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 PURPOSE OF GOD 
 
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 JOSEPH SMITH DODGE I 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
THE 
 
 PURPOSE OF GOD 
 
 That God may be all in all. 1 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF CONGRESS 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 JOSEPH SMITH DODGE, A.M., M.D., D.D, 
 
 
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 BOSTON 
 
 UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE 
 
 1894 
 
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 l^ v 
 
 Copyright, 1894, 
 
 BY 
 
 Universalist Publishing House. 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON. 
 
 PRINTED BY F. H. GILSON CO. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS book is an attempt to present in orderly form 
 those views of divine and human relations which, 
 during a hundred years, have been developing in the 
 Universalist Church. There are, doubtless, many 
 forms of statement in it which will seem new to Uni- 
 versalists, and some conclusions which will not be 
 readily accepted. But it is believed that every one of 
 these grows logically out of ideas which are acknowl- 
 edged by all ; and that the surprise or the dissent will 
 be only such as we always experience when our vague 
 beliefs are reduced to accurate statements and their 
 inevitable corollaries set before us. 
 
 But the book is not offered to this church alone. 
 If the Universalist consciousness were not part of the 
 general Christian consciousness, if it had not roots 
 extending through all the past ages, and affiliations 
 with the spiritual life of all Christendom, it would be 
 worth no man's while to elaborate or defend it. The 
 author assumes to speak to the whole Church, believ- 
 ing that the system of thought here suggested — 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 crudely, no doubt, as a first attempt — marks the 
 position towards which all the best thinking of the 
 Church is tending. The divine method here pre- 
 sented does not permit us to suppose any abrupt 
 change, any future not evolved from the past ; and the 
 author imagines that he sees in much of the thinking 
 of the past a feeling after such conceptions as are 
 here offered. 
 
 No apology is made for the omission of much which 
 the reader might expect to find. The effort has been 
 to set forth the comprehensive scheme with as little 
 elaboration of detail as might be consistent with clear- 
 ness of view ; and to comprise all within a volume of 
 unforbidding size. 
 
 A constant effort has been made to avoid contro- 
 versy, not as in itself objectionable or permanently 
 avoidable, but as tending to obscure a first statement. 
 And to this effort may be charged the omission of 
 some things and the light touch given to others. In 
 short, if the reader carries' away from this book the 
 one fundamental conception on which it is based, he 
 will have all the author designs to give. 
 
 November, 1893. 
 
ANALYSIS. 
 
 The World Embodies the Meaning of God. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Man Pre-eminent I 
 
 The Physical World 2 
 
 The Human World 5 
 
 The Purpose of God 7 
 
 God Interprets the World. 
 
 General Considerations 10 
 
 Heathen Systems 13 
 
 Judaism 19 
 
 Christianity : 
 
 General Claims 20 
 
 Sources : 
 
 The Holy Spirit 25 
 
 The Bible : 
 
 Character and History 28 
 
 Dominant Themes : 
 
 The Sovereign God 31 
 
 God's Word to Men 32 
 
 The People of God 34 
 
 The Purpose of God 35 
 
 Unity of the Bible 37 
 
 v 
 
PAGE 
 
 VI ANAL YSIS. 
 
 The Men Primarily Addressed. 
 
 The Jews before Christ 39 
 
 The Gentiles before Christ 46 
 
 Christ Summarizes the Past 50 
 
 He Adds to the Past : 
 
 The Fatherhood of God 53 
 
 The Triumph of Righteousness 55 
 
 Immortality 56 
 
 Philanthropy 59 
 
 The Meaning of Life 60 
 
 The Person of Christ 62 
 
 The Christians 64 
 
 The Divine Interpretation of the World. 
 Teachings of the Bible : 
 
 General Considerations 68 
 
 The Attributes of God : 
 
 His Power 73 
 
 His Wisdom 76 
 
 His Justice : 
 
 Personal 78 
 
 Administrative : 
 
 General Considerations 79 
 
 Law : 
 
 Natural 81 
 
 Of Conscience 82 
 
 Biblical \ . . 89 
 
 His Goodness 93 
 
 The Nature of Man : 
 
 His Eminence 97 
 
ANAL YSIS. Vll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Nature of Man {continued) : 
 
 Perfect in Christ 98 
 
 His Immortality 99 
 
 Active Faculties : 
 
 Reason 107 
 
 Sentiment no 
 
 Conscience 112 
 
 Will 115 
 
 Relations of Man to God : 
 
 The Problem of Sin 130 
 
 The Salvation of Christ : 
 The Gospel Narrative : 
 
 Historical Character 137 
 
 Miracles 140 
 
 The Work of Christ on Man : 
 
 The Object 154 
 
 The Means : 
 
 Society 158 
 
 The Church 163 
 
 The Bible 174 
 
 Inspiration 179 
 
 The Holy Spirit 191 
 
 The Method 198 
 
 The Result : 
 
 Salvation from Sorrow 202 
 
 The Mystery of Evil 204 
 
 Death 212 
 
 Salvation from Sin : 
 
 General Remarks 216 
 
Vlll ANAL VSLS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Salvation from Sin (continued} : 
 
 Obstacles 220 
 
 Enlightenment . 223 
 
 Punishment 226 
 
 Forgiveness 232 
 
 Repentance 236 
 
 Sanctification : 
 
 General Remarks 240 
 
 Work 241 
 
 Association 242 
 
 Bible Study 247 
 
 Prayer 249 
 
 The Holy Spirit 251 
 
 God will be All in All. 
 
THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 i. 
 
 GOD 127 THE WORLD. 
 
 MAN is at once the product and the master of 
 the world. At every point he is closely allied 
 with his surroundings ; and yet some of his peculiar- 
 ities — his size, his anatomical structure, his length of 
 life, his power of adaptation to all climates and all 
 foods — give him an immense advantage, which his 
 mental endowments raise to an easy and immeasur- 
 able mastery. Therefore we find him, at whatever 
 stage of culture, using for his own ends the objects 
 and forces of nature which surround him. But he 
 does not at any stage do this as a foreign master. 
 He is native to his state, and acts upon the world 
 from within the world, and with constant reaction of 
 the world upon himself. This gives rise to a con- 
 tinual forward movement, a development of both man 
 and the world ; for under his hand new resources con- 
 tinually come to light in answer to his progressive de- 
 mands, and this in such increasing ratio, that both the 
 
2 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 scientific and the popular mind have come to doubt 
 whether man can develop any legitimate need for 
 which nature has not a supply; while, on the other 
 hand, his own development keeps pace with that 
 which is thus produced in nature, and his demands 
 forever rise. Out of this increasing action and reac- 
 tion all the history of man's life has been evolved ; 
 and it is not easy at first sight to decide whether the 
 conditions of his physical environment have influenced 
 the development of man, or his increasing mastery of 
 the world has modified these conditions, in the larger 
 degree. 
 
 Nor is this a recent movement only. As far back 
 as we can trace man's life, the same interaction be- 
 tween him and nature is found. Indeed, there is no 
 known condition of man, not even the rudest savagery 
 or the remotest indications of his prehistoric days, in 
 which he is not noticeable before all else for his 
 attempts to control his surroundings, and for at least 
 a partial success. We have no knowledge and no 
 guess of any human existence not involved in this 
 perpetual commerce with nature. 
 
 When, however, we follow back the history of the 
 physical world, the case seems at first entirely differ- 
 ent. Compared with its vast duration, the period of 
 man's existence becomes almost inconsiderable ; and 
 nature may be said to have run her career and almost 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 3 
 
 filled out her days before she was concerned with 
 man. But a closer examination must modify this 
 view. The present state of the earth, so perfectly 
 adapted not to any one human condition, but to all 
 the stages of man's progressive growth, is found to 
 have resulted, without break or sudden change, from 
 the entire sequence of geological history. * Step by 
 step the unknown chaos of the beginning has evolved 
 all its successive conditions, till the earth became 
 what we know it. No point can be found which 
 could serve as a commencement without supposing 
 all that went before ; and conversely the present con- 
 stitution of the earth seems to crown and fulfil all 
 the past as its accomplished ' aim. Therefore, since 
 the world is so perfectly fitted to human needs, man 
 and man alone is the adequate end towards which 
 the whole vast process points ; and although he came 
 so late upon the scene, yet Nature must be judged 
 to have foreknown her consummate offspring, and to 
 have labored for his coming through all her years. 
 
 Other lines of investigation add force to this con- 
 clusion. To uncultivated men the surface of nature 
 with which they come in contact seems simple ; but 
 the first attempt at analysis shows that it is very 
 complex. The earlier researches of science seemed 
 to divide the natural field into many different and 
 
4 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 almost independent domains ; but the deeper study 
 of our day finds all these inseparably united, so that 
 the aggregate of surroundings which we call the world 
 is a unit of innumerable parts and of the greatest 
 complexity, but each portion is necessary to all the 
 rest, and none could be what it is if all the others 
 were not what they are. When, therefore, we find 
 that the total front of nature with which man deals 
 is adapted so perfectly to his wants that it is always 
 ready to answer his new advances with new supplies, 
 and that this is the result of the co-ordination of all 
 nature's departments, we are more than ever im- 
 pressed with the thought already suggested by geo- 
 logical history. So great a complexity, resulting in 
 so perfect an adaptation to man, and not to man as 
 a constant factor, but to all stages of his'* advancing 
 life, cannot be an environment to which he has casu- 
 ally adjusted himself, but must be conceived as a 
 premeditated result, having him for its object. 
 
 Still another series of facts re-enforces this conclu- 
 sion. The five or six thousand years of human his- 
 tory of which we have some certain knowledge do not 
 merely show a series of readjustments between man 
 and nature, but they emphatically display a develop- 
 ment wrought in man himself as the result of his 
 own volitions combined with the reactions of his en- 
 vironment, which combination constitutes the course 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD 5 
 
 of human events. To the successive stages of this 
 evolution nature has visibly contributed ; and not 
 merely as the scene of action, but as often determin- 
 ing by its own processes the course of events. The 
 distribution of land and water, the course of rivers 
 and of mountain chains, drought and pestilence, the 
 varying fertility or sterility of lands and of races, the 
 deposits of minerals, and the connection of foods 
 with climates, have all effected the story of man's 
 life. And since this story is not a jumble of aimless 
 vicissitudes, but presents on the whole a sustained 
 advance in human character and power, the thought 
 becomes irresistible that the constitution and the pro- 
 cesses of nature which contribute so much to this 
 result must be the expression of a purpose as ancient 
 as the beginning of material things, and powerful 
 enough to control the world and all its parts. 
 
 Now, this point being reached, or only vaguely sur- 
 mised, a new element enters. 
 
 At an early stage in his development man becomes 
 conscious of himself. He knows within himself a 
 power not bodily, by the exertion of which he mas- 
 ters his own physical frame and bends to his pur- 
 poses the things which surround , him. He knows 
 what it is to form a purpose and hold to it through 
 many actions ; what it is to assemble resources and 
 
6 THE PURPOSE OF GOD, 
 
 combine them to his determined aim ; what it is to 
 supply from within himself the power of will which 
 overcomes all difficulties and issues in success. He 
 is aware, too, that other men have and use the same 
 powers, and he studies their works and acts to deter- 
 mine their aims. 
 
 Now, this inner man, looking on the world about 
 him, recognizes, with the sure intuition of like-minded- 
 ness, that the world expresses the same qualities of 
 fixed purpose and dominant will which he knows in 
 himself and sees in other men. At a low stage of 
 intelligence he recognizes this fitfully and in isolated 
 results ; as his mind broadens, his wider survey gives 
 him a larger conception and a firmer grasp of the 
 same thing; and the height of modern science, be- 
 sides enlarging this view to embrace the universe, 
 also adds the element of intensity to a degree which 
 augments the force of an entire argument. 
 
 For science not only reveals the great complexity of 
 the world, but equally shows the harmony of this com- 
 plex. The dominant charm of scientific research is 
 not utility, but the fascination of a wonderful harmony, 
 which the mind more and more comprehends, and 
 finds more and more perfect. We tire of the babble 
 of children or fools, and turn away with disgust from 
 unmeaning words or aimless deeds ; but the thoughts 
 of the ingenious or the wise attract and hold us with 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 7 
 
 an educating power. Now, it is the latter and not the 
 former impression which the study of nature and of 
 the course of events makes on serious minds. We 
 confront intelligence which answers more and more 
 profoundly to our questioning, and a wise design be- 
 yond all the ingenuity of man ; so that the deeper our 
 study, the less are we disposed to imagine that it is we 
 who impose thought upon nature, the more disposed 
 to read, like the humblest pupils, in a book of bound- 
 less wisdom. 
 
 This study has brought us to the conception of God, 
 and has given us far more than a sacred name or 
 a conventional faith. The conception is of a great 
 Intelligence, which fashioned the world from the first, 
 and has conducted it through all its course, for the 
 purpose of developing man's life, and which com- 
 mands power so vast as to compass all its ends. 
 This, however, throws no light on the objective point 
 of God's action upon man through nature and life ; 
 but there is another line of investigation which does. 
 
 Experience has abundantly shown that the estab- 
 lished course of nature tends to human welfare on 
 the condition that man co-operate with that order ; 
 while, on the other hand, nature steadily opposes, and 
 always thwarts in the end, the efforts of men to act 
 against her laws. Man's contact with nature, there- 
 
8 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 fore, subjects him to a constant system of rewards and 
 punishments, which tend powerfully to bring him into 
 harmony with nature's order. Now, since all the order 
 of nature is the expression of God's purpose in nature, 
 and since we have found this purpose directed always 
 towards man, it follows that when man comes into co- 
 operation with the laws of nature, he comes to this 
 extent into harmony with God ; and, therefore, the 
 purpose of God, in the ordering of the world, is to 
 bring men into harmony with himself. 
 
 But we can add another step to this. The whole 
 action of nature has to do with man's welfare, even 
 the oppositions and hardships of the natural world 
 being a wholesome discipline which instructs and re- 
 strains him for his good. And if we do not conceive 
 too narrowly the ideas of human welfare and of man's 
 co-operation with nature, we shall in this direction 
 find our conception of God's purpose greatly enlarged. 
 
 The welfare of man reaches from his simplest bodily 
 needs to the highest possibilities of his spirit ; and he 
 co-operates with nature or opposes it along this entire 
 range. It is not merely that man adapts himself to 
 climate and food, or establishes the social order which 
 his individual weakness makes necessary ; besides 
 such adaptations, the use of his mental and moral 
 qualities lays nature under larger tribute to human 
 welfare. Intelligence and will, industry, patience, and 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 9 
 
 self-control make man far more the master of his sur- 
 roundings than strength or passion ; and the more 
 elaborate his uses of nature become, the more does 
 his resulting welfare depend on these inward forces. 
 So that when we come to consider the highest level of 
 man's co-operation with nature, that, namely, at which 
 he and his environment combine to produce the course 
 of events, man's contribution to the result is found to 
 be almost wholly spiritual, his physical activity being 
 far surpassed by the brutes or the machines which he 
 controls. 
 
 The direct outcome, therefore, of man's interaction 
 with the world is to call forth and exercise his nobler 
 faculties, giving the mind its vast and rightful predom- 
 inance over the body. And this result is at once an 
 eminent degree of human welfare and the highest pos- 
 sible harmony of man with nature, since in this way 
 man sets himself to govern and use the world by the 
 same powers which its Maker and Ruler employs. 
 Hence the conclusion of our whole inquiry is that the 
 purpose under which God has ordered and conducts 
 the world is that man may be brought into harmony 
 with God by the development of his spiritual powers, 
 as being his highest welfare both in process and in 
 result. And the means by which this is being effected 
 is the experience of life. 
 
io THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 II. 
 
 GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 
 
 IT seems implied in this conception of God's pur- 
 pose, that he would make some communication to 
 men more definite than they can of themselves deduce 
 from the world. And men have always believed them- 
 selves to possess such communications. 
 
 The first thing, in face of an alleged message from 
 God, is to judge of its authenticity. This may rest 
 either on our estimate of the messenger or on the im- 
 pression which the message makes upon us. We are 
 entitled to assume that an explicit message from God 
 will harmonize with that which we learn of him from 
 the order of nature and the course of events ; and 
 since we have found these to disclose a divine purpose 
 of educating man into harmony with God, we may 
 begin by requiring that this purpose shall be not less, 
 but more distinct, in both the messenger and the 
 message. 
 
 If our estimate of the messenger is to authenticate 
 the message, it must be because the message which he 
 brings has affected him as it is expected to affect us. 
 Therefore no greatness which he may exhibit, for 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. II 
 
 instance of social power or of learning, in the least 
 authenticates any message he may deliver as of God, 
 unless we find him, judged as a man like ourselves, to 
 be in harmony with God. 
 
 As to the message, we may consider it authentic so 
 far as we find that it re-enforces the tendency of the 
 world to bring man into harmony with God. And we 
 may judge of this either by the effects observed in 
 others, or, far better, by its influence upon ourselves. 
 Indeed, this response of the soul is the most satisfac- 
 tory and the most generally received of all tests. As 
 we find in all nature correspondences between parts 
 helpful to each other, and recognize that those sur- 
 roundings are the most congenial amid which any liv- 
 ing thing grows to its best state, so the quick response 
 of our own hearts, and the ennobling influence upon 
 our own lives, which follow certain teachings, become 
 for us the best warrant that these are divine. 
 
 Therefore, the only reliable test of the authenticity 
 of alleged revelation is for each individual his own 
 judgment of the effect produced by it on those who 
 have received it, whether as prophet or as disciple. 
 
 All attempts to evade this test fail. If miracle is 
 alleged, still each must judge for himself whether a 
 miracle has occurred, and, if so, whether the power it 
 attests is in harmony with God or not. If the authority 
 of the learned is appealed to, or the consensus of the 
 
12 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 multitude, still these have authority for the disciple 
 only so far as he judges them to have it. Briefly, the 
 object of divine revelation can only be to further the 
 divine purpose which rules man ; and that only can be 
 judged to be divine revelation which is first judged to 
 have this tendency. 
 
 A message from God to man is as much conditioned 
 upon man's capacity to receive as upon God's willing- 
 ness to communicate ; and man can receive any mes- 
 sage only so far as it is expressed in terms, whether 
 verbal or symbolic, of his own experience. If, there- 
 fore, God has spoken variously to men, now to an 
 individual, now to a nation or race, now a supreme 
 word to all mankind, it must be expected that the 
 terms of expression will be found as different as the 
 experiences of those addressed. We must not, there- 
 fore, so apply our test as to reject every alleged mes- 
 sage which does not further our own education towards 
 God ; but we are to consider of each whether it did 
 this for those to whom it first came. And for decid- 
 ing this we may use both our own judgment of its 
 adaptedness and the testimony of history. 
 
 Divine messages of local or temporary application 
 can hardly be called revelation, which is an unveiling 
 of God. They are rather a thinning of the veil, that 
 through it God's movements may appear, authentic, 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 13 
 
 indeed, but vague and blurred. If there be a true 
 revelation, an actual unveiling of the infinite God, it 
 must be expressed in terms which all men can to a 
 useful degree apprehend, which cannot lose their mean- 
 ing with varying circumstances, and which are capable 
 of unfolding more and more divine meaning as the 
 experience of life enlarges men's power of apprehen- 
 sion. Such a revelation cannot be verbal. It must be 
 expressed in an epitome of all human experience. It 
 is found perfectly and exclusively in the person of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 But as other divine messages prepared the way for 
 the coming of Christ, so a consideration of the others 
 may prepare our minds to study him. 
 
 There are scattered through history points of en- 
 lightenment which seem either to express or to have 
 caused a tendency to higher thoughts, but of which 
 we can give no definite account. Such are the vague 
 intimations in the Scandinavian mythology of the final 
 destruction of their system and the incoming of some- 
 thing better. Such is that secret wisdom of the 
 Egyptians, to which so much has been attributed, of 
 which so little is known. Such were the mysteries of 
 the Greeks, the secret of which has been so marvel- 
 lously kept, while their ennobling power was attested 
 by many great minds. These and many more, less or 
 
14 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 not at all known to us, have doubtless furthered God's 
 purpose, and may be fairly classed among his obscure 
 messages to men. 
 
 But there are seven systems which have avowed the 
 purpose of bettering human life, and have proved their 
 power by controlling for many centuries the conduct 
 of vast numbers of mankind. Of these the Jewish 
 and the Christian are reserved for later study. The 
 others, namely, those of the Brahmans, of Buddha, 
 of Confucius, of Zoroaster, and of Mohammed, while 
 they differ much in special characteristics, have a cer- 
 tain common feature which sets them aside from the 
 other two. Each of the five fixes its regard upon a 
 certain set of human conditions, which it finds exist- 
 ing or which it prescribes, and makes full human 
 attainment consist in perfect conformity to these. 
 They have no note of progress. 
 
 i. The Brahman, insisting that spirit is everything, 
 and finding this hardly received by human nature, 
 bends all his efforts to establish that belief. But 
 neither does he offer any hope that mankind will attain 
 this truth, nor does it appear what lies beyond for 
 those who have attained it. There is neither present 
 progress nor a future goal. 
 
 2. The Buddhist, beginning with the assertion that 
 life is the greatest possible calamity, seeks to ease it 
 by deeds of self-sacrifice and kindness. But life 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN 15 
 
 remains a calamity, and the only hope of peace is in a 
 mysterious escape from life, which may be annihilation. 
 
 3. Zoroaster, in a nobler vein, faces the evident con- 
 flict between good and evil, and summons men to en- 
 list for the good. He vaguely tells of the Infinite, 
 greater than this strife, who will at last terminate it by 
 the triumph of good. But the present struggle is not 
 shown as one of progressive victory. The hundredth 
 generation only repeats the hard warfare of the first ; 
 and how the consummation is related to this long, 
 weary history is not shown. 
 
 4. Confucius aimed at the ordering of daily life. 
 The future is to be merely a sequence of years, in 
 which will be accurately repeated that which is already 
 established. All is tied to the past and progress 
 unconceived. 
 
 5. Mohammed gave his followers the immense power 
 which comes of the consciousness of God. Not only 
 is God one, but he is omnipotent, and always concerned 
 with us. But for this great engine no corresponding 
 work is provided. Man is simply to conform to the 
 existing conditions of life, age after age, with obedi- 
 ence to certain formal requirements. Of any purpose 
 by which the ever-present God is ruling the world, no 
 hint is given. 
 
 Of course, other religions might be named which 
 
1 6 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 are or have been of great local importance, and have, 
 indeed, attracted much attention beyond the circle of 
 their votaries. But these five are all which by their 
 vast extension and their tenacious vitality have a 
 claim to be considered here. 
 
 Now, such widespread and persistent phenomena of 
 man's mental history must certainly have been active 
 agencies in God's hand. The Church has, naturally 
 enough, regarded them at one or another time as 
 rivals, and denounced and hated them ; and perhaps, 
 under the pressure of active antagonism, nothing else 
 could be expected. But when we remember the pur- 
 pose of God and his infinite resources, it must seem 
 presumption indeed to declare by what ways he may 
 reach men for their good ; and if we consider the mul- 
 titudes for whom these have been the only religion, if 
 we read the nobler pages of their literatures, or study 
 the best examples of character which each has pro- 
 duced, nothing but the blindness of bigotry can keep 
 back the belief that God has used these great agen- 
 cies to bring his children, by ways not familiar to us, 
 and in a sense we may not yet appreciate, nearer to 
 himself. 
 
 Each of them is based, as has been shown, on a 
 great fundamental principle essential to man's highest 
 life ; and through this, doubtless, each may open ac- 
 cess between God and man. But life is too complex 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 17 
 
 to be resolved into a single principle ; and, however will- 
 ing we may be to believe that it answers God's pur- 
 pose to approach great masses of men in this way, 
 one group from one side and another from another, yet 
 it is in the nature of the case that no one of these can 
 fully suffice for man's complete education. Each car- 
 ries its limitations in its very constitution ; and history 
 plainly demonstrates this fact, for each has been in- 
 separably allied with a stationary condition of society. 
 As they give no incentive to progress, so neither 
 can they adapt themselves to it ; and forward move- 
 ments otherwise impelled immediately arouse a conflict. 
 None of them, therefore, can assert any claim to be 
 universal, either in the sense of sufficing for all men 
 or as meeting all the wants of any. 
 
 It is not easy to guess what may be the function 
 of these great religions in the future development of 
 God's purpose. A deep influence was evidently ex- 
 erted upon the faith of the Jews by the doctrines of 
 Zoroaster during the Captivity ; and the speculations 
 of India affected the heresies, and perhaps indirectly 
 the faith, of the early Christians. Analogous results 
 may come in the future from the contact of the Gospel 
 with the ethnic faiths. Certainly we already see a 
 tendency to broader and simpler views of Christianity 
 growing out of missionary work. It may even be that 
 changes too complex or too radical for us to antici- 
 pate will grow out of these associations. 
 
l8 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 These religions belong to the vast, unmoving, con- 
 servative majority of mankind, which remains from 
 century to century unchanged ; while that progressive 
 movement of human development which we have 
 seen corresponds to the course of nature, has for the 
 last twenty-rive centuries belonged to the European 
 minority. It cannot be that this distinction is to con- 
 tinue. Indeed, our day is witnessing the beginnings 
 of movement in many parts of this long stagnant 
 majority. And it may be conjectured that when the 
 Asiatic peoples enter at last into the course of prog- 
 ress, the contributions which they will certainly make 
 to the world's life will somehow be found identified 
 with their religions. All of these, except the Moham- 
 medan, had their origin in a remote past, before the 
 rise of European life, and at a time when the vigor 
 and progress of the world lay in Asia. It may be 
 that the Asiatic religions will be found to have trans^ 
 mitted across all these sleeping centuries some prod- 
 ucts of man's earliest vitality which European life has 
 not reproduced. The discoveries of our time continu- 
 ally bring to light the surprising attainments of the 
 earliest men in construction and art, in jurisprudence 
 and business ; why may we not suppose that they 
 made in the spiritual field equally surprising attain- 
 ments which lie buried and unguessed under the vast 
 accumulations of the centuries ? If there be any 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 19 
 
 truth in this conjecture, of course it will appear just 
 in proportion as the life of the West mingles with and 
 understands the patient conservatism of the East. It 
 is certain that the East needs the West : it may be 
 that the West cannot run its full course without the 
 East. 
 
 Judaism is a dual system. On the one hand, it 
 legislates for a certain race, for certain social condi- 
 tions. Its whole -history proves that it tends to inten- 
 sify racial feelings, and to isolate those whom it rules. 
 Thus viewed, Judaism is therefore as unfit as any sys- 
 tem yet considered to be called universal or a revela- 
 tion. But, on the other hand, there runs through all 
 the life of Israel a higher strain. God is announced 
 as ruling all nations for his own purpose. The triumph 
 of this purpose is declared to be constantly preparing, 
 and its consummation sure. Nor is this a subordinate 
 strain. It appears at the very beginnings of the race, 
 and, running through all its history, dominates the 
 noblest minds, and increases its vehemence at every 
 crisis. It sets righteousness before ceremonial, the 
 pure heart before the ordered life. 
 
 This second aspect presents us with a view not 
 even suggested in any of the other systems. The 
 fervor and emphasis of Judaism pass quite beyond 
 outward and accessory things, and deal with that in 
 
2 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 man which is universal ; and they deal with it for its 
 development and greatening. Here, then, seems at 
 first a glimpse of universal religion, the true unveiling 
 of God. But in the many centuries of Jewish history 
 we find the narrow race prejudices always growing 
 tighter. The voice of seer and prophet telling of 
 broader relations is interpreted down to the people's 
 narrowness ; and if we had not the original literature 
 of the Jews we should not learn from their history that 
 their system differed from those already condemned. 
 
 If, too, we try to frame the larger utterances of the 
 Old Testament into a system apart from the ceremo- 
 nial law, we find it both fragmentary and vague, — 
 marvellous beginnings, but nothing complete. It is 
 obviously the prophecy and origin of something yet 
 unfinished. Here was a people intrusted with a 
 message too great for their understanding, — a mes- 
 sage which stimulates and awakens large expectation, 
 but points always to an unrevealed future ; and yet a 
 message which seems capable, if only a little more 
 were added, of reaching and satisfying all mankind. 
 Judaism was not the light, but came that it might bear 
 witness of the light. The sequel of Judaism is the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Before we examine the teachings of the Gospel, it 
 is evident from its external history that it has pre- 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 21 
 
 sumptive claims to be the universal religion. And 
 the characteristics which will be mentioned under this 
 head have marked it from its earliest public appear- 
 ance to this day, with fluctuations, of course, but with 
 a sequence easily traced through all its history. 
 
 i. The Gospel addresses itself to man without mak- 
 ing the slightest account of race or social condition, 
 and it prescribes no external conditions as indispen- 
 sable. And every race and social condition has fur- 
 nished disciples ready to live or die for their faith. 
 
 2. The Gospel mingles with all the affairs of human 
 life, to select and sustain everything that can be made 
 to contribute to human welfare, and to denounce and 
 combat whatever works harm to man. 
 
 3. The Gospel has found its firmest footing, and 
 won its greatest triumphs, in connection with the por- 
 tion of mankind most advanced in intelligence and 
 energy. 
 
 4. At every crisis in its history, when the Gospel 
 seemed most in danger of overthrow by assimilating 
 the hostile elements of the world, it has undergone a 
 process of reinvigoration from within by a return to its 
 original evidence and charter, the person of Jesus 
 Christ ; and having renewed its strength and purity 
 by reverting to him, it has resumed its place at the 
 front of that movement which makes for the increasing 
 welfare of mankind. 
 
22 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 5. After every such crisis the Gospel is seen to have 
 acquired from the study of its Original, increase and 
 energy; so that it appears to have in him an unex- 
 hausted source of growing fitness for the changing 
 conditions of human life. 
 
 These characteristics set the Gospel far apart from 
 all the other schemes of religion, and warrant for it the 
 title of universal. But this term is so open to miscon- 
 struction, and is, indeed, so sadly misconstrued, that it 
 needs to be here denned by a careful discussion. Any 
 numerical meaning is of course excluded. After two 
 thousand years, less than a quarter of the men now liv- 
 ing are nominally Christians; and it would be both 
 difficult and painful to guess how small may be the 
 fraction of nominal Christians who deserve the name. 
 Nor is it much more to the point to understand that 
 this is the religion which will in time supersede all 
 others, so that all who are alive at some future epoch 
 will be Christians. The imagination needs only to 
 summon the hosts who have lived and died, who will 
 yet live and die, without so much as hearing whether 
 there be any gospel, to put away such a claim for uni- 
 versality. We must look, therefore, in quite another 
 direction. 
 
 It has been shown that we may believe God to have 
 purposed the final harmony of mankind with himself, 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 23 
 
 and that from the beginning of the world the constitu- 
 tion of man and of his surroundings, as well as all the 
 events of general or personal history, have been di- 
 rected by the divine wisdom to this end. Now, this is 
 the aim of the Gospel, — is its whole meaning. But since 
 this process had been going on for thousands of years 
 before the Gospel appeared, and has gone on for the 
 great majority of mankind without the name of Christ 
 to this day, Christianity, viewed as a phenomenon, is 
 only a slender current flowing in the ocean of human 
 being. And yet the more we become acquainted with 
 the minds of non-Christian men, whether in the past or 
 the present, the more resemblance do we find between 
 the ideas and sentiments which the experience of life 
 begets in these men and those of Christians. So that 
 we may recognize the hand of God working out his 
 purpose by all the agencies which touch or have 
 touched men's spiritual nature. 
 
 And yet with this perception of resemblance there 
 goes a perpetual apprehension of difference. When- 
 ever we compare the spiritual experiences of those out- 
 side the Gospel with similar experiences among true 
 Christians, we find in the former a weary repetition of 
 beginnings wliich lead to no end, streams of living 
 water which presently evaporate into mystical specula- 
 tion or are lost in the sands of worldliness. Only the 
 Gospel has taught men a sustained spirituality which 
 
24 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 is able to deal freely and cheerfully with all the circum- 
 stances of life, to draw from them those divine mes- 
 sages with which all are charged, and to acquire 
 through this experience at once an increasing nearness 
 to God and a surer dominion over the world. The 
 Gospel, therefore, is the demonstration in life and the 
 expression to human understanding of that universal 
 process by which God pours his influence upon men. 
 Without this, men are swept along their course by a 
 power they do not know, are terrified or lured by voices 
 in the dark, are taught the rudiments of a knowledge 
 in which they can perceive at this stage neither use nor 
 promise. With this, they are conscious sons of God, 
 dwelling in their Father's house, learning in their 
 Father's school, tending through all the experience 
 which he appoints to harmony with him. The disci- 
 pline of life by which God embraces in his purpose all 
 the sons of men, is the universal fact. The revelation 
 of God in Christ, by which he makes us conscious of 
 his purpose and fellow-workers with him, is the univer- 
 sal religion. It means whatever is elsewhere meant ; 
 it does what is nowhere else accomplished, but is 
 needed by all. 
 
 When we look within the Christian Church for the 
 sources of so much power, we find a multitude of sects, 
 with diverse claims, each offering to show us the full 
 truth. But much as they differ, all these divisions of 
 
GOD COMMINICATES WITH MAN. 25 
 
 Christians agree that the Gospel is conveyed by two 
 divine gifts, — a body of revealed truth which largely 
 concerns the intellect, and a force which acts directly 
 on the emotions and the will, called the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The Holy Spirit is, of course, a subject of doctrinal 
 statement; but it is universally recognized that the 
 action of the Spirit is independent of intellectual cor- 
 rectness, and touches the heart either without the inter- 
 vention of perceptible means or by the agency of any 
 means that may be available. By the agreement of all 
 Christians the action of the Holy Spirit is God's con- 
 stant contribution, as the revelation of truth is his 
 occasional contribution, to the spiritual life of man; 
 and this constant touch of God on the hearts of be- 
 lievers explains the persistent vitality of the Gospel 
 and its renewals from age to age. At a later stage 
 this subject will command our close attention. 
 
 Concerning divine truth, there is much more wide 
 and positive disagreement among the divisions of 
 Christendom. Each body offers a system of doctrine 
 which it holds to be the best expression of truth. 
 But when these systems are compared they are found 
 to be so different, and even contradictory, they are 
 so obviously the work of human minds progressively 
 amending the statements of predecessors, and they so 
 evidently strive to express something which lies be- 
 hind them all, that the seeker after truth is forced to 
 
26 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 conclude that the formal doctrines of Christians are 
 far from being identical with the very truth of God. 
 And yet these doctrines have held the attention and the 
 regard of the best minds for many ages. While each 
 new generation has sought to improve them, none have 
 been willing to throw them entirely away ; and to the 
 most radical minds of the present many of them ap- 
 peal with a force that is only half confessed. Under 
 these circumstances the natural course of an indepen- 
 dent thinker is to go back of the doctrines to their 
 sources, and discover, if he can, what is that divine 
 truth which they seek to express. 
 
 Three sources of Christian doctrine are alleged : 
 the consensus of believers, the official declarations of 
 the Church, and the Bible. 
 
 Consensus is the public opinion of the Church ; and, 
 like public opinion in all communities, it wields an 
 immense force. But it is rather censor than author. 
 By the nature of the case, doctrine must be proposed 
 for its acceptance before it can approve or reject. 
 While, therefore, it has played, and must always play, a 
 most important part in selecting and establishing state- 
 ments of the truth, it is evident that consensus pre- 
 supposes a discovery and publication of the truth 
 preceding its action ; and he who is seeking sources 
 must look beyond it. Besides, since the consensus of 
 believers passes upon the doctrinal statement pro- 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 27 
 
 posed, there must be in the minds of the believers some 
 standard of judgment antecedent to doctrinal state- 
 ments, something which the Christian consciousness 
 does not fully grasp, but which it is able to com- 
 pare with any formula of belief, so as to approve or 
 reject. 
 
 In this way we are certified of the existence of 
 divine truth in the souls of believers, but vague and 
 seeking expression. Now, the only way in which we 
 can account for such an element in the Christian con- 
 sciousness is to regard it as the outcome of the expe- 
 rience of life when guided by Christian influences. 
 And this conception opens to our view, what all history 
 demonstrates, the long course of man's spiritual edu- 
 cation effected by the divine guidance through the 
 impressions of daily life, without the intervention of 
 doctrinal understanding. Now, what we are seeking 
 is some point at which God's meaning in this process 
 may become intelligible to our minds ; and this, it is 
 evident, must be elsewhere than in those unconscious 
 effects of the process which are the groundwork of 
 consensus. 
 
 If we turn next to ecclesiastical authority, we shall 
 much more easily conclude that this is no source of 
 truth, for reasons already named. The work of men's 
 minds marks all the formulas of all the churches ; and 
 consequently creeds which give equal evidence of 
 
28 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 learning and ability flatly contradict each other. Be- 
 sides, the history of Christian doctrine as promulgated 
 by authority shows plain and constant progression 
 in almost every particular, a constant striving after 
 clearer understanding and better expression of some- 
 thing which exists before and outside of the creed or 
 the deliberations which construct it. But this antece- 
 dent something is that which we are seeking as better 
 and more authoritative than doctrine. We seek the 
 sources from which the formulators of doctrine have 
 derived it. 
 
 Finally, when we turn to the Bible, an entirely differ- 
 ent view is presented. Not only does Christian his- 
 tory show that all the deeper and more vital doctrines 
 which the Church has formulated and the consensus 
 of believers has ratified, have been deduced from the 
 Bible as their source, but the character of this book 
 meets every test which we have already found ap- 
 propriate to a divine revelation. It offers very few 
 doctrinal formulas, and those only of the broadest 
 character. It pictures in all phases the life of man, 
 and this in such a way as always to suggest a divine 
 meaning in life. It therefore expresses the message of 
 God to man in terms of human life which, as experi- 
 ence has proved, all men can understand and appro- 
 priate in proportion to the spiritual capacity of each. 
 And finally, its range is so wide and its touch so 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 29 
 
 masterly that the endless variety of human needs has 
 not at any point exhausted its teaching. We may con- 
 clude, therefore, that we have in the Bible a unique 
 deposit of divine truth, so conveyed as to lend itself 
 readily to that intellectual process by which doctrine is 
 elaborated. How the deposit has come to exist, and 
 what relation it holds to the teaching of experience, 
 will appear as we proceed. We must now pass to a 
 more particular study of the Bible. 
 
 The history of the Bible is quite unparalleled in 
 literature. In its gradually accumulating parts, or as a 
 whole, it has been considered sacred for at least twenty- 
 seven centuries. Its parts, furnished by the hands 
 of many writers running through at least a thousand 
 years, have been readily recognized as belonging to- 
 gether ; and for sixteen centuries the collection which 
 we now have has been held by the whole Christian 
 Church as a single harmonious volume containing the 
 revelation of God. 
 
 The Bible has been prominent and valued just in 
 proportion to the general enlightenment of each age. 
 It has engaged the highest skill and learning of 
 scholars for attack or defence ; and the present age, 
 after so many struggles, is as deeply interested in the 
 questions which gather about the Bible as any of the 
 past. Each successive generation, with all its changes 
 
30 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 of social conditions and moral advancement, has found 
 the Bible fully abreast of its best attainments; and 
 while constantly detecting and abandoning the mis- 
 conceptions which had gathered about it, has discov- 
 ered in its pages new light and truth which lower 
 stages of culture had not perceived. 
 
 But equally remarkable is the fact that the Bible 
 has been as important to unlettered Christians as to 
 scholars. It has submitted, without loss of its great 
 characteristics, to translation into every vernacular ; 
 and under all skies, and in every tongue, has com- 
 forted the sorrows, enlarged the hope, quickened the 
 conscience, and ennobled the character of men, women, 
 and children. Nor have these two phases of interest 
 ever proved hostile or ceased to be connected. The 
 most learned scholars have prized the Bible for its 
 spiritual influence upon themselves ; and to its un- 
 lettered readers this book has been a powerful mental 
 stimulus, promoting culture, broadening thought, fur- 
 thering civilization. 
 
 Such being the external history of the Bible, we 
 come to an examination of its contents with profound 
 respect and a confident expectation of finding here the 
 divine word. 
 
 The reader of the Bible finds a collection of writings 
 produced by Jews of every social position, and scat- 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 31 
 
 tered along many centuries of national history. Every 
 form of literature is represented, but the proportion of 
 the didactic is surprisingly small. The contents are 
 pictures of life, public and private, rude and refined, 
 evil and good; but abstractions and wide generaliza- 
 tions are comparatively rare, and such as occur are 
 mostly based on facts present to the writer. The 
 dominant characteristic of the whole book is that it 
 deals with current human life. 
 
 Different as the several writings of the Bible seem 
 at first sight, they are harmonized by four conceptions 
 which run through them all, and each of which may be 
 traced in them from its early but positive germ through 
 many stages of development to perfect completion. 
 These we must consider in order. 
 
 /. The Sovereign God. The Bible is based from end 
 to end on the conception of one almighty God. In no 
 writer does there appear a single thought which opposes 
 this ; and even where the conception is not taught, 
 it is obviously the conscious background of the writer's 
 thought. In the first sentence of the Bible, God appearj 
 as the maker of heaven and earth ; he assumes, when 
 man enters, the additional character of a judge of con- 
 duct ; and a little later he is represented as rewarding 
 the trusting heart. This threefold conception of his 
 character is the germ out of which all that follows is 
 developed. 
 
32 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 Till the history is far advanced, the dominant idea is 
 that of power, whether as ruling the course of nature 
 and of events, or as commanding the conduct of men. 
 Gradually the idea of moral government grows stronger, 
 at first displayed in crises, but later consolidating into 
 a code by which men are to be judged. But through 
 all are occasional glimpses of God seeking the hearts 
 of men ; and in the mouths of the prophets this swells 
 to the dominant strain, so that the divine power is 
 cited mostly to break impenitent hearts, and obedience 
 is set above code and ritual. At this stage we reach 
 the New Testament, and in the words of Jesus find 
 God portrayed as the Father of men, yearning over 
 and seeking us, comforting our sorrows, forgiving our 
 sins, seeking to make us by all means partakers of his 
 righteousness. The wonders of his power and the 
 rigors of his judgment-seat have become but acces- 
 sories, the least among the agencies of saving grace. 
 
 //". God's Word to Men. The writers of the Bible 
 uniformly represent God as seeking to communicate 
 with men. It is nowhere suggested that he is remote 
 or difficult of access. The burden of the strain always 
 is that God is speaking, and men are warned, urged, 
 entreated to hear. 
 
 The occasions and the methods of divine utterance 
 are variously conceived. At first God intervenes at dif- 
 ficult crises to keep or set men right, and his word is 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 33 
 
 simply stated to have come, without any hint of the 
 channel. Later is found a body of divine instruction, 
 partly given as a definite code, partly gathered by de- 
 grees from passing experiences, to which the current 
 life of men is referred for guidance, and by which they 
 are judged. But at no time does the custom cease of 
 direct, special communications from God in reference 
 to existing needs. At a still later stage the prophets 
 direct their divine messages generally to the people, 
 with a wider sweep of meaning both in space and in 
 time, and with far more searching application to the 
 spiritual needs and defects of men. Thus was pre- 
 pared, through many centuries and many phases of 
 human experience, that habit of intercourse between 
 God and man which grew to its full development in 
 Jesus Christ. At no time is the divine word abstract 
 or mystical. It was always based upon human affairs 
 and expressed in terms of human life, being age by age 
 adapted to the conditions of each time, and always 
 according with the lessons, rightly read, of man's fa- 
 miliar experience. 
 
 This method is closely followed when Christ appears, 
 claiming to bring God's perfect message. He comes 
 to make God fully known, to reveal him, not for doc- 
 trinal or philosophical purposes, but that the knowl- 
 edge of God may win and comfort men's hearts ; and 
 not by definitions or the forms of creeds, but by per- 
 
34 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 sonal exhibition of the divine character in the guise of 
 a human life. All that had been attempted of divine 
 communication to man, for warning, for rebuke, for 
 instruction, for comfort under the burden of sorrow, 
 and triumph in the face of death, was here summed up 
 and carried to its ultimate in a life easy to be under- 
 stood of all men. It was that, and all of that, which 
 God had to say to men — his Word. 
 
 Ill The People of God. Throughout the Bible we 
 find the idea that a part of the human race stands 
 more directly related to God than the rest. This con- 
 ception begins with Abraham, descends like a heredi- 
 tary possession to his children, and becomes the 
 familiar and cherished distinction of the Jews. The 
 narrative shows that the chosen people considered 
 themselves selected by God for the bestowment of 
 favors ; but it is made equally clear that the divine 
 purpose had chosen them for discipline. Of course, 
 the former conception was more easy for a rude, the 
 latter for an advanced, social state ; but at no point, 
 not even the very first, is the idea of discipline want- 
 ing in God's communications, and by degrees it grows 
 to be with the prophets the central thought. They 
 plainly represent God as having through all their his- 
 tory set the Jews before the nations as an enduring 
 example of his moral government. 
 
 When we pass to the New Testament the same ele- 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 35 
 
 ments of thought appear, but advanced to a much 
 higher stage, and blended into a conception wholly 
 foreign to the mind of the Jew, and yet legitimately 
 the outgrowth of his narrower belief. The racial 
 claim to divine favor is entirely put aside. God can 
 raise from the stones children to Abraham, and all 
 kindreds and nations are alike before him. But still 
 God is to have among the families of the earth a 
 peculiar people, consisting of all those who give their 
 hearts to him through Christ, the children not of Abra- 
 ham's loins, but of his faith. And they are to be knit 
 into a community enjoying special intercourse with 
 God. Nor is this union of the faithful merely a men- 
 tal conception. They are to be infused with the divine 
 Spirit, which will ally them most intimately with each 
 other and with God, and which welcomes into an 
 equally close sympathy every soul that comes to Christ. 
 For it is made plain that this fellowship is open to 
 all men, and, indeed, is intended for all, the single 
 condition being allegiance to Christ the Lord. 
 
 IV. God's Purpose for His People. The Bible is 
 pervaded by a cheerful forward look. No disappoint- 
 ment or delay can quench this expectation of good to 
 come. Its moralists use but few reminiscences except 
 when they recall the mercies of God ; but their golden 
 age in the future is never forgotten. And they always 
 base this expectation on the divine promises. The 
 
36 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 narrative of the first sin is not completed without a 
 record of promise, — the seed of the woman shall bruise 
 the serpent's head. Considering the obviously alle- 
 gorical character of the whole story, we cannot doubt 
 that this promise is an allegory of man's triumph over 
 evil, vague indeed, but suggesting indefinite extent and 
 clearly moral in its nature. So broad and lofty an 
 assurance at so early a day seems quite beyond the 
 thought of the time, and plainly marks the finger of 
 God. 
 
 The conception rapidly changes as the Old Testa- 
 ment history goes on. To Abraham the promise is 
 given with more definitely universal extent, but the 
 moral quality is unexpressed ; and as the chosen people 
 gradually grasped their peculiar privilege, they more 
 and more assumed the hope of the future to be espe- 
 cially for them. More and more, too, they made it 
 to consist in material good, — numbers, wealth, domin- 
 ion. And yet the moral character was always retained 
 to some degree by conditioning all these blessings 
 upon obedience. 
 
 With the increasing spirituality of the psalmists and 
 the prophets the moral idea comes greatly to predomi- 
 nate. All divine favor rests on righteousness, but the 
 rewards of righteousness are still material blessings ; 
 and this leads to a singular fulness (or perhaps con- 
 fusion) of thought. So inextricably is the traditional 
 
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. 37 
 
 conception of God's blessings entangled with the 
 larger inspiration, that it is impossible to separate in 
 their utterances the promise of material success from 
 the prediction of triumphant righteousness. In the 
 same breath they often seem to declare the near resto- 
 ration of a living king, and to predict the Messiah's 
 reign, But in the New Testament all the confusion 
 has passed away, while the forward look re'mains. 
 That which God has always pointed to in the future is 
 now proclaimed to be that men shall be partakers of 
 his holiness. The obstacles which inhere in our nature 
 and surroundings are fully recognized, and their over- 
 throw and removal are provided for in Christ, the head 
 of every man, the universal Saviour. 
 
 These four strains running through the Bible give 
 it a coherence and unity which the literary charac- 
 ter of the parts could not bestow. Any one of them 
 would stamp as remarkable the book which contained 
 it ; but the four related conceptions moving consis- 
 tently through the writings of so many men in so 
 many ages, and together growing from such simple 
 beginnings to such triumphant greatness, mark the 
 Bible as unique, and prepare us to find in its teach- 
 ings the largest justification of its external history. 
 
 From such a view we return with surprise to the 
 fact that the Bible consists of many and most various 
 
38 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 writings, and ask how these were co-ordinated. The 
 answer is easily found. Every author was either Jew 
 or Christian ; every book relates to the affairs or ex- 
 periences of Jews or Christians ; it is everywhere 
 obvious that the writer addresses himself to one or 
 the other class : and the only account which can be 
 given of the selection and preservation of these writ- 
 ings, while many similar ones were rejected or lost, 
 is that the Church, Jewish or Christian, found and 
 continued to find in these the message and revelation 
 of God. How there came to be such writings for the 
 Church to select, advancing step by step through the 
 successive ages, is a deeper question which will find 
 its answer as we proceed. 
 
 The Bible, therefore, is the book of the people of 
 God, made concerning them, by them, for them, and 
 by their spiritual insight recognized and revered. And 
 this book of the people of God becomes the book of 
 all mankind only because its consummate revelation is 
 that God intends all mankind to become his people. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 39 
 
 III. 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 
 
 WE have already seen that the accomplishment 
 of a revelation must depend as well on those 
 who receive as on him who gives ; and therefore the 
 meaning of the Bible must stand in constant relation 
 to the character and condition of God's people. In 
 order, therefore, to understand the Word we must first 
 become acquainted with the history of the people of 
 God in the successive ages, not merely as they appear 
 in the Bible, but with all the light which history af- 
 fords ; and not merely during the ages which produced 
 the Scriptures, but down to our day. For the use of 
 the Bible and the results of its use, during the Chris- 
 tian centuries, should afford us the best possible test 
 of the wisdom which chose and kept these writings, 
 and of the authority with which they speak to us. 
 We have next to study, then, the people of God. 
 
 The Jews first appear in history, perhaps in the 
 fourteenth century before Christ, as a horde of slaves 
 escaped from Egypt. To the characteristics of the 
 race, since so well known, they then added all the 
 
40 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 moral results of slavery. Retaining traditions of pa- 
 triarchal ancestors, they were inseparably united by 
 the common descent. They were easily kindled to 
 enthusiasm, and easily led by a strong mind ; but it 
 was impossible to hold them to any purpose. They 
 set out for the country of their fathers, but shrank in 
 fear at the first view of its warlike inhabitants. They 
 accepted the covenant offered in the name of Jehovah, 
 and vowed obedience ; but every difficulty made them 
 murmur, and at the first opportunity they relapsed 
 into the idolatry of Egypt. It was only when the 
 generation of slaves had died wandering in the desert, 
 and a new people of freemen had grown up in that 
 hard school, that they were fit to conquer and occupy 
 the promised land. 
 
 Then followed an undetermined period of national 
 development in which we see them, between the wild 
 tribes of the desert on one side, and an elaborate, 
 wealthy, and sensual civilization on the other, pass 
 through endless vicissitudes of defeat and victory, 
 always gaining in numbers and in their hold upon 
 the territory over which they were spread ; always 
 held most firmly together by the bond of common 
 descent, and gradually growing in culture, institutions, 
 and character. About iooo B.C. their prosperity cul- 
 minated under David and Solomon, and for two gen- 
 erations they had some political importance. But the 
 
THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 41 
 
 civil wars and general decadence which began abruptly 
 after Solomon's death show how little basis the nation 
 had for any eminent station. After three hundred 
 years of increasing wretchedness the larger kingdom 
 was exterminated by foreign conquerors, and a cen- 
 tury later Judah met the same fate. But Judah, hav- 
 ing spent two generations in Babylon, returned again 
 by the sufferance of her masters, and renewed on the 
 old ground a shadow of national existence, the tribu- 
 tary and plaything of the great powers about her. 
 The history is then a blank till the native spirit 
 blazes up in the brilliant episode of the Maccabees ; 
 but presently the strong hand of Rome repressed 
 the national life, and finally, in the first Christian 
 century, ended the national existence. 
 
 Considered from the political side, the history of 
 the Jews is meagre and unworthy of regard. They 
 showed no genius for founding a State ; their territory 
 was smaller under Herod than under Gideon; they 
 added nothing to the common heritage of mankind 
 in social institutions, nor in the arts of peace or war. 
 If Israel had been left to work out and endure his 
 destiny as other nations are, he would to-day be but 
 the shadow of a name. And yet no nation since the 
 world began, not Rome herself, has so occupied the 
 attention of mankind. All men have conquered Israel, 
 
42 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 but none have subdued him. Subjected for three 
 thousand years to all possible disintegrating causes, 
 and to all fortunes except great prosperity, the Jews 
 yet remain, as they have never for a day ceased to be, 
 a homogeneous people, known and recognized by all 
 the world. And the phenomenon was the same in 
 ancient times as now. While the petty nation in 
 Judea was hardly maintaining itself, its wandering 
 sons had traversed and influenced the world. Egypt, 
 Babylon, Persia, all parts of the Roman Empire, had 
 to reckon with these subtle strangers. This marvel- 
 lous phenomenon, single in history, grew from the 
 fact that the Jews were the people of God, chosen 
 for a purpose. 
 
 It is evident that they had not for long ages chosen 
 God. Despite the ancestral covenant they had been 
 idolatrous in Egypt, and at every apparent relaxation 
 of the hand of Moses they returned to their idols. 
 The new generation no sooner came in contact with 
 the sensual worship of Moab, than they plunged eagerly 
 into it ; and after they had become established in 
 Palestine they readily adopted the practices of their 
 neighbors, sometimes going all lengths, but oftener 
 blending the worship of Jehovah and of idols in a 
 manner not to us comprehensible. Every page of the 
 Old Testament records the warnings, rebukes, and 
 judgments of God, and every page, too, the backslid- 
 
THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 43 
 
 ings of the people. Even the piety of David and the 
 wisdom of Solomon left many idols for Hezekiah and 
 Josiah to destroy ; and it was not till the remnant had 
 returned from Babylon that the people whom God had 
 chosen chose also him. For a thousand years the 
 struggle had continued. A stiff-necked people had 
 fought ten centuries, through all degrees of social 
 advancement and all vicissitudes of fortune, to escape 
 from the hand of God ; but through all he had never 
 permitted them to forget him, and had made visible 
 his rule, till at last, winnowed and chastened by afflic- 
 tion, they had learned forever their great lesson, " The 
 Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." Since that time 
 they have endured for five and twenty centuries the 
 strangest fortunes known to human history, but never 
 once has it been heard that a Jew bowed down to 
 idols. The primary postulate of true religion has 
 become ingrained in the constitution of a whole race, 
 and that race has been scattered to bear its witness 
 wherever men exist. 
 
 It is of the first importance to observe by what 
 process this was accomplished. It was by no break- 
 ing away from the usual course of national life, for 
 Israel had all the stages of development common to 
 his neighbors. To these the only peculiarity of the 
 Jews appeared to be an unintelligible theory about 
 
44 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 a Supreme Being ; otherwise they moved side by side 
 with the nations around them. And yet they were 
 always beset by God, who entered into their life and 
 mingled with their concerns by that channel which he 
 has always reserved for his access to mankind, — great 
 men. 
 
 The average man is the product of his time and 
 of all that went before. But great men in all nations 
 have been' the producers of their own times, and still 
 more of the times which followed. Descent, educa- 
 tion, opportunity, account for so much of the lives of 
 great men as they share with their contemporaries ; 
 but the cause of each one's greatness beyond the thou- 
 sands who share his circumstances, remains unsolved 
 by any study of human antecedents. And when the 
 long stretch of history is surveyed, it is so obviously 
 the great men who have led the march, that if we 
 attribute to God any efficient direction of man's des- 
 tiny, we must recognize great men as his channels of 
 access. 
 
 It was so in Israel. Along these thousand years of 
 struggle the banner of Jehovah was passed from hand 
 to hand of a series of men in all respects closely fitted 
 to their times, but always with open vision of that 
 which Israel would not see. They occupied whatever 
 station the occasion might require, — statesman, sol- 
 dier, scholar, young or old, king or peasant, quickly 
 
THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 45 
 
 spent or enduring a lifetime, not otherwise different 
 from their people than that they were men of high 
 endowments, and the spirit of God was in them. In 
 other nations the divine purpose had wrought by great 
 men raised up, doubtless, for their special ends, but 
 ignorant what power impelled them. In Israel, since 
 the very aim of all was that the people should know 
 Jehovah, his servants must be conscious of their call- 
 ing, and do his will with proclamation of his name. 
 
 By this universal method, then, adapted to this spe- 
 cial purpose, God brought it to pass that by the time 
 Christ came there had been in the world for four or 
 five centuries a peculiar people, who, having struggled 
 against him for a thousand years, had at last been 
 conquered, not by destruction, but by complete con- 
 version, and had now for many generations proclaimed 
 in the face of all the world that he alone is God. So 
 that the foundation was ready and seasoned, — the 
 fundamental beginning of all true faith. The sover- 
 eign rule of God is assumed on every page of the New 
 Testament. It needs no argument to establish it and 
 no experience to test it. The new word is, " Ye believe 
 in God, believe also in me." 
 
 From this point it might seem that the work was 
 simply to go on in the same lines ; that the new people 
 of God were to be the children of the old. But the 
 teaching of the New Testament and the subsequent 
 
46 THE PURPOSE OF GOD, 
 
 course of history alike contradict the thought. This 
 great foundation being established as an inextricable 
 part of human history, there was now to be built upon 
 it a new faith broad enough for all mankind, — the 
 universal religion. The Jews had been perforce con- 
 centrated ; their whole thought was narrow and tribal. 
 To form a people who could receive the universal reve- 
 lation, other elements of human development must be 
 combined with that which had been taught to Israel. 
 And since these new elements must bring with them the 
 qualities of breadth and human power, it must needs 
 be that while God had been training the Jews for 
 their part, he had been elsewhere conducting another 
 development of mankind, which should be ready, when 
 Christ came, to contribute for the new people of God 
 that which Israel could not furnish. 
 
 The world into which Christ came was the Roman 
 Empire. This vast conglomerate assembled within 
 itself all that man had hitherto achieved in every de- 
 partment ; and the best of all, dominating all, was the 
 Grecian culture. 
 
 Five or six centuries before Christ the Greeks 
 emerged from their obscure past, to which all pre- 
 ceding civilizations seem to have contributed, and 
 pushed rapidly forward to an intellectual greatness 
 before unknown. In politics, social order, philosophy, 
 
THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 47 
 
 literature, art, they opened new paths, and became the 
 great examples and teachers of mankind. The im- 
 portance and the possibilities of the individual man 
 for the first time came boldly to sight, and the bound- 
 less opportunity of human culture and advancement 
 first appeared. They lacked only the genius for 
 organization to become the masters of the world. 
 This want was for a moment supplied by the great 
 Macedonian ; and the civilization of the Greeks, mar- 
 shalled by the half-barbarian Alexander, swept all the 
 East with conquest. But the unity was transient. As 
 soon as the master-hand slackened, the individualism 
 of the Greeks again asserted itself, splitting the great 
 empire into new states, all of which, however, had 
 been seeded with the Hellenic culture. 
 
 Meanwhile, Rome had been slowly growing in the 
 west. With a power of organizing which had never 
 before appeared, she had grown strong within, and had 
 then attacked, subdued, and incorporated kingdom 
 after kingdom, till at length she was mistress of the 
 entire Mediterranean basin. Nor was it a mere con- 
 quest of arms. Under her sway every people, indeed, 
 enjoyed its own language, its own institutions ; but so 
 complete was the incorporation that all constituted 
 one empire. Within the Roman borders universal 
 peace prevailed. Travel was safe and easy by land 
 and sea ; commerce flourished ; justice was adminis- 
 
4§ THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 tered; order prevailed. Only the turbulent or the 
 zealously patriotic had any grievance. The common 
 man everywhere was at peace in physical content. 
 But over all these lands the culture of the Greeks 
 spread and ruled. The common language of the world 
 was Greek. Literature, philosophy, art, followed Gre- 
 cian models. The Greeks, scattered everywhere, were 
 the schoolmasters of the nations. 
 
 The motives, then, of this great civilization were 
 two, — the unbounded culture of the individual and 
 the endless possibilities of union. 
 
 In all this history God had veiled himself. True, he 
 had not been without witness, for the instinctive de- 
 mand of the soul for something higher had led to 
 many religions. But these were only adjuncts to the 
 political and social life, never, as in Israel, its primary 
 force. The stage had been cleared, that man might 
 try what he could make of himself and the world 
 without visible aid from above. And the human race 
 had been sifted for long centuries to separate in the 
 two rival peninsulas the choicest strains of humanity 
 for this great discipline. 
 
 The result was magnificent. The world cannot hope 
 to see the experiment again so fairly tried nor so bril- 
 liantly successful. And yet the very hour of achieve- 
 ment was the beginning of disappointment. A deadly 
 
THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 49 
 
 weariness was growing over men's minds. The world 
 seemed small and dull. Art was degenerating ; philos- 
 ophy had divided into many contending sects ; social 
 life was aimless and vicious ; numberless superstitions 
 found votaries ; and the wisest men looked hopelessly 
 to the future. The struggles of so many ages seemed 
 after all to have accomplished nothing that could last. 
 
 And so this long education of the gentiles had 
 reached a condition the exact complement of Israel's 
 state, both in their gains and their defects. On the 
 one hand a ruined nation, broken, scattered, subdued, 
 but strong in the hard-earned knowledge of Jehovah ; 
 on the other, an empire splendid with all the greatness 
 man can of himself achieve, but weak at heart and 
 weary because "the world by wisdom knew not God." 
 
 Without doubt God had presided as much over the 
 one as the other ; had as truly raised up men in Greece 
 and Rome to lead the gentiles towards his appointed 
 ends as in Israel. And it was only when these ends 
 were reached, and all was thus prepared, that the ful- 
 ness of time was come. 
 
50 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 IV. 
 
 CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 INTO such a world came Jesus the Christ, who alone 
 of men has perfectly combined the inherited gains 
 of all mankind, the teachings of the ages, and has 
 added to them what else God had to say. So that in 
 him all divine utterances are summed up, things old 
 and new, and he is the perfect Word of God. Not, 
 indeed, that Christ was the outcome of human circum- 
 stances. He of all men was least the product of his 
 age, was most the producer of what followed. 
 
 He was bred upon the ground where Jew and gen- 
 tile met, and shared the characteristics of both. No 
 Jew had ever so grasped the meaning of God's uni- 
 versal sway. To live under this was his meat, his 
 daily breath. He took no step and spoke no word of 
 which the consciousness of God was not the ground 
 and the strength. The age-long lesson which Israel 
 had so slowly mastered was to him the first of intui- 
 tions. And yet the zealous leaders of the Jews re- 
 fused to know him as a Jew. They called him a 
 Samaritan and a lunatic ; for he was wholly without 
 the narrow spirit of the race : he corrected Moses, 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 51 
 
 cast away the traditions, welcomed gentiles, looked for 
 a following in the future far beyond the bounds of 
 Israel. 
 
 He was truly Greek in his broad and intelligent 
 human sympathies. All his words aim at the essential 
 humanity. The face of nature and the course of 
 daily life were his text-books ; the intuitions and the 
 conscience of men the points of departure from which 
 he built his doctrine. And with a grandeur of thought 
 truly Roman he labored to win the world. He fore- 
 told what the ages have realized, — the extension of 
 his influence to all lands. The boundaries of his 
 thought were as much wider than Caesar's as his aims 
 were nobler. 
 
 And yet this man, who possessed and bettered all 
 that was best in Jew or gentile, had learned in no 
 school, whether of Athens or Jerusalem. It was as if 
 he came to the world from its antique sources, speak- 
 ing all the dialects of the world with a purer strain 
 and a clearer utterance. What others had laboriously 
 learned by generations of arduous discipline, came 
 freely to him as he lived his humble life and followed 
 his noble thinking among the hills of Galilee. And 
 not only did all come to him which others had learned, 
 but to all this he added vastly more. For God had 
 not yet spoken his full meaning. The veil had 
 thinned, indeed, but the view was clouded still. Now, 
 
52 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 the world being at last able to see, God would indeed 
 reveal himself. And since for human understanding 
 the truth must be expressed in terms of human expe- 
 rience, there was set before the world in Jesus the 
 express image of God in the fashion of a man. 
 
 We shall have to discuss, when we come to consider 
 the Christian doctrines, the momentous import of the 
 fact that this was possible. It is enough to say here 
 that it implies so close a relation of man to God that 
 no dividing line can be drawn, nor can any contrast 
 be maintained except in degree. For the present we 
 have to look only at the visible characteristics of 
 Jesus and his teaching, and to consider what were the 
 vast additions which he made to the heritage of the 
 people of God. 
 
 The first peculiarity of Jesus is the perfection with 
 which he combines in a harmonious character all 
 excellences hitherto known, so that all previous great- 
 ness seems one-sided and defective. The ardent Jew- 
 ish theism was not more conspicuous in him than the 
 marvellous intellectual subtility with which he touched 
 all subjects. This, combined with pungent wit, unfail- 
 ing tact, and a perfect literary sense, made his sayings 
 like proverbs, open to all alike, capable of transla- 
 tion into all languages, and so vital that they have 
 lived across two thousand years ; while each of them 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 53 
 
 so profoundly touches the core of truth as to express 
 a final analysis. And yet the aim of all was not con- 
 troversy, nor the founding of a new philosophy, nor 
 the moment's applause; it was all aimed with the 
 shrewdest common-sense at the daily life of the men 
 around him, and evinced a practical grasp which was 
 of the genuine Roman type. There had been no such 
 man nor any hint of him. The qualities, indeed, had 
 seemed to exclude each other ; and the mere demon- 
 stration that humanity could rise so high and remain 
 so truly human was enough to kindle anew the hopes 
 and ambitions of the race. 
 
 But all this was only the basis of personal character 
 which brought to the people of God the final divine 
 revelation. We may for the present purpose divide 
 under five heads what is claimed as new in the relation 
 of Christ. Not, indeed, that any of these points had 
 been unsurmised ; for God had not left himself without 
 witness. But much may be dimly felt after which is 
 not grasped, and, the final truth once spoken, all the 
 antecedents appear with new distinctness. 
 
 /. The Fatherhood of God. The reverence for God 
 which had been in the most advanced Jews the loyal 
 affection of a subject, became in Jesus the love of a 
 son. The Old Testament, to be sure, like all other 
 religious books, speaks of God as Father ; but they 
 are all thinking of him as the Author of our being. 
 
54 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 Jesus elevates the meaning to comprehend the solici- 
 tude, patience, and ready forgiveness of paternal love. 
 Nor does he merely speak of this. All his character 
 and all his consciousness are penetrated with the joyful 
 sense of divine communion. So that he not only pre- 
 sents to us the perfect example of filial obedience, but 
 he so fully inherits his Father's traits that in Christ 
 the divine character comes plainly to our sight. And 
 the result of this communion is that in him perfect love 
 has cast out fear. There is for him no surrounding 
 shadow, no beyond, whether of present or future reach, 
 that can disquiet him or hinder his freedom of thought 
 or action. His whole nature, too, is expanded by this 
 continual touch of God, so that he seems greater than 
 men and only by condescension wearing our form ; 
 until deeper study fails to find any trait which is not as 
 truly human as divine ; and the great truth emerges 
 for the first time to men's eyes that the children of 
 God are indeed partakers of His nature. 
 
 An inseparable corollary of the divine fatherhood 
 is the human brotherhood. It had remained for the 
 Gospel to declare that all human beings are brethren, 
 not by virtue of physical constitution or of any com- 
 mon endowments, but because of an intrinsic worth 
 which is derived from the divine parentage of all and 
 constitutes in each the image of God. This idea once 
 conceived necessarily abolished distinctions which 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 55 
 
 had been thought essential. Henceforth there was 
 " neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, 
 neither bond nor free," and the entire subsequent 
 course of human history shows the Gospel struggling to 
 reform the institutions of human society upon this new 
 basis. That the struggle has lasted so long, and suc- 
 cess has come so slowly, only indicates the profound- 
 ness of the new principle and the magnitude of the 
 proposed changes. 
 
 //. The Triumph of Righteousness, That righteous- 
 ness ought to triumph is the first postulate of ethics, 
 (if it be not an identical proposition,) and it has been 
 the theme of moralists in all ages. That it will triumph 
 has been the hope of the best men, and is more or less 
 clearly promised in most religions. But the nature and 
 the process of this triumph have lain much in obscu- 
 rity. In the revelation of Christ, however, all is plain. 
 Righteousness becomes, not formal compliance with 
 any law, but harmony with God ; and the entire life of 
 Jesus illustrates alike the negative and the positive 
 side of this statement. The triumph of righteousness 
 is with him no mere victory after conflict, but complete 
 conversion. It is not enough to banish or hide or 
 prostrate the sinner, with whatever completeness ; the 
 triumph is achieved in the individual case only when 
 he is no longer a sinner, and in all its fulness only 
 when there is no longer any sinner. 
 
56 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 But it was not enough to teach this as the destined 
 future. The especial emphasis is laid upon the assur- 
 ance that this process is going on at every moment. 
 God is working in every event of human experience 
 towards this consummation. The scene about us is 
 not the doubtful struggle of Zoroaster, but the skilful 
 and successful working of God drawing all men to 
 himself. Not only is there no place for doubt, but 
 there is no retreat and no pause. " God is in Christ, 
 reconciling the world unto himself" — all the world 
 and all the time. 
 
 III. Immortality. It was not reserved for Jesus to 
 announce the immortality of man. Probably the se- 
 cret doctrines of the Egyptians and the Greeks con- 
 tained this tenet, and certainly the Pharisees made it 
 very important. Nor did he make any very definite 
 revelation of the conditions and occupations of the 
 future life. If all that Jesus is reported to have said 
 about the conditions of the future be assembled, it 
 will be found to convey very little conception of 
 details or of methods — hardly more, indeed, than the 
 repeated assertion of life beyond death. We must 
 look in quite another direction for the unmeasured 
 light which he threw upon this subject. 
 
 All previous teachers who had anything to say 
 about a future life, had taken the physical nature of 
 man and its processes as their conception of life, and 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 57 
 
 had regarded the life beyond death as somehow a pro- 
 longation of this or an annex to it. With this view, 
 death was the inevitable antagonist and conqueror of 
 life. Such life could never for a moment escape from 
 the shadow of its approaching doom ; and however it 
 might be promised that after that dread experience 
 an awakening should come, still the immeasurable loss 
 must be sustained, the treasure must be dropped from 
 our hand, and the best comfort was the hope that it 
 might be somewhere found again. 
 
 Jesus conceives the matter in a wholly different 
 strain. Man's life is his spiritual being, about which 
 the physical is wrapped as a garment, deriving what 
 is called its life from the true life within. When the 
 garment is worn out or no longer serves, it falls away. 
 One is not much concerned at the loss of a garment. 
 The thought of finality or of ruin finds no place to 
 enter. The old gone, life puts on new wrappings and 
 proceeds. Jesus, therefore, is said to have " abolished 
 death." His aim does not seek the future, but the 
 present. He will make men so understand what life 
 is, and so consciously partake of it, that the body's 
 fortunes or its loss will be to them mere incidents, and 
 instead of struggling to conceive how life is to be 
 resumed after death, they will marvel how men could 
 have imagined that the mortal stroke had anything to 
 do with life. 
 
58 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 This explains what has often been thought a confu- 
 sion of New Testament language. The same passage 
 seems in one light to speak of righteousness and pres- 
 ent faith, while from another point it seems to tell of 
 immortality. But these things are one. The life eter- 
 nal, which is the centre of all New Testament teach- 
 ing, is a present state which has no transient quality 
 and looks for no disaster. And all this is brought to 
 us, not as concerning the far-off future, but for its 
 present power. It touches the true conception of the 
 blight and evil of sin; for sin opposes, and, to the ex- 
 tent of its power, extinguishes the true life, leaving 
 man a dwarfed and crippled being, imprisoned in his 
 body. It thus poisons the stream which flows toward 
 the future, making the physical life so predominant 
 that every forward look terminates in the dread of 
 death. " The sting of death is sin." Hence it is that 
 Christ's work in saving from sin and in opening immor- 
 tality are so inextricably blended in the New Testament. 
 
 The heathen poets were accustomed to sing of the 
 immortals taking human form, to lay it off again at 
 pleasure. But through this disguise ran always the 
 immortal consciousness, giving splendor and dignity 
 to the person and revealing itself in every act : " In- 
 cessu patuit dea." 
 
 He who will look may trace all this in the person of 
 Jesus ; and that approach to it which his true disciples 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 59 
 
 have shown in every age, glorifies their days and de- 
 clares them, to themselves and to all, heirs of immor- 
 tality. 
 
 IV. Philanthropy. The love of men exhibited by 
 Jesus had many characteristics new to human experi- 
 ence. With a true human tenderness for particular 
 friends, it is still the essential humanity which he 
 loves ; and this makes him equally near to men of all 
 classes and kinds. Other philanthropists, resting on 
 something less central and universal, have leaned to 
 this or that kindred, class, or quality of men. Jesus 
 alone is the universal lover. 
 
 It grows out of the same fact that his love is pro- 
 foundly wise, and seeks to confer on its objects, not 
 that which will please, but that which will benefit them. 
 Since it was necessary that he should bestow largess in 
 unmeasured abundance, both to fix the attention of the 
 careless crowd and to express the tenderness which 
 would not be hidden, he healed disease ; for health is 
 at once the most fundamental of physical blessings 
 and the most universally valued, while it can in no 
 way pauperize or debauch the receiver. In the physi- 
 cal domain, therefore, his great gift of healing fully 
 justified the wisdom of his love. 
 
 But he constantly aims deeper. He warns the newly 
 healed that sin is worse than sickness. Teaching and 
 example alike point to the spiritual as the true seat of 
 
60 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 man's welfare; and from the announcement of the 
 angel at Bethlehem to the acceptance of the penitent 
 thief, the purpose of his life still appears, — to save 
 men's souls. Nor is this a limited or contingent love. 
 In his own parable the shepherd goes after the lost 
 sheep " till he find it ; " and all Christ's words and 
 acts furnish not one suggestion of loss or shame be- 
 yond his seeking. His healing is not for the worthy- 
 alone ; his pity is not for the penitent alone. Even to 
 Jerusalem, that would not hear, is pointed out a far-off 
 future when they shall call him blessed. The love of 
 Jesus for men, immediately helpful and practical, was 
 also universal, wise, and everlasting. 
 
 V. The Meaning of Life. This teaching finds ex- 
 pression far more in the conduct of Christ's life than 
 in his precepts, although it is not wanting in the latter. 
 He has no quarrel with the world. Keenly alive to 
 all the misery and sin of man's estate, which were far 
 more pronounced elements of society then than now, 
 he nevertheless moves amid them with a serene spirit. 
 He offers himself to men as their Teacher, their Ex- 
 ample, their Saviour, but he is calm and assured in the 
 face of those evils which goad so many in our time to 
 fury or despair. He counsels no violent revolution, 
 but is always hopeful and assuring. And the key to 
 all this lies in the conception of present spiritual life 
 which we have studied in connection with man's 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 6 1 
 
 immortality. He does not conceive himself to have 
 made an incursion into the physical realm, like a con- 
 queror adding a new province to his kingdom. He 
 recognizes that human life is one, however it may be 
 composed of contrasting elements ; and in proclaiming 
 the supremacy of the spirit he does but set in their 
 true relations those elements which had misadapted 
 themselves and made confusion. Whatever is human, 
 or has to do with man's existence, has in his view its 
 place and work; and the spiritual is not only ultimately 
 to rule the natural, but it is to reach that position by 
 means of those very teachings which the natural con- 
 veys to it. 
 
 This thought of Christ as it stands in the Gospels is 
 far more consonant with the mind of our day than with 
 that of any intervening age. For the slight compari- 
 sons of his work to a warfare have caught the attention 
 of warlike ages, and quite eclipsed in the teachings of 
 the Church those copious comparisons which Jesus 
 made of his work to the process of growth. At last, 
 however, we have passed the ages of war, and our time 
 is far more truly represented by the school than the 
 camp. The pen is not only mightier than the sword, 
 but more esteemed. Therefore, the mind of Christen- 
 dom goes back to the thought of Christ, and easily 
 understands him when he likens the relations of life's 
 elements to those of the soil and the seed. In such a 
 
62 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 view the dualism which has haunted the thinking of 
 men from Zoroaster to our day, setting good against 
 evil, and flesh against spirit, as the antagonists in a 
 doubtful struggle, is quite swept away. Man is a 
 spirit, and by the Father of spirits he is placed 
 among earthly conditions as the seed is placed in the 
 soil. Whatever touches him at any point has food or 
 quickening for his spiritual life, and the aggregate of 
 existing circumstances is God's choice of means for 
 bringing man to Himself. The birds of the air and 
 the harvests of the field, Caesar's penny and the house- 
 wife's broom, are messengers of God, and come to 
 man with no other purpose and no other result than 
 to foster in its growth the image of God within him. 
 
 This is no condemnation of the physical life ; on 
 the contrary, all experience proves that just so far as 
 the material part of man is dominated by the spiritual, 
 the former becomes more beautiful, strong, and satisfy- 
 ing : so that Christ's understanding of life is the reverse 
 of the ascetic, and by the mutual ennobling of body 
 and spirit a harmonious development of the whole man 
 and all his life is effected, in which no part is base, 
 while that which is divine and deathless bears its fitting 
 sway. 
 
 While Jesus lived he seemed to concentrate in him- 
 self all that was divine among men. But as soon as 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 63 
 
 he had disappeared the history of the people of God 
 resumed its course. And yet so profound had been 
 the impression of his personality, so supreme his 
 grasp of what was permanent in the world's previous 
 attainments, and so immeasurable the additions which 
 he made, that the figure was none too bold when the 
 apostle called him the second Adam. With him the 
 human race began anew. The men of the first ages 
 felt this keenly, and gave him all their heart and mind. 
 But in our day, looking back across all the Christian 
 history, we can far more clearly see the force of the 
 comparison. For while his revisions of, and his addi- 
 tions to, former things came upon the world as the 
 visible beginning of a new era, we can now see how 
 truly they were represented by those parables which 
 tell of the leaven or the seed. God's gift to the world 
 in Christ was germinal. The experience of every age 
 has given new impulse to its development, and the ever- 
 recurring crises of weakness or need in the Church 
 have still found some new and adequate supply evolved 
 from the continuing work of Christ among men — 
 something never before experienced because never 
 before needed. 
 
 No man can thoughtfully study the history of the 
 gospel without discovering before his eyes a great 
 spiritual organism, instinct with life and growth. And 
 none can search for the causes of renewal, as the 
 
64 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 Church has again and again experienced it, without 
 seeing that in every case a return to Christ was the 
 source of better things. It is, therefore, to no dead 
 or absent Lord that the Christian looks back. He is 
 authorized to take in very literalness the parting words 
 of Jesus, " Because I live ye shall live also ; " believ- 
 ing that the visible fortunes of men are with each gen- 
 eration more and more potently governed through the 
 power of the spirit by that second Adam, who is 
 to-day, as he was in Judea, "both Christ and Lord." 
 
 We must now resume our survey of the history of 
 God's people. And presently followed a strange phe- 
 nomenon. The treasure which the chosen people had 
 slowly accumulated, and which had been completed by 
 Jesus, being enucleated from its husks of Jewish race 
 and ritual, was forthwith more precious to gentile than 
 to Jew. It formed instant alliance with the best re- 
 sults of Grecian culture and Roman energy, and, 
 spreading beyond all limit of land or race, constituted 
 and marked off the new people of God for all the 
 future. 
 
 Of course the process presently began by which 
 elaborate systems of visible order and of philosophic 
 thought usurp the distinction of spiritual life. But 
 amid whatever vagaries, ecclesiastical or theological, 
 the first centuries demonstrated what all since have 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 65 
 
 proved, that the spirit of God ceases not to work 
 among men, and the people of God are of every 
 kindred, nation, and family of the earth. It was in- 
 evitable that the Roman spirit of authority and estab- 
 lished order which had so wonderfully shaped the 
 political world should assert itself in the Church ; and 
 this, in fact, became the conspicuous feature of Chris- 
 tendom till the German invasions had produced their 
 fruit. Into every relation of life, political, social, do- 
 mestic, and equally into the religious, these breezes 
 from the north brought the vigor of self-reliance and 
 personal assertion. The struggle with authority was 
 long and fluctuating, but gradually there returned 
 something of the ancient Greek sense of individual 
 importance and liberty, and the renaissance broadened 
 into the light of the modern world. 
 
 Of the varying fortunes of the Church through this 
 long struggle nothing need here be said; but to the 
 people of God, scattered through all lands and 
 churches, the new light of modern individualism has 
 brought only help and an Open way. The vast multi- 
 plication of sects and creeds has enabled quiet souls 
 to find the blessings of association and mutual help 
 with the least compromise of their intellectual tenden- 
 cies. To be sure, strife and bitterness have vexed 
 those to whom religion means form and creed ; but 
 side by side with all this has steadily grown, with the 
 
66 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 broadening of modern thought, the disposition to em- 
 phasize less the wrappings and media, more the inner 
 life. And now in our own day, the Gospel having 
 been carried by missions to men of other races and 
 other faiths, the inadequacy of much that had seemed 
 sufficient to Western minds is sharply demonstrated. 
 The word comes back from the East that subtile dis- 
 tinctions and cruel dogmas and cumbrous forms must 
 be stripped away if minds so unlike ours are to re- 
 ceive the Gospel ; and that when these are stripped 
 off, the essential revelation of Christ exhibits all its 
 ancient power to reach and win the hearts and lives of 
 every race. 
 
 Such, then, in mere outline has been the history of 
 the people of God. Their career is closely analogous 
 to that evolution of revelation which we have seen to 
 run through the Bible ; as, indeed, for reasons already 
 suggested, must be the case. Beginning with a single 
 race definitely and strongly announced as chosen by 
 God, the history runs on with constant misapprehen- 
 sion of their calling and constant divine discipline, 
 under which a succession of clear-sighted men receive 
 and transmit what their associates only vaguely under- 
 stand, — a people within a people. This stream of 
 ancient impulse runs broadening through the history 
 of mankind, receiving successive affluents from Gre- 
 
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS. 67 
 
 cian, Roman, German, and Oriental sources, and de- 
 veloping its latent power and excellence into ever 
 greater activity. The growing and spreading people 
 of God, sometimes hidden from sight amid earthly- 
 wrappings, sometimes stripped to plain view for its 
 mighty struggles, becomes from generation to genera- 
 tion more numerous, stronger, and more consciously 
 possessed of its imperishable divine treasure, — the 
 salt of the earth, the leaven which is to work till all 
 the lump is leavened. 
 
68 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 V. 
 
 TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 WE have now to return to the study of the teach- 
 ings of the Bible, aided to find their real 
 meaning by constant reference to the experience of 
 this chosen people, who have produced them, pre- 
 served them, and by them are to grow till they fill 
 the earth. 
 
 The Bible everywhere addresses itself to the current 
 life of men. There are indeed parts, as some of the 
 prophets and the Revelation, which seem mystical and 
 remote from familiar things ; but it is always found 
 that this character belongs to the manner of expression 
 and the illustrative imagery used, while the subject- 
 r matter of the writer's thought is still some part of 
 current life. 
 
 The range of the Bible in time is so vast that all 
 forms of social order are touched, from the half-savage 
 nomads of the Arabian desert to the inhabitants of 
 voluptuous Corinth. And every social grade and all 
 degrees of personal excellence find their place. It is 
 
TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE. 69 
 
 with the whole of life, too, that the Bible deals. All 
 the elements of human existence are portrayed with 
 sublime impartiality : success and pleasure have their 
 full attention ; sorrow, defeat, the bitterness of death, 
 are in no wise overlooked ; the highest virtue and the 
 foulest sin, shame, injustice, cruelty, whatever is found 
 part of human experience as man's history rolls on 
 — all are set forth and handled in the Bible as com- 
 ponent parts of its subject-matter. It has been diffi- 
 cult to teach men this view. At various stages of 
 their history the people of God have tried to set apart 
 some section of human life as particularly the object 
 of divine regard and the field of religion. 
 
 It was natural that the Jews should find in the 
 peculiar order of life prescribed by their law a readier 
 approach to virtue and a closer intercourse with God. 
 But so far were they from being right, that a large part 
 of the work attempted by reformers and prophets was 
 to break the bonds of formalism and lift the hearts of 
 the people to heights which the Law could not reach. 
 And Israel only prospered as the spirit was stronger 
 than the letter. The ascetics and recluses of the early 
 and the mediaeval Church aimed at the same thing, 
 seeking an ordering of human life which should omit 
 its undesirable elements. But the result was disastrous 
 both to the personal character of the votaries and to 
 the social state of the world around them. Indeed, 
 
70 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 the great condemnation of all such attempts has been 
 that to the extent of their influence they arrest that 
 social development through which alone the world 
 improves. In every case the inevitable reaction which 
 summoned all men back to the whole of life, gave new 
 impulse to this development and set the race forward. 
 And all this is equally true of that conception of re- 
 ligious living common among modern sects, which 
 constructs from certain elements of daily life an or- 
 der of living for the godly which is distinguishable at 
 sight. 
 
 A candid reading of the Bible finds nothing of this. 
 It is life, and the whole of life, which forms the field 
 of its activity. Every experience of every man has 
 some relation to the things of God. Every detail of 
 human history holds a place in the divine plan. All 
 the utterances of God to men are delivered in terms 
 of familiar things ; and if any of the things of God 
 beyond man's reach, whether past or future, are sug- 
 gested, they are only so far unfolded as man may un- 
 derstand them by some connection with the things he 
 knows. It follows that in the view which the Bible 
 teaches, the world as men find it offers the possibilities 
 and the means for the highest attainments in virtue, 
 usefulness, and happiness ; and if in any crisis the 
 means for these seem wanting, they are to be sought, 
 not by escape from the life that now is, but by discov- 
 
TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE. 71 
 
 ering within its range some neglected opportunity or 
 help. Now, this very thing, to bring to light the ne- 
 glected resources which God has made ready for men, 
 is the scope and object of the Bible. And the key to 
 the whole process is the knowledge of God. 
 
72 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 
 
 THE writers of the Bible do not attempt to prove 
 the existence of God, nor to define his nature, 
 nor to catalogue his attributes. They display in them- 
 selves and assume in the reader a previous experience 
 of life which has established the conviction of an 
 over-ruling Intelligence and a desire to deal with him. 
 And to this conviction and desire they address them- 
 selves. 
 
 The conception is frankly anthropomorphic ; run- 
 ning through all degrees as the revelation develops, 
 from the savagery of the wilderness, where Jehovah 
 is a rival of the Egyptian calf, to the " Father " of 
 Jesus. Since none by searching can find out God, and 
 since man is made in his image, it seems to the writers 
 of the Bible, as it has seemed to devout men of all 
 ages, that our one hope of apprehending God is to 
 study him in his likeness. And this ancient habit of 
 the human mind finds its full sanction in the fact that 
 when God consummated the revelation of himself he 
 was displayed in the perfect manhood of Jesus. The 
 Grecian mind was far too subtile to be content with 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 73 
 
 this simple faith of the Hebrews. As soon as the 
 Gospel in its earliest diffusion had impressed itself 
 upon the gentiles, their philosophers began to elab- 
 orate a divine ontology. The thinkers of the Church 
 have toiled at the same task to this day ; and ecclesi- 
 astical authorities of almost every name have made 
 their own views of the being of God a principal part 
 of the required faith necessary whether for present 
 fellowship or for eternal salvation. But it is to be 
 noted that the advancing scholarship of our day finds 
 less and less authority in the Bible for these positive 
 dogmas ; and that the history of Christendom shows 
 no constant relation between any theories of the God- 
 head and that sweet, Christlike spirit which alone is 
 evidence of harmony with God. 
 
 Indeed, in all the sad history of ecclesiasticism 
 there has been no cause so fruitful as these theories, 
 of envy, malice, and all uncharitableness. And there 
 is no surer mark of the true progress of our age than 
 the fact that, by virtue of experience rather than of 
 argument, the Church is growing less insistent of 
 these views, and rests more and more in the knowl- 
 edge of God as displayed in the Man of Nazareth. 
 
 The fundamental thought of the Bible when God is 
 named is power. He is declared almighty, not so 
 much by the frequent repetition of the word as by the 
 
74 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 habitual reference of every thing or event to him as 
 its cause. And this is true alike of material and of 
 spiritual things, of small and great. He suffers the 
 sparrow to fall ; he holds the stars in their courses ; he 
 hardens Pharaoh's heart; he is the Saviour of the 
 world. And this divine power is conceived according 
 to the consciousness of power which men have in 
 themselves. At first it is enough for a rude age that 
 God controls with physical compulsion the course of 
 material things ; but so soon as some insight is devel- 
 oped the power of God is perceived to lie, like the 
 true power of man, in dominating will : He speaks 
 and it is done ; he commands and it stands fast. Nor 
 has any advance of human thought been able to better 
 this Hebrew conception. More and more the prog- 
 ress of knowledge shows all the power of man, physi- 
 cal as well as moral, to be the exercise of will ; and 
 more and more the advance of natural science finds 
 all force pointing back to some great centre, from 
 which it comes forth intelligent and harmonized to 
 conduct an ordered world. 
 
 And here the biblical doctrine rests. What may be 
 the connecting processes between the divine will and 
 the effect, no writer of the Bible cares to discuss. But 
 of course the ingenuity of Christian thinkers has not 
 been content with this, and has busied itself with sec- 
 ond causes. The most important outcome of these 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 75 
 
 speculations concerns the human will in its relations 
 to the will of God, and the course of nature as dis- 
 covered by physical science. The former theme will 
 be better treated when we come to study the nature of 
 man. The latter has its place here. 
 
 For the history of Christendom presents a long 
 series of attempts on the part of ecclesiastics to limit 
 the researches and suppress the results of physical 
 science, as being contrary to revealed truth. The 
 effort has always proceeded on the assumption that 
 there is a Biblical doctrine of the methods by which 
 God works his will. Whereas the opposite is true. As 
 if to leave room for human discovery, the divine censor- 
 ship would seem to have excluded all mention of that 
 which may lie between God's command and the event. 
 " He maketh his sun to rise," but whether after the 
 theory of Ptolemy or Galileo concerns not Jesus. 
 
 This tendency to add to revelation has plagued every 
 age of the Church, and still survives. But in every 
 attempt to limit the establishment of natural truth the 
 Church has suffered defeat, from Roger Bacon to 
 Darwin. And to-day, as always, the soul truly in har- 
 mony with God finds the Biblical conception enough 
 for religious faith : the divine will gives the initial im- 
 pulse ; and through all the processes of nature, be they 
 few or many, that power works unspent till the result 
 appears. 
 
76 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 The Biblical view, however, is full and clear upon 
 one point which students of the physical world are apt 
 to contest. Omnipotence is meant for no figurative 
 or approximate term. Any intrinsic power of second 
 causes, by which a process of nature once set going 
 could for an instant propagate itself if the divine atten- 
 tion were withdrawn, is absolutely excluded. What- 
 ever the means or processes, they are but channels 
 which divine volition makes for itself. And this con- 
 ception begins now to be suggested by the latest 
 studies of science. Working only in her own domain, 
 and not yet sure of her discovery, she is guided by 
 many converging indications to postulate beyond all 
 phenomena one source of power, the Cause of causes. 
 Through this detour of so many generations she 
 catches at last a surmise of the view so plain to the 
 ancient mind : " Of him and through him and to him 
 are all things." 
 
 Inseparably allied with the Biblical conception of 
 divine power is that of wisdom. There is no exercise 
 of omnipotence but has its purpose and its method. 
 And the range of thought covered by " the wisdom of 
 God " is very wide. Not only does it include knowl- 
 edge and judgment, but contrivance, foresight, persist- 
 ency, every intellectual process by which power may 
 better reach its aims. Indeed, these faculties are con- 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 77 
 
 ceived as developed so far beyond their possibilities in 
 man, that they become themselves expressions of the 
 divine omnipotence, and the ideas of power and wis- 
 dom are inextricably blended. 
 
 Both Jews and Christians have been much accus- 
 tomed to think of the omnipotent wisdom as acting in 
 a sporadic and makeshift way, devising new expedients 
 for new difficulties. But while the older writers of 
 the Bible have something of this, even they correct 
 themselves by a broader view, which comes afterwards 
 to dominate and then to exclude the other. However 
 vivid may be the writer's sense of help wisely fitted to a 
 present need, he is always conscious that this is part of 
 a divine scheme having extension into the past and the 
 future, and as broad as his own horizon may happen to 
 be, — a family, the Jewish nation, the world of Western 
 Asia, the race of man. The New Testament writers, 
 taught by Jesus, have cast away all limitation, and are 
 consciously participating in the eternal purpose with 
 which God made the world and to which he holds the 
 world's progression, the final holiness of all mankind. 
 This is for Jesus, and all who have learned of him, the 
 starting-point and cause, the method, the goal of all 
 that God's almighty wisdom has planned touching 
 man. 
 
 This conception of divine purpose, whether widely 
 or narrowly understood, of course implies a divine 
 
78 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 superintendence of every moment and every act in 
 human life. The divine hand is never for an instant 
 withdrawn, and escape from it is impossible. " Thou 
 hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand 
 upon me." And the experience day by day of this 
 power not ourselves, which mingles with all our activity 
 and helps or hinders all our plans, supersedes far the 
 biblical writers and far excels any formal attempt to 
 prove the existence of God. 
 
 How this conception escapes the paralysis of fatal- 
 ism we shall see when we study the will of man. It is 
 enough here to say that in the thought of the Bible it 
 makes no approach to fatalism, and indeed is quite 
 the opposite ; all the biblical writers implying in one 
 way or another something of that meaning which Paul 
 puts into his daring paradox : " Work out your own 
 salvation. . . . for it is God that worketh in you both 
 to will and to do." Fatalism is excluded, too, by the 
 incessant strain pervading the entire volume, which 
 insists upon the moral government of God. For no 
 moral government is possible over those who have no 
 freedom of will. And this brings us to the scriptural 
 view of the justice of God. 
 
 Justice has many phases of meaning, all easily re- 
 ducible to two, — character and function. And when 
 functional justice is fully analyzed, it ultimately rests 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 79 
 
 on character, whether of the legislator, the judge, or 
 the executive. Therefore the root of all justice lies 
 in character ; and while the scriptural writers do not 
 philosophize about the matter, they have at heart pre- 
 cisely this conception when they speak of the justice 
 of God. He is just intrinsically and before we come 
 to consider his administration : " Justice and judgment 
 are the habitation of his throne." And there is special 
 anxiety to make it plain that all his government of men 
 is based on this intrinsic justice of character. All 
 human experience shows that high station and great 
 power too often lead men to disregard the rights of 
 the weak and the humble. But every biblical writer 
 insists that He whose station and power admit no 
 comparison, is sedulous to vindicate the poor and 
 needy, solicitous, as the just always are, that His own 
 superiority shall not harm the feeblest. 
 
 Out of such justice proceeds the entire system of 
 moral government under which the Bible represents 
 men as living. And if we regard the ultimate motive 
 from which all the divine treatment of man proceeds, 
 namely, that man may attain harmony with God, it 
 appears that the whole aim of this government is to 
 cultivate in man that justice of character which is of 
 the divine essence. 
 
 The speculations of theologians have too often fol- 
 lowed a different clew. Filled with the thought of the 
 
80 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 divine majesty, taught by the jealousy with which 
 human kings assert their dignity, they have imagined 
 the purpose of God in governing men to lie in some 
 display of his own greatness, and the first demand of 
 his justice to be servile submission to arbitrary com- 
 mands. Whatever color of warrant for this is found 
 in the Bible, consists merely of illustrative imagery 
 borrowed from the habits of the writer's time, while 
 beneath is always suggested the even-handed justice 
 which the Deity as rigorously performs as exacts. 
 God takes no offence when one of his earliest servants 
 puts to him the challenge, " Shall not the Judge of all 
 the earth do right ? " 
 
 It is amply proved that servile submission by no 
 means trains men in the virtue of intrinsic justice ; 
 and the whole scene is ennobled when we find a 
 prophet who had prostrated himself before the divine 
 majesty, bidden, " Stand on thy feet, son of man, and 
 I will speak with thee." All conceptions of the divine 
 government, therefore, which propose any other end 
 for it than to make men just, are alike unreasonable 
 and unscriptural. And there is hardly another fact in 
 the progress of the people of God which more strikingly 
 shows how necessary human experience is as the inter- 
 preter of divine revelation, than the broadening appre- 
 hension of God's government as intrinsically just, 
 which has accompanied increasing justice in the so- 
 cial institutions of men. 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 81 
 
 The first requirement of administrative justice is a 
 j law, itself intrinsically just and rigorously observed by 
 judge and executive. Under the divine government 
 this law is made known to man through three channels, 
 but the law is one. We have to study this single law 
 and to observe its perfect identity, in the experience of 
 man, in the conscience, and in the Bible. 
 
 It cannot be said that the physical world, the seat 
 of man's most obvious experience, either has a moral 
 character, or imposes on man a moral law ; but it cer- 
 tainly impresses on the mind two things which prepare 
 the way for moral government. These two things are 
 a right conception of the nature of law, and a demon- 
 stration that a reign of law is beneficial to the gov- 
 erned. Physical law is found to be inexorable. It 
 has no favorites, and takes no bribes. All life must 
 adjust itself to this law or perish ; and the idea of 
 trifling with it or evading it grows weaker with every 
 advance of knowledge. But more : since there are 
 many laws of nature, and all inexorable, it follows that 
 all must be combined in a certain harmony for certain 
 ends ; and so the conception of law loses its arbitrary 
 character in proportion as it becomes more inflexible. 
 Out of this grows the impression of beneficence ; for 
 the general outcome of nature's processes being abun- 
 dance and success, and all being achieved under this 
 complex of harmonizing laws which are inflexible, it is 
 
82 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 obvious that the resulting success is conditioned upon 
 the inviolability of each law, so that any occasional 
 relaxation of the law would produce a corresponding 
 failure of result. 
 
 When we turn to the course of human events, a 
 moral law at once appears. Moralists of all ages and 
 every grade of culture have agreed that the life of 
 man is under certain obligations, to obey which brings 
 the best results of living, while to disregard them 
 makes life a failure. Doubtless when the moral laws 
 thus ascertained are formulated, they will appear of 
 the most rudimentary character ; but they have never- 
 theless the true moral quality, and are by no means 
 mere counsels of prudence. 
 
 The second channel of moral law is the conscience. 
 Conscience is not a simple faculty of the mind, but 
 consists of the combined activity of the judgment and 
 the moral sense. The judgment when acting in con- 
 science is not different from its usual state. It surveys 
 the facts present to the mind, and determines their 
 several characters and their relations. The moral sense 
 is a primary faculty, and as such cannot be resolved 
 into any simpler terms. We know it only because we 
 are conscious of its action within us. Its function is 
 to select from among all the volitions or preferences 
 known to be possible at a given time, certain ones 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 83 
 
 which it approves ; and in the case of volitions it im- 
 peratively commands these to be made. Its word is 
 " ought," and its unique characteristic is its imperative- 
 ness. We are conscious that this differs from all other 
 motives which affect the will. No calculation of ad- 
 vantage, no force of habit, no expectation of pleas- 
 ure, however surely they may sway our determinations, 
 are ever felt to lay upon us such an imperative as does 
 the moral sense. Nor is this felt as an outward force. 
 It is not aroused, nor even simulated, by any urgency 
 of external compulsion. The mandate of the moral 
 sense is felt to arise from some quality of our sur- 
 roundings, indeed, but only because something which 
 is in us and of us makes these surroundings the 
 occasion of its imperative command. 
 
 Now, it must be clearly understood how these two 
 factors, the judgment and the moral sense, work to- 
 gether as conscience. Alone, neither of them suffices. 
 It is notorious that men may formulate the most exact 
 theories of moral relations, while they show by their 
 conduct that nothing within compels them to live by 
 these theories. And, on the other hand, the moral 
 sense, acting without judgment, has filled human his- 
 tory with a sad and terrible record of fanaticism 
 and superstition. The latter can no more be called 
 conscience than the former. 
 
 The function of conscience is truly performed then, 
 
84 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 and then only, when, the judgment having carefully 
 weighed the group of things or possibilities in question, 
 having determined their characters and relations and 
 set them plainly before the mind, the moral sense 
 seizes upon certain of these presentations and issues 
 its command. If it be objected that this supposes a 
 slow deliberation, while it is notorious that the best 
 dictates of conscience are often rendered instantly 
 upon some contingency, it may be answered that these 
 instantaneous decisions rest upon some habitual and 
 familiar determination of the judgment, which the mind 
 instantly sees to be applicable to the new case ; and it 
 is of the nature of the moral sense to pronounce at 
 sight unless the judgment calls for delay. Conscience, 
 then, as an expression of moral law, can only be the 
 consenting action of judgment and the moral sense, 
 the latter enforcing as imperative what the former has 
 decided to be just. 
 
 But this double process has no power to originate 
 law. The decision rests upon the data of experience, 
 whether one's own or another's ; and it is only in 
 proportion as experience has exercised and educated 
 it that conscience pronounces with clearness and ac- 
 curacy. Whatever, therefore, the conscience decides 
 to be law, must be already given in the facts of ex- 
 perience. For this reason the Author of our experi- 
 ence is the Fountain of all moral law, — the \aw-givcr; 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 85 
 
 while the conscience is the capacity in man to which 
 God addresses himself, — the \&vf-receiver. We must 
 next study the action of this receptive faculty. 
 
 The action of the individual conscience on a unique 
 case is notoriously uncertain. But every man's expe- 
 rience offers innumerable repetitions of similar cases, 
 so that certain canons of moral decision become es- 
 tablished in each person. Still, the best results of an 
 isolated experience are necessarily poor until they are 
 collated with analogous decisions of others. So simi- 
 lar, however, are the experiences of men, that there 
 grows up a public sentiment in each group of persons, 
 which holds to general rules in all important moral 
 judgments. These groups, however, are warped and 
 narrowed by their peculiar circumstances, and their 
 decisions receive correction as they come to be com- 
 pared with those of other groups. Further compari- 
 sons grow out of the succession of generations, so 
 that mankind has come at last to possess moral stan- 
 dards generalized from the broadest possible data ; 
 and all these data have been constituent parts of ac- 
 tual human life. Whatever authoritative moral qual- 
 ity, therefore, is in the final conclusions, must have 
 inhered in that course of things which constitutes the 
 experience of man. 
 
 Of course such results can consist only of the most 
 
86 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 elementary principles, but they are such as lie at the 
 bottom of all experience. Of course, too, the indi- 
 vidual conscience continues to make its own applica- 
 tions of the accepted laws, and even practically to 
 annul them under the pressure of preconception or 
 interest. Still, it remains true that a basis of morals 
 can be formulated which all men profess to respect, 
 and which grows in authority with the progress of the 
 race. 
 
 This basis may be outlined under three heads, 
 — congenital obligations, ownership, and veracity. 
 a. Men are born to certain rights and duties. The 
 child owes reverence to the parent and a personal 
 preference to brothers and sisters ; while he has a 
 correlative claim upon the parents for support and 
 care. Men also owe loyalty to the human group into 
 which they are born ; but it cannot be said that a duty 
 of protection to the citizen correlative to his duty of 
 patriotism is universally recognized, b. All moralists 
 insist upon the obligation of snum cuique. While the 
 ideas of lawful acquisition are infinitely varied, there 
 is no dispute that a man must be allowed to keep 
 what he is recognized as having lawfully acquired. 
 Life, of course, is included as his chief possession. 
 c. The duty of veracity looks back and forward. 
 However men may disobey the law, they universally 
 recognize that falsehood, the misrepresentation of ex- 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 87 
 
 isting things, is presumptively base, and needs strong 
 reasons to justify it. And the sentiment is still more 
 pronounced against that want of veracity which fails 
 to make good what one has promised. The obliga- 
 tion of all contracts, pledges, trusts, and of all rela- 
 tions voluntarily assumed, falls under this head. 
 
 To this threefold basis of moral law must be added 
 the obligation of requital as the sanction of all. 
 Together with the first conception of moral obligation 
 invariably comes a conviction that he who obeys 
 should and will fare well, while he who disobeys 
 should and will suffer; and it is noticeable that in 
 the earliest stages the certainty of requital is even 
 more fixedly believed than its justice. This can 
 hardly be considered anything else than an intuition 
 of the moral sense re-enforced by experience of those 
 inexorable sanctions which wait upon the laws of 
 nature. But whatever its origin, the important fact 
 is that these fundamental moral laws are never de- 
 duced as speculative rules which it may be well for 
 men to follow, but as imperative conditions of conduct 
 which we disregard at our peril. 
 
 Far as all this falls short of a full moral code, it 
 forms a wide and solid basis of morals, and is the 
 hard-won result of numberless acts of conscience, com- 
 pared and mutually corrected and combined through 
 millenniums of human experience. It is often claimed 
 
88 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 that these laws are deductions from utility; and cer- 
 tainly they indicate the course of life which brings the 
 greatest benefit to men. But no record exists of any 
 people, however early or rude, who did not urge what- 
 ever they knew of these laws primarily under the 
 sanction of the moral sense, and only secondarily as 
 useful. And the fact that that which satisfies the 
 moral sense in the conduct of life is also the best road 
 to success, is evidence that the world has a moral con- 
 stitution ; that it is so constructed and administered as 
 to impress upon man his obligations to the law of 
 righteousness ; and that it therefore proclaims in all 
 its history the sovereignty of a just God. 
 
 The energy and authority of conscience differ most 
 widely in different men, both from various degrees of 
 natural endowment and from the development which 
 comes of use. And when it happens that a man un- 
 usually gifted with clearness and force of conscience 
 lives among circumstances peculiarly fitted to develop 
 these gifts, he gains the authority of an expert on 
 moral questions, and may become an accepted law- 
 giver. This is furthered by the fact that, as in all 
 fields, so peculiarly in the field of morals, men who 
 cannot themselves formulate judgments which wholly 
 satisfy themselves, yet feel qualified to accept or reject 
 the judgments pronounced by others, and may thus 
 submit to a moral code far higher than any they 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 89 
 
 could have framed. These reflections bring us to 
 the origin and the sanction of the moral code of the 
 Bible. 
 
 Among the people of God there have arisen a series 
 of men whose endowments qualified them, and whose 
 surroundings impelled them, to formulate and publish 
 moral judgments of the gravest character, which so 
 satisfied the aggregate consciences of their contempo- 
 raries as to be received for law and transmitted to the 
 next generation, with all the sanction of accepted 
 authority. When in another age other men of equal 
 eminence arose, who accepted the current laws as 
 valid, and based their own decisions upon them, new 
 force and wider extension were given to what had been 
 already approved ; and in this manner a body of law 
 grew up, professing the sanction of divine authority 
 and received upon this footing by the nation. This 
 divine sanction we must understand to have been first 
 claimed by the promulgators of the law as the expres- 
 sion of their absolute confidence in their own ethical 
 decisions, and to have been confirmed by the strong 
 assurance with which the people accepted and per- 
 petuated those decisions. And if we confine ourselves 
 to the visible experience of Israel, this is all the 
 account that can be given of the origin and sanction 
 of the moral law. 
 
 But, when we come to study this law historically, we 
 
90 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 do not find it a fluctuating series of ordinances ; but 
 amid much that was ephemeral, we find a body of 
 jurisprudence whose foundations were laid in the 
 earliest enactments, and which was built into an 
 orderly structure by many generations of moralists. 
 It was at no point necessary to annul any fundamental 
 principle, and the last result is visibly implied in the 
 original germ. So strikingly is this true, that the best 
 developed conscience of mankind at the present day 
 finds itself perfectly in harmony with the canon of 
 morals announced in the earliest pages of the Bible. 
 It is evident, therefore, that some co-ordinating Intelli- 
 gence must have run through all the ages, and have 
 guided the evolution from its germ, producing through 
 special men, acting under special conditions, the suc- 
 cessive parts of which the whole was formed. This 
 action of the divine wisdom is inspiration. It is to be 
 conceived as parallel with the divine control, by which 
 the total course of events is ordered. That God, the 
 supreme Intelligence, might bring the intelligence of 
 men into touch with himself upon this field, he pro- 
 duced special men, fitted by the very constitution of 
 their minds for the exceptional perception of moral 
 law, and subjected them to such circumstances as must 
 both exercise their conscience and impel them to utter 
 their decisions. How these divinely appointed decis- 
 ions were recognized among, and selected from, the 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. . 91 
 
 innumerable less important dicta of other men, has 
 already been pointed out. 
 
 Now, the divine law of morals thus revealed coin- 
 cides with the best deductions of men who knew not 
 the Bible, so far as the gentile law extends ; but the 
 revealed law carries us vastly farther. Let us note 
 both these phases of the comparison. 
 
 The three groups of moral laws which have been 
 named as growing out of the common experiences of 
 mankind, cover all the outward performances made 
 obligatory by our social relations. They are found in 
 all gentile codes of morals, and no less in the biblical ; 
 and while much of a higher quality is added to them 
 by the latter, yet so closely does the Bible hold to life, 
 that nothing is allowed to lessen the force of these 
 fundamental laws. 
 
 To these, two other laws, not universally recognized, 
 are added £>y the more advanced ethnic codes, — wor- 
 ship and self-restraint. Worship, it is true, is an 
 almost universal habit, but in far the greater number 
 of cases it is rather prudential than moral. Yet at a 
 certain elevation of mind man seems almost inevitably 
 to recognize his obligations to some higher power, and 
 to feel the duty of expressing them as urgently as he 
 feels his social duties. With the obligations of self- 
 restraint (chastity, temperance, forbearance, etc.), a 
 
92 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 new element enters. For these duties are not con- 
 ceived as things which another has a right to demand 
 of us, but as required by a certain abstract fitness, so 
 that it derogates from our moral dignity to neglect 
 them. 
 
 As to the duties of worship and self-restraint, the 
 Bible equals the most advanced ethnic codes ; indeed, 
 it in most particulars excels them. But it goes far 
 beyond all others in applying the sense of moral dig- 
 nity as a motive to all acts of duty, insisting that out- 
 ward performance, however perfect, has only utilitarian 
 value unless it is the expression of a desire for moral 
 excellence. And this conception, thrown back upon 
 the most rudimentary obligations, lifts them into a true 
 moral atmosphere and ennobles life. Of course this 
 conception is gradually evolved in the Bible ; and it 
 cannot be said that the utilitarian view of virtue is 
 wholly subordinated to that of a vital spiritual neces- 
 sity, until the New Testament is reached. And this 
 progression of thought, as we have seen, is of the 
 essence of biblical teaching. 
 
 But a higher degree remains. Duties separately 
 willed to be done stand each by itself, or at most 
 grow into a habit of the will, against which there may 
 rage an ever-renewed struggle within ; so that the per- 
 formance of duty is a running fight, the outcome of 
 which may at any moment be disastrous. Now, of all 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 93 
 
 moral systems, that of the Bible alone rises above 
 this; here alone is righteousness coupled with peace 
 and joy. And this highest conception is reached by 
 the final resolution of all law and motive into love. 
 Love to God and to man being attained, all morality 
 flows out of it as its necessary expression. This 
 could not be the case if moral law were arbitrary ; but 
 the whole order of things out of which the law grows 
 being ordained by God in pursuit of his eternal purpose 
 to harmonize man with himself, the soul which has 
 attained to universal love and is thus near to God, 
 wills spontaneously the things which he wills, and ful- 
 fils the law just as God ordained the law, — from 
 an inward vital necessity. Only the Bible reaches this 
 height. 
 
 It is through the unrelaxing administration of such 
 a law that the justice of God works upon men to 
 bring them into harmony with himself. The methods 
 and immediate results of this administration can be 
 understood only after we have considered, in their 
 proper place, the relations of man to God. 
 
 There remains one other element of the biblical con- 
 ception of God, — his goodness. 
 
 All parts of the Bible celebrate the goodness of 
 God, by which they mean his willingness to bestow 
 benefits. The contents of this conception of course 
 
94 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 vary with each writer's understanding of benefits and 
 of the number whom God favors. But whether it be 
 by giving the things men wish, or by promoting their 
 highest welfare, whether to a chosen family or to the 
 entire race, the view is clearly held that God loves to 
 bestow benefits far beyond the deserts of men. No 
 doctrine of revelation is more clearly expressed than 
 this from the very first ; and it may be said, (allowing 
 for the limitations which grow out of narrow minds,) 
 that no doctrine has taken such hold of the people of 
 God from the beginning to this day. Every Christian 
 system which has logically involved a denial of the 
 divine goodness, has embodied some device, however 
 illogical, by which this undying belief might assert 
 itself. It is not strange, therefore, that the new re- 
 searches into the meaning of Scripture which the en- 
 lightenment of our time is conducting, are making it 
 more and more clear that the one fundamental thought 
 on which the whole Bible is built is that God 
 purposes unlimited blessing to all men. His power 
 and wisdom come to our knowledge only as engaged 
 in furthering this purpose, and his justice is displayed 
 to us as that quality which will not permit us to work 
 our own ruin. 
 
 But all this carries with it an official tone ; and to 
 our deepest sentiment it seems to need for its perfec- 
 tion something more, which, happily, runs with in- 
 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 95 
 
 creasing clearness through the successive Scriptures, 
 till it culminates in Jesus. This is the personal sym- 
 pathy of God with each man. Besides the priceless 
 blessings of an ordered world and a wise discipline, 
 there is given to every soul the tender intimacy of 
 divine affection, which is expressed in the revelation 
 of the divine fatherhood. This, indeed, is the su- 
 preme revelation. The world does not teach it ; no 
 searching of human wisdom has attained to it. The 
 Bible alone teaches man that be he who he may, if 
 he eliminate the universe from his thought and draw 
 near to God in his naked personality, he will find 
 himself known and loved — nay, will find that the 
 divine love has chosen him from the first and pursued 
 him in all his wanderings. 
 
 It is hardly correct, therefore, to speak of the divine 
 goodness as an element of the biblical conception of 
 God. It is the essence of that conception, to which 
 power, wisdom, and justice are attributes. "God is 
 love." So that this final consideration sums up and 
 blends into one all that has been said of the character 
 of God as presented in the Bible. 
 
96 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE NATURE OF MAN. 
 
 WE turn now to the biblical presentation of man. 
 It is very far from that of a scholastic recluse, 
 and grows out of the close relation of the Bible to 
 daily life. Man is presented as busy with common 
 interests. He and the world are made for each other, 
 and physical things and the course of events suit him 
 and further his interests if he wisely uses them. It is 
 good for him to be here, and long life is a blessing. 
 The ways of wisdom, by which the right conduct of 
 life is meant, are ways of pleasantness and peace. It 
 is the result of this view, and not of any theorizing, 
 that man is represented as the head of the creation, 
 the ruler of the world. "Thou hast put all things 
 under his feet." This thought is not incidental, but 
 lies at the foundation. The very earliest mention of 
 man announces him as made in the image of God. 
 
 The exact conception which belongs to this phrase 
 in that early time may not be easily reproduced, but 
 it can hardly mean any visible resemblance, because 
 the same book contains the most strenuous injunc- 
 tions against attributing form to God. Probably the 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN. 97 
 
 meaning was originally vague. The men of that day 
 had observed that man rules the world by other than 
 physical powers ; that he produces results by the 
 exercise of forces of which each is conscious within 
 himself, but which are outwardly discernible only 
 through remote effects. To the believer in an in- 
 visible God, this observation couples man with God 
 at man's highest point, makes the divine alliance far 
 more important than the connection of his physical 
 being with the material world. God and man, there- 
 fore, constitute a class far removed from all other 
 objects known to man — the class which makes and 
 rules. And since God was conceived as superior and 
 antecedent to man, the conclusion was easy that man 
 was made in the image of God. 
 
 This profound though vague thought goes on broad- 
 ening and growing clearer through the Bible, until it 
 culminates in the revelation by Jesus that God is our 
 Father. This reached, we no longer see man made 
 in God's image, an arbitrary copy, but man born of 
 God, and so showing by the very constitution of his 
 being and by its origin, the nature of his divine 
 Parent. This relationship to God, and the duty of 
 allegiance which it implies, are made the sanction of 
 the commands and appeals of the Bible ; and the 
 development of the possibilities which it implies in us 
 is held up as our highest prize. 
 
98 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 If the question be raised how far this can go and 
 to what man may hope to attain, the biblical writers 
 have not much to say in answer; their words are 
 more of the race than the goal. Indeed, it is con- 
 fessed that they do not see the end: "Eye hath not 
 seen . . . the things which God hath prepared foi 
 them which love him." " It doth not yet appear 
 what we shall be, but ... we shall be like him." 
 Upon this point, however, as upon so many others, 
 a revelation is made in the person of Christ, which is 
 nowhere given in formal words. He is the head and 
 type of the race, and we therefore see in him what it 
 is to be the child of God. 
 
 It is instructive to notice that no expression is 
 used to signify his relation to God which is not also 
 applied to men in general, the difference being that 
 the common terms are specialized for him by a signifi- 
 cant emphasis. If Christ is the express image of the 
 divine person, we too are made in the image of God. 
 If he is the Son of God, we too are sons of God. If 
 he declares that he and his Father are one, he also 
 prays that we may be taken into the same unity, and 
 even in the same manner : " As thou, Father, art in 
 me and I in thee, that they also may be made one in 
 us." And if to have seen Jesus is to have seen the 
 Father, even so the application of this title to God 
 declares that the highest social attitude of man sets 
 before our eyes the attitude of God. 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN 99 
 
 It is plain, therefore, that in the meaning of the 
 Bible no line can be drawn which separates the human 
 from the divine. We begin with the consciousness of 
 great possibilities amid our imperfect lives ; we see 
 these developed in nobler and nobler examples by the 
 best of men ; we witness in Christ the perfection of 
 excellence which never loses its familiar characteristics 
 while it rises and sweeps on, human to the last glimpse, 
 till it transcends our vision and blends with God, — 
 " I and my Father are one." 
 
 Another intrinsic characteristic of man which the 
 Bible announces is his Immortality. This topic has al- 
 ready engaged us as a part of the new revelation made 
 by Jesus. But the great importance of the subject as 
 belonging to the biblical view of man, the further 
 light which this relation throws upon it, and the con- 
 firmatory evidence which grows out of its prompt, 
 enthusiastic, and enduring acceptance, may well excuse 
 a second handling of the theme, even though this 
 involve some repetition. 
 
 So intent are the biblical writers upon present 
 things, that this look towards the future is late to ap- 
 pear ; and only with the resurrection of Jesus is the 
 immortality of man made plain. After that, and imme- 
 diately after, it became the steadfast conviction of all 
 Christians, to which the Church has clung through all 
 her fortunes and all her follies. Indeed, so powerfully 
 
ioo THE PURPOSE OF GOD 
 
 did this conviction root itself among Christian beliefs, 
 that when the world was sunk in ignorance, and the 
 only ruling forces were the strong hand and priestcraft, 
 the whole social fabric was dominated, and the most 
 powerful sovereigns were coerced, by hope or fear of 
 the future life. The suddenness and strength with 
 which the belief in immortality became a factor of 
 human life, is one of the wonders of history. Nothing 
 is known which can account for it, except the facts 
 recorded in the New Testament. We there find the 
 death and resurrection of Jesus immediately followed 
 by a new boldness and constancy in his disciples, and 
 we find them uniformly dwelling upon his resurrec- 
 tion as a fundamental part of what they have to teach. 
 It is presented as an essential of Christian faith : " If 
 Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain." 
 
 And yet it is remarkable that there are in the New 
 Testament no disquisitions upon immortality, and very 
 little is said about the future life. No attempt is made 
 to argue from the resurrection of Jesus to that of other 
 men ; but it is quietly assumed that the latter is estab- 
 lished by the former. Now, as the Bible contains 
 several other narratives of the resuscitation of dead 
 persons, and as no importance is attributed to them 
 except for those immediately concerned, it becomes an 
 interesting question why the revival of Jesus was so 
 deeply important. 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN IOI 
 
 Let us clearly understand that the question is why, 
 and not whether ; for though we could find no reason, 
 the fact of history would remain ; namely, that the 
 most powerful influence introduced among men since 
 history began, rested in the consciousness of its first 
 propagators, and has rested ever since, on the resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus from the dead. 
 
 The cause of this pre-eminence is to be found in the 
 whole work of Jesus. He labored to develop and 
 establish the conception that man is the son of God. 
 He found the world bent upon physical life. Men 
 thought of themselves as bodies, carrying within them, 
 indeed, a mysterious something, but essentially bodies, 
 with this secondary adjunct. To their consciousness 
 they were busy with physical interests, having now and 
 then merely a touch of sentiment, not obviously of 
 material importance, and therefore to be little encour- 
 aged. It was the first man, of the earth earthy, and 
 the earth was his portion. If there were any Lord 
 from heaven, he was an august Outsider, wanted for 
 dire emergencies, and therefore to be kept favorable 
 by prudent men, but having his own sphere, and mostly 
 leaving us to ours. 
 
 This had been the attitude of the world always and 
 everywhere. Now and then, it is true, a voice had 
 protested. There had been men in all lands who had 
 insisted that the invisible things of man are more 
 
102 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 powerful and have more value than his body ; that 
 they and not it are the true man. Some of these 
 teachers had won the admiration, even the adoration, 
 of mankind. They had illustrated in their lives the 
 greatness of the spirit ; had resisted the temptations 
 of sense, wealth, even of power, and multitudes had 
 hung on their words and avowed their doctrines. But 
 each of them, having had his day, had succumbed to 
 that inexorable fact of physical life, — death. The 
 wise man had had the same end as the fool. The 
 voice ceased, the teacher was no more, the disciples 
 went each his way, and the complex visible life of the 
 world moved on as if no word had been spoken. 
 When his enemies could do nothing else with the 
 prophet or sage, he could be killed, and that was the end. 
 Now, Jesus had filled this rble of protestant with un- 
 exampled success. He had insisted that the worth 
 and power of man lie in his divine, not his animal, 
 nature ; that a man might pay too high a price for 
 the gain of the whole world; that meekness inherits 
 the earth, and purity, peace, and righteousness win the 
 true blessings. He had touched life at all points, 
 and at each had triumphantly sustained his theme. 
 Friends and enemies thronged around him, almost 
 equally dangerous to his purpose. His friends would 
 make him king, would have him divide estates, would 
 enclose him in dignities, would dictate his course ; his 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN. 103 
 
 enemies would entangle him in politics, make him lose 
 himself in subtle dialectics, or silence the exuberant 
 zeal of his followers. But nothing could pervert him. 
 He put aside all interference without malice or excite- 
 ment, and at each encounter left none in doubt that 
 the spiritual had overcome the worldly. 
 
 At last there was nothing left for his enemies but 
 the old, the infallible resource. They could not 
 seduce, they could not silence him, but they could 
 kill him. It had never failed, and neither friends nor 
 foes dreamed that it could fail now. So he was 
 crucified, dead, and buried. His disciples, who " had 
 hoped that it should have been he," gave up the 
 contest. Their hearts were full of tender memories ; 
 there were high resolves, too, and thanks for such 
 deep instruction. But since he would not use force, 
 not even one single sword-stroke, why of course the 
 Sanhedrim and the legions had been too much for 
 him. The strong hand is only to be resisted by a 
 stronger; and beautiful and true as they held his 
 beatitudes, these are not the things, as they still 
 fancied, that rule this hard, coarse world. So the 
 fair, delightful interlude was ended, and it remained 
 only to go back to their fishing. 
 
 We can now understand all that it meant when this 
 mood of the disciples was broken by the startling 
 word, " The Lord is risen ! " And when he came to 
 
104 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 them again all himself, teaching the same benignant 
 doctrines, simply taking up again the old theme that 
 the spirit rules, all the delusions and sophistries of 
 worldliness crumbled away, all the terrors of authority 
 and force became empty dreams. They knew what 
 life is and what its fountain. 
 
 Viewed in this way, the resurrection is important 
 not as a physical but as a spiritual fact; not because 
 the body having been dead was alive again, but 
 because the spirit, with all its well-known character- 
 istics, having been expelled from the body and absent 
 awhile, returned unchanged, took up its intercourse 
 with old friends just where this had been broken off, 
 and used the once dead body again as its facile instru- 
 ment. And all this occurred not in some corner, nor 
 with doubtful circumstances. Jesus was emphatically 
 a public character. He died as he had lived, full in 
 the eye of the nation. His death was from a familiar 
 cause, with many witnesses, and officially attested. 
 He returned to his friends alive after two days ; ate 
 with them, talked with them, met them many times, 
 and was seen by hundreds who knew him well. It 
 was the most perfect demonstration possible that the 
 soul of a man is so entire in itself as to suffer no harm 
 when the body dies, and to be found, if by any means 
 we can thereafter have knowledge of it, complete and 
 perfect in all its faculties. All men knew that the 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN. 105 
 
 body without the soul is dead. It was here proved 
 that the soul without the body retains all the fulness 
 of life. 
 
 Now this, considered merely as an occurrence, of 
 course proves nothing about the subsequent duration 
 of the soul. But with this Jesus had been dealing 
 from the first. He had assiduously taught that the 
 spirit of man is the offspring of God, partaker of the 
 divine nature, superior to the things of the world. His 
 whole life had shown the truth of this ; and when it 
 was also shown that the tremendous crisis of death 
 had no effect upon the soul's integrity, what could be 
 imagined that could harm it? The assurance, then, 
 that the offspring of God share his immortality was 
 complete in teaching and in demonstration. That it 
 was complete, the influence of it upon the Church, and 
 through the Church upon the world for so many ages, 
 proves beyond question. 
 
 It is noticeable that the New Testament is content 
 to leave the matter here. " How are the dead raised, 
 and with what manner of body do they come ? " are 
 spurned as foolish questions ; and similarly we have 
 nothing of the occupations or surroundings of souls 
 beyond death. Doubtless the writers knew as little of 
 this as we do. All is referred to the wisdom of God, 
 " As it hath pleased him." 
 
 The great principle thus comes into notice again 
 
106 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 that the Bible is a book for life, for the present. It is 
 of the greatest importance that we know ourselves to 
 be the offspring of God, intrinsically immortal. It is 
 inexpressibly comforting and helpful for the conduct 
 of life, to be sure that death has no dominion over us. 
 But, this assurance given, we are remanded to our 
 present tasks, renewed and strengthened. Doubtless, 
 too, since whatever might be told us must be in terms 
 of our previous experience, there is no possibility of 
 conveying to us a conception of the state of dis- 
 embodied souls. God might declare, but man could 
 not understand. 
 
 We have next to consider those active faculties of 
 human nature by which man performs the conduct of 
 life. And it must be constantly kept in mind that the 
 Bible, being a book of active life, and in the words of 
 men who were busy with the world, addresses its readers 
 as men address each other, and not in the abstrac- 
 tions of the study. There is no psychological analysis 
 in the Bible. Whatever appears to have this character 
 is but passing comment from the writer's point of 
 view upon some phase of conduct. We can certainly 
 make out the elements of a psychology from the 
 biblical writers; and, fairly deduced, it is consistent 
 throughout the book, and fits accurately the facts of 
 experience. But it is only a deduction, and not an 
 
THE NATURE OE MAN. 107 
 
 extract from the Bible, and has only the authority 
 which it may derive from the character and ability of 
 those who formulate it. 
 
 We shall find it convenient to study these active 
 faculties under four heads, — Reason, Sentiment, Con- 
 science, and Will. 
 
 Reason. The Bible always addresses man as a rea- 
 sonable being. Dealing with those affairs which con- 
 stitute our current life, it assumes that we have at least 
 a superficial understanding of them, and that we are 
 capable of penetrating more and more deeply into their 
 meaning and relations. It is fully recognized that life 
 suggests problems beyond our grasp, and mysteries of 
 being which we may not hope to fathom. But no dis- 
 credit is thrown upon our rational faculties as regards 
 things within their scope because other things are 
 surmised which lie beyond their scope. Nor is the 
 emphasis of importance laid upon things beyond rea- 
 son, but on those with which we are easily familiar, 
 and which make the working factors of that daily life 
 with which the Bible deals. 
 
 The history of Christian thought shows a sad forget- 
 fulness of this plain fact. When the first theologians 
 began to reduce the faith of the Church to method, it 
 seemed natural to give the first place to those high 
 themes which so widely differentiated the new teaching 
 
108 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 from all former philosophies ; and so the being of God, 
 the nature of man's soul, the inward processes of sal- 
 vation, took the first rank. The early divisions and 
 quarrels of the Church turned on these recondite ques- 
 tions, and the farther they were from any real grasp of 
 reason, the hotter waged the fight. Consequently, for 
 long stretches of Christian history those who have 
 held convictions upon these subjects which they were 
 unable to maintain by reason against the adverse rea- 
 soning of others, have denounced reason as the mother 
 of heresies, and insisted upon a faith which should 
 not rest on understanding. We need only search the 
 Scriptures to see how far all this is from their tone and 
 their conclusions. They rest the excellence of man 
 and his acceptance with God on the right ordering of 
 heart and conduct, and pass without requirement those 
 things which cannot be understood. 
 
 But the Bible is far from requiring a life fashioned 
 wholly by reason. As we do not, so neither does it, ex- 
 pect that man will put all other motives aside and have 
 logical warrant for every action. Sentiment and the 
 moral sense are abundantly recognized and sanctioned, 
 and even the errors of reason are condoned. Espe- 
 cially is there no biblical assumption that errors of 
 thought upon matters difficult for thought to grasp are 
 deeply hurtful to man's welfare. The philosophizing 
 tendency of Christian teachers has gone so far in this 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN 109 
 
 wrong direction as to lay an intolerable burden upon the 
 conscience. The greater part of ecclesiastical tyranny 
 and cruelty has been based upon, or has sheltered 
 itself behind, the claim that the intellectual beliefs of 
 opponents were sufficient to forfeit the favor of God 
 and the right to the Christian name ; and this not as 
 leading to or justifying wrong conduct, but solely on 
 the ground that wrong belief is inexcusable sin. The 
 awful history of persecutions shows with undeniable 
 clearness how greatly this idolatry of opinion departs 
 from the spirit of the gospel, and how unsafe all judg- 
 ments are which abandon Christ's rule, " By their fruits 
 shall ye know them." 
 
 The process of bringing men into harmony with God 
 must, of course, include their reasoning powers ; and 
 as by the nature of reason it cannot be coerced by 
 arbitrary requirements, therefore it must be part of the 
 divine purpose that through the exercise of reason, 
 now successful and now failing, we shall little by little 
 reach for ourselves the knowledge of the truth. And 
 this implies on God's part all the patient forbearance 
 with error so necessary and so well known to human 
 teachers. But let it be observed that for this process 
 to be sure and safe, there must lie behind it all such an 
 inherent correspondence of human reason with funda- 
 mental truth, that when all obstacles are removed and 
 truth is presented plainly to our sight, we shall by all 
 the impulse of our nature recognize and hold it. 
 
HO THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 The summary, then, of what we learn from the Bible 
 upon this subject is, that man's reason is a divinely 
 appointed and legitimate power, destined at last to 
 comprehend the whole meaning and intent of God as 
 expressed in the ordering of the world ; that reason is 
 but one of several co-ordinate powers which enable 
 us as children of God to fashion the conduct of our 
 lives ; that no exercise of reason, however exalted, can 
 justify the ignoring or suppression of the co-ordinate 
 powers ; and that the honest errors of reason are in- 
 evitable incidents of its development, and involve 
 neither guilt nor lasting harm. 
 
 Sentiment. The Bible everywhere appeals to the 
 familiar sentiments of men. Awe and gratitude, love 
 and fear, shame and aspiration, are ever-recurring sanc- 
 tions ; while joy, sorrow, and personal affection are 
 recognized on every page as essential ingredients of 
 life. Even when the formal appeal is to reason, there 
 seldom fails to be an undertone addressed to senti- 
 ment, and often the latter swells into full control. 
 And there is not from first to last a word to imply that 
 the sentiments so appealed to are any other than those 
 we knew by the same names in our daily intercourse. 
 Nor are they merely permitted or desirable elements of 
 life. They are fundamental. Jesus makes love the 
 basis of law, whether concerning our relations to God 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN ill 
 
 or to man, and his apostles dwell emphatically on this 
 idea. And further, Paul declares what we might have 
 legitimately inferred, that the same foundation which 
 God lays for the law of our duty is the basis of his 
 conduct towards us. Love is of the essence of the 
 divine nature ; and Christ was sent, summarizing the 
 divine revelations and assuring our salvation, because 
 " God so loved the world." 
 
 Theology has sadly lost sight of this biblical teach- 
 ing because its authors have lived and thought away 
 from the current life of men. They have thus come to 
 place the intellect and the will in a supremacy which 
 the experience of life does not warrant. Step by step 
 the relations of men to God, and consequently their 
 relations to each other, were formulated by a cruel 
 logic, till the tender sentiments were cast out alike 
 from earth and heaven. All this, however, was closet 
 work, having terrible consequences here and there in 
 the world, but always resisted, and gradually conquered, 
 by the Christian consciousness. When God became 
 remote and awful, Jesus was the tender intercessor ; 
 and when he too was transformed into a stern judge, 
 his mother was given a place in the divine counsels, 
 that her woman's heart might succor men. However 
 ecclesiastics thundered or persecuted, every age of 
 Christendom has left evidences that the people of God 
 still existed, scattered through the world for its salva- 
 
H2 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 tion, constituting the real hope and strength of the 
 gospel ; and even though bewildered in mind, still 
 holding fast with the allegiance of the heart to the 
 infinite goodness of God. 
 
 The enlightenment of our time and the exigences of 
 mission work are rapidly bringing the whole Church to 
 the position of the biblical writers, and making plain 
 to all that the intellect cannot grasp the purpose and 
 the methods of God's dealings with us, without the 
 constant co-operation of the heart. Since God is 
 love, in order to bring us into harmony with himself, 
 he must cultivate to the utmost the same element of 
 our being. 
 
 Conscience. The conscience has already been dis- 
 cussed as to its nature and functions. It remains to 
 consider how the Bible deals with it. 
 
 There is no discourse about conscience in the Bible ; 
 but from the first pages it is assumed that men know 
 right from wrong, and that they recognize the claims 
 of the right. This is not only implied in the very fact 
 of giving laws, but the reproaches and rebukes of sin 
 are addressed as to beings who sinned against light. 
 Nor is this confined to those who had received the 
 word of God, but appears in the rebukes of gentile 
 nations. So that the Bible regards the conscience as 
 belonging to human nature by fundamental consitu- 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN. 113 
 
 tion, and as existing under all circumstances. It is, 
 indeed, expressly asserted by Paul, that " The nations 
 which knew not the law did by nature the things con- 
 tained in the law." 
 
 Theology, sacrificing obvious facts to the demands 
 of a narrowly logical system, has asserted a lost con- 
 dition of man, in which he has no longer any impulse 
 to good ; but no such total paralysis of conscience is 
 recognized in the Bible. Its appeals to men in gen- 
 eral, and even to the vilest, assume a response from 
 within which approves the claims of righteousness. It 
 finds all sinners, like Saul, consciously kicking against 
 the pricks. And so far does this method of the Bible 
 go, that it leaves largely for men to determine what 
 their duties are. Of course the extent of this varies 
 as the process of biblical development goes on. At 
 first the tendency is rather to specific commands, 
 although these are given in such terms as to require 
 much comment and definition from the individual con- 
 science. But later in the Old Testament, and every- 
 where in the New, the force of commandment is re- 
 moved from definite injunction and laid upon " Truth 
 in the inward parts." 
 
 The weakness of human nature and the ambition of 
 ecclesiastics have greatly delayed the acceptance of 
 this truth. Men crave relief from the responsibility 
 of deciding what their duties are ; -and those who seek 
 
114 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 to rule them eagerly make the decision, turning the 
 whole force of conscience towards obedience to defi- 
 nite commands, upon which the common man passes 
 no judgment. Just in proportion to the ignorance of 
 any time or community has this process succeeded. 
 But in all times there have been consciences which 
 could not abdicate the duty of deciding upon the re- 
 quirements of righteousness ; and the progress of 
 Christian enlightenment is bringing all to understand 
 that every conscience must act for itself. It necessar- 
 ily follows that a man's own conscience, honestly con- 
 sulted and faithfully followed, must be for that man 
 the supreme law of his life. Paul writes, " To him 
 that thinketh anything unclean, to him it is unclean ; " 
 and " He that doubteth is condemned if he eat." And 
 Jesus pleads for his murderers because " They know 
 not what they do." 
 
 It must not be forgotten, and it is not ignored in the 
 Bible, that ethical decisions, however honestly and 
 carefully made, are often erroneous, and are con- 
 demned even by those who made them, after they 
 have obtained more light. And the question, how it 
 can consist with the justice of God to leave men to the 
 consequences of following a monitor so often in error, 
 can only be answered under the condition that these 
 consequences are always capable of remedy, and that 
 God is pledged to the ultimate result. 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN. 115 
 
 Will. In the intercourse of life we assume that 
 each man can in the main determine his own conduct, 
 and can more or less influence his surroundings. So 
 that if a man's will is won to a certain course in mat- 
 ters which belong to him, the end is made probable. 
 This is the attitude of the Bible, but with the addition 
 that at the same time and in the same affairs the in- 
 violable sovereignty of God is always presupposed. 
 But whenever men have seriously addressed their 
 thoughts to these two facts, they have felt a sense of 
 conflict, actual or possible, between the divine and the 
 human will ; and since it is impossible to conceive the 
 divine will as frustrated, the question has necessarily 
 arisen whether the will of man is effectually self-deter- 
 mining, or must act, in order to act at all, in exact 
 accordance with the will of God. 
 
 Now, it is remarkable that the Bible does not dis- 
 cuss this question. In the very few places which touch 
 upon it, the question itself is rebuked as if it attacked 
 the divine authority. This is easily explained when 
 we remember how the Bible has grown out of practical 
 life, and that in daily affairs the question does not 
 arise. So persistently, however, do the thoughts of 
 biblical students return to this point, that all such 
 study has been colored by it, and we must give it con- 
 sideration if we would escape the difficulties which 
 have thus gathered about the understanding of the 
 
lib THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 Bible. Of course we need not linger over the hair- 
 splitting distinction that man is at liberty to will any- 
 thing, but has no power to put his volition into action 
 unless it accord with God's will. This evades the real 
 question, which is how, and to what extent, the two 
 wills can co-exist, of which the Bible freely speaks, and 
 to which daily life bears constant witness ; namely, the 
 sovereign, invincible will of God directed to all the 
 affairs of men, and the will of man effectual for order- 
 ing his own conduct, either well or ill, and to some 
 extent for modifying his surroundings. 
 
 But before we begin the discussion of the human 
 will, it is necessary to guard against a certain mis- 
 understanding which easily besets the subject. The 
 human unit is the entire man. We distinguish facul- 
 ties, — judgment, sentiment, will, etc., — and we speak 
 of each acting as if it could dissociate itself from the 
 others ; but, in fact, it is always the man tr^at acts, 
 now with one and now another faculty predominant, 
 but in his normal state never with actual elimination 
 of any part. When, therefore, the will is said to con- 
 sider or to decide, it is implied that some action of the 
 judgment occurs; but the consequent exertion of will 
 is so much the more conspicuous, and we know so very 
 little of the more hidden processes of the mind, that 
 our attention fastens on the predominant faculty, and 
 something which really belongs to another is attributed 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN. 117 
 
 to it. Nor can any error grow out of this inaccuracy 
 of speech so long as our conclusions are always sub- 
 mitted to the test of actual experience. This discussion 
 will, therefore, use without scruple those expressions 
 which the habitual intercourse of life has made familiar. 
 
 We may consider the will of man as aimed in three 
 directions, — towards the physical world, his fellow-men, 
 or his spiritual intercourse with God. 
 
 No metaphysics could persuade a practical mind 
 that man cannot to a useful extent impose his will on 
 his physical surroundings. The small acts of every 
 day, and the continued efforts of individuals and gene- 
 rations, effect changes in the location, the combinations, 
 and the development of matter and of organisms, which 
 can neither be denied as doubtful nor overlooked as 
 unimportant. 
 
 And yet it must be noticed that man has willed 
 many things in this field which he has not been able to 
 accomplish ; and he has discovered that all his power 
 over nature is conditioned by natural laws. So that 
 when his will merely follows impulse or the idea of a 
 result he often fails ; but by learning the laws of ma- 
 terial things, and directing his volitions according to 
 these laws, he may at last find a way to his ends. No 
 exception to this has been discovered, and men who 
 have been taught by their own or others' experience 
 
Ii8 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 make no attempt to force natural things by bare voli- 
 tion of results ; but having first learned by what 
 methods, if at all, the laws of nature permit them to 
 approach their desired end, they push their will by 
 successive stages along these ways till the goal is 
 reached. No final limit has been found to the con- 
 quests of the human will over the physical world, based 
 upon conformity to the laws of nature. 
 
 But further, it is found that natural laws which 
 seemed at first unconnected and arbitrary constitute a 
 harmonious system which more and more commends 
 itself to our approval as we more fully understand it ; 
 so that if it were possible for man at one or another 
 point to substitute his own volition for the law, it would 
 be a retrograde movement, whose ultimate result must 
 be less satisfactory to man himself than if the law had 
 not been broken. 
 
 And so we reach this conclusion : The physical 
 world, organized by a wisdom greater than man's, and 
 held to its fundamental constitution by a power which 
 he cannot override, is given to man for his use, the 
 condition of this use being that he shall respect the 
 laws of its constitution ; and the reason of this condi- 
 tion being that the world under these laws will better 
 respond to his wisest wishes than under any substitute 
 which he might devise. Man's conformity, then, in 
 understanding and in desire, to the wisdom which or- 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN 119 
 
 dained the world, is the measure and the only limit of 
 his dominion over matter. 
 
 When a man attempts to impose his will upon his 
 neighbor, the case has other features ; for it is now will 
 against will. But so different are men, that one will is 
 always stronger than another, often than many others ; 
 and experience proves that it is possible for the human 
 will to control the wills of other men as positively as it 
 controls material things. This is done in two ways. 
 By hypnotism and perhaps other psychic influences an 
 absolute compulsion is attained, not widely different 
 from the control of will over matter, and limited by 
 analogous inviolable laws ; and while the recognized 
 display of this power is infrequent and subject to very 
 unusual conditions, yet probably it enters more or less 
 obscurely into most cases where one mind controls 
 another. 
 
 The common influence of will over will, however, is 
 obtained by means of persuasion, in which process 
 intelligence and emotion are enlisted to determine the 
 subject will. But, whatever the process, no one famil- 
 iar with daily life doubts that certain wills dominate 
 and control others. It is to be observed, however, 
 that, as in regard to matter so in this case, this is not 
 accomplished by mere capricious exercise of the will, 
 but by method, and often after repeated and prolonged 
 
120 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 effort. So that the dominant will becomes aware of 
 laws governing the wills it would subject, under which 
 alone it can reach its ends. And these are not merely 
 laws of process, they also govern the result ; and it is 
 with the latter that we are most concerned in this dis- 
 cussion. The most potent of these laws is that which 
 maintains the unity of human interests, so that no por- 
 tion of a community can reach truly beneficial and 
 lasting attainments at the expense of the other por- 
 tions. In consequence of this law, which all history 
 proves, if a man has succeeded in imposing his will 
 upon his neighbors for his own selfish aggrandizement 
 and to their harm, it presently turns out that with 
 his seeming gain he has incurred such danger or loss 
 that, on the whole, he has missed his own advantage. 
 The law which he had neglected, or thought to over- 
 ride, has proved invincible ; while, on the other hand, 
 the man who has led the multitude for the common 
 good wins rewards beyond even the hopes of the self- 
 ish leader. So that the same result appears when the 
 will rules other wills as when it rules matter. The 
 inviolable laws, under which alone success can be 
 reached, open the way to more satisfactory results than 
 could be attained if these laws did not exist. 
 
 Now, if we turn our attention to the will when it is 
 struggling with the laws which it should obey, we find 
 its condition is essentially one of ignorance. For 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN. 121 
 
 although the willing mind may be aware of these op- 
 posing laws, and may set itself to defeat them, it cer- 
 tainly is not aware of their strength and the hopeless- 
 ness of its attack ; and especially it is unaware of their 
 beneficent character. These things are learned im- 
 pressively only after defeat, perhaps many times re- 
 peated. But to whatever extent the mind is capable 
 of understanding such laws and their power, to that 
 extent it is certain that a sufficient experience of de- 
 feated endeavor will at last put an end to these useless 
 struggles of the will. The undoubting assurance of its 
 absolute impossibility necessarily puts an end to the 
 willing of a given result. And this acceptance of de- 
 feat in a forbidden way is the beginning of a percep- 
 tion that this way has no desirable results, and that 
 the defeat is therefore a benefit. 
 
 Therefore, the bounds which the laws of God in na- 
 ture and the social world set to the will, are a bondage 
 only of the immature and uninstructed will, while they 
 tend by their compulsion to educate this will into its 
 best estate ; and when this is reached, the laws no 
 longer even seem to oppose it, but are manifestly the 
 shortest way to that which is now its only aim. 
 
 So far we have considered the action of the human 
 will merely as an exercise of force, studying it in the 
 two fields in which we can best observe it objectively ; 
 and we are now prepared to answer the postponed 
 
122 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 t 
 
 question, why the assertion of an absolute divine will 
 
 does not reduce the world to fatalism ; namely, because 
 at every point in which the divine will touches the will 
 of man, God aims not to compel, but to encourage and 
 develop, our will ; so that seeming obstacles and defeats 
 are only the means by which he brings us to learn how 
 our will may most freely act, and may most perfectly 
 attain the things which at our highest development we 
 desire. It is not denied that God could place us under 
 a rule of arbitrary fate. But he has not done this, be- 
 cause it would thwart his own purpose in giving us 
 being, that we might become like him. 
 
 We come now to consider the will in man's spiritual 
 intercourse with God. This is the religious aspect of 
 the subject, and the part which directly concerns the 
 present inquiry ; for the study of the will as directed 
 towards the physical and the social worlds is pertinent 
 only because it makes us acquainted with the action of 
 the will where we can view it objectively, and can 
 therefore most impartially consider it. With this third 
 phase the subject is somewhat changed. We have 
 hitherto looked at the power of the will to impress 
 itself upon external objects, and the laws which help 
 or hinder this result. But when man turns his will 
 towards God he can no longer hope to bend this divine 
 Object to his purposes, and our inquiry can only seek 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN 123 
 
 to know how the man who wills is in this case affected 
 by his own volitions. 
 
 But before we go farther, it is necessary clearly to 
 understand what we mean by man's intercourse with 
 God upon this field. Since there can be no thought of 
 man's coercing God, the only relation possible is one 
 of harmony or discord. In regard to some given thing 
 the will of God and the will of man come upon the 
 scene. It must be assumed that man can somehow 
 know what is the will of God concerning this thing, 
 and then the human will takes some attitude, follows 
 some process, reaches some results in relation to the 
 divine. Now how can man know this divine will ? 
 
 We have seen that God addresses man through the 
 experience of life and the conscience, and that what- 
 ever may claim to be a command of God necessarily 
 comes as part of human experience, and is accredited 
 or rejected by the conscience. There can, therefore, 
 be no one way in which men are certified of the will of 
 God concerning the successive details of their lives ; 
 but rather, each man's conscience decides when the 
 circumstances of life set this or that duty before him ; 
 and this decision of conscience carefully and sincerely 
 made is for him, then and there, the voice of God. 
 Even if the same man should subsequently decide that 
 his first decision was mistaken, the fact remains that 
 until the new light came the first decision was his 
 
124 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 highest law. The subject, therefore, upon which we 
 now enter is the action of a man's will in response to 
 his own conscience, this being but a clearer expression 
 for the relation of the human will to God's. 
 
 When the will adopts for its own choice the demands 
 of conscience, and heartily strives for those ends, this 
 is virtue. When the will refuses the demands of con- 
 science, this is sin. And the whole action of the will 
 on the moral field consists of repeated choices between 
 sin and virtue. The question whether it is able to pro- 
 duce objective results according to its choice is noth- 
 ing to the point; for the experience of life and the 
 teaching of the Bible alike declare that the quality of 
 sin or virtue inheres in the volition. 
 
 When we seek the causes of the will's choice, we 
 are first confronted with motives. Motives certainly 
 influence the choice of the will, and it is not easy to 
 conceive it without them ; but they have no compelling 
 power. In fact, we do not know of any power which 
 can compel the will. It hears, weighs, and decides ; 
 and while the effect of individual motives may often 
 be foreseen with much certainty, yet there are enough 
 exceptional volitions which seem to set all motives at 
 defiance, to assure us that the will is not compelled. Its 
 decision is like a creative act of God, — a new departure. 
 
 But this consideration is incomplete, whether with 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN 125 
 
 regard to God or man, until we remember that the will 
 is not a being, but an attribute which is inseparably 
 combined with others. This distinction is of the first 
 importance, and is easily understood.' The Bible, for 
 instance, declares that " it is impossible for God to lie ; " 
 and we readily understand this as meaning, not that 
 any collocation of words is impossible, but that the 
 perfection and harmony of the divine nature would be 
 so outraged by a lie, that the divine will cannot consent 
 to it. A divine lie would be divine suicide. Now, in 
 the same way the will of man is under the necessity of 
 corresponding with his other attributes. We freely 
 repel a slander against the man we trust, by insisting 
 that he could not do such a thing. And if the accusa- 
 tion should prove true, we should sadly confess he was 
 not the man we had supposed. " A good tree cannot 
 bring forth evil fruit." Indeed, so plain is this inter- 
 dependence of the will and the rest of the man, that 
 when we see arbitrary actions repeated and continued 
 in a way that violates the usual course of human con- 
 duct, we declare the man insane — the balance of his 
 faculties has been destroyed. Now, in this necessary 
 accord of the will with the other faculties lies the key 
 to all the alleged mysteries of sin and of redemption ; 
 and to this we shall have to recur as our study of the 
 subject proceeds. 
 
 Having well in mind these limits to the power of 
 
126 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 motives over the will, we may now return to the study 
 of their action. Life subjects the will to motives of 
 various kinds, which urge it in different directions. 
 These appeal to the intellect, to the sentiments, and to 
 the passions of the flesh. They are so many, and form 
 such numberless combinations, that each man's position 
 is unique, and we can judge each other only on general 
 principles, subject always to correction for the individ- 
 ual. Some of the motives re-enforce the conscience 
 and influence the will to comply, while others tend 
 to set will against conscience. The latter are called 
 temptations. No man can live and escape tempta- 
 tions, which, indeed, constitute the real tasks of life. 
 They arise from every department of life ; and so from 
 every side the will is urged against the conscience. 
 Perhaps the subtlest and least remarked of temptations 
 is that which aims merely to defy authority. We know 
 the charm of forbidden things in daily experience ; and 
 at bottom the commands of the conscience may often be 
 resisted for no other reason than that they are commands. 
 All temptations persuade the will by promising satis- 
 factions, from the subtle one just named to the grossest 
 lusts of the flesh. But the Bible and our own experi- 
 ence equally teach that these promises are fallacious. 
 Either the satisfaction is not found at all, or it is so 
 brief as to be worthless, or it entails pain or trouble 
 which far outweighs it. Therefore, the seekers of im- 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN 127 
 
 moral pleasure are always looking for a new pleasure, 
 the old having speedily palled. But the combinations 
 of life are so numerous, and the craving for immediate 
 satisfaction is so urgent, that to each discredited temp- 
 tation another succeeds, smiling with promise. On 
 the other hand, the motives to obedience, while they 
 promise less, yield more. Experience proves with 
 equal certainty that the way of the transgressor is 
 hard, and that wisdom's are ways of pleasantness. 
 Nor are the satisfactions of virtue brief, with need of 
 continual change ; they persist and accumulate, and 
 seem native to the soul after whatever length of enjoy- 
 ment. Besides, every faculty which is exercised in the 
 pursuit of virtue becomes stronger by the exercise, and 
 thus ministers a new delight. So that we come here 
 upon the same state of things which we found in the 
 action of the will upon physical and social objects ; 
 that the law, namely, which seems to limit and deny, 
 in reality guides the will to its most perfect exercise, 
 and puts within its reach the greater good. 
 
 It might seem as if this covered the field of man's 
 moral history ; as if a moderate experience of good and 
 evil, with the testimony of others who have made the 
 same experiments, would suffice to set us all upon the 
 side of virtue, and abolish sin. That this is not so 
 results largely from another factor in the action of the 
 will which we have not yet considered ; namely, habit. 
 
128 THE PURPOSE OF GOD 
 
 When a particular motive has once persuaded the will 
 to act, the second demand of this motive is more read- 
 ily obeyed, and so on till the obedience becomes habit- 
 ual and of course. And this is true whether the motive 
 tend to virtue or to sin. A recurring temptation acts 
 upon the will, therefore, in two opposite ways : the re- 
 peated demonstration of its fallacy tends to weaken 
 the force of the temptation, but also the repeated 
 yielding of the will tends to lessen the degree of 
 force required. And so it sometimes results that men, 
 after a prolonged evil course, succumb to a temptation 
 which allures so little, that at first they would not have 
 regarded it ; while other men, reversing the process 
 by a steady course of resistance to some formidable 
 temptation, come at last hardly to feel that it solicits 
 them. And so intricate are the combinations of life, 
 and so little can we judge another's temptations or his 
 strength, that none can prophesy which way the bal- 
 ance will turn when a man is subjected to recurrent 
 temptation. Hence has arisen the conclusion that the 
 outcome of each man's moral experience is uncertain. 
 Such a state of things, however, would be incompatible 
 with the purpose which we have found God adminis- 
 tering, and we shall see when we come to consider the 
 dealings of God with man, that he has abundantly pro- 
 vided for this. 
 
 Under the present head it only remains to point out 
 
THE NATURE OF MAN 129 
 
 that final element in the action of the will which con- 
 stitutes the door of divine access. 
 
 The will, as we have seen, is not a being, but a fac- 
 ulty, and in all its healthy action it preserves a con- 
 formity to its associate faculties. Now, the man taken 
 as a whole, is by no means indifferent between virtue 
 and sin. He is the offspring of God, and therefore, 
 however he may become the servant of sin, this is to 
 the end a foreign master, while to virtue he is native. 
 If, then, the will inclined to evil dominates the entire 
 man, it can only be because his other elements are im- 
 mature and not developed in their due proportions. If 
 the judgment be weak and the lusts strong, the motives 
 to gross vice will easily master the will. If the intel- 
 lect be forcible and sentiment dull, the suggestions of 
 pride and ambition will find a ready ear. Therefore, 
 to redeem the will once addicted to sin, it is necessary 
 to restore the balance of the man and effect a harmony 
 of all his powers. This done, the various motives 
 which address him will have each only its due influence, 
 and the native affinity of the soul for good will deter- 
 mine his volitions. For the whole purpose of God 
 rests on the fact that man — and every man — is so 
 fashioned in God's image, that to whatever extent he 
 sees things as Gods sees them (that is, as they are), to 
 that extent he desires and wills concerning them what 
 God desires and wills. 
 
130 THE F UK POSE OF GOD. 
 
 VIII. 
 THE PROBLEM OF SIN. 
 
 WE come now to the last grand division of bibli- 
 cal teaching, — the relations of man to God. 
 By virtue of his physical nature man is subject to the 
 care and rule which God exercises over the world ; but 
 by virtue of his spiritual being he constitutes with God 
 a class apart, of which class there are no other mem- 
 bers known to us. Man therefore sustains to God 
 relations which are peculiar. The importance of these 
 relations grows out of man's power to give or refuse 
 consent to the will of God ; and the subject may best 
 be approached by considering God's method of deal- 
 ing with the rebellious will of man ; that is, with sin. 
 This will lead us to study the whole field of Christ's 
 work ; but the first question which confronts us is how 
 such a phenomenon can exist under the government 
 of an almighty Ruler, whose purpose is universal 
 harmony. 
 
 We have considered God as the Author alike of the 
 world and of the human soul. And we found his crea- 
 tive energy not to be a primary force giving origin to 
 secondary causes and then leaving these to effect their 
 
THE PROBLEM OF SIN. 13 1 
 
 results by some inherent power ; but it appeared that 
 second causes are merely methods or channels through 
 which the power of God uniformly works, so that those 
 causes could not for an instant continue to act without 
 his attention. Every bud, therefore, which opens in 
 the spring, and every sparrow which falls, is moved by 
 vital force or by gravity only in the sense that God's 
 will produces these results by an orderly process, to 
 which we give one or the other of these names. 
 
 Now, the same train of thought requires us to be- 
 lieve that every man is constituted as he is, and meets 
 the experiences which fall to him, simply because God 
 will have it so. Complex strains of heredity, early 
 circumstances, example, education, are simply our ap- 
 prehension and our titles of the orderly processes by 
 which the single divine energy accomplishes its pur- 
 pose. Whatever results of a man's, life, therefore, are 
 the necessary outcome of his environment acting upon 
 his native characteristics, exist because God will have 
 them so. Knowing the end he gave effect to the 
 means, and therefore the end is his. But the disposal 
 of man's will lies with himself, either to put himself 
 in harmony with this divine procedure or to oppose it ; 
 and there are, as we have seen, many inducements to 
 opposition. 
 
 Now, we have found that the motive to sin always 
 is the hope of satisfaction ; and of course the satis- 
 
<3 2 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 faction expected from opposing conscience is supposed 
 to be greater than obedience can yield. Sin, there- 
 fore, is man's effort to find a course of life which will 
 prove more satisfactory to himself than the course to 
 which God calls him ; and if it be conceivable that 
 any soul should ever find a way to greater satisfaction 
 than it can obtain by obedience, then, though the way 
 might be blocked, the desire of it must remain, and 
 eternal sin will result. But one such case in the 
 history of the world would frustrate the purpose of 
 God ; and we can suppose him to tolerate man's efforts 
 after a more satisfactory way than his, only because 
 he knows no such way can be found or invented. In 
 a word, God stakes the results of his creation and the 
 accomplishment of his purpose on the certainty that 
 he has made no soul but will, when it has appre- 
 hended God's way, turn eagerly from all other devices 
 and cleave only to him. So the answer to our ques- 
 tion, how sin can have a place under God's purpose of 
 universal harmony, is that these experiments after a 
 satisfaction of man's devising, will result in the more 
 complete and eager devotion of the human will to the 
 divine — a harmony infinitely above the compliance 
 of ignorant assent. 
 
 But this question being answered, another difficulty 
 presents itself, growing out of the experience of life. 
 For it is abundantly proved that no amount and no 
 
THE PROBLEM OF SIN. 133 
 
 clearness of demonstration can bring men from sin to 
 righteousness. It needs something more than logic 
 that we may see as God sees. It is true that men 
 of intelligence do often discover the mistake of the 
 grosser vices, and avoid them from prudential reasons 
 or from self-respect ; and it is possible to conceive a 
 human nature so constituted that the influences which 
 we have already considered would infallibly bring it to 
 the highest perfection possible for such a nature. 
 Nor is it an idle fancy to discuss this ; for moralists 
 without and within the Christian Church have always 
 been strongly bent to address themselves to this ima- 
 ginary man. 
 
 Let us suppose a man consisting of reason, con- 
 science, and will in balanced proportions. The usual 
 experience of life must convince him that he cannot 
 abolish the laws under which he lives, and that he can 
 in no way make life so satisfactory as by obeying 
 them. He will gradually become acquainted with 
 those laws, even in their obscure parts, and will freely 
 choose them for the ordering of his conduct. And 
 when this process is fully worked out he will be a 
 calm and willing follower of duty, with no besetting 
 sins, and perfectly at home in the world. That God 
 is his Father and men his brothers will not in the 
 least occur to him ; and so long as he has the tranquil 
 experience which he supposes his obedience to de- 
 
134 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 serve, neither the fortunes of men nor the Spirit of 
 God can disturb his smooth and satisfied selfishness. 
 
 This is the wise man of the Stoics. They recog- 
 nized sentiment, to be sure, as a natural weakness of 
 man, but seem not to have doubted that a sufficiently 
 enlightened reason would deprive it of any influence. 
 But while the noble precepts of the Stoics show the 
 clearness of their conscience and the sincerity of their 
 aim, the history of the school equally shows that the 
 real needs of men are not touched by such a phi- 
 losophy. And the reason is that this conception of 
 human nature, by ignoring sentiment, omits that very 
 element of man's character which furnishes the ground 
 of his highest development ; and this is the point at 
 which the salvation of Christ invincibly approaches 
 him. But so ready is the conviction that reason is the 
 true mistress of life, that even after the Gospel had 
 brought what was before missing, and even among 
 those who hold themselves acquainted with the true 
 power of God unto salvation, this fictitious man, as the 
 victim of sin, has still dominated almost every system 
 of theology. And yet the missing factor in this false 
 scheme lies upon the surface of every real life. Sen- 
 timent overthrows reason, defies conscience, masters 
 the will ; and so long as this great power is not con- 
 verted to duty the law may ply all its sanctions in 
 vain, for sin will rule. 
 
THE PROBLEM OF SIN. 135 
 
 When we examine the Bible upon this point, we find 
 the gradual development of its teaching, from germ to 
 perfection, quite as distinct as in any of the particu- 
 lars which we have already studied. At first there are 
 simple commands with no spoken sanction, but an 
 implied consciousness of the greatness of the Law- 
 giver. Later comes a gradually completed code of 
 laws, regulating all parts of conduct. These rest on 
 the irresistible authority of their Author; but some 
 considerations of sentiment are added, yet only as 
 minor helps to the more recognized motives. In the 
 later parts of the Old Testament a diminished stress 
 is laid on the force of explicit law, and the appeal is 
 especially to the heart. Yet to the end the old dis- 
 pensation makes no appeal to sentiment which recog- 
 nizes its transcendent power, and proposes no method 
 by which the whole man may be won to God. That 
 souls were so won cannot be doubted ; but this only 
 shows what is everywhere obvious, that God's access 
 to the souls of men is limited to no single method. 
 The heart, too, has its unconscious cerebration which 
 finds God. 
 
 When we enter upon the New Testament this defect 
 of the Old is plainly avowed. The statement of Jesus 
 that he came to fulfil the Law, implies that this had 
 aimed at something not yet accomplished. And Paul 
 expressly says that God sent his Son to doom sin, 
 
136 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 which the Law could not do because it was weak 
 through the flesh. These words state " the impossi- 
 ble of the Law," and its reason ; because, namely, the 
 passions of men were stronger than the known sanc- 
 tions of the Law. And this brings us face to face 
 with the peculiarity of the Gospel which sets it above 
 all religions and philosophies, that ultimate sanction 
 of duty which wins the hearts of men. The an- 
 nouncement of the Gospel is of peace and goodwill. 
 The preaching of Jesus dwells on meekness, purity 
 of heart, love of peace, on that desire for righteous- 
 ness which becomes the hunger of the soul. Upon 
 love hang all the law and the prophets. Love is 
 greater than eloquence, knowledge, power, self-sur- 
 render. Love fulfils the law. And in this way senti- 
 ment assumes its due place as a prime factor in God's 
 treatment of sin. The divine law is neither abolished 
 nor weakened ; on the contrary, it is strengthened and 
 its triumph assured by that sanction which alone can 
 reconcile the hearts of men to God, for want of which 
 the old Law was weak ; namely, the revelation of the 
 divine goodness through Jesus Christ. 
 
 We have next to study in detail the process of salva- 
 tion from sin. 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 137 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE GOSPEL STORY. 
 
 WE must begin our study of the saving work 
 wrought by Christ, with an examination of the 
 documents which primarily make him known to us. 
 
 The New Testament does not, like the Old, offer a 
 progressive growth of teaching and revelation ; on the 
 contrary, it begins with the summit of its perfection. 
 The four Gospels contain nearly all that is told us of 
 the teaching and life of Jesus, and the other writings 
 are confessedly based upon this. It is of the highest 
 importance, therefore, to estimate the value of the 
 Gospels. 
 
 And, first of all, it must be remembered that the 
 collective story is an ineradicable part of universal 
 history. If by any process of reasoning we persuade 
 ourselves that the Gospel narrative is not authentic his- 
 tory, a gap is left which nothing else among the records 
 of mankind can fill, and the most remarkable revolu- 
 tion which has occurred to man remains, as to its 
 causes, an unfathomable mystery. Of all the marvels 
 found in the Gospels, there is none so marvellous as 
 this would be. 
 
138 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 No question can be raised that the first century wit- 
 nessed the beginnings of the Christian Church. Nor 
 is it questionable that the Church began abruptly, em- 
 bodying principles of conduct which were wholly un- 
 known a generation earlier, which proved so powerful 
 as to alarm the civil authorities, which withstood all 
 the force of terror or seduction applied to them, and 
 which continue their influence to this day. It is 
 equally certain that this movement started from Pales- 
 tine under the name of Christ, and within a generation 
 or two penetrated to all civilized countries, producing 
 everywhere the same effects, not at all limited by race 
 or customs, and understood by its votaries as constitut- 
 ing one brotherhood of them all. 
 
 The customs, laws, and literature of the world imme- 
 diately preceding this outbreak have been searched in 
 vain for any beginnings which might have led up to it ; 
 and nowhere in human history is a similar revolution 
 to be found. The Gospel narrative, and it alone, fully 
 accounts for this new departure and for all its pecu- 
 liarities. Whatever in the movement seems inexpli- 
 cable by the usual motives of human conduct finds 
 satisfactory explanation here. 
 
 The first diffusion of Christianity preceded the 
 records which we possess ; yet everywhere we find 
 established from the first, customs, discipline, and doc- 
 rines which necessarily imply the knowledge of that 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 139 
 
 which the Gospels relate. This primary knowledge of 
 the facts accounts for the prompt acceptance of these 
 writings ; and in this way the Church in all lands 
 vouched for the correctness of the Gospels as a narra- 
 tive of the facts upon which the Church was built. 
 
 Turning now to the documents themselves, when we 
 compare the four narratives, we find each peculiar, 
 and the fourth especially distinct from the other three. 
 But a close examination proves that the differences, so 
 far as they deserve any consideration at all, are of 
 emphasis, and not radical. Every peculiarity of one 
 Gospel, even of the fourth, is somewhere touched or 
 suggested by the others ; so that innumerable millions 
 of readers have found no stumbling-block, but have 
 formed from the collective story a conception of the 
 character and work of Jesus harmonious throughout. 
 And the conciseness and simplicity of language, the 
 selection of illustrative instances, the forcible presen- 
 tation of profound truth, and the vivid portrayal of a 
 unique character, as well as the fitness with which each 
 Gospel supplements the others, compel us to recognize 
 in this group of writings something beyond an acci- 
 dental assemblage of contemporary works. 
 
 The process of selection among various attempted 
 Gospels was, of course, the work of the people of God 
 scattered through many lands. They chose and re- 
 tained what most accorded with their knowledge of the 
 
140 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 facts and their Christian consciousness of the true tone 
 and spirit. But this does not account for the origi- 
 nal production of such narratives ; and the specimens 
 which remain to us of rejected lives of Jesus only raise 
 by contrast our admiration of these. All these things 
 considered, no one who believes that God has anywhere 
 communicated with his people will fail to find in the 
 production and assemblage of these four works the 
 evident marks of his hand and purpose. 
 
 Probably the Gospel story would not have been seri- 
 ously questioned but for a feature which has been 
 gravely misunderstood in every age ; namely, its account 
 of what are called miracles. These all have relation 
 to Jesus, as either object or agent; and they add to his 
 biography an element which, when carefully studied, is 
 found to differentiate it from the lives of all other 
 men. In every age men have misunderstood this ele- 
 ment of the life of Jesus, and in two ways : either by 
 giving it such importance as to obscure the prime fac- 
 tors of his work, or by stumbling at it as supernatural, 
 and endeavoring to eliminate it from his history. The 
 first error appeared in his very presence, and was re- 
 peatedly and severely rebuked by him ; but it has sur- 
 vived in every age, and still flourishes. Yet we must 
 stand by the plain teaching of Jesus, and insist that 
 neither he nor his biographers attached this prime 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 141 
 
 importance to miracle. He presented it as the very 
 least of his credentials, and refused every challenge to 
 prove his authority in this way ; while the evangelists 
 relate his miracles with a simplicity and absence of 
 comment which prove that they took them merely as 
 parts of a life wholly admirable. On the other hand, 
 the desire which every Christian ought to feel to rescue 
 the ideal Christ from the conception of a wonder-mon- 
 ger, and to make clear the transcendent importance of 
 his spiritual work, reacting against the first error, has 
 led to a school of criticism which seeks wholly to elim- 
 inate the miraculous from the New Testament narrative. 
 The importance of this matter is extreme ; not so 
 much from any importance which the miracles now 
 have for us, as from the place which they hold in the 
 narrative. The attempt has often been made to sepa- 
 rate from the Gospel story those parts which record 
 miracles, as being later additions in the interest of one 
 or another party in the early Church ; or to explain 
 them as parabolic, and not intended to be taken for 
 history ; or as myths unconsciously woven about simple, 
 natural occurrences. But they are too closely con- 
 nected with the other elements of the story to be 
 foreign additions; and the manner of their narration is 
 so like all the rest, as to leave no doubt that the writers 
 supposed themselves to be relating facts. This does 
 not touch the theory of myth, which will be considered 
 
142 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 later ; but every other theory which seeks to eject the 
 miraculous from the Gospel narrative, impugns either 
 the honesty of the writers or their competency as wit- 
 nesses. If in these particulars they mislead or were 
 misled, then they are insufficient witnesses in all other 
 particulars. And this has been the decision of the 
 Christian consciousness, which has insisted that the 
 historical character of the Gospels must stand or fall 
 with the truth of the miracles. Take these away and 
 we have, indeed, all the lofty suggestions and spiritual 
 insight of the words attributed to Jesus, but they cease 
 to rest on any historical basis, since our only historians 
 are discredited. 
 
 Now, this by no means takes away the worth of the 
 Gospel teachings, so far as they commend themselves to 
 our mind. But the force and authority of precept and 
 promise are far greater when we see them evolved in 
 the life-work of a historical man, when we can study 
 his character and know him. It is not too much to 
 say that the largest success of the Church in all ages 
 has grown out of faith in the person of Jesus as a man 
 like ourselves, whom we may intimately know through 
 his memoirs. 
 
 The only theory which leaves this historical person 
 intact, while it removes the miraculous, is the theory of 
 myth ; by which is meant that the admiration of igno- 
 rant disciples, little by little, gave a mysterious turn to 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 143 
 
 the traditions concerning Jesus, till trifling facts were 
 gradually converted, in all the good faith of ignorance, 
 into open miracles ; and that these myths became in- 
 grafted upon the genuine traditions of the Church be- 
 fore the latter were reduced to the narratives which we 
 possess. 
 
 But the fatal historical objection to the theory of 
 myths, is that the known facts of the case do not allow 
 time for their formation and diffusion. It is quite true 
 that among zealous and ignorant men in a little com- 
 munity, the love of the marvellous may in a very short 
 time evolve a wonderful story out of simple material. 
 But it is no such state of things that we have to ex- 
 plain. Let us see the facts. 
 
 Within twenty-five years of the crucifixion of Jesus, 
 Paul wrote four letters, which remain to us, and which 
 are admitted to be genuine by the most destructive 
 criticism ; namely, the Romans, the two Corinthians, 
 and the Galatians. These letters are addressed to 
 communities of Christians, widely separated, but all 
 acknowledging one brotherhood, so that the apostle 
 addresses them all as of one faith. How they had 
 been converted we do not accurately know ; but the 
 process had involved no broad variations of doctrine 
 or of discipline : there was, twenty-five years after the 
 crucifixion, a Christian Church with a Christian faith, 
 everywhere essentially the same. To these brethren 
 
144 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 Paul sends greeting, reproof, instruction, encourage- 
 ment; and he bases these upon a certain history of 
 the life of Jesus, which he assumes to be familiar to 
 them all and undisputed. A fair outline of the Gospel 
 narrative may be gathered from the allusions to Jesus 
 in these four letters ; and when gathered it is, in out- 
 line, exactly the story of the four Gospels. Our Gospels, 
 indeed, were not yet written ; but the Christian faith 
 was planted far and wide, and wherever it existed it 
 was based on the acceptance of the very facts which 
 constitute these Gospels. The biography of Jesus and 
 the faith which saves had gone hand in hand all over 
 the civilized world within twenty-five years of the cru- 
 cifixion of Jesus. 
 
 Now, the theory of myth requires us to believe one 
 of two things : First, we may be asked to believe that 
 the alleged myths had been elaborated and firmly fixed 
 in the belief of the faithful before the diffusion began. 
 But we know that this began a few months after the 
 death of Jesus, and proceeded continuously. The time, 
 therefore, is lacking for any growth of myth as part of 
 the tradition of the Church before it dispersed from the 
 centre in Palestine. Second, it may be claimed that 
 these myths had slowly grown up during the interval 
 between the crucifixion and the compilation of our 
 Gospels, and that with these documents they were 
 diffused throughout the Church. This, of course, im- 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 145 
 
 plies that the original story of the life of Jesus, on 
 which the first diffusion of Christianity was based, con- 
 tained no assertion of miracles, and that these were 
 added to the belief of the Church a generation or two 
 later. It could not be imagined that such myths had 
 grown up separately among the believers in different 
 lands, for the narratives are all of one cast, and all bear 
 distinctly Jewish characteristics. We should, therefore, 
 have to believe that our Gospels, having originated in 
 Palestine, or at least drawn their materials from that 
 land, one or two generations after the events, and con- 
 taining the myths which had there grown up, were 
 spread throughout the Roman Empire, and obtained 
 universal assent among the churches long since planted. 
 So that a vast multitude of Christians of every grade, 
 standing, and intelligence, received this new and im- 
 portant element, and incorporated it into the faith 
 which they had learned many years before, with entire 
 and uniform acquiescence. 
 
 But this is not all. Such a change would have been 
 as great a revolution as it is now proposed to effect in 
 the faith of Christendom by eliminating the miracu- 
 lous ; and yet we are asked to believe that it was ac- 
 complished without leaving in the literature of the 
 time, or in any traditions subsequently embodied in 
 literature, the slightest mention or trace. We know 
 much of early dissent, but we know nothing of any 
 
146 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 protest against such an incursion of Oriental myths. 
 To any mind accustomed to study the past from the 
 historical standpoint, these considerations absolutely 
 forbid the idea that the accounts of miracle are a 
 mythical element introduced at a late day into the 
 Gospel narrative ; and the conclusion is forced upon 
 us, that when the disciples were first scattered by the 
 persecution which followed the death of Stephen, they 
 carried with them to all lands a story of the life of 
 Jesus which contained the same element of miracle as 
 do our Gospels. 
 
 Of course this does not guarantee every account of 
 miracle which may be found in the documents as we 
 now possess them. These are subject to honest criti- 
 cism, which will ultimately decide what are, and if any 
 are not, authentic parts of the history. In fact, some 
 of them seem much less certainly parts of the Gospel 
 story than others. And when historical criticism shall 
 have learned to deal with these questions in perfect 
 fairness, — that is, when the critics have learned that 
 modern science peremptorily forbids the rejection upon 
 a priori grounds of any alleged phenomena, however 
 strange, — then we may with confidence accept their ver- 
 dict, deliberately rendered, as to whether each separate 
 narrative of miracle is or is not part of the original 
 history. All that is here urged is, that when the Gos- 
 pels appeared, the accounts of miracle which they con- 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 147 
 
 tained must have been already familiar to Christians 
 all over the world ; and that their ready acceptance 
 under these circumstances is adequate historical evi- 
 dence of the truth of these accounts. 
 
 Since, then, the Gospels are an inseparable part of 
 human history, and since the miraculous element is an 
 ineradicable part of the Gospel narrative, it follows 
 that the miracles stand for us on the same footing as 
 any other facts of experience attested by competent 
 witnesses. In daily experience we accept such facts 
 whether we can explain them or not ; and when we 
 can satisfy ourselves with some explanation, we do not 
 ask whether the witnesses gave the same explanation. 
 It is their business to tell what they have witnessed, 
 and their hearers may be far more competent than 
 they to find the explanation. But in the case of the 
 Gospel miracles, the witnesses attempt no explanation 
 beyond that which sufficed them for all facts, — they 
 were wrought by the power of God. This, which is to 
 us the first postulate of all being, is no explanation in 
 that sense which we have in mind ; namely, such an 
 understanding of particular facts as shall show their 
 harmony with their surroundings. 
 
 We therefore confront attested and surprising facts 
 for which no explanation is offered. And yet the vast 
 majority of minds rest here, and that whether they 
 accept or reject the miracles. These, they say, are 
 
148 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 reported violations of the laws of nature. Therefore, 
 on the one hand they are asserted to be false because 
 impossible ; and on the other hand to be true, indeed, 
 but capable of no explanation beyond God's will. But 
 to call miracles a violation of the laws of nature, is to 
 be misled by a phrase. The laws of nature are merely 
 what we have observed to be the course of procedure 
 in natural things ; and as observation advances, the 
 conception of these laws has continually to be en- 
 larged, sometimes to be widely altered. So that the 
 real student of nature is slow to pronounce upon ex- 
 ceptional cases, and expects to find some day that the 
 law covers them too. 
 
 With regard, therefore, to the explanation of natural 
 phenomena there are three attitudes of mind. Many 
 familiar facts seem of obvious explanation, so that we 
 are content to accept them as matters of course, 
 wholly without mystery. Other things, no less cer- 
 tainly true, elude all explanation ; they recur again and 
 again ; there can be no doubt of their authenticity : 
 but all attempts to classify them under recognized laws 
 of nature are merely hypothetical ; or sometimes a 
 hypothesis can hardly be framed. The third class 
 consists of all phenomena which lie between these ex- 
 tremes. Their classification is attempted, but is deba- 
 table ; and now they seem to approach, now to evade, 
 a satisfactory explanation. But while these three atti- 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 149 
 
 tudes of mind necessarily exist in regard to individual 
 phenomena, science is rooted in the assurance that all 
 nature is one, and that for every fact there are re- 
 lations, however hidden, which ally it in harmony with 
 all besides. Therefore, as facts accumulate and the 
 unwearied study of their relations more and more 
 succeeds, phenomena gradually move from the ex- 
 treme of mystery into the middle-ground of plausible 
 conjecture, and again into the class of things fully 
 understood. At the same time, what has long been 
 considered fully known, sometimes develops new and 
 unexplained phases, and drops back among the half- 
 known or the unaccountable. 
 
 Now, all this is cited to urge the truth that our ac- 
 ceptance of the miracles as facts has no connection 
 with our power or inability to explain them. They are 
 or they are not facts according to the evidence which 
 authenticates them. If we think we can perfectly ex- 
 plain them, they are not at all more firmly established 
 thereby; and if we find them hopelessly mysterious, 
 we are not therefore in the least degree absolved from 
 accepting them as facts. Nor can any relation to doc- 
 trine, or any place in a scheme of theology, increase or 
 diminish the urgency of the evidence on which they 
 rest. The truth or falsity is to stand wholly on the 
 evidence adduced. And to say that no amount of 
 testimony can authenticate an occurrence because it 
 
150 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 disagrees with our previous experience, is to arrest the 
 progress of the human mind and abandon all scientific 
 inquiry. 
 
 By the force of evidence, then, we are compelled to 
 accept the miraculous as unquestionably interwoven 
 with the life of Jesus. But this commits us to no 
 definition of the term " miraculous ; " and it is here 
 used in its etymological sense of wonderful or mysteri- 
 ous. It covers a group of attested facts which still lie 
 at the unexplained extremity of our knowledge. But 
 certain suggestions grow out of the fact that we find 
 these phenomena associated with Jesus. 
 
 The first point is, that all the miracles of the New 
 Testament attach to the person of Jesus as either agent 
 or object. There are, indeed, miracles attributed to 
 others ; but these are the persons who received the 
 work from his hands and carried it forward in his 
 name. They do not merely attribute their miracles to 
 the power of God, as Jews habitually did all events, 
 but they expressly invoke the name of Jesus, and dis- 
 claim all power without him. If we believe as these 
 men did, and as Christians in all ages have believed, 
 that Christ has been as really the central power of his 
 Church since his death as before, we may well say that 
 the miracles of the apostles were connected directly 
 with him. But the apostolic miracles are few and, as 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 151 
 
 compared with those of Jesus, unimportant. We may 
 disregard them for our present purpose, and fix our 
 attention on the latter. 
 
 This association with the person and the work of 
 Jesus gives the miracles of the New Testament a clear- 
 ness of historic character not to be accorded to those 
 of the Old. The latter lose so much of the air of his- 
 tory from the uncertain authorship of the books which 
 record them, from the want of precision in the narra- 
 tives, and from lack of connection with any history 
 otherwise authenticated, that those who credit them 
 must depend rather on their inherent probability than 
 on any body of testimony which might compel belief. 
 And the greater part of this inherent probability, per- 
 haps, is reflected back upon the Old Testament narra- 
 tives from those of the New. 
 
 The second point is, that all the miracles of Jesus 
 belong to the physical world. This is essentially a 
 modern view. It was not imagined, and could not 
 have been understood by his contemporaries. The 
 very large proportion of them which consist in curing 
 neurotic diseases, were understood by those who wit- 
 nessed them as an exercise of control over evil spirits, 
 and therefore as outside the natural world. But mod- 
 ern pathology claims all such disorders as caused by 
 physical lesions, however obscure these may be. Ac- 
 cordingly, we may say that the miracles of Jesus mark 
 
I5 2 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 his relations to the natural world. Now, we have found 
 him unique in whatever relations we have studied, in 
 relation to God or to man, to his teaching of wisdom 
 or his conduct of life. It need not, then, surprise us to 
 find him unlike other men in his relations to physical 
 things. 
 
 But in each case we have found his distinction from 
 other men to involve no radical unlikeness. He does 
 not differ from us as one order of animate beings dif- 
 fers from another, with unsurmountable barriers ; but 
 he differs from all of us, as we differ among ourselves, 
 in the extension and co-ordination of faculties and 
 powers. No matter how far beyond human experience 
 he may appear in any particular, there is always a like 
 element in other men, which might conceivably grow 
 to match its fulness in Jesus. He is not on any side 
 nor in any respect shut off from us by boundary lines. 
 He is at the summit of development, and we tend 
 towards him. Now, it grows more and more certain 
 that man has rudimental powers of controlling the 
 physical world which are as yet but little developed. 
 Still, if the highest scientific attainments of this age 
 be compared with the attitude towards nature of the 
 contemporaries of Jesus, it may perhaps be judged 
 that we are but little farther from being able to repro- 
 duce his miracles than the men who witnessed these 
 were from our achievements. 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 153 
 
 Without pressing any such comparison, it may at 
 least be said that the enormous progress of man's do- 
 minion over the physical world makes room for the 
 suggestion that the powers of the perfect man may 
 normally extend to the instantaneous healing of dis- 
 ease, and even to the resuscitation of certain of the 
 dead. The view presented here — but only in the 
 form of suggestion — is that the perfection of manhood 
 in Jesus included as a normal part such a domination of 
 the spiritual over the physical as is shown in his mira- 
 cles ; and that this is so far from violating any natural 
 laws, that any other man developed to equal eminence 
 would possess equal powers by the very constitution of 
 the world. 
 
 This view of the miraculous in Jesus completes the 
 picture of him as the perfect and supreme man ; and 
 we are now prepared to take up the study of that sav- 
 ing work in which he is the central figure. 
 
154 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE WORK OF CHRIST ON MAN. 
 
 THE work of Christ upon man may be viewed from 
 two sides, — the divine and the human. The first 
 shows us that which his work intends for man, and the 
 last, that which man experiences under its operation. 
 Of course under the government of God the intent 
 and the result must be the same ; and Christian think- 
 ers have been led far astray by forgetting this obvious 
 fact. But if this is fully remembered, we are helped 
 to a clearer view of the great work by studying it in 
 the two directions. 
 
 Taking up first the divine side, we may consider the 
 object, the means, and the method of Christ's work. 
 
 The New Testament leaves us in no doubt as to the 
 object at which Christ aims. God sent his Son to be 
 the Saviour of the world ; that is, to effect the deliver- 
 ance of men from those conditions which oppress and 
 endanger their spiritual life. These may all be grouped 
 as sorrow and sin. The formal thinking upon Christ's 
 work deals much the more with salvation from sin ; as 
 it is natural in the heat of conflict to think more of 
 
THE WORK OF CHRIST ON MAN 155 
 
 victory than of peace. But when we try to grasp the 
 full results of his great work, our thought is of faces 
 from which all tears are wiped, and of hearts that re- 
 joice. Christ the Consoler is the noblest, as he is the 
 most beloved, figure in the annals of man; and God 
 has given no other grace to his struggling children so 
 powerful or so sweet as the privilege of knowing, when 
 our hearts are burdened with the sorrows of life, 
 whether our own or others', that Christ has comfort for 
 us while they last, and in the end will take them all 
 away. 
 
 Jesus came also to save his people from their sins. 
 This aim is never lost from sight ; nothing takes its 
 place. But it is not a new aim. The later parts of 
 the Old Testament avow the same intent on the part 
 of God ; and the New Testament writers recognized 
 that the Mosaic dispensation was given for this pur- 
 pose. But they also claim that the Law was not able 
 to accomplish deliverance from sin, and profess to 
 teach in Christ the only way. They certainly do not 
 mean by this that the Law did nothing effectual to this 
 end ; nor that under the Law no men were delivered 
 from sin. They are speaking of the inadequacy of the 
 Law to reach all men, or to perform the perfect work of 
 salvation on any man ; and they condemn it only in 
 view of the exceeding breadth of God's purpose. No 
 stigma is put upon the Law as related to its own time 
 
156 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 and office. Its work was done, and it must yield to 
 more effectual means of grace. 
 
 To comprehend this object of Christ, we must try to 
 understand the full meaning of deliverance from sin as 
 the New Testament teaches it. 
 
 In hardly anything does the progressive character of 
 the Bible more strikingly appear than in its concep- 
 tions of sin. At first sin is disobedience to prescribed 
 law ; later, it is unfaithfulness to recognized though un- 
 formulated duty. But in the New Testament sin is 
 always made to consist in opposition of the will to 
 God. And since harmony of man with God is the 
 divine purpose, sin is the one great obstacle to this 
 purpose, and Christ must necessarily assume the re- 
 moval of sin as the object of his mission. But we 
 have seen that the will cannot fully and freely act out 
 of accord with the other associate faculties of human 
 nature ; and therefore the effort to harmonize the will 
 with God must aim to harmonize the whole man with 
 him. 
 
 This is not obscurely stated in the New Testament, 
 and it has forced itself into notice in the practical 
 work of the Church ; but the studies of Christian think- 
 ers have singularly wandered from this great truth, 
 and have contemplated sin as something ingrafted on 
 the otherwise pure nature of man by which this is held 
 in bondage, and which therefore is a thing by itself, to 
 
THE WORK OF CHRIST OiV MAN. 157 
 
 be separated and removed. This has reduced the 
 conception of saving men to narrow and technical 
 limits ; has, in fact, made it sometimes almost a me- 
 chanical process. Over against this stands the plain 
 teaching of the New Testament and of practical effort, 
 that the salvation which Christ effects in men is a de- 
 velopment of right character. What is called the 
 forensic attitude of the sinner before God is a mere 
 fiction of the theological imagination ; it is not taught 
 in the Bible, and it does not correspond to the facts of 
 life. It was introduced to the Church by the earlier 
 Latin writers, and by them was borrowed from the 
 jurisprudence of the Roman Empire. But God is not 
 our Emperor, he is our Father ; and he deals with us 
 to no other end than that we may become partakers 
 of his holiness. Nor is sin a series of misdeeds, nor a 
 record of past transgressions. Sin is, in its essence, 
 a defect of character ; and neither man nor God can 
 save the sinner in any other way than by developing 
 into harmonious perfection those possibilities of his 
 nature by which man bears forever the image of God. 
 At whatever phase of salvation we may look, into 
 whatever details our examination may lead us, this 
 essential meaning is to be kept in view as the basis 
 of the whole discussion. 
 
 Christ, therefore, came to preside over the educa- 
 tion of man in every department of his being. Ac- 
 
158 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 cordingly, we must conceive the whole body of our 
 Christian civilization as being not merely a concurrent 
 or subsidiary result of the Gospel, but an integral, in- 
 tended, indispensable part of the work of Christ. 
 
 Taken, therefore, in its full scope, the aim of this 
 work is the salvation of the entire human race. The 
 appeal is necessarily to individuals, and it is one by 
 one that men must be converted ; but so close are the 
 bonds of sympathy and kindred, that no man can be 
 fully saved alone. Some taint must cling to him from 
 his unsaved neighbor, — some defect of knowledge or 
 bias of thought, some clouding or struggling of con- 
 science, at least some wounded affections which will 
 not let him share the peace of God. And all study of 
 the operation of Christ upon single men must con- 
 sciously refer to this universal solidarity of the hu- 
 man race. This inseparable unity of human interests 
 brings us to the first of the agencies by which Christ 
 is saving the world, — human society so far as it is 
 already Christianized. 
 
 It is a commonplace to speak of the influence of 
 each man's character on his associates ; and we all 
 know how much this gains when many persons of sim- 
 ilar disposition exert their influence in common. This 
 is true of all character, but it grows in force as char- 
 acter rises in excellence. In the moral world the 
 
THE WORK OF CHRIST ON MAN 159 
 
 infection of health is the most powerful. Nor does 
 this depend on formulated doctrines or any intellectual 
 drill ; when the work is at its best, neither those who 
 give nor those who take think how the process is 
 carried on. It is by contact of soul with soul : " The 
 life is the light of men." 
 
 Therefore in the work of Christian missions by 
 which the Gospel has been carried abroad, it has been 
 found wise to establish colonies of believers, who 
 should not only preach the doctrines of Christ but 
 should demonstrate the Christian life to those they 
 would convert. The industrial and medical education 
 of missionaries, the founding of mission schools, the 
 requirement of the order and decencies of civilized 
 life, colleges of letters and of science, the reduction of 
 savage tongues to alphabetical and literary precision, 
 are not to be considered convenient adjuncts of Gospel 
 work, but as much integral parts of the conversion of 
 the world as catechism, or worship, or ordinances. 
 And if this is true among the heathen, it is no less 
 true at home. Whatever makes for the higher life 
 does not merely help, but helps to constitute, the 
 coming of the kingdom of righteousness. Government 
 at once humane and just, wiser education, purer living, 
 happier homes, less selfish business, advancing free- 
 dom, science, invention, literature, art, — all these are 
 constituent parts of the growing dominion of Christ. 
 
160 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 If we look towards the past, they are his trophies ; if 
 we look towards the future, they are his means. Nor 
 is this meant in some general sense, but in the strictest 
 historical verity. If the key-note of science is the 
 pursuit of truth without solicitude for its source or its 
 consequences ; if the basis of wise politics is the 
 recognition of fundamental worth and rights in man ; 
 if the germ of true social order is the equal validity of 
 sentiment and reason ; then are these three elements 
 of high civilization traceable directly to the influence of 
 the Gospel. They were, of course, not wholly unsug- 
 gested before, but the Gospel first brought them into 
 prominence and gave them to men. 
 
 And this fact brings into view with extreme clear- 
 ness the universality of the Gospel. There have been 
 four great civilizations — the Chinese, the Indian, the 
 Western Asian, and the Grasco-Roman — which pre- 
 ceded the Christian by many centuries, and each of 
 which has embraced, perhaps, an equally great popu- 
 lation. But ours alone is built upon a demonstrable 
 principle which has presided over its organization and 
 characterizes all its parts. So that with all its com- 
 plexity the Christian civilization, in whatever lands, 
 has peculiarities which the dullest know at sight, and 
 which sharply distinguish it from all others, ancient or 
 modern. And these peculiarities are traceable to the 
 constant influence of the Gospel upon its origin and 
 
THE WORK OF CHRIST ON MAN. 161 
 
 growth. One of these is that which is called upon the 
 business side enterprise, and on the religious side the 
 missionary spirit. By virtue of this the Christian 
 civilization has pushed its way over all the earth. It 
 brings its own peculiarities into contact with all other 
 social conditions, asserts its own superiority, and in 
 the end has never failed to make good the assertion. 
 In this way the daughter of the Gospel has forced the 
 Gospel — often sadly disfigured — upon the attention 
 of all mankind ; and in spite of the unworthy lives 
 which have misrepresented it, the Christian civilization 
 has won the respect and roused the imitation of all 
 men, civilized or savage. And ample experience 
 proves that where the daughter has found entrance, 
 the mother can in time make good her footing, and 
 establish her sway. 
 
 To omit, therefore, any element of civil enlighten- 
 ment from the list of agencies by which Christ is 
 bringing the world to God, would be a fatal narrowness 
 of view. Nor are we to be disturbed because with all 
 that is good in these things there is mixed so much 
 that is wrong. The very process of salvation consists 
 in the interpenetration of the good into the midst of the 
 evil. No numerical computation can at any stage be 
 made of the extent to which the world is already 
 saved ; for, as we have seen, no man can be wholly in 
 
1 62 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 harmony with God till all are reached; and in com- 
 munities and individuals the tares and the wheat must 
 grow together. The true illustration of the process, 
 however, is the parable of the leaven, in which no part 
 is ready for the baking till the whole mass is raised. 
 Instead, therefore, of mourning the weakness and evil 
 that still impair what is best among men, we are to 
 reverse the point of view. We are to rejoice that 
 through all the evil and weakness of the world, a 
 gigantic mass, the beginnings of better things are so 
 mingled, that in contact with every wrong lies some- 
 thing right; and that the work of Christ, evident in 
 these beginnings, is mighty and must prevail. 
 
THE CHURCH 163 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 THE consideration of the Church, the next of 
 Christ's agencies, grows directly out of what has 
 preceded. For we must carefully avoid any view of 
 the Church which marks it off from the world. This is 
 the scholastic view, and finds no verification in experi- 
 ence. Whatever efforts have been made to segregate 
 the disciples from the world have necessarily failed. 
 Even when a physical separation has been attempted, 
 it has been found necessary to retain connecting links 
 with human society ; and to whatever extent the sepa- 
 ration was effected, to that extent the spiritual life of 
 the votaries grew childish and formal, a futile struggle 
 with imaginary difficulties. But these are quite excep- 
 tional cases. In general, the members of the Church 
 have of necessity remained members of the civil com- 
 munity. It has been impossible to draw any line 
 which should separate their duties, their fortunes, their 
 social relations as Christians, from those they sustained 
 as citizens. Almost everywhere theory has aimed at 
 this separation and professed it ; almost nowhere have 
 the keen eyes of onlookers been able to see it. 
 
164 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 And what experience has found is exactly what our 
 studies would lead us to expect. Since the daily life 
 of man is God's ordinary medium of communication, 
 and since all that is already won to him or tending 
 towards him is commissioned to act upon the evil with 
 which it is necessarily in contact, the Church cannot 
 be, and ought not to be, set apart from this allied field 
 of activity. For the Church is the focal point at which 
 combine all those persons and agencies that are con- 
 sciously bent upon serving God and drawing men to 
 him. It is Christ's institution. And institutions are 
 but organized forms of combined effort. What, there- 
 fore, the scattered agencies of good in the world are 
 doing under Christ's hand, with little consciousness 
 of his leading, the Church sets herself to do with full 
 intent. To the augmented power of many acting to- 
 gether, she adds the re-enforcement of careful prepara- 
 tion, and the wise co-ordination and distribution of 
 work. 
 
 But far deeper than this is the fact that every insti- 
 tution has some fundamental principle out of which all 
 its life and work proceed. And the basic principle of 
 the Church is the consciousness of Christian brother- 
 hood. 
 
 When the disciples assembled in secrecy and in fear 
 after the death of Jesus, it was because their terrible 
 loss made them more necessary to each other ; and at 
 
THE CHURCH. 165 
 
 the same time their common religious faith united 
 them in prayer. And here appeared that which in all 
 its history has been the vital centre of the Church, out 
 of which all its life has flowed, — the common worship 
 of the Christian brotherhood. The Church has wan- 
 dered wide and far, has partaken in every degree of 
 worldly frailty, has found her duty and her pleasure in 
 a thousand varying forms, but she has never ceased to 
 hold as the first of her functions the common worship 
 of the brethren. 
 
 Like all that belongs to the Gospel, this had already 
 been suggested. The Synagogue was the forerunner 
 of the Church. The assembled Christians came pres- 
 ently to recognize themselves as the people of God. 
 At first they did not wholly break away from their 
 Jewish preconceptions ; but after a little the conscious- 
 ness was born that Christ had widened the narrowness 
 of Moses to embrace all who would believe. And two 
 generations had not passed before the conviction was 
 fixed in the Church that she was on the one hand the 
 seed of Abraham's faith and heir of the promises, while 
 on the other hand, all barriers were levelled, and who- 
 soever would might take of the water of life freely. 
 The universal religion being come, the universal organ- 
 ization was begun. 
 
 We are not here concerned to trace the countless 
 forms which the Church has assumed. No one of 
 
1 66 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 them has the special warrant of the New Testament, 
 though all have claimed it. The fact is, that the 
 Church has very largely taken her structure in every 
 age from the circumstances of social life surrounding 
 her, and especially from the civil government under 
 which she lived. Her history covers the entire scale, 
 from the purest democracy to the strictest monarchy. 
 But however great the influence of these forms, they 
 have still been superficial and transient, while the per- 
 manent and all-animating vitality which made them 
 possible and used them, flowed always from the hearts 
 of God's people blended in worship. 
 
 It is of the essence of the Gospel that the Church 
 should seek for more than her own edification ; she 
 has special duties, and the first was laid upon her by 
 definite command of her risen Lord. It was the diffu- 
 sion of the Gospel. Methods and order were left to 
 the wisdom of the faithful and the guidance of the 
 Holy Spirit ; but somehow, and constantly, the good 
 news which they held as stewards must be spread 
 abroad. It is not necessary to insist that this is an 
 ineradicable first principle of Gospel work. The 
 Church has never under any form or any corruption, 
 lost sight of it or long neglected it ; and the nineteenth 
 century has seen efforts and successes in this field 
 which only the first century has surpassed. 
 
THE CHURCH. 167 
 
 Beyond this no specific command was laid upon the 
 Church, but her work promptly developed in two other 
 directions. The first was a supervision of the chari- 
 ties of believers. We do not read that pressure was 
 needed to urge the brethren to this duty. The only 
 word concerns the disposal of that which was given 
 as of course. Indeed, it is to be noticed that Jesus, 
 in this as in many other things, relied on the sure 
 response of the human heart when once it should 
 be touched by his Spirit. He teaches charity, and 
 he practised it on the most splendid scale ; but he 
 does not discourse of it as something new or difficult. 
 He has no conception that a man can love God with- 
 out loving his brother also. And the centuries have 
 justified his confidence. The Church at times has 
 been stained with wantonness and greed, but she has 
 never ceased to profess, and somehow to practise, the 
 duty of organized charity. 
 
 A third function which the Church early assumed 
 and has ever since asserted, grew out of an equal zeal, 
 but not according to knowledge. It was the function 
 of discipline, and was addressed at first to morals. 
 When it had come to be perceived that the Gospel 
 was equally the heritage of the gentiles, a great danger 
 arose that the Church might split into Grecian and 
 Jewish factions on the question of ceremonial observ- 
 ances. The apostles, therefore, as recognized heads 
 
1 68 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 of the organization, formulated a minimum of require- 
 ments which they hoped would keep the gentiles from 
 wholly outraging the sensibilities of their Jewish breth- 
 ren, and, at the same time, relieve the former of the 
 heavy yoke of the Law. 
 
 It cannot be said that the effort was successful. 
 The division persisted so long as there continued to be 
 Christians of Jewish education. Of the four require- 
 ments, two, abstention from things strangled and from 
 blood, are no more heard of, and nobody dreams of 
 their being obligatory upon Christians. The avoid- 
 ance of meats offered to idols might, it would seem, 
 have been left where St. Paul puts it, — with the con- 
 science and good sense of believers. And chastity is 
 so little amenable to compulsion, and so native to the 
 Christian animus, that the amazing victory which the 
 Gospel has won in its behalf is to be traced wholly to 
 the Christian conscience, and not at all to ecclesiasti- 
 cal constraint. Indeed, it is instructive to notice that 
 the times and lands in which the Church has devel- 
 oped the greatest power of compulsive discipline have, 
 with few exceptions, been those in which chastity has 
 been least respected. And a review of all ages would 
 show the same facts, for outward compulsion is alien 
 to the spirit of the Gospel. If we look at those in- 
 structions of Christ which are appealed to as the war- 
 rant for ecclesiastical discipline, we find nothing which 
 
THE CHURCH 169 
 
 deserves this name. On the contrary, we find direc- 
 tions to deal patiently with one who has by his acts 
 renounced the brotherhood, and if he persevere in his 
 renouncement, to let him go. 
 
 With analogous purpose the Church has attempted a 
 discipline of belief. The circumstances of the first 
 age hardly suggested this. The few traces of it in the 
 writings of St. Paul are rather the earnest remon- 
 strances of a brother than the commands of a prelate. 
 But as soon as active minds began to reduce the belief 
 of Christians to formulas, they of course differed, 
 and those in authority, solicitous for the continued 
 purity of the faith, promulgated creeds and denounced 
 heresies. 
 
 It is needless to recount the long warfare of the 
 creeds. The manner and spirit of it have been for the 
 most part unchristian and disastrous. Looking back 
 on some of the bitterest struggles, a modern Christian 
 can see no choice between the contestants. Nor can 
 we now admit that it is a legitimate office of the 
 Church to prescribe tenets of belief. The common 
 source of belief to all Christians must be the teaching 
 of Christ's word and life as they are recorded in the 
 New Testament ; and the office of learning and decid- 
 ing what is there taught belongs to each man for him- 
 self. Under such a law of liberty there will always be 
 many different interpretations of the Gospel, and men 
 
170 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 will naturally group themselves according to these 
 views, as did the Jewish and the gentile believers of 
 the initial Church. We need only to remember that 
 since these differences of belief are clearly within the 
 rights of those who hold them, they make no infrac- 
 tion of the bond of brotherhood ; so that while the 
 churches must always be many and various, the 
 Church is one, and the fruits of the Spirit are its only 
 tests of membership. But alike to the churches and 
 the Church must ever be denied the right so long as- 
 serted, of prescribing under compulsion the belief of 
 Christians. 
 
 But those who enjoy the theological freedom of our 
 day should no more imagine that their privileges could 
 have been won without the struggles of the past, than 
 should the heirs of civil liberty. The warfare of the 
 creeds has been in tumult, and with garments rolled in 
 blood ; but this was the stern condition of evils to be 
 conquered, and not otherwise could the large thought 
 of to-day have found place. 
 
 A fourth great division of the Church's work has 
 gradually grown into prominence, that of instruction. 
 Of course the diffusion of the Gospel always implied 
 instruction for new hearers, and crises would at times 
 occur when further teaching was needed ; but the 
 apostolic conception was so simple that no elaborate 
 provision for sustained instruction seems to have been 
 
THE CHURCH. 171 
 
 thought necessary. The next centuries developed the 
 sermon, and careful teaching for the young ; but as the 
 darkness of the Middle Ages shut in, this function 
 fell into neglect, or was so perverted as to frustrate 
 its original purpose. With the intellectual revival and 
 the Reformation, the first place was given among Prot- 
 estants, and an important one among Catholics, to 
 elaborate sermons ; and more recently the Sunday- 
 school, the prayer-meeting, the class-meeting, and other 
 customs have grown into use. 
 
 Now, all that we need here notice is, that, while 
 instruction must necessarily be a function of the 
 Church as long as any are uninstructed, none of these 
 forms of instruction are essential. They are the out- 
 come of the Christian sense under special circum- 
 stances ; and if altered conditions shall suggest other 
 methods as better, or if any group of Christians shall 
 come to exist who need no formal instruction, and 
 who dispense with it, neither the validity nor the use- 
 fulness of the Church can suffer thereby. 
 
 This would be the place, if there were occasion, to 
 discuss ecclesiastical organization, worship, and the 
 sacraments. But our conception relegates all these to 
 subordinate places. As has been said, no form of 
 organization is prescribed in the New Testament. No 
 such form has been or could possibly be permanent, 
 because the growth which is essential to everything 
 
172 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 human would be impossible with unvarying modes of 
 expression. By retaining old names in new meanings 
 an appearance of permanence has been given to 
 ecclesiastical institutions ; but, when the significance 
 of these is studied historically, it is found that succes- 
 sive generations have so differently understood things 
 called by the same name, that the permanence is 
 merely nominal. As in all other fields, the church 
 which lives grows ; and a growing church surrounded 
 by a growing community must, as a condition of its 
 growth, remain always at liberty to revise or change 
 the methods and processes which express its life. All 
 forms of ecclesiastical organization, therefore, whether 
 for worship or for work, must be the free outgrowth of 
 the spiritual and social conditions to which they have 
 relation. 
 
 As regards the sacraments, it is startling to contrast 
 the enormous importance which the Church has at- 
 tached to them, with the simplicity of their appearance 
 in the New Testament. A symbol borrowed to give 
 visible expression to the penitence of converts, and a 
 farewell supper touched with the tenderest pathos of 
 remembrance, have been fashioned into ecclesiastical 
 machinery which should move the gates of heaven and 
 of hell. That which is of the greatest importance con- 
 cerning them is that they be restored to their primitive 
 simplicity of meaning. So far as Christian souls can 
 
THE CHURCH. 173 
 
 find in them helpful suggestion and spiritual quicken- 
 ing, they may be fitly classed among the minor agen- 
 cies of the Church ; but they are far from taking rank 
 with instruction, or work, or prayer. 
 
 To gather now into one conception the result of 
 these studies, we find the Church to be essentially the 
 Christian brotherhood ; habitually assembled for wor- 
 ship in such groups as may be practicable ; organized 
 to carry on the work of the Lord under whatever con- 
 stitution, and by whatever methods, its own judgment 
 may at each period prefer ; striving to spread the Gos- 
 pel, to succor the needy, to preach righteousness, to 
 proclaim the truth, and, by all these means, itself to 
 grow in grace. 
 
174 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 TO the next of the agencies of Christ, the Bible, we 
 have already given some study. It will be ne- 
 cessary here to combine a brief recapitulation with some 
 additional considerations. 
 
 The Bible, we found, although composed of many 
 writings, constitutes a unity, and has, as a whole, an 
 impressive history of many centuries. Around it have 
 gathered the best thinking and the best living of man- 
 kind. It is not, therefore, to be judged de novo by the 
 standards of one age, much less of one school or indi- 
 vidual; but in any judgment passed upon it, all the 
 facts of its prolonged influence and its wide acceptance 
 are to be accounted for. 
 
 The Bible, too, is a book of daily human life. It 
 was not a scholastic production ; it does not deal in 
 abstractions or theories ; it never departs very far, and 
 seldom at all, from that instruction which their daily 
 experience offers to men. The tests of the Bible, there- 
 fore, are not to be applied in the closet ; but it must 
 be judged according to the results of its use by com- 
 mon men under familiar circumstances. And this is 
 emphasized by the fact that all sorts and conditions of 
 
THE BIBLE. 175 
 
 men have, in every age in which they have had access 
 to it, found that the Bible has a special word for each 
 of them. No result of its study tends more to exalt 
 our reverence for the Bible than this fact. When the 
 search for systems of doctrine is dropped, and its pages 
 are read under the pressure of daily concerns for daily 
 guidance, it is always found that this book contains 
 some word of comfort, of teaching, reproof, correction, 
 instruction in righteousness, which satisfies the seeker. 
 Nor does the purport of that which each man thus 
 finds for himself differ greatly from the results of his 
 neighbor's search. 
 
 Now, in the light of these considerations we may 
 ask, what is the authority of the Bible ? On what does 
 its authority rest, and what is its extent, whether in 
 force or scope ? We have found that the highest 
 authority for each man at any crisis is the decision of 
 his own conscience, guided by all the light it receives 
 from every source. Therefore, the deepest impression 
 of authority residing in the Bible is received when con- 
 science seizes upon its utterances and urges them as 
 obligatory ; or when the troubled soul finds in them 
 peace and rest. But since the same thing would be 
 true of any word from any source which might give the 
 same impressions, while a special objective authority- 
 is customarily claimed for the Bible, our question calls 
 for an answer from this point of view. 
 
176 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 All that we can infer from the history of its use con- 
 firms the conclusion reached by studying its origin ; 
 namely, the Bible commands our respect because it 
 summarizes the wisdom which God teaches to men 
 through the experience of life. It was produced by a 
 long succession of men, eminent at once for their 
 familiarity with the things of the Spirit, and for the 
 highest success in the conduct of life. And what 
 these men produced has received the indorsement of 
 the people of God, age after age. 
 
 Scholastic theology, to be sure, has been far from 
 resting in any such conclusion. The earliest dogma- 
 tizing period of the Church was led by many influences 
 to set the kingdom of God over against the world as an 
 antagonist ; it even seemed to find warrant for this in 
 the words of Christ ; and this made it necessary to 
 conceive a channel of divine authority wholly inde- 
 pendent of daily life. It was therefore asserted that 
 God impressed his truth directly upon the minds of 
 those whom he chose as his mouthpieces, by some 
 psychological process peculiar to this operation ; and 
 that the message of such men, whether spoken or 
 written, whether in their own age or at any subsequent 
 time, was for this reason to be received as the direct 
 and authoritative word of God, without the least need 
 of confirmation from temporal affairs. And different 
 branches of the Church have located this authority 
 
THE BIBLE. 177 
 
 either in the apostles and their alleged successors, or 
 in the writers of the Bible. 
 
 Now we shall see, when we come to study the Holy 
 Spirit, that a direct divine influence upon the spiritual 
 nature of individuals must be accepted as an occasional 
 fact of experience ; and we shall presently consider 
 how far this may be thought to have taken part in the 
 production of the Bible. But what concerns us at this 
 moment is that no such supposition can so authenticate 
 God's word in the Bible as to remove the need of veri- 
 fication by the conscience. No authority thus derived 
 can have any objective force ; for if God has thus 
 spoken to a man, other men can know it, aside from 
 some external sanction, only by the man's own report. 
 And the history of mankind has such a lamentable 
 record of self-delusion and fraud under this head, that 
 the assertion counts for nothing, with judicious minds, 
 until it is confirmed either by the proved character of 
 the claimant, or by the judgment of others upon his 
 message, or by both. 
 
 But the need of this authentication is exactly what 
 the theory seeks to avoid ; and to escape the difficulty, 
 confirmation has been sought from a special series 
 of occurrences in the material field, called miracles. 
 These, it has been alleged, being wholly aside from the 
 usual experience of men, and yet intimately connected 
 with human life, give just the witness needed of divine 
 
178 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 communication through special channels. We have 
 already studied the subject of miracles, but it may be 
 added that the miraculous attestation of divine revela- 
 tion has now lost its force with intelligent minds. As 
 phenomena, the occurrences may indeed be established, 
 but this by no means establishes for them a claim to be 
 considered special instances of divine interference. In- 
 deed, the high development of mind necessary to 
 determine whether given events are, or are not, within 
 the normal range of man's experience, finds itself so 
 able to estimate upon other grounds the claims of any 
 asserted revelation, that miracles become, for this pur- 
 pose, superfluous. In other words, the miraculous can 
 only authenticate a divine revelation for those minds 
 which are incompetent to judge either of the revelation 
 or of the miracle. 
 
 But even when the miracles are no longer urged as 
 the warrant of the Bible, it is still claimed that the 
 book is itself a miracle, because it owes its origin to a 
 special divine interference with the action of the 
 writers' minds, namely, inspiration. As has been said, 
 such a divine participation in the production of the 
 Bible may well have occurred, and we must, therefore, 
 study the subject of inspiration. And it will illuminate 
 the whole subject if we begin by distinguishing be- 
 tween the facts of inspiration, and the theories which 
 seek to explain it. 
 
THE BIBLE. 179 
 
 The facts may be stated as follows : For three thou- 
 sand years there has been a portion of the human race 
 who may be called the People of God, because, of 
 whatever race or culture, they have always excelled 
 their contemporaries in the power of so apprehending 
 spiritual things as to apply them with success to the 
 conduct of life. That is to say, the people of God 
 have always been, for their time, experts in spiritual 
 things. Now, these experts, through all their three 
 thousand years, have agreed in declaring that parts or 
 the whole of the Bible differ from all other literature ; 
 that the difference consists in peculiar fitness for min- 
 istering to the spiritual needs of men ; and that this 
 difference was caused by a special participation of God 
 in the production of these writings. These three ideas 
 combined constitute the meaning of inspiration as ap- 
 plied to the Bible ; and the consenting judgment of so 
 many experts establishes such biblical inspiration as 
 a fact. 
 
 It may indeed be freely granted that much of this 
 consensus has been merely acquiescence in the opinion 
 of others, that comparatively little of it has been based 
 on critical study, and that, however real each man's 
 consciousness may make it for him, it can be pre- 
 sented to others only as opinion. But the foundations 
 of the most important human interests rest on no other 
 ground. It is such long continued harmony of judg- 
 
l8o THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 merit, even of uncritical judgment, on which rest the 
 primary postulates of ethics, the most valued axioms 
 of political organization, and some of the canons of 
 art. So that it is no more an assumption to say that 
 the Bible is inspired, than to claim that children owe 
 obedience to parents, or that the citizen is entitled to 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the face 
 of such authority the adverse opinion of an individual 
 or a group no more invalidates the postulate of inspi- 
 ration than it would the political or the ethical. 
 
 But when we have asserted inspiration as a fact, 
 many questions still remain open upon which there 
 has been no general agreement among the people of 
 God, and the answers to which constitute the various 
 theories of inspiration. These mainly seek to an- 
 swer the two questions, to what extent, and by what 
 process, did the divine participation take place ? But 
 we shall, perhaps, best reach such an understanding of 
 the subject as our purpose requires, if we do not 
 attempt to keep the two questions distinct, but pro- 
 ceed by a course of inquiry different from that which 
 is usual. For it is customary to attempt the psycho- 
 logical analysis of the mind's action under inspiration, 
 and to seek the exact method of contact between the 
 human and the divine. But this is necessarily specu- 
 lative, since no man who is generally credited with 
 inspiration has left an account of his inspired mood. 
 
THE BIBLE. 181 
 
 The surer way seems to be to examine the inspired 
 writings, and discover in what particulars they differ 
 from analogous writings for which inspiration is not 
 claimed ; and then to ascertain, if we can, what modi- 
 fication of well-known faculties would be necessary to 
 produce these differences. If we find modifications 
 needed, and can guess by what mode of divine action 
 they might be effected, this will bring us to the position 
 of the psychologists, but with the advantage of much 
 preliminary information. If, on the other hand, a dif- 
 ferent conclusion is reached, the whole subject will be 
 much simplified. 
 
 Inspiration, if we take the word in its broadest sense, 
 has been held to affect the deliverances of the biblical 
 writers, as regards, on the one hand, man's external, 
 and on the other, his spiritual, concerns. The former 
 field includes the announcement of a moral law, and 
 unerring accuracy in the statement of events, whether 
 historical or prophetic. The latter comprises the ex- 
 pression of spiritual experiences, and the revelation of 
 theological truth. We must consider these four topics 
 in the order named. 
 
 We have already studied the process by which the 
 moral law of the Bible came gradually to exist, gathered 
 from special experiences of life by the consciences of 
 special men, and approved amid all the circumstances 
 
182 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 of the general life of God's people by the general con- 
 science. It is therefore the law of God who ordered 
 the life out of which it was learned, and gave their 
 native qualifications to the men who formulated it. 
 No doctrine of a peculiar, transient influence can add 
 anything to the divineness of such an origin. 
 
 The second claim for inspiration is that of unerring 
 accuracy in the statement of events, whether past or 
 future. As regards history, the test of this claim — 
 which is nowhere made in the Bible — lies with the 
 science of historical criticism, to which this book is, of 
 course, as amenable as any other. And the results of 
 such testing seem to be that, while the historical parts 
 of the Bible are certainly not without errors, yet they 
 contain history of a very high order, both for accuracy 
 of statement and clearness of presentation. Indeed, 
 if each book be judged by the best of other historical 
 compositions contemporaneous with it, the Bible will, 
 in every case, be found to equal, if not to excel, its 
 rivals. If any reservation must be made, it is only 
 in the matter of literary style, and that only in the 
 New Testament. All this indicates minds of the first 
 order in the authors, but it calls for no special divine 
 impulse. 
 
 Perhaps it is for the prediction of coming events 
 that inspiration has been most confidently claimed ; 
 and here again historical criticism must largely de- 
 
THE BIBLE. 183 
 
 cide, for both the utterance and the fulfilment of the 
 prophecies now fall within the historic field. Much 
 labor has been spent upon this subject, but it does 
 not appear that any perfectly unbiassed survey of the 
 whole field of biblical prophecy has yet been made. 
 Some tendency to magnify or to belittle seems always 
 present. It appears not certain that we can point to 
 any prophecy concerning temporal affairs, which can 
 be proved to have been uttered before the event, and 
 equally proved to have been fulfilled in the true sense 
 of the prediction, and which goes beyond that power 
 of foresight sometimes possessed by exalted and ex- 
 perienced minds. Remarkable instances of this power 
 are recorded of statesmen and men of affairs here and 
 there in all history ; and if it shall finally prove that 
 some biblical predictions transcend any other in- 
 stances of this forecast, this will seem to imply an 
 exaltation of known human power, rather than any 
 exceptional relation of man to God. It does not ap- 
 pear, therefore, that in the domain of temporal affairs 
 we need ascribe to the Bible what the Bible does not 
 claim for itself, a divine influence different from that 
 by which God governs our daily life. 
 
 When we turn to spiritual matters the case is some- 
 what different ; for the Bible is our spiritual book, and 
 is meant to express concisely and with emphasis that 
 which is diffused less perceptibly through daily life. 
 
1 84 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 The first point under this division is the expression of 
 spiritual experience. It is the unanimous verdict of 
 all who have known this book well, through two thou- 
 sand years, that the human race nowhere possesses 
 such adequate expression of all spiritual states as the 
 Bible offers. Through all changes of theology and 
 church order, despite differences of government, of 
 language, and of race, still psalmist and prophet, be- 
 atitudes and parables, have helped the heart to utter 
 its emotions, and brought peace to the sinner and com- 
 fort to the suffering. That the spirit of God breathes 
 through such words needs no urging and no proof. 
 They are spirit and they are life. But it is to be no- 
 ticed that in every instance they were allied in their 
 origin, and they are allied in their effects, with the 
 familar life of man. They are no closet songs, no 
 floating voices of the air. Heart speaks to heart ; and 
 since the spirit of God is thus poured through one 
 heart to another, this is surely inspiration. And yet it 
 does not depart, except by its greatness, from the 
 daily ministrations of Christian brotherhood. One is 
 more tempted, therefore, to pronounce inspiration the 
 universal prerogative of godly souls, than to attribute 
 this power of the Bible to a special gift. 
 
 There remains, as the last point, the revelation of 
 theological truth. Of this much the same may be said 
 as of the previous point. Whatever truly noble con- 
 
THE BIBLE. 185 
 
 ceptions of spiritual facts, or privileges, or hopes, pre- 
 vail among men, have been either wholly derived from, 
 or largely improved by, the Bible. Very much which 
 calls itself the result of philosophical study or of ethi- 
 cal experience is but a graft cut from this tree. But 
 in the Bible these conceptions are not delivered in 
 theological form ; and the gravest errors have arisen 
 from assuming that they were. In every instance the 
 writer's impulse comes from his own or another's ex- 
 perience. These utterances are the outcry of souls 
 profoundly acquainted with God, and wrought upon 
 by the pressure of life till they saw with open vision 
 the meaning of his dealings with the sons of men. 
 But this experience is not confined to the biblical 
 writers. In all ages there are men who live in such 
 constant apprehension of the divine presence, that in 
 extreme moments some truth of God flashes across the 
 mind, self-authenticating and absolute. The ready 
 accord which the people of God gives to these words, 
 once uttered, marks them as divine truth ; and it is 
 this, repeated generation after generation, which has 
 assured to the chief of them their place in the Bible, 
 and certified them as the oracles of God. 
 
 Now, this survey seems to show that all the factors 
 of the inspirational act are otherwise known to us. 
 They consist of human powers more or less familiarly 
 
1 86 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 exercised in ordinary life, and of a certain divine im- 
 pulse communicated to these powers, which is not 
 unknown in our personal experience. That is to say, 
 every element of the complex process of inspiration 
 exists in normal activity among men at all times. So 
 that, if it were the will of God to give us to-morrow 
 new psalms or a new epistle to the churches, of equal 
 validity with the old, we should not be conscious of 
 anything exceptional in the process by which these 
 would be produced ; and the new scripture could as- 
 sume its place with the old ones and share their au- 
 thority, by no other sanction than the recognition of 
 the people of God, who are for such an office as com- 
 petent to-day as they were in the earliest Christian 
 centuries. And this brings us back to the only trust- 
 worthy sanction of the inspiration and authority of 
 the Bible : that utterance, namely, is for • any man in- 
 spired which brings him into more conscious harmony 
 with God ; and that is inspired for the human race 
 which long and manifold experience among the people 
 of God has shown to have persistently this effect. 
 
 We should not pass from this topic without remark- 
 ing that this view in no degree lessens our reverence 
 for the divine element in the Bible, but rather in- 
 creases it. The status of the book, as has been be- 
 fore insisted, rests on no theory of its origin, but on 
 its long record of usefulness and power ; and if such 
 
THE BIBLE, 187 
 
 a book, instead of being an exceptional production, 
 is a co-ordinate part of that great result which God is 
 working out through all the life of man, then it takes 
 rank among the greatest of his works, and is marvel- 
 lous in our eyes. 
 
 Now, if we ask, in the light of these considerations, 
 how the Bible is to be used, we shall find the way open 
 to satisfactory conclusions. We are to learn from the 
 Bible what we can of that wisdom which God forever 
 suggests through the experience of life. It is mingled 
 with all life in all lands and times ; but we have here 
 what men, specially qualified to perceive it, under 
 specially suggestive circumstances, and with a special 
 impulse for teaching, have learned and recorded. 
 And we are taught by the experience of many ages, 
 that in this study we shall again and again find con- 
 science quickened and enlightened by some word 
 which it will know to be divine ; or sorrow healed by 
 a promise which visibly expresses the love of God. 
 As in all other fields of research, these lessons of the 
 book can only be well understood when confronted, 
 by each scholar, with actual facts analogous to those 
 from which the lessons were drawn. So used, present 
 facts and recorded observations illustrate each other, 
 and the scholar not only comes to grasp the full mean- 
 ing of the teacher, but may sometimes go beyond the 
 teacher's wisdom. 
 
155 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 Of course the beginning of any exhaustive study of 
 this kind, is to know exactly what the pages before 
 us mean to say. It is undoubtedly true of the bibli- 
 cal writers, as of all other thinkers or seers, that their 
 words often suggest to the mind of the reader more 
 than was in the writer's mind. All good thinking or 
 perceiving is an opening of doors. But it is merely 
 dreaming over the page to catch floating suggestions 
 without carefully studying the writer's meaning. A 
 book which has so impressive a history of influence 
 deserves our closest attention ; and any neglect, not to 
 say obstruction, of any study which may throw light 
 upon the meaning of the biblical writers, is clear evi- 
 dence that the divine claims of the book are not 
 appreciated. 
 
 The most mischievous form which this error has 
 taken is the setting up of views which the men of one 
 age have drawn from the study of the Bible, as final 
 and conclusive for those who follow. For this denies 
 a characteristic which gives the Bible one of its strong- 
 est claims to be a revelation for all men, namely, its 
 power of progressive instruction. As we have seen, 
 the efficiency of a revelation depends upon the capa- 
 city of those who receive to understand it. And as the 
 human mind cannot rest at a fixed point ; but is al- 
 ways, under the tuition of experience, becoming more 
 or differently capable of understanding the meaning of 
 
THE BIBLE. 189 
 
 things, a universal revelation must express fundamen- 
 tal truth in such a way that men at different stages of 
 advance can learn from it all the truth of which they 
 are at each stage capable. Now, the Bible has always 
 been admired for its power of thus meeting every 
 grade of individual life, from the sage to the peasant ; 
 and the fact cannot be ignored that the highest range 
 of human capacity rises through many gradations as 
 the centuries pass, and has an analogous need to find 
 for itself at each stage the meaning of God. To fear 
 or to prove that the Bible cannot endure this test, 
 would be fear or proof that it is not a universal reve- 
 lation. 
 
 But while the most learned of every Christian age 
 have found use for all their learning in the study of 
 the Bible, and while those who undertake the instruc- 
 tion of others have an obligation to let nothing escape 
 them that is attainable, yet the first object of this 
 study for each man is to learn what God has to say 
 to him ; and the key to such learning lies in his own 
 daily life. To this test learned and simple alike must 
 bring all their conclusions for verification. A yoke 
 which neither we nor our fathers could bear is not the 
 yoke of Christ, however it may seem deduced from his 
 words. Doctrines which make difficult the way of 
 daily duty, or sadden more than life itself saddens 
 the heart of the compassionate, are not of that Spirit 
 
190 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 whose fruits include joy and peace. And no biblical 
 study, however it may have exhausted the attainments 
 of scholarship, has mastered God's word to men if it 
 does not further in their lives the peaceable fruits 
 of righteousness. 
 
 So studied, and with the results of its study so veri- 
 fied, the Bible becomes the greatest, with one excep- 
 tion, of the agencies of Christ. The greatest of all, 
 which we have next to study, is the Holy Spirit. 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT, 191 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 THE biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit cannot be 
 learned simply by reading the passages in which 
 this phrase occurs. There are allied expressions — 
 the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit 
 of Christ, or simply the Spirit — which are so often 
 obviously interchangeable as to assure us that they 
 represent the same fundamental conception. At first, 
 however, we seem to find rather a multitude of allied 
 meanings than any one which is constant. But when 
 we have eliminated a class of passages in which the 
 words merely go to form a periphrasis for some more 
 familiar expression, we find three important phases 
 of meaning which run with varying emphasis through 
 the whole Bible. First, the Holy Spirit is a synonym 
 for the name of God. This is far more usual in the 
 Old Testament, but several New Testament passages 
 admit no other meaning. Second, a certain attitude 
 or disposition of man's spiritual nature is meant. This 
 is hardly emphasized in the Old Testament; but in 
 the New the Holy Spirit in this sense becomes a stand- 
 ard and most important expression. Third, the vari- 
 
192 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 ous phrases very often mean that divine influence by 
 which God induces in man harmony with Himself. 
 This is hardly more than suggested in the Old Testa- 
 ment, but it is the ruling idea of the New. 
 
 Now, a little study will convince us that these are 
 rather shades of meaning than differences. While 
 each text separately may belong more to one than 
 another group, yet a wider survey shows them all 
 blending, so that hardly any passage falls under one 
 definition so markedly as to exclude all trace of the 
 others. This is not confusion of thought, but profu- 
 sion. For spiritual processes cannot be stated with the 
 precision of mathematics ; we can express them only 
 in terms of their phenomena; and as these phenom- 
 ena are continually varying under changed condi- 
 tions, an elastic word, while it adapts itself to the 
 phenomenal variations, at the same time holds steadily 
 before the mind the fundamental meaning which un- 
 derlies all changes of application. This is the use of 
 terms which daily life forces upon men ; and this, 
 therefore, is the usage of the book of daily life. We 
 have, then, various shades of meaning susceptible of a 
 threefold grouping, but all underlain by one compre- 
 hensive thought ; and this fundamental thought is the 
 essential biblical meaning of the Holy Spirit. We 
 must now attempt to get clearly before our minds this 
 basic and all-determining conception ; and we shall 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 193 
 
 find the key to it in what we have already learned of 
 the nature of Christ's work. 
 
 We have seen, namely, that the aim of his effort was 
 to bring home to the minds of men the essential spirit- 
 uality of their life ; to demonstrate that the things of 
 the flesh are trivial and weak when compared with 
 the power of the spirit ; that our visible living is but a 
 series of transient phenomena through which our souls 
 express themselves and are educated ; so that the fur- 
 thering of this education is the only worthy object of 
 living, and its attainment the only durable possession. 
 Now, this is done by God's perpetual superintendence 
 of our lives. Every experience is a lesson set us, and 
 for every new need of our souls, life brings its appro- 
 priate teaching. Nor are we merely subjected to these 
 influences of external things and left to the result ; it 
 is most clearly taught that God's presence pervades 
 and dominates all that we undergo, so that he does 
 not so much send worldly experiences to teach us, as 
 himself teach us through them. 
 
 But we become aware, in the course of our lives, 
 that the progress of our spiritual education cannot 
 be wholly accounted for by the tangible elements of 
 life. There come at times sudden insight, augmented 
 strength, new groupings of our spiritual acquirements 
 to which the outer conditions do not seem to give rise. 
 And yet' these so harmonize with what we have other- 
 
194 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 wise learned, so admirably connect the tangible past 
 with the equally tangible future, that we must believe 
 them to be given by the same superintendence which 
 makes our outward life an education of the soul. God 
 is not limited in his influence upon our souls to the 
 mediation of material things ; but to this he adds, as 
 he finds it needful, his immediate touch. Yet he pre- 
 serves a perfect consistency in the whole process, 
 because, whether mediate or immediate, it is always 
 his contact with the soul which effects our training. 
 
 But parallel with this commerce between God and 
 each soul, runs the interaction of souls with each other. 
 Many occurrences indicate a communication of spir- 
 itual conditions from man to man by hidden channels. 
 History has instances so widespread as to cover com- 
 munities, and even nations, in which some epidemic of 
 patriotism, of superstition, of panic, has mysteriously 
 seized the multitude and swept all before it. And on 
 a smaller scale every one's experience has offered sim- 
 ilar phenomenon. In their nobler aspects they consti- 
 tute the silent effect upon a group of persons which 
 flows, we know not how, out of a single noble charac- 
 ter, a school, a church, imperceptibly filling the moral 
 atmosphere with, purity and zeal. These allusions may 
 suffice to suggest the larger idea of a spiritual affinity 
 among all men, underlying the more familiar experi- 
 ences of life ; and this comes vividly to sight in the 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 195 
 
 history of the earliest Gospel propagation, gathering 
 multitudes into one brotherhood, reaching from land 
 to land> constituting the Church almost on the instant 
 a notable phenomenon, and in a few generations 
 making it the greatest organized power in the world. 
 This was always called the work of the Holy Spirit, 
 and it was attributed to the energy of Christ flowing 
 through his followers. 
 
 Now, we cannot suppose this communion of godly 
 souls to have been completely in abeyance before 
 Christ came ; but the conditions of a large unity were 
 wanting, and especially there was no central principle 
 or person to form the vitalizing nucleus of such an 
 aggregate. The distinctive characteristic of Christ's 
 work was that he became at once the controlling head 
 of spiritual unity among men. By this is meant noth- 
 ing mystical, although it is something remote from the 
 apprehension of the senses. It is meant that Jesus 
 Christ, a living spiritual person, began, during his vis- 
 ible life, to exercise, and has exercised ever since, a 
 dominant influence over the hearts of those who trust 
 in him ; that this influence draws like-minded souls as 
 well towards each other as to him ; and that it results 
 in a perpetual and spreading epidemic of enthusiasm 
 and righteousness. 
 
 Now, this process is a more advanced stage of that 
 work which we have seen God to be conducting upon 
 
196 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 the spirits of all flesh : to whatever degree it has at any 
 time attained, it is the consummation of the divine pur- 
 pose ; and this touch and intercourse of souls blended 
 in Christ, responding to and co-operating with the work 
 of God upon all souls, fills out the underlying concep- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit. As we contemplate it, there 
 comes into view a vast and elaborate spiritual organ- 
 ism before which the material world and all phenomenal 
 being are as the light dust of the balance. Whatever 
 occurs in the experience of any man is part of that 
 universal life for which and by which all exists. It is 
 God flowing forth to all souls, and all souls reacting 
 under his touch. No personality is extinguished, no 
 arbitrary necessity is imposed ; but the countless mul- 
 titude of souls made in the image of God are quickened 
 in the germ and fostered through all their growth, that 
 they may at last find their native and chosen satisfac- 
 tion in the things of God — " that God maybe all in all." 
 
 As we deal with this conception, we turn now towards 
 its source, and the Holy Spirit is God ; we turn again 
 towards the divine image growing in men, and the 
 Holy Spirit is a disposition of the human soul ; or 
 more often still we survey these alternating currents of 
 divine influence and human aspiration, and the Holy 
 Spirit is the whole of this blessed fellowship in which 
 man and God are one. 
 
 The speculations of theology which claim person- 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 197 
 
 ality for the Holy Spirit, find no support in the Bible 
 fairly understood ; and this view is mischievous be- 
 cause it obscures the whole subject. It is of the first 
 importance to recognize the facts of this great spiritual 
 organism, that we may add our will to its operation ; 
 and we only do this effectively when we become con- 
 scious that in this work we are not the recipients 
 merely of divine impulses or help, but ourselves add 
 energy to the force which is saving the world. It is 
 participation of man with God and Christ in this great 
 work which is expressed in the formula of benediction, 
 " In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
 Holy Spirit." Without this participation, the scheme 
 of salvation would be a benign fatalism, with man 
 in perpetual childhood, the mere recipient of divine 
 operation. But with this, man becomes fellow-worker 
 with God, under the leadership of Christ, and the 
 entire chain of spiritual operation is complete. 
 
 These studies having made us acquainted with the 
 means which Christ employs for his work, we have 
 next to consider the method which he follows in their 
 use. 
 
I9 8 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 CHRIST'S METHOD. 
 
 THE method of Christ is necessarily modelled after 
 the general procedure of God. It is a wise con- 
 servatism which develops the future out of the past. 
 "I came not to destroy, but to fulfil." Accordingly, it 
 will be found that each of his agencies is the continua- 
 tion of something which had previously been working 
 to similar ends. God began the education of the race 
 at the first moment. He set in operation at each 
 stage whatever agency was best fitted to further his 
 work at that stage ; and Christ came in the fulness of 
 times, in the sense that the work was only then far 
 enough advanced to be ready for his hand. Any con- 
 ception of a changed purpose on God's part, or of new 
 contingencies not hitherto included in his purpose ; any 
 thought of the adoption of means better than those 
 which preceded had been for their time, or that any- 
 thing was added in Christ which might previously 
 have advantaged the world, would outrage every just 
 conception of the character of God. 
 
 The agencies which we have surveyed have always 
 been at work. What Christ added was to enlarge 
 them all to universal sufficiency ; to exhibit their per- 
 
CHRIST'S METHOD. 199 
 
 feet work upon a human life ; and to make known all 
 the fulness of that spiritual being which blends man 
 with God in the Holy Spirit. We are to understand 
 that the whole field of possible human needs is 
 covered by the extension of these agencies which he 
 effects. We are at present as far from having grasped 
 all the efficiency of Christ, and being able to judge 
 what he can accomplish for the welfare of men, as we 
 are from knowing what will be the fortunes or the 
 needs of future generations. Our confidence that all 
 needs will be met rests on the marvellous history of the 
 Christian ages, and on the assurance that the personal 
 leadership of Christ is to continue till " all things shall 
 be subdued unto him." The whole significance of his 
 work is belittled and vitiated when it is imagined that 
 for any reason, whether of limitation or new exultation, 
 Christ's attitude towards men or his power to work 
 their welfare was changed by his death. His apostles 
 had no such idea. They found his help more power- 
 ful, and worked more fruitfully by means of it, after he 
 had gone from their sight. Peter said, " Jesus Christ 
 maketh thee whole." Paul insisted that he had been 
 taught by Jesus as truly and as directly as had any 
 other apostle. The entire New Testament is full of 
 the assurance that the death of Jesus had only intensi- 
 fied the conscious relation between him and his dis- 
 ciples. And to this conviction the people of God have 
 
200 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 always clung, and the results in their lives have justi- 
 fied the claim. In fact, it has been a conspicuous 
 feature of Christian history that the waning strength 
 of the people of God has again and again been revived 
 by a new personal allegiance and devotion to Christ. 
 And if profound and enduring conviction of spiritual 
 experience, authenticated, by constancy of purpose and 
 nobility of life, be sufficient proof of a subjective fact, 
 then the testimony of the ages abundantly proves that 
 Christ the Lord is still accessible in living personality 
 to all who love him. 
 
 This does not raise him to Deity. It does not 
 require in him omnipresence or omniscience. God 
 has these attributes, and that suffices. If Christ is the 
 Captain of our salvation, God is still the Sovereign : 
 his God and our God. Nor need we be distressed if 
 we cannot understand all the intricacies of such a 
 relation. The simplest facts of spiritual operations 
 tax our comprehension, and we may well leave to 
 some future stage of loftier intelligence the deep things 
 which lie beyond our grasp. It is enough to dwell in 
 the assurance that through all the centuries the same 
 hand which so skilfully laid out the beginnings of the 
 work, the same heart which so wisely embraced the 
 race of men, have been until now, and will be until 
 the end, directing all the agencies by which men are 
 brought to God. 
 
CHRIST'S METHOD. 201 
 
 It is necessary to emphasize this persistency of 
 Christ's work. He said of himself, " The Son of man 
 is come to seek and to save that which was lost ; " and 
 this necessarily means far more than any mere procla- 
 mation, — the offering of a better way, which men may 
 take or leave. Seeking implies solicitude and positive 
 action. And lest too much seem built on a single 
 word, a commentary may be found in his comparison 
 of the shepherd who, having a hundred sheep and 
 losing one, " goeth after that which is lost till he find 
 it." This admits no ambiguity. The method of 
 Christ is one of persistent, unwearied seeking, which 
 will not remit till the lost is found. Nor does so great 
 a conclusion rest on two or three assertions. The 
 New Testament is full of this assiduity, expressed in 
 many ways, and only corroborating what must be 
 inferred from the facts of the case. Since God has a 
 purpose to bring the race of man into harmony with 
 himself, and has sent Christ to effect this purpose, 
 how can the work cease until God's will is done ? 
 
202 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 XV. 
 
 SALVATION FROM SORROW. 
 
 THUS far we have studied the work of Christ from 
 the standpoint of God's intent. We come now to 
 view it from the point of man's experience. And the 
 statement that he came to save the lost at once intro- 
 duces us to the heart of the subject. This word lost, 
 which exactly expresses in its primary meaning the 
 facts of the case, has come, through much theological 
 handling, to carry a secondary sense of finality. Of 
 course one could not seriously speak of seeking and 
 saving that which is known to be beyond recovery, and 
 yet the taint of this acquired meaning so clings to the 
 theological use of lost that we shall better grasp our 
 subject if we substitute a synonym which has no such 
 secondary implication. Let us understand, then, that 
 Christ came to seek those who were astray, as sheep 
 from the fold, or the traveller from his road. 
 
 It is noticeable that he began with the assumption 
 that his hearers were out of the right way, and needed 
 his succor. We have no account of any objection to 
 this assumption ; and indeed so generally has it been 
 made by those who have taught in his name, and so 
 
SAL VA TION FROM SORRO W. 2 03 
 
 generally admitted without protest by their hearers, 
 that we may be sure some fact of universal experience 
 is touched by this assertion. Nor shall we have any 
 difficulty in rinding this fact. Most men begin life 
 with high expectations ; but as the years go on nearly 
 all discover that they are not realizing what they had 
 confidently looked for. And yet disappointed men 
 seldom acquiesce in their condition ; they complain 
 with the tone of those who are defrauded. Now, this 
 implies a certain fixed conception of life, which consti- 
 tutes at first the expectation of the young, and later the 
 ideal of the disappointed ; and through all runs a 
 latent conviction that this ideal is what life ought to 
 be, the proper way or state from which men in their 
 actual experience are astray. Of course it would be 
 impossible for most men to state clearly what they 
 demand of life ; and certainly the current ideals are 
 far from the Christian. But the fact that all men have 
 some such conception, which they hope will, or think 
 should, replace the imperfect present, puts all in posi- 
 tion to give willing attention to the preacher of better 
 things, and predisposes them to accept from him not 
 merely treatment, but a new diagnosis of their dis- 
 ease. 
 
 When men come to seek a cause for this failure, it 
 
 is found to lie either in the conditions which surround 
 
 ' them, or in their own voluntary conduct, or perhaps 
 
204 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 more often in both combined. It is hardly to be 
 expected that the proportions of these causes will be 
 justly assigned even by the most sincere, but the dis- 
 tinction is true and is essential. It plainly points out 
 the two difficulties which beset the life of man, the two 
 senses in which men are astray ; and it thus prepares 
 us for the double aspect of Christ's saving work. 
 Those encroachments of external conditions which 
 defeat the ideal of life are the causes of sorrow ; and 
 those faults of will which bring an analogous result are 
 sin. Now, Christ saves from sorrow and from sin ; 
 and while the two are often blended, each lending sup- 
 port to the other, yet to the candid mind they are so 
 far distinct that they may best be discussed separately, 
 due regard being always had to their more obvious 
 connections. 
 
 Directly in the way of these studies, however, stands a 
 difficulty which must first be considered, — the so-called 
 Mystery of Evil. Ever since men began to think of 
 their state, they have proposed as a sore and difficult 
 problem the question, " Why is the life of man beset 
 with evil ? " And notwithstanding all the thinking of 
 the ages, this remains to-day the most agitated of 
 questions. Now, if this were merely a theoretical prob- 
 lem, it would suffice to say that the questioner really 
 asks why human life is different from his wishes, and 
 to answer that it is so because his wishes differ from 
 
SALVATION FROM SORROW. 205 
 
 God's, and God prevails. This is perfectly logical and 
 fair. The objector cannot show that he is competent 
 to conduct the world, nor that his ideal is the best, and 
 he therefore has no right to judge an order of things 
 which, after all, produces much success, by his untried 
 notion of what might be better. This is the way in 
 which the biblical writers meet the question, so far as 
 they can be said to touch it at all ; and perhaps the 
 highest practical wisdom of our time takes this atti- 
 tude. But the problem is not merely one of the study ; 
 it is the cry of burdened souls struggling with adversity, 
 and tempted in their struggles to doubt the goodness 
 or the existence of Him who is their only refuge. In 
 a work like the present, therefore, the discussion can- 
 not be waived. 
 
 The subject has suffered much from confused think- 
 ing, rhetorical exaggeration, and false sentiment. And 
 most of the mystery which is attributed to evil will be 
 found eliminated when these sources of perplexity are 
 removed. 
 
 The word evil is ambiguous. It may mean either 
 hardship or wickedness. The discussion, therefore, is 
 twofold, and each division is found to lose much of its 
 obscurity by separation from the other. We have 
 already discussed the mystery of sin ; and that large 
 proportion of suffering which is obviously the result of 
 
206 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 the sufferer's own sin, offers no mystery beyond that of 
 its cause. The present question is, " Why is the life 
 of man subject to undeserved hardship ? " 
 
 We must begin by asking to what extent the implied 
 assertion is true. Those who look with honest eyes, 
 and are not confronted with exceptional conditions, 
 find life preponderantly wholesome and cheerful. Of 
 the hundred persons whom one may encounter in an 
 ordinary day, hardly two or three are seen actually 
 suffering ; and even those whose lot is exceptionally 
 hard spend but a small part of each day in positive dis- 
 tress. It is customary to forget the alleviations of 
 habit and interruption ; but in sober fact the staple of 
 life consists of the placid and uneventful performance 
 of function, which rises to delight far oftener than it 
 sinks to pain. Life is subject to hardship, but does not 
 consist of it. 
 
 A further very large abatement must be made by 
 excluding imaginary evils. For instance, it is custom- 
 ary to speak of the hard lot of man under evolution. 
 Races and families die out in the struggle for existence, 
 the strongest surviving. But the individuals of all 
 races and families die. The only peculiarity of dying 
 races is sterility, so that the race or family is not re- 
 cruited ; and surely it is no reasonable cause of com- 
 plaint that the weak cease to produce weaklings. 
 Similar reflections apply to the alleged sufferings of 
 
SALVATION FROM SORROW. 207 
 
 privation. A highly sensitive and cultivated mind 
 grieves that its neighbors have few thoughts above 
 daily tasks and comfortable homes, or that their stand- 
 ard of comfort is so far below its own. But when it is 
 found that these objects of pity are quite unconscious 
 of any hardship, and that among them the funda- 
 mental virtues — honesty, self-control, devotion to duty, 
 family affection — are fully as prevalent as among the 
 cultivated, one may easily conclude that such pity is 
 misplaced, and such accusations need no serious 
 answer. 
 
 The matter of physical pain, too, is greatly misun- 
 derstood. Nothing is better established than the physi- 
 ological necessity of pain. As a warning, a help to 
 diagnosis, a beneficent and instructive punishment, 
 pain is indispensable for the continuance of animal 
 life ; nor is it possible to conceive any different sensa- 
 tion that could take its place. The unpleasant and 
 imperative quality of pain is exactly what makes it 
 effectual. Nor must we admit exaggerated ideas of a 
 needless excess of pain. All the less cultivated races 
 astonish us by their indifference to wounds, and brute 
 creatures receive hurts with almost the same readiness 
 as they give them. " Nature red in tooth and claw " 
 seems little conscious that she should be pitied. The 
 argument, too, formerly turned much on the hardship 
 of labor and fatigue. But experience has shown that 
 
208 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 work is the best school of manhood, and that the 
 fatigue and trial which accompany it are more stimu- 
 lant than hurtful. 
 
 All these deductions being made, the fact remains 
 that men are subject, in very unequal allotments, to 
 undeserved physical suffering and spiritual anguish ; 
 and it is a legitimate and urgent question why these 
 things have a place in the plans of a beneficent God. 
 To one who makes the inquiry for the first time under 
 the stress of present suffering, any answer must be 
 unsatisfactory. Pain obscures the mind and eclipses 
 everything. And probably the alleged mystery has 
 grown largely out of futile attempts to understand suf- 
 fering at such times. But to the mind at liberty to 
 attend, two very sufficient reasons can be given. For 
 there are two results of the very highest importance 
 in the education of man which are found by experi- 
 ence to grow out of suffering, and are not known to 
 be attainable by any other means. In the first place, 
 there is a group of virtues of which part are developed 
 by the endurance of suffering, and the rest by minis- 
 tering to it; and neither could these be spared from 
 human character, nor do they develop among those 
 who are wholly at ease. And secondly, there is no 
 part of human life which so perfectly educates the 
 sense of brotherhood as those experiences which suf- 
 fering and need produce. When all the abatements 
 
SALVATION FROM SORROW. 209 
 
 already suggested have been made, a candid mind will 
 not count the price too great for such inestimable 
 results. 
 
 Of course the salvation of Christ does not aim to 
 abolish this beneficent process. It seeks to minimize 
 the pain which must be borne, to increase the strength 
 which bears it, and especially to produce that oneness 
 with God which is the object alike of the suffering and 
 the salvation. 
 
 Nothing has so endeared Jesus to the hearts of his 
 disciples as that he too was a man of sorrows and 
 acquainted with grief. Those on whom the hardship 
 of life has most heavily pressed, often of low or un- 
 cultivated intelligence, have perceived that this august 
 sufferer was somehow of high station and commanding 
 power, which he used not to sweeten his own lot, but 
 to relieve the woes of others ; and the unformulated 
 consciousness of his greatness, of his compassion, and 
 of his sorrows, has at once ennobled and assuaged 
 their own distress. And in this his followers may 
 closely imitate their Lord ; for the administration of 
 such relief is among the greatest of the tasks to which 
 Christ inspires the Church, and of this the Church 
 has never quite lost sight. It is true that her official 
 prescriptions and the studies of her theologians have 
 dealt far more with the intellect and with personal 
 
210 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 conduct; but the real people of God have always 
 clung to the comfort of Christian brotherhood, and no 
 formalism or degradation has ever quite extinguished 
 Christian charity. 
 
 But there is far more than this. Since sorrow grows 
 out of undesired relations with our surroundings, the 
 readiest suggestion of relief lies in a readjustment, 
 and this forms a prominent part of Christ's work. 
 All true progress and reform are of this work, and 
 tend directly to diminish sorrow. The Christian spirit 
 constantly impels men to new labors in this field. 
 And when difficulties accumulate and others grow dis- 
 couraged, it is among Christians that every better 
 tendency finds sure anchorage ; and hence it takes new 
 impulse when the storm is past. But Christ speaks 
 also to the intellect of the sorrowing. We have seen 
 that his great revelation was the full meaning of divine 
 fatherhood. To the conception of a father's guid- 
 ing wisdom and administrative power he added pater- 
 nal solicitude and patience, presenting to the mind of 
 man love perfect in strength. And to this control he 
 taught us that all the life of man is subject. We who 
 suffer, and the conditions which cause our sorrow, are 
 all alike held in the firm hand of the Father, and he 
 administers all with the single purpose of bringing us 
 into harmony with himself. Just in proportion as the 
 mind of any man is enlarged, will this view of his life 
 
SALVATION FROM SORROW. 211 
 
 abate his inevitable sorrows and help him to bear 
 what cannot be removed. 
 
 But besides the sentiment and the intellect, the will 
 of man is much concerned with his sorrows. For it is 
 plain to any enlightened judgment, the Stoic as well 
 as the Christian, that very much of our suffering is 
 the direct result of kicking against the pricks. Since 
 God ordains to a definite end the course of things 
 amid which we live, it is plain that if we are to find 
 these things to our mind, our mind must be like his. 
 The proportion of human sorrow which can be traced 
 to disappointed ideals, to the obstinacy of wrong de- 
 sire grown into habit, to voluntary struggle against 
 recognized law, is far greater than any will believe 
 who has not made the computation. Now, just so far 
 as the will of God becomes our will, so far do all these 
 sources of sorrow cease. Christian history is brilliant 
 with examples of self-surrender which has filled the 
 hearts of disciples with joy and peace under circum- 
 stances that seemed to others intolerable ; nay, has 
 found in these very circumstances cause for thanking 
 God that they were counted worthy to suffer. 
 
 Now, although we can give account in rational terms 
 of all these processes by which Christ saves from sor- 
 row, yet the experience of Christians transcends any 
 enumeration of details. These are not rehearsed in 
 the daily thoughts of the saved ; they are all compre- 
 
212 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 hended, and except for special occasions are swal- 
 lowed up, in the consciousness of divine and human 
 sympathy ; that is, in the Holy Spirit. It is neces- 
 sary to bear always in mind that while for purposes 
 of intellectual enlightenment we necessarily dissect 
 such experience, and examine all its elements, yet as 
 it enters into the life of man, the process of salvation 
 from sorrow is neither complex nor mysterious. In 
 him who is thus astray there is a sense of inward 
 struggle and of surroundings with which he does not 
 harmonize, and this is sorrow. But over him who 
 has been found and brought back there comes an all- 
 pervading sense of peace and content. He does not 
 analyze nor explore; he simply lives surrounded by 
 infinite love and inviolable safety, and warm with af- 
 fection towards all mankind. Events adjust them- 
 selves ; duties are delights ; life flows on as God wills : 
 " to live is Christ, and to die is gain." 
 
 There is one burden of sorrow, however, which 
 seems to most men so large an element in the un- 
 merited bitterness of life, that the subject cannot be 
 passed without special consideration. This is death. 
 
 The radical change which Christ made in the view 
 of death has been sufficiently explained, and should 
 completely dispose of that dread with which one may 
 contemplate his own death. But there remains the 
 
SAL VA TION FROM SORRO W. 213 
 
 heavy burden of sorrow which the death of others 
 imposes. 
 
 Grief for the death of others may be resolved into 
 the sense of loss and anxiety for the future. And this 
 sense of loss turns sometimes on the surrender of 
 earthly advantages, and at other times on the separa- 
 tion of friends. Defeated hopes, interrupted labors, 
 the end of life's delight, are all answered by that trust 
 in God which is the first of Christ's teachings. If we 
 are sure that no sparrow falls without him, we may 
 confidently believe that no human life is terminated 
 without some wise design, and may leave to God's 
 care what seems so foreign to our ways. And, indeed, 
 in the particular of interrupted labors, which some- 
 times seem so grievous a part of the calamity of death, 
 experience shows that we greatly overestimate the im- 
 portance of any man's work. Others appear who can 
 continue, and often can better what was left undone ; 
 and the persistency with which the work of the world 
 goes on while men come and go, is one of the most 
 obvious proofs of divine control. 
 
 It is very different with the separation of friends. 
 Light attachments, it is true, are outlived and re- 
 placed, so that what appeared the most violent grief 
 proves but a sort of emotional hysteria. But there are 
 not a few unions of friends which grow so deeply into 
 the heart, that when they are sundered no lapse of 
 
214 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 time and no new affection can obliterate the sense of 
 loss. A part of the soul seems reft away. At the mo- 
 ment of such bereavement it is futile for another to 
 suggest, it is almost useless for the sufferer to recall, 
 any form of consolation which addresses the reason. 
 The only solace then is the consciousness of other 
 friendships which yet remain. Human friends, while 
 they cannot replace the loss, can ease the pain ; but 
 the long-established repose of the soul upon the love 
 of God goes far to rob even this grief of its sting. 
 
 When, however, the shock is past, and the mind can 
 think again, it is found that this sorrow looks much 
 towards the future, and blends with that other element 
 which has been named. So that it is by removing the 
 anxiety for the future which death begets, that Christ 
 becomes most effectually the comforter of those who 
 mourn. We have considered one side of this forward 
 look, and still another will more fitly fall under the 
 head of salvation from sin ; but just here we are con- 
 cerned with the question which so burdens the hearts 
 of mourners, — whether friends parted by death will 
 meet again. The Bible does not explicitly answer this 
 question, although several of its writers betray an 
 expectation that it will be so. But the view of life as 
 a continuing development, which we have found to be 
 Christ's teaching, seems to illuminate this subject. 
 
 If the soul continues its life beyond death with full 
 
SALVATION FROM SORROW. 215 
 
 .dentity, memory and affection must remain ; and if 
 the object of continued as of present life is the devel- 
 opment of the soul, those experiences treasured in 
 memory, and those affections seated in the heart, 
 which have already contributed to the ennobling of 
 the soul, must continue to exercise their influence. 
 But in the earthly life hardly anything contributes 
 more powerfully to our development than continued 
 intercourse with persons whom we nobly love. And 
 therefore, since mutual intercourse may be as beneficial 
 to these as to us, it seems inevitable to conclude that 
 the divine solicitude will assure to us so important 
 a means of spiritual growth. The conclusion, there- 
 fore, is that in the life beyond death those friends will 
 be again united whose intercourse truly furthers their 
 spiritual advancement. Nor can we be mistaken in 
 believing that the infinite Father's affection will not 
 deny to his children this supreme desire of bereft and 
 loving hearts. Since love is to draw all souls at last 
 to him, the love of soul for soul must surely be strong 
 enough to bring together, though it were from the ends 
 of the universe, those who yearn unceasingly for each 
 other. 
 
216 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 SAL FA TION FROM SIN. 
 
 WE come now to the final topic for which all our 
 previous studies have been preparatory, — 
 salvation from sin. We have learned that sin is the 
 opposition of man's will to God's, and is, therefore, 
 unlike any other element in God's relations to his 
 works ; for in all that is known to us of the uni- 
 verse, there is nowhere else any sign of opposition, or 
 the capacity for opposition, by any created thing to 
 the law of its being. Sin alone, therefore, disturbs the 
 harmony of the universe ; and we need not be sur- 
 prised to find all the agencies by which God sustains 
 and rules the world bent towards the cure of this 
 blemish. At whatever point God's ordering of the 
 world touches man, we shall always find that this 
 order makes for righteousness. 
 
 And, further, we have found that sin is no unex- 
 pected intruder into the spiritual realm, but necessarily 
 grows out of our nature as free agents. For since 
 God will have from men hearty accord with the divine 
 will, and not servile acquiescence, and since man can 
 freely adopt God's will for his own in no other way 
 than through profound conviction that nothing else so 
 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 217 
 
 well suits the requirements of his own nature, it follows 
 that man must first try other ways than the divine, that 
 he may have sure grounds for this conviction. There- 
 fore, God will not merely lead us through his world to 
 show us how well he has planned and constructed it. 
 This, if this were all, must have won the approval of 
 any intelligence ; but God will have far more than 
 this. He will have us know his work to the core ; he 
 puts it into our hands, to do with it what we will and 
 can ; he will have us test it, try to better it, substitute 
 other ways for his ways, learn through and through, 
 negatively and positively, what are the works and what 
 the will of God. No slight experience will suffice, nor 
 any mere aggregate of individual tests. Men must 
 try singly and in groups ; communities and various 
 civilizations, with all their intricacies, must struggle 
 with the order of things; one generation must hand 
 down to another its incomplete experiments, till no 
 combinations of human wisdom or human strength 
 have left untried the effort to find higher satisfactions 
 than God offers. 
 
 And, simply guaranteeing that we cannot go so far 
 as to ruin either his world or ourselves, he waits for us 
 to be satisfied. He waits with endless patience and 
 tenderness, and with the calm certainty that, when we 
 have tried all and learned all, we shall reject all else 
 and choose only his way. 
 
218 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 Of course God did not produce his human children 
 without full foresight of these things ; and we must, 
 therefore, avoid any thought of sin as interrupting the 
 divine plan, or in the least degree constituting a fea- 
 ture of the world not included in the original scheme 
 of creation. And equally of course, we must expect 
 to find that the means by which Christ is removing sin 
 are not special agencies apart from the general order 
 of life ; but that they consist in his adaptation of the 
 familiar things of the world to this great work, accom- 
 plishing thereby, amid the dullest routine of life, the 
 original purpose with which God made the world. 
 The New Testament is full of the idea that Christ 
 takes up and completes a work long since begun ; that 
 he is therefore a member — though the greatest mem- 
 ber — of a long series of world-agencies, carrying on 
 from step to step the eternal purpose. 
 
 This conception forbids the idea that his contribu- 
 tion to man's salvation consists of a single act, however 
 momentous, or the acts of a single epoch. The entire 
 history of Christianity, from the pages of the New 
 Testament to our day, shows that the impulse given 
 by Jesus in Judea has been sustained by continual 
 contact of his spirit with the souls of men through all 
 the ages. We have already considered this perpetual 
 headship of Christ through the Holy Spirit, and it 
 will therefore be understood that, even when his name 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 219 
 
 is not mentioned, the work of salvation now to be dis- 
 cussed is Christ's w©rk, because he animates and 
 guides every agency and every agent. 
 
 The fundamental provision for the removal of sin 
 lies in the fact that, as we have already seen, man is 
 so constituted in the likeness of God, that to whatever 
 degree he apprehends the things which concern him as 
 God apprehends them, to that degree he will desire 
 regarding them what God desires. Salvation, there- 
 fore, is largely a process of enlightenment, including 
 in this term not only the illumination of the intellect, 
 but the right development of the sentiments, since 
 the things of God can be apprehended only by the 
 action of head and heart duly harmonized. But en- 
 lightenment is not all ; for we have found a third factor 
 which impedes the free action of conscience and will, 
 — the force of habit. This might be resolved into a 
 motive of the will, since the habitual way is the line of 
 least resistance, and a sluggish will may see promise 
 of more satisfaction in declining to resist than in any 
 inducement to effort. But without dwelling on this 
 analysis, the fact is important that repeated yielding 
 to sin establishes a habit of sinning which reduces 
 the voice of conscience to a protest, and the action of 
 the will to mere acquiescence, and in this way enfee- 
 bles and degrades the whole man. To a sinner so 
 
220 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 weakened, all the inducements to virtue seem ad- 
 dressed in vain ; and his first need is some discipline 
 which shall break the yoke of habit and reinvigorate 
 the moral nature. 
 
 These considerations show us that salvation from 
 sin must consist, so far as it can be reduced to sys- 
 tematic statement, of enlightenment and strengthen- 
 ing. To these must be added persuasion, of which we 
 shall have to take ample account, but which almost re- 
 fuses to be classified as a part, since it seems rather 
 the informing spirit of the whole work. Now, Christ 
 provides all these, but not in any rigid method of 
 routine. For so different are the characters and ex- 
 periences of men, that some learn first what is the last 
 lesson of others, and no sequence of development can 
 be suggested which will fit the actual experience of 
 any large group of men. This, however, does not 
 forbid us to adopt an order of study, provided we 
 always remember that the order belongs to logical 
 thought, and not to daily life. And in this way we 
 shall take up, one by one, the really inseparable ele- 
 ments of that process by which Christ saves from sin. 
 
 But in order to appreciate the greatness of the 
 resources which are provided for this work, and the 
 necessary slowness of its progress, we must consider 
 more fully the obstacles which lie in the way. For sin 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 221 
 
 is really an absurdity ; and if experience did not sadly 
 prove the contrary, we should suppose a few demon- 
 strations and a little advice all that might be needed. 
 It will be well, therefore, to correct this fancy by 
 examining some of the difficulties- which beset the 
 overthrow of sin. 
 
 The first of these relates to enlightenment. Men 
 must be brought to apprehend the things which con- 
 cern them as God apprehends. These things are the 
 physical world, including our own bodies, other men, 
 and God. Now, we are born without any knowledge 
 of these, and with only rudimentary faculties for 
 knowing them, and we have at the same time to 
 develop the faculties, and by means of them acquire 
 the knowledge. Of course immature faculties cannot 
 grasp the magnitude of the entire task ; and, imagining 
 that it is nearly accomplished, they draw far-reaching 
 conclusions from very scanty experience. This is 
 done, too, at the most receptive period of life ; and the 
 conclusions become imbedded in the growing mind, to 
 bias alike the development and the knowledge which 
 the future brings. When it is added that the will is in 
 free exerc'ise during this process, and has much con- 
 trol over the course of daily experience, it will be easily 
 understood why most men, before they set themselves 
 to consider the things of God, have already views of 
 life and its satisfactions to which they cling tena- 
 
222 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 ciously, and in which error is largely and intricately 
 mixed. Now, to whatever extent these views differ 
 from God's views, salvation must modify or eradicate 
 them. It is probably well for those who attempt to 
 co-operate in the work of Christ, that we are so little 
 able to appreciate the magnitude of this difficulty. 
 
 Another obstacle lies in the enfeebling power of sin- 
 ful habit. So heavy is this yoke, that it has seemed 
 to the majority of Christian thinkers to imply an in- 
 nate aptitude for sin, as if sin were the established 
 destiny of man. The facts of experience do not sup- 
 port this theory. It is a fancy of the closet, and is 
 practically ignored by those who, laboring for reform, 
 have become acquainted at close quarters with the 
 worst of sinners. But however erroneous the explana- 
 tion, it remains as a fact universally observed, that 
 habitual sin taints the whole man, paralyzes the will, 
 which should throw it off, and seems to become an 
 essential part of his being. There is still another dif- 
 ficulty not easily explained, but which the familiar 
 experience of life knows in this as well as many other 
 connections, — obstinacy. The will often chooses to 
 disregard conscience for no recognizable reason be- 
 yond the pleasure of self-assertion. The strength of 
 this obstinacy and the unreasonable occasions of its 
 exercise constitute both a difficulty and a puzzle in 
 the way of moral reform, and can be by no means left 
 out of our account. 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 223 
 
 Now, no one can rightly estimate or successfully 
 study the saving work of Christ who does not appre- 
 ciate the greatness of the task as shown by these ob- 
 stacles. And yet the work itself does not wait for 
 deep study nor for philosophical analysis. We must 
 always remember that such investigations as these are 
 not preliminary to the facts, nor to our participation in 
 the facts. God is saving the world through Christ ; 
 and thousands who do not well understand his pro- 
 cesses are helping them forward. The Holy Spirit in 
 men's hearts enables them efficiently to respond to the 
 divine process both in forsaking their own sins and in 
 bringing others to righteousness, even though they 
 have not thought to ask how such things can be done. 
 
 Returning now to our inquiries, we have first to 
 study Christ's methods of making men " wise unto sal- 
 vation; " that is, of enlightenment. In its most general 
 aspect this coincides with the whole breadth of Chris- 
 tian civilization ; and this phrase has far more meaning 
 than is generally understood. No man can have any 
 contact with social or domestic affairs, with politics, 
 business, or law, without coming under some touch of 
 the Gospel as it is diffused through the whole life of 
 the community by the force of Christian institutions. 
 
 It is not contended that this enlightenment abol- 
 ishes sin, or can at any point of attainment suffice to 
 
224 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 save men. But it prepares the way of Christ with 
 great power. It secures place and opportunity for his 
 church ; it diffuses the Bible ; it brings into perpetual 
 contact those who do and those who do not follow 
 him. It also prepares the way for the consciousness 
 of sin by bringing men to consider their actions as 
 personal and voluntary, not customary and of course. 
 It begins the subjection of the animal to the spiritual 
 nature, and opens avenues of divine access not pos- 
 sible without it. 
 
 Another general means of enlightenment is the in- 
 struction imparted by personal contact. It is hardly 
 possible to overestimate this power of personal influ- 
 ence, and it is not generally remembered how widely it 
 is exercised. In public and in private, by priest and 
 by preacher, by parents and friends, the principles of 
 the Gospel, illustrated by Christian lives and vivified 
 by personal enthusiasm, are unceasingly pressed upon 
 the attention of Christendom. His lot must be indeed 
 peculiar who does not at some time come under this 
 influence. And all these agents draw their inspiration 
 from the Church, which in turn derives it from the life 
 of Christ, externally through the Bible history, and in- 
 ternally through the Christian consciousness. Thus 
 the stream of personal influence originating with the 
 Saviour, and re-enforced by the personality of his 
 servants, finds in the Christian civilization its possi- 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 225 
 
 bility of free exercise, and encompasses the lives of 
 men. 
 
 All this is the environment. We have now to study 
 the work of enlightenment within the hearts of men. 
 Each man's circumstances, as we have seen, are ar- 
 ranged by God for the development of his character ; 
 and we have studied the process by which experience 
 demonstrates the futility of sin. When this process 
 has profoundly impressed this conviction upon the 
 mind, it constitutes the beginning of conversion ; that 
 is, the turning of the soul from sin to virtue. We 
 shall have to make very careful study of this opera- 
 tion, and the point which we have now reached natur- 
 ally introduces it by a consideration of punishment. * 
 
 The successive conceptions of divine punishment 
 which have prevailed in Christian theology, illustrate 
 the fact that the dogma which expresses for any age its 
 understanding of the truth, is mainly determined by 
 the tone of contemporary life. In ignorant and bar- 
 barous times the imagination has labored to fill the 
 subject with horrors; while the increasing substitution 
 of more humane views in our day reflects far less the 
 power of argument than the influence of a higher 
 civilization. And yet some apprehension of the true 
 basis of this doctrine has never wholly perished. 
 Dante makes the inscription over the gates of hell 
 recite that the place was founded by eternal wisdom 
 
226 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 and love. Endless ingenuity has been spent in trying 
 to reconcile this with the awful scenes which follow ; 
 but the effort is in vain. The paradox simply shows 
 that while in a moment of abstraction the poet may 
 utter an echo of the primal truth, yet when the imagina- 
 tion is set in play its pictures are determined by his 
 environment. Our studies will enable us easily to 
 grasp this primal truth. 
 
 Punishment is the painful consequence which sin, 
 under the existing order of the universe, necessarily 
 entails upon the sinner. It cannot be thought of in 
 the commercial way, — so much punishment for so 
 much sin, — because sins are too subtle and compli- 
 cated for the mind to make any comparative estimate 
 of them ; and therefore, even if we conceive the divine 
 wisdom to apportion an exact degree of punishment 
 to every shade of guilt, still, since we are unable to 
 appreciate such nicety, it could have no effect on us. 
 But in fact the divine Judge does not sentence us for 
 our covert acts, nor yet for separate sinful volitions. 
 It is guiltiness, and not specific instances of guilt, to 
 which he addresses his punishments. God is not aim- 
 ing to " get even " with the sinner. No balanced 
 account of exactly awarded penalties would satisfy 
 him if at the end the sinner remained sinful still. 
 His entire aim is to make to the sinner, as to a rea- 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 227 
 
 sonable being, a certain demonstration of the nature 
 of sin ; and whatever degree of chastisement is needed 
 to effect this, is the due measure. But there is another 
 quality of punishment well known to have far greater 
 moral efficacy than degrees of severity, and that is 
 certainty. All human experience goes to prove this, 
 although it is the element most lacking in criminal 
 procedure among men. In the divine administration, 
 however, inviolable certainty of punishment is the 
 characteristic most emphasized. We shall have much 
 to learn of divine forgiveness ; but divine pardon, as 
 the word applies to human governments, is incon- 
 ceivable. And the reason lies in the nature of sin, and 
 consequently of its results. 
 
 We have found that sin is the determination of the 
 will to follow a way other than God's, and that the 
 inducement to this is the hope of greater satisfaction. 
 But as man and the universe are adjusted, it is impos- 
 sible that any way should yield to the mature soul so 
 much satisfaction as the way of God. Now, in order 
 that man may certainly learn this from the experi- 
 ments of his immaturity, — that is, from his sins, — the 
 result of every trial must be inexorable. Unless he 
 will alter the constitution of his universe, God cannot 
 separate the result from the sin, and man can escape 
 punishment only by avoiding sin. The punishment 
 may be physical or spiritual, immediate or delayed, in 
 
228 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 this world or another, but because it has a work to do 
 upon man for which no other provision is made or is 
 conceivable, all the energy of the divine love is pledged 
 to its inexorable administration ; and hell, rightly un- 
 derstood, does rest on love and wisdom. 
 
 Out of the same consideration grows the necessary 
 limit of punishment. The only imaginable reason 
 why the good God should inflict suffering upon his 
 creatures, is that it is the certain means of their high- 
 est good. Therefore, the responsibility which God 
 assumes in undertaking the moral education of his 
 children, pledges him on the one hand to produce 
 this result in every case to which he applies chastise- 
 ment, " whereof all are partakers ; " and on the other 
 hand to push this dreadful agency no farther than the 
 result requires. 
 
 But punishment carried to its full effect can do no 
 more than convince the mind that sin is ill-advised, 
 and so produce submission. Another agency must 
 co-operate to bring the will into harmony with God. 
 This is found in the constant beneficence of the 
 divine order, concurrent with the sinner's other experi- 
 ence. No earthly lot is without evidence of this. 
 There can be no sorrow so deep but some soul has 
 found cause to praise God in equal depths. And the 
 ordinary life of man is so full of daily blessings 
 (though we take them as things of course), that when 
 
SAL VA TION FROM SIN. 229 
 
 the mind, defeated in its experiments of evil and 
 humbled into self-distrust, casts about for some other 
 guide, it needs only to be shown these evidences of 
 the divine presence and love to recognize and ac- 
 knowledge their lesson. And then some touch of the 
 Holy Spirit, through channels human or divine, begins 
 the gracious change towards virtue. 
 
 An objection to this view of the results of human 
 experience may be based upon the fact that the events 
 and punishments of a lifetime are often not seen to 
 have produced any good effect upon evil men, and 
 they die in their sins. In answer to this it becomes 
 necessary to elaborate a point already touched upon. 
 We found in the resurrection of Christ assurance that 
 the soul at death departs with all its faculties unim- 
 paired, and with full remembrance of its earthly expe- 
 rience. Now, with Christ's revelation of continuous 
 life, in which death is only an incident, and remem- 
 bering that the whole purpose of our being is to grow 
 towards the divine likeness (which no man has at- 
 tained at the hour of death), we may conclude that 
 this growth must continue after death as before, until 
 it finds consummation in some future, however remote. 
 And to this the memories of earthly life must contrib- 
 ute, co-operating with the unknown new conditions 
 which will then surround the soul. 
 
 For we find in our present state that the fruits of 
 
230 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 experience often ripen long after the experience is 
 past. Indeed, it seldom happens that a man grasps 
 the full meaning or instruction of the passing day ; but 
 memory and reflection, with perhaps the help of some 
 further happenings, mature at length a full under- 
 standing of the past. Now, no reason can be conceived 
 why this may not freely occur after disembodiment. 
 It may well be that the new conditions will powerfully 
 promote that study by each man of his own life in the 
 flesh, which will open to him all the meaning in it 
 which he had not seen before. And in this way we 
 may surmise a use for those numberless experiences, 
 sometimes entire lives, which seem utterly fruitless 
 and wasted. Useless as they seem to us, they are 
 impressing upon the dull soul a wide range of fearful 
 knowledge, which the power of the divine touch can 
 transmute into heavenly wisdom and sympathy. 
 
 This process is not wholly conjectural. It is some- 
 times seen here when the desperately wicked turn to 
 God and become most efficient agents in saving the 
 lost. And to make easily acceptable the suggestion 
 that this must be the normal destiny of every sinful 
 soul in the life beyond death, we need only the assur- 
 ance that the divine hand never forsakes the depraved, 
 but directs all their earthly experience, amid whatever 
 depths of wickedness, to this appointed end. But 
 when these experiences begin their work upon the 
 
SA L VA TION FR OM SIN. 231 
 
 awakened soul, we may well believe that their results 
 will not be wrought without pain and anguish, so that 
 the doctrine of punishments after death, which has 
 been so tenaciously held by the Church, seems fully 
 warranted by this view. Only it must always be 
 remembered that no suffering can befall men here or 
 hereafter without God's will, and that the divine 
 Fatherhood can inflict no pain which has not for its 
 aim and its assured result the infallible purpose of 
 God, — that we may become partakers of his holiness. 
 
 Now, out of these two elements combined — namely, 
 punishment and the perception of God's goodness — 
 grows the consciousness of sin. It is not the mere 
 humiliation of defeat ; but when with this is coupled 
 the recognition that all his struggles have been against 
 patient love, then for the first time the sinner knows 
 his sin. But at this point a new difficulty appears; 
 namely, the psychological fact that sin perverts the 
 judgment and produces a certain delusion of which the 
 consequences have been vast beyond measure. The 
 conscious sinner, humiliated and aware of God, is con- 
 vinced that he has forfeited the divine favor, and can 
 regain it, if at all, only by some act of propitiation. 
 This belief has been common to all men under all 
 forms of religion. Priestcraft has thriven on the pre- 
 tence of placating God or the gods, and there has been 
 
232 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 no limit to the penances which men have gladly 
 endured with the hope of regaining the divine favor. 
 The memory of past sins seems to them an accumu- 
 lation of indebtedness from which they have no 
 power to escape, which they are persuaded God has 
 a right and is disposed to exact with rigor, and for 
 which in their despair they seek somehow to win his 
 pardon. 
 
 Now, from the first, Christians have understood that 
 Christ came to release sinners from this despair, and 
 countless multitudes have looked to him with this 
 assurance, and come out of darkness into great light 
 and peace. It has mattered little to the sufferers by 
 what process this might be conceived to be done. 
 They have accepted any offered explanation of the 
 happy fact. But the thinkers of the Church have en- 
 tangled themselves in a web of impossibilities as dis- 
 honorable to God as it was discreditable to themselves. 
 And all the difficulty has grown out of the mistake of 
 fancying that the sinner, bewildered in his sin, is com- 
 petent to tell us of spiritual things, and that therefore 
 his assurance that he has forfeited the divine favor and 
 needs to propitiate God, is true. 
 
 But Christ came to tell the world that the despair- 
 ing sinner is deluded ; that nothing man can do ever 
 changes God's desire towards him, — no depth of de- 
 pravity, no mountain of guilt, no life-long hardness of 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 2$$ 
 
 heart can for a moment raise any barrier between him 
 and God, except the existing sinfulness of his own 
 heart ; and at whatever moment this ceases to exist, he 
 will know the fulness of divine love. There are no ar- 
 rears of sin. There is an awful bondage grown out of 
 the awful past, and much and long must the soul labor 
 to overthrow habit and attain Christian maturity ; but 
 at every point the gracious Father beckons and helps 
 and waits ; nor can the saved soul look back to any 
 moment at which God was estranged or angry. To 
 men painfully striving to win God's forgiveness, Christ 
 announces that forgiveness is the normal and unalter- 
 able attitude of God. It must not be overlooked that 
 forgiveness is made conditional in the Bible, and the 
 condition, however worded, requires abandonment of 
 sin and a tender heart. " If ye forgive not men their 
 trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your tres- 
 passes." But we need not stumble at the language, 
 and we must insist upon the fact. The language is 
 simply that of daily life, which Jesus customarily used. 
 His help to men did not depend on words ; he taught 
 through the facts of life. He has no formal discourse 
 on forgiveness, but the parable of the prodigal ex- 
 presses, both more plainly and more profoundly than 
 any formula, the waiting readiness of God. Now, the 
 prodigal knew himself forgiven only when he went to 
 his father ; and so the very simple meaning of these 
 
234 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 conditions is that hard hearts are incapable of receiv- 
 ing God's forgiveness, though he waits to bestow it. 
 
 The death of Jesus on the cross has always been 
 felt, with whatever clearness or obscurity of thought, 
 to be the culminating point of that process by which 
 he helps fearful sinners towards God, — the atonement. 
 This is repeated and emphasized in the New Testa- 
 ment. He died, "the righteous for the unrighteous. " 
 Sinners are washed clean in his blood. The cross is 
 the symbol of salvation. Now, much of this, and the 
 strongest of it, is imagery addressed to Jews, and bor- 
 rowed from the sacrifices of the ancient ritual. But 
 when all allowance is made for this, it still remains 
 conspicuous that the cross of Christ is in the thought 
 of the apostles the focus of his saving work. Nor 
 need we look beyond the New Testament to find the 
 explanation. This death was the seal and crown of all 
 his life ; so that whatever he had done or taught is 
 here expressed with immeasurable emphasis. As an 
 example of the highest living he here consummates all 
 in an act which combines the sublimest faith with the 
 humblest obedience. And as God's Word, his perfect 
 revelation and expression, he here exemplifies the love 
 of God beyond all the power of speech or doctrine. 
 Upon this the apostles dwell and enlarge, their strains 
 being all summed up in the unanswerable question of 
 
SAL VA TION FR OM SIN. 235 
 
 Paul : " He that spared not his own Son, but delivered 
 him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely 
 give us all things ? " 
 
 The method, then, by v/hich Christ meets this univer- 
 sal delusion of the sinner, is by emphasizing the love 
 of God, demonstrating and urging it through all his 
 life, and at last most of all upon the cross. And all 
 experience has proved the efficacy of this atonement, 
 this bringing of men to God. Through all the cen- 
 turies, whatever the intricacies of theological explana- 
 tion, the simple faith of the people of God has clung 
 to the Crucified, has looked on him and dared to hope. 
 And in our own day, they who go among the lost to 
 bring them back, find no means so powerful as the 
 story of the cross, exemplified and interpreted by their 
 own unselfish lives. 
 
 We have now studied Christ's process of enlighten- 
 ment, which is found to be much more than informing 
 the intellect ; for it includes that quickening of senti- 
 ment by which the divine goodness is apprehended. 
 The sinner upon whom this has been wrought is now 
 delivered from his two delusions ; namely, that sin can 
 satisfy man, and that it can forfeit the favor of God. 
 And this brings him to the point indicated in the 
 career of the prodigal "when he came to himself." A 
 man in this condition, taking account of his own state, 
 
236 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 may find within himself a true knowledge of sin, 
 coupled with an abhorrence of it. At the same time 
 he realizes that the course of events will continue to 
 offer temptations which he is fearfully conscious he 
 can hardly resist. But he also knows that God sur- 
 rounds him with his goodness, calls him to his service, 
 and urges upon his acceptance, under the administra- 
 tion of Christ, all needed help. The inevitable result 
 of all this sincerely experienced is again portrayed in 
 the story of the prodigal : the sinner says, " I will arise 
 and go to my Father." This is repentance, and it 
 includes all the elements which have been named, — 
 abhorrence of sin, consciousness of danger, trust in 
 divine help, and determination to struggle towards 
 righteousness. 
 
 This completes the process of conversion. The 
 conscience, the intellect, and to some extent the will, 
 are turned from evil towards virtue. And yet experi- 
 ence shows that the soul at this stage is far from being 
 securely won to God. A further work, both long and 
 difficult, is to be accomplished. No soul once in the 
 bondage of sin has been known so completely to 
 escape . from it that some force of temptation, some 
 hour of weakness, might not again seduce it. For the 
 practical purposes of life it is enough to recognize this 
 warning fact, to keep up the struggle, and at each 
 crisis to seek anew the divine help. But a study like 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 237 
 
 ours would be incomplete if we did not endeavor to 
 understand the cause of this discouraging fact, and 
 the nature of the help which Christ applies to it. We 
 must exclude those backslidings in which conscience 
 is not at first clear and it is only after the new sin 
 that the sinner recognizes its character. This merely 
 indicates a defect of enlightenment, and does not fall 
 under the head we have now to consider. The mys- 
 terious fact before us is that when reason has de- 
 nounced and conscience protested, the will yet decides 
 to seek the satisfaction which temptation offers. 
 
 Now, to a certain extent this must always remain a 
 mystery, for it involves a mental act which seems in- 
 scrutable. It is fundamental, and probably can never 
 be resolved into any simpler ideas. Let us examine 
 this. When after full enlightenment we hesitate 
 before temptation, we are conscious that the will is 
 balancing. It is not the deliberation of reason, it 
 is not any appeal of sentiment, nor even an uncer- 
 tainty of conscience ; it is the poising of the will 
 before its definite determination : and these two acts 
 constitute the unique peculiarity of the will by which 
 it originates a new departure, and which is comparable 
 with nothing but the creative act of God. But while 
 we may not fathom this ultimate fact, we know much 
 about it. Since the will, equally with intellect and 
 sentiment, is under the primary law of our being, that 
 
238 THE PURPOSE OF GOD 
 
 no way can in the end satisfy it but God's way, it 
 follows that such a reversion to sin indicates immatur- 
 ity of the will. So that the difficulty is, that while 
 reason and sentiment are profoundly won to God, are 
 satisfied with their experience of sin, and have decided 
 for virtue, the will, still immature, does not certainly 
 act with them. 
 
 The remaining measures of salvation, therefore, 
 must be addressed to the further development of the 
 will. But since the will is an inseparable faculty of 
 the man, and can reach its maturity only through har- 
 mony with reason and sentiment, it is easily seen that 
 these, which in the case before us are more highly 
 developed, must be the means of educating the will 
 also. And this task — assuming the continuance of 
 those enlightening means which we have studied — is 
 twofold : First, the force of habit by which the will 
 decides off-hand for sin must be broken by prolonged 
 exercise in forming determinations for virtue ; and 
 second, the will must be persuaded. In both these 
 tasks reason and sentiment co-operate ; but the task of 
 persuading the will, by far the more momentous of the 
 two, is mostly that of sentiment. Great as this is, and 
 difficult as its ultimate processes are to understand, 
 yet as a matter of experience it is simple and familiar. 
 No fact of daily life is surer than that sentiment can 
 persuade the stubborn will. Honor, patriotism, pa- 
 
SALVATION FROM SIN 239 
 
 rental affection, personal love, are seen every day to 
 be stronger motives than greed or love of life or un- 
 reasoning obstinacy itself. And it is through this 
 constraint of his love that Christ most effectually wins 
 the soul, wins those, indeed, whom nothing else can 
 turn. Through all the processes which have seemed 
 in our cold analysis half mechanical, runs this inde- 
 scribable power of the Holy Spirit, giving them force 
 no words can measure. And sometimes with no pro- 
 cess that can be named, by its own tender efficacy, the 
 love of Christ constrains us. It may come through 
 the story of his life or his death, quickened by the 
 imagination into present reality ; it may be interpreted 
 and made tangible through a human heart which he 
 has kindled ; or out of all life's course, with no defini- 
 tion of time or place, there may steal upon the hard or 
 careless soul a sense of brooding goodness, a con- 
 sciousness of the everlasting arms, an inarticulate 
 appeal as of deep calling unto deep, " Son, give me 
 thy heart" Before these persuasions of the Holy 
 Spirit, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life and 
 the obstinacy of the stubborn will all melt away, and 
 another soul is Christ's. 
 
240 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 XVII. 
 SANCTIFICA TION. 
 
 THAT turning of the soul from sin to virtue which 
 we have been considering under the name of 
 conversion, is only a beginning. The perfect work of 
 the Gospel upon men consists in the formation of set- 
 tled and permanent character, and is necessarily a slow 
 and continued process. The work of conversion is 
 more dramatic, and admits more precise statement of 
 details ; but it is worthless except as the beginning of 
 patient character-building, which is the ultimate aim 
 of all God's dealing with men, and therefore the true 
 function of the Gospel. No better name for this 
 process can be found than that familiar in theology, — 
 Sanctification ; and we have now to study the agencies 
 by which this is effected. 
 
 These agencies are largely associated with the 
 Church ; some of them, indeed, being hardly possible 
 without such an organization. But it must be insisted 
 upon that Christ is limited to no such bounds ; for the 
 history of the Christian ages repeatedly shows the 
 Church misled into repudiation or persecution of those 
 who were far nearer the Gospel standard than herself. 
 
SANCTIFICATION. 241 
 
 We may group the means of sanctification under three 
 heads, — work, association with the spiritually minded, 
 and intercourse with God. 
 
 Christian work includes not only what is done for 
 the maintenance and extension of religious institutions, 
 but all effort which grows out of the principles of the 
 Gospel, and seeks unselfishly to further the welfare of 
 men. Such work bears double fruit. The primary 
 result is upon those to whom it is directed, and we 
 have had occasion to dwell on this. But, secondarily, 
 the work reacts upon the worker so greatly to his 
 advantage in his struggle against sin, that every wise 
 Christian carefully provides himself a place which will 
 hold him to its exercise. The essential benefit is 
 that by the necessities of the work the will is trained 
 to the habit of right decisions. Especially the habit is 
 formed of holding to a settled purpose as against pass- 
 ing impulse. The conduct of work, too, requires the 
 co-ordination of will with reason, and so promotes the 
 harmony of the two. But even more valuable than 
 this is the rousing of sentiment, particularly the sense 
 of brotherhood. The erratic or stubborn determinations 
 of the will are generally solitary, and always selfish ; 
 and the appreciation of want which we can relieve, 
 together with the delight of beneficence, profoundly 
 antagonizes the solitary and selfish mood. 
 
242 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 A still more deep and subtile result is the apprehen- 
 sion, rather by sentiment than by thought, of that 
 divine order which embraces the lives of men. As we 
 have seen, man is native to this. As he rises to higher 
 development, he more and more appreciates the fitness 
 and beauty of God's ways, and chooses them for his 
 own. Now, the participation which Christian work 
 gives in this divine order, the necessity of studying 
 how others may be helped, and the satisfaction of 
 finding that our efforts, rightly directed, are truly help- 
 ful, initiate the soul into the fellowship, divine and 
 human, of the Holy Spirit. And this has a necessary 
 permanence. He who has been a fellow-worker with 
 God to the extent of understanding his own work, will 
 find God's methods so wise and delightful that he will 
 desire no others. All this may be said of another 
 species of Christian work, — the wise ordering of one's 
 own life. The restraint of appetite, the subduing of 
 passions, the habitual substitution of tranquil satisfac- 
 tion for boisterous delight, all accomplish the same 
 double purpose of training the will to habitual recti- 
 tude, and of bringing the whole man more and more to 
 love the ways of divine wisdom. 
 
 Association with the spiritually minded brings again 
 before us the subject of the Church, but in an aspect 
 which we have not yet considered. It has been stated 
 
SANC TIFICA TION. 2 43 
 
 that the sense of Christian brotherhood means far more 
 than similarity of belief or taste ; indeed, it may not 
 include these at all. Brotherhood implies a lasting 
 relationship which grows out of the common Father ; 
 a tender sympathy which concerns itself with the best 
 welfare of others ; a joyful communion which is more 
 than casual intercourse, which over-rides and outlives 
 differences, even of much importance, and has in 
 itself an assurance of perpetuity beyond the mere 
 voluntary relations of life. It is by virtue of this half- 
 recognized bond that the Church has lived. So true 
 is this, that the bond of brotherhood has prevailed 
 even against a most mischievous error, which has 
 plagued the Church from the apostles to our day, and 
 which is in this connection so important that we must 
 give it full consideration. 
 
 The Christian brotherhood has asserted itself in 
 every age in the strong desire of Christian unity. No 
 day and no sect has been without this desire. But 
 unity has almost always been expected in some visible 
 form. To hold the same creed, to worship by the 
 same ritual, to own the same ecclesiastical allegiance, 
 have been supposed to be, singly or combined, the 
 necessary method of unity. It might seem that the 
 unvarying experience of eighteen centuries had suf- 
 ficiently demonstrated the fallacy of such expectations , 
 and yet the air is full to-day of similar efforts along 
 
244 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 these same lines. But this conception is so wrong 
 that if success were possible in this way it would be 
 disastrous. Success would imply the identity of all in 
 intellectual belief, or in sentimental responsiveness, or 
 in the craving for personal liberty, or in all these com- 
 bined. The argument under each of these three heads 
 being identical, we may shorten, without obscuring, 
 the discussion by confining our study to the first, which 
 is by far the most prominent and important. 
 
 Clearly looked at, nobody expects all or many men 
 to think exactly alike. But this fact has been ob- 
 scured by attempts to formulate creeds in which all 
 might join. These, however, always prove to be 
 scanty just in proportion to their apparent success; 
 and the result is a group of men who are as far as 
 ever from thinking alike, but who, in consideration of 
 things in which they agree, and which they hold to be 
 important, are willing mutually to ignore the many 
 other things in which they differ. And even these 
 points of agreement are always so vaguely put as to 
 admit different shades of meaning. So that the whole 
 result is rather a testimony to the desire of harmonious 
 union, than any real intellectual agreement. Now 
 this is perfectly legitimate, and indeed necessary, as 
 a device for enabling groups of men to work smoothly 
 together ; and so long as the formulas are understood 
 to be temporary and voluntary, they are to be ap- 
 
S A NOTIFICATION 245 
 
 proved. The tendency, however, has always been to 
 pronounce these creeds final and obligatory ; and each 
 new conclave propounds its latest statement of belief 
 as if this at last were the very truth, and would escape 
 the fate of all its predecessors. But history has no 
 more constant lesson than the transient quality of 
 opinion. It is not enough to see that these things 
 are always so ; a little study will show us that the 
 welfare of the Church demands the failure of all at- 
 tempts at intellectual uniformity. 
 
 For truth is many-sided and voluminous, and no 
 man's point of view or capacity of observation suffices 
 for all of it. Therefore, it is the order of our being 
 that each shall supplement his neighbor, so that by 
 mutual corrections and combinations there will come 
 to be among men, and among groups of men, a much 
 wider and more accurate knowledge of the truth than 
 any man could either attain or securely hold alone. 
 Besides, the divine purpose is concerned in this be- 
 cause it brings home to men their mutual dependence, 
 and demonstrates, while it increases, the bond of 
 human society. Now, within the Church this is es- 
 pecially true and important. It being granted that the 
 Church at large, each church in the denominational 
 sense, and each church in the local sense, must inevi- 
 tably include many varieties of belief, we immediately 
 see how the fact enlarges our opportunities. If only 
 
246 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 the mistaken desire of uniform belief can be dis- 
 pelled, and the fact accepted that true Christian unity 
 rests upon the far deeper sense of brotherhood, differ- 
 ences being expected and welcomed, opinions being 
 expressed without obloquy and compared without 
 passion, each member must find his views corrected 
 in details and broadened in general, "till we all come 
 unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ." 
 
 During this process the unity of brotherhood al- 
 ready recognized is strengthened by these mutual 
 contributions, being " compacted by that which every 
 joint supplieth." This, it must be observed, is very 
 far from " toleration," which is almost as destructive 
 of true brotherhood as intolerance. It is the glad 
 welcome given to each man's contribution, the eager 
 sifting of all sands, that no gold may escape. 
 
 This discussion of beliefs has not been brought for- 
 ward here to give them the first place, but, on the con- 
 trary, to suggest how that condition which has through 
 the ages hindered the true brotherhood and made it 
 unfruitful, may, in the secondary position which be- 
 longs to it, contribute to the strengthening and en- 
 largement of the true life of the Church. This is love, 
 the love of brotherhood, without which the tongue of 
 angels, the solving of all mysteries, prevailing faith, 
 and the martyr's stake are nothing. In such a brother- 
 
SA NOTIFICATION. 247 
 
 hood the soul wavering between principle and tempta- 
 tion must find a strong assurance of virtue. The 
 moral atmosphere, the keen delight in the things of 
 God, the common worship, the love on every hand, 
 which he could not choose to wound, all combine to 
 educate the whole man, and to harmonize will with 
 conscience. 
 
 Another form of such association is found in study 
 of the Bible. The other relations of the Bible have 
 been sufficiently discussed already ; but we have still to 
 consider the help it gives in the formation and estab- 
 lishment of Christian character. The whole range of 
 history affords nowhere else such instances of moral 
 strength, of intelligent virtue, of efficient manhood, in 
 a word, of many-sided human greatness, as have ap- 
 peared among those reared under the influence of 
 this book. And this has not come of its use as a 
 text-book, a code of morals, least of all as a manual of 
 dogmatic theology. One may safely say it has come 
 in spite of such uses overstrained. The great result 
 has come from deep familiarity with the human life 
 depicted and expressed in the Bible. The vast assem- 
 blage of noteworthy men who live in these pages, 
 crowned by the supreme person of the Man of Naz- 
 areth, becomes to him who grows familiar with the 
 Scriptures part of his own experience. Their char- 
 
248 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 acters, their trials, their outbursts of triumph or de- 
 spair, their virtues and their faults, above all, the 
 sturdy faith in God and things divine which runs 
 through every page, grow into our memory as if we 
 had witnessed and shared them all. 
 
 And the effect upon ourselves is not like that of 
 precepts learned or the discipline of a school ; it is 
 that growth of our own character which comes of 
 familiar intercourse with great souls. As they erect 
 themselves who look upon stately beauty, so the soul 
 which consorts with this numberless company of 
 worthies grows stalwart in its manhood, and reaches 
 towards the perfect harmony of Christian character. 
 If any proof of God's hand in the Bible be still 
 needed, it may be found in this power which this book 
 alone in all literature possesses, of installing itself 
 among the springs of character, and working thence in 
 men of every degree that inward harmony which is 
 the purpose of God. 
 
 These agencies finally lead up to the third and most 
 vital of all, — intercourse with God. As we take up this 
 topic it is necessary again to insist that these formal 
 divisions belong to the order of thought, and not to the 
 facts as they occur. Intercourse with God in varying 
 degree prevades the entire Christian experience. Work 
 faithfully done, the associations of the Church, the 
 
SA NC TIFICA TION. 2 49 
 
 study of the Bible, all bring with them some con- 
 sciousness of divine presence ; and, indeed, for some 
 temperaments the latter may often seem the initial 
 experience, bringing the others as its fruit. With this 
 reservation, and because clear thinking requires an 
 orderly sequence of topics, we now come to consider 
 intercourse with God as if it were a separate agency of 
 salvation. This intercourse may be occasional and 
 designed, when it is prayer ; or it may be habitual, 
 when it is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Prayer takes innumerable forms, but its essence is 
 one. It does not necessitate a form of words, nor a 
 consecrated place, nor an intercessor. Nor does its 
 essence lie in the purport of utterance or thought. 
 The essential fact of prayer is the effort of the soul to 
 communicate with a higher spiritual power. In this 
 vague sense men have always prayed. The attempt 
 seems as instinctive as the social instinct or parental 
 care. It is, in fact, the way of access which God has 
 ordained for himself to reach the human soul. It 
 exists among the other facts of daily life, and its ex- 
 pression, of course, has relation to them. But it is 
 additional to that discipline of life by which God 
 slowly educates the race. And this brings to view a 
 momentous fact which our previous studies may seem 
 to have ignored. 
 
 While the world is visibly constructed for humanity 
 
250 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 as a great whole, and while the usual processes of 
 social and physical experience seem to act on each 
 man only as he is part of the mass, yet each is in fact 
 a unit within himself, and what is best in man is re- 
 pressed and injured when he is treated as only a con- 
 stituent of the race. The family, the school, methods 
 of hygiene, political government, and many other ex- 
 periences, bring this home to us. The divine govern- 
 ment, of course, cannot ignore such a fact, and amid 
 all that is general and social there remains to each 
 man an open way of access to his Father, towards 
 which each is impelled by this native instinct of the 
 soul for prayer. A large part of the teaching of Christ 
 is directed to this very thing. He labored by precept, 
 by parable, by example, to draw out and develop in 
 man the assurance of an ever accessible Guide and 
 Helper. And all his work through the ages has striven 
 to ally each soul individually with God, while it unites 
 all in a universal brotherhood. 
 
 Now, for the Christian, prayer is the exercise of this 
 birthright. He comes to God with whatever ceremo- 
 nial, language, thought, the occasion may require. 
 Thanks, supplication, confession, adoration, simple 
 content, each or all form the burden of his prayer, 
 which, however, no more depends on any one of them 
 than does the intercourse of human friends need a 
 special character of thought. The question, therefore, 
 
SANC TIFICA TION. 251 
 
 whether God answers prayer is absurd. The asking is 
 not the prayer ; and if we think of this as establishing 
 a claim on God, or as turning him from his chosen way, 
 we wholly miss the nature and purpose of prayer. 
 When the soul striving towards God is conscious of 
 the divine presence and has the sense of personal 
 communion, its prayer is accomplished, — not answered, 
 
 — and it has attained the supreme possibility of man, 
 
 — association with God. Now, it must certainly result, 
 and the world's experience proves the fact, that a 
 human soul lifted even for a moment to this height, 
 will be strengthened and ennobled. The mind grows 
 clear, the imagination kindles, conscience quickens, 
 the will turns to God. He who in weakness or in 
 wavering has resorted to sincere prayer, finds new 
 strength and opened vision. 
 
 Of course such experience will more and more re- 
 peat itself, till what was occasional becomes habitual. 
 But here God's method with us interposes a wise con- 
 straint. It has seemed to men of many faiths, and 
 not least to Christians, that life might well be resolved 
 into a perpetual ecstasy of divine communion. How 
 disastrous have been the attempts at this, it is not 
 necessary to recite. The effort rests on a funda- 
 mental error. It conceives God as accessible to man, 
 while yet man dwells in the flesh, by some other way 
 than the familiar life of man. But this very life is 
 
252 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 ordained to teach us the things of God ; and they who 
 withdraw from it in the hope of finding him are mak- 
 ing in another form the familiar attempt to discover a 
 better way than God's. Their conscience may ap- 
 prove the effort, and this may save it from condemna- 
 tion as sin; but the fact remains that it is not God's 
 way, and cannot succeed. 
 
 When, however, the intercourse of prayer reacts on 
 the conduct of life, when all the temper and energy of 
 the soul at its higher estate are bent to the wise fol- 
 lowing of God's way in daily duty and all the rela- 
 tions of normal living, then that is realized to which 
 ascetics and devotees aspire in vain. The perfect 
 example of life is found in Jesus Christ, and we may 
 search the records of his life in vain for any note of 
 flaming enthusiasm or ascetic devotion. He has no 
 disparagement for the daily ways of men ; he does not 
 desire that God should recast the order of his world ; 
 he does not even need a new language of philosophi- 
 cal phrase and definition. His whole desire is that 
 men should give their hearts to God, and walk the 
 familiar paths with the consciousness of divine inter- 
 course. This is full salvation ; and the mingling of 
 such lives is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 This completes such a survey as our subject seems 
 to require, of the means, the method, and the results 
 
SA NC TIFICA TION. 253 
 
 of Christ's salvation. For the souls which come un- 
 der its discipline it leaves no point untouched. But 
 the more we are satisfied with such blessed help for 
 ourselves, the more does the thought urge itself upon 
 us of that vast multitude to whom Christ has been un- 
 known upon the earth. We bring ourselves with re- 
 luctance to remember how very small a part of the 
 immeasurable human aggregate, past and present, 
 not to guess at the future, has any share which we 
 can estimate in our inheritance. And as we recall the 
 purpose of God, and confront it with such a vast neces- 
 sity, the account which has been here given of the 
 work of Christ may seem at the first view painfully 
 inadequate. But the first view is superficial, and does 
 not touch the heart of the matter. 
 
 The fundamental agency of God for bringing souls 
 to himself is the experience of life, and from this none 
 are or have been exempt. It is the pre-eminence of 
 the Gospel that it illuminates this experience, brings 
 forth its meaning, demonstrates its perfect work ; that 
 in this way it makes those whom it reaches not merely 
 the objects of the divine purpose, as all are, but intel- 
 ligent and eager fellow-workers in it. Now, if we ask, 
 with this in mind, what the unchristian of every name 
 still need in order that the experience of life may bear 
 its fruit, the answer is that they need the knowledge 
 of God and of his purpose towards them, the demon- 
 
254 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 stration of human possibilities and opportunities which 
 the Gospel gives, and the sense of fellowship with God 
 and man in the Holy Spirit. 
 
 All that the experience of life can give in prepara- 
 tion for these they already possess ; and what we 
 know of the tenacity of memory and the persistence of 
 spiritual impressions, leaves no room to doubt that the 
 experience of life is a lasting possession, and may 
 bring forth its full results whenever and wherever these 
 spiritual graces shall touch it. The divine Artist may 
 develop when he will upon his darkened plates the 
 impress which the light of life has given them. Now 
 that the intelligence of our time is discarding the 
 crude expedient of dark ages, which solved the prob- 
 lem off-hand by sweeping all outsiders into promiscu- 
 ous and endless doom, — a nightmare no less absurd 
 than horrible, — the open possibilities of the future are 
 seen to be sufficient. 
 
 We may conceive, in that other life which is still no 
 other, the vast assemblage of souls who have left the 
 earth, all-embracing, ever recruited. If the mansions 
 of the Saviour's word may represent degrees of attain- 
 ment, there must be many, indeed ; but they are all in 
 our Father's house, and through them all moves the 
 beloved presence of the sinner's Friend. We need 
 not strain our imagination to picture the new condi- 
 tions of life, or intercourse, or work ; but we may be 
 
SANC TIFICA TION. 255 
 
 sure that whatever these conditions, they will be filled, 
 beyond the measure of this world, with the love and 
 the meaning of God. We may be sure, too, that all 
 these souls, varying in every degree of attainment from 
 the highest apprehension to the dullest wonder, will 
 mingle in a conscious brotherhood ; that each will find 
 others more proficient, who will delight to quicken his 
 understanding of the past and awaken a responding 
 love ; that it will be the high prerogative of every 
 Christlike soul to seek those he can help, and, himself 
 in his degree a little Christ, to urge forward the great 
 salvation. 
 
 Nor can it be admitted that all this is conjecture. 
 It is a reasonable anticipation of the working of powers 
 with which we are certainly acquainted, to ends of 
 which we have full assurance. And such a concep- 
 tion answers most completely the otherwise unsolved 
 problem of the destiny of those who knew not Christ 
 in their earthly life. Nor does this mean only the 
 heathen and the wicked. We all come far short of 
 that height which we may reach, and all need to look 
 beyond the familiar experience for help and growth 
 not realized here. We see through a glass darkly, we 
 bear stunted fruits, we do not even know all our needs. 
 But the knowledge of the present and the anticipation 
 of the future unite and blend as parts of one divine 
 process. 
 
256 THE PURPOSE OF GOD. 
 
 The one great fact never to be lost from sight, 
 whether for practical use or the understanding of 
 God's ways, is that he grasps us in a single unbroken 
 purpose which takes hold of our entire being, while 
 our imperfect thought, toiling after him, needs the 
 artificial aids of system and analysis. But the process 
 matters not if our thinking reach the end. Then we 
 shall behold the boundless affluence of God pouring 
 itself through all channels and across all obstacles, 
 becoming all things to all men, disregarding in the 
 perfect assurance of divine wisdom all the distinctions 
 of men, — setting the first last and the last first, equal- 
 ing the eleventh hour with the heat and burden of the 
 day, casting down the mighty and touching the lips of 
 babes with wisdom, caring not whether it be a day or 
 a thousand years, — but, above all, and through all, 
 and in us all, effecting his eternal purpose. 
 
 For the salvation of men is God's work. Our 
 studies deal so much with man's limits of time, of 
 strength, of wisdom, that we come to make man the 
 standard of measure ; whereas the great task which we 
 survey, and in which each of us takes his little part, is 
 God's task. The view which this book has presented 
 aims to measure all by the greatness of God ; and 
 when we use this measure the only conclusion is the 
 inevitable, entire success of the divine purpose. To 
 this certainty all conceptions of difficulty must yield. 
 
SA JVC TIFICA TI02V. -'57 
 
 Whatever may seem to endanger this must be looked 
 upon as doomed. The causes of ultimate results lie 
 not in man but in God, who made man what he is. 
 The extent of the process looks not to man's years, 
 but to God's eternity. The outcome of all is to be, 
 not man judged, but the purpose of God accomplished, 
 — " that God may be all in all." 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: May 2006 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
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 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
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