tihvaxy of ti\e trheolojical ^emmarjp PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY Princeton 'University Library BT75 .L323 Lacey, T. A. 1853-1931, Elements of Christian doctrine THE ELEMENTS OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE <:^ i MAR 18 -1 THE ELEMENTS, OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE t.'*'a:'^lacey, m.a. VICAR OF .MADINGLEV els yap iffTiv vjxSiv 6 SiSdaKaKos NEW YORK EDWIN S. GORHAM CHURCH MISSIONS HOUSE, FOURTH AVENUE, AND 22ND STREET I 9 o I saLVa nos DoMIne saLVtarIs noster HoC saeCVLo IneVnte tV qVI per ANNOS perpetVos VIVIs et regnas PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION There has been a long felt need for some book on Christian doctrine whose statements would be clear, accurate, concise, and yet scientific. Several attempts have been made to produce such a book, not a few of which are failures, some because of individual interpretations of the Church's theology, others be- cause they have dealt too much in theological defini- tion to be adapted to the ordinary reader. Mr. Lacey has avoided both of these dangers; for in this book he does not exploit his own opinions nor attempt to produce a digest of theology. He has aimed to give a summary of the teaching of Jesus Christ as the Church has received it and guarded it by her defini- tions, creeds, councils, and liturgies, and he has succeeded admirably in his purpose. The title, "The Elements of Christian Doctrine," tells the story. In other words, the book is a statement of the principles or component parts of the teaching of our Blessed Lord, "set forth ... in their natural connection." The Table of Contents furnishes an excellent out- line of the book and is very useful for reference; it would be well for the reader to refer to it both in advance and in the course of his reading that he may the better keep up the connection of the sections and chapters. It behooves intelligent laymen as well as the clergy to seek a clear comprehension of those things which ought surely to be believed concerning the religion of Jesus Christ; and to all such this book is earnestly commended. William B. Frisby. Church of the Advent, Boston. St. Luke's Day, iqoi. ii^ i » '; ' ' J ' DEC 1 !i34^-^^oI.-Ai-I-^^^-5 A — wrmTMWw PREFACE This book is not a theological manual ; it treats of those fundamental truths which underlie theology, as the facts of nature underlie the natural sciences. Neither again is it a manual of dogma ; it is rather an attempt to set out the matter of which dogma, or the settled judgment of Christian thought, is the formal expression. At the same time neither dogma nor theology is ignored. To treat of Christian Doctrine without regard to theology or dogma would seem to the writer as foolish as to treat of agriculture with a studied ignorance of chemistry and of human experience. By Christian Doctrine he understands nothing vi The Elements of Christian Doctrine else but the teaching of Jesus Christ, re- ceived and retained in the Christian society, guarded by the dogmatic definitions of the Church, analysed and systematized by the labours of theologians. The elements of this doctrine are here set forth, so far as he can compass it, in their natural connection. If the introduction seem disproportionately long, he would plead the importance of the preliminary considerations to which it is devoted. If some questions that are now eagerly debated have small place assigned them, it is because he is not writing con- troversially. If the practice of Religion seem to be treated too broadly and generally, it is because an approach to detail would be the be^inninor of a laro^er volume than is here. Some minds are repelled by the ap- parent hardness of dogma ; some are wearied with the intricacies of theology. What is here attempted is the simple presentment of the living truth of the gospel, in the form which Christian experience and Christian Preface vii science have shown to be required. It is meant for persons of ordinary education ; as far as possible everything that calls for even a small measure of technical knowledge has been either passed by or set apart in notes. There are many ways of presenting Christian Doctrine. In presenting it to a child one tries to formulate answers to the questions that naturally pose themselves in a childish mind. The simplest presentment to an educated man is one that shall be constructed for him in a corresponding fashion. This the writer has attempted. If he has not succeeded, he has at all events done his best. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE Part I. — The Nature of Christian Doctrive i The Relation of Master and Disciple I The Faith of the Disciple 2 The Faith of Christendom 6 The Authority of the Master 7 The Christian Tradition . . . il Natural Religion I4 Revelation • I4 Its Completeness I5 Its Exclusiveness I7 Its Interpretation i8 The Record 20 The Rule of Faith 22 Holy Scripture 23 Part II, — The Content of Christian Doctrine 28 Supernatural Truths 28 The Language of Revelation 3° Heads of Doctrine 31 God and Creation 3' Redemption 32 The Church 33 The Ministiy 34 The Marks of the Church 40 Practical Religion 42 X TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine PAGE Part III. — The Proposition of Faith 44 The Duty of believing 45 The Sin of Unbelief 49 The Sufficiency of Proposition 50 Grounds of Sufficiency 51 Credentials of the Apostles 53 Present Sufficiency 55 Limits of the Proposition 60 Mode of Proposition — Ordinary 62 Solemn 63 The Place of Theology 65 CHAPTER I OF GOD AND CREATION Sect. I. — The Beitig of God . . 70 Natural Knowledge of God 70 His Unity 71 Eternity 72 Infinity 73 The Nature of Spirit 74 Errors — Dualism 74 Monism 75 Polytheism 75 Sect. II. — 77/,? Holy Trinity 76 The Divine Persons 76 The Word Persofi 77 The Personal Distinctions 80 Procession and Generation 81 The Double Procession S3 Tritheism and Unilarianism 84 Contents xi lAGE 'ii^cx . III.— The Attributes of God 85 Relative Attributes 86 Absolute Attributes 86 Of Pure Being 87 Of Knowledge and Will 89 , Polytheism and Anthropomorphism 91 Sect. IW — The Creation of the World 92 The Beginning 92 The Finite 95 Pantheism 94 The Creative Word 95 Providence 97 Deism and Evolution 97 The Record of Creation 98 The Divine Attributes in Creation 99 Sect. V. — The Spiritual Creation 1 00 Body and Soul 10 1 Separate Spirit 102 Angels and Demons 103 Knowledge and Will 104 Freedom of the Creature 105 The Possibility of Sin 106 The Divine Attributes in Relation to Created Spirit . . 108 'b'E.Q.i.Nl.—The Etidof Man 109 The Faculties of Knowledge and Will 109 Blessedness in CHAPTER II CONCERNING HUMAN LIFE S^CT.l.— The Original State of Man 113 Capacity of Perfection 113 Supernatural Endowments 115 xii TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine PAGE Innocence .. 117 Supernatural Righteousness 117 Sv-cr. II.— The Fallen Siate of Man 118 Disobedience 1 18 Death 420 Corruption of Nature 121 Original Sin 123 Sect. III. — Actions ami Habits 125 Determining Forces •• . 125 Mixture of Good and Evil 127 Power to keep the Commandments 127 Corruption of Human Society — Injustice 129 Toleration of Evil 130 The Balance of Good and Evil 131 Actual Sin 132 Sect. IV. — The Promise of Salvation 133 The Need of Supernatural Help 133 The Hope of Israel 134 The Healing of the World 135 The Preparation of the Gospel — Prophecy 136 Sacrifice 138 CHAPTER III CONCERNING REDEMPTION Sect. I. — The Imamation 142 The Likeness of God restored 143 The Purpose of the Incarnation 144 Contents xiii PAGE The Person of the Incarnate 145 The Two Natures 148 The Human Life of Christ 151 The Emptying 152 The Twofold Knowledge 153 The Twofold Will . ^ • • I5S Sect. II. — The Atonement 156 The Priesthood of Christ 158 His Sacrifice 159 The Lord's Supper l6i The Continual Sacrifice ■ . . 162 Theological Terms 164 Sect. III. — The Doctrine of Grace 166 Universality of Redemption 166 Supernatural Grace 167 In the Humanity of Christ 168 In all the Redeemed 169 Continuing 170 Auxiliary Grace 1 70 Charismata 172 Effect of Grace — Justification 173 Sanctification 176 Theological Terms 176 Sect. IV. — Eternal Life 178 Regeneration 1 78 Death unto Sin j^9 The Second Death 179 Growth in Grace l8i The Potential and the Actual 182 Communication of the Divine Life 183 The Eternity of the Gift 184 The Resurrection of the Body 185 The State of the Separated Soul 187 xiv The Elements of Christian Doctrine CHAPTER IV CONCERNING THE CHURCH I'AGE Sect. I. — The Christian Society 191 The Redemption of the World 191 The j£"fr/\xi a written record may be corrupted, either by falsification or through being overlaid by sinirious interpretation. This was to ' I John i. 1-3; Hcb. ii. 3; i Cor. xv. 3: Kph. iii. 3-5; Gal. i. 12 ; I Cor. ix. I ; ii. U-12. TJie Nature of Cliristian Doctrine i 3 be guarded against. The tradition, therefore, and tlie keeping of the sacred books, was committed to a society, the Church, the society of believers, which is " the pillar and ground of the truth." The commission of the Apostles, not indeed as the founders, but as the guardians, of the Christian tradition, is continued in the Church. The one Body is illuminated by the One Spirit for the performance of this work, and such illumination is sufficient to account for the exalted language in which St. Paul speaks of the spiritual discernment or interpretation of spiritual things. The- Church is the guardian of Christian doctrine. The function of the Church is not to receive new revelations, but to keep intact the faith once for all delivered unto the saints, to guard the sacred writings, and to secure them against false interpretation. For this end the Church has authority in controversies of faith, and is able to condemn new teaching as contrary to that which has been received. But as it was with the Apostles, so it is now ; the Church is not an original teacher, but a witness to the teaching of the Master.^ Christian doctrine then is received as taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the revelation of what God wills us to know about himself and our relation to him. A truth is said to be revealed when it is made known by one who formerly held it secret. There are certain truths which are naturally held secret from men, because there are no means ordinarily available for discovering them. Not all that may be known of God is of this kind. It is not indeed possible to prove by scientific demonstration even the existence of God ; from this point of view it could only be said at the utmost that if there were no God the universe would be an insoluble riddle. But if ' John xiv. 26 ; I Tim. iii. 15 ; Jude 3. Compare i Tim. vi. 20 ; 2 Tim. i. 13, 14. 14 Tlie Elements of CJiristian Doctrine there is no scientific proof, there is moral proof in abun- dance ; and moral proof, involving moral certainty, is that on which men rely in most activities of life. Such proof there is not merely of the existence of God, but of much that concerns our relation to him. " The invisible things of him," says St. Paul, " since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity." From this knowledge may be derived the sense of obliga- tion, which is the foundation of religion ; those who have no other knowledge of God but this are still without excuse, says the Apostle, if, knowing God, they glorify him not as God.^ There is therefore a true Natural Religion, the truths of which, as already noted, are in fact received for the most part by human tradition. For these truths no revelation is needed ; the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ takes them for granted, and doing so confirms our belief in them, and clears away doubts and i)Ossible misunderstandings. Other truths there are which our natural powers, at all events as now developed, are incapable of discovering. These are the proper subject of Revelation. But even here there are many things which were not made known for the first time by the teaching of the Lord Jesus ('hrist. Revelation had begun from the earliest age of human history. Its first origin is lost in the dimness of those periods of which the writings of the Old Testament give us only fragmentary and mysterious records. Revealed Religion, like Natural Religion, became a tradition, vaguely spread throughout the world, guarded with jealous care in one family or nation, ^^'ithin these narrow limits there was a growing revelation. To his chosen people God made himself known by degrees, ' Rom. i. 20, 21. TJie Nature of CJn-istian Doctriuc 1 5 suggesting always a fulness of knowledge to be granted in the future. That full knowledge was given by the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole course of revelation is summed up in the opening words of the Epistle to the Hebrews : " God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son," These truths of the older revelation are taken for granted in the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as are the truths of Natural Religion. But imperfect know- ledge is misleading as well as insufficient, especially when it is knowledge artificially conveyed of things not funda- mentally understood. The teaching of the Old Testament is therefore not only supplemented in the New ; it is in a way corr-ected. Our Lord very often seemed to men to be contradicting the Law and the Prophets. He ex- plained that he was not contradicting but fulfilling them. In doing this, in filling up the imperfect outline of truth which they presented, he had frequent occasion to correct the impression which an incomplete revelation had inevitably made upon men's minds and upon human traditions.' Christian doctrine then, or the teaching of Christ, contains three elements. It assumes and enforces the truths of Natural Religion. It assumes the truths formerly revealed, as recorded in the Old Testament, correcting erroneous impressions due to their incom- pleteness. It sets forth new truths revealed by the Incarnate Word himself. Revelation is now complete. \Ve cannot conceive any revelation of the truth of God more perfect than that which is made by him who is the " very image of his ' See especially Malt. v. 17-48. 1 6 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine Substance." This consideration would not exclude the possibility of a continuous and growing revelation by the Lord himself to the Church, or to specially favoured persons for the benefit of the Church. Revelations of this kind, made after the Ascension, are recorded in the exceptional cases of St. Paul and St. John. When we say that revelation is complete, we do not mean that all possible knowledge of God is given to men, but only that all knowledge is given which God wills them to have. It is conceivable that in the course of ages circumstances might arise in which God would will that men should have a larger knowledge, and so would make a further revelation. But such revelation would require attestation as strong as that furnished to the original gospel by the personal character and teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing of the kind has been. On the other hand, there are many pretended revelations which are not so attested ; and what is of the greatest significance, men were specially warned by the original deliverers of the gospel tradition that such would be the case. They were told to be on their guard against " false Christs and false prophets ; " against the preaching of any other gospel, even by an angel from heaven. There is, on the other hand, no suggestion of any future revelation which should be genuine. The revelations of the Old Testament con- tinually look forward to a future and more perfect revelation completing them. There is nothing of the kind in the New Testament. It is therefore in the highest degree probable that in the revelation of the gospel we have the sum of what God wills us to know about Himself while the world stands.^ ' Heb. i. 3; Matt. xxiv. 24; Gal. i. 8. Job. Damasc, De Orthod. Fide, i. I : IIoi'to to. irapaStSoutva riixiv Sid re vofxov kcH TJie Nature of Christian Doctrine 17 As the revelation of the gospel is complete, so also it is exclusive. It is the revelation of things naturally secret, which we cannot discover by ourselves, but which God wills us to know. It is therefore exclusively con- fined to these things. God does not reveal what he intends us to find out by our natural powers. The Lord Jesus Christ did not enlighten men's ignorance at large, but only in regard to those matters about which he willed to enlighten them. He had, however, to use their language, to live among them and share their experiences. He had to speak of many things about which they were ignorant or misinformed, and in doing so he made use of their common expressions. This is fully understood in regard to matters of natural science. He did not correct erroneous opinions ; he himself used the inaccurate language of common life. It is not so clearly under- stood in regard to some matters which come near to the actual substance of his teaching. It was, for example, a part of his teaching to confirm the revelations of the Old Testament, which he did by referring to the Holy Scriptures as the genuine Word of God ; but it was no part of his teaching to clear up questions about the human authorship of these books. He therefore spoke of them in this respect according to the common usage of the time. A more difficult question is raised by his use of the common language about the souls of the departed, as in the parable of I^azarus. It is hard to say how much or how little he willed to reveal about the secrets of death, and therefore we cannot say how far his use of such language may be taken to confirm the TrpocpYTiiv Kal airocnSKoov Kol (vayye\i(rTcov 5ex"l^^^'^ "''*' yivcixTKOjxiv koX (T(po/xiv, ovSev irepaiTfpoo tovtoov tiri^TjTOvvTes . . , us ovv irdvTa elScos [6 0et)s] Kal rh (TVfKpipov (KacTTCfi Trpo^r^Govfjuvos, omp (Tvvi(pepiv Tjfjuv yvwvai av(Ka.\v^(V, o-nep Se ovk eSvydfMtda (pfpdv OTreffiajTrTjcre, C 1 8 The Elements of Christian Doctrine ideas which it represents. In such cases our attitude should be one of reverent and prudent reserve. We may, however, be confident of this — that in a matter so secret and of so great moment, our Lord would not give even apparent sanction to an opinion seriously conflicting with the truth. ^ From the completeness and exclusiveness of the revelation there follow two consequences. It follows, in the first place, that in the Church of the New Testa- ment we are not to look for that continuous and pro- gressive revelation which marks the history of the Old Testament. The other consequence is that we must look for a continuous and progressive interpretation of what is revealed. The whole revealed truth of God was delivered to men whose understanding was imperfectly prepared for its apprehension. It was given in a form suited to their circumstances, easy to be retained in memory and tradition ; its whole content was not im- mediately understood. Some parts of our Lord's teaching were delivered in a form seemingly intended for the time to be hard of understanding. Interpretation is necessary unless the teaching is to be unmeaning, but until questions are raised there is no occasion for precise definition. Questions of three kinds may arise : questions about matters bordering on revealed truth, but not actually included ; questions of inclusion or exclusion, whether a thing incidentally said by the Lord is a proper integral part of his teaching ; questions concerning the interpretation of what he undoubtedly taught. Questions of the first kind cannot be answered for lack of material ; they must remain questions only. Those of the second kind must often be insoluble. The questions of interpretation ' See the interesting discussion in Maldonatus, on Luke xvi., uf the question whether the parable be history or allegory. The Nature of Christian Doctrine 19 are the most important, and they cannot be held inso- luble, for it would be irrational to suppose that God has revealed himself to us in riddles that have no answer. But revelation, being of things naturally secret, can be illustrated only by revelation. One revealed truth can be satisfactorily interpreted only by comparison with another revealed truth. The comparison is compelled by questioning. The questioning is due to partial under- standing. Such partial understanding, when it leads to obstinate division of opinion, is what we call heresy ; the part played by heresy in the order of Divine providence is to compel questioning and a clearer apprehension of the truth.' When questions arise it is the function of the Church, as having authority in controversies of faith, to answer them. The answer is given, not by any original teaching, for that would imply a new revelation, but by a declaration of the teaching on the subject current everywhere in the Church. This can be determined only by a comparison of traditions. At times this is easily and readily done ; a novel interpretation, unheard of anywhere in the past, stands condemned on the ground of its novelty. At other times the process of determination is difficult, or not readily undertaken. It is a mistake to suppose that any easy method is provided for promptly determining such questions. There may be long delay ; but when once the answer is made and established, there is a dcfinitio)i ' Compare Mark iv. ii, 12 and parallel passages with Luke ix. 45, where much turns on the question whether the conjunction 'Lva. ex- presses purpose or consequence. It seems probable that in the former passage a consequence is intended, in the latter a purpose. See also l Cor. xi. 19, "There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you ; " and TertuUian's hard and fierce comment, De Praescr., c. 1-3. 20 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine of faitJi, which becomes an hitegral part of Christian doctrine, not as a new tiaith, but as the settled inter- pretation of what was taught from the beginning. The teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ being a complete revelation, the record of it also must be complete. If anything originally unrecorded were afterwards recovered, this could only be by a fresh revelation. How then was it recorded ? It was stored up exclusively in the memory of those who received it. There is perhaps in St. Luke's Gospel a trace of documents relating to our Lord's birth written at the time of the events, but there is no reason to suppose that any account of his life and teaching was committed to writing until after the lapse of many years. His doctrine had sunk into the minds of those whom he taught, and the power of the Holy Ghost was afterwards upon them to rouse and sustain their remembrance. What they had received by word of mouth they delivered in the same way. The teaching of the Master was thus communicated to the growing body of disciples b}- numerous interlacing lines of oral tradition. No surer means could be devised for preserving the record intact. Any variations of teaching, due to individual perversity or ignorance, were bound to come into collision with sounder and purer traditions. The Epistles of St. Paul abound with illustrations of this. We see there how jealously St. Paul himself was watched, and how ready he was in his turn to check the hesitations even of his fellow-apostles. By these means, in the course of some years, a solid tradition of doctrine was formed in the Christian society. Tradition is to a society what habit is to the individual. It cannot be set aside without a conscious effort. It is subject however, like habit, to subtle and imperceptible changes, and we should have no guarantee for the permanence of the Christian tradition, were it not The Nature of Christian Doctrine 21 for the perpetual guidance of the Holy Spirit. This guidance was for the whole society. St. Paul couples the one Body and the one Spirit with the one Faith and the one Hope of our Christian calling. The social tradition was all-powerful to check individual variation, and was itself guarded by the operation of the Holy Spirit.' Not until the Christian tradition was firmly established is there any trace of its being recorded in writing. Nor even then was any systematic record made. There was a " pattern of sound words " which Timothy was charged by St. Paul to hold in faith and love, but the earnest- ness with which he was urged to guard the deposit shows that reliance was put on oral tradition and memory. The writings of the Apostles are local and occasional ; they assume the teaching which they illustrate. Col- lections were made by individual writers of the sayings and doings of the Lord ; they were numerous, as we know from the preface to St. Luke's Gospel ; they were but fragmentary, as the concluding words of St. John's Gospel aver. Of these collections we retain four, and some doubtful fragments of others. There is no trace of any orderly and systematic reduction to writing of the whole Christian tradition. - In the course of time however the Christian writings acquired a new importance. They were documents. The record of the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ is matter of history, and for history the importance of documentary evidence can hardly be exaggerated. An age which knew nothing of the science of historical criticism was nevertheless led to guard these documents with jealous care. They were not a complete record, but they were invaluable as means of testing the accurate ' Eph. iv. 4, 5. ■ - 2 Tim. i. 13, 14. Compare i Tim. vi. 3, 20, 22 The Elements of Christian Doctrine persistence of the tradition received. Tliere was a nega- tive test. In the course of his controversy about the rebaptism of heretics St. Cyprian put the question whether it was written in the Gospels, the Epistles, or the Acts of the Apostles, that heretics should be received without baptism ; if it w^ere so, then the authority of the written record must prevail ; if not, then the custom of the Church to the contrary must be upheld. There was also a positive test. St. Athanasius ridiculed the eagerness of the Arians to hold Councils for the discussion of doctrine ; the Holy Scripture, he said, was the surer test of true teaching. TertuUian indeed spoke slightingly of the appeal to Scripture ; he would rely rather on the Rule of Faith, the oral teaching of the Church given at baptism. But the contrary opinion prevailed. It was thought unsafe to press any teaching for which support could not be found in the sacred writings. From the fourth century onward there was a general adoption of the rule to which the English Church has given emphatic approval, that no man may be required to believe, as necessary to salvation, anything which cannot be proved out of Holy Scripture. St. Athanasius, after enumerating the books of the Old and New Testaments, says, " These are the fountains of salvation, so that he who thirsts may be satiated with the oracles contained therein ; in these alone is declared the schooling of religion ; let no one add hereto or take aught herefrom." The Church was still the teacher, the guardian, the interpreter of the Christian tradition, but the current record was to be verified by the documentary evidence. The infallible rule of faith, says Bramhall, is Holy Scripture interpreted by the Catholic Church.' ' Cyprian, Epist. Ixxiv. p. 8cx), ed. Hartel ; Athanasius, Dt Syii. Arim. et Sel., torn. i. p. 873, ed. Colon ; TertuUian, De Pracscr., 13-19; Athanasius, torn. ii. p. 39 ; Bramhall, JVorIcs,vo\. TJie Nature of Christian Doctrine 23 But what is Holy Scripture ? The books of the New Testament are no systematic record of Christian doctrine, complete and self-contained. Neither, on the other hand, are they the only books of the kind. Many others at one time existed, some few survive to our day. Those included in the Canon of Scripture seem on the face of things to be arbitrarily selected. There is no apparent reason why the Epistle to the Hebrews should be included, the Epislle of St. Clement to the Corinthians excluded ; why two short private letters of St. John are preserved, while other more public writings of the Apostles are lost to memory ; " why four Gospels were received, and the many others of which St. Luke speaks, and the Login, or collected sayings of the Lord current in the first age, were rejected. The Epistle of St. Barnabas was for a time accepted in some places as canonical, the Revelation of St. John was rejected. Not until the end of the fourth century were the books of the New Testament universally received as we now have them. The selection of these books was the work of the Church. It was not a conscious and deliberate selec- tion made at any set time. Of the Holy Scripture, as of the whole sacred tradition, the Church was not the originator but the guardian ; no book could be raised to this level or degraded at the arbitrary bidding of ecclesiastical authority. The Church merely noted and recorded the fact that certain books had been received as genuine records. The Canon was the result of con- current traditions in all parts of the Church. A book ii. p. 22, ed. i8|2. A long list of quotations from tlie Fathers on this head will be found in Goode's Divine Ride of Faith and Practice, vol. iii. pp. 29-211. Compare Pusey, Eirmicon, part i. pp. 336-351- 24 rhc Elevieits of Christian Doctrine received in some few places but rejected by the Church at large was put aside for lack of this concurrent testimony. A book ignored in one or two places only was eventually received everywhere on the strength of the general tradition. The testimony of the Church is that these books do as a matter of fact contain the teaching of the Lord himself, as delivered by those who w'ere his eye-witnesses from the beginning. This is in the first place purely a matter of historical fact. As so regarded, the testimony of tradition might conceivably be overthrown by other evidence. The continuous tradition of a society like the Christian Church will carry great weight with all reasonable men, but it cannot amount to absolutely conclusive evidence. The writings of the New Testament are therefore tested by scholarship and criticism, like any other books. If when so tested they were found to be altogether different from what they profess to be, if they proved to be forgeries or late compilations of doubtful legends, then the foundations would indeed be cast down ; the Church would be shown to have been a faithless or incompetent guardian of tradition, and we should have no certain knowledge about any teaching of our Master. But in fact the most rigid and unsparing criticism has served only to establish in the main the authenticity of the books, and the accuracy of the tradition by which we have received them. This being so far established, we may accept that tradition with the more confidence where verification is doubtful. In this way the genuineness of the tradition is vindicated even to those that are without. But for him who has once adopted the standpoint of the disciple, there is much stronger confirmation. Accepting the teaching and the promises of the Lord, lie has an over- TJie Nature of Christian Doctrine 25 powering certainty that what the Lord committed to the Apostles and to his Church will be preserved ; he has the assurance of the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit. Nor is this to argue in a circle, as if we grounded the authority of the Church on the testimony of Scripture, and the authenticity of Scripture on the testimony of the Church. It is true, as Hooker says, that " the first outward motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the authority of God's Church." But, as he shows, the testimony of the Church is subject to the most searching examination, and when this examination leaves the elementary facts of the record undisturbed, those facts thus guaranteed involve as a necessary consequence the truth of the Divine guidance in which we trust. It is now as it was in our Lord's own time. A few simple facts are sufficient to confirm us in the position of disciples; then as disciples we receive the rest of the teaching without demur.' A disciple, then, receives the Holy Scriptures first and last on the authority of the Church. It is the written record of the sacred tradition which the Church is to guard. Is this record finally closed ? There is no question that the record of the Christian revelation, written or unwritten, was from the first complete ; nothing could be added without further revelation. But it does not necessarily follow that the record, as written, should be closed at any time. There are two opinions on this subject. The one has been expressed emphati- cally by the Russian theologian Khomiakoff : " The collection of Old and New Testament books, which the Church acknowledges as hers, are called by tlie name of Holy Scripture. But there are no limits to Scripture ; for every writing which the Church acknowledges as hers ' Hooker, Eccl. Pol., iii. S. 14, vol. i. p. 376. 26 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine is Holy Scripture. Such pre-eminently are the Creeds of the General Councils, and especially the Niceno-Con- stantinopolitan Creed. AA'herefore the writing of Holy Scripture has gone on up to our day, and, if God pleases, yet more will be written." ' The contrary opinion is that Holy Scripture is to be regarded exclusively as a contemporaneous record of the teaching of our Lord, de- livered by the Apostles, and those who were eye-witnesses of the ^Vord. According to this opinion the Canon of Scripture is necessarily closed with the first age of the Church ; and if nothing may be imposed on men as matter of faith but what is supported by the evidence of the written word, it will follow that even the Creeds themselves need the support of such testimony. The difference between these two opinions is less in reality than in seeming. For, on the one hand, since it is held that the books of the New Testament and the Creeds are both alike transcripts of the one tradition, the doctrine delivered by the Lord to his Apostles, they are bound to be in agreement; if they were in the smallest degree in conflict, the basis of our faith would be overthrown. And, on the other hand, the Creeds are received as an authentic interpretation of Scripture, delivered by the authority of the Church, which has jealously guarded the doctrine received from the begin- ning. The difference is one of definition. If Holy Scripture be taken to mean any and every authentic record in writing of the substance of the Christian revelation, then the Creeds must be included ; if it be taken to mean contemporaneous record only, they are excluded. According to both opinions they are an authentic record, but in tlie one case they are reckoned to have authority at first hand, in the other case they * Rirkbeck, Russia and the English Church, vol. i. p. 200. T)ie Nature of Christian Doctrine 27 have authority at second hand. In the former case they are taken as evidence for the facts, in the latter case they are evidence only for the meaning of the facts. In the English Church all authorized teachers are required to conform to the latter opinion.^ It remains to summarize what has thus far heen said. (i.) Christian doctrine is that which is taught by the Lord Jesus Christ about the hidden things of God. (ii.) It is received by the faith of the disciple, who commits himself with a confidence absolute, though not blind or unreasoning, to the teaching of the Master. What the Master has actually taught has to be ascertained by historical evidence, of which the common belief of Christendom forms the chief element. When once it is ascertained, the disciple assents to it with entire assurance. (iii.) He does this on the ground of the authority of the Master, whom he acknowledges to be sent from God, and thereafter learns to be none other than himself God of God. In a secondary sense he receives the doctrine on the authority of the Church, but only as the faithful guardian, transmitter, and interpreter of the Lord's teach- ing, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (iv.) Christian doctrine is a revelation of truths which could not be naturally discovered. It assumes the truths of Natural Religion, and all other truths revealed by the prophets of the Old Testament, corrects the imperfections of these, and adds a fuller knowledge. (v.) This revelation is complete and exclusive. There ' or llie Thirty-nine Articles, the Sixth and the Eighth define Holy Scripture as meaning the Canonical books of the Old and New Testament, and affirm that the Creeds "ought thoroughly to he received and believed : for they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scripture." 28 The Elements of CJiristian Doctrine is therefore no continuous or further revelation, but there is a progressive understanding of what is revealed. It is the function of the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to watch this process, guarding the purity of interpretation, and marking the result in definitions of faith. (vi.) There is a complete record of this revelation, con- tained from the first in the tradition of the Church, and after a while set down in the sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, without the support of which nothing may be reckoned an essential part of the doctrine necessary for salvation. The Rule of Faith is Hoi}- Scripture interpreted by the Church. Part H. — The Content of Christian Doctrine Christian doctrine is directly concerned only with the invisible things of Cod, made known by revelation. But human life is one and indivisible, as also is the human understanding. We cannot shut up our actions or our thoughts into compartments. Christian doctrine will therefore be continually touching on things known to us by sense and experience ; it may serve to correct erroneous inferences about these very things ; it conveys information about them not otherwise attainable. In such cases we have to distinguish between the facts dis- coverable by our natural powers, and the truths delivered to us by revelation. These latter, by reason of the way in which they are learnt, we call supernatural truths. They are neither more nor less true, and in themselves neither more nor less certain, than the others. For us, however, they are at once less certain and more certain : less certain in respect of what Hooker calls the certainty of evidence, for there is no evidence com]\arablc to that The Contcjit of Christian Doctrine 29 of the senses and the intellect ; more certain, in so far as we trust the Word of God more entirely than our own impressions and inferences. There cannot be conflict between the two orders of truth, for there is one God, the Author of nature and the Author of revelation. If there seem to be conflict, we have either misinterpreted the evidence of nature, misunderstood what is given by revela- tion, or drawn erroneous inferences from the one or the other. The last fault is perhaps the commonest. It usually involves the logical fallacy of arguing a dido sccundiini quid ad didwn siiiipUdtcr. The truths of revelation are stated secundum quid, in words which are intended in a certain limited sense ; for in speaking of the invisible things of God we are compelled to use words derived from our experience of visible things, having in fact none other. If then we argue from the words of revelation without regard to the limitations within which they are used, we may draw from supernatural truths false inferences concerning natural facts, or counter- wise. To take a familiar example, the words Heaven and Hell are names of things naturally known to us — the visible sky over our heads, and the depths of the earth under our feet. These words are used in revelation as the names of invisible realities about which are declared supernatural truths. If from these supernatural truths we attempt to draw inferences about the constitution of sky and earth, we come into conflict with natural knowledge. If, on the other hand, from our knowledge of earth and sky we attempt to draw inferences about the invisible realities of heaven and hell, we arrive at fantastic imagi- nations, which may obscure and confuse the supernatural truth. ^Ve must be careful then how we enlarge the field of Christian doctrine by uncertain inferences. When terms 30 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine of our natural understanding are used to express super- natural truth, we may be sure there is some analogy between the things so named in common ; but we must not force the analogy. God is spoken of in terms of Fatherhood and Sonship ; there must be some analogy between the relation as existing in the Godhead and the relation familiarly known in human life. A certain spiritual condition is spoken of as death ; it must have some analogy with that change in the body and its functions, the name of which it borrows. The analogy is real; there is not merely a superficial resemblance between two things which leads to the proper name of the one being improperly applied to the other. Know- ledge of God is possible at all only because of a certain correspondence of our nature with the Divine nature, by reason of which we are said to be made in the likeness of God. Our life has some real analogy with the life of God, our experience with God's working, our ideas with his knowledge. The words therefore by which we express ideas derived from our experience of life have a certain fitness for the use made of them in revelation. They are used in a way not altogether arbitrary, but according with their natural sense, to express the truths supernaturally made known to us. But our ideas are for the most part highly complicated. The content of the idea of fatherhood, for example, is not easily determined. For the simple acceptance of Christian doctrine, it is enough to know that God is spoken of as the Father in a sense generally corresponding with that in which we speak of fatherhood in man ; for a perfect understanding of revelation, we should need to know precisely what are the characteristics of fatherhood in man which so faith- fully represent what is in God as to make the word suit- able for expressing the Divine relation. In ])roportion to TJie Content of Christian Doctrine 31 our ignorance on this head is ihe peril of i)ressing the analogy. A faithful exposition of Christian doctrine will proceed with careful regard to these limitations. ^Ve must con- fine ourselves to what is actually given in revelation, together with those few inferences which attain to the highest degree of certainty. Other inferences may be admitted in a class apart as opinions more or less pro- bable ; others again should be marked for emphatic rejection as involving a contradiction with known truth. We begin with God himself. His being is a truth of natural religion, confirmed by revelation. His attributes, clearly enough perceived, as St. Paul says, through his works from the beginning of the world, were revealed with growing distinctness under the Old Testament, and were rather illustrated than declared by the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. But revealed religion regards God in particular as the Creator. By creating the world, and especially by creating spiritual beings, God has set up a relation of the creature to himself. It is a subordinate relation, and the freedom of the creature renders possible insubordination. On these three points, creation, free- dom, and insubordination, some floating ideas of doubtful origin, partly true and partly false, have permeated the natural knowledge of most men ; they are corrected and fixed by revelation. The conception of sin, and the consciousness of a degraded or fallen state in which sin, unnatural in itself, is become a habit or second nature to man, are in like manner things doubtfully apprehended by natural religion, but openly declared by revelation. From this point we pass entirely beyond the limits of natural knowledge. By revelation we have in the Old Testament a promise of deliverance from this evil state, 32 The Elements of Christian Doctrine in the New Testament a declaration of the manner of deliverance and the assurance of its accomplishment. Redemption by the Incarnate Son of God, the truth of the Atonement, is the peculiar teaching of the gospel. We find, indeed, here and there in mankind an ardent desire for such deliverance, a hope even, which we may possibly trace to a tradition of God's promise made at the beginning of revelation ; but this desire is either inoperative, tending to despair, or else finds vent in fantastic imaginings of purification or propitiation, which often run riotously counter to morality, and become the source of greater evils than they were supposed to remedy. It is natural that such imaginings should have some superficial resemblance to the Christian religion, for on the one hand they come from an eftbrt of the human mind to compass that which God effects in Jesus Christ according to his own wisdom, and on the other hand it seems probable that God has allowed these natural searchings to furnish materials for the outward obser- vances of religion. The visible superiority of the true religion is found in the perfect harmony of Divine and human action, of moral effort and supernatural aid, which characterizes the Christian doctrine of Grace and of Eternal Life. This doctrine is the necessary pendant to that of the Incarnation and the Atonement ; and taken together these are the core of Christian teaching. They contain the essential truth of Redemption. But the Christian religion has an outward presentment. The effect of grace is the sanctification of the creature, and of the creature as made by God. Nature is not to be superseded, but filled with new powers, purified and brought close to God in perfect subordination. The purpose of Redemption is to restore in man the original work of God. But God made man a social being, TJie Content of Christian Doctrine 33 incapable of living his life truly and fully in isolation. The individual man is incomplete in himself; indeed he becomes himself only as he finds his place in social organization.' The social organism of mankind in the family and the state is degraded by the Fall equally with the animal and spiritual organism of the individual man. Restora- tion is therefore necessary here also. And as the animal and spiritual organism is neither superseded nor merely improved by the work of Redemption, but is supplemented by new and supernatural powers bestowed upon each man, to coexist with his natural powers, so a new and supernatural bond of social order is given to mankind, which coexists with the natural solidarity of family and state. This supernatural society is the Christian Church. Until the rise in modern times of some counter opinions, all men were agreed, says Thorndike, " that the Church is a society of men subsisting by God's revealed will, distinct from all other societies." There were disputes about the composition and constitution of the society, but the disputes were themselves proofs of the common belief in the reality of that about which men debated. The constitution of the Church is then a matter of revealed truth. It is the outward organization of that kingdom of God which the Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed, and in speaking the things concerning the kingdom he revealed to the disciples all that essentially belongs to the social order of redeemed humanity. This too is a part of Christian doctrine. ^ It will therefore be necessary to determine what ' This truth was expressed by Aristotle once for all in the phrase describing man as (^uo-ei iroXniKhv ((^ov (l^o/., i. 2). - Thorndike, Epilogue, part i. p. 5 ( Works, vol. ii. part i. p. 24) ; Acts i. 3. D 34 TJic Elements of CJiristian Doctrine constitutes membership in the Church, and what are the relations of the members to one another. We must do this not by induction from the existing practice of those who now claim, with whatever degree of right, the name of Christian, but only by study of the actual teaching of the Lord, preserved in the Christian tradition. The pretensions of those who call themselves Christians are to be measured by this standard ; they cannot make a standard to themselves. The Church is not a gathering of individuals who make their own laws of association ; it is a society subsisting by the revealed will of God to which individuals are aggregated ; and this aggregation is the work of God.^ Social order is impossible without duly appointed officers, exercising authority. It is therefore a matter of Christian doctrine to know what is the revealed will of God in this regard ; how the sacred ministry of the Church is constituted, and what are its powers. It is obvious that, according as the Divine Will disposed, the Lord Jesus Christ might have ordered these matters either generally or specifically. In the former case all the necessary powers of government would be given to the Christian society at large, and the details left to the ordering of sanctified human wisdom within the Church ; Christian doctrine would then be concerned only with the general powers, the details being matters of history and ecclesiastical law. In the latter case some at least of the details would be ordered by revelation, and would form part of the Christian tradition. It is necessary then to inquire whicli of these two modes of institution was actually followed by our Lord. ' See Acts ii. 41, 47, where the word TrpoaTidevat can bear no other meaning than this. The words nj e/c/cArjtr/a, inserted in the current text, are an obvious gloss. TJie Content of Christian Doctrine 35 We cannot say that a clear and unmistakable answer to this question is found in the written record of his teaching. There are passages, indeed, which are com- monly quoted as signifying the express appointment of a ministerial power and function in the Church ; but their exact purport is the precise question in debate, which therefore they cannot solve. Men whose opinions are not to be ignored have pointed out that all these passages are patient of an interpretation which attaches the powers there spoken of to the Church at large, without indicating even in the broadest outline the manner of their exercise.^ There are solemn charges delivered by the Lord to the Apostles ; there is a promise and a grant of powers needed for the fulfilment of the charge ; there is a very definite mission — " As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." Had these words the effect of giving to the Apostles a magisterial authority in the Church, or were they addressed to the whole body of believers; or, if to the Twelve alone, then to them as representing the whole body ? In a word, were the Twelve addressed as Apostles or as Disciples ? One of the most unvarying of Christian traditions takes the words as conveying or illustrating a grant of specific authority. The Lord committed to the Apostles his flock, of which they were to be pastors and rulers ; he committed to them all the nations of the world, out of which to gather disciples. By necessary inference, ' Such is the ground maintained in Dr. Hort's lectures on T/ie Christian Ecclcsia, where the passages are subjected to a searching analysis. Dr. Hort, however, was deserted by his usual caution when he said (p. 84) that there is " no trace in Scripture of a formal commission of authority for government from Christ himself." This positive denial seems hardly more justifiable than a positive counter-assertion that the passages in question contain a clear and unmistakable record of such a commission. 36 Tlic Elciiicnts of Christian Doctriiw and probably in accordance with explicit instructions, they were to take to themselves others who should aid them while they lived, and afterwards succeed to their authority. Thus the sacred ministry of the Church was directly instituted by the Lord himself. So says the Christian tradition. At various times there have been sharp controversies about the nature of the powers thus given, but the dispute always presupposes the reality of the gift. Even in the sixteenth century, those who broke loose from the received order of the Church and were in open revolt against the prelacy delivered this same tradi- tion as they had received it. There was bold speculation, only in part new, as to the mode of appointment to the sacred ministry, but the institution itself was treated as an integral part of the Christian deposit. The Protestant and Reformed Confessions are here agreed. " The power of the keys, or of l)ishops," says the Confession of Augsburg, " according to the gospel is a power or mandate of God to preach the gospel, to remit and retain sins, and to administer the sacraments." The Saxon Confession, presented to the Council of Trent, attributes to the Son of God, as supreme Priest, the institution of ministers of the gospel. The Helvetic Confession declares that " the origin, institution, and function of ministers is most ancient, and is an ordinance of God himself, not a novelty or of man's devising." The Reformed of the Netherlands profess to appoint ministers, elders, and deacons " in such order and manner as the word of God prescribes." The English Calvinists were no less positive, and Hooker, in hiy controversy with them, had to show that they attributed to the Divine Word an even too precise and detailed ordering of the sacred ministry.' ' Hooker, Eccl. Pol., v. So. See Note A at llie end of llic volume. T]ic Content of Christian Doctrine IJ According to a principle already laid down, a tradition of the whole Christian society so firmly rooted that no stress of controversy could shake it, a tradition which underlay controversy about the matter of the tradition itself and was the fundamental postulate of all parties alike, a tradition concerning those primary ideas of government about which every society is tenaciously conservative, — such a tradition is of itself good historical evidence for the fact of a definite com- mission given by our Lord to the first Pastors of the Church. The tradition is found in possession from a very early date. The Epistle of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians supplies, indeed, little evidence about the mode in which the ministerial commission was conveyed, but is clear and unmistakable about the con- linous transmission of authority from the Lord himself. The Fathers of the second century, it is allowed on all hands, knew no other opinion. In controversy with heretics they triumphantly adduced the succession of authority in the Apostolic churches, an argument in their eyes indisputable and conclusive.^ In face of such a tradition the complete silence of Scripture would be insignificant. But Scripture is not silent. There are many passages of the New Testament which are in perfect accord with the tradition. They are patient indeed of another interpretation, but that inter- pretation can be maintained only by setting aside or ignoring the evidence of the tradition. To examine the records of the New Testament without using this evidence is to attempt a delicate piece of work without using the I)roper tools. The historic Church, the Church as known ' Clem. Rom., Ad Cor., yj~AA- See the treatment of this subject in Gore, T/ie Church and the Ministry ; and Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, cli. iv. 38 The Elements of CJiristian Doctrine to the later Christian tradition, is without all question the outcome or effect of the events recorded in New Testament. But causes can be investigated only by watching their effects, and it is useless to study the Apostolic Church without reference to later growth.^ The writings of the New Testament might perhaps be studied in isolation if they were systematic treatises, though even then the result would be unsatisfactory ; but they are in fact occasional writings, and they can be understood only in relation to the state of things which gave them birth. That state of things was the con- tinuous growth of a society, the Christian Church, every stage of which can be rightly understood only in relation to other stages. The question before us concerns the constitution of that society. It is a question purely of fact ; whether in fact the essential constitution of the sacred ministry was given by revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ ; whether it be in fact a matter of Christian doctrine. I take that question to be answered in the afifirmative by the persistent tradition of the Christian * This seems to me the one flital flaw in the otherwise luminous work of Dr. Hort, already referred to, on The Cliristiaii Eccksia. He says (p. 2), "The larger part of our subject lies in the region of ^^ hat we commonly call Church History ; the general Christian liistory of the ages subsequent to the Apostolic age. But before entering on that region we must devote some little time to matter contained in the Bible itself. It is hopeless to try to understand either the actual Ecclesia of post-apostolic times, or the thoughts of its own contemporaries about it, without first gaining some clear impressions as to the Ecclesia of the Apostles out of which it grew ; to say nothing of the influence exerted all along by the words of the apostolic writings and by other parts of Scripture." True ; but it is equally hopeless to try to understand the " Ecclesia of the Apostles " without reference to its after-growth. The mistake lies in treating either part of the subject in isolation. The Content of CJiristian Doctrine 39 Church reading in the required sense the words of the Lord himself. The constitution of the Church then, as a social organism with a duly appointed ministry, is to be taken as a matter of Christian doctrine. And since the Church is generically a society of men, it is necessary to know the specific marks or characteristics by which it is distinguished from other societies. These may be in part such as have been acquired in the course of ages, and are therefore results of human experience and objects of purely natural knowledge. The Church has a history, and is known by that history. But more important are those notes which belong essentially to the Church, and are the immediate consequence of the Divine ordering. These must be sought in the revelation of Jesus Christ, and are included in the scheme of Christian doctrine. The Church exists for a certain end. Human society in general exists for the right ordering of human life, materially and morally.^ The Church, the society of redeemed and regenerate humanity, exists for the right ordering of the higher or spiritual life. It is none the less external, for this life is to be lived in the body, and under the ordinary conditions of humanity, reinforced, not superseded, by the working of Divine grace. The spiritual life depends in the first instance on the know- ledge of God, and the first office of the Church is to see that men have this knowledge ; the Church has a teach- ing office. In the second place, there are certain external means of grace appointed by God, of which the Church is the keeper and dispenser ; the Church has the adminis- tration of the sacraments. By the ministry of the Word and the Sacraments the primary spiritual needs of the individual ' Aristotle, Pol., i. 2 : Tivofxeyr] /uef oiiv rod ^TJr eVe/cer, oiicra Se tov 40 TJie Ekinciits of Christian Doctrine are supplied, and he is so fitted for his place in the social order of redeemed humanity. These things all helong to Christian doctrine. There is much about them which is proper to social organization as such, and so belongs to the natural order; there is much that comes from human authority within the Church, and from no higher source. These elements are carefully to be distinguished ; there remains in the organization of the Church some- thing essential and peculiar to this society, according to the will of God made known to us by Jesus Christ. The study of the marks or characteristics of the Church is the more important because there are groups of individuals which claim to form exclusively the society in question, and their claim is denied by others. This claim, therefore, must be tested ; and it can be tested only by finding whether all the characteristic marks of the Christian Church are found in the group asserting the claim, and whether some of them are found ex- clusively in that group. It is evident that in such cases there will be a tendency consciously or unconsciously to insist on those characteristics which are most apparent in the group in question, or on the other hand to emphasize those in which it appears to be lacking. When, for example, the Donatists of the fourth century claimed that they and they alone formed the true Christian Church, they naturally insisted on those Christian characteristics in which they supposed themselves to be conspicuously superior ; their opponents as naturally emphasized the points in which they fell short of the ideal. This con- troversial treatment of the marks of the Church leads inevitably to a loss of proportion. Nor is it easy, in the presence of a practical dispute, to treat the matter without regard to controversy. We can only attempt with the least possible prejudice to search and to set out the solid The Content of Christian Doctrine 41 core of Christian doctrine, by reference to whicli the controversy must be determined. A similar difficulty occurs in dealing with the discipline of the Church. There are differences of opinion among professed Christians, difterences aftecting not merely details of practice in regard to which divergent usages may coexist in one society, but matters which are regarded by some at least of the disputants as funda- mental. Thus we have certain groups of professed Christians who claim to be observing all the essential rules of discipline by which the Christian society is held together, and we find other professed Christians altogether denying their claim. There are some who maintain as part of that essential discipline a system of no small complexity ; others allow nothing beyond the bare elements of social order to be essential. Episcopal rule is held by some to be a necessary part of ecclesiastical organization ; by others it is regarded as only one form in which the government of the Church may lawfully be cast ; others yet again contend that ecclesiastical order essentially consists in subordination to a single superior, who is the Vicar of Christ, the visible head of the Church on earth. The question of discipline is therefore entangled in controversy, and a treatment of it which should ignore controversy is hardly possible. The matter is often treated as a question whether such and such a group is in truth a part of the Church ; and those who seem to deny this are said by a barbarous term to unchurch the claimants. But the question is not correctly posed in this form. It has two faults. In the first place, it obscures the nature of membership in the Church. Such membership is conferred on individuals, not on groups of persons, and no man is within the Church by aggrega- tion to any smaller body, but only by aggregation to the 42 The Elements of Christia7i Doctrine Church itself. In the second place, it suggests that men are within the Church by reason of their observance of the Church's discipline. The converse is rather true. Men are bound to observe the discipline of the Church because they are within the Church. There is, therefore, in all these controversies, a preliminary question, whether such and such persons are individually members of the Christian Church. The question may then be raised, whether such persons, being within the Church, do individually or collectively observe the essential dis- cipline of the Church. But what is the essential discipline of the Church ? On this point turn most of the disputes by which the Christian society is in practice divided. How then shall the question be answered ? The divisions of Christendom, some being of long standing, and having their roots in a remote past, raise an obvious difficulty. We lack that uniform tradition of the whole Christian society, or at least of its greater part, by which we determine most surely the sense of Christian teaching. The divisions indeed perpetuate themselves just because they hinder that solution of controversy by which alone they can be ended. Here again, then, treating the matter as uncontroversially as possible, we can but state what seems to be most clearly established in the consti- tution of the Church as given by the Lord Jesus Christ, leaving doubtful points as doubtful. So far we are concerned with Christian theory — the apprehension of truth. There remains a ])art of Christian doctrine, the importance of which is altogether out of proportion to the space which its treatment will demand. It is the doctrine of Christian practice, or Religion. Religion is submission of the human will to the Will of God. It is good and true in measure as it is founded in true knowledge of God. Its strength is another matter. The Content of Christian Doctrine 43 Men may adhere earnestly to a false religion. A religion the most degraded, because founded in the most degraded idea of God, may have the strongest possible hold on its votaries. By revelation God has sought to make known to men, not his Nature only, but his Will. This part of revelation proceeded even more slowly than the other ; both alike are complete in the teaching of Jesus Christ. The Christian religion is submission to the Will of God as revealed by him. It is an active, not a passive, sub- mission. It consists in the willing performance of those duties which are laid upon us by the teaching of the gospel. Christian doctrine therefore includes the decla- ration of these duties. They are few and simple, but so comprehensive as to cover the whole of human life. In the first place, we shall have to consider the nature of Conscience, the faculty by which duty is recognized as such. What faith is to the apprehension of doctrine, conscience will be to the apprehension of practical duties ; with this difference however, that whereas faith is con- cerned only with truth supernaturally revealed, the conscience apprehends alike the duties imposed by the natural law and those inculcated by revelation. Follow- ing this distinction, the Christian religion is the observance alike of natural duties and of those to which a man is bound by virtue of his admission to the Christian Church. But even these latter are laid upon man for the fulfilment of the end of his natural being. He is united to the Body of Christ in order that he may find his own proper perfection. The end of the Christian religion is the attainment of this perfection, the nature of which we shall therefore have occasion to consider. Under these heads we shall study the elements of Christian doctrine. We must distinguish the truths which are actually taught by revelation of God, the 44 ^/<'<'' Elements of Christian Doctrine necessary inferences that follow, the opinions which are to be held with certainty. We must mark, on the othei hand, opinions which attain to a less degree of probability, and set aside those which are clearly to be rejected, because in conflict with the truth. Part III. — T/w Proposition of Faith " How shall they believe," asks St. Paul, " in him whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear without a preacher ? and how shall they preach, except they be sent ? " The doctrine of Christ must be set before men ; then only can they receive it ; then only can they bear the responsibility of rejecting it. The Lord Jesus Christ himself set before men the truth of God; those who received it from him set it before others in turn, being sent for this very purpose. The Apostles were the few who were more especially appointed for this end. They in particular, though not they alone, are referred to in our Lord's words, " He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me." To the Seventy, who received a limited commission like that of the Twelve, he said, " He that heareth you heareth me ; and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me ; and he that rejecteth me rejecteth him that sent me." ' This communication of the doctrine of Christ to all who will receive it is called by theologians the Proposition or Proposal of Faith. Such proposition imposes on the hearer the duty of acceptance. He is intellectually free to believe or disbelieve, but he is not morally free. He is intellectually free, because revealed truths are not of a nature to carry necessary conviction to the mind as soon as they are stated. They are accepted, as we have seen, ' Rum. X. 14; Joliii xiii. 20; Luke x. 16. TJie Proposition of Faith 45 by faith in him who has revealed them ; and apart from this requirement of faith, we need evidence to prove that he has in fact revealed what is propounded. But the hearer is not morally free to disbelieve. Rejection of revealed truth is continually spoken of as wrong-doing. It is treated as a part of that separation from God which is at once the effect and the mark of sin. " He that is of God heareth the words of God," said the Lord Jesus Christ to the doubting or unbelieving Jews ; " for this cause ye hear them not, because ye are not of God." The reason is not far to seek. Since God has willed to make himself known to men, it would be dishonouring him to suppose that the means chosen and used for this revelation were insufficient for the purpose. His complete and final revelation is by his Son Jesus Christ, There- fore we are bound, on the hypothesis of revelation, to hold that Jesus Christ made known the truth of God in a way that ought to have carried conviction. His cre- dentials, so to say, were sufficient to remove all reasonable doubt. Accordingly, in the Gospel narrative we con- tinually find men driven to confess that he was indeed sent from God. He appealed confidently to his cre- dentials. " The works which the Father hath given me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of me." Those therefore who rejected him were inex- cusable. " If I had not done among them the works which none other did, they had not had sin : but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." ' The nature of human responsibility requires us to limit this judgment to those upon whom the Lord's teaching and the manifestation of his Divine mission were actually brought to bear. But further, he adapted his teaching to the capacity of the hearers. Even to the Twelve, and ' John viii. 47 ; v. 36 ; xv. 24. 46 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine that on the last night before his Passion, he said, " I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." This does not mean that he accommodated his doctrine to the natural and acquired abilities or to the prejudices of men. Otherwise he would not on the one hand have chosen rude Galileans to be the depositaries of revelation, nor on the other hand have condemned the Pharisees and the chiefs of Judaism for their rejection of teaching which ran most strongly counter to their traditions. It can only mean that he put before men just so much of Divine truth as they were morally required to believe, the credentials being what they were. As the reality first of his Divine mission, then of his own Divine power, was gradually disclosed, he unfolded truths which made the greater demands, not on the understand- ing, but on the faith of his hearers. To reject him in the beginning as a Prophet was a moral delinquency of the same kind as to reject him in the end as Son of God. His full revelation could not be made, even to his intimates, until he had finally established his claim to their confidence by the Resurrection. St, John says twice, and with emphasis, that only when the Lord was raised from the dead, or glorified, did his disciples under- stand certain parts of his life or teaching.' The Proposition of Faith means then, in the first instance, the active teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, propounded in varying measure to various persons, in full measure to certain chosen ones after his resurrection. To them he unfolded the whole counsel of God, and within a few days fixed it in their hearts and memories by send- ing to them the Holy Ghost. Those who did not accept it, when put before them according to their several measure, are condemned as guilty of sin. The Proposi- ' Tohn xvi. 12 ; ii. 22 ; xii. 16. The Proposition of Faith 47 tion of Faith was continued by those who deUvered to others what they received from the Lord ; and it continued to impose the same responsibihty on the hearer. They who received or rejected him that was sent received or rejected the sender. Belief or unbelief is never spoken of in the New Testament as a choice of the intellect ; it is a moral choice between good and evil. The main argument of St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans turns on the principle that belief in the Gospel is a moral action. Those who refused it are reprobated as dis- obedient. The same is the teaching of St. James, who bids the Jews of the Dispersion " receive with meekness the implanted word." The Jews of Beroea are com- mended, not as intelligent, but as noble, or generous, because they received the word with all readiness of mind. Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue; when the gospel was first preached at Antioch of Pisidia, as " many as were ordained to eternal life believed ; " the preachers of the gospel, says St. Paul to the Corinthians, " are Ministers through whom ye believed, and each as the Lord gave to him." But this must not be pressed to the overthrow of human responsibility. " We ought to welcome such," says St. John, " that we may be fellow- workers with the truth." The reason was then, as always, that God, purposing to make himself known, had provided sufficient means. There was testimony to the truth, which if a man rejected he rejected out of perversity. " He that believeth not God hath made him a liar ; because he hath not believed in the witness that God hath borne concerning his Son." They who preached the gospel gave a sufficient testimony; and those to whom they testified were therefore bound to receive it, as those who had heard the Lord himself were bound to receive his word. " Ye received me," says St. Paul to the Galatians, 48 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine " as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus." At an earlier period he described men as disorderly, who would not follow his tradition ; and he made this peremptory claim of moral authority : " If any man obeyeth not our word by this epistle, note that man, that ye have no company with him, to the end that he maybe ashamed." ^ The Apostles, we must remember, did not speak in their own name. They did not claim to have an original revelation. They taught by tradition ; that is to say, by delivering to others what they had received. Their, witness was therefore twofold. They had to put before men at once the teaching and the credentials of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the latter aspect they were witnesses of the Resurrection ; in the former aspect they were guardians of a deposit. They were to add nothing of their own ; or if they added anything by way of counsel or opinion, they were to mark it carefully as their own. " Concerning virgins," said St. Paul, " I have no commandment of the Lord ; but I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful." He says modestly in conclusion, " I think that I also have the Spirit of God." But when he was on the ground of revelation, he could say, " I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord." We have here the important distinction, of which there will be more to say, between Christian doctrine and Christian opinion. When giving a simple opinion St. Paul had a certain claim on the obedience of his spiritual children ; when he proposed to them the doctrine of Christ, he claimed an obedience of absolute obligation. The witness that he bore was such that men could not reject it without sin.'- ' Rom. xv. 31 ; James i. 21 ; Acts xvii. Ii ; xiii. 48 ; I Cor. iii. 5 ; 3 John 8 ; I John v. 10 ; Gal. iv. 14 ; 2 Thess. iii. 6, 14. - I Cor. vii. 10, 25, 40. The Proposition of Faith 49 \Ve must here pause to ask what is meant by the sin of unbeUef. It is described by St. John as making God a liar. The rejection of revealed truth is in the same order as the rejection of natural religion. St. Paul has set out the guilt of this rejection in the Epistle to the Romans : " The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness ; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity." That is to say, nature gives sufficient testimony to the being and power of God. And speaking generally, this testimony is sufficiently proposed to all men. Therefore those who reject it are without excuse, " because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks ; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened." They were not left in helpless ignorance or doubt, but as moral agents, having the choice of truth and falsehood, " they refused to have God in their know- ledge." The sin here consists in the refusal to employ according to the will of God the testimony of himself which he affords. The same sin is involved in the rejection of revealed religion. Sin being generically a disordered misuse of creation, the sin of unbelief is the misuse or neglect of those means by which God has willed to make himself known. This needs pressing ; for a certain un- willingness to acknowledge that unbelief is sin, an inclination to reckon it only as an intellectual, not a moral defect, has led to much confusion. Compelled by the stern language of Scripture to allow that there is in unbelief at least something of the nature of sin, men E 50 The Elements of CJiristian Doctrine look for the element of sinfulness, not in the unhclief itself, but in its secondary causes. They assume that unbelief is ordinarily caused by moral disorders which blind or warp the judgment : where it is found consisting with general purity and nobility of character, it is treated as abnormal, a puzzle to the understanding, not a thing calling for moral condemnation. But a normal connection of this kind between unbelief and other forms of depravity cannot be traced. It is true that general depravity may hinder belief. " Men loved the darkness rather than the light," says our Lord, "for their works were evil." But Ave may not infer this particular cause from the effect ; and indeed St. Paul, while recognizing the connection, inverts the order, and treats general depravity as a natural con- sequence of unbelief. Because men would not have God in their knowledge, therefore " God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things w^hich are not fitting." But neither is this a necessary consequence, nor is it this which makes the sin of unbelief. Regarded in itself, unbelief is a misuse of God's gift, and is therefore a sin.^ To return : if rejection of the faith be sin, there must be a sufificient proposition of the faith. Sin is an act of the will ; and until the faith is presented to the under- standing it cannot be rejected by the will. The mere absence of belief is no sin ; there must be an act of rejection. If a man err through ignorance, such error will not bring him into condemnation, unless indeed, as Bramhall says, he " err with obstinacy, not willing to embrace the truth, though it were sufficiently proposed." ■' But actual unbelief, we are taught, is ordinarily actual sin. It follows that we have in fact a sufficient proposition of the faith. Under ordinary conditions the truths of natural ' Rom. i. 18-28 ; John iii. 19. ■' Bramhall, ]Vorks, vol. v. p. 206. TJie Proposition of Faith 51 religion are sufficiently proposed to all men. In like manner revealed truth is sufficiently proposed, not indeed to all men, but to all those to whom the gospel is preached. It was so proposed by the Lord himself; it was so pro- posed in the time of the Apostles ; it continues to be so proposed. \Vho then is the proponent ? As we have seen, the Apostles had to put before the world two things, the teaching of Christ and his credentials. In doing this they needed credentials of their own. Their proposition was sufficient ; but why ? AVhy were men bound in con- science to believe their report ? Two reasons are conceivable. Either it was sufficient in itself to carry conviction, or it was proposed by a sufficient authority. The former reason is not lightly to be passed by. The Lord Jesus Christ seems to imply more than once that such immediate conviction is possible, at least for some men or in some conditions of heart and mind. " If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God." The truth itself may appeal to men. " If I say truth, why do ye not believe me ? He that is of God heareth the words of God : for this cause ye heard them not, because ye are not of God." ^ There are men at all times to whom the teaching of the gospel seems to come home as evident truth. They may fortify themselves with these passages ; but it must always remain doubtful how far they are influenced by a habit of thought working secretly in their minds. The obliga- tion to believe was not put by the Lord on this ground. It was because of the works that he had done among ' John vii. 17 ; viii. 46. St. Paul's words in 2 Cor. iv. 2 may seem at first sight to look the same way, but he is more probably speak- ing of personal confidence in a teacher secured by open and straight- forward dealing. 52 The Elements of Christian Doctrine them, such as none other did, that he convicted those who rejected him of the sin of unbelief. However potent, therefore, the internal evidence of the truth, it was not sufficient to impose the moral obligation of believing. But if it was not sufficient when the Lord himself was the proponent, much less could it be sufficient when the truth was presented by his ministers. Nor is this all the difficulty. These ministers had also to put before men the credentials upon which the Lord himself insisted. These were his life and works, and, above all, his Resur- rection. But if the doctrine was not self-evident, still less were the credentials. They were historical facts. There is some plausibility, and perhaps something more, in the contention that our Lord's recorded life is too perfect in its beauty to be a fiction ; that it could not be invented unless by a man of equally perfect character. But this cannot be said of the Resurrection, which the Apostles put forward as the main ground for believing the truths of the gospel. They were, first and foremost, witnesses of the Resurrection. This was a thing in itself most improbable; its natural improbability was, in fact, precisely what gave it evidential force. It has, indeed, been said, and well said, that the Resurrection was " the appropriate — the obviously appropriate — climax to the whole of Christ's previous attitude towards matter." ^ But 'this conclusion is of value only when the justice of that previous attitude is acknowledged ; that is to say, when the whole truth of the gospel is accepted. It is of infinite value for the reinforcement of faith to observe a natural and not an arbitrary connection between the credentials and the teaching which they support. But we are considering the Resurrection as presented to men not yet believing. To them it is presented as a fact by no ' lllingwortli, Divine Immatifiice, p. lOO. The Proposition of Faith 53 means self-evident. The truth proposed to men is not therefore sufficient in itself to carry conviction. We are compelled to fall back upon the second reason for believing. The truth is sufficiently proposed, because it is proposed by a sufficient authority. The Apostles were witnesses of the Resurrection ; and they had to put before men the teaching which they had received from the Lord. What were their credentials ? From one point of view we have these set forth with singular fulness in St. Paul's controversial epistles. His apostolic authority was challenged, and he had to meet the objectors. His main position is that by manifest honesty of purpose he commended himself to every human conscience. He appealed to the evidence of his disinterested work ; his refusal to accept even sustenance from those whom he taught ; his abounding labours and sufferings in the cause of the gospel ; his readiness to face even death. Driven by stress of con- troversy, he would even vaunt these things, the signs of an Apostle. In a less degree he relied on the evidence of miracles ; but he returns always to the former point : he would have men say of him that he was a truth-teller, and when he spoke of his own experience he must there- fore be trusted. " We are made manifest unto God," he says, " and I hope that we are made manifest also in your conscience." ^ These, it will be seen, are purely personal credentials ; they could affect only those among whom St. Paul lived his life. And more, however convincing to those who knew him intimately, they were subject to a corroding doubt ; there was always the possibility of hallucination. They might prove St. Paul's honesty ; they would not ' See the Epistles to the Corinthians, passim, and especially 2 Cor. iv. 2, II ; xii. I, 12. 54 The Elements of Cliristian Doctrine prove his possession of real truth. But something lay behind. There were others who bore the same testimony — the original Twelve. They, no doubt, had the same personal credentials, though we hear less of them because their apostolate was never challenged. They bore united testimony ; and St. Paul, though careful to guard the independence of his own witness, was no less careful to test it by comparison with theirs. " I laid before them,' he says, " the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before them who were of repute, lest by any means I should be running, or had run, in vain." ^ Nor did the testimony of the Twelve stand alone — the witness of a small knot of closely associated men who might be suspect. There was from the first a considerable body of men who stood with them. St. Paul appealed to the witness of some hundreds for the Resurrection. Some thousands were joined to them while the memory of all they recorded was yet fresh." Others were continually added who, if they brought no original support, testified at least to conviction carried home where there were ample means for refuting falsehood. In a word, the gospel was received on the testimony of the whole Church. This element in the proposition of the faith remains constant. The Apostles with their personal credentials passed away ; the Church remained. The proposition was weakened on one side, as the genera- tion that was near to the events passed away ; it was strengthened on another side by the wide extension of the Church and the multiplication of interlacing traditions, which added to the difficulty, and therefore to the value, ' Gal. ii. 2. ' The testimony of the empty grave and of the grave-clothes to all the dwellers in Jerusalem is well brought out in Mr. Latham's slinnilatin" book The Risen Master, TJie Proposition of Faith 55 of unanimity. We have already considered the witness of the Church to Christian doctrine. We now come to the proposition of the Church. The Church at large is in all ages the proponent of the faith. Let us recall what has been said about the nature of Christian doctrine and the faith of the disciple by which it is received. The function of the Church as the pro- ponent of the gospel is to put before men the teaching of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, together with his life and works which are his warrant as Teacher. In this way men are made disciples. This proposition is sufficient, with a sufficiency that is of God ; and therefore he who rejects it is ordinarily guilty of sin. Ordinarily ; for we are not bound to suppose it sufficient in all cir- cumstances for all men. But of exceptional cases God alone, the reader of all hearts, can judge. The proposition is in general sufficient. But in what does the sufficiency consist ? In other words, what is there in the present- ment of Christian doctrine which binds men to receive it ? This is not the same thing as to ask why men do as a matter of fact believe. There are motives in great variety which induce belief; and some of the most active are such as it would certainly be no sin to resist. Early training, habits of thought, confidence in a leader, are common motives of Christian belief, which under changed conditions are equally motives to error. What we are seeking is a generally sufficient motive, invariably direct- ing men to the right end, which therefore cannot be resisted without sin. Two answers to the question may be considered and put aside. It is said that men are bound to believe what is proposed, because of the infallibility of the Church, the proponent. But the infallibility of the Church is itself a part, and no very elementary part, of the doctrine which 56 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine is to be received. To a believer it is a great and valuable stay ; but it cannot be a ground of believing in general. Refusal to accept the teaching of an infallible authority cannot be sinful unless there are previous grounds for believing in the infallibility. As Bramhall says, " if either a man be not assured that there is an infallible proponent, or be not assured who this infallible proponent is, the proposition may be disbelieved without giving God the lie." This answer, therefore, will not do. The infallibility of the Church may be a valid reason to certain persons for believing certain particulars of Christian doctrine ; it cannot be the fundamental reason for accepting Christ as Master.^ A second answer grounds the obligation of believing on the sufficiency of Holy Scripture. The proposition of faith is contained in the Bible ; the Church is indeed the proponent, but only in the sense of directing men to the Word of God. A preliminary objection to this may be taken at once. It supposes a ground of sufficiency entirely different from that on which the Apostles relied ; for when they taught, the Scriptures of the New Testament did not exist. Another objection sometimes taken is unsound. We cannot impugn the sufficiency of Holy Scripture on the ground that all kinds of error notoriously claim its support. The fact that a man wrests the Scriptures does not prove their insufficiency for guiding him right if he will bend his will to learn. The sin of unbelief might consist exclusively in such wresting or neglect of the Word of God. But there is a more search- ing objection. What is meant by the sufficiency of Holy Scripture? Setting aside the heedless sayings of men who do not weigh their words, we find a close reasoner like Calvin maintaining that what is taught in the Bible ' Bramhall, Works, vol. ii. p. 279. TJie Proposition of Faith 57 commends itself immediately to the reader as Divine.' But here again we stumble on a difficulty already met. The Lord Jesus Christ himself did not claim for his own spoken words such immediate acceptance. He appealed to his works ; and for the rejection of this evidence pre- sented to their eyes he accounted men sinners. Butif his spoken word could not carry conviction, how shall the same word more coldly presented after the lapse of ages on the written page ? It did then, and does now, carry conviction to some hearts, and a special blessing is pronounced on these ; but a general obligation to believe cannot be so grounded. Nor can it be grounded on the historic record in the Gospels of the Lord's credentials, his Life, his Works, his Resurrec- tion. It was one thing to see and know these, or even to hear of them at first hand from eye-witnesses ; it is a very different thing to read them as facts of history. As recorded in the Gospels they are such facts, and so must stand or fall by the rules of historical evidence. A careful investigation may compel intellectual acceptance of the facts, and may possibly set up for those capable of such investigation a moral obligation to believe. But if the record is to have this effect in general, the truth of the facts must be directly evident — so evident that refusal to believe is giving God the lie. It cannot be made thus evident unless by the supreme power of God the Creator acting on the mind of the reader. Calvin assumes such action, and so becomes logical. The sufficiency however is no longer in the Scriptures them- selves, but in the Divine grace which enables men to see the truth. This, and not the sufficiency of Holy ' Calvin, Instit., i. 7, § 4 : " Si puros oculos et integros sensus illuc aft'erimus statim occurret Dei maiestas quae subacta reclaniandi audacia nos sibi parere cogat." 58 TJie Elements of Cliristiaii Doctrine Scripture, is supposed as the ground of the obligation to beUeve. The true meaning of the sufficiency of Holy Scripture we have already considered when dealing with the nature of Christian doctrine. It is sufficient for the matter proposed, not for the proposition. These attempted answers being put aside, the suffi- ciency of the proposition is found to be in reality a far less simple matter. We are not bound to take into account all the motives which may induce belief; but we must include all that are universal in operation, and so belong to the general order of God's ruling. We can bring these under two heads : the inherent reasonableness of the matter proposed, and the authority of the pro- ponent. By reasonableness we must understand not merely a superficial probability, but a far-reaching conformity with the whole order of creation, in which we trace the working of the Divine Reason. For the present purpose this reasonableness must be such as to convince not only some specially gifted souls, but the understanding and conscience of the ordinary man. It will range in practice from the analogy with nature worked out by the solid thought of Butler, to the simplest perception of something in the gospel corre- sponding to a need felt in the heart of man. But God does not require any one to be convinced by such reason- ableness alone of the truth of things outside his own experience. There is added the authority of the pro- ponent, which is the Church. " I should not," says St, Augustine, " believe the gospel, did not the authority of the Catholic Church move me thereto." ' These much-debated words have been misunderstood chiefly for want of attention. We must note exactly ' Aug., Contr.Epist. Fiindaniciiti, c. 5 : " Evangtlio non credereni nisi me catholicae ecclesiae commoveret auctorilas." See Note B. TJie Proposition of Faith 59 what St. Augustine says, and what he does not say. He puts forward the authority of the Church not as a ground for beUeving, but as a motive. It has been compared with the report of Philip bringing Nathanael to Christ, and with the witness of the Samaritan woman attracting her fellow-townsmen, who afterwards said, " Now we believe, not for thy speaking : for we have heard for our- selves and know." But this falls short of St. Augustine's meaning. He did not speak of the Church as merely arousing a curiosity which is satisfied by the gospel. The testimony of the Church is one of the causes directly moving men to believe. The nature of this testimony we -have already considered ; we are now concerned with its effect. It has in practice the effect of inducing belief. Whether we regard the historical testimony of the whole Church from the beginning, or the common assent of Christians at any given time, or that " conversation in the bosom of the Church," which Hooker puts prominently forward,^ men are in fact drawn to the faith and sustained therein by this influence. God has there- fore provided means by which his truth may be set before men. We may apply to revealed religion what St. Paul said of natural religion, that God has not left himself without witness.- The proposition of the faith by the Church is ordinarily sufficient to require assent, and to impose on the hearer the obligation of believing. The authority of the Church is not the ground for believing. There is one only ground : it is the convic- tion of the disciple that God has taught these things through Jesus Christ our Lord. If the authority of the Church were the ground for believing, it would follow that a new doctrine might be proposed by the Church to rank equally with the original teaching of the gospel. ' Hooker, Works, vol. ii. p. 95. * Acts xiv. 17. 6o TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine But this we have seen to be impossible. The proposition of the Church is Umited to the setting forth of the teach- ing of the Lord Jesus Christ in a form inteUigible and free from ambiguity. In practice the Church is Umited to propounding what is already contained in Holy Scripture. This limitation obviously does not belong to the nature of things, for the Church was preaching the faith before the Canon of the New Testament was closed. Nor again is it imposed on the Church by Divine authority, for that could not be done without express revelation. So again the assertion that " Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation," cannot be itself a truth necessary to salvation ; else it would be self-contradictory, since no such assertion can be found in Holy Scripture. The assertion is true, but it must not be confused with the revealed truths of the gospel. It is the recognition of a fact ; and the sufficiency of Holy Scripture in this regard being a fact, the Church renounces, by a self-denying ordinance, the power of proposing as matter of faith anything which goes beyond. Holy Scripture, I have said, is sufficient for the matter proposed, though not for the proposition. This does not mean that nothing more is required of the Church than to place the Bible before the world. The Rule of Faith, as we have seen, is Holy Scripture interpreted by the Church. The faith which is proposed by the Church is the content of Holy Scripture, collected, explained, guarded, and freed, if necessary, from ambiguity. On the other hand, not everything contained in Holy Scripture is equally proposed. There are parts of the Bible the meaning of which is far from clear, and which the authority of the Church has never interpreted. Every such passage has in fact some one definite meaning, The Proposition of Faith 6i which is the truth ; but this truth is not proposed as matter of beUef. No blame therefore attaches to those who fail to apprehend it. Any one stands condemned who reads into such an obscure passage a meaning- contradictory to a known truth ; but no one is condemned merely because he fails to draw out the true meaning. Nor may we hope that such obscurities will be cleared up in the future. The nature of the Church's witness forbids this. The Church does not propound anything new as matter of faith, but only declares what has been taught from the beginning. A novel interpretation may therefore be condemned ; but the meaning of a Scripture which has always been in doubt cannot be fixed by authority. The Proposition of Faith is thus limited, partly by the nature of things, partly by a humble reserve. But in practice the teaching of the Church goes beyond the Proposition of Faith. We have seen the Apostles over- stepping this limit. St. Paul taught some things of his own judgment, not by revelation of the Lord. The dis- tinction holds good for all time. Not only matter of faith but also matter of opinion is put forward by the Church, sometimes with great tenacity. The opinion, already mentioned, that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation, is an instance. Another may be found in the current teaching of the Church with regard to the inspiration of Scripture. These doctrines are carefully to be distinguished on the one hand from those positive rules which the Church imposes by way of discipline, and on the other hand from those revealed truths of which the Church is only the recipient and proponent. They occupy a middle position, depending on the authority of the Church but not being the expression merely of the corporate will of 62 The Elements of Christian Doctrine ' the Church, They are the result of an attempt to ascertain truth by means of the common sense of the vv'hole Christian body, guided and sustained by the in- dwelling Spirit of God. They are a part of the teaching of the Church, though not strictly speaking a part of Christian doctrine. How then should they be regarded ? As a matter of discipline the Church may forbid any man to contradict them, may even require of those who are to be admitted to the teaching office entire assent; and apart from these rules of discipline the grace of humility will impel the faithful to acknowledge at least the extreme probability of what is taught with the common consent of Christians. But this obligation of humility is not to be confused with the obligation of faith arising from the proposition of Christian doctrine. It remains to consider the mode of this proposition. The Proposition of the Church is commonly described as of two kinds, ordinary and solemn. By the Ordinary Proposition of the Church we mean the exhibition of Christian doctrine which goes on day by day continually. Those who have their conversation in the bosom of the Church — to revert to Hooker's phrase — drink in per- petually the knowledge of the truth. They are taught by catechism, by custom, and by the exampleof their fellows. They are taught, according to the maxim lex oraiidi lex credendi, by the appointed forms of worship. The Holy Scriptures are put into their hands and are expounded. Much that is human, much that is local and peculiar, becomes in this way mingled with Divine truth, to the point sometimes of obscuring it. The true proposition is found in that which is universal and consistent. Accretions are warded off by the concurrence of all parts of the Church, the witness of the whole Ecclcsia dispcrsa. In proportion to the freedom of intercourse among The Proposition of Faith 6l Christians the purity of the proposition is guarded. The divisions of Christendom weaken tlie proposition, to a less degree in these days than when intercourse depended more on personal communication, but still seriously ; and as the proposition is weakened so also is the obligation of faith. It is not however destroyed. The Ordinary Proposition of the Church maybe identified in that which is taught by all parts of the Church alike ; and to the smiple Christian the proposition of his own part of the Church suttees. The Solemn Proposition of the Church is required, and is attainable, only on extraordinary occasions. It is a declaration, by a Council fairly representing the whole Church, of what is believed and taught as Christian truth. Such a Council would ideally consist of all the bishops at least throughout the whole world — the Eccksia congregata ; but in practice no such gathering has ever been possible. A Council is known as General or Oecumenical, whatever its numbers, when it is recognized as being fairly representative. Nor is it possible to lay down any rule as to what will constitute such representa- tion. The general acceptance of a Council alone can determine its authority. The work of a Council— I do not speak here of disciplinary canons or rules for the social order of the Church— is to gather in one definition the concurrent witness of all parts of the Church. It is required only when some serious innovation or heresy is threatening the continuity of Christian doctrine. A conciliar definition is not more certain or more binding than the ordinary proposition of the Church. In itself indeed it is less binding. The decree of a Council, how- ever great and important, is valuable only as declaring the general doctrine of the Church ; if it run counter to this, it is rejected. The first Council of Nicaea, in the 64 The Elements of Christian Doctrine face of Arian innovation, declared the faith of the Church in the consubstantiaUty of the Son of God. Some years later the Council of Ariminium, a larger body, accepted a statement which was practically Arian. The result was only a temporary confusion and trouble. The general teaching of the Church overrode the authority of the Council. A conciliar definition is merely a solemn mode of putting before men what the Church believes and teaches. The Solemn Proposition of the Church, like the ordinary proposition, is not the ground of believing but a motive to belief. The dogmatic definition of Nicaea or Chalcedon is binding, not because it is the decree of a Council, but because it accurately expresses the doctrine received from the Lord Jesus Christ. Such definition is not therefore without effect. The proposition being more solemn appeals more strongly to the conscience ; and being more public, leaves the less room for a plea of ignorance. It follows that as a man is bound to accept the truths of revelation proposed by the Church, so he is in particular bound to believe what is solemnly defined. A Council cannot make that revealed truth which was not revealed truth ; but, says Bramhall, " a general Council may make that revealed truth necessary to be believed by a Christian as a point of Faith, which formerly was not necessary to be believed." That is to say, the truth being brought home to a man, he is bound to receive it. Bramhall defines and limits the obligation by saying that " when a general Council hath determined any controversy, no man may oppose its determination, but every one is bound to acquiesce and possess his soul in patience, though he be not convicted in his conscience of the truth of their sentence." But this is rather a matter of Christian discipline than of faith. Field is perhaps clearer. It is not necessary, he says, " expressly The Proposition of Faith 65 to believe whatsoever the council hath concluded, though it be true, unless by some other means it appear unto us to be true, and we be convinced of it in some other sort than by the bare determination of the council only. But it sufificeth that we believe it impUcite^ and in praepara- tione animi, that out of the due respect we bear to the council's decree we dare not resolve otherwise, and be ready expressly to believe it, if it shall be made to appear unto us." By the judgments of these two great English divines I am content to abide. ^ So much we may say of the Proposition of Faith by the Church, ordinary and solemn. But the teaching of the Church is sometimes spoken of inaccurately in a more extended sense, being taken to mean all that is taught by any within the Church. This may obviously include some erroneous teaching, and much that is doubtful ; for by no means all questions are determined by the authority of the Church, and mistaken opinions even about those which have been determined are not easily eradicated. Questions that have not been determined are known as open questions. Upon these, individual teachers may give divergent answers, and if the teaching function were in no way organized, there would be nothing more to say. But theology is an organized science. We must be care- ful here to see exactly what we mean. Theology is the science of revelation. It is the orderly systematic exposi- tion of revealed truth as proposed in definitions of faith, and the orderly systematic treatment of open questions. Theologians, like the students of other sciences, maintain continual intercourse, mutually informing and correcting one another. The science of theology becomes in this ' Bramhall, JForis, vol. ii. pp. 90, 91 ; Field, 0/ the CJmrch, bk. V. c. 51, vol. iv. p. 60, ed. 1852. F 66 The Elements of Christian Doctrine way a certain compensation for the divisions of Christen- dom. A theologian is valued, not because he belongs to this or that communion, but only because of his know- ledge. It is necessary to make allowance for prejudices, due to his ecclesiastical position, which may affect his judgment ; but this allowance made, his knowledge and skill contribute their share to the science common to all his fellows throughout the world. There is therefore a scientific tradition of theological learning, partly uniform, partly controversial ; and that which is uni- form, since it is current everywhere, may easily be con- fused with the teaching of the Church. We must therefore be on the watch carefully to distinguish be- tween the teaching of the Church and the teaching of theologians. How should we regard the teaching of theologians ? The question is not difficult to answer. Theologians are scientific experts. Their authority is exactly that of any other experts in their own science. 'Wliere they are unanimous, it is the extreme of rashness for any who are not expert to dissent. Where a great majority of them is agreed, it is still rash to follow the dissentient minority, though this minority may possibly be in the right. But rash and reckless speculation or an obstinate adherence to personal opinions, in a matter so important as religion, is a thing to be discouraged. On the other hand, no one is bound in conscience to believe any speculative opinion, however strongly supported by expert authority. An opinion therefore which runs counter to the general trend of theological teaching is condemned, not as false or heretical, but as rash. It may even be right for the Church, by way of discipline, to forbid men publicly to maintain such an opinion. The Church of England has thus adjudged that a certain opinion about The Proposition of Faith 6^ good works of supererogation " cannot be taught without arrogance and impiety." ^ Of special importance is that part of theological science which deals with practical duties. The moral teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ was given in the form not of minute and detailed precepts, but of wide far-reaching principles. These are preserved unchangeable with the rest of the Christian tradition, interpreted, if need be, and proposed to men by the Church. The whole Christian doctrine so proposed is sometimes divided under the heads of Faith and Morals ; but the distinction is not well marked, since the teaching under both heads alike is received by faith. The principles of moral action are thus part of the Proposition of Faith. To these are added certain precepts of the Church, having the same authority which belongs, as we have seen, to all teaching of the Church that goes beyond the Proposi- tion of Faith. That is to say, these precepts may not be proposed as necessary to salvation, but they impose a grave responsibility on any Christian who neglects them. There remains an important work for theologians. It is the application of the precepts of the gospel and of the Church to particular cases. The function of a theologian is to consider exceptional circumstances and to frame rules of conduct for individuals. Moral theology is the systematic study of practical religion ; that branch of it which deals with particular cases is known as Casuistry. It is a science in the study of which, even more than in other branches of theology, there is needed not only skill but a pure adhesion to the spirit of true religion. The conclusions of theologians in this regard have the same kind of authority as in other matters. They establish in varying degrees a probability that ' Articles of Religion, 'Ho, \\y. 68 The Elements of Christian Doctrine what is recommended is the right or at least the wiser com'se of action. And since probabiUty is, in Butler's phrase, the guide of life, the conclusions of moral theology are valuable as means for informing the conscience. They are this, but they are no more. A statement of Christian doctrine will therefore include in the first place those truths of the gospel which are defined and set before men by the Church in the Pro- position of Faith. To these we must add all that is taught by the Church, not as Divine truth which men are bound to believe, but as opinion so highly probable as not to be rejected without dangerous temerity. Of far less importance, but not to be neglected, are the opinions of theologians about open questions. The systematic treatment of these topics is the sum of theological science. My object is to exhibit these things in the simplest possible form. I shall try to state what is generally received and taught as the doctrine of Christ. I shall use for this purpose the language of the Church, but shall avoid the use of terms which belong only to the technical language of theology. The more important errors opposed to this doctrine will be indicated. I shall further aim at stating, with proper distinction, what is taught on the authority of the Church ; and where it seems to be called for, I will try to give what is most probable in theological opinion. It will sometimes be w-ell to mention even what stands on a lower ground of probability. In treating so large a matter within so brief a compass, I must often say what seems to me true without giving my reasons ; I may often seem to speak with certainty where doubt or hesitation might be expected. I give only what I have received. Error may be in the measure of the recipient ; for that I bear The Proposition of Faith 69 the blame, protesting only that the error is not wilful. If I say anything amiss, I desire the condemnation of the offence, and pardon only for the offender. I therefore venture to make my own the words of Bramhall — ^ " I submit myself and my poor endeavours, first, to the judgment of the Catholic CEcumenical essential Church. . . . And if I should mistake the right Catholic Church out of human frailty or ignorance, ... I do im- plicitly and in the preparation of my mind submit myself to the true Catholic Church, the spouse of Christ, the mother of the Saints, the pillar of truth. And seeing my adherence is firmer to the infallible rule of Faith, that is, the Holy Scriptures interpreted by the Catholic Church, than to mine own private judgment or opinions ; although I should unwittingly fall into an error, yet this cordial submission is an implicit retractation thereof, and I am confident will be so accepted by the Father of Mercies, both from me and all others who seriously and sincerely do seek after peace and truth. " Likewise I submit myself to the representative Church, that is, a free general Council, or so general as can be procured; and until then, to the Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to a national English Synod : to the determination of all which, and each of them respectively, according to the distinct degrees of their authority, I yield a conformity and compliance, or at the least, and to the lowest of them, an acquiescence." ' Bramhall, Works, vol. ii. p. 22. CHAPTER 1 OF GOD AND CREATION Sect. I.— The Bcwg of God There is One eternal God. We mean by this a Being, without cause, without beginning, who is himself the cause of all things that have had beginning, that is, of all things that are not Himself. He is known as such, in some measure, by the common sense of mankind, since all things in our experience are referred to some cause, which is itself due to some other cause ; and so we pro- ceed until we are brought up to a cause which is not itself caused in any way. It is not impossible to imagine the existence of many such primary causes ; but we become by experience so convinced of the unity of the visible world, that we are driven to refer all to one cause. For if we imagine several primary causes, we are com- pelled to refer the unity of their action to a common controlling force; but this is a common cause behind them, which alone is primary. A certain knowledge of God is therefore natural to man. That which may be known of God, says St. Paul, is manifest in men ; it is a fact of their consciousness.^ * Rom. i. 19. Joh. Damasc, De Fid. Orthod., i. i : nofxa, abused by Pantheism, but rescued to Christian use by St. Paul (Eph. i. 23 ; Col. i. 19 ; ii. 9). On the use of terms of philosophy in theology it was acutely said by 74 The Elements of Christian Doctrine This one eternal God is pure Spirit. We are here using a term derived from our natural knowledge. The distinction of matter and spirit is arrived at by our consciousness and experience of ourselves. To express that which is not material we borrow the word spirit, the name of the breath from the lungs, using it to signify a mode of existence which the human mind has learnt to regard as distinct and even separable from that of the body.^ This mode of existence is naturally attri- buted to God. Conscious of the spiritual faculty of will, and knowing that our own will is, within ourselves, the ultimate cause of all that we do, we are driven to assume that a like cause of all things that are made is to be found in the will of a supreme Spirit. The postulate of natural religion is confirmed by Revelation, which adds the knowledge that God, the supreme Spirit, is not eternally immanent in the material universe as in a body, but is the cause of this universe, being himself eternally pure Spirit. The truth of the Being and Unity of God is contested by various opinions, which we may briefly indicate. They can be reduced to three heads — Dualism, Monism, and Polytheism. Dualism is a belief in two first principles. These are generally distinguished as good and evil, the conception of two principles or first causes being due to the difficulty of understanding how the evil that is in the world can be traced to a good cause, or the good to an Aubrey Moore, "Even when religion nnd philosophy both agree to speak of God as ' the Infinite,' for the one it is an adjective, for the other a substantive" i^Lux lilnndi, p. 65 ; loth ed.). • The Greek itvivtxa. and the Latin spiritus have the same history. That of the English ghost, used as their equivalent, is obscure. The Being of God 75 evil cause. This belief, which had existed for ages in the East, entered into active competition with Christianity in the form of Manichaeism, so called from the Persian teacher Manes. Borrowing some Christian featm'es, it spread widely in the fourth century, when St, Augustine passed several years of his youth under its influence. It held its own obscurely in various parts of Christendom, until in the twelfth century it became dominant in Southern France and Northern Italy among the sectaries known as the Albigenses, In practice the distinction of good and evil is commonly confused with the distinction of matter and spirit, the former being regarded as the creature of the evil principle, and absolutely subject to its control. In this form dualism is found to lend itself equally to an austere morality combined with severe mor- tification of the body, and to unbridled licentiousness founded on contempt of the body and its functions as naturally and inevitably evil. Monism is in philosophy and religion the converse of dualism. Morally, it asserts that evil does not exist, that which we call evil being only a lesser degree of good, or seeming evil because of an imperfect apprehension. Intellectually, it is the denial of the distinction of matter and spirit. As such it takes two forms. Materialism is the denial of spiritual existence, and is therefore properly atheistic \ what we call mind or spirit is thought of only as a function of matter. Pantheism, which regards all material things and all created spirit as being essentially a part of the Divine nature, we shall consider when we come to the doctrine of Creation. Polytheism ought, strictly speaking, to mean belief in a multiplicity of first causes. But it may be doubted whether any human mind is capable of resting consciously in such a belief Polytheism has many roots in thought 'j6 The Elements of Christian Doctrine and imagination. For our purpose it is sufficient to say that it indicates either an arrest of the tendency of the mind to seek a first cause, or else a straining of that distinction between the Divine attributes which we shall shortly consider. But it must be observed that an apparent and professed Polytheism is not inconsistent with a genuine belief in the Divine Unity. When men's thoughts have progressed beyond their practice, they see behind the Pantheon of popular religion the uniform Power and Wisdom which is God. Such belief is not properly polytheistic ; the deities of mythology may still be acknowledged, but they are conceived as resting in a lower plane of spiritual existence. It is interesting to observe that the Greek and Latin fathers of the Church seem to have always regarded them as having a real existence of this kind, classing them as demons. Sect. II. — The Holy Trinity The One Eternal God is in a Trinity of Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He is revealed to us as eternal Love. But love is a relation between persons. Therefore to say that God is Love is to say that he is not one only Person. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not set out in express words of Scripture, but the truth is revealed, and the doctrine gradually formulated by the Church was expressed in appropriate words in answer to questions that were raised about the meaning of revelation. The first Person of the Holy Trinity is the Father. We use the word here not as when we speak of the Fatherhood of God in relation to his creatures, but as expressing a relation within the Divine Nature. The word so used implies in the first place origin or The Holy Trinity 77 begetting, and secondarily the love which is natural to that relation. In this sense the Father is spoken of as the Fount of Godhead, eternally flowing and eternally producing. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is the Son. This word again is used only to express the relation of begetting, and the love which is proper thereto. It is appropriate, but not exclusively appropriate. As if to guard us from too narrow a conception of the relation, we find another term also used ; the Son is known as the Word. This term, like the other, is borrowed from our human experience, which has a faint resemblance to the Divine activity. It is taken from the language of philosophy. In our experience Word is Thought formed within the mind and brought forth in speech. This conception, applied to the Divine Nature, gave the doctrine of the Word or Wisdom of God which is found in the later 'Jewish writings, and notably in Philo of Alexandria, The application is justified, and the con- ception cleared from error, in the Christian revelation. The third Person of the Holy Trinity is the Holy Ghost. God is pure Spirit ; we have seen how the word is used of the Divine Being, but the poverty of language compels us to use it also to express a relation of the Divine Persons. In our own experience we use it for the impulse or movement of the soul when bent on doing something j we speak of acting with spirit, of being stirred by a spirit of adventure, and so forth. Applying as usual our own language to Divine things, we speak in a similar sense of the Spirit of God. We mean the going forth of the Divine activity.^ • So St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Tkeol., i. 27. 4 : " Quo nomine quaedam vitalis motio et impulsio designatur ; prout aliquis ex amore dicitur moveri vel impelli ad aliquid faciendum." 78 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine We must consider tlie meaning of the word Person as here used. It is a Latin equivalent of the Greek Hypostasis. This word in popular Greek signified some- thing soHd and firm ; it was adopted in the language of philosophy to signify the reality underlying an appearance or a mental conception. Thus it was not far removed in sense from Being or Substance} When the questionings of heresy made it necessary to define Christian truth, these terms were borrowed from philosophy, but used in a way so far new as to express things hitherto unknown. The word Being or Substance was by established usage appropriated to express the One unchanging God. To express the severalty of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, a mode of existence revealed with sufficient clear- ness but foreign to all human experience and therefore to all current language, the word Hypostasis was after some hesitation adopted. There were some to whom it seemed dangerous to speak of three Hypostases in the Divine Being ; it might imply too separate an existence. This danger was partly averted by the use of a countervailing term testifying to the Divine Unity. The three Hypostases were declared to be Con substantial., existing in one only Substance or Being.- ' Ovffia, substance, is the pure being of that which is. 'TiroVToo-ir, literally under-standing, was originally the solid sediment in liquor, or the base of a building ; morally, a fixed resolve. The transition to the philosophic sense Is obvious. In the New Testament it stands for a mingled moral and mental assurance (2 Cor. ix. 4 ; Heb. iii. 14; xi. i). In Ileb. i. 3 St. Athanasius makes it as equivalent to ovcria [contr. Ar. iv. Op. tom. i. p. 516, ed. Colon). So the ^'ulg. and the English R.V. - Even the word ofj-oovaios, consubstantial, which at the Council of Nicaea became the watchword of the faith, had been rejected at the Council of Antioch, A.D, 269, which condemned Paul of Samo- sata. It was then used in the sense in which we say that two things The Holy Trinity 79 The word Hypostasis, thus used, is represented in Latin by Persona. This term also was not accepted without hesitation, the objection to it being the converse of that alleged against the Greek term. The woxik persona, being commonly used for a part or character sustained by a man either temporarily or permanently, might seem to suggest, when used of the Holy Trinity, merely three modes of activity in the One God. The Son would then be the Father, only acting in a different manner, and the Holy Ghost likewise. This was, in fact, the teaching of Sabellius, who with his followers employed the word in this sense. It was therefore suspect. Rescued to ortho- doxy, it acquired a fixed and definite meaning. This was settled by the authority of Boethius, who in the fifth century dominated all the schools of Latin Christendom. Regretting the lack of a more suitable word in the Latin language, he defined Persona as naturae rationahilis individua substantia, where individiia substa)itia stands for the exact equivalent of hypostasis in its more general sense, and there is added the difference of rationality.^ We are compelled to engage in this study of words by the need of a clear understanding of the terms, utterly inadequate as they are, in which we express what is revealed about the Divine Nature. If their sense be not of the same kind have a common substance (the substantia sectmda of metaphysics), as two men the common substance of humanity. See the argument in Athanas. De Synodis ; torn. i. p. 919. ' Boethius, De diiabiis Naturis, p. 1206, ed. Basil, 1570. We should perhaps read rationalis. He observes that the Greeks also used the corresponding word irpSa-unrov in this sense, but preferred the less ambiguous term, and explains, " Nos vero per inopiani significantium vocum translativam retinuimus nuncupationem, earn quam illi inroaraaiv dicunt personam vocanles, sed peritior Graecia sermonum inriaracnv vocat individuam substantiam." Substantia, ovcria, is pure being ; individua substantia is distinct existence. 8o The Elements of Christian Doctrine carefully guarded, the watchwords of right belief become the cause of error. If, for example, the word Person be carelessly understood in the sense now current of personality, an heretical meaning will be read into the formularies of faith, which with a strange irony will be the exact opposite of the Sabellian sense that once hung about the Latin word. In modern language personality is taken to be determined by self-consciousness and by the power of will. In this modern sense we correctly speak of the One God as a Personal Being, not an impersonal force ; but if we read this meaning into the distinction of the three Divine Persons, we make three distinct Beings, having three distinct Wills ; that is to say, three Gods. Using the words which the practice of Christendom has consecrated to the expression of Divine things, we must be careful to use them in the sense intended by those who brought them into use. We believe therefore in one eternal undivided Being or Substance of rational and spiritual nature ; our own nature being so far similar that we can, however im- perfectly, apprehend what is revealed on this head, and can use the terms of our own nature, by an imperfect analogy, in speaking of the Divine Nature. We believe this one Divine Nature to exist, not like the human nature of each several man in one single hypostasis or person, but in three distinct Persons, each Person being whole, eternal, undivided God. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost is not the Father. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God ; but we cannot say that God is the Father, or God is the Son; we can only say that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This is the Name of God, revealed by Jesus Christ, the Name into which we are baptized as sons of God. The Name of God The Holy Trinity 8i given by revelation in the Old Testament bore witness to the eternal Unity ; the Name given in the New Testa- ment bears witness to the eternal Trinity. The Persons of the Holy Trinity are distinguished by mutual relations. The Father is the Begetter, the Son is the Begotten ; or again the Father is the eternal Thinker, the \\ox6. is the eternal Thought eternally uttered. The Father is the Source whence the Holy Ghost proceeds the Holy Ghost is the Proceeder. We are here using terms not of theology, nor even of the Church's proposf- tion, but of actual revelation. The Lord Jesus Christ hmiself used these words as sufficiently, though im- perfectly, expressing the truth of the Divine Nature. He taught us to believe on the Name of "the only begotten Son of God." He announced the coming of the Com- forter, "the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father." ^ Theologians have sought a reason for the use of these terms. They have shown that procession is of two kinds ; It is an action relative to an object without the agent, or an action which terminates within the a^ent The commg of the Son of God into the world by way of Incarnation, the sending of the Holy Ghost upon the Church, are actions of the former kind, relative to creation. The eternal generation of the Son and the eterna procession of the Holy Ghost are actions of the latter kind, terminating within the Divine Nature An example of such action is found in the formation of an Idea withm the mind of a thinking man; something pro- ceeds from the mind, yet remains within the mind 1 here is here some analogy to what takes place in the Diyme Nature. It is argued that of a purely spiritual Being there are only two actions terminating thus within ' John iii. i8 ; xv. 26. G 82 The Elements of Christian Doctrine the agent. They are Thought and Will. There are therefore in the Divine Nature two corresponding Pro- cessions. There is the Procession of the Word. This Procession is called Generation or Begetting, by analogy with that kind of procession found in nature, whereby a living being produces a being like itself. The Son is God of God.-* There remains a Procession by the action of Will. We know this within ourselves as love. Love is a going forth of oneself to the object of love. If this object be within oneself, as in some sense it always is, being a conception of beauty or goodness or perfection of some kind which awakens desire, then the procession terminates within oneself. Now the eternal activity of the Will of God is the mutual love of the Father and the Son, -by reason of which it may be said that God is Love. There is therefore in the Divine Nature a Procession of Love. It is not called Generation, for the analogy which furnishes that name here gives place to another. It is called nothing else but Procession ; and that which proceeds is called nothing else but Spirit, which means, as we have seen, the going forth of the Divine Activity. All this is in the region of speculation ; it belongs to the analytical science of religion, not to the practical knowledge of Christian truth ; but I have set it down briefly, because it may help to meet some obstinate questionings which cannot be silenced. When all is said the mystery remains inscrutable ; and this we may expect, since we are speaking of things beyond our experience, made known to us in Revelation by words ' The expression in John xvi. 28, 4i,r\\dov irapa rod Uarphs, may possibly refer only to the mission of the Incarnate Word ; but reading it with the following words, koI i\7]\vda els rhv Koff/xov, we seem to have a reference both to the eternal procession or Genera- tion, and to the temporal procession or Incarnation. The Holy Trinity 83 which are derived from our experience, and can therefore express the truth only by imperfect analogy. A question that cannot be avoided is that which has for centuries divided Eastern and Western theologians. Westerns say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. The expression has found its way into the Creed. Easterns say that the Holy Ghost pro- ceeds from the Father alone. They are jealous for the truth that the Father alone is the Source of Godhead, which the Western formula may seem to impugn. But on the other hand the Fathers of the Eastern Church, who wrote before the controversy arose, use without hesitation language which would now be regarded as peculiarly Western ; ^ and when Greeks and Latins have met in amicable discussion, as at the Council of Florence in the fifteenth century and at the Conferences held at Bonn in 1874 and 1875, they have agreed that in different forms of speech they express the same truth. It is clear that the temporal mission of the Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of the Comforter, " Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father." - But more than this is meant by the double Procession. It concerns the eternal relations in the Divine Nature. In this sense it has been explained by showing that the Father and the Son are in all respects One, save only as regards their mutual relation of Fatherhood and Sonship, The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, and every operation of the Father is the operation also of the Son, save that operation whereby the Son is begotten. ^ There is a useful note on the language of the Greek Fathers in iVtr. Darwell Stone's Outlines of Christian Dogma, p. 276. - John XV. 26. 84 The Elemoits of Christian Doctrine Therefore the Father and the Son are the one Source whence the Holy Ghost proceeds. But since the Son is himself of the Father, it remains that the Father is the one ultimate Source of Godhead. There is however a difficulty here, for it might with equal reason be said that since the Father and the Holy Ghost are in like manner One, save only in their mutual relations, there- fore they are the one Source whence the generation of the Son proceeds ; and the Son is in that case begotten of the Father and the Holy Ghost. A safer explanation may therefore be sought in the conception of the Holy Ghost as the personal existence of the love eternally going forth from the Father to the Son, and in return from the Son to the Father. It still remains that the Father is the one ultimate Source ; and the explanation connects the Western formula that the Holy Ghost pro- ceeds from the Father and the Son with the expression preferred by Eastern theologians that he proceeds from the Father through the Son. The two errors which on either side threaten the doctrine of the Holy Trinity are Tritheism and Uni- tarianism. Tritheism is belief in three several Principles, or the division of the Divine Substance into three several Beings, It is a mistake into which men may imperceptibly slip through careless thinking about the mystery of the Faith, but which is not likely to be held with conscious intent. Its most common form is, perhaps, the several attribution of justice to the Eternal Father, and mercy to the Son. Unitarianism, on the other hand, is an error consciously adopted and per- tinaciously defended. It is the denial of the existence of personal relations in the Divine Substance. From the third to the fifth centuries it troubled the Church in two forms. Sabellianism was the opinion that one Divine The Holy Trinity 85 Being has manifested himself in three modes, according to which he is known on divers occasions as the Father, as the Son, or as the Holy Ghost. Arianism was the opinion that the Son and the Holy Ghost are created beings, far indeed above all other creatures and im- measurably anterior in time, but not eternal, not con- substantial or one in essence with the Eternal Father, not therefore truly God. The great historical develop- ment of Unitarianism, however, is to be found in the system of Islam. Mohammed, deriving his belief partly from Christian sectaries and partly from the later Jews who were in revolt against the doctrine of the Incarnation, took for his watchword the assertion that God is neither Begetter nor Begotten. Within the pale of Christianity Unitarianism reappeared among the dis- orders of the sixteenth century, and was firmly established in Poland by the work of Faustus Socinus. Socinianism is properly the assertion that Jesus Christ began to be with his conception by the Holy Ghost ; that he is there- fore in no sense eternal or very God, but is rightly called the Son of God, and has been raised to a share in the Divine sovereignty, and made in a sense equal to the Father. Later Unitarianism has shaken off these pagan ideas, and stands upon belief in the single per- sonality of the incommunicable essence of God, regarding our Lord only as a man exceptionally endowed with Divine graces. Sect. \\\.—The A tir Unites of God Several qualities are in Revelation attributed to God. He is good and holy, just and merciful ; he is almighty ; he has perfect knowledge of all secret things. Here as elsewhere our language is inadequate to express the S6 The Elements of Christian Doctrine whole truth. These attributes are in reality indistinguish- able from the Divine Nature. As humanity cannot exist apart from man, and is separable only in thought from individual men, so divinity and all that is meant by divinity can be distinguished from the Being of God only by a mental abstraction. Theologians say that the attributes of God are God. The word Divinity expresses them all ; but this one quality is presented to us in several aspects, since it is obviously impossible for us to take in the whole meaning as a single idea. We there- fore speak, and necessarily speak, of the several attributes of God. Most of these are attributes of the Divine Being or of the undivided Godhead ; others are attributes of the Divine Persons as distinct. These latter are called relative attributes, being founded exclusively on those mutual relations by which alone the Persons are dis- tinguished. They may be rapidly summarized. The relative attributes of the Father are Unoriginate Being ' in Himself, Fatherhood in relation to the Son, Pro- mission - in relation to the Holy Ghost. The relative attributes of the Son are Sonship in relation to the Father, Promission in relation to the Holy Ghost. The relative attribute of the Holy Ghost is that Procession for which we have no other name. In comparison with the foregoing, the attributes of the Divine Being common to the three Persons are called absolute. They include all possible perfections of Spiritual Being. It is therefore impossible to treat them exhaustively, for we have no complete knowledge of ' In Greek, ayewrja-ia. Hooker, £cct. Pot., ,v. 51. i : "The substance of God with this property io be of none doth make tlie Person of the Father." - npofioXri. Latin theologians use the term Spiratio. The Attrihites of God 87 God ; nor is it possible even to enumerate those which are expressly revealed, for we have no complete know- ledge of the content of Revelation. It opens out before us with a growth of knowledge, to which we can see no end, save in the Vision of God which is the promised beatitude of saints. Nevertheless it is not without profit to enumerate some of the Divine attributes, which stand out most prominently in Holy Scripture, not gathering them from isolated texts, but giving in sum the effect of what is revealed. We may conveniently distinguish between the attributes of Pure Being, and attributes regarding the two great functions of Spirit, the intellectual and the moral, or Knowledge and Will. But further we may consider God either as he is in himself, or as the cause of all things that are made ; and in the latter case his attributes, without ceasing to be absolute attributes of the Divine Nature, will have a new meaning for us and may require a new name, regarded as relative to his creatures. AVe can therefore gather the attributes of God under three heads. In the first place we may regard the attributes of Pure Being. Foremost among these are Unity and Eternity, which enter, as we have seen, into the primary idea of God. Akin to these, but less obvious, is the attribute of Infinity. The word is negative ; it signifies the absence of all those limitations which are imposed on created things. These are distinct, themselves and not other things, only by virtue of those limitations. Therefore infinity is not to be found in the world ; it is equivalent to nothingness ; it is a mere abstraction, the removal of all that constitutes sensible reality. But God is All, without ceasing to be Himself. We use a negative term to express this, denying limitation ; but the meaning is positive. The Infinity of God is the Fulness of him that filleth all in all. 88 TJic Elements of Christian Doctrine Upon the Eternity of God follows the attribute of Immutability. "I am the Lord, I change not." For change involves both end and beginning ; the end of that which is passing away, and the beginning of that into which it passes. Upon the Infinity of God follows the attribute of Singleness or Simplicity. That which is infinite cannot be conceived as divided into parts, or made up of components, for these ideas both import limitation. With one exception everything that we know by experience is composed, and may be resolved into its elements. The exception is our own spiritual nature, which our consciousness of complete personal identity forbids us to regard as made up of the several modes of its activity. Here only in the range of our experience we find an image of the Singleness or Simplicity of God. The importance of this attribute lies in the necessity of guarding against that division of the idea of God which leads to polytheism. God is not a com- pound of attributes, or a many-sided being, to be approached, now on this side, now on that, according to the needs of the moment. It will guard also against those false ideas of the Divine action which set the Justice and Mercy of God in opposition, and suppose the need of some arrangement for their reconciliation. The Immutability and Simplicity of the Divine Nature con- stitute in our thought the idea of Perfection. To the attributes thus distinguished we must add the attribute of Life. We believe in the Living God. The idea of life, which we form from our knowledge of ourselves, is used in Revelation as an image of an essential quality of the Spiritual Being of God. In immediate sequence upon this we may regard the attributes which belong to Spirit as working in Know- ledge and Will. In human sjiirit we have an image of The Attributes of God 89 the Divine Spirit. The attributes of human spirit are images of the Divine attributes, but we cannot safely argue from the image to the archetype without the help of Revelation, by which we are directed to that in human spirit which does in some measure reflect the Divine. We begin with the attribute of Knowledge. Knowledge is in the first place self-consciousness ; and since God is All, or Infinite, the knowledge of God is infinite. It follows, moreover, from his Immutability and Simplicity that his knowledge is not extended in parts, so that he should know all things successively ; but all is eternally present to him; a truth which is feebly expressed by the saying that with him a thousand years are as yesterday. The attribute of ^Vill is but faintly imaged in us. The human will is determined by various influences, among which is the choice of the man himself. This element of choice is in ordinary circumstances so far dominant, that a man's action is ultimately self-determined, and he is therefore a free and responsible agent ; but other influences are continually pressing upon him, sometimes with overwhelming force. By abstracting these influences we can arrive at the idea of an absolutely self-determined will ; and such is the Will of God. This does not mean that he is without law. His own Immutability is in the place of law to him ; and whereas in man self-will is the defiance of law, and consequent disorderliness, the self- determined Will of God is the perfection of order. Upon the attribute of Will follows that of Power. The human will, even when determined, is often inoperative, because it has to work upon resistant material. The Will of God is absolutely operative. Himself being All, there is nothing without him to resist ; and being perfect in Simplicity, there can be no conflict within. 90 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine We turn to the moral attributes of the human spirit, and we find two which are pre-eminently reflections of the Divine attributes : Righteousness and Goodness. We form the highest possible conception of righteousness, as shown in the dealings of the just man, or in the administrative justice of an incorruptible judge, and we are taught to see in this a faint image of the Righteous- ness of God. In the kindness of human fatherhood we are taught to see an image of his Goodness. But further, human kindness raised to its full height is known as love, and the crowning truth of Revelation is that God is Love. And whereas in human love there are two moments, desire and satisfaction, which are at best successive and are often severed, in the Love of God, by reason of his Immutability and Simplicity, there can be no such severance. The essential Love which is in the Holy Trinity has therefore the attribute of satisfied desire, which is Beatitude. God is blessed for evermore. These are revealed attributes of God, as he is in his eternal Being. We shall have to consider in the third place these attributes regarded as relative to the creature. But this we cannot do until we have taken account of the act of creation, what it is, and what are its results. It remains in this place only to note the possibilities of error concerning the Divine attributes. As we have said, the attributes of God are not separable from the Divine Nature. We are taught that God is righteous and loving, ^^^e are taught also that he is Righteousness, that he is Love. Each attribute is indeed a mode of presenting to our apprehension the One Infinite Being. It follows that God may be regarded, and therefore worshipped, as Love, as Righteousness, as Power, as Life. But in this practice there lurks a danger. Failing to grasp the simplicity of the Divine Nature, men The Attributes of God 91 may worship the several attributes as several existences. Such is the nature of the higher and more philosophic polytheism. The Divine Being is approached in different fashions at different times. An appeal to his Power is regarded as a different thing from an appeal to his Good- ness. There follows the idea of contrariety between the attributes ; and for the Divine Unity the mind substitutes an assembly of independent or even of mutually resistant powers. The error which without breaking up the Divine Unity separates the attributes as coexisting in a single Being, is Anthropomorphism. Human attributes image, with more or less of distortion, the Divine attributes, and the names of the human are used for the Divine ; but if we attempt to argue directly from the image we shall not arrive at the truth of God, but only at a gigantic copy of man — the shadow of a shadow. In ourselves, because of the limitations of our activity, attributes are really separate and sometimes contrarient. Our will is not the same as our power, nor even com- mensurate with it. Justice does not coincide with good- ness, but may require a man to act in opposition to the impulse of natural love. Anthropomorphism attributes to God a like division and contrariety. It practically denies the attributes of Pure Being, substituting for eternity the idea of boundless duration, for infinity the idea of ubiquity. The Divine attributes being thrown into confusion, schemes are then devised for reconciling the Justice and Goodness of God, his Will and his Power, not unlike those by which men struggle to maintain their own consistency. It is a grosser, but not a more mischievous Anthropomorphism, which fastens upon the words of Scripture where for the sake of vivid presentment God is spoken of in material terms, and 92 The Elements of Christian Doctrine attributes to him parts and passions, and the Umitations proper to corporeal existence. Sect. \N .—The Creation of the World God is the First Cause of all things that are. This, we have seen, is a truth of Natural Religion. In Revelation the truth is assumed, but much is added which the natural understanding could only feel after, and apprehend imperfectly, if at all. Much yet remains unrevealed ; for God makes known to us only that which it concerns our spiritual welfare to know. Much is gradually unfolded before the search of human science. Christian doctrine is properly concerned only with what is revealed ; but the understanding of Christian doctrine may be retarded by mistaken experience, or aided by better investigation. In considering the doctrine of Creation we are met by a difficulty at the outset. Things which are caused have a beginning. Revelation repeats the truth of nature that " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." But beginning means change ; it implies also a point of time standing in relation to successive moments. How then can we speak of a beginning in the work of God the Eternal ? Even as the act of God which we call Procession or Generation is eternal, must not the work of God that we call Creation be eternal ? If God be the Creator, must we not say that he eternally creates? The creature will then be coeternal with God. The answer is that this beginning is relative only to the succession that follows. It does not imply a point in eternity, dividing eternity into a before and after. Such a conception contradicts the idea of eternity, in which is no past and future. The beginning of creation The Creation of the World 93 is therefore not a beginning of God's action, but the beginning of that sequence of time which is the effect of God's action. Human reason is a part of creation, and time is a form of created thought ; we know things only as they are presented to us in time, that is to say, in sequence ; and a sequence or series cannot be conceived without beginning. A sentence therefore Hke that in which the Divine Wisdom says — " The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old," is an instance of the accommodation of eternal reahties to the hmits of human thought. We may say that creation, in so far as it is the action of God, is eternal, since God himself is pure eternal activity ; buj^ crea- tion, in so far as it is the effect of God's action known to us by natural sense, has a beginning and sequence of time.^ There is another difficulty of the same kind. If God be infinite, he is All. How then can there be anything which is not Himself? Or, conversely, if he create a world which is other than Himself, as the effect is other than the cause, how is he infinite ? He is limited by the coexistence with him of that which is not Himself. This difficulty is partly to be solved in the same way ' Prov. viii. 22. St. Thomas Aq. %ii-^%{De Potcntia,\\\. 17, ad 4), " Non ponimus Deum causam miindi ex necessitate naturae suae, sed ex voluntate ; unde necessarium est effectum divinum sequi, non quandocumque natura divina fuit, sed quando dispositum est voluntate divina ut esset, et secundum modum eundem quo voluit ut esset." The word qjiando seems however to import inaccurate matter of thought ; as also do the words post non esse in the corre- sponding passage of the Siimma T/ieoL, i. 46. i, " Ex actione Dei aeterna non sequitur effectus aeternus, sed qualem Deus voluit ; ut scilicet haberet esse post non esse;" unless indeed post, like sequitur, signifies only a logical, not a temporal sequence. 94 The Elements of Christian Doctrine as the former. So far as the supposed limitation depends on the existence of the universe in space, it is sufficient to note that space, the perceptible extension of things known, is, like time, a form of created thought. But this touches only the fringe of the difficulty. Apart from all idea of extension, it remains that if we distinguish the universe logically as not God, we seem to destroy the infinity of God. Of this difficulty there is no solution to be found in nature, and in revelation the two opposed terms of the problem are affirmed without reconciliation. The denial of this opposition is Pantheism. Pantheism regards the world as a manifestation of God. According to this systen^ we know the Divine Nature in two modes, as Spirit and as Matter. These two, inseparably one, are God, as soul and body are Man. The system raises new difficulties, moral and logical ; but they are little, if at all, greater than those which attend a belief in the distinction of Creator and Creature. It is not because of its inherent difficulties that Pantheism is condemned, but because it is the denial of truths upheld by external evidence. The distinction of Creator and Creature, of First Cause and effect, is found in nature, and is confirmed in Revelation; and here moreover is taught the still deeper mystery, that a certain antagonism also is possible, the rebellion of the creature against the Creator. But the distinction is not such that the creature excludes the Creator, who is the fulness of all things, while at the same time transcending all. This is the truth of God's immanence in the world, expressed by St. John : " He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." Of this truth Pantheism is a travesty. We express the same truth more crudely by saying that God is omnipresent — The Creation of the World 95 a term which labours under the disadvantage of suggest- ing diffusion through space, but which is sound if under- stood in the sense that wherever I put myself in space I am equally and in the same way in the presence of God. But God, present to all alike that are in space, is not himself to be conceived in terms of space, and so remains in his proper Infinity. We are taught that God created all things by his Word. " By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made." " God said, Let there be light : and there was light." " He spake, and it was done." This was inter- preted by Philo and the Alexandrine school generally of that Eternal Word whose personal subsistence was in a measure perceived by them ; and their interpretation is confirmed by its adoption in the Gospel of St. John, who says of the personal Word, " All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that hath been made." The expression has passed into the Creed, where, having confessed God the Father as Maker of heaven and earth, we say that all things were made by the Son. The Father gives being to the Son, " through whom also he made the worlds." The Father is the one Source of being and becoming; the Son is one with the Father, as in all else, so in the act of creation.^ The meaning of creation by the Word of God may be illustrated by facts of our own consciousness. We are * Ps. xxxiii. 6, 9 ; Gen. i. 3 j Heb. i. 2. The Arians argued, from the preposition 5ta in John i. 3 and Heb. i. 2, that the Son was only the mstrumcnt, opyavov, of creation, and so himself a creature, though of higher order. The error lay not so much in the use of the word as in the supposition that the upyavov must be a creature, different in essence from the Creator. The preposition does signify, as St. Thomas Aq. says (Sitmma TheoL, i. 45. 6), that the Son is "Causa media, sive principium de principio." 96 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine conscious of the power of forming an idea. We form this of material presented to our senses, but the formative principle is the intelligence. An idea thus formed in thought has a proper existence of its own ; yet it has no existence apart from the thinking mind. It is an object of thought, and yet is not constituted in dual existence apart from thought. It exists in the mind, but is not the mind or part of the mind ; the sum total of all ideas contained in the mind does not constitute the mind ; they are constituted by the mind, which transcends them all. There is here something analogous to creation. The analogy is very imperfect. If we could form ideas without material given through sense, it would be some- what closer. Let us then suppose this power in God. We have considered the intellectual activity of God as the eternal generation of the Word, the idea of Self, the express image of the Father, who is coessential with the Father, Suppose now the formation in the Divine Thought, the subsisting Word, of an idea which is not Self, the idea of the world. That idea has a proper existence of its own, though not apart from God. It is an object of God's regard; yet is not constituted in dual existence apart from God, so as to exclude God. It has a proper existence, which is the natural existence of all created things. We distinguish here two operations of God : generation, which is the procession of the Word ; creation, which is the formation of the idea of the world. Philo and his school conceived only one operation, identifying the Word with the archetypal idea of the world. We are taught to distinguish these, and so to distinguish the two operations.^ ' Philo, Dc Miindi Opificio, p. 5 C, cd. 1691: AtjAoj/ Se 8ti koX 7] apx^Tviros (Tcppayls, '6v (pa/xev eluai k6(X^ov vorjrhv, avrhs fee fit] rh apxtTv-rrou irapdSfiyfxa, ISta tuv tSecov, 6 Qiov \6yoi. TJie Creation of the World 97 As we see it, the work of creation is a process, with beginning and sequence, for we can think only in the forms of time and space. So regarding it, we are com- pelled to think of God as continually working, as direct- ing the progress of events in the minutest particular. This direction of the world we call Providence. It is asserted with great plainness by the Lord Jesus Christ. The very hairs of our head, he taught, are numbered, and not a sparrow can fall to the ground without our heavenly Father. Against this truth of God's providence is set the idea of creation which was once known as Deism. According to this scheme, God created the universe and set it going with a system of natural laws, which produce a sequence of cause and eftect independent of any continuous Divine action. The rise of Deism in the seventeenth century was partly due to a revival of Epicurean conceptions, but in part it followed from the growing sense of invariable sequence in phenomena which was the foundation of modern science. There seemed to be no room for the continued intervention of Will ; and the Divine action, ruled out of the physical government of the world, was with logical consistency ruled out of its moral government as well. The whole Christian dis- pensation seemed incredible. This difficulty is caused by applying to the Divine action the limitations of time, of antecedence and consequence. It is not by a succession of separate acts of will that God directs the world, but by his one unchanging act which is creation. Religion is not intended to supplement natural science, or to come to its aid when at a loss, but the Christian doctrine of God does incidentally supply an explanation of that uniformity of sequence which is for science merely an inexplicable fact. The H 98 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine immutability of the Creator is reflected in the uniformity of creation. By whatever process in time the world and all that is in the world has come to be what we now see it to be, all, down to the smallest detail, is provided for in the one original act of creation. If the physical theory be true that primary matter existed without form, and that from such matter all has been evolved by differentiation, then, it has been said, " primary matter was already, in eternal Thought, all that it has become." ^ The work of creation is not only assumed in Holy Scripture \ it is described. The description is contained in the first two chapters of Genesis, and is referred to in many other places. It is clear even to a superficial reader that two separate accounts are joined together without any attempt to harmonize them. The conjectures and conclusions of experts in Biblical criticism upon this and other similar combinations are foreign to our argu- ment. The two accounts of creation may be remains of a primeval tradition; they may be imaginative recon- structions of the truth which nature taught; they may be the record of visions in the nature of prophecy. We receive them as incorporated in the sacred books ; and we are concerned with the truth which they affirm, not with the manner of the affirmation. It is not sur- prising that, until good reason was shown for the contrary ' I transcribe this sentence, with all reserve, from my notes of a lecture of the late Professor T. H. Green. Compare the language of St. Augustine, De Fide et Syntbolo, 2 : " Nullo modo credendum est illam ipsam materiam, de qua factus est mundus, quamvis informem, quamvis invisam, quocunque modo esset, per se ipsam esse potuisse, tanquam coaeternam et coaevam Deo : sed quem- libet modum suum quern habebat, ut quoquo modo esset, et distinctanwi rentm formas posset accipere, non habebat nisi ab omnipotente Deo, cuius beneficio est res non solum quaecunque formata, sed etiam quaecunque formabilis." The Creation of the JVorM 99 opinion, men accepted the account of the six days in a Hteral sense. Yet we must not forget that Philo thought this ridiculous, and some of the Christian Fathers with more reserve suggested other interpretations.^ What is actually revealed in Scripture appears to be the production and ordering of the world by the Word of God, and perhaps the distinction between things immediately produced, and things produced mediately out of prejacent material. Some writers have thus distinguished the works of the first three days from those of the last three. This would be the distinction between the creation of matter and the evolution of organisms. But such a distinction belongs rather to physics than to Christian doctrine. It is safer to say that so far there is one only truth revealed, the creation of all things by the Word of God. The creation of man will have to be further considered. Regarded as relative to creation, the attributes of God appear to us in a new light. There are not new attributes consequent upon creation. Such novelty is contrary to the truth of God's Being. The variation is in our apprehension. Thus the attribute of Infinity becomes for us, in relation to the expanse of space, the attribute of Omnipresence. The attribute of Knowledge becomes, in relation to the multitude of created objects, Omniscience ; it becomes Wisdom, when regarded as meetly ordering all things. The attribute of Power becomes Omnipotence when regarded as exercised in relation to created forces, and becomes Providence when related to the continual government of the world. As we distinguish between the absolute attributes because of our inability to comprehend all in a single idea of ' Philo, p. 41 A : Evr]6es wwu tu oleadat 6| ri/x€pais fj Ka06\ov Xpoyt}' K6 Kara (pvffLP cpdopav {nrofjLfViiV, The Fallen State of Man 1 2 1 the penalty may be suspended or remitted, while the guilt remains. In transferring the terms to the judgments of God we must put aside these elements of imperfection. The loss of supernatural grace was imposed as the penalty for disobedience, not by an arbitrary decree, but because of its absolute fitness ; and being so imposed it followed immediately. Grace was given to original man as a means to the more perfect attainment of his true end. Therefore, when his will was averted to another end, this grace, if still left in his possession, would have been wasted ; and it was consequently withdrawn. Immortality, when man had lost the way to that blessedness which was his true end, would have been for him the worst of miseries. Death was not the less a penalty ; but it was a penalty in some measure remedial, bearing witness to the identity of justice and mercy in the Divine judgment. Death was ordained for the ending of sin.^ The first result of the Fall, then, starts from the guilt of disobedience, the consciousness of which appears in the sense of shame ; there follows immediately the penalty, which is loss of supernatural grace and, consequently upon this, animal and spiritual death. The second result of the Fall is the corruption of man's nature. To set his own will against the will of God was to mar the work of God in himself. Created free to will, he would find the perfection of his nature in willing as God willed. By willing otherwise he set up a warp in his nature, which is known as concupiscence. We mean by this a depraved inclination to what is wrong, even when it is clearly seen to be wrong, and perhaps the more because it is seen to be wrong. This element of perverseness in human nature is apt to be neglected by ' So Irenaeus, iii. 37 (23). 122 The Elevients of Chj-istian Doctrine moral philosophers, because of the difficulty of work- ing it into any system ; but poets, even the most super- ficial, have observed it, and the mystery of it has inspired some of the greatest tragedies.^ The facts of human experience are acknowledged by the Divine word, and further illuminated. St. Paul shows that perverseness extends to a crippling of the will. " The good which I would I do not ; but the evil which I would not, that I practise." He speaks of it as " the law of sin which is in my members," and as " sin which dwelleth in me." It is in effect "the bondage of corruption." The freedom in which man was created is impaired by this per- verseness, which in a measure determines him to evil action." The corruption of nature is perhaps not confined to morals only, or to the action of will. The disorder would presumably extend to the faculty of knowledge. There may be some truth in the rhetorical declaration of a famous preacher, that an Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, if we understand it not of acquired know- ledge lost, but of natural capacities impaired. The capacity of knowing God, in particular, we may suppose to be weakened. But of this there is no certain revela- tion. Still less is there of that which might equally be assumed as probable, a certain degeneration of the bodily powers. It has indeed been thought that some such degeneration of mind and body is indicated in the allegory of thorns and thistles by which the labour of fallen man should be hindered ; but the figure suits with equal fitness the moral hindrances of concupiscence. ' Among tlie most striking expressions of it are those in the well- known lines of Ovid — "Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata " and " \'ideo meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor." - Rom. vii. 17-23 ; viii. 21. The Fallen State of Man 123 What man became by sin, that he continued to be in his descendants. He transmitted to them his nature as it was ; deprived of the support of supernatural grace and righteousness ; marred by the intrusion of concupiscence. This fallen state, into which every man is born, is known as Original Sin. It is sin, not in the same way in which the conscious rebellion of the individual is sin, but as being a declension from the good which is proper to man, according to the purpose of the Creator.^ It carries with it the guilt of sin, and the penalty ; for, as St. Paul says, " Death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's trans- gression." His argument is that until Moses there was no universal positive law, for the breach of which death was the appointed penalty ; and yet death reigned. But man dies only by reason of the guilt of sin. Therefore the guilt must have passed in some way from Adam to all his seed. All are by nature children of wrath. Death passed unto all men, for that all sinned. " In Adam," he says elsewhere, "all die." As St. Thomas Aquinas puts it, all men are to be regarded as in some sort a single person, sinning in Adam.- The Scotist theologians of the Middle Ages held that original sin was nothing else but the loss of supernatural righteousness. This explanation is sufficient to account for the universal imputation of guilt, if it be considered that man was created expressly for supernatural advance- ment. It is a paradox, but true, that to be supernaturally endowed is natural to man ; for the true nature of a thing is that which God intends. To fail of super- ' Sum. TheoL, 1-2, 109.2 : " Peccare nihil aliud est quam deficere a bono quod convenit alicui secundum suam naturam." - Rom. V. 12-14 ; I Cor. xv. 22 ; Eph. ii. 3. Sum. Theot., 1-2. 81. I. 124 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine natural advancement is then to fall short of the good which is the proper end of man's being; it is to run counter to God's law. It is therefore sin, and death. But this does not account for all the facts ; for the element of perverseness in human nature as we know it ; for those beginnings of evil which the Psalmist describes in strong hyperbole : " As soon as they are born they go astray and speak lies." Man comes into the world not liable only to corruption, but already in the grip of corruption. Forthwith upon the Fall, says St. Athanasius, men began to die, and corruption thenceforth grew upon them, developing throughout the whole race, even beyond the measure of nature.^ Not only is human nature left without the succours of grace to the natural process of decay, but every man comes into the world with his nature already corrupted. He has not the full exercise of his natural free will ; he is held in the bondage of concupiscence. There is therefore a fact of human consciousness, which is accounted for in Christian doctrine as original sin. The name, and the fuller development of teaching on the subject, are proper to ^^'estern theology, and indeed to the system built up by the genius of St. Augustine against the errors of Pelagius. But however elaborately developed, the teaching rests on the simple truth of revelation that every man has received from his fathers a nature that is corrupted and guilty before God. The manner of this transmission of guilt and corruption is not revealed, nor have theologians been happy in their attempted explanations. It is one of the ' Athan., De Iiicar/i.,^^. 57,58: TovrovZiyevofxivov ol fjLtv&vQptjnrui. aveOvrjaKov, r) 5« ipdopa Aoiirhv kut^ avrwi/ ^Kjxa^iv, koI ■KXeiov rod Kara Actions and Habits 125 inexplicable facts of life with which we have to reckon. Christian doctrine does reckon with it, faithful, as always, to the fact.^ Sect. III. — Actions ami Habits Life is manifested in action. Human actions in the state of pure nature are conceived as determined partly by the inevitable laws of nature, that is to say, by the sovereign will of the Creator, partly by man's free will. Among the laws of nature are to be included the habits or dispositions of man himself. These are partly inbred, partly acquired by repeated action. Those that are inbred or implanted by the Creator, so long as man's nature remains in its integrity, can lead him to nothing but good ; those acquired under the same conditions will be equally wholesome. In this condition, then, we may say that human actions would be determined (i) by external laws of nature, (2) by good habits, and (3) by man's free will. In the state of original righteousness there will be added to these determining forces the aid of God's grace controlling and directing the human will. This aid may be distinguished as of two kinds, ordinary and special ; the former infusing into the soul what is known as habitual grace, a general disposition to seek after supernatural good and to do what is necessary for its ' Robert Browning, in Gold Hair, suggests this as the prime reason for holding to the Christian faith. " I still, to suppose it true, for my part, See reasons and reasons ; this, to begin ; 'Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie — taught Original Sin, The Corruption of Man's Heart." 126 The Elements of Christian Doctrine attainment ; the latter moving the will to determine particular acts of the same tendency. In the state of fallen nature the human soul is deprived of habitual grace ; but the history of revelation affords conclusive proof that special aid of this kind is still granted. That history is indeed nothing else but a record of such special graces, and the use or abuse of them by men. But further, in the fallen state an evil habit, called concupiscence or perverseness, is in every man by birth, and particular evil habits are rapidly acquired as the result of perverse action ; by which means the freedom of the human will is impaired. ^Ve have, more- over, to reckon with the instigation of the devil and his attendant spirits, as also of evil men moving their fellows to perverse deeds. These are known as the temptations of the Devil and the World, as the moving force of concupiscence is called the temptation of the Flesh. In the state of fallen nature, therefore, human actions are determined (i) by the external laws of nature, (2) by inbred habits implanted by the Creator, (3) by good habits acquired as the result of good actions, (4) by evil habits inbred or acquired, (5) by external temptations to evil, (6) by an impaired will, and lastly, (7) by the special aid of God moving the will in the direction of supernatural good. By the first three of these forces fallen man is moved to good actions according to the will of God who made him. Such are the ordinary duties of life, the labours of the hand, the generation and the rearing of children, and the cultivation, social or individual, of the natural virtues. The image of God in which he was created is not wholly obliterated in man by the corruption of his nature. He still has the spiritual power of knowing and willing the things of God ; but this power is grievously impaired, so Actions and Habits 127 that he judges amiss. He can still see within himself as in a mirror the reflection of the Divine likeness ; but all is confused by the intrusion of evil habits and the sug- gestion of external temptations, so that he forgets, as St. Athanasius says, that he is created in the image of God, and he fails to order his life accordingly. Human actions therefore are not wholly bad, are never determined by pure malice, and even at the worst contain some element of a good purpose ; but on the other hand they are never unmixed with evil. "We are all become as one that is unclean," says the prophet, " and all our righteousnesses are as a polluted garment." Those who are in this con- dition — who are in the flesh, as St. Paul has it — cannot please God.^ A question has nevertheless been raised by theologians, whether fallen man can by his natural powers keep the commandments, either of the natural or of the revealed law, and in particular whether he can keep that first and greatest commandment which is to love God above all. It is argued that for God to command what is impossible is against his justice, and that to love God is natural to man, and not only to man, but also to every created being after the measure of its power. Therefore it is not impossible for man to love God with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength. And further, it may be said, we have in the Psalter the most perfect expression of the love which man owes to God ; but the Psalter is the expression of the heart of fallen man. To the last point the reply is obvious, that in the Psalter we have the expression not of the unaided powers of human nature, but of human nature aided by special grace. The commandments of the natural law, being ' Isa. Ixiv. 6 ; Rom. viii. 8. Athanas., Contra Gentes, p. 8. Sum. Theol., 1-2. 109. 2. See Note D. 128 The Elements of Christian Doctrine a part of the order of creation, are designed for man as unfallen, who could therefore keep them. It is no imputation upon the justice of God to say that man as he is now born into the world, far removed from original righteousness, cannot observe them. The command- ments of the revealed law were given to man already fallen, and are adapted to his case. These he is able to keep. St, Paul was bold to say that as touching the righteousness that is in the law he was found blameless ; but this righteousness he counted refuse, and the very purpose of the law, he taught, was to render men dis- satisfied with their condition.^ The great commandment concerning the love of God can be kept by men according to the measure of their existing powers, perfectly by unfallen man, imperfectly by fallen man with all that remains unspoilt of his heart and soul and strength. Fallen man therefore has no actions entirely unmixed with evil. The sinful habit infects them all. But this truth needs careful guarding on two sides. The natural virtues in fallen man are true virtues. They are not, as was rashly said, splendid vices. They fail to please God, because they fall short of that perfection for which he created man. They are good works, but they are not done as God willed and commanded them to be done ; they are tarnished by the effect of the sinful habit. They have a certain moral value or merit, as being done by man's will, however impaired its freedom, in obedience to Divine command or to the impulse of the Creator. Again, the inability of fallen man to fulfil the Divine law does not free him from the imputation of guilt. The inability is a part of his sinfulness, and though it diminish the particular guilt of a particular action even to ' Phil. iii. 6 ; Rom. vii. 7-25 ; Gal. iii. 24. Actions and Habits 129 vanishing point, as in the case of complete ignorance, yet the general guilt of fallen nature covers all such actions. It is probable that no sin committed by fallen man can equal in guilt a simple act of disobedience on the part of unfallen man ; but every action which is tarnished by the habit of sin shares the condemnation passed upon the habit. By continuing in a course of sin a man may add to his incapacity for doing right, and take yet more away from the freedom of his will ; yet he clearly does not by this diminish the general guilt of his subsequent action. What is true of progressive is true also of initial incapacity. The injury done to man's freedom does not therefore undo him as a moral agent or deprive him of responsibility, though in the judgment of particular actions there is room for the many or the few stripes according to the capacity of the agent.^ Man being created to live in society, the corruption of nature extends to his social order. This is the ruin of the world. The bond of social order is human law, which is partly an expression of natural law, partly the positive expression of collective human will. In the state of unfallen nature such law would be an accurate reflection of the Divine will, organizing man for the per- fection of his natural life. In the state of fallen nature human law is liable to a twofold corruption. In the first place, the community as well as the individual, either from ignorance or from malice, may choose evil rather than good. Human law will then command actions which are definitely wrong. Under this head we bring all evil customs, public injustice, and tyranny. War in general springs from the same source, though a particular act of war may be good by virtue of its particular end. But however great this corruption, human society does ' Luke xii. 47. K I30 The Elements of Christian Doctrine not, any more than a human individual, become wholly bad ; the ruler is still the minister of God.^ The second corruption of society is found in the toleration of evil. This is a necessary consequence of the fallen state, extending, as we shall see, even to renovated human society in the Church. It is necessary because of the impossibility in many cases of discerning accurately between good and evil, and also because man, while imperfect himself, cannot root out the imperfection of his fellows. The aspiration of the Psalmist, " I shall soon destroy all the ungodly that are in the land," is an ideal beyond the reach of fallen man. But there are degrees of such toleration, which mark the progress of the corruption or the recovery of human society. Harder to understand is the toleration of evil by the will of God. In the generations gone by, says St. Paul, God suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways, though leaving himself not without witness among them. These times of ignorance, he says, God overlooked. The nations were left to frame their own laws and customs according to the light of nature, however obscured, and these laws and customs had a sanction from the Divine permission, though they tolerated or even commanded things that were evil. But more is to be said. The Divine Law given by revelation contains precepts which directly countenance actions contrary to the will of God. Of the divorce allowed by the Law of Moses our Lord said, " For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment." \\\ the Epistle to the Hebrews, the law of the Aaronic priesthood is spoken of as a carnal commandment, which is disannulled because of its weakness and unprofitableness. The precepts of the Law, says St. Paul, were weak and beggarly rudiments. ' Rom. xiii. 4. Actions and Habits 131 Our Lord said that he was come to fulfil, not to destroy the Law ; but his mode of completing it indicates grievous imperfections.^ The explanation is that God's Law, given by revelation under the Old Covenant, was designed for human society in the condition of fallen nature, and for that society in a certain state of development. It was to be ad- ministered by men, according to the method of human law, and was consequently subject to the necessary limitations of human law, working in the same condition. It therefore not only tolerated imperfections in the way of leaving them unforbidden, but also commanded actions in themselves contrary to the absolute measure of right. Such actions were relatively good, by virtue of the mediate or temporary end to which they were addressed. Because of the hardness of men's hearts divorce and polygamy were relatively good, though absolutely evil, and as such were provided for in the law. In like manner we read of men being specially moved by God to actions, such as the intended sacrifice of Isaac, which are absolutely evil, but are good in relation to the con- dition of the agent and the end proximately set before him. These considerations clear the way for a conclusion about human actions in general. In the state of fallen nature every ordinary human action, individual or social, is mingled of good and evil. It is good in so far as it is an act of nature ; it is evil in so far as it is affected by the fall of nature. It is good because ultimately moved by the will of the Creator, in whom alone we live and move and have our being; it is evil because moved in part by the perverted habit of the agent or by his ' Acts xiv. 16; xvii. 30; Mark x. 5; Heb.' vii. 16-18 j Gal. iv. 9; Matt. v. 17-45. 132 The Elements of Christian Doctrine rebellious will.^ Every such action is absolutely both good and evil ; it is relatively either good or evil accord- ing to the balance of the forces determining the agent, or, in other words, of the ends proposed. An action done by constraint is counted neither good nor evil, since the will has no part in it. But if the chief determination be that of the will acting in harmony either with the natural habit and disposition to do the will of the Creator, or with a special indication of God's will, then the action is counted good, whatever the admixture of perversity or ignorance. If the chief determination be that of the will acting in harmony with evil habit or yielding to tempta- tion, then the action is counted evil. For example, the individual act of taking human life is counted good, if determined either by the natural instinct of self-preserva- tion or by obedience to law ; it is counted evil if other- wise determined. The law which commands this act is counted good if the end be justice and the bettering of human life ; evil, if the end be tyranny or a callous avoidance of responsibility. An individual act of war is counted good if determined by obedience to authority evil, if baser motives predominate. A national act of war is counted good if the end be justice, and the means be duly proportioned to the end ; evil, if otherwise ordered. It remains to be said that every individual action which is rightly to be counted evil is actual sin. Sin is lawless- ness. Original sin is a condition of habitual contrariety to the eternal law of God. Actual sin is a voluntary- action contrary to the known law of God. "Where there is no law, says St. Paul, sin is not imputed. " If ye were ' August., De Civitate Dei, xix. 13 : " Esse autem natura in qua nullum bonum sit, non potest. Proinde nee ipsius diaboli natura, inquantum natura est, malum est, sed perversitas earn malam facit." TJie Promise of Salvation 133 blind," said the Lord Jesus Christ, " ye would have no sin : but now ye say, We see : your sin remaineth." The light, either of nature or of grace, is granted in varying measure to every man. Every action done against the light which a man has, or may have if he will, is actual sin.^ Sect. IV.: — The Promise of Salvation St. Thomas Aquinas distinguishes the states of fallen and unfallen nature by saying that while in both alike the help of grace is needed, unfallen man requires it for one purpose, that he may will and do supernatural good ; fallen man requires it for two purposes — first for the healing of his nature, and secondly that he may do super- natural good." By supernatural good we mean that per- fection which is beyond man's natural powers considered in themselves. Man was indeed created by God for this, and therefore it is in a sense natural to him, as being the perfection of his nature, but the attainment of it is due to a separate gift of God. The Tree of Life in the original Paradise is the symbol of that gift, by eating of which man was to be raised to powers beyond his nature. Of the Tree of Life in the final Paradise the leaves are for the healing of the nations.'^ This healing or salvation was promised by God from the first. It is that about which, says Zacharias in his ' Rom. V. 13 ; John ix. 41. - Sum. T/ieoL, 1-2. 108. 2: " Virtute gratuita superaddita vir- luti naturae indiget homo in statu naturae integrae quantum ad unum, scilicet ad operandum et volendum bonum supernaturale ; sed in statu naturae corruptae quantum ad duo, scilicet ut sanetur, et ulterius ut bonum supernaturalis virtutis operetur." ^ Rev. xxii. 2. 134 The Elements of Christian Doctrine song, " he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began." In the mysterious judgment pronounced on the serpent at the Fall, there is indeed but the faintest adumbration of what was to come : " I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." But this crushing of the serpent implies the undoing of his mischief, and St. Paul uses the figure to express the com- plete renovation of man : " The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." ^ The hope of salvation, the conviction that what is gone wrong in human nature will in some way be set right, appears dimly shadowed in the beliefs of many nations. We cannot however safely attribute this hope to any other source than a consciousness of evil as a dis- turbance in the order of nature, which it is reason- able to suppose will pass away. There is a desire for perfect happiness, and for the reign of perfect justice ; the desire breeds a hope ; but, as Hooker well says, in the natural constitution of man there is no possibility of attaining it, nor even the power of imagining a means to its consummation. " There resteth therefore either no way unto salvation, or if any, then surely a way which is supernatural, a way which could never have entered into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or imagine, if God himself had not revealed it extraordinarily. For which cause we term it the Mystery or secret way of salvation."- The hope of salvation rested therefore on the promise of God, obscurely intimated from the beginning, repeated ' Rom. xvi. 20. -' Jiccl, Pol., i. II. 5. See also the eloquent passage in § 6, " Concerning Faith," etc. The Promise of Salvation 135 with growing clearness in the revelation of the Old Testa- ment. Righteousness and salvation are the principal keynotes of the Psalter ; the righteousness of God, which is in some way to work the salvation of man. Concern- ing this salvation, says St. Peter, the prophets searched diligently what time the Spirit which was in them signified. It was future to them. The Law also foreshadowed the same, though men of little understanding thought to find health and life in the precepts of the Law themselves. The peculiar privilege of the children of the stock of Abraham was to have the certainty of future salvation kept always before them, and to look for it in the coming of one who should be of themselves. It is therefore called expressly the hope of Israel. But equally it is called the desire of all nations ; not because all were looking for it with intelligent expectation, but because it was the attainment of that health and life in which alone they could find satisfaction.^ Salvation ,was not only for individual men. It was promised to God's people. When the time of fulfilment is come, we find the promise extended to the whole world. To say that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world is not the same thing as to say that he is the Saviour of men, or that he would have all men to be saved. This might signify only the healing of individual souls. But the world, in the language of the New Testa- ment, means human society. This should be the most orderly thing in creation ; it is the most disordered, and the healing of its disorder is intended.'- ' I Pet. i. II ; Acts xiii. 26 ; xxviii. 20 ; Hagg. ii. 7. 2 John iii. 17 ; iv. 42 ; I John iv. 14 ; i Tim. ii. 4. The original signification of the word Kiaixos is not to be neglected, though its use in the sense of human society, first in the Book of Wisdom (ii. 24 ; vi. 26 ; x. i ; xiv. 6, 14) and afterwards in the New 136 The Elements of Christian Doctrine For this end the world was prepared during long ages by the providence of God. A pious imagination may trace in all secular history the course of this preparation, which would seem to be a necessary part of the Divine government. With greater confidence we may recognize such preparation designed and effected in the sacred history of God's ancient people, whose are the promises, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh. The Law, says St. Paul, was a tutor bringing men to Christ. In the passage where he uses this bold figure he is main- taining, with the help of a strange exegesis, the unity of that seed of Abraham to which the promise was made. It was not made to the several individuals naturally born of Abraham, but to one, that is Christ, and is thereupon extended to all who are as one man in Christ, and so collectively Abraham's seed. The preparation of the gospel is the preparation of human society in the family of Abraham. Its fulfilment is the extension of the promise of Abraham to a wider society which knows no limits of nationality.^ In this preparation there are two points which call for attention. The first is the grace of prophecy. We have seen that in his fallen state man is moved by God to good in two ways : in the way of nature, by the guiding impulse of the Creator continuing always ; in the way of grace, by a special supernatural impulse. The grace of prophecy is an impulse of this kind moving men to apprehend truths unattainable by natural means, and to speak them forth for the instruction of God's people. Future things are obviously matter for such apprehen- sion ; to the popular mind in all ages the prophet would Testament, and especially in the Johannine writings, may have no conscious connection with the primarj' idea of order. ' Rom. ix. 4 ; Gal. iii. 16-29. The Promise of Salvation 137 appeal most strongly as the foreteller, and indeed in the Law accurate prediction is spoken of as a warrant of Divine mission. On the other hand this very same warrant was not to be accepted in the case of a prophet stirring up rebellion against the God of Israel. In fact, definite prediction fills a very small part of the accepted prophetic writings. For some time there were organized bodies of prophets, while at an earlier date they would seem to have been a professional class. We read of them also as sharply opposed to each other, advising different parties in the nation.^ We are not then to suppose the prophets habitually and ordinarily moved by Divine grace. They were the professed teachers of religion, and it was chiefly members of their class who received the impulse which we know as the grace of prophecy. It was not, however, confined to them. " I am no prophet," says Amos, " neither am I one of the sons of the prophets ; but I am a herdman and a dresser of sycomore trees ; and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel." - The matter of prophecy was usually found in things immediately con- cerning those who were addressed. Predictions were of things near at hand ; counsel was given for present needs. But above all this, and permeating all the words of prophecy, there is the great work of maintaining and expanding the Hope of Israel. There is perpetual reference to a salvation more or less remote in a future as yet undetermined. We are taught in the Gospel to consider this the real meaning of prophecy. Encour- agements and warnings which referred unquestionably • Deut. xviii. 22 : with which compare xiii. 1-5 ; i Sam. ix. 6-9 ; I Kings xxii. ; Jer. xxviii. - Amos vii. 14. 138 TJie E lane fits of Christian Doctri?te to events of the present or of the near future, are taken as referring also, more obscurely, to the fulfilment of God's purpose in the healing of mankind. The Lord Jesus Christ himself used the writings of the Old Testa- ment in this way : " Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." ^ The grace of prophecy was therefore intended to pre- pare men for the gospel of salvation by maintaining in the chosen people of God a growing sense of need and a living hope of satisfaction. This was effected by means not of definite predictions which might paralyse present effort, but of stimulating counsels for the present which suggested larger possibilities in the future. In this way that knowledge of God's purpose was gradually unfolded which one day, it was predicted, would fill the earth, as the waters cover the sea. The other point in the preparation that calls for attention is the law of Sacrifice. A sacrifice in the broadest sense is an offering made to God in acknow- ledgment of his supreme dominion. The idea of such offering is common to the whole human race ; it is elaborated in the Mosaic Law. The offerings commonly made are of two classes. In the first class are the fruits of the ground, restricted in the Mosaic ritual to corn, wine, and oil. In the case of these offerings the simple and fundamental idea is that of rendering to God, in acknowledgment of his bounty, a part of that which he bestows on men for food ; but there appears also the idea of sharing in a common table with God. The offering is partly consumed by fire, partly eaten by the worshipper. In the second class are the offerings of blood, when a living animal is slain, the blood poured ' Luke xxiv. 27. The Promise of Salvation 139 out before God, and the flesh either burnt with fire or eaten by the worshippers. It is impossible within our small compass to speak in detail of the sacrifices, whether of the heathen world, of the patriarchs, or of the Law. Intricate questions of exegesis and of theology are involved. The general ideas upon which all turns are, however, simple enough. In all offerings of blood there is contained an idea, expressed in Hebrew as covering, which we denominate expiation or atonemetit. What is covered is the guilt or shame of him by whom or for whom the offering is made. Sin is in man hindering him from access to God. To cover this up is not indeed to make it non-existent, still less to hide it out of sight in a pretended non- existence, but to deprive it of power to sunder man from God.^ By virtue of this covering, man, though alienated from God by sin, is able to approach him in worship. The ground of atonement is the substitution of the victim for the offerer. Knowing his own life to be forfeit for sin, man offers to God's acceptance in place thereof the life of an innocent beast, symbolized by the blood. The forfeit is thus acknowledged and sym- bolically paid, and the sinner is after a sort allowed that access to God which he lost by sin. There follows the disposal of the flesh, which is either wholly burnt upon the altar, or partly burnt and partly consumed in a sacrificial feast. There can be no doubt that by the feast is symbolized reconciliation and friend- ship with God ; it is a partaking of the Lord's Table." With less assurance we may say that by eating the flesh » Kurtz, Sacrificial Worship, etc., § 28, p. 67, Eng. tr. 2 So also to partake of heathen sacrifices was, according to St. Paul, to partake of the table of demons (l Cor. x. 21). 140 The Elements of Christian Doctrine of the victim tlie offerer symbolized his own identifica- tion with the victim, which was not merely a substitute, but was mystically his very self. The flesh burnt upon the altar is unquestionably the portion of God, sym- bolizing the surrender of self, to be purified and sublimated by the spiritual force which the fire re- presents. These are the common features of all sacrifice. In the Mosaic ritual they were minutely elaborated, and three forms of the offering of blood were distinguished. In the sin-offering, or trespass-offering, the idea of atonement was predominant. In this the Aaronic priest- hood had peculiar duties and privileges. The priest, and he alone, could perform a precise and mysterious ritual of the blood, and partake of the flesh. In the whole burnt-offering the idea of pure worship was pre- dominant, the whole of the flesh being surrendered to God through the fire of the altar. In the peace-oftering, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, there was added to the ritual of expiation and worship the sacred banquet, in which the offerer and his friends feasted with God in token of reconciliation. " It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." ' The obvious inadequacy of these sacrifices, which nevertheless were accepted and even commanded by God, showed them to be typical of something which should afterwards be revealed ; an atonement which should have a real and sufficient efficacy, a means of access and communion which should in very deed restore man to tlie presence of God. In this way the Law was, by its very imperfection, a tutor bringing men to Christ. But not the Law only; all ' lleb. X. 4. TJie Promise of Salvation 141 ethnic religion as well, by insisting with whatever obscurity on the principle of sacrifice, bore witness to the need of what he should do, and prepared the way for him who was alike the Hope of Israel and the Desire of the Nations. CHAPTER III CONCERNING REDEMPTION Sect. I. — The Incarnation " The Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us." We have already considered the personality of the Eternal Word. This Divine Person, we are taught, became man ; that is to say, he took into the unity of his Person our human nature in its completeness, body and soul. He did not take only a human body, to which his Divine nature stood in the relation of soul ; for a human body alone is not man. In the language of Scripture, the flesh is the whole composite humanity. The word is used by St. Paul for that which is opposed to the spiritual or godly, when it stands not for the body, which is equally sacred with the soul, but for the corrupt nature that we inherit. " They that are in the flesh," he says, " cannot please God." It is the " flesh of sin," and in the likeness of this flesh God sent his Son.^ It is an obvious truth, and for that very reason, perhaps, not stated in express terms of revelation, that by the act of taking this flesh into union with himself he cleansed it from sin. 2 Such is indeed the purpose of the Incarna- ' I Cor. vi. 13-20 ; Rom. viii. 3, 8, - I do not touch the question whether the Flesh which he took of his Mother was already cleansed in her. Such cleansing would only anticipate the effect of the Incarnation. 142 The Incarnation 143 tion. According to the bold figure of St. Athanasius, man was a portraiture of God graven out of created matter, but obliterated by accumulations of filth. For the restoration of the likeness, he who was the very- Image depicted, and for whose sake the dishonoured material was saved from destruction, came in his own Person.^ The created image of God, as we have seen, is the rational nature of man ; the likeness of God was the original righteousness in which man was created. The image, defaced by the obliteration of this likeness, was restored, and more than restored, by the assumption of manhood into the Person of the Eternal Word. Human nature was thus endowed with the unchangeable holiness of God himself, and the Divine purpose in creating man was definitely fulfilled : Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. The image was there from the first and was indestructible ; the likeness was impressed on man as he came from the hand of his Maker; but notwithstanding this, we have seen reason to suppose that he was created not in his ultimate perfection, but in the way to it, and that his progress was turned aside by the opposition of his own will to the Divine Will. This was remedied, and the ultimate perfection was attained, when the Word was made flesh. The Incarnate Word is therefore called, in his human nature, the second Adam, and that for two reasons. He is the firstborn • Athans., De huarn. Verbi, c. xiv., Op., torn. i. p. 66 : 'Cis yap TTjs •Ypa(piip &>v TOv IIoTpbs, -rrapeyevero iirl tovs Tj/xerfpcDV rSirovs, 'iva rhv Kar' avrhv TTfTTOirjfj.fyov &vQpoi-KOV avaKnivlffri. 144 The Elements of CJiristian Doctrine of restored and perfected humanity, and he is also the origin of a restored and perfected race; his work is to bring many sons to glory, ^ This work of cleansing and restoring human nature is the purpose of the Incarnation. We can speak of this purpose only so far as our knowledge extends. Theologians have debated the question whether, if man had not fallen, the Son of God would nevertheless have become incarnate. It is a question of purely speculative theology. The answer is no part of Christian doctrine. God does not reveal to us what would have been, if things had been other than they are. He reveals that which it concerns us to know, things being as they are. We know indeed that God the Creator has an eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord ; that a mystery of Christ, hidden from all ages in God, is now revealed by the gathering in of men as fellow-members of his Body, and fellow- partakers of the promise in him. That is to say, we are forbidden to think of the work of Christ as an after- thought of mercy consequent upon the Fall, even if such a conception were not contradictory to the Divine attri- butes. But nothing is revealed as to the manner in which this work would have been done, if sin had not been. Revelation is of realities ; and the fallen state of man being his actual state, the Incarnation of the Son of God is revealed as relative to that state. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. The religion of Jesus Christ appeals to the heart by the revelation of God's good will toward us, even in our rebellion : " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." ''■ ' Heb. ii. lO. * Eph. iii. 4-1 1 ; Luke xix. 10 ; John iii. 16. The Incarnation 145 About the Person of the Incarnate Word there has been long and shameful controversy. Definition by the Church has been made necessary through the persistence of heresies. No such definition has ever been wantonly undertaken. The difificulty of expressing in human language the circumstances of a fact so inexplicable and so incomparable as the Incarnation, is sufficient ground for avoiding definition if possible. The idea of incarna- tion was not, indeed, unknown to the ancient world ; it appears in more than one form of Eastern belief. Here, as elsewhere, the facts of the gospel fulfil the desires of men. But the existence of these ideas endangered more than it helped the right understanding of the truth. False ideas, imported from divers sources, impaired the hold of Christians upon the faith of the gospel. The definitions of the Church are nothing else but the declaration of that faith in a form adapted to meet the false ideas imported. The doctrine of the Incarnate Word, regarded his- torically as developed in controversy, has been called Christology. For our purpose it will sufifice to sum up the doctrine as guarded by the definitions of the Church against various forms of error. The Body of Christ is real, not a phantasm, as held by the Docetics, who seem to have derived their idea from the pagan theophanies, or appearances of the gods in human form. He was really born of the Virgin Mary his mother ; he hungered and thirsted ; he suffered and died a real death. The Soul of Christ is a true human soul, complete in all its natural powers. The Apollinarians held that Christ's Body was informed with life by the Divine Word, in place of the rational human soul. His complete humanity was thus denied ; if this were true, he was not L 146 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine made man, but assumed only the material organization of man. But we are expressly taught that he advanced in wisdom as in stature ; that he is able to sympathize with our weakness ; that he endured all our trials, save only those which come from the existence in us of the sinful habit.^ The Body of Christ was therefore formed in the womb of his Mother, though without the impregnation of human seed, yet otherwise naturally, being compacted of her blood; was born, though, it is piously believed, without injury to her virginity, yet otherwise naturally ; was nourished in the ordinary course of nature, suffered and died by the common death of all men. This Body was animated by a true human Soul, created as other souls are created, but untouched by the taint of original sin. This Soul was fully equipped with all natural powers and capacities of understanding and will, with all the supernatural endowments bestowed upon original man, and further with other supernatural endowments, on which little light is thrown by revelation, consequent upon the personal union of the manhood with the Divine Nature. Nevertheless he, whose Soul and Body these were, was none other than the Divine Person, the Eternal Son of God. Many attempts have been made to avoid this truth. Apart from the heresy of Arius, who made the Word himself a creature, the root of all these attempts will be found in the teaching attributed to Theodore of Mopsuestia, that a man Jesus of Nazareth, miraculously born of the Virgin Mary, was by a supreme and unique operation of Divine grace united to the Eternal Son. In the form of Nestorianism this became the assertion of two distinct hypostases or personalities. The Divine ' Luke ii. 52 ; Ileb. iv. 15. The Incarnation 147 Person of the Son and a human person were supposed to be jomed together in a way passing understanding. It was a minor question at what point of time the union took place, whether immediately upon the conception of the human person, or, as some held, when he was grown to man's estate, and specifically at the baptism in Jordan. An error near akin to this, but complicated with denial of the Trinity of Persons, was that of the Polish Unitarians in the seventeenth century, who held that the man Jesus of Nazareth was by reason of his perfect obedience made partaker of the Divine attributes, and therefore was to be worshipped as God.^ The Church met these subtleties by the plain declara- tion that he who was born of Mary was God. The Council of Ephesus closed the way to evasion by attributing to Mary the title of Theotokos, God-bearer. One only indivisible Person was God from the beginning, was made man, was born of the Virgin Mary, died, and rose again, and lives for ever more, both God and Man.2 In the unity of this one Person are the two complete and perfect Natures, Divine and Human. The Godhead is not converted into flesh ; humanity is not deified. This truth, surpassing our understanding equally with that of the Holy Trinity, is known as the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union. It was defined at the Council of ' Racovian Catechism, p. io6, ed. 1659 : " Qui etiam Dei litulo iure appellandus ; " p. 136 : " Eum necesse est et potestate atque imperio, virtute seu potentia et sapientia et, ut alia nunc mittam, honore et cultu Deo esse similem." - The Latin and English expressions, Mater Da, AlotJur of God, are too well established in use to be excluded, but they are not satisfactory renderings of ®iOT6Kos. Dei Genitrix, suggesting origin, is even less happy. Deipara is the exact equivalent. 148 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine Chalcedon, to meet the heresy of Monophysitism, which makes of the Incarnate Word neither true and perfect God nor true and perfect Man, but a new nature com- pounded of the two. Each of the two Natures, being perfect and entire, has its own proper operation. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, acts truly as God, and also acts truly as Man. He has therefore both Divine knowledge and human knowledge, distinct and without confusion. He has also his Divine will and his human will, equally distinct. The importance of this truth we shall see when we come to speak of his human life. The truth of the double operation was secured by the Church in long and acrimonious controversy with the Monothelites. In all this labour of definition the Church has added nothing to the truths revealed in the gospel. The one purpose of it all has been to guard the simple truth of the Incarnation, that the Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true Man, against the subtleties of error which would impair the truth either of his Godhead or of his Manhood. The Church does not pretend to explain the mystery. The terms used in definition do not make it easier to believe or to understand. They do not even express the truth more clearly than it is stated in the gospel, for that is impossible. They only guard against a perverse misreading of the gospel, or exclude attempted ex- planations of the mystery which in trying to simplify it empty it of meaning. One further point must be touched. Everything which is said of the Lord Jesus Christ is said, in the rigour of speech, either of his Divine Nature or of his Human Nature. When we say that he was born, that he hungered, that he died, we are clearly speaking of his Human Nature, his human operation. The Incarnation 149 When he said, " Before Abraham was, I am," he was speaking in respect of his Divine Nature. But so com- plete is the unity of his Person, that ahke in Scripture and elsewhere the distinction is not always observed. He who is God was born, hungered, and died. He who is Man had seen Abraham. Therefore the same thing may be asserted alike of God, who is also Man, or of Man who is also God. While yet on earth, he spoke of himself as " the Son of Man which is in heaven." St. Paul could say that God had purchased to himself a Church " with his own Blood," and to speak thus of the Blood of God became the common use of the Church. In exactly the same way is the word Thcotokos used. This mode of speech is technically termed by theologians comumnicatio idiomatum^ the interchange of properties.^ The Word was made Flesh of the seed of Abraham. He came, that is to say, not as if by chance, but in ful- filment of the Divine promise. In a well-known passage St. Paul insists that the seed of Abraham, to whom the promises were made, is in the first place Christ himself, and signifies only in a secondary sense the line of descent and the nation of Israel through whom it ran. In like manner he is unquestionably the seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent's head. His genealogy is for this reason traced, by St. Luke from Adam, by St. Matthew from Abraham. The new dispensation of God which he introduced was not a violent supersession of the old, but an orderly development. He came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil. The ' In Greek, avT'i^oais. John viii. 58 ; iii. 13 ; Acts xx. 28, where the alternative reading Kupi'ov, removing a startling turn of speech, is so obvious a substitute that the canon of the more difficult reading effectually disposes of it. St. Ignatius has eV aiaari Qeov, Ad Ephes. i. ; and Wetstein, ad loc. , cites many others who use the phrase. ISO The Elements of Christian Doctrine work of Redemption is thus shown to be continuous with the work of Creation. The one Eternal Word by whom the worlds were made is he who came in the ful- ness of time to restore and complete his own work. Nothing was set aside as failure ; nothing was abrogated, save that which was only preparatory to his coming. " For how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the yea ; wherefore also through him is the Amen, unto the glory of God through us.^ More particularly he was born of the lineage of David ; and the genealogy of St. Matthew, as compared with that given by St. Luke, seems to show that, whether by some law of adoption or otherwise, he was the lawful heir of David's house. The construction of the genealogy is not clear, but the meaning can hardly be doubted. He was shown to be the Messiah, the Anointed of the Lord in regular descent, who should receive the kingdom of his father David. The manner of the kingdom was not according to the expectation of men ; but it grew naturally out of the older form according to the purpose of God. ' Human kingship and human law, like all that is good in human life, are a shadowed image of the Divine ; the Son of God came as Messiah, not to supersede them, but to perfect them by personal union with the Divine Nature. He took Flesh of the substance of the Virgin Mary his Mother. For what cause it was the will of God that he should be born of a pure Virgin, without impregnation by the seed of man, theologians may inquire with reverence. Christian doctrine is concerned only with the fact. By the visitation of the Holy Ghost, by the overshadowing of the power of the Most High, Mary was enabled to give life and form in her womb to the ' Gal. iii. i6 ; Gen. iii. 15 ; Matt. v. 17 ; 2 Cor. i. 20. The I Jicar nation 1 5 1 flesh which the Son of God took of her substance. He was not only conceived, he was also born of the Virgin Mary, as the Church confesses in the Creed ; her virginity remaining constant with maternity. The Virgin- birth was not essential, in the nature of things, to the incarnation of the Son of God. Other modes of taking flesh were open to the omnipotence and sanctifying grace of God. But this mode was seemly. The truth of the Incarnation, and all that flows therefrom, does not rest upon the Virgin-birth, which for that reason, perhaps, is little insisted upon by the writers of the New Testament. It is in fact barely mentioned. But for us the fact is important as emphasizing the solitary dignity, even in his human nature, of the Incarnate Word. It does not injure the truth of his manhood. In all other respects, save the virginity of the Mother, the process was normal. The child grew in her womb, nourished by her blood, and was born in due course, a Babe like any other. Here also we note the persistence of order. The course of nature was varied as little as might be. The Incarnate Word was truly and naturally the Son of Man, born of a woman. ^ The Babe thus born lived a normal human life, advancing in wisdom and in stature. " For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one : for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." This was necessary for the completion of his work. " It ' Gal. iv. 4. It is perhaps significant that the phrase born of wotjian is used to signify man in his natural condition, Matt. xi. ii ; Job xiv. I, and elsewhere. See St. Thomas Aq., Sitin. Thcol., 3- 33- 4 : "Si enini consideremus id quod est ex parte materiae conceptus, quam mater ministravit, totum est naturale. Si vero consideremus id quod est ex parte virtutis activae, totum est miraculosum." 152 The Elements of Christian Doctrine behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren. . . . For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." Though welcomed at the first by solemn portents, his life was not such as to attract extraordinary attention. His Mother alone would seem to have stored in her memory the events of the sacred infancy, and those among whom he had grown up to manhood were of all men the most amazed at the revelation of power attending his public ministry.^ We touch a difficult question that cannot be set aside as merely one of speculative theology. St. Paul says that Jesus Christ, " being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.^ This emptying has exercised many minds, more especially of late years. The personal union of the Divine Word and the perfect manhood involves a relation between the two Natures which is to us inexplicable. We know only what is revealed. Inferences cannot be drawn from what is known without grave peril of mistakes ; they should be made, if at all, with the greatest reverence and reserve. The Lord Jesus Christ personally, as the Divine Word, has the inalienable possession of the Divine glory, power, knowledge, and blessedness. But personally also he took human flesh to be the instrument by which he should do a certain work. The emptying of which St. Paul speaks might mean nothing more than this condescension. But the word seems a very strong one if used to express no more. It may refer to the manner in which he made • Luke ii. 51, 52 ; Mark vi. 3, and parallel passages ; Heb. ii. II, 18. St. Athanasius {Contr. Apollin., torn. i. p. 617) shows that e'l kvbs must signify common origin from Adam. ■" Phil. ii. 6. The Incarnation 153 himself known to men, veiling the glory of his Godhead, not merely in the form of a creature, but in the lowliest guise of human life. The meaning may reach beyond this into regions of thought impenetrable to us. The only interpretation which must be rejected is any which implies a change in the Divine attributes. Again, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of himself in the Gospel as ignorant of something in the future. " Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." ^ He seems to attribute this ignorance to himself personally, as the Eternal Son. This we can only account for as an example of that communicatio idioviahim of which we have spoken above. In saying that he knew it not, he must have been speaking in respect of his Human Nature. He could not be ignorant as God. But how could he personally both know and not know ? It is the standing question of the two operations in the one Person. A limitation of knowledge in his human Soul is clearly indicated ; nor is this any more than is involved in his advancement in wisdom. But on the other hand he came to reveal the truth of God, and this by the word of his mouth. If in his Human Nature he was of limited know- ledge, how could he do this ? A superhuman knowledge is in many places of the Gospel attributed to him, and that not by inspiration as in the case of the prophets. It is emphatically said that he knew things /// himself \\\\\^ were apart from the knowledge of sense. Not otherwise can he be accepted as the sure and final Teacher of the ' Mark xiii. 32. I dismiss, with Liddon [Bampioji Lectmrs, p. 459, 8th ed.), as unsatisfactory the patristic interpretations of the ignorance as economic, meaning only that this was knowledge which the Incarnate Son was not to reveal. 154 TJie Elements of Christia7i Doctrine hidden things of God. The purpose of his coming in the flesli could not be fulfilled without such knowledge. His Soul was therefore illumined by personal union with the Word. It is not only that he, though Man, knew all things, in the sense in which he, though God, suffered and died. He knew things, as Man, in his human Soul, which are beyond the compass of human knowledge. Theologians call this the infused knowledge of Jesus Christ. In addition, he had the ordinary acquired know- ledge common to all men. His knowledge we have seen to be limited. This is allowed on all hands of his acquired knowledge. He lived, in this respect, the true human life of his time and country. But in regard to his infused knowledge, there has not been perfect agreement among orthodox Christians. Some, and more particularly Western theologians, have held that from the moment of con- ception the Soul of Jesus was filled with all knowledge. It is not impossible, though there are passages in the Gospel hard to reconcile with such a supposition. It seems safer to say, with the greatest of the Eastern Fathers, that as he assumed the human weakness of hunger and thirst, so also he clothed himself in the proper weakness of human ignorance.^ If it be asked what was the extent of his infused knowledge, it may safely be answered that, as Man, he knew all things which it was necessary for him, as Man, to teach men. We are not bound to limit such knowledge to that which he actually ' Athanas., Cofttra Avian. Orat. iv., torn. i. p. 496 : Tajr avOpdirav tffTiv tSiov rh ayvoeTv, /col (rdpKa ayvoovtrav eveSvaaTo. And again, p. 497 : "Clffirep yap ^vOpunros yevo/j-evos fitTO, ayOptiiroJV ireiva Kal Si\pa Kal Traerxet, ovroos /nera fxev avOpanraiv iis &vdpwiTos ovK olSe, dt'iKws Se &C iv rcf irarpX ojs A070S Koi 'S,o ^'id x^P'''""*'''- The Latin gratia, the English grace, are used as equivalents, and their sense follows that of the original. The use of the word as a rendering of evirpfireia. in the English version of Jas. i. ii is unfortunate. 1 68 Tlie Elements of Christian Doctrine short of the end of his being. Therefore, although moral effort after good, even in the most abject of creatures, must be always pleasing to God, yet there is something lacking \ God cannot be rightly well pleased with the merely natural man, still less with fallen man. Nor is it possible for man by the exercise of his natural powers to earn for himself supernatural endowments. He may conceivably earn all possible rewards that are in the order of nature, but no more. If he receive more, it can only be of the free bounty of God, not as of debt. We are shut up then to this, that we can enter into favour with God and become well pleasing to him, only by receiving of his bounty that supernatural beauty which is required for our perfection according to his will. This is what we mean by the Grace of God. We may pass by the instances of such grace given to individual persons under the Old Testament ; they were exceptional, and we know not the measure of the gift. We may on the same ground pass by the case of the ever- blessed Mother of God, hailed by the angel Gabriel as endued with grace. We come to the Incarnate Word himself, who dwelt among us full of grace. In his perfect manhood, as well as in the truth of his Divine Nature, he was the beloved Son, well pleasing to the Father. We see in him the perfection of all natural graces, the perfection also of supernatural grace, his manhood enriched by personal union with the Godhead. Both are perhaps indicated when we are told that he advanced in grace, in favour with God and men ; we need not too curiously ask which is meant when we read that men wondered at the words of grace pro- ceeding out of his mouth. The power of holiness that was in the humanity of Jesus Christ was the free gift of God. It was not a reward for his obedience; it was The Doctrine of Grace 169 that which made his obedience possible. God anointed him with the Holy Ghost and with power, crowned him with glory and honour. For his obedience there was more given; he was heard for his godly fear; he was perfected for his work by his suffering obedience ; but still it was by the grace of God that he tasted death for every man/ In the Person of Jesus Christ man was brought into favour with God. But the immediate effect extends beyond his own Person. He redeemed all men. All, by the virtue of his Atonement, are brought into a new relation to God. " The grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men." ^ A new dignity is given to the human race, bought with such a price. As the redemption of Israel from Egypt brought the nation as a whole into a new relation of favour with God, so the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ endues all mankind with a corresponding favour. The love of God is one unchanging act of will, but in regard to its manifestation we distinguish between the love that brought to pass the Incarnation, and the love that is bestowed upon redeemed humanity. This latter is a favourable regard towards those whom the beloved Son represents, rendering in the community of their flesh his offering of perfect obedience, a perfect human service. There is a grace which is universal. But we mean more than this by the state of grace. ' Luke i. 28 ; ii. 52 ; iii. 22 ; iv. 22 ; John i. 14 ; Acts x. 38 ; Heb. ii. 9, 10 ; v. 7. " Titus ii. II. The alternative rendering, which connects iirecpdvri with Traaiv dvdpioiroLs, does but slightly weaken the force of the words, making them mean that the light of God's favour has extended to all. Compare the collect, " Deus, qui humanae substantiae dignita- tem mirabiliter condidisti, et mirabilius reformasti," etc. I/O The Elements of Christian Doctrine To stop here is to rest in a kind of Semipelagianism. Complete Pelagianism is the denial of original sin, the assertion of a natural power in man to rise to all perfec- tion. It is hardly a less pernicious error to hold that a soul once redeemed/ and so brought into a new relation of favour with God, is able to advance by virtue of this liberation to all supernatural excellence. This opinion with regard to the operation of grace is not unlike that of the Deists in regard to the operation of nature. It assumes an original impulse given by the Divine Will, but excludes the abiding activity of God. The broad teaching of the New Testament is that for the attainment of salvation each man needs, not only an original accept- ance into favour, but a continual outpouring of God's grace. The grace of God is multiform ; we have gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us ; of his fulness we receive grace for grace, favour upon favour.^ T'o be in the continual reception of that which God thus bestows is to be in the state of grace. There follows from this a meaning of the word which is peculiarly and characteristically Christian. We owe it perhaps to St. Paul himself, but to St. Paul as delivering the truth which he had received from the Lord. It signifies the help of God, without which no man can either escape from sin or continue in the way of salva- tion. The need of this continual help, as alone making ' Or even regenerate : this being one of the forms of Semipelagian error condemned by Celestine I. in his Epistle to the Bishops of Gaul, c. vi. (Denzinger, Enchiridion, p. 26). - I Pet. iv. 10 (ttoi/ciAtj) ; Rom. xii. 6; John i. 16. I take this last difficult passage in the sense given to it by St. Augustine, Tract. \\\. in Joan., § 10: " De bonitatis eius accepimus. Quid? Remissionem peccatorum, ut iustificaremur ex fide. Et insuper quid ? Et graiiam pro gratia ; id est, pro hac gratia in qua ex fide vivimus, recepluri sumus aliam." See p. 177, note *. Tlie Doctrine of Grace 171 man able to please God, was maintained with the greatest emphasis by St. Paul against the Judaizing opinion that a careful observance of certain rules of life could of itself secure the Divine favour. This is the moral significance of his favourite antithesis between law and grace. The doctrine was little in evidence, because little needed, during the first Christian centuries. The rise of the Pelagian heresy gave it a new importance, the antithesis now being between nature and grace, and the Church found in St. Augustine the doctor who was to formulate the teaching of the gospel in reply to the question thus forced to the front. It cannot be denied that in the stress of controversy St. Augustine was pushed to exaggeration. He was careful to guard some of his own expressions in his book of Retractations. He left others unguarded which in later days were made to shelter new errors. But in the main his exposition of the doctrine of grace, fortified by many conciliar decrees, was adopted by the whole Church. In Western Chris- tendom it entered most peculiarly into the language of public worship. The collects of the Latin Sacramen- taries were saturated with its terms, which survive, but little obscured, in our English version. Christian doctrine is concerned chiefly with this auxiliary grace. But the primary meaning of the word is never to be lost sight of. It determines the nature and the purpose of the help given. Bearing this in mind, we may briefly summarize the doctrine of grace as follows. Man is born in a state of sin. He is necessarily dis- pleasing to the holiness of God. Out of this state he cannot raise himself. He cannot even choose what is good, save in a halting way, since the freedom of his will is impaired by the corruption of his nature ; still 1/2 The Elements of Christian Doctrine less can he perform even the imperfect good that he purposes. He thus lies in the wrath of God, But by reason of the perfect service of the Incarnate Word, the Son of Man, the whole of mankind is brought into a new relation of favour with God ; human nature has become pleasing to him. There is grace for all. Individual men however are still alienated from God by the aversion of their wills. But in pursuance of the new favour or grace that is come by Jesus Christ, God enables men severally to address their wills to the choice of good. If a man respond to this enabling grace, which he receives by the free gift of God, and which he is free to use or to neglect, he is brought into the state of grace ; he is the object of God's favour, he receives further help, enabling him to develop graces of character, and to live a life of grateful service ; continuing thus he receives the final grace of perseverance to the end. At every stage without the gracious help of God he can do nothing further ; and equally at every stage he is free to resist the Divine influence, and to decline from the grace received. We may distinguish between grace regarded as the mere gift of God, and grace regarded in its effect as making the recipient well pleasing to God. It is wider in the former regard, and will include those special gifts which are called by St. Paul charismata. These are powers bestowed by God not so much with a view to the personal salvation or perfection of the recipient, as for the purpose of enabling him to fill his place in the company of God's people. They belong therefore more especially to the doctrine of the Church. We are not here concerned with the profound questions of theology which gather round the doctrine of grace, and which at various times, and especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have been the subject of ■ The Doctrine of Grace 173 strenuous controversy. One question however is too fundamental to be wholly passed by. The insoluble problem of reconciling the freedom of the creature with the sovereignty of the Creator reappears in this connection. God wills the salvation of a man ; he appoints the means of salvation, and gives them by his grace. How can his Will be frustrated? An exaggerated answer on the one hand says that grace, which God gives to whom he will, is an irresistible influence ; that as no man can be saved without it, so no man to whom it is granted can fail of salvation. This is the teaching of Jansenism and Calvinism. An exaggerated answer on the other side leans to Pelagianism, and exalts the freedom of man to the extent of making the grace of God little more than a general support of human effort. As we have seen before, we have no means of correlating the two facts of God's infinite will and man's freedom. We can say only that God wills man to be free, and leave the problem there unsolved.^ Setting aside these questions, we must ask what are the effects of grace in the individual man. The first effect is Justification. This word means in common language the acquittal of an accused person. ^ In the language of revelation a man is said to be justified when he is dis- charged of the guilt of sin. But how can God, the righteous Judge, acquit sinners ? It is not enough to say that he does it of grace, for we may not set his attributes of mercy and justice in opposition. A human tribunal ' See Note E. ' I do not forget that Iiko-ioxiv is used by Greek authors alike of condemning and acquitting. It was to do justice one way or the other. There is a curious parallel in the Scottish use of the word justify in the sense of execute justice. But this other sense does not appear in the Scriptural or theological use of the word. 174 T^Jif^ Elements of Christian Doctrine may acquit the guilty tiirough ignorance or carelessness, or by an arbitrary act of mercy. Not so God. If then he discharge sinners of their guilt, it is because in some way their guilt ceases to be. In strict justice, a human tribunal can only declare the man innocent who was not guilty in fact. But God, who calleth the things that are not as though they were, can do more. The grace of God which is won for us by the merits of Jesus Christ, moving a man to will what is good, moves him also to recognize in Jesus Christ the power of holiness triumphing over sin, a power which he sees made accessible to man. This recognition is faith in Jesus Christ. He is further moved by grace to a grateful love and service, and enabled to make a beginning herein by some act of self-surrender. The power of the life of Christ, who was raised for our justification, is com- municated to him, so that henceforth Christ may live in him, and he may live his life in the power of the Son of God. Hereupon his sins are not merely forgiven ; they are done away. The guilt of sin being nothing else but the aversion of the man from God, so soon as he is effectually turned to God his guilt ceases. The man is justified. He still has to bear the natural consequences of his natural acts and of the nature which he received from his fathers; he must suffer and die. But in his new condition he is approved of God, and accounted righteous. It is not therefore difficult to see why St. Paul teaches that we are justified by grace, and almost in the same breath asserts that we are justified by faith apart from the works of the Law, while St. James emphatically declares that a man is justified not by faith only but by works. They are three partial statements of the whole truth, which St. Paul gathers up elsewhere by saying that The Doctrine of Grace 175 to rely on Law for justification is to fall away from grace, and that what avails is faith working through love/ We have so far considered the justification of a conscious subject, who responds to the first movement of grace and surrenders himself to its operation. But infants are justified as well, and brought into the state of grace. In their case the operation is simpler, and at the same time less intelligible. It is simpler because there is no element of personal action on the part of the recipient of grace. It is less intelligible because all takes place in a soul that is not conscious of itself, a region that lies outside our experience. Of the fact we are assured. The infant was born in sin ; he is freed from the inherited guilt and stain of sin. The operation is obscure, an act of the hidden wisdom of God. Grace cannot be said to move the infant's will, for his will is not yet capable of movement ; still less can he be moved to faith. It may be said however that the movement of the will is not part of the active cause of justification ; it is necessary only because the human will, acting under the impulse or constraint of sinful nature, opposes the action of grace, which opposition must be removed by the conversion of the will. But the faculty of will in the infant is not yet active ; it does not therefore interpose any bar to the action of grace. The self-surrender of faith, again, is necessary only because the mind has been actually turned away from God ; but the mind of the infant, though born with a native tendency in that direction, has not yet acted. There is thus nothing to hinder the free action of grace upon the soul, purging its inherited corruption, correcting its native tendency to evil, and so rendering it acceptable to God or justified. But these considerations belong rather to speculation than to ' Rom. iii. 24, 28 ; Jas. ii. 24 ; Gal. v. 4-6. 176 The Elements of Christian Doctrine doctrine. \Vhat we are taught is the fact that infants are freely justified by grace. The effect of continuing grace is the development of holiness, or sanctification. Justification and sanctification are not to be set apart by a hard and fast distinction. They are the beginning and the carrying on of the same operation. God does not justify without imparting holiness; the first vocation of the Christian is to be a saint. Nor is the operation necessarily one of unbroken continuity. A man may fall from the state of grace by an act of deadly sin ; his renewal by repentance is a fresh justification. Repentance means precisely that change of attitude towards God, produced by grace moving the will, which makes it possible to discharge the sinner of guilt. ^ The work of sanctification is then resumed. The true distinction is that between the power of grace effecting a change in the man's state, and the same power maintaining and perfecting him in his new state, the state of grace, called also the state of salvation. We have set aside the complications of theological science, but it may be useful to note the principal terms and distinctions used in discussing the doctrine of grace. Theologians distinguish actual and habittial grace. The former is an influence directly moving the will or helping the recipient to perform that which he wills. The latter is the Divine influence abiding in the soul, directing the ordinary course of Christian life, and rendering the possessor pleasing in the sight of God. They distin- guish /;rt'mz>«/ and subsequent grace. These terms are ' No language of Western Europe has a word answering exactly to iKiTavofiv, which is rendered in Latin paenitenliam agere, in English repent. The sense of the words in use must be determined by the sense of this, the original term of Christian teaching. The Doctrine of Grace lyj relative to the effect of grace. The help of God works in us a given effect, and following that up works a further and consequent effect. By prevenient grace, says St. Augustine, we are healed ; by subsequent grace when healed we are quickened and refreshed ; by the one we are called, by the other we are glorified.' In much the same way grace is distinguished as operating and co- operating^ the one moving the will, the other aiding in the accomplishment of what is willed. It is distinguished again for deeper questions, into sufficient and effectual grace. The former term is derived from the encourage- ment given to St. Paul, " My grace is sufficient for thee," ^ but the meaning is extended. On the principle that he who wills the end wills the means, it is said that God, willing the salvation of men, gives them grace sufficient for the attainment of salvation, but in some only does it become effectual. On the relation between these two aspects of grace have turned some of the darkest of controversies. It has not been the will of God to reveal to us the whole of his working.^ In reviewing these distinctions, however, it is important to bear in mind that the grace of God, though diverse in its effect, is one undivided operation of his love and power. Essentially it is nothing else but that partaking of the Divine Nature which is conferred on us through Jesus Christ our Lord.* ' Aug., De Nat. et Grat., c. 31 : " Praevenit ut sanemur, quia et subsequetur ut etiam sanati vegetemur ; praevenit ut vocemur, sub- sequetur utglorificemur." It is the distinction noted in the collect, " Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help," etc. - 2 Cor. xii. 9. 3 See Note E. * 2 Pet. i. 4. Sum. Theol., 1-2. 112. i : "Nihil aliud quam quaedam participatio divinae naturae." N 178 The Elements of Christian Doctrine Sect. IV. — Eternal Life Death came into the world by sin, and to every man severally death is the wages of sin. This natural consequence of the sinful state in which we are born does not disappear when guilt is done away by the grace of justification. The pardoned and justified sinner still has to live the life which is a progress towards death, and to undergo the death to which it leads. But the first entrance into the state of salvation is spoken of as the beginning of a new life. It is at once a death and a birth ; a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteous- ness. We are dead with Christ, says St. Paul ; we are mystically made to share his death, and by thus dying we are justified from sin. From this death we rise again, by the power of his resurrection, to walk in new- ness of life. Here we obviously have figurative language, but in the figure is solid truth. The truth is expressed elsewhere under the figure of a new birth. " Except a man be born anew, or from above," said the Lord Jesus Christ, "he cannot see the kingdom of God." He must be born of water and the Spirit. This, in the language of St. John, is to be born of God. We are saved, says St. Paul, through the laver of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.^ The new birth, or regeneration, is thus in a measure identified with justification, but there is an important distinction. The grace of justification is many times renewed : regeneration is a gift of life once for all. However often a man fall by deadly sin from the state of salvation, he may be restored by a fresh act of justifying ' Rom. vi. l-li ; John iii. 3, S ; I John iii. 9, et alibi ; Titus iii. 5. Eternal Life 179 grace ; but this restoration is not described in the terms of death and birth which are used of the original justification. We must carefully observe how death is spoken of in this connection. The word is used in two ways which, on the surface, are contradictory. It is used to signify the effect of sin, not only as a future consequence, but as present even now in those who yet live in the flesh. " Ye were dead," says St. Paul, " through your trespasses and sins, wherein aforetime ye walked." " He that loveth not," says St. John, " abideth in death." It is needless to multiply examples. On the other hand the way of escape out of this state of death is itself called death. " Ye died," says St. Paul to the Colossians, " and your life is hid with Christ in God." " We who died to sin," he asks, " how shall we any longer live therein? " We died with Christ ; we were made dead to the Law through the body of Christ. It was thus by death that we passed into a new life. But yet again there may be a return from this new life into the former state of death. There is a sin unto death, says St. John, which a brother, a member of the redeemed and sanctified company, may sin. This may be what is spoken of in the Apocalypse as the second death; it is certainly what is meant by St. Jude where he speaks of autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.-' From this second death no possibility of revival is anywhere suggested. In the third century there appeared a hard and fierce doctrine, prompted perhaps by growing laxity among Christians, according to which any single grievous sin committed after baptism brought the soul into this death. N ovatian of Rome taught thus, forming ' Eph. ii. I ; I John iii. 14; Col. iii. 3 ; Rom. vi. 2, 8 ; vii. 4; I John V. 16 ; Rev. xx. 6 ; Jude 12. i8o TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine a schism which long continued ; but the general Christian tradition held fast to the hoi^e of pardon and restoration for the fallen. In the language of the Church deadly sin is not a sin which plunges the soul at once into death, but one which, if continued without repentance, will certainly have that effect/ The remedy for such sin is the grace of justification, regarded not as giving new life but as arresting the approach of death. The sinner has fallen from the state of salvation which is spiritual health ; he is restored, not to a new life, but to the use and enjoyment of the life which was in danger. In one difficult passage St, John seems to speak of this restora- tion as a gift of life. " If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask and shall give him life." ^ But this may well be understood of extension or continuation of a threatened life. Nowhere is the repentance of a Christian spoken of as a passage through death into life. St. Paul desired to become conformed to the death of Christ ; but this was a continuance, not a renewal, of the mystical death by which he attained the new life. The life itself is necrosis^ mortification. Because we died, and our life is hid with Christ in God, there- fore we are to mortify our members which are upon the earth. St. Paul would bear about in his body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in his body. Such dying is not for renewal ' To use the words of St. Cyprian, death creeps on by reason of such sin. Penitence Uberates " non utique ab ilia morte quam semel Christi sangius extinxit, et a qua nos salutaris baptismi et redemptoris nostri gratia liberavit, sed ab ea quae per delicta post- modum serpit" (Epist., Iv. 22). * I John V. 16. There is no ground for the insertion " God shall give him." The Vulgate rendering turns the difficulty by using the passive ; " petat, et dabitur ei vita." Eternal Life i8i by penitence ; it is the law of continuous advance in sanctification.^ We may now see the meaning of the difficult passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews : " As touching those who were once enlightened . . . and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance, openly crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh." For those who have once been admitted to the life of grace there can be no fresh beginning. They were once crucified with Christ, openly brought into union with his death, and so into the light and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the powers of the age to come. If they fall back, repentance is not indeed denied them with its effect of restoration, but there is no complete renewal, no repetition of the death unto sin or of the new birth unto righteousness. It is a powerful exhortation to continuance and progress in the way of salvation. We cannot be ever beginning afresh ; we must go on to perfection.^ There is then a definite beginning of justification, which cannot be repeated. It is a new birth, and there- fore the beginning of a new life. It is the beginning- only, and from that beginning there is to be an advance. We are to grow in grace. We are not to remain children, but are to become as full-grown men, attaining to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.^ Life is an assemblage of powers. These may be possessed before they can be exercised. It is so in ' Phil. iii. lo ; Col. iii. 3-5, veKpdcrare ; 2 Cor. iv. lO, viKpuffiv ; cf. Rom. viii. 13, davarovn. These three words are found no- where else in this sense, until they came into common use among Christians by direct derivation from St. Paul. '^ Heb. vi. 4-6. See Note F. ' 2 Pet. iii. 18; Eph. iv. 13, 14. 1 82 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine nature. The human child is born with capacities which are developed with bodily growth. It is so in grace. Powers are given to the soul to be gradually brought into use. Their development does not depend upon natural growth. It is true that without a certain measure of his proper animal growth man remains incapable of exercising his spiritual faculties ; but_ the faculties im- planted by the grace of the new birth have a proper growth of their own, which depends on the continual supply of grace upon grace. From the time of Aristotle the Greek mind was familiar with the antithesis of power and energy, the potential and the actual. The metaphysical terms passed into the common language, losing, as usual, something of their sharpness in the transit, but retaining a flavour of the technical sense. In delivering his message, St. Paul makes use of these terms, more specially and more precisely in the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians, where he is dealing with vagaries of Greek thought, but elsewhere as well.' He presents the Christian life as a potentiality imparted by grace, which is energized or rendered actual by the continued operation of the Holy Spirit and the persevering response of the human heart. This answers very well to the conception of new birth, for life in the newly begotten is an assemblage of powers not yet actualized. Another figure of the new life demands attention. " I am the Vine," said the Lord Jesus Christ, " ye are the ' Eph. i. 19; ii. 2; iii. 7, 20; iv. 16; Col. i. 29; ii. 12. But compare i Cor. xii. 6, 10, il; Gal. iii. 5 ; v. 6 ; Phil. iii. 21. The words appear to be used more generally in Rom. vii. 5 ; 2 Cor. i. 6 ; iv. 12 ; while in Gal. ii. 8 ; i Thess. ii. 13, and 2 Thess. ii. 9-1 1, eVepyeia and ivepyelv are probably to be taken in a purely popular sense. Eternal Life 183 branches ; he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit : for apart from me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withered." The figure is taken up with variation by St. Paul, who speaks of the converted Gentiles as branches of wild olive engrafted in a good olive tree, and partaking of the root of its fatness. The new powers of fruit-bearing superadded to the natural life of the wild olive represent the powers of the life of grace superadded to the natural powers of humanity.^ " God gave unto us eternal life," says St, John, " and this Ufe is in his Son, He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son hath not the life." In abundance of figures we are taught that the life of Christ himself is in some sort communicated to us. St. Peter uses even bolder language. We are made partakers of the Divine nature ; to have the Son of God means nothing less than this. We have the mind of Christ, says St. Paul. Herein is the nature of the new life. The powers of which it is the assemblage are summed up as the capacity of knowing God. " This is life eternal," said the Lord, " that they should know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." His Divine power, says St. Peter again, has granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that called us. Knowledge and love, according to St. John, are twin powers of this life, and hardly distinguishable. " Every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." The spirit of the new life is the spirit of truth. " The natural man," says St. Paul, " receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him ; ' John XV. 5, 6 ; Rom. xi. 17-24, 184 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him ? But we have the mind of Christ." ^ Regeneration is the gift of this power or capacity of knowing God, which is to be energized in the Christian life now and hereafter. It is a power transcending that natural capacity for knowing the existence of God which is the foundation of natural religion. It is called spiritual because they who possess it are raised by the power of the Spirit of God to a higher intellectual perception. The life resulting is therefore called, though not expressly so in Holy Scripture, spiritual life. It is called also life eternal. The word, so used, is obviously to be taken in a sense differing somewhat from that in which we speak of the eternity of God — unbeginning and changeless existence. The life that is given us had a beginning in the gift ; it can be lost ; but it participates in eternity, as St. Thomas Aquinas puts it," because of the possibility of immutable continuance. It has no natural term. It may be violently cut off, but in its own nature it is everlasting. Unlike our animal life it has in it no seed of corruption. " Whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not," says St. John ; and yet we, who are now children of God, if we say that we have no sin, deceive ourselves. We have the two lives : the one after the flesh, in which the effect of sin still abides ; the other after the Spirit, which shares in the sinlessness of eternity.^ ' John xvii. 3 ; i Cor. ii. 14-16 ; 2 Pet. i. 3, 4 ; i John iv. 7, 8 ; V. II. I quote 2 Peter without intending .my judgment as to its source. See Note C. ^ Sum. Tkeol., i. 10. 3. ^ I John i. 8 ; iii. 2 ; v. 18. Eternal Life 185 \Vith this gift of spiritual and eternal life is intimately associated the doctrine of the Resurrection. Man's immortality and the eternal judgment of God are truths of natural religion which are rather assumed than revealed -in the gospel, and we cannot even say that much light is thrown upon them. The judgment is continually insisted upon as a tremendous fact. What we become in this life by the use or abuse of God's grace, that we must con- tinue to be eternally. The truth is impressed by awful description ; the searching nature of the inquisition, the rending of all veils of self-deceit, the trying and purifying flame, the fire and the worm of punishment, are brought into the picture ; but the time and the manner of the judgment remain obscure. Purely temporal judgments, such as the ruin of Jerusalem, are purposely combined in prophetic descri])tion with the final judgment of the world, and this again with the trial of individual souls. The ignorance of the day and hour which the Incarnate Son professed is characteristic of authentic Christian teaching on the subject. The doctrine of the Resurrection, put in the forefront of their teaching by the Apostles, adds this to the already accepted idea of immortality, that we look forward not only to conscious existence after death, but also to the full restoration of our whole nature, body and soul. The body which is the instrument of the soul will be laid aside in death, but resumed, with what change of material circumstance we know not, in the consummation of all things. The appearances of our Blessed Lord after his resurrection were so obviously adapted to the needs of those whom he visited, that we cannot safely argue from them to the constitution of the resurrection body. It is a glorious body, says St. Paul, and a spiritual body, as contrasted with the animal body that now is, the 1 86 The Elements of Christian Doctrine body of our humiliation. More definite knowledge is denied v&} It is clear that in the beginning of their teaching the Apostles were expecting a speedy return of the Lord and the end of this world. This eager expectation, coupled with the doctrine of the death unto sin and the new life, seems to have led some men to suppose that nothing else was meant by judgment and resurrection but the approval of converts and the grace of regeneration. Early in his teaching St. Paul had occasion to correct the idea that the Day of the Lord was already come. Soon afterwards he had to impress on the Corinthians the literal reality of the bodily resurrection. At the very end of his course he had to condemn certain who said that the resurrec- tion was past already, which was to overthrow the faith. There was an obvious danger to Christian morality in such teaching, which made the condemnation the more necessary.'-^ The resurrection of the flesh, though intimately associated in doctrine with the new life, is not to be thought of as a consequence of it. There are sayings that seem to imply as much. " If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you," says St. Paul, "he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, through his Spirit that dwelleth in you." But to read this in such a sense would be to contradict the patent teaching of other passages, where the resurrection is spoken of as general. It seems to be the will of God, irrespective of redemption, that the human soul should not be permanently deprived of its natural organ the body. In one of our Lord's obscure sayings about the future of the saved and the ' I Cor. XV. 44 ; Phil. iii. 2i. * 2 Thess. ii. 2 ; i Cor. xv. ; 2 Tim. ii. l8. Eternal Life 187 lost he speaks of soul and body alike being destroyed in Gehenna.' The grace of eternal life is connected with the resurrec- tion of the body, as ensuring to the reunited soul and body the possession of life in the highest sense. Eternal life, the power of knowing God, is even now given to the soul ; but the body remains subject to death. The body of the saint will rise again a spiritual body, sharing in the powers of the spiritual life. The whole man, body and soul, will enter into possession of the vision of God, which is the first and supreme beatitude. For this reason eternal life, which is sometimes said to be already granted, is at other times spoken of as a gift belonging to the world to come. Not until the resurrection can the saints enter upon its fulness. The consummation of eternal life is the unalterable joy of body and soul in the vision of God. Its correlative, eternal death, is unchang- ing banishment of body and soul, eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might. 2 Concerning the state of the separated soul between death and resurrection little is revealed. St. Paul knew that for him to be absent from the body was to be at home with the Lord. He had the desire to depart and be with Christ. When he had finished his course and the time of his departure was come, he spoke of a crown of righteousness thenceforth laid up for him which the Lord should give him at that day. The expression commonly refers to the coming of the Lord and the final judgment. It may refer here to the particular judgment at the hour of death; but more probably St. Paul is ' Rom. viii. II ; Matt. x. 28. Destruction is not to be confounded with annihilation. - Matt. XXV. 46 ; Mark x. 30; Rom, ii. 7 ; i Thess. i. 9. 1 88 The Elements of Christian Doctrine speaking of final entry upon the perfect state of glory at the resurrection, and contemplates in the mean time the blissful unalterable assurance of that which is in store for him.' A particular judgment at the hour of death is clearly indicated, since the righteous are adjudged worthy of admission to the presence of the Lord. On this judg- ment will depend the reward which each man shall receive according to his own labour. The work will be made manifest, revealed in fire ; the fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is. That which is built on a sure foundation will stand, even if it include some wood, hay, and stubble. These defects will be cleared away by the searching, purging fire, not without suffering ; but the rest will stand. " If any man's work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as through fire." - In this figure St. Paul clearly teaches that a soul which has received and retained the grace of eternal life will pass through a fiery trial of suffering. This will at once test and purify the work which the soul has done. If the work be all sound and pure, if the soul be already before death throughly purged from all earthly dross, it will pass through the fire scatheless. If any admixture of evil remain, the fire must purge it. The soul in either case lives on with the life of grace, and when throughly purged receives the reward, which will after the resurrec- tion be shared also by the glorified body. Theologians have debated whether the saints already before the resurrection have the beatific vision of God. The over- whelming weight of opinion is for the affirmative, but it remains opinion ; what is certain is that the souls of the ' 2 Cor. V. 8 ; Phil. i. 23 ; 2 Tim. iv. 8. - I Cor. iii. 8-15. See Note G. Eternal Life 189 perfected saints are at home with the Lord. St. Peter passed by martyrdom, says St. Clement, into the place of glory that was his due.^ Concerning souls that have not received or have lost the grace of eternal life still less is revealed. We may doubt whether our Lord, in using for the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the opinions and the figures current among the Jews, intended to convey any formal teaching on the subject. At the same time we must be assured that if these opinions had involved any serious falsehood he would not have so used them. In the parable we see the souls of the lost in hell, the place of the dead, tormented in flame and denied all hope of escaping into rest and felicity. Concerning this fire of hell two opinions have held ground in the Church. The one opinion, which prevails in Eastern Christendom, identifies it with the searching and purifying fire to which the souls of the saved are subject. These can pass through it, with whatever loss and suffering, into the place of joy. The lost will remain therein, even to the resurrection and beyond.^ The other opinion, general in the West, is that from the hour of death the souls of the lost and the souls that are to be saved as through fire are segregated into several places ; those pass into hell, these to a purging fire through which they attain to Paradise and the state of beatitude. It is obvious that when we speak of place in relation to the separated soul, we are accommodating our language to the conditions of corporeal existence. Such accommodation is unavoid- able if we are to speak of these things at all, and it has ' Clem., Ad Cor. v. : ei's t))v 6(peLX6fifuou rdTrov ttj s So^rt^. - Such is the teaching of the Council of Bethlehem, c. xviii. The Russian Catechism is less explicit. See Blackmore, Doctrine of the Russian Church, pp. 98, seqcj. 190 The Elements of Christian Doctrine the sanction of Scripture. The general belief about Purgatory, though defaced by gross imaginings, rests on a true basis of revelation. Through a fiery trial, testing and purging their work, the souls of faithful but faulty Christians pass into the fruition of eternal life. CHAPTER IV CONCERNING THE CHURCH Sect. I. — The Christian Society The Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world. Of the meaning of this there can be no doubt. Those who need a Saviour are those who are ruined by sin, and under this head comes the whole human race. He is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.^ He is the Saviour of all men potentially and in purpose, since he died for all ; he is the Saviour of believers actually and with effect. But not individual souls alone are saved, for that would not be the saving of the world. As we have seen above, man is by nature a social being ; he is what he is, and still more he is potentially what he may become, by reason of his place in human society; apart from society, if he can be conceived as so existing at all, he would be other than he is, other than he was designed to be by the Creator. The social order of mankind is no less disturbed and ruined by sin than are the lives of individual sinners, and this also needs restoration. The saving of the world is the healing of the social order. The end of this saving work is spoken of as the creation of a new heaven and a new earth wherein ' I Tim. iv. lo. 191 192 The Elements of CJiristian Doctritie dwelleth righteousness. It was promised in prophecy, looked for in the apostoHc age, seen in the apocalyptic vision of St, John. It was figured in the same vision as the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. Here it is a thing future, beheld in finished completeness. In like manner, as we have seen, eternal life is spoken of as perfect in the future, but at the same time as given to us now in possession. So too the Holy City is a present reality. Jerusalem that is above is our mother, says St. Paul. Our commonwealth is in heaven, he tells the Philippians, and he bids them live the common life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. They are themselves individually new creatures in Christ, and they are taken up into a new social order. The same truth is eloquently expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews : " Ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first- born who are enrolled in heaven." Our state is not yet perfect : " We have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come." Yet even now we are of the commonwealth of Israel, fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God.^ The word which became the fixed expression of this new social order is used in the above quotation from the Epistle to the Hebrews — the Greek word Ecclesia. It has passed through the Latin to most languages of Western Europe, but we render it in English by the word Church. To ascertain its meaning we must keep close to the ' Isa. Ixv. 17 ; Ixvi. 22 ; 2 Pet. iii. 13 ; Rev. xxi. i, 2 ; Gal. iv. 26 ; Phil. iii. 20 ; i. 27 (where for the force of iro\iTevfia aiid iroXiTevfadf see the margin of the Revised Version) ; 2 Cor. v. 17; Heb. xii. 22 ; xiii. 14 ; Eph. ii. 12, 19. The Christian Society' 193 original, and see how it was used in the first deUvery of the gospel. At the time when the Greek language took its lasting form the word Ecdesia meant the legal assembly of citizens in a free commonwealth. The figure of a commonweath is used, as we have seen, by St. Paul ; but we are not to seek here the origin of the term ; rather, we may say, the use of the term suggested the figure. The New Testament word Ecdesia is drawn immediately from the Greek rendering of the Old Testament. It is there the equivalent of two Hebrew words, the one signi- fying properly the whole nation of Israel regarded as an organized society, the other meaning strictly the assembly of the heads of the nation. The former word went gradually out of use, and the latter was used in both senses. The Greek word representing it " would naturally," says Dr. Hort, " for Greek-speaking Jews mean the congregation of Israel quite as much as an assembly of the congregation." It was a term of distinctly social import ; as Dr. Hort says again, it " suggested no mere agglomeration of men, but rather a unity carried out in the joint action of many members, each having his own responsibilities, the action of each and all being regulated by a supreme law or order." ' With its meaning thus fixed, the word passed into the New Testament. It is found only twice in the Gospels : both places are in St. Matthew, and both are critical. • Iloit, The Christian Ecdesia, ch. i. pp. 7, 15. The Hebrew words are edhdh and qdhdl, distinguished in the Revised English Version by the words congregation and assembly. An alternative rendering, much the more common for edhdh, is awayuiy^)^ which in the course of time shifted its significance, and came to be used almost exclusively, as we see it in the New Testament, of a mere local assembly. O 194 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine The chronological order of the narrative is so uncertain that we cannot build anything on the priority of occasion, but we may take the passages as they stand. The Lord Jesus Christ, having drawn from St. Peter the confession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," pro- nounced a blessing on him, and continued : " I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter {Fcfros), and upon this rock (pefra) I will build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven." ^ Here the Lord speaks of the establishment of the Church in the near future. He will build it ; a figure of speech frequently used in the Old Testament in respect of the congregation of Israel. He gives it the familiar name designating that congregation, but at the same time he calls it My Church. He points at once to the old and to the new ; to the old order remaining and yet made new, as always in the work of redemption and salvation. In the other place where the word is found the Lord is laying down a rule of social order for dealing with an erring member of society. " If thy brother sin against thee, go, show him his fault between thee and him alone : if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with thee one or two more, that at ' MaU. xvi. i8, 19. It has been acutely suggested that our Lord may have said, in accordance with his usual diction, r^v ^affiKiiav /j-ov, for which the evangelist has substituted the latterly more significant word iKKX-qalav, in the same sense ; but Ilort will not hear of any doubt about the text {C/ir. Eccl., p. 9). The constant use of the word in the apostolic writings from the first would be unintelligible if the Lord had never used it himself. TJie Christian Society 195 the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be estabUshed. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the Church : and if he refuse to hear the Church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican. Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven : and w^hat things so- ever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven." ^ The Church is here spoken of as already established. The direction has been thought to refer to the existing constitution of the Jewish Church in local organized communities or synagogues. The language used is proper to them ; the Gentile and the publican were those alien from them, and kept severely apart ; a man cast out of the synagogue was reduced to their condition. But even if there be a reference to this existing social order the instruction goes farther. It is general ; it is for the Lord's own disciples ; it denotes the continuance of the old order under new conditions and with new powers. The commission to bind and loose, connected on the other occasion with the future building of the Church of Christ, is repeated in this connection. The meaning of the commission we shall consider when dealing with the Ministry of the Church ; it is sufficient to say here that to those who heard the words they would convey no meaning but that of legislative and judicial powers ordained in a constituted society ; and these powers the Lord confirmed to his disciples in the Church. But his disciples had no such powers in the synagogue : the Church here spoken of is that society in which they were to exercise the ruling office. It would be foolish to suppose that on these two occasions only was the word used by the Lord. It is familiar from the first in the apostolic teaching, and we ' Matt, xviii. 15-18. 196 The Elements of Christian Doctrine find it used constantly in the sense already fixed. The Church of the Old Testament was God's chosen people, called out of Egypt and redeemed from bondage, endowed by the Divine providence with promised gifts and guarded as a peculiar treasure. The Church of the New Testa- ment is described in the same terms with a difference. It is a chosen people, not of one nation only but gathered out of all nations, redeemed from sin, called to be saints, endowed with the riches of Divine grace, cherished by the Lord as a man cares for his own body. It is not wholly new ; there is a remnant of the old according to the election of grace \ the casting away of the rest is the reconciling of the world. Former branches of the olive tree were broken off that the new might be grafted in, but the tree remains the same. So the Church of the Old Testament is continued with a differ- ence in the Church of the New Testament.^ The Election of Grace holds an important position in Christian doctrine. It is closely connected with the idea of ca/iiiig. In one of our Lord's parables the called and the elect are sharply sundered, and we are told that of many called few are chosen. By the calling is here meant God's invitation, through the preaching of the gospel, to the salvation which is by Christ ; the elect are those who answer the call and are found worthy.^ But elsewhere the words are not so distinguished. In St. Paul's language, election is in the secret purpose of God, calling is the outward expression of that purpose ; and since we recognize the working of the purpose only ' Rom. xi. 5-18. * Matt. xxii. 14. The words are sometimes interiiolated in ch. XX. 16. There is no ground for the idea tliat e/c/cATjo-i'a is con- nected in sense with K^T^rhs, meaning the company of the called. The etymological connection is accidental. The CJiristian Society igy by its effect, those only are said to be called who obey the Divine voice.' The election is of grace, for it is made in the free working of God's love, not for any goodness or virtue in the chosen which should make their call a moral necessity. St. Paul illustrates this from the Old Testament by the choice of Jacob and the rejection of Esau, declared from before their birth. The reason for the choice remains unknown to us, secret in the Divine wisdom. It must therefore seem to us purely arbitrary ; but we may not on that account think of it as an arbitrary act, in the sense in which unreasoning preference on the part of a man is arl)itrary. Neither on the other hand can we safely attempt to penetrate speculatively into the secret things of God and to assign a reason for his choice. AVhat we know is only the fact that God, who sent his Son to redeem the world, and who has prepared salvation for every, man, does in effect choose and call certain men to the knowledge of salvation and the life of grace, while others are left, so far as we know, without that knowledge and the life which it conveys. The insoluble question of the relation of God's sovereignty to man's free will is raised here as elsewhere. It is complicated by the element of foreknowledge. In a sense the election depends on God's foreknowledge ; m a sense also it is election to the final attainment of glory and blessedness. " Whom he foreknew," says St. Paul, "he also foreordained to be conformed to the miage of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom he foreordained, them he also called : and whom he called, them he also justified : and whom he justified, them he also glorified." An attempt to reduce this teaching within the compass of human logic has led to an exaggerated doctrine of See Grimm, Zext'c, s.v. /coAeo., and cf. Rom. viii. 30. 198 The Elements of Christian Doctrine election. The beginnings of it are in St. Augustine. It grew in the schools of the Middle Ages to a definite assertion that from eternity God ordained and elected some men to eternal life, others to damnation. Those he calls, and brings to glory by the effectual working of his grace ; these are either left to their natural corruption, or compelled, for lack of the grace of perseverance, to fall back into the second death. The doctrine of election is thus combined with a certain opinion about effectual grace. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it became one of the chief subjects of practical discussion among Christians. At the present day, the fierce contro- versy being burnt out, it is wisely relegated to its proper place, the schools of theology ; and more than this, it is generally allowed that, even if some such meaning lie behind the teaching of St. Paul, the first and obvious meaning of election is the actual call of certain men to the jjresent life of grace. As Jacob was chosen to be the father of God's people while Esau was rejected, as a remnant of Israel was preserved at various times of general falling away and of consequent judgment, so a remnant was chosen to carry on the traditions of Israel into the Church of the New Testament, and others were called from among the Gentiles to share their privileges. The Church of Christ is then a social organization, comprising all who are elect and called into the way of salvation. They are gathered, not into a mere aggrega- tion of individuals, but into a social unity, a spiritual commonwealth. The gospel was first announced as the good tidings of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom was at hand, said the Baptist. The Kingdom of God is come upon you, said the Lord himself. The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, were expressions already familiar to the Jews. The latter appears to have TJie Christian Society 199 been used of the Divine rule or theocracy in general ; the former signified more specially the promised reign of the Messiah. It was thought of as the Kingdom of David, revived and extended to a world-wide empire. The Lord Jesus Christ made use of this expectation, gradually and cautiously revealing to his disciples the unlooked-for nature of the Kingdom that was to be. It is natural to take this Kingdom as the exact equivalent of the Church. In the Gospels the word Eccksia occurs but twice ; the Kingdom is spoken of continually. In the other writings of the New Testament the Kingdom is sparingly referred to ; the Ecdesia is everywhere. The words apparently correspond and are complementary. But a close ex- amination shows that the Kingdom has a wider significance. We are taught to pray. Thy Kingdom come. To enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is to attain the final blessedness.^ It stands at times for a purely ideal state of righteousness.^ In many places the meaning is hard to fix precisely. In many however, and especially in several of our Lord's parables, the Kingdom clearly means the Christian society as it now is in the world, including good and evil men but working always to the final exclusion of the wicked. The Church then cannot be said to be exactly synonymous with the Kingdom. Here, as often, we are to regard things in two or more planes. In the farther plane is the reign of righteousness, the Kingdom of Christ from which all evil is destroyed. In the middle plane is an ideal of obedience to the laws of God which men are to set before themselves, and by striving to realize which they may hasten his Kingdom. In the nearer plane is the actual Church, the visible • Matt. V. 20; vii. 21 ; viii. II ; xviii. 3; Mark ix. 47; Luke xiii. 28; Acts xiv. 22 j I Cor. vi. 9 ; 2 Tim. iv. 18. - Malt. vi. 33 ; Mark x. 14 ; Epli. v. 5. 200 Tlie Elements of Christian Doctrine organization of the Kingdom of Christ in the world, the community of those who are pledged to his service, however ill they do it, and made his disciples, however imperfectly they learn. The Church thus organized is likened by St. Paul to a body. Christ is the Head, directing all the members, and, according to St. Paul's conception of anatomy, pro- viding them with life and nourishment. It is therefore called the mystical Body of Christ. The figure answers in part to that of the vine or the olive tree, but St. Paul employs it chiefly for the purpose of insisting on the oneness of the Body, and the due subordination of the members in their several offices. Once more the Church is described as an ordered society.^ It is a visible society, the members of which may be known and mutually recognized as brethren. The word Ecdesia itself implies so much ; the use of it in the New Testament is unintelligible on any other understanding. Calvinists, in pursuance of their doctrine of absolute decrees of election and reprobation, are compelled to distinguish from the visible Church an invisible Church, consisting of all those and only those who are elect to eternal life. Others with less excuse have followed their exami)le, taking the invisible Church to mean those who are known by God, the reader of hearts, to be persevering in the way of salvation. No such distinction is found in the teaching of Holy Scripture. An expression has become current of late years which covers part of the same ground. Certain men are said to belong to the soul of the Church, though not to the body. It is a fanciful description, adopted by some who, accepting a narrow definition of the Church, have to face the consequent ' Rom. xii. 4, 5 ; i Cor. xii. 12-27 J Kp'i- '\- 4-i6 ; Col. ii. 17-19. The Christian Society 201 exclusion of many whom they are fain to include. But the Church is an organized society, of which men either are members or are not ; there is no third term. If the figure of the Body be pressed, we must say that as the living soul gathers and incorporates matter into the body, so the Holy Spirit — the One Spirit that goes with the One Body — incorporates individual men into the Body of Christ. In this sense we must read the well-known maxim : Ubi Spiritus ibi Ecdcsia} The Christian society includes all who have received, by whatever means, the grace of regeneration. That expulsion from the society awaits those who abuse the privileges of membership we are plainly taught. The branch of the vine that bears no fruit is cut away. But the time of such expulsion remains in doubt. Dis- ciplinary excommunication by the rules of the Church on earth does not entirely sever the delinquent from the society of the faithful. Neither does apostasy have this effect, for the apostate may be restored by penitence. These diseased members, so to speak, are not cut off from the life of the body, however little it may circulate in them. They are not deprived of all Christian fellow- ship, although for reasons of discipline its outward manifestation be withheld from them. 7"he mutual service which members of the Christian society owe to each other is not entirely denied them ; in particular, they have a share in the prayers of the Church, and their restoration is hoped for and sought by the power of these prayers. More doubtful is the condition of those who have gone to their death impenitent. That the possibility of ' The term Invisible Church ^'as derived from the scholastic theologians, who meant by it liowever the souls of the departed in Purgatory or in Paradise, as lieing invisible to us on earth. 202 The Elements of Christian Doctrine repentance ceases with death is taught as certain truth. Repentance means the resolute turning of the will away from the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil ; and the disembodied soul, whatever its faculties, being severed by force from the world and the flesh can no longer freely renounce them. But whether im- penitence in death actually cuts off the soul from further connection with the Church, or leaves entire severance to follow upon the final judgment, is not clearly revealed. The practice of the Church excludes those who are reckoned to have died impenitent from any further share in the offices of the faithful. Of secret impenitence indeed the Church is no judge, and the most hopeful view is taken of the departed ; but death in open defiance or apostasy is treated as ground for exclusion. Those who die excommunicate, or who by reason of self-murder are judged to have shut upon themselves the door of penitence, are denied even the funeral rites of the body. All others are regarded in death as still members of the Church. They are sustained by the prayers of the faithful in the fiery trial through which they have to pass ; and the continual supply of abounding grace comes to them, as to the living, through the perpetual intercession of the members of Christ one for the other. It is sometimes objected that no express mention is made in the New Testament of prayer for the departed, but there is no need for specifying them as objects of l^rayer. They are obviously included in the supplica- tions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings to be made for all men, and in particular for all the saints.' ' Eph. vi. iS ; I Tim. ii. I. I do not think St. Paul's prayer for Onesiphorus {2 Tim. i. 18) can be i^ressed, as there is no certain evidence that he was then departed. Neither can ^xq baptism for T)ie Christian Society 203 And equally do the departed souls themselves help in this work of intercession. In the words of a Russian theologian, " All the members of the Church, both living and departed, are being perfected incessantly by mutual prayer." ^ In the cult of the departed the Christian Church has taken over many things from natural religion, which have not been winnowed wholly free from superstition. With these we are not concerned, but only with the underlying truth on which they rest, the intercommunion of all saints in prayer and worship. The practice of the Church has developed on two separate lines. In the East, prayer is made in the Liturgy for all the departed alike, including even the Apostles and the Holy Mother of God herself; and in like manner the intercessions of all, but chiefly of the more glorious saints, are sought by the faithful. In the West, there is a distinction made between two classes of the departed. For the one class prayers are offered by the Church. In the other class are the perfect and glorified saints, the aid of whose intercession is invoked. The distinction is connected with the specific opinions about purgatory which have prevailed in A\''estern Christendom. In England, by reaction from superstition, the cult of the departed has been altogether obscured, and belief in the Avhole Church, the communion of all saints living and departed, has been consequently weakened. the dead, spoken of in I Cor. xv. 29, be safely adduced, in view of our entire ignorance of the practice actually referred to. ' Khomiakoff, in Birkbeck's I\7(ssia and the English Church, vol. i. p. 217. 204 The Elements of Christian Doctrine Sect. II. — The Characteristics of the Church We profess in the Creeds our belief in One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. These four terms are known as the notes or characteristic marks of the Church. We may consider them in three aspects ; they show us how the Church is to be regarded essentially, ideally, and practically. The Church is One. There is numerically but one Church. It was announced by the Lord in the singular : " Upon this rock I will build my Church." It is spoken of as the Church of Christ, the Church of God, and therefore is one, as there is one God, one Christ. St. Paul describes it, in terms excluding all possibility of multiplication, as the Body of Christ, the fulness of him that fiUeth all in all. As there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, as there is one hope of our calling and one Spirit, so there is one Body. By the unity of the Church we mean much more than numerical oneness or singularity, but here is the starting- point. From this we may go on to understand how the Church can be spoken of in plurality and yet remain one.^ The Church is to be not only one by nature, but also held together in moral unity. The moral unity of a society differs from the natural by the fact that it can be disturbed without the actual destruction of the society. A state which splits into several independent states is destroyed altogether : ceasing to be one, it ceases to exist : if the several states which have re- placed it should afterwards come together in federal union, a new united state is created : the old is not ' Matt. xvi. 18 ; Eph. i. 23 ; iv. 4-6. TJie Characteristics of the Church 205 restored. On the other hand a family or a nation which is torn by dissension or civil war still remains one, though its moral unity is ruined. The moral unity of a society will consist in the due coordination of its several members for the mutual offices of social life. This may be attained in varying degrees ; nothing short of a total dissolution of society will destroy it altogether. The measure of its attainment will depend on two forces : the efficient maintenance of common order, and the good will of individuals. The need of this moral unity in the Church is indicated by our Lord's prayer. That they all may be one, and by the frequent apostolic injunction to be of one mind.* That which a thing inevitably is by nature, as the Church is numerically one, is neither prayed for nor enjoined ; that which is effected or hindered by the moral agency of men may properly be commanded, and the issue is controlled by prayer. The Apostles found it a hard task to hold in one the Christians of Jewish birth and those who were converted from the Gentiles. Many of St. Paul's exhortations to unity are directed against this principle of division. It was opposed to the express declaration of the Lord, that his sheep of the fold of Israel and his other sheep which were not of this fold must come together into one flock under one Shepherd. The difficulty of the task is illustrated by the fact that St. Peter and St. Paul had to agree for a time to go apart, one to the circumcised, the other to the Gentiles, enjoining on their several followings only a mutual commerce of charity. We can follow in St. Paul's writings the traces of a great struggle that began with the decree of the Church at Jerusalem con- cerning the treatment of Gentile converts. He would no doubt have left us plainer indications, if he had not been ' John xvii, 21 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; Phil. ii. 2 ; i Pet. iii. 8, etc. 2o6 The Elements of CJiristian Doctrine careful to write nothing tiiat might embitter the conllict. The Epistle to the Ephesians seems to mark the final victory of the cause which he represented ; he exults in the visible destruction of the wall of partition, the aboli- tion of the enmity. Jew and Gentile were at last actually united in the One Flock. The glory and honour of nations the most diverse in the world were brought together into the City of God. In other times a national divergence or exclusiveness far less intense has been found strong enough to interfere with the perfect unity of the Church. The vehement antagonism of St. Paul to such disunion, his refusal to accept distinctions of this kind as a permanent basis even of organization within the Church, his insistence on the truth that in Christ neither Greek nor Jew is any longer to be recognized, circum- cision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman or freeman, shows that no account of the unity of the Church can be adequate which makes it a federal union of independent societies. He bases the moral or social union of the Church on the abiding fact of common heritage in the life of the one Head, Jesus Christ.' The moral and the natural unity of the Church are thus coordinated; the moral unity is seen to be an effort to realize in social activity that which is in the nature of things inevitable and indestructible. Men are one in Christ ; they are to realize their unity in action. The essential unity of the Church consists in the common participation of the one spiritual life. Its symbol is the one baptism by which men are incorporated into the one Body. The ideal unity of the Church is the perfect fellowship, the perfect charity, the perfect intercommunion of the members in all sacred things, ' John X. i6 ; Acts xv. ; Gal. ii. 7- 14 ; Eph. ii. 14 ; Col. iii. 11. The Characteristics of the CJmrch 207 which ought to exist, and after which we are bound to strive. The practical unity of the Church is the measure of such intercommunion which is actually attained. This calls for more consideration. The Church was originally organized in a complete practical unity. A small society of men was gathered in one place. " They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers." They enjoyed, in some degree, a com- munity of goods. There was at least a common stock, to which all contributed according to their means, and from which distribution was made to all who needed. The society seems to have spread in the villages about Jerusalem without any weakening of this unity, the brethren of all parts being visited by the Apostles and looking to Jerusalem as their one central meeting-place.' Persecution however broke up this intimate union, and certain features of it never recurred. Some of those who were scattered found new centres of activity in Antioch and elsewhere. Local assemblies were formed on the model of that which had been at Jerusalem. Following the pattern of the old covenant, these local assemblies of the one Ecclesia would naturally have been called Synagogues^ but for some unrecorded reason this word did not find favour among Christians." Each local gathering of members was called by the name of the whole society, Ecclesia. ' Acts ii. 46 ; iv. 32-35 ; v. 12, 16 ; vi. I-7 ; viii. i, 4, 14, 40 ; ix. 31-43. * The only Christian use of it is in Jas. ii. 2. It may have been used in Jerusalem, where synagogues were numerous, but in other places, where the Synagogue was the recognized organization of the Jewish residents for all purposes, the use of the word for Christian assemblies might lead to awkward misunderstandings. 2o8 TJie Elements of Christian Doctrine An attempt has been made to represent each local church as a fortuitous collection of individuals, forming a society of their own, independent of other similar societies. It would follow that so far as the whole Church is one it is a confederation, more or less formal, of these independent bodies. But this idea is foreign to the apostolic writings. In them we find side l)y side the one Church and the many churches. Each local church reproduces the characteristics of the whole ; each in- dividual Christian is a member at once of a local church and of tlie whole Church. But the one is not made up of the many. " To each local Ecclesia," says Dr. Hort, " St. Paul has ascribed a corresponding unity of its own ; each is a body of Christ, and a sanctuary of God : but there is no grouping of them into partial wholes or into one great whole. The members which make up the One Ecclesia are not communities but individual men. The One Ecclesia includes all members of all partial Ecclesiae ; ])ut its relations to them all are direct, not mediate."^ The one is anterior to the maay ; the universal to the local. The original Church at Jerusalem is not to be thought of as a local particular church, in imitation of which others were founded. It was the whole ; and it became local and particular only upon the general dispersion after the death of Stephen, when other local churches came into existence. Nor were these local churches original foundations. That of Antioch is the most conspicuous example. Men came to Antioch who were already members of the Church, and to them were ' Thi: Christian Ecclesia, p. i68. There are passages in the book which look the other way, but I think that in this passage is the dominant thought with which the others are to be reconciled ; and Dr. Mobcrly's criticism, in his Ministerial Fricstkood, pp. 22-29, seems to me faulty because not recognizing this fact. TJie CJiaracteristics of the CJiurcJi 209 aggregated the new converts in that cit}'. That is to say, they were aggregated to the one Church, exactly as the first converts at Jerusalem were aggregated to the society of the Apostles in whom the Church was already constituted.^ The organization of the local community followed. At Antioch, it is true, " a multitude of Christian disciples had come into existence in the most casual and unpremeditated way ; " ^ but they did not form themselves independently into a church ; they were already members of the Christian Church, and they were in consequence organized as the local church of Antioch. This organization was perhaps the work of Barnabas, who was clearly sent from Jerusalem with an apostolic mission ; but, however effected, it was both natural and necessary; as natural as the organization of the Synagogue in the Jewish Dispersion. A Jew, because he was a member of the Jewish Ecclesia, was a member of the local synagogue, wherever he might find himself. A Christian, because he is a member of the Christian Ecdcsia, is a member of the local church, wherever he may be. The phrase Church of Romc^ or Church of Africa, or Church of England, is properly a mere geographical expression, signifying the part of the whole Church existing within the circumscription named. The practical unity of the Church, therefore, which at the beginning was found in the intimate common life of the brethren at Jerusalem, is now to be found in the free intercommunion of the members dispersed in the various local churches. This 'community of charity begins when all pray for all, and all are ready to help all throughout the world. It is complete when all, from every local church, are welcomed to all the privileges of membership in any local church which they may visit. It is now very ' Acts ii. 41 ; xi. 19-24. ^ The Christian Ecclesia, p. 59. P 210 The Elements of Christian Doctrine far from being complete. There are many degrees in which it may fall short of completion. It was marred when St. Peter and others refused to eat with Gentile converts at Antioch. Breaches of greater or less extent have frequently occurred ; some are inveterate. Without affecting the essential and ideal unity of the Church, they do grievous injury to its practical or moral unity. Each local church ought to reproduce the characteristics of the whole. It is in actual fact numerically one, being the whole company of Christian men living in a certain place. It should also be at unity in itself. St. Paul was grievously disturbed on hearing of divisions or schisms in the church of Corinth. These divisions were, in the proper meaning of the term, sects ; that is to say, they were partisan companies of men professing to follow a certain leader. " Each one of you saith, I am of Paul ; and I of ApoUos ; and I of Cephas." ' There is no reason for supposing these sects to have actually fallen asunder from mutual communion, but there was a risk of this, and the perfect union of Christian charity was lacking. Pearson has observed that wherever in the New Testament any country or district is named in which the gospel had been preached, the churches of that region are spoken of in plurality, as the churches of Judaea, of Syria and Cilicia, of Galatia and Macedonia. On the other hand, where one city alone is mentioned, then the church of the place is spoken of in singularity — the church at Antioch, at Ephesus, the church of the Thessalonians, and so forth. He infers that even if in a great city there were several congregations, meeting apart for convenience, ' I Cor. i. 12. It is doubtful whetber the l-yw Se Xpi(7Tou follow- ing is an indignant remonstrance by St. Paul, or represents a further sect, affecting superiority to all parties, but full of party spirit. TJie Characteristics of the CJiiircJi 2 1 1 they were all held in one under a common government/ The conclusion is perhaps too absolute. The domestic churches spoken of by St. Paul, the church in the house of Aquila, in the house of Nymphas, in the house of Philemon,^ whether we are to understand in each case only a Christian family, or a company of the faithful habitually meeting there, suggest a more elastic use of the word. What we know with certainty is that very soon after the apostolic age the Christians living in one town and its neighbourhood were held together in a unity depending on details of organization, which we shall consider in their place. There is no countenance in Scripture or in the practice of the Church for the conception of an unity consisting in the agglomeration or amicable intercourse of sects organized according to the preferences of individuals. Where the churches are spoken of in plurality regard is had only to local or geographical distinction ; Christians living within the same circumscription, large or small, form one church, and are bound to live together in unity, avoiding the separation even of party spirit. In this way they work individually to promote the practical unity of the Church, The Church is Holy. In the New Testament its members are commonly called saints. The fundamental meaning of holiness, in the language of Scripture, is separation from sin and from usages that are tainted with sin. Israel was a holy nation because separated from the rest of mankind and dedicated to the service of God. The things of the sanctuary, the offerings of God, ' Exposition of the Creed, p. 338, 8th ed. The passage in i Cor. xiv. 34, which he quotes to show that several congregations must have consisted in the Church of Corinth, will hardly bear the inference ; eV to7s tKKKriaiais may mean "at your meetings." " Rom. xvi. 5 ; I Cor. xvi. 19; Col. iv. 15 ; Philem. 2. 212 The Elements of Christian Doctrine were holy because set apart from common use. There was a moral significance in this holiness; it was an approximation to the holiness of God himself. " Ye shall be holy unto me," says the Law, " for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that ye should be mine." Israel was holy in essential fact ; the children of Israel were therefore the more bound to strive after practical holiness in the likeness of God. Their failure did not for a time affect the essential holi- ness of the nation ; but wiien the judgment of God fell upon them they were scattered among the heathen, losing their mark of separation. A precisely similar command forms the law of holiness for the Church of the New Testament : " Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." ^ The essential holiness of the Church consists in the separation of Christians from the world. On entering the Christian society they make a formal renunciation of all evil, which is described by St. Paul as dying to sin. They are justified, as we have seen, or freed from the inherited and acquired guilt of sin. Nor is this a mere forensic or ceremonial cleansing. They are called to be saints, and obeying the call they receive a power of holi- ness given them by sanctifying grace. Being incorporated in the one Body wherein dwells the one Spirit of holiness, they have continual supplies of actual and habitual grace. They use or abuse these gifts according to their several practice ; but, says Pearson, " the Church of God is universally holy in respect of all, by institutions and administrations of sanctity." ^ The Church of the New Testament, like that of the Old, but in a higher sense, is " an elect race, a royal ' Lev. XX. 26 ; cf. xix. 2, and xxi. 8 ; Malt. v. 48 ; I Pet. i. 15. - Expositio7t of the Creed, p. 345. The Characteristics of the Church 213 priesthood, a holy nation." ^ This description must be taken as one. Holiness and priesthood go together. A priest is essentially a man taken from among men and consecrated to the service of God as representing his fellows. The priesthood of Christ is an attribute of his humanity, and as Head of the Church he communicates his human qualities to the Body. They are conveyed to the members severally, all being called to attain unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. There- fore he has made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father. But we have this quality as members of the Body, not as individual men. The Church as a whole is the royal priesthood. ^ The function of a priest is to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.^ Here is a twofold ministry ; the ministry of worship and the ministry of reconciliation closely inter- woven. The various kinds of offering, distinguished in the Old Testament for the sake of clearness, are com- bined in the one offering of the New Testament, made by Christ himself, the one Priest, and by the Church in union with him. The essential holiness of the Church is the holiness of priesthood, manifested in the continual offering of the Christian Sacrifice and in the continual exercise of the ministry of reconciliation. The ideal holiness of the Church is the holiness of Christ the Head regarded as the standard of attainment. It is the hoUness also of those who have attained. In the imagery of the Apocalypse the Church is the Bride of the Lamb, arrayed in fine linen, bright and pure, which is the righteous acts of the saints. The Church is the Communion of Saints, whether in the sense that all are fellow-citizens with those who are perfect and partakers ' Exod. xix. 6 ; i Pet. ii. 9. - Eph. iv. 13 ; Rev. i. 6 ; v. 10. ^ Heb. v. i. 214 The Elements of Christian Doctrine of their merits, or in the sense that all partake in the administration of holiness by which they are brought to perfection.^ The practical holiness of the Church is found in war- fare against evil. Of this warfare there are two well- marked stages. The Church is triumphant in Paradise, militant on earth. The imagery of war is constant in the New Testament, The contest of the Church is with mysterious powers of evil. " Our wrestling," says St Paul, " is not against flesh and blood, but against (he principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.- It is not evil men, as men, who are the enemies of the Church. Indeed the Church fights on behalf of all men against the influences which ruin human society. Separate from these, and essentially hostile to them, the Church labours to set up the reign of righteousness, the kingdom of God. The separation is not between man and man. The Church militant is not a group of specially good men segregated from their fellows. That conception, or something approaching it, has at times occupied certain minds with disastrous results, to be read in the history of Novatianism, of Donatism, of the Cathari and of the Puritans. We are taught by the parables of the Tares and of the Draw-net that in the Church militant good men and bad are mingled. The holiness of the Church is a power work- ing always for the conversion of the bad, and failing that, for their exclusion from the Church triumphant. It ■ Rev. xix. 8 ; Eph. ii. 19. The question appears insoluble whether in the phrase of the creed sanctonim comnmnionem the word sanctorum is masculine, signifying holy persons, or neuter, signifying holy things. * Eph. vi. 12. TJie Characteristics of the Church 215 works also, but less directly, to raise the general standard of goodness for the world at large. Every local par- ticular church has the note of practical holiness in vary- ing degree as this work is done. The Church is Catholic, or universal. The essential catholicity of the Christian Church is opposed to the national particularity of the Jewish Church. It is ex- pressed by St. Paul where he says that in the Church there cannot be Greek or Jew, barbarian or Scythian, bond or free. All men alike are eligible and equal as members of the Christian society. The ideal catholicity of the Church is the extension of the privileges of membership to all mankind. It is expressed in the command of the Lord : " Go ye, and make disciples of all the nations." It involves the abrogation of all prejudice of race or colour ; the super- session of all barriers of language, symbolized by the mysterious unity of tongues at Pentecost ; the mainte- nance and propagation of the one true religion by free interchange of all local traditions.^ The practical catholicity of the Church is an ap- proximation to the ideal. Like the practical unity of the Church, it is marred by everything that hinders the free intercommunion of Christians. It is marred also by any practice founded on a theory which narrows the Church. The Donatists of the fourth century held to a theory con- fining membership in the Church to those who conformed to a certain standard of excellence, and they refused all ' Matt, xxviii. 19. The last condition is what St. Iienaeiis expresses in the well-known words (iii. 3), " Semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio." In the circumstances of his time this interchange was found fairly complete in the local church of Rome, the common resort of Cliristians from all parts of the world. 2i6 The Elements of Christian Doctrine communion with those who thought or acted otherwise. This was the negation of cathohcity. A similar result may follow from any attempt to realize the unity of the Church by unwarranted means. A sect will naturally be united in exact proportion to its narrowness, and a definition of the Church in which expression is specially sought for the note of unity may tend to sectarianism. When certain theologians of the sixteenth century intro- duced into their definition of the Church the mention of the Roman Pontiff, defining it as " The congregation of the faithful visibly ordered under one Head Christ in Heaven and his Vicar on earth," unity was secured at the cost of catholicity. The society so defined is not practically catholic, since it excludes vast numbers of Christians.^ A question remains. We have said that a local par- ticular church ought to reflect the characteristics of the whole Church. But how can the particular share the attribute of universality? When a local church is described as catholic, the word is used with some varia- tion of meaning. It betokens that which is a genuine part of the whole. The Egyptian bishops at the Council of Tyre, in the year 335, spoke of "the catholic church in Egypt," as distinct from the companies of heretics and schismatics which were troubling the Christian life of the country. In the same sense it has, since the fourth century, been applied to individuals. St. Augustine describes himself as becoming, on his conversion, a Catholic Christian, by contrast Avith his former condition as a Manichaean. A few years earlier, Theodosius had imposed by law the name of Catholic Christians on those who accepted the Nicene confession of faith. - ' See Note II. ' Athanas., Op., torn. i. p. 797 ; /cora ttjs Ka.QoKiKri% hcKKr^aias The Characteristics of the ClmrcJi 217 A catholic church is, in this sense, one that is orthodox and not heretical, one that is in communion with the Church at large and not schismatical. Nor is it diffi- cult to see how the word comes to be so used. The Catholic Faith is that which is generally professed throughout the Church, as distinct from individual or sectarian opinions. A catholic practice is one that prevails generally throughout the Church, as distinct from temporary and local peculiarities. A particular church is catholic in proportion as it holds fast to the Catholic Faith and catholic practice, freely communicates with all other churches, and labours for the extension of Christ's kingdom throughout the world.^ The Church is Apostolic. We are built, says St. Paul, upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets. The Apostles are not only the original Twelve, since the writer certainly would not exclude himself. The Prophets are not those of the Old Testament, but those of the New, the coadjutors of the Apostles, to whom, he says, the mystery of Christ has now been revealed. The Church is therefore Apostolic not only because originally established by the preaching of the Apostles, but also because held together by a continuing apostolic order. At the beginning the faithful continued steadfastly in the T^s eV AiywTCjii. Aug., Confess., vi. i ; Cod. Theodos., xvi. i, 2 (the edict Cunctos poptdos of a.d. 3S0). ^ Beveridge, Thesaur. Theol., vol. ii. p. 330, ed. 1S16 : " Ut quaevis ecclesia recte constituatur, et ita ut verum sanumque Catholicae membrum permaneat, necesse est ut ad Catholicam sive universalem in omnibus, quoad fieri potest, se conformet, et dis- ciplinam ritusque illius aeque ac doctrinam religiose complectatur." His illustrations are curious. In a secondary' sense anything which is commonly done and allowed in any part of the Church is called a catholic practice as being neither heretical nor schismatical. 2i8 The Elements of Christian Doctrine Apostles' teaching and fellowship, and this condition abides.^ For the essential apostolicity of the Church it suffices that as the first converts were aggregated to the Apostles' fellowship, so all that follow are aggregated to the exist- ing body. The ideal apostolicity of the Church involves the continuance of the apostolate in some form, and the adherence of all Christians thereto. The practical apostolicity of the Church is a matter of organiza- tion, to the consideration of which we proceed next in order. Reserving the nature of that organization, wc may say here that a particular church is apostolic by virtue of adhesion to the order which continues the work of the apostolate. The faithful of any place or region form in point of fact a local church, even though not yet organized in the appointed manner. The church so formed is apostolic by intention, because composed of persons who are aggregated to the fellowship of the Apostles ; it obtains the fulness of the apostolic character when duly organized. A church on the other hand which abandons the appointed order practically forfeits the apostolic character. A church which is deprived of it by force of circumstances will retain the character, though imperfectly, by grace of origin. Sect. III. — The Organization of the Church Human societies are of two kinds, natural and artificial. Natural societies are those in which men are incorporated not by their own action specially directed to that end, but by the fact of birth, or by the working of circum- stance. Such societies are the family, the city, the nation. ' Eph. ii. 20 ; iii. 5 ; Acts ii. 42. The Organization of the Church 219 Artificial societies are those which individuals enter or leave by their own voluntary motion. An artificial society is formed by a concourse of men who determine its constitution and organization in the act of formation ; others who afterwards join them accept what is done ; the members have as a rule, though not always, the same power to vary the organization which they originally exercised in creating it. A natural society on the other hand is of Divine origin. It cannot be traced back to the mutual agreement of its members. The theory of Social Contract, once in vogue, has no historical founda- tion. Every new family or state springs out of one already existing or is founded on existing laws. It is a part of the natural organization of human society im- posed by the Creator ; and therefore it can be said that, in all their various forms, the powers that be are ordained of God. The Church is not an artificial society. It was not originally fomied by a group of individuals coming together in voluntary association. It was in one sense a continuation of the Church of the Old Testament. More precisely the Christian Church began with the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the Son of Man, the repre- sentative of the whole race, to whom individual men were added as engrafted branches to a tree. According to another figure they became members of his Body, this mystical Body, the habitation of the one Spirit, being brought into active existence when the Holy Ghost came upon the hundred and twenty on the Day of Pentecost. To the society thus formed multitudes were afterwards aggregated by the act of God. Men do not enter it by their own act, but by grace of the new birth. But neither is the Church a natural society of the same order as the state or the family. It is not one among others. 220 The Elements of Christian Doctrine an outgrowth of circumstance or a creation of human law. It is a supernatural society analogous to the natural societies of the world, including in idea the whole of mankind ; in actual fact, those who are called and chosen. A society cannot exist without officers and sub- ordination. These elements are found in the Church from the beginning. The Apostles appear at once as rulers. They are nowhere in Scripture called expressly by a title implying as much, but their authority is evident in what they do. It is their doctrine and fellowship to which the converts adhere. Challenged by the Sanhedrin to say by what power or in what name they are acting, they do not disclaim authority, but declare themselves to be acting in the name of Jesus Christ. Forbidden to teach in this name — a recognized act of authority —they refuse to be silenced. They receive and ad- minister the contributions of the faithful, and solemnly rebuke irregularity in the matter. When further officers are needed they leave the selection of persons to the multitude, but they themselves appoint the elected to their business. When the rest are scattered by persecution they remain at their post. When they hear that Philip has evangelized Samaria they send two of their number to set things in order. Through the laying on of their hands the Holy Ghost is given, and Simon Magus sees in this a definite power which they might transfer to others. When Saul, returning from Damascus, assays to join himself to the disciples, Bar- nabas brings him to the Apostles. Saul himself, become Paul the Apostle, rules tlie Church in the places where he has preached ; he judges, even in his absence, the incestuous Corinthian, and writes to the assembly at Corinth to execute his sentence ; he regulates many I The Organization of the CJiurcIi 221 things by letter, and declares his intention of setting the rest in order when he comes.^ There was power to add to the number of the Apostles, St. Paul and St. Barnabas bore the title expressly. St. Paul, created an Apostle directly by the Lord, certified his appointment by appealing to the signs of an Apostle that were in his work ; but in the emphasis with which he asserted that he received his apostleship neither from men nor through man he indicates the ordinary mode of transmission. The reality of the office does not depend on the title. Prophets are added to the Apostles on terms of equality as the foundation of the Church. Their functions under this name are obscurely indicated in the New Testament, and the name did not survive in the Church ; but the Didachc shows that in some regions, perhaps of backward development, there were prophets in the second century still exercising apostolic powers. Apostleship derived from men or through man can only be understood of authority conveyed from the original holders. The Lord's commission, " As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you," implies the power of send- ing as he sent. St. Paul was thus able to send Timothy to Ephesus, Titus to Crete, with apostolic powers, and provision was made for the continuance of order in the Church.^ There was power to appoint other officers of lower ' Acts ii. 42; iv. 7-10, 18-20, 35; V. 3-1 1 ; vi. 3 ; viii. i, 19 (e'louo-i'a) ; ix. 27 ; I Cor. v. 3-5 ; xi. 34. ^ Acts xiv. 14; Rom. xv. 18, 19; I Cor. ix. 2 ; 2 Cor. xii. 12 ; Gal. i. I ; Eph. ii. 20, and iii. 5 ; John xx. 21 ; DidacJie, xi. I-13. It is obvious that the solemnity of Acts xiii. 2, 3 was not an appoint- ment to apostleship, but a blessing on special work to be done. I do not wish to beg the question whether the Montanist prophets were a genuine survival. 222 The Eleiiie)its of Christian Doctrine rank. We read first of the Seven, chosen by the multitude of the disciples, appointed by the Apostles to administer the alms of the church. They are generally recognized as identical in office with those afterwards called Deacons. Somewhat later we hear incidentally of those called Presbyters, or Elders, whose origin is not recorded They appear as ruling the church at Jerusalem in con- junction with the Apostles, or perhaps in their absence. We hear of them next in the cities of south Galatia, where the Apostles Barnabas and Paul appointed elders in every church which they had founded. Some years later St. Paul convened the elders of the church of Ephesus, and charges them to feed the Church of God, the flock in which the Holy Ghost had made them l)ishops or overseers. By this second title St. Paul also addresses the rulers of the church at Philii)pi, in conjunction with deacons. Presbyters, bishops, and deacons are all mentioned in the Pastoral Epistles, and St. Paul gives directions for their appointment.' Here are three well-defined offices. First, there are the Apostles and Proj^hets ; secondly, the Presbyters or Bishops ; thirdly, the Deacons. Many functions or ministries are mentioned in the apostolic writings, about which interesting questions have been raised, but they are apparently descriptions only of the work done by members of the Church in their various capacities ; - ' Acts vi. 3 ; xi. 30; xiv. 23 ; xv. 6 ; xx. 17, 28 ; Phil. i. i ; I Tim. iii. 1-13 ; v. i, 17-19 J 'I'it- »• 5-7- It '« possible that the hundred and twenty of Pentecost were tlie original elders. See Gore, The Church and the Ministry, p. 239, 4lh ed. * Such are the enumerations in Rom. xii. 6 ; i Cor. xii. 4-1 1 ; Eph. iv. II. The Trpwro;/, Seurfpov, rpirov of I Cor. xii. 28 is more suggestive of a hierarchy, but there also the dominant thought is that of different functions for different members in the most general sense, and probably the meaning goes no further. The Organirjation of the Church 223 these three alone stand out clearly as official grades. The titles explain themselves. They were all words in common use. The title of Presbyter was used in the Synagogue ; but the Jewish elder was a purely judicial officer, and had no pastoral authority like that of the elders at Ephesus, nor any functions like those which St. James attributes to the Christian presbyters in the care of the sick. It is a title of respect which in one form or other all antiquity applied to those exercising authority. The words bishop and deacon, signifying over- sight and service of almost any kind, have acquired their specific meaning by association. It is perhaps not altogether accidental that in the account of the election of St. Matthias the titles of deacon and bishop are adumbrated, as well as that of apostle. The other grades may be regarded as implicit in the apostolate, and derived from it by a partial conveyance of its functions.^ The Apostles and Prophets exercised a general ministry throughout the Church, subject to such de- limitation as was made for a time between St. Peter and St. Paul, and perhaps to the general principle that one should not cross the work of another or build on his foundation.^ The Presbyters or Bishops had the pastoral charge of the local churches. The Deacons were their assistants, and may also have been companions of the Apostles. This we gather from the writings of the New Testament. The same system is found in the Didache, a document of not later date than the beginning of the second century, which represents the practice apparently of Hebrew Christians in eastern Syria or in Egypt. Contemporaneous with this are the letters of St. Ignatius to the churches of Rome and of Asia. In ' Jas. V. 14 ; Acts i. 17, 20, 26. - Rom. xv. 20. 224 The Elements of CJiristian Doctrine these a different arrangement of the ministry is imphed. There is no mention of Apostles or Prophets, nor of any general oversight of many local churches such as they had. The titles of Bishop and Presbyter are dis- tinguished, and in each local church there is one Bishop who presides, and several Presbyters who are his sub- ordinates. This arrangement became universal, but gradually and not without modification. There are grounds for supposing the churches of southern Italy under the shadow of Rome, and those of Egypt under Alexandria, to have had less independence than others. Gaul had but one Bishop in the second century, and the extensive Roman province of Scythia was in the same case much later. St. Clement of Rome, an elder con- temporary of Ignatius, could still speak of Bishops and Deacons after the manner of St. Paul,^ but from the early years of the second century onward the Ignatian nomenclature is universal. Here, as in the time of the Apostles, there is a three-fold ministry, l)ut with a change of title. The pur- port of this change is matter of debate. Two different opinions have had so much support in the teaching of the Church that neither can be taken for a solid Christian tradition. According to one opinion the universal itinerant ministry, which the Apostles had exercised in person or by delegates, was gradually con- verted into a local ministry by the settlement of men, apostolic in rank and power, in the several churches. The first example is found in St. James of Jerusalem. Either from a general sense of what was fitting, or by a regular decision of the last surviving Apostles, it was resolved to fix one such supreme governor in each church, and to him exclusively was given the title of ' Clem., Ad Cor. 42. 1 The Organization of the Church ■^3 Bishop, formerly common to the presbyters. The historic episcopate is therefore in the narrowest sense a continuation of the apostolate, and the presbyterate remains what it was from the beginning. According to the other opinion, which became current mainly through the influence of St. Jerome, the apostolate in the narrower sense was allowed to pass away ; from among the presbyters or bishops, originally of equal power and dignity, one was chosen to preside in each church, to whom were eventually reserved certain functions of the ministry and the title of Bishop. In whatever way it came about, a well-supported tradition attributes the final settlement to the old age of St. John the Apostle at Ephesus.' What is common to apostolic and to later times, according to either opinion, is the existence of a hierarchy in the Christian Church with powers of extension. The establishment of this hierarchy is traced to the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Practically it will matter little whether we suppose him to have enjoined a particular constitution of the Ministry, or to have given his Church the power of organizing it according to need. On either showing the hierarchy is in present fact founded in a certain order. In the latter case however Christian doctrine would be concerned only with the principle that an organized society must have an ofificial organization. The establishment of a certain form of hierarchy, though unchangeable except by the concurrent action of the whole body, would be a matter purely of ecclesiastical law. Christian tradition supports the former hypothesis, that Christ himself ordained the hierarchy by instruction given to the Apostles. It was part of the Divine order, ' The question is discussed by Gore, The C/iiirc/i and the Ministry, 4th ed. pp. 157-162 and 304, 305. Q 226 The Elements of Christian Doctrine and St. Paul could tell the Presbyters of Ephesus that they were made Bishops by the Holy Ghost. They were not merely designated by a Divine inspiration for a special work, as were Barnabas and Saul at Antioch ; they were ordained, if by human agency, still by the power of the Holy Ghost.^ The hierarchy thus ordained is a corporate unity. The Twelve Apostles had a single authority, exercised by each one of them not independently, but jointly with the rest. They jointly sent Peter and John to Samaria to confirm what was done by Philip. When St, Peter himself had for the first time admitted a Gentile to baptism, though he acted by revelation, he had to give an account of what he had done to the rest. In united session, along with the Presbyters, the Apostles regulated the proceedings of Paul and Barnabas in the same matter. According to St. Cyprian's view of the case, our Lord gave the apostolic commission in the first place to Peter alone, and afterwards conjoined the rest with him in the same office and ])ower, so as to show the unity of their authority by its originating with one man. This may be fanciful, but it serves to illustrate the traditional conception of the hierarchy which St, Cyprian has put on record. Unity and concord in the Church depend, first on the due subordination of all Christians to the Bishops severally set over them, secondly on the united ' Acts XX. 28. The force of €06to seems unmistakable. Compare I Cor. xii. 28, where it is used of xap'o'MaTa generally. Possibly 5ia irpoi' 'hjffov Kpiarov Sti (pis Xffrai eVt lov ouSixaros rrjs 67ri(r/co7rf)s. Aia ravTTjv oiiv t})V aiTLaf, ivpiyvoicnv (l\r](puT(i TtXeiav Ka.T(.(rT7]crav tovs Trpoitpri/xfyovs, /c.t.A. {Ad Cor., 44). Tlie Organif:ation of tJie Church 227 action of the Bishops among themselves. The episco- pate, says St. Cyprian, is one and undivided; every single bishop holds the common authority in joint tenure; each one has the right to act on his own re- sponsibility, rendering account to God, but he retains this right only on condition of abiding in concord with the rest and in the mystical unity of the Church. In practice the social needs of the Church have led, since St. Cyprian's day, to provincial combinations, and to some measure of subordination within the episcopate; but these things are purely matter of ecclesiastical law, and do not belong to the essential organization of the Church. 1 Appointment to the hierarchy appears from the writings of the New Testament to be in the hands of the Apostles and their coadjutors. The examples are few but uniform ; for if St. Paul speaks of Timothy as advanced " by pro- phecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery," he explains this elsewhere by the exhortation, " Stir up the gift of God which is in thee through the laying on of my hands." - Afterwards the power of appointment lay exclusively in the Bishop as now distinguished from the presbyters. The action of Colluthus, an Egyptian presbyter of the fourth century, who presumed to ordain a certain Ischyras to the presbyterate, was treated as an impossible innovation. The contention of Aerius, later in the same century, that presbyter and bishop were of equal dignity was rejected on this very ground ; the uniform tradition of the Church was against him. St. Jerome, whose tendency was to exalt the presbyterate * See Note I. * Acts vi. 6 ; xiv. 23 ; i Tim. iv. 14 ; 2 Tim. i. 6 ; Tit. i. 5. Possibly Rom. i. II, 'Iva. n /xeraScJ x^f"""/"" ^M-^^'i looks tlie same way. 228 TJie Eleuiotts of C/iristiau Doctrine and abase the episcopate, allowed that in respect of ordination the Bishop was superior.^ If the episcopate be the direct continuation of the apostolate, this exclusive right of the Bishop is at once accounted for ; there is no reason for supposing presbyters ever to have had the power of ordination. But if the origin of the episcopate be, as St. Jerome supposed, the selection of one man out of the presbytery for supreme authority, it will follow that all the original presbyters or bishops had the same power to ordain. The reservation of this power to the one Bishop would then seem to be a matter only of ecclesiastical discipline. The presbyters in that case retain implicitly the power to ordain, but are forbidden to exercise the power. Some colour is given to this contention by the custom which requires the presbyters present at an ordination to take part with the Bishop in the imposition of hands. There may seem to be here intended a real joint action, controlled only in practice by a rigorous adherence to the Ignatian maxim of doing nothing without the Bishop, so that ordination by presbyters alone in the absence of a Bishop, though unlawful, would not be strictly impossible.'^ Mediaeval theologians, following St. Jerome, and regarding the orders of the ministry chiefly as concerned with the Sacra- ment of the Altar, exaggerated the equality of bishop and presbyter, and prepared the way for those who in the sixteenth century claimed for presbyters not only ' For Colliithus, see Athanas., Apol. ad Constaii/., ii, 12, and 74, torn. i. pp. 732, 794. For Aeriiis, Epiphanius, Ach: Hacr., Ixxv. 4. Jerome, Ep. cxlvi. : " ()iiid facit, excepta ordinatione, episcopus quod presbyter non facial ? " - Ign., Ad Trail., 2 : i.vi\) roO iiricTKUTrov fxrjSei' npaaaav v/xas. Butcf. Ad J\fagn., 7 : &viVTOv iiriffKOirov koi twu irpicr^vripuiv /j.7iS(y ■KpaaaeTi. The Organization of the Church 229 the power but the right to ordain. The question is for theologians, and is rather of academic than of practical interest, since there can at best be no certainty that a presbyterian ordination is valid, and no one whose ordination is doubtful can be allowed to minister in the Church/ The Church being a holy priesthood, the ministers of the Church must of necessity exercise priestly functions. All Christians being made priests unto God, those are eminently so who preside in the Christian society. They are nowhere expressly called by this title in the writings of the New Testament, and only in the one case of the " prophets and teachers " at Antioch are their ministra- tions spoken of in ordinary terms of priesthood.^ So long indeed as the Temple worship continued, this could not be done without danger of confusion. In the Epistle to the Hebrews it is said even of Christ himself, that " if he were on earth he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are those who offer the gifts according to the law." So in the second century the Apologists, addressing readers who knew only the Gentile sacrifices, could escape mis- understanding only by repudiating in the name of Christians the very idea of sacrifice. " God has no need of material offerings from men," wrote St. Justin Martyr, " He does not require blood, libations, or incense." • See Note K. ' Rev. i. 6 ; Acts xiii. 2, \it.Tovp-^ovvTu>v 5e avrdv rw Kvpiai. The words Xfirovpyf7v and Mnovpyia are commonly used in the LXX. for the offices of the priesthood. So also in Luke i. 23 ; Heb. ix. 21; X. n, of the Old Testament worship. In Heb. viii. 2, XnTovpyhs is used of Christ as priest. In Rom. xv. 16, St. Paul speaks of his apostolic work in terms of priesthood — AnTovpyhv, UpovpyovvTa, ■npo(r