 114. 
 
 K 
 
66 LECTURE IV. 
 
 being are inseparably united. Here, then, the 
 higher has not been converted into the lower, but 
 the lower has been taken up into the higher. To 
 myself, at any rate, it appears that we cannot so 
 much as use the term volition without being con- 
 fronted with this dilemma, that we must either 
 regard it as the result of a synthesis of organic 
 elements, and so cease to claim for it freedom, or 
 in asserting the latter, admit the existence of some- 
 thing which cannot be brought under any known 
 laws — that is, we must trespass on the domain of 
 the miraculous, though we shrink from using the 
 term. 
 
 Some perhaps might say : " We do not take offence 
 at the assertion of an Incarnation, for, whether you 
 would call us Pantheists or not, we certainly are 
 not advocates of a dualism which places the Divine 
 and the material in antagonism. We admit that it 
 is possible, inexplicable as it may be, that such a 
 union might take place, but we are unable to 
 believe in the birth from a virgin mother, because 
 it would be contrary to the order of nature." 
 
THE INCARNATION. 67 
 
 Let me, then, touch briefly on this subject, difficult 
 though it be to discuss. I may remark, at the out- 
 set, that if the birth of Jesus had been the result of 
 the ordinary synthesis, then, in accordance with the 
 order of nature, He would have been only a man. 
 If, then, you are not prepared to admit this, if you 
 are not content to reverence Christ merely as the 
 most perfect man, you must fall back upon a miracle 
 at some stage of His existence, for the union of the 
 Godhead with the manhood is no part of the order 
 of nature, so far as that is known. 
 
 Attempts have been made to elude the difficulty 
 which is presented by the doctrine of the In- 
 carnation by supposing that the Divine Nature 
 united itself at some particular stage to that 
 of a man, born in ordinary course ; but to 
 what does this modification amount? that we are 
 willino: to believe the assertion of a thinor which 
 lies wholly outside our experience, but not one 
 which in any way seems to be contrary to our 
 experience. I will not, indeed, go so far as to say 
 that this distinction is entirely without value, but 
 
6S LECTURE IV. 
 
 at any rate I am justified in pointing out that it 
 does not enable us to get rid of miracje, but only to 
 transfer its plane of operation. 
 
 Birth, we know, requires at a very early stage, 
 in most living creatures, a synthesis of two 
 elements, both extremely minute and apparently 
 almost structureless.^ The function of the one is 
 mainly initiatory, though it also produces a per- 
 manent impression which results in the transmis- 
 sion of hereditary tendencies ; the other develops 
 into the future being. In this great marvel, much 
 as we know of the "how," we are very ignorant 
 of the " why." The union of two tiny rudimentary 
 cells has for its result a being which presents, 
 physically and mentally, strong resemblances to 
 both parents ! If I may venture to speak in the 
 language of man concerning the Incarnation, the 
 miracle consisted in this : — that the process of 
 development began in one cell without the inter- 
 
 * The ovum of the most highly organized member of the animal 
 kingdom is rather less than one hundredth of an inch in diameter 
 (Huxley, " Man's Place in Nature," p. 65). 
 
THE INCARNATION. 69 
 
 vention of the other : that, really, is all which we 
 are asked to believe. A miracle undoubtedly, for 
 that which otherwise would have remained incom- 
 plete was quickened to a perfect life. It was an 
 exercise of Creative Force, an overshadowing of 
 the Power of the Highest. This I am told, in 
 words which, if not true, are mere rhapsody which 
 borders on profanity. But at such an epoch in the 
 history of mankind as the Advent of Christ on 
 earth, might not a departure from the ordinary 
 course be anticipated ? If we are forced to admit 
 miracle in the order of physical life, what wonder 
 if it be required also in the order of the spiritual ? 
 
 But, although it is quite true that, as a rule, the 
 origin of an individual life is a synthetic process 
 — not, however, of lifeless, but of living matter — we 
 must nevertheless remember that the law is not 
 universal. Cut off a slip from a plant, and it 
 becomes a new individual, capable of bearing seed 
 and propagating its kind in the usual way. Per- 
 haps, however, you will demur to the value of this 
 illustration, as being taken from the world of plants. 
 
70 LECTURE IV, 
 
 not of animals. But in the latter, also, multiplica- 
 tion can take place in much the same way. Some 
 animals divide themselves again and again ; one 
 individual becomes a host, by subdivision, not by 
 generation in the ordinary sense.^ We must also 
 remember that in not a few living creatures no 
 sexual distinctions are perceptible, in others the 
 individual is bisexual. I do not forget the remark- 
 able instances of what is called Parthenogenesis ; 
 for this at first sight might seem an exact parallel 
 to the marvel which we are considering : but I do 
 not press it, because I know that in some cases 
 (though I am doubtful whether in all) the resem- 
 blance might be explained away. But I refer to the 
 others to indicate — and thus far, at any rate, I have 
 a right to use them — that the law of birth as a 
 result of synthesis is not so universal and invariable 
 as is commonly supposed. 
 
 It may be said that these apparent exceptions 
 occur only among the lowest types of living creatures. 
 
 * W. H, Dallinger, " The Creator, and what we may know of the 
 Method of Creation," p. 30. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 7 1 
 
 It is true that they disappear, before the vertebrates 
 are reached ; but it must be remembered that even 
 the most highly organized form of the latter, at one 
 stage of its existence, although its future develop- 
 ment in some mysterious way is already determined 
 and may be regarded as potentially present, is itself 
 actually indistinguishable from a protozoon. But it 
 was at this very stage that the miracle which most 
 startles our mind must have occurred. Are we not, 
 in believing that a miracle was needed to produce 
 from inert dead matter living protoplasm, with all 
 its potentialities, and in hesitating to admit a 
 similar miracle in one particular case, straining at 
 a scientific gnat and swallowing a scientific camel ? 
 As it has been well said, " The mystery of life is 
 as great and as deep in a monad as in a man." ^ 
 
 But, if we look further, and consider what the 
 Incarnation means, we begin to understand why 
 it behoved that Christ should not be born after the 
 flesh. I will not now raise the soteriological 
 question further than to say that One was needed 
 
 » W. H. Dallinger, "The Creator," p. 36. 
 
72 LECTURE IV. 
 
 who should be without sin. But the theological 
 doctrine of original sin, regarded apart from some 
 adventitious colouring, only states in another form 
 the scientific doctrine of heredity. No child of 
 human parents can be sinless ; the animal nature 
 is present from the first, and resists the impulses 
 to conformity with external requirements ; the 
 development of the body outruns that of the mind, 
 and for a considerable time the moral nature fights 
 at a disadvantage with the physical. The fall of 
 man, the innate infection of his nature, is a fact, an 
 unquestionable awful fact in the world's order, even 
 if every word in the third chapter of Genesis be 
 allegorical. So that no one born after the flesh can 
 be sinless. Perhaps, also, we should not leave out 
 of sight the fact that to the human race everything 
 connected with this synthesis is a fruitful source of 
 evil. One, however, born as Christ is asserted to 
 have been born, would be perfect man ; for after 
 the first beginning He would have passed through 
 every stage of development and nutrition which 
 belongs to a member of the human race. If the 
 
THE INCARNATION. 73 
 
 Saviour of the world were to be man, He must be 
 born, in a sense, in due course ; but, to be sinless. 
 He must be born out of due course. The course, 
 of which we are told in revelation, is the most 
 simple, the only conceivable one — to speak as a 
 man — in which the perfection of the human nature, 
 in union with the Divine nature, could have been 
 secured. 
 
 Call us credulous believers in a miracle, if you 
 will — that is, in an event which is inexplicable 
 by any result of our experience; nay, which is 
 contrary to, or, I should rather say, different from 
 our experience. Be it so, but your scientific 
 biologist, when he formulates his researches in the 
 maxim. All that lives has a living parent, — when 
 he asserts that, if life can proceed from the 
 synthesis of the non-living, it is a thing of which 
 he has no experience — is compelled to postulate a 
 miracle ; because no force of which he knows can 
 span that tremendous gap between lifeless matter 
 and living matter. Even in regard to matter 
 itself, when asked to explain its origin, he must 
 
 L 
 
74 LECTURE IV. 
 
 either admit the occurrence of a miracle or cloak 
 his difficulty under a euphemistic phraseology. 
 No man of science, when confronted with some 
 startling phenomenon, in favour of which there 
 was strong evidence, would be ashamed to say, 
 " This is a thing which I should have never 
 expected, to me it is inexplicable ; but perhaps we 
 shall one day know." In what respect, then, does 
 such an admission as this differ from what a 
 cautious theologian requires us to concede ? 
 
 But it is not enough to regard the Incarnation 
 by itself, and as an isolated event; it must be 
 considered in connection with the history — the 
 evolution, if the phrase be preferred — of humanity. 
 In the fullest sense of the words — now, if possible, 
 more fully than ever — it is the answer, God's 
 answer, to the earnest expectation of the creature, 
 to the " bitter cry " of humanity. 
 
 " life as futile, then, as frail ! " Do not these 
 despairing words express the feelings of many a 
 heart. Pessimism, of which we hear much, is no 
 new thing: it is not the mere outcome of an 
 
THE INCARNATION. 75 
 
 unhealthy body or an unhealthy mind ; it expresses 
 a deliberate intellectual conclusion, in favour of 
 which there is very much to be said, if we regard 
 the present life apart from any hope of a future 
 and a better one, — for which, 1 believe, the case 
 actually grows stronger as man advances up the 
 scale of civilization and is raised, it matters not 
 how, above the animal world. Life's possibilities 
 are so great ; there is so much to do, so much to 
 enjoy in the nobler, not in the baser sense of the 
 word ; in this earth, both in its parts and as a 
 whole, there is such an inexpressible beauty, such 
 a boundless field of knowledge, were time and 
 opportunity only given ; in man himself there 
 are such potentialities of moral grandeur, yet such 
 endless disappointments, such constant failures. 
 Alike to love as to hate, to labour as to sloth, to 
 learning as to ignorance, to righteousness as to 
 unrighteousness, there comes one end. The old 
 pictures of the Dance of Death express an awful 
 truth. There, if in this life only you have hope, is 
 the picture-book of pessimism. Not to age only, 
 
76 LECTURE IV. 
 
 but to youth also : not to sorrow only, but to joy 
 also : not to failure only, but to success also : not 
 to vice only, but to virtue also, the grim spectre 
 comes, and leads away his helpless captive to 
 the prison-house of the grave, to the eternal 
 silence of the tomb. Vanity of vanities; all is 
 vanity ! 
 
 If any one argued in this fashion in favour of 
 pessimism, what could be said against him ? Much, 
 I think, on the side of the animal world; not a little 
 also on that of the less civilized races of mankind ; 
 but I should feel that the difficulties of my case 
 increased in proportion as my estimate of my 
 client rose. There are jarring notes, there is a 
 discord in the harmony of nature; and these are 
 attuned, and can only be attuned by the Incarna- 
 tion, which shows where promise has its per- 
 formance, where potentialities have their realization, 
 where failure is replaced by success. Man is ever 
 tormented by ideals which either mock him by 
 their evanescence or disappoint him by their failure. 
 In Christ the ideal is realized, and there is a living 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 77 
 
 union between the world of sense and the world of 
 spirit. 
 
 Yet another deep-seated want of human-nature 
 has been satisfied by the Incarnation. Man is a 
 born idolater. The child and the savage can scarce 
 conceive existence apart from form and material : 
 they endow with some sort of vitality even the 
 lifeless objects around them. The tendency of later 
 years and of more advanced thought is to deify the 
 human ideal and to people the celestial region 
 with a crowd of divinities in human form. So 
 strong is this innate instinct, that each spiritual 
 type of religion has to wage a perpetual struggle 
 for existence against reversionary tendencies. If, 
 at any time, a great upward stride has been made 
 by a leader of thought, his followers, instead of 
 advancing onward, commonly step part- way back. 
 This is true of Christianity itself, even in this 
 nineteenth century; and in this land the faith of 
 the majority is less spiritual than that " which was 
 first delivered to the Saints." A God without 
 boundary, without shape, without material, fails to 
 
78 LECTURE IV. 
 
 satisfy a nature trained by the experiences of the 
 finite. Man wants, man longs for the form which 
 the eye can see, for the human heart which can 
 beat in sympathy with his own. Unconsciously 
 he reasons thus with himself: "What can a spirit 
 know of my wants, my sorrows, my trials, and my 
 temptations ? My body is wrung by pain : that it 
 has not felt. My passions struggle for mastery : 
 this awful conflict it cannot understand. My life 
 is dark with sorrow : that cannot come in the 
 unchanging eternity. Talk not to me," thus the 
 sufferer cries, " of these formless, changeless, abstract 
 Powers. Give me that which can feel with me and 
 for me in this weary and bitter conflict of life ! " 
 Jesus answers, " Lo, I come ! I have borne the 
 burden of humanity. I have felt its pains and sor- 
 rows ! I have passed through its every stage from 
 infancy to manhood. I have known its tempta- 
 tions, though not its sins. Art thou hated without 
 a cause ? They hated Me. Art thou persecuted 
 for righteousness' sake ? They persecuted Me. 
 Art thou weary in well doing ? I was weary too 
 
THE incarnation: 
 
 79 
 
 Art thou bowed with sorrow ? I wept by the 
 grave of Lazarus. Art thou suffering bitter pains ? 
 I was wounded with the scourge and died upon the 
 cross ? Art thou in the horror of great darkness ? 
 Remember My agony in Gethsemane, and My cry 
 on Calvary. Trust Me wholly, faint-hearted one, 
 for I know what thou dost feel. Trust Me wholly, 
 for I gave My life for thee." 
 
 On former occasions I have striven to show that 
 the irreconcilable antagonism between God and 
 the universe, on which some have insisted, does not 
 exist — that creation is the revelation of His wisdom, 
 the manifestation of His power; that in every 
 phenomenon — in the forces which regulate, in the 
 light which illuminates, in the life which peoples 
 the globe, we are beholding the action of a Divine 
 energy, the revelation of the Unconditioned through 
 the conditioned. In the Incarnation I recognize 
 the crown and completion of the glorious work : 
 the accomplished theophany : the perfect synthesis 
 of the finite and the Infinite, in which the long 
 series of types and analogues was realized, wherein 
 
80 LECTURE IV. 
 
 the " earnest expectation of the creature " received 
 that answer by which alone it could be satisfied ! 
 
 " Art thou weary, art thou languid, 
 Art thou sore distrest ? 
 * Come to Me,' saith One, ' and coming, 
 Be at rest I ' " 
 
LECTURE V. 
 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 " But God commendetli His own love toward us, in that, while 
 we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being 
 now justified by His blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of 
 God through Him. For if, while we were enemies, we were 
 reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being 
 reconciled, shall we be saved by His life." — Bom. v. 8-10 (R.V.). 
 
 " What is man, that he should be clean ? and he 
 which is born of a woman, that he should be 
 righteous ? " That human nature is full of jarring 
 notes, that in it noble aspirations and depraved 
 tendencies are in constant conflict, is an awful fact, 
 independent of any changes of opinion as to the 
 meaning of the story of the Fall. Though the 
 language of this appears to myself allegorical 
 rather than historical, yet I consider original sin 
 to be not only a theological dogma, but also an 
 
 M 
 
82 LECTURE V. 
 
 induction from observed facts. That a discord 
 exists in human nature is a certainty. That it is 
 due to some past departure from a state of harmony 
 with the environment — which is only another 
 mode of expressing what is implied by the word 
 *' Fall "—is highly probable.^ 
 
 " All we like sheep have gone astray." From this 
 unwelcome conclusion there is no escape. As man 
 has advanced in ethical conceptions, he has only 
 realized more keenly his own imperfections and 
 failures ; as he has pressed after an ideal, this, as it 
 became more clear in the brightening light, has 
 seemed to be yet further away, and to increase its 
 distance as he pursued. 
 
 The sense of sin becomes stronger as knowledge 
 grows. It is weak in savage man. He knows, like a 
 child, that he has to observe certain rules, the breach 
 of which entails penalties ; but why this should be 
 he seldom asks. Commonly, like many a schoolboy, 
 he takes a merely mercantile view of an offence 
 and its penalty ; the latter is the price to be paid 
 » "Old Truths in Modern Lights," pp. 269-286. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 83 
 
 for the former, and so the afiair is ended. His 
 God is simply an invisible and very powerful chief ; 
 who, like a man, can be kept in good temper and 
 appeased, but who generally is a rather good- 
 natured personage. Demons, indeed, there are, 
 whose intentions are malevolent; but the God on 
 the whole is clever enough and kindly enough to 
 keep these in check. So he goes through life in 
 a schoolboy fashion — not, indeed, without April 
 showers of tears, but with its sunshine too, and 
 on the whole well contented with himself. 
 
 The same childlike brightness may be observed 
 in the early history of Judaism. In peaceful times, 
 when the spoiler came not, then every man sat 
 under his own vine and his own fig tree, eating 
 and drinking and making merry. As years went 
 on the light grew stronger, but the shadows 
 deepened. The soul began to long after God, the 
 heart to realize its own bitterness — to know that no 
 hyssop could purge its uncleanness, no blood of 
 bulls and goats could wash away sin. Then came 
 the Redeemer. Angel-voices proclaimed a message 
 
84 LECTURE V. 
 
 of peace ; but yet, though nineteen centuries have 
 almost passed away, and it has not been without 
 its influence in the world, we do but realize more 
 acutely than ever our own feebleness, our own 
 sinfulness. 
 
 But is there any other message which gives us 
 larger hopes ? As it seems to me, we are com- 
 pelled, if we cannot accept the message of revela- 
 tion, to this conclusion : There is in the ideal 
 world an absolute perfection; there is in the real 
 world an incurable imperfection. Between the one 
 and the other there is a great gulf fixed. This we 
 fain would cross, but it yawns too wide and too 
 deep. 
 
 The history of sacrificial rites, especially in their 
 later stages, is the history of man's efibrt to bridge 
 this chasm. In these, at the outset, the idea of 
 propitiation — the desire to obtain the favour of 
 the God — predominates ; but it is gradually over- 
 shadowed by the idea of expiation, the endeavour 
 to avert the consequences of sin. Sacrifice, it must 
 be remembered, is not an institution of Jewish 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 85 
 
 origin. It is world-wide ; the outcome of natural 
 religion, not the result of direct revelation. 
 
 Yet another idea is prominent in all sacrifices 
 involving the death of the victim, to which I shall 
 have to refer in a later lecture — that there is an 
 absorption of life through the blood, so that by- 
 means of it a communion in some sort is estab- 
 lished between the God and the worshipper.^ Such 
 sacrifices, then, whenever and wherever performed, 
 constitute acts of atonement ; are admissions, how- 
 ever gross the conception, however unspiritual the 
 idea, that the bond between the two parties has 
 been weakened and requires to be strengthened, 
 and so are indirect confessions of the frailty and 
 sinfulness of man. 
 
 All Christians agree that the Lord Jesus, by His 
 life on earth, made an atonement for the sins of 
 mankind; that He became, by His death and 
 resurrection, the living way across the great gulf 
 which parts the realm of eternal death from that 
 of eternal life. But we differ in the significance 
 * Eobeitson Smith, " The Religion of the Semites," lects. vi., viii. 
 
86 LECTURE V. 
 
 which we attach to the atonement. In any en- 
 deavour to come to a conclusion on this question, 
 we can hardly expect either direct help or opposition 
 from the results of scientific inquiry, for we are 
 dealing with matters which lie outside its province ; 
 nevertheless we may be aided by its methods, so 
 as to test deductive reasonings from the words of 
 revelation by the results of an inductive treatment 
 of facts. 
 
 In meditating upon the significance of the 
 atonement, we must be alive to the danger of an 
 anthropomorphic phraseology. The employment of 
 it is inevitable, because the relations of God to man 
 can only be explained to us through the relations 
 of man to man; nevertheless it may mislead us 
 at every turn. For instance, such terms as " the 
 wrath of God " or " the anger of God " may produce 
 misconceptions. His wrath with sin is not 
 emotional. It expresses the working of an eternal 
 law — if the phrase be permissible — a severance and 
 an alienation which are inevitable, which stand 
 in the relation of consequence to cause. To give 
 
THE ATONEMENT, 8/ 
 
 a rough illustration : if I put my hand in the fire 
 and am burnt, I do not attribute this result to the 
 anger of the fire, or of nature, or of God. The 
 injury is the result of my action. That certain 
 antecedents should lead to certain consequences is 
 true in the moral as in the physical order. Sin is 
 the non-fulfilment of the Divine purpose ; man 
 had, man has, the power of choice, whether he will 
 obey the animal or the spiritual instinct.^ As a 
 matter of fact, he hearkens sometimes to the one, 
 sometimes to the other ; that is, he is never 
 without sin. But the sequence of consequence 
 and cause is a necessity of the Divine perfection. 
 " The seat of law is the bosom of God ; her voice 
 the harmony of the world." ^ 
 
 How, then, can man of himself escape from the 
 consequences of his wrong-doing? A disposition 
 to evil is a part of his nature. The doctrine of 
 " original sin," as expressed in the ninth Article of 
 our Church, in one aspect is only a special state- 
 
 » " Old Truths in Modern Lights," pp. 269-286. 
 • B. Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," I. xviii. 8. 
 
88 LECTURE V. 
 
 ment of the general law of heredity. The " infection 
 of nature " represents in a phrase the results of 
 observation; it is an induction rather than a 
 dogma. Where the Scripture says, " All we like 
 sheep have gone astray," " There is none righteous, 
 no, not one," it is merely expressing an unques- 
 tionable fact. The man who asserted that he had 
 never committed a sin would be regarded by 
 common consent, even among the careless, as the 
 greatest of self-deceivers; and if this be so, how, 
 after having taken a poison, can we be delivered 
 from its effects ? 
 
 It is not, then, so much anger which has ta be 
 appeased as the natural consequences of actions 
 which have to be averted. A gulf has to be 
 spanned. A gulf, we believe, has been spanned. 
 In a higher sphere the independence of, the con- 
 flict between, personal will and natural law has 
 been exhibited, with which we are familiar, in 
 our humbler sphere, when we forgive the erring 
 and accept the imperfect. God and humanity 
 have been at one in the Person of Christ ; in Him 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 89 
 
 the law of righteousness is in harmony with the 
 law of love. 
 
 But how are we to explain the effects of this act 
 of self-sacrifice ? Christians are agreed as to the 
 fact of the atonement, but they differ much as to 
 its significance. The Church of England wisely has 
 not committed her members to any precise inter- 
 pretation ; affirming the fact, she leaves the appre- 
 ciation thereof to the individual conscience. 
 
 Many solutions of the difficulty have been pro- 
 posed, one or two of which I proceed to notice. 
 Some have represented the atonement as a kind of 
 bargain.^ Man by sin sold himself into slavery. 
 Satan had, so to say, a legal claim on him. So the 
 Saviour offers Himself as a Substitute, and is 
 accepted. But justice is satisfied in the letter 
 rather than in the spirit ; for it is known all along 
 that the Victim will prove too strong for the op- 
 pressor. So it happens; the Captive bursts His 
 bonds and tramples His captor underfoot. Another 
 
 * For an historical sketch of Patristic opinions, see Archbibhop 
 Thomson, " Aids to Faith," essay viii. 
 
 I 
 
^0 LECTURE V. 
 
 hypothesis may be briefly expressed as follows : 
 Man has sinned; God is wroth; some one must 
 suffer. As I have heard it stated, *' God must have 
 blood." The All-loving Son comes forward as a 
 Victim, and exclaims, " Take Mine ! " He is slain — 
 " the Just for the unjust." The Father s anger is 
 satisfied ; He pardons, for the sake of One, the 
 many Who have sinned. 
 
 Both these views we may unhesitatingly reject. 
 Supposing for a moment the principals in either 
 of the transactions were only men, we could not 
 affirm that they had acted up to a high ethical 
 standard. But, in reply to such an objection, it 
 might be asked whether the verdict of our con- 
 science can be trusted. May not our ethical con- 
 ceptions be vitiated by our imperfect knowledge ? 
 My answer would be that they would err rather 
 on points of detail than on those of principle. For 
 instance, we can seldom form an opinion as to the 
 justice or injustice of isolated occurrences ; to our 
 limited view, God may often seem to deal hardly 
 with individuals. For the explanation of this we 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 9 1 
 
 may be content to wait. We may also admit the 
 possibility — the probability — that the moral sense 
 of our race may become more acute^ so that ethical 
 standards are outgrown and a later age becomes 
 dissatisfied with conceptions with which an earlier 
 one was content; but if we cannot trust the 
 general accuracy of those ideas, which must be the 
 basis of all our conduct, then right and wrong are 
 reduced to arbitrary terms of only temporary value. 
 So we may reject without hesitation both the 
 above-named hypotheses as contrary to our 
 elemental ideas of justice, righteousness, goodness, 
 and refuse to attribute to God any course of action 
 which we should, for ourselves, indignantly dis- 
 claim. 
 
 A third hypothesis, which has found very general 
 favour, takes what is called a " forensic " view. 
 The death of Christ procures the remission of our 
 sins in this wise : The self-sacrifice and the perfect 
 righteousness of Christ obtained what might be 
 called a general pardon. Man admits his own 
 guilt, but pleads the pardon. He is acquitted ; he 
 
92 LECTURE V. 
 
 is regarded as righteous because of Christ's 
 righteousness. This is like a fund upon which 
 man is empowered to draw in order to obtain his 
 freedom from a state of slavery. This, like the 
 festal robe bestowed by Eastern potentates, masks 
 and hides man's native squalor. For certain aspects 
 of this view there is much to be said. Its weak 
 point is indicated by the epithet "forensic" — that 
 is, by the effort to represent the manifestation of 
 God by the procedure of human law-courts; to 
 impose upon the Divine the limitations of humanity. 
 Thus, to myself, many of the disputes which 
 agitated the minds of the schoolmen and the 
 doctors of the Churches, reformed or unreformed — 
 disputes concerning " faith unformed " and " faith 
 formed," merit de congruo and de condigno — appear 
 to be mainly academic, originated by the attempt 
 to express through an imperfect terminology ideas 
 which refuse to be thus limited and trimmed. 
 
 If we were content to work in theology as we 
 do in science, and to admit that a definition may 
 be accurate or a principle sound for all practical 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 93 
 
 purposes, and yet be incompetent to withstand the 
 rigid application of a " destructive sorites/' or some 
 other logical device, we should soon see that many 
 difficulties were, like the Brocken spectres, only 
 projections of human personalities on the mists of 
 the unknowable. 
 
 But it is easier to perceive the defects in expla- 
 nations than to amend them. We may refuse to 
 admit the possibility of a divergence of Mind 
 between the Father and the Son, or to attribute to 
 the former a blind wrath which demands a victim, 
 it matters not how innocent. We may be justly dis- 
 satisfied with those modifications of the last hypo- 
 thesis which substitute a law for God, and discuss 
 its requirements and its penalties, and yet we may 
 feel that the matter is too great for our strength. 
 So, if I were asked to state in precise language a 
 theory of the atonement, which should at once be 
 consistent with the words of Scripture, with our 
 own sense of right and justice, and with the 
 requirements of logic, I should not be ashamed to 
 confess my inability. As well might we endeavour 
 
94 LECTURE V. 
 
 to wing our way through space to distant planetary- 
 systems, as to measure the immeasurable and to 
 comprehend the incomprehensible. We can hope 
 at the utmost to discover analogies, to approximate 
 to the unattainable ; and here, though we cannot 
 enter perfectly into the seeming reconciliation of 
 law and of love, we can learn the lessons of the life 
 and death of Him Who was Son of man and Son of 
 God. 
 
 Let me touch, in conclusion, upon one or two of 
 these, for by them alone we can hope to gain some 
 partial knowledge of that which must ever remain 
 a mystery. Jesus bore the full burden of human 
 nature. In His life and death He shared its pain 
 and sorrow. Think of Him, weary and outworn, 
 scorned and rejected, tortured and degraded by the 
 long agony of the trial and the cross ; cut off in the 
 flower of His age and the fulness of His work ; 
 crushed by the sense that God would not, or even 
 — ^if one may dare to say it — could not, help Him, 
 and that wrong was stronger than right. No 
 mourner, no sufferer, no martyr, hereafter could 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 95 
 
 murmur, could despair. Needs must be that He 
 should die, because until death writes the closing 
 word on the page of each man's history, life's 
 opportunities, whether for good or for evil, are not 
 exhausted, and it is possible, in the weakness of age 
 or in the pains of death, to fall from the way of 
 righteousness. Needs must be that He should die ; 
 for if not, there would have been one trial through 
 which He would not have passed, so that it could 
 not have been said, " One of ourselves has borne all, 
 suffered all, and triumphed over all." 
 
 What encouragement would it have been to us if 
 the victory had been won in a nature other than 
 our own ? What boots it to tell me of the triumph 
 of one who cannot feel my weakness ? If I were 
 in pain and you were insensible to pain, what lesson 
 would it read me that you were cheerful and 
 contented with your lot in life ? But Christ took 
 upon Himself a human nature, and we, erring, 
 feeble, sinful beings, are at once nerved and shamed 
 by the example of the one unfallen, perfect, sinless 
 Man. 
 
g6 LECTURE V. 
 
 Yet more, let us take a somewhat wider view, 
 and regard the sacrifice of Christ in the light of 
 certain modern philosophies.^ These tell us that 
 the order of nature is the manifestation of the 
 " will to live." If so, the physical universe is the 
 expression of an energy acting, as it must always 
 do, in accordance with unalterable laws. It follows, 
 then, that we ourselves are but an aspect of this 
 will ; our brief portions of life, only its temporary 
 individualization. But would that be a complete 
 history of humanity ? Are you prepared to accept 
 the consequences of this theory, and live, as you 
 should do, as expressions of this will alone ? Gleams 
 there are of something else, broken and shadowed 
 though they be, which, though they interrupt the 
 harmonious consistency of your philosophy, give to 
 life all its tenderness and its brightness. Not only 
 the "will to live," but also the "will to love," is 
 manifested in this world, and it is written in largest, 
 plainest characters in the life and death of Jesus. 
 
 If we can believe, as the majority do, that the 
 * Those of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 97 
 
 person of every man indicates the action of volition 
 as well as of mere vitality, so we may believe that 
 in the Divine personality of Christ the two wills, 
 that of "to live" and that of "to love," were 
 exhibited in their temporal conflict and their 
 eternal harmony. 
 
 It must never be forgotten that the atonement 
 was not merely a single episode. It did not last, 
 as we are apt to think, only from Gethsemane to 
 Calvary. The hours of the Passion were but its 
 completion. It began at the manger of Bethlehem ; 
 it was wrought in the daily life at Nazareth and 
 in the homeless wanderings, by the shores of 
 Gennesaret or in the deserts of Judsea, on the hills 
 of Galilee and in the streets of Jerusalem. It was, 
 in short, not only the " dying of a death," but also 
 the "living of a life." Of this Christ bore the 
 daily strain. Bore, not only its pains and sorrows, 
 but also its petty cares, its little trials — those 
 thousand trifles which in ourselves, like some 
 destructive acid, too often corrode the more noble 
 and indurate the more tender side of our nature. 
 
 o 
 
98 LECTURE V, 
 
 He also bore that which is, for the more exalted 
 spirits among us, the heaviest and most dangerous 
 trial — misunderstanding and misrepresentation, 
 injustice and ingratitude. In a word, He bore the 
 whole burden of human life, without a murmur, 
 without a falter, without a fall. 
 
 This, then, it is which constitutes the magnetism 
 of the cross : " I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all 
 men unto Me." Crushed by the sense of our own 
 sinfulness, realizing that our own life is a failure, 
 then we can feel the truth of these well-known 
 words — 
 
 " Nothing in my hand I bring, 
 Simply to Thy cross I cling ; 
 Could my tears for ever flow, 
 Could my zeal no languor know. 
 All for sin could not atone, 
 Thou must save and Thou alone I " 
 
 Do we require to formulate a theory of the 
 atonement in terms of logical precision ? As it 
 appears to me, this is not only needless, but also, 
 since the Divine relationships are beyond our 
 comprehension, certain to bring us, by deductive 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 99 
 
 processes, into positions which can be made 
 untenable by inductive reasoning. That man's 
 nature is a battle-field for opposing principles, is a 
 fact ; that even where the better prevails, the worse 
 has won its partial successes, and the victor is 
 more or less crippled, is a matter of daily expe- 
 rience ; that the desire of making amends, the 
 principle of sacrifice, is an instinct of human life ; 
 that man cannot atone for himself, is rendered 
 almost self-evident by the fact that all ethical 
 advance only enables him to realize more com- 
 pletely his own imperfections ; that there is no 
 motive moral force equal to that of perfect un- 
 selfishness; that there is, even in human forgive- 
 ness, inexplicable as it may seem, an actual 
 alleviation of the burden of wrong-doing, and a 
 power of exceptional strength in impelling the 
 penitent towards a nobler goal, and in lifting him 
 up to a higher plane of life ; — these we may hold as 
 axioms. In the words of Scripture we may see the 
 expression, now of the one, now of the other, and 
 yet may decline to attempt to co-ordinate them 
 
lOO LECTURE V, 
 
 into a systematic whole, which shall appear logic- 
 ally complete in all its parts, because experience 
 has shown that the narrowness of the field which 
 can be commanded by our powers of observation 
 must result in a disproportion of statement, and 
 our efibrts at precision must end in the accurate 
 expression of mistaken notions. This, however, is 
 not a peculiarity of theology ; it is just as common 
 in science whenever elaborate generalizations are 
 founded on insufficient data, or precise definitions 
 are attempted of that which is imperfectly under- 
 stood. 
 
 This much, however, I think we may say. By 
 the sacrifice made in the person of man — why and 
 wherefore I do not venture to inquire — man's 
 endeavours are accepted as if they had been 
 perfected. We are dealt with as we are wont to 
 deal with others. Do we require or expect in 
 earth's dearest relations an absolute perfection ? 
 No ; we bear and forbear. We accept the imperfect 
 efforts, the incomplete results ; we take, as we say, 
 the will for the deed, provided that will has been 
 
THE ATONEMENT. lOI 
 
 honestly manifested in action. "She hath done 
 what she could "—these were Christ's words to 
 one who sought to do Him honour ; these are now 
 God's words of welcome to repentant humanity. 
 
 Love and justice unite in heaven as they are 
 united on earth ; as they were brought into perfect 
 harmony in the Person of Jesus Christ, Who could 
 abhor the sin and yet love the sinner, Who could 
 condemn the guilty and yet forgive the penitent. 
 If the Incarnation brought down heaven to earth, 
 there is a sense in which the Atonement took back 
 earth to heaven. In the one, as in the other, 
 righteousness, love, and effort now form an 
 eternal trinity in unity. Henceforth we are 
 " persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor 
 angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
 present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, 
 nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us 
 from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 THE RESURRECTION, 
 
 "Some said. What would this babbler say? other some, He 
 seenieth to be a setter forth of strange gods : because He preached 
 Jesus and the resurrection.*'— Acts xvii. 18 (E.V.). 
 
 More than eighteen centuries since the cross of 
 Christ was an offence to the Jewish patriot, His 
 resurrection to the Gentile philosopher. History 
 repeats itself, and modem thought still recoils 
 from accepting a doctrine which was derided at 
 Athens and explained away at Corinth. To a 
 Jew, the possibility of a resurrection, the hope of 
 a resurrection, was in no way startling. To him 
 the idea had long been familiar when Paul began 
 to preach ; for it was one of the chief subjects of 
 debate between the two great schools of theo- 
 logical thought into which his nation was 
 
THE RESURRECTION. IO3 
 
 divided; but it was strange to Greek and to 
 Roman, for though not a few of them believed in 
 the immortality of the soul, they never hoped for 
 a restoration of the body. It seemed to them, as 
 it often does to us, a thing incredible " that God 
 should raise the dead." The evidence of our 
 senses, the evidence of experience, is totally 
 opposed to it. " Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," that 
 is their verdict on the body; as for its "guest 
 and comrade," the soul, we can neither affirm nor 
 deny that it may continue to exist. 
 
 At the present day, as I have said, the doctrine 
 of the resurrection is a stumbling-block to many. 
 By some it is denied, by others it is explained 
 away, by still more any definite expression of 
 opinion on the subject is nervously shunned. It 
 may, then, be well that I should state at the outset 
 two matters, of which, whether we like them or 
 not, we are bound, as lovers of truth, to take account. 
 
 This is one : The resurrection of Christ was 
 regarded by St. Paul as the cardinal fact of 
 Christianity. This, we may fairly say, he made 
 
r04 LECTURE VI. 
 
 prominent in his preaching before the middle of 
 the first century, when the event itself was as 
 near to him as the Franco-German War is to our- 
 selves at this moment. This is the other matter : 
 The resurrection was not a dream of St. Paul's 
 imagination. He refers to it as to a thing commonly 
 believed among Christians. No trace of any rival 
 story can be found. The alleged conflict between 
 the Pauline and Jacobean versions of the Christian 
 history is an hypothesis unsupported by a particle 
 of real evidence, and may be dismissed as one of 
 the cloudland creations of a class of critics who 
 are more conspicuous for patient and laborious 
 research than for their inductive treatment of its 
 results. Nineteen centuries since St. Paul would 
 have said — and the words, however we may mislike 
 them, are just as true now — that Christianity with- 
 out a risen Christ is no Christianity at all. It is 
 only a system of ethics, inculcated by a life, 
 dubiously historical, which obviously led to results 
 so disastrous to the individual as to be most dis- 
 couraging to future imitators. 
 
THE RESURRECTlOl^. I05 
 
 But in regard to the historical fact of the resur- 
 rection of Christ — which, as St. Paul justly states, 
 is the only valid assurance of the future resurrec- 
 tion of individual Christians — I do not purpose 
 to say more to-day than to emphasize its impor- 
 tance. It has been a frequent subject of discussion 
 during the last few years, and there is no hope of 
 obtaining additional information. The alleged 
 facts, the difficulties on both sides, are before us, 
 and we must make up our minds. So I will not 
 attempt to add to what I have already written,^ 
 but will only reiterate (for this, I think, is some- 
 times not clearly seen) that the Gospel story is 
 either substantially true or a poetic legend, and 
 that no opportunity is given us for halting between 
 two opinions. 
 
 My remarks, then, on the present occasion, will 
 be restricted to the doctrine of the future resurrec- 
 tion of the body, to which the Church Catholic is 
 committed, not only by the so-called Nicene Creed, 
 
 » See "The Gospel of St. Paul," in "Old Truths in Modern 
 Lights," p. 187. 
 
 P 
 
06 LECTURE VI. 
 
 but also by that older and simpler symbol which 
 bears the name of the Apostles' Creed. But in regard 
 to this we must not forget that there is much more 
 room for diversity of opinion. About an event which 
 is future we can know but little. Hence we must 
 expect that the sense in which the words affirming 
 a belief in the resurrection of the body are under- 
 stood will vary greatly in different ages, for it will 
 depend upon the state of current thought. Thus 
 no interpretation of them, however popular it may 
 have been at particular epochs, can be regarded as 
 final and authoritative. 
 
 Obviously, in regard to the future resurrection 
 we cannot know more than we have been told. In 
 this case also we are obliged, as I have already 
 pointed out,^ to take as axiomatic the possibility of 
 a revelation, and to assume that one has been made. 
 But even when this has been done, the instances of 
 a resurrection from the dead, which are on record 
 in the books regarded as authentic, do not really 
 tell us much, because they occurred under circum- 
 
 1 Paffe 13. 
 
THE RESURRECTION. lO/ 
 
 stances very different from those which will attend 
 the future resurrection. We find St. Paul's own 
 belief stated with great fulness in the well-known 
 section of his First Epistle to the Corinthians.^ In 
 this he combats doubts — probably the earliest 
 doubts — which had been expressed upon the subject 
 among Christians. His words are not less remark- 
 able for their logical force than for their poetic 
 beauty. The difficulties felt more than eighteen 
 centuries since in Corinth were the same that are 
 felt in London now. They may be gathered under 
 two heads ; the one, to which I have already re- 
 ferred, " Did Christ really rise from the dead ? " 
 and the other, which I purpose to consider at 
 greater length, " How can this body be restored, 
 after it has been resolved into its constituent 
 elements, after it has been mingled with the dust, 
 dispersed by the winds and waves, incorporated 
 into we know not how many other bodies ? " This 
 question St. Paul answers by his famous analogy of 
 the seed and the plant. Let us examine it a little 
 » 1 Cor. XV. 12-58. 
 
I08 LECTURE VI. 
 
 more closely, remembering that the author makes 
 use of it as an analogy only, so that we are not en- 
 titled to insist upon a rigid interpretation of every 
 detail. It is needless for me to quote the words — 
 a poem in prose — in which St. Paul answers the 
 question, " How are the dead raised, and with what 
 manner of body do they come ? " I may assume 
 them to be known to all ; to most of us they have 
 spoken comfort and hope in our hours of deepest 
 sorrow. St. Paul, then, by his use of the analogy 
 of the seed and the plant which springs from it, to 
 represent the present body and the resurrection- 
 body, indicates something very different from the 
 ideas which have often been entertained by in- 
 dividual Christians, and to which the Church is 
 supposed to be so completely committed, that if 
 the latter be held up to scorn and ridicule, this is 
 deemed sufficient hopelessly to discredit the former. 
 What, then, are the facts, so far as known at the 
 present day, in regard to the development of a seed 
 — such as a grain of wheat — into the plant ? Stated 
 concisely, they are these. The actual germ of the 
 
THE RESURRECTION. IO9 
 
 future plant, very shortly after the fertilization of 
 the rudimentary seed, consists of an extremely 
 minute cell. This develops and increases by sub- 
 division during the process of ripening, but the 
 aggregate to the last is small in size compared 
 with the whole body of the seed, and is very rudi- 
 mentary in structure compared with the future 
 plant. In the next stage of its development — say, 
 when it is buried in the ground — the larger part of 
 the seed, that which envelops the embryo and is 
 the more conspicuous, disappears. As a matter of 
 fact, it is partly utilized in the sustenance of the 
 embryo, but to the ordinary observer it appears to 
 decompose, and be lost to sight like any other 
 residual organic structure. Then the new plant 
 protrudes from the ground, and in due course comes 
 to maturity. So, if we interpret St. Paul's analogy 
 strictly, we arrive at this result — that a consider- 
 able part of the original body (the seed) dis- 
 appears ; that almost the whole of the new body 
 (the plant), which has grown therefrom, consists of 
 totally new material, obtained and incorporated 
 
 ^-^ OF THR 
 
 uhiveesitt; 
 
no LECTURE VI. 
 
 from the earth, the water, and the air ; that an 
 actual continuity between the two is maintained by 
 means of an organism which is very small in com- 
 parison with the seed, and is extremely minute in 
 comparison with the plant which has sprung from 
 it. This, then, the existence of a small link or con- 
 tinuous element, is the very utmost which we are 
 entitled to affirm in regard to the present body and 
 the "resurrection-body" of any individual, so that 
 gibes as to the difficulty of recovering the con- 
 stituents of the former merely exhibit the ignor- . 
 ance of the mocker.^ St. Paul does not assert, and 
 those who accept his guidance do not assert, that 
 any such recovery is needful to constitute a 
 personal identity of the individual in the present 
 state of existence and in that which is to come. 
 
 In this life the constituents of our bodies are 
 constantly changing; new material is being in- 
 corporated into them, old material is being 
 
 * The author referred to a lecture on " The Corruptions of the 
 Church," delivered not long before by the Kev. Dr. Momerie, in 
 which, according to the newspaper reports, this line of argument 
 was adopted. 
 
THE RESURRECTION. Ill 
 
 excreted from them^ Between infancy and old 
 age possibly an entire, certainly a very large, 
 change takes place in the molecules of which an 
 individual body is composed, yet does this affect 
 the consciousness of personal identity ? That is 
 the one fact of which each of us is more certain 
 than of anything else. It is, then, not necessary 
 that we should assert, and the Scriptures do not 
 assert, that the resurrection-body will be formed 
 of identically the same constituent molecules as 
 the present body; nay, St. Paul's words, when 
 fairly interpreted, are really opposed to any such 
 idea. He illustrates the relation of the two 
 bodies by that of the seed and the future plant, 
 which, as we have seen, have only a very slight 
 material connection, and differ altogether in 
 appearance and capacity, the latter being able to 
 discharge many functions which are impossible to 
 the former. Moreover, after calling attention 
 to the diversity in nature, both animate and 
 inanimate, St. Paul continues, "So also is the 
 resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption ; 
 
112 LECTURE VI. 
 
 it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dis- 
 honour ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weak- 
 ness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural 
 body ; it is raised a spiritual body." In the verses 
 which follow he still further elaborates this con- 
 trast, and concludes by the emphatic assertion that 
 "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
 God;" so that a vast change must take place. 
 "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and 
 this mortal must put on immortality." Can any- 
 thing be plainer than this ? The utmost that St. 
 Paul's words, interpreted in their strictest sense, 
 can be made to imply, is the existence of some 
 very slight material connection between the one 
 body and the other — though, perhaps, even this 
 might be considered to be indirectly dispensed 
 with by the emphatic assertion of the necessity of 
 so great a change. The thing upon which St. Paul 
 insists as essential is a continuity of personal 
 consciousness. 
 
 But how is this continuity to be secured ? Shall 
 we adopt the notion which was favoured by many 
 
THE RESURRECTION. II3 
 
 Jewish teachers about the time when St. Paul 
 wrote, that there was a very small portion of the 
 body — part of one of the vertebrae — which no force 
 or agency could destroy, which remained intact 
 and imperishable, the seed, so to say, which would 
 one day germinate into the resurrection -body ?^ I 
 fear this quaint fancy could be readily proved to 
 be a fallacy, but we may find that it expresses a 
 truth, though it be in an allegorical form. 
 
 As we have already said, the essential link 
 between the two, or any number of, states of 
 embodied existence is a continuity of conscious- 
 ness. It is the knowledge that " I am I " which 
 constitutes personal identity. How, then, is the 
 continuity to be maintained after the death of the 
 body ? Is personal consciousness, as it were, for a 
 time blotted out by death ? Will the soul wake 
 up on the resurrection morn, as one wakes some- 
 timesfrom sleep, or revives from a swoon, without 
 any sense of the length of time during which, so 
 
 * The Iajlz. See the Author, "Sermons on some Questions of 
 the Day," pp. 107, 154; Edersheim, "Life and Times of Jesus," 
 bk. V. ch. i?. 
 
114 LECTURE VI. 
 
 far as we know, consciousness has been suspended ? 
 Or does consciousness continue without any 
 break ? This is a point on which very little has 
 been revealed and nothing can be discovered ; but 
 such inferences as can be drawn from the Scrip- 
 tures seem to justify us in giving an answer in 
 the affirmative to the latter question. If this be 
 so, consciousness obviously cannot be separated 
 from life. But can we conceive of life, or at any 
 rate of an individual life, as existent apart from a 
 physical basis ? I do not deny that such a thing 
 may be, any more than I should deny that the 
 waves of light are thrilling through the " black 
 concave" from myriad suns even on the darkest 
 night ; but it can only exist in my consciousness, 
 like the light, when it sets in vibration the atoms 
 of the material. Nay, I admit that there is a Life, 
 the great source and fountain of all personal life, 
 an Energy which is the origin of all forces and 
 a Power which is manifested in all matter ; but the 
 existence of this is to me an act of faith or a 
 conclusion of transcendental reasoning. If I confine 
 
THE RESURRECTION. 11$ 
 
 myself to the sphere with which my reason can 
 deal, I can conceive of individual personal life 
 only in connection with a physical basis, with 
 matter of some kind. 
 
 Now, what is the first essential of a personal 
 consciousness ? It is the recognition that a difference 
 exists between that which is of me and that which 
 is not of me— between the "I" and the "not I." 
 But by this a consciousness of boundary and limit 
 is implied. What more do we require to constitute 
 a corporeality ? We indeed attach ideas of cohesion 
 and solidity, more or less, to the word "body," but I 
 fail to see that these are necessary. A conscious- 
 ness of possession, a consciousness of boundary, 
 seem to me all that is really requisite. We admit 
 that in the present body the cohesion of its con- 
 stituents is only a temporary one; if so, the 
 magnitude of the time unit is surely a question of 
 secondary importance. The life of an ephemeral 
 insect may be as complete in its sensations as that 
 of a creature which endures for a century. The 
 question also, as it seems to me, is not afi'ected by 
 
Il6 LECTURE VI. 
 
 the physical condition of the body. Sensation 
 with us is associated with certain stages of imper- 
 fect solidity in the material of the organism. But 
 since the vibrations of light can pass alike through 
 a .'he3t of glass and through the atmosphere, they 
 might be regarded as affecting the one or the other 
 in a very similar way, supposing for a moment we 
 conceived a portion of each isolated from the rest 
 and endowed like ourselves with sensation and 
 reason — if we imagined a bit of the glass or a 
 portion of the atmosphere capable of seeing; in 
 such a case no serious difference would arise from the 
 solid condition of the one or the gaseous condition 
 of the other. Thus I find no insuperable difficulty 
 in conceiving sensation to exist in an aggregate of 
 matter whatever be its physical state. If, then, on 
 any grounds, I believe in what is commonly called 
 the immortality of the soul, and if, on scientific 
 2'rounds, I am unable to conceive of the existence of 
 life apart from a physical basis, I must suppose that 
 after the destruction of the present body a body of 
 some kind survives, invisible though it may be to 
 
THE RESURRECTION'. 11/ 
 
 mortal eye, which, like the germ in the seed, consti- 
 tutes a link between that which hath been and that 
 which shall be. 
 
 Is it not a suggestive fact that, in all matter of 
 which we know, the physical condition is a question 
 not so much of its nature as of its environment ? 
 Gold is gold, whether it be solid, molten, or vola- 
 tilized; carbonic acid is carbonic acid, whether it 
 be gas, liquid, or frozen. Granted, then, that some 
 part of this bodily frame be perishable, there is no 
 d 'priori reason why another part may not depend, 
 for its physical condition, upon its environment, 
 and a great alteration in the one be the result of a 
 great alteration in the other. 
 
 Thus neither are the Scriptures nor is the 
 Church committed to the belief that the identical 
 constituent matter of the present body will be 
 resumed at the last great change. Of the details 
 of that wondrous process we know nothing. The 
 references made to it are obviously to be under- 
 stood figuratively, not literally. We are not bound 
 either by the dreams and ideals of poets, painters, 
 
Il8 LECTURE VI. 
 
 and sculptors, or by the visions and fancies of holy 
 men and women. The whole question, apart from 
 a few simple statements, is an open one ; concern- 
 ing it we can only speculate, and the outcome of 
 this must change in the process of time. 
 
 It might, however, be said that by the line of 
 argument which we have been following we have 
 not got further than a belief which has been very 
 generally entertained, namely, that after the dis- 
 integration of the body a personality survives with 
 which a material element may be associated; for 
 in olden times it was commonly believed that the 
 shades of the dead could be seen, though they could 
 not be handled. The Christian doctrine affirms 
 that a further change awaits this personality — the 
 acquisition of a new organization — which may be 
 termed a resurrection; though, as I have shown, 
 an identity of its molecular constituents is not 
 necessary, provided only there be an identity of 
 personal consciousness. 
 
 But, as I have already pointed out, the physical 
 condition of all substances is a question of environ- 
 
THE RESURRECTION. II9 
 
 ment ; hence change in the latter may produce 
 change in" the former, or that which in one set of cir- 
 cumstances we should call disembodied^ in another — 
 speaking from the same standpoint^might become 
 embodied. We are justified in being sceptical 
 whenever we are asked to believe what is contrary 
 to experience, but it is not safe to assume that our 
 experience in this brief space of earthly life has 
 exhausted the possibilities of the universe. Indeed, 
 if experience alone were my guide, I should not 
 believe in a future life at all ; but if I am willing 
 to admit that this is more than possible, I cannot, 
 after going thus far beyond the limit which my 
 experience prescribes, draw an arbitrary line, and 
 refuse to make either room or allowance for the 
 effects of a changed environment. 
 
 It is, however, possible that in this argument we 
 may appear to be playing with the word " resurrec- 
 tion." You may say that a physical change in 
 existing material would not suflfice to satisfy the 
 words of revelation, which demand the incorporation 
 of new material. But why not? What would 
 
I20 LECTURE VL 
 
 there be so startling in the assertion ? In what is 
 the body of every living creature at this moment 
 occupied ? In converting that which is not alive 
 into that which is alive. My body, your body, 
 takes in a quickening grasp the protoplasm which 
 has lived, even the mineral salts which have not 
 lived ; it incorporates them into its structure. The 
 process, indeed, is slow ; it is balanced by one of 
 disintegration and decay. But it is a fact, upon 
 which depends our existence in this world as living 
 sentient beings. By this process our present bodies 
 have been built up ; it was begun by a tiny germ. 
 All the thought, all the ingenuity of man — the 
 eloquence of a Demosthenes, the poetry of a 
 Browning, the reason of a Newton — were once 
 potentially present in a few cells of the simplest 
 structure. This you admit; this, because it is of 
 common occurrence, seems no miracle. Why, then, 
 call us credulous when we believe that from the 
 germinal self, after the destruction of the present 
 body, an organism may arise far more perfect than 
 this, and are not startled by the assertion that a 
 
THE RESURRECTION'. 121 
 
 process, similar to one which now occupies years, 
 may be accomplished " in a moment, in the twink- 
 ling of an eye," when the old order passeth away 
 and God makes all things new. In olden time, 
 when the butterfly spread its new-born wings to 
 the summer sun, men beheld in it, as in a figure, 
 the completed history of the individual life. True, 
 the analogy is an imperfect one ; but it may well 
 bid us pause before we insist that in the present 
 we have attained to the utmost limits of our being, 
 and deny the possibility of future change and 
 development. 
 
 The body which shall be must differ greatly 
 from the present one. In the eternal order there 
 will be neither waste to repair nor destruction to 
 arrest. The great enemy will not need to be com- 
 bated by nutrition nor eluded by reproduction: thus 
 most — in a sense, aU — the present organization would 
 be useless and superfluous, and so is not likely to 
 reappear. But on this point it is idle to speculate. 
 What we shall be, we know not. It is enough to 
 be assured that in the better land there will be no 
 
122 LECTURE VI. 
 
 more weariness, but the delight of work which is 
 not labour ; no more pain, but the joy of perfect 
 life; no more sorrow, but the bliss of unbroken 
 peace and eternal love. 
 
 The resurrection of the body is no part of the 
 order of nature, as we know it. Obviously it 
 cannot be, but I have endeavoured to show that, 
 so far from being wholly discordant from this 
 order, we can recognize in it certain analogies 
 even when St. Paul's words are interpreted with 
 some strictness. Certainly it is a belief which we 
 should not abandon with a light heart. Men some- 
 times talk as if the nature of our expectation was 
 unimportant — whether it were of a disembodied 
 existence (to use the ordinary phrase), or of a 
 change which would develop the embryo, if I may 
 so call it, into an organization far more perfect 
 than this present one. It is not unimportant, and 
 the general verdict of the human instinct supports 
 my assertion. A belief in a continued personal 
 existence is far older than Christianity. But when 
 it signified merely the continuance of a shadowy 
 
THE RESURRECTIOISr. 123 
 
 " something " — which was the general expectation 
 — did it satisfy ? The wisest of philosophers could 
 only say, "I go to die and you to live, but 
 whether is better God alone knoweth ; " ^ while the 
 pages of Homer and Virgil ^ tell you what a poor 
 substitute even the joys of the Elysian fields 
 seemed for the solid realities of a life on earth. 
 
 But even these joys are only dreams. Put them 
 aside. Put aside also the Christian hope of a 
 future resurrection, and what yet remains ? A 
 choice between two opinions. Either the spirit 
 may return to the God Who gave it, in the sense 
 that the tiny portion of Divine energy, localized for 
 a time in an aggregate of material particles, once 
 more returns to the Great Source — the drop falls 
 back into the fountain, the river is emptied into the 
 ocean — and though the soul cannot be said to die, 
 all personal consciousness, all individuality, is lost ; 
 or else there is nothingness ; the latter, speaking 
 from the standpoint of science, is the more pro- 
 bable, is the only reasonable alternative if we 
 
 » Socrates. « « Odysfcey," bk. xi. ; " ^utid," bk. vi. , 
 
124 LECTURE VI. 
 
 reject the voice of revelation. This, then, is the end : 
 " To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; " to vanish 
 like the baseless fabric of a vision, and "leave not 
 a rack behind." If this life be all, we of all God's 
 creatures are dealt with most hardly. We have 
 wearied ourselves in vain, we have worn ourselves 
 out in the pursuit of unattainable ideals. " Let us 
 alone ! " we may well exclaim with the Lotos- 
 eaters — 
 
 " Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 
 To war with evil ? Is there any peace 
 In ever climbing up the climbing wave ? 
 All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 
 In silence ; ripen, fall, and cease : 
 Give US long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.*' 
 
 This is one alternative. Hear now the other : 
 " Jesus said, . . . Thy brother shall rise again. . . . 
 I am the Resurrection, and the Life : he that 
 believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live : 
 and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall 
 never die." In which creed shall we trust, in 
 which hope shall we labour, in which expectation 
 shall we die ? 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 "Except a man be born of water and pf the Spirit, he cannot 
 enter into the kingdom of God." — St. John iii. 5. 
 
 " Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal 
 life ; and I will raise him up at the last day." — St. John vi. 54. 
 
 Few indeed are the societies what are not dis- 
 tinguished by a ceremony of initiation and a 
 symbol of membership ; the one is essential as a 
 preliminary to the other. In each there must be 
 some outward form, in each there is some hidden 
 meaning. The form may be of the simplest, such as 
 the signature of a name, or the participation in a 
 common meal ; but the one indicates submission to 
 rule, however slight it may be; the other is a 
 privilege enjoyed only by members. 
 
 Sacraments occupy this position in the Church 
 
126 LECTURE VIL 
 
 of Christ. The name is older than Christianity. 
 The Latin word sacramentum denoted primarily 
 a deposit — a sum paid into court, as we should 
 now say, at an early stage, by the disputants in a 
 lawsuit. This deposit, in the case of the loser, 
 was forfeited and applied to certain sacred uses. 
 The word also signified the military oath which 
 was taken by a recruit after enlistment. As the 
 earliest Christian' terminology had a Greek origin, 
 sacramentuTn was not used in an ecclesiastical 
 sense till after Apostolic times, when it was 
 taken as the equivalent of /mvaTiipiov (mystery) in 
 the other language. Employed at first, like this 
 word, in a wide sense, it was gradually restricted, 
 till at last, in most of the Reformed Churches, it has 
 been applied to two rites only — that of initiation, 
 and that which is the privilege of full membership. 
 The restriction is a question of definition. All, 
 however, will agree that Baptism and the Supper 
 of the Lord claim the highest place among sacra- 
 ments, and most would admit that they alone 
 fulfil the definition of a sacrament which is 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 12/ 
 
 adopted by our own Church, namel}'', that it is "an 
 outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual 
 grace given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, 
 as a means whereby we receive the same, and a 
 pledge to assure us thereof." To these two, there- 
 fore, I shall limit myself on the present occasion. 
 
 Unhappily the prediction, " I came not to bring 
 peace upon earth, but a sword," has proved no less 
 true in regard to the sacraments than in other 
 respects. The significance of these rites, apparently 
 so simple, has been a battle-ground of opposing 
 parties. The water of Baptism has kindled rather 
 than quenched the fire of discord; the most ex- 
 pressive symbol of Christian union has become the 
 most conspicuous sign of Christian dissociation. 
 
 Why this has happened, it is not difficult to 
 understand. Every religious system, every attempt 
 to bridge the gulf between the finite and the 
 infinite, exhibits, more or less, a conflict between 
 two antagonistic ideas. These are the magical, 
 which in practice, if not in theory, makes the 
 shaman, or wizard-priest, the master of the Divinity ; 
 
128 LECTURE VIl. 
 
 the spiritual, whicli makes him the servant or 
 interpreter. In the process of revelation, whether 
 indirect or direct, the one idea is replaced by the 
 other; the centre of force is, as it were, shifted 
 from the thing created to its Creator. 
 
 The history of Christianity, like that of Judaism, 
 is the history of a struggle between these irrecon- 
 cilable tendencies. The spiritual, on the whole, has 
 prevailed over the magical, but the light is waged 
 with varying fortunes. Positions are taken and 
 retaken ; the advance is slow, and it may be that 
 the victory will not be won before the day of 
 earth's ?eons be ended. 
 
 In discussions relating to sacramental doctrines, 
 scientific methods or scientific habits of thought 
 might seem at first sight to be out of place. They 
 might be deemed excluded by the phrase "a 
 spiritual grace," which forms an integral part of 
 our definition. But, as I venture to think, both in 
 these questions and in those which we have yet 
 to consider, they can play a more important part 
 than many would be willing to acknowledge. This 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 129 
 
 I affirm for the following reasons : First, that in 
 all scientific investigations clearness of thought 
 and accuracy of expression, as far as possible, are 
 deemed to be of the highest importance. But in 
 many theological controversies, and especially 
 those relating to the sacraments, which at the 
 present time are distracting our own Church, an 
 onlooker cannot fail to be struck with the difficulty 
 of ascertaining what the persons who claim to be the 
 supporters of high sacramental views really mean 
 by what they say or what they do. The doctrine 
 of Rome we know, whether we like it or not; 
 the doctrine of the Church of England, though 
 conveyed by expressions which sometimes admit 
 of more than one interpretation, is, at any rate, 
 very different from that of Rome; but in the 
 present disputes it seems hopeless to ascertain 
 whether the real question at issue is one of 
 aesthetics and archaeology, or of doctrines which 
 are much nearer to those of the Roman than to 
 those of the English Communion. 
 
 This is another reason. Experiment, which is 
 
 s 
 
130 LECTURE VII. 
 
 a process strictly scientific, has its place in ethical 
 theology. " By their fruits ye shall know them " 
 is not less true of theories than of men. Time 
 puts them to a test, and history records the results, 
 of which man is bound to make an inductive use. 
 If a certain dogma has been always the parent of 
 superstition, if particular kinds of authority have 
 been always abused, it is in the highest degree 
 improbable that the one can be true or the other 
 legitimate. 
 
 Questions like these must be investigated in a 
 spirit strictly scientific, without passion, fear, or 
 favour, with no other aim than to arrive at truth, 
 whether it accord or not with preconceived 
 opinions. This, however, if we may judge from 
 experience, is not usually the spirit in which 
 theological investigations are undertaken. 
 
 There is yet another reason. In all questions 
 our last appeal is to the words of Scripture. But 
 it is often necessary, in order to understand these, 
 to enter fully into the thoughts of the age when 
 the revelation was made ; otherwise we may be 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. \%\ 
 
 startled by phrases which, nineteen or more 
 centuries since, would have seemed quite natural ; 
 we may construe literally words which then, as 
 a matter of course, would have been understood 
 figuratively. Thus Christian theology cannot be 
 dissociated from the history of heathen thought 
 and even of heathen superstitions, and the light 
 of truth becomes more clear by the very contrast 
 with the shades of error. 
 
 In this spirit, then, I shall venture to make a 
 few remarks on the views which have been held 
 as to the two great sacraments. The question 
 which lies really at the root of all controversies 
 may be stated bluntly — perhaps, to the minds of 
 some, even offensively — in these words : Are they 
 in any way magic rites ? This is what is really 
 meant by theologians when they ask. Are the 
 sacraments means of grace ex ojpere operato, from 
 the mere fact of their administration ? In seeking 
 to answer this question we must look not only at 
 the history of their institution, but also at various 
 general considerations, such as the state of thought 
 
132 LECTURE VII. 
 
 at that time. It cannot be settled by the quota- 
 tion either of isolated texts from Scripture, or of 
 extracts from ecclesiastical authors. It is neces- 
 sary to be sure that we understand the former 
 right, and can trust the latter. The opinion of 
 a good man who lived — say a thousand years ago 
 — is not on that account of any more value than 
 that of a similar man who is now living, unless we 
 can show that he had better means of arriving at 
 the truth. Authority has its place both in theology 
 and in science, but it must not be allowed to pre- 
 clude investigation in the former any more than 
 in the latter. 
 
 Time does not permit of my attempting to trace 
 out the effects of the Greek Mysteries in develop- 
 ing the outward ceremonial and the inner meaning 
 of the Christian sacraments, but, as I stated in an 
 earlier discourse,^ the influence, for good as well 
 as for evil, of Greek philosophy upon Christian 
 theology — a subject which has been investigated 
 with so much learning? bv the late Dr. Hatch in 
 Lecture I. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 133 
 
 his " Hibbert Lectures " ^ — must never be for- 
 gotten. 
 
 First, then, in regard to the sacrament of 
 Baptism. Is it anything more than an initiatory- 
 ceremony ? The view of the Church of England is 
 expressed in a conspicuously cautious and guarded 
 statement in the twenty-seventh Article, from 
 which I imagine few would be found to differ. 
 But the Jews were not singular in augmenting the 
 law by tradition. Many Churchmen also desire a 
 Mishnah as a hedge about the Torah, so that 
 baptismal regeneration has been a frequent subject 
 of heated controversy. On the last occasion, which 
 some of us can remember, the Church of England 
 was in danger of being rent asunder, though, as 
 was subsequently remarked, neither of the dispu- 
 tants had defined what he meant by the term.^ 
 
 " Baptism," it has been well said,^ " is the oldest 
 
 * I do not mean to express agreement with every conclusion at 
 which the author arrives. 
 
 2 Remark by Bishop Thirlwall, quoted by Dean Stanley in 
 *' Christian Institutions," p. 10. 
 
 » Idem, p. 6. 
 
134 LECTURE VIL 
 
 ceremonial ordinance that Christianity possesses; 
 it is the only one which is inherited from Judaism." 
 Immersion of the body in water — and in olden 
 times this, not aspersion, was the mode of baptism 
 — is naturally symbolical and suggestive of 
 purification. This rite, so simple yet so significant, 
 was appointed by the Saviour as the mode of 
 initiation into the ranks of His followers. The 
 plunge beneath the water was the symbol of a 
 passage from a state of sin to a state of holiness, 
 of a new birth by the action of the Holy Spirit. 
 But though Jesus said, " Except a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of God," the words do not necessarily 
 affirm that the rite, of itself, has any efficacy. He 
 had just told Nicodemus that a new birth is 
 needful for entrance into the kingdom of God. 
 The phrase, apparently, was understood by the 
 hearer in a literal sense; it was intended, so the 
 Lord explains, to indicate a spiritual change. Now 
 that baptism in infancy has become the general 
 practice, we are apt to forget that in early times 
 
THE SACRAMENTS, 135 
 
 the sacrament was usually received by those who 
 were fully conscious of its significance and of their 
 own responsibilities. It completed and rewarded 
 a period, often long, of probation and preparation. 
 In such case, to say that the rite was a means of 
 special grace was not to attribute to it any magical 
 power ; it was to say no more than that for special 
 ends special means are ordained. Christ has 
 founded a Church ; He has appointed a particular 
 mode of joining it, has promised a special grace to 
 its members. It were, then, the height of pre- 
 sumption in man, when his Master's charge is clear 
 and definite, to say, " No, I will demand a grace on 
 my own terms." Every society has its rules, and 
 the advantages which it afibrds are conditional on 
 compliance with these. But can the ceremony of 
 itself work a change in the nature ? We need not 
 hesitate to answer in the negative. On the one 
 side, to speak figuratively, is the faith of man ; on 
 the other, the Spirit of God. The rite does but 
 complete their union, and set, as it were, the seal 
 to an agreement which has been for some time in 
 
136 LECTURE VII. 
 
 preparation. But, it may be asked, if this be so, 
 is not the baptism of infants indefensible ? We 
 may reply that the sacrament is administered to 
 them because it appears to have been the practice 
 from the first to regard the household as repre- 
 sented by its adult members, and to receive the 
 children together with the parents. Thus it seems 
 natural to admit the children of Christian fathers 
 and mothers into the Church of their parents at 
 as early an age as possible. We may go even 
 further, and say that the admission of the infant, in 
 consequence of the desire and faith of others, bears 
 witness to the solidarity of the Christian body; 
 for in it, though the wants and responsibilities 
 of the individual are never overlooked, it is always 
 specially impressed upon him that he is one of a 
 vast brotherhood, of the Church militant and the 
 Church triumphant, the mystical body of Christ. 
 
 I could not, however, affirm that the word 
 "regeneration" is to be understood in the same 
 sense in the case of an adult and in that of an 
 infant. What in the latter is in the germ, in the 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 3/ 
 
 former is in the flower. The baptized infant has 
 been made a member of the Church of Christ. 
 Man has so far done what is his part. How the 
 germ of life may develop, how the Holy Spirit 
 may work, we will not curiously inquire. What 
 might happen, did the infant die unbaptized, is 
 not for us to determine. This only I will con- 
 fidently afiirm, that no fancied logical necessity, no 
 possible interpretation of any obscure passage in 
 Scripture, shall ever shake my trust in the justice 
 and in the love of God. 
 
 In regard to the Eucharist opinions are yet 
 more varied. It is impossible in a few minutes 
 to discuss a controversy which for centuries has 
 exercised the thoughts of earnest seekers after God. 
 I shall, therefore, content myself with trying to put 
 before you one or two ideas which have been 
 brought, as it appears to me, into stronger relief 
 by the investigations of our own time. 
 
 First, then, as regards the view maintained by 
 the Church of Rome, commonly called Transub- 
 stantiation. I pass over the grosser forms of the 
 
 T 
 
13B LECTURE VII. 
 
 doctrine, which would be repudiated by the more 
 thoughtful members of that Church — though the 
 fact that they exist, and have been dealt with 
 tenderly rather than sternly by its authorities, 
 indicates that the dogma has a dangerous side — 
 and content myself with noticing what I believe to 
 be a fair statement of Roman Catholic opinion. It 
 is that in the Eucharist the accidents of the bread 
 and wine remain unchanged, but the substance of 
 them is changed into the substance of the risen 
 body of Christ. This definition, however, postu- 
 lates that in an inanimate object— for brevity, let 
 us say bread — there is, apart from its accidents, 
 namely, taste, smell, consistency, form, chemical 
 composition, and- the like, a something — the sub- 
 stance or hypostasis — namely, that which makes it 
 what it is. But is this more than a metaphysical 
 figment ? Is there any such thing as a pre- 
 existent concept of bread ? We apply the term 
 to a certain aggregate of accidents ; we extend or 
 contract it, according to circumstances. Let us 
 take an illustration. The pillars in a building 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 39 
 
 within a furlong of this place are granite.^ But 
 what is granite ? Simply a term which connotes a 
 certain group of minerals, with certain mutual 
 relations. The one and the other admit of modi- 
 fication within limits, but these limits are settled 
 by the necessities of thought at each particular 
 epoch, and we all know that cases exist where 
 it is doubtful whether the rock ought to bear this 
 name. The hypostasis of granite has a relative, not 
 a real existence. It is oiAy the epitomized expres- 
 sion of a group of accidents. Suppose a distinction 
 made among these, and a name aifixed to the part 
 separated, a new hypostasis has not been called 
 into existence, but only a new connotation invented. 
 
 Thus the doctrine of transubstantiation appears 
 to me to be founded upon a fallacy — that of giving 
 personality to a thought, concreteness to an abstract 
 symbol. 
 
 Next I may observe — and this applies not to 
 the Church of Rome only — that to assert the actual 
 presence of the risen body of the Saviour in the 
 
 » Referring to the Carlton Club in Pall Mall. 
 
146 Lecture vii. 
 
 eucharistic elements (using words in their ordinary 
 sense) seems like a contradiction in terms. The 
 word " body " in our connotation appears to imply 
 this limitation — that it cannot be in two places 
 at once. Yet either this is asserted by certain 
 doctrines of the Eucharist, or a something is meant 
 to which the word body cannot be applied. The 
 difficulty is not eluded by asserting that we are 
 speaking of a spiritual body. An adjective cannot 
 deprive a substantive of its inherent qualities. To 
 be accurate, we should say that the Spirit of Christ 
 is present in the eucharistic elements, not His 
 spiritual body. 
 
 But, obviously, the doctrine of the Eucharist 
 must be sought in the words of Scripture. Here, 
 then, we have to ask first what the words actually 
 were, and secondly, what light is thrown upon 
 their meaning by contemporary thought, so far as 
 we can ascertain it. The opinions of later writers 
 have an historical value and a psychological interest, 
 but they have no binding force. The opinion on 
 such a matter of the men^ say, of the ninth century 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. \\^ 
 
 is of no more value than that of the men of the 
 eighteenth century. For questions of fact (and in 
 these direct statements are included) we must go 
 back to contemporary evidence ; for questions of 
 interpretation it is the business of each age to 
 co-ordinate those of all its predecessors. 
 
 The words of institution, used by our Lord 
 Himself, are reported in the Synoptic Gospels and 
 by St. Paul. Briefly and in effect they are 
 these : Of the bread the Lord said, " Take, eat ; 
 this is My body." Of the wine, according to St. 
 Matthew and St. Mark, " This is My blood of the 
 covenant, which is shed ; " or, according to St. Luke 
 and St. Paul, ''This is the new covenant in My 
 blood." On indirect references to the subject in 
 other parts of the Apostolic writings we need not 
 dwell, because obviously their meaning will depend 
 on that of the above statements. 
 
 Here one may remark that the difference in the 
 rendering of the second clause is adverse to a very 
 literal interpretation of either. Suppose a number 
 of expressions are used of the same thing, of which 
 
142 LECTURE VII. 
 
 most may be either literal or figurative, but one 
 must be figurative ; then the latter, of necessity, 
 carries with it all the rest. Again, we may observe 
 that when these words were used the Saviour had 
 not risen from the dead, had not even died upon 
 the cross, so that His body was then as the body 
 of other men. This fact also seems adverse to a 
 literal interpretation of the phrases. 
 
 But there is one passage which greatly helps 
 towards an understanding of these mysterious 
 words. In the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel 
 a discourse is recorded in which the Lord reveals 
 Himself as the " Bread of heaven," and concludes 
 by stating, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
 man, and drink His blood, ye have not life in 
 yourselves. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh 
 My blood, hath eternal life." There is more to 
 the same effect, which it is needless for me to 
 quote; but you will remember that the phrases 
 were at once misunderstood, and that in regard to 
 them the Lord said to His disciples, ** It is the 
 spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. I43 
 
 the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, 
 and they are life." 
 
 It has been debated, I know, whether these 
 words have any reference to the Eucharist. 
 Obviously they have a wider import, but I cannot 
 doubt that they include it. 
 
 To understand their meaning we must enter as 
 fully as possible into the thoughts of the past, and 
 in this we have been greatly aided by the compara- 
 tive researches into ancient religions which have 
 been pursued with so much success during the last 
 quarter of a century. These are dreaded by some ; 
 to me they seem very helpful towards the right 
 understanding of revelation ; for, so far as we can 
 discover, it is God's pleasure to lead mankind from 
 darkness to light by using the materials which 
 are ready to hand, to employ in the process of 
 education current ideas and familiar thouofhts, 
 purging them from error, correcting their imper- 
 fections, making prominent the good — working, in 
 a word, from the lowland towards the height, from 
 the natural towards the spiritual. 
 
144 LECTURE VII. 
 
 What, then, appears to have been in olden time 
 the essential idea in all sacrificial rites which 
 involved the death of a victim ? Not so much 
 propitiation, though that was a very ancient 
 notion ; not so much expiation, though that some- 
 times was very prominent ; but a communion of 
 the worshipper and the God through the blood. 
 ♦'The blood is the life" is an idea older than 
 Judaism. That to drink the blood and to eat the 
 flesh was to share in the life, is a world-wide idea. 
 It was the inner meaning of every sacrificial feast. 
 By it the bond of union between the God and the 
 worshipper was strengthened, for they became 
 united, as we say, by a tie of blood.^ Time does 
 not permit me to enter into any detail on this 
 interesting question — the history of the sacrificial 
 idea; I must content myself with stating the 
 general result. This, then, enables us to perceive 
 the underlying principle both in Judaic ritual and 
 in natural religions, of which the Lord, we may 
 
 * See especially Eobertson Smith, " Religion of the Semites," 
 lects. vi., viii., ix., xi. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS, I45 
 
 venture to say, sought to avail Himself. It was 
 as though He said, " You must indeed be partakers 
 of a higher life, that which I bring unto you. The 
 ritual of the past has been to some extent mis- 
 leading, because it is liable to be understood too 
 literally. My sacrifice fulfils all that sacrifices 
 hitherto have really typified. Take yet simpler 
 emblems — things without life instead of living 
 creatures; let them become the embodiments of 
 spiritual truths, the channel of spiritual realities." 
 Once more, as in all progressive revelations, there 
 was a consecration of the simplest means to the 
 highest ends. 
 
 Are these symbols only ? In one sense they are 
 nothing more ; yet in another th^y are the means 
 whereby an energy, which is behind and beneath 
 the forces and the forms of the earth, is communi- 
 cated to one of its creatures ; quickening that with 
 celestial fire, as the dull carbon glows at the 
 passage of the electric current; but they become 
 what they are by the faith of the recipient and 
 the operation of the Spirit of God. So it is in 
 
 U 
 
146 LECTURE V2I. 
 
 prayer; it is not the place or the form of words 
 which avails, but the cry of the soul. So it is in 
 all that quickens the spiritual life. Eites and 
 ordinances have their value — man, being as he is, 
 cannot dispense with them ; but he must remember 
 that they are only steps in the ladder by which 
 his soul ascends from earth to heaven, so that the 
 top will not be reached more quickly by lingering 
 to gaze at them. 
 
 Thus, in every sacramental ordinance, the ritual 
 is unimportant, except so far as it is favourable to a 
 reverential expression of prayer and thanksgiving. 
 It may — to some extent it must — vary with the 
 thoughts and the habits of the age, so that a 
 ceremony is not good simply because it is ancient, 
 and any one that favours the idea of incantation 
 is rightly disapproved as misleading and dangerous. 
 Nothing of this kind is sanctioned by the Church of 
 England in its authorized formulse. In the twenty- 
 eighth Article a number of scriptural phrases are 
 summed up by the statement that "the body 
 of Christ is taken and eaten in the Supper only 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 147 
 
 after a heavenly and spiritual manner, and that 
 the means whereby it is received is faith." The 
 words " heavenly and spiritual " remove the com- 
 munion altogether from the order of thino^s 
 sensible. A presence of Christ, a communication 
 of Christ, there is, in and by the eucharistic 
 elements ; but where is there not a presence, where 
 is there not a communion, where the heart is 
 expectant of Him, where the soul longs after Him ? 
 Not alone in the pillared aisle and beneath the 
 vaulted roof of buildings made with hands; not 
 alone amid the melody of music and the voices of 
 ministering choristers ; not alone when the smoke 
 of incense rises and the priests bend low before 
 the altar; but there also, in the stillness of the 
 forest shades ; there also, where the breeze blows 
 soft over the meadow-flowers ; there also, where 
 the clouds drift lightly among the silent peaks. 
 Nay, but not only there ; even in the busy haunts 
 of men ; even in the hurry of the daily work ; 
 even amid the roar of the crowded street. Christ 
 is there, whenever and wherever the soul longs 
 
148 LECTURE VIL 
 
 after Him. Communion with Him we need, if we 
 would escape from the doom of all earthly things. 
 If the soul is to live, it must be by the life which 
 Jesus gives ; if the body is to rise again, it must be 
 by the power of His resurrection. This is a great 
 mystery — that Pantheism which is really Chris- 
 tian ; but grander far than all the circumstance of 
 magic rites is the tremulous expectancy of the 
 soul, as it awaits in silent awe the incoming of 
 the Spirit of God, the wondrous operation of 
 mighty spiritual forces. These thrill through 
 nature and through man, till at last that which is 
 corruptible doth put on incorruption, and that 
 which is mortal doth put on immortality. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 " If he refuse to hear the Church also, let him be unto thee as 
 the Gentile and the publican. Verily I say unto you, What 
 things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : 
 and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in 
 heaven."— St. Matt, xviii. 17, 18 (R.V.). 
 
 In the present day we hear very much about the 
 Church and Church authority — much more, indeed, 
 than did our grandfathers. Perhaps they heard too 
 little ; perhaps we hear too much. Whether this 
 be so we will not at present seek to determine, 
 but we will try to ascertain as far as possible the 
 meaning of the terms. A process this which is 
 always important, for to many minds a sonorous 
 word or an impressive phrase presents great 
 attraction, and becomes a convenient cloak for 
 haziness of thought. A liability to this hypnotic 
 
150 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 influence is so marked a weakness in the present 
 age, that it would not surprise me if phrase- 
 worship were reckoned by future historians as one 
 of our national idolatries at the close of the nine- 
 teenth century. Science does not wholly escape 
 it; politics are saturated with it; Christian societies 
 are all more or less infected by it. Among certain 
 of the last we hear, in sermons, speeches, news- 
 papers, books, so much of the Church and Church 
 authority, that we are bound to endeavour to 
 ascertain the meaning. An effort to arrive at it 
 inductively from the above-named sources soon 
 lands us in perplexity. Sometimes it means a 
 decision of a small local council in bygone ages, 
 not seldom that of a little coterie at the present 
 day ; sometimes it means the opinion of an ancient 
 author, more conspicuous for zeal than for learning ; 
 not seldom that of the editor of a partisan journal, 
 who has no more right to represent even the Church 
 of England than have I to speak for her Majesty's 
 ministers. 
 
 It will, then, be my endeavour, in this concluding 
 
THE CHURCH. 151 
 
 lecture, to answer — though it must be in the barest 
 outline — from the authorized formulae of the Church 
 of England, these two questions : (1) What the 
 Church is. (2) What authority the Church claims. 
 The word " Church," perhaps I should explain, 
 signifies the Lord's house, and it is used when it 
 designates a body of Christians, and not an actual 
 building, as the equivalent of the Greek word 
 Ecdesia. This signifies an assembly selected or 
 summoned for a special, generally a legislative, 
 purpose. In this sense the word is much older 
 than Christianity, and was in common use at 
 Athens. My remarks also, it may be well to add, 
 refer to the Church on earth, or to the Church 
 militant, as it is frequently called, and must often, 
 for obvious reasons, be restricted to that branch 
 of it to which we belong. 
 
 In the nineteenth Article we shall find an answer 
 to the question, " What is the Church ? " This may 
 be regarded as the deliberate opinion of the Church 
 of England, for which alone she is responsible as 
 a body corporate. It runs thus: "The visible 
 
152 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, 
 in the which the pure Word of God is preached, 
 and the sacraments be duly ministered according 
 to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of 
 necessity are requisite to the same." Obviously 
 there are at least three phrases in this definition 
 on which almost endless disputes might be founded ; 
 namely, what is a faithful man ? what is the pure 
 Word of God? what is dv£ ministration of the 
 sacraments ? These, however, we may avoid in all 
 fairness, so far as our present purpose is concerned, 
 by stating that it has never been the practice of 
 the Church of England to favour the more rigid 
 and exclusive interpretation of an epithet or a 
 phrase, and that, as elsewhere shown, she does not 
 deny to congregations, from which she is even 
 compelled to separate, the right of membership in 
 the Church of Christ. 
 
 Next, what authority, in the same formulary, is 
 claimed for the Church ? It is affirmed, clearly 
 though indirectly, that no Church is infallible, for 
 it is said that even General Councils may err, and 
 
THE CHURCH. I 53 
 
 have erred.^ This admits that the authority is 
 constitutional, not despotic. But the Church 
 claims power "to decree rites or ceremonies, and 
 authority in controversies of faith." ^ This, how- 
 ever, is immediately safeguarded by a passage 
 which limits the authority by the Scriptures. The 
 Church must ordain nothing contrary to them ; 
 must explain no one part of them so as to make 
 it contradictory to another, and must not enforce 
 anything which is not found in them as an article 
 of faith necessary to salvation. The Church also 
 claims power to appoint, or ordain, persons to 
 preach in public and to minister the sacraments 
 in the congregation,^ the power being exercised 
 "by men who have public authority given unto 
 them in the congregation to call and send ministers 
 into the Lord's vineyard." On this I will only 
 remark that while it is obvious how the latter 
 words are interpreted in practice by the Church 
 of England, she does not condemn explicitly other 
 
 » See Article XXI. ^ Article XX. 
 
 ' Article XXIII. 
 
154 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 congregations of which the customs differ from her 
 own.^ 
 
 From the above statements it is clear that our 
 Church does not claim, and the Church ought not to 
 claim, more authority than is coilferred upon it by 
 the Scriptures. To what, then, does this amount ? 
 The controversy turns mainly on the meaning of the 
 words which I have quoted in my text. We find 
 them, or words similar to them, used on three 
 occasions. These are : the personal promise to 
 St. Peter, from which this authority to bind and 
 to loose is sometimes called "the power of the 
 keys ;" the promise to the ten Apostles after the 
 Resurrection, related in St. John's Gospel; and 
 the promise to the Church or congregation — that 
 is, to the whole body of Christians — which I have 
 already read.^ In order to save time we will speak 
 mainly of the last, as being the most inclusive 
 promise. What, then, is the meaning of the phrases 
 " to bind " and " to loose," applied in this case 
 
 1 Cf. Article XXXIV. 
 
 2 Matt. xvi. 19; John xx. 22, 23; Matt, xviii. 17, 18. 
 
THE CHURCH. 1 55 
 
 and in that of St. Peter to things or precepts, in 
 the case of the ten Apostles to remitting and 
 retaining of personal sins ? 
 
 One thing we may be sure they cannot mean — 
 they give no power of establishing an arbitrary 
 standard of right and wrong. Right will be still 
 right, and wrong will be still wrong, even though 
 a Church or the whole Church were to declare to 
 the contrary. Either a tacit limitation must be 
 supposed, or a promise of infallibility be assumed, 
 for which we cannot find any warrant elsewhere. 
 But in reality any difficulty as to the meaning of 
 the words is of subsequent origin. When first 
 used they would be readily understood. Let me 
 quote the words of a very competent authority : ^ 
 " No terms were in more constant use in Rabbinic 
 canon law than those of 'binding' and 'loosing.* 
 The words are the literal translation of the Hebrew 
 equivalents — asar^ which means to bind in the 
 sense of prohibiting ; and hittir, which means to 
 
 * Ederelieim, "Life and Times of Jesus,'* bk. iii. ch. xxvii. 
 (vol. ii. pp. 84, 85). 
 
156 LECTURE VIIL 
 
 loose in the sense of permitting." They refer 
 " simply to things or acts, prohibiting or else per- 
 mitting them ; " that is to say, they confer — as I 
 have heard it well expressed — " the power of 
 making bye-laws/'^ This power, inherent in all 
 societies, but always limited by the charter or 
 foundation-deed, here receives a solemn sanction. 
 Penalties may be enforced, again within limits, for 
 the breach of these bye-laws, and wilful contumacy 
 may be punished by expulsion. If the Church 
 has forbidden that which ought to be forbidden, 
 then exclusion from the Church militant on earth 
 means exclusion from the Church triumphant in 
 heaven. If, on the contrary, she has bound that 
 which ought not to be bound, the sin of setting 
 up a false standard of right and wrong lies at 
 her door. The individual conscience must be the 
 ultimate judge ; but it must be remembered that 
 opposition to the body corporate involves the 
 gravest responsibilities, and can only be justified 
 
 * In conversation, by a friend, now a professor in the Univorsity 
 of Cambridge. 
 
THE CHURCH. I 5/ 
 
 when a man, after calm deliberation, is convinced 
 that bye-laws have been enacted which are in 
 violation of the charter. In short, these words 
 confer exactly the same kind of power which is 
 possessed by all societies; they involve similar 
 responsibilities, both as to the individual and as to 
 the society, and they do not exclude the action 
 of the protestant or, the reformer. 
 
 But it may be thought that the power conferred 
 by the words spoken to the ten Apostles, after the 
 Resurrection, goes much further : " Whose soever 
 sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and 
 whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." 
 On this point I will not express any opinion of my 
 own, but quote that of Bishop Westcott/ "As [the 
 former] promise gave the power of laying down 
 the terms of fellowship, so this gives a living and 
 abiding power to declare the fact and the conditions 
 of forgiveness. The conditions, as interpreted by 
 the Apostolic practice, no less than by the circum- 
 stances of the case, refer to character. The gift 
 
 * Gospel according to St. John, xx. 23, wite. 
 
158 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 and the refusal of the gift are regarded in relation 
 to classes, and not in relation to individuals. ... It 
 is impossible to contemplate an absolute individual 
 exercise of the power of ' retaining ; ' so far it is 
 contrary to the scope of the passage to seek in it a 
 direct authority for the absolute individual exercise 
 of the * remitting.' " 
 
 No despotic power, then, is vested in either 
 individuals or community ; the gift of the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven does not permit bishop or 
 priest, individually or collectively, arbitrarily to 
 exclude from the kingdom of heaven in its wider 
 sense. To claim this power is an arrogant and 
 audacious usurpation; to concede it a base and 
 immoral superstition. See ye to it, for such a 
 power is claimed in parts of the Church of Christ ; 
 it is claimed nowadays by some in our own Com- 
 munion. See ye to it. Our forefathers suffered 
 and died for liberty of conscience ; are we to be led 
 back into bondage because we are too weak and 
 sentimental to think for ourselves ? 
 
 Further, it must not be forgotten that the power 
 
THE CHURCH. 1 59 
 
 to bind and to loose belongs, according to the text, 
 to the whole ChUrch. But it is usurped by one 
 class, the clergy. How this came about, that it 
 was almost inevitable, is a matter of history. 
 Circumstances developed a dominant class — I had 
 almost said a dominant caste — in the Church. It 
 became an assumption that in matters spiritual it 
 was the duty of the ecclesiastics to rule, of the 
 laity to obey. Yet in these also, the latter, if 
 otherwise qualified, have a right to a voice. Even 
 in the Church of England some traces of this 
 ancient mistake still linger, and the laity are far 
 from possessing the power which properly belongs 
 to them, or rather the relations of the two classes 
 and of the Church and the State are a jumble so 
 confused as to be marvellous even for England. 
 
 These claims on the part of the clergy are no new 
 things ; for centuries they were not only made, but 
 in general conceded. In many lands and for long 
 periods the sword of the State has been either 
 grasped or guided by the hand of the ecclesiastic. 
 Deal, then, with the claims in a scientific spirit; 
 
l6o LECTURE VIII, 
 
 apply the test of experiment. What has been the 
 practical result ? 
 
 If the authority of the Church extend to temporal 
 power, then those countries where this has been 
 possessed for centuries without dispute should be 
 to the world patterns of righteousness, justice, 
 purity, courage — in short, of every manly and 
 Christian virtue. Will this be asserted of them 
 by any impartial historian ? 
 
 The Church has also claimed to be supreme in 
 matters of learning and science — to hold the keys 
 of the library and the laboratory. With what 
 result ? That clerical opinion — which in practice if 
 not in theory has represented Church opinion — has 
 almost invariably proved, in the long run, to have 
 been wrong. For centuries the severest ecclesiastical 
 censure would have fallen on any one who main- 
 tained that this earth was a globe, and the nonsense 
 of Cosmas Indicopleustes was greedily swallowed. 
 For centuries it was an unpardonable heresy to 
 assert that the earth moved in an orbit about 
 the sun. For centuries the door of the laboratory 
 
THE CHURCH. l6l 
 
 was closed, the path of experiment was barred ; the 
 writings of the Fathers, not the works of nature, 
 were deemed the court of appeal in questions of 
 science.^ Not one branch alone of the Church has 
 fallen into this error, nor is the tale only of other 
 days. The Church of England, happily, has never 
 placed herself in open antagonism to scientific 
 progress, but the influence of her members has 
 been commonly adverse, their actions have brought 
 her much discredit. 
 
 How long is it since the geologist was denounced 
 because he could not accept the Mosaic cosmogony 
 as literal history ? What happened when it was 
 proved that the human race had occupied the 
 earth for more than six thousand years ? What 
 happened when the hypothesis of evolution was 
 first advanced ? ^ From a hundred pulpits and a 
 hundred platforms we were assured, not seldom by 
 
 * If any one feels disposed to deny this statement, I recommend 
 him to read " The Warfare of Science," by A. D. Wliite. 
 
 ' It is needless to accumulate references. Two of these epochs 
 are well within my own recollection, and I can remember some- 
 thing of the other. 
 
 Y 
 
1 62 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 those who had not investigated, and were incom- 
 petent to investigate, the questions, that if this or 
 that were generally accepted it would be the down- 
 fall of faith and the triumph of infidelity. Yet now 
 both are regarded as questions merely scientific ; 
 both are accepted by man}"^ sincere Christians. 
 
 But why do I dwell on these things ? Why 
 neglect the maxim, " Be mortuis nil nisi honum " ? 
 Because even now very many persons, especially 
 among the ministers of religion, will not honestly 
 recognize the mistakes of the past, and the possi- 
 bility of like mistakes in the present ; because 
 even the Church of England itself, while it has 
 been wisely cautious in attempting precision of 
 definition or in adding to dogmatic theology, has 
 been, and still is, timorous in lopping oft' parasitic 
 growths and parting with outworn garments ; still 
 does not recognize the mischief which can be 
 wrought by zeal when divorced from discretion, 
 and the absolute duty, however painful it may be, 
 of withstanding even an Apostle to the face when 
 he attempts to bind that which Christ has loosed. 
 
THE CHURCH. 1 63 
 
 We need in the Church the spirit which prevails 
 among scientific societies. There also, as every- 
 where, nonsense is talked. But with this difference. 
 Let it walk as delicately as King Agag, sooner or 
 later there comes a Samuel who hews it in pieces 
 before the Lord. Nonsense is nonsense by whom- 
 soever it is uttered ; the more mischievous in pro- 
 portion to the speaker s goodness. Would that the 
 rulers of the Church of England were a little less 
 prone to decorous euphemisms and a little less 
 afraid of the naked truth ; that, in their tender 
 compassion for the weaker brethren, they would 
 occasionally remember that the strong also have 
 their rights, and may become weary of a diet of 
 milk — especially if it be sometimes sour ! 
 
 The Church, like all other bodies of men, has 
 made mistakes, grievous mistakes, in the past. 
 Better acknowledge them frankly, for in so doing 
 we shall be convinced of our own fallibility, and be 
 made cautious of attempting to resume an authority 
 which has been demonstrated by experience to be 
 both unwarrantable and mischievous. The mis- 
 
1 64 LECTURE Vlll. 
 
 takes, the errors, were venial, were almost inevitable 
 in the past ; in the present day they are without 
 excuse. Those who walk with their eyes shut 
 must not expect when they stumble the pity which 
 is extended to the blind. The Church of the first 
 centuries was confronted with a problem of 
 appalling magnitude and difficulty. It found itself 
 standing, like Aaron, between the dead and the 
 living ; but what a death, what a life 1 Only those 
 who know intimately the history of Kome and of 
 Byzantium can realize the awful, the hopeless 
 corruption of the dying Empire, which had ruled 
 and ruined the civilized world. It was as though 
 the vision of Patmos was being fulfilled, and the 
 angel had cried to all the fowls that fly in the 
 midst of heaven, " Come and be gathered together 
 unto the great supper of God." ^ They had come 
 to eat the flesh of kings, of captains, and of 
 mighty men — barbarian hordes from the North and 
 from the East ; Goth and Vandal and Hun, Teuton 
 and Northman and Slav, ignorant as children, 
 » Kev. xix. 17 (R. v.). 
 
THE CHURCH. 1 65 
 
 reckless as boys, but vigorous as men. On the 
 one hand was the paganism of the " old regimey' 
 effete, trodden underfoot, but not extinct ; on the 
 other, the paganism of the invader in all its pride 
 of strength and success. These the Church had to 
 win, to mould, to humanize, to regenerate. What 
 wonder if mistakes were made ; what wonder if 
 strength was matched by craft; if the rude bar- 
 barian was awed by mystic rites and pompous 
 ceremonial, and the messenger of Christ was too 
 prone to claim the powers of the magician ? We 
 may regret, we may take warning for ourselves, but 
 we can scarce venture to blame, for even in this day 
 few temptations are more subtle and more seduc- 
 tive than that of doing a little evil to bring about 
 a great good. So do not think that I delight in 
 decrying the men who fought this long fight. We 
 of this age, in very truth, have entered into their 
 labours. They gave up all for Christ. Who am I, 
 living here at my ease, that I should censure an 
 Ambrose or a Jerome, a Winfried or a Columba, an 
 Augustine of Hippo or an Augustine of Canter- 
 
1 66 LECTURE Vni. 
 
 bury, or any of that great multitude, whom no man 
 can number, who suffered, laboured, and even died 
 for Christ ? I may admit the mistakes of a Bene- 
 dict or a Francis, of a Xavier or a Loyola, of a Bruno 
 or a Cuthbert, of a Fisher or a More, as I might do 
 those of a Gordon or a Damien, and yet confess 
 myself unworthy to be numbered with them. They 
 loved much. Let us try to imitate them in that. 
 But to devise euphemistic names for error is not 
 the way to advance the cause of truth ; to admit 
 facts, even if they be unwelcome, is the duty of the 
 Christian no less than of the man of science. 
 
 One thing the Church cannot do — that is, to 
 recall the past or galvanize dead institutions into 
 life. A flock submissive as sheep, docile as children, 
 has been and still is the dream of a hierarchy. It 
 is a dream as fond as it is foolish. Progress, not 
 reversion, is the law of healthy life. When man 
 attempts a renaissance, he is generally more success- 
 ful in mimicking the follies than in imitating the 
 virtues of his ancestors. To reform is not only to 
 return to ancient ways. The clock of time cannot 
 
THE CHURCH. 1 6/ 
 
 I 
 
 be put back ; and it is no less true of a nation than 
 of a man, that if an adult tries to play the child he 
 generally succeeds only in playing the fool. 
 
 What power, then, has the Church ? Is it a mere 
 shadow of a shade ? Far from it. In the first place 
 it possesses, within the limits of its commission, the 
 power of self-government. To disobey the ordi- 
 nances of a Church is always to undertake a very 
 grave responsibility ; it is often to do very wrong. 
 Only in extreme cases does the right of private 
 judgment justify us in violating a definite law. 
 Let me give an example, to make my meaning 
 clearer. The Church of England forbids marriage 
 in certain cases of affinity. Personally, I hold that 
 in one of these the prohibition is a mistake ; but as 
 things are I should regard myself as bound by it. 
 Again, there are two or three phrases in the Book 
 of Common Prayer which I would gladly see 
 modified or omitted ; but I do not on that account 
 feel justified in leaving them out at my own 
 pleasure. In short — and this remark does not apply 
 to matters ecclesiastical only — I do not regard it as 
 
1 68 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 a sacred duty to set myself above the law, nor do I 
 feel the slightest sympathy for those apostles of the 
 modern gospel of anarchy, whom the sound sense 
 of our forefathers would have considered as common 
 offenders, and the hysteric sentimentality of the 
 present age regards as interesting martyrs. 
 
 Lest, however, I should be misunderstood, let me 
 add that I do not admit the obligation of practices 
 or regulations which have fallen into general dis- 
 use, unless good cause can be shown why they 
 should be revived ; for the becoming obsolete must 
 be recognized as a virtual repeal, whenever the 
 formal process, as is the case in the Church of 
 England, notoriously involves great difficulties. 
 For instance, whatever be the validity of the 
 canons ecclesiastical, I feel no more bound to 
 order my daily apparel by the seventy-fourth of 
 these, than by the whims of clerical tailors or 
 other leaders of fashions ecclesiastical in the pre- 
 sent day. 
 
 Again, the Church possesses the power of a 
 healthy public opinion. For good and for evil 
 
THE CHURCH. 1 69 
 
 association is a mighty force. Divide and rule, 
 unite and conquer, are commonplaces. The Church 
 is a corporation pledged to war with evil and to 
 advance good. It is the one human society where 
 righteousness in thought, word, and deed is assumed 
 to be the normal condition, and every departure 
 from it abnormal. Whatever difficulties may beset 
 the Christian in his path through life, however 
 isolated he may appear to be, in distant lands, in 
 uncongenial society, in thankless toil, he is nerved 
 by knowing that, even in this outpost duty, he is 
 no solitary Ishmaelite, but one of a mighty arm}^, 
 united in a common hope and a common strength, 
 directed and led, though he beholds Him not, by 
 the captain of the Lord's host, against whom no 
 evil shall prevail. 
 
 There is yet a third power, connected closely 
 with the last — the moral force of censure and of 
 forgiveness. The former is felt, often keenly, even 
 when it is known to be undeserved — ^nay, even 
 when to incur it is a positive duty. It is dreaded, 
 when merited, even by those who bluster most 
 
 z 
 
I/O LECTURE VIII. 
 
 noisily and affect a contemptuous indifference. To 
 desire the praise of men rather than their blame is 
 natural to every one — so natural that it is always 
 a great temptation to prophesy smooth things 
 when it is the time to speak out, to cry " Peace ! " 
 when there is no peace. Great also is the power 
 of forgiveness. At a certain stage in repentance, 
 especially to a sensitive nature, it is very helpful 
 to learn that the offence is forgiven by those who 
 have been injured, because it is then felt that the 
 rift is not past repair ; that the injury, though it 
 cannot be recalled, may be at least effaced. A 
 message of forgiveness is a message of hope. So 
 the Church in her public capacity assures the truly 
 penitent of that Divine pardon, of which all 
 human forgiveness is but the reflection. So also 
 she empowers her ministers, as ambassadors of 
 Christ, to proclaim in special cases to the troubled 
 conscience that the Lord is merciful, and will not 
 turn a deaf ear to the cry of the contrite heart. 
 They cannot tamper with the eternal laws of 
 right and wrong; they cannot by magic rites 
 
THE CHURCH. 171 
 
 compel the gates of heaven to open to the unfit 
 and close against the fit ; but they can bid even 
 the worst of sinners not wholly to despair, for they 
 speak in the name of Him Who listened to the 
 prayer of one justly crucified for his offences 
 aofainst man and aojainst God. 
 
 Looking back upon the past, are we not right in 
 saying that what the Church has bound and what 
 the Church has loosed, not as a hierarchy but as a 
 whole, has been confirmed by the verdict of God, 
 made manifest in history ? Learn what the world 
 was in the days of the Csesars, even of the Constan- 
 tines, and compare this with its present state. 
 Enlarge, if you will, upon every mistake and every 
 shortcoming ; insist that, owing to them, the results 
 fall far below a legitimate expectation ; still the fact 
 remains that a great change has passed over society. 
 Granted that the pastimes of Western Europe — 
 even of our own land — are sometimes brutal : they 
 were horribly cruel in the days of the amphi- 
 theatre ; granted that the poor are still many 
 and miserable : poverty was far more hopeless 
 
72 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 nineteen centuries since; granted that they are 
 still sometimes down-trodden : they were in utter 
 bondage then; granted that the rich are some- 
 times over-luxurious : wealth was far more wanton 
 then ; granted that society is sometimes profligate : 
 what are nameless vices now were venial indis- 
 cretions in pagan Rome. Whose influence put a 
 stop to gladiatorial contests ; mitigated and in 
 many cases abolished slavery ; founded hospitals 
 for the sick and penitentiaries for the fallen; 
 insisted that the thrall, no less than his lord, had 
 a soul to be saved or to be lost ? It was the Church. 
 Here and there ecclesiastics may have opposed and 
 thrown their influence into the wrong scale, but in 
 yet more cases they have been the leaders in 
 works of mercy and love. These results are the 
 results of Christianity and so of the Church; for 
 that means the whole body of Christians. 
 
 There is work enough to do in this nineteenth 
 century; there is a crisis coming which will tax 
 the energies and test the strength of every Chris- 
 tian man and woman. I will speak of our own 
 
THE CHURCH. 1 73 
 
 land and our own Church only, though the coming 
 struggle is one not thus limited. This is no time 
 for questions of vestments and ritual. These are 
 at best as the tithing of mint, anise, and cummin ; 
 at worst, too often the remnants of old-world 
 superstitions, which are dying hard, as such things 
 always die. The message which we must carry 
 is, once more, of the very simplest kind. Let the 
 leaders of the Church, let the ministers of the Church, 
 boldly declare that it is a Church of growth and 
 progress, not of stereotyped immobility. Let 
 them proclaim the message of Christian righteous- 
 ness to all — to the patrician and to the plebeian — 
 fearless alike of courtier or of mob. Let them bid 
 the rich man remember that wealth has not been 
 entrusted to him merely that he should be clothed 
 in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously 
 every day. Let them bid the poor man remember 
 that in giving bad work for good pay, in defraud- 
 ing his employer or tyrannizing over his fellows, 
 he is showing himself no better than the stock 
 subjects of his denunciation. This is an age of 
 
174 LECTURE VIIL 
 
 shams — of shams commercial and shams moral — 
 worthless materials tricked up to look like useful 
 wares, and ugly vices cleverly clothed in the modest 
 garbs of virtues. To strip the mask from all alike, 
 from rich and poor, from aristocrat and democrat, 
 from the fraudulent and the impostor in every 
 rank, is the duty of the Christian Church. In all 
 ages of windy words and frothy declamation, men 
 lose sight of principles of ethics and principles 
 of religion. Never was it more true than of 
 England in this age of irresponsible chatter and 
 foolish gossip, when the mass of men buy their 
 opinions ready made for a halfpenny, and dis- 
 tinguish virtue from vice at the bidding of an 
 unknown political partisan. To all this there can 
 be but one end. The path has already been trodden, 
 though under slightly different circumstances, by 
 not a few states. It is that of senile decay and 
 ultimate death. 
 
 Let Christians lay this to heart, for it is not yet 
 too late, so much is the good mingled with the evil 
 in the present age. Let them recognize the danger ; 
 
THE CHURCH, 1 75 
 
 ■ 
 
 let them cast aside political jealousies and partisan 
 hatreds; let them sink as far as possible even 
 differences of creeds, and stand shoulder to shoulder 
 in the army of Christ against the World, the 
 Flesh, and the Devil. If this be done, the victory- 
 is sure, for on God's earth truth must at last prevail ; 
 nay, the hosts of the enemy may melt away, before 
 a blow is struck, at the very sight of the Crucified. 
 Still, as of old, 
 
 " The ChuTcli's one Foundation 
 Is Jesus Christ her Lord." 
 
 Still, as of old, she must labour, in all humility 
 but in all confidence; she must bear the burdens 
 of the weak, and bid the oppressor cease ; she 
 must work and pray, alike for all sorts and 
 
 conditions of men, j^^^^^"^^^^ 
 
 /^(^ OF THr'^^s^ 
 
 " Till with the vision glorious II wf^ TT7V9 ^Tmr 
 
 Her longing eyes are blest, 11 U IflvBXvwITi 
 
 And the great Church victorious^^ ^m OS* ^ V ♦ 
 
 Shall be the Church at rest." ^^^^i/J'^Oltl?^^ 
 
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IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
 
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 1 
 
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 \continued. 
 
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. ii 
 
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IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE, 13 
 
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 [continued. 
 
14 A CATALOGUE OF WORKS 
 
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IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE, 15 
 
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