3. 31. 2-' l&^qntnti^ti h^ Jjtm to 3prtnrrt0tt Slf^nlngtral S^^mtnarQ Division -Rl/ Section (^(^ | .3 .F73 /^5 THE WORLD AS THE SUBJECT OF REDEMPTION. THE WORLD AS THE SUBJECT OF REDEMPTION Being a7t Attempt to set forth the Functioiis of the Church as designed to embrace the whole Race of Mankind EIGHT LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVER- SITY OF OXFORD IN THE YEAR 1883 ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A. Canon of Salisbury BY TJ*E HON. AND REV. W. H. FREMANTLE, M.A. Canofi 0/ Canter l)7(ry, ajid Fellow o/ Ball iol College, Oxford WITH AN INTRODUCTION RICHARD T. ELY, PH.D., LL.D. Second Edition, Revised NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND LONDON 1895 Copyright, 1895, by Longmans, Green, and Co. EXTRACT . FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, CANON OF SALISBURY. " I GIVE and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox- ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re- mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser- mons, to be established for ever in the said University, and to be performed in the manner following : ««I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in "Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads " of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining " to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the " morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity " Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Ox- " ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent •« Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. V vi Extract from Canori Bamptons Will, " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture "Sermons shall be preached on either of the following Subjects " — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute " all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine authority of the *«holy Scriptures — upon the authority of the writings of the *• primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primi- «' tive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour " Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — upon the " Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the «« Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec- '* ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months «* after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the '• Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of " every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of Ox- " ford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; and "the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the ** revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the «* Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be " paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified « to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken "the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two " Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same "person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons " twice." PREFACE. The publication of these Lectures has been delayed through my having to take up new work at Canterbury and at Oxford immediately after their delivery. I do not think it right to delay it longer ; but I am conscious that the Lectures still bear in some respects the marks of insufficient care. In a work which takes in so large a range of history it is hardly possible that there should not be some mistakes of fact or inference, which will be noticed as blemishes by those who have made special periods their study, or who have been able to devote more time to historical pursuits than has been pos- sible to me. But I have endeavoured to verify each statement which I have made, and to give references to the facts and to the books in which they may be found. In the formation of the views which I have set forth in the Lectures I have received considerable help from the works of Dr. Arnold, and the Theological Ethics of Richard Rothe. There are points, however, in which I differ from the conclu- sions of those great teachers, and I have indicated my dissent from one main position of Rothe's (p. 289, and Appendix, Note XX). Having formed my views on the subject of these Lec- tures early in life, I have been able to test them, not only by reading various authors who have touched upon the subject, but by constantly endeavouring to apply my views to the dis- cussions of the last thirty years, and above all to the conduct of active parochial work during nearly the whole of that period. I commend them therefore to my readers, not merely as a plausible theory, but as the expression of convictions which have stood the test of experience. W. H. FREMANTLE. Balliol College, Oxford^ /amtary, 1885. VU PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. I AM truly glad that a new edition of these Lectures has been called for, because I am convinced that their main principle, which is expressed in the title, supplies the basis for social progress which men appear on all sides to be feeling after. That principle is that the World itself, the whole social organism, and not merely a certain number of individuals, is the subject of Redemption, The Lectures excited little attention in England, either on their delivery in 1883 or on their publication in 1885. They were not noticed in any of the principal Reviews ; and in the daily and weekly papers were dealt with in what I venture to think a wholly inadequate fashion. Only one reviewer, in the Pall Mall Gazette, who gave a very ap- preciative analysis of them, appeared to me to have grasped their main principles. I fear that in my own University I was thought (so far as thought was bestowed) to be, with inadequate equipment, attempting to introduce a new and revolutionary doctrine. There men were jaded with contro- versy and mistrustful of novelty in the subjects here discussed. At all events the book fell almost flat on this side of the Atlantic ; and the publishers were at one time so much dis- heartened as to incline to give it up as dead. That these Lectures have survived, and have any hope of doing the work for which they were designed, is entirely due to the kind treatment they have received in the freer atmos- phere of America, where they have been both read and ix X Preface to the New Edition, pondered and have stimulated thought, as I judge from the letters and words of those who on account of them have sought me out, and from numerous books on social subjects of which the authors have kindly sent me copies. They have in some cases become the subject of courses of lectures, and have been placed in the line of succession, reaching down from Aristotle's Politics to Bliintschli's Theory of the State, as giving the idea of a Christian commonwealth. Their preser- vation is due especially to Professor Ely, to whose preface to ^ the American issue of the book I beg to refer. It is there- fore in America that the new edition is published, and to the American people that I address this Preface, though I hope that through them it may reach other branches of the Anglo- Saxon race, and possibly return in the shape of some dis- tant echo to the mother country. I have been told that the title of the work is unattractive. But I am unwilling to alter it, since it expresses my mean- ing clearly. Schopenhauer's great work was called " The World as Will and Representation." It failed to attract at- tention for many years ; but it won its way to a vast, indeed an excessive influence. I venture to believe that " The World as the Subject of Redemption " contains, for those who use words thoughtfully, a view of the world both truer and more inspiring. The book was called by an eminent man *• a challenging book." Every principle in it, indeed, is a challenge to Chris- tians to reconsider their views and action. 1. It maintains that Christianity is, according to the teach- ing of the New Testament, primarily a life, and only secondarily a system of doctrines, public worship and clerical government. Why then is so disproportionate an amount of Christian effort spent on these last? And why are disputes about them allowed to hinder us from any serious and united movement for making the common life really Chris- tian ? 2. It maintains that the Church (" the fulness of Him that Preface to the New Edition, xi fiUeth all in all") is the whole community of Christian people in the whole range of their life, and tends to embrace the whole world ; and therefore that it cannot be adequately re- presented by communities organized for public worship and its accessories. Why, then, do we hear continually the words "The Church" or "The Churches" applied solely to bodies organized for public worship, doctrinal teaching and a few adjuncts of beneficence ? Why do historical writers constantly speak of acts that are those of the clergy alone as acts of the Church ? Why do we find that, in nine cases out of ten, when " the Church " is named, the clergy and the worship- ping body (most commonly the clergy alone) are meant ? 3. It maintains that the world, the whole of human society, is to be brought under the power of Christ, and that this is the true object of Christian endeavour. Why is the saving and training of individual souls constantly proposed as the sole object, and hardly any mention made of the larger work of saving human society, which was contemplated from the first ? Was not the original Gospel " The Gospel of the Kingdom " ? 4. It maintains that each of the rings or circles of human society, the family, the communities which exist for the fur- therance of science, of art, of social intercourse, of commerce, as well as for public worship, are essentially religious socie- ties, and the Nation most of all. Why, then, are those societies still spoken of as secular or worldly, instead of the attempt being made to raise their spheres of action to the dignity of Church functions, and their leaders to that of Church ministers ? I know that such suggestions demand great candour and patience for their consideration ; for evidently, if they are well-grounded, a great deal of Christian energy needs a change of direction. Those who represent the communities formed for public worship and its adjuncts, and arrogate to these alone the name of the Church, may feel as if they were accused of a great usurpation. Have they not shut up the xii Preface to the New Edition, Kingdom of God, and, by their attempted monopoly, withdrawn the Christian sanction and motive from all other societies ? The Christian, again, who conceives himself to be one of the elect, or to belong to a worshipping body the members of which alone are in covenant with God, may say that to take in the whole world as concerned with Christ's redemption and in- cluded in His kingdom, deprives him of the special blessed- ness which his faith had secured him. The men of secular callings, on the other hand, will be apt to resent a demand to make Christian principle the ruling power of life ; so in- grained is the notion that Christianity is an abnormal, exotic thing, tainted with clericalism, instead of being the necessary master-principle of every true human society (for " By Him all things consist," or " hold together "). But the question is not whether we like these views, or whether we dislike the trouble of reconsidering our position, but whether what is here said is true. It is the truth of the propositions above stated which these Lectures seek to de- monstrate. They enter but little into the question of their congruity with received opinions. I have gone over the book carefully ; and though I wish the expression were more powerful, I see nothing in the views propounded which I should wish to alter. On the con- trary, the ten years since they were published seem to me to show a constant and inevitable gravitation towards the point of view here adopted. The chief general facts of our religious progress during these years all make in the same direction. I. The better knowledge of our religious history has brought the Bible and the older Church history under the evolutionary laws of general social progress, a process now which is fully admitted in reference to the Old Testament, and which must be admitted also as to the New Testament, and the formation of the Church. This better knowledge of reli- gious history will remove the causes of contention between the sects or so-called churches, and turn men's attention to the Preface to the New Edition, xiii social evolution of which the Christian principle is the su- preme factor. 2. The wider knowledge of and sympathy with the other religions of the world, for which the Parliament of Religions at Chicago has done so much, must have the same effect, by removing the antagonisms of theology, and bringing men to apply the great general principles underlying all religions, but of which the character of Christ is the supreme expres- sion, to bear upon the general life, in which all may find agreement. 3. But above all the irresistible pressure of the social ques- tion is felt throughout the whole range of religious life. Every community of Christian worshippers vies with every other in putting it forward. The late Archbishop Manning in England, and Cardinal Gibbons in America, the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops, the great general gatherings of the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, and the Metho- dists, alike have been occupied with it as the matter of chief importance. On this it is necessary to speak more at large. It is evi- dent that none of these separate organizations, nor all of them combined, are capable of carrying through the work of social reform ; and, while they persist in identifying them- selves with "the Church," they cause perpetual irritation, especially on such subjects as education, and along the whole line of philanthropic effort. They frequently, by arrogating to themselves a power which they have not, impede the exercise of that power by the nation or the municipality, and draw away from these the sanction of Christian motives. But there are evidences that this sanction will be claimed more and more by the bodies existing for the carrying on of social reforms. Such efforts as those of the Civic Church and the Labor Church are attempts to bring the Christian sanc- tion and the Christian spirit to bear upon social action. Such books as Mr. Kidd's "Social Evolution" show that the hopes of human progress, especially in the sphere of social xlv Preface to the New Edition and humanistic legislation, are dependent on the increase of true religion. And meanwhile statesmen are feeling more and more the pressure of the social question. The present Prime Minister of England, in the speech which he made at the moment of assuming office and taking leave of his old comrades on the County Council of London, acknow- ledged this tendency of things in a manner never before witnessed, and distinctly connected it with the religious im- pulse working not mainly through public worship and the clergy, but directly through the secular organs. I quote three passages from that speech.* 1. "I saw some influential letter in some influential paper objecting to this meeting on the ground that it was held in Holy Week. [Laughter.] I do not laugh at that objection ; I see nothing to laugh at. If this were a meeting like some meetings, I should think there might be something in the objection ; but I cannot see that it is alien to the true spirit of any week, however holy, that we should discuss together, if we can do so without intemperance or violence, those social and eternal problems which concern not merely the Council and Parliament, but the cause of humanity itself. There are dreams as noble, as sublime, cherished in the County Council as in any assembly in the world." 2. [After describing some rallying to which Mr. J. Morley had been subjected for speaking of " young men dreaming dreams " — " a misquotation from the prophet Joel. ... I believe the true text is 'Young men shall see visions,' " Lord Rosebery continued] : " I do not think it was an unfortunate expression at all as it was intended, and I shall be prepared to adopt it to its fullest extent. I say, young men will see visions, and I hope men who are no longer young will see visions, because it is in the visions of the future that there is the best hope for the politics of the present. . . . When I and you cease to dream dreams, it will be time for us to give up being municipal Reformers." * Tivies, London, Thursday, March 22, 1894. Preface to the New Edition, xv 3. *' A new spirit is passing from municipal into Imperial politics which aims more at the improvement of the lot of the worker and the toiler than at those great constitutional efforts in which past Parliaments have taken their pride. I believe that in the course of the lowering of the suffrage we somewhere or other lit upon the conscience of the com- munity. I believe that at last the community has awoke to its liabilities and its duties to all ranks and classes. And I believe that the people are now inclined to think that politics is not merely a game in which the pawns have to be sacrificed to the knights and the castles — [cheers] — but is an elevating and ennobling effort to carry into practical politics and practi- cal life the principles of a higher morality, ... I am certain that there is a party in this country not named as yet, that is disconnected with any existing political organization, a party which is inclined to say, ' A plague on both your Houses, a plague on all your parties, a plague on all your politics, a plague on your unending discussions, which yield so little fruit. Have done with this unending talk and come down and do something for the people.' It is this spirit which animates, as I believe, the great masses of our artisans, the great masses of our working clergy, the great masses of those who work for and with the poor . . . and I for one shall not despair some day to see a Minister, whether Prime or otherwise, who shall not scruple from time to time to come down from the platform of party, and speak straight to the hearts of his fellow-countrymen." I look to America with great hope. It is religious, but not clericalist ; and it is bringing the religious principle steadily to bear on the social difficulties which are felt there as much as on this side of the Atlantic. It would ill become me to dwell upon the special need which almost all writers upon its public and social life point out for the application to it of Christian self-devotion and purity, a need which exists equally, to say the least, in England and in other countries, but which is brought into relief by American publicity and xvi Preface to the New Edition, American freedom of individual action. Tliis same freedom gives to Christian men in all departments a special field of influence ; and I do not doubt the result. But what appears to me to be peculiarly needed there as elsewhere, is to rec- ognize and evoke into consciousness the Divine character of human societies. The doctrine of these lectures is not merely that each man is potentially, and on the way to become actually, a son of God, but that the whole organized human society, the formed brotherhood of God's sons, is his creation and his intended dwelling-place ; that it is to this and to its component circles and to those who are leaders in them that we are to apply all that the New Testament says of the Church, and of its ministers ; that so the true progress, the establishment of right relations between spiritual beings, may go on continually, " increasing with the increase of God." If these Lectures may be honoured by contributing to this result, they will through God's blessing accomplish their purpose. W. H. FREMANTLE. The Precincts, Canterbury, February, 1895. INTRODUCTION RICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D„ LL.D. Professor of Political Economy and Director of the School of Economics, Political Science and History in the University of Wisconsin. Our time is one of religious unrest, because the old ideals — imperfect and incomplete — no longer satisfy. New creeds put forth from time to time have not met the requirements of the situation, and the multitudinous new sects have begotten doubt rather than strengthened faith. What men want now is a new life ; and the strength of this work, a remarkable presentation of Christian sociology, lies in the religious basis which it gives for reform and improvement in every sphere of life. Canon Fremantle inspires us with zeal for rendering Christian the whole of the world and the whole of life. He shows Christians that they are fulfilling the purpose of the Founder of their re- ligion in carrying Christianity into every sphere of social life and into every day of the week. The • World as the Subject for Redemption ' offers a system of apologetics, but it is not concerned merely or chiefly with * the original guarantees of Christianity and of the documents in which it was at first enshrined.' Such a system of apolo- getics is insufficient. Canon Fremantle satisfies us because he vindicates the claim of Christianity to stimulate, to inspire, to lead the world's progress. Christianity, inclusive of all good- ness, must ever be in advance, presenting a goal to the in- dividual and to the nation. The purpose of Canon Fremantle is to ' turn the faces of men away from the controversies en- gendered by an exclusive interest in worship and dogma to the more fruitful field of a practical influence on the national and universal life.' We have here given us the watchword for i* Introduction, every movement towards Church unity which promises success. Men can never agree respecting the subtleties and mysteries of Christian theology, but they may unite in efforts for the re- demption of the world. We are shown that we must all be ministers of the Christian faith. The lady with superior social gifts is to be a minister of Christ in building up a society on a Christian basis, because society must be redeemed. Social culture is a gift to be used for Christ. Art is to be made Christian, and the artist is a servant of the Church, that is of the nation, which is the Church in its fulness, as is so well shown. Science must be pursued as a Christian calling, and industry must be re- deemed. The elevation of literature is a part of the work of the Church, and he who has the gift to write well has in this gift a call to serve God. The legislator in city, state, or nation is likewise a minister in Christ's Church, and he is guilty of violation of a sacred trust if he does not endeavour to bring to pass the kingdom of God in his sphere. * The attempt to establish the social and political relations on a religious basis is the most divine work given to man.' All life is one — this is the message of the present book — and this life must be thoroughly Christian. One part cannot be separated from the rest and made Christian while the other parts are unrighteous. It is against this schism that protest is raised. A high ideal of national righteousness is set before us by Canon Fremantle. Not the isolated individual is to be saved, but the individual in the nation ; not the nation is to be saved as an isolated nation, but as one of a family of nations fill- ing the earth. The world is the subject of redemption. This is an interpretation of Christianity at once simple and sublime, and it is calculated to inspire the best spirits of our time. The message is one especially for ardent young men of lofty aspirations, who too often have been turned away from Christianity by false and narrow, mean and self- ish interpretations. Canon Fremantle shows that Christianity is as broad and lofty as any ideal ; that it is so much larger than any one ideal or any group of ideals, that it is capable Introduction, of including them all. In reading this book one thinks of the expression, ' the manliness of Christ,' for it is a manly- Christ which is here presented, a Christ strong in action, Christ the Ruler as well as Christ the Consoler. It is Christ to whom the kingdom belongs, and whose right it is to reign. All genuine progress tends towards the establishment of this kingdom, and Canon Fremantle, marking out the lines of progress, presents what may be called the dynamics of Christianity. A religion for the present life as well as that which is to come is described, and it becomes evident that the reform of all other reforms needed is a religious reform, for that embraces all. Any narrower meaning than this given to the word * religion ' is full of baleful consequences. It is indeed often enough said that Christianity alone can solve social pro- blems, and such an assertion is generally greeted with a sneer of scorn by the social reformer. Naturally enough ; because those who tell us that Christianity is the solution of social problems think that in saying this enough has been said, and at once turn away from any attempt to solve them. The merit of this book is that it gives sense and meaning to the statement that Christianity is the solution of social problems, and turns men's attention earnestly to the solution as a definite work. The question of Church and State is treated by Canon Fremantle in a manner adapted to our time. The attempted solution of this question in America can by no possibility prove permanently satisfactory, nor can European practice altogether please any one. Canon Fremantle, avoiding the too little and too much, takes a middle course and resolves many perplexities and doubts. I am glad to have an opportunity to commend heartily and unreservedly this book. Its general perusal by those who call themselves Christians in English-speaking lands, especially those of wealth and culture, would tend to produce a new reformation more glorious than that of the sixteenth century, and with this reformation — indeed as an essential part of it — would come all reforms needed in our entire social structure. RICHARD T. ELY. ii* 111 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. LECTURE I. UNIVERSAL REDEMPTION. THE WORLD AS A WHOLE. PAGB The Christian Church is designed, not to save individuals out of the world, but to save the world itself i To exhibit this is the best Apology for Christianity 2 Two questions answered. I. What is the World ? It is the univer- sal organism of which mankind is the head ; not evil in itself, but, though fallen into an evil state through human selhshness, capable of restoration 3 Views of the Protestant and the Catholic theology on this, com- pared with the view maintained here 6 II. What is the Church ? It is the portion of Human Society which partakes of Redemption — ultimately the World Redeemed 8 The Church, therefore, is in process of formation 9 This is verified (i ) from Scripture 10 Two passages being selected as examples, (a) the introduction to St. John's Gospel 11 and {d) the Epistle to the Ephesians 13 These allow for the idea of the immanence of God 14 (2) from Human History 15 Views of writers on the Philosophy of History 16 (3) from the doctrine of evolution 17 Two cognate truths are involved in this : — (i) That all goodness is essentially Christian 20 (2) That independent study of morals must further the cause of true Christianity 23 Nevertheless the world needs redemption, as Israel did 24 The study of comparative religion shows this 25 The process of restoration is by the principle of election . 27 Human progress is identical with the influence of the spirit of Christianity 28 xxi xxii Analytical Table of Contents, TAGB. Each association of men demands for its perfection the Christian spirit 28 As seen in the family 30 in the associations for the pursuit of knowledge and art.. 31 in trading associations 31 and in social and political life 32 Christianity and Culture ultimately coincide 33 Culture for its expansion requires a spiritual bond 34 Which is supplied by Christianity 34 The Christian ideal of life comprehends and vivifies the others 36 But Christianity takes form in an organized community 37 This community is ultimately the world transfigured by the spirit of Christ 38 The Lectures will show this worked out as follows : — Lect. IT. in the Jewish polity 3^ Lect. III. in the Church of the New Testament 38 Lects. IV., v., VI., in the attempts at a Christian Society made by the Imperial and Mediaeval Church, the Refor- mation, and the English Commonwealth 39 Lects. VII. and VIII. will show the spiritual basis needed for human Societies, and the path which leads from the present state of the world to its redeemed state 39 A sound theory of Christian progress conduces to hope and energy. 40 LECTURE II. THE HEBREW THEOCRACY. THE TRAINING IN NATIONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. Religion consists in right relations of men with God and with one another 41 True historical study is the study of these relations 42 Hebrew history discloses these relations in a rudimentary form 42 The laws of Israel reflect the higher mind of the nation 43 Hebrew poetry shows the attachment of the people to the law 45 Their religious value for the land tended to peace and industry. 47, 48 The Laws prescribing social relations and care for the poor, endeared the law to the common people 49, 50 Polygamy and slavery were modified 51 The Alien law was exceptionally mild 52 The brotherly character of the law prepared the way for the teach- ing of Christian love 52 The law is the centre of (i) the Constitution of the Nation, (2) its Theology, (3) its History, (4) its Literature 53 Analytical Table of Conte^zts, xxiii PACK 1. The Constitution. The duty of the Judges, both ordi- nary and special, was to enforce the law of just rela- tions 53 The Monarchy and the national Centre ministered in another way to unity and brotherhood 55 The organization is important as being not municipal but ^ national 57 2. The Theology. The Theocracy was the rule not of priests, but of the Divine law of just relations 58 The ceremonial law kept before the people the idea of holiness 59 Through the law Jehovah Himself dwells in the nation . 60 The Judges and Kings are gods 62 The assertion of a peculiar relation of Israel to God is justified 62 We can trace a growth in the conceptions of God as a Moral Being d-^ The struggle against idolatry was a struggle against in- j ustice and immorality 65 3. The History. Prosperity came through keeping the law 66 The law gave strength for the uprising of the nation after oppression 67 The beneficence of the law palliates the conquests 68 The prophets, as statesmen, sought to maintain the law of just relations as the true source of national pros- perity 69 4. The Literature in its three divisions shows also the su- premacy of the Law 71 We can trace the supreme influence of the Law of just relations — (i) in the Pentateuch 72 (2) the Historical books and Prophets 72, 73 (3) the Hagiographa and Psalms "jt^ and also in the aesthetic development 75 The religion of Israel was national, but yet expansive 76 The Ideal of Israel was righteousness 78 The religious and political value of the Old Testament is permanent. 79 LECTURE III. THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. BEGINNINGS OF THE UNIVERSAL SOCIETY. The New Testament expands the idea of a Theocracy 81 xxiv Analytical Table of Contents, PAGH The theocracy of Christendom is the Righteous God abiding in man- kind 83 Christ is the Saviour of Society 84 His first effort was to impart the consciousness of the Fatherhood of God 84 But He looked forward to the changes which His teaching would eventually cause 85 He gave little more than hints as to the organization of the body of His followers 86 The first hope was that the Jewish commonwealth might be converted 88 As this fails a new departure may be discerned 89 The teaching becomes more positive 89 The Twelve are ordained as a nucleus of the new kingdom 89 The Kingdom gradually passes over from the old to the new body. 92 The Kingdom is misunderstood by those who look for selfish ad- vantage, but also by those who ignore its political results 93 Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, but only in the sense that it is not worldly and selfish 94 It is a spiritual society in that its object is faith and goodness which in their deepest influence are beyond human law 95 But all spiritual life works itself out in actual life 95 Its effort is to make the kingdoms of the world into kingdoms which are not of this world 97 Christ's words reveal the spiritual character of true government 97 From Him as the centre the divine spirit flows into all human re- lations 98 The renunciation of self for the society is the first and absolute re- quirement 99 The Society is governed by principles which, however, pass into laws. 100 The social capacity of the Church was restrained at first by the need of instruction 102 Yet there was even during our Lord's life a rudimentary organization. 104 The organization becomes a matter of necessity after Pentecost. . .. 104 The primitive Church sought to supply all the needs of its members. 105 The Jews' rejection of Christianity hastened the organization of the Church 107 The Societies founded by St. Paul aimed at a complete social life 108 This follows both from their Jewish and their Gentile antece- dents 108-110 Their organization was freely adapted to their needs, as is shown by the growth and functions of the offices of Deacon and Presbyter. 1 1 1 This organization was chiefly for purposes of government 112 Teaching and prayer were free, subject only to the rule of decency and order 113 Analytical Table of Contents. xxv PAGB The Pastoral Epistles show great activity in the functions of govern- ment 1^4 A body of rules was formed by a natural growth - 1 16 Through these a new world was gradually being formed ii6 This new world is the object of the apocalyptic hopes 117 In the Christian family was first realized the Kingdom of Christ 119 But it was seen to be the type of an universal Christian Society 120 The change of the world into the Kingdom of Christ is gradual and hard to gauge • - i - 1 Our duty is to strive for the purification of the Kingdom and its expansion • 122 LECTURE IV. THE IMPERIAL AND MEDIEVAL CHURCH. UNITED CHRIS- TENDOM ATTEMPTED. The Church at the end of the first century had all that was needed for its spiritual conquest 123 Its first object was to impress on the conscience of mankind the ideal of the life of Christ 124 Both the ordinances and doctrines were designed to do this 125 This ideal assimilated the current ideas and motives of goodness.. 127 But it harmonized them and inspired them with hope 128 Moral ideas spread through many channels 128 Christianity gave also a new stimulus to the pursuit of goodness. . 130 The form taken by the Christian ideal has varied in different ages. 131 Its constant factors have been love, faith, and beneficence 134 The causes of its winning upon mankind as given by Gibbon are true, but need expansion 13S The last cause named by him is the discipline of the Churches 137 This involves the attempt to become a sovereign society 138 Which enforces its will by punishments and rewards 139 This discipline should, however, be limited by the rights of the in- dividual conscience I40> 141 From Constantine onwards attempts have been made to make Christendom an organic whole 141 We must try to see the faults through which these attempts have failed 142 The fault in the era of Constantine lay in not acknowledging the Imperial rule as a function of the Church 142 The Church had acquired the habits of a sect 143 This was caused by the doctrinal controversies 144 xxvi Analytical Table of Co7itents, PAGE And by the ascetic tendency and the transfer of men's interests from this world to the next 145 The Church leaders had no public spirit 146 And the clergy became separate from the laity 148 The rise of the Papacy and the False Decretals augmented this separation 149 Hence sprung the strife of the Clerical and Imperial powers 1 50 The real contrasts introduced by spiritual religion were not in question 151 The theory of Mediaeval Society was that of unity, not of separa- tion 151 Charles and the great Emperors and Kings ruled in the name of God. 155 The Papacy might have exercised a sanctifying and harmonizing influence 156 But the Popes aspired to, and for a time acquired, an external domination 157 Their domination bequeathed many great benefits to Europe 160 But it failed because it divided instead of harmonizing human life. 161 And because the supremacy of the clergy perverted the Christian ideal 162 But the true ideal of the Middle Ages survives 164 It presided over a vast religious and social progress, and thus pre- pared for the better era 165-6 LECTURE V. THE CHURCHES OF THE REFORMATION. EFFORTS FOR A CHRISTIANIZED SOCIETY. The Mediaeval Church, though it had failed, had left the idea of a social system inspired by the Christian spirit 167 The Churches of the Reformation had to aim at the same results separately 168 The Reformation is primarily a positive, incidentally a negative, movement 168, 169 as is seen in matters of doctrine and of general enlighten- ment 170 as also in the uprising of the laity and the national spirit. . 170-2 The liberty it claimed was a free course for truth and goodness.. . . 173 and was the spring of political liberty 174 Its public action was upon separate nations and cities 174 Among preparatory instances we may recall the politico-religious work of Arnold of Brescia (1142-55) 175 And of Savonarola (1490-8) 176-81 Analytical Table of Co7z tents. xxvii PACK Among the efforts of the Reformation we may examine the or- ganization of Geneva by Calvin (1536-64) 182-85 the Jesuit counterwork which was designed as a social restoration 185-89 the Church-State system of Zwingli, Wolfgang, and Erastus 189-93 the system established by the Scottish National Cove- nant (1581) 194-97 and the Puritan Settlements in New England early in the 17th century 198-205 The hope presented by these efforts is that of a society leavened by tlie spirit of Christ 205, 206 LECTURE VI. THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND COMMONWEALTH. CHRIS- TIAN NATIONALISM. England presents the best study of the attempt to Christianize Society 207 In Saxon times the Nation was both Church and State 207 From the Conquest onwards the Sovereign still asserted the national supremacy over the clerical system 208 The English Reformation, therefore, was necessarily both religious and political 209, 210 The struggle with the Papacy was the assertion of national right- eousness against an interloping and unjust system 210-13 The fear of a similar non-national system at home led to the Sub- mission of the Clergy and the Acts of Supremacy 212-14 The Supremacy of the Crown is that of the Nation over all its parts . 214 and especially of the lay power over the ministry of public worship 215 This Settlement was the expression of a national faith 216 which showed itself also in the Prayer Book and Articles of Religion 217 It was approved by the leading men of the period 217 and by the religio us Reformers, especially William Tyndale. 217 The grounds of the Settlement, and of the attempts made to alter it. 219 It is said that religion to be pure must be separate. But religion languishes when separated from the general life 222 Also that clerical separation is required for liberty of conscience. But the demand is really not for liberty but domination 223 The truth aimed at is that public worship is one of several spheres with which the central government should interfere but little. 224 It must, however, ensure the harmonious working of the system. . 226 xxviii Analytical Table of Cofitents, PAGE The Supremacy has passed rightly from the Sovereign to the Par- liament and the Prime Minister 227 This system of Christian Nationalism was maintained in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI 228 Elizabeth failed to recognize that the ecclesiastical power of the Crown must be shared by Parliament 231 Hooker gave formal expression to the system, but failed to see the danger of the rising clericalism 231 The people believed that the religion of the Bible was Puritanism. 234 The counter claim of clerical supremacy was urged by violence .... 236 Puritanism would have yielded to reason and constitutional action. 237 The Puritan ideal was noble, but was driven into narro%vness and tyranny 238 Puritanism, though conquered, regained its political influence, and the supremacy of the Commons is permanent 239 The Toleration Act did not constitute separate churches, but gave freedom of worship to the Christian community 240 The religious traditions of the 17th century lasted through the i8th. 242 Driven from the field of worship it influenced the national legisla- tion and the progress of science, art, and general expansion . . . 243 The recognition of the whole national life as the sphere of religion should not blunt, but quicken the sense of sin and of the need of redemption 245 The Church must breathe the Christian spirit into the spheres most destitute of it 247 and build up the community in justice and the fear of God. 248 LECTURE VII. THE CHRISTIAN BASIS OF HUMAN SOCIETIES. Religion must be connected with the general life 248 Its purpose is to unite mankind in an organized Christian brotherhood 249 All men are affected by it. Besides its stage of conviction, Chris- tianity has its proleptic and unconscious stages 250 and it must be identified with moral goodness 251 It works by the principle of Election in the whole and in each part. 252 We must deal with the elect portion while keeping the whole in view 253 It works also by a Sacramental system, using outward things for spiritual purposes 254 and in doing this it forms a universal priesthood 255 The Church includes many separate organisms, each of the same character as the whole 256 Analytical Table of Cmitents, xxix PAGE The individual as the subject of redemption is a Microcosm 257 and seeks, in union ^-ith others, to exert a redemptive power upon the world 258 This work is gradual and multiform 258 but all circles of human life are capable of inspiration and redemption 259 There are seven such circles within the Universal Humanity, which is the eighth 260 1. Tlu organization for public worship is not itself the Church. . 260 but it joins in the redemptive process when it ministers to universality 261 by means of its prayers, Sacraments, instruction, and beneficence 262-266 Its leaders must form the most open of all orders 265 2. Family life is naturally Christian 266 It is a microcosm and must inspire itself with the Spirit of the Universal Church 267, 268 3. The associations for the pursuit of knowledge are in their true nature reUgious 268 All true knowledge is universal 268 and essentially moral .'. 269 The votaries of knowledge form a branch of the universal church 270 ^ Art is also a religious pursuit 27 1 It is the expression of feeling : it b creative and aspires to ex- cellence 271, 272 The fellowship in Art becomes a branch of the universal church 273 5. Social Intercourse, as ministering to mutual knowledge, inter- est, affection, and discipline, becomes reUgious; and affects the nation and the world 273-275 6. Trade and professional life, as ministering to the universal needs of men and drawing them together, also join in the redemptive process 275-76 7. Th£ Nation is at present the highest form of the Church, being most complete 277 A constitutional state especially forms a Christian brother- hood 279 The true ruler is a minister of God and a pastor of the people . . 280 8. The Universal Church is as yet unorganized 281 The union of the nations, attempted in the Middle Ages, must be re-attempted 282, 283 Its function is to maintain peace and the spirit of Christ among all its branches 284 XXX Analytical Table of Contents, Two conclusions follow : — page (i) The branches of the Church are permanent and help one another 284 (2) The organization for public worship, if fulfilling its purpose aright, will maintain its pre-eminence 285 LECTURE VIII. STEPS TOWARDS REALIZING THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WORLD. We can only indicate the direction, not describe the process, of restoration 286 1. Public Worship must not be a separate cult, but seek to raise the tone of the general life 287 Its point of contact with the general life is the Parochial sys- tem 290 The question, so-called, of Church and State, is really the question whether the Church or Christian Nation should maintain a system of public worship 290-1 This must depend on the attitude of the clergy 292 2. Fafnily Life, especially in England, is on the way to perfection 292-3 There are, however, two dangers — (i) The tendency in France and America to limit the duty of parentage 293 and (2) The Social evil 295 The general elevation of the Church by the spirit of Christian unselfishness is alone capable of surmounting these evils. . 295 3. K7iowledge needs co-ordination; especially the harmonizing of the Humane with the physical branches of knowledge .... 295-6 4. Art needs popularizing and the realization of its mission to elevate and gladden the life of mankind 297 5. Society must acknowledge a stewardship of its privileges, and a missionary character in its intercourse 298-9 6. Trade must cultivate rectitude and trustfulness 300 It must reconcile capital with labour by co-operation 300-1 The part which the Nation can take in trade depends on the prevalence of the higher and unselfish motives 301-2 7. In the Nation the constitutional system is a product of the Christian spirit 303 It requires constant readjustment in the relations of the whole and the parts 304 It must direct its legislation and administration to the eleva- tion of the weaker classes 304~S 8. The Universal Church must promote European peace by such means as Arbitration 306 Analytical Table of Contents xxxi PAGE It must apply Christian principles to the intercourse of nations 308 This is the object of International Law 309 The task is gigantic, but not beyond the powers of the Church 309 The subject of these Lectures is at one with the purposes of indi- vidual piety 310 The democratic movements of our day are favourable to Christian influences 311 if Christianity be understood to be not of a stationary, but of a missionary character 312 There are four conditions in which Christianity may thus work upon the World 312 (i) It must be confident that this is its destined task 312 (2) It must be a life, not a system 314 (3) It must abandon clericalism 315 (4) It must induce men to regard their common duties as Christian ministries 316 To show that this may be done is the best confirmation of the Christian Faith, which is the object of the Bampton Lecture. . 317 Scepticism arises mamly from the narrowing of the idea of the Church 318 When men see its capacity to further the Redemption of the World they will rally to it 320 We may thus restore the element of hope 320 This hope brings the heavenly spirit into the World and makes the World a preparation for heaven 321-2 LIST OF NOTES IN APPENDIX. CorrespOTtding Page in Page in Appendix Lectures I. Passages in the New Testament in which aicjv is used rather than K6a/j.og to desig- nate this World 325 . . 4 II. Extracts from the Papal Encyclical and Syllabus of Errors issued Dec. 8, 1864. • 326 . . 5 III. Analysis of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei, with extracts showing that it is not an anticipation of a Christian Common- wealth 329 . . 7, 147 IV. Extract from *La Mission Actuelle des Souverains,' showing the proper use of the words Religion, Worship, Church and Churches ^33 • • 8 V. Extracts from Aristotle showing the use in Greek Philosophy of the words import- ing Priority of Being 333 .. 12 VI. A short account of M. Comte's anticipations of the future of Political Society in Europe 334 .. 17 VII. Extracts from Professor Tyndall's Address to the British Association at Belfast, Aug. 19, 1874 338 .. 18 VIII. Extract from Professor Huxley's * Man's Place in Nature ' 340 . . 18 IX. The relation of the doctrine of Evolution to that of Free Will 341 . . 18 X. Illustrations of the contrast between the Eastern and Western Church-teachers in their estimate of the virtues of the Heathen 343 . . 21 XI. Expressions of Aristotle confessing the practical impotence of his Moral Phi- losophy 344 . . 26 XII. Extracts from Leaders of Modem Thought on the relation of Knowledge to Moral- ity and Religion 344 . . 30 xxxiii List of Notes in Appe^idix. xxxiv Corresponding Page in Page in Appendix Lectures XIII. The influence of Greek Philosophy and Roman Law on Christian Theology, from Sir H. Mayne's ' Ancient Law ' — 347 . . 36 XIV. Keshub Chunder Sen on Christianity for Europe and Asia 348 . . 37 XV. Extract from Mill's Logic on the use of Hypothesis in Scientific Investigation.. 349 .. 40 XVI. An Excursus on the Books of the Old Testament as a basis for History 350 .. 44 XVII. Customary Law, as described by Sir H. Mayne 359 .. 44 XVIII. (i) Extracts from Baron Bunsen, showing the working of Absolutism in the Church in Germany 361 . . 193 (2) Explanation of the Reformed Prussian Church Law 363 193 XIX. Hooker on the making of Ecclesiastical Laws and the Royal Supremacy 365 . . 227 XX. Richard Rothe on the Church 368 . . 261, 289 XXL Extract from * Ecce Homo.' The Law of Edification 371 .. 264 XXII. Religion and Art. Extract from an Ad- dress of Sir F. Leighton to the Students of the Royal Academy 372 . . 271, 272 XXIII. Extracts from * A Fragment on the Church,' by Dr. Arnold 376 97, 140, 280 XXIV. The Views of International Jurists as to a Tribunal of Arbitration as a substitute for War 381 283, 309 XXV. The Parish as a Church. Extracts from a Pastoral Address 384 . . 290 XXVI. The Maison Leclaire at Paris, an example of successful co-operative industry 389 . . 301 XXVII. St. Augustine's Confession of Agnosticism, extracted from his work De Doctrin^ Christiana 393 . . 314 LECTURE I. UNIVERSAL REDEMPTION. THE WORLD AS A WHOLE. St. John iii. 17. God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. The purpose of this course of Lectures is to restore the idea of the Christian Church as a moral and social power, present, universal, capable of transforming the whole life of mankind, and destined to accomplish this transformation. The Church has often been presented' to men as if it had no object but public worship and teaching, with some few accidental adjuncts of bene- ficent action. It is regarded as a society, but a society of which public prayer and preaching are the supreme, if not exclusive, ratio essendi. If a further' object is assigned, it is to prepare men for another w^orld. In contrast to this limited view of its functions, the Church will be here presented as the Social State in which the Spirit of Christ reigns ; as embracing the general life and society of men, and identifying itself with these as much as possible ; as having for its object to imbue all human relations with the spirit of Christ's self-renouncing love, and thus to change the world into a kingdom of God. It is proposed to show that this, and no narrower purpose, was contemplated from the beginning ; that it is to this that all natural indications point as the destination of a spiritual society ; that it is this which, in spite of the fundamental misconception which has been noticed, has been in the main the aim of the Church. The attempts which have been made thus to save the world will be reviewed, and an estimate 1 2 Universal Redemption. [lect. formed of their success or failure. It will be shown, further, how the Church principle, that is, the principle of Christian love working in organized bodies of men, would operate if society were brought fully under its dominion. And, lastly, the present state of society will be examined, and suggestions made as to the practical means by which our social state may, in all its circles and relations, become fully Christian, and capable of the indwelling of God. Such a presentation of the Christian Church, if it can be successfully drawn out, will serve, it is hoped, to turn the attention of men away from the controversies en- gendered by an exclusive interest in worship and dogma to the more fruitful field of a practical influence on the national and universal life. It will tend to show the complete identity of Christianity with goodness in its widest sense. It will exhibit the unity of the various spheres of moral and intellectual life. It will also pre- sent a point of hope to all who long and strive for the general good of mankind, and give a direction to their energies ; while, in reference to the special and apolo- getic object of the Bampton Lecture, it will rally men to the Christian standard by a renewal of the hope which in the early days inspired the army of believers. Apologetics have often been no more than a vindica- tion of the original guarantees of Christianity, and of the documents in which it was at first enshrined. But, partly because the thing to be defended was vague, partly because the argument seemed after all inconclu- sive, they rarely kindled enthusiasm. They often failed even to attract the attention of those to w^hom they Vv^ere addressed. It was not certain whether by Chris- tianity was meant the Roman Catholic or the Anglican, the Presbyterian or Independent system of worship or church government, the Calvinist or Arminian system of doctrine, the clerical or the liberal view of the Chris- I.] The World as a Whole, 3 tian life ; and whether, therefore, its acceptance might require a man to adopt any of these systems, or to engage in controversies about them. It was not certain whether by the Church were not meant some exclusive body having little to do with the actual life of mankind, perhaps even drifting into hostility to the convictions of men engaged in secular callings, and to the pro- gressive tendencies of modern societies. Moreover, it is not enough that religion should be merely capable of defence. It must inspire and lead, or else it dies. We must show^ that it is capable of influencing, stimulating and guiding the progress of humanity ; and, further, that the world itself demands the Christian religion as alone capable of sustaining its hope and its energy. This is what these Lectures will attempt. Let us begin by asking two questions, — ist. What is the world, the salvation of which was designed by Christ and His apostles } 2d. What is the Church through which its salvation is to be wrought out .? I. What is the world which Christ came to save, and which is to be changed into His Church .? We mean by the world the organized constitution of things in which we live, including the material universe so far as we ap- prehend it, but chiefly humanity, which (taking the world as known to us) is its crown. The world is the universe' as conceived of and wrought upon by men. It partakes, ~ therefore, of man's rise and fall ; for, if man be degraded, external nature becomes evil to him, and through him the source of evil to others ; whereas, when man rises to his true position, all external nature is first viewed as serving the spiritual good of mankind, and then is actually used for this purpose. The world thus conceived is a har- • mony. But the harmony is broken through when man is driven helplessly by the physical powers by which he is surrounded ; when he reckons them above instead of below him, as idolaters do, and he thus becomes 4 Universal Redemption, [lect. impoiens sui, resigning his rightful supremacy ; or when he drifts on without a perception of the Moral Order ; or, again, when he uses nature and his fellow-men wilfully or selfishly, instead of seeking that they and he should serve the highest spiritual purpose. The harmony is restored when the spiritual aim is understood and em- braced. Then men are at one through their common pursuit of justice and love, and outer nature is subser- vient to this pursuit. This harmony is also properly divine ; the world thus conceived is a manifestation of God. He who perceives and acts upon this harmony is a believer in God, whether he name the sacred name or not. He who through moral indifference does not re- cognize it, at least as 'the purpose of the ages,' and he alone, may properly be called an atheist. But he who with mind and heart embraces this harmony, embraces the thought and purpose of God Himself. We may say more. Since God dwells in the world as thus conceived, since He is the justice and the love which gives it its character, he who thus conceives it takes in the divine nature, or rather is taken into it, and he thus becomes an agent of God's will and of His purpose — a member and a minister of Him who fills all in all. When the world is under the dominion of selfishness, then it becomes an evil thing. As such it is constantly spoken of in Scripture, where sometimes the unreal and transitional character of this stage is marked by the expression '■ Tliis world.' 'The prince of this world cometh ^ ; ' * the rulers of the darkness of this world ^ ; ' and the word aldiv rather than xoaiio^ is used to denote this transitional state 3. It is also thus that we com- monly speak of 'the world,' or 'worldly people. ' But at this point is apt to arise a fatal confusion of thought. Christians have very commonly believed that the order of things in which we live is permanently, necessarily, * John xiv. 30. ^Eph. vi. 12. ^ See Note I. I.] The World as a Whole. 5 incurably corrupt. For many ages, by a fatal dualism, they looked on the material fabric of the world, and their own bodies, as evil ; and then Christianity became as- ceticism. And even now the impression on many minds is that human society at least will never be delivered from the bonds of corruption. This causes them, not only to hold aloof from the pleasures of life even when they are innocent, but to look on many of its most serious interests, such as science or politics, as secular and profane. In consequence of this, Christianity has been deprived of a large part of its proper influence. It has been assumed that human society must be left to run out its selfish and doomed career, and that it is at best a scaffolding, inside of which another society, the Church or kingdom of God, is to grow up, while the existing society, instead of being transformed, must eventually dwindle and be destroyed. And, further, the conflict of the Church and the world, which was real at first, has been prolonged when there is no further reason for it. It has seemed quite natural that the Church should neglect the general interests of society ; for why should it busy itself about anything so transient } And more, when movements of a liberal character, move- ments which are often essentially Christian in their tendency, sometimes even in their origination, arise in society, instead of looking at these as the work of the Divine Spirit, the official representatives of the Church have looked askance at them and misjudged them. Even in Protestant communities the whole reforming tendency of the last hundred years has often been opposed by those who are held to represent the Church ; while in the Roman Catholic community the Syllabus of the Pope ^ all but binds the believer to an irreconcileable war with modern civilization ; and the tone commonly ^ See Note II, Quotations from the Papal Encyclical and Syllabus of Errors. 6 Universal Redemption, [lect. attributed to the Church in doctrinal writings is that of a despised and persecuted woman, rather than that of a strong man with an arm to succour and a heart to com- fort, engaged, with manly hope, in restoring to society- its true principle of life, and forwarding its progress towards a state of perfect justice and love. We must admit, with both Scripture and experience, that the world is very imperfect and, in many of its ar- rangements, unjust ; and that its condition consequently, at any given time, is liable to the condemnation that it has ' fallen short of the glory of God, ' or even that it ' lies in wickedness.' But its whole structure bears witness to a higher destiny ; and we equally follow Scripture and experience in conceiving of it as painfully undergoing a deliverance into a state of spiritual liberty. Another result of the misconception which sees no hope of deliverance for the world is, that salvation is looked upon merely as the deliverance of individuals. The idea of the salvation of society has been ignored, though it stands out prominently in both the Old and the New Testament ' . The Protestant theology, which cen- tres in the doctrine of justification by faith, has perhaps contributed to this, by insisting too exclusively on the re- lation of the individual soul to God. It has narrowed the notion of faith, so as to take no notice of that half-con- scious or embryo faith which operates very widely, as a general and national sentiment, and consequently has not attended to the influence which faithful men ought to exert on the organization of social life as a direct part of the Christian scheme ; nor, again, to the influence which Society, if imbued with the Christian spirit, may exercise on all its members. It has not dared to think of a saved and living Society, even as an object of hope ; but has ^ This is fully shown in the Second and Third Lectures, which point out the evolution of the social and political idea of religion in the Old and New Testament respectively. I.] The World as a Whole, 7 conceived of the surrounding social state merely as hindering the individual, more or less, according to its greater or less corruption. The Catholic theology, on the other hand, which has in some sense maintained the idea of the Christian community, has yet never set itself to realize a Christian state of society generally as the object of the Church's endeavour. It was observed, indeed, by Mr. Ripley, the translator of Jouffroy's Essays ^, that the ordinary Catechisms teach a philosophy of history. ' If you ask a Catholic child whence came the human race, he knows ; if you ask him what it is engaged in, whither it is going, he knows. ^ But this is more than can be truly asserted. No doubt the common Church teaching has this element of greatness, that it conceives of the human race as one ; but that it teaches a sound doctrine as to the true aims and hopes of the race is more than questionable. It has, like St. Augustine in the De Civitate^ Dei^, drawn out the contrast between the worldly and the heavenly cities, and has represented the heavenly society as using the earthly, only as a stranger might use an inn, on its way to a better land. The existing' society appears' in this theology, not as the object of the redemptive efforts of Christ's servants, but as withering away under their scorn. Or, again, it has attempted to overlay the existing society with Christian forms, and to place it under the dominion of the clergy. It has never frankly fallen in with human progress, and sought to inspire it with Christian principle. The Church, as repre- sented in the Catholic theology, has always been a sepa- rate organization and a cause of division in human life. The truer theology would partly combine the Protestant.^ and the Catholic, partly supersede them both. It would acknowledge with the Protestant the paramount import- ^ Introductory notice to Jouffroy's Essays, pp. 23, 24, quoted in Flint's Philosophy of History, p. 4. ^ See Note III, in which the true scope of the De Civ. Dei is shown. 8 Universal Rede^nption. [lect. ance of individual conviction, while it would maintain with the Catholic that the full development of the redemp- tive work is to be seen only in an organized society. But it would assert that this organized society must ultimately be coextensive with the world '^ ; and therefore that the main object of Christian effort is not to be found either in the saving of individuals out of a ruined world, or in the organizing of a separate society destined always to hold aloof from the world, but in the saving of the w^orld itself. II. What then, we may ask, secondly, in view of this purpose of God, to save the world, is the Christian Church.? It can be nothing else than that portion of human society which is renewed by the Christian spirit, a portion which must grow till it becomes the whole. This ideal, or destination, of the Church, is that of the vision drawn out in the 4th and 5th chapters of the Apocalypse ^ . In the centre is the slain Lamb, that is, God made known to us through the self-renouncing love expressed in the Cross of Christ. Round this central figure are ranged first the elders, representing the re- deemed humanity ; then the four living beings who re- present the animate creation : and, beyond these, par- taking in a more distant manner of the common redemption, every creature in heaven and earth is heard joining in adoration. We must take this vision as re- presenting, not a world removed from our own, but this world itself, in its ideal state and in its destined renewal : and this renewal, not as a sudden transformation after a vast cataclysm, but as wrought out gradually through the Christian centuries by the operation of the divine judgments and the expansion of the Christian Church. ^ See Note IV, a quotation from ' La Mission Actuelle des Souve- rains.' ^ This vision is embodied, in idea though not in detail, in Van Eyk's magnificent picture, the worship of the Immaculate Lamb. I.] The World as a Whole, 9 When men are brought into living contact with the re-- demptive love of God and of Christ, the effect of this is not only upon the first formed brotherhood which con- sciously realizes it, but upon the whole course of society and of nature : first upon the social condition of men and the institutions under which they live, then upon the animals who are their fellow-creatures and fellow- servants, then upon inanimate nature, upon the fields they cultivate and the earth which it was their original mission to subdue ; till, out of the chaos which selfish- ness has made, there arises a new harmony of creative love. This also is expressed in the Apocalypse by the visions ^ in which for the Babylonian world-power is substituted, after a long vista of judgment and conflict, the heavenly city, the bride and the abode of God. It is of the greatest importance to us to restore this wide, universal idea of the Church : for nothing short of this can satisfy those who have entered into the divine thought which is the substratum of the universe. But we must look upon this Church-idea, not as fully realized, but as that towards which human society is working, under the direction of divine providence. The Church is in process of formation, it is never complete. It con- stitutes an aspiration, not a full possession. It begins necessarily with a little society of those who can trust one another, with special forms of speech and action ; but it opens itself out to the society in which it lives. The law of its life is assimilation. Its work is the hallowing of all social conditions. And, as one by one the various circles in which men's natural needs have bound them together own the higher principle of Chris- tian love, they realize and express the Church-idea. The Church thus clothes itself with the various forms of the society into which it passes. It was at first a Jewish sect, then a Roman Hetaeria. It touched, and * Rev. xix. and xx. lo Universal Redemption, [lect. quickened, though hardly with a conscious aim, the various spheres of Roman Hfe. It grew till it seemed to lay its hand upon the empire. But the task was too great, and had to be begun again with the fragments of the broken unity. It worked again throughout the INIiddle Ages to combine Western Europe into a kingdom of God ; but again the task proved too great, and had to be begun once more after the Reformation, with the separate fragments. If we try to define it in its trans- itional state, we must say that it is that portion of organized humanity in which the Spirit of Christ is practically recognized as supreme. It is now mainly re- presented by a brotherhood of Christian nations, and the various circles of moral life which they include. But it tends to universality, to the union of Christendom, to the incorporation and training of the weaker races. It can never be perfect, never fully constituted, until it includes every individual of the human race, and till they all sus- tain true relations, relations of which love is the central word, towards God, towards one another, and towards the universe of which they form a part. This establish- ment and maintenance of true relations between spiritual beings in the universal community is that which we may set down as the purpose of God, the goal of human development. This conception of the Church as synonymous with the world redeemed must be verified by reference, (i) to Scripture, (2) to history, (3) to the modern doctrine of development. (i) Scripture begins with the presentation of the world as a harmonious whole springing up under the hand of God, rank above rank, and culminating in man, who is intellectually and morally supreme within it. It gives us the idea of what the world would be were man really subject to God, and the universe to man as made in God's image. It presents to us, next, the marring of this I.] The World as a Whole. ii ideal through man's mistrust and selfishness ; then the rise of the typical or normal religion and its gradual purification in the history of Israel, until the fulness of moral light shines forth in the life of our Lord ; and, lastly, the explanation of this great fact, and its influence upon mankind and the world. I will select two passages, one from the writings of St. John, the other from those of St. Paul, in which this explanation and this influence are described. I. I take the opening paragraph of St. John's Gospel, which describes the universal significance of the appear- ance of Christ. The Word, he says, (I represent the meaning by a paraphrase), the Word, which is none other than God, was present in the whole process of creation ; that is, the moral and spiritual purpose is the central fact to be traced in the universe. All things are made with reference to it, nothing is apart from it. This Word is the universal light 'which enlightens every man, the moral and spiritual centre of universal humanity ; and this is true, although it was a light shining in dark- ness, playing upon a social state which did not compre- hend it, although even the race of Israel, who were its own, who were specially adapted to receive it, did not receive it fully. But those who did receive it, that is, the faithful in Israel, and, generally, in all ages and coun- tries, became children of God ; their minds and hearts reflected the thought of God, they saw and felt truly. At length the Word found its adequate expression in the person of Jesus Christ. This was the culmination of the process ; and the exhibition of Christ as the complete expression of the divine word forms the subject of the Gospel according to St. John. Yet in the discourses at the close of St. John's Gospel it is recognized that the appearance of Christ is the be- ginning of a long process, and that from the central spring there opened the Spirit is to flow forth upon the 12 Universal Redemption, [lect. world ^ This diffusion of the Spirit of Christ through the world, which is the work of the Church, is recognized as being a greater work than that of Christ Himself ^ inas- much as the full development is greater than the first implanting of the germ. If we dwell on the assertion here made, that, apart from the Word which took human form in Christ, nothing in the whole world came into being, we have in this the strongest assertion of the unity of the world, and of its moral order and purpose. The material creation culmi- nates in humanity, humanity culminates in Jesus Christ ; and this process we must take as present in the divine mind from the beginning. Just as an architect first con- ceives the purpose which is to be served by the building before he has commenced the designs, and this purpose is present in every line which he draws and presides over the whole execution ; so the ideal of manhood which stood forth at last in the person of Christ must be con- ceived of as present to the Creator from the beginning of the process by which the world came into being ; and it must have been by and through this, as the mental in- strument, that the whole was conceived and executed. As Aristotle says — r^pcbTov rrf ,aa ahzapxz^ Tzapi^sffOa: '. That of the Roman, Imperial power, ' Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos' ; ' that of Israel, Righteousness, ' Open ye the gates that the right- eous nation, which keepeth the truth, may enter in^. ' We learn much, no doubt, from Aristotle's Politics, and from Roman constitutional history. But the Greek re- publics, whatever their form, were an aristocracy super- posed upon a mass of slavery. Roman history resulted in a despotism, a useless patriciate, and a pauper proleta- riate. The Jewish community was a brotherhood bound together by a worship and a law of righteousness, and it gave birth to the righteousness which is owned as com- plete where that of Rome and of Greece fails. The ideal we seek in modern times is that of a national community knit together in all its relations by righteousness and love, and caring especially for its weaker members. This neither Greece nor Rome did, but only the Jewish nation. Let those who would make Christianity merely a religious system apart from the common life of men, those who ascribe to it a sacerdotal or a dogmatic basis, those who conceive of God as apart from human rela- tions, and of religion as a merely individual connexion with Him, see to it, that they do not fall below the Hebrew ideal. Those who appreciate that ideal most fully, and dwell most on the divine ele'ment pervading it, will see very clearly that it points to none of these as its proper development, but to an all-embracing society, including the whole range of human interests and binding all men and classes and nations together in true relations, which are the work and the expression of the Spirit of God. In the present day there is too great a tendency to disparage the religious importance of the Old Testa- ment, and to doubt its value as an educational instru- ment, or as a medium for the teaching of practical life. * Thucydides, ii. 41. ^ Virg. Aen. vi. S54. ^Is. xxvi. 2, n.j Training in National Righteousness, 79 This is, to a large extent, a reaction from the over- strained notions which attributed to it an exact historical accuracy and a perfect sanctity. The Rationalismus Vulgaris, which has been applied with success to destroy such notions, was in its right, and had received abun- dant provocation. But the fuller and higher criticisin of later years which has come to us from Gottingen, from Leyden, from Aberdeen (may we not say also from Natal, at least in the later volumes ?), if it has displaced some parts of the fabric of our religious ideas, has also readjusted thenL When the smoke of controversy has passed off, we shall find that the more historical treat- ment of the Old Testament greatly enhances its reli- gious value for us. It is true that we must make a dis- tinction between various parts of the Old Testament Christ and St Paul have taught us this. There are some parts which have already been recognized as unsuitable for reading in our churches, and this process may be carried further. Other parts can only be read with profit if we apply to them constantly a kind of philosophy of history ; and this will be more possible with the advance of general education. But, if what has been said in this Lecture be true, not only will the Psalms and the prophets gain through the appreciation of their historical surroundings, — a process which will be greatly furthered by the fortiicoming new version of the Old Testament, and by the more open study of Hebrew literature in our universities, — ^but the whole of the Old Testament will be recognized as possessing the highest educational and political value. Through its connexion with Chris- tianity, it knits together the old and the new world with- out a breach of continuity. And it exhibits the stages of human progress, and also its drawbacks, its inci- dental failures, its atoning penalties and sacrifices, in a manner which strikes all ages and both sexes, and goes direct to the heart It is also of extreme value as show- 8o The Hebrew Theocracy, [lect. ii. ing by a typical example that religion is a matter of public and national concern, which has often been de- nied through a misunderstanding of the New Testament. And if the political and moral aspect which I have attempted to restore to prominence be maintained, this will make it still more precious in an age of poli- tical changes. For we have in it both a constant stimulus to the reform of our social state, and at the same time a direction for our efforts and a safeguard against our excesses. We may enter upon the path of democratic progress, which seems to open before modern communities without fear, if we apply, like Savonarola, the spirit of the prophets to uphold and to guide it ; for no nobler effort can be made in the political sphere than that which they made, to direct the national action towards the raising of the poor and the weak, and the promotion of brotherly relations throughout the com- munity in the name and in the fear of God. LECTURE III. THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. St. John xviii. 37. Pilate saith unto Him, Art thou a king then ? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. He that is of the truth heareth My voice. The establishment of a true theocracy or reign of God, by which, as we have shown, is meant, not a government by priests, but a recognition of divine righteousness in all the relations of life, is the purpose of the whole course of human development. We are not following any narrow or conventional plan when we trace this development in the facts revealed in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures ; for the world of our day is led by Western Christendom, and an under- standing of Christendom must be sought in the study of the Christian origins, and these again cannot be understood apart from the Old Testament. Other systems, European or Oriental, are accessory ; here alone is the main line of development. The principle of life which the Scriptures set forth is brought face to face with those of Greece and Rome, and to some extent of the East, in the early Christian history. I will not say that the one destroys the others ; but it absorbs them ; it vindicates itself as supreme, partly by contrast to them, partly by its power of assimilating them. But the battle-ground, or point of contact, is 6 81 82 The New Testament Church, [lect. not that of philosophical disquisition, but of the estab- lishment and maintenance of human relations : for this is the true subject-matter of religion ; in this lies the kingdom of God. If Judaism and Christianity (which we may take as one whole) formed a peculiar religion, that is, a special system of doctrine and of worship, it could never take the position which ex- perience shows it capable of taking. It is the object of these Lectures to show that it is something different from this, that it is a central principle of spiritual life, which develops into relations, and through these again into organizations and communities ; and that, being this, it is capable of becoming, and has constantly sought, and is now seeking to become, the harmonizing, co-ordinating and saving principle of human society universally. It has been pointed out in the last Lecture that the centre of the Jewish development, of its laws and con- stitution, of its theology, its history, its literature, was the consciousness of God as a power of righteousness, abiding amongst the people by the law of just relations. This was the true theocracy. This theocracy, it was shown, was cast in various forms suited to the various epochs of the national history ; it was necessarily national not universal at first, and was bound up with peculiar forms, which, though they had a moral inter- pretation, yet constituted a fence round the inner and moral law, thus giving to its votaries an exclusive char- acter, and to righteousness and obedience to God a formal and limited meaning. But it was also pointed out that the moral law has in it the character of univer- sality, and that the development into universality was contemplated by the prophets as the object of aspiration, if not of direct endeavour. The time came when this universal moral power, nourished within the womb of Judaism, was to come Ill-] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 83 forth into light. Christianity is born from the Jewish Church as Christ Himself from a Jewish mother; and though the separation of the child from the parent was full of sharp pangs, the life of the one passed over into the other. The theocracy in Israel was the righteous God abiding in the nation. The theocracy in Christendom was to be the same righteous power abiding in mankind. The righteousness is at once deeper and fuller ; deeper, because, to become universal, it must touch the springs of human action, not the mere rules of national custom ; and fuller, because, starting from the central principle, that of love, it must show itself all-pervading, applicable to all, subduing and embracing all, binding the world into one. The inwardness of the Christian righteousness has been recognized ; it has been characterized in our day as the special method of Christ ^ : but its extension and goal have been little dwelt upon. We have known, to '^ M. Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 195 : * No outward observ- ances were conduct, were that keeping of the commandments, which was the keeping of a man's own soul and made him enter into life. To have the thoughts in order as to certain matters, was conduct. This was the " method " of Jesus : setting up a great unceasing inward move- ment of attention and verification in matters which are three-fourths of human life, where to see true and to verify is not difficult, the difficult thing is to care and to attend. And the mducement to attend was, because joy and peace, missed on every other line, were to be reached on this.' Mr. Arnold seems to be content with this inwardness, and to con- sider that it cannot and ought not to work itself out into a social system. * Mr. Froude,' he says, {Lit. and Dogma, p. 95) 'thinks he de- fends the Puritans by saying that they, like the Jews of the Old Testa- ment, had their hearts set on a theocracy, on a fashioning of politics and society to suit the government of God. How strange that he does not perceive that he thus passes, and with justice, the gravest condem- nation on the Puritans as followers of Christ ! At the Christian era the time had passed, in religion, for outward constructions of this kind, and for all care about establishing or abolishing them.' Contrast with this. Natural Religion, p. 187 : *Is it true that, whereas 84 The New Testament Cluirch, [lect. use St. Paul's words, the depth and the height of the love of Christ, but not its length and breadth. Men see in Him the Saviour of their own lives. We must shov/ that He is the Saviour of the life of the world, the Founder of a society which is - to embrace all mankind in a fellow- ship of righteousness. It is true that the first and main effort of His ministry was to renew in men's minds the consciousness of the Fatherhood of God, and the inner and spiritual life, the life of gratitude and affection, which flows from this con- sciousness. He and His disciples were members of the Jewish Church, and it was not the first and essential part of His office to revolutionize existing institutions. He gave intimations, no doubt, of the changes which must be wrought by the working out of the universal principle which He inculcated — the conversion of the Gentiles, the universality of His kingdom ; and, as the enmity of the Jews against Him deepened, of His own self-sacri- fice, of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the upraising of a new and spiritual temple. But He did not excite His hearers by dwelling upon any of these. He spoke of them only to the inner circle of His followers, and with the reserA'-e imposed by His spiritual objects. There was to be nothing of that which is called in our the ancient religions, including the Jewish, were closely connected with public and national life, Christianity is different in kind, being purely of the nature of a philosophy, and intended only as a guide for the indi- vidual conscience ? ... It does not appear that Christianity has ever wished or consented, except under constraint, to be such a religion. Its nature is misrepresented when it is reduced to a set of philosophical or quasi-philosophical opinions ; its history is misrepresented when it is described as a quiet spiritual influence, wholly removed from the tur- moil of public disturbances, and spreading invisibly from heart to heart. Its rise and success are closely connected with great political revolu- tions.' P. 197 : ' Look almost where you will in the wide field of history, you find religion, wherever it works freely and mightily, either giving birth to and sustaining states, or else raising them up to a second life after their destruction.' in.] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 85 day sensational. Speculation on wonderful events to come was not to outstrip the conviction by which the minds of His servants were to be prepared for them. Nevertheless, the events were present to His mind, and He was concerned to prepare His disciples for them. He declared, and with more frequency and impressive- ness towards the end, that He was come to send a fire upon the earth ^, that His disciples would be delivered up 2, expelled from the Jewish synagogues 3, brought before Gentile rulers. And here we may trace the need for the formation of the Church. His disciples were to go forth as sheep among wolves. Was there to be no fold or shepherd, no organization in which they could support one another.? We can hardly doubt that the great prophecy of j\Iatt. xxiv. expresses His thoughts about the future. When the great tribu- lation there spoken of should come, and Jerusalem should no longer afford them any shelter, was there to be no social system to succeed that of which Jeru- salem had been the centre .? The fabric of the cere- monial law must crumble away, as the political law had well-nigh done. It had crumbled away already in our Lord's estimation, for He never urges its obligations, and, so far as the record informs us. He never practised more than its central ordinances. What was to come after, when the fabric of the law, which had seemed to the Jews like the eternal ordinances of nature, should have vanished away } Was each man to build up an intellectual home for himself .? Were the simple believers to confront the Western school of philosophy, or the theosophies of the East, or the stupendous power of Rome, without guides or leaders } Our Lord saw multitudes already taking the kingdom of heaven by storm ^ ; the fields were white to the * Luke xii. 48. ^ Mark xiii. 9. 3 John xvi. 2. * Matt. xi. 12. Luke xvi. 16. 86 The Nezv Testament CJiurch, [lect. harvest ^ : and He bade His disciples pray for labourers to gather them in ^ ; the Greeks who sought to see Him at the last Passover called forth some of His deepest and most far-reaching sayings ^ ; His last injunction to His apostles was, that they should make disciples of all nations 4. Was He content to look forward merely to a tumultuary aggregate of individuals, and not to an organized society ? Some such questions — though we must not bring all our later thoughts within the scope of our Lord's ministry — must have presented them- selves to His mind ; and the answer He gave to them was the foundation of the Church. There are many of His sayings, especially in the parables, which show how His mind dwelt upon the future destinies of the body of His disciples s, and which must have come back to them for their guidance when they began to organize the Christian community. We may compare our Lord's dealing with the subject of the Church or organized body of believers, with His dealing on some other matters of importance. Take the question of public worship. There is hardly a word about it in our Lord's discourses. Yet we cannot doubt that, though its position has been greatly exag- gerated, it is an integral element in the life of Christians ; and, as such, it must have been present to the mind of Christ. We must presume, therefore, that He gave no injunctions concerning it, because the general prin- ciples of prayer which He unfolded, and of which the Lord's prayer is a type, and the transference, which was sure to come, of the customs of the synagogue to the church, were deemed by Him sufficient, under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, without any express directions. Or, take another instance, that of the ^ John iv. 35. ^ Matt. ix. 38. 3 John xii. 23-26. * Matt, xxviii. 19. s Matt. xiii. 24-30; 31, 32 ; 33. 'Mark iv. 26. Matt. xxii. 11-14. in.] Beginiiings of the Universal Society. Sy doctrine of equality, the abolition of the difference between Jew and Gentile, bond and free, which to St. Paul was the very essence of the Gospel. A few inti- mations, such as the parable of the Good Samaritan, or the welcome of the Greeks at the last Passover, and the absence of all that is distinctively Judaic in our Lord's teaching, were all that He left to guide the disciples in a matter of absolutely vital moment to the infant community. Similarly, as regards the Church itself, our Lord spoke little of it, as indeed He spoke little of any outward institution. The time for direct guidance in such matters was not come. But the prin- ciples of justice, and mercy, and love, of which Christ's teaching is full, the common need of men for an or- ganization of some kind, the previous existence of the Jewish state — these were the materials with which the Church had to work at the beginning of its develop- ment. At the other end lies the dominion over all mankind which Christ claimed. But as to what lies between, there is hardly a word in the way of actual command. A rudimentary organization suited to the rudimentary needs is established ; but the disciples are left free to adapt it, and to build up new institutions within it, according to the new circumstances that may arise. That our Lord, in the forty days before the Ascension, when He spoke of the things of the kingdom of God, gave intimations as to the principles which should guide His followers, is a very natural supposition. What is certain from the silence and subsequent action of the Apostles is that He gave no definite directions for the organization of the Church. Our Lord belonged to the Jewish commonwealth, which, as has been pointed out, had at the base of all its relations a consciousness of the divine righteousness ; and that righteousness had formed, and had at various times changed, the laws. In this sense, Israel had re- 88 The New Testament Church, [lect. presented the kingdom of God on earth. The key of the kingdom was in the hands of the Scribes and Pharisees ^ whose extra traditions and whose fence around the law had rendered the kingdom inaccessible to those with- out, and formal and hypocritical to those within. Our Lord's first effort, therefore, was to infuse a spirit of reality into relations which had been thus formalized : and at the outset the hope might well have been enter- tained that, as changes had been made before, so, with- out any violent revolution, the simpler and more uni- versal truth, and the social state flowing from it, might displace the cumbrous and artificial system then existing. It is interesting to imagine the possible course of events had this hope been realized : how the Jews might have become the apostles of a simple human righteousness and the beHef in the One God to mankind, and the sacrifice of a laborious and a successful life, instead of that of an ignominious death, have been the means of reconciling the world to God. But selfishness was too^ deeply ingrained to yield to such a process. The sin of man required for its extirpation the Sacrifice of the Cross. Nevertheless, it is certain that Christ made the attempt to win the Jewish nation by persuasion, not by death. He began His ministry by announcing Himself as the herald of a spiritual jubilee % and declared that the prophet's announcement of an era of deliverance was fulfilled that day in men's ears ; and He lamented at the close of His ministry that the nation had not known the day of its visitation 3. This refusal was the turning-point of the history of the Jewish nation. It was also the turning-point in the development of the infant community of Christ's disciples, which changed from a sect into a Church or kingdom. The attempts which had been made in earher times to reform the Jewish community had been * Matt, xxiii. 13. ^ l^j^^ i v. 18, 19, 21. ^ Luke xix. 44. ni.] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 89 made by sects, or small bodies of like-minded men. Isaiah had had his special disciples ^ We trace in Jeremiah's and Josiah's day a small society of godly men bent on restoring true piety in Israel ^ The Chasidim 3, and later on the Pharisees 3, were sects. Even John the Baptist gathered a company of disciples, who at first rivalled those of our Lord, and who, not- withstanding his own readiness to pass away, remained, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, for many years 4. Our Lord, accordingly, from the first, allowed His dis- ciples to baptize and enrol converts, and the number of adherents to what might then have been called the sect of Jesus was large, as St. John reports s. But when the opposition of the Scribes precluded the hope of the conversion of the nation, a new creation became necessary. The kingdom of God must be taken from the wicked husbandmen, and given to a nation who would yield the fruits of righteousness. Let us trace this process. First, the tone of the teaching grows more peremptory. If we may, with Neander^, consider the Sermon on the Mount as a kind of epitome of the earlier teaching, we may take its authoritative tone and clear definition of the Master's position as significative of this new depar- ture 7, 'I say unto you.' Next (or with Luke immedi- ately before), we have the call of the twelve, the number being that of the tribes, and signifying the formation of a new Israel. We find these twelve set apart for special training under the Master's eye. * He ordained twelve that they should be with Him ^ ' As a part of this train- ^ Isaiah viii. i6. ^ 2 Kings xxii. 12-14. See Stanley's y^fzf/z'j-/^ Church, ii. 518. 3 lb. iii. 327-9, 376-8. ■♦ Acts xix. 3. * John ill. 26. ^ Life of Christ (Bohn's Standard Library), p. 240. 7 Matt. V. 22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44. ' Mark iii. 14. 90 The New Testa^nent Church, [lect. ing we may note the trial mission recorded in Matt, x., where they are sent forth to cast out devils, and to heal diseases, and to proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand. The charge which was given them is evidently designed to prepare them and others for a lifelong service far beyond the range of the Galilaean towns. Simon Peter was early recognized as their leader ; and he, with James and John, came to form an inner circle through whom the IMaster revealed the more secret passages of His life and thoughts. Round the IMaster gathered a larger and less defined company, some of whom, like the family in Bethany, remained in their own homes, some followed Christ wherever He went ^ The circle of the most immediate followers were all, in spirit at least, perhaps actually, required to give up all that they had. He ' that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my disciple ^' The tie which bound them together was faith in their Lord, the faith of St. Peter, ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God 3.' This faith was synonymous with absolute devotion, a devotion attested by baptism into His name, and subsequently by the Lord's Supper. And this devotion implied, even in those who did not belong to the inner circle, a readiness to give up all at any moment : He that hateth not 'father and mother . . . yea, and his own life also, cannot be my disciple 4.' This new Israel was built up on a spiritual basis and directed towards spiritual ends. Its princes are the meek, the poor in spirit, the peacemakers, those who suffer for righteousness' sake, and those who are willing to be the servants of all. Those whom we honour now as the founders of the kingdom and its typical characters, went with Christ from place to place, having no other * This has been ably worked out by the aid of a well-instructed ima- gination by the author of Philochristus, ^ Luke xiv. 33. ^ Matt. xvi. 16. . * Luke xiv. 26. Hi.] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 91 object than to learn and teach the truth ; they had no certain dweUing-place, and were supported by a com- mon fund furnished, probably, in part from the original possessions of those who, like Matthew, actually gave up all, and in part from the contributions of well-wishers. This did not imply asceticism, though even asceticism in the East, as shown by the Buddhist sects, is a far easier yoke than in the West, and the disengagedness also of a teaching and mendicant body is not so difficult under the simpler conditions of Eastern life as it would be in the complex social state of the West. But it in- volved an absolute abandonment of all selfish and am- bitious aims. To this society, unlearned as its members were, but having its conscience purified by faith and unselfish love, Christ declared that the keys of the king- dom of God, before held by the Jewish Rabbis, were transferred \ Their conscience was the reflex of the divine truth and love which no longer dwelt with the rejecting and rejected nation. Their decisions were to take the place of those of the faithless Sanhedrin of Israeli This was no mere form of words: for in the society so framed the Spirit of Christ has lived ; it has been, as the Epistle to Timothy calls it, ' the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth 3 ; ' and the principles which it has announced, and has striven, though weakly, to practise, are those by which all mankind even now are judged. It is the body of which He is the inspiring soul. In the just and loving relations of its component parts are expressed the mind and will of the Father. The establishment of the Church as a kingdom was ^ Matt, xviii. i8 ; comp. ch. xvi. 19. John xx. 23 ^ So we may understand the words about binding and loosing in Matt, xviii. 18-20, following as they do immediately on the appeal to 'the church ' prescribed in the case of obstinate wrong-doing. ' I Tim. ill. 15. 92 The New Testament C/mrek. [lect. the final gage of the battle. The Saddu9aic party of the priesthood, the Pharisaic party of the Scribes and Pharisees, trembled, the one for their power, the other for their influence. Either Christ or they must go down. To believe in Jesus now meant not merely general trust in His teaching, but practical adherence to the new kingdom, the rudiments of which were already formed. All the spiritual teaching of our Lord thus gains a keener edge through the thorough and imme- diate application which must be made of it. The parables, which now form the staple of the teaching, with their double aspect, attracting and repelling, de- scribe the fortunes of the kingdom ^, the qualifications of those who enter it, the presence of good and bad within it ^, the growth from the little seed to the great tree 3, the sifting process which each great judgment- time would bring with itl Then follow the denuncia- tions of those in authority among the Jewss ; for the influence of the teachers and rulers of Israel is gone for all who enter the new kingdom. The conflict which is thus set up grows more intense towards the close of the ministry. The last year is one of incessant strife. At the beginning of it there come down from Jerusalem into Galilee Scribes and Pharisees^ to stir up the people against Christ, and they succeed. The little band of believers are found constantly in the outskirts of the country wandering almost as exiles 7. Herod also begins to be alarmed. Christ Himself plainly foresees and accepts His doom. 'It cannot be/ He says, 'that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem ; I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected'; and * Matt. xiii. 23. ^ Ibid. 24, etc. 3 Ibid. 31, 32. ■♦ Ibid. 30, 47, 48. ^ Matt, xxiii. 13. Luke xi. 42. ^ Matt. XV. I. Mark vii. i. ' Mark vii. 24, 31. Ibid. viii. 27. John x. 39, 40. Ibid. xi. 53, 54. in.] Begmitings of the Universal Society. 93 He steadfastly sets His face towards the fatal city'. The great prophecy of Matthew xxiv. points plainly to the doom of the old system, and the deliverance which this w^ould effect for all who own the true King. The death of the King is the condemnation of the murderers ; the stone which the builders refused shall be the headstone of the corner 2 ; and they who resist it and on whom it falls shall be ground to powder 3. The King Himself will come with power and great glory 4 in the clouds of heaven (the well-known metaphor for a coming in spirit and in power) for the deliverance of His subjects, and the burning of the rebellious city s. The kingdom of God shall be taken from the wicked husbandmen and given to a nation which will yield the fruits of righteous- ness ^. No doubt this idea of the kingdom was misunderstood by both friends and foes. They alike supposed that the Master was aiming at a dominion to be gained and ex- ercised by means of force, for the temporal advantage of Himself and His followers. From all such ideas Christ resolutely withheld His countenance ; and every reader of the Gospels understands the childish mistake of those who wished the Saviour of men's souls and of the world to imitate the debased patriotism of Judas of Galilee or Barabbas, and who quarrelled for places on the right and left of the King. But it is almost, if not quite, an equal misunderstanding to think of the kingdom as merely the assertion of a moral principle without any care for its social and political results. What Christ demands is the carrying of the principle into its fullest practical effect, the entering into all the relations of life under His leader- ship, the bringing of every sphere of human existence under His spiritual dominion. It was for this purpose that, at the close of His ministry, when His approaching ^ Luke xiii. 32. Ibid. ix. 51. ^ Matt. xxi. 42. ^ Ibid. 44. * Luke xxi. 27. ^ Matt. xxii. 7. ^ Matt. xxi. 43. 94 The New Testament Church. [lect. death made the attribution to Him of selfish ambition no longer possible, He accepted the part which He had before refused, and allowed Himself to be borne into Jerusalem with the triumph of a king. We are here at the very centre of our subject, which we may best bring into relief by giving an answer to the question : What did Christ mean by saying that He was a King ? In the remarkable words recorded in the fourth gospel, and also in the early document called the Acts of Pilate', we have our Lord's own answer: 'Thou sayest that I am a King. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice ^, ' becomes, that is, my spiritual subject. And, again, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' Does this imply, we ask, that the Church or Kingdom of Christ is to exist solely for certain objects which are to be marked off as spiritual, apart from the organization of human society which is to be regarded as profane ? I think not. We cannot thus cut human life and society in two. Indeed, experience shows that it is impossible. Nor do the words of Christ demand it. We may well interpret the expression 'this world ' as meaning the present evil condition of the world, which is essentially transitory ; and we may understand the assertion to mean, ' My kingship does not belong to the present evil state of things in which empires are built up by fraud or force ; it will build up an empire of its own on the true principle of love.' IMore- over. How shall we define a purely spiritual kingdom ? ^ Acts of Pilate, or, Gospel of Nicodemus, i. c. 3, and ii. c. 3. This Apo- cryphal book is believed to be the one referred to by Justin Martyr in his Apology (a.d. 139). It contains the passage alluded to in the text in words varying but slightly from those of John xviii. See, upon this, Tischendorf, When loere oitr Gospels written ? p. 83. The Apocryphal Gospels are published in English by Mr. B. Harris Cowper (Williams and Norgate, 1867). ^ John xviii. 37. III.] Begmiiings of the Universal Society. 95 Shall we take as purely spiritual functions prayer, and teaching, and beneficence ? But each of these, as func- tions of a community, has necessarily a secular side. On the other hand, the organization of human society, where it is in a healthy state, cannot be conceived of otherwise than as spiritual. The assertion of a spiritual society is well-grounded, but it extends to the whole organization of mankind. The assertion, on the other hand, of a merely spiritual society is one-sided. It has, indeed, a certain truth in it, but not the whole truth. Let us try to estimate this. The truth aimed at by the assertion of a society which shall be merely spiritual is this — First, that the beginning of all Church life is a spiritual influence which may be called faith, or sympathy with goodness, or aspiration ; and we must add that this spiritual influence is not bound up with the existence of any organization, not even of the baptized community, since our Lord spoke of the other sheep which were not of the fold^ of the children of God which were scattered abroad 2; and we see the Church influence outside as well as within the baptized community ; but, Secondly, that the kingdom of Christ is not dependent on the intrigues and selfishness which so commonly actuate human organizations, those established for worship quite as much as others ; and that, so far as it takes shape in human organizations, it must be constantly freeing them from these evil influ- ences : Thirdly, that the discovery and vindication of truth is the supreme matter, the working out of this in human relations coming afterwards : and, lastly, that this vindication of truth, and the expression of it in wor- ship and teaching, is one of those spheres, like family life, or, in modern times, the press, which lie almost entirely without the sphere of law. But we cannot go beyond this point. To suppose * John X. 16. ^ John xi. 52. 96 The New Testame^it Church, [lect. that Christ meant by His kingdom a purely ideal state, which would have no earthly expression as a society, and would only realize itself in another world, is to say that the Apostles and all subsequent generations of His followers misunderstood Him. But as soon as we admit the existence of a Christian society trying to realize God's kingdom in the world, we get beyond the sphere of that which is commonly understood when men speak of a purely spiritual society, namely, prayer and teach- ing and beneficence. Each of these leads us beyond itself : for worship is the echo and the expression of the prayer, * Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven ; ' and Christian teaching necessarily occupies itself with human relations ; and beneficence is the first attempt to set those relations right. Those who have prayed together, and have been stirred by Christian exhortation, and have banded themselves to- gether in the Sacrament for the service of God and man, rise from their knees with the question ' What are we to do to bring about that better state for which we have prayed } ' The answer to this has often been : Let us give to the poor and do the seven acts of mercy. But all such acts of mercy, to be effectual, go forth into wider and wider circles. The efforts to diminish poverty and disease lead direct into the sphere of politics. The wish to establish right feelings and sound relations among men is nothing, unless it reaches up to the sovereign community, and uses the national organs for its purpose. There lies the great power, the universal means of Christian well-doing. Can it be supposed that Christ, who claims the supreme dominion, meant that His followers should carry on the good efforts prompted by His Spirit only in those spheres in which they are small and ineffectual, and that, just at the point at which they may become effectual and partake of the redeeming character of universality, they should pass them over to III.] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 97 another power which is to be for ever strange to Him ^ ? That is impossible ; and, if so, we can set no bounds to the purposes of our Lord, and the functions of His Church. We must take in a simple and literal sense His claim of universal dominion. The task then of the society which Christ founded is to bring about His universal dominion. It is to make the kingdoms of the world to be kingdoms which are not of this world. The present evil condition of the world, in which force and fraud reign, is to be replaced by the new and better state in which it will be no longer this world, but the world of God and of righteousness. The evil aeon or sseculum, the reign of selfishness, is that wath which Christ's kingdom stands in opposition. The effort of the Church is to exorcise the evil spirit which enslaves human life, and which makes the present aeon to be 'the present evil aeon^.' So far as this is done, the Church succeeds in its mission. Moreover, its methods are primarily those of persuasion, always those of truth- fulness. When Christ resisted the temptation to take the kingdoms of the world on condition of worshipping the Tempter, we may justly interpret this as meaning that He rejected the methods of violence and deceit, and deliberately chose those of persuasion and laborious self- sacrifice as the only way of establishing His empire. The same methods He enjoins upon His followers, not to the exclusion of discipline among themselves or of self- defence, but as the rule, and as the path to be always preferred. We have learnt that coercion is no remedy ; not that it is not sometimes necessary, but that the root of evil is moral and social, and must be removed by moral influence, by a change of mind, by the introduc- tion of just relations. Further, we may say that our Lord's words constitute a political revelation. Government is essentially a moral * See Note XXIII, Dr. Arnold on the Church. ^ Gal. i. 4. 7 q8 The New Testament C/ncreh, [lect. and spiritual process, it is only secondarily one of com- pulsion : and it is directed ultimately not to material but to spiritual ends. Just as Socrates constantly taught the Athenian youths who were embarking in a political career that the object of political life was to do good to the citizens ; so, in an ampler manner, our Lord would show us that the true kingdom or community is that in which divine righteousness finds a home and human rela- tions are knit together by the fear of God. It was the expansion of the Jewish ideal ; not the destruction of the law of just relations, but first its purification and then its wider application. The Christian Church, the universal empire of our Lord, is the new Israel in which the Gen- tiles are made fellow-citizens of the household of God : it is Israel transfigured and spiritualized and made cap- able of embracing the world. We must trace out the process of building up the Society which had this universal aim. First, Christ Himself is the centre and inspiring force of the new spiritual kingdom. He realized in His own person and presented the type of all the chief relations of human beings. As towards God He showed what the relations of a son should be to the universal Father, and He draws all men into these relations ; in the family He represented that prince of family virtues, subjection or deference ; in the nation He exhibited that exalted patriotism which makes a man desire that his country should save mankind ; while His care for the poor and weak furnishes the aim in which all true government should be constantly occupied. In social intercourse we see in Him a frank heartiness, and at the same time a deep concern for the spiritual end of such intercourse. In the smaller circle of His friends, and in His special love of St. John, we see the brotherly relation in its most attractive form. In all these relations we discern the higher form of self-sacrifice, not the casting away of in.] Beginnings of the Universal Society. 99 self, but the imparting of self to others for their good. This is the central spirit of the Christian society and its first manifestation. The Church, which is the body of its founder, must be the expansion of the heart of Christ in the larger sphere of social relations. We have seen that our Lord demanded in His follow- ers the absolute giving up of self and of all that self implies. This is, in the first place, the giving up of the heart to God which is the aim of every religious revival, and which means, in Christ's sense, the substitution in the mind and purpose of the universal good for selfish objects. But this passes into a social requirement. The whole status of those who believe in Christ is merged in their membership in His kingdom. There is no limit, external or internal, to this require- ment. If this seems on one side a socialistic or hyper- socialistic demand, or on the other side one which must conduce to tyranny, and in either case to interfere with human independence, it must be modified by saying that it can only apply primarily in the spirit and intention of our actions, and can become practical only so far as the society is really Christian. But with these reservations we must accept it without hesitation. We are no longer our own, but belong entirely to Christ and to His Church. The society of which He is the inspiring power exists not for the protection of body and goods alone, but to train us to use spirit and soul and body and pos- sessions alike for Him and for our brethren. So far as the Christian society is really Christian, so far we can give up to it all that is personal ; not only our money to taxation, our social relations to be ruled by laws, our per- sons to the conscription and to death in war, but all personal property, personal interests, our own life and separate existence. The individual interest wanes and the universal interest grows. We merge ourselves in Christ and in the community in which He lives. We loo The New Testament Church, [lect. can do this, I say, so far as the community is really Christian, for we know that in losing our life we shall find it ; we ourselves are living integers in the society, and a really Christian society gives back to its members all that it receives from them, and will never trench on the just domain of individual freedom. The first Chris- tians at Jerusalem for a little while felt in themselves the power to do this. No one said that anything that he had was his own, but they had all things common ^ In this they anticipated the final working out of the divine principle in society. The Church could not maintain itself at that exalted level, and after eighteen centuries we are still far from regaining it. But the Christian com- munity is still one in which the brother of low degree is to rejoice in that he is exalted, and the rich in that he is made low 2. Towards this ideal we can see a progress throughout the Christian centuries, and we may cherish an unshaken faith that it will go on to completion. We tend to a universal brotherhood perfected by the Chris- tian spirit. How then were the members of this new common- wealth, who entered it with free but absolute submission, to be governed } It might seem at first sight as though Christ cared only to assert principles, and that He was careless as to their practical application. And undoubt- edly, the highest laws of the kingdom are such as are contained in the beatitudes, or such as have been traced out by the author of Ecce Homo, the law of philan- thropy, of edification, of mercy, of resentment, of for- giveness. The lawyer may criticize this by saying that such laws lack a definite penal sanction. But in a spiritual society not only is the conscience sensitive to- wards God, but it feels and asserts the principles which Christ proclaimed, as with a knightly sense of honour. In such a society at its highest perfection the public * Acts iv. 32. ^ James i. 9, 10. III.] Beginnings of the Universal Society, loi sentiment of which each man is conscious would do the work of discipUne. Each member would feel in the averted glances of his brethren and the loss of their esteem a power which restrained him (apart from any actual punishment) from injustice or violence or lust. But our Lord, though He declined to be a judge or a divider in special causes ^, yet gave indications that the divine principle must be applied, and that the com- munity which He founded must not shrink from the actual decision of cases, and the formation of rules and laws. He Himself, in the case of divorce, did not hesi- tate to speak distinctly, even peremptorily 2, and showed the result which must flow from the Christian spirit in contrast to the general selfishness of the marriage rela- tion both in the East and the West, and even in the Mosaic law itself^. Nor need we find a difficulty in as- cribing to Christ Himself the prescription of the methods for the settlement of quarrels among His followers, as contained in Matt, xviii. if we bear in mind that, as with so many of His words, it is the method not the rule which we are meant to follow. That is. He would say, ' Do not be judge in your own cause ; take others who are not blinded by self-interest to determine the question. Only when you have exhausted all such efforts to set things right can you be justified in treating the man you think to have injured you as distinctly in the wrong, and needing like the publican or heathen repentance and reclamation.' This is a good instance of the w^ay in which Christian principle can guide us in many domestic affairs, in political and social relations, in international dealings, in the making and enforcement of laws. The principle which Christ enjoins is capable of an application to awards and judgments in the most general sense. It results in such rules of moral and political conduct as these : let self-interest be banished as * Luke xii. 14, ^ Matt. v. 31, 32. ^ Matt. xix. 3-12. I02 The New Testament C/mrck, [lect. much as possible wherever you have to form a judg- ment ; be conscious of your own hability to undue pre- judice ; let others decide rather than you ; and again, to carry the principle into the wider sphere, let all have their proper share in the national representation ; appeal to a neutral tribunal if such can be found ; invoke arbi- tration before you draw the sword. It is a mistake to confine the application of such a principle to a single punishment like that of excommunication, which some have held to be the foundation of Church-discipline, while others have believed it to have been never prac- tised in primitive times. The principle must be applied in a larger sense. It is a witness that Christianity is broadly human, and the Church capable of guiding and assimilating all human institutions. It is true that, while the Church was first making its way in the world, this great social capacity was restrained. The Church was hemmed in by a vast or- ganized society which had power over a large part of the Christian's life. The first need of the infant com- munity was instruction. Our Lord Himself was princi- pally a teacher. The Apostles gave themselves to the word of God and to prayer ^ But the teaching function needs much less organization than has been commonly assumed. In the Constitution of the Synagogue no formal office of teaching existed. The instruction was given by any scholar with any pretensions who pre- sented himself for the occasion ^. And this, no doubt, was followed in the early Christian communities which arose out of the Synagogue. And, accordingly, so long as the element of government was greatly sub- ordinate, there was little organization. It was the practical needs of the Church as a body of men living together, not the needs of worship or of teaching, which gave birth to the permanent organization. Even * Acts vi. 4. ^ Stanley, ' Jewish Church,' iii. 462. ni.] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 103 the great change under which Episcopacy sprang up, if it was caused by doctrinal requirements, was caused by them not because new doctrines caused differences of opinion, but because they caused schisms, and rent asunder the body which should be united ^ Conse- quently, while the infant community chiefly needed instruction (though the function of government was never wholly absent) the organization was slight and precarious 2. Our Lord gave no injunctions about it of perpetual obligation. We can gather from His actions no more than that there must be order of some kind, and an order suited to the circumstances. He sent out the Twelve, two and two, during the Galilaean ministry, and the Seventy to prepare His way in His last journey to Jerusalem : but both these orders passed away. The Seventy were for a temporary occasion ; the Twelve were the first Judaic mould of the Church ; but after the election of Matthias their number was never filled up, and, at the age when our Gospels were put in their present shape, there would seem to have been consider- able doubt as to the original list. We may trace a ^ The word alpemg which has passed into a technical sense as heresy, was always used in early times for a schism or division, as in i Cor. xi. 19: 'There must be also heresies (margin " sects ") among you.' St. Paul is speaking of the lack of unity in those who ought to be one body at the Communion. ^ The belief that teaching was not confined to the bishops and Presby- ters in the primitive church is confirmed by the discovery (since the de- livery of these Lectures) of the ' Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,* which shows that in the middle of the second century there still existed Prophets and Apostles to whom special authority in teaching was ac- corded ; but also that all who were capable of teaching could do so. There is no restriction in such passages as these (Sections ii, 12, 15) : * Whosoever coraeth and teacheth you all the things aforesaid, receive him.' * Afterwards by putting him to the test you shall know him.' This is confirmed by what is said of the Bishops : ' T/ie}' too minister to you the ministry of the prophets and teachers ; therefore despise them not.' (Farrar's Translation, * Contemporary Review,' May, 1884.) I04 The New Testameiit Church. [lect. rudimentary organization of the Church during our Lord s ministry, a leadership in Peter, an inner circle of trusted followers in the Three, the rudiments of a ruling body in the Twelve, a management of the common purse, Christ Himself acting as Governor ; and we may see that the Jewish officers who collected the Temple tax, recognized Him as the head of the community by the question, ' Doth not your Master pay tribute^ ? ' But it is evident that for the general purposes of government these rudiments were quite inadequate. The Church must adapt itself to the wider society which it tends to assimilate, and must take upon itself successively the forms of the family, the club, the synagogue, the muni- cipality, the nation, the empire, the universal federation, binding these forms to its divine purpose, infusing into them all the Spirit of Christ. The later part of the New Testament reveals the first attempts at the organization which was needed for the larger society or kingdom of God, first among the Jews, • secondly among the Gentiles. In each case we see the effort to organize a society complete in all its parts, or at least preparing for completeness. There are no limits prescribed for. its functions, such as would certainly have been set with the greatest care if the society had been meant to exist only for prayer, and teaching, and bene- ficence ; unless, indeed, we take beneficence as includ- ing all mutual well-doing, in which case the goal of a universal society is reached directly, for we then include in the scope of the Christian Church the whole social and political life. The first event is the organization of the Church after the Day of Pentecost. The life of the little society, the number of whose names was an hundred and twenty % was not changed at once. It was still almost a family life. But the family is a microcosm, and contains in * Matt. xvii. 24. * Acts i. 15. in.] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 105 itself the rudiments of the general and national society. The believers ate at a common table, where, at the common meal, they commemorated the death and resur- rection of their Lord ^ Into the fund for the support of this common table they cast their whole living ^ ; and by doing so they gave themselves up completely to the society. They were, of course, outwardly amenable to the Jewish law ; but they felt that the existing fabric of society was tottering around them. The great day of the Lord announced by the prophet Joel had come. It is true that the change to the new social state, the new world of Christendom, did not come in a moment : but the first believers were, as little as possible, members of the Jewish state, as much as possible citizens of the new kingdom. This state of things, a kingdom within a kingdom, was not unknown in the East. The organization of society has there been always much less thorough than in the West. The Jewish state itself w^as a kind of enclave, an 'imperium in imperio,' first under the Per- sian, then under the Macedonian, and later under the Roman dominion. As now we see in Syria communities which are to a certain extent autonomous, such as the Druses and Maronites in Lebanon, and indeed through- out the Turkish empire the religious communities have also a civil organization, and the taxation is made through their heads ; so, to some extent, it was in the first century. It was easier therefore than it would be with us for an infant community to manage its own affairs as a nation within a nation, having no settled boundary line between its own attributes and those of the larger society by which it was surrounded. The ad- ministration of the common fund, when this fund was the whole living of the society, must have embraced almost all the functions of government. The story of * Acts ii. 46; I Cor. xi. 26. * Acts iv. 34, 35. io6 The New Testament Chtirch. [lect. Ananias and Sapphira * exhibits the faithful bringing their offerings to the feet of the Apostles, and the Apostles, sitting as a permanent council for the management of affairs and for judgment, the Sanhedrin of the new Israel, realizing already the promise, Ye ' shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel ^Z Of the great change that was coming the first be- lievers were dimly conscious. They clung, indeed, to the hope that the Jewish nation would by a cor- porate acceptance of Christ become the Church ; and this might seem adverse to the hope of universalism. Yet the demand for baptism into the name of Jesus, if complied with by the nation, would of itself have made Christian universalism, and not Jewish restriction, the law of the national life. This demand was therefore felt by the blind leaders of the nation to be subversive ; and the people as a mass went with their leaders. There were, no doubt, those who still conceived of the new community as a Jewish sect. This was its legal position, of which St. Paul availed himself in his defence before Felix, when he said, 'After the way that they call heresy,' that is a sect (a way perfectly legitimate and understood), 'so worship I the God of my fathers 3.' There were also up to the taking of Jerusalem, the Jacobean and hyper-Jacobean party, who were all of them 'zealous for the law 4/ that is the law as taught by the Rabbis. But as early as Stephen's time the more far- seeing had begun to take a bolder attitude. They per- ceived that much, or rather all, in the fabric of Judaism must undergo a change. On the other side, to the Jew- ish leaders and the mass of the nation, the idea of found- ing a community, not on positive institutions and pecu- liar customs, but upon the principles of faith and love and justice which are common to all men, and in the pre- * Acts V. I, 2. ^ Matt. xix. 28. 3 Acts xxiv. 14. ■* Acts xxi. 20. in.] Beginnings of the Uiiiversal Society. 107 sence of which Jew and Gentile were equal, seemed not only the height of infatuation but positive treason, a speaking against Moses and the temple and the law. This feeling had, no doubt, underlain their hatred to Christ Himself, and had been the cause of His death. At a later time, St. Paul, in his oration on the temple stairs, which was arranged with so much tact, gained a hearing till he spoke of being sent to the Gentiles, but at that word they cried out, * Away with such a fellow from the earth ^' Stephen vindicated himself at his trial, not by denying that great changes were at hand, but by appealing to the changes which had confessedly taken place before, from Ur to Charran, from Charran to Palestine, from Palestine to Egypt ; from the patri- archs to the law, from the tabernacle to the temple. Yet even Stephen did not give up the hope that the Jewish nation as a nation might be saved : and we find the same feeling ^ half hope, half regret, in St. Paul, who, however, shows early in his career a prophetic foresight of the destruction of Jerusalem 3. It was not fully made clear that the Church must undertake by itself, independently of the Jewish organization, the task of forming a righteous community in which Judaism had failed. It is in connexion with these hopes and fears that we may best understand the disputes in the Apostolic Church concerning the keeping of the law. Those who supposed the Christian Church to be only a Jewish sect, desired that every part of the law should be kept as a fixed matter of obligation. Those who, like St. Paul, understood it to be a new creation, might yet be willing, with him, to observe the customs so as to keep the door open to the last for the entrance of the Jewish nation into the Church. But, as the cup of Jewish obstinacy was filled to the brim, it became evident that the Church must no more be hampered by 'Acts xxii. 22. ^ Acts xxii. 17-22. ^ i Thess. ii. 14-16. io8 The New Testament Church, [lect. a regard to Jewish traditions ; and the fall of Jerusalem finally set it free. Christendom, then, as a distinct attempt to realize the kingdom of God on earth, begins with the communi- ties founded by St. Paul. It is in them that we find the Christian principle of life developing itself into rela- tions, laws, institutions. All therefore that relates to their constitution and their action upon the world is of primary interest for our subject. It is evident that they took their shape at first from the synagogue ; and so far they perpetuated the Jewish traditions and the law of just relations which lay at their centre. But, exist- ing as they did in the cities of the Roman Empire, they had also the form of the Hetseriae ^ or clubs with which those cities teemed, and so took in something of the secular life of the empire and its associations. To the first of these origins belongs the name of elders given to their officers, to the second that of * bishops,' and these were used interchangeably throughout the Apos- tolic age 2. The word ^ExxXr^aia, by which they called themselves, is associated with both origins. It is the equivalent for aovaywyTj in the dialect of the Septuagint. But it also recalls the assemblies of the Greek Republics. What then, we ask, was the object proposed by these societies .? Was it simply teaching and prayer, or was it the conduct of the general life .? If we look back at their Judaic origin, it is evident that the synagogue was the attempt to realize, so far as circumstances allowed, the national idea in its completeness. * The ' Pliny, in his well-known letter to Trajan, says that he had suppressed the meetings of Christians because the Emperor had forbidden the ex- istence of Hetaerias. ^ See Titus i. 5-7 : * That thou shouldest . . . ordain elders in every city : ... if any be blameless. For a bishop must be blameless.' Acts XX. 17 : He ' called the elders of the church, and . . . said unto them . . . Take heed to . . . all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops.' in.] Beginnings of the Universal Society. 109 whole congregation,' or Synagogue or Church 'of Israel' is the ordinary expression for the nation, not merely as gathered for worship, but as a company or community in the most general sense. The Greek equivalent for this, h.xXriffia^ is the word used in the Grecian cities for the general assembly of the whole sovereign state when met to deliberate on the affairs of their common life, and is contrasted with the smaller council or BouXrj. It is quite a mistake to suppose that ixxXrjffta implies a select body called out as separate from the rest. It is the whole body of the citizens, called out from their homes to engage in the most general interests of the State. The Jewish synagogues were, no doubt, mainly occupied with teaching, and prayer, and almsgiving. But this was because of the peculiar position of the nation when they arose. Their organization was a little counterpart of the national Sanhedrin \ which had all the supreme attributes, deliberative, judicial, and administrative. Their system of discipline was limited by no defined boundary, but was designed to enforce ^ * The Sanhedrin was established in Jerusalem after twenty-five years* war by Simon Ben Mathathia (142 B.C.). The business of this institution was the administration of law (Handhabung der Rechtspflege), and its president was called the Nasi. Next to him stood the first President of the Judicial Tribunal (Gerichtsvorsteher), on whom in course of time civil processes specially devolved. In Simon and his successors we find an equal care for the spiritual and the outward.' (Zunz, Die gottesdienst- lichen Vortrage der Juden, pp. 37-8. Berlin, Asher, 1832.) ' The synagogue probably answered the purpose of the town hall as well as of the church of the district. Each synagogue accordingly had its own small municipal jurisdiction, with the power of excommunication and exclusion, and extending to the right of inflicting lashes on the bare back and breast of the offender.' (Stanley, Jewish Church, iii. 462.) ' Les synagogues etaient de vraies petites republiques independantes ; elles avaient une juridiction etendue. Comme toutes les corporations municipales jusqu'a une epoque avancee de I'empire romain, elles faisaient des decrets honorifiques, votaient des resolutions ayant force de loi pour la Communaute, pronon9aient des peines corporelles dont I'exe- cuteur ordinaire etait le hazzun.^ Renan, Vie de Jesus, 136 (later ed. 140). no The New Testament Church, [lect. the law as a whole. Had the nation been free, this organization would have served for all purposes of local government, as well as for those of worship and in- struction. If we take the Gentile origin of the infant churches, and regard them as clubs for mutual beneficence, what limit can be set to such beneficence ? Only the limit of the possible. Those who belonged to the society- pledged their whole life to it. If they did not cast into a common fund, like those at Jerusalem, their whole substance, they looked on all that they possessed as held in trust for Christ and their brethren. They were not only, to adopt a modern expression, 'Romans if you will, but Christians first' The Deacon of Vienne ^ who, when tried for his life, would make no other answer to all the questions as to his name, his race, his occupation, than the one word Christianus, expressed the absorbing interest which all true believers had in the Christian community. If they were, like the Jewish settlements, rApovAoi, and the origin of the word parish is a body of 'sojourners,' it was because they looked con- stantly for a new state of society which was to emerge out of the old. And if this hope was at first the hope of a heavenly rather than an earthly state, it gradually became, like the hope of the prophets, a longing for a practical righteousness here, and the resolute attempt to attain it in all the relations of life. The more we study the history of the early Christian communities, the more clearly these two things stand out : first, that their organization is adapted to their ' Sanctus stood up to them with such confidence that he refused to tell them either his own name or that of the city from which he came, or whether he was a slave or a freeman; but to every question he made answer in the Roman language : ' I am a Christian.' This single confes- sion served him equally for name and city and race and everything ; and not a word more could those heathen men get from him. (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V. I.) in.] Beginnings of the Universal Society. 1 1 1 needs with entire freedom ; secondly, that the work of government among them was quite as important as that of teaching or worship. The Apostolate was the first office, but, as we have seen, was put aside when the Jewish destination of the Church ceased. The word Apostle remains in St. Paul's Epistles as a venerable title, applied to men who did a work similar to that of the original Twelve in the founding and guidance of Churches without being fixed to any one place ^ The Seven came next, whether we call them formally an order of Deacons, or look on the office as personal, and instituted for the emergency described in the sixth chapter of the Acts. In any case, we read nothing more of Deacons until the Epistle to the Philippians, unless we except the female ' Servant of the Church of Cenchrea^. ' In the first Epistle to Timothy they appear 3 ; from the Epistle to Titus they are absent : from which we may gather that they were commonly adopted in the later part of the first century, but were not regarded as indispensable. The next office was that of the Presbyters. The Church was to have its own rulers as the synagogue had ; and this seems to have been recognized as soon as the rudimentary institu- tion of the Apostolate was found inadequate, both at Jerusalem and Antioch and in the Mission Churches 4. But in the first Epistle to the Corinthians we have an enumeration of offices s, or at least of functions, in which there is no mention of either presbyters or deacons, nor do such officers appear in the argument of these Epistles, ^ Romans xvi. 7; i Cor. xii. 28, 29; 2 Cor. viii. 2^^-, lb. xi. 5. The newly discovered work, ' The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' shows that this use of the word Apostle lasted on far into the second century. But this document shows also that the authority of those who bore this name was then but slight, and that the need of their erratic ministra- tions was diminishing. ^ Romans xvi. i. ^ \ Tim. iii. 8-13. "* Acts xi. 20 ; XV. 4, 22 ; xiv. 23. ' i Cor. xii. 2Z. 1 1 2 The N'ozu Testament Church, [lect. though, in the questions of discipline and administration and the collection of funds with which these Epistles abound, it would have been hardly possible to avoid the mention of them had they existed. The whole condition of the churches was plastic : Apostles and Prophets are placed side by side with teachers, powers, helps, govern- ments \ Whatever actual offices may have existed, they are regarded by St. Paul rather according to the general effect which they in common with others might produce upon the life of the Church than as permanent orders. Out of them all emerge in the time of the Pastoral Epistles, the two offices of Deacons and Presbyters. Later on (perhaps some thirty or forty years after) we find the episcopal office rising to pre-eminence above the presbyterate. But this, and the causes which produced it, and the changes in an office the name of which has at various times in Christian history been made to cover functions so different as those of the chorepiscopus, the city bishop, the diocesan prelate, lie beyond our imme- diate scope. It is sufficient to note that the Episcopate, like the other offices, was due, not to any formal ap- pointment which it would be impious to alter, but to providential necessity ; and that a similar necessity has constantly changed its form. This necessity, and the Spirit of Christ, that is of sound judgment, have through- out been the guides in the organization of the Church, which is not bound to any one type, but has power to adapt its institutions to the needs of mankind and its own position in the world. The other important matter to be noticed is the paramount position which the function of government occupies in the early churches. The original Deacons had nothing to do with teaching, although some Deacons became eminent teachers. Their duty was to regulate the distribution of the common fund. The Presbyters * I Cor. xii. 28. III.] Beginnings of the Universal Society. 113 were, like those of the Jews, rulers of the community. In the enumeration of Church functions in the first Epistle to the Corinthians ^ and in a similar but shorter enumeration in the Ephesians % prominence is, no doubt, given to the teaching functions, those of the prophets and teachers. This was but natural in infant Societies, the first object of which was to perpetuate the life and teaching of Christ. But the 'powers,' 'the gifts of heal- ing,' the 'helps,' the 'governments,' are agencies for the conduct of the general life of the community, the 'Pastors' in the Ephesians standing between the two groups, occupied both in teaching and in ministration. Similarly, when St. Paul speaks to the elders of Ephesus3, he addresses them as shepherds tending a flock, which, according to both its classical and its bib- lical associations, implies the gift of general supervision as exercised by kings and magistrates rather than that of teaching and of prayer alone ; and his address closes, not with an exhortation about prayer and preaching, but with the commendation to them of a disinterestedness like his own as to money matters ^, and an exhortation to remember that the duty of Christians is to labour and support the weak, and to impart freely to others. In the Pastoral Epistles the normal duty of the elders is to rule : those who rule well are to have double honour (or emol- uments) 5 ; those who add to this the less common func- tion of teaching are specially to be honoured. The Elder or Bishop must be apt to teach, but still more apt to rule^ The qualities required of him — vigilance, sobriety, hospi- tality, disinterestedness, experience, the capacity to rule as shown by ruling his own family — attest the governor rather than the preacher or the liturgist. As to teaching and public prayer, every index points ' I Cor. xii. 28. ^ Eph. iv. ii. ^ ^^ts xx. 28. * Acts XX. 33-35. ^ I Tim. v. 17. * Id. iii. 2-7. Titus i. 7, 8. i Tim. v. i, 2, 19-22. 8 114 ^^^^ New Testament Church, [lect. to its being free, under the general rule that all should be done decently and in order. In the synagogue the function of teaching was confined to no special class : the ruler of the synagogue invited any competent man to address those assembled, and the Church, no doubt, adopted this custom. In Jerusalem the Apostles chose these functions as the most important, whether intrin- sically or for the time, for themselves'. But there is nothing to limit these functions to the Apostolic office. The Deacons, though appointed to serve tables, at once began to teach, some of them with eminent publicity and independence ^ Those who were scattered abroad, in the persecution that arose about Stephen 3, went every- where preaching the Word, even to Antioch^, where the Apostles would have greatly hesitated to send them, and began spontaneously to preach to the Gentiles. Later, in the Corinthian Church, every man ' had a psalm, ... a doctrine, ... an interpretations ; ' and there is no sugges- tion by St. Paul when he took order in this matter, that teaching and prayer belong to a particular class. Even as late as the Pastoral Epistles, when the Presbyterate is fully formed, the writer's direction is only that men should lead in prayer, and that no woman should teach in the public assemblies^. It was only by degrees, as reflexion brought doctrinal differences, and increasing numbers required stricter order, that these duties were confined to a particular class, and that Bishops first, then Presbyters, and later even Deacons, came to be occupied mainly or solely with prayer and teaching 7. It would seem that it was long before this change occurred. The Parochial system was formed, not on the basis of teach- ing and worship, but on that of government. The super- * Actsvi. 4. ^ Acts vi. 9, 10; viii. 5, etc. ' Acts viii. i, 4. * Id. xi. 19. 5 I Cor. xiv. 26. ° i Tim. ii. 8. lb. 11, 12. ' See the account of the formation and changes of these offices in Dr. Hatch's Bampton Lectures, and the note at p. 139 of this volume. in.] Begmitmgs of the Uiiiversal Society, 115 intendent of a parish, in the beginning of the fifth cen- tury, was called not Doctor but Rector ^ This ruling function had a constantly widening field of exercise even in the Apostolic times. In the Pastoral Epistles, we read no longer of a small and poor com- munity, but one in which various classes exist, in which many are wealthy, in which also there are various orders of officers, not only Presbyters or Bishops and Deacons, but orders of women Deacons and widows ^ The exer- cise of discipline has become a vast labour, comparable to that of Moses and the elders of Israel at Mount Sinai. The Apostolic deputy, Timothy or Titus, is sent not merely to regulate worship or teaching, but to take order in the affairs of the community generally 3. And if the sentiment of St. Paul 4, that it was a shame for the infant Church to bring its matters before the heathen tribunals, was generally adopted, we can understand that the rulers of the Christian community had a large sphere of labour traced out for them. If we ask by what law such matters were decided, we may well suppose that the Christian spirit of itself suggested the principles of all true government, and that, as with the judges of Israel, judgment was with the Christian elders mainly a spiritual faculty. But it is of the nature of legal procedure to become fixed, and to appeal to rule and precedent. Some such rules we find laid down in the Epistles to the Corinthians and the Pastoral Epistles, such as the directions concerning * See Sulpicius Severus, Dial. i. 4. Ecclesiam illius loci (Bethlehem) Hieronymus Presbyter regit. * I Tim. V. 9, 10; iii. II. It is possible that ywaiKag in this passage ought to be translated (as by the Revisers) merely ' women.' But it seems more Ukely that some special women are meant, and that they were Deaconesses, the passage before and after having reference to servants of the church. 3 I Tim. i. 3, etc., etc. Titus i. 5. ♦ i Cor. vi. 1-6. 1 1 6 TJie Nczu Testament Chzirch, [lect. mixed marriages in the Epistle to the Corinthians S or those concerning the marriage of presbyters and dea- cons^ and the admission and conduct of widows, in the Epistle to Timothy 3^ all of which were at a later period appealed to as the ground of Ecclesiastical laws. The Old Testament would also be consulted, especially in matters relating to the family. But, no doubt, the cus- toms and laws of Roman, or Greek, or Jewish society w^ould also be adopted so far as they were not anti- christian in their tendency. Thus a body of Christian customs and rules of life grew up, through which the Church attempted to renew human life, and to establish on earth those just relations in which the Kingdom of Heaven consists 1 The family was the chosen field of its influence, but all parts of human life came under its cognizance ; not only the relations of its members to one another, but their bearing towards those who were without. It was a beginning of a new world, a world of tenderness in contrast with the callousness of heathen life, of laboriousness in contrast with the luxury and idleness of Roman citizens ; a world in which murder, and adultery, and fraud, as we learn from Pliny's letter to Trajan 5, were forbidden, not by an external law, but by the conviction and the longing for purity which bound the citizens themselves together ; a world from which the corrupting public shows were banished, and in which the slave became a brother and a free man in Christ ; a world in which the antipathies of race and condition were to be obliterated, and of which love was to be the supreme law. The ideal was but partially * I Cor. vii. 1 2-1 6. ^ i Tim. iii. 2, 12. ^ \ Tim. v. 2-16. * For the Christian Church existing as a state within a state, see Lecky, Eur. Mo?: i. 468. ^ ' Quod soliti essent (Christiani) . . . sacramento se obstringere . . . ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent.' Plin. Ep. xcvii. III.] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 1 1 7 reached at best. Yet many of the Christian customs passed eventually into the laws of the empire, and, later on, into the public sentiment of Christendom. It is the Church beginning thus to form itself which is the basis of the ideal Church of St. Paul and St. John. Already, in his prison at Rome, St. Paul de- scribes himself as joying and beholding the order of the Christian community at Colossae ^ This working out of righteousness in the organized life of believers gives substance to all that he says of the Church as the body and the bride of Christ 2, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all 3. It is impossible to apply such words as these to a body which is limited in its scope. The Church of St. Paul and St. John is the complete humanity, for nothing short of this can be the fulness of God. When, further, we enter upon the glowing vision of the Apoca- lypse, we find that what is before the mind of the Seer is a holy city 4, a society of just men, which is the counterpart, on the one hand, of the corrupt Jerusalem, and, on the other, of the polluted Babylon s. These two represent the world under the dominion of the debased Judaism and heathenism. The New Jerusalem is the world under the dominion of Christ. Like the visions of the older Prophets, it has its realization, not in a heavenly state beyond this world, but in a progressively righteous state in this world. Nor is it a society for worship and teaching that the Seer has before his mind ; (there is no temple in the New Jerusalem^;) but the transformation of the kingdom of this world in which un- just relations subsist into a kingdom of God in which just relations will subsist : this is the object for which Christ goes forth conquering and to conquer. We may add that this throws a clear light on the ^ Col. ii. 5. ^ I Cor. xii. 27. Eph. v. 25-32. ^ Eph. i. 22, 23. '* Rev. xxi. 2. Rev. xviii. ^ Id. xxi. 22. 1 1 8 The New Testament Church, [lect. expectation of the Coming of our Lord in the ApostoHc age. It would be vain to deny that in certain passages St. Paul repeats the language of ancient prophecy with a kind of literalism. The voice of the archangel, and the trump of God S and the saints caught up into the clouds, can hardly be explained otherwise than as a literal expectation of things never destined to be fulfilled. Nor can we deny that such literalisms are among the integuments which had to fall off when the age of childhood was past. When we look, however, at the words of our Lord Himself we have no similar difficulty. The angel with the great sound of the trumpet ^ gather- ing the elect from the four winds is evidently the ministry of the Gospel going abroad through the world before the great crisis of the destruction of Jerusalem. The end of the 'age 3/ about which the disciples ask, is the end of the Jewish dispensation. The passing away of heaven and earth is the rolling away of the existing fabric of society. The Coming of the Son of Man in a cloud 4 (an image borrowed from Daniel) is the triumph of Christ over the world-powers of Judea and of Rome. The apostolic visions must be inter- preted in a similar way. The day of the Lord is the great crisis of history, when Church and world must pass through a purifying furnace of suffering. And, beyond this, stands forth before the Seer's eye the new state of society, the abode of divine justice, the new heaven and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. How, then, was this result to be brought about ? Partly, no doubt, by the influx of converts, and by the growth of the kingdom itself; partly by the general influence of Christian doctrine, the leaven leavening the whole lump. But, partly also, as a consequence and accompaniment of these processes, by the appropriation 1 1 Thess. iv. i6, 17. * Matt. xxiv. 31. ^ Yq. 3. •* lb. 30. Ill-] Beginnings of the Universal Society, 119 of human organizations, which, by the infusion of the Christian spirit, came to realize the Church idea, and thus to become Churches themselves. The most striking instance of this is the appropriation of the family, which, being itself a microcosm, presents a typical specimen and a commencement of the whole process. The family was, both among Jews and Gentiles, to a large extent the home of selfishness. By the facility of divorce, the absolute power of the father, and slavery, selfishness reigned supreme. So much was this the case that, even when Christianity had been three centuries at work, the family life was still worldly enough to make many of the great fathers despair of its redemption. But, in the New Testament, we find the family life recognized as the natural abode of the Gospel-spirit, and becoming, to use the words of St. Paul, ' the Church which is in the house.' * Our Lord,' said Clement of Alexandria, 'said that where two or three were gathered in His name, there was the true Church. Who are these two or three, but the father, the mother, and the child ^ ? ' For the investigation we are now pursuing, the passages which speak of the family are the most precious in the New Testament. In our Lord's ministry we find occasions in which the whole household passes into the Church ^ In the Acts and Epistles this is still more frequent. The family of Cornelius 3 and the family of the Philip- pian jailor 4 are the two most familiar instances. The promise of salvation through faith is not to the indivi- dual alone, but ' thou shalt be saved and thy housed.' If we ask how a family can be said to become a church, we have but to go for an answer to the passages in the Ephesians ^, Colossians 7, and the first Epistle of St. Peter ^, in which the effect of Christianity upon the ^ Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. lo, ^ Luke xix. 9. John iv. 53. ^ Acts X. 44-48. ■♦ Id. xvi. 32-34. ^ lb. 31. * Eph. V. 22 — vi. 9. ^ Col. iii. 18— iv. i. ® i Pet. ii. i8 — ^iii. 9. I20 The New Testament Church, [lect. various sections of the household is described. We see there the Christian spirit of mutual deference and respect establishing true relations between husband and wife, parents and children, masters and servants. We have but to picture to ourselves a family living according to the Apostolic prescription, and we realize in the circle of the family what the Church is meant to be, society transformed by the Spirit of Christ. We have there the kingdom of heaven taking shape before our eyes. We must extend this to all other circles of human life, to social and commercial intercourse, to societies formed for the increase of knowledge or of art, but most of all to the sovereign state. As it is said by sociolo- gists that the family is the miniature of the State, so also the family which has become a Church is the miniature of the State which has become a Church. The language of St. Paul^ and St. Peter ^ concerning the sovereign state reveals to us the true destination of political society. When all officers of State are looked upon as ministers of God, and all orders of men who compose the state are brought within the action of Christian brotherly kindness, we see political society as a whole already transformed in the mind of the great Purposer. The ideal stands out before us in the words * Honour all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honour the king^. ' The whole fabric is there in the germ, already recognized as divine in its essence and in its destination. It is for those who are the special messengers of Christ not so much to change its organi- zation as to breathe into it the Spirit of their Lord, and thus to convert it into a Church. That is the task of the growing Christendom. The history of Christendom, therefore, until the final condition at which we aim is reached, must be the record * Rom. xiii. 1-7. ^ i Pet. ii. 13, 14. ^ i Pet. ii. 17. III.] Begmnings of the Universal Society. 121 of an imperfect state, a becoming not a being. If the perfect state is that in which the Church and mankind are one, both must be constantly undergoing change. We may apply to them the words of Hebrew prophecy, *I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him^' Any theory which claims to be complete, while dealing only with the existing materials, must by its very terms be in error ; and everything that can be said truly will appear vacillating and inconsistent. It is as in a country which is being gradually conquered, as, for instance, in the winning back of Spain from the Moors in the seven centuries from Charles Martel to Ximenes. Who can fix the exact limits of the conquest? At one moment it may seem that a line can be drawn, on either side of which stand the opposing armies and people. Yet, even so, the parts occupied by the invading hosts may merely submit, or may be in rebellion, or, again, may be gov- erned with their own free consent ; while on the side occupied by the defenders some may sympathize, lan- guidly or actively, with the invaders. At another time no line at all can be traced. In such a state of affairs, the territory may be said to belong to one party or to the other, according to the views of the narrator, his infor- mation, or his temperament. At one moment the invaders seem ready to be surrounded and destroyed, at another the whole land seems theirs. The inhabitants and the invaders alike will give the most varying accounts of the state and prospects of the country. Who, during such a struggle, would undertake to give an accurate description of it } Or what description which holds good for one moment could fail to be false in the next } No one can give such a definition of the Church in its relation to mankind as will hold good for all time. It is a growing * Ezek, xxL 27. 122 The New Testament Church, organism with universal capacities, destined to embrace the world, yet still far from accomplishing its destiny. But these two things seem to follow as practical con- clusions from our review of the work of the Founder, and of those who planted the Church during its earliest age. First, since Christ demanded the complete alle- giance of His followers, our duty is to strive that what- ever calls itself by His name should be absolutely holy. Secondly, since Christ also gave the promise of universal dominion, we need never doubt that we are fulfilling His will by opening wide the gates of the city which were to be shut neither day nor night, and embracing within its hospitable area more and more of the organisms which make up the complete humanity. LECTURE IV. THE IMPERIAL AND MEDIAEVAL CHURCH. Revelation vi. 2. And I saw, and behold a white horse : and he that sat on him had a bow ; and a crown was given unto him : and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. The Christian Church, at the close of the Apostolic age, went forth to conquer the world, and it was armed for this vast enterprise with all that was essential. First, it had a body of authoritative documents ; for though the New Testament Scriptures were not gathered in a volume receiving general consent till the later part of the second century % the Old Testament, understood in the sense which Christ and the Apostles had given to it, was in the hands of all, and the various documents which after- wards made up the New Testament were sufficiently known to present to any inquirer a clear embodiment of the Christian scheme. Secondly, the Christian Church had the rudiments of a complete society. It contained within itself a principle of life which was at once a close bond between its members and an expansive force ; and it had a perfectly free constitution, which rendered it capable of growing into a State, an Empire. Thirdly, it had an organization, and officers, whose duty it was both to keep alive the Christian traditions by a worship and teaching centred in the personality of Christ, and to exer- cise discipline and minister to the wants of all classes of * The Muratorian fragment, which shows that the Canon of the New Testament was at Rome at that date substantially as we have it now, is believed to have been written about the year a.d. 170. Westcott's Hist. New Test. Canon^ p. 185. 123 124 The hnperlal and Mediceval Church, [lect. the community, especially the poor. Lastly, it had, what is far the most important, the ideal of the life and spirit of Christ, the inspiring power of the whole organ- ism. This ideal was partly derived from the Scriptures, both of the Old Testament read in a Christian sense, and of the New as recording the life of Christ ; it was also partly a matter of tradition ; but it was most of all to be seen in the life of the Church itself. Christians were themselves the living epistles, known and read of all men \ For the promise to which they appealed was not that a certain defined type should be impressed on them, and through them on mankind, but that the Spirit, which blows where it lists, should guide them and convince the world. The design of the Christian community was not to substitute itself for the organized society then existing, but to blend with it, to breathe a new spirit into it, and finally to be so fused with it as to transform it into the body of Christ. The first thing which had to be done, and which was accomplished in the first three centuries, was to produce conviction, to impress upon the conscience of man- kind the belief that the spiritual power which wrought in the Christian Church was divine and therefore su- preme. There was no design of outward conquest, but of persuasion. The conviction, when once thoroughly impressed, was capable of renewing the whole life, first of the individual, then of the community. It was capa- ble of rebuilding the whole of human society ; it drew in its train all that is needed for society, the establish- ment of just relations, systems of law, political consti- tutions, a strict and peremptory discipline. Indeed this discipline was from the first unhesitatingly and impar- tially applied to all the members of the Christian soci- ety. But as regards those without, persuasion was the sole legitimate agency. Of what then was it designed 2 Cor. iii. 2. IV.] United Christendom attempted, 125 to persuade men ? Of this above all, that the moral ideal presented in the life of Christ was supreme. For this, as we have said, is the centre of the whole organism. All else may change, but, so long as the moral and spiritual supremacy of the Life and Spirit of Christ remain, Christianity is living, and whatever is necessary for its full expansion will follow in due time. It is true the Christian faith has often been set forth by means both of ordinances and of statements which may easily be divorced from the moral ideal to which they relate : when thus divorced they lose their power over the conscience, and provoke wonder at the con- trast between the greatness of the work to be done and the triviality of the means by which it is sought to com- pass it. But the moral centre is always discernible, to those who are patient enough to watch for it, in the forms and the teaching which have held fast the Church and convinced the world. The Sacraments are designed to perpetuate the memory of Christ and help us to rea- lize His indwelling, to make His life the life of the com- munity ; and all the Church-ordinances to bind men in the brotherly relations which flow from union in right- eousness. The early Christians, as Pliny's letter shows ^ bound themselves in the Sacrament not to swear falsely, or to commit theft, or adultery, or withhold money that was entrusted to them. And the teaching, when its symbolical expressions are rightly understood, always represents the supremacy of the moral ideal. If it was asserted that Christ rose from the dead, and the doc- trine of the resurrection was the foundation of the Church, this was based on the conviction of the sover- eign nature of His holiness. The Holy One, it was said, could not be held by the chains of death : the resurrection was the assurance that the divine righteous- * See the words quoted in Lect. Ill, p. ii6. 1 26 The Imperial and MedicBval Church, [lect. ness which was manifested in the life of Christ was supreme in the world. If the immortality of the soul was taught, this was grounded on the assurance that the principle in man which is capable of righteousness and of redemption is divine, and therefore destined to endure. If the divinity of Christ was asserted, this was the assertion that He was morally supreme, the true image in humanity of the eternal power of love If, again, faith was proclaimed as the saving power, it was a moral faith, a union of the heart and life with Christ. The whole Christian teaching is the presentation by various means of the moral ideal of the life of Christ to mankind\ What, then, we may ask, was this moral ideal, or rather, what did it mean to the believers and to those whom they strove to convert? Was the self-sacrificing love, by which we can most nearly express it, a new moral type, perfectly clear to all believers of every age, and set forth so distinctly as that all men could appre- hend it.? and was it meant to be placed in contrast with all other moral types, and to displace and destroy them as evil ? It would be truer to say that in this the saying of Christ holds good, ' I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.' We perceive this the more distinctly the more history and philosophy unfold to us the secret of ancient religions and of individual and national charac- ter. But in the early church it was not unrecognized. The Western Fathers, indeed, like Tertullian and Jerome, depreciated all morality but the Christian. But those * There is a tendency, especially in Germany, to take these doctrinal conceptions as something ultimate in the minds of the writers who first gave them expression. But it is truer to regard them as presentations of the central and underlying moral truth, varying with the thought of the age, and sometimes, as is shown by the difference between the dif- ferent groups of St. Paul's Epistles, with the various experiences of the same teacher. IV.] United Christendom attempted, 127 of the East, especially the earlier Alexandrine teachers, Clement and Origen, placed the great heathen moralists amongst those who had prepared the way of Christ. It is true that when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part must be done away. To linger in an inferior moral state when a higher has been presented becomes sinful. It is true also that the Christian ideal is that before which all others must pale. But it over- comes all other moral systems, not by denying their suitability to the times of comparative ignorance, but by outshining and absorbing them. It was noticed by Dr. Chalmers ^ that when St. Paul wrote to the Philip- pians that they should, for the completion of their Christian life, think upon whatsoever things were honest and just, lovely and of good report, whatsoever was deemed a virtue and worthy of praise ^ he was using the common terms of Greek ethics, and urging his con- verts to assimilate the ideal which was recognized in the society around them. But, it may be said, the motive at least was new, and the motive really determines the ideal. The Pagan philosophy bade men seek these qualities because they were humanly good, the Christian religion from love to God. This, however, is only in part true ; for the love of God was not wholly absent from Paganism. It may further be said that the moral ideal acknowledged by the society of Greece or Rome had at its root a proud independence, while Christian goodness demands a sense of sin and the belief in an atonement. But here again we cannot ignore the sense of sin 3 presented by some of the Greek tragedies and their early myths ; and if we follow the development of Greek thought, we find at * CommercialDiscourses. Disc. I. (Collected Works, vol. vi.). ^ Phil. iv. 8. ^ * In tlie assertion of Original Sin the Greek Mythology rose and set.* Coleridge, Aids to Reflexion, p. 211. 1 28 The Imperial and Mediceval Church, [lect. its final issue in Neo-Platonism a longing for purity and for the image of God. Even humility, which is often taken as distinctively Christian, may be found in writers like Marcus Aurelius ; and self-sacrificing love, at least for country and for friends, has many representatives in the Greek and Roman world. But we may justly say that Christianity laid a stress upon these which had never been felt before. No one had said with the same emphasis such words as these : * Blessed are the meek and the pure in heart, for they shall see God ; ' nor ' Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ; ' nor ' Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it beareth much fruit ;' nor 'God is love.' The self-sacrifice of Greek and Roman times is found in exceptional heroes, that of Christian times is much more widely diffused. The Decii gave up life that Rome might conquer her enemies, Christ and His followers that the hearts of all men might be won to God and to love. It is true also that Christianity brought the moral qualities into their proper harmony, raising into promi- nence those which are most widely humane, that it made the true motives operative, and that it imparted to men the assurance that ultimate and divine truth had been reached and would prevail. This last gave the Church that unconquerable hope which more than anything else overcame the world. No student of the moral world in the first centuries of the Christian era can fail to be struck with the fact that moral ideas, both true and false, appear at the same time in very different places and connexions. Similarities may be traced in the language of St. Paul and of Seneca ; Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus have much in common with the ideas of the Christians whom they ignored or persecuted. Plutarch's religious and moral principles have a cast which indicates a progress IV.] United Christendom attempted, 129 in comparison with Stoics like Brutus or Cato, compar- able to that from the Pharisees to the Apostolic fathers, and in general we may observe that when Christianity is advancing heathenism becomes serious and turns to the unseen world for satisfaction ^ It is natural to ask, whether this progress is the direct result of Christian teaching, and its expressions taken from the Gospel ^ At a later time it may be asked whether asceticism was imported into the Church from the Eastern reli- gions where it prevailed before. It is no impeach- ment of the truth of Christianity or of the zeal of its emissaries to observe the manner in which moral ideas spread through the world, — a matter which is seldom rightly conceived. That direct teaching of the primary truths is the most important channel of propagation is true. 'How shall they hear without a preacher.?' But influence and example also go for much : and again both teacher and taught are subject to forces, partly arising from their circumstances, partly from causes which we cannot trace, and which form what has been called a climate of opinion. Moreover, the phrases and the arguments used on some chance occasion lie as germs in the mind, and spring to life almost un- consciously and are reproduced when circumstances occur to fructify them, often in complete forgetfulness of their source. Thus it may happen that the same expressions occur in two writers who have never seen one another ; and the influence of different persons and schools may be reciprocal and extensive without their ^ See Merivale's Conversion of the Roman Empire (Boyle Lectures for 1864), especially pp. 86 £f., pp. iii £f., and the whole of Lecture VI. ^ The problem of the relation of the sentiments of the great Roman Stoics to those of the New Testament is discussed by Bishop Lightfoot in his Essay on St. Paul and Seneca in his book on the Epistle to the Philippians. It seems hardly necessary to attribute to them so much knowledge of the Christian writings as is implied at p. 28 of that volume. , 9 1 30 The Imperial and Mediceval Church, [lect. either consciously acknowledging or consciously ignor- ing their mutual obligation. But he who believes that the progress of mankind is all one, and springs from one source, and who is content to assert for Christian- ity not an exclusive position, but a primacy among beliefs and moral systems, will conduct the inquiry into the method of the evolution of truth and goodness without any anxiety : nor will he assume that Chris- tianity stands or falls with the assertion that all good is visibly connected with the teaching of the Church. It is enough that the moral ideal which Christianity enshrines has shown itself capable of either including or assimilating all that is permanently good in human nature. Yet it is more true that Christianity gives a stimulus to good than that it discloses a moral ideal. Faith rather than the faith, truth rather than the truth, is that to which it incites us. As to the ancients the divine was always surrounded by a cloud, which partly hid partly revealed it, so it is with the divine moral ideal. Indeed, when we speak of God as a moral being, we know that no morality such as exists between man and man can be a full measure of His nature. And so when we speak of the divine moral ideal which is presented in Jesus Christ, though this is more tangible, it has yet a side which is always beyond our grasp. It is in this way that we may understand the ideas of the Buddhists and Quietists, who appear to be at times indifferent to moral good and evil, in their absorption in that which is, as they say, beyond both. To sup- pose that God is in any way indifferent to good and evil is to belie all that we are taught by revelation, or by nature rightly understood. But we may as Chris- tians readily confess that what seems to us good or evil may often wear a very different aspect in God's sight ; that there is often evil which we have not perceived IV.] United Christendom attempted. 131 corrupting what seems to us purely good ; and again, that there is * a soul of good in things evil' The importance of these remarks will be evident if we cast a glance upon the history of the conversion of the Roman empire. For, first, we find that the Church is in contact with a system of life which it is impossible to stigmatize as absolutely evil. Secondly, that influences such as the Alexandrian philosophy, the Roman law and administration, Oriental mysticism and asceticism, were taken in to the exposition of Christian doctrine and the development of the Christian society — some of them from the very earliest days : and necessarily so, for they were wrapped up in the human language which Christianity must use, and in the human life with which Christianity must blend. But, thirdly, what is far the most important, we find the Christian ideal itself varying from age to age. To the Church of the earliest centuries it meant a child- like submissiveness and fidelity ; to the age of the great fathers and their successors, from the fourth to the eighth century, it meant mainly asceticism ; from Charlemagne to the end of the Crusades it meant mainly the spirit of chivalry ; and from thence to the Reformation it meant mainly the clerical virtues. In the Eastern Church the ideal has been that of correct doctrine ; in the Western, good discipline. I have put this as strongly as possible, so as to mark how great the change has been at various times in the moral ideal itself, which is the living kernel of the whole system. Such a statement needs, indeed, to be modified by the acknowledgment that, through all these forms of the moral ideal, Christian love, and faith, and beneficence (this last the most constant factor) were presented to the world. But, if we compare the ideals of life presented by an apostolical father like Polycarp in the second century, a monk like ^lacarius or Hilarion in the fourth, a hero like Charlemagne in the eighth, a clerical administrator like Pope Innocent III in the thir- 1 32 The Imperial and Medicsval Church, [lect. teenth, and a promoter of liberal learning- like Gerson in the fifteenth, it might almost seem as if we were review- ing a series of different religions, rather than different forms of the same. Yet each of these appeared to the men of their own day as the model of Christian excel- lence. Christians would have pointed to each in turn and said to mankind, That is what we wish you to be- come. These observations should make us, in the first place, very tolerant of diversities, even as to that which seems most important and central ; in the second place, it should make us feel that our own conception of Chris- tianity is probably far from complete, so that we must not dogmatize as if we and our age had nothing more to learn. Thirdly, it should make us feel that Christianity can leave full liberty to moral science and gratefully encourage its researches. The impulse which the Gospel gives, the desire to fulfil God's will in union with the sacrifice of Christ, may be all its own. But what is the will of God has not been disclosed all at once, but is left to be ascertained more and more as human knowledge and experience clear the pathway before us. And, lastly, we should look upon the whole Christian development as a striving upwards, a fuller perception from age to age of the scope of redemption, a gradual assimilation of the various elements of social life ; a process which is subject at times to at least apparent stagnation, and even to retrogression, but which is never for any long period turned back in its progressive course. We take self-sacrificing love as the nearest expression we can give of the Christian ideal ; and this, though clothed in many forms, has been constantly present. It must indeed be admitted that it is much easier to see the differences in the ideal of life in different ages than its constancy in reference to this standard. Who would take as an expression of love an ascetic of the fifth century, or a crusader of the twelfth, or an ecclesiastic IV.] United Chris teiidom attempted. 133 like Hildebrand or Becket, or one of the schoolmen ? Yet it is certain that each of them had in some way before his mind the image of Him who said, ' Hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' A second constant factor of the Christian ideal is faith in a fatherly and redeeming God ; but this also is subject to vast changes. God is at one time the redeemer of Israel ; then of those within the Church's pale ; only in a vague uncertain manner of the world. He is the redeemer from His own jealous wrath, or from a world which is itself left to perish. He is the redeemer of the individual rather than of society. He is the redeemer from personal misery rather than from sin. These divergences from the ideal, as we are able to conceive it, go very deep, and there are many others of a similar kind. Yet it would be quite untrue to assert that a Christian of the Israelitish type of St. James of Jerusalem, or one of the ascetic type of St. Jerome, to whom even the Christian family was a mere scene of worldliness destined for destruction ; or again, of the type of Thomas a Kempis, whose only motive might seem to be to save his own soul from misery, was desti- tute of all perception of the universal love of God. A third factor, and one easy to recognize, is beneficence. This again has varied in its forms. It was in the earliest times directed to the relief of distress within the Church itself; later on to the redemption of captives and the alleviation of disease ; then to the founding of monas- teries as centres of Christian enlightenment ; later again to the building of colleges, schools, and hospitals. At one time it has applied itself to the emancipation of slaves, at another to the conversion of the heathen. It has often been narrow and misguided, and has never frankly identified itself, as beneficence in Israel did, with the action of the general community : but it has, never- theless, been at all times a reflexion of the divine com- 1 34 The Imperial and MedicBval Church, [lect. passion, an extension of the life of Christ. The differences we have traced do not make us lose the sense of unity of purpose. We may say more. The inherent vitality of Christianity is shown in its capacity to survive the ideals in which it has represented itself. The ideal of each age passes. But it leaves something behind. It has pre- sented some element of tenderness or strength to the conscience, some ^ substance and evidence ' to the faith of mankind. Its body dies, but its soul survives. And therefore we may rightly, as we touch upon the various ages of Christian history, dwell mainly on the positive endeavours or attainments of successive generations, lay- ing little stress upon the failures, which are only too evident, or upon the controversies by which those failures were exposed, but marking what progress was actually made, and what new elements of human life were assimilated by the Church. We may take the three factors which have just been mentioned, self-sacrificing love, faith in a redeeming God, and beneficence, as the central points of the Chris- tian ideal. This ideal has been partly presented, partly made effective, by the memory of the life of Christ and by His spiritual indwelling : and the destination of the Church is to make this ideal universally operative, so that it may be accepted by the convictions of all, and may work itself out in the life of mankind ; to preside over the process by which it is to become the co-ordinating power of all society and of all human occupations, the stimulus of knowledge, of art, of industry, the sanction of all that is lovely as well as of all that is useful. But it must be observed that the Church has in each age been strangely unconscious of this destination. It has imagined that, if it could bring all characters within some special mould, it would have done its work ; or it has taken hardly any care for the mass of mankind, and has been contented to save some few out of the general destruction ; or it has IV.] United ChristendoTn attempted. 135 thought of the blessed state as belonging entirely to the world to come ; or it has aimed at a dominion of the clergy. At no age has it distinctly set before itself the task of bringing mankind universally in all their relations under the dominion of Christ. Only to a few minds, at rare intervals, has the idea of a Christian commonwealth, of a Christian world, presented itself, and then almost always only to be abandoned. If this feebleness of con- ception is disheartening, we may on the other hand derive encouragement from it : for it shows that the capa- cities of Christianity, so far from being exhausted, have in their largest field of exercise yet to be brought into play. The famous chapter of Gibbon, in which the causes of the spread of Christianity in the first three centuries are described, however suggestive it may be of the historian's own scepticism, and though an invidious turn is given to each of the causes, may yet be taken as indicating sub- stantially the points of contact at which the Church's influence was felt, and through which it won upon the convictions of mankind. It will be seen, as we touch upon them, that the presentation of the moral ideal of Christianity is that which gave them force. The first cause is the inflexible and even intolerant zeal of the Christians. It would seem that this is exaggerated. It is true that certain of the Christians, like Tertullian, protested against the most innocent customs, if even re- motely connected with heathen observances ; but this is contrary to the teaching of St. Paul. It is certain that even in the fourth century, when Christianity was in the ascendant and had begun to persecute, the intermarriage of Christians and Pagans was not uncommon, and social intercourse went on freely between them ^ But the * See, for instance, Jerome's account of the heathen priest Albinus, whose daughter Laeta was married to the son of Jerome's friend Paula, and whose granddaughter, the younger Paula, is described as lisping Hal- 1 2,6 The Imperial and MedicEval Church, [lect. earnest conviction which underlay the inflexible zeal of the Christians presented that for which the better mind of the Empire was craving, an assured moral resting-place. And the protest against idolatry, though it sometimes passed into intolerance, was in the main a salutary reproof, carrying on the process begun among the Greeks by Socrates and Plato, against the unworthy conceptions of God, an appeal to the better sense of mankind. The second cause stated by Gibbon is the doctrine of immortality, and of a quickly approaching judgment in which the Pagans should be destroyed. No doubt various extravagant notions mixed themselves with the simple belief of judgment and immortality. But the foundation of these beliefs was profoundly moral. The belief in the permanence beyond the grave of the life of righteousness begun here is the counterpart and support of the belief in the eternal and absolute character of rigfhteousness. That the vices of the non-Christian world must bring about its destruction was a moral con- viction expressed in the burning words of St. Paul, and which was vindicated by the event, first at Jerusalem, then at Rome ^ The third cause assigned by Gibbon is the miraculous power attributed to the Church. This we can scarcely estimate. It is certain that it is acknowledged by Chris- tian teachers to have ceased at an early period. But, whatever the influence of this belief may have been, it was the witness of a larger belief, that of a Divine power inherent in the Church. This beUef has been fully vindicated. The Son of Man was seen in the progress of the Church, according to His own words, 'Coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.' leluia on the knees of the heathen grandfather (Jerome, ad Latam, Ep. 107, ed. Vail.). * See I Thess. ii. 15, 16. 2 Thess. i. 5-9; ii. 8- IV.] U^iited Christendom attempted, 137 The fourth of the causes specified by Gibbon is the vir- tuous lives of the Christians. This is the central fact from which all the rest gained their vahdity. It is im- portant to note the special features of this virtue, which flowed direct from a belief in the supremacy of Christ. It was the virtue not of a sect or a nation, but partaking- of the character of universality. This distinguished it from the current virtue of both Jew and Gentile. It was also not a customary nor enforced virtue, but original, and a matter of conviction ; and this conviction was an enthusiasm for goodness, existing not, as heretofore, in a small class of cultivated men, but among the simple, the female sex, the slaves. ^Moreover this virtue was tested in the most signal manner by persecution. In that great trial the true quality of virtue, real manliness, was evoked ; it was seen that the meekness which distin- guished this period of the Church was compatible with the most heroic energy and endurance. The last cause enumerated by Gibbon is the attention which was paid to the government of the Church. This is a point which must receive special attention from those who believe in the universal capacities of the Chris- tian Church. The Church was the Christians' fatherland. To it they gave themselves up entirely. Into it they poured their offerings. And the fund thus created was administered by the officers of the Church, who were elected by the members with a special regard to their probity. A community which had such attractions was eagerly sought after. In the misery which pressed on the whole Roman world it was a harbour of refuge for the helpless. A rigorous test was therefore necessary for the admission of members, a rigorous discipline also for those within its pale ^ But to its sincere members it was a city of the saints, a new Jerusalem, a kingdom of God, the laws of which were on a level with the convictions * See Pressense, La Vie Ecclesiastique aux 2nie et 3me Siecles, ch. iii. 1 38 The Imperial and Mediceval Church, [lect. of the citizens. And whereas the subjects of the Roman Empire had been accustomed to submit 'for wraths sake/ to the iron rule of the imperial officers, confessing, perhaps, its necessity and even its justice, bowing down before its dread majesty, the Christians could feel that the laws of their community were the laws of God and of Christ ; they regarded their bishops and presbyters as ministers of God doing them good in body and in soul, and could follow them with reverent and enthusiastic loyalty. In this last cause of the influence of Christianity we may see the rise of something more than moral influ- ence. It is impossible that a large society should be held together without some system of rewards and pun- ishments. St. Paul had said that S though Christians were not to judge those who were without, they were to judge those that were within : and this is precisely what came to pass. So long as men were outside the Church, the Church acted upon them only by means of persuasion. But so soon as men came within its pale, it acted upon them by means of discipline. Gibbon points out very rightly the fact that the government of the Church acted upon its members by both reward and punishment. Here we find the Church passing out of the condition of a sect or teaching body, to take upon itself some of the functions of the State, with its laws and their appropriate sanctions. It is vain to assert that the Christian communities were governed by merely spiritual motives. The rewards of its members were those of a constant share in the Church's benefactions, and admission to, and promotion in, the hierarchy. The Epistle to Timothy had said, ' Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour ^' Promotion and increase of emoluments are here clearly designated. * X Cor. V. 12. * I Tim. v. 17. IV.] United Christendom attempted. 139 The same epistle had given rules for the support of widows, and these rules served for an example of the general treatment of the poor ^ It is not necessary to traverse again the ground so adequately occupied by the Bampton Lectures of 1880 2. It is evident that the early Church was, on its temporal side, a vast brother- hood for mutual beneficence, rapidly absorbing into itself the functions of the State. But in such a State punishments keep pace with rewards. Deprivation of office, exclusion from the benefits of the society, these were no spiritual censures, but loss of the means of existence 3. And when excision from the brotherhood took place, it was not, as excommunication would be if practised among us now, a somewhat arbitrary exclu- sion from an ordinance from which, for whatever reason, the larger part of the Christian community refrain, but a process more comparable to what was in Israel the ^ I Tim. V. 3-16. ^ The Organization of the Early Christian Churches, by the Rev. E. Hatch, D.D. These Lectures show (i) How the organization of these communities grew up naturally according to their needs and circum- stances; (2) How the Bishops and Presbyters, originally administrators and disciplinarians, gradually acquired control over the teaching and all other parts of the Church system. The strong animadversions called forth by these Lectures are but one of many proofs of the difficulty which men have in conceiving (i) of the Spirit of God as acting through the general sense of the community, (2) of Government as being essen- tially a spiritual function. 3 See Bingham's Antiquities, B, xvi, on the Discipline of the Church. He says, indeed, that the discipline consisted only in depriving men of the privileges gained by baptism, and that the Church had only a spiritual sword. But he gives immediately (B. xvi. c. 2) the case of Paul of Samosata, who was deprived of his office and refused to give up the episcopal house at Antioch. The Church not having power to execute its own sentences invoked that of the heathen emperor Aurelian. But the sentence of the Church was deprivation of a livelihood and a house. To call this a merely spiritual censure is a misnomer. Moreover, Bing- ham himself points out (B. xvi. c iii. § ii) that, as early as the fifth cen- tury, ' congruous stripes ' were recognized as a common punishment for ecclesiastical offences. 140 The Imperial and Mediaeval Church, [lect. cutting off from the congregation, or in the states of the ancient world the exterminatio, the compulsory loss of all that makes life dear. In later times excommuni- cation was easily defied, and bishops excommunicated each other with impunity. Even of the Pope, Hincmar of Rheims in the ninth century said, ' If he comes to excommunicate he will himself go away excommuni- cated'.' But, when the sentence, like that pronounced on Henry the Fourth of Germany by Hildebrand, was consonant with the convictions, or the animosities, of the larger part of the people, it fell on the offender with a crushing weight as to both his spiritual and his tem- poral estate. It was not ambition, nor a lack of spiri- tuality of mind which made such bishops as Cyprian great disciplinarians and founders of an ecclesiastical code, but the natural and necessary development of a society. And it is evident that, so soon as such a society should become a sovereign state, or get the power of a sovereign state into its hands, it would be folly and hypocrisy in it to hesitate to use all the powers of a temporal ruler to enforce its legal discipline ^ Nor would this derogate from its character as a spiritual society, provided that conviction and teaching remained free, and that Christian goodness, not selfish advan- tages, was the aim of the government. But such a state of things demands several conditions. It demands first that discipline should be concerned with those moral offences which discipline can properly touch, that it should be as little as possible concerned with theological error : secondly, that there should be * * Sic excommunicaturus venerit, excommunicatus abibit.' See Guizot, 'Civilization in Europe,' Lect. vi. p. 183. ^ It will be pointed out later on what is the truth underlying the as- sertion that religion has nothing to do with coercive law, and in what sense it may properly be maintained that the law should not interfere with religion. See pp. 224-226 and Note XXIII. IV.] United Christendom attempted, 141 a large tolerance in matters of faith, penalties being as- signed, in the case of laymen, only to open acts such as blasphemous and insulting conduct, and, in the case of religious teachers, to the most palpable inconsistency with the system under which they serve ; thirdly, that the legislative, administrative, and judicial functions should be definitely recognized as divine functions or ministries. That these conditions must eventually be complied with in every Christian commonwealth, and recognized by the Christian conscience as just, seems to follow from our conviction of the permanence and com- prehensiveness of the Church. That they have not com- monly been recognized, and that the tendency of those who look on the Church as a limited and separate com- munity has always been to make theological error the chief object of discipline, and still to wish to make it so when it has become impossible, and moreover that the constant tendency of Clerical authority has been to overbear and crush out individuality, must, I fear, be admitted. The settlement arrived at in the time of Constantine has been by some considered as the beginning of the Church's corruption, by others as presenting the normal relation of the Church and the State. We may look upon it as the first attempt made by a sovereign state to bring human life under the dominion of Christ ; a very imper- fect attempt, it is true, but one which needs to be repeated again and again, in one form or another, till it succeeds ; an attempt which has been repeated in many ages and many ways, notably in the time of Charle- magne, and again in the time of the great Popes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and at the Reformation : and which it is the task of the present day to attempt again with fuller knowledge and under new conditions. If what has been said in the last and present Lecture be true, if government or discipline in the Church is an 142 The Imperial and Mediceval Church, [lect. inherent necessity and one of its most important func- tions, Church Hfe cannot possibly be confined to regions with which law is not concerned. As the Church ex- pands and becomes a great society, it requires a fuller, and at last a complete system of law, which must be accepted and administered as Christian law, and obeyed 'not for wrath but for conscience' sake ' as an ordinance of God. The only question, therefore, which we can raise is whether the action taken at any given time to give effect to this growing necessity was wise, far-seeing, and corresponding to the actual needs. Historians are very apt to accept a kind of fatalism ; and, when any mistaken course has been followed, to point out the advantages which have ensued, and thus to leave the impression that what was done was inevitable and, however wrong, still fortunate. It is, no doubt, the province of the historian to show any incidental good which has resulted from a mistaken action. But it is hardly his province to infer that all the possible evil con- sequences must certainly have followed on the right action. If Hildebrand, it is said, had not destroyed the family life of the clergy, the clergy would have become a caste. Possibly ; but also possibly not. And the remedy for a caste might have come much sooner and more easily than that for clerical celibacy. The refusal to sully the family by making the unmarried state the model of excellence might have had, in connexion with the growing chivalry, an elevating effect upon the whole social condition of Europe, the good results of which might have vastly outweighed any possible dangers of a caste. We may excuse those who acted mistakenly, but it is not necessary to glorify their mistakes. In the case before us, that of the relation of the first Christian emperor to the Church, we cannot but believe that, had his imperial duties been recognized more fully as a Church function, many mistakes and conflicts would IV.] United Chris tendo^n attempted. 143 have been avoided, and the effect of Christianity on the Empire would have been both sounder and more exten- sive. Had it been acknowledged that human justice in its highest and Christian sense is the thing chiefly aimed at by the Church, the effect would have been to sanctify the government of the Empire, It would have been pos- sible to take adequate guarantees for the independence of Christian worship and teaching beneath the general pro- tection of the imperial rule : and the power of Christian- ity to breathe a spirit of justice and of holiness into human relations might have been preserved without the fatal dualism, which has, with few exceptions, frustrated the very design of the Church by separating religion from common life. The Church, during the persecutions, had acquired the habits of a sect. It is true that something of public life and public spirit had been evoked by the secular side of Church life ; but it was not perceived that this was its proper field of expansion ; there were causes, to be speci- fied presently, which made it lay greater stress on cor- rectness of doctrine than on the right conduct of life ; and, when the moment came at which the Church leaders might have advanced to claim the general life of mankind for Christ, they shrunk back. Like the Jews of the first century, they knew not their day of visitation. They cared for the formal guarantees of Christianity, for its correct statement, for the provision made for its wor- ship, above all for their own order ; they willingly used the imperial power for these purposes, and it was for these that it was least fitted ; but they cared nothing for the righteous government of the state and for the general welfare of mankind. Constantine himself held an am- biguous position ^ At one time he was the supreme bishop to whom all appealed : at another he refused to * See Stanley's ' Eastern Church.' Constantine's awe of the clergy, 142. Conflict of character, 231. His part in the Council of Nicaea, 147. 144 The Imperial and Mediceval Church, [lect. take his place in the Council of Nicsea till a sign of per- mission had been given by the Bishops '^ ; he was after- wards believed to have taken the lowest place among the assembled fathers 2. And this was due to the attitude of the Church leaders, who made the Church appear rather as the organ of a peculiar cult surrounded by unreal mys- tery, than as the open arena of universal goodness. We may trace, no doubt, a large and beneficial influence of Christianity in the laws of Constantine ^. But it is partly ceremonial, as in the law for the observance of Sunday, partly clerical, as in the laws for the immunities of the clergy : and, where it touches morals, it often, as in the law imposing the penalty of death for adultery, crudely enforces the JNIosaic law upon a society unprepared for it ; so that Justinian's legislation three centuries later has in this case to revert to the earlier Roman law. One principal cause of this is to be found in the doc- trinal controversies. The mind of the Church having been exercised in its earlier days by the strange Gnostic heresies, which had set before men a false moral ideal, partly ascetic, partly licentious, it had been thought necessary, and perhaps was so, to guard against this evil tendency by exact statements of the Christian tenets. These, indeed, were not reduced to formulas imposed upon the Churches generally. The Gnostic controversies left behind them no creeds and no formal anathemas. But the tendency to doctrinal disputes had been en- gendered, and, in a large community which had but a limited sphere of public action, it grew apace. The clergy being now a formed and separate class, organized for worship rather than for life, grew speculative and dis- ' Milman, * Hist, of Christianity,' ii. 367. ^ This belief is constantly found in the letters of Hildebrand, who grounds upon it his views of the superiority of the clergy to the lay- p o wer. 3 Gibbon, chapter xliv. Milman, Latin Christianity, Book iii. ch. 4. IV.] Ujiited Christendom attempted, 145 putatious. And the fact that the imperial government, though doing the work of Christian discipHne, was not recognized as a Church function, made a further sepa- ration between life and doctrine. Thus the Christian teachers were withdrawn still further from that close intercourse with the life of the general community which might have made them a really redemptive agency. The ascetic tendency, which also began to operate about this time, confirmed this withdrawal from general influence ^ When it was taught that the height of Chris- tian excellence was to be found in a solitary life, and in breaking away from all social bonds, it is evident that the influence of the Church on society must be most seriously impaired. It was almost in vain that Ambrose and Chrysostom preached against the vices of the age. The homilies of Chrysostom, no doubt, are full of excel- lent precepts of morals and of piety. But so long as the real object which lay behind was a life of separation and of celibacy, the effect was necessarily slight : for, men would argue, it is of little importance to form good habits unless we are prepared to put away our wives and live in monasteries or in deserts. And the ascetic ideal was almost universal at the end of the fourth century. Connected with this was the transference of the view and aim of the Church from this world to the world to come. This, which had been forced upon men in the time of the persecutions, was not given up when the door was o'pen for present influence. Instead of bringing the sanctions of the world beyond the grave to bear upon the establishment of universal justice and love, the other world was made the object of direct and exclusive long- ing. The present life was dwarfed ; and it was taught that eternal happiness was to be gained and misery avoided by constantly dwelling upon eternity in a sepa- ^ The subject of asceticism is treated with great fulness of historical illustration by Mr. Lecky, ' European Morals,' ch. iv. 10 146 The Imperial and MedicBval Church, [lect. rate life of prayer and mortification. This will account for the fact that the great fathers of the end of the fourth century had so little effect on society. Their influence was great on the monastic and clerical system, but feeble on the general life. They stimulated no high thought and endeavour, and they had no successors. Even Am- brose ^ whose great influence was used in some degree for public purposes, forms no exception to this state- ment. His successful embassies were to avert an imme- diate danger to the Church, and had no ulterior aim or effect. His excommunication of Theodosius for the Thessalonian massacre, and his disapproval of the pen- alty of death inflicted on the Priscillianist heretics, were motived to some extent by a superstitious feeling about bloodshed as distinguished from other forms of punish- ment^. He was regardless of family ties in his ascetic preaching 3 : he would not allow Arian worship in Milan : he was the instigator of the persecuting edict of Theo- dosius against heathenism, and his first rebuke to the Emperor was a condemnation of his noble tolerance in requiring a synagogue which had been destroyed by violence to be rebuilt. We may here touch upon the absence of any real patriotism and public spirit in the Church leaders. When Alaric sacked Rome, Jerome and his friends at Bethlehem felt the shock ; but it was a matter of mere wonder and awe to them. It did not quicken them to any thought as to the future of the Empire and of mankind. It is some- times thought that Augustine's great work 'De Civitate Dei,' which was caused by that awful event, is a kind of prophecy of the Christian state of society which was to arise on the ruins of the Empire. It is nothing of the ' For Ambrose, see Gibbon, ch. xxvii, and the article Ambrose in * Diet, of Eccl. Biog.' by Mr. Llewelyn Davies. ^ Lecky, ' European Morals,' ii. 43. ^ lb. 140, 141. IV.] United Christendom attempted, 147 sort ^ He defends Christianity against the charge that it had brought on the ruin by averting the protection of the gods of Rome ; he shews that the gods had never pro- tected Rome, and that the only protection from the hor- rors of the sack had been in the Christian churches. But his theory is that the city of God is a separate state which has been growing up, first in the kingdom of Israel, then in the Christian Church ; that it has nothing to do with the general life of mankind : and he looks not for the renewal of society by its influence, but for a vast con- flagration which will burn up the existing fabric of the world and make it fit for the eternal habitation of the saints. It is evident that a theory such as this would operate not to strengthen the good principle in the com- mon life of men but to weaken it. It would make Christians not the salt and the light of the world but a race of timid separatists. These great fathers gave the tone to the Church of the middle ages. The ideas of Augustine are the prelude to the Dies Irce and the Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, Vigilemus, of Bernard of Morlaix. The figure of Ambrose withstanding Theodosius is the constantly re- curring image of the opposition between the clergy and the government, or, as they are mistakenly called, the spiritual and temporal powers. This opposition or con- trast was the necessary consequence of the refusal of the great opportunity offered to the Church in the era of Con- stantine. The Church leaders resolved that the Church should remain a separate body. The laws which it had had before the Empire became Christian were not to be merged in the imperial law. The Church was still to have its own system of canon law, its own penalties, its own judges. It was a complete imperium. hi imperio. If, as we have maintained, systems of law are efficacious * See the analysis of the De Civ. Dei in Note III, and the extracts there given. 148 The Imperial and Mediceval Church, [lect. in upholding a moral and political ideal, we have here the attempt to mould society and character in a special form not in harmony with, but in contrast to, the general life of mankind. The unreal character of such a system, its opposition to what we must hold to be the divine constitution of society, is apparent throughout the mediaeval history. It is true that the Church being composed of both laity and clergy, it might seem as if lay influences must always act as a corrective upon clerical separatism. But, unhappily, the clergy had now become separate in their action and their interests from the laity. During the era of the persecutions it was often necessary to concentrate power in the hands of the Church officers. There were times, if we may trust to the language of the Ignatian Epistles, when each bishop became almost a dictator ; and, partly from the necessities of the case, partly from the growth of sacerdotal ideas, it became customary for the bishops to take counsel amongst them- selves alone ^ Cyprian, indeed, declared that he would do nothing without the laity ^ But that befell him and his colleagues which has so often befallen the clergy and other rulers. Being trusted, and being able to act better on behalf of the community than they could for themselves, the bishops were constantly tempted to act alone ; no habit was formed in the laity of taking part in Church affairs, which, indeed, became too tech- nical for them ; and, when the day of liberty came, it seemed quite natural that this should continue. No * Cyprian's view of his position is thus described by Archbishop Ben- son (' Diet, of Eccl. Biog.' art. Cyp. p. 741). 'Each Bishop is elected by his own Plebes. Hence he is the embodiment of it.' ' The Bishop is in the Church, and the Church is in the Bishop.' * They have no other representative in councils, he is naturally their " member." ' ^ Cyprian, Ep. v. 4 (Ed. Baluze). Solus rescribere nihil potui, quando a primordio episcopatus mei statuerim nihil sine consilio vestro et sine consensu plebis mea privatim sententia gerere. See also Ep. xvii. IV.] United ChristendoTii attempted. 149 one thought of proposing that the laity should be admitted at the Council of Nicaea. Thus the hier- archical and sacerdotal principle, with all its evils, grew apace, and the bishops were cut off from the salutary check of lay advice and control. This system of separation gained a vast increase of strength from the rise of the Papacy. When the Roman Empire of the West passed away, the hierarchy was left standing. When the whole social system was broken up by the invasion of the barbarians, the clergy alone remained to pilot the ark of Christian civilization across the flood. When social organization began to form again, a central power was needed to which men might appeal. Even when the Papacy was despised at Rome itself, it was held in honour abroad; and when great men held the reins, their power became almost un- bounded. Originally the mouthpiece of the decrees of the Church, the Pope gradually gained an independent power ; and his decrees, like those of the emperors before him, became laws. Innocent III. is said to have promulgated no less than 4,000 such decrees. And, lest decrees issued to suit emergencies should not carry due weight, the Popes sanctioned, if they did not create, in the later part of the ninth century, the stu- pendous forgery of the False Decretals. These docu- ments, which imposed on all Christendom for the six centuries and a-half before the Reformation, are the most remarkable instance of a successful fraud that the world has ever seen ^ They are partly documents transparently spurious, such as a letter from Clement of Rome to St. James of Jerusalem, partly genuine letters of the early popes, with insertions from Scrip- ture and from some forty other sources designed to * See the Preface to Hinschius' edition of the Decretals. Leipzig, 1863. 150 The Imperial and MedicBval Church, [lect. promote the purposes of the compiler. These purposes appear to have been — ist, to add to the power of the bishops as against the metropolitans ; 2nd, to do away with the chorepiscopi in the interest of diocesans ; 3rdly, to strengthen the whole clerical system as against the imperial and national governments. For all these purposes the unknown author exalts beyond measure the power of the Papacy. These Decretals formed henceforward the solid nucleus of the system of papal decrees, which were gathered by Gratian in the twelfth century, and by Gregory the Ninth and others at various times up to the year 1484. When we read such lives as those of Hildebrand or of Becket, we see how vast a power these documents possessed. On the Dotation of Constantine ^ and similar documents, which are incorporated with the Decretals, Hildebrand grounded his attempt at universal empire. We read of Becket, when in his banishment at Pontigny 2, that, though often fasting and reading the Psalter and Epistles, his chief study was that of the Canon Law and Decretals, by which he justified his vast sacerdotal pretensions, and nerved himself for his disastrous struggle with the king. We touch here upon the great question of what are called the two powers, a question which produced the unceasing strife between the Pope and the Emperor in the centre of the Middle Ages, and between the clergy as a corporate body or class and the general govern- ment, in many countries, especially in our own ; a ques- tion which has gained fresh importance in our day, not only from the revival of clericalism in England, and of Ultramontanism abroad, but also from the claims of Free * Hildebrand often alludes to the Dotation. See especially his letter to the Archbishop of Metz showing that he has power to excommuni- cate the Emperor (Monumenta Gregoriana, March 15, 1081). "^ Robertson's Biography of Becket, pp. 167, 168. IV.] United Christendom attempted, 151 Churches among Protestants, and from the attempt of M. Comte in his Positive Philosophy to vindicate the separation of the two powers as a fundamental principle of sociology. It will be seen that the tendency of the present Lectures is hostile to such a separation, and favourable to unity in the moral ideal, in actual life, in law, and in government. If that which was said in the last Lecture is true as to the meaning of the words of Christ, 'My kingdom is not of this world, ' no such separation of powers was contemplated at the begin- ning ; and, indeed, the original theory of the Mediaeval Church was that not so much of the separation of the temporal and spiritual powers, as of their harmony and co-operation. Let us look at this question in its various aspects. First, we may draw a distinction between the moral ideal which we cherish within, and the practical attain- ment which we can reach either individually or in society. It is evident that the outward is but a faint copy of the inward. To subject the inward to the out- ward, to bind down the ideal to that which is practi- cally attainable, would evidently be a disastrous course. Any external power, then, which hinders the free working of conviction, or sets a limit to the expression of opinion, except so far as it would be injurious to others, is doing wrong. There is a region of the soul which must remain inviolate from the incursions of any external power. But it would be equally wrong to keep the moral ideal out of all contact with the ex- ternal life. The two must evidently act in harmony. And this applies to all our convictions, political, social, scientific, as well as religious. But this region of convic- tion must be kept inviolate as much from the decrees of the Pope and the clergy as from those of the king or parliament. History shows us that it is the clerical power, by its councils, decrees, inquisitions, excom- 152 The Imperial a7id MedicBval Church, [lect. munications, rather than the lay power, which has inter- fered with conscience and its free expression. This, therefore, which is an exceedingly important matter, cannot come to the aid of the principle of the separa- tion of the powers. The question is not how the clerical power may be kept free from the invasions of the lay power, but how both the clerical and the lay powers may be kept from interfering with freedom of conscience and its expression. Secondly, it is of great importance that religious teachers should not be interfered with unduly in the expression of their convictions, so that they may im- press the truth upon their hearers. But here again we may see that bishops, church assemblies, and, in our day, pew-renting congregations, have, more constantly than parliaments or judicatures, set themselves to bias the Christian minister. There are many other spheres of human life, especially the family, but also trade, the arts, the universities, which ought to be left as free as possible, though their general status must be ruled by external laws. The chief concern of law in all such matters is to mark out and protect a sphere in which their energy may have free scope. If the general government has interfered too far with any of these (but it is necessary to recall again the fact that it is the clerical body which has been most inclined to in- terfere), it has stepped beyond its province. But no one would think that, in order to obviate the danger of such interference, a separate jurisdiction must be set up for each of these spheres of life. If so, we should have not two but many separate powers. Thirdly, we may introduce the supposed contrast be- tween the Church and the State. But this was not really in question in the Middle Ages. It was then, as indeed it has mostly been since, a question between the clergy and their adherents on the one side, and the IV.] United Christendom attempted. 153 general body of churchmen on the other. In modern times, indeed, there is a difficulty in assuming that the Church and the nation are coterminous, though the difficulty is not insuperable, and it may be justly maintained that they are so interwoven that more in- justice would be caused by treating them as separate than as one. But the mediaeval theory of the Church and the Empire was based upon the supposition that the Emperor and all his subjects were Christians and members of the Church. This theory may be stated thus \ Christendom forms one great whole, in which there are two chief function- aries, the Pope and the Emperor, each in a different way its head. Each power is instituted by God. The one is to rule over men's bodily, the other over their spiritual interests. Both spring from the old Roman Empire, which, having become Christian, was at once Empire and Church. In one sense the Church enfolds the Empire ; in another, the Empire enfolds the Church. The two powers must support each other, and are mutually necessary. The Emperor sanctions the Pope's election, the Pope crowns the Emperor. The Emperor protects the Pope, and the clergy, and the spiritual courts ; and these in return support the authority of the Emperor over his subjects. This theory, though it did not wholly correspond to the facts, had much in it, considered as an ideal, which was sound. Even before the conversion of the Empire, it had occurred to Church writers like TertuUian ^ that the ^ In the statement of this theory, and generally in what is said as to the mediaeval system, I have made much use of Mr. Bryce's ' Holy Roman Empire.' See especially ch. vii. ^ Tertull. Apol. cap. xxxii, Necessitas nobis orandi pro Imperatore quod vim maximam universo orbi imminentem (ab eo) scimus retardari. Ad Scapulum cap. 2. Colimus Imperatorem ut hominem a Deo secun- dum, et quidquid est a Deo consecutum, solo Deo minorem. Optatus 154 ^/^^ Imperial and Mediceval Church, [lect. Empire had a divine function, that of maintaining peace within its borders, of just rule, of saving society from anarchy. Later, we find Optatus, Bishop of Milevis in Africa, speaking of the Christianized Empire still more distinctly in these terms. We catch an echo of the same idea in Aquinas ^ who, in his book De Regimine Principum, declares that the Emperor Augustus was God's vicegerent in ruling the world when Christ was born into it. The sacredness of secular justice and its ministers is fully admitted in this theory. Dante, in his De INIonarchia 2, calls upon the Emperor, Henry of Luxem- burg, as the successor of the Roman Emperors, and as God's vicegerent, to regulate the discordant com- munities of Italy. The Popes, indeed, from Hilde- brand onwards, are apt to ignore the sacredness of kingly justice 3. Hildebrand even speaks of it as having its source in the robbery of those who originally set themselves up as kings, in contrast to the Papal power which was instituted by Christ Himself. It would seem that the title of the Holy Roman Empire ^ was originally taken by Frederick Barbarossa as a pro- test that his rule was as sacred a thing as that of the Pope with whom he was then in controversy. And other sovereigns upheld their rights under the De schismate Donatistarum, lib. iii. c. 3, in Migne's Patrologia, xi. col. 999. His argument is against Donatus, who repudiated the Imperial authority, saying, 'Quid est Imperatori cum ecclesia.'" ' Non Respub- lica,' says Optatus, ' est in Ecclesia, sed ecclesia in Republica est, id est in Imperio Romano . . . Super imperatorem non est nisi Deus.' * De Reg. Princ. 1. iii, c. 10, Aquinas' Works (Venice, 1787), Vol. xix. "^ See the sketch of the argument of the De Monarchia in Bryce's * Holy Roman Empire,' pp. 265-7. 3 See Hildebrand's letter to Hermann of Metz of Mar. 15, 108 1, in the Monumenta Gregoriana, in which he proves that the Pope can ex- communicate Kings, § 4, Jaffa's Ed. pp. 456-7. * The origin of the title is discussed in Bryce's * Holy Roman Em- pire,' pp. 199-203. IV.] United Christendom attempted, 155 same high sanction '■. This sacredness of the Emperor as the source of law was strongly asserted by the agents of Frederick II. at the Council of Lyons in 1245 2, in opposition to the claim of Innocent IV. to judge him. His proctor, Thaddeus of Suessa, with- stood the whole episcopal assembly in the name of a superior justice. But, in the beginning, the Popes had amply recognized the sacredness of the Imperial rule. When Leo III. crowned Charles the Great at Rome on Christmas Day 800, the coronation was an admission to a sacred Church function 3. The Emperor was ordained a deacon, and received the cup of the Communion with the priests, and was arrayed in the stole and dalmatic. Thus consecrated he exercised his power as a minister of God ; and so he deemed himself throughout his reign. Even before his coronation he presided at the Council of Frankfort 4, though the legates of Hadrian I. were present. The decrees of the council, the canons which relate to such things as the proscription of the worship of images, as well as the statutes on affairs of state, are sent forth in Charles's name. In his Capitularies s Charles demands that all officers of his empire shall swear allegiance to him, as binding themselves to live * in the holy service of God, to do no violence to the clergy, and to widows and ^ See Henry II. 's expression to the Bishop of Chichester in the case of the Abbey of Battle, ' Tu pro Paps auctoritate ab hominibus con- cessa contra dignitatum regalium auctoritates mihi a Deo concessas calliditate arguta niti praecogitas.' Wilkins' Concilia Mag. Brit. i. 431. ^ See the account of this Council in Milman's ' Latin Christianity,' vol. vi. 239-244, and Frederick's letter to the Princes of Christendom, p. 245. See also the account of the vindication of the rights of Louis of Bavaria against the Pope by William of Ockham, Milman, viii. 104; ix. 147. Also the argument of Marsiglio's Defensor Pacis in Creigh- ton's History of the Papacy, vol. i. 37. ^ See Bryce's 'Holy Roman Empire,' pp. 106, 112; * Ibid. 64. 5 Ibid. 65-6. 156 The Imperial and MedicBval Church, [lect. orphans and strangers, seeing that the Lord Emperor has been appointed, after the Lord and His saints, to be a defender of all such.' Crimes are denounced, as in the Mosaic law, as sins. * The whole cycle of social and moral duties,' says Bryce^ 'is deduced from the obliga- tion of obedience to the visible, autocratic head of the Christian state.' It was in the name of God that he undertook his thirty-five expeditions of conquest, re- ducing under the dominion of Christian civilization the tribes in the North and East of Europe ^ ; and, wherever he conquered, he planted monasteries as fortresses and centres of Christian enlightenment. The theory of the Mediaeval Church and the Christian Empire was well illustrated by its founder as regards the functions of the Emperor. Nor did the impulse given by the founder die with him. It bore fruit in many ways, even when the Empire itself had become a shadow, in the sense of unity which it imparted to Christendom, in the heroism of the early crusades, in the chivalrous feelings and enterprise which were the redeeming features of feudalism, in the repression of private war, above all, in the recognition of the sacred Christian character properly belonging to government, as it was realized in men like Alfred in England, or St. Louis in France. Nor can it be said that the other part of the theory, that which regards the clergy, was unreasonable or im- practicable, if its conditions were observed. There is no reason why the clergy should not have one supreme head, their guide and leader, speaking in their name, declaring what they as a body of teachers and learned men think right, and urging it by the appropriate means of persuasion. With adequate safeguards the institution of the Papacy might have been a true * Bryce's ' Holy Roman Empire,' p. 66. "^ Ibid. 69. IV.] United Christendom attempted, 157 spiritual power without the evils which attended its actual working. But for this purpose it must give up its claim to a separate jurisdiction ; it must subject itself to the condition which Charles desired for the clergy generally ^, and look upon all its possessions merely as endowments, not as conferring external power; and it must, in its organization and outward action, be subject to the law of the State or Empire in which it is placed. But this was not the meaning of the theory as appre- hended by the Pope and the clergy. The germ of a different system was introduced when Pippin gave the Roman States to the Pope. Though his position was long ambiguous, yet he was, even in Charles's day, a territorial sovereign. As soon as the influence of Charles himself is withdrawn, the Papacy declares itself a great world-power. The fiction of the Dotation of Constantine which was incorporated into the Decretals ^ gives the Roman States to the Pope, not as a mere endowment subject to the law of the empire, but as a kingdom. Constantine is made to say that he goes to live at Constantinople because it is not fitting that the earthly emperor should have power in the principality of the priests, and because the head of the Christian religion is established by a heavenly emperor. He gives the Pope his imperial palace of the Lateran, makes him wear the crown which he had worn himself, and the diadem and frigium ^ ; and recites how the Emperor has held the rein of the Pope's horse, and fulfilled the office of a groom for him. This was not a spiritual power, but an earthly power upholding itself by spiritual sanctions. * Bryce's * Holy Roman Empire', pp. 66-7. ^ Isidorian Decretals (Ed. Hinschius), p. 249. The passage alluded to is at p. 253. 3 Mitra Constantini Imperatoris candidi splendoris, omamentum capitis phrygio colore praetextum. Du Cange. 158 The hnperial and MedicBval Church, [lect. Moreover, as in Constantine's Dotation the clerg-y are made to ride in company with the Pope, so throughout Christendom they are to partake of his inviolability, to be subject to no law but his. Thus the bishops, though feudal lords, owned a divided allegiance : and the clergy claimed an immunity, even in criminal matters, from the law of the realm '. The Ecclesiastical Courts were held throughout Europe in the name of the Pope and the Bishops, and claimed authority, ist, over all clerical suits ; 2nd, over all suits in which clergy were con- cerned ; 3rd, over all questions of marriage, legitimacy, succession to property, and tithes ; 4th, over all who had made religious vows, and over widows, orphans, and minors ; 5th, over all matters having a religious side, as adultery, fraud, or perjury; and 6th, over all questions which the suitors agreed to submit to them. The revived study of Roman Law in the twelfth century was indeed at first welcomed by the clergy ; but it was soon found too imperial, too little clerical, and it was discarded except where it might serve to fill up lacunae in the canon law. It was further held also that all temporal jurisprudence was bound to frame its decrees with due deference to the superior authority of the ecclesiastical. Thus a vast jurisdiction arose, the rival, often the master, of the imperial and national jurisdictions. We have before us no longer a spiritual and a temporal power, but two rival temporal powers, each aspiring, though on different grounds, to universal dominion. Innocent IV. in his controversy with Frederick II. says: 'Christ has given to the Pope not only the pontifical, but the regal power, having committed to St. Peter and his successors the reins both of the earthly and the heavenly empire, as * The facts relating to the clerical jurisdiction are well summed up in the article ' Common Law ' in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. See also Milman's ' Latin Christianity,' vi. 165. IV.] United Christendom attempted. 159 is sufficiently shown by the plurality of the Keys^' Boniface VIII. at the Jubilee of 1300 appeared in imperial robes, seated on a throne, crowned with the diadem ; and, laying his hand on the half-drawn sword, said to the pilgrims, 'Ego, Ego sum Imperator 2. ' Then arose the question which of these two great temporal powers was supreme ; and here superstition, aided by the False Decretals, gave the victory almost always to the Pope. In Hildebrand's statement^ entitled 'Quid valeant Pontifices Romani, ' he asserts that the Pope has power to excommunicate, to form new dio- ceses ; that he alone may use the imperial insignia ; that his feet alone are kissed by all the kings of the earth ; that his name is alone recited in the churches, and is the supreme (unicum) name in the world. He may depose emperors, he may supersede bishops. He alone may preside at a Council. No book of Canons may be made without him. He may be judged by none. All great causes in all churches must be referred to him. Finally, the Pope has never erred and is sinless 4. Hildebrand claimed of great kings like William the Conqueror s that they should obey him. He was feudal lord of Naples. He claimed to be owner of all parts of Spain which should be recovered from the Mahometans ^. The words, 'Regnante Jesu Christo,' with which his decrees begin, * Quoted by Milman (Lat. Chris, vi. 240). "^ Bryce, ' Holy Roman Empire,' p. 109. 3 A Memorandum (Dictatus Papae) of the year 1075, given in the Monumenta Gregoriana, p. 174. * Gregory quotes, for the sinlessness of the Pope, the words of Enno- dius at a Synod at Rome held by Pope Symmachus. These words are given in the Decretals (Hinschius, p. 666). See also a quotation to the same effect made by Gregory in his letter of Mar. 15, 1081 (in Monu- menta Gregoriana), in which he shews that he has power to excommuni- cate the Emperor. 5 Gregory to William, Ap. 4, 1074 (Monumenta Gregoriana). ^ Letter in Monumenta Gregoriana, dated Ap. 30, 1073. i6o The Imperial and Mediceval C/iurck, [lect. imply the assertion that, through his Vicar the Pope, Christ is actually ruling the world. In his letter to Her- mann of ]\Ietz ^ in vindication of his power to excom- municate the German king, he says that it cannot be doubted that priests are the fathers, and consequently the masters, of kings and princes ; and he so far depreciates kingly rule as to declare that it is invented by secular persons who ignore God, and has its origin from plun- derers. To such claims as these it was in vain for the Emperors to oppose force or right. Their power could rarely reach the Pope ; but the subtle power of an excom- munication or an interdict could dislocate all the relations of families and of kingdoms. The history of the struggle of the Papacy and the Empire is one of almost constant success for the clerical power. It is by no means to be denied that the Papal and clerical power was the instrument of vast benefits to mankind. Indeed, it may be observed that, wherever clerical claims have been strongly asserted, as in the time of Hildebrand and of Innocent III, or in the time of Laud in England, or even in the present day when they have been partially revived, they have produced in the first instance a sense of dignity in the clergy, which has been a real moral power. When Hildebrand at Canossa took the Sacramental cup and said that, if he were guilty of the crimes laid to his charge, he prayed that God might strike him dead, he was per- fectly sincere ^ He knew that the King, whom he chal- lenged to make a similar declaration, could not do so without falsehood. He felt himself morally his superior. And no doubt he believed that the clergy, if purged from marriage and simony, were also the moral superiors of the temporal authorities, and were capable of ruling ^ Monumenta Gregoriana, Mar. 15, 1081. ^ See the account of the events at Canossa written by Gregory him- self to the Princes of Germany. Monumenta Gregoriana, Jan. 28, 1077. IV.] United Christendom atteiiipted, i6i mankind for their good. Nor was his beUef wholly false, though it was exaggerated. The mediaeval sys- tem, dominated as it was by the clergy, accomplished a great and beneficial change in the social life of men \ It abolished slavery, emancipation being made a dis- tinctly religious act. Through the chivalrous virtues which it fostered it made the position of women not merely satisfactory but honourable. It did much to curb blood-revenge and to abolish private war. More- over, the Church law was often superior to other codes. Guizot has remarked ^ that the laws of the Visigoths in Spain, which issued direct from Ecclesiastical Councils, had a special pre-eminence in all criminal matters, and, in respect of punishments, anticipated many of the ideas which through Bentham and other jurists have entered late into modern legislation. The Church Courts were at certain epochs much purer than those of the State, and legitimately attracted jurisdiction to themselves. Further, the opposition of the clergy to the temporal rulers was often the opposition of reason to brute force ; it was a salutary check even where it was no more than rivalry. Lastly, the world can never forget the great missionary zeal displayed by men like Boniface or St. Gall, or Adalbert or Raymond Lully, by which the borders of Christendom were in the most legitimate manner ex- tended 3. The mediaeval attempt to bring the world under the dominion of Christ, with all its faults, was a grand effort of the Christian spirit. What, then, were the causes of its failure .'' For that it failed is only too evident. First, the fatal dualism * An interesting resume of ' Humane Progress under Christianity, chiefly in the Middle Ages, is given in Mr. Loring Brace's Gesta Christi. ^ Guizot, * Civilization in Europe,' Lect. \A. p. 167. 2 See the account given of these and other mediaeval missionaries in Neander's ' Memorials of Christian Life,' part iv. II 1 62 The Imperial a7id McdicEval Church, [lect. which it introduced into life. Hun:ian nature is not two, but one. However purely spiritual may be the concep- tion of Christian goodness, it must work itself out into the whole life, and harmonize not divide it. As a con- sequence of the unnatural division, the so-called spiritual power became worldly, and the cause of perpetual strife ^ The line of cleavage is to be traced everywhere, in politics, in law, in common life, in international rela- tions. Italy, the seat of the Papal power, was, for the sake of that power, kept divided down to our own day ^ Tyndale the Reformer 3 points out that the interests of the Papal and clerical power had been the pretext of almost all the wars of his day. Our own generation has witnessed one great war at least springing from the same source. The Papal power has constantly been an element of discord, rarely, if ever, an arbiter of peace. But, secondly, the theory on which the mediaeval sys- tem proceeded involved the supremacy of the clergy as a peculiar and privileged class. They were to be kept separate by means of celibacy from their fellow-Chris- tians, maintaining a superhuman standard of self-denial, * ' By a law to which it would be hard to find exceptions, in propor- tion as the State became more Christian, the Church, which to work out her purposes had assumed woridly forms, became by the contact worldlier, meaner, spiritually weaker.' Bryce, * Holy Roman. Empire.,' 107-8. Mr. Bryce seems here to attribute the increasing worldliness of the Church (that is the clergy) to union with an increasingly Christian State. This seems a paradox. The true cause is that the clerical sys- tem has used the support of the State for the maintenance of a separate position in which (the true interests of human life being now adminis- tered by the State) it has been more and more absorbed in the pursuit of the interests of a class. ^ See this drawn out in Milman's * Latin. Christianity.' B. iii., c. 4, last two pages. 'Whatever it may have been to Christendom, the Papacy has been the eternal, implacable foe of Italian independence and Italian unity.' 3 ' Obedience of a Christian Man,' in Tyndale's Doct. Treatises (Parker Soc. Ed.), pp. 186-7. IV.] United Christendom attempted. 163 so that they might exercise, as from without, a discipline of righteousness upon society. But what was the re- sult ? At first, as I have pointed out, the system im- parted to them a sense of dignity ; but afterwards it made them pharisaical, then tyrannical, then corrupt and incapable of bearing the wealth which had been lavished upon them. At the close of the Middle Ages the clergy, the monasteries, and the Ecclesiastical Courts were thoroughly debased. The Papal chair was gained by bribery, and was occupied by Roderick Borgia. We have here the nemesis of the unnatural exaltation of the clergy, their separation, their supremacy. We must add to this the perversion of the Christian ideal, which the supremacy of clericalism infallibly brings. Church work, church life, church ideas, became something quite different from Christian goodness. Lovers of Gothic architecture cannot fail to notice how many of the great towers of churches, cathedrals, ab- beys, were built in the fifteenth century, and even early in the sixteenth. The great judgment of the Reforma- tion fell upon some of them, as at Bolton Abbey, before they were completed. The clerical supremacy had directed men's minds to an extent quite unnatural to the building and adornment of churches. The reproach of William Tyndale ^ the Reformer was well-deserved, that the Papal clergy had so ' crope into men's minds' as to make them think of nothing but the building of great steeples like that of Tenterden, while the adjoin- ing harbours were neglected ; and that the functions of commerce and patriotic energy were in abeyance be- cause of the exclusive absorption in a fictitious religion, in 'Pope-holy works.' This indeed is the worst effect ^ Tyndale's answer to More, pp. 77-S. In this passage Tyndale cleverly turns into a solid argument More's well-known jest about the building of Tenterden steeple having caused the rising of Goodwin sands and the silting up of Sandwich harbour. 164 The Imperial and Medicsval CIiMrch, [lect. of clericalism, that it draws away the consciousness of dignity and of holiness from common life. We have seen how deficient the great Church-leaders of the fourth and fifth centuries were in patriotism and in the attempt to found a true City of God. In the Mediaeval Church the great effort of the clerical leaders, almost the whole effort from Hildebrand onwards, is to induce men not to consecrate their lives to God, but to be obedient to the Pope and the clergy. This was the ruin of the ideal of the earlier time, the time of Charlemagne, in which the whole life of man, the monarch and the laws were holy. Men were now taught to despise their common life, which is the ordinance of God. Christianity ceased to be the inspirer of hope ; there was no sense of progress, no longing for the establishment of the Kingdom of God. But I have noticed that, not only does Christianity survive its own limited ideals and create fresh ones, but that the outworn ideals are not wasted — their souls survive. The ideal of the early part of the Middle Ages gave to the world the notion of the unity of Chris- tendom, the belief in a great organized Christian So- ciety which is above all nationalities, of a Holy Empire, the rulers of which rule in the name of God. The two parts of this vast unity, though in practice they were constantly opposed, in the theory were mutually help- ful, the two pillars on which the fabric rested. The realization of this ideal failed then, and no attempt has since been made to renew it, except by the feeble efforts of diplomacy. Since the Holy Roman Empire ceased to be a reality, a struggle for life has gone on among the states which have portioned out its inheri- tance. War has been constant ; and, where it has ceased, the suspicions and preparations for war have been a burden which has now become almost unbear- able. If ever this state of things is to pass away, it must be by some means like that which floated before IV.] United Christendom attempted. 165 the vision of the nobler spirits of the Imperial and Mediaeval Church, a vast Imperial or federal commun- ity, with Christ as its unseen head, in which the spiri- tual aspirations of men will blend with their practical efforts for the establishment of true and Christian re- lations. Lastly, we may notice how, though the Middle Ages were unconscious of progress, progress was going on. During the ten centuries from Romulus Augustulus to Charles V, Europe was changed from Barbaria into Christendom, The changes from Barbarism to Im- perialism, to Feudalism, to Nationalism, constitute a genuine and salutary progress. Though the Empire succumbed to the Papal Power, the rising nations con- tained the germs of spiritual independence. However repressive of individual liberty the Church-system may have been, we must put to its credit such genuine re- vivals of religion as that which produced the Preach- ing Orders. The disputes of Scholasticism, however barren they may appear to us, raised questions to which the Reformation was to give the answer, and trained the mind of the Church to deal with the new learning when it arose. The spirit of freedom and enterprise was growing. Printing was invented. The introduction of Greek literature awoke the critical faculty. The discovery of America gave a vast im- pulse to commerce and a new range to thought. Wy- cliff and Huss, though they w^ere scorned by the ruling clerical powers, had not lived in vain. Men like Colet and IMore, the disciples of the new learning, conceived an ideal more in accordance with that of the New Testament, and, from beyond the waning glamour of the Mediaeval Church, the more solid form of the Christianity of the Reformation was coming to view. It may indeed have seemed, when the Catholic system of the Middle Ages fell, that the last effort of the 1 66 TJie Imperial and Mediceval Church, Christian Church had failed ; and the fifteenth century seemed to bear out the complaint. The Church was confessed at the Councils of Constance and Bale to need reform in the head and in the members, but the reform seemed to be impossible; and in the atmosphere of the Renaissance it could be believed that religion had died, and that learning and art, without morality, must henceforth suffice for mankind. We now know that that epoch was the prelude to the greatest outburst of the Christian spirit, except that of the first century, which the world has ever seen. The spiritual needs of men cannot be suppressed, and the resources of God are infinite. Age after age the Christian spirit renews the attempt to bring mankind under the dominion of its true King. It casts aside the systems of the past only to weave a more fitting vesture for the new generation. * They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.' LECTURE V. THE CHURCHES OF THE REFORMATION. Revelation i. 19, 20. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches ; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. The attempt to reduce the whole world under the dominion of Christ must be made in each successive age according- to its special powers and opportunities. The efforts of the past must be studied in order to throw light upon the future. We write the things which we have seen in history, that we may better write of the things which are and the things which shall be here- after. If we find in the past grounds for warning, we find none for despair. Where the attempt to make the world Christian has failed, the failure has never been absolute ; and the vision which men have sought to realize has been made more vivid to mankind by the attempt. The Imperial Church under Constantine and Theodosius failed partly because the world was not ripe for the great change : though the conviction of mankind had been won, the heathenism of its life presented too strong a resistance. It failed also in part because the attempt which it made was only partial. It did not face the complete problem. The Mediaeval Church under Charles and the great Popes seemed much nearer to success. Nominally indeed it succeeded ; and for some six or seven centuries it held Christendom together. But it failed and fell : partly because of the fatal dual- 167 1 68 The Churches of the Reformation, [lect. ism, the contrast between the spiritual and the tem- poral, which, except in its highest ideal, it presented ; partly because, in fact, it became a system not of a Christian Church and a Christian Empire, but of two rival worldly powers, each aiming at a dominion which could not belong to both ; partly also because the triumph which the Papacy gained over the Empire was the triumph of the clerical order, who were quite unfit to rule, and who did not even understand the meaning of the Kingdom of God. The Mediaeval system, long hollowed out and become destitute of spiritual force, was blown to pieces by the Reformation. Yet the Imperial and Mediaeval Church left behind it the idea of unity, and of an organized social system of which Christianity should be the inspiring power ; and towards the realization of this idea the churches of the Reformation were bound to work. Only they must recommence the process from another side. The Imper- ial and Mediaeval Church had insisted too exclusively on the principle of unity. It had made little account of the nation ; it had trampled upon the individual. But the New Testament had represented the Spirit as working first in the individual, afterwards in the community. And it had spoken not only of the Church, but of the Churches. The mystery of the Apocalypse is not that of a single spirit, but of seven ; not of one candlestick, but of its seven branches. The unity of Christendom must be one in which all its component parts have their full rights and their free development. The great tyrannical Empire-Church was shattered. The work of reconstruc- tion must begin anew with the separate national churches. This was the task of the Reformation. It is one of the greatest of historical errors to repre- sent the Reformation as primarily a negative movement ^ * M. Guizot {Civilisation iti Europe, Lect. xii.) seems to limit the effects of the Reformation to the enfranchisement of thought. It had v.] .Efforts for a Christianized Society. 169 All great movements of reform have in them a negative element, and it is the first which strikes the eye. But no movement can live on negation. The Ten Command- ments are negative, since almost all of them say, Thou shalt not ; but at their root lie the central affirmations of all religion and morality. Our Lord's teaching was negative in its denunciations of the Pharisaic system, but its strongest negations gained their force from the underlying demand for a worship in spirit and in truth. The sun in the springtime is negative, in that it breaks up the frost barriers by which the world has been held fast ; but the heat which destroys is life-giving. And so the Reformation pulled down only because of its eager resolve to rebuild a sounder fabric. In whatever aspect you look at it, it was primarily constructive, only sec- ondarily and by necessity destructive. The Reformation w^as the uprising of positive religious conviction. The assertion of the doctrine of justification by faith was the demand that each man should himself look up directly to the Eternal, realizing his personal responsibility and claiming without intervention the no effect politically, he says, but ' it abolished and disarmed the spiri- tual power, the systematic and formidable government of thought.' M. Comte's dislike of Protestantism is well known. He habitually speaks of its 'purely negative doctrine,' 'the anarchical character of its principles,' &c. See especially Positive Catechism (Congreve's transla- tion), p. 415. This view of the Reformation finds its extreme expression in the lately published work of Ed. v. Hartmann, The Self-Destruction of Christianity and the Religion of the Future. 'Its task,' he says (p. 12), ' in relation to the dogmatic of Christianity, is one of absolute negation, destruction, and tearing down.' ' Catholicism sought to preserve the corpse with the appearance of life ; the historical task assigned to Pro- testantism was to dissect the corpse limb by limb, and to obtain the public recognition of the fact that it was actually dead.' He says in his Preface, ' I recognize Ultramontanism as the true representative of his- torical Christianity, and its championship against modem culture as the last effort made by historical Christianity for its own preservation.' 1 70 The Churches of tJie Reformation, [lect. divine forgiveness and grace. Incidentally it vuas nega- tive ; for, if this conviction was personal and immediate, it could not be a matter of ceremony and of system ; and therefore the whole fabric of mediaeval superstitions fell before it. The Reformation, again, was the beginning of a great era of popular enlightenment. The Renaissance was intellectual and artistic, the means of culture to the few ; the Reformation was religious and popular. When Luther and Tyndale gave the Scriptures to the laity, and demanded that every man should have the faculty of reading them given to him, they awoke a thirst for knowledge in the people, which has resulted in popular education and popular power. Incidentally the follies of monkhood and the unreal system of the school- philosophy were shattered. Erasmus, in his Encomium Moriae, laughed to scorn the absurdities which had been the intellectual aliment of the preceding centuries. But if the Dark Ages passed away, it was not so much because men mocked at their darkness, as because a truer light was shining around them. The Reformation, further, was the uprising of the laity. The requirements of a conscious and independent life were too serious to be held under the dominion of the clergy. Property was no longer to be kept in the dead hand. There was more to be done with men's substance than to build church-steeples and chantries. But, if they used their wealth for other than ecclesias- tical purposes, it was because they were learning that those other purposes embodied the will of God. Simi- larly the corruptions and delays of the Ecclesiastical Courts could no longer be tolerated by those who had caught sight of simple justice, human and divine. But if the appeals to Rome were abolished, and the powers of the Ecclesiastical Courts were curtailed, it was be- cause the ordinary courts of the realm had become purer v.] Efforts for a Christianized Society. 171 and more efficient, and men had gained courage to say that justice is itself divine, and to seek it where they saw it could be found, not where the superstitions and forgeries of the past had directed them. The Renais- sance had made the laity as well as the clergy eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and learning was no longer hid in monasteries. What the laity read in the classical literature aided their emancipation. And fur- ther, the wave which brought Plato and Thucydides to the shores of Western Europe brought also the Greek Testament. Such men as Valdes in Spain, or Paleario in Italy, began with classical knowledge and passed on to religion. Above all, the lay life was gaining spiritual vigour. This alone ensured the emancipation of the laity from clerical trammels. Men like Thomas Crom- well in England, or Ulrich von Hiitten in Germany, earned the name of * Malleus Monachorum ' or of * Pfaffen-Feind^' not from a mere iconoclastic impulse, but because they had before them the ideal of a non- clerical Christianity. And, lastly, the Reformation was an uprising of the national spirit. The end of the fifteenth century is the epoch at which the chief European kingdoms attained * Ulrich von Hiitten, being in exile on the island of Ufnau on the lake of Zurich, on account of his resistance to the Pope and his supporters in Germany, expressed his confidence in the goodness of his cause in a poem, the first verse of which contains the expression quoted in the text :— * Ich hab's gewagt mit Sinnen Und trag des noch kein Reu, Mag ich nit dran gewinnen, Noch muss man spiiren treu, Damit ich mein', nit ei'm allein, Wenn man es wollt erkennen, Dem Land zu gut, wiewohl man thut Ein Pfaffen-Feind mich nennen.' See Buchheim's Deutsche Lyrik, p. 16, and Note at p. 3.^5- 172 The Churches of the Reformation, [lect. their organic fo^m^ No one can read the writings of Luther without seeing how his appeal is always, con- sciously or unconsciously, to the German nation to assert themselves against the Pope beyond the moun- tains ^ A great part of the English Reformation is the uprising against the degrading yoke of Italian ecclesias- tics. The Dutch Republic freeing itself from Spain is a parallel instance. There was, as we may say, a national faith, a spiritual power arising in the local divisions of Christendom ; and it was this alone which enabled them to throw aside the fiction of the Empire and the yoke of the Pope. And, more generally, w^hereas the mediseval idea, which largely influenced the aims of European life, had been that of a single great Empire, which in its later phases had become the instrument of Papal domination, now the national centres regained their importance. In the time of Charlemagne or of Frederick Barbarossa, or even of Rudolph of Hapsburg, the life of Europe resided in the central power which overlay the local. In the time of Francis the First and of Henry the Eighth, the vital force resided in the national organisms, which had now become conscious of their strength and had shaken off a yoke no longer necessary to their practical wants or their imagination. In all cases, first comes conviction and a sense of power, the spiritual power that sees, and longs, and wills ; then comes the negative result, which says. We can no longer have the power which we feel within us stunted or baffled ; we will no longer endure thraldom or unreality. It has been said by Guizot 3 that the main fact of the ^ This is fully drawn out in Guizot's Civilisation in Europe, Lect. xi. " See especially his appeal to the German nobility, translated by Wace and Buchheim in First Principles of the Reformatio7i. (Murray, 18S3.) 3 European Civilisation^ Lect. xii. v.] Efforts for a Christianized Society. 173 Reformation is contained in the word Liberty. This Liberty he takes, in common with many, in a somewhat negative sense, that is, as an assertion that the power of the Papacy and of the clergy was gone. But, if the real force which broke the chain was Christian convic- tion, the result could not possibly be merely liberty in this negative sense, the liberty to think as men pleased unfettered by clericalism. The liberty of the Reforma- tion is that which would have been expressed in Greek not by the word iXzuBzpia but by the word i^oo *This is a book,' said Henry, when a copy belonging to Anne Boleyn was brought to him by Wolsey for censure, ' for me and all Kings to read ^ : ' and we cannot doubt that the thoughts contained in it contributed largely to frame the King's policy. Yes, the English Reformation was political. This was the true polity which underlay it, the right and just relation of the various powers within the Christian commonwealth towards one another. If any proof were needed that it was a serious work, and that the Royal Supremacy was a religious principle, in the assertion of which earnest men were obeying the Divine Spirit, it would be found in the fact that the political changes, equally with those relating to doctrine and worship, were advocated by the holy zeal of Tyndale and sealed with his blood. The ideal of the saint and martyr was one with that of the politician. The system which we have thus described, the supre- macy of the nation over the organization for public worship and its functionaries, must be examined some- what more closely and critically. The organization for public worship, it will be seen, is treated under this system, not as forming a separate community in- serted into the larger secular community, and enjoying a divine sanction which the larger community does not possess, but as fulfilling one function of the great community which itself, and as a whole, possesses this divine sanction. There has always been a ten- dency, chiefly, I venture to think, springing from want of clearness and boldness of thought, to mistrust this view, which attributes the sanctity of the Church, or Body of Christ, to the whole community. The clergy especially, most of all when left, as they frequently are, outside the main current of the popular life, are inclined * See the curious and instructive story in Demaus' * Life of Tyndale,' 212-15, taken from Strype's ' Eccl- Mem.' i. 172. VI.] Christian Natiojialism, 221 to this mistrust They look upon the organization which they conduct as so sacred that it must stand alone and self-governed in the midst of human society. In the Roman communion this has been most fully the case ; and it has resulted in varying relations between the organization over which the clergy preside and the general community ; sometimes in Concordats between them, sometimes in the repression of the common life under the dominion of the priest, sometimes in open hostility, rebellion or counter-tyranny on the part of the representatives of the general community, especially on the part of the male sex. In our own country this contradiction has been less acutely felt owing to the clear assertion of unity at the Reformation ; and the clergy have for the most part acquiesced in the estab- lished system, partly from conviction, partly from feeling that under this system they at least * enjoyed much quietness,' and a Uberty in the exercise of their calling which possibly they might not under any other. But at various times, notably in the time of Laud, and again in our own day, there has been a tendency to the assertion of clerical powers incompatible with the Re- formation settlement In the time of Laud the system was, as it were, turned round. The governing power of the nation, which should have exercised control over the clergy, was made to work their will as a power separate from the nation. The government became clericalism In later times the acquiescent tone has predominated, until the clericalist movement begTin in Oxford fifty years ago : but this revival of clericalist claims is now again before the world, and its demands must be dis- cussed with all fairness. The Societies also, whether of the Presbyter:?-!.. I r. dependent, or the Wesleyan type, which are sometir fr spoken of as separate churches, but are really societies tor worship, teaching and benefi- cence operating within the general Christian community 222 English Church and Commonwealth, [lect. or church, have often, through the mjustice to which they have been subjected, and vi^hich still endures though only in its social form, been inclined to charge their wrongs upon the system of Christian nationalism and to demand its destruction. Thus from different sides, and with different objects, the demand for a separation of the organization for worship from the general life has arisen ; some of those who make the demand aiming at a clerical supremacy in all matters termed religious with the support of the general govern- ment, some at a complete severance, which is often supposed to be a system of freedom, but which would, at least in a vast Episcopalian community, almost certainly result in the dominion of the clergy. It is necessary, therefore, to consider whether the union of the system of public worship with the general government is so grounded in truth and in Christian principle as to have the promise of vitality. It is said that, for the sake of the purity of religion, the system of public worship must be held apart from the general life. But experience shows that there is great spiritual danger in such a separation. A society which is mainly clerical, and which is occupied almost exclusively with those parts of life which belong espe- cially to the clergy, is almost sure to be petty and unjust. And it becomes so, just because it is cut off from the common life of men, the sphere in which justice and civilization have free play. But, further, religion is in its own nature most sociable. It cannot abide in a state of seclusion. It languishes and dies if it has not free vent. Its only healthy existence is that of a permeating spirit which appropriates and quickens all that it touches. The whole life of man is essentially religious ; and politics, the sphere of just relations between men, especially become religious when conducted in a Christian spirit. Nothing can VI.] Christian Nationalism. 223 be more fatal to mankind or to religion itself than to call one set of things or persons religious and another secular, when Christ has redeemed the whole. It is especially erroneous to suppose that the clergy alone represent religion. They have their special function, which, rightly exercised, should be the highest of all. But others have also their vocation and ministry. Every calling which is so exercised as to become a service to God and a spiritual benefit to man is a sacred ministry, and he who works in it is a minister of Christ. To attempt, therefore, to treat clergymen and pastors as the sole ministers of religion is to take the heart out of the Christian community. Such a tendency is sometimes spoken of as that which exalts the church. In reality what it does is to exalt the clergy, at least in appearance, beyond their just measure ; but the church it enfeebles and destroys. It is, further, assumed that the clergy, or the wor- shipping body taken by itself, bear witness in their isolation for the liberty of conscience. The great Popes and Archbishops of the Middle Ages, it is said, were the only men who resisted kings and emperors, and who asserted a spiritual power in opposition to the selfish and worldly power then ruling in secular affairs ; and, it is implied, this selfish and worldly spirit will always remain dominant in secular affairs, while the suc- cession of these great clerical potentates, and of their protest for liberty of conscience, falls now to synods and church-assemblies : these are needed in modern times, it is supposed, to resist the tyrannical materialism of secular government, and to maintain spiritual freedom. But it may well be doubted whether the clerical power was ever the sincere advocate of liberty of conscience. What the great Popes of the Middle Ages aimed at was not liberty of conscience for the worshippers, but a vast imperial dominion for themselves and the clergy, a dominion 224 English Church and Commonwealth, [lect. having very little that was religious in it, but using religion as the instrument of its power. Even if we concede that there was something favourable to liberty in the claims of clerical independence in the Middle Ages, such claims have almost ceased to have any spiritual value since the laity awoke to a sense of responsibility at the Reformation. They have served for the most part, whether abroad or in Great Britain, in Roman Catholic or in Protestant countries, merely to consolidate and enforce the existing system ; their advocates have contended zealously for their own rights. In doing this they have sometimes incidentally served the cause of freedom. But it would be difficult to point out at Trent or at Dort, at Westminster or at Edinburgh, an occasion in which they had sincerely asserted individual or general liberty. That which seems to be aimed at in all the assertions of the need of ecclesiastical separation is that there is a sphere in which law and government have no right to interfere, but in which individual men, or companies of men freely associated, must think and act for themselves. There are many departments of human life in which this is the case ; and religious conviction, though a pre- eminent, is by no means the only instance. But let it be asked, as to any of these spheres, from which of the two powers, from the clergy or the general government, has the chief danger to liberty arisen ? The answer must in almost all cases be, From the clerical side. In the Middle Ages the Albigenses and the Waldenses were slaughtered by lay swords, but under clerical incitement. So it was with the persecution of the Lollards and of the Hussites, with the massacre of St. Bartholomew, with the expulsion of the English Puritan ministers in 1662, and of the French Protestants in 1687. It has been in the repression, not in the exaltation, of the clerical and eccle- siastical power, that the best hope of liberty has lain. If we take the analogy of other departments of life, in which / VI.] Christian Natioitalism. 225 there should be immunity from minute poHce regulations, the answer becomes plainer still. The family life, litera- ture, science, art, trade, are instances of this. Political experience has shown that it would be very wrong that the government should interfere in the conduct of family life as was attempted in some of the Greek Republics, where the time of marriage, the number of children, even the meals which the citizens should take in common, were prescribed by law. But in modern times it is the clerical, not the lay power from which there has been the danger of interference with the sacred freedom of family relations. It would, again, be monstrous for the govern- ment to prescribe what books should be written or read. The censorship and the prosecution of authors for any- thing but libel and a few marked offences against the community have disappeared. It is the clerical power at Rome, and the governments influenced by it, which have, in modern times, presented the most flagrant instances of such attaints upon freedom. It would be wrong, again, for the government to interfere with the pursuit of know- ledge, to forbid enquiry, to encourage some and dis- courage others of the fields of human thought ; and the same thing may be said as to art. But if the history of these departments of life be examined in such a record as that of the History of Rationalism, ^ it will be seen that the false notions with which clericalism had overlaid them have almost always been the retarding element in their development. And, as regards trade, while governments have often, through a mistaken notion of advantage to the community, or to particular classes within it, fettered commercial intercourse, it is the clerical influence which for ages made the larger operations of commerce im- possible by declaring that the taking of interest was by the law of God forbidden. ' * History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe.' By W. E. H. Lecky, M.A. Longmans. 15 2 26 Enzlish Church mid Commonwealth, [lect. "^ It is a discovery of political science that with all these departments of life the central government should inter- fere as little as possible. Does that mean that it should not assert its supremacy over them, and should refrain from making laws for them ? By no means. Its true function in these departments of life is to guarantee their free and beneficial development, to establish general laws in accordance with their recognized requirements, to intervene when their machinery has got out of gear, or when new conditions arise, and to present an impartial tribunal for the settlement of disputes. No one thinks it necessary that each of these departments should have a separate organization endowed with indefeasible rights. They are none the less free because the central govern- ment assures their just internal relations and their free development. Precisely the same may be said of the organization for public worship. The central govern- ment has at times, no doubt, interfered with it unduly. But what it ought to do, and has for the most part done, is to guarantee its harmonious exercise according to the convictions of those for whom it exists. And this it has for the most part done in England with general approval, in contradistinction to the usurped authority of the Pope over the nation, and also to the no less usurped authority of the clergy over the laity. If it be asked whether there must not be a special system of law for clerical discipline, the answer is, that the analogy may be followed of professions like the army and navy, or of special systems of law such as those by which Admiralty suits are decided ; and that, as in those cases, it is well to have the advice of experts. But, since clerical discipline is a much less simple matter than that of the army or the navy, and affects the general welfare much more widely, it is right that the ultimate appeal should be to a tribunal repre- senting the nation. If it be asked how the laws which VI.] Christian Nationalism, 227 govern the organization for public worship should be framed, the answer is that the constitutional course is that such legislation should be prepared by a Royal Com- mission, on which lawyers and other laymen as well as clergymen should serve, but that the laws themselves should be passed, as Hooker says, by the national organs alone ^ ; and for this, though the advice of the clergy may rightly be asked, as the advice of the college of physi- cians for a medical Act, yet their consent is not indis- pensable. If it be asked, further, how the details of ritual and of parochial organization should be decided, the answer is that in the original settlement such matters were partly laid down by the central acts of uniformity, that a strong visitorial power was held to reside in the Bishops, as is shewn in the visitation of Ridley in Lon- don in 1550% which has gradually been extinguished; and that all things not settled by these means were left to the discretion of the individual clergyman ; but that the analogy of other departments would point out as the true policy the gradual relaxation of uniformity, and the relegation of such matters to local discretion, and the calling forth of lay interest and lay power in the localities. If, further, a question be raised as to the legitimacy of the Royal Supremacy from the fact that, through the progress of the national development, it is no longer the Sovereign who is supreme, but the Prime Minister and the Parliament, the answer is that the laws of the Refor- mation era were themselves framed by Parliament, and that Parliament then represented a nation in which far • See Note XIX. ^ ' Injunctions given in the visitation of the reverend father in God, Nicholas, bishop of London, for an uniformity in his Diocese of Lon- don, in the fourth year of our Sovereign Lord King Edward the Vlth, A.D. 1550,' in Cardwell's 'Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England,' i. 8i. 228 Enorlish Church and Commonwealth, [lect. <^ less unity of sentiment prevailed in such matters as were then dealt with than in the England of our own day ; that the Sovereign had power as representing the nation, and that the Prime Minister and the Parliament of our day represent the nation more fully ; and that it accords better with the genius of Christianity that these matters should be determined by the great Christian brotherhood as a whole through its representatives than by the indi- vidual Sovereign. And if, further, it be objected that neither the electors nor the elected are all of them Chris- tians, much less all of them worshippers according to the Act of Uniformity, the answer is that in all such matters we must take the general sense of the community, not looking minutely at exceptions, and that experience shews that the more the community is trusted as a Christian body, the more it will prove itself capable of acting unitedly as such, and will grow into its full capa- cities as a branch of the Christian Church. We must trace, by reviewing the salient facts of Eng- lish history during the last three centuries and a half, how far this ideal of the national supremacy and Chris- tian unity has been preserved, how far abandoned or ignored. In the time of Henry himself the system was fully maintained. It was furthered by the masterful spirit of the King, though at times marred by his violence. But the redeeming feature of Henry's rule, as afterwards of Edward's and Elizabeth's, was that on the whole it was in harmony with the general conviction of the nation. His changes of mood and action reflected for the most part those of the people. Acts like the abolition of the Papal Jurisdiction, the Suppression of the Monasteries, the Laws of Appeals, and the placing of the Bible in the churches, were acts of the Church, however they may have been regarded by the clergy. If the Act of the Six Articles represents one of those reactionary impulses to VI.] Christian Nationalism. 229 which the English nation has always been liable, on the other hand, the feelings of the nation were consulted when, in the end of Henry's reign, the ser^dces were translated and a beginning was made of an English Liturgy. The Litany remains to us in the form in which he himself, with Cranmers assistance, cast it, a monu- ment of the combined political and religious movement. In it the king and the clergy, the lords of the council, the magistrates, and all orders and degrees of men stand side by side as the subject of our prayers, constituting in their unity a branch of the Catholic Church ; and the national well-being and political justice are recognized as amongst the primary objects for which the Church exists. In the reign of Edward the problem of the national and ecclesiastical unity was simplified by the fact that the convictions of the young monarch were in accordance with those of the ecclesiastical leaders, and that the bishops were in harmony with the reforming movement which had now become popular. There were indeed two dangers, the one that through the covetousness and indolence of statesmen the reformation movement might be turned into a channel of mere destructiveness, the other that the ecclesiastical influences about the young King might lay the foundation of a new clericalism. Both were on the whole avoided. The secularization of ecclesiastical estates, so far as it had gone, was ratified ; but the wastefulness and violence of men like Admiral Seymour was checked, and Northumberland's misrule, had Edward lived, would have been soon suppressed. The Articles of Religion were sanctioned as a general statement of the beliefs on which the English Reforma- tion had proceeded, reflecting its moderation, not to say its compromises and its hesitancies ; the Second Prayer- book also was accepted, though with evident reluctance, and a clear indication of unwillingness to enact changes 230 English Church mid Co^nmonwealth, [lect. of the system of worship beyond what was absolutely required ^ But the book of reformed ecclesiastical laws, which would have imposed abstract theological state- ments and minute and puerile directions upon the coun- try as laws, and would have restored a clerical tribunal for ecclesiastical appeals, was put aside as savouring too much of clericalism ^. We may pass over the reign of Mary as one of mere reaction and confusion, which yet was of service as a testing time. Unhappily, there is a tendency, after revolutionary proceedings like those of Mary's reign, to rebuild too hastily all that has existed before. ^ See the words of the Preamble of the Act, 6 Edw. VI, c. i : * Where there hath been a very godly order set forth by the Authority of Par- liament for Common Prayer, etc. . . . within this Church of England, agreeable to the Word of God and the primitive church, very comfort- able to all good people. . . . And whereas there hath risen in the use and exercise of the aforesaid Common Service in the Church, hereto- fore set forth, divers doubts for the fashion and manner of the adminis- trations of the same, rather by the curiosity of the minister and mis- takers than of any other worthy cause, therefore as well for the more plain and manifest explanation thereof as for the more perfection of the said order or Common Service, in some places where it is necessary to make the same prayer and fashion of service more earnest and fit to stir Christian people to the true honouring of Almighty Godj be it enacted,' etc. ^ The final draught of the Reformatio Legum was made by Cranmer and Peter Martyr, their six colleagues lending apparently but little assistance. The first section repeats in several parts the doctrinal state- ments of the Thirty-Nine Articles, sometimes, as in those about Pre- destination, making them more stringent. As an instance of the unreal character of these proposed laws, we may take the section on Idolatry, in which * Pestiferae artes ' are condemned and ' Gravissimae poenae' are denounced against them, but without any specification of the penalty ; or the section on Marriage, in which is a proposed law headed, ' Ut matres propriis uberibus infantes alant.' The proposal as to appeals to the Crown is that they should be decided, in extreme cases, by the provincial Synod, that is, the Convocation; otherwise by three or four bishops appointed for the particular suit by the Crown. It is evident these proposals were unfit to pass into law. VI.] Christian Nationalism. 231 But the long and glorious reign of Elizabeth was one in which the value residing in the united action of the whole Commonwealth for furthering its healthy develop- ment was fully tested and confirmed. The Queen had, indeed, far too little faith in liberty, and watched with jealousy instead of sympathy the growth of Protestant conviction, which in the next generation carried all be- fore it. But the toleration which she exercised was great and many-sided. The fault of her administration lay in her determination to keep ecclesiastical affairs under her personal control, instead of allowing the system to be freely moulded by the convictions of the people ex- pressed through the Parliament. She introduced a per- sonal rule in ecclesiastical affairs, which, in the hands of her feebler successors, who did not know when to give way, led to the great convulsion of the succeeding cen- tury. Yet she finally yielded, with however bad a grace, when Parliament showed its determination to deal with questions of worship or of doctrine, as in the passing of the Act which required the signature of the clergy to the Protestant Articles of Religion ^ In the whole of the complications, political and religious, which culminated in the deliverance from the Armada, the Queen and the nation were at one. No nobler or more truly English statesmen ever lived than those whom she chiefly trusted, Burleigh, Walsingham, and Sir Philip Sidney. And the best proof of the security of the people under her rule, of the repose and satisfaction of the national heart, is to be found in the free and bright spirit of culture, which makes us look back to * the spacious times of great Elizabeth' as the springtime of English literature. The great work of Hooker, written towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, the theory of which has been some- ^ 13 Eliz. c. 12. An Act for Ministers of the Church to be of sound religion. 232 English Church and Commonwealth, [lect. times regarded as a speculation, is really a true repre- sentation of the facts as they then existed, and a just inference from them. He grounds the principles of government, not on any infallible Biblical or ecclesiasti- cal statements, but on universal justice ; and he draws the inference from them that no form of ecclesiastical organization is of necessary and divine authority ^ His conviction of the unity of the nation, expressed in the famous sentence that the same persons constitute the Church and also the Commonwealth % must be understood in a general sense, which would make it equally applicable in our own day, since he was writing of a time in which Roman Catholics sat in the Upper House of Parliament, and the Puritans were a growing element in the Lower. His statement, thus taken, holds good throughout our modern history, as does also his inference that the national organs alone can justly frame laws for the Church-system. Yet the result of his work was not in accordance with his principles. He was suc- ceeded by an era in which everything was done by those in power that was most contrary to his contention, one in which the Episcopal form of Church government was held to have divine sanction, in which the making of ecclesiastical laws was violently taken out of the hands of the national organs and placed in the hands of the * Eccl. Pol. III. xi. 7 : 'I therefore conclude that, neither God's being author of laws for Government of His Church, nor His committing them unto Scripture, is any reason sufficient wherefore all churches should for ever be bound to keep them without change.' xi. 16 : ' Unto the complete form of church polity much may be requisite which the Scripture teacheth not, and much which it hath taught become un- requisite, sometime because we need not use it, sometime also because we cannot.' He goes on to say that the reformed churches of Scotland and France have not that government by bishops which he considers most scriptural, but that this is not by their own fault, and that they are right in accepting ' that which the necessity of the present has cast upon them.' ^ B. viii. i. 2. VI.] Chris tia7i Nationalism. 233 clerg-y alone. And the reason for this is obvious. The keen point of Hooker's argument is turned exclusively against the Puritans. He has not a word to say against the arbitrary power exercised by the Crown in ecclesias- tical matters, nor against the oppressive character, then already making itself felt, of the Courts of High Commis- sion, nor of the growing assumptions of clerical power as existing by divine appointment ^ These things, which caused such disasters a few years after his death, were as completely contrary to his principles as was the assumption of the Puritans ; yet he fails to notice them. Every part of the Prayer Book, even those which were afterwards altered, some even in the decade following his death, is equally supported by his stately periods ^ Even abuses in the Church system, such as pluralities, are defended 3. The mistake of the Genevan system in imposing on the Church an order of ruling elders is ex- posed 4; but there is not, in substitution for this, a frank * The extreme doctrine of the divine and exclusive sanction of episco- pacy appears to have been first broached in a sermon by Bancroft at St. Paul's in 1 588. The sensation caused by this was considerable : but there is no consciousness in Hooker's great work of any danger from this exaggeration. ^ For instance, B. v. ch. xliii. is on the objection made by the Puritans to the lack of special forms of thanksgiving in the Prayer Book. Hooker defends this omission vigorously ; but the Hampton Court Conference, though it treated the Puritans harshly, saw that the objec- tion was valid, and the forms of thanksgiving were added. This was only some seven or eight years after Hooker wrote. ^ B. v. ch. Ixxxi. 6, 7. The defence of pluralities is abstractedly reasonable ; but when we read the list of Laud's and Williams' promo- tions in 161 1 in Perry's 'History of the Church of England' (i. 196), (Laud held, apparently all at one time, three parishes, two prebends, an archdeaconry, and a deanery, and Williams had as many or more), we see that Hooker is blinding himself and his readers to a vast abuse. ^ Eccl. Pol. B. vi. It appears from the notes of Hooker's pupil, Cranmer, that this was almost the central part of the work as Hooker wrote it ; but in book vi, as it has come down to us, topics such as the power of the keys and repentance, which seem to have been meant to 2 34 English Church and Commonwealth, [lect. recoo^nition of the Christian ruler as a Church officer and a minister of God, responsible for the administration of a branch of Christ's kingdom. There is, indeed, in this great work, little of that political sense, the association of which with religion is the only hope for the right con- duct of public affairs ; and consequently, though it must always remain a treasury of thought on the subject with which it deals, it did little to prevent the storm which was then ready to darken the horizon. Men were casting about for a stable, if possible an infallible, support for their faith and practice. That of the Pope and the clergy had been thrown off by the better part of the nation ; and the substitute for it was the Bible. It is impossible to exaggerate the power which the Bible exercised over the minds of Englishmen in the latter part of the sixteenth and the early part of the seventeenth century. It has been graphically described for this generation in the History of the English people \ But it was thought that the Bible could give, what the Pope and the clergy had professed but had failed to give, what nothing indeed can give in an absolute sense, a direct guidance to individuals and communities, not in the way of prin- ciples, but in that of laws and rules. It was not yet understood that men's conduct, private and public, must be determined by the conscience and the reason, in that region of human responsibility into which neither minister nor Bible can enter ; that men must, in hu- mility and prayer, make use of Scriptural principles, of the advice of Christian leaders, of the precedents of lead up to the question of the ruling elders, are treated, and the subject itself is never reached. It is possible, therefore, that the recognition of the Christian ruler as the true ruling elder may have formed part of Hooker's scheme ; but the fair copies of Books vi.-viii. were destroyed, and the books had to be edited from notes. * See a fine passage on the influence of the Bible in Green's * History of the English People,' ch. viii, beginning. vl] Christian Nationalism, 235 the past, of all the lights which God vouchsafes to us ; but that ultimately the task of determining their course must be decided by their own independent judgment. The Puritan was technically wrong in supposing that the Genevan model was to be found in the Bible, and that it was divine and necessary truth. But even in this he was not wholly wrong, since thus he was led to follow the democratic constitution of the early Christian societies and their simplicity of worship. In his serious interest in life and government, in his aspiration to an ideal community, such as those at- tempted in New England, he was wholly right. His profession of Calvinism was not a mere speculation. It was a protest against the self-will which had loaded the Church with unauthorized ordinances. What God had ordained, that alone he would follow. It is true the Puritan was mistaken in supposing that he could find the Presbyterian system in Scripture, and that this was the sovereign will of God. Yet this mistake might have been made clear to him, as indeed it was made clear in another way and at a later date by the Inde- pendents ; it might have been made clear through the ordinary processes of Christian constitutionalism, had he been met fairly with temperate and reasoned opposition. But how was the Puritan met by those in authority ? By the revival of a theory of divine right in the Episcopalian clergy unknown to the reformers or the Elizabethan divines, and known only up to that date in the assumptions of the Papacy ' ; by the alliance * See the account in Perry (i. 46-8) of the works of Bishops Bancroft and Bilson. Of Bilson's ' Treatise on Church Government,' he says, ' It is the first work of Anghcan Divinity which asserted and argued the necessity of the apostolical succession to constitute a church. Without episcopacy there can be no lawful ordaining of ministers, and, by consequence, no lawful administering of the Word and Sacraments/ 236 English Church and Commonwealth, [lect. of this ecclesiastical assumption with the claim for a divine right inherent in the Sovereign apart from the nation ' ; by the practical comment upon these assump- tions w^hich was offered by the tyrannical injustice of the courts of the Star Chamber and High Commission ; by the claim of the clergy in their Convocations to determine alone (as in the Canons of 1604 ^ and of 16393) all matters of the organization of divine worship and of moral discipline for the whole nation ; by a refusal to listen to the voice of the laity as expressed in Parlia- ment ^ ; by the introduction of principles which seemed, * See the Canons of 1606, commonly called Bishop Overall's Convo- cation Book (given in Cardwell's ' Synodalia,' p. 330), which asserted the divine right of the King in such an extreme manner that even James I. saw that their publication would make him ridiculous, and refused to sanction them. ^ The chief part of these Canons relate to matters of public worship and the discipline of the clergy ; but these were points of vital impor- tance in the beginning of the 17th century. There are Canons also on schools and universities, matters of matrimony and of wills, which affected the general body of the laity. * The publication of the Canons in 1604,' says Cardwell (' Synodalia,' p. 585), ' added greatly to the causes of disquiet which already existed in the Church of England. They were strongly opposed on legal grounds. Up to this period the cause of the church was successfully defended by Archbishops Whit- gift and Bancroft ; from this time it sensibly and constantly declined.' ^ The parts of the Canons of 1639 which excited most discontent were — (i) The canon (v) against sectaries, requiring that all who objected to the Prayer Book, or wrote against it, or did not attend the church service, should be sought out and presented to the bishop to be punished. (2) The ' Etcetera Oath,' which was to be administered to all the clergy, and which bound them never to assent to any change in the government of the church * by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, &c.,' as then established. (3) Canon vii, ' On certain ceremonies,' which prescribed bowing towards the east on entering and leaving the church. These Canons were passed after Parliament had been dissolved, the Convocation at the same time granting a benevo- lence to the King (the Parliament having refused any money grant) to enable him to carry on a war against the Scotch. '* The Commons protested against the Canons of 1604, refusing a conference with the Convocation, and passed a bill, which was cut short VI.] Christian Nationalism, 237 not without reason nor without actual examples, to lead back to Romanism ; and by the insistance upon these in a blind and obstinate temper, even up to the moment when the nation was on the verge of civil war. When the Parliament, as the great lay synod of the nation, attempted resistance and remedy, the House of Commons was dissolved, the King resorted to illegal means to raise money, and the Parliamentary constitution, the pledge of Christian liberty and brotherhood, was held in abey- ance for eleven years ^ ; to all of which the clergy gave their active consent. Is it to be wondered at that Puritanism grew bitterer and more sectarian ? or that in the Civil War, in which the King and the clergy were ranged together against the liberties of the country, moderation and justice disappeared ? And yet it is clear that Puritanism, in the extreme form which it was driven to assume, was by no means the dominant power from the first, even in the pro- gressive part of the nation. It was only by degrees, and unwillingly, that the Parliamentary leaders yielded to it. The lives and experience of Pym, of Hampden, of Eliot, of Dering, and of Milton, shows this quite clearly. They began as a constitutional opposition within the Church system, the forms of which they admired, while of its culture they not only partook but were the choicest examples. Even when, in the year 1827, Parliament resisted the claim made by Laud through the Royal declaration prefixed to the Articles of ReHgion, that the Convocations should regulate questions of doc- trine, its language was that of a body of churchmen only by a prorogation declaring that no such Canons could be enacted without the consent of Parliament. Lingard, vi. 26. ^ 1629-40. The Commons in 1629, before adjourning, passed a reso- lution, directed against the arbitrary proceedings of the King and the clergy, that they who make innovations in religion, or who enact or pay subsidies not granted by Parliament, are enemies of the kingdom. 238 English Church and Commonwealth, [lect. expressing themselves with firmness but with modera- tion ^ 'We claim,' they said, 'for the truth that sense of the Articles of Religion which by public act of the Church of England and by general and concurrent ex- position of the writers of our Church hath been delivered to us.' It seems clear that, if Parliament had been allowed in a constitutional manner to settle these ques- tions, it would have settled them with moderation. The fatal fault, the constant provocation to violence, lay in the claims of the clergy and the King, which were in all cases extreme and short-sighted, and in many cases actually illegal. That they acted conscientiously we need not doubt, as Becket acted conscientiously in his struggle for the immunities of the clergy. But, as Becket's struggle and death only adds a pathetic tone to our con- demnation of the forgery of the false decretals on which he relied as having a divine sanction, so do the execu- tions of Charles and of Laud to our condemnation of the false system of clerical power on which they depended, and for which they died. The ideal of the nobler minds who eventually sup- ported the Puritan cause was an England ruled by the laws of God, united and free. There is nothing to make us doubt that the pursuit of this ideal would have left room for the development of all that was noble and refined in the nation. Pym and Hampden were two of the most cultivated gentlemen of their day. But both unity and freedom were destroyed by the King and the clergy, and men were driven into a sterner and more morose frame of mind. It would be wrong to judge the King and the clergy by the standard of political know- ledge to which we have attained. Yet foresight, and a just apprehension of facts and tendencies, are the qualities rightly required in rulers ; and such a just apprehension * Perry's ' History of the Church of England,' i. 396. VI.] Christian Nationalism, 239 was not impossible in the days of Pym and Eliot, of Falkland and Chillingworth, of Cromwell and, we may add, of Hobbes. The blame must be thrown on that false idea of the Christian Church, which takes it for a separate society, having a sanction different from that of the general community, a society established mainly, if not solely, for worship and its adjuncts ; and which attributes exclusive power in this society to the clergy. The Puritans, indeed, shared both these ideas to some extent. To many of them the substitution of one form of religious worship for another, of the Genevan model or of independency for the Episcopalian and liturgical system, was of more importance than justice ; and the discipline which such men desired to establish would have been more irksome if less truculent than that of the old Church system. When, therefore, deprived of the checks exerted by the opposite party, and driven into an extreme position, those who had fought for constitutional liberty were left to rule under the direction of a dominant Puri- tanism, they also became a sect, with a limited ideal differing from that of the nation, often hypocritical, often oppressive; and the nation welcomed the Restoration as giving a promise of a state of things more consonant to its true aspirations. Puritanism, then, passed away. But, as with the other experiments we have described, though its body was dead, its soul lived on. Beneath the superficial orgies of the Restoration might be found a nation serious, in- dustrious, and resolved to be free. Beneath the wave of persecution in which Puritanism seemed to have been submerged, was a living Puritanism, which created a state of unrest until it was recognized by the Revolution settlement. Then the liberties for which the Puritans had fought arose from their graves and asserted them- selves. Even the Cavalier Parliament of 1661 had ac- quiesced in most of the great constitutional principles, 240 English Church and Coinmo7iwealth, [lect. the denial of which had occasioned the Civil War ^ All government or jurisdiction by the King alone, or by the clergy without the subsequent sanction of Parliament, was definitely condemned. The attempts of Charles the Second to evade the principle of the national sovereignty and of James the Second to override it were successfully resisted and finally overcome by the Revolution ; nor has this principle ever since been seriously questioned. The constitutional enthusiasm of Burke, or Fox, or Hallam, the liberty of America, the Reform Act of 1832, are all the direct consequences of the Long Parliament and the Revolution. In this all England has acquiesced. The policy of Pym, which made the voice of the whole Chris- tian country, expressed in the House of Commons, su- preme, is the policy which has won its way to full accep- tance. The Crown still forms a central rallying-point, the Peers a regulative reserve, the Convocations an in- fiuence. They can never become rival powers. In the supremacy of the House of Commons is realized the unity of the Christian Commonwealth. By this just relations between the political powers are established, and just relations between the members of the great brotherhood are guaranteed. In the observance and perfecting of such relations the establishment of God's kingdom on earth consists. It may be thought that the Revolution, by finally re- cognizing the liberty of the various Christian denomi- nations, made a rift in the unity of the Church. We must gratefully acknowledge this liberty, and must recognize that it was even greater in fact than in the direct scope of the Toleration Act. But it is not a just inference from this liberty that it involved the breaking up of the re- ligious unity of the nation. If religion consisted in common worship alone, it might be true to say that * Green, * History of English People,' ch. ix, sect, vi, first paragraph. VI. Christian Nationalism, 241 the Revolution made England a country of many- churches. But, if the true religion is that by which men act, we may justly assert that our Church has never been divided. England has since the Revolution been more united on the basis of Protestant Christianity with divers forms of worship than it ever was before on the basis of enforced uniformity. On the matters of the chief practical importance the vast mass of the country is at one, and forms one commonwealth, one Christian Church. It is true that at the Revolution, through the baneful influence of clericalism, then in a specially acrid mood on account of its recent loss of power, the better policy of Comprehension w^as defeated. The worship of our non-conforming fellow-believers was merely tole- rated ; they were not invited into union. But the fact that uniformity of worship was abandoned as impossible does not destroy our unity. The true statement of what was effected by the Toleration Act is this, that the Church of England conceded freedom of worship to all private societies among its members. It was no longer to be essential to membership in the Church or Common- wealth that men should worship according to the estab- lished forms. They might combine as they would for prayer and mutual edification. It is much more essen- tial that those who form one community should feel and act together than that they should worship according to the same forms. The differences between English Protestants, which are far less than they seem, and which are made to seem considerable mainly through the peculiar position and action of the Episcopalian clergy, will yield in due time, we may be sure, to the real unity of Christian sentiment and its corresponding action which is constantly growing amongst us ; and English Christianity, in its formal expression as well as in reality, will be one. It may also appear to the superficial observer of our 16 242 English CJmrch ajid Commo7iwealth, [lect. history that during the eighteenth century religion was in abeyance, while political life alone was vigorous. But, even taking religion in its more restricted sense, such an assertion would hardly be correct. It is true that, owing to the disputes about worship and church government which had distracted the seventeenth cen- tury, there was a disinclination to move such questions in the eighteenth. But even as a profession, and even among the upper classes, religion was still powerful ^ As a spiritual influence upon the mass of the people it was still more so. It had a strong hold upon the na- tional conscience, even where its rites were least fre- quented ; and the succession of great teachers never failed. Law was a disciple of Ken, and Wesley of Law ; and thus we reach without a break the Evangelical Revival. But it is true that much of men's interest which in the seventeenth century was occupied with questions of worship and church government was in the eighteenth turned to the sphere of politics, to realize there an equivalent for the piety which, with all its nobler features, had had an unfortunate issue in eccle- siastical controversy and in war. When a modern his- torian asks the question, whether the higher life of England owes more to Wesley or to Chatham 2, it is clear that we are invited to compare two modes, very different, yet practically one, by which the nobler spirit, which is inseparable from that of Christ, gained a fuller * See * The English Church in the Eighteenth Century,' by Abbey and Overton (Longmans, 1878) ; especially a discussion on the general con- dition of religion and morality in the Introductory chapter. ^ Lecky, ' History of England in the Eighteenth Century,' ii. 517. ' From about the middle of the i8th century a reforming spirit is abroad, and a steady movement of moral ascent may be detected. The influence of Pitt (Chatham) in politics, and the influence of Wesley and his followers in religion, were the earliest and most important agencies affecting it.' See the whole passage, and the eighth chapter generally, "which is almost wholly devoted to the character of Pitt. VI] Christian Nationalism, 243 hold upon the Hfe of the nation. The triumphant energy with which in his earUer days Chatham inspired the nation, before so inert and aimless, the lofty assertions of liberty which marked his later life, must be reckoned as genuine products of the Divine Spirit. In the next generation, while Wilberforce was beginning his great work of religion and philanthropy, Edmund Burke, and Charles Fox in the second period of his life, with a religion less conscious but yet worthy to be compared with that of Wilberforce, were raising the whole tone of politics out of the slough of corruption into which it had fallen, and were laying the foundations of the pure public life of this century. Nor ought we to omit, while speaking of the develop- ment of England as a great Christian brotherhood or church, to glance at the more general and secular life as an integral part of its Christian progress. We have spoken above of the culture and euphuism of the reign of Elizabeth. Development of this kind was arrested in the next century by the absorbing interest in matters of worship and by the events which led up to the Civil War. But in the sphere of law and constitutional re- lations great and beneficial progress was effected during the seventeenth century \ The substitution of tenure in fee simple for tenure by military service, the Habeas Corpus Act, the creation of a standing army as the servant of the nation not of the Sovereign, the abolition of the High Commission and all similar Courts, the in- dependence guaranteed to the judges, the removal of the * Substitution of tenure by fee simple for tenure by military service, 12 Charles II. c. 24. Habeas Corpus Act, 31 Charles 11. c. 2. The Court of High Commission abolished by 16 Charles I. c. 11 : the aboli- tion confirmed by 13 Charles II. c. 12. Convocation ceases to be a tax- ing body in 1664, by a general agreement, not by statute. The abolition of all fetters upon the Press, 1679. Independence guaranteed to judges, 12 and 13 Will. III. c. 2. The Bill of Rights {1689), i Will, and M. sess. II. c. 2. 244 English Church and Commonwealth, [lect. taxing powers of Convocation, the better system of general taxation accompanying the first dawn of political economy, the maturer constitutionalism which dates from the Bill of Rights, all served to bring about more equitable and brotherly relations between men and classes within the Christian commonwealth. In another field, another sphere, as we may rightly call it, of Church energy, vast progress w^as made, the sphere of natural science and its application to industry. The foundation of the Royal Society (1660), and the great discoveries of Newton ', preluded the series of triumphant inventions in w^hich England has mostly led the way. The steam- engine, the methods of cotton manufacture, the railway and the telegraph, have changed the relations of human life, while the successive revelations of astronomy, geology, and biology have equally changed the methods of human thought. The modern life of England has, in- deed, been marked by a slighter development of the arts, and especially in later times of the Drama, than might have been expected. The national energies have been concentrated on business and politics and the pursuit of science. The serious spirit also has not completely found its way to the alliance with an encouragement of the Arts. But our line of poets has marched even with the general advance. The progress in medicine and in surgery has been little short of triumphant. And when we look at the sphere of trade and colonization, we are in the presence of a development which irresistibly re- calls the primaeval command, ' Be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it.' How can we, who take that command as a part of the divine impulse com- municated from the first to mankind, refuse to recog- nize this important form of human activity as a function of the Christian church? If, further, we are right in * Newton's * Principia,' finished 1685. VI.] Christian Nationalism, 245 viewing human relations as the special object for which Christian Society and the Church exist, we shall recog- nize as Christian achievements the reforms of the crimi- nal law, the successive acts by which one class after another has been brought within the pale of the con- stitution, still more the great movements of national education and of public philanthropy which more recent years have witnessed. We are conscious of a grand progress in our national history, and we gain the con- viction that our commonwealth is able, through the whole range of its functions, to discharge the duties of a Christian Church. And this should be an imperative call of the divine voice to us, to put away the discords which arise from religion in its narrower sense, and to embrace the wider and more truly Christian religion, which has for its object the hallowing of the whole life of the nation. It is sometimes said that the consideration of these larger questions and the optimistic hopes which they inspire blunts the sense of sin, with which the Church has primarily to deal, and without which there can be no adequate sense of redemption. But the treatment of the nation as a Christian Church also opens out a fuller view of our shortcomings ; and this induces a sense of sin as poignant as that which the Hebrew prophets sought to arouse when they spoke of Israel as the bride of Jehovah, and upbraided her for her unfaithfulness. That the effort for freedom in the seventeenth century should have eventuated in a military tyranny ; that our Church should have been so blind as to drift into the senseless wars of the eighteenth century, and take part in its shameless greed of territory ; that it should have grasped at the hateful Assiento ^ which made England the c4iief slave- carrier of the world ; that Ireland should have been tyrannically treated to gratify the jealousy of English ^ The Assiento, or agreement for the carr^'ing of slaves, was granted to England for thirty years by the treaty of Utrecht. ' 246 English Church and Commonwealth, [lect. traders, and that Protestantism should there have been linked to persecution and oppression ; that we should, through our light-minded injustice, have parted from America with bloodshed and mutual wrath ; that we should have had no wisdom to discern the true meaning of the French Revolution ; that our poetry and art should have been so often degraded by impurity and by mer- cenary motives ; that the blessed discoveries of natural science should so often have been resisted in the name of religion ; that our vast empire should bear in so many places the marks of covetousness and of violence ; that the free public life of the last century should have been dis- graced by the most cynical corruption ; that, while wealth was increasing amazingly, pauperism should have ad- vanced with almost equal strides ; that drunkenness should have become a national habit still requiring a special organization to overcome it ; all this is the reproach which we have to bear, and which, if we had the spirit of the prophets, would make us cry aloud and spare not, and summon the nation to the lamentation of bitter repentance. But the times of that ignorance, we may say, God winked at. He now calls us to a new life. It is not our duty to reproach our fathers, but to take care that we with fuller light do not fall into a like condemnation. We may trace a great part of the evils of the past genera- tions to the fact that the general life of the nation was not recognized as the life of a Christian Church. It was thereby deprived of Christian sanctions, and treated by the clergy and many of the most religious men as secular and profane. Experience everywhere shows that, where any set of persons and any sphere of life is degraded in the estimation of mankind, as the occupation of the tax- gatherers in Judaea in the time of Christ, it is almost sure to become irreligious, and to fulfil the evil prophecy which has gone out against it. But, as it was the special aim of Christ to seek out and to save that very class of men, so VI.] Christian Nationalism, 247 it should be the office of all who sincerely follow Him to redeem those spheres of life which have been specially supposed to lie outside the range of His influence, and to raise them, by His spirit, to dignity and holiness. They have done much for themselves ; but, owing to the false limitations of the Church, they have sometimes exag- gerated their own importance, sometimes drawn away the interests and the worship of men, so as to break the unity of our common Christian life. It must be the aim of the Church of our day to widen itself out so as to embrace them, and to raise them to their highest honour and use by bringing them into direct contact with the Saviour of the world. There is no more animating thought in the whole range of spiritual aspirations, than that of a nation in which one spirit should rule, in which all classes of men should move w^ith a common and a righteous impulse. All popular enthusiasms have a charm which is little short of irresistible ; and we are so made that the love of our country and devotion to its interests is a natural instinct as well as a Christian virtue. Our country demands us ; and we are, in any but our worst moods, ready to yield ourselves to its service. The defence of Greece against the Persians, of England and Holland against Spain in the sixteenth century, of France in 1793 against united Europe, the uprising of Germany against Napoleon in 1813 — what a grand spectacle does each give us of a nation strong through enthusiastic union ! Yet these present but a feeble image of that which would be seen were a whole nation to be possessed with the love of God and of Christ as their acknowledged national bond, and each citizen to take for the quickening purpose of his own life the deter- mination to build up, so far as his influence extends, the life of the great brotherhood to which he belongs, and of every sphere of action which it contains, and of each of his fellow-citizens, in justice and the fear of God. LECTURE VII. THE CHRISTIAN BASIS OF HUMAN SOCIETIES. EzEKiELi. 15-20. Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl : and they four had one likeness]: and their appear- ance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides ; and they turned not when they went. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful ; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go ; and the wheels were lifted up over against them : for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. The genius of Christianity requires us to conceive of the spiritual not as separate from, but as interpenetrating and vivifying the material ; of God, not as separate, but as a spirit pervading the universe ; of the human soul, not as separate, but as penetrating and transforming the body ; of redemption, not as making men separate by removing the redeemed into a different sphere of exist- ence, but as drawing them with all their surroundings into holy and loving relations ; of the Church, not as a separate body, but as seeking always, and destined finally, to embrace the whole race of mankind. The purpose of God, w^iich we have been endeavour- ing to follow out in these Lectures, must be held fast. That purpose is described in the words of St. Paul : 'That He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in 248 Christian Basis of Htiman Societies, 249 earth ; ' or in the vision of the Apocalypse, which places the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and in concentric circles round him the redeemed humanity and the various orders of the creation. To guard against mere archaism, we may state this in the simplest terms. It implies that the Christian spirit of universal, self-renouncing love is, and must show itself to be, the supreme power in the world ; that its operation is first to raise men individually out of moral evil or selfishness, and then to bind them together by a spiritual bond ; that this bond is the unit- ing power in all the various circles into which human society is subdivided ; that all these rings and circles of life, these wheels within wheels, must be united by the same power into one great comprehensive brotherhood ; and further, that the whole material world, which be- comes more and more subject to man, partakes through him of the same redeeming influence; so that finally the spiritual and the material worlds form together a perfect harmony. We may express this also in theological language, thus : That the manifestation of God in Christ, acknowledged and believed, redeems man and trans- forms him in all his relations, to God, to other men, and to outward nature, and issues in a spiritual unity, of which God in Christ is the centre, and in which all the creation in its various degrees partakes. This, we say, is the purpose of God. We are also His offspring. We are made in the image of God, and can enter into His thought and purpose. The man who apprehends it finds the world made new to him ; he sees it ideally as it is in the Divine intention ; and, further, he becomes a fellow-worker with God, an organ of the Divine Spirit, in bringing it to pass. He feels himself no longer isolated and no longer aimless, but a conscious member of a vast spiritual whole, of which every part conspires for the execution of the Divine purpose : and every minor society in which he is 250 The Christian Basis [lect. associated with his fellow-men he looks upon as under- taking some department of this great enterprise. We need make no distinction at this point between those who are confessedly and consciously Christians, and those who are not yet awakened to this sublime calling. The love of God and His purpose of grace embrace us all. The spirit of God and of Christ is work- ing upon every conscience, though the result of this working is infinitely varied. We all accept the fact that the spirit of Christ was in the prophets, and that it wrought upon the Jewish nation at large in the ages be- fore Christ came. St. John's doctrine of the Word, with- out which nothing was created, the Light which lightcth every man, and that of St. Paul, that God is not far from any of us, since in Him we live and move and have our being, enables us to extend this belief to mankind uni- versally. There is, to use a phrase of grammar, a pro- leptic, or anticipatory, Christianity, of which we may see traces deep down in the convictions of the various races of men. It shows itself partially and fitfully in their religions, but more in their philosophies, their family life and their laws. In these God has always had a witness among them. Christ came in the fulness of time. The ground was laid on all sides in preparation for Him ; the human race was growing towards Him : so that we must look at the whole human development as one, and on the Christian spirit as the root of all that is good and true in it, and on Christ Himself as its crown. '^ But, besides this proleptic Christianity in ancient times before Christ came, there~is also an unconscious Chris- tianity in modern times, by which men are being trained for the eventual recognition of God in Christ. Within the recognized boundaries of the Church this is fully acknowledged. It forms the justification for the original admission of whole families within its pale, in which, if VII. of Hunimi Societies, 251 there were not, as is sometimes argued, little children, theie were certainly immature members like the slaves, who were in this stage of unconscious Christianity ^ It forms also the substratum of truth beneath the doctrine of baptismal regeneration which is so untenable when badlly stated ; that is, that those who have been brought up within the Christian community imbibe into the very texture of their moral nature some of the primary as- sumptions of Christian morality. But ideas and moral influences pass, as by some subtle form of commercial exchange, from man to man and from nation to nation, through all the forms of human intercourse, without as well as within the pale of Christendom. It is impossible to look at the wide diffusion of goodness and not to admit its existence in many different modes, in con- nexion with or apart from the actual confession of Jesus Christ. The heads of the organizations of professed believers have often been too slow to recognize this, and the want of its recognition has been greatly to the detri- ment of the Church. We can find no standing ground until we identify Christianity with moral goodness, and the Christian Church, in its idea and ultimate development, with the ^ John iv. 53 : * Himself believed and his whole house.' Acts x. 2, 24, 44 : ' Cornelius, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house.' * Cornelius had called together his kinsmen and near friends.' 'The Holy Ghost fell upon all them which heard the word.' Acts xvi. 31 : * Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house.' lb. 33 : * He was baptized, he and all his, straightway.' lb. 34: 'He rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.' This last case is a striking one, since it is impossible to suppose that the women, children, and slaves composing the house of the Roman jailor could give more than a simple assent to what the head of the family had done. The manner in which v. 31 is quoted is a mark of the difference between a merely individualistic Christianity and the social Christianity now making itself felt. It has usually been quoted only as far as the words, ' thou shalt be saved.' If we add the concluding words, ' and thy house,' we get the idea of faith which is given in these Lectures. 252 The Christian Basis [lect. whole moral, social, and political system by which the human race is growing to its fulness. But this does not imply that the true condition of things which we thus describe is already realized, or that the Divine Spirit is diffused at once and equably throughout the mass. The principle of Election must be acknowledged as that by which the whole process is carried on ; not an election to happiness but to service ; not an election in an exclusive sense, but as the medium of blessing to all. The race of Israel from Abraham downwards was the elect race to whom, in the first instance, God made himself known ; but the promise, for the sake of which they were called, was that through them all families of the earth should be blessed. Similarly, the Greeks, the Romans, the Oriental nations, the Germans, have had their special gifts of mind or of art, of social or political capacity, which were also destined to become universal. We have learnt to inter- pret the dealings of God in these matters more fully through historical and ethnical research, and through the comparison of languages and religions. But further, this doctrine of Election extends to all the various special spheres of human life. Each department or circle has as its leaders those in whom the spirit of the society dwells in the fullest degree. But their election is not for themselves, but that through them the rest may be taught, led, influenced, inspired, until the whole body is brought up to the level of its leaders. Nay, to follow St. Paul's teaching, each man has his gift, which is for the common use, to edify others by sharing it with them. If we apply this doctrine to the Church in the wide sense which we have given to it, we need not scruple to take into our view the whole human race without excep- tion, since we confess that all have been redeemed, and that upon all the Spirit of God is playing, and finding an entrance here and there in ways far beyond our know- ledge. We may trace in every part of the human family VII.] of Huma7i Societies, 253 those who are shown by their lives to be partakers of the Divine Spirit, whether consciously or by the proleptic and unconscious processes which we have described. But we look upon those who consciously partake of this spirit, who confess God as He has been manifested in Jesus Christ, and who enrol themselves in the company formed for the purpose of making Him known to men, as the specially elect portion of the race or church of man- kind. These are destined or appointed to communicate the Divine Spirit to all mankind, and to be the channels of salvation to the world. It is with this elect portion that we have chiefly to do. But it is necessary to keep the rest in mind, lest, when we speak of the Christian nation, or of societies formed for art, or science, or commerce, as branches of the Church, or again of the universal Church as co-extensive with mankind, we should find a stumbling-block in the fact that there are some belonging to each of these circles who do not consciously acknowledge the Christian name. The possession of the spirit, not the name, is the matter of importance, though we must seek to make these two conditions coincide. And even where the spirit is but ^ dimly manifest, we must regard those who in any degree possess it as the immature members of the family. The Church is universal in the fullest sense, and its essential character is that of its most characteristic members, of those who most fully partake of the Christian spirit. That spirit we may speak of either as the spirit of the ' universe, or of humanity, of Christ or of God. The uni- ' versal spirit, since humanity is the crown of the universe, is the spirit of humanity. The spirit of humanity, since Christ is the head of humanity, is the spirit of Christ. The spirit of Christ, since Christ is one with God, is the spirit of God. It is true that the Christian Church has not for the most part understood the high calling which we thus vindicate 254 T^^^ Christian Basis [lect. for it. Those who confess God in Christ have usually been inclined to limit their view of His kingdom, or to adjourn the possibility of its full extension to a future world. But the Apostolic Church, though compelled by circumstances to a limited scope of action, distinctly con- templated this extension. It has been the mistake of each successive age to deny it. It must be the privilege of our own age to recognize it and to give it effect. The Christian Church, then, is absolutely universal. It works through selected individuals, societies, nations, for the good of the whole body, w^ith a view to make it one spiritual unity. Whatever the Christian spirit touches it transforms and ennobles. It connects it, first in thought, then actually, with God and with Christ, who are felt by spiritual minds to be present everywhere and in all things. Each effort of knowledge is an effort to know some part of God, that is, to know His will, that will which is another expression for love. Each art is a representation of some phase of that beauty which is part of the Divine nature, the calm and joyous side of love. Each effort of culture, whether of the mind or of the earth, is the extension of a humane and a Divine influence over some fresh sphere. Each mode of human intercourse, whether for social purposes or for some material advantage, is a field for the cultivation of mutual affection, of human and Christian love. Thus to the spiritual mind everything undergoes a change, and is converted from neutral or evil associations to become moral and spiritual, Christian and divine, first in the thought of the believer, then in actual reahty. But, further, we must introduce here what may be rightly called the Sacramental idea — that which makes outward and visible things the channels of inward and spiritual blessing. The societies of men are bound together by the outward objects with which they deal, the family by the primary needs of life and objects of VII.] of Human Societies, 255 desire, scientific societies by the particular studies, whether material or historical, with which they deal ; literary and artistic societies by music or poetry, sculpture, or painting, or architecture ; and others in similar ways. But these objects are not to a Christian mere brute matter. They have been changed by the alchemy of religious thought and feeling. They become to the Christian apprehension the means through which God and the human spirit are perceived, and spiritual blessings communicated. Each object of science reveals not only the law of its existence but a part of God's nature. Each art reveals not merely natural beauty but human feeling, which also is divine. The family life is full of the out- ward and visible signs of love, and love is of God. The common partaking, appropriation, and enjoyment of these, therefore, makes them also partakers of each other and of God. These things become the channels through which love, and beauty, and truth, and all that constitutes the human and divine excellence, enter into us. They are also the means to us of aspiration and of prayer, by which we associate ourselves with God and Christ, and reach out towards the promised unity, the establishment of the kingdom of heaven. Thus the whole Church, including humanity in its widest sense, and every several organization within it, contains the materials of constant worship, communion, and edification. It is not too much to say that he who thus appropriates the world realizes at every turn the inner meaning of the words, ' Take, eat, this is my body." If we add to this the Christian doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers, we may justly speak of each of those who work in the several departments of human life as ministering to their brethren in a holy office. And if we bear in mind the teaching of the Apostles, that the service of God is not so much that of any formal function, not even of public prayer, as that of a life pervaded by the 256 The Christian Basis [lect. Christian spirit, we have in the various rings or circles of human society so many branches of the universal Church, each having its organized church worship — the priest, the prayer, the sacrament, the service '. But, further, we must look upon the Church, not as a single and simple organism, the members of which are only attached by the bond of faith to the central society. We must look on the Church as enfolding and including a vast number of organizations, each of which partakes of the character and vitality of the whole. We are not simply members of the Christian Church, but members of the Church of England ; not simply units in the great body of humanity, but citizens of our own country ; and not this only, but members of orders, families, colleges, associations, professions, within the Church. We must strive neither to narrow ourselves down to our specialism, nor lose ourselves in a vague universalism. Our affec- tions must be made vivid by their direction to home and country, but they must be enlarged by devotion, like that of our Lord, to the good of mankind. The truest Christian life is that which works earnestly in its special calling, while yet having an eye to the general good : or rather, since we are taught first to pray, ' Thy kingdom come,' it is a life which begins with an appreciation of the great result, and, by keeping this in view, redeems and raises the special service in which it is engaged. The Church idea, that of a society .bound together for the furtherance of the divine purpose and the making known of God's fatherly love to all mankind, must be reproduced * Rom. xii. i : * Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service ' Q.ojlki] /Mrpela). James i. 27 : ' Pure religion ' {BprjaKda Kadapd) ' and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows,' &c. The two words which most clearly expressed formal worship to Jews and heathens are thus claimed, not for the public worship of the Church, but for the devotion of the life. VII.] of Human Societies, 257 in each society formed within it, and become its vivify- ing element. It is said by biologists that in every organ- ism there are innumerable gemmules circulating, which are of the same character as the whole, and which are capable under certain circumstances of reproducing it \ So, within the vast organism of the Church of Humanity, which is the body of Christ, there exist many minor organisms, each bearing and reproducing the character of the whole, and the image of Him who formed it. The individual is a microcosm. The single man is stamped with the image which is seen in larger propor- tions in humanity itself. In the redeemed man we have before us a little copy of the redeemed humanity, which is the Church. Look for a moment at the process of the redemptive work in the individual soul, and you will realize its character in the Church at large. The evil, the ruin from which we are redeemed, is best expressed by the word Selfishness, the narrowness of mind and heart which exalts the individual and his own circle of interests to the exclusion of all that is beyond him, of God and of humanity. The restoration ^ consists in the reverse pro- cess, the attaching of self to the larger unity, the losing of self, so far as this is possible to a moral being, in God and man, the self-forgetting, universal love. In the former state, the partis everything, the whole is lost; in the latter, self is subordinated to the supreme Unity and to those circles of life through which the supreme Unity is ^ See Darwin's Provisional hypothesis of Pangenesis in his * Changes of Plants and Animals under Domestication,' ch. xxvii. pt. 2. ^ I do not enter here upon the doctrine of the Atonement, but confine myself to the effects of the Atonement on human life ; and I use the word Redemption in this sense, as is commonly done in Scripture (e. g. in the expression * Waiting for the redemption of our body,' Rom. viii. 23). The Atonement, however, as self-sacrifice, is the heavenly coun- terpart of the earthly effect described in the text. This, as pointed out by Coleridge, ' Aids to Reflexion ' (p. 244), seems to be the meaning of the 'earthly' and ' heavenly things ' in John iii. 11-15. 17 258 The Christian Basis [lect. manifested to us. Self is subdued, and God and Christ reign within us. This also is true spirituality of mind. A carnal mind is that which estimates men and things only in relation to self and selfish interests ; a spiritual mind is that which estimates men and things, including itself, in their relations to the supreme Unity, which is no other than God. And similarly, a spiritual energy is that which seeks to appropriate itself, and all men and all things within the range of its power, to God. There is a certain sphere over which our personality ranges, consisting partly of our own faculties of mind and body, partly of that portion of the human race with which we are personally connected, partly of outward nature, our possessions, or those things with which our tastes, dispositions, and circumstances connect us. In this sphere lies our work, our enjoyment, and our influ- ence. The spiritual mind is shown in thinking of this whole sphere and its component parts, and in feeling about it, in its relation to God and Christ and the true interests of humanity. The spiritual energy is shown in working upon it, appropriating it, enjoying it, using it, with the design of consciously connecting it with God and with the interests of men, so that it may fulfil its functions as a part of the universal harmony. This is the process in which we are engaged, the more con- sciously the more we ourselves are swayed by the Divine Spirit. It is never wholly absent from our thought or energy ; but, on the other hand, it is never wholly com- plete and triumphant. "" The Church is the society of those in whom this pro- cess is being accomplished, or who may hereafter be- come subject to it, of those who are conscious or uncon- scious Christians ; a twofold category which is absolutely universal, since all men necessarily sustain a relation to God and to their fellows, and all are subject, consciously or unconsciously, to this process of redemption. But, VII.] of Human Societies, 259 just as in the individual there is always a large part of his powers which as yet has felt feebly if at all this re- deeming- process, so in the universal society, which is the Church, there is always a large number of persons, and often whole spheres of human interest, which as yet have not been brought under the dominion of the saving principle. No circle of social life is wholly subject to } universal, self-renouncing love. We must, indeed, assert that this love shows itself in many different ways, not in one alone, that it is here a devotion to knowledge, there to beauty, or again an absorption in social life or in business. We are, to use an expression lately coined to express a stage in the history of religions, Henotheists, or Kathenotheists \ still. We find the true faith and love coloured by special circumstances, and appearing as love of wife and children, of friends, of great and good men, of our country. But, however widely we may recognize its operation, we still see vast fields which it has yet to conquer. ^ ^* What we have to trace, therefore, is the capacity of * the various societies or unions formed amongst men for being the abodes of the Holy Spirit rather than the fact that they have actually become so. The Church and all its branches and circles are always growing into full existence. It is this which makes it so difficult to define the Church. It is this which makes any full definition of it such as has been offered here, namely, that the Church is the whole human race in all its modes of life inspired by the Spirit of Christ, though it is offered as an anticipa- tion and a hope rather than a thing realized, seem to many exaggerated or absurd. But it is this also which makes any definition which stops short of this necessarily ^ * Henotheism, that is, a belief and worship of those single objects, whether semi-tangible or intangible, in which man first suspected the presence of the invisible and the infinite.' Max Miiller, Hibbert Lect. 26a 26o The Christian Basis [lect. inadequate. It has been pointed out in the previous Lectures that from its first beginning the Church, though it was but a germ, was the germ of an universal society. But it has been also pointed out that this germ has been unequally developed, and, like a child which has some of its organs defectively nourished, has thereby run great danger of its life. We have to show how it may regain its full vitality, and embrace and vivify all the various circles of human life. There are seven such circles which we may trace out within the great circle of the complete humanity, which forms the eighth. 1. The organization which exists for public worship, and which is often, but mistakenly, identified with the Church. 2. The family. 3. The society formed for the common pursuit of knowledge — the University, the School, and the Learned Society. 4. The fellowship in artistic pursuits. 5. Social intercourse. 6. The intercourse of business, professions, and trade. 7. The Nation. To which we add as the eighth the Universal Society of Humanity. We have to point out how each of these realizes, or rather ought, for the complete fulfilment of its object, to realize the Church-idea, that is, to be the embodiment or manifestation in social relations of the universal, self-renouncing love of Christ and of God. I. The organization which exists for the conduct of public worship, to which are joined Christian exhorta- tion and works of beneficence, might be thought to be in no need of such a demonstration. Is not this organi- zation itself the Church .? Is it not to this that we must apply all that is said of the Church as being the body and the bride of Christ ? To this we must answer VII.] of Human Societies, 261 unhesitatingly in the negative. So little is it right to identify the Church with the system of public worship that it is possible to imagine a Christian Church entirely without it. Indeed, it may be maintained that this is the ideal of Christianity : there is no temple in the New Jerusalem ^ If the presence of God could become all- pervading, formal worship would no longer be needed, or would at least undergo a great change. And further, as a matter of history, if we consider how constantly the system of public worship and teaching has been a nar- rowing and dividing influence, the parent of confusion, of quarrels, of persecutions, of wars, we shall entirely refuse to identify it with the Church itself. We may fur- ther observe that the tendency of modern thought and practice is increasingly to restrict its sphere. If, then, we believe it to be destined to be permanent, still more if we think it the highest of all the modes of human society, there is assuredly none which more needs to vindicate its capacity to be the organ of Christian uni- versality. Certainly, it can never be the organ of universal love so long as correct definitions of the great objects of faith and of the spiritual processes of redemption are made the test of fellowship : for these are matters which must always appear different to different minds, and which, indeed, are incapable of definition. Nor can it be, so long as the forms of organization are regarded as es- sential, nor so long as so much of Christian teaching is ' taken up, as it frequently is now, with speculations about another world ; nor again, so long as it is looked upon mainly as the means of individual rather than of common good. The common worship of the universal Church must tend constantly to unity, not to division ; it must include all who acknowledge the supremacy of the * Rev. xxi. 22. See the views of Rothe quoted in Note XX. 262 The Christian Basis [lect. Christian spirit. Its language must be that of the invita- tions, ' Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest ; ' ' Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.' It must set forth the spirit and life of Christ as the great object to be sought ; it must inspire men with a longing for these. Compared with this all forms of organization and all positive institutions must be held to be of quite secondary im- portance. It must not adjourn the hope of eternal life to another state of existence, but must help men to realize the divine now in their common life. It must promote 1 not a selfish spirituality, but a love which expands to the full measure of that of God. Those who minister as its leaders must imbue themselves with this universal spirit, and become the examples and the channels of it to all whom they lead. We say that the organization for public worship, exhortation, and mutual well-doing is capable of this universality ; that it is capable of it in the highest degree, and that it is capable of imbuing all the other organizations with it. Let us show this in reference to its various functions, which are Common Prayer, the Sacraments, Christian instruction and beneficence. Each of these would, in the ideal we are contemplating, partake of, and minister to, the spirit of Christian universalism. The prayers of the universal church must be inspired with the chief of all prayers, 'Thy Kingdom come,' the undertone of which must be heard through every special petition. They must lead the worshippers to forget self as much as possible by bringing the general interests of men before their minds. They must pray not only for the rulers and the laws, but for the elevation of the poor, for the progress of knowledge and art and literature, for union among the nations of the West, and for their influence over the weaker races VII.] of Huma7i Societies, 263 of mankind. Worship must be, to be brief, a bringing before God of the real needs of the whole community : the hallowing of life in all its branches must be con- ducted here in the way of aspiration. The Sacrament of Baptism vrill be regarded, first, as the bringing of a new member into the brotherhood to which the universal love of God is made known ; and, secondly, as the consecration of the individual to God and to the brotherhood. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper will be regarded not merely as an individual partaking of Christ, but as the means of realizing His life in the life of the community. It is the means by which the society distinctly asserts itself as a society belonging to Him, appropriates Him, imbibes His Spirit : the means by which it realizes the fellowship of His members, and strengthens itself for the task of imparting His Spirit to mankind. But it does all this as a function of the universal society, not for the actual worshippers alone, nor as if the Sacrament were an unique ordinance v/ithout extension or counterpart be- yond itself. It is the symbol or representation of the whole life, and the centre of a sacramentalism which extends through the whole range of human existence. As a commemoration, it associates with the central work of the Redeemer all redemptive efforts, and all manifestations of universal, self-renouncing love which have been seen throughout the whole course of history. As an offertory, it brings material offerings, an earnest of the whole harvest of the material world, to consecrate them to the service of God and man. As a sacrifice, it demands and ensures the spirit of sacrifice throughout the whole community. As a communion, it concen- trates, in thought, all the modes of human intercourse which we have specified, and ensures their becoming the channels of spiritual good through the sympathy which, like an electric current, it sends through their 264 The Chris tia7t Basis [lect. linked hands. It shows also the means by which this may become effectual, namely, by making outward and visible things universally the signs and the means of in- ward and spiritual grace ; the means, that is, by which men may recognize in each other, and transmit to one another, the spirit which flows from their union with Christ. Similarly, the instruction given in connexion with Divine worship, an instruction in which as many as are competent should be invited to bear their part, must be in harmony with the objects of the universal com- munity. It must show the Christian spirit as a power pervading all things, and must help men to realize it in all their occupations. It must bring the universal interest to ennoble each separate endeavour. It must explain to men the facts of human life, and the events both of the past and of the present in connexion with the general destination of the Church. This will furnish a constant supply of illustrations, which are also a kind of sacramental media. The examples of Scripture and of history enable us to see the universal principle in the particular instance, and become the means by which men recognize truth and convey right feeling one to the other, and thus promote Christian fellowship. This is especially true of the great Example which must always be the most prominent subject of our teaching. But the highest form of pulpit instruction is that of exhortation ; and through this the Church must kindle an unfailing hopefulness and stimulate the spirit of Christian enter- prise. While this is done, the doctrines of the Church will fall into their proper place, being never in the air, but ballasted by a constant appeal to experience and the responsibility of immediate action ^ And, similarly, Christian beneficence of all kinds, * See Note XXI. A quotation from ' Ecce Homo.' VII.] of Human Societies. 265 though its peculiar property is to be minutely personal, must be inspired by univ^ersal interests. The immediate contact with those whom we seek to benefit must be guided by wisdom and by constantly extending know- ledge. Otherwise it becomes harmful. But the sense of universalism will prevent us from looking upon know- ledge, such, for instance, as that of political economy, as a foreign and restrictive power. It is part of God's reve- lation to us, the means of guiding us to sound results. Moreover, the history of the Church shows us that out of the organizatior> for religious worship have issued suc- cessively all the greater organizations of society, systems of constitutional government, education, art, the festivals and jubilees of social intercourse. The system of worship begat them all, and they remained for a long time under its tutelage. And this process still continues. The lead- ers of public worship and teaching are often found to be the pioneers of the march of human progress, as in the case of popular education in this century. But these children of the Church grow up, and can be no longer under the tutelage of the ministers of public worship. They must then either pass on to the care of the general government, as has been the case with the Poor Law, Education, and the Reformatory system in our day, or must exist as independent institutions within the general community. This is not, as it is frequently represented, a transition from the care of the Church to that of a secular power, but from the care of the society organized for worship to that of the more general Christian com- munity. Moreover, when the spirit of universalism is fully ac- cepted, the leaders of public worship will be not the most exclusive, but the most open of orders. However great is the position of leaders in such a sphere, it is at once marred by exclusiveness. The spirit of universalism demands that, so far as order and other circumstances 266 The Christian Basis [lect. will allow, the leaders of worship should share their functions with others. They will aim, not at making themselves indispensable and keeping their place above the rest, but at such an imparting of knowledge and right feeling to others as will progressively diminish the dis- tance between them ; and (though this is impossible in this world) they will wish that this process might be so complete that an order of ministers should no longer be necessary, but that all should, according to their vary- ing capacities, take their share in a free and orderly worship. 2. That which in common estimation is, after the or- ganization for public worship, the most capable of ful- filling the functions of the Church is the family. The family is, as we may say, naturally Christian. It best enables us to trace the divine basis which, as we are pointing out, properly belongs to all spheres of social union. It may, indeed, be degraded into sensuality, or tyranny, or dulness. The Fathers of the Church in the fourth century did not scruple to abase it, and even deride it, in contrast to the ascetic life ^ But the love of husband and wife, of parents and children, of masters and servants, has always a window which stands wide open to heaven. When the Christian idea is fully realized, the family passes, without raising any difficulty in our * See the writings of St. Jerome, which exercised the widest social influence in his own and the succeeding centuries. Esp. Ep. xxii. (Ed. Vallarsi) : 'Ad Eustochium De Custodia Virginitatis ; ' liv. : *Ad Furiam, De Viduitate Servanda ; ' cxxiii. : * Ad Ageruchiam, De Mono- gamia ; ' also the books ' Adv. Helvidium,' and ' Adv. Jovinianum.' Jerome's theory is that, though marriage is allowable, virginity is much more acceptable to God. He does not condemn marriage, but, by taking every opportunity of showing its inferiority and its incon- veniences, he does all that a rehgious teacher can to degrade it. The other Church writers of that age, when Christianity was gaining its final ascendancy, both in East and West (some exception being made for Chrysostom), were hardly behind him ; and the influence of the ' age of the great fathers ' endured to the Reformation and beyond. ^ VII.] of Htinian Societies, 267 thoughts, into a little kingdom of God. The love of husband and wife, which is a mutual self-giving and a mutual appropriation, becomes the exchange of Christian graces, the enjoyment of Christian confidence. The sub- jection of children to their parents, which at times has had so much harshness in it, becomes their training in the free obedience of Christians, and in capacity for service. The process of nourishment and maintenance becomes the means of evoking Christian care on the one side, Christian gratitude on the other. The relation of servants and masters becomes a union in a common vocation, in which the master leads and the servant follows with free and intelligent sympathy. The family is a school of sub- mission and self-denial, but one in which this discipHne is sweetened by Christian affection ^ Moreover, the family is a microcosm. In it are found the rudiments of all the social conditions : of common w^orship, which is nowhere more real or more precious than in the home ; of knowledge, for our first lessons are learnt at our mother's knee ; of art, for childhood delights in representation, and its Hfe is made up of songs and play ; of social intercourse, and of government. The family feeling, moreover, is a constant support in our public career. The nations were believed in old times to have grown out of families ; and the highest ideal we can form of a nation, nay, of the human race as a whole, is that of a vast family or brotherhood. It may be said that the family has been definitively won for Christ, so far as Christian love is self-renouncing ; but, so far as Christian love is universal, it still needs the process of redemption. It is, however, quite as impor- tant in the family as in any other union of men to pre- serve the spirit of universalism. If in the Greek Republics there was a tendency to subject the family too much to ' What is said here of the family is the expansion of the teaching of St. Paul in Ephes. v. and vi, and of St. Peter (i Pet. ii. and iii.). 268 The Christian Basis [lect. the exigencies of the State, in Christian times there has come about too great a divorce between the family and the general community. And hence the family life is apt to grow petty, and to become dull and objectless. The Christian universalism must penetrate the family more and more. The true Christian idea of a family is that of an association in which every member has his function, some within, some without the home circle, but which affords a meeting point and a harbour of rest, where a higher life of piety or thought or art or worthy recreation can be cultivated by all in common, and where each can gain, through sympathy and prayer and affection, the support which he needs for his special work. Such an association is truly a branch of the universal Church, its intercourse Christian communion, its meals sacraments, its life a divine service ; it is in itself a kingdom of God, and its aim the establishment of that kingdom every- where. 3. Turning now to the associations which spring from the pursuit of knowledge — the school, the university, the scientific society, the literary club, — we may say that all men have a part in these ; for all men may join in the cultivation of knowledge in its widest sense, by educa- tion, observation, experience, reading, and lastly by con- versation ; for knowledge becomes fixed in language, and thus passes from the learned to the unlearned till it be- comes the universal inheritance. But we must fix our minds here upon the associations consciously designed for the increase of knowledge, and show that these are, in their true essence, branches of the Christian Church. The objects of knowledge are in themselves divine, for all are parts of the world in which God continually works. Each perception is a perception of an object inseparable from its connexion with the Infinite, the Eternal, the Holy. The aspiring learner, therefore, reaches out to- wards the great unity, and is from the first in some sort a VII.] of Human Societies. 269 worshipper. IMoreover, knowledge is of universals. We never know an individual object till we have classed it ; and this path of generalization must be pursued till it reaches the highest point, the central unity, which is none other than God. Again, knowledge is personal : we never know a thing until we have some feeling about it, and until we have in some way connected it with ourselves. Thus moral feelings are necessarily evoked, whether those of simple admiration and awe, of delight, or of the sense of utility ; whether it be a reflection on the harmony of the Kosmos, or on the progress of the human race, or on the development of the faculties of man in their contact with their objects. But all such feelings lead us up to the desire for the highest good for ourselves and for the race, the Christian feeling of self- renouncing, universal love. Again, knowledge is gradu- ated. There is, as has been said ^ a scale in the mind by which we value the different portions of knowledge. We cannot but value most that which is most important to man. W^e look therefore upon all knowledge as sub- ordinate to the highest knowledge, the knowledge of moral good, of that of which the Cross of Christ is the fullest expression. 'The mental unity,' says M. Comte^, * vainly sought before the time by the noble impulse of scholasticism, will inevitably result from the constant convergence of a science which has become philosophical and a philosophy which has become scientific. The study of man, moral and social, will obtain without resistance the just and normal ascendancy which belongs to it' Knowledge, therefore, is essentially moral. But it is also social and the means of social union. Knowledge, indeed, hardly exists till it is expressed. There is in us an irresistible tendency to impart what we know : we * Crozier, * Religion of the Future,' pp. 256-7 (Kegan Paul & Co., i88o). * From ' Cours de Philosophie Positive,' vol. vi. 406 (Littre's Ed.). 270 The Christian Basis [lect. can, probably, only think by means of words ; and when we have thought, a kind of sympathetic longing makes us desire to speak out the thought ; and speech and writ- ing make it the property of others and engender in them the same feelings which it has wrought in us. Moreover, knowledge is too vast to be pursued by one man alone. We at once feel our indebtedness to those who have pre- ceded us, and to our fellow-workers in the same field, and to those who are treading paths of knowledge of which we know nothing but what they win for us. We are dependent on them and they on us. Thus the social spirit in its noblest form is evoked by the pursuit of knowledge. We become associates in the discovery of the will of God, in appropriating and following out His thoughts. And this is not the case only as to our own special sphere. Through conversation, and books, and social intercourse, we enter into the spheres of other learners. Language becomes the depository of each fact which is ascertained ; and by the knowledge and use of language we take in some parts of every sphere of human knowledge. It is this which connects the literary and humane with the physical and non-human branches of study. Thus the pursuit of knowledge is not only a religion in itself, but also founds and maintains a branch of the universal Church. Such a Church every place of learning must become which does its work in a liberal and sympathetic spirit. Its pursuit of knowledge is a holy service rendered to God and man. Its teachers are ministers of God, leading, animating, inspiring those who learn. The longing to know becomes a prayer : the presentation of the results of knowledge becomes a Sacrament, that is, the conveying of the unseen and Eternal Truth by means of things sensible and palpable : the interchange of ideas becomes a mode of fellowship and of mutual well-doing, of which, indeed, no nobler form can be found. VII.] of Human Societies, 271 4. That Art, in a similar way, is properly and essen- tially religious, and that its common pursuit constitutes a branch of the Christian and universal Church, is no less demonstrable. Art is the representation of objects, not as they are in themselves, but as we apprehend, or rather as we feel them. The first art is that of tone and gesture which are parts of ourselves : in all its developments art is intensely personal ; and that which is personal is necessarily moral ; and what is moral is religious. But, further, the desire for expression is the soul of art. What is this longing for expression but a yearning to breathe forth towards some responsive intelligence that which we have so keenly felt, a yearning which has in it the element of sympathy and therefore of morality .'* Even if art be motived, as some hold, only by the sense of beauty, if it only express the pleasure we feel in an object, still pleasure is of different degrees of worth, and rises in the scale according to the culture and the spiri- tual condition of him who gives and him who receives it ^ If the pleasure which art gives is an excellence of humanity generally, it must thereby become the subject of religion which seeks to elevate the whole life of man- kind. And, if one whole side of nature is the beautiful, we may rightly say that the beautiful is a part of the nature of God, and the cultivation of beauty by means of art is necessarily a kind of worship. IMoreover, art is more distinctly than any other part of our nature a gift from above. It is more distinctly original and creative. If we ask why there should have been but one Homer and one Raphael, we can make no answer but that God has so willed. Even the artist himself will at times stand before his work and wonder how he created it, and mis- trust his power of reproducing it. Thus we are brought ^ See, in Note XXII., a quotation from Sir F. Leighton's Lecture, entitled, ' What is the relation in which Art stands to Morals and Reli- gion ?* 272 The Christian Basis [lect. very near to the original creative energy : and we have here a fruitful source of admiration, and of that longing towards what we feel to be above us, which is a true form of worship. These remarks apply equally whether the medium of our representation be sound or words or colour or form. But we may go further, and point out that art is abso- lutely universal. The artistic feeling, that of pleasure in making our work beautiful and complete, is a neces- sary part of all true work. Till our work becomes to us a subject of delight, we have no heart in it, we can neither show any excellence in it nor commend it to others. And in this the ancient and modern senses of art are reconciled. All applications of knowledge to production are arts in the ancient sense. In their excel- lence and perfection they are all in the modern sense artistic. All work that is conscientiously done must aim at perfection. We seek to make our work stand out as a complete whole, and thus the sense of beauty is aroused and becomes a factor in all that we do. Every producer, every workman, shares this artistic feeling, and shares it in the proportion of his excellence and conscientiousness. Nor is art indifferent, as is some- times asserted, to the moral sense ; for in every walk of art that which is morally degrading, so soon as it is felt to be degrading, is necessarily banned as bad taste. Art is essentially moral and religious, not as confining itself to the representation of things moral and religious and taking a didactic attitude, but because it is in itself an excellence of human nature, because of its capacity to afford an ennobling pleasure, because the beauty at which it aims is a part of the divine nature, and because it contains in itself a fund of delight for the rest and refreshment of a weary world ^ ^ See, in Note XXII., the passage from Sir F. Leighton's Lecture already referred to. vil] of Human Societies, 273 But, further, the fellowship which art begets is insepa- rable from its cultivation. We want to express ourselves to others and to witness their expression of themselves. Thus art becomes a form of intercourse, a form of educa- tion or self-development, a form also of instruction, we might almost say of preaching, were the idea of preach- ing somewhat extended. We are, moreover, most power- fully affected by the feelings which art conveys, when we feel them in common with many others. And this common feeling ministers strongly to the higher forms of sympathy. Thus art becomes a binding link between men, and draws them together towards God. It forms ' a society which must properly be called a Church. Its yearning towards the ideal is a worship, a prayer. The sharing in artistic impressions is a genuine form of common worship. Art has its canons of taste which are its doctrinal articles ; it has its ministers, its votaries, its sacraments or representations of the inner and spiri- tual by means of the external ; its fellowship and its mutual well-doing, — a form of beneficence which even now is taking a wide and salutary extension, and is destined to occupy no mean place in the full redemption of human life. 5. The union of men for social intercourse is still more definitely a form of religion ; for we meet to impart to others the best that we have and to receive the best that they can give us. The more fully, the more enthusias- tically, a man throws himself into society, the more he gives himself. The more truly he cares for his com- panions, the more real and deep the intercourse be- comes. But what is it that we thus give and receive } Ourselves. But much more than ourselves ; for we are those in whom God lives. Our faculties : but much more than our faculties ; for these have become spiritual gifts. So that in social intercourse in its highest forms we mutually give and receive that which is Divine. 18 2 74 '^^^^ Christian Basis [lect. And this is the case with social intercourse of all kinds, if only it be inspired with the Christian principle. Even in games, in sport, in the dance, the real charm is to be found in what we see of one another. We see the spiritual being expressing itself, possibly with more reality, because with more freedom, than in more serious pursuits. But the media of intercourse, varying as they do with culture, express different parts of the man ; and each of these media has a religious element in it. The friendships of school or college, begun perhaps in games and in the light interests of youth, but going deeper and deeper until the friends know each other almost without reserve ; the friendships springing from common inter- ests in the fields of knowledge, or of art, or practical work ; the conversation of cultured men on literature or the events of the day ; even the simple interest in each other's health and welfare which are natural to us all ; all these are the means for the exchange of the higher feelings, of care and love for one another, which, where the Spirit of Christ reigns, are religious acts of the highest importance. To mix with our fellow-men, what is it but to keep up our union with the body of Christ } To give out our qualities to them, what is it but to edify the body of Christ ? And, further, the discipline of social intercourse is an important part of our religious training. It is there that self-restraint is imposed, that taste is formed, that cour- tesy is exercised ; and there that we are brought under the criticism of our fellows, whose judgment, if it be sound, is as the judgment of God. It is also a school of liberality, for in hospitality we freely give and receive ; and it is the means of smoothing away the asperities which are often engendered by direct intercourse on matters of business. In free conversation also we find points of common feeling with those whom we had thought to be wholly estranged from us. Such inter- VII.] of Huma^t Societies, 275 course, further, serves many of the best interests of the larger Church of the nation and the community of nations ; for in the nation it creates a general under- standing among its more cultured classes ; and in the still wider sphere its effects are felt, since society is largely international, and ideas and feelings are com- municated at times more fully through social intercourse than through the more formal channels of business or diplomacy. Society must, however, in order to fulfil these func- tions, inspire itself to the fullest extent with the universal spirit. Society must open its doors wide, to admit as large a range as possible of those who can profit by it ; and those kinds of social intercourse should be most fostered which bring together men of various ranks on the footing of common and mutual interest, so that they may know each other's feelings and opinions. The social life thus becomes a branch of the Church. The' leaders, if they realize their responsibility, become its ministers'; the external objects, the interest in which draws men together, become Sacraments ; its meetings a religious fellowship, its whole conduct a Service of God. 6. The intercourse of men in trade and professional life is also a means of religious good. The saying of Aristotle ^ that, wherever there is a field for justice, there is also a field for love, may be supplemented in the Christian philosophy by the observation that wherever there is a field for love, there is also a field for the opera- tion of the Divine Spirit. In business we deal with what is most obvious and necessary. In this the real man comes out. We know each other most sincerely, if not in the deepest way, through business. Moreover, busi- * Eth. Nic. viii. 9. It appears then that friendliness and justice are concerned with the same subjects and move in the same sphere ; for, wherever there is a community of interest, there is room for justice, and room also for friendly action. 276 The Christian Basis [lect. ness is the most necessary bond which binds men to each other. It is also the witness to the higher need of mental and spiritual intercourse. And it is most uni- versal, since every man must take part in buying and selling. Business also is the parent of one of the great- est of virtues, that of industry, without the exertion of which it must fail ; and of all the intellectual virtues which circle round inventiveness which vastly heightens its success. Thus a necessary and permanent ground is laid for the whole system of moral and political inter- course, a home, therefore, for the religion of Christ. Society comes together in order to live ; but it really exists that men may live well ^ This saying of Aristotle leads up to the religious view of trade. It is a great system for the relief of mankind, for the development of the earth and its reduction under man's dominion ; in other words, for its transformation from a material to a spiritual state 2. It opens the way for mutual benefit, a way in which honesty and enterprise, and even self- sacrifice, often succeed better than mere calculation. It gives also to human labour its true dignity ; and it con- stantly tends to put aside fictitious claims, for there is no better test to which the pretentious talker can be sub- jected than to ask what character he bears in his own circle of business. Nor are the media of intercourse here merely brute and material. The material gains its value, * Politics, i. 2. 8. The city (or State) which comes into existence for the necessities of life but in its proper nature exists for the sake of living well. See also B. iii. 6, especially § 4. ^ ' The earthly material Nature, as lived in by the human race, and already relatively taken into possession by it, is the object of appro- priate action ; this Nature, I mean, in its close connexion with the history of man and expressly bound up with this. We may shortly ex- press it : the Object towards which the human individual in its ethical action directs its moral functions in order to appropriate it to the human personality, this is its World.' R. Rothe, ' Theol. Ethics,' vol. ii. p. 126. VII.] of Human Societies. 277 and becomes an article of commerce, simply from the human labour and skill bestowed upon it. It is there- fore, so to speak, humanized and spiritualized matter, and as such draws forth our human sympathies. We' can hardly avoid thinking- from time to time of those who have toiled in distant countries, or under hard condi- tions, to supply the common articles of our food or dress, or the staple of our industry, and feeling that something of gratitude and of sympathy associates us with them. The companies which exist for trade purposes, also, though less closely bound together (since the liability of each member, to give an extension to a commercial phrase, is limited), still form moral relations between their members, and a common life, which is susceptible of noble impulses, such as the spirit of hope and of enter- prise, and ministers powerfully to the good of mankind. Lastly, trade is universal, since it brings all parts of the world together, and is the great pioneer of mutual knowledge between the nations, and the channel through which they may aid one another throughout the whole range of the needs which are supplied by Christian civilization. Free trade, therefore, is not only an economical but a moral and a religious principle. The great and growing society of commerce becomes, =^ therefore, like every other form of human society, a branch of the universal Church. Its ministers are mer- chants and tradesmen, its prayer the constant aspiration to increase the well-being and happiness of the human race, its sacraments the commodities, through the ex- change of which the inner life of mutual benevolence and of culture may be communicated, its divine service a constant activity in developing the powers of the earth according to the primaeval command, and in ministering to the needs of God's children who cover its surface. 7. The Nation, or national Church, differs from all voluntary associations, even from that of public worship, 2^8 The Christian Basis [lect. in that it is more distinctly an ordinance of God. The family alone is like it in this respect. We may, as we please, enter more or less into commerce, or social inter- course, or societies for knowledge and art. We may worship alone, or in small societies, or in informal gath- erings. Even of family life we may in a great measure denude ourselves. But we cannot help belonging to the Nation, and that for our whole life, and with all that we have. It is sometimes assumed that the organization for worship is divine, and the family and State, as it is said, merely human. But the contrary is the case. The organization for worship is distinctly and demonstrably a formation of man : the family and the State are institu- tions of nature and of God. Further, the Nation is most universal : every man necessarily belongs to it, and it is bound to take account of every man. It is universal also in this sense, that it contains within itself all the elements of human life. A Nationalist in religion is far more comprehensive in his religious system than one who is technically called by the name of Catholic. The Nation is the most complete of all the societies of men now in existence. We are necessarily pledged to it with our whole existence in this world, for it has the power of directing and even of resuming all our posses- sions, and of life and death over our persons. Hence it calls forth a worship more complete than any other. The political life is the most absorbing of all. We may say also that the Nation is the largest organization ; for the universal Church is as yet unformed, while the Nation is highly organized, and presents a distinct field for religious action. When we consider also the im- mense power which the Nation has over our moral wel- fare by its laws and its educating power, and the influ- ence which it exerts upon all the minor circles of moral life within it ; when we think of it as becoming, as it "^ VII.] of Human Societies, 279 must do more and more, the object of mental regard, of admiration, of love, even of worship (for in it pre- eminently God dwells), we shall recognize to the fullest extent its religious character and functions. The form of national organization to which Christian political thought has guided the Church is that of the Constitutional Monarchy, or of the Republic with a Presi- dent at its head. In this alone the two great principles of a Christian Society receive a complete expression, on the one hand unity, order, and the subjection of each to the whole, on the other hand the sense of independence and responsibility. These two are united by the spirit of Christian trustfulness and brotherhood. In this spirit the Nation will aim continually at educating all its mem- bers to the full political capacity, and at including them all in the circle of political rights. The Christian Nation is in the fullest sense a Church ; or rather, it alone of present organizations can claim the name of the Church ; for, as we have pointed out, the universal Church has no organization as yet. Its aim must be distinctly to impress the spirit of Christ on all its citizens. It has a right to demand the utmost devotion from them ; and it must train them to help one another. It is thus a school of moral relations in the largest extent. And these moral relations must tend always not to justice only but to Christian kindness. The special direction of its policy must be to relieve and to raise the weaker classes of its citizens. It corre- sponds entirely in its functions with the original concep- tion of the Christian Church. It is built upon Christ, that is, its essential idea is that of universal, whole- hearted, self-renouncing love and mutual well-doing. Its rulers alone are spoken of in the New Testament as officially the ministers of God, and they correspond more nearly than any others in their functions to the Elders and Pastors of the primitive Church. It alone has sove- 28o The Chris tia7i Basis [lect. reign power, and can carry its will into effect. ^ It alone can embrace all the wants of its members and afford them the universal instruction and elevation which they need. We must credit it, moreover, with the quali- ties of all the circles of life which it contains. In this way it includes the worshipping body, which is not, as sometimes supposed, itself the Church, but a circle within the Church. The Nation presides over them all, establishing just relations between them, presenting a tribunal to which they can all appeal, and ensuring their free development. There will always be in the Christian Nation different orders, the governors and the governed, the ruling and the subject classes, though it cannot allow the perpetuity of a servile or pauper class. But to the relations of these classes we must especially apply the principle of elec- tion before explained. The true governor does not live for himself, but for those whom he governs. His object is to raise all to the level to which he has himself been first called, to lead the general advance. He is the man in whom the idea of the Nation lives, in whom its aim is most fully represented ; and, being full-charged with this himself, he endeavours to impart it to all, both indivi- duals and classes, within the nation. This is his title to recognition as a ruler. The true ruler is a Good Shep- herd, who sacrifices himself for the flock, not only by willingness to work or to suffer when need exists, but by losing his own life in the life of the people. He would impart his own soul to them, and would be willing, were it possible, that the office of ruler should pass away, pro- vided the spirit of the national brotherhood should dwell in each member and work itself out spontaneously. We may admit that the Nation may change, or may cease to exist. It might become a minor circle within ^ See Note XXIII., a quotation from Dr. Arnold's ' Fragment on the Church.' VII.] of HicTfian Societies, 281 the universal Church, if the universal Church were organ- ized. It might, on the other hand, be broken up into small fragments ; or it might be a member of a confedera- tion. We have to take things as they are ; and we find the Nation alone fully organized, sovereign, independent, universal, capable of giving full expression to the Chris- tian principle. We ought, therefore, to regard the Nation as the Church, its rulers as ministers of Christ, its whole body as a Christian brotherhood, its public assemblies as amongst the highest modes of universal Christian fellowship, its dealing with material interests as Sacra- ments, its progressive development, especially in raising the weak, as the fullest service rendered on earth to God, the nearest thing as yet within our reach to the kingdom of heaven. 8. Yet the Church of Christ is universal, co-extensive with the race. It is true that, the universal community being as yet without organization, all action relating to it is in a rudimentary condition. But it is also true that there is nothing of more importance, nothing, indeed, of more immediate and pressing importance than its organi- zation. For the present, no doubt, the Nation is that which is most universal to us, since it contains all, or almost all, the elements of human life within it. But civilization has now reached a point at which the eyes of all Christian men should be turned distinctly in the direction of the universal Church, with a view to its definite constitution. The Church has been too long content to pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread.' It is time that it should revert to the universal prayer, ' Thy kingdom come.' No individual is complete apart from the Church or Nation ; and similarly no Nation is com- plete without the universal Church. Moreover, each of the separate circles of union which we have enumerated reaches beyond the Nation. The organization for wor- ship takes its sacred readings, its prayers, its saintly 282 The Chris tia7i Basis [lect. examples, its books of devotion, its hymns, from many- nations. The family, by intermarriages and by educa- tion, is connected with foreign countries. Knowledge passes from nation to nation. Art is cosmopolitan ; trade is the unceasing reminder of the interdependence of the whole world ; society is constantly refreshed by foreign intercourse ; and the Nation, though in some respects complete in itself, has also its external aspects ; it is a member of the greater whole of Christendom, and has its friends, its standing, its interests, its sphere of action in the great family of nations. The organization of the universal community must begin with Europe as the leading portion of the human race. It is as yet hardly begun. It can barely be credited with the prevention of war in a single case. Yet this is its first and indispensable function, and the demand for this, which grows louder and louder, must hasten its constitution. If this is regarded as Utopian at present, the presence of the vast subterranean forces of Democracy and Socialism will certainly make it practical before long. These dread twin giants already make the mountain shake, and will eventually upheave it. The Spirit of Christ must go before, and make their action not violent but beneficent. The idea of universal- ity was given by Imperial Rome. Whatever its faults, and they were many, for one great merit it earned the enthusiastic gratitude of mankind, even of the Christian Fathers. The Roman peace endeared the Roman unity ; and the grateful remembrance of it has never been wholly extinguished. The Empire, indeed, was a rule of force, and the Christian spirit failed to penetrate it so as to give it spiritual cohesion. Yet even the barba- rians who overthrew it reverenced the fallen image, and in Charlemagne it seemed to arise once more. The Roman Church organization attempted to create the desired spiritual unity ; and for some five centuries the VII.] of Human Societies, 283 idea of one Church and one Empire floated before the mind of Europe. But it was an idea rather than a reahty, at least as regarded the Empire ; even as an idea ^ it had the fatal fault of being dualistic, the spiritual power seeking not to penetrate but to rival and overtop the secular ; and the Papal authority, never wholly supreme over the national churches, was for all practical purposes extinguished by the Reformation. The Uni- versal Church needs to be built up on the foundation of the Christian nations, which has now been fairly laid. There has been indeed some attempt, by means of congresses and diplomacy, to recognize international obligations, and to avert the ravages of war ^ But behind these there has been hardly any spiritual con- viction. The diplomatist has rarely escaped the im- putation of hypocrisy, pretending to aim at the general good, but seeking always the material interests of his own nation at the expense of those of the rest. The phrase Balance of Power rings of war and rapacity rather than of spiritual brotherhood. We are oppressed by the weight of standing armies, which is fast growing in- tolerable. Yet the Christian spirit which might change this, though recognized by all serious writers on inter- national law, has hardly yet gained any practical and determining power in international affairs. The Alabama Convention, and the attempts at maintaining the Euro- pean concert which the last few years have witnessed, the commercial treaties, the international agreements for coinage and for posts, have shown that the spirit of universalism is rising. But the slightness of its results thus far has disheartened many of its well-wishers.* * Bluntschli, ' Allgemeine Volkslehre,' b. i. c. 2. See Note XXIV. * Woolsey's ' Introduction to the Study of International Law.' See Note XXIV., in which the views of Woolsey and Fiore on Inter- national Law are given, together with the passage from Bliintschli referred to above. 284 The Christian Basis [lect. Yet the universal Church must stand out ever more distinctly before us as a vision and an image looming larger and nearer. Its members are the various nations of Christian Europe, which, though united, are never suppressed, but remain as living organisms. Its object is universal peace, and the carrying of Christian civili- zation to its highest and most universal results. The media of its communion are the universal needs, such as commerce, correspondence, and the possessions of the various nations which it comprehends. Through the regulated use or exchange of these the nations edify one another, and these therefore become the Sacraments of its life and worship. Its organs and its ministries must be established by some kind of repre- sentatives, who will exercise that portion of authority with which the nations voluntarily part. Whatever their particular functions may be, they will be, by virtue of their beneficent mission, truly ministers of God and organs of the Divine Spirit. When Western Europe becomes one great Church, the head or leading portion of the Church of humanity will be organized. It will then have the duty of assim- ilating by degrees the more backward nations to itself. Colonization, commercial and other intercourse with the barbarous and savage races, the progressive effort to raise those races by the infusion among them of the spirit of Christian civilization, will form the functions of the Church now become fully universal ; and the longed- for completion of this process is that which is expressed by the religious words, the building up of the Holy City, the establishment of the kingdom of God, the universal reign of Christ. Two things must be added. First, the various circles of human society, the churches within the Church, such as we have described them, are permanent. They aid one another, and further the life of the whole. Secondly, VII.] of Hitman Societies, 285 the chief of these circles will always be the society for public worship, the inspiring- power of the spiritual life of the whole. On the principle of Election which we have maintained, the elect body is that in which the Christian spirit of universalism is most fully received and enforced, and the sources of the Christian life brought to view, in which the worship is direct, with only such sacramental media as are needed for the bare assertion of the relationship, and in which men join, not on the ground of any special qualification, but only as men related to God and to one another. If the Worshipping Body can imbue itself fully with the spirit of Christian universalism, it will be recognized as the guide and in- spiring power of the whole. It will maintain its supreme position, not by any external power accorded to it, but by the influence which it legitimately wins, by the con- fidence which it inspires, by its power to impart and sus- tain the consciousness of Christ's redemption, by the enthusiasm with which it animates men, by the inter- pretation which it gives them of their present situation and their needs, by the inextinguishable gratitude awak- ened by its beneficence, and by its revelations to the universal Church of the way of the blessed life. LECTURE VIII. PRACTICAL STEPS TOWARDS THE IDEAL. Revelation xxi. 9. Come hither, and I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. In the last Lecture the attempt was made to sketch out the fulness of the universal Church, the condition of the redeemed humanity when fully or normally con- stituted. I propose in the present Lecture to compare - with this the state of things in which we actually live, and to show how a direction may be given to human progress in conformity with the ideal which has been - thus drawn out. We must start from the foundation of things as they are, and commence to build the bridge (not quite so long perhaps as our less hopeful moods would make it appear) which leads up from our present state to the ideal at which we aim. I need not say that, in a single Lecture, all that can be done is to give an in- dication of the direction in which the first steps should be taken in each department of social life. This may best be done by following the lines of the last Lecture, and applying the process successively to each of the circles or associations in which men are bound together. After this a few remarks on the actual tendencies of society, and of the conditions required to conduct these tendencies in the path by which this Chris- tian state is actually to be reached, will bring these Lectures to a close. I. We begin, therefore, as before, with the system of divine worship, with which instruction and beneficence 286 Steps towards Ideal of a Christian World. 287 are combined. It has been pointed out that in the com- pleted state of the Church, the system of pubhc worship will be fully inspired with the universal spirit, the spirit of the world-wide society to which it ministers, and of which it forms a part. It is from its neglect of this that it has become so largely, as it now is, a dividing and sectarian element in the community. What is needed is that Christian doctrines should be interpreted by their bearing upon life and piety. There will then bo little room for division. And further, it is needed that piety should not be cultivated as an isolated thing, which brings on it the tinge of selfishness, but as the means of creating such relations to God and to one another as will issue in right conduct and just feeling in all departments of life. It will thus be kept from the excesses which at present engender division. It is needed, moreover, that the system of public worship should not claim to be the Church, but should be content with being a part of a vast whole, which is the true Church ; for then the minds of its ministers, instead of turning to its more minute details, and falling into disputes about them, will see these details in their true proportion. The same thing may be said as to that which is commonly called Church-government, but which is more truly the arrangement for the conduct of public worship, and the discipline of its ministers. As soon as it is felt that the whole system is not a separate thing, but a function of the greater whole, the exaggerated importance and false assumptions often made concerning it will cease, and it will serve its true office, that of raising into a spiritual condition the general life of mankind. The notion that religion is primarily a cult is not a Christian but a heathen idea. If we identify religion with a peculiar cult, we may say that Christianity is not, in this sense, a religion, and that the expression Christian Religion is a misnomer. Religion was to the ancients almost synonymous with superstitious practices or usages. 288 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. The writers of the New Testament rarely use it, and then usually in a bad sense, as when St. Paul speaks of his liv- ing ' according to the most straitest sect of his religion '.' It passes, indeed, into a better sense, but by a kind of paro- nomasia, as when St. Paul says that the reasonable ser- vice ^ of Christians is to present themselves as an offering to God, or when St. James says that the pure religion (using the word dpriffxeia^) is to visit the poor and to be unspotted by worldliness. In this derivative sense, of doing all things in the fear of God, it has its legitimate use. Unfortunately, it is always in danger of an atavistic relapse, and reverts to its former sense of a system of worship apart from life. From that point begins its decline. Cut off from its proper aliment in real life it becomes enfeebled, and draws down with it all men's thoughts of God and of holiness. But do not these reflections imply that the system of public worship, so commonly identified with the Church * Acts xxvi. 5. BpriGKeia : this word is used only in this passage, and in James i. 26, 27. The word for 'The Jews' religion' in Gal. i. 14 is 'lovfJafcr^df. '^ Rom. xii. i. The word Aarpeia is the regular word in the LXX. and Hellenistic Greek for ritual (Ex. xi. 25, 26 ; Heb. ix. i, 6). It is adopted by St. Paul for heart religion in this passage and in Phil. iii. 3. ^ Jas. i. 26, 27. dprjGKeia^ usually applied to the outward observances of worship. It is used again in Col. ii. 18, ' A voluntary humility and worshipping of angels.' Other words denoting worship are used mainly in the sense of Jewish piety, which was primarily the observance of ordinances, as oe(3o/j,ai in Acts xiii. 43, * Religious proselytes ; ' TrpocKvvec)^ as in I Cor. xiv. 25, 'Falling down on his face he will worship God ;' and often in Rev. ; £vla(ijj^ and evae^Tjq^ in several places for * devout * men according to the law; depaTzeviom Acts xvii. 25, 'Neither is wor- shipped with men's hands.' But none of these are applied to the public worship of the church. The existence of church-worship is, no doubt, recognized ; but the fact that only one distinct exhortation to public worship (Heb. x. 25, to which may perhaps be added Heb. xiii. 15) occurs in the New Testament shows how small a place was, in the minds of the first Christian teachers, occupied by a system which has in aftertimes been almost identified with the Church in men's estimation. VIII.] of a Christian World. 289 itself, is gradually and surely losing ground? And is not this decline one of the facts of our present situation, par- tially in England, much more on the Continent? Will not this decline continue until the system of public wor- ship ceases ? So thought Richard Rothe S the greatest, and certainly not the least pious, of those who have writ- ten on the subject embraced by these Lectures. He is even said to have seen without sorrow, and to have thought quite natural, the tendency, so marked in Germany, to let public w^orship fall into neglect ; and he had the courage, speaking of the association for worship as being itself the Church, to say that the Church must dwindle and cease to be when the other spheres of life should have become fully imbued with religion. Were that so, it would not be that the Church had ceased, but that, within the Church, the function of public worship had ceased. But it is not true that the system of public wor- ship is likely to fall permanently into discredit. The true explanation of the phenomena which seem to men to im- ply the dwindling of the Church is this, that whereas the system of public worship had in many directions over- stepped its proper limit, and had undertaken what more properly belongs to the national organizations, or to the organizations for knowledge and for art, it is now losing its power over these departments, and is being thrust back from them. This has, no doubt, caused a certain mistrust of it to be felt, but the alienation, we may well believe, is only temporary. It may be in the future more honoured and more fruitful than ever in its proper sphere. Meanwhile, the functions which it had in a measure usurped are being taken over by other depart- ments, which are, slowly but resolutely, resuming their own as branches of the Church. Reasons have been given for believing that, in the complete state of the universal Church, the system of ^ See, in Note XX., the opinion of Rothe. 19 290 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. public worship and instruction will hold a high, and even the highest, place, as the inspirer of the whole. For this it must prepare itself. And if it be asked what is the point at which the vivifying contact may- be maintained between the system of public worship and the inculcation of Christian piety on the one side and the national and universal Church on the other, the answer is, the Parochial system. Wherever a cure of souls exists, not congregational but territorial, so that the whole life of the population is brought under the influences which circle round the parish church, there a connexion is established with the Church national and universal. Amongst the members of the parish are samples of all kinds of persons, and of all the needs of humanity. The parish or commune is a little nation, which should manage its own affairs, those of public worship as well as others, on the con- stitutional system, which springs direct from the spirit of Christian brotherliness ^ This process connects the clergy with the liberal influences of the Church at large, making them act less as if they were themselves the Church, or had exclusive power within it ; but it gives them also a position in which they may exert their legitimate influence. A nation which, in all its ter- ritorial fractions, is subject to this influence, supposing that this influence is wisely used, in the name not of an order but of Christ and of mankind, becomes more and more capable of discharging the functions of a Church, that is, of a society caring for each of its mem- bers with Christian and brotherly love. It is from this point of view that we may best judge of the question which is commonly called the question of Church and State. If the views which have been expressed in these Lectures are well founded, there can be no question of Church and State, since the nation * See Note XXV., on Parochial Organization. VIII.] of a Christian World, 291 is itself the truest development of the Church. And this is the actual state of things in England, since the English nation has never recognized any Church of England but itself. It has recognized various func- tions within the Church ; and it has established, as corporations sole or aggregate, the responsible minis- ters of public worship, while giving, as we have seen, full liberty of worship to all its members. But it never ^ incorporated or established as a Church a body of per- sons distinct from the nation. There is, therefore, within the nation a body of established clergy, but no established Church. The question which is erroneously spoken of as the question of Church and State is really the question whether the Christian community, the nation or national Church, ought by public act and recognition to maintain the system of worship, instruc- tion, and beneficence administered by the clergy. It may justly be felt that, the more the nation accepts, according to the view taken in these Lectures, the posi- tion of a Christian Church, and opens itself to the teach- ing and influence of Christian ministers in all its parochial divisions, the more likely it will be to main- tain and reform the existing system as a function of the national life. But, if the clergy, with the tacit con- ' Perhaps the case of the Church of Ireland forms an exception to this. The Act under which it was set up is in form permissive ; but the Corporate Body of the Church becomes by that Act a recognized and established institution with legal attributes : and the Act lays down many binding conditions as to the framework of the Church. We have therefore the paradox that in England there is no estabUshed Church, and that the only established Church existing in the British Empire is the so-called disestablished Church of Ireland ; and further that, so far as it is proposed to apply the Irish precedent to England, what is aimed at is not the disestablishment of the Church (for there is no corporate body to overthrow), but the setting up or establishment of that which has never before existed, a great, and I may add clerical, corporation endowed with great powers and emoluments by the nation, yet severed from the national life. 292 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. sent of the people, enter upon a course which narrows the sphere of their ministry and influence, and reduces the system committed to their charge to the bare func- tions of worship, preaching, and charity, caring almost exclusively for those wko take part in these functions, and having hardly any regard for the general life ; if the organization for public worship inculcates a moral system antiquated, onesided, disowned by the national conscience ; if it refuses all brotherly intercourse with the voluntary societies for worship ; if, in a word, it becomes clerical and congregational instead of paro- chial and national, a sect instead of a branch or inner circle of the Church, the national Church could not treat it otherwise than as it treats the family or those parts of human life which are best left under private management. The Church, the Christian nation, would remain ; but the system of .worship, thus shrunk, would be left to the conduct of private associa- tions. And yet it is hardly possible that this should come to pass where the provision for worship forms a vast system conterminous with the nation : for either this system is regarded as being itself the Church, or it is a function, according to our contention, of the nation which is the Church. In the former case it can hardly be left to itself; for the necessary tendency of a Church is to grow into a State, or at least to absorb the func- tions of the State ; so that to cut off the Church from the State, were it possible, would be to construct an imperium in imperio, a source of unceasing discord. In the latter case, that is, if the nation acknowledges itself to be a Church, it can hardly do otherwise than have its own system of worship, maintaining its paro- chial character, and giving it such reforms as will make it minister to the national wants. 2. We turn now to the Family Life, the second of the VIII.] oj a Christian World, 293 social circles within the greater whole of humanity and of mankind. The family life is so necessary and so Christian in its very nature, that its highest, most ideal condition does not lie out of sight of our ordinary Christian ex- perience. We cannot doubt its continuance, nor the continuance of the sanctions and safeguards which support it. We may trace, not perhaps without some misgivings, reasons for believing that, in our own country at least, it is fulfilling its functions progres- sively better, and that the narrowness which is apt to cling to it will be purged away. But it is menaced by t\yo grave dangers, each of which it must be the work of the Christian spirit to dissipate. It is of no use to hide the fact that, both in France and in the United States of America, two branches of the Church each of which is in a different way specially advanced, there is a disposition to decline or to limit very narrowly the duty of parentage. Not to dwell upon the means by which this is effected, supposing that those means are innocent, which is exceedingly doubtful, the result cannot but be most pernicious. In the family life it destroys much of the tenderness of both the married and the parental relation. In public life it diminishes the inventive- ness which is called forth by the necessity of the sup- port of children, and limits the fresh supply of citizens. If in America the supply is made up from Europe, yet the predominance of heterogeneous elements is by no means desirable ; and the moral conditions of selfishness and lack of hope, which it reveals and which it fosters, are becoming the subject of grave alarm. In France it is felt by statisticians and economists as a matter of life and death, and appearances at present point to the latter and worse alternative ^ In reference to the more general * The facts as to the decrease of the French population (except in the 294 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. life of the world, the evil is still more serious ; for com- merce, colonization, invention, are of the essence of its fuller life, which demands the reclamation of the waste parts of the earth and the influence of the advanced upon the backward races. These enterprises require the ex- tension of the energies of the leading nations ; and, if these grow weak and become inadequate to the task, our best hopes for the world will be frustrated. In England it may be said that this danger is little felt : the fears conceived by Malthus eighty years ago have proved groundless ; our population is healthily increasing ; and there is no reason for more than the ordinary restraint in postponing marriage according to the dictates of pru- dence. Yet there have not been wanting phenomena among ourselves of a contrary tendency ; and that which is a recognized custom in France and America can hardly fail to affect England. It is necessary, therefore, to strengthen by religious hope, and by destroying the illusions which breed despair, the foundations of family life. The more its blessedness and sanctity as an inner circle of Christ's Church is realized, the more also the duty is felt of making our private ease give way to the benefit of mankind in the largest sense, the less disposed towns and in one or two of the Northern Departments) are notorious. They are well summed up in a statistical paper in the Times of Jan. 25, 1883. The writer speaks of the causes of this decrease as follows : ' The increasing sterility of the nation can have no other causes assigned to it but those of habit and calculation.' * No reason can be sustained except that before mentioned, the growing indisposition of the people to have large families ; and, with the increase of wealth in the country, it is probable that this indisposition will increase instead of diminishing.' Similar testimonies are constantly borne to the decrease of the old stock in New England, and indeed of the unwillingness to have famiUes in the native population of the United States generally, even in the flourishing states of the west. The evils connected with this (which indeed can hardly escape the notice of any one travelling in America) were described in the concluding chapter of Mr. Barham Zincke's ' Last Winter in the United States.' Murray, 1868. VIII.] of a Christian World, 595 shall we be to place an unhealthful limit to the growth of the family. The other danger is that social evil, the vast extent of which, whether it be or be not upon the increase, is cer- tainly a ground for alarm and for exertion. The preach- ing of discipline and self-restraint to individuals, the inculcation of purity as a Christian duty, is no doubt a powerful deterrent from this evil, and so is the knowledge of the physical misery entailed by it, not on individuals merely, but on generation after generation. But the evil is still more one to be dealt with by the Church itself in its largest capacity. The healthier and fuller develop- ment of the various forms of life which we have traced out, through their recognition as branches or functions of the Church, will, we may confidently expect, have a beneficial influence : especially v/ill this be the case when women are more fully admitted to an equality with men, and receive a similar education ; for with such common knowledge comes mutual respect and an addition to the sense of responsibility and the power of self-guidance. The occupation of the mind also with worthier spheres, and the increase of hope, which is thus engendered, will, we may believe, tend to save us from the vices, which, in their most venial forms, are the vices of thoughtless- ness, and in their worst forms the vices of despair. But the increase of wealth which, if better distributed, will allow the poorer classes ic> rise to self-respect is also a necessary condition ; and this again is dependent on the cessation of the vast expenditure upon war, and on the political measures by which the weaker classes are raised and the inequalities of social conditions diminished. Thus the national Church and the universal Church have directly to do with family life and private morality ; and by restoring the Church idea, we may operate powerfully upon both the family and the individual. 3. Turning next to the sphere of Knowledge, what we 296 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. have to aim at is a better co-ordination of its various de- partments. A vi^arning as to this is needed everywhere in the present day, and, owing to the vast extension of the subjects of study, is specially needed in our Univer- sity. Its need is felt by all who look upon human knowledge as a whole ; but I give a description of the danger by preference from one who began with the criti- cal side of special studies, and worked thence to the building of the general edifice, M. Auguste Comte ^ ' The dispersive habits,' he says, ' which have been antecedently contracted have in our day pushed the pre- liminary regime of scientific speciahsm to the most dis- astrous exaggeration, and that at the very epoch at which it ought to give way to the definitive regime of rational generality at once mental and social. There is a revolt against the fundamental dualism, the dualism which supplements analysis by synthesis. The masons of our day will no longer suffer the architect.' I venture here to make an appeal to the students of Physical Science. It is no longer necessary to bid those engaged in the moral and social sciences or in divinity take note of the discoveries of the students of the natural sciences. Those discoveries, and even the hypotheses founded upon them, are for the most part adequately recognized : the pursuit and the spirit of Natural Science is held in honour ; and even those engaged in the en- grossing work of religion and philanthropy feel increas- ingly bound not to contravene the proper boundaries of exact science. But the students of the exact sciences are very apt to press forward without due regard to the rela- tive proportion and value of the various branches of knowledge. It must be the aim of the Church to re- assert the true proportion. The pursuit of Natural Science is indeed so pure and noble, so vast and so fruitful in results, that it is easy to understand how one * ' Cours de Philosophie Positive,' vol. vi. pp. 378-9 (Littre's Edition). VIII.] of a Christian World. 297 immersed in it may fancy himself dispensed from taking notice of the moral and political world around him or of the system of public worship. Yet such an attitude is by no means a noble one. Rather it is selfish, in the sense that it ignores all but its own province. When it is felt that knowledge constitutes among those who pursue it a genuine branch of the Church, and when it is cultivated from Christian motives, it may be hoped that the votaries of the natural sciences will accept more fully the need of harmonizing their own province with those of others. It may be hoped that men will arise in their own ranks capable of doing this, caring, that is, primarily for the general good of mankind, and subordinating to it their own special pursuits ; men penetrated with a sense of the supreme importance of moral goodness, and seeking, in union with the heads of other departments of human knowledge, to establish on an unassailable foundation the sanctions and motives on which it rests. Then edu- cation will receive a larger expansion, being conducted in harmony with the well-known needs of the nation and the race and of all circles of life within them. When this takes place, the single cloud will have disappeared which still hangs over the triumphs of knowledge, and its pursuit will go on with mutual confidence and at an accelerated pace. 4. In reference to the Life of Art, what is needed is that it should be popular, not in the sense of being abased to the present popular taste, but rather as raising the popular taste by the presentation of the best ideals in an intelligible form. There have been artists in all departments who have, with more or less of conscious aim, asserted their own standard of excellence as a re- ligious duty, and have succeeded, even after opposition and ridicule, in imparting it to others. There are schools of art and societies for music which have been formed with the religious aim of being the means of re- 29^ Steps towards the Ideal [lecT. freshment to the less cultured classes, and of imparting the graces of refinement and beauty to the whole com- imunity. It is this religious aim of art which the Church must seek to expand. In this popularizing of art, and especially of its musical branch, the general Church sentiment can act most powerfully. When it is felt that the mass of serious men are looking for artistic productions as a spiritual help to themselves, and are ready to impart the enjoyment of them to others, this must react upon artists of all kinds in a very favourable manner. When the various objects represented, and especially human history and the human frame, are no longer regarded as indifferent things, but as expressions of the human and divine spirit, as transfigured by their connexion with the general life of humanity and by the indwelling of God, the accession of dignity and of interest which will come to all art-work will be very great, and will be at once stimulating and ennobling. This will be seen especially in the Drama, which in England more than anywhere is in need of this stimulus and this elevation. 5. Passing on to the Life of Society, we have chiefly to lay emphasis on that which was indicated in the last Lecture. The great danger of society lies in its exclusiveness ; and, to bring it to its right, its Chris- tian state, the Church must strive with a definite aim to lay society open to all the widest human in- terests. Not only should all that is actually wrong be dis- couraged by the leaders of society, but also all that * I may refer to the Kyrle Society, which is established * To bring beauty home to the people.' An account of the work of this Society is given in a paper by Miss Octavia Hill, entitled 'Colour, Space, and Music for the People,' reprinted from the Nineteenth Century for May, 1884 (Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.). VIII.] of a Christian World. 299 is poor and mean. Society should be a school of ex- cellence in which each learns to give out the best that he has. This will prevent dulness, which, besides its own debasing tendency, drives men by a natural re- action into folly and immorality. For mere rules of decorum the Church should endeavour to substitute good sense and right taste which may pervade the whole society. Moreover, society should be the ex- pression of the highest culture, and men should learn to value each other there by that standard alone, not by the standard of rank or wealth. But further, society should acknowledge a missionary character. If this be admitted, those who lead in it will think of themselves as set for the imparting of the best and highest enjoyment to their fellows. They will treat those of their company who are less cultured than themselves as the special objects of their care, and the object proposed by the leaders will be the drawing out in those with whom they associate of the highest culture of which they are capable, and of im- parting their own refinement to them. In order to bring this about, there should be as little display as possible, that every one may be at his ease. Our present society tends far too much to extravagance. There are some appliances of culture which require con-' siderable expense, and the highest excellence in such things as instruments of music, works of art, and ap- plication of mechanical inventions, form the proper objects for the employment of wealth. But simplicity should be aimed at. The idea of ancient Roman civi- lization should be reproduced in our day, * Privatus illis sumptus erat brevis, Commune magnum.' We may be simple in our own habits although surrounded by wealth : and, by using the more costly appliances in our possession for the general enjoyment, we may realize the Christian idea of a stewardship. This is 300 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. the tendency which the Church must foster in social life among all classes of its members. 6. The Expansion of Trade in the present century- is probably only a prelude to its still greater expansion in the future. If only war could be done away, the extension of commerce would be immeasurable. All the greater, therefore, must be our desire to see com- merce conducted on Christian principles of justice and of service, as a function of the universal Church. The frauds, the low tone of morals admitted in many branches of trades, the panics which have sprung from mistrust, the bad relations with foreign nations which have resulted from the action of traders, open to us a wide field for the Church's reformatory action ^ On the other hand, the vast benefits which trade confers, the noble, liberal spirit in which its higher operations are often conducted, and the trustfulness engendered by commercial rectitude, must make us welcome its extension. There may be, moreover, a Christian trading, which, taking cognizance of these nobler features of commerce, will embark in it simply with a view to promote its beneficial action. Such a course, of which we see instances from time to time, is not unreasonable, though it must face the possibility of loss. But we cannot rest satisfied with the present methods of trade, in which the interests of labour and capital are constantly at variance, and wages are rarely raised except by the brutal machinery of a strike. There is no reason why trade should be motived mainly by individual profit. We must learn to lean, in this as in all departments, upon the unselfish much more than on the selfish interests of mankind. There are already in exist- * See a large number of details on this subject in a paper by Mr. Herbert Spencer, entitled * The Morals of Trade,' published with a sermon on ' Sins of Trade and Business,' by the late Canon Lyttelton (Isbister and Co., 1874). VIII.] of a Christian World. 301 ence companies which make trade serve the general interest rather than the profit of the individual. There are co-operative societies which make trade entirely a matter of general advantage to all their members, and in which therefore the interests of buyer and seller are reconciled '. This system, especially as it affects the poor, the Church must constantly seek to extend. We may look forward also, through means of this kind, to the abatement of the extreme competition now reigning in the world of trade, and which is wasteful in all re- spects, and productive of fraud. Co-operative produc- tion still more may be looked upon as affording scope for the bringing of trade under the dominion of the Christian spirit ; for we can hardly imagine anything more nearly fulfilling the idea of a Church than a vast co-operative guild, inspired by the Christian spirit of mutual well-doing, with rulers and a brotherhood united in the work to which their lives and interests are devoted in common, and aiming, by the labour of all together, at the supply of the wants of all its members. Nor need it be said that competition and the desire of personal gain is necessary for the keenness and in- ventiveness of trade. We may look forward to a time when the unselfish motives will have a fuller development, when the wish to benefit the community will stimulate men's energies more fully than competi- tion, and when the public recognition of service and the gratitude of those who are benefited, may be an adequate guarantee for efficiency. Even now many things are done by municipalities which might be done by private traders : and the nation has taken over successively the Post, which is a great and flourishing trade, some branches of banking and insurance, and ' See Note XXVI. An account of the Maison Leclaire in Paris, by Miss M. Hart. See also Ten Years of Co-operative Shirtmaking, by Miss E. Simcox, in the Fortnightly Review for June, 1884. 302 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. the holding of shares in one of the great thoroughfares of the world. Some statesmen already advocate the as- ' sumption of railways by the State. There is no reason to be jealous of this process, however far it may be carried ^ so long as the nation has real power over its own affairs, and the government is conducted for the people's benefit, and is open to criticism and suggestion on all sides. Even if it be supposed that self-interest is a necessary and a perpetual factor in trade affairs, yet the honour and reward arising from good service in a public function may be as powerful a motive as that of im- ^ mediate gain. But we cannot but believe that a most powerful influence in the direction of unselfishness would be exerted upon individual conduct and energy if it were the primary assumption of the whole community that it was organized for the benefit of all, that is, that it recognized the Christian principle in its action. We must, I repeat, learn to lean on the unselfish much more than on the selfish impulses in mankind. But, whether trade becomes more distinctly organized or not, the object at which the Church should aim is that it should be conducted in a Christian spirit, for public and general advantage, and so as to minister to the spiritual good of those who conduct its operations ^and those who are its clients. 7. In the Nation or National Church, the Church idea, as has been pointed out, attains its fullest ex- " pression. What is now required most of all is that it should be conscious of itself, and should demand that the fundamental postulate of all its public action should be that it is a Church, existing for the highest benefit of * The contrary opinions to this may be seen in Mr. Herbert Spencer's four articles in the Contemporary Review, April to July, 1884. For a very temperate discussion on the subject, I may refer to Mr. Goschen's address at Edinburgh on Laissez-Faire and Government Interference (Macmillan, 1883). VIII.] of a Christian World, 303 its citizens. We may accept without vanity the behef that England is the country in which the practice of political science is most advanced. And, while we admit that the universal Church needs the steadiness of the German, the intellectual capacity of the Italian, the versatility and devotedness of the Frenchman, and that certain experiments in government have been more fully worked out in the democratic communities of America, or Switzerland, or Holland, yet in the main it must be said that England is the great political teacher of the world. Though the roots of constitutional government may be traced in ancient times and in many countries, it is in England alone that they have been gradually developed, so as to become a permanent tradition and a national inheritance. This must be acknowledged as an eminent gift of God. It is the product of the sense of Christian brotherhood. It has indeed been asked at times why men should consent to be ruled by majorities, and it has been suggested that the explanation is to be found in physical force, in the certainty that in most cases three men could get the better of two. But the true explana- tion is to be found in moral causes, in that sense of brotherhood and of mutual deference which is so con- genial to the instincts of Christians. Suppose a society of five persons, of whom three desire one course to be pursued by the society while the other two desire another course ; and suppose that they have all of them the Christian feeling of brotherly esteem for one another. Would not the two feel certainly bound to yield to the three.? They would argue with themselves that there might be good reasons for the judgment of the three which they of the minority had not apprehended ; that in the last resort the desire or resolution of the three was worthy of greater respect than that of the two ; that, if the three were wrong, they would be convinced by experience and acknowledge their error. This simple 304 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. explanation covers the whole field of constitutionalism. It enables us also to see how moral and spiritual feeling- can be applied to politics ; and it shows that constitu- tionalism, far from being, as writers like M. Comte have affirmed, an abnormal development, adapted only to the peculiar circumstances of England, is a necessary re- sult of the acknowledgment in the political sphere of the supremacy of the moral sentiments and of Christian love. It is evident, however, that, at the present day, the constitutional system requires readjustment from time to time in conformity with the increase and distribution of the population, and with the progress of the people in independence and intelligence. It is evident also that a process of decentralization is required, not only for the practical conduct of business, but also for the higher spiritual object of calling forth the various gifts and capacities of individuals and of classes. This process is needed both for municipalities and for counties, and again for the conduct of the parochial system. A double process, indeed, must go on continually, guided by an ac- curate perception of the respective spheres of the central and the local governments, a process in which each of them yields what more properly belongs to the sphere of the other ; in which, on the one hand, the central government leaves to the local perfect freedom and re- sponsibility within its own sphere, and on the other the local looks up to the central as its guiding and protect- ing power. To secure this just balance in the relation of its parts must be the constant aim of the political Church. It has been pointed out that the chief concern of a national Church must be the elevation of its weaker members. The existence of pauperism and of prevail- ing poverty in contrast to the progress of wealth must be made to weigh upon all men's consciences, and espe- VIII.] of a Christian World, 305 cially on those of the ruling classes ; and no effort, no change that can be suggested, can be too great if it results in the wiping away of this reproach to our Christian state. It is not merely by dealing with pauperism and with poverty in their actual manifesta- tions that this reproach will be wiped away, but much more by such a direction of political interests as will operate, through law and administration, for the removal of the evil ; and further the framing of laws not merely so as to make men 'equal before the law,' but so as to afford the poor and the weak the uplifting help which they need. The Israelites delighted in their laws, and recognized them as the laws of the Holy One, because the laws cared for the widow, the fatherless and the stranger, the weak and the poor. There is much in the laws of our country to make us speak of them in the same strain ; but much more than has hitherto been done in this direction is possible. Here is the point at which the Church may show sympathy with the social- istic spirit. Socialism is not necessarily the blind and negative impulse which it has sometimes showed itself to be. There are men like those who are called the Katheder Socialisten in Germany ^, who have worked ''■ * In requiring political equality the Progressists have in view econo- mic equality, and this leads to so-called Socialism. They do not seek to conceal it, and I make no objection to it. I belong myself to this ethico-historical economical school, which has been called the Socialists of the Chair ; and for my own part, like our ancestors the " Gueux," I accept the epithet with which our adversaries have stigmatized my colleagues of German universities, invoking morals, justice, and history to raise our science above the deification of egotism, with the object of ameliorating the prospects of the working class.' ' As the oak springs from an acorn, so may Socialism be traced to Christianity. In every Christian there is a germ of Socialism, and every Socialist is unwittingly a Christian.' Emile de Laveleye, Contemp. Review for August, 1884, p. 289. M. de Laveleye refers to his recent work on ' Contemporary Socialism.' See also the chapter on ' Law in Politics ' in the Duke of Argyll's ' Reign of Law.' 20 3o6 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. upon the principle that economic science must not be contented with merely tracing a law, but must minister to the corresponding art of social well-being, that it must show how to apply its principles according to the wants of the community, and must acknowledge the need of paternal care for the weak, and even the neces- sity at certain times of giving them a dead lift, to place them in a position in which they can use econorhical principles for their own advantage. When this is done in a truly Christian spirit, the conditions which political economy reveals may be the light by which we walk in the path of Christian benevolence, and the nation may become the channel of God's beneficence to all its members. 8. Lastly, we must glance at the universal Church, with a view to seeing what possibility there is of making towards the ideal which we have sketched out. It has been pointed out that the organization of the universal Church, the great union first of Western Europe and through it of the world, has yet to be formed. It has been shown also that some rudiments of organization already exist, in diplomacy, in the confession of the Treaties of Paris and Berlin that arbitration should always take place before resort is had to war ; in the various arbitrations which have actually taken place, such as those relating to Luxemburg and Schleswig- Holstein ; in the Alabama Convention, the effect of which has been so great as to justify the largest hopes ; in the concert of Europe which has of late been called into play ; in the treaties of commerce and the union for postal communication. We may add that the demo- cratic tendency of modern societies must make the causes of war progressively fewer, that the burden en- tailed by conscription and by keeping the nations armed to the teeth must make all countries in which the people have power shrink more and more from the military VIII.] of a Christian World, 307 regime ; and still more that European public opinion is slowly growing, and is feeling its way towards a method by which the present international anarchy may be placed under the restraint of a higher power. There is hope that by means such as these that object may at last be attained. The Alabama Convention is in itself a first great act of universal Church policy and in- ternational religion. It is said, indeed, by some writers that the Alabama Convention was of no universal signi- ficance because it was the product of special circum- stances. But the most special circumstance, the deter- mining one, was this, that the two contracting nations felt it to be for their best interest to be at peace. It will be a great step gained towards an international tribunal when the nations who feel that their main interest is peace are willing to submit their differences to arbitra- tion. The effort of all the scattered members of the uni- versal Church should be that such acts should be repeated again and again. Our Peace and Arbitration Societies are the first agents in this work ; but all Christian Socie- ties which have any wide aims must join in the move- ment, and by prayer and effort compass the blessed result. The two great objects of the universal Church are, as has been pointed out, first, to ensure peace and bind together the European family of nations, and, secondly, to act by a Missionary impulse upon the weaker nations, beginning with those now held under the power of the Turks. In the first of these two departments we may expect that France and Germany should lead the way, in the second our own country. At present not only is there anarchy among the European nations, but their relations with the weaker races are governed by no prin- ciple. Each seizes territory and makes war according to its own self-will, without the restraint imposed by the ex- pression of the general judgment. * We are Christians,' 3o8 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. says a recent remarkable French writer ^ ' in our private life, civilized in our domestic habits. Must we then for ever in our international relations exchange nothing but an anti-Christian and barbarous policy, one of mere in- stinct and of ferocity, made up of diplomatic trickery and of military violence, a policy the immorality of which, if practised by the subjects of any state amongst them- selves, the national law would condemn and prosecute ? ' A way out of such a state of things must be found, and found without delay. Nor is it difficult to see the first steps which should be taken. If France and Germany could agree to leave the question of Alsace-Lorraine to arbitration, allowing it to be appropriated to one or the other, to be divided, or to be neutralized under an Euro- pean guarantee, as might appear best to the arbitrators, the only ground of quarrel remaining in Western Europe would be removed. There would then be hardly any ground of discontent in England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Low Countries, or the Scandinavian nations. In the populations federated under the Austrian monarchy there is no difficulty but a domestic one. The next step would be to solve the question of the East of Europe, reconciling the claims of Russia and Austria to the leadership of the Slavonic races, and to a commercial outlet into the Eastern Mediterranean, but above all giv- ing eff'ect to the claims of the subject races to develop their life in freedom. The third task will be the provision for Armenia and the other provinces of Asiatic Turkey. And beyond these lies the vast task of dealing with the barbarous and savage nations in the way of Christian education, a work nobly begun by our Missionary Socie- ties, and also carried on with more or less success by English, Dutch, and French government in the East, and in Polynesia, but which more properly faUs to the agency of the universal Church, when it shall be fully consti- * * La Mission Actuelle des Souverains,' par I'un d'eux, p. 3. VIII.] of a Christian World, 309 tuted. These great enterprises are partly begun, and it is therefore no Utopia at which we are aiming, but a legitimate extension and regulation which we propose for existing forces. It is also practical and extremely- salutary, as is all work of a Missionary complexion : for when these great enterprises are fairly faced, and the Christian conscience set on pursuing them, men's minds throughout Europe will be drawn off from their jealousies, and will be occupied steadily with the beneficent mission of the Church of God. Whether any system of diplomacy or of European concert, with the means now at hand, can effect these results is that which we cannot tell. It is the Christian spirit to which we must trust, and which will find its way when it is once awakened to the task to which we are calling it. That spirit, the spirit which seeks to bind the nations together not by force but by just re- lations and by amity, is already the primary assumption of international law ^ ; and we find the great writers in that field, from Kant and Bentham onwards, feeling their way towards some central power ; the greatest of them, Bluntschli, holding and defending his opinion that the establishment of such a supreme power over the States of Europe is not prevented so much by want of will or of power to form it, as by the want of a clear intellectual perception of its proper position and functions. The good thus aimed at, both temporal and spiritual, is so great that we cannot despair of attaining it. But the task is gigantic, since the war-fiend has been taken as an inmate in the household of our Christian civilization, and has his prophets and his church-organization where those of the Lamb should be. The prospect of reversing this state of things and of making Christendom truly the kingdom of the Prince of Peace is worthy to form the closing vista of our glance into the future. * See the opinions of International Lawyers quoted in Note XXIV. 3IO Steps towards the Ideal [lect. It will be felt by many that the subject of these Lectures lies at a considerable distance from that simple practical piety, for the sake of which they have been accustomed to value Christianity. And this, no doubt, is true in one sense, but only in the sense that all teaching as to the Church or Society generally must necessarily lead us beyond the immediate interests of the individual soul. But it is by no means true if it implies that there is any separation of Christian principle or feeling be- tween the spirit which aims at the salvation of the individual soul, and that which aims at the salvation of the world. Nor is it true if it implies that the doctrine of a public Christian life has not a powerful and beneficial effect upon individual life and holiness. It is impossible, indeed, to make a breach or draw a line between the two, nor is it material with which we begin. If we trace out the ideal of a Christian Society, we know well that it would be a hollow unreality unless it were a Society in which the Spirit of Christ reigned in individual souls. We may go further and say that the realization of such a Society depends on the increase of practical piety ; and therefore the promotion of such piety must be the constant aim of all who believe in the Saviour of the World, in all the circles of life which we have traced. If we start, on the other hand, with the in- dividual life, we find it impossible to give it any reason- able extension apart from the life of the community to which the individual belongs. The action also is reciprocal. If the Society be Christian, it will act both consciously and unconsciously upon every individual member in a Christian sense. If the individual be Christian, he will show it by incessant efforts to conduct, and to cause others to conduct, the social system in which he lives on Christian principles. Moreover, there will be always those who claim more distinctly and realize more vividly the power of Christ VIII.] of a Christian World, 311 over the individual soul, and those who embrace more fully the larger hope of His influence upon society ; but no conflict could be more unreal or more unfortunate than one which should arise from an attempt on either side to limit his saving and reconciling power. It may be well, however, to point out that these Lectures have professedly been occupied with the social and universal side of the saving power of the Gospel, and that it has therefore been impossible — it would indeed have been out of place — to do more than glance at the power of Christ over individual souls. It may be asked, further, whether there are any in- dications that the people generally will rally to the standard which has been here held up, and rise to the higher level to which these Lectures point. It should be noticed that in our day society is influenced more and more by great mass-movements, and that some at least of these are, amidst all their extravagances, indications of a longing for holiness. The most conspicuous of these, the Temperance movement, has laid a firm hold on the national conscience ; and we may hope that the moral and Christian sense of the people, having been once aroused, will attack one by one the sources of the evils by which it has been held in thrall. We may ex- pect a movement in favour of social purity, and one in favour of peace, at least as strong as that in favour of temperance ; and we may trust that all three will be successful. Moreover, those who deal with the masses know that in political questions it is the moral and religious aspect in which it is easiest to enlist their sympathy. If such a direction therefore can be given to the various social circles as has been indicated in these Lectures, if they can all be set before men as branches of the true Church, the body in which love and justice reign, we may hope that the result may no longer seem impossible. The hearts of the people will be more and 312 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. more engaged in the beneficent conduct of all public affairs : they will further them with the same affec- tion which was shown by the Israelites towards their own institutions, and, since we live in Christian and democratic times, with greater success. But this is to be noted in all the spheres of life which we have touched upon. The Christianity we have vindicated for them is not of a stationary but of an aggressive and a missionary character. The righteous- ness of which both the Old and New Testament speaks, is one which goes forth beyond its possessor ; not a righteousness which is even with a law, but a righteous- ness like that of Christ, loving, merciful, beneficent, self- sacrificing, and universal in its application. It can never rest content until it has assimilated to itself all the spheres of life with which it has to do. This alone has the promise of the Gospel attached to it. But he who dwells upon the universal love of the Eternal Father, and believes that the self-sacrifice of Christ had the salvation of the world for its object, will not find it hard to believe in the full extension of that which St. Paul called 'the mighty working whereby He is able to sub- due all things unto Himself What, then, are the more general and spiritual prin- ciples, underlying all the special efforts which we have described, which are needed for this consummation } What are the inner conditions of the general conscience which will help in changing the world into the kingdom of God? I. The thing of most importance is to create the belief that this consummation, whether it be far or near, is des- tined, in the purpose of God, to be brought about, and that through human agency. If this belief can be created, the thing will be done, and the way to do it will be found. It may seem, indeed, that it is difficult to create such a conviction. And yet, does any convinced viiL] of a Christian World, 313 Christian doubt that Christ is the spiritual Lord of this world as well as of the world to come? Is there any one who does not pray, in His words, Thy kingdom come on earth ? The habit of adjourning our higher hopes from this world to the next has greatly interfered with their ful- filment. But this habit is manifestly giving way, partly from the growing interest in public life and philanthropic schemes, partly through a better understanding of the Old and New Testaments. It seems clear that the object of the life disclosed in the Scriptures is not merely to save individuals, but to train first one nation and then man- kind to become the city of God : and such visions as that of the last chapters of the Apocalypse, with which the New Testament closes, are visions, not of a state beyond the world, but of a state which the seers conceived of as realizeable in this world, however much of imagination is joined with their descriptions. If it had been possible for those seers to look at Christendom even as it is at present, the contrast which it would have presented to the world around them would have seemed to them the beginning at least of the fulfilment of their hopes. A world in which slavery is abolished, in which the Spirit of Christ's life is generally acknowledged by the public conscience and is gradually moulding the institutions of men, in which almost every great need of mankind has some organization formed for its relief, in which the sense of unity and brotherhood among men has become an admitted principle, in which Christian teaching is abso- lutely free, would, in contrast with the hypocrisy of Rabbinical Judaism and the hard and cruel materialism of Rome which they describe, have gleamed with the light of heaven. Why should we, who are the heirs of all the Christian ages, stand hesitating what to think or do, and not rather feel that we stand upon a vantage ground from which we may spring forward to our pre- destined goal? 314 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. 2. A second condition of the realization of our hopes is that Christianity is to be regarded as a life, not as the holding of a series of propositions. This does not imply- that it is without principles, for how can any good life exist without principles ? But first it means that the prin- ciples which lie at the roots of the Christian life are too deep for exact definitions. As Aristotle said in reference to all moral subjects, we must make things clear accord- ing as the subject-matter admits ^ As Augustine says, after his discussion on the Trinity in the De Doctrina Christiana, * Diximusne aliquid aut sonuimus aliquid dignum Deo .? Immo vero nihil aliud me quam dicere voluisse sentio^' Who has attempted to define love, or life, or righteousness.? Who can define God or religion.? These expressions are, to quote a writer of our own day 3, ^ The principles of Aristotle on this point are so just, and yet so constantly ignored in theological discussion, that I venture to quote a few sentences which are (in Oxford at least) as well known as any in classical literature. ' We seek to reach our object by what I may call a political method ; we shall have accomplished our object sufficiently if it is made clear according to the nature of the subject-matter; for we must not seek for accuracy equally in all kinds of inquiries. . . . In the case of such matters as those of which we are treating and from which we are dra\\'ing our inferences we must be content to point out the truth roughly and by shadowing it forth ; to describe things in the general, and, starting from such general descriptions, to draw conclu- sions of a similar kind. For it is the mark of a man of culture to try to attain exactness in each kind of knowledge just so far as the nature of the subject allows : for it would be equally unreasonable to expect per- suasive appeals from a mathematician as to demand demonstrations from a rhetorician.' Ethics, I. i. 9, (3) 4. How many evils might have been avoided by attention to these simple principles ! ^ B. I. c. vi. See the quotation given more fully in Note XXVII, 3 Matthew Arnold, 'Lit. and Dogma,' p. 41. ' The language of the Bible is literary, not scientific ; language thrown out at an object of con- sciousness not fully grasped, which inspired emotion. Evidently, if the object be one not fully to be grasped, and one to inspire emotion, the lan- guage of figure and feeling will satisfy us better about it ; will cover more of what we seek to express, than the language of literal fact or science : the language of science will be below what we feel to be the truth.' VIII.] of a Christian World, 3 1 5 * words thrown out at a great object;' they are no full measure of its completeness. It is, indeed, by the con- science mainly that these great things are apprehended, and the feeling of them is often genuine when the de- finition of them is inadequate. To think of them apart from action is almost necessarily to go wrong ; and this is why we often find men of sceptical disposition grow clear and assured when they come to some act of prac- tical service to their fellows. The assertion that Chris- tianity is a life rather than a doctrine means also that it is by the life that its principles are tested, and that, con- stantly brought to this test, the great and simple principles of Christianity stand out most clearly, and interpret for us the doctrines in a manner which is at once rational, reconciling, and calculated to commend them to the consciences of all men. 3. But, thirdly, what is required further for the full ex- tension of the Christian principle is the abandonment of clericalism. By clericalism I understand the system which unduly exalts the clerical office, and the function of public worship, so as to draw away the sense of divine agency and appointment from other offices and other functions. This tendency, as has before been said, is not really one which exalts the Church. It exalts the clergy alone ; it dwarfs and emasculates the Church. The clergy, and those to whom the system of public worship is dear, must learn to make the great sacrifice of Christians. They must learn to ' live not for themselves,' to ' look not on their own things but also on the things of others. ' The system they administer must be felt not to exist for itself but for the general community. They must efface, if need be, themselves and their system in the effort to save the world. They must be willing to be nothing that Christ may be all in all. They must desire that, if it were possible, there should be not only holy orders of bishops and presbyters, but holy orders of artists, 31 6 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. and poets, and teachers of science, and statesmen. They should be forward to recognize good in departments which are not theirs, and in forms very different from their own. A ministry imbued with such a spirit as this may still be the luminous and inspiring focus where light and heat are stored for diffusion through the whole mass ; whereas, by almost identifying Christianity with public worship, and absorbing all ministries in the clerical function, and think- ing more of correct forms of appointment and ordination than of the Divine gifts which form the true succession of spiritual leaders, we may become the greatest of all obstacles to the establishment of the kingdom of God. 4. One other thing is needed with a view to this great change ; it is, that those charged with the conduct of human affairs, in whatever department, should them- selves recognize their office as a Christian ministry. This does -not imply merely that they should act gener- ally upon Christian principles, nor, on the other hand, that they should be constantly speaking of Christianity in connexion with their office ; but that they should cherish the lofty conception of their office which the Christian ministry implies, and should not shrink from asserting it when needful. The Hebrew prophets spoke of the leaders of the people, the princes, rulers, and prophets, rather than the priests, as pastors, contrasting with the false pastors of their day the true pastor for whose advent they longed ^ : and Christ himself adopted their language, and applied it to himself The false shepherds, according to His description, were those who in their teaching * strained at gnats and swallowed camels,' whose judgment, as in the case of the woman taken in adultery, or the man who had been born blind, ^ See especially Ezek. xxxiv., compared with the language of our Lord in John x. The contrast between the blind shepherd of the people in the end of ch. ix. and the Good Shepherd of ch. x. is obscured by the division of the chapters. VIII.] of a Christian World. 317 looked at the external case, not at the inner and spiritual state, whose policy was that of Caiaphas, With these he contrasted the true Shepherd or guide who gives himself in life or death for the good of the sheep. The pastors of the present day are those who lead in all departments of human life. It is hardly possible to say how greatly their pastorate would grow in importance, were it recog- nized by all as a Christian ministry, and inspired with the lofty aim of bringing in the kingdom of heaven. The object of the Bampton Lecture is to confirm and establish the Christian Faith. There are two ways in which this may be done. The one is to regard the pre- sent state of human knowledge on things divine as con- clusive, to assume that terms such as The Church, the Faith, Christianity, bear a simple and definite sense, which holds good for all minds and for all ages of the world, and to defend this acquired possession against actual or possible attacks. The other method is to re- gard Christianity as a spiritual power which cannot be precisely defined, but which is known and felt in its effects ; as the spirit of the God whose name is Love, a spirit which is not seen but blows where it lists, yet which we know to be gradually renewing the world ; to trace the various institutions which have sprung up under its influence, whether consciously using the name of Christ or not ; to recognize the fact that these institutions are always imperfect and liable to constant change (this, indeed, is their glory, that they can adapt themselves to the changing circumstances of the world) ; to point out the inexhaustible vitality of this Divine Spirit and of the Church which He forms, and to make clear its aims and the grounds which assure its universal triumph. This latter is the line which has been followed in the present course of Lectures, and it is, no less than the other, a line of Christian Evidences. When the Church is seen to be the constant inspirer of human progress, there will 31 8 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. be no sceptics but those to whom human progress is indifferent. It is often said that the present day is specially a time of scepticism. It is very doubtful whether this is so in any sense which would not apply to many other ages of the Church, certainly to two periods, the Renaissance and the eighteenth century. But, further, the special feature of the scepticism of the present day is its earnest- ness, its seriousness. It is worth while, therefore, to consider whether a great part of it is not due to faults in the presentation of Christianity by its recognized expo- nents, just as political discontent is usually to be traced to some fault, past or present, in the system of govern- ment. We might take the French nation as a typical instance of a society in which a false presentation of Christianity has provoked, not only scepticism, but a revolt against all that is called Christian. It has been possible for a Prime Minister ^ there to say, and to say with truth, ' L'ennemi c'est Ic Clericalisme ; ' and for a minister of education and public worship to say, with a good array of proofs, that, the further men are from religion, the nearer they are to morality and good sensed But the cause of this was patent, namely this, that the Church had narrowed itself to a clerical sect, and that the clergy, having separated religion from the common life of men, had taught superstition and folly under its name. It is very difficult for any one to hold to the Christian faith with calm and rational conviction when its author- ized exponents connect it with the Papal Syllabus, which denies all liberal progress, and with pilgrimages and false miracles such as those of Lourdes or of La Salette. The true religion of France for many years to come must, except for those who are Protestants, be a religion of * M. Gambetta. ^ M. Paul Bert in his lecture on Education (M. Gambetta being in the chair) at the Cirque d'Hiver, in September, 1881. viil] of a CJudstian IVo^dd. 319 politics rather than of worship, and its Christianity must be mainly of the latent and unconscious sort. Is the case altogether dissimilar, when the clergy are disputing, as they have done so much of late in England, about dress and posture, and their own supposed rights of legislation and of judgment, while the spiritual interests of the nation itself as a nation, and of the great secular unions within the nation, are left almost without a thought ? ^ The centre of all theology to a Christian lies in the character of Jesus Christ. While this is felt to be supreme, a secure basis is laid for theology and religion. That is the manifestation of the Divine, of God Him-' self ; for no other God is conceivable henceforth than God as manifested in Christ. That manifestation of the Divine is not bound up with any particular view of the Divine nature metaphysically considered, nor with any view of human nature in which our reason need find a stumbling-block, nor with miracles regarded as violations of the natural order, nor with the Resurrection of our Lord regarded as a physical phenomenon. Yet it is against one or other of these ideas that almost all the attacks of un- believers have been made. The character of the Founder hardly any one really attacks : His Spirit almost every one, consciously or unconsciously, acknowledges. And this character and spirit are now almost universally recognizeH by defenders of the faith as the central and preponderant evidence of Christianity. But their argu- ments do not carry their full w^eight, chiefly because, * During the twelve years since these Lectures were delivered a great change has taken place in this respect. Yet it may be questioned whether the new interest in social questions on the part of Christian ministers has not for its aim in many cases rather to subject social progress to the clerical power than frankly to develop social good. It can hardly be otherwise while Christ's Church is identified with the system of public worship and its accessories, in which the clergy are supreme. 320 Steps towards the Ideal [lect. though reasonable in themselves, they are thought to be meant to lead up to the acceptance of an untenable phi- losophical position, of a morality far narrower than that of Christ Himself, and of a petty clericalism instead of a genuine spiritual power. If this be so, then the best thing that Christians can do for the faith of mankind is that which has been attempted in these Lectures, namely, to exhibit the real power of Christ and of His Spirit as a redeeming influence in the whole wide field of human life. When its capacities to guide the course of the world in justice and in love are practically seen, all that is good must necessarily rally to its side. All cavil- lings may then be answered, like the accusations made against Scipio Africanus, by the records of its triumphs ; for it will have secured, not the cold and hesitating assent, but the enthusiastic gratitude of mankind. The view which has been opened out in these Lectures is calculated to fill us with an immense hope. It is impossible for those who take a narrower view of ^ the aims of Christianity to be frankly hopeful. They see that the secular fields of human activity, which to them and to their highest aims appear hostile, or at least indifferent, are winning upon men more and more, while Christianity, conceived merely as a system of worship, doctrine and beneficence, is barely holding its ground : and consequently we hear from them little but expressions which imply complaint, or resistance, or a timorous waiting-for what is coming. This timorous attitude of later Christianity contrasts sadly with the enthusiastic hopefulness of its first proclaimers. We must restore the element of hope. But hope of what ? Is the picture which has been drawn of a society universal, and Christian in all its departments, enough to kindle and sustain our hope } Are we to make little or nothing of the hopes of a world beyond the grave ? And, if not, if we introduce that larger hope, must not viil] of a Christian World. 321 the hope of heaven make all desire for a kingdom of God in this world seem vain ? This has not been the ex- perience of Christians, either in the first Christian age or in our own. The first Christians, though not excluding from their view the Resurrection and the Life to Come, yet fixed their hope primarily on a reign of Christ in this world, a hope concealed no doubt in imagery, but still distinctly recognized as a reign of righteousness on earth. It was only by degrees that they were driven through persecution to think of the heavenly state exclusively as the kingdom of God, and of this world as only a state of probation and expectancy, and of Christ as a Saviour not of the world but from the world. The more modern believers start from this later belief, making heaven their first aim, and, professedly at least, thinking this life of little value. Yet who can deny that they also have assiduously, even if inconsistently with their profession, served their own generation, and that much of the pro- gress of modern times is to be traced to their efforts .'* We restore the primitive feeling under circumstances in which it is more possible for it to find its realization. We teach men to hope for a reign of Christ in this world, that is, for the supreme influence of the Spirit of Christ in all departments of human life. But men pass. And what, to the mass of men who will never see it, is this kingdom of the Spirit of Christ on earth .? In the first place, we shall see this kingdom advancing ; we partake of its hopes even now, and that is in itself a great reward. It would be a noble and a Christian thing, even j.f there were no world to come, to devote our span of life to the benefit of those who are to come after us. We shall at least leave our hope to our children, and they will see what many of the best men of the past have longed to see and have not seen. But, in the second place, conceive of this world as in itself the object of these hopes, and the 21 32 2 Steps towards Ideal of a Chris tia7i World, destined field of the fulfilment of those purposes of God on which we have dwelt, but yet as a preparation for the higher and immortal state ; conceive of earthly- society as the commencement of and preparation for the heavenly, of present knowledge for future, of the sense of beauty here for a fuller beauty hereafter. In that case, the more complete the organization of the Christian life here, the better preparation will it be for that which is to come. The colonist, who has been formed by the discipline of a civilized state, is not thereby unfitted for his new country. On the contrary, there is no faculty of his which has been trained on this side the water which he does not carry with him to his home beyond the seas. He leaves the outer fabric of his former life ; but he has that within him which will build up a new one wherever he lands. We may best think of the world to come as it is set before us in the New Testament, where it is often impossible to say whether this world or the next is in the mind of the seer, the one continuing and sublimating the other, the two blended together in one redeemed state. The training, not of the individual only, is to be effected here. The societies of this world will, unless man ceases to be man, be reproduced in all except their narrow conditions and unworthy features, in the world to come. Thus the completion of the earthly Church may be the preparation for the fulness of the Church above. But the earthly is that in which duty lies, and on which our whole efi"ort must be concentrated. Let us set our- selves heartily to the work of bringing in the kingdom of God on earth, in whatever department of it our lot is cast : for in so doing we best ensure that, when these earthly conditions fail, when the walls of the flesh fall from about us, we, and those who with us form the kingdom of God on earth, shall form the kingdom of God in the new and better state, whatever it be, beyond the chasm of death. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. NOTE I. Passages in which alwv is used rather than xofffiois to DESIGNATE THIS WORLD. Rom. xii. 2. Mi) ffuff^yj^-artl^effde ra> atiovt rouT(f. Eph. ii. 2. KaTOL tov aiu>va too xogiiou zoutou. Matt. xiii. 22. ^H fiiptfx'^a rod aluivo?. Luke XX. 34. 01 ulo\ rod ai(ovo 6 x6(T/jio<$: xvii. 16, 'Eyo) ix T. X. oux eifxi . . . ha ycvaxrxyj 6 x. ort go fie d.T:iaTtda77) ^^ says : * Yet the Greeks were in their day justified by their philosophy, and that by its intrinsic worth, not, however, so as to have right- eousness in all its fulness, though towards this we find that it was a co-operating power, like the first or second step to a man who is going up to an upper room.' The philosophers, he says, have taken some of the truths of Revelation (he believed that Plato had borrowed from the Old Testament). But they had only perceived them through a mist of conjectural reasoning. When converted they see these same truths clearly. Contrast this with the estimate of heathenism and the fate of heathens in the passage from Tertullian, de Spec- taculis, c. 30, quoted by Gibbon, ch. xv. (vol. ii. 91), and with the assertion of Jerome to Marcella that the excel- lent Vettius Agorius Praetextatus was in Tartarus [Ep. 344 Aristotle on Want of a Moral Power, [app. xxiii., Ad Marcellam, De Exitu Leae]. 'I tell you this,* he says, ' ut designatum Consulem de suis socculis (sae- culis) detrahentem esse doceamus in Tartaro. ' NOTE XI. Expressions of Aristotle confessing the practical im- potence OF his Moral Philosophy. The last chapter of Aristotle's Ethics describes this im- potence (x. lo): — ' 2. In the case of virtue it is evidently not enough to know : we must seek to possess and to practise, so that by some means or other we may become good. *3, 4. But now it seems that words are impotent, in the case of the great mass of men, to attract them to a noble life : for they are so made that they will not be swayed by a feeling of reverence but only by fear. ' 22. The former system then (that of Ethics) having failed, we must turn our attention to the subject of the making of laws.' Compare with this the words put by Thucydides (iii. 45) into the mouth of Diodotus : * In course of time the penalties have in most cases reached up to that of death; and even this is disregarded by transgressors.' NOTE XII. Extracts from Leaders of Modern Thought on the RELATION of KNOWLEDGE TO MoRALITY AND RELIGION. Carlyle on Moral Relations as a condition of knowledge. 'Heroes and Hero Worship,' pp. 167-168. Without hands a man might have feet, and could still walk : but consider it without morality, intellect were NOTE XII.] Ltibbock on Intellectual Progress, 345 impossible for him, he could not know anything at all ! To know a thing, what we can call knowing, a man must first love the thing, sympathize with it, that is, be virtu- ously related to it. If he have not the justice to put down his own selfishness at every turn, the courage to stand by the dangerous-true at every turn, how shall he know? His virtues, all of them, will lie recorded in his know- ledge. Nature with her truth remains to the bad, the self- ish and the pusillanimous, for ever a sealed book : what such can know of Nature is mean, superficial, small ; for the uses of the day merely. Sir J. Lubbock on the connexion of Intellectual and Spir- itual Progress. ' Pre-Historic Times,' pp. 488-491. Thus, then, with the increasing influence of science, we may confidently look to a great improvement in the con- dition of man. But it may be said that our present suf- ferings and sorrows arise principally from sin, and that any moral improvement must be due to religion, not to science. This separation of the two mighty agents of im- provement is the great misfortune of humanity, and has done more than anything else to retard the progress of civilization. But even if for the moment we admit that science will not render us more virtuous, it must certainly make us more innocent. Out of 129,000 persons committed to prison in England and Wales during the year 1863, only 4829 could read and write well. In fact, our criminal population are mere savages, and most of their crimes are but injudicious and desperate attempts to act as savages in the midst, and at the expense, of a civilized community. . . . Thus, then, the most sanguine hopes for the future are justified by the whole experience of the past. It is surely unreasonable to suppose that a process which has been going on for so many thousand years should have now 34^ Lubbock on hitellechcal Progress, [app. suddenly ceased ; and he must be blind indeed who ima- gines that our civilization is unsusceptible of improve- ment, or that we ourselves are in the highest state attainable by man. If we turn from experience to theory, the same conclusion forces itself upon us. The great principle of natural selection, which in animals affects the body and seems to have little influ- ence on the mind, in man affects the mind and has little influence on the body. In the first it tends mainly to the preservation of life ; in the second to the improvement of the mind and consequently to the increase of happiness. It ensures, in the words of Mr. Herbert Spencer, ' a con- stant progress towards a higher degree of skill, intelli- gence, and self-regulation — a better co-ordination of ac- tions — a more complete life.' Even those, however, who are dissatisfied with the reasoning of Mr. Darwin, who believe that neither our mental and material organization are susceptible of any considerable change, may still look forward to the future with hope. The tendency of recent improvements and discoveries is less to effect any rapid change in man himself, than to bring him into harmony with nature ; less to confer upon him new powers, than to teach him how to apply the old. It will, I think, be admitted that of the evils under which we suffer nearly all may be attributed to ignorance or sin. That ignorance will be diminished by the pro- gress of science is of course self-evident ; that the same will be the case with sin, seems little less so. Thus, then, both theory and experience point to the same conclusion. The future happiness of our race, which prophets hardly ventured to hope for, science boldly predicts. The manner in which a needless conflict grows up be- tween Science and Religion is well illustrated by the following curious letter of Darwin, in which Science is NOTE XIII.] May lie on Theological Terms, 347 taken in a far narrower sense than that in which it would be applied to the works of the great biologist, and Reve- lation is taken as implying some direct communication from Heaven of a different kind from that contained in the life of Christ. A letter sent by Katharina Macmillan to the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' of Saturday, Sept. 2^, 1882, and reprinted in the 'Guardian' of Sept. 27, from Charles Darwin to a student at Jena. Sir, — I am very busy, and am an old man in delicate health, and have not the time to answer your questions fully, even assuming that they are capable of being an- swered at all. Science and Christ have nothing to do with each other except in so far as the habit of scientific investigation makes a man cautious about accepting any proof. As far as I am concerned, I do not believe that any revelation has ever been made. With regard to a future life, every one must draw his own conclusions from vague and contradictory probabilities. Wishing you well, I remain, your obedient servant, Charles Darwin. Down, Jtme 5, 1879. NOTE XIII. The Influence of Greek Philosophy and Roman Law on Christian Theology, from Sir H. Mayne's 'Ancient Law,' p. 257. *Why is it that on the two sides of the line which divides the Greek-speaking from the Latin-speaking pro- vinces there lie two classes of theological problems so strikingly different from one another.? ... I affirm with- out hesitation that the difference between the two theo- 34^ Keshub Chunder Sen on Christianity, [app. logical systems is accounted for by the fact that, in passing from the East to the West, theological speculation had passed from a climate of Greek metaphysics to a cli- mate of Roman law. . . . Almost everybody who has knowledge enough of Roman law to appreciate the Roman penal system, the Roman theory of its obligations established by Contract or Delict, the Roman view of Debts and of the modes of incurring, extinguishing and transmitting them, the Roman notion of the continuance of individual existence by Universal Succession, may be trusted to say whence arose the frame of mind to which the problems of Western theology proved so congenial, whence came the phraseology in which those problems are stated, and whence the description of reasoning em- ployed in their solution.' NOTE XIV. Keshub Chunder Sen on Christianity for Europe and Asia. From 'Lectures and Tracts of the Brahmo-Somaj/ pp. ZZ^ 34. 'If, however, our Christian friends persist in traducing our nationality and national character, and in distrusting and hating Orientalism, let me assure them that I do not in the least feel dishonoured by such imputations. On the contrary, I rejoice, yea, I am proud that I am an Asiatic. And was not Jesus Christ an Asiatic? Yes, and his disciples were Asiatics, and all the agencies primarily employed for the propagation of the Gospel were Asiatic. In fact, Christianity was founded and developed by Asiatics, and in Asia. When I reflect on this, my love for Jesus becomes a hundredfold intensified ; I feel him nearer my heart, and deeper in my national sympathies. Why should I then feel ashamed to acknowledge that NOTE XV.] Mill on the use of Hypothesis. 349 nationality which He acknowledged ? shall I not rather say, He is more congenial and akin to my Oriental nature, more agreeable to my Oriental habits of thought and feeling? and is it not true that an Asiatic can read the imageries and allegories of the Gospel, and its descrip- tions of natural sceneries, of customs and manners, with greater interest, and a fuller perception of their force and beauty, than Europeans ? In Christ we see not only the exaltedness of humanity, but also the grandeur of which Asiatic nature is susceptible. To us Asiatics, therefore, Christ is doubly interesting, and his religion is entitled to our peculiar regard as an altogether Oriental affair. The more this great fact is pondered, the less I hope will be the antipathy and hatred of European Christians against Oriental nationalities, and the greater the interest of the Asiatics in the teachings of Christ. And thus in Christ, Europe and Asia, the East and the West, may learn to find harmony and unity.' NOTE XV. An Extract from Mill's Logic (Vol. ii. pp. 16-18) on the USE OF Hypothesis in Scientific Investigation. 'The function of hypothesis is one which must be reck- oned absolutely indispensable in science. When Newton said, "Hypotheses non fingo," he did not mean that he deprived himself of the facilities of investigation afforded by assuming in the first instance what he hoped after- wards to be able to prove. Without such assumptions science could never have attained its present state : they are necessary steps in the progress to something more certain ; and nearly everything which is now theory was once hypothesis. Even in purely experimental science, some inducement is necessary for trying one experiment rather than another. 350 Books of the Old Testament [app. 'Neither induction nor deduction would enable us to understand even the simplest phenomena " if we did not often commence by anticipating on the results ; by mak- ing a provisional supposition, at first essentially conjec- tural, as to some of the very notions which constitute the final object of the inquiry " (Comte's Philosophic Positive, ii. 434, 437). Let any one watch the manner in which he unravels a complicated mass of evidence ; let him ob- serve how, for instance, he elicits the true history of any occurrence from the involved statements of one or of many witnesses : he will find that he does not take all the items of evidence into his mind at once and attempt to weave them together : he extemporizes, from a few of the particulars, a first rude theory of the mode in which the facts took place, and then looks at the other state- ments one by one, to try whether they can be reconciled with that provisional theory, or what alterations and additions it requires to make it square with them. In this way, which has been justly compared to the Methods of Approximation of mathematicians, we arrive, by means of hypotheses, at conclusions not hypothe- tical.' NOTE XVI. An Excursus on the Books of the Old Testament as a basis for history. It is unsatisfactory to make any statements such as those contained in the Second Lecture on the Hebrew Commonwealth and Laws without forming a clear esti- mate of the sources whence our information is drawn. Putting aside the slight intimations which are found in Egyptian writings, especially those of Manetho which are not without value for the history of the Exodus, we have to consider solely the books of the Old Testament. Are we justified in basing history upon them? The NOTE XVL] as a Basis for History. 351 answer to this question is that, though many things remain uncertain, the ground is sufficiently secure. It becomes more possible every year to fix the historical value of the books. In the first place, the writings of the prophets, with the exception of Daniel, the later part of Isaiah, and the later part of Zechariah, are unchallenged. We have thus a mass of literature of the highest importance from the eighth to the sixth century b.c. , blended in the most inti- mate way with the history of the contemporary period — a period when Greek and Latin history is still fabulous, when Greek literature only existed in the shape of the songs of the rhapsodists or of Hesiod, a period mostly before Buddha or Confucius. The Psalms, also, though the dates of many of them are as yet suh Judice, are gen- uine productions, on which we can rely as evidence of the national sentiment. The historical books, again, from Judges to 2 Kings, though they have undergone a rehandling from their latest contributor in the time of the exile, are trustworthy documents ; nor are the books of Ezra and Nehemiah (originally one book) subject to any serious question. The books of Chronicles, which formed a sort of preface to these, are undoubtedly a late composition, and as such were placed last in the Jewish Canon of the Old Testament. They are a rehandling of 2 Samuel and i & 2 Kings under the sacerdotal influences prevailing in the days of Ezra ; but they appeal to various ancient documents since lost. While, therefore, criticism needs to be on the alert, we are, as regards the prophets and the historical books, mainly on firm ground, and can accept the framework which they present for our historical conceptions. It is unnecessary for the purposes of the second of these Lectures to enter upon the questions raised as to the second part of the book of Isaiah, or the book of Daniel and the second part of Zechariah. By whomsoever writ- 352 Books of the Old Testament [app. ten and at whatever date, the second part of Isaiah evidently relates to the Babylonian exile, while the book of Daniel and the second part of Zechariah are written in view of the Maccabsean era : and neither of them furnish anything of great importance for our present purpose. Neither need we enter into questions relating to the books called by the Jews Hagiographa. Of the Psalms I have already spoken : the book of Job is a speculative poem, and, though its date and origin are matters of religious and literary interest, it has little bearing on the history or laws of Israel. Of the book of Proverbs, a book of universal rather than Judaic morality, the same may be said. As to Ecclesiastes, it is evidently the production of a late age, probably the same time as Malachi, and, though of a high and peculiar religious value, is only a witness to the mode of thought among the Jews of a certain class at a particular epoch, probably that of the last Persian kings. The Song of Songs has no assignable date, and, though it is an idyll in praise of chaste married love as opposed to licentiousness, and thus touches one of the springs of the later Jewish greatness, may have had as little to do with the peasants of Shunem as the bucolics of Theocritus and Virgil had to do with the real life of the peasants of Sicily and North Italy. The book of Esther is evidently of much later date, and not to be depended on for historical purposes. The books of Chronicles, which were reckoned by the Jews among the Hagio- grapha and formed the last book of their Canon, are now recognized as belonging to the time of Ezra or his imme- diate successors, and as representing a Levitical rehand- ling of the history of the kings of Judah, though drawing partly from different sources than those used by the compilers of the earlier histories. Of the three great divisions of the Old Testament, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, we NOTE xvl] as a Basis for History, 353 have spoken of two. It remains to speak of the most difficult part, the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua, or, as it has been called, the Hexateuch, on which the battle of criticism has raged, and is not yet finally decided. The critical questions relating to the Pentateuch have been needlessly complicated by doctrinal controversy. It has been assumed that the Mosaic authorship and the exact accuracy of the books are involved in the acknow- ledgment of their religious value as parts of the Bible. But, since they make no statements as to their authorship, and the common appellation of them as Books of Moses and the allusions in the New Testament to ' Moses' writ- ings ' need imply no more than allusions to David's Psalms or Solomon's Proverbs, we may put aside this difficulty, while recognizing inspiration, according to the true meaning of the term, in the spirit which breathes through the books. That this spirit is in the main that which as Christians we acknowledge to be divine, though expressed according to the capacities of a backward age, and only tending by progressive increase towards the perfect holiness of Christ, may easily be discerned. The religious value of the Hebrew law has been fully vindi- cated in the Lecture. When we once admit into our minds the possibiHty that parts of the Pentateuch may have been written subsequently to the time of Moses, we can hardly fail to assign a much later date to the book of Deuteronomy. Not only is its style eminently prophetic, recalling the manner of Jeremiah more than that of any other Scrip- tural writer, but some of its provisions are such as it seems impossible to believe could have been known during the earlier history. The chief of these is the pro- hibition in Deuteronomy of sacrifice at any but the one central sanctuary. It is evident that no such law was acknowledged in earlier times. Not only did men like Samuel and Elijah sacrifice on special occasions at other 354 Books of the Old Testament [app. places than the central sanctuary, but in the life of Samuel we find that on all solemn occasions when there was a 'sacrifice of the people/ he came in to bless it in the city where he dwelt (i Sam. ix. 13) ; he inaugurates the choice of David by a sacrifice (i Sam. xvi. 2, 5) ; David's family had a yearly sacrifice at Bethlehem (i Sam. xx. 6) ; Absa- lom, during David's reign, sacrifices at Hebron (2 Sam, XV. 12) ; Joshua makes a pillar at Shechem (xxiv. 26) ; God appears to Solomon when he worships and sacrifices at the great high place in Gibeon (i Kings iii. 4) ; Isaiah declares that there shall one day be a pillar to Jehovah in the border of Egypt (xix. 19), whereas the Deuteronomic legislation requires that all pillars, groves (asheras or poles), and high places should be destroyed. This is precisely what was attempted by Hezekiah and accom- plished by Josiah. It is therefore natural to place the writing of Deuteronomy at some time in the age from Hezekiah to Josiah. But the contrast is not only between the ideas of wor- ship in Deuteronomy and in the historical books, but between Deuteronomy and all the Pentateuch from Exo- dus XXV. to the end of the book of Numbers. In Deute- ronomy the Priests and Levites are one, in Leviticus xviii. the distinction is drawn between them in the strong- est manner. In Deuteronomy the Levites who come in to Jerusalem are nourished by the same offerings as those given to the Priests ; in Numbers xviii. the Levites have a different support assigned them, that of the tithes : in Numbers xviii. again, the tithes are assigned to the sup- port of the Levites, in Deuteronomy xiv. 22-29 they are to provide a family feast, of which the Levite partakes only on the same terms as the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. The general tenor of the Deuteronomic legisla- tion is also quite different from that of those parts of the Hexateuch with which we are contrasting it ; for in those parts the idea of the service of God is almost wholly NOTE XVI.] as a Basis for History. 355 sacrificial and ceremonial ; in Deuteronomy it is almost wholly moral and political. Turning to the historical and prophetical books, we find that in the time of Josiah the priests of the high places were brought in from the cities of Judah into Jerusalem (2 Kings xxiii. 8, 9), when the high places were defiled and broken down, though some of these priests did not come up to the altar of Jehovah at Jerusalem, but ate of the unleavened bread among their brethren. This seems to correspond with the provisions of Deuteronomy xviii. d-'^, that the Levites who should elect to come to Jerusa- lem should serve with the Levitical priests and have their portion there like them. On the other hand, this is in contrast with what we read in Ezekiel xliv. 10, that the Levites because they had gone astray should be merely keepers of the door and assistants, and these are evidently the general body of the Levites as contrasted with the priestly family of Levites who were descended from Zadok. This representation of Ezekiel agrees with the representation of the books of Numbers and Leviticus, and also with that of Ezra, when the Levites are com- paratively insignificant in numbers and office (ii. 36-40 ; ix. I ; Nehem. viii. 9). The historical theory which appears best supported by these facts is as follows : — The law of Israel grew up by gradual development. The first sketch of the law in Exodus XX. -xxiii. may be believed to have come from the earliest times, and from this probably grew up the body of customary law by which the people were governed in the days of the judges and the early kings. This law, as also the constitution of the nation, was in many points vague and elastic. To pious and orderly minds it was held together by the consciousness of the indwelling of Jehovah as their king, which is the true theocracy. But there was much lawlessness, as indicated by the expres- sion of the book of Judges (xix. i ; xxi. 25) : 'In those 35 6 Books of the Old Testament [app. days there was no king . . . every man did that which was right in his own eyes/ The law was more fully en- forced by kings such as David and Jehoshaphat ; but the worship of Jehovah was still very generally of a debased character, notwithstanding the protests of individual prophets like Elijah ; and the law partook of the character of the worship. Then came the great prophetic outburst of the eighth century b.c. , which purified both the worship and the law, and which synchronizes with the reforms of Hezekiah. These in their turn give rise to the legislation of Deuteronomy, to the more stringent reforms of Josiah, and to the directly spiritual teaching of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But now in the prophets of the exile and the return a new sacerdotal and sacrificial element appears. Even in the second part of Isaiah we read of the doom entailed by ceremonial impurity (Is. Ixvi. 17) : the test of the strangers who join themselves to Jehovah is that they should keep the Sabbaths, and the promise to them is that they should offer acceptable burnt sacrifices (Iv. 6, 7) ; and the ideal for those who return from exile is that of them some shall be taken for priests and Levites (Ixvi. 19-21). In Ezekiel, who was himself a priest, we find an elaborate system of sacrificial worship drawn out, which appears to have been the model followed by the restored community. It may well be thdt the sense of the need of atonement was so great at that time that it could only be satisfied by the intensifying of this ele- ment. That this element existed from the first is not denied, and that some kind of a priestly Torah was formed of customs and decisions relating to sacrifices and ceremonies. (See the allusions to ceremonial cus- toms in I Sam. xiv. ■^'^, xx. 26, 29; 2 Kings iv. 23.) But when we consider that the passover was never celebrated as a national feast from the time of Solomon to that of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxx. 26), nor the feast of tabernacles NOTE XVI.] as a Basis fo7' History 357 from the time of Joshua to that of Ezra (Nehem. viii. 17), we may believe that little attention was paid to the details of the sacrificial system, and that the offerings, however numerous, were spontaneous and irregular. The best evidence of the change from this irregularity to the subsequent precision is to be found by comparing the earlier prophets with those after the exile. Especially we may compare the teaching of Jeremiah who declares that no law had been given to the fathers as to offering and sacrifice (vii. 22) with Malachi whose expostulations with the people are all connected with the sacrificial sys- tem. * Cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing' (Mai. i. 14). Such a sentence as this could not have occurred in the earlier prophets ; nor again the sentiment of iii. 9, 10, where the removal of the curse upon the nation is made dependent on the payment of tithes. It is natural to infer from these facts that the sacrificial system became much more stringent after the return from Babylon. The saying that 'post-exilian Judaism was rabbinical and not sacrificial' is true only of the later times. It may be that the sacrificial system did not last long after it was reduced to a stringent system. It is not uncommon for a practice to be pursued with an extreme fervour at the moment when it is about to pass away, as was the case with the Roman temple-architecture under Antoninus Pius just before its complete debasement under Caracalla, or of the building of vast towers to churches and monasteries just before the Reformation. But the men of the age from Ezra to Malachi, during which, according to the Jewish tradition, the whole of the older documents were revised and re-edited, must have set about their task with minds deeply imbued with the importance of the sacrificial system and the priestly office. This appears distinctly in the books of Chroni- 358 Books of the Old Testament [app. cles, which were unquestionably written at this time. It is most natural to believe that the book of Leviticus also was compiled or reduced to its present state at the same time. The same tendency, it is believed, is to be traced in the rehandling of the other books of the Penta- teuch, especially the later part of Exodus and the book of Numbers. The book of Deuteronomy, being a con- nected whole, is not susceptible of such treatment ; but the book of Joshua is coloured by it. We have, then, three periods of Jewish literature and legislation. First, the simpler period, to which belongs the underlying substance of the books of Genesis, Exo- dus, Numbers, and Joshua, and the whole of the earlier histories; secondly, the Deuteronomic period, to which belong the book of Deuteronomy, the prophets except the prophets of the exile and return, and the later part of the history ; and thirdly, the Levitical period, to which belong the prophets of the exile and return, the books of Leviticus and the Chronicles, and the general rehandling of the Pentateuch except Deuteronomy and the book of Joshua. The Psalms belong to all the periods : and the Hagiographa bear only incidentally upon the history. In the views now expressed Kuenen, Colenso, and Robertson Smith substantially agree, and, though with some differences, Wellhausen. It is obvious that they are of great importance for a correct estimate of the Hebrew history, and make it more harmonious with what we know of history generally, though in the case of Israel the sminal point is different from that to be found in other nations, being nothing else than a conscious relation to the Supreme Unity and Holiness. NOTE XVII.] May lie on Customary Law, 359 NOTE XVII. On Customary Law as described by Sir H. Mayne Sir H. Mayne, in his 'Ancient Law,' pp. 11-13, distin- guishes two epochs antecedent to the reduction of Laws to Codes ; the first that of almost arbitrary commands, or 'Themistes,' the second that of Customary Law. Of the first he says : — 'It is certain that, in the infancy of mankind, no sort of legislature, not even a distinct author of law, is con- templated or conceived of. Law has scarcely reached the footing of a custom, it is rather a habit. It is, to use a French phrase, "in the air." The only authoritative statement of right and wrong is a judicial sentence after the facts, not one presupposing a law which has been violated, but one which has been breathed for the first time by a higher power into the judge's mind at the mo- ment of adjudication. . . . An Englishman should be better able than a foreigner to appreciate the historical fact that the Themistes preceded any conception of law, because, amid the many inconsistent theories which pre- vail concerning the character of English jurisprudence, the most popular, or at all events the one which most affects practice, is certainly a theory which assumes that adjudged cases and precedents exist antecedently to rules, principles and distinctions.' Of the second, the customary period, he says that it coincides with a period in which aristocracies were formed and became the depositaries of the law : — ' Customs or Observances now exist as a substantive aggregate, and are assumed to be precisely known to the aristocratic order or caste. . . . Before the invention of writing, and during the infancy of the art, an aristocracy invested with judicial privileges formed the only expe- 360 Sir H. Mayne on Customary Law, [app. dient by which accurate preservation of the customs of the race or tribe could be at all approximated to. Their genuineness was, so far as possible, ensured by confiding- them to the recollection of a limited portion of the com- munity. The epoch of Customary Law, and of its cus- tody by a privileged order, is a very remarkable one. The condition of jurisprudence which it implies has left traces which may still be detected in legal and popular phraseology. The law thus known exclusively to a privileged minority, whether a caste, an aristocracy, a priestly tribe or a sacerdotal college, is true unwritten law. Except this, there is no such thing as unwritten law in the world.' He adds : ' There was once a period at which English common law might reasonably have been termed unwrit- ten. The elder English judges did really pretend to knowledge of rules, principles and distinctions which were not entirely revealed to the bar and to the lay- public' It is evident that we have traces of both these periods, as well as of the stage of codified law, in the history of Israel, though these periods are not quite mutually exclu- sive. It is generally believed that the ' Book of the Cove- nant' (Exod. xx.-xxiii. ) dates from the earliest times. If so, and if it was reduced to writing and read out before the people (Exod. xxiv. 4, 7), it appears to be an ex- ception to the usual development of law. But it is hardly a code of laws in the later sense : it is rather of the nature of a set of directions to the judges, who are assumed to be already at work (Exod. xviii. 25, 26) : nor do we find an appeal to written laws in the practical cases recorded. The practices alluded to in the book of Ruth are customs rather than laws : and the judge is re- presented as resolving cases according to his innate sense of justice (2 Sam. xiv. 17 ; Is. xi. 2-4). The judge is a God upon earth (Exod. xxi. 6, xxii. 8, 9 — Rev. Ver., Ps. NOTE XVIII.] Absolutism in GerTuan Churches, ^^(ii Ixxxii. 6). Such judgments as that of David on the sup- posititious case brought before him by Nathan (2 Sam. xii. 5, 6) or the famous judgment of Solomon are instances of Themistes, immediate judgments upon the facts held to proceed from divine inspiration. On the other hand, the position ascribed to the tribe of Levi (Deut. xxxiii. 9, 10, xxi. 5) and the connexion of judg- ment with the sanctuary, as seen in the use of the word Elohim forjudges in Exod. xxi. 6, xxii. 8, 9, indicates the second stage when the knowledge of law belonged to the priestly tribe. Deuteronomy and Leviticus show the pro- cess of codification in two different stages and forms. NOTE xvin. I. Extracts from the Life of Baron Bunsen, showing THE working of ABSOLUTISM IN THE ChURCH IN GeRMANY. Vol. i. p. 198. He [the King of Prussia, Frederick William III.] was intensely anxious to heal the wounds of his own ravaged and dissevered dominions, by effec- tually securing the advancement of Christianity, as the best means of renewing well-being in every direction ; and he had a strong impression of the peculiar duty in- herited by the House of Brandenburgh, to create peace and unity between the observances of the Reformed (or Calvinistic) Churches and those of the Lutheran Confes- sion. Could the King have had his wish, it would pro- bably have taken the form of an absolute merging of vari- ations into a solid and uniform establishment like that of the Church of England, which he knew to have originated in a compound of the maxims of the two Reformers, to he modified according to German peculiarities. This is not the place to note in detail the course of serious study and the manifold difficulties undertaken and worked through 362 Absohitisni iii German CJncrches. [app. by the conscientious King and his favorite aide-de-camp, Witzleben, during many )'-ears. The King's researches after modes of conciHation had encountered much oppo- sition, and only in the military deference of this much- respected officer, and his honest appreciation of the ob- ject in view, did he find assistance in the construction of a form of prayer for his own private chapel, put together from various liturgical fragments, which he proceeded, after the mode of the long established paternal (i.e. ab- solute) government, by degrees to introduce throughout the kingdom. The King's 'Agenda' became the au- thorized form of public worship in the 'United Evangelic Church of Prussia,' in the years following the tercenten- ary festival of the Reformation in 181 7, when the King, although a Calvinist, had for the first time partaken of the Lord's Supper in a Lutheran Church. P. 259. The Government of the Prussian dominions had always been a system of royal orders and decrees, constituted with exemplary regard to positive and actual law, and obeyed with military precision. When the King's will was once known, there was no question of remonstrance or of opposition : — for instance, when King Frederick William (father of Frederick the Great) resolved to maintain the cause of his Protestant brethren in Heidel- berg (persecuted and driven out of their own Church by the Roman Catholic Elector), and therefore declared that, as long as they were not restored to their hereditary pos- sessions, he would retaliate on the Church of Rome, by withholding from his Catholic subjects in Magdeburgh their immunities and the use of their church, he was only considered as doing 'what he would with his own,' and never accused of a breach of vested rights. When there- fore the Prussian dominions received the large accession of territory consisting of the ancient dioceses of Cologne, Treves, and Paderborn, the Prussian ordinances were alone reckoned upon for the regulation of the new coun- NOTE XVIII.] Prussian Chttrch Reform, 363 tries as well as of the old. The Prussian troops were, as such, to march into the Protestant church after parade, whether recruited among the Catholic or the Protestant population ; and if a marriage was to take place between persons of different persuasions (a so-called ' mixed mar- riage'), the law of Prussia vested in the father the sole right over the religious education of his children, and for- bade his entering into stipulations on the subject before marriage. This was law, and the monarch's will — and how should it be interfered with .? P. 309. The King of Bavaria has commanded the Pro- testant soldiers to fall down before the Host. Those at Regensburg have refused ; and the King allows the alternative of quitting the service or complying. A letter has been published (to Count Senfft, the Austrian Ambas- sador Extraordinary in London for the Belgian question) signifying that the Pope will never allow Roman Catho- lics (those of Limburg and Luxemburg) to be transferred to Protestant Sovereigns. Of both these things due use will be made here. 2. Extracts (translated) from the Ixtroduction to ' Die Kirchengemeinde-Ordnuxg fur die evangelische Lan- deskirchen Preussens .... erlautert von F. Rich- ter,' 1882. (Berlin, Fr. Kortkampf.) All the laws of the National Church issue from the king in virtue of his right as the person charged with the ecclesiastical government. The king calls together, closes, or adjourns the general synod ; his commissioner has the right of speaking and making proposals at any time. The king nominates thirty members in the general synod, and a sixth part of the number of members in each of the provincial synods. All members of the body of church officials, that is, of the parochial councils and of the consistories, and the superintendents are nomi- 364 Prussian C/itirck Reform. [app. nated by the king ; the complete identification of the whole body of church officials with the synod, whether as offshoots from it, or as boards selected from the synods, and consequently the attribution to them of an exclusively ecclesiastical character with regard to hier- archical position and discipline, has been decisively re- nounced. The difference from earlier times consists in this, that the sovereign conducts the ecclesiastical gov- ernment in a constitutional, not an absolute manner. Lastly, we must also examine the question of superin- tendence by the state. We can best describe the over- sight which the state officials will exercise over the action of the ecclesiastical organizations when they shall have been disconnected from the control of church affairs, in the words of the state-government itself which are added to the project of law for the regulation of the general synod : 'The object of the state-superintendence over the management of the property of a corporation existing by public right (for it is in this character that church com- munities present themselves in the regulation of the law of the state) is, to prevent that anything contrary to law or anything hurtful to the public weal should be committed, and to take care that the property which belongs to the perpetual corporation, but which does not stand at the free disposal of the actual members at any given time, should be maintained from generation to generation. By this the limit of the state-oversight is prescribed. Where nothing contrary to law or hurtful to the common weal appears, where a property is managed in such a way as not to endanger the future of the corporation, the state does not need to interfere, nor to encroach upon the Church power through pretext (so-called) of prescribing a policy, whether in the way of command or of preven- tion. In such a case the prescribed organs must retain freedom and independence of movement as to the power NOTE XIX.] Hooker on Church Law. 365 of managing their property. Starting from this principle, the system of universal oversight by the state which laid its hands on everything is abandoned in the law of June 20th, 1875, and the system is adopted of a special statement of those acts of administration which require the superintendence and the ratification of the state authorities, so that, with the exception of these special cases, the administration of property may be carried on freely and independently by the ecclesiastical organs, under the superintendence of the Church authorities. It is of course understood that henceforward the same sys- tem must be brought to bear on the Evangelical Church, and for this reason also article 23 of the project of law appears as a copy of § 50 of the law of June 20th, 1875. The project of law regulates the rights of superintendence by the state in express terms. Thus all the rights of management hitherto exercised by the state authorities which do not remain in article z'^,, and those rights of superintendence which are not men- tioned in article 24, are abolished. On the other hand, the state has not withdrawn from ecclesiastical legisla- tion, though it no longer takes part in the decision of special cases, or in the application of ecclesiastical laws. NOTE XIX. Extract from Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity on the making OF Ecclesiastical Laws and the Royal Supremacy. Bk. VIII. c. vi. § II. The most natural and religious course in making of laws is, that the matter of them be taken from the judgment of the wisest in those things which they are to concern. In matters of God, to set down a form of public prayer, a solemn confession of the articles of Christian faith, rites and ceremonies meet for the exercise of religion ; it were unnatural not to think 366 Hooker on the Royal Supremacy. [app. the pastors emd bishops of our souls a great deal more fit, than men of secular trades and callings : howbeit, when all which the wisdom of all sorts can do is done for de- vising of laws in the Church, it is the general consent of all that giveth them the form and vigour of laws, without which they could be no more unto us than the counsels of physicians to the sick : well might they seem as wholesome admonitions and instructions, but laws could they never be without consent of the whole Church, which is the only thing that bindeth each member of the Church, to be guided by them. Whereunto both nature and the practice of the Church of God set down in Scrip- ture, is found every way so fully consonant, that God Himself would not impose, no not His own laws upon His people by the hand of Moses, without their free and open consent. Wherefore to define and determine even of the Church's affairs by way of assent and approbation, as laws are defined of in that right of power, w^hich doth give them the force of laws ; thus to define of our own Church's regiment, the parliament of England hath com- petent authority. Touching the supremacy of power which our kings have in this case of making laws, it resteth principally in the strength of a negative voice ; which not to give them, were to deny them that without which they were but kings by mere title and not in exercise of dominion. Be it in states of regiment popular, aristocratical, or regal, principality resteth in that person, or those persons unto whom is given the right of excluding any kind of law whatsoever it be before establishment. This doth belong unto kings, as kings ; pagan emperors, even Nero him- self had not less but much more than this in the laws of his own empire. That he challenged not any interest in giving voice in the laws of the Church, I hope no man will so construe, as if the cause were conscience, and fear to encroach upon the Apostles' right. NOTE XIX.] Hooker on the Royal Supremacy, 367 If then it be demanded by what right from Constantine downward, the Christian emperors did so far intermeddle with the Church's affairs, either one must herein condemn them utterly, as being over presumptuously bold, or else judge that by a law which is termed Regia, that is to say royal, the people having derived into the emperor their whole power for making of laws and by that means his edicts being made laws, what matter soever they did con- cern, as imperial dignity endowed them with competent authority and power to make laws for religion, so they were taught by Christianity to use their power, being Christians, unto the benefit of the Church of Christ. Was there any Christian bishop in the world which did then judge this repugnant unto the dutiful subjection which Christians do owe to the pastors of their souls ? To whom in respect of their sacred order, it is not by us, neither may be denied, that kings and princes are, as much as the very meanest that liveth under them, bound in conscience to show themselves gladly and willingly obedient, receiv- ing the seals of salvation, the blessed sacraments, at their hands, as at the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all reverence, not disdaining to be taught and admonished by them, not withholding from them as much as the least part of their due and decent honour. All which for any thing that hath been alleged, may stand very well without resignation of supremacy of power in making laws, even laws concerning the most spiritual affairs of the Church. Which laws being made amongst us, are not by any of us so taken or interpreted, as if they did receive the force from power which the prince doth communicate unto the parliament, or to any other court under him, but from power which the whole body of this realm being naturally possessed with hath by free and deliberate assent derived unto him that ruleth over them, so far forth as hath been declared. So that our laws made concerning religion do 368 Rothe on the Church. [app. take originally their essence from the power of the whole realm and Church of England, than which nothing can be more consonant unto the law of nature and the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. NOTE XX. Richard Rothe on the Church. In his great work on Theological Ethics, which, written in 1845, still continues to be reprinted in Germany, and has never been surpassed, Rothe takes the Church as meaning the Society which is concerned with spiritual re- lations pure and simple, as contrasted with Societies which exist for the general moral purposes of human life. He appropriates the word Church to that which I have in these Lectures called the Association for worship. He points out that religion must work itself out to moral and political results ; that, as a corporate brotherhood, the Church necessarily gives birth to political life, and simi- larly that it is the parent of all the great forms of moral association. But he contends (i) that the Church only- uses these Associations for its own purely spiritual pur- poses, and (2) that when these Associations have been fully inspired with the moral and religious spirit, the Society occupied with purely spiritual objects will have no further ratio essendi, and, according to his use of the term, the Church will vanish away. I subjoin a transla- tion of the passage in which he expresses this remarkable opinion. I have given my reasons in the Lecture for not agreeing with it ; but it is important as the judgment of a deeply thoughtful and far-seeing Christian teacher. The passage is from the Theologische Ethik, vol. ii. pp. 247-9 :— 'The community which exists for the purposes of piety purely and exclusively as such is the Church. The Church NOTE XX.] Rothe on the Church. 369 is accordingly, until the full termination of the moral development of humanity, the highest unity : in it the multiplicity of special circles of fellowship, into which the community of moral relations unfolds itself, passes again into absolute unity ; and in it by this very fact the Society which exists for the religious-moral purposes of the individual, and which is confined in itself and limited, widens out into an universalism which has no limits and advances to the measure which our moral being demands, and thereby also gains true purity and enlightenment. It is, therefore, an unconditional demand of morality on every individual that he should take part in the Church, and this in all the substantial departments of his moral being (the whole moral person) ; and the participation of the individual in the other special modes of moral fellow- ship reaches its morally normal state only so far as it is united with a proportionate participation in the Church, and is held together by it in its several special depart- ments. ' From this conception of the Church, however, it at once follows that, with the completion of the moral de- velopment of humanity (since with it the Society which combines religion with morality will in its action have reached an absolutely complete universality, and thus have been expanded into a bond which embraces all men without exception), the Church entirely falls away ; for then the sphere of the Society in which religion is combined with morality (that is, the whole made up of the several circles of this religious-moral fellowship), now in its actual circumference (both extensive and intensive) com- pletely occupies the sphere of the fellowship formed for purely religious purposes. The existing contrast between the two communities is entirely grounded on the fact that their circumferences are not the same. In proportion, therefore, as the normal moral development advances, and the moral fellowship approaches its consummation, 24 370 Rothe on the Church. [app. the contrast between the two communities disappears ; that is to say, in that same proportion the Church, the exclusively religious society, more and more retires before the advance of the religious-moral society. 'According to the proper conception of the Church, the business for which it forms a community is that of religion purely and exclusively. The occupation of the Church is, according to its very conception, not that of religion com- bined with morality, but a religious-moral occupation from which the moral element is completely withdrawn. It is consequently, to come more close to the matter, on one side a knowledge which is entirely, exclusively religious, and with this a piety, a yearning after God which is not at the same time a moral yearning or a yearning which has the world for its object, accompanied by a contempla- tion which is not at the same time a moral contemplation or a contemplation of the world ; it is, further, a theosophy, but one which is not at the same time a moral know- ledge and a process of thought, or a knowledge which has the world for the object of its thought, accompanied by a system of prophesying which is not at the same time a moral representation, a representation of the world ; and on the other side a culture entirely, exclusively religious, and with this a system of devotion which is not at the same time a moral appropriation, an appropriation of the world, accompanied by a hope of blessedness which is not at the same time a moral enjoyment, and a consecra- tion of life (a making of sacraments) which is not at the same time a framing of things moral, and therefore earthly, accompanied by a religious service which is not at the same time a moral acquirement, an acquirement of a personal possession in this world. Within the sphere of the Church, the normal occupation is that which is purely and exclusively religious. It is, however, inherent in the very conception of it that it is, in its pure and morally normal state, a merely transitory thing, as is the Church NOTE XXL] The Function of Preaching, 371 itself, that is, that it falls more and more completely into the background, in the same proportion in which the moral fellowship develops itself progressively as one which combines religion with its moral life and grows nearer to its completion. ' NOTE XXI. From Ecce Homo. The Law of Edification. ' A flourishing Church requires a vast and complicated organization, which should afford a place for every one who is ready to work in the service of humanity. The enthusiasm should not be suffered to die out in any one for want of the occupation best calculated to keep it alive. Those who meet within the church walls on Sunday should not meet as strangers who find themselves together in the same lecture-hall, but as co-operators in a public work the object of which all understand and to his own department of which each man habitually applies his mind and contriving power. Thus meeting, with the esprit de corps strong among them, and with a clear perception of the purpose of their union and their meeting, they would not desire that the exhortation of the preacher should be, what in the nature of things it seldom can be, eloquent. It might cease then to be either a despairing and over- wrought appeal to feelings which grow more callous the oftener they are thus excited to no definite purpose, oi> a childish discussion of some deep point in morality or divinity better left to philosophers. It might then become weighty with business, and impressive as an officer's ad- dress to his troops before a battle. For it would be ad- dressed by a soldier to soldiers in the presence of an enemy whose character they understood and in the war with whom they had given and received telling blows. It would be addressed to an ardent and hopeful association 'iy^2 Leighton on Religion and Art. [app. who had united for the purpose of contending within a given district against disease and distress, of diminishing by every contrivance of kindly sympathy the rudeness, coarseness, ignorance, and improvidence of the poor and the heartlessness and hardness of the rich ; for the purpose of securing to all that moderate happiness which gives leisure for virtue, and that moderate occupation which re- moves the temptations of vice ; for the purpose of provid- ing a large and wire education for the young ; lastly, for the purpose of handing on the tradition of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, maintaining the Enthusiasm of Humanity in all the baptized, and preserving, in opposition to all temptations to superstition or fanaticism, the filial freedom of their worship of God.' NOTE XXII. Religion and Art. Extract from an Address to the Students of the Royal Academy Schools, on Satur- day, December id, i88i, by the President, Sir F. Leighton. After showing that Art must be emancipated from the supposed duty of directly inculcating moral and religious truth the President proceeded to point out the true con- nexion of Art and of the character of the artist with morals and religion : — * There is a field in which art has no rival. We have within us the faculty for a range of emotions of vast com- pass, of exquisite subtlety, and of irresistible force, to which art and art alone among human forms of expression has a key. These, then, and no others, are the chords which it is her appointed duty to strike ; and form, colour, and the contrasts of light and shade are the agents through which it is given to her to set them in motion. Her duty is, therefore, to awaken those sensations, directly emotional NOTE xxii.] Leighto7i on Religion and Art 373 and indirectly intellectual, which can be communicated only through the sense of sight, to the delight of which she has primarily to minister. And the dignity of these sensations lies in this, that they are inseparably connected by association of ideas with a range of perceptions and feelings of infinite variety and scope. They come fraught with dim, complex memories of all the ever-shifting spec- tacle of inanimate creation and of the more deeply stir- ring phenomena of life, of the storm and the lull, the splen- dour and the darkness of the outer world, of the changeful and transitory lives of men. Nay, so closely overlaid is the simple aesthetic sensation with elements of ethic or in- tellectual emotion by these constant and manifold accre- tions of associated ideas that it is difficult to conceive of it independently of this precious" overgrowth. I cannot here enter at any length on this most interesting subject, but a moment's reflection will furnish you with illustra- tions of it. You will find, for instance, that, through this operation of association, lines and forms and combinations of lines and forms, colours and combinations of colours, have acquired a distinct cxpressional significance, and, go to speak, an ethos of their own, and will convey, in the one province, notions of strength, of repose, of solidity, of flowing motion, and of life ; in the other, sensations of joy or of sadness, of heat or of cold, of languor or of health. It is this intensification of the simple aesthetic sensation through ethic and intellectual suggestiveness that gives to the arts of architecture, sculpture, and paint- ing so powerful, so deep, and so mysterious a hold on the imagination. And, here, also we find the answer to the second of those fallacies to which I just now alluded — to wit, that moral edification can attach only to direct moral teaching. The most sensitively religious mind may in- deed rest satisfied in the consciousness that it is not on the wings of abstract thought alone that we rise to the highest moods of contemplation or to the most chastened 374 Leighton on Religion and Art, [app. moral temper, and assuredly arts which have for their chief task to reveal the inmost springs of beauty in the created world, to unfold all the pomp of the teeming earthi, and all the pageant of those heavens of w^hich we are told that they declare the glory of God, are not the least eloquent witnessc.3 to the might and to the majesty of the mysterious and eternal Fountain of all good things. We should thus find ourselves abundantly armed, were it needful to be so armed, to meet those who affirm that to convey moral edification can alone give the highest status to an intellectual pursuit. But we have no need of de- fence against a fallacy so palpable, a fallacy of which the adoption contains the disparagement of every form of pure science with all its marvellous achievements, achieve- ments more marvellous than the dreams of fancy, and in their results unspeakably beneficent. On the absurdity of such an attitude it is needless to dwell. In fact, the nature of man is a complex organism in which are many and various germs of growth, and only in the full and balanced development of these several elements can that organism achieve in this world its perfect maturity. To art belongs the development of one group of these rich and fruitful germs, a sufficient, and, surely, no ignoble task. ' Let me recapitulate the points on which, in this rapid and too summary glance at the bearing of ethics on art, we seem to have established our position. We have laid down as an unassailable axiom that the special function of a mode of expression is to convey those ideas, emotions, or impressions of which it is the fittest vehicle, and we have recognized that the proper vehicle of purely ethical ideas is speech. Art, on the other hand, we said, being the proper and only channel for impressions of another order — namely, sesthetical impressions, cannot have for its highest duty the conveying of ethic truths. We saw, further, that though the impressions which it is the ex- NOTE XXII.] Leighton on Religion aitd Art. 375 elusive privilege, and therefore the proper function of art to convey, are primarily aesthetic, they are very complex in their nature, and receive an incalculable accession of strength through the operation of associated ideas ; and again, we saw that these complex impressions, in which intellectual and ethical elements are thus added to the fundamental aesthetic sensation, having, like those stirred in us by music, the power to raise us to the highest regions of poetic emotion, deserve to rank among the noblest delights of men. And lastly, we have seen that, while the inculcation of moral and religious truths must be ad- mitted not to be the object of art, as such, nor moral edi- fication its appointed task, it is not therefore true, as some would have us believe, that the artist's work is unin- fluenced by his moral tone, but rather that the influence of that tone is, in fact, upon it, and controls it from the first touch of the brush or chisel to the last. And once again, I say I would fain stamp this vital fact deeply in your minds. Believe me, whatever of dignity, whatever of strength we have within us will dignify and will make strong the labours of our hands ; whatever littleness de- grades our spirit will lessen them and drag them. down. Whatever noble fire is in our hearts will burn also in our work, whatever purity is ours will chasten and exalt it ; for as we are, so our work is, and what we sow in our lives, that, beyond a doubt, we shall reap for good or for ill in the strengthening or defacing of whatever gifts have fallen to our lot. 37^ Dr, Ar7iold on the Church, [app. NOTE XXIII. Extracts from 'A Fragment on the Church/ by Dr. Arnold (Fellowes, 1844), pp. 6-13. By the Christian Church, I mean that provision for the communicating, maintaining and enforcing of Christian knowledge by which it was to be made influential, not on individuals, but on masses of men. This provision consisted in the formation of a society, which by its con- stitution should be capable of acting both within itself and without ; having, so to speak, a twofold movement, the one for its outward advance, the other for its inward life and purification ; so that Christianity should be at once spread widely, and preserved the while in its proper truth and vigour, till Christian knowledge should be not only communicated to the whole world, but be embraced also in its original purity, and bring forth its practical fruit. Thus, Christian religion and the Christian Church being two distinct things, the one acting upon indivi- duals, the other upon masses ; it is very possible for the former to continue to do its work, although the latter be perverted or disabled. • •••••• The co-operative principle, founded on the great dis- similarity which prevails amongst men, was by Chris- tianity to be applied to moral purposes, as it had long been to physical ; each man was to regard his intellectual and moral gifts as a means of advancing the intellectual and moral good of society ; what he himself wanted was to be supplied out of the abundance of his neighbour ; and thus the moral no less than the physical weaknesses of each individual were to be strengthened and remedied till they should vanish as to their enfeebling effects both with respect to himself and to the community. NOTE XXIII.] as a Sovereign Society, 377 Nothing could be more general than such a system of co-operation. It extended to every part of life ; not only going far beyond that co-operation for ritual purposes, which was the social part of the old religions, but, so far as men's physical well-being had been the sole object of existing civil societies, it went far beyond them also. For though it is possible, and unhappily too easy, to ex- clude moral considerations from our notions of physical good, and from our notions of ritual religion, yet it is not easy, in looking to the moral good of man, to exclude considerations of his physical well-being. Every out- ward thing having a tendency to affect his moral charac- ter, either for the better or for the worse, and this espe- cially holding good with respect to riches or poverty, economical questions, in all their wide extent, fall directly under the cognizance of those whose object is to promote man's moral welfare. But while thus general, the object of Christian co-ope-" ration was not to be vague. When men combined to offer sacrifice, or to keep festival, there was a definite ob- ject of their union ; but the promotion of man's moral welfare might seem indistinct and lost in distance. Something nearer and more personal was therefore to be mixed up with that which was indistinct from its very vastness. The direct object of Christian co-operation was to bring Christ into every part of common life, in scriptural language, to make human society one living body, closely joined in communion with Christ, its head. And for this purpose, one of the very simplest acts of natural necessity was connected with the very deepest things of religion — the meal of an assembly of Christians was made the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. And the early Church well entered into the spirit of this ordinance, when it began every day by a partaking of the holy communion. For when Christ was thus brought into one of the commonest acts of nature and of common 2,yS Dr. Arnold on the CJiMrch [app. society, it was a lively lesson, that in every other act through the day he should be made present also ; if Christians at their very social meal could enter into the highest spiritual communion, it taught them that in all matters of life, even when separated from one another bodily, that same communion should be preserved invio- late ; that in all things they were working for and with one another, with and to Christ and God. Such appears, even from the meagre account of a stranger, to have been the manner of living of the Chris- tians of Bithynia, about a hundred years after the birth of our Lord, and about seventy therefore from the first preaching of Christianity. They met before day, and sang together a hymn to Christ : then they bound them- selves to one another by oath — according to Pliny's ex- pression, 'Sacramento,' but in reality, we maybe sure, by their joint partaking of the communion of Christ's body and blood — that they would neither steal, nor rob, nor commit adultery, nor break faith, nor refuse to restore what had been entrusted to them. Then they went to their day's work, and met again to partake their meal together, which they probably hallowed, either by making it a direct communion, or by some prayers or hymns, which reminded them of their Christian fellow- ship. Now, in this account, short as it is, we see the two great principles of the Christian Church : first, co-opera- tion for general moral improvement, for doing the duties of life better ; and secondly, the bringing Christ as it were into their communion, by beginning the day with Him and deriving their principle of virtuous living directly from His sacrament. The Church of Bithynia existed on a small scale, in a remote province ; but here are precisely those leading principles of the Christian Church exemplified, which were fitted for all circum- stances and all places, and which contain in them that NOTE XXIII.] as a Sovereign Society, 379 essential virtue which the Church was to embody and to diffuse. It is obvious, also, that the object of Christian society being thus extensive, and relating not to ritual observ- ances, but to the improvement of the whole of our life, the natural and fit state of the Church is that it should be a sovereign society or commonwealth : as long as it is subordinate and municipal, it cannot fully carry its pur- poses into effect. This will be evident, if we consider that law and government are the sovereign influences on human society ; that they in the last resort shape and control it at their pleasure ; that institutions depend on them, and are by them formed and modified ; that what they sanction will ever be generally considered innocent ; that what they condemn is thereby made a crime, and if persisted in becomes rebellion ; and that those who hold in their hands the power of life and death must be able greatly to obstruct the progress of whatever they disap- prove of, and those who dispose of all the honours and rewards of society must, in the same way, be greatly able to advance whatever they think excellent. So long, then, as the sovereign society is not Christian, and the Church is not sovereign, we have two powers alike designed to act upon the whole of our being, but acting often in oppo- sition to one another. Of these powers, the one has wis-^ dom, the other external force and influence ; and from the division of these things, which ought ever to go together, the wisdom of the Church cannot carry into effect the truths which it sees and loves ; whilst the power of gov- ernment, not being guided by wisdom, influences society for evil rather than for good. The natural and true state of things then is, that this ' power and this wisdom should be united ; that human life should not be pulled to pieces between two claimants, each pretending to exercise control over it, not in some particular portion, but universally ; that wisdom should 380 Dr. Arnold on the Church, [app. be armed with power, power guided by wisdom ; that the Christian Church should have no external force to thwart its beneficent purposes ; that government should not be poisoned by its external ignorance or wickedness, and thus advance the cause of God's enemy rather than perform the part of God's vicegerent. This is the perfect notion of a Christian Church, that it should be a sovereign society, operating therefore with full power for raising its condition, first morally, and then physically ; operating through the fullest development of the varied faculties and qualities of its several members, and keeping up continually, as the bond of its union, the fellowship of all its people with one another through Christ, and their communion with Him as their'common head. With this notion of a perfect Church two things are utterly inconsistent ; first, the destroying of the principle of co-operation through the varied talents and habits of the several members of the society, and substituting in the place of it a system in which a very few should be active and the great mass passive ; a system in which vital heat was to be maintained, not by the even cir- culation of the blood through every limb, through the healthy co-operation of the arteries and veins of every part, but by external rubbing and chafing, when the limbs, from a suspension of their inward activity, had become cold and paralyzed. Secondly, the taking of any part or parts of human life out of its control, by a pretended distinction between spiritual things and secular ; a distinction utterly without foundation, for in one sense all things are secular, for they are done in time and on earth ; in another, all things are spiritual, for they affect us morally either for the better or the worse, and so tend to make our spirits fitter for the society of God or of His enemies. The division rests entirely on principles of heathenism, and tends to make NOTE XXIV.] European peace and unity. 381 Christianity like the religions of the old world, not a sovereign discipline for every part and act of life, but a system for communicating certain abstract truths, and for the performance of certain visible rules and ceremonies. These two notions, both utterly inconsistent with the idea of a true Christian Church, have been prevalent alternately or conjointly almost from the beginning of Christianity. To the first we owe Popery in all its shapes, Romanist or Protestant ; the second is the more open form of Antichrist, which by its utter dissoluteness has gone far to reduce countries nominally Christian to a state of lawlessness and want of principle worse than the worst heathenism. But these two Antichrists have ever prepared the way for each other ; and the falsehood of the one has led directly to the falsehood of its apparent opposite, but really ally and co-operator. NOTE XXIV. The Views of International Jurists as to a Tribunal of Arbitration as a Substitute for War. The efforts of international jurists have in recent years turned with hope and earnestness towards the establish- ment of some power which may obviate war. Woolsey in his ' Introduction to the Study of Inter- national Law ' points out that the Roman Imperial Power originally fulfilled this function, and that this was feebly perpetuated in the dispensing authority of the Mediaeval Popes, which was held to override the national laws. He shows that International Law exists only for those coun- tries which have the tradition of the Roman law, and in which, through the acknowledgment of Christianity, there is a community of moral principles. The great defect of International Law is the want of an authoritative expo- 382 International Jurists on [app. nent of its principles. Another defect is that the principles are not equally ackowledged by all ; and a third, that the Law only binds the Christian nations among themselves, not in their dealings with the other races ; and further, that there is no umpire. Many attempts, he shows, have been made to correct these evils. Henry IV. of France formed a design of this kind, with a view to prevent the recurrence of the wars of religion, to unite Europe against Turkish aggression and to repress the tyrannical action of Spain and Austria. The efforts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to maintain the balance of power recognized a common interest and a kind of authority above the individual states. In 1789 Bentham proposed a scheme for a gen- eral congress of arbitration. Each state was to agree to fix the amount of its armaments, and to give a contingent for enforcing the decrees of the central tribunal. Kant a few years afterwards (1795) wrote his treatise *Zum ewi- gen Friede,' in which he advocated a homogeneous con- stitution for the several states, who would unite in a con- federation, and thus form a common code of laws and a citizenship of the world. In more recent times there has been a disposition to attempt to give practical effect to views of a similar tendency. The declaration of the Treaty of Paris (1856) is as follows : 'The Plenipotentiaries do not hesitate to express in the name of their Governments the wish that States between which a serious disagreement should arise would, before appealing to arms, have recourse, so far as circumstances admit, to the good offices of friendly powers.' A similar declaration was made by the Treaty of Berlin (1878). The success of the Alabama Convention has shed a fresh ray of hope on such efforts. The Soci- ete de Droit International and the Arbitration and Peace Society hold their congresses to promote these views. Bluntschli, as will be seen by the subjoined extract, went NOTE XXIV.] European peace and unity 383 further, and believed in the possibihty of a 'World-State' supreme over the various nations. Fiore (Trattato di diritto internazionale publico, vol. i. p. 95), while consid- ering- Bluntschli's idea Utopian, yet expresses the strongest hopes for the establishment of an authoritative system of arbitration. It may be well to recall the efforts of the present Eng- lish Government to promote the European concert. I may quote the declaration of j\Ir. Gladstone in his speech on the Vote of Credit for the Expedition to Egypt (July 24, 1882) : ' I believe that it is the just opinion of reflect- ing men that there is nothing more important for the future of civilization than to make free resort, wherever it can be done, to that authority of united Europe, which, when it does speak, does really speak with weight, and which possesses a real title to be heard.' I subjoin a translation of a passage in Bluntschli's 'Allgemeine Volkslehre, ' Bk. i. c. 2 : — 'The mind of Europe already casts its looks over the whole globe, and the Aryan race feels itself called upon to regulate the world. * That point has not yet been reached. But at present it is not so much the will and the power as the intellectual maturity which is wanting. The final result will only then be possible, when the enlightening word of know- ledge has been spoken concerning this, and concerning the essential state of mankind, and when the nations are ready to hear it. 'Until then the one Universal Kingdom will be an idea towards which many will aspire, which none will be in a position to realize. But as an idea in the future the science of international law may not overlook it. Only in the one Universal Kingdom will the real state of man be made manifest ; in it the law of nations will find its perfection, and an assured existence in a higher form. The separate States hold the same relation to the uni- 384 The Parish as a Church, [app. versal kingdom as the different nations hold to mankind in general.' Bluntschli adds, that most men in the present day will think this idea a dream ; 'but/ he says, 'I must speak my conviction ; posterity will decide. ' NOTE XXV. The Parish as a Church. I venture to give, as an illustration of the liberal and national aspect of the Parochial system, a portion of a Pastoral Address sent out to the Parishioners of St. Mary's, Bryanston Square, in London, for the year 1879. I may be allowed, I hope, without seeming egotistical or trivial, to show that what is said in the text of these Lectures is not a mere theory, and that Christian nationalism is a spiritual and a practical system : — 'The Church is not the body of Christians simply when met for worship and instruction, but it is the unity of Christians in the whole circle of their lives. We should consider that Christians are meant to live together and to help each other in their common life : and that a com- mon life lived in faith and love is the truest sacrifice, the most reasonable service, which we can render to God. We should consider also that the principle of Neighbor- hood is not merely fortuitous but providential ; and that God has placed us in contiguous dwellings in order that our neighbourly relations may be cemented by Christian love, and that we may by living together help each other to be true Christians. In short, the body of persons living within the bounds of a parish should be looked upon as forming a Christian Church ; and the Pastor's effort should be to induce each individual to realize his membership in this parochial church, first by believing and acting as a Christian himself, and then by helping NOTE XXV.] The Parish as a Church, 385 others to do the same. It must be admitted that there are special difficulties thrown in the way of this by the fact that in London the parish forms but a fraction of a vast metropolitan whole. But it would be quite a mis- take to suppose that it has not, on that account, a very practical meaning to us. It means that the parish clergyman tries to influence in some way every soul living in the district assigned to him by law. It means that systems of charitable relief, of district visiting by both paid and unpaid agents, of schools, mothers' meet- ings, clubs, provident funds, maternity charities, and similar things, are set on foot, in which every one to whom they apply is invited to join simply because he lives in the district. It means, further, that by the sup- port of such institutions the richer parishioners are in- vited to aid their poorer brethren. And it means also that it affords a channel and a stimulus by which all who have any talent or willingness to work for their less favoured brethren may have their gifts drawn out. 'The Parish Church is the natural centre of all these Christian works, and the worship there carried on should be made to issue in such a system of mutual well-doing as has been described, and in general to promote a high tone of morals in the conduct of life. The worshippers in the Parish Church form a kind of nucleus and first-fruits of the whole parochial brotherhood. We might wish, in- deed, that all parishioners could be in some way united with us in worship ; but this is manifestly impossible in a London Parish. It is, however, by no means the case that those who do not worship in the Parish Church are necessarily separated from the church system such as I have described it. On the contrary ; experience proves that the parochial church regarded as a system of mutual well-doing is often a reality to persons to whom the wor- ship is, for whatever reason, less acceptable. In our own parish some of our largest subscribers and some of 25 386 The Parish as a Church, [app. our most earnest workers are not members of the con- gregation. It was my misfortune some years ago, through a proposal which I made for holding lectures in the church on the bearing of religion on secular life, to incur the suspicion of some valued members of the con- gregation. They ceased to worship with us, but by no means separated themselves from the work of the church. On the contrary, they very generously took every oppor- tunity of showing their union with us in our work, and have never ceased to fulfil actively the duties they had kindly undertaken in the administration of our charities. And least of all do we find that the fact of other wor- shipping bodies existing in our neighbourhood hinders this more general Christian union of which I am speak- ing. We have Nonconformists in our Church Council ; I have never failed to receive a hearty welcome at the Nonconformist chapels, and on the last occasion in which I was present at Paddington Chapel one of the speakers kindly alluded to me as "our Rector," after I had pro- pounded the very views I am now expressing. I may add that we have among our subscribers many Jewish gentlemen and ladies, and a gentleman belonging to a Jewish family gives us great assistance in the work of Poor Relief. Let me add one other instance. A few weeks ago a deserving couple belonging to the Primitive Methodists had suffered through the performance of a public duty. Some members of their little community were desirous of bringing their case before the public, with a view to some compensation for their losses ; but they felt that their own society had hardly the requisite influence ; and they did not scruple to ask me as head of the more general Christian society of the parish, to bring the matter before our neighbours : to which our neighbours very willingly responded. I call such acts as these acts of the Church as much as public worship or preaching. I am persuaded also that if the conception I NOTE XXV.] The Parish as a Church, 387 am here putting before you of the national Church (and its subdivision the parochial Church), as a great compre- hensive brotherhood existing for the sake of mutual well- doing, were generally recognized by its administrators, this conception would exercise the most salutary, concili- ating and quickening influence over the whole Chris- tianity of our country. I must repeat, that I say this not by any means to prejudge the discussion of any proposed changes, but to produce if I can the conviction that in any such changes regard should be had to the preserva- tion of this most important object, the binding together of those who in God's Providence live side by side in the brotherhood of a common Christian life. * I admit, of course, that this is only an aim, not a thing realized. But we do aim at it constantly, and in some degree accomplish it. Our visitors (including in this term the lady visitors and the IMission-women) visit every poor family. The aim of the assistant clergy is first to make acquaintance with every poor family and then to pay special visits when illness or any other cause calls for it. I endeavour myself to keep up some per- sonal relation with all the families residing in the larger streets and squares, as may be seen by the fact that we have contributions to our charities from some two hundred and twenty of these wealthier families. The tradesmen, of whom I regret to say we see least, are yet very ready in many cases to aid us ; and there is none of our Social Gatherings in the autumn more fully attended than that from * * * * Street, the special abode of tradesmen. Our Magazine, of which nearly one thousand copies are bought every month, spreads the intelligence of our various institutions to all parts of the Parish. Our Alma- nack finds its way to the home of every poor family, and it is also welcomed by the servants in our larger houses, among whom I have personally taken part each year in its distribution. Thus we endeavour to realize as far as 388 The Parish as a Church, [app. circumstances will permit the object of the parochial ministry as described in the Ordination Service of our Church, "to use public and private monitions and exhor- tations, as weW to the sick as to the whole, within our cure, to maintain and set forward, as much as in us lies, quietness, peace, and love among- all Christian people, especially among them that are committed to our charge." • I have confessed in previous addresses how impos- sible it is to be satisfied with the comparatively little we are able to accomplish, and the yearning, which I sup- pose every Christian pastor feels, which Dr. Chalmers expressed in the words, "O that I could bring myself fairly alongside of the souls of my parishioners." But as I look down any of the streets in which I know most of the families, I am not altogether without a pastor's satisfac- tion. There is a considerable number of families who worship with us or who take part in our work, and whose members I can feel to be directly under the influence of our ministry. There are others whom, though in no way connected with our organization, I know to be under the influence of other ministries, or interested in other good works in which I have no reason to doubt they are receiv- ing and doing good. There are, no doubt, some who are living a vain and worldly life ; but I trust and believe they are quite the smaller number. There are few whom I cannot hopefully recognize as belonging to the Chris- tian brotherhood of which I have spoken, wishing to live the Christian life and to grow in goodness and usefulness. And if there are some whom the sceptical spirit of the asre has caused to feel some mistrust of Christian teach- ing and ordinances, I am often able in such cases still to feel that the heart and intention is sound and that there is a readiness to take pains for the good of others which is one of the best marks of true discipleship. * I feel, therefore, that what is called the theory of a NOTE XXVI.] The Maison Leclaire at Paris, 389 national church, and of the parochial system, is by no means unreal with us. We wish to include every one who resides within our boundaries, leaving out none, and to treat them as members of a Christian brotherhood, to help them to rise to this position themselves and to call upon them to help others. We wish that the natural relations which exist between neighbours should be cemented and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, and that thus the process should go continually on amongst us by which the kingdom of the world will at last become the kingdom of God. ' I ask all who read this to keep this high object in view, as I hope to keep it in view myself; and in their individual life, in the family, and in all their social and public relations, to remember that they belong to Christ and to his mystical body, "which is the blessed com- pany of all faithful people.'' ' NOTE XXVI. The Maison Leclaire at Paris, an Example of Success- ful Co-operative Industry in a Firm of Decorators ; FROM A pamphlet BY MiSS HaRT, GIVING A FULL AC- COUNT OF THE Scheme. (Decorative Co-operators' Association, 405 Oxford-street.) The final scheme proposed by Leclaire, which was based upon the recommendations of a committee, received the approval of the workmen assembled in general meet- ing, and on January 6th, 1869, became the binding Charter of the firm. The working capital was now fixed at ;f 16,000, of which Leclaire contributed ^'4,000, M. Defournaux ^4,000, and the Mutual Aid Society, repre- senting the workmen's interest, ;^8,ooo. There was also a Reserve Fund of ^"4, 000, which could 390 Co-operative indtistry, [app. be drawn upon in case of emergency. The firm became by this Charter a * Societe en Comandite/ i.e. a partner- ship in which the acting partners are responsible without limitation, and the dormant ones to the extent of their capital only. From this date Leclaire ceased to appro- priate any part of the profits — only 5 per cent, interest on his invested capital. At the present time the two managing partners draw a salary of ^^240 each for superintendence. Interest at 5 per cent, is paid to them and to the Mutual Aid Society on their respective capital. Of the net profits, one quarter goes to the two managing partners jointly, the senior partner taking two-thirds, the junior one-third ; one quarter goes to the Mutual Aid Society : the remaining half is divided among the workmen and others employed by the firm in exact proportion to wages earned. During the last five years these bonuses have averaged 18 per cent. The Mutual Aid Society confers the following advan- tages, besides performing all the functions of an ordinary benefit club: — it bestows a retiring life pension of;^48 per annum on every member who has attained the age of fifty, and has worked twenty years for the firm, and it continues the payment of half this annuity to the widow of such pensioner during her life. Previous to 1875 these life pensions were £^2 per annum, they were then raised to ;f40, and again in 1880 increased to ^'48 per annum. It insures the life of every member for the sum of J[\o, to be handed over to his family at his death ; and further, if a worker, though he be neither a member of the society or on the list of those permanently employed by the firm, meet, whilst engaged in its service, with a dis- abling accident, he becomes at once entitled to the full retiring life pension of ^"48, and if the accident terminate fatally, the widow retains half the pension. But the principle of * participation ' with Leclaire had NOTE XXVI.] The Maison Leclaire at Paris. 391 for its end a great deal more than ' sharing profits ; ' it meant likewise ' sharing responsibilities ; ' it meant, be- sides material welfare, the moral and social * uplifting ' of the wage-earning class, and he brought the principle into operation in such a manner as to constitute the education of all who came into contact with it. To attain this end, Leclaire instituted a governing body, which he called the 'Noyau,' i.e. the nucleus or kernel, which has now become the moving spirit of the whole body. To be eligible for admission, a workman must be in the prime of life, between the age of twenty- five and forty, of unblemished moral character, and a skilled workman. Applications for admission are addressed to the 'Court of Conciliation, ' and reported on by this committee to the general assembly of the 'Noyau.' The 'Court of Conciliation "^ is elected by the General Assembly of the 'Noyau.' It consists of five workmen and three clerks, under the presidency of one of the managing partners. This committee constitutes a moral tribunal ; before it are brought cases of misconduct or insubordination ; the offenders receive advice and warn- ing in the first instance, and if these are neglected, the committee is empowered to sentence them to suspension from employment by the firm for one, two or three months, or even dismissal. At the Annual Meeting of the General Assembly of the 'Noyau,' the foremen are elected, and to show the com- plete confidence Leclaire reposed in the good sense of the men, on the death or resignation of a partner his successor is elected by this body of workmen. The Members of the Firm who constitute the ' Noyau ' now number nearly 300. In reply to inquiries which I made of M. Robert con- cerning the number of unworthy appearances in the course of a year before the 'Court of Conciliation/ I was 392 Co-operative industry, [app. furnished with the following facts : — From the 21st Feb- ruary, 1879, to July 23rd, 1880, there were but six cases of delinquency ; two grave offences were punished with dismissal, and of the remaining four cases, one received a warning, two were suspended respectively for five and fifteen days, and the fourth for eighteen months. Ap- pended to the report is the following note : — ' We have had no cases of drunkenness for several years.' This, be it borne in mind, in a firm which employs over 11 00 workers. These are the chief points of the Charter signed by Leclaire, Defournaux, and M. Chas. Robert, as president of the Mutual Aid Society, in the presence of the as- sembled workmen, January 6th, 1869. On this occasion Leclaire recalled the advice he had given — the desires and hopes that had animated him in 1864 : adding — 'To- day, I may say, on all sides there is agitation ; every- where people are busy with social improvements. Turn a deaf ear — let us occupy ourselves with activity and perseverance in perfecting our organization : it has received the baptism of time ; it rests upon a sure founda- tion. The growth and development of our work has become an object of public attention both at home and abroad ; it has received the approbation of illustrious personages. This approbation imposes on all of us heavier duties. * It is not enough that antagonism between employer and employed has died out between us ; it is not enough that the cause of strikes has disappeared amongst us. The sentiments of brotherhood must be more and more manifest ; our courtesy and savoir vivre, even in our most intimate relations, ought to express those feelings ; we must on every occasion so conduct ourselves as to raise our moral level to the proportion of the grand work that we are doing.' Leclaire died at Herblay, July 13, 1872, aged 71, happy NOTE XXVII.] S^. Augustine s Agnosticism. 393 in the consciousness of having carried out all the dreams of his youth, and the assurance that bread was secured to those who had grown old with him. The last pleasure of his life was to know that the sum of ;^2,ooo had, the week before, been paid over and above wages to 600 of his men, and that the conduct of all was exemplary. NOTE XXVII. St. Augustine's Confession of Agnosticism. De Doctrina Christiana, Book I. ch. vi. After a pas- sage in which he speaks of the Trinity in words compar- able to those of the Athanasian Creed, Augustine con- tinues : — * Diximusne aliquid et sonuimus aliquid dignum Deo ? Imo vero nihil me aliud quam dicere voluisse sentio. Si autem dixi, non est hoc quod dicere volui. Hoc unde scio, nisi quia Deus ineffabilis est.? Quod autem a me dictum est, si ineffabile esset, dictum non esset. Ac per hoc ne ineffabilis quidem dicendus est Deus, quia et hoc quum dicitur, aliquid dicitur. Et fit nescio quae pugna verborum, quoniam si illud est ineffabile, quod dici non potest, non est ineffabile, quod vel ineffabile dici potest. Quae pugna verborum silentio cavenda potius quam voce pacanda est. Et tamen Deus, quum de illo nihil digne dici possit, admisit humanae vocis obsequium, et verbis nostris in laude sua gaudere nos voluit. Nam inde est et quod dicitur Deus. Non enim re vera in strepitu istarum duarum syllabarum ipse cognoscitur : sed tamen omnes Latinae linguae scios quum aures eorum sonus iste teti- gerit, movet ad cogitandam excellentissimam quamdam immortalemque naturam. ' INDEX. Abbey and Overton on Eighteenth Century, 242 n. Abelard, 175. Adalbert, 161. Agnostic philosophy, 19 «., 369, 393. Agriculture, the normal pursuit of Israel- ites, 48, 49- Alabama Convention, 283, 307, 382. Alexander the Great, 34. Alfred, King, 156. Ambrose, 145, 146, 147. America, discovery of, 165 ; Puritan settle- ments in, 198 ; religion in, 205 ; liberty in, 240 ; tendencies adverse to family life in, 293. American and Hebrew slavery contrasted, SI- Anne Boleyn, 220. Apologetics, 2, 320. Apostolate, iii. Appeals to Rome abolished, 211,212; to the Crown in all ecclesiastical causes, 212. Aquinas de Regimine Principum, 154. Arbitration between nations, 307, Argyll, Duke of, 305 n. Aristotle, on priority of being, 12, 333 ; com- plains of lack of moral power, 26, 344 ; influence on Christian theology, 36 ; Poli- tics, 46 n. ; connects justice and love, 273 ; gives the moral aim of common life, 276; on definition in morals, 314. Arnold of Brescia, 175. Arnold, Dr., on the Church, 97 «., 280; ex- tract from, 376-381. Arnold, Matthew, 83 «., 314 n. Art, its connexion with religion, 31, 244, 254, 255 ; elevates life, 271 ; keeps alive the ideal, 273 ; and forms a Church, ib. ; must be popularized, 293 ; and become a function of the church, ib. Articles of Religion, 231, 238. Asceticism, 145. Atonement, Doctrine of, 257. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 7 n., 146, 329- 332; De Doct. Christ., 314; his Coiifes- sion of Agnosticism, 393. Babylonians, contrasted with Israel, 48. Bacon, Leonard, Genesis of New England Churches, 198 «.; quotation from, 206. Balde, the poet, 188. Bampton Lectures, their object, 2, 317; summary of, for 1883, 38, 39 ; for 1880,139. Bancroft, 233 «., 235 n. Baptism: its effects, 251; its significance, 263. Barbarossa, 154. Barzillai, 49. Basle, Council of, 166. Battle Abbey, 208. Becket, 133, 150,208,238. Beneficence, a constant factor in the Church, 133 ; needs to be inspired by universal in- terests, 265 ; its place in politics, 280, 311, 312. Bentham, 161, 309, 382. Bernard of Morlaix, 147. Bert, M. Paul, 318 «. Bible, its power in the sixteenth century, 234- Bilney, 209. Bingham, on Church Discipline, 139 n. Bishops, origin of the title, 108 ; its various meanings, 112. Bluntschli, 283 «., 309, 382. Bbhmen, Jacob, 187. Bollandists, 187. Bolton Abbey, 163. Boniface, Bp. (Winfried), i6r. Boniface VIII, 159. Bonner, Bp., 214 n. Burgia (Alexander VI), 163, 177, 180. Bouvier, Professor, 185 n. Brace, C. Loring, Gesta Christi, 28 «., 161 n. Brahmanic and Christian ideas of God, 20. Brahmo-Somaj of India, 348. Brodrick, Hon. G., 34 n. Brotherhood, fostered by Hebrew polity, 50. Bryce's Holy Roman Empire, 153 «., 154 «•> 155 n., 156, 162 n. Buddhism, gives peace in despair, 26; is unpolitical, 46. 395 396 Index, Buddhistic and Christian morality, 20. Bungener's life of Calvin, 182 n. Bunsen, God in History, 20 n. ; on Ab- solutism in German Churches, 361. Burke, love for English constitution, 47, 240; his religion, 243. Burnet's History of the Reformation, 214 «. Bums, J97. Calvin, 182. Canon law, 150, 212. Canons of 1604 and 1639, 236. Cardwell, 227 «., 236 n. Casimir, John, King of Poland, 188. Central authority in Israel, 55. Ceremonial system of Israel, 59. Chalmers, Dr., Commercial Discourses, 127. Charles the Great, 131, 155, 172; his government, 155, 174. Charles I, 237, 238. Charles II, 240. Chatham, 242. Chillingworth, 239. Christ, Divinity of, 18, 21; The Word, 23 ; effect of His manifestation, 24 ; His social power, 26 ; His aims, 85; be- longs to the East, 37,348; change in His teaching, 89; His Kingship mis- understood, 93 ; gives the type of true re- lations, 98 ; His decisions on divorce and quarrels, 101; His coming, 118; His self-sacrifice compared with that of the Decii, 128 ; His character the centre of theology, 319. Christendom, 313. Christian ideal of life, 29, 314. Chrysostom, 145. Church, its functions, i, 104, 108, 137, 244; its origin, 85 ; its definition, 8, 27, 121, 259; its changes, 9; its universality, 19, 37, 253, 258 ; works by election, 27, 252 : its authority, 91 ; not a merely spiritual society, 95, 139, 249 ; its requirements, 99; its laws, loi, 149; organized for practical needs, 102, no, iit, 115; vari- ous offices in, 111-116, 316; idealized by St. Paul and St. John, 117; its govern- ment, 137; is a sovereign society, 141, 376; acquired the habits of a sect, 143; its relations to the State, 151, 291,292; enfolds many like organisms, 256. Church of England, 207; in Saxon times, 207; identical with the nation, 211,215, 228, 229; the King head of, 229; its practical unity, 240. Clarendon, Constitutions of, 208. Clement of Alexandria, 127, 343. Clement of Rome, 149. Clergy, inclined to mistrust, 220, 221 ; not the sole ministers of religion, 223; disci- pline of, 226 ; ought to be the most open of orders, 265 ; may by narrowness ruin their system, 291, 292. Clerical power, often tyrannical, 224; gradual emancipation from, 121; its re- sult in Charles I's reign, 237; and in the present day, 241. Clericalism, 140, 147-149, 162, 220, 318- 320; must be abandoned, 315, 380. Coleridge, Aids to Reflexion, 127, 257. Colet, 165, 218, Collier, 216 «. Commerce. See Trade. Common law, 158 n. Commons, House of, opposes clericalism, 236; ill-treated by Charles I, 237; its supremacy acknowledged, 240. Commonwealth, identified with the Church, 216, 245. Comte, on future of European society, 17, 334; on the two powers, 151. Confucius ; the golden rule, 20 ; moral maxims, 26. Congreve, Dr., 34 n. Constance, Council of, 166. Constantine, 141-143 ; his laws, 144. Constitutional government, 244 ; is a Christian idea, 279; its rationale, 303; its need of readjustment, 304. Contemporary Review, article on Genevan Church, 185 n. ; on the Man and the State, 302 n. Convocations of Clergy, restrained, 213; revived claims of, 236 ; their influence, 240 ; cease to be taxing bodies, 244. Co-operative industry, 301, 389. Courts of High Commission, 214, 236; abolition of, 243. Covenant, National, in Scotland, 194. Cranmer's Commission as Archbishop, 214 «. ; draws up Reformatio Legum, 230 n. Creighton's History of the Papacy, 155 n. Cromwell, Oliver, 239. Cromwell, Thomas, 171. Culture, not to be opposed to Christianity, 33 ; its expansiveness, ib. ; in reign of Elizabeth, 231, 243. Cyprian, 140, 148. Cynis, 34. Daniel 74. Dante, De Monarchic, 154. Darwin, Evolution and Free Will, 18, 342 ; doctrine of Pangenesis, 257 n. ; on Science and Revelation, 347. Davenport, founder of Newhaven in Con- necticut, 203. Davies, Rev. J. Llewelyn, on Ambrose, 146; on Erastus, 190 «. Deacons, m. Decretals, the False, 149, 157 «., 159 «. ; others, 149. Democracy, 282, 311. Design, mechanical conception of, 18. Diman's Religion in America, 205 n. Diplomacy, 285, 306. Dissenting societies not separate churches, 221, 241, 3S5. Divorce, forbidden by Malachi, 51 ; Christ's decision about, loi. Index, 397 Dixon's History of the Church of England, 214 «. Dotation of Constantine, 157. " Ecce Homo," 100 ; extract from, 371. Ecclesia synonymous with synagogue, 108, Ecclesiastical courts, 158, 161, 212, 213. Ecclesiastical legislation in England, 213; only by Parliament, 226 ; Hooker on, 365- Education, 265. Edward VI. supports Reformation Settle- ment, 229. Edwards, Jonathan, 204. Egyptians contrasted with Israel, 48. Eighteenth Century, not so irreligious as often assumed, 242. Election, 27, 252. Eliot, Sir J., 239. Elizabeth, Queen, restores Reformation Settlement, 231 ; tries to keep eccle- siastical affairs in her own hands, 231. Elliott's New England History, 198 n. ; quotation from, 206. Encomium Moriae, 170. England. Its development in the 17th and i8th centuries, 243-245 ; its faults, 246 ; its political eminence, 303. See Church OF England. Enlightenment brought about by the Ref- ormation, 170, 173, 231. Ephesians, Epistle to, 13. Erasmus, 170. Erastus's system of church-government, 190. Europe, present state of, 308. Eusebius on the martyrs of Vienne, 1 10. Evangelical Revival, 242. Evidences of Christianity, 2, 3, 319. Evolution, doctrine of, 17, 18, 341. Ewald, Antiquities, 47. Excommunication, 140. Faith, its various phases, 133. Faiths of the world, 20 n. Falkland, 239. Family, becomes a church, 119, 250, 294; is naturally Christian, 266, 267; is a microcosm, 267 ; the highest idea of, ib. ; its present state and dangers, 293. Fathers, Western and Eastern, on the vir- tuous heathen, 21. Feasts of Israel, 56. Ferdinand, Emperor, 188. Fiore on international law, 283 «., 383. Florence under Savonarola, 179. Fox, Charles, 240, 243. France, decrease of population in, 293 ; a branch of the Church, 293 ; its position in Europe, 307; religion in, 318. Francis I, his Concordat with Rome, 175. Frankfort, Council of, 155. Frederick the Second, 155, 158. Freewill and evolution, 18, 341. Gambetta, 318. Genesis, patriarchal sj'stem in, 72. Geneva under Calvin, 182. Genevan model of church government, 233, 235- . , , Germany, autocratic church government in, 193, 362. Gerson, 132. Gesta Christi, 28 n. Gibbon, his statement of the causes of the spread of Christianity, 135 ; on the laws of the Roman Empire, 144. Gladstone, Mr., on European concert, 383. God, immanent and transcendant, 14 ; Brahmanic idea of, 20; metaphysical notions of, 35 ; Hebrew conceptions of, 63 ; purpose of, 13, 16, 248, 312; undefin- able, 314,393. Goethe, his ideal of life, 22. Goschen, Mr., on Laissez faire, 302 n. Gratian, 150. Greek Empire, 34. Green's History of the English People, 42 «., 234 n. Guizot's European Civilization, 16, 17, 140, t6i, 172 ; inadequate view of the Refor- mation, 172, 173 ; view of the English Reformation, 207. Hadrian I, 155. Hallam, 240. Hampden, 238. Hatch, Dr., Bampton Lectures, 139 n. Hebrew history a revelation, 42 ; polity contrasted with those of Greece and Rome, 57; art. 76; ideal of life, 83. Henotheism, 259. Henry II of England, 155 n.\ assertion of his divine authority, 208. Henry IV of England, 209. Henry IV of France, 382. Henry IV of Germany, 160. Henry VIII of England, his divorce, 211; his attitude towards the clerical system, 228. Henry of Luxemburg, 154. Herder, ideal of society, 17. Hermann of Metz, 154 «., 160, HUarion, 131. Hildebrand, 133, 160; his excommunication of the Emperor, 140, 154 n. ; destroyed the family life of the clergy, 142 ; his views on government, 154, 174; claims power over kings, 159. Hincmar of Rheims, 140. History, philosophy of, 15-17. Hobbes, 239. Hooker, defends ecclesiastical legislation by Parliament, 227; on Church govern- ment, 232 ; criticism of his work, 232- 234; extract from, on Royal supremacy, 365-368. Hope, want of, in the Church, 7 ; must be restored, 320. Horace on the faith of the just, 21. Humane progress in the middle ages, 161. 398 Index, Humanity, Universal Society of, 33, 37, 260. Hume, 197. Huss, 165, 175. Hutchinson, Sirs., 202. Huxley, on Man's place in Nature, 18, 340. Hypothesis, use of, in scientific theology, 40, 349- Ignatius Loyola, 185, Immortality, doctrine of, 126. Independent systems of morality, 23. Individual Christianity, 257, 310. Innocent III, 131, 160. Innocent IV, 158. International law, 309, 381. International relations and religion, 32, 282, 306, 307. Ireland, Church of, 291 n. Ishmael, contrasted with Israel, 48. Israelites, their conquests, 69. James II, 240. Jehovah, debased worship of, 64. Jerome, 126, 133, 135 «., 146; his deprecia- tion of family life, 266 n. ; his belief in the perdition of heathen, 343. Jesuits, their attempt to renew the world on mediaeval system, 185. John, St., opening of his Gospel, 11, 250. Jouffroy, reign of peace, 17. Judges in Israel, 53. Justification by faith, doctrine of, 169. Justinian, 144. Kant, on peace, 17, 309, 382. Ken, Bp., 242. Keshub Chunder Sen, 37 «., 348. Kings of Israel, their duties, 55, 68. Knowledge, its connexion with religion, 30, 254, 255, 268; centres in that of man, 269; begets a social union, ib.\ its vo- taries form a church, 270 ; co-ordination of, needed, 296. Knox, John, his attempt to make Scotland a kingdom of Christ, 194. Kyrle Society, 298 n. Laud, 221, 233 «., 237, 238. Laveleye, M. de, 305 n. Law, William, 242. Law, limits of, 225. Laws of Israel, successive casts of, 44; their care for the poor and weak, 45, 50 ; land laws, 47 ; enactments for just deal- ing) 5° < for family life, ib. ; on retalia- tion, 52 ; war, ib. ; aliens, ib. ; the centre of constitution, 53 ; of theology, 58 ; of history, 66; of literature, 72. Source of prosperity, 66; not exclusive, 75. Laws of the Church, 100, 115. See Eccle- siastical Legislation. Lay power, uprising of, at Reformation, 170; supreme in England, 215; resisted by Laud, 237. Lecky's History of Rationalism, 225; European Morals, 145; History of Eighteenth Century, 242. Leclaire, Maison, 301 «., 389. Lee, Dr. R., of Edinburgh, 190 n. Leighton, Sir F., 271 n. ; extract from ad- dress by, 372. Leo III, Pope, 155. Leopardi, 73. Lightfoot, Bp., on St. Paul and Seneca, 129. Lollardism, 209. Lord's Supper, 263. Lorenzo de Medici, his ideal of life, 22 ; his relations with Savonarola, 177. Louis of Bavaria, 155 n. Louis, St., 156, 175. Love, self-renouncing, the true principle of social life, 28; its various forms, 132. Luther, 170, 173 ; his appeal to the German nobility, 172 n. ; his difficulties, 187. Macarius, 131. Macaulay, 197. Maccabees, 58, 71. Mahomet ; ideal of life, 22 ; iconoclasm, 26. Malachi, forbids divorce and polygamy, 51 ; peculiar relation to Levitical law, 70, 357. Malthus, 294. Marcus Aurelius, Soliloquies, 21; ideal of life, 22 ; resignation, 26 ; humility, 128 ; ideas in common with those of Christians, 128. Marsiglio's Defensor Pads, 155 n. Mary, Queen, 230. Mather, Cotton, 198 «., 202. Max Miiller, 259 n. Maximilian of Bavaria, 188. Mayne, ancient law, 36«.,44 n.\ on theo- logical terms, 347; customary law, 359. Mediaeval attempt to save the world, 161 ; its failure, 161, 167 ; its benefits, 164, 168. Mediaeval theory of government, 153, 156. Medicine, progress in, 244. Merivale's Conversion of the Roman Em- pire, 129. Mill, J. S., 40, 342, 349. Milman's Latin Christianity, 155 «., 158 «., 162 «., 175. Milton, 237. Miraculous powers in the Church, 136. Mission Actuelle des Souverains, 8 «., 308, 333. Molini, 187. Montesquieu, 43 n. Moral ideal, the centre of Christianity, 125 ; its changes, 131. Moral ideas, how they spread, 128. More, 165, 218, 219. Nation, the, God's ordinance, 277, 278 ; the only complete society, 278 ; is in the fullest sense a church, 279; its rulers are pastors, 280; its organization as a church, 281, 302 ; its chief duty, 304. National life asserted in the Reformation, 171. Index. 399 'Natural religion,' 72 «., 83 «. Neander, Life of Christ, 89 ; Memorials of Christian Life, 161. Nebuchadnezzar, 34. Neoplatonism, 128. New England, settlements in, 198. Newton, 244. Nicaea, Council of, 144, 149. Nicodemus, Gospel of, 94. Old Testament, as basis for history, 44, 350-358; importance of, 78. Optatus, on Church and Empire, 154. Origen, 127. Paleario, 171. Palfrey's History of New England, 198 n. Papal Encyclical and Syllabus, 5, 318, 326. Papal system, 35; its rise, 148; relation to Empire, 153 ; vast claims, 158, 159, 163, 188 ; aimed not at liberty but dominion, 223. Paraguay, 188. Parish, the, is a little nation, 290 ; and a section of the National Church, 384. Parliament, its position in the Church system, 227, 228, 231, 232, 365 ; the Long, 240; in the reign of Charles II, ib.\ its action in the Seventeenth Century, ib, Paul of Samosata, 139 n. Pericles on Athenian character, 46. Perry's History of the Church of England, 235 n. Persian Empire, 34. Peter Martyr, 192, 230 n. Phoenicians contrasted with Israel, 48. Pilate, Acts of, 94. Pippin, 157. Plato : the death of the just man, 21 ; ideal of life, 22 ; influence on Christian theo- lo§3'> 36 : protest against false concep- tions of God, 136. Pliny's letter to Trajan, 116, 125, 378. Plutarch, 128. Politics properly religious, 32, 209, 210, 222. Polygamy in Israel, 51. Praemunire and Provisors, 209. Prayer, 262 ; freely exercised at first, 113, 114. Prayer Book, 229 ; Second, of Edward VI, 229 ; defended by Hooker, 233. Preaching, 264 ; freely exercised at first, 113,114; ' Ecce Homo ' on, 371. Presbyterianism, its religious value, 196; influence on education, 197. Presb\'ters in early Church, 11 1. Priesthood of all believers, 255. Priscillianists, 146. Prophets, 24 ; their policy, 69 ; their indivi- duality, 73 ; in the Church, 103 «. Prussia, alteration of Church Law in, 363. Psalms, expressing the national life, 45, 74. Public worship, system of, 222 ; not identi- cal with the Church, 261 ; the parent of other organizations, ib. ; its needs, 287. Publicans, 246. Puritan emigrants, 198; their aims, iqo; their laws, 200 ; difficulties in their theory of life, 202 ; benefits conferred by their action, 205. Puritans, 233 ; criticism of, 235 ; not domi- nant at first, 237; their political ideal, 238 ; their ruin, 239; and survival, 239. Pym, 237, 239, 240. Raymond Lully, 161. Redemption, universal need of, 23 ; con- nected with sense of sin, 245. Reform Act, 240. Reformatio Legum Eccles., 230 n. Reformation, the result of mediaeval Church life, 165 ; a fresh attempt to Christianize society, 168 ; not negative but positive, 168; conducive to freedom, 173. Reformation in England, political, 209; settlement of, 216; phases of, 228. Reforms, resisted by representatives of the Church, 5. Religion, the ideal of life, 36 ; etymology of, 41 ; concerned with human relations, 42, 82. Religious worship. Christian idea of, 287. See Public Worship. Renaissance, 166. Renan, on synagogues, 109 n. Revolution, The English, 240, 241. Richardson, Sir Benjamin, on Mosaic Law, 60 n. Ridley, Bishop, 227. Rienzi, 176. Roman Empire, 34, 35 ; The Holy, 153, 154- Roman Law, its influence on theology, 36 ; did not inspire affection, 46 ; its study in Middle Ages, 158. Rome, its state in the Twelfth Century, 176. Rothe, Richard, 276 n. ; his opinion about the Church, 289 ; extract from, 368. Rousseau, 182. Royal Society, 244. Ruling, the chief function in the early churches, 112, 113, 138. Ruling elders, 233. Sacramental idea, 254, 262. Sakyamouni, his ideal of life, 22. Sanctuaries in Israel, local, 53 ; central, 56. Sanhedrin, 109 n. Saul, 49. Savonarola, 1 76-181. Scepticism, past and present, 318. Scholasticism, 165. Science, Natural, its discoveries, 244; its greatness and purity, 296 ; must be co- ordinated with other departments, 296. Scotland, under Knox, 194. Scripture, its use in system of public wor- ship, 264. Servetus, 183. 400 Index, Service, Divine, 255. See Public Worship. Sesostris, 34. Slavery in Israel, 50, 51; in America, 51 ; in Rome, ib. Smith, Adam, 197. Smith, Goldwin, on Hebrew laws, 51; on American colonies, 198 «. Snow, Rev. G. D'Oyly, Theologico-Politi- cal Treatise, 18. Social evil, 295. Social intercourse, its connexion with re- ligion, 273; is a religious training, 274; and a form of Church life, 275 ; its right direction, 299. Socialism, 282 ; relation of the Church to, 305 ; Papal view of, 327. Socrates, 98 ; ironical strength of, 26 ; pro- tests against false conceptions of God, 136. Spain, 159, 161. Sparta, laws of, 46. Spencer, Herbert, on Religion, 19 n. ; on Trade, 300 n. ; on The Man and The State, 302 n. Spirituality, 258. Stanley, on Zoroastrianism, 21 n. ; on Synagogues, 109 «. ; Lectures on Scottish Church, 194 71. State, divine sanction of, 120. Stephen, St., 106, 107. Stoics, Roman, 34. Struggle for life, and survival of the fittest, 19. Stubbs, Constitutional History, 208 «. ; Hist. Appendix on Eccles. Courts, 213 n. Submission of the clergy, 213. Supremacy of the Crown, 213; its real significance, 214; approved by men of progress, 217; and of piety, 217, 220; vindication of, 220 ; devolves on Prime Minister, 228 ; perversion of, 236. Switzerland, attempts at reformed Christian life in, 185. Synagogues, their constitution, 102 ; their functions, 109 and n. ; prototypes of churches, log, 114. Synods, not the organs of liberty of con- science, 223. Tauler, 175. ' Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' 103 n., III. Temporal and spiritual power, theory of, discussed, 150, 156, 159. Tenterden Steeple, 163, 219 n. TertuUian, 126, 135, 153, 343. Thaddeus of Suessa, 155. Theocracy in Israel, 58, 82 ; in Christendom, 83. Theodosius, 146. Theology, Catholic and Protestant, 6-8. Thomas ^ Kempis, 133. Thucydides' distrust of Athenian laws, 46. Tilly, 188. Toleration Act, 240. Trade, its bearing on religion, 31, 272, 276; ministers to knowledge and love, 277; business life becomes Church life, 277: Christian and co-operative, 300-303 ; competition not essential to, 301 ; Gov- ernment action in, 302. Treaties of Paris and Berlin, 306, 382. Tribunals in Israel, 62. Tunstal, Bp., 218. Tyndale, William, 162, 163 ; awakes a thirst for knowledge, 170, 173 ; his teach- ing the underlying force of the Reforma- tion, 2og ; approves royal supremacy, 217; his life and views, 218. Tyndall, Address at Belfast, 18, 338. Ulrich von Hutten, 171. Ultramontanism, 150. Universal Church, not yet organized, 281, 306; should prevent war, 282, 307; pre- vious efforts to form it, 282 ; is the object of hope, 284 ; its chief objects, 307. Valdes, 171. Van Eyk's picture of the Immaculate Lamb, 8 «. Virtues of Early Christians, 135. Wesley, 242. Wilberforce, 243. William of Ockham, 155 n. Williams, Roger, 202-204. William the Conqueror, 159, 208. Witanagemot, 208. Wolfgang Musculus, 190. Wolsey, 220. Woolsey's International Law, 283 «., 381. World, senses of the word, 4 ; transformed by the Christian spirit, 38, 97 ; uses of Greek words for, 325. World to come, 145. Worship, public Society for, not the Church, 260, 261 ; capable of universality, 262 ; will maintain its supremacy, 285 ; must not separate itself from other parts of life, 287 ; is mistrusted, 289 ; may be ruined, 292. Wycliff, 165. Xavier, 187. Yahweh, or Jehovah, 63 and n. Zeal of early Christians, 135. Zend Avesta on truth and immortality, 20. Zincke, Rev. Barham, 294 n. Zoroastrianism and Judaism, 20. Zunz on Sanhedrin and Synagogues, log n. Zwingli, 189. Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 01131 1653 DATE DUE jifii*