John James Lias [1834-1923], The Nicene Creed. A Manual for the use of Candidates for Holy Orders. by Rob Bradshaw

THE NICENE CREED A MANUAL

jfor tbe use of ~anlJilJates for }ilol!} Â®tlJets

J. J. RECTOR

LIAS, M.A.

OF EAST

BERGHOLT,

COLCHESTER ;

CHANCELLOR OF LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL, AND EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF LLANDAFF; AUTHOR OF ''PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM,"

''THE ATONEMENT," ETC,

LONDON

SW AN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.

1897

LIM.

tto SIR GEORGE STOKES,

BART.,

LL.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.

LUCASIAN PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH A FEELING OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GREAT ATTAINMENTS AND OF RESPECT FOR HIS HIGH CHARACTER AND GENUINE AND ENLIGHTENED ATTACHMENT TO THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF

ttbe lE>octrtne of <Ibtlst

PREFACE

T is, perhaps, necessary that I should explain my reasons for adding one more to the vast number of books which pour forth in so continuous a stream in the present day. Four reasons have mainly weighed with me. The first is, that my experience as an examiner of candidates for Holy Orders has convinced me that many of them obtain their knowledge of the first principles of the religion which they propose to teach, in a very unsatisfactory and haphazard way. This is partly due to the absence, at least until lately, of satisfactory text books. Few candidates attempt to read Pearson's great standard work on the subject, and most of those who have attempted it find him very abstruse and difficult to follow. Moreover, it must be admitted that in a good many respects, in spite of the still inestimable value of the work, Pearson's manner and matter are out of date. This has been so ably pointed out by one whose name must ever be held in reverence by Cambridge men of my own standing, Bishop Harvey Goodwin, in his Foundations of the Creed, that I need do no more on this. point than shelter myself under the authority of his name. 1 Next, I believe that there is urgent need for a restatement of theological truth in the light of recent scientific discovery, such as has been attempted by Professor Allen in his Continuity of Religious Thought, and by my friend Mr. Heard in his suggestive volume, The Old and New Theology. The first principles of the Christian faith remain, and we may venture to say will ever remain, unchanged. They are above and beyond all criticism. But the manner in which it has been customary to explain them, and recommend them to the hearts and consciences of mankind, will be found to have varied considerably according to the scientific prepossessions and current intellectual and moral conceptions of those to whom the teachers have had to address themselves. There never has been a greater need to bear this in mind than at the present moment. I ventured to say as much at the Congress at Norwich last year, and was as much surprised as. pleased to find that I had the general assent of my audience. Moreover, as the Church has the promise of an indwelling Spirit to instruct her in all the truth, it may well, be that as 1 See his Prefatory Address to the reader.

PREFACE.

the ages roll on a fuller comprehension of the mysteries of Revelation may be vouchsafed to her through the continuous study of the inspired records in which the first principles of that Revelation have been handed down. Was there ever an age, I may venture to add, in which such vast advances have been made in and through the study of those records, as in our own 1 Thirdly, I have long been convinced that in this age, when men are simply bewildered by the multitude of books, what is urgently needed is a series of manuals in which the student may master the first principles of a science before attempting to study the larger works in which those principles are more fully treated. More especially is this the case in theology. The great mass of the clergy will be sufficiently furnished for their task if they have a firm grasp of first principles. We do not expect every clergyman to be a profound scholar, or a deep theologian ; and if we did expect it, our expectation would not-could not-be realized. But we have a right to expect that he shall be thoroughly grounded in the Creed of Christendom, as well as in the Scriptures which explain and elucidate that Creed. Such manuals, I am aware, already exist. Yet I may, perhaps, be acquitted of the charge of presumption if I imagine that there is yet room for another statement of first principles by the side of my friend Dr. Maclear's excellent Handbook to the Creeds, Professor Mason's Faith of the Gospel, and the late Bishop Harvey Goodwin's most thoughtful and instructive volume on the Foundations of the Creed, to which reference has already been made. I may add that I have already endeavoured to supply the want of manuals on some points of Christian theology and evidence, and I shall make no apology for referring the readers of this book to them, where a fuller statement of my views than I am able here to give may seem to me to be necessary. Lastly, I desire this book to have the character of an Eirenicon. From my boyhood, I may be allowed to say, the reunion of Christendom has been my dream, and it has been my privilege to see some steps taken towards the fulfilment of that dream, and even to take some myself. I have joined in conference with Nonconformists at home, and with Old Catholics, and with members of the ancient Orthodox Churches of the East abroad. I have been admitted behind the Iconostasis at the celebration of the Eucharist in a Russian Church. I have communicated, and even officiated, at Old Catholic

PREFAO:B:.

altars. If I have not joined in conference with Roman Catholics, or communicated at their altars, it has been because the opportunity has never been given me. One thing, however, I have learned from my intercourse with the members of other religious bodies. It is, that the chief obstacle to a general union is our incapacity to draw the line between things fundamental and things indifferent ; or, in other words, between Catholic truth and pious opinion. And here I cannot refrain from expressing my conviction that there is no greater obstacl~ to home reunion, at least, than the loose way in which the word "Catholic " is used, the unwise readiness to affirm of this or that particular doctrine or practice, that the "Church has always held" or "prescribed" it: In these pages the word "Catholic" will be used in strict accordance with the definition of Vincentius of Lerins. It will be applied only to such doctrines, or practices, as can be proved to have been held, or inculcated, "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus." If they do not satisfy this criterion, then, however early we may meet with them, however widely they may have been spread, they are not, strictly speaking, Catholic. I shall say of no doctrine or practice that "the Church has always held" or "prescribed" it, unless I find evidence to that effect in the New Testament. If such evidence be not found there, I must believe that the doctrine or practice in question is no part of the Church's essential deposit of faith, and cannot, therefore, be required of any Christian man as requisite or necessary to salvation, or of any particular Church as necessary to establish its claim to be regarded as part and parcel of the Catholic Church of Christ. I am the more anxious to place this view of the case before my readers, as we are on the eve of a new era, in which the Church of Christ is called upon to face new problems, and to take, perhaps, a more prominent part than ever before in the regeneration of human society. She will be "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'a," in addressing herself to this most important task, if she is still to be bound by the rules and regulations of the fourth, fifth, or succeeding centuries. Not even the most careless student of history can be unaware how essentially different were the conditions of society at the break-up of the Roman Empire, or the dawn of modern society, from what they are now. To encumber ourselves with the antiquated regulations of those distant times in th~ conflict.a of ~-day w~re as wise as if our soldiers were to go out to meet then- enemies

PREFACE.

vii

equipped with the weapons and armour used by their forefathers ten or fifteen centuries ago. Not that I would advise anyone to despise the past. Not one line to that effect will be found in these pages. But while we respect the past, we must decline to be fettered by it. To social, moral, economical, political, we must add ecclesiastical progress. The Eternal Spirit has been given to the Church to enable her to adapt her machinery to the needs of the hour, and to comprehend ever more and more fully how the "faith once for all delivered to the saints " can be brought to bear on the hearts and consciences of mankind, so as to mould them into conformity with the image of Christ. In the hope that this book may be useful to others beside those for whom it was originally designed-to such lay members of our Church as may desire to have themselves, and to impart to others, a clearer knowledge of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ-I have, as a rule, translated the passages I have cited from the Fathers. I have taken care, however, in passages where exactness appeared to be required, to give the original of important words and phrases. Bishop Harvey Goodwin dedicated his volume on the Foundations of the Creed to Sir George Stokes. It is a satisfaction to me, who have endeavoured in my ministrations at St. Edward's, Cambridge, to follow the Bishop in a humble way, and at a respectful distance, to have been able to follow him also in this. At the same time it is necessary to add that Sir George Stokes is not responsible for a single word in this book. He only allows me to dedicate the book to him as a token of his general sympathy with the theological position which I maintained during the twelve years in which I was Vicar of St. Edward's. During that time it was my aim, to the best of my ability, to inculcate what I believe to be the sound, liberal, sympathetic, and manly churchmanship I learned from my predecessor's lips in my own undergraduate days. Professors Bonney and Gwatkin have kindly undertaken to read the proof-sheets, and to them I am indebted for many valuable suggestions. But, of course, they are not in any way responsible for every opinion expressed in these pages. I should add that where I have not, as I have done in some few instances, translated my quotations from the Bible myself, I have taken them from the Revised Version, as best representing our present critical knowledge of the Bible.

CONTENTS CHAP.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION I. THE POSITION OF

F .A.ITH

IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME

II. THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD III. THE EssENTI.A.L

N .A.TURE

OF GoD

15 41 80

IV. THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST V. THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST VI. I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GaosT, &c. VII. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

113

140 254 280

VIII. THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, .A.ND THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME INDEX

407 429

THE CREED INTRODUCTION POSITION OF CREEDS IN THE CHURCH SYSTEM

importance of Creeds in the system of the Universal THEChurch depends upon two considerations. The first is the position of faith in the economy of salvation; the second is the necessity, in an organised society, that each member of that society should give his adhesion to the truths the society was established to maintain and propagate. The first will be discussed in the following chapter. Tpe second may very reasonably be taken-for granted. But it is desirable, before proceeding further, that a brief historical account should be given of the actual place of Creeds in the system of the Church. The Creed was originally, there can be little doubt, an expansion of the Baptismal formula. 1 Each person, on â&#x20AC;˘his or her entrance into the Christian Church, was expected to make a profession of faith in the Existence and Nature of the Being with Whom he or she entered into union, and in 1 " It would seem that the origin of the Creed was a baptismal formula, corresponding to the commission of Christ, namely this: I believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. The ApoRtles' Creed should be regarded primarily as the expansion and exposition of this formula." Bishop H. GOODWIN, Foundations of the Creed, preface, p. 13,

THE CREED,

certain results of that Being's working in the corporate society and in the individual spirit. 1 This formula originally, no doubt, took the interrogative form. But gradually, as different Churches developed their various forms of worship, the recitation of the Creed formed an important part of Divine Service. At :first--so entirely did the early Christians subordinate the letter to the spirit-there was no particular form of Creed whatever handed down in the Church at large, but each Church cast its interrogations at Baptism, and its declaration of principles in public worship, in such form as seemed desirable. And yet, so firm was the adherence of each particular Church to the great verities of the faith of Christ, that no substantial difference exists between any of the numerous forms of Creed which have come down to us. We can see plainly enough from the summaries of the faith given us by St. Paul,2 by Ignatius, 3 and by Irenaeus, 4 that it was "one faith" which the Church handed down at the "one baptism." 5 Tertullian, however, who gives (circa 200 A.n.) a similar outline of the principles of the Christian belief, makes some very definite statements in connection with it, on the position the Creed holds in the Christian system. In his opinion, the Creed is a necessary guide to the understanding of books written for our instruction by inspired men. The heretics, by their rejection of this guide, or Rule of Faith, as he calls it, have entirely 1 LUMBY, History of the Creeds, p. 5. See also SwETE, Apostles' Creed, p. 10, and BURBIDGE, Liturgies and Offices of the Church, p. 316. In the latter book much interesting information will be found concerning the Liturgical use of the Creeds. 8 Ep. to Trallians, c. ix. 2 1 Cor. xv. 1-4. 4 Against Heresies, I. x. 1. 5 Eph. iv. 5. The various summaries of the faith will be found in LuMBY, History of the Greeds. It is not our purpose to do more than give a very brief outline of that history.

INTRODUCTION.

misapprehended the drift of Holy Scripture. 1 In fact, he continues, all discussion on the meaning of the Scriptures is time wasted, unless the faith taught by Christ and His Apostles, and universally received throughout the Christian Church, be first of all accepted. Tertullian's disciple Cyprian, writing about half a century later, refers to the symbolum, or creed, in such terms as to prove its virtual identity with the Creed we now profess. This Creed has come down to us in two forms. The first, or Nicene Creed, is used in the Communion Office of every orthodox and fully-organized Church in Christendom. The second and simpler form, called the Apostles' Creed, is not used in the East, but throughout the West is the profession of faith required of the candidate for Baptism, and is also used in the minor offices of the Church. We will deal first with the form of Creed which has obtained universal acceptance. But we must first of all remark, that though usually termed the Nicene Creed, because supposed to have been adopted at the First Oecumenical Council at Nicaea, A.D. 325, it is not the formula drawn up at the Nicene Council. Nor can we be sure that it is even, as is generally supposed, the form of Creed adopted at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381. 2 It is true that it is stated to have been such by the members of the Fourth General Council at Chalcedon. But even the sentence of the Fathers of that Council, whatever its authority on a question of doctrine, cannot be supposed to bind us on a question of fact. We will place the two Creeds side by side, and it will then be seen on what points they correspond, and on what they differ. 3 It may be observed in passing, that in 1

On Presr:ription as against Heretics, c. xii.-xix. At least this is the conclusion of Profes~or HORT, in his now famous Dissertation. â&#x20AC;˘ 3 The clauses in each which do not correspond to those in the other are placed in italics, 2

THE CREED.

the original Creed the profession of faith is in the plural, while in our modern version it is in the singular. NICENE CREED.

We believe in (ds) One God the Father Almighty

CREED AFFIRMED AT CHALCEDON.

We believe in One God the Father Almighty,

( 1ravT0Kpct:ropa),

Of all things visible and invisible the Maker :

Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible : And in one Lord Jesus Christ, The only-begotten Son of God,

And in (els) One Lord Jesus Christ, The Son of God, Only-begotten One, begotten from the Father (that is, from the Essence of the Father), God of {JK) God, Light of Light, Light of ( iK) Light, Very (d,\:170w6s)1 God of (JK) Very God of Very God, Very God, Begotten, not made, Begotten, not made, Of one Essence 2 with the Of one Essence with the Father; Father; By Whom all things were By Whom all things were made, made, Both the things in the heaven and the things in the earth, Who for us men, and for Who for us men, and for our salvation came down our salvation came down, from the heavens, l 2

i.e., true or genuine. Or, as we usually now say, Substance,

INTRODUOTION.

And was incarnate (or was made flesh), And was made (or became) Man,

Suffered, And rose again the third day, Ascended into the heavens, Coming to judge the living and the dead :

And in (Els) the Holy Ghost.

And was incarnate by (JK) the Holy Ghost and Mary the Virgin, And was made Man,

And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. And suffered and was buried, And rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, And ascended into the heavens. And coming again Âˇwith glory to judge living and dead: Whose kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Ghost. 1

The Nicene formulary stops at this point. The rest of the Creed we now use was added on some other occasion. The variations from the Nicene Creed also received sanction on that occasion. What was that occasion 1 Dr. Hort has contended in his Dissertation on the subject (1) that no alternative Creed can be shown to have been propounded at Constantinople, and yet, as we have seen, (2) variations more or less important have been introduced into the symbol now universally adopted in the Church. The occasion was evidently the Council of Chalcedon. It is clear that both Creeds were recited and formally accepted at that Council, but that the Fathers then gathered together 1 I have given the two forms of Creed in English for the benefit of those whose knowledge of the learned languages is not great, and I have occasionally taken the liberty of varying the translation. It will be observed that the words "God of God'' have now been added to the Creed propounded at Chalcedou.

THE CREED.

were probably in error in supposing the alternative form of Creed to have been adopted at Constantinople. Whence, then, is our present Creed derived 1 Dr. Hort contends, and with great reason, that it was the ancient Creed of the Church of Jerusalem, regarded up to that time with the utmost reverence as "the Mother of all Churches," with such modifications as should display its substantial identity with the Nicene symbol. Eusebius of Caesarea produced a Creed at Nicaea which bears a close resemblance to it, but, of course, without the crucial phrase Homoousion. 1 Caesarea, we know, was in Palestine. And as we meet in the Catechetical Lectures of Cyril, who was Bishop of ,Jerusalem toward the latter end of the fourth century, with a Creed very closely related to the Creed adopted at Chalcedon, only once more without the Homoousion, Dr. Hort comes to the conclusion that the Church of Jerusalem modified its Creed in conformity with the Nicene definitions, and that, its orthodoxy being thus indisputable, the Creed recited at Jerusalem became the form of Creed recited at all the altars of the Christian Church throughout the world. 2 If we ask what authority it has, we must reply, that of the Fourth Oecumenical Council, coupled with its universal acceptance by every Church possessing anything like a ritual, down to the present time. 3 1

For the meaning of this phrase see below, p. 127. See HORT, Two Dissertations, pp. 107, 108. We cannot, of course, be quite certain of the correctness of Professor Hort's conclusion in his Dissertation. It depends chiefly on the argument e silentio. But the Fathers at Ohalcedon may have been in possession of information which has not come down to us. The articles which follow the confession of belief in the Holy Ghost, though substantially, are by no means verbally identical in the Creed of Cyril, and that recited at Ohalcedon. a For the introduction in the West of the Pilioq-ue clause see below, chap. vi. 2

INTRODUCTION.

The Apostles' Creed, as it is called, which is universally accepted in the West, but is regarded, perhaps, with some suspicion in the East as not stating with sufficient clearness the essential doctrines of the Faith, is that which the Western Church recites in her daily offi<;es, and requires of all candidates for Baptism. The earliest version of it in a form approaching to that in which it is found in our own formularies, is in the writings of Ruffinus, a presbyter of the Church of Aquileia in North Italy, circa 400 A.D. He refers to the fact that the Creed in use at Rome differs from that in use at Aquileia in some minor points, more especially in the omission by the Roman Church of the article relating to the Descent into Hades. 1 He states that this article was also wanting in the Eastern Creeds. This statement is supported by the fact that neither the Nicene nor the' Chalcedon Creed contains it. Moreover, Marcellus of Ancyra, when exculpating himself at Rome from the charge of Sabellianism about A.D. 340, produced a Creed almost precisely agreeing with the Apostles' Creed, as we have it, but without the clause referring to the Descent into Hades. 2 The article of the Descent into Hades is found in the Cornmentary of Veuantius Fortunatus, A D. 570; but it is not until the time of Pirminius, A.D. 750, that the Apostles' Creed reached its present form. The Creed, or rather Hymn, commonly called the Athana,,ian Creed, is of later origin. It originated in the West, and though found in some copies of Greek Liturgies, has never been formally received in the East. The positive way in which it asserts the Procession of the Spirit from the Son as well as from the Father, would naturally predispose the East to look on it with little favour, even when the assertion of that doctrine was expunge<l from the Greek 1 2

In his work on the Creed. So Epiphanius states in his work on Heresies, c. lxxii.

THE CREED.

versions of it. For many years Waterland's theory, that it was written by Hilary of Arles, who died A.D. 449, was accepted by most authorities in the Church of England. But within the last thirty years a determined attempt has been made to put an end to its public recitation in the Church, in consequence of the extraordinary force and stringency of what are known as its "damn~tory clauses," and the consequence has been a re-opening of the whole question of its date and authorship. It is quite clear that W aterland's arguments, in regard to its date, cannot be regarded as conclusive,1 and that in regard to Hilary's authorship, there is absolutely no direct evidence whatever. It is simply a question of probability and inference; and in a question of this kind probability and inference do not go very far. More recent researches, however, seem to have established the following positions : (1) The Creed originated in Spain,. where for many centuries there was a vigorous theological li£e, and where the Catholic Church was brought into sharp collision with the Arianism of the Goths. (2) The Creed was clearly unknown to Charlemagne at the Council of Frankfort, A.D. 794; for had a Creed, so suited to his purpose, been known to be in existence at the date of that Council, he would hardly have failed to make use of it to· support the views whieh he was then so energetically pressing on the Church. In fact, two years later, at Friuli, the learned Bishop Paulinus laments the absence of such a symbol as would decide the grave questions the Council had· met to discuss. 2 Portions of the Athanasian Creed were no 1 e.g., he says that it was written before the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies disturbed the Church. But there is quite sufficient allusion to them in the words, "Not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person." 2 The Council met to oppose the errors of Elipandus and Felix of Urgellis, who taught that Christ was the adopted Son of God.

INTRODUCTION.

doubt in existence at an earlier period, and the whole Creed may possibly have been put together some time before it became generally known; but we have no definite evidence of its existence as a whole until the first quarter of the ninth century after Christ. 1 The authority of this Creed must, therefore, be considered as inferior to that of the others. Yet there is no doubt that its propositions are, in general, an accurate statement of the faith handed down in the Christian Church. 2 The animus imponentis is an important question to consider when dealing with the public recitation of this Creed. It has differed very widely at different times of the Church's history. In the ninth century A.D., no doubt the fiercest opinions in regard to the fate in store for all who did not accept the definitions put forth by authority were generally prevalent, and continued to prevail until the Reformation. But until the Reformation the ordinary offices of the Church, into which the Athanasian Creed had been introduced, were practically private, and not congregational. At the Reformation a change took place. 1 I have made no attempt at an independent investigation of the history of the Creeds I have simply abridged, for the benefit of the student, the accounts found in LUMBY, History of the Creed; Bu1rn1DGE, Liturgies and Offices of the Church; and SWETE, Apostles' Greed. Further information will be found in these works, in KING'S History of the Apostles' Creed, and in HARVEY's Three Creeds. My object is to treat not of the history of the Creed, but of the Creed itself. 2 Since the above was written, one of the Texts and Studies, edited by Professor Robinson, has appeared, having for its subject the Athanasian Creed. The author, the Rev. A. E. Burn, has once more discussed the evidence, arnl believes it to point to the Creed having been composed by Honoratus of Arles, who died in A.D. 429. As the impartiality of these Texts and Studies is guaranteed by the editor's name, these conclusions are of the highest importance. It is time that the Creed ceased to be the battle-ground of the partisan, and became at last the field of the impartial investigator.

THE CREED.

The services whicli until that time had been recited either by the priest himsel!, or by monastic communities, were, at least among ourselves, adapted for the use of congregations. In 1549, the public use of the Athanasian Creed was confined to the greater festivals. In 1552, it was directed to be said about once a month. There can be little duubt that this public recitation of the Creed, with its strong denunciations against those who would deny the faith, was intended as a practical answer to those who charged the Reformers with desiring to abandon the Faith of Christendom. How far the damnatory clauses were at that time pressed in their strictest literal sense, we have no evidence to show ; but it is perfectly clear that the wider spirit of tolerance which we owe to the Reformation movement, soon began to produce a considerable modification in the views with which those clauses were regarded, even by those who were most unwilling to abandon them. It is unfortunate that in the English language the expressions are stronger than in the original; but even in the original they are strong enough, and have elicited the disapproval of the more tolerant, yet not always latitudinarian, school in the Church of England. Bishop Jeremy Taylor does not defend them. The commissioners of 1689, who were instructed to endeavour to broaden the basis of the Church of England, desired to apply the language of the Creed "only to â&#x20AC;˘ those who obstinately deny the sab~tance of the Christian faith." And in 1873, the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury declared that in the warnings in this Confession of Faith, "the Church doth not herein pronounce judgment on any particular person or persons, God alone being th(l Judge of all." 1 The question whether it be wise to force 1 Damnatory clauses of the AthanasianCreed, STANLEY, Life, i. 233. "Their obviuus meaning, and that which was affixed to them at the

INTRODUCTION.

the recitation of these clauses upon those who have received no special training to enable them to understand their limitations, most certainly admits of discussion. But on the other hand, both Scripture and the Church have always insisted that belief in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is, in all ca~es, necessary to salvation. In what this belief consists, in any particular case ; under what circumstances, that is, a man may be regarded as implicitly believing what he may hesitate explicitly to confess; these are questions which we have no authority to deeide. But the Church cannot shrink from proclaiming what may be regarded as the Charter of her Existence, that there is "no other Name" but that of Jesus Christ in which salvation can be found. 1 Hence the demand for acceptance of the Christian Creed, in one shape or other, from each candidate for admission into the Christian Church. Hence, also, the public recitation of the Creed at the celebration of Holy Communion, and at the other public services of the Church. It is not left optional to the Christian whether he will profess the faith of Christ or not. It is obligatory on him to believe time of the general reception of the Creed into the Church, and of its reception into the Reformed Church of England, seems to be that every individual who denies any of the statements therein contained will perish everlastingly." . . . But after a catena of Anglican divines of high authority, he subjoins: "Hence it seems clear that the strict and obvious interpretation is not the one required. Perhaps the interpretation which could best accord with the original words, and with these several Anglican authorities, would be to understand them as affirming that, though every error concerning the nature of God or man rnay be in itself harmless, yet, if fully carried out into all its logical and rnoral consequences, it will end in the subversion of the Christian faith in him who holds it." I should myself prefer, instead of "may be in itself harmless," to say "may not in every individual case do all the harni which the denial of important truths is calculated to do." 1 Acts iv, 12,

THE CREED,

what Christ has revealed to us concerning the Nature of God, and the character of His dealings with the world. And "he that believeth not shall be condemned," 1 nay, "is condemned" (or rather judged) "already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." 2 Lastly, we must briefly touch on the relation of the Creed to Holy Scripture, and to the evolution of doctrine. The relation of Scripture and the Creed is one of interdependence. We cannot understand Scripture except in connection with the summary of its chief doctrines, handed down in the Christian Creeds. 3 On the other hand, we cannot apply the truths of the Creed to our daily needs, without the exposition of them, given to the Church by men authorized and inspired by Christ Himself to breathe life and power into the first principles of the faith. The attempt on the part of each man to construct a system of doctrine for himself out of the Scriptures, has been fruitful of failure, of error, of discord, of division. 4 The Creed, we should remember, existed, in some shape or other, before the New Testament. Men knew in Whom they had believed 5 before a line of the New Testament was written. And they continued to know it when copies of the Scriptures were scarce, or unattainable. There was, and is, a "fi~ith once for all delivered to the saints." 6 The Church knows 1 Mark xvi. 16 ; see also Matt. xii. 31, 32; John vi. 40, 53. â&#x20AC;˘ John iii. 18. "A declaration of personal trust and allegiance is, in reality, a high form of worship ; to recite a Creed is no barren and dry test of orthodoxy; it is a loving outburst of a loyal heart."Bishop HARVEY GOODWIN, Foundations of the Greed, p. 11. 3 " Understandest thou what thou readest 1" " How can I, except some one shall guide me 1 " (Acts viii. 31.) 4 In the Life of Professor Maurice (vol. i pp. 3, 4), we find an interesting account of the way in which the English Presbyterian. co regations of th last century, without one exception, lapsed into Unitarianism after they had decided not tb make the Creed, but the Scriptures, the basis of their teaching. 5 2 Tim. i. 12. 6 Jude 3.

INTRODUCTION.

nothing of "undenominational " teaching. Her faith is positive, not negative; definite, not capable of being varied to suit the tastes of the hour. From the first, her mission has been the energetic and unflinching proclamation of certain fundamental verities. All the "promises of God," how many soever they be, have in "Him the yea,'' and in " Him the Amen," "to the glory of God through us," says St. Paul. 1 The Christian Creed, by which, it should be explained, is meant the fundamental doctrines, or rather facts, to which all three Creeds bear testimony, was not, as some pretend, a gradual development of attachment to a great and good teacher, until it became an apotheosis. 2 Nor was it the arrival at a colourless residuum by a process of mutual exclusion on the part of opposite schools of thought. It was the deposit of truth committed to the Church from the first. 3 That deposit, with such explanations and limitations as may serve to preserve it in its integrity, is, it is true, all that the Church has a right to impose upon her members. On the other hand, no one has a right to consider himself a member of the Christian Church who refuses, or even neglects, to accept it. 4 1 2 Cor. i. 20. I may perhaps be allowed to add here the note on the passage in my Commentary in the Cambridge Bible for Schools. "Whatever promises God has given are given through Jesus Christ. He is the eternal affirmation of Divine love. Whatever His servants do, they can but minister Him, and t.he unchanging will and purpose He has come to reveal." â&#x20AC;˘ Professor Harnack has, of late, expounded this theory with great ingenuity and plausibility. For a reply see Professor Swete's lectures on "The Apostles.' Creed." 3 Canon Bright, speaking in Convocation on February 13th, 1896, speaking as an old pupil of Dr. Arnold, said, "Whatever else Dr. Arnold failed to see, he believed in the Incarnation. . . . . He believed in Christ-God and Man-with an energy and fervour and life and grasp which pervaded his whole work, and made him, as an ethical teacher, a most striking instance of the interdependence of Âˇ faith and morals." 4 See this question further discussed pp. 29-36,

CHAPTER I. THE POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME " I BELIEVE "

of the life of the regenerate Christian THEis theroot-principle Life of his Master, Christ. As we shall hereafter see, the Christian Church, from the beginning, has taught that Christ came to give Himself for the life of the world. This truth is expressed in various ways in Scripture. '' The free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.'' 1 "This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent." 2 "God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not the life." 3 But there is a certain condition necessary, on man's part, for the reception of this Divine gift. This necesRary condition is faith. "These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God." 4 Accordingly, faith occupies a position of supreme importance in the Christian scheme. 1

Rom. vi 23. John xvii. 3. tva. seems here, as in modern Greek, to stand for the ordinary infinitive. 3 l John v. 11, 12. â&#x20AC;˘ l John v. 13, 2

TBE CREED.

Faith in (or upon) Christ, believing in (or upon) Christ, are repeatedly declared, both by Jesus Christ Himself and those sent by Him, to be the condition of membership in the Christian Church, the necessary source of all Christian obedience and progress. It formed the ground of acceptance of the saints of the Old Covenant. Abraham "believed Jehovah, and He counted it to him for righteousness." 1 And from his time to that of Christ "they which be of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham." 2 "The just," as Habakkuk declares, was to "live by his faith." 8 Faith in Christ ":as laid down from the beginning as necessary to him who would be numbered among Christ's disciples. 4 It is mentioned in that summary of elementary truths with which St. John commences his gospel, " As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name, who were begotten, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 5 In the discourse which Jesus delivered to Nicodemus on the nature of the new birth (or begetting), without which there could be no entrance into His kingdom, 6 a similar relation is affirmed between faith and the transmission of the Divine life. The "only- begotten Son," in participation of Whose nature the new birth consists, was "given" by God, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." 7 St. John has been said to be the apostle of love, as St. Paul is of faith. But it is extremely difficult to understand how so strange a statement can have been 1 Gal. iii. 9. Gen. xv. 6. Hab. ii. 4. It must, however, be confessed (see p. 19) that the word here may possibly mean trustworthiness or fidelity. 4 Mark i. 15, xvi. 16 ; Acts xvi. 31. 5 John i. 12. (See margin.) 6 John iii. 5. CJ. John xx. 31 (cited below). 7 John iii, 16, 1

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

made. The word faith (rrlrrn,) does not, it is true; occur once in St. John's Gospel. But the word believe (1T'i<rTEvw) occurs nearly one hundred times in St. John's Gospel alone, and ten times in his first short Epistle. He represents Christ as declaring this belief in Himself to be the foundation of all true life. " He that believeth hath eternal life," 1 even though he die. 2 He shall even be a fountain of life to others. 3 And this truth is enforced in a variety of ways by our Lord throughout the whole of St. John's Gospel. The object he had in view in writing his Gospel is "that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that, so believing, ye may have life in His name." 4 Upon these facts he bases the statement in his Epistle that to believe is to have the witness of God concerning His Son irr oneself; and this witness he further defines as consisting in the realization of two truths; first, that God has given to mankind eternal life; and next, that this eternal life is in His Son. To have the Son is to have the life; not to have the Son is to be Without it. 5 St. Paul is equally emphatic. In every Epistle he bears witness to the importance of faith. It is the first of the three imperishable principles of the Christian life, of which the outcome, love, is the last and greatest. 6 In the Epistle in which he unfolds his system of teaching most fully, he places faith in the forefront as justifying a man, by imparting to him a righteousness which is no work of his own, but comes from God through ,Jesus Christ. 7 He had previously paved the way for this teaching by anticipating, in liis Epistle to the Galatians, the statement 1 John vi. 47. There is considerable early authority for adding '' on me," with the Authorised Version. 3 John vii. 38. 4 John xx. 31. " John xi. 25. 5 1 John v. 10-12. 6 1 Cor. xiii. 13 ; Gal. v. 6. Of, 1 Tim. i. 5. 7 Jlom. i. 17; iii. 22; v. 1, 18, 19.

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of St. ,John, that "we are all sons" (or "children'') "of God through faith in Christ J esus." 1 He declares that through this faith, and not by any works done in obedience to law, are we justified ; 2 and that the life the Christian lives in the flesh is the life of the Son of God appropriated by faith. 3 It were needless to point out how continually, in all his Epistles, St. Paul insists on the truth that faith is the necessary condition whereby the renovating stream of the Divine life of Christ flows to the believer. 4 It is admitted on all hands. It will be sufficient to add that the rest of the sacred writers, if less emphatic, are no less clear in their adhesion to the principle. Even the synoptic narratives, which confine themselves to the narration of the historical events of the life of Christ, and to His moral teaching, agree in representing the communication of His miraculous gifts to be dependent upon the faith of the receiver, 5 and the unreserved acceptance of His teaching to be a paramount duty among His disciples. The .Apostles preached belief in Christ as the necessary condition of admission into the Divine society. 6 St. Peter puts faith in the very forefront of his teaching ; 7 St. James evidently attaches the highest importance to it, if it be evidenced by suitable works. 8 In the Epistle to the Hebrews it is declared to be one of the first principles of Christian doctrine. 9 Even St. Jude's short Epistle gives great prominence to it. 10 And though it is seldom mentioned in the great and mysterious vision 2 a Gal. ii. 20. Gal iii. 26. Gal. ii. 16. See, for instance, Rom. i. 5 ; iv. 5, 9, 12, 16; xiv. 23. Gal. iii. 2, 5. Eph. i. 13 ; ii. 8 ; iv. 13, &c. 5 e.g., Matt. ix. 28; xiii. 58. Mark v. 36; ix. 23, &c. CJ. Acts xiv. 9. 6 e.g., Acts viii. 12; x. 43; xvi. 31 [viii. 37 is omitted in R ..V.J. CJ. Mark i. 15. . 8 James ii. 18. 7 1 Peter i. 5. CJ. i. 3. 10 Jude 3, 20, â&#x20AC;˘ Heb. vi. 1, 2.

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

bequeathed to the Christian Church by the disciple whom Jesus loved, it is mentioned in a way which shows the writer to have as high an appreciation of its necessity as any other writer in the sacred canon. 1 Since, then, faith occupies so important a position in the Christian scheme, it is pre-eminently necessary to understand in what it consists. The word is used in different senses in Scripture. In the Old Testament it is scarcely to be found. The verb "to believe " does not occur very often; 2 and in every case the verb signifies to rely on, to trust in, while the word translated / aith properly means trustworthiness, 3 though, beside the passive sense of trustworthiness, the active sense of trustfulness is also found. Thus, the famous passage, Abraham "believed in the Lord, and He counted it unto him for righteousness," 4 must be interpreted of trust. It was Abraham's trust or confidence in God which God regarded as righteousness on Abraham's part. The words translated, believe, faith, in the New Testament, have also several significations. They mean acceptance of a proposition, as in Matthew ix. 28, and Matthew xxi. 25, "Believe ye that I am able to do this 1" "Why, then, did 1 Rev. ii. 13, 19. The acknowledgment of the facts of the unseen world is a condition of the spiritual life throughout the Apocalypse. â&#x20AC;˘ Exod. iv. 5. Num. xiv. 11 ; xx. 12 Deut. i. 32; ix. 23. 2 Chron. xx. 20. Ps. lxxviii. 22, 32. Isa. xliii. 10. Dan. vi. 23 (24, Chald). The word in this last passage clearly means trusted. It occurs in a few other passages, in relation to God. 3 So in Deut. xxxii. 20 ; "children on whom no reliance can be placed." And in Habakknk it may be questioned whether the meaning is not "the just shall live by his trustworthiness." See Exod. xvii. 12, where it is translated "steady" in R.V. (lit. reliance or steadiness). In Psalm xxxvii. 3 it either means security, or is used adverbially "trustfully." Also in 2 Chronicles xx. 20 one voice of the verb (the Hiphil) is translated "believe'' ; and another (the Niphal) is translated "be established.'" And so in Isa. vii. 9. â&#x20AC;˘ Gen. xv. 6.

THE CREED.

ye not believe him" (i.R., what he said) 11 They mean trust, as in Matthew xviii. 6, where "Believe on Me" seems to mean put confidence in Me. (See also Matt. ix. 29; Luke i. 20, 45; Eph. vi. 16, &c.) Faith in the catalogue of Christian virtues given in Galatians v. 22, is supposed, by the best commentators, to mean trustworthiness (see also Matt. xxiii. 23). Again, faith sometimesÂˇ means the profession of faith required of a true Christian, and is almost equivalent to Creed, as in Acts xiii. 8 ; Philippians i. 27 ; Jude 3 ; Revelation ii. 13. 2 But in by far the greater number of passages in the New Testament it is used in the sense indicated by the only definition of faith contained in Scripture-that in Hebrews xi. 1, where it is described as " the assurance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen.'' 3 In other words, it means the faculty, or instinct, which realizes the truths of the unseen world, and produces in the mind a definite conviction of their existence. It answers to the power of sight in the natural 1 CJ. James ii. 19. "Thou art persuaded that God is one . . . the devils also are persuaded." CJ. Acts viii. 12. 1rl<rr,s (faith) never means the simple acceptance of a proposition, save in St. James, and this different use of the word in his epistle is the key to the apparent divergence of his teaching, on justification, from that of St. Paul. 2 An elaborate examination of this subject, with the aid of the Jatest authorities, will be found in Canon Liddon's Comme.niary on the Romans, in that of Professor Sanday on the same Epistle, and in that of Professor J. B. Mayor on St. James. 3 The word 111r6<rra<r,s properly means the basis on which a thing rests, and hence comes to mean the confidence which a knowledge of facts is wont to supply. It sometimes means that which is at the root of all manifestations of personal and individual being-what we call substance, or personality. Here it means not only the confident assurance of the fulfilment of his hopes, which the believer should possess, but the spiritual faculty on which this assurance rests. lA,-yxos (proof, or conviction) means here the conviction produced. in the soul of the reality of unseen facts, by the new sense with which the believer in Christ is endowed. See Bishop Westcott's note on the passage.

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

world, whence faith has been called "the eye of the soul.'' It is distinguished from knowledge, in that knowledge is obtained by observation and experience, while faith, being an intuition, must depend largely, like sight, upon the condition of the organ which discerns it. This strong conviction of the truths which lie outside the sphere of the senses stands at the foundation of the redeemed life of holiness. Without such strong conviction, the life of consecration and self-devotion demanded from a Christian would be a simple impossibility. A man must definitely realize (1) that God is good, (2) that He desires the well-being of His creatures, and (3) that He is able and willing to re-create them in His likeness, before he can desire or endeavour to serve Him. It is on this practical necessity that the relation of faith to works depends. If faith be that which apprehends and assimilates the facts of the invisible world, its presence in the human spirit must tend to produce conformity in the life of the believer to the truths which it has enabled him to realize. Faith, then, in the sense in which it is required of each member of the Christian Church, is not so much an assent to propositions as an apprehension of facts. But if it be indeed the apprehension of the facts of the invisible world, as sight is the apprehension of the facts of the visible world, it follows that faith is opposed, not to reason, as some have incorrectly supposedfor the conclusions of faith, like those of knowledge, are capable of verification by observation and experience-but, as St. Paul has opposed it, to sight 1-that is, the apprehension of things visible-and to sight only so far as the apprehension of visible things tends to obscure the apprehension of those which are invisible. For we need to bear in mind that there is no necessary antagonism between the visible and the invisible. It is only the diseased spiritual 1

2 Cor. v. 7.

THE CREED.

organization which man inherits from his forefathers that has caused any discordance between the two. And the discordance is not in the nature of things itself, but in man's disordered moral condition, which hinders him from perceiving the things which are invisible. As he thus sees plainly the facts of the visible world, but fails altogether to discern those of the invisible world without supernatural assistance, it follows that he very frequently ignores the truths which are of most consequence to him, and pays regard only to those which are within his power to grasp. Hence the things which he sees disturb his relations to the things he does not, and cannot, see, by causing him to entertain an altogether exaggerated idea of the importance of the former. Thus the antagonism between faith and sight is simply due to the disorder of man's nature, not to anything which is inherent in the nature of things. If our perceptions of the seen obscure our apprehensions of the unseen, it is because our incapacity to apprehend the latter destroys our sense of the true proportion of things, and their due relation as motives for action. But reason and faith are never opposed in Scripture. Nor does one in any way interfere with the other. Any apparent antagonism is due to our having misused the former, or to something defective in the nature of the latter. For reason is the complement, the exponent of faith. Derived from rear, it means the action of one who thinks. But, as no one can possibly think unless he has something to think about, there needs some object on which reason can be exercised. In the visible world, that object is supplied by our perceptions of the phenomena which are revealed to sight, or, as we say, to observation. 1 In the invisible world, reasonÂˇ is exercised on the things discernible by faith. 1 Much valuable information on the source and nature of knowledge will be found in Dr. MARTINEAuÂˇs A Study of Religion. In his

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

The relation, then, of reason to faith, is that the former is occupied with the elucidation and application of the facts made known to us through the mediUD?- of the latter. 1 But it would be a mistake to infer from this that faith Introduction to Book i. (p. 37), he says of those who deny the possibility of knowledge, "This doctrine of Nescience professes to be the result of an exhaustive scrutiny of the cognitive faculties, and an exact measurement of their resources against the objects to which they may address themselves. These processes of psychological stock-taking we have apparently as much reason to dread as the mismanaging creditor to shrink from the audit of his accounts; for, somehow, they are always disclosing bad debts, and reducing our intellectual capital nearer to bankruptcy. Each successive critique of the human mind contrives to detect some new incapacity in the place of a supposed knowledge." The truth is that knowledge is, at best, imperfect. All phenomena have their roots in infinity, and consequently are like an infinite series in mathematics ; we can but approximate to them as nearly as is necessary for practical purposes. Nor is there anything unreasonable in this. To take an example. Astronomical science, from a practical point of view, is simply a vast collection of approximations. And yet it is able to predict eclipses and other celestial phenomena, and to guide the mariner safely in every direction across the trackless ocean. We must, moreover, remember that while the perceptions of the individual may be very untrustworthy, such cannot be said of the perceptions of mankind in general. The elementary perceptions which are common to all mankind must either be accepted as knowledge, or we must, if consistent, abandon all attempts at thought. And, if thought be abandoned, all intelligent action must follow, and man must be reduced to a level with the amoeba. In this volume we shall assume that phenomena ascertained by observation, as well as laws established upon the results of such observation, have a real objective existence and operation. If the theory of some metaphysicians be true, that such laws are mere subjective conceptions of the human mind, all certainty becomes impossible, all argument superfluous. 1 "The Theology of the future must combine in one, and so resolve iu a higher generalization, that distinction between natural religion, based on what is known as the truths of Theism common to all mankind, and revealed religion, based on those higher mysteries which are peculiar to the Christian revelation. This contrast, like

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itself involved no exercise of the intellect. One of the most serious errors into which modern popular theology has fallen has been the determination to see in faith the work entirely of the Iieart,1 as opposed to that of the head. Hence the vague and unsatisfactory character of a good deal of modern religionism. Christianity has become, to many, a mere unreasoning impulse-a strong persuasion without any rational foundation - in fact, a species of fanaticism. But there is obviously an intellectual side to faith. Before believing in any thing or any one, we must have formed some conception of the thing, or person, believed in. Some idea of the essence and attributes of God must have preceded belief in Him. Some knowledge of the life, character, and claims of Jesus Christ must have been gained, before belief in Him becomes possible. Nor can even the distinctly spiritual side of faith be resolved into an unreasoning impulse. For faith is the energy which converts into action our perceptions of the world unseen, which impels us to conduct in harmony with the truths we have discerned. 2 This leads us to another sense of the word faith, which that between natural and supernatural, will not stand the test of modern criticism, since all revelation implies nature, and the natural leads up to the supernatural as its goal and ultimatum. We cannot put reason and faith in this way into separate compartments of thought, and throw open the former only to free inquiry, while we regard the latter as a kind of sacred enclosure into which reason is not to enter at all, or only under certain limitations of its free exercise, which are fatal to its very Âˇexistence as reason." HEARD, 01,d and New Theology, p. 67. 1 In Isa. vi. 10, we find no such antagonism. Man "understands with the heart." CJ. Matt. xiii. 15; John xii. 40; Act.a xxviii 26; 2 Oor. iii. 15. But it may, of course, be questioned whether the. term " heart" was used in precisely the same sense in the Old Testament as it is now. 2 See PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 4, " On the Nature of Faith."

POSITION OF FAITH lN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

has been already mentioned. The intuition which discerns the perfect goodness and holiness of God leads, of necessity, to an implicit trust in Him. The faculty which discerns invisible truths involves conduct in unison with the truths so discerned. He who, to any extrnt, sees God as He is, will be led to mould his actions upon his belief. Otherwise he cannot really believe the truths in which he professes belief. To suppose that a man would deliberately act in opposition to the assured conviction he entertains that God is infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely loving, hating nothing but evil, willing the good of all His creatures, and possessing unlimited power to carry out His wise, loving, and holy Will, is to suppose a moral impossibility. Here, then, we find the solution of the difficulty which has so long perplexed theologians concerning the functions of faith and works respectively, in man's salvation. They are as inseparable from one another as the stream from its source. Faith is the source, good works the stream. Or, to use another metaphor, faith is the tree, good works its fruit. He who apprehends God as He has revealed Himself in Christ, will not only seek to do His Will, but will rest on His Divine enabling power for the strength to perform that Will. Objectively, of course, the Will of God is the source whence we obtain the victory over sin. Subjectively, however, faith is the source, inasmuch as it is the means whereby we realize that Divine Purpose in our hearts. 1 But the fact mentioned above, which will be discussed more fully hereafter, of man's diseased and disordered 1 See this subject further discussed in chap. v. The words objective and subjective require explanation. That is called objective which exists independently of our conceptions of it. The word subjective refers not to things in themselves, but to the conceptions we form of them,

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nature, has rendered him incapable of discerning or acting upon spiritual facts as he ought. In spiritual matters he is in a similar condition to that of the man with defective vision in the world of sense. His spiritual perceptions convey to him at best but blurred, indistinct images of things unseen; and, in many cases, he can barely perceive anything at all. The principle upon which the Christian Church is founded-an assent to which is required from every person claiming to belong to her-is, that as man is incapable, to a great extent, by his natural condition, and still more in consequence of his fall into sin, of discerning, apprehending, what lies outside the realm of sense, it has pleased God to intervene by a special revelation of these truths. This revelation was communicated, in the barest outline, to the patriarchs; made more definite, on some points, by the Mosaic Law ; still further expanded by the ministry of a succession of inspired prophets, who developed the spirit of that law ; and finally completed by the Eternal "\Vord, Who assumed human flesh in order to communicate to man the truths he was otherwise unable to apprehend, to restore to him that inner fellowship with God which he had lost, and to deveiop, in its highest perfection, the spiritual part of his being, by virtue of which he is described as "created in the image of God." 1 No evidence in proof of the Fall will be adduced here. 1 Gen. i. 26. For this view of the object of Christ's Mission, see Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, c. 13. "For this cause the Word of God came by His own instrumentality, in order that He, as the Image of the Father, might be able to create man again according to that Image. . . . For no one but the Image of the Father was capable of such a task." "The possession of human nature by the Divine Son affords the link whereby the powers of God are really communicated to man, so far as man is capable of receiving them."- , Church Quarterly Review, January, 1892, p. 275, in a review of Canon Gore's Bampton Lectures. See this point further elucidated in chap. v.

POSITION OF FAI'IH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME,

If man ever had an " original righteousness " to lose, there can be little doubt that he has lost it; and even if he had not, the sole fact with which we are concerned here is, that the moral weakness and moral obliquity of his present condition incapacitates him for union with the good, and even for understanding aright in what the good consists. Neither shall we enter into a proof of the fact that a revelation has been made. That is the province of Christian evidence, into which it is not our intention to enter. The arguments for a revelation are addressed to unbelievers. The present treatise is designed for those who are willing to accept the teaching of Christ, but desire more information as to the nature of that teaching. Our object is to inquire what we learn from the revelation of God in Christ on points on which our reason is not a sufficient guide. That revelation instructs us (1) on the nature of God, and (2) on the method God has adopted to deliver mankind from the corruption into which sin has plunged him. These are the spiritual facts which reason is incompetent to discern, and for the apprehension of which faith is the appointed organ. But reason, as we have already seen, has its proper place .in relation to revelation. As its function, in regard to the facts of the visible world, is to observe, classify, and draw conclusions from them, so, in regard to the things of faith, the task of reason is (1) to ascertain, from the proper sources, in what revelation consists; (2) as far as possible to make clear its terms to human apprehension; and (3) to develop its principles, by free inquiry and discussion, until a general consent is arrived at, not only in regard to the principles themselves, but to their application to human thought and conduct. At present, as far as theology is concerned, we are scarcely liberated from the tendency to settle questions by a reference to authority of the same kind as that which barred the progress of science for so many

THE CREED.

centuries. lt is sad, moreover, to have to confess that, as far as religion is concerned, our progress in comprehending the truths of religion has not been barred by authority alone, but by authority backed by clamour, by violence, by unfair pressure, and even by physical force. From the disastrous moment when it occurred to Constantine to enforce the decisions of the Council of Nicaea by sentences of banishment, until long after the Reformation, the resort to physical force was believed to be not only a necessity, but a duty. And when physical force, happily, went out of fashion, violence and clamour still continued to be employed. We appear, however, at last, to have reached the era when fair and full discussion have become possible; and we may, therefore, hope to arrive at the happy results so long delayed. But if they are to be no further delayed, it will be necessary to remember that reason can no more tell us what the facts of the spiritual world are than it can tell us what the facts of the natural world are. From the beginning of the world until now, men have laboured to discover spiritual facts by reason alone, and those who have done so are no nearer to a conclusion than they were when they began. For our knowledge of spiritual facts, therefore, we must depend on Revelation, as apprehenrled by faith ; just as, for our knowledge of natural facts, we depend upon observation. The belief in Revelation depends entirely upon the belief in God. Just so far as we have ground for the belief that there exists a Being-just, wise, holy, truefrom Whose boundless stores of life and energy flow all that we see around us, all powers of life and thought within ourselves, shall we be inclined to expect that He will furnish us with sufficient instruction concerning Himself and His requirements to place us in a position to fulfil them. But we are not to suppose that we have here entered upon tile so-called "vicious circle." That the

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

reason we employ on the truths made known by Revelation, is also employed in arriving at the truth concerning Him on Whose existence Revelation depends, is quite true. But even here our belief in God does not, as we shall see in the next chapter, depend on reason alone, but on the needs, the cravings, the instincts, the intuitions of our nature. That is to say, it does not depend only upon one particular part of man's complex organization, but upon man's perceptions as a whole. These perceptions, operating independently of our reason, and sometimes even contrary to the conclusions at which it has arrived by mistaken processes, testify to the fact of the Divine existence with a force that is irresistible by the vast majority of mankind. 1 An expression of willingness to receive the first principles of revealed truth, has, from the beginning, as we have seen, been demanded as a necessary condition of entrance into the Christian Church. As baptism was the ceremony by which initiation into the Christian Church was effected, so the expression of belief was a condition precedent to baptism. 2 This was a necessity, first of all, because of the personal need of the individual believer; and, next, because baptism was the admission into a society in which the confession of Christ was a primary necessity. And hence arose the various summaries of Christian belief, called creeds, which 1 "Everyone who has had any intercourse with the poor of Christ's flock, will be aware of the perfectly clear vision with which simple unsophisticated minds are able to discern and to lay hold upon Him. Whether we call it an application of a special sense, or religious instinct, or the gift of the Holy Spirit-as a matter of fact there is some power of apprehension of Christ and of Christian mysteries, which is as wonderful as it is undeniable." Bp. HARVEY GOODWIN, The Foundation.â&#x20AC;˘ of the Creed, pp. 27, 28. 2 Mark xvi. 16 ; Acts ii. 41 ; xvi. 30-32. Into the question of Infant Baptism we cannot now enter ; but the Church has invariably required a public expression of belief from the adult, in Confirmation or Holy Communion, or both,

THE CREED.

have been in use. from the beginning in all Christian communities.1 An outline of such a confession of faith is found in the opening verses of 1 Cor. xv. But we find another in the Prologue of St. John's Gospel. It is, perhaps, in some ways to be regretted that the latter, rather than the former, form has not been adopted as the type of our summaries of Christian belief. But, however this may be, the historical, not the theological, form has been the pattern on which our baptismal and other formularies of belief have been modelled, and which are contained in our own Prayer Book, under the names of the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds. The form of these summaries of the faith appear, as we have seen, to have been regarded as of less consequence than the substance. 2 But if the Church was to continue in the Apostles' doctrine (or teaching), 3 a summary of some kind was absolutely necessary. It would have been impossible, in those early times, to have left Christians to infer the essentials of their faith from a volume which few of them possessed. Such a task is a difficult and a dangerous one even now, when Bibles are plentiful. So St. Paul has been regarded as advising Timothy to teach the Creed, when he wrote "Hold the pattern of sound words which thou 1 As we have already seen (p. 2), the early Chnrch was more concerned with the spirit than with the form of these confessions of faith. No universal formulary of faith was drawn up in the Apostolic age, nor for some time afterwards. But, although the Apostles' Creed is supposed, in its present shape, to date from the fourth century, it cannot be contended that it is the product of a development. For, to say nothing of the abstracts of faith contained in Scripture, we have substantially identical confessions in IGNATIUS, Epistle to Trallians, c. 9 ; IRENAEUS, Adv. Haer. i. 10 ; and in TERTULLIAN, De Praese:r. Haer. c. xiii. â&#x20AC;˘ See SWETE, Apostles' Creed, passim. In his Appendices he gives a variety of forms of Creed which the student will find it Âˇmost interesting to compare. 3 Acts ii. 42.

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

hast heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." 1 The confession of faith required by Philip from the eunuch (Acts viii. 37) is omitted by many ancient authorities. 2 But the connexion between belief and baptism existed from the very beginning, 3 and it is clear that, in the Apostolic days, some such profe~sion was demanded from those who desired to enter the Christian Church. 4 It is matter for regret that, in the controversies subsequent to the Reformation, the value, and even the necessity, of holding firmly to the summaries of revealed truth handed down in the Church from the beginning, has not been sufficiently appreciated. The reaction against the doctrines of the supremacy of the Pope, and the infallibility, if not of the Pope, at least of the Church, was unhappily carried so far as to deny in toto the value of Church tradition and of Church authority. Thus, a tendency has grown up to decry even the most elementary summaries of the most necessary "first principles of" the doctrine of "Christ" (Heb. vi. 1) as "sectarian formularies," and to insist on the Bible as the only standard of divine truth. But these summaries, thus handed down by universal consent from the very earliest ages of the Church, are as necessary to the proper understanding of the Scriptures - to those who would "prophesy " 1 2 Tim. i. 13. A better translation is "have a pattern of (the) health-giving (uÂˇholesome, see below) words which thou hast heard from me." In other words, "draw up a brief summary of the first principles of the faith," described in the next verse as "the good deposit." (See 1 Tim. vi. 20.) See also 2 .Thess. ii. 15, 1 Tim. vi. 3, 2 Tim. iii. 14, Titus i. 9, Heb. x. 23 (the R.V., however, here has hope), Rev. ii. 25. The translation "wholesome words," in 1 Tim. vi. 3 (A.V.), gives the best sense, both there and in 2 Tim. i. 13. 2 It is, however, as old as Cyprian, and even lrenaeus. 3 Mark xvi. 16. This verse, whether a part of St. Mark's original Gospel or not, is admittedly of the very highest antiquity. 4 See, for instance, Heh. iv. 14, x. 23, and Acts xvii. 31-34.

l'J

THE CREED.

according to the proper "proportion of the faith" 1-as a map is to a man landed in a strange country. 2 For the Bible is a volume of wide range and of much complexity. It embraces at least four several revelations of the Divine Will, each modifying, and to a certain extent superseding, that which went before it. And the Bible is, moreover, eminently unsystematic in its character. Even the New Testament seldom lays down systematically all the main principles of Christian belief, and hardly ever so emphatically as we should have expected. It refers to them, takes them for granted, mentions one or other of them in the course of an argument or exhortation, illustrates and applies them by turns. But it almost invariably assumes rather than states them. And though the New Testament is unquestionably an authoritative and inspired exposition of the principles of our holy religion, yet it is clearly an exposition of those principles, not the actual principles 1

Rom. xii. 6. So Tertullian tells us in his De Praescriptione, c. xiii. sqq. He says that the Scriptures, though they teach the truth, can only be properly understood by those "i\â&#x20AC;˘ho accept the rule of faith (by which he means the Creed) which has been handed down from the beginning. This is the true function of tradition-to hand down what has been universally held in the Christian Church. We reject the traditions of the Roman Church, not because they are traditions, but because they have not been held from the beginning, were not taught by the Apostles, and were not handed down in the Creeds. Tertullian's treatise was written at the end of the second or beginning of the third century A.D. So says Vincentius of Lerins in the fifth century. He asks why ecclesiastical authority should be invoked if Scripture itself be sufficient to decide controverted points. And he replies that '' mankind at large do not receive Scripture in one and the same sense, but some explain it in one way and some in another." Hence the need of our appeal to the voice of the universal Church to protect us against the partial interpretations of individuals ; the appeal to "uni versitas, antiquitas, consensio," as necessary criteria of a doctrine 9f the Christian faith. See his First Commonitorium, c. 2, 2

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

themselves. Moreover, while it is necessary that we should be able to state, and to a certain extent to understand and explain, the nature of those principles, it is by no means so necessary that we should be able to understand and explain all the difficult points which present themselves in the exposition of them, however authoritative, however inspired, that exposition may be. The main principles of our belief are simple, and capable of being easily taught and apprehended.. But, considered in their application and results, they are practically infinite; they involve mysteries of the most inscrutable kind. And he who desires to work them out in every detail, undertakes a task to which nearly nineteen centuries of the Church's career has proved inadequate. Nor do we find that the New Testament was originally regarded in the Church as the source or germ of the faith which was "once for all (&.1rag) delivered to the Saints." 1 The New Testament was written for those to whom that faith had been already delivered. Theophilus had been already "instructed " (or catechized) in the facts, of the truth of which St. Luke desires him to "know the certainty." 2 The books of the New Testament arose as circumstances dictated. They were either biographies of Christ and repositories of His teaching, or applications of Christian doctrines to the needs of those who had already accepted the faith; or, as in the case of the Apocalypse, forecasts of the struggle between the faith and the powers of evil in the ages to come. But no Canon of the New Testament was ever delivered to the first believers in Christ, nor, indeed, was any such Canon framed until centuries afterwards. Nor are the writers in the New Testament engaged in drawing up articles of 1

Jude 3. ll

Luke i. 4.

THE CREED.

faith. 1 It cannot be too strongly insisted on, that the articles of our faith are few in number, and simple in their character. 2 They do not involve abstruse propositions about Justification, .Atonement, Original Sin, the nature of the Presence in the Eucharist, and the like. Not such propositions as these, but the simple facts contained in the Creeds, and applied to the Christian consciousness in all ages by the .Apostolic writings, constitute the tradition handed down in the Church-" ubique, semper, et ab omnibus." 3 If this fact be clearly understood, it will place the controversies of mediaeval and modern times in their true relation to the first principles of the Catholic Faith. The controversies of the first five centuries relate to fundamental, those of later times to secondary, or, as Canon Gore has called them, "dependent " doctrines of our holy religion. On the 1 COLERIDGE, in his Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, p. 51, denies that the Scriptures are "a Creed, of which each sentence is an article.'' 2 "At least it is a fact that the dogmas which have the assent of the whole Church, which are imposed in the Church of England, are few in number, and we can see in this the Hand of Providence." GORE, Bampton Lectures, p. 109. 3 The writer is glad to have the support of Bishop Harvey Goodwin for this view in his Foundations of the Creed: ''Not unfrequently, if I am not mistaken, hearts are made sad which God does not desire to make sad, by unauthorized claims made on behalf of matters concerning which the Church has not required that faith should be expressed. A doctrine, it is true, may be such as ought to demand the assent of those who are commissioned to preach the Gospel to others, may be one concerning which it may be well that preachers should speak in the pulpit; and yet it may never have been marked by any adequate authority as of such a kind that the profession of it should be required from the rank and file of the army of Christ. In fact, if we oalmly examine the matter, we shall perceive that the simpler the profession of faith, the better for the army and for all concerned: The intention is to include, not to exclude ; to embrace the whole world, if it will be embraced." (Preface, pp. 12, 13.) The Bishop goes on to speak of the doctrines of the Inspiration of Scripture,

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

first we need definite and peremptory utterances; on the second we may be contenb to wait for the ultimate verdict of the Christian society. Moreover, on the first class of question the whole Catholic Church is practically agreed ; on the second it is hopelessly divided. The period of the Oecumenical Councils closes with the eighth, or, as some would prefer to say, the fifth century of the Christian era. Since that time there have been councils, but they have not been councils of the whole Church; doctrinal decisions, but not possessing Oecumenical authority. Moreover, the latter decisions have lacked the element of full and free discussion, which is essential to a genuine pronouncement of the Universal Church of Christ. For all these reasons we are compelled to accept as authoritative only the formal decisions which have been arrived at by the whole early and undivided Church 1 ; on all other questions, however general of Original Sin, of Justification, of Predestination and Election, ancl of the Authority of the Church and of the mode whereby grace is transmitted through the Sacraments as doctrines which, though by no means unimportant, are not placed before the recipient of baptism as necessary articles of faith. And he proceeds (p. 17): "Attacks upon Christianity are not to be considered as fatal unless they are successful in showing that the Apostles' Creed cannot be held by honest and reasonable men." I confess that for "Apostles' Creed" in this l_ast passage I should have been inclined to put "Nicene," as the only public authoritative statement the Church has ever made concerning the essentials of the faith. It is gratifying to find the same principles proclaimed by men of quite a different school at the sister University. Canon Gore says: "On the basis of a moderate amount of central dogma, it may be the discipline intended for every Christian that he should grow, according to the measure of his opportunity and capacity, into a fuller and fuller perception of the meaning of the faith." After deprecating "over-legislation," he proceeds : "It may have been desirable to guard dogmatically the central truths of Christ's person ; but undesirable, quite apart from questions of truth and error, to do the same for dependent doctrines." Bampton Lectures, p. 109. See this question further discussed in chapter vii, 1 On this point, see p. 155,

THE OREED.

the consensus of opinion may have been, it is our duty to reserve our judgment. We hold these not to be Catholic doctrines, but pious opinions ; and as the Christian Church has never undertaken to lay down a formal code of laws to which all Christians are called upon to give obedience, we regard no custom, however widespread, as a Catholic custom unless it can be shown to have had the sanction of Jesus Christ Himself or His Apostles. 1 To sum up what has been said. Faith is the necessary condition of the Christian life so far as man is concerned, because by it alone the Divine Humanity of Jesus Christthe root-principle of our regenerate life-is appropriated. The word faith has several significations in Scripture, but the principal one represents it as the faculty which realizes the facts of the unseen world. It is opposed to knowledge, in that the latter is acquired by our own exertions, while the former is imparted in precise proportion to our capacity for receiving it. As it has to do with things unseen, it is opposed, in the teaching of the Apostles, to sight, i.e., the apprehension of things visible. But there is no opposition between it and reason; indeed, reason is employed as naturally upon the things revealed to faith, as it is, in the world of sense, upon the phenomena revealed by sensation. But faith is no mere sentiment. It has its intellectual as well as its practical side, for it must conceive of the truths it discerns through revelation. If we ask why revelation is required, the answer is, that it is rendered necessary by the disordered condition of man's moral and spiritual faculties. Our conviction of its truth rests upon our antecedent belief in God as a good and wise Being, and flows necessarily from that belief. A confession of faith has always been required ' Even the decrees of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts xv.) were only of local and temporary obligation, They have never been re, garded as universally binding,

l'OSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

from each individual Christian; first, on the ground of his personal need of the truth revelation makes known to him; and next, as a member of the Christian society. Hence, the origin of Confessions of Faith, or Creeds, as they have been called from their commencing with the word Credo, I believe. 1 They are brief summaries of the first principles of the Christian faith, and a number of authentic documents of. the first age of the Christian Church have always been at hand to furnish us with evidence that the original doctrine of the Christian Church was such as the Creeds represent it to be. Thus, the New Testament is the witness for the Christian Creed, and the Creed is the summary of fundamental truth to which the contents of the New Testament bear witness. Those fundamental doctrines, and those alone, constitute the "Catholic faith" which every Christian is required to profess. Other doctrines, whether deduced from them or added to them by ecclesiastical authority in later times, are not binding in the sense in which the original teaching of Jesus Christ is binding, but must be regarded as "pious opinions" of more or less weight. 2 No ecclesiastical rules of any kind (if we except the two Sacraments expressly ordained by Christ, and Confirmation as practised by the Apostles) can be regarded as obligatory for all time upon the Church of Christ. 1 Pearson mentions bow St. Augustine distinguishes between credere in Deum and crerlere Deum. " Ille credit in Deum qui et sperat in Cbristum, et diligit Cbristum." But in the Greek of the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed the preposition e!s is used of belief in the Catholic Church as well as of belief in the Holy Trinity, though the word "in" is omitted in our translation. els, like in with the accusative in Latin, bas the sense of unto or upon rather than in. 2 See this question discussed between a Russian and a Swiss Professor of Theology in the Revue lnternationale (the Old Catholic organ for promoting the reunion of Christendom) for October 1893, pp. 634, 638, 639. Professor Swetlofl; of St. Petersburg, says:

THE CREED,

It is always permissible, of course, for anyone to reexamine the foundations of his faith for himself. But it is not very likely that the Catholic Church ~t large will find it needful to do so. . The decisions of the early Councils have been tested intellectually, and they have been tested practically; and they have stood both tests. The truths to which those decisions bear witness are briefly these : We believe in One God existing in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father, as "Dogmas place before us the Divine element of Christian knowledge, They are the truths which are given by God Himself to man through the instrumentality of the Church. The human element is represented by the believing reason, which receives and assimilates these truths. From the combination of these two elements, their agreement and disagreement, arise new truths of a subordinate, because human, description ; that is to say, private (intermediate) theological opinions." And he adds that "the limits of the human understanding permit us to grasp revealed truth only partially," and that this limitation of our faculties often brings down our conceptions of things Divine to a purely human level. He concludes : "What the Church has not defined is a subject on which not only every theologian, but also every Christiaii, is free to enjoy his own personal opinion." Of course, by the Church's definition, a formal definition is meanta fact which seems to have escaped many who have undertaken to tell us what "the Church says," or has said. So Professor Michaud, in his comment on Professor Swetloff's article, reminds us. He declares himself in accord with the Russian Professor on the following points : In order to constitute a dogma of the Church it is necessary (1) that it should have been taught by Jesus Christ Himself; (2) that it must be recognized by all Churches, everywhere and always, as having been so taught by Him ; (3) that it can only be defined as obligatory by an Oecumenical Council under those conditions. And he adds, (4) that the doctrinal decisions of Councils not universally acknowledged as Oecumenical, and those of particular Churches, need not be accepted by the members of the Church at large, because the right to make dogmatic definitions rests with the Universal Church alone, and with her only under the conditions previously mentioned. The whole discussion is well worthy of study, and calculated to further that better understanding among the members of the various Christian Churches, which the Revue Internationale was instituted to promote.

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

His Name implies, is the source of all being, divine or created. The Son is the Revelation, or Manifestation, of the Father, and through Him alone is the Father discerned. He took man's nature in order to redeem man from the deep corruption into which he had fallen, to purify him from the stains of sin, and to bring him to the state of perfection for which God had designed him. To the Divine Spirit (-rrvevp,a, as breathed by God) belongs the task of carrying on the work of redemption, purification, and growth in grace in the heart of the individual. And this He does by imparting the perfected humanity of Jesus Christ to the Âˇ believing spirit. In consequence of the common possession, by the members of Christ's Church, of this perfected humanity, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, a peculiar people has been called out of the world, enjoying the privileges of the forgiveness of sins, and the hope of eternal life in the world to come, knit together in the confession of a common faith, and bound to the recognition of the facts. that they have become one Body and one Spirit in Christ, and that it is their duty to strive after the perfection to which they have been called. 1 This, and none other than this, is the faith which has been proclaimed "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus" by the 1 Dean Stanley, in his early years, and during the progress of the Tract movement in Oxford, says (Life i. 210) : "N ewm:m., &c., assert that the inain point, and one which is to be dwelt upon and most earnestly embraced, is that God is Three, and yet One. Arnold, &c., that the inain point is that God sent His Son to deliver us, His Spirit to sanctify us, and that, incidentally, this involves much that is unintelligible and mysterious as to the relations of the Persons. The Apostles' Creed is Arnold's view of Christianity ; the Athanasian, Newman's." But surely there is no opposition between these viewsbetween the Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds, properly understood. To <livorce the <logmatic from the practical side of His teaching, is as much to deny Christ, as it is to refuse to admit the Divinity of each several Person in the Blessed Trinity,

'i'HE CREED.

Church. This is the faith which it will be the endeavour of these pages to unfold, as it has been taught from the beginning by those who were "eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." 1 1 Luke i. 2. Some useful thoughts on the subject on which this chapter treats will be found in The Historic Faith, by the Bishop of Durham, chapters i. and ii. But what the Bishop says of the Apostles' Creed I should be inclined, I confess, to say of the Nicene, as the more complete and more universally recognized document.

CHAPTER II. THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF JN GOD " I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD "

HE belief in God is antecedent to all religion whatsoever, as the word religion is generally understood. For, if religion be that which binds us, or that by which we are bound to pay respect and obedience to a being above and outside of us, it will be necessary for us to have formed some idea beforehand of the nature of the being to which that respect and obedience is due. Belief in God is also antecedent to, and in its origin at least independent of, revelation itself. For revelation is the unveiling to man of the nature of God, and of His relations to His creatures. There can be no revelation except there be (1) something to reveal, and (2) someone to reveal it. Thus, before we can conceive of a revelation of God's Will, we must have formed some conception to ourselves-even though it be an inadequate one-of the existence and nature of the Being Whose Will is to be revealed to us. The function of revelation, therefore, is not to reveal to us that God exists. That is a belief we must entertain before any revelation of His Being is possible. The function of revelation is to declare to us how He exists-to convey to us such information in regard to His nature and attributes as may be necessary to guide us in our conduct towards Him. We have first, therefore, to discuss the a priori 41

THE CREED.

grounds on which we are convinced of the existence of God; then to learn, from revelation, what are His essential attributes so far as human reason is able to conceive of them; and, lastly, to inquire what are the relations in which He stands to us, and we to Him. The first of these questions will be discussed in the present chapter. The two latter will be dealt with when we treat of the first Person in the Blessed Trinity. The idea of God may be regarded as a necessary elementary conception residing in the human mind. For it is universal among all races of mankind in every age and in every condition of human life.I Even the infant, in the earliest stages of the dawning development of reason, finds no difficulty in grasping the idea of a being to whom awe and submission are due. There are two classes of persons who may seem to form an exception to this no doubt sweeping assertion. But, upon examination, they will be 1 "In fact, if we take all the languages of the present day, we find a universal assent of all mankind to the belief that such a Being does exist. Take the French, the German, the English, or any other language, and ask yourselves how you are to account for the origin of those terms which relate to the Deity, unless there is the universal assent of all the nations speaking those languages to the idea that there is a Supreme Being." Mr. W. Griffith, in the discussion on the paper mentioned below. "No age so distant, no country so remote, no people so barbarous, but gives a sufficient testimony to this truth. When the Roman eagle flew over most parts of the habitable world, they met with atheism nowhere; but, rather, by their miscellany of deities at Rome, which grew with their victories, they shewed no nation was without its God. And, since the later art of navigation improved hath discovered another part of the world, with which no former commerce hath been known, although the customs of the people be much different, and their manner of religion hold small correspondency with any in these parts of the world professed, yet iri this all agree, that some religious observances they retain, and a Divinity they acknowledge." PEARSON, On the Greed, p. 21; original euition.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD.

found to prove the rule. The first class comprises all those savage tribes in which human degradation is so complete that they can hardly be said to have any abstract ideas at all. The other is found at the opposite pole of human society, among those in whom thought is so refined and elaborated that they are disposed to question every conception with which they are confronted. The first case need give us little trouble. If no conception of God is to be found among the savage tribes to which reference has been made, it is not because they never had such conceptions, but because, from the state of degradation to which they are reduced, they have lost all capacity for forming them. In regard to the second case, it may very reasonably be contended that the denial of God's existence is not absolute, but relative. That is to say, it consists rather in a denial of certain propositions which have been affirmed concerning God, than a denial of that Ultimate Force which lies outside, and yet is manifested in, all phenomena. 1 Nor is this sceptical attitude of the mind indefensible in every respect. Many Christian teachers, it must be admitted, have disregarded the caution which the Word of God itself has given against rash assertions in regard to His Essence. They have forgotten that "He is above and we upon earth," and that, therefore, concerning Him it were well that our " words" should be "few." 2 1 The late Mr. BRADLAUGH's volume, L~ there a God? is a treatise of this sort. It is chiefly concerned with certain arguments by which the Being of God has been supposecl to be established, and certain affirmations concerning His Being to which exception may not unreasonably be taken. 2 " Dangerous were it for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High ; Whom, although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His Name ; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him ; and our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence, when we

THE C:BEED.

They have ventured, as the late Mr. Matthew Arnold was never weary of saying, to speak as freely of God and of His doings as though He were "a man in the next street." 1 And much of the A.gnosticism of the day is the result of sheer weariness of mind, itself the result of a reaction from inadequate, or incorrect, or even unworthy, conceptions of God. 2 Such one-sided conceptions were very early imported into the theology of the Christian Church, as Platonists, Stoics, Epicureans, Polytheists, and the members of other religious and philosophical schools pressed into her pale. The Roman conception of a world-ruler, again, was not without its place in framing theories of God's Being and doings, which have wrought a good deal of mischief among Christians. We shall never get rid of the A.gnosticism of which we complain, until we have carefully revised our imperfect a priori ideas of God by the light of the revelation which He has given of Himself. The Being confess, without confession, that His glory is inexplicable, His greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few.'' HooKER, Eccl. Polity, I. ii. 2. ' 1 A few lines are added from Dr. MARTINEAU's Preface to A Study of Religion, which support an opinion held, and frequently expressed, by the writer of the present book, long before he met with them. "For much of the Agnosticism of the age the Gnosticism of theologians is undeniably responsible. They have inconsiderately overstrained the language of religion till its meaning breaks, and the coherent thinker easily picks up its ruins to show that they can contain nothing." His protest, which follows, against calling God "by names of highest abstraction, such as 'the Absolute,"' was also made by the writer, in a paper read before the Victoria Institute in February, 1883. To call God "the great I Am," if intended, as Dr. Martineau says, "for the very purpose of placing Him beyond comparison," wouldÂˇ be equally dangerous. But, as will be seen below, the idea involved in those words, instead of severing God from created things, makes Him the ever-flowing fountain of all life. 2 For an explanation of the term Agnosticism, see p. 62.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELJEF IN GOD.

of God, though a fact to which the human consciousness points as at the root of all being or thought, is nevertheless one of which our conceptions are necessarily so inadequate, that some revelation which transcends our elementary conceptions on the point is absol4tely neces$ary. And our approximations to the revealed idea of God have not, as yet, been a sufficient guide for conduct. It is necessary that we should carry them a good deal further. A brief sketch of the various conceptions which have been entertained of God, apart from Christianity, will therefore be useful in enabling us to guard against the many perversions of the true Christian <loctrine on this head which are still prevalent amongst us. In regard to the origin of the idea of God itself in the human mind, we shall venture to represent it as an innate idea, immensely strengthened, however, Âˇby its correspondence with the results of observation. It is thus that St. Paul treats it. 1 That which we are able to know about God is manifest in us, for it has been manifested by God. And this conviction is reinforced by the evidence of the senses, as interpreted by the intellect. We may clearly discern 2 the invisible Being of God, His everlasting power and Divinity, through the medium of the visible universe; and there is no excuse for us if we fail to do so. 3 Thus, the idea of God presented itself to the mind of primitive man as a mighty Force underlying and controlling phenomena. 4 And as conscience 1

2 Kaliopaw. Rom. i. 19, 20. Archdeacon Norris, in the Appendix to his Rudiments of Theology (pp. 241-243), cites two remarkable passages, the first, and most striking, from the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (chap. xx. ), and the other from Athanasius (Contra Gentes, 38) on the testimony of Nature to God. Both these writers lay stress on the order and harmony of creation. Âˇ 4 "Instead of conceiving of God as a Being above and outside the universe, the transcendent Deity of the past, men now think of Him 3

THE CREED.

is doubtless a Divinely-implanted instinct, 1 that mighty Force was also regarded as impelling man towards good. 2 This distinctly elevating conception of God was exchanged for one of a less ennobling character when visible objects or invisible powers, or both, were deified ; and it became still more degraded and degrading when these powers were supposed to be independent or ,conflicting, and when the worshipper was driven to endeavours to propitiate one or other of them in case they were unfriendly. The immoral tendencies of all these deifications of the powers of Nature need not be insisted upon ; they are obvious enough. And as the immanent and living centre of Force, the battery, so to speak with reverence, whence proceed all the forces of the universe. In a word, we no longer speak of laws as acting on matter from without, as overcoming its inertia, and directing it in the course it shall take. We now speak of forces acting from within, and evolving one form out of another by some biological law of growth which we call evolution. Hence it is that our conception of God has been profoundly modified by the altered attitude in which we regard the universe." HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 57. I desire to record the obligations I am under to this thoughtful and original writer. The sentence above quoted contains the master-key to the religious difficulties of our time. We have "profoundly modified" our "conception of God"; but we have not yetÂˇre-stated all the problems of theology in the terms of that new conception. "Our conception of salvation will be modified by our conception of God and of His character." Ibid., p. 156. 1 For the demonstration of this the reader must be referred to the closely-reasoned arguments of Dr. Martineau, A Study of Religion, Book II., chap. ii, sec. 4. â&#x20AC;˘ This idea of God is expressed by the Semitic conception of God as Force (El, Elohim), according to the most generally accepted meaning of the word. Dr. Max Miiller has 'shown that the idea of brilliancy or beauty was most clearly present to the Aryan races. See his Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 214. But this was a lower conception altogether, and led the way naturally, it would seem, to the degrading conceptions of God involved in polytheism. The assertion that man's original conception of God was that of a fetish, that this gross conception gradually

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD.

the tremendous indictment of St. Paul 1 will be found amplified in the vehement, and by no means ineffective, attacks made by many of the early Christian apologists on the various deities of the heathen Pantheon. 2 As society progressed, and thought expanded, philosophic conceptions of God began to take the place of popular ones. These, again, took a form more or less inconsistent with the true character of God, as set forth in revelation. The god of Epicurus, for instance, was a being who, after he had called all things into being, dissociated himself from them, and left them to shift for themselves. This system is known as Transcendentalism, from its belief in a god who transcends Nature, whether in regard to space, time, or worth and excellence. 3 The god of the Stoics, instead of being visible in Nature, and guiding and controlling its operations, became identified with Nature. This system is known as Pantheism, 4 and its grave moral defect is to be became refined into polytheism, and ultimately sublimated into monotheism, is one which (1) cannot be proved, and (2) is degrading to humanity. In regard to (1) it is sufficient to say that strong evidence has been adduced in favour of the belief that the original creed of mankind was monotheistic ; while in support of (2) it may be observed that the assertion depends upon the assumption that man was originally no more than a highly-developed ape, and that the statements in the first chapter of Genesis concerning all things that were made being '' very good," and concerning man having been originally made in the Image of God, are entirely without foundation. It should be remembered that, however much evidence there may be for evolution in the sense of development according to plan in creation, the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection can by no means be regarded as established. At least, the theory must not be so pressed as to exclude the operation of influences external to the 1 Rom. i. 22-32. race. â&#x20AC;˘ As by Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, and other early writers. 3 MARTINEAU, A Study of Religion, II., 149. 4 In MARTINEAu's A Study of Religion, Book III., chap. i., the student will find a masterly account of the Pantheistic system.

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found in the fact that evil becomes, equally with good, a part of the Divine Nature and of the working of the Divine Mind. Nor is it possible, on the Pantheistic theory, ultimately to escape the Stoic ElÂľ,apÂľ,ev71, which reduces all events to links in an iron chain of resistless destiny. If we turn to the East we find the pure doctrines of Brahminism degenerating into a deification of the powers of Nature as childish and as gross as that of any other polytheistic system. In the religion of Buddha we discover a doctrine which reduces God to a nonentity, and man's perfection to a nirvana which, if not theoretically, is practically annihilation.1 Thence arises a morality which is of little use to the man himself, and of none whatever to the world at large. Of all the philosophic theories concerning God, the most satisfactory is that of Plato, with whom God is essential existence and essential goodness. 2 Its chief defect is that it has tended to exclude matter from all connection with the Divine Being, regarding it as the opposite pole of existence, and, therefore, as the source of all evil. On the other hand, Roman philosophy gave prominence to the idea of God as a righteous ruler, who demands submission to His wise and salutary laws; and the sense of duty held a primary place in its system. 3 The Hebrew conception of God is peculiar to revealed religion. It seems to have been handed down from the Âˇvery earliest times, to have acquired additional definiteness in the creed of Abraham, and to have been formulated with 1 This statement will be disputed at least as far as actual annihilation is concerned ; but it is very difficult in practice for the individual Buddhist to realize the nice distinctions by which ultra-refined thinkers are trying to save the credit of his system. 1 In his Republic, vi. 19, he speaks of God as beyond all Essence, but as being the Absolute Good. 3 See CICERO, De Nat. D., iii. 3; and Ttisc. Disp., 27.

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great distinctness by Moses. 1 Starting with the Semitic conception of God as Force, the law of Moses reveals God, not only as a righteous ruler-" a God of faithfulness, and without iniquity " 2-but as at once just and forbearing; severe, yet long-suffering; stern t@ avenge, yet ready to forgive. 3 He is the Creator of all that is. 4 Matter, as well as spirit, are the work of His Hands; and therefore the former is in no sense whatever the source of evil; but all things existing are very good in themselves, 5 and are only bad in the case of those who use them badly. Moreover, God, as the fountain of life, is Himself Life. He is called the Living God, the Eter:nally Self-Existent, the unique I AM. 6 But as yet He is not represented to us as the source of all moral perfection in His creatures. They are commanded to obey Him, and are admonished that they can only find their happiness in doing so. But the Gospel expansion of this conception of God into one which regards Him as the fountain of all goodness, has not yet been revealed. God, to the Jew, is the power which orders all visible things, the Great King who governs all, the source of all life, the enemy of all injustice and wrong-of all evil, in fact. Not until Christ came was it made known that the chief of all His attributes is Love. We will postpone the consideration of the Christian conception of God till the next chapter. But it is necessary to remark here that this conception has been 1 Into the Higher Criticism of the Hebrew history there is no need to enter. The historical statements in the Hebrew Scriptures must, for our purpose, be accepted as they stand-at least, as far as their main general features are concerned, until there is a far wider consensus of opinion on the question, among men of various schools, than there is at present. â&#x20AC;˘ Deut. xxxii. 4. 3 Exod. xx. 5, 6; xxxiv. 14. Deut. iv. 24. Of Exod. xxxiv. 7. 5 Gen. i. 31. 4 Gen. i. 1. Deut. vii. 9, 10. 6 Exod. iii. 14; Dent. v. 26.

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very inadequately apprehended by the Christian community, even down to the present time. The Christian revelation was so profoundly original that man found himself, at, first, unable to understand it aright. Hence the vast crop of heresies which arose as soon as Christianity began to attract public attention; and hence, too, the perversions of the Christian idea which invaded, and have obtained wide acceptance in, the Christian Church. Early Greek theologians reflected the Christian doctrine of God more fully than any other school of theology which has, as yet, arisen in the Christian Church. But even the Alexandrian school itself was coloured with Platonism,1 and the later Greek theology tended more and more to lose itself in mere speculation. Latin theology, on the other hand, reflected the practical conception of God which had dominated Latin philosophy; and mediaeval, and even modern, theology in the West has been somewhat prone to regard God-to borrow, though in a shape somewhat modified, Mr.. Matthew Arnold's felicitous phrase-as a kind of "magnified and non-natural" Roman Emperor. The doctrine of the Divine indwelling, which, as we shall see hereafter, is the most prominent doctrine of the Gospe~ gives way, to a certain extent, among Western theologians, to the doctrine of the Divine government of the world; and the idea of the Divine identification with man, which took place at the Incarnation, has, by degrees, been replaced by that of the necessary reparation, made in human shape, to the outraged dignity of the ruler, and the outraged majesty of faw. 2 1 Thus Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Tryph. chap. iv.) cites the Platonic definition of God, and Athanasius ( Contra Gentes, chap. 2) cites the same definition (see Plato, Republic, vi. 19) almost word for word. 2 This is by no means invariably the case. But while the Greek conception of God and the scheme of salvation is seldom lost sight of by Greek theologians, the Latin conception seems to waver continually between the hi~her and the lower one,

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD.

The impulse given by the Reformation to freedom of thought led to a renewal of speculation, especially in Germany. A strong reaction took place against the foreign colouring which had insensibly been imparted to Christian ideas by their contact with heathen, thought. The English Deism of the eighteenth century differed, it is true, little from the Deism of Epicurus. But from the time of Spinoza onward we are confronted with practically a new conception of God-that which regards Him as simple Infinity.I Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, regards God as One Who is to be conceived of as the "original Being" (ens originalium), and, so far as it has nothing abov.e it, the highest Being (ens summum). 2 Fichte tells us that existence implies origin, and that God is beyond or1gm. Schelling regards God as neither real nor ideal, neither thought nor being. And thus we are gradually led to the conclusions of modern Agnosticism. It is from the conception of God, formulated by German metaphysics, as "the Infinite," "the Absolute," "the Unconditioned"1 God, according to Spinoza, is "the being absolutely infinite-i.e. the substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses an infinite and eternal essence.,,. Ethics, Part I., Def. 6. But he regarded the Divine Mind, which had in it the conception of all things antecedent to their existence, as the precise opposite of a human mind, in which the perception of things is consequent on their existence. Thus there was nothing, in his view, in common between the two. See Ethics, Part I., Def. 17, Scholium. 2 Dr. Max Mimer's translation, p. 498. Kant is eminently unsatisfactory here. Not only does he say that his definition does not involve a determination of the relation of this Being to other beings, and therefore '' leaves us in perfect ignorance as to the existence of a Being of such superlative excellence," but he adds (p. 499) that "the concept of God, in its transcendental sense,'' is " the concept of the highest reality as one, simple, all-sufficient, eternal, et caetera." It is hardly possible to characterize with sufficient severity this "bottomless perjury of an et caetera"-this slipshod treatment of the greatest aud most fundamental of all truths.

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a conception accepted by Dean Mansel in his celebrated Bampton Lectures - that Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his First Principles, has deduced the conclusion that God is unknowable, and must, therefore, be dismissed from our thoughts as a Being of Whom no conceptions whatever are possible. 1 This Creed has received the name of Agnosticism, from its confession of ignorance concerning the Being of God. As Mr. Spencer shews, in the course of the same argument, that Force, Matter, Space, Time, Individual Existence, &c., are equally "unthinkable" with God, it may be a question whether the "unthinkability " of abstract ideas does not point rather to some inherent weakness in the science of metaphysics, which, as yet, it has never been able to overcome, than to our absolute incapacity to know anything about God. But however this may be, one thing must be regarded as certain-that this conception of God as identified with one or more of our own abstract conceptions of Him, is one which cannot possibly be accepted. The God Whom the Scriptures reveal to us is no mere metaphysical abstraction, but a Living Being, an Active Force, an Unceasing Energy. He is not "the Absolute," for that term indicates one who is incapable of relation, whereas we can only conceive of God through His relation to us. He is not "the Infinite," because our conception of Infinity must include evil as well as good; and with evil He has 1 See these and other authorities quoted in a paper read by me before the Victoria Institute, Feb. 5th, 1883, on the question, "Is it possible to know God!" It is unnecessary to puzzle the nonmetaphysical reader with Hegel's theories about the identity of Being and non-Being, recalling as they do the paradoxes of the heretic Basilides in the second century, who described God as absolute non-existence, on the ground that all idea of Being involved also the idea of limitation. See HIPPO~YTUS, R.efutation of all Heresies, ~ook VII., chaps. vii, ix~ Âˇ '

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD,

not, and cannot have, anything in common. He is not the "Unconditioned," because the revealed doctrine concerning Him describes His essential Nature as including certain attributes which of necessity condition His Action, for He is represented as essentially Love, Goodness, Justice, Wisdom, and Truth. 1 We may not be able to penetrate the ultimate secret of the Being of God. There is a sense in which all Christians are Agnostics. None of us pretends that he can possibly know God, as He is in Himself. Revealed religion expressly teaches the contrary. "Canst thou by searching find out God 1" says the book of Job. 2 "No man hath seen God at any time," says St. John; 3 and he implies that it was necessary that "He that is of God" should assume human flesh, in order to reveal Him to mankind. " No man hath seen, or can see," God, says St. Paul, because He dwells in the "light unapproachable." 4 Nor need this incapacity to know God as He is in Himself, occasion us 1 I must refer all those who may desire to pursue this argument further to the paper mentioned above, as well as to a more popular form of the argument, published at the request of the Institute, under the title, Is there a God? It is the object of the present volume to present conclusions rather than to follow the processes Ly which they are reached, and yet at the same time to make the reader acquainted with the present state of the controversy concerning the Being of God. 2 Job xi. 7. Of. xxxvi. 26; xxxvii. 23. a John i. 18. Of. vi. 46; Exodus xxxiii. 20. 4 1 Tim. vi. 16. See also i. 17, and Rom. xi. 33, 34. There is a remarkable passage in the opening of a Dialogue concerning the Holy Trinity, ascribed by some to Theodoret, which illustrates this Agnostic element in Christianity. The Anomoean says to the Orthodox believer, "Do you know God 1" "Yes," replies the Orthodox believer. The dialogue continues, "A. Do you know Him as He knows Himself! 0. No. A. Then you do not know Him 1 0. I know Him as it is possiLle for one in the nature of man to know Him. A. Then men know Him in one way and He knows Himself in another way! 0. Certainly." So Athanasius (De Deer. Syn. Nie. chap. ix.) speaks of God as immaterial and without body (li1rAos Ko.l da-wÂľa,ros), but does not proceed further to define His nature. Of. chap. xxii., where he

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any difficulty ; for the incapacity extends to everything that is to be known. Space, time, matter, motion, force, have been shown by Mr. Spencer, as we have seen, to be ultimately unthinkable. Even our own personality, when we seek to explain it, is quite as inscrutable and inexplicable to ourselves as the Being of God. Indeed all being, of whatever kind, seems in the end to run up into the unseen, and there to be lost to our mental vision. We are enveloped in an atmosphere of mystery, in which all ultimate existence, and all our ideas in reference to it, appear to be shrouded, and which the utmost efforts of our reason fail to pe~etrate. Are we, then, to abandon all attempts to think upon such subjects~ Certainly not. We act, not on ultimate scientific ideas, but on such conceptions of them as we are able to form for practical purposes; 1 and says that the Essence of God cannot be comprehended. Origen tells us iu his Principia (II., i.) that God is "simplex intellectualis natura," "ac fons ex quo initium totius intellectualis naturae vel mentis est." But in his Homilies on St. John's Gospel (xiii. 23), he inclines to the opinion that God is said to be Spirit because He breathes into us the breath of a higher life than that which we have by Nature. He gives some curious definitions of God in the beginning of his Homilies on the Psalms, from Henophilus the Stoic. Of. also St. Gregory of Nazianzus in his "Hymn to God," "Thou alone art m1known (d-yvwcrTos), since Thou gavest birth to all things that are conceived of (vo<<Tcu)." 1 '' Our ideas are not 'speculatively false,' because they are speculatively inadequate. All knowledge consists of successive approximations to the truth. We are all of us familiar with calculations based on the ratio of a diameter of a circle to its circumference, and on the extraction of the roots of numbers which are not complete squares. Carried on to as many places of decimals as the nicety of the operation requires, the most valuable practical results are obtained from premises which are speculatively defective. Similarly, in infinite series, we take as many terms as are needed for our purpose, and neglect the remainder as practically of no importance." Is it Possible to Know God, pp. 119, 120. Basil, in his Epistles (234, 235), anticipates this argument. He emphatically denies that we must be content to be altogether ignorant of God, because we cannot comprehend His Essence.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD.

our contention is, that however little we may know of God, we know enough to teach us our duty to Him. We may not know enough Âˇof Him to satisfy our curiosity ; but we know-or, at least, can know-quite enough to enable us to love Him and serve Him with all ou,r hearts. 1 What do we know of God 1 That is the next question to be asked. What evidence have we for His existence 1 Our first argument must be drawn from the phenomena of nature. These phenomena, by the abundant evidence they display of design, point unmistakably to a Creator. It is true that this argument is supposed now to be discredited. We are told 2 that Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, has disposed of the teleological argument for the Being of God. But we shall find, on consulting his pages, that he is very far from having done anything of the kind. He has simply endeavoured to demonstrate the futility of this argument by considerations drawn from the practical unthink1 There is no greater fallacy than to imagine that there is any real force in mere logical reductiones ad absurdum of the arguments for the Being of God. And yet (see Walles in the Regions of Science and Faith, p. 227) many have cast away their faith in God, to the ruin of their happiness, and in spite of the deepest yearnings of their souls, in obedience to a supposed logical necessity. As has been shown above, everything that is can be reduced, by pseudo-metaphysical methods, to a logical absurdity. E pur si muove I And yet "we live, move, and have our being." The Being of God is a practical question, to be decided on practical grounds. It cannot be really a question of logic at all ; for if the proposition that God is can be shown to be absurd, the proposition that God does not exist may easily be proved to be a thousandfold more absurd. No man bas any right to do violence to a sacred and universal inner instinct on grounds like these ; and the nature which such a man outrages will be sure to have its revenge. As Bacon remarks (Essay on Atheism), "A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to Atheism; but depth in philosophy bringetb m~nâ&#x20AC;˘s minds about to religion." 2 HEARD, Old and Z.Tew Theology, p. 55.

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ability of space and time and of visible phenomena in general, analogous to those which Mr. Herbert Spencer has alleged in support of the unknowableness of God. We may, therefore, fearlessly point to the innumerable evidences of Design in Creation as indisputable evidence of the working of a Divine Creative Mind. 1 Our second argument is drawn from the existence of Force. Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown that every possible definition of Force is open to objection. Nevertheless, unless we are to reject the evidence of our senses, the existence of Force must be regarded as a demonstrated 1 For a masterly refutation of Kant, and a re-statement of the scientific argument on grounds more in accordance with the standpoint of modern scientific research than will be found in such a book as PALEY's Natural Theology, or the celebrated Bridgewater Treatises, see MARTINEAU, A Study of Religion, Book 11., chap. i. It is true that JOHN STUART MILL (Three Essays, p. 116) can see nothing more in this argument from design than a demonstration of the existence of a being of limited capacities struggling with an intractable material. But our belief in God does not rest on the argument from design alone; and, when we have arrived by it at the belief in a Creator of the Universe, we shall be able to find other considerations from which we may be able to estimate His character and power. As an illustration of the argument from design, it will be sufficient here to introduce one instance among hundreds of thousands-that of the eye. weÂˇ find in it (1) a curtain, exquisitely sensitive to light, and automatically regulating the passage of the rays, so as to prevent the intrusion of too large an amount of light ; (2) a power of selfadjustment to near and far objects, (a} altering the convexity of the lens, and (b) lengthening the instrument which conveys the light; and (3) the retina, or screen for the reception of the picture, fixed at precisely the place where alone such picture could be formed. The testimony of a practical and powerful mind like that of Napoleon may, perhaps, carry as much weight to the souls of struggling men and women as the refinements of metaphysicians, or the difficulties suggested by critics. "That is all very well, gentlemen," said Âˇ Napoleon to some objections of this kind; "but who made all these 1" And he pointed as he spoke to the stars shining in the heavens.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD.

fact. 1 But if we cannot define Force, how can we explain what we mean by it 1 We must have recourse to one of those approximations so often employed with practical effect in mathematical science. What Force is, in itself, we cannot say; we can only conceive of .it as an effect of Will. But what will 1 Whose will 1 The only answer which can in any way satisfy the reason is, the Will of the Being to Whose operations we have seen ground for ascribing the existence of phenomena. Thus, on the one hand, we discern, in the world around us, the operation of a directing Mind; on the other, we have evidence of the activity of a controlling Will. We thus advance another step in the determination of the nature of that Unseen Power, to which we give the name of God. 2 Our next step will naturally be to endeavour to ascertain 1 See, in regard to the relation of phenomena to Knowledge, MARTINEAU, A Study of Religions, chap. iv. One point, however, which has been touched upon above, p. 43, does not seem to have had sufficient attention paid to it by metaphysicians, namely, the distinction between the intuitions and perceptions of the individual and of mankind at large. On the first, obviously, it would be impossible to rely. The second it would as obviously be unreasonâ&#x20AC;˘ able to question. No rational person could possibly dismiss as unworthy of attention the convictions-resting, as they may very fairly be supposed to do, upon intuition-of a large majority of mankind. Nor could anyone in his senses reject the overwhelming evidence, inductive and deductive, for the existence of such a thing as Force. 2 "On the whole, what the pilot is in the ship, the driver in the chariot, the leader in the dance" (or "the conductor in the chorus"), "what law is in the city, the general in the camp, that God is in the world." ARISTOTLE, De Mund., 6, sec. 34 [cited by Pearson in the original, p. 21]. And again (Ibid., sec. 2), "It is an ancient saying, a hereditary doctrine among all men, that all things are of God, and by God all things hold together." The language here, in the original, is so closely similar to that of Col. i. 16, that it suggests the idea that the latter is but an adaptation of the former, and aii application of it to Christ.

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the character of this Will, as revealed in natural phenomena. In other words, we shall inquire into the purpose for which the world may presumably be supposed to have been created. There are two schools of opinion in regard to the general relation of creation to the happiness of created beings. The pessimist philosopher insists that misery is the result of creation. 1 The opposite, or optimist, school contends that misery is simply the result of disobedience or opposition to God's Will. It argues that life is, in the main, enjoyment; and that, therefore, the purpose of creation is happiness. It argues that "somehow good will be the final goal of ill." 2 Even death may not be so terrible an evil as is supposed. The sum of happiness in animal life is surely far greater than any anguish that can be supposed to attend its close. And where, as in the case of human beings, 3 there appears to be reasonable ground for the belief in a future life, there 1 Schopenhauer is the most notable modern example of the pessimist school. To him is attributed the saying that there can only be one thing worse than yesterday, namely to-day, and only one thing worse than to-day, namely to-morrow. 2 TENNYSON, In Memoriam, 54. a The argument for a future life need not, of necessity, be confined to human beings. The idea of the Indian who believed that in the next world "his dog would bear 4im company" has been received with a smile by most European thinkers. But there is really no ground whatever for the assumption that the immortality of animals is an absurdity. Indeed, the whole argument in BUTLER'S Analogy, Part I. chap. i., in which he shows that death, though the dissolution, is by no means demonstrably the destruction of living powers, goes a long way in the opposite direction. It is to be hoped, however, that those who read this note will not jump to the -conclusion that the author maintains the proposition that animals are immortal. This is not the case. It is necessary, however, unfortunately, to be on one's guard against a large class of persons who seem to be incapable of seeing any difference between the assertion that a thing is possible, or that we have no right to assume that it is impossible, and the assertion that it is absolutely certain, and that it were heresy or imbecility to deny it.

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is also excellent reason to believe that death is not an evil at all, but rather the contrary. The desire for life, so deeply implanted in man that some sceptical philosophers have gone so far as to attribute to it the belief in immortality, is altogether inconsistent with the pessimistic theory. The intensity of that desire is proved by the way in which the vast majority of men cling to life, even under the most adverse circumstances. But, if the belief in a future life.be conceded, the pessimistic theory is exploded, for belief in a future life opens up the most illimitable prospects for humanity. And Bishop Butler has shown, in the first part of his Analogy, not only that there is no reason against such a belief, but that the evidence of a Divine plan in the government of the visible universe seems to postulate very decisively a more extended sphere for that government than the present world affords, and that human beings in this world are being trained here for a wider sphere of usefulness elsewhere. 1 Thus we are brought to the conclusions (1) that, even in the present life, it seems probable that the Purpose of God is, on the whole, to promote the happiness of His creatures; and (2) that a careful review of the conditions of existence here may be said to point very decidedly to the working of laws calculated to produce a far larger share of happiness to human beings hereafter. Our next proof is drawn from the phenomena of conscience. That extraordinary duplex action of the mind, 2 in which the individual sits in judgment upon himself, and pronounces sentence upon himself according to a code of laws 1

See Analogy, Part I. chap. iii. The word conscience itself (Gr. <Tvvd/l71,m) bears witness to this duplex action. Dr. Martineau's masterly distinction between conscience and perception will be useful to the student. The latter introduces us to "another than ourselves, that gives us what we feel"; the former introduces us to "a Higher than ourselves, that gives us what we feel." A Study of Religion, ii. 28. 2

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which appears ultimately to be communicated from some external source, seems unquestionably to point not only to a moral standard existing outside of the individual, but to a communication of its laws, by means of some unknown force, to his inmost spirit. But Force, as we have seen, is the expression of Will. We have, therefore, foundation for the belief that a Will is acting in Nature according to moral laws. There are irresistible grounds for the conclusion that moral and physical laws are due to the operation of the same Will1 directed toward the attainment of the same Purpose. We are thus advanced another step in our progress toward the determination of what may be known of God. The Mind and Will at work beneath the outward forms of things reveals itself to us not only as Power, but as Goodness. Ever at work to promote the welfare of mankind in things external, it is equally at work within us, prompting us to deny self, and reach the standard of righteousness in our conduct, and causing us uneasiness when we have failed to do so. It is true that there are those who have denied that conscience is, in any sense, innate ; that it can be traced to an ideal standard of right and wrong, implanted and caused to operate in us by a Perfect Being. The late Professor Clifford, for instance, was wont to describe it as the "experience of the tribe." In other words, it was, in his view, simply the aggregate verdict of humanity on questions of right and wrong, grasped and applied to a given case by the individual.1 1

See for a full examination of this subject, MARTINEAU, A Study He deals very exhaustively with a similar theory put forward by James Mill. Mill asserts (1) that selflove is the spring of action, (2) that collective self-interest sets up a different standard to that dictated by the self-interest of the individual, and (3) that conscience is the measure of the demands of of Religion, Book II. chap ii.

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But this theory fails to account for three facts patent to all who have ever examined the workings of the human spirit. The first is the extraordinary intensity, in many cases, of the self-condemnation; the misery and anguish caused by it, even where the action is not by, any means regarded by the majority of those among whom the sufferer lives as criminal, or even culpable. 1 The second is the existence, at all times, of a number of persons whose moral standard is distinctly in advance of that of the vast majority of those among whom their lot is cast. The third is the collective self-interest, as opposed to that of the individual. Dr. Martineau denies the first and second of these propositions, and he shows that the third represents the objects which the individual Âˇand the community have respectively in view as not identical, but conflicting, whereas the conscience of the individual and that of the community ought, on the supposition that they are properly informed, to be in harmony. As a matter of fact, the first two suppositions of Mr. James Mill are directly opposed to the truth. Not Egoism, but Altl'Uism, is the true guide of conduct; i. e., not our own interest, but other people's interest, should be in each of us the object to the attainment of which our energies are directed. And conscience bears uniform and powerful witness to this truth, in its arraignment of both individual and collective self-interest when opposed to the claims of duty. A society, it may be added, in which each seeks his neighbours' interest in preference to his own, will be a society in which the welfare of all is secured. 1 The intensity, under some circumstances, of the heathen feeling of self-reproach is remarkable. Not only is there the general feeling of unworthiness contained in Ovid's "Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor," but a deeper sense of guilt is expressed by Lucretius, and witnessed to by such plays as the Eumenides of Aeschylus and the Oedipus Rex of Sophocles. Will it be contended that these w.riters did not express the feelings of their age, and that they were in no sense its teachers 1 Or will it be argued that their moral standard was that of the majority of their countrymen, and in no sense in advance of it 1 Do they not teach us that the highest expression of the verdict of conscience, in any country at any given time, cannot be simply the resultant of the moral sense of the inhabitants of that country at that time 1

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equally distinct growth of the conception of right and wrong in Christian society, among the members of that class which has always been in advance of its fellows. It is not denied that the accumulating " experience of the tribe " might produce a certain growth in the sense of moral excellence. But a stream cannot rise above the level of its source. If conscience is simply the experience of the tribe, the individual conscience must reflect the verdict of the corporate conscience. If the individual conscience rise above the level of that of the tribe, from whence are its conclusions drawn 1 and, what is still more to th13 point, what support can it possibly have for them 1 And if it is the individual conscience which leads and forms that of the community at large, does not this point to a gradual realization by mankind in general of those elementary truths which are only perceived by those who have not suffered their moral perceptions to be dimmed by self-interest 1 If it be argued that the persons who are in advance of others in the elevation of their sentiments are only quicker than their neighbours to detect the true teaching of experience, we may reply that at least this admits that the experience of the individual is sometimes in advance of that of the tribe, and further, that it indicates the existence of some objective truth at the root of experience, some first principle of moral obligation, whose violation will produce evil effects. This is still further evident from the consideration that deeply religious men have, in all ages, been far above the "experience of the tribe." Was theirs experience 1 Must it not rather have been intuition 1 We are thus led, by the examination of phenomena, to the idea of Duty, of some law inherent in society, and therefore obligatory on the individual, which guides us into a course of conduct calculated to promote the common good. In other words, there exists a stl!-n4ard of right and

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wrong altogether independent of the opm10n of mankind in general, a standard which mankind is bound to do its best to discover, and to the requirements of which mankind is bound to conform. Thus, then, the conditions of moral life among mankind, whether regarded individually or collectively, reveal the existence of a mysterious inner force, which continually impels them towards good. 1 Another difficulty meets us here. If such a force exists as that of which we have just spoken, why is it so often thwarted in its operation 1 Why is it that, after so many ages, the collective conscience of mankind is so far from responding, as it should, to the promptings of this inner monitor i This brings us to the consideration which, more than any other, tends to prevent the mass of mankind from heartily believing in God. It is the existence of 1 It must be borne iu mind that the conclusions of men like James Mill and Professor Clifford are incapable of actual demonstration. They can, at best, be but theories on a point on which no demonstration is possible. If it be replied that neither are the theories adopted by the advocates of revelation capable of demonstration, we answer that this is admitted by themselves. But where no demonstration is, from the nature of things, possible, faith, we contend, steps in. And we further contend that if a man will but follow his higher instincts he will find himself irresistibly impelled in the direction of faith. Archdeacon Norris (Rudiments of Theology, Appendix, pp. 243-246) cites a remarkable and eloquent passage from Tertullian's De Testimonio Anirnae on the witness borne to God's existence by the sense of responsibility and dread of judgment which appears to be inherent in the soul. I quote two phrases. Speaking of God, he says, "Senti illam quae ut sentias efficit." "Reflect on that which makes thee capable of reflection." " Deus ubique et bonitas Dei ubique . . . judicii Divini invocatio ubique, mors ubique, et conscientia mortis ubique, et testimonium ubiquc." "God is everywhere, and God's goodness is everywhere. . . . Everywhere do men appeal to the Divine judgment. Everywhere do we find death, everywhere the conscio~sness of death, everywl)cere the witness of death." -

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evil.1 The problem of the existence of evil has occupied all religions, and all philosophies, from the beginning. No one denies that evil exists; no one has been able to explain the reasons for its existence. Even revealed religion treats it as a fact, and does not attempt to account for it. 2 The result of evil, in man, has been to blind his perceptions, as well as to pervert his will. Not only does he find a "law in his members, warring against the law of his mind," 3 but the very action of his mind is clouded, as far as regards its conceptions of right and wrong. Thus the collective morality of the world at large is not only perverted, but must necessarily be so. The needle, which should point in the direction of the star of duty, is deflected by attractive forces in its neighbourhood, and this the mariner is bound to take into account. And so the vast preponderance of evil in this world must, of necessity, have an immense effect in perverting our ideas of right. Even on the theory that the self-interest of mankind at large is the sole standard of right and wrong, we are confronted with the fact that individuals are continually violating the requirements of that standard, and are thus the cause of the misery that exists. Is there, or is there not, a moral force-a "not ourselves," to use Mr. Matthew Arnold's wellknown phrase-"that makes for righteousness," in the midst 1 The experience of the writer as a lecturer on Christian Evidence has convinced him that nine-tenths of the unbelief in the existence of God prevalent among the poorer classes, arises from their inability to understand how an infinitely good Being can permit the existence of so much misery as they see around them, and experience themselves. Thus the best argument concerning the Being of God which we can bring to bear upon the working classes, is the practical one of doing all in our power to diminish the sum of human misery, and to improve the condition of the poor. 2 The narrative in Gen. iii. simply states that man's fall was caused by his determination to have experience of evil as well as of 3 good. See cha:p. v. sec. ii. :(tom. vii. 23,

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of the moral confusion around us 1 Observation m~kes it clear ( 1) that there is, and always has been, such a force at work, (2) that thisÂˇ force acts with very different intensity in different ages and different parts of the world, and (3) that the approximation to the true moral standard has always been highest where revealed religion has had fullest play. Thus, then, we are led to the conclusion that there exists a moral force in the world, tending to produce conformity to its dictates, and that this force operates most strongly where, as in the case of Christianity, the conceptions of God are the clearest and the highest. We are thus advanced another step in the demonstration of the Divine existence. 1 We are led to infer the existence of a power which everywhere works for righteousness in the heart and mind of man. This conclusion is confirmed by a glance at the history of mankind. '\Ve need not here repeat the profound but irresistible arguments by which Bishop Butler demonstrates the fact that such a moral force as that which has just been mentioned has obviously been at work in the course of human history. But no one can thoughtfully review that course of history without discerning there the working of a Divine plan, which tends to reward good and to discourage evil. We cannot reject Bishop Butler's conclusions that the world is governed by a system of rewards and punishments, that this government is moral in its character ; that mankind is obviously under probation,2 and that moral discipline and improvement is the object of that probation ; that whether we can fully comprehend the constitution of 1 We have here anticipated an argument for revelation, to which we must hereafter return. See p. 78. â&#x20AC;˘ Or, as some modern thinkers, Mr. Heard, for instance, prefer to put it- education. See HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 215. Dr. Littledale e1cpresses a similar opinion in an Essay contributed to The Wider Hupe.

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things under which we live, or whether we cannot, we can comprehend enough to know that we are under such moral government; and that, if we take pains to learn the lessons we are intended to learn, we shall most certainly find ourselves restrained from evil, and impelled towards good. Thus the phenomena presented by the world at large corroborate those of the inner constitution of mankind, and establish the truth that the power which underlies those phenomena is a power for good. We come next to theÂˇ question, why, if there be indeed a mighty creative Power Who wills our happiness, He has permitted evil to exist~ We must go again to Bishop Butler to indicate the direction in which the answer is to be found. In the fifth chapter of the first part of his Analogy, he discusses this life, regarded as a probation presumably intended for moral discipline and improvement. It is analogous, he says, to the course of education a man has to go through for any particular trade or profession. Men are unquestionably trained, during the course of this life, for positions here for which, when commencing that training, they are obviously entirely unqualified. Why, he asks, should they not be, in like manner, trained in this world for a future life, which, he adds, may be, in many ways, similar to life here below, and may need the same qualities of veracity, justice, charity, self-restraint, and the like, which are desirable here 1 The object of the present life, properly understood, is to produce habits of self-government-such habits as can be formed only by a course of discipline. But this state of discipline clearly involves (1) moral freedom, and therefore (2) liability to fall; for _ where there is no possibility of error there can be no moral excellence, as we understand the phrase. Mechanical propriety and moral excellence, let it be remembered, are

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not convertible terms. To attain the latter there must be superiority to temptation. But temptation involves a state of things in which evil necessarily exists. From this point of view the Fall appears to us as a moral necessity, and evil itself as a stage in the development of good. For, were there no evil, aU the higher forms of goodness were impossible. They involve conflict with, and victory over, evil. Thus the "Author of our salvation" is said to have become "perfect through suffering," 1 because it was only by endurance of suffering that He could manifest the majesty and beauty of His human life. Life without suffering and trial displays no more moral majesty or beauty than the processes of crystallization or evaporation-some people would say not half as much. Thus, even Nature teaches what Christianity confirms, that "good is the final goal of ill"; that sorrow, and pain, and even sin itself, the cause of both, are but factors in the ultimate evolution of eternal peace and joy. For without those qualities, which are called out by endurance, the higher forms of happiness are impossible. Life, for finite beings, 2 becomes no more than a mechanical fulfilment of function, without responsibility, without self-approval, without the consciousness of desert. There is no scope, in a world where sin and suffering are unknown, for what we call noble actions. And yet there are no actions to which the human conscience so instinctively and warmly awards commendation as to acts of heroic bravery, steadfast endurance, conflict with temptation, persevering devotion to the welfare of our fellow-creatures. Such acts as these are warmly approved even by those over whose lives it is only too evident that the 1 Heb. ii. 10. â&#x20AC;˘ This observation must be confinedÂˇ to finite beings, because we are utterly incapable of understanding in what the Divine capacity for happiness consists.

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motives which inspired them have no power. Thus our moral constitution bears witness to the fact that evil is no more than a step in the development of the race-a term in the series whose sum is the ultimate happiness of mankind -a factor in the problem, by the solution of which that happiness is attained. 1 The existence of evil, then, presents, after all, no insuperable difficulty in the way of belief in God. "Nature, red in tooth and claw with ravine," may be said, it is true, to "shriek against the creed." We may "falter where we firmly trod " when we recollect that "of fifty seeds " Nature often "brings but one to bear." 2 We may not be able to understand why in nature animals are made to prey upon one another, and may be able to do no more than hope that the death-sufferings of the animal creation are mercifully minimized so that they bear but an infinitesimal proportion to their joys. 8 But while we leave the solution of these 1 "We come into the world already furnished with activities which have no other function than to repulse ills that approach ourselves, and draw us to those that visit our fellows ; a constitution which, at the same time, presupposes suffering, yet, far from making it an end, meets it with a remedy, and shows how the face of Nature turns towards it with regretful looks." MARTINEAU, A Study of Religion, ii..99. And again : " Suffering is not only the postulate whence our moral nature starts ; it is also the discipline through which it gains its true elevation.'' Ibid., p. 100. Dr. Martineau also quotes an aphorism from RICHARD RoTHE's Stille Stunden, " Niemand wird ohne Leiden geadelt." In connection with this subject HINTON's Mystery of Pain may be studied with advantage. â&#x20AC;˘ TENNYSON, In Memoriam, 56. s "There is, perhaps, no feature in the order of Nature which less easily harmonizes with an ideal perfection of moral nature than the law of prey, which makes each race of creatures, through vast provinces of natural history, the devourer of some other. The natural desire we feel to free the caught fly from the spider's web, or to rescue the mouse from the owl's beak, constitutes an involuntary protest against the method in which the animal commissariat is

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mysteries in higher hands than ours, hoping that the key to them may one day be within our reach, we have no ground whatever for doubting that, in the economy of human life, pain, and even evil itself, is an instrument in God's hands for inducing in man higher capaaities for happiness than he could ever have attained without it. We proceed to the -phenomena of man's moral and spiritual nature. The existence of the moral emotions presupposes the existence of some corresponding characteristic in the Creator. Otherwise, why were they implanted in us 1 From whence do they come 1 The emotions of love, mercy, pity, trust, sympathy, kindness, benevolence-are they the reflection, as well as the channel, of a Higher Benevolence, a more expansive love, and do they exist in us for the benefit of those around us, or are they mere freaks of Nature 11 The spiritual faculties, too, with which managed ; and after closely following the habits of the predaceons families, and engaging our imagination with the terror of the hunted victim, tÂˇhe agony of the capture, the atrocity of the death, we are tempted to say that the sweet face of Nature is hypocritical, and that the calm loveliness of the woods and ravines does but hide innumerable torture-halls and battle-fields. From such impressions I own that I cannot entirely free myself." A Study of Religion, ii. 93. We must refer the reader to Dr. Martineau's volume for the' arguments with which he endeavours to show that this view arises from "a partial and narrow view of the phenomena." But he certainly understates the gravity of the case. The worst feature of it undoubtedly is that man, with his admittedly higher moral qualities, is by far the most cynically treacherous and brutal of all beasts of prey ; that he does not scruple remorselessly to destroy any animal when it suits his comfort and convenience; and that the very being which feels itself irresistibly impelled to avenge the slaughtere<i lamb, or to destroy the spider's web, will, often without the least scruple, destroy the life even of a creature whom he has fed and fondle<i. See W ALLAcE's Darwinism, in reference to this note. 1 "Well, then, from this constitution of our humanity, is there nothing to be learned of its Author ! Are its laws without relation to the Law-giver! Are we made to approve and reverence what He

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we are endowed, are they without an object 1 Ts the consciousness of God's existence, which, in some shape or other, we have seen 1 to be practically universal among mankind, a consciousness which subserves no end, and for which we are able to assign _no adequate cause 1 The "rudest savages," as Mr. Herbert Spencer says, 2 rose from the gross details of their daily lives to the conception of some power beneath and beyond the things they saw. He very considerably misrepresents the imperfect nature of those conceptions when he says that they pictured the cause, or causes, of visible things to have been "creatures of flesh and blood," like those who entertained them. An element of mystery and greatness attached to those conceptions, however inadequate. It is not too much to say that they always bore witness to an essential distinction between the idea of these higher powers and the idea of man. The objects of savage worship are not natural, but supernatural. And the important fact must not be lost sight of, that what we may fairly describe as the intuitions of the human mind on this point correspond to the inferences of the reason. The question, therefore, demands an answer, Are we to set aside these intuitions as illusory 1 And with them, are we to brush away all the emotions ofÂˇ awe and reYerence towards the unseen power; all the beliefs which prompt men, and have always prompted them, to worship ; all that dependence upon, and confidence in, a Supreme and Righteous Power over-ruling all things regards with aversion or indifference! Are the variegated tissues of sympathy woven by One whose infinitude admits no colours of affection, and is empty of all pathetic sympathy! Nay, in giving us compassion, is He not, ipso facto, compassionate, providing countless channels through which remedial blessings flow! In groupingâ&#x20AC;˘ us around centres of love is He not loving, inventing for our life what most sweetens and elevates it ! '' A Study of Religion, ii. 44. 2 First Principles, p, 109. 1 See p. 42.

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for good, which have been the source of the best and noblest of human actions 1 The sense of sin, too, as an act of ingratitude and disrespect towards a higher power, which is so powerful a factor in human life-which has been felt with such tremendous intensity by many, and which has been- at the root of the innumerable sacrificial systems to be found in the religions of the world-is it founded upon a truth; or must we class it among the vulgar errors destined to die out, with other religious ideas, before the progress of science and intelligence 11 That there should be a period of temporary reaction against unworthy and one-sided conceptions of God, such as have been put forth with somewhat too much confidence in the name of Christianity, need not be a matter of surprise. But insulted Nature will have her revenges, 2 and a future generation, we may be sure, will prostrate itself with deeper reverence than ever in the Temple of Him Whose most obvious expression is doubtless Law, but Whose highest attribute is Love. 3 Nor are we compelled to stop here. Experience has shown, and an infinite number of writers, especially in the present age, have triumphantly pointed out how the Incarnation and Life of Christ, as revealed in the Gospel, furnishes the only solution to the innumerable problems suggested by man's being, and his relation to the facts around him. The need for some such guidance can hardly be disputed. It is stamped in ineffaceable characters upon 1

HERBERT SPENCER, First Principles, pp. 110, 113. She has her revenges now in the follies of Esoteric Buddhism, Spiritualism, and the like. " "The more we regard the religious phenomena of mankind as a whole, the more the conviction grows upon us that here, as in other departments of social affairs, science has obtained no real grasp of the laws underlying the development which is proceeding in society. These religious phenomena are certainly among the most persistent 2

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the whole of human history. More especially was the craving felt just at the moment when God had taken means to satisfy it. ,Tustin Martyr tells us, in graphic language, how he was driven from one creed to another by a sense of their inadequacy, and found refuge in Christ alone. 1 The author of the Clernentines paints a still more graphic picture of a young man "wasting away" from the anxiety produced by inability to grapple with the uncertainty involved in his very existence, and the still more terrible doubt as to whether his life would be prolonged beyond the grave. 2 N eander, in his History of the Christian Church, has a powerful picture, taken from Plutarch's treatise concerning Superstition and Atheism, of the hopeless misery in which many were engulfed in the times immediately preceding the Revelation of God in Christ. 3 Nor is this all. Many of those who have been compelled, by dialectical subtleties, to surrender their belief in God, have been a prey to untold agonies from want of some one to whom to pray and seek and characteristic features of the development which we find man undergoing in society. No one who approaches the subject with an unbiassed mind, in the spirit of modern evolutionary science, can for a moment doubt that the beliefs represented must have some immense utilitarian function to perform in the evolution which is pro_ceeding." KrnD, Soc:ial Evolution, pp. 21, 22. And in his chapter on "The Function of Religious Beliefs" he shows that, throughout the whole history of rnenkind, supernatural beliefs have been necessary to impel man to sacrifice his own good to that of the community. But he is in error when he identifies the impulse toward self. indulgence with the reason. For the more recent and modified attitude of men of science toward Theism and the supernatural, see Canon GORE'S Life of Prefessor Romanes, and some interesting information on the views of Professor Huxley in an article by Mr. Wilfrid Ward, in the Nineteenth Century for August, 1896. 1 Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 2. â&#x20AC;˘ Recognitions, chap. 2, a Eccl. Hist., vol. i. p. 17 (Rose's translation).

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for sympathy.I Thus, to the evidence of man's nature and moral constitution in general we may add the evidence of human needs, for which it is only reasonable to believe that the Creator must have provided some source of supply. The last consideration therefore on this head is that of our need of a revelation. The doctrine revelation has taught us concerning God will be deferred till the next chapter. But we cannot leave the question of the grounds on which we base our belief in God without discussing the a priori probability that He would vouchsafe some revelation of Himself. This probability rests upon the admitted inadequacy of natural religion or philosophy, in any shape, to satisfy the cravings of the human heart. Not only does the history of mankind, as we have seen, demonstrate man's need of help, but the need of some adequate sacrifice for sin has, in all ages, pressed on the conscience of humanity. Is it more likely that God, ,mpposing Him to exist, would make some provision for these human cravings, or that He would withhold it 1 The former supposition falls in with the facts both of man's acknowledged need and with the conception of God's goodness which we have independently reached. The latter flings us back at once into the abyss from which our ideas of God have rescued us. Thus, the fact of a revelation is, inÂˇ itself, antecedently probable. This probability derives strength from two very noticeable facts in the world's history. The first, that the history of revelation has been indissolubly bound up with the history of human progress 1 The following words from a German '' Prayer of an Atheist " give pathetic expression to t.his feeling. I have ventured to translate them as follows : '' 0, came there to my longing heart Some certain proof of life Divine, Then would I pray, full of eager warmth, As ne'er a pilgrim at hallowed shrine."

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in morality and happiness; 1 the next, that while, on the one hand, many who have rejected revelation in earlier life have come eventually to find that they could not do without it, it may be safely said, on the other, that none who have made the doctrine of Christ their practical guide throughout life have ever been forced to confess, in their later years, that they found it unsatisfactory or inadequate. On the contrary, their experience has ever led them to express in the strongest possible language, and with a strength of conviction ever deepening, that "other foundation can no man lay" in passing through life than " that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 2 If we ask how such a revelation can be made, Paley's answer, In no way that we are able to conceive except by miracles, 3 is more easily scoffed at than refuted. No one has been able to show us how a special communication could be made from God to man without some external authentication. So Nicodemus reasoned when he said, "No man can do these signs that Thou doest, except God be with him." 4 And so our Lord taught; "the very works that I 1 See BRACE'S Gesta Christi. I may also refer to Christianity as a Moral Power, a paper read by myself before the Victoria u.istitute in the year 1877. 2 1 Cor. iii. 11. We cannot press this practical argument at any length ; but we may briefly protest against the idea that this great question is to be decided by the suffrage of those who claim for themsolves the title of" intellectual." "Many a poor, unlettered woman, who has spent months or years in a darkened sick chamber, unable even to read a single page of her Bible, may- have a knowledge of God firmer, deeper, truer, than the greatest of theologians." Archdeacon NORRIS, Rudiments of Th~ology, p. 13. See also note I, p. 29. On this practical or experimental knowledge great stress, on scientific principles, should be laid. It is immeasurably stronger than the negative argument adduced from the ignorance of the Agnostic, although the contrary is often supposed to be. the case. In scientific research conclusions are based on what men have observed, not on what they have determined to ignore, or have failed to notice. 4 John iii. 2. 3 Evidences-Introduction.

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do bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me." 1 " Though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that ye may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father." 2 Thus, then, revelation must be a supernatural communication. By a supernatural communication, it may be necessary to explain, is meant one which is made in a rnanner outside the ordinary course of nature. By some the assertion that a revelation must be thus made may be condemned as an assumption. But this is not altogether the case ; for those who condemn it as such are bound to show in what other way God, consistently with His methods of dealing with mankind, could have made such a communication. Further, we have already shown (1) it to be extremely probable, from the condition of mankind, as revealed by observation, that such a revelation should have taken place; (2) that there is considerable ground for the belief that it has taken place, and that by the aid of miraculous agency; and (3) we find that the revelation, whose innate reasonableness and probability we have demonstrated, did not take place by any other means. The external attestations of revelation are miracles and prophecy. There is also an internal attestation, derived from its power to touch and satisfy the heart. These, as I ha_ve said elsewhere, "constitute 'a threefold cord, which cannot' easily 'be broken.'" 3 This is not the place to discuss the credibility either of miracles or prophecy ; 4 but 2 John x. 38. John v. 36. In p. 108 of the paper quoted above, p. 44. 4 I have dealt with Miracles in a separate treatise-Are Miracles Credible .1 And Professor MozLEY's Barnpton Lectures have dealt most ably with the same subject There is great need for an exhaustive work on Prophecy in relation to modern critical theories. I have shown in my Principles of Biblical Criticism, chap. vi., that on any critical theory whatever of the date of the Hebrew prophecies, there still remain many remarkable and undeniable predictions of Christ and the Christian Church which could not have been written after the event. 1

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it may, at least, be permitted to say that there is one miracle so strongly attested by historical evidence, that the Christian may safely rest the whole question of the miraculous upon its truth or falsehood. That miracle is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is an event, upon the actual occurrence of which the Christian Church is founded. And the evidence for it is of a kind which unbelief has been entirely unable to explain away, either on the hypothesis of imposture, or on the hypothesis of hallucination. 1 The question for prophecy may also be reduced within very narrow limits, by a consideration of the following facts. However many of the prophetic utterances may fairly or unfairly be explained away, there remain 2 certain very definite prophecies in the Old Testament, which cannot be applied to any but Jesus Christ. That they were written before the event is shown ( 1) by the date of the Septuagint Version; and (2) that, up to the very moment of Christ's Resurrection, it was impossible for anyone to have foreseen the nature of His claims on our belief, or the way in which those prophecies were about to be realized. Add to these astonishing facts the light thrown upon the nature of Christianity by the history of the Christian Church, the extraordinary influence the doctrine and life of _Jesus Christ has had over the conscience of mankind, the undiminished-nay, greatly increased-vitality of that doctrine, after eighteen centuries and a half, and the marvellous regeneration of society which has followed in its train, and we are confronted with a series of facts which, if they do not immediately compel our allegiance, present, at least, considerations which no reasonable man can ridicule or ignore. 1 Nowhere else is the case for Christianity so well put on this crucial point, than in GODET's Conferences Apologetiques, a small volume which has been translated into English by the Rev. W, H. Lyttelton, in a volume published by Messrs. T. and T. Clark. 2 See Note 4, last page.

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We have now sketched the history of the belief in God, and have briefly indicated the arguments on which it rests. We have recognized that phenomena require a Cause; that they are directed by a .Force; that this Force appears to work on moral principles of justice and beneficence, and to be operating in the heart and conscience of man, as well as in the world external to him. We have seen that the moral needs of man seem to call for belief in such aÂˇ Being, and that such belief supplies the one satisfactory guide to the Law which should govern us in our dealings with our fellows. We then discussed the imperfection of the guide thus supplied, and discovered the cause of this imperfection in the existence of evil. But we found strong reason to conclude that evil is but a passing phase of God's dealings with us ; and that the existence of evil, supposed by some to be incompatible with the existence of the Perfect Good, is in reality necessary to the evolution of the highest kind of goodness. We next examined the moral and spiritual constitution of man, and discerned in them organs which, on the supposition of the non-existence of God, would be useless, and the existence of which was therefore, on that supposition, inexplicable. We then proceeded to discuss the probability that God would vouchsafe some revelation of Himself to those who were obviously unable, of themselves, to arrive at sufficient information about Him, and we found that this probability was very considerable. And, lastly, we summarized the evidence for the revelation which we believe He made of Himself in and through Jesus Christ, and we found, in its " fourfold cord " of miracles, prophecy, practical consequences, and inward conviction, an influence of immense strength attaching us to Him. These arguments are sufficient at least to show the reasonableness of an inquiry into the subject matter of

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the alleged revelation--the only attempt, we may add, to explain the phenomena of existence on the ground of a supernatural manifestation from on high of the ultimate truths relating to it, which is admitted to be worthy the attention of reasonable men. We conclude by pointing out that the idea of God to which our investigation points, involves His Unity. That there could be two independent ultimate forces at work in the creation of the Universe 1two separate sources of moral excellence-two unconnected, and possibly antagonistic, roots of the idea of duty, would seem altogether impossible. The principle of evil, the existence of which we have admitted, might, it is true, be regarded, as it was by the Gnostics and Manichaeans in early times, as co-ordinate in power and authority with the principle of good. But such an idea is incompatible with the progress in moral conceptions, and in the power to realize them in action, which is evident in the history of mankind. The facts, no doubt, point to a power inherent in man of resisting God's Will. But this power only exists within certain limits. Man's power to resist is controlled by God's power to direct, govern, and sustain the course of the universe. Thus man's capacity to disobey God may fairly be regarded as the only possible means whereby he can attain the highest moral perfection. But, if this be true, evil itself is reduced to a factor in the world's development, and resolves itself into an opposition of the creature to the Creator, permitted to take place within defined bounds which it cannot pass, and only suffered as a means of finally securing the highest happiness possible to intelligent Âˇ beings. 2 On these grounds we 1 '' In this sense two prime causes are unimaginable ; and for all things to depend of one, and to be more independent beings than one, Âˇ is a clear contradiction" PEARSON, p. 43. 2 For the question of the exclusion of some of those intelligent beings from the happiness of the rest, see chap. vi,

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF JN GOD.

believe, to use the words of our Article, that "there is One Living and True God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions ;1 of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible." 2 1 If this be rather believed on the authority of revelation than of reason, it is, at least, not contrary to the latter. 2 For further arguments on this point see the BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER on the Being of God (S.P.C.K. ), and Professor MoMERIE, Belief in God. FLINT's Theism may also be consulted. Beside these much valuable information on the points discussed in this chapter will be found in Professor BoNNEY's Boyle Lectures on "The Present Conflict between Science and Theology," contained in his volume entitled Old Truths in Modern Lights.

CHAPTER III. THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD SECTION

" I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD "

N the last chapter we treated of the grounds for the belief in God. And, though the rl: priori conception of God thus reached may have been but a very distant approximation to the truth in all its fulness, yet it involves some important and necessary elements of any true conception of Him. We saw that there was evidence of the existence of a supreme Power to Whom we, as human beings, owe allegiance, 1 of an Ultimate Force which lies outside, yet is manifested in, all phenomena. 2 We touched historically upon the Hebrew conception, which we must further unfold in the present chapter, that this Being is a righteous ruler, "strong and patient," a "God of truth, and without iniquity." 3 We rejected the modern theory, which conceives of Him as a metaphysical abstraction, and anticipated the teaching of the Scriptures of the Old and New Covenant, that He is a Living Fact-" an active Force, an unceasing Energy," not standing apart from this world, but closely, and, in fact, inseparably, connected with it; the realization of the most perfect ideal of " Love, Goodness, Justice, Wisdom, Truth." 4 We must now turn to the teaching of the Scriptures concerning God, by which the 1

See pp. 43-45.

See pp. 56, 57. 80

See pp. 58-60.

See pp. 60-65.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD.

outline arrived at in the previous chapter will, to a very great extent, be filled in. In examining the teaching of the Scriptures, we shall follow a different method to that which has usually been adopted in treatises of this kind. lt has been the custom to draw proofs indiscriminately from all parts of the Scriptures alike, as though all stood precisely on the same level. But, inasmuch as the revelation of God has been progressive, it will, for many reasons, be more convenient to adopt the historical method, and trace the gradual development of the idea of God from the earliest revelation until He had fully revealed Himself in Christ. Nor will it be well to forget that though the true idea of God was thus fully revealed in the Christian scheme, that idea was by no means adequately grasped in the early ages of Christianity, but has been, and is still being, more clearly brought home to the conscience of Christendom by the Spirit given by Christ to His Church, to lead her "into all the truth."1 The revelation of God to the patriarchs was by no means a complete one. Of the religious conceptions of the ages before Abraham we have very insufficient information. Abraham himself had, unquestionably, adopted a belief in the Unity of God, and trusted Him implicitly as the guardian and guide of his own life. The purity, simplicity, and dignity of that life show plainly that he regarded God, in some sense, as a moral governor. But his ideas were very undefined. We find him tortured by an anxiety lest the "judge of all the earth" should not "do right." 2 We find him, it may be, haunted by a doubt whether this Mighty Ruler 1

John xvi. 18. â&#x20AC;˘ Gen. xviii. 25. Abraham's conception of God was evidently far more elementary than that taught in the Law of Moses. Though regarding God as a powerful Being, he evidently has grave doubts whether He be in truth a just one. G

THE CREED.

and Judge might not require to be propitiated by human sacrifice-a doubt which was only set at rest by a special revelat.ion from above. 1 Jacob, again, seems to have been inclined to localize the Divine Presence, and even to make his own prosperity the condition of serving God. In that mysterious wrestling recorded of him at Penuel, we find him ignorant of the Name of his celestial visitant ; and his faith, apparently, needed the support of a visible manifestation of the Divine Being. 2 Joseph was sustained in his troubles by a firm belief in the protection of God-a belief, no doubt, materially strengthened by the revelations God vouchsafed to him of things to come. But it hardly extended beyond a belief in a superintending providence, to which man was under a deep moral responsibility. 3 It was not until the time of Moses that anything like a definite intellectual conception of the Divine Nature began to be formed. In the silence of the desert of Horeb, the vision of God as He is in Himself flashed upon the spirit of the great Lawgiver. The word by which the Semitic tribes had been accustomed to call God, represented Him as a Mighty, perhaps an irresistible, Force. The conception entertained of Him by some of them implies His superiority to other beings. Thus, Melchizedek is described as the Priest of the Most High God 4 (or of the Highest Power). Balaam seems to have entertained a similar conception. 5 But, from the time of the Vision in the Desert, a still higher idea of Him went forth to the world. By the figure of a bush which burned and yet was not consumed, the truth was indicated to Moses that God was 1

2 Gen. xxviii. 17-22; xxxii. 24-30. Gen. xxii. 4 Gen. xxxix. 9. Gen. xiv. 18-22. 5 Num. xxiv. 16. Deut. xxxii. 8 seems to be a reminiscence, 011 the part of the writer, of the creed of the Semitic nations generally. For the history of the term Most High God (El Elyon) see Dean fLUMP'J'RE's Biblical Studies, Âˇ 3

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD â&#x20AC;˘.

the Eternally Self-existent One ;1 and that revelation was further filled in by the ascription to Him of the noblest moral attributes. He is the One God, "beside Whom there is no other." 2 He is "God of gods and Lord of lords." 3 He will share His prerogatives with none. 4 He is incapable of change. 5 He is the Living God; that is, life is His special possession and gift. 6 He is the Creator of heaven and earth,7 and His creation was a work of beneficence. 8 His majesty is so great that no man can look on Him and live. 9 He is at once terrible to evil-doers, and tender and merciful to those of low estate. 10 His moral attributes are described in those remarkable words in the Song of Moses, which sum up the whole teaching concerning God in the Pentateuch, " He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are judgment; a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is He." 11 And to this we may add, as a companion passage, the words heard by Moses in his Vision of God, "The Lord, a God full of compassion, and gracious ; slow to anger, plenteous in mercy and truth ; keeping mercy for thousands; forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity 1 Exod. iii. 14. It is true that some have supposed the Name Jehovah, or Jahveh, to be older than Moses. But whether this be so or not, (1) God does not appear to have been known to the Hebrews by that Name, and (2) the fulness of meaning in the word appears to have been grasped first by Moses. 2 Deut. iv. 35, 39; vi. 4; xxxii. 39. 8 Deut. x. 17. 4 Exod. xx. 5 ; xxxiv. 14. Deut. iv. 24; v. 9; vi. 15 ; xxxii. 21. 5 Num. xxiii. 19. 1 Sam. xv. 29. Job xxiii. 13. Ps. xxxiii. 11; cii. 27. Mal. iii. 6. Uf. Rom. xi. 29; Heb. i. 12, vi. 17 ; Jas. i. 17. 6 Deut. v. 26. CJ. Josh. iii. 10 ; 2 Kings xix. 4, 16 ; and the words "Jehovah liveth," Judges viii. 19; Ruth iii. 13 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 45 ; xx. 3. 2 Sam. ii. 27 ; iv. 9 ; &c. &c. 7 Gen. i. 1. 8 Gen. i. 31. 9 Exod. xxxiii. 20. Deut. iv. 33 ; v. 24-26. 10 11 Dent. xxxii. 4. Deut. vii. 21; x. 17, 18; xxviii. 58.

THE CREED.

of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation." 1 This view of God is amplified by the Psalmists and by the Prophets; but, in all essential features, their portraiture is the same. The unity of God, His determination not to give "His glory to another," 2 His judgments on evil-doers and His mercy towards the weak and desolate, His " slowness to anger," and the like, are insisted upon throughout the old Dispensation. 3 But some particular features of the revelation of Him are brought out with greater distinctness in later times. Such are His preference for obedience in the spirit over obedience in the letter, enshrined in that famous apophthegm of Samuel, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.'' 4 So, too, the conception of the Majesty of God, which we find in the blessing of Moses, 5 was expanded in various ways, and found convenient expression in the later title of "the Lord of Hosts," which represented Him as ruling over a countless army of celestial ministers, who bowed down before Him with perpetual adoration, and hasted to do His Will. 6 These conceptions of His Being grew more spiritual and less anthropomorphic as time went on. It was very early that the idea took possession of mankind that none could look upon God and live.7 The statement "Ye saw 1 Exod. xxxiv. 6-8. CJ. Exod. xx. 5, 6. It may be remarked that if we adopt the views of modern critics, anything like a historical view of the evolution of the Idea of God among the Hebrews is, for the present at least, impossible. We have really, on that theory, no data to go upon till after the apostasy of the Ten Tribes. 2 Isa. xlii. 8 ; xlv. 5, 6 ; xlviii. 11. 3 e.g., Ps. x. 14; lii. 1-5. Isa. i. 17; xxx. 12. Joel ii. 13; &c., &c. 4 1 Sam. xv. 22. CJ. Ps. 1. 8-14; li. 16, 17. Jer. xxxi. 33. Ezek. 5 Deut. xxxiii. 2. xxxvi. 25-27. Hosea vi. 6. 6 Ps. lxviii. 17 ; Ps. ciii. 20, 21 ; Isa. vi. 1-4; Dan. vii. 10; and in all the post-exilic prophets. 7 Gen. xxxii. 30; Exod. xxxiii. 20; Deut, xviii, 16; Judges vi. 22,

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD.

no manner of form on the day that the Lord spake to you out of Horeb " 1 goes further, and implies that the idea of God tr~nscends one's utmost powers to conceive. This statement, again, was expanded by later writers. None was like Him, or equal to Him. He '! measured the waters in the hollow of His Hand, meted out heaven with the span, comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance." 2 The secrets of His Being were unsearchable. He was "as high as heaven; what could we do1 deeper than Sheol; what could we know F' 8 Thus, though occasionally we hear of "the Lord's Arm" or "the Lord's Hand," and are informed of visions where Jehovah " sits " on a throne and the highest of created beings bow down before Him, yet the imagery is so chastened that we gather from it a conception of impenetrable mystery, of immeasurable and inconceivable Majesty, Power, and Eternity. The Christian Dispensation, however, sheds a still brighter light upon the mystery of the Divine Nature. God, as He is Himself, in all His Fulness, transcends all our efforts to comprehend Him. " No man hath seen Him at any time." 4 The light in which He dwells is unapproachable." He is one "Whom no man hath seen, or can see." 5 But we are permitted, at least, to make some nearer approaches to the unapproachable than of old. The unity of God is still insisted on. 6 He is still declared to be Light, Life, Truth, the source of joy and peace. 7 But two 1

Deut. iv. 15. Isa. xl. 12, 25. Gf. Job v. 9; ix. 4-11 ; xxvi. 14; xxxvi. 26 ; xxxvii. 5; xlii. 2. Ps. xl. 5; cxxxix. 1-18; cxlv. 3. Eccl. iii. 11 ; xi. 5. Isa. xlv. 15 ; Iv. 8, 9. Micah iv. 12 ; &c. 3 Job xi. 7, 8. 4 John i. 18. ~ q,ws olKwâ&#x20AC;˘ d:1rp6,nro,, 1 Tim. vi. 16, 6 Mark xii. 32; Johnxvii. 3; 1 Cor. viii. 4, 6; Eph. iv. 6;ÂˇJas. ii 19. 7 John i. 4, 9; v. 26; vii. 28; viii. 12, 26. Rom. i. 7. 2 Cor. xiii. 11. Gal. v. 22. 1 Thess. v. 23. Titus i. 2. 1 John i. 5. 2

THE CREED.

other most important attributes emerge from the obscurity in which they had hitherto been veiled He is Spirit,1 and He is Love. 2 And these attributes are inseparably 1:onnected with the revelation of Him made in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of His Beloved Son. 8 Nor is this all. .A doctrine which has been very reasonably supposedthough the supposition cannot be absolutely proved-to have been involved in some expressions found in the Old Testament, emerges very distinctly in the pages of the New. This is the doctrine of One Goel in Three Persons -the Trinity in Unity. Before we proceed, however, to unfold the Christian doctrine on this point, it will be necessary to caution the 1 In John iv. 24 (A.V.) these words are translated "God is a Spirit." But there is no article in the original, and no distinction implied between God and other spirits. The use of the indefinite article in English does not, it is true, involve any such distinction ; but it is a question whether it excludes any such idea with sufficient definiteness. The meaning evidently is that God's essential nature is Spirit. But when we come to ask what is meant by Spirit, it is to be feared that the notion entertained by many is extremely hazy. The meaning of the word is taken for granted by most theologians, and from this want of precision the most lamentable confusion of thought has flowed. Many seem to think that "spiritual" means nothing more than invisible, or impalpable. They would not hesitate, for instance, to predicate locality of a spirit ; in fact, to regard it in much the same way as we should the air, or those invisible gases with whose properties chemistry has made us familiar. Many angry, and apparently interminable, controversies have arisen from a loose use of the words "spirit," " spiritual"; and the student is, therefore, in need of great caution on the point. 1r11eOÂľ,a. properly means something breathed. But, as God is Himself the breather, we cannot apply the word in its passive sense to Him. It must, therefore, when applied to Him, refer to what He is in Himself. It must indicate that He is the fount of all existence, the very breath, stay, support, of all life. 2 1 John iv. 8, 16. s John i. 18 ; xiv. 9. Col. i. 15. Heb. i. 3. Also many of the preceding references. '

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD.

reader against an ambiguity resulting from the infirmity of human language. We have already seen that language, when it essays to express abstract ideas, cannot get nearer than a more or less imperfect approximation. 1 Accordingly, many theological writers have ,accustomed themselves, and, in one sense, have not improperly accustomed themselves, to speak of God as a Person. But they also are accustomed to speak of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as the three Persons in the Blessed Trinity. There is obviously the utmost danger of misapprehension on the most vital points, unless we take special care to observe that the word Person is used in entirely different senses in these two cases. 2 When God is described as a Person, what is meant is that He is a living Being, capable of will, purpose, moral attributes, and of such relations to other beings as we are in the habit of describing by the term personal. 3 But when we apply the term Person to the 1

Seep. 54. , The laity are by no means slow to observe, and to point out, the confusion of thought here, and to chnrge their teachers, and even the formularies of their Church, with Tritheism. It were to be wished that theology could contrive to use two different words to express ideas so radically different. Our modern use of the word person to express the idea of a rational and responsible agent, has made it difficult to understand the term as applied to the Persons in the Blessed Trinity. 3 "Will . . . implies mind, and mind, as we know it, is an essentially personal attribute. In this sense we attribute personality to the First Cause. But in speaking of Him as a Personal God, we must beware of falling into anthropomorphism. Personality, as we know it in ourselves, is subject to limitations of time and space ; and if we venture to speak of God as personal (in a sense, it may be well to notice, quite different from that in which the term "Person" is used in another branch of theology), we must beware of introducing along with the term those ideas of limitation to which personality, as we know it in ourselves, is subject." Sir G. G. STOKES, Gifford Lectures, first series, pp. 7, 8 ; see also pp. 18, 52, sqq. Thus it will be seen that it is by no means necessary for the, accurate thinker 2

THE CREED.

three so-called Persons of the Blessed Trinity, we use the word in a sense more closely corresponding to the original meaning of the Greek word 1rp6crw1rov. This word had originally involved in it no conception of a seat of Will, such as we now understand in the word personality. Its original meaning is apparently appearance-something we can look upon. 1 Thus the word, when referred to the Blessed Trinity, would at first sight seem to bear the interpretation appearances-modes of viewing the Godhead from a human standpoint. But here, again, the inadequacy of language as a vehicle of thought displays itself. Though the doctrine of the Holy Trinity presents itself to us, in the first instance, in connection with the relation of each Person " to us men," and to the work done by each of them in "our salvation," yet we must not- suppose, with the ancient Sabellians, 2 that these so-called " Persons " can be simply resolved into human modes of apprehension of the Nature and Work of the Divine Being. The Persons in the Blessed Trinity are revealed to us in Scripture and in the Catholic Creeds as eternal distinction~ to make the fatal admission, found in MANSEL, Bampton Lectures, p. 56 (fourth edition), that "Personality, as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation,'' or even, as he adds, "a relation." Modern physical philosophy is a safer guide to truth than the German metaphysics on which Dean Mansel relies. The student may consult lLLINGWORTH's Bampton Lectures on this point. 1 It thus came to mean face. And though it afterwards, like its Latin equivalent, persona, came to mean mask, this was not the origiual sense. -2 Sabellius, who taught in the second century, taught that the second and third Persons of the Trinity were either modes in which human thought conceived of the Divine, or emanations from Divinity, withdrawn into the Divinity itself when their work was done. His teaching was not always consistent with itself. And it is obvious that the latter view tends to introduce sensuous conceptions of the Divine :Essence. See _NEANDER, Gh11,rch History, voL_ ij, p. 278 (Rose's translation); DORNER, On the Pe1'80'll, of Ghrist, ii. 150, Bfq,

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD.

existing in the Godhead Itself, and not simply in our modes of apprehending It. Though Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as we shall presently see, are revealed to us as One in Essence, yet they are also revealed as being, in some senses, eternally distinct from each other. But we are not to conceive of them as distinct in the sense in which we should be obliged to conceive of them as distinct if we used the word Person in the signification in which it is applied to God. That is to say, we are not to regard them as three separate existences, possessing three independent Wills, and capable of three distinct sets of purposes in regard to created things. The three Persons in the Trinity have but one Nature and one Will.1 Still, on the other hand, they are not to be considered as personifications on our part, as modes of human thought. The distinctions pointed out in the Catholic Creeds, and in the writings of the New Testament, are eternal and ineffaceable distinctions existing in the very Being of God, and clearly manifested in His dealings with us, His creatures. We do not profess to be able thoroughly to understand, or to explain, the nature of these distinctions. It is sufficient for us that, as we shall presently see, we find them revealed to us by Jesus Christ ; and though we cannot fully penetrate His meaning, we accept them on His authority. As has already been said, the doctrine of the Trinity was not expressly revealed to the Jews. It has been supposed 1 " The Persons in the Trinity are not three particular substances to whom one general nature is common, but three that subsist by one substance which itself is particular." Hoo KER, Eccl. Pol., V. lvi. 2. And again, "The substance of God with this property, to be of none, doth make the Person of the Father ; the very self-same substance in number, with this property, to be of the Father, maketh the Person of the Son ; the same substance, having added to it the property _ of proceeding from tht. other two, maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost." Ib., V. li. 1.

THE CREED.

to be implied in such expressions as "Let us make God in our own image." 1 Appearances, again, of a Being in visible form, Who claimed Divine attributes, and permitted Divine honours to be paid to Him, have been supposed by Christian theologians - especially in the earlier days of the Christian Church- to have indicated the Eternal Word, the only Revealer and Manifester of Him Whose Essence, as it is in itself, the Everlasting Light by its very brilliance conceals. 2 There is unquestionably reason for such suppositions. It is to the New Testament, however, that we must look for the definite unfolding of this great doctrine, which alone is capable of translating the mysterious facts of the Unseen World into a form in which we can approximately, at least, understand and apply them. But even in the New Testament, from the very nature of the case, we shall find this doctrine rather taken for granted than carefully and explicitly taught, as, in these times, we might have expected it to be. For, as we have seen, it was the substance of the Christian Creed, not the Christian Scriptures, which was originally communicated to the Church. The Christian Scriptures were given to those who had already accepted the verities Âˇof the Christian 1

Gen. i. 26 ; cj. iii. 22, xi. 7. As, for instance, Gen. xviii. Jehovah here appears in human hape. Also Gen. xxxii. 24; Josh. v. 14; Judg. ii. 1, vi. 11-24, xiii. 20-23. The student must not fail to remark that where the word Lord appears in capitals in the Old Testament, it refers to the incommunicable name Jahveh (_or Jehovah). See also, for the Mal'ach, or Angel of the Covenant, of whom the Divine nature is predicated, Exod. xxiii. 20, 23, xxxii. 34, xxxiii. 2, 14; Numb. xx. 16; Mai. iii. 1, &c. In Exod. xxxiii. 14, the word translated Presence is literally Face; and is translated, in the LXX. and Vitlgate, "I myself." There is nothing unreasonable here in explaining the passage of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity-the beaming forth (see p. 132) of the Father's glory, aud the impress of His Substance. 2

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD.

faith, and had been baptized into the Name of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.I We shall find, in the New Testament, abundant evidence that the doctrine of the Trinity was thoroughly received and believed in Apostolic days. But we shall not find it set forth systematically. The information reaches us indirectly rather than directly ; it comes by inference rather than, as a rule, by direct assertion. 2 We find the doctrine presented to us under four forms in Holy Scripture. First, where the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are spoken of as of One Substance, Power, and Eternity; next, where each Person in the Blessed Trinity is spoken of as truly and properly God ; thirdly, where the various Persons in the Blessed Trinity are distinguished from one another in such terms as forbid us to regard them as identical, or simply as representing the view of the Divine Being taken for the moment by the speaker, or even as temporary or partial emanations of the Divine Essence which return into the One Divine Person when the object of such Emanation is attained ; 3 and, fourthly, when the work of any single Person of the 1 "We have to consider the fact that every line of the Apostolic Epistles assumes that each one of the Christian Churches to which it was sent was already instructed in the fulness of the Christian Faith -not merely in the outlines, but in the filling up of such outlines. In no ÂŤ;me epistle do we find the Christian Faith set forth ab initio," &c. Preb. SADLER, Folkestone Church Congress Report, p. 43. "The Apostles preached before they writ, planted Churches before they addressed epistles to them." HAMMOND, Paraenesis, v. 3. 2 "It is just as incorrect to say that the doctrine of the Church was originally drawn from Scripture, as to say that Scripture was limited by Apostolic tradition." WESTCOTT, Canon of the New Testament, p. 13, n. '' The Canon of Scripture, and the 'Canon of truth,' were alike independent ; but necessarily coincided in their contents, as long as they both retained their original purity." Dale, cited by HAMMOND, ChurcJ,, and Chapel, p. 149, note. " This (see p. 88) is one phase of Sabellianism.

THE CREED.

Trinity is spoken of in such terms as to preclude us from regarding the worker as anything but Divine. It is the last of these categories which indicates to us the vast importance of the doctrine of the Trinity in the Christian scheme. For we shall see that, if we were to strike out from the New Testament Scriptures every allusion they contain to the Di vine character of the work of the Second and Third Persons in the Blessed Trinity, a very large portion of those Scriptures would disappear. The first class of passages are such as the Baptismal formula,1 and the Apostolic benediction. 2 There the natural inference is that God exists in three distinct manners or modes, and that there is perfect sameness and equality of nature in each of them. 3 The second class contains two branches--that which relates to the Godhead of the Son, and that which relates to the Godhead of the Holy Ghost. Jesus Christ is directly spoken of as God in St. John i. 1 (cf v. 14), in John xx. 28, in Philippians ii. 5-9, and in Hebrews i. 3, 8, 10. 4 Similar assertions in Romans ix. 5; 2 Peter i. l; Jude 4; 1 John v. 20, have been disputed, but not on very sufficient grounds. The same may be said, though perhaps to a less degree, of such passages as Ephesians v. 5; 2 Thessalonians i. 12; 2 2 Cor. xiii. 14. Matt. xxviii. 19. St. John v. 7 is believed by most modern critics to be spurious, and is omitted in R. V. I confine myself, in this work, to the strongest passages. Those who wish to enter more fully into the discussion must consult larger works, such as PEARSON, On the Creed. 4 Differences of reading prevent us from citing as decisive, Acts xx 28, and 1 Tim. iii. 16. In regard to Phil. ii. 5-9, the argument is unaffected, whether we translate "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," or "did not glory in His equality with God," or "did not eagerly snatch at His equality with God." But the words Âˇ "in the form of God," when compared with" in the form of a slave," either assert or deny both the Godhead and the ,Manhood of Jesus Christ. 1

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD.

Titus ii. 13. 1 It is, however, needless to waste time in insisting on a question of interpretation. If Jesus Christ is once definitely spoken of as God in the New Testament, it is decisive on the point that He was regarded as such in Apostolic times. Moreover, we repeatedly find passages occurring in the Old Testament, ix'i which God is spoken of by the Divine and incommunicable Name of Jehovah, quoted in the New Testament as applying to Christ. Such, for instance, are Isaiah xl. 3, applied to Christ in Matthew iii. 3 ; Mark i. 3 ; Luke iii. 4 ; John i. 23. The way of Christ is the way of Jehovah. Still stronger instances are the use of Isaiah vi. 5 by St. John in chapter xii. 41, and of Zechariah xii. 10 by St. John (xix. 37). 2 To these proofs may be added passages in which Divine attributes are ascribed to Christ. We find ascribed to Him: (a) Eternity, as in John viii. 58; Colossians i. 15-17; Hebrews i. 8-12, vii. 3, xiii. 8; Revelation i. 8, 17, 18, xxii. 13. These words are used of God (Isa. xliv. 6). See also John iii. 13, "Who is existing in heaven." But this passage is absent from some copies of the New Testament. (b) Creative power, as in John i. 3, 10, and the passages above cited from Colossians i. and Hebrews i. The former of these ascribes, moreover, to Christ the power of holding all things together in Himself, regarded as a Di vine attribute by Aristotle. (c) Immutability, Hebrews i. 10, 11, xiii. 8. (d) Self-existence, John i. 4, v. 21, 26, x. 30, xi. 25, xiv. 6, 10. Though we learn, from one of these passages, that His self-existence was derived from 1 The language of Ignatius, the disciple and personal friend of some of the Apostles, strongly confirms the Catholic interpretation of these passages. He constantly uses the phrase "Jesus Christ our God." The same may be said of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and other Ante-Nicene writers. 2 There is, however, a various reading "Him" in the passage in Zechariab.

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the Father, yet the others teach us that the existence He thus derived was identical with His from Whom He derived it. It is obvious that a Being with such attributes and powers cannot be regarded as less than Divine. 1 Some have added to these proofs John i. 1, which states that the "Word existed in the beginning"; that is, at the time when the worlds were made. But though this distinctly asserts that Christ existed before all created things, it cannot, perhaps, be pressed so far as to represent it as demonstrating His Eternity. The Holy Ghost is spoken of as God, not directly, but by the most obvious inference, in Holy Scripture. See, for instance, Acts v. 3, 5, Matthew xii. 28, compared with Luke xi. 20; 1 Corinthians vi. 19 compared with iii. 16, and 2 Samuel xxiii. 2, 3, in which the laws of Hebrew parallelism compel us to recognize the phrase "Spirit of the Lord," in the former verse, to be equivalent to the phrase "God of Israel" in the latter. And St. Paul quotes words, said to have been spoken by God, in Isaiah vi. 9, as the words of the Holy Spirit. But the question scarcely needs argument. Unless the terms "Spirit of God," "Holy Spirit," are mere synonyms for God the Father-and we shall presently show that they are not -we cannot deny the Personality and Divinity of the Holy Spirit. The breath (1mvÂľa) of God must Itself be Divine; and it is clear that wherever that Spirit, or breath, is spoken of, it is not the shedding forth of an inferior power, but of the Essential Nature of God Himself. 2 We 1

See also PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 113. It is a question whether 2 Corinthians iii. 17, 18, must not be regarded as a direct assertion of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. The passage has been most variously interpreted. (I may refer to my . own note in Camb. Gr, Test.for Schools.) But it is fully within the limits of fair interpretation to explain the whole passage, not of Christ, but of the Holy Ghost. Thus understood, the passage states 2

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must not omit the remarkable passage which tells us that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is a more serious offence than the blasphemy against the Son. 1 At first sight this would seem to teach the inferiority of the Son to the Spirit; but this is obviously not what is meant. A careful study of the passage shows that it' is meant to teach that it is worse to struggle against or to despise the Voice of God, as manifesting itself in our heart and conscience, than to fail to discern the Godhead of Christ while He was yet hid under the veil of our human flesh. On the other hand, it seems impossible to deny that He, the blasphemy against Whom is spoken of in terms so awful, must of necessity be in every way equal with God. Âˇ We come, in the third place, to the fact that the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are spoken of in such a way as to compel us to believe that, though one in Essence, they are, in some mysterious way, distinguished from one another in such sense that the Son is not the Spirit, and that neither of them is the Father. Hooker's language, quoted above, 2 (1) that the Gospel of Christ is written in the hearts of the Corinthians by the Spirit of the Living God; (2) that this Gospel, or new covenant, is not of the letter, but of the Spirit; (3) that it ministers, not condemnation, but righteousness; (4) that Christians can gaze on the revelation of the Divine glory with unveiled face ; (5) that by the operation of Jehovah the Spirit (or the Spirit of Jehovah) we at once reflect and are transformed into this glory. 1 Matt. xii. 31, 32; Mark iii. 28, 29; Luke xii. 10. It should be noted that the Homoiousian School were inclined to doubt the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, and that even when they were led to accept the Homoi.iusion doctrine, they wavered about the nature of the Spirit. BASIL (see his Ep. 113) was willing to admit to communion all but those who called the Holy Ghost a creature, and was defended by Athanasius, on the ground that Basil had only become '' weak to the weak, that he might gain the weak," as, indeed, he himself expressly declares. See note 27, pp. 348, 349, in GIESELER's History of the Church, vol. i. 2 Seep. 89.

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may throw some light on the nature of these distinctions. All we have to do is to ascertain whether they are regarded as existing by those who alone have a right to be heard upon the subject among Christians. That such distinctions exist is proved by the passages which speak of the Father as sending the Son, 1 loving the Son, 2 and of the Son as offering Himself to the Father through the Eternal Spirit. 8 Some of these statements may be explained as referring to Christ in His human nature. But there are others-e.g., John v. 20, vi. 38, xvii. 24; Galatians iv. 4; 1 ,John iv. 9 -of which this cannot be said. Then, the Spirit is said to be sent both by the Father and the Son, 4 to make intercession with the Father, 0 and to receive from the Son. 6 In the fourth place, powers are ascribed to the second and third Persons in the Blessed Trinity which are not only superhuman, but essentially Divine. On this important fact it may be said that far too little stress has usually been laid in formal treatises on the foundations of the Faith. But the whole New Testament, with the exception of the first three Gospels, makes the indwelling of Christ in the members of His Church-their continuous reception and possession of life from Him-the very first principle of the Gospel. 7 As Canon Lid don has shown in his Bampton Leciures, and as the pages of that once well-known book, Ecce Homo, abundantly testify, powers no less than Divine 1 John v. 36, 37; vi. 38, 39. Acts iii. 20. GaJ. iv. 4. 1 John iv. 9. 3 Heb. ix. 14. 2 John iii. 35; v. 20; xv. 9; xvii. 24. ' John xiv. 16, 26; xv. 26; xvi 7. Acts ii. 33. Gal. iv. 6. 6 John xvi. 13-15. 5 Rom. viii. 26. 7 As Gregory of Nyssa puts it (see NEANDER, Eccl. Hist., iv. 441), the principle of corruption (<t>86pa) was propagated in human nature from the first sin ; and, in opposition to this, the principle of immortality (d.<t>fJap,,la), proceeding from Christ, pervades our whole human nature as a remedial principle.

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are practically claimed by Christ in the Synoptic Gospels. 1 But, as Canon Liddon further shows, the Fourth Gospel, and every epistle in the New Testament, regards the life of Christ as continually streaming forth from Him, to be the life of every one who believes in Him. We can but briefly indicate this argument. Jesus Christ says that God gave His Only-begotten Son, that all who believe in Him might have everlasting life. 2 St. Paul asserts the same truth in almost identical language when he says that "the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." 3 This life proceeds from Christ to those who are united to Him by faith, as the life of a tree is imparted to its branches, 4 or a body to its members. 5 And that life is His Flesh, which, with His Blood, are necessary to the subsistence of mankind. 6 This truth, asserted over and over again in the most varied forms by St. Paul,7 is reaffirmed by St. John in his Epistle, 8 and is also definitely taught by St. Peter 9 and by St. James. 10 But it is clear that it involves the Divinity 1 See LIDDON, Bampton Lectures, Leet. IV., in which he points to the exercise of Divine power by Christ in His miracles, in the absence in His discourses of any consciousness of human weakness or sinfulness, in the authoritative tone He assumes in them. He quotes Ecce Homo (p. 177) as admitting that even in the Synoptic Gospels Christ "called Himself King, Master, and Judge of men," that He "promised to give rest to the weary and heavy laden," and that He spoke of feeding His disciples with His Body and Blood. 3 Rom. vi. 23. 2 John iii. 16. 4 John xv. 1-6. Of. Rom. xi. 16-24. 5 Rom. xii. 4, 5. 1 Cor, vi. 15 ; xii. 12-27. Eph. iv. 15, 16 ; v. 30. Col. ii. 19. 6 John vi. 51-58. Of. 1 Cor. x. 15-17. 7 As in Rom. v. 15-21; vi. 11. 1 Cor. i. 30. 2 Cor. v. 17. Gal, ii. 20. Eph. i. 23 ; ii. 5 ; iii. 17 ; iv. 23. Col. iii. 4. 8 1 John v. 11, 12. 9 1 Peter i. 3, 23; 2 Peter i. 4. 10 James i. 18. See, on this point, LrnnoN, Bamptm Lectures, p. 431 (1st ed.).

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of Christ, for to no being inferior to God could such powers be ascribed. 1 Nor is this all. This great work of redemption of our nature from the Âˇpower of evil by progressive sanctification is further said to be the work of the Spirit. It is by His influence that believers are incorporated into Christ. He commences the regenerating work, 2 and He, moreover, continues it. The teaching of Christ concerning the lifegiving power of His Flesh and Blood is "life," because it is "Spirit,'' and because it is the Spirit which "quickens," or gives life. Were it not so, there would be no profit in that teaching. 3 The Spirit is said to dwell in us, as the Father and the Son are said to do. 4 Justification and Sanctification, though coming from Christ, are the Spirit's work, 5 because it is by His instrumentality that the Divine inhabitation or indwelling is effected. 6 Love, which is of God's Essence, 7 is the gift of the Spirit. 8 In Him we have access, through Christ, to the Father. 9 All divine gifts are 1 The following confessions of faith, from one who was certainly Âťot pledged to orthodoxy, are taken from the Life of Robert Browning, by Mrs. SUTHERLAND ORR (p. 318) : "If Shakspere was to come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him ; but if Christ was to come into the room, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of His garment." And again: "He has repeatedly written, or declared.in the words . . . of Napoleon, 'I am an understander of men, and He was no man.' He has even added, ' If He had been, He would have been an impostor.'" See also LIDDON, Bampton Lectures. 2 John iii. 5 ; 1 Cor. xii. 3. 3 John vi. 63. Of Rom. viii. 10, 11; 2 Cor. iii. 6. 4 1 Cor. iii. 16 ; vi. 19. 2 Cor. iii. 3. 5 Rom. xv. 16; 1 Cor. vi. 11 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; 1 Peter i. 2. The same doctrine is taught in Rom. viii. 1-11 ; Gal. v. 16, 22. a Eph. ii. 22; iii. 16-18. 7 1 John iv. 9, 16. s Rom. v. 5 ; Gal. v. 22 ; Col. i. 8. 9 Eph. ii. 18. Of. Eph. iii. 12, where exactly the same words are spoken of Christ.

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bestowed by Him. 1 In fact, not to multiply quotations, we find Him, though distinguished from the Father and the Son, associated with them nevertheless in the work of salvation on terms of perfect equality. A.nd so continually do we find the three Persons spoken of interchangeably as effecting that work, that the only interpretation we can put on the language of the New Testament-our only source of information on a point so inaccessible to human reasonis that these three Persons are One in Essence and in Will, and that-except -so far as the eternal distinctions which we have already pointed out are concerned-there is no difference or mark of distinction whatever between them. 2 A.nd thus we are brought back to our original proposition concerning the Oneness of God. If we believe in a Trinity, it is a Trinity in Unity. This truth is as emphatically taught in the New Testament as in the Old. Our Lord seals with His authority the affirmation in the Mosaic Law of the Unity of God. 3 He declares His own unity with the Father. 4 St. Paul is equally emphatic on this point. "There is no God but one." There is "One God the Father, of Whom are all things, and we unto Him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and we through Him." 5 There is "one Lord," and yet "One God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in all." 6 There is "One God," and "one Mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, Who is Himself Man." 7 1 Cor. xii. 1-11. Compare also Isa. xliii. 11, "I am Jehovah, and beside Me there is no Saviour," with the continual application of the term "Saviour" to Jesus Christ in the N. T. Also, Jesus Christ is said (Rev. xxii 16) to do what the Lord God is said to do in Rev. xxii. 6, namely, to " send His angel." 4 John x. 30; xvii. 11, 21, 22. 3 Mark xii. 29. 6 Eph. iv. 5, 6. 5 1 Cor. viii. 4, 6. 7 1 Tim. ii. 5. CJ. Gal. iii. 20. 1 Tim. i. 17. 1

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St. James commends the belief that God is One. 1 Thus a belief in the Unity of God is in no way impaired or obscured by the Christian doctrine of the Trinity; but so entire and indivisible is that Unity, that each Person in this most sacred Trinity may be regarded as interpenetrated by the Being of the other. 2 There is but one 1 James ii. 19. He regards the truth as so obvious that even the devils share it. See also Jude 4, 25. 2 So Athanasius seems to imply. "If there is a Trinity, as is indeed the case, it has been shown to be indivisible and not unlike ; its holiness, its eternity, its unchangeable nature must be One." ( Ad Serapion, I. 30.) Speaking in the same passage of the baptismal formula, he adds," So the Holy Trinity, being the same in Itself, and united to Itself, hath, in Itself, nothing of things created; and the Unity of the Trinity is Itself indivisible, and the faith resting on (Eis) It is one." And again, speaking of the Apostolic benediction, he says, "the grace (or favour) is given from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost. For as the grace given is given by (or through) the Son from the Father, so the fellowship (Koivwvla) of the gift would not be in us, except in the Holy Spirit. For, partaking of this, we have the love of the Father, and the grace (or favour) of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit Himself. It is thus demonstrated that the working (evep-ye,a) of the Trinity is one.'' In the treatise De Trinitate et Spiritu Sancto, believed by the Benedictine Editor to be his, but existing only in a Latin version, he once more deduces from the words of the Angel to the Blessed Virgin at the Annunciation, the conclusion that the working of the Trinity is one. Basil (Epistle 38) is still more definite. While declaring that "the Persons in the Blessed Trinity, faith in Whom has been handed down in the Church, are altogether distinct and separate in what constitutes the peculiarity (lo16r'l]s) of their Persons," there is, nevertheless, " a close and indissoluble communion between them in the boundless, incomprehensible (aKar&.X,,,1rrov), and uncreated Nature, which is common to all." We must not, he continues, think of the Blessed Trinity as "cut off, or divided, in any way, as if we could conceive of the Son apart from the Father, or separate the Spirit, in thought, from the Son; but there is an unutterable and unthinkable (aKarav6,,,ros, i.e., that of which adequate conceptions cannot be formed) communion, as well as distinction, to be acknowledged between them, so that we must neither divide the conjunction (crvvexes) of Nature, in conse-

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Divine Essence common to all three. Therefore their Being and Working is ever harmonious and incapable of conflict. Each sacred Person has His own place and function in this mysterious and inscrutable mystery of Being. The Father is the source, the Son is the stream, the Spirit the living, energizing influence which flows from both. 1 But "these three are One"; one Energy, one Intelligence, one Wisdom, one Creative Mind, one Life, one Love. " He, therefore, that wills to be safe, let him thus think of the Trinity." 2 Nor is such a belief a mere dry dogma, propounded to us as a simple intellectual conception in no degree bearing upon the life. It is a truth which has the closest possible conception with everything we do. 3 For, as we have quence of the difference of hypostasis (i.e., that distinction at the root of being which we term personality), nor confound the tokens of distinction in consequence of the community in relation to essence." The language here is very difficult to translate. The word translated "conjunction" is literally that which holds together, a bond of union, while the words translated "tokens of distinction" is literally distinction (or individuality) of tokens (or indications), by which is apparently meant the signs of individuality or personality mentioned in the Scriptures, when speaking of the Blessed Trinity. The doctrine here enunciated is known to theology as the 7r<p1xwp7J<m, or mutual indwelling of the three Persons in the Blessed Trinity. See an able passage by Bishop Bull, cited in Gibson on the Articles, I. 118. 1 If, as Bishop Pearson shows, the ancient Fathers "made a considerable difference between the Person of the Father, of Whom are all things, and the Person of the Son, by Whom are all things," it was, according to him, because " the difference consisteth properly in this, that as the branch is from the root, and the river from the fountain, and by their origination from them receive that being which they have; whereas the root receiveth nothing from the branch, or fountain from the river; so the Son is from the Father, receiving His subsistence by generation from Him; the Father is not from the Son, as being what He is from none." On the Creed, p. 38. See also chap. IV. sees. ii. iii. 2 " Quicunque vult salvus esse, ita de Trinitate sentiat.'' Athanasian Creed. 3 ' ' Life, light, love-in the passage upward of these, the one up to the other, we have the shadow on the dial of that truth which, in the

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seen, according to the authoritative teaching of Christ and His Apostles, each Person is specially associated with the work of salvation. From the Father as a source, all life, created or Divine, eternally proceeds. To the Son is committed the work of Revelation, Redemption, and Restoration. The Spirit carries this work out in the heart of the individual believer. And thus we are not simply asked to believe, in the words of the Athanasian Creed, that "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God ; and yet they are not three Gods, but One God" ; but we are exhorted, in the words of the Church Catechism-more practical, yet not less true-to put our trust "in God the Father, Who hath made us and all the world; in God the Son, Who redeemed us and all mankind, and in God the Holy Ghost, Who sanctifieth us and all the elect people of God." SECTION

II.

"THE FATHER"

Bishop Pearson says that "the ancient doctors of the Church have not stuck to call the Father the Origin, the Cause, the Author, the Root, the Fountain, and the Head of the Son, or the whole Divinity." 1 That He is the source Scriptures of truth, is the Son proceeding from the Father, and the Spirit from the Son. A Triune God is a necessity thus of science as much as of faith." HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 73, 1 On the Creed, pp. 37, 38. He cites Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Cyril of Alexandria, on behalf of the term apxfi as applied to the Father in relation to the Son. The latter says that "the Living Word shone forth, as light from the sun." St. Augustine and St. Hilary are cited as applying the term principium to the Father. For the use of the word cause (alrla) he cites Athanasius, Basil, and John of Damascus. For author he only cites Latin authorities, as Hilary and Augustine. For root, Tertullian, Basil, and Cyril of Alexandria. For fountain, Cyril of Jerusalem, Vigilius, Basil, Cyril of Alexandria, and the Acts of the Council of Nicaea. For head, the first Sirmian Creed, accepted by Hilary as

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103

whence all things visible and invisible, including even the other Persons in the Blessed Trinity, proceed, is a point which scarcely requires demonstration. 1 But the word Father contains in it something more than origin, and the thoughts suggested by it. It implies benevolence, care, love, such as nature dictates to those whom we call fathers on earth. Yet, inasmuch as the conception of love as one of the most essential of God's attributes was not clearly discerned until Christ came to reveal it, we find a very sparing use of the term Father as applied to God in the Old Testament. 2 In the New Testament, however, the Fatherhood of God at once blossoms out into full proportions. Not only is God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He the Only-begotten Son of the Father, but God is our Father also, by virtue of the union with Christ which is the privilege of every member of His Church. It needs not to cite passages in proof of these truths. One or other of them, frequently both, are to be found expressly stated in almost every page of the writings of the New Covenant, from the first discourse of our Blessed Lord, in which God is repeatedly called our Father in heaven, and in which we are bidden to address Him in prayer as "our Father," down to the latest of those writings, the Gospel and Epistles of St. John. 8 Thus it is to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ that the conception of God as a orthodox, at least on this point, Ruffinus, Augustine, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodoret on 1 Cor. xi. 3, which they apply to Christ in His Godhead. The whole note should be carefully studied by those who desire to expound the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. 1 See Gen. ii. 4; Job xxxviii. 7, 28; Mal. ii. 10 ; Acts xvii. 28 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; Heb. xii. 9. 2 Only in 1 Chron. xxix. 10 ; Isa. lxiii. 16, lxiv. 8 ; Jer. xxxi. 9; Mal. i. 6, ii. 10. Isa. ix. 6 refers to Christ as the Second Adam. 3 It is worthy of remark that God is only once spoken of as Father in the Apocalypse. In that vision the phrase "God and the Lamb" takes the place of the Fatl:ier and the Son.

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CREEb.

:Father especially belongs. And to that revelation the ideas of love, favour, protection, mercy, forgiveness in His relations to us are due. We shall see hereafter how the Life and Death of Christ have witnessed, and do eternally witness, to this most blessed truth, and how it is through our participation in that Life and Death alone that Christ's Father becomes our Father, and that we are able to claim the privileges which flow from true sonship to Him. It is only necessary to observe how entirely the successful preaching of Christ's Gospel depends on the careful teaching of the universal Fatherhood of God. 1

SECTION

III.

"ALMIGHTY"

The proper signification of this term, as Bishops Pearson and Westcott remind us, is not Omnipotent, but rule1Âˇ of all. In fact, it is necessary to observe that the ordinary conception of God as able to do all things, is unscriptural and untrue. There are many things which God cannot do, for, if He did them, He would cease to be God. Thus the Scriptures tell us He "cannot lie," 2 He "cannot change," 3 He "cannot deny Himself." 4 He cannot do wrong in any way; otherwise He would not be good. It is therefore of some importance to remember that our profession of belief 1 It is needless to cite passages from the New Testament affirming the Fatherhood of God. We may take as instances Matt. v. 45, 48; vi. 1, 4, 6, 8 ; vii. 1 ; xi. 25. John vi. 37 ; xx. 17. Acts i. 4 ; ii. 33. Rom. vi. 4. 1 Cor. viii. 6. Eph. iii. 14. 1 Peter i. 3. 1 John i. 3. 2 Titus i. 2 ; Heb. vi. 18, a Num. xxiii. 19; 1 Sam. xv. 29; Ps. cii. 27 ; Mal. iii. 6 ; Rom. xi. 29; Heb. i. 12; James i. 17. The passages which speak of God as changing His mind, or "repenting," really refer to a change of attitude, or purpose, or conduct, on the part of others, not 4 2 Tim. ii. 13. of God.

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105

in "God the Father Almighty" requires some qualification, that we are bound to explain to those under our care that God's Omnipotence is conditioned by other attributes of His Nature, ~nd that when, as in the First Article of Religion, we speak of God as "of .infinite Power, Wisdom, and Goodness," we are to regard His exercise of that infinite power as conditioned by the concomitant attributes of Wisdom and Goodness. The importance of bearing this in mind will be seen when it is remembered how popular theology has been accustomed to magnify the sovereignty of God to the prejudice of other even more necessary attributes, and how the "Nay, but, 0 man, who art thou that repliest against God " of the Apostle Paul, has been pressed in a direction, and to a degree, which he would unquestionably have regarded as blasphemous. God's attribute as the ruler of all 1 is so closely connected with the work of creation, that it is best discussed under that head. We confine ourselves therefo:re here to those passages of Holy Writ which speak of God as a King, and attribute to Him universal dominion. Both these ideas are expressed by David in his striking prayer at the dedication of the gifts for the temple. "Thine, 0 Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine. Thine is the kingdom, 0 God, and Thou art exalted as Head above all." 2 A.nd again, by Daniel, "His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve Him." 8 Once more, "The Lord sat as King upon the Flood, yea, the Lord sitteth as King for ever." 4 And yet once more, St. Paul speaks of Christ as "made to sit at God's Right Hand in the heavenly places, far above all 1 1ravr0Kparwp. Translated "All-sovereign" by Bishop WESTCOTT, Historic Faith, p. 36. , 2 1 Ohron. xxix. 11. 3 Daniel vii. 27. â&#x20AC;˘ Ps. xxix .. 10.

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rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but that which is to come, and as having all things put under His feet." 1 A few words may be added on the teaching of Scripture in regard to God's moral government of the world. This fact -for it is a fact-may be inferred from the study of history and human nature. The first part of Bishop Butler's Analogy is taken up with the statement of the general principles of that government. The field is too wide to be entered upon here. We have only space for noting some of the declarations of Scripture which are thoroughly in accord with the results of observation. God, we learn, controls the course of history. The peoples of the world are in His Hands, as the clay in the hand of the potter. His treatment of them is conditioned by their attitude towards Him. 2 He does as He pleases with the inhabitants of the earth, and none-not even the mightiest of monarchs-can resist His Will. 8 And this because He controls the action of every individual. In His Hand is "our breath and all our ways.'' 4 He not only searches the heart, and tries the reins, but He rules our hearts, and overrules our plans. 5 There is, however, this difference between God's rule over the moral, and His rule over the material world. In the latter His rule is not only general, but particular. It descends to the minutest details. Disobedience to His Laws, though it be but infinitesimal, is an absolute im1 Eph. i. 21, 22. Passages in support of this assertion may be multiplied indefinitely by means of a Reference Bible, by referring to passages where God is spoken of as King, or where the extent of His dominion is mentioned. See, amongst others, Ps. xxii. 28 ; xxiv. 1, 2; lxxv. 7; xcv. 3. Isa. xl. 21-26. Jer. xviii. 7-10. 2 Jer. xvifi. 1-10. CJ. Jer. i. 10. 4 Dan. v. 23. 3 Dan. iv. 85. CJ. Isa. xl. 15-17. 5 Prov. xvi. 1, 9; xix. 21 ; xx. 24 ; xxi. 1. Isa. xxix. 16 ; xlv. 9. Jer. x. 23.

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possibility. In the moral world this is not the case. To creatures endowed with free-will, disobedience is permitted. But it is only permitted within certain limits. All human actions are under God's general control, and no individual disobedience is allowed to affect the .steady working out of the Divine plan as a whole. Where man's disobedience would affect that plan, such disobedience is prevented. But in evil, as well as good, we are held responsible, not only for our acts, but also for our .intentions. The bad man is none the less bad because his malevolent intentions have been frustrated. But he is not permitted to indulge his evil inclinations so far as to interfere with the Divine decree that in this world, no matter how great may be the amount of wickedness in it, "all things" shall " work together for good to them that love God." 1

SECTION

IV.

"MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, AND OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE."

The truth embodied in these words is that with which Holy Scripture starts. "In the beginning," we are told, "God created the heavens and the earth." 2 That is to say, at some indefinite period in the past, of the distance of which from the present time we know nothing, God called the visible universe into being. Periods of unknown duration seem implied in the course of the narration. First of all, the earth was formless and empty, or waste. 3 Darkness dwelt upon the deep. Then new forces appear to have arisen to give order to what hitherto had been a chaos. The Spirit of God brooded upon the expanse of waters. 1 3

2 Gen. i. 1. Rom. viii. 28. This is the meaning of the expression in Gen. i. 2.

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Then followed the still more defined work of the creative energy, and order and organic life began to appear upon the earth. We are not to regard the " days " of the Mosaic narrative of the Creation as literal days of twenty-four hours. Even in the ages of Dean Colet the absurdity of such an idea was clearly seen. 1 It is precluded by the fact that the sun is spoken of as created on the third of these "days." And we know that our present day is the result of a revolution of the earth upon its axis during the twenty-four hours of which the day consists. The "days '' of the Mosaic account are periods, each being an advance upon a former condition. 2 Neither are we bound of necessity to regard the Mosaic "days " as being in consecutive order. They most probably represent, not the order of time-though they are confessed on all hands to approach pretty closely to this-but the order of thought in the mind of the writer. If this be so, there is no need for us to enter into elaborate apologies on behalf of the chronological accuracy of the first chapter of Genesis. It is sufficient if we see in it the assertion of an elementary fact on which all true religion reposes, and must needs reposethe orderly work of the Divine Intelligence in shaping out the universe in which we live, according to a definite plan. The story of creation, as told in Genesis i., attributes to God's Wisdom, His Foresight, and His Love, the phenomena in the midst of which we "live, move, and have our being." If this be not the case, then the natural order does but conceal beneath it a moral chaos. We need scarcely multiply Scripture references upon a point which meets us in so distinct a manner on the very threshold of the See his letters to Radulphus. This is involved in the language of the original. "And there was evening, and t]wre was morning: a first," "second," up to a "sixth day." (See R. V.) 1

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study of Scripture. But it is necessary to remember that if we are told, as we are in our Creeds, that the worlds were made by the Son, it is simply because this His work was the expression of the Will of the Eternal Father. This we learn from such passages as 2 Kings xix. 15 ; Nehemiah ix. 6; Job xxxviii. 4-12; Psalms xxxiii. 6-9, cxlviii. 5, 6; Proverbs iii. 19, viii. 27-30; Isaiah xl. 12; Acts xvii. 24; Romans i. 20 ; Ephesians iii. 9; Hebrews iii. 4; Revelation iv. 11, x. 6. The world thus created is not left to itself, as some ancient philosophers vainly imagined. It enjoys the blessing of the constant care and untiring energy of its Creator. 1 This we learn from innumerable passages of Scripture. One of the most striking is Job xxxviii. 16-41. It is too long to quote, but it pursues into minute detail the preservative activity of the Lord of heaven and earth, and ascribes the various phenomena of nature to His unceasing guidance. The same truth is taught in Job xi. 6; Psalm xcv. 4, 5 ; Proverbs xxx. 4; Isaiah vi. 3, xl. 22 ; Jeremiah v. 24 ; Daniel v. 23 ; Matthew vi. 26-32 ; Romans xi. 36. How He acts, and through what intermediaries, in the preservation and carrying on of the universe, we are not precisely told. Some men of science have declared that they can only attribute the phenomena of nature to the intervention of unseen, but ever active, intelligences, such as the angels are represented as being in Scripture. 2 But however this may be, it is true, as has been already stated, 8 that the only intelligible conception of Force which has ever been put forth by experts is that it is the exercise of Will. Such a Will, we are taught by Scripture, is ever at work in producing the phenomena we see around us. Scientific observation confirms the teaching 1

Ps. cxxi. 3-8.

Of Isa. xl. 28. Unseen Universe, p. 89.

See p. Âˇ56.

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of Scripture on this point. The 1rWdus operandi. of that Will - the means where by Spirit acts on matter - will probably always remain a mystery. But candid philosophic thinkers are ready to admit that while we are able to observe that given forces act by given laws or rules, the causes of those rules are as obscure to us as is the idea of the Being of God.1 The tendency of modern scientific inquiry, until very lately, has been to call attention exclusively to phenomena, and to keep their causes rigidly out of sight till they have practically come to be altogether ignored. But unless we maintain that the order of things we see around us is eternal, it must have had a beginning. ÂˇAnd that beginning must have been due to a Creative Act, not of the natural, but of the supernatural order. It is clear, too, that the various periods in the history of creation-to which geological investigation bears witness as distinct as does the narrative of creation in Genesis-as well as the marked distinction between the forms of life in existence in those periods, may not unreasonably be thought to point to successive interferences by the Divine Will with the order of things previously established-interferences which, as they were not in the ordinary course of nature, must have been above and beyond it. The evolution of species, moreover, though proceeding on a definite plan, and in accordance with very clearly marked types, gives some ground for the belief that each species was grafted upon its predecessor by the interference of the Creative Will, once more 1 See Sir G. G. STOKES' Gifford Lectures, second series, p. 59. He regards the view of natural phenomena, which makes us "feel as if we were in the presence of some mysterious power, the nature of which transcends our investigations, but which conducts us into Âˇa region in which lie thought, consciousness, will," as "more conducive to a reverential tone of mind than the hypothesis" of the materialist. (See also p. 53.)

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by an act outside the ordinary course of nature_. Thus the assertion of the Creed, that whatever exists has come into existence by a fiat of the Divine Will, seems likely, in the end, to be as distinctly recognized by scientific thinkers as by Christian believers. 1 I do not propose to discuss the question of Evolution. In some shape or other it is admitted by every scientific investigator. But the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection in any shape which practically ignores or minimises the action of the Creative Will, is not gaining ground in the world of science; and the aspect of the field of scientific inquiry leads to the conclusion that the establishment of entire harmony between religion and science is very speedily to be expected, if, indeed, it may not be said to have already arrived. The question of the abnormal action of the Dh,ine Will, as displayed in miracles, may fitly receive a word of mention here, since the idea of the miraculous is involved in the idea of creation itself. It is impossible, as has been already said, to enter at length into the arguments for the possibility of miracles, still less into the evidence that they have actually occurred. But, as the Scriptures are committed to the actual occurrence of miracles, and as it has been industriously represented that the order of nature is invariable, and that, therefore, the impossibility of miracles has been conclusively established, it is well to know that Professor Huxley, an authority whose impartiality cannot be questioned, has admitted that such a position cannot be maintained. 2 The 1 Several able papers, which support this view, have been read before the Victoria Institute of late. See Transactions, Vol. xxviii. Professor Romanes, too, as we learn from Canon GORE'S Life, was inclined, in his latter days, to admit the force of this view. 2 Essay an Hurne, p. 133. "To put the argument in its native absurdity, that which never has happened never can happen without a violation of the laws of nature."

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question, therefore, of the occurrence of miracles resolves itself into one of evidence. And it can hardly be denied that the tendency of the latest scientific investigation is in favour of the probability that miracles have actually occurred. If we are quite unable to give a satisfactory explanation of the causes of the phenomena which surround us-and it can hardly be denied that we are unable to do so-we are, a fortiori, unable to deny that the Will to which these phenomena must ultimately be ascribed could vary them at pleasure. Besides, it is not the order of nature itself which is invariable, for it is capable of infinite variation ; but the laws of the forces which govern it. But our experience shows that will can bring new forces into play, the laws of which are not easily ascertainable. If our will can do this, it is clear that the Will which governs phenomena may be able to do this to a far greater extent. And the effect of these new forces, with laws which for the present are undiscoverable, would be very largely to modify phenomena. Thus, while the credibility of each particular miracle depends upon the evidence adduced for it, the credibility of the Scripture narrative, which involves miracles, is .included in the belief in God as " the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." .And so we believe in One God in Three Persons, the ineffable Trinity in Unity, the Source of all that is, the Power which guides the universe and keeps it in being, at once inhabiting and transcending all creation, revealed in the laws of nature, yet extending infinitely beyond themthe "King eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, to Whom be glory for ever and ever,"

CHAPTER IV. THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE PERSON OF 'JESUS CHRIST SECTION

"AND IN ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST "

Apostle St. John, in the opening words of his THEGospel, which, as has already been said, may be taken as in a certain senseÂˇ a profession of faith, insists on the unknowableness of God as He is in Himself; and he does this in order that we may learn the necessity of a revelation of His Nature and Purpose. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." 1 A.nd He "declared" God by "becoming flesh," by "dwelling among us," so that by "beholding His glory, the glory of the Onlybegotten," we could, so far as our limited faculties will 1 The expression is a remarkable one in the original : o cf,v ,ls Tov KoX1rov Tou mfrpos ; i. e., He Who exists into the bosom of the Father. The preposition els, if we do not accept the view of some authorities that ,ls in St. John, as sometimes in modern Greek, is equivalent to iv, apparently refers to the Word as looked upon from a human point of view, and from that point of view as being, as it were, projected by our imagination into the Divine Being, instead of, as in the second clause in the verse, coming forth from God, and making Him known to man. Canon Liddon's view is that the Only-begotten Son is "ever contemplating, ever, as it were, moving towards the Father in the ceaseless activities of an ineffable communion." Bampton Lectures, p. 349. 113 I

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allow, attain to a knowledge of Him Who is invisible. 1 The second division of the Creed, therefore, deals with the revelation of God in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ. The Gospel, or, as it is sometimes called, the scheme of salvation, has been summed up in the following words : " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 2 We have first to deal with His Person, and then with His work of reconciliation. The present section refers to the Person of Christ. The first point to be noticed here is the term " Lord." We are taught to believe in "one God, the Father Almighty," and in "one Lord Jesus Christ." It is not by any means certain that the word "Lord'' here is to be regarded as equivalent to the Hebrew Jahveh, or Jehovah, as we have contended in the preceding chapter it is sometimes to be regarded. The question of the Divinity of Christ is approached afterwards. Here the notion clearly is of His Lordship. St. Paul, after mentioning how the Name of Jesus is "above every name," and that at that "Name every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth," goes on to say, "and let every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 3 We need not insist on this prerogative of Lordship. It is inseparable from the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, on which we have already dwelt, and which is so distinctly affirmed in the subsequent clauses of the Nicene Creed. 4 We proceed to a consideration of what is involved in the Name Jesus, and in the title Christ. And first, of the Name Jesus. It is the Latinized form 5 of the name Joshua, 1

John i. 14. Or, as some would render, "God, in Christ, was reconciling" ; 2 Cor. v. 19. 3 Phil. ii. 10, 11. Of. 1 Cor. xv. 24-28; Eph. i. 20-22. 4 See Matt. xxii. 43 ; Mark ii. 28 ; John xiii. 13 ; Acts ii. 36, x. 36 ; Rom. xiv. 9; 1 Cor. ii. 8, viii. 6, xii. 3, xv. 47, &c. 5 That form, however, is itself due to the Greek language. 2

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or J eshua, or, more fully, J ehoshua, which we find in the Old Testament. The meaning of the word is "Jehovah" (or Jah) "shall save." And in the Gospel of St. Matthew, originally written, let us remember, in the Hebrew tongue, we have the words, "Thou shalt call His Name Jehovah shall save "-Jehoshua', no doubt, in the original-" for He shall save His people from their sins." 1 But when we go on to consider what is meant by being saved, we enter upon a larger question than is sometimes supposed. Bishop Pearson remarks that " the best of the Latins " -including Cicero, as he adds in his note - "thought the Greek word so pregnant and comprehensive, that the Latin tongue had no single word able to express it." 2 The same may be said of our own tongue, for we have to resort to various words in order to render it into English. For the Greek word not only conveys the idea of safety, but it is frequently used of the healing of the sick. 8 The Hebrew word has a wider sense still. It often means deliverance from physical and natural peril, such as victory 1 Matt. i. 21. When we remember that all the original preachers of the Gospel were Jews, we shall see how continually this idea of the force of the Name given to the Redeemer was present to their minds. St. Peter, in his address to the rnlers in Acts iv., after reciting the fact that the Name of Jehoshua', through faith in that Name, had imparted healing to the lame man, goes on, "Neither is there salvation" (Jeshu'ah) "in any other, for there is none other name given under heaven, given among men, whereby we may be saved" (Niwashea'. The letter N is simply the sign of the passive voice in Hebrew). St. Paul, in his address to the Jews and proselytes at Antioch (Acts xiii.), says that of the seed of David hath God raised up a Saviour (Moshea', The letter M denotes a participial form in Hebrew) according to His promise. And St. John represents Christ Himself as saying that God sent His Son into the world, in order that the world through Him might be saved (Jiwashea'). John iii. 17. 2 On the Greed, p. 73. 3 e.g., Matt. ix, 22; Mark v. 28, 34, vi. 56, &c.

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in a battle, and the like. 1 We have, therefore, to be on our guard against using the word in a conventional and contracted sense, a fate which has too often befallen the health-giving words of Scripture when they have become the common places of religious phraseology. 2 We are encouraged, on the contrary, by the use of the word in the original languages of Holy Scripture, to see included in the word Saviour not only the idea of One who delivers us from the penalty of sin, but of One Who imparts to us perfect soundness of character and life, Who delivers us out of temptation, and Who gives us victory in our conflicts with evil in our own hearts, and in the world around us. By what means He is pleased to do this, we shall learn when we enter upon the consideration of the redemptive work of Christ, and the sanctifying work of His Spirit. At present we may do well to note the fact that the very name of our Redeemer implies safety, moral and spiritual health, and victory over sin and Satan. 3 We proceed to the ideas involved in the name Christ. This is primarily a title, but it practically is often, in the New Testament, equivalent to a proper name. It is, however, specially marked out at times, by the Greek construction, as a title. 4 When it is written without the article, "Christ" is doubtless a proper name; though, even 1 e.g., Judges iii. 9, 15; 1 Chron. xi. 14, &c. In the last-cited passage the literal rendering is, "And Jehovah saved them" (with) "a great salvation"; i.e., gave them a great victory. 2 See pp. 142, 144. 3 Joshua, the great captain who led Israel into the promised land, as well as Joshua (or Jeshua), the son of Josedech the High I'riest (Ezra iii. 2; Hag. i. 1, and ii. 2; Zech. iii. 1, &c.), were alike types of Christ, the one foreshowing Christ as our Captain in the struggle with sin, the other as the rehuilder of our Zion, and as bearing theÂˇ burden of our guilt. 4 As in Matt. xxiv. 5, xxvi. 63; Luke ii. 26; John i. 41; and elsewhere.

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when thus used, it indicates rather the offece and work than the human Person of Christ. When it has the article, it means the Christ, the Anointed One, Him Who was promised to- the Jews, and Who, when the fulness of time was come, was sent to re'deem mankind. When Jesus and Christ are combined, as they frequently are, we are bidden to look both on the office and Person of Christ.- But the combination appears in several forms. The first and most common, ",Jesus Christ," is used simply as a proper name, though, of course, the significance of both names is suggested to the mind. 1 When " Christ" is prefixed to "Jesus," the idea of the Person is subordinated to the title. When the article is prefixed in this collocation, the idea is " the Christ," namely " Jesus." 2 And, again, we have "Jesus the Christ," where the idea clearly is that Jesus is He "of Whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write." 3 Such fine distinctions, however, can hardly ever be expressed in a translation. We must have recourse to the original to catch these subtler touches of Apostolic teaching. The meaning of the word Christ is Anointed; the Hebrew word is Messiah, or, rather, Mashiach. This word, however, is only directly given as the title of the Promised Deliverer in one place-Daniel ix. 26. In other places, such as the Messianic Psalms ii., xviii., xx., &c., it doubtless refers to Christ, though it has also, like many other Messianic prophecies, a more immediate reference also. The name Christ, however, so continually used in 1 Bishop HARVEY Goonwrn (Foundations of the Faith, p. 70) remarks on the fact that St. Matthew and St. Mark call our Lord "Jesus Christ" at the opening of their Gospels only, and never again throughout their course. He was not "marked out" (oplu0e11Tos) as the anointed "Son of God" till after His resurrection from the dead.

(Rom, i. 4.) 2

As in Acts v. 42.

John i. 45.

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the New Testament, involves some important considerations concerning the office of Him Who bore it. For anointing, among the Jews, was used at the consecration of the prophet, the priest, and the king. We find the custom, in the case both of the prophet and the king, in 1 Kings xix. 15, 16.1 It is ordered in the case of the priest in Exodus xxviii. 41. 2 That we are not mistaken in attributing these offices to Christ will appear from passages such as Isaiah lxi. 1, applied to Himself by Christ in Luke iv. 21. Here the prophetical office of teaching with authority is attributed to Christ, and we know that He claimed to speak with such authority. 8 That Christ was a Priest, is a doctrine to the setting forth of which the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is given up. 4 That Christ also claimed the kingly prerogative is plain enough on many accounts. Not only did the angel speak of Him to the Virgin 5 as one who should occupy the throne of His forefather David ; not only does the evangelist apply to Him, at His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the words of the prophet Zechariah to the daughter of Zion, " Behold, thy King cometh" ; 6 but He Himself does not hesitate to claim the title in His conversation with Pilate. 7 And the vision which beholds Him going forth in His might, conquering and to conquer, sees "upon His vesture" (R.V., garment) "and upon His thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord 1 Saul is not directly said to have been "anointed" king, but he is spoken of directly afterwards as "Jehovah's anointed," in 1 Sam. xii. 3, 5 ; as also in 1 Sam. xxiv. 6, 10, xxvi. 11, 16, 23 ; 2 Sam. i. 14, 16. For David's anointing see 1 Sam. xvi. 13. For Solomon's, 1 Kings i. 39 ; 1 Chron. xxix. 22. For that of Joash, 2 Kings xi. 12 ; 2 Chron. xxiii. 11. 2 See also xxix. 7 ; xxx. 30 ; xl. 15. 3 Frequently, in the Sermon on the Mount, "But I say unto you." See also Matt. vii. 29 ; Mark i. 22; Luke iv. 32. 4 See also below, " was crucified." 6 Matt. xxi. 4, 5. 5 Luke i. 32, 33. 7 John xviii. 37.

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of lords." 1 He to Whom we attribute these titles was, moreover, we must not forget, an historical personage. To this an expression in the Creed bears witness, of the significance of which we ought not to permit ourselves to lose sight. " He was crucified,", we are told, "under Pontius Pilate." This fixes our thoughts upon an epoch of political and intellectual activity, by no means favourable to the growth of legends or hallucinations. The fierce light of inquiry and publicity blazed on the land in which He was born. And though, as a general rule, the haughty Roman and the sceptical Greek refused to inquire into the story of God having appeared in J udaea in the form of a crucified malefactor, it was not because His messengers were afraid to challenge inquiry into the truth of the story they told, but because of the extraordinary and improbable character of that story in itself. From the point of view of Greeks and Romans, moreover, the political and intellectual insignificance of Judaea gave additional improbability to that atory. Yet the first preachers of the Gospel boldly declared that He of Whom they spoke had been witnessed to by the prophets, as well as that He was risen from the dead. 2 And the heathen historians Tacitus and Suetonius, who both wrote at the end of the first century A,D,, attest the fact that, at the moment of His appearance, mankind were expecting a great conqueror to arise in J udaea. 8 We shall recur to the evidence for the Gospel story, when we come to treat of the Resurrection. We will, therefore, content ourselves for the present with the remark that the Creed presents Jesus Christ to us, not as a mythical, but as an historical personage, Whose place 1

Rev. xix. 16. See also Psalm ii. 6-8. Acts iii. 18, 21, 24 ; x. 43 ; xxvi. 22, 27. Rom. i. 2 ; iii. 21. Those who doubt the Jewish authorship of the Fourth Gospel sÂˇhould note the coincidence with this line of thought displayed in John i. 45. 3 SUET., Vespasian, TACIT,, Hist. v. 13, 2

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in history can be accurately fixed as to time by the fact of His crucifixion, in accordance with a sentence pronounced by a person well known as a servant of the Roman state. The Jesus Christ in Whom we believe is here affirmed not to be a legendary or ideal Being, but a Person known to contemporary history. There can be no question whatever that the Creed represents the history of Jesus Christ to have been a miraculous one. And herein it fully agrees with the testimony of the earliest and most authentic Christian writers. With one accord they inculcate a belief in the supernatural Incarnation, the wondrous works, and the Resurrection of Christ. If these facts be denied, those who deny them are compelled to set aside, on their own authority, all the existing biographies of Christ, and all the subsequent repetitions of the narrative they contain, and to invent a new history for themselves. 1 If they try, by denying its genuineness, to evade the distinct assertions of the pre-existence and Divinity of Christ, and of His bringing each member of His Church into direct personal union with Himself, which are found in the Gospel of St. John, they are still confronted with the fact of the Resurrection, distinctly asserted in all. the Gospels, and with the miracle of the Incarnation as definitely stated in two of the remaining three. They have also to account for a similar phenomenon in every single writing of the Apostolic age. We cannot, we repeat, enter fully into the evidence for the autlienticity of the gospel narrative ; but we are entitled to say that no historical event of importance has come down to us better attested than the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ ; and that, when taken in conjunction with the marvellous and fully-demonstrated power of His doctrine to inform and 1 See this thought expanded in Bishop GooDWIN's Fottndations of the Faith,

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stimulate the conscience, comfort the heart, and guide and elevate the life of mankind, it rests upon evidence which no man of fairness and intelligence can venture to put aside as an idle tale. On the contrary, such a man will feel bound to approach it with a respect proportioned to the unrivalled influence it has had in promoting the welfare of the human race.1 SECTION

II.

"THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD, BEGOTTEN OF HIS FATHER BEFORE ALL WORLDS"

The equivalent for this article in the Apostles' Creed is "His Only Son." And many divines have not unreasonably contended that the doctrine more explicitly stated in the Nicene Creed is necessarily involved in the less detailed language of the Apostles' Creed. For the latter clearly asserts that though many among mankind are called sons of God, yet that there is a sense in which none other but Jesus Christ can claim that title. Following here in the steps of Bishop Pearson, we propose first to show from Scripture that Christ existed before his conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. That conception, we are t!mght, was itself a miracle. It was effected-so we learn from the angel's speech recorded by St. Luke-by the special agency of the Holy Ghost. 2 He 1 One remarkable result of the interesting " Parliament of Religions," held at Chicago in 1893, was the demonstration of the immense superiority, in all respects, of Christianity over any other religious system. 2 Luke i. 35. Bishop Pearson, p. 165, note, discusses the distinction of Augustine between de ipso and ex ipso. Augustine regards de ipso as implying consubstantiality, whereas ex ipso might refer to any act of creation. Bishop Pearson rejects the distinction, on the ground that it has no foundation in the Greek. And he remarks

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'Who was thus miraculously conceived had a previous existence. St. John the Baptist, who was most certainly acquainted with the events connected with the birth of Christ, speaks of Him as "He that cometh from heaven," 1 and as having been "before" himself. 2 Our Lord so speaks of Himself. He is "the Living Bread which cometh down from heaven." 3 In ascending up to heaven, He did but return to the place where He was before. 4 He "came forth from heaven." 5 He was "before Abraham." 6 If the readings of many MSS. of the New Testament are to be credited, He speaks of Himself as still in heaven while yet upon earth. 7 The same truth is involved in the repeated declarations that God made the worlds by the agency of His Son, which will be further examined when we come to a subsequent article of the Creed. 8 Thus the Jesus Christ in Whom we believe is no mere man, but had a previous existence. What the nature of this existence was has been partly shown already, 9 and we that the Manhood of Christ is not consubstantial with the Essence of the Holy Spirit, but that Its existence was due to an act of creation. Bishop Pearson further refers to the teaching of the schoolmen on this point; and his note is interesting, as illustrating the influence of the Latin language on the growth of the doctrinal system of the Western Church. The earliest writers, however, plainly teach the miracle of the Incarnation, though with no theological subtleties. Thus, IGNATIUS (Epistle to the Ephesians, 19) calls the Virginity of Mary, the Birth of Christ, and His Death, rpla µvurfJp,a Kpo.V"f7JSthree mysteries which cry aloud, but were yet wrought by God in silence. JUSTIN MARTYR (1st Apology, 21, 22) declares that Christ was "produced without sexual union," and was "born of God in a peculiar manner (lolws), distinct fror::., ordinary generation." And lRENAEUS (Against Heresies, III. xxi. 10) distinctly denies that Christ was begotten by Joseph. 2 John i. 15. 1 John iii. 31. 3 John vi. 33, 38, 41, 42, 51. Of. iii. 13 ; viii. 42 ; xvii. 8. Heh. i. 6. 5 John xvi. 28. 4 6 John viii. 58. Of. xiii. 3. John vi. 62. 8 See·p. 135. 9 See p. 92-99, · 7 John iii. 13.

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shall recur to the subject again in the next section. But, for the present, we shall confine ourselves to showing, in the next place, that the title "only-begotten Son" is directly given to Christ in the Scriptures. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when applying the words of the second Psalm to Christ, declares that this privilege of being begotten by God was shared with Christ by none of the angels. 1 He is expressly called the only-begotten Son. 2 The term "first-begotten," or "brought forth," is also applied to Him, 8 and in one of the passages in which He is so called He is stated to have exided anterior to the whole creation. The Apostle adds, "He is before all things." 4 The same statement is implied in St. John's assertion that the Word "was in the beginning," i.e., when God "created the heavens and the earth." 5 Thus we have it clearly stated, both in the words of Christ and of His Apostles, that Jesus Christ was "the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of 6 His Father before all the worlds." 7 SECTION III. "GOD OF GOD, LIGHT OF LIGHT, VERY GOD OF VERY GOD, BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE, BEING OF ONE SUBSTANCE WITH THE FATHER, BY WHOM ALL THINGS WERE MADE."

This article of the Creed is the outcome of a prolonged controversy, the most interesting perhaps, certainly the most 1

Heb. i. 5. John i. 14, 18 (where some important MSS. read "only-begotten God"-see Dr. HORT's Dissertation); iii. 16, 18. 1 John iv. 9. 3 Col. i. 15; Heb. i. 6. 4 Col. i. 17. 5 John i. 1, 3; 1 John i. 1. 6 iK; i.e., out of, as from a so1ire,e. 7 The Nicene Creed, in its original form, has "fEVvr,/Jlvro. iK rofJ 1rarpos, ÂľovO"(Evfj, rovrl<rnv lK rfjs au<rlas rov 1rarp6s, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, out of the Father's Essence. 0RIGEN (De Principiis I. 2) warns us not to take a carnal view of the eternal generation of the Son. 2

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fundamental, of all the controversies which have sundered those who bear the Christian name. The doctrine of the Incarnation had always been a stumbling-block to phil'.lsophers, who, however much they differed on other points, were all but unanimous on this-that matter was the source of all evil, and that only by dissociating oneself from all that is material could purification be attained. The heathen philosopher, if he did not advocate selfdestruction, as in all consistency he should have done, taught that the material part of man-the body, the source of all the corruption of mankind-should not only be kept under control,1 but that even its most natural appetites should be renounced and crushed. 2 Under such preconceptions, philosophy approached the doctrine of the Incarnation with the strongest possible aversion. God might, it was thought, appear to be united with a human body, 8 but an actual union was impossible, and the very idea of it blasphemous. The Eternal Word might have come to redeem man, but He could not possibly redeem man's whole composite nature, consisting of body, soul, and spirit, 1

1 Cor. ix, 27. So PLATO (Phaedo, c. 29). It is worth while to call the student's attention to the fact that it is to this doctrine that what is called asceticism is to be traced. The doctrine of the essential impurity of matter derives no support either from the Jewish or the Christian Scriptures. But certain of the consequences of that doctrine have invaded the Christian Church, and it has come, to many persons, actually to be made a test of saintliness. This was the case, to a very great extent indeed, in mediaeval times. The tendency has survived, in a modified form, even in Puritan theology, and it continues still to colour our modern ideas. These remarks, it must however be added, are not directed at the idea of exercise an::l discipline involved in the word l1uKriu,s, but only to the attempt to Âˇ base it on the innate impurity of matter. 3 Hence the IJocetic element in Gnosticism, which regarded the union between the Godhead and the Manhood in Christ to be not a real, but an apparent, union. 2

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because the human body was incapable of redemption. He must, therefore, have come to disengage the spiritual and psychical portions of man's composite being from those grosser material elements with which, by some mischance, the higher part of man's nature had bei;ome connected. 1 Thus a whole crop of heresies arose, the main feature of which was the denial of the fundamental doctrine of Christianity -that which distinguishes it from almost all other religions except Buddhism-the Incarnation of God the Word. Side by side with these sprang up other heresies, in which the nature of the Incarnation was misapprehended and misstated. 2 .Amid the confusions of thought thus generated, added to the incapacity of the human intellect to grasp, and of human language accurately to express, all that is contained in the idea of God, it was impossible that serious misconceptions should not arise. .Accordingly, .Arius, a presbyter of .Alexandria, at the beginning of the fourth century, jli]ivented a theory of the Incarnation which, although ingenious and plausible, evacuated the fact of the Incarnation of all its significance, by making the difference between the Father and the Son practically infinite . .According to .Arius, the Being which took our human nature existed before all time, 8 was far superior to all created beings, and might properly be called God. 4 But, nevertheless, 1

The variou~ Gnostic heresies all agreed on this point. Such, for instance, as the Patripassian heresy, which taught that the Father became incarnate; and the Sabellian, which also destroyed the distinction between the various Persoiis in the Godhead. See p. 88. 3 'fJv or/: ovK 'f/v, there was when He was not. Arius refused to use any word expressive of time, because he held that the Logos, or Word, was anterior to all time. 4 Although the name of God might, in a sense, be given to Him, He was, in truth, created and made by His Father. So ARIUS says in his Thalia, as quoted by ATHANASIUS in his Oration against the Arians, ii. 9, where he calls the Son a KTl<TÂľo. and a 1roÂŁrwo. 2

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if He were to be so called, it was to be understood that it was in an altogether different sense to that in which we call the Father God. This doctrine attracted considerable attention, and obtained many adherents. The bishop, or, as he was afterwards called, the patriarch, of Alexandria was somewhat disposed to treat the whole matter as a question of the schools. But a young presbyter named Athanasius, who had barely attained his twenty-fifth year, clearly saw that the doctrine taught by Arius must, if adopted, prove fatal to the whole Christian scheme. 1 Athanasius converted the patriarch to his opinion, and Arius was excommunicated. 2 (a thing created and made) of God. God, he adds, was not always a Father, but became so after He had begotten His Son, That the Arians, if not Arius himself, called the Logos God, seems implied in the First Oration of Athanasius against the Arians, sec. 6, where he says that even if the Logos be called God by the Arians, yet, according to the Arian theory, He is not really so, for He is foreign (a.>..Mrp,os) and unlike (d.v6Âľ01os) in essence to Him Who created Him. See also LrnnoN, Bampton Lectures, p. 26, where he mentions how the Arian Dr. Clarke was asked Âˇby Dr. Hawarden whether he held that the Father could annihilate the Son, and Dr. Clarke, after some consideration, confessed his inability to answer. There is another important passage in ATHANAsrus' Second Oration against the Arians, sec. 24, in which he shows that Arius had not quite shaken himself free of the old Gnostic ideas of inferior beings as necessary links in the chain of being between God aud the world. Arius thought that God could not immediately have created the world, but needed some intermediary to undertake the work of creation. A similar passage occurs in ATHANAsrus, De Decretis Synodi Nicaenae, sec, 8. 1 For an account of the controversy, see NEANDER, Chureh History, iv. 1-81 ; GrnsELER, Church History, i. 328-353; DORNER, On the Person of Christ, vol. ii. ; Prof. GwATKIN, Studies of Arianism, and Dean STANLEY, History of the Eastern Church. The latter writer, however, does not quite adequately appreciate the gravity of the issues involved in the controversy, 2 We must dismiss from our minds all later ideas concerning this word. To excommunicate, in early times, simply meant to refuse to admit to Holy Communion.

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The controversy spread throughout the whole Christian world, and the Emperor Constantine, who had lately avowed himself to be a Christian,1 was prevailed upon to summon a Council of Bishops from all parts of the Christian world, to state what had been the traditional doctrine of the Church on this important point. 2 It was unanimously resolved that the Church in every place had always been accustomed to teach that Jesus Christ was "God of (or from, eK) God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made," and that He was "of one Substance (i.e., Nature, or Essence) with the Father." But this unanimity was soon disturbed. Several of the Bishops who had Arian leanings 8 began to doubt whether the word Homoousion (of one substance with) was not too strong, and whether it was fair to impose as a test upon the Christian Church a word which was not found in Holy Scripture. The objection appeared to be a reasonable one, and it met with a large alllfUP,t of support throughout the Church Catholic. But Ath-anasiu.s, who, in the meantime, had succeeded Alexander as Bishop, or Patriarch, of Alexandria, maintained resolutely that the word Homoousion and no other, would be found adequate to preserve the true doctrine of 1 It may be necessary to add, for the information of some readers, that Constantine was the first Christian Emperor. 2 It is necessary to remember this, for the opponents of the Nicene doctrine have been accustomed to represent it as having been forced upon the Christian world by the votes of a majority, like many mediaeval and modern doctrines taught in the Church of Rome. W c must bear in mind (1) that the Bishops were asked, not to di~cuss a difficult theological question, but to state what was the tradition in the Churches to which they belonged, and (2) that the decision was unanimous. 3 We ought not to forget that one of these was the learned and able Eusebius of Caesarea, who was in high favour with Constantine, and to whom the Church is deeply indebted for his invaluable history of the first three centuries of the Christian Church.

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the Incarnation of the Divine Word. His view was espoused almost unanimously among the practical Latins. But the Eastern Christians, possessing a language better fitted to express the more delicate shades of thought, and more disposed, in consequence, to make religion a question of dialectics, disputed his conclusion with great force and ingenuity. A number of courtiers, moreover, contrived to excite in the mind of the Emperor Constantine, and afterwards in that of his son Constantius, suspicions of the loyalty of Athanasius, as well as an unworthy jealousy of the extraordinary influence which his character and ability had given him throughout the Christian world. Council was therefore held after Council, and Creed compiled after Creed, 1 with the view of defining the traditional doctrine of the Christian Church without the use of the obnoxious and non-scriptural word Homoousion. The result was to establish, in the most conclusive manner, the foresight and sagacity of Athanasius. It was found that if it were taught that the essence of the Son was unlike that of the Father, the natural result was to strengthen the hands of those who taught that Jesus Christ was a mere man. The advocates of compromise then shifted their ground. The Arians had taught that the Son was unlike the Father in Essence. A Semi-Arian party was for'med, which asserted that He was like the Father in Essence (Homoiousion) ; and this doctrine was triumphantly affirmed at a Council held at Sirmium in A.D. 359. 2 But 1 The number of creeds actually drawn up amounted to eight, according to Socrates, a Catholic writer of the fifth century (Hist. Eccl. II. 41). But he actually gives eleven, including that submitted by Eusebius of Caesarea to the Nicene Council. â&#x20AC;˘ The Creed is known as the Fourth, or Dated Creed, of Sirmium. It was much ridiculed by Athanasius (De Synodis, sec. 3) for the pompous language adopted in its opening words. "The Catholic faith was published at Sirmium, in presence of our Lord Constantius,

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it was found, as before, that the only result was to encourage the humanitarian party to raise its head again. And, as men did not fail to observe at the time, the Sirmium formula was no more couched in the actual language of Scripture than that. of Nicaea. Thus the advocates of compromise found the ground was cut from under their feet. They were, most of them, either too dull of comprehension, or too obstinate, as men almost invariably are under, similar circumstances, to confess their defeat at once ; but it was clear to every thoughtful man that, after the failure at Sirmium, the victory of the With his Homoousion was only a question of time. usual statesmanlike grasp of the situation, Athanasius forbore to press matters. He confined himself to removing hindrances in the way of a mutual understanding. He unfortunately died before that understanding was But the leaders of the Semi-Arian party, arrived at. Basil of Cappadocia, and the two Gregories, of N azianzus and of Nyssa, recognized the inevitable ; 1 and at the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, after fifty-six years of conflict and confusion, it was acknowledged that the word Homoousion, which affirmed the unity of Essence on the 23rd May." Athanasius asks, satirically, whether the Catholic faith had not, by any chance, been heard of before. Against the Sirmian conclusions he argues that brass is like gold, and pigeons like doves, yet that neverthelesg they were of different natures. If this were the case with the Son, he proceeds, He would really be a creature like ourselves. "But if He be the Word, Wisdom, Image of God, then in all reason He must be Oonsubstantial with Him." But this doctrine, he continues, excludes carnal conceptions. Passing outside the region of sense, by pure mental processes we discern the relation of the Son to the Father, of the Word to God as He is in Himself, of the Effulgence to the Light from which it beams. De Deer. Syn. Nie. chaps. xxiii. xxiv. 1 "Time had not verified the fears of 325 concerning doctrinal dangers inherent in the term oÂľ.oouuios." Ho RT, Dissertation on the Creed of Constantinople, p. 109.

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of the Son with the Father, was the only effectual safeguard of the Primitive and Catholic Faith. From that date to our own it has been practically accepted by Christendom as an accurate definition, on this point, of "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." 1 Our next step, after giving the history of this portion of the Creed, so that we may understand the kind of authority on which it rests, will be to explain what is involved in it. We shall not go over the ground again which we have gone over in chapter iii., and demonstrate the Divinity of Christ. Our business here will be with the doctrine of the derivation of that Divinity from Its Source, namely, the Being of the Father. That the Son is represented in the Scriptures to be God, we have already seen. We have now to show that He is God the Son ; that He derives His Being from the Father by a process which is called generation, but which must carefully be dissociated from any carnal or corporeal ideas, or any ideas of time, which our experience of visible nature may have led us to attach to it. 2 "Generation" is, in fact, only a phrase to denote communication or derivation of being. 8 Another phrase, procession,4 is used to denote the derivation of being in the case of the Holy Spirit. But it is not pretended that any of us are able to comprehend the distinctions 1 We ought not to pass over the fact that Jesus Christ allowed the Jews to remain under the impression that when He Himself called God His Father, He did so in a special and peculiar sense. They complained (John v. 18) that 1raripa foio11 txeye ro11 Oe611, He called God His own Father. 2 Compare the passage on Christ's conception, p. 149. 8 "Pater est vita in Semetipso, non a Filio : Filius vita in Semetipso, sed a Patre." AUGUSTINE in Joan. Tract xix. 13; Ed. Migne. 4 In Greek iK1r6peva-.s, the literal translation of whfoh is "going forth."

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involved in these words. 1 All we know is, that the one, generation, or, to use its English equivalent, begetting, is used by Jesus Christ to describe the mode of His derivation from the Father, while the other, procession, is used by Him to describe the mode of derivation of the Spirit from the Father. What is meant by them precisely, we shall probably never know. All that we can learn from them is that the mode of derivation of the Being of the Son from that of the Father, the sole ultimate source of all life, created or uncreated, differs in some unknown way from the mode of derivation of the Spirit's Being from the same source. Beyond this it were useless to inquire, and profane to speculate ; not, however, because the propositions in question are contrary to reason, but because they are beyond it. The practical value to us of the distinctions of which we have been speaking may, or may not, be great. But they place us, in regard to the Being of God, in a fitting attitude of humility and teachableness. And, at least, they serve to emphasize, and to enable us to bear in mind, the eternal distinctions which, as we have seen, 2 exist in the very bosom of the Sacred Trinity itself. The derivation of the Son from the Father is implied in the very word "Son" itself. Consequently, wherever we find the term " Son " in a connection in which it clearly does not refer to the Manhood of Christ, we find a justification for applying the words "God of (i.e. from) God" to ,Jesus Christ. 3 Such a passage, for instance, as that in 1 See what has been said in pp. 53, 54 about language being at best but an approximation, in the case of facts too vast to admit of com2 plete measurement by the human intellect. See p. 89. 3 Odiv EK OeoD, the preposition signifying the springing out qi, as from a source. Thus it is the characteristic of the Son that His Godhead is derived jroni the source of Godhead, after a manner which is denoted by the word generation. And we should further remark that the word "generation" does not imply a past ad, but an

eternally present relation.

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Hebrews i. 2, in which the Son is described as the "effulgence," or, more literally still, the " beaming forth" of the Father's glory, and the "very image," or better as in the margin, the "impress" of His Substance or Essence, is decisive upon such a point. Such, again, is the statement of St. John (i. 18), that "no man hath seen God at any time," but that '' the only-begotten Son, He Who existeth into the bosom of the Father, He hath imparted the knowledge of Him." 1 .All those passages, again, in which we have referred to the Son as "sent" by the Father, declare the same truth. 2 For we have before shown that Jesus Christ is declared in Scripture to be God. If, therefore, He is spoken of as sent by God from heaven (and, as we have just seen, He repeatedly states that I-{e has come down from heaven), He must be, in some sense, distinct from the Father. We are taught the same truth when. we read that it is " given" to Him to "have life in Himself "; 3 that "all judgment is given to Him"; 4 that God gave His only-begotten Son, that "whosoever believeth in Him might have eternal life"; 5 that we are "in Him that is true, in His Son Jesus Christ." 6 The term Word, again, teaches us the same truth in different language. It does so even in English. For a word implies the expression and communication of a thought. If no thought be expressed, there can be no word, but only a sound. Thus if Jesus Christ be the Word of God, He must be the expression of the Mind of God ; in other words, "God from God." The 1 The rendering here is my own, and, as far as possible, a literal one. The word l~rrr-!Jrraro is difficult to express in English. It literally means to lead forth. But it here seems to point to the Son as God in the act of communicating Himself. 2 .As for instance, John iv. 34 ; v. 23, 24, 30, &c., &c., and especially xvi. 28, and 1 John iv. 9. .Also Rom. viii. 3, Gal. iv. 4. 4 a John v. 26. John v. 22; Matt. xxiv. 31-46; .Acts xvii. 31, 6 1 John v. 20, 5 John iii. 16.

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Greek word Logos, which signifies Thought or Reason, as well as the expression of it, expresses the same truth yet more distinctly. For (1) the thought, or reason, has an objective existence before its expression; and (2) the word is the expression, or communication, of that which previously existed. Thus the word Logos involves (1) the pre-existence of Him to Whom it was applied; and (2) that He announced, or communicated, His existence in creation, revelation, selfimpartation through _His Spirit. Once more, He was "in the beginning." He was "with God"; He "was God." And He "became flesh, and dwelt among us," so that we "beheld His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 1 The same truth finds expression once again when we are told that Christ is the Image of Him Who is invisible, 2 and that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 3 Nor can we fail to recognize yet another expression of it in the innumerable passages in which we find God's life, His purpose, His salvation, His righteousness, His grace or favour, His loving-kindness spoken of as manifested, or imparted, to man "in Jesus Christ our Lord." 4 The Eternal Word, moreover, is "Light from Light." We need not elaborate this point. That from God all light proceeds is a truth repeatedly asserted in Scripture; e.g., Ezra ix. 8 ; Psalm iv. 6, xxvii. 1, xxxvi. 9, xliii. 3, cxviii. 27 ; Isaiah lx. 19, 20; John i. 4; 1 Timothy vi, 16; 1 John i. 5, 7. That Jesus Christ came to cause this Light 6 to shine among 1

2 Col. i. 15. 3 2 Cor. v. 19. John i. 1, 14. Of. 2 Cor. iv. 4. The student must remember that in the Authorised Version this truth is frequently obscured by the rendering '' through " or ''by" for the Greek EP. b Light may be described as the power which enables us to see all things, whatever they may be, as they are. It therefore signifies the power which diffuses moral as well as intellectual truth. See Rom. xiii. 12; Ephesians v. 8, 13; 1 Thess. v. 5 ; 1 John ii. 9-11. 4

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men we learn from Luke ii. 32; John i. 4, 9, viii. 12, ix. 5, xii. 35, 36, 46; .Acts xiii. 47; Ephesians v. 14; 2 Timothy i. 10; 1 John ii. 8; as well as from many other passages too numerous to quote. That this Light is from the source of Light we are further taught in John iii. 17-21, and in 2 Cor. iv. 4, 6. That Christ gives it, is clear from Ephesians v. 14; that He Himself is Light we learn from John i. 4, 9, viii. 12, ix. 5, xii. 46. But we need nbt insist further on this point, as it is virtually involved in the last. Nor need we spend any pains in proving that Christ is " Very (or True) God from Very (or True) God." In fact, this phrase was only added in order to protest against the doctrine that the Son, if called God, was called so only in an inferior or unreal sense. It proved, however, insufficient to guard the doctrine of Christ's Divinity until the words " of one Substance with the Father " were added, in order to make it clear that the Godhead of the Son was not of a different, but of the same nature as the Godhead of the Father-that one and the same Essence was derived by the Son from the origin and source of all Being. 1 1 The words '' Begotten, not made '' ("(â&#x201A;ŹPP1J0EPra ou 1ro,,,,Obrra, ), have already been partially discussed. It is unfortunate that the minds of the Fathers of the fourth century were fixed on the intellectual, to the almost entire exclusion of the moral or practical side of God's Essence. "Light of (or from) Light" might very well have been balanced by "Love of (or from) Love" in the Nicene Creed; and it would have materially aided man's comprehension of the mystery of the Divine Being. But it has been said, albeit not quite accurately, that the theology of early days was Petrine, and consisted in the acceptance of a creed (though why St. Peter should be more responsible for dogma than any other member of the Apostolic College does not seem very clear); that of the Reformation, Pauline, and resting on faith, or trust in God; while we are at present entering upon a period when the theology of St. John will be in the ascendant, the leadingÂˇ principle of which is love. The idea, however, that St. Paul is the apostle of- faith, St. John of love, as we have already seen, is not borne out by a study of their works. St. John insists on faith as

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The next statement in the Creed is that the Lord Jesus Christ, being thus essentially Divine, is He "by Whom all things were made." The source from which every kind of life is ultimately drawn is, of course, the Father. Hence He is spoken of as the "Maker of ,heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." But as it is the special attribute of the Son to be the revelation or manifestation of the Father, He must necessarily be the Agent by Whom the creation is effected. 1 Accordingly, we are told by St. ,John and St. Paul, and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that this was the case. "Without Him," 2 says the former," was not anything made that hath been made." 3 St. Paul tells us that by the Son " were all things created in the heavens and upon the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him and unto Him." 4 much as St. Paul, while St. Paul makes love the end to which the redeeming work of Christ tends. But though it is doubtless a mistake to identify a particular apostle with a particular one-sided view of the Christian scheme, the above historical summary of the general tendencies of Christian thought, from the beginning until now, is doubtless correct. St. Augustin, De Catechizandis Rudibus, chap. vi., refers all God's dealings with us to love as their final cause. 1 "Seeing, therefore, that the Father alone is originally that Deity which Christ originally is not (for Christ is God, by being of God; Light, by issuing out of Light), it followeth hereupon that whatsoever Chl'ist hath in common with His heavenly Father, the same must of necessity he given Him, but naturally and eternally given, not bestowed by way of benevolence and favour." HOOKER, Eccl. Pol. V., liv. 2. But here we must remember that Hooker does not mean by "originally" what we mean in modern English, i.e., "from the beginning," but simply that the Son is not, and cannot be, the origin of all being. 2 Literally, apartfroin Him. John i. 4. 3 Many commentators connect "that hath been made" with what follows. 4 Col. i. 16. CJ. 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; Eph. iii. 9.

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And the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the Son as He "through Whom God made the worlds." 1 We must not pass from this subject without a reference to certain statements industriously propagated in England, and still more industriously in Germany, to the effect that the views of Christ's Nature above expressed are later developments of Christian theology, and formed no part of the original teaching of the founders of Christianity. ProfeRsor Harnack's recent work on the Creed is the most modern instance of this tendency in modern thought, and it demands at least a passing notice in these pages. His method is remarkable for its ingenuity. It represents the Canon of the New Testament as having been formed very gradually, and the Creed as of still later date. His facts are unquestionable, but his inferences from them are the precise -opposite of the truth. Doubtless there was no such thing in the. earliest days as a Canon of the New Testament, in the sense of a body of writings, the supreme authority of which had been officially recognized; nor was there, as yet, any special document formally imposed as a Creed throughout the Christian world. But we must not allow ourselves to lose sight of the fact that the writings, which were afterwards embodied into a Canon, were in existence in Apostolic times: Nor is this all. They were all the work of Apostles, or companions of the Apostles, 2 and, therefore, of men 1 Heb. i. 3. There is a remarkable passage in the Exposition of Faith of ATHANASIUS, chap. i. (if it be really his), which summarises the Catholic Faith on this point. He says that we are to believe on one Only - begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten without beginning and everlastingly from the Father - a Word neither emitted (1rpo<f,op<K6v), nor indwelling (eviiÂŤl.8.-rov), nor an emanation from the Perfect One, nor cut off nor cast forth from the impassible Nature; but a Son, Perfect of Himself, living and energizing, the True Image of the Father, of equal honour and glory with Him.'' 2 See for the proof of this, WESTCOTT, On the Canon, and SALMON'S Introduction to the Study of the N. T. I may be permitted

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who knew perfectly well what the doctrine was which Christ commissioned His disciples to preach. In regard to the Lordship and Divinity of ChriRt, we have already shown that the doctrine contained in the Apostles' Creed is not first to be found in the writers of .the latter end of the second century after Christ, but that it is contained in the most explicit form in the Scriptures themselves. The student may also be asked to note the fact that, in our demonstration, these doctrines have not been based on the J ohannine writings alone. They are to be found either explicitly, or by the clearest possible inference, in all the writings of the New Testament, and were, therefore, unquestionably taught from the very first. 1 The same will hereafter be proved as we deal with the remaining articles of the Christian Faith. 2 And in what has been already said concerning the early history of the Christian Creed, we have pointed out the fallacy which underlies Professor Harnack's reasoning. The early Church was not so anxious for the letter as for the spirit of the Catholic Faith. Therefore, until the Council of Nicaea found it necessary to put forth an authoritative form of also to refer to my own Principles of Biblical Criticism. Some among ourselves have been inclined to surrender 2 Peter ; but those who have done so have not, apparently, attached sufficient weight to the following two considerations: (1) That if not genuine, it is not merely spurious, but a deliberate forgery ; and (2) that between it and the best of the sub-Apostolic writings there is a "great gulf fixed," both in style and matter. 1 Thus even St. James, though he does not explicitly assert the Divinity or Pre-existence, most distinctly asserts the Lordship of Christ (i. 1, ii. 1, v. 1, 8, 11, 14, 15). And, as we shall see hereafter, the doctrine of the Incarnation is also received by him. 2 Professor SwETE, in his work on The Apostles' Greed, has proved beyond a doubt that Clement and Ignatius, in the first and early part of the second centnry, held precisely the same doctrine as the Apostles' Creed now contains. See also the Lost Gospel of the late Prebendary SADLER.

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creed, there were a variety of creeds in use, in various parts of the world. But these creeds, however much (or, rather, little) they differed in form, were identical in substance; and, as our Church observes in her Articles, 1 and as has been abundantly shown in these pages, that substance may be proved by most certain warranty of Holy Scripture to be a correct statement of the "faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." 2 The truth is, that the whole system of Christianity, as represented in the various books of the New Testament, is essentially supernatural. Even the synoptic narratives do not present us with the humanitarian view of Christ's Person ; they postulate the assumption of our human flesh by a Being essentially Divine. 8 That Being, according to the teaching of the whole New Testament, offered to God, as Man, a full and perfect obedience, such as man had hitherto found it impossible to render. As we shall see hereafter, the New Testament scriptures regard that "obedience unto death," involving, as it did, the full and adequate recognition and confession of man's sinfulness, as a "full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Propitiation for the sins of the whole world." They teach that this regenerated, purified, Deified Humanity 1

Art. VIII. The writer of these pages may be permitted to express his regret that so much respect is at present paid in this country to German criticism and its methods. It is doubtless learned and ingenious, and it has not unfrequently made valuable discoveries; but it is essentially arbitrary. It is accustomed to build vast structures of theory upon a very minute basis of fact. It frequently ignores such facts as are irreconcilable with the theory it desires to establish ; and it is sometimes inclined to represent a conclusion as proved, on evidence which, to more well-balanced minds, simply makes the conclusion a bare Âˇ possibility. As a valued friend says, speaking of the researches of German inquirers in regions outside theology, "they have infinite patience, but no perspective." a Seep. 97. .2

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is imparted to each man according to the measure of his faith; that man is thus looked upon as provisionally righteous by virtue of his union with the Righteous One, effected by that faith; that under the influence of that faith he continually, progresses t?ward a real righteousness, not. his own, but that of Jesus Christ ; and that he eventually attains that righteousness when all sinful propensities are subdued, and the human will is finally and irrevocably conformed to the Divine. This doctrine, as we shall find, was taught from the beginning ; it will survive unto the end. And whether theological science will finally contrive to satisfy the human mind in regard to certain intellectual questions arising out of these first principles of Christian theology, or whether it will not, the principles themselves admit neither of development nor change. They are at the root of "the Catholic faith, which, except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." 1 Like Him to Whom it points, that faith is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." 2 1

See p. 11 for the interpretation to be placed on these words. A few words may be necessary on that caricature, or rather evisceration, of the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation involved in the Roman doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the B. V. M. This doctrine simply follows, by a logical necessity, from the virtual apotheosis of Mary in the Roman Communion. But one essential feature of the true Catholic faith is the uniqueness of the miraculous conception of Christ. He alone was conceived without sin, because to Him alone was committed the task of redeeming mankind. But if, in order that He should be thus conceived, it was necessary also that His Mother should be conceived free from sin, then, as Professor Blunt showed when the dogma was promulgated in 1854, it was equally necessary that her mother should have been so conceived, and so on back to the creation of mankind. And thus the doctrine of the Fall of man is virtually abandoned. 2

CHAPTER V. THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST SECTION

"WHO FOR US MEN AND FOR OUR SALVATION CAME DOWN FROM

HEAVEN,

AND WAS

INCARNATE BY THE

HOLY

GHOST OF THE VIRGIN MARY, AND WAS MADE MAN "

T is necessary, in dealing with the redemptive work of Christ, to offer a few preliminary observations on certain misconceptions of its actual character which, in the course of ages, have obscured the earlier and more accurate view of, it. The starting point of early theology was unquestionably the Incarnation. The New Testament, as it stands, does not, it is true, furnish us with a body of systematic theology. But it is-not difficult, with proper care, to ascertain from it what were the main features of the Christian system, as taught by Christ and His Apostles. There can be no doubt that, as described in Holy Scripture, Christ's redemptive work may be summed up in this, that Christ became Man, that man might be brought into union with God. We read of the new birth, or begetting of those who belong to Christ; of Christ as the Second .Adam, 1 i.e., a new source from which 1 John i. 12, 13; iii. 3, 5. 1 Cor. xv. 45. 2 Cor. v. 17. Gal. vi. 15. Eph. iv. 24. 1 John v. 1. It should be borne in mind that St. John speaks rather of the implanting of the first germ of life than, as is suggested by the word birth, of the ushering of a fully organized being into new conditions and a new environment. This consideration will remove many difficulties, e.g., objections to the instantaneous character of the change, as implied in our Baptismal Office. 140

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human life was, after His coming, to be derived; of His Flesh and Blood as the nutriment of that New and Divine Life; 1 of our being made "partakers of the Divine Nature," and thus of our " escaping the conception that was in the world through ill-regulated desire (J1ri0vpJa)." 2 In short, it was a gospel of restoration and development, and not a mere gospel of forgiveness that was preached. And thus the early Fathers were wont to teach. 3 But this fundamental doctrine was 1

2 2 Pet. i. 4. John vi. 53-57. Such passages abound in all the early Fathers, especially the Greek Fathers, e.g., Irenaeus: "In the end of the world the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God united to the ancient substance of which .Adam was formed, made man living and perfect [as] receiving the Perfect Father: that as in the psychic (animali) man we had all died, so in the spiritual man we might all be made alive." Against Heresies, V. i. 3. (This passage is not extant in the Greek.) Clement of .Alexandria: "I (i.e., Jesus Christ) desire to restore you to the original model, that ye may become like Me. I anoint yon with the ointment of faith, whereby you cast off all corruption. I show you, in its unadorned simplicity, the form of righteousness by which ye ascend to God." Exhortation to the Greeks, chap. 12. Origen: "If man, made in the Image of God, is made like to the devil through looking on his image by means of sin, much more by looking on the Image of God, after the similitude of which God made him, shall he, by the Word and Virtue of God, receive that form which was given him by Nature. But let no man despair when he sees himself to be more like the devil than God, for the Saviour came, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Matthew was a publican, and thus his image was like the devil ; but when he came to the Image of God-that is, our Lord and Saviour-and followed it, he was transformed into the Image of God." Hoinilies on Genesis, ii. 13. .Athanasius places the idea of restoration, or rather of exaltation, at the root of his whole theological system. The Word took on Him Humanity, that we might become Divine (avros "f<i.p iv71v8pw7r7J<T<v, tva 71Âľ,,s 8eo'Tl"o<718wÂľev). On the Incarnation of the Word of God, chap. !iv. So Basil, writing to the Church in Sozopolis, says that if Christ had not come in the flesh, not only could He not have paid our debt to death, but also "that which had fallen down could not have been formed anew ; that which was broken in pieces could not have been set up again; that could not have been intiinately 3

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soon obscured. In the East speculation usurped the place of practical religion, while even, from Tertullian's time, we find, in the West, a tendency to substitute a conception of an occasional Divine assistance called "grace," for the more scriptural one of the perpetual indwelling of Christ in the human heart through His Spirit. 1 Slowly this conception made its way, assisted by inaccurate renderings in the Vulgate, 2 until at last the true doctrine was almost lost sight of amid the accretions which had gathered around it. The chief of all these was the doctrine of the sufficiency, united to God which had been alienated by the serpent's deceit.'' (chap. 2.) Theodoret, in his Questions on IL Kings, has an interesting remark on the miracle worked by Elisha of making the iron swim by means of wood. "So," he says, "did the descent of the Divine Nature effect the raising of the human nature." 1 The first signs of this tendency are to be found in Tertullian. But it had not assumed the proportions which it has assumed in later days. "Grace," in the New Testament, uniformly means favour, including, no doubt, the effects of that favour, bnt never altogether losing sight of the original idea. Tertullian speaks of the "grace of water" in Baptism. He opposes grace to nature ( On the Soul, chap. xxi.), whereas St. Paul opposes grace to law. He does, however, contrast our condition by nature with our condition by Divine favour. But Tertullian never recommends his readers to pray for the grace of God to keep them from sin, as mediaeval and modern writers continually do. Augustine was the first to do this (Concerning Corruption and Grace, chap. ii. Against Julianus, Book IV. iii. 15). He does, however, speak of "the grace of the Spirit" as the means whereby we are enabled to shun evil and to do good. But he is not always quite consistent in his language. When he opposes grace to free will, he is on Scriptural lines. In ascribing our Justification to grace (Eru;hirid., p. 36) his language, though often misunderstood in consequence of the idea of grace later ages have imbibed, is once more on ground quite unassailable. Here as elsewhere the want of clear definitions, and the use of words in various senses without careful explanation of the sense in which they are used, has been a fruitful source of controversy. It is worth noting, however, that in Art. x., " on Grace," in the Articles of 1552, we have the words " the grace of God, or the Holy Ghost by Him given." 2 Especially that of ev by per.

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under certain conditions, of human merit, which was supposed to be able not only to make atonement for sin, and to ensure the salvation of him who had amassed a sufficient stock of it, but, in the case of persons of very exalted piety, to accumulate a store of goop. works, which, under the title of works of supererogation, could be applied by the authorities of the Church toward the satisfying the liabilities of those who had come short of the requirements of God's Law. 1 At the Reformation the intolerable burden of such a system was keenly felt, as well as the utter impossibility of satisfying the requirements of God's Law, or of making a sufficient reparation, even for one single sin, by any number of good works whatsoever. The prevailing tendency in that age of reaction from mediaeval theology was, therefore, to insist very strongly on the " ful~ perfect, and sufficient Oblation, Sacrifice, and Satisfaction" made by Jesus Christ for sin, and on the reciprocal transfer of merits and demerits which took place in the case of those who appropriated the virtue of that Sacrifice by faith. Thus the centre of gravity of the Christian system was insensibly shifted. Instead of representing its ultimate aim as the restoration and development of humanity, its leading idea was supposed to be propitiation for sin, and it was held that a belief in the merits of the Atoning Sacrifice, coupled with a firm persuasion that the believer had come within its terms, would of itself produce that inward sanctification, that progress in holiness, which the Scriptures everywhere teach to be a necessary consequence of redemption in Christ Jesus. It is not denied that the doctrine of our reception of life from Christ was taught by the school to which we have referred. But from the primary doctrine of the Gospel it came to hold a secondary place. It became the result of ,the conscious 1

See Article XIV., on Works of Supererogation.

THE CREED.

acceptance of pardon through faith in the efficacy of Christ's Death, instead of depending on faith in a Living Saviour-a faith which unites us to Him, and by virtue of that union imparts to us not only pardon and the sense of sonship, but also the sanctification which such union of necessity involves. It was also often accompanied by an exaggerated depreciation of the value of good works, which have even been described by some writers as rather a hindrance than a help in the way of our salvation. And thus by degrees the whole scheme of salvation came popularly to be narrowed to a mere acceptance of pardon, apart from repentance and from the process of inward sanctification by the Spirit of God. We shall hereafter endeavour to show that the Scriptures do not confine the sphere of faith to the Atoning Sacrifice of our Lord, but that they attribute it equally to all parts of His Redeeming W ork. 1 It may be sufficient to remark here that this change in fundamental conceptions in regard .to that work produced very serious results in Christian practice. Christians began to substitute their own subjective conceptions, in the shape of an inward assurance of salvation, for the progressive work of the Spirit in their 1 One result of the tendency to which reference has been made was insensibly to limit man's conceptions of the operation of Christ's Mediation to His Sacrifice on the Cross, and His having thereby undergone the punishment due to our sins. A singular consequence of this has been that many persons have been altogether unable to follow Bishop Butler's reasoning in his Analogy, in the chapter on the Mediation of Christ, simply because he uses the term Mediation in its ordinary sense of an intervention between two parties. It is obvious that all Christ's dealings with us, His Assumption of our nature, His Example, His Teaching, His Resurrection, His perpetual Intercession for us, and His gift to us of His Spirit, are included in the term Mediation. It is not confined to His offer of Himself for us to God by His Death. It embraces every possible means through which He could act on God's behalf towards us, or in our behalf towards God.

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hearts - the only true evidence of a living faith - and, in a great many cases, to look rather for Âˇforgiveness of sins than for conquest over them. 1 The Tractarian movement was a reaction in favour of the duties of practical religion, and a great deal of its success was owing to that fact. But, inaemuch as at first many of its adherents recurred rather to Latin than to early Greek theology, its earlier teaching on this point was less satisfactory than that of a later period. That is to say, it did not always steer clear of the idea of merit as attached to good works. It did not always regard them as organic, the natural result of the Presence of the " implanted Word" 2 in the heart of the believer. There was therefore room for the school of thought identified with the name of the late Professor F. D. Maurice, who insisted most strongly that there could be no deliverance from the effects of sin except through a deliverance from sin itself, and that our Lord was called "Jesus," not because He came "to save His people " from the consequences of their sins, but "from the sins" which tended to bring about those consequences. Thus we are now taught to repose our confidence in a Saviour Who not only "died for our sins," but " rose again for our justification " ; Who not only imputes, but imparts, righteousness ; in a Father Who, though we have not as yet actually become righteous, starts by regarding us as such, in consequence of the 1 "Whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world." (1 John v. 4.) "Pardon of sin was not the chief aim of sacrifice. The undue prominence given in the Theology of the Reformation to this aspect of the truth, though easily accounted for, and perhaps unavoidable in the earlier history of the Churches of that era, has been attended with no small injury to the very truths which those Churches were most anxious to conserve." MILLIGAN, On the. Resurrection, p. 276. 2 James i. 21.

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THE CREED.

Presence in our hearts of His Son, by His Spirit. Such a Presence tends ever more and more to bring about in us a perfect union with the Minil and Will of God, and thus to complete that reconciliation which, so far as our part in it is concerned, begins with a willing acceptance of the conditions under which Divine forgiveness is granted, and the offer of our hearts to the sanctifying influences of the Spirit of Christ. 1 The remainder of this chapter will be devoted to the elucidation of these principles. And first, as to the foundation on which all the redemptive work of Christ is built : the assumption of our human nature by the Eternal Son "for us men and for our salvation." The Creed tells us that the Son of God, regarding Whose Divine Nature we have already been duly informed, "was Incarnate"-that is, took upon Himself our human nature-" by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man," or, as the same truth is expressed in the Apostles' Creed, He was 1 It is at once interesting and singular to observe how gradually the rloctrine of the Divine immanence in us through the Divine and human life of our Lord Jesus Christ fell into the background after the Reformation, and how gradually it was restored. Hooker clearly regards the saving work of Christ to consist in the gift of His Life. l'earson has come to look upon that work as nothing more than the making propitiation for sin.. So the theologians of the "Catholic revival," though they revived the true doctrine of the Incarnation, took some time to rid themselves of the conception that propitiation, and not restoration, was the main feature of the Christian scheme. "In proportion as men come to see that the august phenomenon of Christian goodness is best accounted for by the presence of a recreating energy, by the infusion of what Scripture describes as a Divine 'life,' they will acknowledge a raison-d'Ure for the affirmations of Catholic Christianity, and a real appropriateness in the prayer of the Mediator that believers might be 'sanctified in the truth.'"Âˇ Canon BRIGHT, On the Incarnation, Preface, pp. xiv. xv. We cannot discern too clearly that it is in this great fact that the whole comprehensive scheme of Christian theology takes its rise,

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conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." 1 This truth is declared by the Apostle St. John, when he says that "the Word became Flesh, and dwelt among us." 2 A similar expression is given to it by St. Paul, when he says that "when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law." 3 Of the manner in which this was done we learn in Matthew i. 18-25, and Luke i. That is to say, the birth of Christ was a miraculous birth. 4 He was not born after the ordinary manner of mankind. In that miraculous birth there was, to use the language of St. Paul in regard to the imparting of Christ's Nature to ourselves, a "new creation." 5 Christ, as St. Paul elsewhere puts it, was the Second Adam, that is to say, a new first parent whence the human race could henceforth derive a higher and holier life. But the life derived from Him was not a natural-or, rather, psychieal 6 -but a supernatural or spiritual life.7 In accordance with 1 The accurate translation of the words is "and was made :flesh from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and was marle man." In the original form of the Creed given us by the historian Socrates, the words are simply "and was made flesh, and was made man," with no mention by what means He became such. See SOCRATES, Eccl. Hist., i. 8. 2 John i. 14. 8 Gal. iv. 5. Cf Rom. i. 3, 4; 1 Cor. xv. 47; Phil. ii. 7, 8; 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; Heb. ii. 14, 16. 4 As much as this is clearly implied in Gal. iv. 5. 6 Ka.iv71 Krlou, 2 Cor. v. 17. 6 ,f;vxiK6s, a word difficult to translate, but meaning belonging to the ,f;vxfi, or soul. See below, p. 160. 7 See 1 Cor. ii. 14-16; xv. 44-48. Also, compare John vi. 50-58 with 62, 63. For the e'llidence on behalf of the Incarnation, see Bishop Âˇ HARVEY GOODWIN on the Foundations of the Creed, pp. 98-127. He enlarges, among other things, on the accuracy of St. Luke, as shown by his narrative of the shipwreck in Acts xxvii., which hag been carefully tested by Mr. Smith, of Jordanhill, in his monograph on the subject. He shows that the Gospels of St. Mark and St. John, though uot directly asserting the miraculous birth of

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THE CREED.

the scientific principle, call it development, or evolution, or what you will, by which each new advance of living beings in the scale of creation seems rather to have been grafted on some preceding one, than simply to have arisen out of it, Christ grafts a higher and spiritual humanity on the lower or psychic humanity, and has thus taken the crowning step in the history of created beings, by placing a Divine ideal of perfection within the reach of the human race. Hence, we may remark in passing, the amazing advance in the whole character of human life since the angels proclaimed the good tidings of " peace on earth, goodwill towards men."l We must further explain the need for a birth " of the Virgin Mary." The "new creation" was not to be altogether independent of the old. There was a link between them. The redemption which Christ came to achieve for us would not have been complete had He not come in the "likeness of sinful flesh," 2 though "without sin." 8 If the conception of Christ was a new departure for humanity, it was one which commenced from the starting point of human nature as it was. By assuming our flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, herself a daughter of Adam, Jesus Christ was enabled to exalt our frail and sinful human nature to where it now stands at the Right Hand of God. 4 our Lord, distinctly presuppose it. And it has been shown in a previous note that it lies at the root of all St. Paul's teaching, as well as that of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 1 Luke ii. 14. The meaning of the sentence, according to the now more usually accepted reading, is, most probably, "peace on earth to men of acceptarwe," i.e., to men God's good pleasure in whom has now been revealed. 3 Heb. iv. 15. 2 Rom. viii. 3. 4 Eph. ii. 5, 6; Col. iii. 5. We do not attempt in the text to, elucidate the mystery how Christ was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary. But some of our own divines have endeavoured

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This doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God was a fruitful source of misunderstanding in early times. Not only, as we have seen, was it thought impossible, and even blasphemous, to imagine that God could unite Himself to a thing so essentially impure as matter, but, even when this difficulty had been surmounted, all kinds of erroneous opinions concerning the nature of the Hypostatic Union 1 were broached. Tl_ie first of these was that of Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis in Galatia, who, in the vehemence of his opposition to the Arians, taught that the Godhead supplied the place of the human soul and spirit of Jesus, and that His assumption of humanity was confined to the uniting Himself with a human body. 2 The next and most serious controversy on the subject of the union of the two natures was provoked by the teaching of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople. Its origin may be traced to the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, an able, learned, and saintly Syrian divine, who, in controversy with Apollinaris, taught that our Lord as Man, though inhabited by the Divine Logos in a way which differed from His inhabitation of any other man, yet was brought into to throw light upon it. See HOOKER, Book V., chap. liii., and PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 166, note. Bishop Pearson cautions us not to suppose that "the Spirit did perform any proper act of generation which is the foundation of paternity." In other words, our apprehension of this Divine mystery is not to be natural or carnal, but supernatural or spiritual. The Holy Spirit, no doubt, did take "the very first original of our nature, before it was come to have any personal human subsistence," and imparted a new life to it. But "whoso taketh" cognizance of this Divine mystery "must from carnal thoughts be free." CJ. the expression in the Litany, "by the mystery of Thy Holy Incarnation," and a noble passage in ORIGEN, De Principiis, ii. 2. 1 i.e., the union of two natures in one Person. 2 Apollinaris conceded a kind of ,Pvxr, to our Lord. See NEANDER 1 Ch. Hist., iv. 101 (Bohn's Translation), and DORNER, On the Person of Christ, vol. ii., p. 352 sqq.

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THE CREED.

closer relations with God after His Baptism, and again after His Resurrection, than He had been before. 1 There had been, for a considerable period, a divergence between the Syrian and the Alexandrian schools of theology ; the former being inclined to anticipate modern ideas in its employment of reason in treating of things Divine, the latter being inclined to take a more mystical view, and to exalt revelation at the expense of reason. 2 The rivalry of the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria fanned this opposition into a flame. Alexandria, which recognized St. Mark as its founder, and had a right to consider itself as only second to an Apostolic see, saw with little satisfaction the sudden rise of the mushroom see of Constantinople to the second place among the patriarchates, simply on account of the secular privileges which attached to the " new Rome " on the Bosphorus, founded by, and bearing the name of, the Emperor Constantine. 3 Nestorius took up the views of Theodore of Mopsuestia with energy, not to say passion, and, in his sermons in his cathedral, inveighed against the term 0wToKos (God-bearer) applied to the Virgin Mary. 4 This doctrine was at once 1 Canon Gore, in his description of Theodore's view, hardly does justice to Theodore's assertion of the special manner in which the Logos inhabited the Man Christ Jesus. See NEANDER, pp. 117, 118. 2 For further information on this point consult NEANDER, Ch. Hist., iv., pp. 107-119, and DORNER, On the Person of Christ, vol. iii., sec. i. chaps. i. ii. 3 This appears clear from the fact that Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, treated the saintly Chrysostom no better than his nephew Cyril did the heretic Nestorius. SOCRATES (Hist. &cl. vi. 17) tells us of a free fight at Constantinople between the partisans of Theophilus and of Chrysostom. 4 In later times this term has been represented as equivalent to the term "Mother of God." This is far from being the case. TheÂˇ word mother implies some communication of being, and the words " Mother of God " certainly might lead to the inference that it was supposed that Christ in some way .derived His Divinity from

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challenged by Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who, with equal, or even with greater, violence, contended that to deny the applicability of the term 0wToKo, to the Blessed Virgin were to divide Him into two Christs, the one Divine, the other human. 1 A General Council was called at Ephesus, in A.D. 431, to pronounce upon this question, and it was decided that Christ, though possessing two natures, was, nevertheless, one Person ; that, by reason of this unity of person, there was a communicatio idiomatum, or a His mother. So Canon BRIGHT tells us, Waymarks, p. 180. And, no doubt, the confusion of thought engendered by the use of this word has been, as in many other cases, the parent of heresies, and has tended to the exaggerated honours paid to the Virgin both in the East and West. But the term 0eoroK6s simply means that He Whom the Virgin brought into the world was truly and personally God. 1 SooRATEs, in his Ecclesiastical History (book vii.), isÂˇ very impartial in condemning, N estorius and Cyril alike. He speaks of the levity and vainglory of the former, and of his harshness in stirring up persecution against heretics. He clears him from the charge of Photinianism (a form of Sabellianism) and of denying the Divinity of Christ, and asserts that his unreasonable horror of the term 0eoroK6s was due to ignorance. He also speaks strongly about the intemperate violence of Cyril in his quarrel with the prefect Orestes, and holds him, to a certain extent, responsible for the murder of the female philosopher Hypatia (of whom Socrates speaks with niuch respect), by the encouragement he gave to "murders and fights, and things of a like sort" (vii. 15). He places Nestorins in a more favourable light when he records how, amid the furious discussions which disgraced the Council of Ephesus, N estorius, scandalized by the mutual excommunications and depositions, cried, " Let Mary be called Theotokos, and let these miserable discords cease" (vii. 84). Theodoret (who, however, had suffered from his violence) says of Cyril, while he yet lived, that "he appeared to have been both born and educated for the injury of the Churches" (Ep. 157); and at his death rejoices at the deliverance of the Church from a general source of mischief, and complains, moreover, that while the good are early taken from us, the bad are frequently longlived (Ep. 180). Neander considers this Epistle genuine, though it has only come down to us in a Latin version.

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communication of attributes, whereby God might be spoken of as being born, dying, rising again, and the like ; and that, therefore, the term 0eo-roKo, might be, and ought to be, applied to our Blessed Lord. 1 The Alexandrian school, as has so often been the case in controversy, carried its victory too far, and pushed the theory of the Unity of Person in Christ to such lengths as to deny the possibility of the development in our Lord's human nature which is expressly asserted in Luke ii. 25. Cyril's successor at Alexandria, Dioscorus, encouraged a monk at Constantinople, Eutyches by name, to defy his patriarch, Flavian, and to teach that the manhood of Christ, when united to the Godhead, had been absorbed into it in such a way as to annihilate its natural properties of limitation and the like. Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, an old opponent of Cyril, who had been excommunicated for Nestorian leanings and his defence of the orthodoxy of Theodore of Mopsuestia, came forward once more in support of Flavian, and in opposition to Eutyches. A General Council was once more summoned at Ephesus, A.D. 449, and decided in favour of Eutyches; but its proceedings were carried on with such violence that its decisions were at once repudiated throughout Christendom. 2 1 It is a mistake to suppose that the Council of Ephesus drew up any definition of the faith on the point of the indivisibility of the Person of Christ. It simply condemned Nestorius for having protested against the use of the word Theotokos. The Council of Chalcedon, however, issued a decree. 2 It should be borne in mind (see also p. 129) that the early Oecumenical Councils are regarded as such, not, as some learned divines (e.g., Dr. Martineau) seem to imagine, because a majority of their members came to a decision which was afterwards imposed on the minority, but by reason of their subsequent ac,ceptance throughout. Christendom. Thus the decisions of Nicaea were not accepted until after fifty-six years of conflict : they were finally re-affirmed at Constantinople. The decisions at Ephesus in 431, and Ohalcedon in 451, were resisted for a time by large bodies of Christi,rns. But

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The patriarch Flavian di\ld shortly after this second Council of Ephesus, in consequence of the violence which had been used towards him, and the Synod obtained the name of the Latrocinium, or Robber Synod, from the brutality which disgraced its proceedings. Another General Council was held at Chalcedon, in the year 451 A.D., in which the doctrine of the Unity of Christ's Person was balanced by the assertion of the duality of His Nature. The decisions of these Councils were energetically resisted for a considerable time. This resistance was largely due to the violence with which the controversy was carried on, and the savage persecutions inflicted by the victorious party upon its defeated antagonists. Many theologians to whom the Catholic Church is deeply indebted-the able and clearsighted Cyril of Alexandria, for instance-have irretrievably disgraced themselves by the intrigues and artifices they did not disdain to employ in order to ensure their victory, and by the cruel vengeance they took on their adversaries when they had them in their power. The N estorian schism, by the aid of its missionaries in India, is said to have attained such proportions as at one time to outnumber the whole of the rest of Christendom.' But the dual personality of Christ proved an unsafe foundation on which to build. The this resistance is no longer maintained. The N estorian and Eutychian communities are kept apart from Catholic Christendom, not by the decrees of the third and fourth General Councils, which they have declared themselves ready to accept, but by political dissensions, local jealousies, and the like. The Turkish Government moreover is bitterly opposed to Christian reunion, and has resorted to violence, and even poison, in order to keep the Nestorians and Eutychians apart from the Orthodox Church of the East. The idea that the decisions of Oecumenical Councils were imposed by the voice of a bare majority is derived from the later Councils of the Western Church, and notably from the proceedings of the Vatican Council in 1870, though even there the minority, though not without pressure, finally accepted the decisions of the majority.

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Nestorian Churches gradually dwindled away, until at present they consist of a few thousand ignorant and downtrodden peasants in the mountains of Assyria, 1 who no longer insist upon the peculiar doctrines of N estorius. The Eutychians, or, as they are frequently called, Monophysites, 2 or Jacobites, 3 have been more fortunate. That portion of the Armenian Church which has not been persuaded into submission to the See of Rome still stands apart from the Orthodox Churches of the East, though it no longer proclaims the doctrines of Eutyches. Its members are men of ability, intelligence, and independence of spirit; and could it be liberated from the oppressions of its Mahommedan masters, it would hold an influential position in Christendom. The Copts in Africa belong to the same religious body. But they are sunk in ignorance and superstition, a condition which the Mahommedan yoke in Egypt has tended to intensify and to prolong. 4 Before leaving the question of the Oecumenical Councils and their decisions, 5 it may be well to say a few words on 1 The English Church has lately sent instructors to this dispirited remnant, at its own request. 2 Those who assert the one natitre of Christ. 3 So named from Jacob of Edessa, a notable leader of the Monophysite party. 4 A mission was sent from England to the Copts in 1843, and after having languished for a time, it was renewed about ten years ago. But the Copts are not so grateful for our assistance as the Assyrian N estorians, and the mission has not, as yet, been very successful. 5 The fifth Oecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in A.D. 553, under the influence of the Emperor Justinian, condemned the so-called "Three Chapters," propositions believed to have a N estorian tendency, extracted from the w01Âˇks of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and !bas. The sw:th Oecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in A.D. 680, at the instance of the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, coi;;_. demned Monotheletism, or the doctrine which assigned only one will to Christ. In neither of these Councils did the Roman pontiffs hold a very creditable position in the matter of orthodoxy. At tlw fifth,

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the functions of the Church in developing the doctrine which Christ has commissioned her to disseminate. lt must not be supposed that there is any infallibility attaching to the decisions of a General Council, as such. As we have already seen, those decisions, when promulgated, were almost invariably fiercely, and for a time successfully, challenged. Their binding nature consists in the fact of their ultimate acceptance by the vast majority of the members of the Christian Church. That acceptance was, no doubt, followed by the exclusion of the minority from the pale of Catholic Christendom. But unless this exclusion had been a fust exclusion, we may be quite sure that the logic of facts would have compelled the majority to abandon their attitude. The best justification for the action of Athanasius, Hilary, Cyril, Flavian, Theodoret, and Leo is the disappearance, more or less complete, of the doctrine of theiianta_qonists from the face of the earth. We conclude therefore that the general consent of Christians at large, Vigilius, who, after many vacillations of opinion, had committed himself to the theology of the "Three Chapters," was condemned by the Council. He ultimately made his submission. At the sixth, Honorius, who had adopted Monothelite views, was anathematized after he had been some time dead. These two instances of heretical pontiffs, together with that of Liberius during the Arian controversy, have given great trouble to Roman theologians. By dint of vast ingenuity in the manipulation of facts, they have endeavoured to show that these three Roman bishops were neither heretics, nor condemned as such. But Church historians, such as Neander (whose accuracy and honesty none who have consulted his authorities will be inclined to dispute), having no foregone conclusion to defend, hut only a plain story to tell, have entertained no doubt whatever that these Popes did fall into heresy, and were condemned for so doing. The orthodoxy of these prelates will be maintained only by those who, on grounds independent of historical research, have managed to convince themselves that heresy in a Pope is an impossibility, and who are therefore compelled to wrest history into accordance with their views.

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and not the mere verdict of Councils, is the principle on which the dogmatic teaching of the Church is based. A further consideration tends to strengthen this conclusion. The dogmatic decisions of the early Church were rather negative than positive. They were intended to exclude error, not to proclaim new truth. They were danger signals rather than developments. It was found, by actual experience, that if it were taught that the Godhead of the Son was not identical in Essence with that of the Father, the whole Christian scheme, as it has been handed down in Scripture, collapsed in a moment. So again it was found that if the doctrine of the One Person of Christ were not firmly held, men came to believe, not in the Word made Flesh, but in two separate beings, one of them more or less closely united to the other; while, on the other hand, if the two natures of Christ were not strongly insisted on, the true manhood of Christ disappeared altogether, and men either regarded it as absorbed into the Godhead, or they conceived of a being who, subsequently to the Incarnation, was neither God nor man, but a kind of But the intermediate being compounded of the two. Christian scheme is only conceivable under the hypothesis that "God and Man is one Christ." This, moreover, is why the ancient Councils invariably appealed to Scripture. They .pretended to set forth no new truths, but only to guard the safety of the old. The early Church always held with our own, that what "is not found" in Scripture, nor "may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." Thus, when enforcing the decrees of the Oecumenical Councils as necessary to the preaching _of the Christian faith, we do not bar the progress of Christian thought, or bind Christian theology for ever by the prevalent opinions of past ages; but, to use

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the striking simile of Canon Liddon, the decisions of the Oecumenical Councils areÂˇ as the rails on which we seekers after truth may arrive swiftly and smoothly at the goal we desire to reach.1 The authority for the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation, as defined by the third and fourth Oecumenical Councils, is to be found in the clearness with which Scripture sets forth the Divinity and Humanity of our Blessed Lord. It is obvious that the Godhead is incapable of change. This truth is involved in the fundamental idea of God as presented to us in the Scriptures both of the Old and New Covenant. 2 A.ny change, therefore, in the essential Nature of God, in consequence of His taking the Manhood, or, as Canon Liddon would prefer to put it, Manhood 3 into Himself, is a simple impossibility. The only question, therefore, on which we need enter is the nature of the relations between the Godhead and the Manhood as described to us in Holy Writ. That the Manhood remained unaltered in all respects 4 is clear 1 Some Words for God, Sermon III. Tke Freedom of the Spirit, p. 82. On the question whether the Homoousion was a development, see also LIDDON, Bampton Lettures, p. 641, sqq. "The Creed adopted by the Council of Nicaea did nothing more for Christian science, in the first instance, than define the goal at which it should aim; it neither did, nor pretended to attain to the goal." DORNER, On the Person of Christ, vol. ii. p. 261. 2 Seep. 83. 3 Bampton Lectures, p. 387 (1st ed.). "To speak of Christ as a Man may lead to a serious misconception. He is the Man, or, rather, He is Man. Christ's Manhood is not of itself an individual being; it is not a seat and centre ofÂˇ personality; it has no conceivable existence apart from the act of self-incarnation, whereby the Eternal Word called it into being, and made it His own. It is a vesture which He has folded around His Person." 4 In all respects, we may say, because sin, though it must be predicated of all men, Christ only excepted, is by_ no means a necessary characteristic of humanity_.

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from the language of the Scriptures as applied to Jesus Christ. He is born into the world a feeble infant, as all other men are. He grows in intelligence as in stature. 1 He eats, 2 drinks, 3 sleeps,4 hungers, 5 is tired,6 weeps,7 experiences the ordinary emotions of humanity. He is capable of special personal attachments. 8 Moreover, He uses language which, when the fact of His Godhead is proved, shows that He was also perfect Man. The words "My Father is greater than I," 9 if they do not, as it has been shown that they do not, refer to His Godhead, distinctly affirm that His Manhood is a separate nature. So, also, His ignorance of the day and hour of the Judgment bear witness to the fact that the Divinity. which dwelt in Him did not swallow up the attributes of humanity. We are even compelled to acknowledge that Jesus Christ had a separate will as Man, for we find Him saying, "Not My Will, but Thine, be done, 10 and "I am come not to do Mine own Will, but the Will of Him that sent Me." 11 That this will was capable of feeling, as well as undergoing temptation, is clear from the Agony in the garden, 12 and from the "horror of great darkness " that fell on Christ as He hung upon the Cross," 13 thus showing that He "hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." 14 The reality of Christ's humanity is thus conclusively demonstrated. The Unity of Person must be inferred, not so much from the letter of Scripture as from its general tone and spirit.15 There is not the 2 Matt. ix. 10; xxvi 21, &c. 3 John iv. 7. Luke ii. 52. 5 Matt. iv. 2, &c. 6 John iv. 6. Matt. viii. 25, &c. 8 John xi. 5; xiii. 23, &c. 7 Luke xix. 41; John xi. 35. 10 Luke xxiii. 42. 11 John vi. 38. 9 John xiv. 28. 12 Matt. xxvi. 37, and the parallel passages in St. Mark and St. Luke; . Âˇ also Heb. v. 7, and John xii. 27. 14 Heb. iv. 15. 1s Matt. xxvii. 46 ; Mark xv. 34. 15 Two important passages-Acts xx. 28, and 1 Tim. iii. 16-cannot be cited in support of this view, because the rendering is disputed, 1

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slightest hint of any separation between the Godhead and the Manhood, save in the mysterious utterance of Christ upon the Cross, which speaks of God having "forsaken" the Man Christ Jesus. On the other hand, the closeness of the union is distinctly asserted in such words as "The Word became flesh,'' 1 "He took the for~ of a bond-servant." 2 Again, in the Epistle to the Colossians (i. 14-22) we have the truth yet more emphatically asserted. For He Who "created all things," Who was "before all things," and in Whom "all things consist," in Whom, moreover, it pleased the Father that "all the fulness" of Divinity "should dwell," was also He Who, by "His Blood," brought about our redemption, and Who by it "reconciled all things unto Himself, in the Body of His Flesh, through death." It is impossible to express the personal union between the Godhead and the Manhood in clearer or stronger terms than in this passage. Once more, though in Hebrews i.-iii. the Godhead and the Manhood are put in less close and emphatic juxtaposition than in Colossians i. 14-22, it must be clear to every one who reads the passage that He Who in chapter i. is called God-the Brightness of His Father's glory and the impress of, His Person, by Whom the foundation of the world was laid-is He Who " purged our sins " by the " suffering of death," and Whose Manhood was perfected by the endurance of suffering. Thus God the Son and the Man Christ Jesus are everywhere spoken of as One Person, save in one particular mysterious utterance, which, as we have just seen, may not unreasonably be interpreted as indicating the perfection of our Blessed Lord's Manhood, and His consequent possession of a real human consciousness. One particular aspect, however, of the union between the Godhead and the 1

See passage above, on the Conception of Christ. See Phil. ii. 7. CJ. 2 Cor. viii, 9,

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Manhood has not yet been mentioned. It takes us into a region where any great precision of dogmatic statement is felt to be out of place. This aspect is the relation of the Manhood to the Godhead after the Resurrection and Ascension. A.s we shall hereafter see, the psychic 1 Body of our Lord disappeared after His Resurrection, and it was replaced by a spiritual Body, the precise constitution of which, as well as the laws to which it is subject, have not been fully revealed. We shall see, however, that it was a material Body, and that it followed the law of the Incarnation by having a link of connection with the old. But beyond this we have no information ; nor do we know of what .growth or development the soul or spirit of the Man Christ Jesus was capable when freed from their connection with "the likeness of sinful flesh." There are not wanting passages in Holy Writ which imply a far vaster extension, for our manhood as well as His, of the potentialities involved in that which was originally created " in the image " and " after the likeness " of God, than theology has at present dared to conceive of. We can but say that "things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man "-such things bath "God prepared for them that love Him." It would not be well to leave this subject without a reference to the renewed controversy which has arisen on the union of Christ's two Natures in our own time. It has been caused by the recent developments of Old Testament criticism, which, as some think, are inconsistent with the regard which ought to be paid to the utterances of God "manifest in the flesh." Those who are inclined to accept those developments have insisted strongly on the doctrine of the limitation of our Lord's human knowledge; and fo. Âˇclose connection with this doctrine, theories of the Kenosis, 1

Seep, 14i ..

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as it is called, or "self-emptying" of our Lord, have been revived, which have found great favour with a certain school of Lutheran divines. 1 But it is not unreasonable to observe that the translation in Philippians ii. 7 of the words JavTov EK;vwuev by "He emptied Himself " is open to serious question. 2 Many of the learned disquisitions of 1 See, for these theories, the learned and able Cunningham Lectures of Dr. BRUCE on the Kenosis. Canon BRIGHT, in his Ser11ions on the Incarnation (Appendix, p. 301), writes as follows on this subject: "Given, then, the doctrine of Christ's Divinity as belonging to, and inherent in, His eternal personality, it must surely appear impossible for Him to lay aside His 'essential character' as God, or to suspend His Divine 'manner of existence,' when He condescended to adopt the 'essential character' of humanity, or the human 'manner of existence.'" He also quotes the Rev. H. G. C. MouLE as saying, in his Commentary on Philippians (p. 300), that the "view" that "our Lord practically parted .with His Deity" "during the days of His flesh," and that He "became the (Incarnate) Son of God only in His glorification after death," seems to him to "contravene many plain testimonies of the Gospels, and, most of all, the pervading tone of the Gospels," which " present to us" in Jesus Christ "a Figure meek and lowly indeed, but always infinitely and mysteriously majestic." So likewise Canon HUTCHINGS, in his Sermon-Sketches (p. 260), says : " When Christ is said to have laid aside His glory, and to have become poor, He does not empty Himself of His Divine Perfections-for that would be to cease to be God--for God's Perfections are His Nature. He laid aside their exercise and visible expression, as a king would remain a king if he left his palace and lived in a hovel and dressed like a peasant." The declaration of the Athanasian Creed, which here represents the tradition of undivided Christendom, seems sufficient to settle the J>Oint for most of us. "The right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Obrist, the Son of God, is God and Man ; God, of the Substance of His Father, begotten before the worlds, and Man, of the Substance of His mother, born in the world ; perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting." 2 Canon GoRE's explanation of these words in his Bampton Lectures (pp. 158, 160) appears to me, I must confess, to involve an absolute impossibility. He says that our Lord " abandoned certain prerogatives of the Divine mode of existence in order to assume the human," and that we "know God to possess and use, not only the

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divines on this difficult subject, we may fairly contend, might very well have been preceded by a brief inquiry into the meaning of words. He "emptied Himself," we are told. Let us ask first, Who is " He "1 and next, Of what did He "empty Himself "1 "He " is clearly God the Son, and, as the Catholic Church has always taught, God the Son was and is truly and properly God. Of what, then, did He "empty Himself"_ when He became Man 1 Of any of the essential attributes or "prerogatives" of His Godhead 7 Then it follows, of necessity, that for the time, at least, He ceased to be God-a proposition which it is surely not too much to say is entirely inconceivable, whether it be regarded as relating to the period of our Lord's sojourn here on \)arth, or whether the self-emptying is to be taken as referring to the Being of the Logos henceforward from the time when the Human Nature was assumed. The question we are discussing relates, we must not forget, to the Divine attribute of Omniscience. Whether the exercise of that attribute in and through the Manhood is possible or impossible, its abnegation by the Godhead is surely unthinkable. Thus the translation " emptied Himself" would seem to involve a contradiction. Moreover the word Kfv6s signifies not only "empty," but " vain '' ; and the word "vain" brings in the subjective element of our human judgment. Therefore it were far wiser and safer, on the whole, to render the passage as it is rendered in the .Authorised Version, "He made Himself of no repupower to vindicate Himself, but also the power of self-limitation." One special attribute of Divinity, as we have seen, is unchangeableness. Any' "self-limitation'' of Himself by the Logos, therefore, would be equivalent to the proposition that God ceased to be God. The word "prerogative,'' in its reference to God, requires careful handling, Prerogative, according to Johnson, means "a special and peculiar privilege." But all the "privileges" God enjoys are His eternally, by inalienable right. They are part of His Essence. How, therefore, can He divest Himself of any of them 1

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tation." Still more desirable is it to avoid drawing hard and fast conclusions from a rendering which is, at best, uncertain, and which there is grave reason for believing unsound. The Kenosis, we may venture to assert, did not consist, and could not have consisted, in any change or "limitation" whatever in the Essence of the Eternal Son of God. It could only refer to our apprehensions of Him, to whom He appeared shorn of all those Divine attributes which we now know to have been His from all eternity. There is, however, it must be confessed, another side to the question. While it is necessary to speak strongly and decidedly in behalf of the Perfect Godhead of Christ, in Whom, as with His Father, there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning," 1 it behoves us to speak with all caution and hesitation on points which the voice of the 1 James i. 17. Even the Arians and Semi-Arians were careful to maintain that the Logos was l1rpe1rros, cl.vax:>..olwros (unchanged and unchangeable), a fact which was confessed on all hands, save of those of the simple humanitarians, throughout the Nicene controversy. SocRATEs, Hist. ii. 10, gives a form of Creed drawn up at Antioch by the Arianizers, in which these words are used. Athanasius steadily maintains the same proposition. He says, in his First Oration against the Arians (chap. xxii.), that "if God is immutable (l1rpe1rros), and if He always remains as He is, of necessity His Image must remain as He is, and not be changed (Kai oti Tpa1rfiuera1). In chap. xxxv. he asks again how that which is subject to change (rpE1rros) can be, said to be like Him Who is unchangeable (l1rpe1rros), or how can anyone be said to see the Father in the Son, if the former be unchangeable, the latter not so! Similarly in chaps. xxxvi. and xxxix. He is even more distinct in chap. xxxvi. He asserts that when the Son became Man, '' He displayed His sameness and nnchangeableness to those who thought Him to have been changed by assuming flesh, and to have become something else." In his Epistle to Epictetus he repeatedly denies that the Word, in becoming flesh, underwent any change in His essential Nature. (See chap. iv. 8.) Theodoret, following the reading of the Authorised Version in John iii. 13 ("Who is in heaven"), deduces from it that while our Lord was a citizen among men He was not only in heaven, but was not separated (ouK iKexwpurro)

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Church has not decided. That the glory of the Eternal suffered some eclipse, at least to our apprehensions of it, while He carried about our mortal flesh, admits of no dispute. But this eclipse, or, as it is called by theologians, Kenosis, of the Eternal Word, was in all probability caused by the insufficiency of the medium through which He thought fit to reveal Himself. The finite cannot contain the infinite. In passing through the medium of the finite, the glory of the Infinite must, of necessity, suffer eclipse or diminution to the apprehensions of those who perceive it through that medium, just as the beams of the sun are shorn of their brightness by passing through coloured glass, or, to use a still more accurate simile, as the human eye is altogether unable to receive and to reproduce some of the sun's actinic or caloric rays. Thus, we may believe with reverence, may the limitation of the Saviour's knowledge be explained. It is due, not to any "self-emptying" on the part of the Divine Word of any of His Divine attributes, or even of the " unreserved exercise of Divine prerogatives incompatible with the acceptance of the limitations attaching to humanity,'' 1 but to the in-

,v ord

from His Father. Interpret. in Psalm lxvii. That is to say, the attributes or ''prerogatives" of the Father were transmitted to the Son during the period of His humiliation. It should be remembered that for some time Theodoret was accused of denying the Unity of the Person of Christ. In a similar passage in his Commentary on Ephesians (chap. v. 32) he. repeats the same statement, adding that He only "appeared" to leave His Father. So also 0RIGEN, De Princi]Yiis, IV. 30, denies that anything of Divinity was wanting in Christ. 1 BRIGHT, On the Incarnation, p. 299. With the deepest respect for the opinion of so profound and accurate a scholar as Dr. Bright, I nevertheless feel constrained to maintain that had the "unreserved exercise of Divine prerogatives" been really "incompatible with the acceptance of the limitations attaching to humanity," then the Incarnation of God the Word would have been a simple impossibility. The Word when Incarnate, we may with all reverence venture to contend,

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capacity of such _a medium as humanity, even when admitted to the closest personal union with Divinity, to contain, much less to transmit, all the Knowledge and Wisdom and Power of the Most High. 1 In this way, too, it seems possible to explain the advance of the child Jesus in intelligence without introducing any hazardous theories about a change in the unchangeable. The Manhood, as it expanded, became continually a fitter vehicle for the manifestation of the Divine. 2 To sum up what has been said about the Doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God. The doctrine of the Catholic Church, as defined in her Councils, we have seen to be as follows : The Eternal Son of God, the Unchanged and Unchangeable Word, Himself True and Perfect God, one in Essence with the Father, took man's nature in the womb-of the Blessed Virgin. And He did so in such sort that "two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and the Manhood, were joined together in one retained all His high prerogatives unchanged, and was, as ever, unfettered in their exercise. But it was impossible, in the very nature of things, that those prerogatives could be manifested, or even exercised in their fulness, in and through the Manhood. 1 Even this truth requires to be applied with caution. "All the fulness of the Godhead," we are told, " dwells in Jesus Christ" (o-wÂľanKws). Bishop Lightfoot, in Zoe., renders "in bodily manifestation." Thus the manifestation of the Godhead in the flesh was a very full, and by no means inadequate, manifestation ; yet it had its limits, imposed by the necessity of the 9ase. So 0RIGEN (De Principiis, IV. i. 30) says that all the majesty of Christ's Divinity could not possibly be confined within the limits of a body occupying so small a space as His. 2 The difficult passage (1 Cor. xv. 28) may, perhaps, be explained as indicating a similar advance throughout our sojourn in the intermediate state, until we can discern the Godhead for ourselves without the intervention of the Manhood of the Son. When His Church is able thus immediately to apprehend God, the mediatorial kingdom, it may be, of the Man Christ Jesus comes to an end, and God is " all in all."

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Person, never to be divided," 1 and that, by reason of this conjunction, there is what has been called a communicatio idiomatum, or transfer of attributes, so that we may speak of God manifest in the Flesh, God being born, dying, rising again, or even, in a sense, with Hooker, that "man is really made God." But in this mysterious Hypostatic union, as it is called, there is no "confusion of substance." 2 The Godhead remains unchanged, and the manhood, though "taken into God," 2 remains true manhood still, though capable of infinite growth and development, by reason of the "unity of Person," 2 until, it may be, it ultimately becomes co-extensive with, or absorbed into, the Divine. 3 The next point to which our attention must be directed is the practical working of this root- principle of the Christian faith. We have seen that the main object of the work of Christ was not forgiveness, but, rather, restoration and development. It involved, first of all, the restoration of man, as an offender, to the favour of Him Whom he had offended by sin-in other words, whatÂˇ has been variously styled in the Scriptures "forgiveness," "remission," "reconciliation," "justification." It went on to impart to man that holiness which he had lost. But it did not stop there. It aimed not merely at replacing man in the position he had lost at the Fall, but to raising him to a far higher standard of perfection than any to which he had yet attained. This was not simply one of the subsidiary results of reconciliation or justification. It was the main object of Christ's Incarnation. The question of forgiveness and reconciliation, or atonement, 4 must be deferred to the 1

Article II. of the Church of England. Athanasian Creed. 3 Seep. 253. Or, rather, it continually tends to be so absorbed. 4 These worcls were originally identical in meaning, though, in our modern phraseology, there is a wide distinction between them. See p. 206. 2

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next section. At present we confine ourselves to the effect of the Incarnation on man's salvation. And it will be seen how wonderfully the Christian doctrine on this point has anticipated the theories of evolution and development so strongly insisted on at the present time in natural science. The doctrine of the Scriptures aiid the Church has always been that man's salvation, i.e. his deliverance from the dominion of sin, is effected by the implanting in him the germ of the higher life which Jesus Christ came to give. This has been supposed to be the meaning of the important discourse to Nicodemus. When questioned as to His doctrine by a distinguished Jewish teacher, our Lord replied by laying down the important principle that "Except a man be begotten again," that is, unless he have the germ of a new and higher life implanted in him by the Hqly Spirit, " he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." 1 St. John, in his Prologue to the Gospel, repeats this statement in his own words when heÂˇ says that "as many as received" the Eternal Word, "to them gave He the right (or power) to become children of God." 2 The witness, as we saw at the outset, which the Apostles came to deliver, was that God gave us Eternal Life in His Son, so that to have the Son was to have that life, and not to have Him was not to have it." 3 This life-that of the Eternal Word-is described by St. James as implanted,4 and as able to save us. So St. Peter describes us as "begotten anew by the Word of God living and remaining for ever." 5 And St. Paul tells us that we are united with 1 John iii. 5. ItiscuriousthattheRevisedVersion, which, in 1 John, uses the translation "begotten," here adopts the rendering "born." 2 John i. 12. 3 l John v. 11, 12. See also chap. iv. 9. The object of Christ's mission is here declared to be, not the acquisition for us of forgiveness, but the impartation to us of life. 5 1 Peter i. 23. 4 lÂľ.<f,VToP, James i. 21.

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Christ first o:i' all in the likeness of His Death, and that the result of this union will produce likeness to His Resurrection. 1 This union Âˇconsists in the infusion into us of the Divine humanity of Christ, as He tells us in John vi., where He insists on the necessity of our dwelling in Him through our partaking of His :Flesh and Blood, i.e., His Human Nature. And yet these words "flesh and blood" are not to be understood in any carnal sense. The Flesh and Blood of Christ are to be assimilated, not by any purely natural process~ but by the influence of the Divine Spirit on the spirits of those who receive them. 2 In the same direction tend all the passages which speak of " the new man," as opposed to "the old man." 3 Man is recreated in Jesus Christ. 4 And so do all those which speak of renewal, the gift of eternal life, and the like. 5 If this process is attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, so is the :whole work of redemption and sanctification in its practical aspect, as we shall see further explained when we come to Qonsider the work of the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity. The impartation of the new Life which is in Christ is frequently connected with the reception of the Sacrament of Baptism, as in John iii. 5 ; Romans vi. 3, 4 ; Colossians ii. 12. The reason of this is to be found in the fact that, as we shall see hereafter, 6 the Church of Christ is a visible society, into which Baptism is the Rom. vi. 5. CJ. Col. ii. 12. John vi. 63. The words, "It is the Spirit that maketh alive" (l"wo1ro1oiJ11), can hardly be interpreted of the human spirit, even though " spirit " is opposed to " flesh." 3 Eph. ii. 15; iv. 22-24. Col. iii. 9, 10. 4 2 Cor. v. 17. 5 Rom. xii. 2; 2 Cor, iv. 16; Gal. vi. 15; Col. iii. 10; Titus iii. 5. CJ. also Rom. vi. 4, 23 ; Col. iii. 3, 4; 1 John iii. 14, &c. 6 See pp. 296-299. 1

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appointed means of admission. 1 Admission into the Church involves a participation in all the privileges of membership in the Church, and therefore, of necessity, in the first and most elementary of those privileges-the possession of the life that comes from Christ, on which all the other privileges promised to members of the Church depend. The difficulties which have been felt on this question of Baptismal regeneration are due to a variety of misconceptions. First of all, regeneration has, in later times, come to mean something quite different to the meaning it bears in the New Testament, and in the whole of preReformation theology. Instead of meaning the impartation of the first germ of that new nature which was created when Christ took human flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, popular modern theology has interpreted it of that conscious change in the whole feelings and aims of the man which takes place when he realizes, by faith, the blessed scheme of redemption by Christ. This conscious change has come, since the Reformation, to be regarded as the starting-point of the new life, whereas the theology of the Scriptures and of the primitive ages has made such change the result of a previous impartation by the Spirit of God to man's spirit, of the humanity which is created anew In other words, the early Catholic in Jesus Christ. theology taught that no such conscious change of heart and life can take place until the man is regenerated, whether in Baptism or by some special act of God's favour, 1 Matt. xxviii. 19, where Baptism is spoken of as the mode of "making disciples" (Âľ.a017uv<Tau). Gf Mark xvi. 16. He who enrols himself in the Christian body will be saved, though it does not follow that every one who does not so enrol himself will of necessity be condemned. In the same way (St. John iii. 5) the outward reception of Baptism is closely connected by our Lord with the inward gift of the Spirit ; and in Titus iii. 5 the gift of the new birth, or begetting, is connected with the baptismal font ()l.oiJrpov). CJ. also Eph. v. 26.

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independently of Baptism ; whereas modern Protestant theology has regarded the conscious change of which we have been speaking as being itself regeneration. Thirdly, the phrases "born, again," "new birth," are inadequate renderings of dvayevvaw, 1ra>..iyyevw-[a, The idea involved in these phrases is rather that of begetting; that is, of imparting the first spark or germ of life where as yet there has been none. This is invariably an instantaneous process, and consequently the words our Church orders to be spoken immediately after baptism are neither presumptuous nor unreasonable. If God has commanded Baptism to be the means of entrance into His Church, if entrance into the Church involves of necessity the enjoyment of the privileges of membership-the first and most elementary of which is the participation in the Divine and human Life of the Great Head of the Church-then it is no more than the plain duty of those who admit anyone into the Church to proclaim the fact that henceforward that first and most fundamental privilege of the Christian, the possession of the new Life that comes from Christ, has been vouchsafed to the person who has just been admitted into Christ's Body, and therefore into fellowship with Himself.I A further difficulty which has been felt in 1 F. W. ROBERTSON (Sermons, Second Series, p. 49) regards this belief as '' degrading God." He pictures the Holy Spirit as being kept waiting, on this theory, until the parents are pleased to bring their child to baptism, the priest to baptize it, and so on. But he fails to remÂˇember that the parents and the priest are overruled in their actions by the same Spirit, who can order everything according to the counsel of His own Will, including the time when a given person shall be made a member of the Church, and therefore Âˇ partaker of all the privileges involved in such membership. It is fair, however, on the other hand, to remember that, as all competent divines are agreed, the grace of God is not tied to Sacraments, and that there may undoubtedly be cases-how many cases we cannot possibly tell-when Baptism does but declare and certify a relation which had come into existence before. The difficulty felt on this

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regard to Infant Baptism has undoubtedly been due to the subjective conceptions of the whole work of salvation which have been prevalent since the Reformation. 1 Early Catholic theologians took an objective view of the whole question; that is to say, salvation, from their point of view, was God's work, though man had,' with God's help, to bring his will into accordance with God's before the Spirit which God has given could carry on the work of sanctification in his heart. In its origin, therefore, the work of salvation was altogether independent of human beliefs concerning it. Since the Reformation, however, the human, or subjective, element in the work of salvation has been raised to a level with the Divine. Salvation, regeneration, election, predestination, have been made virtually to depend, not so much on the Sovereign Will of Him " Who desires all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth,'' 2 as on the consciousness of the individual Christian. For the absence on his part of the conscious realization of the privileges God wills to bestow on the members of His Son was held to prove, not that his failure to realize his right to claim such privileges rendered them useless to him, but that the opportunity of realizing these privileges had never been bestowed. Thus, on the one hand, God came to be supposed to have been capricious in His bestowal of His gifts; and, on the other, man insensibly came to attach more importance to his point by the great thinker and divine just referred to is probably due to the absence of clear conceptions on the scheme of salvation, and especially of the connection of the Incarnation with that scheme, which was general at the time when his magnificent sermons were preached. 1 Professor FROUDE, in his Lectures on the Council of Trent, has shown that the conceptions in regard to imputation which Luther adopted were derived from Western mediaeval theology. Their application, however, was changed. 2 1 Tim. ii. 4.

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belief that he possessed them than to God's Will, from which alone these blessings flowed. It is not the purpose of this book to enter at length upon this wide question. It will be sufficient to say that down to the Reformation the contrary view was held, and this view has been, on the whole, that of a large number of the best-known divines of the Church of England. 1 They have taught that the whole work of salvation originates with God, though the concurrence of the human will is, of course, necessary for the salvation and sanctification of the individual soul. It is true that the Calvinistic system depends, theoretically, as much on the Sovereign Will of God as the system it strove to supersede. But there is this marked difference between the two, that the Calvinistic teaching led men to believe that this Sovereign Will only referred to -a chosen few, while what we may term Catholic teaching regards it as referring to all. The only indications of God's Will, again, on the Calvinistic view, were the convictions and experiences of the individual believer. The Catholic view 2 maintains that God's Will to save us 1 Thus BARROW, in his sermon on Justifying Faith, denies the assertion of many in his day, that such faith "consists in our being persuaded that our sins are pardoned, or our persons just in God's esteem ; that we are acceptable to God, and stand possessed of His favour." '' It is," he proceeds, '' a previous condition, without which" (as the apostle teaches us) " 'it is impossible to please God.'" HAMMOND, in his Practical Catechism, in the section on Justifying Faith, regards it as consisting more particularly in "the giving up of the whole soul entirely to Christ, accepting His promises on His conditions, undertaking discipleship on Christ's terms." Bishop BULL'S Harmonia Apostolica, in which he deals with the supposed divergence between the teaching of St. Paul and St. James on this point, is the best exposition of the doctrines of this school. 2 Perhaps it may be necessary to explain that by the term "Catholic" here I mean to indicate the view held on this point by English theologians who have claimed the title of Catholic, as well as by the divines of Rome and of the East, as distinguished from that held by the disciples of Luther and Calvin.

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is altogether independent of our personal opinions or beliefs ; though, of course, our concurrence with that Will is necessary if the purpose of God to effect our own individual salvation is not to be frustrated. Catholic theologians have therefore been accustomed to see in Infant Baptism not only a declaration of the Will of God to save and sanctify the soul of the infant thus brought to be admitted into Christ's Church, but an actual conveyance of the powers without which such salvation and sanctification would be impossible. But such conveyance of the necessary powers has never been regarded as absolute, but merely potential. That is to say, it is the Will of God that the Divine gift of salvation shall be placed within the reach of every soul, without exception. 1 But the extent to which that gift becomes the actual inheritance of each individual soul, will be in precise proportion to the extent to which that soul realizes its possession of it. There are therefore two conditions necessary for the salvation of the soul-the Divine gift, and the individual realization of that gift. The Divine gift is the Life of the Lord Jesus Christ; the sole condition of its realization is Faith. 2 And Faith, as we have already seen, 3 consists of two parts-the realization of the truths of the unseen ~orld, and the impulse which enables us to frame our own conduct in accordance with the truths we have thus realized. The Christian Church, consisting, as it does, of men pledged to a belief in the purifying and elevating character of the Life of her Lord, is thus a visible expression of the Divine purpose to save all mankind. Each person introduced into that society has the power given him, if he will 1

1 Tim. ii. 4. The gift of God, and our realization of that gift, are thus, as it were, the father and mother of our redeemed life. 3 See pp. 20, 25. 2

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but use it, to conquer all temptations, to purify himself from all the pollutions of evil doing, and to conform himself to the Image of Jesus Christ. The various degrees of holiness attained by the individual members of Christ's Church are the measure of the faith of each in the Divine Life which flows from Him. The share in this Life possessed by each individual will be found to range from the most exalted saintliness to the very verge of the absolute extinction of all sense of fellowship with Christ. We have, therefore, no right to decide who are, and who are not, in Âˇactual union with Him. Jesus Christ has not given to His disciples, even in extreme cases, the right to say who have, and who have not, altogether lost their faith in the sanctifying influences He dispenses, though He has given us power, under certain circumstances, to separate individuals from the outward fellowship of the Church. In all ordinary cases He has taught us to consider the whole family of the baptized as living under His favour and partaking of His Life. Even the weakest and worst of that family is thus regarded by Him, save where the last spark of faith in a Divine Presence is utterly gone. 1 This condition is called in the Scriptures Justification by Faith. In other words, Jesus Christ regards all His members, by virtue of their faith in Him, not in the light they have deserved to be regarded by their sinful nature and by their sinful 1 That there is such a thing as rejection is clear enough from such passages as Matt. xii. 31, 32; xviii. 17 ; xxiii. 32, 33 ; xxiv. 51 ; xxv. 1-13, 30, 41-46; 1 Cor. vi. 10; Gal. v. 21; Rev. xxi. 8 ; xxii. 15; and many others. And that such rejection may be here, and not hereafter, inay be inferred from Matt. xviii. 17; Eph. v. 5. Our contention is, not that the Christian Church has no power to expel from her visible communion those whose lives are a disgrace to it, nor yet that God . will not finally sever the obstinately impenitent from His flock, but that it is not for us, under any circumstances whatever, to take upon ourselves to assert that " the day of grace is past and gone" for any individual soul.

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conduct, but in the light of that perfection to which faith in His Divine power tends to bring them, in the light of that sanctified Humanity which His Spirit has imparted to them. Before they can possibly advance a single step in the direction of that perfection, 'the "handwriting which is against them" must be blotted out. They must be convinced that they have a right to the "blessedness of those whose unrighteousness is forgiven and whose sin is covered." It were hopeless for them to attempt to break off the dominion of sin while weighed down by the burden of inexpiable offences. The only condition under which it would be possible for them to undertake such a struggle would be the assurance, in some shape or other, of Divine grace or favour; the well-grounded hope that the sin, which justly deserves punishment, is, or will be, pardoned. We will not at present discuss the relation of Justification to Sanctification, nor yet the full meaning of the former term, as used in Scripture. We will only assert, with Godet, that there is a preliminary Justification granted to all members of the Christian Church, which looks upon them, not as they are, but in the light of what they may be hoped eventually to become. They are regarded already as partakers, according to their measure, of the perfect righteousness of Christ. And they are at once exhorted and encouraged to unite themselves, by that faith which God has given and is willing to continue to give, more fully to that righteousness, until they are no longer merely hypothetically, or initially, partakers of it, but are actually identified with it in heart and will. 1 This conception of Justification by faith delivers us from many difficulties in which post-Reformation theology has 1 GoDET, in his Etudes Bibliques, deals ably, and, on the whole, satisfactorily, with this question, on Jines uot dissimilar to those indicated above,

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involved us. When Justification was regarded simply as a forensic process, consisting in the acquittal of a guilty person by reason of the willingness of an innocent person to take his place and bear his punishment; when it was regarded as a transference of the merits of the innocent party to the guilty, and of the offence of the guilty to the innocent, it was not unnatural that the objection should be made that such an "arrangement" or "transaction," as it has been called, was repugnant to our sense of justice, and that men should refuse to accept a system which represented God as unable to forgive man without resorting to a device so transparent that every fair-minded man would instinctively reject it. 1 It must be obvious to a careful student of the Bible that no such theory has been laid down in Holy Writ. On the contrary, the theory is the result of a double misconception of the language of Scripture. First of all, the scheme of salvation has come, in the ages subsequent to the Reformation, to be regarded as an acceptance of pardon rather than as an infusion of Life; and next, the very 1 Mr. CoTTER MoRISON, in his Service of Man, pp. 35-38, assails the "moral iniquity and obliquity" of the doctrine rejected above. Dr. Martineau denies that any such thing is to be found as a "proper transfer or exchangA, either of the qualities or of the consequences, of. vice and virtue." Studies of Christianity, p. 94. And he adds, "what deplorable reflection of human artifice is this, that Heaven is too veracious to abandon its menace against transgressors, yet is content to visit it on goodness the most perfect ! " Ibid., p. 97. That holy and clear-sighted divine, Archdeacon NORRIS, in his Rudiments of Theology (p. 48), stigmatizes "the notion of a transaction between the justice and mercy of God" as "artificial, and dangerously apt to pass into the notion of a transaction between the Father and the Son, leading almost inevitably into Arianism," and the popular idea of imputation as "artificial," and as "finding no response in a healthy conscience." It was "unknown," he further declares, "to the Church until the sixteenth century." And he cites Bishop BuLL's Seventh Sermon as warning us that this doctrine, "as it bath been too commonly taught and understood, hath beeu a fruitful mother of many pernicious and dangerous errors in divinity."

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Âˇcompressed language in which St. Paul deals with the question of Justification has been misapprehended. It is evident, from Roman vi. throughout, that the Justification of which he speaks is dependent upon the possession by the believer of a Life derived from Jesus Christ, and it is to his possession of such a Life, and not to any supposed transference of merits and demerits to which he has become a party, that his claim to Justification must be ascribed. It is further evident that this Life justifies, not absolutely, but because of its tendency to produce holiness, or, as we may put it, likeness to Christ (Rom. vi. 5). 1 This view derives further support from the fact that St. Paul constantly speaks of life in Christ, where the Authorised Version unfortunately speaks of life through Christ. Thus God may be regarded as justifying us, or accounting us righteous, not because our sins are arbitrarily imputed to Christ and His merits to us, but because God sees Christ in us, with all the potentialities which are involved in His life-giving Presence within us. He sees the faith which we have in that Divine power, the hope we entertain that it will be effectual to transform us into the Divine Image which we have lost; and He accepts us in His Beloved Son, not for what we are, but for what it may reasonably be hoped we may become. He accounts us righteous, 2 not for any inherent righteousness of our own, but for a righteousness imparted to us from another, which becomes increasingly our possession through the power of faith. In other words, the source of our Justification is the 1

A careful and unprejudiced study of such passages as Rom. viii.

1-4, Gal. ii. 15, 20, and even Rom. v., will tend to confirm the statements made in the text. Thus, e.g., in Rom. v. 19 the many are

said to be "made," not "accounted," righteous. It may be necessary to add that the student should consult the original, or the Revised Translation. ~ The translation "imputes" is avoided because of its associations. N

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Righteousness of His Son, in which we already have a share, and which, if we fall not away, will, in the end, produce in us an absolute assimilation to the Image of our Divine Master. 1 This view of Justification, so far from involving principles which seem to conflict with our human views of morality, is in entire accordance with the ordinary rules by which human society is governed. The relations of the Eternal Father to us, His imperfect and erring children, are similar to those between parent and child, master and servant, teacher and pupil. A complete fulfilment of the duties owing from an inferior to a superior would be impossible. All that can be expected, all that in point of fact ever is expected in such cases, is the desire !l,nd intention to fulfil them. Where that is evidently present, the service rendered, however imperfect, is accepted by those to whom it is owing, unless they are unjust and unreasonable. The will is taken for the deed, and the honest expression of regret for duties unfulfilled or imperfectly performed, is held by all fair and reasonable persons to atone for neglect or failure. The relations of God to us, His reconciled children, do not differ from those which have just been mentioned, save in the perfection of His tenderness and love. He graciously 1 It is not denied that the doctrine of a transference of merits and demerits derives support from Holy Scripture. There is a truth in it, but it is not the whole truth: and half truths, as we all know, are very near akin to falsehoods. That there is in a sense a transference of merits and demerits in the work of salvation, may fairly be admitted. But (1) if our sins were "laid on" Christ, and His merits are regarded as ours, such transference is not arbitrary; for (2) it is connected with the presence of the Divine Humanity of Christ in the soul; and (3) it is dependent upon the tran$forming power of that Presence, which tends to produce the righteousness ";hich the believer is regarded as possessing by virtue of his spiritual union with his Lord. For what is meant by our sins being "laid on" the Saviour, see next section.

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overlooks all onr imperfections, provided our will, on the whole, is steadfastly set towards obedience. An open confession of fault, coupled with an earnest purpose of amendment, is as much more beautiful in the eyes of God than it is in the eyes of the best' of human beings, as He is wiser, more perfect, and more merciful than they. Thus, not only when we are admitted into the number of His disciples, but all through our earthly probation or education, we are regarded as other than we actually are. We are " accounted righteous," not for our own merits, but for the Presence of the Spirit of the Eternal Son in our hearts, breathing into us the perfected humanity of Jesus Christ. And this Justification-this taking of our will for our deed-is called Justification by Faith, because only by our belief and trust in that Divine Presence can we take one single step towards the fulfilment of the Divine Will, and thus have a claim on the loving indulgence of our heavenly Father. In this connection we have further to consider what is meant by the Predestination and Election of which St. Paul, alone of all the sacred writers, speaks. Predestination and election to what? If we read into these words, as is frequently done, the sense that each individual soul is chosen from all eternity, by an arbitrary decree, to enjoy the happiness of heaven, or to be condemned to the neverending torments of hell, the conclusion of the Calvinistic school follows as a matter of course. But suppose the words have no such meaning. Suppose they only refer to the privileges and hopes which are common to every member of the Christian Church. Then it follows that the Apostle's words regard the gift of Eternal Life in Christ, and the countless blessings which flow from that gift to all believers, as operative only on conditlon that they should hold fast the privileges which have thus been granted

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them. We are predestinated and elected to a share in certain precious and exceeding great promises, that through these we should be partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped from " the corruption that is in the world by lust"; 1 but this share in those promises is not absolute, but conditional, and a failure to observe the conditions will entail the loss of the privileges placed within our reach. 2 Thus the Incarnation of Christ is the source from which all the blessings and privileges of the Christian covenant proceed. From this mystic union between God and the human spirit flow the most incalculable consequences for the future of our common humanity. The Incarnation and its results are in the fullest harmony with all that is best and truest in modern philosophy. It is the last step in the onward course of Ev_olution, which commenced with the Creation of heaven and earth, and ended in God uniting Himself in close and indissoluble union with the noblest of His crea~ures here below. And it opens out the most glorious prospects possible for humanity in an illimitable future, as the dominion of Christ in the human heart grows ever more complete. The Incarnation is at once the guarantee and the motive power of human progress-that progress which is an undeniable fact in human history. A mistaken exegesis of Scripture has, no doubt, tended in the past to foster the supposition that Christianity and progress 1 2 Peter i. 4. That blessings given may be lost, is clearly proved by such passages as Matt. xii. 43, 44 ; 1 Cor. ix. 27 ; Eph. v. 11-13 ; 1 Thess. v. 19; Heb. vi. 6; x. 26, 27; 2 Peter i. 10; ii. 20, 21; iii. 17. 2 Even in the visible world there is a species of predestination. The law of heredity conditions the life of human beings, as do also the position and circumstances of our parents. Some are predestinated to fame and fortune, to prosperity and cultured ease, others to poverty, pain, and misery. And yet it is possible for each of us to modify his destiny, to forfeit the privileges, or overcome the disadvantages, which God's will had assigned to us..

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were opposed. But we are beginning to understand that instead of there being any opposition between the two, the one, in reality, is the necessary condition of the other. If we are to have true Progress and Enlightenment, it is from the union of Christ with our spirits that they must spring. Nor is there any sphere of human activity of which the Incarnation fails to take account. Through it Christ has sanctified the body, the soul, and the spirit of the individual-his most natural desires, his intellect, his affections; his aspirations. And as it connects itself with every thought, word, and act of the individual, so is it inseparable from the advance of man in his corporate capacity. It takes note of the growth and spread of empires, of the order and good government of communities, the development of commerce, the reciprocal duties and relations of man. It sanctifies family life, the keystone of the social arch; it directs and inspires the intellect, it refines and elevates the taste, it matures and chastens the judgment, it gives a dignity and a worth to the humblest form of industry. For the Word made Flesh deigned for many years to occupy the position of a lowly handicraftsman, in order to make it clear to us that whatever occupation makes us useful to our brother man has in it a Divine character and aim. So vast and far-reaching are the issues involved in this great doctrine. 1 It is in eternal conflict with that 1 "For as humanity is broken up into fragments by sex, by race, by time, by circumstance . . . countless nations have not yet exhausted the manifold capacities of manhood and womanhood under the varied disciplines and inspirations of life . . . But in Christ there are no broken or imperfect lights. In Him everything which is shown to us of right and good and lovely in the history of the whole world is gathered up once for all. Nothing limits His humanity but the limits proper to humanity itself. Whatever there is in man of strength, of justice, of wisdom : whatever there is in woman of sensibility, of purity, of insight, is in Christ, without the conditions which hinder among us the development of contrasted

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malignant heresy which has done so much mischief, and which, even yet, has not been finally dislodged from the human mind, nor even from the Christian Church itself, that what is material is essentially evil. It vindicates and expands, and enables us to translate into action, the truth contained in those noble words which close the first epoch of the world's history, as narrated by the Spirit of God, "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." 1 SECTION II. "AND WAS CRUCIFIED ALSO FOR US UNDER PONTIUS PILATE. HE SUFFERED AND WAS BURIED"

The next step in Christian teaching brings us into contact with the fad of sin, and of the Divine mode of dealing with it. 2 The question of the Fall of man has been much virtues in one person. . . . Christ,. I repeat, was, and is, perfectly man : He was, and is, also, representatively man. Seeing that He unites in Himself all that is truly manly and truly womanly, undisguised by the accidental forms which belong to some one country or to some one period, everyone can, therefore, find in Him for his own work union with the eternal. He is, in the language of St. Paul, '_the last Adam,' 'a life-giving spirit.' For Him, consciously or unconsciously, all men were looking; to Him all history tended; in Him a higher life had its beginning and its pledge." Bishop WESTCOTT, The Historic Faith, pp. 62-65. Prebendary SADLER's well-known work, The Second Adam and the New Birth, should be studied in connection with the subject treated in this chapter. 1 Gen. i. 31. 2 For the evidence for the Crucifixion, the reader is once more referred to Bishop Harvey Goodwin's treatise. The following words, Âˇhowever, may well be quoted. "As a mere historical fact it may be said that it [the fact of the Crucifixion] was scarcely worth inserting. . . . . If Jesus Christ had been such as some of His critics, while denying His highest claims, canrlidly admit that He was, namely, a teacher of original and undeniable power, who collected disciples

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discussed, and of late a school of thought has arisen which attempts to hold up the doctrine of a Fall to reprobation. But the question really lies in a nutshell. That sin exists is an undeniable proposition. That it consists in the contravention by man of the laws of his being-a contravention rendered possible by the freedom of the will with which God has endowed him-is another proposition which can hardly be disputed.1 But as man must have existed antecedently to the commission of his first offence against those laws, it follows of necessity that he must have fallen from the state of innocence in which he had previously existed, when he committed that offence. There is no need to erect elaborate theological schemes on the foundation of the simple words of Genesis iii. Stripped of the historical dress in which the story of the first sin has come down to us in the books of Moses, the fact of the Fall seems to have consisted in man's having resolved to have experience both of good and evil. No other interpretation can rationally be placed on the figurative language of the Scripture account itself, which represents man as "eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." 2 The about him and formed a school, it would have been as painful as it would have been unnecessary for those disciples never to speak of their Master without referring to the fact that he suffered the death of a malefactor or a slave." (p. 145.) And after pointing out how, from the very first, the disciples of Christ have gloried in this their Master's shame, he adds that this fact, as well as their reverence for the Cross itself, points to the conclusion that the Crucifixion of Christ was really the evidence of the power of Divine truth His disciples believed it to be. "Can· anything," he asks (p. 146), "short of the power of Divine truth be suggested as at all adequate, or even likely, to make the Cross triumphant 1" 1 ,;, aµap-rla f(J'Tt dvoµla. 1 John iii. 4. 2 It is scarcely possible to estimate the mischief which has been done by the unscriptural and ridiculous statement-which has been widely substituted, even by Christian teachers, for the careful and suggestive language of Holy Writ-that this fruit was an apple I

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moment when man resolved to know evil as well as good, was the moment when the Fall of man took place. And from that moment the struggle commenced between good and evil, which is destined to last until the final consummation of all things. A confusion of thought appears to have arisen here in many minds between innocence and perfection. Yet no careful thinker would confound the two. An infant is innocent, but it is not perfect. And man, when placed upon the earth, though very probably physically perfect, was morally an infant. By an infant, it may be necessary Âˇ to point out, we do not mean a savage. The conception of a savage implies degradation. That of an infant only implies inexperience. Man had no experience of the facts of life, or of the results of transgression. Nor had he one spark of that higher experience which comes from resisting temptation. Consequently the portraiture of Adam in Milton's Pamdise Lost, which has imparted so much of its colouring to modern theology, is not only untrue to fact, but impossible in itself. If man's appearance on the earth were due to an act of creation, he would naturally be in the position of ignorance which I have described; while if his physical characteristics be a result of evolution, his moral characteristics, involving the freedom of the will, were certainly distinct from those of any being hitherto created. On either supposition, Milton's idea of man as a being not only innocent, but perfect, cannot be entertained. It is singular that the schoolmen generally, believing that the soul was created by God, regarded original sin, not as corrupting the springs of moral and spiritual life in us, but as depriving the soul of some special and peculiar grace superadded to man inÂˇ his original state of innocence. They appear to have derived this view from Augustine, who held that evil was

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nothing more nor less than the depriving us of Âˇwhat is good (privatio boni). 1 This merely negative view of moral evil seems hardly defensible. It would seem necessarily to involve the conclusion, which the schoolmen themselves would have been the first angrily to repudiate, that the devil, who is regarded in Scripture as the very source and impersonation of the principle of evil, must, for that very reason, be supposed to have no existence ! Moral evil must surely involve an attitude of active resistance to the Will of God. It cannot be explained as .a mere negation of something else. Thus. the doctrines of the schoolmen do not fit in particularly well with the language of Scripture, which regards evil as an active principle, and its existence in us not simply as withdrawing certain excellences from us, but as directly destroying the Image of God in the soul. With regard to the transmission of sin from Adam to his descendants, the primitive doctrine of the Christian Church has been very greatly exaggerated in later times. The Vulgate mistranslation in quo (in whom) of Jcp' t1i (because) in Romans v. 12, has been the cause of a vast deal of this exaggeration. It has led Western theologians to represent St. Paul's doctrine as embracing the proposition that all humanity sinned, and were condemned to death in Adam ; whereas what he actually said was thatÂˇ death was the common lot of all, because all had sinned. Still, there is some support for this idea of transmission in other parts of Scripture. "In Adam all die," says St. Paul in 1 Cor. xv . .22. Nor is this the only passage in God's Word which represents all mankind as involved in the consequences entailed by the sin of their first progenitor. 2 The question 1

Enchir. ad Laurent., chap. xi. See Job xiv. 4. Ps. Ji. 5. Rom: vii. 18 ; viii. 5, 8. iv. 22. 2

Eph. ii. 3 ;

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was much discussed at one period of the Church's history, whether Creationism or Traducianism were the true theory of the origin of the human soul-that is to say, whether the soul of each infant came fresh from God by an act of creation, or whether, like the body, it was evolved in some way from the soul of the parents. This is a questi?n that cannot be authoritatively settled; but modern science inclines us to the latter conclusion. It would seem that moral, as well as physical, habits are trans)llitted from parent to child; and the inference would seem to be that the soul of the child is derived by some process, the nature of which it is, of course, impossible to explain, from the souls of those who have gone before it. It is obvious that if life itself can be thus transmitted and derived, there can be no reason why the characteristics of the living being should not also be thus transmitted and derived. On this point, however, as has already been said, no certainty is possible. The utmost we are entitled to assert is that not only is science not opposed to the doctrine of original sin, but that, so far as its discoveries have at present led us, establishing, as they clearly do, the law of transmission of hereditary characteristics-heredity, as i.t is called-they strongly tend to support it. 1 Given an 1 Mr. KIDD, in his Social Evolution, thinks that the more recent school of Evolutionists, represented by Professor W cissman, has to a certain extent exploded the doctrine of heredity, and has substituted for it the doctrine of reversion to type and selection as the only means of escaping from this tendency. From this point of view, sin would simply be the tendency to revert to man's original condition, and the Christian scheme of salvation a process of selection. The Christian Church does not need to enter into the question. Either view may be reconciled with her system. But that sorne law of heredity exists will be denied by none ; and if heredity in any sense be admitted, the transmission of sin from parent to child becomes more than a possibility. It becomes the most natural and reasonable solution of a practical problem.

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original lapse from the path of righteousness-a fact which, as we have seen, it is impossible on rational grounds to deny-and the transmission by the fallen parents to their offspring of the moral characteristics involved in such fall, would seem almost to be a scien~ific necessity. And the more we insist on the doctrine of evolution, the more probable the fall becomes. Given a being inheriting animal characteristics, and for the first time endowed with a capacity for transgressing, and this necessity becomes more strongly marked than ever. 1 But it is not necessary to insist so strongly on this theory, as some theologians have been inclined to do. 2 Almost the same practical consequences would flow from the fact of the introduction of sin into the world as from its transmission from parent to child. Sin, as we have seen, is the violation of law; but it is impossible to estimate the consequences of o:ae such violation. If it were possible, for instance, for one single member of our solar system to stray one single inch from its orbit, it is impossible to say what ultimate consequences might result to every other member of that system; and the consequences to the living beings inhabiting that system would be incalculably more tremendous still. Thus, we may expect to find two schools of theology among us, the one insisting more upon the transmission of sin, the other upon the increasing derangement of the moral order likely to be produced by it, unless counteracted by some remedial agency. Is there any reason why they should mutually endeavour to exclude one another from the Christian Church 1-why they should not continue to exist side by side 1 1

See BONNEY, Old Truths in New Lights, pp. 65-73. For an account of the history of doctrine on this point, see MULLER, Christian Doctrine of Sin, II., chap. iii. ; HAGENBACH, History of Doctrines, I , 404-432; II., 239-260; III., 71-88. 2

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Both these theories agree at least in this, that the first sin, whatever its mode of working in the human race, must of necessity produce a widespread moral desolation; and such, as a matter of fact, we find to have been the case. It is almost impossible for us, after eighteen centuriesduring which the remedial agency has been actively at work-to conceive of the distress, torture, agony, passionate yet futile rage, and terrible moral degradation, which sin has actually produced. We may gain some idea of it at present by studying, not superficially, but carefully, the condition of the countries to which Christianity has not as yet penetrated. 1 Or those endowed with a vivid imagination might, perhaps, be able to picture to themselves the cruelty, crime, and tyranny, the desolation and despair, 1 Travellers of a Gallio-like turn have enlarged on the virtues of the "gentle Hindoo," the "honest Turk," the "industrious Chinaman," &c., &c.; and have deprecated all attempts to convert them to Christianity as tending only to turn a respectable heathen into a hypocrite and an impostor. Without attempting to deny that many ignorant heathens may have been tempted to embrace the religion of a more civilized and, in some cases, a dominant race, for selfish reasoI1S, two facts invariably emerge from a careful investigation of the circumstances; first, that the social condition of Hindostan, of Turkey, of China, is infinitely below that of the least advanced of Christian nations, in spite of the fact that the first of these three regions is under Christian rule; and next, that the life of communities of converted Christians in those countries stands at a far higher level than it does among their heathen neighbours. It is only the superficial observer who thus exalts the virtues of heathenism at the expense of Christianity. Those who have studied the problem, even when they are themselves sceptics, are forced to come to an opposite conclusion. See an article in the Times on India, early in 1895, iu which some facts mentioned by the Rev. J. Lazarus in the Christian Patriot are referred to on this head. No one denies that heathens have their virtues, and heathen religions their merits, or that Christians often lead very unchristian lives; but that heathenism, Âˇon the whole, produces a higher type of life and conduct than Christianity as a whole, is a paradox which few would be found hardy enough to defend.

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which have followed in the train 0£ a great conqueror,1 or the bitter or sullen, yet helpless, indignation which has seethed among peoples subjected to an alien and unfriendly yoke. Sin cannot be denied to be a tremendous and awful £act in the world's history; and it is a fact with which He Who created the world, and maintains it in being, cannot possibly £ail to deal. A religion, therefore, which professes to explain the ways 0£ God to man, must 0£ necessity take note 0£ so serious a blot on the £air £ace 0£ creation. Tli.e existence of evil has been the one problem which, above all others, has perplexed, and continues to perplex, the heart and conscience 0£ man. All religions have endeavoured to deal with it, and, even including Christianity, have more or less £ailed thoroughly to elucidate the mystery. The £act 0£ sin, as we saw in a former chapter, continues to conflict, in the imaginations 0£ many, with the Christian idea 0£ the goodness 0£ God. One reason why Christian theology has, to some extent, failed in grappling with this great question, may be because theologians have confined themselves too strictly to God's Word written with paper and ink, and have taken too little heed of His Word written equally plainly in the history of man. The progress of inductive science has enabled us to take a wider view of the causes and consequences of sin; and some of the more obvious difficulties connected with it will disappear if we regard evil as a step in the development of man's higher nature. Without freedom of will, man is not to be distinguished from the lower animals. He is little more than a mere machine. Without the power of choice between good and evil, none of the higher moral 1 The great Duke of Wellington, of all conquerors perhaps the most generous and humane, when replying to the congratulations of his friends, is said to have replied that he knew of only one thing more terrible than a victory, and that was a defeat.,

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attributes are within his reach. There 1s no room for nobleness, for moral excellence, in any form, save in a world of suffering and sin. 1 But given the possibility of transgression, and sin at once becomes a practical necessity; for if transgression can be committed, it is quite certain that it will be committed by some one or other of those to whom its commission is possible. But if this be so, He Who made man must be preparect to deal with what is a practically certain result of his moral constitution. 2 We have, therefore, to inquire how He is represented in the Christian scheme as having dealt with it ; and the answer is plain. He "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." 8 But in what way was this sacrifice necessary, and in what did its efficacy consist 1 Various answers have been given to these questions. The early Church was not prepared with a rationale of the doctrine of sacrifice, save that Origen throws out a suggestion as one of his obiter dicta, which some of his disciples embraced as a theory; namely, that man was held captive by the devil, and that Christ gave His life to ransom man from the devil's 1 See this idea more fully worked out in BUTLER'S Analogy, Part I., chap. v. 4. 2 Accordingly we find St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John all asserting, with one consent, that God had provided a remedy before the world, and all things in it, had come into existence. See Eph. i. 4, iii. 11 ; 2 Tim. i. 9 ; Titus i. 2 ; I Peter i. 20 ; Rev. xiii. 8. See Bishop HARVEY GOODWIN, Foundations of the Creed, p. 310, note, and the remark he quotes from Professor MASON'S Faith of the Gospel on the exclamation O feliru C'!tlpa I '' With the conception," says Bishop Goodwin, "of an eternal Divine purpose, as connected with Christ, many difficulties vanish." And thus he regards the Incarnation and its results as an ever-present fact to the Mind of God. This view wUl be further elucidated when we come to Section iv. of this chapter, and Section ii. of Chapter vi. 3 Heh. ix. 26. See also Rom. iii. 25; Heh. vii. 27, x. 4-10; 1 Peter ii. 24, iii. 18; 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10, &c.

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power. 1 The great majority of the early Fathers, however, accepted the sacrifice of Christ as a fact, but did not venture upon any explanation of it. 2 In the twelfth century, however, Anselm, in his Cur Deus Homo, essayed to give an answer to the question, Why was Christ's death necessary for the pardon of sin 1 His reply was, that some reparation on man's part was required by the dignity of the Great Ruler of the Universe, which had been outraged by the fact of man's transgression ; that Christ became man in order to make such reparation; and that only a being Divine as well as human could make adequate, amends for so appalling an insult as that offered by sin to the Divine Majesty. 3 This theory held the field until the Reformation.4 Then the reaction from the doctrine of human merit, so strongly insisted upon in mediaeval theology, as well as some change in the conception of the position and duties of a ruler, led to a modification of Anselm's theory. 5 It 1 Origen, however, was not the first to suggest this explanation. It is first put forth by IRENAEUS (Against Heresies, V., i.). He says "that God does not use force, but persuasion, in the work of redemption." Archdeacon Norris points out that Irenaeus afterwards explains this language. And perhaps he means no more than that as our fall was the result of a process, so our restoration must also be, not an arbitrary act, but the result of a process. Origen must not be considered as haying committed himself to the view associated with his name, as has been represented by many-Redepenning and Hagenbach, for example. In his sixth Homily on St. Juhn he distinctly asserts that the explanation of Christ's sacrifice is not simple, but complex; and that some of the explanations are obvious, while others are very far from being so. Gregory of Nazianzus, however, though a great admirer of Origen, rejects with indignation the supposition of a price paid to the devil. 2 I have treated this question more fully in my Hulsean Lectures on The Atonement. 3 See Lectures on the Atonement, p. 49. 4 Abelard opposed it, but his theory did not explain the facts ; it only explained them away. Ibid., p. 50. 5 Anselm dwells rather upon the dignity of the Ruler; Reformation theology rather on the duty incumbent upon Him to punish siIL

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was now taught that sin, as involving a certain degree of guilt, had incurred a corresponding amount of punishment. Such punishment was far beyond the power of man to undergo, so as to satisfy the requirements of the Judge. It was necessary, therefore, that another should be found to undergo it, since the Ruler of the World could not possibly permit sin to pass without the infliction of an adequate penalty. It was further taught that sin, being an offence against an Infinite Being, could only be avenged by an infinite punishment. Moreover, an infinite punishment couldÂˇ only be undergone by a finite being for an infinite time, or by an Infinite Being for a finite time. Thus it was further necessary that God Himself should _ become man, and Himself satisfy the requirements of His own Law by undergoing the punishment which was due. And thus the infinite merits of God the Son satisfied God's requirements of a perfect obedience. These infinite merits having been transferred to the believer in consequence of his faith, and his guilt having been transferred to the Divine Substitute, a "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction" was thereby made "for the sins of the whole world," and those who accepted it were, by faith, united to Christ, and became thus partakers of all the blessed results to the spirit of man which we have already described as flowing from the Incarnation. It must be confessed that the language of Holy Scripture lends some support to this elaborate theory of Satisfaction. The language of Isaiah liii., which speaks of the "iniquities of us all" having been "laid on" the Redeemer, of His having been "stricken for our transgressions," and of our having been "healed by His stripes," when coupled with St. Peter's direct application of these words to Jesus. Christ, certainly seems to indicate a certain transference o_f in11ocence a.nd guilt.. A.nd the language o~ St.. Paul,,

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which speaks of Christ's Righteousness as having been "imputed" or "reckoned" to us, may seem to many to point in the same direction. But it is obvious that the explanation given above goes far beyond the letter of Scripture. We have already seen that a certain transference of merits and demerits may be regarded as not unreasonable when it is not regarded as final, but only provisional, and when the life of Him Whose merits are transferred is actually transmitted to the person to whom it is supposed to be transferred. 1 But the supposed "legal fiction," or "transaction," or "arrangement," just mentioned, regarded as an arbitrary one, has been a source of great difficulty to many minds, even in itself. And it has proved still more perplexing when combined with the idea that a substitute, by bearing the punishment due to our sins, has entirely removed the whole punishment of those sins from us. Men have failed to understand how God's justice can possibly be vindicated by punishing the innocent and allowing the guilty to go free, and their difficulties have not been altogether removed by the explanation that in punishing the innocent the Righteous Judge was punishing Himself, and that if He, the Avenger of all evil, thought fit Himself to undergo the penalty inflicted on sinnere, no one could possibly deny that He had the right to do so. The difficulties suggested by this theory of Propitiation have been still further augmented by the fact that its acceptance has been represented by those who have received it as the one and only condition of salvation. This erection of a proposition extremely perplexing and disputable in itself, and not directly affirmed in the Creeds or by any of the sacred writers, into a necessary condition of salvation, has driven many into downright unbelief, and many more into 1

Seep. 178. 0

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Unitarianism.1 Moreover, it has often been pushed by popular preachers to such an extreme that men have been practically taught to believe in two Gods-one all wrath and justice, and demanding the fullest satisfaction for transgression; the other all love and mercy, ready to take all transgressions on His Own shoulders and to excuse the sinner from making any satisfaction of any kind whatever. It is remarkable that Irenaeus, fifteen centuries and more before any such theory was devised, made a decided protest against it. 2 It is, therefore, our duty to ask whether it is possible to find an alternative explanation, which, while it avoids the serious difficulties to which reference has already been made, does not, on the other hand, explain away sundry definite statements of God's Word. 3 It may be well, 1 It is interesting to study the rebellion against Puritan theology on this point, in consequence of the difficulties it presented to thoughtful minds, in the works of Alexander Knox, Erskine of Linlathen, Edward Irving (who denounces the doctrine as "the bargain and barter hypothesis"), and Dr. McLeod Campbell. The Bishop of Durham expresses himself thus on the subject ( Victory of the Gross, pp. 78, 79): "No support remains for the idea that Christ offered, in His sufferings, sufferings equivalent in amount to the sufferings due from the race of men, or from the elect; no support for the idea that He suffered as a substitute for each man, or for each believer, discharging individually the penal consequences of their actions ; no support for the idea that we have to take account for a legal transaction, according to which a penalty once inflicted cannot be required again. The infinite value of Christ's work can no longer be supposed to depend upon His capacity for infinite suffering, or upon the infinite value of each suffering of One Who never ceased to be God." 2 Against Heresies, III. xxv. 2. "Moreover, they take away the prerogatives of rebuke and judgment from God, thinking them unworthy of Him, and supposing that they have found a God good, and incapable of anger, they have declared that they have found one God Who judges, and another Who saves." 3 Some of the opponents of the Substitution theory have done this, e.g., Abelard, Schleiermacher, and Unitarian writers generally. See Lectures on the Atonement, pp. 50, 58, 130, 135, 136.

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however, to advert first to the fact that whatever support this theory may s~em to derive from Scripture, it is itself, as has been already stated, an explanation of Scripture language, and not the language of the Scriptures themselves. This is an additional reason why we should inquire whether some other explanation of Scripture language may not be given, which is not open to the objections which the Substitution theory has been found to suggest. Next, it may not unfairly be contended that an explanation of the language of Scripture which was never heard of till the sixteenth century, and is disbelieved by a vast majority of Christians at the present moment, can hardly, whether reasonable or unreasonable in itself, be represented as a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith, "which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved." Further, the principle on which this theory largely depends, that sin, being an offence against an infinite Being, must necessarily deserve an infinite punishment, is a pure assumption, and has apparently been adopted, not as an explanation of the statements in the Scriptures, but in order to explain the position assigned to the Incarnation of the Eternal Word in the work of redemption. It is obviously equally open to us to contend that sin, being committed by a finite being, can therefore deserve only a finite punishment. 1 Again, it 1 JACKSON, in his Lectures on the Creed, unlike Pearson, free from the influence of Grotius, says on this point (On the Divine Essence and Attributes, VIII. ii. eh. 13, 3): "The satisfaction made for us by the Son of God was more truly infinite than the sins of mankind were. For it was absolutely infinite, non quia passus est infinita, sed quia qui passus est erat infinitus. I omit the weakness of such calculatory arguments as this, 'Our sins were absolutely infinite, as committed against an Infinite Majesty,' as too well known to most students, and often enough, if not too often, deciphered in other of my meditations. For, this being admitted, all sins should be equal, because all are committed against the same majesty and goodness." It is unfortunate that Jackson's works are so voluminous, not to say tedious, for he is

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will be seen that the Substitution theory makes Satisfaction for man's guilt, and not his restoration and perfection, the main object of Christ's coming; and represents such restoration and perfection, when taken into consideration at all, as the consequence, not directly of the Incarnation of Christ, but of the Propitiation made by Him. His Incarnation, it would appear, was only necessary, from this point of view, in order to make the Sacrifice for human guilt a sufficient one. This, as has been already shown, 1 is not the Scripture view of the Incarnation. Moreover, the statement that the Substitute bears all the punishment of our sins in our stead is not the fact. Sorrow, shame, sickness, death, are the penalties of sin. They are, most certainly, not removed by belief in the Sacrifice of Christ. 2 On the contrary, we are called upon to suffer with Chris_t; and such sufferings, from the Apostles' days onward, have been the direct consequence of faith. 3 Next, we may observe that the endeavour to reduce the often strikingly original and suggestive. Thus, he says of our Lord's cry, "Eli, Eli," on the Cross, that it was spoken in the name of sinful humanity ; and, in reference to the Agony in the Garden, he more than once says that Christ, as the God-Man, suffered pains such as He only suffered or could suffer. He also remarks that the Agony was caused by '' the question of the natural man, Why should I so sacrifice myself!" and that we must not forget that He Who so offered Himself " had power to lay down His life, and power to take it again." 1 Seep. 192. 2 So says Archdeacon NORRIS (Rudiments of Theology, p. 48): "The theory that Christ bore the penalty of sin, and thereby saved us from bearing it, leads to a dilemma which, if not fatal to it, is difficult to answer. For what was sin's penalty! If temporal death, then, as a matter of fact, we are not saved from it; if eternal death, then, assuredly, Christ did not bear it." The same thing is said, quite independently, in my Lectures on the Atonement (pp. 66-68). 3 Matt. x. 16-31. John xv. 18-20. Rom. viii. 17-23. 1 Cor. iv. 9-13. 2 Cor. iv. 8-18; vi. 4; xi. 22-33. Phil. i. 29; iii. 10. Col. i. 24. 2 Tim. ii. 12. Heb. xii. 1-11. 1 Peter iv. 13; v. 10.

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mysteries of Christianity to the level of a simple propoâ&#x20AC;˘ sition, intelligible to the meanest understanding, has been the source of innumerable errors and controversies. 1 The Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the Protestant doctrine of the Atonement, are two typical instances of the danger of trying to bring Divine truths down to our level. Both these doctrines are easily grasped by the indolent, by the ignorant-by all, in fact, who do not accustom themselves to reason. But to thoughtful minds they suggest many formidable difficulties. The doctrine of Propitiation, in truth, cannot possibly be reduced to one or two single propositions, because it touches man on all sides of his complex being and history. A simple rationale of it is, therefore, out of the question. All we can do is to advance as far in the explanation of the doctrine as human reason is able to advance in the comprehension of things Divine. Our last objection is that the substitution of the idea of propitiation for that of restoration and perfection as the main object of Christ's coming, which has just been mentioned as unwarranted by Scripture,. has been a grave injury to practical Christianity. The direct result of the theology which makes it the sole, or even the main, object of Christ's coming to obtain for us forgiveness of our sins, has tended very seriously to lower the standard of Christian practice. It has appealed to the selfish instinct which Christ came to uproot. The chief aim of the Christian on this view is simply to obtain something for himself, not to give something to God. He wishes to get his sins forgiven, not to bring his will into harmony with the Will of God. And the further this idea is carried, the 1 " How, or in what particular way, Christ's death was efficacious, there are not wanting persons who have endeavoured to explain; but I do not find that Scripture has explained it." Bishop BUTLER, Analogy, Part II. chap. v.

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worse for Christian ethics. In order to exalt the freeness of Divine forgiveness, it has been thought necessary, among theologians of a certain stamp, to depress, as much as possible, the importance of human works. In such quarters those works, instead of being looked upon as the necessary results of the union with God brought about by faith, have sometimes been represented rather as a hindrance than a help in the way of salvation, salvation itself being supposed to consist in the felt assurance of pardon, not in victory over sin. How completely this idea of pardon, as the be-all and end-all of salvation, has seized hold of the popular mind, is clear from the answer almost universally given at the present time to the question, What did Christ do for you 1 That answer is, " He died for us" ; as though He did nothing else. And the inference which is often insensibly drawn is that if at any time of our lives we believe ourselves to have received the assurance of the pardon which ChristÂˇ died on the Cross to win, our final salvation is at once secured. 1 The temptation, on this view, to excuse oneself the life of continual effort after holiness to which the Christian is bound by his relation to Christ, is to many irresistible; and the low standard of Christian conduct to which this leads has been a scandal to the Christian Church, as. well as a sore difficulty to many minds. 2 1 SIMEON, in his Skeletons for Sermons (Matt. xxvii. 26-31), declares that so fully has Christ discharged our debt, that "neither law nor justice could demand anything further at our hands," although God still punishes His elect, and still demands from them obedience and holiness. On the other hand, a well-known Dean, who has now passed away, but who, in his day, was one of our staunchest High Churchmen and most successful parish priests, once told the writer of these pages that it was his habit to meet the answer, " He died for us," with the startling reply, "It's a lie! "-of course, on the principle that "a lie which is half a truth is ever the greatest of lies." 2 Professor MILLIGAN, cited above, p. 145.

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The true answer to the question, What did Christ do for you~ will include the benefits we receive from His Life, as well as His Death. " He died for us, and now lives in us," would be a more accurate answer. He came, not only that we might have pardon, but that we might have life. 1 The reconciliation He once made for us by the offer of His pure life to God on the Cross, in the place of our sin-stained lives, He carries out in us by His Spirit, Who gradually weans us from our sins, and transforms us into the likeness of the "Beloved Son," in Whom God ever was, and is, "well pleased." Moreover, it is important to remark that in their presentation of the doctrine of the Mediation of Christ, divines have for many centuries entirely forgotten the doctrine of the Divine indwelling in man's soul through the instrumentality of the Spirit of God. They have represented that Mediation as taking place between two separate beings; whereas, according to Scripture teaching, not only has He in Him the life of both, but He actually, though God, is united to man. This inhabitation, it has been shown above, 2 is a most remarkable feature of the teaching of the Fourth Gospel and of all the Epistles, if we except that to the Hebrews. Any statement of the doctrine of Mediation, therefore, which leaves this most material fact out of sight, must be condemned as entirely inadequate. We will endeavour, therefore, to suggest an explanation of Scripture language concerning propitiation which will steer clear of the serious difficulties, theoretical and practical, with which the theory of substitution is beset. 1 John v. 40; x. 10; xx. 31. Rom. vi. 23. 1 John v. 11, 12. These passages; however, have been evacuated of all their force in the popular mind by confounding the words " eternal " and " everlasting," and by looking on life eternal as exclusively a future, and not in any sense a present gift. 2

Pp. 167, 168.

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Our first task must be to inquire into the true nature of redemption-the figure under which the rescue of man from ~he power of sin is continually described in Scripture.1 A price, we are told, has been paid for the deliverance of man from the yoke of sin ; 2 and that price is Christ's Blood. 3 And here comes in the first assumption of the theory of redemption by substitution. Certain theories which were current in the sixteenth century, concerning the functions of punishment in human society, materially affected the conceptions of redemption which were then formed. It was supposed that the claims of justice were satisfied by the endurance of a proportionate penalty. Accordingly, the sufferings and death of Christ as the penalty apportioned to human sin were supposed to have been the price paid for human transgression, the penalty due for human guilt. But it will be seen at once that this view of the satisfaction of the claims of justice 1 d:iroX{npw,m. See Rom. iii. 24; 1 Cor. i. 30; Eph. i. 7, 14; Col. i. 14; Heb. xi. 35. Also Matt. xx. 28; Mark x. 45; Luke xxiv. 21; Titus ii. 14; 1 Peter i. 18. Archdeacon NoR1ns, in his Rudiments of Theology (p. 168), attributes the errors into which theology fell, in regard to the doctrine of redemption, to the Vulgate translation of XvTp6w, d.1roMTpw,m. This can hardly be, since they originated with Irenaeus and Origen ; but he is undoubtedly right when he s;tys that the mistake consisted in supposing that the price must be paid "to him from whom the captive is delivered." He further points out that when the words MTpov dvTI 1roXXwv are cited, in order to prove substitution, it is forgotten that our Lord orders Peter to pay the tern pie tax a.vTI (on behalf of, not instead of) iÂľoO or Ka.I 1ToO. And he further observes that the Hebrew term 1ÂŁ)::l contains no idea of substitution. See also my Lectures on the Atonement, p. 30. 2 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23 ; 2 Peter ii. 1. 3 Acts xx. 28.; Rom. iii. 25 ; Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14 ; Heb. ix. 12 ; 1 Peter i. 19 ; Rev. v. 9. The passages which speak of the cleansing, purging, life-giving properties of the Blood of Christ, are often cited in support of the statement above ; but, in truth, they relate to another aspect of the efficacy of Christ's Blood.

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assumption. 1

rests on a pure No one in these days will be inclined to grant that the claims of Justice are satisfied with the infliction of punishment. Moreover, the careful reader of Scripture will observe that Scripture never once says that the sufferings and death. of Christ were the price paid for our redemption. The invariable phrase used in reference to the price paid is Christ's "Blood." 2 It is a further assumption to represent that the phrase " Christ's Blood" is equivalent to His death. 3 This is not the fact. The "Blood," we are told in Scripture, "is the life" (fvx~) ;4 and the natural inference from Scripture lan1 "Divines then" [in the days of Anselm and of Grotius] "held that God was an angry God, the avenger of blood in hot pursuit of His victim, whose wrath could only be slaked and diverted from man by the satisfaction of His Son's death. Abraham, stretching forth his hand to slay his son, was long considered as the true symbol of the Eternal Father exhausting His infinite anger against sin by the infinite merit and worth of the voluntary substitution of His own Son. In this sense the Incarnation was represented as giving worth to the Atonement ; and, indeed, divines up to and including Anselm, in his Cur Deus Homo, taught that the purpose of the Incarnation was to lead to the Atonement. The end is always of more importance than the means : hence, with perfect consistency, all theology after Anselm laid stress on the purpose of the Incarnation only as giving dignity and worth to the Atonement." HEARD, Old and New Theology, pp. 161, 162. Two observations are suggested by these words. First, instead of "up to Anselm," Mr. Heard would have been nearer the truth if he had said "from Anselm onwards." And next, the word Atonement, as used in Scripture, needs more careful limitation than it usually receives. 2 There is au exception in Gal. iii. 13. There Christ is represented as redeeming us by bearing the curse of sin ; Âˇi.e., a shameful death. This, however, He does for us, but not necessarily in our stead. 3 Many other like assumptions are made, as, for instance, when John iii. 16 is interpreted exclusively of Christ's death. 4 It is to be observed that the word here is ,f;vxf/, not i'wf/; that is to say, the blood is the principle of our natural life here below-our animal life, as we call it, anima being the Latin equivalent of ,f;vxf/. And it is further worthy of remark, that though Jesus Christ is

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guage is, therefore, not that Christ's death, but His natural human life, is the price paid for the redemption of the world. 1 His death was no doubt the mode in which His life was offered; and from this point of view, once more, the offering of that life, and not the endurance of a certain amount of suffering, culminating in death, would seem, according to Scripture, to be the price paid for the sins of the world. As a matter of fact, obedience, not the endurance of a penalty, is the debt man owes to God. 2 The pure and blameless life of Christ was, from that point of view, the fulfilment of what was owing ; and thus His death presents itself to us, not as the thing offered, but simply as the means whereby the offering was made. This view is supported by the fact, already mentioned, that no one in these days imagines the satisfaction of the claims of justice to consist in the punishment of the offender. Punishment, as now inflicted by our laws, may either be remedial or deterrent, or both; but it is never simply vindictive. The only satisfaction an offender can make to the outraged majesty of law is repentance and amendment. Thus a theological system which depends entirely on the purely vindictive theory of punishment is instinctively felt by most minds in our age to rest on an entirely false basis, and must inevitably be, in the end, frequently spoken of in the N.T. as giving us fw71 (e.g. John iii. 15; v. 40; vi. 33; x. 10, 28; xx. 31 ; Rom. ii. 7; vi. 23; viii. 1-12, &c.), He is never said to give His fw71, or Divine life, for us, but only His 'fll')(T/, or the natural life-principle. See Matt. xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45 ; John x. 11, 15, 17; xv. 13; 1 John iii. 16. Of. John xiii. 37. See, in reference to this point, Note viii. in Bishop WESTCOTT'S Historic Faith. 1 Irenaeus (Against Heresies, V. 1) says that Christ gave His soul (y,vx1i) for our souls, His Flesh for our flesh. 2 Non mors, sed voluntas placuit sponte morientis ; '' not death, but the Will of Him Who died of His own accord." ST. BERNARD, Tractatus de Erroribtts Abelardae, chap. viii. 2.

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rejected by a society which has rejected the principle on which it is founded. But from this point of view, where, it may be asked, is the necessity that Christ should die at all 7 Why should the offering of Christ's pure and perfect life have been made through His d,eath 7 Why should He not, like Enoch, have been translated to heaven as soon as His task of obedience here below was fulfilled 7 That necessity, it may be replied, is to be found in the fact that Christ came, not to save Himself, but to save all mankind; and that His obedience could in no way save us, unless it were obedience from a true Representative of sinners. Death, we are told repeatedly in Scripture, is the penalty of sin. 1 Jesus Christ, as the Representative of sinners, readily and joyfully submits Himself to the operation of so wise, so salutary, so necessary a law. 2 For a wise, necessary, and salutary law it is. Unless sin be destroyed, the world cannot be saved. If sin continue to exist, man must continue to be miserable; and so He Who would save mankind from sin must duly express man's concurrence in this first principle of God's dealings with mankind-the necessity of extirpating sin. The wisdom and justice of the law of God as it affects sinners must be recognized on man's part, or sin would not be "condemned in the flesh." The first step, therefore, in the redemption of mankind from sin, must be a complete obedience to the law which condemns sin. And so Jesus Christ, as our Representative, testifies before the whole universe that sorrow, agony, shame, despair-nay, even death itself-are the due and fitting penalty for sin. Thus "He is in all things tempted as we are, yet without sin." 3 And this obedience of a sinless One to the law under which sinners 1

Rom. v. 12, 17; vi. 23. 1 Cor. xv. 22. Lo ! I have come : in the roll of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy Will, 0 God." Ps. xl. 7, 8. CJ. John v. 30. 3 Heb. iv. 15. 2 "

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lie condemned-offered on our behalf, and initially, no doubt, instead of ours-is the price paid for the redemption of the world. Many earnest persons in our time have, however, fled to the theory of substitution as an escape from the bondage of legalism. Recognizing the impossibility of satisfying God's requirements by their works, they have taken refuge in the thought that an Atonement has been made for sin, and that those who live in the light of this fact will be filled with the Eternal Life which comes from Christ, and will do His Will as a matter of course. The truth, as usual, lies between the two extremes. We cannot satisfy God's requirements by any efforts of our own ; we cannot merit heaven by our own works; we cannot do away with the need of forgiveness. But, on the other hand, we cannot be certain that the Atonement in which we believe was a satisfaction to God's Wrath or Justice by the endurance of a punishment equivalent to the sins of the whole world. Neither must we imagine that a simple recognition of the fact that "a full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction was made by Christ for the sins of the whole world," will free us from the necessity of a struggle with sin. " He that hath this hope" in Jesus Christ, says St. John, "purifieth himself, even as He is pure." 1 He "works out his salvation with fear and trembling," 2 because he believes in God working with him and in him. He knows that only "he that overcometh " 3 can enjoy the perpetual Presence of his Lord." And this because he believes, not only in an Atonement made, but in a Life given; and if he yield himself by faith to the influence of that life, he will be cleansed "from all defilement of flesh and spirit," 4 and 1

2 Phil. ii. 12. 1 John iii. 3. 1 John v. 4. Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 26; iii. 5, 12, 21.

2 Cor. vii. 1.

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translated, in the end, from " the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." 1 The Obedience, then, to the perfect law of God as it is proclaimed against sinners, is one of the necessary conditions of the re-establishment of the union between God and the soul, which sin had destroyed. 2 Objection has been taken to the language which represents God as being alienated from man by sin. It is true that if we confine ourselves to the New Testament, we do not find any expression of the kind. The New Testament only speaks of man's alienation from God. 8 But the doctrine of God's alienation from man on account of his sin so permeates the Old Testament that we must either deny all Divine authority to its teaching regarding sin, or admit that such alienation is possible. Nor is the language of the New Testament at all inconsistent with this doctrine. 4 Neither is it abhorrent either to morality or .common sense. A certain amount of temporary alienation is by no means inconsistent with a very real and deep love. A loving and wise parent, for instance, may, and often does, nourish a deep displeasure against an erring child, so long as that child persists in doing wrong. But that displeasure passes away the very moment the child shows signs of real penitence. God's alienation from the sinner, then, is not final or complete. He is alienated just so far as, and no further than, the sinner identifies himself in will with his sin. The alienation is, in fact, owing to the very yearning God is represented as having towards the 1

Rom. viii. 21. Rom. v. 19. Phil. ii. 8. Heb. ii. 9; v. 8; x. 7-10. Of. John iv. 34 ; v. 30, 36 ; vi. 38 ; ix. 4; xvii. 4 ; xix. 30. 3 Eph. ii. 12, 19; iv. 18. Col. i. 21. 4 It is involved in such passages as Rom. i. 18 ; Eph. v. 6 ; Col. iii. 6; Rev. xxi. 27, xxii. 15, and especially in Rev. vi. 16, 17, and xiv. 10. One reason why we read so little about it in the New Testament is because it is taken for granted, and the task of the New Testament is not so much to point out the fact, as the remedy. 2

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offender; His "Will that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." 1 It is difficult for many minds to conceive it as a possibility that sin can be committed without altering ~he mutual relations of God and man; that God's attitude towards man can be entirely and absolutely unchanged by the fact of sin. But if God be estranged from man, and man from God, a reconciliation, an At-one-ment (KaTaAhY17), is necessary. 2 This is provided in Jesus Christ. In Him God and man are united. He is the Mercy-seat (1,\acn~piov) where man's sacrifice and God's Presence meet. 3 It is from this point of view that the Death of Christ is regarded as a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Âˇ For the offer of Christ's Human Life in death is not the necessary consequence of His own personal relations, as Man, with the Father. Were those only to be considered, such an offering of Himself would have been perfectly unnecessary. It is because He has put Himself in our place; because He stands before God as the Representative of sinners ; because it is necessary 1

1 Tim. ii. 4.

It comes to mean reconciliation, or At-one-ment, with the idea of change of mutual relations. . 3 Rom. iii. 25. Of. Heh. ii. 17; 1 John ii 2, iv. 10. We must not consider Christ's mediatorial work as that of one who intervenes between two parties, being himself distinct from either. It is just the reverse. He mediates between God and man because He Himself is at once God and man. See WESTCOTT, Historic Faith, p. 202. Also MILLIGAN, On the Resurrection, p. 71, sqq. The victim's blood was sprinkled on the Mercy-seat (Hebrew, capporeth, i.e. coveringplace), on which the Shechinah, or sign of the Divine glory, rested. (See Exodus xxv. 17-22, xxvi. 34, xl. 20; Lev. xvi. 13, 14; Num. vii. 89.) The ritual of the Day of At-one-ment, or Reconciliation, most wondrously typifies the meeting of the Divine glory and the Life of the Sacrificed Victim in the Sacrifice of the Cross. A remarkable note on this Sprinkling of the Blood on the Mercy-seat will be found in MILLIGAN, On the Resurrection, p. 274, sqq. 2

,ca.ra.XXa.'Yfi means originally change of money.

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that He, as Man, should concur to the uttermost with God's sentence against sin, as being the one only thing which can separate man from God, the one only thing which cuts man off from the source of Life, and thus condemns him irremediably to death, unless some, remedy can be foundit is this which explains why He gave His Human Life for us on the Cross, and thus became the Ransom for the sins of the whole world. It is thus, to use Dr. McLeod Campbell's phrase, that He deals with man on behalf of God, and God on behalf of man. On God's part He marks adequately the guilt of sin. He shows that it cannot be lightly passed over by a simple act of amnesty. It is necessary that its destructive and deadly nature should be fully perceived and acknowledged. As man's Representative, on the other hand, He fully accepts this necessity. By offering Himself to die, He expresses man's entire concurrence with the Divine sentence on sin. He offers, on man's part, a full acknowledgment of human guilt-an adequate expression of repentance for the evil wrought by man. Nay, if the explanation of William Law be accepted, He puts to death, destroys, blots out for ever, the " body of sin " which He had taken of the Virgin, 1 and rises again to unite His pure human soul and spirit to a glorified Body worthy to be the tabernacle of such a pure and perfect Humanity as His. 2 And His Sacrifice is Infinite, because it involves the submission of every possible deed, word, and thought, to the Will of the Eternal Father. From this point of view it is the sacrifice of will on the part of the Repre1 Not that He had committed sin in that body, but that it was "a body of sin," corrupted, degraded, dishonoured by sin. He took it that He might destroy it and create it afresh. 2 So ATHANASIUS, in his Treatise on the Incarnation, appears to think, for he says (chap. xiii.) that our Lord assumed a mortal body, in order that death might cease to be (e~aq,av,cr0f)va,). For the voluntary character of the Redeemer's sufferings, see a most striking passage in Bishop WESTCOTT's Victory of the Cross, pp. 64, 65.

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sentative of mankind, His submission to the sentence of God which had been pronounced against the race, rather than the endurance of the penal consequences of sin, which constitutes the "sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world," ever recognized by the Church as involved in the Death of Jesus Christ. Thus the Mind of God and the mind of man are from henceforth one in regard to the fact of sin. And by reason of the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ in us, that Mind of the Crucified Saviour is imparted to us. The At-one-ment wrought out for us on the Cross is henceforth to be wrought out in us by the re-establishment of holiness in us; by the subjection of our sinful desires to the law of God. The struggle against sin begins from the moment when we consciously accept the fact of our new relation to Him through and in Jesus Christ. We are accepted in God's sight from the moment when we do this, in consideration, not of any merits of our own, but of the end to which our efforts are directed. But the At-one-ment is not finally wrought out in us until our victory over sin is complete, until every thought has been brought into subjection "to the obedience of Christ." 1 We are thus brought back to the question of Justification by Faith, upon which we have already entered. 2 It has already been explained to mean an acceptance of us by God, in consideration of the Presence of His Son in us by His Spirit, and of the general bent of our minds-the attitude assumed by us-in consequence. We come now to consider this Justification in its reference to the fact of sin. We have sinned. There can be no question of that. Then how can God treat us as though we had not sinned 1 In other words, how can He be "just," and yet the "justifier" 8 of those who have offended against Him 1 1

2 Cor. x. 5.

See pp. 17 4-17!1.

Roru. iii. 26.

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It is easy enough to find fault with the answers theology has given to this question. But it is a question that naturally suggests itself to all who are hardened by the consciousness of sin. Some answer must be given to it, if we are to satisfy the anxious inquiries of souls agonized by the sense of guilt. But the simpler the answer, the better. The truth is that the two ideas are reconciled in the very idea of Divine Forgiveness. When God forgives sin, He treats it as if it had never existed. Granted that as long as the disposition to sin remains in us God's full forgiveness is impossible, yet, even when the disposition to sin has been finally destroyed by means of our complete and vital _union with the Conqueror of sin, there still remains in us the consciousness of sin as a fact in our past history. But when our reconciliation with God is complete, His Justice is shown by ignoring that past condition, Âˇand the wicked deeds which proceeded from it. He has "justified" us, or made us righteous; and now it were only "just" of Him to take no further heed of the things we did when we were in a state of alienation from Him. If, then, Forgiveness be not impossible with God, the process known as Justification follows as a necessity. The latter is involved in the former. We are not saved by deeds done in obedience to the Divine law, for we have broken that law repeatedly, and stand condemned by it. If we are reconciled to God, it must be by some means which, while it does not alter the relation in ~hich He eternally stands towards sin, will yet make it reasonable and consistent to forgive the sinner. If we are saved from sin, our salvation must come to pass through the intervention of a power which will enable us to do better in ~he future. That power is the Life of Christ, the one Perfect Man, imparted to us by the Divine p

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Spirit. 1 But even the fact that this Life is imparted to us, does not alter the fact that our consciousness bears testimony to the truth that we have been sinners. We stand condemned in God's sight. That is a conclusion from which there is no escape. How can God reasonably and consistently treat us as though we were not so condemned 1 The answer is to be found in the truth which the Scriptures teach, that God condescends to overlook our sinful past, in consequence of a blessed present, in which He sees the Perfect Purity of His Beloved Son becoming inwrought, by the Divine Spirit, into the very fibre and texture of our being. 2 He regards us with favour (x&.pis ), which He " freely bestows on us in the Beloved One," 3 because of the process of assimilation to the likeness of Christ which is going on in us. Even now we may describe ourselves as "justified," because God, for the present, takes our will for our deed; and as "justified by faith," because ~y faith in Christ alone is that pure and perfect determination of the will possible to us. We are "justified by faith in Christ's Blood," because that Blood is His Life. And that Life was given for us on the Cross, and to us by the Spirit, 4 that our wills may be identical with His ; our attitude to sin the same as His ; our sacrifice 1 The rendering into English of the Greek often obscures the teaching of the New Testament on this point. Thus in Rom. v. 9, 11, the Greek tells us we are "justified in Christ's Blood," "saved in His Life." And without attempting to deny that ev has sometimes an instrumental force, it always implies the power of an inner working. 2 If this explanation of what is a real difficulty to some minds fails to satisfy, it may at least be contended that it does no violence to our moral sense. 3 Eph. i. 6. It is worthy of note that here not even the Authorised Version renders iv by. 4 It should be remarked that it was the human soitl (,f;vx-fi) o( our Lord that was offered for us on the Cross ; it was the Divine tw-fi which was imparted to us by the Spirit when the perfected Manhood was exal.ted to the Right Hand of God.â&#x20AC;˘

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of self united with the one " Full, Perfect, Sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the "whole world," offered once for all upon the Cross. It is not pretended that the above is a complete, or even an adequate, exposition of the rnodus operandi of Christ's Sacrifice.I All that is attempted is to place before the reader a statement of the first principles involved in that Sacrifice, which may, at least, be free from the serious objections felt by many against the theory of redemption, which, until quite lately, held the field among us. It represents Christ as suffering and dying on our behalf, yet not instead of us. 2 It represents us as sharing in His sacrifice, not as escaping from the necessity of doing so. It justifies the bold language of an Apostle, who did not scruple to speak of himself as "filling up in his body that which was lacking in the sufferings of Christ." 3 And if there be any difficulty in the question of vicarious suffering, we do not content ourselves with saying that it is the law of the universe, and- that it involves even less difficulty in the case of Jesus Christ than in the case of mankind in 1 The Archbishop of ARMAGH, in his able and eloquent volume of sermons, entitled Verbum Crucis, says (p. 30) that he "mislikes the expression 'philosophy of the Atonement.' " I may be allowed to plead for it. It is the duty of mankind to endeavour, with reverence and modesty, to penetrate, as far as they can, into Divine mysteries; and no nobler exercise of the intellect is possible. But the Bishop's language contains a salutary caution against the conceit which pretends to have explained the inexplicable. If a "philosophy of the Atonement" claims, at the present moment, to be a full and complete exposition of all that is contained in that sacred mystery, no words of condemnation can be too strong for it. 2 That Christ suffers some things which we deserve to suffer, but cannot suffer, need not be denied. It is impossible for us to have the same keen sorrow for sin, the same clear apprehension of its true character and terrible results, as He, the great Head of His Church, has felt and expressed on our behalf. ' Col i. 24.

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general.1 We go further. We say that it is impossible that the work of sin can be undone in any other way than by vicarious suffering. Sin is the gratification of selfish desire, involving the breach of God's law. This gratification of selfish desire, in most cases, is indulged at the cost of His creatures. Sin can only be destroyed when men are determined to keep God's law. But if the breach of God's law involves pain to others, it is equally true that, in a world where resistance to God's law is the rule, men can only keep it at the cost of pain to themselves. Righteousness and holiness can only be restored to the world by resistance to evil desires, evil principles, and evil men. Such resistance must involve suffering; more or less acute, to those who are emboldened to offer it. Nor is this all. This suffering must be vicarious. 2 1 "I only know that it is but the chief instance of that law of vicarious suffering, of deliverance at the cost of others, which is at work in human society. . , . Only let this be said : It is easier to defend the Atonement from injustice than instances of the law of help through mediation in natural society.Âˇ There the sufferers are generally unwilling, but Christ was willing." Verbum Grucis, p. 30. I have dealt with this subject more fully than is possible here in my Lectitres on the Atonement, pp. 43, 66-70, 88-90 ; and in the Preface to the Second Edition, p. 6, Bishop WESTCOTT (Christus Gonsummator, pp. 119-123) points out that the individualism of a great deal of our popular theology is responsible for much of the misconstruction which has attached to the doctrine of vicarious suffering. Grant the solidarity of mankind, and much which has perplexed us is at once explained. Our natural "instinct has always rejoiced in the stories of uncalculating devotion which brighten the annals of every people." Jesus Christ simply does for mankind what others have done for parent or child, or friend or country. 2 "But, I may ask, is there anything in this rule exceptional, abnormal, unprecedented 1 The innocent suffer for the guilty ! How can it be otherwise 1 When do they not suffer 1 Can a man squandei, his property, whether through sin or through unwisdom, without consequential injury to those who are dependent on him 1 Can he ruin his health by vicious living, without giving cause to every child born of his body to curse his father's sins 1 Have you never heard of

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The suffering righteous men voluntarily undergo 1s due to the sacrifice of their desires for the benefit of others. And the more perfect the righteousness and holiness of him who offers this sacrifice, the more tremendous the sacrifice must needs be. Thus the demand on God's part for the sacrifice of a perfect human will, and for the manifestation of that sacrifice in " strong crying and tears," in the patient endurance of suffering and even agony, in submission even to death itself, is the result, not of an arbitrary decree on the part of an irresponsible autocrat, but of the necessary laws which a loving Father has laid down for the government of mankind. And the union of God and man, inaugurated when God the Son vouchsafed to take our human flesh, is manifested, in all its majestic completeness, on the Cross. The world can only be redeemed by sacrifice-the sacrifice of self. God sent His _Son into the world to proclaim this necessary truth. 1 No other than that Son, become man, could enforce this truth, as He has done, by acting on it. By such action the unity of will, of purpose, between God and man is most effectively proclaimed. And all who are admitted into fellowship with Christ must own that it is their duty to follow His example, and, congenital diseases, of ancestral taints of blood, of hereditary phthisis, scrofula, insanity, and the like 1 Not a day passes but thousands of children are born into this world, doomed by parental vice to a crippled existence, or to a premature grave." Old Truths in New Lights, p. 78. 1 "So He showed that sacrifice, self-surrender, death, is the beginning and the course and the aim and the essential principle of the higher life. To find life in om own way, to wish to save it, to seek to gain it, to love it, is, He proclaims, to miss it altogether." Bp. WESTCOTT, Victory of the Cross, p. 22. It would, perhaps, have been more strictly accmate to have said "to love it for its own sake." We are bound to love what He loves See also Bp. WESTCOTT's Christus Consummator, pp. 25-27.

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consequently, to make the first object of their lives to be the crucifixion of self.I We conclude this section by a brief review of the further teaching of Scripture, in regard to the nature and effects of the Sacrifice of Christ. It will be seen, it is hoped, not to be inconsistent with the explanation just given. But it will also be seen that this explanation by no means exhausts the effects of Christ's Sacrifice. As has already been said, those effects are most complex and varied in their nature, and touch man at every point of his moral and spiritual being. 1. Christ came to manifest God's enduring wrath against sin. He "condemned sin in the flesh," we are told. 2 The very fact of such a condemnation is surely a proof that sin alienates God from the sinner, as well as the sinner from God. But when God and man alike condemned sin in the sacrifice of the Cross, when the Divinity and the humanity united thus to proclaim the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the 1 It should be noted that the Lord's Sacrifice corresponds to, and includes, all the sacrifices of the law. It corresponds to the burntoffering, in that Christ, in His death, offered His whole human self, consumed by the fire of love to God and man, to His Father. It answers to the peace-offering, because Christ offered His heart and mind, His inner self, to God ; and the offering is shared by such of those on whose behalf it was offered as are united to Him by faith. It answers to the sin-offering, because the life of the Victim was pleaded before God, and the "body of sin " was consumed and cast away without the camp. It answers to the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement, because the High Priest carried the Blood of the Victim into the Holy Place, and sprinkled it before the Mercy-seat, even the Throne of God Himself. It answers to the Passover, because the Blood of the Slain Lamb is our protection against the powers of evil, while His Body becomes our food: and in the strength of that "meat that we go even unto the mountain of our God." (1 Kings xix. 8.) Both as an Atonement for sin, and as the means whereby we forsake it, the One Perfect and Sufficient Sacrifice effects the reconciliation of man with God. 2 Rom. viii. 3.

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At-one-ment between God and man was made. In the death of Christ there was manifested to the world the great truth that sin must not only be punished, but utterly destroyed. And henceforth there was no condemnation for the sinner, when united to Christ by a living and energizing faith. 1 2. Christ came to justify mankind ol Jvo, OtKau!Jp,aTo,, by one complete fulfilment of all God's requirements. (Rom. v. 18.) 2 If a OtKa{wp,a, according to Aristotle (Ethics, v. 7), be the setting an unrighteous action right, then Christ's life and death are regarded by St. Paul as the means whereby man's lost righteousness is re-established, and this re-establishment carries with it his restoration to the favour of God. 3. The death of Christ was the death of humanity to sin. If He died for all, "then all died," says St. Paul. (2 Cor. v. 14.) He not only "tasted death for every man" (Heb. ii. 9), and thus was perfected through suffering, but His death, as man's representative, involved the death to sin of the whole race. 3 And mankind dies to sin in Christ once more, when united to Him by a living faith. 4. The death of Christ was a manifestation of the truth 1 See also Rom. i. 18 ; Eph. v. 6; Col. iii. 6; and the O.T. throughout. It may be observed that St. Paul seems to consider that God's justice may appear to be impugned on account of His having passed over " the sins that are past," at least until the proclamation of His righteous indignation against sin by the Sacrifice of Christ. (Rom. iii. 25.) 2 "So He carried to the uttermost the virtue of obeying. He fulfilled in action the law which God had laid down for the Being Whom He had made in His image. He endured, in His Passion, every penalty which the righteousness of God had connected with the sins which He made His own. He offered the absolute selfsurrender of service and of suffering, through life and through death; fulfilling, in spite of the Fall, the original destiny of man, and rising, in His glorified humanity, to the throne of God." Bp. WESTCOTT Victory of the Cross, p. 61. 3 See also Rom. vi. 2-6. Gal. ii. 20 ; v. 24 ; vi. 14.

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that God is love. Christ came to make the Father known to us. 1 And He makes Him known, not simply by His righteous wrath against sin, but by His infinite tenderness, compassion, love. He died for man. And as He Himself has told us, "greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." 2 5. By undergoing the lot of misery and suffering, including death itself, "for us men and for our salvation," Jesus Christ cleaves a path "through the veil, that is to say, His Flesh," 3 through which we may walk in the way of obedience. As He "has suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted." 4 He came to save us, not from the penalty of sin-for from this, save in its more extreme ·forms, He does rwt save us-but to teach us how to bear the yoke which sin has laid on mankind. By cheerfully submitting to the law of vicarious suffering, as well as to the punishment which, for our own sins, we have deserved ; by electing to suffer for others, as well as for ourselves, we become incorporate in the Sacrifice of Christ; we crucify with Him those selfish inclinations in which sin consists ; we concur in, and prosecute, by virtue of His Presence within us, His work of the redemption and regeneration of the world. 6. St. Paul represents our Lord's death as not only removing the barrier which sin had placed between God and man, but that which had divided man from his neighbour. 5 At first sight this view seems to present some difficulty. But a little consideration will show how the Cross tends to unite mankind. Sin, as we have seen, is the indulgence of our own will, in opposition to the Will of God, which wills the good of all mankind. The Cross is the slaying of all such sinful self-indulgence and self-assertion. It is· 1 4

John i. 18, Heu. ii, 18..

• John xv. 13. 5 Eph. ii. 14.

Heb. x. 20.

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the manifestation of the One Divine Life which condemns all sectional and selfish considerations whatsoever. Henceforth man learns to seek the Will of God, the good of all mankind, at whatever cost to himself. There can be no more alienation, no more division among mankind, when this principle is established. Yet without the Cross of Christ it never could have been established. It is by the Cross that we learn how the ideal of Christianity can be realized, that henceforth " there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ J esus." 1 "For He is our peace, Who hath made" those 'who were alienated "one, having abolished in His Flesh the enmity, that so He might create unto Himself of the twain one new man, so making peace ; and might reconcile them both in One Body unto God by the Cross, having slain the enmity in it" (i.e. by submission to death upon the Cross). 2 The self-sufficient arrogance and mutual contempt of Jew and Gentile alike have henceforth passed away. All ar.e henceforward brought under the same lawnot the law of mere legal, moral, or ceremonial enactments, but the inward law of conscience, informed by the Divine Example and the Divine Spirit, and leading us all to the crucifixion of self. Thus the union of God and man, initiated at the Incarnation, is consummated at the Crncifixion. The Divine and human wills, united at the Incarnation of Christ in aim and purpose, are practically 1

Gal. iii. 28. Eph. ii. 14-16. CJ. v. 12. The Apostle's pregnant mode of expression makes "the law of commandments formulated in enactments'' (o/ryÂľa,nv) the cause of the alienation. It is difficult to express his meaning briefly. But it appears to rest on the fact that to the Jews a law was given which the Gentiles had not, and that this had produced a separation which had hardened into antagonism. Some very useful information in regard to the subject of this chapter will be found in Part II. of the late Archdeacon NORRIS' R,udiinerus of Tlwology, on the '' Soteriology of the Bible." 2

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manifested in the world as one in regard to the fact of sin. The ancient enmity between man and man, between man and God, is slain by the death of Christ. By sacrifice, and sacrifice alone, can union and peace with God and our brother be restored to mankind. In fact, Christ's Sacrifice atones or reconciles the whole world. APPENDIX TO SECTION

II.

"HE DESCENDED INTO HELL."

This article forms no part of the Nicene Creed. Neither Irenaeus, Tertullian, nor Origen mention it in their short summaries of the faith.1 Nor is it to be found in the ancient forms of the Roman (or Apostles') Creed, 2 nor in the Creed appointed to be repeated by those about to be baptized in the Apostolic Constitutions. 3 It is first found in the so-called "dated Creed," drawn up at Sirmium in A.D. 359, and presented to the Arians at Ariminum in the same year. 4 This Creed was revised at Nice, in Thrace, and ag,i.in at Constantinople in the ensuing year. 5 Cyprian mentions it, however. 6 Eusebius also gives it in the sketch of the Cliristian faith which he represents Thaddaeus as having imparted to the Church of Edessa. 7 But it may be regarded as a necessary inference from the articles which mention Christ's death and burial. And this will appear more clearly if we bear in mind a truth which has been somewhat overlooked by many who have undertaken to treat this subject. Hell has been defined as "the place of departed spirits." But the word hell, when applied to the condition of 1 lRENAEUS, Against Heresies, i. 10. ORIGEN, On Principles, Preface. TERTULLIAN, Against Praxeas, chap. ii. ; On the Veiling of Virgins, chap. i. ; and On Prescription, as against Heretics, chap. xiii. 2 See PEARSON'S note, On the Greed, p. 225. It is not quite accurate, as will be seen from what has just been said. Also SWETE, The Apostles' Greed, v. 3 Book VII. chap. xli. The Apostolic Constitutions are supposed to have been gradually drawn up, and to have been published about the middle of the third century, 4 SOCRATES, Eccl. Hist. ii. 37. 5 SOCRATES, Eccl, Hist, ii, 37, 41. The Constantinople Creed, mentioned in the text, states that "hell itself trembled " at our Lord's descent, 7 Eccl. Hist. i. 13. 6 In his Testimonies against the Jews, ii. 1.

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the departed, cannot be a place, but must be a state. For the idea of place involves the idea of matter. But the idea of spirit excludes that of matter. Locality can only be predicated of bodies. With spirit the idea of locality has nothing to do. 1 From this point of view, the doctrine of the descent of Christ into hell simply asserts the reality ot His death. It affirms that His human soul and spirit, after death, were in the same condition as the souls and spirits of all other human beings. Such an explanation at once reduces this apparently difficult article of the Apostles' Creed into a necessary inference from the articles which have preceded it. As in the case of other men, so with Jesus Christ. His body was laid in the grave. His soul and spirit remained apart from the body, in the same way as those of other men were accustomed to do. 2 We have next to inquire what that condition was 1 And here very little information is afforded us in Scripture. The Hebrews spoke of the dead as in Sheol, the Greeks as in Hades. But it is contended by some that, in many cases, and even in Psalm xvi. 10, the Hebrew word Sheol means no more than the grave. 3 And the Greek idea of Hades has nothing in common with that of the Jewish and Christian Church. Little, however, as is said in the Old Testament to define the signification of the word Sheol, it does not always mean the grave. In a picturesque passage in Isaiah 4 Sheol is spoken of as the abode of departed souls. And in later Jewish thought we find this idea fully accepted, 5 though but little is known of the state of the wicked between death and the judgment. One serious source of confusion of thought on this point should, however, be mentioned before we go further. It is that 1 This consideration may help those who have found it impossible to conceive of the ubiquity of the Evil Spirit, except by endowing him with what has been supposed to be a special Divine attribute. 2 "It is well known what the word q:i'ir,s signifies in Greek authors, viz. the state of the dead." LIGHTFOOT, Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations, Acts ii. 27. 3 It properly means a hollow place, just as the English hell and the German Holle. 4 Isa. xiv. 9-12. 5 See LIGHTFOOT's Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations on Luke

xvi. 22 ; xxiii. 43.

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two words, of different signification, have been combined in our Authorised Version under the translation "hell." These words are Hades and Gehenna-the first of which refers to the condition of man's immaterial part, or parts, before the J udgment ; the latter to the condition of the soul after the Judgment, when, as it is believed, it has been reunited to the body. The cause which has led to so serious a liberty having been taken with Scripture language, is probably to be found in the strong reaction at the Reformation from the Roman doctrine of purgatory, and the abuses connected therewith, which impelled the Reformed theology towards the denial of the intermediate state. This denial has led to many very disastrous consequences, and has undoubtedly been among the causes which have enabled the Roman Church to maintain her position as she has done during the past three centuries. For the denial of the intermediate state is not only opposed to Scripture, but is in flat contradiction to Catholic antiquity. It is denounced beforehand by so early a Father as Justin Martyr, who, writing about A.D. 150, says that "those who believe the souls of the departed are taken to heaven at the moment of death cannot be supposed to be Christians any more than they can be supposed to be Jews." 1 We shall discuss this question more fully in a subsequent chapter. It is sufficient now to show that the Scriptures themselves contra-diet the doctrine to which Justin Martyr takes exception. In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, our Lord speaks of the soul of the faithful Lazarus as passing to a place 2 called Abraham's bosom, while that of Dives passes into Hades, which, though a place of torment, is nowhere declared to be that of final torment. Then He says to the penitent thief, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." But our Lord, as Man, did not ascend into heaven until the end of the forty days after His Resurrection. 3 The Last Judgment, moreover, is 1

Dialogue with Trypho, chap. lxxx. The word place is used here in reference to the language of the parable. But it is oLvious that this language is figurative. 3 It must be admitted, however, on this mysterious subject, that St. Paul speaks of Paradise as equivalent to the Third Heaven, and that he rloes not know whether he was transported there in the body or oitt of the body. It is clear, however, that our Lord's Body did not go to Paradise, but was buried. 2

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constantly spoken of as a future event. It were therefore unreasonable that it should be anticipated by the transference to heaven, or to the place of eternal punishment, of souls on whom the final sentence has not yet been pronounced ; and still more unintelligible is the doctrine that, after having enjoyed the bliss of heaven for ages, the blessed will be'summoned to the bar of God's tribunal to hear their sentence pronounced. And if man's body, as well as his soul, share in the ultimate bliss of the redeemed, or the ultimate misery of the lost, the opinion in question becomes yet more inadmissible. For the intermediate state concerns the immaterial part of man ; the Catholic Church teaches, as we shall see hereafter, a final condition of humanity, in which body, as well as soul and spirit, shall haYe a share. But the most important passage in regard to our Lord's descent into hell, that is, His assumption of the conditi,on of the dead, is unquestionably 1 Peter iii. 18-20. This passage stands, in the Revised Version, as follows : "Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit ; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved through water." 1 Closely connected with this passage is chap. iv. 6, of which the following is a literal translation : "For unto this end was the good tidings proclaimed also to dead persons (v<Kpo,s, i.e., persons who had died, not of course persons who had ceased to exi~t, which would be absurd 2 ), that they might be judged indeed according to man's judgment (Kara d.vllp<fnrovs) in flesh, and yet might live 1 As the passage is such an important one, a still more literal translation is appended. "Being slain in flesh, but made alive in spirit ; in which He went and preached also to the spirits in prisonthey who were once disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." The word "quickened" has lost its original meaning for many English ears. And it is well to remember· that uo.pKl and 1rvevµ,om have neither of them the article prefixed to them in the now accepted text, and also that Ko.l may be taken either with roi's 1rvevµ,C1.<TLP or with the participle. The former is preferable because it implies that Christ preached both to the living on earth and to the departed in Hades . .2 veKpo,s may, of course, mean persons who had innce died,

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according to God's manner of judging (Kara Oe6v) in spirit." It is not our intention ,to enter fully into the discussion of this passage. Those who desire to examine it will find it fully discussed in Commentaries,1 and in the works of Bishops Pearson 2 and Harold Browne. The more general opinion has been that our Lord proclaimed to the souls in Hades, who had long been waiting for the fulfilment of the promise of deliverance which had been made to them of old, the fact that this fulfilment was now accomplished, that sin's yoke had been broken, that the obedience God required from man had now been offered, and that henceforth God's wrath against sinners had been propitiated, and His alienation from them brought to an end. 3 The chief difficulty in this interpretation lies in the fact that this preachingÂˇ seems to be limited to those who offended in the days of Noah. But this difficulty is not insurmountable. We must remember that all the writers of the New Testament observe the utmost reticence on the condition of the soul between death and the judgment. 4 We may therefore believe that it was not the purpose of St. Peter to say more than was necessary on so mysterious a point, even if more had been revealed to him than the fact of which he makes mention. It is not unreasonable to suppose that St. Peter here marks an era in God's dealings with mankind, at which, and after which, those who had sinned grievously on earth, and had been severely punished, were placed under guard, as it were ; remained in a condition of discipline tempered by the expectation 1 Dean PLUMPTRE has a useful note in his Commentary on I Peter in the Cambridge Bible for Schools ; and the question is still more fully discussed in his Spirits in Prison, as well as in his article on "Eschatology," in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography. 2 Bishop Pearson lays stress on the fact that St. Augustine finds considerable difficulty in the interpretation of the passage. 3 HERMAS, Shepherd, III. Sim. ix. chap. xvi., teaches that the apostles and teachers who preached Christ on the earth preached Him also afterwards in Hades. Clement of Alexandria cites this passage twice with approval in his Miscellanies (ii. 9, vi. 6). Hilary of Poitiers adopted this view. But Chrysostom in his Hornily on St. Matthew, ehap. xi., rejects the doctrine as an "old wives' fable." 4 "He told it not, or something sealed The lips of that Evangelist." TENNYSON, In Memoriam, 31.

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of deliverance, until the time when Christ came to preach good tidings of salvation to the living and to the dead. Thus the doctrine of Christ's descent into Hades, 1 if we have rightly interpreted Scripture teaching on the point, involves three important propositions ; first, that His Death was in all respects like ours ; next, that the souls of the faithful are conscious during the period between death and resurrection, otherwise it were impossible to preach to them ; and last, that the condition of departed souls varies according to the degree in which their conduct here has fitted them to appreciate more or less fully the nearer Presence of God in the life to come ; a Presence which will fill them with joy, or penetrate them with shame or terror, in precise proportion to the extent to which they have previously prepared themselves to understand it. SECTION

III.

"AND THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN, ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES "

The fact of the Resurrection is of infinite consequence to the believer in Christ. It is the keystone of the Gospel arch, as the facts of the Incarnation of the Divine Word, and the full and sufficient Sacrifice made by Him for sin, may be regarded as its foundations. Upon this fact the whole power of the redeemed life of the Christian has, from the very first, been seen to depend. " If Christ be not risen," says St. Paul, "our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain." 2 The preaching of the twelve after the day of Pentecost is usually described as being the preaching of the Resurrection. 3 And though the importance of the Resurrection of Christ by no means consists, as has some1 The doctrine that Christ went to the place of final torment seems to need no refutation. 2 1 Cor. xv. 14. 3 Acts i. 22; iv. 33; xvii. 18, 31. See also ii. 32; iii. 15, 26; iv. 10; .x. 41, &c,

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times been imagined, solely in the fact that it is the only possible guarantee of the truth of His teaching, or of the sufficiency of the Atonement made by Him, yet such a guarantee, in the first instance, it undoubtedly is. In no other way which we can imagine could He demonstrate the extraordinary statements He made concerning Himselfthat He was the Only-begotten Son of God, come down from heaven to redeem mankind from the curse of sin, and commissioned to offer Himself to the Father as a perfect and sufficient sacrifice and satisfaction for it.I The fact of the Resurrection is, therefore, all-important to the Christian. The evidence for this fact, so unique in its character, 2 is, as we might antecedently have expected, exceptionally strong. No doubt men have a right to demand that an event of such a kind should be substantiated by far stronger evidence than any ordinary event. Happily for our Christian faith, there are few, if any, events in history which rest upon testimony so decisive. The four Gospels, written by disciples and contemporaries of our Lord, not only declare that He was risen, but they declare it with a copiousness and minuteness of detail which preclude all possibility that they were under any hallucination. "We did eat and drink with Him," says St. Peter, "after He was risen from the dead." 8 They touched Him, 4 they held Him by the feet,5 they held long conversations with Him, and this not once or twice, but repeatedly. They established a society founded on the confession of this fact. All suspicions of their good faith are precluded by the Matt. xx. 28. John iii. 16, 18. "It is the evidence of believers only; and from the days of Celsus downwards it has been urged that the Christian cause is weakened by this fact." MILLIGAN, The Re&urrection Qf our Lord, p. 32. Âˇ 3 Acts x. 41. Cf Luke xxiv. 30, 43. John xxi, 13, 4 John xx. 27. 5 ~att. l\XViii. 9.. 1

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hlamelessness of their lives. Their sincerity is, moreover, attested by their continual sufferings. The explanation of the history which has recently been suggested, that Jesus did not really die on the Cross, but was resuscitated by the kindness and attention of friends, will not meet the circumstances of the case. The appearances of Christ after His Resurrection, as recorded in the Gospels and Acts, are not those which might be expected in the case of a man who, two days before, had been exposed to a mo_st cruel and barbarous punishment. If He had died of His wounds a short time afterwards, as some have pretended, the appearances described Âˇby the eye-witnesses of them become yet more inexplicable. And if not, how was it that He contrived afterwards entirely to disappear 1 It is, if possible, yet more incredible that He hid Himself in order to give colour to the subsequent statement of the apostles, that He had ascended into heaven. Repeated judicial investigations, moreover, were held in regard to the statements of the apostles; and though, no doubt, only an ex parte statement of the results of those investigations has come down to us, yet it bears the stamp of honesty, and there is not the slightest indication that the production of any rebutting evidence was even attempted. 1 Even if the biographies of Christ and the account of the early proceedings of the apostles be set aside as the statements of interested witnesses, and as be,ing, possibly, not the compositions of the persons to whom they are attributed, there remains a letter written within twenty-seven years of the alleged event, in which the same evidence as that contained in the Gospels is appealed to, and belief in the fact declared to be the primary condition of membership in the Christian Church. 2 The genuine~ess of this letter 1 Acts iv. 5-23; v. 17-40; xxiii.1-10; xxiv. 1-22; xxvi. See what Bishop Harvey Goodwin has said of the veracity of St, Luke, p. 147. 2 1 Cor. :irv. 12-18.

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no one has the hardihood to dispute. It is too obviously what it professes to be-a letter written by the founder of a Christian community at Corinth to his disciples ; and it not only witnesses to the fact of the Resurrection, but to the existence of communities in various districts bordering on the Mediterranean, founded on the belief on this fact, and existing to commemorate it.1 And this unequivocal testimony has since been reinforced by the undeniable stream of blessing which has flowed from the Saviour's open grave to fertilize the lands with the power of His Risen Life. Whether such evidence is to be regarded as sufficient to compel conviction is, of course, a matter which each must decide for himself. But it is quite certain that it is such as no rational man would dismiss as unworthy of serious and careful examination. To do more than summarize the evidence for this allimportant fact is incompatible with the scope of the present volume. 2 We must now turn to the deductions from it. As has already been said, the Resurrection of Christ is far more than a guarantee either of the truth of His teaching or of the sufficiency of His Atonement. In the first place, there is the closest and most intimate connection between His Resurrection and our own. The nature of our resurrection will be more fully treated when we reach the article 1 1 Cor. i. 2; iv. 17; vii, 17; xi. 16; xiv. 33; xvi. 1, 3, 8, 15, 19. 2 Cor. i. 1; viii. 1, 18, 19; ix. 2, 4; xi. 8, 28; xii. 13. The second Epistle to the Corinthians is as incontrovertibly a genuine document as the first. 2 Those who desire to study the evidence will find it clearly and conclusively stated in GoDET's Conferences Apologetiques, which have been translated into English. I have entered somewhat more fully into it than I have above, in my Essay Are Miracles Credible 1 Dr. Maclear has shown, in his Boyle lectures, that the continued celebra- , tion of the Eucharist rests upon the fact of the Resurrection. And so does the Christian observance of Sunday, with which Dr. Maclea.r has also dealt.

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on the Resurrection of the Body. But the nature of our Lord's Resurrection Body may properly be dealt with here. At first sight it is perfectly clear that though the Body of the Risen Lord was unquestionably a material Body, yet It existed under conditions essentially ,different to that under which our ordinary human bodies subsist. It was a material Body, for, as we have already remarked, It was capable of being seen and touched, and in It He ate and drank with His disciples. It moreover bore on It the marks of His Passion, and was therefore in some sense identical with the Body which was crucified. 1 But it unquestionably had properties altogether new. It displays no sensitiveness to weariness or pain. Food, though eaten, appears to have been no longer a necessity to It. Shelter was no more necessary to It than food. It was not always recognized at once. 2 It suddenly appeared when the apostles were sitting with closed doors, and sometimes as suddenly disappeared. 3 It flashed through the air with amazing rapidity, and the disciples who had lost sight of It at Emmaus returned to find that the Master Who had so mysteriously disappeared from them had already been at Jerusalem, and had had an interview with the President of the Apostolic College. 4 The whole intercourse of the Risen Saviour with His disciples after His Resurrection is marked by a mysterious reserve. 5 His Body, in fact, was what St. Paul calls a spiritual body (crwµa 1rvEVµanK6v). 6 But a word of caution is necessary here. We must beware of imagining that by a spiritual body is meant a body composed of spirit. This is a simple impossibility. Body 1

Luke xxiv. 40; John xx. 27. • Luke xxiv. 16. John xx. 14; xxi. 4. 4 Luke xxiv. 34. 3 Luke xxiv. 31. 5 As when He forbade the Magdalene to touch Him (John xx. 17) although at other times He permitted His <lisciples to do so. 6 1 Cor. xv. 44.

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and spirit are two different things, though obviously not incapable of relation. Our Lord's Body was as distinctly and demonstrably material after His Resurrection as before. The words crw11-a 1rvrn11-anK6v cannot be explained without a careful study of the meaning of the words crw11-a if;vxiK6v, translated incorrectly "natural body" in the Authorised Version, on account of the poverty of our language, which has no equivalent for fvxiK6,. 1 But a crw11-a fvxiK6v means not, of course, a body composed of soul, but a bodya material organization-adapted to the need of that part of us which we call our soul (if;vx~), and so adapted because the if;vx~ was the predominant characteristic of the natural man. It follows of course that a crw11-a 1rvrn11-anKov means a material organization corresponding to the needs of that higher part of our being which we call 1rvw11-a, or spirit. One of the objects of Christ's coming was to revivify this 1rv.v11-a, which had dwindled almost to nothing through the spread of human corruption. And, when thus revivified, it will need a proper organ in which to exercise its powers. This is the crw11-a 1rv.v11-anK6v, or spiritual body, which might be expected to surpass the crw11-a if;vxiK6v, or body corresponding to the needs of soul, as much as the 1rv.v11-a, or spirit, surpasses the fvx~, or soul. Hence the higher qualities of the Risen Body of our Lord, which are destined to be transmitted to us from Him, when we, like Him, have attained to the Resurrection of the Dead. In what, precisely, the Risen Body of our Lord differs from His pre-Resurrection Body we cannot tell. Some have imagined that as visibility was the normal condition of the pre-Resurrection Body, invisibility is the 1 Professor MILLIGAN, Resurrection, p. 19, renders it by the Âˇ inelegant and inadequate word " soulish." But our language does not possess a better. Psychic, at present at least, conveys no ideas to the ordinary reader.

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normal condition of the post-Resurrection Body, and that any departure from that normal condition would involve a miracle. But this is a mere conjecture, and appears to involve an absurdity. For Holy Writ teaches us that there is mutual recognition in the abodes of the Blessed. But such recognition were impossible if the Resurrection body were invisible.I Some have imagined that in the Risen Body of Christ, on account of its ethereal character, there is, and can be, no Blood, but that the place of the Blood was supplied by some more subtle vehicle of the principle of life. 2 It is lawful, of course, for us to speculate on these matters within the limits permitted us in the Christian Creed. But it is not lawful to dogrnatize. .And speculation itself, Âˇunrestrained by the sense of the myster:r of things unseen, may easily become irreverent familiarity. We shall do best, therefore, to remain silent in the presence of so great a Mystery, thankfully receiving what information God has been pleased to vouchsafe us in His Holy Word, and waiting His good time for that further knowledge which He has promised to give to those who seek aright. The effects of the Resurrection of Christ on the lives of those who believe on Him must next be considered. In order to estimate this, it is necessary to understand how it was that our Blessed Lord was able to rise again. First, He rose on account of His Divine Power, which St. Paul tells us He manifested when He rose from the dead. 8 But even Divine Power, as we have seen, cannot achieve impossibilities, and there are impossibilities, even 1 Possibly, however, what is meant is invisibility to the eyes of our present mortal body. 2 Our Lord, when risen, speaks of His Flesh and Bones, but not of His Flesh and Blood. See MILLIGAN, Resurrection, p. 13. 3 Rom. i. 4. St. Paul uses the word opÂŤr0lvros-" marked out," meaning that the Resurrection was the visible proof of the Divine Power of Christ.

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to God Himself. He cannot deny Himself. Âˇ He cannot do that which ought not to be done. He cannot raise that which ought to remain in the tomb. And so St. Paul, in the passage just referred to, adds that Christ was marked out as the Son of God by the Resurrection "according to the spirit of holiness." That is to say, Christ had not deserved to die, and His Resurrection proclaimed the fact to all creation. He had committed no sin, and, therefore, death had no power over Him. "It was not possible that He should be holden" by death. 1 Only " the soul that sinneth" has been condemned to "die." 2 And so the Death of Christ was the result of no necessity. Of His own free will He laid down a life which He had "power to lay down," and "power to take again." And so He rose triumphant from the grave as the Conqueror of sin and death. 8 It is this victorious Life which He transmits to us. Not merely does He vouchsafe 1

9 Ezek. xviii. 4, 20. Acts ii. 24, John x. 17, 18. ATHANAsrus, in his Treatise on the Incarnation, chap. 9, has a striking passage, in which he tells us how the incorruptible Son of God, united to us by the bond of similarity (i.e. our human nature), "clothed us all with immortality in the promise of His Resurrection," and by dwelling in a body like ours, brought the devices of our enemies to nought, and had power thoroughly to dissipate the cormption of death. The whole of IRENAEus' fifth book Agains~ Heresies magnifies the Divine Power of the Risen Christ, and foaches the doctrine contained in the text. But inasmuch as (1) it is directed against the heretics who denied the possibility of a resurrection of the material part of man, which they deemed essentially con-upt; (2) because, in consequence, he deals rather with the future resun-ection to life than our present resurrection from sin; and (3) because, .like Scripture itself, he makes no attempt to separate the sphere of the Incarnation from that in which the life of the Risen and Ascended Lord operates-the doctrine must be inferred rather from the teaching of the whole book than from any particular part of it, unless we except the fine passage (chaps. vi.-xii.) in which he speaks of the work of the Spirit revivifying us here, as an earnest of the work He shall effect in us hereafter. 3

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that we shall share the nature which He took in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, but He gives us of that nature as crucified, as glorified, as ascended. By our baptism we are partakers not only of Christ's nature, but of that nature in all the aspects of Its struggle withÂˇsin. We are baptized into Christ's Death 1 by being united to that spirit of sacrifice in which He offered Himself for the sins of the world ; by dying, as He did, to sin ; by "crucifying the whole body of sin." 2 We are baptized into His burial,3 as marking the destruction of evil desires and habits, typified by the "body of sin" which He bare. We are baptized into His Resurrection,4 as being united to that power whereby He has trampled sin and death under foot. And thus we are described as having been potentially raised with Him, in the sense that the power of His Resurrection is ours, to the precise extent to which our faith enables us to realize and to use it. The Resurrection of Christ, though a consequence of the Incarnation, marks, as a modern theologian has said, "an advance" upon the condition of His humanity previous to His Death. 5 Of this advance we, by our faith, are made partakers. The Incarnation is the source of all our regenerate life. But we only partake of the source through the stream. It is not the Humanity of Christ simply as He took it in birth, of which we are partakers, but of that Life as perfected in the struggle with, and victory over, sin. It is an unworthy conception of the priceless blessings of redemption which would confine them to one particular aspect of His redeeming work. Christ took our nature, it is true. But in taking it, He created it anew. He sanctified it by victory over temp1 2 4

Rom. vi. 3, 4. Rom. vi. 6, ll. Gal. ii. 20; v. 24. Rom. vi 4, 11. Gal. ii. 20. Eph. ii. 5. MILLIGAN, Resurrection, pp. 129-131.

8 Col. ii. 12. Col. ii. 12; iii. 1, &c,

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tation. Accepting its liability to death, yet in and beyond death He held the fortress of His Manhood inviolate. But not until His Resurrection was accomplished did that Humanity receive its final development. It is this 1iJhole Christ that we receive-the Christ Who was born, Wh~ lived a blameless life, Who offered Himself in sacrifice to the Father in His Death, Who rose again with majesty, Who lives for evermore at the Right Hand of God. 1 We are made alive in Him by the Divine Power of His Father, which "raised Him from the dead," and also made Him to "sit" at that Father's "Right Hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in the world to come." 2 In virtue of our union with the transcendent merits of this Exalted and Sanctified Pattern and Guide, we are enabled to tread in His steps, to battle with sin, to crucify it, to conquer it, to trample it under foot, according to the measure of the faith to which each one of us has attained. 3 And the result of this conflict - this ultimate victory over evil, which is the fruit of our faith- will be our final and irrevocable association with Christ in His Risen life. The Resurrection, as we have seen, has its present effects on our condition. But those effects are only preparatory to a higher condition of blessedness in the future. "As in Adam all die, "If we even so in Christ shall all be made alive." have become united with Christ by the likeness of the Death of the Son of God, we shall be also by the likeness of His Resurrection." We must first rise with 1

Heh. x. 12. See Eph. i 17-ii. 7. It is only frequent perusal and meditation which can help us to catch somewhat of the spirit of this magnificent passage, so instinct with the fire that comes down from heaven. 3 Rom. xii. 3. Eph. iv. 16. 2

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Him from sin, and then rise with Him from death. This last privilege we will consider when we arrive at the article " the Resurrection of the Dead, and the life of the world to come."l

SECTION IV. "AND ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND. OF THE FATHER "

The fact of our Lord's Ascension is mentioned in two of the Gospels, and in the Acts of the Apostles, and is assumed in the remaining Gospels and in the Epistles. The last twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel are, it is true, absent from many of the best copies, and their genuineness is therefore uncertain. But the testimony of St. Luke is distinct, both in his Gospel, and in the Acts. 2 Of the value to be attached to his testimony we have already spoken. 3 And St. John, writing after the other Evangelists, and evidently with a knowledge of the story of Christ in the form in which they had published it, not only does not contradict or modify their statement that Christ ascended into heaven, but implies it when he records the question, " What, then, if ye should behold the Son of Man ascending where He was before 1" 4 Moreover, in St. John's narrative 1 For further information on this point, consult MrLLIGAN's Lectures on the Resurrection, which gather up a vast deal of most valuable modern teaching on this important subject, especially pp. 183-188. 2 It must be admitted, however, that Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort bracket the reference to the Ascension, though against strong authority, both of Versions and MSS. 3 Seep. 147. 4 John vi. 62. It ought not to escape us that a similar allusion occurs in St. John's report of our Lord's discourse on Regeneration to that which occurs here, in His address on the nourishment of

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He expressly declares that He is about to ascend. 1 Nor do St. Matthew's utterances in any way contradict the rest. On the contrary, they clearly presuppose it. For what else was likely to have become of Him to whom "all authority " had been given "in heaven and on earth " 1 The only way in which the story of the Ascension could be disproved would be by an authentic narrative stating the time and manner of Christ's second death, if it be not palpably absurd to suppose that He Who .rose from the dead by His inherent power could possibly be again subject to the law of mortality. St. Matthew evidently, to use a favourite phrase of German critics, "knows nothing" of any such second death. It follows, therefore, that some such event as the Ascension must have been supposed by the writers of the New Testament to have taken place. The Ascension will also be found to be assumed in the earliest documents of the Christian Church. Our Lord Himself spoke of being "lifted up from," or "out of the earth." 2 And if the words in the first instance refer to His Crucifixion, yet, viewed in the light of the statements in other books of Scripture, they may be held to refer also to His Ascension. 8 The early fragment of the Gospel according to St. Mark, above referred to (if it be not a part of the original Gospel-a question which does not at present appear to be settled), mentions Christ's Session at the Right Hand of God. 4 So does St. Paul on many occasions. 5 The Revelation of St. John confirms the statements of St. Paul. 6 the new life. Both processes are thus declared to depend in some way on Christ's Ascension. 1 Johnxx. 17. â&#x20AC;˘ John xii. 32. a PEARSON, On the Oreed, p. 274. 4 Mark xvi. 19. 5 Rom. viii. 34 ; 1 Cor. xv. 25 ; E ph. i. 20, ii. 6 ; Col. iii. 1. 6 Rev. v. 6-8 ; xxi. 22 ; xxii. 3.

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So does St. Stephen in his last speech.1 The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews repeatedly mentions the Session at God's Right Hand as a fact. 2 But if Christ now sits at God's Right Hand, there must have been an elevation of His Manhood thither. It is therefore quite contrary to the evidence before us to contend, as some have done, that the Ascension is a later development of Christian belief. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, an Epistle the genuineness of which has never been seriously disputed, St. Paul not only speaks of Christ's Session, but quotes Ps. ex. 1 as a prophecy of that Session. This Epistle was written not more than twenty-seven years after the event to which it refers must have happened, if it happened at all. And as Christ Himself refers to the same Psalm, a fact recorded in all the Synoptic Gospels, we have a further strong evidence of the same fact from our Lord's own anticipatory reference to it. 3 When we come to inquire what is meant by our Lord's Ascension, the question involves a certain amount of difficulty. Whether our Lord ascended into some definite locality or not, is, however, in reality a question of no moment. A mysterious disappearance, such as is recorded of Him, would, in the case of One Who had truly died and risen again, be precisely the same thing. Whithersoever, and in what manner soever, He thus disappeared, the Christian Church must, as a matter of course, come 1 Acts vii. 55. "He appeared standing to Stephen, as ready to assist him, as ready to plead for him, as ready to receive him ; and He is oftener represented as sitting, not for any positional variation, but for the variety of His effect and operation." PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 278. 2 â&#x20AC;˘Heb. i.. 3 ; vii. 26 ; viii. 1 ; x. 12 ; xii. 2. 3 Matt. xxii. 44 ; Mark xii. 36 ; Luke xx. 42, 43. For direct references in the Epistles to our Lord's Ascension see Eph. iv. 8-10; 1 Tim. iii â&#x20AC;˘. 16 ; Heb. iv. 14, ix. 12, 24. See also Heb. vii. 25,

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to the conclusion that He is with God. And to be with God is to be in heaven. As many divines of recent times have maintained, heaven is not a place, but a state, and so far as the term is employed to denote God's habitation, Who, we are told, is Spirit, the doctrine must be true. But, taken in connection with the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body, it appears at least probable that a local habitation is provided for the bodies of those who attain to the Resurrection of the dead. Into this subject it is not, however, necessary as yet to enter further. Many ingenious opinions have lately been broached upon the present condition and situation of our Lord's Risen Body. This, again, is a point on which speculation is permissible. Whether, it be profitable or not may perhaps be disputed. But our progress in physical science will doubtless render it possible to view in many new lights a question on which the Catholic Church has pronounced no decision. With regard to Christ's Session at God's Right Hand we are on firmer ground. No one has contended that we ought to attach any local or materialistic sense to this article of our Creed. Not only is God, as Spirit, incapable of any local habitation, but the term Right Hand, when applied to Him, is obviously a figure of speech. 1 Therefore all divines, ancient and modern, have agreed to see in these words nothing more than an expression of the high dignity enjoyed by Him Who, having conquered sin and death, is even in His Humanity elevated to the high place which, in virtue of His Divinity, He has ever enjoyed beside 2 the Eternal Father. In this exalted position He reigns over all things in heaven and earth. He is " King of kings, and Lord of 1 PEARSON, On 2

the Greed, p. 277. So 1rapri, in John i. 1, has been interpreted by many.

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lords." 1 If all things are not yet put under Him 2 it is because the kingdom of evil is still permitted to resist the Eternal Will. Yet, sin and sinners only excepted, He reigns over all. 3 And many whose deliverance from sin is not yet complete, own Him as thi:ir Lord, and look to Him as their only hope. He is the " Head over all things unto His Church." 4 His Name "is above every name." At that Name "every knee doth bow." Every tongue confesses His Lordship. 5 From Him all rule and authority is derived. 6 The Eternal Father Himself has thus addressed Him : " Thy Throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever, and the Sceptre of Uprightness 7 is the sceptre of Thy Kingdom." 8 The first point in the spiritual significance of our Lord's Ascen\!ion and Session at God's Right Hand is therefore the lordship over all things in heaven and earth, which thus becomes His Prerogative as Man. But there is another important point which must not be allowed to escape us. Jesus Christ not only reigns in heaven as King; He appears, from some statements we find in Holy Writ, to offer there as priest. As High Priest, we are taught, He had, of necessity, "something to offer." 9 This offering, we further learn, is Himself. But though He made this offering of Himself, once for all, in His Death, 10 we are not compelled to conclude, as many have done, that the slaying of the victim completed the offering. In the Mosaic ritual, after the victim was slain, its blood, which was its life, was offered to God by being sprinkled, or smeared, on the horns of the altar. 11 Thus the offering, 1

3 1 Cor. xv. 25. 2 Heb. ii. 8. Rev. xix. 16. 5 Phil. ii. 9--11. Eph. i. 22. 6 Col. ii. 10. /Js â&#x201A;Ź<!TIP 7/ Ketpa),ri 7r/J,<f7JS apxiis KO.! e~Ov<Tlas. 7 eu0ur7Jros. So in LXX. Literally, as in margin of Authorised Version, rightness, or straightness, which is also the sense of the Hebrew in Ps. xlv. 6. 10 Heb. vii. 27. 11 Lev. iv. 7, 18, 30. 8 Heb. i. 8. D Heb. viii. 3.

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once made, had to be presented. And in the ritual of the Day of Atonement the priest passed within the veil to offer the blood of the slain victim upon the Mercy-seat. The antitype of this, the Epistle to the Hebrews informs us, was the Ascension of our Lord into "a holy place not made with hands," 1 there to present His Spotless Life, once offered, for ever before the Throne of God. Thus He appears in the centre of the heavenly worship as the Lamb that had been slain. 2 Not that we are to regard this passage as meaning the offering simply of His Death. It is not as slain, but as having been slain, 3 that the Lamb stands in the midst of the throne. He stands not there as dead, but as the very centre of the life there manifested. 4 But His Sacrifice is, nevertheless, an ever - present fact, which never ceases to be pleaded by His Presence in the heavenly courts. It is His Life, as offered in Sacrifice, and as glorified by a triumph over evil, capable of being achieved by Sacrifice alone, which pleads thus powerfully for man's salvation, and which calls for such exultant homage from the highest of created beings. The same truth is involved in the description of our Lord's Priesthood as "after the order of Melchizedek." That Priesthood is declared to be unlike that of Aaron in regard to its unchangeableness and permanence. 5 It was made "not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life." 6 That endless (or rather indissoluble) Life never ceases to be presented before the Throne of God. Being a perfect Life, it pleads for the shortcomings of the lives of all who by faith are united to the Incarnate Lord. Offered in the 2 3 ws lu<f,a1yÂľho11. Heh. ix. 24. Rev. v. 6. Rev. v. 6. 5 Rev. v. 7. Heh. vii. 24, 27. 6 Heh. vii. 16. "Endless" would be better rendered, as in margin of Revised Version, by "indissoluble." See Bishop WESTCOTT's note in loc. For the priesthood of Melchizedek, see MILLIGAN, Ascension, pp. 83-112. 1

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first instance instead of ours, it ultimately completes the process of redemption by having become indissolubly united to ours. Thus the Eternal and Unchangeable Priest continually offers on our behalf the Life which could not fail to satisfy God, and which, by His gift of Himself to us-a gift appropriated by our faith_:_tends ever to become more closely associated with our own. This view is strengthened by the statement in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that He Who possesses the unchangeable 1 priesthood is "able to save to the uttermost 2 those who draw near to God through Him," since He "is ever living to make intercession for them." 8 The idea of intercession is often limited to the offering up of prayer, and thereby conclusions have sometimes been drawn unfavourable to the doctrine of Christ's Divinity. But the word in the original (Evnryxa'.vw), as well as the English word Intercession itself, does not properly signify the offering of prayer, but means acting on a person's behalf, or even taking a part, favourable or unfavourable, in his affairs. 4 Jesus Christ lives for ever, and exercises His unchangeable priesthood that He may thus eternally take an interest in our concerns. "Holy, 1 2 4

&:1rap&.(3arov, that which cannot pass away. 8 Heb. vii. 25. ds ro 1ravreMs, i. e. thoroughly, or completely. The original signification of ivr"YX&.vw is to meet with. Hence

comes the signification to concern oneself with, as in Acts xxv. 24, Rom. xi. 2. "It may be a matter ofregret that the English language seems to possess no better word than ' intercession' to express the action of our High Priest in heaven after Re had presented our offering to the Father, For this, however, there is no help; and all that can be done is to impress upon the inquirer the fact that 'intercession' is a wider word than 'prayer.'" MILLIGAN, On the Ascension, p. 152. In a note he suggests "inter-action." Unfortunately we have in theology to face the fact that nearly every term we employ has drifted away considerably from the sense in which it was employed in Scripture. "Intercession" itself literally means "going between," and thence inter-action or mediaUon. There is originally in it no ulea whatever of prayer.

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guileless, undefiled, and separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens," 1 He pleads in heaven the indissoluble bond-that is, His glorified and sanctified Fleshwhereby He is united to man, and thereby wins for us a pardon and purification destined ultimately to effect for us an eternal union with God. 2 But with this priesthood in heaven is also conjoined a priesthood on earth. Jesus Christ is ever present with mankind by means of His Spirit. Therefore from us men, also, in whom He dwells, there arises to heaven the sameÂˇ presentation and pleading of the One Sacrifice once offered, though after a manner which only faintly and dimly represents the Eternal Priesthood of Christ above. This presentation and pleading assumes two forms. First, there is the priesthood of the Church and of every individual member of it, which is so frequently referred to by the writers of the New Testament. "We have been made a kingdom and priests," 3-so the redeemed are represented as saying by the author of the Apocalypse-by Him Who redeemed 4 us to God by His Blood. As members of that " royal priesthood," it is our duty to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God. 5 Nor are these simply sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, but they imply that the whole life of each one of us should be a continuous sacrifice, in union with the Sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour upon the altar of the Cross. Thus we plead the One Sacrifice before the Throne of God in all our works and ways. In the next place, there is the expression given to this fact in the public Heb. vii. 26. Some such idea as this of the solidarity of the Head with the members is involved in the words, '' I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God." ,John xx. 17. 3 Rev. i. 6. 4 Literally loosed; or, according to some copies, washed. 6 1 Peter ii. 5 9. Of Rom. xii. 1. 1

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worship of the Christian Church. The only form of such worship prescribed by our Lord Himself is the solemn memorial1 of His Death, which He instituted on the night before His Crucifixion. It consists of a perpetual presentation and pleading before God, by His Church, of the merits of His Sacrifice, as well as of a continual public acknowledgment of the fact that the spirit of that Sacrifice should pervade our lives ; a continual recognition of the union of purpose between Him and His redeemed ones ; a continual offering and presentation, by His members here below, of their hearts and lives to God, that they may be hallowed, purified, perfected by the permeation of their bodies, souls, and spirits with the Mind and Will of Christ, as manifested in the full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction which He made for the sins of the whole world. Thus does the Church on earth "fill up that which is lacking of the afll.ictions of Christ." 2 Thus, both in her public assemblies and in the daily life of her members, does the smoke of the One Sacrifice, as it is being unceasingly consumed by the fire of Eternal Love, rise evermore to the Eternal Throne. Thus does she offer the worship at once of the closet, of the sanctuary, of the market-place, to Him "Who is alive and was dead, to Whom the keys of death and Hades belong, Who is alive for evermore." 3 And there is a special fitness, moreover, in the teaching of God's Word, that it is Christ's Death which is presented here below, Hie Life which pleads for us in the courts above. For here the Church is militant ; there her Head stands at God's Right Hand triumphant. Here the Church is suffering; there her Head dwells in joy and bliss unspeakable. Here we are struggling to free ourselves from the dominion of sin by the Virtue of the Adorable Sacrifice; there the Lamb, once sacrificed, stands above all created things, presenting 1

Or remembrance, a.vaÂľ,v'Y}<TU. R

Col. i. 24.

Rev. i. 18.

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the Life in which Sacrifice is now consummated in Victory, and Majesty, and Glory. It is to the presentation and acceptance by God, in heaven, of this perfect fulfilment of His Will in regard to mankind by "His Beloved Son, in Whom He takes pleasure," 1 that we owe the gift of the Holy Spirit. "It is for your advantage (crvfL<pEpei -DfLtv) that I go away, for if I go not away the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." 2 God's Spirit had ceased to " strive " effectually "in man" after the Fall ; 3 but when man was not only restored to his original innocence, but elevated to the highest heaven on account of his victory over temptation, the Spirit could once more animate him with Divine influences, and strive within him by the power of the Humanity, redeemed in Christ. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church would have us believe, are each interpenetrated with each other's Being. 4 And as Christ, as Man, was inhabited by the Divine Spirit, so the glorified Humanity of Christ, indissolubly united to His Divinity, is imparted by the indwelling of the Spirit in us. It is by that glorified Humanity that the Spirit is enabled to strive effectually in us. "What man has done, man may do." What has been effected by the Head, is possible to the members. And thus upon the complete fulfilment of the Divine Will by the Man Christ Jesus, and upon His ineffable union with the Godhead, depends the sanctifying work which is the special function of the Holy Spirit.

w7JVi56K7J<To., Matt. iii. 17. John xvi. 7. The word "expedient" gives a false impression at the present time, as being usually opposed to "right," and seeming to savour rather of human contrivance than the spiritual profit ofÂˇ 3 Gen. vi. 3. our nature. 4 MILLIGAN, Ascension, p. 210. This treatise is even more valuable than thaj; on the Resurrection, and should have a place in the library of every student. 1 ,,,

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A few words will be necessary here on the place of the Sacraments in the communication of Christ's Life to mankind. That they owe the whole of their efficacy to the operation of the Holy Spirit, is taught alike by Christ and by the Church. The principles which underlie the Sacraments are laid down in St. John iii. and vi. In the first, the regeneration, or begetting anew, which we have seen to be due to the imparting to each one of us the glorified Humanity of Christ, is called by our Lord Himself the "regeneration of water and the Holy Ghost " ; 1 and the Church has ever considered the gift of the new Life to be the work of the Holy Spirit. In His teaching concerning the principle expressed by the other Sacrament, He says, "It is the Spirit that imparteth life ((wo1rotEt); the flesh profiteth nothing." 2 And so in the ritual of both East and West the Invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine is generally believed to be either expressed or implied. But still, the gift which the faithful partaker receives, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, in either Sacrament is the Life of Christ, Human and Divine, Risen and Ascended. In Baptism the first germ of that priceless gift is conveyed or assured. 3 In the Holy Eucharist the faithful believer is sustained and nourished by the Life of Christ, imparted to him in that Sacrament by a process which is likened by Christ to "eating and drinking His Flesh and Blood." It is not supposed that this sustaining and nourishing virtue 1

2 John vi. 63. John iii. 5. HOOKER, Eccl. Pol., V. chap. lvii. 6, God's gifts, however, as Aquinas says, are not tied to Sacraments. The gift of regeneration may, for anght we know, in many cases have been conveyed to the believer before Baptism. In that case Baptism does but ratify the gift. Hooker's chapters on the Sacraments in relation to the Incarnation are well deserving of study. (See Book V. chaps. 1.-lvii. lxvii.) "As our natural life consisteth in the union of the body with the soul, so our life supernatural in the union of the soul with God." (Chap. I.) 3

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of Christ's Life is imparted by the Eucharist alone. Man does not "live" even by that "Bread" ''alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The Sacraments proclaim the fact that every Christian must have received, and must be continually depending upon, Christ for the support of his spiritual life. Every baptized person, if he desire the assurance, may be sure that he has been grafted into Christ ; and every partaker of the Bread and of the Cup, which have been solemnly blessed according to Christ's ordinance, may be sure that if he have humbly and heartily desired a share in Christ's glorified Humanity, the blessing he seeks will not be-has not been-----denied. Thus the two Sacraments are both assurances of the fact that each believer has been grafted into the One True Vine, and is a partaker of the life that inhabits it, and "effectual channels" whereby that life is communicated from the Vine itself unto every one of its branches." 1 SECTION

"AND HE SHALL COME AGAIN WITH GLORY TO JUDGE BOTH THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, WHOSE KINGDOM SHALL HAVE NO END"

The literal rendering of this clause is, "and coming again with glory to judge living and dead, of Whose kingdom there shall not be an end." The article is necessary to a rational belief. For if there be no judgment hereafter, then is this world a moral chaos, the iniquity of which it is impossible to estimate. A friend of the writer's once, when going to take duty at a church some distance from his home, 1 Faith, as we have seen (chap. i.), is necessary on the part of the individual before that life can become practically ours. The blessing. is not appropriated until it is consciously realized. Even such conscious realization depends upon God for the power to exercise it. But the determination of the will to exercise that power appears to reside in ourselves.

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fell in with some French atheists, with whom, being well acquainted with the French language, he entered into conversation. The discussion turned on the Being of God. They denied the existence of God, and with the peculiar bitterness which seems characteristic. of Continental unbelief, they declared that if there were such a Being, they would kill Him, if they could catch Him, because of the misery He permitted to exist upon the earth. And, granted the premisses that there is no future judgment and no future life, it is impossible to see where these men were wrong. A God Who could permit all the miseries, cruelties, injustices, and inequalities which exist, and have existed, in this world, without any design of setting matters right in another, would be an object, not of love, but of hate. And it would seem more reasonable to believe that the present condition of things owed its origin to the play of finite and imperfect forces, than to imagine a Being so malevolent as to have brought about the present state of things by His own will, and neither to have designed or permitted a remedy. The festering and seething mass of corruption and crime which is to be found, especially where large companies of men are gathered together; the wretchedness produced by poverty ; the grinding yoke of oppression and misgovernment, foreign or domestic ; the thousand injustices, and unkindnesses, and brutalities practised on men by their fellows, which have made men gnash their teeth in impotent rage and despair ; the anguish of tender women exposed to outrage worse than death ; what an utterly unimaginable sum of intolerable agony is expressed in this ! Add to it the devastations produced by war, with disease and famine following in its train; the fierce passions unloosed by it ; the unbridled ambition of rulers ; the desolation to be found in the track of a devouring conqueror. Add to these acuter miseries still,

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because, if possible, yet more wantonly unjust - the cruel fate of most of the sufferers for conscience sake ; the early Christian martyrs ; the no less to be honoured pioneers of human progress, and especially the earliest advocates of civil and religious liberty : Friar Bacon accused of witchcraft ; Tyndale, to whom, more than anyone else, we owe our English Bible, imprisoned, and finally strangled, for daring to think for himself and encourage others t? do the same ; the martyrs of the Reformation, at home and abroad, immured in dungeons, and finally burnt at the stake ; the martyrs of the Roman reaction, who, whether we agree with them or not, must be admitted to have suffered for conscience sake. Were there no future judgment, no hope that in the end equal justice would be meted out to all, how could we believe in Eternal Good, in a Judge of all the world who could be trusted to "do right" P .And how practise goodness ourselves when the powers of the Universe itself were in league to mock our efforts 1 But, as Bishop Butler has shown, the very order of nature witnesses against such a Âˇcreed. The facts of human life in the present world testify to the existence of forces at work tending to bring about ultimate retribution; only the present world is too contracted a sphere for them to work out their full results. We are irresistibly impelled to the conclusion that there are other fields of existence beyond our ken in which the moral purpose, plainly disclosed here, will attain its fulfilment. 2 Accordingly, we find Butler's conclusions anticipated, though the anticipations were not thought out, like his, in logical form, under the older dispensation. The moral and mental struggles of Abraham and the Psalmist 8 ultimately shaped Âˇ 1 Gen. xviii. 25, 2

Analogy, part i. See also Ps. xxxvii. ; lxxiii,

BUTLER,

PEARSON,

On the Greed, p. 295.

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themselves into the definite conclusions found in Ecclesiastes, in the Book of Danie~ and in the Apocryphal Book of Enoch. 1 The Lord would come to judgment. There were records in which men's good and evil deeds were scrupulously noted down, and a vast concourse of angels and disembodied spirits would be present when final justice was done. And these previsions were definitely ratified by the Revelation of God in Christ. There is to be " a Day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God," a Day "when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ." 2 Of that Day the prophets had frequently spoken beforehand, though it is possible that they themselves had but a limited idea of the scope of their own prophecies. 3 That "Day of the Lord" is the Day when Christ shall judge the world. None of us can escape that judgment. 4 All nations shall be gathered before Him. 5 The angels shall be sent to gather them from the four winds of heaven. 6 The books shall be opened, and every one of us shall be judged according to what those books contain. 7 And the sentence shall be either, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world," or, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels." 8 And "these," we are told, "shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."9 That Christ will return to the earth to execute this judgment we are plainly told. He will "so come in like manner" as "the apostles beheld Him going into heaven," 1 3 4

Eccl. xii. 14; Daniel vii. 9, 10; Jude 14. ~ Rom. ii. 5, 16. !Ra. i-v. ; Joel ii. ; Zeph. i. 15, &c. Rom. xiv. 10 ; 2 Cor. v. 10. 6 Matt. xxiv. 31. Matt. xxv. 32. Of. 2 Thess. ii. i. 8 Matt. xxv. 34, 41. Rev. xx. 12, " Matt. xxv. 46,

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we learn from the Angels' message to them as they gazed on the cloud which hid Him from their sight. 1 He "will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God." 2 And the reason why He "shall so come" is also revealed. He receives authority to execute judgment because He is the (or a) Son of Man." 3 We have already seen that it is only through the union of the Godhead with the manhood that our feeble understandings can approach the mystery of the Being of God. 4 And this truth is the basis of the Revelation of God in Christ from the beginning to the end. We can only understand God's final dispensation of justice when it is administered in a shape in which our limited faculties are capable of apprehending it. It is therefore "by the Man Whom He hath ordained " that He will manifest His "righteousness" in the "judgment of the world." 5 And this is why "the Father" doth not "judge any man, but hath given all judgment unto the Son." 6 The Father's " original, supreme, autocratorical, judiciary power" is " delegated, derived, given by commission," to Christ. 7 And this because the Will of the Father and that of the Son are one, and the human will of Christ is retained in submission to the Divine Will by the union of God and Man in one Person. Thus in the judgment, as in all other of His acts on earth, He comes, not -to do a Will of His own, but "the will of Him that sent Him." 8 3 John v. 27. 1 Thess iv. 16. 6 John v. 22. Acts xvii. 31. 7 PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 297. It is true that the reason given for this in John v. 22 is not precisely the same as that given in the text. But there is no real difference. The Divine powers are given to the Son that He may have equal honour with the Father. But it is only as One "equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead," that lie could in any sense be entrusted with the task of revealing the Father's Will and purpose to man. See John i. 18, and cj. Matt. 8 xi. 25 ; Luke x. 22. John v. 30. 1

Acts. i. 11. Seep. 113.

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But if He come, as Man, to pronounce the Divine judgment upon men, His Presence must be a personal and visible Presence. Some divines have endeavoured to dismiss the idea of the "Great Assize," as it has been sometimes called, and to spiritualize the descriJ;>tions given us in Holy Writ. They refer, it is said, to the fact of Divine judgment, unceasingly pronounced on human actions by the Holy Spirit of God working in and through the human conscience. But it is by no means clear that this explanation satisfies the conditions required by Scripture language. It is quite true that the literal explanation has its difficulties, and that an exaggerated literalism is altogether foreign to the spirit of revealed religion. 1 Yet, on the other hand, we may profitably remember that many of the most minute details of the prophecies concerning our Lord were literally fulfilled, and that our inability to conceive of a literal fulfilment of the prophecies concerning the judgment is no sufficient argument against its possibility, since God '' fulfils Himself in many ways," 2 and He may be able to bring about such a fulfilment by means altogether beyond our power to imagine. At least, it is our duty to note that we are told our Lord will return to the earth; 3 that the judgment will take place while men are living on the earth. 4 It will be a judgment of the living-the "quick "-as well as the dead. 5 Those who are "in the graves shall hear His Voice and shall come forth." 6 Those who are dead shall "rise first," and those who are '' alive and are left shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." 7 Yet though " we shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed," and our natural, 1

J er. xxxi. 33 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27 ; Rom. ii. 29, vii. 6 ; 2 Cor. iii. Idylls of the King. 4 Matt. xxi v. 28 ; Luke xvii 26-30. Acts i. 11. Acts x. 42 ; 2 Tim. iv. i ; 1 Peter iv. 5. 7 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17. John v. 28, 29.

2 TENNYSON, 3 5 6

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or rather psychic, body shall be converted into a spiritual one; our corruptible body shall be replaced by one which knows no corruption. 1 Whether we are entitled to press the literal exactness of every detail given in the Scriptures concerning the Last J udgment may very fairly be questioned; but it may equally be fairly contended that we are not justified in reducing clear and plain statements of Holy Writ to an indefinite spiritualization. We may further do well to bear in mind that to spiritualize properly means to intensify, to render more real; but that in some mouths it is equivalent to a process of evaporation, or explaining away. At least we cannot escape from as much as this : that at some epoch in the future there will be a great Restoration of all things, 2 when the old order, embracing sin and death, shall have passed away, when the Devil, Death, and Hades shall have been cast into the lake of fire, 3 and when righteousness and goodness, purity and truth, shall alone flourish in the eternal kingdom of God. We shall further discuss this question when we are called upon to consider the true nature of " the life of the world to come." For the present we will confine ourselves to a very brief enunciation of the principles on which the Divine Judgment will be pronounced. That judgment, we are told, will be "according to truth." 4 It will be a righteous 1 1 Cor. xv. 42-54. Bishop Pearson discusses the various readings in v. 51. The MSS. are very discordant here. The kindred MSS. N and B are opposed to each other, B supporting the A. V., and N reading "we shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed." A leaves out the "not" altogether. E supports B, and C, F, and G support N. The earliest testimony is that of Tertullian (circ. 200). He clearly read as the Authorised Version does, as Sabatier has noted. But his present text is iii complete contradiction to the obvious drift of the passage. The question will be found fully discussed in the Editions of the Greek Testament issued by Tischendorf (Eighth Edition), and by Westcott and Hort. 3 2 Acts iii. 21. Rev. xx. 10, 14. â&#x20AC;˘ Rom. ii. 2.

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judgment. 1 Drunkenness, violence, malice, dishonesty, will be condemned. Cowardice,2 unbelief, foulness,3 murder, fornication, dealing with occult powers, idolatry and lying, will be utterly banished from God's kingdom. 4 And want of mercy and loving-kindness, 5 as w:ell as mere lip-service, without the devotion of the heart to God's Will, 6 are as alien to the spirit of the eternal kingdom which shall then be fully established. Only those who have striven to have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man 7those who have set before them as an example in all their dealings, the Life and Love of their Master, shall have part or lot in that Blessed Life that knows no end. 8 This doctrine is not only essential to our conception of God as a God of Righteousness ; it is also necessary for our admonition. It is true that " perfect love casteth out fear." 9 But it is also true that fear, as well as love, has its place in the economy of salvation. The reaction from a mode of preaching the Gospel of Christ, which appealed almost entirely, in the first instance, to fear, 10 has tended to obscure the fact that fear cannot be banished from God's dealings with men. In all systems of government by rewards and punishments fear has a place ; and there are hearts so embruted with the indulgence of the passions, so corrupted by the power of evil habits, that fear is the only motive to which, in their case, we can appeal. It were as consistent with mercy and tenderness to point out the inevitable 3 i(j5eXIY}'Âľivo,. 2 /iflX01. Rom. ii. 5. Rev. xxi. 8. Of. Eph. v. 5, where drunkenness comes under the 5 Matt. xxv. 31-46. same condemnation. 6 Matt. vii. 22, 23; Luke xiii. 26, 27. Of. Matt. xxiv. 46-51. 7 Acts xxiv. 16. 9 1 John iv. 18. 8 PEARSON, On the Creed, pp. 294-5. 10 Bishop HARVEY GOODWIN, in reference to this teaching, well says that in the past there has been "too much tendency to regard judgrnent as simply synonymous with vengeance." Foundations of the Creed, p. 236. 1 4

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consequences of the indulgence of evil habits, as to insist either on the beauty of holiness in itself, or the blessings which must, of necessity, fall to his share who follows after it. An exclusive insistence on the Love of God may lull men into indifference, just as an exclusive insistence on God's Wrath may harden them into desperation. The easy gospel of the present age is tending to destroy among us the sense of sin, just as the unmeasured terms in which the Wrath of God used to be proclaimed against all who did not possess the religious sentiment was calculated to evoke a defiant and rebellious spirit. He best reflects the Mind of God who dwells alike, as do the Scriptures, on the warnings and on the promises of God, remembering, however, that under the Law the threatenings preponderated, while the beneficent tidings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has subordinated fear to hope. Lastly, the kingdom of Christ "has no end." This we gather from passages such as Revelation x. 15, xii. 10, xxi. 4, where we are told that the fonner things have an end, but that when the New Jerusalem has come down from heaven, a new condition of things shall commence, of which no end is predicated. It will be a kingdom of Christ which shall endure "unto the ages of the ages," i.e. for ever. Of the nature of our life in that kingdom it does not become us to speak. But we may, with reverence, make mention of one mysterious utterance in connection with it. We are told, in 1 Corinthians xv. 28, that when "the end" is come, when "all rule, and authority, and power" is "put in subjection under Christ's Feet," the Son shall then "also Himself be subjected to Him Who did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all." I have discussed this question with some fulness elsewhere,1 and the only conclusion to which I can come 1

Commentary on 1 Corinthians, Cambridge Bible for Sclwols,

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is that Christ's mediatorial kingdom shall then have come to an end ; in other words, that His mediation, as Man, will no longer be necessary, but that each one of the redeemed shall enjoy the blessed privilege of immediate access to God, by reason of the completeness with which Christ's Humanity has been inwrought into theirs. What shall have become of Christ's Manhood in that Daywhether it shall be at last swallowed up in the Majesty of the Godhead, or whether it shall continue to exist, though it be no longer necessary as the medium of our approach to God, or whether it is destined ultimately to coalesce, in some mysterious way, with our own-it were presumptuous to express an opinion. But the words, " that God may be all in all," clearly imply that each one of us will, in that Day, be finally and irrevocably the temple of the Blessed Trinity-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; that the" Tabernacle of God" will then " be with men; and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself ~hall be with them and be their God ; and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes." 1 1

Rev. xxi 3, 4.

CHAPTER VI. "AND 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."

of the articles in the Creed which relate to THEthe whole Holy Ghost will be treated in a single section, because the order in which they come in the Creed itself is not adapted to the mode of treatment it has been found convenient to adopt in these pages. I. The proofs of the Divinity and Personality of the Holy Ghost have already been given in chap. iii. There is no need, therefore, to enter upon them any further here. II. The next point which demands our consideration is the relation, as involved in the language of Scripture, of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity to the other two. As this is a point on which, for nearly ten centuries, the Eastern and Western Churches have been irreconcilably at variance, it is desirable that it should be treated with some fulness. It was very early in the history of the Christian Church that signs of the approaching conflict began to show themselves. It took its rise from a difference in the way in which the Being of God was apprehended in East and West respectively. The former concerned itself more with the mode of the Divine Being, whether regarded abstractedly, as it was in itself, or as it displayed itself in the relations between the persons in the Sacred Trinity ; 254

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the practical genius of the latter concerned itself chiefly with the fact of God's existence, disregarding the refinements which the philosophical mind of the East-possessing as it did, in the Greek language, an admirable vehicle for the utmost subtlety of thought-was accustomed to indulge. The Latins fixed on the undeniable truth that as the Essence of God was common to each of the three Persons, each must, in some sense or other, partake of the Essence of the other two. And since there was a priority of order, whereby the first two Persons were held to precede the third,1 there must, of necessity, be a communication of Essence from the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost. This fact they held to be supported by the language of Scripture itself, which not only calls the Spirit the Spirit of the Father, but also the Spirit of the Son and the Spirit of Christ. 2 The Easterns, inclined to lay stress on the character rather than on the mere fact of the relations between the three Divine Persons, insisted on the truth that by the very necessity inherent in the nature of things the Father alone could be the source of being, Divine or created; and that therefore the Spirit, though in some sense He might be said to partake of the Essence of the Son, 3 could not be properly said to derive his existence from Him, but only from the Father, the ultimate source (d.px11) of all existence. The difference was aggravated by the difference between the Greek and Latin languages. The former, in speaking of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father, used the word eK1rope-6wÂˇ0a.i (to go forth as from a source), while the Latins used the word procedere, which simply indicates the idea of coming from, without involving any idea 1 It must be carefully borne in mind that no order of time is here meant. 2 Rom. viii. 9 ; Gal. iv. 6 ; 1 Pet. i. 11 ; of Jesus Chrfat, Phil. i. 19; of Jesus, according to a well-supported reading, Acts xvi. 7. 3 "He shall receive of what is Mine." John xvi. 14.

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of origin. 1 The difference was not long in growing more acute. The Latins, determined in every possible way to emphasize the Divinity of the Son, and His perfect equality with His Father, began to teach the doctrine of the Double Procession, as it was called, with considerable emphasis. The Greeks, as rigidly conservative on this point as they had previously been ready to assert their freedom to use language not contained in Scripture when necessary to define an important truth, 2 entrenched themselves stubbornly behind the words of Scripture and the Creed. Cyril of Alexandria, it may be remarked, is the only Eastern Father who at all approximates to the language of the West, so great is the unanimity of Eastern theologians on this point. Jesus Christ Himself, the Easterns said, had spoken of the Spirit as proceeding (eK'rroprn6p,evov) from the Father, and had said nothing about a Procession from the Son, and it were better not to be "wise above what is written." The Creed, moreover, was in their favour. At Nicaea the words stood simply "and in the Holy Ghost." What have come to be regarded as the Constantinopolitan additions, 8 strictly confined themselves ·to Seripture language. ,.?, EK 'TOV 1raTp?is eK1ropev6p,€vov are the original words of the Creed, and up to the present day they are so recited at the altars of the various Oriental Churches. The Latins, however, were not to be so ·bound. In the fierce reaction from the Arianism of the Goths which took place in Spain, the equality of the Son with the Father, it was felt, must be maintained in every possible way. In 589 King Reccared 1 An illustration of the difference may be given thus. A traveller going from Bristol to London may speak of himself as "proceeding" from Swindon to London, though he did not start (h1ropeve<T0a,) from thence. Of course the illustration is most imperfect, but it may assist the student to grasp the point at issue. 2 e.g., in their use of the words Homoousion and Theotokos, 3 Seep. 5,

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of Spain, who had just abjured Arianism, inserted the words Filioque (and from the Son) in his copy of the Nicene Creed, and caused it to be recited thus at the celebration of the Holy Communion. The custom spread from Spain to France. For the present, however,' it attracted but little attention. The Sixth Oecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 682, paid no regard to it, but recited the Creed as it had been handed down. In 809, however, the Emperor Charles the Great, who had assumed the title of Emperor of the West, and desired to play the same part in theological controversy as had been played for centuries by the Emperors of the East, held a Council at Aix-la-Chapelle (or rather Aachen), where the doctrine of the Double Procession was formulated, and supported by the authority of the ancient Fathers. The decrees of the Council were sent to Leo III., the then Pope. The Pope replied with caution and modesty of language, such as bhe Popes seldom condescended to use, but which pmdence iictated in the case of so mighty a potentate as the Emperor Charles. The Pope replied that he could not permit the Creed to be altered, for that nothing ought to be altered in the decisions of a general Council illuminated by the Holy Ghost. As for the doctrine in question, it were doubtful, he added, whether it were desirable to deal with such deep matters in a symbol intended for popular 1se. The question belonged to the deeper and more subtle nysteries of our holy faith (sacrae fidei altiora mysteria, mbtiliora sacramenta), and should be reserved for the ionsideration of those who were capable of entering into ;hem. To bring matters to a point, the Pope caused the Jreed to be engraved on two silver shields, without the :lause Charles had proposed to insert, and he had it mblicly hung up in the most conspicuous place in his )hurch, "pro cautela orthodoxae fidei," as he put it. It s

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might be supposed that the Pope, on a point of this vital kind, must be regarded as speaking ex cathedra, especially as he was supported on this point by the decision of a predecessor. For in 794, at the Council of Frankfort, summoned by Charles the Great in opposition to the decrees of the Seventh Oecumenical Council (as the East and West finally agreed to call it) in regard to image-worship, Charles had previously requested the then Pope, Hadrian I., to insert the words Filioque into the. Creed, and Hadrian had replied that he could not venture to â&#x20AC;˘innovate upon the decrees of the Six: Holy Councils, the last of which had decreed that the Creed in its unaltered condition "was sufficient for the perfect knowledge and confirmation of religion," for that " what it explicitly teaches concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is perfect." Great as are the advantages of the Roman system in the case of those who are willing to pay it implicit obedience, it has nevertheless some inconveniences in the case of those who feel it a duty to use their reason. One of these inconveniences is that it is somewhat difficult to know when the Pope speaks ex cathedra or not. The practical conclusion seems to be that a Pope speaks ex cathedra except when it is more convenient to disavow his utterances, or permit them to be forgotten. In the present case it is apparently desirable that the definite decisions given by Hadrian I. and Leo III. on an important question concerning the faith, as well as the deference paid by the former to the voice of an Oecumenical Council, should be disavowed, or allowed to drop into oblivion. For Nicolaus I., when in controversy with Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople in 867-8, was accused by the latter of teaching. authoritatively the doctrine of the Double Procession. 1 In 1 This controversy is one in which we can sympathize with neither party. Photius, though a man of learning and ability, had been

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878 John VIII., in the desire of reconciliation with the East, once more expressed his willingness to remove the obnoxious words. At last, in 1014, Benedict VIII., in deference to the wishes of the German Emperor, Henry II.,1 permitted the Filioque to be once more recited in the Nicene Creed, and so the custom gradually spread throughout the West. This high-handed proceeding, together with the claims of Rome to universal dominion, compelled the East peremptorily to disown the Papal authority; and in 1054, during the Patriarchate of Michael Cerularius, the Papal legate laid an excommunication on the altar of the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, and the relations thus broken off have never been resumed. So matters remained for centuries. The attention of the leading men of the Reformation period was too much taken up with domestic questions to allow them to give much thought to the then down-trodden and insignificant East. Constantinople had but lately (1453) fallen into the hands of the Turks, and it seemed doubtful at that time whether the Eastern Church could possibly survive such a catastrophe. The Reformers, therefore, accepted the Creed as it had come down to them, though our best Jivines have always admitted that the addition to the Creed was made without proper authority. 2 The revolt, however, which took place in 18 70 against the Vatican decrees, affirming the infallibility of the Pope, has given a new turn to affairs. The Conference at Bonn in 1875, under the presidency of intruded into the patriarchal chair in the place of Ignatius, who had been treated with great cruelty and unfairness. On the other hand Nicolaus I., on being asked to use his influence in favour of right and justice, demanded to be recognized as an infallible judge. 1 In other words, the spiritual head of the Church yielded to the pressure put upon him by a secular potentate to reverse the decisions of his predecessors. Eveu Cranmer himself can hardly have done 2 So PEARSON, On the Greed, p. 326. worse.

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Dr. Von Dollinger, at which a number of distinguished Eastern, Anglican, and Old Catholic theologians were present, drew up, after much discussion, a formula of concord from the works of the great schoolman of the Eastern Church, John of Damascus. The Westerns disavowed the idea of more than one dpx~ ; the Easterns allowed, in the language of one of their greatest divines, that there was a communication of Being from the Son to th~ Spirit. This formula has not been officially accepted by any branch of the Church. But it is noteworthy as marking the turn of the tide which has consistently run for centuries in the direction of division. The Old Catholic Churches, which the rebellion against the Vatican Council called into being, though not formidable in point of numbers, are by no means to be despised in their influence on Christian thought. A.nd in revising the offices of the Roman Church for their own worship in the vernacular, the Swiss Christian Catholic Church has struck out the Filioque altogether from the Nicene Creed, while the Old Catholics of Germany have bracketed it as an unauthorized addition. The consequence is that, by means of the discussions carried on at the International Congresses of Lucerne and Rotterdam, and in the Revue Internationale, great progress has been made towards formal reunion between the Old Catholics and the Orthodox Church. The formula of concord, however, was intended to meet the case of those who, like ourselves, had inherited the Filioque clause, and do not see their way, after so great a lapse of time, to withdrawing it. The formula in question was adopted after much discussion on the respective meanings of eK1ropdmr0ai and procedere, and was intended to enable Westerns to explain an addition, which they admit never ought to haveÂˇ been made, in such a sense as shall not be unacceptable to the soundest theologians in the East.

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It will be convenient, before going further, to state what the doctrine of Scripture appears to be upon this point. First of all, our Lord says that the Spirit proceeds (eK1ropd1ETai) from the Father. 1 But He also tells us that one of the characteristics of the Spirit• when He shall appear shall be the receiving from what is His (eK TOV ep,ov A~Y,€Tat). 2 This would almost certainly include the communication of Being. But the distinction of phrase would exclude the idea of the Son being, in any sense, the ultimate fount of Deity from which the Spirit flows. Further, as the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God, He is also called the Spirit of Christ. 8 This, again, would seem to imply communication of being. But as the Son assumes the name of Christ simply as man, it may be contended that only the communication of Christ's human nature is referred to. But the Spirit is also spoken of as the Spirit of the Son of God. 4 And in this there is no reference to Christ's Manhood. " Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts." Clearly, then, here there is an indication that there is a communication of the Divine Life from the Son to the Spirit. The same inference may be drawn from a comparison of Revelation xxii. 1 with John vii. 38, 39. The "river of water of life" can hardly be any other than the Spirit of God. And it is further described as "proceeding from (eK1roprn6p,£vov eK) the Throne of God and of the Lamb." 5 Then, again, if the Spirit is said, as He frequently is said, to be sent by God, or sent by the Father, He is also said to be sent by the Son. 6 And when the Holy Spirit is described as the Spirit of God, since the Son, as well as the Father, is God, 1

8 5 6

1 John xvi. 14. John xv. 26. 4 Gal. iv. 6. Rom. viii. 9; Phil. i. 1!) ; 1 Peter i. 11. See GrnsoN, The Thirty-Nine Articles, pp. 211, 212. John xv. 26.

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it is clear that a communication of Life from the Son, as well as the Father, is not excluded. Thus, therefore, while we are not entitled to say that there are two sources of the Divine Life, we are not forbidden to teach that the Spirit receives Life from the Son, as well as the Father. It is even permissible to believe that the Spirit derives His Life from the Father through the Son, even as we believe that the worlds were created by the Father through the Son. Thus, when in the Creed, as we at present have it, we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son," we place no other construction upon the words than is agreeable to the teaching of the Universal Church. We do not assert that the Spirit proceeds from the Son in the same way that He proceeds from the Father. All that we mean to say is that He shares in the Essence which proceeds from both. 1 It may be asked, Why enter into these deep and mysterious questions at all, since they are entirely beyond the province of human reason 1 The question will be asked, especially by English laymen, who are impatient of anything in the shape of theological subtleties. The reply is, that in this matter we have not only to consider ourselves, but other people. Our political isolation from other lands may be Âˇa necessity of our position. But we have no right to maintain any longer the isolation from our brethren in Christ, which circumstances have forced upon us during the last three centuries. Eighty millions and more of those brethren resent the inclusion of the Filioque clause in the Nicene Creed, as a badge of servitude in the case of a considerable portion of their number. They have not forgotten -it is doubtful if they will ever forget-the way in which the Pope, with the whole Western Church behind him, tried Âˇ to force them to accept his dictum as the price of Western 1

See also what has been said of the 1r<pLXWP'f/<FLS, p. 101.

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help when Constantinople was hard pressed by the Turks. They have not forgotten how, when these hard and unjust terms were rejected, the Western Church left her Eastern sister to her fate, and that the consequence was the subjection of a vast number of our f~llow Christians to four centuries of hard and degrading slavery under a heathen conqueror. All the minute and nice distinctions of the East, we ought also to remember, have not been unfruitful in practical results. If the West now enjoys the advantage of definite and accurate conceptions of the great doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, it is due to the refining fire of criticism through which the East caused these doctrines to pass. Shall we not respect a sensitiveness on their part which is not unreasonable, and labour, as far as possible, to make it clear to them that if we find it too late now to revise the language of our Creed, we are, at least, anxious to convey to them that we mean nothing by it but what they will cordially approve 1 III. Our next point will be the office of the Holy Spirit. And this may be summed up under three heads-(1) the office of the Holy Spirit in creation; (2) the office of the Holy Spirit before the coming of Christ; and (3) the office of the Holy Spirit after His coming. 1. The first point may be briefly dismissed, though it is not without its importance. We have already seen that the Father created the worlds through the instrumentality of the Son.1 We further find that the Holy Spirit .was also engaged in the task, by " brooding over " 2 the abyss, and bringing out of the formless mass the elements of order and law. 3 We may also see His operation in the breathing the breath of life into man's nostrils, whereby he became a living soul. And we may draw the inference that as He 1 3

See p. 135. Gen. i. 2.

m:i::iir.:,.

CJ. Job xxvi. 13; Ps. xxxiii. 6 (in the original),

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took part in this world's creation, so also He does in its preservation; that the Spirit, or breath, of God is ever active in the evolution of phenomena, dwelling in, and moulding, the visible world, even as He dwells in the living soul of man, though not, as the Pantheists teach, identified with either. The Church of Christ has ever carefully maintained the distinction between the thing created and Him Who created it. 2. Whether the declaration recorded in Genesis vi. 3 is intended to imply that God's Spirit, in consequence of man's sin, ceased to sustain and develop the highest part of man's threefold organization of body, soul, and spirit, and allowed it to degenerate, in all but certain special cases, into a mere rudimentary organ, without any real activity or energy, may-and probably will-be questioned. It is, however, certain that in the ages before Christ, the spiritual condition of the great mass of men-even of those who lived under the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations-was by no means a highly developed condition. The work of the Holy Spirit, then, before the coming of Christ, was confined to keeping alive such a rudimentary sense of God's care and providence, and such a rudimentary consciousness of sin, as could be maintained when the reconciliation between God and man had not as yet been effected. 1 This function, fulfilled by the Holy Spirit, assumed two main forms. The sense of the Divine care and protection was chiefly sustained by prophecy, and the consciousness of sin was sustained by the giving of a Law, and by the witness of conscience-also kept alive by the prophets-to the true character of the institutions which God had given. (a) The value of prophecy may be summed up in the fact that it pointed forward to a coming Deliverer. The Âˇ 1 I am indebted to Professor Bonney for the following comment:" There has been a spiritual as well as a physical evolution, the environment playing the same part in each."

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progress of criticism has shown that . a good deal of the mystic language of the prophets cannot be proved to refer to any events but those of their own time; and the attempt, once so universal, to put strained interpretations on prophetic utterances, must be abandoned. Nevertheless, it is perfectly true that the Holy Ghost "spake by the prophets." As St. Peter tells us, we have a "sure word of prophecy," 1 and "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The appeal throughout the New Testament, sanctioned by our Blessed Lord Himself, is constantly made to the prophets of the older covenant. 2 It will be found convenient, however, to disregard all minor utterances, and to fix our attention on certain main prophetic declarations, which the strongest efforts of the destructive criticism have failed to evacuate of their force. First, there is the striking declaration of Genesis iii. 15, which even later German criticism has assigned to " the oldest book of Hebrew history," and in which the criticism of the future will probably see a tradition handed down from the most remote antiquity, that the "seed of the woman" should some day "bruise the serpent's head." Next we have the promise made unto Abraham, and repeated over and over again to his descendants, that in him " all the families of the earth should be blessed." 8 Then, again, we have the prophecy uttered by Moses, that a prophet like unto himself should be raised up to Israel from among his brethren; that is to say, the founder of a system of doctrine and practice. 4 Side by side with this we find the declaration of Balaam, which appears to have been circulated, not only among the Jews, but among surrounding Eastern nations. 1 2 Peter i. 19, 21. As the context shows, St. Peter was referring to Old Testament prophecy. 2 See St. Matthew, passim, '' that it might l,e fulfilled." 3 Gen xii. 1- 3; xvii. 6-8, &c. 4 Deut. xviii. 15, 18.

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All these prophecies, whatever the date at which they were uttered, were, at least, uttered before the publication of the Christian scheme. Coming down the stream of time, we must not fail to note the prophecies which predict an "everlasting" throne to David-prophecies which, if they do not refer to Christ, have been signally falsified, but which, if the statements in the New Testament are not directly contrary to fact, have been as signally fulfilled.I Parallel with these are the prophetic utterances of the Psalmist regarding the humiliation of Christ, which, unless the testimony of eye-witnesses does not deceive us, have been fulfilled to the very letter. 2 Then we have the remarkable prediction of that humiliation in Isaiah liii., which the ingenuity of modern criticism has exhausted itself in endeavouring to refer to someone or something else, and has utterly failed in the attempt. Then comes the striking prediction of Jeremiah, of a time when the law of God would cease to be written in a code, but would be engraven in the heart and conscience of mankind. 3 A no less important prophecy is found in Ezekiel, which, even if we are forbidden, as the critics would forbid us, to see in Ezekiel xl.-xlviii. a vision of the future spiritualization of the Law, cannot well be interpreted of anything else but the religion of Jesus Christ. I refer to Ezekiel xxxvi. 25-28, in which there is a clear allusion to the dispensation of the Spirit, which was inaugurated "when the day of Pentecost was fully come." With this may also be associated another prophecy in chapter xxxiv., which speaks not obscurely of a covenant of peace, to be inaugurated by the Son of David, even Jesus Christ. The well-known passage in Daniel not only states distinctly the object of Christ's coming, "to make reconciliation for iniquity," and to "cause the" ancient 1 2

e.g., 2 Sam. vii. 12-16; Ps. lxxxix. 36, 37. 3 Jer, xxxi. 31-34. e.g., Ps. xxii.18; lxix. 21.

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"sacrifice and oblation to cease," but it fixes so accurately the date of His coming, that, as we have already seen,1 the whole East was ablaze with expectation at the very moment when Christ's Gospel was proclaimed. 2 We may refer once more to the prophecy of Haggai, that the glory of the second Temple should exceed that of the former, 3 and connect it with that of Malachi, that the Lord should " suddenly come to His Temple," and that He should be the "Sun of Righteousness," Who should "arise, with healing in His wings," and should "purify the sons of Levi," so that they might "offer to Jehovah an offering in righteousness." 4 Such, in brief-though it may be almost indefinitely expanded-is the witness of the SpiTit of prophecy, which kept alive, in the darkest days, the hope that a Redeemer would " come to Zion," and that the " ransomed of the Lord should return" thither " with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads"; that they should "obtain joy and gladness," and that "sorrow and sighing" should "flee away." 5 (b) We have next to consider the means provided for keeping alive the witness of conscience under the older covenants. In the earliest days there was no organized system of moral teaching. The conscience of mankind, though as yet undeveloped, was certainly at work in primitive ages. The account of the Fall, whether we regard that account as literal or figurative, unquestionably recognizes a voice of God speaking to the heart of man. Priinitive man and woman, we find from the narrative of the Fall, were not unacquainted with self-reproach and shame. 6 The conscience of the first murderer was still more deeply stirred by those feelings. 7 But the tendency of the vast increase of crime among mankind was to deaden the voice 1

Seep. 119. 2 Dan. ix. 24-27. 3 Hag. ii. 8. 6 Gen. iii. 8, 10. Is. xxxv. 10.

4 7

Mal. iii. 1 3; iv. 2. Gen. iv. 13, 14.

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of conscience. Henceforth we hear but little of its influence, save among the members of the chosen race. A dull, unutterable dissatisfaction with things as they were, sometimes flashing up into fierce indignation, and as often sinking into blank despair, appears to have settled down upon the races of mankind, until the truth began gradually to radiate forth from those who enjoyed the blessings of revelation. But in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants, it would appear that the Spirit had not ceased to strive. Something like the sensitiveness to the voice of that inward monitor, possessed in these days by every Christian who does not purposely stifle it, seems to have been theirs. When the Law had been given by Moses, a more distinct manifestation of the inward voice was possible. Henceforth there were "commandments, statutes, and judgments" to which to appeal, and a sense of sin was aroused in those who disobeyed them. The warnings and threatenings recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy were intended to sharpen this sense of responsibility; and on that ground all subsequent appeals and censures were based. The angel at Bochim, 1 the subsequent prophetic rebukes under the Judges,2 the arraignment by Samuel of assembled Israel, 3 all show the value of Israelite institutions in informing and developing the power of conscience. It may be remarked, in passing, that the Jewish and Christian systems appear almost unique in the possession of an order of men whose business it was to appeal "to the Law and to the Testimony," 4 and thus to arouse a sense of sorrow for past guilt, and a desire for amendment. The monarch on his throne was sternly confronted by the words, "Thou art the man," and compelled to utter the confession, "I have sinned against 1 Judges ii. 1-5. s 1 Sam. xii.

Judges vi. 7-10; x. 11-14. Isa. viii. 20.

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Jehovah." 1 And the whole nation repeatedly stood at the bar of God's judgment, as prophet after prophet, from Isaiah to Malachi, contrasted the righteous Law of God with the conduct of those to whom that Law had been given. 2 The prophetic office, under the old dispensation, must not be confounded with that of the priests. The duty of the latter was the formal one of carrying out the prescribed ritual. We never find Aaron and his descendants undertaking the moral instruction of God's people. Only twice do we find the priestly and prophetic office combined-under Samuel and under Ezra. In the case of the former there is ground for believing that the priestly office, for some reason or other, was in abeyance, and that its duties were discharged by Samuel the Prophet until the High Priest's functions could be revived. 8 In the case of Ezra we find that civil functions, as a temporary governor, were assigned to him by the Persian monarch ; and, moreover, the return from the Captivity was a time when the Jews had become profoundly impressed with the truth that the performance of the ceremonial of the Law was valueless in God's sight without the practice of its moral precepts. Only once in Jewish history do we find the High Priest withstanding the monarch to his face, and that was not on a question of conduct, but of ritual observance. 4 Another point must not be omitted, the 2 Sam. xii. 7. No more typical example of the nature of those rebukes can be found than in the opening chapters of Isaiah, where the principle is enforced that even obedience to the letter of God's commandments is valueless in His sight, unless their spirit is borne in mind. CJ. 1 Sam. . xv. 22; Jer. vii. 22, 23; Hos. vi. 6; Micah vi. 6-8. 3 I have given my reasons for this conclusion in Lex Mosaica, pp. 263 sqq. 4 2 Chron. xxvi. 18. Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, however (if he were the High Priest, as seems probable), denounced the idolworship of Jehoash. See 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, 1

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in definiteness and elevation of the testimony of the prophets to the true character of the moral principles enshrined in the Law. It is true that our conceptions of the nature and process of this growth have been thrown into much confusion by recent theories on the evolution of Mosaic institutions. It is not our place to anticipate here the verdict of modern criticism. But we may venture to record our conviction that the Scripture records, as they stand, enable us to arrive at a more consistent and coherent conception of that development, than one which inverts the Scripture order. In the one we have, first, the institutions themselves, and then their gradual expansion and spiritualization. In the other we have an unknown and undescribed germ of institutions to come, and, after a course of development not very clearly defined, we arrive at last at the institutions themselves in their complete form, as well as at thei_r spiritual application to the moral needs of man. The former view derives support from the fact that it corresponds precisely to the phenomena of moral and religious development in the Christian Church. But whatever theory of development we adopt, all Christians are agreed that previous to the coming of Christ there was a progressive education of man, and that in this education, the work of the prophetic order was a most important factor. Thus, alike in announcing the coming of the Deliverer, and in quickening man's sense of his need of deliverance, the Holy Spirit of God "spake by the prophets." But the prophet derived his mission from no system of human descent or human appointment, but simply from the voice of the Spirit within. That voice might be, and often was, simulated by impostors. 1 In that case the only appeal was to the verifying faculty possessed by every man who exercised aright the powers he had gradual growth

1 Kings xxii. 11 ; Jer. xxviii, 1-4,

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received from God, or to the miraculous attestation which God Himself was often pleased to give to the word of His servant. 1 And so the Light of God's truth was handed down through the ages. The "word of prophecy," whether in foretelling things to come, or in, throwing a Divine light on the things that were, was a "sure word." No genuine prophecy was, or could be, of any "private interpretation," but "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 2 3. We have, lastly, to deal with the work of the Holy Spirit under the new Covenant. That work has been specially defined as sanctification. The menibers of the Christian Church, we are repeatedly told, are "called to be saints," 3 i.e., holy persons-persons who are to endeavour to purify themselves from the pollutions of the world, and to conform themselves to the Image of Him Who has redeemed them, as displayed to the world in His Life as Man. 4 "As He Who hath called you is holy, be ye also holy in all manner of conversation." 5 The Spirit of God, called indiscriminately in Scripture the Spirit of holiness, or the Holy Spirit, is the instrument by which this work is performed in us. 6 Thus more than once our sanctification is called "sanctification of the Spirit," which clearly means sanctification through His operation. 7 Nor is this sanctification simply accomplished by His bringing to our minds the teaching and example of Christ, though this, unquestionably, 1

2 2 Pet. i. 21. Jer. xxviii. 17. Rom. i. 7, as well as the opening of St. Paul's other Epistles. 4 1 Cor. xi. 1 ; 1 Thess. i. 6. 5 1 Peter i. 15 ; cf. 2 Peter ii. 1 I. 6 Bishop PEARSON (On the Greed, p. 326) gives us a salutary caution here. "Now, when I speak of the office of the Holy Ghost, I do not understand any ministerial office or function, such as that of the created angels is.... But I intend thereby whatsoever is attributed to Him peculiarly in the salvation of man, as the work wrought by Him, for which He is sent by the Father and the Son." 7 2 Thess, ii. 13 ; 1 Peter L 2. 3

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is included in His W ork. 1 But our sanctification is brought about by His communication to us of the Life of the Eternal Son. This view of the operation of the Spirit in the work of our salvation has been very much kept in the background for centuries. By the majority it is but dimly perceived Few theologians, until very lately, have even now. definitely and clearly laid it down as a necessary basis alike of Christian dogma and Christian morals. It is not, indeed, directly asserted in the Scriptures. But it is obviously implied in some very crucial passages in the New Testament. That Christ is the New Man, the Second Adam, the second source of human life to the whole human race, is now clearly grasped by the majority of our authorized teachers ; and we know that by this new Life alone are we enabled truly to live. But by what instrumentality is that Eternal Life imparted 1 The answer is, by the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit. "He that hath the Son hath the life," no doubt. But the Son is pleased to communicate that Life to us by His Spirit. He is not only "the Lord," but the "Life-giver." Even when that Life is first communicated to us, it is by the Spirit that it is done. What in theological terminology is termed "grace," is spoken of in the New Testament as the indwelling of the Spirit. 2 We are "born" (or begotten) "again by water and the Spirit." 3 If Jesus Christ saves us "by His mercy," it is by means of "a font of regeneration" (second birth or begetting) "and renewal by the Holy John xiv. 26. â&#x20AC;˘ Canon BRIGHT, in his Lessons from the Lives of Three Great Fathers, p. 163, says that the term "infusion of grace" is "merely a convenient theological expression for the Personal action of the Divine Paraclete." The convenience may be doubted. It is surely, extremely inconvenient to throw into the shade in this way what ought to be brought out into the fullest light, a John iii. 5. 1

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Ghost." 1 If the result of our having been baptized into the Body of Christ is such that, in a sense, the members of that Body are identified with the Personality of the Source of its renewed life, 2 it is "by one Spirit" that this is done. 8 If we have access to the Father through Jesus Christ, it is, once more, " by one Spirit" that this access is obtained. Even the offering of the human life of Christ upon the Cross was, in some mysterious way, made in union with the operation of the Divine Spirit 4so mysterious is the result of the truth that it is One Life which is common to all the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity-so deep the inward unity, that what is done by each is, nevertheless, in some way that transcends our capacities, done by all. And so He sets His seal to the Purpose of the Father, and the Mission of the Son, by bringing the hearts of men into conformity with that Purpose and that Mission. At first simply as the "earnest" of what is to come, but afterwards in a degree ever increasing according to the measure of our faith, He fills each believer "with the fulness of God." 5 All the gifts of our restored moral nature come from Him. 6 It is He Who delivers us from the bondage of the flesh, which brings about corruption, and translates us into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 7 Thus He assures us of our Divine Sonship, and the Divine indwelling, and witnesses in our spirit that we are the children of God. 8 The unutterable and unuttered groanings of the anguished human soul, while as yet it is scarcely able to realize the blessed hopes to which it has become an heir, are also His work. 9 He grants us an insight 1

2 "So also is Christ." 8 1 Cor. xii. 13. Titus .iii. 5. Heb, ix. 14. I cannot see, with some commentators, how Christ's human spirit can be regarded as "eternal." 6 Gal. v. 22. 5 Eph. iii. 16--19. 7 Rom, viii. H. 9 Rom. viii. 26. 8 Rom viii. 16. 4

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into the Divine mysteries into which His Divine Essence enables Him to penetrate. 1 Even our intellect is exalted by His illumination. For by Him are revealed things which the natural (or rather psychic) man is unable to perceive. 2 And if the things of Divine Revelation are. made clear to us, it is by His operation. He enables us to strip off the husk and penetrate to the kernel. He delivers us from bondage to the letter, and translates us into the freedom which He alone can give. No longer subject to a code of written regulations, "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not," the illuminated intellect and heartÂˇ of man perceives at a glance the path of duty. The ancient sta_tutes remain as a witness to the truth, to prevent us from mistaking the spirit of licence for the Spirit of Freedom. But they are transfigured with a lustre which is not naturally their own-the Light which streams from the Face of Christ. That Light is transmitted by His Spirit to the hearts of those who fain would gaze on Him, until the face of the believer on earth begins to glow with a brightness which comes from heaven, and he becomes conformed more closely, each day and each hour, to the Image of the Divine Master. 3 Nor is this all. Even the Resurrection for which we hope shall be effected by the Spirit. He is Life because of Righteousness. And He shall quicken our mortal bodies by His Divine indwelling. 4 All this is summed up in a title which the Spirit shares with the Son-that of Paraclete. 5 Originally meaning one 2 1 Cor. ii. 9-16. 1 Cor. ii. 11. Such is evidently the drift of the heart-stirring third chapter of St. Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians. It must, of course, be remembered that it is not the actual, but the ideal, condition of man which is spoken of, in accordance with the constant practice of_ St. Paul and St. John; e.g., in Rom. vi. 3-8, 22; Col. iii. 3; 1 John iii. 9. This ideal state of things is largely conditioned in fact by human infirmity and lack of living faith. 4 Rom. viii. 11. â&#x20AC;˘ John xiv. 16, 26; xv, 26; xvi. 7. 1

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summoned to our side to aid us, and thence an Advocate, the Gospel of Christ has expanded its signification. The Paraclete does not merely plead for us; He enables us to plead for ourselves. Over and above the conception of the Divine grace or assistance, which is' given to us whenever we ask it, the word Paraclete suggests to us One who is ever by our side to give us the aid we need. Nay, He is not merely by us, He is in us; and by His Presence within, which moulds our thoughts, our acts, our life, He is redeeming us from sin, and bringing us into conformity with the One Sacrifice once offered for the sins of the whole world. That Sacrifice is first offered by us in will and desire ; and, by the Father's love, our as yet imperfect will is taken for the deed, our unconsummated sacrifice is accepted in consequence of our faith in the Sacrifice of Christ. Son and Spirit alike dwell in us by faith. At first they intercede for us in the groans and confessions of our burdened and struggling souls. 1 In the end they present to the Father the perfect sacrifice of a reconciled soul and spirit, irrevocably united to, and interpenetrated with, the all-prevailing Sacrifice of the Man Christ Jesus. One other point remains for us to touch upon-the informing voice of the Spirit in the Church. Our Lord, in - His discourse concerning the coming Paraclete, and the way in which He would carry on the work of salvation after Jesus was ascended into the heavens, said, " When He is come, He will guide you in all the truth." 2 The word here used-6o'7r1cr.i-is worthy of special notice. Not only will guide, but will lead you along a way. And not only, be it further observed, into or unto (Els), but in (ev) all the truth. That is to say, He Who is truth is with the Church from the beginning. The "truth," as it "is in Jesus," 3 has been revealed to us by Him in all its fulness. No further 1

Rom&ns ix. 26.

John xvi. 13.

Eph. iv. 21,

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revelation of God's Will can ever be needed. Jesus Christ and His Spirit spake to, and revealed things Divine to, His holy apostles and prophets. 1 But our comprehension of that revelation is gradual and progressive. This is inevitable from the nature of things. Man's understanding is imperfect, his heart corrupted, his will enfeebled. And the imperfection of each part of his complex being reacts upon the rest. It stands to reason, therefore, that only by slow degrees can he attain to the full understanding of the mystery of God in Jesus Christ. We have, it is true, an infallible guide, Who will, if we listen to His Voice, preserve us from all fundamental or soul-destroying error. But we are incapable as yet of comprehending all He would say to us. As the Church grows in moral wisdom and stature, as each humble, sincere, and candid investigator into things Divine brings his contribution to the general store of knowledge of God's ways, so does the whole body take progressive steps in the path of spiritual enlightenment. The Church must not expect, or pretend, to be able at"any given moment to pronounce an infallible judgment on all the questions which demand an answer. She must be content to wait until, in God's good time, all shall be made clear. Meanwhile each one of her members possesses the inestimable privilege of the indwelling Spirit. Each one, if he use that gift aright, will be enabled to do something toward the increase-or, at the very least, the diffusion-of our comprehension of things unseen. Premature decisions on difficult or doubtful points are, above all things, to be deprecated. The Church of one age-the fundamental principles of the faith being once secured-has no right to fetter the development of thought in the Church of another. It is by a "free Spirit " that the Church of God is to be "stablished." 2 "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, 1

Eph. iii. 5,

Or 'Âˇupheld."

Ps. li.12,

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there is liberty." 1 We are freed by the Christian dispen sation from the bondage of the letter - from - articles, subscriptions, or formulae,2 and, with the reservation already made, are to look to the power of an inward working which shall remove all doubts, and clear, up all difficulties. Not - that each man can pretend, as some most unfortunately have done, that all this inward light is given to him individually. Each member of the body, as has been said, may, if he will use his powers aright, contribute to the common store. And to the rest of us is vouchsafed a verifying faculty, provided we know how to use, it, which will enable us to "test the spirits," 3 and to incorporate each genuine addition to our knowledge of God's ways in the Church's treasurehouse of doctrine. But this verifying faculty must be used according to the laws prescribed for it, or it will be of little use to us. The more completely impatience, and prejudice, and misrepresentation, and violence, and dogmatism, and self-sufficiency are replaced by humility, and candour, and patience, and willingness to look at truth from more than one side, the more rapid will be the growth of the Church in her comprehension of the mysteries of God. It may be humbly hoped that we are on the threshold of a new era in these matters. It does seem as if men were growing more anxious to understand one another than they were ; as if the desire for victory in religious controversy were being replaced by the search for truth. This is the way which our Lord Jesus Christ pointed out to us-the only way, it may be added-in which His Spirit can possibly "guide us in the truth." "If any man desire to do His Will, he shall know concerning the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether 2 Cor. iii. 17. It is not contended that these can never be useful "for the present necessity." And of course, from what has been before said, it will not be supposed that all Creeds, however ancient and however funda8 1 John iv. 1. mental, are included in this statement. 1

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I speak of Myself." 1 The only way to know the Will of God is to set ourselves earnestly to do it. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." 2 We must be "rooted and grounded in love" if we desire to "apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height." We must "know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge" if we would be "filled unto all the fulness of God." 3 Thus, then, each Person in the Blessed Trinity has His own special function in the world in which we Jive. It is the Father's prerogative to originate, the Son's to reveal, the Spirit's to effect the Eternal Purpose of God, which He purposed before the world began. In reference to this, we may use an illustration which, anterior to the discovery of the undulatory theory of light, might seem to savour of Sabellianism, but which now may safely be employed. The light of the sun may be regarded from a threefold point of view. There is that light as it subsists in itself, in the sun; there is the beaming forth (&1ra6ya<Tp,a) of that light to illuminate the worlds around; and there are the effects of that light, as they are displayed in the phenomena of the visible world, in the growth of vegetation, and in the thousand other complex influences exerted by light which -science has made known, and is still making known to us. 4 And these last are no mere emanations, which may be 1

2 Rom. viii. 9. John vii. 17. Eph. iii. 17-19. It is the want of comprehension of this truth which is responsible for so much that is painful and perplexing in the history of the Church. 4 Professor Bonney suggests the following as an alternative : There is (a) the source of the undulations; (b) the undulations themselves, passing through space, and illuminating the material bodies they meet; and (c) the effects of these undulations on the bodies with which they come in contact. The undulations cannot be perceived until they impinge on a material body. So God could not be apprehended by us until He became Man. 3

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resumed at pleasure by the central luminary. They are actual properties of light itself, which are absolutely necessary to a true conception of its nature. So, too, the prerogatives of origination, communication, and action are all essential to the true idea of , God. Nor, though we may regard each of them separately, can we dissociate any one of the three from the other two. Each of them is inconceivable without the other. It is One Essence which underlies ÂŁhem all. And so the Christian Church has ever believed in a Father Who creates, a Son Who redeems, and a Holy Ghost Who sanctifies,1 and rejoices in the conviction that by the Will of the Three Persons, One Very and Eternal God, a " people of His own possession " has been consecrated to His service, 2 in " sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." 8 1 " What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy belief! First, I learn to believe in God the Father, Who made me and all the world; secondly, in God the Son, Who redeemed me and all mankind; thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, Who sanctifieth me and all the elect people of God." -Church Catechism,. 2 Tit. ii. 14 ; 1 Pet. ii. 9. 3 2 Thess. ii. 13.

CHAPTER VII. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH " I BELIEVE IN ONE CATHOLIC AND

APOSTOLIC

CHURCH ; 1 I

ACKNOWLEDGE ONE BAPTISM FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS "

SECTION

ON THE CHURCH OF CHRIST

duty, under this article, will be to ascertain OURthe first meaning of the word "Church." In Greek it is eKKA1J<rta (Lat. ecclesia), which literally means what is called out of something else; and, therefore, many writers have explained the word to mean persons called out of a sinful world. But the word eKKA1Jcr[a is used in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament as equivalent to the Hebrew ,iii', which simply signifies an assembly. And in many other authors it has the simple sense of a number of persons called together. Therefore it may be best not to insist on the former sense, though it is doubtless in accordance with the facts, but to regard the word Âˇ Church as simply meaning the assembly of faithful believers in Christ. 2 We have next to inquire what are the characteristics of this society. It was described prophetically in 1 The word "holy" (a-ylav) is also found in the Nicene Creed, as recited at the Council of Chalcedon, but is omitted in our present English Prayer Book, apparently by accident. 2 See PEARSON'S Note on the meaning of tKKA7J<Tla. Our own English word Church has been supposed by some to be derived from 280

'.!'HE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

281

the Book of Daniel as '' a stone made without hands," which would destroy the great world-empires of the prophet's day, and would establish a kingdom of God in their stead; 1 and whensoever and by whomsoever the Book of Daniel was written, we have ,unquestionably before us in this passage a prophecy which has been fulfilled. Our Lord Himself speaks of His Church as a Kingdom, and under many figures, too numerous to mention in an elementary work of this kind, He has described the characteristics of the Kingdom whose foundations He was then laying. 2 He has spoken of it as a Kingdom of Heaven and as a Kingdom of God. These ph~ases imply, as indeed He Himself has told us, that it is a Divine Kingdom, yet not a Kingdom of this world, but one which was "within us " ; 3 that is to say, it is not so much an authority which imposes regulations from without, as one which controls the human conscience by influences from within. This is a point of view which the authorities of the Church have scarcely borne sufficiently in mind; and yet it is confirmed by the whole drift of the Christian Scriptures, which describe Christ as having come forth from the Father in order, no doubt, to gather together a society whose fundamental object should be obedience to God, but as imposing on that society no code of external regulations, but, on the contrary, as subjugating the hearts KvpiaKos, an adjective formed from Kvp1os, and by others to be kindred with circle, and to mean a sacred enclosure. "KVp1os, the Lord, and that properly Christ, from whence Kvp,o.Kos, belonging to the Lord Christ; oiKos Kvp10.Kos, the Lord's House, from thence Kyriac, Kyrk, and Church."-PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 335. 1 Dan. ii. 34, 44. â&#x20AC;˘ e.g., Matt. xiii. throughout; xviii. 23-35; xx. 1-16; xxii. 1-14, &c. 3 Luke xvii. 21, lvrbs uÂľ.wv. This may be translated "among you"; but the whole drift of the Christian Script_ures supports the other translation.

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and consciences of its members by the power of His Spirit. The society thus formed is called in the Scriptures the "Body of Christ." 1 It is represented as deriving nourishment by "joints and bands" from Christ, its Head. 2 The individuals who compose it are called His members. 3 Under a somewhat different figure Christ is described as the Vine, and the members of His Church as the branches. 4 Or, again, the Church is described as a building, of which Christ is the foundation, 5 or as a house or temple inhabited by Him. 6 This close mutual relation between Christ and His disciples is yet again described under the figure of a Bridegroom and a Bride.7 These various figures are used to illustrate the fact that a new and spiritual life is derived from Christ to every member of His Church. 8 That life is imparted through the agency of the Holy Spirit. 9 It consists in the perfected humanity of Christ Himself, spoken of by St. John as His "Flesh and Blood"; 10 and so closely are the Divinity and Humanity united in Him, that one Apostle speaks of Christians as "partaking of the Divine Nature." 11 This supernatural life has a beginning. That is to say, before it can be ours, there must have been a new birth (or begetting) when it was 1 Eph. i. 23, iv. 12, v. 23, 30 ; Col. i. 18, 24. Of. also 1 Cor, xii._ 12. 2 Eph. iv. 16 ; Col. ii. 19. 3 Rom. xii. 5 ; 1 Cor. vi. 15, xii. 12 ; Eph. v. 30. 4 John xv. CJ. the" good olive tree," Rom. xi. 17. 5 1 Cor. iv ll. The Apostles are also, in a subsidiary sense, spoken of as foundations. See 1 Cor. iv. 10; Eph. ii. 20. 6 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; 2 Cor. vi. 16; Eph. ii. 22; 1 Tim. iii. 15; 2 Tim. ii. 20, &c. 7 This figure is not confined to the New Testament. See Ps. xlv.; Is. liv. 5; Jer. ii. 2, iii. 8, 14, 20; Ezek. xvi. 8, xxiii. 4, &c.; and the Song of Solomon. 8 John iii. 5, vi. 35, 48, 51-58; Rom. vi. 23; Eph. iv. 15, 16; 1 John v. 11, 12, &c., &c. 10 9 See chap. v. 11 ~ Peter i. 4. John vi. 51-57.

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first imparted. It is, moreover, a continuous life. It has its means of nourishment : namely-prayer, the study of God's Will, 1 and, above all, the reception of Holy Communion. This Body is sometimes identified with Christ Himself, by virtue of His indwelling in the soul of every individual member of it. 2 For its fundamental characteristic is the interior possession, by each member of it, of the life of Christ-a possession realized by faith-through which the Church, or Body of Christ, becomes an organic whole. 3 Each member of that Divine Society receives a direct and continuous communication of Life from Christ, and is united in the closest ties of love and brotherhood with every other member of the Body. It may, therefore, be described as the aggregate of persons in whom Christ dwells by His Spirit. 4 We shall naturally, from this point of view, be prepared to find the Church described as one. 1 Matt. iv. 4. This need not be exclusively confined to the study of Holy Scripture, but embraces every sincere attempt to ascertain for oneself the Divine mode of dealing with mankind. 2 1 Cor. xii. 12. 3 Canon GORE (Bampton Lectures, p. 219), from this point of view, calls the Church the '' extension of the Incarnation." 4 It is the feeble grasp people in general have on this fundamental fact of our religion-the transmission of Christ's life by the Spirit to each me~ber of the Church (see pp. 166-172)-which leads to such singular perversions of the language of Scripture as are, unhappily, common among us. If any ordinary Christian is asked for an explanation, for instance, of the meaning of the phrase, '' eating Christ's Flesh, and drinking His Blood," he will be found, in many cases, to resort to the most extraordinary non-natural interpretations of his Master's language. Some will tell you that it means " belief in the efficacy of His Sacrifice," or "belief in His Death on the Cross," or "belief that through His Sufferings and Death we have eternal life," or that "if we live on Christ by faith we may be said to feed 011 Him." We are told that we "do not literally partake of Christ's Flesh and Blood "-thus directly contradicting His Words, and those of the Church Catechism (if by "literally" is meant really)-or that to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood is to "partake of His Holy Word,

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"There is one Body and one Spirit," says St. Paul, 1 and he continually impresses this truth on our minds. 2 It is a direct consequence of the fact that our One Lord, even Christ, vouchsafes to take up His abode in us. But while holding fast to this fundamental doctrine, it is necessary to distinguish between the Church in its ideal, and the Church in its actual condition. Sufficient attention has not beenÂˇ and to do all in our power to strengthen our spiritual life." So, again, we find people substituting "grace" or " strength" for Christ's own Personal Presence, promised repeatedly in His Holy Word. All these explanations have been given to the writer by persons who had received more or less careful religious training. Of c;iourse the eating of Christ's ma-terial Body and Blood is not 'meant in St. John vi., nor are we taught that such eating could do us any good if it had been meant. The feeding on Christ is, of course, carried on through the spirit of man, not through his physical organs. (See John vi. 63.) But it is the denial, or evasion, of the fact that we do truly, really, and literally partake of the Glorified human, and even the Divine, Nature of our Ascended Lord, which leads, on the one hand, to such a lamentably low standard of Christian life, and, on the other, by a natural reaction, to those carnal and Capharnaite conceptions of Christ's Presence in the Eucharist, which tend to "overthrow the natnre of a Sacrament," and to substitute the idea of a Body of Christ, locally present in the elements, for that of Christ making a perpetual communication of Himself to the spirit of man through the various means which He has sanctified for the .purpose. For we cannot, of course, commit ourselves to the assertion that Christ has no other means than the Sacraments of conveying Himself to the heart and spirit of man. Such a view would be in direct conflict with the whole spirit and tenor of Holy Writ. But what is meant is that we do really, truly, and literally receive the Divine Humanity' of Christ in our spirits, and that without such communication to us of the Life of Christ there could be no salvation. The present age sorely needs the grasp on the effects of the Incarnation displayed by the great Athanasius and his contemporaries and successors. 1 Eph. iv. 4. 2 See Rom. xii. 4, 5; 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13; Eph. iv. 16; Col ii. 19; iii. 15. Also John x. 16, xvii 20, 23 ; 1 Cor. i. 10; Eph. i. 10, ii. 15, 16, v. 25-30; Phil. i. 27; iii. 16, &c.

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paid to the fact that in the New Testament the ideal condition of the Church is usually set forth, whereas in practice we are compelled to make many deductions from that sublime ideal on account of human infirmity-of that " infection of nature which doth r~main; yea, even in them that are regenerate.'' 1 Ideally, every member of the Church . is united to Christ and to his brethren " in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity." One faith only is professed by all-a faith that "worketh by" a perfect mutual "love.'' But when we come down to the realities of life, we find a very different state of things. We find not only that the Church is "by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed," but that there is no such thing as perfect union between its members. Even in the Church of Rome-that particular branch of the Church in which an external and uniform discipline is most rigidly enforced as a first condition of membershipthe internal unity postulated by the Saviour's prayer, "that they may be one, asÂˇ We are," 2 is very far from being secured. On the contrary, mutual jealousy, suspicion, and ill-will between individuals are found to at least as great an extent in that particular portion of the Church as in any other. The promised Unity was no doubt preserved for a short time when~ the number of Church members was small, and their new-born zeal at its height. Then, we 1 Art. IX. In the same way many difficulties have been raised in consequence of the passages in the New Testament which relate to the individual in his ideal state. Thus St. John, speaking of the believer in his ideal relation to God, says (1 John iii. 9), "Whosoever hath been begotten of God doeth no sin . . . he cannot sin, because he hath been begotten of God." But when he speaks of our actual present state he says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." (Chap. i. 8.) Of. also such passages 11,s Rom. vi, 1-11; Gal. ii. 19, 20, iii. 27; Col. iii. 3, 9, 10, &c, 2 John i.vii. 22,

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read, they who believed were "of one heart and of one soul," 1 and this unity of spirit was evidenced in the community of goods. 2 But as the Church spread to other lands, the feeling of brotherhood of necessity grew weaker, and human selfishness soon relaxed the bonds of Christian love. At the same time, the Christian Church has never ceased, through all the centuries, in spite of human imperfection, to be a force making for union among men ; and never was that force so strongly felt as it is at the present time. Notwithstanding the inconsistency and indifference of her nominal members, there have been in every age those who have honestly endeavoured to preserve "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." And the earnest and increasing longing for unity among Christians at the present time is an evidence that the " One Spirit" is still working among those who have received the "One Baptism," and who profess the "One Faith "-the "faith once for all delivered to the saints "-and that He will bring us all some day into the " One Fold" of Him Who "is over all, and through all, and in us all." 8 Nor should we confine our thoughts to a mere ecclesiastical unity.Âˇ We should also bear in mind that the more loving, gentle, considerate spirit which is growing among us-the greater regard for the rights of the poor and weak-the greater hatred of cruelty, of brutality, of war-these are signs of the unifying presence of the Spirit of Christ among us. And the purer the form of Christianity professed, the more 1

Act.~ iv. 32. Gf. ii. 44. This is the idea embodied in the words, "the Communion of the Saints," in the Apostles' Creed, i.e., the fellowship of all who "profess and call themselves Christians." We cannot enter further here into the doctrines of modern Christian Socialism, except to Âˇ remark that the spirit which dictated that community of goods is 11s necessary now as ever it was. 3 Jude 3; Eph. iv. 4-6; John x. 16, 2

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distinct will be the evidence ofÂˇ that Presence in the manifestation of a sober, orderly, peaceful, and compassionate spirit throughout civil society. The Church again is Holy. Here, again, we must distinguish between the ideal and , the real holiness of the Church. Ideally, every member of the Church is united by faith to the perfect Humanity of Christ, and is therefore cleansed from sin; and every thought and imagination of his heart is brought into subjection to the Will of Christ. In reality, the weakness of our faith and of our will prevents each one of us from reaching the level of that high ideal. It is, no doubt, the goal to which a vast number of us are tending, but it cannot be said to be the actual condition into which each one of us has as yet been brought. The Church here below is the Church militant. The Church triumphant is yet to be revealed. Absolute holiness cannot be predicated of any one of us until the struggle with sin is over. "Called with a holy calling," 1 we certainly all of us are. It may be hoped that very many of us may be truly described as striving after holiness. But the Church militant can no more be described as actually holy than actually one. It can only be said that as the centuries roll on she is gradually approaching nearer to the ideal which has been set before her in the life and teaching of her Lord. It is somewhat strange that so many have supposed that the unity of the Church is more necessary to be realized in practice than its holiness. That one faith was handed down from the very first, contained in the Christian Scriptures, and formulated in the Christian Creeds, is undoubtedly the fact. But that it is any more necessary for the Church built on that faith to have maintained her external unity than her internal purity, is a proposition which seems hardly self-evident. I ~

Tim. i. 9.

CJ. Eph. iv. 1, 4; Phil. iii. 14; Heh.

iii. 1.

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The divisions of the Church are no more incompatible with her existence than are the sins of the Church. Of both of them it may be said, "An enemy hath done this." (Matt. xiii. 28.) But the Church, though marred by his work, is not destroyed. Of the Church of Christ as a whole, it may be said, as St. Paul said of himself, and as every consistent member of the Church may also say, that she "counteth not herself yet to have apprehended, but this one thing she doeth, forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forward to the things that are before, she presseth on toward the goal, unto the prize of the upward (avw} calling of God in Christ Jesus." 1 Or in yet more beautiful words of the same Apostle, she may be described as "with unveiled face reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord," and as being "transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the influence of the Lord the Spirit." 2 Thirdly, the Church is Catholic. In other words, she is spread throughout the world. 3 The "Churches," of which we frequently read 4 in the New Testament, are the various portions of the one Church found in various localities. But there was perfect union and intercommunion between these bodies. There was no trace within the Apostolic period of those separate religious organizations in one place which now call themselves "the Churches." We do not read of the Petrine, Pauline, Barnabite Churches, nor even of the Church of the circumcised and the Church of the uncircumcised. If the word "Churches " is used, it is used in a purely geographical sense-the " Churches of Galatia," the "seven Churches" of the Apocalypse. Every separate family, no doubt, was considered in a sense as a Church. 5 1 3

4 6

2 2 Cor. iii. 18. Phil. iii. 14. Of. "The holy Church throughout all the world." -Te Deum. e.g., Acts ix. 31 (A.V.); xv. 41; xvi. 5, l Cor. xvi. 19; Col. iv. 15; Philemon 2.

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But such a "Church " was not in any sense a separate body. There is, and can be, only one Church, which is Christ's Body, which He loves, and for which He gave Himself up. 1 And that Church is the aggregate of the Christians throughout the world, who. believe the truth which He has taught, enter the Church by the means which He has ordained, and set themselves to fulfil the conditions which He has imposed. 2 This, and this alone, can be called the Catholic Church of Christ. We will now proceed to consider what is involved in the first of these necessary qualifications-belief in the truth. The others will be considered when we deal with the Sacraments which "Christ hath ordained in His Church," and with the Ministry of the Church. There can be no doubt that a certain form or nurm of truth was handed down in . the Church from the very first, and that this ultimately took the shape of the Catholic Creeds. 3 St. Paul exhorts Timothy to "have " or "hold a pattern of the health-giving words" he had received. 4 And St. Jude exhorts us to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the Saints." 5 But when the prophecies of the "perilous times" to come was fulfilled, and when men began to teach spurious doctrines in the place of the truth of Christ, it became necessary to draw a line of distinction between the various bodies who " named the name of Christ "~between those who preached the pure deposit of Christian truth, and those who corrupted it. Thus grew up the distinction between "Catholic" and "heretic"between those who held the faith of universal Christendom, 1

Eph. v. 25. Sanctification of the Spirit, and belief in the truth, are predicated of the members of the Church liy St. Paul. 2 Thess. ii. 13. 0 Jude 3. 3 See chap. i. ' 2 Tim. i. 13. 2

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and those who taught erroneous and strange doctrines. 1 The most satisfactory definition of the word Catholic is that which is given by Vincentius of Lerins in his "Commonitorium," which was written about the year 434. There, in opposition to certain views which were being energetically pressed upon the Church on the authority of the great St. Augustine, he points out that many of these opinions were altogether novel, and that, therefore, whether reasonable or otherwise in themselves, they could not possibly be taught as the doctrines of the Church. That only, he continued, which has been taught "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus," 2 could fairly be represented as Catholic truth. The Church of England has ever rested her system on this principle. Nothing whatever, according to her view, can be regarded as an essential of the faith which has not been insisted upon as such from the very first, and wherever the Christian Church is known. No doctrine, however widely received, no practice, however general, can claim to be Catholic-i.e. universal-and therefore binding on the conscience of a Christian man, unless it has been expressly taught, enjoined, or practised by the apostles of Christ. And we have no other means of ascertaining what was originally so taught, enjoined, or practised, but the Christian Scriptures. 8 If it were necessary, as in the fourth century 1 The use of the word " Catholic," as opposed to " Protestant," it may be well to remind the reader, is of comparatively modern date. It originated in the sixteenth century, at the Reformation, when certain persons protested against resolutions adopted at a certain diet of the German Empire. But in earlier times the word "Catholic" was opposed to "heretic '' -that is to say, to a number of sects which held the most anti-Christian views concerning the Person and Work of Christ. 2 First Commonitorium, chap. ii. 3 Some have supposed that if a doctrine or practice has been universally received by Christendom at any particular period, it becomes thenceforward a binding law on the whole Church. But

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of the Christian era it was found necessary, to define more carefully the .articles of the Christian Creed, it was to Scripture and early tradition that the appeal was made. 1 A new word (e.g. Homoousion) might be used in order better to define an old truth. But the Church had no power to decree new doctrines. 2 Her duty was simply to guard the deposit of the faith. It was not until the unhappy schism between the East and West that a portion of the Church took upon itself to add to the Christian Creed, and thus to bring about the disruption of Christendom. 8 It does not come within our province to demonstrate here, again, there would seem to be some confusion of thought. The whole Church of any particular age is, of course, the Catholic Church of that age. But it is not the whole Catholic Church. For a practice to be binding on the conscience of Catholics, it must be shown to have been held and taught by the Catholic Church of all ages. 1 ra. d.pxa.,a. iOfj Kpa.relrw, was the cry of the Nicene Fathers. And one cause of the prolonged resistance to their decrees was the use of the word Homoousion, which is not found in Scripture. 2 Canon GORE, in his Fourth Bampton Lecture, maintains the view taken above. 3 Among the doctrines which Rome has at various times added to the faith of Christendom, are Transubstantiation; the worship of images and relics ; Purgatory, and the doctrine of Indulgences connected therewith ; the doctrine that there are neither less nor more than seven Sacraments ; the definitions of the Council of Trent on Justification; the worship of the Blessed Virgin; and, during the present century, the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and of the Infallibility of the Pope. Among the practical abuses which need reformation are the Divine honours paid to the Blessed Virgin ; the extent to which the Invocation of Saints is carried ; the encouragement of strange cults, such as that of the Sacred Heart, and of pilgrimages to places where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared; the countenance given to belief in the virtue of amulets, medals, and charms, such as the Scapular ; and the superstitions connected with Masses for the Dead. The Eastern Church regards the decrees of the Second General Council of Nicaea, A.D. 787, as binding upon Catholics; and those decrees were certainly generally accepted in the Church for some centuries previous to the Reformation. But they were condemned in the West,

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the fact, but it has been shown again and again, since the breach between the Church of England and the Pope, that the Churches in communion with the See of Rome have repeatedly added doctrines to their creed which have no authority either from the words of Christ, or of those whom He commissioned to teach His Gospel, and are thus guilty of teaching a new religion. 1 So far, then, as the Roman Church recites, as she still recites, the Creed of universal Christendom at her altars, she has a right to the title of Catholic. But so far as she has added to the faith doctrines which she has received no commission from her Lord to teach, she must be branded as heretical. 2 What the duty of those is who live in Roman Catholic countries, and cannot accept her unauthorised additions to the faith, it is not our province to decide. Some have submitted to authority unrighteously and unjustly exercised, and pray and wait for better times. Others, known as "Old Catholics," after enduring the yoke unwillingly for centuries, have at length adopted an attitude of active resistance, and are maintaining a position such as is defined by the Canon_ of Vincentius, mentioned above. 3 at the Council of Frankfort, A. D. 794. And even if they were generally accepted duriug the worst periods of the Church's history, they certainly do not answer to the Canon of Vincentius, "quod ubique, quod semper, quod ah omnibus." For the worship, as distinct from the use, of images and pictures is distinctly condemned in Scripture, and had no countenance for the first six centuries of the Christian era. 1 For books on the Roman controversy, see note at end of section iv. of this chapter. 2 Heresy means the deliberate choiee of opinions, instead of the reception of them on authority. This authority, in our case, is the authority of Christ and the inspired first preachers of His doctrine, The true Catholic faith, on this point, is that while the Church Âˇmay define the faith, she may not add to it. Âˇ a In one particular case an Anglican Archbishop and two of his Suffragans have thought it their duty, at the request of a body of

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For ourselves, it is clearly our duty to resist, as energetically as possible, the action of those who are pressing upon our people these unauthorised additions to the faith on the authority, first of a section of the Catholic Church, and afterwards on that of a single Bishop. We must do so because the course such men are taking leads, in the end, to a reaction by which the faith itself is rendered impossible to many minds. But it may seem strange to some to be told that what are termed the "Orthodox" English Nonconformists, and possibly some foreign Protestants, are, as far as. the faith is concerned, distinctly Catholic. They may have an unhappy and most groundless prejudice against the Creeds as "sectarian formularies." But they accept the doctrines which those Creeds enshrine, namely, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement-in short, all the main truths of the Catholic faith. 1 Their position from the point of view of ecclesiastical discipline will be considered when we come to deal with the organization of the Church. But by what errors and additions soever their teaching may be disfigured, neither they nor the Church of Rome can be represented as not holding the Catholic faith, as defined in the Catholic Creeds. 2 men who had left the Church of Rome on conscientious grounds, to consecrate a Bishop to take the supervision of these men. The case referred to is the consecration in 1894 by Archbishop Plunket and two other Irish Bishops, of Seiior Cabrera to be Bishop of the Spanish Reformed Church. About the wisdom and propriety of this step there is much difference of opinion. 1 Their view of the article, "the Holy Catholic Church," may be defective. But it does not appear directly to contradict any proposition which that Church has formally decreed or accepted. 2 These remarks include the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland. But they can only be applied to Continental Protestant bodies with very great reserve. The fundamental facts of the Gospel, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement are regarded as open questions in many of these latter. And it is a serious question how far any body of men can be regarded as teachmg Catholic truth in any sense as

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Fourthly, the Church is Apostolfr. That is to say, it was founded by the Apostles,1 and it still retains in form, as well as in principle, the impress of their teaching and discipline. In the earliest mention we have of the Church, we are told that those who believed the word preached by the Apostles, "continued steadfastly in their doctrine and fellowship." And in later times we find conformity to the Apostolic model a note of the true Church. The witness of the sedes Apostolicae, or Churches founded by the Apostles, was invariably appealed to in early days as a guarantee for the purity of the faith. The reason of this was that copies of the Scriptures were at that time, for various reasons, few in number. And the witness of the community to the doctrine it had been taught was, therefore, more accessible than the writings of Apostles and Apostolic men. As years rolled on, the tradition of the Apostolic Churches naturally receded into the background, and the witness. of .the Apostolic writings themselves, as the number of copies multiplied, took their place. To us, at this distance of time from the foundation of the Christian Church, Scripture has become tradition. It is obviously impossible for any authentic tradition relating to the essential principles of the Christian faith to have remained unwritten for eighteen .centuries and a half. Accordingly, the Council of Trent binds those who accept it to hold and teach nothing which is not based on "the unanimous consent of the Fathers." 2 long as such questions are left open. A similar tendency is beginning to be shown among Protestant bodies at home, as the "Down Grade" controversy shows. Now that the restraint of the Trust Deeds of the Chapels has been removed, there is no definite guarantee among them for sound religious teaching. And we may venture to predict that pious Nonconformists will one day come to see the value of those "sectarian formularies" which they have been accustomed to decry. 1 Eph. ii. 20. 2 Fourth Session, on the publication and use of the Sacred Books.

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Such "unanimous consent" is, of course, easily and frequently alleged. But it is naturally, also, extremely difficult to establish. It will be found, on examination, that anything like unanimous consent on the part of the Fathers cannot be adduced on behalf of any doctrine which is not explicitly taught in Scripture and in the Creeds. That of late years too little attention has been paid, in the Reformed communions, to the traditional interpretation of Scripture in the Universal Church, is, however, true; and to this we must largely attribute the doctrinal errors into which most of the Reformed Churches have fallen, and their consequent inability, as a rule, to make head against the Church of Rome. This was not the fault of the leaders of the Reformation themselves, who were by no means desirous of undervaluing the importance of the appeal to primitive testimony. But their successors have too frequently ignored the voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church, and have -claimed instead a plenary power for each person to interpret Holy Scripture for himself. The result has been much disorder and confusion, which can only be remedied by a recurrence to the principles of Apostolic order, as embodied in such Apostolic declarations as "none of us liveth unto himself, and none dieth. unto himself "; 1 " and so ordain I in all the Churches"; 2 "we have no such custom, neither the Churches of God"; 8 "hold the traditions which ye were taught" ; 4 "though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema." 5 We must, therefore, as members of an "Apostolic" Church, resist all attempts to impose, as essential to salvation, any doctrines which do not come to us authorized by the definite statements of Scripture, and the unanimous consent of the 1 4

Rom xiv. 7. 2 Thess. ii. 15.

2 1 Cor. vii. 17. ' Gal i. 8.

1 Cor. xi. 16.

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Fathers. And while we do not take upon ourselves to decide how far those bodies can be regarded as " Catholic and Apostolic" who add to the faith of Christendom, so long as they continue, with us, to recite the Catholic Creed, we nevertheless, as far as we ourselves are concerned, are bound to refuse to be "carried away by divers and strange teachings," 1 contrary to the truth of the Gospel, and to hold only that as the Apostolic verity, binding on the conscience, which is expressed in the Creeds, and is either "read" in the Scripture, or "may be proved thereby." 2 The question of Apostolic order must be deferred to the section on the Ministry of the Church. We will proceed to show that the Church is described in Scripture as a visible society. That there is an invisible Church, we would not be understood to deny. But this Church is nowhere mentioned in Scripture, save in Hebrews xii. 23, where we read of "the general assembly and Church of the first born, who are enrolled in heaven." The truth is, that the conception of an invisible Church, whose members are known as such to God alone, though not altogether destitute of truth, has been extended beyond due limits by the theory, largely held subsequent to the Reformation, that Christian faith means the personal assurance, on the part of the individual believer, of his own ultimate salvation. As the correctness or otherwise of this assurance could be known only to God, and as mankind in general were obviously incompetent to form an opinion upon it, the idea grew up that the Church of God was not a visible, but an invisible society, and that visible congregations of Christians were only very imperfect and unsatisfactory shadows of the -majestic figure of the "Holy City, New Jerusalem," which "came down out of heaven from God, made ready a~ a bride adorned for her husband." 8 On the other hand, as 1

Heh. xiii.

I).

Art. VI.

Rev. xxi. 2.

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297

the fact that the possessor of such assurance was destined to ultimate salvation was one about which there could be no doubt, it was easy to draw, if not an exact, at least an approximate, line between those who were, and those who were not, so destined-between those who were in Christ, and those who remained apart from Him. Man, it was admitted, could not pretend to draw that line. Only God could do this. But it had been drawn. And those who were on one side of it were regarded as in the invisible and only tme Church, while those who were on the other were outside it. The traditional view in the Catholic Church had been of a far less hard-and-fast character. It recognized everyone as a member of Christ's Church, with whom God's Spirit had not ceased to plead. 1 The excommunicated even were only cut off from the outward fellowship of the Church, but not necessarily from all fellowship with Christ. Even he who had been "delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh" by St. Paul, it was remembered, was 1 There is a striking passage in the treatise of Hippolytus on Christ and Antirhrist (chap. iii), which speaks of persons in the most varied conditions of spiritual progress as being alike members of Christ's Church. Clement of Alexandria, in his Paedagogus, or Instructor, claims for Christians that they are perfect. But he afterwards (chap. i. 6) explains this perfection not as absolute, but as consisting in the aspiration after perfection, while certainly the Instructor seems to contemplate the possibility of members of the Church being in a somewhat low state of moral and spiritual enlightenment. Cyprian, too, gives an account of the sins even of Confessors (i.e. those who had confessed Christ by suffering on His account) of his day, which is hardly reconcilable with the hardand-fast view spoken of in the text. The Scriptures themselves do not treat persons who are guilty even of serious offences as outside the pale of the visible Church, except in certain extremely grave cases. Even so strong a passage as Ephesians v. 6 seems, from the context, to refer only to those who obstinately persist in the vices mentioned. Those who were honestly struggling against temptations to such sins would not, it would seem, be formally separated from the communion of God's Church.

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promptly received back into the Church, on showing sigm of repentance. 1 And, consequently, it was quite possible for persons to be in the Church who were very far from leading lives altogether consistent with their profession.' The Apostolic Church, in fact, contained persons in very various stages of spiritual development. 8 Yet, inconsistent as their lives were, their membership in the Church, save in one or two extreme cases, is distinctly recognized. 4 Everywhere, however, the Church, or those local bodies which formed part of it, is described as being a visible society. It was built on the rock of the confession of Christ. 5 To it complaints might be brought, and it is to "hear" them. 6 The " Churches" mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, which "had peace," were "confirmed" and "strengthened" in the faith, 7 were obviously visible communities. So were the "Churches" mentioned in St. Paul's Epistles, 8 as well as in the Apocalypse. 9 So unquestionably were those to which St. Paul's Epistles were addressed. It would have been impossible for any one of them to have been written to a community, of which the members were not publicly known. Nor is there any reason for doubting that the "Church" of which we read in the Epistles, is any other than the aggregate of the various local Churches. There is not a line in Holy Scripture to suggest that the Church (or assembly-iKKA17crla) which is spoken of as " Christ's Body " differs in anything but extent from the Church (or assembly) which is "edified" by words spoken in the midst of it in a language which 1

2 Matt. xviii. 15-17. 2 Cor. ii. 7. See, for instance, 1 Cor. i. 10, vi. 7; 2 Thess. iii. 10, 11; and the Epistles to the Seven Churches in the Apocalypse. 5 Matt. xvi. 18. 4 See note 1, p. 297. 6 Matt. xviii. 17. 7 Acts ix. 31 ; xv. 41 ; xv1. 5. 8 e.g., Rom. xvi. 4, 16. 1 Cor. vii. 17; xi. 16; xiv. 33, 34; xvi. 1. 9 Rev. i.-iii. 3

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every one understands, 1 which "brings" Apostles "on their way," 2 which "receives" delegates from another Church, 3 in which Epistles are read, 4 and the like. There is not a syllable to indicate that we are to take the word EKKA.YJ<r[a, in Eph. i. 22, v. 24; Col. i. 18, 24, in a sense essentially different to that in which it is used in Acts xviii. 22; 1 Cor. vi. 4; 3 John 10. It is true that this Church is called the spouse of Christ, 5 but so was the Jewish Church spoken of under a similar figure. Yet the Jewish Church certainly contained persons who were unworthy of their high calling. And if Christ is said to "love the Church and give Himself for it, that He might present unto Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing," 6 it is clear enough that it is not the present but the final condition of the Church which is described in these words. Her present condition is one of trial and purgation. 7 It is only when that purgation is accomplished that she will answer to the description just mentioned. If it be contended that we cannot prove that the word "Church," in the sense in which it is spoken of as Christ's Body, is used in the same signification as when it is used of the Church of a particular locality, we may reply that, first of all, the onus probandi lies upon those who would attach an altogether new meaning to a word which has a distinctly recognized signification in Scripture; and, next, that the term body (<rwp,a) is obviously something which is neither invisible nor impalpable, but which possesses a definite and visible form and organization. We conclude, then, finally, that the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, in which we express our belief, is a visible society composed of all those who own the sovereignty of Christ. 1 5

4 Col. iv. 16. 2 Acts xv. 3. 3 Acts x.,,, 4. 1 Cor. xiv. 4. Eph. v. 23. 6 Eph. v. 25, 27. 7 Tit. ii. 14. Of. Rev. i. 5 ; vii. 14.

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One other pointÂˇ demands a moment's attention. The Church is frequently spoken of as though it were a teaching body, as though it were a kind of "Vice-Christ," or in some way an intermediary between God and man. If what has been said above be true, this mode of speaking of the Church is altogether inadmissible. That God's ministers have authority to minister Christ, to speak with authority in His Name, is not denied. On the contrary, it will be demonstrated in a subsequent section. But they do so as members of the Church endowed with special functions, not in any sense as constituting a Church by themselves, or as in any sense standing in the way of the access which each individual member of the Church has to its Head. There are teachers in the Church, no doubt; but they "speak as unto wise men," who have power to "judge what they say." 1 There is no ecclesia docens on the one hand, or ecclesia discens on the other, considered as existing apart the one froni the other, for all members of the Church have a share in the Life of the Head. Nor can that be an intermediary between God and man, which is itself composed of men in whom Christ dwells. The Church is itself called "Christ" by St. Paul, 2 because every single member of the Church is interpenetrated by the Being of his Lord. If the voice of the Church demands respectful attention at the hands of the individual, it is because Christ inhabits the whole Church by His Spirit. Every member of Christ's Body has his own special office, 3 and in that office contributes his share to the building up of the whole. 4 But that office of building up by communication of gifts is nowhere taught by Christ or His first messengers to inhere solely in the Church's officers. In their measure, it is possessed by all on whom 1 3

.1 Cor. x. 15. Rom. xii. 4.

2 1 Cor. xii. 12. Of. 1 John ii. 20, 27. 4 Eph. iv. 15, 16 ; Col. ii. 19.

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the Name of Christ is named. Thus the Church is One as animated by the Life of her "One Lord." 1 It is Holy, as inhabited by the Holy Spirit, and "called with a holy calling." 2 It is Catholic, as spread throughout the whole world, and as comprising those who "are fallen asleep in Jesus." 3 It is Apostolic, as resting on the "twelve foundations," which are the "twelve Apostles of the Lamb." 4 It is a visible society, consisting of all those on whom the Name of Christ is named, and in whom His Life may be believed to dwell. SECTION

II.

Âˇ ON THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH.

The Church, as we have just seen, is a visible society. It must, therefore, have some external signs of membership. These are the two Sacraments ordained by Christ, the one as a means of entrance into the Church, the other as a means of testifying our combined membership in the community which He has founded. 5 1 Eph. iv. 5. 2 2 Tim. i. 9 ; 1 Pet. i. 15, 16. 3 l Thess. iv. 14. 4 Rev. xxi. 14. 5 The Roman Catholic divines have laid it down (Council of Trent, Session 7, Canon I.) that there are Seven Sacraments, i.e., Baptism, the Eucharist, Confirmation, Penance, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Extreme Unction; and some divines among ourselves have felt bound to follow them in this matter, partly because on this point the -Eastern Church agrees with the Roman. But it 1s quite unnecessary so to do. For the point has never been submitted to an Oecumenical Council, nor has it been decided that this doctrine has been taught "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus." The word Sacrament is unquestionably used in a very wide sense by the early Fathers, and even in our own Homilies. This is natural enough, since the Greek word used to signify a Sacrament is Âľ,vurfJp,ov, i.e., that which has a hidden meaning, and the Latin word Sacrammtum originally signified an oath. But the use of these words was by no means restrained in early writers to the two Sacraments ordained by Christ; nor, as Bishop Browne shows in his treatise on the XXXIX. Articles, to what are regarded as the

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The mode of entrance appointed by Christ into His Church is the Sacrament of Baptism. He enjoins this upon us by example and by precept. By His Baptism in the river Jordan our Church reminds us in her Baptismal offices, He "sanctified water to the mystical washing away of sin." 1 He hints at some mysterious reason why He should receive baptism. It " became" Him thus "to fulfil all righteousness." 2 Before His Ascension, He commanded His servants to "make disciples " of all nations by "baptizing them into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 3 The baptismal formula thus expressly enjoined is not mentioned elsewhere in Holy Writ, but it is preserved in the universal tradition of the Church. The form of words given by St. Matthew has ever since been regarded as necessary to a valid performance seven Sacraments in the Churches of Rome and of the East. Their teaching on this point has one very serious inconvenience-that it couples together under one definition things essentially distinctrites that are, and rites that are not, necessary to salvation. And so the Roman Church is compelled (Council of Trent, Session 7, Canon III.) to anathematize -such as declare all the Sacraments to be of equal importance and dignity. Our own definition of the Sacraments as rites expressly ordained by Christ, and therefore under all ordinary circumstances necessary to salvation, is far the most logical and the least confusing to the mind. Moreover, the two great Sacraments between them contain all that is absolutely necessary for the spiritual life. Baptism is concerned with its initiation, and the Holy CommunionÂˇ for its continuation. The other rites may be valuable adjuncts to the two primary means of grace. But they never can be supposed to stand on a level with them. It may be further observed, in reference to the doctrine that there are seven Sacraments, that if all these seven Sacraments were of equal dignity and importance, and equally necessary to salvation, then no member of the Church of Rome could be saved, for no married person in that Church can be ordained, nor any ordained person married-another reason why we should prefer our own far clearer and less confusing definition. The Eastern Church substitutes ""Unction by Chrism" for Confirmation in its list. 1 Office for Public Baptism of Infants. 3 Matt. xxviii. 19. Âˇ- 2 Matt. iii. 15.

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of the rite. Baptism according to any other form was held to be invalid, and required to be repeated.1 The concluding verses of St. Mark's Gospel, whether they be regarded as part of the original Gospel or not, bear witness to the belief in very early times th~t Baptism was necessary "where it might be had." 2 "He that believeth and, is baptized, shall be saved, but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned." 8 That is to say, baptism, as the public profession of adherence to Christ and the prescribed rite of admission into His Church, should as a matter of course folloÂˇw upon conviction of the truth concerning His Person and office ; but if for any sufficient reason the Sacrament did not happen to have been administered, condemnation naturally would not follow. It is unbelief in Christ, -not the accidental omission of a rite, which cuts men off from Him. But deliberate disobedience to His commands, we must remember, on the other hand, is a distinct evidence of unbelief. Therefore they who will not be baptized are unquestionably involved in the sentence of condemnation pronounced on unbelievers. In St. John's Gospel, which views the Gospel from its interior and spiritual, rather than its external side, the same truth finds different expression. 1 Acts xix. 1-5. Baptism "into the name of the Lord Jesus" has apparently always been held to involve implicit obedience to His directions. If tlxception be taken to the words "always" and "ever since," used here and in the text, it may be answered that if our information about the earliest times is by no means complete, at least, when we do meet with information, it is to the same effect as what has been said. TERTULLIAN (DeÂˇ Bapt. 13, and Adv. Praro. 26) and the author of the Clementine Recognitions (iii. 67 and vi. 9) are our earliest authorities for the practice. There is also one of the Apostolic Canons (49) which forbids any other baptism. Dionysius of Alexandria (circa A.D. 258) speaks of the strange ceremonies in heretical baptisms. See EusEBIUs, Eccl. Hist. viL 9; also HIPPOLYTUs, Refutation of Heresies, ix. 15. 2 Office for Baptism of those of Riper Years : Exhortation. 3 Mark xvi. 16.

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THE CREED.

Our Lord, speakiug to Nicodemus on the conditions of entrance into His Kingdom, speaks of a birth or begetting of the Spirit as closely connected with the use of water in the rite of initiation. In other words, the entrance into Christ's Kingdom or Church brings with it, as a Âˇ consequep.ce, the communication of a new life from above, 1 effected by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Thus the Sacrament of Baptism-so the Catechism of the Church of England teaches - has two parts : an external ceremony, introducing the recipient into the outward fellowship of Christ's Church, and an inward spiritual grace, communicating to the newly-baptized person the new nature which, as we have seen, 2 it was the object of Christ's coming to impart, and which He promised to give to every one who enters into fellowship with Him. 3 Both the necessity of the external rite, and the blessing conveyed by it to the faithful recipient, are frequently insisted upon in the Acts of the Apostles and in their Epistles. "They who received the word" of the Apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost, were straightway "baptized." 4 So were those unto whom Philip the deacon preached at Samaria. 5 He also baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, and in his case the "preaching of Jesus" involved the mention of the rite of initiation into the Church. 6 Even the miraculous conversion of Saul was not held to make it right to dispense with th/it rite of initiation,7 nor yet the miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost upon Cornelius and his associates. 8 From this, as well as St. 1

/1.vwO,v, in John iii. 3, nieans either "anew" or "from above." See pp. 141, 143, 166. 3 Some would prefer to regard baptism as a kind of guarantee, assuring the recipient of the fact that he is the possessor of this new nature. 5 6 Acts viii. 12, 13. Acts viii. 36, 38. â&#x20AC;˘ Acts ii. 41. 8 7 Acts ix. 18. Acts x. 47, 48. 2

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Paul's rebaptism of the Ephesians, who had only received John's baptism,1 we may infer that the form of Baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity was regarded from the first as essential, though it is not always specifically mentioned in the account given by St. Luke, of the reception of individuals into the Church. 2 Lastly, we find Baptism included in Heb, vi. 2 among the first "principles" of the religion "of Christ." 3 We have equally explicit testimony in regard "to the change wrought, in consequence of the rite, in the condition of the believer. "As many as were baptized into Christ, did put on Christ," says St. Paul. 4 In other words, they received the Life of Christ. 5 He gives expression to the same truth, in language slightly different, in I Corinthians xii. 12, 13, "As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For in One Spirit were we all baptized into one body." That is to say, as the link of connection in the human body, which binds all its members into one, is the individuality of the man whose life pervades the body, so is Christ the individuality which gives its character to His Body, the Church. His is the Life which permeates its members, and makes them one. And Baptism is the means, in all ordinary cases, whereby that Life is given. It is called by St. Paul the font (AovTpov) of regeneration (i.e., begetting anew, 11'aA,yyEvEa-ta), and renewing of the 1

Acts xix. 1-5. Baptism is, however, mentioned again incidentally in Acts xvi, 15, 33 ; xxii. 16. 3 This has been much disputed, partly in consequence of the use of the unusual word fJa1rT1uÂľ,6s for {Ja1rnuÂľa. There seems, however, no solid ground for believing the statement above to be incorrect. See Bishop WESTCOTT's note in loc. 4 Gal. iii. 27. 5 We shall see this more clearly when we come to consider th~ rela~ion of the other Sacrament to the spiritual life of man, 2

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Holy Ghost. 1 According to St. Peter, it "saves us by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ," not simply by removing the taint of sin, but by enabling us to offer "the answer of a good conscience" to God.2 It is called the "Baptism of the Holy Ghost," because it is by His agency alone that the Life of Christ is imparted. 8 It is the "Baptism of Fire," because by it the fire of Divine love and purity is lighted within us. It unites us not only to Christ, but to Christ in His whole redemptive work. We are baptized into Christ's Death. We are "buried with Christ by baptism into death." We are united with Him in the likeness of His Death. And by reason of our thus dying with Him, we also rise with Him. 4 In Colossians ii 12, St. Paul gives more definite expression to this last fact. We are "buried with Christ in baptism," 5 and are "raised with Hini" by reason of our faith in God's working in raising Hini from the dead. This union with Christ involves the remission of sins. 6 And this fact is specially singled out in the Nicene Creed as the special object of Baptism. "I believe in one Baptism for (or unto) the remission of sins." That is to say, " I believe that every one who is admitted into the covenant of Divine favour at Baptism is freed from condemnation." 7 And this because every one who enters into the Christian Church is entitled to all the privileges which belong to Christians. First and foremost among these is, as we have seen, the reception of Life from Christ. 8 2 1 Peter iii. 21. Titus iii. 5. Seep. 272. And Matt. iii. 11. Mark i. 8. Luke iii. 16. John i. 33; iii. 5. Acts i. 5; ii. 38; xi. 16. 1 Cor, xii. 13. 4 Rom. vi. 3-5. CJ. 2 Cor. iv. 10, 11. 5 lv -re; fJa:,r-rl<rµ,a,-r,; in the baptism which Christ has ordained. 6 Acts ii. 38. CJ. xxii. 16. 7 Rom. viii. 1. Of. John iii. 18, which forms part of the Saviour's discourse on Baptism. 8 1 John i. 2; v. 11, 12. CJ. om· Lord's own declaration, John x. 10. 1

• 3

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But the possession of this Life involves cleansing from sin. 1 It could not do other than cleanse him who receives It. But inasmuch as It is the Life of Christ, Its cleansing influence, we must remember, is not confined to the removal of the sentence of condemnation from the believer. It actu_ally expels sin from him by virtue of the life-giving power which resides in Christ, just as poison is expelled from the system by the action of a remedial agency. 2 A stream of forgiveness and healing for ever proceeds from Christ, Who is to us fallen human creatures the only source of health and life. We must not forget, however, to distinguish between the ideal and the actual state of the believer. 3 Were it not for the obstinate corruption of, or, as some would prefer to put it, the survival of the animal in the human heart, there would need only the communication of the Life of Christ to the believer at his first entrance into the Christian Church. But the infirmity of the human will, as well as that fundamental principle of the Divine government that all progress, natural as well as spiritual, should be gradual, causes that which, ideally regarded, is an act, to become practically a process. The tares and the wheat in the human heart both "grow together till the harvest." 4 Or, rather, the process of redemption involves the co-operation of the human will during a period of 1

1 John i. 7; Rev. i. 5. Bishop PEARSON, in his note on a<f,ievai, IJ,q,e,ns ( On the Creed, p. 363), tells us that the word is capable of "several interpretations." Thus it sometimes means emissio, as in Gen. xxxv. 18 (LXX.), Matt. xxvii. 50 ; sometimes it means permissio, as in Matt. iii. 15 ; s11metimes the verb means "relinquere and deserere,'' as in Matt. xxvi. 56; and sometimes it is equivalent to omittere, Matt. xxiii. 23, Luke xi. 42. Then it also means remittere, as in Matt. xviii. 27, 32. I have never been able to see why one of these meanings should be pressed, to the exclusion of all the others, At least, the meanings casting out and passing over, may be allowed side by side with forgiving. 4 Matt. xiii. 30, 3 See p. 27 4. 2

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conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit is potential only till the human will co-operates with it. It is actual as soon as that co-operation has begun to take place. Baptism, therefore, does but initiate us into a condition which only the conscious exertion of our wills can render permanent. 1 Therefore this Divine life, thus given, presupposes some condition on our part before it can come into actual operation. That condition is faith. We need not repeat what has been said on this point in the opening chapter. All that is necessary here is to show that what is predicated objectively of the Divine act is also predicated subjectively of the human appropriation of it. "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved." Baptism, therefore, without faith is a mere empty form of words. The public profession of allegiance to Christ, when we do not believe in Him, is an act of hypocrisy which cannot escape punishment. The discourse, again, in which Jesus Christ declares the necessity of regeneration by water and the Spirit, also implies that faith is a necessary condition of that regeneration. "God so loved the world that He gave His 1 Dr. PUSEY puts the case for baptismal regeneration thus : '' The plain letter of Scripture says' we are saved by baptism'; and men say, -' we are not saved by baptism.' Our Lord says, 'a man must be born of water and of the Spirit' ; man, that he need not-cannot be-born of water. Scripture, that 'we are saved by the washing [the word in the original means font] of regeneration' ; man, that we are not, but by regeneration, which is as a washing. Scripture, that 'we are baptized for the remission of sins'; man, that we are not, but to attest that remission. Scripture, that 'whosoever hath been baptized into Christ, hath put on Christ' ; man, that he hath not. Scripture, that 'they have been buried with Him by baptism into death' ; man, that they have not. Scripture, that 'Christ cleansed the Church by the washing of water by the word' ; man, that He did not, for bare elements could have no such virtue. Scripture, that 'we were baptized into one body' ; men, that we were not, but that we were in that body before,'" Tract 69 for the Times, p. 198, 1st Ed 1

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only begotten Son, that whoso believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life. . . . He that believeth on Him is not judged : he that believeth not hath been judged already." 1 We have seen that Christ is "put on" by baptism. 2 But faith is the necessary condition for making that "putting on" effectual. 3 It is our faith which, putting our will in motion, can alone appropriate the gift, and convert it .into spiritual energy. 4 We cannot, again, separate St. Paul's very definite teaching concerning baptism, in his Epistle to the Romans, from his emphatic assertion of the necessity of faith to our justification in the same Epistle. If baptism be said to unite us with the Death of Christ, so is faith in His Blood declared to be a condition of justification. Indeed, both His Death and Resurrection, connected so closely with Baptism in chap. vi., are equally closely connected with faith in chap. iv. 25. So, too, the deliverance from, or remission of, sins, which, as we have seen, is associated with Baptism, is in other parts of Holy Writ associated as closely with the Sacrifice of Christ, realized subjectively by the human spirit through faith. 5 Thus we see that these promises made in Baptism are conditional, first on our acceptance of them, and next of our resolution to use them. The power to use them comes from God. Without His help we cannot even stir hand or foot to help ourselves. But Baptism is a proclamation of His willingness to give us the help of which we stand in such sore need ; in fact, it tells us that the power is actually conferred upon us, and that all we have to do is to use it. In other words, 2 Gal. iii. 27. 3 Gal. iii. 26. John iii. 16, 18. Eph. iii. 17. Of. chap. ii. 8-22. This is a common phenomenon in visible things. We have the power of motion ; but it is dormant until our will puts it into action. An- engine-boiler is full of steam; but the engine does not move until the will of the driver converts potential energy into motion.Âˇ 5 Aots x. 43; xxvi. 18, Rom, iii. 26; x.10, 11. Gal. ii. 20; iii. 22. 1

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our co-operation with the power of the Life of Christ, imparted to us by the Spirit, is necessary in order to obtain the results such a power is able to work in us. This willingness to co-operate with God in the work of our salvation, as we have already seen,1 can only be put in motion by our belief that God is, and that He is as He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. This is the reason why promises of repentance, faith, and obedience have always been demanded either from the recipient of baptism, or from others acting in his name. It is a question whether such conditions are mentioned in Holy Scripture as a part of the rite of baptism. The _Revised Version omits Acts viii. 37, and there is considerable reason for considering the verse to be an interpolation. 2 Yet there can be no doubt that some public confession of allegiance to Christ was either expressed or understood. Otherwise, baptism would be a meaningless rite. But it is impossible that the rite of initiation into Christ's Church can mean nothing. It must pledge those who receive it to conformity with His purpose, which is to destroy the empire of sin in us, and to " purify to Himself a people of His own possession, zealims of good works." 3 And it would also necessarily imply a belief in the Divine Being and power of Him Who came into the world for this object. Accordingly, it seems to have been an universal tradition of the Christian Church, from the earliest times, to require the vows of renunciation, faith, and obedience, which are found in the Baptismal Offices of the Church of England. 4 Chapter i. The passage is not found in the best MSS. and. Versions of the New Testament. But it is found in Irenaeus and Cyprian, so that it is of considerable antiquity. 3 Titus ii. 14. 4 See the Apostolic Constitiitions, vii. 41 (about the middle of the . third century). But TERTULLIAN (De Corona, 3) makes the same 1

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The question, however, has further been asked, Have we a right to admit infants to the blessings of the Christian covenant, and to require of them, through the mouths of others, promises which they themselves may never care to fulfil 1 Before answering that question, it will be necessary to call to mind once more what the Christian covenant is, and what is the precise nature of the promises made in the infant's name. In regard to the first point, it must be remembered that the word covenant, when used to describe the relations of God to man, is at best but an approximation to the truth ; and if we regard it as in all respects an accurate expression to denote those relations, we shall find it misleading. A covenant, properly speaking, is an agreement between equals, or persons who are, in some senses, on a footing of equality. There can be no covenant between a master and a slave. And yet the position of a slave in relation to his master is freedom itself compared to the position of man in relation to God. Man owes everything to God. God brought man into being, and keeps him in being. Man cannot lift a hand, nor even draw a breath, without God's permission, and even co-operation. Even the commission of sin is only possible by Divine permission. And thus every possible covenant and agreement between God and man is of such a kind that it must emanate from the former, and the latter is morally bound, though of course not practically compelled, to accept it. So St. Paul argues in the Epistle to the Galatians. The relations between God and man rest ultimately, not upon a covenant, but upon promises. And of these promises God Himself is the sole author. "A mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is One.'' 1 statement at the beginning of that century. JUSTIN MARTYR, in his first Apology (about 150 A.D.), mentions the persuasion of the baptized of the truth of the Christian religion, and their undertaking to live according to its precepts, 路路路 1 GaL iii. 20, 路

312

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In other words, there are not two parties to God's promises to mankind. They issue from His Will alone. It follows that the word Mediator, when applied to Christ, though it doubtless applies to His work in bringing God andÂˇ man again into union, does not mean that in His dealings between God and man He treats man as though he were on an altogether separate and independent footing. Jesus Christ aims at restoring man to his relations with God by imparting to him a new and higher life, which shall destroy the corrupt and degraded self which he inherited from his forefathers. But this life is altogether a Divine gift. Man is in no sense a party to that gift. God has, it is true, permitted him the momentous power of neglecting and despising it. But the idea of a compact which represents God as offering certain blessings to man, and man as occupying the position of an altogether free, responsible, independent being, and from this position notifying his acceptance or refusal of those conditions, is an entirely misleading one. The very faith by which man is supposed to appropriate the blessings offered to him is "not of himself," but is, we are told, itself the gift of God. 1 Thus, then, in the first instance, man is the humble, .childlike, we may even say helpless, recipient of an inestimable Divine gift, by which, if he cherish and employ it according to the intentions of the giver, he will become entitled to innumerable and unimaginable blessings. The conditions involved in the baptismal vows are not conditions precedent to the gift, but conditions consequent on it. 2 We 1 Eph. ii. 8. If it be contended that roDTo is not of the same gender as 1rltrr<ws, it may be replied that this makes but little Âˇdifference. St. Paul means to say that salvation is altogether God's gift. roDT~this process-is not our doing. Not even our faith can be said to be a work of our own. Faith is included in the gift. Good . works are the results-the fruit-of the Spirit's saving Presence in the heart ; not in any sense the cause of it. 2 That this is the view of our Church, is clear from the Offioe .for Private Baptism. The baptisni, i.e. the gift of Life in Christ in its

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do hot, in our Baptismal office for infants, represent the unconscious bfl,be as entering into a deliberate engagement with God as one would do with an equal. It is the recipient of a gift upon conditions. God wills to offer this gift to all men ; 1 but inasmuch as its operation is carried on according to the general laws which God has imposed on mankind, those only are invited to receive it who are in a position to receive instruction in its conditions. 2 Man cannot appropriate the gift unless he is able to comprehend its nature. Therefore it is offered in its fulness, not to the world at large, but to those only who come within the scope of its influence. If it be said that this blessing cannot be conveyed to an infant, it may be replied that this is to impeach the sovereignty of God. He can give what He wills, to whomsoever He will. But we must not confound the gift with its active exercise. Reason, will, imagination, speech, and other characteristics of humanity, are imparted in the germ to every infant as soon as it comes into being. They grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. It is precisely in this way, and in no other, that the gift of the new life, or the new man, or regeneration, or by whatever other name it may be called, is supposed by the advocates of what is called the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration to be imparted to the infant. .And it is supposed to be so imparted solely because this gift is believed to be the special privilege of all members of the initial stage, is complete when the child has been baptized into the Name of the Blessed Trinity. The Baptismal vows are only required for the public reception into the Christian society. They are concerned, not with the gift itself, but with the use of the gift. 1 John i. 9; v. 23; xii. 32, Rom, v. 18. 1 Tim. ii. 4. Tit. ii. 11. James i. 5. Thus St. John is as emphatic in insisting on this truth as St. Paul, and St. James supports their teaching. . 9 The effect of the Incarnation on those who have not been received into Christ's Church is covered by the words, "In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." Acts x. 85.

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Christian Church; or, if it be more acceptable to some minds, we may put it thus: that only in the Christian society is there any probability that it will find a soil suited for such a seed-conditions suitable for its development. 1 In the case of the adult, the Christian society asks the question whether the candidate for baptism is willing to own Christ as his Master, because it seeks to make him understand that on that cbndition alone can the gift of Life in Christ be operative. In the case of the infant, the Christian society is content with the promise that the child shall be taught to reverence and follow Christ, and instructed in the nature of the gift which it has at least potentially received. But both the infant and the adult are alike in regard to the gift of the Life from on high. That gift is as absolute on God's part to the one as to the other. In neither case is the gift itself contingent on faith. In each case it is the expression of the Divine Will, which has willed the salvation of the whole world. 2 But the gift once given, the intelligent co-operation of the human will, through the medium of 1 It a commonplace of theology that God's grace is not tied to Sacraments. (See for this AQUINAS, Sunima III., Q. 68, Art. 2.) With regard to the relation of the heathen to the Incarnate Lord, we have no information beyond that which has been mentioned above ; but the Christian Church has confined her attention to those who have beeu received into her pale. 2 This view has been very strikingly put by the Rev. W, H. B. PROBY, in his Annals of the Low Church Party in England, I. 251, and it is possible that his opinion is not an over-statement of the case. " In the Incarnation, God has taken the whole race of men into union with Himself, so that His acts and sufferings are the acts and sufferings of the race,and that the benefits of the redemption thus offered should only fail where they are deliberately refused." The question is whether a conscious acceptance of the gift of Life (for the word "redemption" is inadequate to express the whole truth) is necessary, or whether only a conscious and deliberate rejection of God's mercy in Christ can deprive ns of the benefit. The facts seem to point in the former direction.

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faith, is required to make it effectual. Without this, the gift of the new and higher Life will remain inoperative, and will, if the .recipient persist in his disobedience, be ultimately withdrawn. Thus, then, the Church, in conformity with the declaration of her Divine Head, looks on Baptism as the moment when we may regard the vital and necessary change called regeneration as having taken place, or at the very least as the moment from which the presence of the new and higher life can be definitely taken for granted. But it is not supposed that anything but the conscious and continuous co-operation of the individual will can secure to each member of the Church the perma:qent possession of the Life which Christ came to impart. 1 A few words on Confirmation may be desirable. It is the official seal set to Baptism by the chief minister of the community. 2 In the Western Church it has been wisely deferred, on the principle that the gift in Baptism cannot have its perfect work until each baptized person has taken the step of conscious self-dedication of himself to God. And so the official "seal " of the Christian Church is not set to all membership, but only to such membership as has been definitely consecrated by the deliberate personal acceptance of Christ as Master, and of the conditions which flow 1 With regard to the fact of Infant Baptism, it may be sufficient here to observe (1) that the households of believers are frequently said in the N.T. to have been baptized as well as their heads; (2) that Polycarp, in the record of his martyrdom in A.D. 155 (c. 9), says that he had served Christ eighty and six years, from which his baptism at an early age appears at least extremely probable; and (3) that his disciple Irenaeus distinctly states that infants were baptized (Against Heresies, ii. 22-4.) JusTIN MARTYR, in his first Apology, c. 15, makes a similar statement. I may add that the practice of the Church in this matter may be regarded as covered by 1 Cor. vii 14. 2 Such was the interpretation placed by the early Church on 2 Cor. i. 22 ; Eph. i. 13, iv. 30. But they were still more often interpreted of Baptism. See BINGHAM, Antiquities, XI. i. 6 and XII. i.. .Iâ&#x20AC;˘..

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from such acceptance of Him. This personal avowal once made, what was defective in the status of the baptized infant is supplied; he is regarded as a full member of the Christian Church, and is at once admitted to Holy Communion. 1 Thus Confirmation, properly speaking, is not itself a Sacrament, but only the official confirmation, attestation, and completion of one already received. This brings us to the second great Sacrament of the Gospel, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, so called because it was instituted during the course of the Paschal meal which our Lord ate with His disciples on the night before His Passion. 2 It has been also called the Holy Communion because St. Paul tells us that it is the " communion of," or fellowship in, the '' Body and Blood of Christ." 3 The name Eucharist has also been given to it because it was regarded as a "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" for all the blessings enjoyed by members of the Christian Church." 4 The special function of this Sacrament 1 For further information on Baptism the reader is referred to The Second Adam and the New Birth, and The Sacrament of Responsibility, by Prebendary SADLER, as also to his well-known volume, Church Doctrine, Bible Truth. An excellent book on the Catechism by the Rev. A. J. C. Allen will also be found useful. WALL, On Infant Baptism, is still the great authority on that subject. The writer is indebted to Bishop Harvey Goodwin for a statement made in one of his volumes of sermons, that a belief in the necessity of Infant Baptism is not required of the laity of the Church of England, and that therefore no one need secede from her pale on account of feeling a difficulty on the subject. â&#x20AC;˘ The bread was taken and blessed, iv rip cpa:ye,v-i.e. during the course of the Paschal meal. See Matt. xxvi. 2S ; Mark xiv. 22. It was only the Cup which was blessed "after supper." 3 1 Cor. x. 16. 4 The term Mass, which is used in the Roman and Old Catholic Churches, and has lately been revived by some among ourselves, has no special doctrinal significance, but is simply derived from the words of dismissal, Ite, niissa est, at the end of the Latin rite.

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is (1) to emphasize the fact that the communication of Christ's Life to the spirit of the believer is a continuous process; and (2) to be a principal means whereby that process is carried on. As St. John iii. contains Christ's discourse on regeneration, so St. John vi. contains His discourse on the manner in which the Life given is sustained. Christ's Flesh and Blood are to be continually assimilated by the believer according to a process analogous to the way in which our natural body is nourished and sustained. 1 But when we come to ask how this process is effected, we find that there is a yet further parallel between the natural and the spiritual life. The natural life is sustained by the use of means. Food must be taken into the system, or the body would perish of inanition; the principle of life would desert it. Precisely so with the soul. There needs a continual repair of the waste of the spiritual part of man-a waste produced by sin, as bodily waste is produced by exertion. And this repair must be effected by the use of means. For in the spiritual, as well as in the natural life, ends are secured by means. 2 To this truth our Lord 1 The use of the present tense in the whole discourse, and possibly the use of the word Tpdryw, instead of the more usual e<18lw, point to the process as a continuous one. The signification of Tpdryw seems to be originally to malce a hole by gnawing or nibbling, and therefore it suggests the idea of continued energy in the act. 2 "This is therefore the necessity of Sacraments. That saving grace which Christ ori,qinally is or hath for the general good of His whole Church, by Sacraments He severally deriveth into every member thereof," HOOKER, Eccl. Pol. V. lvii. 5. "Baptism doth challenge to itself but the inchoation of those graces, the consummation whereof dependeth on mysteries ensuing. We receive Christ Jesus in: Baptism once as the first beginner, in the Eucharist after as being by continual degrees the finisher of our Life." lb. V. lvii. 6. "The grace which we have by the Holy Eucharist doth not begin but continue life. No man therefore receiveth this Sacrament before Baptism, because no dead thing is ca~ble of nourishment. That which ~roweth mu~t

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bears witness by such actions as He performed when wotking some of His miracles. 1 Such a means of keeping up the communication of the Life of Christ the Holy Communion undoubtedly is. 2 The arguments of those divines who contend that there can be no connection between our Lord's discourse in St. John vi. and the institution of the Holy Communion, because the latter was instituted at least a year subsequent to the pronunciation of the former, are hardly consistent with a very exalted idea of our Lord's mental capacity. Setting His Divinity aside altogether, a founder of a religion may reasonably be credited with entertaining some idea, at least, beforehand of the character of the religion he is about to found. A.nd even on this low ground it would seem perfectly clear that when our Lord, at the close of His earthly career, sanctified bread and wine to be in some way or other the channels whereby His Flesh and Blood were to be conveyed to His disciples, He must have intended them to connect this rite with the declarations He had previously so emphatically made, that the assimilation by the believer of that Flesh and Blood was absolutely essential to the preservation of the Eternal Life which He has elsewhere repeatedly declared He had come to impart. The Sacrament of Holy Communion is, of course, not the exclusive medium through which the great gift of Christ's Life may be received. We ought not to forget, for instance, the significant declaration of our of necessity first live. If our bodies did not daily waste, food to satisfy them were a thing superfluous. And it may be that the grace of Baptism would serve to eternal life, were it not that the state of our spiritual being is daily so much hindered and impaired after Baptism." lb. V. lxvii. 1. 1 e.g., when he "made clay'' and anointed the eyes of the blind man, or spat and touched the tongue of the dumb one. 2 Matt. xxvi 26-28 ; Mark xiv. 22-25; Luke xxii. 19, 20; 1 Cor. xi. 23-26. The various readings in these passages shoulq be carefully ~~

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Master; that "man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." 1 But we have the strongest ground for maintaining that when Christ, in so marked and solemn a manner, consecrated the elements of bread and wine to be a means of spiritual feeding upon Him, He intended' to signify to us that among the means by which such spiritual feeding is carried on, the regular -reception of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper must necessarily hold the most prominent place. There are two main currents of opinion in regard to the Holy Communion among Christians at the present day. One regards it as a rite involving a real participation in the Life of Christ ; the other as a mere commemoration of the Last Supper, and the subsequent Death of Christ. This last view, usually called the Zwinglian view, must be rejected as altogether inadequate. In fact, it is very doubtful whether we should ever have heard of it, but for the exaggerations so long current in the opposite direction. It is altogether irreconcilable with our Lord's own words, as well as those of St. Paul, already referred to, which speak of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as a "communion," or joint participation," of the Body and Blood of Christ." "No bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent," 2 is the sentence, without exception, of all well-instructed divines of the Church of England, and at least, until quite lately, of a large number of the most devout and learned ministers of the Nonconformist bodies. 3 But those who agree in believing that there is a real feeding on Christ, are by no means agreed in regard to the 1

Matt. iv. 4. See Dent. viii. 3. Homily " On the worthy receiving and reverent esteeming of the Sacrament qf the Body and Blood qf Christ." ~ e.g., DoDDRIDGE, in the words of the well-known hymn" Hail, sacred feast, which Jesus makes, Rich banquet of Hjs Flesh and Blood.' 1 2

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manner of that feeding. Indeed, the Sacrament which our Lord instituted as a means of union and communion among His members, has been perverted so as to become a greater source of discord than, perhaps, any other part of the revelation of God in Christ. As this is the case, it may be as well to mention, at the outset, that on the one vital

point in connection with this Sacrament all the disputants of whom we now speak are agreed. This Hooker pointed out three centuries ago. Would that he had not been so far in advance of the vast majority of the members of the Christian Church ! "The fruit of the Eucharist," he says, "is the participation of the Body and Blood of Christ." And he adds, " 'This is My Body,' and 'this is My Blood,' being words of promise, sith we all agree that by the Sacrament Christ doth really and truly in us perform the promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce contentions, whether by consubstantiation, or else by transubstantiation, the Sacrament itself be first possessed with. Christ, or no 1 A thing which no way can either further or hinder us, howsoever it stand, because our participation of Christ in this Sacrament dependeth on the co-operation of His Omnipotent power which maketh it His Body and Blood to ns, whether with change or without alteration of the element such as they imagine we need not greatly to care nor inquire. "Take therefore that wherein all agree, and then consider by itself what cause why the rest in question should not rather be left as superfluous than urged as necessary. It is on all sides plainly confessed, first that this Sacrament is a true and a real participation of Christ, Who thereby imparteth Himself, even His whole entire Person as a Mystua'l Head unto every soul that receiveth Him, and that every such receiver doth thereby incorporate or unite himself unto Christ as a mystical member of Him, yea of them also whom He acknowledgeth to be His own ; secondly that to whom the Person of Christ is thus communicated, to them He giveth by the same Sacrament His Holy Spirit to sanctify them as it sanctifieth Him which is their Head ; thirdly that what merit, force or virtue soever there is in ![is sacrificed Body and Blood, we freely, fully and wholly have it

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by this Sacrament ; fourthly that the effect thereof in us is a real transmutation of our souls and bodies from sin to righteousness, from death and corruption to immortality and life; fifthly that because the Sacrament, being of itself but a corruptible and earthly creature, must needs be thought an unlikely instrument to work so admirable effects in maR, we are therefore to rest ourselves altogether upon the strength of His glorious power Who is able and will bring to pass that the bread and cup which He giveth us shall be truly the thing He promiseth. "It seemeth therefore much amiss that against them whom they term Sacramentaries so many invective discourses are made, all running upon two points, that the Eucharist is not a bare sign or figure only, and that the efficacy of His Body and Blood is not all we receive in this Sacrament. For no man, having read their books and writings which are thus traduced, can be ignorant that both these assertions they plainly confess to be most true. They do not so interpret the words of Christ as if the name of His Body did import but the figure of His Body, and to be were only to signify His Blood. They grant that these holy mysteries, received in due manner, do instrumentally both make us partakers of the grace of that Body and Blood which were given for the life of the world, and besides also impart unto us even in true and real though mystical manner the very Person of our Lord Himself, whole, perfect, and entire, as hath been showed."I

It is the passion for dogmatic definitions in matters, not only of principle but of detail, which has led and still leads the various branches of the Church so far from the path which her Lord and Master has marked out for her. Were they content to lay down as essential what our English 1 HooKER, Eccl. Pol. V. lxvii. 6-8. The italics are partly Hooker's, and partly my own. I have also ventured to introduce a comma here and there, to make the sense of the passage a little clearer. He goes on (Sec. 9), "Now, whereas all three opinions do thus far accord in one, that strong conceit which two of the three have embraced as touching a literal, corporal and oral manducation of the very substance of His Flesh and Blood 1s surely an opinion nowhere delivered in Holy Scripture whereby they should think themselves bound to believe it."

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Church Catechism teaches, and no more, namely, that "the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper" ; were the various schools of religious thought a little more inclined to tolerate explanations which seem to them defective, or in some way or other unsatisfactory, but which the Universal Church has never condemned; did we but remember that we are surrounded on all sides by mysteries of which all adequate explanation is found to be impossible, we might -seeing the central truth embodied in this Sacrament is recognized on all hands-be induced to "agree to differ" on the rrwdus operandi of Sacramental grace. But we may thankfully recognize that in spite of the attempts of those who are more or less partisans to magnify differences, and to represent their own particular forms of explanation as "Catholic doctrine," on the one hand, or "Gospel truth" on the other, there is a growing yearning among the wiser, more far-sighted, more earnest-minded among us for the cessation of controversy on these secondary questions of Christian opinion, and for the concentration of Christian energy upon the points which are of vital and practical necessity to a Christian soul. There are three different theories which have become prominent in the history of theology on the subject of the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The first. or Transubstantiation, was thus defined at the Lateran Council, A.D. 1215: "Christ's Body and Blood are really contained under the species of bread and wine, i.e., the bread being transub-stantiated into His Body, and the Wine into His Blood." 1 1 Art. 1. De flde Gatholica, Mansi, Vol. 22, p. 982. " Cujus corpus et sanguis in Sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continentur ; transubstantiatis, pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem, potestate divina, ut ad perficiendum mysterium unitatis accipiamus ipsi de suo quod accepit ipse de nostro."

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The second doctrine is known by the name Consubstantiation. It was adopted as an alternative theory by the Lutheran Churches after the Reformation. It teaches that the real Body and Blood of Christ are truly present with the bread and wine, and are eaten and drunk by the recipients. 1 The third theory is that of the Spiritual Presence, apparently held by Calvin, though rejected by a good many of his followers, who have drifted into Zwinglianism on this point. It is the view held by the majority of the divines of the Church of England until the present century, when there has been a tendency to adopt a view intermediate between the first two views. This doctrine of the Spiritual Presence may best be described in the words : "The Body of Christ is given, . taken, and received in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner; and the means whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten is faith." 2 A fourth doctrine in regard to the Presence in the Eucharist has lately been put forth or revived, and it is claimed, and not without some reason, thatÂˇ it corresponds more closely to the language of ancient divines than any of the three others. It is here explained somewhat fully, because it is less generally known than the rest. This view finds in the Eucharist a real feeding, in spirit, on the Body and Blood of Christ as at the moment of His Death upon the Cross. The Body of Christ on which we feed is thus not His glorified Body, but His Body as it hung dying or dead upon the Tree. The Blood we drink is not that which courses in the veins 1 See the passage from Hooker, cited above. Also Augsburg Confession, Art. X. "The true Body and Blood of Christ are truly present

under the form of the bread and wine" (unter Gestalt des Brotes und Weines). The Saxon Confession (Art. I.) adopts Irenaeus' language, and says there are "two things which are exhibited and received together, the one earthly, that is, bread and wine, and one heavenly, 2 that is, the Body and Blood of Christ.'' Art XXVIII.

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of His glorified Body-as has already been said, there is some ground for the supposition that natural blood is replaced in that spiritual Body by some more subtle principle of life -but the Blood as shed from the Body, or it may be after, 1 He died-the Blood which had been poured out for the sins of men. On this view we mystically eat and drink the Flesh and Blood of the slain Lamb, "our Passover, Who was," and eternally is, "sacrificed for us." 2 Though the Body and Blood thus mysteriously present, thus spiritually eaten and drunk, have no longer a material or natural existence, they ever exist to the eye of faith as living spiritual facts. "The Lamb as it had been slain" is ever present to our memories in the worship of the Church below, as it is to the saints in Heaven in the worship of the Church above, 3 and, as may also be believed, to the Mind of God ; and therefore the Flesh and Blood of Christ, as at the time of His Death, are capable of being really, though spiritually, eaten and drunk by the faithful in the Lord's Supper. From this point of view they cannot be eaten and drunk in any other way but spiritually. To partake of them, on this view, is to transport ourselves by faith to the moment when our Lord and Master breathed out His Life on the Cross, and to unite our wills in spirit to His Sacrifice of Himself, so that His Church, and every individual member ~f it, inspired by the Spirit of their Master, offer their lives also in the Sacrament of Holy Communion as a .perpetual "sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God." 4 Thus the Sacrament of Holy Communion continues the work which, as we have seen, is begun in Baptism. 5 As in Baptism, so in Holy Communion, we are conjoined with Christ in His whole R,edemptive work. By uniting ourselves to Him in His Death, we become united with Him in Âˇ His 1 4

John xix. 34. Rom. xii. 1.

2 5

1 Cor. v. 7, 8. Seep. 306.

Rev. v. 6, 12 ; vii. 9.

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Resurrection and Ascension. Continually dying with Him to sin, we also continually "rise with Him through faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead." 1 Partaking of His Sacrifice, we are made partakers of its results. Eating of the Flesh of the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," 2 we become incorporate into His glorified Body, which is ever present at the Right Hand of the Father in Heaven. 3 A few words in explanation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation may avail to clear up some difficulties in relation to it. Here, as elsewhere, we are confronted with the ambiguities inseparable from the inadequacy of human language as a vehicle of thoug-ht on the things of God. And in this special case we have also to deal with the change in philosophical terminology which the progress of thought has brought about in the meaning of terms. The word Transubstantiation, as applied to the elements in the Lord's Supper, had its origin in the famous N ominalist and Realist controversy in the ninth century. The Realists contended that abstract ideas had a real existence. The Nominalists contended that they were mere convenient formulae of classification. If the Realist theory were correct, then beneath the appearance of every object there 1

2 Rev. xiii 8. Col. ii. 12. This view, which demands more careful and exhaustive examination than it has hitherto received, derives additional support from the fact that Holy Communion is confessedly the New Passover of the New Law (" novum Pascha novae legis," to use the words of an ancient Latin Sacramental hymn) ; and the old Passover was the feeding on a lamb sacrificed and slain. The early Fathers, though they universally assert the reality of our feeding on Christ's Flesh and Blood in the Eucharist, do not state, as modern theologians have done, whether it is the glorified Body of Christ which is partaken of, though they unquestionably regard a participation in the life of the Risen and Glorified Christ as a result of such participation. 8

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was hidden an idea which had a real and actual existence, the visible object being a mere phenomenon. This underlying reality was called substance. The inquiry naturally extended to the Lord's Supper, and it was asked what was the reality which, after consecration, underlay the appearances (or accidents, as they were called) of bread and wine. To this it was answered, naturally enough, that the greater reality swallowed up the less, and that therefore the ideas which underlay the appearance or accidents of the Eucharist were no longer bread and wine, but the Body and Blood of Christ. Unfortunately the definition outlived the theory. The Realist philosophy went out of fashion. The word substance gradually came to have other significations. And the doctrine of Transubstantiation now appears to many, and not without reason, to mean that the material substance of bread and wine ceases to exist after consecration, and that it is replaced by a material Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ. It is scarcely too much to say that this gross and material form of a profound metaphysical conception is practically the belief of the vast majority of the members of the Roman Church at the present day. Yet such a belief is not necessarily involved in the word, and Cardinal Newman has given us a definition of it which differs in no material point from the language of our Art. XXVIII. 1 It is, however, one of the many peculiarities of the Roman system that language which passes unrebuked from the lips or the pen of a Roman ecclesiastic of distinction would be discouraged, if not interdicted, when used by the ordinary parish priest. It is the more modern form 1 I have been unable to find Cardinal Newman's words, and must quote them from memory. He describes the accidents in the Eucharist as embracing everything of which the senses can by any possibility take cognizance. He does, however, say ( Via Media, p. 220), "Our Lord neither descends from heaven upon our altars, nor moves when carried in procession."

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of the doctrine which is stigmatized by our article as "overthrowing the nature of a Sacrament." And there can be little doubt that this is the belief most prevalent in the Roman Church at the present moment. The vast majority of the members of the Roman Communion, we may venture to repeat, in the nineteenth as in the sixteenth century, are taught to believe in a Body of Christ locally present on the altar whenever Holy Communion is celebrated, and locally present in the tabernacle whenever the Host is reserved. Such a doctrine is not only a degradation of Divine mysteries to the level of our human conceptions, it is ultimately, as all low and sensuous conceptions of things Divine must be, injurious to the moral character of those by whom it is accepted. There is a further reason why we should reject the dogma of Transubstantiation. While we protest against negations of truth on the one hand, and degradations of it on the other, it is equally our duty to protest against the spirit which has insisted on the acceptance by God's people of exact definitions on points which do not admit of it. 1 We are bound to resist all attempts to turn the Sacrament of union into an apple of discord. Once more we may be invited to ponder the cautions addressed to us by perhaps the greatest divine our Church has produced: "Curious and intricate speculations do hinder, the:y- abate, they quench such inflamed motions of delight and joy as divine graces use to raise when extraordinarily they are present. 2 The principle for which Hooker contends once admitted, " that this Sacrament is a true and a real participation of Christ," 3 "why should any cogitation possess the mind of 1 "We object to Transubstantiation, because it is an explanation. â&#x20AC;˘ . . We should be equally bound to reject any other explanation of this Sacramental union. We are bound to accept the fact, not to explain it." Rev. Father BENSON, Bible Teaching, p. 135. 3 2 HooKER, Eccl. Pol. V. Jxvi1. 3. Ib. V. lxvii. 7.

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a faithful communicant but this, ' 0 my God, Thou art true ; 0 my soul, thou art happy i' " 1 Another point on which there has been much difference of opinion has been the sense in which the Eucharist is to be regarded as a sacrifice. That it was so regarded in early times is a fact which can hardly be disputed. 2 But the sense in which it was so regarded is more open to question. Some contend that it was simply an oblation or sacrifice of the fruits of the earth, involved in the presentation of the elements of bread and wine. And the language of so early a Father as Irenaeus shows that this idea was present to the minds of those who regarded the Eucharist as a Sacrifice. 3 Others have confined the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist to the offering of "praise and thanksgiving." Others, again, have taught that there is a perpetual presentation by the Ascended Christ of His Sacrifice in heaven; and that there is likewise a continual presentation of the Sacrifice of Christ on earth in union with that presentation in heaven, and that this presentation is made in the Holy Eucharist. We have already dealt with this subject in connection with the Ascension of our Blessed Lord. 4 The doctrine of our union with Him, in and through the Spirit, sheds additional light on [it. We may even go so far as to say that, by virtue of that mystic yet most real union, what He is doing in heaven His Church must, of necessity, be doing on earth. But it is to be remarked that in this there is involved no idea of a repetition of the Sacrifice of the Cross. In the Jewish HooKER, Eccl. Pol, V. lxvii. 12. From Justin Martyr onwards. See his Dialogue with Trypho, chaps. xli., cxvii. Bishop Harold Browne says that Athenagoras, wnting a little later, is the first to apply t.o the Eucharist the title, Unbloody Sacri,fice. But he only uses the phrase; he does not apply it to the Eucharist. 3 lRENAEUs, Against Heresies, IV, xvii. 5; xviii. 4. 4 See pp. 238, 241. 1

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sacrifices we find that beside the slaying of the victim, there was invariably, in some way or other, an offering, and a presentation of it to God. 1 In this sense-that of offering and presenting exclusively-there seems no valid reason why the clergy of the Christian Church should not be regarded as sacrificing priests. Not that they may represent themselves as sacrificing Christ-that were to "crucify Him afresh"; or as "making God" (an expression blasphemously used in mediaeval times)~ and, therefore, may found a claim arbitrarily to rule the elect of God ; 8 but that, as the ministers of Christ on the one hand, and on the other as the representatives of the whole Christian people, they may, in union with the Church over whose worship they preside, perpetually present to God the "One Sacrifice, once offered," on behalf of us sinners, and, at the same time, present to Him the whole Body of Christ here below, also offering itself as a Sacrifice, in union with the one Perfect Sacrifice which was once offered for the sins of the whole world, and is now eternally presented-or present-in heaven. That the reception of this Sacrament is, as stated in the Catechism, "generally necessary to salvation "-that is to say, necessary whenever it is possible to obtain it-may be 1 In the burnt sacrifice there was the sprinkling of the blood on the altar, as well as the consumption by fire; in the meal-offering, 01Âˇ Minchah (so generally supposed by the early Fathers to be typical of the Eucharist), the burning the memorial; in the peace-offering, the burning of part of the sacrifice, and, in some cases, the sprinkling of th~ blood ; in the sin and trespass offering, the sprinkling or smearing of the blood ; in the ceremonial of the Day of Atonement, the solemn offering of the blood of the victim in the Holy of Holies. See Leviticus i.-v. 2 ST. JEROME, in his Epistle to Heliodorus (xiv. 8), speaks of the priest as "making the Body of Christ with his sac1Âˇed mouth'' (''Christi corpus sacro ore conficiunt ")-a dangerous expression, which was soon improved upon. 3 These two ideas, quite separate and distinct, are frequently confounded in popular thought under the name Sacerdotalism,

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inferred from the following considerations :-first of all, Christ enjoined that His disciples should "all" partake of it ; 1 secondly, He ordered it to be a perpetual memorial of His Death through all generations; thirdly, the Apostle states that it was the custom for "all" members of the Church to partake of it; 2 fourthly, it seems hardly possible that when our Lord sanctified this rite to be a means of partaking of His Flesh and Blood, and commanded His disciples to receive it, those who wilfully neglect or refuse to obey His command can preserve the gift of the Divine Humanity, by which alone our salvation is effected. If it be asked what dispositions are required in order that we may worthily partake of it, we may answer in a few words-the Mind which is in Christ Jesus, and the belief that by none but His Spirit can that Mind be imparted. This involves all, and more than all, which is contained in the answer in the Church Catechism, "To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead a new life, have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His Death, and to be in charity with all men." To look to Jesus Christ as the source of all human excellence ; to seek to be made like to Him ; to aim at His Mind of irreconcilable hostility towards sin; to cultivate His Spirit of love towards our brother man; to confess where we have failed to come up to the standard set before us ; to resolve to do all that in us lies to approach that standard more nearly in the future ;-this it is to be a worthy communicant. Unworthy communion is, of course, possible, and not uncommon; but, on the other hand, there is often , an unreasonable dread of falling into it. The terrible words, "He that eateth and tlrinketh unworthily, eateth ' Matt. xxvi. 28.

1 Cor. x. 17.

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and drinketh damnation to himself," 1 have driven many away from the holy Table ; and a less terrifying translation in the German version of the Scriptures is said to have driven Goethe from Church and altar. It will be well to bear in mind that the word (Kptp,a )Âˇ translated "damnation" in our Version of the Scriptures properly means "judgment" ; that the word "damnation," when our Version was made, had not necessarily the meaning of et!ffnal condemnation, but meant simply condemnation ; that this condemnation is, immediately after, expressly stated by the Apostle not to mean eternal condemnation, but temporal chastisement, inflicted that we might escape the final destruction -0f the soul. 2 An unworthy reception, we also find from the Apostle's language, means a reception of Holy Communion without the slightest appreciation of the spiritual meaning of the rite ; the treating it as an ordinary supper; and the approaching that supper in a spirit of selfishness, which is the exact opposite of the Spirit of Christ. And even such a reception as this is not necessarily fatal. A faithless, or impenitent, or inconsistent reception of the Holy Supper may afterwards be repented of. It is only wilful, deliberate, persistent rejection of Christ which will ultimately quench His Spirit within us. While, therefore, we should do all in our power to fit ourselves as carefully as possible for eating Christ's Flesh and drinking His Blood in the true spirit of a Christian believer, we need not despair of " God's mercy through Christ " being shown to our human infirmity. And coming in faith, in repentance, in humility to God's most holy Table, we may hope there to find that Bread-that Flesh and Blood of our Saviour Christ -which alone can "give life" to us and to "the world." 3 1

1 Cor. xi. 29. " John vi. 33, 51. Sacraments.

2 1 Cor. xi. 30-32. See also chap. iv. sec. iv. in reference to the

332

NOTE TO CHAPTER

TH]l: CltEED.

VI.,

SECTION 2, ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE

REAL PRESENCE.

The doctrine which has obtained favour in a large and influential section of the members of our Church since the rise. of the Tractarian movement is in advance of that which was generally accepted by divines of the High Church school before that movement began. It is usually expressed in these words :-" The body of Christ is present in, with, or under the form of bread and wine." It is thus a kind of third term between Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation. "With" suggests the former theory ; "under" implies the second ; "in" is consistent with either ; "or" denotes that those who use this formula have not definitely decided which of the two theories, or three forms of expression, they consider it best to adopt. There are still further ambiguities in the formula. It is uncertain whether the word "form" is, or is not, equivalent to "species." Species, in the definition of Transubstantiation given above,1 is equivalent to appearance. If form, in the definition to which we are referring, means appearance, then Transubstantiation is affirmed as a possible alternative. If the word form is employed in its usual sense, it would imply that the substance of the bread and of the wine still remains; and in this case the formula would approximate to Consubstantiation. The doctrine of the Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Sacrament regards the elements as channels whereby the Body and Blood of Christ is conveyed. It does not undertake to say where the Body and Blood of Christ are, or in what precise manner they are conveyed to the soul. It simply states that they who feed on the outward signs in the spirit and intention required by Christ, do really and truly feed on His Flesh and Blood, and enjoy a communication of His Being. On the fourth theory, to which I have referred above, there is, and can be, no local Presence of Christ's Body and Blood. It were best, in speaking on this Divine mystery, to bear in 1

p. 322.

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mind the caution contained in the words of Bishop Ridley in regard to another doctrine: "Sir, in this matter I am so fearful, that I dare not go further than the text doth, as it were, bear me in the hand." We have no information from Christ, or His Apostles, where the Body and Blood of Christ are, in the process of our feeding upon Him, in what way they are connected with the Bread and Wine, or how the process of feeding on His Body and Blood is effected. Therefore, whosoever-whatever his theory of the manner of the Presence may be-teaches that in this Holy Supper Christ does really give Himself to be the food of the soul, and that he who partaketh of it faithfully partakes of Him, holds the Catholic verity which Christ taught. 1 At the same time, if persons, either from want of power to conceive of abstract ideas, or in order to present doctrines with clearness to uneducated minds, should be inclined to insist on forms of expression which do not commend themselves to our judgment, we have no right to stigmatize their views as heretical, so long as they hold that Christ is "verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." Yet it is well to bear in mind that God's working, in nature and in grace, is mysterious and unseen ; that it is unwise, and even irreverent, to inquire too closely into the "secret things of the Lord our God" ; and, above all, we ought not to lose sight of the fact that the less sensuous and the more spiritual otu conceptions of Divine processes are, the better it is for true spiritual religion. Perhaps, too, the loose use of the word " Sacrament" may have something to do with the dissensions which have arisen on the subject. Sometimes it is used accurately, to denote the whole rite; sometimes-and this, be it carefully observed, only in the case of Holy Communion-to denote the elements. It is used in this latter sense in the well-known passage in Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, which has occasioned so much controversy, "The Presence 1 We must, however, beware of non-natural explanations of our Lord's language on this point, such as will be found mentioned on p. 283, note 4. Such confusion of thought is most lamentable. When our Lord says that we partake of His Flesh and Bloodi.e. of His sanctified humanity-He must have really meant what He said, or His words have uo meaning at all.

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of Christ must be looked for, not in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament." 1 In the Sacrament-that is, in the whole ceremony as instituted by Christ-the Presence of Christ may assuredly be looked for, and Hooker elsewhere most distinctly asserts that it may be looked for; 2 but whether such a Presence is in the elements may reasonably be doubted . .As has been seen above, there are many who hold that the Presence is not in the elements themselves, but in their reception after a godly and faithful manner. There could be no more convincing demonstration of the necessity of precision of language on so important a subject than this unfortunate lapse on the part of our renowned theologian. The reproach, however, of insufficiently guarded utterances on this great subject does not rest on Hooker alone. Dr. Pusey, in defending the expression "Christ's Body and Blood truly present under the form of Bread and Wine," says that he has used it "because the Homilies use it" ; but that he "has warned persons against" using the words in a "physical or carnal "sense, and that when he has spoken of "adoring Christ present," he "never meant to say anything about a local Presence, much less of the corporeal Presence of Christ's natural Body and Blood." Moreover, he did not mean "to encourage anything which could be interpreted into adoration of the Host." (Letter to Bishop Wilberforce, in Pusey's Life, iii. 305.) But it may be said, with all respect to so profound a theologian and so holy a man, that in his intense wish to protest against Puritan, and even High Church .Anglican, narrowness on this subject, he did not always realize what use would be made of his statements by men less profound than himself. We may rejoice that he has vindicated the comprehensiveness of our Church by proving that Consubstantiation, and even Transubstantiation itself in the sense indicated above (p. 326), are not outside the limits of toleration in our Communion. But ninety-nine ont of every hundred persons who use the words "present under the form of Bread and Wine" are incapable of apprehending the nice metaphysical distinctions which were never absent from the mind of Dr. Pusey when he himself used it. When they use these expressions, they. use them in a local and material sense, not in a metaphysical 1 Eccl. Pol. V. lxvii. 6. 2

Seep. 320.

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or spiritual sense. To such persons the adoration of Christ, mystically present, becomes the adoration of the Host. And thus, instead of bearing in mind the caution of the old Latin hymn, "Tantum ergo Sacramentum," that those who approach the Blessed Sacrament "must from carnal thoughts be free," we find among us tendencies toward~ gross, sensuous, and carnal apprehensions of the Divine mystery in the Eucharist, as opposed to the teaching of the great leaders of the Tractarian school, as to that of the Fathers to which they strove so perseveringly to recall us. It is, moreover, to be lamented that the Fathers have been so loosely quoted on this great question. It is equally possible to make a catena for or against the doctrine of the Presence Âˇof Christ in the elements from their pages. 1 When they speak of the whole rite, and of the reality of the feeding on Christ in it, they use the strongest possible language to assert this truth. Sometimes they use expressions which imply that the Presence is in the elements themselves. But then, on the contrary, they 1 Even Dr. Pusey's work on the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is not free from the reproach that it makes citations detached from a context which materially modifies their language. This is, however, chiefly the case in the earlier Fathers, and it is not intended to obscure the fact that the elements are often called by the early Fathers the "figure," or "representation," of Christ's Body and Blood, but to concentrate the attention of the reader on the fact that they all agreed in insisting upon a Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament. The great Doctor of our Church would, however, have made his meaning clearer had he substituted the words " Real feeding on" for "Real Presence," and had he made it plain that the word Sacrament is not, properly speaking, applied to the elements, but to the whole rite, whereby they are solemnly blessed, offered, and consumed by the faithful. The word "objective," too, which is simply intended to convey the belief that it is not our faith, but God's Spirit, that makes the Presence, has become confounded with '' local," which Dr. Pusey emphatically rejects. Altogether, we may profitably remember that attempts to define too closely the modus operandi of God's dealings with mankind, and a contentious, intolerant, and intractable spirit in pronouncing on subjects so difficult, have been the source, as in regard to the Atonement, so in regard to the Eucharist, of much suffering and doubt to individual souls, and of a vast amount of confusion and disorder in the Church of God.

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frequently use language about the. elements which modern English theologians are accustomed to denounce as inadequate. They speak of the bread and wine as " expressing," being "symbols of," the Body and Blood of Christ-language which falls short even of our modern idea that the bread and wine are channels through which the Body and Blood of Christ are conveyed. In the Catechetical lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, for instance, we find, in the course of a single page, expressions which have been eagerly laid hold of by partisans of both sides alike in the Eucharistic controversy, each side characteristically seizing on those which supported its case, and neglecting the rest, instead of seeing that the language in each class of passages must be taken as qualifying what is to be found in the other. From which may be ded11ced the inference that a treatise which shall fully and fairly embody the complete teaching of the early Church in the matter of the Eucharist can hardly be looked for in the past, though it may possibly be hoped for in the future. Some few passages from the most eminent of the Fathers on this question are appended and translated. They have been carefully compared with the original. "They absent themselves from Eucharist and prayers, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ." IGNATIUS, Ad Smyrn. 7. See also Ad Philadelph. 4.

"And this nourishment is called among us 'Eucharist,' and no one is thought worthy to partake of it but those who believe that the things we teach are true, and who have been washed in the font on behalf of the remission of sins and unto regeneration, and who live according to Christ's commandments. Now we do not receive these things as common bread and common drink, but as Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh by the Word of God, and took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also the nourishment over which thanks have been given by means of the word of prayer which He commanded, from which, according to a transmutation (Âľ,â&#x201A;Źra.{3o),:fw), our flesh and blood are nourished ; this, we are taught, is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Who was made flesh." Jusl'IN MARTYR, 1st Ap. chap. 66.. "For if this (our human flesh) be not capable of salvation, then did not the Blood of Christ redeem us, nor is the chalice of the Eucharist the communication of His Blood, nor the bread

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which we break the communication of His Body." IRENAEUS, Adv. Haer. V. ii. 2. [This passage comes down to us only in a Latin translation. "Communicatio" is doubtless the translation of the Greek Ko,vwvlo,, communion. But Irenaeus' translator, living at a period a little later than Irenaeus himself, obviously shrinks from the absolute identification of the elements with that which they conveyed.] "When, therefore, the mingled cup, and that which hath been made bread receiveth upon it the Word of God, and the Eucharist becomes the Body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh increases and subsists, how can they say that flesh is incapable of the gift of God, which is Eternal Life 1" (lb. s~c. 3.) [The argument here is against the Gnostics, who believed that matter was essentially evil.] He goes on to say that it is the Spirit of God which causes the grain of corn which falls into the earth to multiply, and to become the Eucharist, by which our bodies are nourished, being afterwards destined to be buried, and to rise again. In Book IV. chap. xviii. 5, in a similar passage he speaks of the Eucharist as "consisting of two things (1rpa,-yÂľtiTwv), an earthly and a heavenly." In a fragment preserved by Oecumenius, Irenaeus, speaking of the errors into which the heathen sometimes fell from misinterpreting the language of Christians about the Eucharist, says that some heathen slaves, imagining that the Divine partaking (rl,v 0elo,v Âľmi"A.1Jifnv) was in reality (r<p 6vr,) a partaking of flesh and blood, gave information against their masters to that effect. Elsewhere, in a fragment, he calls the Body and Blood of Christ the "antitypes" of the elements of bread and wine. Clement of Alexandria ( Instructor, II. 2) says that "to drink the Blood of Jesus is to be partaker of His immortality," and that "those who partake of the Eucharist by faith are sanctified in body and soul" And in the first book (chap. vi.) he speaks of "blood" as figuratively termed wine, "and the Word as figuratively described as meat and flesh and food, and bread and blood and milk," and once again that "the Lord's Blood is figuratively represented as milk." Again he speaks of our Lord's words," Eat My Flesh and drink My Blood," as "describing by a metaphor the drinkable properties of faith." This Father distinctly adopts a mystical treatment of the Eucharist. z

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Tertullian, who wrote about the same time (the end of the second and beginning of the third century), says that the bread "is a figure of" the Body, and the wine similarly "is a figure of" the Blood of Christ. Adv. Marcion. IV. 40. But he regards the Sacrament as a real feeding upon Christ nevertheless. De Oratione 19. He makes surprisingly few allusions to the Eucharist in his works. Cyprian (circa 250 A.D.), in his Epistle to Caecilius on Holy Communion, declares that "that was wine" which Christ "called His Blood" (chap. 9). In chap. 11, speaking against those who celebrate with water only, he says that it cannot "express" the Blood of Christ. In chap. 13 he says that "in the wine the Blood of Christ is shown." But he regards the Eucharist (chap. 15) as a real participation of Christ. We do not find many allusions to the Eucharist in Cyprian. He speaks of the Bread of the Eucharist becoming a cinder when in the possession of unworthy Christians (De Lapsis, 26), from which he draws the inference that Christ withdraws .His Presence from those who deny Him. Origen, who was contemporary with Cyprian, has a remarkable passage in his Homily on St. Matthew xxvi. 26. He says : "God the Word did not call that visible bread which He held in His Hand His Body, but the word in the mystery of which that bread had been broken. Nor did He call that visible drink His Blood, but the word in the mystery of which that drink had been poured out." This part of the Homily on St. Matthew is only to be found in an ancient Latin translation ; and it has evidently been tampered with in the interests of a supposed orthodoxy, for the Benedictine editor, who thinks it does not sound quite Catholic, tells us he finds it absent from previous editions of Origen's works, but that he restores it to the text on the evidence of two ancient MSS., the existence of which was known only to himself. One of these MSS., he adds, is of the ninth century. A few lines previously, Origen speaks of the "bread which Christ confessed to be His Body," and the "wine which He confessed to be His Blood." In his Homily on St. Matthew xi. 13, he says : "The food which is sanctified by the Word of God and supplication, goes into the belly and out into the draught, as far as the material part of it is concerned ; but as far as regards the prayer which

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is uttered over it, according to the analogy of the faith, it becomes profitable, and the cause whereby the mind is enabled to see clearly, looking for profit. Nor is it the material of the bread, but the word which is spoken over it, which profits him who does not eat it in a manner unworthy of the Lord. So much concerning the typical and symbolical Body." In his treatise, De Oratione, however, he most distinctly asserts that Christ is the true Bread by which our souls are nourished, and are thus "made Divine through God the Word Who was in the beginning with God." Athanasius seldom refers to the Eucharist ; but in his fourth Epistle to Serapion, he says that the Lord, when the Jews were scandalized at His language about the eating of His Body, expressly gave them to understand that it was not a natural but a spiritual feeding of which He spake. And this he supports by our Lord's subsequent reference to His Ascension, and to His declaration that the words He spake were Spirit and Life. He did this "that He might withdraw them from corporeal conceptions, teaching them that what He had called flesh was food from heaven, and the spiritual nourishment thereby given." 1 Basil, in his eighth Epistle, chap. 4, says : "We eat (rpcf,,yoÂľev) His Flesh and drink His Blood, and through His Incarnation and perceptible Life become partakers of the Word and Wisdom." And He adds that by flesh and blood Christ meant "His whole mystic indwelling," and "signified His doctrine, consisting of practical and natural and theological instruction." The language of Cyril of Jerusalem is very remarkable. He has been cited, and fairly cited, on both sides of the Eucharistic controversy. For he says, in his twenty-second Catechetical Lecture, chap. iii. : "Thus with all assurance we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. For the Body is given thee in the figure (r,hr4J) of bread, and in the figure (rv1r4J) of wine the Blood is given thee, that by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ thou mayest become one Body and one Blood with Him." He then illustrates (chap. v.) the relation of the Bread to Christ's Body by that of the Logos to the soul ; and he bids the believer (chap. vi.) pay no attention to the bare elements, bread and wine, for according to the language of the Lord they 1

See, however, passages cited on p. 342,

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THE CREED.

are the Body and Blood of Christ. It is clear that he held a real feeding on Christ, a real communication of His Flesh and Blood to tJ:ie believer, in the rite. But it seems equally clear that he held no doctrine of the transmutation of the sign into the thing signified. The truth appears to be that the early Âˇdoctors of the Church fixed their faith firmly on the Eucharist as a real means of participation in the Life of Christ, but they were not prepared with any theory regarding the nature of the elements themselves after consecration, or the modus operandi whereby through partaking of the elements the believer was incorporated into Christ. Augustine's language on the subject has not always been fairly quoted, and appears at times inadequate. But this again only proves that there has been no uniform Catholic tradition on the question of the mode, as distinct from the fact of the Real Presence in the Eucharist,1 and that therefore the Church of the present age has still a right to discuss the matter, and even, if it seems desirable, to speculate upon it. In his treatise on Christian Doctrine he speaks of the signs in use in the Christian Church. Speaking of Baptism and the Eucharist, he remarks that those who receive them hold them in reverence, not in a carnal slavery, but rather in a spiritual liberty. (III. 9.) To eat Christ's Flesh and Blood in a carnal sense would be to commit a crime; "therefore it is a figure," and means to communicate in Christ's Passion, and to bear sweetly and usefully in mind that Christ's Flesh was crucified and wounded for us. (III. 16.) Here St. Augustine, as the Western Church after him, seems to have held the doctrine of Christ's indwelling with a feebler grasp than is sometimes the case with him, and to have spoken of the Eucharist as though it were no more than a bare memorial. Again, "The Lord did not fear to say, 'This is My Body,' when He was giving a sign of His Body.' (Contra Adimantum, XII. 3.) "He commended and handed to His disciples the figure of His Flesh and Blood" in the Last Supper (" Convivium in quo corporis et sanguinis sui figuram commendavit et tradidit." Enarr. in Psalm iii.) In another passage we observe the same apparent incousistency which has been noticed in the utterances of Cyril of Jerusalem. It is found in Sermon 272. "How is this bread 1

i.e. in the whole rite; not necessarily in the. elements.

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His Body, and this cup, or rather what is contained in this cup, His Blood 1 My brethren, we call these things (ista) Sacraments, because in them one thing is seen, another understood. That which is seen has a bodily form ; that which is understood has a spiritual fruit. If, then, you wish to understand the Body of Christ, hear the .Apostle saying to the faithful, ' Ye are the Body of Christ and His members.' If, then, you are the Body of Christ and His members, your mystery (mysterium vestrum) is placed in the Lord's Table ; you receive your mystery. . . . Why is this Body in the bread? We say nothing of ourselves; we hear the .Apostle's words, saying, 'We, being many, are all one Bread and one Body' . . . only one Bread. What is that one Bread 1 Many are one Body; remember that the bread is not made of one grain, but of many." (See also Sermon 352 ; Commentary on St. John's Gospel, Tr. xxvi. Nos. 11-20.) But in Sermon 227 he says "that bread which you see on the altar, when it has been consecrated by the Word of God, is the Body of Christ ; that cup, or rather that which the cup contains, is the Blood of Christ." St. Chrysostom frequently expresses himself in similar language, and in his Homily on 1 Cor. xi. 27, speaks of our " touching the Body of Christ with our tongue." We will conclude with the well-known passage in THEODORET's Eranistes, cited by Bishop Pearson, in which he uses the outward and inward parts of the Eucharist to illustrate his view of the union of the Godhead and Manhood in Christ. He says-the translation is Bishop Pearson's (On the Creed, p. 163, note): "The bread and wine after the consecration leave not their own nature, but remain in their former substance, shape, and form." Yet nevertheless he calls them the Body and Blood of Christ. In the same note Pearson cites Gelasius in favour of the doctrine that the substance of the bread and wine is preserved (non desinit), though by the Sacrament " we are made partakers of the Divine Nature," He mentions how "Caute" is printed here in the margin of the Bibliotheca Patrum, just as the passage above cited from Origen is either omitted, or ingeniously explained away by a number of distinctions too refined for the ordinary intellect to follow. There are, however, many passages in the Fathers which seem to point to the fourth view of the E11charist, to which reference

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has already been made. This view has been held by some divines of repute. The late Archdeacon Freeman held it, though by saying, without explanation, that it is the Dead Body of Christ which is present in the Eucharist, he repelled many who might otherwise have been disposed to consider the theory. Dr. Vogan has maintained it in a treatise of some length and importance, but unfortunately somewhat polemical in character. Its best expression in the works of any English divine of note is to be found in Bishop ANDREWES' Sermons: "A live lamb will not suit. It is a Lamb slain must be our Passover. We are carried back to Ghrist at the very instant, and in the act of His Offering, and by the incomprehensible power of His Eternal Spirit we are incorporate into His Death." Cyprian, in his letter to Caecilius,1 speaks of the "immolated victim" in the Eucharist. Athanasius takes the same view repeatedly in his Paschal Letters-he says very little about the Eucharist elsewhere. In the thirty-ninth, he says of the Christian Passover: "We have been-nay, we are-invited to -that great and supramundane Supper which sufliceth for all creation-to the Passover, I say, the Slain Ghrist" (rav ru0evra. xpu,rav). And he adds, "since Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us." So also in his eleventh Paschal Letter, chap. xiv. 2 In the Epistle of the Nicene Fathers to the Church at large, given by Gelasius of Cyzicus (II. chap. xxx.), 3 we find the following passage: "Let us not meanly (ra.1mvws) give heed to the bread and wine lying before us, but let us lift up our understanding (ouivo,a.v), and perceive (vo71uwÂľev) by faith the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world, lying upon that Sacred Table, sacrificed unsacrificially by the priests" (a0vrws fnro 'TWV lepewv 0v6Âľevov). Clement of Alexandria says : " To the sons who approach, the Father giveth the fatted Calf, and slayeth it, and it is eaten." So St. Gregory the Illuminator says: "Thou didst call the world to the Sacrifice of Thy Son, and saidst, ' My Calf i.s slain, and My Feast is prepared.' . . . Thou didst satisfy all the ends of the world with His Life-giving Body." Ep. lxii., or in some editions lxiii. So also, in the fifth Paschal Letter, he points out how, under the New Covenant, the Flesh and Blood of Christ have been substituted for the flesh of the Paschal Lamb. 3 He was Bishop of Caesarea, circa 476. 1

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Ephrem Syrus says: "From death, which is very bitter, there gushed forth to us the sweetness of the life-giving Food." And again, "Lo, Thou art sacrificed upon our Table." St. James of Nisibis says: "When His Body was eaten, and His Blood drunk, He was counted among the dead." St. Jerome says (Ep. 21, to Damasus): "The fatted Calf, sacrificed for the salvation of the penitent, is the Saviour Himself, by Whose Flesh we are daily fed, Whose Blood we drink." And St. Isaac the Teacher: "She [Faith] showed me a Body slain, and placed thereof within my lips, and cried to me sweetly, 'See what it is thou art eating.' She gave me the pen of the Spirit, and bade me subscribe ; and I took, I wrote, and I confessed, 'This is the Body of God.'" St. Chrysostom, too, says (De Coem. et Cruce): "Why press forward, when, as it is, thou beholdest the Lamb slain?" And Cyril of Alexandria says : " The fatted Calf is sacrificed ; the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world is slain." 1 Besides these passages, there is the well-known one from the De Sacerdotio of St. Chrysostom, quoted by almost everyone who treats of the teaching of the Fathers on the Eucharist, in which he speaks of the worshipper beholding "the Lord sacrificed and lying, and the priest standing by the sacrifice and praying." St. Chrysostom continually uses this language. In his De Coem. et Cruce, he again speaks of "the Lamb slain and sacrificed." So also in his Homilies, On the Statutes, " Where Christ lies slain " (xv. 14). He calls it "the holy Passover." (On the Statutes, Hom. xii. 14; xx. 19.) And he continually speaks of Christ "lying" (Ke1Âľho,) on the altar, sometimes as a sacrificed Victim, sometimes as a Babe in the Manger. It is clear from this that St. Chrysostom did not hold the Presence of the glorified Body of Christ in the Eucharist. Though it must be admitted that the Fathers but rarely enlarge on this view of the Eucharist, yet it may not unfairly be supposed to be involved in the fact that the Eucharist is frequently described by ancient authors as "novum pascha novae legis." And if the Jewish Passover was the feeding on a sacrificed victim, the Christian Passover might reasonably be the same. There is thus ancient authority for 1 These eight passages are taken from Dr. PUSEY's citations from the Fathers, in his Treatise, On the Real Presence.

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the belief that the· Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist may be His skiin Body and shed Blood, mystically present to faith, while He, nevertheless, the Lamb there beheld as slain (ws eu,pa"fµl11011), is continually present in His glorified Humanity, both in heaven above and in the members of His Church below, by His Spirit. "I am the First and the Last, and the Living One ; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." (Rev. i. 17, 18.) Even Roman Catholic divines sometimes favour this view. Canon Gore, in his Roman Catholic Claims, p. 177, cites a passage from the Love of Jesus, by Canon Gilbert, p. 41 (a work which has the imprimatur of Cardinal Manning), to the following effect: "We hold that here [at the Altar] Thy Body and Blood are separated, and that Thou art, as it were, again nailed to the Cross, and presented to heaven as a holocaust for the propitiation of the sins of the world." But the Roman Church inclines to the doctrine of a repetition of the Sacrifice of the Cross, whereas theologians of the Reformed Churches would substitute the subjective realization, by faith, of that one Sacrifice. The student should carefully read, and weigh, the full citations from the Fathers in Norris' Rudiments of Theology, Appendix, chap. vi., if he wishes to escape from narrow and one-sided views on a great and difficult question. SECTION

III.

ON MINISTERS IN THE CHURCH

It seems scarcely necessary, in an elementary treatise of this kind, to demonstrate at any length the fact that in the Christian Church there has always been a body of men commissioned to minister to their brethren in holy things. Such a fact would seem inseparable from the idea of a visible society. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any religion could possibly continue to exist without some persons officially authorized to expound its principles and offer its worship. Accordingly, we find that our Lord · "appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach, and to have

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authority (power, A.V.) t6 cast out devils." 1 Âˇ To these twelve, after His Resurrection, He committed the task of founding and spreading His Church. 2 We may also infer from the language of our Lord, recorded by St. John, that the power of ruling the Church w.as committed to them. He serit them, as His Father had sent Him. They had power to remit and retain sins. 3 And from a passage in St. Matthew's Gospel 4 we find that He had also endowed them with the power to bind and loose, that is to prescribe and to dispense with the rules which Christians were to observe. Certain it is that the .Apostles did rule the Church which they were commissioned to found. The whole narrative in the Acts o! the Apostles establishes this fact ; and St. Paul's language on various occasions bears further witness to it. 5 When the labours of the Apostles became too great to enable them efficiently to attend to each department of Church work, they appointed others to discharge the less important functions. 6 Soon afterwards we read of "elders." There can be little doubt that these " elders" exercised the same functions of authority and government which belonged to the elders in the Jewish Church. 7 Those who appointed them were Jews, and they 1

2 Matt. xxviii. 19, 20; Acts x. 42. Mark iii. 14, 15. 4 Matt. xviii 18. John xx. 23. 5 e.g., 1 Cor. iv. 19; v. 3.:_5; vii. 12, 17; xi. 2, 34; xiv. 27-31, 34, 37. 2 Cor. x. 11; xiii. 2, 10. Of. 3 John 10. Âˇ 6 Acts vi. Some have denied that the order of Deacons was founded on this occasion. It must be confessed that St. Luke does not expressly say so ; but the fact appears sufficiently evident if we comparff bis narrative with the after history of the Church. 7 Mr. Hatch, in bis able Bampton Lectures, is inclined to the belief that the Apostles and the post-Apostolic divines favoured Gentile rather than Jewish models. But the theory seems rather to have novelty and ingenuity than probability to support it. The Apostles W\l<e Jews. With heathen institutions they had but slight acquaintance. Those institutions which were Apostolic in their origin would seem to be more.naturally explained, where possible, by a reference to Jewish than to Gentile source&. 3

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would naturally bring their Jewish ideas into the organization of the Christian Church, the more especially as they had been brought up to believe, and had the authority of our Lord to support them in the belief, that the Jewish polity was Divinely appointed and Divinely guided. The first mention of elders is in the Church at Antioch. 1 The Church there appears to have been under their general supervision, save when it was honoured by the presence of an Apostle. 2 When St. Paul founded the Gentile Churches, he left them under the care of elders specially appointed. . He sent for the Ephesian elders to Miletus, and gave them a charge. 8 And apparently there were elders associated with the Apostles in the work at Jerusalem, unless we hold that the elders who met the Apostles in order to discuss the question of the circumcision of believers, were the elders of other Churches. St. James and St. Peter mention the order of elders. 4 St. Paul appears to have preferred the term bishop (i.e. overseer) as better known to the Gentile world. 5 Thus he tells the elders, who are summoned by him to Ephesus, that God has made them " overseers" or "bishops " of the flock. 6 When he tells Titus that he had left him at Crete to "appoint elders in every city," he proceeds at once to speak of these persons as bishops.7 In writing to Timothy, the word bishop, not elder, is used. 8 Similarly the Epistle to the Philippians is addressed to the Church, with its "bishops and deacons." 9 St. Paul further gives special instructions to Timothy and Titus concerning the choice of both bishops and deacons, 10 Acts xi. 30. Gal. ii. 11. St. Paul's relation to the Church at Antioch is disâ&#x20AC;˘ cussed in p. 353. 4 James v. 14 ; 1 Poter v. 1. 3 Acts xx. 27. 5 The word i\;,!l, frequently translatetl brltTK01ros in the LXX.; is, however, a common expression in Hebrew. 7 Titus i. 5, 7. 6 Acts xx 28. 8 1 Tim. iii. 1, 2. 10 " Phil. i. I. 1 Tim. iii. ; Titus i. 1

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and adds some advice to Timothy about the proper way of Âˇ exercising supervision over the elders. 1 It is true that some, in view of the priesthood attributed in the Scriptures to all members of the Church of Christ, 2 have argued that there could be no s'pecial order of men set apart to minister to Christians in holy things, but that the power to rule and teach, and perform all other priestly functions, is given to every member of the Church. But apart from the disorder such a theory would introduce into a society which, as we learn, was founded upon a principle of order, 3 we have evidence in the Scriptures that such an inference from the language of the New Testament is an unsound one; for it will not be denied that in the Jewish Church there was a special order of men appointed to minister in holy things. Yet in Exodus xix. 6, God is represented as using precisely the same expression to Moses about the Jewish people which the Apostles have used concerning the members of the Christian Church. The language of Scripture, therefore, while it distinctly asserts the priesthood of the whole body, does not assert it in such a sense as to exclude the ministry of a set of men specially set apart to guide and instruct the members of that body. 4 And beside the indisputable evidence which 1

1 Tim. v. 1, 17, 19. â&#x20AC;˘ 1 Peter ii. 9. Rev. i. 6; v. 10. 1 Cor. xiv. 33, 40. 4 It may be well to advert to the extraordinary confusion of thought involved in this reasoning. All Christians are priests (!epei's) ; therefore it is contended that the Christian Church can have no 1rp<1T{Jvr<po, or e1rl1TK01ro,. Because no persons were specially commissioned to offer sacrifices as the heathen priests were, therefore the Christian Church has neither appointed rulers, guides, nol' teachers. And another ambiguity makes confusion worse confounded. We translate the Greek word lepevs by priest, which is a contraction of the Greek word 1rp<1T{Jvrepos, Which signifies elder. Very few disputants contrive to escape safely out of such a succession of traps for loose reasoners as is presented here. 3

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has already been given, and the express declaration of St. Paul that God "gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, and some to be pastors and teachers," 1 we have his further express statement that "all " were not "apostles, prophets, or teachers.'' 2 It would seem, therefore, to be tolerably evident that the visible society which Christ has founded has never been without its special rulers and guides, and that these rulers and guides in the first instance derived their authority from the choice of Christ Himself. As the Christian Church was designed to have, and may historically be shown to have had, a continuous existence since its foundation, we may naturally ask from the teachers who claim thus to guide and teach us, some proof that they can trace their origin continuously back to the first founders of the Church. How that connection is to be traced is a matter into which we shall enter presently. All that is contended now is, that as the Christian Church has been a continuous society, we may expect to find some evidence of continuity in the organization of that society; and this continuity has been called the Apostolical succession-that is, the tracing up historically the continuity of the society through the orderly succession of its rulers to the original founders of the Church of God. The doctrine of the Apostolical succession, as usually received among us at the present day, is well and clearly put in the words of the well-known hymn : "His twelve Apostles first He made His ministers of grace ; And they their hands on others laid, To fill in turn their place. 1 Eph. iv. 11. The question here, it is to be observed, is not concerning the number of orders in the ministry, nor of the name given to each order, but simply whether there existed in the Apostolic Church any set of men whatever to whom special functions were 2 entrusted. 1 Cor. xii. 29.

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"So age by age, and year by year, His grace is handed on ; And still the holy Church is here, Although her Lord is gone."

In other words, we are taught that from the Apostles' times to our own, every bishop has been consecrated to his sacred office by the laying on of hands of another bishop, 1 and that without such laying on of hands no man may presume to exercise the office of a bishop. This view has in its favour the arguments of probability and long prescription. It also appeals to our natural sense of symmetry. It has been further defended on the ground that authority descends from above, and cannot be conferred from below. A bishop may make a presbyter; but it stands to reason that no presbyter, nor any number of presbyters, can make a bishop. This theory, from its high antiquity and innate reasonableness, demands the highest respect from us, and it is very probably the correct one. Nevertheless, it must be confessed that it lacks the completeness of historical evidence and Oecumenical authority required in order to constitute it a necessary article of the Catholic faith. The earliest evidence we have in behalf of it is a passage in Cyprian, which states that in nearly all the provinces a custom which had been handed down from the Apostles was observed-namely, that all the bishops of the province should assemble, and that in their presence hands should be laid on the person to be admitted to the office of bishop. 2 1 The Eastern Church requires the concurrence of at least three bishops, according to the fourth Canon of the Council of Nicaea. The Western Church has, in later times, regarded one as sufficient. But the Council of Arles, A.D. 314, prescribes three. (See Canon 20 of that Council.) The Apostolical Constitutions prescribe that three, or, at the least, two bishops shall take part in the consecration of a bishop. (See III. 20; VIII. xlvii. 1.) 2 Ep. lxvii. 5. It will be observed that even this statement falls short of the doctrine expressed in the verse of the hymn quoted above.

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That the custom of Episcopal consecration, by laying on of Episcopal hands, was the established rule in Cyprian's time, appears from many passages in his letters, and from the mention by Eusebius of the fact that when Novatian was elected rival Bishop of Rome to Cornelius, about .A.D. 250, three bishops had to be summoned from the most out-of-the-way parts of Italy to consecrate him to the office. 1 But whether the consecration of all bishops by other bishops was from the first regarded as absolutely essential to the validity of Episcopal orders, or whether their presence was originally only desired as a guarantee to the Church at large of the fairness of the electionbishops being, at that time, chosen by the vote of the members of the Church-we have no evidence to prove. The passage in St. Cyprian, on which the theory depends, was not written before .A.D. 254, 2 and the language itself is not a little vague. 3 It seems, at least, a somewhat slender foundation on which to build an indispensable principle of the Catholic Church, the first necessity in regard to which is that it must be proved to have been held and taught "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus." The records of the first and second century are absolutely silent It is, of course, quite possible that the silence of the early Church on the absolute necessity of Episcopal consecration may be due to the fact that the principle was taken for granted. But it is obviously equally possible that the contrary may be the case. 1 EusEBIUS, Beel. Hist. vi. 43. 2 It was written after the accession of Stephen to the bishopric of Rome. 3 It has been contended that "fere per provincias universas" means that it was not always possible to gather together all the bishops of the province, and that some provinces were content with some of them only. , But (1) it seems hardly possible that in any province it would be possible to get all the bishops together at one time, and (2) though the explanation is a probable one, it does not seem altogether certain. Moreover, Cyprian does not say all the bishops of ,the province, but "episcopi proximi quique,"

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on the mode in which Bishops were appointed. Ignatius, it is true, does, before his decease, recommend Polycarp to hold a Council at Antioch, with a view to filling that important see when it became vacant, as it shortly must. But he says nothing about the way in which the new bishop was to be set apart to his sacred office. It is quite within the limits of possibility that the bishop, in the earliest times of all, was simply the president of the community, elected, however, or appointed for life. There seems, moreover, ground for supposing that in the first century some communities had bishops, and that some were governed only by presbyters. 1 It is quite possible 1 "In the account of the feuds at Corinth, no mention is made of any single presiding ruler of the Church; and we must suppose, either that there was a vacancy in the bishopric at this time, or that the bishop's office had not yet assumed at Corinth the prominence which we find a few years later in Asia Minor. It should be remembered that when the letter was written, the last of the twelve Apostles-if the best ancient tradition is to be credited-was still living, the centre of a body of Christian disciples, at Ephesus.'' Bishop LIGHTFOOT, St. Clement of Rome, i. 352. Professor Langen, of Bonn, the Old Catholic historian, in his History of the Church to the Pontificate of Leo L, p. 81, says that the government of the Corinthian Church at the time of Clement's letter was not monarchical, but collegiate. He believes that at this time the Roman Church was also governed by a College of Presbyters, and refers to Lipsius and Wieseler as supporting the opinion that the different order in which the names of Linus, Anencletus, and Clement stand in various catalogues of the Roman bishops is due to the fact that they were simultaneously ruling the Roman Church. This is not, however, Bishop Lightfoot's opinion. The date of Clement's Epistle, according to Bishop Lightfoot, is A. D. 95 or 96. Professor Langen believes that by the laying on of hands the Apostles committed full powers of governing the Church to the presbyters, but that this power was afterwards vested in one single person. (Ibid., pp. 82-83.) This appears to be the view of Jerome and Chrysostom. A writer, I may add, in the Church Quarterly Review, No. 77, p. 184, says: "Episcopacy was not yet localized at Corinth" (i.e. in Clement's time). " The assent of the whole Church-that is, the clergy and

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. that the Church, which existed for centuries without an authorized form of Creed, and without an authorized list of the books of Canonical Scripture, might not-at least, during the lifetime of the Apostles, and so long as it remained possible to appeal in case of necessity to any of them-have had in every locality precisely the same form of government. The very earnestness with which Ignatius insists on the duty of doing nothing without the bishop may point, as some have supposed, to the existence of a tendency, at the time when he was writing, to look on the bishop as being, after all, in no way superior to his brother presbyters. Some have further contended that the strength of the language of Ignatius points to the Episcopate as of recent institution, and as indicative of his deep conviction that in the establishment of such an office would be found the only satisfactory guarantee for Christian unity. It seems, however, on the whole, most probable that, as Eusebius and irenaeus tell us, 1 and as the Epistles of Timothy and Titus appear to prove, Episcopacy had been instituted by the. Apostles, but that, the last of the Apostolic band having been hut a short time removed from the Church, Ignatius had seen signs of a tendency laity of the Corinthian community-had been a natural or necessary concomitant of the ordination of presbyters ; but the local body did not confer the presbyterate, and could not take it away." This writer seems to think that the Corinthian presbyters were ordained by the Apostles themselves, and only by the Apostles. _ But there is no evidence whatever that this was the case. Mr. Strong, chaplain to the Bishop of Durham, thinks (Manual of Theology, p. 404) that some Churches may have originally been governed by Colleges of Presbyters. From all this it will he seen that it is extremely difficult to fix on a theory of the transmission of Episcopal powers, which has been held "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus.'' 1 IRENAEUS, Against Heresies, III. iii. 3, 4. He expressly states that Linus at Rome, and Polycarp at Smyrna (with the latter he says he was personally acquainted), were appointed bishops by Apostles. See also EusEBIUS, Eccl. Hist. III. 36.

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unduly to disparage the Episcopate now that one had only just been removed from this world, who had leaned on the Saviour's breast at supper, and to whom had been vouchsafed a mysterious vision of things to come. Scripture, however, says very little on the question how .the early bishops were appointed. We do not know how Timothy and Titus were formally designated to their posts. St. Paul "besought " 1 one, and "left" 2 the other to discharge functions clearly Episcopal, as we now understand the phrase. The reference to the laying on of hands in Timothy's case refers, in one place almost certainly, in the other most probably, to his ordination as presbyter. 3 And the moment of St. Paul's own appointment to the office of Apostle is by no means certain. If the ceremony at Antioch, described in Acts xiii., were his ordination-and he does not seem to have commenced his career as an Apostle until after that ceremonythen there does not seem to have been anyone above the rank of presbyter who took part in it. Moreover, the facts that the majority of the best authorities, acknowledged even in the Church of Rome, regard the bishop as only superior to the presbyter in honour and dignity, not in order, 4 and that the Episcopate is not one of the seven orders in the -1

Or " exhorted." 1 Tim. i. 3. Titus i. 5. 3 1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6, 4 So M0RINUS tells us (De Sacris Ordinationibus, pt. 3, ex. 3, chap. i.) He cites, in support of this view, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Firmilian, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, Theodoret, and others; as well as Aquinas and Scotus, and other of the schoolmen. ANSELM, moreover, says, in his Commentary on the Epistle to Titus, chap. i., that bishops are superior to priests " rather by custom than by Divine institution." The language of Jerome and Chrysostom is also very express on the same side of the question. Mediaeval and modern Roman divines regard the power to " offer Christ," vested in the priesthood, as a power of the highest possible order in the Church. 2

2 A

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Church of Rome, seem to give at least some support to the theory that the bishop was at first-save, of course, when he received his appointment from an Apostle-simply the elected president of the Christian community, solemnly appointed to that office by the suffrage of the community, and needing no more than that solemn choice to enable him to exercise the functions of his office. This view may be thought to derive some further support from the fact that no one appears to have been ordained to the priesthood by the bishop alone, but by the bishop in conjunction with all the presbyters present. As for the theory that authority must in all cases be conferred from above, and cannot be imparted from below, the following considerations appear to cast some doubt upon it. There is no branch of the Christian Church in which the principle of authority is more paramount, and in which it is more strongly believed to have descended from above, and to be exercised under Divine guidance, than in the Church of Rome. Such authority is now believed to be vested in one person, namely the Pope. Yet the Papal authority is not conferred by pope on pope, but is supposed to descend from on high on the person chosen by the cardinals. There would seem therefore, in the absence of any direct declaration of the Bible or the Church to the contrary, no valid reason why the episcopal office, possessing an authority far more restricted in its character, may not have been conferred upon the person chosen by Christian congregations to preside over them, in virtue of such choice, and not of necessity by transmission from those who previously possessed it. It is true that there is a well~known passage in Irenaeus which traces tpe successions in the Churches by the enumeration of their chief ministers. This has frequently , been supposed to teach the doctrine that the bishop's office is transmitted to him by virtue of his consecration by

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another bishop. 1 But when this passage is examined, it is found to teach nothing of the kind. It is the continuity of the community, not the mode by which the episcopal office is transmitted, which Irenaeus has in view. The Bishops of the communities he mentions were all dead before their successors were appointed, and as he does not give the names of the con~ecrators, we do not know by whom or how they were set apart to their office. There is a passage from Tertullian, again, which at first sight appears to embody the theory that Episcopal consecration alone can make a bishop. 2 He demands that the heretics shall "unfold the roll of their bishops," and show that the first of them was appointed by an Apostle. Such men, and they only, can be regarded as "transmitters of the Apostolic seed." But here again it is only of the succession of the rulers and the soundness of the doctrine which they have received and handed on that Tertullian is speaking, not of the mode in which they are appointed to their office. Of this he says nothing. He only regards it as necessary for the proper transmission of the doctrines of Christianity that they shall have been handed down in a Church whose first bishop was appointed by an Apostle. Of the mode of appointment in other Churches he says nothing. He does not even say how bishops were appointed in the sees which were of Apostolic foundation. It is at least conceivable that in the earliest sub-Apostolic times a presbyter, duly ordained by the bishop and presbyters to the presbyterate, might have been set apart by the community to his office as its president, _an office involving no new powers save those involved in such presidency. And this supposition derives some additional probability from the fact, to which reference has been made above, that the office of the bishop, according to many of the l

Against Heresies, III. i.

De Praescr. Haer. 32.

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highest authorities even in the Church of Rome, as well as Chrysostom and Jerome, does not differ in essence, but only in rank and dignity, from that of the presbyter. 1 1 No notice need be taken here of the passage in which Jerome declares that the choice of the presbyters was sufficient to constitute a patriarch of Alexandria, for we find that whatever the custom of election at Alexandria may have been; Athanasius was consecrated bishop in the ordinary way. The force, however, of the considerations urged above has not been without its weight with Canon Gore, whose orthodoxy on the point will be generally admitted. In his lectures at St. Asaph he says : "In regard to the doctrine of apostolic succession, I must say one other word. It has been in history too much identified with the threefold form of the ministry. I believe myself that the evidence, as we have it at present, points cogently to this conclusion: that since Apostolic days there have been always three orders of the ministry, not only deacons and presbyters (or bishops, according to the earliest use of the term), but also ministers of the apostolic order, superior to the presbyters, such as Timothy and Titus, or those 'prophets' of whom we hear in the earliest Christian literature. I believe that what occurred was the gradual localization in particular Churches of this apostolic order of ministers, which previously had not usually been so localized, and that there was no time when presbyters or presbyter bishops had either the supreme authority of government or the power to ordain, the change which took place consisting only in the looalization of an order of men previously exercising a more general supervision, and the reservation of the name 'bishop' to these localized apostolic officers. [The italics throughout are mine.] But there are certain facts which have led some good authorities to suppose that at one time all the presbyters in Rome Churches held together the chief authority in government and the power to ordain, the 'episcopate' being, as it were, 'in commission' among them. Now this theory has, I think, from the point of view of ecclesiastical principle, been too much discussed. It does not affect the principle of apostolic succession in the least. The principle is that no man in the Ohiirch can validly exercise any ministry, except such as he has received from a source running back ultimately to the apostles, so that any ministry which a person takes upon himself to exercise, which is not covered by an apostolically received commission, is invalid. Now, if the order of presbyters at any time held the right to ordain, that was because it had been entrusted to them by apostolic men. It no more disturbs the principle of apostolic succession than if your lordship ordained all the presbyters in this diocese to-day to

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lt is not of course intended, in what has been said, to suggest that there ought to be any alteration of the laws which have been in existence in the Church for sixteen or seventeen centuries; for, first of all, it is not contended that simple election ever was the custom, but only that we have not sufficient evidence to establish the contrary proposition as absolutely certain. And next, however bishops may in the earliest ages have been appointed to their office, it is clear that the episcopate has been practically universal from the beginning. As long as a single Apostle remained, his paramount authority could be appealed to on any question that might arise. As soon as the last Apostle was withdrawn, the Churches with one consent supplied his place by bishops. 1 In regard to the rule of our Church, which requires a bishop to be consecrated by an arch bishop and two of his suffragans, it is not only of time-honoured antiquity, but it expresses that external consent which alone can secure to a bishop his proper place and recognition in the universal Church. The only episcopal functions. There would ensue a great deal of inconvenience and confusion, but nothing that would violate the principle of apostolic succession. On the other hand, the departure from this principle is manifest when presbyters in the sixteenth or subsequent century took upon themselves to ordain other presbyters. They were taking on themselves an office which, beyond all question, they had not received-which was not imparted to them in their ordination. There had been a perfectly clear understanding for many centuries what did and what did not belong to a presbyter's office. This is the principle which it is essential to maintain, and its title-deeds lie in the continuous record of Church history." It may be .added that Morinus (loc. cit.) states that some authorities in the Roman Church believe that a presbyter can ordain if commissioned to do so by a bishop. 1 The first bishops in all the more important sees were, however, unquestionably appointed by the Apostles themselves. This we learn from Irenaeus, who was specially well informed on the point. (See p. 352.)

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practical effect at the present time of the view which has been suggested as a possible alternative to the more rigid theory of the Apostolical succession, would be to cause us to scrutinize less closely the mode of transmission of the episcopal office in Churches which may have gone through times of especial difficulty and trial, and to enable us to recognize the choice of the _Church in cases where from necessity, and not from defiance of time-honoured rule and custom, all the ecclesiastical regulations existing at any partic-ular period of the Church's history do not appear to have been scrupulously observed.I There is one point of view, however, in which it ought to be carefully weighed. In the present divided condition of Christendom, it is of vital importance that we should only insist on the unconditional acceptance by God's people of such articles of faith as can be proved to have been explicitly held and taught in Apostolic times. If we press as a necessary doctrine of the Catholic faith a principle which rests upon an insecure historical or dogmatic foundation, we predispose many to reject the whole, and thus do what in us lies to keep alive the miserable dissensions which are a reproach to the Christian Church. We are bound to confess that very little precise information about ecclesiastical rules is to be found in the best and wisest and earliest of the Fathers. Nor does the Church, in the earliest times of all, appear to have proceeded upon any very hard and fast lines. Under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, the company of the baptized, rejoicing in the possession of a Life coming down from above, seems to have been led, by slow degrees, to frame such regulations 1 Thus_ we need not, if this view be adopted, take all the trouble which we have been compelled to take to establish the fact of Bishop Barlow's consecration. Yet we may be permitted the remark that if . Barlow were not consecrated in the usual way, it would he difficult to understand what laws, if any, were in force in England in the reign of Henry the Eighth.

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as should be able to stand the test of ages-regulations which we Catholic Churchmen of to-day thankfully accept and transmit to our descendants, without inquiring too closely, or defining too exactly, in the absence of full historical information, whether they did, or did not, form a part of the original and necessary constitution of the Church. But whatever difficulties a rigid historical criticism may suggest as to the original mode of appointment of bishops, we may safely assert that there has always been a threefold order of ministers in the Church of Christ. The life of St. John, one of the founders and first rulers of the Church, lasted throughout the whole of the first century. And whatever may have been the form of government in the various communities in the Christian Church during his lifetime, the episcopal form of government had evidently become general, if not absolutely universal, by the first twenty years of the second century. 1 From that time onward there is not a single hint which points to the existence of any form of government but the episcopal. We may therefore regard episcopacy, including the era of the Apostolic superintendence of the Churches, as practically universal in the Catholic Church down to the Reformation. We may not be able to establish this mathematically as an abstract proposition, but for all practical purposes it may be regarded as a fact. With regard to the other two orders, it is true that in the earlier Epistles their identity is obscured under a number of names. But in the later Epistles-those to the Philippians, Timothy, and Titus-we find them more clearly defined, save that ~he term bishop is as yet applied to the presbyters or 1 We must not forget that IGNATIUS ( Ep. to Trallians, chap. iii.) expressly states that a Church was not so called in his day, unless it possessed bishops, pres1yters, and deacons.

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elders. 1 But by the aid of a passage in the recentiy discovered Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, a work of the first century, we shall find ourselves able, to some extent, to classify the various titles we find in the earliest Christian writings. 2 The prophets, who at first moved about from_ place to place wherever their services were required, became bishops or presbyters when they assumed the settled charge of the various local Churches. The teachers, in like manner, received the name of deacons when attached to the presbyters as their assistants. The term pastor, or shepherd, according to the use of the word in the Old Testament, would seem to have been another name for the presbyters, the rulers of the various communities; while the word evangelist appears to have had th_e same signification as our pres.ent word missionary, or missioner. Thus, what. ever historical criticism may claim to have established concerning the genesis of Church authority, the statement of our Ordinal appears to be, for all practical purposes, a s~fficiently accurate statement of the facts, that " it is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scriptures and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' times there have been these orders in the Christian Church-bishops, priests, and deacons." We may accept this statement of the_ case, and adhere to it firmly in practice, without thinking it necessary to lay down any particular theory in relation to the mode of transmission of the powers of the episcopal office. 1 The word presbyter is simply the Greek and Latin form of our word elder. And our English ,vord priest is simply a contraction of the Latin presbyter. 2 Chap. xv. "Choose for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, . â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘ for they, too (i.e. as well as the prophets and teachers), minister to you the ministry of the prophets and teachers." The words translated "minister," "ministry," are X<1rovp-ylw, Xeirovp-ylo.,

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We pt.fist nex1lt1nquire what powers are possessed by the ministers of t~ Christian Church. It appears to have been the duty of the Apostles, and of Timothy and Titus after th:ey had been commissioned by them, to oversee the clergy as well as the laity; of the ,rresbyters to oversee the flocks. The appointment of the clergy rested with the chief minister, in conjunction with the flock, while such clergy were set apart to their office by the president, in conjunction with his assessors, the elders. 1 The presiding elder, or bishop, as he was afterwards called, could receive an accusation against a presbyter, 2 and address a formal rebuke to him, if necessary. 3 The public worship of the Church was under the control of the bishop,4 and he had a general right to the supervision of the charitable work of the community. 5 .He had to arrange the stipends of the clergy, when stipends were paid. 6 He would naturally preside at public worship, and lead the devotions of the people, when present. In his absence, or among the various local congregations under his general headship, it was the duty of the elders to guide and instruct the community, to conduct public worship, of which, in the very earliest days of the Church, the Holy Communion appears invariably t.o have formed part.7 No precise rule appe[!,rS to have been laid down for exceptional cases. 8 But we may be sure that no one presumed, under ordinary circumstances, to minister in the congregation-that is to say, to celebrate Holy Communion-unless he had been duly called to the 1 1 Tim. iv, 14, v. 22; 2 Tim. i. 6. See also 1 Tim. iii. 1-13; Titus i. 5-9; also Acts xiv. 23. 2 1 Tim. v. 19. 5 1 Tim. v. 3-16. 3 1 Tim. v. 1. 4 1 Tim. ii. 1. 6 1 Tim. v. 17, 18. The word nÂľfi evidently has the same sense here (see v. 18} as in our phrase honorarium. 7 Acts xx. 5. CJ. Acts ii. 42, 46. 8 Such as persons speaking under the direct influence of inspiration, as in 1 Cor. xiv. 27.

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office of a presbyter by the president, with the full consent of the flock. Into the question, how far the term tepevs (Lat. sacerdos), which, as we have seen, is by a strange confusion of language represented in English by the term priest-an abbreviation of the word presbyter-may be applied to the second order of the Christian ministry, we need not enter at length. The term is not used of the Christian ministry in the Scriptures, nor in any writings of the first century of the Christian era. But, as was perhaps natural under the circumstances, both Jewish and heathen converts soon began to apply the title by which their own ministers were called to the Christian clergy. The question has been hotly-too hotly-debated on both sides. But it may be admitted that so 'far-and only so far__;as the Christian clergy may fairly be regarded as offering and pleading, in the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrifice of Christ, made once for all in His Death, can the term priest, in the sense of tepevs, be correctly applied to them. 1 It may be well to add a few words about the selection of Rersons for sacred offices in the Church. Our present custom is to vest this selection in the Crown, advised by the Prime Minister. A semblance of the custom is kept up in the fa~t that the person so selected must be formally elected by the members of the cathedral chapter. This right, however, cannot be freely exercised. The person selected by the Crown must be chosen under pain of the loss of all their preferments by those refusing to elect. The ancient custom was the free choice by the clergy and laity of the diocese. But this custom gradually fell into disuse in the West, amid the confusions and distractions of mediaeval times, until practically the nomination of the bishops fell into the hands of the Pope. It Âˇ was to prevent all further interference on his part that the 1

See pp. 240, 329.

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stringent statute to which reference has been made was passed in the reign of Henry VIII. But it is obvious that no such severe penalties are required now. It would be well if the Church were now to return to the practice of earlier and purer ages. That practice was summed up in the following words: "Nullus invitis detur episcopus." Its principle would be fully conceded if the nominee of the Crown were required to be freely elected by the clerical and lay representatives of the diocese. 1 And were we to follow primitive custom entirely, some such ratification, by the parishioners or communicants, of the appointment by the patron would be regarded as necessary in the case of the clergyman of each parish. Another question which meets us iu connection with the powers of the Christian ministry is that which concerns itself with Absolution, or the power of announcing the forgiveness of their sins to any who may have offended, This has been held to be involved in the words of the commission given by our Lord to His disciples in St. John xx. 23. 2 1 We learn from THEODORET (Eccl. Hist. iv. 22) that the patriarch of Alexandria was chosen " by a synod of bishops, by the votes of the clergy, or by the request of the people." These were the "rules of the Church." ATHANAsrus, in his Apology against the Arians (chap. vi. ), declares that he was elected bishop by the voice of the whole Catholic population of Alexandria. P AULINUS says the same thing of the election of Ambrose (Life of Ambrose, chap. vi.) And AMBROSE himself refers to the practice in Epp. xlvi., lxiii. But in regard to presbyters we have a far earlier testimony. ST. CLEMENT OF RoME, in his Epistle to the Corinthians (chap. xliv. ), states that in his day the presbyters (then called bishops) were appointed with the consent of the whole Church, and could not be removed from their office when once appointed, as long as they "blamelessly" performed the duties of their office. 2 The power of binding and loosing, given in St. Matthew xvi. 19, xviii. 18, is now generally supposed to mean enjoining or forbidding. The words are used in this sense by the Rabbis. See LIGHTFOOT, Horae Hebraicae,, in loc,

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With regard to this commission, it must not be assumed, as has too often been the case, that it is necessarily equivalent to the words, "Whose soever sins each individual priest shall remit in private confession, they are remitted ; and whose soever sins shall be retained by each individual priest in private confession, they are retained." The words are plural, not singular. They are therefore addressed to a body, not to an individual. If the Apostles only were present, which does not seem quite certain,1 then they were addressed to the presidents of the Christian community. If others were present with them, then they were addressed to the community itself. Accordingly we find St. Paul, when directing the public exclusion of a notorious offender from the Christian body, commands that it shall be done in jacie ecclesiae-in the presence of the whole society. 2 The power to remit and retain sins was accordingly exercised in all cases publicly in the early ages of the Church. The ceremony of exomologesis, described in early writers, 3 was a public ceremony, in which the offender rolled in dust 1 Compare John xx. 19-23 with Luke xxiv. 36, It will be observed that St. John says that the" disciples" were present, not the Apostles only, and that St. Luke includes among those present the disciples returned from Emmaus, and "those who were with" the Apostles. ~ 1 Cor. v. 4. It is true that he describes himself as doing the same thing in 1 Tim. i. 20. But we do not know enough about the circumstances to be able to decide in what way the sentence in this last case was pronounced. 3 The woman mentioned by IRENAEUs (Against Heresies, i. 13) seems to have made this public confession a continual practice, as a self-inflicted penance for having fallen into very gross sin. She was the wife of a deacon. Tertullian mentions the custom-the clothing of himself by the penitent in sackcloth, the groaning, the weeping, the rolling at the feet of the presbyters, the imploring the intercessions of the brethren. (On Repentance, chap. ix.) But he appears to regard it as permissible only once. The De Poenitentia is thought to have been written before Tertullian seceded from the Catholic Church.

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and ashes before the bishop or presbyters, in the presence of the whole congregation, confessed his sin, and implored to be re-admitted to communion. Private confession was only introduced when the increasing corruption in the Church was the cause of serious scandal, owing to the gross nature of the offences thus publicly brought to light. 1 And when the privacy of the newly instituted confessional was broken, the appointment of penitentiaries, or persons licensed to receive confessions, was for a time revoked. Eventually the public exercise of discipline in the Church fell into abeyance, and private confession to a priest took its place. And when this had become the rule, the commission to absolve sinners gradually found its way into the Ordinal This took place between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. In our own Church, the abuses connected with the Confessional in mediaeval times induced our reformers to discourage private confessions, and to confine confession to those who could not "quiet their own consciences, but required further comfort or counsel." 2 1 For this point see Bishop BROWNE (On the Articles, p. 585, 3rd ed.). It will also be found very fully discussed in BINGHAM (Antiquities, xviii. 3). 2 Some Roman controversialists have pretended that the omission of the words "for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God," as well as the absence of any commission to offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice, invalidated all our orders. But the argument proves a little too much, as Roman arguments, when examined, are usually found to do, For as these specifications were only introduced into the Ordinal between the twelfth and fourteenth century, it follows that the Catholic Church cannot be proved ever to have had any orders in it at all. The earliest form of ordination which has come down to us is found in the Apostolical Constitittions, VIII. xvi. There is no commission of the kind in it. The date of the Apostolical Constitutions is about the middle of the third century. The Eastern Church, again, has no such form. A considerable quantity of literature has sprung up lately on this subject, in consequence of the Papal Bull Apostolicae Curae. The publications of the Church Historical Society will be found extremely useful by the student on this point.

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We have therefore to consider in what sense the commission of our Lord to His Apostles is to be understood. As usual in matters of this kind, it will be found that a middle course is the safest one. To assert that every sentence of excommunication pronounced by bishop or presbyter is. ipso facto valid, that every private absolution or refusal of absolution is at once ratified in the courts of heaven, involves an absurdity. To declare that no validity whatever attaches in any case to either is to evacuate our Lord's words of all their force, and of all practical value whatsoever. On the one hand, no one can reasonably contend that the excommunications so freely showered upon opponents in ancient and mediaeval, or even in modern times, must necessarily have cut those off from Christ against whom they are pronounced. If they do, then we English Churchmen are cut off from Christ, for the Roman and Eastern Churches alike have shut us out from communion. Nay, the Roman and Eastern Churches are themselves cut off from Christ, for each excommunicates the other. On such principles as these the Christian Church has long since ceased to exist. Nor can even any moderate Roman Catholic maintain that absolutions given on the principles of Jesuit morality, which the more moderate Roman Catholics emphatically reject,1 are valid absolutions in the sight of God. On the other hand, it will hardly be contended, in the face of such passages as l\fatt. xviii. 17, 1 Qor. v. 3-5, that the Christian Church has no right to exclude notorious offenders from communion, or that the individual clergyman has no right to speak peace to the troubled soul, or to point out to those who consult him privately that persistence in a wrong 1 Information on this point will be found in Dr. LITTLEDALE's Plain &asons against Joining the Church of Rome, sees. 9 and 95. The great work of the learned Professors VoN DoLLINGER and REUSCH on Jesuit Morality contains ample details,

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course of conduct will infallibly bring on them the wrath of Almighty God. What, then, is the conclusion to which we are led 1 It is that there doubtless is a power inherent in the Church, and -derived from this there is even. a power given to each one of her ministers to declare the wrath of God against sin, and His pardon of the penitent sinner. The power, it would seem, can only be declarative in its nature. The right to forgive sin is certainly not inherent in the presbyter himself. .He can but act ministerially, as commissioned by Christ. The form of the words used by Christ (though there is, it must be confessed, some variation in the text) seems to imply this. The words, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they have been remitted, and whose soever sins ye retain, they have been retained," meanÂˇ apparently that the Church. has power to declare to each individual the position in which he stands in God's sight; to pass judgment upon him as penitent or impenitent; to pronounce or to withhold the words of pardon and peace, according as he fulfils or comes short of the conditions which the Lord has laid down. But this sentence is not in every case absolute and infallible. It depends, as all other Divine gifts to the Church depend, upon the manner in which it is exercised. The light which r~aches us is coloured in every direction by the medium of human infirmity through which it has to pass. A godly bishop who, in a spirit of humility, prayer, and faith, cuts off, with the consent of the Church, an offender from her communion or restores him to it, will doubtless be conveying to that offender the sentence of God; a bishop who, in ignorance, pride, or passion, launches the thunders of excom_munication by his own sole authority at anyone who has disobeyed his orders or thwarted his plans, is just as obviously not pronouncing God's sentence at all, but simply uttering idle curses which "come home to

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roost." The individual sentence of a particular priest, or it may be, in a lower sense still, even of a godly Christian layman 1 on a particular case, will naturally be pronounced with a lesser degree of authority, and its value will depend on the reputation for piety and judgment enjoyed by him who pronounces it, as well as upon the sincerity and truthfulness of the person who consults him. But that individual members of the Church, clerical or even lay, may on occasion claim to advise their brethren on the state of their souls, and that their pronouncements will have a force proportioned to their authority, office, piety, and experience, seems a proposition which it is impossible to dispute; and therefore the private ministrations of a wise, experienced, and truly earnest clergyman may be of the utmost value to the soul. If there can be no absolute mathematical certainty that the sentence pronounced in the case is correct, there will at least be a moral certainty, where the powers inherent in the ambassador of Christ have been exercised in no light and careless spirit, which will carry conviction to the heart. It is unfortunate that among ourselves the reaction from the terrible abuse of compulsory confession, as it exists in the Roman communion, should have so sadly curtailed the private ministrations to souls of the clergy of the Church of England. To such an extent has this false shyness been carried, that many earnest clergy of the Church of England have felt themselves compelled to insist once more on confession as almost if not quite compulsory, in order to bring any persons whatever to confession, or even to seek spiritual advice. This is doubtless a serious mistake. The normal condition of the Christian is that in which at all times he "has access to the Father through Christ." 2 And it 1 As is well known, the office of spiritual director has occasionally 2 Rom. v. '..l; Eph. ii. 18, iii. 12. been undertaken by laymen.

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will be the aim of every true guide of souls to endeavour to re-establish this relation when lost, and to enable the penitent as soon as possible to dispense with the confessor's services. But on the other hand, it is a serious hindrance to the spiritual life of thousands among us that when bruised, battered, stunned, blinded by sin, cut off thereby from communion with God, unable to see Him with the eyes of faith, they insist on groping their way back again for themselves, floundering helplessly in the mire of their own frailty, rather than consult an experienced spiritual guide who could declare to them with more or less authority the condition in which they stand in God's sight. Every clergyman is not, of course, by virtue of his office equally fit to undertake the charge of penitent souls, nor is the verdict of every clergyman upon a given case of equal value. It may be hoped that no one who has been admitted to Holy Orders will be absolutely unfit to give spiritual counsel and guidance. Still, experience and wisdom are unquestionably necessary factors in difficult and delicate processes such as these, and it were the extreme of folly not to seek for such special qualifications in a spiritual physician who is called upon to exercise the higher duties of his office, as much as we should seek similar special qualifications of the physician of the body in cases of unusual danger or difficulty. To sum up what has been said. The violent denunciation of the confessional which finds favour in some quarters appears to be as great a mistake as is the practice of compulsory confession as at present carried on in the Church of Rome. Each of these, by the well-known law of reactions, tends to produce the other. The truth lies between the two extremes. Those who, at crises of their life, when their spirits are enfeebled by habits of sin, when their minds are clouded by doubts or harassed by temptations, seek the advice of a wise and enlightened clergyman, will experience the value ~ B

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of the commission given by Christ to His Church to remit and retain sin. What a pilot is to a difficult and intricate channel, what a skilled physician is to a mysterious and perplexing case, that is the minister of Christ-especially when he .has for years lived Christ as well as preached Christ-to those whose moral sense is weakened and whose spiritual insight is impaired by sinful habits long indulged. Such a man will be able to point out mistakes, to suggest remedies, and in a thousand ways to speak peace to the troubled soul.1 1 So impartial an authority as HALLAM (Constitutional Hist. VoL I. p. 88), in endeavouring to strike the moral balance between nations which do and those which do not use the Confessional, confesses himself unable to perceive any very marked difference between them. His impartiality is perhaps a little too well preserved, There can be little doubt that those nations which abandoned compulsory confession at the Reformation possess a moral vigour which is absent from those nations in which that practice has been enforced. England, Germany, Holland, compare favourably with Italy, France, or Spain, even in sexual morality, and certainly are superior to them in moral principle in the wider sense of the word. These latter nations, it is true, have also of late very largely abandoned the use of confession ; but they have given up with it the profession of the Christian religion. They have abandoned confession, not because of their reliance on Christ, hut because of their contempt for His ministers and His doctrine. Yet they have never recovered the moral enfeeblement which comes from placing our consciences habitually and unreservedly in another's keeping. Of the two evils, that of never consulting the clergyman privately at all, and that of making him the sole dispenser of pardon and the necessary guardian of the conscience, the latter at least, when carried out on a large scale, must be regardedÂˇas immeasurably the greater, It may, perhaps, be necessary to explain that when, as in the text, the practice of resorting to the clergy for ad vice is spoken of, no reference is intended to the practice of the Roman Church, of regularly and systematically confessing every sin that can he remembered to the priest. The practice defended in the text is simply the resort to an experienced clergyman when people are unable to quiet their own burdened consciences, and when the confession is confined to the particular sin or sins which disquiet them. This, as everyone knows, is the teaching of our Church in our Communion Office,

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Our last point in connection with the doctrine of the Christian ministry is the position of those bodies which have abandoned the principle of episcopacy. Are those who belong to such bodies members of the Catholic Church, or are they not 1 Is the possession of an episcopally.ordained ministry so absolutely essential to the validity of the Sacraâ&#x20AC;˘ ments that all bodies who are deprived of it, whether by their fault or by their misfortune, are entirely cut off from the communion of the Church~ In order to arrive at a just conclusion, we have first to remember that these bodies are of two classes. First, there are those who, like the Presbyterians in Scotland and the Reformed Communions abroad, adopted a Presbyterian form of government at the Reformation, some of them because they could not obtain episcopal consecration, and some of them because of the strong reaction against episcopal crimes and tyranny in mediaeval times, which made the bare idea of episcopacy odious in the eyes of the people. 1 Secondly, there are those who have rejected the authority even of the bishops of the Reformed Church, and have formed separate communities in order to embody their own ideas of Christian doctrine and of Church order. It is obvious that the former class of communities stand in a better position, and have more claim to ecclesiastical continuity than the latter. To rebel against the authority of the lawful ecclesiastical officer, and to introduce separation into the Church of Christ, must of necessity be wrong, except when a Church seeks to impose unlawful terms of communion ; and of course the onus probandi, in case of secession, lies upon the seceders. In regard to Dissenters from the Church of England, the excuse of unlawful terms 1 This was notoriously the case in Scotland, where the abuses connected with episcopacy appear to have been worse than in any other part of Christendom.

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of communion was alleged in the first instance. It was held that the whole system of our Church, doctrinal as well as practical, was unscriptural, and that therefore Christian men could not possibly remain in her. But it is remarkable how, one by one, every objection originally raised against our doctrines and formularies has been given up ; and if there be any case now alleged against our Church it is altogether a new one. Her assailants have entirely shifted their ground. It is impossible here to argue out the question of the impropriety on the part of the members of the Church of Christ of separation into distinct organizations. It is sufficient to remark (I) that there is nothing of the kind to be found in the days of the Apostles, and (2) that the spirit which prompts such separation is unequivocally condemned in the New Testament. 1 But it is impossible to avoid the question: Is this separation a separation from the Church, or in the Church 1 Are those who have taken part in it still members of the Church, though "peccant and unsound members," as the late Bishop Wordsworth, of Lincoln, taught, 2 or are they altogether outside the limits of that Catholic Church in which we profess our belief~ On the first point, the absence of episcopal succession Âˇ and ordination, it may be sufficient to say that the point has never yet been submitted to the Church Universal for decision, and that therefore we are not in a position to pronounce upon it. It is certain that from the times of the Apostles themselves the order of chief governor, whether he were called apostle or bishop, has been continuously in existence. Those bodies therefore which possess the episcopal succession know that they have a valid ministry and valid Sacraments. Those who have introduced a new form of government can at best only 1

1 Cor. iii. 1-5.

Theophilus Anglicanus, p. 35 (3rd ed.).

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say that they believe, and have some grounds for believing, that they possess these things-that it is possible, or it may be even probable, that Churches locally ruled by presbyters were in existence in the first century.I It is best to be . satisfied with saying Âˇ thus much. When we consider (1) that in every case the Church which has abandoned episcopal regimen has at the same time lost its hold, more or less, on the primitive tradition of the true Catholic doctrine, and has adopted standards of orthodoxy from which in after ages it would be glad to be set free; 2 and (2) that the Presbyterian bodies are finding out by experience the advantages of an episcopal government of the Church; it may be as well not to provoke controversy on a point which must be confessed to be doubtful. We should rather endeavour to persuade the Presbyterian bodies to conform to the general custom of Christendom, and we may be sure that if their amour propre be not wounded by unnecessary antagonism, the logic of events will bring them in the end into line with the rest of Catholic Christendom in the matter of Church government. The case of the "orthodox" Dissenters in this country is somewhat different. They have set up altar against altar, and, as they are now obliged to confess, without sufficient cause. 3 But they are not disposed to abandon the attitude 1 So Canon Gore at the Cardiff Congress : "It is true that at a certain moment in the development of the Church at the end of the first century the presbyters were apparently the chief local authorities in the Churches of Greece." 2 These words are as true of the Church _of Rome as of any other body in Christendom. If the Protestant confessions of faith are becoming a burden to those who are bound by them, the Church of Rome, which has practically abolished episcopacy by prostrating the bishops at the feet of the Pope, is findin_g it increasingly difficult to impose her standards of doctrine on people who can think, and care to think, on matters theological. 3 As is shown by the wholesale abandonment of their ancient trust deedf. Âˇ

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which they have assumed. In what position, then, do they stand 1 They have been made members of the Catholic Church by a valid baptism in the Name of the Blessed Trinity; but do they receive Holy Communion 1 This is a question which involves considerable difficulty. Whether the presence of a lawfully ordained priest at the celebration of Holy Communion is absolutely necessary in all cases to the validity of the rite, is again a point on which the Catholic Church has not officially pronounced. That the presence of a lawfully ordained priest at Holy Communion, if not absolutely essential, is certainly eminently desirable, will be generally admitted. That ordination among the separated bodies is extremely doubtful and irregular is another point which may be regarded as tolerably clear. That the Catholic Church from the earliest times demanded the presence of a man duly appointed to bless the sacred elements in Christ's Name, is moreover quite certain; but what is not so certain is the exact position of separatists, orthodox on the whole in their belief, since the confusions and distractions of the Reformation period.I The usurpations of Rome provoked a reaction which shook the Western Church to her foundations, and caused many of her members to lose sight altogether of the true principles of Church government. It is quite possible that under such circumstances the doctrine of intention may apply ; but what is meant is the intention, let it be observed, not of the priest, but of the congregation. Is it not 1 The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in a paper published in the Nineteenth Century for April, 1894, distinguishes, first, between heresy and schism in the early days of the Church, when they involved denial of fundamental principles of Christian doctrine, and the heresies and schisms of later days, which related to doctrines of far less fundamental importance, and were brought into existence when continued discord had weakened the principle of Church authority ; and, secondly, he distinguishes between heresy and schism introdw;ed and inherited.

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conceivable, in the present disorders of Christendom, that wherever a congregation of baptized Christians is gathered together in good faith to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion, without any deliberately formed intention to break the laws of God's Church, God might be pleased to vouchsafe to them His promised Presence 11 Of course the person who ventures to take tli.e oversight of a Christian congregation, and to celebrate the Sacrament without proper qualifications, must take his full share of responsibility for any breach of Church order involved in his action; but this responsibility will itself depend upon the opportunities he has had of realizing the fact that this action is a breach of Church order. If, on the other hand, we apply the modem scientific principle of induction to this view, that is, if we compare it with the results of observation, we shall find much to confirm it; for (1) we should hardly be disposed to deny that many individual Nonconformists are in Christ ; but if so, any body of Nonconformists, as an aggregate of individuals, must be acknowledged to be also in Him-in other words, to be a branch of His Church. And (2) whatever may be the faults of Nonconformity, we cannot deny that the Nonconformist bodies, so far as we are able to judge, show unmistakable signs of being organized Christian communities, displaying even some features of Church life, though by no means all, to a greater extent than the body to which we ourselves belong. 2 Thus 1 In that spirit prayed good King Hezekiah when men from Israel, who had cut themselves off from the priesthood and the true Church, came to join in the worship of God without having gone through the prescribed rites. "The good Lord pardon every one that setteth his heart to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary." 2 Chron. xxx. 18, 19. • This does not apply to Unitarians, for the· fact ·of Christ's indwelling through the Divine Spirit is in no sense recognized as the basis of their corporate life.

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observation and experienceÂˇ tend to confirm the reasoning above, and lead us to the conclusion that these bodies, though separated from us and from one another, are bodies in which the Personal Presence of Christ is to be found, and that the state of separation in which they live, however much to be deprecated, is not so grave a sin as to involve entire separation from Christ. It is here that the difficulty in dealing with N onconformity is greatest. Their ministers with one consent declare that nothing would ever convince them that they have not been ministering Christ to their people. 1 If the view taken above be correct, there would be no need to attempt to convince them of anything of the kind, and yet no need, on the other hand, to admit that they have been lawfully and regularly called to the ministry. In fact, if we grant that the unfortunate pretensions of the See of Rome have led to a period of disorder, when the ordinary principles of Church government have fallen into abeyance, and if we endeavour to restore the normal condition of things without too severely blaming those who during the interregnum have acted for themselves, we shall find the restoration of Christian unity an easier task than if we assume a principle neither directly stated in Scripture, nor directly formulated by the Catholic Church, nor definitely supported by the irresistible logic of facts. If we stumble at the fact that this interregnum has been prolonged to an extent unknown in civil strife, we may find our explanation in the words, " The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." 2 1 This remark was made in re1,ly to a paper read by the writer at Grindelwald. 2 The following passage from HOOKER (Eccl. Pol. V. lxviii. 6) is worthy of notice: "That which separateth therefore utterly, that which cutteth off clean from the visible Church of Obrist, is plain apostasy, direct denial, utter rejection of the whole Christian faith,

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Into the question of the guilt of schism, and at whose door it is to be laid, we will not enter at any length. That it all rests with the Nonconforming bodies, is more than we have any right to assert. The strong repressive measures adopted by our rulers in Church and State, in days when as far as the Rame is professedly different from infidelity. Heretics as touching those points of doctrine wherein they fail ; schismatics as touching the quarrels for which, or the duties wherein, they divide themselves from their brethren ; loose, licentious, and wicked persons as touching their several offences or crimes, have all forsaken the true Church of God-the Church which is sound and sincere in the . doctrine that they corrupt; the Church that keepeth the bond of unity which they violate ; the Church that walketh in the laws of righteousness which they transgress; this very Church of Christ they have left, howbeit not altogether left nor forsaken simply the Church upon the main foundations whereon they continue built, notwithstanding those breaches whereby they are rent at the top asunder." Archdeacon NoRRis, in his Key to the Epistles of St. Paul, p. 134, says : " If, then, St. Paul lays such evident stress on these two Sacraments, the question yet remains why he never once alludes to them in these pastorals in connection with the functions of the Christian ministry ; and the answer surely is an obvious oneobvious to anyone who enters into the spirit of St. Paul's teaching -that -the act andÂˇ service of man in these two Sacraments are, in St. Paul's view, not the act and service of the priest, but of the congregation." Hero, as elsewhere, it would seem that the Church of Rome, in _her doctrine of intention, has at once grasped and perverted an important truth. " Intention" is necessary to the due celebration of Holy Communion, but it is not the intention of the priest but of the congregation. Where "two or three" pious Christians are "gathered together" to celebrate the Holy Communion with no deliberate desire to break the unity of the Church, though in ignorance they may be separating from their lawful pastor, we may hope that God will mercifully vouchsafe to them the gift they seek, in spite of the absence of one duly and properly qualified to minister to them in holy things. In support of what has been said, it may be observed that while in the writings of the early l!'athers we have pages upon pages which treat of the Church as the Body of Christ, enjoying the gift of His Personal Presence through the Holy Spirit, questions purely ecclesiastical obtain a very small share of their attention.

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the principles of civil and religious liberty were not understood, are responsible for a great deal. Hallam has remarked that persecutions, when they do not extirpate heresy, tend rather to strengthen it. 1 And doubtless the policy of Elizabeth and her successors has had the effect of rooting Nonconformity strongly in the minds of a considerable section of our countrymen. The blame, however, does not rest with the Church alone. All parties, in those times, regarded the moment of their ascendancy as a God-given opportunity to put down all other parties by the strong hand of the law. 2 Nor can we altogether acqu.i.t the Nonconforming bodies of an unreasonable stubbornness in the first instance, of the support of an unsound doctrinal ;;ystem in the second, 8 and of a too great attachment to the principle of individualism in the third. It would seem to be the duty of all parties to endeavour, as strenuously as possible, to remove impediments to reunion on the basis of the Catholic Creeds, as explained and developed by Scripture. We, on our part, should avoid the needless multiplication of the theological propositions we â&#x20AC;˘require those to accept who would join our communion, or minister at our altars. They, on theirs, should cease to glorify the principle of separation, and to magnify the faults, or strive Âˇ to cripple the resources, of the body from which they have separated. And while we cannot give up the principle of the episcopate, consecrated as it is by ancient and venerable associations, recommended as it is by innumerable practical advantages, we shall do wisely not to prejudice its general Const. Hist., vol. I. chap. iii. Witness the treatment of the Church by the Puritans during the great Civil War, and their treatment of the Quakers in New Engl~nd. See also the views of the Puritan Cartwright, in HALLAM, Const. Hist., vol. I. p. 188. 3 i.e., Calvinism in the case of the earlier Nonconforming bodies, Arminianism in the case of the Wesleyans. 1

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adoption by laying down as essential the principle that they who are unfortunately without it "are in no wise partakers of Christ." 1 SECTION

IV.

ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH.

Our last inquiry, in treating of the Church of Christ, will be the nature and limits of her authority. The Twentieth Article of the Church of England tells us that "the Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and hath authority in controversies of faith." The principle here laid down appears eminently reasonable. That a society has power to make its own rules is a proposition so obvious that it need not be discussed. That such rules, when made, should, under ordinary circumstances, be 1 "And here I will refer to a doctrinal ruling of Catholic theology, which is admitted even by the most papally-minded theologians, and which, as I believe, may be of the greatest service to the cause of union. It is always taught in the Church that baptism is what makes everyone a member of the true Catholic Church; and as baptism can never be obliterated or repeated, anybody once baptized remains for ever a member of the one Church, even should he pass over to another sect or Church; only that he then loses the rights of membership. In the religious manual approved by Church authority for use in the Bavarian schools, it is taught that those who have been made members of Christ by the Sacrament of Baptism, if they remain out of her visible communion only through involuntary ignorance and error, are regarded by the Church as her true children, erring by no fault of their own." Von DOLLINGER, Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches, pp. 151, 152. I have placed some portions of this remarkable passage in italics, as indicating the lines on which reunion may one day be reached. In PURCELL'S Life of Cardinal Manning a similar declaration on the part of the great Cardinal may be found. It were to be wished that the practice of conditional rebaptism of Anglicans were dropped in the Roman communion, adopted as it is on the alleged ground of the carelessness of the Anglican clergy. The Sacrament of Baptism is certainly performed at least as reverently and carefully in the Church of England as in that of Rome.

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conscientiously obeyed, is another proposition to which exception will hardly be taken.I That the Church has power to define in what her own message consists, will hardly be denied. But the question of the limits of Church authority is one which is much debated. The statements of Scripture and the Creed upon it are not express, and therefore the question is one on which we are only entitled to speak with reserve. Our Lord appears to have endowed His Apostles, and through them His Church, with authority to give decisions on practical subjects. This appears clear from His saying to St. Peter, and afterwards to the twelve, that "whatsoever they should bind on earth should have been bound in heaven, and whatsoever they should loose upon earth should have been loosed in heaven." 2 And His language is still more explicit in Matthew xviii. 17, where He bids those who have a complaint against a neighbour to "tell it," in the last resort, "to the Church," and if the neighbour aforesaid "refuse to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican." Some authority, moreover, in controversies of faith would seem to be implied in the Apostle's words, in 1 Timothy iii. 15, that the " Church of the living God" is the "pillar and ground of the truth." Indeed, this may also be regarded as involved in the very existence of the Church, for if she had no definite certainty about the nature of the message with which she had been entrusted, her testimony regarding Christ would be of no use whatever. But when we come to define the nature and limits of this authority, we find ourselves confronted with a variety of theories. First there is the Roman theory, which claims for the Pope in person, 1 "The Church hath authority to establish that for an order at one time, which at another time it may abolish, and in both may do well.';Âˇ HooKER, Eccl. Pol. V. viii. 2. 2 I\latt. xvi. 19; xviii, 18. Consult the Greek.

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when speaking ex cathedra, the infallible power of deciding any particular question which may be referred to him for his decision. Then there is the Oriental theory, which regards the supreme power to decide disputes as vested in Oecumenical Councils. The Easte;rn Church accepts the decisions of " the Seven Oecumenical Councils " as binding in matters of faith. 1 The Anglican theory is a little difficult to smte in accurate terms. Speaking broadly, it recognizes the voice of the Church before the division of East and West. But the Second Council of Nicaea-the Seventh Oecumenical Council, according to the Roman and Eastern Church-is rejected by the vast majority of Anglican theologians as contrary both to Holy Scripture and the rule "quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus," to which reference has already been made. 2 The English Church, in her Sixth Article, has stated that nothing is to be required of a Christian man as "requisite or necessary to salvation" but what is "contained " in Holy Scripture, or what may be "proved thereby." And the majority of our theologians have held, in regard to the Second Council of Nicaea, that its decrees are opposed to the teaching of Holy Scripture. Lastly, the Protestant theory is that the Scriptures are God's Word written, but that each man must decide for himself what doctrines he finds in them. 8 The student must be referred to other works for a full discussion of questions so wide as the supremacy and 1 See Longer Catechism of the Russian Church, part I., art. ix,, "Of the Church." 2 See p. 290 for this expression. 3 "The Gallicans believed that nothing has the seal of infallibility which has not been received by the whole Church," PUSEY, Eirenicon, p. 288. This definition, however, is incomplete. We are still left without information what is meant by the '' whole Church." It will be found that different schools among us put different interpretations on the phrase.

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THE CREED.

infallibility of the Pope. It must suffice here to give a very brief outline of the objections which have been raised against these two doctrines. To the argument in their favour, derived from the fact that St. Peter is, by some of the Fathers, supposed to have been. the "rock " on which Christ declared He would "build His Church," it is replied that a considerable majority of the Fathers have regarded that important passage as refening, not to St. Peter as an individual, but to the confession of faith which he had just made, which, as the Sacrament of Baptism shows, is the first requisite of membership in the Church of Christ. 1 It is further obvious that even if our Lord's words are to be interpreted of Peter personally, no mention whatever 1 See a very excellent abstract of the teaching of the Fathers in DENTON's Commentary on the Gospels, St. Peter's Day. The obiter dicta of the Fathers were often put forth without sufficient consideration, as may be learned from the fact that though Origen frequently calls St. Peter the Rock, he nevertheless, when he comes to comment carefully on Matt. xvi. 18, the passage in which the declaration appears, deliberately expounds it of St. Peter's confession, and not of himself. The advocates of the Roman claims are apt to say that the difference between Petros and petra disappears in the "Syro-Chaldaic" dialect, and that therefore in the original Aramaic there is no distinction between brl rfi 7rfrpq. ravrii and ,.,,.1 ue. Even this ingenious evasion of the conclusion which follows naturally from the language of the inspired historian disappears before the light of investigation. In the Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series, vol. I. part ix., appears a singular fragment in Palestinian Syriac, of unknown date, discovered at Sinai by Mrs. Lewis, and edited by Mr. F. C. Burkitt, in which occur the words, "The Lord said unto him, 'Thou art Simon, which is interpreted Petros.' He said not to him 'Upon thee will I build the Church,' but 'Upon this rock (which is the Body wherewith the Lord was clothed) I build My Church.'" It is worthy of notice that the word for Petros, and that for rock, are altogether different in this fragment, so that the play upon words entirely disappears, and there is thus a wider distinction in the Palestinian Syriac document than in the Greek. I am much indebted to my friend, Mr. Burkitt, for calling my attention to this fact.

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is made of his successors. There can be but one rock on which the ÂˇChurch is built. And if Peter be that rock, which has by no means been proved, it is impossible that all his successors, for nearly nineteen centuries, can also be the one rock on which the ChurcÂľ has been built. Moreover it is also difficult to ascertain who are his successors. Though it is probable that St. Peter visited Rome, and was martyred there, yet there is no proof that he was ever appointed Bishop of Rome. There is no hint to that effect in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, nor any declaration by our Lord, or any of His Apostles, that Rome was destined to be the centre of all authority in Christ's Church. We find, it is true, that the bishops of Rome exercised considerable authority on disputed questions in early times. But that authority was no greater, if it were even as great, as that exercised at the present moment in the Anglican communion by the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom no one among ourselves dreams of investing with the Papal prerogatives of supremacy and infallibility. The reason of this pre-eminence on the part of the Bishop of Rome was in no sense a spiritual one. As has just been said, it occupies no place in the documents or the fundamental principles of the Church in the Apostolic age. It was due simply and solely to secular considerations. It arose from the fact . that Rome, at the time when the Church was founded, was the capital of the civilized world. We can have little idea at the present moment of the august pre-eminence enjoyed at that period by the city which boasted so proud a position. The majesty of Rome reflected high honour even upon so humble a person among her citizens as the bishop of the proscribed Christian community. And, moreover, as the capital, Rome was the place to which persons belonging to the Imperial provinces were compelled, by circumstances, continually to resort.

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Thus, when a question arose concerning any doctrine or practice handed down in the Church, the true tradition could more easily be ascertained at Rome than at any other place. 1 The bishops, at the Fourth Oecumenical Council, declared this, and no other, to be the cause of Rome's ecclesiastical pre-eminence. 2 And the fact that when it occurred to Constantine to build a new capital on the shores of the Bosphorus, the hitherto insignificant see of Byzantium was immediately, and on that ground only, advanced to the second position among the patriarchates of the Universal Church, gives additional force to this argument. There was also a tendency, which has been felt even at the present day, and in the Anglican communion, to recognize some one individual as the symbol of the Church's unity, if it were only for convenience sake. Nor was it always understood in early times as clearly as it should have been, that the Church of Christ might have to pay somewhat . too heavy a price for so obviously convenient an arrangement. As years went on, and the Eastern Empire declined, and the seats of the great 1 Both these reasons are given in the well-known passage of IRENAEUs, Against Heresies, III. iii. 2. Unfortunately the passage is not extant in the Greek. But in the Latin it runs thus : "ad . hanc enim ecclesiam propter potiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoe est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ah his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quae est ah Apostolis traditio." The translation has been much discussed. But there can be little doubt in the mind of any fair-minded man that the sense is accurately given above. See Dr. LITTLEDALE's Words for Truth, p. 18. 2 Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon. It states that "the Fathers gave the primacy to Rome because it was the seat of the Empire" (5,a To (Jo.<Ttl\eueiv), and that the second place was given to Constantinople because it "enjoyed equal privileges with Rome." Roman theologians have laboured with great industry and ingenuity to attenuate the force of this statement, but with no very conspicuous succes&.

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Eastern patriarchates fell one by one under heathen domination, the power wielded by the Papacy steadily grew, and the more so as Western peoples found in the spiritual authority of the Bishop of Rome the only counterpoise to cruel tyranny and oppression on the part of their secular rulers. In an age of ignorance the popes endeavoured to strengthen their position by artifice. The false decretals were forged to support the Papal claims; and the inexperienced student needs to be warned that the writings of the Fathers, and especially of St. Cyprian, have been ingeniously interpolated for the same purpose. 1 The famous Hildebrand (Gregory VII., 1073-1085), with consummate ability, raised the Papacy to so commanding a position that emperors and kings were compelled to acknowledge his authority. The Papal power reached its height in the reign of Innocent III. (11981216), when our own king John stooped so low as to do homage to the Pope for his position as King of England. But power so vast, obtained by such means, was sure to be abused. It began to be felt that in the place of resorting to the Pope toÂˇ obtain relief from secular oppression, there had grown to be some need of calling into existence a power which could restrain the abuse of authority by the popes themselves. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, the most distinguished ecclesiastic in the reign of Henry III., John's successor, began his career as a firm supporter of the Papal cause. 2 But when he saw to his dismay that the supremacy was exercised in such a way as to become a scandal to all true religion, he boldly denounced the authority he had once supported, and was believed throughout all Christendom to have invoked, after his death, the Divine vengeance on Innocent IV. for his career of "falsehood and wrong." 3 Certain it is that both the East, and 1

The Benedictine editors confess the interpolations. See the Life of Robert Grosseteste, by Canon PERRY. MILMAN, Hist. of Latin Christianity, vi. !193. 2 C

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all non-Roman bodies in the West, at the present moment, lay the blame of our present divisions on the Papal claims. The East, up to this hour, resents the policy pursued by the Pope, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in making the assistance of the Western Powers to Constantinople, then hard pressed by the infidel, depend upon the willingness of the Eastern bishops to relinquish their ancient prerogatives, and to prostrate themselves in unworthy submissiveness at the feet of the Roman Pontiff. And in the West the great Reformation schism, ~hich has for three centuries rent Western Christendom disastrously asunder, was due to the long-continued abuse of Papal authority, which provoked a reaction all the more fierce from having been so long delayed. Even when the adherents of the Papacy had driven from their pale all who resisted the Papal claim to supremacy, it was still doubtful whether the seat of authority lay in the Pope personally, or in a Council summoned by his authority, and with his consent. The Council of Constance (A.D. 1415) had pronounced in favour of the latter view. 1 The Council of Trent preserved silence on the point. But at last the Vatican Council, in 1870, affirmed the former opinion. Thus, after eighteen centuries of Christianity had passed away, a portion of the Christian Church undertook for the first time to assert that the prerogative of infallibility in all matters of Christian doctrine was, and always had been, vested in the person of the Pope. An energetic resistance to the Vatican decrees was threatened, and actually commenced. But it eventually collapsed. Only a small body of men remainell firm to their convictions. But their resolute ' For further information on the Roman claims see Archbishop against Fisher, BARROW on The Pope's Supremacy, PALMER'S Treatise on the Church, and in recent times, LITTLEDALE on The Petrine Claims, and Dr SALMON'S Lectures on the Infallibility of the Ch!trch. LAUD

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determination not to submit produced a new schism, more formidable, however, from the intellect and character of its promoters than from the number of their followers. The Old Catholic Churches, possessing a canonical succession of bishops, and following a policy very similar to that pursued by the Church of England in the sixteenth century, were formed in most countries of Europe on the basis of resistance to the Vatican decrees; and their congregations exist in most of the principal cities of Northern Europe. They rest,. it may be added, upon precisely the same basis as ourselves, and readily admit Anglicans to communion. This important question of Church authority, like many other important questions, has been rendered more perplexing by an unfortunate confusion of thought. Many well-known writers, including some whose works have been largely used as text-books among us, have apparently been unable to distinguish between authority and infallibility. They use these two words as though they were convertible terms ; but the slightest consideration will show that this is by no means the case. In every branch of human education considerable weight is attached to the opinion of experts. A teacher speaks with authority to his pupils, a doctor to his patients, a lawyer to his clients; yet if any one of these were to lay down as a first principle to those who consulted him an implicit belief in his personal infallibility, such a course of conduct would be altogether fatal to his authority. The word authority, when used in reference to the expressing of an opinion, or the pronouncing of a judgment, simply means the possession of special information, as well as a claim to pronounce the opinion or judgment. When therefore we speak of the authority of the Church, it must be understood that no more is meant of necessity than that the decisions even of particular Churches, and far more, of course, of the whole

3R8

THE CREED.

Church, on questions of faith and morals must be received in a spirit of respect and submissiveness. There is nothing dishonourable nor unreasonable in a provisional submission on subordinate points of doctrine or ritual to our own particular Church, even when our judgment is opposed to her verdict. But such provisional submission does not preclude the possibility that the questions so decided may at any future time be reopened and rediscussed whenever fuller light may have been supposed to have been thrown on them, or whenever anything has occurred to make it possible that the principles on which the decisions were given may have been insufficient or unsound. But it will be replied that this is to give up all certainty whatever, and to make the authority of the Church a mere shifting quicksand, changing in position and character according to the various currents of human thought. It must be remembered, however, that the proposition just enunciated does not apply to the first principles of the Christian faith. It applies simply to "controversies of faith." On the first principles of the faith no controversy can arise, at least among members of the Church. They are beyond controversy. They have been laid down from the beginning by the authority of Jesus Christ, and whatever may be said of His members and ministers, His Divine authority must be infallible. Anything, therefore, which He has said-any doctrine to which He has given His sanction-is a first principle of the Gospel which may not be gainsaid. But we have no ground for affirming that the Church has infallible authority to settle all secondary questions which may arise in regard to the true interpretation and legitimate development of Bible teaching. 1 On 1 This point was discussed by Easterns and Westerns at the Old Catholic Congress of 1892, held at Lucerne, and it was decided that "nothing could be regarded as binding which did not form part of the universal, continual, and unanimous tradition of the Church."

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these we may believe that Christian experience, under the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, will enable us to throw an increasing light as the years roll on, and that the quiet and mutually respectful interchange of opinion on the part of men, each possessing a share of the promised inspiration of the Spirit, will enable us at some future time to arrive at the elucidation of many points which the Church is not yet in a position to decide. Such elucidation, however, like that of scientific truth, will depend for its acceptance, not on the dogmatic decrees formulated by councils of experts, but on the general consent of Christian people, based on the innate reasonableness of the conclusions reached by investigators.I But what, it So, too, the Council of Trent, at its fourth session, forbids any to interpret the Scriptures except according to "the unanimous consent of the Fathers.'' This "unanimous consent," however, can hardly be pleaded for all the doctrines formulated at the Council. See pp. 294, 295. 1 "In the Middle Ages, and much more in the early times of the Church, there was infinitely more free speculation than is compatible with Church views now. I think it must be we who are wrong. The nature of things seems more in favour of the old way than of ours.'' Dean CHURCH, Letter to Manuel Johnson, Life, p. 145. Gregory of N azianzus, in his 33rd Oration, states that in his day it was considered lawful to speculate on the world, matter, soul, better and worse reasonable beings, resurrection, judgment, retribution, and the sufferings of Christ. "For while the revived study of the theology of earlier ages, if carried on critically with a discernment of that which each age had to effect toward the progressive unfolding of the truth in its world-embracing height and depth and breadth and fulness, cannot be otherwise than beneficial ; on the other hand, if, as we have seen happen in a number of instances, the end of this study is merely to make us repeat by rote what was said in the fourth century or the fourteenth, instead of becoming wiser we shall become foolisher." Archdeacon HARE, Mission of the Comforter, Preface, p. ix. "The censure here bestowed on the Fathers [by the Lutheran commentator Lampe] is grounded upon a very common misconception, whiclr sadly perverts our views of the history of the Church, and mars the good we might otherwise derive from thB, divines of

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will be asked, on this theory is the weight to be attached to the doctrinal decisions of the so-called Oecumenical Councils of the Church 1 It has already been observed 1 that the authority attributed to the decrees of any Council claiming to be Oecumenical does not depend upon their being regarded as an expression of the voice of the whole Church by representation, from which as being such there is no appeal, but upon their after reception by the Church Catholic. It is necessary to repeat the observation here. The history of the Oecumenical Councils, we must once more insist, plainly shows that it was not the practice of the early Church that a Council should meet and vote itself Oecumenical, and demand in consequence the acceptance of its decrees throughout the Christian world. On the contrary, _ those decrees were often long and fiercely canvassed after their promulgation. It took, as we have seen, fifty-six years for Athanasius and his followers, with the aid of the logic of facts, to convince the Church at large that no other word than the non-Scriptural term Homoousion could adequately safeguard the doctrine of the Godhead of the Eternal Word. The decrees of Nicaea in A.D. 325 had to be reaffirmed and republished at Constantinople in A.D. 381. The decrees of the third and fourth Oecumenical Councils were still more fiercely disputed. The opposition to them lasted for centuries, and only the gradual dying out of the N estorian and Monophysite Churches, and their entire, if informal, relinquishment of their errors, has practically demonstrated former ages. It is seldom duly borne in mind-indeed, till of late years it was never distinctly recognized-that in theology, as in every other department of human knowledge, there is a law of progress according to which divers portions of Christian truth were not to attain to their due prominence in the systematic exposition of doctrines till after the lapse of several generations." Ibid., p. 208. 1 See pp. 155, 156.

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the unsuitability of their expositions of the faith as a foundation for a Church against which the "gates of Hades shall not prevail." Nor is this view of the function of the early Councils at all unreasonable. A perfect representation of the Church in those- days was not possible. She possessed no machinery by which such representation. could be made. And if every diocese in Christendom had chosen delegates, those delegates could never by any possibility have met at one place. The Councils wer~ therefore only a very rough approximation to a representation of the Church Constantine gathered 318 bishops at Nice from all quarters of the world, but they were simply such as found it convenient to attend. The Council of Constantinople consisted of only 150 bishops. Very few Western bishops were present at either of these Councils. At Ephesus a considerable number of Syrian bishops arrived after the decision had been arrived at. Against the composition of the Council of Chalcedon grave objections were raised. It was therefore unavoidable, under the circumstances, that the Church should be asked to ratify the. decrees of the Councils, and that without such ratification they should not be regarded as universally binding. 1 It has been held, it is true, that 1 "It has been generally held hy theologians (excepting always those of the high Roman school) that the retrospective acceptance of the whole Church, including lay people as well as clergy, is necessary in order to give Conciliar decrees their full Oecumenical character and weight. This view-the view of Gerson and his friends at Constance, and of the Gallican Church, of Archbishop Laud and the Anglican High Church, of Janus in modem Catholic Germanyinvolves the truth for which I desire to contend; and borrowing the sentiment of my dear friend the late Rev. John Kehle, I venture to say that if the assent of the lay people is thus necessary even in the highest of all instances, the settlement of the faith, it is matter not of principle, but of convenience and wisdom, to decide at what point and in what proportion this Christian counsel shall be listened to and acknowledged." Bishop MOBERLY, Bauipton Lectiires, Preface, p. x., 3rd ed.

3!)2

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the presence, personally or by representation, of the five great patriarchs of the Christian Church constitutes a guarantee of the Oecumenicity of a Council. But this opinion lacks confirmation; for, first of all, the institution of the patriarchate is no essential principle of the Church of Christ, but only a matter of later convenience. It is elear, moreover, that this institution depended far more on the temporal importance of the city whose bisho1) was thus elevi1ted above the rest, than upon the purity of its faith or the consistency of its Christian character; and next, it is by no means certain that the heads of the most important sees were on all occasions and in all respects the fittest exponents of the mind of the Church at large: Still less was this the case when they sent, as they sometimes did at Councils, mere clerks to repre;;ent them-men whose mental and theological acquirements could add no weight to the deliberations at which they were present. Another point must not be forgotten here-the limitations under which the Councils entered upon their task. Their duty was not to ascertain what, in their opinion, ought to be taught, but simply what had been taught. Some writers have spoken of the " whole Church" as though it were the. whole body of the faithful alive at any given time in the Church's history. 1 But this is far from being the case. The whole Catholic Church is the Church from the Apostles' times to our own. No doctrine can be required of any Catholic as essential to salvation which has not been taught from the beginning. "Quod ubique, quod sem.per, quod ab omnibus," we must again repeat, is the true note of Catholicity. 1 N otaLly General Kireeff, in his discussion with Prebendary Meyrick and myself in the Rerue Internationale, Nos. 7-11. General Kireeff is olwiously gi viug expression to the general view in the Eastern Church. The opiniou is also very common among omselves.

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· Oecumenical Councils are not called to decide on what may reasonably be deduced from the Word of God, but on what is and always has been necessary for every Christian to believe. But all that is necessary to be believed has been taught from the beginning. Thus Oecumenical Councils did not meet to develop the faith, but to define it. Their business was to repress error, not to discover truth ; to protect, not to expand, the original deposit. They were not commissioned to annex territory, but only to mark out ancient boundaries with greater clearness. They did but put up danger signals to prevent any from straying outside the limits of safety. 1 Not that the Church is precluded from prosecuting theological inquiry. The development of theology has proceeded, and will proceed; and it will move all the faster when allowed to proceed with perfect· freedom of discussion. The business then of the Oecumenical Councils has been to guard the fundamentals of the faith. And just in proportion as the later Councils claiming to be Oecumenical have forgotten their true function, will be the doubtfulness of their claim to true Oecumenicity.. Without presuming here to decide the question of the title to Oecumenicity of all the Councils which claim it, we may point out that there are four Councils-those of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon-which on account of the important subjects with which they deal, and the practically universal reception of their decrees, occupy a position of far greater prominence in history than any others. Like the four Gospels, or the Temple of the Living God which "standeth four-square," these four great Councils represent four 1 "These decisions do, it is contended, simply express in a new form without substantial addition the Apostolic teaching as it is found in the New Testament." GORE, Barnpton Lectures, IV. p. 96. "They are intended to say ' No' rather than •Yes,' to deny rather than to teach.'' 1 bid,, p. 106.

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essential aspects of the truth concerning the Person of Christ. As Hooker reminds us, the four words ail:YJ0ws, Tâ&#x201A;ŹAews, aoiaipfrws, acrvyxvTws, "truly, perfectly, indivisibly, distinctly," which we owe to their decisions, embrace within their compass "all heresies which touch the Person of Jesus Christ." 1 The number of Councils claiming to be Oecumenical is seven. With regard to other Councils, they are either General or Provincial. Councils such as those held at the Lateran, at Trent, and at the Vatican may be supposed to belong to the former class. The vast majority of Councils cited by theologians belong to the latter class. Some Councils, whose canons have been recognized by being adopted en bloc at the Sixth General Council at Constantinople in 692, were Councils of heretical bishops. 2 The Council of Laodicea, for instance, consisted of semi-Arian bishops. But none of these Councils can claim to be Oecumenical. For some of them, as we have just seen, were composed of heretics ; others were simply Western Councils. The Council of Trent (1545-1563)-to say nothing of the Vatican Council in 1870-was not even a fair representation of the Western Church; for the Church of England and the Protestant Churches, which as yet had not formally seceded, or been lawfully ejected, from the Roman communion, were excluded from it. 8 As for Provincial Councils, whether early or late, it should be distinctly understood that their decrees, except so far as they give 1 Eccl. Pol. V. liv. 10. For the remaining Councils, see note at end of chapter. 2 The Sixth General Council, though attended by Papal legates, does not seem ever to have Leen formally recognized by the Roman Church. 3 If some of these had ceased to be ruled by bishops, yet many persons whose ordination to the priesthood could not be disputed must have remained iu them who had a right to Le heard.

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evidence of the theory and practice of the time at which they were held, are not so binding on the conscience of an English Churchman as the . resolutions passed at the last sitting of our own Convocations of Canterbury and York. And as few of the strongest advocates of Church authority are accustomed to regard the resolutions of our own Provincial Councils as outside a Churchman's right of criticism, it seems hardly reasonable to call upon him for implicit obedience to the decrees of a Provincial Synod held in some other part of the world many centuries ago. The expressed opinion of any body of Churchmen, of whatever age, ought certainly to be treated with respect. And the more general the Council, the more respect its decisions should recE;Jive at our hands. But the conscience of a Catholic Churchman is not absolutely bound by such decisions. And when we consider the violent means which were often taken to arrive at them-the abuse of temporal power on which very often they must be admitted to rest, and the character of the age in which they were arrived at-Catholic Churchmen may well rejoice that such is the case. 1 If it be asked whether it is possible forâ&#x20AC;˘ the Church to review the decisions of her Oecumenical Councils, our answer must be that it will be time enough for us to discuss such a question when her members call upon her to do so. The Church Catholic has never proclaimed her own infallibility. And the Bible, though it predicates indestructibility of the Church, 2 has never actually predicated infallibility of her. It has rather seemed to imply 1 The cases of Berengarius, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, to say nothing of the more systematic suppression of fair and free inquiry by direct and cruel religious persecution, are instances of what has been refened to in the text. 2 Matt. xvi. 18. This remark is made hy Archbishop MAGEE in his volume entitled Ghrist the Light of all Scripture, Appendix, note a.

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that it is only gradually that she shall be guided into all the truth. 1 Every one of her members is therefore as free to go over the ground again which she has gone over in the past, as a man is free to investigate for himself the grounds on which we believe in the rotundity of the earth, or the nature of the law of gravitation. This last task may be unnecessary, but it is certainly permissible. The only proviso in inquiries of this kind is one which, absurd as it may seem, has been shown to be practically necessary. The inquirer who doubts the infallibility of the Church must not be profoundly convinced of his own. He must therefore be willing to treat with due respect the convictions of hundreds of millions of brother Churchmen, many of whom may not unreasonably be supposed to have been as wise as himself. In other words, humility is a very necessary characteristic of the seeker after religious truth. It is here where popular Protestantism has frequently been so much at fault. The idea that one man's opinion is quite as good-not as another's, but as that of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of others-is not calculated to assist a man in his inquiry into things divine. The gift of the Spirit is not vouchsafed to this or that particular person alone, but in its measure to each member . of the Church. We are bound to respect the presence of that gift in our brethren-still more among large bodies of our brethren. And yet, "if anything be revealed to him who is sitting by, let the first keep silence." 2 It is quite possible that new light on. a point which has been supposed to be satisfactorily settled may dawn upon one who has given time and attention to the subject, and he may turn out eventually to be in the right, and the majority who have opposed him in the wrong. This has continua1ly happened since freedom of inquiry was restored to some 1

John xvi. 13.

1 Car. xiv.

ao.

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portions of the Church at the Reformation. Cheat changes, for instance, have occurred of late in the way in which men regard such doctrines as Predestination, Election, Atonement, and the future condition of the departed. The doctrine of the Incarnation has of late been very generally replaced in the position it held in early times as the point of departure of the Christian scheme. And all this change has been brought about by the restoration of perfect freedom of discussion. There are no longer civil punishments for heterodoxy. And not only so, but the appeals to men's passions in religious matters-the habit, once so universal, of calling upon them to prejudge, instead of examining the questions submitted to them-are happily getting out of date. The calm light of argument, combined with the spiritual intuition granted to those who have meditated long and earnestly on the deeper mysteries of our religion, have done more to open men's eyes to those deeper things of God than centuries of denunciation and persecution. Therefore it would seem we should rather encourage inquirers to go over again for themselves the questions which the Church Catholic has already decided, than dissuade them from doing so. We need apprehend no danger whatever from such a course if we are convinced that the decisions of the Catholic Church are sound. The most orthodox professors of science do not forbid their pupils from examining and testing the propositions of Euclid, the Principia of Newton, the formulae on which the principles of astronomy, physiology, or any other science are supposed to depend. On the contrary, they invite, or even compel, the student to do so. There is only one point on which reserve is necessary. A man is not publicly authorized to teach any science unless he accepts the principles on which men of science are generally agreed. We should not consider a man qualified to teach geography who insisted that the earth was flat, or to teach

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astronomy if he maintained that the attraction of the heavenly bodies varied directly as their distance. In like manner no man can claim to hold the position of a teacher in the Christian Church who denies the principles of Christian theology which have been agreed upon from the very first. Thus the Christian Church, at least of the present day, permits, and her more enlightened members are inclined to encourage, the fullest and freest inquiry into the first principles of her doctrine. She appeals, on behalf of the dogmatic truths which she holds herself commissioned to teach, to the words of Christ Himself, and of those whom He sent forth to proclaim the spiritual facts on which His Church is founded. She further invites men to scrutinize the original documents in which the faith of Christ is enshrined with the utmost minuteness, as well as the evidence for their genuineness. She expects, of course, that those who assume the position of teachers within her pale i:ihould have satisfied themselves of the truth of her doctrines before they aek permission to teach. Before they assume that responsible office she demands that they shall have exchanged the position of inquirers for that of convinced disciples. And with regard even to inquirers themselves, if the Church challenges investigation into her fundamental positions, it is not because she is doubtful of their truth, but because she is convinced of it. She believes that, so far as the proclamation of those first principles is concerned, she is divinely secured from error. If she does not believe herself possessed of an infallible power to decide every theological question which may arise, she believes that she is endowed with an unerring instinct, by whi~h she can detect any error which may prove fatal to the message she has received authority from Christ to proclaim. There has been apparently some confusion of thought

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in some quarters in regard to the powers of Oecumenical Councils on points of discipline. Their decrees, as well as the decrees of Councils which are not Oecumenical, have been cited as equally authoritative for the English Church in the nineteenth century as for Âˇthe Christian Church at large in the fourth or fifth. This idea is based upon an entire misconception of the rights of Oecumenical Councils, and even of the Catholic Church herself. For the Catholic Church has never been commissioned to lay down positive rules to bind the Church for all time. Even in her doctrinal decrees, as we have seen, she simply declares and defines the faith. She can impose no new doctrines, however reasonable or probable those doctrines may be. She can but state what has been handed down as essential truth from the very beginning, and what conflicts with such essential truth. But the Church enjoys the perpetual presence within her of the Spirit, and no exercise of that gift in one age can prejudice its exercise in another age, the conditions of which are very different. As a matter of fact, the disciplinary Canons of no Council whatever have been held by the Catholic Church to be binding, nor even the practice of Jesus Christ and His Apostles themselves. 1 No Christian now feels bound by the rules of the Council of Jerusalem, even though promulgated on Apostolic authority. 2 The canon of the Council of Nicaea, which forbids the translation of bishops, has been a dead letter in the West for centuries. Similarly the canons of the other Oecumenical Councils have not been held to be universally binding. Thus the expressions so frequently in the mouths of our clergy, " a Catholic custom," " a 1 The Church in very early times abolished, for reasons which appeared to her sufficient, the practice of receiving Holy Communion during and after supper, a practice which our Lord sanctioned when He instituted that Holy Sacrament, and which the Apostles continued 2 after His Ascension. Acts xv 28, 29.

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Catholic practice," are, as frequently used, incompatihle with the traditions of the Catholic Church. There are no Catholic practices, if we except the two Sacraments, the rite of Confirmation, and possibly we have a right to add, the hallowing of the first day of the week, and the retention in the Church of the threefold order in the Christian ministry. On all other points the Church in any part of the world is free to adapt her rules to the circumstances in which she finds herself. Ancient and widely-extended customs there are, no doubt, which no right-minded man would think of brushing rudely aside. A respect for Christian antiquity is inseparable from the idea of the true Christian. At the same time, the assertion of our Christian liberty, and the subordination of the letter to the spirit of ecclesiastical regulations, is at the present moment quite as necessary a duty as reverence for the traditions of a sacred past. Any regard for the regulations of the past which holds us back from grappling freely and boldly with the special difficulties of our own time-any reference to rules which the Church found necessary when men of corrupt and debased minds flocked into the Church with their heathen prejudices only partially eradicated, or when the old Roman Empire was falling to pieces, and society was hopelessly disorganized, or when the forms of modern society were just arising out of the chaos consequent on the dissolution of the ancient order-any reference to such rules as obligatory, when it is calculated to hamper us in our conflict with the evils of our own age, must be regarded as a most unjustifiable surrender of the true position and powers of the Church of Christ. Another point must not be left out of sight. The Church of Christ does not, as many at the present day seem to suppose, consist solely of the clergy. The laity are as integral a part of her as those who have been

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chosen to be her rulers and guides ; but for centuries in the Churches of the West the rights of the laity haye been withdrawn from them. 1 One simple duty alone was for ages supposed to be theirs, namely, submission. Share in the government of the Church in those times they had none. But this state of things is opposed to the idea involved in the word Church, to the practice of its first founders, and to the spirit of our own age. It is opposed to the idea of the Church, because the Church is represented to us as an organic whole, in the work of which every member has a share in action and responsibility. 2 It is opposed to the practice of the Church, for at the Council of Jerusalem, though the Apostles and elders only debated the question, the assent of the Church at large was obtained before the promulgation of the decree. 3 And, not to multiply instances, St. Paul bade the Corinthian Church assemble as a body to carry out the sentence he pronounced against the incestuous person. 4 That autocracy in any shape is contrary to the spirit of our own age needs no demonstration, and we may be sure that a persistent adherence to such a spirit in the administration of our affairs can only issue in the alienation of the faithful laity, and that it will delay for an indefinite time that movement towards the reabsorption of orthodox Nonconformity into our pale which has already commenced, and which gives such excellent promise for the future. In early days none were 1 "Gradually the influence of the laity, as telling in any direct and legitimate way upon the counsels of the Church, diminished till it expired altogether." Bishop MOBERLY, Bampton Lectures, p. 114. In a note he illustrates this gradual exclusion, and gives the remark of the Greek commentator Zonaras, that the Council of Laodicea "hindered " not only the laity, but even the priests themselves from taking any share in the appointment of bishops. 2 Eph. iv. 16; Col. ii. 19. 3 Acts xv. 22, 23. â&#x20AC;˘ 1 Cor. v. 4. CJ. Acts vi. 3 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 3, 4.

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permitted to hold the responsible office of guide of souls without the consent of the flocks to which they ministered, though once admitted they could not be capriciously ejected without grave scandal.1 The Nonconforming bodies, as was perhaps natural, have travelled too far in the opposite direction, and their ministers, in a great number of cases, are more absolutely dependent on their flocks than is good either for flock or minister. But the non-established Churches of the Anglican communion have solved the question of the rights of the laity satisfactorily enough,2 and so have the Old Catholic Churches which are slowly extending their numbers and influence on the Continent. The principles thus laid down apply to another aspect of the question. The Old Catholic movement on the Continent has given fresh extension to a principle of which until 1870 the Anglican Church had been the chief exponent in the West from the time of the Reformation onward. This is 1 CLEMENT, First Epistle to Corinthians, xliv. The presbyters, he says, in the various Christian communities were in the first instance appointed by the Apostles, and then by other men of reputation,-u:ith the consent of the whole Church. These persons he (or rather the Church of Rome) thinks may not be lawfully removed from their ministry. 2 Without the danger which was apprehended some forty-five years ago by men of authority and experience like Pusey and Keble. -See MOBERLY, Bampton Lectures, p. 322, note. Bishop Moberly recurs to this subject of the powers of the laity in the lectures themselves. In p. 70 he remarks that the decrees of the Council at Jerusalem mentfoned in Acts xv. did not " issue from one Apostle as from a monarch, nor from the college -of the Apostles as from an oligarchy, but from the Apostles and elders and brethren as from a great constitutional body which must all speak, according to its position and degree, before the full voice of the Holy Spirit can be held to have spoken through its empowered human organs with authority unquestionable." In pp. 110-113 he discusses the evidence in Christian antiquity for the powers of Âˇthe laity, and cites in their favour Tertullian, Cyprian, Chrysostom, as well as the Councils of Carthage held by Cyprian, of E!iberis in 305, and of Toledo in 398,

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

the existence of National Churches. The Church of Rome has sought to impose an external authority and one rigid and unvaried set of forms and rules throughout the Christian world, and has eventually succeeded in her endeavour. No doubt she has gaihed much by the majesty of her attitude and the precision with which her battalions march when ordered. But that advantage, great though it be, is very dearly purchased. In every country in which she is influential, the Roman Church is engaged of necessity in a conflict with the State, and her officers are felt to be the vassals of a foreign power. The principle of National Churches, though not mentioned in Scripture, is clearly within the limits of adaptability permitted to the Christian community, as well as in harmony with man's nature. Involving as it does an appeal to instincts as powerful as local custom, love of home and country, it places the Christian Church in the most favourable position for influencing mankind. Uniformity of ritual, though it may strike the imagination of the traveller, has never been a principle of the Catholic Church. 1 An intense attachment to their National Churches, with their own special rites and ceremonies, may be observed among the Russians, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, as well as among the members of the Church of England. The Old Catholic Churches have wisely recognized the strength of this feeling, and in every country in which congregations exist, whether in Holland, the country of their birth, in France, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Austria, in Italy, 2 each national 1 AUGUSTINE, in his Confessions (VI. 2), mentions customs of the African Church which Ambrose had forbidden at Milan. 2 There are episcopal congregations unconnected with the Roman communion in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico, but they are not, strictly speaking, Old Catholic bodies. The bishop in Spain was consecrated by Irish, and the congregations in Mexico are supeiiutended by American bishops. Bishop Riley, who had been placed in charge of the Mexican Reformed Church, has resigned his office.

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communion has adopted its own particular form and order of worship. Whether this movement in favour of the idea of National Churches is destined to spread, as many are inclined to believe, or whether it is not, the Anglican Churchman who is attached to the principles of the English Reformation cannot fail to be interested in the new developments of the tendency toward the system of National Churches on the Continent, and to hope that Europe may one day be overspread by congregations in which a regard is felt for national sympathies, as well as for Catholic truth, Apostolic order, and Evangelic freedom-congregations which prize internal union above external uniformity, which agree to differ in details, but which hold firmly "the faith once for all delivered to the saints." It is this combination of regard for the traditions of the past with freedom to adapt our rules and forms of thought to the needs of the present-of respect for authority with the fullest possible exercise of individual liberty-which constitutes the true Catholic principle. We may term it Constitutional Catholicism, as distinguished on the one hand from Roman autocracy, and on the other from the anarchy to which popular Protestantism seems to tend. A Church which is true to her mission, which at once unwaveringly proclaims her fundamental doctrines, and permits the fullest and freest development of them ; a Church which, both in theory and practice, maintains at once the authority of her clergy and the inalienable rights of her laity-such a Church is one against which "the gates of Hades shall not prevail." She will continue to teach the "faith once for all delivered to the saints," 1 and yet, relying on the promise of the Spirit,2 and of the perpetual presence of hn Lord, 3 she will follow the laws of 1

Jude 3.

,John xvi, 13,

Matt. xxviii. 20,

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development of a healthy human socieGy, of which the expansion of the Anglo-Saxon race has of late supplied us with so many instances. She will go on in her noble and beneficent mission, casting aside the swaddling clothes of the past, as they become too contracted for her present needs. As -an acute French thinker has put it,1 the Church whose eyes are turned backward, like those of Lot's wife, is a decaying and declining Church. 2 The Catholic Church, like human society, must be progressive. She will heal her schisms, compose her differences, bring about corporate reunion in precise proportion to the degree in which she learns to distinguish fundamentals from their development, to prize freedom above tradition. In days to come even the Church of Rome will be compelled to fall into line with the march of human thought. The recent history of that Church in the United States points to the eventual downfall of her system of personal government, by reason of her members becoming gradually permeated by modern ideas. Her inclination of late to show sympathy with Socialism, so opposed to all her post-Reformation traditions, is another instance of the same tendency. And so the tide of Divine Life will continue to flow in the 1miversal Church of Christ until the times of restoration of all things, " the seasons of refreshing from the Presence of the Lord." 8 She will proceed on her majestic march, " casting down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every 1

Pere Hyacinthe. "The good Archbishop [Tait] was one of that small, but let us hope increasing, class of <livines who see before, and not merely into the past. There are men whose eyes are apparently so set in their heads as those of such timid animals as the hare and the horse, and who are adapted to see better behind than before." HEAirn, Old and .Vew Theulogy, p. 21. 3 .Acts iii. 19, 21. 2

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thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ," 1 until by the work of her ministers, and by the assimilation of Christian principles on the part of the community at large, "we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." 2 NoTE.-For information on the Roman controversy, the student should consult JEWEL'S Apology, Bishop HALL'S No Peace with Rome, Archbishop LAUD in controversy with the Jesuit Fisher, Bp. JEREMY TAYLOR'S Dissuasive Against Popery, and other works of learned Anglican divines, of which an exhaustive list will be found in Bishop CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH'S Theophilus Anglicanus. Of more modern works the following may be mentioned : Dr. LITTLEDALE's Plain Reasons Against Joining the Church of Rome, and Words for Truth; Canon GoRE's Roman Catholic Claims; MAHAN's Exercise of Faith; PULLER'S Primitive Church and the See of Rome; Dr. PuSEY'S Eirenicon; Sir W. P ALMER's Treatise on the Church; and Messrs BRINCKMAN and MooRE's Anglican Brief Against the Rornan Claims. 1

2 Cor. x. 5.

Eph. iv. 13.

CHAPTER VIII. THE RESURRECTION OF

THE DEAD, AND

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME

rrHESE words may be translated, "We expect a Resurrecti0n of the Dead, and the life of the coming Aeon, or age." The Apostles' Creed has "the Resurrection [or tt ResurrectionJ of the flesh." 1 This phrase was a cause of some difficulty to theologians in early times. " Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God " 2 was a passage of Scripture quoted against it. But the literal force of these words cannot be pressed. St. Paul was in the habit of using the word uap~ (flesh) to express man's unregenerate nature. And the context, "neither doth corruption inherit incorruption," proves that St. Paul's words refer to cor1:uptible flesh and blood. That the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a material resurrection has been shown above, 3 though the blood of the psychic body may have been superseded by some more subtle principle of life. 4 This is expressly stated in the words, " A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold Me having." 5 And our resurrection, if we be indeed partakers of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,6 1 So in the Latin "carnis resurrectionem." Our Church gives literal translation in her Baptismal office, anrl a paraphrase, "the Resurrection of the body" in her daily offices. 5 3 p. 227 4 See p. 229. 2 1 Cor. xv. 50. Luke xxiv. 39. Âˇ 6 Rom. vi. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 22; Phil. iii. 10; Col ii, 12; iii. 1; 1 Peter iii. 21. 407

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TH~; CREEIJ.

may naturally be expected to follow the laws of His. This is asserted in passages such as I Corinthians xv. 35-54, and 2 Corinthians v. 1-4. The relation of our natural body to our spiritual body, we learn from the first of these passages, is as that of a seed to the plant which springs from it. Both are material. Both possess a mysterious, impalpable, invisible property called life; and this life is communicated from the one to the other by means which we do not in the least understand. As weÂˇ have already seen,1 we are no more entitled to regard the spiritual body as immaterial than we are entitled to regard our present or psychic body as such. The words "spiritual body" simply mean a material body adapted to the needs of the human spirit, as the words "psychic body " mean a material body adapted to the needs of the human soul. The change which takes place at the Resurrection may be gathered from the teaching of Scripture to be the expulsion of all that is corruptible or mortal in our bodies by the action of a principle of incorruptibility and immortality imparted to us at the Resurrection. This is apparently St. Paul's meaning when he speaks, in the passages above cited, of "the corruptible putting on incorruption," and of "mortality being swallowed up by life." But the Resurrection must not be conceived of as a resurrection of material particles. Such a supposition is precluded by St. Paul's illustration of the process of _resurrection by the relation of the seed to the plant springing from it. The life in each case is the same. It is transmitted according to definite laws of continuity from the one to the other. But in the case of the seed and the plant, the material particles of each are entirely different. " So is it with the resurrection of the dead." The neglect to observe this truth, tending as it has done to the idea of a purely material resurrection, l

p. 228,

l'HE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME,

409

has been the cause of many difficulties. It has been objected, and with reason, that the same material particles have formed part of many human bodies in succession, and that therefore the resurrection of the identical human body which was committed to the grave is an impossibility. But as Bishop Butler has shown, 1 personal identity does not depend upon the identity of the material particles of which the body is composed. Âˇ It is, indeed, impossible that it should be so. For physicists have shown that the material particles of the human body are in. a continual flux, and that at the end of a period of seven years scarcely one single particle remains in the body which was there at the beginning of that period. Yet no man doubts or disputes the personal identity of the being, the material particles of whose body have undergone so radical a change. Personal identity depends, in reality, upon the continuity of individual consciousness. Life is a power which enables its possessor to seize on the material particles with which he comes into contact, and to group them in such manner as is needed for the performance of the particular functions he is called upon to fulfil. The analogy of our Lord's Body leads us to the ~elief that this grouping of particles after the Resunection will have some relation to the past history, or, if the term be preferred, the consciousness in the past, of the individual by whose life it is effected. Our Lord's Body bare the marks of the wounds He had received at His Crucifixion. Just so, we may belfove, will the marks of our character and history in this life be indelibly impressed on the body we shall receive if we are found worthy to attain to the Resurrection of the Dead. That body will, moreover, be endowed with similar faculties to those displayed by the Body of our Lord. It will know neither hunger nor thirst. 2 It will need no sleep to l

Dissertation on Personal Identity.

Seep. 227. Alijo Rev. vii. 16.

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THE GREED.

recruit its exhausted energies. It will be incapable of fatigue or pain. 1 It will not be bound down, as is our present body, to perpetual contact with the earth, nor condemned to the slow rate of progress at which we miserable worms are compelled to travel, .but will flash from place to place with a rapidity inconceivable to us in our present sense-bound condition. 2 Words fail us wherewith to paint the glorious privileges which will be ours when the restitution of all things has come. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them which love Him." 3 And so the Catholic Church, at the Easter season, has not ceased for centuries to sing of the glories of the Resurrection-body : "Oh, how glorious and resplendent, Fragile body, shalt thou be ; When endowed with so much beauty, Full of health, and-strong, and free, Full of vigour, full of pleasure, That shall last eternally,"

The belief in the Resurrection-body has suffered considerable eclipse among us since the Reformation, by reason of the reaction against the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. The abuses connected with that doctrine, to which we shall presently recur, drove many Protestant theologians to the opposite extreme of denying the Christian doctrine of the intermediate state. In the place of this doctrine it was taught that the soul, at its departure from the body, was immediately transported to the realms of eternal bliss or eternal woe. 4 The doctrine of the resurrection 2 As in the case of our Lord's Body. Rev. xxi. 4. Seep. 227. a I Cor. ii. 9. The Revised Version is more literal here, but does not better express the Apostle's meaning. 4 The habit of speaking of the departed as "in heaveIJ" is a result of this belief which still tends to weaken the belief in the intermediate state. 1

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411

of the body, though perhaps not categorically denied, had thus practically vanished from the Christian consciousness, and the belief of the majority of English people was one described by Justin Martyr as being the belief "neither of Christians nor Jews." It was, in fact, the Platonic belief in the immortality of the soul, which had come to be substituted for the Christian belief in the resu1Tection of the body. The writer of these pages well remembers how, when in the year 1859 or 1860 he put to the members of a confirmation dass the question, "Will our bodies rise again 1" he was met, on the part of every one of its members, with the immediate, unhesitating answer, "No." Even up to the present time he has found intelligent, welleducated confirmation candidates quite unable to answer the question, in spite of their weekly repetition of the Apostles' Creed. And it is not too much to say that in many country parishes the doctrine of Plato will still be found to have almost entirely replaced the doctrine of the Christian Church. It is therefore of very considerable importance that this article of the Christian Creed should be definitely and clearly taught. This brings us to the important question, Under what conditions and reservations will the baptized Christian be permitted to enjoy the everlasting life promised to each believer as his heritage 1 It will be recognized that a most profound change has been taking place in the minds of Englishmen during the last fifty years on this point, and that the influence of this change is continually increasing, Sixty years ago it was firmly believed by all perijons supposed to hold orthodox opinions, to whatever section of Christians they may have belonged, that eternal punishâ&#x20AC;˘ ment consisted in an endless continuance of frightful tortures, of which never-ending material flames formed one important part, and mental agonies of an equally

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excruciating character formed another. All Protestants, again, including a vast majority of the members of the Church of England, believed that there were no punishments which were not eternal, and that at the moment of death each soul passed at once to eternal happiness or misery. The first shock given to this almost universal belief among the members of the Reformed bodies was the reassertion of the doctrine of the intermediate state by the writers of the Tracts for the Times and their followers. The second was the controversy on the Eternity of Future Punishment, aroused by the teaching of the late F. D. Maurice, in his Theological Essays, in regard to the meaning of the word alwvios, and intensified by his subsequent expulsion from his Professorship at King's College, London. These controversies have produced a complete revulsion in popular opinion on the question of future punishment, as evidenced by the appearance of such works as Dr. Cox's Salvator Mundi, Dean Farrar's Larger Hope, and the like. 1 The result, in one respect, of this violent revulsion of feeling has been extremely mischievous. The Christian public at large may be said at the present moment to have no definite opinion whatever upon the subject; and such opinion as there is assumes with many .the form of a general though vague disbelief in future retribution. This is undoubtedly disastrous in its effects upon the seriousness of our theological convictions. But it is the price we have to pay for our religious freedom, and it is the natural recoil of the bow which has so long been rigidly bent in an opposite direction. Mr. Maurice's views on the actual meaning of the word a.lwv,os were not very definite. He appears to have thought 1 A volume of Essays, under the title of The Wider Hope, has done much service by collecting the various opinions now held on these most important subjects.

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that it had nothing whatever to do with duration, but was equivalent to "fixed," "definite," "unchangeable." There can be little doubt that the real meaning of the word is "that which is always existing." 1 It does not, like some other words which the writers in the Bible might have used, suggest the idea of an endless succession in time, though it may fairly be regarded as including it. But when connected, as it is in some remarkable passages, with K6,\a(n,, it suggests two considerations. First of all, if the chastisement must be regarded as always existing, it does not necessarily follow that the individual may never be released from the operation of that chastisement. And next, if K6A.a<n,, as distinguished from np,wp[a, is correctly supposed to have the sense of discipline with a view to improvement, the individual Âˇmust of necessity be released from such chastisement, appointed in the counsels of God for the reformation of offenders, as soon as it has done its work. A careful study of Holy Scripture has tended to show that a good many passages which had been pressed into the service of the traditional view had been invested with many horrors by the imagination of divines; which in their plain, literal, and grammatical sense they by no means suggested. It has been further shown that many passages, in the Old Testament for instance, had nothing whatever to do with the subject of everlasting punishment. 2 The "hell" of the Authorised Version in 1 I am convinced that Dean Farrar's rendering, "Aeonian," or "age-long," cannot be maintained in the face of the derivation and scriptural use of the word, in spite of the support which it doubtless received from the use of the word alwv for a long peripd of time. 2 e.g., the Hebrew word Sheol, translated "hell" in our version, frequently means merely "death," and cannot be shown to have been identified in the minds of the Jews with any system of physical or w.ep.tal torture. So the " everlasting bqrnings " of Isaiah xxxiii. 14

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the parable or history of Dives and Lazarus is Hades, or the intermediate state, and not that of final torment. The "fire," therefore, spoken of in that narrative cannot possibly have been a material fire, nor is there anything said about its endlessness. So, too, it was contended that not only had the Authorised Version added unnecessarily to the terrors of Mark ix. 43 by translating the word aa/3w-ros, "that never shall be quenched," but that the whole passage, referring, as it clearly does, to the corruption and burning of dead bodies, could have no sort of reference to the torture of living bodies and souls which had formed so prominent a feature of the teaching of mediaeval and modern divines. It was further remarked that in 2 Thess i. 9 "eternal (alwvwv) destruction" is spoken of (cf. ii. 8), 1 and that we derive a similar idea from the passage in Rev. xx. 14, where "death and Hades," as well as those whose names were not found in the Lamb's Book of Life, were "cast into the lake of fire." It was argued that as the destruction of death and Hades was obviously meant, they not being have no reference whatever to the soul, but refer to the devastation of Palestine by a conqueror with fire and sword. As Mr. HEARD aptly puts it (Old and New Theology, p. 184), there was considerable use in past times of "proof-texts," in which "the Sheol of one dispensation is confounded with the Gehenna of another." 1 Some writers have denied that 6\,0pos, a,rw\,la, and the like always mean destruction. But it is certainly the obvious and usual meaning of 6\\vÂľ, and its derivatives. Where, therefore, it is interpreted otherwise, some proof should be brought forward that this is its meaning here. The "Lawless One" is said in 2 Thess. ii. 8 either to be "consumed'' or "slain " (there is some diversity of reading here) in the first portion of the verse, and to be "done away" (Karap-ylw) in the second. Observe also that in the Revised Version of Rev. xx. 14, which follows another reading, the lake of lire itself is said to be the "second death."

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living beings capable of everlasting fiery torment, so the destruction of those whose names were not found in the Book of Life is also meant. Attempts have further been made, though with less success, to explain away such passages as Rev. xiv. 11, "and the .smoke of their torment goeth up into the ages of ages"; and Rev. xx. 10, where the devil, the beast, and the false prophet, having already (Rev. xix. 20) been cast into the "lake of fire that burneth with brimstone," are said to he condemned to he "tormented unto the ages of ages." It will he clear, from what has just been said, that the question of the future of the wicked is a difficult oneone which ought to he approached with the utmost caution and reverence. If on the one hand we are forbidden to read our own preconceived ideas into the express statements of Scripture-and surely in so tremendous a matter we can have no right to do so-on the other we have no right to explain away .direct assertions found in Holy vVrit. Neither can we claim the right, as some have done, to reject peremptorily what appears to contradict our " moral sense " ; for that "moral sense " has been considerably perverted by our own shortcomings. We see moral questions "through a glass, darkly," by reason of the infirmity of our moral vision. And we are certainly no judges of what is adequate retribution for the determined, obstinate, wilful rejection of God and opposition to His Will. It were better in so weighty a matter to suspend our judgment. The attitude of Abraham in earnest supplication for Sodom, convinced, in spite of his doubts, that the "Judge of all the earth" would "do right," were more befitting on our part than that of positive assertion or denial. We may do well to imitate the late Laureate, beloved and lamented by many of us for tlte services he has rendered to the cause of a pure, enlightened, progressive

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Christianity, when he tells us that on this awful subject he was wont to fall "with his weight of cares, Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope through darkness up to God,"

even though the result was that he could but "faintly trust the larger hope." 1 There are three different schools of thought on this question. First, there are those who still believe in the everlasting punishment of the wicked. Next, there are the Annihilationists, who hold the view that the obstinately impenitent wili be destroyed. 2 Lastly, there are the Unive~alists, who hold that all will ultimately be restored to 1

In Memoriam, 55. Mr. HEARD, in his striking chapter on Eschatology, in Old and New Theology, says (pp. 252, 253) of the Annihilation theory, "It assumes that man is inherently immortal, anrl only becomes mortal by a fiat of Omnipotence, who, in mercy to His victim, acts as the executioner at some auto da fe of the Inquisition, and gives the coup de grtlce, and puts an end to his suffering. Such a phrase as annihilation is, if possible, a deeper reflection on the Divine Being than the old dogma of eternal suffering, since it suggests that future punishment is of the nature of torture, not retributive only, but vindictive, so that we should have the double inconsistency to clea1â&#x20AC;˘ up--that God should inflid such torture at all, and then, like a _Spanish inquisitor, huddle it up at the end as if ashamed of His own ferocity." This ingenious objection, however, would not apply if the punishment of sin be considered as organic. From that point of view, sin, as the opposite of righteousness, would be regarded as first causing pain to one's neighbour; then, by the working of a natural law, to oneself; and finally, as destroying by slow yet sure steps the life which God has given. Mr. Heard himself (p. 257) seems to recognize the reasonableness of this contention. He says, " What we cannot surrender is the very opposite truth, that evil is something inherently self-destructive, and carrying with it the principle of its own dissolution. . . . All evil is destructive of the organism it attacks [the italics are mine]; whether it be plant, or animal, or man, in any case disease is incipieat death.'' This reasoning seems to dispose of the striking,_ but not too logical. passage we have quoted above, 2

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the Divine favour. This last theory derives no support from Holy Writ, and appears opposed to some of its plainest declarations. 1 It should, however, be remarked that the theory of the everlasting punishment of the wicked, as held at the present time, is generally held with considerable reservations. First of all, the nature of the physical and mental tortures of the lost is considerably modified. Next, it is believed that a good deal of the punishment which takes place hereafter will be remedial in its character. It is no longer .supposed that sin, being an offence against an Infinite Being, must of necessity be visited with an infinite punishment. There is such a thing hereafter, so our Lord Himself tells us, as being "punished with few stripes " 2-a phrase which could hardly be used of a punishment which lasted for ever. The controversy between Archdeacon Farrar and the late Dr. Pusey ended in an agreement between them that eternal punishment was meted out only to those who obstinately and finally rejected the offer of salvation through Christ. A Swedenborgian writer-and some elements of Swedenborgianism, regarded as a reaction from the popular theology of the early part of the present century, are well worthy of notice-said, in a Symposium on Everlasting Punishment, 8 that all punishment was organic-i.e., the natural result of conditions which had been inwrought by man into his own moral being 4--and that the final state of a wicked man, though loveless and 1 See p. 428. It ought not to be forgotten that such eminent divines as Gregory of Nyssa and Theodore of Mopsuestia were Universalists. See NEANDER, Eccl. Hist. iv. 445, 446. The former of these was associated with his brother Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus in enforcing the reception of the Nicene formula at the Council of Constantinople. 2 Luke xii. 48. 3 In the Contemporary Review for 1878. 4 "Rightly considered, all divine punishment grows out of the nature of the sin itself." HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 2G4.

2 E

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hopeless, and dead to all nobler and better thoughts, might not be destitute of a certain amount of comfort. And a recent Roman Catholic writer on Hell committed himself to the same view until he submitted to the contrary judgment of the Holy See upon this weighty matter. The most important contribution towards the solution of this great mystery is to be found in the growth of sound opinions on the question of the Intermediate State. After the Reformation, as we have seen, the strong reaction from the absurdities, incongruities, and abuses involved in the mediaeval doctrine of Purgatory caused the doctrine of an intermediate condition of the soul to fall into oblivion. Some theologians even opposed it with vehemence, as being undistinguishable from the doctrine at which they had not unnaturally taken strong offence. But here, as elsewhere, it was forgotten that all doctrines peculiar to the Roman Catholic Church are perversions or exaggerations of real truths ; and that the rejection of the truth itself, while contending against its distortion, has been, in too many cases, to surrender the key of the position into the adversary's hands. The Roman reaction in this country of late years has been promoted, perhaps more than most of us have supposed, by the feeling that, immoral in its tendency, and inconsistent with all sound conceptions of God as the mediaeval doctrine of Purgatory may be, it is surpassed in both these respects by the doctrine which, until lately, may be said to have held the field among ourselves. The Roman doctrine undoubtedly errs in building a vast fabric of romance on the slender hints given us in the New Testament in regard to the intermediate state. The notion that anyone on earth can tell us the precise condit_ion in which the departed are, and can exercise a definite and easily describable control over that condition, is not only absolutely unwarranted by Scripture, but is contrary to

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sober reason.I When, again, men are led to believe that prayers offered before a certain privileged altar, or in conformity with the conditions of some "indulgence" set forth by authority, or that masses said at the petition of the friends and relatives of one deceased, will relieve a man from the na'tural consequences of his sin, it certainly, in the case at least of a man known to possess pious or wealthy relatives, appears to offer something approaching to impunity to the sinner. To represent God as willing to abate the severity of His righteous judgment in consideration of ceremonies such as these, especially when payment for them is demanded by His ministers, seems certainly to detract from our conceptions of Him as a righteous ruler, and to assimilate the idea of Him to that of a human potentate who is not inaccessible to the blandishments of his favourites. But the popular doctrine of sixty years since was still more repugnant to the moral sense of thoughtful men, and still more opposed to the true sense of Scripture and the true tradition of the Catholic Church. 2 For it not only 1 The Eastern Church decidedly rejects the Roman doctrine of Purgatory. 2 "It has been said, without contradiction, that the Old Theology teachings on the subject of heaven and hell have caused more infidelity- than all the other dogmas of divines put together." HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 251. He adds (p. 262) some remarks on "the immoral conception that a bare act of death-bed repentance and faith will, in some magical way, waft a soul clean out of one state into the other," He tells us how Barnum is reported in the Pall Mall Gazette, April 1st, 1884, as saying of this doctrine, "A pirate who has killed in cold blood a hundred men is caught, repents on the gallows, and says, 'I am sorry for what I have done, and I am going to Jesus.' A certain proportion of those he has killed-say fifty per cent.-having been cut off in their sins without time for repentance, are supposed to be damned. Is it conceivable, as consistent with the judgment of God, that the repentant pirate should look over the battlements of heaven down upon these fifty whom he sent to hell, and complacently congratulate his redeemed soul upon

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perverted, as the Roman doctrine did, but it entirely ignored the teaching of Scripture concerning the intermediate state. It held and taught opinions which, in Justin Martyr's view, disqualified those who held them from assuming the title of Christian. 1 It taught that if a man had saving faith at the moment of death, however obtained, and whatever his previous character and habits might have been, he was translated at once to the bliss of heaven. Sometimes, though happily not often, the possession of this saving faith was held to preclude the necessity even of repentance. But it is obvious what an encouragement to ungodly living was the hope thus held out, that by a few prayers on the death-bed a man might attain to a blessedness as great as could be attained by a life of the most exalted piety and his luck in having had time to repent before he was hanged 1" Mr. Heard remarks that this "is crudely, and even coarsely, put." But he adds that "the common conscience of mankind is tested by extreme cases of this kind." He bids "the intuitional school of Theology" lay these doctrines "before the common people," and if it finds them "rejected with contempt," to "take them back and revise them, and ascertain where the lurking error may be." (p. 263.) He believes that the present age is at least as well able to solve these problems as a society like that of the later Roman Empire, "stricken with moral leprosy, and carrying with it the seeds of its own dissolution." (p. 264.) We may not agree with statements thus Âˇ strongly put. But at least, before laying down with authority the doctrine of the future condition of the soul, it is not too much to ask that we shall consider it carefully in all its possible bearings. The whole question of prayers for the dead is, it must be admitted, one of great difficulty. But so is the whole question of intercessory prayer. We may be sure that the "Judge of all the earth" will do "right," whether we ask Him or not. Yet, on the other hand, He has bidden us use prayer, just as we should make use of any other force, the effects of which are known to us, and the power to use which is in our hands. The Church of England has wisely left this question to the judgment of the individual. While she does not forbid prayers for the dead, she does not introduce them into her public acts of worship. 1 Seep. 220.

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self-denial. There can be little doubt that much of the impiety and careless living we find at present around us is due to the prevalence of such teaching among us in the past. It is true that the doctrine was seldom proclaimed by thoughtful teachers in all its native hideousness. But it was not an unfair logical deduction from the premisses they had laid down. And when men desired to enjoy the pleasures of the world they were apt to sweep away all the qualifications of the theory which the common sense of the teacher suggested, and to make the most of the hope held out by his incautious language. 1 It is here that the value of recent theological discussion on the condition of the departed comes in. Once let it be admitted that there is an intermediate state, and that all punishment is not of necessity eternal, and many of the most serious difficulties involved in preaching the efficacy of a death-bed repentance are found to disappear. We have no right to assume, in the face of the story of Dives and Lazarus, that there is no such thing as disciplinary punishment hereafter. As we have seen, it mayÂˇ be regarded as practically certain that the punishment of Dives recorded in that story took place in the intermediate state. The terms "Hades" and "Abraham's bosom," used in it, tend most strongly to confirm that impression. The 1 Immoral conceptions of God always react on those who hold them. The lax conception of the Roman Catholic leads to the easy morality of Roman Catholic peoples. The fierce conceptions of Puritanism have not unfreqnently produced harshness, intolerance, and vindictiveness in devout Puritan believers, and downright unbelief among their people at large. "Protestant theologians complain that the popular notion of two states only after death-heaven and hell, beatitude and damnation-and the consequent disuse of prayer for the departed, 'has brought the people to the brink of doubt about eternal life altogether.'" VoN DOLLINGER, Lectures on the lleunion of the Churches, p. 157. The last words in this citation are taken from NEUMANN, Zeitschrift fur Luther. Theol., p. 282.

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latter term clearly relates to the period of repose and calm granted to one who has striven and suffered. It is nowhere used to indicate the rapturous blessedness of heaven. 1 If we cordially accept this view we need not fear being entangled in Roman error, for we are here in presence of the truth which, as in all other cases of Roman corruption, Rome has distorted. The evil of the Roman doctrine of Purgatory does not consist in the assertions that punishment is strictly proportioned to desert, and that most of those who die are neither fit for the eternal happiness of heaven, nor can justly be consigned to the "eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." It consists in the exaggeration of the truth that our prayers and intercessions may possibly be of use to those who have gone hence. 2 It shows itself in the way in which this possibility or probability has been taught as a certainty, and in the definite system which has been built up on so very uncertain a foundation, lending itself, as it unquestionably does, in practice to the most serious abuses, the most slavish superstitions, and, we may add, to the grossest absurdities. The Catholic Church in early times was wont 1 "Paradise," in 2 Cor. xii. 4, seems to be regarded as identical with the "third heaven" of v. 2. But it is not probable that every Christian who has hope of final salvation will be translated there at death, as seems to be too often assumed. The early Church would hardly have prayed for the repose and refreshment of the soul had that been the primitive belief. Another assumption has perhaps been too hastily made-namely, that the third is necessarily the highest heaven. It may have been the lowest, or if there were supposed to be seven heavens, as some have believed, it would represent a condition midway between the highest and the lowest form of eternal happiness. See Commentaries on 2 Cor. xii. 1-4. 2 This doctrine is involved in the early Church epitaphs, "Refrigera eum," "Eterna lux luceat ei," "Requiescat in pace," etc. And by some it is supposed that Onesiphorus was dead when St. Paul breathed his warm prayer for mercy upon him in the great day. ~ Tim. i. 16. This, however, cannot be regarded as absolutely certain.

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to treat this mysterious question in a spirit of reserve-a spirit we shall do well to imitate. 1 It has pleased the Holy Ghost to reveal to us very little concerning the state of the soul while absent from the body, and we shall do best to respect this myste]'.ious silence and refrain from "darkening counsel by words without knowledge"from increasing the uncertainty in which it is shrouded-by any unauthorized conjectures of our own. On one point, however, we may venture reverently to speculate. Is punishment hereafter entirely disciplinary, or does our probation in every case come finally to an end at death 1 The affirmative of the latter proposition has been very confidently asserted; but when asked to support their assertion from Holy Writ, those who maintain it are placed in a position of some difficulty. They usually fall back upon a single passage in Ecclesiastes, which they usually misquote. "As the tree falls so it lies," is the supposed Scriptural foundation on which, so far as the writer's experience has gone, this most important and sweeping 1 It is not desirable to multiply quotations on this subject. It is sufficient to refer to a few passages. ORIG EN, in his speculations in De Principiis, Book II. eh. x., supposes that there are continual ascents and descents in the scale of being, and that our present condition depends upon our conduct in a former one. He seems to regard punishment as purgation, and rejection as the withdrawal of the Divine Spirit from the human soul. It is extremely doubtful whether he believed in the eventual salvationÂˇ of the devil. AUGUSTINE, in his Enchiridion ad Laurentium, c. 69, regards it as "not incredible" that the faithful may attain to salvation after passing through a purification of fire. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS, in his Orationes 33, mentions jndgment and retribution among the points on which speculation was permitted. The earlier Fathers say very little about the intermediate state; but JUSTIN MARTYR distinctly, in his First Apology, c. 8, and his Second Apology, c. 9, as well as in the Dialogue with Trypho, c. 45, declares that there is such a thing as eternal punishment. The same view is expressed in the Ebionitish Recognitiqns and Homilies of Clement.

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conclusion has been usually imagined t,o rest. 1 That the period of death is one of tremendous awfulness and importance no reasonable person would be found to deny. That it may be, and even that it often is, the end of our term of probation, is an assertion which it would be presumption to question. That St. Paul in I Cor. xv. implies that life on earth leaves an indelible mark upon our spiritual condition hereafter must unquestionably be admitted. Nay, we are told that Christ's judgment will be pronounced upon us for the deeds "done in the body." 2 But all this does not entitle us to deny that there may be those to whom an opportunity is given of retrieving the errors committed here. S1i.ch a supposition, even though it be but the faint breathing of a "larger hope," will be an infinite relief to many who have been sorely perplexed about the future of the heathen, or of those who have passed their lives amid the seething mass of impurity which festers in our large cities, or of those who, though seemingly incapable of grappling with the evil habits which have enslaved them while yet in the body, have yet displayed from time to time not only a desire but a capacity for better things; or of those, once more, who through the mistakes of theologians, or their own unfortunate mental experience, have been unable to realise the great facts on which all our future existence depends. There is no doubt a possibility that the expression of such a hope may sometimes encourage the sinner in his sin. It 1 The Dean of Lichfield has, it is true, attempted to grapple with the question in his book on the Intermediate State. But when his quotations are examined they amount to no more than this, that there is a time when our probation is over; whether before or after death they do not say. Dr. Pusey, as his Life shows (especially Vol. III.), was very strongly opposed to the idea of the possibility of salvation after death. 2 2 Cor. v. 10.

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is an old objection that the clemency of the ruler grants impunity to the criminal. Yet does the English nation enjoy less or more immunity from crime now that we have adopted a gentler penal code 1 If mercy be held to beget insolence, does not harshness often lead to despair 1 . Do we know how many instances of hardened and blaspheming impenitence to the last have been due to the creed which magnifies the severity of God into something very like injustice, or how far those hard hearts might have been softened by the proclamation of a doctrine which may seem to fit in better with the undoubted truth that "God is love " 1 At least we have no express declaration of God's Word which forbids us to "hope against hope." As long as there remains in the human heart one spark of the desire for better things, 1 we may believe that He Who "so loved the world that He sent His Only-begotten Son" to redeem it will not quench that spark. If by persistent and obstinate refusal to accept God's call the last breath of all that can truly be called life is destroyed ; if the heart of the sinner be hardened into a final and determined hatred of all that is good; then He Who is Love has-we cannot escape the conclusion-no alternative but to thrust the accursed thing from His presence, to banish it to the "outer darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth," to plunge it into "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels," a punishment which we dare not attempt too closely to define. There is, there can be, no place for the sinner in heaven. If he remain a sinner, he must remain "without." Yet we avert our eyes in awe and trembling from so terrible, if yet so necessary, a vision of judgrnent, and we pray God of His mercy to change our 1 Dr. Pusey, in his controversy with Dean Farrar, expressed his belief that none would be doomed to hell but those who obstinately and perseveringly refused the salvation offered by God.

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hearts betimes that we may not have a part in that fearful doom. But to those who are privileged to "find mercy of the Lord in that day" there will henceforth be nought but joy and love. Wondrously beautiful are the pictures drawn for us in Holy Writ of the land where "all things are become new." 1 There "all tears" are wiped away. "Death shall be no more : neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more: the first things are passed away." And this because the promised "new heavens and earth are come, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Righteousness and love, for there can be no righteousness where there is no love. Nor can sorrow, and tears, and pain, nor death itself, come to an end as long as evil continues to subsist. For evil is the negation of love, the embodiment of the spirit of self from which all sin and sorrow flows. Only those in which the final crucifixion of self has been effected can enter the abodes of the blessed; and this is why the "Lamb as though slain" shall ever be the centre of the heavenly worship. "I have been crucified with Christ," "redeemed and cleansed by His Blood," "saturated by His Spirit," will be the theme of the continual choral hymn of praise which in those sacred courts ascends to the Eternal Father, the Giver of all good. Yet we need not imagine that nothing but hymnody will be our occupation in that blessed home ; nor should we lay too much stress on the beautiful thought expressed in Keble's Evening Hymn" Till in the ocean of Thy love, We lose ourselves in heaven above."

The idea reflects, perhaps, too strongly the contemplative side of human aspirations. Our personality, we may believe,Âˇ 1 2

Rev. xxi. 5. Of. 2 Cor. v. 17. Isaiah lxv. 17 ; 2 Peter iii. 13 ; Rev. xxi. 1.

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will not be absorbed in that life of ceaseless joy. If there is but one will common to all the dwellers in the heavenly Jerusalem, that will-the will to do good-will find its highest realization in the interchange of loving offices, and such interchange involves the retention by each of his separate personality. Nor need the ceaseless offering of praise preclude the possibility of a life of ceaseless activity. The angels, who are represented as praising God unceasingly, are also represented as the busiest of God's creatures. They best praise God who do His Will, and that Will is Love. 1 And thus, from this point of view, the never-ending anthem which rises to the throne from the countless multitude of the redeemed 2 will be the perpetual discharge of tasks of love in a spirit of gratitude for blessings received. That blessed life will be at once a life of usefulness and a life of progress. Eternity will be spent in exploring Infinity. Throughout the ages there will ever be spreadÂ° before us fresh stores of God's wisdom and goodness. 3 But the vision of God in that eternal Home will no longer be indirect, but immediate. It would appear that when the time of restitution of all things has arrived, we shall no longer, as in this life, and even as in Paradise, need to approach God through the medium of His Incarnate Son, but that we shall thenceforth " see Him as He is" in Himself.4 The best preparation, then, for that future of 1

"He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small ; For the dear God Who loveth us, He made and loveth all." COLERIDGE, Ancient Mariner. 2 Rev. iv. 11 ; vii. 10, 11 ; xix. 6. 3 " Then shall I know even as I am known" need not be explained in a sense contradictory to this. It probably refers to that absolute confidence in God's righteousness, mercy, and love, which is the basis 4 of all other knowledge. See p. 253.

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unimaginable joy and glory is a life of loving service here.

It is the thoughtless, the unfeeling, the careless, the selfseeking to whom the severest sentence is meted out by the righteous Judge of all.1 But to those who use the gifts committed to them for His honour and their neighbour's profit are reserved the gracious words of commendation, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over few things ; I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 2 1

Matt. xxiv., xxv.

Matt. xxv. 23.

NoTE.-In p. 416 I have omitted to take note of a school of influential thinkers who hold the doctrine of Conditional Immortality. This school points to the fact that the immortality of the 'fVXT/, or soul, is nowhere taught in Holy Scripture, and that the gift of immortality is confined to those who accept the new and higher Life which is in Jesus Christ. In the case of those who do not embrace the opportunities and blessings offered them in that Life, mortality follows by a natural law. They have refused life, and chosen death, and no injustice is done to them by giving them that which they have deliberately chosen.

lNDEX. ÂŁ,-SUBJECTS Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), Council at, 257. Absolution, nature of, 366. Agnostic theories of God, 51, 52. Agnosticism, meaning of, 52; partly owing to rash religious dogmatism, 44 ; Christian, 53. Alexandria and Constantinople, mutual jealousies of, 150. Alexandrian School of Theology, tinged with Platonism, 50. Altruism, the true guide of conduct, 61. Annihilation, 416. Anomoeans, the, 53. Apostolicre sedes, 294. Aquileia, Creed of, 7, Arian controversy, 125-130. Ariminum, Council at, 218. Atheist, prayer of an, 73. Atonement, the same as reconciliation, 208 ; philosophy of, 211. Auricular Confession, 365, 370. Authority, not to be confounded with infallibility, 387 ; deference to, 395, 396. Baptism, its place in the economy of salvation, 168-171 ; necessity of, 302 ; the rite of initiation into the Christian Church, 304, 379 ; grafts into Christ, 305 ; grace of, needs conscious acceptance on our part, 309; significance of promises made at, 310; Infant, 311; early practice of, 315. Benedict VIII., 259. Berengarius, 395. Bible, assumes, explains, and applies the Christian Creed, 32-34. Bishops, transmission of the powers of, 349-356 ; originally elected by their flocks, 362. Body, changes in our material, 409 ; the spiritual, 409, 410. Bonn Conference, 259. Buddhism, 125 ; Esoteric, 71. Cabrera, Bishop, 293, Catholic, originally opposed to heretic, 289 ; opposed (wrongly) to Protestant, 290 ; meaning of the word, 290 ; Customs, 400. Catholicism, Constitutional, 404. 4:.l9

430

THE CREED.

Cerularius, Michael, 259. Chalcedon, Council of, 3, 153, 280, 384. Charles the Great (Charlemagne), 8, 257. Christ, meaning of the word, 117 ; belief in His Divinity not a later development, 136; our Representative, 203; His Sacrifice, 204-207; effects of His death, 214-218 ; His descent into hell, 218 ; His preaching to the spirits in prison, 221 ; pleaded in heaven and earth, 241 ; His future judgment, 244 ; His kingdom has no end, 252. Christianity, leading idea of, 13, 143; a supernatural religion, 138 ; its centre of gravity gradually shifted, 143. Church, meaning of the word, 280 ; Christ's visible kingdom, 281 ; Christ's Life dwells in the, 282; One, 284 ; Holy, 287 ; Catholic, 288 ; has no power to make new dogmas, 291 ; a visible society, 296 ; the invisible, ib. ; collegiate government of, 351 ; rules of, not rigidly defined at the outset, 358 ; powers of ministers in, 361 ; what constitutes membership of, 379; authority of, 380; its limits, 388. Clergy, always existed in the Christian Chlll'ch, 347; originally elected by their flocks, 363. Communicatio idiomatum, 151. Communion of Saints, the, 286. Conception, immaculate, 139. Confession, value of, 369. Confirmation, 315. Conscience, testifies to God's existence, 59, 71 ; not the experience of the tribe, 61. Constance, Council of, 386, 391. Constantine, 127, 128, 384. Constantinople, First Council of, 3, 129, 390, 391 ; Second Council of, 257, 394. Constantius, 128. Consubstantiation, 322. Copts, the, 154 . .Cravings of humanity, how satisfied, 71-74. Creation, work of, 108; successive periods of, 110. Creationism, 186. Creed, Nicene, 3; when drawn up, 3-6 ; its original and ultimate form, 4, 5 ; Apostles', its origin and growth, 7 ; Athanasian, authorship of, 7, 8; damnatory clauses in their meaning, 9-11 ; public recitation of the, 12. Creeds, importance of, 1, 289; expansions of baptismal formula, 1; acceptance of necessary for admission into the Christian Church, 29 ; number of drawn up during the Arian controversy, 128. Customs, ecclesiastical, not always uniform, 403. Damascus, John of, 260. De fide, what must be considered, 388. Deists, English, their conceptions of God, 51. Design, argument from, 55. Docetism, 124.

INDEX.

431

Doctrines, distinction between fundamental and secondary, 34, 35, 38. Dogma, definition of, 38. Dollinger, Dr. I. von, his labours for union, 260. East, resentment of the, against the Papal policy, 386. Ecclesia docens and discens, 300. Egoism, meaning of, 61. Elders, 345. Election, 179. Ephesus, Council of, 151. Epicureanism, 44, 47. Eschatology, 411-428. Eternal punishment, 412-415. Eternity, blessings of, 426. Eucharist, 316 ; function of, 317 ; views entertained on, 319 ; general agreement on the main purpose of, 320 ; spiritual presence in, 323 ; regarded as a feeding on the Bouy of Christ as at the moment of death, ib. ; unites us to Christ in His whole redemptive work, 324 ; in what sense a sacrifice, 328 ; carnal conceptions of, 327, 334 ; in what sense necessary to salvation, 330 ; worthy reception of, ib. ; Tractarian view of, 332 ; opinions of the Fathers upon, 335-344. Eutychianism, 154. Evil, existence of, disturbs our conceptions of God, 64 ; why permitted, 66-68, 190. Evolution in relation to creation, 111 ; to the Incarnation, 148 Excommunicated, treatment of, 297. Excommunication, original meaning of, 126 ; Âˇ when valid, 366-368. Faith, the necessary condition for our reception of the new life, 15 : source of Christian obedience and progress, 16 ; under the old covenant, ib. ; St. Paul described as the Apostle of, ib. ; stress laid by the New Testament on, 17, 18; definition of, 20, 21; various meanings of the word, ib. ; distinguished from knowledge, 21 ; opposed, not to reason, but to sight, 21-24; involves trust, 23; the Catholic, summary of, 38, 40; does not rest on reason alone, 74. Fall, the, an obvious fact, 183 ; not the result of eating an apple, ib. Father, the source of all that is, 102, 255. Fathers, unanimous consent of, 294, 389 ; Ultramontane tampering with, 338, 341, 385. Fatherhood of God, 103 ; revealed in its fulness by Christ, ib. Filioque controversy, 255-260. Force, the expression of Will, 56. Forgiveness, made the principal object of Christ's coming, 145, 198. Frankfort, Council of, 258, 294. Freedom of inquiry in religion, 397. Gehenna, 220. Generation, distinction of from Procession, 130. German criticism, merits and defects of, 188.

432

THE CREED.

Gerson, 891. Ghost, Holy (see Spirit, Holy). Gnosticism, 124, 126 ; Christian, 44. God, belief in, antecedent to religion, 41 ; idea of, all but uni versa!, 42 ; innate, 45 ; exceptions considered, 43 ; rash utterances about, 43, 44 ; false conceptions of, crept early into the Christian Church, 44; Roman conception of, ib. ; not a mere abstraction, 45 ; manifest in phenomena as a Force, 45, 46 ; scientific discovery modifies our views of, 46 ; primitive conceptions of, ib. ; philosophic ideas of, 46, 47 ; Law of Moses reveals Him as righteous, 49 ; as the Fountain of Life, ib. ; conception of by Latin theologians, 50 ; by English deists, 51 ; by German metaphysicians, ib. ; by Agnostics, 51, 52; neither the Infinite, the Absolute, nor the Unconditioned, 52 ; unknowable in His essential Nature, 53 ; His moral government, 58, 65, 106, 107 ; revelation of, to the patriarchs, 81 ; to Moses, 82; to the prophets, 84; in Christ, 86; unity of, 99-102; the Preserver of all things, 109 ; result of immoral conceptions of, 421. Good works, organic, 145; decried, 198. Âˇ Grace, change of meaning in the word, 142. Gregory VII., 385. Grosseteste, Robert, 385. Hades, 219, 220, 414. Hadrian I., 258. Heathen countries, their condition as compared with Christian, 188. Heresy, definition of, 292. Heresies, early, due to the originality of Christianity, 50. Hildebrand, 385. Homoiousion, 128. Homoiiusion, 127, 128, 129, 390. Hope, "the larger," 424. Huss, John, 395. Hypostatic union, 149. Ideal and actual state of believers, 274, 285, 287, Identity, personal, in what it consists, 409. Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 259. Immanence of God in us, 146. Immortality, conditional, 428 ; of the soul, not taught in Scripture, 411, 418. Imputation, Luther's original conception of, derived from scholastic theology, 171. Infinite punishment for sin, considered as an infinite offence, 195. Incarnation, mode of, 148, 157 ; effects of, 180, 181. Innocence and perfection, often confounded, 181. Innocent III., 385. Innocent IV., ib. Intellect, not the chief seat of religious conviction, 74. Intermediate state, 220, 418 ; speculations on, 423.

INDEX. 433 Jacobites, 154. Jerome of Prague, 395. Jesus, meaning of the name, 115. Jesus Christ, satisfies the cravings of humanity, 72 ; truly and properly God, 93, 95, 97 ; the revelation of the Father, 113 ; Lord of all, 114; His anointing as Prophet, Priest, and King, 118; an historical personage, 119 ; His history a supernatural one, 120 ; existed before the worlds, 121-123 ; made the worlds, 135 ; came to restore and exalt mankind, 141, 143; His birth miraculous, 147; Perfect Man, 158; Perfect God, 92, 93, 97, 127, 129. John, King of England, 385. Joshua, a type of Christ, 116; Joshua (or Jeshua) the High Priest, a type of Christ, ib. Âˇ Judgment, a future, necessary for the vindication of God's dealings with us, 245 ; teaching of Scripture concerning, 246. Justification, 166, 173-179, 208-211.

Kenosis, the, 161-165. Knowledge, imperfect, 23 ; partial, not equivalent to none at all, 23, 54 ; relation of phenomena to, 56. Laity, rights of the Christian, 391, 401. Laodicea, Council at, 394, 401. Lateran Council (Fourth), 322, 394. Latrocinium. 152, 153. Love, St. John supposed to be the apostle of, 16, 17. Lucerne, Reunion Congress at, 260, 388. Luke, St., trustworthiness of, 147. Mass, 316. Mediation, true meaning of. the word, 144; Christ's, true nature of, 199. Mediatorial office of Christ, whether ultimately laid aside, 165, 253. Melchizedek, 82. Mercy-seat, 206. Messiah, 117. Mexico, Episcopal Reformed Church in, 403. Miracles, revelation made by, 74; credibility of, 111. Monophysites, 154, 390. Monotheism probably the earliest creed, 47. Monotheletism, 154, 155. Moral emotions, our, presuppose an object, 69. Mysteries, often rashly explained, 197. National Churches, the true expression of Church life, 403. Nature, order of, not invariable, 117. N estorianism, 153. Nicaea, First Council at, 3, 127, 391. Nicaea, Second Council at, 291. Nice, 218. Nicolaus I., 258.

THE bRi!:ED. N ominalist controversy, 325. Nonconformists, "orthodox," hold the Catholic faith, 293 ; Âˇhow fat 'Separated from the Church, 374 ; powers of the laity among, 402. 'Oecum.enical_ Councils, authority of, 35, 127, 152-156, 390-394; their 'number, 153, 381 ; four first stand apart from the rest, 394 ; their 'decisions, whether final, 396, 397 ; their authority on points of discipline, 399. Old Catholics, 38, 260, 292, 387, 402, 403. Optimist view of nature, 57. Paraclete, meaning of the word, 275. Paradise, 220, 422. Patripassianism, 125. IJ.epixwpriuis, 101. Persecution, Nonconformists as well as Churchmen guilty of, 378. Person, different senses of the word, 87, 88. Pessimism, 57, 59. Petrine, Pauline, and Johannine theology, no distinction between, 16, 17, 134. Philosophy, heathen, unable to grasp the Incarnation, 124. Photinianism, 151. Photius, 258. Platonism, 44. Popes, authority and infallibility of, 382, 385; condemned for heresy, 154; conflicting utterances of, on the Filioque controversy, 257-259. Portugal, episcopal reformed bodies in, 403. Predestination, 179. Presbyterian bodies, position of, 372. Procession, Greek and Latin equivalents of the word, 255 ; double (see Filioque). Prophecy, witness of, to Christ, 76 ; function of, in the Divine economy, 264, 270. Prophets and teachers, ultimately settle down into presbyters and Âˇ deacons, 360. Propitiation, Origen's theory of, 190; Anselm's, 191 ; question discussed, 194-208. Protestant Churches on the Continent, 293. Psychical, meaning of the word, 147, 160; body, the, 407. PuniRhment, whether remedial, deterrent, or vindictive, 202 ; future, organic, 417. Purgatory, 418. Realist controversy, 326. Reason, not opposed to faith, 22 ; to be exercised on the truths revealed to faith, 23, 27. Recoared, King, 256. Redemption, 200, 201. Reformation, influenoe of on Christian doctrine, 143. Regeneration, 169 ; an instantaneous process, 170 ; baptismal, 313.

INDEX.

435

Religious ideas, presuppose an object, 70. Remission (4,fmris) of sins, meaning of, 307. Resurrection of Christ the foundation of the Christian faith, 76 ; the general, 407. Revelation, became necessary in consequence of the Fall, 26 ; ma.de by means of miracles, 74; man's need of a, 73. Righteousness, imparted as well as imputed, 145. Riley, Bishop, 403. Roman additions to the faith, 291. Rome, Church of, her probaLle future, 405. Rotterdam, Congress at, 260. Rule of faith, necessity of a, 2, 31, 32. Sacraments, their relation to Christ's work, 243; the seven, 301 ; two principal ones, ib. ; grace of God not tied to, 170, 314. Sanctification, 271. Âˇ Satisfaction, tme nature of Christ's, 204. Schism, guilt of, to whom attributable, 37e. Scripture, authority of, 294. Semi-Arianism, 128. Sheol, 219. Sight, opposed to faith, 21. Sin, original, whether privatio boni, 184 ; transmission of, 185-187 ; results of, 188-189; remedy for, decreed before the world began, 190. Sirmium, Council at, 128, 218: dated Creed of, 128. Son, the, whether the Father can annihilate Him, 126 ; generation of, 130 ; His relation to the Father, 132-134. Speculation, freedom of, 389. Spain, Episcopal Reformed bodies in, 403. Spirit, the Holy, truly and properly God, 94, 98 ; not sent till Jesus ascended, 242 ; His relation to the other Persons of the Trinity, 254, 261 ; His office and work, 263-273; is the medium through Whom we receive the Life of Christ, 272; through Him we have access to the Father, 273; reveals Divine mysteries to us, 274 ; guides the Church into all the truth, 275. Stoic philosophy, 47, 48. Subjective conceptions, faith in, taking the place of faith in objective realities, 144. Substitution, theory of, 192; discussed, 193, 194. Supererogation, works of, 143. Supernatural, restraining force of a belief in the, 72 ; definition of the word, 75. Symbolum, 3. Teachers of religion, their duties and responsibilities, 398. Terminology, religious, change of meaning in, 116, 142, 144, 166, 239. Testament, New, when written and by whom, 136, Theophanies, the, 90. Theotokos, 150.

436

THE CREED.

Threefold order of ministers 359, 360. Tractarianism, 145. Tradition, nature and value of, 294. Traducianism, 186. Transference of merits and demerits, theory of, 178. Transubstantiation, definition of, 322 ; origin of the doctrine, 325 ; the term may be admitted if carefully and properly explained, 325-327. Trent, Council of, 386, 387, 394. Trinity, doctrine of, 86-99; not revealed to the Jews, 89; baptismal formula and Apostolic benediction involve the, 92 ; function of each Person in, 27 8. " Undenominational '' teaching not recognized by the Church, 12. Unknow,tbleness of phenomena, 53 ; of God, -ib. Universe, Divine plan in the government of, 59. Vatican Council, 153, 386, 39~. Vicarious suffering, 212, 213. Vincentian Canon, 34, 290, 292, 381. Vulgate, effect of renderings in the, 142. Word, the Divine, His unchangeableness, 163; our spiritual life derived from Him, 167. Zonaras, 401.

Il.-AUTHORS QUOTED BEFORE CHRIST,

Aeschylus, 61. Aristotle, 57. Cicero, 48.

Lucretius, 61. Ovid, 61. Plato, 48, 50, 124.

A,D. FIRST CENTURY. Clement of Rome, 45, 353, 363, I Suetonins, 119. 402. (360. Tacitus, 119. Doctrine of tlu 1'welve Apostles, SECOND CENTURY,

Athenagoras, 328. Basilides, 52. Clement of Alexandria, 141, 222, 297, 337, 342, 353. Clementiues, 72, 303, 423. Hermas, 222. Ignatius of Antioch, 2, 30, 93, 336, 359,

Irenaeus, 2, 30, 93, 141, 191, 194, 202, 218, 230, 310, 323, 328, 337, 352, 353, 355, 364, 384. Justin Martyr, 72, 93, 220, 311, 315, 336, 423. Polycarp, 353. Tertnllian, 3, 30, 32, 63, 93, 142, 218, 250, 303, 310, 338, 353, 355, 364.

INDEX.

437

THIRD CENTURY,

Apo.~tolical Constitutions and Canons, 218, 303, 310, 349, 365. Â· Cyprian, 218, 297, 310, 338, 350, Dionysius of Alexandria, 303. Firmilian, 353,.

Gregory the llluminator, 342. Hippolytus, 52, 297, 303. Origen, 54, 141, 149, 164, 165, 191, 218, 338, 423. Sabellius, 7, 88, 125.

FOURTH CENTURY,

Eusebius, 6, 218, 350, 352. Gregory of Nazianzus, 53, 102, 191, 389, 423. Gregory of Nyssa, 96, 417. Hilary of Poitiers, 102, 222. Marcellus of Ancyra, 7. Theodore of Mopsuestia, 149, 152, 417.

Ambrose, 353, 363. Apollinaris, 149. Arius, 125, 126. Athanasius, 26, 45, 50, 53, 100, 125, 126, 128, 129, 136, 141, 163, 207, 230, 33!!, 342, 363. Basil, 54, 95, 102, 141, 339. Cyril of Jerusalem, 6, 102, 339. Ephrem Syrus, 343.

FIFTH CENTURY,

Augustine, 37, 102, 121, 130, 135, 141, 185, 340, 353, 403, 423. Chrysostom, 103, 222, 341, 343, 353. Cyril of Alexandria, 102,151,353. Epiphanius, 7. Hilary of Arles, 8. Honoratus, 9.

Jerome, 329, 343, 353. N estqrius, 149, 151. Paulinus, 363. Ruffinus, 7, 103. Socrates, 128, 150, 151, 163, 218. Theodoret, 103, 142, 151, 163, 184, 341, 353, 363. Vinceutius of Lerins, 32, 291.

SIXTH CENTURY.

Venantius Fortunatus, 7.

Vigilius, 103.

EIGHTH CENTURY.

Elipandus, 8. Felix of Urgellis, 8. John of Damascus, 102.

Paulinus, Bishop, 8. Pirminius, 8.

TWELFTH CENTURY.

I Bernard, 202.

Abelard, 191. Anselm, 191, 353.

THIRTEENTH CENTURY,

Aquinas, Thomas, 243, 314, 353.

I Scotus, John Duns, 353.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY,

Augsburg Confession, 323. Hooker, Richard, 44, 89, 135, 146, 149, 243, 317, 320, 321, 327, 328, 334, 376, 380, 394.

I Jewel, Bishop, 406. Saxon Confession, 323.

438

THE CREED. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Andrewes, Bishop, 343. Bacon, Lord, 55. Barrow, Dr. Isaac, 172, 386, 406. Bull, Bishop, 101, 172, 176. Hall, Bishop, 406. Hammond, 91, 172. Jackson, Dean, 195. Laud, Archbishop, 386, 406.

Lightfoot, Dr., 2l!l, 363. Morinus, 333, 357. Pearson, Bishop, 24, 37, 42, 78, 92, 121, 146, 149, 218, 222, 235, 236, 246, 248, 250, 259, 271, 280, 281, 307. Spinoza, 51. Taylor, Bishop Jeremy, 10, 406.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY,

Bingham, 315, 365. Butler, Bishop, 58, 59, 144, 197, 246. Clarke, Dr., 126. Doddridge, Dr., 319. Hawarden, Dr., 126.

Kant, 51. King, Archbishop, 9. Law, Dr. William, 207. Paley, Archdeacon, 56. Wall, 316. Waterland, Dr., 8.

NINETEENTH CENTURY,

Allen, Rev. A. J. C., 316. Armagh, Archbishop of (Dr. Alexander), 211, 212. Arnold, Matthew, 4!. Barnum, 419, Benson, Rev. Father, 327. Blunt, Professor, 139. Bonney, Professor, 79, 187, 213, 264, 278. Brace, 74. Bradlaugh, Mr. Charles, 43. Bright, Professor, 13, 146, 161, 163, 272. Brinckman, Rev. A., 406. Browne, Bishop Harold, 328, 365. Bruce, Professor A. B., 61. Burbidge, Rev. E., 2, 9. Bnrkitt, Mr. F. C., 382. Bnrn, Rev. A. E., 9. Campbell, Dr. McLeod, 207. Church, Dean, 389. Ghu1Â·ch Quarterly Review, 26,351. Clifford, Professor, 60, 63. Coleridge, 34, 427. Contemporary Review, 417. Cox, Dr., 412. Dale, Dr. R. W., 91. Denton, Rev. W., 382. Dollinger, 366, 379, 421. DorDer, 88, 126, 149, 150, 157. Ellicott, Bishop, 79.

Farrar, Dean, 412, 413, 425. Flint, Professor, 79. Freeman, Archdeacon, 343. Fronde, Professor, 171. Gibson, Dr., 101, 261. Gieseler, 95. Gilbert, Canon, 345. Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 374. Godet, 75, 175, 226. Goodwin, Bishop Harvey, 1, 12, 29, 34, 54, 117, 120, 147, 182, 190, 250, 316. Gore, Canon, 34, 35, 72, 150, 161, 283, 291, 344, 355, 373, 393, 406. Griffith, Mr. W., 42. Gwatkin, Professor, 126. Hagenbach, 187. Hallam, 370, 378. Hare, Archdeacon, 389. Harnack, Professor, 13, 126, 137. Harvey, Rev. W. W., 9. Hatch, Dr., 345. Heard, Rev. J. B., 24, 46, 55, 65, 201, 405, 414, 06, 417, 419. Hegel, 52. Hinton, 68. Hort, Professor, 3, 6, 129. Hutchings, Canon, 161. Huxley, Professor, 72, 111.

INDEX.

Illingworth, Dr., 88. Keble, 426. Kidd, Dr., 2, 186. Kireeff, General, 392. Langen, Professor, 351. Liddon, Canon, 20, 97, 98, 113, 157. Lightfoot, Bishop, 163, 351. Littledale, Dr., 65, 366, 384, 386, 406. Loyson, M. Hyacinthe, 404. Lnckock, D,ean, 424. Lumby, Professor, 2, 9. Maclear, Dr., 227. Magee, Archbishop, 395. Mahan, Dr., 406. Manning, Cardinal, 379. Mansel, Dean, 88. Martineau, Dr., 22, 44, 46, 47, 56, 5i, 59, 60, 61, 68, 176. Mason, Professor, 190. Maurice, Professor F. D., 145, 412. Mayor, Professor J. B., 20. Michaud, Professor, 38. Mill, James, 60, 61, 63. Mill, John Stuart, 56. Milligan, Professor, 145, 198, 206, 224, 228, 229, 230, 232, 238, 239, 242. Milman, Dean, 385. Moberly, Bishop, 391, 401, 402. Momerie, Professor, 79. Morison, Mr. Cotter,176. Moule, Dr. H. G. C., 161. Mozley, Professor, 75. Muller, 187. Miiller, Professor Max, 46.

439

Neander, 72, 88, 96, 126, 149, 150, 151, 417. Newman, Cardinal, 327. Norris, Archdeacon, 45, 63, 74, 176, 191, 196, 200, 217, 344, 377. Palm~r, Sir W., 386, 406, Plumptre, Dean, 82, 222. Perry, Canon, 385. Proby, Rev. W. H. B., 314. Puller, Rev. Father, 406. Pusey, Dr., 308, 343, 381, 406, 424, 425. Reusch, Professor, 366. Revue Internationale, 37, Robertson, F. W., 170, Rothe, 68. Sadler, Prebendary, 91, 137, 182, 316. Salmon, Provost, 136, 386. Sanday, Professor, 20, Schopenhauer, 58. Simeon, Rev. C., 198. Spencer, Herbert, 56, 71. Stanley, Dean, 10, 39, 126. Stokes, Sir G. G., 87, 110. Strong, Rev. J.B., 352. Swete, Professor, 2, 9, 30, 157. Swetloff, Professor, 37. Tennyson, Lord, 58, 68, 222, 249, Vogan, Dr., 342. [416. Ward, Wilfrid, 72. Wellington, Duke of, 189. Westcott, Bishop, 21, 40, 91, 105, 136, 182, 194, 203, 206, 207, 212, 213, 215, 238, 305. Wordsworth, Bishop Christopher, 406,

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WORKS Â·By THE SAME AUTHOR.

DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF ST. JOHN, CONSIDERED AS EVIDENCE FOR THE DATE OF HIS GOSPEL (1875). COMMENTARY ON 1 AND 2 CORINTHIANS, FOR CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS (1878-9). THE SAME FOR CAMBRIDGE GREEK TESTAMENT

(1886, 1892). COMMENTARY ON JUDGES, CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS

(1882).

COMMENTARY ON JOSHUA, PULPIT COMMENTARY

(1881).

COMMENTARY ON ST. JOHN'S FIRST EPISTLE (1887). ARE MIRACLES CREDIBLE 1 (1882). THE ATONEMENT (THE HULSEAN LECTURES FOR

1883, 1884).

PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM (1892).