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 BR 45 .B35 1892 
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THE BAMPTON LECTURES 
 FOR MDCCCXCII 
 
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
Some Lights of Science 
 on the Faith 
 
 EIGHT LECTURES 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 IN THE YEAR 1S92 
 
 Oh the Foundation of the late Rev. John Bampton, M.A. 
 Canon of Salisbury 
 
 ALFRED ^BARRY, D.D., D.C.L. 
 
 CANON OF WINDSOR, LATE PKIMATE OF AUSTRALIA 
 
 iSon^on 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST IGth STREET 
 
 I 892 
 
 \_All rights reserved'\ 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 OF THK LATE 
 
 EEV. JOHN BAMPTON, 
 
 CANON OF S A r. I S B r 11 Y. 
 
 '• I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the 
 
 " Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford 
 " for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or 
 ** Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter 
 " mentioned ; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice- 
 " Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time being shall 
 "take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and 
 " (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) 
 " that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight 
 " Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the 
 " said University, and to be performed in the manner following : 
 
 •' I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter 
 '• Tenn, a Lecturer may be yearly chosen by the Heads of Col- 
 " leges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the 
 " Printing-House, between the hours often in the morning and 
 "two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lectur*' 
 " Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, lietwoen 
 " the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the 
 " end of the third week in Act Term. 
 
VI 
 
 Extract from Canon Damptoiis Will. 
 
 •' Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture 
 "Sermons shall he preached upon 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 primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and 
 " Saviour Jesus Christ— upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost— 
 " upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in 
 " the Apostles' and Nicene Creed. 
 
 " 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 Chan- 
 •• cellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of every 
 " College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and 
 " one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; and the 
 " expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of 
 " the Land or Estates given for 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 LTni- 
 •' versities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person 
 • shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." 
 
P R r^ F A C E 
 
 The Lectures, i\^ here printed, are substantially 
 those actually delivered, with some additional pas- 
 sages, either omitted in delivery for the sake of brevity, 
 or subsequently inserted, where clearness seemed to 
 require it. 
 
 I have only two prefatory remarks to make upon 
 them. 
 
 First, that they embody ;in attempt to take some 
 general view of the present relation of Science in its 
 largest sense to the Christian Faith ; as illustrated by 
 examples of its bearing, confirmatory, elucidatory, or 
 critical, on the substance of the Creed of Christendom, 
 witnessing of Christ Himself. It is only too obvious 
 that such an attempt, necessarily involving brevity of 
 treatment, is liable also to the danger of superficiality. 
 For it must indicate lines of thought, whicli it is im- 
 possible to follow out with anything like exhaustive 
 completeness ; it will probably touch on important 
 controversies without ability to discuss them fully and 
 thoroughly. Perhaps it may seem to savour of too 
 great self-confidence, as dealing with a vast question 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 as a wliole, wliile men of high ability and learning have 
 thought it enough to devote themselves to the study of 
 single parts. But I venture to think that there is in our 
 own days some danger of over-specialization, losing in 
 the elaborate examination of each part the general pro- 
 portion and cumulative force of tlie whole. In regard 
 to these special studies, while we listen respectfully to 
 the teaching of experts, tliere is still some value in 
 what is in this aspect a lay opinion — standing (so to 
 speak) further back from the picture, on which various 
 hands are employed, and tlius able to gain some con- 
 ception of the general idea, and the mutual relation and 
 proportion of the various parts. Perhaps what is true 
 of all subjects is especially true of the Christian Faith, 
 which necessarily has points of contact on all sides with 
 the various forms of human knowledge, and of the 
 Christian Evidence, which depends so largely upon a. 
 cumulative strength of combined witness, infinitely 
 greater than the mere sum of the forces of its various 
 elements. How far the attempt may have been success- 
 fully made is another question. No one is (I suppose) 
 so keenly alive to the defects of a work, and its failure 
 to reach even his own ideal, as the author. But I am 
 convinced that the general idea itself is sound, and 
 perhaps not without some special appropriateness to 
 ])resent conditions of thought. 
 
 Next, I can well understand that the view here 
 taken of the relation of Science to Religion may seem 
 too Optimistic. But there are two kinds of Optimism 
 
Preface. 
 
 IX 
 
 — the Optimism which ignores difficulties, and the 
 Optimism, which, seeing difficulties, yet sees, or trusts 
 to gee, through them. It should he impossible for any 
 thinking man in days like our own to fall into the 
 iirst. If I have unwittingly done so, and cried, * Peace, 
 where there is no peace,' it is a serious error. Certainly 
 our Lord Himself seems to foretell the continuintr, 
 perhaps the increasing, existence of stuml>ling-blocks 
 in the way of faith, as the world grows older. We 
 seem to see ah-eady what He foreshadows to us — m 
 growing intensity of conflict of first princii)les of good 
 and evil, of truth and error, in proportion as old 
 barriers of law and convention give way before modern 
 boldness and exuberance of energy. But the higher 
 form of Optimism is surely implied in Christianity 
 itself. The Cross, while it is the symbol of conflict, is 
 the symbol also of victory. If Christ is Himself the 
 Truth, then, sooner or later, all real discoveries of truth 
 must harmonize themselves with His Word ; as all 
 phases of intellectual and moral vitality must be taken 
 up into His indwelling Life. 
 
 It appears to me — whether rightly I know not — that 
 this principle is now being recognised more fully on 
 both sides of the great antithesis. Science, while it 
 pursues its special developments more exhaustively 
 than ever, yet seems more and more alive to the need 
 of correlating them all in some large philosophy of 
 Being ; more inclined to acknowledge that the moral 
 insight of the soul, whatever may have been its origin 
 
X Preface. 
 
 and course of development, has a co-ordinate function 
 with pure intellectual research, in discovering the 
 inner secret of that pliilosophy ; perhaps more deeply 
 sensible tliat the search brings us into the presence of 
 mystery, and forces upon us the alternative of Agnos- 
 ticism or Faith. Theology, clearing and simplifying 
 lier fundamental principles, not that she may relax her 
 grasp of them, but that she may hold them more 
 firmly, is thus able to be more receptive of other forms 
 of Truth, to enter into the harmony of what we 
 ordinarily call the Natural and the Supernatural, and to 
 understand that the Spirit of Trutli, who is, according 
 to our Lord's promise, to ' abide with us for evei,' has 
 His witness to the world in all that tells it of truth 
 and righteousness, as well as His higher witness to the 
 faith of the Church, guiding it more and more into all 
 the Truth of God in Christ. 
 
 In that conviction these pages are written, as a 
 humble contribution to this larger idea of the Kevela- 
 tion of God. May He, through their imperfection, 
 grant to some minds a glimpse of His perfect Truth ! 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Windsor, 
 October 24, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 LAW LEADING TO CHEIST. 
 
 PAfiK 
 
 I. Definition of Law, its defect and its value. Application to 
 
 the Scientific * Reign of Law ' . . . . 1-7 
 
 II. Protest against the Idolatry of Law; recognition of its true 
 function in leading to the higher Truth ; its relation to 
 the Province of Faith ...... /-•.] 
 
 TIT. A. The Search of Science into a First Cause, as known in 
 degree througli its works ; its result in an expectancy, 
 satisfied only by Theism ; the ultimate alternative between 
 Agnosticism and Christian faith .... 1.3-2 2 
 
 HI. B. The Scientific method of Induction, tlirough Observation, 
 Intuition, Verification ; the element of faith involved, 
 especially in the second stage. Analogy to the Christian 
 theory of the knowledge of God, as revealed through 
 inspired men, and perfected in Christ . . . 22-30 
 
 III. C, The relation of Science to the substance of tlie faith, not 
 
 in its mysteries themselves, but in their manifestation ; as 
 (i) Confirmatory : Heredity and Mediation, Evolution and 
 the ' new Creation ' ; (2) Elucidatory: the Universe and 
 the universal Headship of Christ, Social Science and 
 Christian unity; (3) Critical: Criticism and the Super- 
 natural, Criticism and Holy Scripture . . • 3<^~.^'> 
 
 IV. Concluj-ion • • 39-4- 
 
xii Contents. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 HEREDITY AND MEDIATION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. TJie Christian doctrine of Mediation, in relation to inherited 
 evil and independently of that relation. Difficulties of 
 Individualism, intellectual and moral, in accepting it 43-47 
 II. The Scientific assertion of Solidarity and Heredity. The 
 reality of the force of Heredity, modified by environment, 
 balanced by individuality ; not a Determinism, but a 
 Predisiiosition ....... 47-56 
 
 III. The reality of ' Original Sin ' and its relation to Original 
 
 Eighteousness ; its power as a Predisposition to evil ; 
 exaggerations of it — as the sole Heredity, as a rigid 
 Determinism, as an inheritance of guilt — not parts of the 
 true Christian doctrine . . . . . 57-6.T 
 
 IV. The Mediation of the ' Second Adam,' touching man's whole 
 
 nature; a princijile of spiritual Heredity, extending 
 tlirough all time; its analogy, with difference, to the Natural 
 Law. Its Predisposition to good, not the Determinism of 
 the Calvinistic theory; its universal scope of power; the 
 Pentecostal regeneration of humanity; the need of indi- 
 viduality in reception ...... 65-81 
 
 V. The argument here of Analogy, not identity, between the 
 Natural and the Supernatural. The evidence of ex- 
 perience, as the preparation for faith . . . 81-86 
 
 LECTUEE III. 
 
 EVOLUTION NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 I. The Law of Evolution : (a) not implying an immanent Cause 
 only, and not anti-Theistic ; accepting and enlarging 
 Teleology, and so a witness for a God * above and through 
 all ' ; (6) not i)ropex-ly identical with Darwinism ; present 
 scientific opinion on the subject . . . . 87-102 
 IT. The developments of Evolution in the distinct Provinces of 
 being ; in the Inorganic world ; in the world of Organic 
 life ; in the world of Humanity — in all a theory of Order, 
 )iot Cause ; relation of each to a Supreme Will ; an 
 .Analogy, with difference, running through all . 102-122 
 
Contents. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 PACK 
 
 [II. The Christian Faith in tliis rcktion : (a) The Creation, 
 broadly an Evolution under the Supreme Mind, traced 
 simply in the lower worlds, clearly in the world of 
 Humanity. (6) The Manifestation of Christ, in itself a 
 Divine mystery, yet visibly a ' new Creation,' crowning 
 and transcending the Natural Order, working by a 
 spiritual Evolution, in the race and in the individual ; 
 a new and Diviner power of the Spirit, preparing for a 
 future Dispensation at the Second Advent . . 122-137 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 CHRIST AND ALL CREATION. 
 
 I. The Universal Headship of Christ : naturally less prominent, 
 when the earth seemed the centre of the Universe, and then 
 recognised mainly in the spiritual sphere. The knowledge 
 of the vastness of the Universe, bringing some bewilder- 
 ment and inclination to Pantheism, and demanding some 
 expansion of the idea of Christ, as the Head . . 138-149 
 
 II. The Christian Revelation, mainly regarding humanity, gradu- 
 ally extended beyond it : its ancient relation to Gnostic 
 Cosmology and Dualism ; the corresponding modern rela- , 
 tion to extended Natural Science or theory . . 149-15,^ 
 
 III. The Headship over all Creation : the teaching of St. Paul in 
 
 the Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians ; the teaching of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews; the doctrine of the "Wohd 
 in St. John, in its two-fold moaning of Ti-anscendonce 
 and Immanence; the tinith drawn out, as by S. Atha- 
 nasius ....... . 155-162 
 
 IV. The same Truth, in relation to modern Science : the degree 
 
 of our knowledge as to the Universal Headship, and the 
 bearing of the Incarnation on all Creation . . 162-169 
 
 V. Its lessons : of consecration of our enlarged knowledge ; of 
 reverence to the majesty of Christ ; of the finding of God, 
 and the finding of man, in Him .... 169-175 
 
slv Conterits. 
 
 LECTUEE V. 
 
 CHKIST AND HUMAN SOCIETY. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 I. Unity of liumanity in Christ : its relation to Social Science, 
 
 and the demand of a ' Social Gospel ' . . . 1 76-1 Ho 
 
 II. The history of Social conditions : the old Absolutism ; the 
 
 reaction of Individualism ; the free unity needed for 
 
 the future i8o-i<jo 
 
 III. The Christian theory of unity, of each soul with God in 
 
 Christ, of all souls with one another in Him : its analogy 
 to the Laws of the Physical system ; its illustration in the 
 ' Great Commandment' — the love of self, and love of man, 
 harmonized in subordination to the Supreme Love of 
 God 190-194 
 
 IV. This theory embodied : (a) in the Creation of a Catholic 
 
 Church, one in Christ, diffused all over the world; (6) 
 in the regenei'ation of the natural unities of family, 
 neighbourhood, nation, race ..... 194-205 
 
 V. The Christian Socialism : centred in God ; working mainly 
 not through Law, but through the Spirit ; trusting in 
 moral forces ; applying not only to the Church, but to 
 the natural unities. Defects in popular Christian teach- 
 ing; need not only of interest, but of thought . 205-21 7 
 
 LECTUKE VL 
 
 CRITICISM AND THE SUPEKNATURAL. 
 
 I. Characteristics of true Criticism, practical and scientific, and 
 
 its spiritual conditions in dealing with Christianity 218-223 
 
 II. The true functions of Criticism, first to distinguish the 
 
 essence of a thing, then to test it . . . . 223, 224 
 
 III. The actual Christianity in the Catholic Church, its unique 
 
 power, and its foundation on Truth, the ideal Christianity, 
 centred in Holy Scripture ; both resting on Christ Him- 
 self, as the Life and the Light ; the witness to this rest 
 on Christ, from historical and literary Science . 224-231 
 
Contents. xv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IV. Christianity Natural : the present position of tlie argument 
 from Analogy ; the acceptance of Christianity, as the 
 crown of the Natural Order . . . . . 231-235 
 V. Christianity, Supernatural or Miraculous : changes of phai-es 
 of Criticism and its present form ; the development of a 
 Divine Law in Miracle, as a two-fold sign of Will, Divine 
 and yet working through man ; as related to other elements 
 of Kevelation ; as concentiated in the Manifestation of 
 Chi'ist. ........ 235-248 
 
 VI. The Critical test, of the actual witness to Christ, of the 
 character of Chi-ist Himself, of His own self-dij^closure, of 
 the ijrovince of faith ; and its presentation of the great 
 alternative ........ 248-257 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 CEITICISM AND HOLY SCRIPTUKE. 
 
 I. What is Scripture in itself? Its variety as an epitome of 
 human litei'uture ; its unity, subjective in Inspiration, 
 objective in its relation to the Manifestation of God in 
 Christ. Drawbacks and advantages of this function of 
 Biblical Criticii-m ...... 258-268 
 
 II. How has Scripture grown to be what it is ] The gi'owth of 
 the Canons, and the growth of the individual books. The 
 enquiry to be without pi'ejudice ; the question of the 
 miraculous to be faced ; external and internal evidence 
 to 1)6 balanced. The experience of past New Testament 
 Criticism ; the questions now really at issue in Old Testa- 
 ment Ci'iticism ; the analogy between the two . 268-282 
 
 III. What is the basis of Scriptural Authority'? The distinction 
 
 between Eevelation and Ins2)iration, indicated in human 
 experience and in the Old Testament, known fully by the 
 word of the Lord Jesus Christ ; the actual relation be- 
 tween the two. The right and hopeful enipiiry is into 
 the reality of Scriptural Revelation, as directly or in- 
 directly ' the word of eternal life ' from Christ . 282-292 
 
 IV. The essentials of such Revelation. Is it sufficient % The ques- 
 
 tion answered by examination of the doctrine in itself, and 
 
 in its fruits, anticipating the furthere)i(|uiry, Is it true? 292-296 
 
xvi Contents. 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 TRUTH IN BEVELATION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The essentials of Revelation. Is it time ? Truth, as accord- 
 ance with the Laws of being, having different meanings in 
 relation to the different elements of Holy Scripture 297-299 
 
 II. The Historical element. The requirement of historic 
 truth ; the acceptance of the miraculous element. The 
 stress mainly on the New Testament, secondarily on the 
 Old as connected with it ; the significance of modern 
 criticism in its various types, and the issues involved 299-307 
 III. The Prophetic element. The requirement of moral truth : 
 (o) In Law : its necessary limitations and imperfections, 
 leading up to the Law of Christ; yet the need in its 
 fundamental principles of moral truth. (6) In Prophecy : 
 its higher character and preparation fur Christ ; its 
 perfection in His word, spoken by Himself and His 
 Apostles ; the need of perfect moral insight and truth 307-3 1 4 
 
 IV. The ' Psalmic ' element. The requirement of subjective 
 moral truth, in conception of God and man ; imperfections 
 in all others, perfection in Christ Himself . . 314-316 
 
 V. The Theologic Revelation. The requirement of Divine 
 
 Truth according with, and transcending, lower revelations 
 of God. The Scriptural Revelation widening and deepen- 
 ing, up to perfection in the word of Christ ; in all cases at 
 once personal and universal ; the need here of absolute 
 truth, so far as it can be known to man . . 316-319 
 
 VI. The relation of Criticism to all these phases of truth ; its 
 
 inevitable enquiry, the gravity and the hopefulness of 
 such enquiry ....... 319-322 
 
 Vn. Conclusion. Plea for comprehensiveness of view, and the 
 cumulative force of various evidence. The results of the 
 three-lbld witness of Science, to the reality, the expansive- 
 ness, the simplicity of Christianity, as gathered up in 
 Christ. The cry for light, and Doniinus illuminatio mea 322-329 
 
 Notes 331-348 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 LAW LEADING TO CHRIST. 
 
 The Law was our schoolmaster to Ijring us to Christ, that we 
 anight lie justified b^ faith. — Gal. iii. 24. 
 
 In these famous words — wide in application, not 
 only to the particular struggle against Judaism, which 
 called them out, but to the issues of universal signifi- 
 cance involved in it — St. Paul sets forth to us the right 
 relation of Law, both objectively to the manifestation 
 of God in Christ, and subjectively to the education of 
 that faith in Him, which is the essence of all true 
 religion. What is the form in which that relation 
 presents itself to us now"? What is the undei lying 
 meaning for us of the opposition between rest on Law, 
 and rest on Christ by faith, which, as in St. Paul's 
 days, so in all ages, has been found to be a matter of 
 life and death to the spirituality, and therefore to the 
 Catholicity, of the Gospel % 
 
 I. Law is clearly the manifestation and expression of 
 a Supreme Power over the world, regarded as absolutely 
 and infinitely above man ; having no necessary con- 
 nection of spiritual sympathy with the spirit withni 
 him ; ignoring or coercing that personality of free-will, 
 which is his surest and most intimate consciousness ; 
 
 B 
 
2 Laiv leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 and accordingly ruling over men, almost as over things, 
 with a despotic and undiscriminating authority. There 
 were those in St. Paul's day, who were ready to idolize 
 Law — represented especially in the strong and awful 
 majesty of tlie Law of Sinai — as the supreme exponent 
 of the Divine Righteousness. For they were fascinated, 
 as men are apt to be fascinated, by its sweeping gener- 
 ah'ty, its clear, stern simplicity, its infinite exaltation 
 above human littleness and changeableness, through 
 which it looks out over the turmoil and perplexity of 
 life with the solemn impassiveness of a great Egyptian 
 deity. Against that idolatry St. Paul protests with all 
 possible vehemence, — in the name of God, as against an 
 imperfect and unworthy exhibition of His Nature, who 
 is not Law but Love — in the name of man, as against a 
 childish, and even slavish, retrogression from maturer 
 knowledge and higher consciousness. 
 
 But mere Iconoclasm is never the true remedy for 
 idolatry; for thoughtful worship seldom attaches to 
 what has no claim whatever to reverence. So he gives 
 meaning and discrimination to his protest by marking 
 out in the text the true function of Law in the educa- 
 tion of the higher life. ' It was ' (he says) ' the school- 
 master ' — the irai^ayicyo^ — ' to bring us to Christ.* 
 
 In this description there is a double-edged significance. 
 On the one side, of necessary depreciation. For the 
 ■Kaila'yii>'y6<i (as we know), whatever might be his personal 
 qualifications, was still a slave, useful to protect the 
 free boy, and in some sense to restrain him from grosser 
 evil by a delegated authority, but, from the nature of the 
 case, unable so to educate, to teach, to inspire him, that 
 
J.] Value and ijisnfficiency of Law. 3 
 
 he might grow up in his rightful freedom. That Divine 
 function for all humanity belonged (says the Apostle) 
 only to One, who was the living manifestation of the 
 Supreme Eighteousness, as a Eighteousness in Love, 
 recognising and cherishing the free human personality, 
 having itself likeness to man, communion with man, 
 incarnation in man. And it could be realized by man 
 only through the faith, which in its full Christian sense 
 is essentially consciousness of a personal relation, im- 
 plying reliance of the whole personality of mind and 
 conscience and will on some higher, and, if it is to 
 be al)Solute, on some Divine Personality, having spiritual 
 communion with it \ Law therefore was at best, even 
 if it were ' holy and just and good,' a rough and im- 
 perfect manifestation of the true Eighteousness ; and 
 such function as it had properly belonged to the cruder 
 and more childish stages of human growth. It could 
 regulate the outer life by fear ; it could not so lay hold 
 of the human spirit by love, as to give it, weak in 
 itself and sinful, a power to attain to righteousness 
 by release from the guilt and bondage of evil; nay, 
 by ignoring the divine impulse of freedom, and sub- 
 stituting for the worse bondage of sin a bondage lighter 
 and nobler, yet a bondage still, it might actually stir 
 the spirit of rebellion, the misguided desire of a false 
 independence to which the first Temptation appealed -. 
 When it was exalted to the highest place, and justi- 
 fication by law substituted for justification in Christ 
 through faith, it was necessary to speak out in stein 
 
 ' See Note A, on the true cliuracter of I-'uith. 
 ' See Rom. vii. 9-13. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 indignant protest, to reject, even in comparison to despise, 
 a slavish Trat^a'ywyo?, because set on the seat of the 
 true Teacher. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, there is in the text a recogni- 
 tion that Law has, and in various degrees always will 
 have, a real subordinate function in the education of 
 true humanity. 'Added it was because of transgres- 
 sion,' to unmask and to scourge evil — ' added ' (we may 
 venture to say) 'because of blindness,' to guide aright 
 by its clear, stern warning those who had not yet grown 
 * to be a law to themselves ' — and so telling, not on the 
 few, who, at one extreme, are above law in spiritual 
 freedom, not on those who, at the other, fall below law 
 in hardened spiritual apostasy, but on the many, who 
 stand between the two extremes, needing spiritual re- 
 straint and chastisement, and capable of profiting by 
 both. So it could in its right place become a discipline, 
 and (as the very word implies) enable men to be 
 learners from a teaching higher than its own. At least 
 it did reveal an eternal and sovereign E-ighteousness, of 
 which, though heaven and earth should pass, no jot or 
 tittle could cease to have obligation and enforcement. 
 So it could by contrast create a consciousness of sin, 
 and a ' Lunger and thirst for ' participation in that 
 ' righteousness ' ; even if it could not show how to take 
 away the one, and to satisfy the other. At least by 
 its command of obedience, it implied that obedience 
 was possible ; nay, it taught that it was to issue from 
 love of all the mind and heart and soul ; although it 
 could not show how that possibility was to be realized, 
 and in itself tended to create a godly fear rather than 
 
I.] The Scientific 'Reign of Law! 5 
 
 a godly love. At least it tanglit that the righteousness 
 to be loved and obeyed was the attribute of the Jehovah, 
 the ultimate and absolute Being, who alone is in Him- 
 self, and is the Fount of all created life ; and that by 
 it the Eternal entered into moral relation with man — 
 a ' covenant,' which implied man's freedom, and so pre- 
 served man's personality, even in this relation to God. 
 Thus in every direction Law pointed out, and even 
 advanced on, the various lines of approach to God ; but 
 it completed none ; it ' made nothing perfect.' By that 
 very advance, by that very imperfection, its liglit 
 function was to lead to the Christ. 
 
 Now mutatis mutandis — and I grant that the mu- 
 tanda are many — I cannot but think that in this con- 
 ception is shadowed forth the relation, in which the 
 systematized knowledge, which we call Science, ought 
 to stand to the higlier knowledge of God and Man in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 For Science claims it, as its function and its glory, 
 to enforce and continually to advance, both in clear- 
 ness and in scope, the recognition of the ' reign of 
 Law.' I press advisedly the literal meaning of both 
 words. For, although the representatives of Science 
 are never weary of reminding us that its so-called 
 'Laws,' so far as the discoveries of pure observation 
 and experiment go, are nothing more than general 
 expressions of universally recurring and connected 
 iacts, yet the persistent use of the word 'Laws,' — 
 drawn by analogy from our own creations in tlie social 
 and political sphere, where they certainly have behind 
 them not only an enforcing power, but an original 
 
6 Laiu leading to Christ. [lect, 
 
 cause, in will guided by purpose — witnesses to the 
 intellectual necessity of going beyond or below the 
 mere record of facts, yielded by such observation and 
 experiment, and implies the conviction that these re- 
 currences are strictly ' Laws ' — that is, expressions of 
 some universal and supreme Power, which really, 
 though invisibly, reigns. If the word Law is still to 
 be used in scientific language, it is but right to fix 
 it to its own proper sense ; and in this respect it 
 seems plainly our duty, if we would avoid delusion or 
 ambiguity, to go further still, and contend that no 
 man ought to use the word ' Laws,' with all the asso- 
 ciations and inferences that it carries, unless he is 
 prepared to complete the analogy, and acknowledge 
 in the Supreme Power a Supreme Will, reigning 
 with design and purpose, both over things and over 
 ]iersons\ 
 
 I must hold, therefore, that Science really and pro- 
 perly declares, either by discovery or necessary infer- 
 ence from discovery, a 'reign of Law'; and that its 
 ultimate conception is of a true First Cause, a supreme 
 reigning Power. That conception is clearly so far like 
 the conception to which St. Paul refers, that it views 
 its expression through Law, as absolute and universal, 
 having, or at least known to have, no spiritual relation 
 
 ' See Note B. From the scientific side, as well as the theological, 
 this truth appears to be increasingly recognised. I observe that the 
 more thoughtful advocates of a ' mechanical view of Nature ' never- 
 theless speak of ' the Laws of Nature as the permanent expressions 
 of the Will ' — implying self-consciousness and purpose ' of a Creative 
 Principle,' ' a spiritual First Cause.' (Weissmann's Studies in Descent, 
 English translation, pp. 713, 717.) 
 
I.] Relation of Christian Fait Ji to Law. 7 
 
 to individual man. Accordingly, in working out its 
 conclusions, it ignores, if it docs not practically deny, 
 human personality; and it overbeais by Determinism, 
 which is a Fatalism veiled under worship of force of 
 circumstances or a stream of tendency, the reality of 
 human freedom of will. But it fails, even more than 
 the law as understood by St. Paul, to account for our 
 moral nature, or satisfy our moral needs ; for it does 
 not even assume, as that assumed, the supremacy in 
 the Sovereiofn Power of a moral ricrhteousness. 
 
 II. How stands then our position, as Christians, in 
 face of that proclamation of a Supreme Power, express- 
 ing itself in Law, as the one sufficient solution of the 
 great problem of Being % Like St. Paul's position in 
 the text, it has a two-fold aspect, of protest and of 
 recognition. 
 
 Against the scientific idolatry of law, our protest is, 
 for the reason above referred to, even stronger than 
 his. For, as it seems to us, its claim to our worship 
 is still more untenable. It hivites us, under the name 
 of progress, to a worse form of what St. Paul holds to 
 be retrogression ; for it bids us give up what lies at 
 the heart of our higher humanity — the belief in a 
 spiritual communion with man of the Supreme Power 
 as a Divine Spirit — and to accept the cruder conception 
 of it as perhaps an impersonal Force, perhaps a Will, but 
 in any case to us unknown and unknowable, to which 
 we have simply to yield what by a self-delusion we 
 hold to be our own freedom, and, in this, our own 
 personality. 
 
 Against that invitation, even if — which is to mo 
 
8 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 more than doubtful — it satisfies our intellectual de- 
 mand of a true and sufficient Cause, analogous to tlie 
 only cause of action and production, which we can be 
 said really to know, yet certainly our moral nature 
 revolts, claiming that any conception of the ultimate 
 Sovereignty over our world must satisfy its needs, at 
 least as much as the cravings and reasonings of the 
 intellect. It can hardly be doubted that the progress, 
 which we call civilization, tends to bring out, to guard, 
 to educate more and more, our free individual person- 
 ality; and that accordingly it is a retrogression to 
 accept any theory of the being and rule of the world, 
 which has to ignore it or explain it away, instead of 
 simply subordinating it, and that, moreover, not to 
 an iron law, but to the moving of a Divine Spirit. 
 Accordingly, it has been felt by some who have spoken 
 from this place, to be their duty to vindicate, against 
 the idolatry of Law, the reality of personal freedom and 
 responsibility, and the province of that faith, which 
 is essentially a free personal relation of the living soul 
 to a living God. 
 
 But surely there is also for us a duty of recognition. 
 Is it not to be expected that, in its right place, the 
 scientific conception of Law will prove to be a 7704(^070)709 
 to lead us to the Christ \ Not, indeed, in the same 
 way as the Law of which St. Paul spoke. For this, 
 as setting forth a Divine Eighteousness, looked and 
 appealed primarily to man's moral consciousness — its 
 fundamental defect being that, while it thus acknow- 
 ledged moral needs and responsibilities, it failed to 
 satisfy them. On the other hand, the Law, as science 
 
I.] The 'dry light' of Science. g 
 
 recognises it, is looked at simply from an intellectual 
 point of view, implying a Supreme First Cause, infinite 
 indeed in power, j>robably infinite as a Divine Mind, 
 but ignoring the demand of our own moral nature for 
 a Moral Being, at once a source and object of righteous- 
 ness and love. 
 
 I do not mean that Science, properly so called, takes 
 no cognisance of the existence of a moral element iu 
 the world and its government. For it is, of course, 
 an usurpation, which Oxford, in virtue of its noblest 
 and wisest traditions, is especially bound to repudiate, 
 to claim for merel}?- physical investigation any exclusive 
 right to the great name of Science. The mind can 
 study, and must study, not only the outer world of 
 things, but the nearer world of personality, through 
 which indeed it knows what underlies mere phenomena 
 in that world of things. It studies that higher world, 
 partly as known to us by our own inner consciousness, 
 partly through the knowledge, aided by the light of 
 that consciousness, of our fellow-men ; and, when it 
 enters on that study, it is clear to all, who look 
 at facts in themselves, independently of any theories 
 about them, that the phenomena of will, conscience, 
 freedom, however they may have been developed, and 
 however correlated to universal law, are, to say the 
 least, as certain and as necessary to be accounted for, 
 as the visible phenomena of which our senses inform 
 us. But what I mean is that Science, as Science, tends 
 to look even at .these moral phenomena, and the Power 
 from wliich they proceed, impassively througli the un- 
 derstanding, and not sympathetically through a moral 
 
lo ■ Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 sense in ourselves. It regards tliem (so to speak) from 
 without, to observe, to tabulate, to generalize, to 
 theorize, under the ' dry light ' of purely intellectual 
 conception, without any sense of moral sympathy, alle- 
 giance, worship — without, indeed, any realization of our 
 own personality in the matter — either ignoring these 
 elements of consciousness altogether, or possibly rele- 
 gating them to a sphere of their own, from which the 
 scientific investigation of law is to be kept altogether 
 distinct. How far this is really philosophical — how far 
 it is reasonable to ignore that insight into nature and 
 life which belono-s to our moral consciousness, addinof as 
 it does the intuition of right to the intellectual in- 
 tuition of causality — I do not here enquire. But that, 
 in fact, this is the tendency of modern thought, in- 
 creasing with the increasing specialization of scientific 
 study, is (I think) beyond all reasonable doubts 
 
 If then Law, as Science recognises it, is to be in any 
 sense a 7ra< (^ayco-yo? et? XjOicrToV, it will not be, as in 
 the Law of which St. Paul speaks, through its moral 
 acknowledgments, but through its intellectual dis- 
 coveries or conceptions. It will lead up to Christian 
 doctrine, rather than to Christian life ; it will bear 
 on the truth, rather than on the grace, of the Gospel ; 
 if it guides us to Christ, it will be to Him as 'the 
 Word,' revealer at once of Godhead and Humanity, and 
 of both as One in Himself, rather than to Him as the 
 
 ^ Dr. Martiiieau truly says, ' Science lays aside as obtrusive the 
 moral consciousness, with its postulates and beliefs, and enters the 
 field under pure guidance of the perceptive and comparing powers.' 
 (Sec ' Nature and God ' in Essays, Reviews, and Addresses.) 
 
I.] The P7'0vince of Faith. i \ 
 
 Eedeemer from sin and death ; if it leads on to the 
 adhesion of faith in Him, it is tliat we may be (if I 
 may so express it) 'justified,' not from the guilt and 
 bondage and moral death of sin, but from the blank- 
 ness of ignorance and the delusions of error. 
 
 Now the view which, in these Lectures, I desire to 
 suggest, is that, while scientific idolatry of Law must 
 supersede faith and virtually ignore the Christ, yet that 
 the lecognition of Law in its true sphere does really thus 
 lead up to ftiith in the Gospel of Christ, as the true and 
 all-sufficient satisfaction of the maturest thought, I 
 venture to urge the truth of St. Paul's bold contention, 
 that such faith really belongs to maturity of idea and 
 character, and that the absolute rest on Law — so confi- 
 dently set forth to us as an advance towards the firm, 
 sad grasp of ultimate truth, at the sacrifice of bright 
 childish delusions and hopes, — is really a going back 
 instead of forward ; because it ignores that conscious- 
 ness of a spiritual self, which is the sign of growth out 
 of childhood to manhood, and that recognition in faith 
 of an ultimate sjiiritual sovereignty, ruling not by com- 
 pulsion but through freedom, which alone can harmonize 
 with that inner consciousness. 
 
 liightly have those, who in these days bear witness 
 for Christ, seen the need of vindicating the Province 
 of Faith, as a great universal power in human life and 
 progress, having its supreme and perfect culmination 
 in the faith which the Gospel claims for Ilim ^ And 
 to those who discern this clearly it will, I think, be 
 evident, that there are few greater fallacies than the 
 
 ^ See Dr. Wace's Bamiton Ltcturea lor 1S79. 
 
12 Laiv leadmg to Christ. [lect. 
 
 frequent assumption that the faith of a mature and 
 scientific age, if it survives at all, must be content to 
 be a smaller and weaker power, than it was in those 
 simpler, earlier times of the world, to which the title of 
 ' the Ages of Faith * is popularly given. It seems to 
 me, on the contrary, to be like the faith of a thoughtful 
 manhood in the individual, as contrasted with the faith 
 of childhood. Narrower (so to speak) in scope ' of length 
 and breadth ' : for it is, no doubt, true that many 
 things, which in the earlier days we acc^p<ffed on faith 
 in God or man, we have come to know, if not perfectly, 
 at least sufficiently, for ourselves. But yet, on the 
 other hand, compensating for this diminution by a 
 growth * in depth and height' — more^eeply based 
 because, by its very difficulties and trial^jnt is forced to 
 go down through secondary strata 4o its ultimate rest 
 in mystery — rising to greater loftiness of idea, en- 
 thusiasm, aspiration, because through these same per- 
 plexities brought more closely face to face with the 
 Divine. It is in no unreal 'pious imagination' that 
 the Collect for S. Thomas' Day tells us of doubt — the 
 doubt (be it always remembered) which does not rest 
 in a complacent or despondent uncertainty, but which 
 resolves to investigate, and to test what reveals itself as 
 truth — as overruled to ' the more confirmation' of such 
 faith as this. It is notable that when, in that great 
 instance here referred to, sight was granted, the ac- 
 ceptance of mystery was faith still, and its utterance, far 
 the highest and deepest of even Apostolic confessions, 
 went in that faith infinitely beyond what could be seen. 
 Now this experience is typical, an exemplification of 
 
I.] The search into Ultimate Being. 13 
 
 the general position on which Christianity must take 
 its stand. When it calls its summary of doctrine a 
 Creed, it plainly avows that the ultimate truths on 
 which it rests are, in the New Testament sense of the 
 word, * mysteries ' — secrets (that is) of Being revealed 
 to us in Christ, and accepted by our faith in His Word. 
 It has been indeed shown again and again by Cliristian 
 philosophy, how they are prepared for by the deepest 
 human instincts, as wrought out by process of reason, 
 both the speculative and moral reason — how they are 
 verified in the soul and in the world by their spiritual 
 power to solve our intellectual and moral problems. 
 But all this is but subsidiary to iaith in Him, as * having 
 the words of eternal life.' We have, of course, to know 
 in whom we believe ; but, when we do know Him, we 
 can then sit at His feet, and by faith * know ' through 
 the Divine Mind of Christ 'that which passes know- 
 ledge.' 
 
 III. But it is well to consider, somewhat more in 
 detail, in what wajs the scientific conception of Law 
 is a schoolmaster to educate us to tlie Christian faith, 
 which is at once a faith in a living God, and a faith in 
 Him as revealed in the true Son of Man. 
 
 It seems to me to have an important bearing, first 
 (jn the necessity of such faith, next upon its method, 
 and thirdly upon the substance of that which it accepts. 
 It is with the last of these points that these Lectures 
 are properly concerned. But a brief reference to the 
 other two will form the right introduction to its con- 
 sideration. 
 
 (A) Firbt, it will, I think, be seen that Science leads 
 
14 Law leaduig to Christ. [lect. 
 
 \ip to the necessity of some faith in God, by its own 
 continual ajoproach to discovery or inference of unity 
 in the Source of all Being. It is true that, along eacli 
 line of scientific thought, we are brought ultimately to 
 a mysterious reality, which we recognise, though we 
 cannot comprehend. In the study of the Inorganic 
 world, the process of gradual simplification of all the 
 infinite variety of things which fill it leads through 
 molecules and atoms to the mystery of Matter and 
 Force (if, indeed, they are distinct from each other), as 
 a limit beyond which it cannot go. In the study of the 
 Organic world the same process, pursued not so much 
 theoretically as historically, leads to the recognition, 
 not only, as before, of the matter which clothes it, but 
 of the mystery of the originati(jn in the simplest form 
 of Life, having in it the potentiality of infinite differen- 
 tiation and development. In the study of Humanity — 
 closely connected with both tliese worlds, but yet having 
 in it another and superior factor, which, however we 
 may theorize as to its derivation from either, is in 
 actual and historical experience absolutely distinct — 
 we come finally to the mystery of a created Personality, 
 implying, under whatever limits, will, thought, con- 
 science, in the individual and in the race as a whole. 
 But, while these ultimate realities present themselves 
 to us as distinct, and all our experimental research fails 
 to bridge over the gulf of distinction between them, 
 yet (to use a well-known phrase) the ' scientific imagin- 
 ation ' is driven by an instinctive and irresistible in- 
 ference to believe that there is ultimate unity of all 
 in some Eternal Beino" ; and this not merelv an Absolute 
 
J.] The search for the First Cause. 15 
 
 Being, unconnected ^vitll the created forms of existence 
 which we know, and, in fact, Httle more to us than 
 a necessary postulate of philosophic thought, but really 
 (to use the old phrase) a ' First Cause,' from whicli, 
 though we know not how, all these distinct orders of 
 being proceed. One great scientific leader of tliought^ 
 has gone so far as to speak of * the confession of the 
 universality of Order, and of the absolute validity in 
 all times and under all circumstances of the law of 
 Causation, as the one act of faith in the convert to 
 science.' Faith, indeed, in our full sense of the word, 
 it is not : for this implies a personal recognition of 
 a Divine Personality, which cannot be accorded to an 
 idea or a law. But, so far as it goes, there is an 
 instructive significance to a Christian in the definition 
 which follows — ' It is an act of faith, because, by the 
 nature of the case, the truth of such propositions is 
 incapable of proof But such faith is not blind but 
 reasonable, because it is universally confirmed by ex- 
 periment, and constitutes the sole trustworthy founda- 
 tion of action.' 
 
 Nor, I think, will the scientific instinct be content 
 simply with the recognition of this ' First Cause ' as a 
 something ' unknown and unknowable.' For this de- 
 scription of it, while, in respect of full comprehension, 
 it is an obvious and barren truism, yet, in respect of 
 partial knowledge, is contiadictory to all our ex- 
 perience of causation in the lower sphere ; where 
 certainly the character of a cause is in degree known 
 ])y study of the character of its effects. We must go 
 
 ' Huxley, ill Life and Letters of ('harl s Darn in, vol. ii. ]>. 200. 
 
1 6 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 on to believe that, as it includes all these forms of 
 being in its Creative power, while in its essence it tran- 
 scends them all, such partial knowledge of its nature 
 may be inferred from them, and best inferred not from 
 that which is lowest and crudest, but from that which 
 is highest and most comprehensive — therefore, not from 
 mere force or life, but from the will, guided by wisdom 
 and rio'hteousness, which in ourselves we know to 
 dominate both, and of which we cannot even form any 
 conception, except as inherent in a true personality ^ 
 
 Now it seems to me clear, that in all this process, 
 both of discovery and of inference beyond discovery, 
 Science ought to be a irai^aywyoii to lead up to the 
 lealization of a God, a living God, by faith. 
 
 It has indeed been argued very forcibly, that in the 
 earlier sta2;es of human thouejht the belief in One God 
 — either emerging in some distinctness, or vaguely 
 underlying the worship of 'gods many and lords many' — 
 has been in time anterior to this scientific inference of 
 unity, and actually the parent of it. It may well be so : 
 for this would only be the extension to the race of the 
 mental process so familiarly known in the individual 
 mind, in which the intuition of the moral sense antici- 
 pates and stimulates the discursive reasoning of the 
 intellect. But no support can be derived from this for 
 the artificial theory, which, as in the Comtist Law of the 
 
 ^ Dr. Abbott, in his Through Nature to Christ, truly says that, in 
 the search after God, the forms of thought which we mott use are 
 necessarily either anthropcmori)liic, or zoomorphlc, or azoomorphic, 
 and that of these the firtt is sui\'ly the most rational, and the lea&t 
 likely to be unworthy or delusive. 
 
T.] The Great Alternative. 17 
 
 'Three States of Knowledge' — Theological, Metaphysical, 
 Positive — infers the reversal of the relation for which 
 I contend, and would make the belief in God merely 
 the preparation for a science, which shall supersede it. 
 For clearly there can be no a priori ground for holding 
 that these states are exclusive of one another, when it 
 is clear that only the first is a theory of ultimate Cause, 
 while the others seek merely to discern laws, through 
 which obviously that Cause may work \ Nor can actual 
 experience justify the notion that they are thus suc- 
 cessive and mutually exclusive, for it is certain in 
 fact that in various degrees they have always co-existed 
 and interpenetrated one another. It may well be 
 doubted whether the accumulation of positive know- 
 ledge ever really dispenses with the guidance of meta- 
 physical idea ; it is even more doubtful whether meta- 
 physical investigation can fail, sooner or later, to enter 
 upon that search after the ultimate Being, which leads 
 to what is virtually theologic ground ^. 
 
 * According to Comte (says Mr. John Morley) ' in the Theological 
 and Metaphysical states men seek a Cause or an Essence ; in the 
 Positive they are content with a Law.' But this is to use the word 
 ' Law,' in what I contend to he an improper and delusive sense, of a 
 mere systematized record of facts. Law in its true sense involves the 
 Metaphysical, and implies the Theological idea. (Article Comte in the 
 Encijcl. Britannica.) 
 
 ^ Dr. Martineau, in his Study of Religion, quotes the remark of an 
 eminent English Positivist: * You cannot make the slightest conces- 
 sion to Metaphysics witliout ending in a Theology ' ; which (as he truly 
 says) amounts simply to the confession, ' If once you allow yourself to 
 think of the origin and end of things, you will have to believe in 
 a God.' (Pref^ice, pp. i, 2.) As he puts it elsewhere, 'Science dis- 
 closes the Method of the world and not its Cause; Pu'ligion its Caupe 
 and not its Method.' (Esh-ay on ' Science, Nescience, and Faitli.') 
 
i8 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 Hence it must appear that for us, looking to the 
 position of expectancy as to the First Cause, to which 
 Science brings us, the real alternative is between an 
 Agnosticism on this supreme question, disappointing that 
 expectancy of the intellect, and failing to satisfy the 
 moral sense of unity between our own personality and 
 the Supreme Being, and the faith, accepting the revela- 
 tion of a living Personal God, which at least answers the 
 one and satisfies the other. And naturally that revela- 
 tion presents itself to us in vitality and substantial 
 power through a true Cliristian faith ; for this not only 
 accepts such revelation in a vague generality, but, 
 taking up the scientific inference of which I have 
 spoken as to the method of knowledge of the Supreme 
 Being, teaches that this revelation, though shadowed out 
 in some measure to human thought through the worlds 
 of matter and life, yet is made clear to us through the 
 world of human-kind, and perfected in a Humanity, at 
 once ideal and real, of a Son of Man, who is also the 
 Word of God. 
 
 For the other theories of a First Cause, claiming to 
 meet this expectancy of Science, fail to satisfy any soul 
 which strongly realizes its own personality, not only in 
 abstract thought, but by experience of the needs and 
 Ciipacities of actual life, and which is thus forced to 
 recognise in will — acting, of course, under conditions, 
 but yet acting in consciousness of freedom and with 
 purpose — the one originative cause of action, which we 
 can be said really to know. Pure Materialism breaks 
 down necessarily under this consciousness of a spiritual 
 faculty of will and reason in man, which must imply in 
 
I.] The Intuition of the Moral Sense. 1 9 
 
 the Creative Force itself a corresponding spiritual nature, 
 only infinite and eternal. There is, after all, an un- 
 answerable argument implied in the old question, * He 
 that made the ear, shall He not hear % and He that 
 made the eye, shall He not see % ' The Pantheistic 
 conception, again, of an indwelling Life in the univers.e, 
 which clothes all matter with potentialities of mind, 
 and of which individual being is but a fragment, breaks 
 down before the further consciousness, that this spiritual 
 life within us is a true, though mysterious, personality — 
 having, we know not how, a real moral freedom and 
 responsibility — claiming for itself a distinctiveness from 
 a mere course of Nature, especially implied in the power 
 to judge between good and evil in it — yet neces- 
 sarily resting itself on some Supreme Personality, from 
 which its own life is derived, and on which that lite 
 continually rests. 
 
 I have spoken here of the search of Science into the 
 problem of Being, as it is conducted — according to that 
 prevalent tendency to which I have alluded — under the 
 sole guidance of the intuition of Causality, as the great 
 • Form of thought ' for the pure intellect, without any 
 consideration of the intuition of righteousness and a 
 ' Power making for righteousness,' whicli is the guiding 
 axiom of the moral sense. But I must in so doing 
 again protest against that limitation of method as un- 
 philosophical and unsound, a blinding of one of the two 
 eyes of the soul in its search after the ultimate Being. 
 The nature of man is one ; not through one sjn'ritual 
 faculty, but through all, it must api)n)ach to the know- 
 ledge of the Creative Power. Now clearly the intuitioii 
 
 C 2 
 
20 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 of a supreme Kighteousness, which must be a righteous- 
 ness in love, is an intuition of a Supreme Personality : 
 for the notion of an Impersonal Something, a * stream of 
 tendency making for righteousness,' is utterly unmean- 
 ing to any one who looks into his own soul, and knows 
 that in himself righteousness is essentially an attribute 
 of his personality. I do not see how that intuition can 
 be rightly ignored, in considering what the nature of the 
 First Cause is. It does not for a moment cross the 
 inferences of the pure intellect ; but it undoubtedly both 
 confirms and supplements them. It claims a right to 
 speak with power for a true Theism against both 
 these answers of Materialism and Pantheism, which in 
 different ways contradict its own witness, at once ignor- 
 ing the human personality and denying the Divine ; 
 and, in order to do this, have also to deny the eternal 
 distinction of good and evil in themselves — the convic- 
 tion in the soul from the Creative and Sustaining Power 
 not only * of sin and righteousness,' but ' of judgment * 
 — which is an integral and essential part of our higher 
 humanity. The Study of Keligion has for its true 
 method (as Dr. Martineau has shown) the realization of 
 the Supreme Power as Cause, the realization of that 
 Power as Moral Perfection, and the union of these two 
 realizations in One Being, the object alike of intel- 
 lectual and moral search. 
 
 But, however this may be, still in any case those 
 of us who strongly hold that a blank Agnosticism as 
 to the ultimate problem of Being — vainly endeavouring 
 to fill up the infinite void thus created with mere know- 
 ledge, however increased in scope, however ingeniously 
 
I,] Drawbacks to the Witness of Science. 2 1 
 
 generalized and systematized, of tilings and men — is an 
 attitude of the soul, in which the great niass of men 
 will certainly never rest, and of which it may be 
 doubted whether they ever really take it up — mainly 
 because, however tolerable it may be to mere specula- 
 tion, it can never satisfv' their moral needs, or bear the 
 wear and tear of the practical struggles of life — those 
 of us, I say, who hold this conviction, and seem to 
 themselves to see that it is verified by historical and 
 actual experience of mankind, will conclude that in this 
 respect Science must ultimately be a TraiSaywyo^ to 
 bring men to Christ. 
 
 Not, we grant, without dangers of delusion, similar to 
 those which St. Paul traced in the Judaizing conce]> 
 tion of Law. It may arrest the right progress of the 
 soul by that absorption in lower objects, which is 
 idolatry. If it be science, untinctured by some larger 
 philosophy, which teaches the correlation and right 
 subordination of various forms of science, it may thus 
 absorb the mind in the pursuit of some one partial 
 study — of matter, of life, of humanity — when it should 
 pass on to the unity beyond them all, which yet embraces 
 them all. Even if it avoid this perversion — and I think 
 that the whole tendency of thought in our own day 
 is to break these narrow limits, and to seek wider 
 and more ultimate conceptions — yet still it may so 
 engross the whole energy of our nature in purely intel- 
 lectual operation, as (according to the confession, so 
 nobly candid yet so mournfully significant, of one ot 
 the great princes of science) to produce a mond atrophy, 
 a 'colour-blindness' of incapacity for enthusiasm, ad- 
 
2 2 Laiv leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 miration, worship, Avliich denies to the imagination and 
 to the heart their rightful insight into ultimate Being. 
 But against both these delusions we believe that there 
 is a safeguard in the sense of a larger humanity, with 
 more than intellectual capacities, which is forced on 
 the student, by the very fact that he is also a man, 
 in the actual experience of his own individual and 
 social life. , 
 
 In its growing consciousness of difficulty and limita- 
 tion in knowledge, Science may, indeed, dim the ' first 
 thoughts ' of universal human instinct of God by the 
 ' second thoughts ' of criticism and doubt. But since 
 the mind cannot rest on these, we believe that it must 
 pass on to the * third thoughts,' in which the first emerge 
 again, corrected, cleared, rationalized, and lay hold by 
 faith of that real knowledge of God, in Christ, which 
 'is the life eternal.' Just as of old, seeing at once 
 what it can and what it cannot give, we look seriously 
 and yet hopefully on its growth, and doubt not that it 
 must even so lead to Christ. 
 
 (B) But, again, looking upon Christian faith as not 
 only a faith in God, but as faith in a perfect Son of 
 Man, 'having the words of the eternal life,' and able in 
 Himself to reveal God, I cannot but think that under 
 another aspect, Science, by the analogy of its own pro- 
 cesses, leads us up — less obviously, less unmistakeably 
 but not less really — to this final consummation. It 
 is often hastily assumed that the method of science 
 and the method of Christian faith are irreconcileable, 
 mutually exclusive of each other. But when we come 
 to look closely into these methods, we shall rather be 
 
I.] The Method of Induction. 23 
 
 struck, I venture to think, by their mutual analogy — an 
 analogy witli difference, but a true analogy still. 
 
 I take it for granted that demonstrative knowledge 
 we cannot have, except of the processes of our own 
 mind and of its creations ; that of all that is not 
 ourselves — the world of things and persons and the 
 Creative Cause of both, and even of our own nature, so 
 far as by the power of reflection we study it, as if it 
 were a distinct being — we can but have that science 
 which we call Inductive, attaining in its results at most 
 to what we call ' moral certaintv.' Now lookino; at that 
 science as a whole, both as it develops itself in the 
 individual man, and, much more, as it is the treasure 
 of the race, growing by inheritance Irom generation to 
 generation, we know familiaily the processes by which 
 it actually advances. 
 
 There is, first, the process of Observation, including 
 in this the historical studv of thine^s or men in the 
 past, carried on under the great axiomatic principles, of 
 which we have spoken, as necessary ' forms of thought ' 
 — the idea of Causation in the intellectual, the intuition 
 of Kighteousness in the moral sphere — and so gradually 
 classified and systematized, as to bring together, with 
 continual balance and correction, the infinite number of 
 single observations. Such in astronomy was the work 
 of the earlier ages, perfected in the great generalizations 
 of Kepler. 
 
 Then, perhaps at once, perhaps after many genera- 
 tions, comes the intuition of some universal Law, 
 ])iercing to the inner meaning of all these results of 
 observation, which discovers to us some one great force, 
 
24 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 material or spiritual, presenting itself as the Cause 
 of them all ; and which then accepts that discovery as 
 true, and goes on to deduce from it necessarily other 
 results, far beyond those originally observed, covering 
 indeed in their generality the whole field with which the 
 branch of science in question has to do. Such was the 
 action of the genius of Newton, forming the greatest 
 of all ejDochs in Astronomical science. 
 
 Then, lastly, perhaps through many hands and 
 many generations, succeeds the process of Verification, 
 testing the results, so deduced, by comparison with 
 actual facts, and by their coincidence confirming, perhaps 
 in detail correcting and modifying, the general law, 
 and its disclosure of the Causative power. Such is the 
 work, which for two centuries has gone on continually, 
 and in v/hich the wonderful discovery of the last planet 
 of our system holds perhaps the highest place. Thus 
 at last stands out complete the truth of Science, 
 speculative or moral, to be the possession of the whole 
 race. 
 
 Now in this, the actual process of advance of Science, 
 there is undoubtedly throughout an element of faith. 
 For it is clear that in all ages, even in our own age of 
 increased diffusion of knowledge and education, all the 
 forward steps are taken by the few ; and the mass of 
 men have to accept them in faith, at most testing them 
 by the practical experience which follows from that 
 acceptance. It is said, I know, that such faith is only 
 provisional, retaining still the power, perhaps the duty, 
 of understanding and verifying what is thus provision- 
 ally accepted. But there is little substance in this 
 
I.] The Functioji of Faith hi Induction. 25 
 
 plea : for in actual fact, we know not only that nieu 
 generally never dream of trying to repeat the observa- 
 tions or understand the law, but that in the vast 
 majority of cases they are incapable, intellectually or 
 morallv, of even makinsf the trial. 
 
 But it is in respect of the central portion of the 
 process, the intuition of the Law and through it of the 
 universal Cause, that the application of the Law of faith 
 is most evident. For here it is on the very few — to be 
 counted on the fingers in each generation — that the 
 progress of humanity rests. Men of genius we call 
 them, as distinct from the men of mere talent. They 
 have before them only the same materials of knowledge, 
 which at least in large degree, are inherited and opeji 
 to all. But to them, meditating long and deeply upon 
 these, the great general truth reveals itself (men 
 say) and often reveals itself suddenly by a flash of 
 intuition, and their reason, the speculative or moral 
 reason, is somehow quickened to see and grasp what 
 is dark to other men, and to declare it to the 
 world. Such men the world calls in a vague sense 
 'inspired men'; conscious only that they are moved by 
 some spiritual insight or enthusiasm, unknown to lesser 
 minds. In that language there is a truth, which for 
 one who believes profoundly in a living God, having 
 a personal communion with man, passes beyond this 
 vague consciousness into something far more definite 
 and intelligible. In respect of all truth, he sees that 
 here in another sphere the double experience of the 
 prophet is reproduced. ' The word of the Lord came 
 to me ' ; for all truth is the revelation of Him : ' the 
 
26 Laiv leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 Spirit of the Lord was upon me ' : for all quickening of 
 the spirits of men to receive truth is by a Divine In- 
 spiration. There are those who (like Newton) have 
 felt this to the very depth of their souls, and for their 
 high function of advance of the world's knowledge have 
 thanked God. But, however that be, it is clear that on 
 their exceptional impulse, not on the general action of 
 human reason, the world depends. It sits more or less 
 at their feet in faith. When the intuition is intellec- 
 tual, it is mostly of the things without, and, if of God 
 at all, it is of Him as the Supreme Ruler, above all, 
 though pervading all ; and to it there is a response of 
 intelligence, fairly adequate from the comparatively few, 
 very imperfect from the many, who {to use a common 
 and significant phrase) take all these things ' on trust.' 
 If the intuition be moral, or even imaginative, it looks 
 more to the humanity within, individual and collective, 
 and, where it witnesses of God, it is of God as spiritually 
 present in that humanity; and accordingly the moral 
 or emotional response is more widely diffused, but on 
 the other hand, far more fully a response of faith and 
 trustful loyalty. Of course, in either case, this fliith 
 in these masters of men's minds and hearts is both 
 limited and 2)rovisional — imperfect (that is) both in 
 scojDe and time. For they themselves are imperfect in 
 wisdom and righteousness, and still more imperfect in 
 prophetic foresight ; and absolute trust in imperfection 
 is idolatry. Hero-worship has at all times its right 
 function ; as a protest against the worship of the 
 multitude, it may well have its special value in our 
 days. But to make it absolute is necessarily impossible. 
 
I.] The Christian Theory of Knowledge. 2 7 
 
 ' See that tbou do it not ; I am thy fellow-servant,' is 
 the cry of the true hero, as well as the true saint. Yet 
 with ail its limitations this faith in man is living and 
 powerful ; perhaps on the whole it errs in excess rather 
 than defect ; it has been forcibly argued that it has 
 shown itself historically to be the greatest of all powers 
 that move the world. 
 
 Now, in this undoubted and powerful element of 
 scientific advance, is there not an analogy which makes 
 it a -Trai^aywyo^ to bring us to Christ ? 
 
 For what is the Christian theory as to the growth 
 of the knowledge of God, and of the world and man in 
 Him ? Is it not that which is expressed in the fullest 
 sense of the famous words — that ' God of old times 
 spoke to the fathers in divers portions' of the whole 
 truth ' and in divers manners,' but ' at the end of these 
 days hath spoken to us ' once for all ' in His Son' — as 
 'the effulgence of His glory and the very image of 
 His substance ' \ It declares, that, while there is for 
 all humanity, feeling after God and in measure finding 
 Him, an universal witness, — partly from the things 
 without, partly by the consciousness within, through 
 which these outer things are interpreted, — yet that it 
 has pleased God to reveal Himself, in sundry forms and 
 sundry measures, to those who were to be His prophets 
 to all mankind. We hold, indeed, that this process of 
 revelation has wrought itself out, especially and super- 
 naturally, within the circle of a special covenant ot 
 knowledge and grace, given for the future blessing ot 
 all families of the earth. But yet not exclusively; the 
 wisest Christian teachers have always acknowledged a 
 
28 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 lower natural exemplification of that appointed order 
 in the great teachers of the world. Not without signi- 
 ficance does Clement of Alexandria see a Greek Moses 
 in Plato, and Dante make Virgil lead the soul into the 
 lower spheres of the Divine working. Not without good 
 ground have we in our own days been taught to 
 recognise — what, indeed, Holy Scripture itself impHes 
 — that in the dimmer light, outside the brighter pale 
 of the special covenant, men have not only been found 
 of God themselves, but have declared Him to their 
 fellow men. And to us all this culminates in the full 
 revelation in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Light of 
 the world, the Light which lighteth every man and 
 lighteth for all time. In that theory of Christian faith, 
 the final and supreme element, indeed, is confessedly 
 and absolutely supernatural. It is in respect of the 
 perfection claimed for the revelation in Christ, and 
 therefore the unlimited trust claimed as His due, that 
 a real Christian faith stands out in essential distinc- 
 tion from the qualified belief and reverence, which all 
 thoughtful and serious men accord to Jesus of Nazareth, 
 as the greatest of merely human teachers in the moral 
 and spiritual sphere ; and that Christianity stands out 
 unique among the religions of the world, and advances 
 its claim to be an absolute and universal religion, ac- 
 cepting what is good and true in the other faiths 
 of humanity, as broken lights from that Face of God, 
 which is revealed in perfect radiance in Christ, but 
 utterly refusing to be content with a place of equality 
 with them, or superiority only in degree. As the 
 actual manifestation of Christ Himself in word and 
 
I.] Preparation and Verification of Faith. 29 
 
 power cannot be accounted for as a part of the purely 
 natural order — as the Christ of the Gospel is infinitely 
 greater than the Christ of expectation, and even the 
 Christ of prophecy — so the faitli claimed for Him is 
 unique and supernatural. Advancing that supreme 
 claim of authority for its Master, Christianity neces- 
 sarily sets forth as the only justification of that claim, 
 the mystery of the Incarnation of Godhead in Him : 
 for how can there be absoluteness of trust, unless in 
 Him the faith in man is identified with faith in God, 
 who alone can claim fulness of worship from his 
 creatures \ Yet still this supernatural element, while 
 it thus plainly transcends, does not contradict the 
 natural ; it is seen to be the crown and completion of 
 that natural law of faith, as a guiding element in the 
 growth of human knowledge, which else remains head- 
 less and imperfect : and, therefore, so far, the perception 
 of that Law leads us up to Clirist. 
 
 The analogy, moreover, thus suggested, applies also in 
 this respect — that this Divine intuition and declaration 
 of the whole Truth of God, has its subordinate stages, of 
 preparation by observation on the one hand, and of de- 
 velopment by verification on the other. Of preparation, in 
 all which human thought and experience has discerned 
 or surmised of the working of the Providence and the 
 Spirit of God, and in all earlier revelations given to 
 meet these searchings of humanity; for these supjily 
 (so to speak) the standing-point from which the new 
 revelation starts. Of development, by the continual 
 verification throuirh the ages in the Churclj of Christ, 
 under the promised gift of the Spirit, of all the de- 
 
30 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 clarations and all the promises which the Gospel 
 contains. But these (to use our Lord's own distinction) 
 can touch only ' the earthly things,' the visible manifesta- 
 tions (that is) of the heavenly realities : the knowledge 
 of those ' heavenly things ' themselves is unhesitatingly 
 claimed for Him, and for Him alone. The true Teacher 
 reveals what the mere iraihaywyo^ can perhaps indicate 
 as possible, and as earnestly to be longed for, but cannot 
 know in fulness and in reality. 
 
 (C) But there is a third exercise of this function of 
 Law, in respect of the substance of what we call ' the 
 Faith,' that is the fundamental doctrines of the revela- 
 tion to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. What can the 
 scientific discovery of Law, whether of nature or of 
 humanity, do here % 
 
 Clearly we cannot, by the nature of the case, expect 
 that Science will anticipate or prove the 'heavenly 
 things ' themselves — the ultimate mysteries of the 
 Gospel, which profess to declare the counsels and the 
 nature of God Himself; for, if they are true at all, they 
 lie above the plane to which earthly science can reach. 
 The ' Natural Theology ' of man, through mind, con- 
 science, imagination, heart — and all these not in separa- 
 tion, but in combination — does, we profoundly believe, 
 rise up towards God. But it is to us a fundamental 
 acknowledgment, that its approach needs to be met, 
 and is met, by the revelation of God in Christ. Other- 
 wise the very reason for such revelation is gone. To 
 apply in a different sense St. Paul's woi ds, ' If they 
 who are of the Law'— content with the reign of Law, 
 as Science discloses or surmises it — ' are heirs ' of the 
 
I.] Relation to the Substance of the Faith 3 1 
 
 perfect Truth, ' then faith is made void ' and needless, 
 and * Christ Himself is revealed ' in vain.' 
 
 Clearly for the same reason it cannot disprove or 
 ignore them. It cannot disprove them : for so to do 
 would, be to arrogate to Science a perfect and demon- 
 strative knowledge of all the mysteries of Being, and to 
 claim that the truth, which it discovers, is not only the 
 real truth, but the whole truth. It has no right to 
 ignore them, as unreal, as fantastic, as lying beyond 
 the possibility of real knowledge. As well might the 
 student of the inorganic world deny the reality of life, 
 because he cannot bring it und^r the laws or refer it to 
 the causes, which he finds to be working them. As 
 well might the student of organic life deny the reality 
 of mind and conscience, because he can discern neither 
 by his knowledge of the organisation through which it 
 works. 
 
 No ! it is with ' the earthly things,' through which 
 the heavenly things are manifested, that Science has to 
 do. The revelation of Christ presupposes gieat laws of 
 God in the world and in humanity; it comes to us 
 through the witness of men — under the inspiration of 
 God, but men still — and is practically embodied in in- 
 stitutions, which can be seen as telling on human society ; 
 it appealed to men at its first coming by signs physical 
 and spiritual, which they could test and understand ; 
 it has for times past and present its signs in its historical 
 power over this world, and by these its fruits it offers 
 to be judged ; it claims to be able to give to those who 
 will receive it a new spiritual life, which can actually 
 subdue the flesh and overcome the world. In these 
 
32 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 respects it enters on the region of human thought and 
 human experience, with which Science, as the systema- 
 tization of both, can deal, and from its own lower point 
 of view, is bound to deal. In respect of these it is 
 impossible to keep apart from each other the revela- 
 tion accepted in faith, and the witness of Science as 
 imderstood by reason ; for the truth of God, however 
 known to us, is one, and the humanity which it con- 
 cerns is one also. It is vain to attempt a separation 
 here between our intellectual and our moral and spiritual 
 nature, to assign knowledge to the one, and religion to 
 the other, as though the intellect had no function in 
 religious belief, and moral intuition no place in the 
 pursuit of knowledge. ' If a man ' (it has been truly 
 said)^ *be at once savant and theologian, how is he to 
 manage this partition of his creed — one side of him 
 denying all knowledge but of necessity and of nature, 
 and the other believing in freedom and in God ? No 
 earnest mind can endure a life of double consciousness.' 
 Meeting-points there must be. We know, indeed, even 
 in science itself, that it is often difficult to discern 
 these clearly, when they are reached by two different 
 methods — now starting from fundamental principles, 
 accepted as true, and deducing from them what ought 
 to be — now starting Irom observation of actual facts, and 
 ascending from these to what actually is. It is but 
 according to our actual experience, that for a time this 
 may seem to involve us in contradiction and perplexity, 
 making men, according to their mental character, 
 doubt the truth of the first principles accepted on the 
 ^ Martineau's Nature and God. 
 
1.] Function of Confirmation. 33 
 
 one hand, or the accuracy of tlie inductions made on 
 the other. But yet these meeting-points must really 
 be, and in the end they must, more or less distinctly, 
 be seen to be, meeting-points not of discord, but of 
 harmony. 
 
 It is here that we may expect — and we shall find 
 (as I believe) grounds for justifying this expectation — 
 that Science will be, through its discovery of law, a 
 Traihayia^o'i to lead US to Christ. To use the words of 
 a distinguished predecessor in this lectureship, it has 
 ' its office in making perpetually clearer the true and 
 full meaning of revelation itself.' ' It is intended, that 
 as men advance in knowledge of God's works, they should 
 find themselves better able to interpret the message, 
 which they have received from their Father in heaven \' 
 
 That office may not always be rightly discharged. 
 Just as in St. Paul's time there were those who idolized 
 the Law, and neglected or despised the Gospel of the 
 Spirit, and there were also those, who, in their zeal for 
 the freedom of the Spirit, depreciated or denounced tlie 
 Law, instead of * using it lawfully ' ; so there is now a 
 tendency, on the one side, to insist that the truth of 
 Science is all in all, and that beyond it there can be 
 nothinrr but the ' unknown and unknowable,' and on the 
 other, in those to whom faith in Christ is the very life 
 of life, to undervalue scientific discovery, perhaps even 
 to fear or hate the advance of scientific research and 
 knowledge. But neither of these tendencies can hold 
 or ought to hold. It is often the highest wisdom of 
 this imperfect life to ' wait and hope ' — ' to wait ' in the 
 
 ^ Temple's Bampton Lectures for 1884, p. 245. 
 D 
 
34 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 possession of two truths or principles, each of which we 
 have reason to accept, although as yet reconcilement 
 may be to us impossible — ' to hope,' in a faith which 
 already in human experience has found some justifica- 
 tion and reward, that in due time the whole truth will 
 emerge out of apparent contradictions, and what seemed 
 to be discords will subserve a subtler and richer harmony 
 — ' one music as before, but vaster.' 
 
 Now it is only with this last relation of Science to 
 faith, of Law to Christ, that these lectures will attempt 
 to deal; and even of this it is obvious that an ex- 
 haustive treatment would, within their necessary limits, 
 be impossible. All that can be attempted is to give 
 what appear to be specimens of this relation of the 
 advance of scientific conception to the unchanged essence 
 of our Christianity — of the manifestation (that is) of 
 Supreme Power through Law to the manifestation of 
 God in Christ, bringing with it that personal unity of 
 the spirit of man with the Godhead, to which the very 
 form of Christian baptism bears continual witness. 
 
 It appears to me that this effect shows itself in 
 various forms. 
 
 Sometimes it is directly confirmatory, as showing 
 that the great laws of humanity, which the manifesta- 
 tion of God in Christ assumes, and through which it 
 works with a force supernatural and divine, are true 
 laws, more and more fully realized by our modern 
 scientific thought. In that light I would ask you to 
 consider the significance of the great principle of 
 Heredity, as showing the solidarity of all humankind, 
 and of Evolution in its largest sense, as illustrating 
 
I.] Function of Elucidation, 35 
 
 the progress in all creation to a liiglier perfection. 
 The one will appear (I think) to Lear on the funda- 
 mental Christian doctrine of Mediation ; the other on 
 the doctrine of the Incarnation, as the germ of a new 
 life engrafted in humanity, destined to perfect itself 
 under the providence and grace of God till the end 
 of this dispensation. Both are incapable, of course, 
 of anticipating the great Christian mysteries, and 
 yet both prepare for them, by showing their harmony 
 with God's natural laws, and so lead up to the true 
 Eevealer of the mystery of God, the Lord Jesus Christ 
 Himself. 
 
 Sometimes, again, the same witness shows itself, 
 rather as elucidating, and bringing out in their right 
 significance, certain elements of the Gospel message, 
 which, till that witness was borne, were comparatively 
 in abeyance, acknowledged, but hardly realized, by 
 the faith of Chiistendoni. Eternal verities, in their 
 essence incapable of change or decay, yet manifest 
 themselves in different aspects to the conditions, in- 
 tellectual and spiritual, of various ages of man — ^just as 
 the same eternal Creative Power manifests itself to 
 different cycles of time in different orders ot being. 
 What is at one period only the background of faith 
 is brought into prominence, as 'knowledge grows from 
 more to more.' So it seems to me that the infinite 
 enlargement of our scientific conception of the uni- 
 verse, as one great whole, in which the earth with all 
 its inhabitants is but a speck, forces us to consider the 
 significance of those revelations (as in the Epistles to 
 the Ephesians and Colossians) which speak of the Head- 
 
 D 2 
 
36 Laiu leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 ship of Christ, not only over His Church, not only over 
 humanity, but over all created being gathered up in 
 Himself, and refuse to conceive of His relation to it 
 as limited either by space or time. To the knowledge 
 of creation in the early age, it was but natural that 
 tliis grander conception of the faith should be held (so 
 to speak) only implicitly, as the worthy completion of 
 the Christian doxology to the Incarnate Son of God. 
 Now it seems to be brought into explicit prominence, 
 and to show His kingdom and salvation, expanding to 
 the full expansion of all the regions of His creation. 
 So, again, in a wholly different sphere, I cannot but 
 feel that the growth of the social side of the Science 
 of Humanity — bidding us consider how the inalienable 
 individual freedom is tempered and subordinated, with- 
 out being destroyed, by the common life of human 
 society — forces us, as Christians, to enquire into the 
 doctrine of the unity of all humanity in Christ, alike 
 in the supernatural society, coextensive in idea with 
 the world itself, which we call the Catholic Church, 
 and in the various bonds of natural societv, which He 
 is pleased to regenerate to a new life. Just as the 
 new birth of individual thought and freedom in the 
 sixteenth century brought out, with new force and 
 vitality, the truth of Christian Individualism, face to 
 face with God in Christ, and seeking from Him alone 
 the saving gift both of pardon and of grace, so — now 
 that this Individualism has been established, and, taken 
 alone, has been found insufficient to solve the problems 
 of civilisation, — the truth of a Christian unity, which 
 shall not deny or crush, but temper and rule it, is 
 
I.] Ftinctio7i of Criticism. 
 
 Zl 
 
 called forth by the pressing needs of our ov\'n nine- 
 teenth century, into a prominence which as yet modern 
 thought has but imperfectly reahzed. 
 
 Sometimes, once more, this same teaching of Science 
 assumes towards the faith of the Gospel, an attitude 
 which we may call corrective and critical, coming 
 closest to that view of it, which I have already quoted, 
 as ' making ' and forcing us to make, ' perpetually 
 clearer the true meaning of the revelation itself It is 
 corrective, as testing, and often rejecting or modifying, 
 interpretations of the eternal verities, or deductions from 
 them, which are really but the work of science as 
 theologic, and which yet we are apt to make as sacred 
 as the verities themselves. It is critical, as distinguish- 
 insf in the Ixevelation itself what is Divine from what 
 is human, what is primary and essential from what is 
 secondary and subsidiary. As such, it leads the mind, 
 in theology as in other forms of thought, from absolute 
 scholastic systems, which claim to embrace all truth, 
 and form it into a vast and symmetrical but artificial 
 coherence, to the simpler grasp of great fundamental 
 principles, fultilling themselves to us in many ways ; 
 while we recognise in them irregularities, which we 
 cannot square into rule, and mysteries which defy accu- 
 rate definition. Clearly this effect of Science has shown, 
 and is showing, itself, in regard to the very conception 
 of what we call the Supernatural in the Revelation 
 — the element of Miracle in the largest sense, whether 
 in the realm of matter or the realm of mind. It bids 
 us ask what is its proper meaning and significance — 
 what is its relation to those natural forces and laws, 
 
v5 
 
 8 Law leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 which it is tlie very object of science to discover — a 
 relation wliich must be one not of discord, not of 
 unison, but of harmony. Nor less clear, and hardly less 
 important, is the bearing of criticism on Holy Scripture, 
 in which the essence of that Kevelation is concentrated 
 for us — to distinguish, though we cannot separate, the 
 Divine from the human element in it — to compare its 
 declarations with the truths discovered, with more or 
 less of certainty, by science, physical, historical, linguistic, 
 — to examine how far its main purpose, clearly s[)iritual, 
 is indissolubly connected with the forms, historical, 
 legal, didactic, in which it has clothed itself It is 
 plain that this critical relation of Science to Eevelation 
 is more apt to be, or to seem to be, antagonistic, and in 
 some of its phases it undoubtedly deserves its common 
 appellation of ' destructive.' But yet it is one which 
 must be faced quietly and resolutely. Our duty is 
 not to denounce or ignore it, but (if I may so say) to 
 submit it in its turn to criticism from the other side, 
 which may distinguish in it v*'hat is really proved from 
 what is mere assumption, probable or improbable, and 
 so refuse what in it is false, while we welcome what is 
 true, and use it to clear our own conception of the 
 higher truth, which we hold in faith. The experience 
 of the last half-century may, I must think, read to us 
 here lessons of encouragement. I have myself seen 
 methods of such criticism come and go, sometimes 
 destroying each other. I have seen results of criticism, 
 once accepted as final and imperishable, now rejected 
 on all hands, and doctrines of revelation, once scouted 
 as unphilosophical and impossible, now allowed to 
 
I.] The needs of our age. 
 
 39 
 
 be accordant with the truest and deepest philosophy. 
 But all this restless and sometimes bewildering activity 
 has not been in vain. In a very literal sense it 
 has, I think, tended to fulfil the idea of the text, 
 because it has taught us to j)ass from simply ac- 
 cepting Christianity, as a system of doctrine and 
 institution, to resting in all our being on the living 
 Christ Himself. 
 
 IV. Under these three aspects, I shall ask you to 
 consider with me whether Science ought not to tend, 
 and has not in great degree tended, to be the school- 
 master to bring us to a higher teaching. We cannot, 
 of course, be unaware that this is not the whole truth 
 of the case ; that the advance of Science, encroaching 
 (as we believe) on domains not its own, and claiming to 
 do what it cannot do for the full satisfaction of human 
 needs, has too often come to bar the progress towards 
 God in Christ, which it ought to further, and to unsettle 
 the old childlike faith of days, less knowing than our 
 own, yet perhaps not less wise ; that accordingly the 
 Christian teacher has, like St. Paul, to resist such 
 usurpation, to expose the vanity of such claims, to 
 protest against 'the science, falsely so called,' which 
 simply despoils ns of our spiritual inheritance and 
 gives us nothing in its room ^ But yet it seems to 
 me that the brighter side of the truth, which I have 
 indicated, is one which needs to be dwelt upon more 
 frequently and more hopefully, and moreover that it 
 is one which our age most urgently demands, and is 
 
 ^ The title, I oljserve, of the Boyle Lectures for 1890, liy Trofess-.r 
 Bonney, is the 'Conflict of Science and Faith.' 
 
40 Laiv leading to Christ. [lect. 
 
 ready to receive. The age is weary of mere doubts and 
 negations. It will not, because by spiritual necessity 
 it cannot, be contented with an Agnostic despair of 
 advance to ultimate truth, even if there be offered 
 accumulation of what calls itself 'positive knowledge' 
 of lower and secondary truths, which declines (as has 
 been bitterly said) even to think of * the kernel of 
 nature, and goes on sifting its husks' — ' vacant husks ' 
 (we may add), ' well meant for grain.' It honours, and 
 rightly honours, the advance of Science towards the 
 discovery of the reign of Law, for its own sake as well 
 as for the fruits of usefulness which it lias brought ; 
 but it asks, ' What is there behind Law, and yet in that 
 Law truly though imperfectly expressed % ' Nor will 
 it accept as sufficient the answer, 'A something not our- 
 selves, which creates being and makes for righteousness.' 
 It is not enough to describe it by mere negation, and 
 so to make our confession of faith (as has been sar- 
 castically said by Charles Kingsley ^), a declaration 
 that ' the Something our Nothing is one Something.' 
 We must find some better answer, which can satisfy 
 the needs of our own inner personality in all its faculties 
 — the instincts of truth, of righteousness, of love, of 
 faith. Such an answer we believe to have been given, 
 capable of being understood by the simplest, and verified 
 by the maturest thought. We believe that the Living 
 God, who is Power, Wisdom, Eighteousness, Love, has 
 revealed Himself to His creatures, and that this Reve- 
 lation is perfected in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore 
 we believe that all lower discoveries of His work must 
 ^ In Phaetlton, or Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers. 
 
I.] Fear and Trust. 41 
 
 eventually lead to Christ, and in that confidence we 
 
 look not only calmly but gladly and thankfully on their 
 
 continual growth. 
 
 In Tennyson's * Sea Dreams ' there is the weird vision 
 
 of a vast flood, swelling up again and again out of 
 
 a far off ' belt of luminous vapour,' not without strange 
 
 low sounds of Nature's music, breaking ' mixt with 
 
 awful light' against the heights, which are seen as 
 
 ' huge cathedral fronts of every age,' and sweeping 
 
 away, one b}^ one, the images of sacred beauty from 
 
 the niches of time-honoured reverence ; and at last 
 
 rising to — 
 
 ' two fair images 
 Botli crowned with stars and high among the stars, 
 The Virgin-Mother standing witli her chikl; 
 Till she began to totter, and the child 
 Clung to the mother, and sent forth a cry.' 
 
 The allegory is plain and ominous. Were the heights 
 of our Christianity indeed only a grand and venerable 
 fabric built up by man, it might be true. But what if 
 they be, as we believe them to be, the ' stone made 
 without hands,' going right down to the Eternal Eock 
 of truth, and growing, by an inner force of life, to 
 fill the whole earth \ What if upon them there stands, 
 not the mere ideal image of a holy child, but the living 
 personality of Him, who can say to the wildest storm, 
 ' Peace, be still ' \ Then we may put the desponding 
 suggestions of the allegory aside, and take up the old 
 confidence, which cries out that ' we will not fear, though 
 the waters rage and swell ' ; for out of that swelling rage 
 those heiorhts will still rise unshaken, only brighter in 
 
42 Laiv leading to Chr-ist. 
 
 purity, more visibly majestic in strength ; and the very 
 waters which threatened to shake His sovereign royalty 
 shall be subdued to His will, even to ' make glad the 
 city of God, the holy place of the Tabernacle of the 
 Most Highest.' 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 HEREDITY AND MEDIATION. 
 
 As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive. — 1 Cor. xv. 22. 
 
 In working out tlie general idea already indicated, 
 and considering how far tlie witness of Science to the 
 reion of Law is ' a schoolmaster ' to lead us to the higher 
 knowledge of God in Christ, we enter first on its 
 directly confirmatory relation to that higher knowledge; 
 and our consideration of this relation may well begin 
 by examining the bearing of scientific research into the 
 unity of the human race, both in the present and in 
 the past, upon the great doctrine of Mediation. That 
 doctrine lies at the root of distinctive Christianity; for 
 Christianity is at once a religion of God and a religion 
 of Humanity, and the link between the two is the 
 Mediation, by which God and man are made one. 
 
 (I) In the famous words of the text the whole truth 
 of Mediation, as a Kedemption from evil, is expressed 
 with a grapliic and comprehensive brevity. It assumes, 
 first, that there is a real and effective unity in our 
 nature, in virtue of which all humanity is viewed and 
 treated as a whole ; it asserts, next, an inheritance ot 
 sin and death from a primeval origin of evil, as actually 
 affecting all that collective humanity; and, lastly, it 
 
44 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 declares a Divine Mediation in Christ, taking away 
 that alienation of our humanity fiom God, which is its 
 spiritual death, and renewing in it the communion 
 with Him, which is spiritual life. That Mediation is 
 set forth as doubly a Redemption and a Re-creation 
 of humanity; primarily as restoring the higher unity, 
 through which ' it lives and moves and has its being ' 
 in God, and, secondarily, through this Divine principle, 
 as regenerating and strengthening the bonds of the 
 human unity itself, which, through all ages and in all 
 nations and languages, should make it one. All are 
 one with God in Christ, and all are therefore members 
 one of another. The text appeals to actual experience 
 of this unity of all mankind in the inheritance and con- 
 tinual intensification of a moral corruption, a germ of 
 evil at the beginning of human history, now inborn and 
 engrained in all the individual souls who make up 
 humanity, and sowing in all the seeds of a common 
 death. It declares it, as in the same experience mani- 
 fested for a Diviner good, far more than overcoming 
 the evil, in the similar development of a new germ of 
 higher life, implanted by the Incarnation in humanity 
 of the Son of God, and worked out throuQ^h all the 
 ages, gradually pervading that humanity and over- 
 coming all opposing influences, till at His Coming again 
 it shall be perfected in the fulness of Eternal Life. 
 
 It must, indeed, be remembered that this view of 
 the Mediation, as a salvation from the sin brought in 
 by the Fall — glorious as it is, and perhaps closest to 
 the needs and aspirations of our sinful world — is yet 
 far from exhausting the whole fulness of its Divine 
 
11.] Difficulties in the Idea of Mediation. 45 
 
 meaning. The Mediation of the Son of God and Man 
 is set forth to us as the crown of the Divine purpose 
 in the very creation of humanity. * If man ' (it has 
 been truly said) ' had fulfilled the law of his being, he 
 would still, so far as we can see, have stood in need of 
 a Mediator, tlirough whom the relation of fellowship 
 with God might have been sustained, and deepened, 
 and perfected. Nor is it easy to suppose that this 
 fellowship could have been made stable and permanent 
 in any other way, than by the union in due time of 
 man with God, accomplished by the union of man with 
 Him, who was the Mediator between man and God, 
 and in whose image man was made.' ' Tlie Incarnation 
 was,' we believe, ' independent of the Fall,' although 
 everything of suffering and shame * connected with the 
 Incarnation was due to the Fall \' This larger sense 
 seems, we may remark, clearly implied in the cele- 
 brated Creed of the Manifestation of the Son of God in 
 the Epistle to the Philippians -, in which the first part 
 of the ' great humility ' — ' being in the form of God . . 
 He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant' — is 
 distinguished from the second part — 'being found in 
 fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became 
 obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross.' 
 
 ^ See Bishop Westcott on The, Gosjd of Creation in live Epistles 
 of St. John, pp. 273-315 ; with its singularly interesting catena of 
 authorities from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. With liis 
 conclusion most theologians will agree. ' The thought that the Incar- 
 nation, the union of man with God and of creation in man, was part 
 of the Divine purpose in creation, opens to us, I believe, wider views 
 of the wisdom of God than we commonly embrace, which must react 
 upon life.' 
 
 ^ Phil. ii. 6-8. 
 
46 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 That distinction the practice of the Church embodies, 
 when it celebrates tlie first in tlie unclouded joy of 
 Christmas, and the second with the mingled sorrow 
 and thankfulness of Good Friday. But it is sufficient 
 for the present purpose to consider the Mediation as it 
 actually is, not to man in his original righteousness, but 
 to man as sinful. 
 
 Now in relation to the acceptance of this great 
 Christian doctrine of Mediation a twofold difficulty 
 has been created by the deep sense of Individuality in 
 the human soul — conscious (as has been said) in its 
 supreme moments of but two existences, God and itself. 
 We find a speculative difficulty, in the doubt whether 
 there is such a thing as real and effective unity in 
 human nature, and whether, after all, humanity is 
 anything more than a convenient term for an infinite 
 number of individual beings, having certain points of 
 natural likeness — the old contention of Nominalism 
 against Eealism in days gone by^ We find a graver 
 moral difficulty, in the question how, if this unity be 
 real — so real as to affect our nature, even iu its spiritual 
 relations to God — this reality of power over us can be 
 compatible with our own personal responsibility to 
 God, of which conscience bears so unhesitating a wit- 
 ness, and, as correspondent to this, with His perfect 
 
 ' Nominalism, as represented by Roscelin, ' the authoritative iii- 
 terjireter' to the Middle Ages, 'if not the author of the system,' 
 ' l^eremptorily denied the I'eal existence of uuiversals ; nothing actually 
 is but the individual. . . . Universals were mere conventional phrases. 
 Each animal subsists ; the animal race is but an aggregate of thought. 
 Man lives ; humankind is a creation of the mind.' — Milman's Latin 
 Christianity, Book viii. c. 5. 
 
II.] The Law of Solidarity and Heredity. 47 
 
 righteousness of dealing with each human personality. 
 Like all moral difficulties, it presses more hardly upon 
 the soul than any question of mere speculation. It is a 
 perj^lexity well known to all students of the theology 
 of the past, especially in the days of St. Augustine, 
 and of the revival of Augustinian influence in the six- 
 teenth century; and, if now less prominent in doctrinal 
 controversy than in days of a more pronounced indi- 
 vidualism of thought, yet it constantly recurs to the 
 spiritual experience of the soul itself in its personal 
 relation to God. 
 
 (II) Now it seems clear that, in respect of this two- 
 fold difficulty, barring the way against acceptance in 
 faitli of the great Christian doctrine of Mediation, 
 the whole course of modern thought exemplifies that 
 character of Science, as 'the schoolmaster to lead us 
 to Christ,' of which in these I^ectures I desire to speak. 
 
 For, in the first place, we see that its progress is 
 always towards an ever-increasing recognition of a true 
 and eifective solidarity in humanity at large, through a 
 network of ties, binding individuals and generations 
 together — ties which are indeed cemented by mutual 
 needs, and quickened by mutual affections, yet which 
 obviously depend neither on need nor on afl'ection, but 
 are rooted deep in that nature itself. The recognition 
 of this truth has indeed grown to be so strong, that 
 there is even some tendency to overbear by it all belief 
 in individuality, to study humanity only in the mass, 
 and to trace all growth of mind and character to the 
 spiritual and material environment of the personal life 
 — in respect of idea to refer all in the ' spirit of the 
 
48 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 age ' — in respect of action and interest, to sink the 
 individual in Society. The day, therefore, may come, 
 when, as of old, Christianity shall have to assert, 
 against such exaggeration, the reality and sacredness 
 of individual right and freedom. But in its place the 
 recognition of unity is true. In practice it is of the 
 essence of the advance of modern civilisation, whether 
 in its material, or its intellectual, or its moral aspect. 
 In theory it is one of the latest words of our modern 
 science. 
 
 But, beyond this, we are being taught in the same 
 school to refer this solidarity in the present greatly, 
 perhaps mainly, to the principle of Heredity; and so to 
 see in it an inheritance from the parentage of the past. 
 Not to speak as yet of theories of common descent, not 
 only of humanity, but of the whole realm of organic 
 creation, from some original germ or germs of life — that 
 principle of Heredity in our race itself is being deeply 
 studied, both in fact and in theory, and is certainly 
 brought out more and more as an undoubted reality ; 
 through which what we may call the raw material of 
 character, both physical and spiritual, is seen to be 
 transmitted to all descendants from a common stock. 
 This transmitted character is discerned, moreover, as 
 indissolubly one in all its parts. For certainly modern 
 thouglit brings out more and more clearly the truth 
 that all the elements of our complex nature, distinct 
 yet never separate, are full of mutual actions and 
 reactions — that (as St. Paul indeed express^ly teaches ^) 
 the body with its appetites, the soul with its passions 
 * I Thess. V. 23. 
 
II.] Limits of its power, 49 
 
 and affections, the spirit with its reason and moral 
 sense, are all integral parts of one true self, and ac- 
 cordingly so tell upon one another, that no one can 
 be affected without influence upon the rest. Whatever 
 may be the force of the Law of Heredity, it is clearly 
 exercised on man's nature as a whole. 
 
 This force cannot, indeed, by any but mere theorists, 
 be conceived as absolute in determining the character 
 of any individual. It is modified from without in each 
 generation by changes in the jDhysical and spiritual 
 environment of life ; and it is one chief object of civil- 
 isation so to determine these conditions, that they may 
 mitigate or eradicate all that in those inherited ten- 
 dencies is evil, and may stimulate all that is good. 
 But the combined effect of both these forces from witli- 
 out is still more powerfully modified in each personal 
 being by a real and energetic individuality, originated, 
 we know not how, by the creative Power — so that in 
 the multitude of human characters, as of human faces, 
 we find at once likeness and unlikeness, an underlying 
 element which is common, and an individual stamp of 
 peculiarity. 
 
 What are the proportions and relations of these 
 various forces in producing the complex result of human 
 character, we can hardly estimate in any single case, 
 and can probably never hope to define generally 
 by an universal rule. As yet our whole knowledge 
 of the subject is crude and vague ; although the col- 
 lection of careful observations now going on may, we 
 hope, do something in the direction of greater definite- 
 ness, and help to some rough estimate of the true 
 
 £ 
 
50 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 conditions of the problem. But, if it be diflScult to 
 balance inheritance from the past and environment 
 of the present, how infinitely more difficult it is to 
 estimate and account for this undoubted, though mys- 
 terious, element of individuality ! How it is originated, 
 and to what extent it is in each case a new force, 
 engrafting itself as a fresh and fruitful germ on the 
 parent stock, we cannot even pretend to guess. Witness 
 the hopeless controversy of Traducianism and Crea- 
 tionism as to the human soul in days gone by — as far 
 from solution now as in the time of St, Augustine. It 
 is but one form of the ever-recurring mystery, of the 
 relation of the Ego to the iVow Ego, of the reconcilement 
 of our own conscious personality with the reign of 
 universal Law, and the existence of a corporate hu- 
 manity. It is but the highest phase of that introduc- 
 tion of individual variations, which is one main ele- 
 ment in the development of species in organic life. 
 But that in every child of man there is a balance, and 
 that there must be a harmony, of all these forces from 
 within and from without, is to us perfectly clear. 
 
 On the one hand, the reality of this continuous life 
 through Heredity is unquestionable. In rough gene- 
 rality it has been observed and acknowledged in all 
 ages ; in our own day that reality, and some of the 
 law^s which regulate it, have been most carefully studied, 
 with some results of all but moral certainty. On its 
 physical side we are told, in relation to the whole 
 organic world, that, while the evidence of the trans- 
 mission of artificially induced peculiarities and acquired 
 habits of an individual is still precarious, yet ' no 
 
II.] Force of Heredity. 
 
 51 
 
 structural modification is so slight, and no functional 
 peculiarity so insignificant in either parent, that it may 
 not make its appearance in their offspring ' ; and that 
 ' peculiarities which have arisen naturally, and have 
 been hereditary through many antecedent generations, 
 tend to appear in their progeny with great force ^ '. On 
 the spiritual side it is at least equally certain, though 
 naturally the proof of it is less obvious, that traits of 
 mental and moral character, and through these procli- 
 vities to good or evil, are similarly transmitted, in vary- 
 ing degrees of power — and that power, moreover, more 
 or less intermittent — from generation to generation. In 
 both cases an element of complication is introduced by 
 the fact of double parentage, from individuals previously 
 unconnected with each other, and the consequent 
 balance or conflict of the inheritance of distinctive 
 characteristics from the father's and the mother's side. 
 But this complication does not touch the general truth 
 of Heredity, nor diminish the power of the combined 
 influence, whatever may be the still unknown laws 
 of its combination, on the individuality of the de- 
 scendant. There it is, visible at all times in diflerent 
 degrees as a great universal Law, and exceptionally 
 
 ^ See Professor Huxley's Article on Biology in the EncydopiBdia 
 Britannica, vol. iii. p. 687. In relation to the physical transmission 
 ofac(iuired habits, Professor Weismann goes somewhat further. His 
 coiiclusiou is tliat 'it has never been proved, either by direct observa- 
 tion or by experiment, that acquired characters are transmitted, and 
 it has never been demonstrated that, without the aid of such trans- 
 mission, the evolution of the organic world becomes unintelligible.' 
 (Essays on Heredity and kindred Biological Froblems. English Trans- 
 lation. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1889.) 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 illustrated to us from time to time by startling in- 
 stances of the occurrence of a likeness, which is almost 
 reproduction, of some near or remote ancestor, both in 
 body and (perhaps in less degree) in character. We 
 trace it, moreover, with greater distinctness, in pro- 
 portion to the closeness of relation to some common 
 parentage — strong in family likeness, and strongest, 
 in all but identity of resemblance, in children tw^'n-born 
 — weaker in local or national types — yet in all real, 
 till we come at last to the touch of nature, which 
 makes the whole world kin. Alike in history and in 
 fiction ^ we see how strangely the effect for good or evil 
 of the strain of race works, in combination or in conflict 
 with individual character, and with the education and 
 associations of present life. It is, indeed, the sense of 
 this continuity, which gives occasion and justification to 
 the historical method of the study of all that concerns 
 humanity, in respect of knowledge, thought, character, 
 as well as in respect of physical structure and condi- 
 tions of life. 
 
 But, on the other hand, real as this power is, and 
 great as is in some cases its apparently preponderating 
 strength, still that it is not absolute — that it does 
 not extinguish or overwhelm individuality' — is equally 
 obvious. 
 
 That individuality comes out plainly enough on the 
 physical side. In fact its appearance in such variations 
 from the inherited type, as are favourable to victory in 
 the struggle for existence, is noted in the whole organic 
 world as one chief element in the process of Evolution. 
 ^ As in George Eliot's Simnish Gypsy. 
 
II.] Force of Lndividnality. 53 
 
 In liumanity it is to be traced clearly and unmistake- 
 ably, sometimes in striking physical contrast between 
 the progeny of the same parents, growing up under the 
 same circumstances, more often in the subtler indivi- 
 dual differences, coexisting with the ordinary family 
 likeness. But it is with the reality of this individuality 
 in the moral and spiritual sphere that we are especially 
 concerned. Here we have, indeed, a witness, anterior 
 to all observation from without, more direct and more 
 impressive in its power. It comes from within. For 
 the personal freedom and responsibility which belong 
 to a true individuality, there are both the unquestion- 
 able and irresistible testimony of each man's moral con- 
 sciousness — the most certain, as certain, as it seems to 
 me, of all the forms of consciousness of which we are 
 capable — and the testimony of collective humanity in all 
 the laws, institutions, languages of the world. To any 
 contrary assertion of Determinism through Heredity 
 Butler's grave irony applies, that, whatever be the 
 abstract truth of the matter, certainly in the order of 
 the world ' we are treated as if we were free/ But, 
 even scientific observation tends, in ]3roportion to the 
 thoroughness and determination of its study, to con- 
 firm this witness. If inherited genius a.nd inherited 
 character are clearly traced, yet they are almost in- 
 variably modified in transmission ; and that with a 
 modification, for which neither change of circumstance, 
 nor combination of parental peculiarities can adequately 
 account, and which in each individual, if it seems in its 
 beginning to be due to some natural proclivity, yet 
 grows to maturity by the actual effect through habit 
 
54 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 of his own conscious energy, or his own conscious assi- 
 milation of external influences \ This seems to be 
 established beyond all doubt as a constant law, and 
 from time to time this general law is illustrated by 
 startling exceptional instances of the emergence of a 
 dominant and overmastering individuality. As we study 
 the world's history, especially in the great critical epochs 
 of progress, the effect both of Heredity and of the 
 environment of life is not indeed effaced, but altocrether 
 thrown into the shade again and again, by the brilliant 
 and original force of some commanding jDcrsonality, 
 to which we find nothing like either before or after, 
 and on which the subsequent history of generations is 
 seen to turn. No doubt it has its ' epoch of preparation ' 
 — sometimes its individual precursors. ' The hour,' as we 
 say, ' has come '; a wave of general influence passes over 
 the whole face of human society, or moves it as an under- 
 current from below. But ' the man ' must come also 
 in his exceptional power and mission ; else the hour will 
 pass fruitless away. Even the advance of civilisation, 
 and the growth of democracy — over which men some- 
 times groan, as tending to restrain free originality, and 
 reduce humanity to a dead mediocrity — yet will be, 
 I think, seen rather to alter the form and method, than 
 impair the force, of this influence of strong individuality 
 in mind or will. It rules perhaps more by consent, but 
 it rules with unabated power. 
 
 The result, to which we are led by study of the actual 
 facts, without squaring them artificially to preconceived 
 
 * This fact is strikingly illustrated in Mr. Galton's interesting work 
 on Hereditary Genius. 
 
II.] Resulting balance of Forces. 55 
 
 theory, is to give frank recognition to this force of 
 Heredity as real and strong, hut to refuse to accept, in 
 respect of it, the rigid Determinism, which requires us 
 to hold that the deep inner consciousness of freedom is 
 a simple delusion, and that the individual is hut the 
 product of inherited forces, developed by the environ- 
 ment of life. It manifests itself plainly as what we 
 may call a Predisposition ; under which that conscious 
 individuality works with varying degrees of power, and 
 which may perhaps be held to determine practically for 
 the mass of men the limits of its exercise ; but which 
 does not take away its freedom and responsibiKty, either 
 in action for itself, or in reaction upon that general con- 
 dition of humanity, which it has inherited. The degree 
 of this individual power may vary, from an almost com- 
 plete mastery over inheritance and circumstance in the 
 strong, to what seems to approach to a mere slavery 
 under them in the weak. In the unhappy conditions 
 of inheritance and environment, with which we are 
 but too familiar in our densely crowded cities, that 
 slavery often appears to us as a hopeless slavery, under 
 which we fail to trace any personal freedom, or to under- 
 stand any personal responsibility. The limits of its 
 exercise may similarly vary from a wide enlargement 
 to a narrow circumscription of scope. But, while 
 these exceptional extremes strikingly illustrate the 
 reality of the two distinct forces, it is in the average 
 case that we see most clearly their mutual action and 
 reaction upon each other. Perhaps the advance of 
 science tends at this moment to brinij: out more clearlv 
 the reality of the general influence over tliat indivi- 
 
56 Heredity and Mediation, [lect. 
 
 duality, wliich is witnessed to without science by vivid 
 internal consciousness aiid by simpler observation of 
 experience. But the acceptance of both truths is de- 
 manded by those actual conditions of our humanity, 
 which we take for granted in the shaping of our own 
 personal life, and in the framing and working of our 
 several institutions ; and I may add in passing that it 
 seems well to hai'monize with the essentially religious 
 conception of life — the belief that its controlling Power 
 is not an iron indiscriminating Law, irreconcileable 
 with individual variety and freedom, but the rule of a 
 Supreme Personality in an elastic and discriminating 
 equity, allowing for and yet directing freedom, sanc- 
 tioning variety, and yet blending it in a comprehensive 
 unity, to work out one transcendent purpose. 
 
 Now if this be, as I think it is, a true sketch of the 
 conclusions on this subject, to which scientific investi- 
 gation is now leading us ^ it is surely clear that they 
 are in striking harmony with the Scriptural doctrine 
 brought out in the great antithesis of the text. 
 
 (Ill) In the words, *As in Adam all die,' we find 
 taken for granted the truth of an inheritance from 
 
 ' Its jiresent position may be studied in the various works of ^Ir. F. 
 Galton, from liis Hereditary Genhis in 1869, to liis Natural Inheritance 
 in 1889 ; in Weismann's Studies in the Tlw.ory of Descent (i 880-1882) 
 and his Essays upon Heredity and kindred Bioloijical Problems (Oxford, 
 1889) ; and in the various articles, by many able hands, which will be 
 found referred to under the title Hekedity in the Index to the 
 Encyclopcedia Britannica (9th Edition). The chief questions at 
 present under discussion are said to be the following, (a) The trans- 
 mission of acquired habits; (6) The relation between germ and sperm 
 elements ; (c) The real meaning of types, and the bearing of Natural 
 Selection upon them. 
 
II.] Doctrine of 'Original Sin! 57 
 
 the beginning of a corruption of our moral nature, 
 not accidental, but intrinsic and universal, having in 
 it, if left to work itself out, the seeds of spiritual 
 death. 
 
 Now of this truth we may note, that its enunciation 
 in the New Testament, while it is perfectly clear, is 
 yet both simple and excejjtional, bearing no proportion 
 to the space which it occupies, and the elaboration of 
 definition and treatment given to it, in some systems of 
 Christian Theology. It is hardly too much to say that 
 it belongs all but exclusively to one stage in the 
 Apostolic teaching, illustrated to us in the four great 
 Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, the Galatians, 
 and the Komans, which mark the crisis of the Jadaistic 
 controversy: that, even here, it is wrought out with any 
 degree of fulness only in one passage of the great argu- 
 ment of Justification in the Epistle to the Komans ^ ; 
 and that solely in connection with the truth of the 
 Mediation of Christ, on which that argument depends, 
 is it treated at all. 
 
 As a rule, it is the fact of Avhat has been called 
 * Original Sin,' but would better be called an inborn 
 tendency to sin in our human nature itself, — 'a fault and 
 corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally 
 
 ' Rora. V. 12-19. Note the repeated emphasis on the truth tliat 
 ' where sin abounded ' — overflowed in its moral consequences to all 
 humanity — ' grace did much more abound.' It is only in the glad 
 conviction of this abounding grace, flowing from the Atonement, that 
 St. Paul will even contemplate the natural inheritance of evil. So in 
 the same Epistle the brightness of the eighth chapter swallows up the 
 gloom of the seventh : the ' law of sin ' brings out ' tho glorious liberty 
 of the children of God.' 
 
58 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 is engendered of the offspring of Adam ^ ' — that Holy 
 Scripture bears continual witness. It is this, which 
 is manifested in a terrible practical reality through the 
 history; which is exposed, menaced, coerced, in the 
 stern righteousness of Law; which is dealt with by 
 spiritual teaching and exhortation, and by promise of 
 spiritual power to overcome it, in the Prophecy ; which 
 is confessed with repentance and prayer for forgiveness 
 and regeneration in the Psalm ; which is set forth wdth 
 terrible and unsparing power in St. Paul's Epistles, 
 especially the opening chapters of the great Epistle to 
 the Komans. In all these aspects it is, of course, no 
 new or peculiar doctrine of revelation. I do not see 
 how its truth can be altogether ignored by any man, 
 who goes about the world with his eyes open, and sees 
 it writ large in history, past and present, or who looks 
 with any truthful introspection into the workings of 
 his own soul. It may be extenuated at one time by 
 the Optimism, which feels that it is unnatural, and so 
 hopes that it is unreal ; it may be, as now, exaggerated 
 by a gloomy Pessimism into a dominant Law in human 
 nature. But recognised in some way it must be, and 
 it has been, by all thoughtful study of the world and 
 the soul, not as we wish them to be, but as they are. 
 Its terrible reality grows upon us continually, as we 
 ourselves advance with advancing years in our know- 
 ledge of the world, and as humanity itself grows older 
 and more self-conscious. When, therefore, Holy Scrip- 
 ture speaks on this matter, it does but set its seal of 
 sanction on this recognition ; and declare with certainty 
 ' See the Ninth Article of the Church of England. 
 
ii.J Doctrine of Original Righteousness. 59 
 
 — what otherwise might be but a probable inference, — 
 that in its essence it is not merely Vice, as against our 
 own individual nature, not merely Crime, as against 
 collective humanity, but sin against God — rebellion 
 against His righteous Will, outrage against His 
 Love. 
 
 The true and characteristic revelation, indeed, — 
 which places Christianity as a religion of hope in 
 bright contrast with Buddhism as the religion of de- 
 spair, and with the Pessimistic philosophies or mysti- 
 cisms which seem to borrow from it — is what perhaps 
 only a revelation can proclaim with certainty. It is the 
 doctrine, not of Original Sin, but of Original Righteous- 
 ness — the declaration that sin, strong and engrained as 
 it is, is no part of man's true nature, that as it was not 
 in the beginning, so it shall not be in the end — the 
 promise that the Divine image in man, if only he will, 
 shall conquer sin, not indeed, in an inherent strength 
 of its own, but by the salvation and the grace of God. 
 For this conviction it is, which alone makes life worth 
 living, and which yet is continually dimmed and over- 
 clouded by sad experience, from without and from within. 
 Hence, in the strife of the Two Voices, we need some 
 Word of God to strike in with authority ; some Gospel 
 of victory and salvation is of urgent spiritual necessity, 
 to meet and to satisfy the consciousness of weakness 
 and of strength — the sense of sore need and high 
 aspiration in every soul. It is only under the higher 
 light of this Gospel that Christianity dares to contem- 
 plate the dark reality of a sin engrained in humanity \ 
 
 > See Note C. 
 
6o Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 But when, from the confession, sad though not hope- 
 less, of the terrible fact the enquiry, — the inevitable 
 enquiry, — arises, ' How comes this fact to be ? ' then 
 certainly the answer of Christianity points us to the 
 great Law of Heredity. It tells us of an entrance 
 of Evil into the world, in the infancy of the human 
 race, by impulse from another sphere of created being 
 — as a germ (so to speak) of evil, fructifying and inten- 
 sifying itself by inheritance through all man's history, 
 and bringing with it death \ In strict accordance, 
 moreover, with that internal unity of each man's indi- 
 vidual nature, of which we have spoken, this evil, in 
 its origin spiritual, is represented as in its results 
 telling upon man's physical, as well as his spiritual 
 nature, — bringing upon it the burden of labour and 
 of suffering, and the consummation of these in decay 
 and death. But, more and more clearly as the revela- 
 tion advances, it is on the spiritual evil that the stress 
 is laid; it is the corruption of the image of God in 
 man, having in it the seeds of spiritual death, whicli 
 is seen as passing by inheritance to all men. Not, be 
 it always noted, that this is the whole of his natural 
 inheritance. As in the body, so in the spirit, the image 
 of God, the original righteousness, marred yet not de- 
 stroyed by sin, remains, although in discrowned majesty, 
 and its effect must necessarily work through the same 
 Law of Heredity ; it must perpetuate and intensify 
 itself in a better inheritance. The goodness, as well 
 as the sin, of the fathers is visited upon the children. 
 But we are in the text concerned simply with the 
 
 ^ See Note D. 
 
II.] Predisposition to Evil. 6i 
 
 Heredity of Evil. ' In Adam all die ' ; ' death passed 
 upon all ; for that all sinned.' 
 
 Now, when we look carefully at the Christian doc- 
 trine, we must see that it points us to one form of that 
 inherited Predisposition in the individual, which the 
 study of Heredity discloses to our science of humanity. 
 
 We commonly and rightly speak of it as a fall from 
 righteousness. It is manifested, first, as an enfeebling 
 and impairing of the power of the spirit within us, a 
 weakening of the moral sense, which commands indeed 
 with unquestionable authority, but ought also to rule 
 with unresisted power ; it is shown again as intensi- 
 fying the power of ' the flesh,' that is, of the turbulent 
 strength of the appetites and passions, till it rebels 
 against that authority, and disputes or usurps that 
 power ; it is, beyond all this, a perversion and corrup- 
 tion even of the higher nature itself, into what may 
 become the re})robate mind, loving evil simply as evil, 
 which is a living blasphemy against humanity and 
 against God. Under all these aspects it seems not only 
 to correspond with a terrible accuracy to the facts of 
 our ordinary experience and consciousness, but to bring 
 out, in what St. Paul calls a 'Law of sin ' in us, 
 just the Law of Predisposition which the doctrine of 
 Heredity is seen to imply. It has been curiously like 
 that doctrine, as elsewhere taught, even in its per- 
 versions. 
 
 There has been the exaggeration of it, as if it in- 
 cluded the whole Law of Heredity — as if (to use old 
 theological words) man was not only ' far gone from 
 original righteousness, but wholly destitute of it ' — as 
 
62 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 if, therefore, there could be no natural inheritance ex- 
 cept of evil and of condemnation — as if it were only 
 on the individual side of our nature, that we could 
 realize, through God's personal gift of grace, the pre- 
 servation of His image within us. Against that exag- 
 geration there has risen protest, not only from the 
 practical experience of every day, but from the thought- 
 ful study of human nature in its complex unity of good 
 and evil. How the doctrine of Mediation bears upon 
 it, we shall see hereafter. Meanwhile it is against the 
 exaggeration, not against the true Scriptural doctrine, 
 that the protest is rightly and even religiously made. 
 
 It has been exaggerated, again, just as some modern 
 thought exaggerates Heredity in general, into a De- 
 terminism to Evil, against which it is vain for man to 
 strive, under which, indeed, individual freedom, and 
 with freedom resjoonsibility, go out. The darkest 
 hours of spiritual experience of bondage, such as St. 
 Paul unveils in the seventh chapter of his Eoman 
 Epistle, are taken as expressing the whole of man's 
 moral life, if life, indeed, it can be called. A ruthless 
 logic, determined to reduce all to one comprehensible 
 system, at the expense both of actual observation and 
 of moral protest, goes so far as to insist on a predes- 
 tination and reprobation through it to spiritual death, 
 except within the narrow circle of the elect. Like all 
 other phases of Determinism, it is simply an idolatry 
 of Law, an iron Law of Predestination, contradicting 
 our ineradicable consciousness of a freedom, guided by 
 the Providence and moulded by the Spirit of God. 
 But it is a phase of that idolatry which most directly 
 
II.] Exaggerations of its power. 63 
 
 revolts our whole moral being, and which most flagrantly 
 sins against any worthy conception of the Divine liight- 
 eousness. 
 
 But in support of this exaggeration, which attaches 
 equally to non-religious forms of Determinism, there 
 has come one worst perversion, which belongs to it in 
 virtue of its religious character. As religious, it must 
 realize intensely the Being of a living and all-righteous 
 God, with whom the soul stands face to face, and before 
 whom, therefore, its consciousness of sin brings with 
 it that, which belongs emphatically to Individuality — 
 the sense of personal guilt, with the acknowledgment 
 of the bitter fruits of sin, not only as an inevitable 
 consequence, but as a righteous retribution. 
 
 How does this consciousness bear upon the conception 
 of an inherited Determinism to Evil % The answer is 
 that strange, almost monstrous, assertion not only of 
 the inheritance of a corruption of nature, but of the 
 imputation from the past of that guilt, which is in- 
 alienably personal. It is, as it would seem, the very 
 same perversion of the truth of the visitation of the 
 sins of the fathers upon the children, which Ezekiel so 
 authoritatively rebuked ' — mistaking, as it does, an 
 inheritance of consequence for an inheritance of guilt. 
 Yet it has been renewed again and again ; isolated 
 passages of Holy Scripture, against the whole tenour of 
 Revelation, have been pressed into its service. For it, 
 I need hardly say, neither history nor experience bears 
 preparatory witness ; against it the moral instinct of 
 each soul, the moral common-sense of humanity, in- 
 
 ' Ezek. xviii. 
 
64 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 dignantly protest. But it is no part of true Christian 
 doctrine ; many Christian tliinkers, and some great 
 thinkers, of ancient and modern times, in that longing 
 for complete logical system, which has been said to be 
 * the last infirmity of noble minds,' have been miso'uided 
 into accepting it ; but the Church of Christ has never 
 made it a part of the Creed of Christendom. Our own 
 Church once had it earnestly pressed upon her ; but 
 happily she deliberately refused to admit it into her 
 confession of the sin of human-kind ^ 
 
 No ! in Christian doctrine, as in scientific study of 
 fact, Predisposition to evil is not properly Determinism. 
 Under it the individuality of each man still remains. 
 It has still its moral insight, clearly discerning the 
 law of the eternal righteousness 'as holy and just and 
 good.' It gives still its moral adhesion to that Law, 
 in ' the hunger and thirst after righteousness,' and the 
 ' delig-ht in it after the inner man.' It still has ' the 
 power to will present' with the soul ; and in that 
 power it struggles against the enslaving law of sin -. Its 
 original righteousness is weakened and marred, but not 
 lost. Even under its worst sense of bondage it treasures 
 an ineradicable conviction, that in some way the un- 
 
 ^ It was proposed by the ' Assembly of Divines ' in 1643 to insert 
 in the Ninth Article the words ' together with Adam's first sin im- 
 puted,' and to change ' very far gone from original righteousness ' 
 into * wholly deprived of original righteousness.' That proposition 
 was never accepted. Against it there is on the main principles of the 
 doctrine a virtual consensus between the Augsburg Confession, the 
 Canons of the Council of Trent, and the Articles of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 "^ Rom. vii. 12, 18, 22. 
 
II.] The doctrine of Mediation. 65 
 
 natural bondage of evil can be broken ; and this inex- 
 tinguishable liope of a salvation from sin it bases on the 
 belief not only in the Love, but even in the Eighteous- 
 ness, of God ^ 
 
 (IV) That hope, like all ineradicable instincts of 
 humanity, is not in vain. To the cry out of the dark- 
 ness, '0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver 
 me from the body of this death % ' there has come for 
 eighteen centuries an answer, in which countless human 
 souls have found the dawn of a new day, ' I thank God 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord.' That answer leads up 
 to the great doctrine of Mediation, 'Even so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive.' Necessarily this truth needs 
 a Word of the Lord to reveal it in certainty. Of de- 
 liverance from the inherited bondage of sin, as of 
 deliverance from death, the message of the Gospel is 
 ' Behold ! I show you a mystery.' It cannot, like the 
 other truth, be assumed on appeal to man's natural 
 consciousness and experience. In relation to these — 
 whatever natural hope may shine through them — it is 
 a mystery, a truth supernatural, to be accepted, if 
 accepted at all, through faith in the Self-revelation of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Yet the Supernatural has here the clearest analogy 
 to the Natural. The very application of the title of 
 * the Second Adam,' the ' Second Man,' to ' the Lord 
 from heaven,' and the comparison, more fully drawn 
 out in the Epistle to the Romans, between ' the sin 
 which abounded or overflowed ' from the first Adam and 
 
 ' ' If we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our 
 sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness' (i Jobu i. 9.) 
 
66 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 the grace ' which did overflow more exceedingly ' from 
 the second, clearly show that there is still suggestion 
 of an analogy here, between that which is in nature and 
 that which is above nature. The Manifestation in the 
 flesh of the Son of God, always taken as a whole, indis- 
 soluble in all its parts — in the Incarnation and the 
 Atonement, the Resurrection and the Ascension, the 
 royalty in heaven and the judgment which is to crown 
 it at the Great Day — is clearly set forth as involving 
 a new creation, a regeneration of humanity, into the 
 inheritance of which each individual soul enters, as into 
 the old Creation, by a birth, but a new birth, not of the 
 flesh but * of water and the Spirit.' That which avails 
 for salvation in Christ Jesus (says St. Paul) is ' new 
 creation.' Whoever * is in Him, is a new creature ' ; 
 ' putting on the new man, which after God is created 
 in righteousness and true holiness ^' 
 
 In respect of that new creation, again, as of the old, 
 and of the corruption, which j)assed upon the old, the 
 truth of the internal unity of man's nature is distinctly 
 brought out. Mainly, of course, viewed as a renewed 
 spiritual life * hid with Christ in God,' it is yet always 
 
 ' Gal. vi. 15 ; 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Eph. iv. 24. This truth is strikingly 
 illufctrated in the ancient treatment of the idea of the Lord's Day, — 
 (not, of course, confounded, but contrasted, with the Sabbath) as at once 
 ' the first day and the eighth ' — the beginning of the new ci'eation 
 after tlie completion of the old, in the resurrection of humanity to a 
 new life by the lles^urrection of the Lord Himself. Again and again 
 that is imiilied, which is expressly brought out in the De Sabbato et 
 Circumciaione, ascribed to S. Athanasius, that the Ltird's Day, as the 
 day of Creation of the Spiritual Light, is fii'tj^ir) dpx'is Sevrtpat upaKTta-foji 
 (vol. iii. p. 44, Beued. Edi). 
 
II.] spiritual Heredity. 67 
 
 recognised as telling also upon man's bodily nature, 
 and for it also destined in its final perfection to 'swallow- 
 up death in victory.' By it even the body is consecrated 
 anew as a temple of God, and through communion with 
 the Saviour ' preserved unto everlasting life.' In the 
 Church of Christ the Sacramental system itself is a 
 continual witness to this regeneration in Him of man's 
 nature as a whole. In Christian morality, in spite of 
 Gnostic fallacies and false Asceticisms, the body is held 
 to be sacred through this regeneration ; bodily purity 
 accordingly, ignored or lost in the Pagan civilisations of 
 the early days of Christianity, is rescued and exalted to 
 its right dignity: the body, instead of being looked upon 
 as a clog or prison-house, from which death is a joyful 
 deliverance of the spirit for ever, is reverenced, as here, 
 and in the better life of the Eesurrection, destined to 
 be a part of our true humanity. 
 
 So touching our whole nature, the new creation is 
 seen as working on humanity at large (so to speak) 
 under a law of a spiritual Heredity in the regenerate, 
 for the continuous renewal of the successive generations 
 of men, till the consummation of all things shall come. 
 In the individual soul, born again into the inheritance 
 of the Christian covenant, it works from the beginning 
 on the unfolding life, with the twofold grace of justifica- 
 tion in the one great Atonement, and of sanctifica- 
 tion in the indwellincf of Christ in the soul — the one 
 complete in God's infinite love, without any work of 
 ours — the other begun in that same love, but gradually 
 perfecting itself, and demanding the fellow-working 
 of man. For all, for each, it is thus a Mediation, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 which breaks down all barriers raised by sin, and 
 unites God and man for ever in Him, who is both 
 in one. 
 
 That new creation (be it always remembered) is set 
 forth to us as foreordained in the Divine covmsels 
 before the foundation of the world ', and ordained for 
 the wliole of mankind. But to be ordained in the 
 eternnl counsels is to have efficacy. So it is in its 
 grace effective in some sense from the beginning, for tlie 
 spiritual life of all humanity as such, and for the re- 
 demption of humanity as sinful ; so that man wns never 
 left to the unchecked predisposition to evil, of which 
 we have spoken, and the image of God, in which he 
 was created after the likeness of the Son of God Him- 
 self, was never allowed to be blotted out 2. But in the 
 Incarnation of tlie Son of God, in tlie Divine life of 
 voluntnry humiliation closed in the * It is finished ' of 
 completed atonement, in the drawing of all in Himself 
 to the new life of the Resurrection, in the new birth of 
 humanity at Pentecost, it is brought into the course of 
 this visible world, to act upon humanity through the 
 laws of God's dispensation to it, as a new supernatural 
 reaUty; and from the Day of Pentecost onwards, it has 
 
 ' ' Ye were redeemed ... by the precious blood of Christ . . . who 
 verily was crdiiined befcre the foundation of the world' (i Pet. i. i8- 
 20.) So in Rev. xiii. 8, He is ' the Lamb slain from the foundation of 
 the world.' The reference is especially to the Atonement, but all the 
 acts of the Divine Manifestation in Him are indi-solubly one. 
 
 * There is no limitation to the great declaration (John i. 4) ' In 
 Him was life : and the life was the light of men.' ' It embraces ' 
 (says Bifhop Westcc tt) 'the experience of Judaism and Heathendom, 
 of pre-Christian and post-Christian times.' 
 
II.] A doctrine of Faiths 69 
 
 been working directly on the souls of men up to the 
 future perfection of the Great Day \ 
 
 All this is unquestionably a doctrine of faith. We 
 may see, as Christian thinkers have seen, that the 
 personal manifestation of God in our nature, through 
 an ideal yet actual humanity, is the appropriate crown 
 and comjJetion of His lower manifestations of Himself, 
 in the world of Matter, in the world of Life, in the 
 world of humankind; and that, in its redemptive aspect, 
 it is that, which all the moral philosophies and re- 
 ligions of the world have been feeling after, and in 
 some sense finding by anticipation and hope. We may 
 know, as eighteen Christian centuries have known, by 
 experience, that, when accepted and realized by faith, 
 it has wrought out these effects, both in the secret 
 history of the individual soul, and the visible history 
 ' writ large ' of human society. But yet in itself it 
 rests on the word of the Lord Jesus Christ as the 'word 
 of eternal life'; it is a 'mystery' in the New Testament 
 sense of the word, that is, a secret of God, before 
 unknown or dimly seen, but now plainly revealed in 
 Him, even to babes. The science of humanity, as the 
 * schoolmaster,' may thus lead us to the true Teacher, 
 and even show us by their results the truth of the 
 lessons, which He imparts. But the truth so taught 
 lies in itself above the sphere with which Science has 
 
 ' The comparison, and the contrast, between the anticipations of the 
 Divine action on the souls of men through the Eternal Word of God, 
 and the perfection of that action in the Manifestation of Him in the 
 flesh, is wrought out fully in the Prologue of the Gospel according to 
 St. John (John i. 1-14). 
 
70 Heredity mid Mediation. [lect. 
 
 to do. St. Paul argues in this very Epistle tliat, as it is 
 spiritually revealed, so it is spiritually discernecl, ' Eye 
 hath not seen, nor ear heard it' ; for who through these 
 'hath known the mind of the Lord^'? Unknown it must 
 be and unknowable ; unless we are content to know it 
 by faith through * the Mind of Christ.' 
 
 But yet while this is true of the * heavenly thing,' 
 the mysterious reality itself, which only He can know, 
 vet, as to the earthly manifestation of it, we can see that 
 this new and Diviner spiritual force, introduced into 
 humanity as a whole, works there in striking analogy 
 to that force of Heredity, which Science indicates to us, 
 and which the Eevelation itself assumes as known. 
 The analogy, of course, is not perfect ; for, as usual, the 
 supernatural reality transcends it. This relation to the 
 Mediation of the Lord is not merely to a germ of bless- 
 ing sown in the past ; it is the perpetual communion 
 with a present source of life. As St. Paul expresses it^ 
 ' the first Adam ' was but ' a living soul,' which gave its 
 impulse to the race, and on earth ceased to be ; ' the 
 second Adam ' is * a quickening Spirit,' ever radiating 
 life, working by an indwelling Presence in humanity^ 
 even to the end of the world ; while yet, by virtue of 
 His Divine Majesty, He transcends humanity in 'the 
 glory which He had with the Father before the world 
 was.' 
 
 Nor, even so, is this the whole truth. As in the old 
 
 creation there is a mysterious individuality — which 
 
 'lives and moves and has its being in the God,' who 
 
 breathes into each soul the breatli of life — coexisting in 
 
 ^ I Cor. ii. 9, 1 6. ^ See i Cor. xv. 45. 
 
H.] Predisposition to Good. 71 
 
 harmony with the solidarity of human nature, so in 
 tlie new creation there is a still more living and sacred 
 individuality, of which the secret is the Presence of 
 Christ in each soul by the Spirit — a 'personal Chris- 
 tianity,' as we rightly term it, which dares to say with 
 St. Paul, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' 
 But there is at the same time an indwelling Presence 
 in the whole body of redeemed humanity; the same 
 Christ, who is the Head of each man, is the Head 
 of the whole Church. It is the Law of Christian life, 
 as He Himself ordained it, that into this corporate life 
 every individual nature should be engrafted and in 
 it sustained. The existence of a Church Catholic in 
 all space and time is not accidental, but of the essence 
 of that Law; otherwise it could not correspond to and 
 lay hold of the human nature, which is at once indi- 
 vidual and social. The very ordinance by Him of the 
 Sacraments both declares that Law and fulfils it ; for, 
 as has been truly said, ' that saving grace which Christ 
 originally is or hath for the general good of His whole 
 Church, by Sacraments He severally deriveth into 
 every member thereof^'. As in nature, so in grace, 
 unity, embracing and cherishing individuality, is the 
 true life of humanity. 
 
 It is in this corporate life in Christ that the analogy 
 to the force of Heredity is manifest. Inherited by tlie 
 individual by a new birth into sonship to God, and 
 sustained in him by grace of Communion — inherited by 
 the whole race by the regeneration of humanity in a 
 Church, which is Holy as centred on God hi Christ, is 
 ^ Hooker's Ecd. Polity, Book Y. c. Ivii. sect. 5. 
 
72 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 Catholic ill its continual expansion over the whole area 
 of human society — the Mediatorial gift manifests itself 
 to our actual observation as a Divine predisposition to 
 good, striving against and mastering the predisposition 
 to evil, taking up and inspiring with a higher life what- 
 ever in our nature resists that deadly inheritance from 
 ancestral sin. 
 
 A * Predisposition to good ' — the phrase, although 
 indeed in its ultimate sense it means a conforming 
 to the likeness of God, yet may well sound feeble and 
 inadequate and prosaic to one who by faith knows 
 in his own soul the Divine reality. For that reality, 
 so the Gospel teaches, is the implanting and the de- 
 velopment of the ' Christ in us ' — a likeness of God 
 Himself, in the power to know, the power to will, the 
 power to love — in which we are constantly said to be 
 ' heirs through Him' of a Kingdom of Heaven, and (in 
 the unique and daring phrase of the Second Epistle of 
 St. Peter) 'partakers of the Divine Nature \' Faith 
 knows it thus in its essence. To use the words of the 
 maturest Apostolic utterance, at once philosophically 
 complete in thought, and glowing with prophetic in- 
 spiration -, it acknowledges this ' indwelling of Christ 
 in the heart'; it traces its spiritual development, first 
 in * the love,' which is the free enthusiastic recognition 
 of unity with God in Christ, 'rooting and grounding' 
 our whole soul in Him; next, in the 'being strong' 
 not, indeed, to comprehend, but * to apprehend ' — in all 
 * the length and breadth ' of visible expansion, and in 
 
 ^ 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; Col, i. 15, 27 ; Rom. viii. 17 ; 2 Pet. i. 4. 
 ^ Eph. iii. 17-19. 
 
II.] Predisposition not Detei^minisjn. 73 
 
 all * the depth and height' which lose themselves in the 
 invisible — tliat manifestation of 'the love of Christ,' the 
 very soul of His Mediation, 'which passeth knowledge'; 
 and so, lastly, in the gradual ' filling up ' of our nature, 
 to the utmost limit of its finite capacity, with all that 
 is Divine of knowledge, of strength, of glory, of good- 
 ness, 'unto all the fulness of God Himself.' But when, 
 leaving out of view this knowledge through faith, we 
 come down to the lower knowledge of observation, both 
 of the soul and of the world, it is just this predisposition 
 to good which manifests itself. For such observation 
 can only claim to test it in its signs and fruits ; and 
 that test does not fail, whether in the exaltation and 
 renewal of individual lives, or in the moral and spiritual 
 regeneration of humanity in the Church of Christ, or 
 even in the Gesta Christi of the civilisation of the post- 
 Christian world. The secret of life in the little mustard- 
 seed our observation cannot see ; but it can see, and it 
 must see, how it has taken root and overshadowed the 
 whole earth. The secret of pervasive influence in the 
 leaven it understands not ; but it does show us how 
 it has actually leavened, and is leavening still, the 
 three measures of the body, the soul, and the spirit of 
 every child of man, who has received it. 
 
 But even here Predisposition is not Determinism. 
 Even to salvation ' God enforceth not the will ^' Natu- 
 rally the tendency to Determinism, so universally felt 
 by all who contemplate the reign of Supreme Law, and 
 who, being unable to reconcile with it the reality of 
 free will, maintain logical completeness by the sacrifice 
 
 ' See the Article ' Of Grace ' in the Forty-two Articles of 1552. 
 
74 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 of unmanageable truth, is strongest and most serious in 
 religious thought. For such thought brings us face to 
 face with Supreme Sovereignty, not as veiled in an 
 impersonal Law, but unveiled in the Infinite Personality 
 of a living God : who, as the Source and Sustainer of all 
 finite being, must in some way foresee and fore-ordain 
 all things. Before Him he, who M^ould find himself, 
 must first lose himself, in the Will of Eternal Kighteous- 
 ness and the grace of Eternal Love. Naturally, there- 
 fore, from the days of St. Augustine downwards, those, 
 who feeling intensely their own littleness and sinfulness 
 before Him, are inclined, and even eager, to sink con- 
 sciousness of self in the overwhelming and adoring con- 
 sciousness of God, have been unable to conceive how a 
 grace of salvation and renewal, which is Divine, should 
 not also be irresistible. Therefore they have come at last 
 to hold (with the framers of the Lambeth Articles of 1 595) 
 that in those who have once been partakers of it \ it is 
 not 'extinguished, nor fails, nor fades away, either totally 
 or finally'; and have accordingly been forced to explain 
 the unquestionable fact of failure in those who have been 
 admitted into membership of Christ, and believe that 
 they have lived in it, by denial that they who fail have 
 ever received that grace at all. Therefore they have been 
 led finally to declare that ' such grace is not assigned, is 
 not communicated, is not granted to all, that by it they 
 may be saved, if they will,' and to set forth the awful 
 doctrine of an absolute and irreversible election, out of 
 the sole will and pleasure of God, by which He from all 
 
 * So the words stood in tiis original draft, afterwards altered by the 
 Bishops into ' in the elect.* 
 
II.] Calvinistic Exaggeration. 75 
 
 eternity ' predestinated some to life and reprobated 
 others ' — whether positively or negatively it matters 
 not — 'to Death \' How singular the contrast of that 
 doctrine, in the ruthless logical dogmatism, which it 
 thus by degrees assumed, with the reserved and modest 
 treatment of the subject by St. Paul himself, even in 
 the ninth chapter of the Roman Epistle — where he 
 deals with it only as forced upon him by questions, 
 which should not have been asked, and even then in 
 the last resort by the 'What if of reverent speculation, 
 rather than by absolute assertion - ! Like the Kismet 
 of Islam, it has an awful and majestic simplicity; in 
 the absolute submission to it of a soul, willing, or 
 believino; itself to be willino:, to suffer even eternal loss 
 for the glory of God, there is a misguided heroism, 
 greater than the greatest heroism of martyrdom. But 
 its simplicity is no evidence of truth. It marks, as 
 usual in all that deals with the complex problem of 
 humanity, the half-truth, which is proverbially more 
 delusive than sheer falsehood. It is, no doubt, clear 
 that logically it is impossible to reconcile man's freedom 
 with God's Sovereignty. Milton spoke, it may be, out 
 of his own spiritual experience, when, as the type of 
 the fruitless labour of lost spirits, he chose, not the 
 weaving of ropes of sand, but the reasoning high 
 
 Of Provkleiice, foreknowlctlge, will and fate, 
 Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, 
 Which found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost. 
 
 ' The quotations are from the Lambeth Articles of 1595, for which 
 the leaders of the Puritan party at the Hampton Court ContVreiice in 
 1604 demanded that they should be added to our XXXIX Articles. 
 See Note E. • ^ Horn. ix. 14, 19, 22, 23. 
 
76 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 But our wisdom is to accept truths which commend 
 themselves as truths, even though to our knowledge 
 they seem irreconcileable. And this absolute Predes- 
 tination, extinguishing freedom, is emphatically contra- 
 dicted by the most direct religious consciousness ; it is 
 incompatible, even after the subtlest attempts of rea- 
 soning, with the confidence in the eternal righteous- 
 ness, which asks ' Shall not the Judge of all the earth 
 do right % ' by discriminating equity to every child of 
 man ; even though isolated passages of Holy Scripture 
 be wrested to its service, it is equally at variance with 
 the whole tenour of God's Word, alike in what it says 
 and in what it implies. 
 
 No ! This Predisposition to good, this prevenient 
 grace, tins antagonistic and victorious force against 
 Predisposition to evil, is not absolute. Under it the 
 free Individuality of man has still its scope — its power 
 to accept and use it, and so pass from mere capacity of 
 spiritual life into energy — its power to reject, to mis- 
 use, to quench it. 
 
 But, though it be not absolute, it is profoundly 
 and universally real. From the effect of the Divine 
 Mediation there is but one class of men absolutely 
 excluded ; and that is the class of those who delibe- 
 rately exercise that mysterious and terrible power of 
 rejection, ' treading under foot ' the Divine Mediator 
 Himself, and ' putting Him to an open shame \' For 
 all others that Mediation has its beneficent and saving 
 force. Even the world of those who, before or after 
 He came on earth, have not known Him by faith, is 
 ^ Heb. vi. 6, ix. 29. 
 
II.] Its universal power. 77 
 
 known of Him, because for tliem He came down from 
 Heaven to be incarnate and to die. * Pie jjave His 
 Flesli' (i^o He Himself said) ' for the life of tlie world.' 
 By His Blood (says one Apostle) ' He is the propitiation 
 for the sins of the whole world.' ' He is ' (f^ays another) 
 ' the Saviour of all men/ though * especially of those 
 who believe ' ; for ' God was in Him, reconciling the 
 world to Himself ^' Even on that world (so He 
 Himself teaches) the grace of the Holy Spirit, given 
 through His Mediation, impresses with effective power 
 the thiee great moral realities of 'sin and righteousness 
 and judgment,' in order through these to lead all to 
 Him, and to God in Him ^. Whatever is true and 
 good in humanity has drawn unconsciously its strength 
 from that unknown Mediation; whatever there has been 
 of feeling after God in all the religions, which cover 
 the whole field of humanity, is being led through it, 
 as an ignorant worship, to the God unknown, but not 
 unfelt. 
 
 But from the actual Manifestation of the Son of God 
 in our nature begins the new era of the complete and 
 living realization of that Mediatorial power by faith, 
 as a supreme force visibly acting upon humanity — 
 ' drawing all men to Him ' as ' lifted up ' for all in the 
 Cross aiid in the Ascension — ' forming Christ ' as the 
 image of God in every redeemed soul, and through 
 that unity making all one in God. It is into this that, 
 from the Day of Pentecost onwards, Baptism has been 
 the entrance ; for it is through this that it is a Baptism 
 
 ' John vi. 51 ; i John ii. 2 ; i Tim. iv. 10; 2 Cor. v. 19. 
 "^ John xvi. 8-1 1. 
 
78 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 * into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of 
 the Holy Ghost/ and in that Divine Communion into a 
 
 * newness of life.' It is notable that in the early days 
 of Christianity, when such Baptism was mainly Adult 
 Baptism, the conscious assimilation of that new life is 
 spoken of commonly in the New Testament as a ' Resur- 
 rection' — a passing (that is) at once from death to life 
 in all its fulness. But wlien, by a natural and uni- 
 versal inference from what was ' most agreeable with the 
 Institution of Christ,' Baptism became in its regular 
 and normal type a Baptism of Infants, then it was 
 rather recognised (in accordance with that teaching of 
 our Lord Himself, which only the Gospel of St. John 
 records) as a * regeneration ' — an entrance, as in the old 
 birth, not on the fulness, but on the germ and capacity 
 of the new life, and, like that old birth, brought to 
 bear in each nature upon the unfolding consciousness 
 from its very beginning, to inspire and mould for good 
 the whole development of thought, of conscience, of 
 love, of will \ In the individual soul this spiritual 
 growth must be, of course, known in itself to God 
 alone, and by human observation inferred but vaguely 
 from its fruits. But in relation to human society as a 
 whole, where the breadth of the scope of observation 
 gives it certainty and solidity, it has plainly shown 
 
 ^ Comp. Rom. vi. 3-1 1 and Col. ii. 12, where the whole idea is of 
 a spiritual Returrectiou, with tlie ' laver of Regeneration,' in Tit, iii. 
 5, and the teaching of our Lord, recorded by St. John at the close of 
 the Apostolic age (John iii. 3-13), with unquestionable reference to 
 the Baptif^m, which was then as much an established ordinance in the 
 Church as it is at this day. 
 
II,] Its /till development in the Church. 79 
 
 itself as a regeneration of that whole to a liigher moral, 
 intellectual, spiritual life. By no accident the races, on 
 which it laid strong hold, have become the conquering, 
 the ruling, the teaching, races of the world. Imper- 
 fect as its power still is, working slowly, as the Divine 
 forces in humanity always do work — resisted, under 
 God's mysterious permission, by sin in the world 
 without, and by sin from within the Church and the 
 individual Christian soul — yet it is unquestionably tlie 
 one great advancing spiritual power already, and to 
 that advance the promise of a full Catholicity in the 
 future is a strength and an inspiration. And the 
 analogy to the power of Heredity in nature is perfect 
 in this, that each generation, each individual soul, while 
 receiving from that power, is able, by the development 
 of its own fellow-working with it, to contribute in some 
 degree, however slight, to its future strength, or to 
 weaken it by every influence of perversion or failure. 
 To spread the kingdom of Christ is (we say) to ' pro- 
 pagate the Gospel ' — to help (that is) to communicate it 
 as a continuous life, from generation to generation, 
 from soul to soul. 
 
 True, indeed, it is that this Divine influence, being 
 spiritual, must be spiritually received, and in its re- 
 ception, therefore, there is brought out with exceptional 
 clearness and vividness, the necessity for the free action 
 of that personal individuality, which has its central 
 stronghold in the spirit. The relation on which it 
 depends, being a living relation of the spirit to a Divine 
 Personality, is felt as having an elasticity and variety of 
 life, which cannot attach to a mere law of development. 
 
8o Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 So the personal adhesion of faith, promised even for 
 the unconscious infant soul, when entering upon its 
 spiritual inheritance, is in various degrees of growth 
 essential at all times to its realisation ; and, when, 
 through lack of this essential condition, there have been 
 spiritual torpor and apparent spiritual death, it is a 
 familiar experience that, with sudden birth or revival 
 of that faith, there come epoclis of spiritual resurrec- 
 tion or refreshment ; in wliich it seems as if for the 
 first time the light and grace of the great Mediation 
 were given to the conscious soul ; although perhaps it 
 is only in the power to receive and transmit to others 
 that ever-present influence — to absorb and to reflect 
 the rays of the unfailing Sun of Eighteousness — that 
 there is real newness. But yet even for this there is 
 some natural analogy. In respect of the law of natural 
 Heredity, the influences, which aifect the body, grow 
 upon the individual inevitably and insensibly, except 
 so far as he may indirectly strengthen or weaken them 
 by conscious bodily discipline. But in those, which 
 touch either the mind or the moral being, the indi- 
 vidual will to receive or refuse is always more or less 
 plainly energetic, consciously assimilating what seems 
 to it good, modifying or rejecting what seems to it 
 evil ; and that energy comes out with a new and 
 exceptional force at great critical periods of the mental 
 and moral history. Even in this, therefore, the law of 
 spiritual inheritance in the Mediatorial kingdom is seen 
 as a supernatural and transcendent exaltation of the 
 natural Law of Heredity. And it is significant that to 
 the Apostolic insight it reveals itself as in its present 
 
II.] Analogy in Nature and Grace. 81 
 
 form coextensive with it in scope, both of space and time. 
 For in space it touches the whole of our humanity ; in 
 time it is to endure under its present laws, till the 
 end of this dispensation shall come, when the Media- 
 torial kingdom, having completed its victorious work in 
 the abolition of sin and death, shall be 'delivered up 
 to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all.' 
 Nay, even beyond that great day, since the seed of 
 newness in Christ is the seed of an eternal life — since 
 the union of Godhead and humanity in Him is an 
 eternal union — we cannot doubt that in some higher 
 and diviner form, the Mediation shall remain, the same 
 and yet not the same, to be the glory of the new 
 heavens and the new earth, to conform the redeemed 
 humanity more and more perfectly to the likeness of 
 Christ, and so in Him to be the life-giving power 
 of that perfect communion with God, which we call 
 heaven. In the Apocalyptic visions of heaven Christ is 
 still all in all, manifested under various aspects as the 
 true Mediator ; and the plain unmetaphorical descrip- 
 tion of what ' we know ' of our own mysterious future 
 is that ' we shall see Him as He is,' and by the very 
 sight 'be made like Him' in the perfect image of 
 God. 
 
 (V) So it is that our latest Science by its study of 
 human nature and human history should prepare the 
 way for faith in the Divine Revelation and be the 
 schoolmaster to lead us to the Christ. The striking 
 analogy, which it brings out now between the natural 
 and supernatural, goes deeper than that which Bishop 
 Butler so unanswerably showed, as suggested by the 
 
 G 
 
S2 Heredity and Mediation. [lect. 
 
 Science of his age, in his great chapter on Mediation \ 
 The analogy there drawn out, in reference mainly to 
 the Redemptive aspect of the Divine Mediation, has only 
 to do witli the visible working in actual life of the laws 
 of God's moral government of the world. But it is the 
 special lesson of the Science of our day to go back from 
 the present to the germ in the past, of which the 
 present is the development ; and, in accordance with 
 this conception, the Mediation of the Lord can now 
 be contemplated, as having relation to the whole growth 
 of our human nature from the beginning, and especi- 
 ally as striving against and overcoming the inherited 
 tendency to sin from the infancy of our race. In 
 that view we trace an analogy both deeper and closer. 
 For those human mediations in action, which Butler 
 brings out as working in the visible world, can only 
 change a man's circumstances absolutely, and cannot 
 touch, except by consent of his own will, his inner 
 nature. But in both the clauses of the text the in- 
 fluence is seen as acting antecedently on the humaniiy 
 itself, into which each is born, or born again, and 
 determining the conditions, natural or supernatural, 
 under which the individual will is to work together 
 with God. The more searchingly we look into the 
 matter, the more ready are we to accept the analogy 
 suggested in the text, only including in it the present 
 as well as the future. ' As in Adam all die, even so 
 in Christ all ' are made alive in conflict with evil now, 
 and ' shall be made alive ' in the victory over evil of 
 the hereafter. 
 
 ^ Analogy, Part ii. c. 5. 
 
II.] Analogy Jtol Identity. %i 
 
 Yes ! an analogy deep and close, but not identity, 
 between what we ordinarily know as the Natural and 
 Supernatural. Both, as has been often shown — work- 
 ing out that pregnant hint of the Analogy in which 
 Butler was so infinitely in advance of his ag-e — doubt- 
 less form part of one great order, to which the word 
 ' Natural ' may be applied, if we accept it (to use 
 his words) in 'its only distinct meaning' of what is 
 'stated, fixed, settled' under God's Law Eternal, 'our 
 notion' of which 'will be enlarged, in proportion to our 
 greater knowledge of the works of God and the dispen- 
 sations of His Providence \' But such laro^er unitv does 
 not preclude or obliterate distinction between what we 
 usually call the Supernatural in the Mediation of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and the Natural Law, exemplified 
 in Natural Heredity. That fundamental dii^tinction is 
 of the essence of true Christianity, as contrasted with 
 theories, which, like the old Gnosticism, take up its 
 language, and strive to weave it into their own systems. 
 Of these theories, even if they deal with Christianity 
 tenderly and reverently, we have still to beware. We 
 look them plaiuly in the face, and see that, instead of lead- 
 ing to the true Christ, as the Son of God, they seek to 
 include Him in the merely natural order, and refer the 
 spiritual progress of humanity to the working out of 
 that order, to which He holds but a high place, side by 
 side, if on a somewhat higher pedestal, with other great 
 
 ' See Anal., Part i, c. i. We may uote also tlie S2)k'iKli(I compre- 
 heiif-iveness of Hooker's view of the ' Law ttcrnal,' as in all its parts, 
 natural and supernatural forming but one munifestation of Him who is 
 One. (See Eccl. Polity, Book i. cc. ii, iii.) 
 
 G 2 
 
84 Heredity and Mediation, [lect. 
 
 leaders and teachers of men. Out of that Science we 
 have seen issue an attempt, not unpatlietic, to frame a 
 worship of collective humanity, as the true Christ — as 
 the true revelation of God, if not the Godhead itself — 
 in that sense reading even the Imitatio Christi, and 
 venturing in its service on adaptation, or rather travesty, 
 of Christian theology, Christian devotion, and even 
 Christian ritual \ 
 
 But that conclusion we cannot accept as scientific, 
 even if the moral witness of faith be put for the moment 
 aside, simply because it is, as has been shown again 
 and again, utterly incapable of accounting for the facts, 
 either of ideal or of actual Christianity; and because 
 the qualified reverence, which it accords to Him, is at 
 once too much and too little — too much when it makes 
 Him, as a mere man, the universal teacher, in respect 
 of humanity and of God, of all races and all ages of the 
 world — too little, when it is compared with what He, 
 80 regarded, unquestionably claims for Himself. That 
 worship of Humanity we cannot offer; for, except 
 in tlie true Son of Man, Humanity is either a mere 
 
 ^ ' The basis of Eeligiou is to be fouud in Humanity, past, present, 
 and to come, conceived as tlie great Being ' ; who is (to use Comte's 
 own words) ' the I'uling power within the great universal order,' ' the 
 undeniable Providence,' ' the supreme dispenser of our destinies,' ' the 
 common centre of all our affections, our thoughts, and our actions.' 
 ' The singularity of Comte's construction ... is the transfer of the 
 worship and discipline of Catholicism to a system, in which the con- 
 cejjtion of God is superseded by the abstract idea of Humanity, con- 
 ceived as a kind of Personality. . . . Hitherto Comte's Utopia has 
 pleased the followers of the Catholic, just as little as those of the 
 scientific spirit.' Mr. John Morley on Comte in Eiicycl. Britannica, 
 vol. vi. ]). 237. 
 
II.] The new Creation in Christ. 85 
 
 abstraction, or in the concrete a many-beaded idol, 
 compact of iron and miry clay, of the strength of 
 human goodness, and the weakness and polkition of 
 human evil ; and, moreover, is itself but a part of 
 a far greater creation, in the vastness of which it is 
 lost, and before the forces of which its strength is but 
 impotence. 
 
 Even for ourselves, I tliink we can see that the Advent 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth is actually a new de- 
 parture, absolutely unique in the dispensation of God ; 
 that it is the entrance on a higher spiritual order, the 
 introduction into the world of a spiritual power, as yet 
 unapproached and unapproachable. To learn what this 
 supernatural reality is we claim to be led to Christ 
 Himself. We convince ourselves by study of His self- 
 manifestation in deed, in word, in character, that we 
 can have a perfect and'absolute faith in Him. We ask 
 Him what His Mediation means. He answers, in words, 
 which never mere man spoke, 'I, if I be lifted up, will 
 draw all men unto Me ' ; that ' As Thou, Father, art in 
 Me, and I in Thee, they also may be one in Us.' Lifted 
 up He has been, as once on the Cross of Atonement, so 
 now in the ascended Eoyalty of Heaven. On His pro- 
 mise tlierefore we now rest. Already we see it fulfilled 
 in true, though imperfect, earnest. If we know too 
 well the fjital power of a spiritual gravitation down- 
 wards to evil, yet we see already a great drawing 
 upwards of all humanity — strangely marred and re- 
 sisted still, but yet through all and in spite of all, 
 proving itself a victorious power, against the dull weight 
 of passive resistance and the struggling antagonism of 
 
86 Heredity and Mediation. 
 
 ])Ositive sin. So we can, even tli rough reason, be 
 brought to look on in faith to the perfect fulfilment ; 
 and for it, even if, for ourselves and for humanity, we 
 groan under the pain of conscious imperfection and of 
 hope deferred, we can yet be content to wait. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 EVOLUTION — NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 When iJie fnluess of the time was come, God sent forth His Son . . . 
 that we might receive the adoption f sons. — Gal. iv. 4, 5, 
 
 The Coming of the Son of God is liere set forth to 
 us, as fore-ordained indeed in the eternal counsels of the 
 Father, but yet in itself the consummation, up to which 
 all things had been working through the ages, till the 
 fulness of an ordained time had come, and till the 
 human race had been prepared by a Divine education 
 to receive the full sonship of God. Elsewhere that 
 same Coming is viewed, on the other hand, as the be- 
 ginning of a new Dispensation, having also its time 
 appointed in the counsels of Cod, through which all 
 things are again to work up to a final consummation 
 at the Second Coming of the Son of God, which shall 
 be for humanity the entrance on a higher perfection of 
 sonship, 'the glorious liberty of the children of God.' 
 Have we for this conception, as for the doctrine of 
 Mediation, any analogy in the reign of Law as dis- 
 covered by Science, through which the knowledge of 
 that Law becomes *a schoolmaster to bring us to 
 Christ'? 
 
S8 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 (I) The very conception itself obviously suggests to 
 US the consideration under this aspect of that great 
 Law of Evolution in its largest sense, which seems to 
 be plainly traced in different forms through all the 
 provinces of being. The phrase, of doubtful accuracy 
 perhaps, in relation both to its history and to its ety- 
 mology ^, has yet won its way to almost universal 
 acceptance, as expressing the truth that the order of 
 the world is one continuous growth, in w^hich ' the 
 higher and more complex forms of existence follow and 
 depend upon the lower and simpler forms,' and which 
 is ' a gradual transition from the indeterminate to the 
 determinate, from the uniform to the varied,' from ' the 
 homogeneous to the heterogeneous ^Z The process is 
 traced with some distinctness throuo-h each distinct 
 province — the world of Inorganic Matter, the world 
 of Life, the world of Humanity; and it is partly 
 seen, partly surmised, that the developments in all are 
 correlated to one another, successively or contempo- 
 raneously. The growth of the whole world is thus 
 
 ' 'It was introduced' (says Professoi' Huxley) ' into biological writ- 
 ing in the former half of the eighteenth century, to denote the mode, 
 in which some of the most eminent physiologists ' (Maljiighi, Bonnet, 
 Haller) ' conceived that generation of living things took place, in 
 opposition to the hypothesis ' (of Epigenesis) ' advocated in the previous 
 century by Harvey, which alone would give him a claim to rank among 
 the founders of biological Science.' ' The conclusions,' he adds, ' origin- 
 ally denoted by " Evolution " and " development " were shown to be 
 untenable.' Article Evolution in Encycl. Brit. vol. viii. p. 744 (nintli 
 ed.). 
 
 ^ See the latter section of the same Article by Mr. James Sully ; 
 and Herbert Spencer's Essay on ' The Factors of Organic Evolution ' 
 in his collected Essays (London, 1891). 
 
III.] What is Evolution ? 89 
 
 embraced in one great universal theory, not indeed 
 attempting to solve the problem of the origin of being, 
 or to ascertain all the causes of variation and develop- 
 ment, but contenting itself with bringing out the 
 methods, under which the great whole, in its marvel- 
 lous variety and complexity, has come to be what it is. 
 
 This, neither more nor less, is the Law of Evolution 
 in itself. Before we proceed to examine its bearing 
 upon our subject, there are two considerations which 
 must be kept constantly in view. 
 
 (A) The first is this — that the Law, as properly un- 
 derstood, and as in great measure established, does not 
 imply what the name Evolution by its etymology might 
 seem to suggest, and what originally it was in all prob- 
 ability intended to suggest — viz. that all the properties 
 of the higher forms of being were contained implicitly 
 or potentially in the simpler forms which preceded 
 them ; as, for example, life and consciousness in in- 
 organic matter, or (as it was once put rhetorically) 
 human genius, and moral aspiration in a * ring of 
 cosmical vapour.' Under these circumstances it is 
 perhaps unfortunate that the word should still be 
 used. For, as Coleridge remarked long ago, errors in 
 nomenclature are apt to avenge themselves by generat- 
 ing errors of idea ; and both the advocates and oppo- 
 nents of Evolution, while rejecting the idea etymologi- 
 cally suggested, seem not unfrequently to glide into 
 lines of argument, which are properly applicable to it. 
 But it is now so firmlv established, that we must be 
 content to accept it, only guarding ourselves against 
 the theory, which it was first intended to imply ; of 
 
90 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 which it may be doubted whether it has now any real 
 acceptance, and of which it is certain that we can pro- 
 duce no evidence of certainty or even probability. Nor 
 does it carry with it, as is often assumed, the conviction 
 ' — closely connected with this, if not substantially 
 identical with it — that the cause, the sole cause, of this 
 process is immanent in the world thus transformed. If 
 it did, it would be, of course, essentially Pantheistic, if 
 not Materialistic; and, as such, absolutely incompatible 
 with any belief in an original Creative Mind, at once 
 immanent and transcendent, guiding and determining 
 throughout the process of development. But this is 
 again a pure assumption, not only without possibility 
 of evidence, but clearly at variance with much of which 
 we are conscious in our own experience of origination 
 and direction, within limits, of growth under natural 
 laws. That assumption has, indeed, been loosely made 
 by some adherents of the theory of Evolution, who 
 seem, strangely enough, to be unable to conceive the 
 reality of a Supreme Will and Purpose, acting through 
 a fixed Order. It is often vaguely acquiesced in by 
 the world at large, because, in their minds, the effect 
 of the idea of a long process of Evolution, with many 
 destructions and many survivals, is to put further away 
 from us the working of Creative Will and Design, and 
 thus, naturally though of course unreasonably, to ob- 
 scure its reality. It was against this assumption, as 
 virtually materialistic or Pantheistic, that the very soul, 
 not only of Theology, but of Keligion, rose up in right- 
 ful and indignant antagonism. Unfortunately, though 
 perhaps naturally, it accepted too hastily the confident 
 
III.] Its relation to Theism. 91 
 
 declaration that it was implied in, or iiidissoliibly con- 
 nected with, the law of Evolution itself ^ 
 
 But the truth of the matter is now emerging plainly 
 enough. ' The doctrine of Evolution ' (says Professor 
 Huxley) * is neither Theistic nor Anti-Theistic ^Z In 
 relation to the idea of Original Creation, he says, 
 * It seemed to me then/ at the first reading of the Ves- 
 tiges of Creation ' * (as it does now), that Creation in the 
 ordinary sense of the word is perfectly conceivable.' 
 ' . . . The a j)rior% arguments against Theism, and, 
 given a Deity, against the possibility of Creative acts, 
 
 ' It is easy to reflect in tliis matter on the blindness or prejudice of 
 theologians. But we cannot hut remember with what flourish of 
 trumpets the Darwinian theory of Evolution was hailed in the Anti- 
 Theistic camp, and 2:)Ui-hed rashly to conclusions, which its great 
 author never sanctioned. Even now I read with some surprise in 
 Mr. Sully's part of the Article on Evolution to which reference has 
 been made, the following passage, ' It is clear that the doctrine of 
 Evolution is directly antagonistic to that of Creation ' ; while yet a 
 few lines below the author declines to dwell on the question, whether 
 'the doctrine of Evolution, in its most extended and elaborate form, 
 absolutely excludes the idea of Creative activity ' {Encycl. Brit. vol. 
 viii. p. 752. 
 
 * ' It has ' (he adds) ' no more to do with Theism than the First 
 Book of Euclid has.' . . . ' The doctrine of Evolution docs not even 
 come in contact with Theism, considered as a scientific doctrine. That 
 with which it does collide, and with which it is iireconcileable, is the 
 conception of Creation, which theological speculators have based on 
 the hibtoi-y nan-ated in the opening of the book of Genesis.' He goes 
 on to note that ' the Evolution of a chicken from a microscopic cellular 
 germ to its full size and complication of structure undoubtedly goes 
 on every day. Therefore ' (he adds) ' to borrow an argument from 
 Butler, this must be consistent with the Attributes of the Deity, if 
 such a Being exists ; and if so, the Evolution of the Uuivert^e, which is 
 neither more nor less explicable than that of a chicken, must also be 
 consistent with these Attributes.' 
 
92 EvohUion — Natural and Supernatztral. [lect. 
 
 appeared to me devoid of reasonable foundation.' His 
 conclusion is that in * Theological Science, as a matter 
 of fact, physical Science has created no religious diffi- 
 culties.' In relation to the process of development (he 
 adds) ' the theological equivalent of the scientific con- 
 ception of Order is Providence'; and Theology can 
 accept the statement, so far as it acknowledges that 
 its belief in a Divine Providence presupposes and ac- 
 counts for Laws of Order, and that by further disco- 
 veries of them it is untouched in its essence, although 
 it may be modified in its conception of method. But 
 it must be added that it is more than an equivalent ; 
 for it implies the conviction that the Order itself is in 
 the true sense of the word a ' Law ' — an expression 
 (that is) of a Supreme Will acting with foresight and 
 moral purpose — and that through this ordained Order 
 the Will that framed it is still unceasingly an energetic 
 and unfettered cause. This conviction is one, which 
 satisfies not only the intellect but the conscience and 
 the heart ; and the true conception of it must prevent 
 our accepting the conclusion that ' the doctrine of De- 
 terminism follows ' from it, ' as surely as from the 
 universality of natural causation, assumed by the men 
 of Science ^' 
 
 But even this declaration of neutrality in the great 
 conflict is not the whole truth. It was long ago 
 noticed - that the language of the Origin of Sjyecies, 
 being always plain and straightforward, is constantly 
 Teleological and often virtually Theistic. And now 
 
 ^ See Life of Darioin, vol. ii. pp. 187, 203. 
 
 ^ By tlie Duke of Argyle in the Problems of Faith, p. 41. 
 
III.] Its leaning on Teleology. 93 
 
 many of the most thoughtful and philosophical expo- 
 nents of the doctrine of Evolution declare with one 
 voice that it places on a Avider and therefore firmer 
 basis the doctrine of Teleology — the belief (that is) in 
 a Design and Purpose, which the whole order of the 
 universe subserves, and is intended to subserve. It has 
 been said by the same acute and outspoken critic, that 
 while ' the doctrine of Evolution is the most formidable 
 opponent of the commoner and cruder forms of Teleo- 
 logy, yet perhaps the most remarkable service to the 
 philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the 
 reconciliation of Teleology with Morphology ' — the idea 
 of Design (that is) with the discovery of fixed Laws of 
 Order — ' and the explanation of the facts of both.' ' The 
 wider Teleology is . . . actually based on the fundamental 
 proposition of Evolution ^' Darwin himself, although 
 the sense of the mystery of the beginning of things, and 
 the great stumbling block of the existence of evil in 
 suffering and sin, made his mind gravitate, or perhaps 
 oscillate, in the direction of Agnosticism, felt (as he 
 says) ' the immense difficulty or rather impossibility of 
 
 ' See Darwin's Life, vol. ii. p. 201. Professor Huxley adds, 'The 
 Teleological and Mechanical conceptions of Nature are not, necessarily, 
 mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more pux-ely a mechanibt 
 the speculator is, the more firmly must he assume a primordial mole- 
 cular aiTangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the 
 consequence, and the more completely is he at the mercy of the 
 Teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial 
 arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the Uni- 
 verse.' The statement is obviously true so far as it goes ; although 
 Christian faith could not accept it as an adequate statement of the 
 whole truth, \ihich must include sustaining and directing Providence, 
 as well as orijfinal Creation. 
 
94 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 conceiving this great and wonderful universe, including 
 man witli his capacity of looking far backwards, and 
 forwards into futurity, as the result of blind chance or 
 necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to 
 look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in 
 some degree analogous to that of man ; and I deserve 
 to be called a Theist \' Not only, as we have said, is 
 his language, in respect to that phase of the theory of 
 Evolution, whicli he has made his own, plainly Teleo- 
 logical, but the very phrase ' Natural Selection ' — sug- 
 gested, of course, by the experiments made by himself 
 with deliberate purpose, for selection under natural 
 law — in itself (as Mr. Herbert Spencer notes -) ' per- 
 sonalizes the cause ' of Evolution. 
 
 Professor Weismann, who now occupies a foremost 
 place among the students and teachers of Evolution, 
 speaks of ' the immanent Teleology of a Universe as of 
 a machine ^,' because, as he clearly sees, ' the assumption 
 
 ^ Darwin's Life, vol. i. pp. 312, 313. 
 
 ^ See Lis ' Essay on tlie Factors of Organic Evolution.' It is 
 customary to regard the phrase as unfortunate ; and Darwin himself 
 points out defects in the Analogy between ' Natural " and * artificial 
 selection,' apologizing for ' speaking of Natural Selection as an 
 intelligent power' and 'personifying Nature.' But the fact remains 
 that it was his own artificial selection, which suggested to him the 
 variability of species, and that, moreover, human language is such 
 that it is hardly possible to avoid using terms which suggest a 
 directing mind. In the Essay above referred to the author laments 
 that even his own favourite phrase 'the survival of the fittest' 'calls 
 uj) an anthropocentric idea.' 
 
 ^ The comi^arisou shows that the word ' immanent ' must be taken 
 to mean inherent or essential. For the maker is distinct from the 
 machine. Certainly Teleology must imply transcendence, as well as 
 immanence, in the First Cause. 
 
III.] Change of View in Scietice and Theology. 95 
 
 of an eternal matter with its eternal laws Ly no means 
 satisfies our intellectual need for causality ' — or (as he 
 elsewhere calls it) ' the craving of the human mind for 
 a spiritual First Cause.' * We require beyond every- 
 thing an explanation of the fact, that relationships 
 everywhere exist between the parts of the Universe ' ; 
 and, to account for this, he declares that ' behind the 
 co-operating forces of Nature, which aim at a purpose, 
 we must admit a Cause . . . inconceivable in its nature, 
 of which we can say only one thing with certainty, viz. 
 that it must be Teleological.' ' By the side of mere 
 mechanism, it is impossible not to acknowledge a 
 Teleological principle.' The one question is. How 
 does it act % ' Does it interfere with the mechanism, 
 or is it behind as the Final Cause of the Mechanism % ' 
 ' If we conceive a Divine Universal Power exercising 
 volition, as the ultimate basis of matter and of the 
 natural laws resident therein, we reconcile the appa- 
 rent contradiction between the mechanical conception ' 
 (of the Universe) * and Teleology \' 
 
 This course of thought on the Scientific side of the 
 question has naturally been met by a like approxima- 
 tion towards reconciliation from the side of Theology. 
 It may, in view of some well-known utterances on the 
 subject, be doubted whether declaration of war was not 
 made first from the camp of Evolution. Now, however, 
 theologians have come to see that, raised only by a 
 noisy minority, it had been rashly accepted as coming 
 from the true leaders, and from the whole body of 
 
 ^ Welsma.iMi 3 Studies in (he Theory of Descent {KugVish translation, 
 1882), vol. ii. i>p. 710-713. 
 
96 Evolution — Nahiral and Sttpernatural. [lect. 
 
 their followers. Naturally they had at first come to 
 the consideration of the theory not without prejudice ; 
 for if prejudice really implies (as the word should 
 imply) the result of a previous rational judgment, it 
 may well exist in different degrees in all thoughtful 
 minds, when an entirely new theory is presented to 
 them. If they have on other grounds strongly con- 
 vinced themselves of a fundamental principle, with 
 which the new theory seems to be inconsistent, they 
 cannot but subject to a keen and even suspicious scru- 
 tiny the arguments, by which that theory is supported. 
 Thus the Theologian, who, from a wholly different point 
 of view, mainly moral and spiritual, had grasped, as 
 a part of his very being, the faith in a living God, 
 Creator of heaven and earth and Father of man, could 
 not possibly regard without suspicion a line of thought, 
 which through many of its prominent advocates claimed 
 to set that faith aside. Now that this claim is seen 
 to be plainly untenable, and, as such, is disavowed 
 in the name of Science, Theology naturally lays aside 
 this rightful prejudice ; it is able to consider dispas- 
 sionately all which the theory of Evolution teaches, 
 either with certainty or by probable inference ; it is 
 not surprised to find that it harmonizes marvellously 
 with the great fundamental truth, to which it was 
 once set in deliberate antagfonism. 
 
 But this course of thought on the whole subject is 
 singularly interesting and instructive. We cannot (be 
 it remarked in passing) fail to trace in it the natural 
 progress of human speculation, as it was shown long 
 ago in the old Greek philosophy, when from the prim- 
 
III.] Teleology proper to Theism. 97 
 
 ordial material elements of the Ionic School, it passed, 
 through the belief in Number — that is, proportion 
 and combination — of the Pythagoreans, to the recogni- 
 tion by Anaxagoras of the ' Mind which came and set 
 all things in order.' For, after all ingenious attempts 
 to wed the belief in Teleology with Pantheism — the 
 belief in an order, designed to an appointed end, with 
 the conception, whatever this may mean, of ' a Soul 
 of the Universe, becoming in humanity conscious of 
 itself,' — the fact remains, and the broad common-sense 
 of humanity will recognise it, that the discovery in the 
 world of a Design, whether of usefulness or of beauty, 
 clearly indicates the existence of the Laws of Nature 
 in idea before their embodiment in fact, and so connects 
 itself with Theism and Theism alone. * Even in the 
 view of Science' (says Sir James Paget) 'the first Essence 
 may have been a Being, willing and knowing, the 
 prime Source of all the forces whose operation we see.' 
 But in view of the wonders of Design (he adds) : ' I 
 cannot imagine anything before natural force except 
 Supernatural Will ; and a belief of this kind is held by 
 untutored minds as if it were instinctive knowledge '.' 
 
 If, therefore, it be true that the Law of Evolution 
 strengthens, because it widens, the idea of Teleology, 
 it is so far a witness to a Livino- God — not like the 
 
 o 
 
 God of the older Deism, who simply sets the machine 
 of the Universe in motion and leaves it to work by 
 
 * See the Ilunterian Oration of 1877. The distinguished author's 
 conclusion is, 'Time— or, if not time, Eternity — uill prove that 
 Science and Christian Theology are but two sides of truth, and that 
 both sides are as yet known only in part.' 
 
 H 
 
98 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lfxt. 
 
 itself, but One, who in the language of Holy Scripture 
 is not only ' above all,' but ' through all and in all.' 
 
 It will not be the first time in the history of human 
 thought that discoveries of Law, which at first sight 
 appeared to shake or dim our faith in God, have been 
 found only to enlarge our conceptions of the wonder 
 of His Creative and Sustaining Work. Perhaps, as 
 when, without increase of the object-glass and so of 
 the entering light, we increase the magnifying power 
 of a telescope, the effect is to diminish the brilliance 
 at each point in the larger field, and for a time the 
 clearness of our vision in it ; but tlje mental eye soon 
 accustoms itself to the changed conditions, so as under 
 these to see deeper into the heart of things, and dis- 
 cover more of their w^ondrous order. The Teleology 
 of Paley — a masterpiece in itself, even anticipating 
 (as has been pointed out by Professor Huxley^) some 
 conception of Evolution — may have been made partly 
 obsolete by that increase of our knowledge of the unity 
 and development of the whole, which forbids us to 
 consider any one thing alone, and to examine it merely 
 as it is, without thought of how it came to be what 
 it is. But the Teleology, to which Evolution bears 
 witness, if less luminously direct and obvious in its 
 vision of the Hand of God — if troubled by the sense 
 of apparent waste in Nature, and the still more painful 
 
 ^ ' The acute champion, Paley, saw no difficulty in admitting that 
 the production of things may be the result of mechanical arrangements 
 made beforehand, and kept in action by a power in the centre ; that is 
 to say, he proleptically accepted the modei'n doctrine of Evolution.' 
 (See Darwin's Life, vol. ii. p. 202.) 
 
III.] Evolution and Darwinism. 99 
 
 sense of suffering and death — is clearly grander, subtler, 
 deeper, and so far a worthier thought of the Infinite 
 Wisdom and Power, as far above the designing and 
 manufacturing art of man, as the heavens are higher 
 than the earth. 
 
 (B) The second point to be observed — of consider- 
 able, although perhaps inferior, importance — is that 
 the Law of Evolution is not to be identified, as in 
 common usage it often seems to be identified, with the 
 Darwinian theory; which properly touches it only in 
 the field of Organic Life, and which, by the testimony 
 of its great author and his wisest followers, does not 
 claim to give even in that field an exhaustive descrip- 
 tion of the whole cause of Variation and Development. 
 It is true, indeed, that the * Origin of Species ' first gave 
 basis and reality to theories of Evolution, which had 
 previously been floating and shadowy, and so was, as 
 really as Newton's Vrincifia, an Epoch-making book 
 in the history of human thought ^ Few men, I suppose, 
 
 ^ The effect of its appearance is described most graphically in the 
 chapter (vol. ii. pp. 179-204) contributed to the Life of Darwin by 
 Proi'ebsor Huxley, from which several quotations have been made. 
 ' The publication of the Darwin and Wallace jiapers in 1858, and still 
 more tliat of the " Origin " in 1859, had the effect of the flash of light, 
 which to a man, who has lost himself on a dark night, suddenly reveals 
 a road, which, whetlier it takes him straight home or not, certainly 
 goes his way.' Of course, he cannot quite refrain from some sarcastic 
 reflections on the opposition of theologians to a theory, which, it nnist 
 be remembered, was hailed, although not by its author, as anti- 
 Theistic ; but he candidly acknowledges that ' if a General Council 
 of the Church Scientific had been held at the time, we, as adhei'ents 
 of Darwiuif-m, should have been condemned by an ovcrwhi'lming 
 majority'; and speaks of 'that complete volte-face of the whole 
 
 H 2 
 
loo EvohUion — Natural and Supe7'natural. [lect. 
 
 now doubt that the mutability of alHed species, once 
 considered as fixed and unchangeable, has been sub- 
 stantially proved ; that the idea of the derivation of 
 the whole Organic World from some few simple germs 
 of life has gained at least considerable probability; 
 that a real analogy has been established between the 
 actual growth of the individual being from the em- 
 bryonic cell or cells, and the supposed growtli of the 
 whole sum of Organic beings from these original germs. 
 No one, again, seriously doubts that in this development 
 the process, which Darwin termed ' Natural Selection,' 
 is one potent factor. The struggle for existence, and 
 the survival of those who are fittest from various causes 
 to meet that struggle, are (I suppose) accepted as facts, 
 established by patient and laborious induction, and 
 shown to exercise an actual and very considerable in- 
 fluence over the differentiation of species. But whether 
 they are to be regarded as constituting the sole influence, 
 because in themselves sufficient to account for all the 
 facts of the case — whether the analogy already referred 
 to does not suggest some inherent power of differentia- 
 tion, or what Darwin himself called * a mysterious innate 
 tendency to perfectibility,' correlative to and co-opera- 
 ting with that Darwinian process, which lays chief stress 
 on the effect of the environment of circumstance and 
 contact with other existences — is another question ^ 
 
 Scientific world, which must seem so surprising to the |)reseiit genera- 
 tion.' See also Mr. Herbert Spencer's Essays, vol. i. pp. 393-396. 
 
 ' ' How far " Natui'al Selection " suffices for the production of species 
 remains to be seen. Few can doubt that if not the whole cause, it is 
 an important factor in that operation. . . . But the causes and con- 
 
III.] Imperfections of Darwinian Theory. loi 
 
 Clearly the Darwinian theory taken alone is professedly 
 imperfect ; for it does not profess to account, first, for 
 the origin of Organic Life, next, for tlie ' variations,' 
 which gave the start of advantage in the great struggle, 
 or lastly, for the adaptation of the outward forces and 
 circumstances to the capacities of the inner life, which 
 produces the ' fitness ' designated as the cause of sur- 
 vival. Its imperfection in these respects was acknow- 
 ledged with his usual candour by its thoughtful origi- 
 nator ; and (so far as any one not an expert may venture 
 to pronounce an opinion) it appears to be now more and 
 more distinctly recognised by philosophical thinkers, as 
 the natural enthusiasm, excited by the enunciation and 
 victorious establishment of the theory, gives way to a 
 more thoughtful estimate of its true significance. It 
 is seen clearly that the causes of the differentiation of 
 species may be a * tendency to vary ' in an organism 
 ' in virtue of its molecular structure, indefinite or limited 
 to certain directions by intrinsic conditions,' or ' a varia- 
 tion brought about by the influence of conditions ex- 
 ternal to it, either indefinite or defined by intrinsic 
 
 (litions of variation have yet to be explored ; ami the importance of 
 Natural Selection will not be impaired, even if fui'ther enquiries should 
 prove that variability is definite, and is detemnined in certain direc- 
 tions rather than others by conditions inherent in that which varies.' 
 (Huxley on Evolution, Encycl. Brit, vol. viii. p. 751.) So Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer says {fiJssays, vol. i. p. 397) : 'Recognising in full 
 this process brought into clear view by Mr. Darwin, and traced out 
 by him with so much care and skill, can we conclude that, taken 
 alone, it accounts for Organic Evcdution 1 Has the natural selection 
 of favourable variations been the sole factor 1 On critically examiimur 
 the evidence, we shall find reason to think that it by no moans explains 
 all that has to be explained.' 
 
I02 EvoliiHon — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 limitation ' ; or a * combination of botli extrinsic and 
 intrinsic conditions.' It is, indeed, held that ' evidence 
 to justify tlie positive adoption of any one of these 
 views can hardly be said to exist.' Yet the present 
 tendency of opinion appears to incline towards the 
 co-existence of some internal and external influences ^ ; 
 and it may be remarked that this view harmonizes best 
 with the belief in one Supreme Purpose, ruling over 
 and combining; both. But on this matter we wait 
 calmly for further thought and investigation. It is 
 with the doctrine of Evolution in general that we are 
 concerned, and the decision of the place occupied in it 
 by Darwinism, properly so called, is not to us of a 
 primary concern. 
 
 (II) Let us then see, somewhat more in detail, how 
 this general process of Evolution presents itself, partly 
 to the observation, partly to the speculation, of Science 
 in relation to our own world. 
 
 We may, indeed, not unreasonably believe that in 
 the vaster Universe itself, it works under the same 
 general Laws — in developments, however, of which we 
 have indeed some indications, but which are in general 
 unknown to us, and cannot without rashness be assumed 
 to be absolutely identical with those of our own world. 
 But it will be enough to consider that world alone, of 
 
 ' See Professor Huxley's article on Biology in Ihe Encrjcl. 
 Britannica, vol. iii. p. 690 ; and compare Mr. Herbert Spencer ' On 
 the Factors of Organic Evolution ' in his Essays, vol. i. pp. 389-465, 
 t'd. of 1891 ; criticised from a Darwinian point of view in Wallace's 
 Darwinism, c. xiv. See also Mr. Aubrey Moore's most interesting 
 Essays on ' Darwinism and the Christian Faith,' in his Science and the 
 Faith, especially pp. 162-165. 
 
III.] Evolution in the Provinces of Being. 103 
 
 which we do know much, and can safely infer more, 
 in its three great provinces of being — the world of 
 Inorganic Matter, the world of Life, the world of 
 Humanity. 
 
 Let me here say at once that I speak of those 
 Provinces of Being as distinct, simply because to our 
 present knowledge they show themselves as distinct. 
 Whatever speculation, more or less imaginative, may 
 do to bridsre over in idea the divisions between them, 
 yet the whole evidence is on all hands allowed to be 
 distinctly against the derivation of Organic Life from 
 Inorganic Force ; and I cannot but contend that it is 
 at least equally strong against the derivation of Hu- 
 manity from the merely animal being. But I must add 
 that, should these breaks ever be filled up to human 
 knowledge, so that we may trace — what now to us is 
 a complete mystery — the process of transition from one 
 to another, I fail to see how it ought to shake our faith 
 in the dependence of this unbroken Evolution on the 
 Will and Purpose of God, although it might possibly 
 make some evidences of it less striking to the ordinary 
 mind. If a current of Electricity be passed through a 
 wire, having in it breaks, at each of which a pinch of 
 gunpowder is placed, then the ignition of that gun- 
 powder at each break is a simple and visible evidence 
 of the passage of the current. If those breaks are made 
 up, 60 that the wire becomes continuous, the passage of 
 the current through it will lose these visible manifesta- 
 tions of its presence ; but it will not be the less real in 
 itself, and its reality can be ascertained by less obvious, 
 but perhaps more instructive, tests. So it may be true 
 
I04 Evolution — Natiwal and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 that those breaks in our conception of the Order 
 of Creation serve to bring home vividly to the mind 
 the irresistible inference of the action of a Supreme 
 Creative Will, and the fulfilment of a Supreme Pur- 
 pose ; but the real fundamental grounds of belief in 
 that truth are independent of their existence, and 
 would be absolutely unshaken, if they ceased to exist 
 for us. 
 
 Now in respect of the Inorganic world of Matter and 
 Force, we may, I suppose, consider some form of the 
 Nebular hypothesis as describing what is now generally 
 supposed to be the process of Evolution. Out of a 
 homogeneous indeterminate form of what we call ne- 
 bulous matter — such as that which our Astronomy 
 plainly discerns as existing now in the field of the 
 heavens, and even within the limits of our Solar System 
 — endowed, we know not how, with the simplest form 
 of rotatory motion, and acted upon by the forces of 
 light and heat — it bids us conceive that by gradual 
 differentiation into heterogeneous conditions, the air, 
 the earth with its plains and mountains and rivers, 
 the sea with its fixed currents and its intermittent tides, 
 grew out into the marvellous variety and beauty of 
 inanimate Nature, and into fitness to sustain Organic 
 Life ^ We can see and turn over in our geological 
 strata the successive leaves of this history of Evolu- 
 tion ; we can trace there the action of fire, of water, 
 of ice, of atmospheric influences, of chemical and elec- 
 trical agencies ; we can with much probability construct 
 
 ^ See Mr. Herbert Spencer's Essay on ' The Nebular Hypothesis ' 
 {Essays, vol. i. pp. 108-181). 
 
III.] Evohdion in the Inorganic World. 105 
 
 a record of the past ages, if we are allowed to assume 
 — by an assumption, of course, strictly improved ^ — 
 that the existing physical forces, and they alone, 
 wrought through those ages with much the same 
 power which they manifest now. 
 
 But the inner meaning of this historic record Phy- 
 sical Science unaided cannot read ; the moulding and 
 directing Force under which all grew from a Chaos 
 into a Kosmos, it cannot adequately discern or account 
 for. To tlie inevitable enquiry, ' How under these 
 purely physical influences did all grow, as clearly it 
 has grown, into a great whole of Order and Beauty \ ' 
 there is no real and substantial answer in vague sug- 
 gestions of mysterious ' potentialities of matter,' ' es- 
 sential laws of polarity of molecules and molecular 
 structure/ ' operations of immanent properties,' and 
 the like, which are hardly susceptible of an}'- definite 
 meaning in themselves, and which utterly fail to ex- 
 plain the visible unity of order, and the irresistible 
 inference of Design. It would surely be as reasonable 
 to account f(jr the existence and working of a steam 
 engine, simply by the properties of iron and the expan- 
 sive force of steam, ignoring the directing niind, which 
 through these worked out its preconceived end, and 
 the superintendence, which continually guides and con- 
 trols it. Without Design all would be (as has been 
 
 * At the recent meeting of tlic British Association at Edinburgh, 
 much interesting reference was made, in tlie President's Address and 
 elsewhere, to the conflict as to the duration which must he assigned 
 to the prehistoric ages, between the Geologists, making this assumj)- 
 tion, on the one hand, and the Physicists, bringing in the correction of 
 other considerations, on the other. 
 
io6 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 said by Von Hartmann) ' only a weak chaos of obstinate 
 and capricious forces/ To refer all to * Laws of Nature ' 
 gives a rational account of Causation, only if we take 
 them in the true sense of the word to be really * laws ' — 
 the expressions (that is) of a Supreme Will and Purpose, 
 belonging to an Eternal Mind. Otherwise the study of 
 them reveals nothing but a great order of relation and 
 instrumentality ; it yields no satisfaction whatever to 
 the enquiry into the Cause underlying them, although 
 perhaps it suggests that, as created mind discerns this 
 Order, and within Hmits uses it for its own purposes, it 
 is but reasonable to infer that it must be Supreme Mind, 
 which ordains it and works out Purpose through it. 
 After all we must come back to discern behind these 
 Laws a * Cause of which ' (to use the words quoted 
 above) * we know but one thing with certainty that it 
 is Teleological ' ; and to me such a Teleological Cause 
 as this simply means a Supreme Mind. 
 
 But at some stage of this growth, there comes in the 
 first germ of Organic Life, when the physical condition 
 of the Liorganic world is such as to give it scope and 
 opportunity. It is an established fact, that now, neither 
 by natural process, nor by art of man, is it producible 
 out of inanimate Matter and the Forces which pervade it. 
 What has been called, somewhat strangely, Biogenesis ^ 
 — the invariable production of life out of life alone — 
 is accepted as an incontrovertible law, even by those 
 whose inclination would lead them to desire and to 
 expect an opposite opinion. If the past is, as usual, 
 
 ^ The name is now too generally established to admit of alteration ; 
 but surely it ought to be Zoogenesis. 
 
Jii.] Biogenesis. r o 7 
 
 to be judged of by the present, the inference must be, 
 tliat the force of Life is different in kind from the purely 
 physical forces, and that, when it came into this world, 
 it appeared as a new power — adapting itself to the stage 
 already reached in tlie growth of the Inorganic World, 
 able to use its fiDrces, and to assimilate its substance, 
 but not derived from them, or capable of resolution into 
 them. It is possible, of course, to suppose that what 
 we discern as an universal law now, did not hold then ; 
 but to assume this without a shred of evidence is to 
 contradict the invariable postulate of scientific investi- 
 gation. Is it reasonable through a supposed ' intellec- 
 tual necessity ' to ' cross the boundary of experimental 
 evidence, and discern in matter the promise and potency 
 of life ^ \ ' The introduction of life into the great Order 
 of the World may be reasonably referred to * natural 
 forces ' — forces (that is) belonging to the system of 
 Nature as a whole, — but this does not imply that they 
 were the forces previously existing on the earth. It is 
 clearly a part of the general process of Evolution, but 
 we must remember the caution ao;ainst concludino; that 
 what is found in its later conditions was necessarily 
 existent implicitly in the earlier. However it came 
 into our world — and Science through the mouth of its 
 greatest leaders can only form suppositions on this 
 matter, of which it confesses that they ' may seem 
 %\ ild and visionary - ' — it is the germ of a new order 
 
 ' Professor Tyiulall's Belfast Address. 
 
 ^ See 8ir W. Thomson's (Lord Kelviu's) Presidential Address at 
 Edinburgh in 1 87 1 ; where he speculates as to the possibility of ' seed- 
 bearing meteoric stones ' careering through space from other worlds, 
 
io8 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 of things — a new start (as it appears to us) in the process 
 of development. 
 
 But from tliis point the Evokition theory seems to 
 unfold to us with high probability a process of gradual 
 growth and differentiation into many forms. Looking 
 first to fact, in the actual growtli of the individual Or- 
 ganic being, it starts from the germ, defined as ' matter 
 potentially alive and having within itself the tendency 
 to assume a definite living form.' What is that germ \ 
 Analysis of it only shows us, in all known instances, the 
 material elements of ' Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
 nitrogen, united in the ill-defined compound called 
 jprotein' But there is in it something beyond tlie 
 test of this analysis, which makes it living matter. 
 By that living force, in all animals and plants above 
 the lowest, the original cell is divided, and becomes an 
 aggregate of cells ; in sexual piopagation the sperm 
 and germ cells are fused together. Gradually out 
 of what seems in all cases the same original protein, 
 there is a mysterious difierentiation into an all but 
 infinite diversity of beings, although all seem to pass 
 through the same process, and to assimilate from with- 
 out the same food. 
 
 and of ' one such falling on the earth," which ' might, by what we blindly 
 call natural causes, lead to its becoming covered with vegetation.' ' The 
 hypothesis' (he adds) 'may seem wild and visionary: all I maintain 
 is, that it is not unscientific' Whatever be the value of the hypothesis, 
 which seems incapable either of proof or disproof, its distinguished 
 author rightly sees that it is consistent with the ' overwhelmingly 
 strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent Design all around us . . . 
 showing to us through Nature the influence of a free will, and teaching 
 us that all living beings depend on one everlasting Creator and 
 Kuler.' 
 
III.] Evolution in the Woi'ld of Life. 109 
 
 Startinpf' from this observation of actual fact in the 
 development of the individual being, the Evolution 
 Theory forms the idea of a substantial analogy in the 
 development of the sum of all livmg beings from some 
 original germ or germs of Organic Life. The most direct 
 suggestion of the idea is probably due to ' the observa- 
 tion of the existence of an analogy between the series 
 of gradations presented by the species, which compose 
 any great group of animids and plants, and the series 
 of embryonic conditions of the highest,' that is the most 
 complex, ' members of each group.' But, as we are told 
 on the best authority, ' the modern scientific form of the 
 doctrine can be traced historically to the influence of 
 several converging lines of philosophical speculation 
 and of physical observation ' — including the observation 
 of a general unity of structure in each group, which shows 
 many gradations of complexity, and of organs rudimen- 
 tary and apparently useless in our species of the group, 
 which are fully developed and have definite functions 
 in another, and also of the effects of varying external 
 conditions in modifying living organisms, and of the 
 facts of geographical distribution and geological succes- 
 sion of life \ The gieat impulse, which gave fresh life 
 and reality to the conclusions thus gradually forming 
 themselves — the electric spark, which brought all these 
 elements into combination — was the discovery by Dar- 
 win, and all but sinuiltaneously by Wallace, of the 
 power of ' Natural Selection ' in the origination of 
 
 ' In the article on Evolution, from which I quote, Professor Hux- 
 ley enumerates eight of these converging lines of speculation. {Encycl. 
 Jirit. vol. viii. p. 747.) 
 
iio Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 species. From this new start tlie Evolution Theory 
 has taken firm hold of the whole mind of Physiological 
 Speculation : in many forms and by many hands — 
 after some modifications already, with more showing 
 themselves at no distant future ' — it is being wTOught 
 out. 
 
 From the primordial germ of Organic Life, the first 
 differentiation is of vegetable and animal life, almost 
 undistinguishable in their simplest and crudest forms, 
 gradually becoming widely distinguished — mainly per- 
 haps by the development in the animal life of what we 
 call Instinct, which is a foreshadowing of personality, 
 from the most rudimentary impulses of conscious life 
 up to some resemblance to our own intellectual and 
 moral qualities. Then in each section a continual 
 diiferentiation into genera, species, varieties, individuals 
 — these in their later developments becoming less sus- 
 ceptible of change, and within the range of historical 
 investigation all but absolutely fixed, and incapable of 
 blending with one another. The comparison suggested 
 is of a great tree of Organic Life, having ' a common 
 root, whence two main trunks, one representing the 
 vegetable and one the animal world, spring ; and, each 
 dividing into a few main branches, these subdivide into 
 multitudes of branchlets, and these into smaller groups 
 of twills.' 
 
 The idea is clearly one of grandeur and beauty, and 
 
 ' I observe, for instance, that Professor Weismann has doubts as to 
 the single homogeneous root of Organic Life, and inclines to think that 
 * numerous Organisms first arose ' simultaneously, and ' spontaneously' 
 — that is, of course, without dei'ivation from one another. 
 
III.] A theory of Method, not of Cause. 1 1 1 
 
 it at least accounts with probability for large numbers 
 of facts otherwise unaccountable. The evidence for it 
 is, and must be, infinitely less clear and certain, than 
 that of the Evolution of the individual being. There 
 are gaps in it not yet filled up ; ' missing links ' not 
 yet forged in the chain ; contradictions not yet removed. 
 From these may probably result modifications of some 
 portions of the theory. But it has advanced and is 
 advancing to completeness. Whatever corrections or 
 enlargements it may receive, it is universally accepted 
 as containing substantial truth. 
 
 But here even more clearly than in the Inorganic 
 World, we see that it is a Theory of Method and Order, 
 not of Cause. Of the origin of Life it professes not to 
 have the slightest knowledge ; of the character of the 
 indwelling force, which out of the one original cell 
 developes the marvellous diversity of structure in the 
 individual beings, and of the variations, which gave a 
 start to the process of Natural Selection in the differen- 
 tiation of species, it can tell us nothing ; of the marvellous 
 adaptation of the external conditions of the Inorganic 
 World to the growth and differentiation of Organic Life 
 it gives no account ; the unity of all this infinite variety 
 of development in one great Order having a continual 
 progress towards a higher perfection, it sees clearly, 
 but it cannot find its Cause. No w^onder that, as we 
 have seen, those who study it most deeply and philo- 
 sophically are driven to go behind it in the search after 
 the true Cause, and that it sends them to that search 
 with an irresistible Teleolomcal conviction of an over- 
 
 o 
 
 ruling Design and Purpose. Is there, after all, a 
 
1 1 2 Evolution — Natnral and Supernaittral. [lect. 
 
 fundamental incompatibility between it and that older 
 theory, which Sir Richard Owen worked out with so 
 much skill and force, of a general archetypal idea of 
 structure pervading each great family of organic being, 
 and varied in each species and variety in minute and 
 subtle gradations, so that each can discharge its 
 special function ^ \ For clearly the development under 
 fixed laws and gradual process of the Organic World, 
 no more prevents the original Creative and directive 
 Idea from being the true Cause of all, than the pass- 
 ing of the individual being through all the stages of 
 embryonic existence from the simple cell makes it less 
 the creature of the Supreme Hand. Tliat the Arche- 
 typal Idea of the Creative Mind may fulfil itself equally, 
 whether it act directly or through intermediate grada- 
 tions, we can see clearly, not only by abstract theory, but 
 by experience of our own ' creations.' 
 
 This province of Being has been from old time the 
 chosen field of Natural Theology; partly, because it 
 manifests overruling Design in a subtler and more 
 striking perfection, under the form of what, using 
 human analogy, men call instinctively contrivance -, 
 
 ^ Owen on the 'Nature of Limbs ' (1849). 
 
 '■^ It is strange that even John Stuart JMill should foil into the 
 poi3ular fallacy of assuming that this idea of Contrivance is unworthily 
 anthropomorphic, because Contrivance argues defect of power in the 
 C!ontriver. ' What is meant ' (he says) ' by Design % Contrivance ; 
 the adaptation of means to an end. But the necessity of contrivance 
 is a consequei.ee of the limitation of i)ower.' (' Essay on Theism,' 
 part ii.) A necessity imposed from without would, of course, be so. 
 But we are familiar every day in our own experience of necessity 
 imposed from within, by resolution to work for a special purpose and 
 through special instrumentality. There is sounder philosophy in 
 
III.] Teleology in the 07'ganic World. 113 
 
 which is simply the action of Mind working under fixed 
 laws for a foreseen purpose ; partly because, when we 
 enter upon the region of sentient life, we at once infer 
 from our own higher humanity, and believe that Ave 
 have strons: confirmation of that inference in the obser- 
 vation of Nature as a whole, that this Design is pervaded 
 by a care for these sentient creatures, and such care is 
 an inseparable attribute of Personality. On both sides 
 it is true, that the conclusions of universal human 
 instinct are troubled under the light of fuller knowledge 
 by thoughts of hesitation and jDerplexity — in the appa- 
 rent w^aste of Nature, and the presence in it of mutual 
 conflict and of pain. But out of these emerges the final 
 thought, correcting and extending and yet establishing 
 the first — in part discovering, especially through the 
 great conception of Evolution, that what seemed to us 
 defects and offences really subserve a transcendent 
 Purpose — in part, while we recognise sj)eculative and 
 moral difficulties, yet seeing that they are insufficient 
 to set aside the original conception — in part, if on other 
 grounds we have a strong faith in God, inclining to 
 refer them to the imperfection of our knowledge and so, 
 in the strict sense of the phrase, to accept them as 'trials 
 of faith.' If some of the simpler and cruder arguments 
 of the old Natural Tlieoloo-v are obsolete, vet in the 
 study of the Organic sphere of life this ' Science of 
 God ' lives in grander, subtler, and therefore nobler 
 form. 
 
 Hooker's conception of ' tlie Law Eternal which God has set Himself 
 to work all things by ' — without which, indeed, no fellow-working of 
 His creatures would be possible. 
 
 I 
 
114 Evolutio7i— Natural and Stipernatural. [lect. 
 
 Lastly, from this sphere of Organic Life, we pass 
 into the higher sphere of Humanity. I make no 
 ai)ology (as I have ah-eady said) for treating it as 
 distinct; for historically and actually it is distinct. 
 We know, of course, that in respect of man's bodily 
 organisation. Science has taught us to trace, not indeed 
 identity, but through wonderful gradations an intimate 
 connection, with lower orders of animal being ^ We 
 have learnt, even beyond this, to see in what we 
 roughly call 'animal instinct' similarities, more or less 
 strong, within the sphere of sensation, to human reason 
 and affection, and even to the moral sense of relation 
 and resulting duty; we are now discovering not indis- 
 tinct traces of some kind of language, audible or other- 
 wise, as a means of communication of these develop- 
 ments of instinct ; we see some dawning in rudi- 
 mentary form even of that willing self-sacrifice for 
 the weak, fighting against the selfish struggle for 
 existence, which we emphatically call ' humanity.' 
 But, interesting as these similarities are — showing, 
 indeed, that the properly human faculties follow those 
 (so to speak) naturally, in the gradual progress towards 
 perfection, — yet there is an unmistakeable line of 
 
 ^ See Wallace's Darwinism, c. xv. pp. 450-459, and its reference 
 to St. George Mivart's Man and Apes. He quotes an instructive 
 remark of Professor Huxley : ' In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil 
 remains of man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take us 
 appreciably nearer to that lower j)ithecoid form, by the modification 
 of which he has probably become what he is'; and adds significantly, 
 ' that it is an unsolved problem why no traces of the long line of man's 
 ancestors, back to the remote period when he first branched off from 
 the pithecoid type, have been discovered.' 
 
III.] Distinctness of Htimanity. 1 1 5 
 
 demarcation still between them and the hio-hest in- 
 stinct ; wliich can be no more really identified with them 
 than the internal power of* structure in crystallisation 
 with the power of true growth in Organic Life \ 
 'Beasts' (said our first great Anglican theologian more 
 than three hundred years ago) 'are in sensible capacity 
 as ripe as men themselves, perhaps more ripe. But 
 the soul of man hath a further ability, whereof is hi 
 them no show at all, an ability of reaching higher than 
 to sensible things ^' That old witness is true. Man 
 lias the power of ' seeing the invisible ' — in understand- 
 ing and imagination, of conceiving abstract ideas ; in 
 moral sense, of recognising abstract principles of right, 
 and hearing an inner voice which ear never heard ; in 
 will, of curbing, in accordance with these, the physical 
 forces of appetite and passion, and the motives of hope 
 and fear ; in heart, of rising above sensual or even 
 personal affection to the universal and spiritual prin- 
 ciple of love ; in spirit, as all history past and present 
 testifies, of feeling after and finding an Invisible God, 
 unknown perhaps, yet known to be. With this higher 
 capacity are bound up the wonderful faculty of true 
 language, which is its outward expression, and the 
 capacity of education of the individual and in the race 
 that unlimited progress, which we call Civilisation — 
 
 ^ It is not, I trust, pi'esiimptuous to note in relation to Darwin's 
 speculations on this subject, that his Psychology is hardly so stiong a'' 
 his Physiology. So far as I can see, the great fundamental distinction 
 is ignored, between the power in man of abstract idea, moral and 
 intellectual, and the lower power of perception and deduction witiiin 
 the realm of sense. 
 
 ^ Hooker's Eccl. Fol. i. c. vi. sections 2, 3. 
 
 I 2 
 
1 1 6 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 in mastery over Nature, rule over the lower orders 
 of animal being, discovery of the Laws of the Universe, 
 realization of the social, political, moral ties which bind 
 humanity together, advance through thought and faith 
 to a spiritual knowledge of God. 
 
 There this characteristic human capacity is, ob- 
 viously, a new and distinct capacity; even the sem- 
 blances of it in brute instinct are largely developed by 
 its reflex influence through what we call domestication. 
 The history of the world proves its absolute distinct- 
 ness. Whatever may be guessed or inferred as to 
 physical and psychical ancestry, the spiritual faculty 
 can find no progenitor, and all efforts to trace it back 
 are rejected by the common-sense of human conscious- 
 ness. Between the highest order of the brute creation 
 and the lowest race of man — like those savages of 
 Tierra del Fuego, whom Darwin at one time placed 
 hopelessly low in the scale, and yet recognised frankly, 
 not without astonishment, as capable of being civilized 
 by spiritual influence ^ — there is clearly a great gulf 
 fixed. Its reality has been acknowledged by profound 
 believers in Evolution ; by one at least of the very 
 
 ^ 'Mr. Darwin' (says Admiral Sir James Sulivan) 'had often expressed 
 to me his conviction that it was utterly useless to send missionaries 
 to such a set of savages as the Fuegians, probably the very lowest of 
 the human race. I had always replied that I did not believe any 
 human beings existed too low to comprehend the simple message of the 
 Gospel of Christ. After many years he wrote to me that the recent 
 account of the mission showed that he had been wrong and I right . . . 
 and he requested me to forward to the Society an enclosed cheque for 
 £5, as a testimony of his interest in their good work.' This subscrip- 
 tion he seems to have continued annually till his death. {Darvnn^s 
 Life, vol. iii. pp. 127, 128.) 
 
III.] Its Reality and its Origin. 1 1 7 
 
 highest authorities in the Evohitionist School, wlio 
 rejoices in it as a 'rehef from a crushing mental burden' 
 — a ' hopeless and soul-deadening belief ^' To ordinary 
 minds it seems as real, if not as wide, a gulf as that 
 which separates the living from tlie lifeless realm. 
 We may refer it to what origin we will ; talk vaguely 
 of 'higher potentialities' in matter and animal life, draw 
 analogies (as, for example, between the Social Instincts 
 of Animals and the commanding moral Sense in Man) 
 which indicate likeness, and vainly attempt from them 
 to prove essential identity; or leave it alone as a matter 
 to us mysterious, in hope that some day it may cease 
 to be ' unknown and unknowable.' Or we may, on the 
 other hand, accept the doctrine, in which the simplest 
 Christianity, even the simplest Theism, finds at least 
 a simple and intelligible account for it in Divine Will 
 and Purpose, which, though man's frame be allied to 
 the very 'dust of the earth,' yet gave him *the image of 
 God,' and with it the lordship over creation, and made 
 all lower things work together for his progress to 
 perfection. But in any case it seems clear that the 
 distinction is a great unmistakeable reality, and that, 
 
 ^ See Wallace's Z>art(nmsw, c. XV. (Macmillan, 1890). The whole 
 chapter is worthy of the most careful study. His conclusion is this : 
 ' We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its 
 extreme logical conclusion, nut only does not oppose, but lends a 
 decided support to, a belief in the spiritual natui'e of man. It shows 
 us how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower 
 animal form under tlie Law of Natural Selection ; but it also teaches 
 us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties, which could not 
 have been so developed, but must have had another origin : and for 
 this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen Universe 
 of Spirit.' 
 
ii8 Evolution— Natural and Stipernatiiral. [lect. 
 
 when we enter the sphere of humanity, we enter an 
 altogether distinct and higher province of being. 
 
 But, within that province, we cannot refuse to trace 
 once more the great Law of Evolution, a continual 
 progress towards what we call civilisation, including 
 both the development of the individual, and the har- 
 monious development of the whole race as one. In 
 this phase of Evolution, as in others, the development 
 of the individual is in great degree an instructive type 
 of the development of the race. We look to this 
 individual development from the rudimentary con- 
 dition of infancy, full of capacities as yet dormant, to 
 the conscious maturity of full manhood ; we can trace 
 the actual process, by which it is wrought out, in the 
 harmonious combination of these capacities within, and 
 of influences, material and spiritual, from without. 
 By no mere metaphor, but by a real analogy — which, 
 however, like other analogies, may have its imperfec- 
 tions — we apply what we here learn distinctly to the 
 larger and more complex growth from the childhood 
 to the manhood of the whole race, or of the lesser 
 national divisions which make up the wdiole. The 
 germ of this higher life has, like the germ of the 
 Organic life, an order of gradual development, of which 
 it has been truly said that it bears a likeness to that 
 process of differentiation from the simple to the com- 
 jtlex, which is characteristic of the lower Evolution ^ 
 Yes ! a likeness, which consciously or unconsciously 
 
 ' See Herbert Spencer on ' Progress ; its Law and Cause ' {Essays, 
 vol. i. pp. 8—62), the ideas and illustrations of which are incorporated 
 in his ' First Principles.' 
 
III.] Evohdion in the IVorld of Ilumanily. 119 
 
 we continually discern an'd imply. But vet a likeness 
 with difference. This higher Evolution shows itself 
 as one less simple, less equable, less continuous, because 
 in the forces working it out, there is included the real 
 though mysterious power of free human will, which 
 the sense of its mystery can not justify us in explain- 
 ing away, and which has the power to accept and 
 further, and power to ignore and resist, the Laws of 
 humanity. Ruled, of course, that power must be by 
 the Supreme Power ; but, after another and a freer 
 fashion, not by compulsion, but by some action, whether 
 of direct spiritual influence or of \X\% indirect power 
 of circumstance, which conserves and works through 
 freedom. Such action of spirit on spirit within limits 
 we know by our own experience ; and so can conceive 
 it without limitation and imperfection, as a part of 
 the Supreme rule of God over His creatures. Thus in 
 this Evolution of humanity the equability and con- 
 tinuity of progress vary, in proportion as it requires 
 more or less strictly the co-operation of human will. 
 It is greatest in the material progress of conquest over 
 the forces of Nature ; it is less complete in the intel- 
 lectual ; it is less unbroken still in the moral and 
 spiritual spliere, where it has to meet and combat the 
 disturbing forces of moral evil, subtler perhaps, yet 
 not less intense, as the world grows older. In all, 
 though in different degrees, it has apparently its places 
 and its periods of stagnation, conflict, retrogression. 
 To our eyes it is not a calm unbroken stream, but a 
 restless sea, yet having a tide, moved by an attraction 
 from above, which makes it set towards an nppointed 
 
I20 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 shore. In the lesser unities, as of national life, it seems 
 to complete the likeness to the individual life, by 
 showing the phenomena of sudden extinction or senile 
 decay; and speculation sometimes asks in its gloomier 
 moods, M'hether these phenomena may not at some 
 future day manifest themselves in relation to the whole 
 race. 
 
 Nor is this hutnan Evolutioli worked out wholly by 
 the same forces. It has its relation to the Environ- 
 ment of things, and so to the physical laws of material 
 development, which, according to the old saying, we 
 must rule by obeying. It has the element correspond- 
 ing to the struggle for existence — the will to live and 
 work — the supersession of the weak, physically, intel- 
 lectually, morally weak, whether races or individuals, 
 which Darwinism shows us in the Organic World. But 
 it lias, rising above and tempering this, the nobler ele- 
 ment, which we call essentially ' humanity ' — the will 
 to love, the self-sacrifice of the strong, and the sense 
 of a duty laid upon them, to ' bear the infirmities of 
 the weak,' and to labour to strengthen and to improve 
 them, as working out on their behalf the beneficent 
 purpose of the Supreme Power. 
 
 Yet, unlike in these and other respects, the Evolution 
 in humanity is not less real. We can actually discern 
 its working ; because in history, past and present, we 
 see the human race in various stages, and watch its 
 passage from one to another, not merely by internal 
 capacity and the aid of physical circumstance, but also 
 by the conscious action on those in the lower stages 
 of those who have reached the higher. In spite of 
 
III.] The Moral Teleology. 121 
 
 the liindrances and antagonisms of which we have 
 spoken, under which, indeed, men groan till they are 
 tempted in sheer despair to exalt them into co-or- 
 dinate or dominant Laws of life, there is, we believe, 
 out of the germ of the higher humanity an Evolution 
 towards a higher perfection. 
 
 But behind this Evolution, even more distinctly than 
 the others, it is impossible for deeper human thought 
 not to see a Supreme Power originative, directive, 
 immanent, but with a Design and Purpose, here felt 
 to be distinctly moral — ' making ' (to use the modern 
 phrase) 'for Truth and Righteousness' — showing (to 
 use Butler's more intelligible phrase) 'the Moral Govern- 
 ment ' of a Divine Person. The universal witness to 
 the existence of such a Power, in all the religious and 
 in the noblest philosophies of the world — expressing 
 itself in all human languages and literatures — cannot 
 lightly be set aside. There that Power is — telling 
 both on the individual soul and on the collective 
 humanity — telling both by the Laws of the orderly 
 Environment of life (including in this for each man 
 the influence of his fellow-men) and by some guidance 
 and inspiration of that spiritual life within of thought 
 and conscience and will, which is the distinctive human 
 faculty. This development in each person cannot be 
 considered in isolation; for there are great Laws, which 
 in respect of it bind all in one ; and yet the inde- 
 structible consciousness of personality, which expresses 
 itself in all language and literature, refuses to be 
 absorbed and lost in human society as a whole. As 
 in the lower Evolutions, there must be some Supreme 
 
12 2 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [i.ect. 
 
 Power, on which rest each and all for life and growth 
 — some central source of attiaction, round which all 
 move, each with its own tendency to free motion, all 
 with the lesser mutual attractions to one another. For 
 my own part, if I realize my own moral personality, 
 I can form no intelHgible conception of that Supreme 
 Power, which is not distinctly personal ; nor will human 
 language suffer me to speak of it without using terms 
 which imply personality. If all Teleology — all recog- 
 nition of Design and Purpose — inevitably implies this, 
 the implication is doubly strong when that Purpose 
 is recognised as moral ; for moral idea and being are 
 of the very essence of personality. The soul of man 
 can bow down, and always has bowed down, to a 
 Divine Personality; the reserve of unbounded rever- 
 ence, felt in all natures and most felt in the noblest, 
 finds its right employment in such worship. But to 
 a Force, a diffused Life, an impersonal Law, it can 
 no more pay spiritual homage, than the Three Children 
 could fall down and worship the golden image in the 
 plains of Dura. Li the Evolution of the inanimate 
 world, our immediate inference may be of Supreme 
 Force, and in that of the Organic World of a Supreme 
 Life, while the further inference of Will and so of 
 Personality lies behind these ; but, in respect of the 
 world of conscious personal being, that which there 
 lay in the background comes out as the most primary 
 inference. There the Supreme Power must be a Su- 
 preme Moral Will ; and what is this but a Supreme 
 Personality ? 
 
 (Ill) Now if this be a true, however imperfect, sketch 
 
III.] The Scriptural Record of Creatioft. 123 
 
 of what we can trace by Science, physical and meta- 
 physical, of Evolution in the three great provinces of 
 being, how stands Christian doctrine in relation to it 1 
 We must answer, here as elsewhere, that, on the one 
 hand, it accepts and confirms what we discover natur- 
 ally of the Law; it extends it on the other beyond the 
 reach of our discovery into the realm of the Super- 
 natural. 
 
 (A) Consider in broad outline, without discussion of 
 details — however interesting and important — passing 
 through the letter addressed to the ancient simplicity 
 to the spirit of the underlying truth, which is for all 
 time— the Kevelation of the growth of the world, as 
 a whole, to be what it is, not only as expressly declared 
 in the records of Creation, but as implied everywhere 
 in the Holy Scripture, which is the charter of our 
 Christian faith. 
 
 In the first place, it is certainly in the largest sense the 
 story of a development out of the nebulous Chaos, 'with- 
 out form and void,' first of Inorganic Nature, then of the 
 world of vegetable and animal life, lastly of the world of 
 humanity. All these steps in Creation, however they 
 may be related in time, are recorded in one continuous 
 history, because all are parts of one great system, steps 
 in one great natural process. ' Successive Creation' in 
 one sense undoubtedly there is ; for every one of these 
 steps is, of course, referred to the Creative Will and 
 Purpose, which must underlie them all, and this refer- 
 ence is made in language, which the simplest minds 
 and the simplest ages could understand. But ' Suc- 
 cessive Creation,' in the sense which has been assigned 
 
124 Evohition — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 to that word, implying a series of progressions 'i^er 
 solium, and in each the bringing forth in perfection 
 from tlie beginning of all the infinite variety, now fill- 
 ing each province of created being, is nowhere ex- 
 pressed, nowhere necessarily implied. It is not in the 
 narrative itself, but in the interpretations of the narra- 
 tive — not least, as has been noted, that of Milton in the 
 Paradise Lost — that this theory is found. In the 
 original, — 'God spake,' 'and it was so' — the great 
 fundamental truth of all vital Keligion, is set forth to 
 us in a sublime simplicity. How it was so — this is 
 one of the secrets of God, which, in measure but in 
 measure only, it was left to the human mind to learn 
 by study through all ages. But in the revelation of 
 the growth of the great world — always regarded in 
 its relation to man — by these successive stages at once 
 of Creation and of development, Holy Scripture cer- 
 tainly anticipated to men of old the essence of much 
 which we are now discovering to be in main outline 
 the order of fact. 
 
 It is hard to exaggerate the extraordinary signifi- 
 cance of this anticipation. Yet in our unceasing dis- 
 cussions on each side of the great controversy over 
 minute difiiculties of detail in relation to this recorded 
 order, or etymological shades of meaning in the words 
 used, or the right interpretation of the * days ' of 
 Creation, and the like, we are apt to lose sight of the 
 marvel of the essential accordance of this simple record, 
 coming to us through thousands of years from the ear- 
 liest childhood of man in history, with all that the 
 maturest Science has slowly and painfully discovered 
 
III.] Its pervading Teleology. 125 
 
 as to the laws and processes of the great realm of 
 Nature. On the Christian's view of what Holy Scrip- 
 ture is, that accordance is easily explicable. The 
 Word of God naturally accords with the Works of 
 God. On any other who can explain what stands out 
 as a phenomenon strikingly unique in itself, still more 
 striking in its contrast with all other cosmogonies, re- 
 ligious or philosophical, of days gone by % 
 
 In the next place, the Scripture brings out explicitly 
 what mere speculation can but suggest as an inference 
 of reasoning, in regard to the nature of the unseen 
 Cause, which lies behind this process of Evolution. In 
 speaking of the origin of all things, it strikes in (so to 
 speak) decisively upon the battle of Theism and Pan- 
 theism, by its revelation of the First Cause as an 
 Eternal Will, expressed in a Creative Word, working 
 by a Creative Spirit. But beyond this, it goes on to 
 bring out with equal explicitness, as ruling over each 
 stage of development, that which Teleology implies, 
 and to which, as that which we have seen, our maturest 
 Science bears witness — the Design of an ever-present 
 W^isdom, ordering it because for the Divine purpose it 
 was to be, and it was, ' very good.* All the lower 
 developments it crowns by the creation of man as 
 having lordship over Creation, in virtue of a spiritual 
 nature which is * the Image of God,' beyond which no 
 development is traced in Nature, and on which accord- 
 ingly the Creative Power is said to 'rest'; although, 
 indeed, the fuller teaching of our Lord hereafter de- 
 clares in distinct reference to this ' rest ' of God ' My 
 Father worketh up to this moment, and so w'ork I.' 
 
126 Evolution — Natural and Stipernatiiral. [lect. 
 
 For these trutlis, again, belong to the essence of spiritual 
 religion — the faitli in the unceasing Providence, and 
 the communion with man, of a Living God. 
 
 As to the process of Evolution which Science traces 
 in each of the three provinces of being, there is in the 
 Eevelation significant difference. The purpose of that 
 Kevelation is to bring out God's dispensation to man ; 
 with other stages of His dealing with the world there 
 is concern, only so far as they bear on tl]is. So to 
 the growth of the world of Inorganic Nature and 
 Organic Life, there is but brief reference. They come 
 from the Creative Wisdom ; they show forth God's 
 glory : how this may be, it matters not, if only it is. 
 Yet we cannot but see that, even here, the obedience 
 to the Creative Word of Design is set forth (so to 
 speak) as a natural process under natural laws. ' God 
 spake ' and * it was so ' ; ' the earth and the waters 
 brought forth'; and we have been recently reminded* 
 how some of the most thoughtful of ancient authorities 
 held that it was causaliter, not actualifer, by reception 
 of the power to produce. We cannot but be reminded 
 by analogy of the Psalmist's reference to that embry- 
 onic growth, in which we see now a type of the growth 
 of Organic Life itself, ' Thine eyes did see my sub- 
 stance, yet imperfect, and in thy Book were all my 
 members written, which in continuance were fashioned, 
 when as yet there were none of them.' The precon- 
 ceived idea and purpose in the Divine Mind, working 
 itself through a gradual development, here implied for 
 
 ^ By Mr. Aubrey Moore {Science and the Faith, p. 176). See 
 Note F. 
 
III.] Its Evolutio7i ill Hitinaitiiy. 127 
 
 the individual being, may well be extended to that 
 Evolution of the whoJe, of which the individual Evolu- 
 tion is the type. 
 
 But in the realm of humanity it has always seemed 
 to me that there is most jDlainly in the Revelation the 
 story of a growth from the first germ of true humanity 
 to its perfection. Never was there a stranger perver- 
 sion of the original, than in that artificial picture, with 
 which Milton's genius has unhappily familiarized us, of 
 what is virtually a full-grown manhood masquerading 
 under the conditions of childhood. Nothing can be more 
 really unscriptural than the idea so commonly and so 
 loosely taken up on the one side, that the primeval state 
 of man was a state of perfection, to which all subsequent 
 history is a vain effort to return ; except perhaps the 
 random assertion on the other, that what we call the 
 Fall was the first step in human progress out of what 
 seems in this view 'a fool's Paradise.' In the Scriptural 
 vision of primeval humanity, we trace indeed the germs 
 of all civilization to come — in simple work the germ 
 of material civilization, in the origin of language of the 
 intellectual, in marriage of the social and moral, in the 
 hearing of the voice of the Lord God of the religious. 
 But it is in germ only; in a simplicity not brutish 
 indeed, or savage, as we now see degraded savagery, 
 but childlike, 'naked and not ashamed'; clearly the 
 beginning of a development in all the elements of 
 human nature — which the entrance of evil into the 
 world disturbed and perverted by a morbid development 
 of itself, but destroyed not — up to the perfection of 
 manhood in the dispensation on earth, and the earnest 
 
128 Evolution — Natural a^td Supernatural, [lect, 
 
 of a higher perfection still in the world to come. The 
 Scriptural history of man is so far like the scientific, 
 that it is clearly a story of Progress. But that pro- 
 gress it refers, not to an immanent power in man, or to 
 the action of a vague stream of tendency, but to the 
 purpose and the direction of tlie living God. What 
 indeed is the whole Scripture, but the story of such 
 education of humanity under His Providence and 
 by His Spirit — a Providence which orders all things 
 for the salvation from evil and perfection in good, 
 through history and through Law — a Spirit which 
 always 'strives with man,' and inspires his intellectual 
 and moral, as well as his spiritual life, guiding the 
 lawgiver, the king, even the artificer, as well as the 
 Prophet and the Apostle ? In this development there 
 is recognised, as we have seen, the unnatural element 
 of an engrained power of evil, struggling under the 
 Law of Heredity against good, to which all observation 
 of the world, as it is, bears but too plain a witness. 
 But there by distinct promise is sealed the hope, in- 
 herent in humanity itself, that this unnatural power 
 shall be at last both conquered and overruled to the 
 highest good. Only the scope of this Evolution is 
 enlarged — for the individual beyond the limits of his 
 life here — for humanity itself beyond the limits of this 
 world's appointed time. 
 
 So fiu', as it seems to me, the Christian doctrine 
 simply takes up, extends, illuminates, the great natural 
 Law of Evolution. 
 
 (B) But, as yet we have not viewed it as distinctively 
 Christian : we have not asked what is the bearing in 
 
III.] The Incariiation a 'new Creation! 129 
 
 this aspect of tlie Manifestation in the fulness of the 
 time of the Son of God, as Son of Man ? 
 
 The truth itself of that Manifestation — let us again 
 put this clearly before ourselves, and proclaim it to the 
 world — is the Divine mystery of mysteries, a secret of 
 the Will and Nature of God, revealed only to faith in 
 the word of Him who said, ' I came forth from the 
 Father and am come into the world ; again I leave the 
 w^orld and go unto the Father.' We should hardly dare 
 to bring it into analogy with the lower manifestations of 
 God to man, if we did not remember that in all analogy 
 the higher reality necessarily transcends the lower, 
 and that Our Lord Himself in His Parables taught 
 us to shadow out by comparison with earthly things 
 His Kingdom of Heaven. From these lower manifesta- 
 tions, who could have conceived beforehand — who can 
 even now comprehend — the Personal Incarnation of 
 Godhead in humanity % If it may perhaps be fore- 
 shadowed by tlie recognition of the power of God, as 
 immanent in all creation, and more visibly immanent 
 (so to speak) in humanity, yet how dim this fore- 
 shadowing, compared with the brightness of the reality! 
 
 But in what way is its actual working in the world 
 represented to us ? It is, as we have already seen, 
 described as a ' new Creation ' — the bemnninof of a new 
 spiritual Order — which yet does not break continuity 
 with the past, but, while it brings in a Divine s})iritual 
 force before unknown, takes up and subordinates to 
 its higher purpose all the forces of the old Creation. 
 Clearly in this representation there is a striking analogy 
 to all that has gone before. By wliat is actually in 
 
 K 
 
130 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 effect a new Creation^ — whether it be connected or 
 disconnected with the old — we have seen at each step 
 the introduction into the world of a new power, as we 
 pass from the Inorganic realm of lifeless Nature to the 
 realm of Organic Life, from the realm of Organic Life 
 to the realm of Humanity. Now that natural progress 
 is shown to us £ts carried on to a Supernatural perfec- 
 tion by the bringing in of a new Divine Life — at once 
 the Light and the Life of men — entering into the 
 humanity which is the crown and culmination of the 
 old development, in order to raise it to unity with tlie 
 Divine Nature itself. This new Creation is set forth 
 to us as an integral element, as the highest element, 
 of the whole Divine Order — fore-ordained before the 
 foundation of the world — in someway coexisting with the 
 lower elements in anticipatory power before its actual 
 Manifestation — prepared for under God's Providence 
 through all ' the fulness of time.' The Manifestation, 
 being in a Personality at once Divine and human, is 
 necessarily complete in itself, unique, unapproachable, 
 begun in the visible life of Christ on earth, continued 
 still in its completeness in the invisible life of heaven. 
 From the nature of the case, its relation to the human 
 personality, as a living power, is a thing Supernatural, 
 transcendinfj; the analof>;v on which we are now dwellinof. 
 But yet in its effect both on the individual and on 
 
 ' It is notable that in the record of Creation in Gen. i., the word 
 (^^^ which, so far as human language can express a superhuman 
 idea, denotes an actual creation of substance out of nothingness, is 
 used only in vv. i, 21, 27, first of the creation of the Inorganic world, 
 next, of the creation of animal life, and lastly, of the creation of Man. 
 
III.] Its twofold development in man. 131 
 
 the collective life of all mankind, it is clearly (to use our 
 Lord's own comparison) a seed sown in the spiritual 
 soil of humanity — a leaven infused into its threefold 
 nature — a germ to be developed through the ages of 
 a new dispensation, which is to last till its work shall 
 come to the full possible perfection, and then to give 
 place to a higher dispensation still, ' that God may be 
 all in aU; 
 
 Entering thus into the humanity, which has already 
 in it, as we have seen, the two developments of original 
 good and of an infused evil, its working necessarily 
 shows itself under two aspects, as having relation to 
 both. In respect of the one it is through the Incarna- 
 tion simply the regeneration to a new glory of the image 
 of God in humanity, taking up into the highe life all 
 its energies, bodily, mental, spiritual, and bidding them 
 grow in Christ towards the perfection which we call 
 heaven, and on which the Ascension was the entrance 
 of our human nature in Him. So far it harmonizes 
 itself without struggle or difficulty with the higher 
 humanity. But in respect to the other, it enters neces- 
 sarily into a conflict with evil, involving pain and even 
 agony, but, by victory in that conflict, it becomes a salva- 
 tion from sin and death through the mystery of Atone- 
 ment, made in the Passion, and shown as accepted in 
 the Resurrection — at once (to use the Scriptural lan- 
 guage) a Justification from sin's guilt, and a Sanctifica- 
 tion delivering from sins bondage. The two aspects 
 of its life-giving power are distinct ; ancient speculation 
 dwelt on the one, as that which was destined for 
 humanity simply as finite, on the second, as that which 
 
 K 2 
 
132 Evolution— Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 was needed by humanity as sinful ^ ; and, without 
 entering on these deeper speculations, the course of 
 Christian thought in different ages has tended, as we 
 have seen, to emphasize predominantly the one or the 
 other, according to its predominant sense of righteous- 
 ness or of sin in actual humanity. But, though tliey 
 be distinct, they are absolutely inseparable. As in the 
 body, so in the spirit, the same influence at once 
 strengthens health and throws ofl" disease. As the 
 Christian Creed rests four-square on the Incarnation, 
 the Atonement, the Eesurrection, and the Ascension, so 
 the actual Chiistian life realizes in one all the influences, 
 which these represent and which flow from them to us. 
 Again, the new dispensation of tlie kingdom, once 
 inaugurated, presents itself in relation to all humanity, 
 as working Ijy a Supernatural Law of Evolution. It 
 begins from the germ of the new life, which is ' Christ 
 in us, the hope of glory ' ; it gradually extends itself, 
 ' propagated ' (to use our significant phrase) from soul 
 to soul, till it shall be coextensive with humanity itself ; 
 it works itself out slowly, as all Evolution must work, 
 through the appointed ages, and as it works, it brings 
 out, that it may dominate, the antagonistic power of 
 evil. It is promised that it shall come to its appointed 
 close hereafter in a new Manifestation of the Son of 
 God, which shall destroy that antagonism for ever, and 
 open, again in the fulness of time, the higher dispensa- 
 tion in heaven of rest, peace, communion with God, 
 
 ^ I would here I'efer once more to Bishop Westcott's most interest- 
 ing Essay on ' The Gospel of Creation ' in his Epistles of St. John (pp. 
 275-304)- 
 
III.] Its Evolution through the Ages. 133 
 
 given by tlie full likeness of Christ. If it be asked 
 whether we can yet see the actual working of this new 
 life in humanity, we may answer, ' In its beginning and 
 imperfect growth, surely yes.' Not without significance 
 do we reckon the years of our history from the birth of 
 the Lord. The advent of Christianity into the woild 
 has shown itself plainly to be a new birth and growth 
 in humanity, by the very contrast of the new with 
 the older civilisations of the world — taking up all that 
 was spiritual in them, and exalting it by the infusion 
 of a Diviner life, which has preserved it from their 
 decay — asserting itself victoriously against all antago- 
 nistic influences — revived ao^ain and ag-ain with fresh 
 power out of periods of slumber and corruption — evi- 
 dently the one great advancing and aggressive force in 
 the spiritual battle of the world. It is part of the great 
 analogy, at which we have glanced, that it works 
 slowly, with a slownes of which human earnestness is 
 impatient, eager to anticipate it by forcible and rapid 
 artificial creations of its own ; that it has to overcome 
 opposing forces of evil, which from the beginning have 
 been a grief and a perplexity to godly souls. But He, 
 whose it is, foresaw, and bade us foresee, the slowness of 
 advance, and the offences which must needs come. We 
 are content, if each soul and each age has its little part 
 in the progress, which needs for its accomplishment the 
 fulness of time. 
 
 That germ of the new life, being a spiritual life, 
 must work not by compulsion of Law, but through the 
 power of the Spirit, freely received by the individual 
 spirit of man. 
 
134 Evohition — Natural and Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 For humanity, therefore, at large it is realized in 
 its fuhiess — in its direct, as distinct from the indirect 
 and reflected light, which from it is diffused over the 
 whole world, — only in the Church of Christ, which 
 represents that humsmity as in faith and love accepting 
 the Divine gift in Hira, and in spite of frailty and sin, 
 working with God for its development. The ideal of 
 that development is a continuous unbroken growth 
 through the ages, not only in expansion, but in purity 
 and intensity of power, up to its perfection in the 
 glorious Church, thronged with the * multitude which 
 no man could number/ and in itself not ' having spot or 
 wrinkle or any such thing.' In practice, having to 
 struggle against the antagonistic power of sin from 
 without and from within, its progress, strangely as it 
 seems to us, is often checked and broken by periods of 
 spiritual decay, disintegration, corruption. Yet out of 
 these — by an experience so familiar that we take it for 
 granted in the Church, and forget how it contradicts 
 human analogies in the lower experiences of the world 
 — it emerges again and again in great epochs of 
 spiritual revival; and thus, on the whole, advances 
 continually in ' a progress by antagonism ' towards the 
 perfection, which, if we believe the Scriptural revela- 
 tions of the future, is to be attained at last by a new 
 Manifestation of the Son of God Himself. 
 
 As in tlie race, so in the individual soul, the same 
 Law seems to rule. For in the individual the right 
 normal order is still that of an Evolution from the germ 
 of the new life implanted from the beginning, guiding 
 and ruling the unfolding of all the faculties of human 
 
III.] The crown of all lower Evolutions. 135 
 
 nature, subduing it gradually through the continual 
 supply of the Divine grace, with more or less of 
 struggle against the evil in it, till, when the fulness of 
 its time has come, it shall pass through death into a 
 higher stage, yet still of growth, in the unseen world 
 beyond tlie grave. But that order is too often broken 
 by the resistance, passive or active, of the will to this 
 Divine power of good, by its yielding itself ignorantly 
 or consciously to the power of evil ; and, when it is so 
 broken, either the soul is left spiritually dead, like 
 dead matter thrown off from natural growth, or, the 
 inner life, checked but not quenched, reasserts itself 
 suddenly (as we deem of suddenness), on the new and 
 fervent adhesion of the mature will in faith, by what 
 is a ' resurrection ' rather than a regeneration — in an 
 abnormal progression per saltum, rather than a gradual 
 growth. 
 
 So every way there comes out to us the conception 
 of the development of the Life of Christ in humanity, 
 as the supernatural crown of the great Order of Evolu- 
 tion ; and, if this be so. Science, which has traced this 
 order in its lower forms, thus becomes, or should be- 
 come, the TruL^aywyo'i to lead us to the highest in Christ 
 Himself. It is a part of this analogy, that in this 
 highest sphere of the great Order there should be 
 manifested a Law and a Power peculiarly its own. 
 For in the various provinces of being, which show 
 themselves to us as distinct, the one ' God fultils Him- 
 self in many ways.' Li one sphere Evolution is ordered 
 through Matter and the physical forces which pervade 
 it ; in another there is added in combination with these 
 
o 
 
 6 Evolution — Natural and Stipernatural. [lect. 
 
 tlie new force of Life, with its inner capacity of assimi- 
 lation and growth ; in a third tliere comes with both 
 and above both the infused life of human personality, 
 with reason, conscience, love, and freedom of will to use 
 them. Closer and closer in each successive phase there 
 is revealed to us, in relation to created being, the Per- 
 sonality of God — not His attributes, but Himself. So 
 in this the supernatural sphere of the great Order, the 
 new and dominant Force should by analogy be, as 
 indeed it is, distinctly Supernatural, in harmony with 
 the lower forces, but distinct from all. For it is the 
 completion of that relation of true personality — all the 
 number numberless of human souls being drawn to the 
 Personality, at once Divine and human, of the Eternal 
 Son, in a communion wrought out by the Eternal 
 Spirit of God, and restoring us to the sonship of the 
 Eternal Father. As He Himself upon earth, transcend- 
 ing in His Divine Nature all created being, yet entered 
 into all phases of that being — swayed the forces of the 
 material world, gave or restored the power of life, 
 healed and ruled by a Divine sympathy the souls of 
 men — so there is a similar power in the new life, 
 which, by His presence in the soul. He implants and 
 sustains in humanity. Supernatural in itself, yet it 
 embraces, just because it transcends, all the lower 
 forces, which tell upon the complex nature of man. 
 
 It belongs, again, to this analogy, that even that 
 Kingdom of God, which the Incarnation inaugurated on 
 earth, should have its appointed period of development, 
 and then pass, by a closer relation still to God, into a 
 new and higher Kingdom, when the fulness of its time 
 
III.] The fiUiire perfection. 137 
 
 lias been accomplished. That for the individual man 
 there should be a future perfection, of body and spirit — 
 that the struggle of the Cliurch militant should pass 
 into the peace of the Church triumphant — tliat both 
 these forms of perfection should conje from perfected 
 communion with God — is surely so far from being a 
 strange thing, that it is accordant with the natural 
 order — nay a part of that order in the larger sense of 
 the word ' Natural,' at which we have already glanced. 
 
 As of the Christ in Himself, so is it also of the 
 ' Christ of us.' In His Divine Person there were the 
 material elements of His human body, akin to the 
 lifeless material world ; there was the physical life, a 
 part of the great Organic Creation ; there was the true 
 humanity of the spiritual nature, in which He was in 
 all points like His brethren ; but crowning all, and yet 
 interpenetrating all, there was the essence of the Divine 
 Nature. 
 
 So the redeemed humanity, which He has made a 
 part of Himself, is the crown of the continuous Evo- 
 lution from the material to the psychical, from the 
 psychical to the spiritual ; but yet beyond that natural 
 progress it rises even now into the Supernatural sphere 
 of regeneration and salvation, by the indwelling in it 
 of the Son of God ; and shall rise hereafter, when He 
 manifests Himself by a yet higher manifestation, into a 
 higher perfection, because a yet closer communion with 
 Him. The * Christ in us ' is at once ' our life ' in the 
 present, and ' the hope of glory ' for the future. 
 
LECTUEE IV. 
 
 CHRIST AND ALL CREATION. 
 
 In the dupensatmi of the fulness of the times to gather up all 
 things i?i Christ, both ivhich are i?t heaven and which are in earth, 
 even in Him, in tvhom ive also have obtained inheritance. — Eph. 
 i. lo, II. 
 
 ' All things in Christ'— the scope of this phrase, as in 
 the New Testament, so in all Christian thought derived 
 from it, grows by a continual expansion of meaning. As 
 our knowledge itself expands, we pa5>s from tlie sphere 
 of our own individual being to the larger sphere of 
 humanity, and the earth which subserves humanity, 
 and then, beyond even this, to what seems to us the 
 infinite greatness of the Universe itself While we 
 thus pass on, the light about us becomes dimmer, and 
 yet larger and grander in its revelations, as our spiri- 
 tual eye adapts itself to its new conditions. We ' lose 
 ourselves,' on the one hand, in the increasing sense of 
 our own material insignificance : we ' find ourselves,' 
 on the other, in the wondering consciousness of the 
 spiritual greatness of the mind, which thus advances 
 continually towards the discovery of the ^reat laws 
 of all being. Such advance is inevitable ; for, accord- 
 ing to the profound teaching of Holy Scripture, the 
 wisdom of man — the knowledge (that is) of the end 
 
The universal Headship of Chi'ist. 139 
 
 and object of his individual life — is impossible without 
 some glimpse of the 'Wisdom of God' in the great 
 laws which rule all Creation. How shall this glimpse 
 be ours ? If we take with us the unchanged and 
 unchangeable revelation of God in Claist, the two 
 elements of this antithesis are brought together in 
 one. In Him we see summed up all the infinite great- 
 ness of ' things in Heaven and things in Earth ' : and 
 yet we know that in Him our own souls have ' received 
 an inheritance ' — the inheritance of a true sonship of 
 God. 
 
 (I) In the course of thought as to the relation of 
 scientific knowledo-e of Law to Christ, which we are 
 seeking to trace out, we have hitherto considered lead- 
 ing examples of its effect of confirmation — by the 
 establishment of the truth of the natural Lavv^s of 
 humanity, which the Christian revelation of the Su- 
 pernatural assumes, that it may at once fill and tran- 
 scend them. We go on now to the effect of what we 
 may call elucidation, bringing out elements in the Keve- 
 lation given to that faith, which in earlier days, being 
 less correspondent with man's knowledge, were less 
 explicitly realized, and being less needed for strong 
 consciousness of God, were less practically regarded. 
 Still, following the rapid advance of Physical discovery, 
 we may consider, as thus brought out and illustrated 
 by modern thought, the grand declaration — briefly 
 enuntiated in the text, and worked out more fully 
 in many of the later Books of the New Testament — 
 of the Headship of Clirist over the whole of created 
 being, as 'gathered up' in Ilim. 
 
140 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 Naturally enough that declaration, though unhesi- 
 tatingly accepted, remained in comparative abeyance 
 to the faith of earlier days. To the Psalmist or 
 Prophet of old, meditating on the works of God, the 
 earth, with all its store of wonder and beauty minister- 
 ing to the welfare of man, occupied prominently, almost 
 exclusively, the field of thought. It cannot, indeed, 
 be supposed that in any age a thoughtful mind, gazing 
 on the starlit sky, or watching the sun and the moon 
 in their courses, could have failed to gain from such 
 contemplation some vague idea of an almost immeasur- 
 able vastness in Creation, held together in a perfect 
 beauty and order ; and so have extended far beyond 
 the earth its conception of the creating and sustain- 
 ing Sovereignty of God. The adoring wonder of the 
 eighth and nineteenth Psalms, and the more meditative 
 utterances of the Books of Job and Proverbs, show how 
 powerfully this irresistible conviction told upon the 
 imagination, and through it both upon the mind and 
 upon the heart. But still all this was but as a faintly 
 luminous background to the more vivid realization of 
 God on this our earth. The very revelation of God, 
 through the voices, which * without speech or lan- 
 guage' told of 'His glory and the wonder of His 
 works,' was but a part of His dispensation to man, 
 leading up naturally to the plain and explicit revela- 
 tion in ' the Law of the Lord.' And so from it the 
 soul came back without shock or bewilderment, to 
 acknowledge God's 'visiting' and 'regarding' man, 
 as having dominion over the works of His hands, 
 and illuminating every human soul by the light of 
 
IV.] The Ptolemaisin of ancient thought. 141 
 
 His special Kevelation of Hiraself. Even in tlie days 
 of St. Paul, although in the Greek schools of Philo- 
 sophy — not least that of Alexandria, with which we 
 know that Tarsus was closely in touch — Astronomy, 
 under the guidance of Hipparchus and Ptolemy, had 
 advanced far towards the knowledo-e of our own Plane- 
 tary System, and the observation of the numbers and 
 arrangements of the fixed stars ; yet still it is to be 
 lemembered that in the Ptolemaic Astronomy the 
 earth was looked upon as the centre of that nearer 
 system, with no notion of its immeasurable insigni- 
 ficance in comparison with the Sun, and that of the 
 vastness of the stellar multitude of suns and systems 
 numberless, there was as yet no adequate conception. 
 Substantially, therefore, in this matter the Apostolic 
 age stood very much on the same ground, as the greater 
 simplicity of earlier generations. Still in all the mate- 
 rial creation the earth was acknowledged without 
 hesitation, ns the true central sphere of the exhibition 
 of the Power and Wisdom and Love of God ; and this 
 conception of it in the natural order led on without 
 difficulty to the place of humanity, as the head of that 
 natural order, in the new and supernatural dispensa- 
 tion, which began in the Incarnation of the Eternal 
 Son. 
 
 It was rather in respect of the spiritual Creation, 
 that the thoughts of men then gained the idea of vast 
 extension of God's Sovereignty beyond this earth and 
 its life. Man stands in his complex nature on the 
 frontier between the psychical and the spiritual world ; 
 as below him animal life extends downward in minute 
 
142 Christ and all Creation. [lect, 
 
 and countless gradations to its crudest forms, so above 
 him the spiritual life was seen as stretching upwards, 
 in order after order of superior being, towards the 
 unveiled Presence of God. Gradually through the Old 
 Testament itself we can trace the fuller development 
 of the first simple conception of these angelic orders ; 
 in Jewish thought succeeding, the imagination de- 
 lighted to go beyond that which was revealed, and 
 to picture to itself * thrones and dominions and prin- 
 cipalities and powers ' of the celestial hierarchy — the 
 Diviner antitypes of the hierarchy of God's kingdom 
 upon earth. Yet still, as was natural, even this higher 
 creation was largely viewed in its relation to this our 
 world : the angels were recognised as God's ministers 
 to it — now ' shouting for joy,' as 'the morning stars 
 sang together' over the new-born earth — now swaying 
 the powers of terrestrial Nature — now ascending and 
 descending on God's messages to man, to the chosen 
 family, to the chosen nation, to all the nations of the 
 earth — till at last that ano-elic service came to its 
 full culmination in the ministry to the Birth, the Life, 
 the Passion, the Resurrection of the Incarnate Son of 
 God. While, therefore, the very belief in this higher 
 world gave a wonderful expansion and exaltation to the 
 sense of God's Sovereignty, and of the manifold Power 
 and Wisdom in which His infinite greatness expressed 
 itself to all His creatures, still man did not entirely 
 lose himself in the contemplation of it : he was not 
 bewildered, but simply cheered and inspired ; for he 
 felt that even throucrh it God was ordaininor a ministrv 
 for his salvation, and so could believe that even this 
 
IV.] The expansion of modern discovery. 143 
 
 higher world of being was * gathered up in Christ ' the 
 true Son of Man. 
 
 But to us all this is changed. Step by step, as 
 Science has enlarged our vision, the infinite vastness of 
 the material creation has grown, and still grows, upon 
 us. Our earth is known as but one, and far from the 
 largest, of the planets, circling round the greatness of 
 the Sun ; in itself a specimen of but one stage in the 
 evolution of worlds out of primeval nebula ; the whole 
 solar system but one of a host revolving round a 
 central sun, and this itself again but one of a countless 
 multitude of heavenly bodies, so vast, so immeasurably 
 distant, that the mind fails to gain any conception or 
 even imagination of the infinite greatness of the whole. 
 Yet it is a w^hole ; through all, so far as our Science 
 extends, by telescopic vision, by mathematical calcula- 
 tion, by spectroscopic analysis, the same material laws 
 rule, which we know more closely upon earth. And, 
 though we have no real knowledge, or even capacity of 
 sui'e inference, beyond this, yet the imagination cannot 
 resist the belief, that everywhere, as here, the higher 
 laws of animal and spiritual life must somehow fulfil 
 themselves in an appointed development ; and that 
 man may well be but one of many orders of rational 
 and moral beings, belonging, not like the angels, to a 
 supernatural sphere, but to the natural order, of which 
 we see but a small part here \ 
 
 ^ The controversy raised many years ago by Dr. Whewell's ' Plui'ality 
 of Worlds,' was singularly interesting and instructive — showing, as it 
 did, on the one hand, the scantiness or absence of evidence of habita- 
 tion of the other bodies of our system ; and, on the other, the irresistible 
 
144 Christ and all Creation. [LEcr. 
 
 So partly througli knowledge, partly through this all 
 but irresistible inference, there comes upon us a bewil- 
 dering sense of the vast unity of the universe. Nor 
 is this all. As we extend through the whole the 
 idea of slow growth through countless ages, which 
 Evolution brings home to us in relation to the earth, 
 there is added to the sense of vastness of space an 
 equally bewildering conception of an almost infinite 
 duration of time, hardly distinguishable to our finite 
 minds from the eternity of existence, which ancient 
 speculation attributed to the Universe. But, beyond 
 this, from the same idea of Evolution — involving to 
 many minds the conception of an immanent power, 
 however originated or infused, in that universe, which 
 is gradually developed, under these great pervading laws 
 into matter, life, spiritual being — there grows also upon 
 us the temptation to a Pantheistic worship of this 
 immanent power — this Soul of the Universe — this half- 
 personified Nature — as if it was not only a reality, but 
 the supreme and ultimate reality. It is, of course, no 
 new worship. What is it, after all, but the old Pytha- 
 gorean conception, which Virgil has embodied as in 
 immortal verse ^ ? But it comes upon our larger know- 
 power over the imagination, and through it over the intellect, of the 
 suggestion through analogy of a development thei-e, under different 
 conditions, indeed, yet essentially not unlike our own. 
 ^ Principio coelum et terras, camposque liqueutes, 
 Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra, 
 Spiritus intus alit, totamque infuFa per artus 
 Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. 
 Inde homiuum pecuduraque genus, vitaeque volantum, 
 Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus. 
 
 (Aen. vi. 724-729.) 
 
IV.] The modei'ii Pantheism. 145 
 
 ledge now with overwhelming force. Tliosc who just 
 catch and reflect the spirit of the age, tell us (like M. 
 Renan) that a vague sense of infinite space, infinite 
 time, infinite being diffused through both, is to super- 
 sede what is held — strangely enough — to be a poorer 
 and shabbier belief in Creationism, referring all to an 
 Infinite Personal Mind and Will, and is to satisfy, by 
 a corresponding vagueness of wonder and awe, the 
 inherent instinct of worship in the soul. 
 
 Let me repeat once more that this Pantheism has never 
 really maintained itself, as a living and working force 
 of belief, especially when we emerge from the schools of 
 speculation and imagination into the realities and needs 
 of every-day life. Against it there rises (as has been 
 said) a double protest from mind and heart — from the 
 strong inherent consciousness of our own personality, 
 and with it of conscious will as the one true cause, that 
 we know, and of conscious desimi as the o-uidino; force 
 of action, — from the homage of the conscience to 
 Eighteousness alone, which cannot accept a Soul of this 
 world, so strangely compacted of good and evil, as its 
 supreme moral authority. And this intellectual and 
 moral sense of our own personality leads us to 
 the worship of a Divine Personality, and to it 
 alone. Nay, the very increase of our knowledge of 
 the laws of order and growth in the Universe, by 
 testifying to the spiritual greatness of the mind in us, 
 compels the belief in a Divine Mind, of which ours is 
 but the image, as the Source and Maker of these laws. 
 It is a strange shallownes-s, as well as jn'ofanity, to 
 acknowledge that the heavens declare the glory of the 
 
 L 
 
146 Christ and all Creation, [lect. 
 
 finite discovering mind of Kepler or Newton, and to 
 deny their witness to the glory of an Infinite Creative 
 Mind of a living God. 
 
 But, even if we rise out of this dream to grasp what 
 the waking reality of life demands, and, passing through 
 immanence of power to the origination and guid;ince of 
 that power, ascend through stage after stage of Law, 
 to the final belief, old as humanity itself, in a true 
 First Cause, which is the source of all this infinite 
 vastness and complexity of Being ; still the bewilder- 
 ing awe of its greatness remains undiminished, if 
 not enhanced. Just as the loftiness of some supreme 
 mountain-peak most grows upon us, when we rise up 
 to it over ridge after ridge of lower heights, so through 
 this process of thought the infinite greatness of the 
 Supreme Power impresses itself upon the soul more and 
 more ; and thus when the mind returns upon itself, upon 
 its own littleness, and the littleness of the earth which 
 once seemed so great, the cry ' What is man \ ' sounds 
 with a new intensity and depth of meaning. Men find 
 it harder now, than the Psalmist found it, to add ' that 
 Thou so visitest,' * that Thou so regardest man,' ' to 
 crown him with glory and worship.' ' Tush ' (say they) 
 ' how shall God perceive us \ ' Can there be knowledge, 
 care, love, of such infinite littleness in the Most High ? 
 Even if He does vouchsafe to humanity some fragment 
 of His universal Providence, men ask still more em- 
 phatically, when the doctrine of the Incarnation is 
 presented to them, * How can we conceive that the In- 
 finite Godhead could deign to tabernacle in this I3igmy 
 humanity of ours, on the earth, which is but a speck in 
 
IV.] The difficulties of Iviagination. 147 
 
 the great heaven of the Universe \ Is there not here, 
 ill a moral, instead of a material form, a perpetuation 
 of the old exploded Ptolemaism, which makes the earth 
 and man the very centre of all the works of God \ ' 
 
 The difficulty is, indeed, as has been truly said ', one 
 of the imagination rather than the reason. For to a 
 Mind, really infinite, it is clear that no expansion of 
 scope implies imperfection in consideration and care 
 even of its least work. In measure we can realize this 
 in ourselves. Even in our finite nature we see that the 
 slightest action is characteristic, or, in other words, 
 that in the slightest work the essential character of 
 the worker is expressed ; and the highest wisdom and 
 genius show themselves especially in the capacity of 
 uniting grasp of the idea and the leading principles of 
 a great whole with minuteness of provision for accuracy 
 and perfection of detail — whether in completeness of 
 mechanical design and artistic conception, or in the 
 subtler completeness of foresight and influence, whicli 
 belong to leadership of men. If from our own finite- 
 ness we turn to the vastness of the material world of 
 Nature, the microscope has been said in this respect to 
 correct the telescope ; because, while the latter extends 
 our vision of the grandeur of Creation, the former 
 shows us a perfection of usefulness and beauty in the 
 
 ^ See Dr. IMartineau's Essay on ' God in Nature ' ; where he ex- 
 amines the growth of our conception of space and time, and correla- 
 tion of forces in Nature, and shows that it is merely to imagina- 
 tion, not to reason, that tliey create any difficulty in the ' religious 
 interpretation of Nature,' through which ' the world reports the 
 Power, neflects the Beauty, spreads abroad the ^Majesty of the First 
 Cause.' 
 
 L 2 
 
148 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 minutest organism, which — however it may have grown 
 to be what it is — yet bears, as it is, the impress of 
 a creating and sustaining purpose. Nor need our 
 ►sense of the material littleness of humanity lead us to 
 forget the truth of the old saying that ' Nature conceals 
 God; man reveals him' — that His highest attributes 
 are brought out, not by the beauty or majesty of 
 Nature, but by the spiritual life in humanity, which is 
 the ' broken light * from Him. Hence in the spiritual 
 world it is but reasonable to ask simply whether through 
 our intellectual and moral nature we have a sufficient 
 positive witness of ' God with us ' — whether the truth 
 of the Incarnation establishes itself to us as, both 
 historically and ideally, the crown of His revelations of 
 Himself to men — without allowing ourselves to be 
 troubled by bewilderment as to the infinite greatness 
 and variety of His relation to all His creatures. Here 
 ' egoism is the true modesty.' It is wisdom to know in 
 part, and in part truly, without obscuring the reality of 
 such partial knowledge by the sense of our ignorance 
 of the Universal. If God ' fulfils Himself in many 
 ways,' He does not the less perfectly on that account 
 fulfil Himself in each. 
 
 But it is a fatal error to slight the power of Imagina- 
 tion, either as a potent factor in human action, or as 
 giving a certain power of insight to human tlionght ; 
 and so this extension of our knowledge of the immeasur- 
 able greatness and variety of Creation may well force 
 us to enquire more earnestly than of old, whether there 
 is any corresponding phase of the doctrine of Christ, 
 which bears upon the being of this vast Creation as a 
 
IV.] Right proportion in hiiuian knoivledge. 149 
 
 whole, up to which, therefore, this growth of Science 
 leads our faith. 
 
 (II) Now, in spite of this great expansion of thought, 
 tlie old saying remains as true as ever that 
 
 ' The in'0[)er study of inankiiid is man ' — 
 
 man in himself and man in relation to God. In the 
 outer circles of our knowledge of the universe, the light 
 is dim and scanty, disclosing to us only a few vague 
 general laws of material being, with which we have 
 ourselves no close concern, and under which w^e have 
 no practical energy of influence. As we pass inwards 
 through our own system of worlds to the earth our 
 habitation, our light grows brighter and clearer, and 
 this vagueness is exchanged for an ever-increasing 
 definiteness and richness of knowledge ; while the 
 power and duty of acting with conscious purpose con- 
 tinually increases with it. At last we come to the in- 
 most sphere of humanity — our own individual humanity 
 juid the collective humanity of our race — and there, 
 through the added intuition of the inner consciousness, 
 the light is at its clearest intensity; and the sense of 
 responsibility for our own action assumes an imperious 
 tone of moral command, because the power of sueli 
 action becomes more absolute. Spirituully, as w^ell as 
 physically, that which is nearest, though least in itself, 
 becomes for us greatest to the mind and dearest to the 
 heart. 
 
 Naturally, therefore, in a Eevelation which addresses 
 itself to man, and which, though it diffuses an intellec- 
 tual light, has beyond all else a moral and spiritual 
 purpose, the main teuour and direction of thought look 
 
150 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 to humanity. The earth in the whole order of its past 
 Evolution, and in the Laws through which it is sus- 
 tained now by the Divine Wisdom, is viewed mainly as 
 ministering to man, at once its liighest creature and its 
 lord. Even the greater Creation, beyond, above, around 
 it, is conceived, as at once influencing tlie outward life of 
 the earth and man, and manifesting to the soul, in the 
 vision of its Design and Beauty, the handwriting of the 
 message of God. It must be so : for if it were not so, 
 there would be no correspondence with the actual con- 
 ditions of human thought and life. Accordingly, wdien 
 tliat Revelation has its consummation in the Incarna- 
 tion, the pervading idea is of its bearing upon the 
 humanity, which the Son of God deigned to assume. 
 It is as giving life and guidance to that humanity, that 
 the Headship of Christ becomes an ever-recurring phrase, 
 a household word in the family of God, first as the life 
 of each man's individual being \ next as the indwelling 
 life of the whole Catholic Church, coextensive in idea 
 and promise with all humankind 2. 
 
 But althouo'h this is so, and althouo;h (if we mav 
 venture thus to speak) it ought so to be, yet there is an 
 element of larger scope in the Revelation of Christ, 
 formins; the backo-round rather than the foreoround of 
 the Divine picture, yet necessary to its completeness 
 as a whole. It is the truth of the Headship of Christ 
 over all created being — the ' gathering up of all things 
 in Him, both w^hich are in heaven and which are in 
 earth.' It is wrought out for us mainly in the later 
 books of the New Testament, corresponding to these 
 ^ See I Cor. xi. 3. '^ See Eph. i. 22, 23. 
 
IV.] The ancient speculations. 151 
 
 later years of the Apostolic age, when the preaching of* 
 tlie two lesser and closer Headships had done its 
 work, and individual souls, drawn one by one to Christ, 
 made up already the body of an organized and growing 
 Church in all provinces of the civilized world. 
 
 It was, it would seem, mainly to meet the theories 
 framed, and to solve the problems raised by human 
 speculation, that this largest Christian conception was 
 brought out. The Gospel, now emerging into a position 
 of living power and authority, which even the world 
 could not ignore, came necessarily into contact with all 
 the higher thought of the day — a day (be it remarked) 
 as busy in cosmological speculations and mystic theo- 
 sophies as our own. It could no longer be despised as a 
 mere Eastern superstition ; it was seen to enshrine, not 
 only a strong moral enthusiasm, but a mysterious wis- 
 dom. Had it not (men began to ask) some philosophic 
 significance ? How could it be interwoven with mystic 
 speculation as to the origin of being % How could the 
 idea of a Redemption of the world — in the recognition 
 of which the thought of the age, strongly affected by 
 Christian influence, differed from the philosophies of 
 days gone by — be wrought into these speculative 
 theories ' How could Christianity in all its aspects be 
 harmonized with the laws of the actual world, as yet 
 discovered or surmised % 
 
 In that enquiry we trace the germ of that extraor- 
 dinary development of various speculations which we call 
 Gnostic — subtle, comprehensive, mystic, often fantastic 
 — as ingeniously elaborate, as obviously artificial, as the 
 cycles and epicycles of the astronomy of old days, or the 
 
152 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 last shadowy imaginations of modern theosophy. Their 
 very name imphes that they arose first from an ex- 
 aggeration of knowledge above the place, which it 
 rightlv occupies in the harmony of the full Christian 
 life, and next, from a disinclination to bound its capacity 
 of extension within the limits of faith in the Revelation 
 of Christ. So, venturing to enter boldly the regions of 
 mystery, the Gnostic theories concerned themselves with 
 two great questions, which have exercised men at all 
 times, and strongly exercise them now — the speculative 
 question, how the Absolute Eternal Being can so enter 
 into relations with the finite, as to become really the First 
 Cause of all creation, and the Life of all finite beings 
 — the moral question of the cause of the existence of 
 evil, physical and spiritual evil, in the world and in man, 
 conflicting, as it obviously does conflict, by negative 
 hindrance or by positive antagonism, with the superior 
 power of good \ Gnostic Cosmology sought to answer 
 the one question by the interposition between the In- 
 
 * Two Metaphysical problems may bs particularly specified as those 
 which Gnosticism borrowed from heathen jihilosophy, and to which 
 the Christian Kevelation was made subordinate — the Absolute Exist- 
 ence and the problem of the Origin of Evil. . . . The search after an 
 Absolute first principle, the enquiry how the Absolute and Uncondi- 
 tioned can give rise to the relative and conditioned, is one which, when 
 pursued as a theological inquiiy, almost inevitably leads to a denial 
 of the Personality of God. . . . The other great problem, the Origin 
 of Evil, naturally assumes a similar character. . . . The Personality 
 of God having disappeared, the personality of man naturally disappears 
 with it. . . . Contemplated from this point of view, evil is no longer a 
 moral, but a natural, phenomenon ; it becomes identical with the 
 imperfect, the relative, the finite. . . . Peligion and morality become 
 nothing more than curious questions of Metaphysics.' (Mansel's 
 Gnostic Heresies, Lect. i. pp. 11-13.) 
 
IV.] The Gnostic theories. 153 
 
 finite and the finite of a series of emanations — angelic 
 in its Jewish forms, impersonal Aeons ^ ages (that is) of 
 time, strangely metamorphosed into beings or personifica- 
 tions of the Divine — in the more purely Gentile forms. 
 Gnostic Dualism explained the other by an inherent 
 evil in the world of matter ^, either a force of passive 
 resistance to the Spirit, or a force of positive and tur- 
 bulent antagonism. Under both aspects Gnosticism 
 endeavoured to weave Christianity into its own philo- 
 sophic schemes — now (as in Valentinus) seeing in its 
 Author but one of many emanations from God — now 
 (as in Marcion) shaping it by mutilation and perversion 
 to express the ideas of Jewish or Gentile mysticism. 
 Against the first beginnings of this * Science falsely so 
 
 ^ The system of Aeons is perhaps set forth in its wildest luxuriance 
 of speculation in the theory of Valentinus — ' filling the supermundane 
 region with a succession of Aeons or celestial beings, the ideal 
 prototypes of things imperfectly realized on earth.' (See ^lansel, 
 Lect. xi. pp. 166-183.) His whole system was 'an Eclecticism 
 derived from various sources . . . fiom the Platonic philosophy. . . 
 from the pantheistic philosophies of India . . . from the Judaism of 
 Alexandria,' 
 
 ' ' The evil in the world ' in this theory ' must be due to the 
 Creator of the world ; it must 1^^ inherent in the world from the 
 beginning — the result of some weakness, at least, or some ignorance, 
 if not of some positive malignity, concurring in its first formation. . . 
 'I'he Creator of the world, the God of the Jewish people, may be re- 
 garded merely as an imperfect, or as a positively malignant being. . . He 
 may be an emanation frona the Supreme God, imperfect but still a servant 
 of God . . accomplishing the Divine Purpose . . blindly and ignorantly. . . 
 Or he may be a being hostile to God ; either the ofispring of some power 
 alien from God and antagonistic, ... or at least one so far degenerated 
 from the oi-iginal Source of good, that his imperfection becomes in 
 result an actual contrariety to good.' (Mansel's Gnostic Heresies, 
 Lect. ii. 19, 20.) 
 
154 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 called ' the true Christian teacher necessarily protested 
 with all vehemence, as destroying both the simplicity 
 and the solid reality of the Gospel. But yet we can see 
 that it was overruled to minister to the fullest develop- 
 ment of the Christian truth itself, bv forcins^ him to 
 pass in thought beyond the limits of the earth and 
 humanity, and to proclaim the one Eternal Son of God, 
 as not only the Saviour of men from evil and the Con- 
 queror of death, but as the Head, the indwelling Light 
 and Life, of all created being, 'summing up all things 
 in Himself' — even the spiritual Creation above man of 
 ' thrones and principalities and powers ' in heaven — 
 even the natural Creation below man, in the visible 
 realm of the earth and of all that surrounds it in the 
 greater universe. 
 
 Now in our own days, just as in the Apostolic age, 
 it seems to me that the large extension of scientific 
 discovery, and the still larger expansion of scientific 
 speculation, force us to dwell more than we have yet 
 done on this largest conception of the Headship of 
 Christ. True it is that this modern advance in en- 
 largement of thought is widely different in character 
 from the old ; while yet, in the luxuriance of the ancient 
 speculation, we constantly come across fantastic diffi- 
 culties and f{xntastic theories to meet them, which re- 
 mind us of the philosophies of our own day. But our 
 modern thought deals, so far as it assumes scien- 
 tific form, with the material, instead of the spiritual 
 Creation : althoucfh, bv a singularlv striking: and in- 
 structive reaction, it seems to have stimulated a new 
 curiosity, a new boldness of theosophic speculation, a 
 
IV.] The enlargement of Christian doctrine. 155 
 
 new growth of mystic fancy, in respect of immaterial 
 powei's, laws, beings, not dreamt of in the merely 
 physical philosophy. But yet this distinction, which 
 naturally arises out of that direction of the expansion 
 of modern thought, which has been already referred to, 
 does not prevent its having the same effect in suggest- 
 ing, almost requiring, this enlargement of our faith ; 
 nor does it prevent the old truth of the Apostolic age, 
 from giving the answer, which this modern thought 
 demands, 
 
 (III) We have but to consider more in detail, what 
 that answer really is, and how it grows out more and 
 more definitely, with the development of Christian doc- 
 trine, through the later books of the New Testament. 
 We must see that, to meet our new conditions of 
 thought, no new doctrine has to be added to it, even 
 by inference ; only that which perhaps to earlier ages 
 sounded but as a majestic burst of adoration, becomes 
 now a Divine philosophy of plainly necessary truth. 
 
 In St. Paul's teaching it belongs mainly to the 
 Epistles of the Captivity — naturally more meditative 
 in the enforced silence and retirement from the active 
 work of Evangelism — naturally having the character of 
 a profound teaching to discij)les already won, in a 
 Church already developed, rather than of the earnest, 
 practical, impassioned pleading of the preacher with 
 those who needed to be drawn to Christ. True that in 
 his first teaching of the Greek mind at Corinth, he had 
 summed up all worship, in the consciousness as of ' the 
 One God the Father, of whom are all things and we 
 unto Him,' so of * the One Lord Jesus Ciirist, through 
 
156 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 whom are all things and we through Him ^' True 
 that in the Epistle to the Eomans his view of the 
 Redemption of Christ extends beyond humanity to 'the 
 whole creation,' as groaning and travailing in pain to- 
 gether, and holds out ' the promise of its deliverance 
 from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty 
 of the children of God I' But now these earlier 
 indications of larger thought are wrought out into 
 detail. 
 
 In the great Creed of the Godhead and manhood 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, drawn out in the Philippian 
 Epistle, His exalted majesty of Salvation is viewed 
 as receiving the due homage, and therefore as affecting 
 the being, not only of man, but of ' things in Heaven 
 and things in earth and things under the earth.' But 
 it is in the other Epistles of the Captivity that the 
 great conception unfolds itself 
 
 In the Epistle to the Ephesians the leading idea of 
 the unity of all men, Jews and Gentiles alike — in that 
 Catholic Church, which in itself extends beyond the 
 earth, because it starts from the eternal predestination 
 of God, before humanity was, and draws its life from 
 Him who is exalted at the ri^ht hand of God above all 
 heavenly powers — naturally expands, as in the text, 
 into the grander idea of His sovereign and eternal 
 relation to all created being, both in heaven and in 
 earth, summed up in His Divine Personality. 
 
 More distinct and explicit still is the enunciation of 
 the same great truth in the parallel Epistle to the 
 Church of Colossae, where clearly some Judaic — perhaps 
 ^ I Cor. viii. 6, ^ Rom. viii. 21, 
 
n.] The Christology of St. Paul. 157 
 
 Essenic^ — form of Gnostic speculation had souglit to 
 fuse in a vague mysticism the grand simplicity of the 
 Headship of Christ, and with it the reality of the uni- 
 versal Mediation, from which there flowed out to all 
 men deliverance from sin and death. There the Lord 
 Jesus Christ is set forth as the perfect Image — (that is) 
 the perfect manifestation of the Invisible God ; in whom 
 ' dwelleth all the fulness,' all the Infinite Attributes ' of 
 Godhead,' and that * bodily,' working visibly through a 
 true humanity; and accordingly His relation to the 
 whole universe, di'awing its being from God, is wrought 
 out with deliberate and emphatic explicitness. ' First 
 begotten/ He is of the Father 'before all creation 2,' 
 'through Him,' and 'for Him' all the universe was 
 created in its beginning'; 'in Him' now in its full 
 development it consists, holding together its manifold 
 unity of life; on Him rest both its material and visible 
 existences, and its higher spiritual orders of being, the 
 mysterious thrones, and principalities, and powers, far 
 above us in heaven, as truly, though not as closely, as 
 the order of humanity itsplf, gathered into a nearer 
 unity with Him in the Church on earth 2. 
 
 Clear again is the same order of deeper thought in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews — evidently belonging to much 
 the same period, evidently bearing the impress of the 
 Pauline teaching ; and perhaps this identity of idea is 
 
 ' See Ijiglitfoot's Einstle to the Colosslans. 
 
 "^ "Without entering on any etymological and grammatical reasoning, 
 \\\Q whole context shows that we must so I'ender the TrpwroroKos ttuctjjs 
 KTio-fo)? of the original. 
 
 ^ See Col. i. 15, 16-19 ') "• 9- 
 
158 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 the more striking, because tlie special object of the 
 Epistle, and the special phase of thought which it 
 addresses, are plainly different. There again the de- 
 claration of Christ, as ' the brightness of God's glory 
 and the express Image of His Person' is drawn out 
 into the same relation to created being; 'through Him 
 the worlds were made'; 'by the word of His power 
 they are upheld'; above all, even the highest angelic 
 creation, He is exalted as the true Son of God ; to 
 Him is applied the language of the ancient adoration 
 of the Eternal Source of Being, who made both the 
 earth and the heavens in the beginning, and who shall 
 endure when they all shall wax old and perish ^ 
 
 Then we have but to pass on through another genera- 
 tion to the close of the Apostolic age, and hear how 
 in the final utterances of St. John, the same truth 
 grows out to a calm and majestic completeness, and is 
 clenched (so to speak) by its expression in the very 
 name of the Christ — as ' the Word of God ' in the 
 mystic visions of the Apocalypse, as * the Word of 
 Life ' in the profound teaching of the Epistle, as ' the 
 Word,' who ' in the beo;innino; was with God and was 
 God ' in the yet profounder Prologue to the Gospel, 
 enshrining the Supreme Truth, which the whole record 
 of that Gospel is designed to unfold and illustrate. 
 
 The Word — it is indeed 'the Name above every 
 name,' above even those titles of adoration at which 
 we have already glanced, in a twofold fulness of mean- 
 ing. It takes up and crowns with a Divine perfection 
 two distinct lines of thought. In it there is, on the 
 ^ See Heb. i. 2-4, 10-12. 
 
IV.] The doctrine of ' the JVord.' 159 
 
 one hand, the completion of all the teaching and the 
 interpretation of the Old Testament, both on the ' Word 
 of the Lord,' as the full manifestation in the realm of 
 matter and in the realm of mind of the Invisible God- 
 head, and on the Eternal Wisdom ' from everlasting, 
 Irom the beginning or ever the world was' working, 
 when * He prepared the heaven .... gave a decree to 
 the sea, and appointed the foundations of the earth ^' 
 On that side it brings out the Manifestation of the 
 Living God, transcending, infinitely transcending, all His 
 Creation, which in idea is of the essence of Theism, 
 and which, as realized by the sense of a living rela- 
 tion of the soul to Him, is of the essence of all vital 
 Eeligiou. Into it, again, are taken up those Alexan- 
 drine speculations — half Jewish, half Platonic and 
 Stoic, which we read (for example) in Philo — of the 
 A0709, not so much an express Word revealing the tran- 
 scendent Godhead, but as an indwelling Eeason of God, 
 energetic in all the laws of the material and spiritual 
 Creation — speculations which, as the Jew or the Greek 
 in him prevails, hover (so to speak) between a true 
 Personality of indwelling Being on the one hand, and a 
 mere personification of the Ideas and Attriljutes of 
 Godhead on the other. On this side it recognises 
 that immanence in created being of a Life, gradually 
 unfolding itself under an inherent Design of purpose, 
 into all the manifold forms of material, psychical, 
 spiritual being, which is the ' higher Pantheism ' of 
 
 ' See Prov. viii. 22-31. The whole chapter is a magnificent com- 
 pletion of the personifications of the Divine Wisdom, which we read 
 in the earlier chapteis. 
 
i6o Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 philosopliical Science ^ In this (as lins been truly 
 eaid -) ' The Christian doctrine of God brings together 
 two one-sided views. Reliction demands as a condition 
 of its existence a Grod who transcends the Universe ; 
 2)hilosophy as imperiously demands His immanence 
 in Nature.' ' The unsolved problem of Platonism, 
 which is the unsolved problem of the non-Christian 
 philosophy in our day, is met in the Christian 
 doctrine.' 
 
 And the consequences of both these ideas, united in 
 Him, are clearly drawn out. If we look to the Gospel, 
 He is, on the one hand, ' in the beginning ' before all Crea- 
 tion, and in that Creation ' all things were made through 
 Him, and without Him was not any one thing made, 
 that hath been made.' ' In Him was life,' the sole in- 
 herent Eternal life, expressed in the very Name Jehovah. 
 On the other hand, that life is made ' the life of men,' an 
 indwelling light — the light of mankind in its entirety, 
 and the individual light, which lighteth every man — so 
 that even the supreme mystery of the tabernacling in 
 human flesh, fore-ordained from the beginning, is but the 
 new and transcendent perfection of that light and life 
 
 ' See Westcott's Gospel according to St. John, Introd., pp. xv-xviii. 
 His conclusion is that mainly St. John's doctrine is the development 
 of the Hebraic doctrine of the Word — ' the fulfilment of the three 
 distinct lines of preparatory Revelation, Avhich were severally con- 
 nected with the Angel of the Presence . . . with the Word of God . . . 
 Avith Wisdom ' ; but that secondai-ily the speculations of Alexandria — 
 mingling (as in Philo) 'the Stoic, the Platonic, and the Hebraic 
 currents of thought,' — ' quickened and developed elements, which might 
 otherwise have remained latent.' 
 
 '^ See JVir. Aubrey ]\Ioore's singularly able and suggestive Essay on 
 ' The Chrii:tian Doctrine of God,' in Lux Mundi. 
 
IV.] The development of this doctrine, i6i 
 
 indwelling in humanity \ If we turn to the Epistle, 
 we are taught how the three great Aphorisms, ' God 
 is Light,' ' God is Righteousness,' * God is Love,' which 
 trace up all good to the Eternal Source of Being, are 
 fulfilled in His true Godhead ; and yet, through all 
 these, He is shown as by His Incarnation indwelling in 
 the souls of men, and implanting there the likeness 
 of those very attributes of God, in earnest now, in 
 perfection hereafter ^ 
 
 So vvas gradually unfolded the largest and deepest 
 truth of Christ, to meet the needs and enquiries of that 
 Apostolic age, which has been held to be a kind of 
 epitome of the whole future history of the Church. As 
 the centuries rolled on, and Christianity asserted its 
 world-wide power, over the thought as well as the life 
 of men — in its Creed and Theology over the critical 
 or mystical speculation of the East, as in its Catholic 
 unity over the social organization and order of the 
 West — its greatest thinkers drew out more and more 
 the meaning of this complete Scriptural teaching ; till 
 St. Athanasius, in the great struggle on which the very 
 life of Christianity hung, put (so to speak) the finishing 
 touch to the ever- increasing realization of this great 
 truth. Pleading with the educated Gentile thought of 
 his day, he sets forth to them the origin and continuous 
 life of all created being, in ' the Holy Word of God, 
 almighty and all perfect/ who 'having entered upon 
 all things, and having everywhere unfolded His power, 
 and enlightened all things visible and invisible, holds 
 
 * John i. 1-4, 13. 
 ' See I John i. 5-7, compared with ii. 9-1 1 ; iii. 2-10; iv. 8-21. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 and binds all together into Himself, leaving out nothing 
 destitute of His power, but quickening and sustaining 
 each thing separately, and all as collected in one.' To 
 that Creative power he refers in detail all the elements 
 of material being — cold and heat, moisture and dry- 
 ness — as blended by it into a harmonious whole ; in 
 obedience to the Word he tells how the sea holds its 
 place, and the earth brings forth her produce. Lastly, 
 summing up all, he concludes that ' as a musician, 
 having tuned his lyre, and harmonized together the 
 high with the low notes, and the middle notes with the 
 extremes, makes the resulting music one ; so the Wis- 
 dom of God, grasping the universe like a lyre, blending 
 the things of air with those of earth, and the things of 
 heaven with those of air, binding together the whole 
 and the parts, and ordering all by His Counsel and His 
 Will, makes the world itself and its appointed order one 
 in fair and harmonious perfection ; yet He Himself, 
 moving all things, remains unmoved with the Father ^' 
 It would be difficult to express more forcibly and more 
 completely the conception at once of transcendence and 
 immanence in the creative power of the Word of God. 
 
 (IV) Not unlike this is the expansion of Christian 
 thought, suggested in our own day by the rapid en- 
 largement of our scientific knowledge of the universe 
 and its pervading Order — its transcendent First Cause 
 and its immanent Life. That tendency has been ex- 
 pressed in the well-known saying, that, in contrast with 
 
 * See St. Athanasius' Oratio contra Gentes, I'eferred to and partially 
 quoted by ^Ir. Aubrey Moore in his Essay on ' The Christian Doctrine 
 of God,' in Lux Mundi. See Note G. 
 
IV.] The lesson of enlarged knowledge. 163 
 
 the natural currents of thought in mediaeval times, and 
 in the period which began from the Heformation, we 
 have now to pass from the Cliristology of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul to that of St. John, from ' Christ risen ' as our 
 King, and from * Christ crucified ' as our Saviour, to 
 • Christ the Incarnate Word of God,' in whom all things 
 and all beings consist. In that saying there is, as 
 in such sayings generally, only a rough approximate 
 truth. It is evident, even from the references already 
 made, that the whole Christology of the New Testament 
 is substantially one in its essential idea, wrought out in a 
 continuous development. It is certain that, in realizing 
 our own relation to God, all these phases of Christian 
 faith must coexist and interpenetrate each other. The 
 deepest student of the mysteries of God is at the same 
 time the siimer, whose eye must turn to the cross, and 
 is ever on the way to that slmdow of death, which is 
 lighted only by the Resurrection. But still the saying 
 is so far true as this — that our point of view is neces- 
 sarily modified by our enlaiged Science, which is as 
 a schoolmaster to bring us to understand the true 
 meaning of this universal Headship of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, over the whole vastness of created being, and 
 through all the ages from the beginning to the end of 
 time ; while yet throughout we retain that ineradicable 
 sense of our own moral and spiritual personality in the 
 close personal relation to Him, which the text expresses 
 as giving us in Him our own inheritance of God '. 
 
 ' ' In every age the theory of the Divine Economy will pi'eseiit itself" 
 under an aspect corresponding witli the general aspect, under whic|i 
 the whole finite order presents itself. It cannot but be that the 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 What is tlie full meaning, and what the actual power, 
 of this universal Headship we do not know, and we 
 cannot expect to know, with the same clearness which 
 attaches to His Headship of our own individual soul, or 
 His Headship of the Catholic Church. For these ap- 
 ])eal to our own moral sense ; they belong to our own 
 spiritual life ; they concern our own salvation. With- 
 out the knowledge of these, through mind and heart, 
 we cannot lightly live or die. The larger truth seems 
 rather to meet the needs of our intellect and imagina- 
 tion ; and to teach us through both the lesson mainly 
 of wonder and adoration. It is sufficient to know of 
 this vast material universe, that all in the past w^as 
 called into being 'through Him'; all in the present 
 consists in its marvellous order ' in Him ' ; all in the 
 future shall work itself out ' unto Him,' to fulfil His 
 jiurpose, to manifest His glory. It is sufficient to know 
 that of all the spiritual order — as of men and angels, so 
 of any other races of rational creatures, which the far-off 
 orbs of heaven may contain — He is both the Light and 
 the Life — the Light of the intellectual, the Life of the 
 moral and spiritual being. It is sufficient to know that 
 the immanence of Divine Power in all creation, which our 
 
 views, which are entei-tained of the relations of man to the earth on 
 >vhich he lives, of the earth to the universe, of the period of human 
 life to the measurable period of the existence of the objects of sense, 
 bhould affect our views of the Redemption and Consummation of man, 
 not in essence, but in mode of apprehension. . . . The sovereign pre- 
 eminence of Scripture, as the vehicle of spiritual knowledge, lies in 
 this, — that it finds fuller interpretation from growing experience.' 
 (Westcott on 'The Gospel of Ci'eation ' in the Ej)istle,s of St. John, 
 
 V- 305-) 
 
IV.] The Indwelling of Christ in Creation. 165 
 
 Science seems more and more clearly to disclose, comes 
 from the Omnipresence in it of a Divine Personality, 
 after the distinct image of which our own personality 
 was framed — the Presence of the true and Eternal Son 
 of God, at once dwelling in it, and yet infinitely 
 transcending it. It is sufficient thus to feel of all the 
 immeasurable vastness of the universe, what we know 
 more clearly of our own life and the life of humanity — 
 that (according to the old theological distinction) all 
 things are ' from the Father ' by transcendent Will, 
 all things * through the Son ' by indwelling Presence, 
 all things ' by the operation of the Holy Spirit,' working 
 out the realization of that Presence, and for this brood- 
 ing over the face of material creation, as well as moving 
 in the heart of the spiritual. If we can believe these 
 truths in broad, majestic outline, even though all de- 
 tails be to us unknown or dimly seen, then we can go 
 on in willing and hopeful sympathy with every advance 
 of the knowledge of Nature in its largest sense, with 
 every new discovery of the vastness of the universe, and 
 the manifold unity of the Power, gradually developed 
 in it through immeasurable time into infinite variety — - 
 sure that in this immensity we shall neither lose our- 
 selves nor lose the knowledge of God, because every- 
 where we find tlie Presence of Him, in whom is the life 
 of our own souls, and the corporate spiritual life of the 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 All this belongs to the truth of the Presence of Christ 
 in and with the universe from the beginning ; but, 
 as we pursue in faith this line of thought, we shall, 
 I think be led naturally to infer, although we cannot 
 
1 66 Christ and all C^'eation. [lect. 
 
 pretend to know, that even the Manifestation of the 
 Son of God in our flesh, which is the supernatural crown 
 of God's dispensation to humanity, and which there- 
 fore primarily and properly concerns humanity, may yet 
 have some larger bearing also on this larger order of 
 things. For, in respect of our humanity, that deeper 
 teaching of the New Testament, at which we have 
 glanced, represents the Incarnation as having close con- 
 nection with the indwelling in it from the beginning 
 of the Word of God. It passes on without break from 
 the life-giving power, flowing from that indwelling to 
 all creation, to tell how the 'Word was made flesh and 
 tabernacled visibly amoni>; us': so that men in Him 
 actually beheld the Divine glory, and had revealed to 
 them, through the only-begotten Son, the Father, whom 
 no man hath seen, or can see. Even the redemptive 
 power of that Manifestation, while it properly concerns 
 men, and most closely those who have the first-fruits 
 of the Spirit, is spoken of as secondarily touching 'the 
 whole creation ' — evidently by the context the whole 
 terrestrial Creation — waiting in eager expectation for 
 its final consummation. If now to ns the sphere of 
 this indwelling power is seen to extend itself even to 
 the starry walls of the Universe — the jiammantia moenia 
 mundi — must not the belief in some larger significance 
 of the crowning Epiphany of the Incarnation expand 
 with that expansion '? We note that this Manifesta- 
 tion is presented to us under two aspects — two distinct 
 phases of ' the great hiunility ' — the one, which the 
 humility of the Incarnation and the corresponding 
 glorification of the Ascension bring out to us, and 
 
IV.] The Incoj'nation in its universal relatioft. 167 
 
 which, as being simply the crown of God's self-revela- 
 tion and the perfection of His image in humanity, 
 seems to be the fore-ordained gift to humanity in itself 
 — the otlier in the greater and sadder humility of the 
 Atonement, offered in the Passion, sealed as accepted in 
 the Resurrection, which clearly is the gift of God's 
 unspeakable love to humanity as sinful, for its salvation 
 both from sin and death. We may perhaps conceive — as 
 religious thought has delighted to conceive — that man's 
 spiritual condition, as fallen in sin, although capable of 
 ledemptiou and renewal to repentance, is darkly ex- 
 ceptional among other bright orders of God's rational 
 creatures, who are still, as He made them, ' very good' ; 
 and that accordingly the manifestation of ' Christ 
 crucified ' belongs properly to man, and through man to 
 the terrestrial creation, of which he is the head and 
 the lord, and which, as in some mysterious way it was 
 overshadowed by his fall, so shall partake of his re- 
 demption. It may be so ; whether it is so, we cannot 
 know. But in any case the brighter and larger aspect 
 of the Manifestation remains, untouched by this limita- 
 tion, in its universal scope of bearing upon the whole 
 creation of God, 
 
 What that bearing is, we can but infer — with the 
 reverent caution of imperfect knowledge — from analogy 
 to that effect upon humanity, which we do know more 
 clearly. For in regard to man we are taught by His 
 own word to believe, not only in a subjective effect 
 through the knowledge and love of faith upon every 
 believing soul, but in a deeper and wider ol>jective 
 effect upon the condition and nature of all humanity. 
 
1 68 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 Now in respect of the former effect, we find that the 
 Kevelation of Christ is certainly spoken of again and 
 again in Apostolic teaching, as extending its rays of 
 light far beyond the sphere of human nature. It is a 
 Revelation of God's Infinite Wisdom and Love, before 
 all the higher orders of rational beings ; it is that 
 which * the angels desire to look into '; it is that which 
 ' before principalities and powers in heavenly places 
 makes known through the Church the manifold wisdom 
 of God, according to the Eternal purpose, which He 
 purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord \' May we not, as 
 Butler suggested long ago in respect of the manifesta- 
 tion on earth of the Moral government of God 2, ' enlarge 
 our notions of the plan of Providence,' in its relation 
 to all rational beings, ' in some sort proportion ably,' (to 
 use his own words) ' to what late discoveries have en- 
 larged our views with respect to the material world ' ? 
 May we not extend the declaration of this illuminating 
 function to the whole order, whatever it may be, of 
 God's rational creatures ? Nay, if on such high mat- 
 ters reverent speculation be allowable, may we not go 
 further still, and conceive that in some way the ob- 
 jective reality of the Incarnation may have its wider 
 effect, known or unknown, on all ci'eation, Avhich we see 
 more and more clearly to be in all its parts one 
 continuous whole — on the spiritual creation, as having 
 closest likeness to man — even on the material creation, 
 as closely linked with the spiritual. May it not pos- 
 sibly even liave its analogies in other spheres of being, 
 
 ' I Pet. i. 12 ; Eph. iii. 10, 11. 
 
 ^ See Butler's Analocjy, Part i. c. 3. 
 
ly."] spiritual lessons of the Universal Headship. 169 
 
 and so, all-perfect as it is to us, be the revelation in 
 humanity of some transcendent Law of Manifestation 
 of the Godhead to all His creatures, which fulfils itself 
 everywhere in His own appointed way % 
 
 But, however this may be, certainly every way the 
 Light and Grace of the Eternal Son of God, incarnate 
 in our nature, are seen to extend through all the whole 
 sphere of being. He is exalted that, in the largest 
 sense of the word, He may * fill all things.' 
 
 (V) What is to us the spiritual effect of this Kevela- 
 tion of Him \ Not (I think) unlike the power of that 
 mysterious vision of Him in the Apocalypse, which so 
 grandly closes for us the story of His plainer manifesta- 
 tion on earth. It does not tell directly upon thought 
 and conscience, like the record of His perfect word and 
 life here ; it does not speak to the heart, like the 
 lifting up for us on the Cross, of His infinite love ; it 
 does not, like the Incarnation, bring home the mvstery 
 of * God with us ' in such close and living power, that it 
 can be the main strength of our faith in the communion 
 of God with man, which makes the sacredness of tliis 
 present life. But it tells, as a great strain of Divine 
 music, upon the Imagination — that faculty in us, which 
 so strikingly links together the clear light of under- 
 standing and the glow of passion — so as to stir 
 through it ' thought beyond our thought ' and feelings 
 spiritualized above mere emotion. 
 
 That sf)iritual effect has, as has been already said, its 
 special value, as (so to speak) consecrating our modern 
 enlargement of thought ; which in itself is apt to be 
 somewhat dreamy and self- forgetful, — somewhat too 
 
lyo Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 far removed from sympathy witli the needs and emo- 
 tions of actual liuman life — somewhat dulled as to 
 keenness in the right human sense of the horror of 
 evil and of 'hunger and thirst after righteousness.' 
 It is not enough to muse, or even to wonder, in the 
 sense of the Infinite ; although no doubt, M-onder (as 
 Carlyle has taught us) is a preparatory condition of 
 insight into the heart of things. Marvellously that 
 wonder should be stirred in us — though we have been 
 warned that its capacity is not always preserved in 
 Scientific study — as we gain clearer and clearer glimpses 
 of the vast and manifold unity of the Universe, and 
 these, moreover, glimpses, which only show us how 
 beyond the circle of our knowledge it stretches im- 
 measurably into the unknown. There falls on the soul 
 a silence of bewilderment and awe, which is a natural 
 preparation for reverence and worship. Yet in itself 
 it is but a preparation : the vague so-called ' worship of 
 the silent sort,' of a reverent Agnosticism, unable either 
 to discern or to articulate, is no living worship at all ; 
 for worship implies communion of human personality 
 with some Personality Divine. As Dr. Arnold once 
 said, with the keen insight of strong common sense, it 
 fuses the faith in God into something like the vague 
 admiration, with which we gaze at a beautiful sunset. 
 But, as we search into the infinity around us for some- 
 thing more definite and living than this, the cry rises 
 more than ever ; * Oh that I knew where I might find 
 Him ! ... I go forward, but He is not there ; and back- 
 ward, but I cannot perceive Him.' Then comes to us 
 in this darkness the light of that Reyelation of Christ, 
 
IV.] The lesson of wonder and reverence. 1 7 1 
 
 which sliows Him in personal relation to all this in- 
 finity. When by it we can find Christ in it all — when 
 out of the unspeakable glory, we see the Face that we 
 know, and hear the Voice that we love — then only does 
 the preparation for worship complete itself in the 
 reality. God is known, as well as dimly felt, as through 
 all and yet above all ; and, like the elders in the 
 Apocalypse, we see in the exalted majesty of heaven 
 the Lamb slain for us, and so we can fall down and 
 adore in an intelligent and articulate worship Him 
 who liveth for ever and ever. 
 
 Nor should we omit in this connection the lesson 
 taught us as to the right attitude of the soul towards 
 our Lord Himself. It is well that we realize His per- 
 fect humanity, having sympathy with all the trial, all 
 the weakness, all the suffering of our own. Through 
 it * we come boldly to the Throne of Grace ' in faith ; 
 through it we learn the lesson of love to Him who so 
 loved us. But there is, as the needful complement to 
 tliis, the lesson of adoration — sometimes, as it would 
 seem, but imperfectly learnt by those who think of Him 
 only as the Son of Man. The sentimental familiarity 
 of some modern forms of address to Him has been noted, 
 as strangely in contrast with that Apostolic practice 
 in the New Testament, which never, except for special 
 reason, uses the simple ' Jesus ' of the Gospels, without 
 attaching to it some phrase of reverence, if not of 
 adoration. Wiiat can more effectually rebuke that 
 over-l'amiliar tone of thought, than the vision opened 
 to us of Him, as exalted not only over humanity, but 
 over all the immeasurable vastncss of created being — 
 
'172 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 receiving, as of right, a share in ' the glory and honour 
 and power ' belonging to Him who * created all things, 
 and for whose pleasure tliey are and were created ' ? 
 
 But, beyond this satisfaction of the Imagination, and 
 this lesson of reverence, there are also other lessons to 
 be read to the intellect from this knowledge of Christ as 
 over all Creation. In it we find God in the universe, 
 and we find man. 
 
 We find Grod. We know how the ineradicable convic- 
 tion of a Divine Will and Purjiose of Wisdom and of Love, 
 both in the perfection and in the beauty of Creation, is 
 apt to be troubled — partly to the intellect by the sense 
 of mystery that we cannot fathom in its Laws — partly, 
 and more seriously, to the moral sense, by the intoler- 
 able presence of evil, in sufi^ering and sin and death ; 
 which, though there is now (in reaction from shallow 
 Optimism in the past) a tendency to exaggerate it, 
 as not only resisting but overmastering the Divine 
 Law of good, is yet only too real, both as a burden 
 and as a perplexity. But, when we see in all things 
 the Christ whom we know, these contradictions are 
 hushed. When we are sure that in all Creation work 
 that very same Wisdom and Love, which He has Him- 
 self shown, in the bright flashes of beneficent miracle, 
 and in the steady radiance of His life on earth — like 
 what we know in man, but rising above all that here 
 limits and degrades it — then all the bewildering mys- 
 tery of our Natural Theology vanishes. When, more- 
 over, we can feel that in the great order of the world 
 there must be the foresight and the remedy of all those 
 mysterious evils, under which all creation suffers, be- 
 
IV.] The knowledge of God and Man. 173 
 
 cause it is ruled bj Him, who came down from Heaven 
 to take them away by the sacrifice of Himself — who 
 still, by His Divine Intercession in Heaven, and His 
 guidance of His Church on earth, is overcoming all that 
 militates against happiness and goodness — then, if we 
 still feel the moral burden of mystery, we can bear it 
 in faith, and see on tlie horizon the light of a rising 
 liope. Our Lord's miracles on earth are Epiphanies 
 of this double truth. So far as they are miracles of 
 creative power, and of mastery over Nature, they are 
 (as St. John teaches us ^) simply Epiphanies of His 
 glory over all the world. But the miracles, more fre- 
 quent and dearer to His Divine mercy, are the miracles 
 of the healing of body and soul, and of the raising of 
 the dead ; and these are cheering Epiphanies of the 
 victory of that Divine and all-pervading glory over pain 
 and sin and death. 
 
 Nor must we omit that last lesson, which is taught 
 us in the closing words of the text. In this knowledge 
 we find man. If we can see Christ in all creation, then 
 in Him the soul finds itself, as having in Him the sure 
 and certain inheritance of a true sonship of God. It 
 is not lost in tlie vastness and complexity of Nature ; 
 it is not a mere instrument in the hand of irresistible 
 force ; it is not a mere bubble, to form and burst on 
 the stream of time. As has been already said, there is 
 in the soul itself a continual witness against these 
 dreary notions ; and the power of that witness ought 
 to be strengthened, in proportion to the increase of its 
 power of discovering in all the vastness of the universe 
 
 ' Johu iii. 1 1. 
 
174 Christ and all Creation. [lect. 
 
 the laws and forces which rule it : for such power 
 surely indicates some likeness to the supreaae Author 
 of all. But, when we know in that Author the Christ, 
 who has lived and died for each one of us, and who 
 draws each to the Godhead through Himself in an 
 individualizing tenderness of love — who has told us 
 that in His Supreme Majesty, still bearing the marks 
 of His Passion for us, He watches over and pleads for 
 the very least of us, and so orders all things as to pre- 
 pare for each an appointed place with Himself for all 
 Eternity — then the conflict of the two voices within 
 us is set at rest. Infinitely little in ourselves, we are 
 infinitely great in Him. The old confidence of the 
 Psalmist receives a new strength of meaning : for w^e 
 know that the Godhead itself in Christ has ' visited 
 and redeemed His people.' 
 
 There is somewhere a famous picture of the Christ 
 in His glory. It is the face of the Divine Humanity 
 which we know and love so well, and by its own spiri- 
 tual power it draws to Him the whole mind and heart. 
 But yet there is a new thrill of consciousness of the 
 infinite greatness of His majesty, when, looking closer, 
 we see that the glory round His head is made up of 
 myriads of angel f\ices, all catching and reflecting His 
 light, in proportion to their nearness, till they fade 
 away into immeasurable distance. So is it in the line 
 of thought opened to us in the text to-day, when we 
 see, gathered round our dear Lord and Master, all the 
 various cycles of being in their infinite and perfect order 
 — all seen as centred in Him — all, whether near or far, 
 showing by reflection something of His glory. For thus 
 
IV,] The lesson of Adoration. 1 75 
 
 the whole sphere of being is to us alive in many phases 
 and gradations of worship ; and by that universal wor- 
 ship, while we still know and trust and love His perfect 
 humanity, we learn afresh to adore the fulness of the 
 Godhead in Him. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 CHRIST AND HUMAN SOCIETY. 
 
 JFe, being many, are one hoih/ in Clirist, and everyone 
 memhers one of another. — Rom. xii. 5- 
 
 In relation to the truth expressed In these words — • 
 once a new revelation to the world of human brother- 
 hood, now an accepted commonplace of Christian 
 teaching — we may consider another exemplification of 
 the witness of Science to Christ, as having the effect 
 of elucidation, bringing out with new clearness and 
 brilhancy certain old truths of the Gospel message, and 
 transferring them (so to speak) from tlie background to 
 the foreground of Christian thought. Of such elucida- 
 tion we have already seen one most striking example, 
 in the wonderful light, thrown by modern discovery or 
 inference of the vastness of the natural and spiritual 
 imiverse, on the Apostolic doctrine of the Christ, as not 
 only the Light and Saviour of humanity, but the Head 
 of all created being, ' gathered up in Him.' We have 
 now to examine the same elucidatory witness to Christ, 
 as borne not by the Science of the Universe, but by 
 what we have learnt to call the Social Science of 
 humanity. 
 
 (I) We have in this to contemplate a unity, in- 
 
One Body 'in Ckrisi' 177 
 
 finitely narrower in its scope, but yet one far nearer 
 and dearer to us, telling, moreover, not only on the 
 intellect and imagination, but on the conscience and the 
 heart — one which, therefore, calls upon us to know it 
 and to serve it, with a call of imperious moral urgency. 
 Never has that call been more urgent than in our own 
 days. No one, I think, who reads with any insight the 
 signs of the times, will doubt that one great burning 
 question, which our modern civilization, if it is to live, 
 must resolutely and wisely answer, is the question how 
 human society can be really One Body, while yet it has 
 ' many members ' — each in some sense complete in itself, 
 and each, for the discharge of its proper function, 
 needing to retain its own freedom and individuality. 
 St. Paul once answered that question by the simple 
 words ' in Christ.' The answer has been taken up and 
 wrought out in all the Christian centuries ; and, while 
 it is necessarily unchanged in its essential meaning, it 
 has worn to each generation an aspect corresponding 
 to the social knowledge and the social needs of the 
 age. Now that to us this knowledge has been greatly 
 widened and deepened — now that these needs have 
 been most formidably intensified — ought we not to find 
 that the old answer has assumed a new clearness and 
 depth of meaning % 
 
 It has been said (as by Laveleye) that from that 
 answer many of the chief modern schemes lor the 
 regeneration of society have, consciously or unconsciously, 
 caught their insj)iration ^ It is (I think) certain that 
 
 ^ 'The ideas and sentiments, which have given birth to Socialism, 
 were deeply engraven on our minds and hearts by Christianity. . . . 
 
 N 
 
178 Christ and Hitman Society. [lect. 
 
 in our own country Cliristianity — not least as embodied 
 in a Church claiming to be national — is now more than 
 ever challensfed to show that this answer has both a 
 theoretical sufficiency, and a practical reality of* meaning. 
 The challenge may be sometimes ignorant and impatient, 
 assuming that to deliver a social gospel is the sole or 
 highest mission of the Church. But it at least implies 
 a belief that our Christianity has such a gospel; and, 
 moreover, that, in order to proclaim it with power, 
 it only needs to be more thoroughly Christian — more 
 Christ-like (tliat is) in primitive simplicity of idea, both 
 of the brotherhood of man and of the Fatherhood of 
 God \ All men will allow that it must be fairly met. 
 
 Every Christian, who understands and accepts the teaching of his 
 Master, is at heart a Socialist ; and every Socialist, whatever may be 
 his hatred of religion, bears within himself an unconscious Christianity.' 
 (Lavelaye's Socialism of To-day, English translation by G. H. Orpen, 
 p. xix.) The accuracy of the remark plainly depends on the sense in 
 which the word ' Socialism ' is used. If Socialism be defined (with 
 Proudhon) as ' aspiration towards the improvement of society,' it is 
 obviously true ; if (with Adolphe Held) as ' demanding the subordina- 
 tion of the individual to Society,' it will not be accepted without some 
 discrimination : if we take M. Laveleye's own definition, that it aims 
 at introducing 'greater equality in social conditions, and realizing 
 these refonns by law,' it must necessarily generate in application 
 much difference of opinion among those who, as Christians, equally 
 desire the well-being of human Society. There are few subjects on 
 which it is more necessary to begin by defining our terms. 
 
 ^ From some recent experience I know how sti'ong is the feeling on 
 this matter among working men. All directly anti-Christian move- 
 ment has been lai-gely superseded by Socialistic aspiration and agita- 
 tion, and a demand from the Church of an enei'getic ' Christian 
 Socialism.' So far as I observe, if the Church is attacked, it is as 
 owner of property in land and endowment. If Christianity is dis- 
 trusted it is on the ground that our actual Christianity is very 
 
Y.] Study of its idea. 1 79 
 
 Mv contention is, that it can be met hopefully, if it b(5 
 raet thoughtfully, not by superficial inference from this 
 or that doing or saying, but by going down to the root 
 of the matter. The true social doctrine of Christianity 
 cannot be rightly estimated by taking, for example, the 
 free community of good?, in the first enthusiasm of 
 the infant Church at Jerusalem, as a type of universal 
 Christian obligation, in face of the distinct evidence, that 
 it never extended to the Churches even of the Apostolic 
 age ; or by applying the letter, as distinct from the 
 spirit, of the Sermon on the Mount, to social conditions 
 and needs, ntterly unlike those for which it was spoken ; 
 or even by taking the life, which our Lord saw to be 
 needful for Himself and His immediate disciples, in 
 the discharge of their unique mission, and enforcing it 
 literally on the whole body of His future Church. From 
 each of these indeed, we learn great lessons of principle, 
 bearing upon the true idea of Christian unity; and 
 we are taught also how under similar circumstances it 
 ought to be practically exemplified. But the idea must 
 be thoughtfully considered in itself; and, when it is 
 so considered, in relation to what Social Science — 
 not, perhaps, without receiving, directly or indirectly, 
 
 imperfectly Christian ; that, after so many centuries, its moral aiul 
 spiritual influence has failed to redress social evil and injustice; that, 
 in fact, it has allied itself too much with the world as it is, not as it 
 ought to be. There is, at the same time, much of vehement, even 
 I)assionate, denunciation of the whole existing condition of society, 
 showing a deep-seated discontent, indicating again and again an 
 impatience of gradual development, avowing distrust of purely moral 
 influences, and a desire to right all supposed wrongs, either by almost 
 despotic law, or by revolutionary violence. 
 
 N 2 
 
I So Christ and Hmnan Society. [lect. 
 
 some guidance from it — has brought out to us as to tlie 
 actual Laws of human society, I believe that here once 
 more Science will be found to be 'a schoolmaster to 
 brinfif us to Christ.' 
 
 (II) ' One Body and many members ' — the metaphor 
 is probably as old and as universal as human language 
 itself. But, old as it is, the tendency of modern thought, 
 finding everywhere real analogies underlying such 
 metaphors, is increasingly to regard it as conveying 
 an objective reality of meaning. Just as Physiological 
 Science draws an analogy between the growth of an 
 individual being, and the Evolution of the whole sum 
 of Organic Life, so Social Science inclines to apply to 
 what it calls the ' Social Organism ' the laws discerned 
 in individual growth and life ^ This application must, 
 indeed, be made with certain reservations , for no 
 metaphor drawn from a single organism can adequately 
 express the free individuality of each human soul, 
 coexisting with the unity of the whole society 2. But 
 the comparison goes as far, as any such comparison can 
 
 ^ See, for example, Mr. Herbert Spencer's Essay on 'Progress.' 
 {Essays, vol. i. pp. 8-61.) His contention is that 'the law of organic 
 progress,' traced in the growth of the individual being from the ovum 
 to full maturity, ' is the law of all progress,' both of human scciety, 
 and of the world of its material environment; and that 'this uni- 
 formity of procedure ' ' in Social Evolution ' ' is a consequence of some 
 fundamental necessity.' 
 
 * This imperfection is implied by tlie variety of metaphors, emj)loyed 
 in the New Testament to express the unity of humanity with and in 
 Christ, — the Body and the members, the Vine and the branches, the 
 building and the chief corner-stone, the husband and the wife. Each 
 brings out to us some peculiar feature of the truth, to which all bear 
 generally a common witness. 
 
v.] Absolutism of Ancient Laiv. i8i 
 
 go, in expressing wliat instinctive human consciousness 
 declares, tliat our nature is at once individual and 
 social — each man, as a distinct member, having an inner 
 world of thought, conscience, will, in which, so far as 
 humanity is concerned, he is absolutely alone, and yet 
 all being bound together into one body by a subtle 
 network of spiritual ties, through which there thrills 
 one common life. Civilization, which is the growth of 
 humanity, has always been recognised, as developing 
 both elements of this certain, though mysterious, anti- 
 thesis, by free individual cultivation, and by harmony 
 of all individualities in the citizenship of a great com- 
 monwealth, ultimately coextensive with humanity. But, 
 while this antithesis has always been thus acknowledged 
 in general, it is clear that at different times prominence 
 has been given, even to excess, to one or other of its 
 parts. 
 
 Looking only to our own country, we cannot but see 
 how, in the England of old days, both under the feudal 
 system, and the first growth out of it of the kingly 
 power, the dominant idea was of the unity and authority 
 of Society, both as a whole and in its lesser social forms. 
 The unit of Society at large was not the individual, but 
 the lesser society of the family or the class ; at every 
 point individual action, social, political, commercial, was 
 always regulated and limited, often overborne, by Law. 
 This social condition, moreover, was accepted as natural, 
 because felt to be needful. Loyalty to the supreme 
 authority became a ruling passion, showing itself in 
 forms, which seem to us excessive and even fantastic ; 
 and its exuberance is all the more remarkable, when 
 
1 82 Christ and Htmian Society. [lect. 
 
 we note that it often belonged to periods of great enter- 
 prise and mental activity. Even in the reHgious life 
 tlie same leading idea asserted itself as supreme. The 
 Church was looked upon not so much as One Body of 
 living members, but rather as a great ' City of God ' — 
 a Kin2:dom of Christ under authorities ordained by 
 Him, in a great hierarchy culminating in His Vicar on 
 earth — having right and power to rule not only in- 
 dividual action, but individual thought and faith : and 
 it has always seemed to me significant that, even within 
 that general authority of the Church, the life of stricter 
 submission, as in monastic communities, to an absolute 
 rule, in which all individual freedom was merged, was 
 held to be, as indeed it was called, the true ' religious 
 life.' 
 
 Then came, in the Eenaissance of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, the revolt of Individualism against this all-per- 
 vading power of Law — the assertion of liberty, in idea 
 and thought against the iron symmetry of Scholasticism, 
 in action against social and political despotism, in 
 faith against infallible and absolute Church authority. 
 Gradually that assertion won its victorious way — not, 
 of course, without conflict, even of political and re- 
 ligious civil war, but happily in our country without 
 extreme vehemence of revolution ; and for some three 
 centuries there was a continual advance of Individualism 
 — free trade and competition in our commerce — ' civil 
 and religious liberty ' (to use tlie common phrase) in 
 our political life, restricting within the narrowest limits 
 the regulating action of law — the conception of re- 
 ligion commonly called ' Protestant,' as a spiritual force 
 
v.] Growth of Individualisvi, 183 
 
 essentially personal, in which the Headship of Christ 
 Himself was felt as a direct Headship over the indi- 
 vidual man, and the very idea of the One Body in Him, 
 though, of course, it could not be denied, was suffered 
 to fall into comparative abeyance — to imply, indeed, 
 little more than the religious association of individual 
 Christians, like-minded to one another, for mutual 
 encourajzement and edification. 
 
 But now in our own days the Social problem has 
 evidently passed into a new phase. This change of 
 idea, and still more of feeling, arises from many causes. 
 First — perhaps most obviously — from bitter experience 
 of the fruits of an excessive Individualism ; partly in 
 the development of the natural inequality between men 
 to extremes of contrast between individuals and classes, 
 which are fairly appalling, and of which we feel that thev 
 cannot and must not endure ; partly in the growth out 
 of excess of free competition of grave moral evils — ■ 
 selfishness, untruthfulness, adulteration of goods, dis- 
 honesty of reckless speculation, antagonism of classes 
 and cruel struggle for existence between men — which 
 impair both individual character and national loyalty. 
 It has arisen, again, through the disentanglement in our 
 political life of the assertion of civil and religious liberty 
 from the movement towards democracy, which was 
 formerly allied, and in removal of class privileges and 
 restrictions, even identified with it, but which is now 
 assuming towards it a position substantially of an- 
 tagonism, because naturally inclining to sacrifice the 
 individual to the community. But I think that it 
 owes much, perhaps most, of its power to deeper Social 
 
J 84 Christ mid Human Society. [lect. 
 
 Science — revolutionizing the hard and narrow concep- 
 tions of the old Political Economy ^ — which studies 
 humanity as a -whole, having its laws of corporate 
 growth, moral as well as physical, coming down from 
 the past to the present, to which individuality must 
 submit, and ought to submit freely. From all these 
 combined influences there has grown upon us a strong 
 conviction that in some way the old truth — that Society 
 is one Body, though having many members — must be 
 made new, as a living reality. * Socialism ' (it is com- 
 monly said) ' is in the air ' ; and if by Socialism is 
 meant, as should be meant, not this or that theory of 
 method, but the strong universal sense that what may 
 be called broadly the Socializing forces, of Law, Co- 
 operation, Public Spirit, have now to be guarded and 
 
 ' ' The wisest Economists of oui* time ' (says M, Laveleye), ' have 
 recognised, that the exaggerated, though often well-founded, criticisms 
 passed on our social condition by Socialists, have been the means of 
 producing undoubted progress in Political Economy.' He instances 
 the recognition by Economists of the function of human laws of justice, 
 as well as ' natural laws ' of tendency, and of the infinite importance, 
 not only of the question of production of wealth, but of the question of 
 its right distribution. (Laveleye's Socialism of To-dan, p. xliii.) It 
 is seen that ' the present distribution of wealth is perilous, alike to 
 those who have and to those who want.' It is felt, as was truly and 
 eloquently said by the President of the Economic Section of the 
 British Association in 1889, that 'Every year economic problems 
 become more complex ; every year the necessity of studying them 
 from many different points of view, and in many different connections, 
 becomes more urgent. Every year it is more manifest that we need 
 to have more knowledge, and to get it soon, in order to escape, on the 
 one hand, fi-om the cruelty and waste of irresponsible competition and 
 the licentious use of wealth, and on the other from the tyranny and 
 the spiritual death of an iron-bound Socialism.' 
 
v.] Reaction against excessive Individualism. 185 
 
 strengthened, the saying is true. Nor can I think it 
 a mere accidental coincidence, that in our religious 
 thought and action there has been a corresponding 
 revival of what has been not untruly named ' Catho- 
 licism ' — the belief (that is) in the corporate life 
 throuo-h the Indwellino- of Christ in the Church itself 
 — a life which has come down to us in unbroken con- 
 tinuity through all ages since the Day of Pentecost, 
 and which implies some authority of direction and 
 regulation over individual action and faith. For reli- 
 gious thought has necessarily connection, in various 
 degrees of power, with the whole of man's life. In this 
 case it would seem that the religious sense of unity 
 preceded, and in some degree stimulated, the secular ; 
 and certainly the question for the Cliurch now is how 
 the two impulses can rightly be harmonized together. 
 
 But, w^hile there is, and while (if I may venture so to 
 say) there ought to be, this changed direction of social 
 thought and aspiration, yet, here as always, it must 
 be clear to any thoughtful mind, that the past cannot 
 be ignored in any of its parts, and that any attempt 
 to go back to the old condition of society, as strictly 
 organized under an almost absolute rule of law, must be 
 a fatal anachronism. The assertion of liberty of thought, 
 conditioned only by the laws of truth and righteous- 
 ness, has been victoriously made once for all, and is 
 being clenched every day by new intellectual enter- 
 prise and discovery. It can never be unmade ; and, 
 within limits, and those wide limits, it must carry with 
 it freedom of word and freedom of action. We, least of 
 all, can forget this in England. I do not think that 
 
1 86 Christ and Hu7itan Society. [lect. 
 
 we have yet unlearnt tlie teaching which bids us 
 glory in 
 
 * . . . the land, wliich freemen till, 
 Which soher-suited Freedom chose, 
 A laud, where, girt with friends or foes, 
 A man may speak the thing he will.' 
 
 For indeed it is deepened to us by thoughtful study 
 of the appointed order of being. We must see that 
 through such freedom, in spite of its errors, its vagaries, 
 its intestine conflicts, it is God's will to rule man — 
 neither by His Providence absolutely determining our 
 action, nor by His Spirit over-mastering and enforcing 
 our wills. All despotisms, which attempt what He 
 Himself will not do, are, therefore, necessarily unnatural, 
 retrograde against the progress which He has ordained, 
 and, as being unnatural, doomed to failure — whether 
 the failure of disruption by revolutionary violence, or 
 the worse failure for a time of a lethargic and deadening 
 success. 
 
 Least of all, as it seems to me, can such usurpation 
 maintain itself now, in respect of that religious sphere 
 of life, which brings out most strongly and directly the 
 inalienable freedom of thought and conscience. In re- 
 action against excessive religious Individualism, with 
 its inevitable conflicts and uncertainties, there has been 
 (as we know but too well), even in some of the noblest 
 minds, an eagerness to find and to obey implicitly 
 some voice of command, absolute as claiming infalli- 
 bility, before which the dread responsibility of freedom 
 may be laid down. But this spiritual despotism can 
 maintain its claim only by declaring war against the 
 
v.] Retrogression impossible. 187 
 
 invincible elements of human progress — delivering itself 
 (to use a celebrated phiase) * from the yoke of history ' 
 — resisting (that is) the irresistible law of fact, seeking 
 to ignore or undo the irrevocable past. Whatever, 
 therefore, may be the religious destiny of the future, 
 it seems impossible that religious despotism — whether 
 in the hands of a single man, or a class, or even the 
 whole body — can ever wield over individual freedom 
 the power, which once it exercised in the imperfect 
 civilization of days gone by. 
 
 But perhaps the lesson, most urgently needed for our 
 own times, is that which bids us remember that in this 
 matter it makes no essential difference, whether this 
 despotism is one, which, as democratic, each man has 
 helped to make, and in which he has some infinitesimal 
 share. Despotism, however originated, and wherever 
 seated, is despotism still. In its democratic form, if it 
 is mitigated to each man by the consciousness of his own 
 consent to it, and his own power, however insignificant, 
 in guiding it, yet, on the other hand, it is, in its daily 
 pressure upon individual freedom, the most ruthless 
 of all despotisms, alone untempered (to use the old pro- 
 verbial phrase) ' either by epigram or by assassination,' 
 and acting with a force, which collects and concentrates, 
 not only the wisdom and the goodness, but the folly and 
 the wickedness of humanity. Kightly (to continue my 
 former quotation) are we warned to beware lest 
 
 ' biuick'd unions iici'secute 
 Opinion, and induce a time 
 When single tliought is civil crime, 
 And individual fieedonj mute,' 
 
i88 Christ and Huma7i Society. [lect. 
 
 Yet, all the while, it is just that 'single thought,' 
 spoken by the tongue of ' individual freedom,' which 
 has in the born leaders of mankind, initiated all the 
 chief steps of the intellectual and moral progress of 
 humanity. It is always the few who lead, while the 
 many have but to listen, and to judge whether they 
 can accept and follow. Even in that necessary task of 
 judgment, what fatal error and wrong has the world 
 seen! If the vision of Truth and Goodness calls 
 out Hosannas to-day, what of the ' Not this man, but 
 Barabbas,' on the morrow % But, to go beyond that 
 function — to claim by force of law, or at times lawless- 
 ness ^ to direct, control, enslave individual freedom — 
 to refuse it all wide scope of exercise, within the limits 
 of moral right and respect for the rights of others, 
 whether of individuals or of the whole community — this 
 is a fatal and "disastrous usurpation, sinning against the 
 true law of humanity. Under whatever grand names, 
 with whatever high and generous hopes, it may advance, 
 w^e have learnt not only from true science of humanity, 
 but from terrible or disheartening experience, that, now 
 at any rate, such usurpation cannot stand. 
 
 No ! the unity of human society, which our age needs, 
 must in some way recognise and conserve the freedom 
 which has been won; and it follows from this that, 
 
 ' It is notable tliat the lawlessness, apparently an increasing law- 
 lessness, which is so ominous a feature of the present day, is not so 
 ■S, much the lawlessness of individual self-will or selfishness, as the law- 
 lessness of combination, fighting for the sujjposed rights or needs 
 of class, party, or section ; and that it shows itself most violently, 
 wherever there is, rightly or wrongly, some distrust in the honesty 
 and energy of the administration of law. 
 
v.] Free Unity our ideal. 189 
 
 while it wil), of course, use law, both coercive and 
 directive, and claim that obedience to it be unhesitat- 
 ingly rendered, it must rely mainly on influences, wliicli 
 tell on the individual by free conviction, moulding 
 public opinion, fostering public spirit. In this direction, 
 as in all others, it must decline to revert in the maturity 
 of civilization to the reliance upon that overmastering 
 force of Law, which was the rightful schoolmaster of 
 simpler and cruder ages of society. It must aim at 
 harmonizing together the Individualism and Socialism, 
 which are really correlative, but are hastily assumed 
 to be antagonistic to each other '. It must recognise, 
 as the actual facts of human nature demand, at once 
 the natural equality of all, in regard of indefeasible 
 human rights, and the natural inequality of all, in 
 respect of gifts, powers, opportunities. It must be 
 something higher and more spiritual than those schemes 
 for the reconstruction of society, which avowedly rely 
 on material change and improvement, as the one thing 
 needful, supposing that change of circumtances must 
 in itself surely change the man. It must have as its 
 
 ^ I venture to quote on this point from a Paper at the Church Con- 
 gress of 1890: — 'Is this tine Socialism irreconcilable with right In- 
 dividualism—as is sometimes plainly declared, more often tacitly and 
 practically assumed ? The answer to the question is given by a glance 
 at man's nature, which is obviously at once individual in free will, 
 thought, conscience, sjnritual aspiration, and social in the existence 
 and in the recognition of all the ties of which we have spoken. 
 Hai-mony, not antagonism, must be the law of the relation of these 
 two forces, both e(iually natural, both inhering in one indivisible 
 nature. Freedom is license, when it breaks these living tics : unity 
 is despotic tyranny, when it does not merely condition, but ignores 
 or crushes, freedom. 
 
190 CJn'ist and Human Society. [lect. 
 
 ideal ' that in free and generous co-operation each shall 
 offer the fulness of his own Ufe, tliat he may rejoice in 
 the fulness of the life of the whole body.' Where 
 shall the spirit of such unity be found ? How shall the 
 metaphor be realized of One Body with many members 
 — each free and complete in itself, and yet all thrilled 
 by one nervous energy, one life-blood from one heart \ 
 
 (III) To that question it is historically certain that 
 Christianity once supplied, as in the text, a very 
 strong and practical answer. No one can doubt that 
 it changed the Brotherhood of humanity, from a theory 
 and an aspiration into a living reality. On all hands 
 men are asking, Has it lost its force now \ Is it still 
 to solve the old problems in their new shapes, or is it 
 to be superseded by some newer Gospel of idea, some 
 newer enthusiasm of energy ? 
 
 In order to reply to this question, it is necessary to 
 see clearly what its theory of human unity is — what 
 is meant by ' One Body in Christ.' 
 
 Unity in Christ is ultimately unity through Him in 
 God. In the Baptism which is its appointed means, 
 each individual nature is baptized into the Name — that 
 is, into the Nature — of the Father and of the Son and 
 of the Holy Ghost. So, and so only, is it 'engrafted 
 into the body of Christ's Church.' In the Incarnation 
 the Eternal Son is revealed as gathering all humanity 
 into Himself, that He may make it one in sonship of 
 God ; in the Atonement, as lifted up that He may 
 break the bonds of sin, and draw all the individual 
 souls of men, as by a spiritual gravitation, to Himself 
 and to the Godhead through Him ; in the Eesurrection 
 
v.] The Christian Doctrine of Unity. 191 
 
 and Ascension and the Mediatorinl Royalty, as continuing 
 till the end of the work so beo^un in His manifestation 
 here, till it shall be completed in the restitution of 
 all things at His Second Coming to judge the earth. 
 This is the primary and direct unity of all souls in Him, 
 as He Himself taught it, when He said, ' I am tlie Vine ; 
 ye are the branches.' Secondary and indirect, although 
 most real, is the unity of all with one another. 
 
 Clearly is that order marked in the text — the dia- 
 metrically contrary order to that of most Socialistic 
 schemes of ancient or modern days. They are, like 
 Plato's, 'Divine Republics;' in which the direct unity 
 of all with one another — in part by the constraining 
 force of law, iu pait by an enthusiastic cultus of 
 humanity — is the one thing needful ; and relation of 
 the soul to a Supreme Power, if recognised at all, 
 is put far away in some mysterious background — at 
 most allowed to affect the inner life, in no sense con- 
 ceived as ruling the course of human society. This, on 
 the other hand, is a well-centred 'Kingdom of God' — 
 ' One Body' in the Headship of the Sou of God and 
 Man. Each through that Headship has his individual 
 life 'hid in God '; all through that same Headship are 
 members one of another. 
 
 How striking an illustration there is of this concep- 
 tion of human unity, in its analogy to the Law, which 
 in the physical universe binds our system of worlds 
 together ! Under tliat Law there is at every point 
 for each body the great central attraction of the sun, 
 source to all of force, as of light and life ; and yet, lest 
 all should be drawn into it, and absorbed in its vastness, 
 
192 Christ and Human Society. [lect. 
 
 there is also at every point tlie velocity, tending (as we 
 say) to ' fly off at a tangent' — to move (that is) as for the 
 moment each body would move freely, if it were left to 
 itself alone :' and this balance of the uniting central 
 force and the free centrifugal velocity is so absolutely 
 predominant in its importance, that by it, roughly yet 
 substantially, the orbits may be determined, in which 
 all move side by side in a wonderful order. Yet, when 
 we look more closely, we see that, subordinate indeed, 
 but co-existent with this great central attraction, there 
 is on each body a multitude of lesser attractions from 
 all the other bodies of the system — proportionate (I may 
 remark) not only to their greatness, but to their near- 
 ness ; so that all in their motion form one great whole, 
 continually acting and re-acting upon another, and so 
 modifying, but never impairing, the effect of the primary 
 law, under which the great ruling power is centred in 
 the sun. Central force, free energy, mutual attraction 
 — these, and these in this order, are the great ideas 
 which emerge, when we study the system of which our 
 world is a part. As we realize them, is not a new force 
 given to the familiar metaphor in which the old prophet 
 speaks of Christ as the ' Sun of Eighteousness,' drawing 
 all to Himself by moral attraction, along the living 
 cords of Truth and Love ? yet, so that at every moment 
 each has also an impulse to move freely by self-deter- 
 mination of will, thus ' conscious,' at all times primarily, 
 at some critical times exclusively, 'of God and his own 
 soul ' ; and so that all are bound in a network of spiritual 
 ties to one another, and, even in this lower sense, * no 
 man lives or dies to himself"? 
 
v.] The Great Commandinent. 193 
 
 Such certainly is the conception of the One Body in 
 Christ ; and that it is not to remain a mere abstract 
 conception, but to be realized in practical energy by 
 all, even the simplest of His disciples, He has Himself 
 taught us in the * Great Commandment' of Love. For 
 love is the realization of unity with self, with man, with 
 God. In the second great Commandment He implies, 
 and so allows, 'the love of self — the devotion (that is) 
 of each soul, with a sense of duty and even of en- 
 thusiasm, to the man's own personal freedom and rights, 
 to his happiness and perfection — in which we trace 
 what has been called ' the will to live,' and the survival, 
 rationalized and tempered, of the great Law, under 
 which Organic Life has had its evolution of progress 
 towards higher forms ^ In that same Commandment 
 He emphasizes the love of Man, but under the form of 
 * the love of our neighbour ' — the love, that is, of all 
 men, but of all in their various orders and degrees of 
 connection with us. We see, moreover, that, while He 
 clearly implies here what is taught everywhere — as by 
 His word, so by His example — that in degree it is to rise 
 above the love of self, and to call for willing self-sacrifice, 
 yet, in the words * as thyself,' He distinctly teaches that 
 
 ^ In tills respect Christianity, recognising all the facts of human 
 nature, stands in contrast with transcendental theories of ' Altiuis-m.' 
 Self-love (as Butler taught us long ago) is not ' selfishnes-s,' in the 
 common sense of the word, till it assumes an unrighteous and unnatural 
 dominance. To hiand with that name the desire for individual per- 
 fection, as crowned by the Christian hope of a personal immortality, 
 surely argues a strange ignorance of what humanity really is, and ol 
 the duty to self, which is implied in the existence of a ti ue peisonality, 
 having capacity of spii'itual perfection. 
 
 O 
 
194 Christ and Huma7t Society. [lect. 
 
 it is of the same kind, at once instinctive arid rational, 
 moving on the same moral level, to temper the love of 
 self and harmonize with it, not to destroy it or overbear 
 it as by an essential superiority. But the key to the 
 right relation and harmony of both these secondary 
 forces He gives us in the supremacy of the First 
 Great Commandment of the love of God, embracing 
 the whole mind of the intellect, the whole heart of 
 affection, the whole soul of moral being, and the whole 
 strength of practical energy. That love of the Supreme 
 Power — as distinct from the wonder, and awe, and the 
 obedience of submission in fear, which result naturally 
 from any adequate conception of it — had for Israel its 
 inspiration in the sense of a free covenant with the 
 Lord Jehovah. But, in the perfection of that covenant 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ, it became a ' new Command- 
 ment.' To use St. Paul's striking phrase, ' The Head 
 of man is Christ, and the Head of Christ is God.' The 
 Brotherhood of humanity in Christ — the only Fraternity 
 which really conserves liberty — depends absolutely on 
 the realization through Him, for each and all, of the 
 Fatherhood of God. 
 
 (IV) How then did Christianity proceed to embody 
 that idea in practical reality % 
 
 First of all unquestionably by the creation of a 
 Catholic Church, in which all peoples and all generations 
 should be one. I use the word creation ; but, like other 
 forms of Divine creation, it was a growth, evolved out 
 of the idea itself. Nothing can be more unhistorical 
 than the fancy (as, for instance, of M. Kenan) that the 
 main conception of the first preachers of the Gospel 
 
v.] The Creation of a Catholic Church. 195 
 
 was the formation of a great world-wide empire over 
 human thought and action. What was the actual fact, 
 as we read it in tlie pages of the New Testament ? 
 * Tliey determined not ' (as St. Paul liimself testifies) 
 ' to know ' and declare ' anythinrr save Jesus Christ/ as 
 God in Man. The Catholic Church was but the natural 
 extension of His humanity — the irXi'jpwiJ.a (so He was 
 pleased to consider it) ' of Him that filleth all in all ^ ' ; 
 its unity was not made, hut grew out of the unity 
 drawing all souls to Him. 
 
 And I may note in passing that, whenever in Church 
 history that true order of Apostolic teaching has been 
 forgotten or obscured — whenever the first object has 
 been to form a Kingdom over men, and to win souls to 
 it, instead of simply ministering the light and grace of 
 Christ, and leaving it to Him to win the souls for whom 
 He died — whenever its unity has been made to depend 
 on outward bonds, however sacred, or even on direct 
 subordination of the soul to the voice and will of 
 the whole community, expressed through some form of 
 absolute authority — then the true Christian ideal has 
 been marred, with results invariably of corruption and 
 disaster. The new Comtist ' Church of Humanity ' has 
 been described by an acute critic as ' Catholicity without 
 Christianity,' that is, without Christ. May not its idea 
 have been learnt in some degree from perversions of the 
 true Christian idea, which practically put Catholicity 
 first, and Christianity only in the second place % 
 
 It is only in the Catholic Church that the true 
 
 ^ Epli. 1. 23. ' Tlie head ' (says St. Clirysostom on this passage) ' is 
 the complement of the body and the body of ths head.' 
 
 2 
 
1 96 Christ and Htnnan Society. [lect. 
 
 Christian ideal of the unity of all mankind is completely 
 set forth, and, in spite of the imperfections of sin and 
 error, gradually realized in anything like fulness. 
 Necessarily (as St. Paul shows us in the great passage 
 of his Ephesian Epistle ^) the soul of that unity has 
 its inner life in the communion with the One Spirit, the 
 One Lord, the One Father, of whom the One Baptism 
 testifies; and it shows itself through those spiritual 
 energies, which in our common humanity underlie all 
 individual and natural peculiarities — the * one faith,' the 
 'one hope,' the one love, which is 'the bond of peace.' And 
 * of these the greatest is love ' — love to God in Christ, 
 and through Him to one another. For love is the free 
 recognition of unity, the free spirit of sacrifice, which 
 at once realizes self and loses self-. Old as man himself : 
 for is it not what we significantly call ' humanity ' \ yet 
 undoubtedly a new creation in the life of the (Jhurch of 
 Christ. 
 
 Necessarily the ideal of Christian aspiration is to 
 extend this spiritual unity, as ' Catholic,' over all the 
 world, so that it may interpenetrate the whole human 
 
 ^ Eph. iv. 4-6. 
 
 ^ At the same time the definition of Christian Love always implies 
 that it is to be harmonized with Truth or Eigiiteousness. Tlie like- 
 ness of Christ is to St. Paul, the ' being true in love,' and to St. John, 
 with characteristic variation, the 'loving in truth.' (Eph. iv. 15; 
 2 John I.) In relation to some of the enthusiasms of the day, it is 
 necessary to emphasize the truth, that love to man, whether to indi- 
 vidual or collective humanity, cannot rightly overbear truth and 
 rigliteousness. Sir Walter Scott's Jeanie Deans, who will not lie even 
 to save a loved sister, is a tiiier ideal than the modern heroine, who 
 would desjjise such resti'aint, and for such an end would cast all truth 
 to the winds. 
 
v.] The Regeneration of Natural Unities. 197 
 
 society. Just so far as this is in degree realized — as 
 races professedly Christian are, directly and indirectly, 
 Christianized — as through them races still heathen 
 (mostly the weaker subject-races of our modern world) 
 are drawn into the Christian family — it is certain in 
 fact that man is united in a spiritual brotherhood, the 
 only such brotherhood which the world has seen. 
 
 But, while this is the supreme ideal of Christianity, 
 yet secondarily its power is felt in the recognition and 
 regeneration of all the natural forms of unity — the 
 family, the city, the nation, the race ; and it is to be 
 noted, that, following out the idea implied in our 
 Master's description of the love of humanity as the 
 * love of our neighbour,' Christianity has stood forth 
 boldly, in contrast with many socialistic theories, to 
 recognise and guard the sacredness of these lesser unities 
 within the greater unity of universal brotherhood. How 
 largely in this respect its position is justified both by 
 historical experience, and by scientific study of the 
 forces of Heredity, will be plain to most observers. 
 But of the fact of this graduated social action of 
 Christianity, harmonized with its universal enthusiasm 
 of humanity, there can be no doubt. Not by accident — 
 not merely (I think) for the sake of convenience — has 
 even the Church unity itself incorporated these natural 
 forms into its own higher life : so that the family be- 
 comes ' the Church in the house,' the city the parish or 
 diocese, the nation a national Church, the whole race, 
 actually or potentially, the Church Catholic. It has 
 done this, because a Supernatural Force always har- 
 monizes and assimilates to itself whatever is natural. 
 
iqS Christ and Htiman Society. [lect. 
 
 But, independently of tins incorporation, Christianity, 
 ideal and actual, has always manifested a deep interest, 
 an effective influence, in respect of all tliese forms in 
 themselves, and testified that each, as one body, ought 
 to find its unity in Christ ^ 
 
 We know commonly, yet we hardly realize in its 
 fulness, the exalting effect on the life of the family of 
 that Christian teaching, which (as in the same great 
 Epistle of St. Paul) hallows all domestic relationships, 
 as reproductions of the Divine relations to man — the 
 marriage, from which the family takes its rise, as the 
 type of the mystical union of Christ with His Church 
 — its fatherhood of authority and love, as a delegation 
 from the Fatherhood of God — its brotherhood as a 
 miniature of the brotherhood of humanity in the house 
 of the One Father — even its service (once a slavery, 
 now through Christian influence, a free service) as a 
 not unrecognised part of the universal service of God -. 
 Under that high religious sanction the sacredness of the 
 home has grown up among us: by that sanction against 
 individual lawlessness, against low materializing ideas, 
 and against socialistic encroachments, it is mainly guarded 
 stilL The living inspiration of this teaching has done 
 what could not be done, either by the enlightened sense 
 of expediency, or the strong coercion of Law, or even the 
 philosophic sense of the creation of high moral relations 
 
 ' I may perhaps be iillowed here to refer to a fuller treatment of 
 this subject which I liave uUompted in Lectures on Cliristianity and 
 ^Socialism (Cassell, 1890). 
 
 ^ Ei)h. V. 22 — vi. 9 ; Col. iii. 18 — iv. i; Comp. i Pet. ii. 18 — 
 iii. 7. 
 
v.] Family and Neighboitrhood. 199 
 
 til rough that which serves for the physical propagation 
 of the race \ 
 
 Less direct and powerful, yet not less real, this social 
 influence of Christianity over the larger and looser unity 
 of what we call ' neighbourhood ' — wliether the neigh- 
 bourhood of locality, most felt in old days, or the 
 neighbourhood of class, strongest in our own. Witli 
 regard to the former, we know how, not least in our 
 English history, the Church of city or village, in 
 setting forth the light and grace of Christ, has neces- 
 sarily become the centre of the secular life of the com- 
 munity, and of all the energies of local sympathy and 
 fellowship and charity which bind it together. With 
 regard to the latter, we know how in old days the 
 Guilds of common handicraft or commerce or art were 
 distinctly hallowed by religious influence — as crafts or 
 ' mysteries ' (to use the old London civic term) * in the 
 Body of Christ.' Of such religious relation the traces 
 are unhappily but faint in the corresponding asso- 
 ciations of our own day. Yet the sense of it is not 
 extinct. As the Church enters more and more into the 
 consciousness of her social responsibilities, there is a 
 growing tendency in these associations to revive in- 
 
 ' It is a significant fact, that at the very time of the first birth of 
 Christianity in the great Roman Empire, the Emperor Augustus — a 
 cold and far-seeing politician — felt so strongly the need of raising and 
 defending against a growing corruption the sanctity of the family, that 
 he sought vainly to pi'otect and revive it by force of stringent law ; 
 and his favourite poet, himself only a genial easy-going man of the 
 world, mourned over the degradation of the home by an ' age prolific of 
 evil,' and told how 
 
 ' Hoc fonte derlvata, clades 
 In patriam poitulumque fluxit.' 
 
200 Christ and Htunan Society. [lect. 
 
 formally the old acknowledgment of religious sanction. 
 Certainly, in all class-aspirations and class-antagonisms, 
 there is urgent call to the representatives of religious 
 ideas to intervene, especially in the cause of the weak : 
 and to that call there has been in response a marked 
 inclination — sometimes in details wise, and sometimes 
 unwise — to enter upon the region even of 'business,' 
 and to claim in it recognition of the obligations of 
 Christian unity. 
 
 Certainly when we pass to the greater and nobler 
 unity of the Nation — although the old theory has 
 broken down, which, in England at least, made Church 
 and Nation coextensive, and added, as a matter of 
 course, to the natural unity into which all were born, 
 the higher unity into which they were born again — 
 still the phrase ' National Christianity' has an informal 
 but substantial meaning, which is indicated by the 
 blazon of the Cross on our banner, and the expression of 
 our loyalty in a ' National Anthem.' English Chris- 
 tianity has unquestionably moulded English history 
 and English character ; just as our English Bible, and 
 in less dei^ree our Eno;lish Praver-Book, have coloured 
 English lit(3rature. It must be so ; for Christian faith 
 cannot but tell with power both on the loyalty, which 
 is here the analogue of loving reverence for Fatherhood, 
 and the patriotism, which expresses the Brotherhood 
 of the whole nation. How remarkable it is that, while 
 the first preaching of Christianity, in its strong em- 
 phasis of individuality in Christ on the one hand, and 
 Catholic unity in Him on the other, seemed to leave no 
 room for the development of the lesser unities of human 
 
v.] The Nation and the Race. 201 
 
 society yet national unity has grown up wi tli unsur- 
 passed vigour in Christendom, and has resisted all 
 efforts to crush it in the name of a larger unity, whether 
 civil, as in the Empire, or spiritual, as in the Church of 
 Pionie! How infinitely stronger now the conviction 
 of the two correlative truths, which St. Paul united 
 together ^ but which opposing parties have held in 
 separation, even in mutual antagonism — that the civil 
 authority, as ' an ordinance of God,' has its sacredness, 
 which calls for the loyal duty for conscience sake of its 
 individual citizens, and as a ' minister of God ' has its 
 responsibility of duty to every one of them, which it 
 cannot arbitrarily neglect ! How significant, if we con- 
 sider it, the demand — although it may be sometimes in 
 practical form unwisely made and unwisely answered 
 — that in all our intestine conflicts, Christianity shall 
 step in, and cry in the name of national unity, as con- 
 secrated by God's Law, ' Sirs, ye are brethren. Why do 
 ye wrong one to another % ' 
 
 But it is when we come to that unity of all humanity, 
 which is the leading idea of all true civilization, that 
 this social influence of our Christianity is most clearly 
 felt. The old cry, ' Am I not a man and brother 1 ' 
 now somewhat hackneyed and conventional, but once 
 living and powerful, as the cry which shattered the 
 slave-trade, was the watchword, not of mere philan- 
 thropy, but of the Christian philanthropy which re- 
 cognises a brotherhood ' in Christ.' Still the truth 
 which that cry expresses is, we believe, the inmost 
 spirit of all true civilization. It would be, indeed, 
 
 ^ Iiora. xiii. i, 4. 
 
202 Christ and Human Society. [lect. 
 
 folly to deny or undervalue the other unifying forces, 
 which grow with the growth of the world — the material 
 bonds of physical communication and commercial inter- 
 course — tlie intellectual unity of common knowledge 
 and culture — the political unities, which are aggregating 
 great masses of men under the supremacy of a few 
 dominant races. But in all these, there are but too 
 obviously elements of selfishness, and therefore of dis- 
 intearration and conflict ; and even at their best, thev 
 lie more or less on the surface, touching mainly the 
 outward life, and not piercing to the heart of things. 
 The one force of unity which, if we were only true to it, 
 would be pure from all disturbing elements, and would 
 go to the very root of human being, is the Christian 
 claim for our Lord and Master of the whole humanity for 
 which He died ; for through Him the unity of man is 
 centred in God, and its bonds, being spiritual, are there- 
 fore universal. 
 
 Yes ! and in spite of the sins of actual Christianity — 
 its defect in energy of sacrifice, and the marring and 
 paralysing effect of our wretched religious divisions — 
 we may boldly say that it is this Christian enthusiasm, 
 which is the inspiration, not only of the continual exten- 
 sion of His Church, but of the sense of moral duty and 
 love, even beyond the reach of this extension, to all 
 who are our brothers in the family of humankind. As 
 beyond the pale of actual conversion there extend the 
 Fatlierhood of God and the salvation of Christ, so there 
 exist for us the duty and enthusiasm of brotherhood in 
 the ' service of humanity.' What a strange delusion it 
 is — not only unphilosophical in itself, but contradicted 
 
v.] The Christian Civilization. 203 
 
 by the emphatic witness of history — to suppose that 
 this service stands in contrast, even in antagonism, to 
 * the service of God ' ! It should be especially the 
 one main force in that work which is so essentially 
 Christian — the securing to the weaker subject-races of 
 the world something at least of the justice, the protec- 
 tion, the beneficence, fiom the stronger, which is indeed 
 the true * humanity,' but which has to wage so hard a 
 war against the inhuman struggle for existence of 
 individuals and of races. It should be so ; and in 
 measure it is so. The rulino: races of the earth are 
 clearly the European races — not least the English- 
 -speaking race. The one voice, which has constantly 
 proclaimed and enforced on those ruling races their 
 duties to the weaker races of the earth, brought under 
 their influence or dominion, is the voice of Christianity. 
 It has had its failures in fighting against external forces 
 of evil — against commercial selfishness and political 
 greed — against the false science, which calmly assumes 
 that the black or red man must perish before the white 
 man's presence, when, in fact, he perishes by the white 
 man's sin. It has had its worse failures, through internal 
 fault of its own error and timidity, and the unreality of 
 so much of Christian profession. But look only to the 
 aggregate result of the power over the world, even of 
 our own English race, and examine the actual history 
 of its growth. No impartial student will fail to see 
 that here the supreme influence has been that of Chris- 
 tianity, and that the beneficent character of that power 
 on the whole is a proof, that here Christianity has not 
 spoken and laboured in vain. 
 
204 Christ and Hitman Society. [lect. 
 
 So in respect of these two actions — the creation of the 
 supernatural and purely spiritual unity of the Catholic 
 Church, and the breathing new life into all the forms of 
 natural unity — Christianity accepts the growing light, 
 and even tlie bolder and more philosophical theories, 
 of Social Science, as leading up to Christ. From that 
 Science it has learnt much in both these directions. 
 The study of humanity, individual and collective, 
 teaching the correlation and right order of its various 
 elements, physical and spiritual, has certainly aided it 
 greatly in laying hold of the whole for Christ — body, 
 soul, and spirit all consecrated to God in Him. It is 
 not, indeed, always easy to harmonize rightly these 
 two parts of the Christian duty of witness to Him. 
 Perhaps at this moment tljere is some tendency — in 
 reaction against excessive neglect in the past — to 
 emphasize even disproportionately the second, till it 
 rivals or supersedes the first in its place of primary 
 dignity. To give way to that tendency would be, I 
 hold, a fatal error. If the clergy in their ministerial 
 duty, and the Church in her collective witness, should 
 allow devotion to what are called ' social subjects ' to 
 set aside or obscure their primary charge — which is 
 to draw individual souls one by one to Christ, and to 
 advance the corporate spiritual life of the Church, 
 through the light and grace of God — it would be a 
 treason to their high calling, and a neglect of the wisdom 
 of right proportion taught by the Master Himself; 
 ' These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave 
 the other undone.' But in that right proportion, both 
 these forms of witness have their proper function ; and 
 
v.] Its centre in God. 205 
 
 both, if they are to be true and effective, must keep a 
 firm grasp of the essential principle, involved in those 
 famous words, * One in Christ.' 
 
 (V) For that principle is fruitful in practical de- 
 ductions. 
 
 First, with whatever form of human unity, hio-lier 
 or lower, we are concerned, it teaches us that it must 
 have its centre in God, as revealed to us in humanity 
 through the Lord Jesus Christ, Each soul must realize, 
 as the dominant conception of its life, the drawing to 
 this Divine Centre — in a free obedience to a Divine 
 Law, even if it rise not to the higlier consciousness 
 of a Divine Spirit. Li that consciousness is the 
 strength of true Christian Individualism ; in the re- 
 sulting unity with others, so drawn to the one centre, 
 the bond of the Christian Socialism. The ' manliness,' 
 which I take to be right self-assertion — the secret of 
 freedom, energy, progress, and the ' humanity,' which 
 is right self-sacrifice — the secret of unity and stability 
 — meet together under this supreme devotion, and, we 
 believe, under it alone. Revolt of either from it, 
 whether in the Stoic worship of self or the modern 
 worship of society, is equally an idolatry; although the 
 former be of the baser, and the latter of the nobler sort. 
 Here, as in all else, not only is the Life of Christ — hid 
 in God, yet laying hold by sympathy of all humanity — 
 our true ideal, but the reproduction of that life in us is 
 the very soul, as of our individual, so of our social being. 
 
 Next, it is clear that Christianity must be essen- 
 tially a thing not of the Law, but of the Spirit. 
 
 Of course it will hold with St. Paul that ' Law is 
 
2o6 Christ and Human Society. [lect. 
 
 good, if it be used lawfully,' — tliat is, in its right 
 secondary place, and as a means to a higher end. The 
 extent of that use, moreover, will vary under different 
 conditions and in different times. About the first and 
 most permanent function of Law there can be no division 
 of opinion. It must act, and that sternly and decisively, 
 against all unrighteous selfishness of the strong, 
 whether of individuals or of combinations ; as shown 
 either in crime and fraud and oppression of the weak, 
 or in evasion of the public burden, which the respon- 
 sibility of wealth and strength lays upon them. It 
 must in this view, for example, be used to enforce on 
 the property which it protects, the duty which it owes, 
 both to those with whom it is immediately connected, 
 and to the public service, especially that of the poor 
 and weak. It must equally be used to protect against 
 violence the individual freedom of labour, and the in- 
 dividual property which, directly or indirectly, results 
 from it. Other functions of law may be less un- 
 questioned, and certainly need more caution and self- 
 restraint in working. But few will doubt, that, in the 
 present condition of civilized society. Law may be rightly 
 used to secure for the mass of our people such right 
 material environment of life, as may give fair scope 
 to their higher humanity, and such help in education 
 and culture as may foster it, — supplementing always, 
 and not superseding, their own self-help. Perhaps 
 (although in this we touch more controverted ground) 
 it may with this view find it necessary to interfere by 
 reo;ulation and restriction with commercial and social 
 life, and, acting in the name of the State, to super- 
 
v.] The Law and the Spirit. 207 
 
 sede in some fields bofcli individual action and free 
 co-operation. The tendency in our day lias been, and 
 still is, towards a larger measure of this action of 
 ' State-Socialism \' It may, as seems to be generally 
 thought, continue to advance, or, Hke excessive Indi- 
 vidualism, by experience of its insufficiency and its 
 evil, it may provoke reaction. But clearly, from a 
 Christian point of view, all this is a question of policy, 
 not of principle. How that good may be best secured 
 will be, of course, matter of opinion, on which each man 
 must take his own course after serious thought, agree- 
 ing to differ with others, and believing them to be not 
 less earnest than himself. But it is fatal to the life 
 of the Church of Christ, if it can be justly accused of 
 lukewarmness in sympathy with the masses of His 
 people. We may say that while recognising that in 
 law interference, whether with rich or poor, should have 
 to prove its necessity, and justice be done to all alike, 
 
 ' On this action of the State, and on the actual extension of it in 
 llie England of to-day, see Mr, Sidney Webb's Socialism in England 
 (Sonnenschein, 1890). His conclusion is that (see pp. 15, 16) 'The 
 progress of Socialism in England has been, and is still being, accom- 
 plished in four chief directions : — i. Constantly increasing restric- 
 tions on private ownership of land and capital (Factory Acts, &c.), 
 2. Gradual supersession of private industrial ventures by public ad- 
 ministration (telegraphs, municipal tramways, parochial schools). 3. 
 Progressive absorption by taxation of unearned incomes (rent and 
 interest) and " rent of ability " (income tax, taxes on real property. 
 &c.). 4. The supplementing of private charity by public oiganiza- 
 tion, aiming at raising the condition of the " residuum " (public educa- 
 tion, improved dwellings, &c.).' He assumes — I think, hastily — 
 that all this indicates progress, not to the right control and balance, 
 but to the extermination, of Individualism, and ' the realization of the 
 Socialistic ideal.' 
 
2o8 Christ and Htunan Society. [lect. 
 
 yet Christian influence, in framing and administering 
 it, will hardly be true to the spirit of Christ, if it does 
 not look with chief thought and favour on that which 
 tends to the good, not of the few, but of the many. 
 
 But still the Christian Socialism, unlike the chief 
 socialistic schemes of the day, will place its chief 
 reliance, not on the compulsion or the authoritative 
 direction to be gained from Law — nor, it may be added, 
 even on voluntary co-operation for mutual advantage, 
 useful though it is, and capable of a far larger de- 
 velopment than it has yet attained — but on the free 
 self-devotion of the spirit to the common good, and 
 that, moreover, as swayed not by a simple enthusiasm 
 of humanity, but by the true enthusiasm of obedience 
 to the Spirit of God. For this is the ' Law of liberty,' 
 as in the Sermon on the Mount it is placed in contrast 
 with the harder Law of Sinai, laid on ' them of old 
 time.' That Law — in itself, and as embodied in the 
 Life of Him who spoke it — must still be our guide, in 
 its spirit rather than its letter, in essential principle, 
 which is eternal, rather than in the practical details, 
 which vary with the time ^ In itself it is the freest 
 find gladdest of all devotions, because entering most 
 fully into the Divine blessedness of giving. Yet in the 
 world as it is, it involves necessarily in different degrees, 
 through struggle with the antagonistic forces of evil and 
 selfishness without and within, some cross of sacrifice. 
 
 It is, again, a part of this leading idea, that Chris- ' 
 tianity teaches us to depend mainly for true unity and 
 progress of society on moral and spiritual forces. No 
 
 ' See Note H. 
 
v.] Supremacy of Moral principle. 209 
 
 sane man will disreofard the renctino* influence of the 
 material enviionment of life ; no one, who looks at the 
 condition of our own English society, will doubt that 
 much, very much, has to be done, in order to make 
 it for the mass of our people worthy of a Christian 
 civilization. But even the soundest Pagan philosophy, 
 through one great master of Greek thought, declared 
 that in the true welfare of individual or collective 
 humanity, first is to be placed the moral force of 
 character, and only in subordination to it tlie outer 
 environment — the (S/o? T^\eio<i — which is necessary to 
 give it scope. It would be retrogressive, indeed, for 
 those who speak in the Name of Christ to fall below 
 that Pagan teaching, by accepting the theories, which 
 so loudly proclaim that for social regeneration we need 
 nothing but ' sweeping economic change,' which must 
 carry with it — to use their own curious and instruc- 
 tive phrase — ' political, ethical, technical, and artistic 
 changes '; and for this, perhaps not unnaturally, rely 
 on the swift coercive action of law, national or inter- 
 national, backed by physical force. 
 
 Christianity must read to the world a higher lesson. 
 Conscious that the true strength against all evils is in 
 living moral principle, it has laid upon it here a twofold 
 duty. It has to foster that strenfjth, first and best, bv 
 the development of the higher spiritual life of Love to 
 God and Man in itself, as it is ' hid with Christ' in the 
 soul, as it is diftused by His Presence through the 
 whole body of the Church — sure that, wherever it is 
 real and deep, it will show how to deal rightly and 
 nobly with all the practical questions and duties which 
 
 p 
 
2IO Christ and Human Society. [lect. 
 
 present themselves. But it has also, in the second 
 place, boldly to proclaim and strongly enforce that 
 moral principle in its direct practical bearing on 
 the problems, and especially the antagonisms, of our 
 present Society — to get rid of the inveterate error, 
 showing itself but too often in all classes and in all 
 schools of opinion, which holds that the religious can be 
 separated from the secular life, and that the Christian 
 principle, acknowledged in the individual, domestic, 
 ecclesiastical spheres, is to be ignored in the realms of 
 business or of politics, In regard to these questions, its 
 concern is, not so much with details of special economic 
 and social arrano-ements, which need to be dealt with 
 by experts, but with the moral obligations of duty and 
 love, which should underlie and determine them ; in 
 these its proper task is to speak out, at once with 
 authority and with persuasiveness, to all parties — the 
 few and the many — the representatives (for example) 
 both of Capital and of Labour — not only in the name 
 of humanity, but in the name of God. It will not speak 
 in vain. In spite of a natural imf)atience of what 
 seems to the hasty to be but a slow, indirect, tran- 
 scendental process, — an impatience, which ought to be, 
 but too often is not, corrected by historical experience, 
 both of the failures of mere legal compulsion, and of 
 the victorious strength of idea and spiritual enthusiasm 
 — Christianity must still be true to its Master's method'. 
 
 ^ Some of the most thoughtful of Socialistic leaders see clearly that 
 trust must be placed not in revolution, but in the evolution of the 
 natural and gradual progress, which they believe that they can discern, 
 towards the realization of their ideal. But even they seem inclined 
 
v.] Reality of Moral power. 2 1 1 
 
 As it was with the monstrous wrong of slavery — de- 
 stroyed slowly but certainly, by the declaration * Not 
 a slave, but a brother beloved in Lord ' — so must it 
 be now, in the warfare against all the lesser wrongs 
 which disgrace our modern Society. The weapon, not 
 carnal but spiritual, is mighty for the pulling down of 
 strono'holds. 
 
 In part, the trust in this moral power is justified by 
 experience. History, and most of all the history of 
 Christianity itself, tells us plainly what an age like 
 ours should be the last to question — the living power 
 of moral idea, enthusiastically accepted, to disintegrate 
 strongly compacted systems of injustice and oppression. 
 We need but open our eyes now to the causes of our 
 social dangers, in order to see plainly that to generate 
 a higher moral life of duty and love — even to root out 
 a few gross moral evils, such as drunkenness, impurity, 
 cruelty, falsehood, dishonesty — would do infinitely more 
 to drive our dangers and difficulties away, than those 
 ' sweeping material and economic changes,' and that, 
 in truth, these changes themselves would really follow, 
 while they cannot lead and determine, moral regenera- 
 tion. 
 
 These leading principles of the unity in Christ we 
 all, I suppose, recognise clearly in respect of the spiri- 
 tual unity of the (Church. But I would plead, that 
 
 in detail to assist Nature too much by artifical enactment ; and in the 
 rank and file of their followers there is far too much of this impatience 
 of this slow victory of idea — hardly to be wondered at among the un- 
 educated, suffering under the presf-ure of severe hardshijj, and perhaps 
 injustice, but shared, and even fostered, by those who should know 
 better. 
 
 P 2 
 
 r 
 
212 Christ and Hiivian Society. [lect. 
 
 in all problems which present themselves to us, in rela- 
 tion to the natural forms of human unity, still the 
 concern of Christianity, as Christianity, is not properly 
 with their material and economic, but with their moral 
 aspects, and with these lower elements only so far as 
 they subserve the higher. Those, who strive in any 
 way to speak and act avowedly as Christians and as 
 Churchmen, must never for one moment interfere with 
 the supremacy of this moral witness ; either by con- 
 fusing it with lower and more doubtful issues, or by 
 allowing these to absorb their minds and engross their 
 chief practical energies. As we clergy individually have 
 
 ~^ often deliberately to limit our freedom of commercial 
 and political action, lest it should practically interfere 
 with our spiritual efficiency, so (I think) the Church, 
 as such, must beware lest, plunging, perhaps with imper- 
 fect knowledge, into struggle and controversy on these 
 lower issues, she imperil her powers to do that for 
 which she exists — to minister the Light and Grace of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. She is called upon, we know, 
 — sometimes even in the tone of menace — to redeem 
 the time and to seize critical opportunity. Be it so. 
 Yet, after all, as Archbisliop Leighton warns us, it is 
 possible so to speak to our times, and the questions 
 
 f\} which engross them, as to forget to speak to the 
 eternity of Divine Truth and Grace, which, just be- 
 cause it has its fulcrum in heaven, shows its power 
 to move the earth. 
 
 Thus the growth of Social Science, forced upon us 
 by the growth of urgent social needs, still bears to 
 Christianity what I have called the witness of elucida- 
 
v.] The true Social Gospel. 213 
 
 tion. It seems not indeed to demand for Christianity 
 a new Social Gospel, but to bring out into new liglit 
 tlie full meaning of the old. Tiie Social Gospel, in its 
 ])ractical application, can never go beyond the idea so 
 forcibly expressed in the Apostolic exhortation, * Owe 
 no man anything, but to love one another.' ' Owe no 
 man anvthina* ' — in this we have enunciated in the 
 widest vmiversality the principle of absolute Truth and 
 Righteousness, which, according to the old Platonic 
 definition, proclaims that each has a work to do for 
 society, and bids him do it freely and earnestly, at once 
 realizing self, claiming his own freedom and right, and 
 yet only that he may really obey that appointed service. 
 In the ' But to love one another ' there is the acknow- 
 ledgment of the one debt which can never be fully paid 
 — the enunciation of the yet higher piinciple of a willing 
 self-sacrifice by each of his own pleasure, fame, power, 
 even (so far as may safely be) his own individual rights, 
 that he may sink himself in the cause of unity, of 
 progress, of peace. 
 
 That Social Gospel has been, we know, preached at 
 all times with various degrees of earnestness and power. 
 But in its ordinary proclamation we may, I think, trace 
 two defects, which the deeper study of Social Science 
 should help us to correct. The first is that — perhaps 
 naturally — emphasis has been laid too little on the 
 strong conviction of duty, which appeals mainly to the 
 conscience, too exclusively on the love, which touches the 
 heart — the * new commandment' of the Gospel — and on 
 this, moreover (as the very limitation in common parlance 
 of the glorious title of ' Charity ' shows), in its power 
 
2 14 Christ and Human Society. [lect. 
 
 to create those countless works of beneficence to the 
 poor, the weak, the suffering, the sinful, which are rightly 
 held to constitute one glory of a Christian civilization. 
 There are many, who in these days are apt indignantly 
 to repudiate all acceptance of these works of Charity, 
 insisting that, if Society was what it ought to be, they 
 would never be needed, and that it is sin against right 
 dignity and independence to recognise in them charity, 
 as distinct from duty. But such assertion argues but 
 little knowledge of human nature and human life. 
 While these are what they are, — subject to distress 
 and weakness and sin, full of necessary, because natural, 
 inequality, swayed by sentiment as well as conviction 
 — these works of mercy Avill always be necessary, and 
 always blessed 'both to him who gives and him who 
 takes.' Surely there is a true social philosophy in 
 St. Paul's teaching, that, while each man should ' bear 
 his own proper load,' as his share in the burden of 
 humanity, yet that, when it becomes a heavy crushing 
 burden, disproportioned to his strength, then we should 
 ' bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the Law of 
 Christ \' It is a savage independence, which would 
 refuse the gifts of mercy in their right function as 
 degrading ; for there is a blessedness in rightly re- 
 ceiving, as true, though not as great, as the blessed- 
 ness of giving. It is simply an inexcusable slander to 
 look upon them as bribes to avert spoliation, a ' ran- 
 som ' (to use a singularly unfortunate phrase) paid as 
 to a natural enemy. Yet they may have been un- 
 
 * Gal. vi. 5, 2. The word is (poprlov in the former verse; ^apos in 
 the latter. 
 
v.] Defects in popular Christian Teaching. 2 1 5 
 
 consciously made a substitute for a wider and deeper 
 view of the true Christian ideal of * Truth in Love,' in 
 which the massive framework of duty is clothed in the 
 warm flesh and blood of sentiment, and which teaches 
 us, not merely to relieve existent suffering, but to 
 remove the causes which produce it. So far our 
 popular Christianity may well have failed to grasp 
 the whole truth of the matter, and have given just 
 occasion to reproach. 
 
 But the second defect in the proceeding of our Social 
 Gospel is that, under both its aspects, it has been 
 perhaps too Individualistic. It has taught duty and 
 love in all personal relations with an unequalled power; 
 it may not have brought them out sufficiently in 
 relation to the whole community. I am not sure 
 whether this has not been in some measure true, even 
 in respect of the great spiritual unity of the Church of 
 Christ. But I cannot avoid the conviction of its truth, in 
 respect of the secular unities of class, of country, of race. 
 Has our Christianity failed to give sufficient sanction 
 and inspiration to that which we ordinarily call ' public 
 spirit' — a spirit compacted of the sense of public duty, 
 and the self-sacrificing enthusiasm of humanity — which 
 resolves at any cost, except that of justice, to root out 
 from our social system everywhere all elements of 
 injustice, class selfishness, hardship, and of which surely, 
 even if it rise to no higher service, our Master would 
 have said that it was ' not far from the kingdom of 
 God ' ? If that be so — and were it not so, I doubt 
 whether men would be crying out for new Social 
 Gospels — then here also Christianity may owe a debt 
 
2i6 Christ and Htwtan Society. [lect. 
 
 to the deeper Social Science, which has taught, and 
 almost forced, us to see more clearly what our old 
 Gospel really implies. 
 
 In one sense that lesson has been pondered already 
 in the Church. By many utterances, both of individual 
 leaders of thought and of corporate Church opinion, 
 from the irresponsible Church Congress to the Lambeth 
 Conference itself, it is plain that it has awakened 
 the conviction, that the Church, while it is her first 
 duty to devote her main effort to the fostering of the 
 spiritual life in Christ, for the individual soul and for the 
 whole Body, yet is now especially called to claim for her 
 Master the whole of human life in all its social relations, 
 and to bring the moral principles of the Gospel, which 
 } ! is her charge, to bear more effectively upon a civilized 
 society, still, after eighteen centuries, so imperfectly 
 Christian. It is strongly felt that there must be dis- 
 tinction, but no separation, between the religious and 
 secular life ; there must be no surrender of the world 
 of commercial, social, political energy to anti-Christian 
 or non-Christian laws ; there must be no occasion given, 
 even to slander, for representing our own Church as the 
 Church of the rich and the cultured, and not the home 
 of universal human brotherhood. But on these grave 
 matters it is not enough to feel strongly, without think- 
 ing as deeply and seriously as we may. We shall not 
 have learnt the whole lesson, unless we endeavour, 
 under such guidance as the text gives, to see what 
 ' One Body in Christ ' really means — what are the great 
 irreversible laws of human society, which it indicates. 
 It was shrewdly said that one of the most dangerous 
 
v.] Thought and Action. 2 1 7 
 
 of cries was tlie cry tliiit ' something must be done,' 
 without being sure what that something should be. 
 Perhaps even more dangerous is the advice ' to let 
 things alone' when they ought not to be let alone, 
 and to drift on without thinking at all, in indolence 
 or cowardice, till the crash comes. 
 
 Hence it is that we have to examine seriously, as 
 Christians, what the Christian Law of society is ; and 
 when we do this, we shall once more be led from 
 Christianity to Christ Himself — to read in the spirit 
 of the Sermon on the Mount the great social lesson — 
 to see in the relations of His life to men the great 
 social ideal — to recognise in His Mediation, known or 
 unknown, the great bond of all human society. While 
 it is by the expansion over all the world of the Catholic 
 Church that we seek to realize the highest and deepest 
 unity in Clirist, yet we have to enter, more fully than 
 we have yet entered, into the meaning of those great 
 words — which must have some measure of fulfilment 
 now, as an earnest of the perfection of the hereafter — 
 that ' the kingdoms of this world are become the King- 
 dom of the Lord and of His Christ.' By acting on that 
 conviction, we shall, as we believe, translate into a Divine 
 reality the laws of human society, which our Science 
 teaches, and even the aspirations of which Socialistic 
 dreams are the vague and fantastic expression. There- 
 fore we dare not rest, until, even in what men call 
 secular hfe, we have done what we can to claim those 
 kingdoms for Him. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 CRITICISM AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 Prove all things ; holdfast that tvhich is good. — i Thess. v. 21. 
 
 (I) The command thus addressed by St. Paul even to 
 the immature Christianity of Thessalonica — in direct 
 reference (as the context shows) to the prophecies, 
 which claimed to set forth a Supernatural Kevelation 
 of God — may well be our guide, in passing from the 
 confirmatory and elucidatory witness of Science, to 
 consider the eifect of its distinctly critical relation to 
 the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. For it describes 
 to us with incisive brevity the only kind of criticism, 
 right in principle and likely to be fruitful in results, 
 when we have to deal with a great power, which has 
 proved itself in any sense a reality. It is the criticism, 
 first, which claims, not to discover, but to ' test ' all 
 things — taking the thing criticized, as it actually pre- 
 sents itself, and not reconstructing it out of our own 
 discovery or imagination. It is the criticism, next, 
 which, until it is forced to an opposite conclusion, 
 holds (with Kichard Hooker) that whatever has sj)iritual 
 life and power in it cannot be ' wholly compacted of 
 untruths ' but must have in it something * which is 
 good,' and which it is therefore worth while * to hold 
 
Characteristics of true Criticism. 2 1 9 
 
 fast.' It is, moreover and above all, tlie criticism, 
 which performs its two functions simultaneously, not 
 waiting in suspense till the whole conceivable work of 
 testing is over, before it proceeds to grasp anything 
 firmly, but at every point laying strong and enthusiastic 
 liold of whatever, so far, it has found by trial to be 
 good, living in it by strong sympathy, and making 
 this experience of its inner meaning a means of ad- 
 vancing towards larger knowledge. For so only can 
 we avoid the purely negative condition of bewildered 
 intellect and moral impotence, in which 
 
 * the native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' 
 
 Only under these conditions is a critical mind or 
 a critical age capable of the strong energy and en- 
 thusiasm, which, after all, are nearer to the heart of 
 human welfare and progress than the keenest criticism. 
 Better it is for ourselves and for the world that we 
 hold fast an imperfect Creed, than that we stand apart, 
 ' holding no Creed but contemplating all,' and culti- 
 vating the critical faculty to excess, till we are afraid 
 of ourselves. We have learnt (I think) that this is 
 the only criticism of much worth in dealing with great 
 human things. We must not forget the lesson, when 
 we deal with things which claim, and not without 
 some prima facie evidence, to be Divine. Clearly in 
 the text Holy Scripture not only permits, but com- 
 mands, the use of such criticism as this, not so much 
 perhaps for the origination, as for the confirmation, of 
 Christian faith. 
 
 I do not indeed mean that for the great mass of men 
 
2 20 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 obedience to St. Paul's exhortation issues, or ought 
 to issue, in abstract scientific criticism. They inherit 
 their Christianity, as they inherit their civilization, from 
 the past ; and they have it brought home to them by 
 the teaching authority of the present. For themselves 
 they have mostly to be content with practical test. If 
 they find that this Christianity of theirs gives them 
 light on the great questions, which every man must 
 ask himself as to his own nature and destiny — if they 
 find that it gives them the capacity of a victorious 
 moral strength and enthusiasm — if they find that it 
 satisfies their spiritual aspiration after the Infinite and 
 Eternal, which is, indeed, the thirst for a living God 
 — they mostly rest on this, and are content to go no 
 further. There is sound reasonableness in this con- 
 tentment. It shows the strong practical wisdom of 
 the blunt, almost humorous, reply of the blind man 
 at Siloam to the captious questions of the Pharisees, 
 ' Whether He be a sinner or not ' — whether He fulfils, 
 or fails to fulfil, your abstract tests of a mission from 
 God — * I know not. One thing I do know, that, whereas 
 I was blind, now I see.' There may be in many things an 
 ' encircling gloom,' and that gloom peopled with strange, 
 fantastic shapes, but through my Christian faith, I find 
 for practical guidance and comfort a ' kindly fight'; 
 
 'And in that Light of life I'll walk, 
 Till travelling days be done/ 
 
 But, while this is the necessary attitude of most 
 men, as individuals, towards great principles of Truth, 
 whether they are presented to them on the authority 
 of Revelation or Science itself, yet we may rightly 
 
VI.] Its spiritual Conditions. 2 2 1 
 
 claim the words of the text, as not only allowing, but 
 welcoming, the most searching criticism of Gospel Truth, 
 and implying that it has a true function to perform 
 for humanity, as a whole, through those who are in 
 each age its leaders of thought. Not least in our own 
 age must that function be recognised ; not least here, 
 in one of the great representative homes of Science and 
 Philosophy. 
 
 It must, no doubt, depend on certain spiritual con- 
 ditions. We do not forget what the same inspired 
 teacher of the Gospel elsewhere declares — that the 
 natural or * psychical ' man, having in him no tincture 
 of spiritual insight, cannot receive or judge of the 
 things of God ^ In this, indeed, he enunciates a general 
 mental law. All criticism must be wholly negative, 
 and therefore either barren or destructive, which has 
 no agreement on first principles with that which it 
 attempts to criticize, and therefore must have uncon- 
 sciously prejudged the case, as unworthy of serious 
 investigation. Who would accept criticism on a great 
 symphony from a man who had no music in his soul, 
 or listen to the mere mathematician, to whom a master- 
 piece of poetry ' proved nothing ' '? For right criticism 
 tliere must be some preparation of sympathy — unknown 
 to the science, which is narrow and partial in its views 
 of truth, having lost by absorption in itself all sensibility 
 to great realities outside its own immediate line of in- 
 vestigation. This is the kind of Science which, in re- 
 lation to spiritual truth, St. Paul would have designated 
 
 * I Cor. ii. 14. 
 
22 2 Criticisni and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 as ' falsely so called,' and to which he knew that the 
 Gospel of Christ must necessarily seem foolishness. 
 
 Thus a Science essentially materialistic — either in 
 theory or from that absorption in purely physical in- 
 vestigation, to which we are peculiarly liable in the 
 present scientific division of labour — cannot effectively 
 criticize that which it utterly ignores, as lying wholly 
 beyond its domain of Matter and Force. A Science, 
 purely Psychical, looking upon humanity as merely 
 one element in the great system of Organic Life, and 
 ignoring in it anything differing in kind from the 
 senses, the instincts, the appetites, the passions, which 
 we share with the brute creatures, is equeJly incapable 
 of judging of what claims to be spiritual. Clearly the 
 Science, which is to criticize here wath any hope of 
 positive results, must be so far in harmony with funda- 
 damental ideas of Christianity, as to recognise the 
 supremacy of the spiritual element of Will, Eeason, 
 Conscience, Love, as in man himself, so in the Supreme 
 Power which rules humanity, and to understand, more- 
 over, that, in the search after it, right function must 
 be assigned, not to the pure intellect only, but to all 
 these spiritual faculties of our nature. The universal 
 witness to these truths in the soul of man is (as our 
 Lord Himself teaches) the conviction of the Spirit to 
 the world, preparing for the knowledge of God in Him. 
 Only when that witness is received and realized, is the 
 man in any degree what Holy Scripture calls a spiritual 
 man, and so capable to some extent of judging from 
 wdthout of what must be ' spiritually discerned.' I say 
 * to some extent '; for it is only from within the pale of 
 
VI.] The two Functions of Criticisiit. 223 
 
 the fuller gift of the Spirit to the faith of believers, that 
 he can grow into the fulness of their meaning, and 
 find for himself the truth of our Lord's declaration, 
 that thus what is otherwise * hid from the wise and 
 prudent ' is ' revealed to babes.' To use the words of 
 the text, it is only by ' holding fast,' through mind and 
 heart alike, Avhat has been ])artially known by test, 
 that the soul comes to the knowledge of the inner 
 leality of truth. 
 
 (II) What then is the right critical function of this 
 higher Science in relation to Christianity ? 
 
 To criticize is, first, to distiriguish — to distinguish in 
 a complex reality what is primary, essential, eternal, 
 from what is secondary, accidental, temporary. So we 
 find out what is the essence of the thing itself, making 
 it what it is — as distinct from accessories not necessarily 
 peculiar to it, which have gathered round it, and which 
 can be, and perhaps at times should be, stripped off. 
 That ofifice of criticism — to use again a quotation from 
 the Bampton Lectures of 1884 — should tend, in its 
 application to Eeligion, ' to aid Eeligion in clearing her 
 own conceptions ' ; 'to make perpetually clearer the 
 true meaning of the Revelation itself; 'to interpret 
 better the message, which ' it believes men to have 
 ' received from their Fatlier in Heaven.' Largely (I 
 think) has that function been exercised in our own 
 age, by believers and unbelievers alike, and it is im- 
 possible to doubt, tliat it has before it a fuller and still 
 more useful development. 
 
 To criticize is, next, to test. When tliis first duty 
 of distinction has been discharL^ed, and the root of the 
 
2 24 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 matter made known to us, it lias tlien to go on to the 
 work described in the text — to test or prove it. It 
 must try to discern, first, whether it is a reality, — 
 whether (that is) what it declares as truth is a real 
 truth, accordant with the great laws of being — 
 whether the power which it claims to wield is a real 
 power, able to guide, to rule, and to exalt humanity. 
 Next, it has to see whether under both aspects it is 
 sufficient for the purpose, which it professes to serve, 
 and adequate to the claim of a Divine Origin and 
 spiritual supremacy made for it. In respect of Chris- 
 tianity this comes very nearly to the judgment on its 
 double claim to be at once (to use the common phrase) 
 Natural and Supernatural — Natural in its harmony 
 with what we can discover elsewhere of the Laws of 
 the working of the Supreme Power over the world 
 and man — Supernatural in going far beyond this, 
 both supplying the key to the inner meaning of what 
 such discovery has partially revealed to us, and ad- 
 vancing to regions which it cannot even profess to 
 enter. 
 
 (Ill) To the critical faculty in man, in relation to 
 these two main functions \ consider how Christianity 
 presents itself, first as an actual, then as an ideal Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 It is essential to note that it comes to us first, not as 
 
 ^ The former is Kplveiv ; the hitter (as iu the text) SoKifxa^fiv. Much 
 error in criticism results from confusion of the two functions, or 
 inversion of their right order. Clearly we must know^ the essence of 
 a thing, before we can tell w^hether to accept or reject it ; otherwise 
 acceptance or rejection of what is accidental or subsidiary may be 
 made wrongly to apply to the thing as a whole. 
 
VI.] The actual Ckristiaiiity. 225 
 
 a doctrine or an idea, but as an actual and living 
 Force. In the individual experience, it is felt as 
 exercising a real power over the soul, and so over the 
 life. To the scientific observation of the world, it is seen 
 as a power or life, certainly in many respects unique 
 in history. The Church of Christ presents itself to our 
 sight and to our thought as a unique spiritual society, 
 which has grown continuously through eighteen cen- 
 turies from small beginnings towards a world-wide ex- 
 pansion. It claims by the title of 'Catholic' a future 
 coextensiveness with humanity itself in all countries, 
 all generations, all phases of character ; in part it 
 already justifies that claim, by moulding, directly or 
 indirectly, the growth of modern civilization, dominat- 
 ing the leading and conquering races of tlie world, 
 and through them acting on all hiunanity, as the one 
 continually advancing and aggressive religious force. 
 The powei', which it exercises over its members, is 
 certainly an intellectual, moral, spiritual power, with 
 which none can compare, in which they who, like the 
 great Napoleon, best know what are the capacities and 
 limits of earthly empire have recognised a spiritual 
 royalty, differing from these not in degree but in kind. 
 But even beyond the bright circle of its direct spiritual 
 sway over men — as the author of the Ge&ia Chridi has 
 so strikingly shown — there is a diff'used light of larger 
 indirect influence upon the whole civilization of man- 
 kind in thought and action, so that the very principle 
 of self-sacrifice for others, which we significantly call 
 * humanity/ has by universal acknowledgment gained 
 through it a new power. 
 
2 26 Criticism and the Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 There is, moreover, in it by its very nature a force 
 of diffusive energy, through which it not only lays 
 hold of those without its pale, and draws them to itself 
 or rather to its Head, but extends to them, while they 
 still remain without, the rights of brotherhood, and 
 spends itself in labouring for their protection, their 
 liappiness, and their goodness. 
 
 There it is — this living phenomenon of actual Chris- 
 tianity, as a great fact of which critical investigation 
 must take serious account, and moreover as a unique 
 fact, demanding some unique explanation ^ Other 
 powers — other great religious powers — of course, there 
 are ; but none like this. It is unlike the Judaism, 
 out of which it grew, in its capacity of world-wide 
 extension ; it is unlike the iron system of Islam, which 
 was in all its best parts a growth out of Judaism, in 
 recognition of the Divine in humanity, and so in power 
 of harmony with knowledge and progress ; it is unlike 
 the Buddhism, which broods over the unprogressive 
 races of the East, in being a religion of hope and 
 energy and not of despair and passiveness. It stands 
 
 ' The conclusion oi Ecce Homo in as true as it is slrikini^. 'The 
 achievement of Christ, in founding, by His single will and power, a 
 structure so durable and so universal, is like no other achievement 
 which history records. The masterpieces of the men of action are 
 coarse and common in compaiison with it, and the masterpieces of 
 speculation flimsy iind insubstantial. . . . Who can describe that which 
 ■unites men % Who has entered into the formation of sjeech, which 
 is the symbol of their union ] . . . He who can do these things can 
 explain the origin of tlie Christian Church. For others it must be 
 enough to say, "The Holy Ghost fell on them who believed." No 
 man saw the building of the New Jerusalem ; ... it descended out of 
 lieaven from God' (p. 330, ed. 1866). 
 
VI.] The Ideal Christianity. 227 
 
 alone in both inspiring and developing the good in 
 humanity, and grappling witli the evil ; it is the one 
 Religion which has power to adapt itself to all races 
 and to all stages of civilization, and to speak with 
 spiritual efficacy in all the tongues of men. Accordingly 
 by universal confession it is the embodiment of the 
 only religion, in the ordinary sense of the word, which 
 has a vital and victorious power. What — Science must 
 ask — is the secret of that extraordinary power ? What 
 is the essential basis, on which this imposing super- 
 structure is raised ? 
 
 The answer would be given at once on the authority 
 of the Master ^ It rests upon a Divine Revelation of 
 Truth — the truth of God and the truth of man : the 
 one condition of membership is a Creed, which is simply 
 the acceptance of that truth in faith ; its individual 
 subjects are at once disciples and in degree Apostles, 
 learners and teachers of that accepted truth, by the 
 combined powers of mind and heart and spirit ; the 
 charge, by a spiritual necessity hiid upon it as a Church, 
 is to hold the truth fast, and proclaim it to every 
 creature. Other religions may possibly consent to be 
 stiffened into systems of morality, or sublimed into 
 nebulous enthusiasms. Christianity never, till it has 
 ceased to be what it is. 
 
 In this Truth is enshrined the Ideal Christianity, by 
 which the actual Christianity is guided and is deter- 
 mined. It has grown to be a vast and complex body 
 of truth, having relation to every direction of thought, 
 and moulding every form of intellectual activity ; for 
 
 ' Juhn xviii. 36, 37. 
 
 Q 2 
 
2 28 Criticism and the Stipernatural. [lect. 
 
 it professes to be at once individual and universal, 
 teaching to each the wisdom, which is the knowledge 
 of the true end and perfection of his own life, bj glimpse 
 of the Wisdom of God — the Law Eternal, that is, of 
 His dispensation to all humanity. As its spiritual power 
 over humanity extends, its very Creeds have grown from 
 original simplicity to elaborate subsequent development; 
 it has produced in all languages a splendid literature of 
 its own ; it has coloured the whole literature of the 
 races over which it has exercised power : it claims in 
 its philosophic aspect, as Theology, to be the Queen of 
 Sciences. 
 
 But all this vast system of truth is centred on one 
 Book, which has grown up through the centuries, in 
 many ages, by many hands, and these often unknown, 
 into a marvellous unity, and which by its variety is (so 
 to speak) in touch with all the various phases of human 
 literature — history, law, poetry, philosophy — all sub- 
 ordinated to one purpose, the manifestation of the Will 
 and the Nature of God. That in its intrinsic character, 
 and the world-wide spiritual power with which it speaks 
 in all the tongues of men, it is a Book of books, far above 
 all others, no thoughtful man can doubt. Perhaps its 
 uniqueness is best seen by comparing it with the other 
 great religious Books of the world — venerable though 
 they be, and having gleams in them of the Divine light, 
 that lighteth every man — which the scholarship of our 
 own day is busy in reproducing and criticizing. With 
 one partial exception — and that a book, which has 
 borrowed in idea from the ancient Scriptures, and claims 
 relation to them — they are virtually dead, and it is 
 
VI.] Christianity is Cki'isi. 229 
 
 living. For it the Church of Christ makes everywhere 
 in different forms a claim, the tremendous character of 
 which is often lost to us by familiarity — the claim which 
 we express in the well-known declaration that it con- 
 tains for all men and for all times ' all things necessary 
 to salvation ' ; and the very word ' salvation ' implies 
 at once a Gospel of regeneration of the Divine image 
 in humanity, and a Gospel of deliverance from that 
 power of sin and death, which to all other forms of 
 thought is simply a hopeless and awful perplexity. 
 
 There, again, stands out the even stianger pheno- 
 menon of this Ideal Cliristianity — challenging once more 
 the enquiry, ' What is the central secret of this extra- 
 ordinary life \ What is the ground of this extraordinary 
 claim V 
 
 Now it is clear and it always has been clear, that — 
 as was so strikingly shown in the Bampton Lectures of 
 last year — Christianity, whether ideal or actual, is, in ;i 
 sense to which no other religion presents analogy, Christ 
 Himself So has it been from the beginning, and must 
 be till the end of time. We cannot go beyond what 
 St. Paul said of old. It is not that He gives but that 
 * He is made to us,' ' Wisdom ' to the intellectual, 
 ' Rigfhteousness ' to the moral, ' Sanctification ' to the 
 spiritual element of man's nature, and so finally 'Re- 
 demption ' from the evil which darkens and perverts 
 them all ^ Of the actual Christianity, He is acknow- 
 ledged as, by His indwelling, * the Life ' ; of ideal 
 Christianity He by His Manifestation is the Light. 
 But yet I venture to think that the effect in our days 
 
 ' I Cor. i. 30. 
 
230 criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 of the wonderful growtli of critical power, in its first 
 function of distinction and insight, is to bring out with 
 new vividness this original and undying truth. If by 
 the principle of Idolatry is meant — as I suppose should 
 l)e meant — the resting on any means of manifestation 
 of God, instead of passing through it by spiritual in- 
 tuition to God Himself, it has helped us against the 
 two subtle forms, in which alone it is now possible. 
 
 Thus Historical Science has studied and analysed the 
 jictual Christianity, the Church of Christ in all ages. It 
 has bidden us look through the visible developments of 
 Jaw, system, ritual, to the inner spiritual force, wdiich 
 gives them life ; it has distinguished in it the obviously 
 human element, with all the imperfection and evil cling- 
 ing to it, which it shares with other great world-wide 
 j)Owers, from that element, which is its peculiar charac- 
 teristic, clearly uniqiie and claiming to be miraculous 
 and Divine. It makes us see plainly that this inner 
 reality is, in spite of all imperfections, accretions, super- 
 stitions, the reproduction in the individual and the 
 community of the Life of Christ Himself; it prepares 
 the mind, though of course it cannot teach it, to accept 
 the only adequate explanation of this universal repro- 
 duction, which Christian faith gives, in the indwelling 
 Presence by grace of Christ in His jieople. 
 
 So, again, our literary and critical Science examines 
 the Holy Scripture which is the embodiment of the 
 Christian Truth. It distinguishes in it also, by an 
 insight of which past ages had no conception, the human 
 element of imperfection and progressiveness from that 
 which claims to be Divine — the essential truth itself 
 
VI.] Christianity Natural. 231 
 
 from the forms in which it has been conveyed, and which 
 by their very variety bring it into living contact with 
 all ])hases of human consciousness. And the result is 
 to make us see clearly that the one key to its right 
 interpretation is the knowledge of the central Manifes- 
 tation of Christ Himself — His Life, His Word, His 
 Person — that on this ultimately must rest the plenary 
 authority, claimed for Holy Scripture — that in relation 
 to this all other parts stand simply as preparatory or 
 explanatory, and only in that dependence can be rightly 
 understood and reasonably reverenced. 
 
 In both cases it seems to me plain that, in its critical 
 aspect, Science is the schoolmaster to lead us from 
 Christianity to Christ Himself It forces us to put 
 aside all other enquiries for the supreme question — 
 ' What think ye of Christ % Who and what is He T 
 In some sense it prepares the way for Faith, by showing 
 lis that for ourselves this question means, ' Have we 
 ground for the absolute faith in Him, once expressed 
 by St. Peter, as having perfectly "the words of eternal 
 life," which necessarily imp lies the further conviction that 
 He is " the Son of the living God ".' 
 
 (IV) But this power of distinctive insight in scientific 
 criticism, when it has thus brought us face to face with 
 the supreme question, must also go on to define for 
 criticism itself both the method and the limit of its 
 further duty, of proving or testing the answer which 
 ('hristianity gives. 
 
 Christianity, thus centred in Christ, presents itself, 
 as I have said, under two distinct aspects — as at once 
 Natural and Supernatural ; and it would seem that in 
 
232 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 tlie function of criticism towards it tliere is a corre- 
 sponding distinction. 
 
 Wlietlier Christianity is Natural it seems to have a 
 full right and power to judge. That it is thus Natural 
 — in harmony (that is) with what we can discover of the 
 Laws of the Supreme Power over the world and man, 
 and actually with tliem a part of the ' Law Eternal ' 
 of all being — is the great argument of Analogy. That 
 argument is necessarily as old as Christianity itself. It 
 is implied by the very fact that in Holy Scripture the 
 Manifestation of Christ is described, as ordained from 
 before the foundation of the world, and actually em- 
 bedded in the whole history of humanity — as the con- 
 summation up to which all led beforehand, and by 
 which all that follows is to be determined till His 
 Second Advent. It is implied by our Lord's own use 
 of teaching by Parables, in which the laws of the King- 
 dom of Heaven are illustrated, and in measure repre- 
 sented, by the laws of the natural world. The saying that 
 'Christianity is as old as the Creation,' which was once 
 crudely used to depreciate its supernatural authority, is 
 now seen to be but a perverted statement of the claim, 
 which is implied in the beginning of its Scriptural 
 record from the first origin of this world. 
 
 But there have been epochs — epochs of great advance 
 in the knowledge of Nature and its Laws — when this 
 argument has assumed a special impoitance. One such 
 epoch followed in England the great discovery of New- 
 ton, giving predominance of interest to the study of 
 physical Science, affecting also the prevalent forms of 
 metaphysical and moral Science. It was then that the 
 
VI.] The Argument of Analogy. 233 
 
 argument was wrouglit out by Butler, in relation to the 
 knowledge and the philosophy of his age, in that great 
 book, of which I hold it entirely an error to suppose 
 that in its essential force it is, or will be, obsolete. In 
 another such epoch we are living now — an epoch of a 
 yet more extraordinary advance of the same study under 
 difl'erent aspects. For us, therefore, once more the argu- 
 ment of Analogy starts into a new prominence ; and, as 
 I venture to think, with an even greater advantage than 
 in Butler's day. True it is, that he was allowed to 
 assume, with a freedom denied to us, a personal and 
 intelligent Author of Nature. But then l)y the Deism 
 of his age this assumption w^as made somewhat barren. 
 Nature was looked upon as a great machine, set going 
 once for all by its Author, and then left to work under 
 fixed laws of uniformity, of which Miracle was clearly 
 a break, to be proved, if possible, by evidence against 
 inherent improbability. We have learnt to see that in 
 Nature there is not uniformity, but continual growth 
 and development of an indwelling Life, always producing 
 out of the lower the higlier forms of being — that at each 
 great epoch in this development, there comes in a new 
 force, which in comparison with the lower form of 
 Nature preceding is supernatural — and that what we 
 call the miraculous in the Manifestation of Christ pre- 
 sents itself to us as a supreme new creation, rising above 
 the old, yet connecting itself with it, using all its laws 
 and forces, while it brings in a new and Diviner power of 
 its own. It is plain, I tliink, that this larger scientific 
 view of Nature diminishes greatly, if it does not alto- 
 gether remove, the dead weiglit ot" antecedent impro- 
 
234 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 bability, against which tlie argument of Butler had so 
 laboriously to struggle. In some of my previous Lec- 
 tures I have tried to suggest to you certain points, in 
 w^hich it absolutely confirms by analogy the great doc- 
 trines of the Gospel. 
 
 Accordingly, as it seems to me, the whole tendency 
 of the scientific criticism of our own day is to conclude, 
 that, while, of couise, there aie points in Christian 
 doctrine, on which it cannot pronounce at all, and which 
 appear to it as mysterious and unreal, and while there 
 are other points, which seem abnormal, and therefore 
 constitute to the critical mind difficulties of belief, yet 
 that, as a whole, Christianity is emphaticall}'' Natural. 
 The old objections or scoffs against it as an unnatural 
 and unphilosophical superstition — contradicting both 
 Natural Science and Natural Tlieology — are nearly dead 
 and gone. Its moral and spiritual power, alike over the 
 individual man and over human society, is acknow- 
 ledged as the greatest that the world has seen. Its 
 system of truth is recognised as containing the highest 
 conceptions yet attained of God and Man. Its Author 
 is reverenced as the gieatest Son of Man, who has 
 created for all time a new ideal of humanity, and who, 
 in respect of our moral and spiritual life, is, in the 
 well-known words of John Stuart Mill, so accepted as 
 an universal guide, that by His teaching all men may 
 translate abstract moral idea into concrete livinof realitv. 
 Accordingly in relation to the Supreme and Absolute 
 Being, it is largely acknowledged that the alternative 
 is between Christianity, and a vague Pantheism or 
 dreary Agnosticism; and, moreover, that, if Christianity 
 
VI.] Christianity Supernatural. 235 
 
 is to endure at all, it must be the full Christianity 
 of Holy Scripture and the Catholic Creeds, and not 
 the diluted and attenuated Christianity, wliich in the 
 worship of reason, and in the fear of mystery, has been 
 substituted for it. So far the attempt of critical Science 
 to test all things has certainly brought men, with some 
 degree of faith and reverence, face to face with Christ ; 
 and we, who believe that, when lifted up to the thoughtful 
 gaze of men, He will fulfil His great superhuman pro- 
 mise, and 'draw all men to Him ' in a deeper and more 
 absolute faith, so far may ' thank God and take courage.' 
 (V) But this acceptance of Christian Life and Idea 
 and of Christ Himself, as simply occupying the highest 
 place as yet known to us in the Natural scale, is like 
 the * philosophical devotion,' which Gibbon notes in 
 Alexander Severus ; it may prepare for Christianity, 
 but it is not Christianity, and ought never to assume 
 the name. Evidently it can have no finality about 
 it ; it can justify no absolute faith or devotion : it 
 never could have had the ]>ower or the right to claim 
 the whole world of humanity for its Master. Chris- 
 tianity is nothing, if it be not Supernatural, or (if you 
 will) miraculous — if it is not (that is) the revelation to 
 the world of a new Life and Light brought to it in 
 (Christ, differing, not in degree, but in kind, from 
 all others in the Natural scale — and if accordingly it 
 does not acknowledge in its Master an ' only begotten 
 Son of God,' in a Son.ship essentially and infinitely 
 exalted above the son.ship of humanity at large ^ 
 
 ' The definite 'Ofinovcrmv, as contrasted with the vague 'Ofiotova-iov, 
 of the Arian controversy. 
 
236 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 Such it unquestionably was from the beginning. 
 Nothing is historically more certain than that its first 
 preaching to the world rested on the great visible 
 miracle of the Resurrection, with the Ascension as its 
 7iecessarv consequence, without which St. Paul so 
 bluntly declared that the faith in it was a delusion, 
 and the preaching of it a lie \ Nothing is clearer in 
 the New Testament than the teachins: that this is but 
 the visible outcome of the yet greater invisible miracle 
 of the Incarnation — that through this He, who was 
 but ' made of the seed of David according to the flesh,' 
 is * declared to be the Son of God with power-.' Nothing, 
 again, in the whole Gospel record is plainer than the 
 constant declaration, almost as a matter of course, that 
 from this invisible miracle flowed, so to speak, naturally 
 in the Lord's earthly life what St. John calls Epiphanies 
 of His Divine Griory, in the lesser miracles at once of 
 power and of love, which He made an integral part 
 of His Ministry. The miraculous character attaches to 
 the Manifestation of Christ as a whole ; what we com- 
 monly call miracles are simply visible flashes from time 
 to time, by which it was His will to disclose the Divine 
 light through the veil of His humanity. To deny these 
 things, or to explain them away, is simply to substitute 
 for the historic Christianity a new religion or religious 
 philosophy under the old name ^. 
 
 ^ I Cor. XV. 14, 15. " R(mi. i. 3, 4. 
 
 * 'On the whole' (says the authoi* of Ecce Homo) 'miracles play 
 so important a part in Christ's scheme, that any theory, which would 
 represent them as due entirely to the imagination of His followers or 
 of a later age, destroys the credibility of the documents not partially 
 
VI.] Past phases of Criticism. 237 
 
 Now what is the attitude of Scientific criticism to- 
 wards this assertion of the Supernatural \ 
 
 I ain old enough to have seen it pass through at least 
 three phases. In my }ounger days the whole question 
 ^vas considered on the basis, on which it was placed by 
 the scepticism of tlie old Deistic School and the answer 
 of Paley, reproducing with transparent clearness and 
 thoroughness some part of the deeper treatment of the 
 same question by Butler ^ It was on aU hands acknow- 
 ledged, hy the broad common-sense of the eighteenth 
 century, that miracles, as disclosures of the working 
 of a Su{)ernatural Power, presumably Divine, were the 
 natural credentials of Revelation ; although they were 
 treated too much in isolation from other elements of that 
 Revelation, and in themselves not sufficiently viewed 
 as forming a whole, and having relation to the great 
 miracle of miracles. On this basis the argument on 
 both sides rested. On the one side men urged the im- 
 probability of all that contradicted common experience, 
 and the general insutficiency in such cases of testimony; 
 on the other there was denial that such contradiction 
 was overwhelmingly improbable, and the examination 
 of the actual testimony of word and deed, of life and 
 death, by which the Christian miracles were estab- 
 lished as unmistakeable facts. In this phase of the 
 
 but wholly, and loaves Chrif-t a personage as mythical as Hercules.' 
 (Part I. c. 5.) 
 
 ' Anal., l^rt II. c. vii., where he spciiks of 'Miracles and Pro- 
 phecy' — i.e. miracle, ])hysical and spiritual — as 'the direct and 
 fundamental proofs of ("hristianity ' ; while he goes on to ])oint out 
 that those must he viewed in relation to the 'general scheme of 
 Ivi'vchitiun,' iind the ' whole argument for it in one view.' 
 
238 Criticism and the Sicper^iattcral. [lect. 
 
 controversy it was (I think) generally allowed that the 
 defence was victorious against the attack. Then came 
 an entire change of critical attack and defence. All 
 examination of testimony was put aside as futile by 
 a high a prio7'i reasoning that miracle was simply 
 impossible, because it implied deviation from irrever- 
 sible ' Laws of Nature ' (under which, it seemed, the 
 Deity, if indeed a Deity there were, was bound, like 
 Darius under the laws of the Medes and Persians), and 
 that, indeed, this grand unchanging uniformity was the 
 best, perhaps the only worthy, expression of a Supreme 
 Mind; so that the apparent occurrence of miracle would 
 only encumber and weaken the evidence of a Kevelation 
 from God, which it had been supposed to strengthen. 
 But these imposing assumptions have, I think, been 
 fairly exploded — by none with more brilliant and un-' 
 answerable force than by Mozley in his Bampton 
 Lectures of 1865 ^ On the one hand, it is seen that 
 the so-called ' Order of Nature,' so far as it is dis- 
 cerned by observation, amounts simply to a statement 
 of constantly recurring facts in the past, and, as such, 
 
 ^ It is, of course, clear that the masterly argument of Mozley's 
 Second Lecture (taking up the reasoning of Hume that observation 
 shows us only antecedence and consequence, and can tell us nothing 
 of cause), is largely an argumentimi ad Jiominem, addressed to that 
 school of thought, which professes to rest only on observation and 
 deduction fiora it, and to decry all metaphysical idea. So far it is 
 unanswerable. Its eflPect, therefore, is, first, to drive the mind to 
 recognise the necessity of an assumption of a ruling idea, 1) ing beyoi.d 
 such observation and determining it; and then, if that necessity 
 be recognised, to show that faith in a living God is the only assumption 
 which really satisfies it, and to examine the witness borne to it by 
 that direct exhibition of Will, which we call Miracle. 
 
VI.] Past phases of Criticism. 239 
 
 can have no dutermining force and no necessary an- 
 ticipation of the future ; that the very conception of 
 unchanging Cause, and the consequent explanation of 
 regularity, require sometliing beyond mere observation ; 
 — something of necessary assumption — something, which 
 (as we have seen) is called by the physicist himself an 
 
 * act of faith ' ; and that, if this sometliing be supplied 
 by what properly deserves to be called faith, the 
 personal consciousness of a Supreme Personality — if. 
 (as the very use of the words ' Laws of Nature ' in its 
 proper sense implies) we come through that faith to 
 the conviction that these laws of Nature are what 
 we properly mean by laws — (that is) expressions of 
 a Su})rerae Will — the whole argument of impossibility 
 falls hopelessly to the ground. On the other hand, the 
 somewhat transcendental contention that miracles are 
 needless and useless, as indications of a mission from 
 God ^ has been shattered by a simple appeal to the 
 common sense, and the invariable experience, of hu- 
 manity. So now the criticism of the real leaders of 
 scientific thought has come back, although with far 
 greater thoroughness and force, to the old ground. If 
 
 ^ 'The defect of Spinoza's view' (of the imjiossiljility of miracle) 
 
 * is that he will not look upon a miracle as an instrumi-ut, a means to 
 an end, but will only look upon it as a marvel beginning and ending 
 with itself. "A miracle," he says, "as an interruption to the order 
 of Nature, cannot give us any knowledge of God, nor can we under- 
 stand anything from it." It is true that we cannot understand any- 
 thing from an intcri'uption of the order of Nature, simply as such ; 
 but if this interruption has an evidential function asti^ned to it, 
 then something may be understood from it, and something of vast 
 importance.' Mozley, Lecture I. p. 24 (cd. of 1867). 
 
240 Criticism and the Stipernatural. [lect. 
 
 there be, indeed, a Personal God, tlie idea of impossi- 
 bility or incredibility of miracle must fall. If there 
 is to be a s|iecial Kevelation of Him, the notion not 
 only of the evidential nselessness of Miracle, but of 
 any serious improl^ability must be surrendered : for 
 any argument against Miracle from the analogy of the 
 ordinary action of the Divine Moral Government must 
 depend on essential likeness to the conditions and pur- 
 poses of that action, and cannot apply to what is pre- 
 supposed to be a unique occasion and purpose \ The 
 whole question must turn once more on the adequacy 
 of testimony in general, and of the Christian testimony 
 in particular. The negative contention now is not that 
 Miracles cannot happen, but that they do not, or did 
 not, happen. It is supported by some general depre- 
 ciation of the capacity of testimony, and much sceptical 
 criticism of the special evidence of the Gospel record 
 itself It is this form of criticism alone, which is still 
 alive and powerful : and it is, therefore, this that we 
 are now concerned to meet. 
 
 But, has all this past criticism, been futile % When 
 the question thus returns to the old ground, does it 
 come back unchanged ? Surely we must answer. No ; 
 and see that this testing process has enabled us to get 
 rid of much that is false or arbitrary in our own belief, 
 and to hold fast that which in it is good. 
 
 Perhaps the effect may be described briefly as the 
 discernment of a higher Law of Divine Order in Miracle 
 itself. 
 
 That result shows itself, first, in the clearer idea, 
 * See Mozley, Lect. II. p. 47, 
 
yi.] The Revelation of Divine Will. 241 
 
 which we liave gained of the essential characterof Miracle 
 in its relation to the Natural Order. The essence of 
 Miracle lies not in its strangeness and its power to 
 excite wonder, although wonder may be the first step 
 to fuller knowledge and understanding — not in its in- 
 dication of some forces at work, undreamt of as yet 
 in our philosophy \ although in this we take another 
 step onward in the same course. It includes these 
 things, but it is more than these. The essential point 
 in Miracle, as our Lord Himself taught, is that it is 
 a ' sign ' — a visible indication of invisible and eternal 
 reality. It is, as the very method of the record of 
 Miracle in Holy Scripture might suggest, simply a plain 
 and direct manifestation, in connection with known 
 and declared purpose, of a Supernatural Will in Nature, 
 which by those who believe in but One God, must be 
 held to be, mediately or immediately, a Divine Will. 
 Now as to that Will, I must hold (as has been already 
 said) that our own human thought traces it ultimately as 
 the great First Cause of all things, working through 
 Nature s ordinary Laws. But to our human reason it 
 works behind the veil, dimly seen through a series of 
 'second causes,' inferred, although with almost irre- 
 sistible inference, rather than known. In Miracle it 
 is plainly unveiled, so that he who runs may read it. 
 In our Lord's miracles (for example), if the Gospel 
 record be true, we see the plainest exhibitions of Divine 
 Power, as a Power creative, a Power of rule over 
 inanimate Nature, a Power of rule over humanity — 
 
 ' This is exactly the inference drawn by Herod as to our Lord's 
 miracles iu Mark vi. 14, iviftr^ovaw aX dwafifn eV avTu. 
 
 K 
 
242 Criticism and the Stipernatural. [lect. 
 
 always dii ected by perfect Wisdom and Love. In all 
 there is, therefore, (as St. John declares) a plain mani- 
 festation of the Divine Glory. 
 
 But more than this. Miracle is wrought through 
 man, claiming to have mission from God ; and in this 
 aspect it is a sign, that his human will has a close and 
 conscious harmony with the Supreme Will. We note 
 in the course of Nature the action of this force of 
 human will, to our eyes variable and original, yet of 
 course necessarily subject to the Divine Will ; we find 
 it strong, just in proportion to its knowledge of that 
 Will, and its conscious obedience thereto. Through 
 these it becomes a real and powerful element, which 
 works together with the invariable element of Natural 
 Force and Natural Law, and within limits, uses these 
 for its own purpose. We see it, moreover, as an ad- 
 vancing power, continually enlarging its province, as 
 time rolls on, and as the higher faculties of our hu- 
 manity are more and more developed. Strange new 
 glimpses of the extent of that mastery of will, when 
 exercised over weaker minds and wills, we are gaining 
 in some of the researches of modern days — glimpses 
 only as yet, mere promises of larger future discovery. 
 Everything seems to indicate that in a humanity, 
 perfect in itself and perfect in harmony with the Divine 
 Will, such mastery might be also perfect over Nature 
 and over Man. It is the supernatural fulfilment of 
 this inference from natural analogy, whicli comes out 
 to us in fulness in the miracles of our Lord, and in 
 varying degrees in the miracles of His chosen servants 
 before and after His coming. 
 
VI.] The Harmony ivith it of Human Will. 243 
 
 For liere all the limits, of which we are in our own 
 imperfect experience conscious, are thrown down or 
 thrown back : and the will of man, working under 
 extraordinary knowledge of the Divine Will and obedi- 
 ence thereto \ exercises a mastery to us certainly un- 
 known, perhaps incomprehensible. How this operation 
 of Divine Will, working through human will, effects 
 itself — whether plainly through the instrumentality of 
 natural forces, or by processes to us inconceivable — 
 matters not to the essential character of Miracle. Nor, 
 again, is it possible for us to determine in what forms, 
 and on what occasions, it is credible that it should 
 manifest itself. For of this we are no more able to 
 judge than to determine why the same Divine Power 
 should manifest itself under this or that form in Nature. 
 Perhaps (to apply Butler's argument) we should expect 
 to find things strange to us and unlikely in the one 
 course of action, as we find them in the other — provided 
 always that the manifestation of Supreme Will be not 
 obscured. In regard, moreover, to this manifestation, 
 since it is for the sake of men, we may expect that it 
 will adapt itself at different times to different conditions 
 and circumstances, so that in one generation it may 
 take forms, which would seem trivial to others, but 
 which were suitable to the stage of its spiritual edu- 
 cation, and for the advance of that education in the 
 knowledge of the Divine will. Since, again, it is made 
 
 * Such perfect knowledge and obedience our Lord declares, as the 
 law of His own miraculous action. ' The Son can do nothing, but 
 what He seeth the Father do. For the Father loveth the Son, and 
 showetli aJl things that Himself doeth ' (John v. 19, 20). 
 
 R 2 
 
244 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 through men, may there not be here, as in Inspiration 
 (which is, indeed, miracle in the realm of mind), the 
 admixture of a human element with the Divine — a 
 colouring (so to speak) of miraculous power by the 
 medium through which it passes % In all these aspects, 
 it is clearly seen, that it is with the reality of the 
 manifestation of Divine Will and Purpose through man, 
 rather than its form or metliod of working, that we 
 are concerned. It is this which our critical thought 
 is to test, and, so far as it discovers it, to hold fast. 
 
 But, again, this discernment of Law applies to the 
 whole course of Miracle in itself, and gives a clearer 
 idea of the right place and force of visible Miracle in 
 the system of what claims to be a Eevelation from 
 God. We have come to see that it is a fatal error to 
 judge of Miracle, as in itself and by itself a sufficient 
 witness of Him. Miracle is always, as has been said, 
 a sign of something greater than itself, with which it 
 is indissolubly connected. But in relation to a Eevela- 
 tion it has a double significance. 
 
 It is a sign, as our Lord expressly taught the disciples 
 of St. John the Baptist, preparatory (where such pre- 
 paration is necessary) for the reception of a distinct 
 word of teaching as from God — a ' Gospel preached to 
 the poor' and simple. In that connection lies the 
 essential distinction between Miracle in the Christian 
 sense, and the strange unaccountable phenomena of 
 physical and psychical agency, which are merely wonders 
 and nothing more. Some of these have associations 
 simply puerile or sordid ; some are such, that, when 
 thoughtfully examined, they may throw light on natural 
 
Vi.] The tivofold Significance of Miracle. 245 
 
 laws, both of the world's outward order, in which they 
 occur, and of tlie minds which perceive them ; but they 
 certainly have no high moral and spiritual meaning 
 for all mankind. That, seen in that connection, espe- 
 cially by the great mass of men, who are taught and 
 influenced mainly through the senses, Miracle always 
 has been, and always must be, most powerful, no one 
 who knows human nature can doubt. The inference of 
 Nicodemus, ' No man can do these miracles that thou 
 doest, except God be with him,' is the expression of the 
 common-sense of humanity in all ages. It may be true 
 — and the dispensation of Miracle seems to suggest it — 
 that this witness of Miracle will tell in different degrees 
 of power on different ages of the woi'ld, on minds in 
 different stages of culture and knowledge of God. But 
 who can doubt that in some degree it must tell every- 
 where, while man is what he is — in the England of 
 the nineteenth century, as truly, if not as powerfully, 
 as in the Palestine of the first % 
 
 It is a sign, again, as He Himself also made it, of 
 what is the invisible reality of the Divine work. The 
 deliverance from bodily sickness and infirmity in the 
 * Take up thy bed and walk,' is a pledge and symbol 
 of the invisible spiritual deliverance in ' Thy sins 
 are forgiven thee.' In that light all careful study 
 has recognised the symbolic appropriateness of our 
 Lord's miracles, as acted Parables of His redeeming 
 work. In that lio-ht a thouo'htful consideration of 
 the lesser miracles, wrought l)y His servants before 
 and after His coming, would show that these also 
 liad a similar appropriateness to the character of the 
 
246 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 workers, and the special work for God, that they had 
 to do. 
 
 Under both these aspects, moreover, we have come 
 to see that Miracle belongs especially to what we may 
 call epochs of advance and expansion in the progres- 
 sive Revelation of God ; therefore in especial fulness to 
 that Life, which was the transcendent completion of all 
 the imperfect manifestations which had gone before ; 
 therefore in measure to certain special and crucial 
 occasions, both in the preparation for His coming, and 
 in the extension of His kingdom. There is an economy 
 of Miracle, — in Himself a self-imposed restraint, — in 
 His servants a restraint, of whicli they themselves seem 
 to have been conscious, as imposed from above. 
 
 But the sign has done its work, when it has pointed 
 to the thing signified. The work leads up to the Word ' 
 and the Life ; beyond this they must stand or fall (so 
 to speak) by their own intrinsic power of Wisdom and 
 Truth and Love, and by their harmony with all yet 
 known of the Revelation of God. By that intrinsic 
 character is decided the one choice, which remains to 
 us, when supernatural reality of miracle in itself is 
 brouofht home — whether to refer it to some erratic or evil 
 power, as the Pharisees professed to believe that devils 
 were cast out through Beelzebub, or to see in it the 
 manifest working, direct or indirect, of the finger of 
 God. Only by reference to that essential character of 
 His Ministry is there force in our Lord's argument, 
 that the supposition, involved in the cavil of the 
 Pharisees, implies the monstrous conception of a 
 ' kingdom of Satan divided against itself,' and so 
 
VI.] All centred in Christ. 247 
 
 blindly serving the advancement of a true kingdom 
 of Heaven. 
 
 But perhaps, above all, this progress in discernment 
 of Law shows itself in the concentration of all our 
 thought, in respect of tliis great subject, on tliat which 
 must be its riglit centre — the Manifestation of the 
 Supernatural in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It 
 has often been noted tliat, in the recorded examples 
 of Apostolic teaching, there is but slight and general 
 reference to the lesser miracles of our Lord's life, 
 while the whole stress of witness is laid on the reality 
 of the great Miracle of miracles in the Resurrec- 
 tion ; and the whole stress of argument on its signifi- 
 cation of the true nature of Him who died and rose 
 again. Surely there is in this a true insight into the 
 heart of things. If in this the Christian faith is true, 
 it is clear that throuofh the Manifestation of our Lord 
 on earth, we have entered upon a wholly new Super- 
 natural order, in which, if I may so say, the manifes- 
 tations of supernatural power are themselves natural. 
 This consideration applies chiefly to the Divine Life 
 itself incarnate in our flesh, but not exclusively. As 
 there is a noonday, so there are a dawn and an after- 
 glow of the Sun of Righteousness. If, before He came, 
 we hold that for His Coming there was special pre- 
 paration in the Divine Will and Purpose, it cannot 
 surprise us, that from time to time, at great crucial 
 epochs in that preparation — such as the era of the 
 Exodus and Eisodus, and of the great Baal apostasy 
 in the days of Elijah and Elisha — there should have 
 been visible flashes of miracle, revealing the operation of 
 
248 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 that Will. If we believe that all which followed was the 
 working out and proclamation of the great Supernatural 
 reality, it cannot be strange to us, that, so far and so 
 long as was necessary, the supernatural aids to such 
 proclamation should have continued. We see what is 
 the true key to the position — where is the true centre 
 of the manifestation of the supernatural order. By it 
 we judge of all the lesser parts of that order, utterly 
 refusing to fritter away our strength in criticizing 
 them as isolated plienomena. And the effect has 
 always seemed to me to reverse the old proverb, so as 
 to make the strength of our chain to be the strength, 
 not of the weakest, but of the strongest link. For 
 certainly it is herCj where it is all important, that the 
 great force of witness is gathered for us ; it is here 
 that we are best able to test truth, and to hold fast 
 that which satisfies the test. 
 
 In all these three ways I cannot but think that 
 ultimately, in spite of temporary obscurations and per- 
 plexities, our Christian faith owes a debt to Science in 
 its critical i'unction of distinction, for aiding us to rise 
 to a worthier and truer idea of what we mean, when 
 we proclaim Christianity as Supernatural. When that 
 idea is clearly understood, many of the commoner cavils 
 and denials answer themselves ; the antecedent improb- 
 ability of exemplifications of the Supernatural order 
 at least so far passes away, that it can be readily over- 
 come by force of strong testimony to its reality. 
 
 (VI) But now that the essence of the Christian asser- 
 tion of the Supernatural is thus distinguished, as pre- 
 sented in the Life, Death, Eesurrection of the Lord 
 
VI.] The character of the ivitness borne. 249 
 
 Himself, what is tlie effect of criticism, when it goes 
 on to the second function of testincr its truth % The 
 answer I would venture to give is this — that it seems 
 in every way to be sweeping away all uncertainties and 
 hesitations on either side, and to be bringing us face to 
 face with the great alternative of faith and unbelief. 
 
 Thus it looks clearly and searchingly into the 
 witness borne to the truth of that Manifestation — as it 
 first flashed upon the world in the Apostolic preaching 
 — as it is embodied to us in the history and teaching of 
 Holy Scripture — as it is asserted in all the Creeds of the 
 Church from the beginning, and implied in her whole 
 worship and life. Knowing well the truth of the old 
 motto Dolus latei in generalihus, it forces us to put aside 
 the vague and sweeping generalities, both of wholesale 
 depreciation of the value of all testimony, and of the 
 attribution, questionable in point of fact, to the Apo- 
 stolic age — the Augustan age (be it remembered) of the 
 Roman Empire — of an eager undiscriminating credu- 
 lity. It bids us look carefully at the special case — the 
 definite character, circumstances, results, of the witness, 
 as it is actually presented to us. Then, studying first 
 the internal evidence, in the naturalness and graphic 
 vividness of the history and of the Character, which is 
 its centre — in the mingled loftiness and simplicity of 
 the teaching — in the continuity and natural development 
 of idea, which runs through the whole ; and next, the 
 external evidence, which, after much bold criticism in 
 the opposite direction, now brings us to the conclusion 
 that what we have in the New Testament, interpreted, 
 as it necessarily must be, by subsequent history, is 
 
250 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 substantially the witness borne from the beginning, 
 by those who (to use St. Luke's phrase) were 'eye- 
 witnesses and ministers of the word,' I cannot but 
 think that it has made, or is making, untenable the 
 so-called mythical theory, of the gradual personification 
 of an abstract ideal of humanity, or the oradual accu- 
 mulation of imaginative and symbolic legend round a 
 real but purely human life ^ And, if this be so, it 
 brings us (as I have said) face to face with the only 
 possible alternatives — on the one hand of conscious 
 legend, arising either out of sheer delusion in the 
 original witnesses, or incapacity of understanding the 
 difiPerence between truth and falsehood, which it is 
 hard to conceive intellectually, or out of sheer deception 
 of the world, for purposes, perhaps great and unselfish 
 purposes, of their own, which under all the conditions 
 may be called a moral impossibility — on the other of 
 that acceptance of the history as true, which is the 
 backbone of the Cieed of Christendom, and the basis 
 of the unique and marvellous work which Christianity 
 
 ^ The crucial inf-tance of this eflfect is found in the result of the 
 criticism of the Fourth Gospel ; of which so graphic aud interesting 
 a picture was presented in the Bampton Lectures of 1890 [Mohm 
 Criticism and the Fourth Gospel, hy Archdeacon Watkins). That 
 picture itself, even independently of all argument upon it, seems almost 
 to decide the question, by the simple contrast of the multifarious 
 critical theories of this century — in their extraordinary wildness and 
 mutual contradictions, and their utter failure to see their way tlu'ough 
 the ditficulties they have raised to an adequate constructive account 
 of the thing criticized — with the simplicity of the faith in the 
 Apostolic origin of the Gospel, which Church tradition has held from 
 the beginning. The lecturer's conclusion is, I observe, that here at 
 any rate ' the mythical theory is dead.' 
 
VI.] The substance of that Witness, 251 
 
 has wrought in the world. The alternative is a great, 
 in some sense a formidable one ; and in the know- 
 ledge of this the mind is tempted to take refuge in 
 some indefinite intermediate conceptions. But this 
 cannot be. Clearly the matter is one in which no 
 such halting between two opinions is, as a permanent 
 position, possible, even if it be morally justifiable. If, 
 therefore, we think it well to have the great alterna- 
 tive forced upon us — if we feel a strong conviction 
 that, when thus thoughtfully considered, it must issue 
 in the glad decision of faith — we may accept the posi- 
 tion gravely and hopefully, and count that, even so, 
 criticism has done unconscious service in leading men 
 to Christ. 
 
 But criticism passes on, next, to study closely the 
 actual substance of that to which witness is borne. It 
 bids us throughout fix our eyes on the one great Central 
 Figure, on which all the history and teaching continually 
 rest. It bids us study deeply the Life, in word, action, 
 character, of the Son of Man Himself, painted with that 
 vivid reality of which I have spoken, and to mark its 
 immeasurable exaltation above all other actual lives, 
 still more above all ideals, which early Christianity was 
 capable of framing. It bids us estimate it, not only in 
 itself, but also in relation to the whole environment, 
 intellectual, moral, religious, in which it appeared, and 
 even in comparison with the lives of His chosen servants, 
 whom He made His witnesses to the world. It acknow- 
 ledges, as it must acknowledge, that the account of the 
 inner secret of that unique Life, which is drawn out to 
 us in the distinctive, vet concurrent, teachings of the 
 
252 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 Apostolic Epistles, and which has been preserved and 
 developed through the ages of Christian faith, is at 
 least an intelligible and an adequate account ; that, if it 
 be true, the miraculous power over the material and the 
 spiritual, with which the record declares it to have been 
 clothed, is, both in itself and in the beneficence which 
 directs it, at least appropriate to it, and (so to speak) 
 natural ; that the Kesurrection and Ascension to the 
 right hand of God are certainly its onlv worthy and 
 adequate conclusion. It sees, moreover, that the de- 
 claration of this meaning of the story of Jesus of Naza- 
 ]'eth was a power, which against all difficulties and 
 antagonisms fairly conquered the world, and that the 
 acceptance of it, as a living truth and a revelation of the 
 Divine, has proved itself for eighteen centuries an ever 
 growing and victorious spiritual force over all races of 
 humankind. Then it is forced to ask, if this be set 
 aside, if its solid reality be evaporated into legend and 
 delusion, what other intelligible account can be put in 
 its place ; and certainly, as yet, in all the theories put 
 forward it has never found an adequate answer. Their 
 whole strength is in objection and destruction ; in con- 
 structive power they are utterly weak. Yet it is a poor 
 wisdom which only sees difficulties, and does not see 
 through them to some tangible reality. 
 
 But yet this is not all. It teaches us to consider 
 carefully tlie Word of the Lord Jesus Himself. We have 
 learnt under its teaching to trace out that Word under 
 various forms of revelation. W^e study it, as gradually 
 wrought out in the Synoptic Gospels to the great climax 
 with which the first Gospel ends. We study it, as it 
 
VI.] The claiin of the Lord Hhnself. 253 
 
 is reflected in various forms in the Acts and Apostolic 
 Epistles. We study it, as it is brought out explicitly 
 in its deeper teachings, not to the people, but to His 
 disciples, in the Fourth Gospel. There we have been 
 taught to note, not, as in the greatest of merely human 
 teachers, self-effacement, but what has been called self- 
 assertion, but perhaps would be better called self-dis- 
 closure — a claim, all the more startling from One, clothed 
 in humility and living simply for self-sacrifice, of a 
 Kingdom over all things in Heaven and Earth, a Priest- 
 hood of universal Mediation, a Nature One with the 
 Divine. Then, seeing clearly that these things cannot 
 be explained away, or referred, as the shallower criticism 
 in days gone by referred them, to the pious imagination 
 of those who came after Him, it has to bring home to 
 us the most momentous alternative of all — the aid Deus 
 aut homo non honiis of the often-quoted phrase. Either 
 these great claims are true, or they are what we hardly 
 dare to name — the wild dreams of a visionary enthusiast, 
 the presumptuous ambitions of a nature, corrupted from 
 its original nobility by success, with an element of half- 
 conscious unreality necessarily mingling with these. 
 There is no intermediate standing ground — and it is 
 well that we should know it — between the action of the 
 Jews, when, in face of that superhuman claim, they took 
 up stones to cast at Him as a blasphemer, and the 
 gradually deepening of the Apostolic faith to the final 
 confession * My Lord and my God.' 
 
 Lastly, in connection with this tremendous claim, it 
 seems to me ae:ain that critical thouMit briuijs out to 
 us more clearly than ever what is the real function of 
 
254 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect. 
 
 Christian Evidence, in its bearing upon the fundamental 
 and crucial question between the Church and the world 
 as to the mysteries of the Gospeh It is not to give — 
 what, indeed, man cannot give — demonstrative proof of 
 those mysteries ; but to ascertain whether we have suffi- 
 cient grounds — grounds, of course, not merely intellec- 
 tual, but moral and spiritual — for absolute faith in the 
 Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen how 
 the Law of Faith in general has shown itself to critical 
 study, not only as a necessary practical factor in the 
 whole conduct of life and in the constitution of human 
 society, but as a chief means — perhaps the chief means 
 of all for humanity at large — of arriving at ultimate 
 truth, and especially moral and spiritual truth \ It has 
 been ceeu that from the lesser and plainly limited appli- 
 cations of this Law in relation to man, we must ascend, 
 if we believe in a Supreme Personal God, to the ultimate 
 and absolute application of it to our relations with Him. 
 So the true significance of the title of Christianity, as 
 not a Philosophy but a Faith, comes out to us ; when we 
 see that the faith claimed for our Master is something 
 more than this ordinary faith in man, increased, however 
 immensely, in degree — that it is, indeed, the faith un- 
 limited and absolute, which can be given only to God 
 in man. Hence the true question of the acceptance of 
 Christianity — by which I mean the historic and definite 
 Christianity of the Creeds — is first, whether we can 
 place this transcendent faith in tlie Word of Christ, as 
 •the Word of Eternal life' for all the children of men — 
 spoken b}" His own lips, spoken in various tones in the 
 ^ See Lecture I. jip. 22-30. 
 
VI.] The function of Christian Evidence. 255 
 
 Apostolic message, by which it was His will to evan- 
 gelize the world ; and next, what is the true nature of 
 that Word, and how far all the elements, which make up 
 the large and complex fabric of Christian doctrine, are 
 really derived from it. 
 
 It is important that the crucial point at issue should 
 be thus made clear, and not in any ways confused with 
 those secondary considerations, with which nevertheless 
 Christian Evidence has 'to deal. It is, indeed, well, in 
 the largest sense of that analogy, of which I have 
 spoken, to examine the harmony of the great truths 
 of the Gospel with the Laws of Nature and Humanity — 
 a true harmony, be it observed, as distinct from a mere 
 unison, because in it the Gospel note rises supreme above 
 all undertones. It is well also to seek to verify these 
 truths by their living moral effects on tlie soul and on 
 the world, and, indeed, only those who thus know them 
 subjectively are likely to enter into their true meaning. 
 But these two phases of Christian thought are (I must 
 again remind you) subsidiary to the study of the 
 one great question of the grounds of faith in Christ. 
 If the answer to that brings us to rest on Him, then 
 we sit at His feet, and learn what the New Testa- 
 ment calls the mysteries of the Gospel — secrets (that 
 is) of the Divine Will and Nature, which are secrets no 
 longer, although still for full compreliension they pass 
 all knowledge, because they have been revealed through 
 the 'mind of Christ.' How significant and typical those 
 words of Martha, when, after revelation of one of the 
 deepest of these mysteries, and the question ' Believest 
 thou this \ ' she is content simply to answer, and our 
 
256 Criticism and the Supernatural, [lect. 
 
 Lord to accept her answer, ' Yea, Lord, I believe 
 that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God ! ' How- 
 ever Christian thought may advance in knowledge, 
 beyond what in those early days of disci pleship was 
 possible, its answer must still be substantially the 
 same, and from that answer all else follows. 
 
 (VII) So, in all these ways, it seems to me that the 
 criticism of our day, just because it is more than ever 
 thorough, penetrating, unsparing, forces upon us the 
 great alternative of Belief and Unbelief, not in this or 
 that doctrine, but in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. I 
 do not disguise from myself the momentous character of 
 that alternative — the struggle, even to agony, which it 
 brings on many a thoughtful soul — the not unnatural 
 temptation to shrink from it, occupying the mind pro- 
 visionally with other and easier questions, or distracting 
 it by practical duties and energies. But, believing (as I 
 have already said) in our Lord's own promise, ' I, if I be 
 lifted up, will draw all men unto Me,' I cannot fear the 
 issue ; and, although not without deep anxiety for indi- 
 vidual souls, I would even thank the resolute and earnest 
 questioning, which thus brings us face to face with Him. 
 It has been often said that our age is apt not to go 
 beyond the pathetic cry 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine 
 unbelief.' It may be so. But I note that the father of 
 the demoniac boy in the Gospel was compassed round 
 with this unbelief, from which he longed to be delivered, 
 just so long he only had before his eyes the impotence 
 of all earthly skill and love to relieve his child, or only 
 sought aid from the imperfect disciples of the great 
 Master ; but, when he came to the Master Himself, saw 
 
VI.] The G^'eat Alternative. 257 
 
 His face, heard His Word, then he could cry ' Lord ! T 
 believe.' If minds — perhaps especially the enquiring 
 minds of this younger generation — vexed and bewildered 
 by all the many critical questions and controversies, 
 which darken the air, would only pass through them 
 to the supreme issue, which they force upon us, and 
 would turn from the complexities of actual and ideal 
 Christianity to be foce to face with Christ Himself — 
 if they would but ponder His Manifestation in thought, 
 try its practical power by even a tentative obedience, 
 seek insight into its mystery by even a vague prayer to 
 the Supreme Wisdom — I cannot but think that this 
 experience would often be theirs also ; and that, while 
 still testing all things, which present themselves as 
 revelations of truth, they will be able to ' hold fast the 
 good,' in Him Who is the perfect Goodness. 
 
LECTUEE VII. 
 
 CRITICISM AND HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Search the Scyipinres . . . the^ tedify of Me. — John v. 39. 
 
 Once more in these words we hear that same demand 
 of enquiry and judgment in things Divine, on which 
 we dwelt last Sunday. But it comes to us now from 
 a higher authority and with a greater definiteness. 
 For it is the word, not of the Apostle, bat of the 
 Master Himself; and its definite application is to the 
 Holy Scripture, the Charter of Christian faith. In 
 the former clause of the text we must recognise a 
 distinct authorization of Biblical Criticism ; in the 
 second an equally distinct declaration of the essence 
 of the thing criticized. 
 
 To this search we must apply very emphatically 
 those principles of true Criticism, of which we have 
 already spoken. We must study Holy Scripture as 
 it is, not as we may fancy that it should be or must 
 be ; we must be at least prepared to find that it has 
 in it some inner life of truth and goodness ; and, even 
 if some things remain to us obscure and uncertain, we 
 must hold fast, and so come really and deeply to under- 
 stand, whatever we can grasp as true and good. The 
 very tone of the text requires, with obvious right, 
 
What is Scripture in itself? 259 
 
 that criticism, in virtue of these very characteristics, 
 shall, wliile it is keen and searching, have in it some 
 spirit of reverence and even of faith. For a Book, 
 which has been confessedly unique in its spiritual 
 power over humanity, has certainly a right to be 
 examined with reverence, and with some predisposition, 
 moreover, to believe that the secret of this supreme 
 power is the utterance through it of what is in some 
 supreme sense a Word of Truth, and therefore a 
 * Word of God.' Now it is (I think) beyond question 
 that such criticism as this must find by its search 
 through the whole texture of Scripture the witness 
 of Christ, which He Himself promises. The one ques- 
 tion is * What is the authority of that witness % Has 
 it a right and a power to draw to Him the intellect, 
 as well as the conscience and heart, of humanity, that 
 in Him they may have eternal life % ' 
 
 In examining that great question between Faith 
 and Unbelief, we have to see what are the main direc- 
 tions of enquiry in that Biblical Criticism, which has 
 so wonderfully advanced to us both in scope and in 
 power, that in many of its aspects it may be not 
 untruly called a creation of the present century. 
 
 The first is 'What is Scripture in itself? ' The next, 
 ' How has it come to be what it is T The third, ' What 
 is the ground of its claim of authority ? ' 
 
 (I) What is this Scripture in itself? This primary 
 enquiry, like all other enquiries into the nature of a 
 thing, results first in analysis, examining and distin- 
 guishing its various elements ; and then in synthesis, 
 searching out the general principle of structure, which 
 
 s 2 
 
26o Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 lias bound them togetlier as a whole. It is hard, I 
 think, for men of the younger generation adequately 
 to conceive the progress in this twofold enquiry, which 
 has been granted to the critical study of the last half 
 century. On the one hand, the sense of an infinite 
 variety has grown upon us, against the inveteiate 
 liabit of regarding the Bible as literally and formally 
 one Book, the same in character and fulness of Eeve- 
 lation, wherever you open it. On the otlier, the clearer 
 sense of unity has overcome, at least in great degree, 
 the tendency to acquiesce from various causes in a 
 piecemeal knowledge of the Bible, in isolated chapters 
 and texts, with which no thoughtful man would be 
 contented in any other book. In both these points 
 the humblest student of to-day may have a degree 
 of insight into the living reality of Holy Scripture, 
 and the w^onderful analogy in this repect between the 
 Word and the Work of God, to which the greatest 
 masters of Theology were strangers in days gone bv. 
 And we have come, moreover, to see more plainly, not 
 only that both these characteristics exist, but that they 
 are essential to any Book, which is to exercise an 
 universal and permanent influence over man. 
 
 For its variety brings it into touch with all forms 
 of human thought, and so with all ages and characters 
 of men. It is a commonplace now to speak of the 
 Bible as a literature in itself But perhaps we hardly 
 enter adequately into the full meaning of this familiar 
 description, till we consider how that infinite wealth 
 of human literature, which fairly bewilders us in the 
 overwhelming growth of some great hbrary, has, after 
 
VII.] Its variety. 261 
 
 all, a certain unity running tlirou^li it. Its backbone, 
 as \ve are coming to see more and more, is in History, 
 past and present — tlie history of man, individual 
 and collective, in liis action and his thought, — the 
 history of the earth, which by all its variety of treasure 
 furnishes the environment of his life — the history, so 
 far as we can read it, of the Universe, in its myste- 
 rious vastness of time and space, in which he loses 
 himself in material littleness, and yet finds himself in 
 the spiritual greatness of knowledge and understand- 
 ing. Yet the very record of that history brings out 
 necessarily the inner capacities of the humanity, which 
 contemplates and records it, as, indeed, they express 
 themselves in the very language of the record ; and 
 brings them out, moreover, as distinct, yet in the har- 
 mony of mind and heart and conscience and spirit. So, 
 growing out of History, we have the purely intellectual 
 element of Science, Inductive and Deductive, which 
 discovers and systematizes the Laws, that underlie 
 all history, and the Philosophy which correlates these 
 discoveries together — in search, as the very name im- 
 plies, for a Wisdom of Idea and Purpose pervading all. 
 We have the aesthetic element of the Poetry and Art, 
 which, alike in their discoveries and their creations, 
 idealize the imi)erfect realities of life — discovering not 
 so much wisdom and order, as beauty and grandeur 
 — reflecting to us not so much the dry light cf 
 thought as the glow of passion, imagination, a pira- 
 tion. We have the authoritative expression of Con- 
 science, both in the wonderful fabric of human Law, 
 restraining evil and enforcing right, and in the develop- 
 
262 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 ment of Morality, freely teaching and inspiring the 
 principles which give life to Law. Lastly, since the 
 mind and heart and conscience will not rest, except 
 on some Ultimate Being, some Creative and Sustaining 
 Power, some primal Source of Wisdom and Kigjjteous- 
 ness, known as personal, or by irresistible tendency 
 2:)ersonified, we have everywhere in all literature the 
 expression of some Eeligion — ' feeling after ' (to use 
 St. Paul's incomparable description) and in measure 
 ' finding Him, in w^liom all lives, and moves, and has 
 its being.' 
 
 Now, if this be so, what an immense significance 
 there is in the unquestionable fact, which our modern 
 Biblical Criticism has made so clear to us, that this 
 sketch of the manifold unity in human literature is 
 substantially a description of the structure of the Bible 
 itself! Its backbone is certainly in the history, start- 
 ing from the beginning of our world and leading up 
 to the Manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ, in itself 
 and in its proclamation to mankind. Then out of this 
 grow the declaration of Law, the insight of Prophecy 
 and Philosophy, the Poptry of contemplation, love, 
 adoration. Yet all is subordinated to the knowledge 
 of God, in Himself, and in His relation both to the 
 world and to the Soul. The Scripture is essentially 
 an epitome of all human literature. 
 
 But it is something more than this, or it could rise 
 to no Divine authority. Not less striking and in- 
 .structive is the all-important distinction, which, indeed, 
 makes the Book unlike all other books, — that this 
 knowledge of God, instead of being looked upon as 
 
VII.] Its imity. 263 
 
 an ultimate mysterious result, up to which slowly, 
 imperfectly, speculatively, all other lines of thought 
 tend, is from the beginning set forth in a declaration 
 of simple certitude, having authority at every point, 
 yet growing in fulness and clearness, till it perfects 
 itself in Him who is the Word of God. So it is not 
 only the Omega, but the Alpha, by which everywhere 
 these other lines of thought are themselves determined. 
 In History, in Law, in Prophecy, in Psalm, the declara- 
 tion of St. Paul at Athens, is the motto of all Scrip- 
 ture, ' Whom ye ignorantly worship. Him declare I 
 unto you.' By thus keeping touch with all phases 
 of human thought, it fastens (so to speak) the spiritual 
 cords of knowledge and love into all varieties of human 
 nature ; by its own peculiar character of Eevelation, 
 it gathers them all into the hand of God in Christ, 
 that He may draw all to Himself. 
 
 But, while in that marvellous progress of which 
 I have spoken, our Biblical Criticism has brought out 
 to us this variety, as its first and most obvious dis- 
 covery, yet, in virtue of that last principle, it is equally 
 certain that it discovers to us an underlying unity 
 in Holy Scripture — not a dead, formal, unity as of 
 some artificial work of man, but the living unity, 
 at once of continuity and progressiveness, as in the 
 growth of an Organic being. Again, it is obvious that 
 familiarity obscures to us the extraordinary significance 
 of this unity, between books separated from one another 
 by centuries of time, by infinite difference of place, by 
 not less infinite difierence of tone and character, in the 
 human authors, many of them to us unknown. For, in 
 
264 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 the conviction that there is this unity, all deep and 
 thorough criticism confirms, as so often, the instinctive 
 inference of common-sense. We know, of course, that, 
 as in old days so now, there are the ol ■^wplXovTe^ — 
 those who would divide the indivisible whole — dis- 
 covering or inventing inconsistencies, even antagonisms, 
 as between the Old Testament and the New, so be- 
 tween the various books or sections of books in each, 
 and mostly referring these to the introduction from 
 time to time of wholly foreign elements. But theirs 
 is not the criticism of the highest sort. In the cruder 
 forms of old Gnostic days, it was abundantly shown 
 by great Christian teachers to be both unhistorical and 
 unphilosophical. In the subtler and more learned 
 forms, which it wears now, it fails to stand before 
 the more philosophical insight, which can look through 
 superficial diff'erences to essential principle. The pro- 
 gressiveness, which the Scripture itself declares, trae 
 criticism has certainly brought out with greater clear- 
 ness than ever, in respect of knowledge, of moral teach- 
 ing, of spiritual tone, of the conception by faith of 
 God Himself But that it is progressiveness, not 
 breach of unity, is hardly questionable. That as the 
 growth unfolds itself from the seed, it draws in nourish- 
 ment not only from the heaven above, but from the 
 earth beneath, in all the actions, and thoughts, and 
 faiths of men, which make the history of the world, 
 is true, and our increasing knowledge of that history 
 makes its truth more obvious. In old time it assimi- 
 lated such germs of truth as gave spiritual vitality 
 to Egyptian or Assyrian or Persian religion ; in later 
 
VII.] The subjective itnity of the Spirit. 265 
 
 days it is clear that the Gospel took up much from 
 the large speculation and culture of humanity in the 
 Greek, and from the conception of an universal law 
 of order and righteousness, which was the glory 
 of the Eoman. The one was undoubtedly wrought 
 into the development of the Catholic Creed ; the other 
 into the development of the Catholic Church. But 
 the inner life is still one, and it makes all its own, 
 not by crude intrusion but by strong assimilation. 
 From the days of Abraham to the manifestation ot" 
 his seed on earth, that growth is traced as unbroken. 
 It was by a true instinct that the world itself recog- 
 nised in Christianity a growth from its old stock of 
 Judaism ; first, with contempt ; then with fear and 
 hostility ; finally with homage and acceptance. The 
 Christ Himself it saw to be, by no mere figure of speech, 
 the ' seed of Abraham ' and the ' Son of David.' 
 
 Nor is it less clearly discerned where the main secret 
 of that unity lies. 
 
 Its subjective unity in one ultimate Divine author- 
 ship is, of course, largely a matter of faith. Criticism 
 may deny, or refuse to consider, or explain away into 
 vague generality, this faith of Christians in a Supreme 
 Inspiration — whether of origination or selection it 
 matters not — which has guided and overruled all these 
 varieties of age and authorship to one Divine Purpose — 
 so that ' the holy men of old spake as they were moved,' 
 borne on the current of that Purpose, ' by the Spirit 
 of God'— so that the unity is ultimately the unity in 
 divers measures and manners of one Divine Voice. It 
 may, I say, put this aside, though I hardly know what 
 
266 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 adequate substitute it can put in its place, as an ex- 
 planation of what is undoubtedly an unique fact in 
 the literature of the world. If (to use a well-known 
 comparison) stones brought from various quarters, by 
 various hands, in various generations, all fitted into 
 one another, and grew into a structure of grandeur 
 and beauty, who would explain this in any other way, 
 than by the conviction that all these agents were under 
 the guidance of one Supreme Mind, and intelligent 
 instruments in working out one foreordained purpose % 
 But no thoughtful criticism can refuse to see the 
 secret of the objective unity of the Eevelation itself, 
 ill the undoubted gathering of all the lines of Scriptural 
 thought, history, law, prophecy, into the Supreme Mani- 
 festation of the Lord Jesus Christ — all the rays of truth 
 converging to Him through the ages before He came, 
 and diverging from Him after His coming, to illuminate 
 all the regions and all subsequent ages of the world. 
 In spite of some recent statements to the contrary \ it 
 must seem to any criticism which looks to Holy Scrip- 
 ture as a whole, and is not diverted from this general 
 view to minute examinations of detail, that this unity 
 is not matter of faith, but matter of fact. It is hard 
 to conceive how, even without faith in the Divine word 
 of the text, it can fail to see that the ancient Scriptures 
 in all their various elements really did testify of a 
 
 ^ See for example, in relation to Prophecy, Muir's summary of 
 Kuenen's results in the English ti'anslation of the Prolegomena, where 
 he says (p. xxxi), ' The traditional conception of the Old Testament 
 Prophecy, as a testimony to the Christian Messiah, is repeatedly con- 
 tradicted hy scientific exegesis, and on the whole refuted.' 
 
VII.] The objective unity in Christ. 267 
 
 Messiah to come. Critics may differ as to the reality 
 of special examples of this great anticipation. It may 
 be true that the faith, which strongly realizes the 
 glorious mystery of its fulfilment in Christ, has at times 
 read some fanciful illustrations of it into the history or 
 into the prophecy. It may also be true that, on the 
 other hand, modern criticism has inclined to an arbitrary 
 and unreasonable scepticism as to these time-honoured 
 traditions, betraying a somewhat prosaic want of insight 
 into deeper analogies, and strange conceptions of the 
 power of very poor realities to satisfy the most glorious 
 aspirations of the ' Oriental mind.' But of the fact 
 itself there can surely be little serious question. Even 
 if it could not be gathered from the Old Testament 
 in itself, it must become evident to us, when we in- 
 terpret it by the light of the Jewish history, which 
 is itself confessedly unique in the history of the w^orld. 
 Still less can any one doubt that all the New Testament, 
 like St. John's Gospel, is written that men might believe 
 in Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God, and that to 
 this central truth it bears one witness in many tones. 
 Men will differ in their judgment, w^hether this great 
 pervading idea is a glorious dream, or the witness of 
 a glorious reality. But surely it is there, and by it 
 alone the Bible can be understood. It does not depend 
 on the interpretation of this or that passage ; it runs 
 as an illuminating life through the whole body of 
 Scripture. 
 
 It may seem, perhaps, unnecessary to dwell on what 
 were in my memory novelties, but are now the accepted 
 commonplaces of all Biblical interpretation. But in 
 
268 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 estimating the effects of Biblical criticism upon faitli, 
 it is rio'ht to take those effects as a whole. We must, 
 of course, be aware that the very a})plication of any 
 criticism to Holy Scripture gives some shock to the old 
 unquestioning faith, which holds it to be above all 
 human judgment, and is content to listen to every 
 sentence as a complete Word of Grod. We cannot fail 
 to see that in the task of minute criticism there is some 
 danger of frittering away the grandeur of the whole — 
 perhaps of so busying ourselves in the dissection of the 
 body of Scripture that we lose all conception of its 
 soul. Nor is it to be denied that the actual results, 
 to which criticism has been sometimes led, are justly 
 looked upon as derogatory to the supreme authority of 
 Holy Scripture. But these drawbacks, real and serious 
 in themselves, are yet lost, as we believe, in the better 
 fruits of Biblical criticism, taken as a whole. We must 
 thoughtfully estimate — although, as I have said, it 
 is hard so to do without long retrospection and com- 
 parison with a nearly forgotten past — the general effect 
 of this first enquiry of priticism, in making the Bible 
 infinitely more of a living reality to us, infinitely more 
 comprehensive in its power over all forms of thought 
 and progress, infinitely grander in the harmony, in which 
 the dominant note is the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 Himself So far, at least, the text has been fulfilled. 
 Through such criticism we have ' searched the Scrip- 
 tures '; we have heard in them many voices coming 
 down to us through the centuries ; but we find that 
 all unite to testify of Christ. 
 
 (II) But, as in all other critical investigation, this 
 
VII.] How has ScriptM7'e grown ? 269 
 
 enquiry as to what Holy Scripture actually is passes 
 naturally into the further enquiry how it came to be 
 what it is — what has been the process of its gradual 
 formation, and its establishment as an authoritative 
 rule of Christian faith. 
 
 The enquiry has many phases. It is important to 
 distinguish one from tlie other, and in each to see what 
 conclusions are already accepted, and where the crucial 
 point of controversy lies. 
 
 Thus, if we look at the Bible as a whole, no one 
 doubts for a moment that there has been a growth in 
 respect of what we now call the Canons of the Old and 
 New Testaments — of the former through centuries, of 
 the latter through at least two generations. On this 
 matter the old tradition and the new criticism are at 
 one. The one question which divides them is the 
 question, ' Within what limits, by what authority, and 
 under what determining causes, has this growth taken 
 place, first in the gathering together of the books them- 
 selves, and then in their acceptance as a sacred and 
 authoritative Canon \ 
 
 When we turn, next, to the individual books, and 
 enquire how they assumed their present form, a broad 
 distinction at once makes itself evident, which must not 
 be for a moment forgotten. These books fall into two 
 distinct classes. We observe that, with but few excep- 
 tions, the books of teaching — the Prophecies of the Old 
 Testament and the Apostolic Epistles of the New — de- 
 clare their origin ; that, on the other hand, the historical 
 narrative generally, and, in some degree, the enunciation 
 of law, the element of devotion, as in the Psalm?, and 
 
270 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 of philosophical meditation, as in the Proverbs, are 
 anonymous. On the former class of books, even if they 
 draw from more ancient sources, there is mostly the stamp 
 of unity ^ ; in the latter clear signs of gradual accre- 
 tion, as in the Psalms and Proverbs, or of compilation 
 out of older materials, such (for example) as is implied in 
 the Books of Kings, and expressly avowed in the Preface 
 to the third Gospel. In both classes of books of the Old 
 Testament, but especially in the latter, there are traces 
 of what we now call editing in times subsequent to 
 their original composition 2. Now on these two classes 
 of books arise two questions plainly distinct in their 
 character and their significance. Can we accept, in the 
 one case, the declaration of authorship as literal and 
 genuine % Can we, in the other, trace the dates, metliods 
 and objects of the process, by which the books gradually 
 assumed their present form % In both enquiries what 
 weight are we to assign to ancient tradition, and what 
 to internal criticism of the language and the character 
 of the books themselves % 
 
 Into these main divisions fall the many enquiries as 
 to the formation of Holy Scripture, which now present 
 themselves in an almost bewildering variety. They 
 are obviously of great and even fascinating interest. 
 They have been made possible to us, as they were not 
 possible to our fathers, by the marvellous advance of 
 
 ^ I speak, of course, generally, without ignoring sucli critical 
 questions as those which bear upon the unity of the books of Isaiah 
 and Zechariah. 
 
 ^ See (for example) the remarkable ethnographical and geographical 
 notes in the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. i. 2; ii. 10-12, 20-23; 
 iii. 9, 14, &c.). 
 
viT.] The right principles of Enquiry. 271- 
 
 archaeological discovery, of historical and philological 
 science. Perhaps at this moment they mainly absorb 
 critical attention ; so that, on both sides of the con- 
 troversies which they raise, their importance, in them- 
 selves and in comparison with other forms of enquiry, 
 is even exaggerated. That they have yielded much 
 fruit already and will yield more, few can doubt. 
 
 It would be, of course, impossible to enter here upon 
 any thorough examination of these questions, even if 
 I were presumptuous enough to hold myself qualified 
 for a task which requires the study of a life-time. On 
 many points we must listen to experts with deference, 
 although with some reserve still of the right and duty 
 of intelligent judgment. But there are at least two 
 leading considerations, by which, in order to form such 
 judgment, we must test their arguments and their 
 conclusions. 
 
 The first is this — that this branch of critical enquiry, 
 which is properly historical, archaeological, and linguistic, 
 must not be guided by any preconceived ideas — ' pre- 
 judices ' in the true sense of the word — derived from 
 other considerations. It is rightly urged that we must 
 'take the Bible as it is.' On the one hand, it is obvious 
 that we cannot allow our old traditional beliefs, or even 
 our reverence for Holy Scripture, to blind us to con- 
 clusions from evidences, drawn from the character, 
 the language, and the form of the Scriptural books, 
 which in any other case we should accept without 
 hesitation. We have already learnt that, in grace, as 
 in nature, the Divine Inspiration expresses itself in 
 methods, different from what we should have a i^riori 
 
272 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 expected. We have found that modifications in our 
 conceptions of the human element involved in it are 
 perfectly consistent with an unshaken faith in the 
 Divine. Changes in our old traditional beliefs as to 
 the date and method of the composition of the Scriptural 
 books — unless they involve principles inconsistent with 
 their authority, or imputations to them of untrust- 
 worthiness and insincerity — will be entirely consistent 
 with faith in the authority and inspiration of the 
 Scripture. It is right therefore that those, who firmly 
 believe in this Divine Inspiration, should still examine 
 the reasons given for such changes simply upon their own 
 merits — ^judging each instance from the evidence pre- 
 sented, and distinguishing the different issues involved 
 in different cases. To do this is not only a matter of 
 critical honesty, but it is really an evidence of a faith, 
 strong enough to stand trial and to be deepened thereby. 
 But this same pf-inciple has an even more forcible ap- 
 plication on the other side \ I do not mean only that 
 there is, on this subject as on others, an instinct of 
 innovation, quite as strong and arbitrary as any instinct 
 of conservatism, and equally needing the control of 
 thoughtful reason and judgment. The ' prejudice ' to 
 which I refer goes far deeper to the root of the matter. 
 If we * take the Bible as it is,' we cannot fail to see 
 that it professes to be a Revelation of that Supernatural 
 Order of things, of which we have already spoken, 
 leading up to the supreme miracle of miracles, the 
 Manifestation of the Son of God. If now we enter 
 
 ^ See Bishop Ellicott's Christus Comprobator, pp. 14, 15. 
 
All.] The right principles of Enquiry. 273 
 
 upon the enquiry as to its growth and origin with the 
 fixed idea, that all miracle is incredible whether in the 
 outer world of matter, or (as, for instance, in the pre- 
 dictive element of Prophecy^) in the world of mind — • 
 and that, accordingly, all record of miracle done, all 
 prophecy which claims to look with supernatural in- 
 sight into the future, must necessarih^ be the legendary 
 growth of later times, or the invention of * pious fraud ' 
 for the sake of edification, or history after the event, 
 professing with scant honesty to predict it — if this be 
 so, and in much of the new criticism apparently it is 
 so — then such criticism cannot be impartial. Its con- 
 clusions, even on this point, will be warped, if not vitiated 
 beforehand. For it has virtually to frame a new Bible 
 in the place of the old. On the great question of the 
 Supernatural we must make up our minds inde- 
 pendently ; how it presents itself for such decision in 
 these days we have already tried to see. If we reject 
 it altogether, we must, I think, regard the Scriptures, 
 with which it is indissolubly interwoven, as having 
 only a human authority and interest. But we cannot 
 rightly take preconceived assumptions on the subject 
 with us, when we engage ourselves in the detailed 
 
 ^ See, for example, the declarations of Kuenen. ' Israelitish 
 prophecy was not a supernatural phenomenon derived from Divine 
 Inspiration, but a result of the high moral and religious character 
 attained by the Prophets . . . which was itself the slowly matured growth 
 cf ages. The predictions of the prophets are nothing better than 
 fallible anticipations of the manner in which they considered that the 
 Deity must, as a necessary consequence of His character, as they 
 conceived it, deal with the subjects of His government' (Muir's Preface 
 to Kuenen's Prolgomena, pp. xxxvii-xxxix). 
 
 T 
 
2 74 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 study of historical and linguistic criticism of the Scrip- 
 turn 1 record. 
 
 Nor, again, in the next place, is our criticism likely 
 to be solid and enduring, if it fails to recognise the 
 combined force both of external and internal evidence, 
 and the power of each to correct the other. Probably 
 in older times the balance mav have inclined too much 
 towards the former ; tradition may have been accepted 
 too unreservedly, without analysis and estimate of the 
 correcting evidence presented to us in the books them- 
 selves, as regards both their language and their internal 
 character. But I do not see how it can be doubted, 
 that now by reaction this inclination of the balance 
 has been somewhat violently and arbitrarily reversed. 
 Traditions, however strong and consistent, are far too 
 absolutely ignored. Internal criticism pronounces con- 
 fidently, often on what seem to be largely conjectural 
 grounds of its own, as to the date and authorship or 
 compilation of this or that Scripture — as confidently, 
 indeed, as if it had seen the various compilers at their 
 work, had studied line by line the documents they used, 
 and had collated the successive forms through which 
 their productions passed. These ciitical conclusions 
 and theories themselves need not unfrequently to be 
 subjected to a somewhat sceptical criticism. They 
 have to be balanced, even if proved to be sound, against 
 external evidence. When they are thus resolutely 
 tested, whatever in them is substantial will, of course, 
 remain, but I believe that much, now confidently ad- 
 vanced as all but incontrovertible, will simply vanish 
 away. 
 
VII.] The New Testament Criticism. 275 
 
 We have seen this, I think, ah'eady in respect of New 
 Testament criticism. There the witness of external 
 evidence was at all times seen to be exceedingly strong 
 — in the all but unvarying tradition of the Church 
 from the beoinnins; to the o^reat bulk of the New 
 Testament, which, even without bringing in any belief 
 of a special guidance into truth, it was impossible 
 lightly to set aside. That tradition had, moreover, a 
 simple, though all important, work of witness — merely 
 to testify to Apostolic or quasi-Apostolic authorship of 
 the New Testament books, and so to the fact that in 
 them we have, directly or indirectly, the Word of the 
 Lord Himself. But there came a time, when we saw that 
 witness either assailed, or explained away, or still more 
 frequently ignored and superseded, by a Criticism 
 proceeding on the lines above indicated — disbelieving 
 the miraculous and so forced to refer the Scriptural 
 testimony to a later date, which might give time for 
 myth and legend to grow up, — relying on the power of 
 internal criticism, guided by arbitrary theories, (as in 
 the Tubingen school) of tendencies and conflicts in 
 Apostolic times, to disintegrate the Gospel narrative ; to 
 turn the Acts of the Apostles from history into an 
 inventive Eirenicon ; to pronounce confidently on the 
 genuineness or spuriousness of this or that Epistle; 
 above all to discredit the Apostolicity of the Fourth 
 Gospel, the very citadel of the deepest Christian trath. 
 What has been the ultimate issue of this criticism % 
 It has necessitated stricter examination of the external 
 evidence; and the effect, partly by deeper study, partly 
 by new discovery, has been to test and immensely to 
 
 T 2 
 
276 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 strengthen it. It has taught or suggested some things 
 in the history of Apostolic days, and the interpret- 
 ation of Apostolic writings, which have enabled us to 
 understand them better. But its own conclusions and 
 theories are in the main confessedly obsolete ; and the 
 old traditional beliefs, which it attacked, remain sub- 
 stantially unchanged — only rectified in detail, and held 
 with a more intelligent grasp of faith. 
 
 Now the critical controversy is transferred to the 
 field of the Old Testament. It is a field in some sense 
 more beset with obscurity and difiiculty. It carries 
 investigation back into distant centuries, in which 
 ]]istoric light is dim, and the external witness of 
 tradition necessarily far weaker than in the briefer 
 and more historic period of the Apostolic age. For 
 that investigation, moreover, we cannot as yet reckon 
 (as in the other case) on the existence of an atmosphere 
 of general knowledge, in respect of language and of 
 substance, which may enable us to test, and where 
 necessary to restrain, arbitrary boldness of theory and 
 assertion in those who speak as experts in both. It 
 needs that larger knowledge, not only of Hebrew, but 
 of languages cognate to Hebrew, which is a thing of 
 comparatively recent growth ; it has far more numerous 
 points of connection with the general history and 
 thought of humanity in days gone by. It opens, 
 therefore, a question, which will probably need a longer 
 and more complex discussion, before it is set at rest. 
 
 In considering its spiritual importance, moreover, we 
 have to weigh difierent considerations. It does not, of 
 course, as in the other case, concern directly the citadel 
 
VII.] The Old Testament Criticism. 277 
 
 of our faith ; it does not touch the reality of our Lord's 
 Manifestation on earth ; it does not deal with the truth 
 of His Kesurrection and Ascension. But its bearing on 
 these is determined by such utterances as those of the 
 text; in whicli our Lord (so to speak) clenches the 
 conclusion, wliich might be suggested by the un- 
 doubted fact, that, both historically and ideally, His 
 Gospel grew out of the ancient Covenant with Israel. 
 However the Old Testament has come to be what it is, 
 no man doubts that it is substantially the Scripture, 
 into which He bade us search, to which He referred 
 again and again as an authoritative word of God, and 
 as in all its parts testifying of Him. So He made it an 
 integral part of our Christianity. So His Apostles, 
 taught by Him, dwelt upon it with unhesitating 
 reverence as having Inspiration and authority. So the 
 Church, resisting all attempts of old time to sever the 
 two Testaments from each other, has borne the same 
 witness in all ages, and must continue to bear it, 
 whatever Criticism may discover or imagine as to its 
 origin and its growth. 
 
 Now in this consideration there is a two-fold 
 significance. 
 
 On the one hand, within certain limits, it has an effect 
 of reassurance to those who are perplexed by those 
 critical enquiries. So far as criticism leaves untouched 
 the truth declared and implied in these words of our 
 Master, it is obvious that we, who accept His Divine 
 authority, can look on undisturbed, while it pursues its 
 researches. However it grew up, the Old Testament is 
 to us what He made it, and in this is the root of the 
 
278 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 matter. So far it is evidently true, that (as one of our 
 leading critical authorities in England has said ^) the 
 conclusions of criticism ' affect not theyac^ of Eevelation, 
 but its ybn?i*; they do but 'help to determine . . . the 
 process, by which the record of it was built up ; they 
 do not touch either the authority or inspiration of the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament ' ; they * pre-suppose 
 that inspiration,' holding that ' the whole is subordinated 
 to the controlling agency of the Spirit of God ' ; they 
 do not affect * the purposes for which our Lord appealed 
 to the Old Testament, its prophetic significance, and 
 the spiritual lessons deducible from it.' 
 
 But, on the other hand, there are certain develop- 
 ments of modern criticism, which it is hard for a plain 
 man to reconcile with the acceptance of this authoriza- 
 tion of the Old Testament by our Lord, as a part of His 
 Divine Eevelation. It is said, for example, in relation 
 to prophecy, that ' it is the common conviction of all 
 the writers of the New Testament that the Old Testa- 
 ment is inspired by God, and is thus invested with 
 Divine authority. ... In accordance with this they 
 ascribe Divine foreknowledge to the prophets . . . they 
 refer us repeatedly to the agreement between specific 
 prophetic utterances and single historical facts. . . . The 
 judgment of the New Testament . . . may be regarded 
 as diametrically opposed to ours ^.' Yet, if the Gospel 
 record is to be trusted, that judgment is simply the 
 adoption of the teaching on this great subject of our 
 
 ^ See Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament 
 (Preface, pp. xv, xix). 
 
 ^ See Kuenen, c. xiii. p. 448 (English translation). 
 
Yii.] The issues involved in it. 279 
 
 Lord Himself. It is again boldly contended, that, as 
 almost a matter of course, all records of miracle must 
 be held to be fabulous ; principles and objects of com- 
 jDosition are assumed for Scriptural books iiardly com- 
 patible with historic or moral truth. How — except by 
 derogation from His perfect knowledge or perfect truth- 
 fulness — can these be reconciled with the position, as 
 authoritative and divine, which our Lord assigns to 
 the Old Testament "? It is on this, broadly considered, 
 rather than on the interpretation, however important, 
 of any words of His in relation to special passages, 
 that our attention must be fixed, with a clear concep- 
 tion of the issues really involved. For certainly it goes 
 to the very root of the matter ; it does affect something 
 more than form and method ; it does bear on the whole 
 question of authority to us. To minimize the sig- 
 nificance of its assumptions, even in the interests of a 
 troubled faith — to suppose that they can really fail 
 to affect for ordinary minds its authority as a Divine 
 guide of Christian thought and life — we must hold to 
 be a serious error, in danger at least of incurring the 
 censure on those who ' cry Peace, peace ; when there 
 is no peace.' 
 
 Now, as we examine not uncritically the process of 
 this Old Testament criticism itself, we cannot but be 
 struck with its strong similarity in principle to that 
 criticism of the New Testament, which had its time 
 of ascendency, and has now in the main passed away. 
 There is in it the same ignoring of external evidence. 
 Far, indeed, is the force of Jewish testimony from the 
 overwhelming strength of that which witnesses to our 
 
28o Criticism mid Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 New Testament books. But yet, consideriDg the tenacity 
 of Eastern tradition, and the intense reverence of the 
 Jews for their Scriptures — noting the indications in 
 those Scriptures themselves of a gradual accumulation 
 from early times of sacred books in close connection 
 with the sanctuary — marking the significance of tiiat 
 well-known account given by Josephus^ in the Apostolic 
 age itself of the unhesitating belief of his countrymen, 
 that with the prophetic succession the formation of the 
 authoritative Canon of the Old Testament was bound 
 up, and that with the cessation of prophecy it ceased — 
 it must seem unreasonable to attach no weight at all 
 to the tradition which ascribes large portions of Holy 
 Scripture to Moses, to David, to Solomon, to Ezra ; and 
 to assume that, if some touches of legendary colouring 
 has passed over this tradition, this argues an entire 
 want of all historical reality-. There is again, as has 
 been lately pointed out ^, a similar exaggeration of 
 internal antagonism between the Priestly and Prophetic 
 parties, and the reference to it of the origin — hardly 
 a noble or truthful origin — of books comj)osed for 
 
 ' See Joseph, c. Apionem, i. 8 ; noting especially that he is enun- 
 ciating not his own opinion, but the acknowledged faith of the Jews 
 in general, and that he expressly excludes from the category of what 
 is authoritative and Divine all later writings, ' after the reign of 
 
 Artaxerxes, dia t6 ixf] yevetrOai ttjv tu>v iTpo<f>r]Ta>v ciKpi^rj diabo^rjv. 
 
 ^ Thus (for example) in relation to the work of Ezra, ' the later 
 embellishments of the traditions which represent Ezra as the second 
 author of all the books . . . can only be accepted as signs of the 
 universal belief in his labours, and ought not to throw discredit on 
 the simple fact that the foundation of the present Canon is due to 
 him.' Westcott on the Canon in Dictionary of the Bible. 
 
 ^ See Christus Comprohatcr, p. 17. 
 
VII.] The lesson of past experience. 281 
 
 present purposes under ancient and venerable names. 
 There is the same luxuriance of critical imagination, 
 often without a shred of external evidence, assuming 
 that, because this or that utterance would suit some 
 historical period, therefore it mast necessarily belong 
 to it, and that, if it contains high and spiritual teaching, 
 it must necessarily be brought down to later times \ 
 There is the same tendency to disintegration, on grounds 
 of superficial differences and real or supposed dis- 
 crepancies of detail, in disregard of great underlying 
 unity of idea : and the same confident assumption of 
 certainty for these disintegrating inferences of at most 
 probable speculation. All these similarities may well 
 induce much hesitation in accepting sweeping conclu- 
 sions, even if pressed upon us with a supposed consensus 
 of critical authorit3\ The experience of the past will 
 teach us to pause, and rather induce expectation that, 
 wliile these critical speculations will have their value, in 
 clearing and (as has been said) ' rectifying ^ ' our old 
 traditions — while they may teach us much as to the 
 
 ^ With sincere respect for Dr. Clieyne's great learning and Chris- 
 tian earnestness, I cannot but trace some striking exemplifications of 
 this arbitrary treatment in the Bamptou Lectures of 1889 on T/ie 
 Oriyin of the Psalter (see, for example, the treatment of the date of 
 Ps. ex. in Lect. I. pp. 20-29). The destructive result of his treat- 
 ment, leaving to David, and even to the pre-exilian period, hardly 
 a single Psalm, bears, I must think, an emphatic witness against 
 his method. 
 
 ^ The phrase is Bishop Ellicott's in the Christus Co?7iprobator 
 (Sect. II). Of course, on the degree of this rectification there may 
 be difference of opinion : but the phrase itself is simply a plea for 
 due regard to the value of tradition, as modified, but not superseded, 
 by the analytical method of investigation. 
 
282 Criticism and Holy Scripttire. [lect. 
 
 time and method of compilation of historical books, 
 something as to date and immediate purpose of pro- 
 phetic writings, something of the growth of the Psalter 
 and the Books of Wisdom : yet, like the New Testa- 
 ment criticism — though, perliaps, after a longer time 
 and greater difficulty, from the greater obscurity of the 
 subject and less fulness of general knowledge thereupon 
 — this criticism also will spend itself, and then pass 
 away when it has done its work, leaving still the old 
 belief substantially unchanged. 
 
 (Ill) But both these enquiries into the structure and 
 growth of Holy Scripture have their spiritual importance 
 to us in their bearing on the third supreme question on 
 which Criticism has to speak. What is the distinctive 
 and essential character of the Scripture itself — on the 
 ground of which Christian faith claims for it a supreme 
 authority, as at once holding the key to the inner 
 meaning of other discoveries of Truth, and passing be- 
 vond them to mvsteries of the Divine Nature, which 
 they can at best infer in speculation or hope % 
 
 The enquiry is usualh^ called an enquiry into the 
 special Inspiration of Holy Scripture. The phrase, as 
 a popular description, is well sanctioned by usage ; and 
 may even claim an Apostolic authority. But I venture 
 to doubt whether it indicates the right method of in- 
 vestigation. In strictness — and of such strictness critical 
 thought is more and more teaching us the importance 
 — we ought to speak not of the Bible, as an inspired 
 Book, but of the human authors of Holy Scripture, as 
 inspired men, 'borne along' (to nse St. Peter's phrase) 
 ' by the Holy Ghost.' For inspiration is the action of 
 
VII,] Revelation mid Inspiration. 283 
 
 the Spirit of God upon the living spirits of men. It is 
 true that men are, on special occasions and for special 
 purposes, lifted by the Spirit above their ordinary spiri- 
 tual selves, and that these 'holy men of old,' in relation 
 to the writing of Holy Scripture had, we may well 
 believe, just that special exaltation, above what I may 
 call the average inspiration of their lives. So much, 
 indeed, seems to be indicated to us in the recorded 
 spiritual experience of the prophets. True it is, also, 
 that words become moulding influences over the 
 thoughts, which they convey, and that the choice of 
 words for things Divine needs a guidance from above, 
 as truly as the choice of thoughts ; so that there is 
 a very true sense, though not its usual sense of dicta- 
 tion, in which we can speak even of ' verbal inspiration.' 
 Under the consciousness of these two undoubted truths, 
 we are justified (and indeed, as has been said, we are 
 justified by Apostolic usage) in speaking popularly of 
 Holy Scripture, in its present concrete form, as an in- 
 spired Book ^ But the phrase is still in strictness 
 incorrect, and, as usual, its incorrectness tells against 
 clearness of idea. It tends to obscure the important 
 truth, that the writers of Holy Scripture were not merely 
 mechanical instruments, through which the Spirit of 
 God spoke — the strings or notes (as old metaphor has 
 it) struck by the Almighty Hand — the amanuenses 
 writing (as in some well-known pictures) from angelic 
 dictation. They w^ere living and thinking men — moved, 
 exalted, inspired by the Spirit of God, but living and 
 
 ^ 2 Tim. iii. 16, where the reference to the Holy Scriptures of the 
 previous verse is obvious. 
 
284 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 thinking men still, with all their peculiarities of age, 
 race, character. The Divine impulse might overmaster, 
 but it did not crush or destroy, individuality. The 
 prophet did not rave in mere unconscious ecstasy, like 
 the Pythia of Delphi. Not through human tongues 
 only, but through human minds, did the Divine Mind 
 reveal itself to the minds of His creatures. 
 
 For, in fact, we see that, under this popular phrase 
 of the ' Inspiration of the Bible/ are included two dis- 
 tinct conceptions, which are properly called Eevelation 
 and Inspiration — processes not identical, but correlative 
 or corresponding to each other. To convey truth from 
 one mind to another needs first the presentation, mani- 
 festation, expression of truth by the teaching mind ; 
 this is revelation. It needs also the stimulation and 
 enlightenment of the intelligence of the learning mind ; 
 this is inspiration. 
 
 If, therefore, we would describe the question before 
 us accurately, we ought to see that the essential point 
 is the claim of Holy Scripture itself to be an unique 
 Eevelation of God, while Inspiration is viewed as the 
 power by which the writers of Scripture were quickened 
 to understand and to declare it. This distinction of 
 Eevelation and Inspiration is no mere question of words. 
 Upon some clear conception of it I believe that much 
 depends, for the clearing away of many errors and diffi- 
 culties, and for bringing out the essence of the great 
 question here at issue between believer and unbeliever, 
 between the Church and the world. 
 
 The distinction ought to be clear to us from our own 
 experience of human teaching. Eevelation to others 
 
yii.] Distinction between the two, 285 
 
 is for us comparatively easy : inspiration of others 
 infinite!}^ difficult. The truth, which we ourselves 
 thoroughly know, we can always reveal, by presenting, 
 illustrating, enforcing it to others, so far as human 
 language is capable of expressing it. But to inspire 
 the minds of learners to receive it — to stimulate intelli- 
 gence, to give insight, even to awaken interest — this 
 we have to confess to be but slightly in our power, 
 although even that slight measure of power is the 
 highest quality of the teacher's art. 
 
 The distinction, again, is certainly marked out to us 
 in Scripture itself, as in the recurring prophetic phrases, 
 ' The Word of the Lord cume to me': ' the Spirit of the 
 Lord was upon me ' : ' it entered into me, as He spake.' 
 ' The Word of the Lord came to me ' — there is Revela- 
 tion of Divine Truth, the clear disclosure of the Will 
 and the Nature of God. * The Spirit of the Lord was 
 upon me ' — there is Inspiration of him, who in old time 
 was called simpl}' the Seer^ because his eyes were open 
 to behold the vision of the Lord, in later times the 
 Prophet, or Utterer, because charged and enabled to 
 declare to men what he thus saw. 
 
 But, above all, in fulness and clearness comes out 
 that distinction in the teaching of Him, who claims to 
 tell not merely of the ' earthly things ' of Manifestation 
 of God to man, but of the 'heavenly things' of His 
 Nature in itself. For in that teaching He speaks of 
 Revelation as His own gift, to the world in measure, 
 to the Church in fulness. 'I am ' (he says) 'the Way, 
 the Truth, and the Life ' ; * The words that I speak 
 ^ 1 Sam. ix. 9. 
 
286 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 unto YOU are spirit and life'; * He that liath seen Me 
 hath seen the Father.' The whole teaching is summed 
 up in His Name, as * the Word.' ' No man hath seen 
 God at any time ; the only-begotten Son which is in 
 the bosom of the Father, He hath revealed Him^' 
 But Inspiration — the 'bringing to men's remembrance' 
 and understanding ' whatsover He hath said to them/ 
 and tlie writing it through grace upon the heart — 
 this He promises as the gift of the other Paraclete, who 
 is the Holy Ghost ^. It was by the harmony of the two 
 Divine works that the Day of Pentecost became the 
 birthday of the Church ; the Ministry of the Lord Him- 
 self had been but preparatory for the spiritual harvest, 
 which then suddenly sprang up. By that harmony 
 now the continuing life of the Church is sustained. 
 The Word and the Sacraments in the Church are the 
 Kevelation of God in Jesus Christ ; the power to 
 understand the one, and rightly to receive the other, 
 is of the grace of the Holy Spirit. The individual 
 Christian life is the knowledge and the reproduction of 
 the Divine life of Christ ; the power by which it is 
 realized in its perfect harmony of truth, holiness, love, 
 is the gift of Him, who is emphatically described as the 
 Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love. 
 So it is that the Light of Christ has become the life of 
 men, and the Word revealed has become the 'engrafted 
 word,' growing into our nature and ' able to save the 
 soul ^.' 
 
 But the significance of this distinction must be carried 
 
 * John xiv. 6, 9 ; vi. 63 ; i. 18. 
 ' John xiv. 22-26 ; xvi. 13, 14. ^ James i. 21, 
 
VII.] Importance of this distinction. 287 
 
 somewhat further. For the full perfection of that 
 harmony it is, no doubt, necessary that the two pro- 
 cesses should not only correspond, but should (so to 
 speak) keep pace, with one another. So it was with 
 Him to whom was present the whole Truth of God 
 and to whom was given the Spirit without measure. 
 But for all others — so says our own experience, and so 
 says the spiritual experience of the prophet, as recorded 
 in Scripture — Revelation may often be larger than In- 
 spiration ; the truth (that is) revealed and uttered may 
 be apprehended, indeed, but not fully comprehended, 
 by the inspired mind. This belongs indeed to the 
 general Law of the Divine intercourse with man. To 
 have what Keble calls 'thoughts beyond their thought' 
 is the especial characteristic of the great leaders of 
 mankind — the privilege of intuitive genius, as dis- 
 tinguished from self-conscious talent. If Ruskin dis- 
 covered in the works of Turner great aesthetic principles 
 of which the artist professed himself unaware — if 
 Coleridge discovered deep philosophies, underlying the 
 creations of the unconscious genius of Shakespeare — it 
 by no means follows that Ruskin and Coleridge were 
 wrong. The truth, spoken, so far as it can be spoken, 
 is a thing Divine and Eternal : the inspiration to 
 understand, though it come from an equally Divine 
 and Eternal source, is yet conditioned by the finite mind 
 which receives it, and may have to disclose through 
 many minds fresh depths in the truth, as the ages 
 roll on. 
 
 But that general Law must have its highest and 
 closest application in regard to Holy Scripture, iu 
 
288 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 proportion to the fulness and depth of the Truth with 
 which it has to do — in proportion also to the function, 
 which it has had to discharge, not only to its own age, 
 but to all the ages of the future. It is a great truth 
 which is involved in the declaration that * no prophecy 
 is of private/ or personal, 'interpretation \' To know, 
 for example, if we could know it, the exact conception 
 of the truths, which they were inspired to utter, by 
 Prophet or Psalmist, would by no means be necessarily 
 to know the whole of the Divine meaning which that 
 truth contained. The very use by the Apostles in the 
 New Testament of Old Testament utterances — so often 
 extending and idealizing them to a higher meaning — 
 is singularly instructive on this point ^. The truth 
 itself was unchanged. It was the new Light of Christ, 
 Avhich disclosed the fulness of its meaning ; it was 
 the new inspiration of Pentecost, which enabled them 
 to enter with new insight into that revelation. Their 
 light and tlieir inspiration were indeed unique, for the 
 unique work which they had to do. But yet, just so 
 
 ^ 2 Pet. i. 20. 
 
 ^ These quotations seem to fall into three classes: first, quotations in 
 the literal sense of the original, neither more nor less, as (for example) 
 the quotation in Ueb. x. 38 of Hab. ii. 4, 'the just shall live by his 
 faith,' in the original sense of reliance on the strength, and protection 
 of God in time of trouble ; next, quotations extending and idealizing 
 the original sense, as the quotation of the same text in E,om. i. 17, 
 where it is the motto of the whole Christian doctrine of Justification 
 in the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ ; lastly, quotations, which are 
 rather of the nature of application, as when in Rom. x. 6-8 the words 
 of Deut. XXX. 11-14 are quoted with variation, and aptplied to the 
 'word of faitb' in Christ, as contrasted with the external declaration 
 of law. Of these probably the second class is the most numerous. 
 
vir.] Enquiry into Revelation. 289 
 
 far as that light is shed upon the Church in all ages — 
 just so far as the correspondent measure of Inspiration 
 is given — we cannot doubt that we also shall be en- 
 abled, in that right development, which is neither 
 invention nor accretion, to draw continually new 
 wealth of meaning out of the treasure of the Eternal 
 Truth. 
 
 But what is the practical bearing of this distinction? 
 It seems to me to show that tlie really hopeful enquiry 
 of criticism should be into Eevelation rather than 
 Inspiration — into the claim of the Christian Scripture 
 to be the Truth of God, rather than into the question 
 of the nature, method, limits, of the Inspiration given to 
 its human authors. Truth is objective and so un- 
 changing ; that which claims to set it fortli we may 
 expect to be able to examine and to test. Inspiration 
 is subjective ; as such it must vary in form and degree ; 
 as such it can be fully realized only by the mind which 
 receives it. Of it, therefore, we can hardly hope to 
 discover an universal and comprehensible law. I do not, 
 indeed, mean that it is not, naturally and rightly, a 
 subject of speculation. There is much instruction in the 
 contrast of the mechanical theory, which made its subjects 
 mere instruments — their whole personality being ab- 
 sorbed into the Divine Inspiration^and the dynamical 
 theory, which sees in it the regeneration and exaltation 
 of natural powers, preserving in them the reality of per- 
 sonal character, and even the characteristics of race and 
 an age. There is much to be learnt from the com- 
 parison and contrast of the special Inspiration of the 
 writers of Holy Scripture with the general inspiration 
 
 U 
 
29Q Criticisin and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 of linmanity as such, and the fuller inspiration of 
 redeemed humanity in the Church of Christ. There is 
 much worth considering in the distinction, which has 
 been drawn between the inspiration of origination of 
 that which is new, and the inspiration of selection out 
 of that which is old — an Ithuriel's spear of distinction 
 between the true and the false. But what I would 
 contend is that all this is matter of specuhxtion, not of 
 faith. The one all-important thing to us is to know 
 whether we have in Holy Scripture a real Eevelation 
 of Truth ; how it was given, through what forms or 
 measures of Inspiration, is one of the secrets of 
 God. 
 
 For that contention I think that I may claim the 
 sanction of the deliberate action of our own Church on 
 this grave matter. It is a commonplace to remark 
 that in her authoritative documents there is nowhere 
 laid down, explicitly or by implication, any doctrine of 
 Biblical Inspiration. Various theories upon it have 
 been held, and are held, freely and honestly, by her 
 divines and her members. But on the reality of Reve- 
 lation a pronouncement has been made, which for 
 decision and definiteness leaves nothing to be desired — 
 that in its entirety, 'the Old Testament not being 
 contrary to the New,' it contains for all men and for all 
 ages ' all things necessary to salvation \' For in this, 
 and not in the other, is the true Articulus stantis aut 
 cadentis Ecclesiae. 
 
 Once more, in the light of this tremendous claim, 
 this search into the true nature of the Scripture leads 
 ' See Articles VI. and VII. 
 
VII.] The one groiuid of its authority. 291 
 
 us directly to Christ. For on what ground alone can 
 it resf? Ultimately on this one foundation — the con- 
 viction that it contains adequately the direct manifesta- 
 tion to the world of the Word, the Life, the Person of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This manifestation is 
 the central essence of the Scriptural Revelation. What 
 St. John says of his own Gospel is true of all Scriptures 
 old and new, ' These things are written that ye might 
 believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and 
 that, believing, ye might have life through His Name.' 
 As leading up to this, we understand the preparatory 
 revelations of the Old Testament ; as drawn from this, 
 we accept all which makes up the manifold perfectioii 
 of the New. In Him, and in Him alone, is the Reve- 
 lation of God to humanity absolutely perfect, not only 
 in the 'earthly things' of His visible working, but in 
 the 'heavenly things' of His invisible Being. Li Him, 
 and in Him alone, dwells Inspiration without measure 
 or limit, giving to His humanity — whatever may have 
 been the mysterious limitations of its finiteness — the 
 power to do that, for which the humanity was itself 
 assumed — peifectly (that is) to know, and perfectly to 
 declare, the whole Revelation of God. Each writer of 
 Holy Scripture had, we believe, just that measure of 
 light from Heaven, which enabled him perfectly to 
 fulfil his appointed part in relation to the Manifestation 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ — just that measure of inspi- 
 ration, which opened his spiritual eye to discern that 
 light, and opened his mouth to declare it to the world. 
 Clearly in old time Lawgiver, Historian, Prophet, 
 Psalmist saw each but a part of the full image of the 
 
 u 2 
 
292 Criticism ayid Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 Christ to come, and of the perfect Gospel of His 
 Kevelation of God. Even Evangelists in the New 
 Testament drew each his appointed and characteristic 
 aspect of the great picture of His actual manifestation 
 on earth. Even Apostles — St. James, St. Peter, St. 
 Paul, St. John — had each, what St, Paul calls ' his 
 Gospel ' to deliver ; each his own phase of the perfect 
 truth of Christ to set forth. In respect of light, as of 
 grace, ' Christ Himself is all in all.' 
 
 (IV) So, face to face with this Revelation centred in 
 Christ, the two questions which Criticism has to ask 
 are surely these, ' Is it sufficient for its avowed pur- 
 pose ? ' * Is it in all its aspects true 1 ' 
 
 Is it sufficient for its purpose ? This question is 
 answered almost as soon as asked. The Bible thus 
 viewed is, as we have already seen, iirst a Eevelation of 
 God, as a Living God, Creator and Sustainer of all 
 being, Father of all men, as made in His likeness ; it is, 
 next, a Revelation of Man, as in that sonship, distinct 
 in an essential superioiity from the whole inanimate 
 and animal world, having in him here a true spiritual 
 life, the germ of an immortal perfection hereafter ; it 
 is, above all, the Revelation of God and Man as not 
 only like, but really one, in that unity foreshadowed 
 from the beginning, and perfected by the Incarnation 
 of Godhead in humanity, which is at once its salvation 
 from sin and death, and its regeneration by a new in- 
 dwelling Life. All this Revelation, moreover, we have, 
 not given in hard abstract form, but wrought out in 
 relation to every phase of human thought and need, and 
 so living to us in graphic reality. 
 
VII.] Its intrinsic sufficiency. 293 
 
 Who can well doubt that, if it be true, it must be 
 sufficient for all essential human needs ? 
 
 We look at it in itself It answers the three great 
 questions : ' What is the world % What am I % What 
 is the Supreme Power over both, in which both live \ ' 
 Just where the thought of man runs up into mystery — 
 the mystery of Matter and Life in the world around us 
 — the mystery of our own humanity, in itself and in its 
 struggle against sin and death — the mystery above of 
 ultimate Eternal Being — it meets that searching of 
 thought, and shows how all the threads, lost to reason 
 in darkness, are gathered into the hand of a God, not 
 unknown and unknowable, but revealed in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. What can man need more in respect of 
 that knowledge, which is to him the key of life, and of 
 that life as in communion with the Life Eternal ? 
 
 We look at it, again, through the experience of faith, 
 in all the Jewish and Christian centuries. The glorious 
 recital in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the victories of 
 faith may now be indefinitely extended through the 
 higher Christian experience. For it is matter of simple 
 historical fact, that in this Eevelation of Christ, grasped 
 by the living faith of mind and heart and conscience, 
 men of all generations, all races, all characters — not the 
 lew only, but the many — have found the light of their 
 whole life. To the simple — the hard workers and patient 
 sufferers, who are, and must be, the great mass of 
 humankind — it has presented itself in the simplicity 
 which ignores difficulty; to the wise and thoughtful, it 
 has revealed in fulness inexhaustible the needful light 
 through all the difficulties and perplexities, which it is 
 
294 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect. 
 
 their burden to know and feel, and tbe key to the inner 
 meaning of all the gleams and dawns of other know- 
 ledge Avhich, through these, it is in measure their privi- 
 lege to see. Men have disputed over certain points 
 of its interpretation, and through disputes over these 
 points, important but yet of secondary importance, they 
 have divided the Christianity which should be one. 
 But in the great essentials of the faith there is still 
 a Creed of Cliristendom, and in this all who accept the 
 one Bible, are at one still. They have grasped it as 
 true ; and of its sufficiency, as so grasped, they have 
 never had to doubt. 
 
 We may look at it, if we will, even through the eyes 
 of serious and thoughtful unbelief. The very sense of 
 darkness and despondency, when it believes itself forced 
 to give up the old faith, and go forth into the dimness 
 of a twilight speculation, with perhaps some refracted 
 ravs from the lost sun, and some flickerinc: erleams of 
 earthly light — the very effort, which it often makes, to 
 avoid the dread inevitable alternative, and to keep 
 without a Divine Christ something of Christianity — 
 something of Christian morality, and Christian love, 
 and even Christian idea — they tell us pathetically how 
 sufficient, it" it could but be accepted as true, would 
 be to them the revelation of the Gospel that they 
 have lost. 
 
 Every way, as it seems, that first question answers 
 itself. It is on the second — the question, ' Is it truel' — 
 that the great division comes. What that question 
 really means, and what is implied in the answer — it 
 will remain for us to consider hereafter. 
 
VI r.] The anticipation of its truth. 295 
 
 Meanwhile I commend to your thoughts these three 
 processes of BibHcal criticism, of which I have spoken — 
 the study of the varied structure and unity of Scripture, 
 which has ah-eady so largely done its work — the study 
 of the growth of Holy Scripture, still progressive, with 
 all the imperfection and promise which belong to pro- 
 gress — the study of the substance of what it is as a 
 Revelation, and of the marvellous sufficiency of that 
 Revelation to those who can accept it. In all these 
 three forms of search into the Scriptures certainly the 
 words of the text have been fulfilled. They have 
 ' testified of Christ ' — Christ as the central life of the 
 whole organic structure — Christ as the perfection of 
 the whole growth — Christ as the final giver of that 
 all-sufficient Revelation. Even so, I cannot but think 
 that they go some way to answer by anticipation the 
 question of all questions, ' Is that testimony a splendid 
 dream of speculation and hope, or is it a witness of 
 the Supreme Truth % ' Sternly — yet with a beneficent 
 sternness — Criticism forces that great question upon 
 us. It is well. For, as of the contemplation of Christ 
 in Himself, of which we spoke last Sunday, so of the 
 Scripture, as expressing Him to us, I cannot but believe 
 that this study, even so far as I have already spoken 
 of it, brings out everywhere in itself the stamp of 
 obvious reality. No such ideal could have been created 
 by what we can see to have been the thought and 
 asjoiration of early Christianity. No mere ideal, indeed, 
 was ever so consistent in all its phases, so living in itself, 
 so spiritually powerful in its effect. The more we test 
 it, whether by deep and earnest thought, or by the 
 
296 Criticism and Holy Scripture. 
 
 energy of practical trial, or by the insight of spiiitual 
 aspiration in prayer, the more we shall feel that (to 
 npply St. Peter's words) ' we have not followed cun- 
 ningly devised fables, but are eyewitnesses of a Divine 
 Majesty \' 
 
 ' 2 Pet. i. 16. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 TRUTH IN REVELATION. 
 
 Search the Scrijifnres . . . they tesiify of Me . . . I am ihe 
 Truth. — John v. 39 ; xiv. 6. 
 
 (I) To the command of our Lord, addressed to all 
 enquirers, on which we dwelt last Sunday, as at once 
 the authorization and the guide of true Biblical Criti- 
 cism, I add to-day from His later and deeper teaching to 
 His disciples, the utterance, which determines what 
 must be the essential characteristic of all that bears 
 witness of Him. For truth alone can testify to Truth 
 — truth in various forms and measures to the Truth of 
 a Divine Perfection. We have already studied, and 
 sought to estimate, in regard of their spiritual im- 
 portance, the first two enquiries of Criticism, into the 
 structure and the growth of Holy Scripture. In regard 
 to its final enquiry into what is the essential and 
 unique character of Scripture, as the ground of its 
 claim of supreme authority, I have suggested to you 
 that — much popular usage and language notwith- 
 standing — it should really concern itself with the 
 objective fact of Revelation, rather than the subjective 
 process of Inspiration : and that the enquiry, which is 
 at once all-important and hopeful, is whether that 
 Scripture is, or is not, a Revelation of * all things 
 
298 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 necessary to salvation.' Of its sufficiency for this pur- 
 pose, if it can be accepted, there can be no question. 
 But does it fulfil, in all its mingled variety and unity, 
 the function which our Lord assigned to Himself, that 
 He ' came into the v^orld to bear witness of the 
 Truth ' ? 
 
 This is to us above all others the question of ques- 
 tions. On the answer depends certainly the claim of 
 Scripture to be in any special sense what we commonly 
 call it, a * Word of God.' There is a homely insight in 
 the conclusion of the widow of Zarephath, that a Man 
 of God must speak ' a Word of the Lord ' and that this 
 ' word in his mouth must be truth \' The whole mean- 
 ing of Holy Scripture is in its manifestation of Christ ; 
 and in the latter part of my text our Lord expresses 
 the central idea of that manifestation in the words, 
 ' I am the Truth.' It is because He is the Truth, that 
 He is also ' the Way and the Life.' 
 
 If it be asked ' What is Truth \ ' the general answer 
 must, no doubt, be, that Truth is accordance W' ith the 
 great Laws of Being, the various expressions of the 
 supreme ' Law Eternal.' But, in applying that answer 
 to Scripture, we must clearly distinguish the various 
 elements — the History, Law, Psalm, Prophecy, both 
 of the Old Testament and the New — which, as we have 
 seen, make up its manifold unity. For in relation to 
 each of these the general definition of Truth has a 
 peculiar form of significance, and our question must be 
 ' Has each element that specific kind of truth, which 
 properly belongs to it '? ' We must not evade or obscure 
 
 ^ I Kings xvii. 24. 
 
VI T I.] The truth of Revelation essential. 299 
 
 that question by the consideration, important as it is, 
 that the one great purpose of Scripture is to convey 
 spiritual truth ; that all is subordinated to that spiritual 
 Kevelation, on which we touched last Sunday, of God, 
 of Man, and of God and Man made One ; that its 
 object is not to supersede human knowledge and dis- 
 covery, but to meet and supplement these by the 
 disclosure of what is hid from them ; that its promise 
 is to make men wise indeed, but wise unto salvation ; 
 that we may, if we venture on such rather futile specu- 
 lation, conceive that this Eevelation might have been 
 given, and this Wisdom imparted, in a form less com- 
 plex, and having fewer points of critical contact with 
 human literatvu'e and history. For all this does not 
 touch the main question. The Bible is what it is. It 
 is actually presented to us in that complex structure, by 
 which, as we have seen, it places itself in touch with 
 humanity in all its phases. In all the parts of this 
 actual structure it must be searched into, and estimated 
 by a right criticism, on the principles ajDpropriate to 
 each. We must try to see clearly and resolutely wliat 
 in respect of each we really mean, when we speak of 
 the truth of the Eevelation, which it thus professes to 
 give. 
 
 (II) Thus its backbone is undoubtedly history — the 
 history of man, and of the world as it concerns man, 
 from the beginning to the coming of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and the first establishment of His Kingdom 
 over Jew, and Greek, and Eoman, as the three great 
 representative races of humanity. To avoid all poiuts, 
 on which difference of opinion may exist among tliose 
 
300 T^'uth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 who accept the authorit}' of Scripture, let us fix our 
 thoughts on the continuous thread of narrative which 
 begins witli the call of Abraham. 
 
 In the earlier chapters of Genesis, which tell the 
 story of the Creation and Primeval Man, and give brief, 
 and often obscure, glimpses of the antediluvian world, 
 it is true that many profoundly believing interpreters, 
 ancient and modern, have held that we are reading 
 simply a sublime and instructive symbolic description 
 of a world not properly our own, designed merely to 
 reveal, as it certainly does reveal, great moral and 
 spiritual truths — the Creation of all things by God, 
 the nature of man made in the image of the Divine 
 Righteousness, the fall from it by rebellion and sin, 
 the hope and promise of Redemption ^ It ma}^ be so ; 
 yet the narrative itself, as distinct from such imagina- 
 tions from it, as Milton has made familiar to us, paints 
 to us in striking simplicity what we can well conceive 
 to be an actual picture of primeval humanity. But 
 from the Flood onwards, and still more clearly from 
 the call of Abraham, we have what most definitely, 
 and, if I may use the word, prosaically, declares itself 
 to be a history of facts. History or fiction it may be ; 
 but apologue or parable it cannot be. There is an 
 instructive distinction, which brings out this general 
 character, between the Book of Job, avowing itself by 
 its verv form to be a mao-nificent Poem on a historic 
 
 ' It should be allowed that the acceptance of a symbolic theory of 
 interpretation of the narrative need in no way imply any want of 
 faith in the absolute reality of these fundamental truths ; and it is 
 certain that it has not done so in the case of many who hold it. 
 
Yiii,] Historic trtitk. 301 
 
 basis, having all the creative freedom and right of 
 poetry, and the Books (for example) of Exodus or 
 Joshua or Samuel. 
 
 But what is confessedly the one requisite of History ? 
 It is well that it should be impressive, graphic, pic- 
 turesque, and in its grave way eloquent ; it is well 
 that it should, as a ' philosophy teaching by examples,' 
 bring out the great Laws of Nature and Humanity. 
 But with all these things History may dispense, and yet 
 l)e history. The one thing, which makes it what it is, 
 is what we rightly call ' historic truth ' — truth that is 
 in record of facts, both the facts of event and action, 
 and the facts of human character. If the Scripture 
 narrative professes to be history, by this canon of his- 
 toric truth it must be judged. The question does not 
 now turn on the enquiries of what we have spoken — 
 out of what materials it may have been framed, and 
 where, as usual, it is anonymous, by what hands and in 
 what times it may have been compiled. It is not even 
 a question of the degree in which, under the ' inspira- 
 tion of Selection,' its writers may have been left, in 
 respect of details, to their own human care and study ^ 
 The question is, whether the great substance of the 
 narrative — professing to record in human history the 
 
 ^ This consideration bears upon the discrepancies of detail, real 
 or supj30sed, between parallel narratives, or those which apparently 
 come from the incorporation in one narrative of documents inde- 
 pendent of one another. If we may judge from the analogy of New 
 Testament criticism, we shall (I think) find that the amount and 
 importance of these have been much exaggerated, and we shall be 
 also led to conclude ihat many of them are but ajiparent, and due to 
 our imperfect knowledge of the whole facts. 
 
?02 Truth in Revelation. [lect 
 
 special preparation in the Divine Order for tbe Coming 
 of the Lord, His Manifestation on earth, and the first 
 beginning of its proclamation to the world — is really 
 true. It is with that question that finally Criticism 
 must busy itself — testing tbe narrative by comparison 
 with itself, and by compa,rison with other discoveries of 
 historical, archaeological, linguistic, Science, and that 
 question we must look plainly in the face. 
 
 In this view I would again remind you that we must 
 make up our minds with plainness and decision on 
 what is called ' the miraculous element ' in the whole 
 Scripture history. It is not indeed, as a careless 
 reader might think, sown broadcast over the history. 
 It has (as I have already reminded you) its own law of 
 distribution and order. It is concentrated in its full 
 brightness on the Manifestation on earth, from the 
 Incarnation to the Ascension, of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 In the Old Testament narrative of preparation for that 
 Coming, the record of it is almost entirely confined to 
 two great eras of advance and expansion — the Exodus 
 and Eisodus, which were the birth of the Nation under 
 the Law, and the beginning of Prophecy, especially in 
 its victorious struggle against the Baal Apostasy in the 
 days of Elijah and Elisha \ In the New Testament 
 narrative of the Apostolic Ministry proclaiming the 
 Lord's Coming, it has been noted as appearing with 
 
 ^ I do not, of course, venture to assert that these are the only 
 epochs in which miracle largely occurred. If we had equally minute 
 and graphic accounts of other periods in the history and of other 
 prophetic biographies, we might find it in them also. But still the 
 fact remains that only in these have we x'ecords of any remarkable 
 outbursts of miraculous power. 
 
VIII.] The Neiu Testament history. 303 
 
 intermittence, and coming out in special fulness at 
 critical periods, such as the first great era of St. Peter's 
 preaching after Pentecost, and St. Paul's ministry in 
 the very home of Gentile magic at Ephesus \ But there 
 it "Undoubtedly is, inextricably woven with the history 
 which is often unintelligible or incredible without it, 
 recorded merely as a clear manifestation of the Divine 
 Will of Kighteousness, in the same grave and simple 
 tone as what we call ordinary events. I cannot see 
 how any view, which holds that Miracle is incredible, 
 and that its records must therefore be conscious or un- 
 conscious fictions, is compatible here with historic truth, 
 or perhaps even with historic truthfulness. 
 
 Now here the main stress of argument must be on 
 the New Testament record of the Gospel itself — on the 
 whole story of the Life nnd Death of the Lord, on the 
 witness to the great Miracle of miracles in His Eesur- 
 rection, and on the history of its proclamation to the 
 world, in itself and in all that follows from it, to open 
 the new era of Christianity. On it criticism has in all 
 ages, not least in our own, turned its most searching 
 light. For on the question whether it is a solid and 
 Divine truth, or an ideal legend, in which human hope 
 and aspiration cheat themselves into an imaginary ful- 
 filment, depends the vital question whether the Creed 
 
 ^ See Acts v. 12-16 ; xix. 11, 12. In the latter passage the phrase 
 hvva\iiii ov ras rvx^oixras is instructive, as indicating wliat we may call 
 an undercurrent of miraculous power, emerging into special promi- 
 nence on special occasions. We may note that in 2 Cor. xii. 1 2 St. Paul 
 alludes to displays of such power at Corinth, of which we have no 
 direct historic record. Comp. also Eom. xv. 19. 
 
304 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 of Christendom is founded on the unchanging rock of 
 reality or on the shifting sand of imagination. We 
 welcome that light of criticism, which, as I have already 
 said, seems to me to dissipate all intermediate theories 
 of a mythical type, between the two great alternatives 
 of truth and falsehood, a ' cunningly devised fable ' and 
 ' the eye-witness of a Divine Majesty.' For it cer- 
 tainly makes it absolutely clear that the Christ of the 
 Gospel record and the Apostolic preaching is not an 
 ideal phantom, but a true Son of Man, who was born 
 and lived a real life on earth, and died on the Cross 
 of Calvary. But the same witness which establishes 
 that historic reality of His earthly life, bears with equal 
 cogency and simplicity on the supernatural character 
 of that life, as manifested in miraculous power, and 
 as sealed by unquestionable fact in the Resurrection. 
 It must be taken as it is ; its various parts cannot 
 be torn asunder without destroying the life of the 
 whole ^. 
 
 But yet, though in less degree, the same principle 
 must apply to the criticism of the Old Testament, which 
 for us Christians cannot be separated from the New. 
 It is well here also to look clearly at the issue involved. 
 By some leaders of modern criticism it is made plain 
 enough — when (for example) leading Old Testament 
 books are described, as not only having accretions and 
 
 ' The lifelike simplicity, for example, of the narratives of John ix. 
 and xi., which shows in every line the testimony of an eye-witness, 
 must bear foi'cibly on the truth of the miracles of the healing of the 
 blind man and the raising of Lazarus, which are the central features 
 cf these records. 
 
VIII.] The Old Testament history. 305 
 
 corruptions, but as being themselves deliberate creations 
 of later days ^ — when the whole history of the Taber- 
 nacle in the wilderness, of the setting apart of the tribe 
 of Levi and the appointment of the priesthood, is re- 
 presented as fabricated for the honour of the Temple 
 and the support of the priestly dignity^ — when the 
 undoubted claim of the Prophets to a supernatural 
 insight is declared to be but a fictitious investiture 
 with Divine authority of the fallible anticipations of 
 human sagacity, if not actually the fraud of pretended 
 predictions made after the event. By theologians of 
 soberer and more reverent temper in our own Church 
 these extravagant assertions are summarily rejected. 
 But yet we must carefully consider what is really im- 
 plied in the assumption, as a main principle of inter- 
 pretation, that ' in many parts of the historical books 
 we have before us traditions, in which the original 
 representation is insensibly modified, and sometimes 
 
 ^ See Wellhausen's Prolegomena (pp. 293, 294). The history, as 
 we have it, is ' a later repainting of the original picture ' . . . not only 
 ' with discolouring influences in the mythical elements, but in the 
 uniform stamp impressed on the tradition by men who regarded 
 history exclusively from the point of view of their own principles . . . 
 There was a systematic recoining of the old tradition . . . The old 
 books had to be remodelled, in order to make them valuable, digestible, 
 and edifying.' An illustrative example is given in respect of the 
 visit to Eaniah (i Sam. xix. 18-24), which is 'a pious caricature — 
 the enjoyment of the disgrace of the naked king.' 
 
 ^ See Wellhausen's Prolegomena. ' It may seem to have been 
 asserted that the Tabernacle rests on a historical fiction. In truth it 
 has been proved ... as to the Tabernacle of the Priestly Code ; for 
 some kind of tent for the Ark there may have been' (p. 37). ' The 
 statement ' (he adds) ' is simply a dogmatic way of making history,' 
 with ' the absurd consequences to which it leads.' 
 
 X 
 
3o6 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 (especially in the later books) coloured, by the associa- 
 tions of the age in which the author recording it lived/ 
 and the claim for the Scriptural historians of freedom 
 ' in placing speeches or discourses in the mouths of 
 historical characters/ which ' in some cases, no doubt, 
 agree substantially with what was actually said/ in 
 others ' develop at length, in the style of the narrator, 
 a compendious report'; but which may also invent 
 altogether ' what was deemed consonant with the temper 
 and aim of a given character on a particular occasion \' 
 Similarly we must estimate clearly what is the bearing 
 on historic truth of the supposition of ' an unconscious 
 idealizing of history, the reading back into past records 
 of a ritual development, which was later,' representing 
 ' the real purpose of God, and only anticipating its 
 realization'; and whether it is consistent with what 
 'our faith strongly disposes us to believe, that the 
 record from Abraham downwards is in substance in the 
 strict sense historical 2.' In the acceptance of these 
 principles a strong distinction is drawn, and rightly 
 drawn, between the Old Testament and the New. But, 
 if they are accepted as compatible with Inspiration, it 
 is hard to be sure that this distinction is one of kind 
 and not of degree. 
 
 Now these assertions of modern Criticism and the 
 reasons given for them are, of course, to be met, as has 
 
 ^ See Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa- 
 ment (Preface, p. xvii). 
 
 2 See Lux 3hindi (ed. of 1889), pp. 351, 353. It must be remem- 
 bered that to us the main question is of Eevelation rather than 
 Inspiration, and £0 of the objective truth of the narrative, rather than 
 the subjective tinithfulness of the narrator. 
 
VIII.] Moral Truth. 307 
 
 been done in respect of the New Testament, by full and 
 candid enquiry, and not by denunciation. But still it 
 is well that the nature of the issue should be under- 
 stood to be no less than the question between that 
 substantial historic truth, which the whole tenour of 
 the narrative claims, and which certainly the teaching 
 of our Lord Himself seems to imply, and a strange 
 heterogeneous growth of truth and falsehood, legend 
 and history; of which it is hard to conceive how it 
 can be accepted as a historic revelation of God's actual 
 dealings with men, and as holding the place given to 
 it by our Master in the historical preparation for His 
 own cominsr. 
 
 (IH) But, interwoven with this great historic thread, 
 there is what we may call in the largest sense, the 
 Prophetic element of Scripture — its teaching (that is) 
 in God's Name of His Will, His Kighteousness, His 
 Love, in a continuous dispensation to man. What is 
 needed here for a true Kevelation of God ? Clearly 
 truth once more, but now moral truth — according with 
 that Eternal Kighteousness, which is witnessed to by 
 the conscience within and written on the course of the 
 world without, but revealing that Kighteousness in a 
 clear and living certainty, to inform and inspire the one 
 witness and to explain the other. 
 
 That teaching comes to us first through Law — the 
 Supreme Will of God (that is) declared in command- 
 ment, to guide and control human conduct, and enforced 
 by reward and punishment in this world or in the next. 
 Beginning in the simple Law of the old Patriarchal 
 time, it starts, from the birth of Israel as a Nation 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 onwards, into the full searching Law, which we call the 
 Law of Moses ; it becomes, as in the Sermon on the 
 Mount, the Law of Christ, so far as His teaching is 
 merely Law, perfecting (as He Himself declared) what 
 was given to them of old time. That Law, like all 
 other law, must adapt itself in form and detail to the 
 various ages and conditions of the men to whom it was 
 given ; so that in its earlier stages it may allow to the 
 ' hardness of men's hearts ' what is forbidden to the 
 later ; it must, if it is to grow deeply into men's 
 nature, take up and stamp with its own impress 
 existing laws, customs, traditions of humankind ; it 
 must necessarily at every stage contain the rule, which 
 is temporary in obligation, as well as the underlying 
 principle, which is eternal ; it must, so far as it is 
 strictly law, be limited by some possibility of enforce- 
 ment, and be content to rule the outward life of conduct 
 rather than the inner life of the spirit. Therefore, in 
 all its earlier stages, it was confessedly an imperfect 
 preparation for a perfection in Christ, and, even from 
 His lips, so far as it was still Law, it was but a means 
 and guard to the higher life of the Spirit in Him. All 
 this has been rightly impressed upon us by criticism, 
 studying the Scriptural Law in its gradual development, 
 tracing in it various elements of connection with other 
 ancient laws, illustrating it by greater knowledge of 
 history. It is well. For from errors on these points 
 have arisen many difficulties in understanding the Law, 
 many fatal anachronisms in applying it, many attempts 
 to do through it what Law, even if perfect as Law, can 
 never do. 
 
VIII.] In the Lazv. 309 
 
 But yet for all this, if the Scriptural Law, which, be 
 it remembered, is a continuous development, is to have 
 to us any sacredness or authority, it must have, through 
 all these imperfections and limitations, accordance with 
 moral truth ; it must gradually unfold that moral truth 
 in growing purity and harmony, until it reaches per- 
 fection, so far as law can be perfect, in the Law of 
 Christ Himself. I do not know that we can limit this 
 requirement to the commandments which we ordinarily 
 call moral ; although, no doubt, in them it will have its 
 fullest development. Even in the civil and. ceremonial 
 laws, under the outward, forms which have passed 
 away, there are implied inner principles, having a dis- 
 tinctly moral character, which can never be obsolete. 
 In all its branches the supreme idea of the Law is the 
 basing of all moral duty, and the kindling of all moral 
 enthusiasm, in the first great commandment of the 
 knowledge and love of God. Its very purpose (as St. 
 Paul teaches again and again) is to assert and guard 
 what is called the Covenant of God with man, imply- 
 ing real moral relations of the Infinite with the finite. 
 It brings out, therefore, in the individual, in the 
 nation, in the Church, the supreme moral conception of 
 Holiness — a purity (that is) of heart and mind, conse- 
 crated and sustained by conscious communion with 
 God — as the inner secret of the life 'hid in God' 
 Himself, and as including all its relations of righteous- 
 ness and love. With a view to the attainment of such 
 holiness, it recognises, as lying at the very root of that 
 Covenant, the great principle of Atonement, implied in 
 all Sacrifice, and expressed in the great Sacrifice of 
 
310 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 Calvary. These ideas are fundamental and far-reaching 
 in their effect : only if they are morally true, can the 
 Law of Scripture be in any sense — what Our Lord 
 Himself made it — a Law of God, and a preparation for 
 His own kingdom. 
 
 But higher and deeper than all Law is the teaching 
 of what we may call in the largest sense Prophecy — 
 the revelation (that is) of the Will and the Nature of 
 God in essential spiritual principle, and the writing it 
 freely by force of its own intrinsic light and righteous- 
 ness on the souls of men — imph'ing necessarily an 
 inspiration from on high, in those who utter it and 
 those who receive it. 
 
 We have that Prophecy, running like a golden thread 
 through the whole of the Old Testament. There is 
 an element even in the Law, which as our Lord Him- 
 self says, ' prophesies.' For it enters constantly, as no 
 human law can enter, into the free inner life of the 
 soul ; its first and great commandment is the Love of 
 ' the Lord our God,' which no constraint of law can 
 engender. There is in the older prophets of unwritten 
 prophecy a gradual development of that spiritual teach- 
 ing and influence, in relation to the present life in- 
 dividual and national, by the power of which Israel 
 grew out of the retrograde and half-barbarous era of 
 the Judges into a fitness for the high religious civiliza- 
 tion of later days. It was clearly the inner life to 
 the people of moral culture, freedom, progress, victorious 
 against despotism of material power, against supersti- 
 tion and idolatry, against false worship of false gods, 
 with a victory of which Elijah at Carmel is the glorious 
 
VIII.] In the Prophecy. 311 
 
 type. There is in the later prophets of the written 
 prophecy a fuller development of that same teaching, 
 not only as the life of the present, but as the earnest 
 of the Diviner life : of the future. No unprejudiced 
 reader can doubt that, in unfolding the working of the 
 whole scope of God's Kigliteous Will, they claim power 
 in various measures, not only to look back and read 
 it in the past, but to look onward by the light which 
 He gives and read it, sometimes generally, sometimes 
 definitely, in the ages to come ^. No student can well 
 doubt, that in various degrees of clearness and sublimity, 
 this onward looking of Prophecy gathers itself round 
 a future Kingdom and a future King — One who is a 
 true Son of Man, seed of Abraham, Son of David, yet 
 on whom are accumulated attributes too great for any 
 but an Emmanuel, ' God with us.' 
 
 For that Prophecy, taken as it thus actually is, still 
 more essential than even for the Law is this require- 
 ment of moral truth — illumined, of course, as all moral 
 truth must be illumined, by some insight into the great 
 laws of being. That requirement must apply to all its 
 elements — to its representation of God and of humanity 
 — to its claim of special inspiration and prophetic fore- 
 sight — to its gradually brightening conception of the 
 Messiah to come. Necessarily by that very conception 
 Prophecy confesses its own imperfection, as in the 
 Eevelation which it transmits, so in the Inspiration, 
 
 ^ Nothing surely can be more uncritical than to assert that ' the 
 prophets did not attach primary importance to the lateral and imme- 
 diate fulfilment of their prophecies' (Muir in English translation of 
 Kuenen's Prolegomena, p. xxxvii). See Note I. 
 
31 i Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 which gives its power to understand and declare it ; and 
 that imperfection will attach to its moral and spiritual, 
 as well as its intellectual, character. Clearly, as we 
 connect the prophecy with the history, and compare 
 prophet with prophet, we note the distinction of their 
 age, their mission, their character, which make them 
 differ irom one another in the fulness and spirituality 
 of their message. We speak of some more than others 
 as clearly Messianic in foresight and Evangelical in 
 character. As we compare the Prophecy of the Old 
 Testament with the Gospel of Christ, we may be 
 sensible, that, as was needful for earlier and cruder 
 stages in the life of humanity, there may be some 
 shadow in it of the sternness of the Law, a more 
 frequent appeal to godly fear, a less constant reliance 
 in godly love. But yet for all there is the claim of 
 a ' Word of the Lord,' spoken by ' the Spirit of the 
 Lord' ; and in that claim it must be implied that morally 
 the word so spoken is true. 
 
 But from this, confessedly imperfect and preparatory, 
 we pass on to the Prophecy of the New Testament — 
 the Eevelation of God by the great Prophet of prophets, 
 by His own lips, or by the lips of those to whom He 
 promised that the Holy Spirit should bring home His 
 word, and through whom it was His pleasure to evan- 
 gelize the world. Clearly for this the requirement of 
 moral truth must be absolute and perfect, if it is, as 
 Christian faith declares it to be, an universal and abso- 
 lute guide to humanity. With that requirement, as an 
 inseparable condition, must go the requirement of a 
 corresponding perfection of illuminating insight into 
 
VIII.] In the New Testament Revelation. 313 
 
 the secrets of God and of man. Whatever may have 
 been the mysterious self-limitation of the Godhead in 
 humanity — on which (let me say it in passing) the ex- 
 perience of past Christian centuries gives us but little 
 hope of any definite and sound conclusions — however, 
 in His humanity, the intuition into things Divine and 
 human, may have ' grown in wisdom ' by clothing itself 
 in gradual acquisition of form and exemplification by 
 detailed knowledge^ — still He claims for Himself to have 
 the word of eternal life, and ' life eternal is knowledge 
 of God.' But it is in the requirement of moral and 
 spiritual truth that I now speak ; and this clearly implies, 
 that in the great principles of the doctrine of Christ — 
 as, for instance, in Mediation, Atonement, Sanctification 
 through grace, — there must be nothing, which is not 
 perfectly in accord with the Eternal Kighteousness and 
 Love of God, and the undying responsibility of man ; 
 that in the Christian morality of the New Testament 
 there must be nothing false, insufficient, one-sided, 
 inoperative, corresponding only to some of the moral 
 conditions and needs of humanity, and not to all - : 
 that in the spiritual life in Christ, both individual 
 
 ^ This is but the old distinction of knowledge hwa^in and eVepye/g. 
 
 ^ It will be, of course, easily understood, that in the New Testa- 
 ment special stress may be laid on some moral graces— such as humility 
 and purity — which, in the best morality of those days, had been 
 ignored or depreciated ; while others, which were already honoured 
 even to excess — such as manliness and intellectual enthusiasm — are 
 taken for granted, and rather guided and tempered than enforced. 
 Note, for example, the treatment of manliness in i Cor. xvi. 13, 14; 
 whei'e it is emphatically shown to have its root in faith, and its 
 guiding and controlling principle in love. 
 
314 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 and collective, there must be the full satisfaction of the 
 highest spiritual aspirations, and the harmony, which 
 this requires, of the Infinity of God and the true finite 
 individuality of man. Not less than this surely is 
 involved in the moral truth of Holy Scripture ; and 
 the conception cleai ly differs, not in degree but in kind, 
 from the qualified admiration and reverence, which the 
 world is ready to give to it, and to the moral teaching 
 of Christ, which speaks in it. 
 
 (IV) But there is a third element of Scripture, closely 
 connected with this, which is the response of inspired 
 humanity to these Eevelations of God in Law and 
 Prophecy, and which expresses to us the attitude of 
 the soul, as by meditation, by praj'er, by adoration, it 
 realizes its communion with Him. We find gleams of 
 it interspersed through the books of history^ ; it forms 
 again and again an element in the utteiances of the 
 Prophets, who speak alternately, as representatives of 
 God to man, and of man to God^; above all, it ex- 
 presses itself in its meditative and intellectual aspect 
 in the Books of Wisdom, and in its spiritual aspect in 
 the great Book of Psalms. It comes to its perfection 
 in the devotional utterances of our Lord Himself, and, 
 caught from these, the outpouring of Apostolic spirits 
 to God. 
 
 What needs this element of Holy Scripture, that it 
 
 ' See the Psalm of triumj)]! at the Red Sea (Ex, xv. 1-2 1); the 
 Song of the Well (Numb. xxi. 14, 15); the Song of Moses (Deut. 
 xxxii); the Song of Deborah (Judges v); the Song of Hannah (i Sam. 
 ii. i-io); the 'last words' of David (2 Sam. xxiii. 2-6). 
 
 "^ See (for example) Is. xii; Jer. xx. 7-18; Jonah ii. 1-9; Hab. 
 iii. ; If. xxxviii. 9-20. 
 
VIII.] Subjective Moral Truth. 315 
 
 may be, as it has been through the ages, the ideal 
 and the inspiration of our own devotion ? Truth, we 
 may answer still, and spiritual truth ; but truth sub- 
 jective, seen (as it were) on the other side from that 
 which we have as yet considered, through tlie inner 
 human consciousness. The conception of God so gained 
 must be true in the realization of His Divine Attributes, 
 not of Power only or chiefly, but of Wisdom and Righte- 
 ousness and Love. The attitude of man towards Him 
 must be true to the mingled dignity and lowliness, 
 strength and weakness, righteousness and sinfulness, 
 freedom and dependence, which mark our human nature 
 at all times, but mark it especially in the consciousness 
 of the Fatherhood of God. Here, also, there will be 
 degrees in the perfection of this grasp of spiritual truth, 
 as the spiritual education of humanity is wrought out 
 by the increasing Eevelation of God. In the simple 
 childlike outpourings of Patriarchal faith ; in the im- 
 pulsive and enthusiastic communings with God of the 
 great Lawgiver of Israel ; in the pleadings, remon- 
 strances, longings of the Prophets ; even in the price- 
 less and undying utterances of the Psalmists, which have 
 been and are the living treasures of all the Christian 
 ages ; there must still be imperfections. There will be 
 elements (as, for instance, in what we caU the Im- 
 precatory Psalms, or in the utterances of doubt and 
 despondency, from time to time chequering the bright- 
 ness of faith), which, though they have by the very 
 force of sympathy their instruction of encouragement 
 and warning to us, yet the higher consciousness of 
 Christian faith must use, as indeed it has used them in 
 
^i6 Truth in Revelation. [lect, 
 
 all the centuries, with correction from the teaching and 
 the example of our Master. They, indeed, whose whole 
 lives are penetrated with the spirit of the life of Christ, 
 insensibly Christianize the utterances of the older days. 
 For only in Him is there the subjective perfection of 
 spiritual being ; as it expresses itself in the prayer of 
 daily life, which He has given us, in the fervent prayer 
 of the great crises and agonies of life, in the sublime 
 Intercession \ which enters, and carries all humanity 
 with it, into the central mystery of the Divine Presence. 
 Even Apostolic utterances, though they catch and reflect 
 that perfection, yet have something of individual colour- 
 ing, full indeed of force and beauty, but narrower and 
 less universal than the clear white light of the mind 
 of Christ Jesus. But though there be imperfections in 
 the disclosure through Scripture of the spiritual life, 
 still there must be substantial truth, with no falsehood, 
 no perversion, no unworthy thoughts of God's nature, 
 no unworthy slavishness or selfishness on the human 
 side. All must grow, under the true relation of God 
 to man, up to the supreme perfection in Christ. 
 Only on that condition can it be to us the ideal 
 revelation of our higher humanity, the unfailing and 
 unceasing food of our devotion of thought and worship 
 to God. 
 
 (V) But above all and through all these forms of 
 Scriptural Kevelation the supreme requirement is of 
 what we may call Theologic truth — the truth (that is) 
 not of God's works, but of the Nature of God Himself, 
 a truth confirming and correcting, but transcending, all 
 
 ^ John xvii. 
 
VIII.] Theologic Truth. 317 
 
 lower Bevelations of Him. Such revelations there are. 
 Through all philosophic questionings, and in spite of 
 a consciousness of complexity and mystery in Nature, 
 such as our fathers knew not, the maturest thought 
 confirms the instinctive common-sense of mankind ; it 
 finds in Nature the working of a Supreme Will, cer- 
 tainly infinite in power and wisdom, possibly in 
 righteousness and goodness. In Humanity, just in 
 proportion as it is conscious of itself, — its own will and 
 reason and conscience, its own capacity of truth in love 
 — there is a Kevelation of a God — as in the secrets of 
 the soul itself, so in visible handwriting upon the 
 history of the world — a Eevelation which seems to me 
 to be exactly the complement of the other, witnessing 
 primarily of His moral relation to us in righteousness 
 and mercy, and secondarily of His wisdom and power. 
 Yet both these are crossed and painfully obscured by 
 the great mystery of evil — the evil of suffering, pain, 
 apparent waste and failure in Nature, and the addition 
 to these of moral evil, vice, crime, sin, and death by 
 gin, in humanity. Clearly a true and supreme Heve- 
 lation of God must confirm and illustrate both these 
 lower witnesses. But it must transcend both, in 
 glimpses at least of the mysteries, lying above their 
 ken, and in the dissipation or illumination of that heavy 
 cloud of perplexity which hangs over both. 
 
 It is precisely this, which the Scriptural Eevelation 
 of God claims to do. The idea of God grows, widens, 
 deepens through the whole ; and we note that at each 
 point it is at once personal in relation, yet universal in 
 itself. The Creator of all the world is yet close, in 
 
3i8 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 tender care and love, to the man made in His image. 
 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is in covenant 
 w^ith His chosen servants, while yet He is always 
 known as the ' God Almighty,' ' the Judge ' and Euler 
 * of the whole earth.' The Jehovah of that Mosaic 
 Revelation, which is wrought out by the whole order 
 of the Prophets, is the God and King of the chosen 
 nation of Israel, close to their action and their thought 
 at every point, and dwelling between the Cherubims, in 
 the Tabernacle or Temple which is His chosen seat 
 of Eevelation to them ; yet the very meaning of the 
 Name proclaims Him as the One Eternal Self-existent 
 Being, fountain of all created life, the One ultimate 
 object of all created reverence and \oyq. The final 
 Revelation, in the word of the Lord Jesus Christ Him- 
 self, is of the supreme mystery of the Triune Godhead, 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, stamped in 
 Baptism on the very forefront of our Christianity ; yet 
 of the fulness of that Godhead, as dwelling bodily in 
 the true Son of Man, whom we know, as it were, face to 
 face, and through Him dwelling in measure in the very 
 heart of the simplest humanity. 
 
 Everywhere the Nature of God, as Truth in Love, is 
 brought out to us, although it seems as if the two 
 elements were blended to our eyes in different propor- 
 tions. The sterner element of Righteousness assumes a 
 prominence in the era of the Law, unknown to the 
 simplicity of the earlier and more childlike days ; while 
 Love is as a deep undercurrent, felt rather than plainly 
 seen. In its turn it passes gradually from that pro- 
 minence, as the free spirit of Prophecy rises above 
 
VIII.] In the Old Testament and the New. 319 
 
 the rigour of Law ; till in Chiist we know, above all 
 else, that ' God is Love '; while yet that Love has still 
 by necessity the discriminating judgment of Eighteous- 
 ness, and, although it weeps over a Jerusalem, cannot 
 take away the self-chosen doom of men. 
 
 At every point, moreover, in some degree, and with 
 ever-increasing clearness, this Eevelation of God (as 
 we have already seen) recognises as only too real, 
 although subordinate and unnatural, the power of evil 
 in the world. It unmasks it in the History ; it 
 scourges it in the Law ; it deals with it by remon- 
 strance, rebuke, entreaty, in Prophecy ; it confesses it, 
 sadly and almost passionately, in the Psalm. Finally, 
 it makes the Cross of Atonement the very badge of 
 Christianity, because the very expression of the true 
 Gospel for a world like this ; and so it claims to be 
 able to tell how the guilt of sin is already forgiven, its 
 power already broken, and how it is destined in the 
 hereafter to vanish away. 
 
 It is on the truth of this Eevelation — the only al- 
 ternative, as the world's experience seems to show, to 
 a blank agnosticism as to the Supreme and Absolute 
 Being — that the sacred authority of Holy Scripture 
 depends. If it be what it claims to be, it must be 
 in essence the most perfect Eevelation of God which 
 humanity is capable of receiving ; there must be no 
 secrets of God, which can be told and need to be told 
 to man, not contained in it, and capable of being drawn 
 out for aU generations by the Spirit of God, as the 
 inspiration of the higher life in Him. 
 
 (VI) This, and not less than this, is what is implied 
 
320 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 in the belief in the Truth of Holy Scripture, as in all 
 its lines of development in history, law, prophecy, de- 
 votion and meditation, expressing in different measures 
 and forms Him who is Himself the Truth. With the 
 examination of this, above all, criticism is concerned : 
 it has to see in each branch of its witness, w^here the 
 root of the matter lies, and then to ascertain whether 
 it strikes deep down into the eternal foundation. The 
 task is a great one, and in some sense a formidable one 
 to every thoughtful and reverent mind. Yet it must 
 be done. It is vain to deprecate or denounce such 
 criticism. The mind of man must think for itself, even 
 on that which is presented to it by the very highest 
 earthly authority ; even on the Scripture, witnessed to 
 as in a special sense a Word of God by the Church of 
 Christ, following in this, as closely as she may, the 
 teaching of her Master. For it has in this a moral 
 responsibility, not a mere intellectual interest. It has 
 to make truth, as we say, ' its own,' to realize it sub- 
 jectively, as a part of itself and of its life. If it is to 
 do this, it must not only know in whom it believes, 
 but in measure know what is the real meaning and 
 essence of that which is received in faith. And, indeed, 
 the whole tenour of Holy Scripture itself implies, not 
 only permission, but command, so to do. Of it the 
 famous words, on which we have already dwelt, are 
 typical, ' Prove, or test, all things : hold fast that,' and 
 that only, * which is good.' 
 
 But it is nevertheless well that we should understand 
 clearly what is really at issue, and consider thought- 
 fully what is involved in critical conclusions or specu- 
 
VIII.] The restdts of right Criticism. 321 
 
 lations, which we may be called upon somewhat hastily 
 to accept. For this consciousness breathes into our 
 judgment the needful spirit of caution, gravity, re- 
 verence. It may even guide that judgment in no small 
 degree. For, just as we should distrust a train of in- 
 genious intellectual reasoning, which landed us in a 
 plainly immoral result — just as we should hesitate to 
 believe what might seem a plausible consensus of 
 evidence against a character, which we have learnt to 
 trust, as we should trust ourselves — so it is not wrong- 
 ful prejudice, if those who by faith and by experience 
 have come to recognise a Divine Spiritual power in 
 Holy Scripture, take with them this conviction, as one 
 important element of consideration, in examining critical 
 speculations, which may even seem to ascribe to it 
 qualities inconsistent with that known character. 
 
 Then, if only these conditions be fulfilled, we need 
 certainly have no ultimate fear of Criticism. We can- 
 not, of course, without shutting our eyes to facts, be 
 free from anxiety as to its immediate effect upon the 
 faith of individuals, especially when it takes from them 
 old conceptions and interpretations, which are not un- 
 naturally mistaken for the truth, round which they 
 have grown. We cannot be unaware, that there may 
 well be some general efiect of unsettlement on the 
 w^hole tone of mind of the many, who do not, perhaps 
 who cannot, study and understand the criticism itself, 
 but who are obliged to know vaguely that it exists, 
 and that it professes to change much which has in days 
 past been accepted without hesitation. But for the 
 truth itself of the Bevelation in Holy Scripture we are 
 
 Y 
 
322 Truth in Revelation, [lect. 
 
 taught, not only by a rational faith, but by much past 
 experience, tlie sure conviction that the mere specula- 
 tions and inventions, which are but the nebulous 
 accompaniments of solid and true criticism, will spend 
 themselves and mostly pass away ; but that the effect 
 of its proper distinguishing and testing power will be 
 to clear up for us what is confused and doubtful in our 
 faith, to remove some accretions which have gathered 
 round it, and some theories of our own about it, which 
 change like ourselves, and so to bring out its truth — 
 historical, moral, spiritual — not only more clearly and 
 surely than ever, but in closer living relation to Him, 
 who is the Truth itself. 
 
 (VII) And so, with this reference to that aspect of 
 the subject which is now so greatly occupying thought- 
 ful minds, I draw to an end the argument, which I 
 have desired to submit to your consideration, and 
 which is, after all, simply this — that the key, which, in 
 view of our advancing search into the secrets of Being, 
 opens so many doors in the Palace of Truth, must 
 surely be the master-key of the Great King. 
 
 I am, of course, aware that the very plan of such 
 argument precludes the working out of each element 
 with that thoroughness of mastery, which has so often 
 distinguished the treatment from this pulpit of more 
 special subjects. But I would venture to suggest the 
 importance, even at this cost, of attempting from time 
 to time some comprehensiveness of view, especially in 
 days like our own. For we live in a,n age of which an 
 exhaustive specialism, if it be a glory, is also a danger 
 
VIII.] Plea for comprehensiveness of view. 323 
 
 — gaining, no doubt, much depth of special insight, 
 but apt to lose the right proportion of the parts of the 
 great whole, and, in relation to faith, to rest the whole 
 stress of thought and aspiration on one strand, and not 
 the whole, of ' the threefold cord which is not quickly 
 broken.' True indeed it is, that in the great life of 
 humanity these various specialisms will by degrees find 
 their right place ; if each contributes its single note, 
 all, even through some apparent discords, will blend 
 more or less in the harmony of the collective Wisdom. 
 But truth, and especially moral and religious truth, 
 concerns the individual, as well as the race ; it is his 
 life, as in its right vividness, so in its right proportion. 
 So every man, while, if he is wise, he will accept from 
 experts the results of their special and often lifelong 
 study, will yet for himself stand (so to speak) further 
 back than they are apt to stand from the picture of the 
 whole, and look at it through the eyes of the simple 
 humanity within bim. 
 
 For let me remind you, that in this view the cumu- 
 lative force of various testimonies is far greater than 
 the sum of these testimonies themselves, and that it 
 increases with immense rapidity, as their number and 
 variety grow. It is so familiarly in the forensic evidence 
 of the ' two or three witnesses': the effect of the second 
 far more than doubles the first : the addition of the 
 third mostly turns probability into moral certainty. 
 It is so in historical or scientific coincidence, especially 
 if the testimonies yielded are of different kinds ; as 
 when internal evidence suddenly gains support of 
 external ; when the conclusions of mechanical science 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 are confirmed by the study of life or mind ; when 
 deductions from some general principle are met by 
 coincident results of observation and induction. It is 
 true in matters admitting of demonstration, that no 
 number of probabilities can make a certainty : but that 
 saying is not true in relation to the moral certainty, on 
 which so much of our life and the life of the world 
 depends. And I may add that this strength from 
 coincidence, while it must apply primarily to the 
 evidence, in which all agree, yet secondarily, by estab- 
 lishing the credibility of each witness, attaches even to 
 that on which each speaks alone. It were well that 
 this fact, so well known in our law-courts, were more 
 often recognised in the courts of philosophical investi- 
 gation. 
 
 Hence, I think, the importance of the view, which 
 our consideration has brought before us, of the various 
 relations to multiform Science of the one Grospel of 
 Christ, which is indeed Christ Himself. On their 
 variety, as well as their number, their aggregate 
 force depends. Each, as it seems to me, has its 
 special lesson, yet all these lessons are to be read 
 into one. 
 
 Thus we considered, first, the striking relation of 
 the scientific discoveries in Heredity to the Christian 
 doctrine of Mediation, and of the scientific principle of 
 Evolution to the doctrine of the Incarnation, as at once 
 the consummation, ordained from the beginning, for 
 which all the natural order of the world of humanitv 
 was the preparation, and the beginning of a higher 
 Supernatural Order, to pass hereafter into the yet 
 
VIII.] Various aspects of truth brought out. 325 
 
 higher perfection which we call heaven. That relation, 
 which is perhaps the most modern form of the great 
 truth of Analogy, tells us (I think) chiefly of the reality 
 of the Christian truth. It shows it now to our fuller 
 knowledge — substantially as our first great Anglican 
 theologian showed it to the knowledge of three hundred 
 years ago — as the supreme element of the Law Eternal, 
 of which the order of all human life and history is the 
 expression. It is the perfection, and not the contra- 
 diction, of ' the Keign of Law ' ; which, if we are to 
 take the word ' Law ' in its only proper sense, is the 
 Reign of Supreme Will, the Reign of God. 
 
 Then, next, we passed from this to the elucidation 
 by increasing knowledge of certain elements of the 
 doctrine of Christ, which remained comparatively in 
 obscurity, if not in abeyance, in earlier times — as in 
 the new light thrown by our knowledge of the vastness 
 of the universe on the Apostolic teaching of the Head- 
 ship of Christ, not only over humanity, but over all 
 created being in heaven and earth, and by our Social 
 Science, alike in its discoveries and its problems, on the 
 doctrine of the unity of all human society, as One Body 
 in Christ. The idea suggested here is rather of the 
 expansiveness of the Gospel, to meet new lights and 
 new needs ; which is the sure sign of a rich vitality in 
 it, capable of indefinite growth in a true development, 
 as distinct from the dead and inelastic symmetry of an 
 artificial system, which must necessarily have its day, 
 long or short, and then cease to be. 
 
 Lastly, the critical attitude of our modern science, 
 chiefly in its historical and literary asi)ects, towards the 
 
326 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 Gospel, although at first sight it may appear to be 
 unsympathetic, even antagonistic — in respect both of 
 the Supernatural character of the Gospel itself, and of 
 the supreme authority of the Scripture, which expresses 
 it — yet has its function of distinction of what is of the 
 essence of both, and of examination of the evidence, 
 external and internal, on which it is based. Its 
 effect here is to bring out the solid simplicity, in the 
 true sense of the word, of the Gospel, as it is centred 
 in Christ Himself. Whatever is unreal, unsubstantial, 
 uncertain in our popular Christianity, it may well de- 
 stroy. But the merely negative and destructive action 
 of criticism is at best secondary, and only preparatory 
 for the higher positive duty of discovery and test of the 
 real inner truth. We who believe in our heart of hearts 
 that He, who is Himself the Truth, is in the Gospel, 
 must welcome the most searching criticism, which may 
 bring us to rest on Him, and. on Him alone. 
 
 It is in the combination of all these various forms of 
 investigation — each approaching the central object on a 
 different side — that the force of the resultant witness 
 lies. And that combination — to dwell once more on 
 that which has been touched again and again — depends 
 on the directness with which all lead us through 
 Christianity to Christ Himself — to His Manifestation, 
 as the crown of all revelations of God in the visible 
 Law and Order of His Creation — to the Light of His 
 Gospel, as that which, when the barriers of ignorance 
 are gradually thrown down, illumines more and more 
 all the breadth and length, and all the height and depth 
 of Being — to His Person as the Eternal Word of God, 
 
VIII.] The final rest on Faith. 327 
 
 in Himself the truth, and in His Gospel and His Church 
 the Giver of truth to men. Each line of light con- 
 verges to Him ; and all unite to form the brightness 
 which encompasses Him. So they guide us to Him ; 
 they claim for Him our homage. When they have 
 done this, their function is over. 
 
 For the rest we must have the guidance of Faith. 
 In His Face there is a glory above all else, spiritual, 
 transcendent, Divine. If it be as we believe, the Keve- 
 lation through the Incarnation of Godhead of all the 
 mysteries of heaven, it claims true Faith as its due. 
 The alternative to that Faith, as human thought more 
 and more clearly sees, is not Science, but Nescience — the 
 confession as to all ultimate Being of the unknown and 
 unknowable. To that Faith (be it always remembered) 
 we are drawn, not only by the understanding, but by 
 the conscience in its hunger and thirst after righteous- 
 ness, by the heart in its inexhaustible capacity of re- 
 verence and love, by the spirit in its ineradicable 
 aspiration after the Infinite and Eternal. Science, even 
 were it complete, could satisfy and develop but one part 
 of our nature, leaving the rest to an unsatisfied atrophy ; 
 while the knowledge, which is our life because it comes 
 from the Life Eternal, must appeal to and develop all. 
 We, who realize this clmracter of the true knowledge, 
 have necessarily a twofold position in relation to Science. 
 If Science, as we ordinarily understand the word, claims 
 to be the sole and all-sufficient knowledge of God and 
 Man, then, like the Law in St. Paul's days, claiming 
 that absolute devotion which is worship, it will become 
 an idol ; and against idolatry Christian thought utters 
 
328 Truth in Revelation. [lect. 
 
 continual and effective protest. To do this is a good 
 and a needful, if a painful, work. But if Science confess 
 its imperfection and limitation, as iusufficient to meet 
 all the needs and capacities of humanity, it will be — as 
 I trust we have in some aspects seen that it is — a 
 Schoolmaster to lead us to Christ ; and I contend that 
 to welcome it in this its true character is not only a 
 higher and gladder work, but tlie one most urgently 
 needful in these our days. 
 
 The cry of Science is that, which escaped on the eve 
 of death from the lips of one of its great masters, for 
 'Light, more light.' Is there any loss here, men ask, 
 in these our days, of the force of the answer to that cry, 
 which is embodied in the motto of this ancient Univer- 
 sity — JDominus illuminatio mea — the confession of faith 
 in Him who said ' I am the Truth,' ' I am the Light of 
 the World'? 
 
 I trust not : I believe not. There is much change, 
 no doubt, in the form and tone, in which that answer is 
 given now. It may be less plainly and soberly ex- 
 pressed than in days gone by, in the law and order of 
 the common life, and in the good old conventions which 
 at once express and influence opinion. Men may specu- 
 late (especially in the sanguine hopefulness and uncon- 
 scious self-confidence of younger days) more freely — 
 nay, if you will, more wildly, — on great questions, which 
 the inherited life of past centuries once accepted, or 
 seemed to accept, as settled in themselves for ever, and 
 therefore only needing to be visibly represented in the 
 venerable beauty of this place, and embodied in its 
 institutions. Perhaps we of the older generation may 
 
viii.] Dominus illuminatio mea. 329 
 
 be pardoned, if we sometimes think that in the growing 
 tendency to specialism of study, even from early academic 
 days, there is some risk of being content with partial 
 and broken lights of truth, instead of recognising the 
 full Light, in which all are blended. But if it be true, 
 as they testify who best know, that, with a growth of 
 intellectual activity and culture, there is also at least 
 as high a standard as of old, not only of moral life, but 
 of free spiritual interest in the light and grace of God 
 in all their workings for humanity — then we, who are 
 confident that these things can come only from One 
 Divine Source, must see in them still not only the 
 reality, but the recognition, of the old truth — freer per- 
 haps, and therefore with all the inevitable irregularities, 
 but therefore also with the intensity and reality, of free- 
 dom. For the sake of all who have part in the life of 
 this place — for the sake of the country and the Church, 
 on which that life must be a leading influence for evil 
 and for good — God grant that this our belief and hope 
 may be justified by the reality ! If freedom of thought, 
 feeling, action, grow from more to more, yet the word 
 of Christ remains, ' I am the Truth,' ' In My Word ye 
 shall know the Truth,' and it is ' the Truth' only, which 
 * shall make vou free.' 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note A, p. 3. 
 
 It is important to emphasize this sense of personal relation 
 to a Supreme Personality as of the very essence of Christian 
 faith. For the word ' Faith,' like other words which have 
 their true home in the rehgious sphere, is now apt to be 
 loosely used of all intuitions of truth short of demonstration, 
 and especially of the inference, from things visible and tangible, 
 and so within the reach of observation, of the invisible 
 principles underlying these, which cannot be discovered by 
 observation and are incapable of logical proof, but which are 
 the necessary guides of observation and thought and are con- 
 tinually verified by results. 
 
 Now, it is notable that, in the one passage of the New 
 Testament, which gives us an abstract definition of faith (Heb. 
 xi), the first opening of that definition corresponds to this 
 wide generality ; for it speaks of it as ' the substantiation of 
 things hoped for, and the test of things not seen ' [kkTnCoiihuiv 
 viTOCTTaa-ts, TTpayixaToiv eXeyxos ov (BX-eiroixevoiv). This is simply 
 what in modern language would be called ' the realization of 
 the Invisible,' in the present and in the future. In this sense 
 it might include all the highest actions of our complex nature, 
 through its intellectual and aesthetic, through its moral and 
 spiritual faculties — all, in fact, which constitutes the ti-ue 
 humanity in us, as superior to the capacities working within 
 the sphere of sense, which are plainly shared by us with the 
 animal creation. The inclusion is deeply significant ; for it 
 
332 Note A. 
 
 implies that this general action of our humanity is (so to speak) 
 the raw material of the true faith, which is to be unfolded 
 in the following verses ; so that this faith is emphatically 
 natural to man as man, an integral element of his spiritual 
 nature. 
 
 But starting from this general definition, the whole chapter 
 goes on to stamp upon faith its own proper impress, bringing 
 out, in relation both to the visible world and the course of 
 human history, the reference of all these invisible principles to 
 a Divine Personality; and this closer and more definite con- 
 ception of faith, implied in every line, comes out explicitly in 
 ver. 37, where it is described as seeing not merely the Invisible 
 (To aopaTov) but Him who is Invisible (Toy aoparov). Except 
 in the consciousness of this personal relation, all the glorious 
 description of Faith and its fruits would be unmeaning and 
 unintelligible. 
 
 When we pass from this particular passage to examine the 
 general use of the word faith in the New Testament, especially 
 in the writings of St. Paul — tracing it through the phases of 
 the Credo Beum and Credo Deo up to the Credo in Deum — it is 
 obvious that this essentially personal character continually 
 grows in Clearness and intensity. It is the one means of the 
 living consciousness of God as our God ; it is not the idea of 
 Christ, but it is Christ Himself, who ' dwells in the heart by 
 faith.' Necessarily it perfects itself in the love which can 
 attach only to personality : for ' he, that loveth not, knoweth 
 not the God who is Love.' 
 
 Nothing less than this is faith in the Christian sense. We 
 may accept the vaguer meanings given to the word, so far as 
 they are preparations for this higher and more definite 
 meaning. But such acceptance must be under protest, so that 
 it may not obscure the nature of the real crucial difference 
 between faith and unbelief — that the one realizes, and the 
 other denies or ignores or doubts, the Divine Personality, as 
 having ' covenant ' of relation, or rather of unity, with the 
 
Note B. 333 
 
 personality of man. For it is just this characteristic of faith, 
 which opens it, on the one hand, to the most childlike sim- 
 plicity, and makes it, on the other, the rest of the maturest 
 thought. 
 
 Note B, p. 6. 
 
 Law (says our first great Anglican theologian), is 'That 
 which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth 
 moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the 
 force and measure of working . . . for some foreconceived 
 end for which it worketh ' (Hooker's I,ccl. Pol. Book I. c. ii. 
 sect. i). Properly (as he goes on to say) it is imposed by a 
 superior Will : but he chooses to use it, with due explanation, 
 of that which is self-imposed with a view to a fore-ordained 
 end ; as in ' the Law Eternal, which God before all ages set 
 down for Himself to do all things by,' or, as in what St. 
 Paul calls for men, ' the law of liberty,' ' the law which they 
 are to themselves.' 
 
 But in any case it is essentially the expression of Power, 
 Purpose, Will. To use it for a mere formula, declaring, with- 
 out explaining, a recurrence of facts in simple antecedence 
 and consequence, is not only theoretically improper, but 
 practically delusive — transferring to what is a mere descrip- 
 tion of mode something of that idea of Cause, secondary or 
 primary, which attaches to the word 'Law' in its proper 
 sense. Many difficulties and controversies would have been 
 spared, if it had been always remembered that, for instance, 
 the ' Law of Gravitation ' is simply the enunciation of an 
 universal fact, and the 'Law of Evolution' a description of 
 order and method. Behind the Law, so understood, lies the 
 investigation of Cause. But even to use the word in reference 
 to a First Cause, recognised as a merely Impersonal Power, 
 whether a material force or a diffused life, is, to say the least, 
 an ambiguous and questionable use. The fact is, that in 
 both cases the instinctive and universal conceptions implied 
 
334 ^ote C, 
 
 in human language, and apparently incapable of eradication 
 from it, bear testimony against the ambiguities or negations, 
 which seek to express themselves in that language. 
 
 Note C, p. 59. 
 
 A Theology, which starts practically from Original sin, 
 and not from Original righteousness, overborne in man but 
 never lost, cannot well claim to be in a true sense Scriptural, 
 however it may press into its service certain passages from 
 Scripture. But yet, as all men, who study human life and 
 nature, incline to Pessimism on the one hand, or Optimism on 
 the other, so, in different minds and under different conditions, 
 Christian Theology, however orthodox, has been coloured by 
 predominance, now of the deep sense of sin and the misery 
 which it brings on humanity, now of the still deeper sense 
 of the ineradicable good in that humanity, in spite of its 
 acknowledged imperfection and con-uption. 
 
 Accordingly, although the truth of Christ must be seen 
 by all to rest foursquare, as in the Apostles' Creed, on the 
 Incarnation, the Passion for us, the Resurrection and the 
 Ascension to the right hand of God, yet it may be said that, 
 in the one case. Theology tends to a Gospel primarily of the 
 Atonement, going back to the Incarnation as a preparation 
 for it, and in the other to a Gospel of the Incarnation, 
 implying a Mediation in which the Atonement is included 
 as the leading and determining element. To this division, 
 moreover, of speculative Theology there corresponds, as 
 always, a certain practical distinction — in preaching between 
 a preaching mainly of Conversion and Justification, and a 
 preaching of Sanctification and Edification — in view of life, 
 between the view, ascetic or Puritan, which flees from the 
 world, as sinful and so antagonistic to God and to redeemed 
 humanity, and the view, which embraces all knowledge and 
 culture, all social affection and duty, all joy and brightness 
 
•Note C. 335 
 
 in the world, as parts of man's original birthright, never 
 wholly lost, and now restored to man in the Kingdom of 
 Christ. 
 
 In the earlier centuries, as we see by the great Catholic 
 Creeds, and by the controversies out of which they emerged, 
 it is this latter Theology which is distinctly predominant. 
 It is on the mystery of the Incarnation, as the manifestation 
 of the Godhead in the true Son of Man, and the union of 
 the two Natures in Him, aXr}dS>s, reAe'cos', aStatpeVco?, aavyxyrois, 
 that, as in the Nicene Creed, the whole stress is laid. Of 
 the Atonement it is held sufficient to say, that ' for us men 
 and for our salvation, He came down from Heaven, and was 
 incarnate . . . and was crucified for us.' It was in the West 
 — struggling for conversion of the Empire and the barbarians, 
 and in this struggle painfully conscious of the engrained 
 power of sin, both in its subtler and its cruder forms — 
 rather than in the more thoughtful and philosophical East, 
 that, through the Pelagian Controversy and the Augustinian 
 Theology, the Gospel of the Atonement assumed a prominence, 
 which for centuries it retained, and which was certainly (as 
 all the various Articles of the Sixteenth Century bear witness) 
 brought out with fresh strength and intensity at the Kefor- 
 mation. But in our own days it seems plain that in this, 
 as in some other points of faith, we are forced to go back — 
 not, of course, without important modifications, embodying 
 what the later forms of Theology have taught us — to the older 
 Theology of the First Centuries, and so to the Gospel of the 
 Incarnation, in all the breadth and fulness of its meaning. 
 
 We observe that the course of the Christology of the 
 Apostolic age is from the fii'st proclamation of the risen Christ, 
 as the 'Lord and King,' to the 'Christ crucified,' whom St. 
 Paul preached at Corinth, glorying in the Cross, which was a 
 stumbling-block to the Pharisaism of the Jew, and foolishness 
 to the intellectuality of the Greek ; and next, from the Christ 
 crucified to the Christ incarnate, the Eternal Son of God, 
 
336 Note D. 
 
 tabernacling in human flesh, who is the great subject of 
 the later Epistles of St. Paul and the writings of St. John. 
 The progress was natural ; for the spiritual meaning of the 
 Resurrection to humanity at large depended on the reality 
 of the Atonement, as the conquest of sin for all mankind ; 
 and the possibility of the one Atonement for all rested on 
 the Incarnation of Infinite Godhead in the Great Sufferer. 
 So only, it may be, could the stupendous truth of God 
 made man, the Infinite incarnate in the finite, be grasped 
 through gradual development of Christian faith. We, ' on 
 whom the ends of the world are come,' have to enter upon 
 the fulness of this development. While we use all these forms 
 of the proclamation of Christ, we must rest ultimately on that 
 which is at once largest and deepest. In relation to all 
 practical and social life, we still claim all the kingdoms 
 of the world to be the kingdom of the risen Christ. In our 
 struggle against sin and misery, we still preach the doctrine 
 of the Cross, as the one only truth which can light up its 
 darkness — the measure of the sinfulness of sin and the 
 measure of redeeming Love. But, if we have to go down 
 to the foundation of all truth, claiming all the thought 
 and will of humanity for God, we have to teach beyond 
 all else the doctrine of the sublime opening of the Fourth 
 Gospel — the doctrine (that is) of the Eternal Word, taking 
 to Himself our human nature, and making it in Himself one 
 with God. 
 
 Note D, p. 60. 
 
 It is impossible not to note the profound psychological 
 truth, underlying the simplicity of the narrative of the Book 
 of Genesis, when we look at it in itself, rejecting all the fabric 
 of unreality, which human speculation and imagination have 
 raised upon it, and putting aside for a time even the fuller 
 Scriptural treatment of the subject in subsequent revelations. 
 
 The origination of evil in the race, as there described, 
 
Note D. 337 
 
 corresponds most closely with what our daily experience 
 discloses, as the ordinary process of its origination in the 
 individual. It is shown, first, as using appeal to desires innate 
 in man, both physical and spiritual — desires natural in them- 
 selves, but apt to break their proper subordination to the 
 control of a supreme Law of righteousness in the Divine Will. 
 It is described, next, as receiving its first impulse by tempta- 
 tion from a spiritual power of evil, deliberately using this 
 perverted force of desu'e^ and denying or misrepresenting the 
 Law, which should restrain it. Such power over the individual 
 is familiar to us as exercised by evil men ; in the origination 
 of evil in the race, it is described as coming from some super- 
 natural power, impersonated in the false wisdom of the 
 serpent. Its essential character is then shown as the claim of 
 a false independence of God — the desire in man to be ' as a 
 god ' to himself. In it he assumes the right to know both 
 good and evil — obedience (that is) and resistance to the Divine 
 Will — as distinct principles of conduct, and to choose between 
 them as by an inherent right, instead of knowing and loving 
 only what is good as his true life, and recognising evil simply 
 as the unnatural and monstrous negation of that good. In 
 respect again of the penalties of sin, the narrative dwells only 
 on its plain physical penalties, of labour and weariness and 
 fruitlessness on the one hand, of suffering and subjection to 
 bondage on the other — both shared by all humanity, though 
 apportioned in predominance to the two sexes — and the 
 natural end of these in physical decay and death. The 
 heavier spiritual penalty is but implied in the sublime irony 
 of the passage, ' their eyes were opened, and they knew that 
 they were naked'; for the sense of shame is the instinctive 
 cowering of the sinful from the sight of God, in conscious 
 helplessness and guilt, awaiting His righteous judgment. 
 In accordance with the true order of God's Word, what is here 
 only implied, is left to be wrought out explicitly in the more 
 advanced stages of His revelation ; in which death physical, 
 
 z 
 
338 Note E. 
 
 in the withdrawal of the breath of life, is seen as a symbol of 
 the death spiritual, in the loss of the higher life of the Spirit 
 of God. From all, finally, there is given a promise of deliver- 
 ance, not without struggle and suffering, by ' the seed of the 
 woman' — obviously clear as to its reality, while absolutely 
 mysterious as to the character and method of its fulfilment — 
 again a Frotevangelium, to be developed hereafter. 
 
 It would be diflicult to find a more striking exemplification, 
 first of the ' double sense ' of Holy Scripture — the profound 
 teaching to the maturity of human thought in the fulness of 
 times, through the simplicity capable of being in measure 
 understood in the childhood of the race, and, next, — in com- 
 parison with human mythologies and philosophical specula- 
 tions as to the origin and character of evil — of what St. Paul 
 means when he declares that ' the foolishness of God is wiser 
 than men,' 
 
 Note E, p. 75. 
 
 The text of these Articles is an instructive illustration of 
 the ruthless dogmatism, to which the resolute uncompromising 
 logic of a religious Determinism can lead. Even as some- 
 what timidly softened by the Bishops, they run thus : — 
 
 I. Deus ab aeterno praedestinavit quosdam ad vitam, 
 quosdam reprobavit ad mortem. 
 
 3. Causa movens praedestinationis ad vitam non est prae- 
 visio fidei, aut perseverantiae, aut bonorum operum, aut ullius 
 rei quae insit in personis praedestinatis, sed sola voluntas 
 beneplaciti Dei. 
 
 3. Praedestinatorum definitus et certus est numerus, qui 
 nee augeri nee rainui potest. 
 
 4. Qui non sunt praedestinati ad salutem necessario propter 
 peccata sua damnabuntur. 
 
 5. Vera, vera, et justificans Fides, et Spiritus Dei justifi- 
 canter non exstinguitur, non excidit, non evanescit in electis, 
 aut finaliter, aut totaliter. 
 
Note E. 339 
 
 6. Homo vere fidelis, i.e. fide justiticante praeditus, certus 
 est, plerophoria fidei, de remissione peccatorum suorum et 
 salute sempiterna sua per Christum. 
 
 7. Gratia salutaris non tribuitur, non communicatur, non con- 
 ceditur, universis hominibus, qua servari possint, si voluerint. 
 
 8. Nemo potest venire ad Christum, nisi datum ei fuerit, et 
 nisi Pater eum traxerit. Et omnes homines non trahuntur a 
 Patre, ut veniant ad Filium. 
 
 9. Non est positum in arbitrio aut potestate uniuscujusque 
 hominis salvari. 
 
 Those, who read these terrible utterances in the light of 
 earlier theological speculation, will see how they deliber- 
 ately close every loophole of escape from the absolute iron 
 Determinism, which, in the sense of the Sovereignty of God. 
 utterly loses and abjures the true individuality of man. It is 
 no wonder that those who believed them, or thought that the}^ 
 believed them, were dissatisfied with the Lutheran doctrine 
 of 'Justification by faith,' which, if it rightly places the origin 
 of salvation in God's Love in Christ, yet by the very re- 
 quirement of faith evidently implies some fellow- working 
 of human will, asserting itself that it may surrender itself. 
 Still less is it surprising, that they should have been utterly 
 discontented with what have been ignorantly called our 
 ' Calvinistic Articles' (Art. XVI, XVII). 
 
 For the XVIIth Article, while, closely following the very 
 words of Holy Scripture, it dwells on the whole process of 
 salvation, from the Supreme Will and grace of God, through 
 all the steps of call, obedience to that call through grace, 
 justification, adoption, conformation to the image of Christ 
 and religious walking in good works ; yet {a) is resolutely 
 silent as to reprobation to death, {Ij) continually implies 
 the fellow-working of man, (c) positively declines to make 
 Election a fundamental Article of the Faith to be pon- 
 dered by all, and (r/) declares that we are to receive 
 God's promises, as they are set forth [lencralifer (that is to 
 
 z 2 
 
340 Note F. 
 
 all mankind) in Holy Scripture, and not to presume to enter 
 into the secret Will of God. The XVIth Article expressly 
 acknowledges that, ' after we have received the Holy Ghost, 
 we may depart from grace given and fall into sin, and by 
 the grace of God, we may arise again and amend our lives.' 
 
 Note F, p. 126. 
 
 St. Augustine, Be Genesi ad Litteram, c. xxiii, has a remarkable 
 passage (referred to but not quoted by Mr. Moore), curiously 
 anticipating the course of evolutional speculation. He first 
 traces the gradual growth of a tree, in stem and branches, in 
 leaves and fruit, from the seed, in which (he says) ' ilia omnia 
 fuerunt primitus, non mole corporese magnitudines, sed vi 
 potentiaque causali. . . . Quid enim ex arbore ilia surgit aut 
 pendet, quod non ex quodam occulto thesauro seminis illius 
 extractum atque depromtum sit '] ' He then proceeds to draw 
 out substantially that analogy between the growth of the 
 individual being and the evolution of the sum of all beings, 
 with which we are now familiar : ' Sicut in ipso grano invisi- 
 biliter erant omnia simul, quae per tempora in arborem surge- 
 rent, ita ipse mundus cogitandus est, cum Deus simul omnia 
 oreavit, habuisse simul omnia quse in illo et cum illo facta 
 sunt . . . sed potentialiter et causaliter, priusquam per tem- 
 porum moras ita exorirentur.' This opinion of St. Augustine 
 is referred to in the passage from St. Thomas Aquinas, of 
 which Mr. Moore gives a translation : ' Alii enim expositores 
 dicunt quod plantse productiie sunt actu in suis speciebus . . . 
 secundum quod superficies litterse sonet. Augustinus autem 
 dicit quod causaliter tunc dictum est produxisse terram herbam 
 et lignum, id est producendi accepisse virtutem , . . Ante ergo 
 quam orirentur super terram, factee sunt causaliter in terra. 
 Confirmatur autem hoc etiam ratione, quia in illis primis 
 diebus condidit Deus creaturam originaliter vel causaliter, a 
 quo opere postmodum requievit, qui tamen postmodum secun- 
 
Notes G, H. 341 
 
 dum administrationem rerum conditarum per opus propa- 
 gationis usque modo operatur. . . . Non ergo in tertia die 
 productae sunt plantse in actu sed causaliter tantum ' {Smnma 
 Theolog'm, pars prima, qusest. Ixix. Art. ii). 
 
 NoTK G, p. 162. 
 
 The original of this remarkable passage [Oratio contra Gentes, 
 sect, xlii.) is here subjoined: — 
 
 AvTo? yovv 6 TTavTobvvaixos koI TravTeXeios ayto? 6 tov Ylarpos 
 Aoyos, 67ri/3as rot? Traat Kal TtavToyov Tas kavrov bwdixeis ((pairkd- 
 cras, Kol (f)(jorL(ras rd re (paivoiieva Kal to. dopara iravra, eis kavTov 
 (Twi^ei Kal (Tvcr(f)Lyyei,, ixrjhev eprjjxov ttjs kavTOV bvvdpieMS aTToAeAot- 
 77(09, dXXa TtdvTa Kal bid ndvTcov Kat eKaarov ibta Kai dOpocos 6p.ov 
 rd oka ^(jooTioMV Kal bLa(})v\dTTU)V' rds re dp^ds Trda-qs aladrjrrj^ 
 overlap atTTep ettri Oepp-a Kal \j/v\pd Kal vypd Kal irjpa els €V crvyKe- 
 pavvvoiv . . . piCap Kal aTjpcpoivov aTToreAei dpp.oviav . . . Olov yap el ris 
 Xvpav pLOVcrtKos appocrdpievos koI rd fSapia toIs o^iai Kai ra p.4aa 
 Tols UKpois Tjj Tix^i'rj (TvvayayuiV, ev to arjpawopievov /ixeAo? dirore- 
 XoLT]' ovTcos Kal 7] TOV &eov 5)o0ta, to oXov u>s Xvpav e7re;)(coi', Kal Ta 
 kv depi ToXs cttI yrjs crvvayaycov, Kal rd kv ovpavco rois €V depi, kui Ta 
 oXa TOis KaTa p-ipos crvi'diiTOiiv kol Trepidycav tu) eavTOv vor\pLaTi Kal 
 OeXripLaTt,, €va tov Koap-ov Kal piCav ttjv tovtov Td^iv aTTorcAei, KaAws 
 Kal 7ipp.O(r\xivo)'S. avTos p.ev dKi,v>]TOis pL€VOiv irapd rw HaTpi. 
 
 Note H, p. 208. 
 
 The portion of the Sermon on the Mount, which is usually 
 known as its Law, is the second .section (Matt. v. 17-48). 
 It begins with the famous declaration that in it our Lord 
 does ' not destroy the Law and the Prophets ' — the moral 
 element of the old Covenant, as expressed both in the sternness 
 of the Mosaic Law, and the freer and more spiritual teaching 
 of the Prophets — ' but perfects ' it by His own higher au- 
 thority. It ends in the sublime ideal of our moral life, as an 
 
 z .3 
 
342 Note H. 
 
 imitation of God : ' Be ye perfect, as your Father, which is in 
 heaven, is perfect.' 
 
 But this perfecting of the Law shews itself under different 
 aspects. First, in relation to the sixth and seventh Command- 
 ments, it simply strengthens and spiritualizes the Law, as 
 still Law. It carries into far stronger and wider develop- 
 ment the prohibition of evil and selfish passions, both of 
 violence and of lust, extending that prohibition from action 
 to word and thought, and enforcing it with a far greater 
 sternness than that of the Law of old time. Next, in relation 
 to the third Commandment it more distinctly idealizes the 
 Law. From the prohibition of false swearing, which ' takes 
 God's Name in vain,' it rises to the command of that pure, 
 instinctive truthfulness, which needs not the sacredness of 
 the oath to sustain it, and which reverences all that marks 
 the presence of God too much to invoke it rashly. Lastly, 
 in relation to the law of retaliation and to the recognition of 
 friend and enemy in the battle of life, it leads the disciples 
 of Christ to rise above law and its stern unvarying justice, 
 in all that concerns their own interest and rights — to decline 
 to accept the protection or vengeance against evil, which all 
 law, which has to keep together an imperfect human society, 
 must offer — to refuse to meet evil by evil, and to be ready by 
 forgiveness, love, blessing of our enemies, to overcome evil 
 with good. 
 
 Of this threefold application of the principle of this perfec- 
 tion of the Law, no difficulty can be felt in theory, although 
 infinite failure is confessed in practice, as to the first and 
 second elements. The first is felt simply to enforce, in the 
 usual sense of the phrase, obedience to the spirit rather than 
 the letter of the law ; the second bears merely a striking- 
 witness to the truth, that one great function of law is to foster 
 the growth of character, and that character, when fully and 
 rightly developed, goes beyond all legal requirement. These 
 two truths come home to us without difficulty; the verdict 
 
Note H. 343 
 
 of conscience upon them is but clenched by a Divine authority. 
 But it is on the third — the law of absolute self-sacrifice, in 
 non-resistance and unlimited forgiveness of evil, that serious 
 thought often does feel difficulty, not because the law is too 
 hard for flesh and blood, but because it seems to ignore jus- 
 tice, and accordingly to tend to the disintegration of society. 
 
 Of course it belongs to individual action, in that region of 
 our experience, which is beyond and above law. The old 
 command of retahation properly (see Ex. xxi. 24, Lev. xxiv. 
 20, Deut. xix, 21) applied to the national enforcement of law. 
 and to those who were charged with it. They cannot'put it 
 altogether aside, although they may make punishment, not 
 a matter of crude and simple retribution, but a deterrence 
 from crime and a chastisement of the criminal for his refor- 
 mation. When San Carlo Borromeo, the great Archbishop of 
 Milan, was fired at in his own chapel by a villain whom he 
 had had to punish ecclesiastically, he forgave the assassin, 
 and dismissed him with kindness. But the Government of 
 the day seized him, and punished him. It could not do what 
 in his own individual person the saintly Archbishop felt 
 himself free to do. For the authority which rules a people 
 is, as has been well said, simply the trustee and guardian 
 of the rights and welfare of the nation at large, and of its 
 individual citizens. Even the community of one generation 
 is similarly placed in charge of the whole of the national 
 mission and life. Each nation, again, has a trust of responsi- 
 bility for the peace and order and welfare of the world. AH 
 must, if need be, defend this trust against wrong. To sur- 
 render it would be to give up that which is our own. 
 
 But, even in regard of individual action, we must still beware 
 of the error of resting on the letter, which, under changed 
 circumstances, must change, and not on the principle, which 
 is unchanging. As to the letter — that Our Lord intended 
 His command of non-resistance to evil and absolute self- 
 sacrifice to be literally obeyed b}-^ His immediate disciples. 
 
344 Note H. 
 
 we cannot well doubt. By that simple manifestation of love, 
 as in Himself so in them, a new commandment was to be 
 established, a new witness for peace borne to the world. That 
 still by those who take up directly His Divine mission to men, 
 this same witness has to be borne, and is borne effectively, 
 exactly in the same way, the whole tenour of our missionary 
 enterprise and the special witness of its martyrdoms most 
 plainly show- As to the spirit — that His command applies 
 to all time in the principle of an unlimited forgiveness and 
 sacrifice, so far as it can be, of our own pride, our own 
 interests, even our own rights, if by such sacrifice we can 
 serve and win others, is equally certain ; and the more in our 
 own life we can carry it out, the better will it be for us and 
 for humanity. 
 
 In the practical obedience, however, to that command, there 
 is a grave consideration, which cannot be put from us, that, 
 while we can unreservedly sacrifice self if we will, we cannot 
 disregard the good of others — the good of the ofi'ender himself, 
 for whom it may well be better that he should be restrained 
 and punished for evil-doing — the good of society, which 
 certainly and mainly depends on the maintenance of law 
 and justice. 
 
 The consideration extends beyond even this immediate 
 subject. It clearly applies to all individual self-assertion and 
 self-defence, in relation to others and in relation to society at 
 large. This may for the same reasons become in right measure 
 a duty; it may even be a needful contribution to the true 
 welfare of the whole. Just as unhappily in the England 
 of the nineteenth century we cannot literally ' give to every 
 man who asks,' lest we should do evil, instead of good, to 
 him and to the world, so an absolute sacrifice of self, not to 
 the service of God, but to the service of men, may unwit- 
 tingly infringe the great laws of freedom and righteousness, 
 by which He is pleased to govern humanity. 
 
 The right discrimination in this matter is difficult at all 
 
Nofe I. 345 
 
 times ; and in a complex civilization like our own, it is far 
 more difficult than under the simpler conditions of earlier 
 days. It is but too easy, moreover, to cheat ourselves into 
 the belief, that we are yielding to this larger sense of duty, 
 when we are really shrinking from self-sacrifice. But yet 
 the difficulty and the danger of self-delusion have to be faced. 
 There are times, when, in order to keep our Lord's command 
 in the spirit, we have to break it in the letter. Happiest are 
 they, to whom such times come but seldom. 
 
 Note I, p. 311. 
 
 The present tendency of criticism as to the predictive 
 element of Prophecy, shews an extreme reaction from that 
 older opinion, which, as is seen in common parlance, identified 
 Prediction with Prophecy (even pressing into its service a 
 false etymology of the word ' prophet '), or at least held 
 Prediction to be its all-important element, and which was 
 accordingly inclined to trace fulfilments of prophecy every- 
 where without sufficient ground. It has been rightly seen 
 that the Prophet is simply one who speaks for God, because 
 ' the Word of God comes to him,' and ' the Spirit of God is 
 upon him ' ; that his true mission is to set forth the eternal 
 Law of Righteousness and Love, in relation to the present 
 at least as much as to the future ; that some of the greatest 
 prophets, such as Elijah and St. John Baptist, foretold (so 
 far as we know) little or nothing ; that even the great 
 Prophet of prophets Himself made prediction but a small 
 part of His prophetic office ; that many of the supposed 
 fulfilments of Prophecy have been on critical investigation 
 found to be arbitrary or at least uncertain. Accordingly 
 there has been a tendency to ignore, if not to deny, the pre- 
 dictive element of Prophecy altogether, so far as it involves 
 anything of supernatural foresight. That tendency has been 
 sometimes expressed with great boldness, as for instance by 
 
346 Note I. 
 
 critics of the school of Kuenen ; even where it is not unhesi- 
 tatingly accepted, it has shown itself in some inclination to 
 deny prediction or to explain it away, at least in the great 
 mass of the instances, which were once familiarly known and 
 accepted. 
 
 It is necessary, therefore, for those who accept the authority 
 of our Lord and His Apostles on this matter, to remind 
 themselves, that, although prediction is but a subordinate 
 element in Prophecy, it is a real, and, if we may so say, a 
 natural, element in the prophet's Mission. The Prophet 
 claimed to be able to enter, in the measure granted him, 
 into the mind of God, to whom past, present, and future 
 are all one. The power of prediction, especially where no 
 visible miracle was wrought, was one unmistakeable sign 
 that this claim was a true claim ; and it should be noted 
 that, so far as the prophets formed a recognised succession, 
 the fulfilment of the prediction of an older prophet might 
 in this respect give authority to the utterances of his suc- 
 cessors. But, beyond this, since the prophet had to show 
 clearly to men the working of the righteous Will of God in 
 human history, and since ' the mill of God grinds slowly, 
 though it grind exceeding small,' it might often be that the 
 present generation was not sufficient to display that working 
 adequately, and that accordingly he who interpreted the 
 mind of God, might need to see in measure, as He sees 
 perfectly, the germs of the future in the present, and to extend 
 his view, and the view of his hearers, to the ages to come ; 
 and this, moreover, definitely or indefinitely, as God might 
 give him power. Lastly, if this predictive power is natural 
 in itself to those, who speak for God, it was certainly specially 
 appropriate to a religion, which, like that of Israel, ' had its 
 golden age in the future,' and in which all the various 
 elements were avowedly preparatory and anticipatory of that 
 future perfection. Since, moreover, this future undoubtedly 
 centred round a Messiah to come, all prophetic predictions 
 
Note I. 347 
 
 would appropriately gather, in greater or less degree, round 
 Himself and His kingdom, either as distinctly 'Messianic' 
 in personal reference to the King, or ' Evangelical' in 
 anticipation of the spiritual character of that kingdom. 
 Given, we may say, the reality of Prophetic Inspiration 
 and of the Messianic anticipation, the reality of this power 
 of prediction becomes, so to speak, natural in the supernatural 
 sphere. 
 
 It is, therefore, no wonder that the prophets of old time 
 did undoubtedly assert this power; that our Lord Himself 
 and His Apostles as unquestionably took it for granted, and 
 appealed to it in them ; and that, as in His discourse on the 
 eve of the Passion, He plainly exercised it Himself. It is 
 unnecessary to quote special instances on this matter. The 
 whole tenour, both of Old Testament Prophecy, and of the 
 New Testament teaching, is unintelligible without it ; the 
 plainest declarations would have to be taken in a singularly 
 ' non-natural sense.' Every instance in detail of the apparent 
 non-fulfilment of this or that prophecy constitutes a difficulty, 
 which must be fairly and candidly met. Of such difficulties 
 some may be, and have been, solved ; others to our present 
 knowledge remain insoluble. But, if it is true that, for the 
 supernatural reality of predictive power in general, we have 
 the authority of Him, who ' expounded to His disciples in all 
 the prophets, the things concerning Himself,' and ' to whom,' as 
 the Apostolic testimony declares, 'all the prophets bear witness,' 
 these difficulties will be in a literal sense ' trials of faith.' 
 
 The criticism, which holds to the opinion that prophecy 
 is but ' fallible anticipation ' of what wise and good men 
 think likely to be under God's dispensation, protests (as 
 through Kuenen) against what it calls ' the absolutism ' of 
 the view, that ' it must either abandon its idea of the work 
 of the Israelitish prophets, or deny all value to the twofold 
 testimony of the New Testament, and even to the life and the 
 word of Jesus.' But it is hard to see what third course is 
 
348 Note I. 
 
 really open. No doubt there are cases of what the writer calls 
 ' application ' as distinct from ' interpretation,' and ' homiletic 
 employment of the Old Testament ' as distinct from ' exposi- 
 tion.' But these are very far from covering the whole ground ; 
 and the only way of setting aside the many cases, which are 
 plainly interpretations and expositions, is avowed to be by 
 questioning ' the authority of the New Testament ' — which, if 
 our records be genuine, is that of our Lord and His Apostles — 
 ' in the domain of Exegesis.' 
 
 Here, as in the cognate sphere of visible miracle, it is well 
 to see that the real issue is of the existence of the supernatural 
 in the whole dispensation, of which the Incarnation is the 
 centre. 
 

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