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THE GCHRISTIAN*I DEA OF SINFAND ORIGINAL SIN IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE. Crown 8vo. 6s. net. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS. s . - 1 The place of Theology in the Christian Religion - ° - 2 The necessity of Theology - - - - - . . 4 (a) Man is a rational being ; (6) Man is a social being ; (c) Conduct rests on belief. The prejudice against Theology - . - - - : 6 (a) Partly due to unworthy reasons ; (6) Partly to the faults of theologians ; (c) Partly to its divorce from Religion. THE PLACE OF THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY The circumstances of the time - - ° - > > 9 Formularies of the English Church under Henry VIII - . 10 (a) The 10 Articles and the Bishops’ Book ; (6) The King’s Book. | The 42 Articles - = 2 : - z x, 3 12 The 39 Articles - = 3 ni A = e - 2 17 (a) History of their formation ; (6) Their chief differences from the 42 Articles ; (c) An estimate of their value. The contrast between Articles and Creeds’ - - - - 23 The history of Subscription to the Articles - -~ - é 25 THE BEING OF GOD ARTICLE I The Unity of God, as against Polytheism - - : . 28 Human attempts to conceive of God : : 2 39 (a) His Personality; (6) Anthropomorphism; (c) His Attributes. x ANALYSIS $3. God and the World - - = : : - z (a) Creation ; (6) Preservation. God both transcendent and immanent as against (i) Deism ; (ii) Pantheism. § 4. The Doctrine of the Trinity (a) The facts that have to be explained - - - . (6) The beginnings of theological reflection - - : - (i) In the New Testament ; (ii) In the sub- apostolic age. (c) The language and ideas of the time - - i) Pagan philosophy and religion ; (ii seats eh pale Pp § 8Y- (a) The Word; (8) The Spirit. (d) The Church’s aim in constructing her theology - - (e) Rejected attempts to explain the facts. - - - - (i) Ebionism ; (ii) Docetism ; (iii) Monarchianism, in- cluding Sabellianism ; (iv) Arianism. (f) The language finally selected by the Church - . - (i) The history of the terms employed ; (ii) The qualifi- cations of its use. (7) The reasonableness of the doctrine - - 2 THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT ARTICLE II § 1. The Incarnation (a) The facts to be eenaines in Wels to the Person of Christ - - : ‘ E (6) Rejected attempts to explain the facts - - - . (i) Apollinarianism; (ii) Nestorianism ; (iii) Mono- physitism. (c) The Formula of Chalcedon’ - - - Bn ea i (i) Its history ; (ii) Its value. (d@) How can we conceive of the Incarnation? ~~ - - - (e) Special difficulties about (i) Knowledge ; (ii) Temptation (f) The Virgin Birth - = ON - : - - - (i) Its placein Christian doctrine ; (ii) The evidence for it ; (iii) Alleged parallels ; (iv) Its historical truth ; (v) Its spiritual value. § 2. The Atonement (a) The fact and explanations of the fact - - - : (b) The meaning of ‘sacrifice’ —- - - = : e (c) The language of Scripture’ - - . - : g (d) The contrast with Old Testament sacrifices - : (e) The wrath of God - - - - - - ‘ : (/) Is the Atonement subjective or objective? - - : PAGER 63 67 71 72 76 86 88 96 105 107 108 110 * 114 116 ANALYSIS THE RESURRECTION, THE ASCENSION AND THE JUDGMENT ArticuEes III anp IV $1. The Descent into Hades : - . A 4 A : § 2. The Resurrection (a) The Apostolic preaching + - - - - - (6) The evidence - - M - Ss . e 3 A (i) The appearances ; (ii) The empty tomb; (iii) The experience of Christians. (c) The nature of the Risen Body J ,: (i) The evidence of Scripture ; (ii) The miniage of the Article. (d) Alternative attempts to explain the facts ° : - § 3. The Ascension (a) The evidence of Scripture - - - ° - - (6) The outward fact and the inward meaning - - : (c) The Ascended pey @) as eis (i) as NS. ay) as King - § 4. The return to Judgment - : : = E (i) Current Jewish ideas ; (ii) The claim of Christ ; (ii) ere Christian belief; (iv) Its meaning for ; (v) The Eschatological Question. THE HOLY SPIRIT ARTICLE V § 1. The teaching of the New Testament - * py fe SA a § 2. The teaching of the early Church - - : : ° ° § 3. The conflict with Macedonianism - - - - A . § 4. The Double Procession - - - - - : e (i) The temporal mission ; (ii) The eternal procession ; (iii) The conflict between East and West. THE SCRIPTURES ArticLes VI anp VII § 1. The sufficiency of Scripture (a) The Church and the Bible’ - ° s - . (6) The Bible and the living Christ — - : 2 : (c) The witness of the early Church - ° : : (d) The place of tradition - - ° - 2 “ PAGE 122 126 127 130 134 139 140 142 147 154 155 157 158 166 168 169 170 ae ANALYSIS § 3. The notes of the Church - - - . (a) Unity - - - - : i s (i) The Roman view; (ii) The Protestant view ; (iii) The position of the Church of England. (6) Holiness - : . - - 4 (c) Catholicity - : : - . is (d@) Apostolicity - . - : - : THE CHURCH’S AUTHORITY IN DOCTRINE ARTICLES XX-XXIT § 1. The meaning of ‘authority’ - A : E § 2. The distinction between discipline and doctrine (Article XX) - 3 3. The interpretation of the faith : : - Pp (a) The Church’s function as judge - . (6) Development of doctrine - - - (c) The test of true development - ° : (a) Romanism ; (8) Modernism. § 4. The place of General Councils (Article X XT) (a) The growth of synods - - - - (6) The first General Council - ° - (c) The test of a General Council . - § 5. The ‘ Infallibility’ of the Church and ‘ Private Judgment? (a) The guidance of the Holy Spirit - - (b) The duty of the individual - - - (c) Roman exaggeration of authority - . (d) Protestant neglect of it - - § 6. Instances of the limitations of the Church’s authority in doctrine (Article X XII) (a) Purgatory - - - (5) Pardons - - : - i : (c) Images - - . - - - (@) Invocation of Saints : THE CHURCH’S AUTHORITY IN DISCIPLINE ARTICLES XXIV anp XXXII-XXXV § 1. The position of ‘ National’ Churches (Article XX XIV) (a) What is a national Church? - (6) The growth of customs - - - 2 (c) The change of customs. - : : : PAGE 296 297 308 310 311 313 ° 315 317 318 319 321 336 338 339 342 343 345 346 347 357 361 366 376 376 378 382 § 9, § 3, § 4. 8 1. § 2, § 3. § 4. § 1. § 2. §3, ANALYSIS Two examples of this use of authority (a) The use of the vulgar tongue (Article XXIV) (b) The marriage of the clergy (Article XX XII) - Excommunication (Article XXXIIT) - - - (a) In Scripture - - - - - 4 (6) In the Primitive Church - : - 2 (c) The Church of England - - - - . Homilies (Article XXXV)_ - . 3 - z THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH ArticLtes XXIII anp XXXVI The need of a ministry (Article X XITT) (a) The inward call - - - : : : (b) The outward call - - “ - : x (e) Ordination - - - : ‘ Apostolic succession ’ (a) The historic facts - - 5 2 s E (b) The interpretation of the facts - - 2 (c) The historic ministry - - - = : (d) The Nonconformist position - - . - The Roman denial of our orders (Article XX X VI) (a) Insufficiency of form - - : : : (6) Lack of intention - - - : : : The Papal Claims (a) The historical growth of the Papal power - (6) The arguments used to defend it’ - . - THE SACRAMENTS ARTICLES XXV AND XXVI History of the word ‘Sacrament’ - - - = The value of Sacraments - - - ° - Their place in the Christian life (Article XX V) (a) Badges and Tokens - - : . s (b) Means of grace . - - x : é (c) Pledges of God’s goodwill - : : . (@) Aids to faith - - - - . . “ 406 406 407 408 414 415 417 424 425 426 430 436 444 - 446 450 450 451 451 XVI § 4. § 5. § 6. § 1. § 2. 35) § 4, $1. § 2, § 3. § 4. § 5. ANALYSIS The number of Sacraments’ - Fy : a Special difficulties connected with (a) Penance - - - 4 - : 2 : (6) Unction - - - 4 “ : i : The co-operation of Man (Article X XVI) - - HOLY BAPTISM ARTICLE XX VII The history of Baptism (a) Jewish Baptism - - = - z Li (6) The institution of Christ - - : - Its meaning (a) The language of Scripture - : x E (6) Membership of Christ - : a : (c) Regeneration - - - - - . Infant Baptism (a) Its history - : ant) es 2 (6) Its value - “ : é 7 . ; Baptism and Confirmation = - - - : ° HOLY COMMUNION ARTICLES XX VIII-XX XI Its history (a) The Institution - - : - S Ms (6) Primitive practice - : . : - “ Its meaning (a) A sign of fellowship - ° - = 5 (6) A sacrament of redemption - - - : (c) A feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ - The relation of the Gift to the Elements - - (a) Receptionism - : = : : (6) The Real Presence : - : : (c) Transubstantiation - ° : “ Two difficulties (a) The reception by the wicked (Article X XIX) (6) Reservation - - - - - - - Communion in both kinds (Article XXX) - - PAGE 452 453 458 460 464 465 467 468 470 473 474 477 482 482 486 487 487 490 491 492 497 502 503 512 ANALYSIS § 6. The Eucharistic Sacrifice (Article XX XI) (a) The language of Scripture’ - - - (6) In what sense a ‘Sacrifice’? - . - (c) The teaching repudiated in the Article - CHURCH AND STATE ARTICLES XXX VII-XXXIX § 1. The relations between Church and State (a) In Scripture - - - - (6) Under Christian Emperors. - - - (c) In mediaeval times . - - § 2. The teaching of the Article (Article XXX VII) (a) The ‘ Royal Supremacy’ - - - (6) The changes made at the Reformation - (c) The claims of Elizabeth - - . - § 3. The position to-day (a) The transference of authority from Crown to (6) The appointment of Bishops - - - (c) New Legislation and the Enabling Act - (d) The position of the Privy Council - - (e) How far are these due to Establishment ? (7) A return to first principles : - : § 4. The right of the State to employ force (a) Police action - - - : : z (6) War - = e ‘ : z : (c) Capital punishment . ns : § 5. The recognition of property (Article XX XVIII) § 6. The use of oaths (Article XX XIX) Soe INDEX = . - . - - - 2 Parliament 528 530 532 534 535 538 539 540 541 544 546 549 552 553 555. 556 558 561 ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations are employed throughout the book : C.H.S. D.C.G. E.R.E. H.D.B. J.Th.S. C.Q.R. Church Historical Society. Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible. Journal of Theological Studies. Church Quarterly Review. N.B.—The references to Scripture should in all cases be looked up in the Revised Version. Where R.V. occurs, special attention is drawn to the difference between the Revised and Authorized translations. INTRODUCTION §1. The relation of Theology to Religion.—Theology arises from man’s effort to understand his own life. Whether we study the individual or the race, we discover everywhere that ‘Man lives first and thinks afterwards.’* If we select any department of human experience we can find more or less sharply defined, three stages. In the earliest stage men act with little or no reflection. They are impelled by a blind instinct or custom. They have little desire to explain why or how they act. There are as yet no laws or rules formulated to direct action. In the second stage men begin to reflect on what they have been doing. Man is by nature a rational being, disposed to ask ‘Why?’ So by reflection and self-ques- tioning men gradually draw out mto the light the principles by which they have long been acting. They frame general statements and rules. They attain to science. Science is ‘sys- tematized or ordered knowledge.’+ In the third stage the science thus gained is found most valuable for guiding and correcting future practice. Not only are more certain results obtained by its aid, but the principles that have been discovered can be applied to fresh material. So the field of action is extended, and wider experience is gained, which in turn the mind is called on to analyse and explam. Thenceforward science and action go hand m hand. Science directs practice and practice affords new material for science. We may apply these thoughts to religion. In whatever way it may be, religion arose. That is, men came to worship a God or gods. * Cp. Illingworth, Personality, Human and Divine, c. i. ‘ Man lives first and thinks afterwards. ... He makes history by his actions, before he can reflect upon it and write it.... thought is always in arrear of life; for life is in perpetual progress.’ + We must not limit the term ‘science’ to physical science. The great advance made in all branches of physical science during the last few years, and its visible results, as shown in everyday life, have encouraged a popular use of the word ‘science’ as limited to them. Strictly speaking there is a ‘science’ of painting or music just as much as of chemistry. A 2 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES They experienced feelings of religious awe and reverence. They desired to please their God by doing His will and to turn away His wrath when He was angry. By sacrifice and prayer they sought to attain His help and to hold communion with Him. In the earliest stage such a religion was based primarily upon instinct and custom. But because men were rational beings, they were bound to ask questions about their religion. They wished to make clear to themselves the grounds of their worship and obedience. The service of any God must in the last resort imply certam beliefs about Him, His character and His relation to His worshippers. These beliefs men drew out and stated and formed into a system. So we reach the second stage—the formation of a primitive theology. Theology is the science of religion. In the third stage theology begins to react upon religion. The Hebrew prophets, for instance, reflected on the character of Jehovah and formulated certain beliefs about Him. Hence they demanded that conduct and worship that were inconsistent with such beliefs should be abolished. As the religion of Israel developed and deepened out of a fuller experience of God, new beliefs were formulated. These in turn helped to shape future religious practice and observance. So in the final stage, theology and religion coexist side by side, theology explaiing the principles of religion and setting them forth in an orderly system, and religion striving to realize those principles in a living experience. Cp. Jevons, The Idea of God, esp. c. v. McDowall, Evolution and Spiritual Life, c. 1. Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, vol. i. x-xii. Garvie, Tutors unto Christ. §2. The place of Theology in the Christian Religion —The Christian religion is primarily a way of life. In its earliest stages it was known quite simply as ‘the Way’ (cp. Acts 92, 199°"* 3 and also 161%, 186 and 2414). But it was never an easy or an obvious way ; it was in glaring contrast to the prevalent way of life in the world around it. From the first it always involved certain beliefs about the nature and character of God, the life and claims of Jesus Christ, His Death and Resurrection, the Church and the Sacraments. The Christian lived as he did because he based his life on certain convictions. The Church gradually made clear to itself what these were. Within the New Testament we see a theology growing up. The doctrines of the Christian faith are stated and drawn out, and practical consequences are deduced from them. The purpose INTRODUCTION 3 of Christian theology is to set forth clearly the truth about God and God’s dealings with mankind, as it has been made known. Christian ‘Doctrine’ is simply Christian teachng. ~*Dogmas’ are simply fundamental points of doctrine, the primary assump- tions that are implicit in all Christian life and experience. No logical proof of them can be offered. Just as, e.g. all geometry rests upon certain assumptions about the nature of space, and if these are not granted, geometry is impossible, so Christian life and experi- ence, if it is accepted as true, and not a mere delusion or fancy, involves certain presuppositions. If these are denied, then all that we can say is that without them the Christian experience could not exist. We may not find universal agreement what these ‘dogmas ’ are, but all Christians would agree that there must be some, e.g. the existence and the Fatherhood of God. Christian theology is the attempt to state them in a connected and orderly system. Theology begins like any other science. It strives to collect and verify the facts, to sift and compare them, to classify them and discover their mutual relations. Then it tries to find language that will express the facts as clearly as possible, and to set them out as parts of one coherent system. All knowledge must be based upon experience. The facts upon which Christian theology is based are found in the revelation of God to Israel, the whole life and witness of the Jewish Church, then in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ and the whole witness and experience of the Christian Church throughout all ages. Christian theology grows naturally out of the Christian religion, but it is its servant and not its master. Religion is possible apart from any formal theology. But theology has no meaning whatever apart fromreligion. A full under- standing of the great doctrines of the Christian faith can only be based wpon some first-hand experience of the Christian life. Cp. Webb, A Century of Anglican Theology, Lect. ITI. Wace, Christianity and Morality, pp. 115-120. Tyrrell, Lex Credendi, pp. 138-146. Inx Mundi, Essay II. § 6 and Essay VI. § 1. W. Temple, Studies in the Spirit and Truth of Christianity, ITI. and IV. We should probably do well to draw a further distinction between theology and religious philosophy. The intellect has a two-fold work. First, to draw out and state those fundamental truths that underlie the Christian revelation, 7.e. to construct a theology in the strict sense of the word. Secondly, to bring these truths A THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES into connexion with the rest of our ideas derived from other sources, t.e. to construct a religious philosophy. As rational beings we are bound to wish not only to understand our religion, but to bring our knowledge of it into relation with the rest of our knowledge, to clothe the Christian revelation in the current terms of science and philosophy. This is a right and necessary desire, but it brings its own dangers. Science and philosophy change. Hence the religious philosophy of yesterday, expressed in the scientific and philosophical categories of yesterday, grows obsolete. It demands revision and correction so that it may be brought into harmony with the know- ledge of to-day. The work of the intellect must be done over again. Too often men have identified religious philosophy with theology proper. Because the former has needed restatement they have supposed that the latter needed restatement too. Or it has been supposed that the truth of Christianity itself was bound up with the satisfactormess of a particular religious philosophy. We need to point out that Christianity is not committed to any one philosophy. Christianity does stand or fall with the truth of certain doctrines, but these are independent of any local or particular science or philosophy. They spring out of the Christian revelation itself. Much unsettlement would have been avoided if men had made the distinction between ‘theology’ proper, 2.e. the statement of fundamental Christian doctrines, and ‘religious philosophy,’ 2.e. the attempt to fit these doctrines into a general scheme of thought. Cp. Chandler, Faith and Ewperience, C. Vili. Lux Mundi, Essay VI. § 3. §3. The necessity of Theology—Theology is in some measure a necessity : (a) From his very nature man is bound to endeavour to understand his own life. In Plato’s words, ‘The unexamined life is unliveable for a human being.’* Our religious life cannot be exempt from this law. ‘Human nature craves to be both . religious and rational, and the life which is not both is neither.’+ Further, if, while men come to understand more of the meaning of the rest of life, the religious side is left unexamined and no effort made to reflect upon it, it will grow weak. In the competition of many interests, it will be crowded out. Being unorganized it will lack strength to hold its ground in man’s attention. The deepest type of conviction requires and includes some measure of intellectual ® Anology, 38 A. + Lux Mundi, close of Essay II, INTRODUCTION 5 assent. ‘No religion can expect to survive unless it can express its fundamental convictions in such a way as to show them to be intrinsically reasonable.’* In a sheltered atmosphere religion can exist without theology, but amid the intellectual conflict and questionings that education and civilization brmg with them, a man needs to be able to give some account of his faith. Christianity has always claimed to fear nothing from the growth of knowledge : it has gloried in being im accordance with reason. In Scripture * faith ’ is always opposed to ‘sight,’ never to ‘ reason.’ Cp. Illingworth, Reason and Revelation, c. i. (6) Further, the need of some theology is obvious as soon as we consider the social nature of man. Religion is essentially social. The child that is born into the world inherits the religion as he inherits the knowledge and the experience of the society into which he is born. In any society that has risen above the mental level of savages, if there is to be any continuity of religious custom and belief, some intellectual expression of religion is necessary. The moment that any teaching about religion begins, the rudiments of theology are to be found. We cannot teach what we do not in part understand. A religion that possessed no theology, even in the form of myths, would be either purely mdividualistic or a mere barren ritual coupled with a blind obedience to rules that were out of all relation to the higher elements of life. Christian theology has a necessary place in the furniture of the Christian home. Christian dogma begins at the mother’s knee. (c) From another pomt of view we must face the fact that Christian morality is the product of certain definite beliefs accepted and acted upon. The Christian type of character is no casual growth. It has been wrought out of a reluctant human nature by centuries of effort.f Christian doctrines influence conduct through the medium of the emotions. Where these doctrines are discarded, Christian feeling and standards may last for a while, but in the end they disappear. This has already occurred in certain * Streeter, Restatement and Reunion, -». 42. + ‘Men are living on a moral sense transmitted and inherited while they are restive under the discipline and claims of the systems which generated that moral sense. They are living on the fruits of a tree of which they are anxious to cut away the roots....A popular audience will always cheer a reference to “true religion stripped of the bonds of theology,” i.e. the results of the Christian conscience without the faith that formed it.’—Creighton, Life and Letters, vol. ii. p, 191, ep. pp. 245-247, 6 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES circles. A generation ago the opponents of Christian doctrine professed themselves anxious to preserve Christian morality as the one thing needful. Their descendants to-day criticize with equal freedom Christian dogma and Christian ethics.* Cp. Thornton, Conduct and the Supernatural, esp. p. 11 ff. and ec. iv. §4. But the fact remains that there exists a not entirely un- reasonable prejudice against all dogmatic theology. This is due to many causes. 7 (a) Partly it arises from the intellectual indolence of the English race. The Englishman hates the trouble of exact thinkmng. Truth for truth’s sake has at all times few attractions for him. He is bored by philosophy. In the case of religion his mental sloth 1s reinforced by a new motive. A vague religion is a comfortable religion. It makes fewer demands upon his conscience and will. By keeping his Christianity hazy he hopes to escape the moral and spiritual obligations that a definite belief must carry with it. So he has a natural dislike of Christian doctrine. (6) But he has more worthy reasons than that. The responsi- bility for the dislike of dogma must largely rest with the theologians themselves. They have confused religious philosophy with theology. Many have claimed to have a much more complete and definite knowledge of God and the world than they really possess. They have yielded to the temptation to stretch God’s revelation so as to cover whole tracts of knowledge that it was never intended to cover, as, for instance, when the Bible was made a text-book vf science. Again, they have failed to respect the limits of human knowledge. Not only is all our knowledge of real things imperfect, and therefore our knowledge of God, the highest reality, must be the most imperfect of all, but also human words and ideas were formed primarily to deal with objects of this material world.t We ** Christian ethics are bound up inseparably with Christian mysteries. Clear away these and, in default of some substituted construction of the over-natural world, what remains is an ethics without foundation, without end, without character ; neither Christian nor anything else; and that love which is the substance of the inward immanent life of the Christian soul, as opposed to the life of outward conduct, gives place to a vague amiability whose roots are nowhere and its branches anywhere.’—Tyrrell, Through Scylla and Charybdis, . 190. . tCp. Bergson, Creative Hvolution, p. 162 (K.T.), ‘When we pass in review the intellectual functions, we see that the intellect is never quite at its ease, never entirely at home, except when it is working upon matter, more particularly upon solids,’ INTRODUCTION 7 are compelled to use them in speaking of spiritual things, since we possess no others. But all doctrmal statements must partake of the nature of metaphor. They are true as far as they go, but they cannot represent the whole truth. A metaphor must never be pressed beyond the limits of the truth that it was formed to express. Some theologians have argued from doctrinal statements as if they were a final and adequate expression of divine truth. They have ventured to lay down as a necessary part of the Christian faith the precarious deductions of human logic. The result has been that assertions that rested on purely human authority have been dis- proved, and Christian theology as a whole has had to share the discredit. Men have failed to distinguish between the primary doctrines of the Christian faith and the fallible speculations of certain individuals or schools of thought.* (c) Again, a protest agaist theology is often made in the name of religion. ‘A living faith’ is contrasted with ‘dead formulas.’ In part this opposition arises from the mortality of human language. Words and phrases grow old and lose their edge. Ideas and ex- pressions change and decay. Every advance in knowledge carries with it a new vocabulary and a new stock of ideas. It revolutionizes the pomt of view. Hach generation acquires its peculiar temper of mind. Evolution, for instance, has changed our whole mental outlook. Accordingly, language that expressed the deepest aspira- tions and the highest ideas of one generation becomes to the next a string of catchwords from which the life has departed. The phrases of one age are always in danger of becoming formal and unreal to the next. They are felt no longer to protect but rather to stifle religion. Further, at certain periods theology has been allowed to usurp the place of religion. A mere intellectual assent to certain theological statements has been substituted for moral effort as the test of true Christian faith. Orthodoxy, not holiness, has been regarded as the distinguishing mark of the Christian. * Tyrrell, Haternal Religion, pp. 125-126. He speaks of men ‘ who carry cut and dried answers to all difficulties, wrapped up in pellets to shoot out on occasion ; to whom everything is clear and common-sense and obvious ; who can define a mystery but have never felt one. That the human words and ideas in which eternal truths are clad cannot, even through divine skill, convey to us more than a shadow of the realities they stand for; that they cannot, like numbers, be added, subtracted and multiplied together so as to deduce new conclusions with arithmetical simplicity and accuracy, never occurs to them... .’ See also Lex Orandi, c. 9. 8 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES The gulf between theology and religion has been allowed to widen. We can hardly wonder that in the ardour of a spiritual revival men have been impatient of the pious phrases of their forefathers, or have hastily cast aside doctrines that seemed to have the faintest possible connexion with practical Christianity. The only preventive of this disaster is to insist that theology shall always be in the closest contact with life. The New Testament never gives us lessons in theology for its own sake. Even the most profound statements of doctrine are introduced for the sake of elementary practical duties that flow from them. To sum up. Since we wish to be both rational and Christian we must have a theology. If we are left to ourselves it will probably be a very bad theology, the child of our limitations and caprices. It is our duty to see that we have the best possible theology. Therefore we must study the history of Christian doctrine, the record of the progressive interpretation by the Church to herself and to the world of the meaning of her own experience. So will we best be able to give a reason to ourselves and others of ‘the hope that is in us’ (1 Pet. 315). Cp. Gore, Bampton Lectures, I. § 5. Liddon, Some Hlements of Religion, Lects. I.-II. Will Spens, Belief and Practice, i-v. THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES THEIR HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY § 1. Our present 39 Articles are only one out of alarge crop of formu- laries produced in Kurope by the general unrest of the Reformation. Even as regards the Church of England, they are only the last of a series of doctrinal statements put forth as occasion demanded. The Reformation was not a single act but a long process, not always in a uniform direction : it was not concluded until far into the seventeenth century. The history of our Articles can only be understood if it is studied in the light of the history of the Reformation in England. Changes in the formularies of the Church in the main run parallel with changes in its worship and order. Hither side illustrates the other. In this present chapter the out- standing incidents of the Reformation are alluded to but not explained. They are intended to serve as landmarks by which to estimate the tendency of the various theological statements put forth from time to time. The surest way to understand the account of the Articles given here is to read it side by side with a history of the Reformation. The actual movement for reform in England may be said to start with the repudiation of Papal authority in 1534. The Breach with Rome was complete. In itself a quarrel with the Pope was nothing new. In the past it had not mvolved any change of religion. But the English desire for dependence, the disgust at the greed and exactions of the Popes, the character of Henry him- self, and the doctrinal unsettlement both at home and abroad formed a new combination of circumstances about whose issue few could venture to predict. Lutheran ideas had reached England as early as 1521, when a bonfire of Lutheran books was made in front of St. Paul’s. Since 1526 the influence of Zwingli had spread 10 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES through Tyndale’s English version of the Scriptures. Anabaptists were propagating tenets subversive of all order in Church and State alike. Abroad, Luther and Zwingli, with a large part of EKurope behind them, had broken with the historic faith and discipline of the Catholic Church. Amid the general confusion the Church of England was compelled to raise its voice. The authority of the Pope had been repudiated. In all ranks of life some centre of unity was needed. Within the Church itself there were two main parties, the party of the Old Learning, who desired little more than indepen- dence of the Pope, headed by Gardimer, Bishop of Winchester, and the party of the New Learning, who aimed at considerable reforms both of doctrme and discipline, headed by Archbishop Cranmer. The Lutherans in Germany had already set the example of putting forward a public statement of their position. Their object in this was partly, no doubt, to repudiate ‘ Romish errors,’ but also to make clear their divergence from the Zwinglians and Swiss reformers. Accordingly, in 1529 the Schwabach Articles were drawn up : the acceptance of these was to be the indispensable condition of membership in a reforming league. On these were based the first great Lutheran confession, the Confession of Augsburg, drawn up in 1530 by Melanchthon and approved by Luther. Originally it was simply ‘Mr. Philip’s’ (z.e. Melanch- thon’s) ‘ Apology,’ but it became the official statement of Luther- anism, and as such was signed by the Elector of Saxony and others and presented to the Emperor. It contained 21 articles on matters of faith and 7 on matters of discipline.* In the same year, 1530, Zwingli himself presented a Confession of his own to the Diet of Augsburg. After his death in 1531, the Zwinglian party put forth their views in the Confession of Basel, 1534, and the First Helvetic Confession, 1536. These last had no influence on our Articles. They are interesting only as signs of the times and as examples of the type of formulary that was happily avoided in England. §2. (a) The first attempt of the English Church to state its position was the Ten Articles of 1536. Their object is made clear in the title: ‘To establish Christian quietness and unity among us and to avoid contentious opmions.’ They ‘bore the character of a compromise between the Old and the New Learning. The Catholic nation was satisfied that the Catholic faith still * A survey of it may be found in Hardwick, p. 17 ff. HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY 11 remained.’* The reforming party ‘was conciliated by a secret in- fusion of Lutheranism.’ They succeeded in quenching the suspicion that the kingdom had been brought into schism, and helped to recon- cile men’s minds to the impending dissolution of the monasteries. Politically they served to show foreign powers that England was still a Catholic country. The King had a large share in their composition. But their final form was due to Convocation, with whose authority they were issued. They fell into two parts. The first five deal with questions of doctrme. The chief points to be noticed are: (i) The rule of faith is based not only on ‘ the whole body and canon of the Bible’ but also on the three Creeds. The authority of the Four Great Councils is recognized and all opinions condemned by them are declared erroneous. (ii) Three Sacraments only are expounded, Baptism, the Eucharist and Penance. This last is said to be ‘ institute of Christ in the New Testa- ment as a thing .. . necessary for man’s salvation.’ The other four of the ‘Seven Sacraments’ are neither affirmed nor rejected. (iii) The Real Presence is strongly asserted, but the manner of the Presence is left open. There is no mention of Transubstantiation. (iv) The definition of justification was borrowed from words of the Lutheran, Melanchthon, but the characteristic Lutheran formulae were avoided. It is to be attained by ‘inward contrition, perfect faith and charity, certain hope and confidence.’ The second five concern ‘ the laudable ceremonies used in the Church.’ (i) Images are retained to be ‘ the kindlers and stirrers of men’s minds,’ but idolatry is to be avoided. (ii) Saints are to be honoured and invoked as intercessors to pray with us and for us, ‘so that it be done without any vain superstition as to think that any saint is more merciful or will hear us sooner than Christ ... or doth serve for one thing more than another or is patron of the same.’ (iii) Certain mediaeval rites and ceremonies are to be kept as ‘ good and laudable,’ but have not * power to remit sin,’ but only to stir and lift up our minds unto God. (iv) Prayers for the dead are encouraged, and the book of Maccabees is quoted tv support them. Our ignorance of the details of the next life is asserted. Abuses connected with Purgatory, and especially the Pope’s pardons, are denounced. We can see how such a formula met the needs of the moment. No final settlement was as yet possible. The Ten Articles remained the authoritative expression of the mind of the Church of England down to 1543. * Dixon, History of the Church of England, vol. i. p, 415. +. The text of the Ten Articles is printed in Hardwick, Appendix I. 12 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES But meanwhile, in 1537, there appeared The Institution of a Christian Man, commonly called the Bishops’ Book. This was a popular and practical handbook of instruction m faith and morals, based on the Ten Articles and incorporating parts of them. It was drawn up by a committee under Cranmer. It contained explanations of the Common Creed, the Seven Sacra- ments, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria, Justification and Purgatory. The articles on the last two were taken bodily from the Ten Articles. All Seven Sacraments appear, but the three, Baptism, the Kucharist and Penance, are placed on a higher level than the rest. Its lapses from accurate theology, due to haste in composition, offended the refined taste of the King. Hence it never gamed his authority, though printed at the King’s Press. It rested only on the authority of those who signed it, including all the Bishops. (6) In 1548 there was published The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, commonly known as the King’s Book. It was substantially a revised edition of the Bishops’ Book, being based upon the King’s own criticisms of the former work. The language was more precise and theological. It was issued on the authority of Convocation, Parliament and the King, who himself wrote the preface. As compared with the Ten Articles, it shows a reaction. This may be explained by the political circumstances of the time. In 1538 the conference between Anglican and Lutheran divines had broken down. The influence of Cranmer had for the moment declined. The character of this new formulary is in keeping with the anti-Protestant legislation of the close of Henry’s reign, especially the Statute of the Six Articles. Transubstantia- tion is taught, though the actual use of the word 1s avoided. The silence of its articles suggests that all “Seven Sacraments ’ are on a level. Clerical celibacy is maintained, and a loftier view is taken of Orders. Taken as a whole it marked the triumph of the Old Learning. Probably this was designed to be the last and final statement of Hngland’s theological position. Such it remained till the death of Henry in 1547. §3. After the accession of Edward VI rapid changes were made in the services of the Church, but no definitely doctrinal statement was issued till 1553. However, as early as 1549 a letter from Bishop Hooper states that Cranmer ‘ has some Articles of Religion to which all preachers and lecturers in divinity are required to HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY | 18 subscribe.’** This was probably an early draft of the later Articles, framed as a test of orthodoxy. These Articles were submitted to the Bishops, and, after revision, submitted to the Council in 1552. At this time they were 45 m number. After they had passed the scrutiny of the Council, the King and the Royal Chaplains they were returned to Cranmer and reduced to 42— the famous 42 Articles. An English edition appeared in May, 1553. The official edition signed by the King followed a week later, and in June a royal mandate commanded subscription from all clergy, schoolmasters and members of a university on taking their degree, in the province of Canterbury. In two later editions, published shortly afterwards, a catechism was added. The exact authority on which they were published is uncertain. It is clear that the catechism issued with them had no authority from Convocation. The titles of all the editions, but not the royal mandate, claim for the Articles the authority of Convocation. Is this true? The records of Convocation perished in the great fire of London. In any case, they were badly kept, ‘ but one degree above blanks,’ and their evidence would have been of little value. Convocation had appointed a commission in 1551 to reform the Canons of the Church. That commission probably produced the Articles and claimed the authority of Convocation for them. In any case the question is primarily interesting as a historical problem.t Even if the Church was committed to them, it was only for some seven weeks. Edward VI died in the following August. On-the accession of Queen Mary they were dropped. As they had never been enjoined by Act of Parliament, there was no need to repeal them. The 42 Articles are not, as it were, the natural descendants of the previous official formularies, but represent a different line of development that can be traced back as far as 1538. At that time Henry VIII, for political reasons, desired an alliance with the Protestant Princes of Germany. Accordingly, a small body of Lutheran divines was invited over to England to confer with a committee of English Churchmen, headed by Cranmer, with a view to drawing up a joint confession of faith. By the deliberate use of ambiguous language agreement was reached on certain points of doctrine. But on questions of discipline the conference * Quoted by Hardwick, p. 72. + For a statement of the evidence on both sides, see Gibson, pp. 15-20. 14 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES broke down and the Lutherans returned home. Among Cranmer’s papers has been found a draft of 13 Articles of doctrine agreed upon by this committee. These are known as the 73 Articles. They were never published, and hence possessed no authority. But they were used by Cranmer as the basis of certain of the 42 Articles. Being themselves based upon the Confession of Augsburg, they form the link between the Confession of Augsburg and our own 42 Articles. At first sight the similarities suggest direct borrowing, but it has been proved that all the borrowed portions came through the medium of these 13 Articles. In reading the 42 Articles it may easily be seen that they are a double-edged weapon, designed to smite two opposite enemies. On the one hand they attack mediaeval teaching and abuses, on the other hand they attack Anabaptist tenets. First they deal with the doctrine of ‘School-authors.’ This needs some explanation. The doctrines attacked were not necessarily official Roman teaching as revised by the Council of Trent, but popular mediaeval teaching. The Reformation compelled even the Church of Rome to re-state her teaching. The Pope called together a ‘General Council’ at Trent. In actual fact the Council proved to consist only of Bishops in allegiance to Rome. The Reformers refused to acknowledge it.* It held its first meeting in December, 1545, and continued to sit, though with long breaks, until 1562. It was from its own point of view a reforming Council, and did much to purge away mediaeval abuses. In some cases its decrees are prior in time to the Articles of our own Church, in other cases they are later. It is most important to know which is the earlier. Very often the teaching condemned in our Articles cannot be the formal statements of the Council of Trent, because such did not vet exist, but is simply current mediaeval teaching. Upon this the Council of Trent is in many cases as severe as our own Articles. The Reformers kept a keen eye on all the dogs of the Council. When the 42 Articles appeared the Council of Trent had only begun its work. Secondly, they oppose even more keenly the teaching of the Anabaptists. These were the extreme Protestants, in no way a single organized sect, but rather an undefined class em- bracing men of every variety of opinion. The name Anabaptist was given to them from their denial of infant baptism and their * See below on Art. 21. HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY § 15 custom of re-baptizmg converts. There is hardly any error of doctrine or morality that was not proclaimed by some of them. They were a very real danger to all order in Church and State alike. No party had a good word for them. The Reformers feared the discredit that they brought upon the whole reforming movement. The chief instances in which Roman errors were attacked in the 42 Articles may be summed up thus : 1. The claims of the Pope are denied (Art. 36). 2. The Church of Rome is declared to have erred in the past and therefore to be liable to err again. So, too, ‘ General Coun- cils’ so called have not always shown themselves infallible (Arts. 20 and 22). 3. The use of the vulgar tongue in Church and the marriage of the clergy are defended (Arts. 25 and 31). 4. Krrors about merit, works of supererogation, purgatory and pardons, grace ex opere operato, transubstantiation and the ‘sacrifices of Masses ’ are denounced (Arts. 12, 13, 23, 29 and 30). 5. The sufficiency of Scripture is maintained (Art. 5). The Anabaptists are only mentioned by name twice, but the errors maintained by them and attacked in these Articles include the following : 1. They had revived all the ancient heresies about the Holy Trinity and the Person of Christ. Against these the Catholic position is asserted (Arts. 1-4 and 7). 2. Many of them were Pelagians (Arts. 8-10). 3. Others claimed that being regenerate they were unable to commit sin (Arts. 14-15). 4. Some depreciated all Scripture and placed themselves above even the moral Jaw. Others assigned equal importance to all the Old Testament (Arts. 5-6 and 19). 5. Some denied any need of ordination for ministers, and claimed that the efficacy of all ministrations depended on the personal holiness of the minister (Arts. 24, 27). 6. Infant Baptism was denied (Art. 28). 7. All Church discipline was repudiated (Art. 20 and 32). 8. Many held strange views about the Descent into Hell (Art. 3), the nature of the Resurrection and the future life (Arts. 39-40), the ultimate salvation of all men (Art. 42) and Millenarianism (Art. 41). 16 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 9. The authority of the State was impugned and communism demanded (Arts. 36-38). Taken as a whole, the 42 Articles ‘showed a surprisingly comprehensive and moderate spirit. The broad soft touch of Cranmer lay upon them, when they came from the furnace.’* Their tone is conciliatory. They aim rather at concord than at accurate definition. Cranmer had a great desire to form a united Protestant Church as against Rome. Such Articles might well be a basis of union. They exclude extremists of all kinds. Again, these Articles make no pretension to set forth a complete system of belief. There is, for instance, no Article on the Holy Spirit. Unlike many continental formularies they do not attempt to embrace all theology, but are content to meet the needs of a particular crisis. They do, deed, bear unmistakeable evidence of Lutheran influence and language. Certain Articles embody whole paragraphs and phrases of the Confession of Augsburg, taken from the 13 Articles. But on the doctrine of justification by faith they avoid Lutheran extravagances. Further, at this time there was violent controversy among the Reformers on the subject of the Sacraments. The Lutherans held that they conferred grace. The Swiss reformers regarded them rather as signs or seals of grace independently received, since only the elect could receive grace. The delay in the publication of these Articles was, according to one account, due to the violent con- troversy on this point. Cranmer and Ridley on the one side maintained the Lutheran view. Hooper the Swiss view. In the end Cranmer won the day. Both sides agreed to discard the language of the Schoolmen, that the Sacraments ‘ contain grace,’ since this failed to emphasize the need of a right disposition in the recipient. But though the actual term ‘confer grace ’ does not occur, the truth that it contained was clearly stated. In Art. 26 Sacraments are said to be ‘effectual signs of grace.’t Tn Art. 28 ‘ Baptism ...is a sign and seal of our new birth, whereby as by an instrument they that receive Baptism rightly, are grafted into the Church.’ Only on one point these Articles do fall short of their general spirit of comprehensiveness. In their teaching on the Holy Communion, not only transubstantia- * Dixon, vol. iii. p. 520. + The phrase ‘ signs of grace’ comes from the Confession of Augsburg, and vas deliberately strengthened by the addition of ‘ effectual.’ HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY 17 tion but any doctrine of the Real Presence is denied. This was held by Lutherans no less than Romanists. The explanation of this fall below the Lutheran standard is that Cranmer’s views on the Eucharist had been steadily falling. Owing to the influence of the Swiss, and particularly one John a Lasco, he had abandoned any belief in the Real Presence, and adopted the Calvinist view that the presence of Christ is to be found only in the individual soul of the faithful recipient. Any other view was excluded by the language of Art. 26 (with this we must compare the Prayer Book of 1552, into which, before publication, was intruded the famous ‘ Black Rubric’). So, too, in Art. 26, all use of the phrase ex opere operato is condemned, and the title sacrament is practi- cally refused to any rites except Baptism and Confirmation. On all these points considerable changes were made in 1563. We — may also notice that the objectionable title ‘Supreme Head of the Church’ is employed in Art. 36. In the reign of Edward VI this was inevitable. Some mention must be made here of a work probably by the same persons as the 42 Articles. We have seen that Convocation sanctioned the appointment of a committee to revise the Canons. Their labours resulted in a document entitled The Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum. This work was completed in 1553, but never obtained the sanction of Parliament. Its chief importance is to be found in the light that it sheds on the meaning and purpose of the 42 Articles. Which of the two in its treatment of any subject is the earlier, we cannot now ascertain. §4. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, she had a hard task before her. Her aim must be to secure religious unity at home in the face of many active and powerful enemies abroad. She began not with questions of doctrine, but of worship and discipline. She recovered from Parliament the restoration of the Royal Supremacy : enforced by Act of Parliament the new Prayer-book : filled up the vacant sees: took strong measures to enforce a modicum of decency in worship. It was not till 1563 that Convocation began to undertake the revision of the 42, Articles. Till then the Prayer-book was the standard of doctrine. However, in the mterval, Archbishop Parker put forth on his own authority the Eleven Articles. These were to be read in church by all ministers at their first entry into their cures and twice a year afterwards. Though sanctioned by the B 18 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES Archbishop of York and all the Bishops, they were a temporary expedient, lacking official authority. (a) In January, 1563, Convocation met to draw up a new formulary. The Archbishop had been using the interval in preparing with Bishop Guest of Rochester a revised edition of the 42 Articles. These were to form the basis of the new formulary. A revival of Lutheran influence can be found in this revision. The Archbishop had drawn upon the Confession of Wiirtemburg, a Lutheran formulary presented to the Council of Trent in 1552 by the ambassadors of Wiirtemburg as an official statement of Lutheran views. Thus a Lutherrn confession influenced the English Articles for a second time. The influence of the Con- fession of Augsburg was indirect, through the 13 Articles. Here the borrowing from the Confession of Wiirtemburg was direct. When first presented to Convocation the new Articles still numbered 42. Four of the old had been removed and four new ones added. Three were struck out by Convocation, reducing them to the familiar 39. These were passed by Convoca- tion and were then sent on to the Queen. The Queen herself made two important alterations in the draft sent up by Convoca- tion: (i) She struck out our present Art. 29 in order to avoid giving offence to the Romanist party, whom she wished to retain within the Church; (i) She added the opening clause to Art. 20, drawn from the Confession of Wirtemburg. This asserted the authority of the Church to decree rites and ceremonies, as against the Puritans, who denied the Church’s authority to enforce any rite or ceremony that was not explicitly commanded in Scripture. At the time these two changes rested solely on the Queen’s authority: they had no authority either from Convocation or Parliament. | The 38 Articles remained in this condition till the final revision of the Articles in 1571. As the result of the Pope’s bull any hope of reconciliation with Rome was destroyed. In obedience to his injunction the Papists had separated themselves from the English Church. Hence there was no longer any need to respect their feelmgs. Accordingly, Art. 29 was restored. At the same time a number of small changes were made, of which the chief was the completion of the list of the Apocrypha in Art. 6. In their revised form the Articles were passed by Convocation, and so the opening clause of Art. 20 gained synodical authority. HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY 19 (6) We may now consider the main changes that are to be found if we compare our present 39 Articles with the 42 Articles of 1553. I. Certain new articles were added and old articles expanded, apparently for the sake of greater completeness. Thus in the statement in Art. 2 of the ‘ Eternal Generation ’ and ‘ Consub- stantiality ’ of the Son and the whole of Art. 5, ‘on the Holy Ghost ’ were added, both practically verbatim from the Con- fession of Wiirtemburg. In Art. 6 canonical books are stated to be those ‘ of whose authority there has never been any doubt in the church.’ So, too, Art. 11, on Justification, was enlarged and made more definite. Art. 10 was enlarged to fit on better to Art. 9, and a new Art., No. 12, on ‘Good Works,’ was added. All these changes were based on the Confession of Wiirtemburg. 2. Certain articles and statements were omitted, either because the errors attacked in them had now ceased to be formidable, or because it was seen that a greater latitude of opinion might be allowed. Thus four whole articles on Anabaptist errors, such as ‘ Millenarianism,’ ‘the resurrection being past,’ ‘ universal- ism,’ ‘unconscious existence after death,’ were removed. The article on “ Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,’ the interpreta- tion of St. Peter’s word about ‘the descent into Hell,’ the condemnation of the phrase ex opere operato, were likewise withdrawn. So, too, the reference by name to the Anabaptists as reviving Pelagianism. 3. A great advance was made in sacramental] teaching, parallel to that made in the Prayer-book of 1559 as compared with that of 1552. The language of Art. 28 is at least consistent with a belief in the Real Presence, though the relation of the gift bestowed in the Holy Communion to the visible elements is left undiscussed. The language on Infant Baptism in Art. 27 is strengthened. Also the five ‘commonly called Sacraments’ reappear in Art. 25, though not placed on a level with the two ‘Sacraments of the Gospel.’ The withdrawal of any condemna- tion of the phrase ex opere operato in Art. 25 emphasized the objective value of sacramental grace. 4. Art. 37 on the Royal Supremacy was largely rewritten. The title ‘supreme Head of the church’ was dropped. The character of the supremacy claimed for the Crown is explained. 5. On the other hand the independence of the Church of 20 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES England as against Rome was asserted and strengthened in certain quite definite ways. The Council of Trent had as early as 1546 issued a somewhat ambiguous decree placing Scripture and tradition side by side as the sources of truth and discipline, including within the canon a large number of apocryphal books. These last it put on a level with the rest as a source of doctrine. In Art. 6 the Church of England deliberately dissented from this view, distinguishing between the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, and placing them on different levels. A list of canonical books was given, and the list of apocryphal books completed in 1571. Again, in 1547 the Council of Trent laid down that all Seven Sacraments were instituted by Christ. In the revised form of Art. 25 this is practically denied. So, too, in Art. 24, the Church of England was no longer content to commend the use of the vulgar tongue in public worship. It condemned the use of any other as unscriptural and unprimitive. A new Article (Art. 30) was added to condemn Communion in one kind. Art. 32 on the Celibacy of the Clergy was re-written and strengthened. Art. 36 was re-written to defend Anglican ordinations against Romanist objections. A new clause to Art. 34 was added to assert the rights of ‘particular or national’ churches. On all these points the revision showed itself anti-Roman. 6. In the opposite direction the revision can hardly have been entirely acceptable to the Puritan party. They must have disliked the changes in Sacramental teaching and still more the Queen’s addition to Art. 20. Many of them did not love Art. 34. The authorship of the saying that ‘the Church of England has a Popish Liturgy and a Calvinistic set of Articles ’ is ascribed to Pitt. It has been widely repeated by those who know little of the Articles and neglect the Prayer-book. No doubt the general tone of the Articles is not quite that of the Prayer-book. They reflect the troubled atmosphere of the times in which they were composed. The Prayer-book, being based largely on earlier models, breathes more of the spirit of serene and undisturbed devotion. Its tone is more positive. Further, while the Church of England deliberately aimed at excluding Pelagians, it did not aim at excluding Calvinists. Hence there is much in the Articles which, though it need not be taken in a Calvinistic sense, may be taken in that sense. There was much, too, that was HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY 21 good in Calvinism: if the Articles would never have existed in their present form without the influence of Calvin, that does not mean that they are Calvinistic in the sense that they accept all his teaching. There are several statements in them that Calvinists have always found it hard to accept. Art. 16 says that a man who has received the Holy Ghost and fallen mto sin, ‘ may rise again.’ The Calvinist would say “must rise again.’ Art. 2 lays down that ‘Christ died for all actual sins of men’: Calvinists would say ‘ Christ died only for the elect.” In Art. 17 the clause ‘although the decrees of predestination are unknown to us’ was dropped and the phrase ‘in Christ’ added, both changes tending to soften the language. Further, the same article speaks of God’s promises as ‘ generally ’ (2.e. for all men) ‘set forth in Holy Scripture.’ So, too, in Art. 9, Man is only ‘very far gone from original righteousness,’ not entirely corrupt, as Calvin taught. But the clearest evidence that the Articles are not Calvinistic is the repeated attempts made by the Puritans to alter or supplement them. In 1572 the Puritans addressed certain admonitions to Parliament complaining of the inadequacy of the Articles and their dangerous speaking about falling from grace. Further, in 1595, as a result of controversy at Cambridge, a committee, meeting under Archbishop Whitgift at Lambeth, compiled the ‘ Lambeth Articles,’ setting out the full Calvinistic system in all its stringency. Fortunately the Queen at once intervened and repressed any attempt to force these on the Church. They never possessed any authority but that of their authors. At the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 the Puritan party again tried to amend the Articles. The Royal declaration prefixed to the Articles, and dating from 1628, is a relic of the controversy that raged during the reign of Charles I., largely round the interpretation of the Articles. When in 1643 the Puritans were triumphant, the Westminster Assembly appointed a committee to amend the Articles. Art. 16 fared badly at their hands. Again, at the Restoration, similar objections were raised by the Puritans, but without success. This bare statement of fact is the best answer to any assertion that our Articles are Calvinistic. For a fuller statement of the historical situation see Kidd, Thirty- nine Articles, ¢. i.-iv. For a full history of the Articles see Hardwick, A History of the Articles of Religion. 22 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES (c) Such, then, is the history of our present 39 Articles. They express the mind of the Church of England on the questions under dispute during the Reformation. They do not claim to be a final and complete system of theology. As Bishop Pearson wrote : * the book ‘is not, nor is pretended to be, a complete body of divinity, or a comprehension and explication of all Christian doctrines necessary to be taught : but an enumeration of some truths, which upon and since the Reformation have been denied by some persons: who upon denial are thought unfit to have any cure of souls in this Church or realm ; because they might by their opinions either infect their flock with error or else disturb the Church with schism or the realm with sedition.’ On this point they present a strong contrast with many continental formularies which are ‘controversial, diffuse, and longsome.’ f Our English Articles avoid the sweeping anathemas of the Council of Trent or the ‘ endless arguings and chidings ’ of contemporary confessions. They move on a higher level. If we compare them with other performances of the age, we must see in them an example of the special Providence that has watched over the Church of England. Dr. Moberly has put very clearly the grounds on which we may be grateful for their tone of moderation and comprehensiveness.[ ‘It might so easily have happened that statements drawn up amid the stress and strain of the vehement passions which were raging in the struggle of the Reformation, would have been just in the form which we, in the sober thought of the nineteenth century, could not have endorsed. But this is Just what has not happened. Condemnation of Roman theory or practice, failing to make any necessary distinction or allow- ances, might so easily hav hade just the irremediable traces of exaggeration upon them. Approximations to Calvinism or Lutheranism might so easily have gone just beyond the line of what was in the long run rationally defensible. It may even be admitted that, prima facie, there is a certain aspect of ambiguity in some of these directions. And yet, on examination, after all, in one article after another, the almost expected overstatement has not been made. You may say that the 17th Article comes very near to Calvinism, or the 11th to the characteristic formula of Lutheran solifidianism. But, on the other hand, as the mind * Quoted by Hardwick, p. 158. + Dixon, vol. v. p, 396. $¢ Moberly, Problems and Principles, pp. 386-387 HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY 23 begins to recognize that the lengthy and apparently Calvinistic phraseology of the Article about Predestination just stops short of all that is really offensive in connexion with that theory, remaining after all within those aspects of it which are edifying and true; and again, that the apparent embrace of the cardinal Lutheran principles of justification by faith only is not in the paradoxical terms in which Luther loved to overstate it ; there begins to be a certain definite and growing sense that, though the articles may carry us into forgotten controversies, and make some statements which have but little relevance to our modern difficulties, at all events there was, amongst those who drew them, too much of genuine conservatism, of reverence for what was good in old ways, of self-restraint and moderating wisdom, to allow of their committing themselves or us to the extremer and more unguarded statements even of those with whom they greatly sympathized.’ §5. Creeds and Articles.—The significance of our Articles may best be learnt by a comparison between them and Creeds. Both alike are theological statements of belief. Both alike have been employed as tests. Both are attempts to preserve the truth in all its fulness. But while Creeds are a necessity, ‘in a world where all expression of spirit is through body,’ Articles are a consequence ‘not of the Church’s existence but of the Church’s failure.’ ‘The Church, without a Creed, would not in human life on earth, however ideally perfect, have been a Church at all. But if the Church on earth had been ideally perfect, or anything even remotely like it, there would never have been any 39 Articles. The one is a necessary feature of spiritual reality. The other is an unfortunate consequence of spiritual failure.’ * (i) Creeds are in origin far more than controversial statements. No doubt particular clauses in them have been added or altered at particular times to rule out certain errors, as when ‘of one substance with the Father’ was added to refute Arianism. But in their essential nature Creeds grew up out of the positive statement of belief required of every Christian at his baptism. The threefold division recalls the baptismal formula. They rose spontaneously out of the life of the Church to meet such a need as this. Though they conform to a common type their origin Is * Op. cit. pp. 378-379. 24 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES veiled in obscurity. Their growth in the main has been hidden and spontaneous. Even their developments were largely un- conscious. On the other hand, Articles were composed at a definite time for the express purpose of meeting a particular crisis. Their authors are known. (ii) Creeds have behind them the authority of the universal and undivided Church. Articles have behind them at most the authority of particular or national Churches. In most cases they assume the truth of the Creeds and start fromthat. Further, creeds are based upon a wide and universal experience. The formularies of the Reformation—though this applies very much less to our own Articles than to others—are the product of a group of men, or in some cases a single individual mind. Hence, Creeds have a permanent value, Articles only a temporary value. We do not condemn, say, the Churches of the East, because they do not possess the 39 Articles. We should condemn a Church that rejected the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed. We may reasonably doubt if the Churches of the mission-field need become acquainted with the 39 Articles. But they certainly are bound to receive the Creeds. It is possible even to look forward to a day when the Church of England may exchange or discard our present Articles, though that day is not yet in sight. That would not involve any breach of continuity or catholicity. But to reject the Creeds would be to part company with the life of the Universal Church. (iii) The Creeds consist in the main of short and simple state- ments without explanation or argument. They assert simple facts of history andtheology. Their fieldis very narrow. Their theology rarely goes beyond explaining the significance of the historic facts that they record. The whole Creed is grouped round the historical Person of Jesus Christ. The Articles, on the other hand, cover a wider field. They deal not only with the nature and being of God and His great acts of redemption, but with man’s inner religious life. Questions about the meaning of sin, the relation of faith to works, grace, free-will and the like are all discussed. The Creeds are positive, Articles are often negative and controversial. The Articles also touch upon an entirely new department, the relation of the Christian to the State. This can be explained by the condition of society in the sixteenth century. HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY 25 (iv) Lastly, as has already been pointed out, Articles are primarily ‘tests for teachers.’ They set a limit to official teaching. Creeds are for teachers and learners alike. Belief in the Apostles’ Creed is demanded of every candidate for Baptism. A Creed rightly finds a place in public worship. In the service for the visitation of the sick and the dying the Christian is called upon to repeat his baptismal creed as a last act of faith. The Creeds belong to the laymen not less than the clergy. But a loyal churchman may go through his whole life without necessarily coming into contact with the 39 Articles. To sum up, though both Creeds and Articles have arisen out of the necessity imposed upon the Church to interpret to itself the meaning of its own life: though both have been shaped by that discussion, which alone can sift out error and bring to light the truth : yet in origin, value and aim they differ. Creeds belong to the life of the Church and Articles to its life in a sinful world. §6. A history of Subscription to the Articles.—Up to 1571 sub- scription was required only of members of Convocation. The Queen had not allowed the Articles to be submitted to Parliament. But the open breach with Rome in 1570 and the Pope’s excom- - munication of the Queen obliged her to turn to Parliament in order to strengthen her hands. In 1571 an Act was passed requiring that everyone under the degree of a Bishop who had been ordained by any form other than that set forth by Parlia- ment in the reign of Edward VI, or the form in use under Eliza- beth, should subscribe ‘to all Articles of Religion, which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments.’ This was aimed at men ordained under Mary. Further, in future no one was to be admitted to a benefice ‘except he...shall first have subscribed the said Articles.’ The Act was ingeniously drawn up in the interests of the Puritans. By the insertion of the word ‘only’ subscription was made to include no more than the doctrinal Articles: the Articles on discipline were evaded. However, in 1571, after the final revision by Convocation, Convocation on its own authority required subscription to all the Articles in their final form. This was enforced by the Court of High Commission, though at times with less strictness. In 1583 Archbishop Whitgift provided a form of subscription included in the Three Articles. All the clergy were 26 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES to subscribe to these. The first asserted the Royal Supremacy. The second contains an assertion of the Scripturalness of the whole Prayer-book and a promise to use the said book and no other in public worship. The third runs ‘ That I allow the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops of both provinces and the whole Clergy in Convocation holden at London in the year of our Lord God 1562 and set forth by Her Majesty’s authority and do believe all the Articles therein contained to be agreeable to the Word of God.’ In this way subscription was once more strictly enforced. In 1604 the Three Articles received the authority of Convocation, being embodied after small alteration in the 6 Canons of 1604 and ratified by the King. The actual form ran: ‘I...do willingly and ex animo subscribe to these three articles above mentioned and to all things that are contained in them.’ This form remained in force in spite of various attempts to relax the stringency of it. In practice the form usually employed ran: ‘I...do willingly and from my heart subscribe to the 39 Articles of Religion of the United Church of England and Ireland, and to the three Articles in the 30th Canon, and to all things therein contained.’ In 1865, as the result of a Royal Commission, Convocation obtained leave from the Crown to revise the Canons. A new and simpler declaration of Assent was drawn up by the Convocations of Canterbury and York and confirmed by royal letters patent. To-day the candidate for ordination is required to subscribe to the following: ‘I...do solemnly make the following declaration, I assent to the 39 Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer and of ordering of Bishops Priests and Deacons. I believe the doctrine of the Church of — England therein set forth to be agreeable to the Word of God and in public prayer and administration of the Sacraments I will use the form in the said book prescribed and none other, except so far as shall be ordered by lawful authority.’ Two points need to be noted. (1) The Church has demanded subscription to the Articles from the clergy and the clergy only. The fifth Canon of 1604 at, most demands from the laity that they shall not attack them. If other bodies such as the Universities have in earlier days required subscription from their members, they were responsible for the requirement, and not the Church. HISTORY AND PLACE IN THEOLOGY 27 (ii) The change of language in the form of subscription was deliberate. We are asked to affirm to-day, not that the Articles are all agreeable to the Word of God, but that the doctrine of the Church of England as set forth in the Articles is agreeable to the Word of God. That is, we are not called to assent to every phrase or detail of the Articles but only to their general sense.* This alteration was made of set purpose to afford relief to scrupulous consciences. For the background of English Church History, see the volumes in Stephens and Hunt’s History of the English Church. For the Continental Reformation, Kidd’s The Continental Reformation and Documents of the Continental Reformation are invaluable. See also Pullan, Religion since the Reformation, Lects. I.-ITI. The Protestant standpoint can be studied in Lindsay, History of the Reformation (2 vols.). * Cp. Hort, Life and Letters, vol. ii. pp. 324-328. THE BEING OF GOD ARTICLE I Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one sub- stance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. De fide im sacro-sanctam Trimtatem. Unus est vivus et verus Deus, aeternus, incorporeus, impartibilis, impassibilis, 1m- mensae potentiae, sapientiae ac bonitatis, creator et con- servator omnium, tum visibi- lium, tum invisibilium. Et in unitate hujus divinae naturae tres sunt personae, ejusdem essentiae, potentiae, ac aeterni- tatis, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. One of the original Articles of 1553. Its language is very close to that of the Confession of Augsburg. It was called forth by the teaching of the Anabaptists, who were reviving all the ancient heresies. 1. The Unity of God. 2. The attributes of God. 3. God’s relation to the universe. It deals with: 4. The manner of God’s existence—the doctrine of the Trinity. § 1. There is but one living and true God.—The Articles, like the Bible itself, assume and do not attempt to prove the existence of God. By God we mean the one self-existent Being, the Author and Sustainer of all that is, upon whom all things depend and in whom they find their goal. All thinkers agree that God is one. The ancient Greek philosophers attained to this truth primarily THE BEING OF GOD 29 by the road of reason. Every attempt to understand the world assumes that the world is intelligible, and therefore one. All philosophy presupposes that behind phenomena is a single ultimate reality. A world that is capable of being explained must be a single and coherent system. It must be one in origin and in purpose. All our modern philosophy and science rest ultimately upon the same assumption. They presuppose the ultimate unity of all existence. This ‘Absolute’ or ulti- mate reality whose existence behind the world of change and appearance philosophy and science are compelled implicitly to assume, need not be a very interesting God. He need not be, as far as their requirements go, a God who loves men and can be loved by them. We could not sing hymns to the ‘ Absolute.” But He must be one. The very idea of God excludes the possibility of more than one God. All the so-called arguments for the existence of God are arguments for the existence of one God. Thus the unity of God is a truth of reason, though reason by itself can tell us little or nothing about His character. The nation of Israel attained to the truth of the Unity of God rather by the line of religion. The Jews had neither taste nor capacity for speculation and abstract thought. But they pos- sessed a ‘ genius for religion.’ We can trace out in the history of Israel a growth in the knowledge of the one true God. At first Jehovah was a tribal God, the God of the Jewish nation. To use technical language the Jews were ‘ monolatrous ’ rather than ‘monotheists.’ They worshipped one God, but were not concerned to deny the existence of others. Even the First Commandment allows the possibility of the existence of other Gods. Slowly, through the religious msight and experience of the prophets, the spiritual leaders of the nation, at least, came to grasp the truth that Jehovah was the one and only God of the whole world.* Through the exile Israel was purged of idolatry. By suffermg and persecution the conviction of the Unity of God was branded for ever upon the consciousness of the nation. The Creed of the Jewish Church was the words of Deut. 64, ‘ Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.’ As such it was solemnly reaffirmed by our Lord Himself (Mk. 12”, etc.). This truth had * This truth is implied as early as Amos. It is Jehovah who directs and overrules the movements of all the nations 30 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES been atta ned, not by any process of reason, but by a special revelation of God Himself.* The Jew could go on to say what the Greek could not, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’ The God who revealed Himself to Israel was above all a God of grace and righteousness, a Redeemer, who manifested His love and care for His people in a practical way through the events of history. In this aspect, too, God must be one. There is but One God, not because it happens to be so, but because it cannot be otherwise. Philosophy and religion alike make the same demand. To have more than one God is, as the early Christians maintained, to have no true God at all. To be a polytheist is to be an atheist. So the way was prepared for a further revelation of the nature of God. The truth of the Unity of God ‘had to be completely established first as a broad element of thought, mdispensable, unalterable, before there could really begin the disclosure to man of the reality of eternal relations within the one indivisible Being of God. And when the disclosure came, it came, not as modifying—far less denymg—but as further imterpreting and illumining that unity which it absolutely presupposed.’ t When it is rightly presented, the doctrine of the Trinity does not destroy but safeguards the Unity of God. The highest type of unity is not a mere barren numerical unity, but one that embraces within itself a wealth of diversity. Cp. Strong, Religion, Philosophy and History. Rashdall, Contentio Veritatis, Essay I., “‘ On the Religious Experience of Tsrael.”’ Hamilton, The People of God, vol. i., summarized in Discovery and Revelation. Illingworth, Bampton Lects. VIL. And more widely, Gore, Belief in God, esp. ce. iii.-vii. Opposed to this truth of the unity of God stands polytheism. In the Bible this is always represented as intimately connected with spiritual blindness and moral evil. Whether, as a matter of simple history, all forms of polytheism are in origin corruptions of a single older and purer belief in One God, is a question for the science of Comparative Religion to decide. At present very different answers are given.{t But the standpoint of Scripture is * We must not contrast too sharply truths of reason and truths of revelation. All knowledge of God, including that gained by thought, must be in some sense revealed. So, too, revealed truth is rational. + Moberly, Atonement and Personality, p. 85. t Cp. Strong, Manual of Theology, pp. 17-18 ; Jevons, Idea of God, p. 58 and p. 154 ff. THE BEING OF GOD 3] amply justified. From the point of view of Jewish and Christian revelation polytheism is a degraded and degrading form of religion. The Jews were always being tempted to lapse into idolatry because the faith and worship of Jehovah made too great demands upon them. The contest between Baal and Jehovah was not only a contest between two forms of religion, but between two standards of morality. Jehovah demanded personal righteousness in His worshippers. ‘Be ye holy: for I am holy.’ Baal did not. The prophets are always protesting against those who degraded Jehovah by putting Him on a moral level with the gods of the heathen. Throughout Old Testament history polytheism stood for a religion that corrupted the very springs of the spiritual life. It met men’s desire for worship without demanding moral effort or reformation in the worshipper. Religion was regarded not as doing the will of God, but as bribing or cajoling God to do man’s will. A firm belief in one Almighty God was shown to be the only basis of a moral and righteous life. So, too, St. Paul’s denunciation of heathenism in Rom. 1!8 ff. was amply justified. He ‘looks at things with the insight of a religious teacher: he describes facts which he sees around him, and he connects these facts with permanent tendencies of human nature and with principles which are apparent in the Providential government of the world.’* The Gods of pagan mythology were attractive to the multitude largely because they were on a moral level with themselves. Religion had become the enemy of morality. How far the particular individuals of any one generation were personally responsible for this may be questioned. But the multitude ‘loved to have it so,’ and made little or no effort to follow up the truth which was offered to them in reason and conscience. ‘It was in the strict sense due to supernatural influence that the religion of the Jew and of the Christian was kept clear of these corrupt and corrupting features. The state of the Pagan world betokened the absence, the suspension, or withholding, of such supernatural influence; and there was reason enough for the belief that it was judicially inflicted.’+ Cp. Scott Holland, On behalf of Belief, Sermon XII. The words ‘living and true’ are in Scripture applied to God in opposition to the false gods of heathenism. God is living * Sanday and Headlam, Romars, p. 49. t Op. cit. p. 49, 32 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES (‘vivus, not ‘vivens’): not merely alive, but the source of all life (Ps. 427, Jn. 57, etc.). He is opposed to dead idols (Jer. 102°, Acts 14%, 1 Thess. 19, etc.). So, too, God is true (‘verus’): not only faithful to His word (verax), but genuine (aAnOwoes). He is contrasted with the sham gods of heathenism as alone fulfilling the true conception of God (Is. 448 ff.) ; ‘ The only true God’ (Jn. 17%). The two ideas of living and true are combined (1 Thess. 19, 1 Jn. 5°). Polytheism may appear at first sight to hee lost its dangers. But its spirit is always threatening to corrupt the purity of Christian faith. Human nature desires a satisfaction for its instinct of worship. Fallen human nature desires to satisfy its instinct with the least possible moral effort. Hence men are always tempted to seek a refuge from the intense holiness of God in some object of worship that will be more indulgent towards sin and sloth. Accordingly we find in the Roman and Greek Churches a Saint-worship that in popular practice is essentially polytheistic. Elsewhere we find what Dr. Hort called ‘ Jesus-worship,’ * 7.e. a perverted and sentimental devotion to our Lord, not as the revelation of the Father and one with Him, but as a tender and not too exacting Saviour who will be a refuge from the Father’s holiness and justice. In each case the One God is set on one side as too strict in His moral demands. A less exacting object of worship is invented or procured. The pleasures of religion are retained at the cost of its truth and purity. For practical purposes the result is polytheism. Its fruits to-day are the same as they were in the days of the prophets or of St, Paul, a relaxing of the moral life and the lowering of the moral standard. To-day as of old the Unity of God is the one safeguard of moral and spiritual progress. Cp. Mozley, Theory of Development, p. 63 ff. §2. (a) How can we conceive of God? In Scripture, from first to last, God is represented as a ‘ Personal’ God. He is said to possess will (Mt. 774, Jn, 6, Eph. 1% 1 Jn. 5" 6te.) 2 to know, to have a mind and purpose (2 Sam. 144, Jer. 32%, Mt. 68 n¢ 82. Jn. 1015, Acts 428, Rom. 11™, etc.) : to love (Hos. 11}, Is. 434, Jn. 15°, 1 Jn. 48°"° 28 ete.). So, too, God is said to be * Hort, Life and Letters, vol. ii. pp. 49-51. THE BEING OF GOD 33 jealous (Exod. 20°, Deut. 321%, etc.), and grieved (Gen. 68, Is. 63%, etc.), to be pitiful and show mercy (Is. 601, Jas. 514, etc.), to feel anger (Jn. 3°6, Rev. 141°, etc.). Further, in the teaching of Christ a wide range of images borrowed from human relationships is employed to depict the character of God. Not only is He above all ‘the Father,’ but His acts are compared to those of a king, an unjust judge, an owner of sheep, a woman keeping house, etc. In all such images the life and character of God are represented in terms of human life. It could not be otherwise. Human personality is the highest form of exist- ence within our own experience, and we are obliged to think of God in terms of the highest that we know. However far God’s life may excel our own, it cannot fall below it. The God who created human personality cannot Himself be less than personal. We do not claim that in describing God in terms of human personality we are giving a complete or adequate descrip- tion of Him. All that we say is that this is the least inadequate language that we can use. The criticism has often been made that man in speaking of God as personal is really making God in his own image.* It is suggested that it would be more reverent to think of God only as the ‘great unknowable.’ Since all definition implies negation, we should only speak of Him in negative terms, as not like anything within our finite experience. f Such agnosticism is not quite so reverent as it a»pears at first sight. It involves the assumption not only that man is unable to know God, but that God is unable to reveal Himself to man. If religion is to exist as a living force, and if God wishes men to have fellowship with Himself, men must make some effort, * The German philosopher Fichte sums up the argument thus :—‘ You insist that God has personality and consciousness. What do you call personality and consciousness ? No doubt that which you find in yourselves. But the least attention will satisfy you that you cannot think this without limitation and finitude. Therefore you make the divine Being a limited being like your- selves by ascribing to Him that attribute, and you have not thought God as you wished but only multiplied yourself in thought’ (Quoted by Bruce, Apologetics, p. 81). } In substance this objection is as old as Xenophanes, who argued: ‘If the lions could have pictured a god, they would have pictured him in fashion like a lion: the horses like a horse: the oxen like an ox.’ Supposing that lions can reflect, and that ‘ lion-hood ’ is the highest kind of existence known to them, the lions who conceive of God as an unlimited lion, would seem to be more intelligent than their human critics. 0) 34. THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES however inadequate, to picture to themselves the God whom they are bidden to serve and worship. We cannot love or pray to an ‘unknowable.’ The criticism forces us to remember that our idea of God, even at its highest, is ncomplete and inadequate. We are necessarily limited by the capacities of our finite human personalities. As man’s knowledge of his own personality has deepened, so his conception of God has deepened too and become less partial and inadequate. Further, to a Christian the Incarna- tion has proved that human personality is in its measure a mirror of the Divine Personality. In Jesus Christ God gave us the fullest revelation of Himself that we at present can receive, through the medium of a perfect human life and character. Jesus Christ has demonstrated what we may call the ‘humanity’ of God. However much more there may be in the nature and being of God that cannot be expressed in terms of human life and personality or embodied in a perfect human character, and that transcends human experience altogether, still all the elements of man’s life and personality are to be found at their highest and best within the divine life and person- ality. If man is made ‘in the image of God,’ the original cannot be wholly unlike the image. So, then, we speak of God as ‘personal’ because that is the loftiest conception of Him that we are able to form. We believe that, though it is inadequate, yet it is not im its measure untrue. Further, our human person- alities are all of them imperfect and fragmentary. They hint at capacities that are only partly realized in our present life. No man taken by himself discloses even the full capacity of human nature as we know it here. We do not know what a perfect and complete human personality may mean. ‘ We are not so much > complete persons as on the road to personality.’ When we think of the Personality of God we think of Him as possessing in all their completeness all those attributes which we perceive our- selves to possess tentatively and incompletely. He alone realizes the full meaning of personality. Webb, God and Personality, Lects. III. and X. Illingworth, Personality, Human and Divine, Lects. I.-V. Harris, Pro Fide, p. 14 ff. Lotze, Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion, c. iv. Wace, Christianity and Morality, pt. i. Lect. IV. Matthews, Studies in Christian Philosophy. (6) The perversion of the truth of the personality of God is known as ‘anthropomorphism,’ We fall into this error when THE BEING OF GOD 35 we ascribe to God the limitations and imperfections of our own finite human personalities. Anthropomorphism degrades the idea of God by ascribing to Him human infirmities.* It arises from the forgetfulness that our highest conceptions of Him are inadequate. We are tempted to argue from them as if they were unreservedly true. It is largely against this danger that the next words of this Article are directed. ‘God is everlasting, without body, parts or passions, of infinite power, wisdom and goodness.’ We may take these in order. By speaking of God as ‘ ever- lasting’ (aeternus) and ‘without body,’ we mean that God is raised above the limitations of both time and space. We ourselves live in time and space. We cannot get outside them. All our experience is necessarily presented under the forms of time and space. When we say that God is above them, we do not attempt to picture God’s consciousness or to describe what they mean to Him: all that we affirm is that they impose no limitations upon His knowledge and activity as they do upon ours. If we consider our own mental pictures of either time or space, we can easily see that they are really self-con- tradictory. However far distant we travel in imagination to the beginning of time or space, there is always more time and more space beyond them. The beginning of either is to us unthinkable. This in itself suggests that our knowledge about them is only relative and imperfect. To take the thought of time first : God is eternal. We do not pretend to say what time means to God. We can only picture to ourselves eternity as an endless succession of moments. By our imaginations ‘ eternal ’ can only be viewed as ‘everlasting.’ But the eternal God is not limited by time as we are. There was no moment of time when He first came into being. Again, with us time is associated with change and decay. But God never grows old or weary (Is. 4078), Time does not hamper His knowledge or His power as it does our own. In some sense the future is as present to Him as the past. He lives ‘in an eternal present.’ It is as being eternal that He is ‘the only wise God’ (Ro. 1627) ; ‘one day is to the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day ’ (2 Pet. 38). So, too, with space. God is without body, for He is Spirit (Jn. 444, R.V. marg.). Not only does He not possess bodily needs * Cp. Browning’s Caliban on Setebos. 36 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES and appetites ; He does not need to be fed or to be awakened (cp. the protests of Ps. 501*1%), as the primitive mind supposed ; but His activity is not limited by any considerations of space. We can only imagine God as ‘ubiquitous’ or ‘ omnipresent,’ 7.e. as present in all places at the same time. But God’s presence is not in space at all: it is not on a level with that of even the most subtle of material substances. God does not occupy space like a created object. He can act always and everywhere. Nothing is hidden from His sight or His control. ‘Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth ?’ (Jer. 23%, cp. Ps. 139). In early parts of the Bible we find traces of a primitive anthropomorphism that puts God away in some distant place or confines Him to one place at a time. Thus He needs to come and see for Himself the tower of Babel (Gen. 11°) and the real truth about Sodom (Gen. 1874). Again, His power was regarded as limited to the territory of Israel (1 Sam. 26%). But such ideas were transcended as the Jewish religion progressed. In Ezekiel 1*ff., for mstance, the elaborate symbolism is an attempt to picture God’s omnipresence in Babylon no less than at Jerusalem. Any view of God that regards Him as limited by time or space detracts from His claim to our unconditional trust and obedience. We are not likely to regard God’s dominion as confined to any one country. But we are tempted to limit His dominion to certain spheres of our own life. This is a practical denial of His unlimited supremacy. God is without parts (Latin impartibilis=unable to be divided).—If God does not occupy space He is indivisible, since division implies space. But the word means more than this. We think of God as possessing certain faculties. In ourselves these may be divided one against another. We may be dis- tracted by competing interests or desires. Our reason may be opposed to our inclination. Or again, we are forced to acquire our knowledge piecemeal. Our consciousness cannot retain all that we know. We are subject to lapses of memory. But God’s being is not thus divisible. All that He is, He is essentially and not accidentally. What we from our human standpoint regard as separate attributes, His mercy, wrath, love, remem- brance, etc., are really aspects of one consistent and unchanging THE BEING OF GOD 37 Being. There can be in Him no conflict of purpose or desire. His knowledge can never fall short of full attainment. He can never forget. He can deal with all things at once. We do not need to attract His attention. His interest is not divided. ‘ Before they call, I will answer’ (Is. 65%. Contrast the taunts of Elijah in 1 Kings 18°67), God ws without passions (Latin impassibilis, a word which originally meant ‘incapable of suffering ’).—This is closely con- nected with the foregoing statement and is intended to rule out anthropomorphic ideas about the changeableness of God. The Bible does not hesitate to speak of God’s wrath, jealousy, sorrow and love. But these are not passing emotions, passions that for a time overcome God and turn Him aside from His purpose. They are rather aspects of God’s one and unchanging character. God’s purpose and character are ever one and the same. But as God deals with the manifold material of our inconsistent and variable lives, His attitude in relation to us appears to change. God’s wrath is not a transitory feeling: it is rather one aspect of His love as it deals with human sin. God’s action seems to us to change, as it meets the varying needs of His government. God is now merciful, now punishes, now restores (e.g. Is. 602° and Mt. 1827 *™¢ %4), But the change is never arbitrary. Behind it all lies the one immutable purpose and character of God, giving consistency and unity to all that He does. ‘God’s immutability is not due to carelessness or indifference. It is rather a mark of intense moral activity. It may be defined as that moral changelessness by which all the powers of God’s nature are brought under the dominion of a single consistent purpose.’* This moral constancy of God is the ground of faith and hope in Him. ‘I the Lord change not: therefore ye, O Sons of Jacob, are not consumed ’ (Mal. 3°). ‘God is not a man that he should lie’ or ‘repent ’ (Num. 231%). We cannot help using human language in speaking of God’s actions. There is a certain necessary ‘anthropomorphism.’ The only danger is that we may argue from our imperfect human conceptions as if they were complete and adequate (cp. Is. 55%°). For instance, certain theories about the atonement have been constructed out of very crude and literal ideas of the wrath of God. God’s mercy does not * W. A. Brown, Christian Theology in Outline, p. 118. 38 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES incline Him to forgive and His justice to punish: His justice is the ground of forgiveness (1 Jn. 19). God not only loves but is love (1 Jn. 48). He is ‘the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning’ (Jas. 1”), There is no contradiction within the Divine Being. Hach of the divine qualities involves all the rest (1 Jn. 1°). We can hardly deny that since God is love, He is in some sense capable of suffering. The life and Passion of Christ are the manifestation in space and time of ‘an element which is essential and eternal in the life of God.’ * This idea of the sympathy of God with human sorrow and suffering underlies much of, e.g. Hosea, the later chapters of Isaiah, ‘In all their affliction he was afflicted ’f (Is. 63°, cp. Judges 1016), and the teaching of our Lord. God rejoices over the return of sinners (e.g. Lk. 15” ?°), He can sympathize with human sorrows and sufferings. But such suffering is one aspect of His perfection. (c) God is of infinite power— With God all things are possible ’ (Mt. 1976). God’s omnipotence is the perfection of His will. He is almighty, z.e. all-sovereign: unfettered by any limitations in His actions, unbounded in His resources. All the power that exists in the universe, of body, mind or will, is in origin His. He is pleased to lend it to beings whose wills are free. As such, they may pervert or misuse it. But its source is all the time in Him and its exercise is never withdrawn from His control. ‘Precisely in this way above all others, that He is omnipotent over a free world, does God reveal the greatness of His power most clearly.’ { Thus God is not hindered in His activity by any foreign or independent power in the world. Nor yet is God limited by creation in the sense that He has exhausted His resources in it. He has inexhaustible power and wisdom in reserve. On all such points God’s infinite power is contrasted with man’s finite power. But God’s infinite power does not mean that God can do anything whatever. He cannot lie or contradict Himself (2 Tim. 215). He cannot do wrong or undo the past or make men holy apart from their own efforts. For all these things are contrary to His own laws. These laws are not imposed upon Him by any * Cp. D. White, Forgiveness and Suffering, pp. 82-91. + But the actual rendering of the verse is doubtful. s Martensen, Dogmatics, p. 81. THE BEING OF GOD 39 external necessity, but are the free expression of His own charac- ter and purpose. As Hooker writes : ‘ The Being of God is a kind of law to His working.’ ‘God is a law both to Himself and to all other things besides.’ ‘ Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit abated, let or hindered by means of this, because the imposition of this law upon Himself is His own free and voluntary act.’ * He is of infinite wisdom. Omniscience is the perfection of God’s mind as omnipotence is the perfection of God’s will.’ He s ‘the only wise God’ (Rom. 167’), Not only has God an im- mediate and perfect knowledge of the smallest detail of every event that happens upon this earth (Mt. 10*° °°, etc.), but He knows all the manifold intricacies of His universe. Every piece of truth gained, of whatever kind, is so far an entering into the mind of God. Science has been defined as ‘thinking God’s thoughts after Him.’ Further, God knows all the possibilities that lie before the world. Nothing that happens can ever take Him unawares (Heb. 41°). In what way God views the future we cannot say. All that we can affirm is that no contingency is unforeseen by Him or outside His control. He is of infinite pooneeS —The Latin bonitatis shows that goodness here means ‘kindness’ rather than holiness. It refers to God’s infinite blessings to mankind, ‘the riches of his good- ness’ (Rom. 24, cp. Tit. 34) as shown in creation, preservation and redemption. On the Being and Attributes of God, see the books quoted above, and :— Articles in H.D.B., E.R.E., etc. Webb, Problems in the Relations of God and Man, part iii. Flint, Theism. W. N. Clarke, The Christian Doctrine of God. Martensen, Dogmatics, §§ 48-51. The best modern philosophical treatment is in Pringle-Pattison, The Idea of God, but this should be read with caution. §3. ‘God is the maker and preserver of all things visible and envisible. —These words sum up the Christian view of God’s relation to the world. (a) When we say God ‘created’ the world, z.e. made it out of nothing, we are of necessity using metaphorical language. There is nothing in our own experience to correspond to such a process. We can only modify or rearrange within certain limits what already exists. We are driven to say * Hecl. Pol. I. c. ti. §2 and § 3. 4.0 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES that God ‘ created the world out of nothing’ in order to express the truth that there was nothing already existing m its own right, independently of God, out of which He made it (ep. Heb. 118, Ro. 41’). This rules out two other views of creation. (i) Plato taught that God made the world out of an mdepen- dently existing matter. This has never been completely subdued to the divine will. Accordingly all material things, our own bodies included, possess an inherent taint of evil, a certain rebelliousness against the good.* This theory has the advantage of explaining the universal existence of evil. But it contradicts the very idea of God, and leaves us in ‘dualism.’ No such dualism—the assumption of two ultimate realities—can satisfy the needs of our mind. Our in- tellect demands a single ultimate and all inclusive reality. Christianity holds that the world as made by God is ‘very good ’ (Gen. 1*4). Everything in it has a purpose. The evil in the world is due to the misuse or perversion from its true purpose, by beings possessed of free will, of what is intrinsically good. (ii) Others again holding the view that matter is intrinsically evil, and being oppressed by the pain and wickedness of the world, taught that the world was not made by God Himself but by some inferior Bemg—a Demiurge or Creator. Thus they imagined a series of Emanations from God. ‘Imagine a long chain of divine creatures, each weaker than its parent, and we come at last to one who, while powerful enough to create, is silly enough not to see that creation is wrong.’ t Such a view at bottom is not far removed from that of certain modern pessimists. Against all such views Christianity maintains that God Himself made the world, and that nothing exists in the universe, whether matter or spirit, that is independent of God or beyond His control and His care. (b) Further, God has not only created but preserves the world from moment to moment. He is the sustaining force behind all life and all existence. Accordingly we need to hold fast to two counter-truths. The first is the ‘transcendence’ of God. God is above the world. He is the Master whose will all created things serve (Ps. 291°), the Potter in whose hands men are as *For a modern presentation of a similar view, see Rolt, Vhe World’s Redemption. + Bigg, Origins of Christianity, p. 135, THE BEING OF GOD 41 clay (Is. 648, 45°). He does not depend upon the world for His existence or His consciousness (Ps. 902). Creation was an act of His own free love. The second and complementary truth is God’s ‘immanence.’ God dwells in His own world. He is present in all life. We see God in the beauty and order of nature, in all history and progress. ‘ In him we live and move and have our being ’® (Acts 1778). He is in every part of the creation at every moment, the One God and Father of all who is not only ‘over all and through all ’ but also ‘in all’ (Eph. 4°). Wherever we see life or light or goodness, there we see God (Jn. 14°"* 2°), In the discernment of truth and the voice of conscience we are in immediate contact with God. For God’s ‘ Transcendence’ see : Illingworth, Divine Transcendence, cc. i.-iv. For God’s ‘ Immanence’ see : Illingworth, Divine Immanence, cc. i.-iii. See also The Faith of a Christian, cc. i. and ii. Quick, Essays in Orthodoxy, c. 1. On the idea of creation, Chandler, Scala Mundi. W. Temple, Christus Veritas. Parts I. and II. Kach of these truths has been exaggerated to the practical exclusion of the other. Thus we get : (i) Deism.*—This view of the world exaggerated the idea of God’s transcendence. The Deists practically taught that God made the world, started it and left it to run by itself likea machine. | God was regarded as living afar off, apart from the life of the world, with little or no interest in its concerns. The world pursued its course in accordance with certain fixed laws. God was an absentee God, at most returning occasionally to visit the world, when His visits were marked by strange and violent catastrophes. God’s active sovereignty was practically denied. His presence was recognized only in the abnormal. No view of God’s relation to the world is more impossible for the mind of to-day than this. Modern science is always bringing before us the complex and unceasing energy of God in the world of nature and in the pro- cesses of evolution. The world is seen to be not a piece of mechanism but a living organism. God is recognized as present not one bit less in the orderly progress of life than in startling and unusual events. (ii) Pantheism.—This isolates and exaggerates the truth of the Divine Immanence. It views all that exists as equally the mani- * We must distinguish between ‘ Deism’ and ‘ Theism.’ Deism is the view here described. Theism is simply belief in a God. 42 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES festation of the one divine life. God is conceived as having no existence above and apart from his own self-realization in the world. He has no conscious life except where the one great universal world-life rises to self-consciousness in creation. At death the individual life falls back into that universal life from whence it came. “The one remains, the many change and pass; .e. Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.’ Accordingly all things must be as they are. ‘ Whatever is, is right.’ This universe is only an eternal process which must go on along its course. Man may be conscious of his own life, but he cannot alter or amend it. The universal life realizes itself equally in all that exists, pleasure and pain, false and true, good and bad. Pantheism has a great fascination for many minds. It appeals to man’s love of consistency. The man whose interest in science or philosophy usurps a disproportionate place in his life, is readily attracted by a view of the world that gives him the unity for which he seeks. Pantheism appeals to man’s intellectual and contemplative faculties at the cost of his moral and social faculties. It is found in the religions of the Kast and in much modern philosophy. In a slightly different form it underlies certain forms of ‘scientific monism,’ in which the idea of one universal matter underlying all existence is substituted for the idea of one universal life or spirit. But pantheism fails to give an account of the whole of experience. It cannot explain certain facts of life. Man’s indignation at wrong-doing ; his conviction — of the eternal difference between right and wrong ; his sense of re- sponsibility ; the efforts and struggles of the moral life; all these contradict pantheism. If all things are equally a manifestation of the divine life, then the ultimate value of all moral distinctions mnust be denied. But our sense of right and wrong is a fact that demands explanation. Pantheism does not explain it so much as explain it away. Unless we are prepared to throw over- board the whole of the moral life of mankind as an illusion, we cannot accept pantheism. The God of pantheism is no God at all. ‘The immanence of God becomes ...a polite expression for the beauty and fruitfulness of nature, human and otherwise.’ THE BEING OF GOD AB As against pantheism the Christian holds that God is above as well as in the world. He does not depend upon the world for His life, and no moral evil is in accordance with His mind. Pantheism expresses one side of a great truth, a truth that the earlier generations largely ignored. But it does not express the whole truth. For a typical description of pantheism in poetry see : Swinburne, Hertha. For a criticism of Pantheism see : Bruce, Apologetics, c. iil. Chandler, Faith and Experience, preface, p. vii. ff. Gore, The New Theology, Lect. III. Cp. also McDowall, Evolution and Spiritual Life, cc. ii.-v. Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, vol. i. i.-iv. Pringle-Pattison, Art. I., in The Spirit (criticized in Gore, Belief in God, p- 69 ff.). § 4. And in unity of this Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.—(a) This formal statement of the doctrine of the Trinity did not come ready-made into the world. It is the result of the Church’s efforts to express in the simplest possible terms the new truths about God that she had come to know through the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. The doctrine was not the result of abstract speculation. The Person and claims of Christ raised new problems about the nature of God and demanded new explanations. There were certain very definite concrete facts of history and experience, of which Christians were compelled to give some account. (i) The first disciples of Jesus Christ were Jews. As such they worshipped and served the One God. Their knowledge of God was confirmed and deepened by intimacy with their Master. He Himself reaffirmed the Unity of God. He employed the Jewish Scriptures. He joined in the worship of the Synagogue and Temple. He prayed and taught others to pray to the Father, identifying Him with the God of the Old Covenant. (ii) Through their prolonged intercourse with Him the discrples became convinced that our Lord too was divine. He spoke of Himself as ‘Son of Man,’ * and Himself interpreted the meaning * The title seems to come from Dan. 7%. There it denotes not an individual but a figure in human form, which is interpreted as ‘ the saints of the most high,’ v. 27. That is, it stands for Israel, in contrast with the beasts, which stand for heathen nations. But very soon ‘One like unto a son of man’ came to be interpreted as an individual, the Messiah. In the Book of Enoch this interpre- tation is made explicit. ‘The Son of Man’ isa superhuman being, who executes 44 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES of that title in the light of Dan. 73% (e.g. Mk. 14°"). They were compelled to ask ‘what manner of man is this ?’ (Mt. 8’, etc). By His questions He encouraged them to think out for them- selves who He was. He commended St. Peter who could find no word short of ‘ Messiah ’ able to contain all that He had shown Himself to be. He claimed a unique intimacy with the Father (Mt. 112527). In His own name He revised and deepened the law of Moses (Mt. 5%, etc.). He taught His disciples to repose in Him an unlimited confidence that no mere man had the right to demand of his fellow-men (Mt. 7%, etc.). He died for His claim to be the Christ and the Son of God (Mk. 14®). The whole impression made upon them by His life and works was crowned and brought to consciousness by His Resurrection (e.g. Ro. 14). He was indeed the Son of God. No language short of this could express the place that He had come to fill in their lives. For the impression made by our Lord on His disciples see Carnegie Simpson, Zhe Fact of Christ, cc. i. and ii., or Mackintosh, Lectures on the Person of Jesus Christ (Christian Student Movement). Cp. also Weston, The One Christ, c. ii. Liddon, Bampton Lect. IV. (1) He had spoken to the disciples of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, as divine yet distinct from Himself * (Jn. 1416 and 15°), They were to expect the Spirit’s coming when He was gone (Acts 1**). In that coming He Himself would come too (Jn. 1438). At Pentecost they had a personal experience of the Holy Spirit. A new and lasting power entered into their lives. They knew that He too could be no less than God. Further, in the Baptismal formula the teaching of Christ is summed up.f Converts are to be baptized ‘into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’ (Mt. 28'%). The name is one. It belongs equally to the three Persons, who are associated on an equality and dis- tinguished from one another by the use of the definite article. God’s judgment. How far it was a recognized Messianic title in our Lord’s day, is disputed. He would hardly have assumed it if it was popularly regarded as synonymous with Messiah. From the first it contained the idea of humanity, as such. So we can quite legitimately see in our Lord’s use of it the meaning of perfect or ideal man. See Art. ‘Son of Man’ in H.D.B. vol. iv. * It is not easy to distinguish in the fourth Gospel between our Lord’s actual words and the Evangelist’s own meditation upon them, but on such a point we can hardly suppose that the teaching of Christ was misapprehended. { The genuineness of this will be discussed later. THE BEING OF GOD AB (iv) We turn to the witness of the early Church as presented in Scripture. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Apocalypse we find evidence of a new life and experience shared by men and women of very diverse types and races. They worshipped the Father. But they placed Jesus the Messiah side by side with Him and applied to Him the divine name Kupros,* familiar to Jews as the translation of Jehovah in the Septuagint, and to Gentiles as a title of heathen gods. The ~ disciples’ experience of the power of Christ was not ended by the Ascension. He was still a living Saviour. The life that flowed from Him was divine.f In the hour of death St. Stephen prayed to Him (Acts 7°). The cures wrought in His name were proclaimed to be His work as really as those wrought during His earthly ministry (Acts 316, 9%). ‘ Jesus is Lord ’ was the earliest profession of faith (1 Cor. 12°). He was worshipped (1 Tim. 31°), The Church was His body, filled with His life (1 Cor. 127%, Eph. 412, etc.). He was daily expected to return as judge in glory (Acts 371, 1 Thess. 416, etc.). So, too, the Holy Spirit revealed His own divine power in many ways. Not only did He bestow supernatural gifts, such as prophecy and speaking with tongues, but He shed abroad in men’s hearts new peace and light and strength (Ro. 846), Christians witnessed by their changed lives to His indwelling presence (Gal. 5274, Ro. 87, 1518, Eph. 31, etc.). A practical belief in the Father, the Son and the Spirit under- lies such passages as these : ‘If any man hath not the Spirit of God, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus shall quicken also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you ’ (Ro. 8°1). ‘Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect . . . according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ ’ (1 Pet. 17). * EKither 1 Thessalonians or Galatians is the earliest extant epistle of St. Paul. See the opening words of each, 1 Thess. 11 and Gal. 1°. + We need to remember that the ‘ Christ’ of the Epistles is earlier than the * Jesus’ of the Gospels. The Gospels were written by and for men who believed in the glorified Christ . 46 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES ‘Hereby we know that we abide in him, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whoso- ever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God’ (1 Jn. 41%). A long list of similar passages might be given.* They all spring out of a fresh and vivid spiritual experience. In every case the writer is not consciously repeating the teaching of Christ. He is giving first-hand evidence out of his own life. Nor again are such statements consciously theological. Christians knew that since Jesus Christ had come into their lives they had passed from darkness into light. Their hearts were aglow with a new- found joy and peace. St. Paul, for stance, expected his converts to understand the meaning of his phrases from their own spiritual experiences. He is confident that a share in this new life is open to all who will believe in Christ. In speaking almost casually of ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost’ (2 Cor. 13')} he simply sums up the working faith of the Christian community. On the whole question see especially Gore, Belief in Christ, i.-vi. Robinson, Christ and the Church, c. iv. Denney, Jesus and the Gospel, Bk. I. Cp. also, Mackintosh, T'he Originality of the Christian Message. (6) (i) In the first reception of the good news Christians were hardly aware that there was an intellectual problem to be solved. They were not conscious that their faith was inconsistent with monotheism. St. Paul can still write: ‘To us there is one God, the Father of whom are all things,’ though he proceeds to add immediately ‘and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things ’ (1 Cor. 88, cp. 1 Tim. 25, Acts 14% and 17%). 0 eos is in the New Testament applied to the Father alone, but, on the most natural interpretation, Qe0s is applied to our Lord in * H.g. Ro. 64-5; 814-17) 1516=19 and 30) 1 Cor, 2°=16,7129-1) 2 Corals set eas Eph. '4°-?) li Thess. 1*2’, Tit. 34-8) Heb. 9'451 0? 3th Inet S, + These words were written not more than thirty years after our Lord’s Ascension. It is obvious that St. Paul is not employing new or unfamiliar language. He expects the Corinthians at once to grasp his meaning. ‘St. Paul and the Church of his day thought of the supreme source of spiritual blessing as not single but threefold—threefold in essence and not merely in manner of speech ’ (Sanday, H.D.B. vol. ii. p. 213). The form of speech suggests at once teaching on the lines of the baptismal formula of Mt. 28%. See Plummer on 2 Cor. 13*4. THE BEING OF GOD AT Ro. 9% and Tit. 23%.* Divine names, titles and functions that in the Qld Testament belong to God, are freely ascribed to Him (Heb. 11°72, Rev. 11’, etc.). So, too, language is employed about the Holy Spirit that implies His divinity. We may sum up their attitude thus, ‘In the first flush of their new hope Christians rather felt than reasoned out the conviction that their master was divine. It was a certainty of heart and mind —but the mind could hardly subject the conception to the pro- cesses of reason—the soul leapt to the great conclusion, even though the mind might lag behind. They did not stay to reason : they knew.’ f But even from the first it was necessary in preaching the Gospel to express in words something of what the Saviour had proved Himself to be to His disciples. In the opening chapters of the Acts we find a very rudimentary theology. Jesus is the Messiah. At least in the earlier books of the New Testament, ‘Christ ’ is no proper name, but a title of almost incomparable dignity and honour (Acts 2%°, etc.). He had fulfilled all Old Testament prophecy (Acts 378, etc.). He was the suffering servant of Jehovah (Acts 31%, 76 etc.). Through His death redemption had been won (cp. 1 Pet. 174). A crucified Messiah was a scandal to the Jews, and already through controversy Christians were forced to explain the meaning of His death. He was the Son of God, whose sonship had been vindicated by the Resurrection (Acts 97°, 1388, etc.). The Resurrection made clear before men that the Death was not defeat but triumph. Klsewhere we find a further exercise of reflection. St. Paul bids his converts at Philippi meditate upon the divine self- sacrifice involved in the Incarnation. ‘Have this mind in you which was also in Messiah Jesus, who existing (Urapywv) in the form of God (uopdy implying more than outward resemblance, essential being) counted it not a prize (a thing to be clutched hold of) to be on an equality with God (70 efva: ica), but emptied himself (z.e. of His divine glory), taking the form of a servant (uopdny, again. His humanity and divinity were both equally real. He shared truly both the nature of God and ourselves), * So, too, the most probable reading in Jn. 118 is wovoyevys Oeds (instead of vids). Cp.‘ My Lord and my God’ in Jn. 20%, which forms the climax of the Gospel. ¢ Bethune Baker, Christian Doctrines ; how they arose, p. 16, 48 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES being made (yevouevos in contrast to Urapxwv and TO etvat) in the likeness of men’ (Phil. 2°”).* This is not primarily a lesson in doctrine but in humility : its theology is all the more valuable because it is incidental. The illustration is meaningless unless St. Paul and his converts shared a common belief that Jesus of Nazareth had in some sense existed as God, before He came down to earth. This same belief is implied no less clearly in 2 Cor. 8°. Again at Colossae St. Paul had to deal with false teaching about angels. This he meets by asserting the ‘cosmic signifi- cance’ of Jesus Christ, 2.e. His supremacy in the universe. ‘He is the image of the invisible God,’ ‘the first-born (7.e. the heir) of all creation ’ (or possibly ‘ begotten before all creation ’). ‘In him all things were created,’ including the angels themselves. He is the agent and goal of creation. ‘All thimgs have been created through him and unto him.’ He is the power behind the world. ‘In him all things hold together’ (Col. 1% 1’). In this passage St. Paul does not call Him the Logos, but he assigns to Him the functions of the Logos. He holds the central place in the history and meaning of the universe. Similarly, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews insists upon the unique relation of Christ to God, in contrast with that of the angels. ‘God hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son (év viw, literally in ‘one who is Son,’ as opposed to the prophets who are servants), whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds: who being the effulgence of his glory and the very image of his substance and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high’ (Heb. 1**). | In Jn. 1*™ (cp. Rev. 191%) we find the explicit use of a technical theological term. The historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth is identified with the ‘ Logos’ or ‘ Word’ or ‘ Reason ’ of God. ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ The contrast between Jesus Christ and all men who had gone before is between those who bore witness to the Light and the Light Himself. Jesus Christ is asserted to be the eternal author of all the life and truth and goodness of the created world. But the term Logos can only be understood by a reference to contemporary thought.f * See Vincent, ad loc. {See below, p. 52, THE BEING OF GOD 49 Passages such as these contain a large amount of theological reflection. Their aim is primarily practical, the diffusion of moral and spiritual health. But they mark the lines along which theology was bound to develop, if it was to be faithful to Christian experience. See Carnegie Simpson, The Fact of Christ, co. ui. and iv. (u) In the writings of the sub-apostolic times we find a like belief in God as revealed in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The Church’s faith is shown more decisively in her hymns, doxologies and worship, or in her Baptisms and Eucharists than in formal theological statement. The heathen Pliny, for instance, speaks of Christians simging hymns to Christ ‘as to a God.’ * In the letters of St. Ignatius and St. Clement ft of Rome passages are to be found similar to those already quoted from the New Testament. But this condition of devotion uninterrogated by reason could not be final. Human nature, and not least Greek human nature, was as inquisitive and argumentative then as it is to-day. Liven in the pages of the New Testament we find traces of false teaching that raised deep theological problems. Questions were asked and could not be checked. ‘ Why is it right to worship Jesus as Lord and yet refuse to burn incense to the Emperor.’ ‘If Jesus Christ is God’s Son, is he truly God ? If so, are there two Gods or one?’ Even a child could ask such questions. It was not unreasonable for men who might be called upon to die for their faith at any moment, to wish to be able to give some account of it. Further, not only were such questions as these asked, but explanations were given by indi- vidual teachers that the Church felt to be false or madequate. The Church did not wish to speculate, but in the presence of teaching that denied or explained away the truth that she was commissioned to teach and by whose fulness she lived, she could no longer be silent. Not only the enquiries of religious men * Pliny, Hp. 10, § 96, Carmen Christo quasi deo dicere. + E.g. Clement, ad Cor. c. 46, ‘ Have we not one God and one Christ and one Spirit of grace, that was poured upon us.’ c. 58, ‘ As God liveth and the Lord Jesus Christ liveth and the Holy Spirit, who are both the faith and hope of the elect.’ Ignatius, ad Hph. c. 9, ‘As being stones prepared beforehand unto a building of God the Father, being carried up to the heights through the engine of Jesus Christ, which is the Cross, using the rope of the Holy Spirit.’ Ad Magn. ec. 13, ‘that ye may be prospered...in the Son and the Father and the Spirit.’ So also ad Rom. c. 6, he speaks of ‘the passion of my God,’ D 50 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES but the assertions of ‘ heretics ’ compelled the Church to think out her belief and find words in which to express it. Her aim was, in the first instance, practical and religious, not theological. She wished to safeguard her own worship and vitality. So she was always saying ‘no’ to various explanations which, though plausible and attractive, gained their simplicity at the cost of ignoring or explaining away some of the facts. The human mind naturally dislikes mystery * and is attracted to what is simple. But the Church, out of loyalty to the whole truth, had the courage to set aside all such inadequate explana- tions. Her aim throughout was that the Christian faith in all its mysterious fulness might be handed on undiminished to future generations. Armitage Robinson, Athanasian Creed, Lect. I. Gore, Bampton Lect. IV. §§ 2 and 3. (c) Christianity was born into a world that was full of religion. (i) There was, of course, Judaism, not only the Judaism of Palestine but the more liberal Judaism of the dispersion, which had gathered around itself in all lands a circle of ‘ God-fearing ’ Gentiles, attracted by its strict monotheism and its lofty moral teaching. In this way Jewish ideas of God were spread abroad far more widely than we might have supposed. Outside Jewish influences in the heathen world we may draw a sharp distinction between the religion of the philosophers and the religion of the plain man. Philosophers had attained to the idea of the unity of God, though their God was often regarded as a being unknown and unknowable, far removed from the world of common things. Popular religion interposed between the God of the philosophers and the needs of the ordinary man an indefinite number of divine ~ beings of uncertain status, gods, demi-gods, heroes, spirits and the like, to whom worship was offered and who were supposed to have great influence on worldly affairs. These were real objects of pagan devotion. Further, Greek thought had become largely orientalized. Ideas such as that of the impossibility of a good God having contact with an evil matter, dominated the theological speculation of the more thoughtful pagans. Yet * Cp. Hooker, v. ‘The strength of our faith is tried by those things wherein our wits and capacities are not strong. Howbeit because this divine mystery is more true than plain, divers having framed the same to their own conceits and fancies, are found in their expositions thereof more plain than true.’ THE BEING OF GOD 51. again the mystery-religions of the Hast had won their way to popular favour. They offered the hope of immortality and salvation from death to the initiated. This salvation was too often conceived in physical rather than moral terms. Such religions encouraged vague religious emotions divorced from practical holiness. There was no orthodox pagan creed. The various cults lived, on the whole, in friendly terms with one another. The result was a medley of vague and shifting popular theology, with a background of serious and more or less con- sistent philosophical theory. There were plenty of ideas about God in the air, even if those ideas were not always defined. On contemporary religion see: Kirsopp Lake, Earlier Epistles of St. Paul. Glover, Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, ce. i-iii. and vii. and for later times : Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics and Hellenism and Christianity. Bigg, The Church’s Task in the Roman Empire, Lects. II. and III. Dill, Roman Society in the last Century of the Western Empire, ec. iv. Accordingly the Christian Church had the greatest difficulty in framing a vocabulary in which to express her meaning. She was driven to borrow words and phrases from Jewish and heathen thought, to separate them from vague or popular or pagan senses, and to stamp upon them a new and technical limitation which they were very far from possessing in popular usage. Then she had to bring her teachers to a common agreement to employ them only in this limited sense, at least in all formal definitions of the faith. ‘If the church was compelled to devote an infinitely minute and subtle attention to the adaptation and definition of words it was because it had new and high and infinitely important things to express, and had to create, although out of existing materials, a language in which truly and ade- quately to express them.’* This was the source of infinite danger. Christianity had opened a new world of ideas and truths. But the familiarity and associations of the old language tended to disguise the novelty of the ideas and truths that it was being used to convey. Men were tempted to endeavour to make Christ and Christianity fit in with their own current conceptions of religion, not to expand and reform those conceptions in the * Du Bose, Ecumenical Councils, p. 95. The whole passage pp. 94-95 should be read. 52 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES light of a fuller disclosure of truth. Human nature is always conservative, and in all doctrinal controversy there was the disposition to water down the Christian faith so as to accommo- date the facts to the words and not to expand the words so as to embrace the facts. This building up of a Christian terminology by conflict with false teaching was a slow process. We must be prepared to find in earlier writers tentative expressions that a later age would condemn as ambiguous or even heretical. Terms that came in time to be employed only in a limited and technical sense, were at first used with a certain ambiguity. As we follow out the course of controversy through which the formulas of the Church took shape, we shall find abundant illustrations of these difficulties and dangers. (ii) We can now turn to contemporary Jewish ideas about God. Few to-day would undertake to prove the doctrine of the Trinity from the Old Testament. Since, however, the Jews received a special revelation of God we are not surprised to find that Jewish faith could not rest content in a bare Unitarianism. We find in the Old Testament and in later Jewish theology several lines of thought which pointed towards the recognition of distinctions within the Divine Being. (a) In opposition to surrounding polytheism, the Jews laid stress on the Unity and transcendence of God. Hence the need was felt of some link between God and the created world. The Rabbis of Palestine elaborated the idea of God’s ‘word,’ as the creative or self- revealing utterance of God. This idea started from such passages as ‘ By the word of the Lord were the Heavens made’ (Ps. 33°) and ‘God sent his word and healed them ’ (Ps. 107?°, cp. 147%), Again, the special revelation given to the prophets is called God’s ‘word.’ ‘The word of the Lord came’ (Joel 1, etc.). ‘The word which Isaiah saw ’ (Is. 21). God’s word came to be regarded as a manifestation of God, yet distinct from Him. In the Targums * this is made explicit. The action of God is con- stantly assigned to His word, e.g. ‘The Lord protected Noah by His Word.’ ‘The Word is the active expression of the rational character and so may well stand for the person from whom it issues. As applied to God . . . it preserved the reality of a divine * The Targums are paraphrases of the Scriptures; though probably not com- mitted to writing till after the time of Christ, they embody a far earlier Pales- tinian tradition. See Westcott, S/’. John, p. xvi. “ THE BEING OF GOD 53 fellowship for man.’ * A kindred idea is found in the mention of ‘the Angel of Jehovah’ and the ‘ Angel of the Covenant,’ who appear to be both identified with and distinguished from Jehovah (e.g. Gen. 16 compared with 161°, Hos. 12*°, Jos. 544 compared with 67, Mal. 3!) +. So, too, God’s ‘ Name,’ 7.e. God’s self-revela- tion, is almost personified (e.g. Hx. 23%, Is. 30”). God’s ‘Presence’ (Deut. 4°’, cp. Is. 63°) and God’s ‘Glory’ (Ex. 3318 compared with v. 7°, 1 K. 814, cp. Jas. 21, where Jesus Christ is called ‘the Glory’) are all in some way viewed as manifestations of God, yet distinct from Him. In such ways as these Hebrew thinkers strove to combine the transcendence of God with His activity in the created world. They represented His self-revelation as mediated by an Agent, who was viewed as more or less personal and yet divine. A partially distinct and more philosophical use of the term ‘Word’ is found in Alexandrian Judaism. Here the ‘ Word’ means not so much * Utterance’ as ‘ Reason.’ t The Word of God is closely akin to the Wisdom of God. In the Wisdom Literature the use of ‘ Word’ is tending in this direction (e.g. Wisdom 9'?, 18° ff.). In Prov. 8% wisdom is pictured as dwelling with God from eternity (cp. Wisdom 8?°, 9° ff., and Ecclus. 24+ ff. where wisdom is identified with the Law). The idea is of God’s thought or plan. As the plan of a work of art exists in the artist’s mind before he realizes it in his work, so the rational principle of the world existed in the thought of God before it proceeded forth to be actualized in creation. In Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, in the first century A.D., the Logos is the Divine Reason issuing forth from God for purposes of creation. The Logos is not strictly personal, but on the way to becoming so. Through the Logos God comes into contact with the world : its presence is to be seen in the order and system of creation and in the moral and social life of mankind.§ * Op. cit. p. xvi. + Up to the time of St. Augustine the Fathers universally identified the Angel of the Lord with the Second Person of the Trinity. t It must be remembered that \éyos is at once a deeper and a vaguer term than the English ‘ Word ’ in its ordinary significance. édyos includes ‘ reason,’ ‘principle,’ ‘ thought.’ § In Philo the Logos is styled ‘the image of God,’ ‘the elder son of God? (the universe being God’s younger son), ‘the high-priest of the universe,’ etc. Philo would have agreed with the prologue to St. John’s Gospel, as far as the statement ‘the Word was made flesh.’ 54 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES At this point Jewish and Gentile thought meet. Alexandrian Judaism was strongly influenced by Greek philosophy. The idea of the Logos or reason of God permeating all things and constituting the rational unity of all life, was common to much of the higher thought of the day. In the Stoic philosophy, which came to be the religion of most educated men, the life and unity of the world was derived from the ovepuatixos Adyos, the ‘ generative reason,’ whence all things came and in virtue of which they lived. Stoicism was pantheistic. God and man were akin because they both shared the divine Reason and in so far as men conformed their conduct to the divine Reason they shared the life of God Himself. The Stoics in reality had no personal God. If they tolerated the belief in the many gods of the traditional faith, they viewed Ben as like themselves, manifestations of the ‘ generative reason.’ (8) We find also in the Old Testament the idea of the ‘ Spinit of God.’ The Hebrew word like the Greek wvevua embraces many shades of meaning, ‘ breath,’ ‘ wind,’ ‘life,’ ‘spirit.’ Its exact shade of meaning in any particular instance is not always easy to discover. As in man ‘breath’ is the proof of life, so the ‘breath’ or the ‘spirit’ came to stand for the ‘life.’ By a natural analogy any unusual exhibition of power from the strength of Samson (Judg. 141%) or the skill of Bezaleel (Ex. 36+) to the insight of the prophets came to be attributed to the presence of the Spirit of God. It is an almost physical concep- tion. ‘The Spirit of God is the vital energy of the divine nature, corresponding to the higher vitality of man.’ ‘The breath of God vitalizes what the Word creates’ * (eg. Gen. 1). To a limited extent personal qualities and acts are attributed to the Spirit, since the Spirit is God (Is. 63% 1°, 4816). ‘It is the living energy of a Personal God.’ In Wisdom 1° it is identified with the divine Wisdom. We cannot say more than that the con- ception of the Spirit of God paved the way for the thought of personal distinctions within the Bemg of God.t On the preparation for the doctrine of the Trinity in Judaism, see: H.D.B., Arts. God, pp. 206-207 ; Logos; Trinity, p. 308. Also, Le Breton, Les Origines du Dogma de la Triniteé. * Swete, H.D.B. vol. ii. p. 403. + It is usually agreed that apart from the historical facts of the Incarnation, we could not distinguish between the activity of the Word and the Spirit. THE BEING OF GOD 55 (d) In stating her faith the Church tried as far as possible to employ the language of Scripture. The language and thought of the New Testament is dominated throughout by the historical facts of the human life of Jesus Christ. He lived above all as the ‘Son’ of God. He spoke of the ‘ Father’ who sent Him, and revealed the Father through a perfect life of sonship. He also spoke of the ‘Spirit ’ of God whom He would send. Thus the terms ‘ Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ refer primarily to the manifestation of God through the life of Jesus Christ.* So, too, the Church came to speak of the Son as ‘ begotten’ of the Father, and the Holy Spirit as ‘ proceeding from’ the Father, because that is the language of Scripture, shaped by the outward events and consequences of the Incarnation. To use a technical phrase, all such expressions refer in the first instance to the ‘ Economic Trinity,’ 2.e. the Trinity as revealed by God’s threefold dealing with men, Godhadmade Himself known through the life of Christ and the coming of the Spirit as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. But even within the New Testament Christians had begun to think out the relation of Jesus of Nazareth to all history and all existence. To call Him the ‘ Christ ’ was to find a place for Him within the eternal purposes of God. To some extent, at least, Jewish thought had come to regard the Messiah as existing from all eternity with God, waiting to be revealed in His own time.f But for the Gentile world the title Christ had no interest. Its value needed to be translated into other terms. As the missions of the Church extended, one wider and more universal designa- tion had to be found to express all that Jesus Christ was felt to be not only for the Jews but for the whole world. Accordingly by St. John He is identified with the Logos, the Word or Reason of God. He had revealed to those who knew Him the meaning of all life and al] existence. And this identification had been anticipated by St. Paul. In a passage such as Col. 11516 though he does not use the term Logos, he attributes to Christ just that central position in the divine economy that Jewish and Gentile thought assigned to the Logos. By this identification the * This explains the mention of only two Persons in almost ali apostolic salutations. They are not maimed Trinitarian formulas. Rather the writers have in mind not the doctrine of the Trinity as such, but the revelation of God as Incarnate. See Moberly, Atonement and Personality, pp. 188-193. + Cp. 1 Enoch 48?-7 and 62°-%, 56 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES supreme claims of Christ were made intelligible to the educated world. But even so the Christian Church never allowed herself to lose sight of the living Personality of the Saviour. The centre of her devotion and her penitence was always the historic figure of Christ crucified. So, even within the New Testament the Church was advancing in her belief from the ‘ Economic’ to the ‘ Essential’ Trinity. That is, she was coming to see that the threefold revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit rested upon and pointed back to a threefold distinction within the very bemg of God. About the ‘ Essential! ’ Trinity, the relations of the Three Persons as they are to one another in the eternal life of God, Scripture says very little. Human language and thought are obviously incapable of dealing with such a subject. The terms Father and Son, for instance, which were borrowed from temporal and human relationships, must clearly be used with caution. We need great care in applying any words spoken by our Lord in His earthly life, through human lips, to the Essential Trinity. The Essential Trinity, however, is clearly implied in Jn. 11. (Cp. also Jn. 17°.) It is also hinted at m Mt. 117’ and Lk. 1072, where the Son’s knowledge of the Father depends on a previously existing Sonship, not the Sonship on the knowledge. As we shall see, the very ambiguity of these terms ‘Son,’ ‘Word,’ ‘Spirit,’ was the cause of infinite confusion of thought. The Church in usmg them employed them in a special sense. But Jewish and Gentile Christians were in danger of continuing to use them in their old sense and carrying with them ideas of God which fell short of Christian truth. (ec) We may now turn to the attempts made to explain the fact of Christ, which the Church rejected as madequate or untrue. (i) First in time comes the tendency known as ‘ Ebionism.’ * The term is vague and covers many shades of belief. Ebionites were those who endeavoured to interpret Jesus Christ in the light of previous Jewish ideas about God and redemption. The Jewish mind was dominated by two great conceptions, first the * The name is probably derived from a word meaning ‘ poor.’ The Ebionites identified themselves with the ‘ poor’ and meek who were persecuted by the wicked rich. Others, less probably, derive the name from one Ebion, the reputed founder of the heresy. Others suppose it to have originated as a title of contempt bestowed on the first Jewish Christians. THE BEING OF GOD 57 transcendence of God, secondly the final and unchangeable character of the Law, given by God Himself, through obedience to which salvation could be obtained. Starting from the former conception the Hbionites regarded the idea of a real Incarnation as blasphemous. It was unthinkable that the high and holy God could degrade Himself by appearing in human form on earth. Further, to suppose that Jesus Christ was God endangered the unity of God. No, Jesus of Nazareth must be a man pre- eminent for holiness, upon whom the divine ‘ Word’ came at His baptism, constituting Him the Christ and in whose life the ‘Spirit ’ of God was manifested.* Before His death the ‘ Word ’ or the ‘Christ’ left Him. It was only the man Jesus who died and rose again. Again, if salvation could be gained by the observance of the Law, there was no need of a Saviour. Jesus Christ could be at most a new prophet or law-giver, a ‘second Moses, sent not to supersede but to fulfil an1 elucidate the Law. Christians were to obtain salvation by a right obser- vance of the Law as interpreted by Him. For this purpose a uniquely inspired prophet was all that was required. Enough has been said to show that Ebionism was an attempt to explain the facts in the light of a priori Jewish ideas. Hbionites refused to enlarge their ideas of God and redemption in the light of a fuller revelation. They desired to reduce Christ and the Christian revelation to terms acceptable to the Jewish mind, and to interpret Christianity by Judaism, not Judaism by Christianity. This tendency underlay the controversy about the keeping of the Law and the admission of Gentiles. The infant Church at Jerusalem began as a sect within Judaism. The full import of the claims and work of Christ was realized only by degrees. Through controversy the distinction between Judaism and Christianity was made apparent, and it became clear that * As we might expect, thoroughgoing Ebionites denied the Virgin-birth. + Attempts have been made to represent Ebionism as the original Christianity unspoilt by the teaching of St. Paul. It is rather a degenerate form of primitive Christianity. The Ebionites refused to advance to the full Catholic view of our Lord’s Person and so they tended to sink below the primitive conception of Christ. We must not suppose, however, that all ‘ Ebionites’ were unorthodox. Many who bore the name went no further than to combine Christianity with the keeping of the Jewish Law. Such a compromise could not last, though Ebionites of this kind are mentioned as late as the fourth century. Others combined Ebionite with Gnostic and Docetic teaching. 58 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES Jesus Christ was too great to be confined within Jewish categories. For Ebionism see : Bethune Baker, Christian Doctrine, pp. 62-68. “ Ebionism,’’ in Hastings’ H.R.H. vol. v. Du Bose, Heumenical Councils, c. iti. (ii) Docetism.—If Ebionism stands for the attempt to find a place for Jesus Christ within Judaism, Docetism stands for the attempt to find a place for Him within the circle of current Gentile ideas about God, the world and redemption. Its root is to be found in the dualism that characterized so much of the Greek and Oriental thought of the day. In the attempt to explain the pain and suffering of the world, men had come to find the origin of evil in matter, which was imperfectly subdued to the will of God. Hence, all that was material possessed an in- herent taint of evil. Now, if God is good and matter evil, a real Incarnation is unthinkable. The good God could never pollute Himself by entering into union with matter. Men needed rather a Saviour who would free them from bondage to matter. So the physical side of our Lord’s life, His birth, His eating and drinking, His passion, death and Resurrection must all be only an ‘ appear- ance’ (doxetv—hence ‘Docetism’). His Body itself must be only a phantom, like the bodies of angels when they appeared to men (e.g. Tobit. 121%). Again, the Greek mind always tended to identify salvation with enlightenment. If men only need one who will enlighten them by revealing the truth about God and themselves, a Docetic Christ would answer all requirements. Docetism can supply a picture of God and redemption. If Christianity is only a religion of ideas, an apparent Incarnation — would serve to disclose them to men, as well as a real Incarnation. Docetism was a tendency rather than a system. Docetists varied in the extent to which they allowed their ideas to dominate their teaching. Within the New Testament we find evidence for the existence of Docetism. 1 Jn. 114, 4%3 and 2 Jn. 7 are aimed at those who denied that Jesus Christ had ‘come in the flesh.’ * The letters of Ignatius are full of denunciations of this heresy.f The Church felt that it undermined the historical character of her Saviour. * Possibl} Gal. 4? and Heb. 2!’ refer to a similar tendency. *e «68 THE BEING OF GOD 59 Both Ebionism and Docetism spring from ideas about the nature of God. Hence their place is in any discussion about the doctrine of the Trinity rather than that of the Person of Christ. If they were accepted, the need of any restatement of the doctrine of God disappeared. The question before the Church was this, Are we to take existing ideas about God and God’s relation to the world and make the new facts square with them as best they may? Or are we to accept and face the new facts and, if necessary, enlarge our ideas about God in the light of this wider knowledge ?* For Docetism see: Art. ‘ Docetism,’ in #.R.£E. Du Bose, Heumenical Councils, c. ili. (iii) The tendencies of thought disclosed in Ebionism and Docetism underlay all the many false explanations, in conflict with which the doctrine of the Trinity was developed. In opposition to Gnosticism which interposed a large number of Emanations between God and the world, Christians were com- pelled to insist on the unity or ‘ Monarchia ’ of God, the Creator and sustainer of all things. The question then arose: What position is to be given to Jesus Christ ? Under the influence of a conception of the Unity of God that was borrowed from Judaism or Gentile philosophy attempts were made to safeguard the unity of God either by denying the full divinity of Christ or by identifying Him with the Father. So we find two types of answer (a) ‘Dynamic’ Monarchianism, (6) * Modal’ Monarchi- anism. (a) Dynamic or Ebionite Monarchianism gave practically the answer of the Ebionites. Jesus Christ was a mere man (WiAds GvOpwz7os). From His birth or baptism a divine Logos, 2.e. influence or power, resided in Him. As a reward of His moral excellence and unity of will with God, He was raised to divine honour. This was taught at Rome by two teachers of the name of Theodotus, by Artemon and above all by Paul of Samosata. Such views had few attractions for Christians. They destroyed * We may pass over the strange speculations, many of them akin to Ebionism or Docetism or both, which are grouped under the name of Gnosticism. They were for the most part Oriental speculations, antecedent in time to Christianity, which did not profess to start from the Christian revelation so much as to find room for it within their own schemes of the world. For a full account of Gnosti- cism see Bigg, Origins of Christianity, c. xii., Bethune Baker, Christian Doctrine, c. vi., and Salmon, Art. ‘‘ Gnosticism.” in Smith’s D.C. B, 69 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES any real Incarnation and were hardly consistent with the power of Christ in their own lives. For a fuller statement see: Bethune Baker, Christian Doctrine, pp. 98-101. (6) In opposition to this we find ‘Modal’ Monarchianism, often known as Sabellianism.* Sabellius protested against those who made our Lord a mere man. He believed Him to be fully God. But God is one. How can this be? The explanation must be that the one God assumed three different characters or masks (zpdcw7a) under different circumstances. In Old Testa- ment times He revealed Himself as the Father, in Jesus Christ as the Son, and by His imdwellimg in the Church, as the Holy Spirit. Thus all distinctions within the Godhead were denied. The Trinity was a purely ‘Economic’ Trinity, having no real existence apart from revelation. This teaching had its strong pomts. It laid emphasis on the unity of God and the oneness of all revelation. It satisfied Christian devotion by maintaining the divinity of Christ. But it was felt to be mconsistent with many of the facts both of Scripture and Christian experieuce. Sabellianism left no room for the mutual love of Christ and the Father as exhibited im His earthly life: there could be no true dependence of the Son on the Father. So, too, in Scripture the Holy Spirit is always pointing men away from Himself to the Son and the Father (e.g. Jn. 1614, Ro. 5°, 81414), If Sabellianism is teue such language has no meaning. The Spirit is both the Son and the Father. Again, it destroys St. Paul’s conception of Christ as being the head of a regenerate humanity. ‘There was no real incarnation. No personal in- | dissoluble union of the Godhead with the manhood took place in Christ. God only manifested Himself in Christ, and when the part was played and the curtain fell on that act in the great drama there ceased to be a Christ or Son of God.’ t Sabellius’ theory was perfectly conceivable by our minds, * Sabellius was only one among those who taught it. Its earliest exponents were Praxeas, who came to Rome about 210, and Noetus. It was nicknamed ‘ Patripassianism.’ Tertullian sarcastically wrote of Praxeas that ‘He put to flight the Paraclete and crucified the Father’ (adv. Praxeam, c. i.). Sabellianism, in effect, made the Father suffer upon the Cross. Such an idea aroused undying horror in the Church. ¢ Bethune Baker, Christian Doctrine, p. 106. THE BEING OF GOD 61 but it did not account for all the facts, and the Church rightly rejected it. See Mackintosh, Person of Christ, pp. 149-153. (iv) But the most powerful heresy in conflict with which the doctrine of the Trinity received its final expression was Arianism. Arius started from a philosophical idea of God that ruled out in advance the possibility of a real incarnation. In common with Judaism and current Greek philosophy he regarded the unity of God in such a way as to exclude all contact between God and the world and all distinctions within the divine unity.* Accordingly, he endeavoured to find a place for Christ outside the being of God, yet above creation. God, he taught, was alone eternal. He could not communicate His own being or substance to any created thing. When He willed to make the world, He begat (i.e. created) by an act of will an independent substance (ovola or Urocracts) to be His agent in creation, who is called in Scrip- ture the ‘Son ’ or the ‘ Word.’ As the very name ‘ Son ’ suggests, God had not always been a Father, but became such by creating the Son. The Son is not of the same substance as the Father, else there would be two Gods. He is only of ‘like substance ’ (ouotovctos). As such He can only know the Father relatively, not absolutely. Still, He is not a creature like other creatures. As a rational being He possessed free will. By the grace of God and His own moral effort He so used it as to become divine. We can speak of Him as ‘God only begotten.’ At the Incarnation He took a human body but not a human soul. The Holy Spirit bears the same relation to the Son as the Son does to the Father. Arius’ method throughout is based on the teaching of pagan philosophy. His object was to present Christianity in such a way as to make it acceptable to men who retained pagan ideas about God and life. The Arian Christ was a heathen demi-god bridging the gulf between the unknowable God of heathen philosophy and the world. Arianism never really commended itself to the conscience of the Church. If Arian views won a temporary acceptance, it was because they were not understood. Arianism was essentially * He belonged to the school of Lucian of Antioch, which was affected by the ‘ dynamic Monarchianism ’ of Paul of Samosata, who in turn was influenced by the Jewish idea of a ‘ baldly transcendent God,’ Arianism represents the Ebionite tendency in Christology. 62 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES a novel exposition unknown to Scripture and tradition. It might be buttressed up by texts of Scripture isolated from their context, but its true origin lay outside Christianity altogether. It was an attempt to find a place for Christ in pagan philosophy. Arianism contradicts the elementary facts of Christian life and experience. The Church has always worshipped Christ. If He is not truly God, that is idolatry. The distinction between God and the loftiest of created beings is infinite. Arianism is really polytheism. To yield to the Arian Christ that faith and worship that are due to God alone is blasphemy. Further, if Christ is not divine, to offer Him worship is not to honour Him but to act contrary to His own teaching. He always rejected unreal devotion. Again, as St. Athanasius saw, Arianism, destroys the basis of redemption. The Arian Christ can be no true mediator between God and man, because He Himself is neither. Since He is unable to know the Father Himself, He cannot reveal Him to others. As a creature, He cannot be a source of divine light or life.* God remains unknown and man unredeemed. The opposition to Arianism was not due to love of argument nor even to a desire for theological accuracy. Its opponents saw that Arius sacrificed the revelation of the self-imparting love of God that met the needs of the human soul, to an un-Christian notion of God carried over from heathen- ism. The chief value of Arianism was that it compelled the Church to become conscious of her real belief and so to frame the doctrine of the Trinity as to find a place for Jesus Christ within the eternal being of God.f For Arianism see : Mackintosh, Person of Christ, c. iv. Gwatkin, The Arian Controversy, c. i. (Fuller) :— Arianism, by Foakes Jackson in H.R.E. Du Bose, Hewmenical Councils, cc. v. and vi. Gwatkin, Studies in Arianism. * Contrast the saying of Athanasius, ‘He was God and then was made man that we might be made God’ (Or. c. Ar. i. § 39). His idea always is that to partake of the Son is to partake of God Himself. Athanasius’ God, unlike Arius’, did not hold Himself aloof from a perishing world. For his own view of salvation see his earlier tract ‘On the Incarnation of the Word of God.’ + Arianism reappeared in the eighteenth century. Then, as in former days, it could not maintain itself. Arians were compelled by the irresistible logic of facts either to advance to a full belief in our Lord’s Divinity or to descend to a THE BEING OF GOD 63 (f) We can now turn to the language in which the Church came to express the doctrine of the Trinity. (i) The earliest technical term to appear is ‘ Trinity.’ Theo- philus of Antioch (180) used rpras in speaking of God, His Word and His Wisdom. The Latin 7'rinitas is found a few years later in Tertullian and was commonly employed afterwards. Ter- tullian also was the first to use the terms Una substantia and Tres Personae. He employed the term ‘substance’ in a sense based on its philosophical use. It meant for him a distinct exist- ance, arealentity. It was that which underlies things and makes them what they are. It goes deeper than ‘natura’ which denotes only the sum-total of a thing’s properties. Thus Una Substantia asserts in uncompromising fashion the unity of God.* The term ‘ persona’ was borrowed primarily from its gram- matical use. He employed it in the sense in which we speak of first, second and third persons in the conjugation of a verb. This use was based on texts where he regarded the Persons of the Trinity as holding converse with one another or speaking in reference to one another. While he freely used the singular persona, he preferred the vaguer ‘tres’ where possible but in opposing Sabellianism was driven to say Tres Personae.t These terms commended themselves to the Western Church. During the Arian controversy the West was strongly Nicene, largely because it had already been provided with language in which to express the relations of the ‘ One’ and the ‘ Three.’ tf purely human Christ. The point at issue between the Arian and Catholic view of Christ is well expressed in the famous question put to the Arian Dr. Clarke ‘Could God the Father annihilate God the Son ?’ * See Bethune Baker, The Meaning of Homoousios (Cambridge Texts and Studies), p. 15 ff. + He speaks of our Lord as one ‘ persona,’ combining in Himself two ‘ sub- stantiae,’ 7.e. Godhood and manhood (Adv. Praxeam, c. 29). He writes, e.g. ‘The mystery of the providential order which arranges the Unity in a Trinity, setting in their order three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three, however, not in condition but in relation, and not in substance but in mood of existence, and not in power, but in special characteristics’ (c. 2). But in c. 26 he is com- pelled to write, ‘ Ter ad singula nomina in personas singulas tinguimur.’ t See Adv. Praxeam, cc. 11-12. Some have argued that this use of these terms is primarily legal. Substantia in Roman law meant a property which could be shared by several parties. Persona meant a ‘ party ’ whose existence was recognized at law. The legal sense of these terms may have assisted their use but was hardly primary. Tertullian does indeed, speak of the Father as the ‘ whole substance ’ and the Son as‘ the portion’ (portio) of the whole. This is the result of his materialism. He is laying stress on the distinction between the Persons and the full Godhead of the Son. In his writings first appear the physical illustrations of the Trinity. The Father is to the Son and the Spirit like the sun to its rays that issue from it and the light that falls upon us. Or again, the three are like the spring, the pool, and the river that issues from it. GA THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES In the East agreement was less quickly reached. Only at the close of the Arian controversy was the use and meaning of ua ovata for the One, and tpeis vroctaces for the ‘Three’ fixed by general consent. When the Church rejected Arianism at the Council of Nicaea, in order to rule out all Arian attempts what- ever to find a place for Christ outside the essential being of God, the word omoevcios was introduced into the Creed. The Son was said to be duoovatos TH TAT pl and éx THs ovclas TOU TAT POS. The opposition to ouoovcios was due partly to reluctance to go outside the words of Scripture, partly to the fact that the word had already been used in a bad sense by heretics.* But in time even the most conservative theologians came to see that error could be ruled out in no other way. The Arians evaded the meaning of all phrases from Scripture. At the same time it was made clear that the Council added no new fact to the Creed : this new term did but compress the true meaning of Scripture into a single decisive word. In the long controversy that followed Nicaea, the two terms ovcia and viroctacis came to be adopted in a technical sense by the Church to formulate her teaching. In current language ovcia meant one of two things. Either it meant a common essence or being, shared by a class of things: a universal, by ceasing to share in which they would cease to be the thing at all. In this sense the ovcia of God is Godhead. Or it meant a particular or individual existence, ‘a being,’ as in the phrase ‘a human being.’ Thus its use was not free from ambiguity. uvrocTacis was a less common word and originally was a synonym for ovoia, the underlying essence of a class of things. — As such, it was the exact equivalent of the Latin substantia, * There is reason for believing that Clement of Alexandria (c. 180) had been familiar with duoovcvos as used to designate the community of substance both with God and with men possessed by our Lord. If so, it had fallen into dis- favour, probably owing to its use by Paul of Samosata and rejection by the Council of Antioch that condemned Paul. Its opponents at Nicaea failed to see that a philosophical question can only be met by a philosophical answer. ‘Consubstantial ’ ‘is but the assertion of the real deity of Christ in terms of the philosophy by which it had been denied’ (Mackintosh, Person of Christ, p- 188). t Origen clearly used it in both senses. He spoke of the Son as kar’ odclav Oeds (perhaps he even used the word duoovcros). But elsewhere he speaks of Him as érepos xar’ ovcliay rod marpés, using ove(a almost in the sense of ‘individuality.’ It was partly this second meaning of ovcia that laid duoovctos open to the charge of Sabellianism, THE BEING OF GOD 65 But it could also mean the abiding reality of a thing that persisted in spite of the variety of actions that the thing might perform or the various experiences it might undergo. Thus in the case of a person it fairly corresponded to the ‘ego’ or personality that lasts through and holds together all our experiences. It was used in the earlier sense by Arius, Athanasius in his earlier writings, and even by one of the anathemas appended to the Creed of Nicaea. But it was the second sense that came to prevail in the formulas of the Church. This ambiguity of language led to enormous confusion. Those who used vrdcracis as a synonym for ovcia and spoke of pula uvToctaot seemed Sabellians to those who distinguished between the two terms. Conversely, those who distinguished between them and speke of tpets vrocraces seemed tritheists or Arians to those who regarded the two terms as synonymous. But at the Council of Alexandria (362) a settlement was reached. The orthodoxy of Tpeis vrorraces was recognized, but the older use of umocracts (= ovcia) was also approved. Gradually, owing largely to the influence of the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil, and the two Gregories, the usage of the Church settled down to the formula, “ia ovoia, Tpets vTocraces. The West retained Una substantia, Tres Personae.* | So it comes that in English we speak about ‘Three Persons in One Substance,’ a literal translation of the Latin. The English terms are not altogether happy. They convey false associations that are absent from the Greek. In Greek both ovcia and uTootaols define as little as possible where the mmimum of definition is desirable. The Latin personae, especially in its legal usage, and still more the English ‘ Persons,’ convey an idea of separateness that is happily absent from vzooracets. Owing to the fact that human persons walk about in bodies divided by space, it is hard to free our imagination from the idea of separation in connexion with ‘ Person.’ So, too, ‘substance’ f to our ears suggests the occupation of space. The terms need * Certain Western writers did attempt to speak of Una Essentia, Tres Sub- stantiae, but the attempt entirely failed. mpédcwmoy was the natural equivalent of persona, but was tainted with Sabellianism. + Because ‘substance’ is a familiar English word, the man in the street thinks he knows what it means when it is used in theology. It is perhaps a pity that some long and obviously technical term is not used, B 66 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES explanation. The Church uses them in her own sense, and before they can reasonably be criticized it is necessary to find out what that sense is. Cp. Webb, God and Personality, Lect. IL. (ii) In thinking of the Trinity we must bear in mind three great considerations. (a) All theologians confess that the best language that can be found is inadequate. The Church only uses these words, because she cannot escape. ‘ When it is asked what are the three, human ' speech labours indeed under great poverty of expression. How- ever, we speak of Three Persons not that that might be spoken but lest nothing should be said.’* The Fathers are full of similar confessions of the imadequacy of human language. t The Church does not claim to be able to define or explain all that Godhead means. All that is taught is that whatever God- head means, all three Persons equally possess it. For instance, in the Athanasian creed this truth is illustrated by applying various epithets to all three Persons and insisting that they belong to all three alike. (6) There is what is called the ‘Monarchia’ of the Father. The Father is not more divine than the Son, but He is the Father. The Father depends on Himself alone for His Godhead. He is 0 Oeos. The Son eternally derives His Godhead from the Father (cp. eos éx Ocov). He is the Word or self-expression of the Father, and therefore eternally dependent upon Him. So, too, the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. Thus the distinction between the 'Three Persons rests upon the different manner in which they possess the one Godhead. From the time of Tertullian various illustrations have been drawn to explain the Trinity. It was left to St. Augustine to introduce psycho- logical analogies and find images for the complexity of the Being of God in the complexity of the life of our own being, e.g. memory, reason and will, or ‘I exist, I am conscious that I exist, I love the existence and the consciousness.’ Such illustrations must not be pressed, but they serve to show that the unity even of the human personality is not a bare unity but one embracing dis- tinctions. (y) There is the doctrine of the weprywpnots or ‘ coinherence ’ of the Three Persons. This corrects the excessive idea of separa- *S. Augustine, De Trin. v. 9. t See Illingworth, Reason and Revelation, c. vii. THE BEING OF GOD 67 tion involved by the term ‘ Person.” The Three so indwell in one another (cp. Jn. 14414, 1724, 1 Cor. 24) that where One is, All are, where One works All work, where One wills, All will. They are distinct but not separate. A right observance of this truth saves us from falling into Tritheism. (g) The doctrine of the Trinity is based on fact and experience, not on speculation. But we should expect that if it is based on a real self-revelation of God, it would be found to be in accordance with reason. We cannot say that reason could discover it or even prove it. But the Christian doctrine of the Unity in Trinity is really far more rational than a barren Unitarianism. (i) It is almost impossible to conceive of God as personal at all if He isa bare Unity. In ourselves personality involves thought, will and love. Thought implies an object. A mind without an object of thought would be a mere blank. It is hard to see how the Unitarian God could possess consciousness apart from the world. The difficulty is no new one. Aristotle, for instance, raises the question * what does God contemplate ? ’ and concludes that in His eternal life God is His own object of contemplation (voet eavtov). Does not this involve something like distinctions within the Being of God ? The highest type of knowledge is the knowledge of a Person. (ii) When we turn to will the force of the argument is in- creased. Will necessitates an object on which it can act. At its highest will is realized in its influence on another will. How then could God realize His will apart from some eternal object on which to realize it ? (iii) When we come to love, the idea of a unipersonal God is seen to be even less tenable. If ‘God is love,’ not simply ‘God is able to love,’ then from all eternity God must have had an object of love. Love in any true sense of the word can only exist where there is an object able to receive and return the love. The doctrine of the Trinity renders conceivable the existence of what corresponds in human experience to knowledge, will and love within the eternal Bemg of God. Otherwise it is hard to see how we can avoid the conclusion that God is dependent upon the created world for the realization of His Personality. Cp. Illingworth, Divine Immanence, ¢. viii. 68 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES Once again the doctrine of the Trinity makes the thought of creation easier. God from all eternity possessed within Himself a real activity. The Word from all eternity responds to the Father’s love. As the indwelling source of the order and unity of the world (Col. 11&1”) He leads the world to respond to the Father also. ‘The world,’ it has been said, ‘is the poem of the Word to the glory of the Father.’ Unless we recognize real dis- tinctions within the divine life, it is almost impossible to avoid fallmg into either Deism or Pantheism. The Doctrine of the Trinity combimes and harmonizes the truth that is expressed one-sidedly in each of these two theories. ‘It can explain how God became a Creator in time because it knows how creation had its analogies in the uncreated nature; it was God’s nature eternally to produce, to communicate itself, to live. It can explain how God can be eternally alive and yet in complete independence of the world which He created, because God’s unique eternal being is no solitary and monotonous existence ; it includes in itself the fulness of fellowship, the society of Father, Son and Spirit.’ * Lastly, we must always remember that the ite of God is a mystery. We are bidden to ‘worship,’ not to understand ‘the Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.’ Whenever the mind comes into contact with reality it is baffled by a sense of mystery. Much more must it be so when it comes into contact with God, the ultimate reality.t We are learning ever more the mysterious depths of our own personalities. Far more wonderful must be the Tri-personality of God. t * Gore, Bampton Lect. V. end. + ‘What is real is always mysterious, just because what is real is always imperfectly known. What is clear and simple is not reality, but the conceptions of our minds. ‘Take, for example, a straight line as Euclid defines it. The straight line is simply a mental conception—there are no straight lines in nature—and therefore it presents no difficulty. Define it as Euclid does and you can know about it all that there is to be known. Now contrast with that straight line the very smallest beetle. The beetle is a humble portion of reality ; the beetle is really there; and therefore you can spend a lifetime in the scientific study of the beetle and know him but imperfectly at the end of it. Take another example. How comparatively easy it is to understand the characters in fiction and how difficult it is to understand the people whom we meet every day. ... That is because the characters in fiction are creations of the mind, while our relatives are real ’"—(Goudge, Cathedral Sermons, pp. 72-73). t Cp. Illingworth, Personality, Human and Divine, close of c. viii. THE BEING OF GOD 69 The growth of the expression of Trinitarian doctrine may be studied in, Bethune Baker, Christian Doctrine, cc. iv-xii.: or in standard his- tories of Dogma. Of these Tixeront is the most reliable. (There is an American translation). Harnack, History of Dogma gives valuable quotations, but needs the utmost caution owing to the presuppositions of the writer. F. J. Hall, The Trinity gives a good general summary. For its inner meaning, see : Moberly, Atonement and Personality, ec. iv. and viii. Du Bose, The Gospel in the Gospels, part iii. ; Hcewmenical Councils, cc. i-Viil. Aubrey Moore, Lux Mundi, Essay II. esp. § 6-7. Webb, God and Personality, Lect. X. Articles, God and Trinity in H.D.B. and C.D.G. On the idea of a ‘social’ God, see on the one side Rashdall, The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology, p. 443 ff., on the other side, Gore, Belief in Christ, e. viii. and Richmond, Personality as a Philosophical Principle, pp. 15-18. On the arguments for the existence of God, see Ragg, Christian Evidences, or more fully, Beibitz, Faith, Belief, and Proof. Also from a Roman Catholic and Scholastic standpoint, Joyce, Principles of Natural Theology, i-vii. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT ARTICLE II Of the Word, or Son of God, which was made very Man. The Son, which is_ the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took Man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance : so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God, and very Man; who truly _ suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men. De Verbo, sive Filio Dew, qu verus homo factus est. Filius, qui est verbum Patris, ab aeternoa Patre genitus, verus et aeternus Deus, ac Patri con- substantialis, in utero beatae virginis, ex illius substantia naturam humanam assumpsit : ita ut duae naturae, divina et humana, integre atque per- fecte in unitate personae fuerint inseparabiliter conjunctae, ex quibus est unus Christus, verus Deus et verus homo, qui vere passus est, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus, ut Patrem nobis reconciliaret, essetque hostia, non tantum pro culpa originis, verum etiam pro omnibus actualibus hominum peccatis. This Article dates from 1553 and is based on the Lutheran Con- fession of Augsburg, through the medium of the 13 Articles. In 1563 the words ‘ begotten... Father’ were added from the Confession of Wirtemburg. Its object was to oppose the revival of ancient heresies on the Person of Christ by Anabaptists. §1. The Son took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin.—The Church’s teaching on the Incarnation, as on the THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 71 Trinity, was gradually formulated by struggle with error. Once again her aim has always been to be faithful to all the facts, not in any way to speculate for the sake of speculation, but to guard the truth in all its fulness. From time to time explanations were put forward, most attractive from their simplicity and their harmony with popular ideas, but the Church was com- pelled to say ‘no,’ because their attractiveness was gained at the cost of ignoring or explaining away certain of the facts. So the Church was driven to think out and state in the best language that she could find, all that she understood by the Incarnation. (a) When we turn to Scripture and study the Person of our Lord we are confronted with three main facts. (i) Our Lord lived astrueman. His contemporaries, friends and enemies alike, had no doubt of His humanity. He grew, not only in body, but in mind and soul (Lk. 24°°"¢52, Heb. 57%), He displayed human needs, hunger, thirst, wearimess and the like (Mt. 42, Mk. 438, Jn. 4%” etc.), and human emotions, anger, wonder, sorrow, sympathy, etc. (Mk. 35, 68, 1434, Lk, 79, Jn. 11334 etc.). He prayed and exhibited a true human faith in the Father (Mk. 1%, 1488, Lk. 978, Jn. 114142, 17, Heb. 57, etc.). He was tempted and experienced the trials of uncertainty (Mk. 14%, etc., Mt. 44 etc., Lk. 12°°, Heb. 28, etc.). He won a real conquest over tempta- tions. He displayed a true human obedience to the will of God as made known in the Law. He attended the public worship of the Synagogue and Temple and submitted to the Baptism of John (Mt. 345, Mk. 124, Lk. 24*49: etc.). He could be dis- appointed and disobeyed (Mk. 1”, 44°, etc.), He asked questions for the sake of information and confessed to ignorance on one point at least (Mk. 971. cp. 113, Jn. 11%, Mk. 13° etc.). In short, though our Lord lived a perfect human life, perfect at each stage of its growth, still it was a human life: there was real develop- ment, real dependence upon His fellow-men, above all, real submission and self-surrender to the Father. (ii) On the other hand, as we have seen, the impression made by our Lord on those who knew Him was of one who was more than man. He made a divine claim, and His claim was proved true by the Resurrection. (iii) Yet, most certainly He was one Person. His life was in all ways a unity, far more so, indeed, than our own lives, which 72 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES are broken and distracted by conflicting aims and desires, and by the struggle between a higher and lower self. For a study of the human side of our Lord’s life, see : Glover, The Jesus of History; and Conflict of Religions, c. iv. Seeley, Hece Homo. Goudge, The Moral Perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Most valuable. ) (6) When the question of the true divinity of our Lord had been settled, controversy shifted to His Person. The point at issue was no longer whether He was ‘ of one substance with the Father ’—all parties were agreed on that—but of the relation between His divinity and His humanity. How could Jesus Christ be both the Eternal Son and Word of the Father, and also truly man ? (i) Apollinarius, Bishop of Laodicea, had been a vigorous opponent of the Arians, and it was in opposition to their teaching that he was led to construct his theory of the relation between the divine and the human natures in Christ, known as Apollin- arianism. Arius had regarded our Lord as a created being possessed of free-will in the sense of being equally able to choose right or wrong. This seemed to Apollinaiius to endanger His perfect sinlessness, especially as he regarded a capacity for sin- fulness as an essential part of true human nature. Further, he held that ‘nature’ was the same as ‘person,’ and that two natures, each complete in itself, could not be united so as to form a real unity. Hence, if Christ possessed both the divine nature in all its fulness, and human nature in all its fulness, He would be two persons, not one. Apollinarius taught that the Logos already possessed in Himself all the higher and spiritual side of humanity. At His human birth, therefore, He needed only to assume a human body and the animal soul or life that belongs to it. So the unity of the Person was safeguarded. Christ was ovrTe avOpwrros Od\os ote Beds aAAa Oeov Kal avOpa@rov mE, The Church saw that this theory contradicted many of the facts of our Lord’s earthly life. It left no room for growth in mind or soul or for the building up of a human character. It abolished the possibility not only of sin but of temptation. Apollinarius might urge that there was no mutilation of our Lord’s humanity. In a sense that is correct, but His humanity would have been something static. A true human nature, as we know it, starts, THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 78 as it were, a bundle of possibilities, and realizes itself by growth and development from within and by the overcoming of environ- ment without. On the view of Apollinarius, Christ’s humanity would have been complete from the start. Further, such a view lowers human nature by regarding it as unable to become the means of God’s self-revelation. Not only does it regard the higher part of human nature as intrinsically sinful, but it leaves it unredeemed, and it is just this higher part which is most truly human, as being that which differentiates man from the animals. All that Christ assumed was the animal side of man. To our modern minds the theory of Apollinarius is wholly repugnant. We know that all human consciousness, such as acts of thought, will and desire, are conditioned by functions of the body. What purpose could a body serve when there were no real processes of human thought or will to be realized through it ? On Apollinarianism, Raven, Apollinarianism is the best account in English. See also Mackintosh, Person of Christ, p. 196 ff. Fuller :— Bethune Baker, c. xiv. Du Bose, Ecumenical Councils, c. ix. (11) As a reaction from Apollinarianism there arose the ex- planation of the facts known as Nestorianism. Nestorius was Bishop of Constantmople. Whether he himself was at any time, or at all times, a ‘ Nestorian’ is a question for ecclesiastical history. It is enough to state here that he was condemned for the views that bear his name, and that, undoubtedly, there were those who held them. The School of Antioch had come to represent theology of a marked type. This school represented what we should call to-day historical theology. Its first aim was to discover the literal and grammatical meaning of Scripture ; to ask, What did the authors mean to say ? In dealing with the earthly life of our Lord it started, like the Synoptic Gospels, with the human and natural elements of that life, and then went on to see the divine and supernatural shining through them. The most famous representative of this school was Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia. Approaching the problem of the Person of Christ from the human side, he laid stress, in opposition, to Apollinarian- ism, on the complete humanity of our Lord. He taught that each of the two natures of Christ was personal. An impersonal nature was an absurdity. How then did God indwell in Christ ? Tey 74 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES The answer given was, through moral union, through unity of will. He postulated a divine agent and a human agent, united com- pletely and yet freely. Hach remained distinct and unconfused. ‘We say that the person (7pocw7rov) of the Man was perfect, and perfect also the person of the Godhead.’ Thus, God dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth as in a temple, or as in saints or prophets. Theodore speaks of it as madness to compare the indwelling of God in Christ with His indwelling in the Saints. But it was different—infinitely different—in degree only: it was the same in kind. So he prefers to speak of the conjunction (cvvadera) of the two natures in Christ, not of their union. This conjunction is compared to the union between man and wife, who are made one flesh. So the human life of Jesus Christ was the life of a man selected by God’s fore-knowledge, to be taken from the mother’s womb into the most intimate and indissoluble union with the divine Word. He was avOpwros Oeodédpos. All through His life He revealed a complete moral sympathy with the divine will, so that men could see God perfectly in Him. Through the co-operation of the divine Word with the unfaltering loyalty of His human will He advanced to the most perfect holiness, which was consummated at the Ascension. Theodore claimed thus to preserve the unity of Christ’s Person and yet leave room for free moral development. Nestorius did little more than repeat his teaching. As so often happens, the controversy centred round a catchword, in this case the use of Qeoroxos * to denote the mother of Jesus Christ. Nestorius denied her the title on the ground that it suggested the divine nature of her Son was derived from her. His opponents defended its use as witnessing to the truth that He, whom she bore, was none other than the eternal Son of God. Nestorius’ solution has its merits. It preserves the reality of Christ’s human example and sympathy. But for all his protests, it reduces our Lord to a superlatively inspired man, the chief of the saints. He is man side by side with God, not God in and through man. There is not the oneness of a single personal life, but the concord of two persons. Nestorianism is fatally incon- sistent both with facts of as Gospel and of Christian experience. ** Mother of God’ is not brite a fair translation of this Greek word. It means rather ‘she who gave birth to Him who was God.’ The use of this title as a watchword of orthodoxy gave a great impetus to the cult of the Virgin. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 75 The Christ of Nestorius could have no right to make the un- bounded personal claims for Himself that our Lord made. In the saints there is no confusion of personality between themselves and God. They are always conscious that their message is other and greater than themselves. They point men away from them- selves to God. Jesus Christ drew men to Himself. The Nestorian Christ cannot rightly be worshipped: at most we can assign to him that reverence that we pay to holy men. Further, Nestorian- ism undermines the whole basis of redemption ; it rests content with a conception of salvation that has fallen below the level of the New Testament.* Christ becomes at most an example and a teacher. But He can bestow on us no power to realize in our- selves His example. By His unique closeness of union with the divine Word He can save only Himself. He cannot impart to us a share in that union. It is just because Christ is more than a single human individual that His perfect humanity can be the source of new life to us. His death is not an act outside us, like, say, the death of Socrates or any other good man, only because it is not simply one of our fellow-men who died. What we need, and what Christ has proved Himself to be, is a redeemer, one who restores and quickens the soul from within, and one who can save from sin. Nestorius was rightly condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Bethune Baker, c. xv. “ Antiochene Theology,” H.R.H. (esp. p. 587 and ff.). (ii) At the opposite pole of thought is Monophysitism or Kutychianism. The school of Alexandria had come to represent a theology in many ways opposed to that of Antioch. Their method was that of ‘dogmatic’ as contrasted with ‘ historical ’ theology. Like the Gospel of St. John, they started from the divine side, our Lord’s pre-existence as the Word of God, and went on to regard His human life as a self-manifestation of God in time. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, had been the great opponent of Nestorius. In his anxiety to safeguard the unity of Christ’s Person he used the phrase, uia puow tov Oeov Aoyou *Cp. Bright, Iona and other Verses, p. 66. ‘ Alas for Christian hopes, if this were true! *Tis no salvation to have Saviours two; Except our brother and our God be one, The reconciling work is left undone.’ 76 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES cecapxwpery,* By this he meant that the Word of God in all the fulness of His divine nature had become personally Incarnate. There was only one centre of personality in Christ, namely, the personality of the Word, which gave personality to the human nature. The human nature had not a separate personality of its own. Cyril expressed this unity of the two natures in a single person by phrases such as évwous car’ ovciav Kat Kal’ vrocTacw or é« dvo picewy eis. Such language was easily misunderstood. After Cyril’s death, Eutyches, an abbot at Constantimople, and a follower of Cyril, taught that our Lord was of two natures before the union between them, but after the union only of one nature. In short, His human nature had become absorbed in the divine, like a drop of vinegar in the ocean. He even spoke of pia dow Tov Yeov Aoyou cecapKwuevov, an alteration of Cyril’s formula that made all the difference in the world. Monophysit- ism, is practically ‘Docetism.’ Our Lord’s humanity is reduced to a mere outward appearance, the veil of His divine glory. All the facts of our Lord’s earthly life that make Apollinarianism impossible, make Kutychianism impossible. (c) The teaching of Hutyches won a temporary triumph at the Robber Council of Ephesus (449), but the decision was finally reversed at the Council of Chalcedon (451). There a dogmatic epistle from Leo, Bishop of Rome, known as the ‘ tome of Leo,’ was read and recognized as the expression of orthodoxy. Hutyches was in it directly refuted, Nestorius indirectly. Leo was a Western, with all the Western impatience of philosophical subtleties and disputes about the precise difference between ‘nature ’ and ‘person.’ He dealt with the whole question from a practical point of view. All that he was concerned to secure was a full recognition both of the true divinity and true humanity of our Lord. As a pastor, he was quite clear that what men needed was a mediator between God and man, who Himself remained both. The influence of Leo was ultimately decisive, and the witness of the Council of Chalcedon to the Church’s faith was set forth in the following definition : ‘Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all, with one con- sent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus * Cyril believed the phrase to come from a writing of Athanasius. Unhappily, the writing is really a work of Apollinarius passing itself off under the name of Athanasius. E THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 77 Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in manhood, truly God and the same truly man, of a rational soul and body, of one substance with the Father according to His Godhead and of one substance with us according to His Manhood, in all things like to us except sin, begotten from the Father before the ages according to His Godhead and in the last days born of Mary the virgin, the theotokos for us and our salvation, according to His manhood, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only- begotten, beg made known in two natures, without confusion, without conversion, without division, never to be separated (AcvyXUTws, ATPETTWS, AOLALPETWS, AXwpicTws), the distinction of natures having been in no way abolished through the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and meeting in one person and one hypostasis (7pdcw7ov Kat UTOTTATW),” The language of our Article is in large part identical with this, and is so framed as to exclude all the ancient heresies. The Son ... of one substance with the Father excludes Arianism. Man’s nature... two whole and perfect natures excludes Apollinarianism. In one person, never to be divided excludes Nestorianism. Two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and the Man- hood .. . very God and very Man excludes Monophysitism.* On Monophysitism, see : Bethune Baker, c. xvi. On the Council of Chalcedon : Mason, Chalcedonian Doctrine of the Incarnation, Lects. I.-ITI. Bright, Lessons from the Lives of three Great Fathers. Mackintosh, Person of Christ, c. x.-xi. The question still remains, What is the value of the formal theological definitions of these Councils to-day ? The language used by the Church in her attempt to state the doctrine of the Trinity, ‘One substance, Three Persons,’ and still more, the language used at Chalcedon about our Lord’s Incarnation, ‘ Two natures and One Person,’ is often attacked as useless or worse than useless to-day—a mere encumbrance, due to the Helleniza- tion of Christianity. *The decisions of the four great Councils may be summed up in the four adverbs, dAnOas, redéws, adiatpérws, dovyx’tws. Our Lord was ‘truly’ God as against Arius, ‘completely’ man as against Apollinarius, ‘indivisibly’’ One Person as against Nestorius, both God and man ‘ without confusion’ as against Eutyches (Hooker, v. 54, § 10). 78 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES In reply, let us begin by reminding ourselves that the primary object of such language was not to speculate, but to rule out speculations that were seen to be destructive of the purity and completeness of the faith. The formulae have a lasting value. The ancient heresies all represent certain permanent tendencies of the human mind. In every age men, when faced with the mystery of the Incarnation, have inclined towards a line of solution that leads ultimately to Nestorianism or Monophysit- ism. We naturally pay greater attention to those facts that interest us and are disposed to ignore others that make a less - forcible appeal. Here, as elsewhere, our personal leanings need to be corrected by the completer experience of the Church. The average healthy Englishman has an Antiochene mind. What attracts him is our Lord’s character. He admires His life of doing good, His courage in facing death for the sake of duty, His self-sacrifice and the like. He regards our Lord as an inspiring example, a leader in the life of faith, but little more. Accordingly, the English mind is easily satisfied with the concep- tion of our Lord as a good man, with whom God dwelt. The need of something deeper, of inward renewal and salvation, is hardly realized. So, teaching that is practically Nestorian is quite commen among us. On the other hand, a view of our Lord that is practically Apollinarian or Monophysite tends to prevail wherever devotion to our Lord as the divine Saviour is not balanced by a study of the Gospels. It is the typical danger of a theology based upon worship divorced from the moral life. If Nestorianism appeals to the masculine independence of the respectable Englishman, Monophysitism appeals to the emotions of the devout worshipper. It is to be found in our hymns and, e.g. in the cult of the Sacred Heart. In England to-day we are living in a reaction from teaching about our Lord that was practically Monophysite. Protestant piety no less than Catholic devotion had come to lay such exclusive stress on our Lord’s divine work as practically to ignore His humanity. Now, the reality of His humanity, His human growth and sympathies, have been, as it were, re- discovered. His human life has been made to live before our eyes. In the joy of realizing afresh our Lord’s humanity, men have been tempted to lose hold of His divinity. But we must not live in reactions. The Church’s duty is to hold together THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 79 both sides of the truth, as essential for the completeness of the Christian life. The formula of Chalcedon at least rules out one- sided presentations of the truth that would impoverish the Christian life. ‘Of one substance with us according to His manhood ’ secures for us all that Nestorianism can offer. ‘ Of one substance with the Father according to His Godhead ’ secures all that Monophysitism can offer. The primary object of the Council’s decision was pastoral, to warn men off paths that must lead astray and to send them back to study the Gospels for themselves with the right presuppositions. Still the fact remains that i modern theology the formula of Chalcedon is often criticized and set on one side as valueless or even a hindrance to Christian faith. Before we examine its permanent value let us remember that it is the facts that are of supreme importance ; not the formula that expresses them. If to-day, in the light of modern knowledge, we can express all the facts more adequately in some new formula, we are at liberty to do so. If, for instance, in view of modern psychology, we come to hold that ‘person’ and ‘nature’ are indistinguishable, that is not being disloyal to the Catholic faith. The objection to nearly all, if not all, modern attempts hitherto made to restate the truth about the Person of Christ, is not that they are modern, but they ignore or explain away some of the facts. Often, indeed, they are only the old heresies in a new guise, and to-day as of old the Christian consciousness feels their inadequacy. In attempting to restate the truth, part of it is allowed to escape. The complaint is made that “the formula merely stated the facts which constituted the problem; it did not attempt a solution. It was therefore unscientific; and as theology is the science of religion, it represented the breakdown of theology.’ * We may fairly reply that if the first part of this assertion is true, it is really the highest praise. The function of a council is not to Astrike out a new line in theology. Its primary duty is to witness to the faith once for all delivered, and to decide whether a par- ticular teaching is in accordance with it or not. If the Council ‘stated the facts which constituted the problem’ so as to rule out once for all attempted solutions that did not cover all the * Foundations, p. 231. Cp. p. 230. ‘ Their formula had the right devotional value ; it excluded what was known to be fatal to the faith ; but it explained nothing.’ Dr. Temple has since modified his position to some extent. Cp. Christus Veritas, vii. and viii. 80 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES facts, it performed precisely the service that a Council exists to perform. It is the place of theologians, not councils, to frame a theology. All that the Council could declare is that hitherto their efforts had not proved successful. In the interests of the Gospel the Church was obliged, not indeed to explain the problem of the unity of God and man in Christ, but to insist positively that there was the problem to be solved. | Again,«the formula of Chalcedon was of necessity expressed in terms of the philosophy of the day. There was at that time a single dominant philosophy. This philosophy viewed the world and experience ‘statically.’ It thought out questions in terms of ‘nature’ and ‘being.’ It asked what a thing was in its essential nature. Our minds to-day view the world ‘ dynamically.’ We think in terms of ‘life’ and ‘movement.’ We ask not simply what a thing is in itself, but what it does and how it acts. Hence modern theologians often complain that the formula of Chalcedon throws no light on the problems that the Incarnation raises for our minds to-day.* It leaves us with a divine nature and a human nature side by side, without any attempt to show how they were united in a single life. To us the ‘divine nature’ is not something stationary, but the sum total of divine energies and activities that constitute the divine life. God is God not simply by what He is but by what He does. So, too, we think of human nature not as something that exists ready-made, but as something that is progressively realized through acts of choice, in a human life. So we ask, If Jesus Christ is God, how could His divine powers and activities leave room for a truly human life, for that mental growth and development, and for that building © up of a human character of which Scripture speaks? Or again, How if He was divine could He possess a true human conscious- ness ? For us the problem is in large part a moral problem, a problem of will. To speak of a ‘divine nature’ and a ‘ human nature’ as if they were fixed quantities ignores the whole question of the will. Such terms are, indeed, not necessarily moral at all. * This is the substance of the criticisms of Dr. Harnack which are repeated by Dr. Temple in Foundations, e.g. ‘The spiritual cannot be expressed in terms of substance at all.’ ‘The “ substance ” of the Greek Fathers, whether divine or human, has the material, not the spiritual characteristics.’ ‘Substance theology inevitably ignores the will and with it the moral problem,’ etc. (pp. 231- 233). For criticism of this position see C.Q.R. Oct. 1915, p. 1. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 81 We cannot deny that these objections are well-founded : but what do they show? Simply that Greek theology inevitably approached the whole question from a different standpoint from our own. We are living in an age of psychology. Psy- chology discusses and explains the manner in which I come to feel and know. It investigates my states of consciousness and the processes by which I attain knowledge and perform acts of choice. But psychology has its limitations, though it sometimes forgets them. It cannot explain ultimate realities. It can describe what I do and how I do it, but it is unable to tell me what I am. That is a question not for psychology but for metaphysics. If my feelings and thoughts are not a mere series of passing illusions, they imply behind them an ‘I,’ which, indeed, has no conscious- ness apart from them, but is yet not identical with all or any of them. The words ‘life’ and ‘movement’ imply that there is an abiding something that lives and moves. Accordingly, we must assert that the questions that have been raised about the life and person of Jesus Christ are not simply psychological but also metaphysical. There is, for instance, such a question as that of His pre-existence. It is unreasonable to blame the formula of Chalcedon because it gives to these metaphysical questions a metaphysical answer. In effect it says, “If we assume the life and redeeming power of Jesus Christ as true, if we grant that He has made men one with God, what do these experiences presuppose as a necessary condition of their truth ? They presuppose that He was in the full sense God and in the full sense man. If you deny either that He was perfect God or that He was perfect man, then Christianity falls to the ground.’ The vocabulary of meta- physics must be static: to condemn it for being static is to condemn metaphysics for being itself.* But it is not necessarily either unspiritual or materialistic. Greek philosophy was not so incompetent as is sometimes assumed. ovoia is not un- spiritual at all. The formula does not attempt to define either the * divine nature ’ or the ‘ human nature.’ It only asserts that, whatever they are, Jesus Christ possessed them. Nor does it attempt to explain how it was psychologically possible for our Lord to unite the two in the living out of His earthly life. It * The metaphysician, as it were, takes a section of experience, abstracting life and movement. In abstracting these he necessarily abstracts the activity of the will. His language, therefore, is bound to appear non-ethical and static. F 82 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES leaves the field open for modern philosophers to do this if they can. What we may fairly criticize is not so much the decisions of Chalcedon in themselves, as the Tome of Leo and other theological writings that prepared the way for those decisions. These do attempt to deal with our Lord’s life and person psychologically.* We must admit that the predominant theology of the Church did not do full justice to the complete humanity of our Lord or to the facts of the Gospel narrative that attest His complete humanity. As we have seen, a vital part of the humanness of human nature is that it comes to completion through growth. On its moral and spiritual side this growth is conditioned by acts of will and choice.t In our study of our Lord’s human life we must leave room for real mental and moral effort, for spiritual progress and development of character. He was able to sympa- thize from within with the doubts and difficulties of our finite minds and with our moral struggles. This is where Alexandrian theology tended to fail.t Even in the writings of St. Leo, our Lord’s conduct and His conquests over temptation are in danger of being viewed solely as an exercise of divine power. The full humanity of our Lord’s bodily needs and actions only receives unreserved recognition, The activity of His human reason and will, of just that part of our human nature which is distinctively human, and by which we transcend animal life, is practically ignored.§ Hence, our Lord’s moral life tends to become a mere appearance. But human goodness, as we know it, can only be attained by real effort of will. If our Lord’s human life was exempt from this moral struggle, if His obedience to the Father’s will was achieved by the automatic employment of divine power, then so far our Lord’s life was not human at all. But the Gospels lend no support to any such suggestion. * Cp. Weston, The One Christ, pp. 79 ff. t+ It is customary to speak of our Lord’s human nature as ‘impersonal.’ The phrase is unsatisfactory, but it was intended to guard the truth that the humanity which our Lord assumed had no independent personality. The Word did not unite Himself to an individual man but gave personality to the human nature that He assumed. Hence our Lord’s manhood as assumed by Him and as progressively realized in His human life was most truly personal. t Cp. Westcott’s criticism of Cyril. ‘ Under his treatment the divine history seems to be dissolved into a docetic drama’ (St. John, p. xcv). § For the manner in which theologians explained away clear statements, e.g, of our Lord’s ignorance, as man, see Gore, Dissertations, p. 130 ff. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 83 Again, Greek theology treats of the actual living out of our Lord’s life in a way that breaks up its unity. It is one thing to insist that He was and is both God and Man. We must equally insist that He is ‘one Christ.’ Our mind revolts against any attempt to parcel out His activities among His two natures,* to say that He did this as God, that as Man. Such an attempt leaves us with no contimuous human life at all.t The Gospels give us no hint of any such double consciousness. In all His conduct our Lord was fundamentally one. The view criticized ignores the mutual kinship between the divine and the human. Man was created in the image of God. Thus God could express Himself in and through a human life without any contradiction of the divine nature. Our Lord’s divinity and humanity were not, as it were, placed side by side. He was not only God and Man, but God in Man and Man in God. Probably when we think of God our imagination dwells too much on what we may call His physical attributes, omnipotence, omniscience and the like, and we tend to make them independent of the love and righteousness which constitute His mmost beg. Greek theology was greatly hampered by the dogma that God cannot im any way suffer. Cyril and Nestorius were at one in their desire to insist that im the Incarnation our Lord’s Godhead was exempt from all suffer- ing. No doubt there is a true and important sense in which * Thus Leo can write: ‘To hunger, to thirst, to be weary, and to sleep is evidently human. But to satisfy five thousand men with five loaves and to give to the Samaritan woman living water, ... to walk on the surface of the sea with feet not sinking, and to allay the swelling waves by rebuking the tempest, this, without doubt, is divine.’ ‘It belongs not to the same nature to say ‘‘I and the Father are one,” and to say “‘ the Father is greater than I.”’’ Leo is attempting to safeguard the reality of the divine and human natures, each with its distinct operation, but the result is strangely different from the impression made on us by Scripture. We notice how all the human acts quoted belong only to the body. There is no adequate recognition of the activity of the reason and will. + A certain attempt at unity was made by the theological device known as the communicatio idiomatum, by which, owing to the union of the two natures in a single Person, it was held possible to transfer names and titles appropriate to one nature to the other in virtue of this unity of Person, to say, e.g. ‘God died for men’ instead of ‘He who was God died for men.’ So long as it is simply a question of titles such a practice is harmless, but it has proved theologi- cally dangerous. It has come to suggest that the divine and human natures were fused into something neither divine nor human, but a strange compound of the two, that the Godhead was converted into flesh, as the Athanasian Creed expresses it. 84, THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES God is ‘ without passions.” But we may question whether the unqualified denial that God can suffer is not a pagan rather than a Christian dogma: a legacy from heathen philosophy taken over by theologians without due scrutiny, and needing to be corrected by the bold anthropomorphisms of Scripture. We must distinguish between physical and moral suffermg. If God is love, love must be capable of moral suffering. So we can hold that our Lord, in all the humiliation of His Cross and Passion, was active in His divine no less than His human nature. We can see God there as truly as in His acts of power. For where were love and righteousness more perfectly and more victoriously love and righteousness than in the Crucified ? If God is love and holiness, then on the Cross we see God most truly, though He be self-restrained under the limitations and infirmities of manhood. Let us remember that God’s omnipotence in all its forms is not the omnipotence of bare power, but the omnipotence of love. It is to be seen in the fulness of self-sacrifice as truly as in the unspeakable majesty of a theophany. So, too, Man is most truly man in so far as He lives in that union with God for which He was created. The truest human life is the work both of God and Man. The more intimate the union, the more perfect the human life. The divine does not annihilate or supplant or curtail the human: rather it raises it to its highest perfection. In our Lord we see this perfection of human life. That life was the work of God m Man and Man in God. God could be most really God under the conditions of and within the sphere of the human.* Man could be most completely man in perfect union with the divine. We cannot, therefore, draw hard and fast distinctions within the unity of our Lord’s earthly life. ‘In all things He acts personally ; and so far as it is revealed to us, His greatest works during His earthly life are wrought by the help of the Father through the energy of a humanity enabled to do all things in fellowship with God.’ + To sum up, the Fathers’ psychology was crude and unsatisfying, even though their metaphysics were sound. *Cp. Browning, The Ring and the Book (vii. 1690-1): ‘I never realised God’s birth before—How He grew likest God in being born.’ t Westcott, Hebrews, p. 66. t We may compare the criticism of Dr. Moberly (Atonement and Personality, pp. 96-97). ‘The phrase “ God and man ”’ is, of course, perfectly true. But it is easy to THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 85 The objection, however, still remains, that even though some static and metaphysical language has a right and necessary place in any formal statement of the Church’s belief, still the phrases, both of the Creed of Nicaea and of the formula of Chal- cedon, are Greek metaphysics. It was, indeed, mnevitable that the Greek Fathers should employ the categories of their own day, but why should we be bound to them? Let us frankly admit that we are not tied down to any particular metaphysical system. But it is very doubtful whether, even if we put aside all historical associations, a change is either possible or desirable. After all, there are certain fundamental ideas that are common to all thought. ‘The ideas of substance or thing, of personality, of nature, are permanent ideas, we cannot get rid of them; no better words could be suggested to express the same facts.’ * The ideas of the Fathers need not be the less permanent because they are Greek. They are not limited to any particular type of metaphysics. Indeed, they are largely ideas that common- sense demands. Some such ideas as ‘divine nature’ and ‘human nature’ are implied in the very notion of an Incarnation. Further, we are coming increasingly to see how, not only in broad outline but in detail, the divine providence had been pre- paring the world for the coming of Christ. This preparation was religious, social and intellectual, the work of the Jew, the Roman, and the Greek. We cannot but suppose that the forms of thought as ‘ Christ ’ or ‘Son of Man ’ under which Christ revealed Himself to His contemporaries were part of the divine scheme. He took them and filled them with a new and richer content. We,may equally believe that the thought-forms of Greek philosophy were no less providentially designed that through them the lay undue emphasis on the “ and.” .. . In His human life on earth, as Incarnate, He is not sometimes, but consistently, always, in every act and in every detail, human. The Incarnate never leaves His Incarnation. God, as man, is always, in all things, God as man. ... Whatever the reverence of their motive may be, men do harm to consistency and to truth, by keeping open, as it were, a sort of non-human sphere or aspect of the Incarnation. This opening we should unreservedly desire to close. There are not two existences either of, or within, the Incarnate, side by side with one another. If it is all Divine, it is all human too. Weare tostudy the Divine in and through the human. By looking for the Divine side by side with the human, instead of discerning the Divine within the human, we miss the significance of them both.’ * Gore, Bampton Lectures on the Incarnation, p.105. The Holy Spirit and the Church, p. 228 ff. 86 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES Church might express to the world the wealth of her new life, filling them with a new and richer content. We cannot, therefore, lightly let them go.* Lastly, the dogmatic Janguage of the Church is confessedly inadequate. We know little about our own life, still less about the life of God. Even psychology cannot help us here. If we throw over the language of Chalcedon, we must find some substi- tute. Where is it to be found? To which school of modern philosophy are we to turn? For they are many.t To choose any one would be to identify Christianity deliberately with one particular philosophy—the very charge that their critics bring against the Greek Fathers. The men who agree in their contempt for Greek theology as a rule agree in little else. The Church has to deal with practical needs. Ifthe formula of Chalcedon has the right value for Christian devotion and leaves full scope for all modern mvestigations the Church may well claim to hold fast to it until there is at least some possibility of a re-statement that would win general acceptance. (d) How then can we best conceive of the Incarnation ? Perhaps our best starting-point will be some such thought as that expressed in St. Paul’s phrase, ‘ He emptied Himself.’ We must beware of language that might suggest that our Lord was God before and after, but ceased to be God during His Incarnate life on earth. He laid aside not His Godhead but His glory. He willed to live a real human life, to know our condition no longer simply by divine intuition from without, but from within by pass- ing through a real human experience. By an act of His divine omnipotence He willed to restrain His divine attributes so as to - render this possible.{ The subject of the whole human experience was the divine Word Himself. In pondering over the mystery of the Incarnation we shall get more assistance by thinking * We must not be too much influenced by the fact that the Church’s formu- laries need to be explained to men to-day. The technical terms of all science can only be understood by those who are ready to take some pains to learn the science. A theology that could be completely understood by the man in the street in five minutes would be very shallow. + Cp. Quick, Modern Philosophy and the-Incarnation, pp. 48-57. t Our Lord did not part with such essentially divine attributes as, e.g, omnipotence or omniscience ; rather, it was His own omnipotent power that restrained his omnipotence, His own almighty wisdom that devised the means for sharing our human ignorance. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 87 along the lines of love and sympathy than along the lines of abstract logic. The essence of sympathy is putting oneself in another’s place : in the case of one Jess educated or less developed this must involve a deliberate holding back of our wider know- ledge.* Perhaps some such example as this, inadequate as it is, is the nearest that we can get to a real understanding of His self-humiliation. YWe can dimly conceive that by a single supra- temporal act of choice the Eternal Word willed so to restrain | His divine attributes as to render a true human life and experience | possible. If we believe that God is love, there is nothing in such ‘ a conception that violates the central being of God. Many of the objections that are brought against such an idea are at bottom objections against the possibility of a real Incarnation at all. If we are ready to grant the possibility of an Incarnation, we must also grant that there will inevitably be much in it that we cannot fully understand. The whole question of the relation of time to eternity is involved.f We cannot con- ceive what time means to God or reconcile historical sequence with His eternal consciousness.{ Nor can we possibly under- stand what change the Incarnation made in the life of the Trinity. All we are told is that the ‘coming of the Son’ corresponded to a sending by the Father, and that He was made man through the power of the Spirit. In the act of divine self-sacrifice the Father and the Spirit had their part no less than the Son. § *Cp. Gore, Dissertations, p. 219; Ottley, Doctrine of the Incarnation, ii. pp. 291-2. + H.g. How could our Lord be at one and the same time living on earth and performing His cosmic functions? Was He, as Proclus, preaching against Nestorius, said, ‘In His Father’s bosom and in the womb of the Virgin; in His mother’s arm and on the wings of the wind; worshipped by the angels in Heaven and supping with publicans on earth ?’ t Cp. the following statement: ‘It is not meant that the Logos was with- drawn from God and occupied by the Incarnation. We err if we think of the Logos as only capable of one activity at a time. The Logos is capable of all the activity of God. God was the same elsewhere as if there had been no in- carnation, and the Logos was meanwhile as truly as ever the medium of God’s relation with the universe. ... The Incarnation is not a division of God. The truth is rather this: that the God of infinitely varied activity added to His other self-expressions the act of becoming man—an additional form of activity in which He could engage without withdrawing Himself from any other’ (Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, pp. 294-295), § Cp. Moberly, op. cit. p. 167. 88 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES On the Theology of the Incarnation— The best general work is Mackintosh, The Person of Christ. Cp. also, Relton, A Study in Christology, and Strong, T'he Incarnation of God For a fuller statement of Patristic Evidence see : Ottley, Doctrine of the Incarnation Gore, Bampton Lectures. Dissertations, No. II. For the History of the controversies, Dr. W. Bright is still the best guide. For criticism of the ‘ Kenotic ’ theory see Hall, Kenotic Theory. For the Ritschlian view, Garvie, Ritschlian Theology, c. ix. (ec) Special difficulties arise when we consider (i) Our Lord’s human knowledge; (ii) His temptation. (i) We can only conceive of God’s omniscience as a perfect - knowledge raised above al] the limitations that beset our own, as an infinite and immediate intuition into the inmost being of all that is. But a real human experience includes the possession of human knowledge, attained by human means and able to be contained by the finite capacity of the human mind. It would seem, then, that our Lord, in willing to become man, willed such a restraining of the divine knowledge as would render possible a true human experience. Though our imaginations find it easier to picture a restraint of divine power, so as to allow of need and suffering and opposition and death, than of a restraint of divine knowledge so as to allow of ignorance and perplexity, yet at bottom the problem is the same in each case. Our thoughts must be guided by moral rather than metaphysical considerations. Above al], we must be true to all the facts of the Gospel narrative. In human knowledge we may distinguish two elements. First there is that knowledge which we acquire step by step— dis- cursive knowledge,’ as it is called—either by the operation of our mind, by processes of reasoning or argument, or else by receiving information from others. This includes all facts of history or natural science. Secondly, there is that knowledge which we call intuitive, gained not piecemeal, but by a direct and immediate perception. This includes all sensations as of colour or pleasure, or, again, all judgments of moral and spiritual insight. We see the truth, not as the conclusion of any argument or reflection, but with an immediacy and clearness that leave no room for doubt. When we turn to the Gospels, we find that in the first kind of knowledge our Lord, for all we can discover, shared all human limitations.* ‘He grew in wisdom.’ He used * Mk. 111~¢ (the instructions to find the colt) and Mk. 14! (the man bearing a pitcher of water) were probably pre-arranged signals. Even if they were THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 89 the ordinary methods of investigation. He asked questions to get information. He could be surprised at unforeseen events. The uncertainty of the future lay dark upon His soul. He ex- pressly declared that He did not know the day of His coming to judgment. So, too, He accepted the current Jewish opinions about physical science or the books of the Old Testament, that He learnt from His human teachers. On all such points it would seem that He lived and thought as a Man of His own day. But in the region of intuitive knowledge He showed a unique discernment. He claimed an unfailing insight into the mind of God and sympathy with His purposes, an unclouded vision of divine truth. He passed judgment on all questions of morality with the authority of one who saw the truth beyond dispute. He could read the thoughts and the hearts of friends and foes. He displayed an unerring perception of human character. The realm of moral and spiritual truth held no secrets from Him. His whole life and teaching were based upon this unique con- sciousness of God. He bore witness in His example and His discourses to what He knew. He revealed God by revealing dimself. Even here we may not draw a hard and fast line between the human and the divine. Among ourselves the power of moral and spiritual insight varies enormously. It depends not on education but rather on holiness of life. It is the pure in heart who see God. In the case of the Hebrew prophets and others we get instances of men endowed with powers of spiritual perception that the normal man does not possess, yet that in no way destroy their humanity. It is hard to set any limit to the moral and spiritual vision of a sinless human being. So in our Lord’s case. we may hold that here, too, the divine raised the human to its highest perfection. Hven under the limitations of a human life He enjoyed a true and adequate perception of God and of His own relation to God. And this perception He imparted to His disciples so far as it could be expressed in the human language of His day. We believe that our Lord came for a special purpose. He did not come to give us infallible information on questions of history, or criticism, or science. God has given us the ordinary methods instances of unusual perception they could be paralleled from the lives of the prophets. 90 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES of attaining to truth on such points, if we will only use them. Revelation is never given to save us trouble. Rather Christ came to bring men back to God. A real part of His saving work was to impart to men something of His own vision of the truth of God and to reveal the character of God and His purpose for man. The fulfilment of this mission demanded not omniscience but infallibility within the limits of the task entrusted to Him, Ignor- ance is one thing, error is another. If in His incarnate life He willed to submit to the limitations of human knowledge, yet He showed Himself aware of those limitations. On questions of moral and spiritual truth He spoke with the certainty of convic- tion: He claimed an infallible knowledge and appealed to His own life and character to prove the truth of His claim. ‘ Which of you convicteth me of sin? And if I say truth, why do ye not believe me’ (Jn. 8%). The power to live a life, faultless in its active performance of duty both towards God and towards man, carried with it the right to declare without contradiction, the secret source of strength, whence that power was derived. The truth of the life guaranteed the truth of the teaching. There is, however, one point on which it has been maintained that our Lord showed not merely ignorance but error. He expected and taught others to expect His return to judgment and the end of the world within the lifetime of His own generation. Subsequent events have proved this teaching false.* In support of this view the chief passages quoted are Mk. 13°, where ‘all these things ’ that shall be fulfilled in ‘ this generation ’ at first sight would seem to include the final advent of the Son of Man predicted in vv. “?? (Mt. 24°4 and Lk. 21 are parallel pas- sages) ; Mt. 249, where the final advent is foretold ‘ immediately _ after the tribulation of those days’ 7.e. the fall of Jerusalem (n.b. Mk. 134 has ‘in those days’). So, too, Mt. 1678 runs: ‘There shall be some of them that stand here which shall in no- wise taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom ’ (Mk. 9}, ‘till they see the Kingdom of God come with power’). At first sight these passages appear to suggest the falli- bility of Christ. But a closer examination of the Gospels makes any such conclusion at least precarious. (a) Our Lord expressly declared that as Man, He shared the ignorance of men and angels as to the time of His final advent *Cp. Foundations, p. 141. Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross Roads, p. 68. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 91 (Mk. 13% and probably Mt. 24%).* It is therefore improbable that at the same time He should have predicted it as about to happen within a generation. Further, much of His teaching beyond dispute assumes a long interval before His last coming. The Gospel is first to be preached to all the nations (Mk. 131°) and in the whole world (Mt. 24"). In Lk. 21% ‘the times of the Gentiles ’ are interposed between the capture of Jerusalem and the coming of the Son of Man. We must not be too confident that we always know exactly what is meant by the ‘coming of the Son of Man.’ We are dealing not with English literalism but Oriental imagery. In one sense Christ most really came in judgment at the fall of Jerusalem. His words then received a first fulfilment in the lifetime of those who heard them. They await a further fulfilment whose date and distance are unknown. Above all, the primary aim of our Lord’s eschatological dis- courses was not to give a detailed forecast of the future, but to rouse the disciples to the duty of watchfulness. They were to live as men in daily expectation of the Lord’s return and prepared to render an account to Him. (8) Here, if anywhere, we need to bear in mind that we have received our Lord’s words through human agency. The discourse in St. Matthew is demonstrably a collection of speeches from different sources, probably not spoken at the same time but grouped according to subject-matter. The same is probably true of Mk. 13. Hence, it is precarious to judge any saying by its present context. Again, the speeches have been translated from Aramaic into Greek. It is the easiest thing for a reporter unconsciously to alter the exact wording, to add or subtract a shade of meaning, or to give precision to what was intentionally left vague. If our Lord’s descriptions of His second coming were couched in dark and mysterious language, they may well have come down to us coloured by the presuppositions of those who heard them. If we compare Mt. 1678 with Mk. 91, Mt. 248 with Mk. 134, and Mt. 24? with Mk. 1374, we can see how the first evangelist has made more definite the vaguer expressions of St. Mark, so as to bring out his own belief that the final coming of our Lord would follow immediately after the destruction of * We may not unreasonably suppose that the actual moment of the end of the world and the final Advent is contingent upon human conduct. Hence, inevitably, our Lord as man must be ignorant of its date (cp. also p. 285 ff.). 92 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES Jerusalem. This definiteness demonstrates not the fallibility of Christ but of His interpreters. It is clear that the early Church, including St. Paul, lived m daily expectation of the Lord’s return. This proves that His teaching did not exclude such an interpre- tation, but it does not prove that it was the true interpretation (cp. the misunderstanding recorded in Jn. 21°). It seems to have been our Lord’s will that the Church should so live as to be prepared for His return at any moment. In a very real sense He ‘came in power’ in the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. In another sense He came at the fal] of Jerusalem.* In an equally real sense He comes in all times of crisis whether for the Church or for the individual. In every case His coming is a judgment, a blessing and an opportunity for those who are watchful, a con- demnation of those who are not. In the fulness of time there will be a last coming and a final judgment. (vy) Wemustalso bear in mind that our Lord spoke as a prophet. He employs the imagery of ancient prophecy and contemporary apocalyptic. We must therefore take account of the perspective of prophecy. ‘Long ages of the future are foreshortened in a series of pictures which seem to be immediate and simultaneous, until the course of events shows that they represent successive ages of long duration and slow development.’ Because this is so we do not dare to call the prophet mistaken. It may be that our Lord, as the last and greatest of the prophets, condescended to share their limitations and their mental outlook. He has told us expressly that He, as Man, did not know the day or hour of His return. But He had a clear vision of the certainty of that return, and that clearness He expressed under the symbol of nearness. His utterances must be judged by the standard of prophecy, and as such they have in part received and in part await fulfilment. On our Lord’s human knowledge, see : Dean Church, Life and Letters, p. 319, cp. p. 328 (Eversley Edition). Gore, Bampton Lect. VI. 32-5. Dissertations, II. 2 Inx Mundi, VIII. 36. Chandler, Faith and Experience, c. Vv. C.Q.R. vol. 33, Oct. 1891. * We can hardly imagine all that the fall of the city and the abolition of the Temple meant to a Jewish Christian. It was a very shaking of heaven and earth and the fall of all that seemed most permanent. It was the dawn of a new world. + Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the Prophets, p. 407. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 93 (ii) In the Epistle to the Hebrews (41%) our Lord is stated to have been ‘in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.’ It has often been objected that such a statement ig self-contra- dictory. With us the sting of temptation lies not only in the solicitation from without but in our own inward affinity to evil. It is the traitor within the camp that betrays us. In the case of an unfallen human nature and a will that had never been weakened by consent to evil, this last element would be lacking. How could evil make its full appeal 2 Further, if Christ could not sin, His battle with temptation was, so to speak, a sham fight. There was no fear of falling. Such objections are often urged, but if analysed they rest at bottom on a misunderstanding of the meaning of temptation. When our Lord became man, He thereby rendered Himself subject to temptation. God in Himself ‘cannot be tempted with evi] ’ (Jas. 11%), But in expressing Himself in and through the limitations of manhood and the feelings and conditions of finite human life ‘He deliberately put on—not, indeed, the personal capacity of sinning, but at least (if we may use the expression) the hypothetical capacity of sinning, the nature through which sin could naturally approach and suggest itself. .. . [here was, so far, in His human nature, the natural machinery for, or capability of, rebelling, that the reiterated negative “not my own,” “not myself,” does deny something.’* All free and finite existence contains the possibility of sin. Selfishness exists potentially as soon as there exists a self that can set itself up in opposition to the life of the whole. The fact of limitation carries with it the possibility of transgressing the limit.f Again, in virtue of His human nature our Lord possessed certain needs and desires common to all men: not only the elementary desires of the body, for food, drink, rest and the like, but also the desires of our higher nature, as for sympathy and companionship, and the more intellectual desire to explore all the manifold possibilities of life and to taste a full and rich experience. At any moment a being with such desires may find himself in circumstances when he has to choose between doing wrong in order to gratify them or leaving them ungratified. All such appetites, in them- selves morally neutral, may become temptations to sin when * Moberly, op. cit. p. 105. t Cp. Westcott, The Gospel of the Resurrection, c. ii. § 24, 94, THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES their satisfaction would conflict with the known will of God. Here, too, our Lord was sensitive to temptation. The nature of His temptations in large part corresponded to His vocation. He was tempted to forward the Kingdom of God in ways that were not in accordance with the will of the Father, to do evil that good might come. He was tempted to escape the pain and shame of the Cross. He experienced the power of temptation in all its reality. In one sense, no two men’s temptations are ‘in all points ’ the same, yet they agree in containing the essential elements of temptation. No individual undergoes all forms of temptation. So our Lord’s, though different in form very largely from our own, just because His work was unique, were as real and grievous to Him as our own are to us. His possession of unique powers does not affect the pomt in question. The moral struggle is concerned with the use to which we put the powers, great or small, which we individually possess. Any power may be used either for the glory of God-or for our own self-pleasing. Nor, again, does sinlessness affect the ultimate and essential nature of temptation. Our Lord, just because He was sinless, alone endured the full brunt of the assault. The man who yields to temptation has not experienced its extremest force. If, in God’s providence, our trials are proportioned to our capacity (1 Cor. 101%), our Lord’s conflict may well have been sore beyond ourimagination. Further, even in our own experience the temptations that come from sinless desires may be even more grievous than those that spring from our own past weakness.* Our own part in yielding to sm may alter the form of our tempta- tion but it does not make it essentially different. A sinful disposition does make men more liable to fall, but it does not increase the pain of being tempted; rather it diminishes it, because it diminishes the antagonism to evil. Again, when we say that sm was impossible to Him, we mean morally, not physically impossible. He could not sin, not because anything external prevented Him, but because He was Himself one in will with the Father. Temptation is not sin. It only becomes sin when the will fails to decide for the higher course or dallies with the temptation. Our Lord never consented to * It has been suggested, for instance, that the thirst of the traveller in the desert, which arises out of a sir less human infirmity, may be more fierce than the drunkard’s craving for strong drink, THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 95 the suggestion of evil. By prayer and faith He overcame the tempter. He condemned sin, not only by suffering for it, but by personally resisting and overcoming it. His holiness was a real human holiness perfected through moral effort and conquest.* Lastly, here as always, Jesus Christ is the great redeemer. What we need in our fight against sin is sympathy with us in all the pain and effort of resistance. That our Lord can give us, since He resisted ‘even unto blood.’ What our fallen nature craves is sympathy with us in our falls. That our Lord does not give, and it would be bad for us to receive it, since it would weaken us. Our Lord’s true human sympathy is not lessened by His perfect holiness. He felt the strain, as none other has ever felt it, of directing His will unceasingly along the hard path of duty, at the cost of pam to body, mind and soul. It would seem that in the higher stages of the spiritual life, as evidenced by the saints, the pain of temptation lies less in the fear of defeat than in the hatred of all suggestion to evil. As men grow in holiness they grow in sensitiveness to the horror of sin. The more holy the soul the more painful is all such temptation.t To our Lord it was more terrible than to others, just because He was sinless. Hence, He can indeed feel with us in our moral conflict. But though He can sympathize with us in our tempta- tions, because He Himself was tempted, He can redeem us from sin just because He neversinned. ‘ If redemption is to be achieved the redeemer must stand free of moral evil. As the source of victorious spiritual energy He must Himself be in utter oneness with the will of God. The perfect moral health, the unstained conscience to which He is slowly raising others, must be present . absolutely in His own life... . Like to His brethren in all else, yet He is unlike them here. Yet it is no paradox to say that such unlikeness makes His kinship perfect : for sin had made Him not moreaman butless. Sin dehumanizes, and byits entrance the per- fection of His vital sympathy would have been increasingly lost.’ f Besides the books referred to, see : Bruce, The Humiliation of Christ, Lect. VI. cp. pp. 236-237 and 263 ff. The Faith of a Christian, c. iv. Art., “ Temptation” in D.C.G. vol. ii. * Cp. Gore, Bamptons, pp. 165-167. + Cp. C.Q.R. vol. 33, pp. 280-282 (Jan. 1892). { Mackintosh, The Person of Jesus Christ, p. 401; cp. Westcott’s notes on Heb. 72° and 415, 96 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES (f) The Virgin-birth.—Our Article, following the Creeds, asserts that The Son... took man’s nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance. The Church has always understood such words as these literally, as stating that our Lord was born of a virgin-mother, without the intervention of any human father. Strictly speaking, it was our Lord’s conception, not our Lord’s birth, that was miraculous. The term Virgin-birth would be more accurately styled the ‘ virginal conception.’ * To-day this belief has been challenged by some who claim to be Christians. They hold that it forms no integral part of Christian belief, that there is no satisfactory historical evidence for it, that the state- ment of it in the Creed must be taken as symbolically, not literally true, that is, as an allegory, not an actual fact, and that in any case the belief in it as an historical event has no particular value for Christian faith. The main Imes of argument in support of this contention may be summed up thus. St. Mark, St. Paul, and St. John are all silent about the Virgin-birth. This shows that it had no place in the earliest Gospel. The evidence of the two Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke proves on examination to be historically worthless. Similar legends told about great men can be quoted from other religions. This suggests that the idea was borrowed by the early Christians and consciously or unconsciously fashioned into a story to symbolize Christ’s uniqueness. Further, it is more fitting, and in accordance with what we know of God’s orderly working, that God’s Son should sanctify the ordinary processes of human generation and birth by entering human life in the same manner as ourselves. Such a miracle would place Him apart from us. By rejecting the historical truth of the story a spiritual faith is strengthened — rather than weakened.f * It is important to distinguish between the Virgin-birth and the ‘ Immaculate Conception.’ They are often confused in popular thought. The ‘ Immaculate Conception ’ is the view that by a special miracle St. Mary was conceived and born free from any taint of original sin, that she might be the mother of Christ. Its aim is to secure her sinlessness. There is, however, no hint in Scripture or in any Father before St. Augustine that she was supposed to be sinless. Even he only supposed hor to be free from actua! sin. The doctrine stands on an entirely different footing from that of the Virgin-birth. It arose as a pious opinion, resting on a slender foundation of human logic. In the Roman Church it was ele- vated to the rank of a dogma in 1854. Cp. Strong, Manual of Theology, p. 269 ff. + See, e.g. Lobstein, The Virgin Birth, or Thompson, Miracles in New Testa- ment, or the Articles in the Encyclopedia Biblica, THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 97 In reply we maintain that this Article of the Christian faith cannot be so lightly swept away. (i) There is a right order in approaching this question. We do not expect a man to believe in the Virgin-birth who does not believe in the divinity of Christ. As a matter of simple history men did not believe Christ to be God, because He was born of a virgin. Rather by a study of His life and character and by the experience of His redemptive power, they became convinced that He was a unique Person. Then, believing Him to be a unique Person, they were prepared to believe, when they were told it on good authority, that He entered the world in a unique way. We gather from the Acts and the Epistles of St. Paul that the apostolic preaching began with Christ crucified, risen and ascended. Then came the study of His human life. The apostles were primarily witnesses to what they had seen. It was only when men had accepted Him as their Saviour and proved for themselves the power of His risen life, that in due time they were bidden to learn how that earthly life began. Both then and now, the Virgin-birth came first in order of time but last in order of apprehension. Only so far as we have learnt for ourselves the uniqueness of Christ are we able to approach the evidence with the right presuppositions. This, then, explains in part the so- called silence of St. Paul and St. Mark. St. Mark’s Gospel has preserved for us what is probably an outline of the earliest Christian preaching as given by St. Peter at Rome. To say that either the apostle or the evangelist did not know of the Virgin- birth is precarious. All that we have the right to say is that it was absent from the earliest preaching. Such silence is only to be expected, when we consider the reserve that always surrounds the mystery of birth. The blessed Mother would hardly have called public attention to such an event. It may be that in her lifetime the secret was jealously confined to a few. Again, when we consider the intimacy between St. Paul and St. Luke, it is hard to suppose that the former was ignorant of an event re- corded by the latter. There is no occasion in his extant epistles when we can say that he must have mentioned the Virgin-birth if he knewof it. It may well havelain in the background of his mind, when he spoke of God as ‘sending forth His Son born of a woman’ (Gal. 44) or of our Lord as the ‘Second Adam,’ ‘the heavenly man,’ the starting-point of a new humanity (1 Cor. 15%”). G 98 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES (ii) We must remember that the historical evidence for the event is more than that of two documents, the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. Behind them stands the witness of the Apostles and the whole of the early Church. It is incredible that if the Apostles had taught or were teaching that our Lord was the son of Joseph, these two Gospels should have been accepted without a protest. No doubt, for a long time, the majority of Christians did not know of the Virgin-birth : many may have died without having ever heard of it. But by the time of Ignatius it was accepted without question from Antioch to Ephesus (cp. Ignatius, ad Eph. 19, ad Trall. 9, ad Smyrn. 1). He asserts the reality of our Lord’s birth against the Docetists, though it is worth noting that an ordinary birth would have afforded a far stronger argument for his purpose, if he could have taught it.* The story of the Virgin-birth must have been made known on very good authority to win so soon such unanimous acceptance. So, too, the earliest known Creed-form, the ‘old Roman Creed,’ going back to about 100 a.p., contains the clause ‘born of the Holy Ghost from the Virgin Mary.’ This by itself proves that the Virgin-birth was in full accord with the tradition of the early Church. At such an early date the Creed was not dependent for its facts upon written Gospels. It must rank as independent evidence for very early Christian belief. ! When we turn to the two accounts in the Gospels we are struck by their independence. They agree in the main topic that thev undertake to narrate, the Virgin-birth, but they differ in detail. There is no actual inconsistency between them, unless we read into either of them statements that are not there, but owimg to our lack of knowledge it is not easy to piece all the details - together. ‘That an event is attested by two stories coming from different sources is usually regarded as affording a presumption of truth, not of falsehood.’ t In this case we have two indepen- dent witnesses, and the source of each account seems to lie in the traditions of the Jewish Church anterior to the fall of Jerusalem. Let us take St. Luke’s Gospel first. Within the last few years the accuracy of St. Luke as a historian has been vindicated in a * Cp. Swete, Apostles’ Creed, p. 46. + Armitage Robinson, Some Thoughts on the Incarnation, pp. 32-33; cp. the whole passage, pp. 31-41, THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 99 most marvellous way by archaeology, and not least in his account of our Lord’s birth. With the possible exception of the governor- ship of Quirinius, we may say that every detail of the frame- work of the story of the birth at Bethlehem has been corroborated by recent discoveries.* His proved accuracy on so many points in the framework, encourages us to trust his evidence about the birth itself. It is agreed that behind his first two chapters lie very early sources, strongly Jewish in outlook, and showing no consciousness of the path of shame which Messiah had to tread. The whole tone of the narrative suggests that it came from St. Mary herself. The suggestion has been made to cut out 1%, the verses that most clearly assert Mary’s virginity. In defence of this excision there is no evidence whatever, internal or external.f It is a counsel of despair, only of importance as showing how far men will go to rule out evidence that conflicts with their own preconceived ideas about what the Christian faith ought to be. It still leaves unsolved the problem of the prominence of Mary throughout these chapters if Joseph was the father. Nor can we explain why she is so carefully styled virgin twice in v. 27.1 See Box, The Virgin Birth of Jesus, c. ili.-v. The account in the first Gospel is written throughout from the side of Joseph. It is Jewish in tone through and through. The writer is eager to search out Old Testament parallels to the events of the birth and infancy of One whom he regards above all as the Messiah. To our minds many of these parallels seem far-fetched. So much so, that it is clear that the writer did not invent the details of the story in order to fulfil Old Testament predictions. The Jews had no special reverence for virginity as such. Hence, it is impossible to explain the existence of the story unless it was believed to be literally true. It has been argued that the whole narrative is only an attempt to create a fulfilment for the prophecy of Isaiah 714. The use of the Old Testament elsewhere by this *See Ramsay, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? and The Bearing of Recent Discovery in the Trustworthiness of New Testament, ce. xviii.-xxi. ; or Plummer’s St. Luke on these chapters. + A single Old Latin MS. (b) omits Mary’s question and transposes the text. Cp. Box, Virgin Birth, pp. 223-5. + Cp. also Lk. 24° with Plummer’s note. The first recorded words of Christ seem to be a correction of His mother’s words, and imply that Joseph was not His father. 100 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES writer lends no support to such a view. There is at present no evidence that the Jews either applied the passage to the Messiah or expected the Messiah to be born of a virgm. The Hebrew word in the text of Isaiah does not necessarily denote virginity.* Again, in 1/6 there are traces of a reading * Joseph begat Jesus.’ Even if this should be correct, the word ‘ begat ’ would be used in the same legal sense as elsewhere in the genealogy. Joseph acted as our Lord’s legal father. He was known as Jesus son of Joseph. No alternative was possible. Cp: Box, -c. ii: As regards the Gospel of St. John, his silence is a token of consent. He certainly knew the synoptic Gospels, and at times corrects or explains or supplements them. If he had disapproved of the narratives of the Virgin-birth, he would have shown his disapproval. But is he silent? The language of 11% when he speaks of Christians as ‘ born, not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,’ suggests an allusion. The Virgin-birth is both type and source of the spiritual new birth of the Christian. If we adopt the reading ds . . . every, following early Latin versions, the allusion becomes explicit. Before we leave the evidence of the Gospels, it is well to ask, If we reject their account of the Virgin-birth, what is the alterna- tive ? Our opponents reply ‘a birth in wedlock.’ But that is an alternative for which we have no evidence whatever. The only non-miraculous birth for which there is any evidence at all is a birth out of wedlock. In later days the current Jewish slander was that our Lord was the illegitimate child of Mary. There are evidences for the existence of this slander within the Gospels. Why did Mary accompany Joseph to Bethlehem ? Why was she in her condition repelled from the inn ?. The whole story suggests something unusual. In the genealogy, Mt. 1+1®, we find the names of four women only, three of whom were of bad character. Their presence may well be a retort to current slanders about the birth of Christ. The Gospel begins with a refutation of the * The passage in Isaiah is one of the most obscure in the Old Testament, Possibly it rests on an old myth found also in Rey. 12!~°, in which at a time of crisis a deliverer miraculously appears. In this myth the mother may have been a virgin, and the Lxx has zap@évos in the passage. But the whole emphasis is laid on the person of the deliverer, not on the manner of his birth. On the account in St. Matthew see McNeile. Cp. also the article ‘Messiah’ in #.R.2. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 101 Jewish attack on the birth of Christ, as it ends with a refutation of the Jewish denial of His Resurrection. Again, in Mk. 63, the people of Nazareth reject our Lord and say, ‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary.’ The wording is altered in Mt. and Lk. ‘To designate anyone the son of his mother, whether his father were dead or alive, is almost unknown in the Old or New Testament, and hardly occurs, if at all, in Rabbinic writers. The words were clearly used by the people of Nazareth in an insulting manner; they were referring to rumours which existed as to our Lord’s birth.’ * The same is the simplest explanation of the Jews’ retort in Jn. 8, ‘ We were not born of fornication, we have one father even God.’ Such an interpretation would suit admirably the irony of St. John. All the evidence points to something unusual in the birth of Christ. If this is admitted, the Christian conscience will not have much difficulty in deciding what is the true explanation.f (ii) The alleged parallels from the legends of other nations usually break down on examination. Many are demonstrably later than the Gospel stories and are probably echoes of Christian teaching. Others are gross and carnal stories about the lusts of gods and heroes as different as possible from the Christian accounts. We really cannot compare the narratives of the Gospel with these silly tales. The prevalence of such legends does, indeed, witness to a widespread human instinct that the human race could not produce its own deliverer, but needed a divine impulse from above. They would then embody an unconscious feeling after the truth enshrined im the actual Virgin-birth. As we have seen, the whole tone and outlook of the narratives is so Jewish that an admixture of pagan legend is incredible. It is equally impossible to find any adequate explanation in Jewish ideas. The only alternative is to regard them as an invention of Christian imagination. But from the first Christianity claimed, as against heathen religions, to be the truth. To suppose that Christians embodied their belief in the uniqueness of Christ in * Headlam in C.Q.R., October, 1914. See pp. 23-26. + The question has been raised, How could St. Mary have desired to restrain our Lord, as recorded in Mk. 3*!~ *4, if she knew of all that is recorded in the stories of His birth? Her estimate of His Person could hardly have been higher than St. Peter’s at Caesarea Philippi. Yet be vehemently rebuked the Master whom he had hailed as Messiah. She knew as yet nothing of the glory of the Resurrection. . 102 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES stories that bore the appearance of history, but were really only the work of pious fancy, is to charge them with an offence against one of the first principles of their religion. We do, indeed, find in the ridiculous stories of the Apocryphal Gospels the later attempts of Christian imagination to picture the birth and child- hood of Christ, and the contrast with the canonical Gospels is most instructive. Such attempts were rejected by the Church as unhistorical. They are valuable only as showing what manner of stories Christians invented when they were unhampered by facts. In short, the Gospel stories cannot be treated as legends unconsciously imported or shaping themselves as the vears went on. They are narrated as literal history in the lifetime of those who knew the Mother of Christ. See Box, c. vili St. Clair Tisdall, Mythic Christs and the True, c. v Art. ‘ Apocryphal Gospels’ in D.C.G. (iv) To assert that the story of the Virgin-birth may be treated as symbolic, is to misrepresent the place of symbolism. The clause ‘born of the Virgin Mary’ is m no way comparable to such a clause as ‘ He sat down at the right hand of the Father.’ When we are attempting to describe something that is outside earthly experience we can only employ the language of symbol. We are driven to use metaphors borrowed from this lower world. It is apparent that words which have been coined to express earthly things are imadequate to express heavenly things. In picturing our Lord’s ascended life, we can only do our best with human ideas and language. The clause ‘He sat down at the right hand of the Father ’ is only our effort to portray the truth that the highest place of honour in heaven belongs to Him. But when we are dealing with the Virgin-birth we are dealing with an event that, on its physical side, lies within human experience. Human language is as competent to express it as it is to express - anything. The language of the first century a.D. was as adequate - as our language to-day. To say that the birth-narratives of the Gospels are only symbolic is in effect to say that they are untrue: it is not to reinterpret them but to deny them.* As a matter of fact, the Virgin-birth can be supported by analogies from nature far more close than those that can be adduced in * Cp. Gore, ‘The place of Symbolism in Religion,’ reprinted in The War and the Church, esp. pp. 134-138. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 108 the case of some other miracles. Parthenogenesis—to use the scientific term—+.e. birth from a female without the intervention of a male, is not an unknown phenomenon. ‘ The latest investi- gations show that parthenogenesis can be artificially produced by an appropriate stimulus in many animals in which it does not naturally occur.’ * Even among mankind there is evidence of a certain tendency to parthenogenesis. Such scientific facts do not, indeed, abolish the uniqueness of the Virgin-birth, but at least they show that its principle is not incredible. They in their measure support the literalness of the story. (v) The question, however, still remains, What is the spiritual value of the Virgin-birth ? What moral need of man does it satisfy ? Let us begin by admitting that we must not make a priori assertions about it. We do not dare to say that such a birth was the indispensable condition of an Incarnation, or that by no other means could the entail of sin be broken. All we claim is that the Virgin-birth is in the fullest accord with the revealed purpose of Christ’s coming and with our own highest insight into that purpose. We may illustrate this by a comparison between the birth of our Lord and the birth of John the Baptist. John’s was essentially a birth from the past. In every sense he was a child of old age. His parents were of priestly family, stricken in years, righteous in works of the law. He summed up in himself and his mission both the strength and weakness of the Jewish nation. Theirs was a work of preparation. By the Law was given a knowledge of God’s righteousness, a conviction of sin, but not the power to live up to such knowledge. So John could convict men of sin and-baptize them with the baptism of repentance, but he could dono more. He waited for one mightier than himself who should baptize with holy Spirit, the breath of new life. But the birth of Jesus Christ of a young maiden of the tribe of Judah by the overshadowing of God’s power was in all ways the opposite of the birth of John. Jesus Christ was neither physically, morally, nor spiritually the product of the past. The physical fact was a parable and pledge of the moral and spiritual fact. He brought into humanity what humanity could not achieve for itself, a new and undefiled stream of human life. The entail of weakened will * Harris, Pro Fide,* p. xl. For evidence of science, see pp. xxxviii-xli, 104 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES and perverted desire was broken. The alleged parallels from other religions, so far as they really apply, witness to a dim conscious- ness of this need. Men aspired to be liberated from the fetters of their past and to rise above their inheritance of weakness and shame. Jesus Christ was the starting-point, the re-creation of a new humanity, and not merely the summit of past evolution. We dare not, indeed, affirm that without the Virgin-birth this influx of new life would have been impossible. But we can see how the creative act of God in the physical world was a most fitting counterpart of His re-creative act in the spiritual world. Again, if Jesus Christ was the natural offspring of Mary and Joseph, it is hard to see how we can regard Him as other than an individual human person. In accordance with ordinary laws of nature the product of such union is in each case a single finite human personality. Christ would therefore be at best an indi- vidual man exceptionally favoured by being taken into a unique relation with God. In other words, we find ourselves face to face with a Nestorian Christ, who, as we have seen, cannot be the divine Redeemer known to Christian experience. Again, we find Christ not simply a Son of Man but the Son of Man. His humanity was a universal humanity raised above the limitations of sex and country. He realized the ideal of Hast and West alike. He combined the most opposite virtues. In other words, the Virgin-birth stands for this, that God did not simply reveal Him- self through a single human Person, a Jew, but ‘that God once for all and completely incarnated Himself in humanity as His Son, and in that all-comprehensive act made all men His sons—poten- tially.’ * That is, Jesus Christ is not simply a unique example of manhood outside ourselves, to be admired from afar, but He is the truth of each one of us. We may each find in Him our true self and the power of becoming our true self. Once again, we do not assert that this was not possible without the Virgin- birth; we are content to point out its moral fitness. The spiritual and moral miracle of the existence of Jesus Christ demands an act of God not less unprecedented than the physical miracle. Cp. Du Bose, The Gospel in the Gospels, c. xvii. Box, p. 187 ff. Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, p. 49 fi. * Du Bose, The Gospel in the Gospels, p. 217. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 105 (vi) Lastly, our opponents claim that since a full Christian faith was possible in the earliest days without a belief in the Virgin- birth, it is possible to-day. But it is one thing to be ignorant of a spiritual truth, quite another thing deliberately to reject it, when it has been brought to light. Undoubtedly individuals may abandon a belief in the Virgin-birth and vet retain faith in our Lord’s divinity, but it is very questionable whether large bodies of people or the Church as a whole could do so. The experience of the last century tends to show that when men give up a belief in the Virgin-birth of Christ, they pass on to a view of His Person that is not that of the Catholic Church: it may be an up-to-date form of Nestorianism or an open Unitarianism. It is significant that the only opposition to the Virgin-birth in ancient days came from Ebionites and Gnostics, who refused to advance to the Catholic estimate of our Lord’s Person. The real central miracle of Christianity that staggers the imagina- tion is the Incarnation. If we once believe that God Himself entered into human life and passed through a human experi- ence, then a belief in the Virgin-birth follows naturally and brings no new difficulty. The historical Incarnation mvolves a break with the past and a new and unprecedented divine activity, beside which the wonder of the Virgin-birth sinks into insignificance. On the whole question see: Articles ‘ Birth of Christ’ and ‘ Virgin-birth’ in D.C.G, Sweet, The Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ. Headlam, Miracles of the New Testament, Lect. VII. Simpson, Creative Revelation, c. iv. and Notes B and C, Gore, Dissertations, pp. 1-67. §2. The Article then proceeds to affirm the reality of the atoning work of Christ, * Who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.’ (a) In any endeavour to enter into the meaning of the Atone- ment we must distinguish between the fact of the Atonement and attempted explanations of the fact or theories about it. It is the fact that is of primary importance. Through Christ crucified, Christians have found peace with God: they have tasted the joy of forgiveness for past sin: they have received new life and strength for the future. ‘ Being therefore justified by faith, let us have 106 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 5!) ; ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (1 Jn. 41°); Christ ‘ his own self bare our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness ’ (1 Pet. 24). These are three typical statements from the New Testament, all bzaring witness to a common experience.. Christians were convinced that through Jesus Christ they had passed out of darkness into light. The old sense of condemnation had passed away (Rom. 81). They had received a new capacity for righteous- ness and love and a new hope in living (1 Cor. 6°", Eph. 2173, 1 Jn. 34, ete.). Further, they were no less convinced that this experience might be shared by all men who would come to Christ in faith and repentance. That this vivid conviction of new life in union with God was no passing fancy of the imagination was proved by their changed conduct and by the mutual love and holiness of the Christian fellowship. This is the fact of the Atonement. Through Christ crucified men of all ages have been brought into union with God. The Gospel is in the first instance a proclamation of facts, the invitation to share the pardon and peace won by the Cross of Jesus Christ. At the same time, Christians have quite rightly sought to understand the meaning of the Atonement. As rational beings we are bound to think about what interests us most. Hence the attempts to interpret the saving work of Christ im terms of human life and thought. Such attempts are necessary that the Atonement may make its deepest appeal to the whole of our nature. Just because it is a revelation of God, shedding light both upon the char- acter of God and upon the needs and nature of man, we must strive to grasp the truth that it reveals and bring it home to ourselves.* * The word ‘atonement’ by its derivation means simply at-one-ment, the bringing together of two parties that have been estranged. (It is so used by Shakspere, e.g. Richard III., Act i. Scene 3.) But in modern English, atonement has come to acquire the meaning ‘reparation’ or ‘making amends’: so to our ears it tends to denote the means by which reconciliation is made possible, rather than the reconciliation itself. In the A.V. ‘atonement’ occurs only once in N.T. (Rom, 5") as a translation of xcara\\ay7. The R.V. substitutes ‘reconciliation.’ In the O.T. the R.V. retains ‘atonement ’ in many passages. The word so translated rather means ‘ propitiation.’ The verb ‘ kipper’ comes from a root that means to ‘ wipe clean.’ It is, however, always used figuratively. Thus, it is used of propitiating a person, where the original idea may have been THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 107 (6) In Scripture the atoning work of Christ is most often expressed in language borrowed from the sacrifices of the Old Covenant. There is probably no subject on which our ordinary ideas need a more drastic revision than on the meaning of sacrifice. Modern research has shown that the fundamental idea of sacrifice is that of fellowship with God.* Sacrifice is found all over the world and seems to spring out of a universal human instinct. Its original meaning is still a matter of dispute.f From the nature of the case we cannot now discover who offered the first sacrifice or what he meant by it. The practice may have originated mdependently at more than one place and not had the same meaning in every place. All that we can do is to note the diverse ideas underlying it as found in historical times. All evidence goes to show that sacrifice has no necessary connexion either with suffering or sin. In the case of friendly gods it was often a simple offering of food made as a tribute of respect or gratitude to the god, as to the head of a tribe. In the case of unfriendly powers it may have been regarded as a bribe to go away and do no more mischief. Again, primitive men claimed to hold communion with the god of their tribe by means of a banquet. Religion, it must be remembered, in primitive times was a purely social concern. The god was the god of the tribe or clan, not of the individual as such. According to primitive ideas communion with the god was effected by eating with him at a common meal. The god, like all the other guests, had his portion of food, which, it may be, was burnt that it might ascend wiping clean a face that is blackened by displeasure. It is also used in the passive of sin being ‘wiped out’ or cancelled. Elsewhere it is used of God wiping clean either the offence or the offender, where it practically equals forgiving. In a legal sense it is used of a priest making propitiation (or atone- ment, R.V.) for a person or thing, ¢.e. wiping it clean by a propitiatory act. In this last sense, at least, it comes to mean the process by which propitiation is made rather than the propitiation itself, that is, it corresponds with the modern use of ‘ atonement’ rather than with its original meaning. (See Driver, Article ‘ Propitiation ’ in Hastings’ D.B. Since this was written, discoveries in Babylonia have made it clear that the root-meaning of ‘ kipper’ is to ‘ wipe clean ’ rather than to ‘cover’ as used to be supposed. Cp., eg. Dr. Burney, J.Th.S., April, 1910, or C.Q.#., April, 1915, p. 55). * Op. St. Augustine’s definition of sacrifice: ‘Omne opus quod agitur ué sancta societate inhaereamus Deo.’ + Cp. Jevons, Introduction to Comparative Religion, pp. 175-210; Compara- tive Religion, c. ii. 108 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES to him. In certain countries the food thus eaten—usually food of a special kind—came to be identified with the flesh of the god himself. The vital union between the tribe and their god was renewed and strengthened by a physical feeding upon tbe life of the god. These sacrificial meals were occasions of joy and boisterous merriment.* Such festal meals are prominent in the earlier parts of the Old Testament. But as the sense of sin grew, men felt that before communion with their god could be attained, the sin or defilement, often in primitive times regarded as physical rather than moral, must be expiated. So the idea of sacrifice as a propitiation, an idea probably present in some degree from the first, was brought to the front. Accordingly, in the later religion of Israel the sin-offering came to be the most prominent. The awakened conscience felt that sin had come between the soul and God and must be removed before communion could be restored. Even so, the older forms of sacrifice, the ‘burnt-offerings,’ which primarily though not exclusively expressed gratitude or homage, and the ‘ peace-offerings,’ which concluded in a social meal, still survived. And up to the end certain sacrifices were retained which did not require the death or destruction of any victim, such as the meal-offering or the show-bread. In the light of such knowledge we can understand that since Christ by His death had made communion with God possible, that death was inevitably interpreted in the language of sacrifice. Christ had achieved perfectly and for ever all that the old sacrifices had attempted to achieve. In all ancient religions stress was laid on action rather than on belief. What was done and the manner in which it was done was all that | mattered. No doubt certain general ideas lay behind the external rites of sacrifice, but they were vague and disconnected. Sacri- fice was offered to attam certain recognized ends, but there was no definite theory of sacrifice. Hence the use of sacrificial terms to express the Atonement does not involve any single and com- plete theory about the Atonement. It is as true to say that for the first Christians the full meaning of the ancient sacrifices was interpreted by the death of Christ as that the meaning of His death was interpreted by them. (c) Turning then to Scripture, we find our Lord not only pre- dicting His death and passion but regarding them as the climax * Cp. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, Lect. VII., esp. pp. 254-263, THE INCARNATION ANT) ATONEMENT 109 of His work.* He never viewed them as a failure or even as an interruption to His activity. They had an essential place in His mission. He came not to live only, but to die (e.g. Lk. 12°°, Jn. 1274), He always looked through death to the Resurrection (Mk. 8°1, 934, 10*4, etc.). He was constrained to die not by outward compulsion but by inward necessity. The Scriptures declared His death to be the will of God (Mk. 84, notice ded, g12, 1421 and 49 J}, 2425-27), We ask to what passages of Scripture He referred. Probably certain of the psalms, such as those on which He meditated upon the Cross. Probably, too, the spiritual significance of the Old Testament sacrifices as ordained in the Law. But the clearest passage is that of the Suffermg Servant of Jehovah in Is. 53. The Servant takes upon him the sins of others (v. °): his death is a sin-offering (v. 1°), making reconciliation for many (vv. 1*1%), and is followed by a resurrection. In Lk. 228? He applies to Himself words from the description of the Suffering Servant. It is in this sense, too, that ‘The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister ’ (7.e. as a servant) ‘and to give his life a ransom for many (AUTpoy avi ToAA@r),’ F z.e. to buy back lives forfeited by sin (Mk. 10%, cp. 1 Tim. 2°). After His Resurrection in the first days of the Church our Lord is explicitly identified with the Servant (Acts 31% and 26, 427 and 30, cp. Mt. 1218). His death upon the Cross is explained as the fulfil- ment of Is. 53 (Acts 8°75), This reinforces the evidence of the Gospels as showing that this interpretation of His Cross rests * Cp. Mason, Christianity : What is it ? p. 80 ff. + Avrpoy in Lxx is used of the price paid to redeem a first-born son, whose life belonged to Jehovah (Num. 3%), or a slave (Lev. 25°!), or a captive (Is. 4515), We may compare the teaching of Mk. 837. When a man’s life is forfeited, he has nothing to give in exchange wherewith to buy it back. The Greek word \vrpov may be the equivalent of either of two Hebrew words, one of which has definite sacrificial associations, being the substantive from ‘ kipper.’ The dominant theory of the Atonement in the Church until the time of Anselm, so far as it had one, was based on this metaphor of ‘ransom.’ The death of Christ was viewed as a ransom paid to the Devil. This presses the metaphor too hard. The word ‘ransom’ is symbolical of the truth that Christ’s death has freed us from slavery, and that this freedom was purchased at a great cost. “But when we go on to ask, to whom was the ransom paid, we are pressing the metaphor beyond the limits of the truth that it was selected to express. No answer can be given. Israel was often said to have been ransomed or redeemed from Egypt. Such language laid stress on the mighty exhibition of God’s power and the cost of redemption. But obviously no ransom was paid to Pharaoh. (Cp. Westcott, Hebrews, p. 297 ff.) 110 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES on our Lord’s own teaching. The vision of the Transfiguration suggests that it was through meditation upon the Law and the Prophets that our Lord in His human consciousness learnt the divine necessity of His death (Lk. 9°%%1), At the Last Supper in the institution of the Eucharist our Lord clearly attaches a sacrificial value to His death. He views it as inaugurating a new covenant between God and man by which remission of sins was secured to many (Mk. 144, Mt. 2628, cp. Exodus 248). He is in some sense the true Paschal Lamb. As the blood of the Paschal Lamb protected Israel from the angel of death, so His atoning blood averts God’s judgment from those who take refuge in it. Cp. Denney, The Death of Christ, c. i. J. K. Mozley, The Doctrine of the Atonement, c. ii. In the Epistles our Lord’s death is at once compared and contrasted with the leading forms of Jewish sacrifice. In Eph. 5? the completeness of His self-sacrificing love is expressed under the imagery of the Burnt-offering. In 1 Cor. 101°! and probably Heb. 13!° the simile is rather that of the Peace-offering. Christ the Victim is the food of His people. More often His death is likened to the Sin-offerig (Rom. 3% 2"¢ 83, where rept auaprtias, according to the constant use of Lxx, is the technical term for a sin-offering. 1 Pet. 2% and 318 7] Jn. 41° and Heb. 131112, an isolated passage standing apart from the general argument of the Epistle). Throughout Hebrews it is interpreted by the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. Elsewhere He is regarded as the Lamb of sacrifice (1 Pet. 119, Rev. 5°, ete., cp. Jn. 12°) and explicitly as the Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 58, cp. Jn. 19°). Further, the many passages that speak of the ‘ blood’ of Christ imply a similar idea of sacrifice (Rom. 5%, Col. 12°, Eph. 17 and 2}%, 1 Jn. 17, Rev. 5°, etc.). In short, the whole of the New Testament is permeated by sacrificial thought and language, unfamiliar to our modern minds. We need to get behind it to the ideas of universal human interest that it embodies. Cp. Denney, The Death of Christ, cc. ii.-v. J. K. Mozley, The Doctrine of the Atonement, c. iii. (d) When we consider the Old Testament sacrifices, three leading general ideas stand out and find fulfilment in the atoning death of Christ. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 111 (i) These sacrifices rest upon divine appointment. They are means ordained by God Himself by which His people may be brought back into communion with Him or may realize such communion (cp. 2 Sam. 144). They are never viewed as a means of overcoming God’s reluctance to forgive, or as earning God’s favour. So, in the New Testament the Atonement from first to last proceeds from the love of God. ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself’ (2 Cor. 51819), ‘It was the good pleasure of the Father... through him to reconcile all things unto himself’ (Col. 11°29, ep. Eph. 2*6). The Father is always represented as ‘sending’ the Son to be the Saviour of the world (1 Jn. 414, cp. Jn. 34%). It was God who set forth Christ as propitiatory (Rom. 3%). Any theory of the Atoncment that misrepresents it as an appeasing of an angry Father by a merciful Son not only breaks up the Persons of the Trinity, but contradicts the whole tenour of Scripture. The initiative of the Atonement is always represented as lying with the Father (cp. Ro. 58).* | (11) We may divide the process of Old Testament sacrifice into three main portions, (a) The bringing of the victim to the altar, (©) The death of the victim, (vy) The presentation of the blood before God. i (a) The victim was brought by the offerer to the place of sacrifice. It must be without blemish (Lev. 1%, etc.). There the offerer laid his hands upon the victim’s head, perhaps to signify a very intimate connexion between the offerer and the victim, and made confession of sin. In the case of our Lord these preliminary actions fairly correspond to His life viewed as the approach to Calvary. His life of obedience was, as it were, the bringing of the victim to the door of the tabernacle. He came to do the Father’s will. For that end a body was prepared for Him (Heb. 10°). By His conquest of temptation *Tt has been often urged that in parables such as the Prodigal Son forgive- ness is in no way connected with the death of Christ. We may reply: First, Christ, like any good teacher, teaches one point ata time. Secondly, in such parables He was addressing men who were approaching God through Himself. He could speak of the Father’s forgiveness unconditionally, because He had come from the Father to be and to do all that was needed to make possible that forgiveness. We must remember that in the Epistles stress is laid above all on the Cross and Resurrection, and in the Gospels a very large proportion of space is given to the story of the death and passion, 112 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES He proved Himself a Lamb ‘ without blemish ’ (Heb. 914, 1 Pet. 119), He, as it were, laid His hand upon His own life by submitting to the discipline of suffering (Heb. 58). What in the case of the animal victim was involuntary and unconscious, was in Him voluntary and conscious. Whereas in the old sacrifices the union between offerer and victim was no more than outward and conventional, Christ was Himself both offerer and victim. Of His own wil! He gave Himself up to die. His death came to Him in the path of duty and He accepted it as the Father’s will. (0) The victim was slain, not necessarily by the priest at all, since the slaying of the victim was not essentially a priestly act. Perhaps the sole object of this was the setting free of the blood, ‘ which is the life,’ so as to be available for presentation to God, Very possibly it contained also the acknowledgement that sin deserved death.* Here, too, the New Testament draws the contrast between the involuntary suffering of an irrational animal and the perfect obedience of the Cross. The death of Christ was the climax of filial obedience (Heb. 57°, Mk. 14°, Phil. 28, Rom. 51, ete.). Our Lord voluntarily identified Him- self with men, and willed to endure death on their behalf (Gal. 14, 270 etc.). As the representative of mankind He offered to the Father a perfect human obedience. Obedience could do ne more than die. He made a perfect confession of sin and sub- mitted to death as the due penalty of sin (2 Cor. 574). All that the old sacrifices prefigured, He perfectly and in actual fact fulfilled. (y) Then, when the blood was shed, the culmination of the sacrifice was reached in the manipulation of the blood by the priest. In the sin-offering it was sprinkled on the horns of the altar. On the Day of Atonement it was carried by the High- priest within the veil and sprinkled on and before the mercy- seat. This was the essential act of sacrifice and could only be performed by the priest. It signified not the infliction of death but the offering of life. ‘The life of the flesh is in the blood: * Probably a majority of modern scholars would dispute this, and hold that there was no idea of transference of sins to the victim and of the victim suffering death as the penalty of sin. Such an idea of penal substitution was certainly not carried through consistently, but very strong arguments can be adduced in its favour, Some such thought underlies Is. 53 (ep. 2 Cor. 5% and 1 Pet. 274), and is found in later Judaism. See H.D.B. ‘Sacrifice,’ pp 340 and 3426, and Mozley, op. cit. p. 14 ff. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 113 and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life’ (Lev. 174). The killing of the victim was a necessary means to this end, but still a means (cp. Heb. oy Through the life thus liberated by death propitiation was made. The sim was wiped out and communion with God restored. The New Testament prefers to say that we are saved by the ‘ blood ’ of Christ rather than by the ‘death’ of Christ. That is, we are saved by the life of Christ that was surrendered to God in death, and thus set free to be the means of our atonement. Christ’s redeeming work did not end on the Cross. It was consummated when as our high-priest He entered into Heaven to present His life to the Father. ‘While the thought of Christ’s blood (as shed) includes all that is involved in Christ’s Death, the Death of Christ, on the other hand, expresses only a part, the initial part of the whole conception of Christ’s Blood. The Blood always includes the thought of the life preserved and active beyond death.’* This thought will be developed when we come to the Ascension. We must not isolate the Cross from the Crucified if we wish to understand the meaning of the Atonement. The Cross was indeed the necessary means of our salvation. Only as having been slain, could Christ’s life become available for us. But we are saved by a living Christ, not merely by something that He once did. Here again the ‘blood’ of Christ stands in contrast with the blood of victims. The life of the victims was only conventionally alive after death. But the life of Christ through death is a glorious reality. He has become all that He now is through the Cross. His ‘blood’ is Himself, His own life. As the ‘ Lamb that hath been slain’ He is the ‘ propitiation for our sins’ (1 Jn. 2%). (ii) The purpose of the Old Testament sacrifices was not exhausted by the removal of the sin. The people were restored to full communion with God in order that they might continue in His service. So the object of our Lord’s atonement includes far more than a bare forgiveness of sins. We are saved in order that we may serve, and in God’s service find our true satisfaction. We are redeemed from evil that we may become something good. * Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, Note on ‘The idea of Christ’s Blood,’ pp. 35-36. Cp. Milligan, Resurrection, Note 56. i 114 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES Through an abiding union with God made possible by Christ. we are to live henceforth our true life as Sons of God. Christ is to be to us day by day a living Saviour imparting to us through the Holy Spirit His own life. As redeemed we are progressively to appropriate all the blessings of God’s people (1 Pet. 14, ep. Rom. 81”). No view of the Atonement can be satisfactory that ignores the work of the Holy Spirit in us, transforming us into the very likeness of Christ and sanctifying all our life. We are to do all things ‘in Christ.’ As members of Christ we are to share the joy and peace that the Spirit brings (cp. Gal. 572-23, Rom. 141”), The Christian life here and here- after is the goal for which we were saved. ‘If while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life’ (Ro.-5*°), (ec) How then, it may be asked, can the Article speak of Christ dying ‘to reconcile the Father to us’? Such language suggests that the Atonement wrought a change of mind in God towards us. We must admit that in all the passages in Scripture in which the word ‘reconcile’ is employed in connexion with the work of Christ, the fact is expressed the other way round. We are said to be reconciled to God, not God to us. That is to say, the change, according to our use of the term, is said to be wrought in us; not m/ Him (Rom. /51%)) Cori 51820 Hip ao Colles) But even if the form of expression in the Article is not scriptural, the truth that underlies it is. The Greek word (ckata\\acow) translated ‘ reconcile ’ simply means to re-establish friendly rela- tions between persons.* On which side the hostility exists is not determined by the word itself. Thus in Mt. 5% the grievance is on the side of the brother of the man who is about to offer a sacrifice. Yet it is the man himself who is bidden ‘to be re- conciled.’ In English idiom we should say that the brother needed to be reconciled. The moment that we grasp that the Atonement is at bottom a personal matter, we can see that a change on one side inevitably carries with it a change on the other. Further, we hear much in Scripture of the ‘wrath’ of God, as a present and not only a future attitude towards sinners (e.g. Rom. 118, Eph. 5°, etc.). So, as unredeemed, men are said * Cp. Bengel on Rom. 3%4 xcaradday% est Sirdevpos et tollit (a) indignationem Dei adversum nos 2 Cor. 51°, (8) nostramque abalienationem a Deo 2 Cor. 5°, THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 115 Ul to be €yOpor ‘hostile’ to God. In some passages this may have a purely active sense, ‘hating God,’ but in Rom. 11?8 it is cer- tainly passive, being opposed to ayamyrot, ‘ beloved,’ and this suggests. that a passive meaning cannot be entirely excluded elsewhere (e.g. Col. 174, Jas. 44). Again, it is true that the New Testament never speaks of ‘propitiating God.’ ‘The pro- pitiation is spoken of as being made in the matter of sin or the sinner. ... That is, the sin is regarded as an obstacle to com- munion, which alienates man from God and is removed by the propitiation.’* On the other hand, such words as propitiation (‘Aacuos) imply a person in the background. Someone must be propitiated, and who, if not God ? fF But the real question goes deeper. Since God is holy, His relation to sin must be one of active hostility, not of passive dislike. It is impossible to think of God as not filled with unceasing energy against all that is evil. That is the meaning of the ‘ wrath of God.’ We are too apt to limit our picture of the divine wrath by the analogy of human wrath. In the case of men anger has almost always an element of selfishness. It springs not from a pure love of good and hatred of evil, but from mixed motives, pride, malice, and the like. It is often arbitrary and personal. But even so a true zeal for righteousness involves a certain fierceness against wrong. ‘ Neither doth he abhor any- thing that is evil’ is a terrible condemnation of a man’s charac- ter. In God His wrath is not a burst of feeling that overcomes Him and leads Him into actions inconsistent with His character. It is rather one aspect of His abiding love, as it deals with the sin that opposes and wars against that love. It is the reaction of God’s holiness against transgressions. It is quite true that God’s love never changes. But love that is incapable of moral indignation against all that violates and opposes love, or that is slow in putting forth a destroying energy against it, falls short of the highest love. The Atonement does not create God’s love: as we have seen, it starts from that love. But it does enable that love to act differently towards us by removing the sin that has impeded its free activity. By repentance we do not change God’s will towards us, but we are changed ourselves, *See Westcott, Hpistles of St. John, p. 87. Cp. ‘ Propitiation,’ Hasttngs’ D.B. p. 128 b. { Cp. Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 91, 116 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES ' so that God can treat us differently ; hence, from our point of - view and in relation to us the attitude of God appears to change. The principle on which He treats us is unchanged, but the treatment itself changes. The mind of God toward sin is unaltered—it is our mind towards sin that has to be transformed, not His—but the change in ourselves makes possible a new personal relationship. To say that He is recon- ciled to us represents a real fact of personal experience. It expresses in the language of human friendship the conviction that through the Cross of Christ we have passed mto the full light of God’s favour. (f) The question is often raised, Is the Atonement ‘ subjective ’ or ‘objective’? That is, does its efficacy lie in the appeal of the Cross to our heart and conscience, or in some work that Christ did outside us ? The only true answer is that the Atone- ment must be both subjective and objective. On the one hand we must remember that the problem of Atonement is very largely a moral problem. If men are to be brought into full union with God, their characters must become such that they are capable of entering into this life. The estrangement due to sin is not the result merely of a number of acts of sin, but of the state of mind and soul which issued in these acts. Our ' Lord died not simply to save us from the penalty of sin but from sin itself. Only men who have learnt to will what God wills, love what God loves, and hate what God hates, are able to enter into the fulness of the divine life. Just as no friend- ship is possible between men of utterly divergent tastes and ideals, so fellowship with God is impossible so long as we are alienated from Him in our wills and affections. The Atonement, therefore, must certainly be subjective in that it effects an entire change in us. But we must also maintain that the Atonement is also objective. By our sinful acts we have set free forces of desolation and disorder in the world. The evil consequences of our acts are not limited to our own eharacters. Mere penitence in us cannot undo the past. Hence, a true atone- ment must not only change us, but, as it were, provide healing and restorative power by which the evil consequences of our sins in others and in the world at large may be repaired. Again, though the Atonement is primarily a moral problem, as between persons, still we should hesitate to say that it was THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 117 only a moral problem. Our relation to Almighty God is more complex than our relation to our neighbour. He is our Creator and Preserver and King, with an unconditional claim upon our whole lives. Sin as against Him is something at once more rebellious and more unnatural than as against even the closest or the most authoritative of our fellow-men. Human analogies at their highest go a very long way in attempting to understand the meaning of the Atonement, but it is rash to assume that they go the whole way. For the subjective view the great book is now Rashdall, The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology. See also the writings of Dr. Westcott; and Wilson, The Gospel of the Atonement. . (i) Scripture quite recognizes the subjective value of the Atonement. In Rom. 3” ff. the Cross is viewed as the demonstra- tion of the seriousness of sin. It has made it possible for God to forgive us without the danger of seeming to be indifferent to sin (cp. 24). It is an exhibition of the righteousness of God, bringing home to our conscience the awfulness of sin and show- ing up its blackness. Elsewhere Scripture speaks of the Cross as manifesting the infinite self-sacrifice of God’s Jove (Ro. 53). We see God on the Cross bearing the sins of men (cp. 1 Pet. 27! ff.). Calvary is the disclosure in time of the wounds that our discbedi- ence is ever inflicting upon the heart of God. There we see the effect of our sins on the love of God laid bare. In the light of such a revelation we cannot continue to go on wounding one who bears our blows so unresistingly and meekly. His patient love must win our hearts and smite our consciences with shame. By every sin that we commit we crucify Christ afresh (cp. Heb. 66 and 10°). Thus the Cross leads us to repentance. It arouses in us new and deeper sorrow for sin. The love of the Crucified melts the stubbornness of our hearts. The Cross is at once the declaration of God’s eternal willingness to bear with men and to forgive the penitent sinner and also the means of awakening penitence in us. The Cross has proved itself able to draw out love and penitence and so to make men at one with God. For the Cross is the supreme example of the purifying energy of self- sacrificing love.* *Cp. Dinsmore, The Atonement in Literature and Life, pp. 232-233. * As the flash of the voleano discloses for a few hours the elemental fires at the earth’s centre, so the light on Calvary was the bursting forth through historical 118 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES (ii) On the other hand, the above view of the Atonement does not express the whole truth. It does not do justice to all the language of Scripture. From first to last Scripture grounds our acceptance with God not simply on what Christ was or taught, but on what He has done. No doubt it is true that He could only do all that He did by being what He was. But it is no less true that He has become the Saviour that He is to-day, by doing what He did upon the Cross. All the language of sacrifice, all the phrases about the ‘blood’ of Christ involve the belief that His death opened up new possibilities, and that on the Cross He achieved an atoning act in some sense inde- pendent of its apprehension by us. The Atonement is the divine counterpart in action to the ‘wrath of God,’ which wrath a merely subjective view is obliged to minimize or explain away. | God is indeed love, but He is holy love, and such love when faced with sin can only issue in active antagonism. Christ on the Cross is not only the patient sufferer, but by His acceptance of death acknowledges the justice of the divine wrath. The death of Christ has a Godward as well as a Manward aspect, though we may find difficulty in entering into its meaning. From another standpoint the merely ‘subjective ’ view fails to satisfy the demands of our moral nature. We need something deeper than even the fullest disclosure of God’s love ; we need a transformation of the entire man from within, the infusion of new life and strength. Though we may hesitate to set a limit to the redeeming influence of love, our mind and conscience demand that any revelation of love shall be in the closest re- lation to our own moral needs. We feel that the Cross is more than a bare exhibition of divine love. Why should the exhibition of love take that form ? * At present in many quarters there is a prejudice against any doctrine of substitution. Doubtless there have been gross and immoral doctrines of substitution. Men have supposed that so much suffering was the penalty for conditions of the very nature of the Everlasting. There was a cross in the heart of God before there was one planted on the green hill outside of Jerusalem. And now that the cross of wood has been taken down, the one in the heart of God abides, and it will remain so long as there is one sinful soul for whom to suffer.’ * “To die in order to display love, if there were no other adequate cause for dying, would be to reduce the Atonement to a mere pageant.’ Life of Bp, Edward Bickersteth, p. 408. THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT 119 sin and that the penalty was paid by our Lord’s suffering on the Cross, or that the Father was pleased by the mere quantity of suffering, not by the obedience perfected through suffering. They have forgotten that Christ died not merely to save us from the punishment of sin but from sin itself. But there is also a true and most valuable doctrine of substitution. Scrip- ture teaches most clearly that Christ came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. As our representative He offered to the Father the homage of a perfected human life, obedient even unto death, a full confession of the sinfulness of sin, and a willingness to endure that death which is its punishment.* He did all this ‘on our behalf,’ not that we might continue to be disobedient and impenitent, but that through Him we might have the power to do as He did. He created, as it were, a new possibility of human obedience and penitence which He imparts through the Holy Spirit to His members. Thus His obedience and hatred of sin are not a substitute for our own in the sense that we need not trouble to acquire them. But they are a sub- stitute for our own in the sense that we could never have achieved them by ourselves, and only through Him are we now able to begin to achieve them. As we shall see, God accepts us here and now in Christ, since, in Christ, there is the possibility of our becoming all that we ought to be. Our present peace with God depends not upon the emotions aroused jn us by the Cross of Christ, nor even in the promptings after holiness that the love of God awakens in us, but on what Jesus Christ is now and became through the Cross. In a very real sense He was there made sin for us (2 Cor. 571, 1 Pet. 24). He paid the price of our redemption, that through Him we might be reconciled to God. The literature on the Atonement is enormous. Besides the books previously mentioned, see especially Pullan, The Atonement (for the *Cp. Sparrow Simpson, Reconciliation between God and Man, e.g. ‘The heavenly Father heard something entirely new upon the earth. It was a human voice pronouncing perfect judgment on human sin; perfectly con- curring in the judgment of the Father upon sin; gathering up and pressing into one and perfecting all the earth’s imperfect reparations ; and offering a perfect sorrow for the sin of the world’ (p. 128). It is this truth that Article 31 and the Prayer of Consecration express, when they say that Christ made ‘satisfaction’ for the sins of the world. The term ‘satisfaction’ is not scriptural, but it represents an essential part of the teaching of Scripture on the death of Christ. 1 20 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES teaching of Scripture); Dale, Ephesians (on c. 2); Scott Lidgett, The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement; Lofthouse, Ethics and Atonement ; Inx Mundi, Essay VII.; W. H. Moberly, Essay VI. in Foundations (criticised by R. Knox, Some Loose Stones, c. ix.); The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation. For a historical survey, Moberly,- Atonement and Personality Supplementary Chapter; Grensted, A Short History of the Doctrine of the Atonement; Mackintosh, Historic Theories of Atonement. A full bibliography is given in Mozley, The Doctrine of the Atonement. The best introduction would be Storr, The Problem of the Cross, balanced by Sparrow Simpson, Reconcilation between God hte Man; or Burrows, The Mystery of the Cross. ARTICLES III-IV THE RESURRECTION, THE ASCENSION AND THE JUDGMENT ARTICLE III Of the going down of Christ De descensu Christi ad nto Hell. Inferos. As Christ died for us, and Quemadmodum Christus pro was buried: so also it is to be nobis mortuus est et sepultus, believed that he went down ita est etiam credendus ad into Hell. : Inferos descendisse. The need of a separate Article to deal with this portion of the Creed was due to the many and violent controversies that raged around it about the time of the Reformation. Our present Article dates from 1563. The previous Article of 1552 was more definite. It clearly in- terpreted the descent as meaning that ‘The body lay in the sepulchre until the resurrection: but His ghost departing from Him was with the ghosts that were in prison or hell, and did preach to the same, as the place of St. Peter doth testify.’ Thus the Article took sides in the controversy by laying down a fixed interpretation of the clause in dispute. Though this interpretation is undoubtedly right, it was thought wiser to leave the precise meaning of the descent undefined. ARTICLE IV Of the Resurrection of Christ. De resurrectione Christt. Christ did truly arise again Christus vere a mortuis re- from death, and took again surrexit, suumque corpus cum his body, with flesh, bones, carne, ossibus, omnibusque ad and all things appertaining to integritatem humanae naturae 122 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES the perfection of Man’s nature, pertinentibus, recepit: cum wherewith he ascended into quibus in coelum ascendit, Heaven, and there sitteth, ibique residet, quoad extremo until he return to judge all die ad judicandos homines men at the last day. reversurus sit. One of the Articles of 1553. Practically unchanged since. It is worded so as to assert not only the fact of the Resurrection, but also the reality of our Lord’s risen and ascended Manhood in opposition to a form of Docetism, revived by the Anabaptists, which regarded our Lord’s Humanity as absorbed into His Divinity after the Resurrection. § 1. In the A.V., unfortunately, the same word ‘hell’ is em- ployed as the translation both of the Hebrew ‘Sheol’ or Greek ‘Hades,’ the place of departed spirits, and also of ‘Gehenna,’ the place of torment. In the R.V. this has been corrected. ‘Sheol’ or ‘ Hades’ is in itself a neutral term.* By the time of our Lord popular Jewish belief had indeed come to regard it as a place of moral distinctions and as divided into two parts,f the one ‘Abraham’s Bosom’ or ‘ Paradise, the abode of the righteous, the other the abode of the wicked. But generally speaking this last was distinguished from Gehenna.{ In the book of Enoch, for instance, a composite work dating largely from the second century B.c., Gehenna is clearly a place of final punishment for the wicked, who are at present afflicted in a part of Hades until the day of judgment. Accordingly, by the ‘descent into Hell’ we mean that our Lord’s human soul, after its separation from His body by death, passed into that state of existence into which all men pass at death. In speaking about life after death at all we are driven to resort to symbolical language. We know that the body remains, but that the real self is no longer active through it. We naturally speak of the separation of the soul and body. The men of our Lord’s day regarded Hades as a place situated underneath the earth, and the soul as literally going down to it. By us such language can only be used metaphorically. What- ever the mode of life be that is enjoyed by the self after death, *The Latin translation ‘Inferi’ or ‘Inferna’ is similarly neutral. So was ‘Hell’ in mediaeval English. + Our Lord employs this imagery in the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Lk.16*?), We must not, however, claim His authority for the literal truth of the details, t See Salmond, Article ‘ Hell,’ Hastings’ D.B. vol. ii. THE RESURRECTION 123 we cannot help speaking of it in such metaphors as are derived from our present life in space. We are compelled to imagine Hades as a ‘place.’ Since our Lord was truly Man, after death He shared man’s condition then no less than during His life on earth. That is the only point on which we can be definite. Thus in Lk. 23, using current Jewish language, He promised to the penitent robber ‘ Verily, I say unto thee, to-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.’ He pledged His word that He and the robber would be sharing a common life, a life in which personality would not be obliterated, but ‘I’ would remain ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ remain ‘ Thou,’ and in which recognition and fellowship would be possible. He spoke of Himself and the robber as both alike enjoying one and the same ‘ Park of God.’ Again, St. Peter applies to our Lord the words of Psalm 161° ‘Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, neither wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption ’* (Acts 227), After showing that they received no fulfilment in David himself, he finds their fulfilment in the Resurrection of Christ (v. *4). It is clear that he regards our Lord as having been in Hades between His death on Good Friday and His Resurrection on the third day. In St. Paul’s Epistles a probable allusion can be found in Eph. 4%, ‘Now that he ascended, what is it also but that he descended into the lower parts of the earth? (es Ta KkaTwétepa mépn THs yns). He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.’* Others, however, refer the words to the descent to earth at the Incarnation. But the most difficult passage still remains. In 1 Pet. 318 we read ‘ Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit’ (wvevuarte z.e. our Lord’s human spirit ; there is no reference to the Holy Spirit as the A.V. mistranslation suggests): ‘in which’ (2.e. in * In the Lxx of Psalm 631° ra karwrara ris yijs is used of ‘the lower parts of the earth,’ 7.e. Hades. Soin the Lxx of Psalm 139!* the same Greek is used to translate ‘the lowest parts of the earth’ used metaphorically of the womb. It is therefore at least possible that St. Paul is using a very similar phrase in the same sense and is referring to the descent into Hades as a proof of our Lord’s sovereignty over the underworld (cp. Phil. 21°). See Armitage Robinson, ad loc. ‘ The descent is to the lowest as the ascent to the highest, that nothing may remain unvisited.’ Probably in Rom. 10’ St. Paul is adapting the language of Deuteronomy to express this same idea. ‘ The abyss’ would include Hades. See Sanday and Headlam, ad loc, 124 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES His human spirit thus quickened at the moment of death) ‘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.’ Again, in 4° * For unto this end was the gospel preached even unto the dead, that they might be judged accord- ing to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.’ These two passages must be taken together, and so taken, they leave very little room for doubt as to St. Peter’s meaning. He teaches that at the moment of death our Lord’s human spirit went to Hades, and during His stay there preached salvation ‘to the spirits in prison,’ 2.e. the souls of dead men, in a like mode of existence to His own. In 3”? special mention is made of those who rejected the warnings of Noah and perished in the flood (Gen. 77°*4), But in 4° the ‘dead’ must be the same as the ‘dead’ in the previous verse, and include all who are not living. Why then are the men before the flood specially men- tioned ? Probably because they were typical of stubborn sinners ; and there is some evidence that their salvation was a subject of discussion in the Jewish schools.* The earliest Christian tradition, probably quite independent of this Epistle, supports the above interpretation.t This picture of Christ ministering to the departed made a great appeal to primitive Christian imagination. Allusions to it are found as early as Ignatius, Hermas and Justin Martyr. Till the time of St. Augustine no other interpretation was attempted. In his earlier writings he accepted the current teaching, though he wrongly identified Hades with Gehenna.t Later, in a letter to Evodius, Bishop of Uzala,§ he explained St. Peter as meaning that Christ was in spirit in Noah, when Noah preached repentance to the men of his day. His authority lent great weight to this view in the Western Church, and it was adopted by Thomas Aquinas and many of the Reformers. It was often *See Bigg, ad loc. ‘In the Book of Enoch... will be found obscure and mutilated passages which may be taken to mean that the antediluvian sinners, the giants and the men whom they deluded, have a time of repentance allowed them between the first judgment (the Deluge) and the final judgment at the end of the world.’ See also his note on 4°. + The earliest allusion to 1 Pet 3'* and 4° seems to be in a saying of ‘the Elders ’ quoted by Irenaeus (iv. 27, 2). See Swete, Apostles’ Creed, pp. 57-60. tH.g. de Gen. ad litt. xii. 61. § Aug. Hp. 164. THE RESURRECTION 125 combined, as even by Bishop Pearson, with the view that Christ having died ‘in the similitude of a sinner’ went to Gehenna, But it is unnatural and quite indefensible. The interpretation that Christ preached to the dead fits in admirably with contem- porary Jewish ideas and alone does full justice to the two passages taken together. The only other possible interpretation of the ‘spirits in prison’ would be to suppose that fallen angels are meant (cp. 2 Pet. 24, Jude °), but this introduces an idea quite alien to the context and breaks the connexion between 31° and 46, besides using the word ‘spirit’ in a different sense from the previous sentence (318). Still less can be said for Calvin’s idea the descent mto hell meant that in Gethsemane and on the Cross our Lord suffered all the agonies of the lost. This confuses Hades and Gehenna, and supposes that the Incarnate Son of God was personally exposed to the wrath of the Father.* The fact conveyed in the clause ‘He descended into hell ’ must be acknowledged by all who allow that our Lord was and is truly Man and that He really died. The further interpretation of His Descent as a mission to the unseen world rests on the evidence both of Scripture and independent primitive tradition. From the nature of the case too exact definition is impossible. We can only speak of life beyond the grave in picture language. The ministry to the departed cannot be attested by the evidence of eye-witnesses. The only historical evidence that can lie behind our records and the tradition of the Church, would be words of our Lord Himself. In the word from the Cross at least we get a revelation of the nature of the future life by one who claimed to know. But the words of St. Peter hint at possi- bilities that must appeal to the highest m us. The Descent into Hell stands for the truth that whatever condition awaits us after death, our Lord has been there before us and consecrated it by His presence. It suggests that bodily death may be the moment of quickening into a more vigorous life and opens up vistas of a ministry for His faithful servants in the world beyond the grave more fruitful even than any ministry here. Above all, it harmonizes with the instinctive belief of our hearts that Christ will in His own way reveal Himself to those who have had no * Cp. Pearson’s criticism : ‘ There is a worm that never dieth which could not lodge within His breast ; that is a remorse of conscience, seated in the soul, for what that soul hath done.’ 126 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES opportunity of knowing Him in this life. Though a formal statement of this Article of the faith was absent from the earliest creed-forms, we may believe that the Western Church was rightly guided in including it in her developed statement of the faith. On the Descent into Hell, see: Burn, article ‘ Hell’ in D.C.G. vol. i. Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison. Goudge, Cathedral Sermons, i. § 2. (a) The Christian Church owes her existence to the Resurrec- tion. The Risen Christ is the centre of her life and teaching. The Apostles were chosen above all to be witnesses of the Resur- rection (Acts 18, 252, 315, 42 and 38 1041, 1381, etc.). For this task they were fitted by character and condition of life. Their very limitations, their slowness of mind and lack of imagination rendered them all the more reliable as witnesses. Their matter- of-fact outlook and practical turn of mind enabled them to give a straightforward and unanimous testimony to what they had seen. They had neither the inclination nor the ability to con- struct theories or to adapt facts to suit preconceived ideas. They impressed the world as having an intense belief in the truth of their message, based on their own observation.* So only an eye-witness could be selected to fill the place of Judas (Acts 177), St. Paul, too, rested his apostleship in large part on the fact that he had seen the risen Christ (1 Cor. 91, 15%). It is abundantly clear that the earliest apostolic preaching centred in the Cross and Resurrection, as interpreted by the Christian Church. In Scripture the chief lines of thought may be summed up thus : (i) In the early speeches in the Acts the Resurrection is re- garded as the divine reversal of man’s judgment and as vindi- cating the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 252 and 86 * God hath made him both Lord (kvpios) and Messiah (ypiords), this Jesus whom ye crucified’). In the light of the prevalent inter- pretation of Deut. 217° the Cross was regarded as a sign of God’s malediction. To the Jew, therefore, it was a clear disproof of His claims. It declared ‘ Jesus accursed ’ (cp 1 Cor. 128). The *See Latham, Pastor Pastorum, pp. 241-252, for an admirable sketch of the character of the apostles, THE RESURRECTION 127 thought of a crucified Messiah was self-contradictory. Hence the Resurrection was proclaimed as proving the Jewish idea false : it was God’s public attestation of the claims of the crucified (Acts 580-31) * To the apostles it was also the fulfilment of our Lord’s own predictions about Himself, thus proving His claims true (Mk. 81, 10%, etc., cp. Jn. 272, 1018). So to St. Paul the Resurrection is the ground of assigning to our Lord full Messianic authority (Ro. 14, ep. Acts 13°). (11) The Resurrection certified our Lord’s death as redemptive. The apostles were able, out of the Jewish Scriptures, to explain the meaning and necessity of the death of the Messiah as foretold by the prophets. They identified our Lord with the ‘suffering servant ’ of Is. 52-53 (Acts 326, 427 and 30 aio ‘Servant’ R.V., not ‘child’ as A.V.). The rismg from the dead marked the acceptance of the sacrifice of the Cross. It is, as has been well said, ‘the Amen of the Father to the “‘ It is finished ” of the Son.’ The same thought of the Resurrection as the seal of our Lord’s atoning death is found in St. Paul (e.g. Ro. 4%, 519, 64, 1 Cor. 1517, 1 Thess. 11°, etc., cp. Heb. 137°). (ii) The Resurrection is regarded as the pledge of man’s Resurrection (1 Cor. 151 ff., Ro. 841, 1 Thess. 444). Not only do Christians here and now receive new life (Eph. 259, Col. 31) as sharing the life of the Risen Christ, but from the first (Acts 4) the Resurrection has been proclaimed as the assurance of a resurrection from the dead that will quicken the whole man and that is yet to come (cp. 2 Tim. 218), See N. S. Talbot, The Mind of the Disciples, ce. 4-5. (6) Our belief in the Resurrection of our Lord depends upon three main lines of evidence : (i) The appearances of the Risen Lord to many persons of different kinds, at different times and under different conditions. (ii) The empty tomb. (iii) The living experience of the Christian Church. (i) The earliest witness in writing is that of St. Paul. In 1 Cor, 15*8 he gives what is perhaps an official list of appear- ances. Behind St. Paul is the witness of the whole Church. He * Cp. Chase, Credibility of the Acts, pp. 147 ff. + Cp. Westcott, The Gospel of the Resurrection, c. i. § 56-59, 128 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES and all Christians were alike in their belief. In fact the very existence of the Church at all presupposes the existence of a belief that Christ was risen. The Resurrection had been put in the forefront of the apostolic preaching from the first. It is implied in all St. Paul’s epistles. In all four Gospels we have an account of the finding of the tomb empty. St. Mark is un- fortunately mutilated, but there can be no doubt that it went on to describe appearances of the risen Lord similar to those in the other gospels. It is not easy to fit together all the accounts of the appearances on Easter morning. There are apparent differences of detail. This, however, increases rather than diminishes the value of the evidence. It shows that we have the faithful testimony of independent witnesses, not the blind repetition of an official tale. Witnesses of any event, especially when it was observed in a moment of intense excitement, tend to vary in detail. Any judge would view with suspicion a too exact correspondence. Equally important, too, is the evidence of the Acts. The early chapters bear traces of a very primitive Christology. We see the Church, as it were, feeling her way towards a fuller understanding of all that the Resurrection meant. In 1 Pet. 1% we seem to get a personal reminiscence of St. Peter’s own mind. For a fuller account see Ragg, Hvidences of Christianity, or Milligan, Resurrection of our Lord, Lect. II. (ii) All the Gospels record that the tomb was found empty. We attach special importance to the account in Jn. 20719, It bears all the marks of first-hand evidence. The clothes are represented as lying flat as if the Lord’s Body had passed through them without disturbmg them. Above them was an empty space where the bare neck of our Lord’s Body had lain. There ‘in a place by itself’ on the ledge that had formed a pillow lay the napkin that had been coiled round the Head, still keeping its shape. That was the sight that the disciple ‘saw, and be- heved.’ It spoke of a Body not removed by friend or foe, but withdrawn in a manner above nature.* We may well conjecture, * There are only two possible explanations of this account in St. John. Hither it is what the disciple actually saw or it is a piece of vivid picture-writing in the manner of a realistic novel. Such could be paralleled from the novel writers of to-day, but can any parallel be found in the literature of the first century ? “THE RESURRECTION 129 too, that the enormous number of converts in Jerusalem was due to the sight of the empty Tomb. See Latham, 7'he Risen Master, c. i-iii. (11) From the first, Christians have manifested in their lives the power of the risen Christ. It is clear that something re- markable must have happened to change the timid and weak disciples of Good Friday into the dauntless and courageous leaders of the Church that we discover in the Acts. The apostles themselves ascribed their transformation to the power of the Resurrection. So, too, we find the Christian Church observing the first day of the week as a memorial of the rising from the dead. Sunday is a new institution. It was not, it has never been and never can be the Jewish Sabbath. In origin and meaning it is a purely Christian festival, a weekly remembrance of the Resur- rection. And the Christian service, the ‘ breaking of bread,’ was not a sad commemoration of a dead and absent Master, _ but a thanksgiving for the blessings imparted by a living and triumphant Saviour. Christian Baptism again loses its distinctive meaning if Christ is not raised.* The continued ex- istence and vitality of the Church, her survival not only of attacks by enemies from outside, but of sloth and dissensions among her own members, prove that her life does not spring from a delusion. In every age the enemies of our religion have always declared that it was about to pass away, but their expectations have never been fulfilled. Once more Christians in al! ages have claimed to hold communion with a living Lord and to receive from Him cleansing and strength. It may be argued that the inner religious experience of Christians carries con- viction only to those who share it, and they may be mistaken in their explanation of it. But apart from the widespread consensus of testimony from men and women of every rank and class and country, we may point to a definite and persistent type of character produced in the lives of those who claim to depend on Christ. The Christian character entered into the world as something new. It startled and attracted Jews and heathen alike by its humility and joyousness, its new standard of values, and its reintarpretation of all human existence. We * Cp. Ro. 64, where the whole symbolism of baptism is worked out in connexion with the Resurrection. I 130 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES do not appreciate the moral results of the Christian faith, because we have always lived in the midst of them. But if we study pagan life as recorded in heathen literature or as found to-day in the Mission-field, the contrast between the Christian and the non-Christian outlook on life is undeniable. We may well ask whether those who are able to produce a new type of life and character, have not the right to say on what discovery it is based. Christians have always pointed to the Risen Christ as the source of all their strength. The world becomes an insoluble riddle, if the blessings of Christian faith are based on a fraud or a misconception. See : Robinson, Studies in the Resurrection, c. iv. and x. Glover, The Christian Tradition and its Verification, Lectures ITI. and IV. Paget, The Christian Character, Introduction. Church, The Gifts of Civilization. Mozley, The Achievements of Christianity. (c) Taking then the narratives of Scripture as they stand, what conception can we form of our Lord’s Risen Body? It is obvious that our only evidence is the Gospels. St. Paul’s language in 1 Cor. 15 suggests that he possessed similar accounts. His teaching on the nature of our own spiritual bodies is based on the nature of the Lord’s Risen Body. Since the Resurrection is a unique event in human experience, there are no other instances with which to compare it. (i) The Resurrection was not simply the resuscitation of the body laid in the grave. Our Lord did not return, like those whom He raised from the dead, to the old life. Nothing has done more to hinder a belief in the Church’s doctrine ofthe Resurrection, than the idea that it teaches a mere reanimation of the material body. For this erroneous idea Christians have been largely responsible. The doctrine has often been stated in such a way as to imply a mere return to the old physical life. In early and mediaeval times such a conception was natural and caused no difficulty. We reject it not only because it conflicts with modern ideas but because it is inconsistent with the facts of the Gospel narrative. These, when interrogated, make it clear that ‘the body with which our Lord rose from the grave though still a true body was not the same as that with which He died.’ * A spiritual * Milligan, op. cit. p. 31, THE RESURRECTION 131 change had come over it. It was no longer subject to our wants and limitations : it could pass through doors and disappear at will. The door of the tomb was opened not to let the Lord out but to let the women in. There was no witness of the actual resurrection. If the explanation of St. John’s record of the tomb be accepted, there would have been nothing to witness. At the same time, though not subject to the limitations of our present life, the risen Lord could at will conform to them. He walked and spoke, and even ate and drank (Lk. 24, Mt. 28 Jn. 20" ff., cp. Acts 10*). So in the appearances of the Risen Lord we have a revelation of another life, a manner of existence of a higher order than our own. By the Incarnation God no longer instructed men through prophets and teachers about the meaning and purpose of human life, but Himself entering into humanity wrought out the perfect human example and disclosed the possibilities of man’s life on earth: in the same manner our Lord did not simply teach the immortality of man, but during the forty days actually manifested something of the glory of man’s future life by living it before men so far as earthly and temporal conditions allowed. Thus the Resurrection is a new fact added to the sum-total of human experience. ‘The life which is revealed to us is not the con- tinuation of the present life, but a life which takes up into itself all the elements of our present life, and transfigures them by a glorious change, which we can only regard at present under signs and figures.’ * A change had passed over the body, by which it had become wholly subject to the spirit, spirit-ruled and spirit-guided. We know how in our present life the body constrains and hampers our spirit. It grows weary and is not perfectly responsive to our will. It ties us down to the laws of space and of this material world. From all such limitations the Risen Christ is free. He can express Himself perfectly through His body, as and when and where He wills. He has not laid aside His manhood, but manifests within the circle of human experience a higher mode of human existence, hitherto undiscovered and unknown.} ‘The risen body of Christ was * Westcott, op. cit. c. ii. § 21. + Cp. Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord. ‘Christ was changed.... As has been well said, ‘ What was natural to Him before is now miraculous ; what was before miraculous is now natural,’ Or to put the thought in another 132 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES spiritual ... not because it was less than before material, but because in it matter was wholly and finally subjugated to spirit and. not to the exigencies of physical life.’ * The precise relation of the risen body to that which was placed in the tomb, we cannot know. The material particles that form our bodies are ceaselessly changing. The identity of our bodies lies not so much in physical continuity as in the abiding re- lationship to the personality as its organ in the physical world. What persists is not the matter of which the body is composed but the formula or law of which the body is the outward expression. We believe that our Lord’s Resurrection is the pledge of our own. As in His case, nothing that belongs to the perfection of our human nature will be lost. All that our present body stands for, will still be ours. We shall possess an organism adapted for life under future conditions as the body is adapted for life under earthly conditions. Our Lord’s body still bears the marks of the wounds (cp. Rev. 5). In Christ as in our- selves, the past still lives on in its permanent effect on what He is. So we believe that all that we have become through moral effort in this life will endure in the life that is to be ours hereafter. (1) The question still remains, do not the words of our Article, ‘took again Hrs body with flesh, bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, imply a very materialistic form, in an earthly life the spirit is manifested through the body; in the life of the Risen Christ the body is manifested (may we not say so ?) through the Spirit. .. . The continuity, the intimacy, the simple familiarity of former inter- course was gone. He is seen and recognized only as He wills and when He wills. In the former sense of the phrase He is no longer with the disciples.’ p. 8. * Gore, Body of Christ, p. 127. ft It is true that from about the time of St. Augustine onwards down to quite recent days, both in East and West, a materialising view prevailed. The resurrection was taught to include a reassembling of the physical particles of the body. But the Church has never formally defined its teaching on the sub- ject and such a view can be reconciled neither with St. Paul nor with many of the earlier Fathers. The retention of Origen’s phrase, ‘‘ The resurrection of the dead,” as a substitute for the resurrection of the flesh, and the rejection in Western Creeds of ‘“‘ The resurrection of this flesh ’’ are witnesses to a more spiritual view. Further the insistence by many writers on the compkte restora- tion of the body laid in the grave is coupled with an equal insistence on the wonderful change which will have come over it, which is really inconsistent with the idea of physical restoration. This inconsistency is partly due to the clash between the intellect and the imagination. The former demands a spiritual transformation. The latter can only picture it in materialistic terms. We repeat that the final court of appeal is to Scripture. (For a complete study of patristic teaching, see Darragh, T'he Resurrection of the I'lesh. ) THE RESURRECTION 133 view of the Resurrection ? ‘Flesh and bones’ suggest a physical resuscitation. The answer is that the words are based on the words of the risen Lord in Lk. 24°° ‘A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye behold me having.’ The Article, therefore, must be interpreted by Scripture and does not lay down any theory on the nature of the Risen Body. At the same time, if it had been written to-day, it would probably have avoided taking such an expression of Scripture in isolation from other statements of Scripture that qualify it. The purpose of the words is admirably summed up in the followmg phrase ‘all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature.’ The Risen Lord was not less perfect Man than before.* See Storr, Christianity and Immortality, c. iii. Before we leave the question of the Resurrection we must bear in mind two great considerations : (a) The evidence for the Resurrection must be considered not in the abstract, but in the light of the character and claims of Christ. Men sometimes speak as if the Resurrection of Jesus Christ would be on a level with the resurrection, let us say, of Julius Caesar or Judas Iscariot. That is profoundly untrue. To put it on the lowest level, we are dealing with One who has lived in the fullest union with God, who had done nothing amiss and who had trusted to God to vindicate Him openly. If we accept the uniqueness of Christ, we shall be prepared to believe in His Resurrection, if there is good evidence for it. (0) Everything depends upon the presuppositions with which we approach the evidence. Our final decision will rest on moral rather than on purely intellectual grounds. No amount of merely external evidence can ever compel belief. It is always possible in the last resort to evade or explain away the evidence for any historical event. Much more is this true in the case of such an event as the Resurrection. It is significant that all the appear- ances of the Risen Lord were made to disciples. Our Lord did *Tt is worth noting that the words are * Flesh and bones’ not ‘ flesh and blood.’ Bp. Westcott could write ‘ The significant variation from the common formula ‘ flesh and blood ’ must have been at once intelligible to Jews, accus- tomed to the provisions of the Mosaic ritual, and nothing would have impressed upon them more forcibly the transfiguration of Christ’s Body than the verbal omission of the element of blood which was for them the symbol and seat of cor- ruptible life’ (The Gospel of the Resurrection, ¢. ii. § 20 note). If this distinction holds, we may compare 1 Cor. 15°°. See also Milligan, op. cit. pp, 241-242. 134 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES not reveal Himself to Caiaphas or Pilate. As always, He would never compel belief by a miracle. Such an appearance would have contradicted the whole principle of His earthly ministry. Again, if the Resurrection was a fresh revelation of new life, such could only be given to those who were spiritually capable of receiving it. Only believers had the power to apprehend its true meaning. So to-day belief in the Resurrection depends not only on intellectual appreciation of the evidence but on moral sympathy with the life and teaching of Him who rose.* For a general survey of the evidence see : Swete, The Appearances of our Lord after the Passion. Sparrow Simpson, Our Lord’s Resurrection, cc. i.-vili. For the meaning of the Resurrection : Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord. The Gospel of the Resurrection. C. H. Robinson, Studies in the Resurrection (2nd Edition). Latham, The Risen Master. Chase, Preface to The Gospels in the Light of Historical Criticism, DD.sxx IL (d) We may now examine explanations of the facts that contradict the Christian tradition. Few to-day would support the ‘ thief theory ’ that the disciples stole the body (cp. Mt. 281). The very existence of this theory among the Jews is an inter- esting piece of evidence in support of the empty tomb. But it is psychologically absurd. The whole conduct of the apostles forbids us to regard them as conscious impostors. Why should they persist in a deception that brought them nothing but loss and danger? Such a plot is always betrayed in the long run. Wilful fraud is utterly inconsistent with their holy lives. Fewer still would accept the ‘Swoon theory,’ that Christ was not really dead, but swooned and recovered. This makes * Cp. Mozley, On Miracles, Preface to Third Edition, p. xxiv: ‘ The truth is, no one is ever convinced by external evidence only ; there must be a certain probability in the fact itself, or a certain admissibility in it, which must join on to the external evidence for it, in order for that evidence to produce conviction. Nor is it any fault in external evidence that it should be so ; but it is an intrinsic and inherent defect in it, because in its very nature it is only one part of evidence which needs to be supplemented by another, or a priori premiss existing in our _ minds. Antecedent probability is the rational complement of external evidence,’ a law of evidence unites the two; and they cannot practically be separated. The whole passage is worth reading. It was the fault of much eighteenth- century writing to assume that the mind could be compelled to believe in the Resurrection by a careful marshalling of external evidence. THE RESURRECTION 135 not only the disciples but our Lord deceivers. It is hard to see how a fainting and wounded form could convey any suggestion of a resurrection to a new and glorious life. And what became of the recovered Christ ? When did He die ? More plausible is the suggestion that the disciples were sincere, but were the victims of hallucination. But this will not really stand close scrutiny. Such hallucinations, as far as we can discover, obey certain general laws. For instance, they imply expectation. All the evidence shows that our Lord’s friends, so far from expecting a resurrection, were preparing to embalm His corpse. The appearances were most unexpected and were received with incredulity. Such a lack of faith is hardly likely to be an invention. It cannot be said that modern psychology lends any support to this view, when the facts are tested. As a rule, when visions and illusions once begin to get a hold, they tend to spread. All the evidence goes to show that the appear- ances ceased abruptly at the end of forty days. In short, even apart from the empty tomb, the ‘illusion theory’ does not explain the facts. For a fuller account of such explanations see: Bruce, Christianity, or Milligan, The Resurrection of our Lord. The most popular alternative to-day to the traditional teach- ings of the Church is the view that regards the Resurrection as a ‘purely spiritual truth.’ The disciples saw visions. These visions were real—‘ telegrams from Heaven ’—sent by God to assure His disciples that the Lord was alive, and to implant in them faith in victory of life over death. The empty tomb and any idea of a bodily resurrection are unhistorical, the invention of pious fancy or materializing imagination. Our Lord’s body went to dust in the tomb, as our own will. His spirit survived as ours will survive. Thus the Resurrection was entirely spiri- ~ tual, to be discerned by the eye of faith. There was no miraculous breach of the natural law, such as the ordinary view supposes. On this view it is claimed that all that is of value for faith is retained, and Christian truth is lifted above any objections from the side of science or criticism. Jesus Christ lives: that is all that we need to know. For this view see: Kirsopp Lake, The Resurrection, or Thompson, Miracles in N.T. 136 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES Such a view may be stated so as to come very near the teaching of the Church. But it falls short of the fulness of the Gospel. (i) We know of no preaching of the Resurrection in apostolic days that did not include the raising of our Lord’s Body. The Gospels attest the universal outline of Christian preaching. So, too, St. Paul quite clearly knew of the empty tomb. St. Luke can put into his mouth an express allusion to it (Acts 139 and 35-36) It is probable that this application of Ps. 161° ‘Thou shalt not suffer thy Holy One to sce corruption ’ was a common- place of apostolic preaching (cp. Acts 2?7%1). The same know- Jedge of the empty tomb is implied in 1 Cor. 1574. St. Paul proclaimed ‘that Christ died ...and that he was buried... and that he hath been raised on the third day.’ The mention of the burial here and elsewhere (e.g. Rom. 64, Col. 2!*) is gra- tuitous unless the resurrection is regarded as the reversal of the burial no less than of the death. ‘The Death, the Burial and the Resurrection of Christ claim to be facts in exactly the same sense, to be supported by evidence essentially identical in kind, and to be bound together indissolubly as the groundwork of the Christian Faith.’ * Just as the death and burial were his- torical events happening in the world of sense, so was the Resurrection.t| The attempt has been made to invert St. Paul’s argument. He treats the risen Christ as ‘the first fruits of them that are asleep’ (v. 7°). In our own case our bodies perish, yet our risen bodies are regarded as in a real sense continuous with them (vv. * ff.). If the corruption of our present bodies does not destroy the continuity in our case, why is the risen Lord’s possession of a spiritual body inconsistent with a belief that His natural body went to dust in the grave ? This objection forgets that at the stage at which this Epistle was written, St. Paul still expected the Lord’s return during the lifetrme * Westcott, The Gospel of the Resurrection, § 3. + It has been objected that the view of our Lord’s Risen Body taken in these pages is no less contradictory to the main stream of Christian teaching than the Vision theory. The later Fathers and medieval teachers unanimously taught the resuscitation of our Lord’s dead body. A sufficient answer is to point out that our view is at least consistent with the facts of the Gospel story. In the light of our modern knowledge we have been driven to reinterrogate Scripture, with the result that we have obtained from it a more spiritual view of the Resurrection. On the other hand, the Vision theory is compelled to reduce the Gospel evidence to mere legend. Our appeal is not simply to Christian tradition, but to Christian tradition as interpreting Scripture. THE RESURRECTION 137 of most of those to whom he wrote. In his view the majority of the Corinthian Church would not taste of death at all. At the Lord’s coming their present natural body would be trans- formed into a spiritual body. So in their case as in our Lord’s their natural body would not see corruption. The difficulty at Corinth had arisen about those who died. As a result of their death, their condition was so obviously different from our Lord’s. Men asked how, if the natural body perished, it could ever be transfigured into a spiritual body. The analogy with the Risen Lord seemed to be broken. ‘The very existence of this perplexity points to a universal belief in the empty tomb. (i) Any view that denies the bodily Resurrection is faced with the difficulty of accounting for the complete disappearance of the crucified body. That this difficulty was felt early is shown by the Jewish story in Mt. 28" ff. If the body of Christ could have been produced by the Jews or Romans, the whole Christian movement would have collapsed. If the body was not in the tomb, it must have been removed either by friends or foes ; there is no alternative, Either explanation involves us in a tangle of difficulties. We may be perfectly certain that the authorities made every possible effort to discover the body and discredit the apostles. The body would be recognizable for a considerable time and there would be the evidence of those who removed it. It has indeed been supposed that the women went to the wrong tomb and found itempty. The disciples apparently were sufficiently simple to neglect any further investigations, and the Roman and Jewish authorities too incompetent to make the slightest attempt to clear up the mystery. Apart from other objections, any such theory that allows the finding of an empty tomb but holds that the Lord’s body went to corruption elsewhere, lands us with a very serious.moral problem.* We are asked to suppose that the empty tomb had in the workings of providence an important place in convincing the world of the truth that Christ was alive, yet the belief in its emptiness was the result of mistake or fraud. Our conscience revolts from the thought that God employs such means to impress upon the world a new and vital revelation. No doubt illusion has its place in * Many who accept the ‘ objective vision’ theory confess that they cannot account for the disappearance of the body, and plead that so long as they accept the truth of the appearances, they are not called on to do so, 138 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES the divine economy. But this would be no mere illusion due to the infirmity of the human mind or imagination, it would be, so to say, a deliberate deception on the part of the divine providence. (iii) On this view there was no Resurrection, only a survival. Death conquered the body and death kept what it conquered. There was no real victory over death, but merely a persistence through death. Such would be a redemption not of the whole man, but only of His spirit. The resurrection of the body assures us that all our being is redeemed and redeemable. No element in our nature is lost. The early Church rightly appealed to the bodily resurrection of Christ as setting forth the worth and dignity of the human body.* It has a glorious future in store for it and therefore must not be defiled. We know of no human life apart from the body. The bare survival of the spirit is not the Christian doctrine of immortality. Further, if Christ’s body did not rise, the resurrection—such as it was—took place not on the third day, but on the afternoon of the death. In fact it was completed at the very moment of death.t Christians were wrong in supposing foolishly that they kept Sunday as the weekly memorial of the resurrection: they only kept it as the memorial of the first vision. The persistent tradition of the ‘third day ’ merely shows the inexactitude of the Christian mind. The true Kaster-day is Good Friday. (iv) We thankfully allow that it is quite possible for men to-day born and bred in a Christian atmosphere to reject the bodily resurrection of our Lord and yet retain a true faith in Him as a © living Saviour. But it is very doubtful whether the first genera- tion of Christians could ever have attained to such a faith, if His body had remained in the grave. It is equally doubtful whether simple people to-day could do so. There cannot be two creeds, one for the educated and one for the uneducated. If we allow that the apostles and others saw visions and heard * The New Testament also hints at the ‘ cosmic ’ significance of the Resurrec- tion of our Lord’s body. It stands for the first instalment of the redemption of the material creation, the pledge that the whole creation shall be brought back into harmony with God’s purpose. We see in the Risen Lord matter fulfilling its true purpose as the vehicle of spirit (cp. Rom. 8'°-*3, Eph. 12%, Coll *0), t Incidentally the whole of the descent into Hades must be dismissed as not only mytaical but meaningless. THE RESURRECTION 139 voices, how are we to test their validity ? We, indeed, after nearly two thousand years of Christianity can appeal to a wide Christian experience and to the moral fruits of a faith in the risen Christ. The apostles could not do so. The empty tomb supplied just that corroboration in the region of external historic fact, that was needed. And to-day the plain man attaches most importance to historic facts. That a thing happened gives it in his eyes a superior kind of truth. He is not much attracted by bare ideas. One great reason for the spread of Christianity among men and women of every class and condition, civilized and savage, edu- cated and ignorant, is that it claims to rest on historic fact. Destroy this foundation of historic fact and Christian faith might survive for a time, but it would not survive for long. Once again it is claimed on behalf of the vision-theory that it preserves the truth of the Resurrection and at the same time escapes the difficulty of supposing a break in the continuity of nature. Is this claim true? If the appearances were real and divinely caused, then they were miraculous. The miracle is removed from the physical to the psychological sphere, that is all. We are still left with a supernormal event, not the less so because it is in the region of mind and not of matter. We may even go so far as to doubt whether, since all mental activity is conditioned by processes of the brain, the perception of such visions would not necessitate a unique and direct action of God in the physical sphere.* In short, the idea of a purely spiritual resurrection solves difficulties of imagination rather than difficulties of reason. To the man who starts from an a priori view that miracles do not happen, it is as impossible as the traditional view. It involves a very grave departure from the apostolic teaching. For an excellent popular defence of the truth of the Resurrection see Ballard, The Miracles of Unbelief,’ c. v.-x. § 3. Christ... took again His body, with flesh, bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into Heaven and there sitteth. (a) There is no certain allusion to the Ascension in the Synoptic Gospels. It is interpreted in the language of theology in the later appendix to Mk. (161%). The exact meaning of Lk. 245! is doubtful. The words ‘and was carried up into Heaven’ are omitted in ND and the earliest Latin versions, and therefore * Cp. N. P. Williams, Miracles (in Modern Oxford Tracts), pp. 36-41. 140 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES probably formed no part of the original text. Ifthey are omitted the verse only describes a disappearance of our Lord similar to His disappearance from the disciples at Emmaus (24%1).* St. Luke preferred to reserve his narrative of the Ascension itself for his second volume. He regarded it rather as the preliminary to the descent of the Spirit than as the final episode in the earthly life of Christ (cf. Acts 2°34), His Ascension is foretold by our Lord Himself in Jn. 6 and again after His Resurrection in Jn. 2017. Only in the Acts is the visible act of final withdrawal described (1714). In the Epistles the Ascension is assumed rather than directly asserted. For instance, in Eph. 41° the words of Psalm 6818 are paraphrased with reference to the gifts of the Spirit, ‘When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. ... He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.’ So, too, the quotation from an early Christian hymn given in 1 Tim. 316 concludes with ‘received up in glory.’ Again, in 1 Pet. 32 we find an unmistakeable allusion to the Ascension : ‘Jesus Christ, who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven.’ Further, the Ascension is presupposed in every mention of our Lord’s priestly work and of His exaltation at God’s right hand (e.g. Phil. 2919, Eph. 17°, Rev. 34, etc.). (b) In considering the Ascension we must distinguish between the outward and visible act of departure and its spiritual sig- nificance. The outward event is narrated in Acts 1°. ‘ As they were looking, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.’ We need not imagine that the Lord’s body rose aloft visibly into the sky and disappeared slowly into its depths, as Christian art has depicted it. All that the narrative requires is a cloud hanging on the hillside a short way above where He and His disciples were standing, into which He rose.t We may * If the words be retained, the Gospel appears at first sight to place the Ascension on Easter Day. This, however, is not a necessary inference. St. Luke has little sense of time and there may have been a considerable interval between vv. 43 4 44 or again vv. 49 *4 50. The same difficulty occurs in the Epistle of Barnabas (15°) which asserts ‘We keep the eighth day as a day of joy, on which Jesus both arose from the dead and after being manifested, ascended into heaven.’ This is probably a mere piece of clumsiness in expres- sion. Even the Creed runs ‘the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into Heaven.’ + Cp. Latham, The Risen Master, pp. 381-388, THE RESURRECTION 141 contrast the story of the Transfiguration. Then our Lord entered into the cloud and the cloud passed away leaving Him on earth. Now He passed into the cloud and did not return.* The whole constituted a sign marking this departure as different from His previous departures and expressing its finality. Some visible sign was needed to assure the disciples that they were to look for no more manifestations of the Risen Lord. Such an expectation would have distracted them from their work. During the forty days they had been trained to live in the knowledge that at any moment He might appear among them. Now that stage of their education was finished. They had been made ready to go forth and wield authority. The work for which they had been trained was about to begin.f The sign was understood by the disciples. The expectation of any further visible mani- festations of the Risen Lord ended abruptly. They were content to await the descent of the Holy Spirit and to find in Him the pledge of the invisible presence of their ascended Lord. But this outward event was but the setting-forth of a great spiritual truth, in the only manner intelligible to men of that day. ‘The physical elevation was a speaking parable, an eloquent symbol, but not the truth to which it pointed or the reality which it foreshadowed. The change which Christ revealed by the Ascension was not a change of place, but a change of state, not local but spiritual. Still from the necessities of our human condition the spiritual change was represented sacra- mentally so to speak, in an outward form. ... The Ascension of Christ is, in a word, His going to the Father—to His Father and our Father—the visible pledge and symbol of the exaltation of the earthly into the heavenly. It is emphatically a revelation of heavenly life, the open fulfilment of man’s destiny made possible for all men.’ { Doubtless the Apostles regarded the earth as flat and heaven as a place above their heads. They supposed that our Lord travelled there through space. Such a mental picture was consistent with itself and for many centuries presented no * Rackham, Acts, p. 8: ‘In the Old Testament the incomprehensibleness of the divine nature was typified by a cloud which hid Jehovah from human view : so now the human body of Jesus is concealed by the same cloud which is the cloud of the Shekinah or divine glory. He is now ‘in glory’.’ + Cp. Latham, Pastor Pastorum, pp. 463-466. t Westcott, The Revelation ofthe Risen Lord, p. 180. 142 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES difficulty toreason. To-day such a naive conception is impossible, nor is it in the least a vital part of the Christian faith. ¥ Our Lord’s entrance into the fulness of His heavenly life obviously transcends all possible human experience. It can only be depicted in metaphor and symbol. The visible sign of His departure can be adequately described in earthly language and does not need restatement. Its spiritual truth must be re- interpreted in the best language that we can find. Difficulties about the Ascension arise not when we employ the simple realism of the first Christians, nor yet when we are whole-heartedly philosophic, but when we attempt to piece together fragments of the two positions. We must not be ‘ philosophic in patches.’ Heaven is a state of being, not a locality. The inner meaning of the Ascension is not a removal to another part of the universe infinitely remote, but rather the final withdrawal into another mode of existence. Just as the Incarnation did not involve a physical descent, so the return to the Father did not involve an upward movement in space.* (c) The language of Scripture suggests that the Ascension brought about no change in the condition of the Risen Lord. He was glorified not at the Ascension but at the Resurrection. The Ascension was a last farewell to the apostles, not a first entry into glory. In Scripture the Resurrection and Ascension are always viewed in the closest possible connexion (Acts 23733, 530-31 Rom. 6810, Eph. 12°, Col. 31, Heb. 13, 1 Pet.’ 121, 371-22 etc.). ‘No sooner did He shake off the bonds of earth and take His place in the higher spiritual world to which He was ever afterward to belong, than He may be said to have ascended into heaven. When for a special purpose He again appeared to His disciples as they had known Him during His earthly ministry, He may be said to have descended out of heaven. Wherever He was in that glorified condition which began at His * Swete, The Ascended Christ, p. 8. ‘A conception which limits His ascent to any region however remote from the earth, or locates His ascended life in any part of the material universe, falls vastly short of the primitive belief ; no third heaven, no seventh heaven of Jewish speculation, no central sun of later conjecture, meets the requirements of an exaltation to the throne of God.’ The language of Scripture is worth noting. In Eph. 4° He is said to have ascended ‘far above all the heavens,’ in Heb. 4! to have ‘ passed through the heavens’ (cp. 77°). So in Jn. 168 He declares that He is about to leave the world (xdcuov, the world of created things). « THE RESURRECTION 143 Resurrection, there Heaven in its Scripture sense also was.’* This helps to explain the absence of reference to the Ascension in the Gospels. It was not separated in thought from the Resur- rection.t When we have once grasped the nature of our Lord’s spiritual body, the thought of the Ascension as from one point of view the counterpart of the Resurrection involves no new difficulty. (i) Obviously we can know nothing of the condition of our Lord’s manhood in His heavenly life. All that we are con- cerned to maintain is that He is still fully Man. As such He is the ‘ Mediator between God and man’ (1 Tim. 2° R.V.). ‘He has entered upon the completeness of spiritual being without lessening in any degree the completeness of His humanity. The thought is one with which we need to familiarize ourselves. We cannot, indeed, unite the two sides of it in one conception, but we can hold both firmly without allowing the one truth to infringe upon the other.’{ Nothing has been laid aside or lost which appertains to the perfection of man’s nature. At the time of the Reformation Luther and certain of his followers maintained that as a result of the Ascension our Lord’s humanity had become omnipresent. Against this doctrine known as ‘ Ubiquitarianism ’ the wording of our article was devised as a protest. A humanity that is of itself and unconditionally omnipresent would hardly be human any longer. As part of the created world it could scarcely attain to an attribute essentially divine. Rather we may picture to ourselves our Lord’s humanity as a faculty that He possesses and through which He can still act in our world of space and time, whenever and wherever He wills so to do. For us our body represents the organ through which we act upon our present environment. Our Lord’s spiritual body was em- ployed by Him during the forty days as the perfected instrument of His will through which He manifested Himself to the senses of His disciples and assured them of His personal identity. Now, * Milligan, The Ascension of our Lord, p. 26. Cp. Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord, pp. 23-26. {+ For an attempt to distinguish between the Resurrection and Ascension, see Denney, Art. ‘ Ascension’ in Hastings’ D.B. vol. i. There is no evidence whatever for a view that has been put forward at times, that our Lord’s body was being progressively spiritualized during the forty days. t Westcott, Historic Faith, Lect. VI, 144 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES as ascended, He possesses all that the body stands for, inasmuch as He can still render His humanity active in our lower world at will. Through it He disclosed Himself to St. Stephen (Acts 7) and apparently to St. Paul (Acts 95, cp. 1 Cor. 9) and to St. John (Rev. 11%). The Church has never had any difficulty in conceiving of Him as acting through His humanity in the Holy Eucharist in many places at the same time. But this is not ubiquitarianism. His manhood is not regarded as, so to speak, automatically omnipresent. Rather in each case His activity is a direct act of will in fulfilment of His own suas and in answer to the prayers of the Church. (ii) The ascended Christ is both priest and king.* As we saw T the culmination of the act of sacrifice was not the death of the victim, but the presentation of the blood ‘which is the life’ before God. So our Lord’s atonement was completed by the Ascension. As on the great day of atonement the high-priest entered within the veil to offer the blood (cp. Lev. 161% 16) Christ at His Ascension ‘ entered not into a holy place made with hands, but into heaven itself, now (vy, emphatic) to appear in the presence of God forus’ (Heb. 94). He is still engaged in His priestly task and the Church awaits His return from within the veil (978). ‘The entrance was made, as the sacrifice was offered, once for all: the whole period of time from the Ascension to the Return is one age-long Day of Atonement.’ { So our Lord, by His presence within the veil, is now making atonement for us. As the high-priest uttered no spoken prayer but by his presenta- tion of the blood made reconciliation for Israel, our Lord as our representative, clothed in our nature, having become all that He now is through His Cross and Passion eternally presents Himself to the Father. He has, indeed, ‘somewhat to offer’ (Heb. 8%). He is Himself both priest and victim. In the language — * Our Lord’s priesthood is not after the manner of Aaron, but of Melchizedek (Heb. 6°°-7). The difference does not lie in the function. Qua priesthood, the two are identical. Nor yet is the chief mark of difference that the king- ship and priesthood are combined in one Person. This is secondary. Rather it is to be found in the fact that the one ‘ abides continually ’ (7°). His priest- hood is eternal and ideal. The Aaronic priests are men that die: their priest- hood is transitory. Christ is a priest ‘for ever.’ See Davidson, ad loc. +Pp. 112-113. t Swete, op. cit. p. 42. For @ careful peeponticr of the symbolism see Gayford, J.Th.S. vol. xiv. p. 459 ff. THE RESURRECTION 145 of Rev. 5° He is eternally ‘the Lamb as it had been slain.’ Our Lord is an abiding priest and an abiding sacrifice. He pleads for us, not by anything new or supplementary that He now does, but by what he has become through His death. The complete self-oblation of Himself once for all made on Calvary, lives on in His living unity of will with the Father.* He ever lives unto God (Rom. 61°, cp. 51°, ‘ We are saved by his life,’ cp. 1 Pet. 374). He is a priest for ever, not simply by commemorating a death that is past, but by the eternal presentation of the life that died. As such by His very presence in our human nature He intercedes for us (Heb. 7%, Rom. 8%). ‘The intercession of the Ascended Christ is not a prayer but a life.’ Through Him we have an <~ abiding access to the throne of grace (Eph. 2, Heb. 41*16, 1019 ff.). His death and entry into Heaven took place once for all: as historical events they lie in the past and can never be repeated (Heb. 727, 978, 1017, etc.). But the great priestly appeal lasts on. The whole life and ministry of the Church proceed from the priestly life of the living and ascended Christ. We fix our gaze not on the past but on the future and on the present, on the ‘Christ that is to be.’ (i) Our Lord in Heaven is described as ‘sitting at the right hand of the Father.’ Such language is clearly metaphorical. God’s right hand is the highest place of honour in Heaven. The symbolism was borrowed from Ps. 1101, ‘Jehovah saith unto my lord’ (z.e. an earthly king whether actual or ideal), ‘Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.’ The verse had been quoted by our Lord Himself to bring home the inadequacy of the current conception of the Messiah, as the ‘Son of David,’ 7.e. a merely earthly king (Mk. 12°*), Before Caiaphas He claimed that He Himself would fulfil it (Mk. 14% where it is combined with imagery from Daniel), The Psalm in * “Tt is not the death itself which is acceptable to the God of life: but the vital self-identification with the holiness of God... . It is the life as life, not the death as death ; it is the life which has been willing to die, the life which has passed through death and been consecrated in dying, the life in which the death is a moral element, perpetually and inalienably present, but still the life, which is acceptable to God.’ ‘In that eternal presentation Calvary is eternally implied. Of that life... the ‘as it had been slain’ is no mere past incident, but it has become, once for all, an inalienable moral element,’ Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, c. vii. pp. 245 and 246, t Swete, op cit. p. 99, K 146 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES its original context is addressed to a Jewish king (perhaps Judas Maccabaeus or more probably an ideal figure of the Messianic king) who is bidden to share the throne of Jehovah. Later on (v. *) this king is declared to be by divine decree ‘a priest for ever after the manner of Melchizedek.’* The early Church from the first seized on this psalm and its phrases, sanctioned by the use of our Lord Himself, as being the least inadequate to describe the glory and functions of the Ascended Christ. It is quoted by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2%4), and the symbolism takes its place henceforth as a part of primitive Christian theology (e.g. Rom. 8%, Col. 31, Heb. 102, [Mk.] 16%, etc.). Only in Acts 75 is the imagery modified. St. Stephen cries ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ Christ is regarded as having risen up to succour His servant. ‘Sitting at the right hand of the Father ’ clearly denotes authority and triumph. God ‘made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and all authority and power and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come : and he put all things in subjection under his feet’ (Eph. 12°22, cp. Mt. 2818, Heb. 122, Rev. 324, etc.). ‘Sitting’ has also been taken to denote ‘rest.’ To this we may demur as an undue pressing of physical imagery. The idea of rest is entirely absent from the psalm. If the Ascended Christ rests it is only in the sense In which God rested from His labours on the seventh day, when He ceased to create. Such rest was not incompatible with unceasing work (Jn. 51”). The toil and sorrows of Christ’s earthly life, the Cross and Passion were indeed ended. But the true antithesis to the pain and weariness of labour is not mere repose but a free and unfettered activity. The life of the Ascended Christ is certainly not one of inactivity. He ‘must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet ’ (1 Cor. 1527). He sits ‘expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet’ (Heb. 101%), ‘Our Lord’s victory over the world in the days of His flesh was but an earnest of the longer warfare and the more complete conquest which are the work of His ascended life. When He sat down at the right hand of power, it was not for a brief cessation from warfare, but for an age-long conflict with the powers of evil. Sitting is not always the posture of rest. Some * See Kirkpatrick, ad loc. THE RESURRECTION © 147 of the hardest work of life is done by the monarch seated in his cabinet and the statesman at his desk; and the seated Christ, like the four living creatures round about Him, rests not day nor night from the unintermitting energies of heaven.’* As King, He reaps the fruits of His victory over sin and death through the battle that is being waged on earth against the forces of evil by His body the Church. § 4. Until He return to judge all men at the last day. (i) The idea of a future judgment was perfectly familiar to our Lord’s contemporaries. The prophets from Amos onwards had taken up and purified the popular expectation of the ‘Day of the Lord,’ a day in which Jehovah would intervene to vindicate Israel and scatter their enemies and His. They had taught that such a coming must mean judgment. It would be a day of condemnation of all that was unrighteous both in Israel and outside. The same idea held a prominent place in the anony- mous apocalyptic literature that had so large an influence upon Jewish thought between the cessation of prophecy and our Lord’s day. The extent of this influence we are now only beginning to appreciate. All such literature was inspired by the hope of the restoration of Israel and the establishment of the Kingdom of God, through the direct and catastrophic inter- vention of God Himself. Tlough there is considerable variety in detail, all such pictures include a judgment as a necessary prelude to the new era of happiness. Usually the judge is God Himself. Sometimes more than one judgment is described and the Messiah has a part in their execution. In a portion of one of these apocalypses, the Book of Enoch the universal judgment is assigned to a supernatural pre-existent Person ‘ the Son of Man,’ who acts as God’s agent. The importance of these facts is that they help us to reconstruct the background of popular religion in our Lord’s day. We have to face the fact that the language of our Lord Himself and of the writers of the New Testament is largely the language of this apocalyptic litera- ture. When our Lord spoke of His return to judgment, He employed phrases and symbolism already familiar to many of His hearers. He made use of current ideas and metaphors to describe His mission far more than we used to suppose. Due allowance must be made for this when we attempt to understand * Swete, The Ascended Christ, p. 14, 148 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES their meaning. We cannot suppose that popular expectations were embodied in a single consistent scheme. Doubtless they varied enormously in different circles and were often loose and fragmentary. But there did exist a definite circle of ideas in the popular mind, and prominent among these was that of a future judgment, ushering in the Kingdom of God. This same idea appears in the teaching of St. John Baptist. In some sense he combined prophecy and apocalyptic in one. He revived the personal appeal of the prophet, but the form of his teaching was in large part that of the apocalyptic writings. He took the message that was stored up in the symbolic pictures of apocalyptic literature and by his preaching made it a living expectation in the hearts and minds of ordinary men. He proclaimed the immediate approach of the Kingdom of God (Mt. 3?) and the advent of one mightier than himself who would execute the preliminary judgment AT er TBI a or aay For a fuller account see: Foundations, pp. 87-94 Charles, article ‘ Eschatology,’ Hastings’ D.B. p. 749, and Between the Old and the New Testaments, cc. ii. and iii. (ii) The new feature in our Lord’s teaching is that He claims that He Himself will return in glory to be the judge. This claim permeates all His teaching. It cannot be denied or explained away. He proclaims that all men, Jew and Gentile alike, will give account to Him for their life here. They will be judged by His standard. Often this claim to judge is connected with the title Son of Man (e.g. Mk. 898, Mt. 2531, 1341, 2487). This title is probably used in an apocalyptic sense ~ taken from the book of Daniel or the book of Enoch. But it also includes the thought that it is in virtue of His humanity, as one who knows human nature from within, as ‘ representative man,’ that He will judge mankind. The Father ‘gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is Son of Man’ (Jn. 527), This truth is represented under a great variety of symbolism. We have a whole series of parables, found chiefly in the first Gospel, emphasizing the certainty of His return and the need of preparedness. His return to judgment is likened to a flood (Mt. 249739, cp. Mt. 774) or a harvesting (Mt. 13902"d 41-43), Hig THE RESURRECTION 149 coming will be sudden and unforeseen yet visible to all (Mt 2427-28), enemies as well as friends (Rev. 17). He likens Himself to a thief (Mt. 24%, Lk. 12%), a bridegroom (Mt. 251), a master of a household suddenly returning (Mt. 24 ff., 2514 ff., Mk. 1354, Lk. 124), Elsewhere He employs symbolical language borrowed from the Old Testament and frequent in later apocalypses, to describe the upheaval of the present order preparatory to His return and to picture the scene of judgment (Mk. 13, Mt. 24, 25%! ff), The very wealth of illustration warns us against any too literal interpretation of details. Many of the scenes are incom- patible, if viewed as literal predictions, but each brings out some feature in the final catastrophe. Beneath them all the claim to be the supreme and final judge of the world stands out clear. Our Lord proclaims that He will return in the glory of the Father, m such a manner that none can escape or evade His coming and that all human life will be tested by His presence.* (iii) In the earliest preaching the Lord’s return held a foremost place (Acts 1047, 1 Thess. 11°, 4141”, 2 Thess. 2? ff. etc.). The news of judgment to come was an essential part of the Gospel that the Apostles proclaimed (cp. Acts 1734, 24%, Rom. 24516 1 Cor. 45, 2 Cor. 51°, Heb. 67, 1 Pet. 417, etc.). The early Church believed that the Lord’s coming was to be expected very quickly, within the lifetime of many then living. We can see the value of such a belief, in the providence of God. Not only did it stimulate moral and spiritual earnestness. Ultimate values and eternal issues were not obscured by the claims of earth, since this earth was held to be about to pass away. But also it governed the development of Church organization. The apostles had no con- ception that they were laymg down rules or planning a con- stitution for a Church that was to last for some two thousand years. All their administration was guided by the needs of some immediate demand or difficulty. Hence the elasticity and adaptiveness of Christianity was preserved. The Church was saved from a minute and rigid organization based on precise apostolic commands and therefore regarded as inviolable. Such an organization, however perfectly suited to the needs of the apostolic age, would have been an intolerable burden to any succeeding age. All through the New Testament we find broad * Cp. Swete, The Ascended Christ, pp. 146-147. 150 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES principles Jaid down rather than detailed and formal rules. ‘*It may seem a paradox, but yet it is profoundly true, that the Church is adapted to the needs of every age, just because the original preachers of Christianity never attempted to adapt it to the needs of any period but their own.’ * Within the teaching of St. Paul himself we can trace a change of tone on the subject of the Lord’s return. In his later epistles he dwells less upon the immediacy of His coming. He seems able to contemplate a considerable delay. He himself may expect to die first (cp. Phil. 12-4, and contrast 1 Cor. 776?! and 1 Thess. 415 ‘we which are alive’). He dwells more upon the building up of the Church. So, too, in St. John’s Gospel we find a marked absence of definitely eschatological teaching. Its place is taken by the thought of the coming of the Spirit. Hven so, however, both in St. Paul’s latest epistles and in St. John the thought of a final judgment by Christ is never let go (2 Tim. 41 and 118, Jn. 5279, 1 Jn. 4!" etc.). This suggests that our Lord’s teaching contained from the first certain elements which were appreciated more fully after a time and which tended to modify the expectation of His immediate return. (iv) If we ask how we are to conceive of the return of Christ and the final judgment, and what the ‘advent hope’ means to us to-day, we must admit that as soon as we go outside the main truth, nothing is clear-cut. The important fact for our present life is that we shall have each personally to render an account of our lives to Jesus Christ. The standard by which we shall | be judged is His and not the world’s. The language of Scripture © certainly suggests that this final judgment takes place not on the death of the individual but at ‘ the last day,’ after the general resurrection, and that it is shared by all mankind. But though this may be the best way that we can express the truth for ourselves, we must remember that it may be hopelessly inade- quate. The varied symbolism in which the judgment is depicted in Scripture is at best an attempt to suggest to the mind spiritual realities that lie beyond our present human experience. The whole question of time comesin. Words like ‘before’ and ‘after’ may have no meaning in the life after death. The apparent interval between death and the final judgment may have no real *Sanday and Headlam, p. 381. The whole note, p. 379-381, sbould be read. THE RESURRECTION rol existence. We cannot dogmatize on such points. It is well, however, to bear in mind certain facts. (a) The imagery of Scripture is more consistent than we sometimes suppose. The impossibility of imagining a gathering of all mankind at one place is obvious. But though Scripture suggests this, it at the same time teaches that we shall all possess risen and spiritual bodies, raised above the limitations of space. The two thoughts must be taken together. (8) The judgment will not be the arbitrary assignment of future destinies. Rather it will be the final and public declaration of what men have made themselves. In His earthly life, as St. John’s Gospel makes clear, our Lord by His very presence among men as a Saviour, judged them. He acted as a touchstone of character. By their attitude to Him men showed themselves to be what they really were. This same judgment or division is made at every great crisis or opportunity that befalls either nations or individuals. Then in a real sense Christ comes and men reveal themselves by their behaviour towards Him. Such an experience cannot leave man unchanged. By their response they make themselves either better or worse. Salvation rejected is condemnation. If, then, this process of judgment is, so to say, automatically going on day by day, it leads us to expect a final judgment. All men must by acts of choice be building up a character of some kind. The coming of Christ in glory is a last great opportunity, that none will be able to escape. It will divide men by revealing what they have become. In one sense Christ will judge. In another sense men will judge themselves, in so far as they are prepared or not prepared to meet Him. The justice and inevitableness of the sentence will be apparent. The judgment will not change men. It will show them to be what they are. (vy) By this judgment the individual is assigned his place in the new order of things in accordance with his character and capacity. From first to last Scripture speaks of men as divided into two classes, the saved and the lost.* It declares that at bottom all men must decide either for God or against Him. At the same time our Lord seems to speak of gradations of reward and punishment (Lk. 124748, 191719; cp. Jn. 14% ‘many * Mysterious as this is it seems to correspond with the facts of human life, See Martineau, 7'ypes of Ethical Theory. vol. ii. pp. 65-69. 152 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES mansions’). EHvery man is given that position in the new age which he has made himself capable of fillmg by his life m this age.* Cp. Westcott, Historic Faith, c. 7 Quick, Essays in Orthodoxy, c. iv. Christian Beliefs and Modern Questions, Lect. vi. (v) Any mention of our Lord’s second coming brings us to the fringe of one of the burning theological questions of the day. What place are we to assign to our Lord’s apocalyptic teaching ? Till comparatively lately this aspect of His teaching was ignored. ‘Liberal’ theologians tended to ascribe the eschatological sayings a very back place, regarding them as due perhaps to the stupidity of disciples. Almost exclusive stress was laid on His moral teaching. The centre of this was supposed to be the Fatherhood of God and the joy of union with Him. But the newly awakened interest in contemporary Jewish apocalyptic literature has brought into prominence our Lord’s apocalyptic teaching. It is quite clear that it can no longer be minimized or ignored. Indeed, the extreme apocalyptic school would attach almost exclusive importance to the eschatological side of our Lord’s discourses and parables. They would hold, for instance, that when He spoke of the Kingdom of God, He used the phrase purely in an eschatological sense, as denoting the ideal world that was to be inaugurated at His second coming. Again, they would hold that He did not claim to be the Messiah during His earthly life, but claimed that He would return in glory as Messiah to be the King of the Messianic Kingdom. He was, so to say, the Messiah-designate, who had come to herald the approach of His Kingdom. It is suggested that He Himself expected His immediate return, and viewed His death mainly * Heaven and Hell are primarily states of character, not localities. No doubt an ideal life requires an ideal environment, and such Heaven will supply. But the secret of the bliss of Heaven is within the soul. An unholy man would find life in Heaven intolerable. He could have no sympathy with it. Hence the unavoidableness of Hell. The essential nature of Hell would seem to be the failure to attain Heaven. It is eternal loss, rather than eternal punishment. The fires of Hell are those that are to be found within the human heart, anger, bitterness, self-will and the like, and the lusts that survive after the power for finding pleasure in their satisfaction has for ever departed. Above all just as the joy of Heaven will consist above all in that full union with God for which we were made, so the loss of Hell is above all the loss of that union with God, for which sin and self-will incapacitate us (cp. 2 Thess, 1°, Heb. 12!*), THE RESURRECTION 153 as a means of hastening the coming of the Kingdom. Accord- ingly His moral teaching falls into a secondary place. Such a view has found expression in many one-sided and extra- vagant forms. It has exhibited all the violence and unreason- ableness of reactions. But it does express a very real and valuable side of the truth. It has at least delivered us from the tyranny of ‘ Liberal’ theologians who reduced our Lord to the level of a great moral teacher.* It does bring out the supernatural and catastrophic elements in His teaching and the essential other- worldliness of the Christian faith. It represents Him as central for all life both here and hereafter, no mere human teacher or prophet, but a Divine Being making a divine claim. We have yet to adjust our Lord’s apocalyptic teaching to the remainder of His teaching, but no view of His life and ministry can claim to be adequate that does not attempt to do this. The best introduction to the eschatological problem is perhaps : Emmet, The Eschatological Question in the Gospels, i. The eschatological point of view is set forth in: Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross Roads. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (the last two chapters should be read). Cp. also Foundations, pp. 111-127 and 155-160. Selwyn, The Teaching of Christ. Von Hiigel, Hssays and Addresses, v. and Vii. Hoge, Redemption from this world. *