* 
 
 ,,»<«•'*'*'"'"*'*»%„,, 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 BR A5 .B35 1888 
 Hampton lectures 
 
 Shelf.. 
 
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT 
 
 • 
 
The Letter and The Spirit 
 
 EIGHT LECTURES 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 IN THE YEAR MDCCCLXXXVIII. 
 
 ON THE FOUNDATION OF 
 
 THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON(^M.A.)/LecT^t^ Tr-<?'S> 
 
 CANON OF SALISBURY 
 
 ROBERT EDWARD "BARTLETT, M.A. 
 
 LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE 
 
 Sontion 
 
 RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 E. & L B. YOUNG & COMPANY 
 COOPER UNION, FOURTH AVENUE 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVIII 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 REV. JOHN BAMPTON, 
 
 CANON OF SALISBURY. 
 
 "... I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, 
 Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have 
 and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, 
 and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to 
 say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of 
 Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, 
 and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary 
 deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of 
 eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said 
 University, and to be performed in the manner following : 
 
 " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter 
 Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, 
 and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, 
 between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to 
 preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. 
 Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of the last montli 
 in Lent Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture 
 Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following Subjects-to 
 confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics 
 
vi EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON'S WILL 
 
 and schismatics— upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures — 
 upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the 
 feith and practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost 
 — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the 
 Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. 
 
 " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture 
 Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are 
 preached; and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the 
 University, aad one copy to the Head of every College, and one 
 copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put 
 into the Bodleian Library ; and the expense of printing them shall 
 be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for establish- 
 ing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be 
 paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to 
 preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the 
 degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities 
 of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never 
 preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 St. Paul's life broken in two by his conversion i 
 
 Hence, his ideas take an antithetical form 2 
 
 The letter and the spirit proposed as the subject of these lectures . 3 
 
 St. Paul's use of the terms j. 
 
 Contains the germs of the later development ..... 8 
 
 Their use by the Greek Fathers 1 1 
 
 The modern use j -. 
 
 Contrast between the outward and the inward— the form and 
 
 the essence j , 
 
 The letter and the spirit in the Church 16 
 
 }j „ „ University 20 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 
 The Letter and the Spirit in Scripture Exegesis. 
 
 St. Paul did not contemplate the Christian faith as dependent on 
 
 written documents 25 
 
 Human language must act as a limitation to the free Spirit ... 26 
 
 Hence, sacred Books cannot express fully the mind of the Spirit 27 
 The Qld Covenant a dispensation of the letter. Yet the Spirit spake 
 
 by the prophets -,7 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Jewish view of the sacred Books. How it afifected the Christian 
 
 view 2S 
 
 The Church inherited the traditions of Judaism. The two canons 
 
 gradually merged into one 29 
 
 The Christian Scriptures regarded with the same reverence as the 
 
 Jewish 31 
 
 The view of the mediaeval Church 32 
 
 The Reformation tended to produce stricter views of inspiration . 33 
 Tendency of modern views to give less prominence to the Old 
 
 Testament 34 
 
 Instances of Messianic prophecies ^-j 
 
 The allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Professing to be 
 
 spiritual, it becomes a caricature of the letter 39 
 
 True use of the Old Testament '6 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 The Letter and the Spirit in Scripture Exegesis— (6w;//V///r^/). 
 
 The canon of Scripture grew up in an informal way 51 
 
 Variety in the Bible as contrasted with the Koran 53 
 
 The Bible the writing of inspired men. What this implies ... 53 
 
 Inspiration not confined to written documents, nor to any age . . 54 
 Scripture to be used, not as a formal treatise, but as a sacred 
 
 literature 55 
 
 Example of Pearson on the Creed. Of Harmonies of the Gospels . 53 
 Use of the Old Testament in the New — 
 
 1 Cor. xiv. 21 and Isa. xxviii. 11, 12 59 
 
 Rom. iv. 3 and Gen. xv. 6 61 
 
 2 Cor. iii. 13 and Exod. xxxiv. 29, 30 61 
 
 St. Paul's doctrine of predestination. Rom. i\.-.\i. to be 
 
 understood, not after the letter, but after the spirit .... 62 
 
 Justification by faith 65 
 
 The Trapouo-i'a of Christ 66 
 
 The literal and spiritual use of the Bible 69 
 
 Contrast between Mohammedanism and Christianity 71 
 
 The study of Scripture not less necessary now than formerly ... 73 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The Letter and the Spirit in the Church. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Recapitulation of previous Lectures 76 
 
 Distinction between the end and the means. Easily overlooked in 
 
 politics and in religion 77 
 
 What is the essence of the Church ? 79 
 
 It is a family and a kingdom 82 
 
 Not dependent on a special form of organization 83 
 
 Argument from the New Testament 84 
 
 Argument from Church history 90 
 
 Hooker's view of Episcopacy 92 
 
 The principle as stated by Bishop Lightfoot 92 
 
 Exclusive claims of Episcopacy untenable in the light of modern 
 
 Christendom 94 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 The Letter and the Spirit in the Sacraments. 
 
 The new covenant spiritual 102 
 
 Hence, in its essence, independent of forms 103 
 
 But this is an ideal. And, in actuaUife, forms are indispensable . 103 
 The kingdom of heaven implies that its subjects have relations to 
 
 the King and to each other ' 104 
 
 These relations set forth in the Sacraments — 
 
 Baptism — the rite of initiation 105 
 
 Spoken of as regeneration 106 
 
 A natural and significant metaphor 107 
 
 Contrast between primitive and modern Baptism .... 107 
 
 Baptism points to the ideal rather than the actual . . . 112 
 
 The Eucharist. One spirit under many forms 113 
 
 Contrast between the primitive Eucharist and the modern 
 
 Mass 113 
 
 Institution of the Eucharist 115 
 
 The discourse in John vi. Its relation to the Eucharist . 1 16 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The spiritual view of the Sacraments 122 
 
 Variations in form inevitable 125 
 
 The history of the Eucharist a history of the inner life of 
 
 Christendom 123 
 
 Its significance for us 126 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The Letter and the Spirit in Creeds and Confessions 
 OF Faith. 
 
 What is rehgion ? 131 
 
 Growth of a science of religion 131 
 
 Theology progressive 134 
 
 The earliest Christians had neither sacred Books nor formulas of 
 
 belief 136 
 
 Creeds originally baptismal 136 
 
 Then Eucharistic 137 
 
 Finally polemical 137 
 
 When Creeds become exclusive they cease to be Catholic .... 138 
 
 Finality not attainable. Instance of the doctrine of the Atonement 139 
 
 The true object and use of Creeds. Triumphant hymns of faith . . 142 
 
 The " Quicunque vult." Not suitable for public worship .... 143 
 
 Progress of religious knowledge. The doctrine of development . . 150 
 
 Our attitude with reference to Creeds -153 
 
 LECTURE VIL 
 
 The Letter and the Spirit in Christian Worship 
 AND Life. 
 
 The first idea of God, as of One like ourselves 156 
 
 Hence, attempts to propitiate Him by offerings 156 
 
 The second, as of a righteous King 157 
 
 Hence, the worship of a right life 157 
 
 The third, as of a loving Father 157 
 
 Hence, the worship of the heart 157 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Religion is the laond that unites us first to God and then to our 
 
 fellow-men 158 
 
 Advantage of ancient over modern forms of worship in respect of 
 
 Catholicity 159 
 
 Yet forms non-essential . 161 
 
 Worship in the Name of Christ 163 
 
 Theism is not more but less spiritual than Christianity 164 
 
 Instances of spiritual view of worship — 
 
 Prayers for the dead 166 
 
 Fasting Communion 167 
 
 Evening Communion 169 
 
 The letter and the spirit in common life 170 
 
 Casuistry 171 
 
 The freedom of the Spirit 172 
 
 The same principle applied to politics 173 
 
 „ „ „ education 174 
 
 Tendency to rely upon system 175 
 
 Sunday observance 176 
 
 Almsgiving 177 
 
 Responsibility of freedom 179 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The Church of the Future. 
 
 Recapitulation of Fourth Lecture. The Church in its essence is the 
 
 people 180 
 
 This principle reasserted at the Reformation. Each nation as- 
 sumed the right to revise its ecclesiastical constitution . . . 181 
 
 National character of the English Reformation 183 
 
 The Church reconstituted at the Restoration, not on national but 
 
 on sectarian lines 185 
 
 The Church is still in its childhood. The Church of the future will 
 combine many elements. Disestablishment no remedy for 
 sectarianism 186 
 
 The laest basis of Christian union will be found in association for 
 
 beneficence 191 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The growth in Oxford of a sense of responsibility for less-favoured 
 
 classes 193 
 
 Gradual widening of Christian thought 196 
 
 We need to have faith in God's care for the future of the Church. 
 Our duty is to be patient. The Church of England specially 
 called to mediate between the old and the new 197 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 200 
 
 Note to Lecture VIII 203 
 
 Appendix 207 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Who also made us sufficient as ministers of a New Covenant ; 
 not of the letter, but of the spirit : for the letter killeth, but the 
 spirit giveth life."— 2 Cor. iii. 6 (R.V.). 
 
 The heavenly vision which appeared to Saul of Tarsus 
 on the way as he journeyed to Damascus was not a 
 mere turning-point in his life ; rather it was the abrupt 
 ending of one life, and the beginning of another. He 
 was indeed the same man, with the same absolute de- 
 votion to the cause that he believed to be true, the same 
 strange compound of weakness and strength, the same 
 man as an Apostle that he had been as a persecutor of 
 Christ : but he had been converted, turned about ; he 
 saw all things from an opposite point of view ; what 
 things had been gain to him, those he counted loss ; old 
 things were passed away, and all things were become 
 new. 
 
 This fault in the strata of his life explains one of the 
 most noticeable characteristics of his phraseology. With 
 such a breach of continuity in his thoughts and ex- 
 periences, it was natural that all things should seem to 
 him double one against another ; and that his ideas 
 
 Cji^ B 
 
2 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 should rancfe tliemselves in antithetical form, and 
 embody themselves in opposite poles, coinciding with 
 his old and his new life. Thus, law and grace, faith 
 and works, faith and sight, sin and grace, death and 
 life, the old man and the new man, the flesh and the 
 spirit, the letter and the spirit — these became to St. Paul 
 centres around which fresh associations are continually 
 grouping themselves, and receive continually fresh 
 accessions of meanino; as his thouo^lit moves onward. 
 This no doul^t is what Luther means when he says that 
 St. Paul's words are like living creatures having hands 
 and feet ; that they draw around themselves fresh 
 connotations, and grow and adapt themselves? to fresh 
 uses. So that we are never sure that we have grasped 
 the whole of his thought ; his words are like rays of 
 light, which contain many blended colours, and which 
 we must analyze by some intellectual prism, before they 
 will yield their full meaning to us. And even then, we 
 have further to reckon with the later associations which 
 modern use has drawn around them. Eighteousness, 
 faith, law, grace, justification — terms like these elude our 
 comprehension all the more easily, because we begin by 
 attaching to them our modern associations, and fancying 
 that to St. Paul they meant no more and no less than 
 they mean to the writer or the reader of an English 
 book of devotion. How many theological misunder- 
 standings and confusions have arisen from these idols 
 of the market,^ or — may we not say '\ — of the Church I 
 
 ^ " Idols of the market." Cf. Bacon, " Nov. Org.," i. Hx : " The 
 Idols of the Market are the most troublesome of all, those namely 
 
Lect. L] introduction 3 
 
 How much of our modern religious terminology is but 
 the working up into a new building of stones shaped by- 
 Apostolic hands for quite other purposes ! How often 
 does the chemistry of theologians precipitate into hard 
 and rigid forms the delicate spirituality of St. Paul's 
 thoughts ! How difficult we find it to divest ourselves 
 of prepossessions, and to find in St. Paul's language the 
 meaning, neither more nor less, which he intended to 
 convey to those to whom he wrote ! 
 
 I propose to take for the subject of these lectures 
 one of those antitheses which, as we have seen, are so 
 characteristic of St. Paul, the Letter and the Spirit, I 
 shall endeavour, by a discussion of the passages in his 
 writings in which they occur, to bring out the full mean- 
 ing of the terms as he originally conceived of them. 
 This will lead us on to the further question of their 
 adoption into the theological vocabulary of early Chris- 
 tian writers, and so to that later and popular use by 
 which they have come to mean the outward and tlie 
 inward, the form and the substance, the transitory and 
 the permanent, the accidental and the essential, in 
 religion ; and then to endeavour to discriminate these 
 two elements in religious thought and life. Before 
 entering on this w^ider field, it will be necessary to 
 discuss with some fulness the use of the words in 
 St. Paul's writings. 
 
 which have entwined themselves round the tindersfanding from 
 the associations of words and names. For men imagine that their 
 reason governs words, whilst, in fact, words re-act upon the under- 
 standing." 
 
4 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 The earliest passage in which the words occur is that 
 in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians. He had been boasting that to him at least 
 letters of commendation were unnecessary ; he needed 
 no written documents to make good his claim to their 
 obedience. They themselves were his only letter of 
 commendation — a letter written, not with ink, but with 
 the Spirit of the Living God ; not in tables of stone, but 
 in tables that are hearts of flesh. But it is in no spirit 
 of self-exaltation or self-sufficiency that he writes to 
 them. His sufficiency is from God, Who had made him 
 sufficient as a minister of a new Covenant — a minister 
 not of letter, but of spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the 
 spirit maketh alive. Here, then, he contrasts the old 
 covenant with the new in this respect — that the one is 
 letter, ypdfxfxa ; the other is spirit, Trvevixa. And we 
 shall not fully enter into the significance of this contrast 
 until we remember that to St. Paul the new Covenant of 
 which he was a minister was absolutely without written 
 documents. The conception of Christianity as intended 
 to be, like the later Judaism, the religion of a book 
 seems altogether foreign to his mind. The free spirit 
 is to him the direct antithesis of the fixed and unpro- 
 gressive letter. The hiaKovoi ypd}jiixaTo<; — ministers of 
 letter — whom he contrasts with Stct/cowt Tri^ev/xaro?, 
 would be persons whose function it was to administer 
 a system of written rules, of punctilious observances, of 
 formulas and rubrics, and whose great object it would 
 be to produce conformity to a single outward type. 
 Such was the system under which St. Paul had himself 
 
Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 been trained ; as touching the law, a Pharisee ; as 
 touchino: the rio^hteousness which is in the law, found 
 blameless.^ He had been instructed according to the 
 strict manner of the law of the Fathers.^ But Christ 
 had revealed Himself to him, and the things that were 
 sain to him, those he now counted loss for Christ.^ Old 
 thino-s had pas>,ed away ; all things had become new.* 
 The Law, which was ordained to life, he had found to be 
 unto death. Sin, taking occasion by the command- 
 ment, had slain him.^ And so St. Paul, in his vivid 
 way, always identifies the Law with sin and death, the 
 Gospel with righteousness and life. " I had not known 
 sin," he says, " but by the Law." ^ Evil, no doubt, was 
 in him and around him ; but not till the Law came, not 
 till the commandment awakened the consciousness of 
 sin, did sin take the definite form of opposition to the 
 Law. And that was all that the Law could do. The 
 Law was weak through the flesh. Its instruments, its 
 methods, were not spiritual, but carnal ; it needed a new 
 law — the law of the Sj^irit of bfe in Christ Jesus,^ to 
 make him free from the old Law — the law of sin and 
 death. And therefore the letter, the Law written and 
 engraven on stones, killeth. It can only reveal to a 
 man his sin, his spiritual bankruptcy, without giving 
 him any new principle of life, without lifting him up 
 and setting him on his feet again. But St. Paul had 
 been made a minister of tlie Spirit ; of that new principle 
 
 1 Phil. iii. 5, 6. ^ Acts xxii. 3. ^ Phil. iii. 7. 
 
 ^ 2 Cor. V. 17. ' Eom. vii. 10, 11. « Kom. vii. 7. 
 
 ' Rom. viii. 2. 
 
6 THE LETTER AND THE STIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 of life which Christ had come to bring into the world ; 
 of that quickening Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God, 
 Which is not a law but a Life, impalpable, all-pervadiog, 
 Whose very Name is taken from the wind which bloweth 
 where it listeth,^ the free breath of God, the Spirit of 
 Him that raised up Jesus from the dead.^ And there- 
 fore, while as a Hebrew he speaks of the Law with 
 national pride, — while he claims for the Jews much 
 advantage, because to them had been committed the 
 oracles of God,^ — while he acknowledges the Law, so far 
 as it was ancillary to the yet older covenant which was 
 confirmed before by God,* to be holy and just and good, 
 — yet when it becomes a rival to the Covenant of Grace, 
 when it is represented as the final expression of God's AYil], 
 he regards it with something like hostility, as working 
 wrath, ^ as bringing death, ^ as the strength of sin.'' And 
 when we remember what his experience had been, how 
 Christ had delivered him from the curse of the Law,^ can 
 we wonder if he regarded the letter, the rigid, fixed, 
 hard, written Law, which he associated with the barren 
 discipline of his early life, as the very opposite principle 
 to the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which had made him 
 free ? Can we wonder if the letter and the spirit, when 
 he had once contrasted them, became to him symbols of 
 two principles of which the one was life and the other 
 death % 
 
 ^ John iii. 8. ^ j^^,j^^ ^j-j ^^ s j^q^^ ^jj o. 
 
 * Gal. iii. 17. St. Augustine points out (" Contia Duas Ep. 
 Pelag.") that the New Testament is the older of the two. 
 
 ' Rom. iv. 15. 6 Rom. vii. 10. ' 1 Cor. xv. 56. 
 
 « Gal. iii. 13. 
 
Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 It is, as. I have said, characteristic of St. Paul, that 
 when -he has once used an antithetical expression of this 
 kind, he recurs to it again and again, and uses it as a 
 nucleus to which fresh connotations attach themselves. 
 And therefore we shall not be surprised, if, in an Epistle 
 written not many months later, the Epistle to the 
 Komans, these words re-appear, with a somewhat amplified 
 reach of meaning. In the second chapter, where he is 
 showing how all, Jew and Gentile alike, had come short 
 of the rio;hteousness of God, he declares that circumcision 
 without obedience is worthless ; and he asks, " If the 
 uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the Law, shall 
 not his uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision ? 
 And shall not the uncircumcision which is by nature, if 
 it fulfil the Law, judge thee, w^ho with the letter [Sta 
 •yy3a/>t/xaros] and circumcision art a transgressor of the 
 Law?" Here the letter and circumcision seem to stand for 
 the outward religion of form and observance as opposed 
 to the inward religion of obedience. "For," he adds, "he 
 is not a Jew% which is one outw^ardly ; neither is that 
 circumcision, which is outward in the flesh : but he is a 
 Jew, which is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of 
 the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter." It is 
 remarkable that " the letter " here seems to be used as 
 almost exactly equivalent with "the flesh;" St. Paul con- 
 trasts circumcision in the flesh with circumcision in the 
 spirit and not in the letter : just as, in Phil. iii. 3, he 
 says, " We are the circumcision, who worship by the 
 Spirit of God, . . . and have no confidence in the flesh." 
 Again, in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the 
 
8 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 Eomans, speaking of Christians as being free from tlie 
 Law, just as a woman whose husband is dead is free 
 from the law of her husband and may lawfully be 
 married to another, he adds, varying the figure after his 
 usual manner, " Ye also were made dead to the Law 
 through the Body of Christ ; that ye should l)e joined to 
 another, even to Him Who was raised from the dead. . . . 
 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which 
 were through the Law, wrought in our members to bring- 
 forth fruit unto death. But now we have been dis- 
 charged from the Law, having died to that wherein we 
 were holden ; so that we serve in newness of the Spirit " 
 - — in the new life of which the Spirit is the animating and 
 inspiring principle, — " and not in oldness of the letter " 
 — not in the old state of bondage to the Law in wdiich 
 we were held until, by dying to the Law, we were set 
 free from it. 
 
 In these two passages of the Epistle to the Eomans 
 we seem to recognize a distinct development of meaning 
 in the words from the first use of them in the Second 
 Epistle to the Corinthians. From the first idea of the 
 Avritten Law as opposed to the free Spirit, they seem to 
 be taking on the further meaning of the form as opposed 
 to the essence, the outward as opposed to the inward, 
 the expression as opposed to the principle. " Circumcision 
 is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter : " — 
 here the original sense of the Spirit, the Giver of life, and 
 of the written Law Avhich killeth, is still jDresent ; but we 
 see also that it is developing into something further, tlie 
 symbol of a yet wider antithesis. And to serve God in 
 
Lect. L] introduction g 
 
 newness of. tlie spirit and not in olduess of the letter 
 mean's more than being no longer under the Law ; it 
 means the being free from all that formalism, all tliat 
 rigid narrowness, of which the Law was the type, and the 
 rendering to God that reasonable service, that obedience 
 to the Living Spirit, which is perfect freedom. Indeed, 
 something of this kind must have been in St. Paul's mind 
 when he first used the words in 2 Cor. iii, : for after all 
 the various antithetical expressions which he there uses 
 — an epistle written with ink and an epistle written witli 
 the Spirit of the Living God, an epistle on tables of stone 
 and an epistle on fleshy tables of the heart, the letter 
 which kills and the spirit which makes alive, the 
 ministration of death and the ministration of life, the 
 ministration of condemnation and the ministration of 
 righteousness, all turning more or less on the same 
 central idea, — he adds the contrast between that which 
 passeth away and that which remaineth. The letter, 
 then, he connects in thought with to Karapyov^evov — the 
 transitory ; the spirit with ro jxevov — the permanent. 
 
 To dwell at any length uj^on St, Paul's general use of 
 the word Trvevfia would be somewhat beyOnd our j)resent 
 scope. It may be enough to indicate that he uses it first 
 of the Spirit of God, also called the Sjnrit of Christ, or 
 the Holy Spirit, or simply the Spirit ; secondly, of the 
 spirit of man, the principle which feels, thinks, and 
 wills, in which sense he sometimes connects it with the 
 soul, xjjvxq, and the body ; and, thirdly, of a power or 
 influence, the character, manifestations, or results of 
 which are sometimes defined by qualifying genitives — 
 
lo THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 as the spirit of meekness, the spirit of faith, the spirit 
 of life, the spirit of adoption, the spirit of power and 
 love and discipline, the spirit of wisdom and revelation. 
 It is also, as we have seen, contrasted with the letter and 
 with the flesh ; and it is sometimes used, with a qualify- 
 ing genitive or clause, in an evil sense — as the spirit 
 of the world, the spirit of bondage, the spirit of slumber, 
 the spirit that worketh in the sons of disobedience. In 
 the use of the word which we have now under considera- 
 tion the fundamental idea seems to be that of power ; so 
 that a covenant or dispensation of the spirit will be 
 a system characterized not by method, not by elaborate 
 rule and organization, but by a pervading element of 
 life, — a system in which the processes and functions are 
 mostly invisible, — a system of which our Lord's words 
 hold good, that " the wind bloweth [or the spirit — nvevfxa 
 — breatheth] where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and whither 
 it goeth." Perhaps an undesigned testimony to this 
 contrast between the letter and the spirit, as systems 
 respectively of death and of life, may be found in the 
 popular usage which speaks not of the hilling but of the 
 dead letter; as though the letter which kills were itself 
 subject to death, and were incapable of producing 
 any efi'ect without the operation of the life-giving 
 spirit. 
 
 And therefore when we speak of the letter and the 
 spirit as respectively the outward and the inward, the 
 form and the essence, the visible and tangible and 
 the invisible and impalpable part of a command or an 
 
Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 institution or an ordinance, we are not really making an 
 illegitimate use of the words of St. Paul, we are only 
 developing the latent principle enuDciated by him in the 
 germ, using his terms to express the fuller thought 
 which has grown out of his pregnant expressions. Just 
 as the terms applied by early inquirers are not superseded 
 but developed into wider connotation by modern science, 
 so the words of St. Paul are not destroyed but fulfilled 
 when they are used to express the outgrowth and 
 development of his own principle. 
 
 It is remarkable that the Greek Fathers, to whom 
 one naturally looks for the interpretation of a Greek 
 phrase, seem to have quite missed the point of St. Paul's 
 expression. Gregory of Nyssa ^ explains the words, " the 
 letter killeth," as meaning that the Old Testament con- 
 tains examples of evil deeds, instancing the cases of 
 David and Bathsheba, and of Hosea taking a wife of 
 whoredoms. Origen,Svitli whom the phrase is a ftimiliar 
 one in connexion with his principle of allegorical inter- 
 pretation, refers it to the literal and the figurative sense 
 of Scripture, thus turning it to the disparagement of the 
 literal as against the mystical sense. Ev6n Chrysostom ^ 
 sees no more in it than a statement that the Law enacts 
 
 ^ " Prooem. in Cantic," i., p. 470 : Ilovr^pcoi/ yap v^i.t Trpay/xarwi/ 
 kv eavTta to. v7ro8eiyjxaTa. 
 
 "■■ " Contra Celsum," lib. vi. : Tpd/xfxa t7]v aluOriTyjv iKSoxr}v twi/ 
 6cL(DV ypaixfj-druiv, Trvtvfxa 8e t^v vorjTrjv. 
 
 ^ Horn. vi. in II. ad Cor., p. 581 : Tpdfxfjia ivravOa vo/xov (ftrja-t 
 Tov KoXdt,ovTa Toiis TrAT/jLt/xeAoSi/ras. And SO Theophylact, ad htc, 
 p. 348 : 'O vd/Aos idv ^df3rj riva d/xapTdvovTa Kara to Sokow iXd^taTov, 
 ws TOV TO. $vXa iv aa^/Sdrio <TvW4^avTa, dvaipel. 
 
12 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 death as a punishment of transgressors. On the other 
 hand, Augustine/ with that true exegetical instinct which 
 sets him so high above his contemporaries, at once con- 
 nects the phrase with St. Paul's words, " Sin, finding- 
 occasion, through the commandment beguiled me, and 
 through it slew me." He points out that to teach men 
 how to live soberly, righteously, and godly is but the 
 letter which killeth, because where no law is there is no 
 transgression ; that the mere setting before men a high 
 morality actually places them in a worse position, unless 
 there be the life-giving Spirit to enable them to live a 
 new life. He contrasts^ "the law of the Spirit of life 
 
 ^ Aug., " De Spiritu et Littera," c. iv. : " Neque enim solo illo 
 modo intelligendum est qnod legimns, 'Littera occidit, spiritxis 
 autem vivificat ; ' ut aliquid fignrate sci iptum, cnjns est absiirda 
 propiietas, non accipiamus sicut littera sonat, sed aliud quod sig- 
 nificat intuentes, interiorem hominem spiritali intelligentia mitri- 
 amus; qiioniam ' tapere secuudam cainem mors est, sapere autem 
 secundum spiritum vita et pax.' . . . Non ergo solo illo modo 
 intelligendum est quod ait Apostolus, ' Litera occidit, spirirus 
 autem vivificat ; ' sed etiam illo, eoque vel maxima, quo apertissime 
 alio loco dicit, ' Concupiscent iaui nesciebam, nisi lex diceret, Non 
 concupisces.' Et paulo post ait ; ' Occasione accepta peccatum per 
 mandatum fefellit me, et per illud occidit. . . . Legis littera qua? 
 docet non esse peccandum, si Spiritus vivificans desit, occidit : 
 sciri enim faeit j^eccatum potius quam caveri, et ideo magis augeri 
 quam minui, quia mala3 concupiscentiee etiam preevaricatio legis 
 accedit." And " Contra Julianum," i. 94 : " In hoc est prtedesti- 
 natis adjutorium littera, quia jubendo et non juvando, admonet 
 infirmos confugere ad spiritum gratiae. Sic lege legitime utuntur, 
 quibus bona est, id est, utilis : alioquin per se ipsa littera occidit; 
 quia jubendo bonum, et non largiendo caritatem, quee sola vult 
 bonuiu, reos piffivaricationis facit." 
 
 ^ " Liber do Div. Quaest.," 'o^ : " Lex peccati dicitur, non quia lex 
 ipsa peccatum est, sed quia peccatoribus imponitur. Ideo etiaui lex 
 
Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 ill CJirist Jesus" with "the Law of sin and death" — a 
 phrase which he curiously applies to the Law of Moses, 
 — and shows that the latter could at the utmost produce 
 an outward and servile obedience, whereas the former, 
 1)eino- written, not on tables of stone, but on fleshy tables 
 of the heart, working not from without but from within, 
 ' having for its motive not fear but love, is a principle 
 not of death but of life, and sets men free to serve God 
 in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. 
 I have thought it well thus to anticipate an objection 
 which might be made to the subject of these lectures. 
 It might be said that, in using the words "letter" and 
 "spirit" for the outward and inward, the accidental 
 and the essential elements of religious faith and life, we 
 are, in fact, availing ourselves of a poj^ular misapplica- 
 tion of St. Paul's terminology, and sheltering ourselves 
 under his authority while using his words in a perverted 
 sense. Now, it is quite true that sometimes the words 
 of a well-known writer do thus become insensibly de- 
 flected into a sense quite alien from their proper 
 meaning. Shakespeare's " One touch of nature makes 
 
 mortis, quia stipendiuni peccati mors, aciileus mortis peccatiim, 
 virtus autem peccati lex. Peccando enim ad mortem labimur. . . . 
 Lex ergo peccati et mortis, id est, qtiae imposita est peccantibus 
 atque morientibus, jubet tantum ne concupiscamus, et tamen con- 
 cupiscimus. Lex autem spiritus vita3, quae peitinet ad gratiam, 
 et liberat a lege peccati et mortis, facit ut non concupiscamus, 
 et impleamus jussa legis, non jam servi legis per timorem, sed 
 amici per caritatem, et servi justitiee unde ilia lex promulgata est." 
 But elsewhere Augustine takes another and a truer view (Serm. 
 clii.) : " Ilia vero lex peccati et mortis non est lex Dei." He 
 identifies it with the law of sin which is in the members. 
 
14 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 the whole world kin " ^ has become a kind of proverb, in 
 a sense absolutely foreign to the context ; but I maintain 
 that St. Paul's use, and especially his later use, of the 
 words " letter " and " spirit " does contain implicitly the 
 modern application of them, and that in this, as in 
 other instances, he has, in fact, enriched popular language 
 by the use of a valuable and pregnant phrase. 
 
 For we must not suppose that the distinction between 
 "letter "and "spirit" goes no deeper than the contrast 
 between Jewish law and Christian liberty. It is a 
 distinction which runs through all religion and all 
 philosophy, and which rests upon a fundamental principle 
 of human nature— the principle that man is a respon- 
 sible moral agent, whose highest perfection is not 
 obedience to an outward law, but fidelity to an inward 
 spirit. And from this it follows that what he requires 
 is not a code of rules to be followed implicitly, but 
 principles of action to be applied by an enlightened 
 conscience. It is true that in the childhood, as well of 
 the race as of the individual, there is need of the dis- 
 cipline of the letter — " touch not, taste not, handle not," 
 is what children can understand ; but the only value of 
 such discipline is to produce first a habit of obedience, 
 and then gradually the deliberate moral choice of those 
 " who by reason of use have their senses exercised to 
 discern jxood and evil." If the dominion of the letter 
 
 ^ "Troilus aiid Cressida," Act III., Sc. iii. Delius's note on 
 this much misunderstood passage is, " Es geht ein und derselbe 
 naturliche Zug durcli die ganze Welt, und hewirkt bei alien Meu- 
 schen, als oL sie verwandt wiiren, derselben Hang," etc. 
 
Lect. I. ] INTR OD UCTION 1 5 
 
 is prolonged into mature life, it kills tlie freedom, tlie 
 spontaneity, of action, A child may be coerced by a law ; 
 a man must be led by the Spirit. The obedience of the 
 letter is valueless in God's sight, because it is mechanical 
 and external ; the life of the Spirit is moral, and works 
 from within outwards. It was this principle tliat 
 •imderlay our Lord's denunciations of the scribes and 
 Pharisees. They were hypocrites, because their outward 
 acts of religion were not the expression of their inner 
 life ; they walked, not after the Spirit, but after the 
 letter. It was this that He meant when He declared 
 that the first and ofreat commandment was the love of 
 God and the second the love of our neighbour, and that 
 on these two commandments hung all the Law and the 
 Prophets. This, too, is what He meant when He told 
 His disciples that it was expedient for them that He 
 should go away, in order that the Comforter might come 
 to them ; that the time had come when His personal 
 presence and teaching would be a hindrance to their 
 spiritual growth ; that it was time for them to rise above 
 the mechanical obedience of children into the higher and 
 more intelligent life of men ; that they needed no longer 
 an outward, but an inward, guide ; that they must walk 
 by faith, not by sight. It was this that St. Paul meant 
 when he contrasted the righteousness of the Law with the 
 righteousness of faith, and when he declared that a man 
 is justified by faith, apart from the works of the Law. It 
 was this that, when the mediseval Church had substituted 
 ritual observance and almsgiving for spiritual religion, 
 gave force to Luther's vehement denunciations of the 
 
i6 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 Papal system, and to bis assertion of justification by 
 faith as the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesice — the 
 principle that righteousness, to be of any value, must be, 
 not external, but internal ; the result, not of law and 
 discipline, but of the working of the Spirit of God. 
 Every true religious reform, whether within or without 
 the pale of the Christian Church, is in one form or 
 another a re-assertion of the spiritual element — a re-ad- 
 justment of the form or letter. Such were those 
 movements in the Church which foreshadowed the 
 Eeformation — those of Arnold of Brescia, of the Albi- 
 genses, and of the Waldenses, in the twelfth century ; 
 of the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit and of the 
 Friends of God in the fourteenth ; of John Huss and 
 Jerome of Prague in the fifteenth. Such, too, in its 
 essence, was Buddhism, as a spiritual system, a revolt 
 against the literalisms and formalisms of Brahminism. 
 Such seems to have been the object of the dialectic of 
 Socrates — to detach the minds of his countrymen from 
 formulas, and to open their understandings to receive 
 the spirit of wisdom. And may we not say that the 
 celebrated advice of Dr. Johnson, " Clear your mind 
 from cant," was in effect an admonition to his hearers 
 to shake off the trammels of the letter and to be ready 
 to listen to the spirit of truth, even wlien its voice 
 sounded contrary to their own prepossessions ? 
 
 We recognize the same two elements in the Church 
 in all ages. Always we find in one form or another the 
 Jewish and the Gentile, the dogmatic and the rational 
 element, the tendency to submit to authority and the 
 
Lect. L] introduction 17 
 
 tendency to assert the right of private judgment. One 
 man is never happy until he has an external law to lean 
 upon ; he must be able to refer his actions to some rule 
 outside himself; he wants an authority which shall 
 relieve him of the responsibility of deciding for himself. 
 Another looks, not to an outward law, but to an inward 
 spirit ; he acknowledges the duty of private judgment ; 
 he is not under the Law, but under grace. In morals 
 you have the man who trusts to system and the man 
 who trusts to inspiration. In art you have the man 
 who works by rule and the man who is a law to himself. 
 In politics you have the man who follows precedent and 
 the man who trusts to the insight of the moment. Each 
 character by itself is apt to develop into an extreme : 
 on the one hand, into a narrow dogmatism, boasting 
 of its superiority to reason ; on the other, into a self- 
 sufficient rationalism, proud of its independence of all 
 authority. And it is easier to be wholly in the one 
 extreme or wholly in the other, to sacrifice reason 
 altogether or to repudiate authority absolutely, than 
 to combine the two elements, to temper private judg- 
 ment with reverence and self-distrust, to blend meekness 
 with wisdom, and thus to make of twain one new 
 man. There are not wanting -zealots on either side who 
 will assure you that compromise is impossible ; that 
 between Ultramontanism and Atheism there is no logical 
 standing-ground ; that you must accept everything or 
 reject everything. In the controversies of the last fifty 
 years instances of these extremes have not been wanting 
 in the University. Oxford has produced some of the 
 
 C 
 
i8 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 foremost assertors of Papal infallibilit)^ and some of the 
 most vigorous assailants of all definite belief. Perhaps, 
 when the history of religious thought in the nineteenth 
 century comes to be written, it will be found that the 
 best, work of this place has been neither the assertion 
 nor the denial of authority, but the teaching men to 
 look at things as they are, the educating them in the 
 love of truth for its own sake, the impressing on them 
 that they are responsible, not only for what they do, but 
 also for what they believe. 
 
 It will be my object in these lectures to discriminate 
 between the letter and the spirit, between the form and 
 the essence, in Scripture exegesis, in the organization 
 and constitution of the Church, in the Sacraments, and 
 iu Christian doctrines and ordinances. In doing so, I 
 shall endeavour to be mindful of the objects with which 
 these divinity lecture sermons were founded, prominent 
 amono- which was " to confirm and establish the Christian 
 faith," and to maintain "the Divine authority of the 
 Holy Scriptures." Hitherto, certainly neither the Chris- 
 tian faith nor the authority of the Scriptures has gained 
 by the persistent maintenance of the letter. Those who 
 from time to time have undertaken the advocacy of the 
 Christian faith have too often made that faith to consist, 
 not in loyalty to the Divine Spirit whereby the whole 
 body of the Church in all ages is governed and sanctified 
 and enlightened, but in a blind adhesion to a formula, 
 an interpretation, a letter. The authority of Scripture 
 has been gravely imperilled when men have invoked it 
 to prove that it was impossible that human beings should 
 
Lect. I.l INTRODUCTION 
 
 19 
 
 live at. the antipodes/ that it was impious to believe 
 that "the apparent motion of the sun was due to the 
 earth's rotation, that geology was a delusive science 
 because it tauo^ht that Creation was the work not of six 
 days but of untold ages, that witchcraft is a crime 
 which a Christian State is bound to recog^nize and to 
 puiiish with death, that resistance to even the most 
 arbitrary government is forbidden to Christian men, that 
 Grod for His own greater glory has sent some men into 
 the world foreordained to eternal damnation.^ And, in 
 the same way, they are not the best defenders of the 
 Christian faith who refuse to recognize the work of the 
 Spirit, the Giver of life, in all the manifold varieties of 
 thought, of organization, of ritual, of character, of social 
 life, which are evolved in the course of ages, and who 
 desire to stereotype the Church's life according to the 
 pattern of the first, or of the fourth, or of the seventh, 
 or of the sixteenth century. God is a Spirit ; He cannot 
 be adequately expressed in terms of human language ; 
 He dwelleth not in temples made with hands ; no human 
 
 ^ Augustine, " De Civ. Dei," xvi. c. 9 : " Quod Vero et Antipo- 
 (las esse fabulantur, id est, homines a contravia parte terree, ubi sol 
 oritur, quando occidit nobis, ad versa pedibus nostris calcare vesti- 
 gia, nulla ratione credendum est. . . Quoniam nullo modo Scriptura 
 ista mentitur, qua3 narratis praeteritis facit fidem, eo quod ejus 
 prcedicta complentur: nimisque absurduni est, ut dicatur aliquos 
 homines ex hac in illam partem, Oceani immensitate trajecta navi- 
 gare ac pervenire potuisse, ut etiam illic ex uno illo primo homine 
 genus institueretur huraanum." 
 
 ^ " Westminster Confession," ch. iii. : " By the decree of God, 
 for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predes- 
 tinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting 
 death." 
 
20 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 institutions, however venerable, can contain Him. In the 
 spiritual, as in the natural world, variety is characteristic 
 of His working ; of the one as of the other we may say, 
 " Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom hast 
 Thou made them all." 
 
 I trust that to treat of this subject in a reverent 
 spirit and with a sense of responsibility may not be 
 unseasonable at the present time. For, to all appearance, 
 we have entered on a critical period in the history of 
 religious belief. Perhaps it is not so much that new 
 questions are being stirred, as that old questions are 
 assuming an acuter form, and are exciting a wider 
 interest, and are being discussed under new conditions. 
 It is sometimes said that religious questions have lost 
 their interest ; that men no longer care for them. That 
 can hardly be the case, if we may judge from the space 
 which they occupy in the literature of the day. Men do 
 care for them, but they will not accept conventional or 
 traditional solutions of them, they will not defer to mere 
 assertions of authority. At such a time, it is necessary 
 to distinguish very carefully between that which is per- 
 manent and essential and that which is temporary and 
 accidental in our religious systems : to endeavour (if I 
 may borrow the words of the Master of Balliol) " to 
 restore the Gospel to its simpHcity ; to turn from the 
 letter to the spirit ; to withdraw from the number of 
 the essentials of Christianity points almost too subtle for 
 the naked eye." 
 
 The contrast between the letter and the spirit may, 
 perhaps, be not unfitly illustrated by the change which 
 
Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 lias taken place in this University in the last half 
 century. There are those here who can remember a 
 time when the Academical life of Oxford was compassed 
 about with statutes and formulas and promissory oaths ; 
 when every man at his matriculation was obliged to 
 subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, and to swear to 
 observe the Laudian Statutes ; when, before admission 
 to the foundation of a College or to any statutable office, 
 it was necessary to swear to observe statutes, many of 
 them quite obsolete, with which the candidate was 
 prudently allowed no opportunity of making himself 
 acquainted : when much of the narrowness and exclu- 
 siveness of the medigeval system lingered in the modern 
 life of the University. This generation has seen changes 
 such as had not been witnessed certainly since the 
 sixteenth century. Not only has the whole system of 
 obsolete statutes, of vexatious restrictions, of unnecessary 
 oaths been swept away ; but new elements, ecclesiastical, 
 social, intellectual, have been freely and ungrudgingly 
 admitted. And I believe that those who are best able 
 to judge will admit that the result has been gain and 
 not loss to the life of the University ; that, whereas the 
 letter, the system of antiquated restrictions and exclu- 
 sions, killed, the spirit, the wider, freer, more modern 
 system of liberty and comprehension has given life. 
 Only let it never be forgotten that the more external 
 restraint is removed, the more need there is of watchful 
 self-restraint ; and that if the life of the University is 
 more free and more vigorous than of old, it is so much 
 the more necessary to take care that that life be guided 
 
22 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 and penetrated by the Spirit of Christ. For remember 
 that the influence of Oxford is no longer confined to 
 a narrow class of society. The life that flows from this 
 place penetrates year by year deeper and deeper into 
 the social system of England ; the streams that have 
 their source here aff'ect for good or for evil an ever- 
 widening area. If plain living and high thinking are 
 the rule here, it cannot but afi'ect for good the national 
 life ; but if luxury, extravagance, dilettanteism infect 
 Oxford, then, the eye being evil, there is danger lest the 
 whole body be full of darkness. 
 
 And you young men who hear me, sufl"er me to say 
 a word in conclusion specially to you. You are entering 
 upon life at a time when, if religion is to be a factor in 
 your lives at all, it will be necessary for you to make 
 choice between the relio;iou of the letter and the relioion 
 of the Spirit. For there is, I fear, in our day a tendency 
 to make religion more and more a matter of system, of 
 compact and definite organization. It is less difiicult to 
 be a zealous and enthusiastic Churchman or a zealous 
 and enthusiastic Nonconformist than to be a consistent 
 disciple of Christ ; and it is possible to be full of the 
 spirit of Churchmanship or of Nonconformity or of 
 Catholicity or of Protestantism and yet not to have 
 much of the spirit of Christ. For whenever men act 
 together for a common purpose, there is a tendency to 
 lose sight of the end and to think chiefly of the means : 
 and in religious life especially, the visible and tangible 
 is apt to take the place of the invisible and spiritual, 
 and zeal for a Church or for an order or for a party will 
 
Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 sometimes, call imsuspectecl, become a substitute for zeal 
 for the Kingdom of God. But here, too, it is true 
 that the letter killeth : if we suffer any outward thing, 
 any organization or form or system, to command our 
 alleoiauce and absorb our interest, if we forget that all 
 these things are but means to an end, and that, apart 
 from that end, they are in themselves Voalueless, we are 
 in the position which St. Paul describes as having begun 
 in the Spirit and being perfected in the flesh. The 
 Kingdom of God does not consist in anything outward, 
 not in Church government, not in Apostolical succession, 
 not in Catholic ritual, but in righteousness and peace 
 and joy in the Holy Spirit. "It is the Spirit that 
 quickeneth," says our Lord; "the flesh profiteth nothing : 
 the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and 
 they are life." Do not begin with outward things, with 
 Churchmanship or with party organization or with rules 
 of conduct. Begin with the first and great command- 
 ment, the love of God, and with the second which is 
 like unto it, the love of your neighbour : let these be 
 the supreme motives, the governing force of your life. 
 If you are looking forward to the Christian ministry as 
 your work, do not set before you as your first object the 
 promotion of Church principles or Evangelical principles, 
 but simply the service of God and of your fellow-men, 
 and all the rest will fall into its proper place. Or if you 
 are purposing to undertake some so-called secukr voca- 
 tion and ministry, then remember that to promote the 
 well-being of your fellow-men, to cultivate a spirit of 
 brotherly kindness and helpfulness, to try to bring 
 
24 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I. 
 
 together on the ground of their common humanity 
 classes which have learnt to misunderstand and to sus- 
 pect each other, is a higher and a nobler aim than to 
 serve a political party or to win a political triumph : 
 and that to live after the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, 
 is the only way in which you can realize the Christian 
 ideal. Christ requires of you, not obedience to an out- 
 ward rule, not submission to an outward system, but 
 faithfulness to Him. " If ye continue in My word, then 
 are ye My disciples indeed ; and ye shall know the 
 truth, and the truth shall make you free." 
 
LECTURE IL 
 
 IN SCRIPTUEE EXEGESIS. 
 
 " Who also made us sufficient as ministers of a New Covenant ; 
 not of the letter, but of the sjiirit : for the letter killeth, but the 
 spirit giveth life."— 2 Cor. iii. 6 (E.V.). 
 
 I POINTED out in my former lectm-e that, although the 
 terms " letter " and " Spirit " really cover a much wider 
 area of meaning, yet St. Paul, in his original use of them, 
 does practically identify the letter, ypdixfxa, the thing 
 written, with the Old Covenant, and the Spirit, the prin- 
 ciple of life and freedom, with the New. To St. Paul, in- 
 deed, as I have already remarked, the conception of the 
 New Covenant as contained in or dependent on written 
 documents does not seem to have been possible: his sense 
 of the shortness of the time, his expectation of the coming 
 of the Lord, would have made it unnatural for him to 
 contemplate any provision for stereotyping the living 
 Word. The epistle of Christ that he contemplated was 
 written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living 
 God. The permanent record that he cared for was not in 
 tables of stone, but in Heshy tables of the heart. Indeed, 
 human language must of necessity act as a limitation to 
 
2 6 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 the freedom of the incomprehensible, illimitable Spirit. 
 " Unspeakable words " — so St. Paul describes what he 
 heard when he was caught up to the third heaven.^ 
 " Groaninors which cannot be uttered " — such are the 
 inarticulate pleadings of the Spirit making intercession 
 for us.^ As there are " thoughts that lie too deep for 
 tears," so there are thoughts, yearnings, aspirations after 
 God, glimpses of the Eternal, which no words can utter. 
 A man full of the Holy Spirit will strive to pour forth 
 to others the gift which God has committed to him to 
 profit withal : but when he would do this in words, he 
 finds that the more he is possessed with the Spirit the 
 more is he straitened, hampered, baffled by the limita- 
 tions of speech. He speaks with stammering lips ; his 
 utterances are broken, abrupt, inconsequent. And still 
 more in writing does the mechanical process tend to 
 check and impede the spiritual force ; so that it becomes 
 rough and irregular, like a mountain stream pouring 
 down over a rocky bed. And from this it follows that 
 inspiration — the possession of the spirit of man by the 
 Spirit of God — far from being a guarantee of the 
 adequacy and perfection of his written or spoken 
 utterances, tends rather the other way: it is the un- 
 inspired, shallow, conventional man that puts forth all 
 his mind in a clear, simple, popular style ; the prophet 
 finds the Spirit thwarted by the letter, and he cannot 
 fully utter the truth that is in him. And this we must 
 take into account in dealing with all sacred books. 
 They are sure to be below the level, so to speak, of what 
 ^ 2 Cor. xii. 4. ^ Eom. viii. 26. 
 
Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 27 
 
 they record. They do but indicate to us the "depth of 
 the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God." They 
 do but reveal how much there is that cannot be revealed, 
 "liow unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past 
 tracing out." They cannot express fully the Mind of the 
 Spirit. This, too, is why parabolic teaching — the teach- 
 ing by symbolic act or figurative speech — is so often the 
 best resource of the highest teachers : because it only 
 professes to be like a picture shown to children, giving 
 the mere rudimentary outline of the doctrine, and leaving 
 it to grow and fructify in the mind of the hearer. And 
 if the hearer is not himself spiritual, he will not discern 
 the spirituality of the teaching. And this seems to 
 have been our TiOrd's meaning when He said, " Unto 
 you is given the mystery of the Kingdom of God : but 
 unto them that are without, all things are done in 
 parables : that seeing they may see, and not perceive ; 
 and hearing they may hear, and not understand." 
 Those who were without, those who were not spiritual 
 enough to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven, could not get beyond the letter, could not be 
 taught of the Spirit. 
 
 The Old Covenant, then, as contrasted with the New, 
 was a dispensation of the letter. But although this 
 was so, and although in the later ages of Jewish history 
 the reverence for the letter became idolatrous and stifled 
 the Spirit, yet that the Old Dispensation was in its 
 essence and inner purpose spiritual, that the Spirit of 
 God " spake by the Prophets," that the Christian Church 
 has been guided by a right instinct in adopting the Law 
 
 i/ 
 
28 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms into her 
 pubhc services along with the writings of the New 
 Covenant, will be acknowledged by all who recognize 
 the continuity of the Divine revelation. 
 
 In discussiDg the letter and the Spirit in the writings 
 of the Old Testament, it is not necessary to say much as 
 to the Jewish view of these books, except so far as it has 
 coloured tlie Christian view. It has long been clear that 
 it is impossible to accept the old and simple theory, that 
 the Jewish acceptance of the Canon guarantees the 
 authorship and genuineness of the whole. It is impos- 
 sible to doubt that the historical books are made up of 
 elements of very varying age and authorship, which have 
 undergone redaction and arrangement at a comparatively 
 late period. The most recent theory, that of Well- 
 hausen, seems to indicate that the earliest legislation 
 consisted of a very elementary code contained in the 
 twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third chapters 
 of Exodus, while the details of the Levitical system were 
 not fully developed, or at any rate not committed to 
 writing, till after the time of Ezekiel. We are as yet far 
 from having arrived at a definite settlement of the 
 questions connected with the Old Testament ; but should 
 this theory be received as the final result, it would only 
 give a still fuller sense to St. Paul's saying that the Law 
 was spiritual, and would make the Prophetical system 
 appear as a re-assertion of the simplicity of the earlier 
 Law. 
 
 Nor must we omit to take into account the fact, 
 that "the reverence which the Jews paid to the letter 
 
Lect. IL] in scripture EXEGESIS 29 
 
 of their, sacred books as a whole in the time of our Lord, 
 was in a very great measure a growth of the period 
 which intervened between the closing of the Old 
 Testament and the opening of the New."^ When the 
 Spirit no longer spake by the Prophets — when the word 
 of the Lord no longer came to the people fresh and living 
 and powerful, but only eV ypdixfjiaTL, in the written 
 documents which the Scribes guarded and interpreted, it 
 could hardly be but that the letter should take the 
 place of the Spirit, and that the word of God should 
 mean to them no longer the living oracles by which He 
 had manifested Himself to the hearts of His people, but 
 the dead writings which were all that remained of them. 
 So it must be always : when faith grows feeble, and the 
 Living Spirit no longer speaks to the hearts of men, they 
 must needs fall into the bondage of the letter ; they 
 must rest upon something outward and tangible — a law, 
 a writing, an institution, a formula ; when the Law of the 
 Lord is no longer in men's hearts, they bind it as 
 phylacteries on their foreheads. 
 
 But, as I have said, the question which we have to 
 consider is, not what was the relation of the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures to the Jews, but what is their relation to 
 us. And this question cannot be settled summarily by 
 a reference to the views of the early Church. For it 
 was natural for the first Christians to regard the Jewish 
 Church with special and even exaggerated reverence. 
 As I have already pointed out, the Church had no 
 Scriptures of its own ; the Apostles had been trained in 
 ^ Myers, " Catholic Thoughts." 
 
 i/ 
 
30 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 the Jewish system ; from children they had known the 
 Holy Scriptures of the Old Covenant ; and the traditions 
 of Christ would tell how He was in the habit of referring 
 to the Law as the standard of truth — " What is written in 
 the Law ? how readest thou % " — and how, in the hour of 
 His temptation, and in His first struggle on the Cross, 
 the words of Deuteronomy and the Psalms gave expres- 
 sion to His obedience and filial trust. What, therefore, 
 could be more natural than that, in their meetings for 
 worship, Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms should 
 be used much as they were in the synagogue, and that 
 the Christian mind should delight to find Christ every- 
 where in types, and shadows, and mysteries, in the 
 writings of the Old Covenant ? Even when the destruc- 
 tion of the Temple shattered the organization of the 
 Jewish Church, still the Jewish Christians remained 
 faithful to their nationality. The Gentile converts were 
 indeed regarded as entering upon the heritage of Israel, 
 but the Jews were still the old noblesse; and the Gentile 
 came in somewhat as a parvenu. The Gentile entered 
 the Church stripped of all his past religious life : the 
 gods of Olympus w^ere no gods; or worse, they were 
 demons whom Christ had come to drive out: but the 
 Jew came in clothed in all the majesty of his past 
 history, the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, 
 and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and 
 the promises. And so it was inevitable that the tradi- 
 tions of the primitive Church should be Jewish ; that 
 the infant Church should be wrapped in Jewish swaddling 
 clothes. " To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile " w^as 
 
Lect. IL] in scripture EXEGESIS 31 
 
 St. Paul's own rule. But gradually the Gentile element 
 
 became stronger ; gradually, too, Apostolic writings, 
 
 addressed originally to particular Churches, passed from 
 
 city to city, and became the common property of all ; 
 
 gradually oral traditions, derived from those who from 
 
 the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the 
 
 Word, took shape in written documents, compiled by 
 
 men who had traced the course of all things accurately 
 
 from the first : and the Church, already inheriting from 
 
 the synagogue the traditional reverence for the Canon of 
 
 the Old Testament, transferred an equal share of that 
 
 reverence to the gradually accumulating writings of the 
 
 New Covenant, and the two literatures were fused into 
 
 one,^ and the Law and the Prophets were read with the 
 
 Gospels and Epistles, and the Psalms of David were 
 
 sung in the assemblies along with Christian hymns, and 
 
 a new light was shed back upon the old writings, and 
 
 the mysteries of the faith were found embedded deep in 
 
 the books of the Old Testament. The two streams 
 
 flowed on for a time, like the Arve and the Elione, 
 
 distinct in colour, the one turbid after its long course 
 
 from Mount Sinai, the other limpid and fresh from the 
 
 Galilean lake ; but little by little they mingled and 
 
 became one, and the Catholic Church flowed on, to 
 
 receive new elements, to water new lands, to make glad 
 
 the city of God. 
 
 It is necessary to remember the way in which the 
 
 Jews had come to regard their sacred books, in order to 
 
 ^ Tertullian de Prsescr., 36 : " (Ecclesia) legem et prophetas 
 cum evangelicis et apostolicis litteris miscet et iude potat fidem." 
 
32 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT Lect. 1 1. 
 
 understand the tradition which the Christian Church 
 inherited on the subject of Inspiration. Scarcely any- 
 thing is said of inspiration in the New Testament 
 beyond the well-known phrase in 2 Tim. iii., ypacfir) 
 OeoTTveva-TO'^ ; nor does it appear that any kind of formal 
 definition M^as attempted by early writers. The Christian 
 Scriptures fell naturally into the same rank with the 
 Jewish, and were described in the same terms. And so 
 it came about, that the Old and the New Testament 
 were regarded by the Church as of co-ordinate authority, 
 and the Old Testament was used as freely and un- 
 hesitatingly as the New in proof of Christian doctrine. 
 Origen, indeed, rests the proof of the inspiration of the 
 Old Testament on the authority of Christ, thus making 
 the Old subordinate to and dependent on the New ; but 
 generally the Jewish Scriptures were received without 
 question and without any particular theory as a part of 
 the Divine revelation, as part of the vineyard which had 
 been taken away from the original husbandmen and 
 given to the Christian Church. 
 
 It appears then, that, setting aside such passing 
 extravagances as those of Marcion and the early 
 Gnostics, the Old Testament was from the first adopted 
 into the Christian Canon, was indeed for a time the only 
 sacred literature of the Church, and was regarded after- 
 wards with the same reverence as the New. It would 
 seem that at the Reformation there must have been a 
 tendency to reject or at any rate to depreciate the Old 
 Testament, for the original form of the seventh Article 
 of the Church of England ran thus : "The Old Testa- 
 
Lect. ir.l IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 
 
 33 
 
 ment is not to be put away, as though it were contrary 
 to the New, but to be kept still." And the nineteenth 
 Article, as it stood in 1552, indicates a tendency to exalt 
 the spirit at the expense of the letter ; for it runs, " They 
 are not to be hearkened unto who affirm that Holy 
 Scripture is given only to the weak, and do boast them- 
 selves continually of the Spirit, of Whom (they say) 
 they have learned such things as they teach, although 
 the same be most evidently repugnant to the Holy 
 Scripture." But this tendency, if it existed, soon passed 
 away, and the effect of the Reformation was undoubtedly 
 to enforce upon the Protestant Churches stricter views of 
 the inspiration of Scripture. When men's faith in an 
 infallible Church was shaken, it became necessary to 
 substitute some other foundation for the Catholic faith 
 to rest on, and the infallibility of Scripture took the 
 place of the infalbbility of the Church. So that, until 
 of late years, the alternative was to accept the Bible as 
 a whole, as from beo;inninof to end the direct utterance 
 of the Holy Spirit, as thus guaranteed against error and 
 imperfection of whatever kind, and as equally perfect 
 and equally valuable in all its parts ; or, on the other 
 hand, to reject it as a fiction, unworthy of the serious 
 attention of reasonable men. To us, the subject presents 
 itself under an entirely different aspect. For we have 
 learnt to lay aside preconceived theories, and to start 
 from the Bible as it stands, to compare it with the 
 sacred books of other religions, to study it in the light 
 of history, to inquire into its influence on human 
 character and progress, to recognize in it a human 
 
 I) 
 
34 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 literature, and to ask, Does or does not tliis high 
 moraUty, this deep insight into human nature, this 
 unique power of stirring the human heart, compel us to 
 ascribe to writings so immeasurably in advance of the 
 age and nation in which they appeared a more than 
 human origin ? We have learnt to distrust the theory 
 of a mechanical inspiration, such as, for example, that 
 which describes the Spirit breathing into the prophets 
 as a flute-player into a flute ; ' and to regard the Divine 
 inspiration, not as something apart or isolated, a process 
 beginning and ending in the production of a book, but 
 as the pouring out of God's Spirit upon all flesh, as the 
 putting His laws into men's hearts and writing them 
 upon their minds. We have learnt that, as in the case 
 of Israel, so in the case of the Christian Church, the 
 living society existed before the written books ; and that 
 the books are the outcome and the record of the spiritual 
 life penetrating and permeating the society. And there- 
 fore upon us there seems to be laid the task of en- 
 deavouring gradually to discriminate between the essen- 
 tial and the accidental, between the temporary and 
 permanent elements in the sacred writings. And with 
 regard especially to the Old Testament, we have to face the 
 very grave question, What are the relations in which the 
 Hebrew Scriptures stand to the modern Christian Church ? 
 In the recently published " Life of Lord Shaftesbury," 
 we are told that that excellent man was shocked by the 
 assertion that the Books of Chronicles and the Gospel of 
 St. Luke did not stand on the same ground of inspiration; 
 
 ^ 'IJo-ci avXrjTTjs avXov e/xTrveuVas. — Athenagoras. 
 
Lect. IL] in scripture EXEGESIS 
 
 35 
 
 and that he maintained that, "there is no security what- 
 ever except in standing upon the faith of our fathers, 
 and saying that the blessed old Book is ' God's word 
 written,' from the very first syllable to the very last, 
 and from the last back to the first." ^ That was a view 
 which was common enough formerly, but which few 
 probably even moderately educated persons hold now. 
 On the other hand, there are some who desire Christianity 
 without Judaism ; who think that the Church has out- 
 grown her early wrappings, and that the Old Testament 
 books have for us a purely historical or literary interest.^ 
 But it is impossible for the Christian faith to sever itself 
 from its antecedents ; the genealogies contained in two 
 of our Gospels, whatever may be the difficulties con- 
 nected with them, may at least stand for symbols of the 
 fact that Christ came of the Jewish race as concern in 2; 
 the flesh ; and if there is such a thing as a science 
 of religion, it teaches us not the independence but the 
 continuity and solidarity of all religious systems. 
 Christ, in speaking to the Jews, seems to make the 
 belief of Moses' writings an antecedent condition to the 
 belief of His words ; and though we do not, like them, 
 accept Christ on the testimony of Moses, yet, in a wider 
 sense, the Law — not merely the Law of Moses, but the 
 whole system of discipline, of prohibition, of rej^ression, 
 which that Law embodies — has its place in the work of 
 bringing us to Christ. But, at the same time, this age 
 is becoming more alive to the fiict that there are in 
 
 ^ " Lord Shaftesbury's Life," iii., p. 7. 
 
 ^ l^.fj. Schleiermacher, " Glaubenslelire," ii., § 131. 
 
36 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 Christianity other and perhaps not less important 
 elements than the Jewish. It was, as I have said, quite 
 natural for the early Church consecrare origines suas by 
 looking back to the glories of the Old Covenant, softened 
 as to its less attractive features by the haze of antiquity ; 
 but, as time went on, other threads became interwoven 
 in the fabric of the Christian tradition, and fresh tints 
 were introduced ; the Gentile element tended more and 
 more to prevail over the Jewish, and the seamless robe, 
 not yet completed, contains in its texture the work of 
 maay ages and of many lands. It is, indeed, quite true 
 that in one aspect Christianity is an outgrowth of 
 Judaism. But it is easy to assign too much importance 
 to the Judaic element in it. For though Christ was 
 called the Son of David, though He w^as descended from 
 Jewish ancestors and brought ujd amid Jewish surround- 
 ings, yet he was in a far truer and more characteristic 
 sense the Son of Man : there was in Him nothing dis- 
 tinctively Galilean, nothing essentially Jewish ; He w^as 
 not of one age nor of one nation, but of all. And the 
 Christian faith, though sjiringing out of Jewish soil and 
 having its roots deeply entwined in the ancient Jewish 
 Scriptures, has drawn the elements of its growth not 
 only from its roots but also from the atmosphere into 
 which it has pushed its branches ; the grain of mustard 
 seed which Christ planted has grown into what it is 
 under the joint action of Oriental and Greek and Latin 
 and Teutonic influeuces. 
 
 It appears probable, therefore, that in the Christianity 
 of the future the position of the Old Testament will be 
 
Lect. IL] in scripture EXEGESIS 37 
 
 somewhat less prominent, less directly authoritative, than 
 it has been in the past. The oldness of the letter will 
 give place to the newness of the spirit. The Old Cove- 
 nant, indeed, can never lose its importance in any 
 complete system of theology. But there will be less 
 tendency to dwell upon minute points ; less attention 
 will be given to the letter of Messianic anticipations, and 
 more to the spirit of hope and yearning for a better 
 future which pervades the whole. To take an instance : 
 St. Peter, in asserting the impossibility of Christ's being 
 holden of death, applies to His Eesurrection the words of 
 Psa. xvi. : "I have set the Lord always before me ; 
 because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. 
 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth : my 
 .flesh also shall dwell in safety. For Thou wilt not leave 
 my soul to Sheol ; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy 
 one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of 
 life : in Thy presence is fulness of joy." We cannot 
 doubt that the letter of this Psalm refers to the feelings, 
 the joys and sorrows, of the Psalmist himself, and 
 expresses his own confident expectation that God, Whom 
 he saw always before him, would not lea've him finally 
 in the pit of trouble, but w^ould at length raise him up 
 and make him glad with the joy of His countenance. 
 But St. Peter adds his own comment, to the effect that 
 David both died and was buried, and therefore he could 
 not be speaking of himself ; but that, being a Prophet, 
 " and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, 
 that of the fruit of his loins He would set one upon his 
 throne ; he foreseeing this spake of the Eesurrection of 
 
38 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 the Christ, that neither was He left in Hades, nor did His 
 Flesh see corruption." But we need not, surely, hold that 
 David in any literal sense foresaw the Resurrection of the 
 Christ Who should come after him ; rather in the con- 
 fidence which he expresses is involved the everlasting 
 23rinciple that God w^ll never leave any of His faithful 
 servants to perish utterly ; that in His time He will 
 deliver them from the pit of corruption. And from this 
 it will follow, for those who believe in Christ, that for 
 Him above all it was impossible that He should be 
 holden of the pains of death ; that God was pledged by 
 His righteousness to deliver Him. And so, when we 
 use this Psalm on Easter morning or the fifty- third 
 chapter of Isaiah on Good Friday, we need not dwell 
 upon supposed literal anticipations of the Passion or 
 Resurrection, but we may think of Christ as the Son of 
 Man, gathering up into Himself all the sorrows and all 
 the hopes and all the longings of humanity, and ful- 
 filling them by giving them for all future ages a wider 
 and a nobler meaning than Psalmists and Prophets had 
 ever foreseen. K, indeed, we are to seek in the Old 
 Testament chiefly for literal and, so to say, mechanical 
 anticipations of future events, it loses most of its value 
 and interest for ordinary persons, and becomes a curious 
 study for ingenious interpreters : but if we will be con- 
 tent to see in it a record of God's Spirit working upon 
 the spirit of man, teaching him first the simplest and 
 most rudimentary lessons, then leading him up to higher 
 truth, and finally bidding him look forward to the 
 maturity of spiritual manhood, when the outward Law 
 
Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 39 
 
 should have done its work, and when God would put His 
 law in their inward parts, and write it on their hearts ; — 
 if we will be content so to regard the Old Testament, we 
 shall find that Moses in the Law and the Prophets did 
 write of Jesus of Nazareth, for that the things which 
 prophets and kings desired to see are manifested in Him, 
 and that the grace of Christ which was latent in the Old 
 Testament is revealed in the New.^ 
 
 The i:)rinciple which is here asserted, of the inferiority 
 of the letter to the spirit, has one special aspect which 
 formed the subject of an entire course of Bampton 
 Lectures^ more than sixty years ago, but which it is 
 impossible not to touch upon briefly, I mean the alle- 
 gorical interpretation of Scripture. " The letter killeth, 
 but the spirit giveth life," was a favourite text with 
 Origen, who is commonly regarded as the father of 
 mystical interpretation. Not, indeed, that this sys- 
 tem of interpretation originated with Origen ; we must 
 go much further back to find its source. It must 
 be borne in mind that the Old Testament was to the 
 Jews the whole of their literature ; all that we find in 
 past history, in the thoughts of poets and philosophers 
 
 ^ Aug., Qugest. in Exod., ii. 73 : " Ad vetus Testamentum timor 
 potius pertinet, sicut ad novum dilectio : quamquam et in vetere 
 novum lateat, et in novo vetus pateat." And Serm, clx. : " Novum 
 Testamentum in veteri velabatur: vetus Testamentum in novo 
 revelatur." Augustine points out that we do wrong to the New 
 Testament if we place it in the same rank with the Old : " Sicut 
 veteri testamento, si esse ex Deo bono et summo negetur; ita et 
 novo fit injuria, si veteri a^quetur." 
 
 ^ Conybeare's Bampton Lectures on the " History of Allegorical 
 Interpretation," 1824. 
 
40 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 of all ages and of all countries, they found in Moses and 
 the Prophets and the Psalms. And therefore it was 
 quite natural that their ideas should clotlie themselves 
 in Old Testament language ; that they should see, in the 
 Old Testament, types where we might see only coinci- 
 dences ; that they should say, " All this was done that 
 it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet,'"' 
 where we should at the utmost give point to a narrative 
 by a passing allusion. For example, when St. Matthew, 
 writing to Jews and from a Jewish point of view, men- 
 tions that the Infant Messiah was taken into Egypt for 
 refuge during Herod's life, where we should have per- 
 haps alluded to the ancient connexion of Israel w^ith 
 Egypt, he says that the sojourning in Egypt took place 
 in order "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of 
 the Lord by the Prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have 
 I called My Son." ^ St. Paul, again, when he wishes to 
 connect the spiritual life of Israel in the past with the 
 Messiah Who was his life, refers to a Jewish legend 
 which related how in the wilderness a rock followed the 
 people in their wanderings and supplied them with 
 water, and adds, "That Eock was Christ."^ When he 
 wishes to contrast the spiritual freedom of Christians 
 with the bondage of the Law, he thinks of the two sons 
 of Abraham, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a 
 free woman, and he says, " these things are an allegory ; 
 for these are the two Covenants."^ And from these it w^as 
 an easy and a natural step to find beneath the surface 
 of the sacred waitings inexhaustible mines of spiritual 
 1 Matt. ii. 15. 2 1 Cor. x. 4. « Gal. iv. 24. 
 
Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 41 
 
 truth .which ouly needed to be explored by those who 
 head the skill and insight to search them out. St. Paul's 
 hint that the natural man could not receive the things 
 of the Spirit of God/ was taken to mean that, while the 
 letter of Scripture was apparently plain, it required a 
 special initiation to reach that which alone was valuable, 
 the spiritual or mystical sense. And this tendency to 
 spiritualize and allegorize, which we find thoroughly 
 established by the second century of the Christian era, 
 was greatly encouraged by the circumstances of the 
 time. The policy of Alexander the Great in settling a 
 large colony of Jews in his newly founded city of Alex- 
 andria had brought the Jewish mind for the first time 
 into contact with Greek philosophy and speculation. 
 The effect of this had been twofold. On the one hand, 
 a certain number of Jews had forsaken the traditions of 
 their fathers and had broken altogether with the Mosaic 
 law ; and, on the other hand, many, without abandoning 
 the religion of Israel, had become disciples and students 
 of the Platonic philosophy. But then it followed that 
 if the Greek philosophy was true and the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures contained all wisdom, the one must be 
 implicitly contained in the other ; and thus Philo, the 
 representative of Alexandrian Judaism, endeavoured 
 " to accommodate the Mosaic history to an incredulous 
 age, and to blend Judaism and Platonism into one har- 
 monious system." ^ The allegorical method of interpre- 
 tation was not indeed invented by Philo ; but it was by 
 him that it was elaborated and popularized, and it was 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. ii. 14. ^ Milman, "History of Christianity," i. 25. 
 
42 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 mainly through his influence that it passed into the 
 Christian Church. In Origen, who was a disciple of 
 Clement of Alexandria, the system found its fullest 
 development. His fundamental principle is, " The letter 
 killeth, but the spirit giveth life." But in carrying out 
 this principle he virtually killed the letter by turning it 
 into a cryptograph, the literal meaning of which was 
 unimportant or even misleading. By disparaging the 
 literal and exalting the spiritual sense, he opened a door 
 to sublimating the whole of Scripture into a mystical 
 sense, intelligible only to the initiated, and so turning 
 it into a book of riddles, of which the key was in the 
 hands of the wise. To St. Augustme, and doubtless to 
 others like-minded with him, the allegorical interpre- 
 tation of the Old Testament was welcome as enabling 
 him to get over difficulties in the literal sense which had 
 troubled him when feeling his way towards a belief in 
 Christianity.^ Indeed, St. Augustine, though his power- 
 ful common sense saved him from much of the extra- 
 vagance of some both earlier and later interpreters, and 
 though he never evacuates the literal sense, yet at the 
 same time allows himself in the widest latitude of alle- 
 gorical interpretations, especially in his favourite subject 
 of mystical numbers. For example:^ Moses, Elijah, 
 and our Lord each fasted forty days. This number he 
 expounds thus : Four is the number of time ; the day 
 
 ^ Aug., " Conf.," vi. c. 4. : " Saepe in popularibus sermonibiis suis 
 dicentem Ambrosium Isetus audiebam : ' Litera occidit, spiritus 
 autem vivificat ; ' cum ea, quas ad literam perversitatem docere 
 videbantur, remote mystico vetamento spiritaliter aperiret." 
 
 2 Aug., "De Doct. Cbrist.," ii. c. IG. 
 
Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 43 
 
 and the year being each divided into four parts. Ten 
 signifies the Creator and the creature ; three being the 
 Trinity ; seven the creature, being made up of three, 
 the heart and soul and mind with which we are to love 
 God, and four, the elements of which the body is com- 
 posed. Thus the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel 
 unite in bidding us to keep the mystic forty days by 
 fasting from the things of time and subjecting body and 
 soul to God Who made them. Again, ^ in the hundred 
 and fifty and three great fishes cauglit on the right side 
 of the ship in the second draught of fishes, Augustine 
 finds a great mystery. Ten is the number of the com- 
 mandments of the Law, seven of the gifts of the Spirit. 
 Thus seventeen signifies the Old and the New Dispen- 
 sation. But if we make an arithmetical progression 
 beginning with 1 and ending w^ith 17, we arrive at 153, 
 which therefore signifies the great multitude which no 
 man can number, saved under the Law and the Gospel, 
 who shall be on the right side of the Judge. He has 
 also another and a far more elaborate and intricate 
 exposition of the same number, which it would be 
 tedious to set forth liere.^ 
 
 ^ Aug., "Enarr. in Psa. xlix." 
 
 ^ Aug., "De Diversis Quaes.," Ivii., and in " Joli. Ev.," Tractat. 
 cxxii. In the narrative in St. John vi., where the disciples are 
 related to have rowed five and twenty or thirty furlongs before 
 Jesus came to them, we find these numbers elaborately allegorized 
 thus : — 25 is the product of 5 X 5. He refers this to the 5 
 books of Moses, the 5 porches at Bethesda, the 5 loaves which fed 
 5000 men. From this he deduces that 25 = the Law. But the 
 Law was imperfect, therefore it is perfected in 6 : for God made 
 the world in 6 days. So 5 X 6 = 30, that the Law may be ful- 
 filled in the Gospel, and Jesus comes to thohe who fulfil the Law. 
 
44 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 Probably the most familiar and the most complete 
 example of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture is 
 to be found in the "Magna Moralia" of St. Gregory. This 
 work consists in an elaborate exposition of the Book of 
 Job, in which the whole book is violently Christianized, 
 and the minutest detail is pressed into the service of the 
 Gospel. Thus the seven sons of Job signify the twelve 
 Apostles, for the product of four and three, which are 
 the parts of seven, is twelve. Elsewhere the seven sons 
 are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the three 
 daughters are the Christian graces of Faith, Hope, and 
 Charity. The oxen which were plowing and the asses 
 feeding beside them when the Sabseans fell upon them 
 represent— the oxen, the more perfect Christians who do 
 the work ; the asses, the simpler brethren who feed in 
 green pastures. In the end of the book. Job had double 
 the number of sheep and camels and oxen and she asses 
 restored to him that he had possessed at first, but only 
 the same number of sons and daughters ; which signifies 
 that his original sons and daughters were living in 
 the unseen world, so that in fact he had double of all. 
 The camel signifies the Redeemer, because He stoops to 
 bear our burdens ; and hence the camel going through 
 the eye of the needle means Christ going through the 
 narrow gate of death. 
 
 I have touched upon these curiosities of Christian 
 literature, not only because they illustrate a strange and 
 formerly important aspect of my subject, but also because 
 the allegorical system of interpretation is not unheard of 
 in our day. It was strenuously vindicated in the last 
 
Lect. IL] in scripture EXEGESIS 45 
 
 but one of tlie " Tracts of the Times," by one whose name 
 can never be spoken in this place without honour and 
 reverence — John Keble, who was bokl enouiih to select 
 for defence two of the most astonishing instances from 
 the so-called Epistle of Barnabas. The author of this 
 work wished to show how circumcision is to be spiri- 
 tually understood. " See," he says, " how Abraham, who 
 first gave circumcision, looked forward to Jesus. He 
 circumcised the men of his household, in number 318. 
 Of the two letters which in the Greek numerals stand 
 for 18, 10 is represented by I, and 8 by H. Here, thou 
 hast 'It^otovs. 300 is represented by T. And T is the 
 figure of the Cross. He therefore sets forth Jesus by 
 two letters and the Cross by one." It is obvious to 
 remark that this depends on the Greek numerals, and, 
 that in the He1)rew there is no such signification ; and 
 further, that 318 was the number of Abraham's house- 
 hold, not at the time of circumcision, but long before, in 
 the war with Chedorlaomer. This is explained by the 
 theory that the mystery of the number was wonderfully 
 revealed to Abraham, and that his household was pro- 
 videntially kept to the same number. The same epistle 
 finds in the words of the first Psalm, " He shall be like a 
 tree planted by the streams of water," in the tree the 
 Cross, in the water Christian Baptism. 
 
 It is, perhaps, enough to remark, that such a system 
 of interpreting Scripture would require inspired inter- 
 preters. If the Bible means all this, plain men and 
 women cannot hope to understand it. A system which 
 makes Scri23ture mean anything is likely to end in 
 
46 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 making it mean nothing. Sermons constructed on tliis 
 principle — and such have been preached in the Church 
 of England in our day — could hardly touch any human 
 heart. When a man of learning and reputation finds 
 in the words, " I have determined to winter at Nico- 
 polis " our Lord's determination to leave the eternal 
 spring of heaven and to winter in this cold, bleak, 
 snowy world ; and in Nicopolis, the city of victory, an 
 indication of His victory over evil — " Notice the junction 
 of the two : the winter and the success : " — there is 
 nothing more to be said.^ 
 
 But we must not suffer the frivolities of interpreters 
 to turn us aside from the serious study of the Old 
 Testament. We may well acknowledge a typical 
 ch9,racter in it, wherever there is any real analogy 
 discernible : as, for example, when Esau and Jacob are 
 used as illustrations of different types of character, or 
 when God's dealings with Israel are taken as indications 
 
 ^ " Sermons preached in a Religious House," by Dr. John Mason 
 Neale; vol. i., serm. xv. An equally astonishing instauce is to 
 be found in the same volume, serm. xiii., on the text 1 Sam. 
 xxiii. 20 — " Now therefore, O King, come down according to all 
 the desire of thy soul to come down." The literal sense of the 
 passage, which is a petition of the Ziphites to Saul to come down 
 that they may deliver David into his hand, is nowhere alluded to. 
 It is applied to Christ's coming down, first in His Incarnation, 
 " from the crown of celestial majesty to the Diadem of Thorns ; 
 from the seat on the Eight Hand of the Father to the Cross on the 
 right hand of the impenitent thief;" and, secondly, to His coming 
 down in the Eucharist. " What better, what dearer prayer, as we 
 first, in each celebration, kneel before the Altar, than this — 'Now 
 therefore, King, come down according to all the desire of Thy 
 soul to come down ' ? " 
 
Lect. IL] in scripture EXEGESIS 47 
 
 of His. method of dealing with nations. We need not 
 hesitate to apply to ourselves the utterances of Psalmists 
 and Prophets, so far as they turn, not on local or tempo- 
 rary accidents, but on eternal principles. We must 
 endeavour to study Scripture seriously, not as a book con- 
 taining a secret meaning accessible only to the initiated, 
 not as an oracle skilfully arranged to convey different 
 senses to different inquirers, but as a collection of writings, 
 the interpretation of which depends greatly on the cir- 
 cumstances and the age of their composition. Cardinal 
 Newman indeed, in the last work that he wrote in the 
 Church of England, says that " it may almost be laid 
 down as an historical fact, that the mystical interpreta- 
 tion and orthodoxy will stand or fall together." One is 
 encouraged to hope that the case may not be so bad, by 
 noticing the kind of instances that he c^uotes as specimens 
 of his rule — the mention of '' waters " in the Apocalypse 
 in support of the mixture of water and wine in the 
 Eucharist ; " We went through fire and water, and 
 thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place," as an 
 argument for purgatory ; " My heart is inditing of a 
 good matter," or " has burst forth with a good Word," 
 as a proof of our Lord's Divinity, One hopes, I say, 
 that orthodoxy does not depend on an exegesis of this 
 kind ; but in any case, ocriov irpoTiixav tyjv aKrjdeiav — we 
 must prefer truth even to orthodoxy. To find a proof 
 of purgatory in a poetical reference to fire in a Hebrew 
 Psalm is ingenious indeed, but, to ordinary minds, not 
 convincing. Indeed, it would be possible, if it were not 
 profane, to construct on this method a system of Scrip- 
 
48 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 tural proofs of the most heterodox doctrines. We cannot 
 doubt that Luther's manly common sense hit the mark 
 when he declared that the literal sense of Scripture alone 
 contains the whole essence of faith and of Christian 
 theology ; and that we must aim at obtaining " unum, 
 simplicem, et certum sensum literalem." 
 
 Here, too, lies the danger of what is commonly 
 called the devotional study of the Scriptures. Nothing 
 can be better, nothing more edifying, than to take what 
 we may call the more inward parts of Scripture, pre- 
 eminently the Psalms, and to make them the basis of 
 religious meditations, so long as those meditations do not 
 become morbid or fanciful ; but if we yield to the tempta- 
 tion to seek for edification everywhere alike, we shall be 
 likely to run into a feeble mysticism, and to turn Scrip- 
 ture into something quite different from what it really is. 
 
 And yet we cannot doubt that even the unintelligent, 
 even the superstitious, use of Scripture has been of vast 
 spiritual benefit to untold numbers of simple Christians. 
 Not only in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testa- 
 ment, not only in the Psalms, but in the historical and 
 sapiential and prophetical literature of the Old Testament, 
 have pious souls sought and found the nourishment of 
 their spiritual life. How much of what is best in the 
 English character, how much of its sturdy persistency, 
 how much of its love of honesty and plain dealing, how 
 much of its reverence for domestic purity, may be 
 traced to the familiarity of our forefathers with the 
 letter of the Old Testament ! How much do we owe 
 to that element of rugged Puritanism, which was built 
 
Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 49 
 
 up mainly from Hebrew materials ! And if we have 
 outgrown the narrowness of Puritanism, let us not 
 think that we have also outgrown the Old Testament. 
 The letter killeth — true : but as in the education of the 
 race so in that of the individual, we need the stern 
 assertion of a moral standard, even though it be an 
 imperfect, a rudimentary one, to make us dissatisfied 
 with ourselves, to force upon us the contrast between 
 what we are and what we ought to be, to be to us a 
 TratSaywyo? ets XptcrTov, even though we may shrink and 
 struggle against being led to Him. In some sense we 
 still need that the letter should kill ; for not till we have 
 learnt to say with St. Paul, " wretched man that I am! 
 who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " 
 can we say with the same Apostle, "The law of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the 
 law of sin and death." 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTE TO LECTURE IL 
 
 It may perhaps be not iininstructive to see into what strange 
 conceptions of God's nature even good men have been led \)y 
 dwelling too much upon the letter of Scripture. The followino- 
 passage is from " Occasional Sermons," by the Eev. C. Claj'ton, of 
 Cambridge, p. 80 : " ' They will rise to shame and everlasting con- 
 tempt.' In the midst of their cries for deliverance the righteous 
 Lord will ' laugh ' at their calamities. While in their fear they 
 ■will be calling on the mountains to fall upon them and the hills 
 to cover them. He will ' mock ' at their distress. Only think, 
 brethren, think of that ! The loving Saviour, who once shed Ills 
 Blood for their sins, 'laughing' and ' mocking' the impenitent at a 
 season when most of all they will need a friend ! " 
 
 This, however, is weak compared with the following, from the 
 sermons of John Cawood, of Bewdley, a preacher of some reputa- 
 tion in his day (vol. i., p.'239j: "The wicked in Hell will have 
 
50 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II. 
 
 bodies fitted to endure everlasting burnings; bodies exquisitely 
 sensible of the smallest pain, and immortally strong to endure the 
 greatest ; every part of their body will be most tender to feel, and 
 every feeling part will be filled with agony. For their bodies will 
 be 'vessels of wrath fitted for destruction;' vessels filled to the 
 brim with fire, and fitted to endure this fire for ever. . . . Nor will 
 sinners in Hell have one drop of water to cool their tongue, or to 
 quench their thirst ; streams of fiery brimstone will be their only 
 portion to drink. . . . Painful as it is, even in imagination, to 
 dwell on these inextinguishable fires, flashing, and raging, and 
 roaring above, beneath, and all around ; yet must we proceed in 
 this painful course, for the suffering of the lost is not half told. 
 . . . After the wicked have suffered for millions of millions of 
 millions of ages, there will still be an eternity of suffering to come. 
 . . . Who can tell the grains of dust in the globe of the earth ? 
 Who can count the drops of water in the sea ? Who can number 
 the stars of light in the heaven? Add these grains of dust to 
 these drops of the ocean, and multiply the sum by the stars of 
 night, and ih^ vast amount overwhelms the mind. But when the 
 wicked in hell shall have been tormented through millions of ages 
 equal to this mighty amount, there will still be an eternity of 
 torment to come. eternity, eternity ! . . . Eternity is a circle, 
 whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere. 
 Every moment will the wicked suffer eternal pain, and suffer it 
 through eternity. Were an angel to write figures on the sky from 
 pole to pole, until the whole sky was blackened with figures ; yet 
 when the wicked shall have been tormented in hell as many years 
 as would in figures blacken the whole sky, still would there be an 
 eternity of torment to come." An attempt is made to express the 
 same idea by a different image, in a German treatise— Suso, Biich- 
 lein von der Weisheit, c. xi., von immerwahrendem Weh der 
 Holla : " Wir begehrten (sagen die Verdammten) nichts anderes, 
 denn ware ein Miihlstein so breit als alles Erdreich, und um sich 
 so gross, dass en den Himmel allenthalben beriihrte, und kame ein 
 kleines Yoglein je uber hunderttausend Jahre und bisse ab dem 
 Stein so gross, als der zehnte I'heil ist eines Hirskornleins, und 
 aber iiber hunderttausend Jahre so viel, als dass es in zehn- 
 hunderttausend Jahren so viel ab dem Stein klaubte, als gross ein 
 Hirskornlein ist: wir Armen begehrten nichts anderes, denn, so 
 des Steines ein Ende ware, dass auch dann unserc Marter ein Ende 
 hatte ; und das mag nicht seiu ! " 
 
LECTUEE III. 
 
 IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS {cORtimiecl). 
 
 " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." — 2 CoR. iii. 6. 
 
 In sjjeaking of the letter and the spirit in connexion 
 with the Bible, we must try to divest ourselves of vague 
 traditional notions, and to look at the facts as they are. 
 And it is of the first importance to remember that the 
 books which we now call by a single name came into 
 being under the utmost variety of outward circum- 
 stances, widely separated from each other in age, in the 
 culture of their authors, in the religious conditions 
 which called them forth. Of the Old Testament books, 
 indeed, we know scarcely anything as to ^ their origin 
 except what we can gather from internal indications : 
 the Prophets for the most part tell their own tale : the 
 Book of Job stands rugged and solitary, like an erratic 
 block that has found its way from some far- oif mountain- 
 side into the midst of surroundings of a w^hoUy different 
 ao;e and character : the Psalms are a collection of gems, 
 representing various conditions of religious sentiment, 
 some sparkling with joy and gladness, some darkened 
 with sorrow and penitence, but all reflecting the ex- 
 
52 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 perience of human life and the feelings of human 
 hearts : Ecclesiastes gives us the picture of a human 
 soul, " feeling its way through a night of darkness to 
 some measure at least of light and knowledge." ^ 
 But in the case of the New Testament all this is 
 reversed. Whatever doubts may beset the authorship of 
 certain Gospels or Epistles, the general origin of the 
 Canon is quite clear. We see that it sprang up in a 
 quite informal way, and in answer to the requirements 
 of the infant Church. St. Paul hears of irregularities 
 which required repression in one Church ; of forgetful- 
 ness of his teaching in another ; or he feels impelled to 
 write to a Church that he had never seen, and to impart 
 to them some spiritual gift ; or he has to send back a 
 runaway slave to his master, and he writes a letter to 
 tell him of the new relation in which his slave stands to 
 him as a Christian brother; or a Christian of intelligence 
 and education, wishing to assure a young friend of the 
 certainty of the things in which he had been instructed, 
 writes a detailed statement of the result of his observa- 
 tions and inquiries. And the books which we possess 
 are but survivors, we may well believe tlie fittest, but 
 still only survivors, of others of which we know nothing. 
 St. Paul's earliest Epistle to the Corinthians, the many 
 declarations of the Gospel narrative which St. Luke says 
 were drawn up before he wrote — these and doubtless 
 other writings have perished. How entirely does this 
 informal — -we might be tempted to say fortuitous, but 
 that we may be sure that God's never-failing providence 
 ^ Cf. Bradley's " Lectures on Ecclesiastes." 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 53 
 
 ordered, it — ^how entirely does this informal growth of 
 a sacred literatnre contrast with the orderly and sys- 
 tematic elaboration of a religious formula, such as we 
 should frame if it were our purpose to found a Church 
 or an order ! Indeed, one is apt to suspect that the 
 popular notion of the Bible as a single and systematic 
 handbook of religion has sprung up very much from 
 men's preconceived notions of what such a book ought 
 to be, rather than from any thoughtful consideration of 
 what it actually is. Compare the Bible, for instance, 
 with the Koran. In one sense, no doubt, the Koran is 
 the more unsystematic of the two, for its component 
 parts have been hopelessly dislocated, so that it is 
 inconsecutive in the highest degree. But still there is 
 no variety, no light and shade, as in the Bible : it is the 
 work of a sing;le author : uniform and without relief, 
 like an Arabian desert. The characteristic feature of 
 the Bible is its perfectly human tone, so that it seems 
 incredible that it should have been forced and strained 
 into a mere handbook of religion. And this suggests a 
 further thought about the Bible — that it is not so much 
 an inspired book as the writing of inspired men. It 
 would not be within the scope of this lecture to enter 
 upon a discussion of the nature and limits of inspiration: 
 but as our subject is the letter and the spirit, it is not 
 out of place to point out that the letter of the Bible is 
 the result of the working of the Holy Spirit of God, 
 not superseding the human consciousness, not destroying 
 the writer's individuality, but elevating and pervading 
 it, so that a man, being full of the Holy Spirit which is 
 
54 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 given him to profit withal, gives forth that which he 
 has received, ministers the gift to others, as a good 
 steward of the manifold grace of God. 
 
 Probably the view of the primitive Church on the 
 subject of inspiration may be summed up in St. Paul's 
 words, " To one is given through the Spirit the words 
 of w^isdom ; and to another the word of knowledge, 
 according to the same Spirit : to another faith, in the 
 same Spirit ; and to another gifts of healings, in the 
 one Spirit ; and to another workings of miracles ; and 
 to another prophecy : . . . but all these worketh the 
 one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally 
 even as He will." ^ There is no trace of a belief in any 
 separate and independent form of inspiration for the 
 writing of sacred books : the wisdom and the Spirit 
 with which the Apostles spake would be the same 
 wisdom and the same Spirit with which they wrote. 
 
 If indeed there exists an opposition between the 
 spirit and the letter ; if, as I tried to show in my last 
 lecture, the mere fact of reducing to writing the utter- 
 ances of the free Spirit must tend to confine and hamper 
 them ; then inspiration in the highest sense, far from 
 being limited to written documents, would rather be 
 independent of them. The letter is the record of the 
 mind of men who were, as we believe, filled with the 
 Spirit ; and we need not doubt that God's providence 
 watched over the record, and that He, without Whom 
 not a sparrow falls to the ground, cared for the future 
 of His Church ; but the letter cannot take the place of 
 ^ 1 Cor. xii. 8-11 (E.V.). 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 55 
 
 tlie Living and Life-giving Spirit. The tendency of the 
 exaltation of the Bihle into the position of Grod's final 
 utterance to His Church has been to weaken the belief 
 in the constant presence of the Divine S2:>irit, in the 
 unceasing inspiration by which He is still leading men 
 into all the truth. If we think that when the Canon of 
 the New Testament was closed, Grod's voice ceased to be 
 heard, the Scripture itself will be to us no longer an 
 utterance of the Living Word but a dead idol ; it wdll 
 lead men to fall back upon the life of the first century 
 instead of believing that Grod has never ceased to mani- 
 fest Himself in an ever-widenino; revelation throuo-h all 
 the varied life and thouo;ht and knowledo^e of the suc- 
 eeedino; ao-es. 
 
 It seems clear that we should approach Scripture in 
 a manner corresponding with its genesis. If it had 
 been a formal treatise, supernaturally drawn up to serve 
 as a text-book of religion, it would be reasonable that 
 we should use it as a text-book, accepting it in the 
 letter as scientifically accurate, making no distinction 
 between its parts, appealing to a single sentence as 
 decisive of a theological controversy. But it is not a 
 formal treatise, but a sacred literature ; and so it is not 
 by cjuoting texts but by saturating our minds with its 
 spirit that we can really use it aright. And if this 
 principle is once recognized, it must necessarily greatly 
 modify our theological methods. We can hardly find a 
 better example of the literal method than Bishop Pear- 
 son's book on the Creed. In this well-known work, 
 which has been rec^arded almost as one of the authori- 
 
56 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 tative standards of tlie Church of England, which was 
 till lately a text-book for candidates for Holy Orders 
 probably in every diocese in England, and which has 
 been held in high esteem and frequently referred to 
 among Nonconformists, we find the several articles of 
 the Creed first discussed as to their meaning, and then 
 proved by an array of texts, quoted from the Old and 
 New Testament, from poetical and prose writings indis- 
 criminately, and with little reference to the context, 
 very much in the same way as propositions of Euclid 
 might be quoted to establish the articles of a geome- 
 trical creed. It would be presumptuous to disjjarage 
 the learning or the utility of so great and approved a 
 work ; but we can hardly doubt that with the decline 
 of literalism its authority must diminish, and that the 
 apologetic literature of the future must be on a some- 
 what different plan. 
 
 Another exegetical labour the value of which is 
 likely to be less highly rated as the more spiritual view 
 of Scripture prevails is that of harmoniziug the Gospel 
 narratives. As long as it was held that the Gospels 
 must be construed like a legal document, it was of the 
 highest importance to show that, notwithstanding any 
 apparent discrepancies, the four Evangelical narratives 
 were in absolute and unbroken accord and harmony 
 with each other. And this was accomplished by taking 
 the books to pieces, and fitting the fragments into one 
 another like a child's puzzle, so as to produce a fifth 
 narrative, a compound of the original four, out of which 
 all the life and naturalness had been crushed by vio- 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 57 
 
 lence. . Far be it from me to say that it is not possible 
 to construct a consistent narrative of ttie life of Christ 
 from a rational comparison of the four Gospels on his- 
 torical principles ; but to force them into a mechanical 
 agreement by an arbitrary process of re-adjustment is 
 in fact to destroy both the letter and the spirit. Some 
 questions, such as the chronology of the Crucifixion in 
 relation to the Passover, must probably remain always 
 unsettled ; in some points, it must be admitted that 
 different Evangelists have followed different versions of 
 the current Christian tradition : the inscription on the 
 Cross can be harmonized only by the hypothesis that 
 not one of the Evangelists has recorded it in its fulness. 
 But would our faith in Christ stand more firm if the 
 documents from which we derive our knowledge of His 
 life and teaching fitted into each other with mechanical 
 accuracy, so that no question could by possibility arise 
 as to whether on a particular occasion He healed one 
 or two blind men, or whether it was as He went into 
 or as He came out of the city ? ^ If so, must we not 
 confess that we are thinking more of the, letter than of 
 the spirit, more of the dead record than of the living 
 power of His gracious words and works ? 
 
 Indeed, we are sometimes inclined to put forward 
 for the Scriptures claims far higher and more exacting 
 than they make for themselves. If, for example, we 
 
 ^ Matt. XX. 30 ; Mark x. 46 ; Luke xviii. 35 : cf. Eenan, " Les 
 Evangiles," p. 179. Harmonists liave sought to escape the diffi- 
 culty by the hypothesis that Christ healed one blind man as he 
 entered the city (so Luke), another as He quitted it (so Mark), 
 and that St. Matthew combined the two events. 
 
58 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 look at the use wliicli is made of tlie Old Testament by 
 the writers of the New, we shall notice some remarkable 
 and instructive phenomena. We have seen that both 
 our Lord and the writers of the New Testament accorded 
 to t;lie writings of the Old Testament the same authority 
 and reverence that were generally conceded to them by 
 the Jews of that time ; and from this point of view it 
 is important to observe their method of quoting and 
 referring to them. Our Lord Himself does not appear 
 to have referred to the Old Testament prophecies with 
 regard to their fulfilment in detail, but simply as con- 
 firming His own Messianic claims or as furnishing a 
 standard of morality with which to compare His own 
 teaching. But the Evangelists and St. Paul and the 
 author of the Epistle to the Hebrews make a for wider 
 use of the writings of the Old Covenant. And with 
 regard to these quotations two points seem specially 
 noticeable. In the first place, in the great majority of 
 cases they are made not from the original Hebrew but 
 from the Septuagint translation ; where the one diff'ers 
 from the other they usually follow the translation ; and 
 in some cases they quote words from the Septuagint to 
 which there is nothing corresponding in the existing 
 Hebrew text. By some writers this difficulty has been 
 so strongly felt that they have maintained that the New 
 Testament use of the Septuagint confers on it a dignity 
 which it would otherwise have lacked, and raises it, at 
 least so far as regards the passages quoted, to the same 
 level of inspired authority with the Hebrew original. 
 Few, probably, would be found to adopt this theory 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 59 
 
 now ; . the more reasonable conclusion is this, that the 
 writers of the New Testament did not regard the Hebrew 
 text as possessing any special or exclusive sanctity, but 
 were content to use a version which, was sufficient for 
 literary purposes, but which modern theologians would 
 certainly not regard as affording an adequate basis for 
 argument. But beyond this, there is a yet more striking- 
 phenomenon to be noticed. The New Testament writers, 
 and in particular St. Paul, quote the words of the Old 
 Testament in a sense quite independent of the original 
 connexion, so that it has even been said of the quotations 
 in St. Paul's Epistles, that "in no passage is there an)^ 
 certain evidence that the first connexion was present to 
 the Apostle's mind." ^ For example, in 1 Cor. xiv. 
 St. Paul is speaking of the remarkable manifestation 
 which had appeared in the Church of Corinth, the 
 speaking with a tongue, by which persons under strong 
 spiritual excitement uttered in the congregation sounds 
 which, whether or not they were words of a foreign 
 language, were at any rate unintelligible to the hearers : 
 and he quotes and applies to this phenonaenon the words 
 of Isaiah, which in the revised version read, " By men of 
 strange lips [or, in the margin, " with stammering lips "] 
 and with another tongue will He speak unto this people ; 
 to whom He said. This is the rest, give ye rest to him 
 that is weary : and this is the refreshing ; yet they 
 would not hear." It is incontestable that the Prophet in 
 this passage threatens the people that, as they despised 
 and derided his teaching as being childishly simple — 
 ^ Jowett, " Epiistles to Thessalonians, etc.," i. p. 357. 
 
6o THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 " It is precept upon precept, precept upon precept ; line 
 upon line, line upon line ; here a little, there a little " — 
 God will adopt a different method with them, and will 
 speak to them in quite another language, bringing upon 
 them the Assyrians, men of strange lips : and he adds 
 that, though God had offered them rest and refreshing, 
 yet they would not hear. This passage, of which the 
 general meaning in the original is undoubted, St. Paul 
 adapts to his own purpose, and applies to the Corin- 
 thians speaking with a tongue ; and the concluding 
 words, " Yet they would not hear," which in Isaiah refer 
 to God's offer of rest, St. Paul, by omitting a clause, con- 
 nects with the tongues. " In the Law it is written, By 
 men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers will 
 I speak unto this people ; and not even thus will they 
 hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a 
 sign, not to them that believe, but to the unbelieving." 
 Here the connexion is evidently purely verbal : there 
 is no kind of spiritual analogy between the threatened 
 invasion of Judah by men of foreign tongue and the 
 utterance in the Corinthian Church of speech unin- 
 telligible to the people. Are we to suppose that the 
 Prophet Isaiah, when threatening the Jewish people 
 with punishment for the contempt of the Divine message, 
 was supernaturally guided to use words which should be 
 applicable in a quite different sense to a quite different 
 set of circumstances ? Surely not. But then the only 
 alternative to this hypothesis is that St. Paul made what 
 we may call a purely literary use of the Old Testament, 
 not scrupling to avail himself of it without any reference 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 6i 
 
 to its . original meaning. Or take St. Paul's quotation 
 from' Genesis ^ in Kom. iv. : " Abraham believed God, and 
 it was reckoned to him [or, as it is in the original, 
 " He counted it to him "] for righteousness." St. Paul's 
 argument is, that Abraham was justified before God, not 
 by works, but by faith ; and he refers to the passage in 
 which God promises him an heir, and descendants as 
 many as the stars ; " and he believed in the Lord ; and 
 He counted it to him for righteousness." Here the con- 
 nexion is much more than verbal ; but, at the same time, 
 it does not appear that the original necessarily means 
 more than this — that Abraham believed God's promise, 
 and God was pleased with him. But this statement St. 
 Paul enlarges, and adopts as the basis of a theological 
 argument that Abraham was justified by faith, and, 
 further, that as he had not yet received circumcision 
 when righteousness was thus reckoned to him, he was 
 the father of them that believe, though they be not 
 circumcised. Or once more, in the veil which Moses 
 put over his face to mitigate the brightness with whicli 
 it shone when he came down from the mount, St. Paul 
 sees the veil which is upon the heart of Israel, and 
 which hinders them from seeing the glory of Christ 
 when Moses is read.^ In all these, and in many other 
 instances which might be referred to, St. Paul uses the 
 utmost freedom in his treatment of the Old Testament. 
 It is true that this freedom is quite in accordance with 
 the use of writers of his age, to whom the meaning 
 of an ancient text was somewhat indeterminate, and 
 1 Gen. XV. 6. ^ 2 Cor. iii. 13. 
 
62 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 capable of being modified according to the reader's 
 point of view ; but none the less it is difficult to 
 reconcile with any modern system of Scripture exegesis, 
 and it points to the conclusion that St. Paul regarded 
 the Old Testament not as a livino; oro;anism, but as an 
 ancient geological formation, out of which he was at 
 liberty to cut the fragments which suited him, and to 
 arrange them in a fresh setting, in which new colours 
 were reflected from them by the light of the Gospel of 
 the glory of Christ. 
 
 And in this lies the defence of what to us may seem 
 fanciful and illogical in St. Paul's method. He took little 
 account of the literal sense, the letter of the Old Testa- 
 mentjbecause to him the books spoke only of Christ and 
 His .Church. To him Christ was all, and in all; the 
 details were of small importance. And though to us, 
 with our more severely logical methods, it is impossible 
 thus to ignore the letter, yet in interpreting St. Paul 
 himself we may at least bear in mind that with his 
 eager impetuous nature we ought not to look for care- 
 fully balanced and elaborated statements of doctrine : 
 that his whole mind was possessed with the central idea 
 of Christ, and that to this all else was subordinate ; and 
 that therefore his object is rather to set forth the glory 
 of God in Christ Jesus than to exj^lain diiiiculties or to 
 define mysteries. We may perhaps find an illustration 
 of this in his treatment of the doctrine of predestination 
 in the Epistle to the Eomans (ix.-xi.). In writing of 
 the love of God in Christ Jesus, the thought suddenly 
 flashed upon him, ' But what of those, God's elder 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 63 
 
 people, my kinsmen after tlie flesh ? How can I thus 
 exalt • the glories of the New Covenant without being 
 disloyal to my own nation ? ' In feeling after an escape 
 from this difficulty, he thinks first of the origin of the 
 Hebrew nation, how from the beginning there had been 
 a process of selection — how Isaac had been chosen and 
 not Ishmael, how Jacob the younger had been chosen 
 instead of Esau the elder son ; and from this he infers 
 that we are not to question the righteousness of God's 
 choice, "that it is not of him that willeth, nor of 
 him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy." And 
 in the end he comes round to the great conclusion that 
 God's mercy is over all His works ; that He has con- 
 cluded all, Jews and Gentiles alike, in unbelief, that He 
 may have mercy upon all. But on his way to this con- 
 clusion he has given utterance to expressions which, if 
 regarded not as obiter dicta but as fundamental prin- 
 ciples, may easily be made the basis of a system fatal 
 to all effective belief in God's love and righteousness — 
 " He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will 
 He hardeneth." "AVhat if God, willing to shew His 
 wrath, and to make His power known, endured with 
 much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruc- 
 tion ? " These and like phrases, taken by themselves 
 and exalted into theological dogmas, have agitated the 
 Christian Church for centuries with barren controversies, 
 and filled men's minds with dark thoughts of God. 
 How large a space this subject filled in the mind of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is indicated by the 
 fact that the longest and most laboured of the Thirty- 
 
64 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 nine Articles is that on Predestincation and Election, and 
 that in an exposition of the Apostles' Creed published in 
 1603, and held in high repute at that time, the Article 
 of the Holy Catholic Church resolves itself into a very 
 full and and minute discussion of predestination and 
 reprobation/ The controversy has yielded to the 
 onward movement of Christian thought, and to a 
 worthier view of God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus ; 
 and men have come to see that in St. Paul's words, read 
 not after the letter but after the spirit, there lies no 
 such doctrine of terror as was found in them by the 
 stern theology of Augustine and of Calvin, but rather 
 an assertion of the power and of the righteousness and 
 of the love of God. 
 
 In this case it is most true that " the letter killeth." 
 The terrible doctrine that, " By the decree of God, for 
 the manifestation of His glory, some men are pre- 
 destinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained 
 to everlasting death," ^ has done more than anything 
 else to distort men's idea of the Fatherly love of God, 
 and to kill that "joy in the Holy Spirit" which is so 
 essential an element in the Kingdom of God : and yet 
 even here we may acknowledge that the dispensation of 
 the letter had its place in the economy of God's provi- 
 dence. There are times, and both the fourth and the 
 sixteenth centuries were such times, when the minds 
 of men need to be braced by the assertion of God's 
 
 ^ Perkins, " A Golden Chaine : containing the Order of the 
 Causes of Salvation and Damnation," 
 ^ " Westminster Confession." 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 65 
 
 sovereignty, wlien force can be secured only by some- 
 what of narrowness and compression : and such a cha- 
 racter as that of Cromwell in history, or of David Deans 
 in fiction, — hard, stern, inflexible, intolerant of all un- 
 righteousness, — though not the highest type of human 
 goodness, is yet, like the Law itself, a needful preparation 
 for the righteousness of Christ. Yet here, also, " the 
 Spirit giveth life." The belief in God's absolute 
 sovereignty, when combined with a belief in His perfect 
 righteousness and love, has the same kind of effect upon 
 the moral character that an entire confidence in their 
 commander has upon soldiers. It gives steadfastness of 
 purpose, contempt of obstacles, clearness of moral judg- 
 ment, persistency of effort, indomitable and enthusiastic 
 hope. Perhaps some more spiritual form of a belief in 
 predestination may prove to be the moral tonic for lack 
 of which there is now so much half-heartedness, so much 
 coldness of faith. 
 
 In this, as in many other points, the teaching of 
 St. Paul has suffered through being looked at in the 
 light of later controversy. His phrases, have become 
 watchwords of religious factions, and we need to go 
 back to his own day and to listen to his Epistles as they 
 were first read fresh from the Apostle's heart in the little 
 gatherings of the faithful at Corinth or Rome, and to 
 forget all the later accretions of theological association 
 which have gathered round them. What, for example, 
 did St. Paul mean by justification by faith apart from 
 the deeds of the Law ? Why was the revival, the re- 
 discovery of this doctrine in the sixteenth century able 
 
 F 
 
66 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 to shake the Papal power through half Europe, and why 
 does it now sound archaic, technical, unreal ? Is it not 
 because we associate the words with burnt-out contro- 
 versies, and forget to ask whether they do not contain 
 a principle which is as fresh and living for us as for the 
 first or the sixteenth century ? If St. Paul was writing 
 merely against Jewish observances in his own day, or, by 
 anticipation, against the formal penances or the pilgrim- 
 ages or the indulgences of the mediaeval Church, then, 
 indeed, the words have little meaning for us ; but, if 
 he meant by justification by faith, that man looks on the 
 outward appearance, but God looks on the heart ; if he 
 meant that God appraises the moral value of men's acts 
 by the inner spring and motive, and that He judges 
 m^en, not by what they profess, nor by what they seem, 
 but by what they are, then surely " that we are justified 
 by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine and very 
 full of comfort," and may still be regarded as the test of 
 a standing or a fixlling Church. 
 
 There is another doctrine of the New Testament in 
 which the distinction between the letter and the spirit 
 is very marked and very important, — I mean the doc- 
 trine of the second coming of Christ. In the great 
 discourse spoken by our Lord on the Mount of Olives 
 over against the Temple, which is recorded in various 
 proportions by the three synoptic Evangelists, while it 
 is clear that the foreground sets before us the approach- 
 ing destruction of the holy city, there also looms in the 
 background the fiiint foreshadowing of another event, 
 the cominof of the Son of Man. How far our Lord 
 
Lect. III.] JN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 67 
 
 meauf by that simply the final dissolution of the Jewish 
 polity and the dispersion of the nation — and that He 
 had this in His mind we may infer from His words, 
 " This generation shall not pass away till all things be 
 accomplished," — and how far He meant also to point to 
 a great final coming — 
 
 " To that far-off Divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves," 
 
 is a question which need not be discussed now. Clearly 
 His words to Pilate, " Henceforth ye shall see the Son 
 of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming 
 in the clouds of heaven," point not to a far-off and 
 momentary vision, but to the sight and acknowledg- 
 ment of His powder in the foundation of His kingdom. 
 But however this may be, we cannot fail to see that 
 there was in the Church from the beginning an expec- 
 tation tliat the generation then living would see with 
 their bodily eyes Christ coming in the clouds, and would 
 hear with their bodily ears the voice of the Archangel 
 and the trumpet of God. It was, indeed, a very natural 
 belief; for to them the spiritual world was the only 
 reality, the things which were not seen were alone 
 eternal, the things which were seen must soon pass 
 away. And though the experience of eighteen centuries 
 has taught us that in this the first Christians were mis- 
 led by the very vividness of their faith, yet there still 
 clings to the belief of the Church something of the gross 
 and material element in respect of the coming of Christ. 
 But if in respect of the When the Church has been led 
 
68 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 to modify its expectation, is it not reasonable also to 
 suppose tliat in regard to the How a like modification 
 must take place ? Not to dwell upon the argument that 
 the change in our conception of the earth and the 
 heavens must involve a corresponding modification of 
 all physical and local ideas and relations, we may surely 
 accept the majestic simplicity of the words of the Te 
 Deum, "We believe that Thou shalt come to be our 
 Judge," without encumbering our belief with any lite- 
 ralisms such as the artists of the Middle Ages delighted 
 to portray. It is, indeed, worth noticing to how great 
 an extent Christian eschatology has been moulded by 
 the outward circumstances and by the culture and in- 
 telligence of the age. In days of oppression and per- 
 secution men have drawn comfort and hope from the 
 thought that Christ's coming could not be long delayed, 
 and have cried, " Lord Jesus, come quickly," and have 
 looked eagerly for the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. 
 In days when theology was systematized and the king- 
 dom of Heaven assumed the form of a feudal monarchy,' 
 men imagined a magnified and glorified court of justice, 
 in which apostles, martyrs, confessors, monks, and 
 virgins should sit as assessors or more than assessors 
 with the Judge, and should take part in the judgment 
 
 1 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, "Elucid.," c. 70: " Qualiter veniet 
 Dominus ad judicium? Sicut Imperator ingressurus civitatem, 
 corona ejus et alia insignia prjeferuntur, per quaj adventus ejus 
 cognoscitur; ita Christus in ea forma, qua ascendit, cum Ordi- 
 nibus omnibus Angelorum ad judicium veniens. Angeli crucem 
 ejus ferentes pra^ibunt, mortuos tuba et voce in occursum ejus 
 excitabunt." Cf. also Mi] man, " Latin Christianity,"^ vi., p. 227, sqq. 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 69 
 
 of the nations wlio should be gcathered at the judgment 
 seat. - In days of rude literalism, the terrors of judg- 
 ment were enhanced by the resources of sculpture and 
 painting, and hideous demons fanned the fire and fed 
 the furnace for the fiercer torturing of lost souls. It 
 may be that in our days of laxity of moral fibre, when 
 good does not appear so indisputably good, nor evil so 
 absolutely evil, there is a tendency to put aside the 
 thought of judgment to come, and to regard all looking 
 forward as unprofitable speculation, and to concentrate 
 all our thoughts upon this present world. We do not 
 know, indeed, and it would not be useful to inquire, 
 how much of the words of St. Paul and of our Lord on 
 this subject is parabolic and how much literal ; it is 
 enough to believe that there will be a revelation of the 
 righteous judgment of God, who will render to every 
 man according to his deeds. 
 
 "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." We 
 cannot, indeed, doubt that even as the blind veneration 
 of the Church was an instrument in God's hands for 
 training men to something better and purer, so the 
 blind veneration of the Bible, which has prevailed since 
 the Eeformation, has been a valuable factor in the for- 
 mation of the Christian character. The term " Bible 
 Christians," though it has been degraded to serve as the 
 name of an obscure sect, is no unfair description of a 
 very high and noble type of Christian people, of whom 
 in our own country we may name as examples, Wesley, 
 and Wilberforce, and Simeon, and Cecil, and Scott, and 
 Newton. To these men, the word of God as contained 
 
70 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 ill tlie Scriptures was the very pivot upon which their 
 life turned. In it they sought, and sought not in vain, 
 the motive power by which to raise their generation to 
 a higher level They knew the Bible thoroughly ; they 
 accepted its authority absolutely and unquestioningly ; 
 they taught it unceasingly ; they tried themselves by 
 its standard ; they lived by its precepts. And it is 
 certain that they did a great and lasting work. Other 
 influences, no doubt, have been at work ; but no one 
 who knows anything of the history of the eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries will deny that to the Evan- 
 gelical revival was due the beginning of that upward 
 movement which we trust is far from having reached its 
 highest point. But though the work of these men lasts, 
 though we look back to them as noble examples of 
 Christian holiness, yet not only is the special form of 
 religious life which they illustrate no longer largely 
 iufluential, but where it exists it tends to be obstructive, 
 unprogressive, unfruitful. And if we ask why this is 
 so, why a phase of religious energy which once seemed 
 able to move the world has lost its power, is not the 
 answer this, that they practically held that when the 
 last word of the last book of the Canon of the New 
 Testament was written, God ceased to reveal Himself to 
 man ; that they were so engrossed with the letter that 
 they failed to see that the Spirit of God is still leading 
 men into all the truth, that He has never ceased to 
 teach the Church by the experience of history, by the 
 light of science, by the widening of men's thoughts with 
 the progress of the suns, by the new knowledge and the 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 71 
 
 new forms of industry and of social life wliich His 
 creative power opens up % 
 
 For this surely is the essential distinction which 
 separates Christianity from all other religions and reve- 
 lations — that whereas they profess to he complete and. 
 final, the Christian revelation consists not in a book, but 
 in a life and a spirit ; it is " incomprehensible," not 
 to be adequately and completely measured and ex- 
 pressed in any form of words, not to be limited by the 
 conceptions of any age or Church. Though heaven and 
 earth pass away, Christ's words shall not pass away, 
 because they are spirit and they are life. 
 
 This would appear to be the true reply to those who 
 would place Mohammedanism in any kind of competi- 
 tion or rivalry with Christianity. It is not to be denied 
 that in many respects the religion of Islam teaches a 
 very high and pure morality ; that it has laid hold on 
 races which Christianity has not been able to touch ; 
 that it " wTought a great religious and social reforma- 
 tion among the pagan Arabs ; " that its effect on its 
 modern converts is a salutary one. But it is a religion 
 of the letter and not of the spirit ; it has not in it the 
 capacity of development, of self-adaptation ; it has no 
 fitness to become a universal religion. In its best days 
 it has produced a brilliant civilization ; it has fostered 
 science and literature ; there have been times when it 
 seemed as though Islam were more progressive than 
 Christianity : but it has upon it the mark of finality ; 
 it is not, it can never become, the religion of humanity ; 
 and it lacks the one supreme sanction, tlie great motive 
 
72 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 force which Christ attached to His law — " If ye love Me, 
 keep My commandments." 
 
 " Moliammed's truth lay in a holy Book, 
 
 Christ's in a sacred life. 
 So while the world rolls on from change to change, 
 
 And realms of thought expand, 
 The letter stands without expanse or range, 
 
 Stiff as a dead man's hand ; 
 While, as the life-blood fills the growing form, 
 
 The Spirit Christ has shed 
 Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm, 
 
 More felt than heard or read. 
 And therefore, though ancestral sympathies 
 
 And closest ties of race 
 May guard Mohammed's precepts and decrees 
 
 Through many a tract of space, 
 Yet in the end the tight-drawn line must break, 
 
 The sapless tree must fall, 
 Nor let the form one time did well to take 
 
 Be tyrant over all." ^ 
 
 Probably the best hope that we can form for the 
 exegesis of the future is that it should be literal in the 
 sense of understanding the text of Scri^^ture according 
 to the ordinary rules of interpretation applied to other 
 writings, and spiritual in the sense of seeking to extract 
 from the local and temporary and personal accidents the 
 eternal principles of truth which these contain. In the 
 Old Testament it will perhaps be less occupied in point- 
 ing out how this or that detail in the Mosaic ritual 
 referred to Christ, or how this or that prophecy was 
 fulfilled in His life, and more in showing how God, for 
 the sake of all nations, trained and educated Israel by 
 ^ Lord Houo-hton's " Poems." 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 73 
 
 the object-lessons of worship and sacrifice, by the poetry 
 of the Psalmists, by the lofty moral teaching of the 
 Prophets, to receive and to transmit to the world His 
 great revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. It will 
 approach the New Testament without d, priori theories 
 of inspiration, and will endeavour from a consideration 
 of the actual phenomena of the books to ascertain their 
 place in the economy of the spiritual kingdom. It will 
 recognize in the Bible very various degrees of spiritual 
 enlightenment ; it will not, like the Puritans, find 
 maxims of modern politics in the Hebrew Prophets, nor 
 the minutiae of Christian theology in the Hebrew 
 Psalmists ; it will not mistake poetry for prose, nor the 
 voices of men for the Voice of God ; above all, if it is to 
 be fruitful, it will seek to be led by the Living Spirit 
 into all truth, and will acknowledge with St. Augustine, 
 that he will best understand Scripture whose heart is 
 full of love.^ 
 
 There seems reason to fear that the habitual study of 
 Scripture as a necessity of the spiritual life is more rare 
 than it was formerly. If so, it is a thing much to be 
 lamented. If we have laid aside some superstitious and 
 mechanical theories of inspiration, if we have learnt that 
 the Word of God comes to us not only in the Bible, but 
 also in the inward voice of the Spirit and in the discipline 
 of His providence throughout our lives, yet we have not 
 outgrown, we can never outgrow, the teaching of Christ 
 
 ^ Aug., Serm. cccl. : "Divinarura scripturarum multiiilicem 
 abundantiam, latissimamque doctrinam, sine ullo errore compre- 
 liendit, et sine ullo labore custodit, oujus cor plenum est caritate." 
 
74 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III. 
 
 and of His Apostles. If in the past tlie Bible lias been 
 misunderstood througb bondage to the letter, that should 
 encourage us to study it more earnestly under the 
 freedom of the spirit. To quote the words of Bishop 
 Temple, " the immediate work of our day is the study 
 of the Bible. Other studies will act upon the progress 
 of mankind by acting through and upon this. For while 
 a few highly educated men here and there, who have 
 given their minds to special pursuits, may think the 
 study of the Bible a thing of the past, yet assuredly, if 
 their science is to have its effect upon men in the mass, 
 it must be by affecting their moral and religious convic- 
 tions. In no other way have men been, or can men be, 
 deeply and permanently changed. But though this 
 study must be for the present and for some time the 
 centre of all studies, there is meanwhile no study of 
 whatever kind which will not have its share in the 
 general effect." ^ Since those words were written, nearly 
 thirty years ago, all other studies in the University have 
 received a notable impulse. Let it not be said that the 
 study of Scripture languishes. In the new world which 
 is coming upon us, the world in which the younger 
 among us will have to take their part, it wdll be more 
 than ever needful that the scribe who hath been made 
 a disciple unto the kingdom of Heaven should bring 
 fortk out of his treasure things new and old : the new 
 science of religion, of language, of textual criticism, of 
 the laws of nature ; and the old reverence, the old 
 godliness, the old familiarity with the text of Scripture. 
 ^ " Essays and Keviews," p. 48. 
 
Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 75 
 
 In the two great uprisings of the English people, the 
 ecclesiastical revolt of the sixteenth and the political of 
 the seventeenth century, the letter of the Bible exercised 
 a vast influence. God grant that in the great social 
 movements which this and the coming age are likely to 
 witness, the spirit of the Bible may act not less power- 
 fully upon the minds and actions of men. 
 
LECTUKE IV. 
 
 IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 " For lie is not a Jew, which is one outwardi}' ; neither is that 
 circumcision, which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew, which 
 is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, 
 and not in the letter: whose praise is not of men, but of God." — ■ 
 KoM. ii. 28. 
 
 Before entering upon our subject to-day, it will be well 
 to recall as briefly as possible the main points of the 
 previous lectures. 
 
 From a consideration of the passages in which St. 
 Paul uses the terms " letter " and " spirit," we saw that 
 primarily he means by the letter the fixed, rigid, un- 
 changeable code which was the basis of the Jewish 
 polity, the system which he commonly sums up under 
 the name of the Law, under which he had himself been 
 brought up, and which, since he had been delivered from 
 it, he had come to regard with something like personal 
 animosity, as a grown man might regard a harsh tutor 
 who, with the best of motives, had oppressed him and 
 made him miserable in his boyhood. And by the 
 spirit we saw that he meant that Living Force which is 
 the ever-present inspiration of the Christian life, not the 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 77 
 
 law of a carnal commaiKlment, but the power 'of an end- 
 less life/ But from this root-idea we traced the growth 
 of the later use of the terms, to denote the distinction 
 between that which is fixed, unchangeable, and therefore 
 transitory, and that which has the capacity of growth 
 and development and therefore of permanence, in enact- 
 ments, institutions, customs, polities. "We recognized 
 the same two elements under varying forms in Church 
 history, in human life and thought, and in the changed 
 and changing life of this University. And passing on, 
 in the second and third lectures, to the letter and the 
 spirit in Scripture exegesis, we discussed the Jewish 
 view of the Sacred Books of the Old Covenant, and its 
 influence on the Christian Church ; and having spoken 
 of the allegorical method of interpretation, and its 
 tendency to sacrifice the letter to the supposed spiritual 
 sense, I indicated what appears to be the true view of 
 Scripture, that it is not a formal theological treatise but 
 a sacred literature ; and I showed from, several instances 
 how we should apply the principle of the supremacy of 
 the spirit over the letter to the interpretation of the 
 New Testament writings. To-day I propose to consider 
 the contrast between the letter and the spirit, between 
 the unchangeable and formal and the variable and 
 spiritual element, in reference to the kingdom of Christ, 
 The distinction between the end and the means is 
 one wdiich is very familiar to us in theory, but which 
 practically is very liable to be overlooked. As objects 
 nearer to the eye seem larger than those more remote, so 
 1 Heb. vii. 16. 
 
78 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 there is a tendency for the means to shut out the view 
 of the end, and to become ends in themselves. This is 
 conspicuously the case in political matters. Persons 
 associate together for the sake of some object or for 
 the promotion of some political principle, but soon the 
 association itself takes the place of the object, and it 
 is thought more necessary to support the party than to 
 promote the ends for which the party came into exist- 
 ence. And in the same way laws and observances 
 survive the purpose for which they were created, and are 
 kept up when that purpose is either attained or forgotten. 
 And perhaps this tendency is still stronger in the case 
 of institutions and observances connected with religion, 
 because these are naturally apt to become invested with 
 a sacred character, and to have ascribed to them a value 
 and an importance independent of their object. The 
 whole history of religion is full of instances of the way 
 in which things originally designed simply as means to 
 an end become ends in themselves and the original end 
 is lost sight of The Sabbath, designed as a beneficent 
 interval of rest for the servants, the cattle, and the 
 stranger, has become to the modern Jew a burdensome 
 and meaningless formality. Prayer, the communion of 
 the human with the Divine Spirit, has often degenerated 
 into the mere saying of offices, the telling of beads, the 
 imintelligent repetition of Paternosters and Aves, or the 
 turning of a wheel on which prayers are inscribed. 
 ''Omnia fatis in pejus mere;" there is a downward 
 tendency in things, which, unless counteracted by the 
 living power of the Spirit, will dntg down the highest 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 79 
 
 and holiest things till they become meaningless and 
 useless. And therefore in respect of all institutions, 
 organizations, observances, whether religious, social, 
 political, or of whatever kind, it is necessary to ask 
 what is their original meaning and purpose ? For what 
 were they founded ? Have they in any way swerved 
 from their original intention, and if so, has it been a 
 legitimate deflection or not ? What in them is essential 
 and what accidental ? What is part of the original 
 institution, and what is the after-growth and accretion 
 of later times ? For there is no such thing as a Divine 
 right for any institution whatever to exist independently 
 of the object for which it exists. If it fails through any 
 inherent incapacity to fulfil that object, it is condemned ; 
 if it fails partially from causes which are removable, it 
 requires reform ; if other institutions fulfil it equally 
 well, they have established a prima-facie right to exist 
 side by side with it. 
 
 We must not suppose that the most venerable of 
 institutions, the Church of Christ, is exempt from such 
 inquiry as to its object and its methods : for the Church, 
 though Divine in its origin and its consummation, is still 
 a human society, and all that is human is liable to decay 
 and renewal and change and growth. The legitimacy 
 of this inquiry is admitted by Cardinal Newman him- 
 self, when he argues that it is impossible to conceive of 
 ultra-Protestantism as developed out of primitive Chris- 
 tianity. It is possible, indeed, in the political sphere to 
 evade its force by arguing that an institution which has 
 outlived its original purpose may yet be preserved for 
 
8o THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV; 
 
 the sake of some collateral advantage, or some new 
 function to which it has adapted itself: hereditary 
 monarchy, for example, if it is no longer useful for giving 
 to government the vigour and unity of purpose which 
 comes of its being centred in a single hand, may well be 
 defended on the ground that it connects us with the 
 past, that it is an impressive symbol of the unity of the 
 commonwealth, or that it saves us from the mischievous 
 intrigues that might result from an elective headship of 
 the State ; but in the case of rehgious institutions no 
 deflection from first principles is permissible, if we 
 believe that those first principles are of Divine authority 
 and rest on an eternal basis. 
 
 Strictly speaking, we as Christians possess one and 
 o-ne only religious institution— the Church. All else, the 
 the Faith, the Scriptures, the Sacraments, the Ministry, 
 the ordinances of worship, the beneficent organizations, 
 are but departments and functions of the one Catholic 
 Church. And it therefore becomes a question of primary 
 importance. What is the true end and object, what is the 
 essence, of the Christian Church ? 
 
 We shall probably not be far from the mark if we 
 say that the end for which the Church exists is the 
 perfecting of redeemed humanity. To this all is sub- 
 ordinate ; whatever does not directly or indirectly con- 
 duce to this is no essential function of the Church ; 
 whatever makes for this end ought to be claimed as part 
 of the Church's work. It will not be necessary now to 
 enlaro-e upon this point, but it is well that it should be 
 clearly stated and borne in mind, that it may guide us 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 81: 
 
 in discussing tlie further question, What is essential and 
 what is accidental in the framework and constitution of 
 the Church ? 
 
 It has been lately said by an eminent representative 
 of Nonconformity/ whose presence in Oxford is a 
 welcome sign of the times, that "there is no evidence 
 that Jesus ever created, or thought of creating, an 
 organized society. There is no idea he so little empha- 
 sizes as the idea of the Church. He uses the term but 
 twice — ^once in the local or congregational sense, and 
 once in the universal, but only so as to define His own 
 sole authority and supremacy. His familiar idea is the 
 kingdom of God or of Heaven ; but this kingdom is 
 without organization, and incapable of being organized. 
 ... It is essentially the contrary and contrast of what 
 is now uuderstood as the Church, whether Catholic or 
 Anglican." It is certain that Dr. Fairbairn does not 
 reject the idea of religious organization : what he means 
 apparently is, that Christ Himself did not found or even 
 contemplate an organized society. That He did not 
 found one will be admitted by all ; that He did not 
 contemplate one is difficult to suppose, ift view of his 
 words, " On this rock I will build My Church." For 
 oLKoSofJieLv eKKkiqo-iav are hardly words that could be 
 used of the mere implanting in the world of a new 
 principle of spiritual life ; and if we accept the mission 
 of the Holy Spirit as a part of Christ's work, and if, 
 further, we admit that the Christian people were to be 
 builded together for an habitation of God in the Spirit, 
 ■^ Dr. Fairbairn, in Contemporanj Bevieiv, July, 1885. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 then it would seem to follow that the formation of a 
 society was contemplated by Christ ; and a society 
 without organization is something like a contradiction 
 in terms. Indeed, the new commandment which Christ 
 gave to His disciples— " That ye love one another; as 
 I have loved you, that ye also love one another"— in- 
 volves the establishment of very close relations between 
 His disciples. The very first words of His prayer, " Our 
 Father," imply that those who use it are joined together 
 as members of a family. And though in a family there 
 is no formal organization, and all authority proceeds 
 directly from the father, yet there is a kind of informal 
 and spontaneous division of offices which answers very 
 much to what appeacrs to have been the gradual process 
 of development of offices in the Church. 
 
 And this seems to point to the true theory of the 
 constitution of the Christian Church. It is at once a 
 family and a kingdom : a family, because from the one 
 Father all fatherhood and brotherhood, all human 
 relations, are derived ; a kingdom, because all authority 
 is derived from the King, all government centres in 
 Him. And just as in the English monarchy the existing 
 forms of government were evolved gradually and, as it 
 were, spontaneously, in accordance with the requirements 
 of the national life, so that what we call the constitution 
 is no formally contrived system, but the outgrowth of 
 circumstances : so the constitution of the Christian 
 Church is not a Divinely appointed order in the sense of 
 having been imposed by a command of Christ, or by an 
 ordinance of the Apostles, but rather the result of the 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 83 
 
 conditions of the Christian society ; it is a form of polity 
 which" we can, not without difficulty, but yet with reason- 
 able probability, trace the origin and development, an 
 organization which in any stage of its history involves 
 the possibility of further development, of progressive 
 adaptation to the changing circumstances of the Church, 
 an institution, not of the letter, not fixed and stereotyped 
 for all time, but of the spirit, capable of assuming new 
 shapes without any breach of historic continuity. 
 
 The cjuestion whether a given form of organization 
 is of the essence of the Church of Christ, so that we can 
 sharply define the Church as that body of Christian 
 people which possesses a threefold ministry with direct 
 organic succession from the Apostles, to which the 
 Roman Church w^ould add the further qualification of 
 submission to the see of Rome ; or whether the Church 
 in its essence is simply the association of those who 
 23rofess belief in Christ and obedience to Him, organiza- 
 tion being, indeed, in the nature of things indispensable, 
 and yet an accident not bound up in the nature of the 
 institution, is one which lies at the root of our concep- 
 tion of Christianity. For it makes the whole difi'erence 
 to that conception whether w^e hold, on the one hand, 
 that Christ did, either directly or through His Apostles, 
 institute a form of government by which His Church 
 was to be characterized and distinguished until His 
 coming again, or, on the other hand, that He put into 
 men's hearts and wrote on their minds a law — the law 
 of love — which should draw them together in one body, 
 and left them free to oro-anize themselves under the 
 
84 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 formative guiding and influence of the Spirit. It is a 
 question on which practical issues depend. If the former 
 theory be the true one, the Christian Church at the 
 present day is confined to the Greek, the Roman, and 
 the Anglican communions, and a vast proportion of the 
 most intelligent and active-minded Christians in the 
 United States, in the Colonies, and on the Continent 
 of Europe are outside the Church's pale. If, on the 
 contrary, we accejDt the latter theory, it must be 
 admitted that from a very early period in the history 
 of Christianity the letter began to prevail over the 
 spirit, and that for many centuries the true idea of the 
 kingdom of Heaven was obscured by the growth of a 
 vast organization, admirably adapted for the age from 
 which it sprang, and being undoubtedly a part of God's 
 providential order, yet being after all only a phase, a 
 temporary and partial presentment of that kingdom of 
 Heaven which it claimed to embody completely and 
 exclusively. Which of these difficulties is the greater 
 may be discussed later ; but at least it may be said, 
 that on those who accept the Reformation there lies no 
 obligation to represent the Church as having attained 
 to a full comprehension of the truth otherwise than 
 gradually and painfully, or as having been free from 
 much superstition and many unworthy conceptions of 
 God and of His kingdom. 
 
 I propose to consider first the historical argument, 
 and then the general spirit and tone of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that, so far as the existing 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 85 
 
 (lociiments can be trusted as adequate records, Christ 
 Himself gave no directions whatever as to matters of 
 Church organization. It has indeed been argued that 
 this must have been among the things pertaining to 
 the kingdom of God, of which our Lord spoke to His 
 disciples after His resurrection. But to this it may be 
 replied, that this is an unsupported assumption, and 
 that when He does speak of the kingdom of God or of 
 Heaven, it is without any reference whatever to any 
 material framework or organization. So that for the 
 intention of Christ and His Apostles we are thrown 
 back upon the general spirit and tendency of their teach- 
 ing and practice, as recorded in the Gospels, the 
 Epistles, and the Acts of the Apostles. And in order 
 to form to ourselves an idea of this spirit and tendency, 
 we must endeavour to put out of sight for a moment all 
 the accretions of eighteen centuries of Church history, 
 and to place ourselves in the position of those who saw 
 the w^orks and heard the words of Christ, or of those 
 who in the little assemblies of Christian believers 
 listened to the letters written by " Paul, an Apostle not 
 from men, neither through man, but through Jesus 
 Christ, and God the Father," and so to gather, as it were 
 at first hand, what was in their thoughts when they 
 spoke or wrote of the kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the 
 kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and 
 the kingdom of God is at hand ; repent ye, and believe 
 the Gospel." And when He has gathered round Him a 
 little band of followers, He sends them forth to preach 
 
86 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 that the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Of that king- 
 dom He gave no definition, but many descriptions. 
 The parables of the tares, the mustard seed, the leaven, 
 the hidden treasure, the pearl, the draw-net ; of the 
 labourers in the vineyard, of the wicked husbandmen, 
 of the marriage of the king's son, and of the ten virgins, 
 are expressly introduced by Him as likenesses of the 
 kingdom of Heaven. The idea of a kingdom was no 
 doubt borrowed from the Old Covenant, in which Israel 
 was sharply marked off as God's special people and 
 kinofdom, in contrast to the nations round about ; and 
 so the kingdom of Heaven in the New Covenant would 
 mean that order of things in which God's will should 
 be the law, and His purpose of redemption should be 
 carried out. On the other hand, it is remarkable that 
 when the disciples use the term, they at once import 
 into it the idea of organization and personal preferment. 
 " The disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the 
 greatest in the kingdom of Heaven \ " ^ iVnd He pointed 
 out to them that their state of mind was quite incom- 
 patible with being subjects of the kingdom. " Except 
 ye be converted" — except your whole attitude be 
 changed — " and ye become as little children, ye shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of Heaven." A significant in- 
 dication, surely, of the change which was destined to 
 come over the conception of the kingdom, as soon as it 
 passed from the mind of the Master into those of His 
 disciples ! In Christ's mouth, the kingdom of Heaven 
 is the carrying out of the true relation of mankind to 
 
 ^ Matt, xviii. 1. 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 87 
 
 God ; in the mouth of the disciples, it is the hierarchy 
 in which, as in earthly kingdoms, those who are nearest 
 to the King shall enjoy a supremacy over the rest. The 
 only idea of pre-eminence of which Christ ever speaks is 
 that of those who had followed Him and continued with 
 Him in His temptations, who should eat and drink at 
 His table in His kingdom, and sit on thrones judging 
 the twelve tribes of Israel. It is, in fact, true in the 
 strictest sense to say, that the kingdom of Heaven in 
 our Lord's conception is independent of organization. 
 He spoke of the kingdom of God, not as a thing which 
 should hereafter grow up, but as being already in their 
 midst. He was among them, and " Ubi Christus, ibi 
 ecclesia." ^ The binding principle of His kingdom was 
 love to God and love to man : its charter was, " Where 
 two or three are gathered together in My Name, there 
 am I in the midst of them." The guarantee of its per- 
 manence was His promise that, when His visible Pre- 
 sence was removed, He would send the Paraclete to 
 abide with His people for ever. And accordingly, after 
 His departure, we find the disciples united together, not 
 merely by the animating memory of the past, but by 
 the living and penetrating and pervading influence of 
 the Divine Spirit ; the kingdom of God took visible 
 shape in a society. Of this society the Apostles were 
 the appointed and natural leaders ; and to their com- 
 pany was soon added one who laboured more abun- 
 
 ^ "Ottou txv ^ XptoTos 'Ir/crous, Ik^x rj KaOoXiKr) iKKXrjdia (Ignat. 
 ad Smyrn., 8). This seems to be the earlie&t mention of the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
88 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 dcintly tbau they all, one who was not a whit behind 
 the chiefest Apostles, Paul of Tarsus, the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. By his energy were gathered Churches in the 
 cities of Asia Minor and of the Mediterranean seaboard ; 
 and it is in them that we are able to trace, through the 
 medium of his letters, the growth of the earliest Church 
 organization. 
 
 Let us turn for a moment to the phenomena which 
 are discernible in them. 
 
 In the Epistle to the Philippians, St. Paul sends 
 greeting to the saints in Christ Jesus with the bishops 
 and deacons. The same names appear in the Pastoral 
 Epistles, where also elders or presbyters are spoken of. 
 And in the Acts of the Apostles St. Paul sends from 
 Miletus to Ephesus and summons the presbyters of the 
 Church, whom in addressing them he calls bishops. 
 And St. Peter, in writing to the presbyters as a fellow- 
 presbyter, alludes to their office as that of the Episco- 
 pate. So far we find three official names in use — 
 Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons. But it is now universally 
 conceded that the first two belong to one and the same 
 office, the argument on behalf of modern Episcopacy 
 being that the name of Bishop was gradually detached 
 from the Presbyters, and was applied exclusively to 
 those chief pastors who succeeded to the Apostles in the 
 general oversight and government of the Churches. Up 
 to this point, the matter might seem tolerably simple. 
 But in two other important Epistles the 23henomena 
 seem to point in a diEferent direction. In ' the First 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul, in WTiting of the 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 89 
 
 work of the Spirit in the Church, says, "God hath set 
 some "in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, 
 thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, 
 helps,, governments, divers kinds of tongues." It is, of 
 course, possible to argue that these were some of them 
 extraordinary and all of them temporary offices, which 
 were afterwards drawn up and remoulded into the per- 
 manent organization of the Church ; but it seems diffi- 
 cult to believe that these offices, which, as we cannot 
 but observe, are catalogued with singular precision and 
 formality, " First apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly 
 teachers," co-existed either in the same or in different 
 persons with the other and more permanent offices of 
 presbyters and deacons. In the Epistle which is in- 
 scribed to the Ephesians, St. Paul says, " Unto each one 
 of us was the grace ffiven according^ to the measure of 
 the gift of Christ. . . . And he gave some to be 
 apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ; 
 and some pastors and teachers : for the perfecting of the 
 saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building 
 up of the body of Christ." Here the offices seem some- 
 what less difficult to reconcile with those of the pres- 
 byterate and diaconate which, according to the First 
 Epistle to Timothy,^ appear to have existed at Ephesus 
 not much later ; but if we look at the allusions to 
 Church organization in the Acts and the Epistles without 
 
 ^ It is ■unnecessary to discuss the genuineness of the First 
 Epistle to Timothy. Even M. Eenan, who adopts the conclusions 
 of the Tubingen school against it, frequently quotes it as historical 
 evidence. 
 
90 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 any tendency to interpret them into conformity with 
 later history, we must certainly admit that, while 
 ecclesiastical offices seem already to be taking some a 
 purely local and others a more general character, it is 
 difficult to find any sanction to any one form of Church 
 government, and that, in Hooker's words, " In tying the 
 Church to the orders of the Apostles' times, they tie it 
 to a marvellous uncertain rule." ^ The Churches un- 
 doubtedly had their several organizations, not apparently 
 the same everywhere ; the Church as yet had none. 
 
 After the close of the Xew Testament Canon, Church 
 history is like one of those streams in certain geological 
 formations, which disappear underground, the course of 
 which can only be conjectured from the direction which 
 they are found to be taking when they emerge again to 
 the light. We can discern something of the course of 
 things in St. Paul's time ; from the writings of the so- 
 called Apostolic Fathers, and of Tertullian, and from the 
 Teaching of the twelve Apostles, we can perceive that 
 much must have happened in the interval ; but there is 
 a break between the Apostolic and the sub- Apostolic 
 age in which we have no documentary evidence to guide 
 us. Without entering on any full discussion of the 
 origin of the Christian ministry — a discussion which, 
 indeed, is somewhat wide of our subject — we may say 
 that by the end of the second decade of the second 
 century we see manifesting itself in the Church at large 
 a tendency to Episcopacy, in the sense of a single ruler 
 in each Church, acting as President of the Council of 
 1 Hooker, "Eccl. Pol.," bk. i., c. ii , § 2. 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 91 
 
 Presbyters ; and by the end of the second century we 
 cannot fail to recognize Episcopal government as cha- 
 racteristic of the Church. Indeed, it will hardly be 
 seriously disputed, that, if any one form of Church 
 organization possesses exclusive Apostolic sanction and 
 authority, it is the Episcopal form. The investigations 
 of Eothe in Germany, and of Bishop Lightfoot and Dr. 
 Hatch in England, have so far simplified the question, 
 that the contention of Cartwright in the sixteenth 
 century — that Presbyterianism is the only lawful form 
 of Church government — is hardly likely to be repeated. 
 The issue now is a comparatively simple one — Is Episco- 
 pacy of Divine institution and authority, in any other 
 sense than that in which it may be predicated of every 
 settled form of government, ecclesiastical and political, 
 that it is ordained of God ? 
 
 The argument that, if a special form of organization 
 were essential to the Church, Christ would have given 
 His disciples definite and clear directions concerning it, 
 though undoubtedly weighty, may yet be pressed too 
 far. For it may be replied, " True, Christ did not Himself 
 give any directions as to the form which His Church 
 was to assume, but He promised that the Spirit should 
 guide them into all truth ; and we find as a matter of 
 fact that it is to the Spirit's agency that all gifts, both 
 of government and of teaching in the Church, are 
 referred." But the contention goes deeper than this. 
 If the Christian Dispensation is not of the letter but 
 of the spirit, if it differs from the Old Dispensation 
 mainly in this, that wdiereas the old was a system of 
 
92 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 restricted sanctities, in which a particular nation, a par- 
 ticular family, particular days and particular places were 
 set apart as holy, in the New all this is reversed, and 
 all nations, all men, all places, and all times are in 
 principle alike holy, then no form of organization can 
 be essential ; it can only concern the hene esse and not 
 the esse of the Church. This is the principle on which 
 Hooker relies in his great argument against the Puritans. 
 They maintained that no form of Church policy was 
 lawful except the Presbyterian. Hooker replied, not 
 that Episcopacy alone was lawful, but that no form was 
 prescribed as essential, and that therefore Episcopacy 
 was lawful.^ " He which affirmeth speech to be necessary 
 among all men throughout the world, doth not thereby 
 import that all men must necessarily speak one kind of 
 language. Even so the necessity of polity and regiment 
 in all Churches may be held without holding any one 
 certain form to be necessary in them all."^ By no one has 
 tlie spiritual nature of the kingdom of Christ been stated 
 with more luminous clearness or more judicial precision 
 than by Bishop Lightfoot. " The kingdom of Christ, 
 not being a kingdom of this world, is not limited by 
 the restrictions which fetter other societies, political or 
 religious. It is in the fullest sense free, comprehensive, 
 universal. ... It has no sacred days or seasons, no 
 special sanctuaries, because every time and every place 
 alike are holy. Above all, it has no sacerdotal system. 
 It interposes no sacrificial tribe or class between God and 
 
 ^ Hooker, bk. vii., c. ii. 
 ^ Ibid., bk. iii., c. ii., § i. 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 93 
 
 man, by whose intervention alone God is reconciled and 
 man •forgiven. Each individual member holds personal 
 communion with the Divine Head. To Him immediately 
 he is responsible, and from Him directly he obtains 
 j)ardon and draws streugth." And further, while 
 admitting the necessity for convenience' sake, of appoint- 
 ing special times and places for meetings for worship, 
 he adds, " For communicating instruction and for pre- 
 serving public order, for conducting religious worship 
 and for dispensing social charities, it became necessary 
 to appoint special officers. But the priestly functions 
 and privileges of the Christian people are never regarded 
 as transferred or even delegated to these officers. They 
 are called stewards or messengers of God, servants or 
 ministers of the Church ; but the sacerdotal title is 
 never once conferred on them. The only priests under 
 the Gospel, designated as such in the New Testament, 
 are the saints, the members of the Christian brother- 
 hood." ^ 
 
 Here we have, set forth by a great master of 
 theology, a clear statement of the true theory of the 
 Christian ministry. It is not a sacerdotal order ; the 
 priestly character belongs to the Christian people at 
 large, and cannot be alienated by or taken away from 
 them ; ^ it is not a succession through which a Divine 
 influence is handed on by imposition of hands ; it is an 
 
 ^ Bishop Lightfoot, " Essay on the Christian Ministry." 
 "- " The most exalted office in the Church, the highest gift of 
 the Spirit, conveyed no sacerdotal right which was not enjoyed by 
 the humblest member of the Christian community." — Bishop 
 Lightfoot, he, cit. 
 
94 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 office and administration pertaining to the whole Chris- 
 tian body, but exercised from the necessity of the case 
 by a certain number " called and chosen to this work 
 by men who have public authority given unto them in 
 the congregation, to call and send ministers into the 
 Lord's vineyard." And therefore in our definition of 
 the Church we are not to introduce as a differentia that 
 it possesses this or that form of ministry, any more than 
 in defining an army we should specify that it must have 
 so many grades of officers : officers of some kind it must 
 have, or it will be a mob and not an army ; but there 
 is no reason in the nature of things why different regi- 
 ments should not have different grades, some more, some 
 less. And so in respect of Church offices, it is not 
 necessary that they "be in all places one, and utterly 
 alike ; " for the definition of the Church is not tied to 
 a special form of ministry, but " the visible Church of 
 Christ is a congregation of faithful men \c03tus fideliuni], 
 in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the 
 Sacraments be duly ministered, according to Christ's 
 ordinance in all those things that of necessity are 
 requisite to the same."^ 
 
 It is true, as I have already admitted, that the 
 historical argument appears at first sight strong on the 
 other side. From the time of Cyprian to the time of 
 the Eeformation, the Episcopate existed everywhere, and 
 was regarded as an essential element in the Church. But 
 Church history did not begin with Cyprian, neither did 
 it endwdththe Eeformation. Bishop Lightfoot's "Essay 
 1 Article XIX. 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 95 
 
 on the Christian Ministry" indicates how gradually, 
 and not in all places simultaneously, Episcopal govern- 
 ment was evolved : and it is plain that at the Reforma- 
 tion, while the Churches which adhered to the Roman 
 obedience retained the theory that Catholicity depended 
 on submission to the Roman See, the Reformed Churches 
 fell back on the primitive theory that the Church is the 
 congregation of Christians, and assumed the right of 
 revising for themselves both their organization and 
 their doctrinal formulas. And accordingly for now 
 more than three centuries we see Christendom divided 
 no longer into the two great communions of the East 
 and West, but into a multiplicity of differently organized 
 bodies, all professing and calling themselves Christian, 
 all claiming to belong to the universal Church, all aiming 
 at the promotion of the kingdom of Heaven, yet not 
 bound together by any outward uniformity. And we 
 notice further that it is precisely in those periods and 
 in those countries where there is most enlightenment, 
 most progress, most religious and political activity, that 
 there is least uniformity of religious life. So that the 
 historical argument seems to break down,' and it is no 
 longer possible to point to the universal acceptance of 
 one form of Church government as an argument for its 
 universal obligation. The truth appears to be that 
 Episcopacy in the Ecclesiastical sphere occupies a 
 position analogous to that of Monarchy in the political. 
 The writers of the seventeenth century who asserted 
 the Divine right of Bishops asserted no less strongly 
 the Divine right of Kings. And both the scriptural 
 
96 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 and the historical arguments were as strong for the one 
 as for the other theory. But the English people rejected 
 the arguments of Sherlock and Sir Eobert Filmer. 
 They did not indeed abolish monarchy, but by placing. 
 William of Orange on the throne they practically 
 asserted the right of the people to choose its own 
 Government. Thus, in the case of monarchy, the logic 
 of facts has proved too strong for a priori theories ; 
 and no one now refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy 
 of republican government where it is established by the 
 will of the people. But the Divine right of Episcopacy 
 is still maintained in spite of accomplished facts, and 
 loyalty to the Church is made to consist, not in zeal 
 for righteousness and brotherly love, but in the refusal 
 to acknowledge as Christian ministers all wdio lack the 
 imposition of Ej)iscopal hands. But to those who 
 believe that God reveals His will not once for all but 
 progressively, by the working of His providence on the 
 course of history, it will not seem reasonable to suppose 
 that the development of Christian life in new forms 
 which dates from the sixteenth century has been an 
 infraction of the Divine plan, and that to accomplish 
 that unity for which Christian people hope and pray, 
 it is necessary to go back three hundred years. I 
 remember some two and twenty years ago hearing a 
 preacher in the Duomo of Florence, whose one panacea 
 for the evils that then afflicted the Church and the world 
 was the oft-repeated refrain, " Submit to the Roman 
 Pontiff." That does not sound very reasonable advice 
 in the light of subsequent events : but is it less 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 97 
 
 reasonable than tlie attempt to bring about the unity 
 of the Spirit by a universal submission to the Episcopate, 
 Anglican or Roman as the case may be ? Can we look 
 at Christendom as it at present exists, and believe that, 
 while the Eastern Church is a legitimate branch of the 
 Church Catholic, the non-Episcopal communions of the 
 West, with their manifold activities, their close contact 
 with the life and thought of the present day, are outside 
 the pale ? Was the Christian faith more influential, 
 was the Christian life truer and purer, when the Church 
 was outwardly one, than it is now ? 
 
 Some years ago a great authority exhorted politicians 
 to use maps constructed on a large scale ; meaning that 
 by so doing they would gain a juster view of the true 
 proportions and relations and boundaries of different 
 territories. The same advice might well be given to 
 ecclesiastics. "We are too apt to regard Church history 
 from our own point of view, and to go to it to find 
 confirmation for our own preconceived theories, rather 
 than to trace in it the gradual working out of God's 
 plan, the evolution of His spiritual kingdom. And so, 
 too, we are apt to confine our view to our own special 
 territory, till we come to identify this with the Catholic 
 Church. But as Goethe said, " Hinter dem Berge sind 
 audi Leute " — there are people beyond the mountains, — 
 so beyond the hills which stand round about our Jeru- 
 salem there are active, intelligent, devout Christian com- 
 munities, and if we refuse to hold commerce with them, 
 we shall be doing wrong both to ourselves and to them. 
 
 We are brought back, then, to the fundamental ques- 
 
 H 
 
98 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 tion, What is the true relation of the Christian ministry 
 to the constitution of the Christian Church ? St. Paul, 
 in the passage to which I have already referred in these 
 lectures, describes the Jewish priesthood as hia.Kovoi 
 ypdjXfJiaTO'?, the Christian as SiaKovoL TTvevfxaro'^. The 
 former would be those who are charged with the 
 administration of a system written and engraven on 
 stones. Their ministry would be one of routine ; their 
 ideal would be the formal adherence to a written code. 
 Such a priesthood is made, to use the language of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, /cam vo/jlov iuToXrjs o-apKLvrj<; — 
 after the law of a carnal commandment. The succession 
 of such a priesthood would be a formal and carnal one. 
 But the Christian priesthood, being a ministry of the 
 Spirit, was Kara SvpaixLv [,(orj<i aKaTokvrov — after the 
 power of an endless life. The essence of a minister of 
 the Old Covenant was that he should be of the family 
 of Aaron. The essence of a minister of the New 
 Covenant is, that he should be called of God. And 
 ordination in the Christian Church is, not the addiug 
 of one more link to the mystic chain through which the 
 Divine influence is transmitted from the Apostles to 
 the modern Church, not the empowering a man by 
 certain ritual acts to convey grace to the people, but 
 the solemn recognition of the Divine call, the choosing 
 and calling to the Avork of the ministry " by men wlio 
 have publick authority given unto them in the Con- 
 srreofation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's 
 vineyard." 
 
 But if this is so, it follows of necessity that the 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 
 
 99 
 
 essence of the Cliiircli cannot depend u^oon the form of 
 the ministry ; for then it would be, not of the spiiit, but 
 of the letter. The Church does not depend upon the 
 ministry, but rather the ministry upon the Church. 
 That this was the view taken at the Eeformation, the 
 view which the English Church distinctly and deliberately 
 accepted and acted upon, I shall endeavour to show in 
 a later lecture ; ^ and if at the Restoration in the seven- 
 teenth century a different view prevailed, that cannot 
 bind the Church of England for all time to a reactionary 
 theory. We may be thankful that both Episcopacy and 
 monarchy have been retained, and that both in Church 
 and State we possess an organic connection with the 
 past : but we need not therefore condemn those who 
 hav€ seen fit to adopt different ecclesiastical or political 
 organizations; we may recognize a providential design 
 in variety no less than in uniformity. Let us not in our 
 zeal for a theory of Catholicity close our eyes to facts. 
 Set on the one side the saying of Ignatius,^ that as 
 many as are of God and of Christ, they are with the 
 "Bishop; and on the other the patent facts of religious 
 life in the English colonies and in the United States, 
 and shall we say that the teaching of history is to have 
 no weight against the dictum of an Apostolic Father, 
 writing under wholly difierent circumstances and with a 
 different view ? The Divine will is revealed in the course 
 of events as well as in the Scriptures ; and if we find 
 that the grace of God is not limited to any outward 
 
 ^ See Lecture VIII. 
 
 "- Ignatius, Ep. ad Pliiladelpla , iii. 
 
loo THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV. 
 
 form or organization, if we find Episcoj)al Churches, 
 Presbyterian Churches, Congregationalist Churches, not 
 only existing but vindicating their right to exist by 
 fruitful Christian work and by a long and honourable 
 lineage, must we not be led to the conclusion that any 
 system which ignores the existence of this variety, and 
 which, in spite of facts, insists upon so defining the 
 Church as to exclude from its brotherhood a large part 
 of the most enero-etic and intellio;ent forms of Christian 
 life, must be defective or erroneous, must need replacing 
 or supplementing by a theory more adequate to the 
 facts ? Surely a theory which unites us with the 
 Abyssinian and Coptic Churches because they have 
 Bishops, and separates us from the Wesleyans because 
 they have none, stands self-convicted of unreality ; and 
 unreality in religion is a dangerous thing. 
 
 What, then, you may ask, are we to be contented 
 with the present disjointed, disorganized condition of 
 Christendom % Are we to accept a boundless sectarian- 
 ism as the highest achievement of the Christian spirit ? 
 To this question I hope to attempt an answer in a later 
 lecture, when I come to speak of the Church of the 
 future. For the present, let us lay to heart this prin- 
 ciple, that the Christian ministry is a ministry not of 
 the letter but of the spirit ; that it is not, like that of 
 the Old Covenant, a service of outward forms and 
 observances ; but that, unless it is quickened and 
 instinct with the Spirit of God, it is naught. Let us 
 settle it in our minds that the ministry is essential to 
 the Church only in the sense that organization is essen- 
 
Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH loi 
 
 tial to every society ; that what the minister does is the 
 act of the cono-reo-ation ; and that the hii^hest aim a 
 minister can set before him is to train his people to be 
 independent of him. Let us remember that the true 
 Apostolical succession is a succession not mechanical but 
 spiritual ; that, as Origeu says/ the prerogative given to 
 St. Peter after the letter belongs according to the spirit 
 to every one who is like St. Peter ; and that, for the 
 present at least, the truest bond of union for the Church 
 of Christ is not a common ministry nor a common form 
 of worship, but a common allegiance to Christ, a unity 
 not outward, not of the letter, ]jut inward and of the 
 spirit. 
 
 ^ Origen, Tn Matt., torn, xii., ed. Caillau : Kai cI' rts Aeyet 
 Tovro Trpos avTov . . . Tevferat tCjv elprjfjievoiv, cos /^ei/ to ypd^fxa 
 Toiv ewyyeXiou Xeyet, Trpos e/cetj/ov tov llerpou, ws 8k to Trvevfia avTov 
 SiSacTKCi, Trpos TrduTa tov yevo/xevov, ottoios 6 IleTpos eKetvos. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 m THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 " It is the Spirit tiiat quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : 
 the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." — 
 John vi. 63. 
 
 The distinction between the letter and tlie spirit, 
 between the material and formal, is, as I have already 
 said, one which runs throno-h all relio-ion, and wliich 
 underlies almost all controversies. If once we could 
 solve the question, with regard to our religious belief and 
 observances. What is the eternal and unchangeable and 
 what is the transitory and accidental element ? we should 
 have arrived at the end of disputations, and should be, 
 like Eichard Baxter in his later years, "much more 
 inclinable to reconciling principles." It is my earnest 
 desire in these lectures to minister to what, I trust, is a 
 characteristic feature of our time — the tendency to base 
 our religious life, not on the subtleties of controversial 
 theology, but rather on the " reconciling princijDles " 
 which will endure when the " wood, hay, stubble " which 
 have been built upon them shall be burnt up. 
 
 We have seen that St. Paul describes the ministry of 
 the New Covenant as a ministry of the sj^irit, and that 
 he speaks of Christians as serving God in newness of the 
 
Lect. v.] in the sacraments 103 
 
 spirit, and not in oklness of the letter. And in so doing 
 lie is only carrying out the principle laid down by our 
 Lord, that " God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him 
 must worship Him in spirit and in truth." And from 
 this principle of the purely spiritual nature of God's 
 kingdom it would seem to follow of necessity that all 
 worship must be spiritual ; that, as all human life is 
 redeemed and sanctified by Christ, all times and places 
 and persons are alike holy, and that in the Christian 
 system there is no room for days or places or persons 
 specially set apart for the service of God. In a former 
 lecture I have quoted a weighty passage from Bishop 
 Lightfoot's Essay on the " Christian Ministry," in which 
 this principle is asserted with the utmost lucidity. But, 
 after laying down this great ideal, the Bishop at once 
 acknowledges that it is "strictly an ideal, which we 
 must ever hold before our eyes, which should inspire 
 and interpret ecclesiastical polity, but which nevertheless 
 cannot supersede the necessary wants of human society, 
 and, if crudely and hastily applied, will lead only to 
 signal failure." In truth, a purely spiritual religion is 
 suited only for purely spiritual beings. ' If in our religion 
 we ignore the material side of our nature, that side of 
 our nature will assuredly assert and avenge itself. And 
 therefore no religion that has ever existed has been able 
 to dispense with some kind of rituaL In those which 
 have attempted it, the very absence of ritual becomes 
 in itself a kind of traditional form of worship. Hence 
 
 1 Cf. " Baxter's Catechizing of Families," p. 392 : " A soul in flesh 
 is apt to use sense, and needs suine help of it." 
 
I04 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 in modern Christianity we find, partly by direct institu- 
 tion of Christ, partly as the result of a natural growth 
 under the influence of its surroundings, a system of 
 sacraments, ordinances of worship, forms of Church 
 government, and ecclesiastical customs and traditions, 
 which form, as it were, the embodiment of the Christian 
 spirit, and which, to the minds of most persons, are 
 inseparable from Christianity itself. Still, we must 
 never forget that all these outward things are but acci- 
 dents, even if they be inseparable accidents, of the 
 kino-dom of God ; that in its essence that king-dom is 
 independent of them ; that it is a Covenant, not of letter, 
 not of outer forms and observances, but of spirit— of 
 the life which comes direct from God ; that these things 
 are but means to an end, and that if they are treated as 
 ends in themselves they at once become hindrances to 
 the spiritual kingdom. 
 
 Our subject to-day is the letter and the spirit, or 
 the outward and the inward part, in the Sacraments, 
 limiting the use of the term to the two ordinances which 
 are specially recognized as such by the Church of 
 England. 
 
 Christ was accustomed to speak of Himself as intro- 
 ducing or revealing a kingdom. ' ' The kingdom of Heaven 
 is likened " unto this or that, is the familiar beginning of 
 His parables as recorded by St. Matthew. But a kingdom 
 deuotes persons standing in a certain relation, first, to 
 the king, and, secondly, to each other as fellow-subjects. 
 In other words, to be a disciple of Christ is not merely 
 to accept His teaching ; it is to enter into and continue 
 
Lect. v.] IA^ the sacraments 105 
 
 ill a certain definite relation to Him and to humanity in 
 Him. And accordingly the only two outward forms 
 which can claim His sanction symbolize, the one ad- 
 mission to, and the other continuance and confirmation 
 in, the Christian society or brotherhood. It is in this 
 sense that St. Paul always appeals to them as witnesses 
 of the corporate life of the Church : " In one Spirit were 
 we all baptized into one body ; and were all made to 
 drink of one Spirit ; " " The bread which we break, is it 
 not a communion of the body of Christ *? seeing that we, 
 who are many, are one bread, one body ; for we all 
 partake of the one bread ; " " He that eateth and 
 drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, 
 if he discern not the body." Other meanings and other 
 benefits, no doubt, may be found in the Sacraments, but 
 these are the root-ideas out of which all the rest spring. 
 We proceed, then, to discuss each of the Sacraments 
 separately, looking at them in the earliest form in which 
 we find them, and trying to discriminate between that 
 which is of the letter and that which is of the spirit. 
 
 The washing of the body with water was a familiar 
 symbol among Oriental nations for the putting off" all 
 moral pollution and uncleanness. It was enjoined by 
 the Jewish lav\r as a ceremonial act for the Priests, and 
 for all persons who had contracted ceremonial defile- 
 ment ; and it seems certain that before our Lord's 
 time it had been adopted as part of the ritual for the 
 admission of proselytes into the Jewish Covenant.^ 
 
 1 Cf. Bishop Harold Browne, in Smith's " Bible Diet.," s.v. 
 "Baptism." Winer's " Bibl. Eeahvurterbuch," s.v. "Troselyten." 
 
io6 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 This simple and expressive action was adopted by John 
 the Baj^tist for his disciples, and by our Lord as the 
 form of admission into His society ; in each case it was 
 the outward and visible sign of that putting away of 
 past sin and entering with purified heart and conscience 
 upon a new life, which both the one and the other pro- 
 claimed. And after our Lord's departure, it became by 
 His appointment the established form by which new 
 members were admitted to His Church. To understand 
 what Baptism was and what it involved in the earliest 
 days of the Church, we must remember how entirely it 
 changed a man's whole life. He had been brought up 
 in one or other of the heathen religions, a worshipper of 
 the gods of Greece or Rome or Egypt ; or else he had 
 been a Jew, taught to believe that in Jerusalem was the 
 place where men ought to worship ; or perhaps he had 
 grown up in the philosophical scepticism which had so 
 largely undermined both Jewish and Gentile religion, 
 and had learnt as the highest achievement of wisdom — 
 
 " Pacata posse omnia mente tueri." ^ 
 
 But he had accepted Christ as his Master and Saviour, 
 and he came to profess his faith in Him. He pro- 
 nounced the words, " I renounce thee, Satan ; I join 
 myself to Thee, Christ." He was plunged beneath the 
 baj)tismal water, and he rose up a Christian. In that 
 water he washed away the stains of his past life. 
 Beneath it he was buried with Christ ; from it he rose 
 to newness of life. It was hardly a metaphor, it was 
 
 1 Lucretius, v. 1202. 
 
Lect. v.] in the sacraments 107 
 
 almost a literal fact, to say that lie was dead, that he 
 was born again, that he had passed out of darkness into 
 the light, that he had been initiated. He entered upon 
 a new career, among new friends and associates, with 
 new interests, new hopes, new motives, a new and all- 
 pervading affection. 
 
 What a comj^lete contrast, to all outward appear- 
 ance, to modern Baptism ! An unconscious infant is 
 brought to the font, often as a mere concession to 
 custom, often in consequence of much pressure from 
 the clergyman or his agents ; not uncommonly we find 
 persons who do not know whether they have been bap- 
 tized or not ; very rarely is Baptism thought of by 
 modern Christians as an epoch in their lives. AVe still 
 keep the old phraseology ; we still give thanks to God 
 that tlie child is regenerate, we still pray that he ''may 
 lead the rest of his life according to this beginning ; " 
 we still teach children to say that in Baptism they were 
 made " members of Christ, the children of God, and 
 inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven ; " but to most 
 persons this language is unreal, it answers to no kind of 
 spiritual fact of which they are conscious.^ And may we 
 not trace the reason of this in the history of the Church ? 
 When the Christian community was in the first freshness 
 of its new life, when the multitude of them that believed 
 were of one heart and of one soul, when to become a 
 Christian was to be welcomed into a united family, 
 when the Church and the world were so distinct that 
 Christians naturally spoke and thought of the one as 
 darkness, the other as light, then to be baptized was 
 
io8 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 indeed to put on Christ, to be made a member of His 
 body. But gradually, as tlie simplicity of the Christian 
 life wore off — as the Church became, not the natural and 
 spontaneous union of those who were bound together by 
 a common faith and a common love, but a great super- 
 natural corporation, endowed with mysterious powers 
 for the purpose of saving men's souls from the wrath to 
 come, — Baptism was no longer the simple act by which 
 men professed discipleship to Christ and were admitted 
 to the membership of God's family, but a mystic cere- 
 mony by which the guilt of original sin was washed 
 away, by which the evil spirit dwelling in the natural 
 man was exorcised, by which a mark was impressed and 
 grace infused into the soul, by which one born under a 
 curse was reconciled to God. The simple and natural 
 terms which had formerly been used to express the 
 greatness of the change involved in coming out of 
 heathen life into the communion of the Christian Church 
 — regeneration, enlightenment, initiation, sealing, — were 
 regarded no longer as metaphors, but as literal expres- 
 sions of a mysterious inward change wrought by contact 
 with the water and the uttering of the prescribed words. 
 Infants were brought to be baptized, not as the joyful 
 and thankful recognition of the fact of God's universal 
 love, not as a visible declaration of the brotherhood in 
 which Christ had united all mankind, but to save them 
 from those everlasting fires to which all who died with- 
 out Baptism were doomed.^ And lest any should through 
 
 ^ Augustine (Contra Julianum, in.) says of an unbaptized 
 infant, "Quid miraris in igne aiterno cum diabolo futurum, qui in 
 
Lect. v.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 109 
 
 difficulty or misadventure be left to so dreadful a fate, 
 it was mercifully provided that Baptism might be 
 administered, not only in the congregation or by those 
 to whom it pertained officially to administer the dis- 
 cipline and sacraments of the Church, but in any place, 
 by any person, man or woman. So that the initiatory 
 act whereby originally converts from heathenism — and 
 then, in full accordance with the spirit at least of the 
 New Covenant, infants — were brought into organic union 
 with the body of Christ, the Christian society, became 
 little better than a magical incantation, whereby the 
 Divine favour was procured and the designs of Satan 
 frustrated. 
 
 We can hardly wonder that in different directions 
 men should have revolted against the hardness of the 
 letter and striven after something more spiritual. Bap- 
 tism, said one class of persons, professes to be the 
 entrance into the kingdom of Heaven ; but to enter that 
 kingdom needs repentance and faith ; surely, then, the 
 only proper subjects of Baptism are not infants, but 
 persons capable of repentance and faith. Surely the 
 only profession of discipleship is that' which is made 
 with full knowledge and deliberate choice ; is it not 
 more reasonable to wait until persons are of age to 
 choose for themselves whether they will be Christ's dis- 
 ciples or not ? On the other hand, another class of 
 persons maintained that, the kingdom of Christ being 
 
 Dei regmim intrare non sinitur?" Elsewliere, indeed (De Pecca- 
 torum Meritis, i.), he says, " Potest proinde recte dici, parvulos sine 
 baptismo de corpore exeuntes in damnatione omnium levissima futures." 
 
] lo THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 purely spiritual, the only Baptism that was needed was 
 that of the Spirit ; that the water was a mere temporary 
 symbol which the Church in its maturity might safely 
 dispense with. And nearer to our own day, when an 
 excessive individualism has proclaimed that a man's 
 religion is entirely a matter between himself and his 
 God, and w^hen the corporate character of Christianity 
 has been overlooked, Baj)tism has been reduced to an 
 edifying ceremony wherein believing parents offered 
 their children to God/ 
 
 We shall not be able to meet the arguments either 
 of the Baptist or of the Quaker, until we have risen to 
 a higher and wider conception of what that society is to 
 which Baptism admits us. If Baptism is the door of 
 entrance to a denomination, if we bring children to be 
 baptized in order that they may adopt this or that set 
 of opinions, or this or that form of worship, then un- 
 doubtedly it would be reasonable that we should give 
 them an opportunity of choosing for themselves what 
 their religion shall l^e or whether they will have any 
 religion. Or if Baptism is set forth to us as a charm to 
 deliver us from the punishment of the sin of Adam, then 
 we could understand men thinking that it might be a 
 less evil to dispense with the outward washing alto- 
 gether than to have recourse to it as a means of rescu- 
 ing children from the wrath of their heavenly Father. 
 But if we will open our minds to the truth that God's 
 
 ^ It is said that among English Congregationalists Baptism is 
 falling into increasing neglect. Indeed, it is not easy to see how 
 it fits in with their Church theories. 
 
Lect. v.] IN THE SACRAMENTS tii 
 
 will is to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the 
 heavens and the things upon the earth ; if we will learn 
 to believe in the Holy Catholic Church, in no restricted 
 or narrow sense, but as the firstfruits and the represen- 
 tative of the great human brotherhood ; if we will 
 remember that Baptism means, not that we have chosen 
 Christ, but that He has chosen us ; then it will become 
 to us full of life and meaning, and we shall see in it, not 
 a mere edifying ceremony, nor yet a means of averting 
 Divine wrath, but the declaration to each child of God's 
 Fatherhood, the incorporation of a new member into 
 that society which Christ founded upon earth to be the 
 nucleus of a great world-wide brotherhood, in wdiich His 
 Spirit should dwell, and by which mankind should be 
 edified into conformity with the Divine plan. 
 
 More than half the controversies and misunderstand- 
 ings which have arisen in the Church have been the 
 result of interpreting metaphors literally. By Baptism 
 a person was introduced into a new world of spiritual 
 influences, just as by birth he had been introduced into 
 a new world of physical influences. There was an 
 obvious analogy between the beginnings ,of the natural 
 and of the spiritual life. What then could be more 
 fitting than to speak of the Sacrament whereby an infant 
 or an adult was brought into contact with the life which 
 circulated in the Christian society as a new birth ? But 
 when this simple and expressive metaphor of regenera- 
 tion was interpreted after the letter, Baptism came to 
 be looked upon as a charm by which a mysterious 
 inward change was wrought in the unconscious soul, and 
 
112 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 men taught that, though concupiscence remained, yet 
 it was mitigated and diminished by baptismal grace ; 
 that the Spirit moves upon the face of the waters of 
 Baptism, and sanctifies them so that they receive power 
 to sanctify. 
 
 " A few calm words of faith and prayer, 
 
 A few bright drops of holy dew, 
 
 Shall work a wonder there 
 
 Earth's charmers never knew." 
 
 Who does not see that in all this we have rhetoric mis- 
 taken for logic, images of spiritual things substituted for 
 the spiritual truths which they represent ? And if we 
 would restore the Sacrament of Baptism to its rightful 
 position as the initiation into the spiritual world, we 
 must make the Christian society more real, more 
 Catholic ; we must see that that into which persons are 
 baptized is not a mere religious denomination^ but in 
 some measure at least the kingdom of Heaven upon 
 earth. It is true that always the solemnities of religion 
 represent rather the ideal than the actual; it is right 
 that we should use the glowing words of the Baptismal 
 Office to set forth the great heritage to which all alike 
 are called, even when we have a sorrowful consciousness 
 in the particular case that there is little likelihood of 
 the child being brought up to lead the rest of his life 
 according to this beginning ; but we must at the same 
 time remember that it is only by rising out of the literal 
 into the spiritual that we can make Baptism a reality 
 of the religious iife. 
 
 The most strikino: and iuterestinfr instance of the 
 
Lect. v.] in the sacraments 113 
 
 relation of the letter to the spirit is undoubtedly to be 
 found in that great central ordinance of Christianity 
 which can be regarded under many aspects, and is called 
 by many names, the Lord's Supper, the Holy Communion, 
 the Eucharist, the Mass. Let us look for a moment at 
 the contrasts which under its extreme forms it presents 
 to us. 
 
 In the earliest detailed account of the celebration of 
 the Lord's Supper, that given by Justin Martyr, we 
 cannot fail to be struck with the fact that what is 
 described is a social feast, a popular religious solemnity, 
 conducted according to an accepted type, yet not without 
 a certain element of spontaneity, consisting of the offer- 
 ing of praise and thanksgiving and of the fruits of the 
 earth, of the consecration of bread and of wine mixed 
 with water by the presiding brother,^ who oflers up 
 prayers and thanksgivings according to his power ; ^ 
 of the partaking of the consecrated elements by the 
 assembled people, and of the sending portions to those 
 who are absent. As we advance, the traces of fixed 
 liturgical forms become increasingly clear : but every- 
 where the popular element is conspicuous \ it is always, 
 " We pray," " A¥e give thanks," " AVe offer sacrifices." 
 And with this agree the slight and informal notices in 
 the Acts of the Apostles and the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians. "The brethren came together to break 
 bread." "The bread which we break; the cup which 
 
 ^ npoo-t^eperat tw Trpoeo-Twrt twv aSeA^wv apro';, Kai TruTi'jpLov {'8a- 
 Tos Kol Kpa-ixaros. — Just. Mart,, ApoL, 2. 
 ^ "Oay] Svvafxis aurw. — L.c. 
 
 I 
 
114 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 we bless." " We, the many, are one bread, one 
 body." 
 
 If a Christian of the second century could return to 
 life and be present at a Low Mass of the Roman Church, 
 at which there may or may not be worshippers present, 
 at which no one but the Priest communicates, at which 
 no sound of a voice is heard, and from which the social 
 element is quite absent, would it occur to his mind that 
 what he saw represented the familiar ceremony in which 
 he had been accustomed to take part ? It would be a 
 bold assertion to make. Nay, are we quite sure that in 
 any Church throughout Christendom — Grreek, Roman, 
 Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, 
 Methodist — he would see what would recall to him the 
 Eucharistic Feast of the early Church ? 
 • If this is so — if in this great central act of worship 
 the variations have been so great ; if the Ordinance of 
 a rural congregation English of Nonconformists and the 
 Pontifical High Mass of St. Peter's at Rome both claim 
 as their origin the acts and words of Christ on the night 
 before His Passion, both profess to be that perpetual 
 memory of His Death which He commanded us to 
 continue until His coming again, it may be well to see 
 whether under this outward diversity any substratum of 
 unity exists, — whether, if we trace the Eucharist up 
 to its Source, we can find a permanent, unchanging 
 principle which is the same in all ages and in all 
 Churches. 
 
 The earliest documentary evidence we possess 
 referrino' to the Eucharist is, of course, the mention of 
 
Lect. v.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 115 
 
 it in 1 Cor. x. and xi. : the latter chapter containing 
 an account of its institution, which St. Paul says he 
 received of the Lord, and which is evidently akin to 
 the narrative in St. Luke's Gospel. The other two 
 synoptic Gospels have a parallel though independent 
 narrative. From these we gather that, on the night 
 when our Lord ate His last Passover with His disciples, 
 He engrafted u23on the traditional feast of the Old 
 Covenant a new observance. He took bread — the un- 
 leavened Paschal cake — "and when He had given 
 thanks, He brake it, and said, This is My body, 
 which is for you : this do in remembrance of Me." And 
 after supper He took the cup of blessing, which formed 
 part of the traditional observance though not of the 
 original institution of the Passover, saying, " This cup 
 is the New Covenant in My blood : this do, as oft as ye 
 drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as ye eat 
 this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's 
 death till He come." On this simple narrative we may 
 remark, first, that the Lord's Supper, like His kingdom, 
 had its roots in the Old Covenant. He used the same 
 elements which, though only accessory to the Passover, 
 had yet served for the Paschal meal. He passed by the 
 lamb, which was the essential element, and took the 
 unleavened bread, which was a part though not the 
 central or characteristic part of the feast, and the cup 
 of wine mixed with water, which was a mere social 
 addition, and He calls the bread His body, and the cup 
 the New Covenant in His blood: alluding evidently 
 to the blood of the Covenant with which Moses had 
 
ii6 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 sprinkled the people before Le went up into the mount.' 
 And this bread and this cup, which He thus identified 
 with Himself, He told His disciples to eat and drink in 
 remembrance of Him, and with reference (as St. Paul 
 adds) to His coming again, or (according to St. Matthew 
 and St. Mark) to the day when He should drink it new 
 with them in His Father's kingdom. 
 
 But the phenomena of the fourth Gospel in this 
 connection are very remarkable. The Passover; which 
 the Synoptists identify with the meal eaten on the 
 night before the Crucifixion, is relegated by the fourth 
 Evangelist to the day following that event. And though 
 a discourse ^^ronounced on the Thursday evening is re- 
 ported at great length, yet no allusion whatever is made 
 to the institution of the Eucharist. But, on the other 
 hand, at a much earlier period of our Lord's ministry, 
 St. John records a discourse delivered just before an 
 earlier Passover, the phraseology of which coincides in 
 a remarkable manner with the language attributed to our 
 Lord by the Synoptists in connection with the Eucharist. 
 In the discourse at Capernaum after the feeding of the 
 five thousand,'^ our Lord speaks of Himself as the 
 Bread of Life, and adds, "He that cometh to Me shall 
 never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never 
 thirst." And He further says, " The bread which 1 will 
 give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the 
 world." And when the Jews strove one with another, 
 saying, " How can this Man give us His flesh to eat ? " 
 Jesus said, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, 
 
 ^ Exod. xxiv. 8. ^ John vi. 
 
Lect. v.] in the sacraments 117 
 
 and drink His blood, yc have not life in yourselves. He 
 that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal 
 life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My 
 flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed." 
 
 If we accept both the discourse in St. John and the 
 synoptic narrative of the Supper as authentic, it is 
 impossible to suppose that they are not in some way 
 related to each other. If Christ spoke of eating His 
 flesh and drinking His blood as a necessity of the 
 spiritual life, and afterwards, at a solemn moment of 
 His life, said, " Take, eat, this is My body ; and drink 
 ye all of this, for this is My blood," it seems plain that 
 the one utterance could not have been made without 
 reference to the other, and we may reasonal_)ly suppose 
 that the one is to be interpreted by the other. But the 
 important question is, which is to be interpreted by the 
 other ? Are we to say that the discourse at Capernaum 
 was a dark saying, of which the disciples were not 
 intended to understand the meaning until it was made 
 clear by the words and acts of the Paschal Supper, or 
 was Christ in the discourse laying down a great spiritual 
 truth, which, if the disciples had received it into their 
 minds and understandings, would have enabled them at 
 once to recognize His meaning in the institution of the 
 Eucharist ? 
 
 Let us look more closely at the words of the discourse 
 in John vi. 
 
 Our Lord saw that the multitude who had followed 
 Him across the lake were actuated by no higher motive 
 than a desire to set what He might be able and willin.2: 
 
ii8 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 to bestow ; and so He exliorts them to work, not for the 
 meat which perisheth, but for the meat which abideth 
 unto everlasting life. The mention of work led them 
 to suppose that some efforts of their own could obtain 
 the gift He spoke of; and they asked, "What must we 
 do that we may work the works of God ? " He tells 
 them that it is not a question of working, but of believ- 
 ing : " This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him 
 Whom He hath sent." And when they asked for a 
 sign, and spoke of the manna which Moses had given 
 the people from heaven, He declared, " It was not Moses 
 that gave you the bread out of heaven ; but My Father 
 giveth you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread 
 of God is that which cometh down out of heaven and 
 giveth life unto the world." And he added, " I am the 
 bread of life : he that cometh to Me shall not hunger ; 
 and he that belie veth on Me shall never thirst." 
 
 So far there is little difficulty in understanding the 
 general meaning. The people were following Him from 
 a low, carnal motive ; they desired such food as Moses 
 had brought out of heaven. But Christ's object was not 
 to satisfy their bodily hunger, nor yet to impress their 
 imagination by wonderful works, but to supply their 
 spiritual needs. Accordingly, just as He had spoken to 
 the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well of living water 
 springing up within a man unto everlasting life, so here 
 he tries to raise the thoughts and desires of the people 
 to a higher and more spiritual level by speaking of Him- 
 self as the bread of life. What they really needed was 
 nourishment for their spiritual life ; and that nourishment 
 
Lect. v.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 119 
 
 they could receive by believing on Him, the living 
 bread. Who had life in Himself, Who had come that 
 they might have life, and have it more abundantly. 
 But, after this, a new scene seems to open. The Jews — 
 no longer the multitude, but the Jews, " the representa- 
 tives of the dominant religious party "^ — -"murmured 
 concerning Him because He said, I am the bread 
 which came down out of heaven." And, after repeating 
 His previous declaration that He is the bread of life, He 
 tells them that the bread which He will give is His flesh, 
 which He will give for the life of the world. Here, with 
 the word " flesh " comes in for the first time the sug- 
 
 o 
 
 gestion of His death. And then He speaks of eating 
 His flesh and drinking His blood as the condition of 
 having eternal life. Here, surely, is a declaration that 
 it is by receiving Him, His life-giving Spirit, into them- 
 selves, by being made conformable to His death, that 
 they can be nourished to life eternal. Does He give 
 any hint that this is a mystery which would not be 
 made known to them till long afterwards, w^hen He 
 w^ould be about to leave them ? Far from it. He speaks 
 of the present. " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh 
 My blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up 
 [will perfect him] at the last day." And, as though to 
 meet and obviate any gross and carnal understanding of 
 His w^ords, when His disciples complained, " This is a 
 hard saying ; who can hear it ? " He said, "It is the spirit 
 that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : the words 
 that 1 have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." 
 ^ Westcott oil St. Johu, p. 104. 
 
I20 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 There are, as I have said, two possible lines of inter- 
 pretation of this great passage. If we say that it refers 
 to the sacramental feeding on Christ's body and blood in 
 the Eucharist, and that our Lord was speaking by antici- 
 pation of a rite which He intended to institute, probably 
 a year later, we are substituting the letter for the spirit, 
 the outward for tlie inward. In the weighty words of 
 Dr. Westcott, " The teaching . . . treats essentially of 
 spiritual realities, with which no external act, as such, 
 can l^e co-extensive. ... To attempt to transfer the 
 words of the discourse with their consequences to the 
 Sacrament is not only to involve the history in hopeless 
 confusion, but to introduce overwhelming difficulties into 
 their interpretation." On the other hand, the spiritual 
 reference of the passage is well brought out in the well- 
 known words of St. Augustine, " Believe and thou hast 
 eaten ; " and in those of St. Bernard, " To eat His flesh 
 and drink His blood, what is it but to be partakers of His 
 sufferings and to imitate His conversation which He 
 had in the flesh ? " Indeed, the relation of the Sacra- 
 ment to the discourse cannot be more tersely expressed 
 than in the words of St. Augustine in reference to Christ 
 as the bread which came down from heaven : ^ " Hunc 
 
 ^ Aug., in Job. Evan., xxvi. § 12. In the text of the 
 Benedictine edition the words are " Ilunc panem significavit Altare 
 Dei." But in a note we read, "MSS. plerique significat." The 
 perfect tense would make it refer to the Jewish Altar. But 
 " Altare Dei " is Augustine's familiar title for the Christian Altar, 
 and the change of tense is one which the monkish copyist wonld 
 he likely to make, lest St. Augustine should seem to speak of the 
 Eucharist as signi/i/ing and not being the Bread of Life. 
 
 In connexion with Augustine's view of the Eucharist, there 
 
Lect. v.] in the sacraments 121 
 
 paneni significavit nuiiina, hunc panem significat altare 
 Dei.", ■ The discourse and the Sacrament alike have 
 reference to the same spiritual reality, the inward feeding 
 on Christ by faith, the receiving nourishment and 
 strength from Him, tlie transfusion of His Spirit into us. 
 To find in the discourse an exposition of the doctrine 
 of the Sacrament is — in the words of Meyer — an unex- 
 ampled and inconceivable vcnepov Trporepou. The earlier 
 Christian writers no doubt apply the phraseology of 
 the discourse to the Eucharist : but it is remarkable 
 that, while using the strongest possible language, lan- 
 guage sometimes overstepping the limits of sober rever- 
 ence, of the eating and drinking of the body and blood 
 of Christ in the Sacrament, they yet seem always con- 
 scious that it is figurative language that they are using. 
 Origen applies St. Paul's words about the letter and the 
 spirit to this subject.^ "There is," he says, "in the 
 Gospels too a letter, which kills him who understands not 
 spiritually the things which are spoken. For if thoa 
 followest out according to the letter this very saying, 
 ' Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood,' this letter 
 
 is a curious story in his third book " Contra Julianum," how one 
 Acatius, a contemporary of his own, had been born with his 
 eyes closed, and how, when he was five years old, his mother had 
 succeeded in opening them, imposito ex Eucharistia cataplasmate. It 
 is difficult to understand this of anything but the consecrated bread 
 of the Eucharist ; but if so, it implies a view of the Sacrament 
 singularly remote from any modern theory. 
 
 ^ " Est enim et in evangeliis littera, qnae occidit eura, qui non 
 spiritaliter, quae dicimtur, adverterit. Si enim secundum litteram 
 seqiiaris hoc ipsum, quod dictum est : Nisi manducaveritis carnem 
 meam et biberitis sanguinem meum, occidit haec littera." — Hum. 
 viii. 5, in Lev. 
 
122 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 killetli." And St. Augustine warns us to honour the 
 Sacraments, not in slavishness of the flesh, but in free- 
 dom of the spirit. And to take the sign for the thing 
 sio-nified he^ calls a mark of " servilis infirmitas." 
 
 o 
 
 It is strange how largely the letter has superseded 
 the spirit in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Selden's 
 pithy saying of the doctrine of tran substantiation,^ 
 " That opinion is only Rhetoric turned into Logic," con- 
 tains briefly the history of sacramental dogma. " With- 
 out a parable spake He not unto them" is the Evangelist's 
 account of our Lord's teaching to the multitude. And 
 the one Evangelist who gives us no parables properly so 
 called, records a number of parabolic sayings which we 
 must take into account if we would understand His 
 method. " I am the Door ; " "I am the Good Shepherd ; " 
 " I am the Vine ; " "I am the Bread of Life ; " — all these 
 sayings set forth Christ in His relation to His people 
 under various aspects. They show how natural it was 
 to Him to use the things of sense for expressing spiritual 
 truths. And the image of eating and drinking, of 
 inwardly digesting, was a very familiar one to his 
 hearers. " Come, eat of My bread, and drink of the 
 wine which I have mingled," is the invitation of 
 Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. But in the case of the 
 Eucharist there is a further and a deeper significance. 
 For Christ goes on to say, "The bread which I will give 
 is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 
 He was indeed a Teacher sent from God, and if He had 
 
 ^ Aug., De Doct. Christ, iir. 9. 
 2 Selden's " Table Talk." 
 
Lect. v.] in the sacraments 123 
 
 said simply, " I am the bread of life," we should have 
 accepted it as a claim that we should receive and 
 assimilate His doctrine ; but when He speaks of giving 
 His flesh for the life of the world, it is clear that He 
 points to His Incarnation and Sacrifice as the life-giving 
 food of His people. So far, then, it is quite true that 
 the discourse at Capernaum contained a mystery which 
 the hearers could not yet fully comprehend. But the 
 main point is, that the discourse was not a prophecy of 
 the Lord's Supper, but the Supper was the precipitating 
 and fixing in visible and tangible signs of that which 
 Christ had already given as a spiritual revelation to His 
 disciples. 
 
 That He should thus have embodied the relation 
 between Himself and His people in a visible action is a 
 signal proof of His insight into human nature. Not 
 only because — 
 
 "Segnius irritant animos demissa per aureni, 
 Quam quse sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus ; " 
 
 but also because an institution or an observance gathers 
 round itself a history of its own, and gives fresh signifi- 
 cance and vitality to the doctrine which it enshrines. 
 In truth, the history of the Eucharist would be to a 
 great extent a history of the inner life of Christendom. 
 It has influenced, and in its turn been influenced by, 
 the course of Church life. In the New Testament we 
 find it in its primitive simplicity: at Troas, the midnight 
 celebration in the upper chamber ; at Corinth, the Lord's 
 Supper and the Love-feast almost indistiuguishably 
 blended. But soon new elements appear : we see the 
 
124 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 separation of the Communion from the Love-feast ; the 
 transition from the late evening to the early morning ; 
 the development of the idea of sacrifice — first the thank- 
 offering of the fruits of the earth, then the offering of 
 themselves by the people as a reasonable, holy, and 
 lively sacrifice ; then the solemn commemoration of the 
 sacrifice of Christ ; and finally the propitiatory sacrifice 
 of the Mass: we see the growth of the idea of com- 
 munion, first with the persons present signified by the 
 kiss of peace, then with absent brethren, then with the 
 dead, and the mention by name of departed saints : 
 parallel with this, the growth of the sacerdotal aspect of 
 the Sacrament, so that it is no longer The bread which 
 we the Christian congregation, but The bread which we 
 the Priests break ; the change from the primitive 
 Basilica arrangement, in which tlie Bishop, descending 
 from his throne at the eastern extremity of the Church, 
 stood behind the Holy Table with his face towards the 
 people ; the development of the simple apsidal termina- 
 tion into the deep chancel and the elaborate sanctuary, 
 so that the very architecture of our mediaeval churches 
 bears testimony to the changed aspect of the worship 
 for which they were built : we see the whole institution 
 gradually transformed from the simple act of communion 
 with Christ and with His people into a gorgeous pageant, 
 an awful mystery, the worship of Christ present on the 
 Altar. But through all it has been a perpetual memory 
 of the sacrifice of the death of Christ ; under the 
 utmost variety of forms it has shown forth the Lord's 
 death. And when the Reformation came, and with it 
 
Lect. v.] in the sacraments 125 
 
 the restoration of the simpler and purer idea of 
 Christian worship, the Eucharist reverted in the Pro- 
 testant Churches to something like its earlier type, and 
 the Mass gave way to the Communion, and the spirit 
 once more asserted itself as superior to the letter. 
 
 It may at first seem startling, when we discover 
 that the great central usaoje of Christianity, that which 
 our Lord appointed to be observed in memory of Him 
 until His coming again, should have so varied from age 
 to age, and that it should have been made the central 
 position of \X\^ battle of the Eeformation. It is startling, 
 if we think chiefly of the outward form, and not of the 
 inward spirit. But we must remember that the con- 
 dition on which an observance exists is that it should so 
 adapt itself as to be intelligible to and in contact with 
 the inner life of varying generations ; and that the 
 simple coming together of the brethren to break bread, 
 natural and expressive as it was to men accustomed to 
 the social life of the synagogue, could hardly supersede 
 the more sensuous worship of the Greek, the Koman, 
 and the Teuton, until it had drawn to itself something 
 of the element of awe and mystery. We know how 
 even at Corinth the Holy Feast was made a scene of 
 revelry and excess ; probably in a ruder age and 
 country it was necessary to sacrifice altogether the 
 social in order to preserve the religious aspect of the 
 Sacrament. It is of the very essence of Christianity 
 that forms are non-essential and variable ; even Sacra- 
 ments ordained by Christ have preserved their spirit 
 only by modification of the letter. And this being so, 
 
126 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 it becomes a question of deep importance, What is to 
 be the relation of the Eucharist to the changing social 
 conditions of the present age ? 
 
 If we watch the signs of the times, we cannot 
 doubt that the great social idea which this age is 
 destined to carry out is that of the solidarity of man- 
 kind. The motto of the French Eevolution, " Freedom, 
 Equality, Brotherhood," though its brightness was 
 quenched in clouds of war and despotism, was yet a 
 true expression of the need of the age. It is in this 
 direction, if at all, that humanity must advance. And 
 if the Christian Church has no message to deliver on 
 this matter, we cannot wonder if men ignore her, and 
 turn for help to other teachers. If, indeed, Christianity 
 had been, as some of its advocates have tried to make 
 it, a religion of the letter, — if, that is to say, it had been 
 tied down to a certain set of political dogmas, or had 
 been the advocate of aristocracy against democracy, of 
 privilege against equality, it would by this time have 
 been a mere survival, w\axing old and ready to vanish 
 away. It is true that the Church has not always risen 
 to the height of her Divine Charter, and has sometimes 
 timidly sought the alliance of this or that political 
 party, and has shrunk from adapting herself to new 
 social conditions and to the needs of new classes. And 
 where she has thus fallen short of her possibilities, she 
 has learnt by bitter experience to rue her mistake. But 
 all the time in her great central Ordinance she has liad 
 witliin her the corrective to her timidity. In the 
 Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ she has 
 
Lect. v.] in the sacraments 127 
 
 the outward expression of her Lord's words, " One is 
 your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." 
 And whatever other and more mysterious significance 
 this Sacrament may have for individual believers, we 
 can hardly doubt that for the Church at large this is 
 what needs most to be insisted on. What is wanted in 
 our perplexed and distracted age is, a simple faith in 
 Christ as the Teacher, the Guide, the Saviour of man- 
 kind, and a true sense of brotherhood among all classes 
 and conditions of men. It is true that a large and 
 influential section of the Christian Church insists 
 upon the literal and (if I may say so without 
 offence) the carnal view of the Eucharist as an 
 essential article of the Christian faith. That the 
 validity of each Eucharist depends on the right 
 transmission of Apostolic orders through the Episcopate 
 to the celebrating Priest; that when a rightly ordained 
 Priest pronounces the words of Consecration, Christ 
 becomes then and there present on the Altar ; that the 
 virtue of His Incarnation is conveyed to the com- 
 municants in and through the bread and wine, and that 
 the bread may be rightly called the Body, and the wine 
 the Blood of Christ ; — these are doctrines consistent, no 
 doubt, with the letter of Christ's words, " This is My 
 Body, This is My Blood of the New Covenant," but 
 hardly consistent with the spirit of His teaching. And 
 be it remembered that in this matter we are shut 
 up to the direct declarations of the Lord Himself. No 
 ecclesiastical tradition, no decrees of councils, can have 
 any weight in a question which depends wholly on the 
 
128 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 intention of the original institution. And He Himself 
 has told us that the flesh profiteth nothing, and that it 
 is the spirit that giveth life. He Himself has told us 
 that it is not in physical nearness to Him, but in hearing 
 the Word of God and keeping it, that true blessedness 
 consists. He Himself has told us that it is expedient 
 for us that His bodily presence should be withdrawn, in 
 order that His spiritual presence may be with us. And 
 that presence is not dependent on or confined to any 
 outward rite or any material elements ; it is a jDresence 
 which is with us always, and the Sacrament is but the 
 concentrating and expressing in outward form that real 
 Presence which pervades the Christian life. In the 
 words of Cranmer, " The presence of Christ in His Holy 
 Supper is a spiritual presence ; and as He is sj^iritually 
 present, so is He spiritually eaten of all faithful Christian 
 men, not only when they receive the Sacrament, but 
 continually, so long as they be members spiritual of 
 Christ's mystical body. . . . And as the Holy Ghost 
 doth not only come to us in Baptism, and Christ doth 
 there clothe us, but They do the same to us continually 
 so long as we dwell in Christ ; so likewise doth Christ 
 feed us so long as we dwell in Him and He in us, and 
 not only when we receive the Sacrament." ^ 
 
 We ask, then, what is that permanent essential 
 element in the Eucharist, which underlies all varieties 
 of outward form and all difterences of dogmatic view, 
 and which may be called its Catholic character ? It is 
 the expression, first, of that absolute spiritual union with 
 ^ Craumer's Works, ed. Jenkjms, vol. iii., p. 131. 
 
Lect. v.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 129 
 
 Christ in wliicli true disciplesliip consists ; secondly, of 
 that brotherly union with our fellow-men, of which the 
 common partaking of the same food is so natural and 
 universal a symbol ; thirdly, of that spirit of sacrifice 
 which, found its perfect and eternal expression in the 
 Sacrifice of the Cross ; fourthly, of the lookiug forward 
 to that new and better world which Christ indicated 
 when He spoke of drinking new wine with His disciples 
 in the kingdom of God. If we thus regard the Holy 
 Communion, we can afford to pass by all metaphysical 
 theories of the manner of Christ's presence as simply 
 unmeaning and nugatory. For indeed, even if our 
 Lord and Saviour were in any local sense present in the 
 elements, what would such a presence profit us ? If we 
 should say, "Blessed are the eyes which see Thee, the 
 hands which handle Thee, the lips which receive Thee, in 
 the Sacrament of Thy Body and Blood," surely He would 
 reply as He did of old, "Yea rather, blessed are they that 
 hear the word of God and keep it." And let us not fear 
 lest in accepting the simpler and more spiritual aspect 
 of the Sacrament we lose any of its true value. We 
 need not lay aside anything of our reverence for Christ's 
 presence because we do not direct that reverence to the 
 material symbols of His presence ; we need not shrink 
 from using the strong language of the ancient hymn — 
 
 " Ecce panis angelorum, 
 Factus cibus viatorum, 
 Vere panis filiorum," 
 
 if we adopt also the language of St. Augustine : ^ " Fi- 
 ^ Aug., De Doct. Christ., ni. 16. 
 
 K 
 
I30 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V. 
 
 gura est, prsecipiens passioni Dominicse coramiinicandiim 
 et suaviter atcpie utiliter recolendum in memoria quod 
 pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit." It is 
 true that, as in the case of Scripture so in the case of 
 the Sacraments, even the superstitious, even the carnal 
 use of them has quickened and nourished many a 
 Christian soul ; but no less have Christian souls been 
 quickened and nourished by the simplest remembrance 
 of Christ's death, by the simplest act of communion and 
 fellowship. 
 
 " The Holy Supper is kept indeed, 
 In wliatso we share with another's need." ^ 
 
 Not only in solemn seasons of worship, not only in 
 venerable sanctuaries, but at all times and in all places 
 do Christ's words hold good, " I am the Bread of Life ; 
 he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that 
 believeth on Me shall never thirst." 
 
 ^ Lowell, " The Vision of Sir Launfal." 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH. 
 
 " We serve ia newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the 
 letter."— EoM. vii. 6 (E.V.). 
 
 " It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the 
 truth."—! John v. 7 (R.V.). 
 
 Our subject to-day is, The Letter and the Spirit in 
 relation to Christian Creeds and Confessions of Faith. 
 
 Before entering upon this subject, it will be well to 
 consider shortly, What do we mean by religion? A 
 man's religion is usually understood to mean that out- 
 ward profession of faith and those outward observances 
 by which he is united to those who, by a modern 
 barbarism, are called his co-religionists, and is separated 
 from others. And the tendency since the Reformation 
 has undoubtedly been, to make religion more a badge 
 of separation than a basis of union. But in our day 
 this subject has begun to present itself in a new light. 
 As the science of language has taught us to see affinities 
 where, until recently, men only saw diversities, so the 
 science of religion — a science which, as yet, professes to 
 be only in its infancy — is teaching us that beneath all 
 the outward manifestations of religion lies that which 
 
132 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 is anterior to all religions, the faculty of aspiring and 
 yearning after the Infinite. Not, indeed, that the 
 recognition of this faculty is a new thing ; it is what 
 St. Paul expressed in his speech on the Areopagus, when 
 he said that God had made men dependent on Him 
 that they might seek for God, if haply they might feel 
 after Him and find Him ; it is what the Psalmist meant 
 when he said, " Such knowledge is too wonderful for 
 me; I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from 
 Thy Spirit % or whither shall I flee from Thy presence % " 
 But it is only now that men are beginning to acknow- 
 ledge that a true and unhesitating faith in Christ is not 
 incompatible with the belief that, as in the material so 
 in the spiritual world, God is always and everywhere at 
 work, and that men who, in whatever age and under 
 whatever variety of form, have reared altars to an 
 unknown God, have ignorantly worshipped Him AVho 
 made the world and all things therein, the Lord of 
 heaven and earth. Certainly we who believe that God 
 has given us eternal life in His Son, need not shrink 
 from acknowledgjino; that He has revealed Himself -nokv- 
 fjLepa)<5 Kal TToXvTpoiro)? to men who — 
 
 " Stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
 And gather dust and chaff, and call 
 To what they feel is Lord of all ; " ^ 
 
 that Christ is the Son of Man in this sense too, that to 
 Him all the inarticulate yearnings, all the half-conscious 
 questionings of mankind point ; that all the thoughts 
 of men about what is higher than themselves, so far as 
 ^ Tennyson, " In Memoriam." 
 
Lect. VI.] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH ^^^ 
 
 they were not mere perversions and reflections from the 
 light of their own fire, and from the sparks which they 
 have kindled, find their interpretation in Him in Whom 
 are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 
 
 It is well that this aspect of the subject should not 
 be overlooked in Oxford. In years gone by, theology 
 was regarded as the queen of sciences — " omnium dis- 
 ciplinarum suprema et dignissima." ^ If she is ever to 
 reconquer her position, it must be by claiming a wider 
 territory, by interpreting the meaning of all those varied 
 forms under which men have vaguely guessed at the 
 Infinite, of all those faint visions which they have had 
 of that eternal and invisible world which was above 
 them and about them and within them. As it is 
 impossible to understand Christianity without the aid 
 of Judaism, so it is impossible adequately to comprehend 
 the spirit of religion without the study of those great 
 Eastern beliefs which have influenced so vast a pro- 
 portion of the human race, nay without some knowledge 
 of those ruder guesses at the great enigma which simpler 
 races have made in the childhood of the world. It has 
 been often pointed out, that for missionaries the very 
 first step in their preparation should be a candid and 
 sympathetic study of the religious beliefs of those to 
 whom they are to be sent, and that they should 
 approach those beliefs in the spirit of our Lord's words, 
 " I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." But surely 
 for all religious teachers and inquirers it would be a 
 great gain that they should be interested in other 
 ' Sanderson, "Logic." 
 
134 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 departments of religious thought besides their own, and 
 that they should learn St. Augustine's lesson/ that a 
 true Christian must understand that truth belongs to 
 his Master wherever he finds it. We are all too apt to 
 think that the Word of God came to us only. We 
 forget that, if ours is, as we profess, the Catholic 
 religion, it must gather up as it were into one focus all 
 the scattered rays of light which come down from the 
 Father of liglits, and that the pure and colourless light 
 is that which is composed of many blended rays. 
 
 And moreover the science of religion teaches us 
 that theology is not a deductive and stationary, but an 
 inductive and progressive science. The prevalent con- 
 ception of theology has been that of a stately temple, 
 of which the ground-plan has been laid down from the 
 beginning, and which has been built up gradually by 
 succeeding generations, each adding something in its 
 own special style, yet all so as to harmonize with the 
 general design. And where any reconstruction has been 
 found necessary, it has been because the "builders have 
 deserted the original foundation, or have built hastily 
 or with bad materials. But would it not be a truer and 
 a grander figure to speak of theology as an organism, a 
 living body, growing and expanding according to the 
 law of its being, shedding from time to time such rudi- 
 mentary parts as were not needed for its maturer 
 functions, adapting itself to its changing environment, 
 
 ^ "De Doct. Clirist.," ii. 18 : " Quisquis bonus verusque Christi- 
 anus est, Domini sui esse intelligat iibiqiie [? iibiciinqne] invenerit 
 veritatem." 
 
lect.vl] in creeds and coneessions of faith lis 
 
 preserving its identity, not by the rigid uniformity of 
 inanimate matter, but by the ever-fresh growth and 
 development of organic life ? Are not the conditions of 
 all knowledge such, that the goal of one age is the 
 starting-point of another ; that what seemed to one 
 generation final and perfect is seen b}'- another to be but 
 partial and provisional, and that the claim of finality is, 
 in fact, an acknowledgment of sterility ? All human 
 knowledge, even of things Divine, is imperfect, and there- 
 fore capable of progress ; and progress involves not only 
 the acceptance of the new, but also the reconsideration 
 and possible reconstruction of the old. 
 
 " Man therefore, thus conditioned, must expect 
 He could not, what he knows now, know at first ; 
 What he considers that he knows to-day, 
 Come but to-morrow, he will find misknown ; 
 Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns 
 Because he lives, which is to be a man, 
 Set to instruct himself by his past self. 
 
 ***** 
 God's gift was that man should conceive of truth, 
 And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake, 
 As midway help till he reach fact indeed. 
 The statuary, ere he mould a shape, 
 Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and ne;ct 
 The aspiration to produce the same ; 
 So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout. 
 Cries ever, ' Now I have the thing I see ; ' 
 Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought, 
 From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself." ^ 
 
 We turn, then, to the subject of the Letter and the 
 Spirit in relation to creeds and confessions of faith. 
 
 I have already had occasion to remark upon the fact, 
 ^ Brownin"-, " A Death in the Desert." 
 
136 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 that the earliest Christians not only possessed no sacred 
 writings of their own, but could not even have conceived 
 the jDossibility of such writings springing up. To them, 
 the end seemed very near; what need could there be of 
 written records for a generation which had seen the 
 Lord when He was on earth, and which hoped to see 
 Him again, coming in the clouds of heaven ? 
 
 And if there was no need of written records, still 
 less, surely, of formal statements of belief. Why profess 
 a belief in God the Father Almighty, when in seeing 
 Christ they had seen the Father ? Why confess that 
 Jesus Christ His only Son had been born, had suffered, 
 had died, had risen again, had gone up into heaven, 
 when they themselves were eye-witnesses of these 
 things ? Why say that they believed in the Holy 
 Spirit, when they saw the work of the Spirit everywhere 
 around them, and heard His voice in their hearts ? It 
 was superfluous to profess belief in that which they had 
 seen and heard, which they had looked upon and their 
 hands had handled. But the case was diff'erent with 
 regard to the reception of new members into the 
 Christian society. Here the traditional formula of 
 admission was itself the framework of a confession of 
 faith ; and it was obviously nugatory to admit persons 
 into the Church without some formal assurance that they 
 believed on the Name into which they were baptized. 
 An early writer describes Baptism thus : ^ " Thou wast 
 asked, ' Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty?' 
 
 ^ Pseud. Ambros., " De Saciamentis," bk. ii., c. 7. Quoted in 
 Smith's " Diet, of Eccl. Antiq.," i. 490. 
 
Lect.VL] in creeds and CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 137 
 
 Thou saidst, ' I believe,' anfl thou wast immersed. Again 
 thou . wast asked, ' Dost thou believe also in our Lord 
 Jesus Christ and His Cross?' Thou saidst again, 'T 
 believe,' and wast immersed. A third time tbou wast 
 asked, 'Dost thou believe in the Holy Spirit?' Thou 
 didst reply, 'I believe,' and a third time thou wast 
 immersed." Here we have the Baptismal formula 
 expanded into a creed. It is not till the sixth century ^ 
 that we find clear evidence of creeds being used in public 
 worship, and then — as we might expect — it is at the 
 celebration of the Eucharist, as a proof that those who 
 had made profession of their faith at their Baptism con- 
 tinued in it grounded and settled. The practice of 
 using the creed in public worship seems to have arisen 
 in the East, as indeed we might infer from the fact that 
 it is the Eastern form of creed that we now recite in the 
 Communion Service. 
 
 But gradually creeds and confessions of faith assumed 
 another aspect. As controversies arose, many of them 
 on vital points, it w^as natural that councils should be 
 held to determine what was the belief of the Church ; 
 and the decisions of such councils were of necessity 
 formulated as authentic records. So that confessions 
 of faith became no longer the simple formulas in which 
 admission to the Christian Church was sought or ad- 
 herence to the faith professed ; they bear the marks 
 of keen discussion, and almost every word of them is 
 molten in the fire of controversy. At the Reformation, 
 
 1 Not till the Third Council of To'edo, a.d. 589. Cf. Lumby's 
 "Hist, of Creeds," p. 101. 
 
138 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 the same tendency to precise definition of doctrine pre- 
 vailed ; but now, confessions and articles of religion, 
 instead of being professedly the embodiment of the 
 faith of the Church at large, became the distinctive 
 symbols of particular communions : and the Helvetic, 
 the. Augsburg, the Saxon, the Belgic Confession, the 
 English Thirty-nine Articles, and the Tridentine Pro- 
 fession of Faith, each, indeed, claim to embody the true 
 faith, but each putting it in the special form in which 
 the particular Church held it ; so that we hear no longer 
 of the doctrine of the Church at large, but of the doctrine 
 of the Church of Eome, of the Church of England, of the 
 Church of Geneva, and so forth. So that we seem to 
 recognize three distinct stages in the history of creeds : 
 the first, when they express the faith of individuals as 
 claiming membership in the Church ; the second, when 
 they exjjress the faith which the Church universal imposes 
 on individuals ; the third, when they serve to mark what 
 is distinctive in a particular Church, and are intended to 
 express what "this Church and realm hath received." 
 
 I pointed out in a former lecture that the view w^hich 
 regarded Scripture as a complete and systematic revela- 
 tion, of equal authority in all its parts, led naturally to 
 the use of it as a religious text-book, from which were 
 drawn the axioms of Christian theology. According 
 to this view, when the text of Scripture has been 
 adequately expounded, no farther advance would be 
 possible in religious knowledge ; all that would remain 
 would be to defend the faith against attacks. And, 
 accordingly, we find that each successive statement of 
 
Lect.VL] in creeds AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 139 
 
 the faith was looked on as final The Council of 
 Ephesiis forbade any addition to the original Nicene 
 symbol' The so-called creed of St. Athanasius declares 
 "Hffic est fides Catholica." The declaration of King 
 James, prefixed to the Thirty-nine Articles, lays down 
 "That if any Divine in the Universities shall preach 
 or print anything either way, other than is already 
 established in Convocation with Our Royal Assent, the 
 Offenders shall be liable to Our displeasure and the 
 Church's censure." And the Welsh Calvinistic Metho- 
 dists append to their formulary of faith the words, " No 
 alteration in these tenets of Doctrines shall be at any 
 time allowed or even discussed."^ 
 
 And yet, do what we will, no such finality is attain- 
 able. Indeed, we cannot without an effort realize under 
 what very various aspects even fundamental doc- 
 trines have been regarded at different stages of the 
 Church's life. Take, for example, the doctrine of the 
 relation of the death of Christ to the Christian. Be- 
 ginning from the simple statement of Christ Himself, 
 that He came to give His life a ransom for many, 
 that the Good Shepherd giveth His life, for the sheep, 
 we have the further statement of St. Paul, that we are 
 justified by Christ's Blood ; of St. Peter, that He carried 
 up our sins in His own Body to the tree ; of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, that He was once offered to bear the sins 
 
 ^ Bishops and clergy framing or propounding any other creed 
 irapa. T-qv opLcrOelcrav Trapa twv dytajv iraTepwv were deposed, and 
 laymen anathematized. Cf. Smith's "Diet, of Eccl. Ant.," i. 615 ; 
 Lumby's " Hist, of Creeds," p. 76. 
 
 V"Constit. Deed," Aug. 10, 182 6. 
 
140 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 of many. But men were not content without more pre- 
 cise and formal definition ; and the idea of a ransom 
 was expanded into that of a price paid ; but to whom ? 
 To Satan, was the first answer, by whom we had been 
 taken captive, and whom Christ beguiled for our deliver- 
 ance. To God, was the second answer. Who, by reason 
 of our debts, had claims upon us which no less price 
 could discharge. From this answer arose the theory of 
 the schoolmen as formulated by Anselm,^ that man's sin 
 had robbed God of the honour due to Him ; that it was 
 impossible, God being what He is, that this should 
 remain so ; that the sinner must make satisfaction to 
 God, or undergo the penalty of his sin ; that Christ, 
 having made, as He alone could make, a voluntary 
 offering in His death, had made a full satisfaction for 
 man's sin. But beyond this rose the further theory of 
 Calvinistic Protestantism, that Christ underw^ent the 
 accumulated punishment of man's sin, and endured in 
 his stead the pains of Hell to satisfy the Father's justice ; ^ 
 a view which we are surprised to find even in Bishop 
 Heber's hymn — 
 
 " For us He gave His Blood to flow, 
 And met His Father's anger." 
 
 ^ "Cur Deiis Homo," i., c. 13: "Nihil minus tolerandum est 
 in rernm ordine, quam ut creatura creatori debitum honorem 
 auferat, et non solvat, quod aufert. . . . Kecesse est ergo, ut aut 
 ablatus honor solvatur, aut poena sequatur." 
 
 ^ Gerhard, lot. " Theol.," xvii. 2, c. 54. Quoted by Hagenbach, 
 "Dogmengeschichte." — "Quomodo a maledicto legis nos redemisset, 
 factus pro nobis maledictum, nisi judicium Dei irati persensisset ? " 
 The Heidelberg Catechism maintains that Christ bore the wrath 
 of God during all His earthly life. 
 
 ^ 
 
Lect.VI.1 in creeds AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 141 
 
 And if we ask what is the view of the atonement that 
 satisfies the religious instinct of the present day, the 
 reply will probably be that modern religion tends to 
 regard it as the great expression at once of the righteous- 
 ness and of the love of God. 
 
 I have taken this instance of the doctrine of the 
 atonement, because it is clear that in this crucial case 
 of what is usually regarded as the central truth of 
 Christianity, there has been a development, an onward 
 movement in the views of Christian thinkers, and that 
 the view of one age did not adequately meet the needs 
 of another. The theory of the development of Christian 
 doctrine, which came upon the world forty-six years ago 
 with the shock of novelty, and which was then put 
 forward in defence of dogmas wdiich their opponents 
 challenged as being not primitive, has since then been 
 admitted with whatever modifications by almost all who 
 have thought about the matter. In this respect, as in 
 others, we find that God's ways are not our ways. We 
 start with a preconceived notion that truth was revealed 
 once for all in its completeness. But we find that He 
 does not make His truth known to usjn a series of 
 propositions, but in a Living Spirit : by that Spirit He 
 teaches the hearts of His people, and leads them on into 
 ever fresh knowledge of Him. And thus we learn that 
 the first requisite for a theologian is to have an open 
 mind ; to be ready to hear God's Voice speaking to him, 
 not in Scripture only, but in the developments of history, 
 in the movements of human thought, in the revelations 
 of science ; to say always, " Speak, Lord, for Thy servant 
 
142 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VL 
 
 heareth." It is true that there is such a thing as " the 
 faith once for all delivered to the saints ; " but it is also 
 true that that faith is not a dead but a living thing, not 
 of the letter, but of the spirit. And, being so, it needs 
 to be spiritually apprehended : it cannot be precipitated 
 into a final and unalterable form, but it must be capable 
 of growth and modification and development. The 
 history of Christian doctrine, a thing hardly conceived 
 of before this century, has now been admitted as an 
 important branch of Church history. And if once w^e 
 admit that doctrine has a history, it is clear that con- 
 fessions of faith, Avhich used to be regarded as final 
 expositions of religious truth, are after all to be looked 
 upon rather as historical monuments, marking the level 
 of Christian thought at a given time, than as the moulds 
 by which religious faith is to be shaped in all ages. So 
 far, indeed, as they are simply the statement of the 
 historic basis of the faith, the confession of such belief 
 as justifies a claim to the Christian name, so far as they 
 are but the legitimate expansion of the baptismal 
 formula, so far creeds may be regarded, first as tesserce, 
 or badges of Christian profession, and, secondly, as 
 triumphant hymns of faith ; as acts of allegiance to 
 Christ, and as the expression of the unity of all who 
 believe in Him. In this sense, creeds are part of the 
 heritage of the universal Church, witnesses of the unity 
 of Christians, even of those who do not ex^^ress their 
 belief in the traditional forms. But as soon as a con- 
 fession of faith is used as a symbol, not of unity, but of 
 division, — -as soon as its terms are calculated, not for 
 
Lect.VL] in creeds and CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 143 
 
 comprehension, but for exclusion, — it is marked as being 
 of a temporary character ; it may express adequately the 
 religious thought of the generation which evolves it, 
 but it is not — it does not profess to be— Catholic, it 
 aims at formulating, not the truth simply, but that 
 aspect of the truth which commends itself to a particular 
 age or nation. Indeed, the further we go back towards 
 Apostolic days, the more do we find that the earliest 
 statements of Christian faith were simply the rehearsal 
 of the elementary facts of which the Apostles were 
 witnesses. What was the 7rapdSoaL<5 — the tradition 
 which St. Paul delivered to the Corinthian Church ? — 
 how that Christ died for our sins according to the 
 Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose 
 again according to the Scriptures. Almost equally 
 simple and elementary are the creeds, or rudiments of 
 creeds, which we find in the writings of Irenseus, of 
 Tertullian, of Cyprian. On the other hand, in the 
 Quincunqiie vidt, whatever its date and whatever its 
 authorship, we seem to have arrived at the ultimate 
 stage of minute metaphysical definition. So that we 
 may distinguish four successive stages ip the develop- 
 ment of creeds and formulas of belief : first, the simple 
 statement of belief in God the Father, and in Jesus 
 Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Spirit ; then, 
 certain elementary doctrines involved in this belief — the 
 Catholic Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection, 
 and the life everlasting ; thirdly, elaborate metaphysical 
 dogmas as to the nature of the Godhead ; and finally, 
 inferences as to the relations of God and man, takin<i- 
 
144 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 shape in the doctrines of predestination, justification, 
 grace, the sacraments, and the like. In the presence of 
 such phenomena, we are obliged to inquire. What is 
 the true object of creeds, and how may that object best 
 be attained "? 
 
 We must not allow ourselves to forget the original 
 connection of the creed with Baptism. The reply of 
 Philip the Deacon to the Ethiopian Eunuch when he pro- 
 posed to be baptized at once—" If thou believest with 
 all thy heart thou mayest ; " and the Eunuch's confession 
 — " I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God," — is 
 indeed acknowledged to be an interpolation ; but it 
 expresses exactly the view of the early Church with 
 reference to Baptism. The earliest function of the 
 creed, the only function that it performed in the primi- 
 tive Church, was to be the expression of the unity of all 
 who professed and called themselves Christians. The 
 use of the plural number — "AVe believe " — in the Eastern 
 forms of creed, the prohibition to reduce the creed to 
 writino; lest it should be communicated to those who 
 were not yet Christians,^ the restriction of its use to 
 Baptism and the Eucharist, all point to the fact that the 
 
 ^ Cf. Aug., Serm. 212 : " Nee ut eadem verba symboli 
 teneatis ullo modo debetis scribere, sed audiendo perdiscere, nee 
 cum didiceritis scribere, sed niemoria semper teuere atque 
 recolere." He gives as the reason for this prohibition the Divine 
 promise, "I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their 
 heart will I write it." " Hujus rei significandse causa audiendo 
 symbolum disci tur, nee in tabulis, vel in aliqua materia, sed in 
 corde scribitur." But it is probable that the real reason was the 
 fear of profanation. Cyprian applies to the creed the words, " Give 
 not that which is holy to the dogs," etc. 
 
 I 
 
l.ECT.VI.] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 145 
 
 only distinction marked by the creed was the distinction 
 between. Christians and those who, whether as Jews or 
 heathen, were outside the Church. Its ground-tone was 
 comprehension, not exclusion. And this is an important 
 point to notice. For it makes a very great difference 
 whether we regard the Catholic Church as a number of 
 individuals who have associated themselves together 
 because they hold the same views on certain matters of 
 theological opinion, or as a great society united together 
 not by identity of opinion but by a living faith in a 
 common Father and in obedience to a common Master. 
 And as soon as confessions of faith are constructed with 
 a view to exclusion and not to comprehension, they at 
 once change their character, and become instruments of 
 closing instead of opening the door of admission to 
 Christian communion. We cannot find a better illustra- 
 tion of this change in the character of confessions of 
 faith than in contrasting the Apostles' and the Nicene 
 Creeds, on the one hand, with the Qidcunque vult on the 
 other. In the earlier creeds there is but one negative — 
 " Begotten, not made ; " in the later there are twenty- 
 one ; the object of the former being mainly to atiirni 
 positive truth, that of the latter to deny and to anathe- 
 matize error. And whereas the earlier creeds, with the 
 exception of a few clauses in the Nicene, are confined to 
 historic statements or the simplest deductions from them, 
 the later one revels in the minutest metaphysical dis- 
 tinctions, and seems to aim at arriving by an exhaustive 
 process at a complete definition of God. It does not fall 
 within the subject of this lecture to discuss the question 
 
 L 
 
146 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 of the position of the so-called Athanasian Creed among 
 the formularies of the English Church, except to remark 
 that as an act of public worship it seems to savour rather 
 of the letter than of the spirit, and that if regarded as a 
 hymn (and an ancient title calls it the Psalm Quicunque 
 viilt '), it is singularly lacking in that element of emotion 
 which is indispensable in a Christian hymn. It is true 
 that the use of creeds in the worship of the Church 
 suggests that they should be regarded rather after the 
 spirit than after the letter ; in the words of Dr. Arnold, 
 " Not as reviving the memory of old disputes, and a 
 sort of declaration of war against those who may not 
 agree with us in them, but as principally a free and 
 triumphant expression of thanksgiving to God for all 
 the mighty works which He has done for us." ^ But in 
 the case of the Quicunque vidt the difficulty is that its 
 letter is, to ordinary worshippers, unintelligible and even 
 misleading, and that its spirit is scarcely that of the 
 meekness and gentleness of Christ. The creed itself is 
 doubtless a valuable monument in the history of theolo- 
 gical science, but surely the sober judgment of the mass 
 of devout Christians would agree with the weighty words 
 of Bishop Thirl wall, that " viewed in the light of the 
 fundamental principles of a Reformed C'hurch,it appears, as 
 forming part of our public services, utterly indefensible." "' 
 
 ^ Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, exhorts his clerg}', 
 '' Habeat etiam saltern quilibet eorum simplicem intellectum, secun- 
 dum quod continetur in Psalmo qui dicitur, Quicunque vult," etc. 
 
 ^ Arnold's " Sermons," vol. iii., p. 276. 
 
 ^ See "Eeport of the Ritual Commission," 1868. Since the 
 Church of Ireland has discontinued the pubUc use of the Athaua- 
 
Lect.VL] in creeds and CONFESSIONS OF EAITH 147 
 
 It would seem, then, that creeds should be regarded 
 as symbols of uuity, not of division ; as instruments of 
 comprehension, not of exclusion. And if we so regard 
 them, questions of detail will become comparatively 
 insignificant. Already time, the universal solvent, has 
 taken off the rough edge of many a subject of contro- 
 versy. How impossible would it be, for example, to 
 revive any but an antiquarian interest in the great con- 
 troversy which raged round the Filioque clause, and 
 which rent the Church asunder! — and that, not because 
 men care less for the knowledge of God, but because, 
 let us hope, they have come to see that the knowledge 
 of God which is life eternal consists not in the accept- 
 ance of logical propositions, but in the inner knowledge 
 which springs from love. How little does the Pelagian 
 controversy touch our religious sentiment, even when 
 it is lighted up by the genius of St. Augustine ! Or, to 
 come nearer to our own day, how little can we now 
 enter into or understand the intense eagerness with 
 which thirty-eight years ago the decision in the Gorham 
 case was awaited ! And if in our day theological con- 
 troversy seems to be concentrating itself round the 
 primary article of the creed, the belief in God the 
 Father Almighty, this may at least serve to recall 
 the minds of Christian men to a truer sense of the 
 
 sian Creed, the Chuicli of England, with the Episcopal Chnrcli of 
 Scotland, stands absolutely alone among Christian. Chinches in 
 oi'dering the public use of this formula. It is true that in tlio 
 Pionian Breviary it is ordered to be said at Prime on Sundays ; 
 but it is practically unknown to the people, or, if known, only as 
 a furni of private devotion. 
 
148 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 proportion of things, and to teach them to close their 
 ranks in preparation for the great issue. In truth, the 
 whole area of religious thought has changed. The 
 kittle has been fought out on one side of the field, 
 and has rolled away to quite another, where it has 
 to be fought, if with the same standards and watch- 
 words, yet with different weapons and under different 
 conditions. 
 
 At such a time it is more than ever necessary to 
 bear in mind that the Christian faith is not of the letter, 
 but of the spirit ; not a formula, but a force, an influence, 
 a life. The promise made by Christ to His disciples 
 that the Spirit of Truth whom He would send should 
 lead them into all the truth, was not to them only, but 
 to those also who should believe on Him through their 
 word. And it cannot be that in an age like this, when 
 the knowledge of truth is an object of more eager and 
 anxious effort than at any time before. His promise 
 should fail. If indeed we did not believe that the 
 Spirit of God was still at work, leading men through 
 darkness into light, through error into truth, through 
 doubt and perplexity and ignorance into the clear light 
 and true knowledge of Him, and of His Son Jesus Christ, 
 we might be alarmed at the outlook. Or if we thought 
 tliat the cause of God depended on human institutions 
 or human formulas, if we did not believe that He is 
 Tmmensus, Incomprehensible, not to be measured or 
 comprehended by our thoughts or definitions of Him, 
 then we miglit well tremble lest in the new world which 
 is before us i\lan should be all and there should be no 
 
Lect.VL] JN creeds and COJVEESSIOXS of faith 149 
 
 place for God. But even as Christ told His disciples 
 that it was expedient for tliem that He should go away, 
 because if He went not away the Comforter would not 
 come to them, so it may be He says to us, It is ex- 
 pedient for you that the letter, the outward things in 
 which you have trusted, and in which you have seemed 
 to recognize My Presence, should pass away, in order 
 that the Spirit of Truth may lead you into yet higher 
 truth and yet clearer knowledge. We need all of us to 
 learn that our modes of thought are but provisional ; 
 that forms of doctrine and of worship need to be 
 quickened by the ever-fresh life of the Spirit ; that " it 
 is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing;" 
 that, in the pregnant words of Edward Irving, " When 
 the Holy Grhost departs from any set of opinions or 
 form of character, they wither like a sapless tree." ^ 
 
 But, it may be said, the Catholic faith surely is 
 unchanged and rmchangeable ? It is unchanged, just as 
 the tree is unchanged which has put forth the vital 
 energy which makes it what it is, and has grown from 
 a young sapling into a stately oak. It is unchangeable, 
 and yet we are sure that as the ages roll by, and as social 
 conditions change and " the thoughts of men are 
 widened with the progress of the suns," it will assume 
 fresh proportions, and will put forth fresh shoots, and 
 will imperceptibly adapt itself to its environment. Of 
 all heresies the greatest and the most deadly is that 
 which would limit God's revelation of Himself to one 
 age or to one type of character or to one system of 
 ^ Life of Edward Irving, i., p. 347. 
 
I50 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 tliouglit. In Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge hidden. They are hidden that we may 
 search them out, that we may expect ever fresh light 
 and fresh knowledge to break forth from Him. " 1 am 
 verily persuaded," said the Pastor of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers as they embarked in the Mayflower ^ — " I am 
 verily persuaded that the Lord has more truth yet to 
 break forth out of His word." "It is not incredible," 
 says Bishop Butler,^ " that a book which has been so 
 long in the possession of mankind should contain many 
 truths as yet undiscovered." " send forth Thy light 
 and Thy truth that they may lead me," should be the 
 prayer, as of each Christian man, so too of the Church at 
 laroe. " Lord, to whom shall we oro ? Thou hast the 
 words of eternal life." 
 
 . It is a very natural mistake to suppose that because 
 Christianity is perfect, therefore there can be no growth 
 or progress in it. But it is more true to say that its 
 very perfection implies growth. As Cardinal Newman 
 says/ " Here below to live is to change ; and to be 
 perfect is to have changed often ; " and again, " In such 
 an idea as Christianity, developments cannot but be, and 
 these surely Divine, because it is Divine." It is true that 
 the author of the " Development of Christian Doctrine " 
 was forging a weapon to be used in defence of the 
 Church of his adoption, and that he would repudiate 
 all develo]3ment but such as proceeds on certain definite 
 
 ^ Quoted bj J. M. Wilson, " Essays," p. 110. 
 
 ^ " Annlogy," pt. ii., c. 3. 
 
 ^ Essay on " Development," p. 40. 
 
Lect.VI.] in creeds and CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 151 
 
 lines of Cliurcli authority ; but such weapons have a 
 double edge, and if once the principle of the development 
 of doctrine is admitted, it is difficult and hardly reverent 
 to prescribe beforehand in what direction the Spirit shall 
 lead men's minds. " Securus judicat orbis terrarum," 
 is a motto which may be susceptible, in these later days, 
 of a wider meaning than was assigned to it either by 
 St. Augustine or by Cardinal Newman. 
 
 There is a touching passage, such as he alone could 
 have written, in the last-named author's book on 
 " Development," — a book written after he had withdrawn 
 to Littlemore, when he was preparing himself to face 
 the separation which he had now recognized as inevit- 
 able, — on which we in modern Oxford may do well to 
 ponder. Arguing that " the Koman Catholic com- 
 munion of this day is the successor and representative 
 of the mediaeval Church," and "that the mediaeval 
 Church is the legitimate heir of the Nicene," he says, 
 " Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose suddenly come to 
 life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would 
 mistake for his own. All surely will agree that these 
 Fathers, with whatever opinions of their own, whatever 
 protests, if we will, would find themselves more at home 
 with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, 
 or with the lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy 
 sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the 
 altar, than with the teachers or with the members of 
 any other creed. And may we not add, that w^ere those 
 same Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile and one in 
 embassy, at Treves, to come more northward still, and 
 
152 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 to travel until they reached another fair city, seated 
 among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the 
 holy brothers would turn from many a high aisle and 
 solemn cloister which they found there, and ask the w\ay 
 to some small chapel where mass was said in the popu- 
 lous alley or forlorn suburb ? " It would be obvious to 
 retort with the question, " If St. Paul could come to 
 life, where would he find himself most at home ? " But, 
 passing by this, I think that there is a fallacy lurking 
 somewhere in this passage, and that we may find it in 
 the little word suddenly. No doubt if a Saint of the 
 early Church should suddenly come to life, knowing- 
 nothing of all the history of thought and of science and 
 of social life in the interval, he might well be perplexed 
 by what he would find, and he might very possibly find 
 what he sought in " some small chapel in a forlorn 
 suburb." But what is this but an admission that the 
 small chapel in a forlorn suburb has kept itself aloof 
 from the main current of Church life, and that Christian 
 thought has swept by and has left it forlorn ? It is 
 the same fallacy that met us in University Reform. 
 When it was proposed to throw open the foundations 
 and reform the colleges, it was asked, " What would the 
 great mediaeval founders, Wykeham and Waynflete, if 
 they could suddenly come to life, say to the proposal to 
 alter the conditions of their foundations ? " The reply 
 was obvious, that if those great men had lived continu- 
 ously from the fourteenth and fifteenth to the nineteenth 
 century, they would undoubtedly have moved with the, 
 age, and would have been the first to acknowledw 
 
Lect.VL] in creeds and CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 153 
 
 that the letter must give way to tlie spirit, and that the 
 identity of a living and growing body is truer than that 
 of a cold and dead and unchanging statue. And in the 
 same way, if St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose had lived 
 through the decline and fall of the Empire, through the 
 Middle Ages, through the revival of learning, through 
 the Reformation, through the growth of the modern 
 world out of feudalism, can we believe that they would 
 have stood still ? Is it conceivable that the greatest and 
 best men of the fourth century would have rejected 
 and disowned all the developments of modern life and 
 modern society and modern thought ? Surely no more 
 than they would have refused to avail themselves of 
 modern speech, and modern dress, and modern sanitary 
 laws, and modern means of communication. It is we, not 
 they, who are the ancients ; we who possess accumulated 
 stores of experience ; we who can see things in truer 
 proportion, and interpret more justly the w^ays of God 
 to man. To tie modern life to the forms of ancient 
 thought and ancient w^orship is surely a Mezentian 
 cruelty. 
 
 What, then, should be our attitude ^in relation to 
 creeds and confessions of faith ? Are we to regard them 
 simply as historical monuments, records of past phases 
 of religious thouglit, witnesses of the belief of the age 
 which gave them birth ; or are they more than this ? 
 Probably the truest estimate we can form of them is to 
 regard them in connexion with worship, as expressions 
 of the Church's triumphant faith addressed to God. 
 Indeed, the highest type of creed may lie found in the 
 
T54 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI. 
 
 Te Dewn, that great liymn of mingled thanksgiving and 
 prayer and faith. And if we adhere to this view, we 
 shall see how wide is the difference in character between 
 the ancient Baptismal and Encharistic Creeds on the one 
 hand, and on the other the more modern confessions, as 
 the decrees of the Council of Trent, the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, the Confession of Ansfsburo;, or the Westminster 
 Confession. If, indeed, we require rigid and minute 
 tests of orthodoxy, it is better that for such a purpose we 
 should use modern forms ; the ancient Catholic creeds 
 should be kept sacred from controversial use. For, in 
 truth, we are taking a perverted view of the Christian 
 Covenant if we make Christian imity consist in agree- 
 ment in abstract doctrine. It has been well said ^ that 
 " the Christian Church is a body of worshippers and not of 
 philosophers ; a body of men whose relations to each other 
 are constituted by their common relation to a mysterious 
 Person in Whom they believe, as a Mediator between 
 them and God. . . . The faith required of a man to be 
 a Christian is faith in a Person and not in a system ; 
 faith in facts and promises more than in dogmas or in 
 truths." Surely if ecclesiastical history teaches us any- 
 thing, it is this, that the attempt to mould men's 
 thoughts into a single type is destined to failure. The 
 unity of the Christian Church is to be sought, not 
 primarily in uniformity of organization, nor in identity 
 of theological dogma, but in the unity of the spirit, in 
 the bond of peace. Let us seek and pray for that, the 
 
 ^ Myers, " Catholic Thonghts on the Church of Chiist and the 
 Church of England," jx 119. 
 
lect.vi.1 in creeds and coneessions oe faith 
 
 155 
 
 only true unity ; let us follow after things that make 
 for peace, and things whereby one may edify another ; 
 let us learn to love one another, and to understand one 
 another, and to respect one another, and to help one 
 another; let us recite the creeds as expressions of trust 
 in our Father's love, of loyalty to Christ our Master, of 
 unity in the life of the Spirit ; and for the rest, let us 
 leave it in God's hand to work out in His way and in 
 His time an answer to the prayer of Christ, whicli 
 assuredly cannot fail, " That they all may be one ; as 
 Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also 
 may be in Us ; that the world may believe that Thou 
 didst send Me." 
 
LECTURE YII. 
 
 IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE. 
 
 " We serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the 
 letter." — Eom. vii. 6. 
 
 In the last two lectures we discussed the letter and 
 the spirit in relation to the Sacraments and Creeds of the 
 Church, and we seemed to recognize in each of them a 
 permanent element, an element not of separation but of 
 unity, not of exclusion but of comprehension. We turn 
 to-day to the more general subject of Christian worship 
 and the Christian life. 
 
 As soon as our minds become conscious of the idea 
 of a Power above ourselves, the cjuestion arises, Do we 
 stand in any kind of relation to that Power ? And if 
 the Power takes in our thoughts the form of a Being 
 whose favour or displeasure can affect our happiness or 
 well-being, it becomes an important C[uestion, How can 
 we propitiate Him ? And since our tendency is to think 
 that God is even such an one as ourselves, we are 
 inclined to regard Him as we should wish our inferiors 
 to regard us. The speculations of Calil)an in Browning's 
 poem represent too many of men's thoughts about God.^ 
 ' Browning, " Caliban upon Setebos." 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND II FE 157 
 
 " He is strong and Lord. 
 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs 
 .That march now from the mountain to the sea : 
 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, 
 Lovinii not, liating not, just choosing so. 
 As it likes me each time, thus I do : so He." 
 
 But when men thus think of God, their worship is tlie 
 cringing, grovelling homage of slaves anxious to pro- 
 pitiate a capricious master. They think, " What can I 
 give to God that He will be pleased with % What 
 should I like, if I were God ? I should like something 
 that I could enjoy, or else some abject acknowledgment 
 of my power." And so they offer to God meat and drink, 
 or costly ornaments, or else a life, the life of an animal, 
 or even of their own child, as representing that life 
 which they wish to preserve for themselves. But when 
 God reveals to them a higher conception of Himself, and 
 they learn that He is a righteous God, they begin to 
 comprehend that He will not be pleased with thousands 
 of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ; that the 
 sacrifice He requires is a right life, to do justly, and to 
 love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. And yet 
 there is a third and still higher revelation of God, when 
 men know Him not only as Almighty, not only as a 
 a righteous Judge, but as a loving Father. And then 
 they know that what He asks of them is, " My son, give 
 Me thine heart ; " and that the first and great command- 
 ment is, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
 and with all thy strength," 
 
 There are, then, three grades of worship, corresponding 
 
158 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 to these three grades of knowledge ; the worship of 
 giving or sacrifice, the worship of a right life, and the 
 worship of a loving and filial heart. And the two 
 former are not done away, but are included and fulfilled 
 in the latter. On the great law of love hang all the 
 Law and the Prophets, It is on this ideal that any 
 discussion on Christian worship must be based — that 
 God is not worshipped with men's hands, as though He 
 needed anything ; but that He desires men to ofi"er 
 themselves to Him from love to their Father in Heaven. 
 Any w^orship which starts from a lower ideal than tJiis, 
 any worship which is not the expression of filial trust 
 and reverence and love, may be true and genuine, but 
 is not in the highest sense Christian worship. 
 
 It may perhaps help us to arrive at a truer idea of 
 religious worship, if I recall what I said in my last 
 lecture as to the meaning of religion. We then saw 
 that, whereas the popular idea of religion is, that it 
 consists in certain opinions which a man holds, and 
 which constitutes a bond of union with those whom he 
 calls his co-religionists, while they separate him from a 
 far larger number of those who do not hold the same 
 doctrines, the root-idea of religion is the yearning of the 
 spirit of man after the Spirit of God. It matters little 
 whether we connect the word " religio " etymologically 
 with " religare," to bind together, or with " relegere," to 
 ponder, to meditate ; ^ the main point is, that religion in 
 its pnmary and highest signification is that which the 
 Psalmist expresses when he cries, "My soul is athirst for 
 
 ^ Cf. Max Miiller's "Lectures on the Science of Eeliirion." 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND IIFE 159 
 
 God, yea even for the Living God ; when sliall I come to 
 appear before the Presence of God ? " It is what St. 
 Augustine expresses in the well-known w^ords — which 
 who will dare to call uninspired ? — " Thou madest us 
 for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rest in 
 Thee." ■" So far it is undoubtedly true, that the first 
 stirrings of the religious instinct in the soul have the 
 eflfect of " making a man rest in the thought of two, and 
 two only, supreme and luminously self-evident beings, 
 himself and his Creator." ^ So far it is true that — to use 
 a shallow axiom of modern individualism — religion is a 
 thing between a man's self and his God. But if it does 
 not go further than this — if it does not teach him that 
 God's purpose for good is not for himself only but for all 
 men — if it does not stir in him something of our Lord's 
 desire " that they all may be one," it is not yet the 
 religion of Christ. And in the same way, no doubt 
 worship in the first instance is the uttering of the soul's 
 trust and love tow^ards God, the entering into the closet 
 and praying to the Father which is in secret : but it 
 must go further than this, if it is to carry out the 
 Christian ideal ; it must be the expression, not of indi- 
 viduality, but of corporate unity ; it must bind together 
 men of all communions, of all confessions, of all lands, 
 and of all ages in one communion and fellowship. It is 
 this that constitutes the great advantage of ancient over 
 modern forms of devotion. When we use such forms, for 
 example, as the Gloria in excehls, or the Sursum corda, 
 
 ^ Aug., " Confess.," i., c. i. 
 " Newman's " Apologia." 
 
i6o THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 which we find quoted familiarly, just as we should quote 
 them ourselves, by writers of the fourth century, do we 
 not feel that there is in them an elevation, a Catholicity, 
 which we miss in even the best of modern devotions ? 
 When we sing the Veni Creator Spiritus, are we not 
 conscious of breathing a higher and purer atmosphere 
 than that of the modern sentimental ditties which are 
 diguified by the name of hymns ? And so with the 
 ancient Collects : it is not merely that they are redolent 
 of a simpler, less controversial type of religion ; but also 
 the mere fact of their having served as the expression 
 of all that was highest and noblest in a succession of 
 Christian generations gives them a universal currency 
 which cannot attach to the coinage of a more recent 
 religious mint. No doubt, the mediaeval Church had 
 reduced religious worship to a service of the letter, an 
 unspiritual hattologia, which needed a reaction ; and we 
 can hardly wonder that men, awakening to the con- 
 sciousness of the awfulness of the communion of the soul 
 with God, should have thought that the only way of 
 vindicating the supremacy of the spirit was to cast off 
 the letter altogether, and that worship to be true and 
 genuine must be the simple spontaneous expression of 
 the religious consciousness of the moment. But still, 
 those Christian communities suffered grievous loss which 
 in the fervour of the Reformation cut themselves off 
 from the ancient liturgies. One rejoices to see symptoms 
 that they are becoming conscious of the loss, and that 
 they are beginning to claim their share in the rich devo- 
 tional heritage which the ancient Church has bequeathed 
 
Lect. VI I. ] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE i6i 
 
 to us. For this reason, one cannot without regret hear 
 the Book of Common Prayer spoken of as though it 
 were the exclusive and distinctive property of a single 
 religious community ; and one rejoices in the declaration 
 of a late chairman of the Congregational Union/ that all 
 the twelve tribes of Israel claim their part in the English 
 Prayer-Book. As with the Sacraments and the creeds, 
 so with all other devotional forms ; the more we can 
 regard them as setting forth the unity of Christians, 
 and the less we think of them as badges of separation, 
 the better it will be for ourselves and for the Church at 
 large. Surely if Christians would nourish their spiritual 
 life mainly on the simple but solid food of the ancient 
 forms of worship, while at the same time they threw 
 themselves without reserve or scruple into the swing of 
 modern life, they would be approaching more nearly to 
 the ideal, not of a primitive Christian, nor yet of a 
 nineteenth century Christian, but of a Catholic Christian, 
 and, praying in the spirit, they might be more anxious 
 to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. It 
 is no small gain to use in our common worship forms 
 which are for the most part older than any of our 
 existing divisions. 
 
 And yet we must always remember that it is not in 
 forms, nor yet in the absence of forms, that any security 
 can be found for spiritual worship. "God is a Spirit ; and 
 they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and 
 in truth " — this is the fundamental rubric on which all 
 depends. One cannot but fear lest the revived interest 
 
 1 Ptev. E. WLite. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 in ritual which has grown out of the Oxford movement, 
 attractive and helpful as much of it may be, should 
 tend to make religion a matter of what Carlyle calls 
 "rhythmic drill," a matter of attendance at Holy Com- 
 munion, of observance of rules, of membership of guilds 
 and the like ; and lest, in the stress laid upon the outward, 
 the inward should be lost sight of. Among young men 
 especially, there is great fear lest the over-systematizing 
 of religion, the tendency to reduce it to a mechanical 
 uniformity, should destroy that individuality, that 
 spontaneousness, which gives to personal religion its true 
 value. I admit that for all except perhaps the strongest 
 types of character some kind of outward framework, 
 some system and method in the religious life, is a useful 
 and even necessary help ; but let us never forget that 
 throughout the New Testament variety and not uni- 
 formity is set forth as the characteristic result of the 
 working of the Spirit of God. Whatever forms we may 
 find useful to ourselves, let us use them, provided we do 
 not suflfer them to obscure the end to which they are 
 but means : but let us bear in mind two things ; first, 
 tliat forms need to be continually kept living and fresh 
 by the quickening Spirit, and that without this they 
 will become lifeless and corrupt ; and secondly, that we 
 must not set up our own practice as the standard for 
 others, for that St. Paul's caution applies to this subject 
 — " Who art thou that judgest the servant of another ? 
 to his own lord he standeth or falleth." The kingdom 
 of God is not in word — not in profession, not in 
 observances — but in power; in victory over evil, in a 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND IIFE 163 
 
 life of Christian activity. Laborare est orare is a motto 
 which is. capable of being pushed to a dangerous extreme, 
 and outward activity is of the letter that killeth unless 
 it be stirred and regulated by tlie spirit of power and 
 love and discipline ; but we shall do liarm to the cause 
 of Christian boldness if we allow the idea of religion to 
 he associated rather witli the OprjcTKeLa of observances 
 than with that of active usefulness. 
 
 But to return to worship in the more abstract sense, 
 it may be useful to ask, What is it that marks it as 
 distinctively Christian? We may, of course, assume that 
 it must be spiritual, or, in other w^ords, that it must be 
 not outward and mechanical merely, but the expression 
 of the devotion of the heart ; but further than this, to 
 make it Christian, it must be offered in the Name of 
 Christ : " Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My 
 Name, He will give it you." It has generally been held 
 that prayer in the Name of Christ implied the invocation 
 of His Name or of His merits ; and so it has been 
 customary in the Western Church to conclude all prayers 
 addressed to the Father with the Name of Jesus Christ. 
 It is w^ell that we should do so, if only to associate our 
 worship expressly with Him through Whom we have our 
 access in one Spirit unto the Father : but we must not 
 think that the mere naming of His Name is all that is 
 required, we must not treat the Name of Christ as a 
 kind of charm by which to commend our prayers to 
 God ; rather, as we were baptized into Jesus Christ, as 
 He is the element wherein the whole Christian life 
 moves, as whatsoever w^e do, in word or deed, we are to 
 
1 64 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus, so prayer above 
 all, which is the expressing and the presenting to God 
 of the whole hfe, must be done in conscious connexion 
 with Christ, must be offered by us as being one with 
 Him. As Luthardt well expresses it, he prays in 
 Christ's Name who is in Christ.^ The essence of prayer 
 is, that it should be offered in a filial spirit ; and all 
 such prayer is offered to the Father in the Son's Name, 
 whether or not the Name of Christ is spoken. He who 
 says from his heart " Our Father," prays in Christ's Name. 
 To pray in the Name of Jesus Christ is to pray as He 
 prayed, " Father, not my will, but Thine be done." 
 
 And from this it would appear that Theism, whieli 
 professes to accept Christ as a Teacher and an Example 
 but not as a Mediator, is in fact, not an advance to a 
 more spiritual conception of religion, but rather a Mling 
 back under the dominion of the letter. For Christ came 
 not to proclaim only, but to carry into effect the will of 
 the Father, throus^h Him to reconcile all thino;'s unto 
 Himself — and if men are able to cry " Abba, Father," it 
 is through the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, eveii 
 
 ^ Lutliardt, " Joliann. Evang.," ii., p. 306 : "Im Namen Christi 
 betet, wer, indem er betet, Iv XpLcrrw ist und als ivXpiarw seieuder zu 
 Gott betet." And cf. Campbell, " The Bread of Life," p. 96 : " The 
 law of the kingdom of God, according to which prayer in the Name 
 of the Son is answered, and that according to which prayer for things 
 according to the Father's Will is answeied, are one and the same 
 law. For to ask in the Name of the Son, is to ask in the light of 
 His Name in Whom the Father is well pleased. In answering 
 such prayer, God is not granting for Christ's sake what for His Own 
 sake He would not grant. He is granting that which His delight 
 in Christ reveals His eternal willingness to grant." 
 
Lect. VII." 
 
 though they may tliink that they are coming to the 
 Father independently of Him. No man cometh unto 
 the Father but by Him ; and if men feel in their hearts 
 a. yearning after God, if they feel a craving which 
 nothing but God can satisfy, we may confidently leave 
 them in the hand of the Good Shepherd, and trust that 
 He will carry out in them His perfect work, and lead 
 them in the way everlasting. There is indeed some truth 
 in Pascal's remark, that the knowledge of God, without 
 Jesus Christ, is useless and barren.^ For any conception 
 of God which professes to be independent of Christ is 
 either derived from the Cliristian tradition, or else is a 
 more or less dreary denial of the possibility of any true 
 spiritual communion with God, a religion of timid and 
 tentative affirmations, and of bold and dogmatic nega- 
 tions. It is a delusion to imagine that a pure Theism is 
 a more spiritual form of belief than Christianity. More 
 spiritual it may be than the traditional Christianity 
 which consists in rigid and stereotyped forms of practice, 
 of ceremonial, of observance, of dogma ; but not more 
 spiritual than the teaching of Christ Himself, the end 
 and completion of Whose work was to briyg men to the 
 Father, to teach them that God is a Spirit, and to send 
 the Spirit of the Father into tlie hearts of His disciples. 
 It would be a strange perversity if men should reject 
 Christ in the name of spiritual religion, when it is to 
 Christ and to Him alone that they owe the conception 
 of what spiritual religion is. 
 
 The acceptance of the spiritual ratlier than the 
 
 ^ Pascal, " Pensees," xiv. 2. 
 
1 66 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 literal view of worship would have acted as a solvent in 
 maDy controversies. Take, for example, the question of 
 prayers for the departed. That it was the custom of 
 the Church from the earliest times to pray for the dead 
 is beyond all question.^ Tertullian, Origen, St. Chry- 
 sostom, St. Augustine, and, indeed, all early writers 
 assume it as the established practice. In truth, the 
 vivid sense which the early Church possessed of the 
 communion of Saints, the belief that the dead, like 
 the living, are in Christ, that all live unto God, made 
 it impossible for them to pray for the one without the 
 other. But men were not content to observe this as 
 a pious and beautiful practice ; they asked, " In what are 
 the dead benefited by our prayers ? " And so there sprang 
 up the theory that by the prayers of the living the 
 purgatorial sufferings of the dead were mitigated and 
 shortened ; and then came masses for the dead, alms to 
 help souls out of purgatory, and all the lucrative trafiic 
 of the mediaeval Church. This is not the only natural 
 and harmless practice that has been turned by the 
 interest of the priesthood and the credulity of the people 
 into a gross and carnal superstition. And so at the 
 Keformation it was inevitable that the whole thing should 
 be swept away, and that. logic should prevail over feel- 
 ing, and that prayers for the departed should disappear 
 from the service-books of the Church, And yet, does 
 not a human instinct sometimes rebel against the stern 
 logic of Protestantism ? Does not a parent who has lost 
 a child sometimes refuse to banish the loved and familiar 
 ^ See authorities in Bingham, " An'iq.," xv. iii. § 16. 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND II FE 167 
 
 name from his prayers, simply because the chikl who 
 bears it has gone home to his Father in Heaven % If, 
 indeed, we are to apply to prayer the inexorable test of 
 results, there may be many a prayer that we shall hardly 
 dare to offer ; but if we pray because we know that God 
 our Father would have us open our hearts to Him, and 
 because we believe that those whom we love are in His 
 hands, then no dogma and no fear of superstition need 
 hinder us from asking Him to bless them, and to let the 
 light of His countenance shine upon them and His 
 perpetual Presence comfort them. 
 
 I have already, in a former lecture, pointed out how 
 largely the letter has prevailed over the spirit in the 
 Sacraments, especially in the Eucharist. But in con- 
 nexion with this latter act of worship, it may be well to 
 touch upon one or two incidental points, on which the 
 principle for which I am contending has an important 
 bearing. Great stress is now being laid by a section of 
 the clergy of the Church of England on the practice 
 of fasting communion. Young persons are urged always 
 to communicate at early celebrations, and communion 
 otherwise than fasting is regarded as a pi'ofanation of 
 the Holy Mysteries. It is enforced, not on the rational 
 ground that fasting tends to keep the mind clear and is 
 a means of subduing the flesh, but on purely physical 
 and materialistic grounds. " Eemember " — so says a 
 little book on the ceremonial of the Altar,^ drawn up for 
 
 ^ " The Ceremonial of the Altar." Compiled bj' a Priest. Swan 
 Sonnenscheiii and Co. The aim of this book is "to piit the student 
 in possession of the traditions on the method of saying Mass, which 
 
i68 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 the use of loyal sons of the Church of England — " Re- 
 member that the fast from midnight before Communion 
 is rigorous, and that a lozenge or a sip of water breaks 
 it as effectually as the heaviest meal." It is difficult to 
 speak with patience of such a caricature of the religion 
 of Christ. It is difficult to conceive that the teachers of 
 siich a system can ascribe any authority to the words of 
 Christ, "The flesh profiteth nothing," or to those of 8t. 
 Paul, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink." 
 At least one may be allowed to describe such teaching 
 in the words of Bishop Wilberforce,^ spoken in his last 
 
 the compilers of our Prayer-Book presupposed to exist." The 
 followirjg is a sample: "As you give out the Gospel, place the 
 left hand on tlie book, and with the right thumb make a sm^dl 
 sign of the Cross on the book at the commencement of the Gospel 
 you are about to read. Then, at once transferring the left hand to 
 the breast, make similar signs with the right thumb on your fore- 
 head and on your breast. The fingers meanwhile are extended, 
 and the palms are turned inwards." 
 
 There are full directions as to the ceremonial to be observed 
 when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration, or placed 
 veiled on the Altar. 
 
 The perusal of this book is likely to be instructive to " loyal 
 sons of the Church of England." 
 
 ^ The quotation is from " an Address delivered by the late 
 Bishop of AVinchester to the Eural Deans of the Diocese at Win- 
 cliester House, July 15, 1873." The Report was printed shortly 
 after his death, which took place on July 19th, and was "carefully 
 prepared by comparison of notes taken at the time." He says, " It 
 is difficult to estimate the mischief which is resulting from the 
 action of the High Eitualistic party in this matter. . . It is not in 
 a light sense that I say this new doctrine of Fasting Communion 
 is dangerous. The practice is not advocated because a man comes 
 in a clearer spirit and less disturbed body and mind, able to give 
 himself entirely to prayer and communion with his God ; but on a 
 miserable degraded notion that the consecrated elements will meet 
 with other food in the stomach. It is a detestable materialism." 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND IIFE 169 
 
 public utterance before Lis death : "It is a detestable 
 materialism." 
 
 Closely connected with this is the subject of evening 
 celebrations of the Holy Communion. This is a question 
 which was fully dealt with in the notes to Dr. Hessey's 
 well-known Bampton Lectures on the subject of Sunday, 
 but which may be touched upon briefly as illustrating 
 our present subject. With many of the objections urged 
 against this modern practice it is possible to feel much 
 sympathy. There is much in the general though not 
 universal practice of the Church from primitive times to 
 the nineteenth century ; there is much in the preference 
 of the earlier and more tranquil hours of the day for the 
 solemnities of religion ; there is much in the fear lest 
 persons should come to evening Communions in a state 
 either of lassitude or of excitement. But still, if it is 
 true that there are large classes of persons who are 
 absolutely unable to attend in the earlier hours of the 
 day, it is surely competent for every particular or national 
 Church,^ having "authority to ordain, change, and 
 abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only 
 by man's authority " (and it is impossible to contend 
 that Christ ordained early celebrations when He instituted 
 His Supper in the evening) — it is, I say, surely competent 
 for a Church or even for a particular congregation to 
 revert to the earliest use, and to celebrate the Eucharist 
 in the evening. For, as I tried to point out in an earlier 
 lecture, the essence of the Eucharist lies, not in the mere 
 ceremonial observance, but in the spirit of devotion to 
 1 Article XXXIV. 
 
I70 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 Christ, and of hopeful looking for His kingdom, and of 
 brotherly helpfulness to our fellow-men ; and these 
 things depend not on the hour of celebration, but on the 
 attitude of the heart towards God. The great principle 
 which our Lord laid down, " The Sabbath was made 
 for man, and not man for the Sabbath," is conclusive as 
 to all matters of mere outward regulation and order ; it 
 tells us that the well-being, the edification, even the con- 
 venience of man is superior to all observance of the letter 
 for its own sake ; and that if w^e exalt ceremonial regula- 
 tions into Divine laws we are trenching on the authority 
 of the Son of Man, who is Lord, as of the sabbath, so also 
 of all else that affects the w^elfare of His people. One 
 cannot but fear that, in the scrupulous attention which 
 is paid to matters of this kind in the present day, there 
 is something of timidity lest by asserting our Christian 
 liberty w^e should be wideniug the breach betw^een our- 
 selves and the Church of Rome. But surely we of the 
 Church of England are strong enough to take our ow^n 
 ground in these matters ; and assuredly no amount of 
 conformity to so-called Catholic usage, short of absolute 
 surrender to the Papal authority, will win for us any 
 kind of recognition from the Roman Church. " With 
 freedom did Christ set us free ; stand fast therefore, and 
 be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage" is an 
 admonition not less needed by us than it w\as by the 
 Churches of Galatia to whom it was addressed. 
 
 The conflict between the letter and the spirit has not 
 been confined to the interpretation of Scripture or to 
 the ecclesiastical sjiliere : it meets us also in the common 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND IIFE 171 
 
 life of Christians. To odg wlio honestly and heartily 
 desires to live a godly life, it is a question of no small 
 importance and interest, " How shall I guide my steps ? 
 What is the authority to which I can turn in all those 
 many cases of doubt and difficulty which are sure from 
 time to time to occur ? " To this question various 
 answers have been given. In one age of the Church, 
 the reply would have been, " Place your conscience in 
 the hands of your Confessor. He is divinely autho- 
 rized to relieve you of all resjoonsibility." At another 
 time, or by other teachers, the answer would have been 
 given, " A thorough knowledge of Scripture is the only 
 means of keeping your life right. Whenever a diffi- 
 culty emerges, you should have a text ready; if only 
 you are accustomed to keep scriptural weapons ready 
 to hand, the right text will never fail you at the right 
 moment." And there is yet another answer, to the 
 effect that moral action, like all other action, depends 
 on the right application of certain fundamental prin- 
 ciples, and that this application must be made, not at 
 . haphazard, but in accordance with definite rules ; and 
 hence it follows that the study of casuis,try, or the 
 method of ascertaining; in each case what is the riaht 
 course to follow, is, if not indispensable for ordinary 
 persons, yet at least a great help for those who would 
 walk accurately and carefully, and a necessity for those 
 who are to be moral or religious guides. Yet here, too, 
 w^e shall find that the letter killetb ; the man who walks 
 by a system, the man who has a text or a precedent 
 always ready, the man who gives his conscience no free 
 
172 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIT. 
 
 ]3lay, but who trusts to being aljle to refer every diffi- 
 cult question to some rule, as though it were a question 
 of grammar or mathematics, will become dependent on 
 his system, and will lose that delicate moral instinct, 
 that quick perception of right and wrong, which belongs 
 to those who trust to the guidance of the Spirit of God, 
 who by reason of use have their senses exercised to 
 discern good and evil. Just as in art originality is a 
 higher and a nobler thing than servile imitation, so in 
 morals it is better that a man should simply follow his 
 conscience than that he should act by the advice even 
 of the wisest confessor or in obedience to even the most 
 admirable rules. There is a moral intuition, an instinct 
 of right and wrong, which is better than all the rules 
 and all the systems in the world. The proverb, 
 " Second thoughts are best," is true of matters of 
 worldly management and prudence ; it is not true in 
 questions of morals. As Bishop Butler says,^ "In all 
 common ordinary cases, we see intuitively at first view 
 what is our duty, what is the honest part. This is the 
 ground of the observation, that the first thought is 
 often the best. In these cases doubt and deliberation is 
 itself dishonesty." " In matters of duty," says Car- 
 dinal Newman, " first thoughts are commonly best — 
 they have more in them of the voice of God." ^ Or, as 
 the same distinction is expressed by a modern writer,^ 
 " When we consider human action, whether theoretically 
 
 ^ Butler's Sermon on Balaam, " Works," ii., p. 84. 
 " Newman's " Sermtmss," bk. iv., p. 36. 
 ^ Cf. "Natural Religion," pp. 173-174. 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND IIFE 
 
 73 
 
 or historically, we are always brought to this fimda- 
 meiital antithesis. Human action is either mechanical 
 or intelligent, either conventional or rational, — either it 
 follows custom or reason, either it is guided by rules or 
 by inspiration. In morals as in poetry, you must be 
 of the school either of Boileau or of Shakespeare. 
 Either you must sedulously observe a number of reo-u- 
 latious you do not hope to understand, or you must 
 move freely towards an end you passionately conceive, 
 at times making new rules for yourself, at times reject- 
 ing old ones, and allowing to convention only a kind of 
 provisional or prescriptive validity." And in the forma- 
 tion of the Christian character, the cultivation of this 
 faculty of trusting to inspiration is of the utmost im- 
 portance. For what God requires of us is, not right 
 action simply, but right action as the outcome and 
 evidence of a right state of the moral being. Here 
 again we meet with the fundamental distinction between 
 faith and ^vorks. To do right— that is salvation by 
 works ; to be right — that is salvation by faith. 
 
 Upon this same antithesis are based two opposite 
 theories of government and two opposite , systems of 
 education. In politics, the one tendency is to develop 
 individuality as far as is consistent with the safety of 
 the society ; the other, to subordinate the individual to 
 the society. It is not only in a despotic form of govern- 
 ment that individualism is liable to be crushed out ; 
 democracy is often a still worse tyrant, and enforces its 
 ideal mediocrity under still heavier penalties. It is one 
 great danger of modern society, that men born to lead 
 
174 THE LETTER AND THE SPU^IT [Lect. VII. 
 
 must so often make choice between being set aside as 
 unpractical, and consenting to follow and not to lead 
 the multitude. 
 
 The same opposite tendencies meet us in education/ 
 The one system aims at reducing the individual into con- 
 formity with a certain type ; to make him a good citizen 
 or a good churchman, or whatever the type may be. Of 
 this, one could hardly find a better example than in the 
 Republic of Plato. To him it appeared that a thorough 
 reform of education was needed as a remedy for the evils 
 of the time. And this reform was to consist in producing 
 conformity in the citizen, according to his capacity and 
 his calling, to an objective type, existing outside of 
 man, in relation to which all his faculties and his tastes 
 were to be trained and moulded. The tendency of 
 , modern times, speaking generally, has been to a different 
 system ; to develop freely whatever w^as in a man, so 
 as to produce, not conformity to a type, but the perfec- 
 tion of the individual. This certainly, with whatever 
 shortcomings, has been the aim of modern university 
 education ; to produce " a succession of persons duly 
 qualified to serve God in Church and State," not by a 
 mechanical process of putting into them certain opinions 
 and certain habits, but by the more spiritual method of 
 educating and developing whatever faculties, whatever 
 possibilities, were implanted in them by God. This 
 must be our reply to those w^ho lament that Oxford is 
 no longer, in the same exclusive sense as she once was, 
 
 ^ Some thoughts in this passage were suggested by Mark 
 Pattison's seriuou on the subject of " Education." 
 
Lect. VI I. ] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 175 
 
 a nursing mother of the Church of Enghuid ; that it is 
 better to take men as they are, and to make what you 
 can of tliem, than by attempting to impress upon all a 
 special ecclesiastical type to discourage all development 
 except in one direction. We may well trust that the 
 modern system will produce men of various types, 
 capable and desirous of understanding each other's point 
 of view, willing to learn of each other, and each ready 
 to admit that different aspects of the truth may com- 
 mend themselves to different persons. And if it is 
 asserted that the Universities, admitting as they do 
 without restriction persons of every variety of religious 
 and non-religious belief, are no longer fit places for the 
 training of the clergy of the National Church, we may 
 reply that an atmosphere of liberty, in wliich all oj)inions 
 are alike represented and all alike claim to be respected, 
 is a far healthier and more bracing one than that of a 
 theological seminary, in which a man comes into contact 
 with men of only one type, and in which he forms his 
 idea of other systems of religious thought only from the 
 account given of them by their adversaries. If the 
 Church of England is to preserve and extejid her claim 
 to the title of the National Church, it can only be by 
 her clergy learning to understand men of other religious 
 systems, and acknowledging that no one body of Chris- 
 tian people can claim a monopoly either of truth or of 
 holiness. 
 
 It is far less difficult to give ourselves up to the 
 guidance of a system or of a director than to accept the 
 responsibility of walking by the Spirit. The temptation 
 
176 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 comes to us in the plausible form of humility and self- 
 distrust. " Surely we are more likely to arrive at truth 
 by taking what Aristotle calls the unproven assertions 
 of the wise, than by painfully hammering out a system 
 for ourselves out of the results of our own thought and 
 experience." It maybe so, and we may very reasonably 
 avail ourselves of the labours of others and of the accu- 
 mulated wisdom of the past ; but still we cannot divest 
 ourselves of our personal responsibility, we cannot adopt 
 the opinions or the rules of other men at second-hand, 
 any more than we can wear their clothes ; for our minds 
 and spirits differ as much as do our bodies, and what 
 fits one man is too wide or too narrow for another. 
 " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." We 
 cannot be children in understanding ; we must walk as 
 men. It is for this reason that one mistrusts the ten- 
 dency, which appears over and over again in the most 
 various forms, to reduce the Christian life to a system, 
 to rely upon rules rather than upon principles, to ftdl 
 back upon the oldness of the letter. A striking instance 
 of this is the astonishing way in which, notwithstanding 
 the plain words of St. Paul, Christian people have 
 insisted upon identifying the Lord's Day with the 
 Jewish Sabbath, and have invented a traditional code 
 of Sunday observance which forces upon one's mind the 
 Apostle's words, " I am afraid of you, lest by any means 
 I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." And now 
 the reaction seems to be upon us, and people seem bent 
 upon asserting a liberty which it is difficult to call 
 Christian. It is of little use solemnly to discuss the 
 
Lect. VIL] in christian worship and life 177 
 
 question, What recreations, if any, are lawful on 
 Sunday?. Surely we cannot hesitate to reply, "All 
 things are lawful for me." Yes, but let us not omit the 
 balancing consideration, " But all things are not ex- 
 pedient." It is a matter in which it is more easy but 
 less necessary to assert our Christian liberty than to be 
 careful of the claims of Christian charity. It is better 
 to deny ourselves than, by claiming our full liberty, to 
 hurt the consciences or to abridge the liberty of others. 
 
 Another curious instance of the way in which men 
 cling to the letter, to some kind of positive rule, is the 
 assertion which one sometimes hears that God claims at 
 least a tenth of every one's income as an offering to 
 Him. One would have thought that the only Christian 
 principle is, " Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh 
 not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple." One 
 would have thought that the fixing of a certain definite 
 proportion savours of St. Peter's question, " Lord, how 
 oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ? 
 Until seven times ? " Thus Irenaeus ^ says that our Lord 
 came to expand and extend the Law, and, instead of 
 definite commands, to substitute principles; and "there- 
 fore, instead of, ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' He 
 commanded men not to lust ; and instead of, ' Thou 
 shalt not kill,' not even to be angry ; and instead of 
 paying tithe, to divide all one's goods to the poor." 
 Indeed, it is obvious that this rule would be quite in- 
 adequate as a moral standard, and that to give a tenth 
 of his income would be to one man no perceptible sacri- 
 ^ Irenaeus, " Haer.," iv. 27. 
 
178 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII. 
 
 fice at all ; while to another, or to the same man at 
 another period of his life, it would involve the cur- 
 tailing of his children's education and the neglect to 
 make provision for his family. All such hard and fast 
 rules tend to kill the spontaneousness of Christian bene- 
 ficence, and to turn it into a matter of calculation. The 
 only Christian law is the law of love, and love — 
 
 " Eejects the lore 
 Of nicely calculated less or more." ^ 
 
 And so we are brought back to the great funda- 
 mental principle, wdiich underlies all religion and all 
 worship, that "Love is the fulfilling of the law;" that 
 the only sacrifice that God desires is the sacrifice of a 
 loving heart ; that if we bestow all our goods to feed 
 the poor, and if we give our bodies to be burned, and 
 have not love, it profiteth us nothing. Prayer, alms- 
 giving, outward observances, all must have their root in 
 love, or they will become cold and dead and meaning- 
 less. And yet, on the other hand, we may not let our 
 religion evaporate into a sentiment, a perfume ; we 
 must serve God not in oldness of the letter, not as a 
 matter of routine, of law, of respectability, of social 
 })osition, but in newness of the spirit, with the new 
 energy, the new enthusiasm, the new hope, with which 
 Christ inspires His servants. Not less but more obedi- 
 ence, not less but more self-sacrifice, is demanded of 
 those who are not under the Law but under grace. 
 
 And if we of the nineteenth century, we upon whom 
 the ends of the world are come, are ever tempted to 
 ^ Wordsworth, " Ecclesiastical Sonnets," xliii. 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 179 
 
 think that we are wiser, more enlightened, more free 
 from superstitions than men of past generations, and to 
 despise the simple faith of earlier days, let us see to it 
 that with our wider knowledge, our more unfettered 
 thought, there be not less of holiness, of simplicity, of 
 purity, of faithful obedience to duty and to conscience, 
 than there was in the life of those who knew nothing of 
 our eager questionings, of our intellectual restlessness, 
 but who knew Christ, and the power of His resurrection, 
 
 " The Master stood npon the mount, and taught. 
 He saw a fire in His disciples' eyes. 
 ' The old law,' they said, ' is wholly come to nought ! 
 Behold the new world rise ! ' 
 
 " ' Was it,' the Lord then said, ' with scorn ye saw 
 The old law observed by Scribes and Pharisees ? 
 1 say unto you, see ye keep that law 
 More faithfully than these ! 
 
 " ' Too hasty heads for ordering worlds, alas ! 
 
 Think not that T to annul the law have will'd ; 
 No jot, no tittle, from the law shall pass, 
 Till all hath been fulfill'd.' 
 
 " So Christ said eighteen hundred years ago. 
 
 And what, then, shall be said to tho.se to-day 
 Who cry aloud to lay the old world low 
 To clear the new world's way ? 
 
 " ' Religious fervours ! Ardour misapplied ! 
 
 Hence, hence,' they cry, ' ye do but keep man blind ! 
 But keep him self-immersed, pre-occupied. 
 And lame the active mind.' 
 
 " Ah ! from the old world let some one answer give : 
 
 ' Scorn ye this world, their tears, their inward cares ? 
 I say unto you, see that ijour souls live 
 A deeper life than theirs.' " ^ 
 
 ^ Matthew Arnold, " Progress." 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 "The spirit giveth life."— 2 Cor. iii. 6. 
 
 Having spoken of the letter and the spirit in Scripture, 
 in the Church, in the Sacraments, and in the Creeds, and 
 in Christian worship and life, I propose in this last 
 lecture to turn your thoughts mainly to the future. But 
 before doing so, suffer me to recapitulate very briefly 
 what I said in my fourth lecture as to the essence of the 
 Church, and to touch for a moment on the historical 
 position of the Church of England. 
 
 In speaking of the Christian Society, I endeavoured 
 to show that the Church in its ideal is not a body dis- 
 tinguished from other religious societies by the possession 
 of a particular form of organization, on which is 
 dependent the due transmission of spiritual powers and 
 influences, but simply the Christian people, united 
 together under their Divine Head, entering into a 
 definite relation to Him and to each other by the 
 initiatory rite of Baptism, maintaining and renewing 
 that relation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and 
 possessing such a system of organization and oflicers 
 
Lect. VIIL] the church OF THE FUTURE i8i 
 
 as sliall enable the body rightly to fulfil its functions, 
 and shall constitute an adequate representation of the 
 whole society. But as in the political sphere there is 
 the danger of the governing authority arrogating to 
 itself an independent power, so that the king or the 
 aristocracy or the jiarliament says Letat cest moi, so in 
 the ecclesiastical there is the tendency for the clergy to 
 usurp the rights of the Church, and to say Leglise cest 
 nous. Happily, such a usurpation can confer no pre- 
 scriptive rights. The legal maxim w^hich saves the 
 rights of the crown from encroachment. Nullum tempus 
 occurrit regi, might perhaps still better be read, Nullum 
 tempus occurrit populo. The idea of the Church may 
 be overlaid and obscured by a long period of priestly 
 domination, and the people may acquiesce in suffering 
 their rights to be dormant ; but if the Church is not 
 dead, the Christian democracy will in time reassert 
 itself, and the Church will once more be recognized, 
 not as a priesthood, but as a congregation of faithful 
 men. 
 
 Such a reassertion of the Church ideal was made in 
 the Reformation of the sixteenth century. ' We form a 
 very inadequate idea of what the Eeformation was, if we 
 think of it simply as the shaking off of the supremacy of 
 the Roman see, or as the mere jD^^itting away of certain 
 abuses in discipline or of certain superstitions in worship. 
 It was this, no doubt, and to many of the actors in the 
 drama it may have seemed no more ; but if we look at 
 the history of the time, not as having a thesis to main- 
 tain, but with a desire to arrive at the truth of things. 
 
i82 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 we shall see that in its essence it was the assertion of 
 the lay power as against the so-called spiritualty, the 
 declaration of the principle that the Church is the 
 Christian people. 
 
 It may he objected to this view that the people were 
 very much passive in the movement, and that both in 
 England and elsewhere it was the rulers that decided 
 the question whether or no the Reformation should be 
 accepted, and, if accepted, what form it should take.^ It 
 is, of course, quite true that in the sixteenth century 
 what we understand by popular government did not 
 exist except in the Swiss cantons and in the Republic of 
 Geneva ; and that the personal will of the Sovereign was 
 the principal factor in the question. But this does not 
 affect the present argument, which is that the Reformation 
 .proceeded on the principle that each nation, represented 
 by its national Government, possessed the right to re- 
 model its Church organization, and to decide — subject 
 to the supreme authority of Scripture — what should be 
 its system of Church government and what its form of 
 worship. To us of the Church of England this principle 
 is embodied in the Royal Supremacy. It is difficult to 
 see on what ground the Sovereign can be declared to be 
 "over all persons, in all causes, as well ecclesiastical 
 as temporal, throughout his dominions supreme," or 
 
 ^ Thus the Landgrave of Hessen convoked a synod at Homberg 
 in 1526, to determine the future constitution of the Church in that 
 principality. Cf. Hardwick, " Eeformation," p. 375. The synod 
 asserted for the people the right of deposing Bishops. " Deponat 
 ecclesia episeopum suum, quod ad earn spectat judicare de voce 
 pastorum." — Schminke, " Monumenta Hassiaca," c. 23. 
 
Lect. VIIL] the church OF THE FUTURE 183 
 
 " supreme governor of the Cliurcli, within his dominions," 
 unless ijt be on the ground that the Church is the nation 
 in its religious aspect, and that the Sovereign, as repre- 
 sentative of the nation, is supreme over every department 
 of the national life. That this view was not unaccept- 
 able to the Bishops is shown by the fact that at the 
 accession of Edward VI., Cranmer and several other 
 Bishops took out Commissions to hold their sees during 
 the Royal pleasure,^ and that in 1540 Cranmer and other 
 divines, in their reply to Henry VIIL, distinctly speak of 
 civil and ecclesiastical authorities as co-ordinate under 
 the kino; : ^ " The civil ministers under the Kino's 
 Majesty in this realm of England, be those whom it 
 shall please his Highness for the time to put in authority 
 under him : as for example, the Lord Chancellor, Lord 
 Treasurer, Lord Great Master, Mayors, Sheriffs, etc. 
 The ministers of Cod's word, under His Majesty, be the 
 bishops, parsons, vicars, and such other priests as be 
 appointed by his Highness to that ministration : as 
 for example, the Bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of 
 Durham, the Bishop of Winchester, the Parson of Win- 
 wick, etc. All the said officers and ministers, as well of 
 the one sort as of the other, be a23pointed, assigned, and 
 elected to every place, by the laws and orders of kings 
 and princes. In the admission of many of these officers 
 be divers comely ceremonies and solemnities used, which 
 
 1 Hallam, " ConBt. Hist.," i., p. 100, quoting Burnet, ii. 6. 
 But Hardwick thinks this was only a commission empowering the 
 Bishops to exercise jurisdiction in their dioceses (" Ketbrmation," 
 p. 193, n. 5). 
 
 2 Cranmer's Works, ed. Jenkyns, ii., p. 101. 
 
1 84 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 be not of necessity, but only for a good order and seemly 
 fashion ; for if such offices and ministrations were com- 
 mitted without such solemnity, they were nevertheless 
 truly committed. And there is no more promise of God, 
 that grace is given in the committing of the ecclesiastical 
 office, than it is in the committing of the civil office." 
 This no doubt would appear to most persons in the 
 present day as pure Erastianism : nor do I quote it now 
 in order to commend to your acceptance the particular 
 view of Church authority which it appears to imply; but 
 only as indicating the theory on which the Eeformation 
 of the Church of England seems to have been based by 
 those who were chiefly responsible for it, and the ground 
 which they took in separating from the Roman obedience. 
 Certainly from the Archiepiscopate of Cranmer to that of 
 .Laud, we do not find that what is now called the Catholic 
 theory was largely present to men's minds in determining 
 their attitude with reference to Roman claims. No 
 doubt Queen Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker were 
 anxious to preserve all that could be preserved of the 
 ancient forms both of government and of worship, and 
 to them we owe much that is now valued by all English 
 Churchmen; but still it was mainly the national, and not 
 the wider aspect of the Church that was prominent. In 
 the words of Dr. Mozley : ^ " The swing of Henry VIII.'s 
 monarchy was simple nationalism, and nothing else ; the 
 nation delighted in it." And if this was true of Henry 
 VHI.'s, no less was it true of Elizabeth's monarchy, 
 especially after the Pope's excommunication and the 
 ^ Mozley, "Essays," i., p. 18G. 
 
Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 185 
 
 Spanisli Armada liad roused the national spirit. The 
 isolation of England resulting from Henry's breach with 
 the Papal see, the masterful character of the Tudor 
 Sovereigns, the almost theocratic character which was 
 ascribed to the English monarchy, all these combined to 
 impress upon the Church of England a character of 
 nationality to which it owes many of its best and some 
 perhaps of its worse features/ Even Laud's fatal attempt 
 to revive the feudal idea of ecclesiastical power, and to 
 call in the secular arm to enforce Church censures, w\as in 
 its intention a national movement : the cliaro;e of wish- 
 ing to introduce Popery was only so far true, that the 
 King and the Archbishop were to be joint Popes : had 
 the nation been of Laud's mind, he would have built up 
 a compact and strong national polity in Church and 
 State, each quite distinct, yet each supporting the other, 
 and united together by the monarchy at the tojD. But 
 the nation was not of Laud's mind, and his scheme was 
 rudely shattered. Yet the national idea still lasted ; and 
 at the restoration of the monarchy, a very moderate 
 concession on the part of the Bishops would have drawn 
 the mass of the Puritans into the Church. But the 
 reorganization of the Church was conducted on other 
 lines, and the principle of sectarianism — the principle 
 which asserts either that Christianity does not require 
 and is not advanced by external unity, or that such 
 
 ^ " The nationality of the Church — never, we admit, fully 
 attained — has been its most permanent and beneficent power." See 
 an interesting essay by the Eev. G. S. Eeany, Pastor of Cavendish 
 Cliapel, Manchester, in a collection of " Essays on Chuix-h Eeform," 
 published by Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 
 
i86 
 
 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 unity must consist in uniformity of belief and worship 
 and disci2Dline — was accepted, and from that time forth 
 the idea of a national Church has dwindled into a number 
 of collateral religious societies, one of them claiming to 
 represent alone the ancient Church of England, and 
 the rest being the result of the free development of 
 individual ideas and preferences. 
 
 Few, probably, would willingly acquiesce in the 
 existing ecclesiastical condition of England. Few will 
 deny that we need to widen our conceptions of the 
 possibilities of Church life by looking above the actual 
 to the ideal. Few can look upon Christendom at large 
 without feeling that if Christianity is ever to develop 
 into a world-religion it can only be by drawing up into 
 itself, and appropriating whatever is good and true in 
 all other systems of thought and life ; by discriminating 
 between what is temporary and local, and wdiat is 
 eternal and universal. It will not, indeed, hastily 
 and prematurely break w^ith the old ; old forms are often 
 the best support for new life, and the healthiest life is 
 that in which there is least breach of continuity. As in 
 the individual, so in the corporate life, the child should 
 be father of the man. But if we believe that all 
 things are to be subjected unto Christ, not by a violent 
 catastrophe, but by the silent working of spiritual forces, 
 we can hardly doubt that, after all, the Church is still in 
 its childhood, that in many respects it still speaks as a 
 child, feels as a child, thinks as a child : and that the 
 Spirit has still to go on with the work of education, 
 taking of the things of Christ and declaring them to 
 
Lect. VIII.] the church OF THE FUTURE 187 
 
 US. Surely the marvellous expausiou wliicli science lias 
 given to our conceptions of the physical world, the 
 extension of our ideas of time and space from the 
 chronology of Archbishop Ussher and the solar system 
 of Copernicus to the vast ages of time and the inter- 
 stellar spaces which geology and astronomy reveal to us, 
 may suggest that God's work in the spiritual world is 
 not to be measured by our standards, and that a 
 thousand years in His sight are but as yesterday. And 
 therefore, if we may venture to speak of the future in no 
 spirit of confident prediction but as using that large 
 discourse which God has given to all of us as a means of 
 looking before and after, our object will be the practical 
 one of trpng to see in what direction we ought to work, 
 and how we may best make the present a starting-point 
 for better things. 
 
 Perhaps we may anticipate that in the matter of 
 organization and outward form the Christian society of 
 the future will combine many elements that have here- 
 tofore been looked upon as incompatible with each other. 
 AVe cannot doubt that, on the one hand, the Catholic 
 theory, that the ftiith and the Church is everywhere one, 
 will find its realization ; that the belief in the Holy 
 Catholic Church will no longer be understood as a 
 declaration that he who professes it is claiming fellow- 
 ship with a definitely limited body of Christians, and 
 marking himself off from others ; that the body of 
 Christ will more and more tend to become co-extensive 
 with that redeemed humanity of which Christ is the 
 head. And yet, just as the consciousness of the unity 
 
1 88 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 of the race does not abolish national and tribal and 
 family distinctions, but only subordinates them to a 
 higher conception, even so the consciousness that the 
 Catholic Church is wider than all our limitations will 
 not obscure the boundaries of national and local 
 Churches, but will set them in their proper dependence 
 under the wider and higher idea. And if once we have 
 received into our minds that wider idea, we shall find 
 it less difficult to be patient and tolerant of all those 
 narrow and inadequate conceptions which have taken its 
 place. " The dissidence of Dissent " — that is, indeed, 
 not an inspiring ideal : one would rather say, " I believe 
 in the Holy Catholic Church," even if in so saying one 
 only meant, " I believe in Episcopally governed Chris- 
 tendom," than, " I believe in the dissidence of Dissent." 
 But at the same time we cannot close our eyes to the 
 fact, that the spirit of individualism which has led the 
 Christian people of Great Britain to segregate themselves 
 into 180 religious denominations,^ has its place in the 
 economy of God's j^ro^'^idence, and that at any rate a 
 living sectarianism is better than a dead uniformity. 
 And in the same way, we cannot but believe that of the 
 great religious denominations, from the Koman Church 
 to the Society of Friends, every one has some contribu- 
 tion to bring to the building up of the Church that is to 
 be; that they are destined, not to be destroyed or cast as 
 rubbish to the void, but to be drawn up and gradually 
 assimilated into the wider and more healthy and more 
 fruitful social life. And the great practical thought that 
 ^ "Statesman's Year- book for 1888." 
 
Lect. VIIL] the church OF THE FUTURE 189 
 
 forces itself upon us in this connexion is, that we should 
 none of us be content to acquiesce in the present condi- 
 tion of religious disintegration. The Master's desire 
 "that they all may be one," can never be held to be 
 satisfied by His disciples sitting down in little groups of 
 believers and regarding each other with benevolent 
 sentiments. For think only for one instant of the waste 
 of power which such a theory involves. Think of the 
 rival missionary societies, home and foreign ; think of 
 the overlapping organizations, religious, philanthropic, 
 educational ; think of a small area having one set of 
 Church institutions, two or three sets of Nonconformist 
 institutions, and another set of undenominational institu- 
 tions. ^Yould it be possible for us to accept such a state 
 of things as tolerable, if we had not sophisticated our 
 minds into the belief that it is the best attainable ? 
 
 I know that there will be those, perhaps even in this 
 congregation, wdio will be ready to say, " There is a per- 
 fectly simple and easy solution to the difficulty. Dis- 
 establish and disendow the Church of England, and all 
 denominations will fall into each other's arms, indif- 
 ferentism will disappear, and the kingdom of Heaven 
 will be realized." It is clearly impossible to devote even 
 a fragment of my last lecture to an argument on this 
 subject ; I can only state my own firm conviction that 
 the result of this policy would be the accentuating and 
 embittering of religious rivalries to an extent that 
 would dispose men who care for a religion of soberness 
 and peace to stand aloof from religious organizations, 
 and to leave them to be fought over by fanatics. Even 
 
1 90 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 in countries where no established Church has existed 
 the same ecclesiastical rivalries are found ; but if to 
 other causes of rivalry were added a great and powerful 
 Church, with a smarting sense of wrong, eager to regain 
 in influence what it had lost in position, no longer 
 restrained from aggressive proselytism by a sense of 
 responsibility to the nation, it seems probable that sec- 
 tarian animosities, far from being mitigated, would be 
 increased tenfold. 
 
 But to return. We cannot under any reasonable 
 theory acquiesce in a Christendom of sectarianism. We 
 must pray for a united Christendom. And if, besides 
 praying for it, we are to work towards it, it will not be 
 superfluous to ask. What is likely to be the basis of the 
 Christian society of the future ? 
 
 • Experience does not encourage us to expect that 
 the bases of religious association which have hitherto 
 prevailed will serve as the foundations of the future 
 temple. Identity of religious belief may be a strong, 
 but it is not a wide-reaching bond of religious union. 
 Indeed, the more keen is the interest in theology, the 
 more inadequate will it be found as the basis of union : 
 men's minds are differently constituted ; they see things 
 in difl"erent proportions ; they approach them from 
 opposite sides. The only way in which doctrine could 
 be made the primary ground of union would be by men 
 accepting without inquiry the autliority of an infallible 
 Church ; and to those who study the signs of the times 
 this will hardly appear a probable solution of the 
 difficulty. 
 
Lect. VIIL] the church OF THE FUTURE 191 
 
 Nor are men likely to unite on the basis of Church 
 organisation. The history of the Church before the 
 Reformation is surely a sufficient indication that mere 
 uniformity of external government is no guarantee for 
 spiritual life ; in the words of Baxter/ " This unity in 
 meer Profession is properly no Christian unity. ... If this 
 be all, it is but in the bark and shell that we are agreed ; 
 it is but a seemins; an;reement, from the teeth out- 
 wards." It is a mistake indeed to disparage and under- 
 value organic unity ; the disorganized state of Chris- 
 tendom paralyzes Christian work, and makes us weak in 
 the presence of the enemy : but such unity must be the 
 product and result of the unity of the Spirit working 
 from within outwards, producing in men's minds that 
 sense of Christian brotherhood which will gradually 
 draw them together into a closer union. For any body 
 <»f Christians to say, " We, and we only, possess the true 
 and legitimate form of Church order, therefore it is the 
 duty of all who would be members of the one body to 
 conform to our model," is more likely to perpetuate dis- 
 union than to draw Christians together. 
 
 What, then, is the most promising basis on which 
 Christians can unite ? If we go back to the origins of 
 Christianity, we shall find that the Church was pre- 
 eminently a beneficent organization. The fervour of 
 the first disciples at Jerusalem led them to unite in a 
 sort of religious communism : " All that believed were 
 together, and had all things common ; and they sold 
 their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, 
 "■ Baxter's " Catholic Unity," p. 203. 
 
192 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 according as any man had need." The earliest Church 
 office, that of the diaconate, was clearly for purposes of 
 beneficence/ To minister to the saints was an acknow- 
 ledged and universal duty. St. Paul's journeys were to 
 some extent governed by his plans for the mutual assist- 
 ance of the Churches. He makes the dependence of 
 Christians on each other a fundamental principle of the 
 Church. And this being so, is it not at least possible 
 that, as Christian association found its first basis in 
 beneficence, so the remedy for our unhappy divisions 
 may be found rather in the principle of association for 
 philanthropic purposes than in a common theology or 
 a common ritual or a common organization ? " See how 
 these Christians love one another," was a tribute of 
 admiration extorted from observers without by the 
 mutual helpfulness of the primitive Church ; may not a 
 similar devotion to good works on a yet larger and more 
 comprehensive scale be a means towards restoring that 
 unity which perished in the attempt to enforce uni- 
 formity of belief and observance ? Certainly the present 
 age would seem to favour such a hope. For there is 
 springing up now a certain enthusiasm of humanity, an 
 impatience of preventable suffering, an eagerness to 
 make the life of the less-favoured classes brighter, 
 healthier, more natural, which points to the possibility 
 of a new social crusade against ignorance, against vice, 
 against the evils that oppress and darken the lives of 
 the helpless classes. It is a thing to be thankful for, 
 
 ^ See Bishop Lightfoot's " Essay on the Christian Ministry," 
 and Dr. Hatch's " Bampton Lectures." 
 
Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 193 
 
 that in an age of religious unsettlement, when so many 
 of the more thoughtful men have drifted from the old 
 moorings, there should be this rallying point in a new 
 and healthy interest in social reforms : if the Church of 
 Christ is in its ideal a world-wide society in which the 
 strong are to bear the burdens of the weak, and the rich 
 are to hold their wealth in trust for the poor, then such 
 an enthusiasm of philanthropy as that which our age is 
 witnessing is surely a hopeful augury for Christianity. 
 It may be that for the time men do not recognize it as 
 Christian ; they may call it altruism, the service of 
 humanity, or what they will ; but as Christ said to His 
 disciples, " He that is not against us is on our part," so 
 now surely He would claim as His disciples all whose 
 aim is not to be ministered unto but to minister; He 
 would say, " Forbid them not ; for there is no man which 
 shall do a mighty work in My Name, and be able 
 quickly to speak evil of Me." It is surely a hopeful sign 
 in Oxford, that, wdiereas fifty years ago the energy and 
 intellectual activity of the University was wholly 
 absorbed by theological controversy, now much of it is 
 directed into the more fruitful and more Christian channel 
 of social improvement. University settlements in East 
 London, college missions in the midst of artisan popu- 
 lations, educational movements to reach the middle 
 class, — these, and other like signs of the times, show that 
 Oxford is not unmindful of the Christian maxim, " To 
 whom much is given, of them shall much be required." 
 It is true that the formal and official aspect of religion 
 is less prominent here than it was a generation ago ; it 
 
 
 
194 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 is true that subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles is 
 no longer a condition of membership in the University ; 
 it is true that the foundations are open to men of 
 any and of no religious belief : but if men are learning 
 here the lesson of effort for the good of others, the 
 lesson of responsibility for their brother-men, if they 
 are learning that we are members one of another, and 
 that if one member suffer all the members suffer with 
 it, then let us not dare to say that Oxford is no longer 
 a place of Christian education ; for what education can 
 be more Christian than that which teaches men to follow 
 the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like 
 unto Him ? 
 
 And if this is the case in Oxford, it is not less so 
 among serious-minded men elsewhere. The old Latin 
 •rime says that Oxford controversies soon spread over the 
 country : — 
 
 " Chronica si penses, cum pugnant Oxonienses, 
 Post paucos menses volat ira per Angligenenses." 
 
 Surely we may hope that when the University turns its 
 mind to more peaceful interests, its example will spread 
 in this respect too, and that an intelligent and unselfish 
 interest in social problems will be more and more cha- 
 racteristic of the age in which we live. There is work 
 enough and to spare for all. Let us not doubt that in 
 working for our brethren we are working for Christ; 
 for He Himself has said, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto 
 one of these My brethren, even these least, ye did it 
 unto Me." 
 
 Such a basis of Church unity is more adapted to the 
 
Lect. VIIL] the church OF THE FUTURE 195 
 
 -conditions of the present day than a dogmatic or an 
 institutional one. For ours is a democratic age, and no 
 system, either religious or political, can hope to stand 
 which does not rest upon a broad foundation of popular 
 interest. And it seems certain that men in the present 
 day are more likely to be interested in social and moral 
 problems than in the more abstract questions of theology. 
 Assuredly, if the Christian Church is to be a real power 
 in the world, it can only be by frankly and unreservedly 
 throwing herself upon the people. It is no longer pos- 
 sible for the Church to rely upon traditional reverence or 
 upon high-sounding claims ; but if she will set herself, 
 in her Master's spirit, "to preach good tidings to the 
 poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recover- 
 ing of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
 bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," 
 there is no limit to the possibilities that are before 
 her. If she will not timidly confine herself to a narrow 
 circle of so-called religious duties, but will boldly claim 
 as her own all human interests — humani nihil a se 
 alienum putans — she may yet set forth the religion of 
 the Son of Man as the religion of humanity, and may 
 show that the service of Christ is indeed the service of 
 man. 
 
 I endeavoured in a former lecture to show that 
 Christian theology, being man's conception of God and 
 of his own relation to God, is a progressive science, 
 and that God's revelation of Himself was not closed 
 with the completion of the Canon of the New Testament. 
 If we believe that all lioht and knowled2:e have their 
 
196 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 source in God, we cannot doubt that to this our age 
 God has revealed and is revealing Himself very specially. 
 And it is vain to say that science does not come into 
 contact with religion. There is absolutely no section of 
 the Church and no school of thought that has not been 
 consciously, or perhaps more often unconsciously, affected 
 by modern knowledge and modern methods. It is not 
 so much that any particular discovery has upset this or 
 that theory of Scripture interpretation or system of evi- 
 dences, but rather that there has been a general though 
 gradual onward movement, and it is only by looking 
 back that we can see how great the advance has been. 
 Who would now maintain the letter of the Mosaic 
 cosmogony against the conclusions of geology and 
 astronomy? Who would now apply to the Bible, 
 words spoken from this pulpit within the recollection 
 of many of us : " Every book of it, every chapter of it, 
 every verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, 
 — (ivhere are we to stop f) — every letter of it is the 
 direct utterance of the Most High ? " ^ ' Who would 
 now refuse to recognize discrepancies and inaccuracies 
 even in the Gospel narratives ? Who would now make 
 miracles the primary evidence of Christianity, as was 
 generally done by the writers of the last century ? And 
 yet, is Christianity less operative, less influential, less 
 of a motive force than it formerly was ? Do men care 
 less for the spirit of the Bible, because the superstitious 
 reverence for its letter has been overthrown ? And if 
 this process has gone on in the past, may we not reason- 
 ^ Burgon, "Inspiration and Interpretation," p. 89. 
 
Lect. VIIL] the church OF THE FUTURE 197 
 
 ably conclude that it will go on in the future? It is not 
 for us, indeed, to forecast the working of the Spirit of 
 God in the minds of men ; but yet we can hardly doubt 
 that it will be in the direction of a more spiritual con- 
 ception of God and of His kingdom, and that, as in the 
 past so in the future, men will find that the things 
 which they have contended over, and for which they 
 have persecuted each other, are really but the outside 
 expression of religion, and that the things which seemed 
 to them too simple to be dwelt upon, are, after all, the 
 things that are eternal. For experience teaches us that 
 it is the simple things that are the great things ; and as 
 we grow older we learn a new sense of proportion and 
 a new measure of the importance of doctrine. As Baxter 
 says, " I value all things according to their use and end. 
 That is the best Doctrine and Study which maketh men 
 better, and tendeth to make them happy." ^ 
 
 Surely the lesson that we need is to have faith in 
 God ; to trust not in our own formulas and systems, not 
 in spasmodic revivals, but in the power of the living 
 God. We are too apt to identify the kingdom of God 
 with our preconceived theories ; and then, if our theories 
 fiiil, we think that the gates of hell have prevailed, and 
 that God's cause is lost. But God's cause does not 
 depend upon our theories, and it will outlive them. 
 And it is a law of God's kingdom, that all spiritual 
 progress demands sacrifice.^ The Jew before entering 
 Christ's kingdom had to give up the letter of the Old 
 
 ^ Baxter's "Life and Times," p. 127. 
 
 ^ CI". Westcotf s " Christus Cousuuimatur," pp. -i, 5. 
 
1 98 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 Covenant and tlie worship of liis forefathers, and to 
 surrender his exclusive position, and to welcome as 
 brethren those whom he had regarded as beyond the 
 reach of God's favour. But he gained the power of 
 knowing and worshipping the spiritual Christ. Luther 
 had to go through a fierce struggle in breaking with the 
 monastic life and the traditions of his education to fight 
 the battle of Christian freedom. But the sacrifice of the 
 letter enabled him to rise to the religion of the spirit, 
 and to assert the priesthood of the Christian people. And 
 so it may be that we shall have to sacrifice some of our 
 prepossessions, some of the things which we have identi- 
 fied with Christ's religion, some of the oldness of the 
 letter, in order to accept the newness of the spirit. Only 
 let us be patient ; let us not be over-anxious to have a 
 complete theory, that stands four-square on all points ; 
 let us be content to wait for more light ; let us ask that 
 we may have ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts to 
 understand God's progressive revelation in science, in 
 the widening interpretation of Scripture, in the growth 
 of new social and industrial types. And let us beware 
 of caring more for our own views or our own 
 special organization, than for the promotion of right 
 and well-being and good living. Let us beware of the 
 temptation to postpone truth and justice to religion and 
 piety. 
 
 The history of religious thought may well teach us 
 modesty and forbearance. How often has it happened 
 that tlie views wliich one generation proscribes as 
 dangerous the next tolerates, and the third accepts as 
 
Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 199 
 
 truth ! How often have divines rushed to protest 
 against opinions which their successors have defended as 
 harmless ! Evolution, which not many years ago was 
 solemnly denounced in Oxford by an eloquent Bishop 
 and a popular statesman, is now maintained as con- 
 sistent with the most unblemished orthodoxy. Yes, not 
 only the blood of the martyrs but sometimes even the 
 ashes of the heretics may claim to be the seed of the 
 Church. 
 
 And if our modes of thought, no less do our external 
 methods require adaptation to the needs of a new age. 
 We can hardly doubt, for instance, that if the older 
 Churches are to hold their own in the new world, it 
 must be by learning from their younger sisters the secret 
 of popularizing their institutions. The Church of 
 England in particular, from no fault of her own but by 
 the force of circumstances, has drifted into a position 
 which is hardly tolerable, in which the minister of each 
 parish is practically autocratic, while the people are 
 purely passive and receptive. This is not the occasion 
 for suggesting remedies for this evil ; but assuredly, if 
 the Church of England is to continue ta be the only 
 organized society in the country whose members have no 
 opportunity of giving effect to their deliberate judgment, 
 it can hardly be but that much of the religious energy 
 and thoughtfulness of the age will cease to flow in the 
 ancient bed of the stream, and will find other and freer 
 channels for itself. 
 
 And as at home, so too in its relations to those that 
 are without, the Church must learn more modciii 
 
200 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 methods. When the Church first became conscious of 
 responsibility in rehition to the heathen, the idea of 
 missions was a simple one. It was, first to proclaim to 
 them that they were perishing, and that their only hope 
 lay in the acceptance of the Christian faith ; and then to 
 offer them our organization, our forms of worship, our 
 doctrinal formulas, our highly developed type of 
 European Christianity.^ It is not surprising that the 
 attempt to convert Orientals into English Churchmen or 
 Scottish Presbyterians or American Baptists should 
 have met with but moderate success. It would surely 
 be more in accordance with the Apostolic model to set 
 before men the Christianity of the New Testament in 
 its simplest form — Christ as the revelation of the 
 Father, the Spirit as the indwelling of God in man, with 
 .perhaps some rudimentary aud provisional organization, 
 and then to leave the vital principle to develop an 
 outward framework such as might be adapted to its 
 environment. The more suitable our English type of 
 Christianity may be to Englishmen, the less is it likely 
 to meet the requirements of men of other races. 
 
 I have endeavoured, in these lectures, to bring out 
 according to my power the distinction between the 
 permanent and the transitory, between the essential and 
 the accidental, in the Christian religion and life. It is 
 a great subject, and no one can be more conscious than 
 I am how much has been left unsaid, how much might 
 
 ^ Cf. a sermon on the " Evangelization of India," preached 
 liefore the University in 1857, by Eev. G. H. Curteis, Fellow of 
 Exeter College. 
 
Lect. VIIL] the church OF THE FUTURE 201 
 
 liave been better said. It is a question beset witli 
 
 difficulties, but it is one on the solution of which 
 
 depends the future of Christianity. It is one on which 
 
 there will be many different judgments, and which 
 
 demands candour, mutual forbearance, and an honest 
 
 endeavour to look at it from all points of view. The 
 
 temper required is, as was said in a former lecture, that 
 
 of the householder who bringeth forth out of his treasure 
 
 things new and old. We must not, indeed, cling to the 
 
 old because it is old, nor yet grasp at the new because it 
 
 is new ; we must try to preserve and keep fresh what is 
 
 good in the old, and to welcome and use to the utmost 
 
 what is true in the new. And have not we of the 
 
 Church of England a very special advantage in this 
 
 respect % Combining as w^e do the stateliness of the 
 
 ancient formularies with much of freedom of thought, 
 
 much of flexibility and capacity for adaptation ; the letter 
 
 of the ancient confessions with the spirit of modern 
 
 inquiry ; uniting, as we do, in one communion men of the 
 
 most opposite temper — men reverencing the old, like Dr. 
 
 Pusey, and men eagerly welcoming the new, like Arthur 
 
 Stanley, — are not we marked out by our- very position 
 
 and inheritance to mediate between the past and the 
 
 future, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, 
 
 and the hearts of the children to their fathers ; to 
 
 tem^Dcr the eager impetuosity of youth with the calm 
 
 wisdom of old age ? Yes, upon us is laid by God's 
 
 providence the great work of claiming for Christ the 
 
 science, the criticism, the philosophy, the democratic life 
 
 of the new age ; of so welding together the old and the 
 
202 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIIL 
 
 new, that there may be no breach of continuity, no 
 revolutionary shock, but that the new social and 
 intellectual life of England may be not less but more 
 Christian than that of our forefathers. "We have heard 
 with our ears, God, our fathers have told us, what 
 Thou hast done in their time of old ; " and if we have 
 faith, and doubt not, He has yet greater things in store 
 for us, and for our children. 
 
 I concluded my first lecture with a word of advice 
 to you, my younger hearers. Sufi"er me to address you 
 once more in concluding my last. I warned you then 
 against trusting to the letter, against the tendency to 
 make religion too much a matter of system and organi- 
 zation. Let me warn you to-day against too hastily 
 dispensing with outward helps. What strikes one most 
 in modern Oxford is the almost total relaxation of 
 academical discipline. It may be that there was too 
 much of it in days gone by ; it may be that there is too 
 little of it now. But however this may be, it lays on 
 you the responsibility of disciplining your own life. If 
 your life is to flow in a strong concentrated current, and 
 to overbear obstacles, you must build strong barriers to 
 prevent its spreading all abroad and losing itself in 
 shallows. " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control '"' 
 — that is what you must aim at. And the best helps to 
 these things are the old and simple ones — prayer, the 
 intelligent study of Scripture, self-recollectedness, com- 
 munion with Christ. Let me conclude with the glowing 
 words addressed to the young men of his day by one 
 who was dear to many of us, words which some here 
 may remember. 
 
Lect. VIIL] the church OF THE FUTURE 203 
 
 " Be as free, be as liberal, be as courageous as you 
 will ; -but be religious, because you are liberal ; be 
 devout, because you are free ; be pure, because you are 
 bold ; cast away the works of darkness, because you are 
 the children of light ; be humble, and considerate, and 
 forbearing, because you are charged with hopes as grand 
 as were ever committed to the rising generation of any 
 Church or of any country. These hopes are for you to 
 destroy or to fulfil. On you, more than on any other force 
 or power amongst us, depends the life and soul of any 
 true, Christian, manly progress in Oxford or in 
 England." ^ 
 
 And now I bring this course of sermons to a close. If 
 anything has been said contrary to God's Will, may He 
 pardon and blot it out ; if anything in accordance with 
 His Will, may He accept and make it fruitful. " Domine 
 Deus, qusecunque dixi de tuo, agnoscant et tui ; si qua 
 de meo, et Tu ignosce et tui," 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTE TO LECTUEE VIIL 
 
 I venture to append to this Lecture the eloquent passage in 
 which Dean Milman, in the peroration of his " Latin Christianity," 
 speaks of the future of Teutonic Christianity : — 
 
 " Its intellectual faith will be more robust ; nor will its emo- 
 tional be less profound and intense. But the strength of its 
 intellectual faith (and herein is at once its glory and its danger) 
 will know no limits to its daring speculation. How far Teutonic 
 Cliristianity may in some parts already have gone almost or abso- 
 lutely beyond the pale of Christianity, how far it may have lost 
 
 ^ " Great Opportunities." A farewell sermon preached before 
 the University of Oxford on Advent Sunday, 1863, by Arthur 
 Penrhyn Stanley, D.D. 
 
2 04 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII. 
 
 itself in its unrebnkecl wanderings, posterity only will know. 
 What distinctness of conception, what precision of language may 
 be indispensable to true faith ; what part of the ancient dogmatic 
 system may be allowed silently to fall into disuse, as at least 
 superfluous, and as beyond the proper range of human thought and 
 human language ; how far the sacred records may, without real 
 peril to their truth, be subjected to closer investigation ; to what 
 v/ider interpretation, especially of the Semitic portion, those records 
 may submit, and wisely submit, in order to harmonize them with 
 the irrefutable conclusions of science ; how far the Eastern veil of 
 allegory which hangs over their truth may be lifted or torn away 
 to show their unshadowed essence ; how far the poetic vehicle 
 through which truth is conveyed may be gently severed from the 
 truth ; — all this must be left to the future historian of our religion. 
 As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and His 
 words alone (the primal, indefeasible truths of Christianit}'), shall 
 not pass away ; so I cannot presume to say that men may not 
 attain to a clearer, at the same time more full and comprehensive 
 and balanced sense of those words, than has as yet been generally 
 received in the Christian world. As all else is transient and 
 mutable, these only eternal and universal, assuredly, whatever 
 light may be thrown on the mental constitution of man, even on the 
 constitution of nature, and the laws which govern the world, will 
 be concentered so as to give a moi-e penetrating vision of those 
 undying truths. Teutonic Christianity (and this seems to be its 
 mission and privilege), however nearly in its more perfect form it 
 may already have approximated, may approximate still more 
 closely to the absolute and perfect faith of Christ; it may discover 
 and establish the sublime unison of religion and reason ; keep in 
 tone the triple-chorded harmony of faith, holiness, and charity; 
 assert its own freedom, know the bounds of tliat freedom, respect 
 the freedom of others. Christianity may yet have to exercise a 
 far wider, even if more silent and untraceable influence, through 
 its primary, all-penetrating, all-pervading principles, on the civili- 
 zation of mankind." 
 
 To this I would add a passage from a less-known writing of the 
 same author, the sermon on " Hebrew Prophecy," preached before 
 the University in 1865 : — 
 
 " Of the future of Christianity what Christian will presume 
 to despair ? May not that future be the more complete redintegra- 
 tion of that eternal union, the more solemn ratification, as it were. 
 
Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 205 
 
 of that heaven-lilessed marriage sacraiBent, the more perfect fusion 
 of the religious and moral elementH of our faith ? We may believe 
 not less profoundly, though we believe in a more Christian spirit. 
 As it will most need, so the highest civilization will submit, and 
 only submit, to a Christianity which has shaken off all unworthy 
 superstitions, the encrustation of ages upon its simpler doctrines. 
 ... I cannot and will not believe but that the advancement of 
 mankind in arts, in science, in knowledge, in the knowledge of 
 itself, the history of our race, the limits of our intellectual faculties, 
 the powers of oiir language, in the intercommunion of family with 
 family of nations, in civil and religious liberty, and in all that 
 expands and elevates our being, will eventually harmonize and enter 
 into closer felhjwship with the religion of Christ." 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 It has been tliouglit that the following biief account of the founder 
 of the Bamptou Lectures, and of the Lectures themselves, may 
 be interesting. 
 
 John Bampton was born in 1689. He was educated at Trinity 
 College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1709, and M.A. in 
 1712. Having taken Orders, he was in 1718 collated to the pre- 
 bend of Minor pars altaris in the cathedral church of Salisbury, 
 which preferment he held till his death in 1751. He left his 
 lands and estates to found the Bampton Lectures; an extract 
 from his will is prefixed to each year's volume of lectures. His 
 bequest did not take effect till 1779, twenty-eight years after his 
 death, when the first lecturer was chosen. At this time the 
 estates produced a yearly income of £120. 
 
 The following are the names of the preachers and their sub- 
 jects. Although the founder provides that the lecturer shall be 
 of the degree of Master of Arts, at least, in one of the Universities 
 of Oxford or Cambridge, it does not appear that any Cambridge 
 man was appointed until the year 1874 — 
 
 1 780. James Bandinel, D.D., Jesus. " The Peculiar Doctrines of 
 
 Christianity." 
 
 1781. Timothy Neve, D.D., Merton. "Jesus Christ the Saviour of 
 
 the World and Redeemer of Mankind." 
 
 1782. Eobert Holmes, M.A., New College. "On the Prophecies 
 
 and Testimony of John the Baptist and the Parallel 
 Prophecies of Jesus Christ." 
 
 1783. John Cobb, D.D., St. John's. "An Enquiry after Happi- 
 
 ness : Natural Religion, the Gospel, etc." 
 
 1784. Jos. White, B.D., Wadham. " A Comparison of Christianity 
 
 and Mohammedanism in their History, their Evidence, 
 and their Effects." 
 
2o8 APPEND IX 
 
 1785. Ealph Churton, M.A., Brasenose. "On the Prophecies re- 
 
 specting the Destruction of Jerusalem." 
 
 1786. George Croff, D D., University. "The Use and Abuse of 
 
 Eeason ; Objections against Inspiration considered ; the 
 Authority of the Ancient Fathers examined, etc." 
 
 1787. William Hawkins, M.A., Pembroke. " On Scripture 
 
 Mysteries." 
 
 1788. Eichard Shepherd, D.D., Corpus. " The Ground and Credi- 
 
 bility of the Christian Eeligion." 
 
 1789. Edward Tatham, D.D., Lincoln. " The Chart and Scale of 
 
 Truth." 2 vols. 
 
 1790. Henry Kett, M.A., Trinity. "The Conduct and Opiuions 
 
 of the Primitive Christians, with Eemarks on Gibbon and 
 Priestley." 
 
 1791. Eobert Murres, M.A., Brasenose. "On Faith in General, 
 
 etc." 
 
 1792. John Eveleigh, D.D., Provost of Oriel. " The Substance, 
 
 History, and Evidences of our Eeligion." 
 
 1793. James Williamson, B.D., Queen's. " The Truth, Inspiration, 
 
 Authority, and Evidence of the Scriptures considered and 
 defended." 
 
 1794. Thomas Wintle, B.D., Pembroke. " The Expediency, Pre- 
 
 diction, and Accomplishment of the Christian Eedemption 
 illustrated." 
 
 1795. Daniel Veysie, B.D., Oriel. "The Doctrine of Atonement 
 
 illustrated and defended." 
 
 1796. Eobert Gray, M.A., St. Mary Hall. " The Principles upon 
 
 which the Eeformation of the Church of England was 
 established." 
 
 1797. W. Finch. D.C.L., St. John's. "The Objection of Infidel 
 
 Historians and other Writers against Christianity con- 
 sidered." 
 
 1798. Charles Henry Hall, B.D., Christ Church. "Fulness of 
 
 Time ; or the Steps by which Almighty God gradually 
 prepared the Way for the Introduction and Promulgation 
 of the Gospel." 
 
 1799. William Barrow, D.C.L., Queen's. " Answers to some Popular 
 
 Objections against the Necessity or Credibility of the 
 Christian Eevelation." 
 
 1800. G. Eichards, M.A., Oriel. " The Divine Origin of Prophecy 
 
 illustrated and defended." 
 
APPENDIX 209 
 
 1801. George Stmley Faber, M.A., Lincoln. " Ilorfc Mosaicie ; or 
 
 _ a View of the Mosaical Records, with Eespect to their 
 - Coincidence with Profane Antiquity, their Internal 
 Credibility, and their Connexion with Christianity." 
 2 vols. 
 
 1802. George Frederick Nott, B.D., All Souls. " Religious Enthn- 
 
 sinsm." (This course was directed against Wesley and 
 Whitfield.) 
 
 1803. John Farrer, M.A., Queen's. " On the Mission and Character 
 
 of Christ, and on tho Beatitudes." 
 
 1804. Richard Lawrence, D.C.L., University. "An Attempt to 
 
 Illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which 
 the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical." 
 
 1805. Edward Nares, M.A., Merton. " A View of the Evidences of 
 
 Christianity at the Close of the Pretended Age of Reason." 
 
 1806. J. Brown, M.A., Corpus. " The Infancy of Human Nature." 
 
 1807. Thomas Le Mesurier, M.A., New College. "The Nature 
 
 and Guilt of Schism considered with a Particular Refer- 
 cnc3 to the Principles of the Reformation." 
 
 1808. J. Penrose, M.A., Corpus. " An Attempt to prove the Truth 
 
 of Christianity from the Wisdom displayed in its Original 
 Establishment, and from the History of False and 
 Corrupted Systems of Religion." 
 
 1809. J. B. S. Carwithen, M.A., St. Mary Hall. " A View of the 
 
 Brahminical Religion in its Confirmation of the Truth of 
 the Sacred History, and in its Influence on the Moral 
 Character." 
 
 1810. T. Falconer, M. A., Corpus. "Certain Principles in Evan- 
 
 son's ' Di.ssonance of the Four generally received Evange- 
 lists, etc' examined." 
 
 1811. J. Bidlake, D.D., Christ Chiarch. "The Truth and Con- 
 
 sistency of Divine Revelation, with some Remarks on the 
 Contrary Extremes of Infidelity and Enthusiasm." 
 
 1812. Richard Mant, M.A., Oriel. " An Appeal to the Gospel ; or, 
 
 an Inquiry into the Justice of the Charge, alleged by the 
 Methodists and other Objectors, that the Go.spel is not 
 preached bj^ the National Cleigy." 
 
 1813. J. Collinson, M.A., Queen's. "A Key to the Writings of the 
 
 Principal Fathers of the Christian Church who flourished 
 during the First Three Centuries." 
 
2IO APPENDIX 
 
 1814. William Van Mildert, D.D., Christ Church. An Inquiry 
 
 into the General Principles of Scripture Interpretation." 
 
 1815. Reginald Heber, M.A., All Souls. "The Personality and 
 
 Office of the Christian Couiforter asserted and ex- 
 plained." 
 
 1816. John Hume Spry, M. A., Oriel. " Christian Unity doctrinally 
 
 and historically considered." 
 1?17. John Miller, M.A., Worcester. "The Divine Authority of 
 Holy Scripture a'^serted, from its Adaptation to the Real 
 State of Human Nature." 
 
 1818. Charles Abel Moysey, M.A., Christ Church. "The Doc- 
 
 trines of the Unitarians examined as opposed to the 
 Church of England." 
 
 1819. Hector Davies Morgan, M.A., Trinity. "A Compressed 
 
 View of the Religious Principles and Practices of the 
 Ag-e ; or, a Trial of the Chief Spirits that are in the World 
 by the Standard of the Scriptures." 
 
 1820. Godfrey Faussett, M.A., Magdalen, "The Claims of the 
 
 Established Church to Exclusive Attachment and Support, 
 and the Dangers which menace her from Schism and 
 Indifference." 
 
 1821. John Jones, M.A., Jesus. " The Moral Tendency of Divine 
 
 Revelation asserted and illustrated." 
 
 1822. Richard Whately, M.A., Oriel. "The Use and Abuse of 
 
 Party-feeling in Matters of Religion." 
 
 1823. C. Goddard, D.D., Christ Church. " The Mental Condition 
 
 necessary to a Due Inquiry into Religious Evidence, 
 stated and exemplified." 
 182-1. John Josias Conybeare, M.A., Christ Church. "An Attempt 
 to trace the History and ascertain the Limits of the 
 Secondary and Spiritual Interpretation of Scripture." 
 
 1825. George Chandler, D.C.L., New College. "The Scheme of 
 
 Divine Revelation considered principally in its Connexion 
 with the Progress and Improvement of Human Society." 
 
 1826. William Vaux, M.A., Balliol. " The Benefits annexed to a 
 
 Participation in the Two Christian Sacraments of Baptism 
 and the Lord's Supper." 
 
 1827. Henry Hart Milman, M.A., Brasenose. "The Character and 
 
 Conduct of the Apostles, considered as an Evidence of 
 Christianity." 
 
APPEXDIX 211 
 
 1828. Thomas Home, B.I)., Christ Church. "The Religious 
 
 ■ Necessity of the Reformation asserted, and tlie Extent to 
 which it was carried in the Church of England vin- 
 dicated." 
 
 1829. Edward Burton, D.D., Chri«t Church. " The Heresies of the 
 
 Apostolic Age." 
 
 1830. Henry Soames, M.A., AVadham. "The Doctrines of the 
 
 Anglo Saxon Church." 
 
 1831. T. W. Lancaster, M.A., Queen's, " The Popular Evidence of 
 
 Christianity stated and explained." 
 
 1832. Renn Dickson Hampden, M.A., Oriel. "The Scholastic 
 
 Philosophy considered in its Relation to Christian 
 Theology." 
 
 1833. Fred. Nolan, D.C.L., Exeter. "The Analogy of Revelation 
 
 and Science established." 
 
 1834. No appointment. 
 
 1835. No appointment. 
 
 1836. Charles Atmore Ogilvie, M.A., Balliol. " The Divine Glory 
 
 manifested in the Conduct and Discourses of our 
 Lord." 
 
 1837. Thomas Stuart Lyle Vogan, M.A., St. Edmund's Hall. 
 
 " The Principal Objections against the Doctrine of the 
 Trinity, and a Portion of the Evidence on which that 
 Doctrine is received by the Catholic Church re- 
 viewed." 
 
 1838. Henry A. Woodgate, B.D., St. John's. "The Authoritative 
 
 Teaching of the Church shown to be in Conformity with 
 Scripture, Analogy, and the Moral Constitution of 
 Man." 
 
 1839. William D. Conybeare, M:A., Christ Church. "An Ana- 
 
 lytical Examination of the Character, etc., of the Christian 
 Fathers during the Ante-Nicene Period." 
 
 1840. Edward Hawkins, D.D., Provost of Oriel. "An Enquiry 
 
 into the Connected Uses of the Principal Means of attain- 
 ing Christian Truth." 
 
 1841. Samuel Wilberforce, M.A., Oriel. (No lectures delivered, 
 
 owing to a domestic afiBiction.) 
 
 1842. James Garbett, M.A., Brasenose. "Christ, as Prophet, 
 
 Priest, and King; being a Vindication of the Church of 
 England from Theological Novelties." 
 
2 12 APPENDIX 
 
 1843. Anthonjr Grant, D.C.L., New College. "The Past and 
 
 Prospective Extension of the Gospel by Missions to the 
 Heathen." 
 
 1844. Eichard William Jelf, D.D., Canon of Christ Church. "An 
 
 Inquir}' into the Means of Grace, their Mutual Connexion 
 and Combined Use, with EsiJecial Eeference to the Church 
 of England." 
 
 1845. Charles Abel Heurtle.v, B.D., Corpus. "Justification." 
 
 1846. Augustus Short, M.A., Christ Church. " The Witness of the 
 
 Spirit with our Spirit." 
 
 1847. Plight Eev. Walter Augustus Shirley, D.D., New College. 
 
 " The Supremacy of Holy Scripture." (This course was 
 not completed, owing to the death of the lecturer.) 
 
 1848. Edward Garrard Marsh, M.A., Oriel. "The Christian 
 
 Doctrine of Sanctification considered." 
 
 1849. Eichard Michell, B.D., Lincoln. "The Nature and Com- 
 
 parative Value of the Christian Evidences considered 
 generally." 
 
 1850. Edward Meyrick Goulburn, M.A., Merton. " The Doctrine 
 
 of the Eesurrection of the Same Body as taught in Holy 
 Scripture." 
 
 1851. Henry Biistow Wilson, B.D., St. John's. " The Communion 
 
 of Saints. An Attempt to illustrate the True Principles 
 of Christian Union." 
 
 1852. Joseph Esmond Eiddle, MA., St. Edmund Hall. "The 
 
 Natural History of Infidelity and Superstition in contrast 
 with Christian Faith." 
 
 1853. William Thomson, M.A., Queen's. " The Atoning Work of 
 
 Christ, viewed in Eelation to some Current Theories." 
 
 1854. Hon. Samuel Waldegrave, M.A., All Souls. "New Testa- 
 
 ment Millenaiianism ; or, the Kingdom and Coming of 
 Christ, as taught by Himself and His Apostles." 
 
 1855. J. E. Bode, M.A. Christ Church. "The Absence of Pre- 
 
 cision in the Formularies of the Church of England 
 Scriptural, and suitable to a State of Probation." 
 
 1856. Edward A. Litton, M.A., Oriel. " The Mosaic Dispensation 
 
 considered as Introductory to Christianity." 
 
 1857. William Edward Jelf, B.D., Christ Church. "Christian 
 
 Faith, Comprehensive, not Partial ; Definite, not Un- 
 certain." 
 
APPENDIX 213 
 
 1858. H. Longneville Mansel, B.D., St. John's. "The Limits of 
 • Eeligious Thought examined." 
 
 1859. George Eawlinson, M.A., Exeter. "The Historical Evi- 
 
 dences of the Truth of the Scripture IJecords, stated anew, 
 with Special Reference to the Dcaibts and Discoveries of 
 Modern Times." 
 
 1860. James Augustus Hessey, D.C.L., St. John's. "Sunday; its 
 
 Origin, History, and Present Obligation." 
 
 1861. John Sandford, B.D., Balliol. "The Mission and Extension 
 
 of the Church at Home." 
 
 1862. Adam Storey Farrar, M.A., Queen's. "A Critical History of 
 
 Free Thought in Reference to the Christian Religion." 
 
 1863. John Hannah, D.C.L., Lincoln. "The Relation between the 
 
 Divine and Human Elements in Holy Scripture." 
 186-1:. Thomas Dehany Bernard, M.A., Exeter. "The Progress of 
 Doctrine in the New Testament." 
 
 1865. James B. Mozley, B.D., Magdalen, "Miracles." 
 
 1866. Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., Christ Church. "The Divinity 
 
 of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 
 
 1867. E. Garbett, M.A., Pembroke. " Dogmatic Faith." 
 
 1868. G. Moberly, D.C.L., Balliol. "The Administration of the 
 
 Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ." 
 
 1869. R. Payne Smith., D.D., Canon of Christ Church. " Prophecy 
 
 a Preparation for Christ." 
 
 1870. William J. Irons, D.D., Queen's. " Christianity as taught b}' 
 
 St. Paul." 
 
 1871. George H. Curteis, M.A., Exeter. "Dissent in its Relation 
 
 to the Church of England." 
 
 1872. J. R. T. Eaton, M.A., Merton. " Tha Permanence of 
 
 Christianity." 
 
 1873. Isaac Gregory Smith, I\I.A., Biasenose. " Characteristics of 
 
 Christian Morality." 
 
 1874. Stanley Leathes, M.A., Je.'^us College, Cambridge. "The 
 
 Religion of Christ, its Historic and Literary Development 
 Evidence of its Origin." 
 
 1875. W. Jackson, M. A., Worcester. "The Doctrine of Retribution." 
 
 1876. Right Rev. William Alexander, D.D., Brasenose. "The 
 
 Witness of the Psalms to Christ." 
 
 1877. C. A. Row, M.A., Pembroke. "Christian Evidence and 
 
 Modern Thoua;ht." 
 
2 14 APPENDIX 
 
 1878. C. H. H. Wright, M.A., Exeter. " Zecliariah and his 
 
 Prophecies, considered in Eelation to Modern Criticism. "_ 
 
 1879. H. Wace, M.A., Brasenose. "The Foundations of Faith." 
 
 1880. Edwin Hatch, M.A., Pembroke. "The Organization of the 
 
 Early Christian Churclies." 
 
 1881. John Wordsworth, M.A., Brasenose. "The One Religion." 
 
 1882. Peter Goldsmith Medd, M.A., University. "The One 
 
 Mediator. The Opeiation of the Son of God in Nature 
 and in Grace." 
 
 1883. Hon. William Henry Fremantle, M.A., Balliol. " The World 
 
 as the Subject of Eedemption." 
 
 1884. Plight Rev. Frederick Temple, D.D., Balliol. "The Rela- 
 
 tions between Religion and Science." 
 
 1885. Frederick William Farrar, DD., Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
 " The History of Interpretation." 
 
 1886. Charles Bigg, D.D., Corpus. '• Tlie Christian Platonists of 
 
 Alexandria." 
 
 1887. Right Rev. William Boyd Carpenter, D.D., St. Katherine's 
 
 College, Cambridge. " The Permanent Elements of 
 Religion." 
 
 1888. Robert Edward Bartlett, M.A., Trinity. "The Letter and 
 
 the Sjurit."