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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
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 CHAPTER I.—THE TIME OF THE END. 
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 THE 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
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 BYiCH.Ae. LUTHARDT 
 
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 the general reader, as containing an unusual amount of thought and 
 information conveyed in elegant and forcible language.’—Gwardian. 
 
 ‘Tuthardt is the very man to help those entangled in the thickets 
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APOLOGETIC LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SAVING TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
EDINBURGH! PRINTED BY SCHENCK AND M‘FARLANE 
 FOR 
 
 T. AND T. CLARK. 
 
 LONDON, A . A ° HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CoO, 
 
 DUBLIN, . ri é : JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO. 
 
APOLOGETIC LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SAVING TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 DELIVERED IN LEIPSIC IN THE WINTER OF 1866 
 
 BY 
 
 Veal 
 CHR. ERNST LUTHARDT, 
 
 DOCTOR AND PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY. 
 
 Translated from the Second German Edition by 
 
 SOPHIA “TAYLOR. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 
 1868. 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 THE Lectures which I last winter delivered on the 
 ‘Saving Truths of Christianity, in continuation of my 
 former series of Apologetical Lectures, are here pre- 
 sented, with very few additions and alterations. 
 
 I confess that it was not without hesitation that I 
 undertook this work; for the more sacred and serious 
 the themes which I had to discuss, the greater was my 
 responsibility—a responsibility which I have never lost 
 sight of. I have found, also, but little assistance from 
 the works of others, from the fact that these very 
 questions are just those which have been much less 
 treated by apologetical writers, than those more general 
 religious questions which form the subject of my 
 former series. If, however, I may venture to draw 
 a conclusion from the unusual and sustained interest 
 
 bestowed upon them, God has not suffered these Lec- 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 tures to be entirely without success. May they do 
 their work in their present form also. 
 
 I have provided these, as well as the former series, 
 with notes, chiefly of a literary and theological charac- 
 ter, and designed especially for such as may desire 
 more accurate information concerning the various 
 matters discussed. 
 
 This work is sent forth to the world with the prayer, 
 that the blessing which God has so abundantly be- 
 stowed on the former series may accompany this 
 also. 
 
 C. E. LUTHARDT. 
 
 Lerpsic, July 1, 1867. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The Subject-—Christianity the Absolute Religion—Heathenism— 
 The Religion of the Old Testament—Christianity, the Fact 
 Jesus Christ—Former Views of Christianity—Christianity, 
 Certainty of Saving Truth—Grounds of this Certainty—Means 
 of this Certainty —Faith and Knowledge, 
 
 i LECTURE II. 
 SIN, 
 
 Universality of Suffering and Death—Univer sality of Sin—Origin 
 of Sin—Universality of its Consequences—Internal Discord— 
 Selfishness the Essence of Sin—Impotence of the Will with 
 Respect to Sin—Guilt, . Re 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 ‘ GRACE. 
 
 A Remedy Needed—Vanity of Human Remedies—Need of For- 
 giveness—Grace Needed—Grace Certain—Grace Uniyersal— 
 
 PAGE 
 
 17 
 
Xiv Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 The Operations of Grace, Secret Operations—Education for 
 Grace, . ; : : ‘ ; ; oh, 165 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 THE GOD-MAN. 
 
 The Question of the God-man—The Man, Christ Jesus—His Sin- 
 lessness——Jesus Christ, a Miracle—The Son of Man—The Son 
 of God—Confession and Denial of His Divinity—Necessity of 
 the God-man—Possibility of the God-man—Reality of the 
 God-man—The Self-abnegation of the Son of God—The Con- 
 trasts of His Life, : : ; : 2.90 
 
 LECTURE YV. 
 THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 The Three Offices of Christ—The Development of Jesus—His 
 Prophetic Office—His Rejection—His Atoning Sacrifice—Need 
 of Atonement—Substitution ; its Possibility and Reality— 
 Vicarious Suffering—The Last Hours of Christ—The Cross, 144 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE CONCLUSION OF THE WORK OF REDEMPTION— 
 THE TRINITY. 
 
 The Resurrection of Christ—Its Reality—The Exaltation of 
 Christ to be the Ruler of the World—The Holy Spirit—The 
 Conclusion of the Work of Redemption—The Trinity—The 
 Possibility of Understanding it—The Trinity of the Divine 
 Revelation—The Trinity of the Divine Nature—Faith in the 
 Trinity, : ‘ : : : . 139 
 
Contents. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Church a Fact—Antipathy to the Church—The Intolerance 
 attributed to the Church—The Supposed Superfluousness of 
 the Church—The Nature of the Church—The Contrast of 
 Catholicism and Protestantism—Catholicism—Protestantism 
 
 —Difference and Unity of Churches, 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Estimation of the Old Testament—Origin and Collection of the 
 New Testament Scriptures—Regard paid to Scripture by the 
 Church—Principles of Protestantism concerning Scripture— 
 Universal Importance of Scripture—Religious Importanee of 
 Scripture—Necessity of Holy Scripture—Matter of Holy Serip- 
 ture—The Understanding and Interpretation of Holy Scripture 
 —Inspiration of Holy Scripture—The Certainty of Inspiration 
 —Faith and Criticism—Duty towards Holy Scripture, 
 
 OY Od OS eS 
 THE CHURCH’S MEANS OF GRACE. 
 
 The Agency of Grace—The two Means of Grace, Word and’ 
 
 Sacrament—The Word—Law and Gospel—The Law—The 
 Gospel—The Doctrine of Justification by Faith—The Sacra- 
 ments—The two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper 
 —Baptism—Confirmation—The Lord’s Supper, 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 THE LAST THINGS. 
 
 The Goal of Perfection for Individuals—Belief in the Immovr- 
 tality of the Soul—Evidence of the Immortality of the Soul— 
 
 . 163 
 
 . 190 
 
 ee at 
 
XVi Contents. 
 
 State of the Soul after Death—The Resurrection of the Body— 
 The Future.of the Church—The Conversion of the Nations— 
 The ssbperety = Hamity against the Church—The Victory of 
 
 wate 
 
 Eternal Perdition—Eternal Salvation—Retrospect, 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Notes To Lecture L., 
 Nores to Lecrvre I1., 
 Nores to Lecrurz IIL, 
 Nores To Lecture IV., 
 Notes To LECTURE V., 
 Nores to Lecture VI., 
 Nores To Lectures VIL, 
 Nortrs to Lecture VIIL., 
 Nores To Lecture IX., 
 Notes To Lecture X., 
 
 PAGE 
 
APOLOGETIC LECTURES 
 
 ON TUE 
 
 SAVING TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 THE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 emer TT 1)N J addressed you from this place, a few 
 A) years’since, it was upon Zhe Fundamental 
 Truths of Christianity. Starting from 
 those questions of the human heart and 
 intellect which press upon every serious and thinking 
 man, from the anomalies apparent in the moral world, 
 from the enigmas of our entire existence, I showed you 
 how all these demand a living and a personal God, and 
 ‘His revelation in Christ Jesus. It is only in the 
 religious view of the world, in Christianity, that these 
 anomalies are reconciled, these questions answered. 
 For it is only in God that we can understand either 
 the world or ourselves, Thus, everything that sur- 
 rounds us, and we ourselves, furnish actual testimony 
 
 to the necessity and the truth of religious faith. 
 B 
 
18 Lecture I, The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 Such is, in few words, a summary of the former 
 course. 
 
 The road which we then traversed together, led us 
 but to the door of the inner sanctuary. I now invite 
 you to follow me into this sanctuary itself, and to 
 contemplate its holy mysteries. It is not my inten- 
 tion again to speak of the elementary doctrines of 
 religion, but of Christian truth itself. I shall this 
 time assume a belief in the fundamental propositions 
 of religious faith, and address you as those who are 
 convinced that the God of whom we cannot help think- 
 ing, is also the living and personal God, whom we 
 are designed and called to acknowledge; to honour, 
 and to love;.that He has revealed Himself to us, has 
 directed us to religion as our highest destination ; and 
 that Jesus Christ is His complete and supreme mani- 
 festation. It is, then, on The Saving Truths of Chris- 
 tianity that I propose to expatiate: and to explain 
 and justify these will be my present object. 
 
 The road on which we shall travel together is 
 narrower than the former—perhaps, too, it is more 
 lonely. Very many who were willing to accompany 
 us on that, may possibly hesitate to follow us now. 
 And yet what I am now about to lay before you 1s 
 but the necessary consequence of the great general 
 truths which then occupied us, 
 
 Those truths come everywhere in contact with 
 human thought and experience. The doctrines which 
 I have now to bring before you move in a much 
 narrower field of observation. Indeed, it is not so 
 
Christianity the Absolute Religion. 19 
 
 much the connection with human knowledge in gene- 
 ral, as the limited nature of this knowledge, which 
 becomes evident from the central station of Christian 
 faith. 
 
 I am well aware of the difficulty of my present task, 
 but I undertake it with the hope that. God will not 
 deny me His assistance and blessing. 
 
 How far I shall succeed in satisfying the ee 
 ments of such a subject, I know not; but whatever 
 may be the weakness of my words, I beg you to 
 believe—and this is the only thing I ask you to take 
 on my word—that the cause itself is far stronger than 
 its advocate. 
 
 Christianity was the goal of the former, it is the 
 starting-point of the present course. I shall therefore 
 begin by speaking of The Nature of Christianity ; and 
 this will form the subject of our first lecture. (’) 
 
 And what, then, is Christianity? It is a world of 
 thoughts, which have been working and fermenting in 
 the minds of men up to the present hour; it is an all 
 affecting change in our mode of thought and observa- 
 tion; it is a transformation of our entire social system ; 
 it is a renewal of our inner life; in short, it is a world 
 of effects, which are matters of. daily experience. 
 Wherever we may be, and wherever we may go, we 
 encounter this new world of Christianity, even when 
 we do not recognise it, even when we ignore or deny 
 it. But, above all, Christianity is religion. The Chris- 
 tian religion is the source from which that stream of 
 blessings flows, of which even they who oppose or 
 
20 Lecture I., The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 despise the Christian faith partake. As religion, how- 
 ever, it is connected with all those religions which 
 have preceded it, and that not merely as one of them, 
 but as their truth, their aim, as simply religion. 
 Christianity is the absolute religion—the only true and 
 intrinsically valid religion, Such is the pretension 
 with which it entered the world, and which it con- 
 stantly maintains. This may, perhaps, be called 
 exclusiveness and intolerance; but it is the intoler- 
 ance of truth, As soon as truth concedes the possi- 
 bility of her opposite being also true, she denies — 
 herself. As soon as Christianity ceases to declare 
 herself to be the only true religion, she annihilates 
 her power, and denies her right to exist, for she denies 
 her necessity. The old world concluded with the 
 question, What is Truth? The new world began with 
 the saying of Christ, ] am the Truth. And this saying 
 is the confession of Christian faith. 
 
 The forms which the Christian faith assume may 
 alter; the human notions by which it seeks to express 
 itself may change; but Christian faith must declare 
 itself to be the unchangeable truth. It must affirm 
 that this truth is the answer to the old questions of 
 human nature, and that all the religions which have 
 been its predecessors were merely preliminary and pre- 
 paratory, and have found in it their aim and goal. 
 Heathenism was the ‘seeking religion, J udaism the! 
 hoping religion ; Christianity is the reality of what 
 Heathenism sought, and Judaism hoped for. (’) | 
 
 Let us first consider Heathenism.(°) To seek God 
 
Heathenism. 21 
 
 is the origin of all religion—is the truth even of 
 heathenism. For this feeling, this attraction towards 
 God, exists in every man. Man cannot cease from 
 seeking and inquiring after God. No period of history 
 can be mentioned as that in which men began to seek 
 God. At no time, and in no place, have men been 
 _ found without religion. (*) It is the distinctive mark 
 of humanity. Homer delights to call men speaking or 
 inventive beings. He might have called them reli- 
 gious beings; and this would have been entirely in his 
 spirit.(°) It is true that individuals may deny all reli- 
 gion, just as individuals may deny all human affection. 
 But these are exceptions. It is as essential to man to have 
 a religion as it is to man to love. As man cannot live 
 without his fellow-men, so can he not live without God. 
 Individuals may resolve to renounce all human com- 
 panionship; but we could not but call this an unnatural 
 resolution. And they who should carry it into execu- 
 tion, would do so at the cost of their own minds, which 
 would be stunted by the process. So, also, an individual 
 might resolve to renounce all communion with God; 
 but this, too, would be an unnatural resolution, to the 
 detriment of his own soul, which would be impoverished 
 and stunted by the experiment. Nor would any one 
 be capable of fully carrying it into execution. As he 
 who seeks solitude carries with him, nevertheless, 
 thoughts of that world and that human society from 
 which he flees into the desert; so does he who wants 
 to know nothing of God, nevertheless bear about with 
 him everywhere thoughts of God, and inquiries after 
 
22 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 Him. We cannot forget God. This inquiry and search 
 after God is the origin of religion, and the truth even 
 of heathenism. . 
 
 Tn all its various forms, from the most elevated and 
 refined to the most revolting, it is equally the religious 
 sentiment and the religious craving which impels men 
 to seek after God. They do not, indeed, find Him, 
 because they seek amiss. The heathen mind has 
 sought God in the variety of nature,—in the stars of 
 heaven and in the powers of earth; but the heart has 
 always aimed at the one God. Religions are poly- 
 theistic: the religious craving is always monotheistic. 
 The heart seeks God, but the mind goes astray in the 
 way, and thus the true God is not found. y 
 
 ‘However beautiful the thoughts, or elevated the 
 words, found in heathen poets and philosophers (°) con- 
 cerning the Deity, they always exhibit a twofold defi- _ 
 eiency: they know neither the Creator nor the holy 
 God. 
 
 Creator and creature, God and the world, stand on 
 the same level in their ideas. Either the divinity is 
 the highest product of the great process by which the 
 world and mankind were brought forth, or the world 
 is an emanation of the Divine essence, and proceeds 
 from God, much as thoughts involuntarily arise from 
 the mind, or like dreams of the night. The former is 
 the system of Greek, the latter of Jewish thought. 
 
 But if they know not the Creator, still less do they 
 know the holy God. It is after the likeness of sinful 
 man that they have imagined their gods, with the 
 
Heathenism. — . 3a 
 
 weaknesses and passions of mortals. Where the notion 
 of the Divine holiness is wanting, there is wanting also 
 the highest standard of moral judgment, and a super- 
 ficial morality takes its place. All heathen worship iS 
 a testimony to this; for nothing but a superficial 
 morality could think of atoning for sin, or propitiating 
 the Deity, by its own works and sacrifices. There 
 is, it is true, a certain elegance of sentiment in the 
 honour rendered by the Greek woman to her goddess, in 
 an offering of fruits and flowers. Such worship might 
 well be imagined acceptable, if there were no such 
 thing as sin. The heathen religions may be religions 
 of beauty; but they are deficient in moral truth and 
 moral seriousness. I know well that heathen worship 
 has its dark as well as its bright side. Tull far down 
 the stream of time, even till the time of the Roman 
 emperors, human sacrifices were offered. (‘) We turn 
 away shuddering from such a worship; and yet it 
 is founded on a true feeling—the feeling that life is 
 forfeited by sin, and that sin can only be expiated by 
 life. This horrible distortion of truth—what else is it 
 but the cry of the heart seeking after a propitiated 
 God? Heathenism is the seeking religion ; but it seeks 
 without finding, and without the hope of attaining to 
 God. 
 
 The religion of the Old Testament is the religion 
 of Hope. ‘The first quality which raises the Old 
 ‘Testament far above heathenism, is faith in God the 
 Creator. An atmosphere of Divine majesty, before 
 which the creature is but dust and ashes, pervades the 
 
24 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 whole of the Old Testament. The Almighty, whom 
 the heaven of heavens cannot contain, whose throne 
 is heaven and the earth His footstool, who speaks and 
 it is done, who commands and it stands fast, is exalted 
 high above all created beings. And the other par- 
 ticular which raises Israel above the heathen world, is 
 the knowledge of the Divine holiness. Nowhere else 
 are found such poignant confessions of sin; among no 
 other nations are heard tones so pathetic as in the 
 penitential psalms of Israel; (*) nowhere else does a ~ 
 like consciousness of the impassable abyss, separating 
 sinful men from the holy God, exist. No human 
 being can bridge it over; grace alone is able to do 
 this. It is true that the Israelite offered sacrifice, and 
 underwent purification; but he well knew that these 
 could not purge his conscience, that they were 
 symbolic images of inward plety—ty pes of the future. 
 It was upon this future that Israel lived. To it they 
 looked for the fulfilment of all God’s promises—the 
 satisfaction of the soul’s cravings. But their hope of 
 hopes was this, that God would make a new covenant 
 with His people,—a covenant of hearts,—to be founded 
 upon propitiation and forgiveness. This was the great 
 prediction of Jeremiah (xxxi, 31-34.), 
 
 Israel was the nation of hope, and its religion the 
 religion of hope. The hope of Israel became a fact in 
 Jesus Christ. This is the essence of Christianity. Its 
 essence consists not in an idea, not in mere thoughts, 
 but in a fact. 
 
 About thirty or forty years since, it was thought 
 
Christianity, the Fact Jesus Christ. 25 
 
 that the key to the knowledge of the essence of 
 Christianity was found, when it was said to be the 
 most sublime idea of the reason. 
 
 The era of illumination and rationalism, which re- 
 duced the whole essence of Christianity to a scanty 
 history of the wise and virtuous Jesus of Nazareth, 
 and to some general elementary truths concerning 
 ...God, virtue, and immortality, had preceded this. 
 
 When the deeper spirit of speculative philosophy 
 
 revived in the great philosophers of the present cen- 
 
 tury, it declared for the most’ unsatisfactory notion of 
 
 Christianity that was possible. It affirmed that the 
 
 deepest thoughts which occupy every thinking mind 
 
 had been here deposited in the popular form of 
 figurative language—that the thought of thoughts 
 which forms the mystery of Christianity is the unity 
 of God and man,—that God is the truth of man, and 
 man the reality of God. To the external perception 
 of the understanding, the two are indeed distinct ;. but 
 to the inner perception of the reason they are one. 
 
 Man is not merely the finite being he seems to the 
 
 external senses; he is rather a manifestation of the 
 
 Infinite. When man thinks of God, he is thinking 
 
 of his own higher truth, and thus combining with 
 
 God. This last is the highest thought of reason, and 
 
 this is also intended by the Christian doctrine of the 
 
 God-man. Such were the notions then taught by 
 _the philosophic schools of Schelling and Hegel. (°) 
 
 Well, it is now acknowledged that all this is a total 
 misconception of the proper meaning of Christian 
 
26 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 doctrine (*), and these notions of the age of philosophy 
 are generally abandoned. We have learned that philo- 
 
 sophy is not religion, and that it cannot take the place | 
 
 of religion. But what does modern so-called Pro- 
 testantism, designating itself as the necessary progress 
 of the human mind,—what does that self-named liberal 
 or free movement in theology, which has taken upon 
 itself to reconcile Christianity with the knowledge of 
 the age,—what does it put in the place of the philoso- 
 phical idea? A religious one—the idea of religious 
 and moral perfection. This, it is now asserted, is the 
 essence of Christianity. It is said to be the Jewish 
 stand-point to adhere to historical facts, which have 
 no signification for our reason. The truth of Chris- 
 tianity is made to consist only in the idea. (”) 
 
 We grant that Christianity has ideas: it is more 
 rich in ideas than the whole body of ancient philo- 
 sophy; and the thoughts of a Christian are deeper 
 than those of a Plato or an Aristotle. Yet it is not in 
 
 these, but in a fact (")—the fact of the atonement— 
 
 that the essence of Christianity consists. For sin is a 
 fact—the most potent fact on earth. Now, if a fact is 
 to be done away with, it must be, not by mere ideas, 
 
 but by facts. But Christianity is the doing away with, 
 sin-—the Divine answer to human sin. Therefore, it is, 
 
 a fact, the fact of atonement. For this alone, and not 
 an idea, can give us the peace of conscience we are 
 seeking. | 
 
 Our whole mental life rests upon facts. All here. 
 
 is governed by the mighty facts of history; and why 
 
 a 
 
— Christianty, the Fact Jesus Christ. 27 
 
 should not religion be so too? All religions appeal to 
 facts—except, indeed, so-called natural religion, which 
 has no existence but in books. (”) 
 
 The fact constituting the essence of Christianity is 
 Jesus Christ. His person denotes the essence of Chris- 
 tianity; for Christ is related to Christianity in a different 
 manner from that in which Mohammed is related to 
 Mohammedanism. He has not merely an historical 
 but a religious significance with respect to the religion 
 called after Him; He is not merely its founder, but its 
 object ; He is one with it,—in fact, He is himself Chris- 
 tianity; and He has united it for all times to His person. 
 It is impossible to forget Himself in His cause. In 
 other cases it may often happen; and this is, indeed, 
 the ordinary course of events, that, in progress of time, 
 a cause gets separated from the person to whom it owes 
 its origin. Gratitude will, indeed, cherish the memory 
 of those who have been the benefactors of mankind; 
 but the time may come when their benefits will be 
 enjoyed and themselves forgotten. And who can be 
 certain of never being forgotten? Jesus Christ will 
 not be forgotten. (") He has made Himself the centre 
 of His religion; and Christendom has in all ages so re- 
 garded Him, as the whole history of the Church testi- 
 fies. The controversies of the different centuries have 
 all concerned the person of Christ. All worship is a 
 glorification of Christ. All church hymns praise Him. 
 Christian art celebrates His triumph when she lays at 
 His feet her choicest and loveliest treasures. And if 
 the conflict of our age turns upon the religious signifi- 
 
28 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 cation of Jesus Christ, what is this but another testi- 
 mony that He is the central point of the Christian 
 religion? He has indissolubly united it to His person. 
 
 Christianity being then a fact, and that fact Jesus 
 Christ, we proceed to inquire— Wherein the essence of _, 
 Christianity consists, 
 
 Various ages and Churches have given various 
 answers to this question. 
 
 The ancient Greek Church saw in it the revelation of 
 the highest truth—the manifestation of absolute reason. 
 The teachers of the Greek Church were nourished on 
 the great poets and philosophers of Greece. Hence 
 their desire to associate these great spirits of antiquity 
 with Jesus Christ, the King of spirits. They saw scin- 
 tillations of truth dispersed on all sides; they saw in 
 Christ the Sun of truth, in His teaching the highest 
 philosophy, the absolute reason. Such were the notions 
 of the Greek dogmatists. They express a truth, but not 
 the whole truth. 3 | 
 ~The Western Church inherited that practical turn, 
 that talent for government, which had been manifested 
 by ancient Rome. It affirmed that Christianity had 
 brought into the world the Divine kingdom of grace 
 and life, that this kingdom is in the Church, that Chris- 
 tianity is the Church. He, then, who would partake 
 of the grace of the kingdom, must submit to the ordi- 
 nances of the Church. Hence, Christian piety is 
 obedience to the Church. We cannot but admire the 
 energy with which Rome secured for ‘Christianity a 
 safe refuge within the Church, during the tempests 
 
Former Views of Christianity. 29 
 
 of national disturbances in the West. Yet we cannot 
 find in her the full truth and essence of Christianity. 
 
 Lhe Leformation proceeded from the anxiety of the 
 conscience for salvation—from the heart’s craving for 
 assurance. In it was repeated the old question: What 
 must I do to be saved? and the old assurance: Be- 
 lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ! It should never be 
 forgotten that such was the origin of the Reformation 
 and of Protestantism, which places the essence of 
 Christianity in the salvation of the sinner by Christ 
 Jesus, of which we are assured by faith. 
 
 This, its essence, is, too, the seal of its truth. For 
 it is hereby that it as much abases man through the 
 announcement of his sinfulness and ruin, as it elevates 
 him by the declaration of that Divine grace which 
 saves him. No other religion so deeply humbles man, 
 yet none so truly comforts him, as Christianity. In 
 all others we have but part of these truths; and man 
 is either degraded to the level of the brutes, or made a 
 god. The Gospel is the whole truth; and it is this 
 truth through its preaching of Jesus Christ. For it is 
 this that shows us the greatness of our ruin, through 
 the greatness of the means necessary to remedy it. It 
 shows us how sorely we need salvation, and, at the 
 same time, that this is offered to us by the grace of 
 God. (28) 
 
 Christianity, then, is, on the one side, the salvation 
 of sinners in Christ Jesus; on the other, the faith 
 which assures us hereof. For faith requires assurance. 
 Theology may sometimes be occupied with doubtful 
 
- 
 
 30 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 opinions and views, but faith requires certainty ; and 
 it is its nature to do so, Pe 
 
 Upon what, then, does this certainty depend? It may 
 be answered: Upon the authority of the Church. And 
 this is the answer of the Romish Church, which affirms : 
 What the Church teaches is true, for the Church is 
 infallible; she has the spirit of truth, she is inspired. 
 But what if she is not infallible? What if she be not 
 free from error? if she have erred? if these assertions 
 fail when tested by the facts of history? What would 
 then be the consequence? Then, faith must fall to- 
 gether with the Church’s infallibility; for it rests upon 
 her authority, ‘and is, in truth, faith in her. This, 
 then, cannot be the ultimate foundation of faith. Let 
 us go a step farther backwards than the Church. 
 Behind the Church stands Holy Scripture. . Does our 
 faith, then, rest upon Holy Scripture? Well, we 
 believe, and are sure, that’ in the Scripture we have 
 the Word of God, that it teaches us the way of salva- 
 tion, and is a safe guide to heaven. And yet, can the 
 Scriptures be the ultimate foundation of our religious 
 faith, and of our certainty? How, then, if certain 
 individual errors be pointed out; if certain contradic- 
 tions are shown us, in Scripture, to which we know 
 not how to reply; if we are made uncertain about 
 single books of Holy Scripture, and become perplexed 
 about them; would our faith itself also become uncer- 
 tain, should we be perplexed about Christianity ? By 
 no means. The letter of Scripture cannot be the 
 ultimate foundation of our faith. Our faith is not 
 
Grounds of this Certainty. 31 
 
 ymere faith in Scripture, but, above and beyond 
 this, in the matter of which Scripture informs us. 
 And this matter, if we would name it by one word, 
 jis Jesus Christ. We believe in Jesus Christ, not 
 merely on account. of the Scriptures; for rather do we 
 believe in the Scriptures on account of Jesus Christ. 
 It is true that it is the Christ of the Scriptures, and 
 none other, in whom we believe. But.we believe in 
 Him on His own account. This faith is not a merely 
 Historical, but a religious one. There are historical, 
 and there are moral and religious truths. We can 
 only be certain of historical truths in historical ways ; 
 - other truths are matters of internal conviction. That 
 Cesar was killed by Bratus, that Napoleon I. died at 
 St Helena—these are historical truths. No well- 
 informed, no intelligent man doubts these facts. But 
 what have they to do with our inner life? And who 
 would hazard his life for them? They are casual his- 
 torical facts, without significance for our inner life. 
 We are certain of them; but this is but an historical 
 certainty—no inward assurance, no moral conviction. 
 That Jesus lived; that He was born during the reign 
 of Augustus and of Herod; that He died under Pontius © 
 Pilate, etc..—these, too, are historical truths, of which 
 we are certain in an historical manner. But they are 
 not of merely historical, but of religious importance to 
 our faith. It is this religious importance which is the 
 peculiar matter of our faith. The history of Jesus 
 Christ is the history of our redemption. The facts of 
 His life are to us truths for our inner life. These 
 
o2 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 require an inward assurance. Of these we have not 
 merely an historical but a moral conviction. It is our 
 conscience which testifies that this Christ, His death 
 
 and resurrection, is just what we are seeking and . 
 
 needing ; and he who lets himself be guided by this 
 testimony of his conscience, will have, in his own 
 heart, the testimony of the Spirit of truth to ibe truth 
 of this faith. 
 
 Such is the religious certainty of faith. How, then, 
 do we arrive at this certainty? Not by the way of 
 evidence, but of inward experience, 
 
 We do, indeed, bring forward proofs of the truth of 
 Christianity. We deliver apologetic lectures. But 
 what do all these effect? They may indeed refute 
 and do away with the assertions of unbelief; they may 
 remove the stumbling-blocks which lie in the way of 
 faith ; but they cannot create the inward certainty of 
 faith itself. Faith is not the result of evidence. If faith 
 were a mere victory gained over the understanding by 
 means of evidences, it would be without moral worth 
 and significance. But it is a moral act. I can so de- 
 monstrate a geometrical proposition, that the under- 
 standing of another is obliged to accept it.. I can 
 compel another to acknowledge the truth of the Pytha- 
 gorean proposition, if he only possesses suflicient un- 
 derstanding to follow the process of proof. But who 
 will say that this concession is of any moral import- 
 ance to man? It is the necessary act of his reason— 
 not the free choice of his will We attain certainty 
 either by means of the conviction of the senses, or by 
 
Faith and Knowledge. 33 
 
 means of the operations of the reason; but the former 
 are of no avail, and the latter totally insufficient in the 
 case of moral truths. For, in matters of faith, it is not 
 the reason only which speaks, but the heart and con- 
 science also, Faith is the act of the whole man, and 
 hence it comes to pass, not merely by an act of the 
 understanding, but by a vital process, in which the 
 whole man concurs. It is not a matter of demonstra- 
 tion, but of inward experience. 
 
 I may talk never so much of the beauty of colour to 
 a blind man, whose eyes have never beheld the light— 
 it will be but a foreign language to him. Not till his. 
 eyes are opened will he understand my words—will he 
 be in a condition to judge of the colours of the light. 
 And so is it in the present case. If our eyes are closed 
 to the world of God’s light and truth—the world of 
 faith—no talking, no proofs will avail. I can get so 
 far as to feel my want, to desire light; but I shall not 
 see and understand it till my eyes. are opened to be- 
 hold it. It is a vital process by which I attain to the ° 
 knowledge of faith. As we only know of this world 
 in which we live, because we were born and live in it; 
 so can we only know of that world of faith when we 
 enter and live in it. And as we have direct and un- 
 questionable certainty about this world in which we 
 are placed, because it is matter of experience; so are 
 we directly and unquestionably certain of that other 
 world of faith, when it also becomes matter of expe- 
 rience. For, as surely as we have experience of this 
 world, may we also have experience of that. As truly 
 
 C 
 
34 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 as the world of sense comes in contact with us, and 
 enters into our minds, so truly does the invisible 
 world come in contact with us, and enter into our 
 minds. And thus we attain to the certainty of faith. 
 
 But can there be certainty of faith, and is there such 
 a thing as knowledge in matters of faith? Are not 
 faith and knowledge opposed to each other? So it 
 is said. Allow me, then, to speak to you, for a few 
 moments, on knowledge and faith. 
 
 I can have just as much certainty of the existence 
 of the world which I do not see, as I have of this world 
 which I do see. If there is a world of eternal good- 
 ness and truth, and if we are created for it and pie 
 only for this transitory world, we must be as suscép- ‘ 
 tible of the former as the latter, and as capable of 
 observation and inward experience with respect ito the 
 one as the other. It is upon this that the certainty 
 of faith depends. This certainty is not one of lower 
 degree than other certainties, but it is one of another . 
 kind. It comes to pass and is exercised in another 
 way, and that way is neither the conviction of the 
 senses nor demonstration to the reason, but moral con- 
 viction, 7.¢., faith. ‘Are we not certain of the existence 
 of God? That God exists is as certain to me as that 
 I myself, or the things that I see and feel, exist, or 
 that two and two make four. Nay, far more so; for 
 the former may be a delusion, but God can be no 
 delusion. One of the greatest mathematicians, the 
 philosopher Cartesius, said: ‘The existence of God is 
 more certain than the most incontestible geometrical 
 
Fath. 35 
 
 proof. But this is a certainty of faith. I know that 
 God is, but I only know it because I believe it. I must 
 believe that God is, for I do not see Him; but I do 
 believe in Him, for I experience Him. As surely as I 
 am certain of what I see, so surely am I also certain, 
 through faith, of what I do not see. Faith is a certain 
 _ confidence of what is hoped for, and doubts not of 
 that which is not seen’ (Heb. xi. 1).* Faith concerns 
 -the invisible world. But the invisible world is no less a 
 reality than this visible one; we belong to it as much as 
 to that which is the object of our senses; and we are in 
 effect as truly in contact with the former, and thereby as 
 “certain of its existence, as is the case with respect to 
 the latter. We have only to raise ourselves in spirit 
 towards it; and it is faith which gives wings to the 
 spirit, and bears it into that eternal world, in which 
 it becomes by faith as much at home as in this visible 
 one. But that invisible world can be understood only 
 
 according to its own nature and its own laws, They 
 ~ who mentally transfer this world to that, and measure 
 and judge thereof by such a standard, will never com- 
 prehend it. But where are we bidden to make this 
 world the standard of the eternal world 2 Everything 
 has its own laws, and must be measured by its own 
 standard. The laws of mathematics do not avail to 
 explain the freedom of the will; nor can the standard 
 of this world avail to furnish a conception of the 
 eternal world, which must be measured by its own 
 
 * ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen.’—4, V. 
 
36 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 standard. When Darius, pressed by Alexander the 
 Great, sued for peace, and offered him the half of his 
 empire, Alexander’s friend, Parmenio, exclaimed: “Were 
 I Alexander, I would accept it” ‘So would I) replied 
 Alexander, ‘were I Parmenio. The actions of Alex- 
 ander surpassed the notions of Parmenio, and he would 
 be obliged to raise his mind to the level of Alexander's 
 to understand them. The present case is similar. 
 And what is the greatness of any human conception, 
 in comparison with God and the world of God? It 
 far surpasses our notions, and must be judged by its 
 own standards. But when our spirit raises itself to 
 the height of that eternal world, it_can conceive it. 
 It is not our reason, our powers of thought, our know- 
 ledge, that must be laid aside; it is only this world 
 which must be expelled from our minds, if we would 
 soar in spirit to the other. It is faith which gives 
 wings to the spirit. 
 
 Can it be that faith is. so irreconcilable with en- 
 lightened thought, that Jacobi was right when he said 
 that he was in heart a Christian, but in head a heathen ? 
 Could the consistent conclusions of sober reason be 
 opposed to what his heart had accepted by faith? In 
 that case, faith would certamly be confined to senti- 
 mental or poetical natures, and dispensed with by clear 
 heads and logical reasoners. What kind of a faith 
 would that be which should depend on certain natural 
 dispositions? Truly a faith of no great value. And 
 what kind of a life, too, would that be which should 
 bear within itself so irreconcilable a schism, which 
 
Faith and Knowledge. 37 
 
 should have cravings of the heart entirely opposed to 
 the demands of the thinking head? But this is not 
 the case. Faith is not merely an unenlightened feeling, 
 nor religion merely a matter for the sentimental. Faith 
 is the firm and joyful certainty of the heart which 
 _knows what it believes. Faith is not the opposite of 
 knowledge, but the highest kind of knowledge, which is 
 more worth being known than any other. Those who 
 believe and those who know, are not so opposed that 
 the former belong to one, the latter to another party, or 
 that they must be abandoning the world of faith who are 
 advancing towards knowledge. A man does not cease 
 to be a scholar because he becomes a believer. Does 
 our knowledge of God dispense with our believing in 
 Him? Nay, we only know of Him in proportion as 
 we believe in Him. What else do we know of the 
 grace of God in Christ. Jesus, but what we believe ? 
 All our religious knowledge depends on and requires 
 faith, and faith again requires knowledge. Just as 
 much as faith becomes the vital principle of the will, 
 does it become the reasoning principle of the mind. 
 For faith includes both. It is a fact of the inner life, 
 and it is a conviction of the mind ; and hence it begets 
 both life and knowledge: for it is as much an intel- 
 
 ~lectual_faculty as a moral_power, but one which is 
 exercised within the world of faith. 
 
 Tt will, then, be my task to exhibit in these lectures 
 the truths of Christian faith. These truths form that 
 sanctuary within which the reasoning powers of the 
 Christian man are exercised. When we enter it, let 
 
38 Lecture I. The Nature of Christianity. 
 
 us do so with that reverence with which we enter one 
 of those mighty fanes whose very stones speak of the 
 mysteries of the kingdom of God. 
 
 Two main pillars support the majestic temple of 
 Divine revelation, and these are the sin of man and 
 the grace of God. The first of these will form the 
 subject of my next lecture. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 | SIN. 
 
 GaN and grace are the two great facts about 
 IN | which the whole system of Christian 
 S| doctrine revolves. He who understands 
 human sin and Divine grace, understands 
 Christianity ; for it is upon these that Christianity 
 depends. ()r 26 ; 
 
 I am to-day to address you upon Sin, Sorrow, and 
 Guilt. These three vital powers are intimately con- 
 nected. 
 
 We cannot think of sin without our mind being 
 occupied with the sorrow and suffering under which 
 mankind has for centuries been groaning. 
 
 It is true there are moments in which the sensation 
 of these vanishes—moments of pure joy and pleasur- 
 
 able existence, in which the whole wide world appears 
 as bright and beautiful as though no shadow of mourn- 
 ing had ever passed across either it or our own souls. 
 But in such moments we are occupied with what seems, 
 not with what is: we are but forgetting the Sorrows 
 of life, they have not therefore departed from the 
 earth. When we descend from those heights from 
 
4.0 Lecture IT, Sin. 
 
 which the world appeared so bright and fair, to the 
 realities of life, we find them full of pain, sorrow, and 
 misery. 
 
 It is said that there is peace in nature. But this is. 
 not true. An ancient and profound philosopher called 
 strife the father of all things; and the observation of 
 natural life teaches us that the same conflict, the same 
 cruelty, prevail here as in human life. The destruc- 
 tive forces are incessantly- at work; and he whose ~ 
 mind is absorbed in such contemplations, might well 
 doubt the wisdom and goodness of God. (‘) The 
 Apostle Paul depicts, in affecting language, how even 
 the irrational creation groaneth and travaileth for a 
 future redemption (Rom. viii. Ue 
 
 If it be objected that we are but transferring to 
 nature the feelings of our own souls, this is, never- 
 theless, an admission that such feelings are in us, and 
 that, therefore, evil is a universal fact in human nature. 
 As long as men have lived upon earth, ever since they 
 began to think, the question concerning the origin of 
 evil has exercised their minds. Whence comes evil ? 
 Whence comes pain? It may be said that all religions, 
 especially the most’ ancient and profound, are attempts 
 at a satisfactory solution of this problem. The most 
 ancient philosophy is the Indian philosophy of the _ 
 Vedas. Their theme is the fact of evil. The most 
 widely-spread religion is that of Buddha. Its origin 
 is the sorrow of earthly existence. The latest philo- 
 sophy of our age is that of Schopenhauer, the solitary _ 
 philosopher of Frankfort. His “mind is constantly 
 
Universality of Suffering and Death. 4] 
 
 exercised with the question of evil. Leibnitz has laid 
 down the doctrine of the best world. Schopenhauer 
 calls this a bitter contempt for the numberless suffer- 
 ings of human nature. The theme of his philosophy is 
 the sorrow of life.(") But whatever we may think of 
 the various schemes of philosophy, and the various 
 religions, the fact is at least certain, and this is suffi- 
 cient for our purpose, that our life is the path to 
 _. death, 
 
 Witnesses to the dominion of death surround us on 
 all sides. A constant dying, which strikes the senses 
 of all, is ever taking place throughout the realm of 
 nature. The natural religions of the ancient world, 
 when the glories of spring disappeared, held funeral 
 lamentations over the deceased favourite of the gods 
 and of men. What was it but dying nature that they 
 mourned ? (') Our feelings on this subject are not so 
 vivid as theirs were, in those days of old; yet we are 
 not able wholly to banish the feeling of melancholy 
 from our minds; and the poets of our own times are 
 ever singing dirges on the perishableness of earthly 
 things: ‘Vergdnglichkett wie rauschen deine Wellen!’ * 
 
 But it is not the realm of nature alone which is 
 subject to this law of death. We see it rule also over 
 
 that of history. What now remains of the magnificent 
 works of man in past ages? A few ruins, a little 
 dust, the sport of the winds. It is amidst the rubbish- 
 heaps of the, desert that the researches of scholars into 
 the history of the great empires of antiquity have to 
 
 * “Perishableness, how do thy waves roar! ’ 
 
492 Lecture II. Sin. 
 
 be carried on. We are everywhere treading upon the 
 dust of the past. 
 
 And ourselves, however prosperous and happy our 
 life may have been, however long it may have lasted— 
 an instant, and it is extinct. And what remains even 
 of the most fortunate? A handful of dust, moistened 
 with a few tears. Such is our end. We, too, are 
 passing away. 
 
 But we pass away not merely like the fading flower 
 or the unreasoning animal. We know that we die, and 
 that we have to go through the sensation of dying ; 
 and not of dying alone, but of the many tortures by 
 which it is often accompanied. We celebrate the 
 heroes who have died for their country upon the field 
 of battle; but who knows the horrors, the unspeak- 
 able horrors of a battle-field, which are covered by 
 the veil of night, or illumined by the rays of the 
 morrow’s sun? Nor is what the eye can see the most 
 dreadful of these horrors; there is, besides, the secret 
 suffering, the dumb despair, which perhaps seeks 
 death as a: deliverance from insupportable anguish ! 
 And who counts the tears of the bereaved, or takes 
 cognisance of the desolated families, and their ruined 
 happiness? But we need not tread the bloody field 
 of battle to ‘become acquainted with death. It is 
 everywhere in our path,—every day tells us, and every 
 departure from life announces to us what death is. 
 
 And it is not merely the bare act of death. Dying 
 is not a single act, but a process—a process reaching 
 through the whole life. Our life is a continual dying ; 
 
Uniwwersality of Suffering and Death. 43 
 
 ‘nothing but a delayed death. Our whole life is but 
 a life of pain, whether of mind or body. The life of 
 one may be less painful than that of another, but none 
 is absolutely free from pain. A life without pain 
 would be a life without love, for love is sympathy. 
 Poetry is the mirror of life. Well, suppose all the 
 sorrow were taken away from poetry, what would 
 remain? All true poetry is sad, for life is sad. 
 Proudhon, the socialist, called his system, Za Philo- 
 sophie de la Misére. Socialism and Communism may 
 be dreams, but they are founded upon a postulate which 
 is no dream, but a reality—the reality of human woe. 
 The triumph of modern Christianity is the inner mis- 
 sion; and what else is this great and blessed work, 
 but a conflict with manifold suffering? yet, on the 
 whole, an impotent conflict; for suffering is the 
 mightier, and often what heart-rending suffering,— 
 that of the poor, the forsaken, the proscribed, the 
 fallen! If any one could take in at a single glance 
 the whole sum of human misery which surrounds him, 
 and feel at once all the pity which such misery 
 demands, I believe he would die of it, for it surpasses 
 computation. (°) 
 _- Are we to say that this is a right state of things ? 
 Such an assertion is at variance with -the deepest 
 feeling of our hearts. There is a voice within us 
 which tells us that our suffering is connected with 
 our sin; that God has made sorrow the attendant of 
 sin ; that His moral government has indissolubly united 
 them. 
 
44 Lecture II. Sin. 
 
 But I should be forgetting the most essential feature 
 in this picture of human woe, if I were to omit all 
 mention of the moral evil which meets us in so many 
 and so various forms. 
 
 Society is engaged in a continual warfare with a 
 determined and dangerous foe, over which it never 
 obtains complete mastery,—and that is crime. There 
 are times and circumstances in which it raises its head 
 more boldly than at others; but at no time does it 
 wholly cease to be a terror to the well-disposed, and a 
 temptation to the abandoned. Its forms are various; 
 for manifold are the passions which slumber in the 
 human breast, and break forth in acts of malice in the 
 rapaciousness of avarice, in the fever of lust. There 
 are individual crimes, and there are national crimes ; 
 there are histories of single families and of races pur- 
 sued by the curse of crime; and there is the history 
 of the human race, everywhere marked by crime. 
 And if we confine ourselves to the narrowest circles, 
 how many crimes does even one of our great and 
 brilliant cities enclose! how many does one single 
 night cover with the veil of darkness! (°) 
 
 Is it said, in reply, that these are but single ulcers in 
 the body of humanity ? Well; do not these testify that 
 the humours of the body are corrupt? We may not be 
 the criminals, but the criminals are our own flesh and 
 blood. They testify, at least, how deeply human nature 
 can sink,—of what it is capable. This could not be 
 unless it were already fallen. There would be no 
 crime if there were no sin, But sin is a universal power. 
 
Universality of Sin. 45 
 
 “To prove that sin is a universal power, would surely 
 be like pouring water into the sea. The poets and 
 thinkers of all ages describe and lament its dominion. 
 All religions have been occupied with the question of 
 sin, of its origin, of its abolition. The human mind 
 has ever been proposing to itself the inquiry, Whence 
 is evil? The answer furnished by Christianity is the 
 simplest and the only possible one. For if we say God 
 made man sinful, we deny both His holiness and His 
 ‘love; and if we say that moral purity is the goal of 
 man, but not his starting-point, we should be attribut- 
 ing to God the principle which the Apostle Paul con- 
 demns: Let us do evil that good may come, Sin is 
 not original. Many treatises have been written on the 
 origin of evil, but not one on the origin of good. And 
 why is this, but because it is involuntarily taken for 
 granted that good is one with the origin itself. (’) 
 Therefore, sin and sorrow are not original, but took 
 place as events. 
 
 — Whence, then, came sin? Is it a necessary product 
 of our sensuous nature? Such is the assertion of 
 Rationalism; but an erroneous one. No one, indeed, 
 can ignore the power of sensuousness. We all feel it. 
 Fleshly lusts overthrew the old world, and are still 
 destroying very many. They form one great province 
 
 —of sin; but.not the whole. Arrogance, ambition, pride, 
 self-righteousness, egotism, are not sins of the flesh. 
 The roots of sin penetrate more deeply than to the 
 mere body and its members: it_is a spiritual power, 
 dwelling no less in our minds than in our bodies ; it 
 
46 Lecture II. — Sin. 
 
 is the perversion of our will; it belongs to our moral, 
 not to our physical nature, otherwise our conflict with it 
 would be not a moral but a physical one. But however 
 we may ill-use our bodies, we cannot thereby destroy 
 sin; nay, even if we kill ourselves, we cannot thereby 
 kill sin, since we cannot kill the soul. Sin does not 
 spring from sensuousness. 
 
 Does it, then, spring from our jinite nature? Are we~ 
 sinful because we are imperfect beings, because we are 
 creatures and not God? Such has been the teaching 
 of philosophers such as Jacobi, and such is the mean- 
 ing of the ordinary lauguage which finds an excuse 
 for sin in the weakness of human nature. How then ? 
 Must I needs be God to be sinless? We long for 
 deliverance from this most ignoble bondage, and we 
 hope that the time of our freedom from it will come. 
 But even in eternity we shall remain finite creatures. 
 In what does moral perfection consist? In loving God 
 with the whole heart, and bearing His image and like- 
 ness. It is not, then, our finiteness but our sinfulness 
 which is our hindrance in this matter; it is not because 
 we are creatures, but because we are fallen creatures, 
 that we cannot attain to it. Sin does not spring from our 
 finite nature. Js 2, then, a necessary law of human- 
 existence ? the inevitable opposition in the path to per- 
 fection? So does the school of Hegel teach. All life, 
 it is said, consists in opposition,—in yea and nay,—and 
 so also does moral life. Yea and nay is bad theology, 
 says Shakespeare. Sin is that which ought not to 
 exist; 1t cannot, therefore, be necessary. Let its neces- 
 
— Origin of Sin. 47 
 
 sity be ever so ingeniously proved, our conscience will 
 ever deny it. Sin is not the highway to good, but the 
 opposite of good ; evil is not the shadow of good, but its 
 opponent; and good is not, as it were, the parent of evil, 
 but its judge. Proud words have indeed been spoken, 
 and the assertion made, that man did not come to the 
 consciousness of his freedom, nor become man, in the full 
 
 sense of the term, till the first sin. Even Schiller fell into 
 
 this error, and the school of Hegel hailed it as wisdom. (*) 
 But sin is not the exaltation of man, but his fall,—not 
 the dignity of man, but his disgrace. It does not raise 
 him from the animal to the human being, but lowers 
 him from the man to the brute. It is an act of his 
 freedom, but it is its abuse. And it is in these words 
 that we find an answer to the inquiry after the origin 
 of evil. It is the abuse of freedom. Freedom is essen- 
 tial to human nature. It embraces the possibility of 
 opposition to God. But this possibility is not necessity. 
 By an act of his freedom, man made this possibility a 
 reality. Freedom was the gift of God; but the abuse 
 of freedom was the deed of man. (°) 
 
 The remembrance, more or less obscure, of a fall at 
 the beginning of history, survives among all nations. 
 We everywhere meet with legends of a better state in. 
 the early days of our race, with echoes of the Scripture 
 narrative of a temptation from without, and of a 
 yielding thereto on the part of man, entailing fatal 
 consequences on the race of man and his earthly 
 abode. (”) They are but obscure and confused remi- 
 niscences, that have been preserved in the memories 
 
48 Lecture II. Sin. 
 
 of the various nations; yet they are reminiscences, 
 and, when compared with the Scripture narrative, 
 we easily perceive how they contribute to its con- 
 formation. The unadorned simplicity of the Biblical 
 account plainly testifies that the tradition here 
 deposited is the source of all the traditions which 
 have in their course, through the various countries 
 and tribes, sometimes taken so fantastic a form. 
 
 Even ancient philosophy bears similar testimony, after. 
 
 its fashion. Plato speaks of remembrances which the 
 soul bears within her,—remembrances of original higher 
 intuitions of celestial beauty,—the echo of which, dur- 
 ing this dark earthly existence, accompany her in the 
 mysterious depths of her inner life, and are raised to 
 consciousness as soon as the certain word is uttered 
 by which those slumbering ideas are awakened. He 
 has but transferred to the individual man that which 
 applies to the whole race; for we certainly all bear 
 within us, so to speak, the memory of a lost home. 
 We feel like exiles, longing for the native land from 
 which they have been driven; a craving for a better 
 future, a home-sickness for a lost home, everywhere 
 accompanies us. in old age it often takes the form of 
 a melancholy regret for the days of childhood. Yet 
 this is, in truth, not a regret for the days of our 
 individual childhood, but for the childhood of the race. 
 Whatever of good or noble, human nature may bear 
 
 within it, its ideas of the good, its moral efforts, its — 
 
 higher, nobler feelings, are the ruins of a past great- 
 ness. We are all walking among such ruins. They 
 
 1 
 
Origin of Sin, 49 
 
 are bearing testimony to what has been; and we 
 involuntarily receive their testimony. Man is neither 
 an angel nor a mere animal, but a fallen child of God; 
 and he feels his fall. He has at least preserved 
 remembrances of his dignity. It is true that he now 
 goes about, as it were, in rags; but, beggar as he is, he 
 once wore a crown. It is too evident that he was born 
 aking. Is it to be wondered at that he should long 
 to recover his crown 2 () 
 
 Scripture declares that man suffered himself to be 
 seduced into disobedience to God, into longing after 
 
 ~forbidden enjoyments; that he thus became sinful 
 and radically corrupt. Is this so strange? Does it 
 not rather solve the problem of sin, and alone explain 
 the fact of our corruption ? (*) 
 
 Sin is the affair of the will; it belongs to the sphere 
 of the intellectual and moral life, and, consequently, to 
 that of liberty. Man is not obliged to sin, but he 
 chooses to sin; it is an act. But it is not merely an 
 act, it is a quality of the will, which produces acts of 
 sin; it is a state which precedes acts. It is an act, 
 then, which produced this quality, and placed us in 
 this state. It was by this primary act that we became 
 sinful. 
 
 Well, we are not merely sinful, we are also capable 
 of redemption. We may be saved—we are to be 
 saved. We are not absolutely lost, for we are not 
 absolutely in unison with sin. We may be freed 
 from it. It is not one with our nature; it did not 
 
 _arise from our nature; it came to us from without. 
 en 
 
50 Lecture II. Sin. 
 
 We are seduced beings, fallen beings through seduc- 
 tion. It is a comfort to know that we have been thus 
 seduced and led astray, for in this fact lies the pos- 
 sibility of our deliverance. The primary source of 
 sin is beyond and not within us. There must, then, 
 be a sinful power beyond and above us, through 
 whose seduction we became sinful. It is not the 
 power of bad example; for whence did this bad 
 example itself originate? It is not a mere tendency 
 of the human mind; for whence did it arise? It is 
 not the mere power of events; for how did events 
 attain this power? Sin appertains to the sphere of 
 liberty, not of necessity, for it appertains to the mind - 
 and the will. The primary source of sin must there- 
 fore lie in a free and spiritual_power, and in its free 
 act, whereby it made its will a sinful one. Serip- 
 ture calls this spiritual power of evil the enemy of 
 God, or Satan. : 
 
 This is certainly the extent of our knowledge, for it 
 is the extent of our experience. It is enough to know 
 that there is a power of evil beyond the sphere of 
 human will and capacity. They who yield themselves 
 ‘to the dominion of sin, yield themselves to its dominion. 
 Our sin is not: confined to our narrow limits; it is 
 linked by connecting ties with the kingdom of evil 
 and the inimical power of evil. It is the shadow of 
 this dark power which falls upon our soul. It is this 
 which is the serious feature of sin. 
 
 When man fell, it was through this power,—he fell 
 seduced, but in a state of freedom. It was an act of 
 
Internal Discord. 51 
 
 obedience to his seducer; but it was an act of his free 
 will that he renounced obedience to God. And it was 
 a momentous act. 
 
 Its consequences have reached to all. The lot of each 
 of us was decided by the act of our progenitor, 
 for it was not merely the act of an individual, but 
 —that of the representative of the entire race. Hence 
 it was not merely of individual, but of universal 
 import. It is reckoned the act. of us all, for we all 
 ~form a great unity. Each is mysteriously inter- 
 woven with the whole. No one can isolate himself 
 therefrom, and say, What does that concern me? 
 Whether we understand it or not, whether we acknow- 
 ledge or resist it, it is yet a fact that the fatal con- 
 sequences of that first act extend to us all. It is 
 esteemed a joint debt, binding upon the whole race of 
 mortals. Nor are we insensible to this fact. Poets 
 express their conviction of it; the asceticism of the 
 penitent is an expression of the feeling that human life 
 is infected with guilt; and sacrifices are offered, not 
 merely for individual acts of sin, but for the cult of 
 the whole race. If you call this thought a gloomy one, 
 - you thus, at least, confess that it is a true one, But 
 let us not forget that there is not merely an act of sin, 
 which is the act of all, but also an_act of redemption, 
 which was effected for all. 
 
 We all experience the consequences of this act by 
 that power of sin which we bear within us. No one 
 can deny it. No one is really good by nature. Rous- 
 seau, indeed, maintains that we are so, and founds 
 
52 Lecture II, Sin. 
 
 upon this notion his ideas concerning the reformation 
 of social life. But his own life refuted his maxim. 
 He must but ill have known human nature and his 
 own heart, who knew not what dark spirits inhabit the 
 human breast. (”) 
 
 We have lost our unity—the harmony of our nature. 
 A deep-discord runs through our whole being—a dis- 
 cord between the judgment and the will, between the 
 will and the power. This inward schism in our nature 
 constitutes our unhappiness. In modern times it is 
 greater than ever, for Christianity has done away 
 with the times of ignorance, and made it impossible 
 for us to be deceived about ourselves. Its light has 
 penetrated the dark abysses of our nature. And if we 
 do not let this painful knowledge heal us, it makes us 
 
 only the more unhappy. 
 ~ Let us now cast a glance over one province of intel- 
 lectual life—that of modern poetry. 
 
 The tone of this internal rent runs through the whole 
 
 body of modern lyric poetry, from Byron down to Heine. __ 
 
 Poetry has been regarded as a power which glorifies 
 and redeems life, as a power which can take the place 
 of religion and of the Gospel. But what we hear from 
 the mouths of modern poets is a heart-piercing wail 
 over the pain caused by this schism. And this wail is 
 not something merely got up; it is truth. It is not the 
 utterance of a morbid temperament, but testimony to a 
 deep-rooted disease. The disease of our soul is, that it 
 has lost God. (") | 
 
 For this it is which makes man so unhappy, even 
 
Selfishness the Essence of Sin. 53 
 
 separation from God. God should be our all in all, 
 and it is in Him only that we can be happy,—in Him 
 we find the harmony of our being, and He is the true 
 centre of our life. (°) But the sin of man is, that he 
 makes himself the centre of his thoughts and wishes, 
 —that he refers everything to himself, and shuts him- 
 self up in himself. ‘Iam myself alone’ This saylng 
 of Shakespeare’s Richard IIL, this inherent fault, is 
 the confession of sin. 
 
 It is a question which has at all times been discussed, 
 Wherein consists the essence: of sin? What constitutes 
 _ the essential nature of sin? No more correct answer 
 can be given than that it consists in selfishness. If 
 the essence of virtue consists in the love of God,—in 
 the surrender of self to the God of holiness and love,— 
 the essence of sin consists in refusing God that love of 
 the heart for which we were made, and which is our 
 happiness, and in placing self in God’s place, and 
 making it the idol of our thought and will. It is true, 
 the sin of man does not always appear to us as the 
 love of himself, but rather as a perversion of his affec- 
 tions. Man has chosen the world of transitory good 
 and joy, and seeks therein the satisfaction of his heart, 
 the happiness of his soul The attractive power of 
 love remains, but he has erred,—he has turned to 
 vanity, instead of to eternal possessions and to the 
 Highest Good, which is God himself. But if we would 
 be quite honest towards ourselves, we must own that all 
 the perishing possessions of this world with which we 
 seek to allay the ever-gnawing hunger and thirst of our 
 
54 Lecture II. Sin. 
 
 . 
 
 souls, even the fellow-mortals whom we outen so pas- 
 sionately love, are, after all, but the means, not the end, 
 It is not they whom we love; it is ourselves that we 
 love and seek in them. Even the most passionate 
 love, nay, that especially, is but selfishness. We are 
 in all that we desire. It is our own self and its satis- 
 faction which is the ultimate aim of our life, our 
 thoughts, our wishes. This constitutes the essence of 
 sin. We may often be unconscious of it, we may be 
 deceived about ourselves, we may esteem ourselves 
 more unselfish than we are; but even, though uncon- 
 sciously, selfishness lies at the root of all sin; and when 
 sin appears in its true colours, it appears as selfishness. 
 The magnates of the kingdom of sin have been the 
 magnates of selfishness. 
 
 Certainly it is not our vocation to deny or to annihi- 
 late our personal self. How should man be capable of 
 the everlasting love of the Holy God, if he were not 
 a personality, if he were not a self? It is for this 
 very cause that we are personal,—that we may love 
 God, receive Him into ourselves, and be filled with 
 Him. He isto be the centre of our whole existence, 
 the end of all our powers of thought and will. This 
 is holy self-love. But secretly to alienate ourselves 
 from Him, to banish Him from our hearts and put self 
 in His place, so as no longer to love Him before all 
 things, and ourselves for Him, but ourselves above all 
 things, and all things for ourselves—this is the sin of 
 selfishness. We are made for God; hence our nature 
 finds its unity, its peace, its happiness in Him. With- 
 
Selfishness the Essence of Sin. 55 
 
 out Him we are in a state of unhappiness and discord, 
 —we have lost our unity and peace. (**) 
 We are also made to find in God the satisfaction of 
 .our moral nature. We cannot find it in ourselves; we 
 are unhappy in ourselvesalone. We love, yet flee from 
 ourselves, and are not happy in our own society. Even 
 the daring one whom Shakespeare depicts cannot bear 
 ~being alone; he flees from and hates himself. And 
 one needs not be a Richard III. to experience a like 
 feeling, 
 
 The word of the age is Humanity, 2.¢., harmonious 
 human nature. It is quite true that the harmony of 
 our nature is our task. But is it our attainment? It 
 has never yet been attained, and least of all in the 
 present times. It has often been said that our age 
 resembles that of the Roman Cesars. I, too, think it 
 does. Well; the historian of that age was, as you know, 
 Tacitus. And whoever is acquainted with his writings 
 knows what an expression of contempt for human 
 nature plays about his mouth. I have often observed 
 that contempt for human nature increases just in pro- 
 portion as knowledge of human nature does. Talk of 
 harmonious human: nature! Certainly, we shall not 
 know peace till we have found the moral harmony of 
 our nature. But how shall we attain it? Is our very 
 disharmony to bring forth harmony from its own bosom? 
 Only God can bestow it upon us, for He is the end for 
 which we are destined, and in Him our souls find 
 their unity and peace. 
 
 Truly man is a mysterious being. Nothing is more 
 
56 ~ Lecture II, Stn. 
 
 powerful than man; and yet, what are we? Slaves 
 of death,—slaves of sin. We bear about within us a 
 discord, and cannot get free from it. We know the 
 good, yet choose it not; and even when we do choose 
 it, we do it not. Such is the affecting complaint of 
 the Apostle Paul, which finds an echo in thousands of 
 hearts. (”) : 
 
 We boast of the power of the will, I would be the 
 last to underrate it, for we need to have the will 
 strengthened and not discouraged. But does our will 
 really possess within itself the strength to free itself 
 from the power of sin? It has ever been one special | 
 offence of Christian doctrine, that it maintains that 
 man is of himself incapable of good. This is called 
 underrating man, and offending against his dignity. 
 Certainly, if Christianity can be no other way justified 
 than by an undue depreciation of human nature, we 
 would rather renounce all attempts to justify it. But 
 we are not depreciating but exalting human. nature, 
 for we do not content ourselves with a low standard of 
 morality, but lay down the very highest; we set 
 before man the highest moral aim, for it was for this 
 that he was made. They who teach him to be 
 satisfied with a lower degree of morality, and to find 
 therein the ultimate aim of his efforts, are they who 
 really degrade and depreciate him. Truly, if we know 
 no higher moral standard than the ordinary integrity 
 of social life, man is capable of attaining to it. But is 
 this all? Is this the whole duty of man? He who 
 sets before him no higher aim than this does indeed 
 
Impotence of the Will with Respect to Sin. 57 
 
 degrade him. This all?—to do no harm, not even to 
 do good, still less to be good! 
 
 We are capable of self-government. But self-govern- 
 ment neither changes our opinions nor purifies our 
 hearts. It would be but a scanty morality which should 
 go no farther than self- government. We may submit to 
 the command of moral law, but this submission is not 
 that free consent of the will to the law, wherein alone 
 true morality consists. For a morality which is the 
 result of constraint, though of a constraint which we 
 impose upon ourselves, is no morality at all in the 
 strict sense of the word. Morality is to be found only 
 where there is freedom—true freedom of will; not the 
 victory of duty over inclination, but the free consent 
 _ of inclination to duty. True morality is love. Kant 
 founds morality upon the commands of duty, but 
 leaves no room in his system for love; and naturally so, 
 for everything can be commanded but love. It is the 
 freest of all things, and yet it alone is true morality. 
 ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; and thy 
 neighbour as thyself’ Such is morality, as the Holy 
 Scriptures and the Church understand it. And it is 
 of this that we-say that man is not able of his own 
 power to perform it. It is beyond his power. We 
 may feel our inward obligation, we may bitterly 
 lament the chains of the sin which is nevertheless 
 dear to us, we may seek freedom and long for it, but 
 we cannot make ourselves free, for we cannot funda- 
 mentally alter our nature. However much we may do 
 
58 Lecture II. Sin. 
 
 that is good, this doing will not make us to be really 
 good. Who is capable of uprooting the selfishness 
 from his own breast ? (”°) 
 
 In thus speaking, we are not lowering man,—nay, 
 we are but directing him to his highest aim,—but we 
 are establishing a fact. And this fact is the power of 
 sin, from which we can only be delivered by an opera- 
 tion of Divine power. But sin is not merely a power 
 which has dominion over us; it 1s also our guilt. It is 
 not merely the suffering which we endure, the evil 
 which we have to bear; it is our own free act for 
 which we are responsible, for which our conscience 
 makes us responsible,—it is guilt. 
 
 The attempt has lately been made to do away with 
 the whole question of sin upon statistical grounds. (”)_ 
 It has been thought demonstrable, that even the most 
 apparently free, the most arbitrary acts, are governed 
 by a certain conformity to law, and occur according to~ 
 a definite order; therefore it is inferred a law of 
 nature, and not the free determination of the will, 
 prevails in this matter also. This conformity to law 
 has been especially pointed to in the case of suicide. 
 Its numbers show a certain equality of fluctuation, 
 and, in their distribution among the various races and 
 countries, manifest a variety which is, on the whole, 
 constant. But does it follow that this act ceases 
 therefore to be one of free choice? It only follows 
 that there are certain predisposing causes of this act- 
 which make it cease to be a purely arbitrary one, 
 and that these causes, whether they lie in external 
 
Guilt. , 59 
 
 circumstances or natural dispositions, are variously 
 distributed. But the decision of the will, which is 
 influenced by these causes, is not thereby freed from 
 responsibility. How long has freedom meant eround- 
 less and arbitrary action? It was noticed, to adduce 
 an example, that in the year 1847 considerably fewer 
 marriages took place than usual. And why? Because 
 made the establishment of a home more than usually 
 difficult. This was a matter for the consideration of 
 the individual. But did his decision therefore cease 
 to be a free act? And the case in point is similar. 
 In criminal acts, the ultimate decision does not lie in 
 external circumstances, but in the moral quality of 
 the_will, in its degree of moral strength or weakness, 
 and in the lability to temptation occasioned thereby ; 
 and these fall under the moral sentence of respon- 
 sibility. It is true that this moral quality itself is 
 not independent of those external circumstances in 
 which the man is placed, often against his will, and 
 that even the power of temptation, which external 
 circumstances exercise upon our seducible nature, is 
 a varying one. But what follows? That the course 
 of human affairs is not merely the work of our will, 
 —but that it is guided by a higher hand. God did not 
 relinquish the guidance of the threads of history when 
 He allowed us to sit with Him at the loom of time, 
 and to furnish the woof in the fabric of the Divine 
 government. How the two—the Divine guidance and 
 human freedom—are to be reconciled, who can pre- 
 
60 Lecture IT. Sin. 
 
 tend to explain? This is that great problem of 
 history which we shall never be fully capable of 
 solving. It is enough for us to know that the one 
 does not abolish the other. Human freedom is not 
 destroyed by the fact that conformity to law prevails 
 in human affairs; nor does it follow that the spon- 
 taneity of the human will ceases because God governs 
 the world. The one is a fact as well as the other. 
 Whether we understand or not how the two combine, 
 the fact itself does not depend upon our understand- 
 ing it. We bear within us the consciousness of our — 
 responsibility; and this consciousness is as much a 
 fact as any other, and is as_certain to our reason, 
 through the inward experience we all have of it, as 
 all the figures of statistics, which can never persuade 
 us that we are not responsible for the decisions of 
 our will. 
 
 Again, our consciousness of responsibility rests upon 
 our consciousness of the moral contrast between good — 
 and evil. No sophism can ever talk us out of this, or 
 make us believe that good and bad are alike. 
 
 There is a modern movement—prevalent especially 
 in France, but having also disciples among ourselves— 
 which abolishes the standard of the moral judgment. 
 And yet this standard is the highest, and that which is | 
 most worthy of man. In its place is put the understand- ~- 
 ing of motives and of connection. That which appears 
 evil to us, it is said, appears so only if we isolate it, 
 and regard it independently. To understand all is to 
 justify all; all is right because it is. But what does 
 
Guilt. 61 
 
 such a theory lead to? To a judgment according to 
 results; for then what succeeds is moral, what fails 
 is immoral. This is not merely preaching the logic 
 of facts, but also the absolute justification of facts. 
 There could then be no more crimes in history; the 
 moral feeling would have no right to revolt, and the 
 conscience would be condemned to silence. The 
 result, moreover, is the homage of mere power; and 
 Nero is quite as good as St Paul, and the horrors of 
 the French Revolution as its noblest victims. Such 
 a view of history is that of a slave, who knows no 
 higher authority than that of his master: it gives the 
 lie to our moral sense, and denies all that is best in 
 - our nature. Ignoble temptations, mean thoughts and 
 emotions, at times flash through us all. Are we to 
 place these on a level with our noblest feelings and 
 resolves? Would not this be offering the greatest 
 ~insult to ourselves? Then repentance would be a 
 folly, for nothing would any longer be wrong. But 
 so long as there is a conscience in the world, it will 
 protest against such doctrine; and so long as goodness 
 is loved, evil will be hated. Nor shall.we ever cease 
 to use the terms. good and evil, virtue and vice, 
 morality and sin, honour and disgrace, as contrasts ; 
 these can never become the obsolete expressions of a 
 past age. () i 
 As long as we distinguish between good and evil, so 
 long shall we esteem the evil which we will or do as 
 guilt; for if all other judges are silent, there is one who 
 will not be silent—our conscience! Its accusations 
 
 : 
 
62 LecturelI. Sin. 
 
 pursue every sinner, imbitter his life, and turn his joy 
 into sorrow. 
 
 There is preserved in Tacitus a letter addressed 
 by the Emperor Tiberius to the Roman senate. (*) 
 Nothing can be more melancholy than its words. But 
 that which dictated this melancholy language was a 
 cuilt-burdened conscience. It is this which does exe- 
 cution, even before sentence is passed. It seems as if 
 there were certain seasons when the sense of guilt and 
 of the Divine wrath revive with special energy. The 
 heathen author Plutarch wrote a separate treatise ‘On 
 the Fear of the Gods, in which he depicts, in affecting 
 terms, the anxiety of mind and the fear of the Divine 
 wrath, which, in his days, took possession of many, and 
 rendered their lives unhappy. . The Flagellants of the 
 Middle Ages, amounting, both in Northern Italy and 
 Germany, during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies, to many thousands, who went about practising 
 their horrible penance, are examples, though morbid 
 ones, of a sense of guilt in a state of active excite- 
 ment.(~) But the feeling itself is independent of 
 change of times and variety of disposition. For the 
 moral sense is independent of these, and is part of the 
 nature of man. This is the point at which God begins 
 His work of deliverance in man; but here, too, is that 
 place of inward torture which can_ become a hell to 
 him. 
 
 Our poets have exhausted themselves in the most 
 mournful descriptions of the unhappiness of a guilty 
 conscience. Take up Lenau; you find everywhere this — 
 
~ 
 
 Guilt. 63 
 
 complaint, and the vain longing for forgetfulness. 
 Turn to Platen; his description of a guilty man is 
 one of his most affecting poems. And when Goethe, 
 in his ‘Wilhelm Meister,” makes the old harper sing 
 one of his lays, its subject is the unhappiness of the 
 guilty. (°) 
 
 And who is free from guilt? Nowhere is life 
 without guilt, for nowhere is it without fault. When 
 the great dramatists, whether heathen or Christian, 
 place before us a picture of the intricacy of human 
 destiny, it is ever guilt which ties the knots. <A guilt- 
 less hero would be no hero for a drama. And what 
 is this but to say that life’s battle is never without 
 guilt? It is the heritage of all mortals, for we have 
 
 ‘all sinned in manifold ways, and have all sinned 
 
 against God. It is His holy justice which pronounces 
 
 us cuilty, and its sentence finds an echo in our own 
 
 consciences. It is this which constitutes the heaviest 
 burden of guilt; this which bows us down; this 
 which paralyses our activity. It is folly to say that 
 the way of sin is the way of freedom, as we read in 
 some poets and philosophers. There is nothing 
 which weighs with such crippling effect upon the 
 moral activity as a guilty conscience. (“) Only a free 
 conscience can add joy to effort; and he who would 
 conquer the future must be cleansed from the past. 
 
 Guilt paralyses, because it makes us unhappy. 
 
 There is much which makes us unhappy, but nothing 
 more so than guilt; for, many as are the ills of life, 
 none is greater. We may lament over other things, 
 
64 Lecture II, Sin. 
 
 but there is nothing so really lamentable as guilt. 
 And yet what avails lamentation when there is no 
 deliverance? Yes; if we were referred to ourselves, 
 there is none; but if there is a God, there must be a 
 remedy. Our feeling of our misery, our lamentation 
 over our sinfulness, have power to draw down the 
 help of Heaven. And this help is nothing else than 
 Grace. 
 
DECOR OPP T. 
 GRACE. 
 
 a OTH Christians and non-Christians are 
 ag agreed that this world is a world of woe. 
 But if this is all we can say about it, it 
 were best to cover our heads and lay us 
 down to die; for in this case there is but one means of 
 deliverance, and that is death. But Christ began His 
 Sermon on the Mount by declaring that the poor, the 
 -Suffering, the mourning, are blessed. Those whom 
 we call unhappy He calls blessed, ‘for they shall be 
 comforted,’ 
 
 My hearers, the light of life is not happiness, but 
 comfort. To be happy, in the ordinary sense of the 
 word, can as little be the lot of all as to be rich. Tt 
 is utterly vain to torment oneself with reasoning 
 why this should be the ‘case. God has so ordained 
 it; and we have to accommodate ourselves thereto, 
 whether we understand it or not. For who is there 
 that can be called thoroughly happy: ‘Hs ist kein 
 Menschen leben ohne Wunden, * 
 
 What is called happiness is not really such. 
 
 * There is no human life without wounds. 
 E 
 
66 Lecture ITI. Grace. 
 
 True happiness is_ comfort ; and this happiness 1s 
 for all. 
 
 ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be 
 comforted” God alone has the right to utter such 
 words in a world of sorrow, for He alone has where- 
 with to comfort the sorrowing. It is grace alone 
 which can afford consolation. | 
 
 Or are we to renounce beforehand all comfort ? 
 Much as such resignation may be preached, the doc- 
 trine will never find a‘ believing audience. Let any 
 one who is unhappy be ever so eloquently exhorted 
 not to feel himself unhappy, it would be much the 
 same as telling the hungry man not to feel his hunger. 
 Our souls were made for happiness. But how is the 
 unhappy to feel happiness in the midst of his un- 
 happiness? The light of life is not happiness, but 
 comfort, because this is true happiness. But this God 
 alone can give. ; 
 
 It is said: Time brings comfort. Time comforts no 
 one; it does but blunt the feelings, or make us forget ; 
 and this is the soul’s weakness, not her strength. The 
 thing really needed, is not to forget, and yet to be com- 
 forted. And of this time is incapable. 
 
 It is said that we must look at the whole bearing of . 
 events; that the contemplation of this will console the 
 sorrows of the individual; that even if individuals 
 suffer, the profit of the many compensates for all. - 
 But such statistics are incapable of comforting a 
 single sorrowing soul, as one trial will sufficiently 
 prove. (’) 
 
Vanity of Human Remedies. 67 
 
 , Once more, we are referred to the progress of man- 
 kind. The course of history is one of constant 
 advance, in spite of sorrow, sin, and guilt. But pro- 
 gress is too dearly purchased at the expense of the 
 misery of individuals ; and it would be too dearly 
 bought at the price of the moral ruin of a single soul. 
 One soul is worth more than the advance in civilisa- 
 tion of the whole race. 
 
 What, then, do we want? We want deliverance 
 from sin, and atonement for guilt. Only grace can 
 deliver us, and it alone can -provide us an atone- 
 ment. 
 
 Can we deliver ourselves? Ancient philosophy had 
 a certain degree of acquaintance with the moral 
 burden of life. The ways which it took were various, 
 but the end it had in view was ever the same—man 
 must deliver himself. The old world was wrecked in 
 this attempt at self-deliverance. 
 
 And can we, from our own resources, point to any- 
 thing beyond what it possessed? What is to help us ? 
 
 Nature? We are often referred to Nature. Here, 
 it is said, we shall come to peace; upon her bosom 
 we shall become pure and peaceful, and regain the 
 child-like disposition which we have lost. But Nature 
 
 —herself has no disposition; she does but borrow ours. 
 She can bestow no peace which we do not bring with 
 us. ‘The voices which a man hears within him do but 
 resound from without. Lenau journeyed to North 
 America, to find there the rest and peace which he 
 could not find in Europe; but the primeval forests of 
 
68 Lecture III, Grace. 
 
 America whispered to him of nothing but the mystery 
 of death. (’) 
 
 It is not Nature which can help us. Is it, then, 
 culture? ‘When the rose is degenerate, it 1s some-, 
 where said, ‘other thorns may be made to grow on 
 it—but still thorns.’ Culture may change our man- 
 ners, but it cannot free us from our sins; it can refine,— 
 but not improve us; it can make us clever, but not 
 plous. 
 
 A redeeming and ennobling power has often been 
 attributed to art. It has been said that what gives... 
 religion its power over minds, is the art which 1s 
 present in religion. Schiller was desirous of correcting 
 by eesthetics the moral rigorism of Kant. And how 
 often have similar notions been heard from modern 
 authors? I may perhaps be allowed to reckon myself 
 ‘among the lovers of art. But that art can be our 
 saviour, I am constrained to deny; nor does she her- 
 self make any such pretension. Art, indeed, stands in 
 alliance with religion, but can neither replace it nor 
 desire to do so. She lends her garment to religion, 
 and extends a helping hand to her operations, but 
 does not take the place of religion and morality. And 
 if we ask the question of artists themselves, they will 
 acknowledge that they have to carry on the same 
 conflict with the power of sin within them as others, 
 and that in this conflict they are not helped by their 
 art, but by the Gospel. If Platen, in his sonnet to 
 Winkelmann, idolises art, I suppose the authority of a 
 Michael Angelo outweighs his; and what he thought - 
 
Vanity of Human Remedies. 69 
 
 upon the subject, he has more than once expressed in 
 his poems. Form and colour, says he, in his sonnet to 
 . Vasari, cannot give true peace to the mind; it seeks 
 ‘that love which stretched out its arms on the cross to - 
 lift us up. () 
 
 Or are we to seek deliverance, not out of, but in 
 ourselves, in our own spirit, in our will and reason ? 
 
 We saw, in our last lecture, what the will is capable of. 
 Self-control is not deliverance from sin, and law is not 
 liberty. (°) 
 
 Self-deliverance and self-help, by means of philosophic 
 _notions, have of late been especially dwelt upon. (*) 
 ns Spinoza’s pantheistic doctrine, that the individual is 
 
 ocean of the universe—has been revived. ‘A drop rises 
 from the ever-tossing ocean, is for a second—called 
 seventy years—illuminated and transparent, and then 
 the drop sinks again.’ Hence the individual should 
 view himself in the whole; ‘only in the whole is there 
 reconciliation” But this is the kind of consolation 
 with which ‘a dying flower’ might be comforted, but 
 not a human being. It may be very well for merely 
 natural objects, but not for a personal being. It might 
 suffice for creatures subject to natural law, but not for 
 man who has aconscience, This teaching is none other 
 ..than the wisdom of Buddha. But if Buddha had 
 taught all that could possibly be known, Christianity 
 would *not have been needed. It is not intellectual 
 progress to return to the dreams of India, which history, 
 in its progress to what is now the order of the day, has 
 
70 Lecture III. Grace. 
 
 left behind. Christianity, and not the doctrine of 
 Sakjamuni, is now the order of the day. Ifthe latter 
 is to prevail, we will openly say, with Leopold. Schefer, 
 that the last hope is universal ruin; make Freiligrath’s 
 ‘Anno Domini’—that sad lay of the annihilation of all 
 things—our confession of faith ; and, with Feuerbach, 
 celebrate death as our God. Let them who look upon 
 such doctrine as the comfort which we want, do so; 
 but let them know that they understand neither human 
 nature nor themselves. 
 
 There is no such thing as ‘self-deliverance.’ We 
 can as little deliver ourselves, as forgive our own sins. 
 The grace we need is not only delivering, but forgiving 
 and atoning grace; for all sin is a transgression against 
 God. Against whomsoever it may have been committed, 
 this always holds good: ‘Against Thee only have I 
 sinned’ It is true that each single sin is the trans- 
 gression of a single command. But he who trans- 
 eresses one command is guilty of the whole law. for 
 the whole moral law_is present in each single com- 
 mand, and the whole is violated in each; for the law 
 ig not a summary of individual precepts, but is formed 
 into a whole by a unifying principle. And this is the 
 will of God—His will, His holiness. Himself it is 
 which makes a command to be a command, and a part 
 of the law. He is Himself present in each. Every 
 transgression against the command is a transgression 
 against God himself. And as the law is a unity, so 
 also is man a unity. The whole man, his whole will, 
 his whole heart, his whole sin, is active in each sepa- . 
 
Need of Forgiveness. 71 
 
 rate energy which manifests its activity in this or that 
 sinful act. (°) Every sin makes man guilty, and guilty, 
 moreover, before God. Hence, it is only God who can 
 “pardon our guilt, F 
 Can we make reparation for our sins? What is 
 done cannot be undone. And, however pious we may 
 be, and however many good works we may do, we 
 do but perform our present duty, and cannot thereby 
 cancel the accusations of the past. A sinful life can- 
 not be blotted out by the godly life which may follow 
 it. Let us not deceive ourselves. No good work can 
 annul committed sin—forgiveness alone can do_ it. 
 Neither can any penance I may impose upon myself 
 effect it. If I have grievously offended against any 
 one,—against his love, his confidence——I may do 
 penance for this by a life of.the greatest self-denial ; 
 yet I shall not get peace until I have humbled myself 
 before him, and asked and received his pardon. No- 
 _thing but pardon can annul transgression. Our guilt 
 needs forgiveness. (‘) But we cannot forgive ourselves. 
 Only He against whom we have sinned can do this— 
 only God ; for against Him only have we sinned. Not 
 ness, have received the distinct and certain_assurance 
 of pardon, can we know the peace of guiltlessness. 
 
 We are all in need of God’s grace. We should need 
 it even if we were not sinful; for nothing but God 
 and His grace can bring us to the goal of our natural 
 destination. And what is this? To be vessels, into 
 which God pours the life of His love; temples in which 
 
72 Lecture ITI. Grace. 
 
 the Spirit of God dwells. As the flower turns to the 
 sun and unfolds itself, as the plant cannot flourish 
 nor develop itself without light, so do we all seek 
 and need by nature the light and life of God. We 
 cannot come to perfection without Him. God must 
 descend into us; we must receive Him into ourselves. 
 He tends towards us; we tend towards Him. Our 
 whole being reaches forth towards Him, inquires after 
 Him, lives upon Him. It is for this that we are 
 made; it is this which is our destiny. To with- 
 draw within ourselves is sin; to open our hearts, to 
 expand them, that we may receive into them the life 
 of God, is our true destiny. Man’s highest dignity 
 is his capacity for receiving God; his highest aim, 
 communion with God. And it is this even by nature. 
 
 This is true, even of the hfe of natural intellectual 
 endowment,—much more of the life of the soul, and 
 of our will. Even the intellectual endowments we 
 possess are the free gift of God—are grace. Is it be- 
 cause of his deserts that God makes any man a vessel 
 of His gifts and of His Spirit,—that He deposits in the 
 mind of a Goethe, the poetic echo of the world of nature, 
 —in that of a Schiller, a longing after the world of the 
 ideal,—that He diffuses among the gifted spirits of our 
 race, the eternal ideas of the true, the good, and the 
 beautiful, and uses them for the manifestation of His 
 Divine majesty ? And are these highly gifted ones the 
 sole recipients of God’s gifts? Has He not given in 
 every soul the echo of His rich world? Is not our 
 
 inmost heart like a harp touched by His finger? We 
 
God’s Grace Needed. 73 
 
 all, one as well as another, have an inward perception, 
 in various manners and degrees, of the tones of the 
 world’s great harmonies, and in them of the praise of 
 the Almighty. And who will speak of merit in this 
 matter? But God has not made us recipients of the 
 revelations of His power and wisdom only. There is a 
 constant communication going on also between eternal 
 love and us. We experience His love in our lives, we 
 feel it in our hearts, we live upon it. That we know God, 
 that we inquire after Him, that we bear Him within 
 us, that we find in Him the end of our destiny, is the 
 free gift of God —is favour, z.¢., grace. That which 
 is best even in our natural life is free gift and favour, 
 We can earn much, but not what is best. We may 
 earn thanks, but not love; this is never earned,—it is 
 always freely bestowed, And so also is it with God’s 
 love. Even if we were not sinners, we should have to 
 speak of grace. 
 
 But we are sinners ! 
 
 It is the highest attribute of royalty to exercise 
 grace. (") Grace sits enthroned above the sceptre of 
 justice; it forms the top-stone of the whole edifice of 
 human society. Justice is its foundation, but grace is 
 its crown. We cannot dispense with grace in human 
 society. How, then, in our communion with God? 
 ‘ Wir beten all um Gnade.’* Our daily prayer is, or 
 ought to be, Forgive us our trespasses, Long as this 
 world has existed, there was but One who needed not 
 to bring this petition to the throne of grace; for He 
 
 * We all pray for grace. 
 
74. Lecture III. Grace. 
 
 alone was without guilt. But He taught us thus to 
 pray, and thus prayed for us: ‘ Father, forgive them.’ 
 We all need forgiveness. 
 
 We need mutual forgiveness even in our intercourse 
 with each other. No true and heartfelt communion 
 among men is possible without mutual and repeated 
 forgiveness; for we all offend against each other, even 
 if it be only in thought, in harsh thoughts and unloy- 
 ing judgments. And at certain seasons, when this 
 specially presses upon the mind,—at least when the 
 last farewell, the farewell to life, is at hand,—we are 
 constrained once more to seek our loved ones with our 
 eyes, to stretch out our hands toward them, and to 
 say, the departing to the survivors, and the survivors 
 to the departing, ‘ Forgive,” that the burden may be 
 taken from our conscience. How then? Have we no 
 need of forgiveness with respect to God, against whom 
 we are daily, nay, hourly offending, if in nothing else, 
 if neither by word or deed, yet at least in this, that we 
 do not love Him as we ought, and as His eternal love 
 deserves? Not until this wall of separation which has 
 placed itself between Him and us, this debt of sin 
 which severs us from God, these accusations of con- 
 science which keep us at a distance from Him, are 
 annulled, can we draw near to Him, or He to us. We 
 all need forgiveness. 
 
 Or would we, perhaps, like the Roman poet, wrap 
 ourselves in the mantle of our own virtue? It would, 
 be a very tattered garment. How should we appear 
 before God in it? However persuaded we may be 
 
God’s Grace Needed. 7) 
 
 of our own excellence, however filled therewith, that 
 man must have stifled all feeling of truth with respect 
 to himself, and be wholly immersed in self-com- 
 placency, who does not feel, at least at times, his sin 
 pressing upon his conseience, and making him uneasy. 
 We can suppress these stirrings of conscience, but we 
 ~— are then offending against our moral feeling, and blunt- 
 ing the susceptibility for moral truth which is in us. 
 And even if we succeed in silencing, during the whole 
 course of our life, the witness to truth which is within 
 us,—when we are on the point of passing into another 
 world, that world of naked truth where there is no 
 more self-delusion, and where every false appearance 
 vanishes,—then, at least, what we thought long ago 
 buried, revives, and long-vanished scenes and times 
 come again before the mind, and raise their accusing 
 voices against us. And he who has not yet entirely 
 stifled his moral sense, will then at least humble himself 
 under the conviction of his sins, and seek forgiveness. 
 _Is this beneath us? Is it a dishonour to man to 
 sae the pardoning grace of God? They whose pride 
 desires to receive only what their deeds deserve, will 
 receive sentence of condemnation: for however meri- 
 torious our works may be in man’s eyes, they are 
 worthless in God’s, if the soul of all good, the free love 
 of God, be absent from them; for God looks at the 
 heart, and not at the external act. The least may in 
 His eyes be the greatest, and the greatest the least, 
 according as it is or is not the act of the heart’s 
 unselfish love; for this is true morality. But this is 
 
76 Lecture ITI. Grace. 
 
 that thing which by nature we have not; and in its 
 place we are ruled by selfishness. If, then, we would. 
 be rewarded according to our merits, we shall have 
 nothing to receive, and less than nothing. We need 
 grace. Shall we say that this is unworthy of a free 
 man? Let us put the question to our natural moral 
 consciousness! Which is the more honour toa man— 
 to own a fault, if he has committed one, or to deny it ? 
 If he owns it, do we not acknowledge him again as one 
 morally cleansed, and renew our moral union with him, 
 as standing on the same moral level as ourselves? 
 But if he denies it, are we not inwardly repelled? do 
 we not despise instead of esteem him? does not his 
 pride disgrace instead of honour him, because it is 
 untrue? and does not the separation which his fault ~ 
 has made between him and us, become a lasting. one? _ 
 And how much more is this the case with respect to 
 God in the matter of the fall! The grace of God does 
 not dishonour, but exalt us, and is as worthy of the 
 man as of the woman. The ereatest men have ever 
 been the humblest. It is true, the pre-Christian ages 
 knew nothing of this humility. They were even un- 
 acquainted with the word. It is Christianity which 
 has made humility the first of virtues, the chief jewel 
 in the crown of Christian eraces, and the soul of the 
 Christian life. Was ever man more truly manly than 
 St Paul? I know of none. At all events, none ever 
 laboured more abundantly, and our continent knows of 
 no greater benefactor. Yet, if we would express his 
 inmost heart, and the deepest feeling of his soul, we 
 
God’s Grace Needed. fis 
 
 could but utter the word grace. ee was pre-eminently 
 was the soul of his life, ‘ By the grace ‘of God, T am 
 what I am.” Among mortals, I know of none whom 
 I could compare, for humility, with those two hum- 
 blest of all highly favoured beings: the Virgin Mary 
 and the Apostle Paul. It was humility that made 
 the one capable of the greatest suffering, and the 
 other of the greatest work.. The humility which bows 
 to grace is as much the strength of the man, as it is 
 the ornament of the woman. _ 
 
 I do not know that a prouder inscription was ever 
 written concerning any man, than that placed under 
 the statue of Copernicus at Thorn: ‘ Terre motor, solis 
 coclique stator? But the words of Christian humility, on 
 his monument in St John’s church, in the same town, 
 do him far more honour: ‘I crave not the favour which 
 \ Paul received, nor the grace with which Thou didst 
 pardon Peter; I only pray for that which Thou didst 
 bestow from the cross upon the thief.’ 
 
 Since, then, we all need grace,—since it is edespens- 
 able to each of us,—may we depend upon finding it ? 
 
 Permit me, in the next place, to speak of the certainty 
 ‘f of grace. 
 
 The utmost limit which our thoughts and observa- 
 tion can reach, is the will of God. In the will of God 
 lie the roots of our earthly life; from it arises the 
 stream of earthly history. All that j is seen points to an 
 unseen world beyond itself. It is there that we must 
 find an answer to the questions of this earthly life; for 
 
78 Lecture III. Grace. 
 
 all that takes place in this visible world has its origin 
 in that. The eternal thoughts of God, and the counsels 
 of His will, form the hidden background of the visible 
 history of the world of man. 
 
 What will of God is this ? 
 
 The highest thought which we can conceive or utter 
 of God, is to think of Him as eternal love. God is 
 power, and the creation of the world is a monument 
 of His power. It is equally admirable, whether we 
 direct our glance towards those immense distances in 
 which it must at last pause before infinity ; or observe 
 the wonders in the smallest space, to be forced to 
 confess that even our instruments of highest power 
 are incapable of distinguishing their infinite abund- 
 ance. But above His power is His love. Love iS ~ 
 the ruler; power but the servant. Love is the first 
 and last thought of God, which power does but 
 execute. Love is the peculiar nature of God, as 
 announced in all His revelations ——that special mys- 
 tery of God, first fully disclosed to us by Christianity. 
 God is love, self-imparting, condescending, sympathis-~ 
 ing love. And the aim of love is communion with 
 man, the communion of our souls with God, who is 
 eternal love. 
 
 Love is the thought of creation, the secret of Provi- 
 dence, All that exists and happens forms one great 
 system of means and ends. The greatest is connected 
 with the least, the nearest with the most distant; but 
 one ruling thought governs the whole, and determines- 
 the texture of the great fabric of history. This 
 
Grace Certain. 79 
 
 supreme thought of God, this ultimate aim of the 
 whole course of history, this final goal of the deal- 
 ings of God, we call His kingdom, the communion 
 of mankind with God. And this is the thought of 
 His love. 
 
 We cannot understand history till we regard it from 
 this point of view. Much will ever remain unsolved 
 to us in the course of events. God is a God that 
 hideth Himself. Why He leads one man in this way, 
 and another in an opposite one; endows one man with 
 wealth and prosperity, and seems to provide miserably 
 for another; makes the path of one smooth and easy, 
 and that of another rough and difficult; gives sunshine 
 in one place, and in another darkens life with sadness ; 
 leads one into temptations and dangers, in which it 
 seems he must all but sink, and lets the work of the 
 good powers of life be almost exhausted upon another ; 
 why, moreover, God so richly endows one nation, and 
 seems to condemn another to a stunted existence; 
 gives to the one power, fame, and sovereignty, to an- 
 other the doom of vassalage ; impresses on the brow of 
 one the royal seal of genius, and seems to raise another 
 but little above the level of the brute; lets some enjoy 
 the full blessings of Christianity, while darkness and 
 error imprison the minds of others ;—all these things 
 are enigmas which we shall be incapable of solving, till 
 history shall have realised its appointed_end. Then 
 shall God be justified in all His works, and all His 
 ways be made light to us. But now we are directed to 
 
 —- honour God in obscurity, to bow before His sovereignty, 
 
80 Lecture III, Grace. 
 
 and to believe that He is the just One, even when He 
 seems to be unjust; for He requires from every one 
 only according to the measure bestowed upon him. 
 Besides, dark as much may seem to us at present, one 
 thing we may be already certain of—eternal mercy 
 reigns above all the confusion of earth. Events are 
 ruled according to the counsels of infinite love ; and 
 the end of history is the eternal kingdom of peace. It 
 is to this end that God is leading the nations. It 1s 
 the highest joy of the mind to recognise, in anticipa- 
 tion, traces of this leading of God, in the histories of 
 the different nations. It is true that God is approach- 
 ing this end with but tardy footsteps; for He is a God 
 of patience—incomprehensible patience, and He takes 
 no step in advance before the fulness of the time 
 for such a step has come. There is no hurry in His 
 progress. The new thing which God makes, never 
 rakes its appearance till the old has come to maturity. 
 But, slow as may be the progress, He is yet surely 
 advancing towards the goal. 
 
 Moreover, the life of the individual, even of the 
 meanest among His humble children, is interwoven 
 with the great course of the world’s history. One end 
 is appointed to both. The path of each of us is to flow 
 whither the history of all nations is flowing—into His 
 eternal kingdom. The life of each of us is subject to 
 the same law as the history of the race—the law of His 
 love, of the eternal counsels of His love. This, then, is 
 certain, that all that exists or happens, is founded upon 
 the counsel of God’s love. 
 
Grace Certain. 81 
 
 But the counsel of love becomes, with respect to a 
 sinful world, a counsel of grace. 
 
 For in the way to the end stands the obstacle of 
 human sin. It has placed itself in God’s way. It is 
 only by its conquest that that way can reach its end. 
 God’s holiness must condemn sin, but His grace chooses 
 to forgive it. He forgives by condemning it. Our sin 
 was condemned on the cross; our sin is forgiven by the 
 cross. This is the triumph of love—to build the king- 
 dom of grace out of the very ruins into which sin had 
 crushed God’s world. 
 
 Zermalmen konnte er die Welt der Sinden, 
 Doch ihm gefiel’s sein Reich darauf zu griinden.* 
 
 His counsel of love became His counsel of grace. 
 
 That of which the noblest spirits of the old world 
 had some presentiment,—that grace, as a Sophocles 
 expresses it, sits at the side of the Divinity upon the 
 world’s throne,—has become to us a certainty; for the 
 _cross is the testimony of grace. The whole history of 
 “Divine revelation is a history of grace. All the oppo- 
 sition of man was unable to stay its progress or exhaust 
 its patience. Each step in advance was a triumph of 
 grace over human sin. The cross was the triumph 
 perfected. The cross has since been the symbol of 
 victory and of consolation in suffering. And the’ 
 preaching of the Gospel has been, from the days of 
 the apostles, the preaching of the cross, for it is 
 the preaching of grace. This word of grace it is 
 
 * He might have crushed the world of sin, but it pleased Him to 
 
 found His kingdom upon it. 
 ¥ 
 
82 Lecture III. Grace. 
 
 which has conquered the world, and-which renews the. 
 heart. 
 
 We have seen that grace is indispensable, that it 1s 
 certain, because God is compassionate love, and that 
 ‘the cross is the Divine testimony to this fact. Grace 
 is, moreover, wniversal. 
 
 For they mistake the heart of God, who, in supposed 
 reverence for His absolute sovereignty, limit His coun- 
 sel of grace to the election of individuals, and exclude 
 others therefrom. Certain isolated texts of Scripture 
 are appealed to; as, for instance, that well known one, 
 ‘Many_are Sais but few are chosen. But this text 
 does not speak of the eternal counsel of God, but of 
 the actual result of His offers of grace, No; if even 
 our heart cannot bear the thought that God should 
 have beforehand excluded the majority of mankind 
 from His gracious purpose, still less the heart of God; 
 for His heart is greater than ours. God has not His 
 individual favourites, as Homer's gods had; His heart 
 belongs to all, and Christ died for the ioe world. 
 God will have all men to be saved; He willeth not 
 that any should perish; and the voice ‘of Mercy cries 
 to all, ‘Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy 
 laden” The grace of God reaches as far as heaven; and 
 he who is at last excluded therefrom, excludes himself. . 
 As Divine pity, manifested on earth in Christ Jesus, 
 uttered over Jerusalem the lamentation, ‘ How often 
 would I have gathered thy children together, even as a 
 hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
 would not!’ so will the last word of eternal love to 
 
Grace Universal. 83 
 
 the lost also be: ‘ And ye would not!’ For certainly 
 God will constrain none; neither can He. He cannot 
 — but recognise the freedom of man; for He does not 
 treat us as merely natural objects, but as free personal 
 beings. Hence He must also leave us liberty to reject 
 _ His grace, and to withstand His love. We ought not to 
 be capable of reconciling our hearts to this ; but we are 
 so. But though we may harden ourselves against the 
 love of God, and have no love for ourselves, the grace 
 of God still remains all-comprehensive and unlimited. 
 And yet, when we endeavour to point to this grace, 
 as extended to all, in the actual history of nations and 
 individuals, it must be confessed that the actual con- 
 _ dition of mankind seems everywhere at variance with 
 this demand of our heart, this conviction of our faith. 
 But here we must confess the limited nature of our 
 knowledge ; for, in but too many instances, we are un- 
 able to show that the God of history, as He appears in 
 the lives of individuals and nations, is also indeed the 
 God of grace—of universal grace. One is, from his 
 youth up, surrounded by God with the protection of 
 the most careful moral training, and placed under the 
 influences of religion; another is placed in the midst 
 of temptations and dangers, and allowed to grow up in 
 a moral atmosphere which seems beforehand to consign 
 him to ruin. In the former case, it seems impossible 
 for the man to be lost; in the latter, impossible for 
 him to be saved. Nor do the circumstances of nations 
 less differ than those of individuals. Should we con- 
 sider it an indifferent matter whether a man were born 
 
84 Lecture III. Grace. 
 
 in a nation enjoying in full measure all the blessings 
 of Christianity, or belonged by birth to a country which 
 no ray of the Gospel had as yet illumined? Again, 
 what dangers and temptations are some exposed to 
 from their own natures, from which others of more 
 happy dispositions are free! To all which we can 
 answer nothing, but that God is a God that. hideth 
 Himself, and that the will of God, as manifested in 
 Tlis treatment whether of nations or individuals, ap- 
 pears to us, not as a will of universal grace, but only of 
 power. Let us not, however, forget that all this comes 
 in contact with but one side of human nature. It is__ 
 true that it may often seem to us as though man were 
 the least free of all creatures, entirely dependent upon 
 his position in life, which he did not bestow upon 
 himself, and those overpowering impulses of his nature 
 of which he cannot rid himself. And certainly we are 
 instruments in the hand of One who employs us in 
 His service after His own pleasure. But this side of 
 our life and nature, according to which we are, with 
 respect to God, as the clay in the hand of the potter, 
 is not the whole position of man towards God. We 
 are this, but we are more than this; and our relation 
 to God is not summed up by saying that we are only 
 the instruments of His power, and utterly void of will. 
 Behind the world of our external life les the imner 
 world of our moral resolves; and here we are free. 
 What moral properties we put into our willing and — 
 doing,—whether we determine for God or against Him, 
 whether we let Him do His work in our souls or not,— 
 
The Operations of Grace Seewet. 85 
 
 is, after all,a matter of our own deciding. In our 
 inmost souls we are free. Under whatever external 
 control we may be placed, no force can control the 
 aspirations of our souls. Whether they be raised to- 
 wards God, or sunk into the depths, in either case the 
 decision rests with our own wills; and it is we who 
 are responsible for it. However much the external 
 circumstances in which we are placed, the tempta- 
 tions to which we are exposed, the desires of our own 
 nature, may work upon our moral nature,—all these 
 . influences have a limit which they do not pass, and 
 that is the limit laid upon them by the freedom of the 
 will, which is essential to human nature—to our per- 
 sonality. 
 But to this God has an inward relation. A mys- 
 y terious link exists between God and every human 
 soul. C) Every one experiences in his inmost heart 
 the secret influences of God. Even to that soul which 
 no word of salvation has reached, God speaks in se- 
 cret and mysterious language. This voice of God is 
 : heard by the conscience of every man. God is inwardly 
 near to each of us. The Spirit of God testifies to each, 
 and each understands it, when this Spirit of God in- 
 wardly warns and secretly reproves him for the sin 
 which he either wills or does. Each man, moreover, 
 —feels within him that secret attraction which draws’ 
 him away, past time and space and the possessions of 
 this perishing world, towards the world of eternity. 
 By none, indeed, is peace of soul found in this way, 
 and by none is the true moral freedom of a sanctified 
 
86 Lecture III. Grace. 
 
 will attained through this testimony of God in the con- 
 science ; far rather does it produce the restlessness of 
 a search and inquiry after God, the painful feeling of 
 moral impotence and weakness, and the desire for free- 
 dom from this bondage. Yet it makes a difference 
 whether we suffer this spirit of restlessness and desire 
 to prevail in the soul, or whether we repress it, and so 
 become subject to the vanity of the world. This, too, 
 is an effect of Divine grace,—a universal grace of God, 
 which works in all men. This working of the an 
 of God is the pledge of a better future. 
 
 And what a multitude of other moral forces are, 
 from all sides, ever exerting their influence upon man! 
 For what are the social relations under which we are ~ 
 placed,—our home and native land, our vocation and 
 our friendships, and whatever else may be thus de- 
 signated,—what but so many voices awakening and 
 strengthening our moral sense? To all these must be 
 added those scattered seeds of ancient truth which - 
 mankind still possesses, like the last rays of a sun 
 already set, faintly illuminating the darkness. For 
 where is there a people which has not preserved at 
 least some fragments of the ancient heritage of the 
 fathers of our race? Corrupted, indeed, and disfigured, 
 and weakened in their effects, yet still showing, in the 
 midst of their disfigurement, traces of their original 
 truth and beauty, and not wholly without that_in- 
 fluence which can never be entirely absent from ever 
 so obscure a memory of the truth. 
 
 It is into this world of moral forces—of thought 
 
Education for Grace. 87 
 
 . and of results—that the word of the Gospel enters, 
 and rouses by its call all those dormant desires which, 
 from the inmost depths of the human soul, cry, though 
 often unconsciously, for redemption. As the question 
 of Christ to the blind man in the Gospel, whether 
 he were willing to recover his sight, revived within 
 him all his grief for his blindness, and recalled to his 
 consciousness, in full strength, that desire of his 
 soul which habit had almost extinguished; so is it 
 here. This longing for deliverance does not contribute 
 to it; it is not deliverance itself, but it is its pre- 
 requisite. To produce this pre-requisite is the end of 
 -God’s dealings, whether in the history of nations or in 
 the guidance of individuals. We must first become 
 poor in ourselves, to be capable of receiving the riches 
 of grace. 
 
 Such was the way in which God led mankind before 
 Christ. He did not merely prepare salvation for man, 
 but also man for salvation,—the former was His work 
 in Israel; the latter, in the heathen world. Never were 
 nations so richly endowed with the noblest intellectual 
 gifts, as those which we call the classic nations. In 
 these, God was pleased to exhibit, in all their fulness, 
 the capabilities of human nature; but at the same 
 time its limits. or richly as their life was adorned 
 with the loveliest. productions of the natural intellect, 
 they could not find salvation and the true God; the 
 God of redemption ever remained to them ‘The Un- 
 
 »known God.” The history of nations is their Divine 
 education. The aim of this education 1s the production 
 
88 Lecture III, Grace. 
 
 of receptivity for the grace of God; and the condition \ 
 of this receptivity is poverty of spirit. ‘Blessed are 
 the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of God’ 
 
 We call Socrates the greatest man of the Grecian 
 
 world; and the oracle of Delphi called him the wisest. 
 
 Wherein, then, did his greatness consist? and what 
 
 was his wisdom? What but his consciousness and 
 
 confession of his poverty? This, too, was the end 
 
 of God’s dealing with the ancient world in general, 
 
 to effect a conviction of poverty, and a hunger after 
 
 a direct revelation of the grace of God. We have a 
 
 series of witnesses in the latter ages of the ancient 
 
 world, all confessing their poverty, and showing that 
 
 they knew of no other remedy than the grace of God. 
 
 And the strange dreams also of supposed revelations, - 
 by which even the nobler spirits of the latter ages of 
 
 heathenism were deluded, bear witness to a hunger of 
 
 soul after a revelation of the grace and truth which 
 
 can proceed from God alone. (") But ‘Blessed are 
 
 the poor in spirit.’ | 
 
 And this, too, is the end of God’s dealings with our- 
 selves. We must become poor in ourselves, that God 
 may fill us with'the riches of His grace. When it is 
 said that a rich man shall hardly enter the kingdom of 
 God, this is not less true of those who are rich in 
 intellect and in virtue. 
 
 We are so proud of our intellect and of our educa- 
 tion; and yet these are of no avail in the chief matter 
 of all. They are capable of refining our temporal life, 
 but they cannot gain for us eternal life, for they pass . 
 
Education for Grace. 89 
 
 away, together with this temporal existence to which 
 they belong. When the time comes for us to lie 
 down and die, if we have nothing else to cling to but 
 our pride of intellect and education, a sadder sight 
 could scarcely be beheld. And pride in our virtues 
 is by no means better. It is indeed hard, infinitely 
 hard, not to earn and deserve our soul’s salvation, but 
 to be obliged to owe it to grace. And yet we might 
 and must know that, even in this life, all that is best 
 is obtained and possessed, not by merit and desert, but 
 by free favour. (") But we would rather wear our- 
 selves out in the most toilsome work with our resist- 
 ing nature, and even in the hardest sacrifices and 
 penances, than be indebted for our eternal salvation 
 to free grace; and this only that our pride may be 
 nourished. Certainly, grace will not be bestowed upon 
 moral idlers; it requires work both to precede and 
 follow it, but the work which leads to humility and 
 not to pride. The entrance into the kingdom of God 
 is closed against pride. It is the object of all God’s 
 dealings to bring us to humility. God has, indeed, 
 hard work with us—a long work of untiring patience ; 
 but His thought concerning each of us—the thought 
 which He seeks by all means, and in all the ways in 
 which He leads us, to attain—is to make us humble, 
 that so we may be capable of receiving His grace, 
 which is alone our salvation, and which only can lead 
 us to the truth of our destination. It was this grace 
 and truth that appeared in Jesus Christ. 
 
IHEGPeU Ri eave 
 
 THE GOD-MAN. 
 
 soos Divine answer to man’s sin, is God’s 
 Yee mal erace; the supreme manifestation of this 
 reas | lag grace is Jesus Christ. Who, then, is Jesus 
 
 Christ 2? Such is the question which has 
 agitated the world since the Church made faith m 
 
 Him her profession. 
 
 When Christianity would express, in the highest 
 and most honourable terms, what she knows of Christ, 
 she calls Him the God-man. This is the Church’s _- 
 confession; and this will, with your permission, form 
 my subject to-day. 
 
 We comprise all that we confess and believe con- 
 cerning Christ in this one word, when we thus desig- 
 nate Him. But are we not making an impossible ~ 
 combination? for, could we attempt to unite greater 
 opposites than the idea of the God-man involves? 
 Certainly the world could never have conceived this 
 thought. It is an absolutely new one; it did not 
 originate in the mind of man; it was none of his 
 production; it never could have existed had not the 
 existence of the God-man been a fact. This alone 
 
The Question of the God-man. 91 
 
 could have emboldened any one to venture upon such 
 a notion. We have the thought only because we have 
 the fact. 
 
 But have we the fact? Is Jesus Christ really the 
 God-man? Such is the question now addressed to us. 
 The Christ of history, it is said, does not correspond to 
 the Christ of doctrine. The Church teaches another 
 . Christ than what He truly was.(') He was not the 
 God-man; therefore He must not be thus’thought of. 
 Such is the assertion now made, and which we proceed 
 to consider. . aE 
 
 The doctrine of the God-man combines two sides 
 into a unity—the human and the Divine. We will 
 consider both; and first, the manner in which Scrip- 
 _ ture presents them to our notice. 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that Jesus was man, 
 in the full sense of the word. It is a complete and 
 perfect human life which the Gospels portray. Not 
 externally only, but in His heart of hearts, did Jesus 
 lead a human life. We are looking into the depths 
 _ of a complete, a true human soul. He experienced all 
 the emotions by which we are moved. Sorrow and 
 joy, love and anger, zeal and fear, moved His soul as 
 they do ours. He was no celestial appearance hover- 
 ing about the earth. He was a corporeal man, who 
 _ lived a real human life on earth among men; who 
 was angry with one, loved others, and called some 
 His friends. The misconception of His countrymen 
 pained Him; the enmity He encountered was a deep 
 grief; the love and fidelity He met with were a 
 
992 Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 , * 
 
 comfort and refreshment to Him: to pour out His 
 burdened heart in prayer to His Father, or, in His hours 
 of sorrow, to know that friendly brother-men were near 
 Him, was a need felt by Him as it is by us. The world 
 of sensations which depress or raise our spirits acted 
 in their full variety on His also. And even the darkest 
 and hardest thing in our life—the conflict with sin— 
 even this did not leave Him untouched. He had to- 
 encounter temptations—temptations to abandon His 
 work, to avoid His sufferings. These did not approach 
 His outer life alone; they drew near to the very depths 
 of His soul. It was within that He had to defend 
 Himself against their attacks, and to oppose them, 
 that sin might not, as it sought to do, draw Him 
 within its sphere. This is the point where the paths 
 of His and of our life diverge. For if anything 18 
 certain, it is this—that Jesus allowed sm no entrance 
 into His inner life. Not for an instant was the pure 
 mirror of His soul obscured by the dark power of sin. 
 The essence of sin is selfishness. Never has the world 
 seen even an approach to so unselfish a life as His. 
 Never did He for an instant think of Himself. Never 
 did He make even the most remote attempt to advance 
 His own interest. It was a temptation brought very 
 near to Him in the solitude of the wilderness, to seek \ 
 His own enjoyment, to promote His own honour, and 
 to possess Himself of worldly power. It was the image 
 of the carnal Messiah of the age which the tempter 
 held before Him. He allowed this thought, how- 
 ever, no entrance into His heart, but rejected it with 
 
His Sinlessness. 93 
 
 horror. The little faith of His disciples, the insensi- 
 bility of the multitude, the wickedness of His ad- 
 versaries, might well have called forth impatience or 
 ill humour; yet, though they did extort a sigh of 
 sorrow, they never provoked a hasty word. That 
 deadly anguish which overwhelmed Him in the solitary 
 hours of His last night, might well have terrified Him 
 from the path of suffering which lay before Him; but 
 He poured out the agony of His soul in prayer, and 
 overcame the temptation by His victorious obedience. 
 He conquered temptations of every form and degree 
 by the ever equal holiness of His will. 
 
 We have only to bring before us the portrait sketched 
 in the Gospels of His life and work, to be quite certain 
 that, in His case, a really holy human life was lived. 
 This had ever been the ideal of the human mind. 
 The various religions had dreamed of it. Systems of 
 philosophy, each according to the measure of its moral 
 notions, had invented such an ideal. Plato had spoken 
 of it, in words almost prophetic. The Stoics had be- 
 stowed upon it the appellation of ‘The Wise One;’ 
 but they never found it, nor was the ideal ever 
 realised. (*) In Christ, it became reality, and that in a 
 far higher sense than ever entered the mind of man to 
 conceive. For the holiness of Jesus is the holiness of 
 love. The pre-Christian ages had, it may be, imagined 
 a blameless justice, a proud sublimity, or an insensible 
 tranquillity as 1 theirideal. But that the highest attain- 
 ment should be ministering love, and that true great- 
 ness should be found in unselfish humility, was not 
 
94. Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 known to the world till Jesus taught it by the fact of 
 His life, and exhibited the realisation of this ideal in 
 His own person. (’) 
 
 And that He did so, I should not have supposed 
 any one capable of denying. The evangelists have 
 not contented themselves with asserting that His was 
 a holy life, but have portrayed it under every aspect ; 
 and even the very sharpest eyes are incapable of 
 detecting in this picture a single feature that can cast 
 a shadow upon it. He challenged His adversaries to 
 convict Him of sin, and they were compelled to be 
 silent. He affirmed concerning Himself, and His life 
 proved it, that He maintained a communion with God 
 which knew no limitation—not even that which sin 
 creates in the case of the most pious. He speaks and 
 acts with the authority of a man conscious of no sin 
 to interpose between Him and His Father. He for- 
 gives the sins of others. He himself needs no forgive-- 
 ness. He taught us daily to pray, ‘Forgive us our 
 trespasses.’ He never prayed for forgiveness Himself— - 
 not even in Gethsemane, not even on the cross. We 
 all feel a moral necessity, at least on special occasions, 
 in our more serious hours, in heavy visitations, to bow 
 before God, and acknowledge our sin against Him. 
 This may even be said to be the standard of our 
 morality. Never did any man bear such a load of 
 sorrow, never was a man plunged into such depths of 
 
 He prayed for forgiveness for His countrymen, not 
 
Jesus a Miracle. 95 
 
 for Himself. If there had been but the shadow of a 
 sin in Him, He could not at such moments have 
 escaped from His consciousness. But this conscious- 
 ness remained ever the same. He knew Himself to 
 be the Redeemer from sin,—the J udge of the sinful 
 world,—to have no share in its sin. It was just 
 during the very last days of His life, and of His 
 sufferings,—just when He, the accused, was standing 
 before His judges,—that He declared Himself, in the 
 
 ~most decided manner, to be the Judge of the world. 
 
 ~~ 
 
 geen 
 
 It was His consciousness of absolute sinlessness which 
 He thus expressed; and if anything is certain con- 
 cerning the person of Jesus Christ, it is this. Utterly 
 vain are the attempts which have been made to place 
 Him also under the law of sin. () Such attempts are 
 totally irreconcilable with the facts both of His life 
 and consciousness. If, however, His sinlessness_is 
 established, the other tenets of Church doctrine 
 concerning His person are but its necessary con- 
 sequences. 
 
 If Jesus is an absolutely sinless man, then He is a 
 
 -meracle ; for then He differs not only in degree but in 
 kind from every other human being, and is something 
 
 absolutely new within the circumference of human 
 nature. For, as we are all aware, we might wander 
 through all parts of the world, at all periods of time, 
 and not find one single sinless man; for sin is—and we 
 all know it—too deeply interwoven with the very roots 
 of the existence and nature of the whole race, to make 
 it possible that we should be, for a moment, doubtful 
 
96 Lecture LV. The God-man. 
 
 as to the result. If, then, there ever was one pure 
 human being in the world of sinners, He was a miracle. 
 
 And then, too, His origin must have been of a mira- — 
 
 culous kind. Even if the Gospels did not report what 
 they do of His conception and birth, our reason would 
 demand it; for we all admit that no perfectly holy 
 man was ever produced in the ordinary way. That 
 which is born of the flesh is flesh.’ If holiness is to 
 be found, a fresh beginning must be made; and this 
 beginning must be the act of the Holy Ghost and 
 of humble faith—a moral event, and not a merely 
 natural one. 
 
 This is the case with Christ, as it is with Chris- 
 tianity itself, for He is Christianity. Christianity is 
 not a production of the human mind, but a creative 
 act of God; and such, too, is He. He entered into 
 the community of our race, but He is not the produc- 
 tion of our race. He is a branch upon the tree of 
 human nature, but He is the noble scion of this tree, 
 —that is to say, His origin was miraculous; He was 
 conceived and born of woman, but not begotten by 
 man. 
 
 It was only thus that He could be what He so 
 generally designated Himself—The Son of Man. For 
 what does this name imply? That He is not merely 
 one among many, but that He is the Son of Man. As 
 the Messiah, He was the aim of Israel’s history, and 
 the fulfilment of Israel’s hopes; as the Son of Man, 
 He was the aim of the history of human nature, and 
 the fulfilment of the hopes of our race. It is He 
 
 } 
 
The Son of Man. 97 
 
 whom the nations were seeking after, of whom they 
 had some dreamy presentiment, whom their hearts 
 craved after, whom the history of our race intended, in 
 whom it was to find its close, with whom it was to 
 make a fresh beginning—the beginning of a new era, 
 of a new race of men. It is this that He means when 
 He calls Himself the Son of Man. He is looking be- 
 — yond the limits of Israel, and comprising all nations 
 and races, while designating Himself as their common 
 aim. (’) : 
 -. On this account He is also the Lord of mankind. It 
 is thus that He is especially depicted by the first three 
 evangelists. And thus, under all aspects, He is the 
 Lord of the Church of God. It was for Him that the 
 Old Testament saints waited; He is the fulfilment of 
 their hopes and the realisation of the predictions of 
 the prophets. He is the Lord of all men. In Him 
 every soul is to find its rest, and every mourner re- 
 freshing peace. And not merely individuals: the 
 Whole world is directed to His Word, and its future 
 fate depends upon the position which it assumes with 
 respect to Him. To believe or not to believe in Him, 
 decides the eternal destiny of every one; for the 
 eternal decision is in His hand, and it is His mouth 
 which is to speak the final sentence. _ In short, He is 
 absolutely Lord of the world, and of each individual 
 soul. He has an absolute relation to the world. (’) 
 It is thus that the first three evangelists speak of 
 Him. . : 
 - But this, His relation to the world, depends upon 
 G 
 
98 Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 His relation to God. And herein lies the deepest 
 mystery of His nature: ‘All things are delivered unto 
 Me of my Father,” says He, in a well known passage 
 of St Matthew’s Gospel (xi. 27): ‘and no man knoweth 
 the Son, but the Father; and no man knoweth the 
 Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will 
 reveal Him’ His relation to the world depends on 
 
 His relation to God. And what kind of relation is_ - 
 
 this? He places Himself on a level with God with i 
 respect to the world. As God is a hidden_mystery to 
 the world, so also is He; but God is no mystery to 
 Him. The Father and the Son—these two are mani- 
 fest to each other, though hidden from the world. He 
 does not belong to the world, but is a part of the 
 deep mystery of God. It is but a short saying which 
 the evangelist reports, but it lays open an extensive 
 prospect into the hidden depths of His nature, _ 
 These hidden depths, which the first three evangelists 
 rather hint at than state, form the special. theme 
 of St John’s Gospel. (‘) It is he who discloses to us 
 that secret background—His eternal being—and shows 
 us the roots of His existence in His eternal fellowship 
 with God. It is this which meets us at every turn, 
 when we peruse His life as depicted by this evangelist. 
 But all that St John, or rather all that Jesus in the 
 narrative of St John, tells us of His eternal being, is 
 summed up in the title, Zhe Son of God. It is not 
 merely His vocation as the Messiah, which this ap- 
 pellation is used to point out, though this was indeed » 
 the sense in which the Jews employed it; but it is the 
 
Confession and Denial of His Divinity. 99 
 
 special pre-eminence of His person, which is thus signi- 
 fied. Others, either specially called of God, or brought 
 by their piety into peculiar nearness to Him, may have 
 been called sons of God—He only is the Son of God 
 in a sense that none other is; that is to say, that His 
 origin is in God himself, in the eternal essence of God. 
 Thence did He proceed and come into the world; and 
 therefore He has a community of nature with the 
 Father. For in Him is the fulness of the Divine 
 nature. He is the light; He is grace and truth itself, 
 He belongs not to time, but to_ eternity ; for before 
 Abraham was, He is ever with God, in the glory of 
 God, and in-the communion of His love. It is thus 
 that Jesus testifies of Himself. And when Thomas 
 greets the risen Saviour in those words, significantly 
 placed by the evangelist at the end of his gospel, ‘ My 
 Lord and my God!’ Jesus accepts this confession as 
 an expression of faith in Him. (’) . 
 Since, then, this has been the confession of the 
 apostles, the confession of the Church, our own con- 
 
 fession, we all call Him our Lord, and bow the knee — 
 
 at His name. 
 
 This is the doctrine of the apostles, as laid down in 
 their epistles; this has ever been the usage of the 
 Apostolic Church, As the Jew was distinguished 
 
 ~ from the heathen by the fact that he invoked J ehovah 
 in prayer, so are Christians distinguished from both 
 Jews and heathens by their invocation of the name of 
 Jesus Christ. Their prayer to Jesus is the proof of 
 their belief in His divinity. For God alone is prayed 
 
 - 
 
100 Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 to.¢) And this usage has continued from the days of 
 the apostles, through all ages of the Christian Church. 
 A few years after the death of the Apostle John, Pliny, 
 the Roman pro-consul of Asia Minor, furnished his 
 imperial friend Trajan with information concerning 
 the Christians of that country, and mentioned it ex- 
 pressly, as their peculiar religious custom, that they 
 elorified Christ as God in their hymns. And Eusebius, 
 the ecclesiastical historian of the time of the Emperor 
 Constantine, tells us of the many hymns and songs of 
 the first centuries in which the Divinity of Christ was 
 celebrated. (") And this has been the faith of the 
 Church in all ages. Her hymns, her prayers, her 
 whole worship, even her art, bear the same testimony 
 as her creed and her teaching. The denial of this faith 
 is not primitive but subsequent. 
 
 It is true that the denial of this faith has likewise 
 descended throughout the various ages, from those 
 Judaically minded professors of the early days of 
 Christianity, who saw in Christ a mere prophet, down 
 to the rationalists, who believe they have exhausted 
 His significance in affirming Him to be the ideal of 
 virtue, or those moderns who think they show Him 
 respect enough in honouring Him as the religious genius 
 of mankind. But if here, as everywhere, cause and 
 effect must correspond the one to the other, such a 
 cause is not sufficient to explain the effect. The 
 Christ of history must have been different from the 
 Christ of rationalism, if we are to understand the fact 
 of Christianity, and different, too, from the Christ of 
 
Necessity of the God-man. 101 
 
 modern notions, if He is to be the Atoner and Redeemer. 
 And if He is not this, what is He to us? For what we 
 want is reconciliation with God. But the reconcilia- 
 tion of the world requires the God-man, and not merely 
 the religious genius. 
 
 What I have hitherto said, my respected hearers, 
 has been intended to establish the fact as laid down in 
 Scripture and acknowledged by the Church. Let us 
 
 _-now see how it approves itself to our reason, by con- 
 
 sidering the necessity, the possibility, and the reality 
 of the God-man. 
 
 But let us not forget, ite engaging in this dis- 
 cussion, that in this, as in every other instance, the 
 fact does not depend upon our reason. To understand 
 the fact is a want of our intellect; and the whole 
 history of Church doctrine concerning the person of 
 Jesus Christ is a continuous labour to master this 
 subject. This is an end we shall never perfectly 
 attain; yet we strive, and cannot cease from striving 
 
 after it. But behind all our reasoning stands the fact 
 
 itself, and faith therein. ; 
 
 Wherefore is the God-man? This is a question 
 which has been agitated ever since the mysteries of 
 the Christian faith have been made subjects of thought. 
 The God-man cannot be a merely incidental fact; it is 
 
 _a want of our intellect to comprehend Him in His 
 
 intrinsic necessity. Here, as in all cases, the chief 
 question is, as to the wherefore. 
 
 The ultimate reason for the incarnation of the Son 
 of God is to be found in the sin of man, For sin 
 
102 Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 requires: atonement, and atonement requires the God- 
 man. 
 
 When John the Baptist. directed his disciples to 
 Jesus, he called Him ‘the Lamb of God, which taketh - 
 away the sin of the world.’ It was from this point of 
 view that they were to understand Jesus, and it 18... 
 from this point of view that we, too, must understand 
 Him. When we get perplexed concerning Him, by 
 the manifold objections which we hear, let us fall back 
 upon this certainty—He is the Redeemer of the sinful 
 world. As Christians, there is nothing so certain to 
 us as this, to know Him and believe in Him as our 
 Saviour, If we would understand Him, it must. be 
 under this aspect.. This was the end of His appearing; — 
 this, also, was the reason of His incarnation. He came 
 to seek and to save that which was lost. This formed 
 the subject of all apostolic preaching ; this has ever 
 been the creed of the whole Church. If the evangelists 
 relate the life of Christ, it is in His death that their. 
 narratives culminate. They mean, He became man 
 that He might die for us. When St Paul would 
 comprise in one word the matter of his preaching, that 
 word is, the Cross. ‘I determined not to know any- 
 thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him erucified.” 
 When St Peter would pour out his whole heart, he 
 speaks of the Just One who ‘suffered for the unjust.’ 
 (1 Pet. iii. 18), And when St John, in the Revelation, 
 beheld in spirit the heavenly company, their ascription 
 of glory was addressed to. the Lamb. that.‘ was slain, 
 and that has redeemed us to God by His blood’ (Rey. 
 
Necessity of the God-man, 103 
 
 v. 9). Itis Christ the Redeemer who is proclaimed by 
 each apostle, and preached by the whole Church. Nor 
 are her prayers and hymns ever warmer and _heartier 
 than when they praise the crucified Jesus, and tell of 
 His wounds and sufferings. Christian art, too, has 
 ever sought her highest triumphs in the delineation of 
 His countenance beneath the crown of thorns, and of 
 the Saviour upon the cross. Our whole heart is 
 poured out when we call Him our Saviour; and it is 
 the Church’s highest glory to exalt Him as the Re- 
 deemer. Redemption—this isthe great act of God’s 
 eternal mercy; this it is on which the fate of the 
 _wWhole world, on which the fate of each one of us 
 depends; this is the great act of grace towards a 
 sinful and opposing world—an act of freest, most 
 unmerited grace. For who will say that He deserved 
 it? However highly we may think of our own merits, 
 we must all be silent here. ‘’Tis mercy all, immense 
 and free’—mercy to a world of sinners. We should 
 have been lost but for this act of redeeming grace. If 
 we would understand Jesus Christ, it must be under 
 the character of our Redeemer. 
 It is true that the task undertaken by Christ was 
 not merely to redeem us, but also to lead us on to 
 , eternal perfection. In Him we are to attain that end 
 to which we were eternally destined, and in Him is 
 _all creation to attain perfection. Into that world of 
 glory and of perfect communion with God, whither He 
 is gone before, we are to follow Him; and the end_of 
 
104 Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 the sin of man destroyed, and which Christ. restores. 
 He is not our Head alone; He has become the Head of 
 all things, in whom the universe is to recover its unity. 
 But the way to this end hes through atonement and 
 redemption. It was for this purpose that Christ be- 
 came man, that by redeeming He might carry us on 
 unto perfection. (") Long was He expected; from of 
 old had He been predicted, until He came in the ful- 
 ness of the times. For from the beginning had recon- 
 ciliation been longed for, and the Atoner hoped for. 
 He was: He that was to come. The heathen had a 
 presentiment of Him. They tell of appearances of the 
 Godhead upon earth, and of exaltations of men to the 
 dignity of the gods. These are, it is true, but fancies 
 and fictions, and the genuine moral germ—the notion 
 of redemption—is wanting in them all. Yet still they 
 
 are presentiments of the truth, that a bridge must be . 
 
 thrown over the abyss which separates the Holy God 
 from sinful man,—that God must come to us, in order 
 that we may come to Him.(”) From of old God 
 revealed Himself in Israel. His eternal grace and 
 
 truth followed after man, to call him back, and to- 
 
 restore the union which the sin of man had broken. 
 
 All these revelations were preliminary, and prophetic of 
 a revelation in which He was Himself to appear, and 
 to restore in Himself the bond of communion. ‘When 
 the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His 
 Son’ The reason for the incarnation is to be found in 
 ‘sin. One might almost feel tempted to say with the 
 old Easter hymn, ‘felia culpa, to commend sin, be- 
 
_ Necessity of the God-man, 105 
 
 cause it procured us such a gift, but that the misery of 
 sin and the thought of the lost must stifle such a word 
 upon our lips. But so much the more should we com- 
 mend the grace of God, to which sin did but furnish 
 the occasion for disclosing to us the whole depth of its 
 love. ‘For where sin abounded, grace_did much more 
 abound, says the apostle (Rom. v. 20), in Him who 
 appeared as Mediator between us and God. 
 
 But if He was to appear as Mediator between both, 
 to restore and to perfect the communion which sin had 
 broken off, it was necessary that He’ should belong. to 
 
 both. He must stand in perfect fellowship both with 
 God and with us, to represent even in His very person 
 that perfect bond between the two which it was to be 
 the work of His life to create. He must belong to 
 us, that He might represent us, and yet be above us; 
 for we must come to the Father through Him. He 
 must be one with God to redeem us; for the work of 
 
 - atonement and redemption could be the act of God 
 alone; and it is of the fulness of Divine grace that we 
 must receive when we receive of His fulness. If we 
 are to have in Him, as we believe, the Atoner, the 
 Deliverer from sin, Godhead and manhood must be 
 united in Him. Sin requires atonement, and atone- 
 ment requires the God-man. 
 _ But how can these two be united in one? Is the 
 
 _,God-man possible? Are not Godhead and ‘manhood 
 opposites which exclude one another? They would be 
 such if they were merely opposed to each other as 
 finity and infinity, if a connection did not also exist 
 
106 Lecture af V. The God-man. 
 
 between them, if we were not related to God. But we 
 were made in the image of God; we bear in our nature 
 His image; and we are likewise of Divine extraction. 
 If we think of God, we think of Him after our image ; 
 and we do not think incorrectly. And as God has once 
 thought of and willed Himself, so has He ever lovingly 
 willed man, in order to communicate Himself to Him. 
 He willed Himself to us, and we ought to will our- 
 selves to Him and in Him. 
 
 There exists both a bond of love and an attraction of ~ 
 love between God and us. It is true that God is the 
 Solf-sufficient and Self-blessed, needing none other for 
 His happiness or perfection; but it is His love which 
 so draws Him, that He inclines towards us, and im- 
 parts Himself to us. He whom the heaven of heavens 
 cannot contain, has chosen us for the habitation in 
 which His love is to dwell. And in proportion as we 
 departed from Him by sin, did His grace follow and 
 draw near to us, till it sank into our very flesh and - 
 plood. That He could do this—in other words, the } 
 possibility of the incarnation—lies in the condescend- = 
 ing love of God. 
 
 And in the destiny of man. For this is, to re- 
 eeive Cod into ourselves, to bear Him within us, to 
 have Him for the indwelling object of our thoughts 
 and desires, of our whole inner life. Since we have 
 lost. this indwelling object through sin, our soul 
 hungers to be again filled with the life of God. It 
 was for this purpose that the fulness of the God- 
 head dwelt bodily in shi esus, even that out of His 
 
 ~ 
 
feeality of the God-man. 107 
 
 fulness we might receive grace for grace. Hence 
 the possibility of the incarnation lies as much in the 
 nature of man as in the nature of God. 
 
 But. how are we to conceive of the reality of the 
 God-man? And shail we ever attain to a conception 
 thereof? It is a necessity to faith to strive after 
 knowledge; but let us not forget that it is not our 
 knowledge which believes, but our faith which knows. 
 Who has ever really known God? Do we wait to 
 believe in Him until we comprehend Him? Are we 
 ~ not, without this, directly conscious of His existence 2? 
 Our convictions do not arise solely from the reason- 
 ings of our minds; and this is the case in this matter 
 also. No one has ever fully understood the nature of 
 God; no one has ever fully known the nature of man. 
 What then? If, when we think of God and man, 
 much as we may reflect, there still remain enigmas, 
 shall we be surprised if, when we think of the God- 
 man, all enigmas are not solved? He would not be 
 as He is—the most wondrous phenomenon on earth— 
 if we were to find no mystery in Him. 
 
 When we speak of the God-man, we combine the 
 greatest possible opposites—Godhead and manhood 
 united in one. It is an immense thought; it is an 
 unparalleled word. Is it a possible thought? When 
 we lay due emphasis upon the Divinity of Christ, do 
 we not slur over His true humanity? or, when we 
 maintain His true humanity, are we not in danger 
 of losing sight of His Divinity? The thoughts of men 
 have erred on both sides, ever since they have sought 
 
108 Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 to master the notion of the God-man. Some have 
 esteemed Him a mere man, filled in a peculiar degree 
 with the spirit of revelation; to others He has been 
 a being from a higher world, passing through this 
 world only as an apparition, without really belonging 
 to our race. The Church has maintained the idea of 
 the God-man in opposition to both these errors; but 
 ~ for a long time they were still working in her own 
 bosom, and even breaking forth under various forms. 
 The Church’s consideration of the mystery of the 
 person of Jesus Christ, during the course of centuries, 
 is an ever renewed labour, seeking to conquer these 
 errors, and striving to conceive in thought, and fully 
 to express in words, that truth which Christendom 
 has from the beginning received by faith. (“) And 
 who would ever venture to say that she has yet 
 attained her aim? We are still only on the road to 
 the perfect knowledge of the Son of God (Eph. iv. 13). 
 
 We will now venture to compare the course of 
 Christian doctrine and theology with the history of 
 Christian art. 
 
 You are all acquainted with those pictures of Christ 
 —of the earlier, or so-called Byzantine _type—which 
 represent the form of Jesus, with an expression of 
 Divine elevation, upon a golden background of celestial 
 glory, but severed from human fellowship and void of 
 earthly reality. We should all say that we have in 
 them a symbolical expression of His hidden glory, but 
 no representation of His historic reality. But still less 
 would those other pictures content us which bring 
 
 OO 
 
The Self-abnegation of the Son of God. 109 
 
 Jesus before us with human surroundings, after the 
 fashion of a Dutch Genre-picture, but deprived of all 
 Divine dignity and elevation. While the former pictures 
 endeavour to depict the truth at the expense of reality, 
 these endeavour to restore reality at the expense of the 
 truth. We should designate it as the highest aim of 
 art to bring before us the Divine truth in the human 
 reality—an aim scarcely, indeed, possible of attainment, 
 yet still one worthy of the utmost effort. And the © 
 case is similar here. It may, perhaps, be said that the 
 manner in which the ancients speak of the person of 
 Jesus Christ somewhat corresponds with the pictures 
 -of the Byzantine type. They are penetrated with the 
 feeling of reverence, and we recognise, in their teach- 
 ing, Him before whom every knee must bow; yet we 
 sometimes miss the full reality of the incarnate Saviour. 
 But when the moderns seek to repair, as they think, 
 this error, by sinking the Divinity in the man Christ 
 Jesus, and make amends for this by adorning Him 
 with borrowed colours, which they bestow upon Him 
 according to their own invention, our faith revolts 
 from a form so strange to us. (“) The task set before 
 our reason is, while seeing in Jesus the full, true, and 
 perfect man, to behold in His manhood the fulness of 
 the Godhead—everything human, yet at the same 
 time Divine. 
 
 It was thus that St John viewed Him, when he 
 uttered that great saying, ‘The Word was made flesh, 
 and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the 
 glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of 
 
110 Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 grace and truth’ (John i. 14), and when he described 
 this Word made flesh as the perfect revelation of the 
 Father, as the light and life of the world, and His 
 human nature as the vehicle of eternal life. Not only 
 did His eternal Godhead veil itself in human form, 
 but it passed from the condition of heavenly being 
 into the historical reality of earthly existence;—out of 
 the life of Divine glory, into the life of our earthly 
 human nature. This was the thought in the mind of 
 St John, when he began his gospel with those three 
 famous propositions, which announce, with mighty 
 strokes, the mystery of which he is about to write: 
 ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
 with God, and the Word was God.’ For what these 
 three sentences say is this: He who appeared in time 
 was primeval; He who appeared among us was with 
 God; He who appeared in the flesh was by nature 
 God. He-exchanged the one existence for the other; 
 He renounced His glory to enter into our poverty; He 
 left eternity to enter into history. (°) — 
 And what He did when He entered the world was 
 the constant act of His life. .His was no single 
 ‘renunciation of the glory He had with the Father, 
 but a renunciation again and again confirmed: there in — 
 the wilderness, when that future supremacy which He 
 was one day to exercise over the world was held up 
 before Him, and He was tempted to seize it by an act 
 of self-will; and then, when the populace, in a fit of 
 enthusiasm, after the miraculous multiplication of the © 
 loaves and fishes, wanted to lead Him in triumph to 
 
 =! 
 
The Self-abnegation of the Son of God. 111 
 
 Jerusalem, to seat Him on the throne of David, and to 
 make Him a king, according to their own view of His 
 office ; and, hardest of all, in that darkest of all nights, 
 when, at the commencement of His passion, the tempter 
 sought to attain by the horrors of fear what he had 
 failed to attain by the seductions of hope. It was the 
 ~ continual act of His will, instead of that equal glory 
 with the Father which was specially His own, again 
 and again to choose and consent to the servile condi- 
 tion of that earthly life into which He had entered. 
 But the light of a hidden glory shone through that 
 form of a servant, and that not only in His miracles, 
 All efforts to withdraw the miracles from His life are 
 vain. (“) But they are not the chief matter; they are 
 but the phenomenal effect of His office as Redeemer, 
 and it is the Redeemer, the Saviour, that we seek in 
 Him. It is not the majesty of the Divine omnipotence, 
 omnipresence, and omniscience that gains Him all 
 hearts, that conquers our hearts. It is not these 
 that we seek in Him; for these could not help us. 
 His power does but ohio His office, and goes no 
 farther than this does. This is the mystery of the 
 Incarnate: the eternal life which overcomes our 
 spiritual death, the holy light which chases the night 
 of our sin, the love which seeks and saves us, the lost. 
 Herein consists the manifestation of His glory, and this 
 | is the manifestation of God; for we do not truly com- 
 ’ prehend God when we view Him only as Infinite Power. 
 This is but the hem of His garment. He himself is 
 that holy living love which fills our souls, appeases our 
 
112 Lecture IV. The God-man. 
 
 hunger, and is our essential portion. This is the ful- 
 ness of the Godhead which dwelt in Him. 
 
 Yet truly in the earthen vessel of mortal flesh. 
 There was a contradiction between His inner nature 
 and His external historical reality. It is not merely 
 the external life of Jesus, from His birth in the stable 
 at Bethlehem to His death upon the cross and His 
 burial in Joseph’s tomb, that is pervaded by these 
 opposites. This contradiction between His nature and 
 reality is stamped upon His whole earthly existence. 
 For that which He was essentially in His proper nature, 
 even the eternal Son of God, of one substance with 
 the Father, He did not appear to be; and what He 
 appeared was not the corresponding reality of what 
 He essentially was. But may we not say that this is 
 also, in a certain sense, the case with ourselves? Even 
 in us there is a contradiction between our destiny, 
 which constitutes our nature, and our actual condition, 
 which is subject to the law of perishableness. We 
 are not yet in reality what we are in truth; but we 
 are waiting for a time when we shall be so. Then will 
 the contradiction of our existence be solved. This 
 anomaly was found in the highest sense in the case 
 of Christ; for in- Him eternal life itself was sunk in 
 time, the eternal Son of God in the weakness of flesh. 
 The greatest possible contradiction between nature and 
 reality existed in His person. And that which existed 
 in His person was carried out in the history of His life. 
 Here the contrast becomes still sharper, and is sharpest 
 of all in His death, when eternal life sank in death, in - 
 
Lhe Contrasts Exhibited in His Life. 113 
 
 order thus to become our life. This seemed to be the 
 flattest denial, the very annihilation of His office as 
 ‘Saviour. Hence His disciples never could understand 
 that He was to die. And certainly this was the very 
 utmost that could happen. But this very utmost was 
 _also the crisis. The great knot which sin had tied was 
 _ drawn as tightly as possible at His death; but it was 
 just then that grace undid it. His death was followed 
 by His resurrection and His glory. Then were the 
 oppositions of His life solved; then was the contra- 
 diction which He bore within Him annihilated ; for. 
 the risen Saviour was in reality that which He was by 
 nature. Then was He proved to be that which He is: 
 the Son of God no longer in weakness, but in power. 
 Now did the history of His person attain its end, that 
 it might henceforth become our history. For, what He 
 lived and suffered, He lived and suffered for us. In 
 His history, His work, the work of atonement, was con- 
 summated. This was His life’s enterprise, His vocation. 
 It is of this, His work of atonement, that I intend to 
 speak in our next lecture. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 ecossema tii last time | addressed you, it was the 
 
 all person of Christ that formed the subject of 
 discussion. My present lecture will treat 
 of His work. 
 
 When we would describe the work of Jesus Christ, 
 we are accustomed to speak of His three offices—His 
 prophetic, His priestly, and His royal offices. (‘) We 
 
 call Him the prophet, priest, and king, both in accord- 
 
 ance with man’s general calling of God, and with the — 
 
 type of Israel. 
 
 For our calling is a threefold one. As prophets, to 
 recognise and to testify to the thoughts and works of 
 God; as priests, to consecrate our lives to Him; and 
 as kings, to govern the world. And the type furnished 
 by Israel in its mediators between God and man—its 
 prophets, its priests, and its kings—is also threefold. 
 But sin obliterated our calling, and the history of Israel 
 remained only a prediction. 
 
 Our destiny found its higher realisation, and the 
 history of Israel its final fulfilment, in Jesus Christ. 
 He became the prophet, the high priest, the king. 
 
 ee 
 
His Development. | 115 
 
 It is by these three titles that we describe His 
 work; and it is on the first two that I propose to 
 address you to-day. | 
 
 For thirty years He lived in retirement, and con- 
 cealed in His own heart the secret of His person, until 
 the appointed time came. The period before this was 
 the time of His development; the period succeeding 
 
 | years which were allotted Him to work in. But 
 the importance of a work is not to be measured by 
 the number of years it occupies. Eternity may be 
 the revelation of one single moment. The three years 
 of Christ’s ministry lifted the world off its hinges. 
 
 When we endeavour to bring before our minds, 
 with some degree of clearness, the inner development 
 of Jesus before His baptism, we are obliged to admit 
 that the first step therein was His consciousness of 
 
 ,Sonship, His consciousness that He was indeed the 
 Son of God. Out of this grew next His consciousness 
 ot being the destined Saviour. For He must needs 
 have been certain of His eternal fellowship with the 
 Father, before He could be certain of His vocation. 
 This consciousness arose within Him in the secret 
 intercourse of His soul in prayer with His Father. It 
 was then, if we may so speak, that He understood 
 Himself as the eternal Son of the Father. His voca- 
 tion, however, He chiefly met with in the Scriptures 
 of the Old Testament. It was there that He read the 
 will of His Father concerning Himself. His baptisin 
 expressed His determination to take upon Himself the 
 
116 = Lecture V. © The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 burden of this calling. And it was with His baptism 
 that His office began. 
 
 Not unannounced was He to enter upon it, nor was 
 the nation to be left unprepared. It devolved upon 
 the Baptist both to introduce Him to the people and 
 to prepare the people to receive Him. The symbol of 
 preparation was the baptism of John. This baptism 
 even Jesus partook of, thus submitting to the will of . 
 God, as it concerned and was expressed to the then 
 existing generation of Israel. But it had as widely 
 differing a significance in His case, and in that of 
 others, as His person and office differed from those of 
 all other men. What was to others a preparation for 
 an entrance into the kingdom of grace, was to Him 
 a preparation for the manifesting of this kingdom... 
 For His baptism by John denotes not merely a stage 
 in the progress of His Messianic consciousness, but an 
 actual operation of God upon Him, and was not merely 
 a declaration of His willingness to commence His 
 mission, and to undergo those sorrows which He well 
 knew to be inseparable therefrom, but it was, at the 
 same time, an endowment for this office by the Spirit 
 of God. He was not, however, to enter upon His 
 work until He had been proved by the temptation;— 
 which brought before His mind that caricature of His | 
 office existing in the carnal Messianic notions of the 
 Jewish people.() Jesus, by repelling the seduction 
 of attaining His end, not in the way of suffering, — 
 but in that of enjoyment and honour, decided His | 
 future. 
 
fis Prophetic Office. 1M 
 
 “This was His entrance upon His office. His prophetic 
 office is delineated by the evangelists in their various 
 pictures of His life. It was His. words which were 
 
 ~the power of His work. Of all powers on earth, the 
 powers of mind are the greatest. Their effect is often 
 apparently eclipsed by the power of physical agencies ; 
 but the results of external force, brilliant as they may 
 often appear, fall, sooner or later, under the inexorable 
 law of mutability, and often scarcely a trace remains 
 of what caused perhaps astonishment and admiration 
 to half a world; while a breath of eternity dwells in 
 the silent works of the mind. The kingdoms of the 
 world crumble to pieces; but an eternal kingdom is 
 built up by the world of mind. To this the victory is 
 promised, The true kingdom of mind is the kingdom 
 
 — of God, and its soul is religion. Christ came to found 
 an eternal kingdom of religion by the power of His 
 word. 
 
 And what kind of religion did He preach? He did 
 not merely proclaim a religion of free-thinkers, some- 
 what like that held in France; nor transfigure Judaism 
 into Greek humanism, as is represented by the German 
 schools of philosophy; nor did He merely intend, as 
 certain theologians understand Him, to set before us 
 the ideal of human nature; but He preached the 
 
 grace of God. All the before-mentioned explanations 
 omit one matter, and that the chief—they leave sin out 
 of the question, But the sin of man needs grace. It is 
 ‘this which we want. If Jesus is to be the prophet for 
 mankind, He must have preached grace. And who 
 
118 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 that knows His words, as the.evangelists have reported 
 them, does not know that He is the preacher of Divine 
 grace? This is the atmosphere which pervades His 
 every word—the secret of His power over the minds 
 of men. He speaks indeed of the kingdom of God, 
 but it is the kingdom of grace. There is nothing more 
 touching than such calls of tender persuasion as: 
 ‘Come unto Me, all that are weary and heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest.’ And that which so moves © 
 us in them, is that tone of grace proceeding from the 
 heart of God, and reaching into our hearts. His crown- 
 ing parable, if it is lawful so to speak, is surely that 
 famous parable of the prodigal son; and the whole 
 parable is nothing else than the powerful preaching of 
 grace. Nothing more marvellous can be read than the 
 beatitudes with which the Sermon on the Mount com- 
 mences; but it is the voice of grace which speaks to 
 us in these wonderful words. The preaching of Jesus 
 is the preaching of grace. 
 
 But it is also the spirit of holiness, of the strictest, , 
 the most inexorable holiness, which addresses us in 
 these words of seeking and saving grace. For. such 
 is the nature of God. God is love, but holy love. — 
 If Jesus is the revelation of God, He must be as truly 
 a revelation of the Divine holiness as of eternal love— 
 of both in one. By no consideration can He be induced 
 to abate aught of the strictness of His demands, neither 
 by respect of persons nor regard to consequences (¢.9., 
 Luke xiv. 26, 33). Let the hearers be whom they may, 
 the circumstances be what they will, His word is the 
 
His Rejection. 119 
 
 same to all. Were it even His mother and His breth- 
 ren, He recognises nothing but obedience to His word 
 (Mark ii. 23); and reproves even the foremost of the 
 apostles in the same terms as He reproves His enemies 
 (Matt. xvi. 23). Not even when many of His fol- 
 lowers secede from Him, as at the critical period, a 
 year before His death, did He relax one word of the 
 seeming harshness of His speech. Even though the 
 cause He is advocating should seem to be ruined there- 
 » by, even should it cost Him His life, He abates not 
 one jot of His unrelenting demands, and makes not the 
 slightest concession to the sluggishness of will and 
 carnality of mind which characterised the nation. We 
 might sometimes be tempted to call His pure words 
 inconsiderate, if we did not feel, through the apparent 
 harshness of their form, the deep sorrow of His soul, 
 when He knew that His words would have a repelling 
 effect, and could yet abate nothing from them. This 
 - wondrous combination of love and severity, which is 
 at once so touching and surprising, is the effect of that 
 spirit of holiness which breathes in His every word, 
 and pervades His every action. 
 
 It was this holiness which brought about the catas- 
 trophe of His life. This world would not have been 
 the world of sin which it is, if the phenomenon of His 
 life and teaching had not stirred the minds of men 
 to their very depths, and aroused all that hatred_of 
 truth which slumbers in the human breast. (’) It is 
 a delusion to think that truth will meet with approval 
 
 for its own sake, that it will ever gain the masses in 
 
120 «Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. , 
 
 this sinful world. There does, indeed, exist in the 
 soul of man a sense. for truth, but there co-exists also 
 an opposition to truth, and the latter is the stronger of 
 the two. It is true that Christ did meet with love, 
 —even with love faithful unto death—but He met 
 with still more hatred. From His first days till His 
 last, both the love and the hatred increased together. 
 But the hatred was the mightier; and, at least out- 
 wardly, it triumphed. I know not what could be 
 more humiliating to our race than this fact, that such 
 a love as was manifested in Jesus could produce and 
 call forth such a hatred as fell to His lot, and that 
 such heavenly purity should become the mark against 
 which all the passions of men should combine. If 
 anything could make us despair of human nature, it 
 would be this fact. To despair, indeed, it should not 
 lead us, but to humility of mind, and to serious re- 
 flection upon what must be required to win to God a 
 nature capable of such deeds. And let it not be said 
 that this was done only by the Jews. With Jewish 
 fanaticism was combined heathen want of principle. 
 And who can assert that his own nation would better 
 have stood the test? What was done to Jesus was 
 but the culminating point of what has been the 
 experience of all ages. The witnesses for truth have 
 ever been its martyrs. It was His testimony to truth 
 which cost Jesus His life; and the Prophet of truth 
 was a martyr to His office. 
 
 But His death was more than a martyrdom: it was ~ 
 
 a sacrifice for the sin of our race. 
 
 ee ee 
 
wns 
 
 The Need of Atonement. 121 
 
 It was not enough merely to proclaim grace: He had 
 also to obtain it. The way to the grace of God is a 
 way of sacrifice. Between us and God stands our sin ; 
 and sin can only be removed, and the way of access to 
 God opened, by an atoning sacrifice. 
 
 , All religions have sacrifices. (°) By them is ex- 
 
 pressed the universal need of reconciliation, and the 
 acknowledgment that the way to reconciliation is pro- 
 pitiation, and the means of propitiation, sacrifice. This 
 is the fundamental principle of all religions, and the 
 central point of all worship. Whatever we may think 
 of the fact, we are compelled to admit it, and its univer- 
 sality invites reflection. However much of error may 
 have been mingled with it, some ideas of truth must 
 have been the foundation of this religious custom. Thus 
 much, is certain, that in all ages the religious craving 
 of mankind has regarded reconciliation with God as 
 the chief element of religion. If Christianity, then, is 
 to be the absolute religion, it must be the religion of 
 reconciliation. Christianity must furnish that which 
 all others have sought for. The pre-Christian religions 
 were prophetic of Christianity; their sacrifices a pro- 
 phecy of the sacrifice. of Jesus Christ. We cannot 
 understand sacrifice till we survey it from the height 
 of Golgotha. And what sacrifice, studied and under- 
 stood from this point of view, says to us, is, that a 
 guiltless life must make expiation for the life forfeited 
 by sin. Now, we know that this was truly effected 
 by Christ. He compensated for the debt we had 
 incurred; He became the sacrifice for our sins. This 
 
122 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 is the central point of the whole system of Christian 
 doctrine. 
 
 But was this sacrifice necessary? Its necessity lies 
 in God himself; for God is both holiness and love. 
 As the Holy One, He hates sin, and is angry with the 
 sinner; as Love, He desires his salvation. As the 
 Holy One, He desires to know nothing of the sinner; 
 as Love, He desires to know him happy. As the Holy 
 One, He is his judge; as Love, He would be his 
 deliverer. As man really is, He is angry with him; as 
 He eternally willed him to be in Christ, He loves 
 him. The two are opposed to each other in God, and 
 each demands its right. It is true that love finally 
 triumphs over wrath, for love is eternal in God; but 
 it triumphs only in the way of holiness, that is, in 
 the way of atoning sacrifice. 
 
 It has often been asked, Cannot God forgive without 
 anything farther ?(°) Why does He need propitiation ? 
 
 We answer: Can God deny Himself? Can He cease “ 
 
 to be the enemy of sin and its judge? And even if 
 He could cease to be such, our conscience would not 
 cease to demand it. A law of righteousness. exists in 
 our conscience, without which our conscience would 
 cease to be a conscience. It is this which requires a 
 propitiation. We must distrust our moral conscious- 
 ness if sin could be unconditionally forgiven. It 
 would be false love in a father towards his son to 
 ignore his transgressions as though they had never 
 existed. We should perplex and disturb the moral 
 consciousness of our children if we were at once, and 
 
 ? 
 
Need of Atonement. 123 
 
 without anything farther, to forgive; the transgression 
 must first be expiated. 
 
 But how is this to be effected? Not by future 
 amendment. For to be good and to act rightly being 
 at all times no more than we are bound to perform, 
 no previously committed transgression can be obli- 
 terated thereby ; and before the guilty child can render 
 ‘the obedience of joyful love, he must be certain of 
 _ forgiveness. Not till then is the weight removed from 
 his mind, and the condemnation of his conscience, 
 which bound it there, silenced. But before he can 
 receive forgiveness, he must have passed through 
 sorrow for sin in its consequences. The way of for- 
 giveness is a painful one. I must learn what my 
 sin really is. I must feel, and painfully feel, it in 
 its consequences; not till then can grace reply to my 
 prayer for forgiveness by pardon. God cannot un- 
 conditionally pardon, cannot unconditionally do away 
 with sin, lest it still farther separate us from Him. 
 Sin must accomplish its results; we must painfully 
 experience them. It is in the deserved punishment of 
 sin that we painfully experience its consequences. 
 Only in this way of suffering can sin be expiated. (’) 
 
 But the sinner himself cannot furnish a true atone- 
 ment; for he continues a sinner in God’s sight. He 
 must first cease to be a sinner, if he is really to make 
 restitution for sin. Only a guiltless one, appearing as 
 a substitute for the guilty, is capable of offering a true 
 atonement. Christ became an atoning sacrifice for us, 
 for He became at the same time our substetute. | 
 
124 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 And this, too, is a universal notion of man’s moral 
 consciousness, that the ouiltless must appear for the 
 guilty. Even in the heathen world we meet with 
 presentiments of this great truth. The greatest 
 tragedians of Greece, when they have drawn the knot 
 of the moral conflict as tight as possible, loosen it— 
 Zschylus, in the legend of Prometheus, Sophocles in 
 that of CEdipus—by the notion of substitution. (’) 
 What was in them a faint twilight of presentiment, 
 became truth and reality in Christ. He became the 
 substitutionary sacrifice for our sin. 
 
 But can there be a substitution where, as in this 
 case, moral guilt and its punishment are concerned ? 
 Can one appear and make satisfaction for another? Is 
 substitution possible ? 
 
 The idea, or rather the fact, of substitution pervades 
 every grade of human life. The husband 1s the head 
 of the house. He thinks, he provides, he works, or at 
 least he ought to work, for the whole family; he 
 appropriates its weal and woe, the conditions and 
 wants of the whole, and of each individual; and that 
 not externally only, but so that they form a part, or at 
 least ought to do so, of his own life. And again: as 
 the whole family is comprised in him, so also does all 
 that he experiences extend to all the other members. 
 All share in his position, his honour or dishonour. 
 That which touches him touches all; all suffer for any 
 evil he may commit, and his moral nobleness ennobles 
 all. What is true of the husband is not less true, in 
 her measure, of the wife and mother. That which 
 
Substitution; rts Possibility and Reality. 125 
 
 makes the mother truly such is, that she bears in her 
 own heart the weal and woe, the joy and sorrow of the 
 members of the family, as if they were her own per- 
 sonal experience. This inward appropriation, this 
 soul-felt sympathy, this most real heart-bearing it is 
 which makes her the soul of the family, in whom the 
 manifold emotions of the family life find their place 
 of union and repose, and from whom a refreshing 
 atmosphere of peace is breathed forth upon all. And 
 whet is true of the family is equally’true of every 
 community. Every community requires a bond in 
 which it may find its unity; a head to represent it, to 
 appear as its substitute. And this substitution, when 
 it is of the right kind, is not merely a natural, but a 
 moral relation. In so far as any one heartily appro- 
 priates the interest of a community, and makes it a 
 part of his inner life, does he become its representative. 
 It is he who incorporates the idea of the society, dis- 
 charges its office, bears it in his heart; he lives the 
 life of the whole, and the whole lives through him. 
 This law extends even to the individual. None serves 
 another, none truly helps another, who does not 
 mentally put himself in his place, and take his wants 
 into the very life of his own heart. We may say that 
 love is of a substitutionary nature, for it ever makes 
 the interest of another its own. There is a substitu. 
 tionary acting, and there is a substitutionary suffering 
 in all love for others, in which love, both outwardly and 
 inwardly, does, in a certain sense, take upon itself that 
 which falls upon another, and thus appears for him. (’) 
 
126 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It was a saying of Aristotle, that all noble-minded 
 men are inclined to sadness.(”) It is not merely the 
 feeling that their own lot is a hard one which op- 
 presses them; it is something more—it is their inward 
 sympathy and consciousness of participation in the 
 sufferings of the human race to which they minister. 
 Selfishness alone can dissolve the inward bond of union 
 with others, and say: ‘What is that to me?’ Love 
 inwardly unites to another, and makes his joys and 
 sorrows itsown. And the more Divine the love is, the 
 more so. The more noble the man is—the more the 
 spirit of love, which is from God, dwells in him—the 
 more does he take the sorrow of the whole race into 
 his own soul, bear it in his own heart, and thus under- 
 go it in his own experience. We may say that there 
 never was a truly great man in whom this trait of 
 substitution was not found. For true greatness con- 
 sists in love, and love makes that which is another’s its 
 own. When the prophets of God, in the Old Testa- 
 ment, bewail and reprove the sins of their nation; when 
 we perceive by their words how their souls are pierced 
 with grief for their nation, it is because they know and 
 feel themselves to be one with it, and because, instead 
 of looking upon its sins and sorrows as something 
 foreign to them, they appropriate them to themselves. 
 It is everywhere love which forms this bond of fellow- 
 ship, which places even the guiltless in the rank of the 
 cuilty, because he belongs to them, because he chooses 
 to belong to them. 
 
 Now, in Jesus perfect, absolute love appeared, and 
 
Vicarious Suffering. 127 
 
 that for all. He belonged not merely to His nation ; 
 He belonged to mankind. He entered into intimate 
 union with the whole race. It is comprised in Him, 
 for it finds in Him its aim, its head, its representative. 
 He is the Son of Man. Thus does He also gather into 
 His large and loving heart all the sorrows of humanity, 
 and all its suffering—the suffering both of sin and 
 guilt. From the beginning, so soon as His conscious- 
 ness developed, He knew that in Himself the threads 
 of human history met; that He was to conclude the 
 old and begin the new era; that He was the Son of 
 Man. And what He knew Himself to be, He also 
 chose to be—chose it from the very bottom of His 
 heart. He identified Himself with mankind. He could 
 say, 1am mankind. In Him it was that their history 
 was to be completed. 
 
 _ All progress, however, is effected by suffering ; every 
 step forwards requires sacrifice. For that which is new 
 cannot appear until the debt of the old is paid. Be- 
 cause our path is one of sin and debt, it is also one of 
 suffering; for as every act entails its own results, so 
 also do human sin and guilt involve their proper con- 
 sequences. These consequences must ensue. Not till 
 then can the old be surmounted and the new begin. 
 This is a demand of Divine justice, and a postulate 
 even of our own conscience. If the threads of our 
 history are ‘all united in Christ, if our race is com- 
 prised in Him, if He is the turning point of our history, 
 the path of its progress, then all the consequences of 
 our sin and guilt must have met in Him, and been 
 
128 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 accomplished upon Him, both externally and inter- 
 nally. He must have taken upon Himself the whole 
 burden of our guilt and its consequences; have borne 
 them, suffered for them, and experienced the feeling of 
 them in His inmost soul. In this way alone could 
 He effect our deliverance. For this is the way of moral 
 necessity. We must be justly and righteously, not 
 arbitrarily saved; for arbitrariness is not moral. Truly 
 it is love that saved _us; but it is the love of the Holy 
 One, who bears in His very nature the law of moral 
 necessity. And this moral necessity requires atone- 
 ment in the way of suffering—the bearing and atoning 
 for the consequences of sin, For this reason, therefore, 
 did Christ become the vicarious sacrifice for our sins, 
 that He might thus become the Reconciler and Re- 
 deemer: ‘God made Him to be sin for us who knew 
 no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of 
 God in Him’ (2 Cor. v. 21); «2, God imputed to Him, 
 and visited upon Him, our sin, which was not His 
 own, that He might then impute to us His righteous- 
 ness, which is not our own. He bore the consequences 
 of our sin. 
 
 The consequence of sin is the wrath of God; for 
 God would not have been holy love if He were not 
 angry with sin. God loves only what is like Himself; 
 He loves in us only His own image; He loves us 
 as He willed us to be. It would not be loving us 
 as He willed us to be, if He were indifferent to 
 the marring of His own image in us. Sin is this 
 marring of His image; sin is opposition to God, a 
 
His Last Hours. 129 
 
 denial of God. God would not be what He is if He 
 did not deny the sin which denies Him. This is the 
 wrath of God. It is not a passionate, a hasty wrath, 
 after the manner of men, but the opposition of His 
 holiness to the. sin which opposes it. His wrath is 
 the obverse of His love. No man truly loves holiness, 
 and advances in the way of holiness, unless he hates 
 and opposes sin,—at least the sin that is in him,—and 
 is anery with himself, the sinner. But God is the 
 absolutely Holy One, and this He could not be if He 
 had that false tenderness which is incapable of anger. 
 This His anger is that result of sin which finds an 
 echo in our own consciousness; and it was to this 
 result of human sin that Jesus submitted. 
 
 It was this that He bore from the time of His 
 
 _incarnation, throughout the whole course of His life 
 on earth, till the overwhelming fact of His death. 
 
 His very entrance upon this life of pain and sorrow 
 was itself a consequence of our sin; and so, moreover, 
 was His work. For it was, indeed, a work of suffering 
 which He undertook, from the temptation which He 
 had to repel at its commencement, throughout all the 
 misconception and enmity He endured, and which 
 extorted from His soul the sigh of complaint, up to 
 His last hours, in which sorrows upon sorrows were 
 heaped upon His head. In all this He was bearing 
 our burden, the consequences of our sins. 
 
 But it was in His last howrs that all which had been 
 during His whole life in preparation was accumulated. 
 
 And how am I to speak of these? No words can give 
 I 
 
130 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 even a remote idea of the momentousness of this 
 subject. Allow me very briefly to direct your atten- 
 tion to the signification of this fact. 
 
 It was night when Jesus left the city to go to 
 Gethsemane, where His last suffering and the con- 
 flict of His soul began. He had but just before called 
 Himself the vine, as bearing and supporting by His 
 strength those disciples who cleave to Him in love 
 and faith, as the branches do to the vine; and now 
 it is He who seeks comfort and assistance, at least the 
 comfort of their society, from them, and finds Himself 
 deserted by them. It was the first, it was the only 
 time in His life that He sought alleviation at the 
 hands of man. At other times it was He who called 
 men to Himself with the promise: I will refresh you. 
 ‘ And out of His fulness, says the apostle, ‘ have all we 
 received grace upon grace.’” He now seeks refreshment 
 from men, but they all forsake Him. He is _alone, - 
 heart alone too, without one to help Him, without 
 one to understand or even faintly to conceive what He 
 has to go through. (") This sorrow of being forsaken ~ 
 and alone in the wide, wide world,—this sorrow, too, 
 was added to the inward anguish of His soul. We all 
 know that Jesus was not wont to use mere empty 
 words, We may have the habit of making choice, for 
 the expression of our feelings, of terms which far 
 exceed the measure of our actual sensations. We 
 know this, and are accustomed to make allowance for 
 it in what we hear said. It ought not so to be; but so 
 
 * John i. 16.—Luther’s version. 
 
His Last hire 131 
 
 itis. With Jesus, as we all know, it was not thus; 
 He was truth itself, even in His shghtest expressions. 
 When He, then, complains to His disciples: ‘My soul 
 is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;’ when He 
 says, in these words, that His heart is ready to break 
 with sorrow and anguish, what a flood of woe and 
 agony must have been rushing over Him! . 
 And what was it which made Him thus inwardly 
 quail? It was the path He had to tread, the death 
 which stood before Him. Yet how strange is this! 
 Many have met death fearlessly, and why should not 
 He? (") I speak not of those who have deadened their 
 feelings and hardened their hearts against the truth of 
 _ the fact. There is an indifference to death into which 
 men can delude themselves. But he who desires to be 
 true cannot but own that death is the king of terrors ; 
 and he who does not own it, has either his eeGeee 
 benumbed, or is untrue to himself. Of such I am not 
 speaking. But how many martyrs have met their 
 death joyfully, and praised God for it! while Jesus 
 -offered strong crying and tears to Him that was able 
 to save Him from death, as the epistle to the Hebrews 
 informs us (Heb. v. 7). But Jesus was more than a 
 martyr. Terrible as death may be to us, it is yet, as 
 we are now constituted, a natural event. We bear it 
 within us from the very first, and we deserve it. With 
 Jesus it was the absolute contradiction to what He 
 was, for He was life itself, the Prince of life; and it 
 is the oreatest of all conceivable Petit can that 
 the life itself should be delivered to death : it was, 
 
132 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 indeed, that by passing through death He might open 
 the path of life, but still by passing through death. 
 He was in absolute communion with the Father; and 
 it is the greatest of all conceivable contradictions that 
 He, the Holy One, who was in eternal and indissoluble 
 communion with the Father, should deliver Himself to 
 the dark powers of death, and the prince of death, a 
 power at enmity with God. It was, indeed, that by 
 this very means He might restore us to communion 
 with God, but yet it was by this means of separation 
 from God. It was a tearing asunder of the inmost. 
 nature of Jesus Christ. It was this which made His 
 very heart to tremble. 
 
 But it was more than death. He saw in spirit, and 
 felt beforehand, how the sin and wickedness of the 
 whole world were combined in what was done to Him. 
 The whole dark depths of our sinful heart, the whole 
 abyss of our soul’s dark passions, were here brought 
 to light. The old contest between good and evil, 
 which had been going on throughout the whole course 
 of history, here gathered together in its full force and 
 sharpest rigour. If we would know what is in man, 
 we must learn it here. It is here that we may see 
 what we are capable of, for it is vain to try and except 
 ourselves. Jesus Christ is indeed to us not an object 
 of hatred, but of love. But He is so because He has 
 borne the hatred of our race. That we now occupy so 
 different a relation towards Him, is a fact which has 
 been since brought about, and brought about by Him- 
 self. What we see in the history of Christ’s passion 
 
His Last Hours. 133 
 
 is a picture of our heart, such as it is when left to 
 itself. Israel and the heathen world joined hands in 
 the deed—the high priest and the Roman governor, 
 the nation of religion and the nation of universal 
 dominion: we might say, Church and State were 
 banded together by common hatred against the Holy 
 One of God. It ‘was this which so moved Christ, that 
 in the fate which He underwent He had to encounter 
 the whole extent and power of sin; that mankind, 
 whom He loved as never man loved, anand be capable 
 . of answering such love with such hatred; that evil 
 should have such power over the human Snel Nor 
 was it only this; for underlying | all this was the will of 
 His Father. It was this which was exposing Him to 
 this ungodly violence; which was, in all this, laying 
 upon Him and causing Him to bear the doom of sin ; 
 which was punishing our sins by His sufferings, in 
 order thus to expiate them; which was letting Him 
 suffer, not merely through the sin, but for the sin of 
 man. It was this which made His anguish so sore, 
 that His heart was nigh to breaking; and for this He 
 had but one remedy, the knowledge which He gained 
 by prayer of the necessity of this suffering. Not 
 merely the knowledge of external inevitableness. Such 
 knowledge may produce resignation, but not acqui- 
 escence; it may lead to surrender, the surrender of 
 the conquered, but cannot conduce to victory. It was 
 rather the knowledge of its inward necessity, the 
 necessity involved in Divine love, which alone could 
 help Him through the heavy trials of the succeeding 
 
134 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 hours, This knowledge, and the acquiescence it pro- 
 duced, made Him victorious,—the knowledge that 
 the cup could only pass away from us by His drink- 
 ing it, that sin could only be atoned for by His paying 
 its penalties, paying through Himself experiencing 
 what it really was, and that these very consequences 
 of sin were to become the causes of restoration. (”) 
 
 He went to meet the traitor, and gaye Himself into 
 the hands of those who were sent to arrest Him. He 
 uttered before the Sanhedrim_that confession which 
 condemned Him, the confession that He was the Son of 
 God, and chose rather to be silent before His secular 
 judge than to say anything which might increase 
 Pilate’s fear, and save His own life. Thus did He make 
 what He underwent His own act and deed, and when 
 ‘He might have had joy,” chose the cross (Heb. xii. 2). 
 
 The ingenuity of man has ever exhausted itself in 
 the invention of torture. Crucifixion is one memorial 
 of this sad ingenuity. It was introduced into Rome 
 from Carthage, and into Palestine from Rome. It was a 
 combination of the most painful tortures. Only slaves 
 and malefactors of the lowest class were thus punished, 
 On this occasion, it was inflicted upon Him who was 
 the Holy One of God, the revelation of Divine love. 
 Israel demanded this punishment, and the heathen 
 power was the instrument which executed it. (") 
 
 For six hours did the Lord hang upon the cross and 
 
 * ‘Da er wohl hitte mégen Freude haben,—erdultete er das 
 
 Kreuz,’ etc. (Heb. xii. 2).—Luther’s translation. ‘* When He might 
 have had joy, He endured the cross,’ etc. 
 
The Cross. 135 
 
 endure its sufferings. Heaven, as the narrative relates, 
 covered the sad scene with a dark veil. Never shall 
 we succeed in raising the veil which conceals the 
 mysterious sufferings of Christ’s soul during these 
 hours. But it is overpowering to behold that even 
 then He was love—interceding, pardoning, considerate 
 love. He prayed for His enemies; He proclaimed 
 pardon and a share in the kingdom of God to the 
 thief on the cross; He committed His mother to the 
 disciple whom He loved. He was, to the very last, 
 the Sat te of love. He Hees love even when 
 as Para as ae own cen an was concerned, even God 
 had deserted Him. It was indeed an indissoluble tie 
 which united Him to the Father; and even now, when 
 all the waves and billows of God’s wrath were going 
 over His head, He was still the Son of His love. But 
 what His heart felt was not love, but desertion. The 
 hardest times in the lives of believers are those when 
 God seems, to their inward perception, to have with- 
 drawn Himself; when they cannot but think them- 
 selves forsaken, and say: ‘I sought Him whom my soul 
 loveth ; I sought Him and found Him not.’ And yet 
 what takes place in our case is but a faint echo of the 
 reality which He experienced in its highest degree. 
 We cannot pass through the same experience; we are 
 incapable even of explaining it intelligibly; but we can 
 form a notion of how He’ felt, from that cry of His 
 anguished heart: ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou 
 forsaken me ?’ 
 
136 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ‘Surely, says the prophet, when, more than seven 
 hundred years before the event, he describes His 
 sufferings as though he were himself standing at the 
 foot of the cross,—‘ surely He hath borne our griefs, 
 and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our 
 transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the 
 chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with 
 His stripes we are healed’ (Isa. li1.). 
 
 God is the greatest when His condescension 1s 
 greatest. Divine love could not descend to greater 
 depths than thus to plunge into this extreme con- 
 sequence of our sin; to receive this suffering into its 
 own inward and essentially Divine life; than that 
 God should thus appropriate what was ours, in order 
 that we might be possessed of what was His. This act 
 of love has ever since been the joy of Christians, and 
 the cross their confession. _ 
 
 To the ancient world, the cross was the symbol of 
 shame; to us, it is our joy, our comfort, and our boast. 
 
 There is nothing which could possibly be more 
 opposed to all our natural ideas than the cross. We 
 can understand a God of majesty ; we can comprehend 
 a manifestation of God in the great interests of 
 humanity ; but nothing could be more directly opposed 
 to our every notion, than that the death on the cross 
 should be His supreme manifestation. ‘To the Jews a 
 stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness, says the 
 apostle (1 Cor. i. 23). And so it is still. And yet it 
 was just the preaching of the cross that conquered the 
 world. In proportion as concessions are made to the 
 
The Cross. 137 
 
 repugnance of the natural reason to the cross, is Chris- 
 tianity weakened, and its efficacy lessened. It is only 
 the Christianity of the cross which is the victory over 
 the world. And it has conquered. A few years since, 
 a drawing representing the Crucified was found upon 
 __the walls of the ancient palace of the Czesars in Rome. 
 The rude sketch speaks to us from the midst of 
 the times of the struggle between Christianity and 
 heathenism, and is a memorial of the manner in which 
 the minds of men were then stirred. Some heathen 
 servant of the emperor is taunting his Christian fellow- 
 servant with this contemptuous sign. The relic 
 belongs to about the year 200, and is by far the most 
 ancient crucifix we know of. But this, the oldest 
 known crucifix, is an ironical one. It isa caricature of 
 Christ, before which a Christian stands worshipping, and 
 it bears the inscription: ‘Alexamenos ’—the name of 
 the derided Christian—‘ worshipping his God.’(") We 
 see that the crucified Saviour and the preaching of the 
 cross were the scorn of the world; and yet this con- 
 quered the world. In the great struggle between 
 heathenism and Christianity, the cross was the sign of 
 victory. Whether the story is true or not, that Con- 
 stantine, before his decisive battle with Maxentius, 
 saw in the clouds of heaven the appearance of a, cross, 
 with the inscription, ‘By this shalt thou conquer, — 
 even if it is a fiction, it is yet truth in the form 
 of fiction, for the cross was the victorious power; 
 and such it will remain. If Christianity is to con- 
 quer the world, it will only do so as the preaching 
 
138 Lecture V. The Work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 of the cross, and not by concessions to the natural 
 reason. 
 
 It is contrary to all natural logic that God should 
 humble Himself to such an extremity. That death 
 upon the tree of shame should be His supreme revela- 
 tion, is contrary to all the logic of the natural reason.; 
 
 f 
 
 But it is the logic of love; and love can hold its own! 
 
 against the logic of the mere understanding, for it has) 
 on its side the higher logic of truth. 
 
 Wondrous paradox! The sign of deepest shame 
 has become the sign of dominion and of consolation. 
 The cross now stands upon the high places of the 
 earth ; it is a mark of honour and of graceful_orna- 
 ment to Christians; the place around which their 
 thoughts gather, and where their hearts meet. If we 
 would truly understand God, we must make the cross 
 our starting point, for it is here that His holiness and 
 His love are found united: If we would have com- 
 munion with God, we must seek it at the cross, for 
 it is here that judgment is executed on the sin which 
 separates us from God, and here that the love is 
 manifested which unites us with Him. So long, 
 therefore, as there are Christians on earth—and that 
 will be to the end’of time—their confession will be: 
 ‘He who died upon the cross is my Beloved.’ 
 
 Now, however, He is seated on the throne of His 
 majesty, and to this subject I shall proceed next time 
 I address you. 
 
bp Oa es Of ve Oa a 
 
 THE CONCLUSION OF THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 
 AND THE TRINITY. 
 
 === FA\N our last lecture we accompanied the Lord 
 j| Jesus to His death upon the cross; let 
 us now accompany Him from the depth 
 of His abasement to the height of His 
 glory, to the throne of His majesty. 
 
 In His death, the contradiction running through 
 His whole life, the contradiction between His eternal 
 nature and His historical reality, became as great as 
 was possible, without destroying the unity of the 
 Divine life itself. This contradiction required a solu- 
 tion in a state of life in which His historical reality 
 should be one with His very nature, and its corres-— 
 ponding expression. Ever since sin has been in the 
 world, the law of its moral government has been, that 
 humiliation is the way to exaltation, and that the 
 tension of contrasts leads to harmony of existence: 
 per crucem ad lucem, through the cross to the crown. 
 We all hope for a life of glorification and enlighten- 
 ment, where all the contrarieties of this existence will 
 be resolved into harmony. But the road to this 
 
140 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 future state leads through death, through this greatest 
 tension of opposites. We know, however, that beyond 
 death lies eternal life. The pledge of this assurance_ 
 is Jesus Christ. He died in order to rise again to a . 
 perfected life of glory. This is the reconciliation of 
 the oppositions exhibited by His earthly existence. 
 From this point it is that a light is thrown both back- 
 wards and forwards; hence, everything relating to 
 Him turns upon His resurrection, which is the foun-_, 
 dation of Christianity. | 
 
 There is, however, hardly anything which has been 
 so much the object both of attack and defence, in the 
 religious conflicts of the present day, as the question 
 of Christ’s resurrection, for it is the decisive question. 
 If Christ is risen, then is His life, then is His person, 
 a miracle; if He is not risen, then He stands within 
 the limits of the natural, and Christianity is a pro- 
 duction of the natural intellect. 
 
 The resurrection has been denied upon doctrinal 
 grounds. Criticism, it is said, must explain every- 
 thing naturally. This is a vital point in criticism; 
 hence, Jesus cannot have risen. We must not, it is 
 said, exact from our race, and from modern conscious- 
 ness, a belief in a,miraculous Christianity, for this 
 would be a contradiction to modern consciousness. (’) 
 
 But Christianity is a contradiction to the natural 
 mind as it is in consequence of sin; and the Christian 
 is a contradiction to the natural man as he is in con- 
 sequence of sin. It is true that Christ is the truth of 
 man, but only because He is the rupture with the old 
 
Reality of Christ's Resurrection. 141 
 
 man. Now, what is true of Christ is true of Chris- 
 tianity. It is above all a judgment upon merely natural 
 reason. Only in this way is its higher truth manifested. 
 He who would expunge the paradoxy of Christianity, 
 expunges Christianity itself; and he who will have no 
 Gospel which is foolishness in the eyes of the natural 
 man, will have no Gospel at all. He who thinks to 
 help Christianity to conquer the world by giving up 
 its miraculousness, cuts through the very sinews of its 
 strength. It is not by the way of concessions that it 
 has conquered the world. 
 
 The resurrection has been denied both upon dog- 
 matic and philosophic grounds. But the question 1s 
 
 _one of history, and not of philosophy. It concerns a 
 fact and not a view. Facts cannot be overthrown by 
 arguments and views, but only by the adduction of 
 historical evidence. Let us first, then, establish the 
 Jact. 
 
 The disciples believed in the resurrection of Jesus. 
 With this faith they went out into the world, with the 
 assurance that they had seen and had intercourse with 
 the risen Saviour. They conquered and converted the 
 world, and suffered death for this faith. This is a 
 fact which no one controverts, which no one has yet 
 controverted. The question is only how this fact is to 
 
 «be explained. (’) 
 
 Was it delusion? Did the Lord not really die, but 
 only fall into a trance, and, reviving after a short in- 
 terval of apparent death, go forth from the grave into 
 life again? Such is the way in which rationalism for- 
 
142 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 merly got over the difficulty, and which even Schleier- 
 macher did not disdain to adopt. But “it was an 
 impossible one, and the acute criticism of Strauss has 
 made it for ever such. It may certainly have happened 
 once, or even several times, that a crucified man has 
 been taken down from the cross before death, and his 
 life saved by the most careful attention and medical 
 skill; but that One who had suffered those mortal 
 agonies during six hours, and had revived from His 
 death-like exhaustion—that such a One, with His broken 
 strength, and with that deadly weakness which would 
 utterly prostrate Him, and make the most anxious care 
 necessary, could give His followers the impression that 
 He was a conqueror over death and the grave, and 
 enkindle within them a joyful assurance of victory, and 
 a certain hope of a better life, and raise them at a 
 stroke out of the darkness of mourning and doubt to 
 the joy of a world-conquering faith—to accept this as 
 truth, is not common sense, but folly. A revival from 
 a state of trance is insufficient to explain the faith of 
 the disciples. ? 
 
 Perhaps, then, their own notions may account for it ?.. 
 Did not their faith, that Jesus was the Messiah, require 
 the resurrection as its necessary consequence, and thus 
 eradually lead them to the supposition that He had 
 really risen? This is the modern plan for getting over 
 the difficulty. But how is this possible? The logic 
 of the day did not run thus: Jesus is the Messiah, 
 therefore He must_rise; He must rise, therefore He is 
 risen; and therefore it was believed that the risen 
 
Reality of Christ's Resurrection. 143 
 
 Saviour had been seen and spoken with ;—but rather: 
 Jesus died, therefore it was_ a mistake to have re- 
 
 _garded_ Him as the Messiah (Luke xxiv. 21). Nor 
 was His Messiahship again accepted till His resurrec- 
 ...tion was certain. Scripture testifies (¢.g., Acts 1. 33, 36) 
 that it was not His Messiahship which was a reason for 
 belief in His resurrection, but His resurrection which 
 was a reason for the belief that He was the Messiah. 
 Even if the resurrection of Jesus was a fiction of His 
 disciples, originating through their own reflections, 
 this at least would be certain, that such a revolution 
 in their thoughts and frame of mind would not have 
 taken place in a few days, and that external facts of 
 some kind would even then be needed. 
 
 This is admitted, and so this intrinsic change in the 
 thoughts of the disciples is helped out with certain 
 occurrences. The aid of Visions i is appealed to. The 
 disciples did not see their risen Lord; they only believed 
 they saw Him. Their excitement was so great as to 
 amount to visions of the imagination. This began with 
 the women; the men followed. How, then, did it come 
 _. about ? poate the orave was empty. The grave 
 was certainly empty on the Sunday morning. How 
 
 came it to be empty? And what notion could be 
 more natural to the disciples than that either the Lord 
 had_ risen, or that His body had been taken away 2 
 Mary Magdalene at least, of whose state of enthusiastic 
 ecstasy so much has been said, only came to the second 
 and more sober-minded conclusion (John xx. 13): And 
 even if the women saw visions, what about the men 
 
144 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trimty. 
 
 (Luke xxiv. 22\—these men of active life, these fisher- 
 men of Galilee, with their sound sense and strong 
 nerves? and those ‘five hundred brethren, to whose 
 testimony St Paul appeals (1 Cor. xv. 6)? and the 
 whole Christian Church of primitive times, than which 
 no body of men could be farther removed from the 
 visionary condition and phenomena of a morbidly ex- 
 cited state of nerves? -It is impossible. And then 
 the Apostle Paul? The most desperate efforts have 
 been made to do away with his testimony. He has 
 been represented as the subject of nervous disorders, of ~ 
 epilepsy, *) as though it were not undertaking a still 
 more difficult task to explain how so essentially sound 
 a mind, and so blessed _a work as his, could proceed 
 from so diseased a source. And how, too, is the phe- 
 nomenon which he himself presents to us_to be ex- 
 plained? Nothing was more opposed to his notions. 
 His vision of the Lord was no fruit of his inner de-— 
 velopment ; it was a sentence of condemnation upon his 
 whole past life. Like the thunder of God, it struck him 
 to the earth, and overthrew all his Pharisaic theology. 
 His former world was laid in ruins, and a new one 
 dawned upon his mind. A man would surely know 
 whether such a turning point in his life were.a_real 
 event or a dream. It was a fact which decided him. 
 From that time he became a preacher of the risen 
 Saviour, and the_resurrection was to him the founda- 
 tion of the whole Christian faith, and the proof of it. 
 ‘Tf Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet 
 in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep 
 
Reality of Jesus Christ. 145 
 
 in Christ are perished’ (1 Cor. xv. 17,18). No one can 
 speak more decidedly or unmistakably. If the resur- 
 rection is a delusion, then Christianity, at least the 
 Christianity of the apostles and of Holy Scripture, is a 
 delusion, and a new one must be invented. But this 
 is needless, for if any one fact of history is certain, it 
 is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
 
 And that not only on_historical, but on_internal 
 grounds. If Jesus himself is an exception to rule, why 
 should rule be appealed to against the resurrection? (’) 
 Far rather do both His person and His work require it. 
 His person: for it was necessary that His order of life 
 . should correspond to what He really was. Resurrec- 
 tion was but the necessary consequence of His earthly » 
 life. For how should the lot of Him who was the 
 life itself, terminate in death ? and the life of Him who 
 was the eternal Son of God, end in the grave, and far 
 from God? He could not have been what He. truly 
 was, had He continued in the state of death. Death 
 was the contradiction to His person. Hence death 
 was forced to yield to that new order of life which 
 His person required. And His work: for this was 
 atonement and redemption, and our faith in the 
 atonement has no Divine authentication till God ‘by 
 this fact proves Him to be our atonement. The re- 
 surrection is the proof by fact, on the part of God, 
 that sin is forgiven. And redemption is not perfected 
 until the power of death is overcome by the victorious 
 power of life in His resurrection. This has ever since 
 
 been the foundation of our_hope. 
 A ES Sh i 
 
146 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 The resurrection “of Christ, then, is certain: ‘not 
 merely on historical grounds ; it is no less so on internal 
 grounds. | 
 
 But the Christian creed continues with the words: 
 ‘He ascended into heaven. He sitteth at the right hand 
 of God, the Father Almighty. | 
 
 Jesus Christ rules the ages. He has become the 
 ruling power of the world and of its history; and 
 that not merely in the sense of any other general 
 intellectual power; for we do not mean merely that 
 it is the spirit of Christianity which rules the world, . 
 by having combined with the intellectual life of man- 
 kind. This could effect no inward renovation nor 
 moral regeneration. Neither have we to deal with the 
 influence left behind by the person’ of Christ; an in-__ 
 fluence which, propagated from generation to genera- 
 tion by the vibrations of that vital power which 
 proceeded from Him, is thus communicated to every 
 individual who comes within the radius of its 
 agency.(*) Christ- is not merely a past greatness, but 
 a present living power. When He took leave of His 
 disciples, it was with the words: ‘Lo, I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world’ He is gone to 
 God, that He may be near to us. He has cast aside 
 the boundaries of space, that He may be everywhere 
 present. He departed from the circle of His disciples, 
 that He might be with His Church at all times and in 
 all places. Christianity is not a mere subject or sys- 
 tem of thought, not a code of morals, but a personal _ 
 relation—the personal relation to Jesus Christ; for 
 
Resurrection and Exaltation of Christ. 147 
 
 Jesus Christ is not the Mediator who once procured 
 through His mediation our communion with God: 
 He continues to be our Mediator. He will not make 
 Himself superfluous, nor does He desire to be so con- 
 sidered. Our communion with God is ever caused by 
 His present mediation. This is Christianity. And 
 every Christian knows that progress in Christianity is 
 a progress in personal relation to Jesus Christ. We 
 may be certain, that in so far as we are indifferent to 
 Jesus Christ, so far are we retrograding as Christians ; 
 for so far are we at a distance from Him. For He 
 will be near to us, only that we may be near to Him. 
 
 His departure from earth marked the commence- 
 ment of a higher kind of presence, a higher. order 
 of agency. He now rules the ages} He will rule 
 hearts. | 
 
 All history roust serve Him. The first impression 
 made upon every acute observer, by the course of the 
 world’s history, and also the deepest meaning which 
 the most penetrating research can discover, is that all 
 things, both great and small, are tending towards one 
 end—an end not laid down by man, but one which is 
 in the hand of a Higher Power, even the end of the’ 
 Kingdom of God and of Christ. For what reasonable 
 man doubts that Christianity will yet become the 
 universal religion? And what else does this mean, 
 than that every knee shall bow to Jesus Christ? All 
 things subserve this end, evil as well as good—the 
 progress of the human intellect no less than the 
 triumphs of morality, The Divine government of the 
 
148 Lecture VI. Rederaption and the Trimty. 
 
 world is placed at the command. of Jesus Christ ; it is 
 He who loosens the seals of the future. 
 
 But it is not merely in the aggregate of mankind 
 that His work is being carried on: He concerns Him- 
 self no less with the individual; for He dwells not 
 merely in the world and its history, but still more in 
 the heart and in the inner spiritual life of the in- 
 dividual. It is here that He desires to dwell and to 
 work; and the work which He carries on in the 
 individual soul is to bring that salvation which He 
 made an historical fact to the world, and which He 
 completed and deposited in His own person, into the 
 heart of each individual, and to make it a fact_of his 
 spiritual life. 
 
 But this is an operation carried on within the pro- 
 
 vince of our spiritual life, and, therefore, a spiritual _ 
 
 operation—an operation of spirit upon spirit. Hence 
 Christ carries on this work by His Spirit, called in 
 Scripture the Holy Spirit. As Christ fulfilled the 
 will and work of the Father upon earth, so does the 
 Holy Spirit administer the will and work of. Christ 
 in the human soul. What Christ effected in the 
 world of history, the Spirit inwardly appropriates and 
 brings into the inner world of the human soul; for 
 this has been the work of the Spirit of God from the 
 beginning. 
 
 The Holy Spirit is frequently spoken of even in the 
 Old Testament. He there appears _as_ the power of 
 Divine life, producing life in the world—liffe natural 
 and intellectual as well as moral; for it was He who, 
 
 } 
 
The Holy Spirit. . 149 
 
 as Scripture represents, in the beginning animated the 
 earth, so that from it. proceeded the manifold forms, 
 whether of the vegetable or animal kingdom. It was 
 He who called forth the intellectual life of man, and 
 who is ever its origin and cause. It was He who 
 awakened in the prophets their higher knowledge, and 
 in the saints their moral affections. Thus He every- 
 where implants in the world the life of God, and forms 
 «the bond of communion between God_and the world. 
 But since the blessing of redemption and the new life 
 of grace has been achieved, and brought near by Jesus 
 Christ, it is His office to convey this new life into the 
 souls of men, and to enable them to appropriate the 
 salvation offered them in Christ. This has been the 
 _mission of the Holy Spirit since the work of Christ 
 was finished. () Hence He forms the bond of com- 
 munion which unites the souls of men with God and 
 Christ, and binds our hearts in faith and love to our 
 Redeemer. For communion with Christ does not con- 
 sist in externals, but is an inward relation. It is not 
 forms and formulas, not certain practices and external 
 ordinances, which make us Christians, but the Spirit 
 of Jesus Christ dwelling in our hearts and ruling our 
 thoughts and desires. The pre-Christian era sought 
 religion in external forms and practices. We know 
 that its home is in the heart, and that its essence 
 consists in the love of the renewed heart to God, who 
 is eternal love. A new era for the soul began with 
 Christ. For it was into the depths of the human 
 spirit that He threw His word of truth, and into the 
 
150 Lecture VI. . Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 very secret chambers of the soul that He cast those 
 cords of love which unite us to the eternal world. For 
 what He brought to us was that mystery of the Divine 
 heart and of His eternal love, which can only be 
 understood by the human heart and its love. But the 
 interpreter of the mystery of God to our spirit is the 
 Holy Spirit, and it is by Him that the mind of Chris- 
 tendom is roused, the life. of Christendom excited. 
 Christianity has conquered the world—the world of 
 mind and of thought, as well as the world of morals 
 and of public life. But its mightiest triumph is its 
 conquest of hearts. It is in this agency upon the soul 
 that the Divine work of salvation is completed. The 
 history of salvation is like a stream flowing through 
 the ages. It rises in the ancient times of the Old 
 Testament, with its prophets and heroes; flows onwards 
 through Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Golgotha; but it 
 is ever tending towards the heart of man, and it is 
 there that it must empty itself, for it proceeded from 
 the heart of God, and eternal love is its source. As 
 the rivers of earth arise amid the dark and silent 
 recesses of the lofty mountains, so, too, the stream of 
 our salvation had its origin in another world, in the 
 silent mystery of eternity, whither no glance of the 
 human mind can penetrate, and of which no human ~ 
 tongue can bring us any information. But that which 
 was born of the counsel of Divine love, in the bosom 
 of eternity, rushes down from these everlasting heights 
 into time, and traverses its broad plains, till it arrives 
 at that silent haven of all life which we call the human 
 
Confession of the Trinity. 7 Ne 
 
 heart. Here, in the silence of the soul, in the un- 
 fathomable mystery of the inner life, in the solitary 
 chambers of the heart, whither no eye can penetrate, 
 and to whose deepest feeling the tongue shuns to give 
 expression—here it is that the eternal thought of the 
 Divine love and its history become an inward ex- 
 perience; here it is that it finds its resting place. 
 But here it does but collect its forces, that it may 
 begin its course anew, and pour forth fresh streams of 
 life, which shall at last find their end in that eternal 
 world, that world of glory, that world of God’s child- 
 ren, their eternal rest upon the heart of God. _ 
 
 ‘O the depth of the riches !’ exclaimed the apostle, 
 when his mind was overwhelmed by similar contempla- 
 tions (Rom. xi. 33, etc.),—‘O the depth of the riches, 
 both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How 
 unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past 
 finding out! For of Him, and through Him, and to 
 Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever!’ 
 
 When, then, we would sum up in a few words the 
 faith which we confess, we say: I believe in God the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, For the meaning of our 
 faith in the Triune God is, that we acknowledge the 
 God who has revealed salvation to us,—a salvation 
 whose history has its origin in the heart of God, and 
 its end in the glorified world of renewed human beings. 
 
 ‘When Jesus, before His departure, gave command- 
 ment to His disciples to baptize in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. 
 xxviii, 19), He. comprised in these. three names the 
 
152 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 whole revelation of salvation, in which the mystery of 
 God has been disclosed; and when we designate be- 
 lievers in Christ as believers in the Triune God, we 
 confess thereby faith in that God of love who has been 
 manifested in the work of redemption. It is from this 
 point of view that the Trinity must be understood, 
 
 But can it be generally understood? Are we not 
 all far from understanding it? Is not this notion of 
 the Trinity an impossible one? Truly, the very word 
 is preceded, as it were, by a rumour of the difficulties 
 which accompany it, and of the internal contradictions 
 which prohibit reasoning upon it. For how, it is 
 asked, can the part be equal to the whole, or one 
 equal to three? And yet the greatest minds, from 
 Augustine to Leibnitz, have believed in and investi- 
 gated it. And after rationalism, with its superficial 
 criticism, had rejected the dogma as nonsense, the 
 latest system of philosophy found therein the expres- 
 sion of its profoundest ideas. It is true that it mis- 
 applied to its own ‘purpose the meaning of the dogma; 
 yet, after all, it brought it into favour again. And 
 however slight a value 3 may be set upon the authority 
 of great minds, this much at least is certain, that this 
 doctrine cannot, without farther ceremony, be delivered 
 up to the jurisdiction of the multiplication. table. 
 Certainly one is not equal to three; but only miscon- 
 ception could find such an assertion here. Does the 
 nature of God belong as much to mathematics as the 
 figures of asum? Has not every nature its own laws ? 
 If we say of God that He is one, do we ‘speak of the 
 
 — 
 
Meaning of the Trinity. 153 
 
 bare and empty unity of amere number? Is there not 
 also a unity which includes within itself all fulness ? 
 Should we be adequately estimating the nature of the 
 free and rational soul of man, if we were to consider 
 it merely according to mathematical laws? But God 
 is greater than the human soul, and is removed far 
 -beyond any standard which our intelligence can fur- 
 nish. Can we, then, wonder if the fulness of the 
 Divine nature should not submit to the limits of our 
 thought, and should overflow the banks of our powers 
 of expression? It is but natural that, by reason of 
 this disproportion of our reason and its forms to the 
 subject i in question, difficulties should arise, and doubt 
 and scruple be produced. From the time when I 
 began to think, the first youthful doubt of which I 
 was conscious, was concerning the doctrine of the 
 Trinity; and my last thoughts will certainly get no 
 farther than did those of Melancthon, who comforted 
 himself upon his deathbed with the hope that, in the 
 world to come, he should be acquainted with those 
 mysteries of God which, in this life, he had been 
 incapable of comprehending. And how long has the 
 incomprehensibility of any subject been considered a 
 proof of its non-reality ? If it is so, the limits of 
 reality must be extremely narrowed. If it is so, God 
 himself would be non-existent, for He will ever re- 
 main. incomprehensible. (°) ‘God dwelleth,” as the 
 apostle says (1 Tim. vi. 16), ‘in the light which no 
 ‘man can approach unto,’ And if God is incompre- 
 hensible, why should not that distinction in His life, 
 
154 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 which we designate by the name of the Trinity, be 
 so too ? 
 
 One of the greatest minds that ever lived was 
 Augustine. For a whole millenary did the West 
 derive its mental nourishment from him; and at the 
 present day we are still his scholars. Great part of 
 his powers of mind were devoted to the investigation 
 of this mystery, and whatever has since been philo- 
 sophically taught or thought concerning this doctrine 
 has been chiefly a mere treading in his steps. He was 
 one day, as tradition relates, wandering by the sea shore, 
 lost in thought, and meditating the plan of a work on 
 this doctrine, when he saw a boy playing and making 
 a ditch in the sand. When Augustine asked him 
 what he was doing, ‘I want, he said, ‘to empty the 
 sea into my ditch” ‘And am I not trying to do the 
 same as this child, said Augustine to himself, ‘in 
 seeking to exhaust with my reason the infinity of 
 God, and to collect it within the limits of my own 
 mind ?’ 
 
 We are not obliged to understand a matter perfectly, 
 in order to feel certain about it; nor need we be able 
 to refute all the objections site may be urged 
 against our faith, in order to be relieved from per- 
 plexity concerning it. Do we not all know how much 
 easier it is to question than to answer? There is 
 another kind of certainty than that of the understand- 
 ing. One need not bea oreat theologian to be a good 
 Christian ; and the possession of great scientific know- 
 ledge is not necessary to the possession of truth. 
 
Meaning of the Trinity. 155 
 
 Even the greatest theologian knows no more truths 
 necessary to salvation than the simplest Christian ; 
 he is only, perhaps, better able to prove and defend 
 them. Nevertheless, in every Christian, faith is press- 
 ing on towards knowledge, and truth has ‘a tendency 
 to become the possession of the understanding as well 
 as of the heart. The lazy ignorance which does not 
 care to give a reason for anything, and the learned 
 conceit which thinks itself able to explain everything, 
 are both equally reprehensible. (’) 
 
 How, then, are we to understand the doctrine of the 
 Trinity ? It is not a mystery for scholars, but the 
 confession of Christians; not knowledge for the ini- 
 tiated, but a fundamental article of faith for all. ‘I 
 believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.’ In 
 these words is comprised the whole of Christianity. 
 But Christianity is not for the aristocratic circle of 
 great minds, but for all people. It is not philosophy, 
 it is religion ; ‘and religion is, or at least ought to be, 
 the most popular thing extant. And so, too, should 
 the doctrine of the Trinity. It is no philosophical 
 theorem. It may be that it conceals within it depths 
 which the profoundest speculation may in vain seek 
 to fathom; but it must be, at the same time, that 
 as truth which the simplest Christian is able to 
 river, in which an elephant might be drowned, and 
 which yet a lamb might ford. (’) The doctrine of the 
 Trinity is the fundamental article of Christianity. 
 But Christianity is the religion of redemption. Hence 
 
156 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 this doctrine is no dogma of philosophic speculation, 
 but the expression of our faith in redemption. Hence, 
 too, the pre-Christian era knew nothing of it, for it 
 knew nothing of redemption; and no reflection of the 
 human intellect could ever have attained to it. But 
 when redemption was accomplished, this truth was 
 involved in it. When the Lord was risen, He spoke 
 of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and 
 the disciples asked Him for no explanation. In 
 the facts of redemption the mystery of God was 
 disclosed, and in this appellation, the Triune God, 
 they recognised the facts of redemption. Thus the 
 expression was to them equivalent to Christianity 
 itself. 
 
 When God steps forth from the darkness which con- 
 ceals Him, and is about to reveal Himself to man, He 
 is ever preceded by presentiments of the human mind. 
 as His forerunners. Yet these are but shadows of 
 things to come—creations of the mind without reality. 
 It is the acts of the self revealing God which first give 
 these empty notions substance. Thus, presentient ideas 
 of the Triune God were already stirring in individual. 
 minds. The wisdom of God, the word of God, were 
 spoken of ;(") but they were unsubstantial, without flesh 
 and blood-—the mere product from the human intellect. 
 The knowledge of the Triune God himself, it entered 
 into no heart or thought of man to conceive. This 
 knowledge was no discovery of the human mind, but a 
 revelation of the Divine love. It was not till God 
 revealed Himself as the Triune God that He was 
 
God's Triune Revelation. 1H7 
 
 known as such. It was not till He revealed Himself 
 as Father, Son, and Spirit, that He was acknowledged 
 as Father, Son, and Spirit. And this, too, must be our 
 way to the knowledge of Him. It is sin ] His revelation 
 that we, too, must find the Triune God. We must 
 begin with Jesus Christ, if we would be certain of the 
 Trinity of God; with the knowledge that Christ was 
 the revelation of God; that in His intrinsic and eternal 
 nature He is one with God, and that the Spirit of 
 Jesus Christ, who works in our souls, is the Spirit of 
 God himself. God has revealed Himself to us in this 
 .« distinction of Father, ‘Son, and Spirit; and our faith 
 rests upon this threefold revelation, and sees in it the 
 revelation of one and the same God. And it is the 
 whole great drama, of redemption which we designate 
 when we profess our faith in the Trinity. What the 
 Father demands, the Son performs ;- and what the Son 
 effected, the Holy Spirit appropriates to us. The 
 Father sends the Son into this our world; the Son 
 atones for our guilt, and reconciles us to God; the 
 Holy Spirit makes us the children of God, and pro- 
 duces a new life of love in our hearts. It is upon this 
 threefold act of God that our salvation ever depends ; 
 
 and it is an act of one and the same God. For what 
 the Son has done for us, and what the Holy Spirit 
 effects within us, is all the act of that same God who 
 from eternity willed our salvation, and in the fulness 
 of the time accomplished it. He accomplished it, how- 
 ever, under the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, and of this threefold revelation, We do but 
 
158 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 profess a belief in our salvation in the acts by which 
 He effected our redemption, when we profess our belief 
 in God as the Triune God. This was Christ’s meaning 
 when He made this confession the fundamental con- 
 fession of His Church. It is not a speculative view of 
 the nature of God which is expressed by it, but our 
 faith in redemption as it has been actually effected 
 and is constantly being brought to pass by this triune 
 revelation of God. 
 
 But the revelation of God is the mirrored reflection _ 
 of His nature. God would not be the Triune in the 
 history of His revelation, if He were not such in the 
 mystery of His nature. The work of salvation would 
 not have been accomplished in a triune manner, if the 
 very life of love did not itself exist in a triune manner. 
 By the same steps by which the Deity has descended 
 from His secret dwelling into time and its history, must 
 our mind ascend to the heights of the Divine mystery, 
 and venture a glance into the hidden abyss of His 
 nature. The One God includes within Himself a ful- 
 ness, in whose variety the process of His life of love is 
 accomplished ; and yet throughout this distinction of 
 Himself, the unity of His nature and His life is main- 
 tained. But who can fitly speak on such a subject? 
 They are indeed but stammering words that we can 
 utter. We speak of three persons in the Divine nature. 
 It is an inadequate expression; but we have no other~ 
 for it. All our words are derived from human relations, 
 and are insufficient for the expression of a Divine one, 
 We are but too conscious of the inadequacy of language, 
 
Trinity of the Divine Nature. 159 
 
 when we seek to apply it to the mystery of God. But, 
 designate it as we will, our designation must still re- 
 main an insufficient one. What we want to say is but 
 this: that the unity of God is not a simple but an 
 effected one ; that God’s i inner life of love is carried on 
 by. an read self distinction of God; that this eternal 
 distinction in God includes within it the whole Divine 
 nature, so that God is in this sense a triune being; and 
 that then this eternal Trinity, as we call it, set itself 
 in motion, and entered into history to realise therein 
 the eternal counsel of love. 
 
 The attempt has been made to render the mystery 
 of three persons in one Divine nature more easy of 
 comprehension by means of the analogies of human 
 mental life; for since God made us in His own image 
 and likeness, we have a right to think of God after 
 our image and likeness, as the supreme prototype 
 of our own spiritual existence. It was that great 
 Church father, Augustine, who first struck out for suc- 
 cessive ages the path on which their speculations on 
 the Trinity afterwards advanced. The notion may be 
 nearly thus expressed: As our spiritual existence is 
 exercised and fulfils itself in the acts of knowing and 
 willing; as our mind does not exist without knowing 
 itself and willing itself; and as in each of these acts of 
 our mind our whole mind is present,—so also does the 
 eternal life of God fulfil itself in the eternal acts of 
 knowing and willing. God knows Himself eternally ; 
 God wills Himself eternally. The result of these Divine 
 _ acts is those distinctions in God which we designate as 
 
160 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trinity. 
 
 the three persons of the Godhead. The Son is the 
 eternal self thought of God, the result of His know- 
 ledge; the Holy Spirit is the eternal love of God, by 
 which God wills Himself. For before God knows. and 
 wills the extra-Divine, the world and mankind,—this 
 imperfect copy of God—He must know and will 
 Himself in His perfect counterpart, for He alone is 
 the worthy and adequate object of His own knowledge 
 and love. These acts of the Divine life are, more- 
 over, no transitory notions or emotions, as in our case, 
 but abiding acts, which also really suppose their~ 
 object. God, by knowing and willing Himself eter- 
 nally, supposes Himself in His perfect image. Thus, 
 then, God is hereby involved in an inward self-dis- 
 tinction. He who knows is distinct from the self 
 that He knows, while in His love He gathers Himself 
 again into unity with Himself. This is the method 
 of explaining the mystery of the Trinity from the 
 nature of God, which has been familiar to the Church 
 from ancient times, and on which all the variations of 
 this explanation are founded. (") 
 
 But let us not forget that these are but attempts at 
 explanation, which, though they may have their value, 
 do not form the foundations of our faith. It is not 
 upon the notions of human wisdom, nor upon the 
 changing forms of human speculation, that our faith 
 rests, but upon the facts of the external and internal 
 history of salvation. God has revealed Himself, in a 
 triune manner, as Father, Son, and Spirit, in the 
 history of salvation; and we, in the work of the 
 
Faith in the Trinity. 161 
 
 appropriation of salvation, through which we become 
 Christians, have experience of God according to this 
 distinction ; as Him to whom we are reconciled, as 
 Him Anta whom we are reconciled, and as the 
 Spirit who has inwardly appropriated to us the grace 
 of reconciliation, and made it to become to us the 
 power of a new life. It is thus that we become 
 certain that there are distinctions in the Godhead, 
 that God is the Triune God. He, the Triune God, it 
 is who cherished in His heart the counsel of our 
 salvation; He, the Triune God, who, in the history 
 of mankind, effected this counsel of His love; He, the 
 Triune God, who manifested His love to our hearts, 
 and made us the children of His grace. In Christ, 
 ' God ever chose to love us; in Christ, God redeemed us 
 ‘in time; in Christ are we the children of His love for 
 _ eternity. It is only in Christ, and not out of Christ, 
 
 _ that we have the God of salvation. Out of Christ 
 
 God is the consuming majesty, before which no man 
 can endure. They who would know and find God to 
 be eternal love, the reconciled God, the God of grace, 
 can only find Him such in Christ;(°) but to know, 
 to find, to have Christ in faith, in love, and in hope, 
 this—we confess it—is not our work, but the work of 
 God the Holy Spirit. The Triune God alone is perfect 
 love, and the revelation of the Triune God the perfect 
 revelation of love. 
 
 - Hence, therefore, is the God of Christians the Triune 
 God, and all Christian knowledge of God the know- 
 
 ledge of the Triune; for the God of Christianity is 
 L 
 
162 Lecture VI. Redemption and the Trimty. 
 
 perfect love, and Christianity is the revelation and 
 proclamation of this love. 
 
 It is no speculation which we thus express, no mere 
 notion of God which we entertain, but it is the con- 
 fession of the faith which saves us. To say: God is 
 Triune, is to say God is the God of redemption ; to 
 deny the Trinity, is to deny redemption; to acknow- 
 ledge the Trinity, 1s to acknowledge redemption. 
 Christianity is the religion of redemption; hence its 
 central point is the confession of the Triune God. _ 
 It has ever been so in all Christian Churches on earth. 
 This confession receives us at our entrance into the 
 world in Baptism; we make it when_confirmation 
 admits us among the congregation of communicants ; 
 it is the expression of our faith when our Christianity 
 becomes a conscious fact of our inner life in_con- 
 version; and that future knowledge which we hope 
 for, those solutions which we long for, in eternity, will 
 all centre around the theme: I believe in God the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
 
LECTURE Vil 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 fog ee aE Church is to form the subject of my 
 ae! present lecture. 
 
 In the apostles’ creed, we say: I believe 
 in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic 
 Church. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost, who con- 
 cludes the work of salvation effected by the Triune 
 God, is immediately succeeded by the doctrine of the 
 Church; for the Church was the first work of the 
 Holy aie 
 
 It is not enough to acknowledge God in the work 
 
 of creation, nor even in the work of redemption: we 
 must also acknowledge Him in the work of sanctifica- 
 tion,—that is, in the Church; for the Christian creed 
 confesses the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Holy 
 Ghost. Atheism denies the Creator; Deism denies 
 the Redeemer; Rationalism denies the presence of the 
 Holy Ghost in the Church. There must be a desire 
 to find God, if we are to discover Him in creation; for 
 creation conceals as much as it manifests Him. There 
 must be an eye for true greatness, if we are to see in 
 Jesus Christ and His redemption a true revelation of 
 
164 Lecture VII. | The Church. 
 
 God; for His form of a servant seems to be a contra- 
 diction. And even so it is with the Church. She 
 bears the heavenly treasure in an earthen vessel, and 
 there must be spiritual eyesight to discern the pre- 
 sence of God in her. But they who are willing to see 
 and hear, find God to be in her of a truth. (’) 
 
 Whatever we may think of the Church, this much 
 is at least certain: it is a fact. And what a fact! 
 Let it be our first endeavour to bring it clearly be- 
 fore us. 
 
 Even if we regard the Church as only a work of the 
 human mind, and not a creation of the Divine, we 
 cannot but acknowledge that it is the most wonderful 
 of works. Outwardly regarded, it is an association of ~ 
 mankind; an organism of intellectual life; an institu- 
 tion in which religion has found her home. We are 
 accustomed to combine Church and State in our 
 thoughts, and they have a certain relationship to each 
 other; they are the largest social circles of human 
 life. But where is there a State which can compare 
 with the Church for the antiquity of its existence or 
 the elasticity of its life? How many storms have 
 passed over the Church! She has survived them all! 
 Nations and kingdoms have disappeared from the 
 earth; the Church has remained. She saw the last 
 days of the Roman empire; she stood at its grave and 
 bestowed upon it a parting blessing. She stood at the 
 cradle of the German empire, and has taken her share 
 in the varied events which have befallen it; she ac- 
 companied it upon its pilgrimages and crusades, and 
 
The Church a Fact. 165 
 
 assisted in the arrangement of its domestic relations; 
 she saw the days of its greatness, shared its days of 
 tribulation, and has survived its downfall. Nothing 
 of the ancient German empire remains: except the 
 dream of our youth, and the hope of the future; but 
 the Church still is what she was at the time of the 
 coronation of Charles the Fifth. The change of times 
 has indeed affected her. The alterations which human 
 society and the human mind have undergone, have 
 caused alterations in the Church. She has been drawn 
 into the stream of history, and has allowed herself to be 
 carried away thereby; but she has remained the same. 
 Her forms have changed, her appearance is altered, 
 but. her nature is ever the same; and her creed is the 
 same that it was in the days of th apostles. It is the 
 one same Triune God whose salvation she proclaims, 
 with whose consolations she comforts, and to whom 
 she calls the nations, as to a sure refuge in the 
 tempests of the times. She has suffered losses, but 
 she has also made conquests. Where, in Asia Minor 
 and Northern Africa, there were formerly flourishing 
 churches, the crescent and barbarism are now triumph- 
 ant. But she has gained. the nations of the future— 
 the west of Europe, and the countries of the West. 
 She has experienced many attacks; but she is, as 
 Theodore Beza says, the anvil upon which all hammers 
 have been broken. The stormy waves of Moorish 
 conquest in the South were broken when they dashed 
 against her; the hordes of the Huns and Mongols in 
 the East at last bent to her, or disappeared before her, 
 
166 Lecture VII. The Church. 
 
 At times, it has seemed as if the evil deeds of her 
 advocates must destroy her, but she has’ been more . 
 powerful than the sins and crimes of her unworthy 
 representatives. The spirit of negation opposed her, . 
 and appeared victorious, but she repulsed the attacks of 
 unbelief. She has ofttimes been pronounced dead, yet 
 she still lives. So long as fourteen hundred years ago, 
 in the time of Augustine, it was said that she was 
 expiring ; but to-day finds her yet alive.) In the ~ 
 age of Voltaire and Frederick II, her death was 
 expected; but when the name of Voltaire shall be 
 remembered no longer, she will yet exist. At first 
 she was reproached for her youth, now for her_age ;(’) 
 but she possesses an eternal youth. She seems to have 
 been thrust aside by the intellectual progress going on - 
 in the world; but when the wonderful progress of our 
 age shall have made the whole earth one great city of 
 the human race, it will be seen that men have been 
 but preparing a place for the Church. ‘Wondrous, 
 unparalleled, nay, Divine is it, exclaims Pascal, ‘ that 
 this Church, which is ever being attacked, has ever 
 endured.’(*) And wondrous, too, is it, that Christ pre- 
 dicted this fact: ‘The gates of hell shall not prevail - 
 against it’ (Matt. xvi. 18). 
 
 The Church is a fact; and what a fact! All must 
 at least acknowledge that, of all institutions on earth, 
 she is the most venerable, and that, at all events, it is 
 impossible not to feel reverence for her. 
 
 And yet, at the present day, an antipathy to the - 
 Church prevails in extensive circles. It is not, per- 
 
Antipathy to the Church. 167 
 
 haps, always confessed, but still it exists. It clothes 
 itself, perhaps, in the garb of external respect, but 
 under this is concealed the most utter indifference ; 
 but the very soul of this indifference is aversion. 
 Aversion to the Church is concealed perhaps by a pre- 
 tended interest in Christianity. But when this is not 
 hypocrisy, it is a delusion; for the Church is the body 
 of Christianity, and Christianity is the soul of the 
 Church. No one, then, can be on the side of Chris- 
 tianity who is not on the side of the Church. 
 And what is it that is said_against the Church ? 
 She is reproached for being indifferent to temporal 
 interests and intellectual progress, and for want of 
 participation therein. Certainly she does not under- 
 take the care of worldly interests, nor labour directly 
 for the progress of man’s natural intellect; but then 
 this is not her office. And I should have thought that 
 it would be a matter_of rejoicing to those who had 
 men’s real interests at heart, that there should be a 
 society on earth with another object than that of 
 fulfilling the duties of the natural life, and which 
 should be a constant memorial that there is something 
 higher than this temporal life, and that the life of the 
 soul in God and in eternity is of far more importance 
 than all the progress of the human intellect. But is 
 the Church an enemy to the duties of natural life, 
 because the care of them is not her immediate voca- 
 tion? Has not religion been, in all_ages, the bearer 
 __of civilisation? Modern French scholars have made it 
 their special task to show the connection in which the 
 
| 168 Lecture VII. The Church. 
 
 progress of civil society stands to that of religion. (’) 
 It is not merely that she has introduced into the 
 
 world a spirit of love, and taught that to minister to - 
 the unfortunate is the most acceptable of worship; (’) . 
 
 she has also modified the severity of law, and founded — 
 
 the happiness of society upon benevolence. She has 
 preceded the nations in their emigrations, as Edgar 
 Quinet says, like the pillar of fire. And all the attain- 
 ments of modern culture have their roots in our faith, 
 and in our notions of God. What the heathen Plutarch 
 says, ‘You might more easily build a city in the air 
 than give permanence to a State without a religion, (’) 
 applies to us also. But to speak of religion is to speak 
 of the Church; for the Church is the organism of 
 religion. 
 
 Just imagine the Church banished from the world. 
 Such a state of things is predicted ; the State of the 
 
 pease 
 
 future is, it is said, to be without a Church and without _ 
 
 religion. (") Well: let us conceive the Church banished, 
 for it is an impossibility to us to conceive it non- 
 existent ; it is far too closely interwoven, not only with 
 our outer, but with our inner life, to let us even ima- 
 gine it not to be; but let us try to suppose it gone, 
 and what would be the consequences? The least of 
 these would be, that the noblest instrument of intel- 
 lectual culture would be lost. For—let us not be de- 
 ceived in this matter—our nation derives its noblest 
 culture from the Church, It is from her that the mind 
 is fed with the sublimest thoughts, the most magnifi- 
 cent images, the purest poetry, the most elevated views 
 
> 
 
 Antipathy to the Church. 169 
 
 of art. Our nation would suffer an irrecoverable loss 
 in the whole province of its intellectual life. Nor let 
 it be thought that this would befall only the lower 
 classes and the masses of the people. We know not 
 by how many thousand threads our whole mental life 
 is interwoven with the Church, and dependent upon it. 
 It is generally the case, that no possession is adequately 
 esteemed till it is lost, and we should prove this to 
 be true in this matter also. But this intellectual loss 
 would be the least result. The moral surpasses the 
 intellectual life. Well: let the churches which occupy 
 in our towns so many a costly site, which might be 
 better bestowed, be demolished, and what might be 
 expected? It does not need much reflection to say, 
 that for every demolished church a prison would have 
 to be erected, for each church forms a hearth whence 
 a moral influence is diffused throughout its neighbour- 
 hood. Ifthe churches were no more, we should soon 
 feel that a moral force had vanished from our life; for 
 the mental and moral forces of life are greater than its 
 material ones. In short, they who look upon things 
 with only worldly reason cannot but own that the 
 Church is a necessary moral institution, which nothing 
 else can replace, and that it would be the most short- 
 sighted economy to try and save here. But all who 
 truly know the Church, know that she is not only this, 
 but something more: the proclaimer of God's grace, 
 
 the dispenser of Divine consolation, the counsellor of 
 
 the erring, the consoler of the afflicted, the source of 
 moral strength, a blessing to the living, a blessing in 
 
170 Lecture VII. The Church. 
 
 death. Whence, then, this wide-spread antipathy to 
 the Church ? 
 
 She is reproached with intolerance. Toleration 1s 
 the triumph of modern times, and the Church, it is 
 said, sins against this progress of humanity, for she 
 allows nothing to be truth but her own dogmas; she 
 declares that which she announces to be the only way 
 of salvation, and thus denies salvation to all who do 
 not agree with her; she delights in condemnation. 
 This is what is said of her. Is it true? What is her 
 preaching ? and what is her behaviour? The subject 
 of her preaching is the grace of God in Christ Jesus 
 for all—the grace which desires not to condemn, but 
 to save. And her action is unwearyingly to proclaim 
 this in all possible forms, and to bring it near to all 
 men, that they may let themselves be saved by God's 
 grace. Nor does it content her to announce this word 
 of grace, and to carry on this work of saving souls 
 within her own limits; wherever there is life in the 
 Church, there is also the missionary work of bearing 
 far beyond the boundaries of the Church to those 
 poorest of the poor, to the heathen, the message of 
 God’s fatherly love as manifested in Christ Jesus. Let 
 it be candidly said, whether it is a spirit delighting in 
 condemnation, or a spirit_of love, which is here mani- 
 fested. 
 
 But, it is said, the Church is still intolerant, for she 
 professes herself to be the sole possessor of truth, and 
 her doctrine to be the_sole way of salvation. If this 
 is intolerance, then truth is, by its very nature, in- 
 
 ke 
 
Intolerance of the Church. 171 
 , 
 
 tolerant, 2.e., exclusive; for every truth is the denial 
 God, says: ‘My glory will I not give to another, nor my 
 praise to graven images.’ If Christ had a right to say: 
 ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ (John xiv. 6), 
 then the apostles had a right to say: ‘ Neither is there 
 salvation in any other’ (Acts iv. 12). And if the 
 Church is the announcer of the truth of Jesus Christ, 
 she must speak so too. As Christ said of Himself: 
 ‘No man cometh to the Father, but by Me’ (John xiv. 
 6); so must the Church say of ‘it, ae. of the faith in 
 Christ which she preaches: No man cometh to the 
 Father but through it; that is, she must maintain the 
 exclusiveness of her truth, or she is denying her own 
 truth. 
 
 Let us be quite clear about this matter. If the 
 
 _ Church were to demand unique and exclusive privileges 
 in the world of civil life, she might be justly reproached 
 with intolerance ; ‘but when she ascribes to herself ex- 
 clusive truth, in the world of faith, concerning the 
 question of the soul’s salvation, she is but doing what 
 she cannot help doing so long as she believes in her- 
 self ; and, when she no longer believes in herself, what 
 right has she to exist any longer ? (’) 
 
 —~ We boast of freedom of conscience. But to whom 
 are we indebted for freedom of conscience? Its first 
 advocates were the first preachers of Christianity. 
 Heathenism terminated in doubt and fanaticism,—a 
 fanaticism which Christianity experienced, for the very 
 right of existence was denied her. ‘Non Jacet esse vos’ 
 
172 Lecture VII, The Church. 
 
 was the watchword in the battle waged against her 
 in her youthful days. (°) Doubt was allied with this 
 fanatic intolerance, for doubt cannot suffer pretensions 
 to absolute truth to exist. The philosophic scepticism 
 of the heathen world could not endure that unphilo- 
 sophic Christianity should declare itself to be supreme 
 truth, and intolerant doubt replied to this exclusive- 
 ness of truth by persecution. Christ said: ‘I am the 
 truth ;’ and Pilate asked: ‘What is truth?’ In the 
 one case we see exclusiveness, in the other scepticism. 
 But on which side was persecution—on Christ’s, or on 
 Pilate’s? It is an erroneous, though a widely spread 
 notion, that while scepticism is tolerant, belief in the 
 truth makes a man intolerant.(") I concede, indeed, 
 that religion has often served as a pretext for intoler- 
 
 ance; but should the abuse of anything do away with . 
 
 its lawful use? It is said: Persecutions have arisen in 
 the name of religion; let religion be done away with 
 and persecutions will cease. Might we not as reason- 
 ably say: Conflagrations have arisen by means of fire ; 
 let fire be done away with and conflagrations will 
 cease? Certainly they will, but then men will be 
 frozen. (") 
 
 If truth is a valuable possession, it must maintain 
 itself against error. If it were to treat error as of 
 equal authority with itself, it certainly would no longer 
 exist. To declare everything equally true means to 
 declare everything equally false, and nothing certain ; 
 and this would be not charity, but cruelty; for we 
 need truth, we want certainty. We owe truth to our- 
 
 ~ 
 
Intolerance of the Church. 173 
 
 selves and to others. We forfeit our right to conviction 
 when we have none. They who have convictions are 
 certain of their truth; and they who are certain of 
 truth cannot but deny its opposite. They who value 
 , their own opinion no more than its opposite, are in- 
 - different about truth; and to be indifferent about 
 ‘truth is not a virtue, but a crime. Scepticism is not 
 ‘strength, but weakness of mind. To be unable to 
 -arrive at any certainty, through mere doubts, is the 
 mark of a race in a state of degeneracy and decay. 
 The old world finished with scepticism, and was 
 ruined by it. Christianity began with certainty, and 
 triumphed thereby. To be tolerant through doubt 
 does not denote elevation of mind, but is a sign of 
 degradation and a forerunner _of ruin. Moreover, if 
 we can really declare it a matter of indifference to us 
 whether we are Christians or not, why, then, should 
 we be Christians? If we can be all things, we are 
 nothing. As long, therefore, as the Church believes in 
 herself, her declarations must be exclusive. But if she 
 no longer believes in herself, how can she require faith 
 in others? And if she can no longer venture to do 
 this, what is the use of her ? 
 
 What, indeed, it is said, is the use of her? The 
 Church is superfluous. The history of the Church is 
 the history of her gradual dissolution, There is a 
 
 time for all things. The Church has had her day, and 
 the signs of the times declare to us that the Church's 
 day is over. Well: this has been often said before, 
 and the Church has survived the announcements of 
 
174 Lecture VII. The Church. 
 
 her death. And if the prediction is renewed at the 
 present day, it does not seem likely that the Church 
 will on that account do these prophets the favour of 
 dying. 
 
 But perhaps our opponent Separates Christianity 
 from the Church, and says: < Christianity is not to 
 cease, but it will cease to exist in the form of the _ 
 Church.” In what form, then, is religion to exist? 
 Is it to be the affair of the State? The State belongs 
 to an entirely different province of life. The State 
 administers justice; the Church announces Divine 
 grace. The State ministers to temporal life; the 
 Church ministers to eternal life and the salvation of 
 souls. Every province of intellectual life requires its 
 appropriate organism. The State cannot be the organ- 
 ism of the Church, a 
 
 Or is it meant to confine religion to the heart and _ 
 to the private life of the individual 2 
 
 It is true that religion has its inmost dwelling in 
 the heart of the individual. But man was made, not 
 for solitude, but_for society. He may occasionally .. 
 flee from the distractions of life, or the corruptions of 
 society, and take refuge in solitude, but he cannot 
 endure ‘it for ever, nor ought he to do go. Man was 
 made for society. Minds seek each other; souls unite 
 with each other; and when the same religious life 
 exists in many, it will combine them into a com- 
 munity possessing religious life. This is a law of our 
 nature, and a necessity of our earthly existence. But 
 the Church is a community possessing religious life : 
 
Nature of the Church. 175 
 
 so long, therefore, as this is not superfluous, a.¢., never, 
 the Church will not be superfluous. 
 
 Having now considered the fact of the Church’s 
 Bae once, at the grounds on vated it has a pa to 
 
 * “The Church is, as it has been said, an Romntion 
 possessed of religious life. But it is not merely a 
 human association, it is more: It is a creation of God, 
 -a work of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The birth-day of the Church was the day of Pente- 
 cost, the festival of the Holy Ghost. The book of 
 Acts relates the foundation of the Church by relating 
 
 _ the sending of the Holy Ghost into the hearts of the 
 disciples. You are all acquainted with the narrative 
 (chap. ii.). The Holy Ghost—for this is the meaning 
 
 ~of the account—inwardly renewed the hearts of the 
 apostles, and bestowed upon them all needful gifts for 
 the ministry of the Word, thus becoming the power of 
 their new life, and the inward bond of their associa- 
 tion, Thus did the Church originate—as a creation of 
 God, as a work of His Spirit. What, then, do we 
 
 —Jearn from this? That it is not external forms and 
 customs, but the Holy Ghost that makes the Church 
 really the Church. He is the soul that fills and ani- 
 mates her, and combines all her individual members 
 ‘into the unity of one body. 
 
 Externally viewed, indeed, the Church consists of 
 weak and sinful men. But that which appears is not 
 the essential nature of the Church. Her nature is 
 
 _spiritual. The first Church consisted of fishermen and 
 
176 Lecture VIL The Church. 
 
 publicans, and its first increase was chiefly from the 
 lower classes: ‘Not many wise, not many mighty, 
 says the apostle (1 Cor. i. 26.) (°) And yet how soon 
 did this poor and despised band, with their foolishness 
 of preaching, conquer the world! We have here a 
 contradiction between means and end similar to what 
 we saw in Jesus Christ, whose home was the despised 
 town of Nazareth, yet whose inheritance was the 
 whole world. But that which the eye can see is not 
 the essence of the matter. We believe in Jesus Christ, 
 ze. we do not stop at the visible, but seize on the 
 invisible; we mentally grasp His hidden nature, and 
 ‘behold therein what He truly is. We believe in one 
 Holy Catholic Church, 2.e, we do not esteem that 
 which our eyes behold, but that which she secretly 
 is, to be her very nature.(“*) Now, the essential in- 
 eredient of her nature, which makes the Church truly 
 the Church, is the possession of the Holy Ghost. It 
 was He who made the disciples certain and joyful in * 
 their faith; made them the one flock of Jesus Christ, 
 the members of which are united by faith and love to 
 their Head in heaven, and to each other on earth. 
 
 It has become one of the requirements of human 
 nature to see in every mana brother. But the notion . 
 of brotherhood is not enough without the fact. In 
 her all men are equal, for she views all with respect « 
 to God. Here it is that all distinctions cease. Let 
 the Church be banished from the world, and it would 
 be again plunged into those national animosities which 
 Christianity found in existence, but which she over- 
 
' Nature of the Church. 177 
 
 _came by méans of that great organisation of fraternity 
 and equality which we call the Church.(”) The 
 Church is the great institution of unanimity. As we 
 pass through the world, we meet with riothing but 
 mere diversity. What is law in one place, has no 
 authority in another; and what is here esteemed truth, 
 is there rejected as error. Space separates minds, and 
 opinion varies with distance. (") It is the Church 
 which joins the differing minds of all zones and agés in 
 one thought, and unites them all to one truth. Let her 
 disappear from the earth, and that bond of mental 
 union, which nothing else can replace, is destroyed. It 
 is true that she also belongs to history, and is subject 
 to change; but, underlying all change, is that secret 
 unity of the One Spirit which fills all, of the one truth 
 which all advocate, and which, after periods of declen- 
 sion and decay, ever renews her youth,(") Herein 
 
 _consists her inward unity, in the midst of every change 
 of outward form. Wherever there are Christians, wher- 
 ever there are members of the Church, they have a 
 wide realm of thoughts and views in common, and 
 meet each other in a world of similar feelings and 
 émotions. Thus the Church is that bond of unanimity 
 among mankind, which keeps the world together, as 
 the soul does the members of the body. | 
 
 If the fate of the world be contemplated, merely from 
 .the point of view afforded by the interests of civilisa- 
 tion, it must be confessed that’ the Church, even by 
 this organisation of unanimity among mankind, isan in- 
 
 finite Dlessing and an indispensable. necessity to our race. 
 M 
 
178 Lecture VII. The Church. 
 
 But this office of the Church depends upon its 
 religrous office. This unanimity is the result of unity 
 of faith. If she ceased to effect this, she would no 
 longer be able to fulfil the former office. Many as are 
 the changes which the Church has experienced in the 
 course of time in the age of the apostles and the 
 period of the catacombs, as well as in the days of her 
 worldly power or in the period of Protestantism, her 
 faith has ever remained essentially the same, and her 
 worship ever similar. Her faith is belief in the Triune. 
 God. From the time of her foundation to our own 
 days, all Christians, however they may be designated, 
 however their opinions on other matters may differ, if 
 called upon to confess their faith, would exclaim with 
 one mouth and in one sense: ‘I believe in God the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.’ All Christians glory 
 in the grace of God; all acknowledge the Saviour Jesus 
 Christ; all honour the Crucified. His name is the 
 central point of the Church’s worship, His praise the 
 soul of her devotion. Her hymns celebrate Him, her 
 very stones speak of Him. Much as Christians and 
 churches may dispute and quarrel with each other, 
 this essential unity of faith still underlies all their 
 contention ; and there is one_place where all Chris- 
 tians find themselves to be of one mind, and that 
 is the cross, Herein consists the unanimity of the 
 Church. 
 
 Apparently, indeed, there exists more separation 
 than union. 
 
 Allow me to speak to you of that great contrast in 
 
Catholicism and Protestantism. 179 
 
 the Church, which we are accustomed to designate by 
 the names of Catholicism and Protestantism. 
 
 That diversities should prevail in the Church, is not 
 contrary to, but in conformity with, her nature. The 
 preaching of the Gospel on the day of Pentecost in the 
 various languages, by the apostles, signified that the 
 _Church was to become the Church of the nations, to 
 speak to each nation in its own language, and to conform 
 to its special kind of mind. The Church was to take 
 one form among the people of the South, and another 
 among the nations of the North; one form in the East, 
 the world of constancy, another in the West, the leader 
 of progress. But these are only diversities, not con- 
 trasts; multiplicity in unity, not separation. It is not 
 on natural but on moral grounds that a separation 
 through diversity of faith and confession takes place 
 in the Church. It is the different measure of obedi- 
 ence to the Word of God which has called forth these 
 contrasts. 
 
 The difference between North and South, between 
 the German and Roman nations, is insufficient to ex- 
 plain the difference between the Romish and Protestant 
 Churches. Such differences may account for variations 
 in the form and colour of Christianity, and in its eccle- 
 siastical appearance, but not for diversities of faith. 
 The South has produced the unpictorial worship of the 
 Reformed, as well as the pictorial worship of the 
 Romish Church. And when Italy fell away from the 
 Pope, he ever found faithful adherents in Germany. 
 The difference between Romish and Protestant Chris- 
 
180 "Lecture VIT. The Church. 
 
 tianity is of deeper nature than can be accounted for 
 by. national diversity. 
 
 Wherein, then, does it consist ? 
 
 The difference consists in totally opposite turns of 
 site religious Views. 
 
 The opposite mental tendencies are sometimes desig-.- 
 nated as authority and liberty.() Catholicism repre- 
 sents authority ; Protestantism represents liberty. The 
 former advocates legitimacy; the latter, the rights of 
 historical progress. The former, says Protestant con- 
 troversy, is stagnation; the latter, says Romish contro- 
 versy, is the spirit of revolution, though revolution has ~ 
 ever had her seat in Romish lands. 
 
 Rome advocates authority, we advocate the principle 
 of liberty and criticism ; and history is fulfilling her 
 ends by the co-operation of these two great powers of 
 all historical movement. But authority makes its 
 power felt among us also. The masses always follow 
 authority; and how much do all of us accept upon 
 authority? The greatest part of what is believed is 
 believed because others have believed it. Certainly, we 
 do demand the right of criticism; and it may be true 
 that it is, as has been said, a Protestant spirit which is 
 going through the world; the spirit of criticism having 
 obtained the preponderance in the present time. But 
 one cannot live upon criticism. It is truth.which is 
 the food of the mind; and the duty of criticism is to 
 establish truth. But truth lays claim to authority. 
 We do not, then, reject authority ; we require only the 
 
Catholicism. 181 
 
 authority of truth. The highest authority of all 
 belongs to Divine truth; and this it is which Pro- 
 testantism confesses. Protestantism is not merely 
 method, but substance. Its substance is Divine truth ; 
 and this truth is the grace of God in Christ Jesus. 
 Herein lies that distinction which we are seeking. 
 
 Catholicism and Protestantism are not merely gene- 
 ral mental tendencies. They are this; but beyond this 
 they are religious powers, differing conceptions of 
 Christianity. 
 
 What then, first, is the system of Catholicism? I 
 will endeavour to ‘represent it as objectively as I pos- 
 sibly can.(") Its train of thought is as follows :— 
 
 Man’s supreme want is truth. I must have cer- 
 tainty about truth. In the strife of opinions I am a 
 prey to comfortless uncertainty as to what may be 
 truth and what may be error, if truth cannot be made 
 a certainty to me. Howam I to become certain about 
 it? One says one thing; another, another. Where shall 
 I get information that I may rely on? The Church is 
 the possessor of truth. I must hear the Church; she 
 must know what is truth. When Christ was pleased 
 to bring truth into the world, He was at the same time 
 pleased to found a Church to possess and impart the 
 truth, and to guarantee it to individuals. If, then, she 
 is to guarantee the truth to me, she must be so con- 
 stituted as to be able to do this. If I am to ask and 
 to hear the Church, I must be able to ask and to hear 
 her. I must know where the Church is; I must find 
 her; I must see and hear her; I must be able to learn 
 
182 Lecture VII. The Church. 
 
 with unequivocal certainty what her answer is. Hence 
 the Church cannot be something invisible, which can 
 neither be laid hold of nor comprehended; it must be 
 a visible and tangible institution, which can speak to 
 me, which I can hear; it must have its accredited 
 organs, to whom I can apply, and who can speak to 
 me; it must be an organism having members; it must 
 be a hierarchy; it must have a judicial tribunal, to 
 decide on doubtful or contested points; it must have 
 a supreme head, a voice whose utterance is decisive. 
 Now, if I am to be certain that what the Church says 
 is truth, it must be infallible, must have within it the 
 Spirit of Truth; must be enlightened by Him, inspired 
 by Him. The Holy Ghost is infallible. He also 
 makes the Church infallible. If it were not so, I 
 should be ever wandering upon a sea of comfortless 
 uncertainty. The Church is not- inspired and in- 
 fallible in all her members. She must be so only in 
 her organs, in her supreme tribunal. The mouth of 
 the Church must speak truth. What the Church 
 says through her supreme representatives, the Holy 
 Ghost says. If, then, I want to know what is truth, 
 I only need to know what the Church authorises, If 
 an ecclesiastical council is legitimately convoked, 
 has legitimately come to its decisions; if its decisions 
 are confirmed by the supreme head, the Pope; if the 
 Pope has decided with papistic plenipotence,—the 
 decision is truth, and is spoken by the Holy Spivrit. 
 No subjective criticism avails here, but obedience 
 alone, A Christian’s first duty is obedience to the 
 
Catholicism. 183 
 
 Church ; his greatest sin, disobedience to the Church’s 
 authority. The root of all sin, and the chief sin, is to 
 want to know anything better than the Church does. 
 The individual has no rights apart from the Church— 
 no right of private judgment, of private conscience. 
 There is no Christian independence apart from the 
 Church—no independent conviction of truth, no inde- 
 pendent assurance of a state of grace, no independent 
 appeal to Scripture; ,but every Christian, as regards 
 his faith, his spiritual life, his assurance, and his 
 understanding of Scripture, is ever dependent upon the 
 Church—the Church of the Bishop of Rome. 
 
 Such is the system of Catholicism; and we cannot 
 but confess that it is both logical and_ consistent. 
 Many have been caught by the snare of its logic; and 
 as for the reality of this system itself,—the Church of 
 Rome,—who can deny that it is the most magnificent 
 edifice which the human mind has ever erected? Its 
 superstructure, based upon the broadest foundations, 
 rises, by the gradations of Episcopacy, up to its supreme 
 head, the Bishop of Rome, the servant of the servants 
 of God, the vicegerent of Jesus Christ, the vice-God, 
 the sub-God, as he has been called. (”) 
 
 Rome has been. accustomed to govern the nations: 
 (Tu regere imperio populos Romane memento). (") It is 
 true that it is but the ruins of the Forum and of its 
 imperial palaces which now speak to us of her ancient 
 greatness, but her universal sway has_revived under a 
 Christian garb. The Romish Church has taken the 
 place of the Roman empire; she has inherited from 
 
Tea, Lecture VII. The Church. 
 
 old Rome both ‘her administrative talent and imperial 
 destiny, and has added spiritual to secular authority. 
 The circle of her sway embraces not only the nations: 
 she governs also the relations of life, and the con- 
 sciences of mankind. 
 
 She has undergone many transformations and ex- 
 perienced many changes, but her pretensions have 
 ever been the same. Formerly, the Bishop of Rome 
 asserted that he bore in his hands two swords, the 
 secular as well as the spiritual, and that the empire 
 and all secular dominion was only held in fief of — 
 himself. (“) It is true that he no. longer appoints 
 and deposes princes, that the treaty of Westphalia, 
 the new order of things, endure despite his pro- 
 tests, and that even his excommunication seems to 
 have lost its influence; but_his pretensions are still 
 the same that they were of old; for not a stone 
 may be taken out of the firmly compacted edifice, 
 and his spiritual authority has for a long time suffered 
 no diminution. There was a time when it seemed 
 undecided who was to Have the supreme power 
 the Pope, or a general council; and the great 
 councils of the Middle. Ages attributed the most 
 extensive powers to themselves. (*) But consistency 
 ef principle has resulted in the ascription of the 
 supreme authority to the Pope; and he has already 
 begun to establish new, dogmas without the assent .. 
 of a council.) The Pope, as. the sole depository of 
 supreme ecclesiastical power, is the. top stone of the 
 whole-system... 
 
Catholicism. 185 
 
 Logic and consistency must, indeed, be conceded 
 to such a system; but as for truth, we deny that it 
 possesses it. 
 
 It is not my business here to treat of controversial 
 matters: I only wanted to bring before you the charac- 
 teristics of the system. I therefore content myself 
 with giving, in few words, our reasons for protesting 
 against’ these assumptions. (°) slave! 
 
 When the Romish Church says that she is the sole 
 Church, we oppose to this statement the fact that; 
 
 __ beyond the limits of her sway, the Holy Ghost carries 
 on His work, and Christians have a locality ; and that, 
 hence, the Church of Jesus Christ is not’ confined 
 within her boundaries. 
 
 When the Romish Church says that she is inspired 
 in her organs, and that what she says and lays down 
 is infallible, we oppose to this the fact, that councils 
 
 and popes have erred from the days of the heretical 
 pope Liberius, whom an Athanasius, ‘the soul of ortho- 
 doxy? ‘condemned, down to Pius IX. and his dogma 
 of the Immaculate’ Conception of Mary—a dogma 
 eevee not only by Scripture, but by tradition. 
 
 And, finally, when the Romish Church says that the 
 first thing is to be certain of the place where truth is 
 to be sought and found, that we may thus be certain 
 of the truth itself, we answer, that God would not 
 have made the knowledge and certainty of the truth 
 so slight a matter, that nothing more should be need- 
 ful. Dontk to apply to the right address and to get 
 supplied. with the article. Certainty about truth is 
 
186 Lecture VII, The Church. 
 
 not a question of law, but_a question of conscience ;. 
 it is not outwardly but inwardly that I must have 
 
 assurance of it. Truth is not proved by its place, but 
 
 by itself. I do not believe in Christ because I believe 
 
 in the Church, but I believe in the Church because I 
 
 believe in Christ. Conviction of truth is a work of 
 
 the Holy Ghost, which is not carried on in the way of 
 
 a juristic logic, but by His answers to the inquiries of 
 
 the conscience after salvation. 
 
 It was from such inguiries that the Reformation 
 arose; it is in such inquiries that Protestantism is 
 rooted. It was the felt need of salvation, the inquiry 
 after assurance of salvation, which was the soul of 
 Luther’s life and work, the power of his influence upon 
 minds, the strength of early Protestantism, and which 
 will ever be the secret of its power. They who would 
 have a Protestantism founded on aught else, annihilate 
 its truth and destroy its future. 
 
 The word Protestantism has at all times been much 
 abused. () Protestantism is not a mere negation. Truly. 
 it is anegation—the negation of falsehood setting itself 
 up for Divine truth—the negation of human authority 
 usurping the place of Divine; yet this negation rests 
 upon an affirmation which is its premiss, viz., the 
 supreme authority of the Word of God and His truth_ 
 in matters of salvation. Protestantism is not merely 
 a constant struggle, search, and inquiry. It is true that 
 it arose from inquiry, and that inquiry and research 
 belong to its nature. For truth is infinite, and no one 
 possesses it who is not constantly acquiring it. Truth 
 
Protestantism. 187 
 
 is not dead capital which a man may lay up in a 
 napkin, but a living possession and a living blessing. 
 Protestantism, moreover, is not a mere search after 
 truth, but its possession. It is not merely an inquiry 
 after salvation; it is also the answer to this inquiry. 
 For it is not merely a school, but_a church; not merely 
 a society of investigators or doubters, but_of believers. 
 And the answer to that great inquiry of the conscience 
 concerning the soul’s salvation, from which Protestant- 
 ism and the Protestant Church were born, is that saying 
 _of the apostle: ‘ Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 thou shalt be saved’ (Acts xvi. 31). It was the ex- 
 perience of Luther, that neither works of penitence, 
 nor obedience to the Church, nor any other thing, 
 could take away sin and give peace to the conscience 
 and assurance of salvation to the soul; but only faith 
 .in Christ Jesus, who has atoned for and expiated our 
 ouilt, and reconciled us to God. It is faith in Christ 
 Jesus as our Saviour and Reconciler, and assurance of 
 the mercy of God and the forgiveness of sins, even 
 our own sins, which alone make Christians really 
 such. This faith is not a mere fiction of the mind, 
 but an_actof the will; it is not a mere effort of the 
 understanding, but a communion of the heart with 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 And it is this which, according to Protestant teach- 
 ing, constitutes the nature of the Church. The Church 
 is not a merely external institution ; it is the people of 
 God upon earth, the communion of believers, the assem- 
 bly of all God’s children below. (“) Wherever there 
 
188 Lecture VII. The Church. 
 
 are believers, let them be called by what names they 
 may, there is the Holy Catholic Church of Christ. 
 And though our eyes may see little or nothing of them, 
 yet by faith we know that in all places Jesus Christ 
 has a people who are spiritually united to Him by 
 faith and love, and who form one great union of souls 
 with each other. This vast, wide, ample communion 
 of all believers is no pleasant dream, but_a reality. (*) 
 For while all else is subject to death, and will fade 
 and pass away, this invisible community, this hidden 
 Church, will abide for ever. It forms the » germ of all 
 the several visible churches. Through it the several 
 churches are truly churches. But it assumes a dif- 
 ferent appearance in different churches, an appearance 
 brighter or more obscure in proportion as the signs and 
 forms by which the invisible Church becomes visible 
 and comprehensible, viz., the preaching of the Word and 
 the Sacraments, are preserved and administered in more 
 or less purity, 7.2. in more or less conformity to Holy 
 Scripture, as the sole rule and pattern of the Church’s 
 doctrine and practice, 
 
 It is in this respect that individual churches differ. 
 For we cannot but reproach the Church of Rome for 
 having in essential, particulars forsaken Gospel truth, 
 or at least obscured it by self-invented doctrines and 
 worship. And to the Reformed Church, nearly as we 
 are related to it, we must object that, at least wher- 
 ever she has adhered to her principles and carried 
 them out consistently, she has, in her doctrine of the 
 Divine predestination of individuals to salvation or 
 
 re 
 
Difference and Unity of Churches. 189 
 
 condemnation, adopted an error which casts its ob- 
 scuring shadow over the whole circle of her doctrine, 
 and has a prejudicial effect upon peace of conscience. ba 
 In saying this, we are not giving utterance to words of 
 haughtiness; we are but mindful of our obligation to 
 faithfulness. 
 
 But while churches differ, and our hearts are often 
 sorely pained to see the one Church of Jesus Christ 
 broken up into separate churches, we yet know that 
 - every Church has its special gift, with which it is 
 to labour in the building of the kingdom of God, and 
 that each is to minister to the other with the gift it 
 has received. And wherever we find a Christian, 
 whether under the sway of Rome or among the dis- 
 ciples of Calvin, there we know that we greet a 
 brother in Christ, an heir of salvation. Let us rejoice 
 in that unity of faith and spirit which exists in 
 spite of all differences, until it shall please the Lord 
 to bring us’to perfect communion of mind and har- 
 mony of thought. Till then, we must walk in the 
 path which God sets before us, following that light 
 which illumines it. This light to our path is Holy 
 Scripture, to which my next lecture will call your 
 attention. 
 
LECTURE VIII 
 HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 eos tT Christian Church has never been without 
 Nal Holy Scripture. Before the New Testa- 
 ment was written and collected, she pos- 
 sessed the Old Testament, and reverenced 
 it as the Word of God. 
 
 Our Lord himself often appealed to it.(") He quoted |? 
 
 passages from almost every book of the Old Testament. 
 He made use of the Old Testament Scriptures as a 
 weapon against temptation, as a means for the in- 
 struction of the people and His disciples, and as the 
 expression of His own inmost feelings in the very 
 moment when His heart was most deeply moved. It 
 
 is evident that Scripture was the atmosphere in which \ 
 
 He lived and moved, the sanctuary in which His soul 
 ever dwelt. 
 
 His disciples, too, took up the same position with 
 respect to the Old Testament Scriptures as their Master 
 had done. They had known them from their youth; 
 for Jewish boys were early instructed in the Scriptures. 
 ‘From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, 
 writes St Paul to Timothy (2 Tim. iii.15). For he had 
 
 —— 
 
Origin of the New Testament. on 
 
 a Jewish mother, who had early initiated him in the 
 sacred writings. And the Jewish historian Josephus 
 tells us of the high respect in which Scripture was 
 held by the Jews. Every one, he assures us, would 
 be ready to lay down his life for the Scriptures ; for 
 to revere them as the Holy Word of God seemed, as it 
 were, innate.(*) To the disciples of Christ they had, 
 besides, a special importance, as the prophetic testi- 
 _mony to Jesus Christ. ‘They are they which testify 
 of Me, had they heard their Master say (John v. 39); 
 and such had they themselves found them to be. The 
 risen Saviour, we are told (Luke xxiv. 27-45), ex- 
 pounded to them the Scripture, to show them that, 
 from first to last, He was their aim and object. Hence 
 the Old Testament, supported by the authority of 
 Christ and His apostles, was transmitted by the Jews 
 to the Christian Church. 
 
 To this, in the course of time, was added the New 
 Testament, Jesus left no writings; for He was sent to 
 proclaim grace and truth iby t the ae of His mouth, and 
 to redeem us by His death and resurrection. He was 
 _.not to be the author but the subject of Holy Scripture. 
 It was to treat of Him, not to be written by Him. 
 Even His apostles were sent by their Lord, not chiefly 
 . to write, but to preach the Gospel: ‘Go and teach all 
 nations’ (Matt. xxviii. 19); ‘Preach the Gospel to every 
 creature’ (Mark xvi. 15). The Word is the chief 
 matter in Christianity; and the first form of the 
 ea is oral teaching. It is by this that soul speaks 
 directly to soul, mind to mind. The written Word 
 
192 Lecture VIII, Holy Scripture. 
 
 is an expedient to supply the lack of it, but a neces-.. 
 gary one. ane se ea 
 
 How did the composition of the New Testament 
 Scriptures take place ? 
 
 Christian instruction began with the narration of = 
 the Gospel history. But it is the nature of history to 
 be recorded. Such records soon arose, and, among 
 them, our four Gospels were distinguished as the most, 
 genuine documents of that sacred history. When St 
 Matthew, as we are informed, after having for many 
 years preached the Gospel in Palestine, was about to_ 
 visit other countries, he desired to leave in the hands 
 of the Christians dwelling in J udea, a written com- 
 pendium of his evangelical preaching, that they might 
 be able to defend themselves against Jewish attacks. 
 The Gospel preaching of St Peter in heathen lands 
 was collected by his “companion St_ Mark; and in_ 
 order that Christians among the heathen, ha desired 
 more exact information, might no longer be forced to 
 content themselves with fragmentary and less trust- 
 worthy records, Luke wrote his great historical work, ~ 
 the Gospel, and Acts of the Apostles. St John, more-~ 
 over, before the close of his life, was prevailed upon by 
 the elders of the Church of Ephesus to commit to 
 writing, in the Gospel which bears his name and con- 
 cludes the series, those reminiscences of the life of 
 Jesus Christ which he had frequently delivered to his 
 Ephesian flock. Such was the origin of the four 
 Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. (’°) 
 
 The Epistles were occasioned by the special diffi-. 
 
 ~ 
 
Collection of the New Testament. 193 
 
 culties, dangers, or necessities of the churches or indi- 
 viduals to whom they were addressed. When any 
 church received an apostolic epistle, it did not regard 
 it as its own private property, but communicated it to 
 the neighbouring churches. The close of the Epistle 
 to the Colossians (chap. iv. 16), shows how St Paul 
 
 —himself was solicitous for such mutual communication 
 of his Epistles. Hence, copies of the several Epistles 
 
 “arose, and a collection was gradually | formed. It was 
 a matter of rejoicing to possess such a compensation for 
 the preaching of their absent teachers, and the Epistles 
 . were frequently - read for the edification of the assembled 
 Church. The last sacred writing, the Revelation of 
 St John, was written for the instruction and consola- 
 » tion of the Church during that period of sore trial 
 which was approaching, and during which there would 
 be no apostle to exhort and comfort her. 
 
 Thus the New Testament Scriptures were designed 
 both to support and to compensate for the want of the 
 oral teaching of the apostles, and to invest it, as it 
 
 ~were, with abiding influence and presence in the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 The separate sacred writings were early collected 
 and combined into a whole. A collection of our 
 “Gospels had already taken place at the close of the 
 
 first and beginning of the second century. (‘) From 
 the conclusion of the Second Epistle of St Peter 
 (2 Pet. iii. 16), it is evident that there was, when it 
 ‘ was written, already a collection—even if an incom- 
 
 plete one—of the Pauline Epistles ; and, according to 
 N 
 
194 Lecture VIIT, Holy Scripture. 
 
 indisputable testimony, the New Testament itself, as 
 we now have it, existed, with the exception of a few 
 books concerning whose canonicity universal con- 
 viction has not yet been attained, towards the end of 
 the second century, in both the Eastern and Western .. 
 Churches. (°) Christians were persuaded that in these 
 writings the Holy Ghost had spoken with as much 
 purity and power as in the Old Testament Scriptures. 
 Thus this New Testament collection was added to the~ 
 Old, which had been received by means of Israel, and 
 the whole regarded, as the one Holy Bible, the. one 
 Word of God. 
 
 It is true that at that period oral tradition was: still 
 ample and uncorrupt. Certain disciples of the apostles, 
 or at least disciples of theirs, were still living. In the~ 
 Churches founded or instructed by the apostles, the 
 remembrance of these great teachers was still vivid. 
 If any one, then, desired to become acquainted with the 
 Christian faith, he had but_to resort. to. the localities 
 and holders of primitive tradition. The greatest 
 teachers of the West, a Tertullian and an Ireneeus, 
 could, in opposing the heretical teachers who distorted — 
 the Word of God according to their own fancies, appeal ,, 
 to this genuine, tradition, and thus put an end to all 
 further dissension with them concerning the true | 
 meaning of Scripture. But, together with this primi- 
 tive tradition of the then proximate times of the 
 apostles, there co-existed the apostolic, teaching dle-« 
 posited in writings, which, while they bore incon- 
 testable testimony to their doctrine, were also regarded 
 
fegard paid to Scripture by the Church. 195 
 
 as of Divine authority, and as the work of the Holy 
 Spirit. A series of testimony to the high regard in 
 which the New Testament Scriptures were held, 
 has descended to us from the earliest times, clearly 
 proving that, even in those days in which the stream 
 of tradition was still pure and abundant, decided 
 - authority was attributed to them. (°) 
 
 This regard continued, in theory at least, till modern 
 times. Never has it yet been denied in the Christian 
 Church, that the decision of all questions of faith 
 
 \ belongs to Holy Scripture. (°) In practice, however, 
 it has been otherwise, in proportion as tradition (so- 
 ~ called) has been increasingly respected and diffused. 
 Under this name were soon included, not merely such 
 acts and words as were supposed to have descended 
 from Christ and His apostles, although orally trans- 
 mitted instead of recorded in writing—but also the 
 _Whole circle of dogmas and practices which had 
 — been instituted by Church councils, and recognised by 
 the Church. As the Church itself—this visible pre- 
 sence of Christ, as it was esteemed—became the 
 / supreme authority to Christians, its word and com- 
 mands were regarded as ultimately decisive in all 
 questions. Hence it came to pass, that. while in 
 theory the decision was declared to rest with the 
 Scriptures, in practice it was in the hands of the 
 “i ecclesiastical ‘authorities, () until it was shown, at the 
 ‘time of the Reformation, that the corrupt stream of 
 supposed tradition had_no innate power..of purifying 
 itself from. those disturbing elements which either 
 
196 Lecture VIII. Holy Scripture. 
 
 impeded or destroyed the power of the word of 
 salvation. . 
 It was this experience which, at the era of the Refor- 
 
 mation, led to the conviction that the remedy for all 
 
 the corruptions of ecclesiastical tradition lay only in: 
 the judicial authority of Holy Scripture. With a 
 clearness and decision never before known, Holy 
 Scripture was declared by the Reformation, and is 
 declared by the Protestant Church, to be the sole 
 wmpire in matters of Christian faith and practice. 
 Thus Scripture has obtained among us an importance 
 radically differing from that which it possesses in the 
 Church of Rome. Hence, our own Church, too, lays 
 special stress upon the study of Holy Scripture, and 
 regards it as the foundation of all theology. Never 
 and nowhere has so much self-sacrificing diligence 
 been devoted to the investigation of Scripture as since , 
 the Reformation, and in the Protestant Church ; for 
 this importance of Scripture forms part of the very 
 being of our Church. If the Romanists say: The 
 ultimate decision rests with the Church, for she is the 
 infallible vehicle of the Holy Spirit; we Protestants 
 say: The ultimate decision rests with Holy Scripture, 
 for it is the authentic testimony of Jesus Christ. The 
 whole essence of Protestantism, and the whole creed of 
 the Protestant Church, may be summed up in these 
 twofold sayings: None but Christ! and nothing but 
 Scripture! Is it asked: Where is salvation to be 
 found, and wherein does it consist 2 Our answer is: In 
 none but Christ; He alone is the propitiation for our 
 
The Principle of Protestantism. 197 | 
 
 sins; and faith in Him alone makes us righteous 
 before God. And is it asked: Where have we certain 
 testimony to Jesus Christ, and an ultimate decision in 
 questions of salvation and of the way of salvation ? 
 Our answer is: In Scripture alone, for it is the rule of 
 faith and practice for the Church of Jesus Christ and 
 for all Christians. These are the two chief truths and 
 principles of Protestantism. (’) 
 
 But these are also the two leading questions of the 
 day, the two most contested maxims of Christian doc- 
 trine: the question of Christ, and the question of Holy 
 Scripture. Is Christ the Son of God? Are the Scrip- 
 tures the Word of God? Is not Christ a mere man, 
 though an extraordinary man? Is not Scripture merely 
 the work of man, though an important work? Amidst 
 the various arguments and counter-arguments, it has 
 come to this, that many know not what else to say of 
 Christ than: ‘We know not who He was;’ nor of Scrip- 
 ture than: ‘We know not what to think of it.’ Others, 
 again, have done with Christ and with Scripture alto- 
 gether, and rejected both the one and the other. They 
 who do not believe in Christ do not believe in the 
 Scriptures which testify of Him. The two stand or 
 fall together. Yet here lies the critical point; for as 
 Christ is decisive for the history of mankind, so is 
 Scripture of decisive importance to our whole religious 
 and intellectual life. 
 
 Having, then, made this brief historical survey, let us © 
 
 \»proceed to consider the tmportance of Holy Scripture 
 to the Church and to individual Christians. 
 
198 Lecture VIII. Holy Scripture. 
 
 Scripture is of supreme importance to our whole 
 wntellectwal life. | 
 
 The whole range of Christian culture and mental 
 wealth springs from two roots which are found in 
 the past: one in the lands of Rome and Greece, the 
 other in the land of God’s people. From the one we 
 derive our intellectual culture, from the other our 
 religion. And it is our religion which, together with 
 the secular cultivation of Greece and Rome, and the 
 national spirit of our people, forms that one great 
 whole which we call Christian civilisation. The in- ~ 
 strument, however, of all intellectual cultivation is 
 literature. As the spirit of those great nations of 
 civilisation speaks to us through the writings of their 
 authors, by means of which, too, such works of art as 
 have been transmitted to us become intelligible, and 
 speak in a language which we can comprehend, so 
 has the religion of Israel and of Christendom each its 
 literature. It is in this that the religious spirit of that 
 home of religion speaks to us. Side by side with the 
 literature of secular culture, we possess this sacred 
 literature of religion. Nor need this sacred literature 
 shrink from ranging itself by the side of the secular 
 literature of civilisation. Even apart from its religious 
 importance, and regarded only from a human point of 
 view, the Bible is the most magnificent literary work 
 existing in the whole world—as great through the 
 touching simplicity and historical_importance of its 
 narratives, as it is through the fulness and depth of its 
 thoughts, the power and variety of its discourses, and 
 
Religious Importance of Scripture. 199 
 
 the abundance and beauty of its poetry. Long ere 
 Pindar celebrated in his odes the Olympic victors, had 
 David composed those psalms whose soaring thoughts 
 and powerful words still refresh our souls. And long 
 before Homer charmed the enraptured ears of the 
 youthful nation on the coasts of Asia Minor by the 
 deeds of the heroes of Troy, had Moses and his sister 
 sung their songs of victory on the overthrow of the 
 Egyptian monarch, and Deborah celebrated in her bold 
 metaphors the victory of Israel. When the founda- 
 tions of Rome, the world’s future metropolis, were being 
 laid upon the hills by the Tiber, the prophets of Israel 
 were surveying, with a glance enlightened by the Spirit, 
 the fate of the nations, and predicting their future 
 destiny ; while, with a power of eloquence surpassing 
 that of Demosthenes, and with flights of poetry more 
 lofty than those of Aischylus, they announced the judg- 
 ments of God upon the sins of their nation, or spoke 
 of His grace in tones sweeter than the sweet numbers 
 of a Sophocles. There is no single note in the whole 
 scale of human emotion, from the thunders of holy 
 indignation or the heart-rending cry of despair, to the 
 softest accents of mercy or the ardent lays of love, which 
 does not find expression in Scripture. We keep in 
 memory the names and sayings of the seven wise men 
 of Greece; but what is their wisdom to the treasures 
 _ of practical wisdom laid up in the Proverbs of the Old 
 Testament? We dive into the depths of Plato’s views, 
 and admire the nobleness of his ideas; but the Scrip- 
 tures speak of the world of the eternal ideal, as of the 
 
200 Lecture VIII. Holy Scripture. 
 
 well known home of their spirit, and express the 
 deepest thoughts and most comprehensive views with 
 as much certainty and simplicity as though they were 
 treating of the simplest truths in the world, or of those 
 self-evident principles which all acknowledge. Truly, 
 when viewed only from a human point of view, as a 
 mere work of the human mind, Scripture far surpasses 
 all the literary productions of all nations and of every 
 period. Let us but imagine that we had never pos- 
 sessed the Bible, and that it had but just now been for 
 the first time discovered in the corner, perhaps, of 
 some library—and what an impression would such a 
 discovery make! It would create the greatest sensa- 
 tion which a literary discovery could create; a far 
 greater one than if Homer's lays, Shakespeare’s plays, 
 or Goethe’s poems should for the first time suddenly 
 appear. The wonderful book would form the topic of 
 conversation in all society, professorships would be 
 founded for its interpretation, and to know and read it 
 would form a part of every education. For it contains 
 within, itself a whole world of thoughts; it is a uni- 
 verse of mind. Reyille,an advocate of modern French 
 rationalism, concludes an essay in the Revue des deux 
 Mondes (1864) with the following words: ‘One day 
 the question was started in an assembly, What book a 
 man condemned to a life-long imprisonment, to whom 
 but one would be allowed, had better choose to take 
 into his cell with him? The company consisted of 
 Catholics, Protestants, philosophers, and even ma- 
 terialists ; but all..agreed that his choice would fall 
 
Religious Importance of Scripture. 201 
 
 only on the Bible:’(°) a distinguished tribute to the 
 Bible—a tribute not merely to its intellectual excel- 
 lence, but also to its religious importance. 
 
 In speaking of other writings, we are wont to ex- 
 patiate upon the enjoyment they have afforded us, or 
 the admiration they have called forth, when we would 
 convey a notion of the impression they have made upon 
 us. In the Scriptures, however, we breathe another 
 atmosphere. They do indeed elicit our admiration, 
 and afford us a high degree of intellectual enjoyment ; 
 but if we are to declare the peculiar effect they pro- 
 duce upon us, we must say: It is the spirit of religion 
 which moves us, and which we here meet with in a 
 power and purity found nowhere besides. Here is 
 the original source whence flows the religious spirit. 
 
 os Hither, therefore, does the religious life ever return as 
 
 to its fountain, What else was the Reformation than 
 a return to the sources of religious life? As at the 
 Reformation era there was a return to the original 
 sources of intellectual culture, so was there also to the 
 original sources of religion. The former were sought 
 in the literature of Greece and Rome, the latter in 
 Holy Scripture. The former movement was the result 
 of the studies called Humanities, especially the classics ; 
 _the latter of the Scriptural principles of the Reforma- 
 tion. In certain individuals, as in Melancthon and 
 others, both were united; and the union became an 
 ‘indissoluble one for the Protestant Church, for the 
 - languages and the Gospel are intimately united. God 
 himself hath joined them together; for it was He 
 
202 Lecture VITT. Holy Scripture. 
 
 who caused the Old Testament to be written in Hebrew, 
 the New in Greek. ‘The languages,’ says Luther, ‘are 
 the scabbard in which the sword of the Spirit is 
 hidden.’ (") But the spirit which speaks to us from 
 the Holy Scriptures in these languages is not the 
 human spirit, but the spirit of religion itself. It is in 
 the Scriptures that we hear the original utterances of 
 religion. A return to Scripture is in every age the 
 revival of its religious life. When, in the first decade 
 of the present century, the religious spirit, reviving 
 from the mutilation and shallowness of rationalism, 
 stirred the depths of men’s inner life, it was the return 
 to. Scripture which gave strength, health, and a future, 
 to this renovation of religion. Then, as at the era of 
 the Reformation, it was the Epistle to the Romans 
 more especially which seized upon and ruled the 
 thoughts and feelings of men. And how frequently 
 has it happened that when, at special seasons and 
 places, the study of Scripture has been diligently culti- ; 
 vated, a revival of religious life and evangelical Chris- 
 tianity has resulted therefrom. (”) Scripture is the 
 primitive source of religion, and herein lies its necessity. 
 
 How. far, then, may Scripture be said to be neces- 
 sary? Certainly it cannot be said that the individual 
 Christian cannot be saved without it. (") Many have 
 been saved who have never read the Bible, who have, 
 perhaps, never known it. Irenzus tells us of Chris- 
 tian congregations on the banks of the Rhine, towards 
 the end of the second century, who, though not 
 possessing the Word of God in the Scriptures, never- 
 
Necessity of Scripture. 203 
 
 theless bore it in their hearts. There is assuredly but 
 one thing necessary to salvation: to believe in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. We can, then, conceive an in- 
 dividual Christian just able to exist without Scripture. 
 But if he would really be certain of his subject, and 
 independent in matters of faith, he cannot dispense 
 with it. As in common life a man who cannot read 
 _is ever, to a certain degree, dependent upon. others, so 
 is it also in religious life. It is indispensable to the 
 independence and maturity of religious faith and life, 
 to be able to ascertain for oneself, as it is said of the 
 Bereans (Acts xvii. 11), whether these things are so. 
 Although the Christian is referred, in the first instance, 
 to the preaching and instruction of the Church, yet he 
 is not to believe merely upon the Church’s word, but 
 is to search and to convince himself. For this pur- 
 pose he needs the Scriptures; for all religious teaching 
 must be tested by this primitive source of religious 
 ’ truth. In this sense, then, Scripture is indispensable 
 even to the individual Christian. To the Church, 
 however, and its office of instruction, it is of the first 
 and most absolute necessity; for the Church must 
 have a rule for her guidance in faith and practice, 
 and for the resolution of those doubts and questions 
 which may arise during the course of her history. 
 But what is this rule and standard to be? What else 
 but that revelation of God by which He has made 
 known to the world His purposes of love? It is this 
 which is the foundation of religion and of the Church, 
 it is this which should be the Church’s rule of judg- 
 
204 Lecture VIIT. Holy Scripture. 
 
 ment, and it is this which is deposited in Holy 
 Scripture. For what is the matter of the Bible, but 
 those acts and words of God in which He has opened 
 His very heart, and disclosed to us His purposes of 
 salvation—that whole, great, glorious history in which 
 His thoughts of love have been revealed and fulfilled 2 
 For the Bible is no mere collection of maxims, and 
 precepts, or religious truths, but. that great_history_of 
 salvation which, commencing with the first beginning 
 of our race, was continued through the times of the 
 patriarchs and prophets, culminated in Jesus Christ 
 and the events of His death and resurrection, and 
 will be completed in that future world which is 
 promised us. 
 
 It is this which forms the matter of Scripture. Its 
 first pages tell of the creation of heaven and earth, its 
 last of the new heavens and the new earth. Between 
 this beginning and ending is contained this whole, full 
 history, whose central point is the cross. The cross 
 casts a light upon all that precedes and follows it, 
 Jesus Christ, crucified and risen,‘is the end towards 
 which all the ways of Divine revelation tend, and 
 from which they again proceed. He is the centre, the 
 essence of the whole Bible. To Him alk events relate, 
 —some more nearly, some more distantly,—and hence 
 some are more and some are less important; but all 
 are connected with Him, and therefore should be 
 profitable to us, All Scripture testifies of Him, and 
 
 ‘all Scripture is. given by inspiration of God, and 
 is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, 
 
ceeoa 
 
 The Understanding of the Scripture. 205 
 
 for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God 
 may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good 
 works’ (2 Tim. iii. 16). 
 
 Under this light must all that Scripture contains be 
 viewed. From this central point and aim it is that 
 all must be understood. 
 
 We hear much of the obscurity of Scripture, and 
 this is often advanced as a reason for neglecting it. 
 
 It is true that we must bring a certain degree 
 of historical knowledge to its perusal, to be able to 
 understand that which is peculiar to it; but this is 
 more or less necessary with every book, even of human 
 authorship, relating to historical events, whether of 
 the present or the past. And even when we under- 
 stand ever so clearly the historical circumstances to 
 which the peculiarity relates, and are ever so skilful 
 in the language, there will still be much that will 
 remain obscure to every reader. We theologians are 
 best able to judge of this, and the history of biblical 
 interpretation bears witness to it. This obscurity lies 
 not only in the difficulties presented _by the language, 
 or in the want of the necessary historical knowledge, but 
 in the matter itself. But even if a greater portion were 
 sealed to us, we might still say, with far more justice 
 than_Socrates, when speaking of the writings of the 
 heathen philosopher Heraclitus, surnamed the Obscure, 
 
 ‘What I understand of it is so excellent, that I can draw 
 conclusions from it concerning what I do not under- 
 stand’ And the deeper we dive into Scripture, the 
 more we shall understand of it. Itis the case with every 
 
206 Lecture VILL. Holy Scripiure. 
 
 really great work, that it ever becomes increasingly 
 valuable and important to us. A work which a first 
 perusal will exhaust, can have no very special depth and 
 fulness; while one which is ever disclosing new thoughts 
 and beauties, is alone of real importance. The Bible is 
 an inexhaustible treasury. The New Testament. may 
 be classed among the small books. We can carry it in 
 our pockets. And yet, though it has been studied, ex- 
 plained, and preached upon for eighteen hundred years, 
 who can say he has mastered it? Only the superficial 
 could imagine such a thing. It is, as Luther once 
 said, like a great tree, on which, when we have shaken 
 and beaten it ever so much, we still find more fruit. 
 We must, indeed, bring a right state of heart and _ 
 mind to the Scriptures, if we are to understand them. 
 Susceptibility is an ingredient necessary for compre- 
 hension. They who would understand an author 
 must, as Goethe says, go into the author’s country. 
 And they who would understand the book of religion, 
 must bring a mind open for its reception. As God 
 in Nature only speaks to those who know Him, and 
 have eyes and ears for His manifestation therein, so 
 they alone hear His voice in Scripture whose heart is 
 open to His revelation. If any one fails to find_God 
 therein, it is no fault of Scripture; it is not sealed; it 
 is his heart which is closed against it. In order. to 
 understand it, we must take up a right position with . 
 
 respect to it. We must surrender ourselves to it, with > . 
 
 an absence of self-consciousness, desiring only to hear 
 what it has to say to. us, and not to find ourselves in it. 
 
Inspiration of Scripiure. 207 
 
 It has been often said, that the Bible is the book in 
 which every one finds what he chooses. Certainly, he 
 who desires to find hig own notions in it will so find 
 them. But is this the fault of Scripture, or of the 
 man who will find without seeking, who first brings in 
 what he afterwards brings out? The best_remedy for 
 this abuse of Scripture, is Scripture itself. We need 
 but to search it with an absence of self-opinion, and 
 a desire of discovering what it contains. This is the 
 testimony of Jesus Christ, the history of God’s revealed 
 way of salvation; and this is what we want, 
 
 The Church of Rome requires that Scripture should 
 be interpreted according to tradition, according to the 
 teaching of the Church. But what if tradition is dis- 
 cordant? What if the Church’s teaching is unscrip- 
 tural? No one can find the Romish mass in. the 
 Scriptures who does not first place it there, and no 
 one can support the latest dogma of the Romish 
 Church by Scripture without misinterpreting it. This, 
 then, is no remedy for arbitrary interpretation. In 
 fact, there is no external remedy for error and self- 
 will, but only an inward, moral, and spiritual one. 
 The remedy for an arbitrary spirit _is obedience to 
 the truth, the subjection of self to the Word of truth ; 
 and the remedy for error is the gradual conquest. of” 
 
 ~error by the Spirit, who, by means of Scripture, leads 
 from one truth to another. It is our_own fault, and 
 not the fault of Scripture, if we fail of attaining a 
 correct perception of truth, For in it, as in a register 
 of the kingdom of God, is deposited the whole revela- 
 
208 Lecture VIII. Holy Scripture. 
 
 tion of God. Hence it is at all times the Church’s 
 safe guide in all dangers and duties. (") 
 
 Is it, then, so certain and reliable ? This has been 
 disputed. Certainly, if Scripture is to be a correct and 
 trustworthy account of the great drama of the Divine 
 revelation, as we believe, and as the Church at all 
 times has believed, it cannot have originated in the 
 fallible human mind, but must be in truth the Word 
 of that same Spirit who effected and presided over the 
 revelation itself. If Scripture is, as we believe, a 
 necessity for the Church, then is it also both the 
 demand and the conviction of faith, that God would not 
 have left it to accident whether such Scripture should 
 be produced, nor have committed its composition 
 merely to men, but would Himself have ordained and 
 effected its existence. It is not a fact originated by 
 the choice of man, not merely a work of the human 
 mind, but of the Spirit of God, @.¢., it is inspired. The 
 whole Christian Church believes in and teaches the 
 Divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. The New 
 Testament asserts it of the Old; the Lord and His 
 apostles often designate it as the Word and Work of 
 the Holy Ghost; and the Church believes the same of 
 the New Testament, for this is even more perceptibly 
 pervaded by the presence of the Spirit of God. 
 
 Recently, however, the doctrine of the Divine inspira- 
 tion of Holy Scripture has been made the subject of 
 special attack. 
 
 Do we understand inspiration aright? It does not 
 mean that no room is left for the agency of the human 
 
Inspiration of Scripture. 209 
 
 mind. To maintain this is to_ contradict evidence. 
 They who say so are setting themselves in opposition 
 to evidence. The biblical writers made researches, 
 collected, and sifted, as other writers do. The prophets, 
 as Luther says, studied the more ancient Scriptures. 
 And when the Apestle Paul writes one of his epistles, 
 his mental powers are all as much at a stretch as when 
 he delivers one of his great speeches, such as that 
 before the Areopagus at Athens (Acts xvii). The 
 doctrine of the Divine inspiration of Scripture is not 
 to be understood as excluding human mental activity, 
 The authors of the books of the Bible are authors, and 
 not mere scribes. What they wrote was not dictated 
 to their pens, but it passed through their own minds. 
 Yet it was no mere production of their own minds, but 
 ~they being moved and filled by the Spirit of God; and it 
 was out of this Spirit, that they spoke and wrote. The 
 Spirit of God controlled their mental activity by re- 
 vealing truth, illuminating their minds, and directing 
 their words, so that they said the right thing in. the 
 right words ; and, so said, it was adapted to the use, not 
 only of their own times, but of the Church at all times. 
 The fact that the Holy Spirit acted upon their minds 
 did not spare their labour, but required it. God did 
 not treat them as mere machines, for it was only by 
 the most concentrated energy of their own minds that 
 they became organs of the Spirit who speaks to us 
 through their mind. And that which He thus says 
 _to_us is not arbitrary instructions and information, but 
 
 the revelation of salvation and the Divine counsels 
 O 
 
210 Lecture VIII, Holy Scripture. 
 
 for our happiness. Scripture is not a collection of 
 human sciences, but the Divine charter. It will not 
 spare us the labour of investigation in matters of 
 secular science, but it will answer our inquiries con- 
 cerning the way of salvation; it will afford us no 
 solutions to the problems of physical science, but it 
 will furnish us with the solutions which we need con- 
 as Cardinal Baronius says, how heaven moves, but it 
 will teach us how to get there. It was for this pur- 
 pose that it was inspired by God. (”) 
 
 But are these things so? Can we be certain of this 
 inspiration? It is a decisive question, but we are able 
 
 This certainty has three degrees. 
 
 When we approach the Scriptures, and. give our- 
 selves to their contemplation, the first thing which 
 produces an overpowering effect is their magnificent 
 unity, their wonderful harmony. We admire a Gothic 
 cathedral, the splendour of the original conception, the 
 richness, the consistency, the adaptation and harmoni- 
 ousness of its several parts. Holy Scripture is such a 
 cathedral, and more than this. It includes the greatest 
 variety. In it is contained a multiplicity of ideas, of 
 knowledge, of facts. But one thought runs through _ 
 the whole. It is the_same religious spirit which 
 breathes upon us in all its several parts. It is one 
 and the same teaching which it carries on in all its 
 several books ; one and the same truth which it every- 
 where proclaims; one and the same way of salvation 
 
Certainty of Inspiration. 211 
 
 which it everywhere bids us walk in; one and the 
 same purpose of God for our eternal happiness which 
 it everywhere declares, with greater or less distinctness, 
 and in various stages of accomplishment, but ever one 
 and the same. This unity of Scripture cannot but 
 excite both wonder and admiration, when we consider 
 that we have here, in fact, the whole national literature 
 of Israel, a literature descending from remote ages, 
 diffused over a period of about 1600 years, the work of 
 the most diverse authors, written under the most widely 
 differing circumstances and events, for the most opposite 
 purposes, in the greatest variety of form—and yet what 
 wonderful unity of spirit and opinion! Where, in the 
 whole world, where, in the whole circle of literature, can 
 anything be found which even distantly approaches it ? 
 
 Nor is it this unity only which excites our admira- 
 _tion, but still more the harmony existing between its 
 different parts. For Scripture forms one great whole. 
 It is not like a collection of writings—it is like a single 
 book; it is an organism in which each part is neces- 
 sary, and none incidental or superfluous, but each ser- 
 “viceable to the whole, from the first page to the last, 
 from the creation to the renewal of the world; and the 
 centre of this great whole is Jesus Christ and His 
 cross. We cannot but confess that this could never 
 have been done by men ; for they who wrote the several 
 parts often knew nothing of each other; they knew 
 nothing of that whole for which they were labouring. 
 Neither accident nor human intention brought this to 
 pass, but a higher Spirit. Scripture is a wonderful 
 
212 Lecture VIIT. Holy Scripture. 
 
 structure—a structure to which there must have been 
 an architect. It is a ruling mind alone which knows 
 how to utilise and combine individual efforts. It is 
 the ruling mind which profits by the offices of indivi- 
 dual members. (”) 
 
 And every one may experience that this Spirit here 
 speaks to us with original power and truth. A series 
 of Christian writings, from the period immediately 
 following that of the New Testament writings, has 
 come down to us: an epistle of Clement of Rome, one 
 of St Paul’s disciples, to the Corinthians; letters of 
 Ignatius, bishop of Antioch; a letter of the venerable 
 Polycarp of Smyrna, one of St John’s disciples; and 
 various others. No one can read these writings of the 
 disciples of the apostles, of the most respected Chris- 
 tian teachers and representatives of the Church of their 
 age, without being seized with astonishment at the 
 wonderful difference between the New Testament. 
 Scriptures and these writings of the apostolic dis- 
 ciples. Even a Schelling found in this remarkable , 
 difference the strongest proof of the inspiration of the » 
 New Testament. (”) 
 
 Thus, then, has the Church in all ages testified to 
 Scripture, not only as a declaration of the truth, but 
 as the primitive and standard. proclamation to all 
 ages. Never has the Church hesitated in her con- 
 fidence in Holy Writ. Ever has she lived in the cer-_ 
 tainty of possessing therein that Word of God which 
 she needs. And this her certainty is no arbitrary idea, 
 no unfounded assertion, but the universal belief of all 
 
Faith and Criticism. 218 
 
 Christians and of all Churches; universal, because in- 
 separable from the very nature of the Church herself. 
 And this her faith is no product of her own reasoning ; 
 it is effected in her by the Spirit of God, by that 
 same Spirit who produced the Scriptures, that they 
 might furnish the Church, which is His creation, with 
 the light she needs. As the Spirit of God bears testi- 
 mony to our spirit that the proclamation of Jesus 
 Christ is the truth which will save us, so has the same 
 Spirit ever testified to the Church that the word of 
 Scripture is that word of God which will guide her 
 into all truth. And this faith has been progressively 
 confirmed to Christendom. Men have experienced, in 
 the course of ages, that they really possess in Scripture 
 what faith assured them that they did, viz., the sure 
 euide and unerring standard of God’s word. The 
 
 whistory of Scripture is but a history of its progressive 
 corroboration. (*) 
 
 And having this experience, she will not let herself 
 be led astray; her faith will not be.shaken even by 
 modern criticism. 
 
 Allow me a few words on this subject. 
 
 We live in the age of criticism. Many have had 
 their faith in Scripture shaken by criticism, but with- 
 out reason; for what is it that is objected to Scripture ? 
 
 As it replied, that its matter is a stumbling block? We 
 ask: Why ? Because it speaks of the sun in a manner 
 inconsistent with the Copernican system? Scripture 
 is not designed to make us astronomers, but Christians. 
 
 Or because it contradicts history? Far rather do 
 
 &- 
 
214 Lecture VIII. Holy Scripture. 
 
 historical researches corroborate Scriptural statements. 
 There was a time when the narrative of the sojourning 
 of Israel in Egypt was regarded as a fable. Now the 
 papyrus rolls and ancient wall paintings of Egypt 
 testify to its reality; and in the Pillar Court of the 
 Berlin Museum there is an ancient sitting figure of 
 King Rameses II., which was undoubtedly beheld by 
 Moses. (”) Doubt has been cast upon the accuracy of 
 the descriptions of Nineveh in the book of Jonah, and 
 of the Babylonish court in that of Daniel; but the 
 researches of our days have but served to confirm 
 them. (°) And if we descend to the New Testament, 
 every man of information must confess that its descrip- 
 tions fully correspond with what he elsewhere learns 
 of the historical condition of its era. (*) To 
 
 Objection has been made to the matter of Holy 
 Scripture. Objections of taste: But what is more 
 subjective than taste? Frederick II. of Prussia, as is 
 well known, pronounced the plays of Shakespeare 
 barbarous. We think rather differently of them now. 
 Objections in a moral point of view: It is indis- 
 putable that Scripture is a source of moral renovation. 
 Objections to the miracles it narrates: (”) But this 
 is a question of principle, a cardinal question, in which 
 different views of the universe are concerned. 
 
 Modern investigation has especially delighted to 
 occupy itself in inquiry as to the periods and authors 
 of the several books of the Bible. And it is chiefly 
 the results, the real or supposed_results, of such in- 
 vestigations which have caused anxiety to many 
 
Faith and Criticism. 215 
 
 minds. But such anxiety is needless. There are 
 few provinces of mental activity in which errors more 
 _ easily occur than in that of literary criticism. Philo- 
 logists, whose special concern such criticism is, will 
 
 _. readily confirm this. Schleiermacher was versed, as 
 
 few others have been, in the writings of Plato, and 
 yet he erroneously rejected many of Plato’s discourses. 
 And shall we theologians be free from this law of 
 error in the province of biblical criticism? And 
 even if a negative criticism should be correct in many 
 instances, this alone does not touch our faith. The five 
 books of Moses retain their value and importance even 
 if we are obliged to concede to criticism that longer 
 or shorter_component parts were added by other men 
 of God to what Moses himself wrote, that this work 
 might thus attain the completeness necessary, to fulfil 
 its purpose for the Church of after ages. Our faith 
 does not depend upon the decision of the question: 
 Whether the Gospel according to St Matthew, in the 
 form in which we possess it, is the work of St Matthew 
 himself, I believe that it is so; but it would not, in 
 the slightest degree, affect my faith if I were forced to 
 yield to the conviction, that the earlier sketch made 
 by this apostle had_been enlarged by additional nar- 
 . ratives of events in the life of Christ by some other 
 witness of the apostolic era. I cite these examples to 
 show that the question of authorship alone is not a 
 question of faith. Certainly this has its limits; and 
 
 oP be wal 
 
 Be engés SP riatanes itself, are impeached. To all 
 
216 Lecture VIII. Holy Scripture. 
 
 criticism which denies these, we will oppose the in- | 
 pression made by Scripture upon every unprejudiced \ 
 reader, that the very Spirit of truth is here addressing _ 
 us with a power and purity nowhere else met with, 
 and will then put more faith in this spirit of the truth 
 of Scripture than in the arguments of criticism. And 
 even if we were obliged, which we are not, to give up 
 one or another book of the Bible, our faith would not 
 be given up with it. One school of criticism, the 
 Tiibingen school, has left us but four of all the Pauline 
 epistles—that to the Romans, the two to the Corin- 
 thians, and the Epistle to the Galatians. And yet we 
 cannot but assert that, if we had but these four, we 
 should still have the whole of Christianity. We might 
 lament that we had no more, but we should be able to 
 obtain from these the knowledge of Jesus Christ, of 
 His redemption, and of our salvation. But, thank 
 God, we have more. It is now universally acknow- 
 ledged that this school of criticism has dealt far 
 too arbitrarily, and uprooted far too rashly. Much 
 will have to be acknowledged which criticism is 
 now perhaps questioning A true and a still 
 seasonable saying was written twenty-seven years 
 ago by the venerable Roman Catholic theologian 
 Hug, in his opinions of the Strauss’s ‘Leben Jesu’ | 
 of his days (p. 59): ‘It has become customary among 
 us, for any one who desires to earn the fame of 
 scholar, in the department of theology, to bring into 
 the market some striking and audacious attack on the - 
 sacred.monuments of our faith, and to outdo all his 
 
Faith and Criticism. 217 
 
 predecessors in this kind of ware. The audacity 
 supplies the place of solidity. A sharp and flippant 
 proposition, which stakes everything, will procure 
 the same fame among us as a well placed witticism in 
 France.’ 
 
 We should not find these attacks so imposing, if we 
 _were more familiar with Scripture, if we more lived in 
 fit. And yet the purpose for which Scripture was 
 given to us is, that we may make our heart and mind 
 intimately acquainted with it, and not that we may 
 consider it and treat it merely as an object of critical 
 operations. Scripture.is supported by a very fertile 
 history—a history not merely of the criticism it has 
 undergone, and from which it has ever come forth 
 victorious, but of the experience which has been made 
 of it by the Church. During the course of ages, the 
 Church has not become less certain, but more certain 
 about the Scriptures; and they who take up a right 
 position with respect to them, will share in this ex- 
 perience of the Church, and progressively increase 
 in affection for them. It is true, in all cases, that 
 love grows in the way of duty. Our duty to the 
 Scriptures is to read them and live in them; and 
 this, too, is the way of attaining certainty concern- 
 ing them. | 
 
 And whom does it more become to be intimate with 
 Holy Scripture than us, the Protestant Christians of 
 Germany? Luther’s translation of the Bible is the 
 pride of our nation, and the pearl of our ee Pu 
 
218 Lecture VIII. Holy Scripture. 
 
 our greatest intellects have written and spoken. It 
 has made the Bible a national book, in a degree which 
 it never was before. It is the common ground on 
 which men of all ranks, and of every degree of cultiva- 
 tion, from the highest to the very lowest, meet. The 
 Bible forms an intellectual bond between all classes of 
 the people, in a far greater degree than the poems of 
 Homer did among the Greeks. And what a bond! 
 It is in the highest concerns of the soul, in the 
 greatest questions of the intellect, in the holiest 
 thoughts and feelings, that we here find a meeting 
 place. Here, too, it is that our souls ever meet with 
 new refreshment. Scripture is a fountain’ of living 
 water, in which our souls may bathe. Hither let us , 
 resort from the distractions of the world, from the 
 noisy pursuits of the age, from the strife of thought 
 and feeling; here will our souls be tranquillised, here 
 are we surrounded by the breath of eternity, here is 
 the sanctuary of God. Let us learn to live in the 
 Scriptures, and we shall thus learn also to love the 
 - Scriptures. 
 
 And the more we lovingly dive into them and make 
 them the nourishment of our spirits, the more will 
 they awaken within us desires for that Divine grace 
 of which they testify, and which is brought to us 
 in those means of grace which the Church is appointed 
 to administer, namely, in the preaching of the Word 
 and in the Sacraments. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 THE CHURCH’S MEANS OF GRACE. 
 
 eH purpose of God is our redemption, %.¢., 
 Use nal our fellowship with Himself. It is this 
 R@ fee| for which we were destined, and in which 
 we find our truth. By the person and 
 work of Christ this redemption was effected, the 
 Church possesses this treasure, and Scripture furnishes 
 documentary evidence concerning it. What is thus 
 presented to us externally, must now be made our own 
 
 possession. 
 
 But as it is with Christianity, so is it with the 
 individual Christian. The world could receive Chris- 
 tianity, but could not itself produce it. It was a 
 new act of God, effected within our history; and 
 the Christian is no less a work of God within our 
 soul. Christianity.is a new creative principle in the 
 history of the world: hence a new creative spiritual 
 power must enter into combination with our moral life, 
 if we are to be Christians. This is the nature of grace 
 and of its agency in man. It is not merely a doctrine, 
 an admonition, or a precept; it does not merely set up 
 _an ideal, and give us new ideas; it is an actual fact, a 
 
220 Lecture IX, The Means of Grace. 
 
 creative power which takes possession of our thoughts 
 and wills, and calls forth new thoughts and emotions 
 within us. Itis true that it does not enter without 
 means into our inner life. It has its preparatives, its. 
 points of connection; it enters into combination with 
 the productions of our own moral efforts and powers. 
 It is no production of our own moral strength, but is a 
 renovation thereof. We can long for it, but we cannot 
 procure it; it must draw near to us and communicate 
 itself to us. It is true that it does not carry on its 
 work without us, for it carries it on within us. The 
 moral work which each man has to do cannot be done 
 for him by another, not even by God; he must perform 
 it himself. Nevertheless, all our fellow working with 
 God rests upon the foundation laid by the work of 
 God within us. God himself must begin that which 
 is new within us, must deposit in us its germ, must 
 impart to us the new moral power. As redemption | 
 through Jesus Christ was the act and work of God 
 without us, so is the appropriation of redemption His _ 
 work within us. It is the Spirit of God which works 
 upon our spirits. | 
 
 All the intellectual activity of man, all influence of 
 one man upon another, requires its appropriate instru- 
 mentality. The two great means by which man works 
 upon man are his word and his deed. And the Spirit _ 
 of God, too, clothes Himself in these forms, and makes 
 them the means of His grace: word and transaction. 
 The Church has ever designated these two the Word 
 and Sacraments, as the means of grace by which the 
 
The Word and Sacrament. yA! 4 
 
 agency of the Spirit of God draws near and enters 
 into us. 
 
 ~The power of mind is greater upon earth than 
 physical power, and it has ever been new and great 
 thoughts which have set the world in motion. All 
 other powers and forces do but subserve the power of 
 mind. When the proud structures which absolute 
 power or armed force has erected are overthrown and 
 in ruins, mind rises above the ruins, and bears its 
 thoughts from century to century. They alone endure ; 
 all else decays. They are the instruments which con- 
 vey the produce of history to succeeding generations. 
 They form a communication between minds separated 
 from each other by millenaries. They constitute the 
 projectile force of the mind, awaken the energy of the 
 will, and kindle that fire of enthusiasm which is the 
 soul of all great deeds, and the secret of success. But 
 the outward form of mind, and the garment in which 
 thought clothes itself, is speech. 
 
 Speech is the revelation of the mind by which it 
 becomes incorporate. The revelation also of God has 
 from the beginning clothed itself in speech. Zhe word 
 is become the expression for revelation itself. Truly 
 mind can clothe itself in various forms; it can choose 
 anything as its means for speaking to us and influenc- 
 ing us. It addresses us by the whole wide world of 
 symbolism. But still speech is its most appropriate 
 incorporation; and to all else which it uses to give 
 expression to its notifications, to all signs and symbol- 
 ism, the interpreting word must first draw near and 
 
222 Lecture LX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 liberate the mind which is, so to speak, confined 
 within the visible forms of the sign, before it can 
 thereby speak to our mind. Hence it is speech which 
 is the means of mental intercourse, and the power of 
 mental influence. It is true that there is also a speech- 
 less intercourse and a silent influence. But these, too, 
 rest upon words. Words form the tie of connection , 
 between mind and mind, which then carries on its ’ 
 work in silence. 
 
 It was because God would show to men the pur- 
 poses of His heart for their salvation, and deliver ~ 
 their souls from the evil of sin, that He revealed 
 Himself by His Word. At every stage of His revela- 
 tion we see a fresh word of God uniting itself to what 
 had been handed down thus far, and carrying it still 
 farther onwards. It is thus that the word and its 
 effects are propagated from generation to generation. 
 Upon this word, then, rests, in the first instance, the 
 written record, whose object is to renew and exhibit to ~ 
 each age the word which was delivered. Every pre- 
 Christian word of God had for its object Him who is - 
 called ‘The Word’—even Christ Jesus. When the 
 evangelist sought the most comprehensive, the fullest 
 expression for Jesus Christ, he called Him simply 
 ‘The Word’ (John i1). That is to say: He is the 
 absolute revelation. In Him God has laid up and 
 expressed to us His whole heart, His whole will 
 towards us. He who is the substance of the Old 
 Testament, and the soul of the New, is simply the 
 Word, the absolute revelation of God. The form, 
 
The Word. O25 
 
 moreover, of His revelation, and the means of His 
 agency, was again the Word in which He delivered 
 Himself to us. 
 
 It is true that Jesus did also signs and miracles, 
 and that His very person exercised a powerful in- 
 fluence upon the minds of those susceptible of it. 
 But when He would pour forth His whole heart, 
 and seize men’s hearts and stir them to their very 
 depths, He clothed His testimony in word. And it 
 was this, His word, which gave to His signs and 
 wonders, and to His person, their special significance 
 and influence. We all know what heart-stirring 
 power dwelt in the words of the Lord Jesus. And 
 it was the Word which He pointed out to His dis- 
 ciples as the power by which they were to lift the 
 world off its hinges. Their office was to be the 
 preaching of the Word: ‘Go and teach all nations ;’ 
 ‘Preach the Gospel to every creature” And since 
 the time of that first preaching, on the day of Pente- 
 cost, the proclamation of the Word. has been going on 
 throughout the world. 
 
 The Word is the power of the Church. When the 
 knights of Germany offered their swords to Luther 
 for the service of his cause, he refused them, with the 
 .. declaration: The Word shall do it. (’) 
 
 . The Word is the power of the Church, and the 
 means by which it is to be extended. Many a time, 
 indeed, have ambition and selfishness entered into 
 alliance with the missionary work of the Church, and 
 placed their secular resources at her disposal. Yet 
 
224 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 the preaching of the Word has ever been the special 
 power of missions. When the Gospel is carried to the 
 heathen, it brings not merely religion but civilisation. 
 Missions are of eminent importance with regard to 
 civilisation, of far greater than those imagine who 
 despise them and stigmatise their work as pietistic. 
 And the ultimate basis of all this salutary agency is 
 the Word. 
 
 The Word comes before us under various forms. 
 When the mother teaches her child to pray, or ex- 
 plains Bible pictures to him; when the teacher of the 
 young gives instruction in Bible history; when from 
 the professor's chair we develop before our young 
 theologians the mysteries of Christian doctrine, or 
 when I speak to you_here on matters of Christian 
 faith,—all these are but the announcement of the 
 Word under various forms. But its special form still 
 is its public declaration by preaching. It is here that 
 it concentrates its whole strength, and will exercise 
 its full influence. 
 
 mae 
 
 But then it must be really the preaching of the; 
 Word of God. It must be no mere twisting and) 
 turning of phrases, no dressing up of the dry chips of | 
 
 human wisdom, no exhibition of the preacher's own, 
 
 wisdom, intellect, or eloquence. We are to preach, 
 “not ourselves’ and our gifts or our poverty, but the 
 Word of God, ie, Christ Jesus. Nor are men to 
 want to hear us, and our thoughts or smooth words, 
 but the Word of God, «2, Jesus Christ. But when 
 preaching really is what it ought to be, it is the most 
 
The Word. 225 
 
 answerable, most special, and most efficient form of 
 the Word of God. 
 » Preaching was the chief occupation of Christ during 
 His earthly life, and He appointed preaching to be 
 the chief duty of His disciples after His ascension. 
 Preaching was the office of the great prophets of the 
 Old Testament; preaching was the business of Christ’s 
 apostles; the religions of the ancient world and their 
 opposition to Christianity were overcome by the 
 power of preaching; and the history of the Church 
 has told us of many who have wielded this sword 
 of the Spirit with wide-spread efficiency. Preaching 
 is a heart-stirring, a world-stirring power. Luther’s 
 preaching introduced and gave a tone to a new era, 
 kindled a new light and life in the souls of individuals, 
 and poured into the minds of the desponding the con- 
 solations of Divine grace. Hence our Church has ever 
 distinguished and treated preaching as the chief matter 
 in public worship, or at least has insisted that it should 
 be so treated by those who are called upon to preach. 
 It is true that the public announcement of the Word 
 is not the only preaching. ._N ature, too, preaches to 
 ; the religious decorations of our churches and of 
 our houses Predaitio us. But the means by which 
 God_most specially and directly speaks to us, spirit to 
 spirit, heart. to heart, is still by the Word; and the 
 most special form of that Word is its public announce- 
 ment by preaching. 
 , What, then, is the the subject matter of the Word? It 
 
 may be a single text text which strikes us. Perhaps it 
 P 
 
226 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 penetrates our whole being in_a single moment, per- 
 haps it sets the seal to and concludes a long course 
 of preparation ; yet ‘still we need the whole Word, that 
 whole Word which is made up of law and Gospel... 
 If we are to be possessed of a sound Christianity, 
 and fully to appropriate the blessing of redemption, 
 both must produce their appropriate effect upon us. 
 With the whole human race, no less than with each 
 individual, God deals in the way of a_ progressive... 
 course of instruction. History is the education of the~ 
 human race; and this law of the whole is repeated in 
 the case of the individual. Now, the moral law of all 
 education is: through law to liberty! When the 
 evangelist would point out the contrast between the 
 Old and New Testaments, he says: ‘The law was given 
 by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’ 
 When the Apostle Paul would characterise the ditf- 
 ference of the ages, he designates it by the words law 
 and liberty; and it is a fundamental doctrine of our 
 Church to give due emphasis to this difference between 
 the law and the Gospel. Certainly they stand not 
 merely in contrast, but also in relation to each other. 
 The Apostle Paul calls the law our schoolmaster to 
 bring us to Christ. Thus it is that the law subserves 
 the Gospel, and leads us beyond itself to the liberty of 
 the Gospel, Yet still this relation in which they stand 
 to each other depends upon their difference. We all 
 know that a new age began with Christianity. The 
 age of the law gave place to the age of grace. True it 
 is that God has been in all ages the God of grace, and 
 
Law and Gospel. 227 
 
 that we find the Gospel even in the Old Testament. 
 The very soul of the Old Testament is the promise of 
 Christ. Yet it is still only a promise. The Gospel is 
 the future of the Old Testament, the law its present. 
 When we read the precepts of the law in the Old Tes- 
 tament, it may perhaps seem to us incomprehensible 
 ~Wwhy they should extend to all those details and ex- 
 ternals which are, according to our notions, so indif- 
 ferent, instead of being confined to great moral truths, 
 It would be incomprehensible, nay, it would be arbi- 
 trary, if the law had not been intended to serve for the 
 \purpose of education. It was to be felt as law; it was 
 to be a yoke upon the neck; it was to demand the 
 allegiance of the whole man, to confine every step, 
 every action of the whole life, within the bounds of 
 obedience. We often command certain things to our 
 own children which are not necessary. It may be 
 perhaps indifferent in itself whether they do this or 
 that; yet, because we have commanded it, they are to 
 do it,—not for the sake of the thing itself, but for the 
 sake of our command. They must learn obedience. 
 A time may perhaps come to them, too, when they 
 may be delivered from this strict discipline of law, 
 and act as they like; but not till they are ripe for this 
 liberty. It is the very use of law to ripen them for it. 
 _Law is needful to us all. It is said in Scripture 
 (Lam. iii, 27): ‘It is good for a man that he bear the 
 yoke in his youth.” He who has not learned to obey 
 has not learned to command. He whose self-will is 
 not restrained and broken in his youth, will not in 
 
228 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 after years know how to make a wise use of liberty. 
 The law is a necessary stage of moral development. 
 If any one overleaps it, or would, from false tender- 
 ness, exempt another from it, an undisciplined and 
 arbitrary character will be the result. It is, however, 
 the high road to freedom. Many, indeed, never get 
 beyond the law; they always remain under the law, 
 either in their external or their inner life. What they 
 need is to get beyond it, and to be free from it; as the 
 apostle expresses it: through the law to die to the law. 
 
 How, then, does the law serve to lead us on beyond 
 itself? Its first office is to bring us under discipline. 
 It restrains the outbreaking of our passions, and 
 opposes its prohibitions to their motions. We must 
 learn to control ourselves and our appetites by the 
 power of our wills. It cannot, indeed, annihilate our 
 appetites, nor of itself exterminate our sinful inclina- 
 tions. Laws cannot change the heart; inclination 
 cannot be commanded, nor love prescribed. The law 
 is not a remedy against sin, it only makes us con-, 
 scious thereof; for it is Just when we strive to control. 
 ourselves, and to bring ourselves into subjection to the 
 commandment, that we feel most forcibly the opposi- 
 tion offered by’our sinful inclination. He who deals 
 most strictly with himself, most feels and acknowledges 
 his impotence against that power of sin which rules 
 within. It is true that we ought to labour diligently 
 in the work; but all our severity towards ourselves, 
 and all our moral effort, will not change us. We 
 ought to contend against our faults, and to strive after — 
 
The Law. 229 
 
 virtue; but when we have conquered ever so many 
 faults, and acquired ever so many virtues, and done 
 ever so many good works, and are ever so legal in our 
 whole deportment, we do not thereby become other 
 men. Certainly, it is better to form serious purposes 
 than to lead a life of thoughtlessness and frivolity. 
 But good purposes alone will not bring a man to 
 heaven. It is a pleasant thing to behold youthful 
 enthusiasm following after the moral ideal ever hover- 
 ing before its eyes, and rising above that low level of 
 morality to which so many of our young people have 
 sunk. There is something lovable in the noble moral 
 efforts of youth. You all know the narrative of the 
 rich young man in the Gospel, who approached our 
 Lord with the question, ‘What must I do to inherit 
 eternal life?? He was such a youth, a youth filled 
 with enthusiasm for the ideal. And there stirred 
 within the Lord’s heart, as there does in ours, the 
 feeling of delight at the moral nobility of human 
 nature. He beheld the youth, we are told (Mark x. 
 21), and loved him. And yet this very history shows 
 that the moral ideal alone cannot help us. We can 
 never thereby overcome the discord which we bear 
 within us. I am bold to appeal to the experience of 
 every one who has trodden it, whether the path of his 
 own moral effort has led to true freedom. You know 
 what was the morality developed in the ancient world. 
 Does there exist a more sublime or nobler moral 
 enthusiasm than we meet with in Plato’s world of 
 thought, and in his ideal of the true and good under the 
 
230 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 form of beauty? And what is it, in the ancient world 
 of Greece and Rome, which so powerfully kindles 
 our youthful ardour, and will continue to betray the 
 youthful mind into enthusiasm so long as it is true 
 to itself? What but that ideal atmosphere of moral 
 beauty by which that world is pervaded, that noble 
 spirit of moral effort and struggle which appeals to 
 our mind by the deeds of its great men ? And yet to 
 what did the old world attain? It was her office, after 
 having developed and exhausted all the possibilities 
 latent in human nature, to recognise its impotence. 
 It was, and continues to be her-office: to be an ever 
 loud-tongued memento of human limitation. ew! 
 say nothing of that defilement of sin into which so 
 many sank. I am only speaking now of her nobler 
 representatives ; and the lower we descend the stream 
 of time, the more numerous are the voices bewailing 
 the unhappy discord which we are incapable of over- 
 coming. (°) 
 
 The experience of all who have trodden this path is: 
 we would, yet cannot; we will, and yet we will not; 
 we struggle to be free, yet are not free; we are ever 
 making new resolutions, and yet never fulfilling them. 
 ‘Oh, wretched man that I am!’ exclaims the Apostle 
 Paul, in that touching lament in the seventh chapter 
 of Romans, in which he is describing this inward 
 discord, and the impotence of his own will against the 
 supremacy of nature’s sinfulness. And every one who 
 travels by the same path reaches the same end. The 
 experience of all who walk therein is: We have felt 
 
The Gospel. 231 
 
 profoundly unhappy. (*) And so it was meant we 
 should; for this is the end and aim of the law. It 
 is then that the Gospel steps in. ‘When the fulness 
 of the time was come, says the apostle, ‘God sent 
 forth His Son’ (Gal. iv. 4). He means the time.of the 
 -law. Both Israel and the heathen world had their 
 time of law. What the Mosaic law was to Israel, the 
 ideal of philosophic morality was to the heathen world ; 
 and when the fulness of the time was come, God sent 
 forth His Son, is repeated in the case of every indi- 
 vidual. When the law has fulfilled its office in him, 
 it gives place to the Gospel. 
 
 The Gospel, however, is Jesus Christ. He is the 
 substance of Christian preaching» He preached Him- 
 self, His apostles preached Him, and we, too, preach 
 Him. 
 
 What is meant by preaching Jesus Christ? It is to 
 preach the grace of God, the forgiveness of sin, and 
 peace of conscience, If we would fix upon the very 
 essence of Christ’s preaching, we should all mention 
 such sayings as: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour 
 and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matt. 
 xi. 28); or such words of comfort as He spake to the 
 ‘woman which was a sinner:’ ‘Go in peace; thy sins are 
 forgiven; thy faith hath saved thee’ (Luke vii. 48-50); 
 or if we were thinking of parables, upon that prince of 
 parables, the Prodigal Son (Luke xv.). If we inquire 
 what was the essence of the apostolic preaching, St 
 Paul will answer us: ‘ We preach Christ crucified ;’ ‘I 
 determined not to know anything among you, save 
 
232 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 Jesus Christ, and Him crucified’ (1 Cor. i. 23; ii. 2). 
 The preaching of the cross, however, is the preaching 
 of reconciliation: ‘God was in. Christ, reconciling the 
 world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto 
 them; and hath committed unto us the word of recon- 
 ciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as 
 though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in 
 Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath 
 made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we 
 might be made the righteousness of God in Him’ 
 (2 Cor. v. 19-21). If we inquire, moreover, what was 
 the preaching of Luther, and what is the fundamental 
 doctrine of our Church, we find it, in accordance with 
 the teaching of the Apostle Paul, to be: justification by 
 faith; in other words, the appropriation of reconcilia- 
 tion, 7.¢., of the forgiveness of sins, and Divine adoption, 
 by the believing reception of the grace of God. Itis 
 this which is preaching Christ. 
 
 It is true that the doctrine of justification through 
 faith has ever been accused of being prejudicial to 
 morality, of separating religion from practice, of 
 weakening moral seriousness and zeal. Even St Paul 
 had to experience such attacks, and they formed the 
 object against which the battle of his life had to be 
 waged. Not faith, but works, said his opponents, are 
 the way of salvation. Faith and works, said a sub- 
 sequent age. Not faith, but reason, says rationalism. 
 Not faith only, but chiefly the feeling and the works 
 of love, teaches the Church of Rome. 
 
 While the Romanist says: justification is to be 
 
The Doctrine of Justification. 233 
 
 attained by the way of sanctification; we say: sanc- 
 tification is to be attained in the way of justification. 
 Not till we are certain of His mercy, shall we be able 
 to give to God the glad affection of our hearts! Not 
 till we are reconciled to God, can we live in friendship 
 with Him; and all holy obedience is but a grateful 
 response to the gift of His grace. But it is by faith 
 alone that we become certain of His grace. Such 
 is the teaching of our Church.(°) For the heaviest 
 burden which oppresses us is guilt, and the conscious- 
 ness of guilt; and the first and foremost of all our 
 wants is forgiveness of sins and certainty of God’s 
 mercy. | 
 
 It is said that the doctrine of justification is pre- 
 judicial to morality, and yet it is an expression of 
 moral seriousness. for the degree of the strength and 
 vitality of each man’s moral consciousness is the 
 standard of his morality. Moral consciousness, how- 
 ever, feels first of all the guilt of sin, and then its 
 power; feels it first as the burden which oppresses the 
 conscience, then as the power which controls the will. 
 Before our will can undertake the work of reformation, 
 at least before it can undertake it with joy and with 
 the prospect of success, our conscience must know and 
 feel itself free from the burden of guilt. We must 
 have the right to forget the things which are behind, 
 that we may reach forth to those things that are 
 before. God, however, alone can give us the right to 
 forget our sin; for it is against Him only that we 
 have sinned. It is He only who can forgive us, and 
 
234 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 not we ourselves. We must have His forgiveness, if 
 our hearts are to feel health and freedom. 
 
 When a child has offended its parents, it seeks 
 forgiveness before it begins a new life. Until it 
 receives pardon it is unhappy, the burden of its guilt 
 oppresses it, nor can it cheerfully enter upon a fresh 
 course of conduct. Its first, its chief desire, is pardon. 
 And even if it is punished, it knows that this does 
 not undo its fault ; even then its deepest want is for- 
 civeness. Nor does it expect forgiveness because it 
 promises future amendment, for it is at all times 
 bound by its duty to its parents and to God to do 
 what is right. Not without amendment, yet not 
 because of amendment, does it receive forgiveness, 
 a forgiveness bestowed only because the parents 
 choose of their free kindness to bestow it. It is true 
 that it is morally impossible for us to assure our 
 children of forgiveness unless we see in them an 
 earnest purpose of amendment; but the ground of 
 pardon lies not in the child but in the parents. 
 
 So, too, in our case. It is not we that make amends 
 for our sin and guilt by our good works or good dis- 
 positions. We can make no amends, for we owe the 
 very best that we can either will or do. It is not 
 because we promise improvement, not because we 
 condemn our sin and inwardly forsake it, not because 
 our dispositions are changed and our hearts converted, 
 that God forgives us. We cannot earn forgiveness, we 
 cannot deserve it. It is God’s free gift, but a gift 
 which He will not bestow unless there takes place 
 
The Doctrine of Justification. 235 
 
 in us a change of disposition. An earnest purpose of 
 amendment is indeed a condition of forgiveness, but it 
 is not.its cause. The cause of forgiveness is in God 
 alone and in His free. mercy. It is this which for- 
 gives us for the sake of Christ and His redemption. 
 It is through this that God’s holiness has made it 
 possible to itself to forgive us. But it is our faith 
 which lays hold upon this grace, for it is a faith in the 
 grace of redemption. It is by faith that we obtain 
 | forgiveness ; for, as Luther says, What thow believest, 
 that thou hast. Not that the ground of forgiveness 
 lies in our faith, as though it were so meritorious an 
 act, so good a work, that God must reward it; nor in 
 our love which proceeds from faith, nor in our repen- 
 tance which begets it; it is not in us, but only in God 
 and in the atoning death of Jesus Christ. It is erace 
 valone, and_nothing else, which induces God to pro- 
 nounce our pardon and to receive us as His children. 
 It is this which, with the Apostle Paul, we call justi- 
 fication, 2.e. our acquittal from all guilt and punish- 
 ment, and our admission to the rights of sonship. 
 Not because we are not sinners, but though we are 
 sinners; nay, just because we are sinners, and believe 
 in His pardoning grace, are we pronounced free, guilt- 
 less, and just, and received into favour. 
 
 Justification, then, is not a change which takes 
 place in us, but, if we may so speak, an occurrence 
 which takes place in God, a change in the sentence 
 He passes upon us, in His view of us, in our value in 
 His sight. He chooses to regard and treat us as 
 
236 83.. Lecture LX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 His children; for the Spirit of God bears witness 
 with our spirits that we are the children of God, 
 bears this witness through the Word of God, which 
 addresses us in those loving terms: My son, my 
 daughter, be of good comfort, thy sins are forgiven 
 thee; thy faith hath made thee whole. Thus does the 
 Spirit, by means of the Word, produce in our hearts 
 the glad, the God-reposed assurance which a Christian 
 must possess if he is to live and die as a Christian 
 should; for from this alone can grow a happy child-. 
 like love to God, a grateful obedience in life, and a 
 joyful hope in death. These are the aim of God’s 
 Word, and its triumph. 
 
 In the case, indeed, of each individual Christian, 
 this assurance passes through many fluctuations, and. 
 is subject even to declensions and revivals. But the 
 Word of God is stronger than our weakness; it is, 
 moreover, accompanied by those attendants on the 
 Word which God has ordained to support its agency 
 and to assist the weakness of our faith, namely, the 
 Sacraments. 
 
 What are the Sacraments ? 
 
 They are, first, symbolical transactions. 
 
 No religion is without symbols, nor is the Christian 
 religion. Symbolism meets a want of human nature... 
 Puritanism, which is acquainted only with bare walls, 
 mistakes human nature. Truth delights in taking a 
 visible form, and the Word clothes itself in a shape 
 which may strike the senses. (*) Our whole life is 
 interwoven with symbolism. The thoughts of our 
 
The Sacraments. | 237 
 
 minds, the inclinations of our hearts, all seek a sym- 
 bolical expression. And why should not those of our 
 religious life? No worship can exist without sym- 
 bolism. All worship is a sacred symbolism. And do 
 we not involuntarily carry symbolism into our whole 
 life? When we fold our hands, when we bow or raise 
 our heads, when we bend our knees—what are these 
 but symbolical actions, sensible expressions of that 
 which is not sensible? We ever delight in surrounding 
 ourselves with what is symbolical. We have made 
 the cross the universal symbol of Christendom, Every 
 picture of our Saviour is a symbol. Nay, there is 
 symbolism in all art, for art never fully rises to its 
 subjects. The more elevated its subjects, the more is 
 art but a mere indication thereof. It strives indeed to 
 become the perfect expression of its subject, but 1s ever 
 forced to confess that it is far from attaining its end. 
 
 Never will a painter succeed in adequately depicting 
 the grace and truth that shone in the countenance of 
 Jesus Christ. All true art contains an element of 
 symbolism. It is by this very feature that it becomes 
 
 _a guide to lead us out of this visible into the invisible 
 world. (’) And we need such helps even in religion. 
 No religion has ever been without symbolism, nor is 
 the Christian religion without it. 
 
 . But a symbolical action is a higher or more concen- 
 trated kind of symbolism than a symbolical object. 
 We find symbolical acts ‘in every religion, and also 
 in the Christian religion. They are involuntary. If I 
 bless another. I involuntarily place my hand upon his 
 
238 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 head. Worship is a system of symbolical actions, and 
 so too is Christian worship. Where they are absent, 
 it becomes cold and bare. They meet a want of our 
 nature. There is, however, a difference between the 
 pre-Christian and Christian religions. The former were 
 the religions of prediction; the latter is the religion of 
 fulfilment. The symbols of Christianity do not direct 
 us to something which is future, and beyond them- 
 selves; but they speak to us of that which is present, 
 and which the highest of symbols, viz., the Sacraments, 
 bear within them. The Sacraments are symbolic 
 actions; but they are pregnant symbols; they possess 
 the thing which they signify. 
 
 We reckon but two Sacraments: Baptism and the 
 Lord’s Supper. The Romish Church reckons seven—a 
 number first established in the Middle Ages. In earlier 
 times the number fluctuated ; for the notion of a sacra- 
 ment was itself a fluctuating one. But Baptism and 
 the Lord’s Supper have ever been regarded as _ pre-.. 
 eminent. (°) And this is the ground we go upon. We, 
 too, have many sacred and important Church acts; we 
 too, have confirmation, confession, the celebration of 
 matrimony, the consecration of the ministers of the 
 Church, and the pronunciation of the Church’s blessing 
 over her departed members. But none of these acts 
 are equal in dignity and importance to Baptism and 
 the Holy Supper. These rest on the express institu- 
 tion and ordainment of Christ himself; and we believe 
 that what they signify they also contain and impart. 
 
 Before Christ took leave of His disciples, He ordained 
 
Baptism. 239 
 
 ,Baptism as the act by which all should be received 
 among the number of His disciples, and into the 
 fellowship of His future Church, who should be willing 
 to be so.() Baptism is the Sacrament of reception. 
 Its external form was not entirely new. It succeeded 
 earlier ceremonies. Washings and purifications were 
 prescribed in the Old Testament, and John the Baptist 
 had used water baptism, the symbol of repentance and 
 forgiveness of sins, as a preparation for the appearance 
 of the kingdom of God. But Christ imtroduced new 
 
 _matter into this form, viz., that confession of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which was hence- 
 forth to be combined with this rite. Baptism was to 
 be reception into communion with the Triune God, and 
 into participation in His redemption. But the central 
 point of the revelation of redemption is the atonement 
 on the cross, the forgiveness of sins. It is this which is 
 signified in this act. It isan emblem. Its emblematic 
 
 character lies in the element employed, and in the act 
 itself, Water is the means of purification, and the act 
 of washing the act of purification. Baptism signifies 
 purification from sin,—not only that we are to cleanse 
 ourselves, but that God will cleanse.us. (") But it does 
 not merely signify. this; it gives what it signifies; it 
 
 “lays the foundation of Christian life. A Christian life 
 is a life of communion with God. The obstacle to this 
 communion is the guilt of sin. Our first, our chief 
 want is the forgiveness of sin. Baptism is the Sacra- 
 
 ment of the cleansing of. the conscience from guilt. 
 But it is this for the purpose of uniting us with God. 
 
240 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 The bond of our communion with God is the Holy 
 Spirit. The Spirit of reconciliation unites Himself - 
 with the water of purification, and Baptism is the 
 covenant of a good conscience with God. (") 
 
 With us, Baptism has become Jnfant Baptism. As 
 long as the Church remains at the missionary stage, 
 she naturally directs her preaching, and consequently 
 offers her baptism, chiefly to adults. As soon, how- 
 ever, as she has obtained any firm footing, she looks 
 upon such children as are born in her bosom as her 
 own, and receives them into that communion of re- 
 demption of which she is the bearer. In the Acts we 
 are often told that St Paul baptized whole house- 
 holds. (”) “For Christianity would be the soul, not 
 merely of individual, but also of domestic life. The 
 baptism of infants is but the expression of this prin- 
 ciple. It is true that when our children are baptized, 
 they know nothing of the transaction ; for their mental 
 life is then still lying in that dreamy slumber from 
 which it but gradually awakens. But still it exists, 
 and still they belong to their God and Father. And 
 are they not also to be brought to their Saviour? Do 
 we not pray for our children? Do we not bear them 
 on our hearts in intercessory prayer? And who could 
 doubt but that this is something more than mere form 
 and empty words? Once, when Jewish mothers 
 brought their children to Jesus to bless them, and the » 
 disciples would have repelled them because these little 
 children understood as yet nothing of the matter, Jesus 
 expressly reproved them, and took the children in His 
 
Baptism. 241 
 
 arms, laid His hands upon them, and blessed them. (*) 
 And why should not we, too, bring our children to 
 Him, and feel certain that He receives them, and gives 
 them His blessing? It is of this that Baptism is the 
 expression. 
 
 Certainly, children have as yet committed no actual 
 sin; we delight to call them innocent. But still they 
 belong to that human race upon which there lies the 
 old common guilt. And that their innocence has its 
 limits is shown as soon as the mind awakens from its 
 first slumber, and with it all those evil tempers from 
 which sin is developed. Children need the grace of 
 God no less than adults. ; 
 
 It is true that our children have no consciousness of 
 what takes place at their baptism, for they have as yet 
 no consciousness at all. But does it follow that no 
 real transaction can therefore as yet take place within 
 them? Are not the germs of all its subsequent mental 
 and physical development latent in the newly born 
 infant? And who could determine the time at which 
 these really begin to be called into activity? The 
 first commencement of our inward mental life lies 
 far beyond the boundaries of our consciousness. And 
 even still later, how much there is which lies beyond 
 the limits of our consciousness and never enters into 
 it! The limits of our consciousness are far narrower 
 than those of our mental life. How manifold are the 
 influences, the intellectual and moral influences, which 
 we unconsciously experience! And who would set 
 -limits to the Holy Spirit, over which it should be said 
 Q 
 
242 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 that He could not pass? He has His work in the souls 
 of children, as well as in the souls of adults. Yet 
 we evant that this communion with God must become 
 a matter of consciousness. And it is for this reason 
 that we follow Baptism by Conjirmation,—not to com- 
 plete Baptism, for it-is complete already; not to renew 
 it, for it is a beginning once for all; but that the 
 baptized may express, with his own mouth, that con- 
 fession of faith upon which he was baptized, that his 
 covenant with God in Baptism may be the covenant 
 of his conscious choice, and that he may receive the 
 blessing at the very time of his moral development 
 and his moral danger. With Confirmation we combine 
 the first reception of the Lord’s Supper, and consequent 
 full membership in the Christian Church. 
 
 In remembrance of the deliverance of Israel from 
 Egypt, a lamb was offered every year at the feast of 
 the Passover, and a sacred meal partaken of amidst 
 solemn rites, in commemoration of the deliverance 
 from Egypt, and as_a_ pledge of the gracious com- 
 munion of God with His people. This custom was 
 observed by the Lord J esus, in company with His 
 disciples. When He celebrated His last Passover 
 with them, on the evening before His death, at the 
 time when His soul was most deeply moved by the 
 prospect before Him—the prospect of His own death 
 as a sacrifice for the world of sinners, the prospect of 
 bidding farewell to His disciples whom He was leaving 
 alone in the world—we read that He took bread, gave 
 thanks, broke it, and gaye it to His disciples, saying, 
 
The Lord's Supper. 243 
 
 ‘Take, eat; this is My body. In the same manner 
 also He took the cup, after supper, and said, Take and 
 drink ye all of it; this cup is the new testament in My 
 blood, which is shed for you, and for many, for the 
 remission of sins: this do, as oft as ye drink it, in re- 
 membrance of Me’ (Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 
 22-24; Luke xxii. 19-20; 1 Cor, xi, 24-25). 
 
 So spake the Lord, and this was the legacy He left 
 to His Church, and as such has Christendom at all 
 times esteemed it. Christians haye ever regarded the 
 Lord’s Supper as the highest of all transactions, as a 
 most holy mystery, and have ever, in accordance with 
 their Master’s words, believed that they had therein 
 His body and blood. Hence, the form of celebration in 
 the ancient Church was, for the clergyman to say, at 
 delivering the elements to each individual: The body 
 of Christ! the blood of Christ! the receiver answering : 
 Amen. And this is still the confession of the Church 
 of Christ in all places. But in what sense, indeed, the 
 Sacrament is the body and blood of Christ, is a matter 
 of contention; and the feast of communion has become 
 the signal of separation. 
 
 The Romish Church sinks the earthly element in 
 the heavenly; it is miraculously changed by the 
 consecration of the ordained priest. It is no longer 
 bread and wine, it only seems bread and wine; it is, 
 in truth, only the body and blood of Christ. The 
 Reformed Church makes the earthly element only a 
 Sign and pledge of an inward spiritual communion of 
 ‘believers with Christ; it is not the body and blood of 
 
244 Lecture LX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 Christ, it only signifies and assures His body and 
 blood, %.e., communion with Christ and the fruit of 
 His death. (“) Our Church (the Lutheran) believes 
 itself obliged to take Christ’s words as they stand, and 
 as St Paul understood them when he said: The 
 bread is the communion of the body of Christ, the 
 cup is the communion of the blood of Christ—that is 
 to say, that the reception of bread and wine is the 
 reception of the body and blood of Christ. 
 
 My respected hearers! The Lord’s Supper is the 
 last legacy of the departing Saviour. Even to our 
 natural feelings it would be a sacred thing, as the 
 testament of a dying man. But to a Christian it is 
 more than this; it is that most sacred of all acts of 
 the Christian Church, an act which our thoughts 
 cannot approach without awe. Whether or not our 
 minds are capable of fully rising to it, the chief matter 
 is to receive, with a humble and believing mind, what 
 is here given us, and to obtain the blessing which is 
 here pronounced. It is a legacy of love. We shall... 
 only be able to understand it in proportion as we seek 
 to understand what love is. The nature of love is to 
 give itself. Hence, we must see_ in it the love which * 
 communicates itself. This is the road which our 
 thoughts must take if they would understand this holy 
 mystery. 
 
 The Lord took bread and wine. These are the two 
 noblest and commonest productions of the earth for 
 the food of man, and therefore did our Master choose 
 them; both of them. We have no right to omit 
 
The Lord's Supper. 245 
 
 either. No arts of reasoning can suffice to alter the 
 testament of the Lord, and to justify the denial of the 
 cup to the laity. (”) 
 
 Bread and wine, moreover, are viands to be par- 
 taken of. And for this was the Lord’s Supper in- 
 stituted: for reception, not for adoration. Take, eat; 
 take, drink. We have no right to alter this appoint- 
 ment. (’*) 
 
 They must be received as an image and parable. 
 Bread gives strength, wine gives gladness and courage. 
 It is strength and gladness which our faith and life 
 must derive from the Lord’s Supper. What the 
 Sacraments signify they bestow. The matter of this 
 Sacrament is expressed by our Lord’s saying con- 
 cerning His body and blood: He gave His body to 
 death for us, He shed His blood for us. But He who 
 died upon the cross now lives in heaven, in glorified 
 human nature. He is risen, He is gone into heaven, 
 and has promised: ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world’ He has not merely sent 
 His Spirit, He will Himself also be present with us. 
 He, the same Jesus who once walked upon earth, who 
 once died upon the cross, and now sits at the right 
 hand of God, and is ever near to His people; He, the 
 Son of Man, the exalted Saviour, will be with us, and 
 impart Himself to us in the way of communion. We 
 do not stand in a merely spiritual fellowship with 
 Him; it is a complete one; it is not merely the virtues 
 of His Divine nature which we receive, it is also in 
 His human nature that He gives Himself to us. 
 
246 Lecture IX. The Means of Grace. 
 
 Our communion with Him is to be a complete. one. 
 This is the object of love. We must understand what 
 love, supreme love, is, if we would understand this 
 Sacrament. 
 
 And what is the purpose for which He gave Himself 
 to us? He died upon the cross; He is now glorified. 
 He died to atone for our sins; He lives in Heaven 
 that He may one day receive us into the fellowship of 
 His life. Sin is to be forgiven us; our future glory is 
 to be guaranteed to us. The former is our consolation 
 when we look back at the past, the latter is our hope 
 when we look forward to the future. We ourselves 
 are standing in the present. We are journeying from 
 the world of sin to the world of future glory, from the 
 life of death to the life of the resurrection. The 
 Lord’s Supper is the meal of our pilgrimage. When 
 we are tired, when we feel our weakness, when the 
 comfort of forgiveness vanishes, when our faith grows 
 weak, and our hope faint, then let us come to this 
 feast, then let us obtain strength and refreshment, 
 then let the body and blood of Christ assure us that 
 our sins are forgiven and our eternal life certain. For 
 this purpose let us, as we eat this bread and drink 
 this cup of the Lord, show forth His death till He come - 
 (1 Cor. xi. 26). His death is our comfort, His coming 
 our hope. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 THE LAST THINGS. 
 
 ici Pa subject of my present and last lecture, 
 wd bx) ©=my respected hearers, is: The Last Things, 
 ae. the end of history and of the whole 
 course of the world. That end is perfec- 
 
 _tion—our perfection, the Church’s perfection, the 
 world’s perfection; for we are to be inheritors of 
 eternal life. The Church is to be God’s perfect king- 
 dom, His imperishable and glorious world. This is 
 
 >the goal ot all ee ; for the yeaa has a goal Loree 
 well as of the Church, a goal which it is to attain; 
 and our life has a goal, in reaching which it is to find 
 rest and arrive at its truth. 
 
 AL would speak to you, on the present occasion, of 
 
 First, a ‘goal is un before us ; for it is not from this 
 earthly existence that we can expect the fulfilment 
 of our hopes. While there is life there is hope. A 
 life without hope is not worthy the name of life. But 
 pur hope directs us beyond this life to a life to come. 
 This earthly life awakens hopes, but it by no means 
 
248 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 fulfils them; it gives promises, but it does not keep 
 them. It deludes us with the expectations which it 
 holds out. How many disappointed hopes lie about 
 the path of every human life! In youth, perhaps, 
 the first soarings of the human mind promise a bold 
 and distant flight; but how seldom do succeeding years 
 fulfil the promise of youth! In youth, perhaps, such 
 was the effervescence of the mind, that it seemed about 
 to overflow on all sides. How narrow, how poor did 
 it afterwards become! In early spring the trees are 
 white with the snow of blossoms. A little while, and 
 the blossoms are almost all underfoot, few ripening into 
 fruit; and if some, few come to maturity. And as itis . 
 with the inner life of mental development, so is it in a 
 far greater degree in the province of external events. It 
 is full of disappointments. This is the complaint most 
 frequently repeated, the deepest ground of the vexa- 
 tion which but too often increases with increasing 
 years; for the ills which are the inevitable result of 
 departing powers are but the lesser sufferings of age. 
 Far bitterer are the disappointments, the misconcep- 
 tions, the neglects, which age so often has to experi- 
 ence. How seldom is even the happiest life followed 
 by a pleasant evening! And -how difficult is it—how 
 far more difficult than the young suppose—to grow 
 old with grace and dignity! (')*«~< 
 
 It matters not whether we have a right to cherish 
 the hopes with which we deceive ourselves or not, the 
 complaint is still the same: life has not kept its pro- 
 mises. It may be that there are some few fortunate 
 
Belief in the Soul’s Immortality. 249 
 
 individuals to whom age fully yields what youth 
 desired; but if they were far more numerous, the 
 unfortunate ones who see themselves deceived in their 
 expectations would still be in the majority. And is 
 not an unhappy one worth as much as a happy one 4 
 And, after all, who is happy ? (’) 
 
 An element of profound melancholy is mingled in the 
 whole of life. This melancholy is inseparable from 
 it, inseparable from our feelings. (*) It is the frailty 
 and transitoriness of all earthly things, it is the per- 
 ception of the nothingness of all the possessions and 
 enjoyments of this life, which spreads this tone of 
 mourning throughout our life. The king of Israel, 
 who possessed mental wealth beyond all others, and 
 all the enjoyments of life in a degree attained by few, 
 sums up the product of his life in one word: ‘ All is 
 vanity. (*‘) And the Roman emperor who had com- 
 manded a world, when he came to die, exclaimed: ‘I 
 was everything, and have found that everything is 
 nothing.’ } 
 
 And even if it were something, one moment. ex- 
 tinguishes all. We die! Have we considered what 
 this means? They, indeed, who know what it means 
 cannot tell us, and we who speak of it do not yet 
 know, but we feel it in anticipation. We complain 
 of life, yet flee from death. ‘We live hating life, yet 
 full of fear to die” (*) And is this to be the end? 
 Life is ever pointing us onward towards the future, 
 each day towards the succeeding one ; we are ever 
 hoping from to-morrow what to-day and yesterday 
 
250 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 have failed to fulfil. However much may have been 
 granted us, there is always something left to desire, 
 which ever appears the chief matter. Thus each day 
 directs us to the next, until at last the day of death 
 comes. And where, then, is the fulfilment of our 
 hopes? If death is only death, life is a cruelty, and 
 hope but irony. Life, then, directs us to a life beyond 
 death; for this earthly life does not satisfy the crav- 
 ings of our spirits, and least of all the cravings of a 
 Christian. 
 
 Hence arose a belief in immortality. It is as uni-_ 
 versal as belief in God. It has prevailed among all 
 nations of high mental attainments, while others have 
 had at least a notion of it. (() Everywhere death and 
 the resting places of the dead have been objects of 
 reverent awe, and the laws which treat of duties to 
 the dead have ever been among the most sacred. It 
 was for the sake of fulfilling such duties that Antigone 
 did not hesitate to risk her life by transgressing the 
 law of the State. Duty to the dead was to her more 
 sacred than obedience to the living. To defend the 
 eraves of ancestors was as pressing an interest as 
 to defend hearths and altars. They seemed to be 
 the tie which bound the people and their country 
 together, and progenitors were ever regarded as those 
 guardian spirits of their descendants, whom it was con- 
 sidered not merely a domestic but a patriotic duty to 
 honour by sacrifices, Art, too, has ever delighted to 
 adorn, and thus to honour, the resting places of the de- 
 parted ; while it has ever been customary to erect them 
 
Immortality of the Soul. 251 
 
 near the dwellings of the living. An intercourse, more- 
 over, between the living and the dead has been insti- 
 tuted by means of the inscriptions by which the latter 
 have been made to address the former. The dead have 
 never been looked upon as having ceased to exist, but 
 as living in another world. If later times have re- 
 garded this as a mere living in the memory of survivors, 
 this was a declension from primitive opinion. The 
 very custom of having the resting places of the dead 
 in such near vicinity to the homes of the living, and 
 thus keeping up, as it were, a tie of connection between 
 them, is a memorial of the ancient belief, that the 
 deceased were not the dead but the living. (') 
 
 This belief is universal; it was this belief which in 
 Egypt built the pyramids, and which yet bears testi- 
 mony to its own existence in the mummies; it was 
 this which bestowed upon the Germanic nations the 
 joyful courage with which they met death in the field 
 of battle; it was this which gathered the noblest of the 
 Greeks about those secret doctrines of the Eleusinian 
 mysteries, which would give them that consolation 
 in death which their religion did not give them. 
 It is true that it was Christianity which first 
 —yaised this belief to a certainty; yet still it is as 
 universal as belief in God, and is the inheritance of 
 every nation. 
 
 This universality proves it to be a necessary idea of 
 the human mind; necessary not only for the reason, 
 but for the life. For there is no need of proof that a 
 belief in immortality is one of the most essential sup- 
 
252 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 ports of the morality of social life. If we remove this 
 faith from the circle of human truths, we remove the 
 moral idea from social life. We are told, indeed, that 
 we must do good for the sake of goodness. But what 
 is goodness? Is it not God? And if there is a God, 
 is He not the Judge? We must all appear before His 
 judgment seat. And our moral consciousness itself 
 demands a final reckoning which none can escape, and 
 in presence of which no deception can avail. And 
 even without this, it is of the highest practical import- 
 ance that life should have an aim, since according to 
 this will its whole tendency be determined. (*) But it 
 has no aim unless there is an immortality, an immor- 
 tality of the individual, and not merely of the species. 
 
 Evidence of the immortality of the soul has at all 
 times been adduced. 
 
 The very existence of the idea of immortality is an 
 evidence of its truth. For experience shows us only 
 death and transitoriness. Whence, then, do we get 
 the notion of immortality and its universality and 
 certainty? If our soul did not bear imperishable 
 existence within it, it would not have the notion of 
 imperishableness. We call ourselves mortals. Why ? 
 Why else than because we know ourselves to be im- 
 mortal? Is not this the very reason that we are 
 constantly reminding ourselves that we are mortal ? (’) 
 for consciousness of our immortality is itself a proof 
 of its truth. Special.evidences have been adduced 
 in justification of this direct consciousness. (") And 
 these, like the evidences of the existence of God, 
 
 , 
 
 2 
 —" 
 
Evidences of the Soul’s Immortality. 253 
 
 are a testimony that the consciousness exists. And it 
 is herein that their importance consists. 
 
 The soul’s immortality has been proved from its 
 nature. It is not material, not compound, like natural 
 objects, and therefore not subject to dissolution. To 
 acknowledge the truth of this proof is to say: Man is 
 a personal being, and therefore created for God and 
 for eternity. 
 
 It has been proved, too, from the destiny of man. . 
 Every one bears within him, in the gifts and powers 
 of his mind, in his stock of knowledge, in his thirst 
 after truth, in his efforts after moral excellence, more 
 germs than ever come to maturity in this life. The 
 truth of this is, that as long as we live we strive, and 
 that our striving is after that which is infinite; its aim 
 lies beyond this life. 
 
 We all bear within us an ideal perfection, for we 
 bear within us an eternity. Hence, also, is it that we 
 strive as those who strive after eternity. This it is 
 which gives strength and impulse to the moral labours 
 of all noble minded men, who have either striven after 
 moral perfection or sacrificed themselves in the service 
 of others. (") Eternity, moreover, is in God. We are 
 immortal because we are for God, who is not the God 
 of the dead but of the living. It is Him that man’s 
 soul wants. We all carry about with us a home- 
 sickness for our true home. This home sickness is the 
 soul’s flight. But here her wings, which shall one 
 day be free, are bound. ‘Blessed are they which are 
 home sick, for they shall reach their home.’ 
 
254 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 There was a time—it is not long ago—when the 
 whole of religion was placed in belief in immortality. 
 But this doctrine is only a weak remnant of the 
 Christian doctrine of eternal life. 
 
 For the mere certainty of immortality neither helps 
 nor comforts us. It involves quite as much of terror 
 as of comfort; for if we were to inquire in the 
 world, I believe we should find just as many who 
 would wish that all should be over with them with 
 this life, as who comfort themselves with the hope of 
 another life. The great question is how we shall con- 
 tinue to exist. 
 
 There is no inquiry which awakens so much interest 
 as that concerning the state of the soul after death ; 
 and it is remarkable that there is scarcely any in- 
 quiry concerning which Holy Scripture gives us so 
 few particulars. We cannot but conclude from this 
 that our inquiries on this subject are for the most 
 part unprofitable questions of curiosity, and not of 
 religious exigency. We are plainly told all that is 
 necessary for us to know, and what we are told is of 
 an extremely serious nature. (") 
 
 Death is a break in the history of our life, As long 
 as we live in the body we pass imperceptibly from one 
 stage of existence to another. Death separates by an 
 abrupt break this life from the next. The dissolution 
 of the tie which united body and soul severs also the 
 thousand threads which bound us to the possessions 
 and employments of this visible world. We are 
 separated from the world and cast upon ourselves. < 
 
State of the Soul after Death. 255 
 
 This life belongs to work; but the night cometh 
 when no man can work.” This life appeals to us from 
 without; that night of rest leads us within. This 
 life belongs to the duties and things of this world; 
 after death we belong to ourselves alone, and our 
 world is our inmost self and our reminiscences. Work 
 is a benefit, but it is also a temptation. We flee from 
 ourselves, not merely by surrendering ourselves to the 
 distractions of pleasure, but by rushing into the tur- 
 moil of work. Death casts us back upon ourselves, 
 and makes us tarry in our own presence. This world 
 of the senses casts about our mind a motley veil in 
 which we hide from ourselves. Death rends asunder 
 this veil of the senses, and presents us_unveiled to 
 ourselves. Here the manifold voices of this world 
 surge around us, and too often drown the voice of 
 truth within us. Death leads us into the world of 
 voiceless silence, into which none of the sounds of, 
 this earthly life can penetrate, and in which we can 
 hear nothing but the voice of our own heart and the 
 accusations of our own memory. And who will be 
 able to endure this?) They only who, even while in 
 the body, have lived a spiritual life; who, in this 
 deceptive world of sense, have submitted themselves 
 to the jurisdiction of truth; who, in this perishing 
 world, have lived as natives of the eternal world. 
 
 ~ Death leads us out of the world to God. We are 
 then brought into His presence. Here, on earth, a 
 thousand delusions interpose between us and God. 
 There, we shall be placed in His immediate presence, 
 
256 Lecture X. The Last Thongs. 
 
 as we are, not as we seem to be, not as perhaps we 
 mean to be, but as we really are. We may deceive 
 men, we may delude ourselves; but in God's presence 
 every deception vanishes, and all self delusion ceases. 
 There is truth. Who will be able to bear the presence 
 of God, the presence of inflexible truth? Only they 
 who have here become the friends of God. For the 
 great distinction will be between those who have been 
 His friends and those who have lived without Him. 
 But this is decided in this life. ‘It is appointed unto 
 all men once to die, but after this the judgment’ 
 (Heb. ix. 27). Thatis to say: the decision takes place 
 in this life. We are not to comfort ourselves with the 
 hope of being able to retrieve there what we have 
 neglected here. The very purpose for which this life 
 in the flesh is bestowed upon us is, that our lot may 
 be therein decided. The design of the manifold trials 
 and duties of this life is, that through them and in 
 them we may seek and find God. Though the moral 
 consciousness of any man may seem to have been ever 
 so slightly developed, though the life of an individual 
 may have been passed in ever so dream-like a manner, 
 there is still that in the depths of every man’s heart 
 which is decisive. It is the fact, whether God has or 
 has not been the portion of his soul, which will deter- 
 mine his eternal lot; for he who has not found fellow- 
 ship with God here, will not attain it there. ‘ No one 
 becomes blessed (selig) by being buried’* And this 
 
 * Selig, saved or blessed, is the ordinary epithet by which the de- 
 parted are mentioned, ¢.g., Mein seliger vater = my late father. (Tr.). 
 
The Resurrection of the Body. 257 
 
 blessedness it is which is our chief concern; not merely 
 immortality, but a blessed immortality ! 
 
 But the way to blessedness, to salvation, is Jesus 
 Christ. He who has Him‘‘has eternal life? and he 
 who has not eternal life in this world will not find it 
 in the next. The happiness of the life after death con- 
 sists in communion with Jesus Christ. Death removes 
 us indeed from the joys and possessions of the world, 
 but it takes us also from its temptations, and from the 
 sins of the flesh. As long as we live here, it is our 
 complaint that we never get rid of the body of sin, 
 and are never so completely united to the Lord as the 
 loving soul desires. The happiness that awaits us is 
 to be at home with Him. This isa foreign land; there 
 is our home, for He is our home. 
 
 Such is the Christian’s hope. But this blessedness 
 has its gradations of development. It passes through 
 a history, and does not come to perfection till the 
 
 — resurrection. So long as soul and body are separated, 
 their happiness is imperfect; for we were created for 
 a union of soul and body: The body is not the mere 
 prison in which the soul is confined, nor the garment 
 in which it is clothed, but its home and necessary 
 instrument. All mental activity, whether internal or 
 external, is carried on by means of the body. So long 
 as it is deprived of this organ of its agency, it is rele- 
 gated to a state of repose. But the spirit is destined 
 
 —and made for activity. Eternal life must be a life of 
 activity, if it is to afford us the satisfaction which we 
 
 seek. It must, therefore, be a life in the body, if it is 
 R 
 
258 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 to be the perfection for which we are destined. In 
 death we surrender our body, in the hope that we shall 
 receive it again from death ; and that not to be again 
 subject to death, but for ever rescued from death, and 
 translated into a life of liberty; no longer a constraint 
 and obstruction to the spirit, but its fitting instrument; 
 a body which will be perfectly adapted to our use, 
 fully fitted to our state of perfection; a glorified and 
 spirit-serving body. 
 
 It was a notion entirely new to the ancient world, 
 that the body was destined for eternity ; but it was 
 also a new notion that it was called to be a temple of 
 the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. vi. 19). They who see in the 
 body merely the medium of sensuous perception, 
 can indeed regard it only as the prey of corruption ; 
 put they who know that it is called to sanctification, 
 know, too, that it is destined for eternity. (°) 
 
 How, indeed, it is to be restored’ from death to a — 
 
 new life we are not able to say. We leave this to God. 
 The apostle compares the body which we deliver to 
 the earth to a seed (1 Cor. xv. 36, etc.). The seed 
 
 capable of following, is indeed only the dissolution 
 and transition of its component elements into other 
 forms of life. How are we, from this dissolution of 
 its elements, to receive again our body, which is no 
 going a perpetual change of its elements, while yet it 
 remains the same, held together and governed by the 
 
 43 
 
The Future of the Church. 259 
 
 same idea, which is also the groundwork of its form ? 
 And why should not this be the case when the soul 
 again fashions to itself a new organism from the 
 —matter of the renewed world? It is with this pros- 
 pect that the Christian creed concludes: ‘I believe in 
 the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting’ 
 
 But this perfection of the individual depends upon 
 the perfection of the Church of Jesus Christ, and of 
 the world. For it is only in connection with the 
 whole that the individual will be perfected. We 
 belong to the Christian Church, and we belong to 
 the world, and our future is connected with the future 
 of the world and of the Church. 
 
 What, then, is the future of the Church ? 
 
 The word of prophecy in Holy Scripture contains 
 copious disclosures on this subject. These, indeed, 
 sound at first strange to us, and are opposed to our 
 ordinary notions; but their truth will be justified to 
 our deeper observation. (“) 
 
 We meet with two very plain predictions concern- 
 ing the future of the Church in Holy Scripture. The 
 / one is, that the Gospel 7s to be preached in all the world, 
 and that the fulness of the Gentiles, and afterwards 
 the nation of Israel, are to enter into the Church. The 
 other is, that a great apostac y will arise, out of which 
 the last form of sin will be developed. When we 
 bring before our minds the state of things in the time 
 when these events were predicted,—when we consider 
 how small was then the number of Christians, how 
 insignificant their means, how oppressed their condi- 
 
260 Lecture X. The Last Thongs. 
 
 tion—we cannot but say that the boldness of this 
 elance into the future—a glance which not only beholds 
 the era of universal propagation as already present, 
 but even looks past it to a time of denial—is itself 
 something astonishing; and when we look around us, 
 we are obliged to confess that both are on the road to 
 their fulfilment. 
 
 For, first of all, it is unquestionable that Christianity 
 will yet become the universal religion. However 
 slowly the work of missions may advance, every 
 heathen religion is pervaded by the feeling that its 
 hours are numbered. (“) It is true that the fire of its 
 ancient fanaticism still burns in Mahomedanism ; but 
 its very irritation against everything Christian, shows 
 that it thinks itself endangered by the Gospel. Cer- 
 tainly, it will not be everywhere a conviction of the 
 ‘truth of the Gospel which will procure it the victory. 
 What missions will not do, the supremacy of European 
 civilisation will effect. With this Christianity will 
 enter into various lands as the religion of the domi- 
 nant race; and thus even secular interests will become, 
 in God’s hands, the means of gathering the nations into 
 the Christian Church, so that the ends of the earth 
 will be also the limits of the Church. 
 
 But the hope that even Israel will submit to the 
 Crucified may seem to us the strangest of all; and yet 
 we must all confess that the very existence of this 
 wondrous people shows that God has spared them for 
 a future. If the future, then, belongs to Christ, so 
 does Israel. There will be a conversion, not merely— 
 
The Apostacy. 261 
 
 we are told in prophecy—of individuals, but of the 
 whole nation. And the intimate connection still exist- 
 ing between the several portions of this nation, makes 
 it evident that, when once a religious movement takes 
 place among these people, it will easily become general. 
 When this will take place, God only knows. As yet, 
 their eyes are holden, and their senses blinded, so that 
 they cannot recognise in Jesus Him whom yet their 
 prayers desire and their hopes expect. For though so 
 many of this people are lost in the service of Mammon 
 and the fleeting interests of the day, the hope of their 
 fathers still survives in the nation’s heart. “When once 
 the sore discipline under which God has kept them 
 shall have worked its intended end, the scales will fall 
 from their eyes, and they will know whom they cruci- 
 fied. And the longer they have despised Him who 
 yet was the fulfilment of their hopes, the deeper will 
 be their humiliation, and the more sincere their faith 
 and love. 
 
 With this future of Israel will coincide, according 
 
 to the word of prophecy, an era of indifference and 
 _apostacy among other nations; and no very great pene- 
 
 tration is needed to see that such an era is already in 
 
 _ preparation. For the state of affairs evidently points 
 
 oe 
 
 to an approaching spiritual separation. Times of 
 indifference and enmity to Christianity have indeed 
 often appeared before; but at no period has non- 
 Christian opinion been so systematic, definite, and 
 consistent. It has developed into a connected view 
 of the universe, which is in conscious and definite 
 
262 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 opposition to the Christian view. Religious custom 
 was, in former times, a power which often placed an 
 outward constraint upon opposition, or at least a veil 
 which concealed it. Now, one religious custom after 
 another is abandoned in the public life of civil society. 
 This may be lamented, but it is an unceasing process, 
 and the opposition of differing opinions 1s but brought 
 out into bolder relief. We are evidently approach- 
 ing an age in which the hitherto Christian world 
 will separate into two camps, the Christian and non- 
 Christian. When this will take place, God alone 
 knows. Delays may arise which may yet for a long 
 time postpone the event; but it is certain that the 
 process of separation has begun. 
 
 But when the non-Christian camp shall have placed 
 itself in determined opposition to the Christian, it is 
 vain to hope that the spirit of toleration will permit 
 each individual to live at peace in the possession of his 
 own faith. Though the enmity of the great moral 
 contrasts which form the motive powers of history 
 seems to slumber, it is ever breaking forth anew. Nor 
 must too much be hoped for from the natural goodness 
 of the human heart. Scripture at least speaks of a 
 time of persecution which will at last extend to all 
 who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It may, per- 
 haps, seem incredible to many of us that such a state 
 of things should be possible. But should we have 
 esteemed it possible that opposition to Jesus could 
 have reached such a pitch of deadly hatred as it did 
 in Israel? And did not the Christians of the first 
 
The Church and the World. 263 
 
 century in vain demand the right of liberty of con- 
 science? And who can affirm that hatred to Chris- 
 tianity has quite died out ? (”) 
 
 Scripture describes this time of persecution as a 
 time of grievous trial to all who believe in Christ. 
 Not only power, but also public opinion and the 
 march of the natural intellect will be enlisted against 
 the confession of Christ. It was this which formed so 
 grievous a feature in the lot of the primitive Christians, 
 that they found themselves not only exposed to martyr- 
 dom, but also excluded from extensive departments of 
 public life, and of general education, or at least obliged 
 to exclude themselves. To bear this needed more 
 strength and assurance of faith than are generally found 
 among us whose cherished and legitimate ideal of life 
 is the union of Christianity and cultivation. 
 
 Scripture places this development of the religious 
 spirit in connection with the course of the history of 
 the nations. It holds out the prospect of a time of 
 tremendous efforts at union on the part of the dif- 
 ferent nations, after their long period of separation. 
 The time of the great monarchies of the ancient world 
 will return, and at last reach its goal in a great uni- 
 versal ruler, who will call the earth his kingdom. 
 But his arrogance will be as great as his power, and, 
 like the ancient Roman emperors, he, too, will lay 
 claim to Divine honour. This will be the official 
 religion of his kingdom, and all who refuse to con- 
 form thereto will be esteemed enemies of the State. 
 
264 Lecture X. The Last Thangs. 
 
 Such is the tenor of prophecy; and it adds, that 
 the persecution of believers in the latter days will 
 have reached go intolerable a height, that direct Divine ~ 
 interposition will take place. When things have gone 
 to extremities, when the Church of Christ seems at 
 the point of extinction, when all whose faith is but 
 external or hesitating shall have separated from it 
 for the sake of avoiding persecution, when the Church 
 shall thus have been cleansed from all impure ele- 
 ments,—then will Christ, her Lord and King, appear, 
 to the condemnation of all enmity against His name, 
 and for the victory and recognition of His Church in 
 the world. The path of the Church of Jesus Christ 
 is like that of her Lord and Saviour: through the 
 cross to the crown! Let her know it, let her comfort 
 herself thereby ; for the coming of Christ is the time ~ 
 of her perfection. 
 
 The word of prophecy describes, under many dif- 
 ferent images, the future and victorious days of the 
 Church. It is scarcely possible here to distinguish 
 between figure and reality, for the whole subject lies 
 entirely beyond our present experiences. It is not 
 this, however, which is of the first importance. Our 
 chief concern is with the admonitions which it is the 
 purpose of prophecy to give; for its design is not so. 
 much to unveil the details of future events as to be a 
 word of exhortation and comfort: of exhortation to be © 
 faithful i in suffering, even when the way seems to lead 
 to the darkness of death; of comfort, by the assurance 
 of deliverance from tribulation, out of which the 
 
~ 
 
 The Last Judgment. 265 
 
 Church of Jesus Christ will be awakened to a new 
 and higher life, and to communion with her risen 
 Lord. It is this which it is the chief design of 
 prophecy to inculcate. (”) 
 
 But not only is the Church to be perfected, the 
 world itself is to become God’s perfect and eternal 
 world; for history is neither a constant cycle of inces- 
 sant repetitions, nor an endless and aimless progress. 
 It could not be really history, nor could any develop- 
 ment be effected therein, unless it were advancing 
 towards an appointed end. This development, how- 
 ever, is not merely that of the beneficial agencies 
 which are powerfully working amidst the course of 
 events; there is also a development of the power of 
 sin, and of enmity against God, which no efforts of the 
 good will ever be able to abolish or conquer. These 
 two powers of history will be progressively brought 
 into sharper distinction; the power of evil will be 
 ever more and more decidedly opposed to the power 
 of good and to the kingdom of God. Though fre- 
 quently this power of evil may seem to be restrained 
 or subdued, it is ever breaking forth afresh, Such a 
 breaking forth of evil will, as Scripture teaches, bring 
 about the world’s. final catastrophe at the last judg- 
 ment, when God will for ever sever all moral contrasts. 
 
 It is said: the world’s history is the world’s judg- 
 ment. And truly a Divine judgment is executed in 
 history, for the Divine justice presides over it. But 
 this is the very reason that all the judgments of his- 
 tory are but a prophecy of God’s final judgment. This 
 
266 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 will be the universal judgment. History is a great « 
 
 drama. Every drama is a struggle between contrasts ; 
 but every drama requires a solution. Nor can the — 
 great drama of history be without a solution. (") 
 Divine justice must have the last word. It has long 
 suffered men, suffered sinners, to speak. But the last 
 word will be its own; and this word must be a word 
 of retribution, for it is the word of a Judge. 
 
 Scripture draws powerful and touching pictures of 
 this last judgment, and tells how the mouth of the 
 Judge will pronounce the sentence which will decide 
 the eternal lot of each. ‘Depart,’ will He say to those 
 who are lost; ‘ Come, to those who are saved. He will 
 pronounce the condemnation or salvation of all. 
 
 The thought of condemnation is an overwhelming 
 one. It is true that He who occupies the judgment- 
 seat is Infinite Love, but He is Holy Love. It is Jesus 
 Christ, our Redeemer, who holds the final assize; but 
 the Redeemer is also the Judge. He proclaimed this 
 His future office while He was yet on earth. The 
 fact that it is Jesus who will judge us may assure us 
 that Divine justice will not pronounce the final sen- 
 tence until eternal pity is exhausted. But then even 
 pity will give place to justice. It is difficult to us to 
 conceive that God, who is infinite love, can eternally 
 condemn. But when eternal mercy has exhausted 
 itself upon a sinner, and all has been in vain, what 
 more can be done? Such is the greatness of human 
 freedom, that it is capable of resisting even God. 
 Such is our great, but also our sad privilege, that our 
 
Perdition and Salvation. 267 
 
 sinful hearts may be unconquerable even by God. 
 The whole world, indeed, must bow before Omnipo- 
 tence, but the heart of man takes upon itself not to 
 bow to the mercy of the Almighty. With men a 
 request is generally more powerful than a command ; 
 and he who will not yield to force will find himself 
 powerless to resist a humble supplication. But what 
 is human entreaty compared with the entreaty of the 
 Almighty, or the silent power of human love com- 
 pared with the supreme power of a crucified Saviour’s 
 eternal love! And yet the heart of man resists it! 
 In this respect there are limits to the power of God, 
 limits which He has Himself ordained. We need to 
 wonder not that God can condemn, but that man can 
 so obstinately resist. Certainly, none will be lost who 
 will let himself be saved, who offers even the slightest 
 hold to Divine grace. But for him who wholly and 
 finally closes his heart, who chooses to know nothing 
 of God, who is in entire unison with all that is opposed 
 to God, the mouth of Divine justice has no other 
 word than the complaint: ‘And thou wouldst not.’ 
 As truly as God is the Holy One, and as truly as His 
 holiness can have no fellowship with sin, so truly is 
 he who has chosen sin for his portion excluded from 
 God and from communion with Him, 2.e., unsaved. 
 
 For this is perdition: to be far from God, and from 
 communion with Him who alone can appease the 
 ever gnawing hunger of the soul, who alone can allay 
 the anxiety of the guilty conscience by the forgiveness 
 of sin; to be separated from God, who alone is the 
 
268 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 source of life, and without whom all is vanity and 
 emptiness, who alone is the light of our souls, and 
 without whom all is darkness, who alone is our joy 
 and consolation, and without whom existence is joy- 
 less and comfortless; to be separated from God and 
 excluded from His world, to the bright purity of 
 which sin and enmity against God can have no access ; 
 separated from that world of true possessions which 
 are the joy of life, and from that communion with the 
 good which is the great enjoyment of the soul; sepa- 
 rated from God and God’s world, and cast upon oneself 
 alone, in deep and perpetual solitude, in that dark and 
 deadly silence, where the sinful soul has no society 
 but the torment of memory and the night of despair,— 
 to be thus alone, and eternally alone, this is perdi- 
 tion. (”) . 
 
 Even to conceive this, even to utter it and to 
 hear of it, is almost more than we are able to bear. 
 And yet these are but feeble words. What, then, will 
 it be to be obliged to endure the fact? And yet even 
 the lost will be constrained to acknowledge, and their 
 very perdition will testify to, the holy justice of eternal 
 love; and it is this which reconciles the consciousness 
 of the saved to the fact. 
 
 But how can I adequately speak of the salvation of 
 the saved? Our thoughts are far too narrow to com- 
 pass the greatness of this subject in any other way 
 than by the images furnished by our heart’s antici- 
 pations, and our speech far too poor to be able to 
 clothe those anticipations in appropriate words. We 
 
Eternal Perfection. 269 
 
 shall always speak of it with stammering speech until 
 we proclaim in heaven, with new tongues, the unveiled 
 mystery of infinite love. 
 
 ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes ;’"—it is thus that the holy prophet describes that 
 eternal life of blessedness,—‘and there shall be no 
 more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall 
 there be any more pain: for the former things are 
 passed away’ (Rev. xxi. 4). 
 
 And what is even more, there shall be no more sin. 
 This longing of all saints, this fervent desire of our 
 best hours, this wish so repeatedly arising when we 
 feel the degrading slavery of sin, when our weakness, 
 it may be, succumbs to it, and the bitter grief takes 
 possession of our souls, and we sigh for deliverance,— 
 this longing will then be fulfilled, and there shall be 
 no more sin. 
 
 On the other hand, whatever of greatness or nobility 
 may have been found in our souls, all the true ideals 
 of our lives, which here have but hovered like thin 
 shadows before our mind’s eye, will then be realised, 
 and realised in ws. 
 
 As long as we live, a contradiction runs through our 
 whole being. We bear within us the original image of 
 ourselves, the Divine idea of our nature, but we are 
 not its realisation. This is our unhappiness, that we 
 are not in harmony with ourselves, that our know- 
 ledge and will, our will and power, our power and 
 deed, are in contradiction to each other. But then 
 our existence will be the harmony of our nature, for 
 
270 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 we shall be in harmony with God. This is our 
 destiny which will then be fulfilled. This will be 
 true life, a life of true freedom, a life of activity to 
 all eternity. 
 
 And our harmony with ourselves will correspond 
 with the harmony of the world. Now, discord is the 
 law of existence, and strife the form of life; then the 
 world will be in happy unison with itself. No discord 
 will any longer mingle in the hymns of the spheres. 
 But this world was created for man. Now it obeys 
 him only through constraint and violence, and avenges 
 itself for such obedience by pain and suffering, by the 
 destructive forces, and by becoming a medium of 
 temptation and seduction; then it will fulfil its des- 
 tiny, being no longer against but for him: and 
 then will man’s vocation in the world be fulfilled, 
 made as he was, to be its prophet, priest, and king. 
 It will be all light and clear to him then, and its silent 
 speech will be perfectly intelligible to his spirit. In 
 the characters of the glorified world he will read the 
 great deeds of God. As we now read in Scripture the 
 history of our redemption, so will God’s perfected 
 world be then the loud-voiced memorial, and the ever 
 full and new Scripture of the great deeds of infinite 
 love; while, at the same time, it will be to us a place 
 over which we shall hold happy sway, a sway which 
 will be a priestly service to God, in a world which has 
 become His temple. Thus will man’s destiny be ful- 
 filled in the world. 
 
 We shall be, moreover, in the society of the saved ; 
 
Lternal Perfection. 271 
 
 for all the saints who have departed from this world 
 since its commencement will be united to form one 
 great people of God. We shall see them, the mag- 
 nates of God’s kingdom, the sacred ideals of our 
 minds, the beloved of our hearts. It will be an ever 
 new meeting and recognition; and in their midst 
 will be He who united Godhead and manhood in one, 
 who, by His obedience to death, even the death of the 
 cross, saved the world of sinners, and made us the 
 children of God. Then will His work be completed, 
 His office fulfilled, and He will deliver the redeemed 
 world into the hands of the Father, and God will be 
 all in all (1 Cor. xv. 28). 
 
 All that is transitory is but a parable: what it 
 signifies finds its truth in God. Even the utmost 
 that earth can offer is but a shadow; the reality of 
 allis God. All the great thoughts which charm our 
 minds are but broken rays of that eternal light whose 
 source is God. He is the whole vast truth. He is 
 the aim of our spirit, for He is the origin of our 
 spirit. We shall have attained our aim, for we shall 
 be with God. 
 
 And God will be all in all. He will be amidst all 
 the thousand times ten thousand forms and shapes of 
 the glorified world, and in all that we see we shall 
 see Him. (”) Then shall we read the answer to all 
 the questions of our mind, then shall all the enigmas 
 of this existence be solved, and all the anomalies of 
 this world abolished, in the perfected life of the world 
 of glory, and in its Divine harmony. 
 
272 Lecture X. The Last Things. 
 
 This is the aim of all things; this, too, is our aim, 
 the aim of our mind’s inquiries, of our heart's desires. 
 
 Let us take a retrospect! 
 
 The contradictions of this existence are the goad 
 which will not let us rest, which urges our mind to 
 the questions to which this world furnishes no answer, 
 and arouses in our heart the aspirations which this 
 world cannot satisfy. But the contradiction of all 
 contradictions is sin, with its consequent cuilt. This 
 rends our nature in its inmost depths, and fixes be- 
 tween us and the eternal love of the holy God a chasm 
 which no labour of our own efforts is able to fill. Only 
 eternal grace could bridge it over, that God in Christ 
 might come to us, that we might come to Him. What 
 the counsel of eternal love in the heart of God decreed 
 for our deliverance, became a fact in Jesus Christ and 
 on the cross, and becomes our own experience by the 
 work of God’s Spirit in our hearts. From this hidden 
 mystery of the inner man proceeds that renovation 
 “which has its kingdom below in the hearts of God’s 
 children, its ultimate aim in the perfected life of God’s 
 eternal kingdom, when both body and soul will rejoice 
 in the living God. 
 
 Such is the doctrine of Christianity, which I have 
 brought before you in these Lectures. It does not 
 consist in certain precepts and views, but is glad 
 tidings, the announcement of a great history, embrac- 
 ing both heaven and earth, whose origin is in God’s 
 eternal counsels, whose end is in the eternal world of 
 glory, whose centre is Jesus Christ, the crucified and 
 
Retrospect. 273 
 
 risen Saviour. In Him, the Son of God, did eternal 
 grace enter into time; in us, the children of God, 
 does it begin that eternal work whose perfection we 
 hope for. 
 
 ‘Now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He 
 shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see 
 Him as He is’ (1 John iii. 2). This is the consumma- 
 tion, and with this glance at the future I conclude 
 these lectures. No one can feel more strongly than 
 myself how inadequately my words correspond with 
 the magnitude of the subject they treat on; but He 
 who did not despise the gifts of the woman ‘ which 
 was a sinner, when she offered her tears and her 
 ointment, will not disdain even this small gift which 
 is laid at His feet. May He accept, bless, and use 
 it according to His good pleasure ! 
 
NOTES. 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE I. 
 4 
 (’) A treatise, which has since become famous, was 
 published by Ullmann in the year 1845, entitled, Das 
 Wesen des Christenthums (Sth edit., 1865). In this, 
 Christianity, as is indeed usual in the treatment and 
 
 Oe a 
 
 which every other religion has striven after, but none 
 attained; and from this creative centre, by doctrine 
 and moral influence, by redemption and reconciliation, 
 restores the individual and the human race to their 
 true destiny, to that true communion, to that union 
 with God in which all that is human is sanctified and 
 glorified’ (p. 68, 1845). Compare also Martensen’s 
 ‘Christian Dogmatics, p. 17.* The nature of Chris- 
 tianity does not differ from that of Christ himself. 
 The founder of the religion is Himself the matter of 
 the religion. He is not merely the historical founder 
 of a religion, one whose person may be separated from 
 the doctrines He proclaimed; the person of Jesus 
 Christ, on the contrary, has a constant, an ever present 
 * Translated in Clark’s Foreign Theological Library. 1866. 
 
276 Notes. 
 
 importance to the human race. As the Mediator and 
 Atoner, the holy point, of union between God and the 
 sinful world, He is also continually the Redeemer of 
 the sinful race of man, ete. | 
 
 () Similarly does Martensen (Dogm., p. 15, etc.) re- 
 present the relation of the religions. ‘The deepest 
 conceivable contrast between the natures of God and 
 man, is the contrast between Creator and creature, 
 between the Holy’God and sinful man. If we con- 
 sider the different religions, with respect to this funda- 
 mental problem, we may say that heathenism knows - 
 not the problem; that Israel is living in the problem 
 and awaiting its solution; but that Christianity alone 
 - gurmishes the true solution, “through its Gospel,” of the 
 incarnation of God.’ It is also the fundamental idea of 
 the introduction in Dorner’s ‘ History of the Develop- 
 ment of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ,’ * that ‘the 
 more completely we survey the whole province of pre- 
 Christian religion, the more evident will become, on 
 the one side, the historical necessity of Christianity, 
 and the preparation. for it in other religions ; on the 
 other, its novelty and originality ;’ and that the whole 
 course of religious history before Christ teaches ‘how 
 the pre-Christian world was tending towards Chris- 
 tianity, how the common enigma of all pre-Christian 
 religion is solved thereby, and how its fundamental 
 idea furnishes the, key by which all these religions 
 may be better understood than they understood them- 
 selves’ (p. 3, etc.). ‘Thus the whole course of pre- 
 Christian religious history becomes, in the grandest 
 sense, a preparatio evangelica, and serves as a proof 
 that Christianity expresses what all religions seek, but 
 not less a proof that the idea of the God-man; ‘which 
 is so especially characteristic of Christianity, must have 
 arisen within and not without Christianity. This idea 
 is original and essential in Christianity. The fact first 
 
 * Translated in Clark’s Foreign Theological Library. 5 vols. 
 
Notes. 274 
 
 took place, and the fact gave the knowledge’ (vol. i, 
 
 p- 40). I have in the text omitted Mohammedanism, 
 because it forms no independent stage in the history 
 of religious development, but a retrogression to the 
 stand- _point of a monotheism which knows no future, 
 and is therefore no power capable of advancing and 
 elevating the human intellect to a higher platform. 
 ‘Tt has often been remarked that Islamism occupies the 
 position of an anachronism in the history of religions; 
 
 a religion declaring certain external usages thoroughly 
 essential, and knowing nothing of the steat principle of 
 love, etc., appearing subsequently to Christianity, and 
 aspiring to become the universal religion.’ ‘To reconcile 
 Islamism with humanity is, in my opinion, impossible’ 
 (Noldeke, in Herzogs Theol. Reclencycl, xviii., 815, 816). 
 
 () On Heathenism, compare the passage in ‘ Lec- 
 tures on the Fundamental Truths of Christianity,’ 
 Lect. VIII. (Clark’s Translation, p. 212, etc.); also, 
 Stirm, Apologie (Letter X., pp. 355-392); Wuttke, Ges- 
 chichte des Heidenthums, 1852; Tholuck, Der Stttliche 
 Charakter des Heidenthums nach der heil. Schrift. 
 (3d edit.), 1867; and Vortrag tiber das Heidenth. nach 
 der heil. Se chrift., 1853. Dillmann, too, in his Rede 
 diber den Ursprung der alttest. Religion, 1853, has some 
 excellent remarks on the naturalism of the heathen 
 religions (p. 7). ‘The essential principle of the heathen 
 notion of divinity does not ‘consist, first and chiefly 
 in the plurality of gods, but in the resolving of the 
 divinity into nature, of which polytheism is but a 
 consequence. The heathen religions are, one and all, 
 the religions of nature; their principle i is the deification 
 of nature : their gods are originally nothing but the 
 powers of nature, etc. Compare also Rom. i, 23-25, 
 Négelsbach, in his well known work on the Homeric 
 and post-Homeric theology, has some very forcible 
 and valuable references to the seeking character of 
 the religious and moral views of the old Grecian world. 
 
278 Notes. 
 
 (‘) Ihave, in my ‘Lectures on Fundamental Truths,’ 
 Lect. VI, p. 142, etc., and Lect. III, p. 41 (with which 
 compare the present remarks), brought forward what i 
 was needful on the originality and universality of 
 religion. This thought is well carried out by Naville _ 
 in Der Nimmlische Vater, seven discourses, trans., 
 Leipzig, Hiissel, 1865, p. 11, etc.: ‘The idea of the 
 one God is original and fundamental; Polytheism is 
 but derived. ~A forgotten monotheism slumbers under 
 the multiform worship. It is the secret stock from 
 which the latter grew; but the exuberant offshoot con- 
 sumed the whole strength of the parent tree’ (p. 17). 
 
 _ () Compare the beautiful and well known line of 
 Homer's Odyssey, li. 48: weavres 08 Deciv yareous cvSeurTor + 
 (‘ All men need the gods’). 3 
 
 (°) Some of the finest effusions of the religious spirit 
 both of the Eastern and Western worlds, which may 
 not, perhaps, be familiar to all readers, may serve to 
 corroborate what is here expressed. A hymn to Zeus, 
 by the ancient stoic Cleanthes (260 B.C.), has been 
 preserved, in which the philosopher soars above the ~ 
 limits of the popular religion of Greece, and praises in 
 Zeus the universal spirit of the world, though not, — 
 indeed, without pantheistic notions : 3 
 
 ‘Supreme immortal god, many-named eternal gover- 
 nor, ruling in nature, thou that guidest the universe 
 according to laws, Hail! It 1s granted to every human 
 being to speak with thee, for we are of thy race. One 
 key-note was given to the voices of each of the beings ) 
 who live and who work upon earth. With this will I 
 praise thee and ever exalt thy authority. Each of the 
 worlds, revolving on high about the earth, follows 
 where thou leadest, and willingly bows to thy com- 
 mand, Without thee, O mighty one, no one thing 
 exists, either on earth or in the divine heights of aérial 
 space, or in the sea, except what the wicked effect in 
 
Notes. 279 
 
 their own mental blindness. But thou knowest how 
 to turn evil into good. Thou canst make deformity 
 beauty. Thou dost impart pleasantness to what is 
 unpleasant. Therefore didst thou dispose all things to 
 one end, evil to good, that there might be for ever one 
 single all-prevailing word to all, from which only the 
 wicked among mortals seek to escape. Madmen! who, 
 ever striving after the attainment of good, never per- 
 ceive that common decree of god, never understand 
 that which by wisely obeying they might enjoy a 
 happy life; but they rush past the beautiful, after 
 this and that. One covets in his heart honour and 
 fame ; another lays prudent plans, and stirs up strifes; 
 others seek after pleasures and bodily enjoyments, 
 hurrying forward with all their might, labouring to 
 attain the attractive end; but, O god, the giver of 
 all, the cloud-covered, the ruler of the lightning, O 
 
 y father, deliver mankind from the mad folly, strip it 
 
 from their mind, and let them find that rule of con- 
 duct to which thou dost.conform, who rulest all accord- 
 ing to eternal justice, that we, honoured by thee, may 
 render honour to thee, ever praising thy deeds in song, 
 as becomes the mortal born; for there is no higher 
 dignity bestowed, whether on gods or men, than to 
 praise in righteousness the decree common to all’ 
 (From Knapp’s ‘ Christoterpe, 1844, p. 80). 
 
 Beside this production of the Western mind may be 
 placed: some lines from a mystic poem (Pardbara- 
 
 .. Kanni) of the Tamul poet Tajuma-naver. Siva is 
 
 celebrated as the Supreme Being, and the union of the 
 soul with him spoken of in a manner recalling the 
 Christian mysticism of an Angelus Silesius (Grant, 
 Indische Sinnpflanzen, Erlangen, 1865, p. 187, ete.) :— 
 
 ‘Thou standest on the summit of the universe. 
 Thou dost pervade and direct earth and all things, 
 Supreme Being! — ot 
 
 ‘Is no way open for the pious to approach thee, who 
 come weeping and consumed with love ? Supreme One ! 
 
280 Notes. 
 
 ‘He who would look at the sky ascends the hill; 
 the pinions of self-contemplation bear men towards 
 thee, Supreme One! 
 
 ‘To deeply contemplative minds thou dost show 
 heavenly things as in a mirror, thou aérial mountain 
 of delight, thou Supreme One! 
 
 ‘He who loves thee enough, just dies, and then 
 sleeps in a cradle of delight, thou Supreme One! 
 
 ‘OQ thou the beloved, the dearly treasured of souls, 
 who look upon potsherds and jewels as one, Supreme 
 One! 
 
 ‘Tf I feel joyful and free, am I not still wandering 
 in the wilderness? Thy servant is driven in the 
 desert like a straw carried about by a whirlwind, O 
 Supreme One! 
 
 ‘And yet I care not for the powers of the world, if 
 they do not fold their hands before thee, Supreme One! 
 
 ‘The kine have pity on their young, Merciful 
 mother, bestow favour upon me, thy poor worshipper, 
 whatever evil I may be guilty of. Thou hast a ma- 
 ternal nature, art gentle and patient, thou Supreme 
 One!’ 
 
 () On human sacrifices, even among the Greeks, 
 down to the time of Pausanias, compare Nagelsbach, 
 —Nachhomer. Theolog., p. 196,—in which reference 1s 
 also made to the researches of Friedr. Hermann, 
 Gerhard, etc. 
 
 (*) We need only refer to the touching fifty-first 
 Psalm, which traces sin to its first beginnings in the 
 individual life, to birth and conception, and that not 
 for the purpose of excusing it, but to point out the 
 sinful corruption of man as a radical one. 
 
 (’) So Schelling, in his ‘Lectures on the Method of 
 Academical Study’ (1802), Lecture IX. (3d edit., 
 1830, p. 192): ‘Of the idea of the Trinity, it is clear 
 
Notes. 281 
 
 that, unless speculatively understood, it is, in general, 
 devoid of meaning. Theologians explain the incar- 
 nation of God in Christ just as empirically, namely, 
 that God at a definite moment of time assumed human 
 nature, which is absolutely out of the question, since 
 God is eternal, beyond all time: therefore the incarna- 
 tion of God is an eternal incarnation” And with 
 respect to Hegel, Strauss, in his Glawbenslehre, 1, 214, 
 etc., has clearly decided. the question concerning his 
 particular opinion, Strauss is only drawing the con- 
 clusions of this philosophy when he thus reiterates and 
 sums up the fundamental notions of the closing dis- 
 cussion of his Leben Jesu: ‘If reality is ascribed to 
 the idea of the unity of the Divine and human 
 natures, is this equivalent to the admission that this 
 unity must once have been actually manifested, as 
 never before nor since, in an individual? This is not 
 the manner in which the ideal is realised; it 1s not 
 wont to lavish all its fulness in one specimen, and be 
 
 yo 
 
 (°) It is one merit of Strauss’s Glaubenslehre to have 
 _ destroyed this illusion. In the introduction to this 
 work especially, he expresses himself in a very drastic 
 manner on the subject. 
 
282 Notes. 
 
 (") So eg., Schweizer (of Ziirich), a chief promoter 
 of this movement, in his Christlachen Glaubenslehre, 1., 
 1863, p. 117, in which it 1s pointed out, as an advance 
 made by Schleiermacher, that in the midst of all his 
 existing imperfections, ‘he has at least asserted that 
 principle upon which so much depends—the substitu- 
 tion of the idea of moral and religious perfection for — 
 the second person of the Trinity” So also (p. 121) he 
 speaks of the idea of absolute piety and happiness ever 
 reviving within us with increasing purity. On the 
 other hand, the necessity of facts as the foundation of 
 faith is ably and emphatically maintained by Stutz, a 
 non-theologian, in his excellent lectures, Die Thatsachen 
 des Glaubens, which he delivered in Ziirich against the 
 modern movement which is just now so fashionable 
 there (p. 28). For, as Luther says, “we have not a 
 pictured sin, and therefore not a pictured Redeemer. 
 This indifference to facts, which are thus surrendered to 
 criticism, is the distinctive feature of modern so-called 
 liberal theology in France. Also see, eg., Coquere . 
 fils, Des premieres transformations haistoriques du Chris- 
 tianisme (Paris, 1866, p. 49, etc.): ‘The divinity, 
 miracles, and resurrection of Christ, are, both as con- 
 cerns His whole work and our inner life, utterly without 
 significance. Compare NV. Evang. Kirchenz., 1866, No. 
 15; p. 229. 
 
 *) Schelling has some able remarks on this subject, 
 in his Philosophie der Offenbarwng, Lect. X., Samm. 
 WW. ii, 3, p. 195: ‘How frequently has not the his- 
 torical character of Christianity been declared to be 
 heathenish (not its external but its higher facts, eg., 
 the pre-existence, the pre-mundane being of Christ, 
 His position as Son of God), and, on that account, as 
 that which is no longer compatible with modern 
 thought? Zhe very essence of Christianity as, however, rts 
 historical character, not the ordinary part of its history, — 
 _ as, eg., that its founder was born under Augustus, and 
 
Notes. 283 
 
 died under Tiberius, but that higher history upon 
 which it properly rests, and which is its peculiar 
 matter. I call it a higher history, for the true subject- 
 matter of Christianity is a history in which divinity 
 _is implicated—a Divine history. That would be but 
 a poor explanation, and entirely destructive of the 
 peculiarity of Christianity, which should distinguish 
 between the doctrinal and the historical, and consider 
 the former the essential and special matter, and the 
 latter as mere form and clothing. The history is not 
 _merely incidental to the doctrine, it is the doctrine 
 itself. The doctrinal matter, which might perhaps 
 remain after the excision of the historical, as, eg., the 
 general doctrine of a personal God, such as even 
 rational theology sometimes admits, or the morality of 
 Christianity, would be nothing peculiar, nothing dis- 
 tinctive: it israther the history, which is the distinctive 
 feature of Christianity, that needs explanation. . 
 It is altogether incongruous to speak only of the teach- 
 ing of Christ. The chief matter of Christianity 1s 
 Christ himself, not what He says, but what He is, 
 .what He did. Christianity is not directly a body of 
 doctrine, it is a thing, an object; doctrine is but the 
 expression of the thing. Under this aspect even the 
 influence of Schleiermacher, to whom belongs the 
 merit of replacing the person of Jesus Christ in its 
 central position, in opposition to rationalism, which 
 reduces the whole of Christianity to His teaching, has 
 been important. For though his Christ is not in the 
 full sense the Christ of the Church, yet it is the actual 
 person Jesus Christ upon whom he founds the new 
 life of individuals in all ages, and by whom he admits 
 this life to have been—though but indirectly—effected. 
 Schleiermacher, at all events, insists upon the intrinsic 
 certainty of the main fact, namely, ‘the ideal perfec- 
 tion of the historical Christ. And this is something 
 quite different from that modern movement of so- 
 called liberal theology, which, after all, really sees 
 
284 Notes. 
 
 nothing more in Christianity than a certain general 
 religious feeling, or the mere force of civilisation. 
 
 (°) This is confessed even by Edmond Scherer, an ~ 
 advocate of the illumination movement in France. 
 (Essai: la crise du Protestantisme, in his Mélanges 
 @ Histoire Religieuse, 1866, p. 240) : ‘La religion natur- 
 elle neaiste que dans les livres, Les religions qua vwent 
 et qui agissent sont des religions positives, ete. Ndgels- 
 bach Nachhomer, Theol., p. 476: ‘Every religion ‘is 
 founded on facts; false religions upon supposed, true 
 religions upon actual facts.’ 
 
 (*) So thought Fichte. Anweiswng zum seligen Leben: 
 ‘Tt is only metaphysical, and by no means historical 
 truth, which makes a man happy; the latter only makes 
 him wise. If any one is really united with God, and 
 is in God, it is a matter of indifference to him by what 
 means he attained this; and it would be a very useless 
 and perverse employment to be ever recalling to mind 
 the means, instead of living in the thing itself’ If 
 Jesus could return into the world, it might be expected 
 that He would be perfectly contented to find Chris- 
 tianity ruling in the minds of men, whether His merit 
 in the matter were acknowledged or slighted; and this 
 is in fact the very least that could be expected from 
 such a man, who even while He lived sought not His 
 own honour, but the honour of Him who sent Him.’ 
 The manner in which the position occupied by Christ . 
 with respect to Christianity is here viewed as a merely 
 external one, needs no remark, Schleiermacher, at an 
 earlier period, expresses himself in a nearly similar 
 manner (Reden tiber die Religion, Rede 5, WW. 1. 1, 
 1843, p. 432), in words which he subsequently thought 
 fit to correct in the notes. O. Bagge also strangely con- 
 cludes his strange book, Das Prinzip des Mythus um 
 Dienst der Christl. Position, 1865 (p. 418), with this 
 notion; What Schleiermacher once, in a sermon (ii, 10; 
 
 Ee 
 
Notes. 285 
 
 compare Strauss, Der Christus des Glaubens, etc., p. 217), 
 designated a fable, viz., ‘that His (Christ’s) hour, too, 
 to be forgotten, must come; that if it were His serious 
 purpose to make the world entirely free, it must also 
 have been His will to make it free from Himself, that 
 God might be all in all—must be looked upon as the 
 end of the dealings of God’ ‘It is not blasphemy to 
 say that Christ, who founded the Church and made 
 Himself its Lord, will, the sooner the better, be dis- 
 pensed with, etc. But how little ground there is for 
 all this, Christ’s two institutions, Baptism and the 
 Lord’s Supper, suffice to prove. 
 
 (*) This conception of the nature of Christianity is 
 also the central thought of Pascal’s Apologie. Compare 
 ii. 136 (v. Faugére’s edition). Charactéres de la vrave 
 Religion, ii. 141, p. 145: ‘Lincarnation montre a Chomme 
 la grandeur de sa misere, par la grandeur dw reméde 
 
 qwil a fallu.’ 
 
 (°) Compare on this subject, Pasc. Pens. 1. 108: 
 ‘Nous connaissons la verité non seulement par la rarson, 
 
 Dieu a donné la religion par sentiment du ceur sont 
 bien hewreux et bien legitimement persuadés. Mars 
 ceux qui ne Pont pas, nous ne pouvons la donner que 
 par raisonnement en attendant qui Dieu la lewr donne 
 par sentiment de ceur, sans quot la for west qu’ humaine 
 
 et inutile pour le salut.’ 
 
 (") This thought is ably carried out in Graul’s 
 ‘Lecture on Faith as the Highest Reason’ (Gutersioh, 
 1865, p. 4, etc.). We are here also reminded (p. 20), 
 of the application which Schelling (Philos. der Offend., 
 24 Lect., WW. ii. 4, p. 27) makes of the well known 
 
286 Notes. 
 
 saying of Alexander the Great to Parmenio, with 
 respect to this thought, that the lower cannot be a 
 standard for the higher. ‘ When, after repeated over- 
 throws, Darius offered peace to Alexander, on the 
 advantageous condition of resigning to him a con- 
 siderable portion of his kingdom, and giving him his 
 daughter in marriage, etc, Parmenio thought, if he 
 had been Alexander, he would have accepted these 
 conditions, Alexander answered: “ Et ego, s. Parmenio 
 essem.”’ Alexander’s manner of acting surpassed the 
 notions of Parmenio, his most intimate friend. But 
 God is raised infinitely higher above men than one 
 man by the greatness of his mind can be above another. 
 In this sense alone, then, do the dealings of God in 
 revelation surpass all human conception. It 1s not 
 that we are utterly incapable of comprehending them, 
 but that, in order to do so, we must measure them 
 by a standard which surpasses all ordinary human 
 standards.’ Me 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE IL 
 
 (") Compare Pascal, Pensées, ii. 10: ‘La foi Chrétienne 
 ne va principalement qu a établrer_ces deux choses: la 
 corruption de la nature, et la rédemption de Jésus Christ. 
 Pascal frequently returns to this thought. Compare 
 ii, 136, etc. It forms the central point of his Apology, 
 and is in his eyes the special justification of Christianity. 
 So also in the Charactéres de la vraie Religion, uu. 141. 
 Compare Lecture I., Note 15. These two truths form 
 also the foundation upon which the whole body of 
 Gospel divinity rests, and upon which, especially, the 
 first Protestant treatise on divinity (Melanethon’s loct) — 
 is founded. ; 
 
 Compare Réper (Professor of Natural History and 
 Botany at Rostock), Der Hriede in der Schopfung kein 
 
Notes. 287 
 
 Friede in Christo, a lecture in the Lv. Kirchenzertung, 
 1864, No. 30. I will give the chief matter of this in- 
 teresting lecture by way of extract. The author begins 
 by saying ‘that poets, etc., direct the human heart, in 
 _its search after peace, to Nature and its peace. Is 
 ~ peace, then, to be found in the vegetable and animal 
 kingdoms? A brilliant picture has been drawn of the 
 virgin beauty and exuberant luxuriance of uncultivated 
 nature in the primeval forests of Brazil. But the 
 obverse of this picture is to be found in the violent 
 _storms, the hurricanes, and the terrible devastation 
 _.they cause; the destructive operations of animals, of 
 apes, birds, and insects; in the manner in which the 
 largest trees, gnawed by ants, termites, and other 
 insects, suddenly break down, and the royal palms are 
 destroyed by the wretched palm-worm, while whole 
 plantations are eaten up by ants, and the largest tracks 
 -laid bare by locusts (whose hosts are estimated by 
 billions), and made so utterly barren that nothing 
 erows on these desolate places for many years. And 
 ..not only animals, but plants, carry on, as it were, a 
 war against plants, and against their own descendants. 
 And chiefly the parasitical plants. The notorious hana, 
 a plant like our ivy, crushes the tops of the proudest 
 trees; others absorb the bark, or consume the vital 
 juices after the manner of fungi The magnificent 
 clusia, which grow upon the trees themselves, cover 
 them like coffins. And what an infinite number of 
 germs perish! In every acorn, besides the one seed 
 which is developed, are five germs, which are either 
 crushed to death or drained of their moisture. In 
 every cocoa-nut are at least three germs, one of which 
 kills the other two by consuming all the nourishing 
 milk, ete. In short, every plant lives by plundering 
 others, and destroys other formations to withdraw from 
 them the matter necessary to itself. A continual pro- 
 _cess of destruction and transmutation is going on in 
 every little cell; new cells being formed by the de- 
 
288 Notes. 
 
 struction of old ones, etc. And then, finally, the 
 animal kingdom! Most beasts live upon animal, .... 
 some upon living food. Those who serve as food to 
 others are often slowly tortured to death. The pretty, 
 and in some varieties, tuneful_nine, murders, impale -- 
 their prey—butterflies and other insects—upon thorns 
 and prickles, where they may live for days. And then 
 the great massacres of the little ants, who make regular 
 war on each other, unmercifully slaying their grown- 
 up adversaries, and bringing up the kidnapped larvee 
 as slaves. The ichneumon fly lays its eggs in cater- 
 pillars, etc., and the larvee consume the body of their 
 host. The wall-wasp brings each of its young maggots 
 from ten to twelve little caterpillars, wounded but not 
 dead, who live from ten to twelve days, and of which 
 one is devoured each day, till the maggots enter the 
 chrysalis state within fourteen days. Add to these 
 the horseflies, autumn flies, and gadflies in the low- 
 lands of the Danube—those torturers and slayers of 
 cattle, etc. And in the primeval forests—what enemies 
 of man! Then, too, among the lower organisms, the 
 lower its-grade of organisation, the more is the creature 
 infested by parasites. Many thousands of askarides ~ 
 live in the entrails of the little land-tortoise, and in 
 the body of a living ear-wig a thread-worm was found 
 curled up, whose length when unrolled was three 
 inches. “We may boldly assert that the condition of 
 the rest of the organic creation entirely corresponds to 
 that of man, and is therefore by no means a peaceful 
 one.” Nor is it ‘otherwise in inanimate nature. Here, .. 
 too, a continual work of destruction, by physical and } 
 chemical agents, is going on. To mention only tempests 
 and earthquakes! And are we not living upon a sea 
 of fire? But the starry heavens? The so-called peace- 
 ful moon is as arid as pumice stone, scarcely surrounded 
 by an atmosphere, barren and desolate as the scene of 
 a conflagration. Jupiter’s sea of clouds is agitated by 
 the most fearful storms, etc. In short, here, too, nothing 
 
Notes. 289 
 
 —1s permanent. Allis groaning for redemption. Nature 
 ‘preaches the most crushing fatalism, the most inexorable 
 necessity and predestination.’ In God alone is peace. 
 
 From this point of view we can easily understand 
 
 ~ how Perthes could write to Steffens (P. Leben, edit. 4., 
 iii, 199). ‘Much has been done since Goethe to reveal 
 the depths and shallows of the human heart; but no 
 one has yet attempted to bring before the mind of the 
 
 ~ present age a lively picture of the horrors of nature 
 and the cruelty of her operations, and to show that 
 they who would infer the existence of a God, from the 
 goodness and wisdom therein displayed, necessarily 
 fail unless they are satisfied with mere rhetoric: you 
 must write a thoroughly ungodly book for deists and 
 rationalists, one which would be a horror and an 
 abomination to both. A great blessing might rest on 
 such a book; it might give to many that only true key 
 
 ‘to the knowledge of nature which is involved in the 
 apostle’s words (Rom. viii. 22), that nature severed 
 _ from God, through man and with man, is in a state of 
 _ disorder, and groaneth and travaileth in pain, together 
 ~. with us, until now.’ Similarly, too, Auerbach, Auf die 
 fohe, edit. 3, 234 (Urma’s Tagebuch). Nature is 
 terrible, she labours so long at the production of a 
 being, and then suddenly and wantonly lets it perish. 
 ~ ‘God is a God who hideth Himself’ Compare ‘Apol. 
 Lectures on Fundamental Truths, Lect. I, Note 9, 
 Pascal ii, 113. The existence of God cannot be 
 proved to unbelievers from nature. Ce west pas de 
 cette sorte que Vécriture, qui connait miewe les choses 
 qua sont de Dieu, en parle. Elle dit av, contraire que 
 Drew est un Diew caché, et que depwis la corruption de 
 ~la nature, il les a laissées (les hommes) dans un aveugle- 
 ment dont is ne peuvent sortir que par Jésus-Christ. 
 The whole section treats of these thoughts, p, 118. 
 Je regarde de touts parts et ne vois partout gw _obscurité. 
 La nature ne nvofire rien qui.ne soit matiere de doute 
 et dinquietude. 
 T 
 
290 Notes. 
 
 Victor Kip (Der Pessimismus und die Ethik Schopen- 
 hauers, Berlin, 1866) gives a sketch of the history of 
 pessimist views, in order to represent Schopenhauer as — 
 their chief advocate. Even in the Vedas, especially 
 the Upanischaden, ie., the extracts from the Brah- 
 manas, which form the second part of each Veda, are 
 found the fundamental features of pessimism. The 
 soul unborn and infinite as Brahma, nay, a part of 
 himself, gets into darkness in a corporeal covering, and 
 suffers torment, from which not even death releases 
 it, for it wanders from body to body and dies suc- 
 cessive deaths after continually renewed torments. 
 Deliverance from this suffering is only possible 
 through the pantheistic view of the union of Brahma... 
 with all that has emanated from him. By this means 
 man passes out of the world of the phenomenal and 
 enters into the Nirvana, w2., into a state of happiness _ 
 ( Schopenhauer’s Negation of the Will’). The Zend 
 religion sought to solve the contradiction by dualism, » 
 i.e, the twofold origin of good and evil. Heraclitus _ 
 had already viewed the birth of man as something 
 calamitous, a birth only for death. The descent of the 
 reasoning power from the flaming heavens to earth 
 was the death of Divine life, and the animation of 
 mankind, who now, in circumscribed action, suffer want 
 upon earth. The subsequent philosophy of the Greeks — 
 is optimism ; the Oriental, pessimism; and so is also , 
 the prevailing philosophy of the Christian era. Itis— 
 not till his later period that Fichte strikes a pessimist 
 chord; and it is to Schopenhauer that the complete 
 carrying out of pessimist views is owing. Some pas- 
 sages from his principal work (Dve Welt als Wille und 
 Vorstellung) may serve to prove this. He designates 
 his subject to be (§ 56, 3d edit., p. 366), that_all life 2s 
 essentially suffering. He then proceeds thus to describe 
 (§ 5Y, p. 367) the life of man: ¢ His proper existence is 
 only in the present, the unchecked flight of which into 
 the past is a constant transition to death, a continual 
 
 ai* = ih ae 
 eK 
 
Notes. 291 
 
 dying. The present, however, is continually becoming 
 the past; the future is quite uncertain, and always 
 short. Hence, his existence, viewed even under its 
 formal aspect, is a continual rushing of the present 
 into the dead past, a continual dying. Then, too, if 
 we look at it under its physiéal aspect, it is manifest 
 that, as our path is confessedly a continually checked 
 fall, so our bodily life is but a continually checked 
 dying, a still delayed death; and so, too, finally, is the 
 activity of our mind an ever repulsed tediousness. 
 Every breath we draw wards off the death which is 
 ever pressing towards us, and which we are thus fighting 
 against every hour. At length death must conquer, for 
 we are devoted to it by the very fact of our birth; and 
 it is only playing awhile with its prey before it de- 
 vours it.’ Sec. 59, p. 382: ‘The history of every life is 
 a history of suffering, for the course of life is generally 
 but a series of greater or less misfortunes. The real 
 matter of the world-famed monologue in Hamlet may 
 be thus summed up: Our condition is so wretched that 
 _utter annihilation would be decidedly preferable. So 
 also what the father of history adduces (Herodotus, vii. 
 46), viz., that no man ever existed who has not more than 
 once wished not to survive the following day, has never 
 yet been refuted. Hence, the so frequently lamented 
 shortness of life may perhaps be its best attribute. 
 If, finally, all the terrible pains and sorrows to which 
 his life is ever exposed could be brought before the 
 eyes of each, he would be seized with horror; and if 
 the most obstinate of optimists were led through the 
 hospitals, lazarettos, and surgical operation rooms ; 
 through the prisons, torture chambers, and slaveholds ; 
 over the fields of battle and places of execution; if, 
 then, those dark abodes of misery, where it creeps out 
 of the view of cold curiosity, were opened to him; and, 
 finally, a sight were afforded him of the starvation of 
 some Ugolino,—he would surely at last perceive what 
 kind of mezlleur des mondes possibles this is. 
 
292 Notes: 
 
 Moreover, I cannot here refrain from the declaration 
 that_optimesm, where it is not the mere thoughtless 
 speech of those under whose low foreheads nothing 
 but words are lodged, seems to me not only an absurd, , 
 put a truly wicked mode of thought, a bitter contempt. 
 for the numberless sorrows of mankind. Let it not for | 
 a moment be thought that Christian doctrine is favour- 
 able to optimism, for in the Gospels, on the contrary, 
 the terms world and evil are nearly synonymous ex- 
 pressions. Schopenhauer subsequently (ii. 46, p. 654) 
 gives a touching and partially true description ‘of the 
 vanity and sufferings of life” I extract a passage 
 from this section. ‘Life may be represented as a 
 constant cheat, both in small and great things. If it 
 makes promises, it never keeps them, unless to show 
 how undesirable is that which was desired. Thus 
 first hope, then the thing hoped for, disappoints us. 
 If it gives, it is but to take away. The charm of dis- 
 tance shows us a paradise, which vanishes like an 
 optic delusion if we suffer ourselves to approach it. 
 Hence happiness ever lies in the future or the past ; 
 and the present may be compared to a dark cloud, 
 which the wind drives over the sunny plain before it; 
 behind it there is brightness, but it is itself a con- 
 stant shadow. It is, consequently, ever_ unsatisfying, 
 the future being uncertain, the past irrecoverable. 
 Life, with its hourly, daily, weekly, and yearly, little, 
 ereater, and great disagreeables, with its disappointed 
 hopes and its mishaps, baffling all calculation, bears so 
 plainly the impression of something which is to be 
 spoilt to us, that it is difficult to conceive how this 
 could ever have been mistaken, and how any one 
 could have been persuaded that it was given to be 
 thankfully enjoyed, and that man was made to be 
 happy. Far rather does the continual disappointment 
 of hope, the disabusing of expectation, the general | 
 constitution of life, show that it 1s intended and caleu- | 
 jated to produce the conviction that nothing is worth | 
 
“Notes. 293 
 
 our efforts, our energies, and our strugeles—that all 
 possessions are but vanity, that the world is bankrupt 
 in all quarters, and life a business which does not pay 
 its expenses,” Hence, satisfaction and prosperity are 
 merely negative, are but the absence of suffering. 
 ‘We feel pain, but not painlessness; we feel care, but 
 not its absence; fear, but not security. We feel a 
 wish as we feel hunger and thirst; but, as soon as it is 
 eratified, it fares as the morsel we enjoy, which, the 
 moment it is swallowed, ceases to exist to our percep- 
 tion. We painfully feel the want of enjoyments and 
 pleasures as soon as they cease; but sorrows, even 
 when they cease after having long existed, are not 
 directly missed; for only sorrow and want can be 
 positively felt. “Prosperity, on the contrary, is merely 
 negative. Hence we are not conscious of the three 
 best possessions of life, youth, health, and freedom, as 
 such, so long as they are ours, and do not become so 
 till we have lost them, for then they are negations. 
 We do not perceive that certain days of our lives have 
 been happy till they have given place to unhappy ones. 
 If, then, there were a hundred times less sorrow in the 
 world than there is, its mere existence would be enough 
 to confirm a truth, which is expressed in various ways, 
 though always with some indirectness, namely, that the 
 existence of the world is not a matter of rejoicing, but 
 of grief, that its annihilation would be preferable to its 
 existence, that it is fundamentally something which 
 ought not to exist. Human life, far from wearing the 
 aspect of a gift, has.every appearance of an incurred 
 debt, the payment of which is exacted in the form of | 
 the urgent necessities, the tormenting desires, the un- 
 ceasing want which life involves. The whole period 
 of life is generally consumed in the liquidation of this 
 debt, and yet it is only the interest which is hereby 
 discharged, The payment of the capital is effected by 
 _death. And when was this debt contracted? At 
 conception. If we, consequently, regard man as a 
 
294 Notes® 
 
 being whose existence is a punishment and a penance, 
 we shall be viewing him in a far more correct light. 
 The myth of the Fall is the only thing in the Old 
 Testament to which I can concede a metaphysical, 
 though only an allegorical truth. Modern Chris- 
 tianity, whose ethic spirit is that of Brahmanism and 
 Buddhism, has also, very wisely, fastened upon this 
 very myth.” ‘If we would measure the degree of guilt 
 
 with which our nature is infected, we must survey the 
 suffering which is united with it. Every great sorrow, | 
 
 whether bodily or mental, declares what is our desert, 
 for it could not come upon us if we did not deserve it.’ 
 
 But enough! Fortlage has compared this pessimism .. 
 
 of Schopenhauer, and placed it side by side with the 
 opinions of the Christian martyrs. (Compare Frawen- 
 stadt, Briefe iiber die Schopenhauersche Philosophie, 1854, 
 p. 329, etc.). But that positive force, which they had 
 to oppose to this world of pain and suffering, escapes 
 
 him. ‘This positive force is not an ‘ideal, as Rudolf, 
 Seydel, who misses it in Schopenhauer, calls it in} 
 
 his treatise on Schopenhauer’s philosophical system 
 (Leipsic, 1857, p. 101, etc.), but the realities of atone- 
 ment and redemption, of God’s eternal world, and 
 of communion with Him, which are opened to us 
 thereby. ri 
 
 (*) Lasaulx— Ueber die Linosklage, Wurzburg, 1842— 
 though seeing chiefly in these myths and lamentations 
 (as the lamentations for Adonis in Syria, Egypt, etc., 
 or for Narcissus and others) the lot of man himself 
 depicted, yet acknowledges that they have a refer- 
 ence also to the great catastrophes of natural life; to 
 spring, summer, autumn, and winter, to flowering and 
 fading, growth and decay—in short, to all those 
 sorrows and joys of nature with which the human 
 mind sympathises, p. 10. I may here perhaps be 
 allowed to refer to those well-known verses of Fried. 
 v. Schlegel :— | 
 
 ———eoO oe 
 
Notes. 295 
 
 ‘ Es geht ein allgemeines Weinen, 
 f So weit die stillen Sterne scheinen, 
 Durch alle Adern der Natur. 
 Es ringt und seufzt nach der Verklérung 
 Entgegen schmachtend der Gewdhrung 
 In Liebesangst die Kreatur.’* 
 
 Also, a saying of Bettina v. Arnim, in Goethe's 
 Briefwechsel mit einem Kind, i, 33: ‘ When one stands 
 thus alone with nature, it seems as if she were a spirit 
 
 —praying to man for redemption. Is man then to re- 
 deem nature ? 
 
 (*) Compare the striking description of Vinet, in his 
 sermon on (Rom. iii. 11) St Paul’s criticism of human 
 reason (Evangelische Silberblicke, Reden, Predagten und 
 Studien, von Alex. Vinet,. translated by Lehman. 
 Zwickau, 1863, p. 25). Also, Pascal, ii. 40, Museére, p. 
 79, etc.; Grandeur et Mistre de 0 Homme, p. 136, etc., 
 where he points out that Christianity alone is in. pos- 
 session of the true cure for human misery. 
 
 —  (°) Similar reflections may be found in Pressensé’s 
 Jesus Christ, trans., 1866, p. 211. 
 
 () See Naville, Der himmlische Vater, p. 290, 
 
 (*) Schiller in the essay: Htwas tiber die erste Men- 
 schengesellschaft nach dem Leitfaden der mosarschen 
 Urkunde (from Schiller’s Lectures on Universal History 
 before the University of Jena, which first appeared in 
 the 11th No. of the Thalia Works, in 12 vols., 1867,— 
 
 vol. 10, p. 380, etc.): ‘Man was made complete as the 
 plant or the animal was. But he was ‘to work 
 himself upwards from a Paradise of ignorance and 
 vassalage, to a Paradise of knowledge and freedom.’ 
 ‘If we exchange the voice of God in Eden, forbidding 
 
 * One universal weeping goes through all the veins of nature 
 wherever the quiet stars shine: creation, yearning for security, sighs 
 and struggles for glorification in an agony of love. 
 
296 Notes. 
 
 him the tree of knowledge, for the voice of his instinct 
 drawing him back from that tree, his supposed dis- 
 obedience to the Divine command is nothing else than 
 a fall from his instinct, and therefore the first expres- — 
 sion of his spontaneity, the first venture of his reason, 
 the first beginning of his moral existence. This fall 
 of man from his instinct, which indeed introduced 
 moral evil into creation, though only to make moral 
 good possible therein, is incontrovertibly the. most: 
 fortunate and greatest event in history; from this 
 moment man’s freedom dates, and it was here that the 
 first foundation stone of his morality was laid.’ It is 
 the same view which is expressed by Hegel and — 
 Strauss on this subject. Hegel (Philosoph. der Gesch. ro) 
 233) says: ‘The state of innocence, the Paradisaic 
 state, is an animal one. Paradise is a park in which 
 only animals, and not human beings, can remain. 
 Hence the Fall, whereby man became “truly. man, 1s a 
 universal myth.’ And, lastly, Strauss (Christl. Glau 
 benslehre, ii, 29): ‘Not God, who, as the primitive 
 spirit, would treat the human spirit made after his own 
 image in a spiritual and liberal manner, but only a 
 brutal subaltern, taking pleasure in impericusness 
 towards his inferiors, could have given such a com- 
 mand.’ a 
 
 f 
 
 -() Scarcely anything better could be said on this 
 matter than the words of Rousseau (Vicare Savoyard): 
 ‘If man is active and free, his act is his own; what he 
 does of his own free will, forms no part of the system ~ 
 of Providence, and. cannot be attributed thereto, Tt% * | 
 does not cause the evil which man commits, when he. 
 abuses the freedom bestowed upon him. It made him : 
 free, not that he might do evil, but good of his free , 
 choice. To murmur ‘against God because He does not © 
 hinder the practice of evil, means to reproach Him for | 
 giving to man a noble nature, and to his acts a moral / 
 nobility, for bestowing upon him a title to virtue. 
 
Notes. 297 
 
 What! in order to restrain man from evil, was He to 
 . limit him to instinct, to make him a mere.animal ? 
 (Quoted by Naville, Der himml. Vater, p. 288.) 
 
 (”) Liiken has collected these traditions in his work, 
 Die Traditionen des Menschengeschlechts, 1856, p. 7A, 
 etc., a collection showing both the. ‘agreement of 
 national traditions with the biblical narrative, and the 
 great and undeniable superiority of the latter. <A 
 similar collection is given by Nicolas, Philos. Studien 
 tiber das Christenthum, ii. 29, ete. Compare also_De- 
 litzsch, Commentar tiber die Genesis, 3d edit., 1860, p. 
 165, ete. 
 
 (") Pascal, ii, 79; Grandeur et Misre de ? Homme, 
 p. 82: Toutes ces miseres-la méme prouvent sa grandeur. 
 Ce sont miséres de grand sergneur, mioseres dun ror 
 dépossédé. Compare also Nicolas, il. 15-19, where ex- 
 . cellent and striking passages from Bossuet’s Sermons 
 are also quoted. 
 
 (") Pascal, ii, 106: Le péche original est folie devant 
 les hommes. Mars cette folie est plus sage que toute la 
 sagesse des hommes. Car sans cela, que diratt-ow quest 
 CVhomme? Tout son etat dépend de ce point impercep- 
 table. 
 
 POET rer ret 
 
 of sin is expressed, €.9., seh. vile 10, ete. : Misia 
 cee Trois wthor norvoy or rovsamarrave, (1t is common to all 
 men to fail). Peccavimus omnes, says Seneca (De clem.), 
 Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur, Horace (Sat. 1, 3, 68) ; 
 and Simonides in Plato: «iv divbgan dyansin Bode aah r00 
 oux daedireioy, GAA Sede wovos ToUTO ene ra yéous (for aman 
 to be good is impossible, and surpasses human nature: 
 
 — 
 
298 Notes. 
 
 God alone has this honour). Compare especially with 
 the text that saying of Goethe in Tasso (v. 2): 
 
 ‘ Es liegt um uns herum 
 Gar mancher Abgrund den das Schicksal grub 
 Doch hier in unserm Herzen ist der tiefste.’* 
 
 And Platen, i. 110, ‘ Antwort:’ 
 
 ‘ Abgriinde liegen im Gemiithe 
 Die tiefer als die Holle sind.’ 
 
 (*) Lenau, at the close of a sonnet, 11. 125: 
 
 ‘ Lieblos und ohne Gott ! der Weg ist schaurig ; 
 Der Zugwind in den Gassen lalt—and du? 
 Die ganze Welt ist zum verzweifeln traurig.’ + 
 
 Heine (vol. d. L., 10 edit., p. 328): The sick soul, the 
 God-denying, angel-denying, unhappy soul. 
 
 (*) Compare ‘ Lectures on the Fundamental Truths 
 of Christianity, Lect. VI, p. 144-147. 
 
 (*) It is the special merit of Julius Miiller to have 
 re-asserted the fact that selfishness constitutes the. 
 essence of sin. (Die chriestliche Lehre von der Stinde, i. — 
 140, etc.)§ So also, e9., Sartorius, Die Lehre von der 
 hetl., Liebe, i. 62, etc., in conformity with the always 
 prevalent doctrine of the Church, which contrasts the 
 love of God, as real virtue, to the love of self, as real 
 sin. Compare also Pascal, i. 56, etc.: La nature de 
 Lamour propre de ce moi_humain est de waimer que_sor 
 et de ne considérer que sot. The pre-Christian ages had 
 no deep views of the nature of sin, because they were 
 
 * There lies around us full many an abyss which fate has dug, but 
 the deepest is here in our heart. 
 ‘+ There are abysses in the mind which are deeper than hell. 
 + Without love, and without God, the way is terrible ; 
 The wind moans in the streets—and thou ? 
 The whole world is desperately sad. 
 § ‘The Christian Doctrine of Sin.’ Clark’s Foreign Theological 
 Library, 1868. 
 
Notes. 299 
 
 unacquainted with the highest moral standard. With 
 them the essence of virtue consisted in a keeping 
 within the bounds which are drawn around man and 
 his various relations. Hence they regarded sin as the 
 
 transgression of these bounds, the “Were « and even 
 Plato. views good as the moderate (sumergov), evil as the 
 immoderate (cywergic), 
 
 (") Romans vi. 14-21, is alluded to. Comp, Pascal, 
 i. 79: ‘ Guerre intestine ‘de Vhomme entre la raison et 
 les passions. Il est toujours divisé et contraire & lui 
 méme, p. 103: quelle chimére est ce done que Chomme ? 
 Quelle nouveauté, quel monstre, quel chaos, quel sujet de 
 contradiction, quel prodige. Also Rousseau, Lmile, iv. 
 p. 14: ‘ Phomme west point un; 3 Je VOUL et Je Ne VEU PAs, 
 je me sens a la fou esclave et libre ; je vors le bien, ge Varme, 
 ct je fais le mal, ete. Compare ‘Lectures on the Fun- 
 ignertal Truths,’ Lect. IT., Note 2. Nawville, Das ewige 
 Leben, p. 129, cites some excellent lines of Racine’ Ss on 
 . this subject of the internal discord; also expressions 
 * of Louis the Fourteenth in ‘confirmation of them, 
 
 (*) Compare with this paragraph ‘Lectures on the 
 Fundamental Truths,’ Lect. VIL, p. 161, etc.; my Lehre 
 vom freien Willen, p. 349, and p. 454-456. Even the 
 
 , ancients acknowledge that man is not able to effect a 
 moral change in himself, eg., Aristot., Wikom. thik, 
 ‘ii. 5, 14; and Celsus: ‘It is, however, manifest to all, 
 that no one can by punishment, much less by mercy, 
 wholly change those.who are by nature inclined and 
 accustomed to crime; for wholly to change the nature 
 
 — is a matter beyond all things difficult.’ (Neander, 
 Denkwiirdigkeiten, i. 3d edit., p. 15.) Compare also 
 Schneider, Christliche Kidnge, p. 134, ete. 
 
 (°) Moral statistics have of late been much dwelt on, 
 ~ especially since the works of Quetelet (Sur ? Homme et 
 le Developpement de ses Facultés, 2 tomes, Paris, 1835 ; 
 
300 Notes. 
 
 Du Systeme Sociale, Paris, 1841; Sur la Statist. Morale, 
 in the Mémoires de 1 Acad. Royale des Sciences de Belge, 
 tome 21, Brussels, 1848) led the way in this direction. 
 The facts collected by these statistics were immediately 
 made prey of by materialism. Thus, F. G. Fischer... 
 (Ueber die Freiheit des mensehl. Willens, Leipsic, 1858) 
 revels in natural law; and Dankwardt (Psychol. und 
 Criminalrecht, 1863) says briefly, and in capital type: 
 ‘MAN IS NOT FREE. He is as little responsible for his 
 acts as the stone which wounds our head by obeying 
 the law of gravitation; the criminal act was the neces- 
 sary effect of a law of nature’ Adolf Wagner, on the 
 contrary (Ueber die Cresetzmdssigheit in’ den scheinbar 
 willkiirlichen Handlungen, Hamb. 1864), though he 
 says, indeed (i. p. 44), ‘Society prepares crime; the 
 criminal is only the instrument which carries it out, 
 yet leaves the problem essentially unsolved (1. 48). 
 He acknowledges that the true causes cannot be in- 
 ferred from the facts alone; that hence we cannot, 
 without further ceremony, speak of constraining natural 
 laws as abolishing responsibility ; that to know all the 
 concurrent factors, and to compute their mathematical 
 formula, we must be acquainted with ‘the divine 
 arithmetic : ’ that individual consciousness of respon- 
 sibility and of moral freedom is also ‘ a fact,’ which is 
 as certain to the reason as this conformity to law; that 
 the whole question is only the old problem under a 
 new form—a problem which statistics will never be 
 able to solve. The question raised by these interesting 
 statistical labours has been variously treated, both in 
 its theological and philosophical aspect, in the defence — 
 of man’s freedom of will. In the first, in the Lrldnger 
 Zetschr. fiir Protestantism. und Kirche, 1865; Zur 
 Apologetik, iv. p. 199-238 (by Prof. Frank ?); in the 
 latter by Drobisch, Die Moralische Statistik, 1867; by 
 Vorlander, in an article on moral statistics and moral 
 freedom (Zeitschr ft fiir Staatswissenschaft, 1866, Iv. 
 p. 477, ete.); and by Carriére, in the Augsb. Allg. 
 
Notes. 301 
 
 Zeitung, 1867, No. 113; Appendix, Natirliche und 
 suttliche Weltordnung. We must not, says the theo- 
 logical article, confound freedom and lawlessness, event 
 and arbitrariness, for this is the atomistic individualis- 
 ing view of Pelagianism, which severs man from his 
 historical connections. These historical connections 
 involve opportunity, but not absolute necessity. Cir- 
 cumstances influence the decision of the individual, 
 but the latter suffers himself to be thus influenced. 
 They who do not suffer their decision to be thus in- 
 fluenced, but, in spite of the obstacles of outward 
 circumstances (famine, ete.), e.g. contract marriage, are 
 not freer than others because they do so. 
 
 Thus, then, the increase or decrease of certain human 
 actions, which statistics show to be dependent on 
 external causes, is no proof of the absence of freedom 
 in those transactions. Such influences upon the free 
 choice are of universal occurrence. The fact that an 
 act is the result of reasonable deliberation, does not 
 make it cease to be an act of freedom. It is by external 
 
 .)circumstances and their influence that the Divine. 
 
 government of the world is carried on. It is in con- 
 
 formity to law that Divine causality, ‘the secret will 
 of God,’ as Luther calls it, is apparent. Certainly the 
 
 question becomes more difficult in the case of actions 
 
 morally reprehensible. But what statistics designate 
 the ‘next cause, is generally compounded of many 
 causes. Age, sex, etc., are no special causes, and special 
 causes do not come within the range of statistics. Their 
 influence only varies according to age, etc. The seduc- 
 tiveness, too, of these causes is of: various strength, 
 according to age, etc. Yet this does not abolish in- 
 dividual freedom; for the moral condition of the subject 
 which turns the scale, is itself the product of moral 
 decisions. In his external transactions, man is fitted 
 into a groove of circumstances and forces which 
 variously determine the external form of his actions. 
 God has indeed left man free to choose to be ungodly, 
 
302 Notes. 
 
 not free to institute an arbitrary chaos; for He pro- 
 vides for order, regularity, conformity to law even in 
 the process of the development of sin. God's hand so 
 cuides the threads, that even in the web of sin law is 
 apparent, the maintenance of which, in the midst of 
 human perversity and sin, is His prerogative. The 
 figures of statistics are but the rays by which the fact’ 
 of this secret world-ruling will of God, with its con- 
 formity to law, shines forth. Drobisch, too, points out , 
 that a distinction must be made between human, re- 
 lative, non-absolute freedom of will and arbitrariness, 
 and that no choice is devoid of motive. But he lays 
 more emphasis on the determination of the resolve, 
 partly by the personal character, and partly by external 
 circumstances, so that the individual act of the will 
 appears as the necessary result of these various factors. 
 This seems to me a more decided denial of the posse- 
 bility of arbitrariness than I can think correct. Vor- 
 linder well shows that, with respect to the question of 
 free will, these negative consequences cannot be deduced 
 from the experience of external facts without logical 
 trickery; and also lays stress upon the natural limits 
 of the decisions of the will. Carriére shows, by in- 
 dividual examples from occurrences in Bavaria, how 
 easy it is to draw false conclusions, involving principles, 
 from certain facts, whose accidental social causes may 
 be unknown to statisticians, and refers to the fact of 
 the moral consciousness. On this ground, he rejects 
 the opinion of Buckle (in his History of Civilisation in 
 England), whose words shall be quoted to conclude this 
 note, and to show how these things are looked upon 
 from his point of view. ‘In a given state of society, 
 a certain number of persons must put an end to their 
 own life. This is the general law; and the special 
 question as to who shall commit the crime depends, of 
 course, upon special laws; which, however, in their 
 total action, must obey the large social law to which 
 they are all subordinate; and the power of the larger 
 
Notes. 303 
 
 law is so irresistible, that neither the love of life nor 
 
 the fear of another world can avail anything towards 
 
 even checking its operation.’ Carriere rightly denies 
 
 the proposition. ‘The must, the constraining law,’ he 
 — says, ‘does not exist.’ 
 
 (°) Compare the fine paragraph of Naville, Der 
 himmil. Vater, p. 215-235. Bruch, too, of Strasburg, m 
 a very appreciative notice of this work, takes occasion to 
 speak as follows of this denial of the moral view of 
 actions. ‘When Macaulay, the famous English his- 
 torian, expresses his abhorrence of those authors who 
 try to justify crime and make virtue ridiculous, M. Taine 
 remarks (Hssais de Critique e ad Histoire, p. 8, sq.): 
 ‘Criticism has a freer movement in France. If we 
 try to relate the life of a man, or to exhibit his charac- 
 
 . -ter, we like to look upon. him as an object of painting 
 orscience. We do not judge him; we desire merely to 
 -exhibit him, and make him comprehensible to the 
 ' understanding. We are desirous of knowledge, and 
 nothing else. Peter or Paul may have been a rogue; 
 that concerned his contemporaries, but is a matter of 
 indifference to us. They suffered from his crimes. 
 To-day we are out of his power, and with the danger 
 our hatred has vanished. I feel neither dislike nor 
 disgust; I have left these feelings at the door of 
 history, and I enjoy the very deep and very pure feel- 
 ing of seeing a soul treated according to a definite law.’ 
 Let it not be thought that this passage is but the 
 expression of the aberrations of a young and immature 
 mind; it rather expresses, according to the just remark 
 
 _ of Naville, the theory of a whole school. This theory 
 is clearly ‘and definitely stated in the Revue des deux 
 Mondes (Feb. 15, 1861, p. 855): ‘We have nothing to 
 do with morality, but only with custom; nothing with 
 principles, but only with facts. We explain everything, 
 and, as has been truly said, the mind finishes with 
 allowing everything which it explains, Modern virtue 
 
304 Notes. 
 
 resolves itself into toleration (se réswme dans la, toler- 
 ance). This is an immense innovation. Whatever is, 
 has for us a right to be’ How deeply such principles 
 have penetrated into the opinions of the present day, 
 is proved by the repeated attempt to whitewash the 
 most abominable characters. This theory may be said 
 to be the expression of an absolutely dblasé state of 
 existence. 
 
 (") Tacit. Ann. vi. 6. Compare Nicolas, 1. 103. 
 
 (*) Tholuck gives extracts from Plutarch’s work 
 on the ‘Fear of the Gods, in Der sittliche Charakter 
 des Heidenthums, p. 42, sq... ‘The physician—it is 
 thus that Plutarch describes his unhappy ones—is 
 driven away by the sick, the consoling friend by the 
 afflicted” He exclaims, ‘Leave me, O man, me, the 
 accursed, the hated of gods and demons, to suffer my 
 punishment. He sacrifices and trembles, he prays 
 with a faltering voice, he scatters incense with trem- 
 bling hands.” On the Flagellants, compare, ¢., Gieseler 
 Kirchengeschichte, ii. 509; 11. 2'73, sq.* 
 
 (*) Compare Lenau (14th ed. 1855), i, 118; “Prage,’ 
 p. 126; ‘Palliativ,; i. 55; ‘Nebel :’ 
 ‘Nimm fort in deine graue Nacht, 
 Die Erde weit und breit ; 
 
 Nimm fort was mich so trawrig macht, 
 Auch die Vergangenheit!’ * 
 
 Or the Sehnsucht nach Vergessen, i. 50; or, i. 117, 
 
 where he sees in asceticism an involuntary testimony 
 
 to a feeling of guilt. "stole 
 Platen (1853), 1. 91: 
 
 ‘Wie rafit ich mich auf in der Nacht, in der Nacht.’ $ 
 
 * ‘Gieseler’s Church History.’ Clark’s Foreign Theological Library. 
 
 + Take away in thy grey night, the-wide, broad earth; take away 
 also that past which makes me so sad. 
 
 + How I snatched myself up in the night, in the night. 
 
Notes. 305 
 Goethe: 
 
 ‘Ihr stiiret ins Leben thn Ninein, 
 Ihr lasst den Armen schuldig werden ; 
 Dann iiberlasst ihr ihn der Pein, 
 Denn jede Schuld richt sich auf Erden.’* 
 
 (“) This is a principle of Shakespeare’s moral views, 
 as strikingly exhibited, e.g., in ‘Macbeth.’ Platen, in- 
 ~ deed, says,— 
 
 ‘Ich fihlte dass die Schuld die uns aus Eden bannte, 
 Schwungfedern uns zum Flug nach hihern Himmel lethe ;’ + 
 but with what right, every one may know from his 
 own experience. 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE IIL 
 
 (’) Compare Vinet, p. 24; on the preceding, Vinet, 
 p. 69. 
 
 () Auerbach, Auf die Hohe, iii. 235, 279: ‘Rest 
 and peace are nowhere in this world.’ 
 
 Lenau, i. 249; ii. 58. 
 
 The following saying from Auerbach, Auf die Hohe, 
 (Lrma’s Tagebuch). | 
 
 () Regis, 1842, No. 114, p. 245: 
 
 ‘Kein Malen stillt noch Meisseln mehr die Seele, 
 Ste flieht zu jenem liebevollen Cott, 
 Der uns am Kreuz die Arment-gegenbreitet.’ + 
 
 (*) If we inquire, ¢g., of those poets who refer us to 
 
 * You plunge him into life, you let the poor creature become 
 guilty, then you .deliver him up to punishment, for all guilt is 
 — avenged upon earth. ' 
 
 + I felt that the guilt which banished us from Eden, furnished me 
 with fresh pinions to soar to a higher heaven. 
 
 ~ No painting nor sculpture can give peace to the soul; it 
 . flees to that loving God who stretches out His arms to us from the 
 cross. 
 
 U 
 
306 Notes. 
 
 our own strength, we find that they do not them- 
 selves believe in their strength. They get no farther 
 than a ‘perhaps.’ So Platen: 
 
 ‘ Wo ist das Herz das Keine Schmerzen spalten ? 
 Und wer aus Weltenende fliichten wiirde, 
 Stets folgten thm des Lebens Truggestalten, 
 Ein Trost nur bleibt mir dass ich jeder Biirde, 
 Vielleicht ein Gleichgewicht vermag zu halten, 
 Durch meiner Seele ganze Kraft und Wiirde.’ * 
 
 How little comfort, however, this uncertain hope 
 affords him, those other well known words of the same 
 poet prove: 
 
 ‘ Es liegt an eines Menschen Schmerz, an eines Menschen Wunde nichts, 
 Es kehrt an das was Kranke quiilt sich ewig der Gesunde nichts, 
 Und wire nicht das Leben kurz, das stets der Mensch vom Menschen 
 
 erbt, 
 So gdb’s Beklagenswertheres auf diesem Runde nichts.’ + 
 
 To own, however, that we know of no other comfort 
 than death, is to own that we know of none. 
 
 (°) Auerbach (Auf der Hohe) entitles the wisdom 
 of the old Count Eberhard, ii. 319, etce., ‘Self-redemp- 
 tion;’ iii. 168, ‘there is nothing but self-help’ The 
 subsequent expressions, ii. 320; i. 170. 
 
 (*) Compare Vinet, p. 155, 159; and the fine pas- 
 sage of Rickert: 
 
 ‘Du findst in dir die Ruhe nicht 
 Den milden Hauch von Grottes Gnaden, 
 Sd lang von deiner Schuld Gewicht 
 Du wilist ein Theil auf Andre laden. 
 
 * Where is the heart_unriven by sorrows? and if any one would 
 flee from the ends of the world, the deceptions of life would con- 
 tinually follow him, One comfort alone is left me, that I may, 
 - perhaps, With the whole might and faculties of my soul, be able to 
 — counterbalance every burden. 
 
 + There is no remedy for human pain, for human wounds. The 
 healthy man cares nothing for what torments the sick, And if the 
 life which man ever inherits from man were not short, there would ) 
 be nothing more pitiable upon this earth. ae 
 
Notes. 307 
 
 ‘ Nicht wenn du das was dich gelenkt 
 Von dem was du gethan hast trennest ; 
 Dir ist die Schuld nur ganz geschenkt, 
 Wenn du zur ganzen dich bekennest.’ * 
 
 (’) Auerbach offers a striking proof of this in that 
 very romance, Auf der Hohe. Irma had during four 
 years been performing almost superhuman penance. 
 ‘There are saints even in our days,’ is said concerning 
 her penance (iii. 484). And yet Auerbach cannot re- 
 frain from making this penance, of which his hero, the 
 physician Gunther, says (p. 491), ‘Thou hast made 
 _ explation, conclude with a prayer for forgiveness from 
 the queen she has injured. Not till then does Irma 
 get peace. P. 491: ‘Ah, thou art here at last! gasped 
 Irma, drawing a deep breath. Shé raised herself up 
 with her latest strength, and knelt up in her bed; she 
 folded her hands, and then, stretching out her arms, 
 she exclaimed, in heart-piercing tones: “ Pardon, 
 
 ~pardon!”’ Is this close of the drama dictated merely 
 by esthetic feeling? Is it not rather an involuntary 
 testimony of the moral feeling to truth, a testimoniwm 
 anime naturaliter christiane ? 
 
 (*) Compare the famous passage in the ‘Merchant of 
 Venice’: 
 
 ‘It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
 Upon the place beneath : it is twice bless’d ; 
 
 —It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
 "Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
 The throned monarch better than his crown ; 
 His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
 The attribute to awe and majesty, 
 Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; 
 But mercy is above this sceptred sway, 
 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
 
 rIt is an attribute to God himself, 
 
 And earthly power doth then show likest God’s 
 ‘When mercy seasons justice.’ 
 
 * Thou dost not find rest within thee, the gentle breath of God’s 
 mercy, so long as thou wilt heap one portion of the weight of thy 
 guilt upon another; nor when thou separatest what_impelled thee 
 
 ; from what thou hast done. Thy guilt is only wholly remitted when 
 » thou acknowledgest the whole. 
 
308 Notes. 
 
 () Cid. Col. 1276: 
 
 ‘Yet as mercy ruling shares the throne of Zeus to 
 adjust every work, so, O father, let it also prevail with 
 thee ! 
 
 (") The thoughts which follow are further carried 
 out in my Lehre vom freien Wrllen. 
 
 (") Compare, in Neander’s Denkw. 1. 27, ete., the ex- 
 pressions of desire for a revelation of mercy expressed at —/ 
 the conclusion of the ancient world, ¢.g., by_Porphyry, ; 
 who speaks of ‘those who, longing after truth, once 
 prayed that a vision of the gods might be vouchsafed 
 to them, that so they might, by means of well authenti-_ 
 cated information, be set free from their doubts.’ Also 
 the touching description of the inward restlessness and 
 craving of Clement of Rome (from the Recognitions), ~ 
 a description evidently taken fromlife. On the similar 
 development, in the case of Justin, compare ‘ Lectures — 
 on Fundamental Truths, Lecture VIII, p. 214. Pascal 
 ii. 96: Il est bon d’étre lassé et fatigué par [inutile 
 recherche du vrat bien, afin de tendre les bras au libéra- 
 teur. - 
 
 (*) On the maxim that whatever is best is freely and 
 eraciously given. Compare ‘Lectures on Fundamental 
 Truths,” Lecture VIL, p. 176. The opinion of the 
 natural mind on this point is shown by Celsus, who 
 esteems it one of the follies of Christianity, that it 
 should call sinners into the kingdom of God. ‘They 
 say that God accepts the sinner, if he humbles himself 
 on account of his-vileness, but will not accept the just 
 man who virtuously looks up to Him from the begin- 
 ning’ (Neander, Denkw. 1.13). Seneca, on the other, - 
 hand, says, Ep. 52: Nemo per se satis valet ut emergat; 
 oportet manum aliquis porrigat, aliquis educat. 
 
Notes. 309 
 
 a 
 NOTES TO LECTURE IV. 
 
 (‘) This is the title by which Strauss, proceeding 
 upon this presupposition, designates his critique of 
 Schleiermacher’s Leben Jesu, ‘The Christ of Faith, and 
 the Jesus of History’ (1865). In his view, the Christ- 
 ology of Schleiermacher is the last attempt and failure 
 
 to reconcile the faith of the Church and the history of 
 Jesus, the ideal and the historic Christ. ‘Once for all, 
 it will not do,’ Especially pp. 209-223, Compare also 
 my Lecture: Die modernen Darstellungen des Lebens 
 Jesu, 2d edition, 1864, p. 9, ete. 
 
 () On Plato’s picture of the suffering righteous 
 man, compare my ‘Lectures on Fundamental Truths, 
 Lecture VIII, p. 211. Aristotle generally founds 
 his decisions concerning what is morally right on the 
 standard of the ideal virtuous man, and draws a 
 
 .. picture of a perfectly ideal morality in his description 
 of the high-minded man (usyarspuxos), Eth. Nocom. 
 Iv. 3; but it is really only a picture of pride, if not of 
 arrogance, which he sketches. The Stoic ideal, more- 
 over, is pride personified, which yet, according to 
 _ Cicero’ s confession (Z'use. ii. 32), was never yet realised. 
 
 ~ (°) The ancient ideal is conscious. pride—even in 
 the Aristotelian ethics, ¢.g., in the description of the 
 high-minded man (iv. s 24; v. 5, ete.); while humility 
 1S “entirely absent from the conception of ancient 
 morality. Compare ‘Lectures on Fundamenal Truths, 
 Lecture VIIL., p. 203. 
 
 (‘) A coarse attempt to do so was formerly made by 
 Reimarus (Wolfenb. Fragm.), who attributed to Jesus 
 a political plan, the failure of which he makes Him 
 deplore on the cross, when He utters the words: 
 ‘My God, ete. Vom Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jiinger 
 
310 Notes. 
 
 (7 Fragm., publislfed by Lessing, 1778; in the second 
 section, § 3-8). It is not in this rude and arbitrary 
 manner, but as a consequence of His true humanity, 
 that the modern works on His life by Schenkel and _ 
 Strauss—to say nothing of the indignities done Him 
 by Renan—have denied the sinlessness of Jesus. Be- 
 cause Jesus calls Himself lowly, says Schenkel, He 
 must have had to contend_with pride (2d edition, 
 1864, p. 170); when He says none is good but God, 
 He declares Himself to be not good in this sense; He 
 knew the sinful motions of flesh and blood from His 
 own experience (pp. 288-290), and therefore He could 
 pray with His disciples, ‘Forgive us our debts, our 
 trespasses’ (p. 368). Strauss, on the contrary, thinks 
 himself justified in calling it not merely fanaticism, 
 but_ ‘unjustifiable self-exaltation for a man to imagine... 
 himself so separated from other men as to set himself 
 before them as their future judge’ (Leben Jesu, 1864, 
 p- 242). Keim has, however, already given a sufficient 
 answer to all this. Compare my Lecture, Die modernen 
 Darstellungen, etc., p. 47. 
 
 (°) ‘The Son of Man,’ is the most. usual title of the 
 Lord Jesus, and that by which He specially designates 
 Himself in the Gospels (in these it occurs more than 
 eighty times; once_only out of the Gospels, Acts xil. 
 56, and nowhere in the Epistles). It was formerly 
 regarded as denoting, upon the authority of Dan, vil.— 
 13, nothing more than that He was the Messiah; but 
 Matt. xvi. 13, 16, and John xii. 34, speak against such 
 a restriction of its interpretation. The way to the 
 correct understanding of this title was struck out by 
 Hofmann in his work: Weissagung wnd Erfiillung, Vw 
 19, etc., and in his Schriftbeweis, 11. 1, 78; while the 
 Weizsticker Jahrbiicher fur deutsche Theologie, 1859, 4, 
 Baur, in Hilgenfeld’s Zettschr. fiir wissenschaftliche 
 Theol., iii. 8, 274, and Kahnis, in his luther. Dogmatik, 
 i. 416, followed in the same direction. It points out 
 
\ 
 
 Notes. 312 
 
 that Jesus is the end and aim of human history, He 
 _that was to come. Thus this designation is allied to St 
 Paul’s view of Christ as the second Adam (Rom. v. 12, 
 etc.; 1 Cor. xv. 45). Starting from this idea of the 
 central and universal relation of Christ to all mankind, 
 modern theology, especially Schleiermacher and his 
 school, has endeavoured again to attain to the know- 
 ledge of the higher significance of Christ. This is well, 
 if only we do. not stop here, but combine with the idea 
 of the Son of Man that of the Son of God, which is 
 not—as has been lately supposed—identical with it. 
 The former denotes Christ’s relation to man and to the 
 world, the latter His relation to God. He is the former 
 because He is the latter. ~ 
 
 () The absolute relation of Jesus to the world, as 
 depending upon His relation to God, is summed up 
 (Matt. xi. 27). This may be stated under its separate 
 heads, as follows: With relation to the Old Testament, 
 He is the desire of the Old Testament saints (Matt. 
 xiii. 17); to the Old Testament Church, He is the 
 bridegroom of the Church (Matt. ix. 15); to individual 
 souls, “the soul finds rest in Him (Matt. xi. 29); to the 
 human race, His Gospel must be everywhere preached 
 (Matt. xxv. 14); and He will gather all nations into 
 His Church (Matt. xxviii. 19); to the world in general, 
 He is the Judge of the whole world (Matt. xxv. 34), ete. 
 
 () This difference between the fourth and the first 
 three Gospels was early noticed; and in the ancient 
 Church, in the Alexandrian theology, the fourth 
 Gospel was called the spiritual Gospel, and was re- 
 garded with special estimation, Compare Luther, ‘the 
 unique, tender (zarte), genuine, chief Gospel, far pre- 
 ferable to the other three’ (Werke, Hrl. Hdit, |xiii. 115); 
 and Matth. Claudius (i. 8): ‘There is something SO 
 wonderful about it—twilight and night, and through 
 both the swiftly darting lightning I—a centle cloud of 
 
312 | Notes. 
 
 evening, and, behind the cloud, the great full moon 
 bodily !—something so melancholy, so sublime, so pre- 
 sentient, that one is never satiated. Whenever I 
 read St John’s Gospel, I seem to see him lying on his 
 Master’s breast at the Last Supper; I seem to see his 
 spirit holding up a light to me, and, at certain pas- 
 sages, falling upon my neck and whispering in my 
 ear. I am far from understanding all I read; yet it 
 often seems as though his meaning were hovering in 
 the far distance before me; and even when I am 
 considering a totally obscure passage, I have still a 
 presentiment of a great and glorious meaning, which 
 I shall one day understand, and therefore I seize with 
 such avidity upon every fresh exposition, upon every 
 new explanation of St John. The most, indeed, only 
 skim the evening cloud, and leave alone the moon be- 
 hind it. In modern times this difference has been 
 
 exaggerated into a contrast; but without reason :.. 
 
 for what is stated in the text shows that even the 
 first three Gospels furnish the points of connection 
 
 for the instruction in St John’s. The former represent » 
 
 the earlier stages of Christian teaching, St John’s the 
 higher; the former represent rather the historical, the 
 latter the eternal existence of Christ; the former His 
 relation to the world, the latter His relation to God. 
 But the latter forms the postulate of the former, and 
 underlies them. 
 
 () Jesus ascribes to Himself a direct relation to.. 
 
 God. With reference to life, He says that He has it 
 in Himself, as the Father hath (John v. 26); with refer- 
 ence to His work, that the work of God is accomplished 
 through Him (John v. 17, etc.); with reference to His 
 power, that He and the Father are one (John x. 30): 
 with reference to His existence, that there is an absolute 
 communion between the two (x. 38, xiv. 10, ch. xvii); 
 hence, He is the presence of God himself (xiv. 9); 
 and disposes of the Spirit of God at His will, and for 
 
 es oe ee 
 
Notes. 313 
 
 His service (xvi. 7, etc., 13, etc.). This is only com- 
 prehensible, if His communion with the Father did 
 not take place in time, but existed from eternity, and 
 merely received this historical form in the present. 
 Hence, Jesus emphatically teaches us His existence 
 with the Father before He became man (John ii. 13; 
 
 vi. 38, 46, 51; viii. 42; xvi. 28); and, indeed, that this 
 existence is a ‘personal ‘and eternal one (vil. 58); in the 
 communion of the Divine glory and love (xvii. 5, 24). 
 On this account, also, He accepts the confession of 
 Thomas: ‘My Lord and my God’ (John xx. 28), and 
 distinguishes it as the correct expression of faith in 
 Him. It is upon the ground of this self-testimony of 
 Jesus that St John, at the beginning of his Gospel, 
 designates Him, in his famous triad of propositions, 
 as the Word which was with God, and which was 
 God. 
 
 () Examples of the MyOCauON of the Lord Jesus by. 
 tians, too, are, in the New Temannene desienated as 
 —those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus 
 (as in the Old Testament the name of Jehovah was 
 called on). Compare Rom. x. 13; Acts ix. 14, 21; 
 
 1 Cor. i. 2 (upon the ground of J ohn v. 27). 
 
 (°) Pliny, at the beginning of the second century, 
 in consequence of the inquiries he had instituted, wrote 
 concerning the Christians in his letter to Pliny (Ep. 
 x. 96): Quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire 
 carmenque Christo quasy Deo dicere. And this custom 
 - of praising Christ in hymns, as God, is corroborated 
 by the Church historian Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. v. 28), 
 who speaks of the psalms and odes of primitive times, 
 in which Christ was praised_as God: \padmol boo: xa 
 wal ddshQay dm doyis bad rioraiv yeuPescc, Tov Abyov rod Seod 
 tiv yolordy buvotor Seorovovvres. 
 
314 Notes. 
 
 (") These thoughts are specially carried out in the 
 Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians (compare Eph. 
 i. 10; Col. i. 20). Hence originated the view, which 
 regards the incarnation as not ~ merely effected for the 
 purpose of taking away sin, but as necessary, even if sin 
 did not exist, for the realisation of the ideal of man, and 
 for the bestowal of a head upon the human race—a = 
 speculative view advocated in former times, especially 
 by certain mystics; in modern, by theosophists, such 
 as Franz v. Baader, etc., and by theologians, especially 
 Dorner, etc., but without adequate Scriptural grounds, — 
 and differing from primitive doctrine. It is opposed, 
 especially by Jul. Miller (deutsche Zeitschr fiir Chrostl. 
 Leben, etc., 1850, No. 40, etc.) and Thomasius. 
 
 (°) How the heathen world strove after, yet failed 
 to attain to, the idea of the God-man, is stated by 
 Dorner in his Lntwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der 
 Person Christi, i., pp. 4-15. The Messianic traditions of ~ 
 various nations are collected by Liiken in his ine 
 Traditionen, ete. 
 
 (*) The first problem of the Church, in laying down 
 the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, was to estab- 
 lish the truth that two natures are united in Christ the 
 God-man-—the Divine and human ; the second, to bring 
 before the mind the personal unity of these two 
 natures. The Godhead of Jesus was denied by Jewish 
 opinion, which saw in Jesus only a prophet filled with 
 the Spirit of God, though the greatest of the prophets 
 (Ebionitism) ; His proper humanity by heathen opinion, 
 which recognised i in Christ an exalted spiritual being, 
 going about the world in a phantom body (Doceticism). 
 This opinion afterwards prevailed within the Church, 
 in the so-called monarchian tendency which thought 
 that it could only maintain the unity (monarchy) of the 
 Deity by viewing Christ as a mere influence or indwell- - 
 ing of the Spirit of God, and which culminated in the 
 
Notes, 315 
 
 doctrine of Arius (a presbyter at Alexandria during the 
 time of his great opponent Athanasius), according to 
 which Christ was a kind of intermediate being, brought 
 forth by God before the creation of the world, for the 
 purpose of effecting this act. After these errors had 
 been rejected (the latter at the Council of Nice, 
 A.D. 325), the question was to solve the more difficult 
 problem of making the unity of the two natures in the 
 God-man comprehensible. Here, also, two opposing 
 views had to be encountered; the one, the system of 
 _ sober and distinguishing reason, incapable of conceiving 
 any but an external union of the two natures, and 
 viewing the Godhead of Christ as dwelling in the man- 
 hood, as it were, in a temple,—a system which did 
 violence to the truth of the human nature and the 
 necessary distinction between the Divine and human. 
 Such views, adopted by the Antiochian school, were 
 _taught by Nestorius, from whom they derived the name 
 “ Nestorianism. The other was that of speculative 
 reason (the Alexandrian theology), which, seeking to 
 give due emphasis to the unity of the two natures, 
 incurred the danger of sinking the human in the 
 Divine. This system, advocated by Eutyches in Con- 
 stantinople, was called Monophysitism, «e., the doctrine 
 of one nature from the mingling of the two. In oppo- 
 sition to both these, the abiding distinction of the two 
 natures, and their union in the central point of the 
 personal life, was laid down by the Council of Chalce- 
 _don, A.D. 451, by the influence of the Romish bishop 
 Leo. But even this did not satisfy the demands of 
 Christian faith. And it is to the Lutheran doctrine of 
 the God-man that we are indebted for a still stricter 
 adherence to the unity of the two natures. They must 
 be viewed as not merely united in the personal centre, 
 but as themselves unified, and existing in each other. 
 It must, however, be confessed, that the_ ancient 
 Lutheran doctrine gives too great a preponderance to 
 the Divine, as is evident from the fact that it ascribes 
 
316 Notes. 
 
 to Jesus, even during His earthly life, and with regard 
 to the human side of His person, omnipresence, omni- 
 science, and omnipotence, though the possession of 
 these attributes does not agree with the picture pre- 
 sented by the Gospel history. 
 
 (“) Jesus, after having been regarded by rationalism 
 as a mere man, though the ideal of virtue and wisdom, 
 is in these days looked upon either as the_religious 
 genius (Strauss), or the man of ecclesiastical liberty, 
 and the friend of the oppressed people (Schenkel), or 
 the portrait given of him in the Gospels is disguised 
 by sentimental additions (Renan). Compare my Lec- 
 ture on the modern views of Jesus; also, Uhland’s 
 Die modernen Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu, 4 lectures, 
 1866; and Niemann’s Jesu Stindlosigkeit wnd hei. 
 Vollkommanheit, 1866. 
 
 (") This thought of self-abnegation is especially ~ 
 expressed by the Apostle Paul, Phil. ii. 6. The mean- 
 ing of this passage evidently is, that Christ shared in 
 the Divine glory before He began an earthly life, and 
 that He surrendered this in order to enter upon a 
 life of dependence and self-denying service, that He 
 might then, by this road of humiliation, raise Himself 
 to the height of equality with God, which He would 
 not seize as plunder, but receive from the Father as 
 the reward of His obedience. Among modern theo- 
 logians, Thomasius has profoundly comprehended and .. 
 successfully advocated this doctrine of Christ’s self- 
 abnegation. See Christe Person wnd werk, ii., edit. 
 2d, 1857. 
 
 (") There was a time when efforts were made to get 
 over the miracles of the Bible by explaining them, as 
 it was said, in a natural manner. Paulus of Heidel--~ 
 berg especially sought his laurels in this manner, 
 during the first decades of the present century. This 
 
Notes. 317 
 
 was, however, the most unnatural explanation possible, 
 and its advocates only exposed themselves to ridicule. 
 The wise men of the East, e.g., were said to be travel- 
 ling merchants; the transfiguration of Christ, a storm ; 
 the miracle at the marriage at Cana, a marriage joke; 
 the healing of the man born blind, the salutary effect 
 of the moist cool earth upon an inflamed eye, etc. 
 But this folly has not even yet died out, though the 
 progress of education, especially since Strauss, has 
 exchanged such outrages for the myth and. imagina- 
 tion theory. Hence the Gospel history is now to be 
 regarded as a fiction of the Christian Church (Strauss). 
 “But, then, whose work is this Church itself? Is it not 
 the Church’s original. consciousness, that what she is 
 she is through Christ? This effect requires an ade- 
 quate cause. The appearance of Jesus Christ must 
 have been a most powerfully efficient cause; and of 
 this appearance, according to the consciousness of the 
 Christian Church, His miracles formed a part. Com- 
 pare ‘Lectures on Fundamental Truths, Lect. X., 
 p. 278. 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE V. 
 
 () The inculcation of the three offices of Christ 1s 
 of great antiquity in the Church, and prevailed also 
 in the doctrinal teaching of our Church, until Ernesti 
 (of Leipsic) rejected it as a mere figure of speech. 
 _Schleiermacher, however, again brought it into repute. 
 And justly so, for it corresponds with the two great 
 eras of Israel’s history: the post-Mosaic, in which the 
 high priest, the Davidic, in which the king, and the 
 later period, in which the prophet, formed the central 
 point of the nation, and was the organ of God. 
 
 : () In modern times the attempt has been made to 
 
318 Notes. 
 
 _ prolong the period of Christ's development, by suppos- 
 ing an interval during which His ideas were under a . 
 process of development, after the time of His baptism — 
 and during that of His ministry. This view is advo- 
 cated by Keim, Der Geschuhtl. Christus., 1865, although 
 Christ’s baptism was_ itself the assumption of His 
 Messianic office. His Messianic consciousness, how- 
 ever, presupposes his consciousness of Sonship, and — 
 not vice versd ; for it was in the nature of things that 
 He should first be conscious of Himself, of His person, 
 and of His personal relation to God, and afterwards, 
 and by reason of this, of His office. The narrative of 
 His visit, in His twelfth year, to the Temple at Jeru-— 
 salem, makes this sufficiently clear. It is true that 
 Jesus did not from the very first, but only gradually, 
 bear testimony to His Messiahship; but it is equally 
 so that this was in the interest of His system of in-— 
 struction, and not because He did not at first feel and 
 know Himself to be the Messiah; for this testimony, 
 and faith therein, presupposed certain moral and _ re-; 
 ligious convictions, unless it were to be a faith on mere } 
 authority, and destitute of moral worth. The person 
 and teaching of Jesus must first have made an impres-, 
 sion before this testimony could be rightly understood 
 and received. The disciples had reached this stage. 
 (Matt. xvi. 16); and the reason that Jesus so oreatly 
 rejoiced was, that their confession of His Messiahship 
 was not an opinion externally accepted, but the mature 
 fruit of their own inward development. It is evident, 
 then, that if Jesus had, in this respect, raised His dis- 
 ciples to His own level, He must Himself have first 
 stood upon those heights to which He sought, by slow 
 and patient labour, to raise them. ‘This was the case, 
 also, with His consciousness of His approaching passion, 
 which did not: become evident to Him for the first time 
 when He spoke of it (Matt. xxi, 21, etc.), but which 
 He then spoke of because His disciples were then able - 
 to bear this saying. 
 
Notes. 319 
 
 () The period before His baptism was to the Lord. 
 Jesus the period of His development; that subsequent 
 to it the period of His ministry. When He went to His 
 baptism His inner development was complete; He 
 
 __ was certain both of His person and His office. Hence, 
 His baptism was both a declaration on His part of 
 ~ His willingness to undertake His office, and a Divine 
 preparation for 1t (Acts x. 38). Strauss and. others 
 have asked how this narrative of His endowment with 
 the Holy Ghost is to be reconciled with that of His 
 conception of the Holy Ghost, and have concluded 
 that the former represented the original view, while 
 _.the latter, on the contrary, was a legendary : addition ; 
 for if Jesus had been conceived of the Holy Ghost, 
 He already possessed Him, and did not need the recep- 
 tion of Him at His baptism ; and therefore that, if the 
 latter took place, this is equivalent to a denial of the 
 former. But all this rests upon a misconception of 
 the diversities of the Holy Spirit’s operations, both in 
 the case of the Lord Jesus and of each individual be- 
 lever. It is one operation of the Holy Ghost which 
 } renews our hearts, and makes us new men, and another 
 which endows us with gifts and powers for the efficient 
 service of God. The former is His work of regenera- 
 tion; the latter, of bestowing gifts and graces. That 
 makes us children of God; “this makes us His _ser- 
 vants, The one effects our personal communion with 
 God; the other makes us fellow-workers with God. 
 In both instances it is one and the same Spirit, but in 
 distinct and varying operations; and the former does 
 not necessarily include the latter, as, on the other 
 hand, the latter may exist independently of the for- 
 ~ mer (Matt. vil. 22; 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 2)—The temptation 
 of Christ cannot ‘be looked upon as a merely internal 
 occurrence, since in this case the spotless mirror of 
 Christ’s soul would have been clouded by the sinful 
 thoughts thus made to arise from His heart. Hence 
 it is a transaction between Jesus and the tempter,— 
 
320 Notes. 
 
 not, indeed, in so gross a sense as would be involved 
 in the conversation and intercourse of two human 
 beings; for such representations of the invisible world 
 to the senses as we here meet with can only be ap- 
 preciated by those for whom they are intended. This 
 occurrence is unique in history, for the revelation of 
 God in Christ is also unique in history. It is, more- 
 over, decisive with regard to the execution of God’s 
 plan of salvation, and the ancient antagonism between. 
 the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. The 
 importance of the event evidently consists in the fact 
 that it was an attempt to seduce Jesus into the path of 
 those carnal and earthly Messianic notions which existed. / 
 in the imaginations of the people, and were repeatedly 
 brought forward during the ministry of Jesus. (Com- 
 pare, ¢g., John vi. 15.) The whole period of forty 
 days, during which Jesus was wholly absorbed by. His 
 spirit’s tendency towards God, and withdrawn from 
 bodily wants, was a time of temptation. The three- 
 temptations of which we possess a narrative, form 
 the close of this period of temptation, when Jesus. 
 returned to a state of consciousness to sensuous im-.. 
 pressions, and therewith to the feeling of bodily wants. 
 The first temptation concerned the abuse of the miracu- 
 lous powers bestowed upon Him, for the arbitrary 
 supply of His own temporal necessities; the second, 
 the abuse of the mighty protection of God for self- 
 chosen glorification before the people; the third, a 
 premature assumption of His future dominion over the 
 world, in direct opposition to His office, instead of 
 receiving it from the hand of God upon the path of 
 suffering. It is significant that Jesus, in spite of the 
 misuse. ‘of Scripture by the enemy, was not deterred 4 
 from using it as the Jawiul weapon and decisive rule | 
 of conduct. | 
 
 (*) So, also, Pressensé, Jesus Christ, etc., p. 291. 
 
Notes. oak 
 
 (*) An excellent paragraph on the universality of 
 sacrifice may be found in Nicolas ii. 52, ete., where also 
 Voltaire’s saying (Essai sur les Mewrs, chap. 70), is 
 quoted: ‘Among so many different religions there is 
 none whose main object has not been propitiation. 
 _ Man has ever felt that he. needed pardon.’ 
 
 () The attempt to prove the necessity of an atone- 
 ment by the God-man, in the way of suffering, was 
 Airst made by the great theologian Anselm, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, in his work, Cur Deus Homo: It is man 
 who must suffer for sin and for the offence done to 
 God by sin, while yet he is incapable of offering an 
 adequate, because an infinite, satisfaction for this in- 
 finite offence, which God alone can do; hence it is the 
 act of the God-man, and that by His voluntary death, 
 which is a full, perfect, and sufficient satisfaction for 
 this guilt, and is therefore our comfort in death. This 
 view of the subject became and remained, on the whole, 
 that of the Church, being in all essential matters that 
 which is founded on Scripture. (Compare, e.g. 2 Cor. 
 v. 21). On the other hand, the denial of the need of 
 “atonement originated with the Socinians, and has passed 
 from them to the rationalists, a summary of whose ob- 
 jJections has been given by Philippi in his Kirchl. 
 Glaubenslehre, iv. 2, 158, ete. 
 
 () The distinction between atonement and punish- 
 ment, in opposition to their identification by our elder 
 dogmatists, has been well and clearly laid down by 
 Stahl, Fundamente einer christl. Philosophie, 1846, 
 p. 156, ete. Atonement is an ethical, punishment a 
 judicial, notion; the former presupposes innocence, the 
 latter guilt; the former must be voluntarily under- 
 taken, the latter need only be endured; the former 
 satisfies the moral consciousness, the latter the sense | 
 of justice; the former restores the moral fellowship, 
 the latter separates therefrom; hence the former is done 
 
 > 
 
322 Notes. 
 
 away with in the very act of its consummation, the 
 latter is by its nature abiding. 
 
 (*) The notion of substitution is found in Aischylus’s -. 
 legend of Prometheus, v. 1026: ‘Hope not. for an end 
 to such oppression until a godappears as thy substitute » 
 in torment, ready to descend for thee into the sunless 
 realm of Hades, and the dark abyss of Tartarus:’ 
 (compare ‘Lectures on Fundamental Truths,’ Lecture 
 VIIL, p. 209), and not less in Sophocles’ Gidipus in 
 Colonos, v. 498: ‘For one soul, I think, would suffice 
 to effect this, even for thousands, if it approaches with 
 a pure mind.” On which passage Wilhelm Henke, in 
 his clever brochure on the (Edipus of Sophocles, p. 29, 
 remarks: ‘They who would find in these two lines a 
 Messianic prediction, need no allegorical prediction to 
 help them. That only a pure soul is capable of effect- 
 ing an atonement for a guilt-laden family and race, is 
 the fine thought upon which Goethe’s Iphigenia in 
 Tauris is founded: | 
 
 ‘ Soll dieser Fluch denn ewig walten? Soll 
 Nie diess Geschlecht mit newem Segen 
 Sich wieder heben ? 
 So hofft ich denn vergebens, hier verwahrt, 
 Von meines Hauses Schicksal abgeschieden, 
 
 Dereinst mit reiner Hand und reinem Herzen 
 Die schwer befleckte Wohnung zu entsiihnen’ (iv. 5). 
 
 (Is, then, this curse to last for ever? Is this race 
 never to rise up again with a new blessing? Then | 
 hoped in vain,,preserved here apart from the fate of 
 my family, one day, with pure hand and heart to make 
 an atonement for my deeply stained abode.) 
 
 () Certain facts of ancient history, such as the self- 
 sacrifice of Codrus at Athens, or of Curtius at Rome, - 
 are, in some sense, examples of such substitution in 
 suffering and action. Compare also Stahl, Fundamente, 
 etc., p. 157, on the idea of atonement in the death of 
 Antigone, as well as in other historical events. 
 
 5 
 
é 
 
 Notes. 323 
 
 (") Compare Kritzler: Humanitdit und Christen- 
 thum, 1866, i. p. 87. 
 
 (") Compare a series of passages in Pascal, ii. 338, 
 
 ete.: ‘Le mystére de Jésus: Jésus cherche quelque 
 
 ils dorment, etc. Jésus est seul dans la terre, non 
 seulment qui ressente et partage sa peine, mais qui la 
 sache, le ciel et lui sont seuls dans cette connaissance. 
 Il souffre cette peine et cet abandon dans l’horreur de 
 la nuit.” And farther on, p. 314, where Pascal touch- 
 ingly sums up in a few words all the tragic circum- 
 stances in the life of Jesus: ‘De trente trois ans, il en 
 vit trente sans paraitre. Dans trois ans il passe pour 
 un imposteur; les prétres et les principaux le re- 
 jettent; ses amis et ses plus proches le méprisent. 
 Enfin il meurt trahi par un des siens, renié par l’autre 
 et abandonné par tous.’ 
 
 (*) Compare, on this subject, Pascal, ii. 323: ‘Qui a 
 appris aux evangelistes les qualités d'une ame parfaite- 
 ment heroique, pour la peindre si parfaitement en 
 Jésus Christ? Pourquoi le font ils faible dans son 
 agonie? Ne savent ils pas peindre une mort constante ? 
 Oui, car le méme saint Luc peint celle de saint Etienne 
 plus forte que celle de Jésus Christ. Ils le font done 
 capable de crainte avant que la nécessité de mourir 
 soit arrivée, et ensuite tout fort. Mais quand ils le font 
 si troublé, c’est quand il se trouble lui méme, et quand 
 les hommes le troublent il est tout fort.’ 
 
 (°) According to Pressensé, p. 290. On the alteration 
 in Jesus before and after His victory over the fear that 
 came upon Him, compare Pascal, i. 323, etc. and 
 339: ‘Jésus _prie dans l’incertitude de la volonté du 
 Pere et craint la mort; mais l’ayant connue, il va au 
 devant soffrir a elle: eamus, processit (Johannes),’ 
 
324 Notes. 
 
 (*) On the punishment of crucifixion in the ancient 
 world, particulars will be found in Herzoe’s Theol. 
 Realencycl. viii. 65, etc. Zestermann has just published 
 a very sound and interesting article (die biblische 
 Darstellung des Kreuzes und der Kreuzigung Jesu 
 Christi historisch entwickelt, Pt. 1st): Das Kreuz vor 
 Christus. 
 
 (*) The particulars will be found in the interesting 
 work of Fred. Becker: Das Spotterucifix der romaschen ~ 
 Kuiserpaliste aus dem Anfang des 3 Jahrh. 1866. It 
 is also taken up according to its real meaning in a 
 second work of the same writer: Die Darstellung Jesu 
 Christi unter dem Bilde des Fisches auf den Monumenten 
 der Kirche der Katakomben, 1866. 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE VL 
 
 (‘) On the question of Christ’s resurrection, compare 
 ‘Lectures on Fundamental Truths, Lecture VIL, 
 
 would involve; and believes he can account for the 
 faith of the disciples in the resurrection by the hypo- 
 thesis that the disciples found the grave empty be-— 
 cause Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who were 
 no disciples, had_removed the body to another place, 
 which remained unknown. In short, in the case of all 
 modern deniers of the fact of the resurrection, we find 
 that either doctrinal or philosophic premisses form the 
 
Notes. 325 
 
 motive or furnish the necessity of denial. Zeller, in 
 his Vortrdgen und Abhandlungen geschichtslichen In- 
 halts (1865, p. 491), unreservedly declares that he and 
 those like-minded with him cannot possibly_believe 
 in the reality of such an event as the resurrection 
 of Christ, ‘however strong might be the testimony 
 thereto.’ 
 
 (*) Discussions on this matter have, since the old 
 ~rationalistic explanation of a trance could not be 
 maintained, even by Schleiermacher, been all con- 
 centrated into the question, whether we have here to do 
 “with a vision or an external and actual fact. Compare: . 
 Giider’s Apologetischen Beweisfiihrungen ; Beyschlag’s 
 Die Auferstehung Christi in Studien und Kritiken, 
 1864, i; Gebhardt’s Die Auferstehung Christi und 
 thre neuesten Gegner, 1864; and Stutz, Vortrdge, p. 146, 
 etc. Mosheim had already sufficiently refuted the 
 
 ~. vision hypothesis. Compare Beweis des Glaubens, 
 1867, 1, p. 23. 
 
 () So Holsten, in the above mentioned articles, in 
 opposition to which Beyschlag brings forward all need- 
 ful considerations, and directs attention to the’ fact 
 that St Paul makes a very clear distinction between 
 
 —actual appearances like that near Damascus, and visions 
 (2 Cor. xil). 
 
 (*) So also Keim, Geschichtl. Christu, p. 133. 
 
 () It is, fundamentally, Schleiermacher’s view, that 
 a vital influence proceeded from the personality of 
 Christ, filled as it was with Divinity; that this in- 
 fluence, continuing within the Church, is experienced 
 by every individual who enters its communion. From 
 the fact of this experience, he argues as from an effect 
 to its cause, and demands and “constructs therefrom 
 the historical fact of Christ’s person; but the relation 
 
326 Notes. 
 
 in which he makes Christ stand to the Christian 
 is not. that present and direct one which is unmis- 
 takably represented in Scripture to have been the 
 conviction of the Apostolic Church. Compare also 
 my Sermons, vol. iii, Das Wort der Wahrheit, 1866, 
 p. 16. 
 
 say 
 
 (’) What Cicero tells us of the poet_Simonides is ~ 
 interesting. "When questioned concerning the nature 
 of God, he always requested more time for his answer, 
 because the more deeply he examined the matter, the 
 more obscure did it appear (De Nat. Deor., Wp Ee 
 Simonides ab Hierone Syracusarum tyranno inter- 
 rogatus, quid aut qualis sit deus, deliberandi causa 
 sibi unum diem, inde biduum postulavit. At quum 
 saepius dierum numerum duplicasset, admiranti cur id 
 faceret Hieroni; quia quanto, respondit, diutius con- 
 sidero, tanto mihi res videtur obscurior). 
 
 () The words of Nicolas, i. 83. 
 
 () This comparison was originally used by the 
 Romish Bishop Gregory the Great, who, in a letter to — 
 
Notes. 327 
 
 Leander, Archbishop of Seville, applies these words to 
 Holy Scripture. 
 
 (") Starting with the Old Testament passages on 
 wisdom, Job xxviii, 13, etc.; Prov. viii. 22 (compare 
 Wisd. vii. 25), in which the Church has at all times 
 found allusions to the Trinity (see even Philippi’s 
 
 “Kirehl. Glaubenslehre, ii. 192); and with the Old 
 Testament statements concerning the word, a theory 
 was formed, especially,in the Alexandrine religious 
 philosophy, and, above all, by Philo, a contemporary 
 of our Lord and His apostles, of the Logos (2.e., word 
 or reason), a kind of impersonal intermediate being, 
 and the organ of all Divine revelation, whether na- 
 tural or spiritual. Compare Kahnis, Dogmatzk, 1. 316, 
 etc., where also the literature of this subject is ad- 
 duced. But this pre-Christian speculation was no 
 more a preparation or precursor of the New Testament 
 doctrine of the Trinity, than was the Son of God in 
 
 _Plato’s Zimdus. They are mere abstractions and not 
 realities. ‘The Christian doctrine of one God in three 
 centres of manifestation, which each in its own way 
 manifests the entire Divinity, did not originate in a 
 purely metaphysical manner, but was developed from 
 
 a belief in the fact of such manifestation’ (Martensen, 
 Dogmatik, p. 96, etc.). Still less has it anything in 
 common with the pretended Trinitarian traces in 
 heathen religions, as in the Indian Trimurti. These 
 are founded on entirely different notions, and are 
 symbolic forms of the process of natural life. They 
 are only worthy of mention, in so far as they exem- 
 
 _plify that law of the human mind, its tendency to 
 think of the process of life exclusively in a triple 
 manner. aa idk en 
 
 i} 
 
 (") Traces (vestigia) of the Trinity have from of old 
 been sought in nature (¢g.,sun, ray, light); but a like- 
 “ ness thereof, though but a very remote one (imago non 
 
328 Notes. 
 
 eequalis, imo valde longeque distans, August De civ. 
 Det, xi. 26; De trin., xv. 22) has been found only 
 in man; and, indeed, it is especially Augustine who - 
 struck out this path. He pointed out an image of the 
 Trinity in the elements of man’s nature: Being (esse or 
 consciousness, memoria), knowledge (nosse), will (velle). 
 
 Compare Confess. xiii. 11; De cw. Det xi. 26, 27; 
 
 memoria, intellectus, voluntas, De trin. xv. 21, 29, 
 He defines will, however, by a deeper word than love, 
 
 by dilectio_caritas : numquid est aliud caritas quam 
 voluntas? Thus, then, the Trinitarian process is an 
 inward mutual knowledge and will on the part of God. 
 Or he obtains from the very idea of love, which involves 
 self-knowledge as its postulate, the inward self-distine- 
 tion of God: Amans, amatus, mutuus amor., De tin, vill. 
 
 LD eres ies Subsequent Church teachers followed in 
 the steps of Augustine. The first mode of explanation 
 became the usual one in the Church; the other, that 
 which prevailed among the mystics. In the Reforma- 
 tion era, Melancthon “attempted to transfer this ex- 
 planation into the Protestant system of doctrine: ‘The 
 Son is the eternal self-thought of the Father, the Holy 
 Ghost the loving will of “both (Pater seternus sese 
 intuens gienit cogitationem sui, que est imago ipsius 
 non evanescens, sed subsistens communicata ipsi es- 
 sentia. Hec imago est secunda persona. LDicitur 
 Aéyos quia cogitatione generatur, dicitur imago, quia 
 cogitatio est imago rei cogitate. Ut antem filius 
 nascitur cogitatione, ita spiritus sanctus procedit a 
 voluntate patris et filii; voluntatis est enim diligere— 
 pater filium vult et amat eum, ac vicissim filius in- 
 tuens patrem vult et amat eum; hoc mutuo amore, qui 
 proprie est voluntatem, procedit spiritus sanctus). 
 Moderns have sought, partly by the idea of self-con-- 
 sciousness, partly by that of love, to attain to that of 
 the Trinity. Lessing took the first course in a very 
 interesting treatise: Das Christenthum der Vernunft 
 (Works by Lachmann, xi. 604-607). ‘God, the all-per- 
 
Notes. | 399 
 
 fect,’ says Lessing here, ‘from all eternity, thought 
 Himself, and could think nothing else’ (as Aristot., 
 Metamorph. vii. 9, also says: ‘The Divine Spirit can 
 think nothing else than Himself; for all else is in- 
 ferior, is less than Himself; hence, if He thought any- 
 thing else, He would think what_is inferior, which is 
 impossible’). Now, to imagine, to will, to. do, is with 
 God_one and the same. God ’can think of Himself in 
 two manners; either as all perfections at once, or 
 separate. This self thought is the eternal Son. If we 
 think of God, we think of Him together with the latter, 
 because we cannot think of God apart from His imagi- 
 nation of Himself; He is God’s image, but an identical 
 image. Now, betweeit ‘two things which have all 
 qualities in common, 7.¢., which are but one, there is 
 the greatest harmony, ‘And this is the case here. 
 The harmony between these two is called the Spirit. 
 In this harmony is all that is in the Father and in the 
 Son; it, therefore, is God. None can be without the 
 other ; all three are one. The other manner of the 
 Divine thought is that in which God thinks of His 
 perfections as separated, 7.¢., creates beings of which 
 each has somewhat of His perfections. These together 
 form the world, etc. To rise to the idea of Trinity 
 from the idea of self-consciousness, and of its subjec- 
 tive process, became customary through the influence 
 of the Hegelian philosophy. Among modern _divines, 
 Twesten especially has taken this road ; a road, how- 
 ever, by which we can never succeed in attaining to 
 the personality of the third Divine Person, the Holy 
 Ghost; not even by such profound philosophic efforts 
 as those made by Weissenborn in his lectures on 
 Pantheism and Theism, 1859, p. 184, etc. Beginning 
 with love, and following in the steps of Augustine, 
 Sartorius (Die Lehre v. d. heal. Lnebe. i.), among others, 
 has sought in an interesting manner to attain to the 
 Trinity. But little as these attempts are capable of 
 affording actual support to faith in the Trinity of God, 
 
330 Notes. ~ 
 
 they yet show that an inward process of life and love 
 must be thought of in God, by means of which God is 
 ever causing Himself to exist, and which, by reason_of 
 revelation, has been known to be a triune one. For 
 it is opposed to Christian consciousness to imagine a 
 stiff unbending monotheism, and a God existing, so to 
 speak, in a state of isolation. This has ever been 
 maintained in the Church. Thus, eg. Athan. contra 
 
 cone 
 
 spring. Hilar. de ¢rin., vii. 3: Non enim unum deum 
 pie possumus preedicare si solum. Vine. Lerin. Com- 
 monit, c. 17, against Photinus: ‘Dicit deum singulum 
 esse et solitarium et more Judaico confitendum. It is 
 for this very reason that God is self-sufficing and 
 blessed ; otherwise He would be in need of the world. 
 Thus a great defence against pantheism has ever been 
 found in the doctrine of the Trinity; for the former 
 causes God to exist by means of the world, while the 
 God of Christianity has His eternal being in Himself. 
 
 (”) That God can only be truly and savingly known 
 in Christ, is the constant maxim both of Luther and... 
 Pascal. Luther is ever returning to it in his exposi- 
 tion of the xiv., xv., and xvi. chaps. of St John, and of 
 the high-priestly prayer of Jesus. Thus he says, to 
 quote only one passage, on John xvii. 3: ‘Remark how 
 Christ intertwines and unites His knowledge of Him- 
 self and the Father, so that the Father can be known 
 only through and in Christ. For I have often said 
 this, and I will say it again, so that even when I am 
 dead it may be remembered, and men may beware of 
 all teachers, as led and guided by the devil, who, though 
 in the highest places, begin to teach and preach of God 
 alone and apart from Christ, etc. So, too, he was 
 fond of repeating, that if we would know God we 
 must begin at Christ's manger, unless we would be lost 
 in the labyrinth of the Divine Majesty (¢.g., Opp. lat. 
 
Notes. Sok 
 
 Fri. ii. 170). Melancthon, too, introduces in his Locz, 
 1535, the discussion on the Divine nature, with the 
 remark that he can find no more fitting commencement 
 than the answer of Jesus to Philip, when he desired to 
 see the Father: ‘ He that hath seen Me, hath seen the 
 Father ;’ and that we are therefore to seek and to know 
 God in Christ: Ut discamus deum queerere in Christo, 
 in hoc enim volnit patefieri innotescere et apprehend ; 
 for otherwise we shall fall into terrible obscurity. 
 Pascal, too, often returns to the thought that, out of 
 Christ, God is a hidden God, and opposes mere deism 
 as much as atheism, etc., ¢g., ii. 113, etc. Only the 
 knowledge of God in Christ is at the same time true 
 self-knowledge, p. 115: «On peut bien connaitre Dieu 
 sans Sa misére et sa misére sans Dieu; mais on ne peut 
 connaitre Jésus Christ sans connaitre tout ensemble et 
 Dieu et sa misére. Et cest pourquoi je n’entrepren- 
 drai pas ici de prouver par des raisons naturelles, ou 
 Vexistence de Dieu; ou la Trinité, ou V’immoritalité de 
 lame, ni aucune des choses de cette nature— parce 
 que cette connaissance sans Jésus Christ, est inutile 
 et sterile. P. 116: ‘Le dieu des Chrétiens ne consiste 
 pas en un Dieu simplement auteur des vérités géome- 
 triques et de lordre des elements; c’est la part des 
 paiens et des épicuriens. I] ne consiste pas seulement 
 en un Dieu qui exerce sa providence sur la vie et sur 
 les biens des hommes ; c’est la portion des Juifs. Mais 
 —le Dieu des Chrétiens est un Dieu d’amour et de 
 consolation. C’est un Dieu qui remplit lame et le 
 coeur quwil posséde; c’est un Dieu qui leur fait sentir 
 intérieurement leur misere et sa misericorde infinie,’ 
 ete. P.117: ‘Tous ceux qui cherchent Dieu hors de 
 Jesus Christ et qui s’arrétent dans la nature, ou ils ne 
 trouvent aucune lumiére qui les satisfasse, ou ils arri- 
 vent & se former un moyen de connaitre Dieu et de le 
 servir sans médiateur; et par la ils tombent ou dans 
 Vathéisme ou dans le déisme qui sont deux choses 
 que la religion Chrétienne_abhorre presque également.’ 
 
332 Notes. 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE VIL. 
 (‘) So Nicolas, iii. 145-147. 
 
 () August. Znarr, in Psalm. 70, sermo 2, § 12, Nicolas, 
 iv. 512, etc. 
 
 (*) On the reproach_of novelty, compare Schaff, 
 Geschich. der alten Kirche, 1867, p. 181, 186. This 
 was one of the reproaches of Celsus, repelled by Origen - 
 (Contra Cels, vi. p. 329). 
 
 (*) Pase. 11. 200: ‘Il est venu enfin en la consom- 
 mation du temps; et depuis on a vu naitre tant de 
 schismes et d’hérésies, tant reverser d’etats, tant de 
 changements en toutes choses, et cette eglise qui adore 
 celui. qui a toujours été adoré a subsisté sans inter- 
 ruption. Et ce qui est admirable, “incomparable, et 
 tout a fait divin, est que cette religion qui a toujours 
 duré a toujours été,combattu. Mille fois elle a été a 
 la veille d’une destruction universelle; et toutes les 
 fois quelle a été en cet etat, Dieu l’a relevée par des 
 
 coups extraordinaires de sa puissance. C’est ce qui est 
 etonnant, et quelle s’est maintenue sans fiéchir et plier 
 sous la volonté des tyrans. Les états périsaient, si on 
 ne faisait ployer souvent les lois 4 la nécessité. Mais 
 jamais la religion n’a souffert cela et n’en a usé.’ 
 
 () Naville, Der himmlische Vater, p. 60, adduces a 
 series of works of French_ scholars (Franck, Edgar 
 Quinet, Benjamin Constant), pointing out the import- 
 ance of religion as an instrument of civilisation. 
 
 () Excellent works on this subject were published 
 by several French authors, in consequence of a_prize 
 offered by the French Academy in 1849: Etienne 
 Chastel: Geneva. tudes historiques sur Cinfluence de 
 
Notes. 333 
 
 la charité durant les premiers siécles Chrétiens, et con- 
 _ siderations sur son réle dans les socrétes modernes. Ou- 
 vrage cowronné en 1852, par l Académie Frangaise, dans 
 le concowrs owvert sur cette question; and Schmidt, Stras- 
 burg, upon the same subject (a work also rewarded by 
 the French Academy): La sociéte civile dans lancien 
 monde Romain, et sa transformation par la Chretienté. 
 
 ) Compare ‘Lectures on Fundamental Truths,’ 
 Lecture VI., Note 1. 
 
 _ () Eg. v. Schweizer, Zeitgeist wnd Christenthum, 
 1861, p. 196. Compare ‘Lectures on Fundamental 
 Truths, Lecture I, Note.9. 
 
 (°) Nicolas has a similar development of thought, 3, 
 283; and the paragraph following may also be com- 
 pared with his work. , Pfaff (Ueber das Wesen wnd 
 den Umfang der Toleranz im Allgemeinen. und der 
 christlichen Toleranz insbesondere) has some good re- 
 
 _ marks on toleration. | 
 
 (”) Compare Neander, Denkw. i. 39, Schaff Geschichte 
 der alten Kirche, p, 147. On the vindication of the new 
 notions of religion and freedom of conscience by the 
 
 ~early Christian_apologists, compare Neander, Denkw. 
 i. 42, Schaff, p. 148, where various striking passages 
 are cited, especially Zert. ad Scap. c. 2: ‘Tamen humani 
 juris et naturalis potestatis est unicuique quod putaverit 
 colere, nec alii obest aut prodest alterius religio. Sed 
 
 . nec religionis est cogere religionem, que sponte suscipi 
  debeat, non vi’ -Apolog. 24: ‘Videte enim ne et hoc 
 ad irreligiositatis elogium concurrat, adimere libertatem 
 religionis et interdicere..optionem divinitatis, ut non 
 liceat mihi colere quem velim, sed cogar colere quem 
 nolim. Nemo se ab invito coli volet, ne homo quidem.’ 
 Compare also, Ad. Schmidt, Geschichte der Denk- und 
 Gewissensfreiheit in den ersten Jahrh, der Kavserherr- 
 
334 Notes. 
 
 schaft. 1847, and the fine passage in Naville, Der himml. 
 Vater, p. 68, ete. 
 
 (") Compare Naville, Der himml. Vater, p. 84: ‘Faith,.. 
 when it seeks to gain adherents by force, acts in direct 
 antagonism to itself; the spirit of scepticism need only 
 walk according to the laws of its own nature, to become 
 a spirit of violence. 
 
 (”) See Naville, Der himml. Vater, p. 73. 
 
 (") It was the usual reproach of heathen controver- 
 sialists, ¢.g., of a Celsus, that Christians consisted chiefly 
 of the lower classes: ‘In other mysteries, it was.. 
 customary for the herald to cry out: Whoso hath 
 clean hands and a good conscience let him enter! 
 But these cry: If any is a sinner, a fool, a child, a lost 
 man, he is received into the kingdom of heaven! We 
 see weavers, shoemakers, tanners, illiterate peasants, 
 men who do not. dare to open their mouths before men 
 of experience, if they can attract boys and foolish 
 women, relating to them their marvellous tales’ (Nean~» 
 der, Denkw. i. 21; Kritzler, Die Heldenzecten des Christ- 
 enthums, 1. 1856, p. 145). 
 
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 re 
 Je 
 M 
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 — 
 (qe) 
 PR 
 eS) 
 rS 
 = 
 atts 
 bo 
 bo 
 iq?) 
 cr 
 o 
 @ 
 jo) 
 ee 
 s 
 3 
 CO 
 te 
 ne) 
 = 
 bee 
 patie 
 bo: 
 S 
 bol 
 bo 
 + 
 
 bishop, a corporate body as visible and comprehen- 
 sible, as Bellarmine says, as the kingdom of France or 
 the republic of Venice, is Luther's view of the Church 
 when he dwells on the fact that the Church is an 
 
Notes. 335 
 
 article of faith, and, therefore, by her very nature 
 something chiefly invisible; for we say: I believe one 
 holy Catholic Church, ‘for what is believed in is not 
 bodily or visible’ ‘If this article is true (viz, I 
 believe one holy Catholic Church), it follows that no 
 one can see or feel the holy Catholic Church, nor say, 
 lo here, or 10 there it is! for what we believe we do 
 not see or perceive; and, again, what we see or per- 
 ceive we do not believe’ (Greater Catechism Works, 
 Erl., edit. xxvii. 303). But she is not merely invisible; 
 _she has also a visibility which is of her own nature, 
 distinct from her empiric visible form and ordinance 
 in the world—that is, the Word and Sacraments by 
 which she may be recognised and discovered ; ‘for the 
 Word of God cannot be without the people of God, 
 nor again the people of God without the Word of 
 God” Hence, the Church is by her nature something 
 spiritual, the congregation_of believers, the flock which 
 the Holy Ghost has in the world, the people of God 
 in all places and at all times (compare the Greater 
 Catechism). So also does the confession of our Church 
 understand it. Compare Augsb. Conf, Art. vii, and 
 Apol: The Church is, first of all, a spiritual society 
 (Apol. p. 144, etc: Eccl. non est tantum societas ex- 
 ternarum rerum ac rituum sicut aliz politiz sed 
 principaliter est Societas fidei et spiritus sancti in cordi- 
 bus, quae tamen habet externas notas ut agnosci possit. 
 —Et haec ecclesia sola dicitur corpus Christi, quod 
 Christus spiritu suo renovat, etc. Quare illi in quibus 
 nihil agit Christus, non sunt membra Christi: Ecclesia 
 est POPULUS SPIRITUALIS, 7.¢., VERUS POPULUS DEI renatus 
 per spiritum sanctum). When, then, we speak of an 
 invisible, that is, a spiritual Church, we do not mean 
 that the Church is merely an idea or an ideal—as it 
 certainly has sometimes but erroneously been con- 
 sidered on the side of Protestantism—or nothing 
 more than a pleasant dream. The Protestant confes- 
 sion has, from the very first, expressly refuted such a 
 
336 Notes. 
 
 notion (Apol., p. 148: Neque vero somniamus nos 
 Platonicam civitatem ut quidam cavillantur, in sed dici- 
 mus existere hanc ecclesiam, videlicet vere credentes 
 et justos sparsos per totum orbem. Lt addimus_notas ; 
 puram doctrinam evangelii et sacramenta), although our 
 doctrine has been thus misinterpreted on the part of ~ 
 Rome down to the present time (Mohler Symbol, p. 347: 
 ‘The idea of a merely invisible universally diffused 
 society, to which we are to belong, is a barren and 
 useless figure of the imagination and of misled feel- 
 ings. Dollinger, Kirche und Kurchen, 1861, p. 20: 
 ‘Theologians, giving up in despair the article of the 
 one universal Church, fall back upon an abstraction, an 
 image of the mind, the so-called_invisible Church’). 
 But it is a reality, and, indeed, the highest reality. 
 
 (°) This is a thought, which Guizot especially fre-.. 
 quently expresses: Histoire de la Ciwilisation en France, 
 i. p. 816; also in Nicolas, ii. 177, L’Hglese et la Socréte 
 Chrétiennes, 1816, p. 7-64. On the contrast of the 
 ancient world, he says elsewhere: ‘Dans lantiquité 
 paienne, méme sur ses plus beaux théatres et dans ses 
 plus beaux jours, les etrangers etaient des ennemis.. 
 A moins que des conventions particulieres et precises 
 neussent été conclues entre deux nations, elles se 
 considéraient comme absolument étrangéres, lune a 
 Vautre et naturellement hostiles. A peine les plus 
 erands esprits de Vantiquité, Aristote et Ciceron en 
 ont, ils congu quelque idée, ete. Even Aristotle does 
 not rise above the limits of the ancient views, as his 
 well known theory about slaves proves. It was only « 
 the later stoic philosophy that had some slight pre- 
 sentiment of a universal society of mankind, but the 
 idea remained a merely barren notion. 
 
 (") Pase., ii, 126: ‘Chacun suive les mceurs de son 
 pays.—On ne voit presque rien de juste ou d'injuste 
 qui ne change de qualité en changeant de climat. 
 Trois degrés d’élévation du pole renversent toute la 
 
Notes. 337 
 
 jurisprudence. Un meridien décide de la vérité; en 
 peu d’années de possession, les lois fondamentales 
 changent; le droit a ses époques. Vérité au deca des 
 Pyrénées, erreur au dela (Nicolas, iii. 543). 
 
 (") Compare Goethe’s apt expression, ‘Lectures on 
 Fundamental Truths,’ Lect. [X., Note 22. 
 
 (") The French mind, which delights in abstract 
 generalities, is fluent in thus representing the contrast 
 between Romanism and Protestantism. Guizot and. 
 Vinet frequently do so. 
 
 (°) What follows coincides especially with the repre- 
 
 . Sentation of Martensen (Dogmatik, p. 26, etc.); but in 
 Catholic theologians, and even in such modern ones ag 
 Mohler, corroboration might be found of each of the 
 propositions of the text. I refer, for the sake of 
 brevity, to the numerous passages with which Hase 
 has interspersed his statements, in his copious and 
 interesting Handbuch der Protest. Polemik gegen die 
 rom-kath. Kirche (2d edit, 1856, pp. 1-192). That 
 obedience to the Bishop of Rome.is necessary to sal- 
 vation was declared not merely by such popes as 
 Boniface VIII (+ 1303: Subesse Romano pontifici 
 omni humane creaturse declaramus esse de necessitate 
 salutis), but also, with reference to his declaration, 
 by the Lateran Council under Leo X., at its eleventh 
 sitting, in the bull issued by that Council: Pastor 
 Aiternus (Gieseler Kirchengesch, ii 4, 199, ete), 
 wherein, amonga other things, it is said: ‘Et cum 
 de necessitate salutis existat, omnes Christi fideles 
 Romano pontifici_subesse, prout divinee Scripture et 
 ss patrum testimonio edocemur ac constitutiones fel. 
 mem. Bonif. P. VIII, que incipit “Unam_ sanctam” 
 declaratur, ete. if 
 
 (°) To confirm what I have said, I adduce a series of 
 Y 
 
 * 
 
338 Notes. 
 
 expressions exalting the Pope and his power beyond all — 
 human measure. Innocent III, Lib. 1, Ep. 335: ‘Rom. 
 Pontefex non puri hominis sed veri Dei vicem gerit in 
 terris. Ep. 326: ‘Non hominis puri sed veri Dei vere 
 Vicarius appellatur” To John of England, 15th August 
 1215: ‘Quia vero nobis a domino dictum -est in pro- 
 pheta; constitui te super gentes et regna.” Bonif. 
 VIIL..to Philip of France, 1302: ‘ Christi _vicarius, 
 Petrique successor—judex a deo yivorum ac mortuorum 
 constitutus agnoscitur’ At the Lateran Council of 
 1516, in the ninth sitting, Antonius Puccius addressed 
 the Pope in the words of Ps. Ixxi.: Omnes reges terre 
 adorabunt te et tibi.servient, and ‘Omnes reges terre 
 sciunt quaenam potestas tibi data sit in coelo et in 
 terra’ In the first sitting, the Pope was addressed as 
 ‘Vestra divina majestas’; in the ninth as ‘ Simillimus 
 deo, et quia populis adorari debet.’ At the sixth sit- 
 ting, Leo X. was called ‘Leo de tribu Juda et radix 
 David.’ Calov., Bibl. Illustr. on 2 Thess. ii. 5, 6, quotes 
 from the canon law (canon satis dist. 96 gloss. ad extr. 
 cum inter): ‘ Dominus Deus noster. Franc., Panigarola 
 ii, 1, calls the Pope ‘Unum illum dominum de quo 
 loquitur Paulus, Eph. iv. In the books of the canon- 
 ists it is repeatedly said that the Pope has ‘idem cum 
 deo consistorium, idem cum Christo tribunal.’—Gieseler, 
 ii. p. 229, quotes from Gerson: ‘Qui aestimant Papam 
 esse unum deum qui habet potestatem_omnem in ccelo 
 et in terra” Christoph. Marcellus, in an oration de- 
 livered at the fourth sitting of the Lateran Council, 
 Dec. 10, 1512, addresses Julius. IL as ‘Tu alter Deus 
 in terris. Gieseler again (p. 206) quotes Gerson (an 
 opinion which Gerson contraverts): ‘Sicut non est 
 potestas nisi a deo (Rom. xiii. 1), sic nec aliqua tempor- 
 alis vel ecclesiastica,’ ete., ‘nisi.a Papa in cujus femore 
 scripsit Christus: Rex regum, dominus dominantium 
 (1 Tim. vi. 15). De cujus potestate disputare mstar 
 sacrilegii est,’ ete. 
 
Notes. 339 
 
 (*) The well-known saying of Virgil (En. vi. 85), 
 at the same time a prediction of future times. 
 
 + () It was chiefly Gregory VII. (Hildebrand, + 1085) 
 as is well known, who maintained these notions, and 
 carried them out to a compact and consistent system. 
 In his epistles we read: ‘Quodsi sancta sedes apostolica 
 divinitus sibi collata principali potestate spiritualia 
 decernens dijudicat, cur non et sacularia ?—Sicut ad 
 mundi pulchritudinem, oculis carneis diversis tempo- 
 ribus repreesentandam solem, et lunam omnibus aliis 
 eminentiora disposuit luminaria; sic, ne creatura— 
 in erronea et mortifera traheretur pericula, providit ut 
 apostolica et regia dignitate per diversa regeretur officia,’ 
 etc. From the Dictatus Pape: 9, Quod solius Pape 
 pedes omnes principes deosculentur: 11, Quod uni- 
 cum_est nomen in mundo: 12, Quod illi liceat impera- 
 tores. deponere: 27, Quod a fidelitate iniquorum 
 subjectos potest _absolvere, Gieseler, ii. 2, 5. And In- 
 ynocent III. speaks, if possible, still more decidedly 
 (+ 1216), Lib. 11, Ep. 209: ‘Dominus Pefro“non solum 
 universam ecclesiam, sed totum reliquit seculum 
 gubernandum.’ Lib. xvi. Ep. 131: ‘Hunc itaque reges 
 seculi propter deum adeo venerantur, ut non reputent 
 se rite regnare, nisi studeant ei devote servire.’ To the 
 ambassadors of Philip: ‘Principibus datur potestas in 
 terris, sacerdotibus autem potestas tribuitur et in ccelis: 
 lis solummodo super corpora, istis etiam super animas. 
 Unde quanto dignior est anima corpore, tanto dignius 
 est etiam sacerdotium quam sit regnum. The famous 
 comparison with the sun and moon, Lib. i. Ep. 401: 
 ‘Sicut universitatis conditor deus duo magna luminaria 
 in firmamento coeli constituit, luminare majus, ut 
 preesset diei, et luminare minus, ut nocti preeesset ; sic 
 ad firmamentum universalis ecclesiae, quae coeli nomine 
 nuncupatur, duas magnas instituit dignitates, majorem, 
 quae, quasi diebus, animabus preesset, et minorem, 
 quae, quasi noctibus, preeesset corporibus: quae sunt 
 
340 Notes. 
 
 pontificalis autoritas et regalis potestas. Porro sicut 
 luna lumen suum a sole sortitur, quae re vera minor 
 est illo quantitate simul et qualitate, situ pariter et 
 effectu: sic regalis potestas ab autoritate pontifical 
 suae sortitur dignitatis splendorem, etc. This com- 
 parison of the papacy and the empire to the sun and 
 moon was subsequently still more exactly defined, and 
 indeed so nicely computed, that it was asserted that 
 the pope was one thousand seven hundred and forty- 
 four times higher than the emperor and kings (papam 
 esse millies septingenties quadrigies quater imperatore 
 et regibus sublimiorem), G'eseler, 11. 2, 108. 
 
 (*) Even that most powerful of Popes, Innocent Tid. 
 acknowledged the privileges of a general council (com-... 
 pare Hase, Polemik, p. 163) ; while the councils of the 
 15th century, at Constance and Basel, decidedly sub-» 
 ordinated the Pope to ageneral council. See in Greseler, 
 ii. 4, 14, the views of Gerson, which have been taken 
 as a standard in this matter, eg., ‘Sed numquid tale 
 concilium, ubi papa non presidet, est supra papam ? 
 Certe sic. Superius in autoritate, superius in dignitate, 
 superius in officio. Tali enim concilio ipse papa in 
 omnibus tenetur obedire. Tale concilium jura papalia 
 potest tollere, a tali concilio nullus potest appellare, 
 tale concilium potest papam eligere, privare, deponere, 
 etc. ' 
 
 (*) The opposition between the papacy and episco-.. 
 pate, ze. between the ecclesiastical absolute monarchy 
 and the ecclesiastical aristocracy, 1s not. yet. decided 
 doctrinally (compare Hase, Polemik, p. 162, etc.), though, 
 it is practically in favour of the former. Even Pius II. 
 (AEneas Sylvius, + 1464) declared appeals to a general « 
 council heretical, a declaration frequently reiterated by 
 his successors (Hase, p. 164). The real importance, 
 too, of the latest new dogma, that of the immaculata 
 
 conceptio Maric, consists in the fact that it was laid 
 
Notes. 341 
 
 down by the pope without a general council, and 
 was thus a step towards complete papal plenipotence 
 even in the authorisation of new doctrines, the protests 
 
 arnt 
 
 (*) Further details are found in Hase’s Polemik, 
 especially in the first_ sections. 
 
 (*) The word Protestantism is derived, as is well 
 known, from the protest of the Protestant States against 
 _the decree of the Imperial Diet in the year 1529, 
 which protests they founded, in their appeal, upon the 
 positive principle that matters being herein involved 
 ‘which concern and touch the honour of God and the 
 
 errors 
 
 decided and definite affirmation. 
 
 (”) On the Protestant doctrine of the Church, com- 
 pare above Note 14, and Luther’s Lehre von der Kirche, 
 by Kostlin, 1853. 
 
 (*) Compare also Note 14. 
 
 (*) Many treatises have lately been written on the 
 principles of the Reformed Church, and the difference 
 between it and the Lutheran Church (compare ‘Litera- 
 ture’ in my Kompend. der Dogm.,§ 13). To obtain a 
 correct impression of the peculiar nature of the Re- 
 
 _ formed Church, it should not be observed in Germany, 
 
342 Notes. 
 
 where it has adopted many Lutheran elements, but in 
 countries which are entirely of this persuasion, as, per- 
 haps, Switzerland, ete. We should then easily perceive, 
 both that she has committed a far wider breach with 
 historical tradition than the Lutheran Church has done, 
 going to work in a far more radical manner, and falling 
 back more directly upon Scripture itself, and that 
 the doctrinal difference in her teaching concerning the 
 means of grace, as connected with the fundamental 
 doctrine-of predestination (the absoluteness, sole causa- 
 tion, and sole agency of God) has not merely a theo- 
 retical, but also a very decided practical influence in 
 the guidance of souls and the direction of the con- 
 science. 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE VIIL 
 
 () I have collected the surprisingly numerous quota- 
 tions made by our Lord, in the Stichs. Kirchen- und 
 Schulblatt, 1862, Nos. 24 and 25. The position which 
 Jesus takes up with respect to the Old Testament, and 
 the estimation in which He holds it, may be clearly 
 seen by the use He makes of it. He unquestionably 
 regards the Old Testament as absolutely the Word of . 
 God. Siig cae) 
 
 (*) Joseph. c. Apion. i. 8: ra dimaing Seta wemorevuéve 
 [ldior d: ojdurdy gor sd9dg ex ris mewrns yeveosws ’lovdalors 
 rd vomitew adrae Seod déymaura, xl TOUTOIS EMMEeVvEIY, Xa) Umree 
 ara, ei O01 bvnoxeiy GOEWS" - 
 
 () On the Gospels, compare ‘Lectures on Funda- 
 mental Truths, Lecture X., p. 254, etc., and Notes 5 
 and 6, Uhlhosm; Die Modernen Darstellungen, ete., 
 
 . 69; Tischendorf, Wann Wurden unsre Evangelien 
 verfasst? 4th edition, 1866. A good and popular dis- 
 
Notes. 343 
 
 cussion of these and kindred questions will be found 
 in the excellent work of Weber, Kurzgefasste Linlet- 
 tung in die heil. Schriften A. und N. Testaments, 2d 
 edition, 1867, p. 192, ete. 
 
 (‘) Compare Tischendorf’s above named work, p. 99, 
 
 oo 
 
 encycl., vil. 270, etc. 
 
 ». (°) As early as*the middle of the second century, 
 canonical authority was attributed to the books of the 
 New Testament, as may be gathered from the above- 
 named work of Landerer, p. 278. Hase, in his Polemk, 
 p. 68, etc., has shown that not only in the days of a 
 Tertullian and an Irenzeus, but also in those of an 
 Augustine and an Athanasius, the decisive authority 
 
 _of the Holy Scriptures was inculcated, and the members 
 of the Church exhorted.to read them, as is also stated 
 in the work of the well-known Catholic theologian, 
 L. Van Ess, Chrysostomus oder Stimmen der kirchvdter 
 tiber das niitzliche und erbauliche Bibellesen, 1824. A 
 learned work on this subject, entitled: <Aritesche 
 Untersuchungen von dem Gebranch der heil. Schrift 
 unter den alten Christen, 1779, was written by the 
 younger Walch, on the appearance of Lessing’s Pole- 
 mik. Certainly the Western fathers give greater pro- 
 
 _minence to tradition than the Greek fathers, who lay 
 more stress upon the written word; yet the former by no 
 means seek to impeach by this prominence the authority 
 of Scripture, starting, as they do, from the premiss of 
 the accordance of Scripture and tradition. When the 
 two are found at variance, it is not for a moment 
 
344 Notes. 
 
 questioned by such a churchman as Cyprian, that 
 Scripture is to decide as to what is truth, and that 
 tradition, unsupported by Scripture, is but ‘antiquated 
 error, And even subsequently, when in the Middle 
 Ages the notion of tradition had expanded into a notion 
 of Church doctrine in general, tradition was always 
 designated as autoritas, but Scripture as veritas. 
 
 () So taught the schoolmen of the Middle Ages. 
 The oreatest and most respected of these, Thomas 
 Aquinas, expressly says that a doctrine is necessarily 
 proved by Scripture alone, and can only be probably .. 
 inferred on the authority of the fathers (S. L qu. 1 art. 
 8, Kahnis’ Luther, Dogm. ii. 373). Such maxims in- 
 deed prevailed rather in theory than practice. Yet 
 the oath upon Holy Scripture which Luther had to 
 take, gave him a legal right to oppose the errors of « 
 tradition i in the name of Seri pture. 
 
 () The notion of tradition has undergone a trans-~ 
 formation. Tradition originally meant such words of 
 Christ. and of His apostles as were only orally preserved. 
 In the course of time, the whole body of Church 
 doctrine, as gradually developed by synods and en- 
 dowed with ecclesiastical authority, was comprised in 
 it. The modern notion, as authorised by the Jesuit. 
 theologians, and especially by Mohler, is that of Church - 
 consciousness under a process of development. But 
 in all these cases the decision as to what is tradition 
 rests with the lawful authorities of the Church. 
 
 () The sole authority of Scripture, as the supreme 
 rule of Christian doctrine and practice, and the doc- 
 trine of justification by faith alone, have been desig- 
 nated the two principles of Protestantism. These are 
 not (as Dorner, Das Prinzip unsrer Kirche, etc., 1841, 
 views it) to be understood as the distinction between 
 ‘Christian objectivity and Christian subjectivity;’ 
 
Notes. 345 
 
 ‘Scripture exhibits objective incipient Christianity;’ 
 ‘the material principle is faith, by which the external 
 truth of Scripture attains a free inward existence;’ but 
 justification by faith denotes the thing itself (the ma- 
 terial, i.c., the real principle), the essential matter of 
 Christianity; and Scripture denotes the place where 
 this matter is authentically, and therefore normally, 
 testified, and whence it is consequently to be obtained. 
 Hence the doctrine of justification is generally called, 
 in the confessions of our Church, ‘The crowning and 
 fundamental article ;’ and in the Schmalkald Articles 
 (ii. p. 304, 1, 3) Luther speaking of it says: ‘Of this 
 article nothing can be yielded or relaxed, though 
 heaven and earth, and such things as will not remain, 
 should fall. Upon this article is founded all that we 
 teach against the Pope, the devil, and the world. Hence 
 we must be quite certain and have no doubt about it, 
 else all is lost, and the Pope, the devil, and all have 
 the victory and the right over us. Holy Scripture, how- 
 ever, is treated in the confession as the self-compre- 
 -hensible rule; and this principle is most clearly ex- 
 pressed in the preface to the Form of. Concord : Sola 
 sacra Scriptura judex, norma et regula, ad quam—ommnia 
 dogmata exigenda sunt et judicanda. 
 
 (") Revue des Deux Mondes, 1864, iv, p. 422, Only 
 a few passages from the fine conclusion of the article 
 of Alb. Reville can be given here: ‘Que la bible reste 
 done ce quvélle est, le monument impérissable de nos 
 origines religieuses et le meilleur aliment de la piété 
 réfiéchie —C’est d’elle en grande partie que procéde le 
 monde moderne. Jamais la bible n’a été Vobjet une 
 critique plus penetrante et plus hardie que de nos jours, 
 jamais son influence n’a été plus grande et sa propaga- 
 tion plus active—Elle est traduite en plus de cent 
 trente cinq langues, et comme jadis chez les Gothes 
 d’Ulfilas, elle a eréé chez plus d'un peuple Valphabet, la 
 lecture et l’écriture. — | 
 
346 Notes. 
 
 (") Ad. Planck, in his work on Melancthon, Prae- 
 ceptor Germanic, 1860, p. 86, etc., has called atten- 
 tion to the ideal of education cherished by Melanc- 
 thon, viz., of the institution of Christian humanities by 
 the union of the humanities with the Reformation. 
 Luther’s zeal for the ancient languages often comes pro- 
 minently forward in his fine addresses in 1524 to the 
 councillors of all towns, exhorting them to institute 
 and support Christian schools. (Works, #rl. Hdit. xxi. 
 168, ete.), eg.: ‘Since, then, the Gospel is dear to us, 
 let us hold fast to the languages, For it is not in vain 
 that God has caused His Word to be written in. two 
 languages only, etc. ‘And let us be sure of this, that 
 we shall not be able to preserve the Gospel without 
 the languages. The languages are the scabbard in 
 which this sword of the Spirit is placed; they are the 
 
 ~ 
 
 casket in which this jewel is deposited ; they are the . 
 
 vessel in which this beverage is contained; they are 
 the room in which this meal is spread; and, as the 
 Gospel itself shows, they are the basket in which are 
 kept this bread and fish and fragments. Nay, if we 
 were (which, God forbid!) through negligence to let go 
 the languages, we should not ‘only ‘lose. the Gospel, 
 but should at last come to such a pitch as to be able 
 neither to write nor to speak either Latin or German 
 correctly. Let us, therefore, take warning by the 
 dreadful example of the high schools and monasteries, 
 in which not only has the Gospel been perverted, but the 
 Latin and German languages have also been corrupted. 
 The wretched people have become mere brutes; they 
 speak and write_neither German nor Latin correctly, 
 and have almost lost their common sense.’ 
 
 (") It is acknowledged that the cause of Bible pro- 
 pagation has in our times gone hand in hand with the 
 revival of Christian life, and that the one has promoted 
 the other. In theological circles, the Epistle to the 
 Romans, and Tholuck’s commentary thereon, has be- 
 
 <0 tinets. 
 
Notes. 347 
 
 come of especial importance. Nor did Bible circulation 
 and the study of the Bible stand less intimately related 
 with the revival of religious life in the circles of the 
 Romish Church of South Germany (Boos, Gossner, and 
 others). Compare on this subject Thomasius, Das 
 Wiedererwachen des evang. Lebens in der luth. Kirche 
 Bayerns, 1867, p. 141 
 
 »(°) This question was agitated, especially by Lessing, 
 and the fact that Christian faith and practice are 
 independent of Scripture inculcated, but in an ex- 
 aggerated manner, and less in the interest of the 
 cause itself than from. love of controversy (see his 
 Theol. Streitschriften, x. and xi. vol., Lachmann’s, edit. 
 Compare Schwarz’s Lessing als. Theologe, 1854, p. 161, 
 etc., and Holtzman’s Kanon und Tradition, 1859, p. 79. 
 etc.) Lessing’s position of the priority and superiority 
 ,of tradition to Scripture was repeated by Delbriick 
 (Philipp Melancthon der Glaubenslehrer. Eine Strevt- 
 schrift, 1826), and called forth the excellent epistles of 
 Sack. Nitzsch and Liicke (Ueber das Ansehen der heil. 
 Schrift und ihr Verhdltniss zur Glaubensregel vn der 
 protest. und in der alten Kirche. Drea theol. Sendschret- 
 ben, 1827). This controversy was again taken up by 
 Daniel in Halle (Theol. Controversen, 1843: ‘They 
 who exalt the written word of the New Testament into 
 the supreme, or, more correctly speaking, sole source of 
 knowledge for faith, declare it to be that which of its 
 very nature it,cannot be; which, in conformity with the 
 Lord’s purpose, if never was to be; which, according to 
 its own testimony, it never will be; which it was 
 not esteemed to be in the first ages of the Church; and 
 which it has never yet been in practice’. Jacobi (Dre 
 Kirchliche Lehre von der Tradition und der hei. 
 Schrift. i. 1847) and Holtzmann (Kanon und Tra- 
 dition, 1859) then defended the scriptural principle 
 against. this Puseyism. In this question, sufficient 
 distinction has not been made between the different 
 
348 Notes. 
 
 degrees in which Scripture is important and necessary 
 to the Church as such, and to the individual Christian. 
 To the former it is an absolute, to the latter a relative 
 necessity. 
 
 (") On the part of Rome, the Protestant principle 
 concerning Scripture has ever been attacked on the 
 ground of. the supposed obscurity of Holy Scripture, 
 and ‘the necessity of tradition for the interpretation 
 and. Benoa of its meaning thence inferred. 
 
 ineeoneet 
 
 Sane (e.g., the words of the institution of the Lord’s 
 Supper) experience, or by the need of commentaries on 
 Scripture, we must concede that in this respect Scrip- 
 ture is certainly not an umpire in a judicial sense, but 
 that the way of attaining to and perceiving its decision , 
 is a moral way, the way of moral labour and moral ( 
 obedience. And this does but correspond with the very 
 
 nature of the Holy Spirit, who is not an umpire in a— 
 
 human sense, but is a moral spiritual power. The 
 very premiss, moreover, of commentaries, is the clear- 
 
 ness of Scripture, 2.¢., the possibility of understanding _ 
 
 it. How incapable tradition is of giving a decision, 
 to say nothing of its internal discrepancies, is evi- 
 dent on the most superficial observation ; for how else 
 can_tradition prove its own. truth.but by a reference 
 to its_originality, 22, its conformity to Scripture ? 
 Compare on this question in general, Hase, Polemik, 
 p. 68. | 
 
 (") Quoted from Guizot’s Meditations, i. 1864, p. 166. 
 
 (“) On the organism of Holy Scripture, compare my 
 Lecture in the Sdchs. Kirchen und Schulblatt, 1861, 
 Nos. 38 and 40. Compare also Auberlen, Die géttl. 
 Offenbarung, 1. 1861, p. 275. Weber's Kurzgefasste 
 Liiinleitung, etc., 2d edit., 1867, contains an excellent 
 
 = 
 
Notes. 349 
 
 oar 
 
 (") Compare ‘Lectures on Fundamental Truths, 
 Lecture X., p. 263, etc.; and Stirm, p. 22. 
 
 *) Holy Scripture being designed, in the first place, 
 for the Church in general, to enable her to fulfil her 
 vocation, and only in the second place for individual 
 Christians, we must_ distinguish between the certainty 
 and experience of individuals, and of the Church with 
 respect to it. The limits of the former are not iden- 
 tical with the limits of the latter. The Church verifies 
 the truth of Scripture in her own experience, step by 
 step, in the course of herhistory. Thus, ¢g., she found 
 out what she possessed in the Epistles to the Romans 
 and Galatians at the Reformation, and she makes a 
 similar experience in the course of time with respect 
 to the other books of the Bible. 
 
 (*) Compare especially Brugsch, Aws dem Orient, 
 1864, ii. 29, etc., Moses und die Denkmidler. Besides 
 the well-known picture in which are represented 
 Egyptian task-masters and slaves (probably Hebrews) 
 making bricks, written communications of Egyptian 
 scribes of the court of Ramesas I]. — Sesostris (who 
 succeeded to the crown about B.c. 1400) have been 
 
 TAR, 
 
 *’ Compare Niebuhr’s Geschichte Assurs und Babels, 
 ete., 1857, p. 274: ‘The lately so much derided book 
 of Jonah affords, as well as other books of Scripture, 
 striking proofs of the accuracy of the biblical descrip- 
 tions ; its delineations of Nineveh being fully confirmed 
 by modern discoveries concerning the topography of 
 
 that city’ On the book of Daniel, compare Hengsten- 
 
350 Notes. 
 
 berg, Beitrdge; i. p. 333, etc.; and Keil’s Linlevtung zum 
 A. T., p. 394, ete. 
 
 (*) Stirm, p. 31. The: proofs are stated in the 
 Schneckenburger Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, 1862. 
 
 (*) Reimarus, in particular, has denied the moral 
 character of Holy Scripture and its contents, and indeed 
 even the moral character of Jesus himself, as well as 
 that of the men of God of the Old Testament—the 
 former in the Wolfenbiittel fragments published 
 by Lessing, the latter in the Remains published 
 by Schmidt, 1737. 
 
 (*) On the question of miracles, compare ‘ Lectures 
 on Fundamental Truths, Lecture VIL, p. 173. 
 
 (“) This self-evidence of Holy Scripture is decisive for 
 every Christian, ¢g.,in the case of St John’s Gospel; 
 for this manifestly declares itself to be the work of an 
 apostle, and indeed of St John, and it is upon this very 
 circumstance that the veracity of its statements de- 
 pends; and violence would be done to our sense of 
 truth by this work if its testimony concerning itself 
 were untrue. But that which the Christian is con- 
 vinced of on these grounds is also scientifically con- 
 firmed to the theologian ; and even where such self-testi- 
 mony is absent, as ¢.g. in the case of the Gospel of St 
 Matthew, there is a limit which the boldness of criticism 
 cannot be suffered to pass. Itis no article of faith, 
 but only tradition, that this Gospel is the work of St 
 Matthew, a tradition which might by possibility be 
 found erroneous. But whatever may be the result of 
 critical investigation concerning the authorship of this 
 Gospel and the time of its composition, the historical 
 credibility of the work itself must by no means be called 
 in question thereby. This applies also in other similar 
 cases. Compare on this subject, Ebrard in Herzog’s 
 
Notes. SoL 
 
 Realencycl. viii. 90, and Higenbach, Zncyel. p. 150, 
 etc. 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE IX. 
 (‘) Compare Meuter’s Leben Luthers, p. 130. 
 
 (°) I may perhaps be allowed, in connection with 
 this subject, to call to remembrance my tutor Nagels- 
 bach, whose life-thought, carried out as it is in his 
 works on the Homeric and post-Homeric theology, 
 was the idea here expressed. 
 
 (*) Even Aristotle acknowledges that a formed cha- 
 racter cannot be altered (Eth. Nicom. liLip, £4), .On 
 the similar opinion of Celsus, compare N eander, Denkw. 
 1,15. How everything was despaired of at the close 
 of the ancient world, is shown in ‘ Lectures on Funda- 
 mental Truths, Lecture VIIL., p. 207. 
 
 (*) Compare Notes 14-16, on Lecture IT. 
 
 (°°) Compare, on this subject, the words of Melancthon 
 ~ in the Apology for the Confession of” ‘Augsburg, as con- 
 formable With all_experience, ¢g., p. 66: ‘ Finally, it is 
 most foolishly and unaptly said by our opponents, that 
 men who have incurred eternal wrath obtain forgive- 
 ness of sins through love, or actwm elicitum dilectionis; 
 while yet it is impossible’ to love God, until the heart 
 has by faith apprehended the forgiveness of sin. For 
 a heart that is im distress and has a real sense of God’s 
 wrath cannot love Him, until He affords that heart 
 relief, comforts it, and shows Himself gracious. Light 
 and inexperienced people may indeed invent a dream 
 of love, etc. P. 68: ‘This same faith, then, the belief of 
 each that Christ was given for him, alone obtains for- 
 
352 Notes. 
 
 giveness for Christ’s sake, and makes us just and right-_ 
 
 cous before God. And being true repentance, it raises 
 - our hearts above the cares of sin and death: thus we 
 are born again thereby, and the Holy Spirit who renews 
 the heart enters into our hearts by faith, so that we can 
 keep God’s law and truly love Him,’ ete: P.-8): ot 
 faith receives forgiveness of sins for the sake of its 
 love, forgiveness of sins must ever be uncertain ; for 
 we never love God as perfectly as we ought. Nay, we 
 
 cannot love God until the heart is certain that its sins. 
 
 are forgiven—since no one can rightly understand or 
 possess love until he believes that we receive forgive- 
 ness of sin through Christ of grace alone. 2.305 Hau 
 then, we are born again through faith, and know that 
 God will be gracious to us, will be our father and 
 helper, we begin to fear, to love, to thank God,’ etc. 
 
 (°) The whole material world is a symbol of the 1m-~ 
 
 material world; nature a symbol of the world of mind, 
 and of the kingdom of God (compare the parables of 
 Jesus); nay, man_himself a symbolic image of God. 
 The law of the material world_is beauty, and thus 
 beauty is, as Plato defines it, the reflection of truth. 
 Nicolas, iii. 475, justly starts from this saying, in his 
 treatise on ‘Worship and Ceremonies, in which are 
 many excellent remarks on the relations between art 
 and the Church, though interspersed with unjust 
 attacks on Protestantism. But if the world of the 
 beautiful and the symbolical is to enter into the service 
 
 of the Church, it must be the very reflection of truth, - 
 
 and the form which makes the nearest approach to 
 truth is speech. The justification of symbolism lies in 
 its being arerbum.visibile, and in its subserving speech. 
 It is only thus that Christianity maintains its character 
 as an ethic religion in distinction from the esthetic 
 religions. What a friend Luther was to art is seen 
 from his repeated expressions on the subject (Works, 
 Erl. Edition iii, 280, 283, ete, and 56, 297: ‘Also that 
 
 z 
 
Notes Bias 
 
 T am not t of opinion that the arts are to be overthrown 
 and destroyed by the Gospel, as some bigots give out, 
 but I should like to see the arts, and especially music, 
 
 employed 1 in the service of Him who gave and created 
 them,’ and much to the same purpose) : and though he 
 gave music the preference over all others, on account 
 of its affinity to speech, he yet also highly esteemed 
 the plastic arts, and appreciated their religious and 
 ecclesiastical importance. On the relation of art to 
 the Church, compare Kahnis, Kunst wnd Kirche (three 
 lectures, 1865, especially p. 51, etc.); and me ecotnres 
 tiber die religiose Malerer, 1863; Kirchliche Kunst, 1864; 
 and Darstellungen des Schmer 205, 1864; also. Hettinger’ S 
 copious festival address: die Kunst im Christenthwm, 
 1867. 
 
 (°) On the symbolic character of ancient Christian 
 art in particular, compare my Lecture, Hntwicklungs- 
 gang der relig. Malerer, 1863, p. 5, ect.; Keigler’s Kunst- 
 * geschichie 4th edition, 1861, is 991, ete. 
 
 (*) It was not till the Middle Ages (Petrus Lom- 
 «bardus, ~ 1164), that the doctrine of Seven Sacra- 
 ments became the prevalent one in the Western Church. 
 Till then, the number was a fluctuating one, because 
 the notion of a sacrament was itself a fluctuating and 
 varying notion. It is not, however, difficult to prove 
 that, from the very first, Baptism and the Lord’s 
 Supper had precedence of. all the other so-called sacra- 
 ments. Compare Hahn, Die Lehre v. den Sakr. 1864; 
 and Hase, Polemik. p. 350, etc. 
 
 (°) The institution of Baptism, verbally translated, 
 reads thus: ‘Go and make disciples of all nations, bap- 
 tizing them in the name, etc... . . ‘and teaching ‘them 
 to observe all things which I have commanded you.’ 
 
 (°) The symbolism in Baptism consists both in the 
 Z 
 
354 Notes. 
 
 water, which is the means of purification, and in the / 
 act of immersion or aspersion, which is a representa-_ 
 tion of washing for the purpose of complete purification. | 
 
 (") St Peter uses this expression (1 Pet. ii. 21). 
 Three points are included in Baptism: (1) the forgive- 
 ness of sins (e.g., Acts xxii. 16); (2) the communication 
 of the Holy Spirit (eg., Titus i. 5); and (3) reception 
 ‘nto communion with God in Christ (eg., Gal. ii. 27). 
 
 (*) That St Paul baptized whole households—and 
 hence also the children who formed part of them, if 
 the households were not childless—is seen in the Acts 
 of the Apostles, chaps. xvi. 15, 28, xviii. 8; 1 Cor. 
 
 i 16. Origen (+ 254) bears testimony that in the.- 
 Eastern Church infant baptism was of apostolic tra- 
 dition; while in the Western it was universally acknow- 
 ledged as the undisputed custom about the middle of — 
 the third century. 
 
 (°) Matt. xix. 13, sq.; Mark x. 13, sg.; Luke xviii. 15, sg. 
 Thus were the disciples taught the position occupied 
 by children with respect. to the kingdom of heaven. 
 Baptism in Church times corresponds with the blessing 
 then bestowed on children by the Lord Jesus. 
 
 (*) It is an indisputable fact that the Romish dogma 
 of transubstantiation is not the doctrine of primitive 
 Christianity, nor of ancient ecclesiastical belief, but is 
 of comparatively modern origin. Whether it were that 
 the notion of the union of the heavenly and earthly 
 elements predominated, as with Irenzeus, or the idea 
 of the allegorical, as in the Alexandrine school and with 
 Tertullian, it was not till after the fourth century that 
 a state of preparation for the notion of transmutation 
 existed ; and even in the ninth century, when Pach- 
 asius Radbertus sought to gain ecclesiastical authority 
 for it in the West, he encountered vehement opposition. 
 
Notes, 355 
 
 As little can it be proved that the primitive doctrine 
 is that of the bare memorial, but rather, as Lessing ex- 
 presses it, that of the pregnant emblems. For it is 
 only on this ground that the subsequent development 
 of the doctrine can be explained. Calvin sought to give 
 somewhat more profundity to the Zwinglian doctrine, 
 by accepting in the Sacrament, not indeed a real pre- 
 sence of the body and blood of Christ, but a certain 
 personal union of the believer with Christ, and, indeed, 
 with the vital powers of the body of Christ in heaven. 
 But a certain amount of hesitation and obscurity 
 cleaves to this doctrine, and it cannot be confirmed by 
 Scripture. 
 
 (") The denial of the cup to the laity, which even 
 
 Pope Gelasius I. (f+ 496) designated a sacrilege, did not 
 
 begin till the twelfth century, and was then justified 
 by scholastic subtleties. 
 
 (") The festival of the Lord’s body (festum corporis 
 domini) was instituted by Urban IV., 1264, for the 
 ..celebration of the perpetual miracle of transubstantia- 
 tion, and revived by Clement V., 1311, after having 
 fallen into disuse. 
 
 NOTES TO LECTURE X. 
 
 () Compare Naville, Das ewige Leben, pp. 3-8. It is 
 needless to mention the lamentations over old age, in 
 which all ages and nations have emulated each other. 
 That life is ever pointing us towards the future, has 
 been frequently pointed out by Vinet (eg. his before- 
 cited work, p. 28) and Pascal. Compare, eg., Pase. ii. 
 44: “Que chacun examine ses pensées, il les trouvera 
 toujours occupées_au passé et & l'avenir. Nous ne 
 pensons presque point au présent ; et si nous y pensons 
 
; 
 
 356 Notes. 
 
 ce nest que pour en prendre la lumiere pour disposer 
 de Vavenir, Le présent n’est jamais notre fin ; le passé 
 et le présent sont nos moyens ; le seul avenir est notre 
 fn. Ainsi nous ne vivous jamais, mais nous espérous 
 
 de vivre, et nous disposant toujours a étre heureux, il 
 est inevitable que nous ne le soyons jamais. 
 
 () Lenau, i. 124: 
 ‘ Doch ist kein Menschenleben ohne Wunden.’ 
 (There is no human life without wounds.) 
 162068 
 ‘0 Menschenherz was ist dein Gliick ? 
 Ein réthselhaft geborner, 
 
 Und, kawm gegriisst verlorner, 
 Unwiederholter Augenblick.’ 
 
 ((O, human heart, what is thy happiness? A 
 mysteriously originating instant, lost as soon as greeted, 
 and never repeated, (Seneca, De cons. ad Mare. x. 5, 
 tota flebilis vita est). 
 
 () On this account, it is inseparable from poetry. 
 Naville, Das ewige Leben, p. 22: ‘The art of poetry does 
 not certainly consist in sighing, and yet that would 
 be but a poor and paltry lyre in which the string of 
 melancholy did not frequently resound.’ 
 
 (*) Naville, the above-mentioned work, p. 21. This 
 saying maintains its truth, whether the book entitled 
 Ecclesiasticus were the work of Solomon or not. Seneca, 
 De cons. ad Polyb. ii. 30: Hominis tota vita nihil aliud 
 quam ad mortem iter ist. Pase. ii. 18: Nous courons 
 sans souci dans le precipice, apres que nous avons 
 mis quelque chose devant nous pour nous empécher 
 de le voir.’ 
 
 () One who was certainly an enthusiastic admirer of 
 Madame de Staél, says: ‘The annals of the world’s 
 history have, during six thousand years, presented us 
 
Notes. 357 
 
 with no woman who, for power of vege univer- 
 
 what cautery will be ie first to ue ae her equal ? ? 
 And it cannot be denied that hers was a mind of large 
 calibre, and one that was ever dwelling in a world of ideal 
 beauty, Yet when in 1817 she lay upon her death-bed, 
 she said to her physician: ‘Sauvez moi et je vous donnerai 
 toute ma fortune, car j’ai ’horreur de la mort.’ Compare 
 Nathusius, Volksblatt, 1852, No. 52. Voltaire, on his 
 death-bed, promised his physician half his property if 
 he could give him a respite of six months. Even Aris- 
 totle (Eth. Nicom., iii. 6, 6) calls death the most fearful, 
 because the last event. When he and the moralists of 
 antiquity, such as Seneca, exhort to fearlessness in the 
 presence of death, they do it on no other grounds than 
 the necessity of death and the shortness of life. Vinet, 
 in his above-mentioned work, p. 28: ‘ After the hap- 
 piest as well as after the most wretched of lives, it is 
 terrible to die.” Compare the whole of this sermon of 
 Vinet. 
 
 (*) On the universality of the belief in immortality, 
 compare Liiken, Die Traditionen, etc., p. 407, etc. The 
 Indian belief certainly rests upon pantheistic opinions. 
 According to this, the visible world is but a declension 
 from the higher truth and reality of mind. Hence the 
 spirit’s proper home is in the other world, and this 
 world is only its place of probation and purification. 
 In the ‘vortex’ of this world, the soul is to pass re- 
 peatedly into fresh forms; that by undergoing various 
 sufferings it may at last, after a long period, attain the 
 goal of perfection which the Indian mind indeed Yepre- 
 sented as the merging of the individual life in the 
 ocean of Divinity, just as a drop is lost in the sea 
 (compare Liiken, 417, ete.). The doctrine of the ancient 
 Persians, as exhibited in the Zendavesta, was more 
 frée from this pantheistic feature, and therefore of a 
 
358 Notes. 
 
 more moral character. Immediately after death, the 
 good and evil spirits contend together for three days 
 for the soul of the departed; the souls of the good pass 
 safely across the high and narrow bridge over the 
 terrible abyss leading from this world of troubles into 
 the happy abode of Ormuzd and the Amschaspandas 
 (the good spirits), while the souls of the wicked fall 
 into the place of punishment. Egypt, with her mum- 
 mies, her pyramids, and other memorials of the dead, 
 is still a loud-voiced witness to her own belief in 
 immortality. All the funeral ceremonies of this land ; 
 the judgment of the dead, at which it was decided 
 whether the deceased should be embalmed or not; the 
 journey in a boat to the city of the dead, with one of 
 which all the larger towns were provided—declared the 
 same belief, -All these were representations of trans- 
 actions in the other world. So indigenous was the 
 persuasion of the soul’s continued existence among 
 this people, that the Greek historian Herodotus be- 
 lieved it to have originated among them (compare 
 Liiken, p. 410, ete.). This faith, however, is found also 
 among nations who were entirely removed from Egyp- 
 tian influence. Herodotus himself declares that it was 
 a characteristic of the Gete, dwelling in Thrace, to - 
 believe in the immortality of the soul. They lived 
 and died in the joyful faith that the souls of the brave 
 are gathered to the god of their fathers. In later 
 times, too, Roman poets held up this people as a model 
 to their own. (Compare Curtius, G'ottinger Festreden, 
 1864, p. 150. Indeed, the whole of this discourse on 
 the significance of the belief of immortality among the 
 Grecians may be compared with this paragraph). The 
 same belief is found among the Germanic nations of . 
 the North, concerning whose religion the Hdda gives us 
 information. It is only the brave who have fallen 
 in battle who are privileged by this warlike race to 
 enter the Walhalla, the abode of Odin, to lead there a 
 higher grade of life than the earthly one; the rest are 
 
Notes. 359 
 
 sent to the gloomy abode of Hel. It was the sp of 
 the Walhalla which gave to the Cimbri and Teutones 
 the death-defying courage with which they encountered 
 the Romans. And even in China and the nations of 
 the New World, we find this faith entertained and ad- 
 hered to, and that not merely as an opinion, but as a 
 power influential in the present life; and not less 
 among the Grecians and Romans (see especially Curtius’ 
 above-named work). The Greeks form a decided con- 
 trast to the Indians. With the former, this earth is 
 everything, and that which is visible the full expres- 
 sion of the whole inner life. This is especially evident 
 among Homer’s Greeks. With them it is this life 
 which is the true life; the life to come a world of 
 dread, Hades, the most Hated of the gods, souls de- 
 scend sorrowing to him. Achilles wishes rather to be 
 a day labourer in the light of the sun than a king 
 among the shades <who- pass a colourless existence 
 without strength—a dull monotony.’ Yet even then, 
 other notions of the life to come existed in the con- 
 sciousness of the people, which, though repressed, were 
 not to be extinguished. This was especially the case 
 with those poets who were connected with Delphi, 
 such as Hesiod and others. A more serious view of 
 life, a feeling of its oppressiveness, of the need of re- 
 conciliation with the Godhead, and of the relation of 
 the present to the future life, prevails among them. 
 And this was not mere priest-lore or mystery, but a 
 portion of the popular conviction, whose extreme an- 
 tiquity is testified by Aristotle in Hudemos, and is 
 supported by a series of facts. For history presents 
 us with examples, not merely of gloomy resignation, 
 but also of cheerfulness in death ; and that not only in 
 the case of such moral magnates as Socrates, but also 
 in that of men of far less moral worth. Nor is less 
 evidence to this belief furnished by art, by poetry, by 
 the sacredness of the laws relating to the dead, and by 
 the honour paid to the departed, The laws which 
 
360 Notes. 
 
 prescribe duties to the dead were indeed unwritten, 
 but supposed to be derived directly from the gods; 
 and Antigone, for the sake of fulfilling such a duty, 
 scruples not to disobey the contrary law of the governor, 
 and to incur the punishment he threatens: 
 
 ‘Death for such a deed is honourable. Then shall 
 I, a pious criminal, rest peacefully near him who loves 
 me. I shall need favour among the dead for a longer 
 time than among the living. For there I shall find an 
 eternal abode. Despise, if thou wilt, the sacred law of 
 the gods,’ (Soph. Antig., v. pp. 71-77). 
 
 It is true that in public life this faith retired from_ 
 observation, and that it was shaken by the sophists. 
 But it took refuge in the mysteries which gathered a— 
 kind of religious fraternity around the belief in immor- 
 tality, and sought to guarantee it by sacred transactions, 
 and thus to afford to moral and religious consciousness 
 that satisfaction which the public exercises of religion 
 did not offer. Among the Romans, the belief in 1m- 
 mortality did not disappear till the time of Cesar and. | 
 Cicero, Cicero confirms its antiquity, Lael. de amie., 1v. : 
 ‘Neque enim assentior iis, qui hee nuper disserere 
 cceperunt, cum corporibus simul animos interire atque _ 
 omnia morte deleri. Plus apud me antiquorum auto-, 
 ritas valet—vel nostrorum majorum, qui mortuis tam 
 religiosa jura tribuerunt, quod non fecissent profecto, 
 si nihil ad eos pertinere arbitrarentur—vel eorum qui 
 in hac terra fuerunt Magnamque Greeciam institutis et 
 preeceptis suis erudierunt, etc. So that Cicero was as 
 justified in speaking of a ‘consensus gentium’ to this 
 belief, as to the belief in the existence of God.—Twuse. 
 i. 16: ‘Ut deos esse natura opinamur, qualesque sint 
 ratione cognoscimus, sic permanere_animos arbitramur 
 consensu omnium nationum” =~ 
 
 (’) The Appian road, with its monuments, is a proof, 
 of this. Compare the before cited passage: Cie, Lael. 
 de amie., 4. 
 
Notes. | 361 
 
 (*) Pascal, ii. 18: ‘Il importe a toute la vie de 
 savoir si lame est mortelle ou immortelle’ Also, 
 Nicolas, i. 109 ; and compare the whole of this excellent 
 paragraph. 
 
 () Nicolas, 1: 112. 
 
 (") A good discussion of the various evidence, as 
 well as an excellent treatment of the whole question, 
 will be found in Huber’s Die Idee der Unsterblichkert, 
 Munich, 2d edit. 1865. The evidence is usually divided 
 into historical (‘consensus gentium’), metaphysical or 
 ontological (from the immateriality of the soul), teleo- 
 logical (from the powers and capacity of the soul), and 
 moral (from the disproportion between virtue and 
 fortune). Compare Kahnis, Luther. Dogmatik, 1. pp. 179- 
 194, where the literature of the subject is also given. 
 
 (") Compare the fine discussion on the immortality 
 of the soul, and the moral importance of this belief, in 
 Matthias Claudius, v. 2., etc. 
 
 (*) What follows mostly agrees with Martensen, 
 Dogmatik, p. 430, ete. 
 
 e.g., Athenag. legat. c. 29, who believes indeed that if 
 all is over with this life, man may wallow in crimes ; 
 
362 Notes. 
 
 but not so if he has a hope of resurrection. Or Justin. 
 de resurr. extr: ‘Why should we not allow our body all 
 the pleasures of sense if it has not this hope, just as 
 physicians at length allow everything to a patient 
 of whom they have no hope? It is for this very pur- 
 pose that God seeks to withdraw our body from sinful 
 pleasures, because He has determined to reserve it for 
 something better.” And so also in the writings of many 
 others. 
 
 (“) Compare on what follows my Lehre von den letaten 
 Dingen, 1861. I cannot, however, refrain from remind- 
 ing that the doctrine of the last things presupposes the 
 knowledge and understanding of the other branches of 
 Christian doctrine, and without these, may easily per- 
 plex the mind; also, that the Revelation of St John 
 is the last and not the first book of Holy Scripture. 
 
 (°*) On the effects of missionary labours hitherto, 
 (especially in India) Caldwell, one of the principal 
 English missionaries in Southern India, says, in Mossion 
 Work, March 1867, that though the external results 
 are as yet nothing in comparison with what still re- 
 mains to be done, yet the indirect agency, the shaking ~ 
 and undermining of the whole system of heathenism, 
 the intellectual and moral influences, may not be lightly 
 esteemed. Compare the extract from his very interest- 
 ing article in the Leipsic Hv. luth. Missionsblatt, 1867, 
 No. 8. On this subject in general, I cannot omit men- 
 tioning that the great importance of missions, not only 
 in a religious point of view, but in their bearing on 
 the advance of civilisation, is in general greatly under-— 
 rated—at least among us in Germany; for in England 
 these seem more adequately appreciated. I freely con- 
 cede that a certain pietistic and partially unsound 
 manner of treating this subject must bear part of the 
 blame for this unmerited depreciation ; but only a very 
 small part. That the subject of missions demands and 
 
Notes. 363 
 
 - 1s compatible with the very highest mode of treatment, 
 has been shown by Graul, whose ereat merit as a theo- 
 logian consists herein. Compare my article upon him 
 in Herzoe’s Theol. Realencl. xix. 578, etc.; and Her- 
 mann’s Dr A. Graul, und seine Bedeutung fiir dve luther. 
 Mission, 1867. Missionary enterprise, apart from its 
 moral and religious work, which is itself a civilising 
 influence, and that in the most eminent degree, stands 
 in the closest connection and mutual co-operation with 
 _ religious history, literary and philological knowledge, and 
 geography (cOmpare Livingstone, Petermann of Gotha, 
 and the Missionary Atlas, lately published there.) 
 
 (°) Von Schweizer’s book, Zeitgeist wnd Christen- 
 thwm, which I have described in ‘ Lectures on Funda- 
 mental Truths,’ Lecture I., Note 9, is an announcement 
 ~ of this future, and a programme of the movement in 
 which it is supposed to be involved. 
 
 (") I have here but slightly touched upon the doc- 
 trine of the so-called millennial_kinedom, as being as 
 yet far too little established and recognised, It is 
 more precisely defined in my above- mentioned work, 
 Die Lehre von den letzten Dingen. 
 
 (*) Pressensé, Jesus Christ, etc., p. 436. Also Mar- 
 tensen, p. 438. 
 
 (”) The eternity of punishment is the special point 
 against which so many objections and scruples have 
 been entertained; but as Nicolas, ii, 476, rightly 
 observes: ‘ Eternity is a necessary element of the idea 
 of perdition. For a perdition for a time, to be followed 
 by salvation, ceases to be perdition. The eternity to 
 follow would entirely obliterate it fromthe mind. Much 
 as feeling may revolt against it, it 1s not merely the 
 unmistakable doctrine of Scripture, but also a require- 
 ment of the reason. For no one is condemned who is 
 
364 Notes. 
 
 not in union with sin. Such a one, however, has 
 excluded himself in his inmost nature from communion 
 with God. For him the love of God has played its 
 part, and has yielded to power. But he who has with- 
 stood love will never be converted by.power. Every 
 moral development attains its end whether above or 
 beneath. These are the two goals, because the two 
 possibilities: to be saved or to be lost. And there is 
 an end where it is no longer possible to will otherwise.’ 
 On the misery of isolation, compare Vined, p. 29. 
 
 (”) Compare Vinet’s fine passage, p. 19, which I had 
 in view 1 conclude with the famous conversation of 
 Augustine with his mother on the day of her death, 
 preserved in his Confesséons, ix 10, (compare Naville, 
 Das ewige Leben, p. 199, ete.): ‘As the day declined on 
 which my mother—unexpectedly to us—was to depart 
 this life, she and I were both standing alone leaning 
 against a window overlooking the garden of the house 
 in which we were lodging on the banks of the Tiber, 
 and where, after the fatigue of our long journey, we 
 were awaiting the time of our voyage. We were alone; 
 and entirely losing sight of the past in our pleasant 
 conversation, we were looking forward to the future, 
 and talking together of that eternal life of the saints, 
 which no eye has seen, nor ear heard of, nor heart of 
 man conceived And our conversation leading us to 
 mention the fact that no delights of sense are worthy to 
 be compared with the fulness of joy of that life, nor 
 even worthy to be named in speaking of it, we passed 
 on, led step by step by our ardent desires through this 
 world of our bodily abode, and through the heavens 
 themselves, whence sun, moon, and stars cast their 
 light upon the earth. And still higher did we ascend 
 in our inmost thoughts, in our discourse, and in our 
 admiration of Thy works, O Lord, even to the con- 
 templation of our own souls, and soaring above them to 
 that world of inexhaustible blessings, where Thou dost 
 
Notes. 365 
 
 eternally feed Thy people with truth, where dwells the 
 Wisdom by which all is created, which either 1s, or was, 
 or willbe; and which yet was not itself made, but ever 
 is what it was and will be. And while we were thus 
 speaking, and ardently pressing towards it, our hearts’ 
 inmost feelings came in contact with it for a few 
 moments; then with sighs we left the first fruits of the 
 Spirit chained there, and returned to the sound of our 
 voices, to the word which begins and ends all. And 
 thus we spake : “When the tumult of the flesh is silent ; 
 when the forms of the earth, of the water, of the air are 
 silent; when the poles of heaven are silent; when the 
 soul is silent within itself, when it forgets and rises 
 above itself; when dreams and the imaginations of the 
 mind are silent; when all speech, and all signs and trans- 
 actions are silent—for to him who will hear, all these 
 say: We did not make ourselves, but He who inhabiteth 
 eternity made us—when having said this, they become 
 silent, because they are wholly occupied in_listen- 
 ing to Him who made them; if then we might hear | 
 His voice, not by means of the tongues of men or of 
 angels, not in the voice of thunder, nor by means of 
 parable; but if we could hear Him whom alone we love 
 in all these things, as now we rise in spirit towards 
 Him, and have by the soaring of our thoughts come 
 in contact with that eternal wisdom which is above 
 all things; and if this would but last, and all other 
 images of lower order vanish, and this one alone trans- 
 port the observer, and wholly encircle and cover him 
 with inward joy, so as to become an eternal life of 
 knowledge, as now it is amoment of the knowledge for 
 which we long: would not this be that saying, Enter 
 thou into the joy of thy Lord? But when will this 
 be 2” Thus did we converse; and if not in these very 
 words, still, O Lord, thou knowest how despicable 
 the world and its joys appeared to us. Then said 
 she, “As for me, my son, this life has no more joy. 
 What more have I to do here? and why am I here 
 
366 Notes. 
 
 since the hope of my life is fulfilled? There was but 
 one thing for which I desired to tarry yet awhile in 
 this life, and that was to see thee a true Christian 
 before my death. God has granted me much more, 
 even to see thee, as his servant, contemning all earthly 
 good. What more have I to do here?”’ 
 
INDEX OF THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS. 
 
 Acts oftheApostles, origin ofthe, 192. | Bible—continaed. 
 
 Ages, difference of the, 226. 
 
 Analogies of human mental life, 159. 
 
 Ancient Church, its form of cele- 
 brating the Lord’s Supper, 243. 
 
 Ancient world, the religion of the, 
 overcome by the power of preach- 
 ing, 225; morality of the, 229; 
 the resurrection of the body new 
 to the, 258. 
 
 Ancient crucifix found in Rome, 137. 
 
 Angelo, Michael, quoted, in refer- 
 ence to the powerlessness of art 
 to supersede religion, 69. 
 
 Anomalies reconciled, 17. 
 
 Antipathy to the Church, 167. 
 
 Antiquity of the Church, 164. 
 
 Apostacy, the, 261, 262. 
 
 Apostles’ creed, the, 163. 
 
 Apostles, Christ’s preaching the 
 business of, 225. 
 
 Arbitrary spirit, remedy for an, 
 obedience to the truth, 207. 
 
 Aristotle quoted, 126. 
 
 Art, the helpmate of religion, 68 ; 
 symbolism in, 237. 
 
 Assumptions of the Romish Church, 
 185. 
 
 Atheism denies the Creator, 163. 
 
 Atonement, requires the God-man, 
 105; the need of, 121. 
 
 Authority and liberty, 180. 
 
 Baptism, the Sacrament of recep- 
 tion, 239; infant, 240. 
 
 Baronius, Cardinal, quoted, 210. 
 
 Bible, the, its literary worth, 
 198-200; the source of the re- 
 ligious spirit, 201; the history of 
 
 salvation, 204; an inexhaustible 
 treasury, 206; periods and au- 
 thors of the several books of, 
 214; question of authorship of 
 the, not a question of faith, 215; 
 a national book, 218. 
 
 Biblical criticism, 215. 
 
 Body, resurrection of the, 257. 
 
 Bread and wine, the elements of the 
 Lord’s Supper, 244, 245. 
 
 Buddha, the religion of, 40. 
 
 Cartesius, his opinion as to the 
 certainty of the existence of God, 
 34, 35. 
 
 Catholicism, its system, 181, 182; 
 logical and consistent, 183; desti- 
 tute of truth, 185. 
 
 Catholicism and Protestantism con- 
 trasted, 179. 
 
 Children, limits of their innocency, 
 241, 
 
 Christ, presentiment of, by the 
 heathen, 104; pictures of, 108, 
 109; His death, 131, 132. 
 
 Christian, the, his ‘need of salva- 
 tion, 203. 
 
 Christian art, history of, 108. 
 
 Christian civilisation, formation of, 
 198. 
 
 Christian doctrine, grace and sin 
 the two great facts of, 39 ; Christ’s 
 sacrifice the central point of, 122. 
 
 Christian faith, 20. 
 
 Christian truth compared to a river, 
 155. 
 
 Christian writings subsequent to 
 the New Testament, 212. 
 
368 
 
 Christianity, the absolute religion, 
 19, 20; its essence not an idea 
 but a fact, 24; notions taught by 
 the school of Schelling and Hegel 
 concerning, 25; religious and 
 moral perfection said by modern 
 so-called Protestantism to be the 
 essence of, 26; Jesus Christ, the 
 fact constituting the essence of, 
 27; its essence placed by Pro- 
 testantism in the salvation of 
 the sinner by Christ, 29 ; proofs 
 of the truth of, 32; a creative 
 act of God, 96; Christ’s resur- 
 rection the foundation of, 140; 
 a personal relation to Christ, 146, 
 147; has conquered the world, 
 150; the doctrine of the Trinity 
 the fundamental article of, 155 ; 
 differences between Romish and 
 Protestant, 179, 180; received but 
 not produced by the world, 219. 
 
 Church, the, the doctrine that 
 Christianity is, 28; the first work 
 of the Holy Ghost, 163; a fact, 
 
 164; its antiquity, id. ; its 
 triumphs, 165, 166; antipathy 
 to the, 167-169; a necessary in- 
 tellectual and moral institution, 
 168, 169; the charge of intoler- 
 ance against the, 170; her de- 
 clarations exclusive, 171-173; 
 relations of the State to, 174; 
 nature of, 175; unity of, 177; an 
 indispensable necessity to the 
 world, ibid.; its religious office, 
 178; diversities in, 179; the 
 communion of believers, 187; its 
 eternal duration, 188; the Old 
 Testament transmitted by the 
 Jews to the Christian, 191 ; testi- 
 mony of, to the inspiration of 
 Scripture, 212; its means of grace, 
 919-246; the Word the power of, 
 923% the future of, 259 ; and the 
 world, 262, 263. 
 
 Churches, difference and unity of, 
 189. 
 
 Condemnation, eternal, 266. 
 
 Confirmation, baptism followed by, 
 242. ‘ 
 
 Index of the Principal Sulyects. 
 
 Conscience, testimony of, to the 
 certainty of faith, 32; will ulti- 
 mately accuse us, 75; its law of 
 righteousness, 122; freedom of, 
 177. 
 
 Contradiction between Christ’s na- 
 ture and His reality, 112. 
 
 Convictions, our, do not arise solely 
 from the reasonings of our minds, 
 107 ; forfeited when not possessed, 
 173. 
 
 Creator, the, denied by atheism, 
 163. 
 
 Crime, society at war with, 44; in- 
 difference to truth a, 173. 
 
 Criticism, its explanation of Chris- 
 tianity, 140; the spirit of, 180% 
 the present age, the age of, 213; 
 biblical, 215; literary, its liability 
 to err, ibid. 
 
 Cross, the, the testimony of grace, 
 81; Christ’s death on, 135; the 
 confession of Christians, 136 ; 
 Constantine’s vision of a, 187; 
 God’s holiness and love united 
 in, 138; the universal symbol of 
 Christendom, 237. 
 
 Crucifix, ancient, found in Rome, 
 137. 
 
 Crucifixion, punishment by, 134. 
 
 Culture, unable to free from sin, 68; 
 its dependence on the Church, 
 168, 169; its root in the past, 
 198. 
 
 Death, Christ’s, 131, 132; state of. 
 the soul after, 254, 256. 
 
 Deism, denies the Redeemer, 163. 
 
 Deity, the, deficiencyin the thoughts 
 of heathen philosophers concern- 
 ing, 22. : 
 
 Diversity in the world, 177 ; in the 
 Church, 179. 
 
 Divine nature, the, Trinity of, 159. 
 
 Doctrine, the Christ of, 91. 
 
 Dogmatists, notions of the Greek, 
 28. 
 
 Doubt, allied with intolerance, 172. 
 
 Dying not a single act, but a pro- 
 cess, 42. 
 
 Education, the moral law of, 226. 
 
Index of the Principal Subjects. 
 
 Epistles, the, origin of, 192; col- 
 lection of, 193. 
 
 Errors of men regarding the God- 
 man, 108. 
 
 Eternal perfection, 269-272. 
 
 Evil, a universal fact in human 
 nature, 40. 
 
 Faith, doctrine of the Romish 
 Church regarding, 30; the letter 
 of Scripture not the ultimate 
 foundation of, 31; religious cer- 
 ‘tainty of, 32; not a matter of 
 demonstration, but of inward ex- 
 perience, 33 ; not the opposite of 
 knowledge, but the highest kind 
 ef knowledge, 37 ; the Church’s, 
 ever essentially the same, 178; 
 decision of all questions of, be- 
 longs to Scripture, 195; and 
 criticism, 213-218; not depen- 
 dent on the question of the au- 
 thorship of the books of Scrip- 
 ture, 215; justification by, 232. 
 
 Forgiveness, needed, 71; needed 
 from man as well as from God, 
 74; the way of, a painful one, 
 123 ; of sin, 234, 235. 
 
 Frederick II. of Prussia quoted, 
 
 DEES 
 
 Freedom of the will essential to 
 human nature, 85. 
 
 French scholars, modern, their efforts 
 to show the connection between 
 the progress of civil society and 
 religion, 168. 
 
 Gethsemane, Jesus in, 130. 
 
 God, seeking Him the origin of all 
 religion, 21; religious craving 
 impels men to seek after Him, 
 22; not known by the heathen, 
 23; certainty of His existence, 
 34; only known in proportion as 
 we believe in Him, 387 ; looks at 
 the heart, not at the external act, 
 75; His will the limit of man’s 
 thought, 77 ; His power, 78 ; His 
 love, 79 ; a God that hideth Him- 
 self, 79, 84; a God of patience, 
 80 ; recognises man’s freedom, 83 ; 
 
 369 
 
 God—continued. 
 secret influence of, 85; the self- 
 sufficient and self-blessed, 106 ; 
 cannot unconditionally pardon, 
 123 ; His wrath the consequence 
 of sin, 128 ; the absolutely Holy 
 One, 129; His Triune revelation, 
 156, 157; His purpose our re- 
 demption, 219; the Holy Ghost 
 the bond of communion with, 
 240 ; final union of His people, 
 271. 
 
 God-man, the, question of, 91 ; His 
 sinlessness, 92-94 ; futility of the 
 attempts to place Him under the 
 law of sin, 95; necessity of, 
 101-106 ; reality of, 107; errors 
 of men regarding, 108. 
 
 Goethe quoted, 206. 
 
 Gospel, the, the whole truth, 29 ; 
 St John’s, Christ’s life as de- 
 picted in, 98; found in the Old 
 Testament, 227 ; narrative of the 
 rich young man in, 229; Jesus 
 Christ, 231. 
 
 Gospels, origin of the, 192. 
 
 Grace, forgiving and atoning, needed 
 by all, 70-77 ; the highest attri- 
 bute of royalty to exercise, 73 ; 
 does not dishonour but exalt man, 
 76; St Paul pre-eminently the 
 preacher of, 77; certainty of, 
 78-81; universality of, 82-84; 
 its operations secret, 85, 86; 
 education for, 87-89; the re- 
 ligion preached by Christ, 117, 
 118 ; the Church’s means of, 
 219-246. 
 
 Grace and sin, the two great facts 
 of Christian doctrine, 39. 
 
 Greece and Rome, intellectual ecul- 
 ture derived from, 198. 
 
 Greek Church, the teachers of the 
 ancient, 28. 
 
 Greek thought, the system of, 22. 
 
 Happiness, our souls made for, 66. 
 Harmony of Scripture, 211. 
 Heathen, the, their presentiment of 
 Christ, 104. 
 Hegel, his notions of the essence of 
 
 yng’ 
 
370 
 
 Hegel—continued, 
 Christianity, 25; of the origin of 
 sin, 46. 
 
 Heathenism, the seeking religion, 
 20; inquiry after God the truth 
 of, 21; deficient in moral truth, 
 23; terminated in doubt and fana- 
 ticism, 171. 
 
 Historical truths, 31. 
 
 History, the course of, one of con- 
 stant advance, 67; the end of, the 
 eternal kingdom of peace, 80; the 
 Christ of, different from the Christ 
 of rationalism, 100; Christ’s re- 
 surrection a question of, and not 
 of philosophy, 141; Christ ac- 
 knowledged by, 147; the educa- 
 tion of the human race, 226; the 
 end of perfection, 247. 
 
 Holy Ghost, the, the Old Testament 
 the work of, 208; the bond of 
 communion with God, 240. 
 
 Holy Spirit, the, Christ’s work car- 
 ried on by, 148, 149; the Church 
 the first work of, 163; the posses- 
 sion of, the essential ingredient of 
 the Church, 176. 
 
 Holy Scripture (see Scripture). 
 
 Hope, the religion of the Old Testa- 
 ment, 23; this life a life of, 247, 
 248. 
 
 Hug, quoted, 216. 
 
 Human mental life, analogies of, 
 159. 
 
 Human nature, 
 takes, 236. 
 
 Humility, the first of virtues, 76. 
 
 Puritanism mis- 
 
 Immaculate conception, the, opposed 
 by Scripture and tradition, 185. 
 Immortality, belief inthe soul’s, 250. 
 Incarnation of the Son of Ged, 101; 
 
 possibility of the, 107. 
 
 Individual, the, Christ dwells in, 
 148. 
 
 Infant baptism, 240. 
 
 Inspiration of Scripture, 207-211; 
 testimony of the Church to the, 
 212, 213. 
 
 Intellectual culture, derived from 
 Rome and Greece, 198. 
 
 Indew of the Principal Subjects. 
 
 Intellectual endowments, the free 
 gift of God, 72; of no avail in 
 securing salvation, 88, 89. 
 
 Intolerance of the Church, 170, 171 ; 
 of scepticism, 172. 
 
 Ireneus quoted in reference to the 
 assertion that Scripture is not 
 necessary to individual salvation, 
 202. 
 
 Israel, the nation of hope, 24. 
 
 Israelite, the, offered sacrifice, 24. 
 
 Jacobi, his notions as to the origin 
 of sin, 46. 
 Jeremiah, the great prediction of, 
 24. 
 
 Jesus Christ, the hope of Israel a 
 fact in, 24; the fact constituting 
 the essence of Christianity, 27; 
 the central point of the Christian 
 religion, 28; believed in on His 
 ewn account, 81; the supreme 
 manifestation of grace, 90; the 
 God man, ibid.; His humanity, 
 91; His holiness the holiness of 
 love, 93; a miracle, 95; the Son 
 of Man, 96; the Lord of mankind, 
 97; the Son of God, 98; confes- 
 sion of His divinity, 99; testi- 
 mony of Pliny and Eusebius to 
 the confession of His divinity by 
 the early Christians, 100; the 
 Redeemer of the sinful world, 102, 
 103; self-abnegation of, 109-111; 
 contrasts exhibited in His life, 
 112, 113; work of, 114; His de- 
 velopment, 115; His baptism, 
 116; His prophetic office, 117; 
 His severity and impartiality, 118; 
 His rejection, 119, 120; need of 
 His atonement, 121-124; His 
 vicarious suffering, 127, 128; His 
 last hours, 129-134; His death 
 on the cross, 135-138; His re- 
 surrection, 140; reality of His 
 resurrection, 141-146; His exalta- 
 tion, 146; His appeals to the 
 Old Testament, 190; left no writ- 
 ings, 191; His testimony, 207; 
 preaching His chief occupation, 
 225.; the Gospel, 231. 
 
Index of the Principal Subjects. 
 
 Jewish boys, early instructed in the 
 Scriptures, 190. 
 
 Jewish thought, the system of, 22. 
 
 Jews, the, their respect for Scripture, 
 191; ultimate conversion of, 260, 
 261. 
 
 Josephus quoted in reference to the 
 respect in which Scripture was 
 held by the Jews, 191. 
 
 Judaism, the hoping religion, 20. 
 
 Judgment, the last, 265, 266. 
 
 Justification by faith, the funda- 
 mental doctrine of the Church, 
 232, etc.; not a change in us, but 
 in God’s dealing with us, 235, 236. 
 
 Knowledge and faith, 34. 
 Knowledge, scientific, not necessary 
 to the possession of truth, 154. ° 
 Knowledge of the Triune God in- 
 conceivable by the human intel- 
 
 lect, 156. 
 
 Language inadequate to express 
 Divine relations, 158, 159. 
 
 Last things, the, 247-272. 
 
 Last judgment, the, 265, 266. 
 
 Law, not liberty, 69; needful, 227; 
 a necessary stage of moral develop- 
 ment, 228; its aim to make men 
 feel the need of the Gospel, 231. 
 
 Law and Gospel, ditference between, 
 226. 
 
 Leibnitz, his doctrine of the best 
 world, 41. 
 
 Lenau, experience of, referred to, in 
 illustration of the impotence of 
 nature, 67. 
 
 Liberty and authority, 180. 
 
 Life, sorrow and misery of, 40; the 
 light of, not happiness, but com- 
 fort, 65; analogies of human men- 
 tal, 159; vanity of, 248, 249. 
 
 Literary criticism, its liability to 
 err, 215, 
 
 Literature the instrument of intel- 
 lectual culture, 198. 
 
 Lord’s Supper, the, 242; doctrine 
 of Rome concerning, 243; the 
 meal of our pilgrimage, 246. 
 
 Love, God’s, freely bestowed, 73 ; 
 
 371 
 
 Love—continwed. 
 the secret of Providence, 78 ; all 
 that exists or happens founded 
 on, 80 
 
 Luke, his great historical work, 192. 
 
 Luther, his experience, 187 ; quoted, 
 202, 206, 209, 235; his transla- 
 tion of the Bible, 217 ; his preach- 
 ing, 225, 232. 
 
 Man, at no time or place found with- 
 out religion, 21; humbled, yet 
 comforted by Christianity, 22 ; 
 unable to deliver himself from 
 sin and suffering, 67; a unity, 
 70; his highest aim communion 
 with God, 72; honoured by own- 
 ing his faults, 76; free in his 
 moral resolves, 84, 85; influenced 
 by moral forces, 86; his hatred 
 of Christ, 120; his ingenuity in 
 the invention of torture, 134; 
 made for society, 174; truth his 
 supreme want, 181; Scripture not 
 the work of, 208; his inward dis- 
 cord, 230; moral consciousness 
 the standard of his morality, 233. 
 
 Mass, Romish, not found in Scrip- 
 ture, 207. 
 
 Masses, the, follow authority, 180. 
 
 Means of grace, 219-246. 
 
 Melancthon on the mystery of the 
 Trinity, 153. 
 
 Mental activity, human, the inspi- 
 ration of Scripture not understood 
 as excluding, 209. 
 
 Mental life, analogies of human, 159. 
 
 Mind, the heathen, 22; powers of, 
 the greatest, 117, 221. 
 
 Missions, the preaching of the Word 
 the special power of, 224. 
 
 Modern researches confirmatory of 
 the truth of, 214. 
 
 Morality of the ancient world, 229, 
 230; the doctrine of justification 
 said to be prejudicial to, 233. 
 
 Nature, full of strife, 40; impotent 
 to deliver man from suffering, 
 67; Trinity of the Divine, 159. 
 
 New Testament Scriptures, the, 
 
Ble Index of the Principal Subjects. 
 
 New Testament—continued, 
 origin of, 191, 192; collection of, 
 193; added to the Old, 194; au- 
 thority attributed to, in the 
 earliest times, 195; assert the in- 
 spiration of the Old, 208. 
 
 Protestantism, its origin, 186; its 
 truth, 187; its principles, 197. 
 Protestantism and Catholicism con- 
 
 trasted, 179. 
 Proudhon’s social system, 43. 
 Puritanism mistakes human nature, 
 236. 
 
 Obscurity of Scripture, 205. 
 
 Old Testament Scriptures, the, re- 
 verenced by the Church as the 
 Word of God, 190; transmitted 
 by the Jews to the Christian 
 Church, 191; added to the New, 
 194; preaching the office of the 
 great prophets of, 225 ; the Gospel 
 found in the, 227; washings and 
 purifications prescribed in, 239. 
 
 Question of authorship not a ques- 
 tion of faith, 215. 
 
 Questions of the day, Christ and 
 Scripture the leading, 197. 
 
 Quinet, Edgar, quoted, 168. 
 
 Rationalism, its assertion that sin 
 is a necessary product of our sensu- 
 ous nature, 45; that Christ is 
 only the ideal of virtue, 100; its 
 explanation of Christ’s resurrec- 
 tion, 141-148; its rejection of the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, 152; 
 denies the presence of the Holy 
 Ghost in the Church, 163. 
 
 Recognition of the saved in glory, 271. 
 
 Reconciliation, the preaching of the 
 cross the preaching of, 232. 
 
 Redemption, the work of, 139; the 
 doctrine of the Trinity involved 
 in, 156; our, the purpose of God, 
 219. 
 
 Reformation, the, origin of, 29; Holy 
 Scripture declared by, the sole 
 umpire in matters of Christian 
 faith and practice, 196; a return 
 to the sources of religious life, 
 
 Pardon, nothing but, can annul 
 transgressions, 71; God cannot 
 unconditionally, 123. 
 
 Passover, Christ’s last, 242. 
 
 Paul, St, his manliness, 76; his 
 testimony as to Christ’s resurrec- 
 tion, 144. 
 
 Pauline Epistles, the, 193. 
 
 Pentecost, the day of, the birth-day 
 of the Church, 175. 
 
 Perdition and salvation, 267. 
 
 Perfection, the end of history, 247 ; 
 eternal, 269-272. 
 
 Persecution anticipated, 262, 263. 
 
 Philosophy notreligion, 26 ; ancient, 
 its acquaintance with the moral 
 burden of life, 67; its ideal of 
 human sinlessness, 93. 
 
 Pictures of Christ, 108, 109. 
 
 Plato, his testimony to the soul’s 
 longing after a better state, 48. 
 
 Plutarch quoted, 168. 
 
 Poetry the mirror of life, 43. 
 
 Poverty of spirit, the condition of, 
 the receptivity of grace, 88. 
 
 Preaching, the special form of the 
 Word, 224; the power of, 225; 
 Jesus Christ the substance of, 
 Christian, 231. 
 
 Pride, God’s kingdom closed against, 
 89 
 
 201. 
 
 Reformed Church, the, her doctrine 
 of Divine predestination an error, 
 188, 189. 
 
 Religion, its origin, 21; natural, no 
 existence but in books, 27; its 
 popularity, 155; revival of, 202; 
 Christianity the universal, 260. 
 
 Religions, polytheistic, 22; differ- 
 ence between the pre-Christian 
 and the Christian, 238; of the 
 ancient world overcome by the 
 power of preaching, 225. 
 
 Religious faith, its necessity and 
 truth, 17; its fundamental pro- 
 positions, 18. 
 
 Prophecy, tenor of, regarding the 
 future of the Church, 263, 264. 
 
Vc 
 
 Index of the Principal Subjects. 
 
 Resurrection, Christ’s, the founda- 
 tion of Christianity, 140; denied 
 on doctrinal grounds, dbid. ; on 
 dogmaticand philosophic grounds, 
 141; certain on historical and in- 
 cree grounds, 145; of the body, 
 257. 
 
 Reville quoted as to the import- 
 ance of the Bible, 200, 201. 
 
 Romans, Epistle to the, value of, 202. 
 
 Rome, Bishop of, his authority, 184. 
 
 Rome and Greece, intellectual cul- 
 ture derived from, 198. 
 
 Romish Church, doctrine of the, as 
 to the sinner’s grounds of salva- 
 tion, 30; her universal sway, 183, 
 184; her assumptions, 185; her 
 doctrine of justification, 232; 
 number of her sacraments, 238 ; 
 her doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, 
 243, 
 
 Sacraments, the, symbolical transac- 
 tions, 236; number of, 238. 
 
 Sacrifice, a symbolic image of in- 
 ward piety, 24; the fundamental 
 principle of all religions, 121 ; 
 Christ’s, necessary, 122. 
 
 Sacrifices, human, founded on a 
 true feeling, 23; all religions 
 have, 121. 
 
 Sadness, great minds inclined to, 
 126. 
 
 Salvation, history of, 150, 151; 
 found in none but Christ, 196; 
 Scripture not necessary to, con- 
 ceivable, 202; and perdition, 267. 
 
 Saved, recognition of the, in heaven, 
 271. 
 
 Scepticism, intolerance of, 172. 
 
 Schelling and Hegel, notions taught 
 by their school concerning Chris- 
 tianity, 25; quoted in reference 
 to the inspiration of Scripture, 
 206. 
 
 Schiller, error of, as to man’s free- 
 dom, 47. i 
 
 Schleiermacher, his adoption of 
 the rationalistic view of Christ’s 
 resurrection, 142; critical errors 
 of, 215. 
 
 373 
 
 Schopenhauer, his philosophy, 41. 
 
 Scripture, Holy, 190; Jesus, the 
 subject of, 191; the remedy for 
 the corruption of tradition, 196; 
 its intellectual importance, 198 ; 
 its religious importance, 199; its 
 necessity, 202, 203; its matter, 
 204; the understanding of, 205, 
 206; its inspiration, 207-211; 
 objections to the matter of, 214; 
 its prediction as to the future of 
 the Church, 259. 
 
 Self-control not deliverance from 
 sin, 69, 
 
 Self-deliverance, no such thing as, 
 
 Sin, the most potent fact on earth, 
 26; a universal power, 45; does 
 not spring from sensuousness, 
 nor from our finite nature, nor 
 from necessity, 46; the abuse of 
 freedom, 47; deliverance from 
 needed, 67; a transgression against 
 God, 70, 128; no good work can 
 annul committed, 71; requires 
 atonement, 104; expiated only 
 by suffering, 123 ; the resurrection 
 a proot of its having been forgiven, 
 145; law not a remedy against, 
 228; forgiveness of, 234; the 
 contradiction of contradictions, 
 272. 
 
 Socialism, the reality of human woe 
 founded on, 43. 
 
 Society at war with crime, 44; man 
 made for, 174. 
 
 Socrates, greatness of, 88 ; quoted, 
 205. 
 
 Sophocles quoted, 81, 124. 
 
 Soul, immortality of, belief in uni- 
 versal, 251; evidences of the, 
 252, 253; state of, after death, 
 254, 256. 
 
 Speech, importance of, 221, 222. 
 
 Spinoza’s pantheistic doctrine, that 
 man is but a ray of the universal 
 light, combated, 69. 
 
 St Matthew, account of, 192. 
 
 St John, origin of his Gospel, 192; 
 revelation of, 193. 
 
 Strauss, his criticism of the ancient 
 
374. 
 
 Strauss—continued. 
 rationalistic view of Christianity, 
 142. 
 
 Substitution, a universal notion of 
 man’s moral consciousness, 124; 
 its possibility and reality, 125. 
 
 Suffering and sorrow, universality 
 of, 41-44; vanity of human re- 
 medies for, 67-70. 
 
 Susceptibility a necessary ingredient 
 for comprehending Scripture, 206. 
 
 Symbols, no religion without, 236. 
 
 Taste, objections of, to the matter of 
 Scripture, 214. 
 
 Testament, Old, the religion of, the 
 religion of hope, 23; the Holy 
 Spirit spoken of in the, 148. 
 
 Testaments, Old and New, con- 
 trasted, 226. 
 
 Testimony of the Church to the in- 
 spiration of Scripture, 212. 
 
 Things, the last, 247-273. 
 
 Toleration the triumph of modern 
 times, 170. 
 
 Tradition, appealed to on behalf of 
 Scripture, 194; Scripture the 
 remedy for its corruptions, 196; 
 the Church of Rome requires 
 Scripture interpreted according 
 to, 207. 
 
 Transgression, nothing but pardon 
 can annul, 71. 
 
 Trinity, the, confession of, 151; 
 
 Index of the Principal Sulyects. 
 
 Trinity—continued. 
 meaning of, 152-156; faith in, 
 161; denial of, a denial of re- 
 demption, 162. 
 
 Triune God, the, revelation of, 156, 
 etc.; the God of Christians, 161; 
 the Church’s faith belief in, 178. 
 
 Truth, opposition to, in the soul of 
 man, 120; the denial of opposing 
 error, 171; not possessed by 
 Catholicism, 185; certainty of, a 
 question of conscience, 186; obe- 
 dience to the, the remedy for an 
 arbitrary spirit, 207. 
 
 Tiibingen, the, school of criticism, 
 216. 
 
 Union of God’s people, 271. 
 
 Unity of Scripture, 210-211. 
 
 Universal religion, Christianity the, 
 260. 
 
 Vedas, the, Indian philosophy of, 40. 
 
 Virgin Mary, the, her humility, 77. 
 
 Visions, the resurrection of Christ 
 attributed to, 148, 144. 
 
 Western Church, its doctrine that 
 Christianity is the Church, 28. 
 
 World, the eternal, understood only ~ 
 according to its own laws, 35; 
 this, a world of woe, 65. 
 
 Worship, all, a glorification of 
 Christ, 27. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 SCHENCK AND M‘FARLANE, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 
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