LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 Shelf 
 
 KS 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 
 
 Fasting Communion 
 
 HISTORICALLY INVESTIGATED FROM THE CAN- 
 ONS AND FATHERS, AND SHOWN TO BE 
 NOT BINDING IN ENGLAND. Second Edition. 
 8vo, cloth, $5.00. 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES, 1890. 
 
 GOD INCARNATE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT REV. HOLLINGWORTH TULLY KINGDON, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP COADJUTOR, OF FREDERICTON, NEW BRUNSWICK, CANADA. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2 and 3 Bible House. 
 
 1890. 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1890, 
 By THOMAS WHITTAKER. 
 
 The Li 
 
 OF COI 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 BURR PRINTING HOUSE, 
 fRANKFORT AND JACOB STREETSi NEW YORK 
 
THE 
 
 BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES. 
 
 In the summer of the year 1880, George A. Jar- 
 vis, of Brooklyn, N. Y., moved by his sense of the 
 great good which might thereby accrue to the cause 
 of Christ, and to the Church of which he was' an 
 ever-gratefui member, gave to the General Theo- 
 logical Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 certain securities, exceeding in value eleven thousand 
 dollars, for the foundation and maintenance of a Lec- 
 tureship in said seminary. 
 
 Out of love for a former pastor and enduring 
 friend, the Right Rev. Benjamin Henry Paddock, 
 D. D. , Bishop of Massachusetts, he named the founda- 
 tion " The Bishop Paddock Lectureship." 
 
 The deed of trust declares that, — 
 
 " The subjects of the lectures shall be such as appertain to the defence 
 of the religion of Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Holy Bible, and 
 illustrated in the Book of Common Prayer, against the varying errors 
 of the day, whether materialistic, rationalistic, or professedly religious, 
 and also to its defence and confirmation in respect of such central 
 truths as the Trinity, the Atonement, Justification, and the Inspiration 
 of the Word of God ; and of such central facts as the Church's Divine 
 Order and Sacraments, her historical Reformation, and her rights and 
 
VI THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES. 
 
 powers as a pure and national Church. And other subjects may be 
 chosen if unanimously approved by the Board of Appointment as being 
 both timely and also within the true intent of this Lectureship." 
 
 Under the appointment of the board created by 
 the Trust, the Right Rev. Hollingworth Tully King- 
 don, D.D., Bishop Coadjutor of Fredericton, New- 
 Brunswick, delivered the Lectures for the year 1890, 
 which are contained in this volume. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The conditions of the Trust under which the fol- 
 lowing Lectures were delivered, require that they 
 should be printed. In no way is there any claim of 
 originality for them. Indeed, the only merit they 
 may have is that they endeavor to express old truths 
 sometimes in modern words, rarely in new language. 
 
 It will be objected that the subject is too vast for 
 treatment in so small a space. But the object has 
 been to stimulate inquiry within the limits prescribed 
 by the Trust. It is of the utmost importance that 
 the attention of candidates for Holy Orders should 
 be concentrated upon- the fundamental doctrine of 
 the Incarnation. At no time has this been of greater 
 importance than at the present moment. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lecture I. — "The Creator." i 
 
 Text.— S. John i., 1-5. 
 
 Lecture II. — "The Creature." . . . .20 
 
 Text. — S. John i.\ 1-5. 
 
 Lecture III. — "The Incarnation." ... 43 
 
 Text. — S. John i., 14. 
 
 LECTURE IV.— " Perfection of Sympathy." . . 66 
 Text.—/. S. John i., 1. 
 
 Lecture V.— "The Atonement." .... 93 
 
 Text.— S. John i., 29. 
 LECTURE VI.—" The Sacraments/' . . .126 
 
 Text. — S. John i\, 12, 13* 
 
 Lecture VIL— "The Gift of the Holy Ghost." 173 
 
 Text. — S. John vii., 39* 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 20; 
 
GOD INCARNATE. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 THE CREATOR. 
 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
 the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All 
 things were made by Him ; and without Him was not anything made 
 that was made. In Him was life ; and the life was the light of men. 
 And the light shineth in darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it 
 not." — St. John i : 1-5. 
 
 We read that Simplicianus, Bishop of Milan, told 
 St. Augustine the saying of a heathen philosopher, 
 that the exordium of St. John's Gospel ought to be 
 written up in letters of gold in the most conspicuous 
 place of Christian churches. It would be well if we 
 would even now follow out the suggestion of the 
 Platonist philosopher. Still better would it be if 
 each Christian would bear the words written on 
 his heart and mind ; not only to be retained in the 
 memory, but pondered over and devoutly meditated 
 upon. Without doubt the words have been found 
 very dear to many. Of old many had them en- 
 grossed and illuminated as beautifully as possible 
 upon parchment, and then wore them, as the Jews 
 1 
 
2 THE CREATOR. 
 
 of old wore the words of Deuteronomy in their 
 phylacteries. But as true and real devotion waned, 
 this habit degenerated into a superstition, so that 
 we read it was condemned more than once. 
 
 Still, the inimitable grandeur of the words com- 
 pelled attention, and in one way or another special 
 reverence was paid to them. In some churches the 
 passage was said at the end of the Service for the 
 Baptism of Infants, and again after Communicating 
 the dying, and after Extreme Unction. We are told 
 that in the comparative scarcity of manuscripts, 
 and it may be in the equal scarcity of power to read 
 them, the laity would sometimes stop the priest in 
 his passage to the vestry, after the celebration of the 
 Holy Communion, and ask him to recite to them 
 this Gospel. This, it is said, led to the custom of 
 reciting it after the service, whether it were specially 
 asked for or not. Then, as the piety which had de- 
 manded the recitation declined, it was said by the 
 priest for .himself ; voluntarily at first, and then in 
 some parts by special direction of ordinary author- 
 ity. It is therefore often found in manuscripts, 
 written at the end of the service.* 
 
 It would be well if we could habituate ourselves to 
 repeat the words continually and meditate upon 
 them. For the}' are as much needed now as in St. 
 John's days. The errors that he combated are con- 
 tinually reappearing. Well-meaning persons, from 
 a mistaken sentimental piety, in popular story books, 
 present an erroneous view of our blessed Lord's life 
 and character, which is as much to be guarded 
 
 * See Appendix A. 
 
THE CREATOR. 3 
 
 against as open heresy. Indeed, more so, for it is 
 more insidious, and therefore more dangerous. More 
 and more the responsibility is thrown upon parents 
 to guard their children from error. More and more, 
 therefore, should they preoccupy their minds with 
 the truth about our Lord ; and perhaps no more 
 certain method could be adopted than to build up 
 the child's mind on a firm hold of the truth as pre- 
 sented in St. John's writings. Of these it has been 
 said, with truth, that therein " agnus ambulat, 
 elephas natat." The simple child can walk at large, 
 the man of ponderous learning is soon out of his depth. 
 
 It is, no doubt, one of the reasons that so many 
 attacks have been concentrated on St. John's Gospel, 
 that it contains the antidote to most modern errors. 
 Indeed, we might almost say that all error in the 
 Christian religion might be corrected from his writ- 
 ings. For no writings so forcibly and so plainly in- 
 sist upon the truth of the Incarnation ; and almost 
 all, if, indeed, not all, error in Christian doctrine is 
 nearly connected with erroneous or faulty views of 
 the fundamental doctrine of the Incarnation. Hence, 
 if such views are to thrive, men must first of all get 
 rid of St. John's writings as being the great prophy- 
 lactic against error. But this is no easy task, and 
 the attacks have but revealed the strength of the 
 position assailed. 
 
 We begin, then, as St. John did, from God Him- 
 self. This was ever the plan of the English Church. 
 When her Canons were codified commencement was 
 made from the doctrine about God.* When, in the 
 
 * E.g., Lyndewode's " Provinciate." 
 
4 THE CREATOR. 
 
 sixteenth century, she put out articles about matters 
 of controversy at the time, she took care to place in 
 the very forefront the Articles of the Catholic Faith.* 
 Herein at once is seen her difference from other re- 
 forming bodies, Scotch or Continental ; for all these, 
 with scarce an exception, begin their " Confessions of 
 faith" with some articles of controversial matter, f 
 
 The English folk, too, were in the habit of com- 
 mencing their letters with the sacred name ; as we 
 read in Shakespeare, " Emmanuel is what they write 
 at the top of letters ;" $ and in the pious letters be- 
 tween Dr. Basire and his wife, some eighty years 
 later, each begins with the sacred monogram or 
 name. 
 
 We begin, then, as St. John began, with a declara- 
 tion of the Eternal Deity of Him Who in time 
 became Incarnate and was made man. 
 
 Our blessed Lord set forth, in His great High- 
 Priestly prayer at the mysterious Last Supper, the 
 two fundamental doctrines of our Faith : " This is 
 life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent."§ Here are 
 the two great cardinal doctrines of Christianity, 
 which are recapitulated in the quaint language of 
 our poet-theologian George Herbert : 
 
 " Thou hast but two rare cabinets full of treasure, 
 The Trinity and Incarnation ; 
 Thou hast unlocked them both, 
 And made them jewels to betroth 
 The work of Thy Creation 
 Unto Thyself in everlasting pleasure. 
 
 * The XXXIX Articles of 1562. f See Appendix B. 
 
 X Second Part of Henry VI., act. iv. sc. 2. § St. John 17 : 3. 
 
THE CREATOR. 5 
 
 " The statelier cabinet is the Trinity, 
 
 Whose sparkling light access denies ; 
 Therefore Thou dost not show 
 This fully to us, till death blow 
 The dust into our eyes ; 
 For by that powder Thou dost make us see. 
 
 " But all Thy sweets are packed up in the other ; 
 Thy mercies thither flock and flow, 
 That as the first affrights, 
 This may allure us with delights, 
 Because this box we know, 
 For we have all of us just such another." 
 
 Let us, then, to begin with, feel well assured of 
 this, that there is no theory which satisfies all de- 
 mands of human reason as does the Christian teach- 
 ing ; for I regard it more than theory. It may be 
 true, nay, it is true, that reason cannot reveal God 
 to man ; man " cannot by searching find out God ;" 
 he remains groping about like one in the dark or 
 like a blind man in unfamiliar surroundings until the 
 true Light comes to him. Men " seek the Lord, if 
 haply they may feel after Him and find Him, though 
 He is not far from every one of us." * For, indeed, 
 " the invisible things of Him from the creation of 
 the world are clearly seen, being understood by the 
 things that are made, even His eternal power and 
 Godhead, so that they are without excuse." f Rea- 
 son leads us to the door of belief ; reason welcomes 
 us again after we have entered ; but reason does not 
 open the door or force us to enter. That is left for 
 faith. Faith is, as it were, the electric spark which 
 will enable us to combine and account for all phe- 
 
 * Acts 17 : 27. f Romans 1 : 20. 
 
6 THE CREATOR. 
 
 nomena around us, and also to distinguish each color 
 in its separate truth when the whirl of thought has 
 blended them all into one. This is what St. John 
 says : " We know that the Son of God is come, and 
 hath given us an understanding, that we may know 
 Him that is true." * The word here rendered " un- 
 derstanding" is the power of reasoning aright, the 
 process by which reason arrives at a conclusion. 
 " That with which the Son of God Incarnate has en- 
 dowed believers is a power of understanding, of in- 
 terpreting, of following out to their right issues the 
 complex facts of life, and the end of the gift is that 
 they may know, not by one decisive act, but by a 
 continuous and progressive apprehension, Him that 
 is true. Thus the object of knowledge is not ab- 
 stract but personal ; not the truth, but Him of 
 Whom all that is true is a partial revelation. It is 
 evident that the fact of the Incarnation vitally wel- 
 comed carries with it the power of believing in and 
 seeing, little by little, the Divine purposes of life 
 under the perplexing riddles of phenomena." f 
 
 This is well illustrated in the utterances of those 
 who, outside the pale of Christianity, have been led 
 up to the very door by their powers of reasoning. 
 So much so that Christians marvel that they do not 
 enter the door that is open before them. 
 
 No doubt there are difficulties in the way of belief. 
 There must be for the sake of the faithful. There 
 would be no room for faith if there were no room 
 for doubt. But the difficulties which unbelief pro- 
 
 * i St. John 5 : 20, with Dr. Westcott's commentary upon the 
 passage, 
 f Dr. Westcott in loc> 
 
THE CREATOR. 7 
 
 duces are by far the greater, and there is no door of 
 reverent thought which true Christianity cannot un- 
 lock, while unbelief often helps to double-lock them 
 and bar them up effectually. 
 
 Instinct and reason, as well as revelation, testify 
 to the Unity of God. The early Christians in their 
 arguments with the heathen make this claim very 
 powerfully. They claim that whenever a man is 
 deeply stirred, and is therefore less likely to be un- 
 real and on his guard, he appeals to God. Tertul- 
 lian, Minucius Felix, and St. Cyprian all use the 
 same argument. " In the midst of the statues and 
 images oi the false gods (cries Tertullian*), when you 
 are deeply moved, you appeal not to them, but to 
 God. Wonderful testimony to the truth ! (he ex- 
 claims) the soul is by nature Christian" — that is, so 
 far as the Unity of God is concerned. " I hear the 
 common people, when they lift up their hands to 
 Heaven, say nothing else than, O God, and God is 
 great, and God is true, and if God permit. Is this 
 the natural utterance of the vulgar, or is it the prayer 
 of a confessing Christian ? Those who speak of 
 Jupiter as the chief are mistaken in the name, but 
 they are in agreement about the Oneness of the 
 power." f And St. Cyprian argues: ''We fre- 
 quently hear it said, O God, and God sees, and I 
 commend to God, and God give you, and if God 
 will ; it is, then, the height of sinfulness to refuse to 
 acknowledge Him, Whom you cannot but know." J 
 
 * Tertullian, " De Testimonio Animae," § 2 ; Apolog., § 17. 
 
 f Minucius Felix, " Octavius," § 18. 
 
 \ St. Cyprian, De Idol. Van. Opera. Paris, 1726, p. 227. See also 
 
8 THE CREATOR. 
 
 They argued from the natural instinct of man ; the 
 argument from reason has also been urged from the 
 first. It was this which made St. Paul tell the Ro- 
 mans that the heathen were without excuse, since 
 there is an objective Epiphany of God to man, and 
 a subjective, receptive capacity on man's part to un- 
 derstand the Epiphany. " For the invisible things 
 of God, His eternal power and divinity, from the 
 creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
 stood by the things that are made." This, too, is 
 practically acknowledged by modern philosophers 
 who are outside the Christian flock. One such (Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer) has said that " the objects and 
 actions surrounding us, not less than the phenomena 
 of our consciousness, compel us to ask a cause. In 
 our search we discover no resting-place until we 
 arrive at the hypothesis of a First Cause. We have 
 no alternative but to regard this as infinite and abso- 
 lute." * Here, however, we must introduce a warn- 
 ing, for to some minds " the idea of absolute, infinite 
 being seems to preclude relations, to be incompati- 
 ble with creation in space and time. This difficulty 
 will, I think, so far as it is not inherent in our nature, 
 be found to disappear if we remember that the 
 Divine Being is not Infinite in the sense of being- 
 unlimited, unconditioned, but in the sense of not 
 being limited or conditioned by anvthing other than 
 
 Professor Rawlinson's " Early Pievalence of Monotheistic Belief," 
 R. T. S., and Mr. Renouf, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of 
 Egypt. 
 
 * Quoted by Canon McColl, " Christianity in Relation to Science 
 and Morals," p. 10. 
 
THE CREATOR. 9 
 
 Himself. God is not unconditioned, but self-condi- 
 tioned, self-limited."* 
 
 Each man is certain that he exists ; he knows that 
 he does not exist of himself, but of some other being, 
 who again, it may be, exists of some other, until we 
 come to a first Being, Who is of Himself. In such 
 an argument there can be no infinity, for a posterior 
 cause cannot be granted unless a prior, and ulti- 
 mately, a first be granted also.f 
 
 Moreover, we cannot conceive of there being 
 more than one, for then there would be antagonism, 
 which must issue in the sole pre-eminence of one. 
 Or if not, neither could be God, for neither would 
 be perfect ; the perfection of one being by so much 
 the defect of the other. 
 
 Then, again, man considered as a reasoning being 
 has two great tendencies. One is dependence upon 
 the unseen. In the lower animals we find proof that 
 instinct warns them against real dangers external to 
 themselves, and not against such as are imaginary and 
 within themselves. Is man alone of animals to be 
 said to depend upon an unreal phantom ? 
 
 The other tendency of man is to aim at an ideal 
 excellence which is not in himself, which he is con- 
 stantly pursuing but never attaining. This is not 
 merely an intellectual excellence, but a moral excel- 
 lence. This universal longing would imply the ex- 
 istence of something perfect in beauty, in knowledge, 
 in power, in holiness, without which the yearning 
 cannot be satisfied. Reason, then, would lead us to 
 
 * " The Christian Doctrine of the Godhead," by Rev. J. W. Hicks, 
 p. 4. 
 
 f Bishop Forbes on the Articles, vol. i., p. 2. 
 
IO THE CREATOR. 
 
 believe that there is One Supreme Being absolutely 
 perfect in all respects. 
 
 But without question this great truth which com- 
 mends itself to instinct and reason takes a much 
 firmer hold on the mind of man when explicitly de- 
 clared by Revelation. The philosopher John Stuart 
 Mill (who was brought up as an Atheist from his 
 earliest childhood) has acknowledged that there 
 seemed to him no antecedent improbability in a 
 revelation from a Supreme Being. We may indeed 
 believe that there is a very great probability in such 
 a message being sent. If instinct and reason lead us 
 to believe in a First Cause, it would be hard to con- 
 ceive of Him as having so little regard for that 
 which He had called into being as not to send a 
 message to it. In the Revelation which we claim to 
 have, which we have from God, there is nothing so 
 much insisted on as the unity of God. This is the 
 one great strain of the Old Testament. The text 
 that all faithful Jews were bound to recite twice a 
 day at least, began, " Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy 
 God is one Lord." It was the continual refrain of 
 the argument against the idols and polytheism of the 
 Assyrian heathen, as given by Isaiah, " Is there any 
 God beside Me ? Yea, there is no God, I know not 
 any." He is one and unchangeable, " with Whom 
 there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 
 
 The same philosopher before quoted (Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer) says again : " It is absolutely certain that 
 we are in the presence of an infinite, eternal energy, 
 from which all things proceed ;" and yet there was 
 wanting to him the spark of faith (it may be) to en- 
 able him to go one step further. For energy with- 
 
THE CREATOR. II 
 
 out mind and will to guide it must be destructive 
 and not orderly. This we are taught each day of 
 our lives. It is a daily lesson which we should do 
 well to con and apply. Energy is a good servant, 
 but a bad master. What are the greatest forces in 
 nature known to us ? May we not say steam, gas, 
 electricity ? The mind and will of man imprison 
 them and make them his useful slaves. If they are 
 undirected they are destructive. Steam uncon- 
 trolled or misdirected will destroy life and rend 
 iron. When tamed and guided, it is a galley-slave 
 of the greatest service. I have seen a huge traction 
 engine winding its way through the tortuous and 
 narrow streets of Old London, guided by one man 
 at a small wheel. Gas in sudden formation or ex- 
 plosion is most destructive ; but it is enclosed to 
 give us light and to strike down our venison. Elec- 
 tricity left to itself acts blindly and destructively ; but 
 the mind and will of man lay hold of it, imprison 
 it, store it up, and light his house and streets with 
 it, make it his beast of burden, and compel it to 
 carry his messages to the ends of the earth. All this 
 teaches us, if we have eyes to see, and ears to hear, 
 and hearts to understand, that the presence of law 
 and order in connection with energy implies the 
 presence of mind and will to maintain the same. 
 The presence of law and order in creation around 
 us necessitates the presence of mind and will acting 
 with that energy, the presence of which Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer says is absolutely certain. 
 
 Now mind and will imply personality.* Then 
 
 * See Appendix C, where another argument in favor of personality 
 of the First Cause is given. 
 
12 THE CREATOR. 
 
 advancing one step further, we would say, as has 
 been maintained, that personality implies social 
 capacities ;* for we naturally associate capacity for 
 social intercourse with our idea of person. " The 
 word would be robbed of much that it now connotes 
 if we were to apply it to a being incapable of receiv- 
 ing or imparting either thought or feeling." This 
 will lead us one step further to be assured that in a 
 Perfect Being social capacities imply the means of 
 gratifying them. The crowning revelation, there- 
 fore, is that " God is Love." 
 
 Now we cannot conceive of love without an ob- 
 ject. Love would not then be love, it would only 
 be the capacity for love. Love would not be love 
 without exercise. We therefore could not conceive 
 that God is love if He were a solitary Unit, to speak 
 with deepest reverence. " In an age which is be- 
 coming metaphysical in spite of itself and its ante- 
 cedents, men are driven to the conviction that God 
 cannot be what religion requires Him to be — a self- 
 conscious Being — and, at the same time, what the 
 Unitarian makes Him — an undifferentiated Unit, an 
 absolute One." f 
 
 Hence, we may say once more that reason is Chris- 
 tian in demanding that God be eternally a Father, 
 eternally produced toward Himself, with a Son 
 Who is " the Brightness of His glory and the ex- 
 press Image of His Person." 
 
 The heathen Greeks, two thousand years ago, had 
 arrived at what some regard now as a new discovery, 
 that " an absolute unit is unthinkable ;" but Chris- 
 
 * See McColl, " Christianity in Relation to Science," p. 13. 
 f Aubrey Moore, " Science and the Faith," p. 160. 
 
THE CREATOR. 1 3 
 
 tianity was the first to solve the problem.* It was 
 not that they set out to solve it, but starting with 
 the historic fact of the Resurrection, with the doc- 
 trinal truth of the Deity of Him Who rose again, 
 they found to hand an answer to the difficulties 
 which had been felt by unilluminated reason. " The 
 Fathers do not treat the doctrine of the Trinity in 
 Unity merely as a revealed mystery, still less as 
 something which complicates the simple teaching of 
 Monotheism, but as the condition of rationally hold- 
 ing the Unity of God." 
 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
 was with God, and the Word was God. ' ' The Word 
 was with God. The original expression denotes 
 activity toward — "The Word was toward God." 
 It implies distinction of person. Hence we may not 
 suppose that God is a Father only in name, in so far 
 as He is the Prime Origin of all ; that the titles 
 " Father, Son, Spirit" imply no more than various 
 attitudes or relations of one and the same Person 
 toward the creation He called into existence. So 
 false an idea as this (invented by Sabellius to explain 
 away the truth) would imply that God was not a 
 Father until the world or universe was called into 
 being ; that therefore there was no Word or Son 
 previous to creation. But, saith the apostle, not 
 only was the Word in the beginning, before the 
 creature was, but " in the beginning with, or toward, 
 God ;" the Sabellian notion being thus excluded. 
 The Word is not only, as it were, outward, but (to 
 speak with deepest awe and reverence) eternally in- 
 
 * See Appendix D. 
 
14 THE CREATOR. 
 
 ward toward God. His Face ever toward the Face 
 of His Eternal Father. And lest man should con- 
 ceive of Him as of one outside the Divine Life, ol 
 lower nature than that of Him Who is the Father, 
 the apostle adds at once, " and the Word was God." 
 
 Here for one moment we would leave the text, to 
 remind ourselves that the doctrine of the Eternal 
 Spirit as a Bond between the two Persons of the 
 Father and the Son is fully in accordance with 
 Reason, which requires that He should be at once a 
 Person, and equal with both Father and Son, else 
 He would not perfectly interpret the One to the 
 Other. Therefore another apostle, St. Paul, saith, 
 " The Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep 
 things of God. For who knoweth the things cf a 
 man save the spirit of man which is in him ? So the 
 things of God none hath known, save the Spirit of 
 God." The Holy Spirit of God (the apostle seems 
 to say under inspiration) is the ultimate conscious- 
 ness of God, whereby He knows Himself. None 
 but God could search the depths of God. His 
 search alone would not be baffled. As St. Augus- 
 tine points out, He is, as it were, the Love whereby 
 the Father and the Son are united ; hence, some have 
 spoken of Him with deepest reverence, be it said, 
 as " Osculum Patris et Filii. " 
 
 Thus in the Oneness of God there exists a Trinity 
 of Persons. In the Old Testament, though the One- 
 ness was more insisted upon, yet there are words 
 and passages which we can see now contained the 
 teaching of Plurality of Persons. The utterance, 
 " Let US make man in Our image," is at once fol- 
 lowed by the words, " so God made man in His 
 
THE CREATOR. I 5 
 
 own image." Then, again, " Man is become as one 
 of US," " let US go down ;"* all imply plurality of 
 equal Persons. While, again, the blessing which is 
 " putting God's Name upon" the people is so clear 
 a teaching of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, 
 that it is ready at once to pass into what is called 
 the Apostolic blessing. For in the set form of bene- 
 diction given by God to Moses, the great incom- 
 municable Name of God is uttered three times, as 
 the small capitals in the Bible of the English Church 
 will remind us, " The Lord bless thee, and keep 
 thee ; the Lord make His Face to shine upon thee, 
 and be gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up His 
 countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." f If 
 we take the form and order in which the Christian 
 blessing occurs in the Liturgy of St. James (so called), 
 we shall at once see that it is the Christian version of 
 the ancient Hebrew benediction recited to Moses, 
 " The love of the Lord and Father, the grace of the 
 Lord and Son, the fellowship and gift of the Holy 
 Ghost be with us all." It is the Love of God the 
 Father that blesses and keeps ; the glory of God seen 
 in the Face of His Son Jesus Christ is gracious (for 
 grace and truth came by Jesus Christ) ; the fellow- 
 ship of the Holy Ghost brings the communion of 
 peace, the third fruit of the Spirit. 
 
 The Trinity of Persons was not so clearly revealed 
 in the Old Testament ; partly, it may be, because 
 there was ever present the error of polytheism and 
 idolatry, which was very seductive ; but mainly 
 because it was not necessary nor indeed easy of 
 
 * Genesis I : 26, 27 ; 3 : 22 ; 11 : 7. f Numbers 6 : 23, 24, 25. 
 
1 6 THE CREATOR. 
 
 comprehension until the Incarnation of God the 
 Son. Now it is different. St. John, as we have 
 seen, tells us, ' ' We know that the Son of God is come, 
 and hath given us an understanding ; that we may 
 know Him that is true ; and we are in Him that is 
 true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true 
 God and Eternal life." 
 
 When we have once accepted the great funda- 
 mental doctrine of the Trinity we are prepared to 
 receive the doctrine of Creation. For the mystery 
 of Creation is only excelled by the mystery of the 
 Nature of God. For even the deep mystery of the 
 Incarnation seems somewhat less (if possible) than 
 the mystery of Creation. For (with reverence be 
 it said) the mystery of the Union of the Creator with 
 the existing creature would seem less than the 
 mystery of calling the creature into existence. St. 
 John then goes on, " All things were made by Him, 
 and apart from Him was not anything made that 
 was made." God is no sterile and motionless unit. 
 The Eternal Son is " the beginning of the Creation 
 of God ;" not as being Himself the first created, but 
 as being the principle on which creation depend. * 
 
 Here, however, early errors would lead us to dis- 
 tinguish between the creative word spoken and the 
 Creator Word speaking. St. Clement, of Alexan- 
 dria, is very earnest in warning against any suppo- 
 sition that the Word by Whom all things were made 
 was that of the Psalmist, " He spake the Word, and 
 they were made ;" since He is the Word that speaks 
 the creative utterance. 
 
 * See Appendix F. 
 
THE CREATOR. IJ 
 
 God the Son, God the Word, is the Mediator 
 whereby God creates. This was depicted of old in 
 the beautiful language of the eighth chapter of the 
 Book of Proverbs, " The Lord possessed Me in the 
 beginning of His way. . . I was set up from everlast- 
 ing, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 
 When there were no depths, I was brought forth ; 
 when there were no fountains abounding with water. 
 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills 
 was I brought forth ; while as yet He had not made 
 the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the 
 dust of the world." Thus far before the fiat of crea- 
 tion had gone forth, while as yet it only existed in the 
 eternal purpose of God. But the record goes on : 
 ' When He prepared the Heavens, I was there ; 
 when He set a circle on the face of the deep ; when 
 He established the clouds above ; when He strength- 
 ened the fountains of the deep ; when He gave 
 the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass 
 His commandment ; when He appointed the founda- 
 tions of the earth ; then I was by Him, as One 
 brought up with Him ; and I was daily His delight, 
 rejoicing always before Him ; rejoicing in the habi- 
 table parts of His earth ; and My delights were with 
 the sons of men." 
 
 That which here is adumbrated in poetic beauty 
 is asserted continually in the New Testament. The 
 Father indeed is the Prime Source and Origin of all 
 created being, as He is of the Godhead ; but the 
 Son is the Mediatorial Agent of creation. " By 
 Him (or rather, through Him) all things, regarded 
 severally (as the Greek intimates), were made." 
 11 In Him were all things (regarded collectively, the 
 
1 8 THE CREATOR. 
 
 universe) created." These two statements of two 
 Apostles supplement each the other. It was (as the 
 writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews again says) 
 4 ' by the Son that God made the worlds." " There 
 is One Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all 
 things, and we through Him." Then with these 
 statements we can understand the inspired sayings 
 of the psalms. " By the Word of the Lord were 
 the Heavens made." " He by His excellent Wis- 
 dom made the Heavens." 
 
 But God the Son is not only the Mediator in crea- 
 tion, He is also the Revealer in illumination. ' That 
 which hath been made in Him is Life ; and the life 
 was the light of men," as a class, not only as of indi- 
 viduals. St. Clement, of Alexandria, pointed out 
 seventeen hundred years ago that in all philosophy, 
 in all wisdom of men, there is seen some truth, even 
 in the wildest flights of fancy among the heathen ; 
 but every sparkle of truth is a reflection from the 
 One true Light that lighteth every man coming into 
 the world. As Archbishop Theophylact said many 
 years after, '* He saith not the light of the Jews 
 only, but of all men ; for all of us in so far as we 
 have received intellect and reason from that Word 
 which created us are said to be illuminated by 
 Him."* When, therefore, the heathen acknowl- 
 edged, " We are His offspring," it was a sparkle of 
 truth which could be claimed as a witness to Him 
 Who is the Truth. 
 
 But He Who had revealed truth in parts, as men 
 were able to bear it, " Who in many portions and 
 in many methods had spoken of old," He in these 
 
 * Theophylact in lot., Opera Venetiis, 1754, p. 510. 
 
THE CREATOR. 19 
 
 last days, the latter times, the last dispensation, has 
 come Himself, the Perfect Revealer, to mankind and 
 the creation at large. For ' ' the Word was made 
 Flesh, and dwelt among us, tabernacled in our na- 
 ture, ' ' and is now the intimate means of union, the one 
 complete Mediator between God and His creation. 
 
 Here, then, I would humbly make my own the 
 words of a very great man. " Dangerous it were 
 for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the 
 doings of the Most High, Whom although to know 
 be life and joy to make mention of His Name, yet 
 our soundest knowledge is to know that we know 
 Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him ; 
 and our safest eloquence concerning Him is our 
 silence, when we confess without confession that 
 His glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our 
 capacity and reach. He is above and we upon earth ; 
 therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and 
 few." * Ah, brethren, our subject is vast and un- 
 fathomable ! Let us, His unworthy creatures, on 
 whom He has lavished the fulness of His boundless 
 love, not be of those who receive Him not. Let us 
 welcome Him with our whole nature, body, soul, 
 and spirit. He is now drawing us with the cords of 
 a man, for He is man as we are. " Draw us (cry 
 the elect), we will run after Thee !" f The nearer 
 the iron is to the magnet the more it hastens to meet 
 and join it. The nearer we approach (however un- 
 worthily) to God, the greater the attraction. Let 
 us yield ourselves to Him, the Incarnate Saviour, 
 and He will in no wise cast us out. 
 
 * Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I., chap, ii., § 2. 
 f Canticles 1 : 4. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 [ THE CREATURE. 
 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
 the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All 
 things were made by Him ; and without Him was not anything made 
 that was made. In Him was life ; and the life was the light of men. 
 And the light shineth in darkness ; and the darkness comprehended 
 it not."— St. John i : 1-5. 
 
 Next to the mystery of the Godhead is the mys- 
 tery of Creation. Here, again, reason, given to us 
 by God, may help us somewhat on the way, though 
 not very far. Scientific investigators have argued 
 from what they call " degradation of energy," that 
 the universe will come to an end ; and from this they 
 have argued that that which has an end must have 
 had a beginning ; that therefore the universe must 
 have had a beginning. The argument may be profit- 
 able to some, but it does not help a believer very 
 much. It may be a step in the right direction, and 
 as such we would welcome it. But science cannot 
 tell us about the act of creation, for still the question 
 would be asked, " Where wast thou when I laid the 
 foundations of the earth ?" 
 
 But, as a rule, scientific men are content to ac- 
 knowledge that of the beginning of the universe they 
 know nothing at all. It is the same with the ques- 
 tion of life. Some years ago a friend of mine in Old 
 
THE CREATURE. 21 
 
 London asked a learned scientific lecturer* a ques- 
 tion which baffled him. Lectures had been given to 
 workingmen, and the lecturer kindly invited ques- 
 tions from his audience, professing himself willing 
 to answer them as well as he could. Now my friend, 
 a coach painter, had been attending the lectures with 
 great interest. He had read himself into unbelief, 
 and by God's grace had recovered faith, but still he 
 loved all scientific inquiry, as a Christian may and 
 should. In answer, then, to the invitation of the 
 lecturer my friend wrote the following : " You have 
 most learnedly told us about matter apart from life, 
 and matter in connection with life ; will you kindly 
 tell us what life is apart from matter?" It was a 
 pertinent and a logical question, but no answer could 
 be given by science. The lecturer commenced his 
 next lecture by saying that one of his audience had 
 asked him a question which he must have known 
 could not be answered, and that was all. When one 
 of the great teachers of science, President of the 
 British Association, proposed the theory that the 
 first germ of life was brought to this planet by a 
 fragment of an exploded world, he made a sugges- 
 tion which would have been laughed to scorn if 
 made by a less eminent man ; for it would not help 
 us at all to find out how life commenced on the 
 exploded globe. 
 
 But where science must fail, here revelation steps 
 in. There seems good reason to think that the 
 words in the text should run thus, " That which 
 hath been made was life in Him." A difficult phrase, 
 
 * If my memory is right, the lecturer was Professor Huxley. 
 
22 THE CREATURE. 
 
 but full of beautiful meaning. The thought seems to 
 be carried back far beyond the time when creation 
 became a fact, and was only a purpose or idea pres- 
 ent to the mind of the Creator. There is the double 
 aspect — one in relation to man, the other in relation 
 to God. In relation to man, there are the present 
 phenomena, " that which hath been made ;" in rela- 
 tion to God, " they were." There is a similar con- 
 trast in the Book of Revelation where the hymn of 
 the four and twenty elders expresses the same double 
 aspect : " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive 
 glory, and honor, and power ; for Thou hast created 
 all things, and for Thy pleasure they were, and were 
 created." We may say, therefore, that while it is 
 true that the creature is not eternal (it would not be 
 a creature if it were), yet we cannot separate it from 
 the eternal purpose of the Divine mind. While it is 
 true that at the first beat of time the creature sprang 
 into existence, and so was made or created, yet we 
 believe that its existence was eternally present to 
 the mind of God " That which hath been made 
 was life in Him/' 
 
 God the Son was the Creative Agent of God. 
 " That which [in time] hath been made was [in eter- 
 nity] life in Him." It was failure to see this great 
 truth, which was one of the difficulties in the way 
 of the Arians, or which they alleged as a reason for 
 thinking that the Divine Son was Himself a Crea- 
 ture. They argued that creatures as such were too 
 feeble to endure the force of the Father's creating 
 power. Therefore a Mediator was necessary to 
 break the impact. But St. Athanasius* rightly 
 
 * Orat. II., c. Aiianos, § 26 ; Opera Patavii, 1777, Tom. i., p. 390. 
 
THE CREATURE. 23 
 
 ridiculed this, arguing that if the force were indeed 
 so great that no creature could endure it, then if the 
 Son were a creature, He could not be created by 
 the Father Himself, and another Mediator would be 
 necessary, and so on ad infinitum. Their argument 
 was, indeed, as great a folly as the suggestion of life 
 travelling hitherward on an aerolite speeding from 
 an explosion. The Son Himself is the One Mediator 
 between God and the Creature, which from all eter- 
 nity " was life in Him/* To the Christian there can 
 be no antagonism between Christianity and Science. 
 When Science has established a fact, the Christian 
 can see in it the act of God ; in the meantime the 
 Christian may, indeed, be on the mountain-top of 
 faith, lifting up hands and eyes to Heaven, in sure 
 and certain hope that the Israel of God will, nay, 
 must ultimately prevail while Amalek fights below. 
 If the Book of Science be true, or rather be inter- 
 preted aright, it will be found to agree with other 
 books of God, when interpreted aright. Professor 
 Owen spoke well when, after having lectured on 
 the lesson to be learned from a striking geological 
 specimen which he held in his hand, he could say 
 solemnly, " The Word of God written by the finger 
 of God on tables of stone." Where for a time there 
 seems to be antagonism, the error is really in the 
 interpreter, whether of the facts of nature, on the 
 one hand, or the Bible, on the other. For we must 
 not take for granted that the popular or commonly 
 received interpretation is always and necessarily the 
 true, or only true meaning of the fact or the pas- 
 sage. There are unquestionably large tracts of 
 Truth still to be discovered, Natural and Revealed ; 
 
24 THE CREATURE. 
 
 and the truth discovered in Nature by Science will 
 shed much light on some difficult passage of Scrip- 
 ture. When the law of gravitation was discovered 
 it was seen to throw marvellous light on the saying 
 of holy Job, "He hangeth the earth upon nothing." 
 
 The creature, then, was in the eternal purpose of 
 God, and yet it was not developed fully all at once. 
 We seem to read that before the visible universe 
 was created there was called into being a veritable 
 host of creatures, whom man cannot see until his 
 spiritual perception has been cleared and trained 
 for the purpose. Holy Scripture implies that these 
 glorious beings were called into existence before the 
 visible, tangible, material creation. While, perhaps, 
 we may not ascribe to poetry the solid character of 
 historic narration, yet poetry would be meaningless 
 without some phenomenal groundwork. It is im- 
 possible to paint a cloud, and if it be illuminated by 
 reflected light, the colors of that light must have had 
 an unquestionable existence. There is much, then, 
 to be learned from the passage in Job where we are 
 told that the angels hymned the creative act of call- 
 ing the material universe into existence. ' Where- 
 upon are the foundations of the earth fastened ? or 
 Who hath laid the corner-stone thereof, when the 
 morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God 
 shouted for joy ?' ' * 
 
 It is quite true that many have thought that the 
 angels were created within the six days of creation 
 in Genesis, and the rabbis have gone a step further, 
 and asserted that they were created on the fifth day. 
 
 * Job 38 : 7. 
 
THE CREATURE. 25 
 
 They came to this conclusion from observing- that a 
 certain Hebrew form occurs twice only in the Old 
 Testament, once in Genesis 1 : 20, "fowl that may 
 fly," and once in Isaiah 6 : 2, " with twain he did 
 fly." This, they say, shows that the angelic beings 
 seen by Isaiah were created at the same time as the 
 winged fowl. But Scripture rather points to their 
 having preceded the creation of the world of matter, 
 but by what interval we know not. We may, per- 
 haps, see a record of their creation in the first words 
 of Genesis, " In the beginning God created the 
 heavens ;" for Heaven is their " local habitation." 
 
 Here, too, curiously enough, some scientific men 
 have come to the same conclusion. It has been 
 argued that the present maintenance of the seen uni- 
 verse could not abide without the continual activity 
 and interference of an unseen universe to keep order, 
 if we may say so. If there is any foundation for 
 this, it would argue that the existence of the unseen 
 agency would precede the seen universe. 
 
 Attention must be drawn to a distinction between 
 the living agents of the invisible world and those of 
 the material creation. Of the angels, we know that 
 "they neither marry nor are given in marriage." 
 There seems to have been uttered over them no 
 benediction of multiplying. It has been thought, 
 therefore, that their creation involved a certain 
 definite number of individuals, in full adult com- 
 pleteness and perfection, each individual angel 
 being called into existence by a separate creative 
 act of Almighty God. No one angel receives from 
 another any portion of his being ; each was created 
 separate, distinct, and perfect in himself. So that 
 
26 THE CREATURE. 
 
 from the moment of his creation each had a being 
 distinct and independent of all save his Creator. 
 Each had eternal youth. Therefore, when one is de- 
 scribed in Scripture as appearing to man, in order 
 to meet our comprehension, the angel is spoken of 
 as a young man. Hence, too, angels are called sons 
 of God, as Adam is by St. Luke, because each one 
 owes his existence to God alone. 
 
 There is, then, no common angelic nature. The 
 nature of each is peculiar to himself, and is derived 
 neither from any save God Himself, nor to any other 
 afterward. Nor need we be deterred from this 
 thought by the text in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 " He took not on Him the nature of angels." * For 
 there in our Bibles, if they are properly printed, we 
 shall see at once that the word nature is not in the 
 original, because of the variation in printing. It is 
 " Of angels He took not hold." Indeed, from this 
 might be argued that the passage is in favor of the 
 opinion here expressed, for the word " angels" is in 
 the plural. The Epistle to the Hebrews was written 
 in a style of Greek which had much affinity to 
 Hebrew idiom. One Hebrew peculiarity was that 
 when the writer did not care to particularize any 
 one of several similar things, the word was put in 
 the plural. Thus when Jephthah died, the historian 
 did not care to mention specially the exact spot of 
 his entombment, and he said " he was buried in the 
 cities of Gilead," f whereas the burial could not 
 have been in more than one. This may account for 
 the expression here, " He took not angels." There 
 
 * Hebrews 2 : 16. f Judges 12 : 7. 
 
THE CREATURE. 2J 
 
 was no common angelic nature ; there was no angelic 
 reproduction, therefore had He "taken angels," 
 He would have taken this or that particular angel, 
 and not angelic nature. This will also account for 
 the peculiarity of the expression which speaks of the 
 Incarnation, " He took the seed of Abraham ;" He 
 took the participation of man's nature from its very 
 commencement. 
 
 Of each angel, then, we may believe there is a 
 separate nature, similar to, but not the same as 
 that of his fellows. Inasmuch as they are subject to 
 the laws of time and space we must think that they 
 have some material form, however rare or subtle the 
 quality. They are called spirits, yet we need not 
 think that this excludes all idea of materialism. God 
 alone is Spirit alone. Therefore the saying of our 
 blessed Lord should probably be translated " God is 
 Spirit,"* and not a Spirit, as if one of a class. He 
 alone does not admit of circumscription, He is irnmen- 
 sus, "incomprehensible" — that is, cannot be included 
 in space. But the angels are circumscribed. They 
 are subject to limitations of time and space. This is 
 seen in the account of Gabriel bringing the answer 
 to Daniel's prayer. " The man Gabriel, being 
 caused to fly swiftly." " At the beginning of thy 
 supplication the commandment came forth, and I 
 am come."f They ascend and descend.^ Hence 
 to their personal existence there must be some dis- 
 tinguishing limit, some boundary, envelop, integu- 
 ment, or covering, of however infinitesimal rarity, 
 
 * St. John 4 : 24. f Daniel, 9 : 21, 23 
 
 % Genesis 28 : 12 ; St. John 1 : 51. 
 
28 THE CREATURE. 
 
 however transcendent the tenuity. In the Book of 
 the Revelation we read of their appearing clothed 
 in various ways, which of itself would imply this. 
 Some have made merry with the Revised Version, 
 which represents seven angels clothed in stone.* 
 Yet if this be the true reading of the passage (which 
 w r e are not affirming), there need be no reason for 
 doubting the possibility any more than we can doubt 
 that— which each one of us probably can vouch for — 
 that each blade of tender grass is clothed in flint, in 
 silex. This clothing of itself would imply a super- 
 ficial limit to the body of the angel. 
 
 Of their number we know nothing, save that 
 " more than twelve legions of angels" were attend- 
 ant on the will of the Incarnate Lord.f There are 
 also hosts, and camps, and orders of them ; not iso- 
 lated, but marshalled and orderly companies, as is 
 implied by St. Paul and St. Peter. It is true that 
 St. Paul adopts the names in common parlance 
 among his opponents at Colossas, in order to exalt 
 the Lord far above all ; but at least we know of 
 Angels and Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim. 
 
 Of these blessed spirits we learn there is a double 
 ministry, one toward God, one on God's behalf 
 toward man. " Are they not all ministering spir- 
 its ?" asks the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 — that is, ministering in the service of God, in the 
 sanctuary of Heaven ? Therefore we say in the 
 Eucharistic service, "With angels, and archangels 
 and all the company of Heaven we laud and magnify 
 Thy glorious Name." But not only so, they are 
 
 * Revelation 15 : 6. f St. Matthew 26 : 53. 
 
THE CREATURE. 29 
 
 also " sent forth to do service to them that are heirs 
 of salvation. " * Hence we find that they have special 
 offices in connection with man. It has been thought 
 that each man has a guardian angel, and our blessed 
 Lord's saying about the angels of the little children 
 certainly bears out this impression. Indeed, nations 
 are said to have their angels ; we read of the 
 " Princes" of Greece and Persia, f while the special 
 guardian of the chosen people of God is Michael, 
 " who is like unto God," while Gabriel is the special 
 messenger of mercy and love. 
 
 We are, therefore, prepared to learn that around 
 and about the Last Adam, the Incarnate Lord, the 
 second head and recapitulation of the human race, 
 the angels were continually ministering. 
 
 With the angels, then, there can be no question of 
 evolution, no selection, if there be in the ranks of 
 ■the blessed a survival of the fittest. 
 
 But for the next stage in Creation there seems to 
 have been introduced a different order. And here, 
 as we deal with visible and tangible matter, human 
 reason, given to us by God, will help us, it may be, 
 to read the history, though in this case we have to 
 read the history backward. But we must always 
 remember that our knowledge is still in a state of 
 transition, is far from complete, far from perfect ; 
 and sometimes what is confidently asserted one day 
 by a man of science is as confidently exploded the 
 next by some further discovery. It may, therefore, 
 very well happen that while there is complete har- 
 mony between Scripture and the facts which have 
 
 * Hebrews 1 : 14. f Daniel 10 : 13, 20, 21. 
 
30 THE CREATURE. 
 
 been observed, yet discord may be feared or sus- 
 pected, because the language is misconstrued or the 
 facts misinterpreted. No one now supposes that 
 Revelation is affected by the knowledge that the 
 earth revolves about the sun and is not the fixed 
 centre of the universe. When the verse " He hath 
 made the round world so fast that it cannot be 
 moved" was examined, it was found that the He- 
 brew for " moved " really meant " totter," and was 
 used of slipping footsteps (Psalms 17 : 5 ; 94 : 18, 
 etc.). The word, therefore, accurately describes the 
 equable and smooth movement of the world for 
 many thousand years. 
 
 Fourteen hundred years ago and more St. Augus- 
 tine (whom Dr. Pusey called " the greatest mind in 
 Christendom") saw that there was more latent under 
 the bare letter of the account of the creation in Gen- 
 esis than was generally acknowledged ; and, indeed, 
 he has been thought to give utterance to " a view 
 which, without any violence to language, we may 
 call a theory of evolution." * After him the great- 
 est mind in mediaeval times, St. Thomas of Aquinum, 
 "if he did not adopt St. Augustine's view, at all 
 events recognized it as tenable." It cannot, there- 
 fore, be said that such views are inconsistent with 
 Christianity. We are in no way committed by the 
 Faith to the theory of what is called " special crea- 
 tion," which seems to have been adopted in the 
 seventeenth centur} T and to have been maintained 
 since. That is, men have thought for two centuries 
 and a half that plants and animals have continued as 
 
 * Aubrey L. Moore, " Science and the Faith," p. 176. 
 
THE CREATURE. 3 I 
 
 we see them from the moment of the creative fiat ; 
 that no variation has since been possible. Whereas 
 so close an approximation is seen in one form of 
 animal life to another ; such a unity of design is re- 
 vealed by comparative anatomy ; there is such power 
 in man to improve plants and animals by selection of 
 stock, that modern science has adopted a theory which 
 is directly opposed to that of " special creation." It 
 is suggested that the only way to account for the 
 various phenomena, which cannot here be more than 
 hinted at, is to maintain that all animal life has been 
 self-developed from a very small beginning ; that 
 just as now a full-grown man is gradually developed 
 by growth properly nourished from a very small 
 germ, so the whole race of animals have been grad- 
 ually developed from a similar nucleus. This is 
 called " Evolution." 
 
 There are unquestionably difficulties in the way, 
 which may be cleared up or not. It is true that 
 man by careful selection may improve plants and 
 animals and introduce such new varieties that man 
 has been called in a subordinate sense a creator. 
 But there is this peculiarity to be observed, that 
 these plants and animals left to themselves, without 
 man's selection and isolation and care, in a short 
 time revert to their original form and character. 
 There is a reversion to type. For example, botanists 
 say that the rose is not indigenous to New Bruns- 
 wick, and where found growing wild it has escaped 
 from cultivation. In these cases the rose is no 
 longer the beauty that would take a prize, it is a 
 single flower, or what we should call a dogrose. 
 Pigeon fanciers have by selection and isolation pro- 
 
32 THE CREATURE. 
 
 duced very many varieties of their favorite birds, 
 but it is found that if all the varieties are left to their 
 own " natural selection* ' in a short time their off- 
 spring all revert to the one common blue rock type. 
 Other instances of a similar character are well 
 known, but these must suffice. 
 
 At the same time, though there are at present 
 difficulties, yet the general tendency is to accept the 
 theory of Evolution as the best solvent of all the 
 phenomena which present themselves. 
 
 Then arises the question, If this theory of Evolu- 
 tion be generally taken to be true in the main, is it 
 contrary to the Truth of Revelation ? To this I an- 
 swer at once, it cannot be ; and then, secondly, it is 
 not. For where Evolution fails to account for cer- 
 tain phenomena, there Revelation steps in to help 
 out the record. Evolution does not profess or pre- 
 tend to tell us about the prime origin of things. If 
 all known forms of animal and vegetable life could 
 be traced back to a protoplasmic germ or speck, or 
 to primeval ' ' fire mist, ' ' Evolution can go no further ; 
 it cannot tell where the protoplasm came from or 
 whence the fire mist was developed. Evolution can- 
 not account for the self-consciousness of man or for 
 that, which cannot be denied, that man alone of ani- 
 mals is found to be deliberately choosing what he 
 knows to be for his hurt. In all this Revelation 
 steps in and tells us what science, with its dissecting 
 knife or microscope or balance, cannot discover. 
 
 " All things were made by Him, and apart from 
 Him was made not one thing." " In the beginning 
 God created the Heavens and the earth." The 
 Heavens were peopled with the subtle beings, the 
 
THE CREATURE. 33 
 
 angels, and the material earth was also to be peopled. 
 When the earth was prepared for life, lite was com- 
 municated by the intervention of the Creator, as it 
 would seem — that is, it would seem as if the com- 
 munication of life were direct from God, a new step 
 or stage in creation. 
 
 It is true that some men of science (like Sir W. 
 Thomson, who would bring life to the world from 
 an exploded planet) would say,* " I am ready to 
 adopt as an article of scientific faith, true through 
 all space and through all time, that life proceeds 
 from life, and nothing but life." But we must pro- 
 test against scientific dogmatism and decline to allow 
 this as an ultimate proclamation of Science. If 
 Science ever can bridge over the present gulf be- 
 tween inorganic and organic matter, between the 
 living and the not living, we must decline to hear 
 that there is a fresh contradiction discovered be- 
 tween Revelation and Science. The contradiction 
 may be to a previous dogma of Science, to the dog- 
 matic utterance of a Drummond or a Thomson, and 
 not to the simple grandeur, the glorious simplicity 
 of the record of Moses. 
 
 Holy Scripture then tells us that the world of 
 matter was created by God. This Science can 
 neither deny nor affirm ; it is beyond her sphere 
 altogether. 
 
 Next, Scripture tells us that life on the earth, the 
 organic kingdom, the world of plants and animals, 
 began by what we may reverently call the co-opera- 
 tion of the created matter with the creative energy 
 
 * Quoted in McColl, " Christianity in Relation to Science," p. 15. 
 3 
 
34 THE CREATURE. 
 
 of God the Creator. Science tells of the commence- 
 ment of organic life, and at present fails to tell us 
 anything of its origin. Scripture and Science point 
 to the gradual advance toward the formation of man. 
 There is an ascending scale of organism, advancing 
 from general to the special, ever making more close 
 approximations to man, until at length man was 
 called into being, the end, the object, the climax of 
 all. There is no contradiction thus far between the 
 two records. 
 
 Science demands extension of time, she points to 
 the evidence of vast growth of vegetation, as seen 
 in the coal measures ; she points to the tool marks 
 of the glacial period, to many other signs of length- 
 ened periods, and we grant it. The word " day" in 
 Scripture is not confined to what we call twenty- 
 four hours. If we acknowledge that " one day is 
 with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day," we gladly extend this to a million 
 years (as we count years) or as much longer as 
 Science can wish. The chief matter concerned is 
 not the period, but the WORK. Both records 
 would teach orderly process, orderly progress ; 
 Scripture teaches the ever-present care of the Crea- 
 tor. As far as this is con6erned, it is not important 
 whether the work be instantaneous or gradual. The 
 survey of God's work, as seen in the world around 
 us now and in history, would lead us to believe 
 that all God's work is gradual and, if you will, slow. 
 " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Im- 
 patient man, whose whole life is but a moment, is 
 ever in a hurry ; he " slanders the footsteps of the 
 Messiah ;" he says, " Where is the promise of His 
 
THE CREATURE. 35 
 
 coming?" But God's dealings are from eternity ; 
 there is no evidence of suddenness about any of His 
 works. Patiens quia ceternus. He works when the 
 fulness of the time has come. 
 
 It was then by the co-operation of the powers 
 given to Nature, with the active energy of the Giver 
 of these powers, that the organic kingdom was pro- 
 duced. God said, " Let the earth bring forth,'' 
 " Let the waters bring forth abundantly," " Let the 
 waters be gathered together," and thus God created. 
 
 It is no doubt a grander view of the power of the 
 Creator, that a license of self development should 
 be communicated to the living creatures. Of all it 
 might be said, "Whose seed is in itself." Herein 
 was the great distinction between this creation and 
 that of the angels. They had (so we seem to be 
 told) a perfect nature each one from the first ; they 
 had no growth, no development, no increase. But 
 over this new creation it was said, " Be fruitful and 
 multiply." And over an extension of time, in a 
 gradually ascending series, organic life developed 
 until the time of the Creation of Man was reached. 
 
 Indeed, we see transacted daily among us in the in- 
 dividual in an abbreviated form, that which was (as 
 seems probable) enacted in the history of the organic 
 kingdom. Young are born into the world, and by a 
 daily and hourly blessing, which would be recognized 
 as creative were it not so common among us, the im- 
 mature being grows. The seeds of vegetables, the 
 dormant powers of vegetable life, torpid in the winter, 
 put forth their living power when the spring or a 
 suitable time comes, and the young rootlets assimilate 
 to themselves from earth, air, and water the matter 
 
36 THE CREATURE. 
 
 which the plant requires, and it grows. Day by 
 day, by a miraculous act of creative power, which 
 we call digestion and then think little of it, we as- 
 similate such portions as we require of the dead 
 matter from animal and vegetable substances which 
 we take in, and we groiv or repair the waste of life. 
 
 But when " the fulness of the time" had come and 
 the earth was prepared for man, then man was 
 made. 
 
 Here, then, at once we perceive a vast difference 
 in the mode of creation. Science has to recognize 
 the difference, and can tell us nothing about the 
 origin of it. But Scripture lays great stress on the 
 matter from more points than one. 
 
 First, there seems to be a consultation about the 
 creation of man between the Persons of the God- 
 head. This is but to reveal to us the transcendent 
 importance of this step. " Let US make man in 
 Our Image, after Our Likeness." This is the 
 secret of the difference between man and the ani- 
 mals. The whole process is given in an abbreviated 
 form in Genesis 2:7, " The Lord God formed 
 man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
 his nostrils the breath of lives ; and man became a 
 living soul." This seems to sum up the double 
 process of Evolution, so called, and the Divine Inter- 
 vention. When man was formed of the dust of the 
 ground from which he was taken, then God inter- 
 vened as at a fresh epoch in creation and gave him 
 a special and peculiar glory. " He breathed into 
 His nostrils the breath of lives ;" and man had 
 herein conveyed to him the intellectual capacity of 
 self consciousness, whereby he became like unto his 
 
THE CREATURE. 37 
 
 Creator. " So God created man in His own image, 
 in the image of God created He him." 
 
 There is also another remarkable passage, which 
 seems to teach us again the immense gulf raised by 
 this intervention between man and his compeers, the 
 animals that went before him. " Out of the ground 
 the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and 
 every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam 
 to see what he would call them. And whatsoever 
 Adam called every living creature, that was the 
 name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, 
 and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the 
 field : but for Adam there was not found a help meet for 
 him." * That is to say, there was a great gulf fixed 
 between the man and all his congeners who had 
 prepared the way for him and had culminated in 
 him as the climax of their development. They were 
 all paraded before him, to point out to him and 
 to his descendants the immense difference between 
 man and the other animals, caused by the transcen- 
 dent love and mercy of God in " breathing into his 
 nostrils the breath of lives." Here has been seen 
 the double gift not only of the soul and of the intel- 
 lectual spirit, aye, but also, as the Christian Fathers 
 have believed, the adventitious gift of the indwelling 
 of the Spirit of God. Shame upon man who uses 
 the excellent endowment granted him by God to 
 endeavor to dishonor Him who gave it ! 
 
 Man, therefore, by the constitution of his nature 
 is a microcosm, a little world, partaking of the char- 
 acter of the whole universe of created things. He 
 
 * Genesis 2 : 19, 20. 
 
38 THE CREATURE. 
 
 is the apex, the culmination of all that went before, 
 and the commencement of a new epoch. In his 
 body he has affinity with the lower subjects of the 
 organic kingdom, the animal and the vegetable 
 world, and also, together with them, with the inor- 
 ganic kingdom through the dust of the earth from 
 which he was taken. On the left hand, then, he 
 holds on to the visible material creation ; but on the 
 right he has participation in the spii'itual nature of 
 the angels — "the spirit of man goeth upward."* 
 He is a recapitulation of both great branches of crea- 
 tion, the angelic or spiritual and the material. 
 
 It is very important that we should recognize this, 
 and the extreme importance must be seen in the 
 next lecture, succeeding the present. 
 
 But there is one startling phenomenon which Sci- 
 ence must recognize, though it cannot account for it 
 from its own tests and measures. It has been well 
 described thus : " The history alike of moral science 
 and religions bears testimony to the existence of a 
 struggle, an antagonism, a disorder in human nature, 
 and to a belief that this disorder is not natural to 
 man, and could not have been meant by God. Side 
 by side with all that Science teaches us of the evolu- 
 tion of man at the first from lower forms of life, and 
 all that history tells us of the progress of man since, 
 in civilization and knowledge, we see the fact of sin 
 casting its shadow upon human history and holding- 
 man back from his full development. This is the 
 fact which lies at the basis of all religions, and which 
 moral systems universally recognize, though they 
 
 * Ecclesiastes 3 : 21. 
 
THE CREATURE. 39 
 
 can neither explain nor remove it. And Science has 
 taught us that we must be true to facts."* Here, 
 again, then, we have to look to Revelation to help us 
 to the cause of this blight and hindrance. 
 
 It pleased Almighty God that among His crea- 
 tures those that were intelligent agents should for a 
 while be placed upon their probation. We may 
 understand this by the gift of Reason, with which 
 God has endowed us. We may say that such a 
 state of probation is inseparable from freedom of 
 will. It has been said that either virtue or moral 
 goodness is impossible, or that evil or deviation 
 from virtue is possible. Moral goodness implies 
 freedom of choice, which again would ordinarily 
 imply the possibility of making a wrong choice. 
 The creature, who by the gift of his Creator is an 
 intelligent agent, must, then, have the opportunity 
 of showing that his will is attuned to and in accord 
 with God's will. We may say with deepest rever- 
 ence that as it pleased the Creator to call into exist- 
 ence beings that could give Him willing and free 
 service, could reflect, however unworthily, some 
 rays of that unstinted flow of love which He poured 
 upon them, it was congruous with His design, nay, 
 almost necessary (certainly necessary because He 
 willed it should be so), that there should be a possi- 
 bility of declining such service, and so of espousing 
 evil, the deviation from, and opposition to God's 
 will. 
 
 It was so in the case of the angels. We know that 
 many of these, of several orders or ranks, turned 
 
 * Aubrey Moore. 
 
40 THE CREATURE. 
 
 away their wills from God and became evil. One 
 there was of excellent beauty and intellect, who 
 seems to have headed the revolt, who is thencefor- 
 ward named Satan, the enemy. St. Paul seems to 
 tell us that pride was the immediate cause of his de- 
 fection ; but the Lord tells us in general terms that 
 " he stood not in the Truth." It is clear from this 
 that he was once "in the Truth" and fell there- 
 from. St. Jude tells us that " they kept not their 
 first estate, but left their own habitation," and 
 the prophets tell us of his fall ; " How art thou 
 fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morn- 
 ing !" The prophet Ezekiel, in his denunciation of 
 Tyre, seems to speak of the great originator of pride. 
 ! Thou sealest up the sum,* full of wisdom and per- 
 fect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden 
 of God. . . . Thou art the anointed cherub that cov- 
 ereth. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day 
 thou wast created until iniquity was found in thee, 
 therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the moun- 
 tain of God." The Lord also, in words of compre- 
 hensive reach, speaks of the actual and moral fall of 
 the rebel, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from 
 Heaven," or rather, " I was all along beholding him 
 fall." In the other passage in which the Lord refers 
 
 * Ezekiel 28 : 12. There are two renderings here, that of the Author- 
 ized Version and that of the Septuagint, " the impression, or seal, of 
 the likeness." St. Cyril, of Alexandria, citing the passage, says : 
 " We read the words addressed to the prince of Tyre, which also we 
 must be persuaded to apply to the person of the devil, Thou art the 
 impression of the likeness. But he to whom this was said is found to 
 have fallen from the likeness." On St. John 6 : 27, Opera, Paris, 
 1638, Tom. iv., p. 304 A. 
 
THE CREATURE. 41 
 
 to the chief of rebels, He says, "He is a liar, and 
 the father of it ;" as if all deviation from the upright- 
 ness of Truth may be traced to him as the first orig- 
 inator of evil. 
 
 When man was made he was endowed with many 
 excellences and with a possibility of not dying, not 
 so much in a state of absolute assured perfection, as 
 in one of conditional potential perfection. The con- 
 dition was obedience to God's will ; the penalty of 
 disobedience was seen in the death of the animals 
 about man. ' ' In the day thou eatest thereof thou 
 shalt surely die :" as if it were, You have the possi- 
 bility of (it may be) progressive development ; if, 
 however, you reject this you have the possibility of 
 progressive decay and degradation ; you will be- 
 come as " one of the beasts that perish." For death 
 was then known as Science teaches, and if it were 
 not known the threat would have been meaningless, 
 the penalty unknown. 
 
 But Satan, the enemy, who had learned to say, 
 " Evil, be thou my good," was at hand to tempt and 
 seduce man ; and while man was still lapped in the 
 bosom of the love of his Creator the foul originator 
 and instigator of sin approached, and man listened 
 and fell. Sin progresses by three stages — sugges- 
 tion, delight, consent. With man in Paradise sug- 
 gestion came from without, wholly ; delight was 
 aroused and consent followed. In mankind since 
 then (with One only exception) suggestion comes 
 more often from within, it may be, than from with- 
 out. 
 
 From the moment of man's sin all was changed 
 for him. The sluices were opened and the flood 
 
42 THE CREATURE. 
 
 came, as is well represented in the collocation of 
 lessons for Sexagesima Sunday : 
 
 " Foe of mankind ! too bold thy race. 
 
 Thou runn'st at such a reckless pace, 
 Thine own dire work thou surely wilt confound. 
 
 'Twas but one little drop of sin 
 
 We saw this morning enter in, 
 And lo ! at eventide the world is drowned." 
 
 In dwelling on the Bible account of the Fall of 
 Man we must remember that the historical part of it 
 is absolutely true, whether, with some of the faithful, 
 we regard the form in which the history is told 
 as an allegory or a parable. Man underwent a 
 definite historical probation ; he exercised his free- 
 dom of will to enslave his will to evil. 
 
 But we must take care to pierce the letter to reach 
 the spirit of Revelation, break through the outward 
 covering of outward circumstances, and observe the 
 moral transaction within. We must learn to appre- 
 ciate the true moraj significance of the whole matter. 
 Man listened to God's enemy ; misconceived God's 
 love ; suspected His intentions ; finally disbelieved 
 His word. Man's fall was fatal to the whole race, 
 for it was the deed of their head, in whom the whole 
 race was represented. From that moment sin en- 
 tered the world of men, and that which science can- 
 not deny, though it strives hard to ignore, has all 
 along existed, a blight and hindrance, keeping man 
 back from his full development. Thus " by one 
 man sin entered into the world and death by sin ; 
 and so death passed upon all men, for that all have 
 sinned." 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. — St. John i : 14. 
 
 Glorious mast have been the prospect to Abra- 
 ham when God brought him forth abroad by night 
 and bade him " Look now toward Heaven, and tell 
 the stars, if thou be able to number them." * In the 
 Eastern sky there are visible more stars than we see 
 here. The more a man gazes the more they seem, 
 and more and more become visible, until it seems 
 impossible to put a pin's point at any part of the 
 Heavens between two spots of light. " O Lord, 
 how manifold are Thy works ; in wisdom hast Thou 
 made them all !" The more we contemplate the 
 works the more we marvel at the Maker thereof. 
 
 " There is a book, who runs may read, 
 Which heavenly truth imparts ; 
 And all the lore its scholars need, 
 Pure eyes and Christian hearts. 
 
 " The works of God above, below, 
 Within us and around, 
 Are pages in that book to show 
 How God Himself is found." 
 
 But if the Book of God in nature is so glorious, 
 we may almost say that His Book of Revelation is 
 
 I* Genesis 15 : 5. 
 
44 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 still more glorious — and, indeed, as we might think, 
 it is of the same character in one respect. The more 
 we regard it the more its wonders come out — won- 
 ders which at first we could not conceive of — won- 
 ders that grow thicker and thicker as we read and 
 meditate. If we really pray, " Open, Thou, mine 
 eyes, O Lord, that I may see the wondrous things 
 of Thy law," we shall see them more and more. If 
 we pray with the wisest of men, " Come, thou south 
 wind, and blow upon my garden, and the spices 
 thereof shall flow out," we shall more and more find 
 the sweetness of God's Word, more and more realize 
 the wondrous depths of that matchless Book. 
 
 Nor need we wonder that there are others who 
 cannot read as we do. The Apostle told us cen- 
 turies ago why it was. " The natural man receiveth 
 not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are 
 foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, 
 because they are spiritually discerned."* The 
 same truth is seen in the manner in which the Voice 
 was understood which came from Heaven to our 
 blessed Lord in the Temple in the presence of the 
 Gentile proselytes, f To the most carnally-minded 
 or hard-hearted the Voice appeared mere inarticu- 
 late sounds, a brutum fulmen ; "they said that it 
 thundered." To others there sounded, indeed, a 
 speech, an articulate sound, but they perceived not 
 the meaning ; they said " an angel spake to Him." 
 Those who could hear, whose hearts were prepared, 
 heard and understood, and one recorded the words. 
 It is as the Lord said, " Why do ye not understand 
 
 * i Corinthians 2 : 14. f St. John 12 : 28. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 45 
 
 My speech ? even because ye cannot hear My 
 Word." * That is, because there was in His hearers 
 such moral and spiritual deficiency that they could 
 not accept the truth of His teaching, His Word — 
 that is, the utterance of Reason, the outcome ot Wis- 
 dom ; therefore, they could not understand the lan- 
 guage in which it was uttered. On the other hand, 
 when once God's voice has been made known, then 
 every God-fearing and believing man hears Him 
 speak in his own language. May God grant that we 
 may more and more realize the great and glorious 
 teaching in His Word, " comparing spiritual things 
 with spiritual," that we may be more and more en- 
 abled to yield to Him the loving adoration of faithful 
 hearts and the willing devotion of loyal affections. 
 " Lord, what love have I unto Thy law, all the day 
 long is my study in it." 
 
 In similar manner, when we study history, which 
 is and must be the record of the manner in which 
 -all things are " working together for good for them 
 that love God," the same marvellous purpose of 
 Divine power and love is seen, so that unbelievers 
 have been converted by the consideration. " What 
 is more intricate, multiform, and anomalous than the 
 history of the different nations of the earth ! At the 
 first glance it is an inextricable coil of men and ac- 
 tions. At the next it appears a continual repetition, 
 a rising and falling of nations, a flourishing and de- 
 caying of States, a constant recurrence of the same 
 events under different forms. But on closer obser- 
 vation history is found to be a wondrous tissue of all 
 
 * St. John 8 : 43. 
 
4-6 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 these variegated threads, a tissue ever lengthening 
 and continually advancing according to fixed moral 
 laws."* As ever, " some said it thundered, others, 
 an angel spake," others ** understand the Word." 
 
 All and everything in God's Book, all point to the 
 central fact of history, the focus of all God's work 
 — the union of the Creator with His creature in the 
 Incarnation of the Son of God, the One Mediator 
 between the Creator and the creature. 
 
 This enables us to understand the account of the 
 creation of man. 
 
 As we have seen, the Heavens, called into being by 
 the will of God, were peopled with spiritual beings, 
 each perfect in himself, each with his own particular 
 nature, which he does not share with another. Then 
 at the other extreme (if we may say so) of creation 
 the material universe was summoned into existence, 
 and one little corner of it, the earth on which we 
 live, was gradually prepared for the reception of the 
 gift of life. With the other millions of globes and 
 systems we have no communication except by rays 
 of light, and of these by revelation we only know 
 that they are fellow-creatures with us. It the mark- 
 ings on the planet Mars really show the presence of 
 a vast system of canals, it may, perchance, be peopled 
 by intelligent agents, who have worked out the 
 problem of locomotion as our own engineers might 
 have done ; but this does not affect our position. 
 
 The moment the earth on which we live was ready 
 to support life, the Divine gift of life was communi- 
 
 * Luthardt, " Fundamental Truths of Chiistianity," Lecture III., 
 see Appendix F. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 47 
 
 cated to it, and by almost insensible gradations and 
 variations, which seem almost infinite, the forms of 
 life advance and become more sensitive, until the 
 form of man is reached. Then once more there is 
 an intervention of the Creator with a new gift, which 
 makes man the head and king of the organic king- 
 dom. He is made into* the image of God : he has 
 granted to him an intellectual spirit whereby he has 
 affinity to the spiritual intelligences in the world of 
 angels. He recapitulates all creation, and has thus 
 the character of the representative of all created 
 things. In his spiritual nature he is like, and may 
 hereafter become, "equal to the angels." In his 
 lower nature he has affinity with all below him in the 
 lower forms of life ; ay, even with inorganic matter, 
 for " dust he is, and unto dust he will return." 
 
 There is also one other point on which Revelation 
 insists, and that is the unique character of the first 
 man. In the one individual, Adam, was contained 
 .all mankind. *With respect to Avhat Science may 
 have to say about this, we need say no more than 
 that though the question has been freely discussed, 
 and some years ago several scientific, faithful men 
 were of opinion that there were many Adams, yet 
 now the tendency is to believe that the unity, which 
 is being acknowledged, arises from unity of origin. 
 This seems to be insisted on with earnestness in the 
 Old Testament. It is emphasized by the parade of 
 the animals before Adam, when their difference 
 from him is shown to be so vast that not one was a 
 help meet for him. Surely this would teach that 
 
 * See Appendix G. 
 
48 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 man was not wholly the result of Evolution. For if 
 he were, something outside of himself would have 
 been sufficiently near to him to be a help meet for 
 him. The last step or stage in Evolution would 
 have been so nearly akin as to have been little less 
 than woman, except that the great gulf had been 
 fixed by the Divine intervention, and the bestowal 
 of the great and glorious gift of spiritual intelligence 
 and self-consciousness had been granted to man. 
 
 Then there was built up out of the side of Adam, 
 who lay meanwhile in deep ecstasy or sleep, the 
 help meet for him, Eve, the mother of all living. 
 
 If we had only the Old Testament we should not 
 know why such stress was laid on all this, but 
 when we learn that the Creator has been pleased in 
 His Infinite love and mercy to unite the creature to 
 Himself, then " our understandings are opened, and 
 we can understand in all the Scriptures the things 
 concerning" that Incarnation. We can see how 
 that, when Adam was made in the Image of God, he 
 was also made in that Image which the Creator 
 would assume "in the fulness of time." We can 
 see why Adam was the unique and sole representa- 
 tive of mankind ; and that all mankind without ex- 
 ception was developed and derived out of him, 
 because the last Adam, the Lord Incarnate, would 
 be the new head into Whom anew all mankind should 
 be recapitulated * and summed up in the new crea- 
 tion. We can understand why man was of so com- 
 plex a nature as to comprehend in himself an affinity 
 to each part of creation, that when the loving Crea- 
 
 * Ephesians I : 10. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 49 
 
 tor vouchsafed to enter into Personal conjunction 
 with the common nature of man, He might be at 
 once in touch with all His creation. 
 
 Here, then, the question faces us, whether the 
 Personal Union of the Creator with man's nature was 
 due to man's sin, that He Who alone was able, might 
 become "the Repairer of the Breach"* between 
 man and his God created by man's sin ; or, to speak 
 humanly, was the Incarnation dependent upon the 
 sin of man ? If so, indeed, we may cry out, " O Felix 
 culpa," O blessed sin ! But this seems strange and 
 abhorrent to our sense of what is right. Here we 
 might be content to lay our hands on our mouth and 
 listen to the outburst of the Apostle, " O the depth 
 of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of 
 God ! how unsearchable are His judgments, and 
 His ways past finding out ! For who hath known 
 the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His coun- 
 sellor ? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall 
 be recompensed unto Him again ? For of Him, and 
 through Him, and to Him, are all things : to Whom 
 be glory forever. Amen." 
 
 Still we may remember that intellect and reason- 
 ing powers have been given to us of God, and there- 
 fore if, with devout submission to Him, and with 
 dependence upon His guidance and His Word, we 
 endeavor to understand what we believe, it cannot 
 be wrong. St. Paul himself in dealing with the 
 heathen argued with them on such grounds as he 
 found in common with them ; and, again, in dealing 
 with the Christians at Rome, and at Corinth, he 
 
 * Isaiah 58 : 12. 
 
$0 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 argued as men might argue. Indeed, the key to all 
 the mysteries of God is in the hands of a devout and 
 faithful Christian. " We know that the Son of God 
 is come, and hath given us an understanding, that 
 we may know Him that is True ; and we are in Him 
 that is True, even in His Son Jesus Christ." * As 
 the Incarnate Lord "opened the understanding" of 
 His earliest disciples "that they might understand 
 the Scriptures," so the Apostle St. John here tells us 
 that the gift is a continuous gift to all the faithful, 
 opening out their understandings in a progressive 
 apprehensionf of " Him that is True." Let us pray 
 more and more earnestly " Open Thou mine eyes, 
 O Lord, that I may see the wondrous things of Thy 
 law ;" and in deep humility let us approach this 
 awful subject. 
 
 A very excellent and comprehensive history of 
 Christian opinion on the particular question as to 
 whether the Incarnation would have taken place if 
 there had been no fall of man, has been given by 
 Professor Westcott, to whose essay I would refer 
 inquirers.:]: 
 
 It may be said that there is nothing in Scripture 
 which would lead us to assert that the Incarnation 
 was dependent upon the fall of man, and that it was 
 to repair the wrong then done that the Incarnation 
 was decreed. On the other hand, there is much to 
 persuade us that the Personal Union of God with 
 His creature was part of the "eternal purpose which 
 God appointed in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 * i St. John 5 : 20. f Professor Westcott in loc. 
 
 \ Essay on " the Gospel of Creation" at the end of commentary on 
 " The Epistles of St. John." See Appendix H. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 5 I 
 
 At first sight there is one text, common in popular 
 quotation, which would seem to be against this state- 
 ment. It is in the Book of Revelation, " The Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the world." This is one 
 of those interpretations which have arisen from the 
 inadequacy of the Latin language to represent the 
 delicate accuracy of the Greek. The Greek Fathers, 
 for the most part, constrained by the true meaning 
 of the preposition, connect the words "from the 
 foundation of the world" with " the Book of Life," 
 and not as commonly quoted. The preposition 
 rather implying an act than a design. Where design 
 is intended it would rather be expressed as St. Peter 
 writes, " The precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb 
 without spot or blemish, Who verily was fore- 
 ordained before the foundation of the world." Here, 
 however, it is rather the act than the design that is 
 represented, as farther on in the same Book of the 
 Revelation the same expression is attached to the 
 words " Book of Life ;" " the names written in the 
 Book of Life from the foundation of the world." 
 When, however, the Greek was translated into Latin, 
 the other view obtained, and in the Western Church, 
 from the revised translation of St. Jerome, in later 
 times, the words "from the foundation of the 
 world" have been attached to the word " slain," as 
 if to express design. This text, then, rightly under- 
 stood, teaches the same as St. Paul, " Blessed be the 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath 
 blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ : Ac- 
 cording as He hath chosen us in Him before the founda- 
 tion of the world." There is no statement of a design 
 
$2 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 that He should be slain from the foundation of the 
 world.* 
 
 On the other hand, do we not read that " all things 
 were created by Him and for Him?" Is not this 
 great and glorious mystery spoken of by St. Paul ? 
 " To make all men see what is the dispensation of 
 the mystery which from the beginning of the world 
 hath been hid in God, Who created all things by 
 Jesus Christ : to the intent that now unto the prin- 
 cipalities and powers in heavenly places might be 
 known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, 
 according to the eternal purpose which He purposed 
 in Christ Jesus our Lord." f 
 
 Indeed, the same may find some support in the 
 careful language of the Nicene Creed, as Osiander 
 (whose niece was married to Archbishop Cranmer) 
 pointed out. The language is, " Who for us men, 
 and for our salvation, was made man." " For us 
 men" first was He incarnate — a wider benefit than 
 the narrower one " for our salvation." 
 
 Some speculators have given as a reason for the 
 fall of the rebel angels that, when the purpose of the 
 Creator was revealed to them, that creation was to 
 be joined to the Creator by means of the Incarna- 
 tion, the feeling of jealousy and pride was aroused 
 which led to their fall. Of this we can know noth- 
 ing more than that St. Peter tells us that the Incar- 
 nation and the whole of its attendant mysteries were 
 such ''as the angels desired to look into. " % No 
 argument can be based upon such speculation. 
 
 * See Revelation 13:8; 17:8; 1 St. Peter 1 : 19 ; Ephesians 1 : 4. 
 f Ephesians 3:11. % 1 St. Peter 1 : 12. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 53 
 
 From earliest times the building up of Eve from 
 Adam's side has been regarded as typical of the 
 Church of Christ, as intimated by St. Paul. In the 
 document which dates from the earliest years of the 
 second century, and is called the Second Epistle of 
 St. Clement to the Corinthians, but is generally re- 
 garded as an ancient homily, we find the following :* 
 " I do not suppose ye are ignorant that the living 
 Church is the Body of Christ ; for the Scripture 
 saith God made man male and female. The male is 
 Christ, the female is the Church." This would 
 imply that the purpose of the Incarnation preceded, 
 and was not contingent, upon the fall of man. 
 
 Oh the marvellous love and mercy of the Creator ! 
 Nothing can thwart His purpose, not even the 
 utterly ungrateful affront of His favored creature ! 
 How must we marvel with adoring love at that 
 which has been called with reverence f "that im- 
 perturbable mercy which held on its course in spite 
 of man's rebellion !" " Oh that men would praise 
 the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful 
 works for the children of men ! Let them also exalt 
 Him in the congregation of the people and praise 
 Him in the assembly of the elders !" 
 
 God hath indeed " made known unto us the mys- 
 tery of His will, according to His good pleasure, 
 which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dis- 
 pensation of the fulness of times He might gather 
 together in one all things in Christ, both which are 
 in Heaven and which are on earth, even in Him, in 
 
 * § 14, ed. Lightfoot, p. 326. 
 
 f Mason's " Faith of the Gospel," p. 148. 
 
54 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being 
 predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who 
 worketh all things after the counsel of His own 
 Will."* 
 
 When man had sinned, then the Divine plan was 
 not, could not, be frustrated ; but that which the 
 love of the Creator had determined His mercy car- 
 ried out, taking the wise Serpent in his own crafti- 
 ness and triumphing over him in the defeat which 
 he thought he had achieved, the death on the Cross. 
 
 When man sinned then came to man the Gospel 
 of Redemption in addition to the Gospel of Creation. 
 Thenceforward all things worked together toward 
 the final intervention of Divine Power. Just as 
 there had been a gradual advance from the moment 
 of the commencement of life upon the earth, until 
 Divine intervention was necessary in the formation 
 of man into the Image of God, so from the utterance 
 of the Gospel of Redemption there was a continual 
 and gradual preparation for " the fulness of time," 
 when the final intervention took place. 
 
 All along this period " God left not Himself with- 
 out witness" in Scripture and out of Scripture. In 
 Scripture we read of prophecies, types, and appear- 
 ances vouchsafed to keep alive the memorial of the 
 promised Gospel, and to bear witness to its truth, 
 that " when it is come to pass we may believe." 
 
 Not only do the prophecies become more frequent 
 and more luminous as their fulfilment drew near, 
 but the subject-matter of the moral teaching of the 
 prophets became more and more what we may call 
 
 * Ephesians i : 9-11. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 55 
 
 evangelical as the "fulness of time" approached. 
 But suddenly, some three hundred years before the 
 great central event of history took place, prophecy 
 ceased, and there was an awful hush, like " the silence 
 of half an hour" in the vision of the Apocalypse* 
 before the sacerdotal act of the angel in offering in- 
 cense, or the still more awful hush of Spy Wednes- 
 day spent by the Lord in retirement at Bethany, 
 from which He issued to speak and act as God on 
 Maundy Thursday, and to offer the "full, perfect, 
 and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for 
 the sins of the whole world" on Good Friday. 
 
 But during the silence " God left not Himself 
 without witness ;" for in His Providence the Old 
 Testament was translated into the most sensitive 
 language in the world, that the Word might " have 
 in every city them that preach Him, being read in 
 the synagogues every Sabbath day." Here, too, 
 was a marvel whereby as ever the Truth might be 
 testified to from of old, that " when it is come to 
 pass we may believe." If, in the course of time, 
 error creeps into certain passages, lo, we have the 
 Greek translation, the Authorized Version of the 
 Jewish Church in the Apostles' times to help us to 
 correct the error ! 
 
 In what has been called the Protevangelium of Re- 
 demption, in Genesis 3 : 15, a curious error, arising 
 from a slip of the style or pencil, came into vogue in 
 the fourth century, productive of much important 
 consequence even in the nineteenth century. We 
 read in the Douay Version : " I will put enmities 
 
 * Revelation 8 : 1. 
 
$6 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her 
 seed : SHE shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie 
 in wait for her heel. " This has arisen from the little 
 mistake of writing an a for an e, Ipsa for Ips<?. If 
 we turn to the Greek we find the unmistakable mas- 
 culine avros, He, and the modern edifice built on 
 the feminine collapses.* 
 
 Then there is the glorious prophecy of Isaiah, 
 " Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, 
 and shall call his name Immanuel."f Here some 
 would endeavor to say this simply means "this 
 young woman ;" and it is no miracle that a young 
 woman should bear a son. But, thank God, the 
 answer is at hand. The Greek translators in the 
 third century before Christ interpreted it " The 
 Virgin," and the prophecy of Jeremiah is of similar 
 import. ' The Lord hath created a new thing in 
 the earth, A woman shall compass a man. ' ' ^ 
 
 But passing from prophecy to type, which is a 
 prophecy in act, the whole of the Old Testament 
 bristles with types, as we should expect, and the 
 moment the " eyes are opened to understand the 
 wondrous things," the heart must find utterance in 
 words of adoring praise. From the time of Abra- 
 ham's child of promise, from Samson and others to 
 John, the son of the priest Zachariah, each child 
 born, to a certain extent, out of the course of nature, 
 was a type so far of the Virgin Birth. 
 
 Every passage in the sacred life of Sacrifice of the 
 Lord Jesus has some representative in type. All 
 sacrifices were in a degree types of Him, and there- 
 
 * See Appendix I. f Isaiah 7 : 14. % Jeremiah 31 : 22. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 57 
 
 fore could the Forerunner cry, " Behold the Lamb 
 of God, that taketh away the sins of the world." 
 For " Christ our Passover Lamb is sacrificed for us" 
 — the Lamb without spot or blemish. Isaac carry- 
 ing the wood up the hill, and bound upon the wood 
 to die ; the serpent raised on high on the pole, that 
 those who looked unto it might live, what striking 
 types of the crucifixion ! Joseph let down into the 
 empty cistern and unjustly committed to prison; 
 Jeremiah let down into the dreary dungeon for his 
 faithfulness, are but foreshadows of Him Who for 
 no fault of His own went down for a while to the 
 spirits in prison — went down to Hades. Isaac alive 
 from sacrifice ; Joseph raised from prison to the right 
 hand of power and feeding his brethren with bread ; 
 Israel rescued from Egypt ; Samson at midnight 
 bursting from Gaza and carrying away the gates ; 
 Jonah restored to light and life from the great fish, 
 what are they all but types of the Resurrection of 
 the Lord about midnight, being advanced to the 
 Right Hand of God, and feeding His brethren with 
 the Bread of Heaven ? 
 
 Then there is the third group of witness, which 
 God gave to man before the Incarnation was com- 
 plete, the Theophanies, or mysterious appearances 
 at certain epochs in history. 
 
 The early writers of the Church ever delighted to 
 see in the Old Testament certain hints or statements 
 that God had spoken to and had been seen by men. 
 They claimed these appearances as proleptic mani- 
 festations of the Incarnate Lord. We may not for 
 one moment suppose that God the Son in His Divine 
 Nature is less invisible, less infinite than either of 
 
58 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 the other Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity. 
 The statement of St. John is absolutely true : 
 " None hath seen God at any time," that is as God, 
 in His Divine Nature. But when we know that the 
 Person Who in '* fulness of time" became Incarnate 
 was God the Son, we can understand that these 
 appearances were, as it were, preludes of the Incar- 
 nation, certain proleptic reflections, manifested an- 
 ticipations of what was about to come to pass, which 
 was to Him (before Whom there is no past or future, 
 but all is an eternal present) as real as though it had 
 already taken place. So that in merciful condescen- 
 sion the Creator accustomed His creatures to the 
 thought of beholding Him in human form. 
 
 In the account of the Garden of Eden we read 
 that the sinful pair " heard the Voice of the Lord 
 God walking in the garden," the very phrase imply- 
 ing an appearance as man. But here and elsewhere 
 before the separation of Abraham, as God's chosen 
 friend, the Revelation is said to be by a Voice of 
 one speaking. But to Abraham we read ' ' The 
 Lord appeared" as of a revelation to the eye, and 
 not to the ear alone. In the deeply mysterious 
 covenant-making vision recorded in the fifteenth 
 chapter of Genesis it is said : " The Word of the 
 Lord came unto Abram," but at this time (the vision 
 was by night) the Presence of the Word of the Lord 
 was not revealed in human form, but by " a smoking 
 furnace and a lamp of fire that passed between those 
 pieces." Some have doubted whether this was a 
 waking vision, but as it said that " He brought 
 Abram forth abroad" to see the multitude of the 
 stars, and later on that " a deep sleep fell upon 
 
THE INCARNATION. 59 
 
 Abram," it is most probable that at first, at all 
 events, it was a waking vision. This particular 
 vision is also remarkable for another phrase, the ex- 
 pression " Lord God" occurs twice in the account 
 of this vision, and nowhere else in the Book of 
 Genesis. The form of the Hebrew word for Lord 
 belongs (as has been shown by others) in an especial 
 manner to the Second Person of the Ever Blessed 
 Trinity. When, therefore, we read in Malachi, the 
 last of the prophets, " The Lord, Whom ye seek, 
 shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Angel 
 of the Covenant, Whom ye delight in ;" it is as we 
 should expect, and all Christian interpreters are 
 agreed that the Lord Who is the Angel of the Cove- 
 nant is the same as the Word of the Lord Who ap- 
 peared to Abraham and made the covenant with 
 Him ; the same as the Angel of the Lord that 
 appeared to the Patriarchs, even God the Word. 
 
 How exquisitely tender is the account of the first 
 appearance of the Being of unique grandeur, the 
 Angel of the Lord. Hagar, the slave of Sarah, 
 wronged by her mistress and of a high spirit, is fugi- 
 tive and like to perish. What can we imagine as 
 more deserving of tender compassion than a fugitive 
 slave, about to become a mother, wandering without 
 food or guidance in the trackless desert? " And 
 the Angel of the Lord found her," found her as if 
 in His compassion He had been seeking her. And 
 again, a second time to Hagar, a second time an out- 
 cast, it is the Angel of the Lord that came with 
 words of sympathy and encouragement. 
 
 But time fails to speak of all the appearances at 
 the various periods of crises of distress or necessity 
 
60 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 of the chosen of God. He it is that forbids the 
 death of Isaac on Mount Moriah ; that watches over 
 and appears to Jacob ; that led the people in the 
 wilderness; Who appeared to Gideon; was seen 
 of Zachariah. To Moses there was the prom- 
 ise,* " My Presence (or rather as the Hebrew has it, 
 My Face) shall go with thee, and I will give thee 
 rest," and Moses said, " If Thy Face go not up with 
 me, carry us not up hence." This the Greek trans- 
 lators naturally render " Except Thou go not up 
 Thyself with us." 
 
 I dare not go on to speak of more Theophanies or 
 preludes of the Incarnation ; how God the Word 
 was seen of Isaiah (as testified by St. Johnf), by 
 Ezekiel and Daniel, and other holy men of old ; 
 attention must be drawn to the fact that the appear- 
 ances granted for keeping up the witness of the 
 promised Gospel gradually ceased, as did prophecy, 
 and to a certain extent (with the exception of the 
 sacrifices) types, as the awful hush of the three hun- 
 dred years' silence preceded the realization of " the 
 desire of all nations." 
 
 Nor did " God leave Himself without witness" 
 outside Scripture. There are to be found in many 
 heathen nations traces of a belief in the Incar- 
 nation of God, often, alas ! defiled and obscured by 
 the grotesqueness and impurity of the minds of sin- 
 ful men, but still testifying to primeval or patri- 
 archal tradition. 
 
 Nay, more than this, there is the marvellous fact 
 of the whole course of history converging upon this 
 
 * Exodus 33 : 14, 15. f St. John 12 : 41 quoting Isaiah 6. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 6l~ 
 
 one central fact ; history, not only of the Jews, but 
 of the various nations of the world, proving that 
 11 the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and 
 giveth it to whomsoever He will." The conviction 
 arising from the observation of this has been the 
 means of converting many to the truth. A great 
 historical scholar of^the last century, who had been 
 sceptical, suddenly saw the clew to his historical 
 difficulties.* ' The whole world seemed to be 
 ordered for the sole purpose of furthering the re- 
 ligion of the Redeemer, and if this religion is not 
 divine, I understand nothing at all." No fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms of history could have produced 
 the development of events making the whole order 
 of the world fit for the Birth of the Lord. 
 
 But at length there came " the dispensation of the 
 fulness of time," and God "gathered together in 
 one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven 
 and which are on earth," and God the Son was born 
 into the world a man: "The Word was made 
 Flesh." 
 
 " O Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of 
 him, and the son of man that Thou visitest him ! 
 Thou madest him lower than the angels to crown 
 him with glory and worship ! " 
 
 "The fulness of time had come," the heiress of 
 the throne of David was a maiden of low estate in a 
 poor village of a despised district of a conquered 
 country. What could seem weaker in the eyes of 
 men ? As an heiress she was espoused to her nearest 
 male relation, whose genealogy would be the same 
 
 * See Appendix F. 
 
62 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 as hers one or two steps back. She must have been 
 of tender years, for though espoused she was not 
 married. As beseemed an holy maiden she was with- 
 in, perchance at her devotions, when the Angel 
 Gabriel came with his message of stupendous im- 
 port. As the first word in Latin of the angel's mes- 
 sage was the name of our first mother in Latin re- 
 versed, so the Latin Fathers have delighted to say 
 that Mary's humble, faithful, obedience, reversed 
 Eve's proud, distrustful, disobedience. The Ave of 
 the angel was the commencement of the reversal of 
 the fall of Eva. If when the devil spake to Eve, our 
 death hung on her reply, may we not say that when 
 the angel spake to Mary, our life hung on her reply. 
 Truly the faith of the Blessed Maiden must have 
 been stupendous ! " When the fulness of time had 
 come God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." 
 " Behold !" cried Isaiah, in rapt prophecy ; " Be- 
 hold ! a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. " One 
 hundred years of human life later Jeremiah pro- 
 claimed, "The Lord hath created a new thing in 
 the earth, A woman shall compass a man." Seven 
 hundred years after Isaiah " the fulness of time" 
 came, and " the Word was made Flesh ;" " made 
 of a woman" only ; made of the Virgin Mary, His 
 mother. 
 
 Reason, logic, experience of man are here stulti- 
 fied, and yet we cannot but see the fitness from all 
 points of our limited view. There are four ways in 
 which we can conceive of man being produced. 
 First, without man or woman, as was Adam, by 
 God's will alone ; secondly, of man alone, as was 
 Eve by God's operation ; thirdly, of man and woman, 
 
THE INCARNATION. 63 
 
 as the generality of mankind by God's blessing - ; last- 
 ly, of woman alone by the operation of God, as was 
 Christ. Had not this last possibility been realized 
 the universe would not have been perfect. So 
 reasoned the holy man of old.* 
 
 Reason and experience must stand aside, but faith 
 is quickened, hope bounds to the front, and love 
 blazes forth like the fire on the altar which was 
 never to die out. Faith, hope, and love cling around 
 the Son of man, Who is also the Son of God. With- 
 out the Incarnation this were impossible, for God is 
 of Majesty Unapproachable. 
 
 The message was received at Nazareth in Galilee, 
 but the Scripture said that Christ should be born at 
 Bethlehem, and the exigencies of the Empire of 
 Rome were to be allowed to bring this about. A 
 census was to be made previous to taxation, and the 
 Heiress of David with her espoused guardian went 
 to Bethlehem, where the family records of David 
 were then, that the two might be registered and en- 
 rolled for civil purposes. But not for purposes of 
 worldly empire alone. When shall we learn the 
 lesson that Nebuchadnezzar had to learn at such cost 
 to himself, " that the Most High ruleth in the king- 
 dom of men." Augustus at Rome was but caring 
 that Christ should be born at Bethlehem when he 
 bade his scribes issue his mandate. 
 
 " And so it was that, while they were at Bethle- 
 hem, the days were accomplished (the fulness of 
 time had come) that she should be delivered. And 
 
 * St. Bonaventura quoted by Westcott in " The Gospel of Creation." 
 St. John's Epistles, p. 288. 
 
64 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 she brought forth her Son, the Firstborn, and 
 wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him 
 in a manger ; because there was no room for them 
 in the inn." 
 
 God's "strength is made perfect in weakness." 
 " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world 
 to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the 
 weak things of the world to confound the things that 
 are mighty." 
 
 The glorious and marvellous news was first related 
 to simple shepherds doing their duty to their sheep ; 
 " Keeping watch over their flock by night." To 
 them the message came by a solitary angel, " Unto 
 you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, 
 which is Christ the Lord." And when the mes- 
 sage was delivered, while the shepherds were 
 amazed, the heavens could not contain themselves 
 for joy. The dark violet curtains of night were 
 rolled back, the stars disappeared, and the whole 
 welkin was alive with multitudes, multitudes of the 
 Heavenly host praising God and saying, " Glory to 
 God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill 
 toward men." 
 
 Ay, and who can contain themselves when they 
 think of this exhibition of the love and mercy of the 
 Creator ? The angels received an access of blessed- 
 ness and benefit from the conjunction of their Creator 
 with His creature ; the various divisions and de- 
 partments of the Created Universe were " partakers 
 of the benefit," but how much more the whole race 
 of man ! Words are utterly inefficient to express 
 the feelings of joy and gratitude that we feel at 
 Christmas. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 6$ 
 
 Glory be to God in the highest ! Glory be to the 
 Father Who sent His Son, glory be to the Son, the 
 Word made Flesh for us, glory be to the Holy 
 Ghost by Whose operation the Word was made 
 Flesh. 
 
 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
 Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and 
 ever shall be, world without end. Amen. 
 5 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 *' That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which 
 we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our 
 hands have handled, of the Word of Life." — i St. John i : i. 
 
 The beginning of the First Epistle of St. John has 
 a great similarity to the beginning of his Gospel : 
 this has been remarked by all commentators from 
 the first. There is, however, this difference : while 
 the commencement of the Gospel leads up to the 
 Incarnation, the Epistle begins from the Incarnation 
 and speaks of the resulting effects or responsibilities. 
 As the later Greek Fathers point out, St. John be- 
 gins his Epistle by claiming for the Christian faith 
 that it is " from the beginning ;" it cannot be spoken 
 of as new by the side of Jew or Gentile creed ; it 
 ranks far before either, and they are inferior in age, 
 and the Gentile corrupt in addition. 
 
 He claims that this perfection of the Incarnation 
 is the groundwork of all Christian teaching ; it is 
 the basis of Christian creeds and Christian morality. 
 He claims here the perfection of the Body of the 
 Incarnate Lord, as he claims the evidence of the three 
 senses which bear on the question — hearing, seeing, 
 touching. Indeed, upon the second of these — see- 
 ing — he dwells somewhat remarkably, perhaps as 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 67 
 
 reierring to that sense to which credence is most 
 commonly given, but not only so, for the word and 
 the tense are both changed and there is meaning in 
 the change. The first statement " we have seen 
 with our eyes," is of a sure personal experience, 
 while the second, " we gazed upon," implies careful 
 investigation, steady contemplation, and is grouped 
 with "our hands handled," which speaks of no 
 superficial or hasty impression, but the deliberate 
 and matured assent of the satisfied senses. Still the 
 mystery thus assured was no modern or recent de- 
 velopment, it was "from the beginning," as St. 
 Cyril of Alexandria* said : " The mystery of Christ 
 was no recent thing, but rather it was foreordained 
 before the foundation of the world as God foreknew 
 what would be." But when the " fulness of time" 
 had come, and the course of events was ripe for the 
 fresh intervention of Divine Power, then ** the Word 
 was made Flesh," by the operation of the Holy 
 Ghost. The great stress laid by St. John on the 
 Human nature of our Lord shows that the mind of 
 Christians in his day had so fully accepted the super- 
 natural and superhuman character and nature of the 
 Lord that, as the Docetae did in his own day and as 
 Eutyches did afterward, they were apt to ignore, 
 or explain away, or to minimize the reality of His 
 Body, and the integrity of His Humanity. 
 
 Hookerf has beautifully represented one reason 
 given by the Fathers, why God the Word became 
 Incarnate rather than the Holy Ghost ; but this irn- 
 
 * On Isaiah, Book III., Tom. V. (Isaiah 41 : 4). 
 f " Ecclesiastical Polity," Bjok V., li ; § 3. 
 
68 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 plies that the main reason of the Incarnation was the 
 Redemption of mankind. " It became Him by 
 Whom all things are, to be the way of salvation to 
 all, that the institution and restitution of the world 
 might both be wrought by one Hand." St. Athana- 
 sius* has the same idea, which he expresses thus : 
 " The Word alone could repair and restore the Im- 
 age of God in man, because He is the Divine Proto- 
 type. By means of men this were impossible, for 
 they were made after an Image ; nor could it be by 
 angels, for not even they are God's Image. . . . None 
 other was sufficient for this need, save the Image of 
 the Father. The Word was Redeemer because He 
 was the Creator." So St. Augustine : "In your 
 mind is the Image of God, the mind of man takes the 
 Image. It received it and by turning aside to sin 
 discolored it. He that had previously been its 
 Former, Himself comes to it as the Reformer, be- 
 cause by the Word were all things made, and by 
 the Word was the Image impressed on the mind." f 
 The Word was made Flesh. 
 
 Here, then, comes in a startling thought, which 
 arises out of this stupendous mystery. The flesh 
 thus assumed by God the Son must thus become 
 Divine. St. Peter, therefore, is not afraid to say of 
 those who by Baptism have become members of 
 Christ, as it were married to Him, " members of 
 His Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones," that 
 they - are " partakers of the Divine Nature." St. 
 Athanasius,;J: therefore, relying upon this, boldly 
 
 *" De Incarnatione,"xiii., Opera Patavii, 1777, Tom. I., Pt. I., p. 47. 
 f See also St. Leo. Serm. De Pass. Dora., xii. 
 \ Orat. c. Arianos, II., § 70, Opera I., p. 425. 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 69 
 
 says : " Therefore did He assume the originated 
 and human Body that, having renewed it as its 
 Framer, He might in Himself make it Divine, and 
 thus lead all of us into the Kingdom of Heaven after 
 His Likeness." And again, " For He was made 
 Man that He might make us Gods in Himself. ' ' And 
 again, " He was Incarnate as Man, that we might 
 be made Gods. ' ' This is in and by intimate union with 
 Him. For the Council of Constantinople* in the 
 seventh century was not afraid to say that " His 
 Flesh had become Deified ;" and the pseudo-Chry- 
 sostom draws the natural conclusion that in conse- 
 quence of this His Body was "to be worshipped 
 with God the Word, since by oneness with Him He 
 had Deified it." Therefore is it that we worship 
 Him as Man ; " O Son of David have mercy on 
 us !" 
 
 This, however, must not lead us to the error of 
 supposing that our Blessed Lord did either adopt a 
 phantom Body, or having adopted a real body, so 
 absorbed it into His Divinity as to have practically 
 but one Nature and that Divine. St. John is strong 
 in his protest against this. Not only does he say 
 that " the Word was made Flesh," not only " Every 
 spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ come in Flesh ;" 
 but also " they that confess not Jesus Christ still 
 coming in Flesh, he is a deceiver and an antichrist." 
 The Lord Jesus Christ was born into the world a 
 human being " made of a woman ;" He retained the 
 integrity of His human nature all His life, He died 
 and rose again with the same Body, He could say, 
 
 * "Labbe Concilia," Tom. VI., col. 1026. 
 
yo PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 " Behold My Hands and My Feet, that it is I Myself 
 — Handle Me and see, for a spirit hath not Flesh and 
 bones as ye see Me have." He is still " coming in 
 Flesh ;" He therefore is Perfect Man still. Oh glori- 
 ous thought ! There is even now at the Right Hand 
 of the Majesty on High, A man, wearing our nature 
 in common with us. Therefore may we say with 
 St. Paul that " God hath made us sit together in 
 heavenly places in Christ Jesus." 
 
 But here again we have to avoid another error, 
 which would lead us to think that, as there are two 
 Natures, intimately conjoined, but perfectly distinct, 
 in Christ, so, likewise, there must be two Persons. 
 This error would cut at the root of Christianity. 
 We saw that as angels cannot be said to have a 
 common nature, so that if " He had taken hold of 
 angels," the benefit would have been mainly, if not 
 wholly, confined to the particular angel assumed. 
 Similarly, had the Lord taken to Himself the Person 
 of a man, inasmuch as no one person can share his 
 personality with another, that human Person would 
 have been infinitely advanced and would have re- 
 ceived benefits far beyond any other creature ; 
 though even then some benefit might have (to speak 
 with deepest reverence) leaked out to other crea- 
 tures ; even as the family of a Prince receive some 
 distinction from the exaltation of their relative. 
 But the Person of God the Son took to Himself the 
 Nature of man and not the person of a man. So that 
 when " the Holy Thing," born of the Virgin Mary, 
 had attained the period of growth when it achieved 
 personality, the Personality was that of God the 
 Word, the Son of the Father. ' The Flesh and the 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 7 1 
 
 conjunction of the Flesh with God began both at 
 one instant ; His making and taking to Himself our 
 Flesh was but one act, so that in Christ there is no 
 personal subsistence but one, and that from ever- 
 lasting. By taking only the nature of man He still 
 continueth one Person, and changeth but the man- 
 ner of His subsisting, which was before in the mere 
 glory of the Son of God, and is now in the habit of 
 our Flesh. . . . Christ is a Person both divine and 
 human, howbeit not therefore two Persons in one, 
 neither both these in one sense ; but a Person divine, 
 because He is Personally the Son of God ; human, 
 because He hath really the nature of the children of 
 men. In Christ, therefore, God and man, ' there is 
 (saith Paschasius) a twofold substance not a twofold 
 Person, because one Person extinguisheth another, 
 whereas one nature cannot in another become ex- 
 tinct.' For the personal being which the Son of 
 God already had suffered not the substance to be 
 personal which He took, although together with the 
 nature which He had, the nature also which He took 
 continueth. Whereupon it followeth against Nes- 
 torius that no Person was born of the Virgin but the 
 Son of God, no Person but the Son of God bap- 
 tized, the Son of God condemned, the Son of God 
 and no other Person crucified, which one only point 
 of Christian belief, the infinite worth of the Son of 
 God, is the very ground of all things believed con- 
 cerning life and salvation by that which Christ either 
 did or suffered as Man on our behalf." * Therefore 
 saith our Article " two whole and perfect natures — 
 
 * Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book V., ch. lii., § 3. 
 
72 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 that is to say, the Godhead and the Manhood, were 
 joined together in one Person, never to be divided, 
 whereof is one Christ, very God and very man." 
 So that we can say He suffered, He was buried, He 
 descended into Hades. For even when in death His 
 Body was separated from His Soul, so that His Body 
 was laid in the sepulchre, and His Soul and Spirit 
 went to the place of departed spirits, and " preached 
 to the spirits in prison," yet His Deity was separated 
 from neither Body, Soul, nor Spirit. " The Body 
 and Soul still subsisted as they did before by the sub- 
 sistence of the Second Person of the Trinity." 
 
 It was a failure to perceive this that gave rise to 
 the heresy of the Nestorians. For if the Person of 
 the Son of God was born of the Blessed Virgin, she 
 was the mother of Him Who is God, and therefore 
 the Mother of God. From this title they shrank 
 with a somewhat natural awe and dread, and wished 
 to express it by the phrase Mother of Christ, but the 
 Person of Christ was God the Son ; and when they 
 were pressed by this truth, they sought refuge in 
 the graver heresy of asserting a double personality, 
 which is alike contrary to Scripture and Reason. 
 
 " The Son of God by His Incarnation changed 
 the manner of that Personal subsistence, which be- 
 fore was solitary, and is now in the association of 
 Flesh, no alteration thereby accruing to the nature 
 of God." I would here again take refuge in the 
 accurate language of Hooker, " Of both natures 
 there is a co-operation often, an association always, but 
 never any mutual participation whereby the proper- 
 ties of the one are infused into the other. A kind of 
 mutual commutation there is whereby those concrete 
 
PERFECTION OP SYMPATHY. 73 
 
 names God and Man, when we speak of Christ, do 
 take interchangeably one another's room, so that for 
 truth of speech it skilleth not whether we say that 
 the Son of God hath created the world, and the Son 
 of Man by His death hath saved it, or else that the 
 Son of Man did create and the Son of God die to save 
 the world. . . . When the Apostle saith of the Jews 
 that they crucified the Lord of glory, and when the 
 Son of Man being on earth affirmeth that the Son of 
 Man was in Heaven at the same instant, there is in 
 these two speeches that mutual, circulation before 
 mentioned. In the one there is attributed to God, 
 or the Lord of Glory, death whereof Divine Nature 
 is not capable ; in the other ubiquity unto man which 
 human nature admitteth not. Therefore by the Lord 
 of Glory we must needs understand the whole Per- 
 son of Christ, and in like manner by the Son of Man 
 the whole Person of Christ must necessarily be 
 meant, Who being man upon earth filled Heaven 
 with His glorious presence, but not according to 
 that nature for which the title of Man is given 
 Him." 
 
 Therefore is He the Son of Man, and not the Son 
 of a man. This will account for the title " Son of 
 humanity" given Him in the Liturgy of Malabar. 
 He is the Representative man, the last Adam, in 
 Whom once more mankind is recapitulated,* and 
 drawn up to a head, as they had all issued from one 
 head, the first Adam. 
 
 He took our nature in the fulness of its integrity. 
 He had a perfect Body, and He has it now. In 
 
 * Ephesians 1 : 10. 
 
74 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 order to have perfect sympathy with us He took our 
 nature from its very threshold. Man was, as our 
 Article correctly expresses it, " very far gone from 
 original righteousness ;" not as some inaccurate the- 
 ologians speak, utterly depraved and incapable of 
 grace. Had this been true, the Incarnation would 
 have been impossible as a partaking of our nature. 
 There might have been a fresh Creation from the 
 dust of the ground, but He would not then have 
 " tabernacled in us ;" it would not have been true, 
 " forasmuch then as the children are partakers of 
 flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part 
 of the same." This was seen from the first, as said 
 St. Irenaeus :* "If the first Adam was taken from 
 the earth, and God was his Maker, it was necessary 
 that He also that was summed up into him should 
 be made man by God and have the same likeness of 
 origin as the former. Why, then, did not God again 
 take dust, but rather ordained that the foimation 
 should take place from Mary ? It was that there 
 might not be one thing formed and another thing 
 saved, but that one and the same might be reca- 
 pitulated (or summed up), the likeness being pre- 
 served." 
 
 There was, then, in man somewhat on which God 
 could take hold and build up a sinless Body. 
 
 Here, then, must we avoid two errors, one on 
 either hand. The one would think it necessary that 
 the glorious and unique Blessedness of the Virgin 
 Mary should be extended to her mother, and that 
 Mary also should be conceived without spot of sin. 
 
 * St. Irenseus, III., 21 ad fin., Opera, Paris, 1710, p. 218. 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 75 
 
 But here the argument of St. Athanasius, with re- 
 spect to the Arian misconception of the Mediator, 
 will hold good. They said that the creatures of 
 themselves were far too weak to endure the force of 
 the Father's creating power, therefore the Son was 
 a created Mediator. But, said St. Athanasius, this 
 does but drive the difficulty a little farther back, 
 and to satisfy this objection there must be an infinity 
 of Mediators. Then he exclaims, " What extraor- 
 dinary nonsense all this is !" If, then, for the honor 
 of our Lord it is necessary that His Blessed Mother 
 should have been conceived and born without spot 
 of sin, this does but drive the difficulty a little farther 
 back. But we find that almost as a warning St. 
 Matthew in the regal genealogy of our Blessed Lord, 
 most unusually inserts the names of four women, 
 each of whom has some blot or stain of character : 
 incestuous Thamar, the harlot Rahab, the Moabitess 
 Ruth, the adulterous Bathsheba. The purity ab 
 iftitio of the last link is no more necessary than that 
 of previous links. Remark, too, that though the 
 main stock or trunk of the tree of Jesse was cut 
 down and only the stump remained, though the line 
 of Solomon after the flesh was cut down and his 
 idolatrous seed were exterminated, as would seem 
 probable, yet as St. Luke shows in his natural gen- 
 ealogy of our Lord, the descent by natural birth 
 was from Nathan the younger son of David by the 
 same adulteress Bathsheba, so that this argument 
 cannot be put on one side by assuming St. Luke's 
 genealogy to be more correct. Then, again, the 
 Lord Jesus would be isolated from us, and He would 
 not be in perfect touch and sympathy with us if the 
 
j6 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 opinion of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary were a truth of God and therefore a 
 necessary doctrine. 
 
 On the other hand, a far more terrible error has 
 appeared first in this century ; it is so horrible that 
 few have ever spoken of it. The very gifted but 
 strange Edward Irving, from whose congregation 
 the so-called " Irvingites" took their rise, invented 
 the notion that our Lord took to Himself a body of 
 sinful flesh, ol fallen humanity. This has only to be 
 mentioned to be rejected with abhorrence. 
 
 The Incarnate Lord, then, had a perfect Body, sub- 
 ject to infirmities but not defects. It was shaped 
 and born ; it grew in size and strength ; it ate and 
 drank ; moved, worked, and walked ; hungered, 
 thirsted ; became faint and weary ; slept, suffered, 
 died. But we do not believe that He assumed any 
 personal defect such as disease. 
 
 He had also a Human Soul, the seat of the affec- 
 tions. One ancient heresy (that of Apollinaris) from 
 an endeavor to explain the Incarnation, attempted 
 to argue that one part of the invisible nature of man, 
 the " reasonable soul," was lacking in the Saviour, 
 and that the Person of God the Word took its 
 place. But this view was condemned, for then 
 there would not be perfect sympathy with mankind, 
 and such a view would leave one part of man's nature 
 unredeemed. The soul is that part of man which 
 sides with the flesh or spirit, whichever is the 
 stronger, and therefore often in the struggle the 
 soul is troubled. Therefore, when there was for a 
 time a struggle between the Divine and Human will 
 in the Saviour, He could say, " My soul is exceeding 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. Jf 
 
 sorrowful, even unto death," as He had before, " My 
 soul is troubled and what shall I say ?" 
 
 He had also a Human Spirit. There does not ap- 
 pear sufficiently good reason for doubting that St. 
 Luke wrote of the Holy Child Jesus as of His cousin 
 John, " The Child grew and waxed strong in Spirit, 
 filled with wisdom." The passage is a remarkable 
 one, showing the gradual growth of the Holy Child, 
 showing the reality of His manhood. " The Child 
 was continually growing, and being strengthened in 
 Spirit, being filled with Wisdom." It was a gradual 
 process, as in the human infant. Then, as in the 
 Magnificat, the Blessed Virgin said, " My spirit 
 hath rejoiced ;" so we read of her Son, " Jesus re- 
 joiced in Spirit." So of deep sadness at sin and sor- 
 row around Him, we read one while " He sighed 
 deeply in His Spirit," another while " He groaned 
 in the Spirit and was troubled." At his death He 
 said, " Father, into Thy Hands I commend My 
 Spirit ;" and then the separation from the trammels 
 of the body communicated new energy to His Spirit. 
 He w^as therefore " quickened in the Spirit, in which 
 also He went and preached unto the spirits in 
 prison." 
 
 He was perfect man. He grew in body, He was 
 gradually strengthened in Spirit, He was being filled 
 with wisdom. He learned, He asked questions, He 
 marvelled. But we do not read that He ever forgot. 
 When we are told that He asked what should be done, 
 we are specially told "that this was to prove His 
 Apostle, for He Himself knew what He would do." 
 Hence it would appear that He never took counsel 
 for Himself ; He may have done so as an example to 
 
78 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 us, but not for Himself, M for He Himself knew 
 what He would do." 
 
 Here, then, there must be a warning against an 
 error which is now coming more and more to the 
 front. The phrase of St. Paul, which is, indeed, 
 hard to be understood, " He made Himself of no 
 reputation," is being submitted to a strain which the 
 comparison with other Scripture would hardly allow 
 the words to bear. The Greek is "emptied Him- 
 self" — that is (as Bishop Lightfoot explains it), 
 " stripped Himself of the insignia of Majesty." St. 
 Irenaeus seems to have had this in his mind in writ- 
 ing :* "For as He was man that He might be 
 tempted, so also was He the Word, that He might 
 be glorified ; the Word remaining quiescent, while He 
 was being tempted, dishonored, crucified, and dying ; 
 but being associated with His manhood when it over- 
 came, and was patient, and was doing good, and rose 
 again and was received up." This is a good com- 
 mentary on St. Paul. We must always bear in mind 
 what has been beautifully expressed as follows :f 
 " It is vain to try to express in words that of which 
 nothing but the Gospels open before us can ade- 
 quately convey the extent, the impression left on 
 our minds of One Who all the while He was on 
 earth was in heart and soul and thought undivided 
 for a moment from Heaven. He does what is most 
 human, but He lives absolutely in the Divine. 
 However we see Him — tempted, teaching, healing, 
 comforting hopeless sorrow, sitting at meat at the 
 
 * Adv. Haer., III., 19, Opera, Paris, 1710, p. 212. 
 f "Gifts of Civilization." Sermons by R. W. Church, Dean of St. 
 Paul's, pp. 91, 100. 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 79 
 
 wedding or the feast, rebuking the hypocrites, in 
 the wilderness, in the temple, in the passover cham- 
 ber, on the cross — He of Whom we are reading is all 
 the while that which His own words can alone ex- 
 press, ' ever the Son of Man Which is in Heaven.' 
 The Divine Presence, the Union with the Father, is 
 about Him always, like the light and air, ambient, in- 
 visible, yet incapable ever in thought of being away. ' ' 
 ' The Gospels show us One with the greatest of 
 works to do, a Work so great that it sounds unbe- 
 coming to qualify it with our ordinary words for 
 greatness ; One never diverted from His work, never 
 losing its clew, never impatient, never out of heart, 
 Who cries not, nor strives, nor makes haste ; One 
 Whose eye falls with sure truth and clear decision 
 on everything in the many-colored scenes of life ; 
 One around Whom, as He passes through the world, 
 all things that stir man's desire and ambition take 
 their real shape, and relative place, and final value ; 
 One to whom nothing of what we call loss or gain is 
 so much as worth taking account of in competition 
 with that for which He lived." 
 
 This is what the Gospels reveal to us ; we must 
 then be careful to avoid the error which would sug- 
 gest in some way that our Blessed Lord somehow 
 laid aside His attributes or essential character as 
 God, which He resumed at the Resurrection and 
 Ascension, having prayed for this in His High 
 Priestly Prayer at the Mysterious Last Supper. 
 
 He is perfect Man : " He knoweth whereof we are 
 made," by personal experience. He has perfect sym- 
 pathy with mankind in everything : not in individual 
 eccentricities, but in that which is common to all. 
 
80 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 Therefore was it that He entered the line of " trans- 
 mitted humanity" rather than assumed a new crea- 
 tion outside that which already existed. 
 
 Some few points of this perfect sympathy must 
 here be spoken of, that by these we may learn all ; it 
 were impossible in a short lecture to treat of all. In- 
 deed, it may be said that it is impossible for any one 
 man to deal with all. The Lord was in perfect sym- 
 pathy with all men, of all places, of all times. An 
 Eastern will find points of sympathy which would 
 not be observed by a Western ; a modern man will 
 rejoice over continually discovered points of sym- 
 pathy which were passed over by the ancients. It 
 would then be impossible for one man to grasp that 
 which is infinite in its possibilities. As it is, the re- 
 proach of the Oriental seeker after Christ is too well 
 deserved : " Christ we know is neither of the East 
 nor of the West, but men have localized what God 
 meant to be universal." 
 
 First, then, we will speak of one point which has in 
 modern times been objected to the perfection of our 
 Lord's Human character. It has been said that per- 
 fection cannot be ascribed to His Humanity "from 
 the absence of mirth and of laughter as its natural 
 and genial manifestation." The objection is worthy 
 of remark and of consideration if well founded. 
 
 It is remarkable that when He was on earth the 
 Lord suffered the reproach of sympathizing too 
 much with men in their times of mirth and joy, as 
 well as in their sorrows and pains. " The Son of 
 Man (He says of Himself) is come eating and drink- 
 ing, and ye say, Behold ! a gluttonous man and a 
 wine bibber." It was John the Baptist that was 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 8 1 
 
 represented as the morose man, standing aloof from 
 the ordinary joys of mankind ; of him the same critics 
 said : " He hath a devil." 
 
 It has passed into a proverb that it is recorded 
 that the Lord Jesus wept,* but never recorded that 
 He smiled, and no doubt this is true. But no thor- 
 ough student of history would maintain that because 
 a thing is not recorded therefore it never happened ; 
 and in our Blessed Lord's case more has been denied 
 that is recorded than affirmed to have taken place 
 which has not been recorded. 
 
 Unquestionably we must remember that the East- 
 ern mind in adult age, aye and even in childhood, is 
 essentially grave and serious. The Eastern babes 
 that I have seen seemed to me preternaturally serious 
 and apathetic. In Egypt they would not even brush 
 away the many flies that settled about the eyes to 
 drink the moisture of the tear. But this is no an- 
 swer to the objection ; because this is, it may be, a 
 local peculiarity, an eccentricity, and not a common 
 characteristic of humanity. It is quite true that the 
 sober moralist of the East said, " I said of laughter, 
 it is mad ; and of mirth, What doeth it ?" f but at the 
 same time Scripture gives many instances of great 
 humor, which is akin to mirth. 
 
 How deeply humorous is the ready answer of 
 Joash in defence of his son Gideon ! When the peo- 
 ple, angry at the profanation of the idol altar, de- 
 manded the death of Gideon, Joash at once answered 
 them with ironical humor, which was accepted as 
 
 * See St. Bernard, De Adv. Don., Serm. 1 V. , juxta Ji n. 
 f Ecclesiastes 2 : 2, cf. 3 : 4. 
 6 
 
82 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 unanswerable. " What ! (he seemed to say) are there 
 any who are so presumptuous as to suppose Baal 
 cannot plead for himself ! Baal powerless ! Bring 
 the man who dares to say this forward and let him 
 be put to death right away while the day is yet 
 young !" The only argument here is a humorous 
 one. The same sense of humor seems to have been 
 hereditary, for it reappears in the fierce mood of 
 Gideon. When in stress of excitement he threatened 
 the men of Succoth, he meant what he said in anger. 
 But when he returned in triumph as conqueror, his 
 anger is tinged with grim humor ; and his father's 
 saying makes us feel that the reading of the Bible of 
 the English Church is probably correct. Gideon 
 " took thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with 
 them he caused to know the men of Succoth." 
 Those who have had personal experience of " the 
 thorns of the wilderness" will realize the humor of 
 the phrase. Then what humor there is in the irony 
 of Elijah :* " Cry aloud : for he is a god ; either he 
 is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, 
 or perad venture he sleepeth, and must be awaked." 
 Nor, indeed, does the moralist refuse laughter alto- 
 gether ; he says : " There is a time to weep, and a 
 time to laugh," but he agrees for man here on earth, 
 " Sorrow is better than laughter," and the " house 
 of mourning better than the house of feasting," be- 
 cause, as he says, " a feast is made for laughter, and 
 wine maketh merry. ' ' 1 here need be nothing wrong 
 in mirth, then, because the Eastern apathetic mind 
 despises him 
 
 " Whose lungs are tickle o' the sere." 
 * i Kings 18 : 27. 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 83 
 
 Let us agree, then, that the essential emotion of 
 which mirth and laughter are the outward expres- 
 sion is a part of our moral nature.'* John Keble, the 
 generally reputed saint of our times in our Com- 
 munion, was full of fun and mirth. The moral ele- 
 ment is nothing but joy and gladness, which are only 
 evil when in sympathy with sin or something sin- 
 ful. Of this mirth and laughter are the outward ex- 
 pression, and therefore accidental accompaniments. 
 The infant will laugh from sheer joy of life, as the 
 young of all animals bound and gambol, while others 
 around the infant will laugh and smile from sym- 
 pathetic joy, for mirth is infectious. To this joy and 
 gladness (the " gladness of life," as Scripture hath 
 it) a stimulus is given by the exhilaration arising 
 from food and wine. There is nothing wrong here 
 when there is no excess. The grace after food com- 
 mended by St. Chrysostomf is a remarkable proof 
 that that ascetic saint regarded physical exhilaration 
 from food as a blessing from God. " Thou, Lord, 
 hast made me glad through Thy works." Here there 
 seems a distinct reference, rightly or wrongly, to 
 the " wine that maketh glad the heart of man ;" 
 which, as St. Paul would tell us, is one of the good 
 creatures or works of God. This joy and gladness 
 is stimulated at times by physical enjoyment, and 
 often finds outward expression in mirth and laugh- 
 ter. The essence of the emotion would seem to be 
 sympathetic gladness. The " many twinkling smiles 
 of Ocean" betoken the depths beneath ; mirth and 
 
 * See St. Clement, Alex., Paed. II. v., Potter, Tom. I., p. 196. 
 f In Psalm 41, Opera, Tom. V., p. 133a. 
 
84 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 laughter are but the surface ripples which tell of joy 
 and gladness within, and when there is no sin and 
 wrong connected with that inner gladness there is 
 none to be found in the outward manifestation. 
 
 Now our Lord took our nature from its very in- 
 ception, and the only glimpses we have of His life 
 before His ministry go to prove that He was very 
 man, among human beings of His own age. As an 
 infant "the Child was continually growing, and 
 being strengthened in spirit, being [gradually] filled 
 with wisdom." He was as other infants ; the same 
 words are used of His cousin John. The next glimpse 
 we have when He was twelve years old. But how 
 natural it all is ! When the caravan was on its return 
 to Galilee, even the Blessed Virgin took for granted 
 that the Holy Child was somewhere in the company. 
 He was so like an ordinary lad that she thought He 
 was with some of His mates. She thought He was 
 wandering, as any restless boy might, seeking for 
 amusement, seeking for interest. It is all very won- 
 derful, but it shows how human He was. It is ut- 
 terly different from the noxious romances called 
 " Apocryphal Gospels." We cannot, then, suppose 
 that He was so unlike other human infants that He 
 did not sanctify childhood by participating in its 
 natural character of healthful joy. It seems impos- 
 sible to suppose that He did not answer with sym- 
 pathetic smile to the holy joy of His Virgin Mother. 
 If He ever manifested this joy of life as a child, the 
 emotion must have been in His nature. 
 
 But poetry says otherwise :* 
 
 * Mrs. Browning. 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 85 
 
 " No small Babe smiles my watching heart has seen 
 To float like speech the speechless lips between." 
 
 " This aspect of a Child, 
 
 Who never sinned or smiled" 
 
 This may be poetry ; it is not scriptural or histori- 
 cal. It is, indeed, a rather morbid view, and cannot 
 be accepted as approaching verisimilitude. John 
 Keble, in his Prelections as professor of poetry, ex- 
 tolled the poetry of the painter who exquisitely 
 rendered the Holy Child in His mother's arms larger 
 and more intellectual than nature would warrant. 
 Such may be poetry, it is not history ; there we may 
 not draw upon our imagination for our facts. The 
 morbid fancy of a poet is no proof that the Holy 
 Babe did not smile. * It would seem doubtful 
 whether any mother could say that the Babe did not 
 smile. The whole account of His Infancy is so 
 human that the burden of proof lies with the gain- 
 say er. 
 
 But passing by this accident of the essential emo- 
 tion — that is, the outward expression of mirth, we 
 do find sure symptoms of sympathetic gladness in 
 our Lord's character. 
 
 But before speaking of these we must bear in mind 
 the terrible physical strain of continuous weariness 
 on our Lord's Human Body. From the time of His 
 
 * On the other hand may be cited the Christmas hymn : 
 
 " For He is our childhood's Pattern, 
 Day by day like us He grew : 
 He was little, weak, and helpless, 
 Tears and smiles, like us, He knew ; 
 And He feeleth for our sadness. 
 And He shareth in our gladness." 
 
86 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 Baptism and Confirmation, and His subsequent forty 
 days' fast, throughout the years of His ministry till 
 His sinking to rest upon the Cross, was a period of 
 unbroken weariness, and of such mental strain, in 
 daily contact with sinful men around Him, as we can 
 have no distant conception of ; and this alone would 
 have been physiologically antagonistic to outward 
 expression of mirth. 
 
 Still we have constant reference to gladness in the 
 Lord's parables ; in the lost sheep and the lost 
 piece of money, when the recovery of the lost is 
 celebrated by calling the neighbors together to re- 
 joice over the success, and sympathetic joy is spoken 
 of as existing among the angels of God ; and in many 
 other parables. His Presence at a marriage feast 
 showed this sympathy. He must have gone straight 
 from His forty days' fast and two or three days' so- 
 journ near the scene of His forerunner's ministry to 
 the marriage feast with his newly-acquired disciples. 
 He would not have gone thither to be a damper on 
 their joy on so mirthful an occasion. Nay, He 
 showed His full sympathy in their joy and gladness 
 by His first miracle, whereby He prevented the poor 
 bridegroom from being put to shame in his seven 
 days' feast by lack of that which helped to make up 
 their little satisfaction. He performed His first 
 miracle to show His sympathetic gladness with the 
 joy of the feast, and gave His host one hundred and 
 forty gallons of that " which maketh glad the heart 
 ot man." Then, again, there is His reference to 
 childhood's light-heartedness : " We have piped unto 
 you, and you have not danced ; we have mourned 
 unto you, and you have not lamented." This could 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 87 
 
 not have been said had He not sympathy with inno- 
 cent gladness and mirth. Nor can we exclude from 
 this argument the Lord's great love for little chil- 
 dren, Whose characteristic in health and loving en- 
 vironment is merry mirthfulness.* Thus, while the 
 self-control and staidness of our Lord's character 
 was in perfect sympathy with the Eastern mind, 
 there is sufficient intimation that He was also in sym- 
 pathy with the innocent light-heartedness of mirth. 
 
 However, let us feel well assured that our Blessed 
 Lord's Humanity is a perfect humanity, and if we in 
 our feebleness do not at the moment see the exact 
 answer to an objection, we may feel that without 
 doubt it is susceptible of a complete refutation. In 
 this case, indeed, we may feel that objectors must be 
 hard up indeed for an argument, when lack of mirth- 
 fulness and laughter is cast up against the perfection 
 of the character of Jesus Christ. We feel that w r e may 
 have spent too much time over the objection, but 
 the reason is that it has not commonly been noticed. 
 
 Another point of perfect sympathy which presents 
 a difficulty is the Lord's gradual growth out of 
 ignorance, and indeed the fact of His ignorance alto- 
 gether. How could it be possible that the Person of 
 God the Son could in any way be ignorant when He 
 was the Wisdom of God ? Still here, again, we see the 
 perfection of His Manhood. He made acquaintance 
 with the weakness of our understanding, while, at 
 the same time, as St. Irenaeus says, " The Word was 
 quiescent. ' ' This growth could not have affected the 
 infinite knowledge of God the Son anj^ more than 
 
 * See Appendix K. 
 
88 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 growth of Body could have affected the infinity of 
 His Incomprehensible Majesty. The Fathers dis- 
 cussed the question continually, and came to the con- 
 clusion that He was ignorant only as man, and so far 
 forth as knowledge came to Him through His man- 
 hood. Thus " though He were a Son, yet learned 
 He obedience by the things which He suffered ;" i.e., 
 He learned as Man, for as Man alone could He suffer, 
 and learning implies advance in knowledge, and 
 therefore implies comparative ignorance at least.* 
 
 It has been said that the Lord's Body was not 
 subject to disease, because it was a perfect Body. 
 We do not anywhere read that He was subject to 
 sickness of Body, and indeed there are two a priori 
 reasons why we should expect that He would ex- 
 perience immunity from sickness. The one would 
 be drawn from the perfect sinlessness of His Body, 
 the other from His perfect sympathy with man. 
 For first of all, generally speaking, sickness arises 
 from some effort of nature to extrude some defect of 
 body, whether originally existing or imparted from 
 without. But the Lord's Body was perfectly free 
 from original defect ; and so far was it from being 
 receptive of infection or poison from without, that 
 it derived such vitality from its union with God, 
 that its touch was the source of health to others, f So, 
 again, the Lord had perfect sympathy with man— not 
 with this or that man, but with mankind at large. 
 Now, humanly speaking, it were impossible that the 
 
 * See Appendix L. 
 
 f For the case of the leper healed by the Lord, it is noteworthy 
 that each of the Synoptic Gospels records that He touched the leper 
 (St. Matthew 8 : 3 ; St. Mark 1 : 41 , St. Luke 5 : 13). 
 
PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 89 
 
 Lord could have had experience of every kind of 
 sickness to which fallen flesh is heir, so that if we 
 had read that the Lord had voluntarily undergone 
 this or that sickness, it would have been possible for 
 one man to say, " My Lord has more sympathy with 
 me than with many others, for I now suffer from the 
 same sickness that He underwent." But His per- 
 fect sympathy caused Him to accept what was com- 
 mon to man without condescending to the various 
 forms of eccentricity developed in individuals. He 
 voluntarily laid down His life, not because He was 
 subject to death, but because mankind is subject to 
 death. Here, then, may we see the interpretation 
 of the prophecy of Isaiah as quoted by St. Matthew : 
 ' Himself took our infirmities and bare our sick- 
 nesses." The New Head of the human race, the 
 last Adam, sustained all the collective burden of 
 human sickness in undergoing the common end of 
 all sickness, even death ; and in the extremity of woe 
 of that death He summed up all the pains of all 
 varieties of sickness and disease. In His case, too, 
 the suffering was the greater, since the more refined 
 the nature the more sensitive it is to pain. The 
 Lord, therefore, suffered as none other man suffered 
 or can suffer. Thus He had perfect sympathy with 
 us in our sicknesses. 
 
 Then, again, just as Adam at the first summed up 
 in himself all mankind, and therefore had the moral 
 characteristics of both sexes,* so in the last Adam 
 we see the same. There are seen the gentleness, the 
 sympathy, the self-sacrifice of the female, and the 
 
 * See Appendix M. 
 
90 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 strength of will, the hatred of hypocrisy and cant, 
 the severe uprightness of the male. Thus, again, He 
 has perfect sympathy with all, and each sex may 
 look to Him as their Exemplar and approach Him 
 with holy confidence. 
 
 Again, there has been implanted in mankind the 
 principle of resentment, which is directed against 
 moral evil and injury done in the world. That 
 anger, which is one form of this, is not wrong we 
 can learn from St. Paul, who cites the Greek trans- 
 lation of the Hebrew, and thus gives the Greek an 
 authority which otherwise it would seem to lack : 
 " Be ye angry, and sin not." Anger, then, may be 
 without sin. Let us not allow this anger to degener- 
 ate into sin by brooding over it or allowing a just 
 indignation to settle on its lees into malice or re- 
 venge. We need scarce ask whether in this prin- 
 ciple, common to all, the Lord Jesus had any share ; 
 none can read the Gospels without recognizing His 
 indignation against sin, His withering scorn of hypoc- 
 risy or false casuistry. One while in His indigna- 
 tion He drove out by His single arm (once with a 
 scourge made of ropes, once with the mere force of 
 His wrath) the crowd of hucksters and traders from 
 the Temple ; another while He scathed with bitter 
 irony the wicked casuistry of the schools, " Full 
 well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye 
 may keep your own tradition ;" another while He 
 turned upon the hypocrites with the severe denunci- 
 ation of the eight Woes.* Herein, then, again, we 
 see the same. 
 
 * See Appendix N. 
 
FERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 91 
 
 Another difficulty which exercised men of old was 
 the existence of a human will in the Man Christ 
 Jesus. We are sometimes admitted to see the exist- 
 ence of this. In the deeply mysterious saying of our 
 Lord in the Court of the Gentiles on the Tuesday in 
 Holy Week we see this, " My soul is troubled, and 
 what shall I say ? [Shall I say] Father, save Me from 
 this hour ? [Nay] but for this cause came I unto 
 this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name." Here is 
 distinct evidence of the voluntary submission of the 
 human will to the Divine. It was, indeed, the sacri- 
 fice of the will that was so well pleasing to God, 
 " the will (as saith St. Bernard) by which He chose 
 to die, more than the death itself." We see, then, in 
 the Lord two wills, the human will in perfect free- 
 dom subjecting itself to the Divine Will. 
 
 There is, then, no age of either sex with which the 
 Lord cannot sympathize in all the sorrows and per- 
 plexities of our complex life. In Body, Soul, and 
 Spirit His sympathy is perfect. For the Lord was 
 perfect man in every respect in which we can " gaze 
 upon Him," and as such was perfect in sympathy 
 with all of us who have bodies. As a result, 
 St. Mark, in the concise picturesqueness which is 
 his distinguishing characteristic, tells us that the 
 primeval control over the brute creation granted 
 to the First Adam was renewed in the Second 
 Adam. In His temptation " He was with the wild 
 beasts." 
 
 May we learn by His example, may we use the 
 power granted to us by union with Him to tame and 
 subdue the wild beasts of evil passions and evil within 
 ourselves that we may be found worthy to sing the 
 
92 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 song of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb, 
 and worship Him that sitteth on the Throne, saying, 
 " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and 
 honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, 
 and for Thy pleasure they were and were created." 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 " Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." 
 —St. John i : 29. 
 
 What we have been considering thus far is in- 
 deed enough to fill us with deepest wonder and 
 gratitude. " What is man that Thou hast been thus 
 mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou hast 
 thus regarded him !" Surely it is enough to warm 
 the coldest heart, to fill the most apathetic with 
 love. That the All Holy, self-contained God should 
 in His overflowing love determine to call a creature 
 into existence is indeed marvellous. That the Crea- 
 tor should determine that, when the fulness of the 
 time had come, He would admit the creature to inti- 
 mate and even personal union with Himself, is again 
 a thought that is far exceeding our powers to grasp 
 fully. We believe that the Exemplar of humanity 
 is and always was present to the mind of God as 
 humanity as it is in Christ Jesus. Man was formed 
 in the image and likeness of God, and also after the 
 Ideal existing in the Design of the Creator ; so that 
 the Creator might become Incarnate in the form 
 predetermined from all eternity. When, therefore, 
 it pleased God the Son to reveal Himself to the 
 Patriarchs, we may believe without impiety that 
 
94 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 He assumed an appearance similar to that Body 
 which fie would assume when the fulness of time 
 had indeed come. So that though the Son of God 
 is in His Divine Nature equally invisible with God 
 the Father, yet as a prelude or proleptic premoni- 
 tion, He assumed the appearance of a Body, such 
 as He had determined to adopt really and perma- 
 nently at His Incarnation. All this is indeed wonder- 
 ful, and we cannot be surprised in the least that the 
 minds of the members of the early Church were so 
 full of the glorious thought that God had really 
 come down to earth, that many sought to explain 
 this by a denial of the reality of His Manhood. We 
 see how full their minds were of the stupendous 
 thought that their Lord Jesus Christ was God. 
 The first martyr dies invoking his Lord as God, and 
 the members of the Church become thenceforward 
 spoken of as a class of " them that call upon the 
 name of Jesus Christ our Lord ;" * the word is the 
 same as when St. Peter says, "If ye call on the 
 Father." f It is used of invoking a higher author- 
 ity, and when calling for spiritual help distinctly im- 
 plies that the Person so invoked is God. The word 
 had been used to translate the passage in Joel, 
 where, speaking of Gospel times, as St. Peter tells 
 us, the prophet says, " It shall come to pass that 
 whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall 
 be delivered." % This title alone, then, would prove 
 this great truth, that the early Church clung with 
 the greatest firmness to the belief in the Divinity of 
 " Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours." 
 
 * i Corinthians 1:2. f 1 St. Peter 1:17. % Acts 2 : si. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 95 
 
 It is a great grief to many of us that the Unitarian 
 perversion (for it is no less) of the text in the Epistle 
 to the Romans has been admitted to the margin of 
 what has been called the Revised Version.* No 
 doubt it is true, as one of the faithful Revisers has 
 stated, that it shows that such perversion was de- 
 liberately rejected after serious consideration ; but 
 there is some cause for sorrow in the tone in which 
 Unitarians have welcomed the intrusion into the 
 margin, with the scarcely veiled hope that at the 
 next revision it will be thrust into the text it- 
 self. 
 
 But cancel all the various texts, in which we re- 
 joice, which tell directly of the Lord's Divinity, and 
 yet you cannot eliminate the flood of proofs in almost 
 every line that the writers of the New Testament, 
 and so those for whom they wrote, believed fully in 
 our Lord's Divinity. He is enshrined in their in- 
 most thoughts ; He is the absolute Sovereign of their 
 life, temporal, moral, spiritual. In Him they live 
 and move and have their being. The one great mo- 
 tive power of all their action was this, " GOD was 
 manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of 
 angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in 
 the world, received up into glory." 
 
 When, however, some began to bring philosophy 
 into Christianity they commenced their endeavor to 
 explain away the Incarnation. They acknowledged 
 the Divinity, but how could this be reconciled with 
 true humanity ? When errors came in by way of 
 explanation, then St. John proclaimed with persist- 
 
 * See Appendix O. 
 
g6 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ent reiteration the necessity of absolute belief in the 
 fact " that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh." 
 
 This being the case, we should expect some care- 
 ful description of our Lord's Birth and Infancy, but 
 let us see how it is, let us examine the contents of the 
 four accounts of the Gospel — that is, of the history 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Of these four accounts only two mention the fact 
 of His Birth, only two give us any account of the 
 first thirty years of His life, from His Birth till His 
 Baptism. Of these St. Matthew devotes rather less 
 than one twentieth of His book, and St. Luke rather 
 more than one tenth of His book to the first thirty 
 years of the Lord's life. Then of the next period 
 until the Passover, mentioned in St. John 6 : i, all 
 four evangelists say much. If we put the whole four 
 books together, rather less than one third of the en- 
 tire record is devoted to this period ; St. Matthew 
 is the fullest, St. John the least full. Of the next six 
 months the record is slight ; St. Mark is rather the 
 longest here and St. Luke the shortest, his account 
 being one third the length of that of St. Mark in 
 this section. For the next six months the record is 
 about twice the length of the previous section. St. 
 Luke here is far the longest, his record is ten times 
 that of St. Mark, whose account is the shortest, and 
 nearly double that of St. John, who comes next to 
 St. Luke in length. From Palm Sunday until 
 Maundy Thursday, the first four days of Holy Week, 
 the record is nearly as long as that of the previous 
 six months, St. Matthew giving the discourses on 
 the Tuesday in the Temple and on the Mount of 
 Olives. The account of Maundy Thursday Even- 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 97 
 
 ing and Good Friday equals the previous section 
 in length. Here the three Synoptic Gospels are 
 nearly of the same length, while St. John is longer, 
 because he gives the discourses of the Lord at the 
 Mysterious Supper. If these were left out of the 
 reckoning, the Story of the Cross would be about the 
 same length in each Gospel.* 
 
 These may be thought dry details, but they seem 
 to teach us something. They teach that though 
 the writers differed about the importance they at- 
 tached to certain portions of the Lord's Life, they 
 did not in the least differ about the importance ol 
 His Death. 
 
 Turn, then, to the later writings of the New Testa- 
 ment. The Book of the Acts contains five discourses 
 of St. Peter. Each is framed on a similar skeleton. 
 On the Birthday of the Church, the day of Pente- 
 cost, he spakef of "Jesus of Nazareth, a man ap- 
 proved of God among you by miracles and wonders 
 and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of 
 you, as ye yourselves also know." In his speech to 
 the friends of Cornelius, the centurion, he spoke of 
 the Lord % " Who went about doing good and heal- 
 ing all that were oppressed of the Devil, for God 
 was with Him." But the scheme of all his addresses 
 may be given in the condensed report of his speech 
 before "the Council." "The God of our fathers 
 raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a 
 tree. Him hath God exalted with His Right Hand 
 to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance 
 unto Israel and forgiveness of sins ; and we are His 
 
 * See Appendix P. f Acts 2 : 22. { Acts 10 : 38. 
 
 7 
 
98 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 witnesses of these things ; and so also is the Holy 
 Ghost, Whom God hath given to them that obey 
 Him."* They were to be witnesses of His death 
 and resurrection, as the same St. Peter had said 
 before the election of St. Matthias, " Of these men 
 must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His 
 Resurrection ;" f a witness not of His holy life, not 
 of His miraculous works, but of His Resurrection, 
 which necessarily implies His Death. St. Paul, 
 therefore, declared that at Corinth, at all events, he 
 would know nothing in his preaching " save Jesus 
 Christ, and Him crucified." % 
 
 From this time the Cross became the very symbol 
 of Christianity. Christians delighted to see some 
 symptom of the power of the Cross everywhere in 
 nature, in art, in mythology. In Egypt, in Scandi- 
 navia, in India, even in Kamschatka the Cross has 
 been found as a symbol. In Egypt in one form it is 
 the symbol of life, in another the symbol of steadi- 
 ness and strength. In Scandinavia it is the symbol 
 of life and strength. Thus throughout the Old 
 Testament they recognized everywhere foreshadow- 
 ing of the Cross ; no hint, however slight, to the 
 minds of moderns seemed too small to awaken de- 
 lighted acceptance with the early Christians in the 
 first vigor of their eager faith. Not only in the 
 brazen serpent on the pole, and the arms stretched 
 out of Moses in prayer, when Israel fought with 
 Amalek, but also in the outstretched arm of Joshua 
 with the spear in it, in the cruciform spit of the 
 Paschal Lamb, in the two sticks gathered by the 
 
 * Acis 5 : 30. f Acts 1 : 22. \ 1 Corinthians 2 : 2. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 99 
 
 widow to prepare her meal, in the rod of Moses, in 
 the tree thrown into the bitter waters to make them 
 sweet, in the Tau marked on the foreheads of the 
 saved in Ezekiel, and many more. Not only so, but 
 the Christians employed the sign of the Cross as a 
 " seal " or external sign of blessing and protection. 
 The Christian world was absolutely full of the Cross. 
 Why, then, was this ? 
 
 It has arisen doubtless from the deep conviction 
 that all hope of pardon for sin, all hope of reconcili- 
 ation with God, all hope of eternal life, all hope for 
 the future depends upon the one fact,* that *' when 
 we were yet without strength, in due time Christ 
 died for the ungodly." " Christ once suffered for 
 sins, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God." f 
 " Christ was delivered for our offences, and rose 
 again for our justification." ^ Therefore, well did 
 the Apostle cry out, " God forbid that I should 
 glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by 
 Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto 
 the world." § No wonder the first Apostles at- 
 tached themselves once and forever to the Lord 
 when they heard the witness of the forerunner : 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the 
 sins of the world !" 
 
 This was the one persuasion that filled the hearts 
 of all, that God the Son had become Incarnate and 
 died on the Cross for them. Therefore was the 
 Cross the one emblem of their faith ; therefore was 
 the Cross regarded as "the sign of the Son of 
 
 * Romans 5:6. f 1 St. Peter 3 : 18. 
 
 X Romans 4 : 25. § Galatians 6 : 14. 
 
IOO THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Man." * Therefore is it that the enterprising- mari- 
 ners hailed the Southern Cross of Stars with awe 
 and joyful hope. Therefore do Western travellers 
 recognize with hopeful awe the Cross marked on the 
 mountain. Therefore have the legends arisen about 
 the Cross marked on the back of the ass, and the 
 red breast of the robin, and others such. Christians 
 delight to see in everything some token of their 
 Redemption. 
 
 Here, then, brethren, bear with me for one mo- 
 ment, if, as in private duty bound, I glory in the 
 fact that my nation has made the Cross the sign of 
 freedom to the slave throughout the world. Our 
 ships, our navy, our soldiers glory, in the flag of the 
 triple Cross — the Cross of St. George, the Cross of St. 
 Andrew, the Cross of St. Patrick. The Cross pro- 
 tects them when alive and covers them as a pall 
 when they die. It is not for nothing that we gather 
 ourselves together under the banner of the Cross. 
 
 But while the early Christians rejoiced even more 
 in the fact of their having been " redeemed with the 
 precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without 
 blemish and without spot," f they raised no question 
 as to the method, as to how the Redemption took 
 place. They were too overcome with gratitude to 
 ask for or to reason about the process of the Atone- 
 ment made for their sins. When fervor of love be- 
 gan somewhat to cool and questioning began, then 
 man began " to darken counsel with words without 
 knowledge." % 
 
 In the providence of God the great truths about 
 
 * See Appendix Q. \ I St. Peter I : 19. % Job 38 : 2. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. IOI 
 
 the Person of our Blessed Lord and the great facts 
 of our Redemption have been settled, but there is 
 still much mystery about the mode and method of 
 the Atonement. Certainly if there were no mystery 
 connected therewith, we would be apt to think that 
 it could not be of God, Who Himself is to us sinful 
 men the deepest mystery of all. True it is that 
 those do well who in simple, humble faith accept 
 the glorious fact without arguing ; still it is also true 
 that those who seek reverently to use their reason, 
 which is the great gift ofGod, in the endeavor 
 to understand some fringe of the mystery, cannot 
 be doing ill. True is that the question "How 
 can ?*\ is often the question of doubt or halting faith, 
 as when Nicodemus * said of Regeneration in Bap- 
 tism, " How can these things be ?" and as when the 
 Jews f said of the other Gospel Sacrament, "How 
 can this man give us His Flesh to eat ?" Rut we 
 must remember that we should " be ready always 
 to give an answer to every man that asketh you a 
 reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and 
 fear.".]: We cannot do this without some careful 
 thought. If this is requisite for all, how much more 
 for the clergy, that they may " rightly divide the 
 word of Truth." 
 
 Here, indeed, we may say that one reason why 
 the doctrine about the Atonement has caused so 
 much difficulty in some minds is, that the word of 
 truth has been not rightly divided. The Christian 
 Religion comprehends one consistent scheme of doc- 
 trine, and no one part can be distorted or exagger- 
 
 * St. John 3 : 4, 9. f St. John 6 : 52. % 1 St. Peter 3 : 15. 
 
102 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ated without marring the whole. When the Atone- 
 ment has been represented as the act of a loving 
 Creator, the Son of God, to appease the wrath of 
 His angered Father, this at once introduces very 
 grave error of fundamental importance. First we 
 read " God so loved the world that He gave His only 
 begotten Son." Next we believe that there neither 
 is nor can be any divergence of will between 
 Father and the Son. If God the Father be regarded 
 as angered by sin, we must remember that there is 
 such a terrible thing as " the wrath of the Lamb."* 
 If " God is Love," " God was in Christ reconciling 
 the world unto Himself." f The Atonement began 
 and ended in the Love of God. But we must re- 
 member that true, real, deeply earnest love may 
 be much sterner than the more superficial, shallow, 
 and even selfish benevolence. 
 
 Then side issues have been raised about the mean- 
 ing of the English word Atonement and its use in 
 the English Bible. But these are all beside the mat- 
 ter. True, the word is an old English word. In 
 the West of England, to this day, when any persons 
 have quarrelled they are said to be " at two ;" when 
 the quarrel is made up they are " at one" again. 
 In the New Testament the word is used for a Greek 
 word which means " reconciliation," but a some- 
 what different meaning has been since attached to 
 the word, and it is with the meaning that we have 
 to do. But brushing all these aside, let us humbly 
 and faithfully endeavor to see if we may in some 
 little degree pick up some few pebbles on the shore 
 
 * Revelation 6 : 16. f 2 Corinthians 5 : 19. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 103 
 
 of the great ocean of mystery before us. Let us 
 humbly submit ourselves where we cannot fathom 
 " the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and 
 knowledge of God. For unsearchable are His judg- 
 ments, and His ways past finding out." * In such 
 matters we must wait until " we know, even as we 
 are known," for if a man must confess that he does 
 not know himself (and who does know himself thor- 
 oughly ?), he cannot expect here on earth com- 
 pletely " to know the mind of the Lord." 
 
 We have already seen that all history bears wit- 
 ness to a disorder in man, which science can only 
 explain by explaining it away. This disorder is sin ; 
 it is not, it cannot be natural to man ; it must be 
 some deviation from his natural condition. There 
 is evidence of a sense of this in heathen men apart 
 from Scripture. St. Paul could say, "■ The good 
 that I would, I do not ; but the evil which I would 
 not, that I do ;" f and the heathen could say, " I 
 see the better and approve of it, but I follow the 
 worse." J 
 
 We believe that man was made by God and for 
 God, therefore man's only happiness is in union with 
 God. But when man's will chose that which was 
 contrary to God's will, that union with God could 
 no longer continue. This union being severed, man 
 by himself alone could do nothing whatever to re- 
 pair the breach. His life was cut off from the true 
 Life. This is represented by his being cut off from 
 the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden. He 
 
 * Romans 11 : 33. f Romans 7 : ig. 
 
 \ Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII. 20. 
 
104 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 might yearn after reunion, he might be conscious of 
 some loss, though he knew not what he had lost, but 
 he could do nothing whatever to restore the loss. He 
 was like a frozen man, utterly unable to approach 
 the source of heat and light, that he might live and 
 move. A sinful state is alienation from God ; and 
 each act of sin, while it testifies to such alienation, 
 can but increase, if possible, the alienation which 
 already exists. 
 
 But still more. We read that the first act of man 
 after his first great sin was to hide himself, or to 
 endeavor to hide himself from God, among the trees 
 of the garden. This was from a sense of shame, 
 which is a sense of guilt. This sense of guilt is to 
 be met with among the better living among the 
 heathen. The Apostles and early preachers of Chris- 
 tianity among the Gentile nations made this very 
 sense of guilt the groundwork of their appeal to the 
 conscience. This it was which gave such meaning 
 and force to the earnest addresses of St. Paul, 
 " Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade 
 men." * This it was that made Felix tremble when 
 Paul " reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
 judgment to come." The Emperor Caesar was a 
 long way off, and Felix could easily deal with accusa- 
 tions to be preferred against his maladministration 
 in that court ; but when the judgment to come was 
 pleaded, then his consciousness of guilt compelled 
 him to feel that he would not so easily escape in this 
 tribunal ; and hence it was that he trembled and 
 tried to put the thought away from him, by dismiss- 
 
 * 2 Corinthians 5 : II. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 105 
 
 ing from his sight the preacher of the coming judg- 
 ment. If there had not been this sense of guilt, dor- 
 mant, perchance, but still alive in man, the task of 
 the Apostles and their successors would have been 
 much harder. The sneer of the unbeliever, that the 
 preachers of Christianity traded on the fears of their 
 hearers, proves that there was this sense of guilt that 
 could be awakened. 
 
 Next, this would imply that there was some ex- 
 ternal standard of right and wrong by which "ac- 
 tions are weighed." For indeed the heathen 
 " who know not God" still " show the work of the 
 law written in their hearts, their conscience also bear- 
 ing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accus- 
 ing or else excusing one another." * Nor does this 
 depend only on the word of St. Paul, though that 
 would be enough for us. For, as has been most 
 excellently pointed out, the same view is held by 
 Aristotle and Cicero, testifying on behalf of the 
 Greeks and Romans. Aristotle f had said of the 
 upright, "Against them there is no law ; for they 
 themselves are law." Cicero said :$ " True law is 
 right reason, agreeable to nature, common to all, 
 uniform, everlasting, which calls to duty by com- 
 manding, by forbidding deters from wrong. . . . 
 Nor will there be one law at Rome and another at 
 Athens ; one now and a different one by and by ; but 
 one law, both everlasting and unchangeable, will bind 
 both all nations and at all time, and there will be in 
 
 * Romans 2 : 15. 
 
 f Polir. III., xiii. 14, quoted by Archdeacon Gifford in " Speaker's 
 Commentary." 
 \ See Appendix R. 
 
106 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 common one, as it were, Master and Emperor of all, 
 God Himself." Cicero thus traces the law back to 
 a personal power, Who is at once the expounder 
 and interpreter of the law, God Himself. Indeed 
 we cannot conceive of a law acting automatically 
 without a personal Agent who will care for its en- 
 forcement and punish every breach — at least, it seems 
 to me impossible. 
 
 The same feeling, common to all, which implies 
 the existence of an external standard and a power 
 to bring all to the test of this standard, implies also 
 the absolute, unswerving uprightness of such power ; 
 this, then, acknowledges the absolute justice of the 
 punishment inflicted for the breach of the law. 
 
 Coextensive with this feeling there is a practice 
 of sacrifice, the origin of which cannot be traced. 
 The rite is met with in the very commencement of 
 the history of the Bible, and in secular and profane 
 history as well. Greek philosopher, Roman magis- 
 trate, Hebrew prophet, all offered sacrifice. With 
 the Hebrews the fire of sacrifice was " ever burning 
 on the altar, it never went out." With the heathen, 
 sacrifice was connected with all important events of 
 public and private life. That man should eat his 
 meat " roast with fire," and not raw, has its origin 
 most probably in the universal law of sacrifice. If 
 this be so, it also implies that the sacrifice was re- 
 garded as a token of the renewal or continuance of 
 the covenant or union with God. For it would show 
 that man learned to eat his flesh " roast with fire," 
 by " eating of the sacrifice ;" the being " partakers 
 with the altar" would betoken reconciliation with 
 Him whose Altar it was, as the sharing of a meal 
 
THE ATONEMENT. IO7 
 
 with a man betokened the commencement, continu- 
 ance, or renewal of a covenant. Thus Laban and 
 Jacob " did eat there upon the heap," perhaps of a 
 common sacrifice,* certainly in token of peace and 
 amity. So it was, therefore, when the covenant was 
 made at Mount Sinai, f Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, 
 and seventy of the elders of Israel, as the represent- 
 atives of the nation of the Hebrews, ate and drank, 
 probably of their sacrifices, in the immediate Presence 
 of God, specially manifested at the time for the pur- 
 pose of the Covenant. The clothing our first parents 
 in coats of skins ^ has been regarded by some as an 
 intimation that animal sacrifice had been offered in 
 the innocence of Paradise. But when innocence was 
 lost, and sin with its attendant guilt had come in, 
 then there was a change, not in the rite itself, but in 
 the aspect in Avhich it was viewed. The sense of 
 guilt called into existence intense yearning for some 
 propitiation, some mitigation in some way of the 
 penalty attaching to sin, and sacrifice was regarded 
 in some sort as a means of propitiation. There was 
 a distinct feeling that something should be done to 
 propitiate Divine wrath, and as between man and 
 man " a gift in secret pacifieth anger," so a similar 
 feeling arose between man and God. At the same 
 time there was the full persuasion, on every ground, 
 that the gift to be offered must be of the utmost 
 value to the offerer. If it were of anything that 
 came to hand, it would not be of sufficient impor- 
 tance ; the loss to the offerer would not be in any de- 
 
 * So says the Targum of Palestine. f Exodus 24 : n 
 
 \ Genesis 3 : 21. 
 
108 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 gree sufficient to warrant the hope that the offence 
 would be forgiven. This feeling naturally arose 
 from the sense of the dignity of the One offended 
 by the sin which had been committed. The very 
 best of a man's possessions was far inferior to the 
 man himself ; how, therefore, could a sacrifice of less 
 value than the man avail before God ? The question 
 of Balak was the great question of man, " Where- 
 with shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself 
 before the high God ? Shall I come before Him 
 with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old ? 
 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, 
 or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give 
 my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my 
 body for the sin of my soul?" * There seemed to 
 be a demand for a human sacrifice, the least that 
 could be offered, the least that could be accepted. 
 
 Such feeling probably existed before the time of 
 Abraham, so that the terrible test of his faith was 
 probably not absolutely new to his experience. The 
 offering of a firstborn son would be in the eyes of 
 many a greater sacrifice than the immolation of self. 
 Certainly human sacrifice was practised very widely 
 if not universally. Among the Greeks and Romans, 
 with the Druids of Gaul, if not of Britain ; with the 
 Mexicans, when invaded by Cortes, human sacrifice 
 was common and customary. This must bear testi- 
 mony to a feeling that some valuable life is necessary 
 as the least inadequate sacrifice to be offered to the 
 offended Deity. Yet all along there was a sense 
 that all was inadequate, all was really impotent and 
 
 * Micah 6 : 6, 7. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. IO9 
 
 valueless to effect what was sorely longed for, par- 
 don and reunion with God. 
 
 It has been said that careful examination of Reve- 
 lation warrants the belief that the Creator designed 
 a Personal Union between Himself and His creation 
 from the first, and that man was the creature formed 
 with s} T mpathies with the rest of creation with this 
 special view, that in " the fulness of time" God 
 would become Incarnate in man's nature. The 
 merciful purpose held on its course notwithstanding 
 the outrage of man's sin and defection ; but now, in 
 addition to the mercy and love of taking the creature 
 into Union, there was superadded the greater ex- 
 hibition of mercy and love in the redemption and 
 restoration of man. 
 
 Of this there were many types, and among others 
 the whole system of Levitical sacrifices. While we 
 cannot tell (because Revelation is silent on the mat- 
 ter) whether the origin of sacrifice was the command 
 of God, yet we do know that God took that which 
 was in existence and surrounded it with a cere- 
 monial and ritual giving it a typical significance. 
 This is what has ever been done. When the Lord 
 was upon earth He took various clauses from prayers 
 in use among the Jews and framed a prayer for His 
 disciples. He took a rite, which was at all events 
 then in use, and made it instinct with life as the 
 initial imparting of the new life. He took bread and 
 wine and made them the means of imparting spiritual 
 food to His faithful members. So sacrifice in ordi- 
 nary use in the world was taken and surrounded with 
 typical solemnity in the ceremonial law of Moses. 
 
 Here no doubt arises a question which has caused 
 
I IO THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 much debate and many long treatises ; all this can- 
 not here be entered upon. We can only deal with 
 some broad points which may help us, and passing 
 by the offerings of incense and show bread, we will 
 speak only of the sacrifices which entailed the shed- 
 ding of the blood of a victim. 
 
 The offerer first laid his hands on the head of the 
 victim. This symbolical act always implied that 
 some effect was to result from this, some virtue or 
 grace, or, as it would seem, guilt v/as understood to 
 pass from the one who laid on hands to the other. 
 Thus Moses was commanded to lay hands on Joshua, 
 and we read,* " Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of 
 the spirit of wisdom ; FOR Moses had laid his hands 
 on him." So in connection with the sacrificial cere- 
 mony it is clear that the guilt of the offerer was in 
 some sense regarded as passing from the man to the 
 victim. This is clearly stated in the case of the 
 scapegoat on the day of Atonement. In this case 
 we read :f " Aaron shall lay both his hands on the 
 head of the live goat, and confess over him all the 
 iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their trans- 
 gressions in all their sins, putting them upon the 
 head of the goat, and shall send him away by the 
 hand of a fit man into the wilderness ; and the goat 
 shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land 
 not inhabited." So in the case of the offerer we 
 read :{ " He shall put his hand on the head of the 
 burnt offering ; and it shall be accepted for him to 
 make an atonement for him." 
 
 * Deuteronomy 34 : 9. f Leviticus 16 : 21. 
 
 % Leviticus 1:4:4:4, etc. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. Ill 
 
 Next the offerer was to slay the victim ; this would 
 become an acknowledgment that death was the just 
 punishment of sin, that it was what the offerer had 
 righteously deserved. 
 
 After this the blood was sprinkled on the altar ; 
 the blood being regarded as the principle of life, 
 this action would typify the offering to God the life 
 of the victim. 
 
 Then followed the consumption of the whole or 
 part by fire. Here many explanations have been 
 offered of the typical significance of this. It may be 
 regarded as showing that the victim is given to 
 God, and that nothing short of our best may be 
 given to Him with acceptance. Then, as has been 
 pointed out, since the word for burning is not the 
 ordinary word, but one that is used for the smoke 
 of the incense, this implies that the smoke of the 
 sacrifice rising to Heaven represents the yearning 
 of the heart toward God. The fire itself, having 
 originally come from Heaven (" the fire shall ever 
 be burning on My altar, it shall never go out"), 
 would represent the fervor of love in the worshipper, 
 originally implanted by God. " We love Him 
 because He first loved us." 
 
 Then followed in various sacrifices the eating of 
 some part by the priest, and again in some the eat- 
 ing by the offerer and his friends. As the priest is 
 at once the representative of God and man, his eat- 
 ing may be a token of reconciliation and renewal of 
 the covenant between God and man, while the eat- 
 ing of the sacrifice by the offerer would be the token 
 of renewed oneness with God. To this St. Paul 
 would seem to point, perchance, when he says : 
 
112 THE ATONEMENT, 
 
 " For we being many are one bread, and one body ; 
 FOR we are all partakers of that one Bread." * 
 
 Here, then, we trace an acknowledgment of guilt, 
 a recognition of the righteousness of the punishment 
 for sin — viz., death, as well as an offering of the life 
 to God in pouring forth the blood, the principle of 
 life, and the renewal of the covenant and union with 
 God. 
 
 But these sacrifices also testified to the necessity 
 of some offering which would at once be perfect 
 and afford perfect restoration to union with God. 
 For they testified to their own feebleness by the ex- 
 cessive frequency of their being offered. For, as 
 the writer to the Hebrews argues, if any one had 
 real efficacy, then all would have been accomplished, 
 and they would all have ceased to be offered. f 
 
 But now, as we look around in the world, we see 
 that they have ceased to be offered. When the Epis- 
 tle to the Hebrews was written they were still being 
 offered at the Temple in Jerusalem. Soon afterward 
 the Temple was destroyed, and the sacrifices at once 
 ceased, and forever. Hebrews exist all over the 
 world, a separate people, with a separate rudimen- 
 tary faith, truncated, dwarfed, stunted, with no 
 means whatever of offering the sacrifices which they 
 must offer if they adhere to their faith in its integrity, 
 so far as it goes. 
 
 Here, then, is a marvel ! How can we account 
 for it ? 
 
 I, for my part, believe that on that day of Prepara- 
 tion, when Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ was hang- 
 
 * i Corinthians 10 : T7. f Hebrews 10 : 2. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. II3 
 
 ing on the Cross, the supernatural darkness from 
 noon till three o'clock prevented the offering of the 
 daily evening lamb, as well as the annual Paschal 
 Lamb.* I, for my part, believe that the name 
 Preparation (still used for Good Friday, and so for 
 all Fridays in the year) is a continual testimony that 
 St. John and the early Christian writers are correctf 
 in stating that the eating of the Paschal Lamb by the 
 Jews was on the evening after our Lord's death. 
 What a wonderful fulfilment of prophecy ! " In 
 the midst of the week (the three years and a half of 
 His ministry) He shall cause the sacrifice and obla- 
 tion to cease." $ In the presence of that " one per- 
 fect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfac- 
 tion," the daily and annual type were "caused to 
 cease." 
 
 But whether this be so or not, we may rest assured 
 that just as the dumbness of the priest Zachariah 
 betokened the passing away of the power of sacer- 
 dotal benediction from the Levitical priesthood, so 
 the cry of the son of Zachariah betokened the pass- 
 ing away of the Levitical priesthood altogether, 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the 
 sins of the world !" 
 
 The Baptist here must have had reference to the 
 Lamb of Sacrifice, the Lamb Who was to redeem us 
 with His Blood. In this cry indeed is the whole 
 Gospel of salvation. Here indeed is the One only 
 perfect sacrifice, and when this was offered, after the 
 probationary period of forty years, the Jewish sacri- 
 
 * See Appendix S. f See Appendix T. 
 
 % Daniel 9 : 27. See Appendix V. 
 8 
 
114 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 frees ceased at once and forever. Nay more, the 
 heathen sacrifices began at the same time to fail, and 
 though the Apostate Julian strove to revive them, 
 and in some form they lingered on here and there, 
 yet they were moribund, and have now practically 
 ceased. 
 
 But when we come to ask the question either 
 " How can these things be?" or " How was this 
 done ?" then we have to be very careful lest we in- 
 cur the reproach that " we darken counsel with 
 words without knowledge." We durst go no farther 
 than Scripture doth lead us by the hand.* 
 
 The death of Christ, which is so thankfully insisted 
 on, is represented by three images in the New Testa- 
 ment ; no one could in any way exhaust the teach- 
 ing ; and doubtless these three fail to cover all the 
 meaning. The first figure employed is a propitia- 
 tion or sin-offering, next a redemption, and thirdly, 
 a reconciliation or atonement. 
 
 It is a propitiation. Herein is satisfied that yearn- 
 ing which seems inherent in man, for an expiation 
 for his guilt. Man of himself alone could not offer 
 an acceptable sacrifice ; Christ has done this on his 
 behalf as his representative. Here, then, we may 
 see that the wrath of God is the necessary (if we 
 may say so with deepest reverence) hostility of the 
 Divine nature to sin. In this there is not, there can- 
 not be any, even the smallest divergence or differ- 
 ence between the Persons of the Ever Blessed 
 Trinity. We might almost call it blasphemy to say 
 that the love of the Son sought to propitiate the 
 
 * See Appendix W. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 115 
 
 anger of the Father ; as if both had not equal love 
 and equal anger against sin. Sin is an outrage 
 against God the Son as much as against the Father 
 or the Holy Spirit. The wrath of God is the ex- 
 pression of justice, which hates and punishes sin, as 
 well as the hostility of an offended Person. We 
 may believe, then, that as He is immutable, so the 
 hostility to sin cannot be put away until the de- 
 mands of His justice have been satisfied. Pain and 
 suffering are the signs of God's hatred to sin. 
 These were borne by Christ, though He did no sin. 
 Death had been declared to be the penalty of sin. 
 This Christ underwent for us, though He deserved 
 it not. In Christ, the Second Adam, the represent- 
 ative of man, there was a full and complete admis- 
 sion of the righteousness of the sentence of God. 
 The Cross of Christ was, on the one hand, a procla- 
 mation of the judgment of God against sin, and also, 
 on the other hand, on man's behalf, as has been very 
 excellently said, " a perfect Amen in humanity to 
 the judgment of God on the sin of man." 
 
 If one feature of sacrifice was the offering of our 
 best, was not Christ our very best, "chief among 
 ten thousand, and altogether lovely?" He is, in- 
 deed, as St. Peter said, "a Lamb without blemish 
 and without spot." Therefore is He indeed "the 
 Lamb of God." Hence was it that when " Christ 
 gave Himself for us, He was indeed an offering and 
 a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor," with 
 such God was well pleased. 
 
 The night before He suffered He Himself said : 
 
 ' This is My Blood of the New Covenant, which is 
 
 being shed for many unto remission of sins." Thus 
 
Il6 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 He proclaimed Himself a sin-offering, and that His 
 Blood was shed for forgiveness of sins. " He bare 
 the sins of many," not as an arbitrary substitution 
 of a sinless One for the sins of a whole race, but as 
 their Representative, as bearing their nature (He 
 took not the person of a man, but the nature of 
 man), He " bare our sins in His Body on the tree" 
 of the Cross. One while therefore He was repre- 
 sented by the scapegoat bearing the sins and in- 
 iquities of the people away from them, another 
 while He was represented by the sin-offering put to 
 death by those for whom He was a propitiation. 
 
 There was a deep mystery in His death ; it was a 
 voluntary submission, to which He had looked for- 
 ward with increasing horror. But as the root of all 
 sin is disobedience, so to this death the perfect obe- 
 dience of the Sufferer gave value, which became 
 infinite, from the infinite worth of the Subject. 
 
 Here, too, we may perchance learn somewhat of 
 the outskirts of the deep mystery of His death. 
 11 He learned obedience by the things which He 
 suffered," and therein " He became obedient unto 
 death, even the death of the Cross." We may un- 
 derstand somewhat of the terrible strain or effort of 
 this obedience from the increasing horror of death 
 which oppressed His innocent soul, part of which 
 we are admitted to know. During the last year of 
 His life and of His ministry, the thought of His 
 death was ever present to His mind, and it wrung 
 His soul more and more. When He had drawn the 
 confession from St. Peter, " Thou art the Christ, the 
 Son of the living God," St. Matthew tells us at once 
 " from that time forth began Jesus to show unto His 
 
THE ATONEMENT. WJ 
 
 disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and 
 suffer many things of the elders and chief priests 
 and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the 
 third day." Thenceforward He endeavored to pre- 
 pare His disciples for His death, and may we not 
 reverently say, prepare Himself for it ? Is He 
 transfigured before them that they might see His 
 glory ? Moses and Elijah speak with Him of His 
 exodus or death, and the Lord Himself speaks of His 
 own suffering. Again and again He speaks of this, 
 until the time approached. After His discourse on 
 the Mount of Olives, about the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem and the judgment of the world, He said, 
 " Ye know that after two days is the Passover, and 
 the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." But 
 in the afternoon of that same day, ere He left the 
 Temple for the last time, some Gentiles, Greeks, not 
 Grecians, desire to see Him. Then He saw in them 
 the firstfruits of the millions of the Gentile world 
 He came to bring into the one fold, and He rejoiced. 
 " The hour is come, that the Son of man should be 
 glorified." But thereupon the horror of great 
 darkness came upon Him, and He said, " Now is 
 My soul troubled ; and what shall I say? Father, save 
 Me from this hour : yet for this cause came I unto 
 this hour." * It was the willing offering of Himself 
 in the Temple, as of the Lamb without spot or blem- 
 ish, and the offering was accepted. Then, again, 
 two days after, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the 
 agony became intense, such as we cannot conceive. 
 Yet it was voluntarily undergone. Do we not hear 
 
 * St. John 12 : 23 sg. 
 
Il8 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Him say,* " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray 
 to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more 
 than twelve legions of angels ? But how, then, 
 shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must 
 be?" 
 
 Others have faced death calmly, why then was 
 this ? Not only from intense knowledge of the 
 physical pain and suffering, which to His perfect 
 organization must have been far keener than to any 
 other creature, but it was a horror of soul, which 
 may be in some little degree conceived in the awful 
 cry, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken 
 Me?" God had proclaimed over man, " It is not 
 good that man should be alone." This was not said 
 of any other of His creatures. Again was it said, 
 " Woe unto him that is alone." This must be to 
 teach man that he cannot find happiness apart from 
 God — he cannot really live apart from God. But in 
 the moment of death the Lord Jesus as man was 
 withdrawn from the consolations of Deity, we might 
 almost think from the consciousness of the Presence 
 of God. To man, hardened in sin, this dereliction 
 must be awful indeed ; how far more intense in its 
 bitterness must it have been to the Saviour. De- 
 serted by His friends, alone, so far as human sym- 
 pathy is concerned, He is also deserted of His 
 Father ; the agony now is more than He can bear. 
 The thought of its approach was so full of agony in 
 the Garden of Gethsemane, that supernatural strength 
 had to be infused by means of an angel, lest He 
 should sink under it. But now on the Cross no 
 
 * St. Matthew 26 : 53. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. II9 
 
 strength is infused. It is more than He can bear. 
 His heart is broken, and He dies from horror and 
 grief of mind, voluntarily accepted, rather than 
 from pain and exhaustion of body. 
 
 Thus in some deeply mysterious way, which we 
 cannot fully understand, God " made Him to be sin 
 for us, Who knew no sin," and " Christ was once 
 offered to bear the sins of many," as it had been 
 prophesied of old that " the Lord laid on Him the 
 iniquity of us all." " He is the propitiation for our 
 sins." 
 
 Thenceforward we hear in the Book of the Reve- 
 lation the loving and thankful adoration of the repre- 
 sentatives of creation, uttering a new song of praise 
 to the Lamb, and to the Lamb slain — the Lamb as it 
 had been slain. The continual hymn is ever going 
 up, " Thou art worthy, for Thou wast slain and hast 
 redeemed us to God by Thy Blood." 
 
 But, again, He is also the Priest who offers the sin- 
 offering. This was foreshown when He is called 
 the Firstborn. Mary " brought forth her Son, the 
 Firstborn." The firstborn son was ever the priest 
 of the family, until the whole tribe of Levi was taken 
 instead of the firstborn. It was foretold when the 
 Psalmist said, " Thou art a priest forever after the 
 order of Melchisedec." The Epistle to the He- 
 brews shows that for a perfect priest there was 
 necessary not only perfect sympathy with his 
 brethren, but that he should be " holy, harmless, 
 undefined, separate from sinners, higher than the 
 Heavens." To be such he must be divine. There- 
 fore in His double character He could do for man 
 what man alone could not do : He could offer with 
 
120 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 certainty of acceptance a perfect offering which 
 could not be refused. 
 
 " Himself the Victim and Himself the Priest." 
 
 Into the Holy of Holies in Heaven has our High 
 Priest entered, not with the blood of others, but 
 with His own Blood, pleading the merits of that 
 Avhich cannot be refused, and He ever liveth to make 
 intercession for us. 
 
 True is it from a human point of view that ' ' no man 
 may deliver his brother, nor make agreement unto 
 God for him ; for it cost more to redeem their souls, 
 so that he must let that alone forever/' At the 
 same time the law had laid down, " One of his 
 brethren may redeem him," and our Firstborn 
 Brother has redeemed us. 
 
 This, then, is the second figure of the saving char- 
 acter of our Lord's Death ; it is spoken of as a Ran- 
 som, a redemption, a purchasing the freedom of a 
 slave who is held in bondage. The Lord Himself 
 said that " the Son of man came to give His Life a 
 ransom for many," and St. Paul said that the Saviour 
 " gave Himself a ransom for all." This is difficult 
 for us now fully to understand, and we may not 
 press the idea in all its points any more than we can 
 always press all points of analogy in our Lord's 
 parables. In our Lord's day the idea of a ransom 
 was perfectly familiar. Not only was money at 
 times paid as the price of redemption, but sometimes 
 one life was given to save another from death. We 
 need not stay here to ask to whom the ransom was 
 to be paid, lest we should be led into that strange 
 opinion which was held for many centuries, that the 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 121 
 
 ransom was paid to the devil. There is no need to 
 ask to whom the ransom was to be paid for the life 
 of an animal. " Every firstling of an ass thou shalt 
 redeem with a lamb ; and if thou wilt not redeem it, 
 then thou shalt break his neck." The ransom was 
 to be paid to God by the hands of His priest. " The 
 wages of sin is death," "death had passed on all 
 men, for that all have sinned." But the death of 
 Christ was "a ransom for many," that they need 
 not be put to death. No man could ransom himself, 
 still less his brother. But " God so loved the world 
 that He gave His only Begotten Son," Who gave 
 His life a ransom for many. 
 
 The third figure employed in Scripture is that of 
 Atonement, or Reconciliation. We read that " God 
 was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." 
 Here, then, has arisen a somewhat hasty attack on 
 the language of our second article which has been 
 borrowed from the Augsburg Confession. It says 
 that Christ " truly suffered, was crucified, dead and 
 buried to reconcile the Father to us." This lan- 
 guage is said to be unscriptural ; that Scripture 
 speaks of reconciling man to God, but not God to 
 man. I need hardly remind you how Bishop Pear- 
 son deals with this question in his treatise on the 
 Creed, in expounding the Tenth Article.* It seems 
 obvious that if sin alienates at all, it must alienate 
 both parties ; and so far as we are sinners, God must 
 be alienated from us ; since He cannot deny Himself, 
 He cannot be other than He is ; He must " hate 
 iniquity." Certainly the phrase of the Article can 
 
 * See Appendix X. 
 
122 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 be traced to earliest times. In the Liturgy of St. 
 Clement, so called, we have the expression more 
 than once, " The Priest was pleased to be Himself 
 the Sacrifice, the Shepherd a sheep, to appease Thee, 
 His God and Father, to reconcile Thee to the world, 
 and deliver all men from impending wrath ;" and 
 again, " That all partakers may receive remission 
 of their sins, thou, O Lord Almighty, being recon- 
 ciled to them." Earlier than this St. Clement of 
 Rome urged the Corinthians to implore God's par- 
 don, " that He may show Himself propitious and be 
 reconciled unto us." Indeed, the whole passage in 
 the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians 
 speaks as of two offended parties, God and man. 
 God is represented as giving up His wrath and being 
 reconciled in Christ, and then calling on man to 
 give up his enmity and be reconciled to God. Hav- 
 ing been a Sin-offering for us, and also a Ransom, 
 Christ has become our Peace. 
 
 Another word has been used in the endeavor to 
 reach a fuller understanding of the Atonement, but 
 it has no phrase to represent it in the Scriptures. 
 It is that the Cross and Passion of Christ made a 
 "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and 
 satisfaction for the"sins of the whole world. " The life 
 of perfect obedience even unto death and the death 
 are regarded as having fully satisfied the debt which 
 man owed to God, which, like the ten thousand tal- 
 ents of the parable, could not be paid by man. 
 
 Hitherto we have spoken of the objective side of 
 this deep mystery, and may God pardon the feeble 
 imperfection of the words. But we must remember 
 that there is a subjective side. True, Christ is our 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 1 23 
 
 Representative, our Head. True, most true (thank 
 God for it), " He hath made us accepted in the Be- 
 loved." But we must not think that there is noth- 
 ing required on our part. Meditating on the death 
 of Christ, we must realize what a terrible thing sin is 
 in God's sight, and we must endeavor more and 
 more to hate sin as God hates it. This should lead 
 us to consider Christ as obeying God's law as it 
 affected sinful man, and as triumphing over tempta- 
 tion and sin on his behalf and under his condition ; 
 and then faith in His Blood becomes the power in 
 which we can learn so to suffer and so to overcome. 
 Then, indeed, will the imitation of Christ be our 
 object and aim. We will more and more learn to 
 live in the world as not of it, as He was in the 
 world, yet not for one moment divided from Heaven. 
 Our aim should be that we be " always bearing 
 about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that 
 the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our 
 body."* The Apostle adds, " For we which live 
 are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, 
 that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in 
 our mortal flesh." We should strive to be able to 
 say with truth with the Apostle : " I am crucified 
 with Christ ; nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but 
 Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in 
 the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who 
 loved me, and gave Himsell for me." f We should 
 learn to say with Ignatius, " My lust hath been 
 crucified, and there is no fire of material longing in 
 me, but only water living and speaking in me, say- 
 
 * 2 Corinthians 4 : 10, 11. f Galatians 2 : 20. 
 
124 THE ATONEMENT. . 
 
 ing within me, Come to the Father. I have no de- 
 light in the food of corruption, or in the delights of 
 this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the 
 flesh of Christ, Who was of the seed of David ; and 
 for a draught I desire His Blood, which is love incor- 
 ruptible.'' * 
 
 If devout consideration of the Passion of Christ 
 effect in us a due apprehension of the character of 
 sin, then shall we recognize the necessity of becom- 
 ing and being dead unto sin and alive to righteous- 
 ness, and then for us Christ will not have died in 
 vain. 
 
 This helps us to understand the language of the 
 greatest saints of God. At times they use language 
 in depreciation of self which seems strained and un- 
 real. It is because they have entered more deeply 
 into the mind of Christ and have learned to begin 
 to hate sin as God hates sin. When one begins to 
 realize what sin is in God's sight, then he feels that 
 none can have so offended against light and know- 
 ledge as he has himself, and in the ray of the sparkle 
 of God's infinite holiness he is compelled to acknow- 
 ledge himself the chief of sinners. 
 
 The power of the Cross of Christ is ever fresh, it 
 exhibits the righteousness and the love of God. It 
 shows what a condemnation our sins have deserved, 
 it reveals an extent of mercy we could not conceive. 
 " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." 
 
 The cry of the Baptist in the text first drew dis- 
 ciples after the Lord. He cried, " Behold the Lamb 
 of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world, 
 
 * Epistle to the Romans 7. 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 125 
 
 and the two disciples heard him speak and they 
 followed Him." 
 
 God grant that we may follow Him ! If we do we 
 shall be privileged to sing His praises in His Temple 
 in Heaven, and this will be the burden of our song, 
 " Thou art worthy, for Thou wast slain, and hast 
 redeemed us to God by Thy Blood out of every 
 kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. " " Wor- 
 thy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
 riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and 
 glory, and blessing." " Blessing, and honor, and 
 glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the 
 Throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." * 
 
 * Revelation 5 : 9, 12, 13. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 " As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become 
 the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name ; which 
 were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
 of man, but of God."— St. John i : 12, 13. 
 
 Christianity is the only religion which may be 
 called a religion of the body. There was in other 
 religions a persuasion that the soul was immortal, 
 but Christianity alone taught the Resurrection of the 
 flesh. In popular parlance Christianity is spoken 
 of as a spiritual religion, and doubtless this is true, 
 but it is the great exception in being the religion of 
 the body. The starting-point for this is, as in all 
 other things, the Incarnation. That is the key to all 
 our mysteries, that is the solvent of all perplexities ; 
 <k hold fast that thou hast" in this great doctrine, and 
 all else falls into its place. 
 
 Man was created with a complex nature so as to 
 embrace somewhat of all creation, spiritual and 
 material. He was created so as to form the focus, 
 as it were, in which all the rays of creation centred. 
 He was created as one being, and from that one 
 being all mankind has been developed. The Incar- 
 nation explains the reason of this. God the Son, God 
 the Creator had prepared a creature who should be 
 a microcosm, a summary of creation, that by taking 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 12/ 
 
 to Himself the nature of this creature, He might join 
 to Himself all creation. " The Word was made 
 flesh, and dwelt among us." 
 
 The Incarnation, then, must have communicated 
 blessing to every part of creation, since Jesus Christ, 
 the Son of God, is in living union with all creation 
 through man's nature. At His birth, therefore, 
 though " He took not angels, but the seed of Abra- 
 ham He took ;" when the Gospel was announced 
 and the angel had proclaimed His birth, the innu- 
 merable companies of angels at once were revealed 
 praising God for His mercy ; for they, too, shared in 
 the benefit of the union of God with His creature. 
 Their spiritual perception had never been dimmed ; 
 they became at once conscious of the commence- 
 ment of the benefit, infinite in its possibilities of 
 development. As has been pointed out, there is 
 reason to believe that each angel is complete in him- 
 self, each has his own peculiar nature, and it is also 
 believed that the creation of angels has ceased — their 
 number is complete. If this be so, we may under- 
 stand that the communication of the benefit derived 
 to the whole of creation at the Incarnation was made 
 at once to the angels with unlimited possibilities of 
 enlargement. But with mankind this was not so. 
 Multitudes had passed away since the fall of Adam. 
 Multitudes were yet unborn. How were they to 
 participate in the blessedness of the Incarnation ? 
 
 Man, as we have seen, was made by God, and 
 man was made for God ; his only hope of real happi- 
 ness is being in union with God. But the sin of 
 Adam broke this union beyond the power of man to 
 repair. Not only so, but the guilt of the sin by itself 
 
128 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 prevented union, without some sacrifice or atone- 
 ment being made. This,/ as we have seen, is mys- 
 terious, but forgiveness is in itself mysterious. We 
 may ask, How can the breach of a law be forgiven ? 
 but we cannot readily receive an answer. Sufficient 
 for us must the fact be that God has promised for- 
 giveness, and that " the Son of man hath power on 
 earth to forgive sins." The Atonement has been 
 made, the Sacrifice has been offered, Redemption is 
 complete, Satisfaction is perfect. The great barrier 
 to union has been removed. But that which has 
 been won for all must be applied individually. The 
 union with God must be restored individually. 
 
 In the first Adam the union with God was granted, 
 but in such a manner as made it possible that the 
 union might be broken if man did not keep the com- 
 mandment. In the last Adam the union of God with 
 man was so intimate, arising from the Personal 
 union of God the Son with man's nature, that it was 
 impossible that it should ever cease. We do not 
 know, we need not ask, whether it would have been 
 possible for Adam to have handed on this union to 
 his children if he had not sinned. He did sin, and 
 did not transmit the union he had himself lost, for 
 he had it not ; therefore, at all events, he could not 
 hand it on. But there is no question that " the last 
 Adam was made a quickening Spirit," quickening, 
 life-giving ; He could therefore extend His life of 
 union to others. " I am come (He said) that they 
 may have life, and have it more abundantly." * We 
 must, therefore, ask how this blessing may be ex- 
 
 * St. John 10 : 10. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 29 
 
 tended to us ; we must ask, as did the first converts, 
 " What must we do to be saved?" The answer 
 will be the same as ever. The Creator requires in 
 the first instance the subjection, the willing, free 
 subjection of the will of the intelligent agent to His 
 Will. This cannot be without a struggle, as indeed 
 is seen in the Incarnate Saviour. His Human will 
 was bowed to the Divine, and His Human soul was 
 wrung in the conflict. 
 
 We believe that " all the benefits of His Passion" 
 and His Incarnation extend backward in time (as 
 man understands time) to Adam, and forward till 
 time shall be no more. There is not so much diffi- 
 culty about understanding that living men can have 
 the opportunity of choice granted to them, as about 
 understanding how the preceding generations could 
 have had this opportunity. Human reason (to speak 
 reverently) forbids us to believe, nay revolts from, 
 the arbitrary decree which Calvinism and Moham- 
 medanism pretend. The two are certainly similar. 
 ' When God, so runs the Moslem tradition — I had 
 better said the blasphemy — resolved to create the 
 human race He took into His Hands a mass of 
 earth, the same whence all mankind were to be 
 formed, and in which they after a manner pre- 
 existed ; and having then divided the clod into two 
 equal portions, He threw the one half into hell, say- 
 ing, ' these to eternal fire, and I care not ;' and pro- 
 jected the other half into Heaven, adding, ' and 
 these to Paradise, and I care not.' " Human mo- 
 rality revolts against such blasphemy, and we turn 
 with unutterable relief and adoring gratitude to the 
 words of our Creator, " God so loved the world that 
 9 
 
130 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 He gave His only Begotten Son, that all that believe 
 in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." 
 But how can the dead " believe in Him of Whom 
 they have not heard ?" 
 
 First, then, we may say that they had the oppor- 
 tunity, when alive, of believing by faith on Him 
 Who was to come. By faith " Abraham rejoiced to 
 see the Lord's day, and saw it, and was glad." In 
 manifold ways, of which we know nothing, there 
 must have been opportunities granted for faith in 
 " Plim that is coming. " Thus Noah was a preacher 
 of righteousness, and the long and careful preparation 
 of the ark, spreading over one hundred and twenty 
 years, was in itself a practical sermon of great value, 
 and must have produced an effect to which, as we 
 shall see, St. Peter refers. 
 
 But more than this. Doubtless all will be struck 
 with the great stress laid upon our Lord's death in 
 the Apostles' Creed. The absolute reality of that 
 death is emphasized remarkably. "He suffered 
 under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, 
 He descended into hell." The infinite importance 
 of His Resurrection as well as of His Death gives a 
 reason for this. To exhibit the reality of the separa- 
 tion of His soul from His body (in which death 
 natural consists), it is said that as to His body He 
 was buried in the sepulchre ; as to His invisible 
 soul and spirit He descended to the place of de- 
 parted spirits. This latter truth is regarded by our 
 Church of such importance that it is made the sub- 
 ject of a separate Article ; and though, when the 
 Articles were finally issued, a clause of the Article 
 was omitted to suit some minds, yet the English 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 131 
 
 Church in 1 549 altered the Epistle for Easter Eve, 
 and in 1552 altered the first lesson for Matins of that 
 day in a way which showed her own mind. Before 
 1549 the Epistle was the same as we now have for 
 Easter Day, but since that day the great declaration 
 of St. Peter about the preaching- to the spirits in 
 prison has been the Epistle, and since 1552 the Old 
 Testament lesson for Matins has been the ninth 
 chapter of Zechariah, where we read, " As for thee 
 also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth 
 thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. 
 Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope." 
 Here, as appropriate to the day when the Sacred 
 body of the Lord kept Sabbath in the tomb, and 
 His spirit was active for the good of souls in the 
 place of departed spirits, the prophecy is read speak- 
 ing of His rescue of the prisoners of hope, the spirits 
 in prison, as St. Peter says. 
 
 There can be little doubt about the meaning of the 
 passage in St. Peter. The more the accuracy of 
 Greek grammar is acknowledged the more clearly is 
 it seen that St. Peter says that the spirit of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, set free by death from His sacred 
 body, at once became more active (" quickened in 
 the sphere of His spirit"), and went and heralded 
 forth His Gospel " to the spirits in prison ; which 
 were sometime disobedient, when once the long- 
 suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." * 
 This distinctly implies that some, at least, of those 
 who were disobedient in the days of Noah, and were 
 visited by the temporal punishment of the flood, had 
 
 * 1 St. Peter 3 : 18-20. 
 
132 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 an opportunity of listening to, and therefore, we 
 should think, of profiting by the preaching of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 St. Irenaeus, therefore, could say,* " For this 
 reason also the Lord descended into the lower parts 
 of the earth, preaching the Gospel of His coming to 
 them also, since remission of sins was manifested for 
 those that believe on Him." Tertullian also could 
 say, with that excellent terseness which is his char- 
 acteristic, " He did not ascend to Heaven before He 
 descended to the lower parts of the earth, that He 
 might there make the patriarchs and prophets par- 
 takers of Himself." f As has been said elsewhere, 
 ' The Lord having been born the first begotten 
 of the dead, and receiving into His bosom the an- 
 cient fathers, regenerated them into the life of God." 
 The two statements may well be taken to explain 
 one the other. He regenerated them by making 
 them partakers of Himself, and this in some mysteri- 
 ous way in connection with His descent into Hades. 
 
 Thus, then, we may believe that He made the dis- 
 embodied spirits partakers of the salvation procured 
 for them as for us. But for those still in the body 
 there was a different scheme whereby the Incarna- 
 tion was to be extended to the individual. 
 
 Here, then, we should naturally expect that as 
 Christianity is a religion of the body as well as of 
 the soul and spirit, affecting and consecrating the 
 whole of man's nature, " ourselves, our souls and 
 bodies," so there should be some external means of 
 grace affecting the body, and through it the soul and 
 
 * Adv. Haer., IV., xxvii. 2. f " De Anima," lv. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. I33 
 
 spirit which inhabit the body, and at present derive 
 their knowledge through the body. Here on earth 
 if one spirit of a man desires to communicate with 
 another it is by means of the body. If a man wishes 
 to learn God's Word and His Will, it is ordinarily by 
 means of the body ; he either reads it as printed or 
 written, or hears it read in his ears. It is ordinarily 
 a law of God (so far as we can recognize law) to 
 work in the visible world by visible means, and to 
 teach man about spiritual and invisible things by 
 means of bodily and visible things with which he is 
 cognizant. It is an erroneous and false view which 
 endeavors to minimize the importance of the body 
 and to depreciate it. The fact that God the Son 
 took to Himself a body and shrouded His glory 
 behind a veil of matter should teach .us the impor- 
 tance of matter. The Incarnation was termed a sac- 
 rament by the ancient Fathers, and similarly those 
 sacred and special means whereby the Incarnation 
 is extended and applied to the individual man were 
 also called sacraments. 
 
 The Incarnation was not merely for man's sake, it 
 was not an accommodation to man's comprehension, 
 that man might appreciate and understand what God 
 was doing for him. It was also to elevate and con- 
 secrate the nature He had assumed ; as St. Athana- 
 sius loved to say, " God became man that men might 
 become gods." By the Incarnation were united 
 God and man, Heaven and earth. In pursuance of 
 this glorious design, the Lord Jesus instituted the 
 sacred means of grace which we call sacraments, 
 which have by His appointment a Heavenly and 
 spiritual part, and also an earthly and visible part ; 
 
134 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 the invisible and spiritual part being attached to and 
 conveyed by the visible and material part in some 
 mysterious manner, in consequence of His appoint- 
 ment. 
 
 Here, too, we may observe that in a remarkable 
 manner similar errors show themselves with respect 
 to the sacraments as had been displayed with re- 
 spect to the Incarnation. Eutyches had said that 
 the human nature had been so absorbed and assimi- 
 lated into the Divine, that it had become lost as a 
 drop of vinegar would be in the ocean. So that the 
 Eutychian heresy denied practically the separate 
 existence of the two natures. Similarly, in respect, 
 at least, of one of the sacraments, the outward part 
 was said by some erroneous teaching to have been 
 completely annihilated by the inward and spiritual 
 part. Theodoret adduces the analogy of the sacra- 
 ment of the Holy Eucharist to make plain the teach- 
 ing about the truth of the Incarnation. It has been 
 also thought that the heresy of Nestorius has its 
 counterpart in the error of those who " say that the 
 sacramental action typifies in the external order a 
 spiritual process taking place pari passu in the un- 
 seen/' 
 
 The sacraments, then, derive their force solely 
 from the institution of the Saviour Himself, or of 
 His Apostles under His direction and the inspiration 
 of the Holy Ghost. No man can invent a sacrament 
 for himself ; none has the least authority to say this 
 or that ceremony shall be the means of bestowing 
 grace, unless there be scriptural authority for the 
 same. Otherwise we may have the same mistake 
 that was made by Micah when he engaged the de- 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 35 
 
 scendant of Moses as his chaplain, " Now know I 
 that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a 
 Levite to my priest." Some seem to say, " Now 
 all is right, for I have a priest, or deacon, for my 
 bishop." 
 
 With respect to the number of the sacraments 
 there need not be much serious controversy. The 
 number often depends upon the meaning attached 
 to the word, which was defined with more and 
 more accuracy as the centuries of Christian thought 
 passed away. The Greeks called the sacred instru- 
 ment or institution a ''mystery," w r hich the Latins 
 translated " sacrament." The Latin word was orig- 
 inally a legal term for the security or caution money 
 paid into court by the parties to a suit. Thence it be- 
 came a military term, first for the preliminary en- 
 gagement for service and then for the oath which 
 bound the soldier to his standard. From this the 
 word was pressed into the service of Christianity as 
 meaning any matter of deep teaching, and then as 
 we commonly understand it in the present day. 
 
 If, then, we understand the word in the first 
 Christian sense of mystery, the number of sacraments 
 is practically unlimited. Thus when St. Jerome 
 says of the Book of Revelation that " the very order 
 in which the words occur is itself a sacrament : , " and 
 when St. Augustine says that the deluge in the time 
 of Noah was a sacrament, they use the term in its 
 widest sense. The question of the meaning of the 
 word is so carefully explained in the second Book of 
 Homilies of the Church of England, that the whole 
 passage is here given. 
 
 " Now you shall hear how many sacraments there 
 
136 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 be, that were instituted by our Saviour Christ, and 
 are to be continued, and received of every Christian 
 in due time and order, and for such purpose as our 
 Saviour Christ willed them to be received. And as 
 for the number of them, if they should be considered 
 according to the exact signification of a sacrament — 
 namely, for the visible signs, expressly commanded 
 in the New Testament, whereunto is annexed the 
 promise of free forgiveness of our sin, and of our 
 holiness and joining in Christ, there be but two— 
 namely, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. For 
 although Absolution hath the promise of forgiveness 
 of sin, yet by the express word of the New Testa- 
 ment it hath not this promise annexed and tied to 
 the visible sign, which is imposition of hands. For 
 this visible sign (I mean laying on of hands) is not 
 expressly commanded in the New Testament to be 
 used in Absolution, as the visible signs in Baptism 
 and the Lord's Supper are ; and therefore Absolution 
 is no such sacrament as Baptism and the Communion 
 are. And though the ordering of ministers hath his 
 visible sign and promise, yet it lacks the promise of 
 remission of sin, as all other sacraments beside the two 
 above-named do. Therefore neither it nor any 
 other sacrament else be such sacraments as Bap- 
 tism and the Communion are. But in a general ac- 
 ception, the name of a sacrament may be attributed 
 to anything whereby a holy thing is signified. In 
 which understanding of the word the ancient writers 
 have given this name not only to the other five, 
 commonly of late years taken and used for the sup- 
 plying the number of the seven sacraments, but also 
 to divers and sundry other ceremonies, as to oil, 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 37 
 
 washing of feet, and such like, not meaning thereby 
 to repute them as sacraments in the same signifi- 
 cation that the two forenamed sacraments are." 
 
 A sacrament, then, generally speaking, is an out- 
 ward and sensible token of some inward and deeper 
 meaning or grace to be conveyed thereby. But in 
 the case of the two " sacraments of the Gospel," as 
 they are called, in the narrowest and strictest sense 
 as defined by the English Church, they are " out- 
 ward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual 
 grace, ordained by Christ Himself as a means whereby 
 we receive the same inward grace, and a pledge to 
 assure us that we do receive it and also as generally, 
 i.e., universally, necessary to salvation." 
 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor* rightly, therefore, calls 
 one of them the " extension of the Incarnation," and 
 as the glorious Divine nature of the Incarnate Lord 
 was shrouded and veiled in the flesh, and yet " the 
 light of the knowledge of the glory of God was in 
 the face of Jesus Christ," in so marvellously mys- 
 terious a manner that He could say, " He that hath 
 seen Me hath seen the Father," so in the sacraments 
 the inward part or thing signified is (as says the 
 homily) ''annexed and tied to the visible sign" in 
 such a manner that when the visible sign is applied 
 to the body, the soul is in touch with the inward 
 grace. Well indeed then must we believe that 
 Christianity is a religion of the body ; and well did 
 Tertullian draw special attention to this in his treatise 
 on the Resurrection of the flesh. 
 
 * " The Fathers by an elegant expression called the blessed sacra- 
 ment the extension of the Incarnation" (Works, ed. Eden, vol. 
 viii., p. 23). 
 
I38 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 " Let us now consider (he writes*), in respect of 
 the peculiar character of Christianity, how great a 
 privilege in God's sight is given to this paltry and 
 squalid substance, though it might be enough to say 
 that no soul could achieve salvation unless it believed 
 while it was in the flesh — to such an extent does sal- 
 vation hinge on the flesh — of which salvation, when 
 the soul is elected to God's Church, the flesh it is 
 which enables the soul to be elected. Undoubtedly 
 the flesh is washed that the soul may be cleansed ; 
 the flesh is anointed that the soul may be conse- 
 crated ; the flesh is sealed that the soul may be forti- 
 fied ; the flesh is shadowed by the imposition of hand 
 that the soul may be illuminated by the Spirit ; the 
 flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ that the 
 soul may be well nourished on God." 
 
 But, as has been said, the whole virtue of the sac- 
 raments is derived from God, because of the institu- 
 tion by Christ Himself. He instituted them and 
 commanded them to be continued, and ordained that 
 they should be ministered by the hands of men. 
 Hence we must be well assured that the validity of 
 the sacraments does not depend upon the piety of 
 the minister. The unworthiness of the minister can- 
 not in any way hinder the effect of the sacrament in 
 itself ; for they are " effectual because of Christ's in- 
 stitution and promise, although they be ministered 
 by evil men." If this were not so, St. Augustine 
 argues, man's trust in God alone would be weakened, 
 and trust in the worthiness of man as the minister 
 
 * " De Resurrectione Carnis," viii., ed. Oehler, Tom. II., p. 478 ; 
 ed. Rigalt, Paris, 1675, p. 330. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 39 
 
 would take its place. Nor, again, does the inward 
 and spiritual grace in the sacrament depend upon 
 the faith or spiritual understanding of the receiver. 
 The grace offered is ever the same ; this does not de- 
 pend upon the intellectual or spiritual effort of the 
 receiver. But the benefit received need not neces- 
 sarily be the same to all, for in some there may be 
 interposed an obstacle from unrepented sin, which 
 may prevent or retard the spiritual assimilation of 
 the grace offered. 
 
 The first requisite for the salvation of the indi- 
 vidual man is union with God. This can only be 
 through the Incarnate Lord. The initial sacrament 
 whereby this union is effected is Baptism. All the 
 promises of the New Testament are to those who 
 are "in Christ," "in the Lord." Baptism is the 
 sacrament whereby we are " made members of 
 Christ, children of God, and heirs of Heaven;" in 
 and by this sacrament we become incorporated into 
 Christ, even married to Him, " members of His 
 body, of His flesh, and His bones." * 
 
 Hence we find that great importance is attached 
 to this in the teaching of the Lord and His Apostles. f 
 It was the command given during the Great Forty 
 Days of the sojourn upon earth of the Risen Lord, 
 " Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the 
 Name ol the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost." Therefore when the three thousand who 
 had been converted on the day of Pentecost by St. 
 Peter's sermon cried out, " What shall we do ?" the 
 answer came at once to them — and we must take it to 
 
 * Ephesians 5 : 30. \ See Appendix Y. 
 
140 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 ourselves — " Repent and be baptized, every one of 
 you," and they were then and there baptized, all of 
 them. This was what Ananias said to Saul, who 
 had been converted, " Arise, and be baptized, and 
 wash away thy sins." So said St. Paul, " As many 
 of you as have been baptized into Christ have put 
 on Christ."* 
 
 Looking back into the history of God's dealings 
 with His creatures, we see intimations of this. At 
 the first regeneration of the world the Holy Spirit 
 " sat brooding" like a dove over the waters, and the 
 first evidence of life that science has found is sub- 
 marine, f St. Peter points out that the deluge in 
 the time of Noah is a type of Baptism ; so, too, the 
 passage of the Red Sea, when the Israel of God was 
 saved and their enemies were drowned ; so, too, the 
 passage of the Jordan and the cleansing of Naaman. 
 All were typical of Baptism, as was also the great 
 brazen laver in the Tabernacle, where the priests 
 washed before approaching their ministry. 
 
 If we seek for prophecies, they abound every- 
 where. Isaiah J speaks of 'V drawing water with joy 
 from the wells of salvation." Jeremiah § cries, " O 
 Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that 
 thou mayest be saved." Ezekiei || tells of the 
 water flowing from the house of God, '* And every- 
 thing shall live whither the river cometh." Joel,T 
 too, had said, "A fountain shall come forth of the 
 house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of 
 Shittim." Zechariah ** again said, "In that day 
 
 * Galatians 3 : 27. f See Appendix Z. \ Isaiah 12 : 3. 
 
 § Jeremiah 4 : 14. || Ezekiei 47 : 1, 9. ^f Joel 3 : 18. 
 
 ** Zechariah 13 : 1. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 141 
 
 there shall be a fountain opened to the house of 
 David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin 
 and for uncleanness. " 
 
 But though there were types and prophecies, 
 there was no actual rite of baptism until the fore- 
 runner, John, introduced it, and therefore became 
 known, by the special peculiarity of his ministry, as 
 "the Baptist." It is true that after his time the 
 Jews introduced a baptism in addition to circum- 
 cision for their converted proselytes, but there is no 
 evidence that such a ceremony existed before his 
 time. When in the Book of Judith we read of Achior 
 being joined to the house of Israel there is no word 
 of baptism. " When Achior had seen all that the 
 God of Israel had done, he believed in God greatly, 
 and circumcised the flesh of his foreskin, and was 
 joined unto the house of Israel unto this day."* 
 The whole tone of the Apocryphal history makes it 
 most probable that if the ceremony of baptism were 
 in use then as part of the reception of a proselyte, 
 it would have been mentioned. Again, Josephus 
 makes no mention of it in this connection, and the 
 first reference we find is considerably posterior to 
 John the Baptizer. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord condescended, as our Represent- 
 ative, to submit to this external rite of repentance ; 
 though He had nothing to repent of, yet "it be- 
 came" Him to do all that one of His time and race 
 should have done. And by His Baptism He insti- 
 tuted once and forever the sacrament of Baptism, 
 making it instinct with grace and vivifying power. 
 
 * Judith 14 : 10. See Appendix AA. 
 
142 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 Rightly, therefore, do we acknowledge that Al- 
 mighty God, " by the Baptism of His Well beloved 
 Son in the River Jordan, did sanctify the element of 
 water to the mystical washing away of sin." 
 
 In modern times a question has been raised about 
 the mode of baptism, and on this continent a large 
 number have separated from the Church, under the 
 impression that no baptism is valid that does not 
 cause the total submersion of the subject in water. 
 The two things absolutely necessary to valid bap- 
 tism are the use of water and the use of the words 
 of institution. The mode of the application of water 
 has not been prescribed. In the lately discovered 
 tract,* dating from the beginning of the second cen- 
 tury (if not from the end of the first), this is clearly 
 seen. The passage is as follows : " Concerning 
 baptism ; baptize thus : having said all this before- 
 hand, baptize in running water, In the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
 But if you have not running water, baptize in other 
 water ; if you cannot in cold water, then in warm. 
 But if you have not either, pour water thrice upon 
 the head." This is much like the rubric of our 
 Church, "it shall suffice to pour water;" for the 
 Church does not sanction sprinkling. 
 
 For the minister of this all-important sacrament, 
 while it is better to have a priest of the Church, 
 yet " Baptism by any man in case of necessity was 
 the voice of the whole world heretofore, "f This is 
 clearly seen in the controversy in Africa, where St. 
 
 * " The Teaching of the Apostles," ch. vii. 
 f Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," V., lxi., § 3. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 143 
 
 Cyprian for a time prevailed on the African bishops 
 to follow him in a deviation from the tradition of the 
 Church in ignoring heretical baptism ; but as St. 
 Augustine pointed out, the deviation was wrong and 
 was set straight by reverting to the ancient custom 
 of the Church without the intervention of a council. 
 It was held that in this necessary sacrament it was 
 Christ Himself that really gave the inward grace, 
 whoever was the ministerial agent to pour water and 
 say the words. 
 
 In and by Baptism two great and glorious gifts 
 are bestowed, regeneration and remission of sins. 
 These are mentioned in the Confirmation prayer, 
 ;< Thou hast vouchsafed to regenerate these Thy 
 servants by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast 
 given unto them forgiveness of all their sins." * 
 Baptism is not only a laver, or washing, it is the 
 " washing of regeneration." The Church always 
 understood for fifteen hundred years that our Lord's 
 words to Nicodemus were of Holy Baptism : " Ex- 
 cept a man be born again of water and the Holy 
 Ghost, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 Our service is speaking the truth of God when it 
 says that we are " by Baptism regenerate," and that 
 we are by Baptism " made children of God." This, 
 too, " not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
 of the will of man, but of God." Our first genera- 
 tion or birth was not dependent upon our own will 
 or our own consciousness ; our regeneration or sec- 
 ond birth, the Apostle points out, is equally indepen- 
 dent of our own will, but in this case it is the will 
 
 * See Appendix BB. 
 
144 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 and act of God alone. Therefore, as the angels are 
 called sons of God because each owes his being and 
 existence to God alone, without the intervention ot 
 any other, so the Apostle calls us sons of God, be- 
 cause it is by God's will and act alone (though not 
 ordinarily independent of Baptism) that we are re- 
 generate and born anew. 
 
 Thus, though it is perfectly true that, as St. Ire- 
 naeus has said,* " What we lost in Adam is restored 
 in Christ," yet we have much more privilege than 
 Adam had. We are sons of God, not only in the 
 same sense that, all created beings may be so called, 
 but in the far higher sense of special "adoption," 
 whereby our Blessed Saviour has become " the first- 
 born among many brethren." We hereby become, 
 as St. Peter says, " partakers of the Divine nature," 
 so that, as St. Athanasius loved to say, " God be- 
 came man, that we men might be deified." " Be- 
 loved (said the Apostle), nozv are we the sons of God ;" 
 now, that is in this present world, " What manner of 
 love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should 
 be called the sons of God." f 
 
 The second glorious gift is " forgiveness of sins." 
 The precious, inestimable blessing of forgiveness, 
 Avon for all by the atoning blood of Christ, is applied 
 to each primarily in and by Baptism. " Be baptized 
 every one of you for the remission of sins," said St. 
 Peter. £ " Arise and be baptized and wash away 
 thy sins," said Ananias. § It is intimately connected 
 with regeneration, as we say in prayer, " Grant that 
 
 * Adv. Haer. III., xviii., § i, Paris, 1710, p. 209. 
 
 f 1 St. John 3 : i, 2. , % Acts 2 : 38. § Acts 22 : 16. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 145 
 
 this child coming- to Thy Holy Baptism may receive 
 remission of sins by spiritual regeneration. ' ' Regener- 
 ation were impossible (to speak humanly) unless for- 
 giveness were either simultaneous or antecedent. 
 If Baptism conveys the glorious privilege of regener- 
 ation, if at that time by the will of God we are made 
 the sons of God, there must be at the same time for- 
 giveness. We say, therefore, in our Creed, " I ac- 
 knowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins." 
 Hence the continual reference to the washing and 
 so cleansing power of Baptism. 
 
 Here, then, though we may not tell beforehand 
 what will be the outward means of grace, and 
 though this depends wholly upon the will and insti- 
 tution of God, yet after the institution we may see 
 how appropriate the outward means are to the in- 
 ward grace. Thus as water is the natural means of 
 cleansing the body, so it is taken as the symbol of 
 the cleansing the soul ; and we have the phrases 
 "wash away thy sins," "that your sins may be 
 blotted out,"* by anointing, which have reference 
 to the water of Baptism. 
 
 Hence, too, we may see that the error which 
 would restrict Baptism to adult age has no founda- 
 tion in Scripture or the meaning of the sacrament. 
 Life spiritual is an absolutely free gift, as free as life 
 natural. As life natural does not depend upon 
 the will of the recipient, so life spiritual does not 
 depend upon the will of the recipient. A confused 
 opinion does not distinguish between conversion, 
 which is a conscious act of the will, and regenera- 
 
 * Acts 3 : 19. 
 10 
 
I46 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 tion, which ordinarily is not accompanied by con- 
 sciousness, and is wholly independent of the will of 
 man. " They are born, not of blood, nor of the 
 will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
 Whether we regard the gift of spiritual life or the 
 gift of cleansing, it is surely impossible to say that 
 infants are not fit subjects for Baptism. Had not 
 infants been perfectly capable of grace, the Lord 
 would not have blessed them ; the rebuke of those 
 who brought the infants came from the disciples 
 whose understandings had not been opened, and 
 caused the Lord's displeasure. We can well in- 
 deed enter into the feelings of those modern con- 
 verts from heathenism who repudiated the so-called 
 Baptist community (though by their means they had 
 been brought to the knowledge of Christ) because 
 their children were denied admission to the same 
 covenant with God as themselves. They repudiated 
 teaching which excluded their families from the 
 Church of God. 
 
 From the account of the conversion and Baptism 
 of the Samaritans by the Deacon Philip,* we learn 
 that Baptism itself was incomplete in its full privilege 
 without the laying on of Apostolic hands. Before 
 the Apostles came down we read " they were only 
 baptized," or more exactly, as the Greek is more 
 particular, " they were only in the state of having 
 been baptized ;" the very phrase implies that this 
 alone did not admit them to the full privilege of 
 membership in the Church. They had been ad- 
 vanced one stage, there was another glorious privi- 
 
 * Acts 8 : 12-17. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 147 
 
 lege in store for them, " the gift of the Holy Ghost." 
 The communication of this gift followed upon re- 
 generation, but was a separate act. As the Apostle 
 said, " Because ye are sons God hath sent forth the 
 Spirit of His Son into your hearts." * The bestowal 
 of this gift was subsequent to the gift of adoption. 
 This, too, was seen in the Baptism of the Lord, as 
 the early Christian writers rejoiced to trace. Thus 
 the African Bishop Optatus, about 370 A.D., wrote : 
 " The Lord descended into the water, not that there 
 was anything in God that required cleansing, but 
 that water must precede the oil that was to come on 
 Him, that He might initiate, and ordain, and com- 
 plete the mysteries of Baptism. When He had been 
 bathed in the hands of John, the order of the mys- 
 tery followed, and the Father completed what the 
 Son had prayed for and the Spirit had announced. 
 The Heaven was opened, the Father anointed ; im- 
 mediately the oil of the Spirit descended in the shape 
 of a Dove and settled on His Head, and anointed 
 Him with oil, and from that time He began to be 
 called Christ or the Anointed One, because He was 
 then anointed by God the Father. And lest He 
 should seem to lack the laying on of hands, the Voice 
 of God was heard from the cloud, ' This is My be- 
 loved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.' " f Simi- 
 larly St. Hilary of Poitiers, some twenty years 
 
 * Galatians 4 : 6. 
 
 f Optati, Opera, Paris, 1700 a.d., p. 75. St. Athanasius writes, 
 " He, as man, was anointed with the Holy Ghost that He might 
 make us an habitation of the Spirit, as well as partakers of His resur- 
 rection and exaltation." (Orat. I., c. Arianos, § 46. Opera Patavii, 
 1777, Tom. I., p. 355 D.) 
 
148 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 before, wrote : " In Him, too, the order of the 
 Heavenly mystery is expressed. For when He had 
 been baptized the doors of Heaven were opened, the 
 Holy Spirit is sent out, and recognized in the shape 
 of a visible Dove, and He is sprinkled with the unc- 
 tion of His Father's affection. Then the Voice from 
 Heaven says thus, - Thou art My Son, this day have 
 I begotten Thee.' The Son of God is pointed out 
 oy hearing and seeing ; and to a people unbelieving 
 and disobedient to the prophets there is sent a testi- 
 mony from their Lord both of sight and voice. And 
 at the same time from these things which were com- 
 pleted in Christ we may acknowledge that, after the 
 washing of water the Holy Spirit flies down upon 
 us from the gates of Heaven, and we are anointed 
 with the unction of Heavenly glory and are made 
 children of God by the adoption of the Father's 
 Voice, since by the very effects of the things the 
 Truth has prefigured the likeness of the sacrament 
 so arranged for us."* The laying on of hands, 
 therefore, was ever spoken of as the "perfection" 
 or completion of Baptism, and should be regarded 
 as part and parcel of that sacrament. Bishop Jeremy 
 Taylor in consequence calls it " The sacramental 
 consummation of our regeneration in Christ." t 
 
 The name by which this complementary rite is 
 known in the West rather implies that it completes 
 the sacrament of Baptism. The word " Confirma- 
 tion" has gradually superseded all others, and 
 though the origin of the word seems uncertain, yet 
 
 * On St. Matthew, ch. ii., Opera Verona, 1730, Tom. I., col. 676. 
 f " Of Confirmation," i. 2, ed. Eden, vol. v., 626. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 49 
 
 it probably has reference to the connection with 
 Baptism. Tertullian uses the word in this sense, 
 though not as a name for this rite, which was known 
 in his day rather as "the laying- on of hands," or 
 unction. " How great is the grace of water (he 
 says*), in the sight of God and His Christ, for the 
 confirmation of Baptism." The word as a name for 
 the rite is found in the fifth century at the first Coun- 
 cil of Orange, " If one from any accident has not 
 been anointed in his Baptism, the bishop must be 
 informed of this at his Confirmation," though St. Am- 
 brose seemingly uses the verb to confirm in a like sense. 
 
 There is no doubt that in the eighth and ninth 
 centuries the word confirm is used of the completion 
 of a sacrament. Thus in the Ordo Romanus there is 
 continual reference to the confirmation of those who 
 have received the species of Bread with the Chalice. 
 The most striking passage is perhaps the following, 
 " Taking the chalice, the archdeacon confirms with 
 the Blood of the Lord all those whom the bishop 
 shall have communicated with the Body of the 
 Lord." f I n a- similar meaning Rhabanus Maurus, a 
 century later, speaking of the admission of a cate- 
 chumen into the Church by Baptism, laying on of 
 hands, and Communion,;): says : " Next every pre- 
 ceding sacrament is confirmed in him by the Body 
 and Blood of the Lord. 5 ' 
 
 This is the more striking since St. Isidore of 
 Seville, in the seventh century, seems to have re- 
 garded Confirmation as having the same relation to 
 
 * De Baptismo, ix. f Hittorpius, Romse, 1591, p. 14. 
 
 % Hittorpius, Romse, 1591, p. 274 (Rabanus de Inst. Clericorum, 
 cap. 29). 
 
150 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 Baptism as the chalice had to the paten ; there were 
 either two or four sacraments, in his estimation. He 
 says:* "The sacraments are Baptism and Chrism, 
 the Body and Blood of Christ, which are called 
 sacraments because, under the veil of corporal things, 
 the divine virtue secretly works the saving influence 
 of the same sacraments. " He couples the former two 
 together and the latter two, as if they had a similar 
 relation one to other, and neither of each couple 
 was complete without its " Confirmation." f 
 
 In the Eastern Church the rite is known as 
 " Chrism," or sometimes as " The Seal." It would 
 seem likely that the word "seal" was originally used 
 of the outward and visible sign of an inward grace or 
 blessing. Thus St. Paul uses the word of the out- 
 ward sign of the inward faith of Abraham, " He re- 
 ceived the sign of circumcision, a seal of the right- 
 eousness of the faith which he had yet being uncir- 
 cumcised." In the earliest Christian writings — e.g., 
 Hermas, we find the phrase " the seal is the water," 
 and though sometimes the word is used in such a 
 manner that Baptism is meant, it is nowhere said 
 " the seal is Baptism." Soon the word '* seal " be- 
 came appropriated to the sign of the cross, which 
 the faithful Christian made on every occasion, as an 
 outward token of an inward blessing. As in the rite 
 of Confirmation or the laying on of hands, the chrism 
 was applied in the form of a cross with the words, 
 " The seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost," the whole 
 
 * Originum, Lib. VI , cap. 19 Opera Coloniae, 1617, p. 52 A. 
 
 f Compare the saying of Tertullian, " How great is the blessedness 
 of that marriage which the Church cements, the oblation confirms" 
 I" Ad Uxorem," II. viii.) 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 5 I 
 
 rite gradually became known by the name of the 
 seal. It is rather remarkable that in the English and 
 American Church the sign of the cross should be 
 retained in Baptism (when probably it is a relic of 
 Confirmation) and be omitted in the service for Con- 
 firmation itself. This is a surviving symptom prob- 
 ably of the time when Confirmation was administered 
 immediately after Baptism. The shortness of the 
 service is another surviving token that it is only part 
 of a longer service, which also may be seen from the 
 fact that until the last review in 1661 the Lord's 
 Prayer was not included in the service. This could 
 not have been left out had it been intended to be a 
 separate service for a separate rite. 
 
 Other proofs there are that Confirmation is only 
 a part of the complete sacrament of Baptism. For 
 nine centuries Baptism was not allowed (except in 
 danger of death) to be administered at other times 
 than at Easter and Pentecost."* Then catechumens 
 were baptized at the cathedral church in the pres- 
 ence of the Bishop, who at once confirmed them. 
 At present the rubric of the English Church directs 
 that no adult Baptism should take place without the 
 Bishop being informed. One object is that the 
 Baptism do not take place hurriedly without suffi- 
 cient preparation ; but another doubtless is that the 
 Bishop may appoint a time for the Baptism, that he 
 may be present and confirm at once. 
 
 In the Eastern Church Confirmation is ministered 
 by priests with chrism or unction specially conse- 
 crated by Bishops. 
 
 * See Appendix BB*. 
 
152 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 Neither Baptism nor Confirmation may be re- 
 peated. Invalid baptism, that is, ministered without 
 water or without the proper form of words, is not 
 Baptism ; and if it be found that one have been so 
 baptized, valid Baptism must be administered. Con- 
 firmation cannot be ministered outside the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 " I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of 
 sins," this conveys the promise of pardon for post- 
 baptismal sin ; for as our Prayer Book says, it is an 
 " everlasting benediction of Heavenly washing." 
 On repentance pardon is assured, and it is applied to 
 the penitent by the absolution of the priest, " who 
 hath received power and commandment to declare 
 and pronounce to God's people, being penitent, the 
 absolution and remission of their sins." No new 
 gift is conferred thereby, but the pardon guaranteed 
 is an extension of the forgiveness promised at Bap- 
 tism. 
 
 It is remarkable to observe that when in the 
 second Prayer Book of Edward VI. a Confession and 
 Absolution were introduced at the beginning of 
 Matins and Evensong, they are " constructed in that 
 form which would most completely adapt them for 
 superseding in all ordinary cases private confession 
 and absolution." Canon Cooke well says : 4< An ex- 
 amination of the Confession will show that it is 
 framed with the closest regard to the old definitions 
 of mortal sin, and that it differs in this respect from 
 the ancient Confession at Prime and Compline, 
 which were considered to refer to venial sins alone." 
 The Absolution is rather framed on the model of 
 that in use in the Greek Church. Both assert the 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 53 
 
 absolving power to be God's, conveyed through the 
 priest ; both insist on the necessity of true repentance 
 in the sinner ; both have petitions that repentance 
 may be produced in the sinner and absolution granted 
 by God. With respect to the form of absolution, 
 the most ancient forms of sacerdotal absolution were 
 precatory, prayer to God for pardon to be granted 
 to the penitent. It has been said of the forms of 
 ordination, and the remark is true of all similar utter- 
 ances of ministerial power : " The Fathers used pre- 
 catory forms, lest the gift should appear to proceed 
 from any but God ; the later practice of the West 
 added imperative forms, lest it should appear that 
 the prayer of any person would suffice for obtaining 
 the gift."* 
 
 There are, then, in the Liturgy of the Church of 
 England three forms of Absolution gradually nar- 
 rowing in personal application, and gradually becom- 
 ing more imperative and authoritative. Though one 
 has been omitted in the American Church, those that 
 remain are equally valid. As absolution is not be- 
 stowed without confession, so before each Absolu- 
 tion there is a Confession, in general terms indeed, 
 but in such carefully worded phrases that each indi- 
 vidual may include his own sin and his own burden. 
 In the case of private and particular confession the 
 Absolution becomes more direct and imperative. 
 But, as the homilies say, " though Absolution hath 
 promise of forgiveness of sin, yet by the express 
 word of the New Testament it hath not this promise 
 annexed and tied to the visible sign, which is impo- 
 
 * See Appendix CC. 
 
154 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 sition of hands." Nor has there ever been any ex- 
 press form of words wherein the grace is conveyed 
 or conferred. But Absolution is only granted after 
 Confession. " I said I will confess my sins unto the 
 Lord ; and so Thou forgavest the wickedness of my 
 sin." Deeply mysterious doubtless all forgiveness 
 is, but there is no grace more surely promised than 
 this ; there is no grace more yearned after by the 
 repentant sinner ; there is none, it may be, for which 
 the penitent requires greater assurance. The pre- 
 cious declaration of our Lord is remarkable in its 
 fulness : " That ye may know that the Son of Man 
 hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith He to 
 the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed and 
 go unto thine house." Here in the Greek original 
 each word is the same in each of the three Synoptic 
 Gospels, and each word is of deepest import, as we 
 should expect. The Lord does not deny that God 
 alone has absolute and paramount power and right 
 to forgive sins. In the case in question He does not 
 absolve as God, but as Man ; therefore he uses a word 
 for delegated power, not absolute, inherent power, 
 but delegated power, as it were, license : " The Son 
 of Man hath power delegated to Him on earth to for- 
 give sins." * Then after His Resurrection He said 
 again, "All delegated power is given unto Me in 
 Heaven and upon earth," and lest it should be 
 thought that the power was removed from earth at 
 the Ascension, He said further, " Lo ! I am with you 
 all the days, even unto the end of the world." He is 
 with His properly authenticated ministers until the 
 
 * See Appendix DD. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 55 
 
 end of time. As St. John records the Lord's words, 
 " As My Father hath sent Me, even so am I sending 
 you," the Mission of Christ is here regarded in 
 the permanence of its effects. The Apostles were 
 commissioned to carry on Christ's work ; their office 
 was to apply His office according to the needs of the 
 faithful to whom they ministered. This power of 
 Absolution was therefore handed on and delegated 
 to them : " Then He breathed on them and saith 
 unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosoever 
 sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and 
 whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained. ' ' Words 
 that are even now repeated when the commission is 
 handed on in the ordination of a priest, for to no 
 minister under the degree of priest is the power of 
 Absolution delegated. 
 
 In the lately discovered " Teaching of the Twelve 
 Apostles" special prominence is given to two sacra- 
 ments, and to two only. To Baptism, as we have 
 seen, Confirmation and Absolution would seem to 
 be attached ; Absolution being, as St. Jerome said, 
 a plank from the shipwreck of entire forgiveness. 
 The other " Gospel Sacrament" is the Holy Eucha- 
 rist. Even in this early treatise (dating about ioo 
 a.d.) the title Eucharist seems to have been given to 
 this sacrament. 
 
 Under the old Dispensation there was the feast 
 upon the sacrifice, which applied the blessing of the 
 sacrifice to the offerer. It was a token of union 
 with God and of renewed favor. This was especially 
 the case in the feast of the Passover. Each faithful 
 Jew was to eat of the Paschal Lamb under pain of 
 being cut off from his people. When the Baptist 
 
156 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 cried aloud, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh 
 away the sins of the world !" it is a very compre- 
 hensive title, embracing many points of teaching. 
 Probably the reference was primarily to the fifty- 
 third chapter of Isaiah, " He is brought as a lamb to 
 the slaughter." But it could not end there. Morn- 
 ing and evening was a lamb offered in the Temple ; 
 it would be therefore the most familiar type of sacri- 
 fice. But the most important was the Paschal Lamb, 
 to which the Incarnate Lord was afterward likened 
 by Apostles. In his Gospel St. John* claims that 
 the command with respect to the Paschal Lamb, " a 
 bone of it shall not be broken," was fulfilled in the 
 omission to break any bone of the crucified Saviour. 
 St. Paul f says boldly, " Christ our Passover is sac- 
 rificed for us ;" and St. Peter, J referring probably to 
 the same image, says we were redeemed with the 
 " precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without 
 blemish and without spot." How, it may be asked, 
 can we partake of the sacrifice offered for us ? How 
 can we partake of the Paschal Lamb ? How are we 
 to be " partakers of Christ?" 
 
 Now before giving the answer to this we must be 
 reminded of one universal peculiarity of sacrifice, 
 which was in existence throughout the whole known 
 world, Gentile as well as Jewish. This cannot be 
 given better than in the carefully weighed words of 
 a very talented and learned writer, Archdeacon 
 Freeman :§ 
 
 * St. John 19 : 36, cf. Exodus 12 : 46. 
 
 f 1 Corinthians 5:7. $ 1 St. Peter 1 : 19. 
 
 § " Principles of Divine Service," Part II., ch. i., § 4, p. 75. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 57 
 
 4 ' It is much to be observed, as an unfailing feature 
 of Gentile sacrifice, when properly performed, that 
 animals were never offered alone, but always with 
 an accompaniment of flour and wine. Nor only so. 
 The victim, though itself the efficacious element of 
 the sacrifice, was offered by means of the bread and 
 wine. The bread was broken and sprinkled on the 
 head of the animal while alive ; and again, wine, 
 with frankincense, was poured between its horns. 
 This done, the sacrifice was conceived to have been 
 duly offered, so far as concerned the gift and dedi- 
 cation of it on man's part, and the acceptance of it 
 by the Deity. This is proved by the fact that im- 
 7nolare, to sprinkle with the broken viola, or cake, was 
 used, as is well known, to express the entire actiori of 
 sacrifice, the slaying and burning included. So again, 
 mactare, to enrich or crown with the addition of 
 wine, was likewise used for the whole action. This 
 is an absolute proof of the immense virtue and im- 
 plicit power attributed to the bread and wine in 
 these sacrifices. They were held to carry within 
 them, in a manner, the whole action. The present- 
 ing of them was the presenting of the slain sacrifice ; 
 the acceptance of them was its acceptance. And 
 that, moreover, they were identified respectively, 
 the broken bread with the body to be slain, the 
 poured out wine with the blood to be shed, is both 
 probable from the obvious parallel and is counte- 
 nanced by other parts of the system. Thus the poor, 
 who could not afford slain victims, were allowed to 
 do their part by providing cakes of bread ; and these 
 were sometimes made in the shape of the ox to be 
 sacrificed, and might be offered alone. And the 
 
158 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 drinking of blood was, though rarely, substituted 
 for that of wine. 
 
 " Now all this coincides marvellously with the 
 Mosaic provisions, by which the animal sacrifice was 
 held to be completed when the bread offering had 
 been laid and the wine poured out on the victim ; 
 and again, with the law allowing the poor to bring a 
 bread offering instead of victims." 
 
 Here, then, we have one universal peculiarity, 
 which some might ascribe to a common origin, which 
 must be allowed by all to evince a sense of appropri- 
 ateness, which may not so easily be apprehended 
 now that we are no longer familiar with the ritual 
 of slain sacrifices. If we say that there was a com- 
 mon origin, it will be difficult not to admit that such 
 origin was divine ; if we think otherwise, then, at 
 least, we must see that for many thousand years 
 God had been training the wmole human race for the 
 awful moment "in the upper room furnished and 
 prepared." 
 
 The Jews had been prepared by the prophecy of 
 Malachi, which Christians have from the very first 
 acknowledged as prophetical ol the Holy Eucharist. 
 In the early written document just cited we read, 
 " On the Lord's Day of the Lord come together and 
 break Bread, and give thanks, confessing your tres- 
 passes, that your sacrifice may be pure. For this is 
 that sacrifice spoken of by the Lord, ' In every place 
 and time offer Me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great 
 King, saith the Lord, and My Name is wonderful 
 among the Gentiles.' " A few years later St. Justin 
 Martyr claims the same prophecy for a similar refer- 
 ence, and a few years later again St. Irenasus quotes it 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 59 
 
 to the same purpose. We must see that the applica- 
 tion of the prophecy to the Holy Eucharist dates from 
 a time coeval with the latest of the Apostles at least. 
 More than this, the Lord prepared His disciples 
 twelve months before in the discourse He delivered 
 at Capernaum. In this sermon the Lord's teaching 
 becomes more emphatic the more His hearers carped 
 at His sayings. St. John, who does not record the 
 institution either of Baptism or the Eucharist (be- 
 cause the institution had been sufficiently recorded 
 previously), records the deep teaching of our Lord 
 about both sacraments. 
 
 At Capernaum the Lord said, " The Bread which 
 I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the 
 life of the world." When His hearers carped at 
 His saying, " How can this man give us His Flesh to 
 eat?" He answered in the emphatic statement, wit- 
 nessed to by an asseveration, " Verily, verily I say 
 unto you, Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man 
 and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you" — 
 words that could not have been understood * at the 
 time. But how must the words have rushed upon 
 the minds of the Apostles when they saw the ac- 
 tion and heard the words of their Master at that 
 mysterious Last Supper. " He took bread, and 
 gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, say- 
 ing, This is My Body which is given for you ; this 
 do in remembrance of Me. Likewise also the cup 
 after Supper, saying, This cup is the New Testa- 
 ment in My Blood ; this do ye as oft as ye drink it 
 in remembrance ol Me." Here, as Archdeacon 
 
 * See Apppendix EE. 
 
l6o THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 Freeman says,* "the broken Bread and the Wine 
 poured out is. with a tremendous precision of lan- 
 guage which leaves no escape, identified with the 
 Body yet to be slain, and the Blood yet to be shed 
 in sacrifice. . . . Simple breaking of bread with 
 sacrificial intent and gesture was a sufficient ' immo- 
 lation,' simple pouring out of wine with that intent 
 was effective ' mactation ' of the yet living Victim." 
 Herein and hereby may Christians partake of the 
 one only true and efficacious sacrifice of the Cross. 
 Herein we feed upon " the Lamb of God that taketh 
 away the sins of the world," in the glorious sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Body and Blood. 
 
 Each word, each act, was sacrificial ; the Sacra- 
 ment of the Eucharist, therefore, has ever been re- 
 garded as the Christian sacrifice or offering from the 
 very first. Even from the words " Do this" it is im- 
 possible to exclude the meaning of sacrifice or offer- 
 ing. For the word was ever used in the Greek 
 Septuagint for sacrifice, or keeping the Passover, or 
 other feast, f and even absolutely without any ac- 
 cusative in the sense of offering to a false God, and 
 so of worship. It is the memorial of the one Sacri- 
 fice on the Cross. By it the virtue of that Sacrifice 
 is extended to us. It is a symbol which actually 
 conveys " verily and indeed " to the faithful That of 
 Which it is a symbol. 
 
 As we have seen animal sacrifice and the offering 
 of blood was universal, we have also seen that the 
 essential accompaniment of such sacrifice in Gentile 
 
 * " Principles of Divine Service," Part II., p. 80. 
 f See Appendix FF. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. l6l 
 
 and Levitical ceremony was an offering of bread and 
 wine. We have also seen that animal sacrifice in the 
 Greek and Roman civilized world, as well as in the 
 Jewish community, has ceased. In the Jewish 
 Church it ceased at once and forever at the end of 
 the probationary forty years after the offering of the 
 " One perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and 
 satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" on the 
 Cross. But if sacrifice from the first has been uni- 
 versal, it must be one of the fundamental principles 
 of worship. It cannot be and it is not absent from 
 Christian worship. With us the universal offering 
 of Bread and Wine is now the one Sacrifice we offer 
 here on the Holy Table (which thereupon becomes 
 an Altar), and Christ pleads His Sacrifice and the 
 merits of His Blood in the Holy of Holies in Heaven. 
 Then our Brother (like the true Joseph) feeds us 
 from His Altar (which thereupon becomes a Table) 
 with the Bread of Heaven and the Wine of Heaven, 
 the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Christian 
 Sacrifice has entirely superseded the other sacrifices 
 as the Sacrifice of the Cross has caused the ante- 
 cedent and typical sacrifices to cease. The Holy 
 Eucharist, therefore, is a continual evidence of the 
 truth of the one Sacrifice of which it is the me- 
 morial, the full and complete efficacy of which has 
 caused all bleeding sacrifices to be done away. To 
 us, then, as to the Jews of old, when Ave offer to 
 God, that whereon we offer is rightly called an Altar ; 
 and when we feed on our offering it is rightly called 
 a Table.* 
 
 * Compare Malachi 1:7: "Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine 
 altar : and ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee ? In that ye say, 
 11 
 
l62 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 There can be no question that from the first times 
 Christians have believed the truth of the Great Mys- 
 tery, that in the Holy Eucharist we " spiritually eat 
 the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood." This is 
 testified to in every way, in many different words 
 and phrases, in every part of the world. In the 
 second century we have two very remarkable in- 
 scriptions testifying to the faith then held, wmich 
 must suffice for our purpose here. One is in Gaul, 
 the other in Asia Minor. Tn Gaul we read at the 
 end of a short poem addressed to the Christian,* 
 " Receive the honey sweet food of the holy things 
 of the Saviour. Eat, drink, having Jesus Christ the 
 Son of God the Saviour in thy hands." About the 
 same time or a little earlier, about 180-90 A.D., a 
 monumental inscription on the tomb of Bishop 
 Abercius, discovered in Asia Minor in 1883, nas a 
 testimony to the same belief. The Bishop Abercius 
 wrote his epitaph and had it cut during his lifetime. 
 He describes his travels, and toward the end he has :f 
 " Ever\^ where Faith led the way, and set before me 
 for food Fish from the fountain, mighty and pure 
 (Whom a chaste virgin grasped), and gave This to 
 friends to eat always, having the best wine and giv- 
 ing the mixed cup with bread." The word Fish 
 representing the anagram of " Jesus Christ the Son 
 of God the Saviour." 
 
 In the last quotation the two parts of the sacra- 
 ment are referred to, the bread and the mixed cup — 
 
 the Table of the Lord is contemptible." See also verse 12, Ezekiel 
 41 : 22 ; 44 : r.6 ; 1 Corinthians 10 : 2t ; Hebrews 13 : 10. 
 
 * See " Doctrine of Real Presence," by Dr. Pusey, p. 337. 
 
 f See Bishop Lightfooi's " Ignatius," vol. i., p. 480. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 163 
 
 i.e., wine mixed with water; and the inward part, 
 Jesus Christ the Son of God the Saviour. Both are 
 given for food to the faithful Christian, and as our 
 Article saith, to deny either part " overthroweth the 
 nature of a sacrament." Remarkably enough, the 
 teaching which is called " Transubstantiation" — that 
 is, that the whole substance of bread and wine after 
 consecration is changed into the whole substance of 
 the Body and Blood of Christ, was by anticipation 
 condemned in the controversies of the fifth century. 
 Theodoret in his second dialogue introduces a her- 
 etic, whom he calls Eranistes or Guildsman, dis- 
 puting with Orthodoxus, the holder of the truth, and 
 the dispute in the part referred to is as follows : 
 
 " Guildsman. What do you call the gift that is offered before the 
 invocation of the priest ? 
 
 " Orthodox. No plain answer should be given to this, since there 
 may be some present who are not Christians. 
 
 " G. Well, let the answer be enigmatical. 
 
 " 0. It is food made of such seeds. 
 
 " G. And how call you the other symbol ? 
 
 " O. This, too, has a common name signifying a common drink. 
 
 " G. But after consecration how do you call them ? 
 
 " O. The Body of Christ and the Blood of Christ. 
 
 " G. Do you believe that you partake of the Body of Christ and 
 His Blood? 
 
 " O. That is my belief. 
 
 " G. Well, then, just as the symbols of the Lord's Body and Blood 
 are one thing before the invocation of the priest, but are changed 
 after the invocation and become something else, so the Lord's Body 
 after His Ascension was changed into the substance that is Divine. 
 
 " O. You are caught in your own net. For the mystic symbols 
 do not abandon their own proper nature, even after consecration. 
 For they remain in the same substance, shape, and form, and are 
 visible and tangible, as they were before. But they are understood 
 to be those things which they have become, and they are believed to 
 be such, and ate reverenced as actually being What they are believed 
 
164 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 to be. Compare, then, the image with the archetype, and you will 
 see the likeness. For the type should be like the verity. For the 
 body hath its former appearance and circumference, and, in a word, 
 the substance of the body. But after the Resurrection it became im- 
 mortal and incorruptible, and has been found worthy of the seat at 
 the Right Hand, and is adored by all creation because it is called the 
 Body of the Lord of creation. 
 
 " G. And yet the mystical symbol changes its former designation ; 
 for It is no longer called by its former name, but is spoken of as 
 ' Body ' ; so then the Truth must be called God and not ' Body.' 
 
 " O. You seem to me to be ignorant. For It is not only called 
 Body, but also Bread of Life. For so the Lord Himself designated 
 It. And we call the Body Divine and life giving, and the Master's 
 and the Lord's ; teaching that It is not a common Body of any man, 
 but of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is God and man. For Jesus Christ 
 is the same yesterday, and to day, and forever." * 
 
 The same passage also condemns the opinion of 
 those who regard the Bread and Wine as mere 
 tokens of something Which is absent. For the 
 same are called Bread and Wine, and at the same 
 time the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 One other passage will here be given, from the 
 book " De Sacramentis," which has been ascribed 
 to St. Ambrose. It is remarkable for its clear state- 
 ment and also for the very clever but most unscrupu- 
 lous manner in which it has been altered to suit 
 modern Roman doctrine. The passage runs thus : 
 " You see, then, how powerful in working is the 
 Word of Christ. If, then, there is such force in the 
 Word of our Lord Jesus Christ (in creation) that 
 those things which had no existence began to exist, 
 how much more powerful is it in commanding that 
 they should remain what they were and yet be 
 changed to something else ?" Ut sint qnce erant, et 
 
 * Theodoreti, Opera, Paris, 1642, Tom. IV., p. 85. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 165 
 
 in aliud commutentur. So was it in a manuscript 
 Roman Breviary of 1473 in the Bodleian Library at 
 Oxford, for the fourth lesson of the Saturday in the 
 Octave of Corpus Christi. So was it in the printed 
 Roman Breviary of 1522, for the first lesson for the 
 Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi. But 
 a change has now passed over the passage in the 
 Roman Breviary. 
 
 With wonderful ingenuity six letters have been 
 omitted, with the result that the passage is made to 
 say precisely what it did not say originally, as seen 
 in the excellent Benedictine edition * and in the 
 earlier editions of the Breviary. The words sint and 
 et are omitted. The result is the passage reads, 
 " How much more powerful the word which com- 
 mands that things which had an existence should be 
 changed into something else," Ut quce era?it in 
 aliud commutentur. The original passage teaches the 
 doctrine held by all early writers and by the Eng- 
 lish Church ; the altered phrase agrees better with 
 the modern views of Rome. The alteration is very 
 instructive. 
 
 " The benefits whereof we are partakers in the 
 Holy Eucharist are the strengthening and refresh- 
 ing our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as 
 our bodies are nourished by the Bread and Wine." 
 As our natural bodies are sustained by partaking of 
 natural food, so are our souls and spirits sustained 
 by spiritual food. It is not enough for us that we 
 have received life natural, we must maintain it by 
 the means provided by our merciful Creator. It is 
 
 * Ambrosii, Opera, Paris, 1690, Tom. II., col. 369 A. 
 
1 66 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 not enough for us to have received spiritual life, we 
 must pray, " Give us this day our daily Bread ;" we 
 must feed our souls on the Bread of Life. The im- 
 portance and necessity of this dependence on our 
 Incarnate Lord is brought home to us by the image 
 of eating and drinking. When we think of it, the 
 daily assimilation of food is so mysterious, that were 
 it not so very common, we should call it a miracle. 
 We take dead matter into us, and at some moment 
 there is a separation, and some part of the dead 
 matter is chosen for life, and is absorbed into the 
 living body, and becomes living tissue. This must 
 depend upon the blessing of the Creator, Who has 
 also said, " Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man 
 and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. For 
 My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink 
 indeed." 
 
 But when the body of a man is not healthy the 
 food he may take does him no good : either he has 
 no appetite and cannot eat or he may have a large 
 appetite but no power to assimilate food, and it is 
 possible that a man may eat much and die of inan- 
 ition. The food he takes may be the same in every 
 particular as is taken by another who is well nour- 
 ished by it, but having no power to draw sustenance 
 from the food, he gains no benefit therefrom. So 
 with the Blessed Sacrament. The same is offered 
 to all, but all do not alike benefit. Some, alas ! have 
 not the subjective power of assimilation, arising from 
 some sickness of soul, some lack of faith, or some 
 presence of unrepented and wilful sin. Others eat 
 and drink to their soul's health and go on from 
 strength to strength. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 1 67 
 
 From some feeling, whether from dread of irrever- 
 ence or otherwise, a practice arose of withdrawing 
 the cup from the laity. But as Gelasius in the fifth 
 century said, " We have learned that certain persons 
 after having received the portion of the Sacred Body 
 abstain from the chalice of the Sacred Blood. Which 
 persons without doubt should either partake of the 
 sacraments in their entirety or be excluded from the 
 entire sacrament, because the division of one and 
 the same mystery cannot take place without great 
 sacrilege. ' ' * What God hath joined together in this 
 sacrament we have no right to put asunder. Rather 
 may we think with some that if man had never fallen 
 there would have been no need (to speak with deep- 
 est humility) of our partaking of the Saviour's Blood ; 
 but the cup is specially connected with " the remis- 
 sion of sins," as St. Matthew records. It would 
 seem, therefore, bitter cruelty to the communicant, 
 as well as sacrilege in the sight of God, to maim the 
 sacrament and deprive the layman of the chalice. 
 It was not done without deep and well-deserved dis- 
 satisfaction, and in England and in many parts of the 
 Continent of Europe an unconsecrated cup was min- 
 istered to the people to content them, if possible^ 
 under the plea of a desire to assist deglutition. 
 
 The consideration of this great sacrament would 
 lead us to consider the grace of Holy Orders con- 
 veyed by the laying on of hands, setting apart a con- 
 secrated ministry to represent the High Priest on 
 earth, and to consecrate the Holy Eucharist in His 
 
 * Preserved in Gratian Decretum, Pars. III. ; De Consecrat. Dis. 
 II., cap. 12, Lugduni, 1606, col. 1918. It is doubtless genuine. 
 See Berardi, Tom. II., p. 392, Madrid, 1783. 
 
1 68 THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 Name. He is Captain or Chief Guide,* His minis- 
 ters under Him are guides or rulers. f He is Chief 
 Shepherd ; ^ they are shepherds under Him. He is 
 the High Priest,§ they are priests under Him. He 
 is Bishop, so are some of them as His ambassadors.! 
 Ordination, then, is not only an outward call or 
 recognition of one set apart or admitted to minis- 
 terial position ; it is a means of conveying grace, and 
 is of a sacramental character. Here as elsewhere in 
 the dealing of God with man the inward grace, is 
 conveyed by outward means. None can claim the 
 right of ministering with the authority of God's 
 minister without some credentials. In the case of a 
 new order of ministers, such as Moses and Aaron, 
 or the Apostles of Christ, their credentials were 
 miraculous gifts, to which they could appeal as evi- 
 dence of their delegation. But it has been the or- 
 dinary working of God's Providence that, after some 
 such intervention, as by a new creation, the grace or 
 power be transmitted in some appointed manner. 
 In the case of the Levitical priesthood it was trans- 
 mitted from father to son by natural generation. In 
 the Christian priesthood it is transmitted from Bishop 
 to Bishop by spiritual succession, the grace being 
 conveyed by laying on of hands. It is therefore dis- 
 tinctly sacramental. 
 
 Nor may we deny this in a certain sense to Holy 
 Matrimony. Archbishop Cranmer said that there is 
 only one sacrament directly recognized in the Bible, 
 and that is Matrimony. St. Paul is speaking of 
 
 * Hebrews 2 : 10, etc. f Hebrews 13 : 7, 20, etc. 
 
 % 1 St. Peter 5:4. § Hebrews 8 : 1. 
 
 || 1 St. Peter 2 : 25 ; 2 Corinthians 5 : 20, etc. 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 169 
 
 Holy Matrimony as the type to us of the union 
 which exists between Christ and His Church and 
 calls it " a great mystery," magnum sacramentum. 
 It certainly is of Divine institution, but antecedent 
 to Christianity dating from the creation. It is of so 
 deeply sacred a character that God (as God alone 
 can be) is the avenger of all offence against this 
 deeply sacred estate. Open recognition and tolera- 
 tion of sins against marriage are tokens of a low 
 standard of Christian life. Where Matrimony is 
 Holy there is doubtless a large supply of grace 
 granted. Indeed,* " how can we find words fully 
 to describe the blessedness of that marriage which 
 the Church cements, the oblation confirms, the bless- 
 ing seals, angels report, God the Father ratifies !" 
 
 One more is " commonly called " a sacrament, 
 and is called Extreme Unction. The tradition for 
 this is very slight. Doubtless all sacerdotal bene- 
 diction is sacramental in character, and our Church 
 has rather introduced the solemn visitation of the 
 sick in lieu of this, which was regarded as an inexact 
 or even corrupt following of the Apostles. 
 
 In conclusion, we must remember that all sacra- 
 ments and sacramentals are, as it were, " extensions 
 of the Incarnation" to us while we are in this pres- 
 ent world, with our spiritual perceptions less keen 
 than they will be hereafter. They are visible means 
 of imparting to the faithful individually the partici- 
 pation of the benefits procured for all in general by 
 the Incarnation. The words of Hooker, f giving the 
 
 * Tertullian, " Ad Uxorem," II. viii. 
 
 f Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book V., ch. lxvii., § 7. 
 
I/O THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 points in which all agree about the Holy Com- 
 munion, are so valuable that they are here cited. 
 "It is on all sides plainly confessed, first that this 
 sacrament [of the Holy Eucharist] is a true and real 
 participation of Christ, Who thereby imparteth Him- 
 self, even His whole entire Person, as a mystical 
 Head unto every soul that receiveth Him, and that 
 every such receiver doth thereby incorporate or 
 unite himself unto Christ as a mystical member of 
 Him, yea of them also whom He acknowledged to 
 be His own ; secondly, that to whom the person of 
 Christ is thus communicated, to them He giveth by 
 the same sacrament His Holy Spirit to sanctify 
 them, as it sanctifieth Him which is their head ; 
 thirdly, that what merit, force, or virtue soever 
 there is in His sacrificed Body and Blood, we freely, 
 fully, and wholly have it in this sacrament ; fourthly, 
 that the effect thereof in us is a real transmutation 
 of our souls and bodies from sin to righteousness, 
 from death and corruption to immortality and life ; 
 fifthly, that because the sacrament being of itself but 
 a corruptible and earthly creature must needs be 
 thought an unlikely instrument to work so admirable 
 effects in man, we are therefore to rest ourselves 
 altogether upon the strength of His glorious power, 
 Who is able and will bring to pass that the bread 
 and the cup which He giveth us shall be truly the 
 thing He promiseth." 
 
 The Incarnation Itself alone brought infinite bless- 
 ing to the creation at large and to mankind in par- 
 ticular. As a result of the Incarnation disease has 
 greatly lost its power and malignity ; for in conse- 
 quence of the "love of God toward man" therein 
 
THE SACRAMENTS. 171 
 
 manifested, hospitals have been founded which have 
 enabled physicians to study disease. The power of 
 the evil one has been marvellously checked ; demoni- 
 acal possession has been minimized if not altogether 
 quelled ; the oracles are dumb. 
 
 Surely, then, we need not wonder that we are 
 called upon to believe that the sacraments extend to 
 our whole nature, bodies as well as souls and spirits, 
 some of the marvellous benefits thus gained. ' ' Who- 
 so eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath 
 eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.''' 
 They are the words of Truth Himself. Therefore, 
 saith the one who distributes, " The Body, the 
 Blood, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting 
 life." Therefore may we say, " My flesh, my living 
 flesh, also shall dwell confidently in hope." 
 
 " O my God, Thou art true ; O my soul, thou art 
 happy." 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 " But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him 
 should receive ; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that 
 Jesus was not yet glorified." — St. John 7 : 39. 
 
 No work or revelation of God is without prepara- 
 tion. It may at the time seem to be sudden to the 
 man who has not prepared himself or allowed him- 
 self to be prepared for it ; but on looking back we 
 can see how gradual has been the preparation. This 
 will be found to be true of each one of us. When 
 we look back on our past lives we must (if we are 
 really striving to love and fear God) see how He 
 has been all along dealing with us. What is true of 
 each one is true of the universe, so far as we know 
 it ; it is true of God's dealings with man. 
 
 Reading in the Old Testament the record of God's 
 dealings with His chosen people Israel, we see how 
 in spite of the stiff-hearted opposition and rebellion 
 of the people they were gradually lifted to a know- 
 ledge of one part of the Truth, the Unity of God. 
 " A truth revealed by God is never a truth out of 
 relation with previous thought. He leads men to 
 feel their moral and intellectual needs before He 
 satisfies either. There was a preparation for He- 
 brew monotheism, as there was a preparation for the 
 doctrine of Christ. There was an intellectual prep- 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 73 
 
 aration for the doctrine of the Trinity, as there was 
 a moral preparation for the doctrine of the Incarna- 
 tion."* 
 
 This is seen in the merciful manner in which we 
 read Almighty God approached His sinning and sin- 
 ful creatures. It is generally by a question, in order 
 to awaken a response in the man himself before any 
 reproof or blame is spoken. To Adam after his sin 
 there came the questions, " Adam, where art thou ? 
 Who told thee that thou wast naked ? Hast thou 
 eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that 
 thou shouldest not eat?" To the wayward and in- 
 dignant prophet there came the question, " Doest 
 thou well to be angry ?" To the disheartened and 
 despondent prophet the still, small voice said, 
 'What doest thou here, Elijah?" And so is it 
 ever. There is ever a preparation, and no work or 
 revelation of God is sudden. Samuel the holy boy 
 had to be prepared by Eli for the revelation that 
 was to be made to him. 
 
 Even after Pentecost continual preparation was 
 required to reconcile the Apostles and first converts 
 to the widening sphere of their labors. It is re- 
 markable to observe how reluctant St. Peter was to 
 recei ve the conception of the admission of the Gentiles 
 to the full privileges of the Gospel covenant. Even 
 then, when he had been convinced by a miraculous 
 vision, and by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on 
 the Gentile centurion and his friends, and the Church 
 at Jerusalem had decided the matter, even then St. 
 Peter failed at Antioch to maintain the truth. 
 
 * Aubrey Moore, in " Lux Mundi," p. 90. 
 
174 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 The great truths about the Incarnation only be- 
 came fully known after much controversy, but out 
 of all opposing error the Truth issued. Must we 
 not expect the same for all truth ? 
 
 If this be the case, we must not be surprised that 
 the doctrine about the Holy Spirit is even yet lack- 
 ing in its full revelation. We profess indeed that 
 we " believe in the Holy Ghost," and this is a special 
 characteristic of our Christian Creed ; but what was 
 felt by St. Augustine fifteen centuries ago is still a 
 truth now, that " the teaching about the Holy Spirit 
 had not been as yet so fully and carefully discussed 
 that we can easily understand His distinguishing 
 property." * At the present moment the one great 
 desideratum in theology is a full treatise on the doc- 
 trine of the Holy Ghost. It is certainly one evi- 
 dence of this that it has been possible to issue twelve 
 " Lectures on the Nicene Creed," without a word 
 about the Holy Ghost except as an obiter dictmn.\ It 
 may be, as St. Basil seems to intimate, that the full 
 revelation of the Holy Spirit is reserved for the 
 future beatitude of the Saints. " Who is so igno- 
 rant (the Saint writes) of the good things prepared 
 by God for those who are worthy of them, as not to 
 know that the crown of the righteous is the grace of 
 the Spirit, which is then given more abundantly and 
 in greater perfection when spiritual glory is distrib- 
 uted to every one in proportion to his good 
 deeds ?" % At present it is certain that from one 
 
 * De fide et symbolo, § 19. 
 
 f " Christianity in Relation to Science and Morals." Lectures on 
 the Nicene Creed by Malcolm MacColl. 
 
 \ St. Basil, " De Sancto Spiritu," §40, Tom. III., 34 B. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 75 
 
 cause or another there is not perfect agreement in 
 the Church about this great doctrine. It may be 
 that, as attacks of heretics and others caused the 
 doctrine of the Incarnation to be settled at large, so 
 now the assaults of intellectual sceptics may cause 
 the Church to formulate, after reverent discussion, 
 the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in a manner accept- 
 able to the whole Church. 
 
 Hitherto the revelation has been made very grad- 
 ually. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit ap- 
 pears rather as an influence or an energy. It was 
 impossible (to speak humanly) that He should be 
 represented as a Person in a dispensation which had 
 to emphasize the Unity of God. In Christian times 
 heretics, who failed to grasp the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, still regarded Him as an influence or oper- 
 ation. The Spirit brooded over the waters at the 
 creation, the Spirit was breathed into Adam when 
 he became a living soul, order and advance toward 
 perfection was by the Spirit ; He taught David to 
 draw the plan of the Temple ; " He. spake by the 
 prophets." Later on, in the books of the silence, 
 we read, " The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world," 
 and again, " is in all things." * 
 
 In the New Testament the revelation is still grad- 
 ual. But in our Blessed Lord's discourses there are 
 words which, as interpreted by the inspired Apostle, 
 throw great light on many passages of Scripture. f 
 " He that believeth on Me as the Scripture hath said, 
 out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." 
 But this (explains the Apostle) He spake of the Spirit 
 
 * Wisdom 1 : 7 ; 12 : 1. f St. John 7 : 38. 
 
176 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 which they that believe on Him should receive. 
 This helps us to understand many sayings of the 
 prophets — " With joy shall ye draw water out of 
 the wells of salvation." " In the wilderness shall 
 waters break out and streams in the desert." " I 
 will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods on 
 the dry ground ; I will pour My Spirit on thy seed, 
 and My blessing upon thine offspring." This, too, 
 will help us to understand the vision of the Holy 
 Waters, the River of Life, of Ezekiel, explained, as it 
 would seem to be, by St. John in the Apocalypse : 
 " He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear 
 as crystal, proceeding out of the Throne of God and 
 of the Lamb." So again, in the prophet Zechariah : 
 " It shall be in that day that living waters shall go 
 out from Jerusalem." * It also enables us to under- 
 stand that when the Lord spoke to the Samaritan 
 woman He spoke of the Holy Spirit. f ' Whoso- 
 ever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
 never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him 
 shall be in him a well of water springing up into 
 everlasting life." Then it was that the Lord used 
 the word "gift," which became attached to the 
 greatest privilege of Christians, the " gift of the 
 Holy Ghost." He said, " If thou knewest the gift 
 of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give Me 
 to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He 
 would have given thee living water." 
 
 Thenceforward the Holy Spirit was spoken of as 
 the gift of God. Thus St. Peter on the day of Pente- 
 
 * Isaiah 12 : 3 ; 35 : 6 ; 44 : 3 ; Ezekiel 47 : 1 sq. ; Revelation 
 22 : 1 ; Zechariah 14 : 8. 
 f St. John 4 : 10, 14. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 77 
 
 cost promised that on Repentance and after Baptism 
 this " gift" should be received, and throughout the 
 Book of the Acts the word translated gift in St. 
 Peter's speech is always of the " gift" of the Holy 
 Ghost. It is used by St. Peter when rebuking 
 Simon Magus, " Because thou thoughtest that the 
 gift of God could be purchased by money." This 
 is it which causes St. Paul to burst out, " Thanks be 
 to God for His unspeakable^//." St. Athanasius, 
 too, says, " The Holy Spirit is emphatically the gift 
 ol God."* St. Hilary of Poitiers also says, "He 
 commanded to baptize in the Name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost — that is, in 
 the confession of the Author, of the Only Begotten, 
 and of the Gift. For there is one God the Father, 
 of whom are all things ; and one Only Begotten, our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things ; and 
 one Spirit, the Gift in all." f Similarly St. Augus- 
 tine, commenting on our Lord's words to the woman 
 of Samaria, says, " The gift of God is the Holy 
 Spirit." Indeed he regards it as the personal char- 
 acteristic of the Holy Spirit to be and to be called 
 " the gift of God." t 
 
 The Lord Jesus also called Him "the Finger of 
 God," and in relation to His Church, " the Promise 
 of the Father." 
 
 He is the Lord — that is, very and true God, equally 
 with the Father and the Son eternal, Almighty, 
 
 * Orat. c. Arianos, II., § 18. Opera Patavii, Tom. i., p. 383 D. 
 
 f " De Trinitate," II. i., Opera Veronse, 1730, Tom. II., col. 26 A. 
 
 \ St. Augustine, in Jo., cap. iv., Tract XV., § 12, Opera, Paris, 
 1690, Tom. III., p. 2, col. 410 G ; De Trin. XV., § 33, Tom. VIII., 
 coi. 990. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 God and Lord. He_is also the lifegiver, of all life 
 that is, natural and spiritual. Hence it is that the 
 psalm which is the psalm of creation, abounding in 
 life (Psalm 104), has been appropriated to Whit- 
 sunday. By His operation the life, which is in the 
 Word, is imparted to the world. He is the Giver of 
 life spiritual ; by His operation the dead matter of 
 the outward and visible signs in the sacraments be- 
 comes instinct with life, for the conveyance and the 
 maintenance of the spiritual life in each faithful 
 Christian. He is a distinct Person. " Seeing the 
 Father is of none, the Son is of the Father, and the 
 Spirit is of both, they are by these their several 
 properties really distinguishable each from other. 
 For the substance of God with this property to be 
 of none doth make the Person of the Father ; the 
 very selfsame substance in number with this prop- 
 erty to be of the Father maketh the Person of the Son ; 
 the same substance having added unto it the prop- 
 erty of proceeding from the other Two maketh the Per- 
 son of the Holy Ghost. So that in every Person 
 there is implied both the substance of God, which is 
 one, and also that property which causeth the same 
 Person really and truly to differ from the other 
 Two." * 
 
 He is called " the Spirit of the Father," and the 
 Lord Jesus said that He " proceedeth from the 
 Father," which statement has been incorporated in all 
 full Christian Creeds. But also He is called " the 
 Spirit of the Son ;" the Lord Jesus said of Him, " I 
 will send Him unto you from the Father," from the 
 
 * Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book V., ch. li., § I. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 79 
 
 immediate Presence of the Father, from beside the 
 Father ; he is also said to be given by the Son.* 
 Therefore we confess with St. Augustine f that " the 
 Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son also," as well as 
 from the Father, as also a few paragraphs previously 
 he wrote ; " The Holy Spirit, according to the 
 Scriptures, is neither of the Father alone, nor of the 
 Son alone, but of both, and so intimates to us a 
 mutual love, wherewith the Father and the Son re- 
 ciprocally love One Another." Therefore is He 
 believed to be the Bond of union between the Father 
 and the Son, whereby (to speak with deepest awe 
 and adoration) they two are mutually revealed One 
 to Other. What a deep mystery is hinted at in the 
 words of the Apostle! "The Spirit searcheth all 
 things, even the depths of God. For what man 
 knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man 
 which is in him ? Even so the things of God know- 
 eth none, but the Spirit of God." % 
 
 The Spirit, therefore, is of both the Father and 
 the Son, but not of both in the same way. There is 
 but one eternal, efficient Principle, One Source, The 
 Father. When, therefore, we acknowledge the 
 truth of the Scriptures, we confess that " the Holy 
 Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son ; neither 
 made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding." 
 The vision of the Apostle St. John revealed to him § 
 " a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, 
 proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the 
 
 * St. Matthew 10 : 20 ; St. John 15 : 26 ; Galatians 4 : 6. 
 f De Trin. XV. xvii., § 29, Opera, Paris, 1694, Tom. VIII., col. 
 9S8. 
 
 % 1 Corinthians 2 : 10. § Revelation 22 : 1. 
 
l8o THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 Lamb ;" this has been thought to represent the pro- 
 cession of the Holy Spirit. But we do not confess 
 that He proceeds from the Son, as from an inde- 
 pendent source or origin, but we believe that He 
 proceeds from the Father through the Son. 
 
 The sensitive character of the Greek language en- 
 ables it to represent accuracy of doctrine better than 
 others, and this probably is at the root of the seem- 
 ing divergence of creed between Eastern and West- 
 ern Christendom in this matter. When it shall please 
 God that in this " the envy of Ephraim shall depart, 
 and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off, 
 Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not 
 vex Ephraim ;" when the spirit of antagonistic irri- 
 tation shall have been allayed, then, as we may hope, 
 we shall come to an agreement on the truth and the 
 proper mode of expressing the Truth. There is no 
 occasion in this place and before this audience to 
 dwell longer on the divergence, the unhappy diver- 
 gence, of expression between the Eastern and West- 
 ern Branches of the Catholic and Orthodox Church ; 
 reference need only be made to the monograph of 
 one of your own professors on the subject.* 
 
 Still there is much to be revealed about the glori- 
 ous Third Person of the Ever Blessed Trinity. There 
 are hints and images in Scripture which evidently 
 have reference to Him, which are still without ex- 
 planation. We read in the vision of the Apocalypse 
 of " the Lamb, having seven horns and seven eyes, 
 which are the seven spirits of God," and the passage 
 seems to remind us of hints in the prophets of old, in 
 
 * " The Nicene Creed and the Filioque," by Rev. T. Richey, D.D. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 8 1 
 
 Isaiah, and Zechariah, and, perchance, Ezekiel. 
 Zechariah speaks of seven eyes upon One Stone — the 
 Headstone, or the Corner-Stone, which are the eyes 
 of the Lord.* Isaiah speaks of the seven Spirits 
 which should rest upon the Branch, f and the order 
 in which they are mentioned is in itself a mystery. 
 It seems to imply that the seven Spirits, or, as some 
 have said, gifts of the Spirit, form a glorious circle 
 of perfection, so that wherever a commencement is 
 made, the return will bring you to the same. And 
 wherever you begin, or wherever you leave off, if 
 you complete the circle you must begin where you 
 leave off, and leave off where you begin. Thus St. 
 Hilary and St. Ambrose show how the prophet 
 Isaiah enumerates the gifts in the natural order of 
 their advance, beginning from Wisdom and advanc- 
 ing to the Fear of the Lord. While St. Gregory the 
 Great, seeing that Holy Scripture speaks of the Fear 
 of the Lord as the beginning of Wisdom, beautifully 
 likens the seven gifts to the seven steps which led 
 up to the Temple in the vision of Ezekiel. As you 
 regard the seven steps you would be inclined to 
 number them down from the top, but the bottom 
 step would be the one first trodden upon to raise the 
 man to the higher level. So, saith the Saint, the 
 prophet Isaiah names the seven gifts from the top- 
 most downward, while man, to ascend up, must com- 
 mence from the last-mentioned, but the first to be 
 attained, which is the Fear of the Lord.;): 
 
 There is much to make us feel that the full teach- 
 
 * Zechariah 3 : 9 ; 4 : 7, 10. f Isaiah 11:2. 
 
 % St. Gregorii, Opera, Paris, 1705, Tom. i., col. 13S0. 
 
182 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 ing about the Holy Spirit is still to be revealed. 
 The number seven, which clusters about these inti- 
 mations of His operation, would seem to teach the 
 perfection of His work ; for in Scripture seven de- 
 notes completion and perfection.* 
 
 But there is seen to be a special relation of the 
 Holy Spirit toward the Lord Jesus Christ. St. 
 Paul f and St. Peter % both call Him " The Spirit of 
 Christ;" St. Paul § calls Him also ''the Spirit of 
 the Son," while St. Luke, in the Book of the ActsJ 
 calls him (as the true reading is) " the Spirit of 
 Jesus." We can understand, therefore, the state- 
 ment of St. Basil, " So, then, you observe there are 
 three, the Lord Who commands, the Word Who 
 creates, the Spirit Who establishes." As he had 
 said just before, in speaking of the Creation of the 
 angels, " By the will of the Father ministering spirits 
 subsist, by the operation of the Son they are brought 
 into being, and by the Presence of the Spirit they 
 are perfected." 1" The work of establishing and 
 perfecting that, which the Son has created, is the 
 special work of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Thus, at the creation, we read that when the 
 creature had being granted and given by the Son, 
 then " the Spirit of God brooded over the face of 
 the waters," to bring the work to perfection- There 
 is also a similar relation to be seen between Revela- 
 tion and Inspiration ; Revelation is the work of the 
 Word, as was seen in the first lecture ; Inspiration 
 is by the Holy Spirit. Revelations may be for a 
 
 * See Appendix G. G. f Romans 8 : q. 
 
 % I St. Peter i : n. § Galatians 4 : 6. 
 
 I Acts 16 : 7. 1 " De Sancto Spiritu," § 38. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 83 
 
 local, personal, or temporal purpose, whereas In- 
 spiration is for all time. Inspiration enables the sub- 
 ject of it to choose out of the Revelations, or, as in 
 the Old Testament, to choose out of the history of 
 God's dealings with His people, such events as have, 
 whether as types or otherwise, an interest and value 
 for the Gospel times, and so for all time. In this, 
 too, is seen the special relation of the Holy Spirit to 
 God the Word.* 
 
 Similarly, we find that in the New Creation, the 
 work of the Holy Spirit is to carry on to perfection 
 that which the Creator Word has called into exist- 
 ence, to perfect the work which the Son has in- 
 itiated. This is true in the Church at large and in 
 each individual member of the Church. Hence it is 
 that by His operation we know God, and become 
 more and more like Him. As St. Basil says,f " In 
 the illumination of the Spirit we see the ' true Light, 
 which lighteth every man coming into the world.' 
 So that in Himself He shows the glory of the Onlv 
 Begotten, and to true worshippers He supplies of His 
 own means, in Himself, the knowledge of God. So 
 the way of the knowledge of God is from one Spirit 
 through the one Son, to the One Father. And, again, 
 the natural goodness, and the natural sanctification, 
 and the Royal rank originating from the Father extend 
 through the Only Begotten to the Spirit. Thus the 
 Persons are confessed, and at the same time the godly 
 doctrine of the Monarchia does not fall through." 
 
 The same. St. Basil says again \% " As for the dis- 
 
 * See " The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, its Nature and Proof," 
 by Archdeacon Lee, D.D., of Dublin, 4th ed., Dublin, 1865. 
 
 fZ/-, §47- %ld. % § 39- 
 
1 84 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 pensations relating to man, wrought by our great 
 God and Saviour Jesus Christ, according to the 
 goodness of God, who will gainsay that they are 
 fulfilled through the grace of the Spirit ? Whether 
 you will regard the things of old, the blessings of 
 the patriarchs, the help that was given by the Law, 
 the types, the prophecies, the heroism in war, the 
 miracles wrought by the righteous, or the events of 
 the dispensation concerning the appearing of the 
 Lord in the flesh, all was by means of the Spirit." 
 
 At the creation of man, when the body of the man 
 had been prepared, then the Holy Spirit was breathed 
 into Adam, and he became a living soul. But when 
 Adam sinned, this glorious Presence, which clothed 
 his soul like the robe of the King's Son, was stripped 
 off him. " A certain man went down from Jerusa- 
 lem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped 
 him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, 
 leaving him half dead." This has been thought by 
 many to represent, in parable, the fall of Adam. 
 The glorious robe of the Presence was stripped off, 
 leaving a sense of nakedness, and his spoilers left 
 him for a while really half dead — dead in soul and 
 dying in body. In the curious apocryphal legend 
 called the Revelation of Moses, Eve is represented 
 as speaking of her fall and saying : " In that very 
 hour mine eyes were opened, and I knew that I was 
 naked of the righteousness with which I had been 
 clothed." This will explain the intensity of poig- 
 nant grief always attached in Holy Scripture to the 
 shame of being naked ; it is the anguish, inexpressi- 
 bly keen anguish, of the loss of God's Presence. 
 
 In the first creation the Creator Word " formed 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. l8$ 
 
 Adam and then breathed into his nostrils the Breath 
 of Life. For the Holy Spirit cannot be received un- 
 less he who receives have first of all an existence." * 
 
 Similarly, as by analogy, we should expect, God 
 the Word prepared the world of men for the re- 
 newed communication of the Spirit of life ; that (as 
 the fathers with one voice affirm) what man lost in 
 Adam, he receives in Christ the last Adam, the sec- 
 ond man. 
 
 The text teaches us this : " The Holy Ghost was 
 not yet given, because that Jesus was not glorified." 
 This great Gift was not given before the Death, 
 Resurrection, and Ascension of the Son of God. 
 For the world of men had to be prepared for this 
 great Gift, as the body of Adam had been prepared. 
 The mission of God the Son to the world was to a 
 world of men alienated from God by sin. " God 
 was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 
 This reconciliation commenced at the moment of the 
 Incarnation, progressed in the sinless life of the 
 Saviour, was inaugurated in the Crucifixion, con- 
 summated in the Resurrection, manifested in the 
 Ascension. " To-day (said St. Chrysostom, preach- 
 ing on Ascension Day) reconciliation with God was 
 completed for the race of men ; to-day the long-con- 
 tinued enmity was abolished ; the long war was 
 ended. To-day a wonderful peace returned never 
 before expected." 
 
 St. John in the text speaks of the whole action of 
 the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension as "the 
 glorifying" of Jesus. It completed the work of rec- 
 
 * St. Cyprian, Ep. Ixxiv. 
 
1 86 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 onciliation, so far as the Lord was the doer of it. 
 His mission was to an alienated world of men to 
 reconcile them to God. Thereupon followed the 
 mission of the Holy Spirit. His mission was to a 
 reconciled world — a world prepared for His Advent 
 by " the glorifying" of God the Word. Hitherto 
 He had been working, but it was from without (so 
 to speak) — in the exterior ; He had been a guide, a 
 support from without.* But his relation to man 
 was now to be changed. " He is with you (said the 
 Lord), and shall bef in you." The parable of the 
 Prodigal Son speaks of the Restoration of the Robe 
 which had been lost ; " bring forth the first Robe and 
 put it on him." And the still later parable, spoken 
 on the last day of the Lord's ministry, teaches us 
 the awful doom of the one who, having had the 
 opportunity of being clothed upon, is found naked. X 
 What was lost in Adam is restored in Christ in mani- 
 fold abundance, but it may be lost again, therefore, 
 " Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his gar- 
 ments lest he walk naked." § 
 
 When, therefore, the Lord was glorified, when 
 the entrance of a Man into the innermost Presence 
 of God in Heaven proved manifestly that the recon- 
 ciliation between God and man was complete ; then, 
 and not till then, the Gift, the unspeakable Gift, the 
 Gift of the Holy Ghost, was given to the Church, 
 and to the individual members of the Church. This 
 was signified seemingly by the appearance like as of 
 
 * See Appendix HH. 
 
 f St. John 14 : 17. The future is adhered to as the reading of many 
 first-class mss. and versions, and of the Greek Fathers. 
 
 t Revelation 16 : 15. § St. Matt. 22 : 11. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 187 
 
 fire. For, as St. Chrysostom says, the word trans- 
 lated " cloven" means rather divided from one com- 
 mon root ; as if there were at first one common mass 
 from which spikelets, or tongues, were separated to 
 each head. This would typify at once the indwell- 
 ing of the Holy Spirit in the Church, as one Body, 
 and also in each individual member of the Church. 
 
 But when we say that the Holy Spirit was not 
 thus previously given, we must remember that we 
 speak of a quite new relation set up as at this time ; 
 it is not that His operations had not been before as 
 widely extended, but they were of a different char- 
 acter. 
 
 His work, we have said, is to carry on to com- 
 pletion what the Word has inaugurated. At the 
 same time He is intimately connected with the Hu- 
 manity of God the Son, and extends the benefits 
 thereof to mankind. By His operation the Incarna- 
 tion took place. The Word was conceived by the 
 Holy Ghost. Before the commencement of His 
 Ministry, the Lord Jesus was visibly anointed by the 
 descent upon Him of the Holy Spirit ; it was 
 through the Eternal Spirit that He offered Himself 
 without spot to God. All this Avas for our sakes. 
 He that brought about the Incarnation is He that 
 extends the Incarnation to us through the Sacra- 
 ments. St. Athanasius * is bold to say (and other 
 fathers say much the same) : " The descent of the 
 Holy Spirit (after His Baptism) did not convey any 
 sort of advantage to the Word, but it was for our 
 sanctification, that we might be partakers of His 
 
 * Opera, Patavii, 1777, Tom. i., 356 ; Orat. I. c. Arianos, §47. 
 
188 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 unction." ' When He received the Spirit, we 
 became from Him capable of receiving the Spirit." 
 So, again, if it be " by the Eternal Spirit that Christ 
 offered Himself without spot to God," it is by the 
 operation of the same Spirit that there is produced 
 in man a hatred of sin, as God in that sacrifice is 
 seen to hate sin. Thus throughout in the New Cre- 
 ation the Holy Spirit carries on to perfection the 
 work of the Word. 
 
 First, in the Church at large : He is the Author of 
 the Hypostatic Union between the two natures of our 
 Blessed Lord ; He is the Author of the Mystical Union 
 between Christ and the Church ; He is the Author 
 of the Sacramental Union of the members of the Mys- 
 tical Body with their Head and with each other. 
 " All have been made to drink into one Spirit." 
 
 Here, once more, is there a direct Divine interven- 
 tion in the course of human events, though it is but 
 the result of the intervention in the mystery of the 
 Incarnation. The intervention in the Incarnation 
 was secret and known only to a few [as we now are 
 beginning to celebrate],* but the Christian Church 
 was organized publicly in Jerusalem (which is the 
 mother of us all) by a definite intervention publicly 
 recognized at the time by representatives " of every 
 nation under heaven." Thus runs the record, 
 ' There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout 
 men, from every nation under heaven. Now when 
 this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, 
 and were confounded, because that every man heard 
 them speak in his own language." The result of 
 what they saw and heard, and of the sermon preached 
 
 * This lecture was delivered on March 24th. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 189 
 
 by St. Peter was that "the same day were added 
 unto [the little flock of one hundred and twenty] 
 about three thousand souls. And the Lord was con- 
 tinually adding, day by day, to the Church those 
 who were in a state of salvation." * 
 
 Thus was there formed an elect body, the King- 
 dom of God, the Church, which should go on and 
 prosper and gather in the world. Of old, for the 
 sake of the world, there was an elect body, the family 
 of Jacob, the children of Israel, to keep alive the 
 knowledge of God and to be the means of His Reve- 
 lation to the world. Within this elect body there 
 was another body who were to be a special protest 
 against worldly and carnal aims and desires. The 
 whole tribe of Levi were chosen in lieu of the first- 
 born to draw near unto God and to minister to Him. 
 Among these, again, there was one chosen family of 
 priests. The one great blessing granted to the 
 privileged tribe of Levi was, that f they "had no 
 part nor inheritance with his brethren ; the Lord is 
 his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God 
 promised him." This, then, was the continual cry 
 of a Levite, "Thou art my portion, O Lord.";); 
 " The Lord is my portion, saith my soul," was the 
 deep consolation of the priest prophet, § when his 
 nation was captive and his land laid desolate. When 
 the Levite psalmist [ was in poverty and sickness, 
 and his faith was for a while disturbed, because God 
 had not given him health and wealth, then his eyes 
 
 * Acts 2:56, 41, 47. 
 
 f Deuteionomy 10 : 9 ; 12 : 12 ; 14 : 27, 29, etc. 
 
 % Psalm 119 : 57. § Lamentations 3 : 24. 
 
 I Psalms 73 : 2, 17, 26. 
 
190 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 were opened to his real position when " he went into 
 the Sanctuary of God," and he felt he could say 
 what none but one of his tribe could, " My flesh and 
 my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, 
 and my portion forever ;" he had that which none 
 could take from him. 
 
 As, then, the Levites were to be a consecrating 
 nucleus of the Jewish Church, and as the Jewish 
 Church was to be a separate or elect body for the 
 sake of the Gentile world, so now the Christian 
 Church was to be the consecrating medium of the 
 whole world. As said the Lord, " The Kingdom 
 of Heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took 
 and hid in three measures of meal until the whole 
 was leavened." * 
 
 This, then, is the last Divine intervention, the last 
 dispensation in this world, preparing for the final 
 Revelation, the eighth day of eternity. Hence the 
 Gospel times in which we live are spoken of in 
 Scripture as " the last times," or the " latter da}'s. " 
 Therefore the beautiful Christian poet f calls Chris- 
 tians " the people of the evening," the evening of 
 the world ; therefore Tertullian spoke of the Gospel 
 times as the setting age, or the age of sunset, the 
 evening of the world. This is the reason why the 
 Church has ever sung the Magnificat and the Nunc 
 Dimittis at even-song, in memory of the light of the 
 Gospel illumining the evening of the world, in prep- 
 aration for the morning of eternity. 
 
 Of these times the prophets had said : " Also upon 
 
 * St. Matthew 13 : 33. 
 
 f Prudentius-Psychomachia, 376, ed. Arevali, Tom. ii., p. 621. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 191 
 
 the servants and upon the handmaids in those days 
 will I pour out My Spirit," * words that St. Peter 
 claimed as referring to the great outpouring at Pente- 
 cost at the Birth of the Church. All Christians, 
 then, now have " the promise of the Father" in far 
 fuller abundance, and in more intimate relation than 
 the priests and Levites of old, who could claim the 
 Lord their God for their inheritance. 
 
 Not only is the Holy Spirit the author of, and 
 means whereby, the corporate unity is maintained, 
 but He is the Life of the Church, whereby She grows, 
 grows with the increase of God ; " grows in wis- 
 dom and stature and in favor with God and man." 
 
 " Grows in wisdom." " He shall take of mine 
 and shall show it unto you," said the Lord. " He 
 will guide you into all truth. He shall glorify Me." 
 Gradually does He reveal the full majesty of the 
 Son, guiding into all the Truth those who follow 
 His leading ; and guiding, not without effort on Her 
 part, the Church, " into the Truth in all its parts." f 
 Hence He guides the councils of the Church into the 
 declaration of the Truth. " It seemed good to the 
 Holy Ghost and to us," X sa id the first Apostolic 
 Council. The Church is a living Body, and there 
 must be advance and growth. St. Vincent of Lerins 
 likens the growth of doctrine to a living body. 
 There must be advancement, he says,§ " But yet in 
 such sort that it may be truly an increase in faith, 
 and not a change. ... In this let the religion of 
 our souls imitate the nature of our bodies, which, 
 
 * Joel 2 : 29. f Westcott, in loc. % Acts 15 : 28. 
 
 § Commonitorium, cap. 23. 
 
I92 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 although with process of time they develop and un- 
 fold their proportions, yet remain the same that they 
 were. . . . Christian doctrine must follow these 
 laws of growth, to wit, that with years it wax more 
 sound, with time it become more ample, with con- 
 tinuance it be more exalted, yet that it remain incor- 
 rupt and entire, and continue full and perfect in the 
 proportion of each of its parts, and, as it were, with 
 all its members and proper senses." He alone Who 
 of old spake by the prophets, and in these last times 
 inspired the Apostle and Evangelists, can lead the 
 Church and the various members of the Church into 
 a full understanding of Holy Scripture. Year by 
 year, more and more, do the beauties and teaching 
 unfold themselves ; constantly should we pray with 
 the Church in the Canticles, " Come, Thou South 
 Wind, and blow upon my garden, that the spices 
 thereof may flow out." * 
 
 Again, the Living Church must grow in stature. 
 She must be aggressive, seeking to bring all within 
 the fold ; with utmost charity seeking to win, but at 
 the same time Avhen necessary " mighty through 
 God to the pulling down of strongholds ;" because 
 she has " the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word 
 of God." Still the loving persuasion of invitation 
 must be, " Let him that thirsteth come ; and who- 
 soever will, let him take the water of life freely." f 
 
 The Holy Spirit also makes the Church, the Bride, 
 more and more pleasing in God's sight. By the 
 operation and indwelling of the Jloly Spirit does the 
 Son " sanctify and cleanse the Church with the wash- 
 
 * Canticles 4:16. f Revelation 22 : 17. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 193 
 
 ing of water by the Word, that He might present it 
 to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or 
 wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy 
 and without blemish." * He is the " Spirit of Holi- 
 ness," therefore His indwelling is the first reason 
 why one of the titles of the Church is Holy. Even 
 in the darkest times there is a remnant, as there ever 
 has been. The Holy Spirit, indeed, in Scripture, 
 warns us that there will be great falling away. We 
 have no sure warranty that the candlestick will not 
 be removed from any particular Church. If, then, the 
 Spirit is grieved and quenched, that particular 
 Branch will dwindle and die. If the sap flows not 
 into it from its abiding in the True Vine, " it is cast 
 forth as a branch, and is withered ; and they gather 
 them, and cast them into the fire, and they are 
 burned, "f But this does not mar the life of the 
 Church, though it cripples her extension. We must 
 remember, in our conceit, that God sees not as man 
 sees. Elijah said, " I, even I only, remain ;" and 
 Cardinal Newman could say, " I look into this liv- 
 ing, busy world and see no reflection of its Crea- 
 tor ;" but God saw seven thousand where Elijah 
 saw none, and the fault may be in our own 
 eyes. 
 
 Here, then, we must say one word about such 
 bodies as have separated themselves from the Com- 
 munion of the Church. The individual members, 
 if they have been baptized, are so far forth members 
 of the Church. When they seek admission into the 
 Communion of the Church they are not rebaptized. 
 
 * Ephesians 5 : 26, 27. f St. John 15 : 6. 
 
 13 
 
194 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 As St. Vincent of Lerins* says, such a practice is 
 " against the Divine Scripture, against the rule of 
 the Universal Church, against the mind of all the 
 Priests of the time, against the custom and tradition 
 of the fathers." But it is also the universal teach- 
 ing that the Holy Spirit is not " given" outside the 
 Church as an indwelling Power, f There is no prom- 
 ised indwelling of the Spirit. The Shechinah is 
 confined to the One Temple. But He " bloweth 
 where He listeth," and we have no right to limit 
 His gracious influences. We admire and are thank- 
 ful for the good which God is pleased to do by their 
 means, but we cannot acquiesce in their separation, 
 we must do all in our power to entice them back to 
 the one flock under the one Shepherd, " endeavor- 
 ing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of 
 peace. For there is One Body and One Spirit, even 
 as we are called in One hope of one calling, One 
 Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father 
 of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in us 
 ■all."* 
 
 \ But the gracious indwelling in the Church is ex- 
 tended to all the faithful members of the Church. 
 The central mass, like as of fire, was cloven, divided 
 out, so as to sit on the head of each individual mem- 
 ber. The golden pipes, whereby the oil of grace is 
 derived to each member, are the means of grace ap- 
 pointed by Christ and employed by the Holy Ghost. 
 In this, too, as elsewhere, the Holy Ghost carries 
 forward to perfection the work which Christ com- 
 
 * Commonitorium, cap. 6. f See Appendix II. 
 
 \ Ephesians 4 : 3-5. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 95 
 
 menced. Each means of grace, each sacrament, de- 
 rives its efficacy from the assured operation of the 
 Holy Ghost. Each means of grace is a golden pipe 
 whereby the grace, stored in the Incarnate Saviour 
 as in a Reservoir, is conveyed to the members of 
 His Body. 
 
 In the initiating Sacrament of Baptism it is " by 
 one Spirit (that) we are baptized into one bod) 7 ;" * 
 it is "the washing of Regeneration and renewing of 
 the Holy Ghost." f This is now accepted as the 
 interpretation of the Lord's words to Nicodemus : 
 M Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, 
 he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. " Hooker 
 truly said : " Of all the ancient there is not one to 
 be named that ever did otherwise either expound or 
 allege the place, than as implying external Bap- 
 tism." J It is true that St. Cyprian and others held 
 it to include Confirmation, which they regarded as 
 a Baptism of the Spirit ; but this did not exclude 
 external Baptism with water. 
 
 The Holy Ghost prepared the Body natural of 
 Christ at the Incarnation ; it is He who cleanses us 
 from the taint received at our natural birth and then 
 incorporates us into the immaculate Body of Christ. 
 These are the " two ends proposed in Baptism," § 
 a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness, 
 ' This, then, is to be born again of water and the 
 Spirit, for death is effected in the water, but our Life 
 is wrought through the Spirit." Therefore, in the 
 piayer in the Baptismal service, we pray that the 
 
 * 1 Corinthians 12 : 13. f Titus 3 : 5. 
 
 % Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book V., chap, lix., § 3. 
 § St. Basil, loc. cit. Appendix BB. 
 
I96 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 Holy Spirit may be given to the Catechumen in order 
 that he may be born again.* So Tertullian, beauti- 
 fully referring to the first chapter of Genesis, says : 
 " Water was the first to produce that which had 
 life, that it might be no wonder in Baptism if waters 
 know how to give life . . . the Spirit of God who 
 hovered over the waters in the beginning would 
 continue to linger over the waters of the baptized." 
 
 But, as has been said, the Holy Spirit continually 
 carries on to perfection the work commenced by 
 God the Son. In the Church at large this is seen in 
 comparing the four records of the Gospel with the 
 Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and these histories 
 again with the Epistles following. 
 
 It is noteworthy that the three earlier Evangelists 
 record but little of the doctrine about the work of 
 the Holy Spirit, though there is emphatic reference 
 to Him in each of the three records. St. Matthew 
 gives the Baptismal formula in the Commission to 
 the Apostles at the end of the great forty days. 
 This is the essence of all creeds, as St. Basil inti- 
 mates. "As we believe on the Father, and the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost, so also are we baptized into 
 the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost. The confession goes before leading to 
 salvation, while baptism follows after setting the seal 
 on our assent. ." f 
 
 St. Mark records in direct terms the indwelling of 
 the Holy Spirit in the disciples. " Take no thought 
 beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye pre- 
 meditate, but whatsoever shall be given } 7 ou in that 
 
 * See Appendix KK. f 4i De Sancto Spiritu," cap. 12, ad Jin. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. I97 
 
 hour, that speak ye ; for it is not ye that speak, but 
 the Holy Ghost." * 
 
 St. Luke f has the warning against the blasphemy 
 against the Holy Ghost, " unto him that blasphem- 
 eth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven." 
 
 It is mainly in the record by St. John, written 
 toward the end of his life, when Christianity had 
 been preached for more than sixty years, that we 
 read of the teaching about the Holy Spirit in our 
 Lord's discourse at the mysterious Last Supper. J 
 " The Comforter, Which is the Holy Ghost, Whom 
 the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach 
 you all things, and bring all things to your remem- 
 brance, whatsoever I have said unto you." " Him 
 I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit 
 of Truth, Which proceedeth from the Father, He 
 shall testify of Me." " He will guide you into all 
 Truth. He shall glorify Me ; for He shall take of 
 Mine, and shall show it unto you." 
 
 The Book of the Acts is a record of how these say- 
 ings of the Lord have been fulfilled. So much so 
 that Professor Westcott has well said : § " The Book 
 of the Acts is the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, the 
 typical record of His action. There we see how, at 
 each stage of the building of the Church, the per- 
 sonal direction of the Spirit rules the conduct of its 
 earthly founders. The voice of the Spirit showed 
 to St. Philip, to St. Peter, to St. Paul, the widening 
 limits of their teaching, and in some cases the very 
 details of their fortunes." In similar fashion has 
 
 * St. Mark 13 : 11. f St. Luke 12 : 10. 
 
 % St. John 14 : 16, 17, 23-26 ; 15 : 26 ; 16 : 7-14. 
 § " Historic Faith," p. 106. 
 
I98 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 Bishop Harvey Goodwin written : * "If the Gospels 
 can be rightly described as the history of the min- 
 istry of the Son, the Acts of the Apostles may be 
 suitably described as the history of the ministry of 
 the Holy Ghost/' 
 
 In the Epistles we seem to be breathing the very 
 Breath of the Spirit. Each Apostle takes for granted 
 that his hearers have the Spirit and are in the Spirit, 
 and claim this for themselves. 
 
 Then, for the individual, it is taken for granted 
 that none is perfect in his Christian privileges until 
 he has received the Holy Spirit by the laying on of 
 hands. This is seen clearly in the case of the Samar- 
 itans, who had been baptized by a Deacon ; " they 
 were only in the position of persons who had been 
 baptized ;" therefore St. Peter and St. John went 
 down to confirm them. It is evident that, as St. 
 Paul went about and found "disciples," who pro- 
 fessed to have been baptized, he made it his custom 
 to ask, as he did at Ephesus, " Have ye received the 
 Holy Ghost since ye believed ?" 
 
 The reception of the Holy Spirit was typified by 
 the use of holy oil. When St. John spoke of this 
 and said : " Ye have an Unction from the Holy 
 One," he probably spoke in simile. But the use of 
 oil in Confirmation commenced very early. Tertul- 
 lian speaks of it at the end of the second century. 
 Theophilus of Antioch (a.d. 180) likens Confirmation 
 to the finishing porcelain with glaze, or burnishing 
 metal. " What work (he says) has either ornament 
 or beauty unless it be anointed and burnished. The 
 
 * " Foundations of the Creed," p. 249. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 99 
 
 air and all that is under heaven is in a certain sort 
 anointed by light and spirit, and are you unwilling 
 to be anointed with the oil of God ? We are called 
 Christians on this account, because we are anointed 
 with the oil of God." * So, too, in the fifth century, 
 St. Cyril of Alexandria writes : " The use of oil 
 finishing to perfection has been before laid upon 
 those who are justified in Christ by Holy Baptism." 
 
 This, then, may perhaps lead us to see a reason 
 for the name given to Confirmation in Dionysius of 
 Areopagus. He calls the rite " the perfecting unc- 
 tion," and says : " The perfecting unction of holy oil 
 makes him that has been initiated (baptized) well- 
 pleasing ; for the sacred perfection of the divine 
 regeneration unites things that were initiated to the 
 Supreme Spirit." As the very word " perfecting" 
 is ascribed to the Holy Spirit by St. Basil, it may 
 have the meaning here that the rite of unction is the 
 communication of the Perfecting Spirit, and not 
 merely that it is the perfecting of that which was 
 commenced in Baptism. 
 
 In respect of the laying on of hands, commonly 
 called Confirmation, we have no need to ask how 
 the Holy Spirit is connected with this rite. The 
 careful student of Scripture will at once recognize 
 the truth of what the present Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury has well said : " No thread of language and 
 history is more distinct than that which connects 
 Christ's promise of the coming of the Paraclete to 
 be an Indwelling Power in all His chosen ones, 
 with the institute of the Laying on of Hands by the 
 
 * Ad Autolycum, I., xii. 
 
200 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 Apostles. On the Twelve He came with a visible 
 Epiphany, as every analogy would expect. On 
 Christians at large He came in this plainest sim- 
 plicity. ' I will send Him unto you. They laid 
 their hands on them. He fell on them.' And ever 
 after, in the letters of the Apostles, such is the fre- 
 quency of verbal and phraseological allusion to the 
 custom, that, as a scholar once remarked to me, 
 1 Confirmation seems more present to the earliest 
 Christian habits of thought than Baptism itself.' " * 
 Confirmation has always been traced back to the 
 time when Philip the Deacon had baptized the 
 Samaritans, and St. Peter and St. John, the two 
 chiefest Apostles, were sent down from Jerusalem 
 to confirm them and convey the Gift of the Spirit. 
 It is quite true that often in Apostolic times the ex- 
 traordinary graces were conveyed as well as the 
 ordinary, f but this does not seem to have been 
 always the case even in those days. For St. Paul 
 asked certain who were regarded as disciples %l if 
 they had received the Holy Ghost since they be- 
 lieved." Had there been at all times a bestowal of 
 extraordinary graces, the question need not have 
 been asked ; the Presence would have been mani- 
 fested, and the lack of manifestation would have 
 testified to lack of the Gift. Confirmation, then, is 
 the one especial rite whereby the Gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, the promise of the Father, the indwelling of 
 the Holy Ghost, is communicated to the Baptized 
 Christian.;); Ordinarily, the reconciliation between 
 
 * " The Seven Gifts," p. 87. See Appendix MM. 
 
 f See Appendix LL. % See Appendix MM. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 201 
 
 the individual and Almighty God is granted in Bap- 
 tism, in and by that sacrament union with Christ is 
 effected before the communication of the Gift of the 
 Holy Ghost. In one instance was it otherwise, but 
 for this there was a special reason. To prove that 
 it was God's will that the Gentiles should be ad- 
 mitted into the Church, the Gift was bestowed on 
 the centurion Cornelius and his friends before Bap- 
 tism. But ordinarily, just as the Holy Ghost was 
 not given before that Jesus was glorified in the rec- 
 onciliation of man with God, so also the Gift is not 
 given to any particular man before he is prepared 
 for it by Baptism. 
 
 Next in the Holy Eucharist it is the Holy Ghost 
 that causes the dead elements to be instinct with 
 life and life-giving properties, conveying to the faith- 
 ful Christian the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus. 
 In the Eastern Church this is felt so strongly that, 
 in the Consecration prayer, there is always a distinct 
 invocation of the Holy Spirit, or prayer for His de- 
 scent upon the elements of Bread and Wine, to make 
 them the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus.* You, 
 here, are happy in having such an Invocation, though 
 brief, in your book ; there is no need here to excuse 
 its absence. In the earliest English Prayer-Book 
 there was a special Invocation which is now omitted. 
 But there is no trace of any such in the ancient litur- 
 gies of Italy, whether of Milan or Rome, and no 
 fault was charged against them in early times. But 
 whether this Invocation be present or not, all are 
 agreed that it is by the operation of the Holy Ghost 
 
 * See Appendix NN. 
 
202 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 that the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is com- 
 plete. 
 
 Here, again, then, just as it was by the operation 
 of the Holy Spirit that the Incarnation took place, 
 so by the operation of the same Spirit the Incarna- 
 tion is continually extended to the individual menu 
 bers of the Church, by means of the Sacrament of 
 the Lord's Body and Blood, whereby their union 
 with Christ is maintained and His Likeness in them 
 developed. 
 
 The like must be acknowledged of all the means 
 of grace whereby the life of the Church is maintained, 
 and the Church grows, " and the hills are covered 
 with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof are 
 like the goodly cedar-trees, whereby she stretches 
 out her branches unto the sea (of the world) and her 
 boughs unto the river (of the water of Life)." 
 Whereby also each individual member gradually 
 ceases to be a " babe in Christ," and increases and 
 grows up " unto a perfect man, unto the measure of 
 the stature of the fulness of Christ." Whereby the 
 individual life gradually extends itself into the cor- 
 porate life of the whole Body of the Church, so that 
 we, " speaking the Truth in love, may grow up into 
 Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ, 
 from Whom the whole Body fitly joined together 
 and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, 
 according to the effectual working in the measure of 
 every part, maketh increase of the Body unto the 
 edifying of itself in love." * 
 
 Therefore, when the ministers and stewards of 
 
 * Ephesians 4 : 12, 16. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 203 
 
 Christ's mysteries are ordained, consecrated, and 
 set apart for their work, we say, " Receive the Holy 
 Ghost for the office and work of a Priest or a Bishop 
 in the Church of God." Some, indeed, have raised 
 a superficial objection to the form of words, but at 
 the same time suggested a prayer,* " Pour down, 
 O Father of Lights, the Holy Ghost on this Thy ser- 
 vant," which is only a variation of form and not of 
 substance. It is true that in your Ordinal, brethren, 
 an alternative form is given in the ordination of a 
 Priest, but not of a Bishop, so that there can be no 
 valid objection to the form of words. For if the 
 form be wrong, it cannot be right to use it once. 
 
 In every branch and part of the Christian life the 
 Holy Spirit is the Source of strength and action. 
 But His grace is not irresistible ; St. Paul knew this 
 when he intimated that it was possible to receive the 
 grace of God in vain. We must know it alas ! too 
 well in our consciences, when we feel " that it is hard 
 to kick against the pricks." 
 
 But we must be one with Christ, in Christ ; His 
 life must be our Life, before His work avails for us. 
 True, " in His own Person, He fulfilled the Will of 
 God. True, in His own Person He fulfilled the 
 destiny of man. And whosoever is in Him shares 
 the virtue of His life." \ He is the " head of every 
 man," as the Second and last Adam. He suffered 
 as our Representative, He is glorified as our Repre- 
 sentative. But there is a subjective side — there must 
 
 * The commissioners of William III., in 1689. On this question see 
 the admirable treatise of my friend, Canon Churton, " Defence of the 
 English Ordinal," London, 1872. 
 
 f Westcott, " Historic Faith," p. 132. 
 
204 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 be a likeness to Him wrought out in our cold and 
 hard marble nature. " Even the Passion of Christ 
 is in vain until we have part in it, until the shadow 
 of His Agony creeps over our Soul, until our old 
 man is crucified with Him, and from the ashes of 
 our dead selves there rises the new man which after 
 Christ is created in Righteousness and true holi- 
 ness." * 
 
 By Christ are we redeemed, by the Holy Spirit are 
 we gradually sci7ictifted. ' The righteousness where- 
 by here we are justified is perfect, but not inherent ; 
 that whereby we are sanctified is inherent, but not 
 perfect. ' ' + VVe must yield ourselves to the gracious 
 influences of the Holy Spirit, that He may produce 
 in us " the fruit of the Spirit." But fruit implies 
 the co-operation of tzvo. The fruit % oi the Spirit re- 
 quires the co-operation of the man, the Christian 
 man himself. That he may " have his fruit unto 
 holiness," he must give his own earnest and diligent 
 co-operation. " The love of God is shed abroad by 
 the Holy Ghost, Which is given unto us," that we 
 may work, not from fear of punishment, but from 
 the love of righteousness ; but the source of it all, 
 and of the " imitation of Christ," to which it all tends, 
 is the Holy Ghost Himself indwelling in the man. 
 
 In the New Creation He gradually prepares the 
 elect, the members of Christ in this world, by pro- 
 gressive sanctification, for the " glorifying righteous- 
 ness, perfect and inherent, in the world to come. "^ 
 
 Thus we draw to an end. We have been admitted 
 
 * Lias, " The Atonement," p. 68. % See Appendix OO. 
 
 f Hooker, Sermon II., § 3. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 205 
 
 to speak of the glorious circle of love ind mercy, 
 proceeding from God and returning to God, em- 
 bracing the creature in its unceasing flow of infinite 
 condescension. The eternal purpose of the Creator 
 to unite to Himself the creature in an infinity of 
 ever-growing and developing blessedness, could not 
 be frustrated by the rebellious caprice of the crea- 
 ture. True, the rebellion called forth a new phase 
 of mercy to meet and overcome the wrong done ; 
 but the eternal purpose could not be thwarted. The 
 intimate union of the Incarnation took place, blessing 
 the creature with infinite possibilities, and the Cre- 
 ator not only was made flesh, but through the Eter- 
 nal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God on 
 our behalf. Then, in order that His Presence should 
 not be limited to one spot, and to the friendship of a 
 few, it was expedient that He should depart as Man, 
 and that His Universal Presence should be effected 
 by the Holy Spirit. When, therefore, Jesus was 
 glorified and man was reconciled to God, " being 
 by the Right Hand of God exalted, and having re- 
 ceived the Promise of the Father, He shed forth" 
 His Spirit on His Church and on the several mem- 
 bers of it. He was to apply and perfect the work 
 which the Son had done. He was to guide them, not 
 drive or force them, but to guide them, requiring 
 action, willing action, on their part, into truth of 
 every kind. He was to work out in them the image 
 of the Creator once more, in which man had been 
 formed at the first, and prepare them to see their 
 Saviour and their God as He is. 
 
 By tire coming of the Holy Ghost, Good Lord, 
 deliver us. 
 
206 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 How marvellously does the Truth open out before 
 us as we meditate. The faithful Christian claims all 
 Truth of every kind, everywhere, as part of the 
 revelation of Him Who is the Truth. He has no 
 fear of scientific discoveries, he knows that if they 
 are true, they must be part of God's Truth, and that 
 if he is patient, he will know them to be so in time. 
 For it has been well said, rather in the mind of St. 
 Vincent of Lerins, as already quoted : "In this sense 
 the Christian Revelation of God claims to be both 
 final and progressive ; final, for Christians know but 
 one Christ and do not look for another ; progressive, 
 because Christianity claims each new truth as enrich- 
 ing our knowledge of God and bringing out into 
 greater clearness and distinctness some half -under- 
 stood fragment of its own teaching." * 
 
 Here, then, we must stop, conscious of utter in- 
 efncienc}^ in attempting to touch, as on the hem of 
 the garment, the grandest theme for the adoring 
 love of man to contemplate. God grant that not 
 one word may have been said contrary to, or at 
 variance with, His Truth. If there has been any 
 such may the Holy Spirit overrule it for good. 
 Where there has been error, may it be corrected ; 
 where there is deficiency, may it be supplied. And 
 may the good Lord pardon the presumption of His 
 servant in attempting to handle so wondrous a mys- 
 tery. 
 
 * Aubrey Moore. See also " Science and the Faith," p. 167. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 A. PAGE 2. 
 
 Gilbertus Grimand in Liturgia Sac. par. 3 c. 17, multa congerit 
 monumenta, quibus ostendit quanta olim esset fidelium devotio erga 
 Evangelium In Principio. In aliquibus enim ecclesiis olim legebatur 
 post baptismum parvulorum, post viaticum, et post Extremam Unc- 
 tionem (S. Benedicti, XIV. De Sacrosancto, Missse Sacrificio, Lib. 
 II. cap. xxiv., § 8). 
 
 II est une autre raison qui n'a pas peu contribue a introduire dans 
 le rit de la messe, l'evangile selon Saint Jean, c'est la devotion que 
 le peuple professait pour cet evangile. Lorsque le pretre descen- 
 dait de 'autel on voyait plusieurs personnes s'approcher du sanctu- 
 aire et prier le celebrant de lire sur elles ce magnifique dSbut de 
 l'evangeliste ; le pretre mettait le bout de l'etole sur leurs tetes, et li- 
 sait cet evangile. L'affluence etait quelquefois assez considerable pour 
 qu'il ne fut pas possible de se rendre aux desirs de ces personnes 
 pieuses d'une maniere individuelle ; alors le pretre recitait collective- 
 ment l'evangile pour tous les postulants, et se tenait a l'autel 
 {L 'Abbe Migne Encyclopedic Theologique, s.v. " Evangile," p. 571). 
 
 I am indebted for the above references to my kind friend Rev. 
 Canon W. Cooke of Chester. See also Le Brun, Explication de la 
 Messe, Paris, 1726, Tom. i., p. 687. 
 
 APPENDIX B. PAGE 4. 
 
 The Harmonia Confessionum Fidei, published at Geneva in 1581, 
 begins with a section " De Scriptura Sancta, ejusque interpretations " 
 The translation of the Harmony printed at Cambridge in 1586 begins 
 in the same way. This is because the majority of the " Confessions" 
 begin with this article. See Corpus Confessionum, Geneva, 1654. 
 
208 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX C. PAGE n. 
 
 In his very excellent lecture on " The Christian Doctrine of the 
 Godhead" (delivered in great St. Mary's, Cambridge, England, in 1886, 
 and published at Cambridge), Dr. Hicks argues for the Personality 
 of God in the following manner (page 5) : 
 
 " These two notions of Infinite Being and of a First Cause do not 
 by any means complete the Theistic idea. Nay, if taken by them- 
 selves, they would tend, as a great part of human thought has tended, 
 rather to pantheism than to theism — to the belief in an all-pervading 
 unconscious Deity, immanent in all things, gradually moving on tow- 
 ard perfection, according to necessary laws ; human lives, with their 
 sorrows and joys, their aspirations and failures, being swept along, as 
 in the current of a mighty river, till they are merged and lost in the 
 boundless, fathomless ocean of absolute impersonal being. 
 
 " If indeed this were so, that our personal finite existences are to be 
 swallowed up in an impersonal infinite existence, from which they are 
 supposed to have sprung, two difficulties would have to be met. In 
 the first place, conscious personal existence is confessedly a higher 
 thing than unconscious existence. How can this noble attribute of 
 personality have been caused by that which is impersonal ? And in 
 the second place, if it is true, as we believe, that there has been prog- 
 ress in the world, that step by step, according to definite law, the 
 lower has led up to the higher, till the highest form of life in the visi- 
 ble universe has been reached in man, are we to believe that, after 
 all, this law of progress is finally to be replaced by a law of degrada- 
 tion and that all personal beings are to be lost in an abyss of absolute 
 existence, which is not distinguishable in thought from non-existence ? 
 
 " Thus we come to hail with relief the further notion that the First 
 Cause is a Personal Being, conscious, intelligent, free." 
 
 APPENDIX D. PAGE 13. 
 
 " The truth for which they contended, which was enshrined in their 
 sacred writings, was that the ' Father is God, the Son is God, and the 
 Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three gods but one God.' 
 But the Fathers do not treat this doctrine merely as a revealed mys- 
 tery, still less as something which complicates the simple teaching of 
 Monotheism, but as the condition of rationally holding the Unity of 
 God. ' The Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self,' says 
 Tertullian {Adversus Praxeam, cap. iii.) ' so far from being destroyed 
 
APPENDIX. 209 
 
 is actually supported by it.' 'We cannot otherwise think of One 
 God,' says Hippoiytus {Contra Noettim, § xiv.), ' but by truly believing 
 in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.' ' The Supreme and only God,' says 
 Lactantius {Institutiones, IV. 29) ' cannot be worshipped except 
 through the Son. He who thinks that he worships the Father only, in 
 that he does not worship the Son also, does not worship the Father.' 
 'Without the Son the Father is not,' says Clement of Alexandria 
 (Stromata, V. 1), ' for in that He is a Father, He is the Father of the Son, 
 and the Son is the true teacher about the Father.' So Origen argues 
 {De Principiis, I. ii., § 10) : ' If God had ever existed alone in simple 
 unity and solitary grandeur, apart from some object upon which from 
 all eternity to pour forth His love, He could not have been always 
 God. His love, His Fatherhood, His very Omnipotence would have 
 been added in time, and there would then have been a time when He 
 was imperfect. The Fatherhood of God must be coeval with His Om- 
 nipotence ; for it is through the Son that the Father is Almighty.' 
 This was the line of argument afterward developed by St. Athanasius 
 when he contended against the Arians that the Son was the reality or 
 truth of the Father, without whom the Father could not exist {Adver- 
 sus Arianos, i., § 20) ; and by St. Augustine when he argues that love 
 implies one who loves and one who is loved, and love to bind them 
 together {De Trinitate, viii. 10 and ix. 2). Even one so unphilo- 
 sophically minded as Irenaeus (Adversus Hcereses, IV. iv. 1, 2) cannot 
 but see in the Christian doctrine of the relation of the Father and the 
 Son the solution of the difficulty about the infinity of God : ' Immen- 
 sus Pater in Filio mensuratus ; mensura Palris, Filius.' 
 
 " While philosophy with increasing hopelessness was asking, How 
 can we have a real unity which shall not be a barren and dead unity, 
 but shall include differences ? Christianity, with its doctrine of God, 
 was arguing that that which was an unsolved contradiction for non- 
 Christian thought was a necessary corollary of the Christian Faith" 
 (Aubrey Moore in Lux Mundi, p. 92). 
 
 APPENDIX F. PAGE 16. 
 
 We must remember that the beautiful interpretation put by the Lat- 
 in Fathers upon a very difficult saying of our Blessed Lord is proba- 
 bly untenable. When the Jews asked Him, "Who art Thou?" 
 (St. John 8 : 25), His answer has been explained by the Latin 
 Fathers thus: "I am the beginning, which am speaking to you." 
 
 14 
 
210 APPENDIX. 
 
 Cornelius a Lapide commences his note thus : " St. Augustine, Bede 
 often, Rupert, Bernard, and St. Ambrose take the word ' beginning ' 
 to be the nominative meaning, 1 am the beginning." This arises 
 from the fact that both the words which are used here in the Latin 
 versions are neuter, principitun and initium, and though the trans- 
 lator might have intended them as accusative, others ignorant of the 
 Greek regarded them as nominative, which gives an easier sense. 
 
 The Greek Fathers, to whom surely we should look for an explana- 
 tion of a difficult Gieek construction, rather treat the sentence "asa 
 sad exclamation, which is half interrogative, Why do I so much 
 as speak to you ?" (Dr. Westcott in loc). 
 
 APPENDIX F. PAGE 46 AND PAGE 61. 
 
 Luthardt in note 17 to Lecture III. cites a passage from a letter of 
 Johann v. Muller, in 1782 : " Since I have been in Cassel I have 
 been reading ancient authors in their chronological order, and mak- 
 ing extracts from them when any remarkable facts stiuck me. I do 
 not know why, two months ago, I took it into my head to read the 
 New Testament, before my studies had advanced to the age when it 
 was written. How shall I describe to you what I found therein ! I 
 had not read it for many years, and was prejudiced against it befoie 
 I took it in hand. The light which struck Paul with blindness on his 
 way to Damascus was not more strange, more surprising to him than 
 it was to me when I suddenly discovered the fulfilment of all hopes, 
 the highest perfection of philosophy, the explanation of all revolutions, 
 the key to all the seeming contradictions of the ph) sical and moral 
 world. . . . The whole world seemed ordered for the sole purpose 
 of furthering the religion of the Redeemer, and if this religion is not 
 divine, I understand nothing at all" (Translation published at Edin- 
 burgh, 1888, p. 354)- 
 
 APPENDIX G. PAGE 47. 
 
 It has been pointed out (Mason's " Faiihof the Gospel," p. Si), that 
 the preposition may be translated into " Let Us make man into Our 
 image ;" this would imply " that a higher potency was conferred on 
 an already existing thing." Any such development of interpretation 
 is valuable. 
 
 The Septuagint, however, translate the two prepositions "in Our 
 
APPENDIX. 211 
 
 image, after Our likeness," by the same Greek word Kara. The 
 Vulgate and Vetus Itala combine the two expressions under one prep- 
 osition, "ad imaginem et similitudinem." Some of the Latin 
 fathers have secundum, while St. Ambrose once (de officiis Minis- 
 trorum, I, xxviii.) has ad imaginem secundum similitudinem. See 
 Sabatier in loc. 
 
 As the Septuagint has only one preposition it may perhaps be 
 open to question whether the not infrequent confusion of V and k' in 
 Hebrew have not here caused a variation of preposition, which did 
 not originally occur. 
 
 APPENDIX H. PAGE 50. 
 
 The opening paragraph of the Essay is here given : 
 "In attempting to speak of such a mystery as the Gospel of 
 Creation— that is, of the promise of the Incarnation which was included 
 in the Creation of man, it is evident that we have need of watchful 
 and reverent care lest we should strive to go beyond the limits which 
 bound the proper field of our powers. It is necessary also that we 
 should guard ourselves against the danger of using human language, 
 not only (as we must do) to represent as clearly as possible our con- 
 ceptions of the divine, but as the legitimate foundation for secondary 
 conclusions. If, however, we do devoutly recognize that in such spec- 
 ulations we are entering on holy ground ; if we steadily refuse to ad- 
 mit deductions as absolute which are derived from the conditions un- 
 der which we apprehend the Truth made known to us ; then it is well 
 for us to look for a time toward the loftiest heights and the deepest 
 foundations of faith. If we essay something without ' presumption 
 and in submission to the judgment of the Church' — to borrow words 
 spokerr -on the subject three hundred years ago — ' and supported by 
 the light qf the divine word give expression to our thoughts humbly 
 to the best of our power with stammering lips, not only do we not 
 offend God, but we do Him reverence, and not unfrequently profit the 
 weaker members of the Church.' " 
 
 We must always welcome an investigation undertaken in such a 
 spirit by a man like Dr. Westcott. 
 
 APPENDIX I. PAGE 56. 
 
 Some try to raise a little dust to hide the most probable origin of 
 the error — viz., the wrong writing of one letter, by speaking of a read- 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 ing " Ipsum." But this reading does not occur in ancient days. The 
 only readings are simply Ipse and Ipsa. When Cornelius a Lapide 
 speaks of Ipsum he merely wishes to point out lhat some authorities 
 use the neuter in agreement with semen. For he cites St. Leo for 
 Ipsum, without particular reference ; whereas all we can find is a ref- 
 erence to semen. " Denuncians serpenti futurum semen mulieris, 
 quod noxii capitis elationem sua virtute contereret" (Serm. xxi. in 
 Nat. Dom. ii., Opera Paris, 1675, Tom. i , p. 145). The statement of the 
 Douay note, "others read Ipsum" seems to be without foundation. 
 
 It is very remarkable that no reading Ipsum is found. It is possible 
 that a scribe seeing only semen and mulier as antecedents, and not 
 knowing the Greek masculine as the authority for Ipse, and seeing 
 that the reading could not be ipsum, may have of set purpose changed 
 the e into an a, to make better grammar. 
 
 Dr. Pusey (" First letter to the Very Reverend J. H. Newman, D.D., 
 London, 1869, p. 382 sq.) gives a long paragraph to the question and 
 also gives the summing up of the exhaustive note of De Rossi, the 
 very learned Roman Catholic Orientalist, which is as follows : " To 
 whomsoever, then, the present reading of the Vulgate belongs, 
 whether to the interpreter or (which is more probable) to the 
 amanuensis, it ought to be amended from the Hebrew and Greek 
 fountain-heads, and to be referred to those passages of the Clementine 
 Edition which yet can and ought to be conformed to the Hebrew 
 text, and to be amended by the authority of the Church." 
 
 APPENDIX K. PAGE 87. 
 
 It is worth while to note the effect produced on the Eastern mind 
 by the various symptoms to which reference has been made in the text 
 of Lecture IV., on the question of Mirth. The writer, P. C. 
 Mozoomdar, is an Oriental, a friend of Keshub-Chunder Sen ; but the 
 book is well worth reading though the writer is outside the Christian 
 fold, " feeling after Christ, if haply he may find Him." He 
 acknowledges that the fasting of our Blessed Lord was more in ac- 
 cordance with Eastern asceticism than His feasting ; but he adds : 
 "While the brief day of mutual union lasted, He grudged not His 
 disciples a few intervals of freedom and mirth. . . . Christ would 
 not be coextensive with human nature, if He did not combine fasts and 
 feasts in that many-sided discipline which gives perfection to the diverse 
 faculties of man's heart (" Oriental Christ," Boston, 1888, p. 169). 
 
APPENDIX. 213 
 
 APPENDIX L. PAGE 88. 
 
 In Archdeacon Wilberforce's "Doctrine of the Incarnation" there 
 is a long passage devoted to this question of our Lord's sympathy in 
 our ignorance. Toward the end he writes : "Since it would be im- 
 pious to suppose that our Lord had pretended an ignorance which He 
 did not experience, we are led to the conclusion that what He partook 
 as man was not actual ignorance, but such deficiency in the means of 
 arriving at Truth as belongs to mankind. Without asserting that 
 the man Christ Jesus was ignorant, it may be said that he was igno- 
 rant, as man, of that which by His other nature was known to Him. 
 His growth, then, was no delusion, but a real one ; but the advance 
 was in those means of intercourse by which the human mind com- 
 municates with the external world. He made trial of those channels 
 of communication whereby the children of men are furnished with 
 knowledge ; He tested their uncertainty ; He is able to pity those 
 who are in like manner " compassed with infirmity" (Chapter IV., 
 fourth edition, 1852, p. 84). 
 
 APPENDIX M. PAGE 89. 
 
 " Christ's tenderness was like that of the woman. His courage and 
 strength were like those of the hero. His holiness has set the standard 
 of all human morality and pureness of motive. His trustfulness was 
 that of the child." (" The Oriental Christ," Mozoomdar, p. 138.) 
 
 APPENDIX N. PAGE 90. 
 
 "The strong and fierce language used on occasions by Him who is 
 fitly known as the Lamb of God is a difficulty to the mind of the 
 ' mild Hindu' " (" Oriental Christ" p. 98). It is deeply interesting to 
 read these words of one who has thoroughly appreciated and approved 
 the denunciation of hypocrisy uttered by our Lord. There is very 
 much in this book of deepest interest, showing full sympathy with the 
 universal perfection of our Lord's character ; so much so that we 
 feel inclined to say, as Bossuet did of Bishop Bull, " Talis cum sis, 
 utinam noster esses." The following is very striking: "The testi- 
 mony of His life and death makes heavenly realities tenfold more real 
 to us. His patience and meekness in suffering are like an everlasting 
 rock, which we may hold by when tossed in the tempest of life. His 
 
214 APPENDIX. 
 
 poverty has sanctified the home of the poor. His love of healing 
 fills the earth with innumerable works of benevolence and sympathy, 
 and fills with wonderful hope the bedside of the sick and dying. His 
 death and resurrection call us to the mansions where He has gone to 
 wait for us" (" Oriental Christ," p. 45). 
 
 APPENDIX O. PAGE 95. 
 
 There is a most excellent note on Romans 9 : 5 in the Speaker's 
 Commentary by Archdeacon Gifford, who says: "The reference 
 to Christ is supported by the unanimous consent of the Anti-Nicene 
 fathers. . . . Against this remarkable consent of Christian antiquity 
 there is nothing to be said of any weight. Cyril puts into the mouth 
 of the Emperor Julian a denial of the reference to Christ only in 
 order to affirm the true interpretation." Yet the error of the apostate 
 is admitted into the margin as a possible interpretation. No wonder 
 that the New Revised Version has been stigmatized as "The Atian- 
 ized Version." 
 
 APPENDIX P. PAGE 97. 
 
 The following is a table of the comparative fulness of the Narrative 
 of each of the four Evangelists, in various stages of the Lord's life. 
 It is perhaps not exactly accurate to small fractions, but it affords a 
 sufficient approximation for comparison. As St. Luke's account is 
 the longest, it is taken as the standard : 
 
 St. Luke = too 
 St. Matthew = 93 
 St. John = 73 
 
 St. Mark = 59 
 
 making in all 325 divisions. 
 
 I. Early Years of our Lord's Life till His Baptism, iff. 
 St. Matthew, 5. St. Mark, o. St. Luke, 10.5. St. John, o. 
 II. From the. Baptism until the Passover in St. John 6 : 1 (less than \). 
 St. Matthew, 38. St. Mark, 20. St. Luke, 27.5. St. John, 16.5. 
 
 III. From St. John 6 : I //// Feast of Tabernacles St. John 7, 
 (about tV). 
 
 St. Matthew, 11. St. Mark, 13. St. Luke, 4. St. John, C. 
 
 IV. From Feast of Tabernacles till P aim Sunday (about j). 
 
APPENDIX. 215 
 
 St. Matthew, 6. St. Mark, 3.5. St. Luke, 35. St. John, 19.5. 
 
 V. From Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday (about T ). 
 
 St. Matthew, 20.5. St. Mark, 11. 5. St. Luke, 8.5. St. John, 3. 
 VI. From Maundy Thursday until Easter Eve (rather more than -7). 
 
 St. Matthew, 10. St. Mark, 8.5. St. Luke, 9.5. St. John, 21.5. 
 VII. The Resurrection (-^7). 
 
 St. Matthew, 2.5. St. Mark, 2.5. St. Luke, 5. St. John, 6.5. 
 
 APPENDIX Q. PAGE 100. 
 
 In the lately recovered " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" there 
 is a passage which seems to regard the sign of the Cross as being the 
 "Sign of the Son of Man" spoken of in St. Matthew 24 : 30 as 
 one of the signs of the day of judgment. Speaking of the signs of 
 the last day, "The Teaching" says: "And then shall appear 
 the signs of the truth : first, the sign of stretching out in heaven ; 
 then the sign of the voice of the trumpet ; and the third, the Resurrec- 
 tion of the dead." The word used for stretching out is the noun de- 
 rived from the verb in Romans 10 : 21, which is a quotation from Isaiah 
 65 : 2 : "All day long have I stretched out my hands to a disobedient 
 and a gainsaying people." In the Epistle of Barnabas, said to be 
 nearly contemporaneous with " The Teaching," the passage is ex- 
 plained of the Cross. This seems to show that " the sign of stretch- 
 ing out" is meant to be " the sign of the Cross," spoken of in a man- 
 ner which would be understood by Christians and none else. 
 
 APPENDIX R. PAGE 105. 
 
 The passage is referred to by Archdeacon Gifford, and is to be 
 found among the fragments of the third bjok De Republica, III., 
 xxii., § 16, ed. Nobbe, Lipsise, 1827, p. 1161 : "Est quidem vera 
 lex recta ratio, naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, 
 sempiterna, quae vocet ad offi -ium jubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat, 
 q:ae tamen neque probos frustra jubet aut vetat, nee improbos 
 jubendo aut vetando movet. . . . Nee erit alia lex Romae, a'ia 
 Athenis ; alia rune, alia posthac ; sed et omnes gentes, et orani tem- 
 pore, una lex et sempiterm, et immutabilis continebit, unusque erit 
 ccmnunis quasi magisteret Imperator omnium Deus. Dlelegis hujus 
 
2l6 APPENDIX. 
 
 inventor, disceptator, lator ; cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet, ac, 
 naturam hominis aspernatus hoc ipso luet maximas poenas, etictm si 
 csetera supplicia, quae putantur, effugerit." 
 
 APPENDIX S. PAGE 113. 
 
 " It is deeply interesting to observe that the Mishna ordained that 
 on the day of killing the Passover, if that day was also a Friday, the 
 daily sacrifice was to be killed half an hour after the sixth hour, sac- 
 rificed after the seventh ; and the Passover killed half an hour after 
 the eighth, and sacrificed half an hour after the ninth hour. If this 
 may be relied on, the darkness from the sixth to the ninth must have 
 utterly precluded the offering of both sacrifices. Thus did the true 
 Continual Offering and Paschal Lamb cause the Mosaic to cease on 
 that wondrous day, Dan. 9 : 27" (Freeman, " Principles of Divine 
 Service," Part II., p. 299, note). The reference to the Mishna is 
 Pesachim, cap. v., § 1. Translation by De Sola and Raphall, Lon- 
 don, 1845, p. 107 : Ed. Surenhusius, Tom. ii., p. 150. 
 
 APPENDIX T. PAGE 113. 
 
 " If we go back to the really early fathers, we find therri with one 
 voice affirming that the Last Supper was not a Paschal meal at all, 
 and some of them complaining of the novel opinion, which introduced 
 discrepancies into the plain and easy narrative of the Gospels. Let 
 us go seriatim through the primitive evidence which is collected by 
 the anonymous Byzantine writer of the Chronicon Pascha/e, from 
 works of which little save the name has come down to us. 
 
 " Hippolytus of Portus, near Rome, in his book against all heresies, 
 writes as follows : ' I see the matter is one of disputatiousness. For 
 he [i.e., the Quartodeciman of whom he is speaking] says thus : The 
 Lord performed the passover on this day and suffered ; wherefore I 
 also ought to do as the Lord did. But he is astray, not under- 
 standing that when the Lord suffered He did not eat the legal pass- 
 over. For He was the Passover that was proclaimed beforehand, 
 and that was perfected on the appointed day.' 
 
 " Again, in the first book of his lost treatise on the Passover. Hip- 
 polytus says : ' Neither in the first nor in the last is it manifest that 
 he has not spoken wrongly, because He who of old said beforehand, 
 
APPENDIX. 217 
 
 " I shall no more eat the Passover," probably supped the Supper 
 before the Passover ; but the Passover He ate not, but suffered ; for 
 neither was it the time of the eating thereof.' 
 
 " The next witness is Apollinarius of Hierapolis, the town men- 
 tioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians along with 
 Laodicea. His date is usually given a.d. 170 and onward. His 
 words are : ' Some people dispute about these things, suffering a 
 pardonable ailment, for ignorance does not require accusation, but 
 needs instruction. And they say that on the 14th the Lord ate 
 the sheep with His disciples, and suffered on the great day of unleav- 
 ened bread, and declare that Matthew says as they opine ; whence 
 their opinion is both discrepant from the law, and, according to them, 
 the Gospels seem to be at variance.' 
 
 " Last comes Clement of Alexandria, whose language is equally 
 plain. In his lost treatise on the Passover he says : ' In the past 
 years the Lord used to observe the festival of and eat the Passover 
 that was sacrificed by the Jews ; but when He had preached being 
 Himself the Passover, the Lamb of God, led as a sheep to the 
 slaughter, He immediately taught His disciples the mystery of the 
 type on the 13th, on which they ask him, " Where wilt Thou that 
 we prepare the Passover for Thee to eat ?" On this day, there- 
 fore, both the sanctification of the unleavened bread and the previous 
 preparation of the feast used to take place ; whence probably 
 John writes that on this day the Disciples, as undergoing previous 
 preparation, had their feet washed by the Lord. But our Saviour 
 suffered on the next day, being Himself the Passover, being sacrificed 
 by the Jews.' 
 
 " And again : ' Consequently on the 14th, when he suffered, the 
 chief priests and scribes, on leading Him in the morning to Pilate, 
 did not enter into the prsetorium that they might not be polluted, but 
 might eat the Passover without hindrance in the evening.' With this 
 exact account of the days both all the Scriptures agree and the Gospels 
 are in harmony. And the resurrection bears additional testimony. 
 At any rate, He rose on the third day, which was the first day of the 
 week of the harvest, on which it was the law that the priest should 
 offer the sheaf." (" Notes and Dissertations," by A. H. Wratislaw, 
 London, 1863, p. 179.) 
 
 This extract gives the earliest testimony with which Irenaeus (iv., 
 23), Tertullian (Adv. Judaeos, 10) and Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Try., 
 Pars. II., § in, p. 338) agree. In the latter part of the fourth 
 century trustworthy tradition (on these smaller points) had died out, 
 
2l8 APPENDIX. 
 
 and the modern popular view that our Lord did partake of the Paschal 
 Supper took its rise. 
 
 See Freeman, " Principles of Divine Service," Part II., Chapter II., 
 § 2 ; also Bishop Ellicott, " Historical Lectures on the Life of Our 
 Lord," Lecture VII., 3d ed., 1862, London, p. 32T. 
 
 A summary of many points of the argument may also be found in 
 my book on " Fasting Communion," 2d ed., p. 341 seq. 
 
 APPENDIX V. PAGE 113. 
 
 " (Daniel) speaks not of a temporary suspension of sacrifices, but 
 of the entire abolition of all which had been offered hitherto : the 
 sacrifice with the shedding of blood and the oblation, the unbloody 
 sacrifice which was its complement. These the Messiah was to make 
 to cease three years and a half after that new covenant began, whether 
 this was at first through the ministry of the Baptist or His own. It 
 seems to me absolutely certain that our Lord's ministry lasted for 
 some period above three years" (Pusey on Daniel, p. 174). 
 
 See also the very valuable treatise, " The Evidential Value of the 
 Holy Eucharist," by Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D , 2d ed., S.P.C.K., 
 Part I., Chapter I. 
 
 APPENDIX W. PAGE 114. 
 
 The following volumes will be found useful in the study of the 
 doctrine of the Atonement : 
 
 " The Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement," by H. N. Oxenham, 
 M.A., 2d ed., London, 1869. This is mainly historical, and therefore 
 is valuable. 
 
 "The Atonement," the Congregational Union Lectures for 1875, 
 by R. W. Dale, M.A., nth ed., London, 1888. This is an eloquent 
 and valuable series of lectures. 
 
 " The Atonement," the Hulsean Lectures for 1883-84, by Rev. 
 J. J. Lias, M.A., 2d ed., London, 1888. Four lectures of most con- 
 densed matter, and very useful for those who do not desire a long 
 treatise. The subjects of the four lectures are : I. Popular Theology 
 and Popular Objections. II. Scripture Teaching Regarding Pro- 
 pitiation. III. Theories of Propitiation in the Christian Church. 
 IV. The Various Aspects of Propitiation. 
 
APPENDIX. 219 
 
 APPENDIX X. PAGE 121. 
 
 Bishop Pearson (on Creed, Article X., fo. page 364) writes : " In 
 vain it is objected that the Scripture saith that our Saviour reconciled 
 men to God, but nowhere teacheth that He reconciled God to man ; 
 for in the language of the Scripture to reconcile a man to God is in 
 our vulgar language to reconcile God to man — that is, to cause him 
 who before was angry and offended with him to be gracious and pro- 
 pitious to him. As the princes of the Philistines spake of David, 
 ' Wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his master ? Should it 
 not be with the heads of these men ? Wherewith shall he reconcile 
 Saul, who is so highly offended with him ? Wherewith shall he render 
 him gracious and favorable, but by betraying these men unto him ? ' 
 As our Saviour adviseth, ' If thou bring thy gift before the altar, and 
 there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there 
 thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy 
 brother— that is, reconcile thy brother to thyself, whom thou hast 
 injured. Render him by thy submission favorable unto thee, who 
 hath something against thee, and is offended with thee.' As the 
 Apostle adviseth the wife that departeth from her husband to remain 
 unmarried or to be reconciled to her husband — that is, to appease and 
 get the favor of her husband. In the like manner we are said to be 
 reconciled unto God when God is reconciled, appeased, and become 
 gracious and favorable unto us. And Christ is said to reconcile us 
 unto God when He hath moved and obtained of God to be reconciled 
 unto us, when He hath appeased Him and restored us unto His favor. 
 Thus when we were enemies we were reconciled to God — that is, 
 notwithstanding He was offended with us for our sins, we were 
 restored unto His favor by the death of His Son." 
 
 APPENDIX Y. PAGE 139. 
 
 In his excellent work, " Church Doctrine — Bible Truth," Mr. 
 Sadler thus introduces his argument (Chapter III.) : 
 
 " The Scripture teaching bearing upon baptism may be summed up 
 under the five following heads : 
 
 " 1. In about twelve places in Scripture Christ or His Apostles 
 connect salvation with Baptism. 
 
 (i 2. The Christians of the Apostolic Churches are always addressed 
 as having been brought into a state of salvation or regeneration at 
 their baptism. 
 
220 APPENDIX. 
 
 " 3. This state of salvation or regeneration does not insure the final 
 salvation of those brought into it. On the contrary, the members of 
 these churches are always supposed to be in danger of falling into 
 sin and liable to be cast away. 
 
 " 4. Those who thus fall away are always assumed to fall from 
 grace. They are never for a moment supposed to fall into sin 
 because God has withheld grace from them. 
 
 " 5. In no case are baptized Christians called upon to become 
 regenerate. They are called upon to repent — to turn to God — to 
 cleanse their hands— to purify their hearts; never to become re- 
 generate." 
 
 Mr. Sadler as a lad was brought to Baptism and the Church by 
 means of a sermon preached at Leeds, England, in 1841, by the late 
 Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, having been enticed by curiosity t® 
 see and hear an American bishop. 
 
 APPENDIX Z. PAGE 140. 
 
 In his treatise on Baptism Tertullian has gathered many instances 
 of the importance attached to wafer among the heathen as well as in 
 the Scriptures. " De Baptismo," iii., iv., v., ix. In the ninth 
 chapter he sums up all the passages where water is brought into 
 some connection with our blessed Lord. He says : " This is the water 
 which was continually flowing down for the people from the companion 
 Rock. For if the Rock was Christ, without doubt we see Baptism 
 blessed by water in Christ. How great is the grace of water before 
 God and His Christ for the confirmation of Baptism. Never is 
 Christ without water ; if, as is the case, Himself is baptized in water ; 
 solemnly inaugurates the first displays of His power in water when a 
 guest at the marriage; when He preaches He invites the thirsty to 
 His everlasting water ; when He teaches of love He approves the 
 cup of water given to the poor among the works of charity ; He 
 refreshes His strength at a well ; He walks on the water ; constantly 
 sails by water j ministers water to His disciples. He continues His 
 witness to Baptism until His Passion ; when He is given over to the 
 Cross water intervenes — the hands of Pilate are conscious of it ; when 
 He is wounded water breaks forth — the spear of the soldier is con- 
 scious of it." 
 
 It is interesting and instructive to read the following from the work 
 already quoted " The Oriental Christ," by P. C. Mozoomdar. The 
 
APPENDIX. 221 
 
 first chapter is headed " The Bathing Christ," and treats of our 
 Lord's Baptism. 
 
 " Why did Jesus bathe? Water to the Oriental means perpetual 
 blessedness. The rain which fertilizes is God's grace. The stream 
 which rustles on is a running source of divine inspiration. We in India 
 at various times, have worshipped the God of rain. The confluences of 
 our rivers, the mountainous solitudes where they take their rise, and 
 the white illimitable expanse where they mingle with the sea, are 
 more sacred than we can tell. There is a transcendental sense of 
 the divine in them. Power, speed, fruitfulness, beauty, purity, come 
 from the river. We Hindus, like our far off ancestors, make offerings 
 to the sea, the emblem of eternity. There is no pilgrimage without 
 immersion in water. Bathing is ever holy. Over and above the 
 morning bath, which renews the body, and is an invariable prelude to 
 the daily devotions, we immerse ourselves in water at special times. 
 Whenever an Oriental has to purify himself from a personal impurity, 
 from a social contamination, from a death in the household ; when- 
 ever he has to rise from one stage of religious life to another ; when- 
 ever he requires an initiation into higher spiritual life and precept, he 
 must bathe." Page 47. 
 
 APPENDIX AA. PAGE 141 
 
 A similar argument may be drawn from the Greek translation of 
 Esther 8 : 17. The Hebrew has, " And many people of the land 
 became Jews ; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them." The Sepiua- 
 gint has, " Many of the Gentiles were circumcised and Judaized, for 
 fear of the Jews." If at the time of that translation (probably about 
 the middle of the second century, B.C.), there had been any such rite 
 as Baptism in use among the Jews, we should expect it to be included 
 in the addition made to the Hebrew narrative. As the reference to 
 circumcision is an addition by the translators, we must suppose that 
 it was regarded by them as the only ceremony necessary for a man 
 to become a Jew. 
 
 Philo and Josephus, and the earliest Targum (Onkelos) are silent 
 on the question. This will probably bring us down to the end of the 
 second century a.d. The first reference seems to be in the Targum 
 of Jonathan ; and later on in Maimonides, etc., there is constant 
 reference to the ceremony of Baptism. 
 
 It has been argued that the Jews would not have adopted baptism 
 from the Christians. This is true. But John, the son of Zacharias, 
 
222 APPENDIX. 
 
 was not a Christian ; " he that is least in the kingdom of Heaven is 
 greater than he." If the Jews adopted it from John the Baptist, 
 there would have been no suspicion of following the Nazarenes. 
 Such a ceremony is common among Orientals. See Appendix Z. 
 
 No doubt there were continual washings in practice among the 
 Jews, in common life as well as in ceremonial purification. But there 
 it no certain evidence of Baptism as a ceremony of initiation into the 
 Jewish religion in our Lord's day. 
 
 APPENDIX BB. PAGE 143. 
 
 •' And this clearly answers the question, For what reason was water 
 joined with the Spirit ? Because there are two ends proposed in Bap- 
 tism : on the one hand, to abolish the body of sin, that it should no 
 longer bear fruit unto death ; on the other, to live to the Spirit, and 
 to bear fruit in sanctification" (St. Basil, De Sancto Spiritu, § 35, 
 Benedictine Ed., Tom. iii., p. 29 C). Then, again, a little before he 
 discusses the phrase, " They were baptized into Moses," in compari- 
 son of Christian Baptism. " What then ? Because they were typically 
 baptized into Moses, does it follow that small is the grace of Baptism ? 
 Assuredly in this way nothing else of ours would be of importance, 
 if we depreciate the dignity of each by their types. . . . The Passion 
 of the Lord would not be glorious, since a ram instead of Isaac filled 
 the type of the sacrifice. ... A man, then, does just this same thing 
 in the case of Baptism who compares the reality with the shadow, 
 and sets the things signified side by side with the types themselves, 
 and by means of Moses and the sea attempts to tear asunder the 
 whole dispensation of the Gospel. For what sort of remission of sins ? 
 what kind of renewal of life ? what sort of spiritual grace is given 
 by Moses? what kind of death of sin is there to be found? Why, 
 then, do you compare baptisms, which have but the name in common, 
 but differ as much as a dream from reality, or shadows and images 
 from substances ?" (§ 32). 
 
 " The dispensation of our God and Saviour toward man consists in 
 a restoration from the effects of the fall and a return to intimate union 
 with God, after the alienation caused by disobedience" (§ 35). 
 
 The controversy between St. Cyprian and Stephen, Bishop of 
 Rome, concerning the rebaptism of heretics, on their joining the 
 Church, brings clearly into prominence two points in which there was 
 full unanimitv at the time : 
 
APPENDIX. 223 
 
 I. There was agreement about the grace or virtue of Baptism, 
 Baptism (separate from Confirmation) conveyed 
 
 i. Remission of sins, 
 ii. Regeneration. 
 
 iii. Renewal. 
 
 This is summed up in the Epistle of Firmilian, Bishop of Caesarea 
 in Cappadocia, to St. Cyprian He complains that Stephen allows to 
 heretics the power of conferring " the great and heavenly gifts of the 
 Church in Baptism," and these, he says, are, " they wash away the filth 
 of the old man, they forgive the ancient sins of death, they make sons of 
 God by heavenly regeneration, they renew them to eternal life by the 
 sanctification of the divine laver" (Ep. Ixxv., § 17, Paris, 1726, p. 148). 
 
 See also Ep. lxx. . § 1 ; Ixxiii., § 7, 12, 18 ; lxxiv., § 5, 6 ; lxxv., 
 §8. 14. 
 
 II. There was agreement that Confirmation, or the laying on of 
 hands, was the outward means of the communication of the Holy 
 Spirit (St. Cyprian, Epis. lxxii., § 1 ; lxxxiii., § 6, 9 ; lxxiv., § 5, 
 7 : lxxv., § 12, 18). 
 
 This was the basis and strong point of St. Cyprian's argument. 
 All agree that heretics cannot convey or communicate the Holy 
 Spirit. All agree that regeneration is given in valid Baptism. Well, 
 then, argues St. Cyprian, How can a man who neither has nor can 
 communicate the Holy Spirit— how can such a man baptize ? Stephen 
 answers, It is the custom of the Church ; and herein he was right. 
 But St. Cyprian answered, " It is in vain that some, who are conquer- 
 ed in argument, bring ' custom ' as an answer to us, just as if custom 
 were greater than truth, or just as if that should not be followed in 
 spiritual matters which has been revealed for the better plan by the 
 Holy Spirit." Stephen answered by excommunicating St. Cyprian, the 
 African Bishops, and all who agreed with them. St. Cyprian justly 
 regarded this as a very poor argument. St. Firmilian pointed out 
 that this was practically excommunicating himself. 
 
 Bat Stephen was right, as the event proved, in his position, but not 
 in his arrogant temper. 
 
 The XXVI Ith Article of our Church gives much the same view of 
 Baptism : 
 
 Baptism " is a sign of regeneration or new Birth, whereby, as by an 
 instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the 
 Church ; the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be 
 the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed ; 
 faith is confirmed, and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God." 
 
224 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX BB.* PAGE 151. 
 
 The following passages will be sufficient to show this : 
 
 Second century , Tertullian, De Baptismo, xix., " Easter is the most 
 solemn time for Baptism, when also the Passion of the Lord, by which 
 we are baptized, was completed. . . . Next to that Pentecost is the 
 most joyous time for arranging feasts." He gives reasons. 
 
 Fourth century, a.d. 385, Siricius of Rome, writing to Himerius, 
 Bishop of Tarragona (§ 2), forbids solemn public Baptisms to be 
 celebrated except at Easter and Pentecost, and blames Baptism of 
 large numbers taking place on Saints' Day ; but in peril of death at 
 any time (Labbei Concilia, Tom. ii., col. 1018). 
 
 A.D. 390, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. xl., Opera, Paris, 1609, 
 speaks of excuses for putting off Baptism, " I am waiting for the 
 Epiphany. Easter is much better. I will await Pentecost." 
 
 Fifth century, St. Leo, a.d. 447, Ep. xvi., Tom. i., 462, also 718. 
 Baptism not to be celebrated publicly on the Epiphany, only at 
 Easter and Pentecost. 
 
 Sixth century, Co. Macon, II., a.d. 585, forbids Baptism at any 
 other time except in case of necessity, complaining that at Easier 
 "there are only two or three to be regenerated by water and the 
 Holy Spirit." 
 
 St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Francorum, VIII., ix., at Christmas, this 
 would probably include Epiphany ; Easter ; St. John's Day, Hist. 
 Fr., X., xv., " Release the Abbess, or not a single catechumen shall 
 be baptized at Easter." 
 
 Eighth century, Gregory II., A.D. 720, Easter and Pentecost 
 (Labbei Cone, vi., 1443 and 1453). 
 
 Ninth century, Co. Paris, VI., a.d. 829. Easter and Pentecost 
 (Labbei Cone, vii., 1603 and 1621 ; also Co. Triburiense, Can. xii., a.d. 
 895, Labbei, ix., 445). 
 
 APPENDIX CC. PAGE 153. 
 
 " The Power of the Priesthood in Absolution," by Rev. W. Cooke, 
 Hon. Canon of Chester, is the most valuable treatise on this subject, 
 though it seems impertinent to praise the work of one to whom the 
 writer of these lectures owes so much as he does to Canon Cooke. 
 
 The following passage shows the inclusive character of the Confes- 
 sion in the service of the Holy Communion. 
 
 "The Confession is, in fact, the expression of the results of that 
 
APPENDIX. 22 5 
 
 careful self examination which the Priest was ordered to exhort his par- 
 ishioners to make, before they communicated on the Body and Blood 
 of Christ. That it includes venial sins may be gathered from the re- 
 quirement, '' that you confe?s your sins of infirmity or ignorance ; ' 
 that it is not confined to these is manifest from the general tone of 
 the Exhortation, which treats of ' sins and unkindness toward God's 
 Majesty committed ; ' sins of ' malice and hatred and wrong done to 
 a neighbor ; ' sins that need deep sorrow, and confession, and amend- 
 ment ; without which, it declares, ' Neither the absolution of the 
 Priest can avail, nor the receiving of this holy sacrament doth any- 
 thing but increase damnation.' And as it stands in our present 
 Book, the Exhortation contains an expression which has marked ref- 
 erence to mortal sin. The teaching of the Schoolmen is ' that mortal 
 sins must be diligently recollected and individually detested ; ' and 
 in strict accordance with this the Church orders: l Whereinsoever ye 
 shall perceive yourselves to have offended, either by will, word, or 
 deed, there to bewail your own sinfulness, and to confess yourselves 
 to Almighty God with full purpose of amendment of life.' 
 
 *'The Confession, therefore, being framed to embody the results of 
 such minute search and examination of conscience, and including all 
 sins, mortal as well as venial, is suited both for those ' that are satis- 
 fied with a general confession,' and for those who 'do use, to their 
 further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the Priest.' 
 It need hardly be said that ' a general confession ' points to the 
 Rubric, ' Then shall this general Confession be made.' It is in 
 general terms, so as to apply to the whole body of assembled Chris- 
 tians ; yet in such wise as to admit of each individual making therein 
 particular mention of his own sins and burden and grief." 
 
 " The Absolution reaches as far as the Confession, and the sentence, 
 ' Pardon and deliver you from all your sins,' remits all the sins con- 
 fessed, mortal as well as venial." 
 
 Then, with respect to the Confession and Absolution in daily prayer, 
 Canon Cooke writes : 
 
 " In the Second Book of King Edward VI. were placed at the begin- 
 ning of the Office of Matins the general Confession and the Absolu- 
 tion, which preface both the Matins and Evensong of our present 
 book. Archdeacon Freeman points out that ' these are constructed 
 in that form which would most completely adapt them for super- 
 seding, in all ordinary cases, private Confession and Absolution.' 
 An examination of the Confession will show that, like the Confession 
 in the Liturgy, it is framed with the closest regard to the old defini- 
 
 15 
 
226 APPENDIX. 
 
 tions of mortal sin ; and that it differs in this respect from the Ancient 
 Confessions at Prime and Compline, which were considered to refer 
 to venial sins alone. The clauses, ' We have erred and strayed from 
 Thy ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices and 
 desires of our own hearts, ' are simply the definition of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas thrown into a precatory form : ' Mortal sin proceeds from 
 the aversion of man's will from God by its conversion to a commu- 
 table good ; ' the petitions, ' Spare Thou them which confess their 
 faults, r. store Thou them that are penitent,' with the final prayers for 
 grace to amend, accord exactly with the definition of penitence, 
 which 'consists in the reconversion of the will to God, with detesta- 
 tion of the past, and a purpose of amendment for the future.' And 
 the Absolution which follows covers all that is included in the Con- 
 fession." 
 
 APPENDIX DD. PAGE 154. 
 
 The following passage is quoted by Canon Cooke from Bishop 
 Fleetwood, Chaplain to William III. : 
 
 " Bishop Fleetwood, in his ' Essay on Miracles,' thus ex- 
 plains the passage : ' On a certain occasion, when one sick of the 
 p ilsy was brought unto Him, He said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, 
 thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sit- 
 ting there and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man speak 
 blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? And immedi- 
 ately when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they so reasoned within 
 themselves, He said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your 
 hearts? Our Saviour does not here blame them for thus reasoning 
 with themselves ; for certainly they reasoned right, that none but 
 God could forgive sins ; and it was no great matter to mistake, and 
 think that Christ attributed such power to Himself, by pronouncing 
 so absolutely " that his sins were forgiven him ; " and such a power 
 they never knew committed to any man : He does not blame them 
 therefore for so reasoning, but takes occasion from thence to show 
 them who He was, and the potver He had committed to Him, and for 
 what purpose ; and therefore He goes on, " Whether is it easier to say 
 to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to say, Arise, 
 tike up thy bed, and walk. But that ye may know that the Son of 
 Man hath power on earth to forgive sins I say unto thee " (speaking 
 then to the sick of the palsy), "Arise, take up thy bed, and go thy way 
 unto thy house. " Consider with yourselves this matter. You heard 
 
APFENDIX. 227 
 
 Me lately tell this sick man that his sins were forgiven him, and 
 thought immediately that I had spoken impious and blasphemous 
 words, attributing to Myself a power plainly divine and incommuni- 
 cable, that is, of forgiving sins. That God alone can forgive sins 
 committed against Himself is certainly true ; but if you think that He 
 cannot communicate this power, you are mistaken; for I assure you, 
 that the Son of Man, even I who speak to you, have power on earth 
 to forgive sins, and I was exercising this good power upon this mis- 
 erable paralytic, which was, you know, the occasion of your inward 
 reasoning, and concluding Me to have blasphemed. And what think 
 you? You see this poor creature, how impotent and weak he is 
 before you, how altogether unable he is to stir and help himself : do 
 not you believe it is as easy for God to give Me the power of 
 forgiving sins, as it is to give Me the power of working miraculous 
 cures? May I not say as easily, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," as I 
 can say, " Arise, take up thy bed, and walk " ? If I, without the ap- 
 plication of proper means, or any manner of prescription, shall cure 
 this man of his distemper by the bare word of My mouth, by saying 
 only, " Arise, take up thy bed, and walk," will you not believe that I 
 have also power to forgive sins, since one is full as easy as the other ? 
 Now, that you may know assuredly that I, the Son of Man, have 
 power on earth to forgive sins, you shall see that I have power to 
 cure this paralytic presently—" I say unto thee, then," thou lame and 
 helpless creature, " Arise, take up thy bed, and walk, and go thy way 
 to thy house. " Whether his sins be truly forgiven him, according to 
 My word, is what you cannot possibly discover ; but whether I have 
 power to cure this man's disease, the effect will show immediately, 
 and you will visibly discern. " And immediately he arose, took up 
 his bed, and went forth before them all ; insomuch that they were 
 all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fash- 
 ion. " Here is an act of great mercy shown to a poor miserable man ; 
 but it is plain that Christ's design was now to show the Jews the 
 truth of that doctrine, " That the Son of Man hath power on earth to 
 forgive sins." That was the thing the Jews stumbled at, and this 
 was the way Christ took to set them right ; the miracle was to procure 
 attention and belief ; the visible effect of a divine power was to con- 
 vince them that what He said was true, although the effect (namely, 
 the forgiveness of sins) was and must be invisible.' 
 
 " Our Lord does not deny that God only has the absolute power and 
 right to forgive sins. He does not here claim to forgive sins as being 
 God. He states simply that He, the Son of Man, has power on earth 
 
228 APPENDIX. 
 
 to forgive sins. The word which is translated 'power ' is a clew to 
 the meaning. It is not power, absolute and inherent, or prerogative ; 
 but delegated power, license, permission, granted from a higher au- 
 thority. And this delegated power to forgive sins on earth, this 
 license and permission to forgive sins on earth, He claims for Him- 
 self as the Son of Man. He explained on another occasion that the 
 Son of Man cast out devils and worked miracles by the spirit of God. 
 He said, ' The Spirit of the Lord hath anointed Me. . . . He hath 
 sent Me ... to set at liberty them that are bruised.' The Holy 
 Spirit gave Him, the Son of Man, power to work miracles and to for- 
 give sins on earth." 
 
 APPENDIX EE. PAGE 159. 
 
 " It were an unexplained and unexampled metaphor that to eat His 
 Flesh were to believe in Him ; the more so, since in that language 
 such metaphor is only used of preying upon a person, or on one's 
 self, or of calumniation (the metaphor is from wild beasts — e.g., 
 • When the wicked, even My foes, came upon Me to eat up My flesh, 
 they stumbled and fell' [Psalms 27 : 2] ; 'Who also eat the flesh of 
 My people' [Micah 3:3; cf. Job 19 : 22 ; Psalms 14 : 4 ; Jeremiah 
 10 : 25 ; 50 : 17])." A sermon by Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., "This is 
 My Body," 1=871, pp. 21, 22. 
 
 APPENDIX FF. PAGE 160. 
 
 Arnold on Baruch 1 : 10 writes (Commentary on Apocrypha, 1753, 
 p. *95) : The word "is improperly rendered prepare ; it is a sacrificial 
 expression, and signifies to offer. . . . The words at the institution of 
 the Eucharist would be as well rendered, 4 Offer this in remembrance 
 of Me.' It is likewise so used by the Jewish Hellenistic writers and by 
 the Greek ones of the Church, as facere is also among the Latins." 
 
 So too Bishop Bull (" Corruptions of the Church of Rome," Works 
 ed., Burton, 1827, vol. ii., p. 251) : " They held the Eucharist to be a 
 commemorative sacrifice, and so do we. This is the constant language 
 of the ancient liturgies, ' We offer by way of commemoratios, accord- 
 ing to our Saviour's words when He ordained this holy rite, Do this 
 in commemoration of Me.' " 
 
 In order to help students to make up their minds on this subject, 
 the following references to the Greek Septuagint are given ; when the 
 same Greek word as St. Paul (1 Corinthians n : 24,25) and St. Luke 
 
APPENDIX. 229 
 
 (22 : 19) represent our Blessed Lord as using is employed for sacrifice 
 or offer : 
 
 Exodus 10 : 25 ; 29 : 36, 38, 39, 41 ; Leviticus 4 : 20 ; 9 : 7, 16, 22 ; 
 14 : 19, 30 ; 15 : 15 ; 16 : 15, 24 ; 17 : 4, 9 ; 22 : 23, 24 ; 23 : 12, 19 ; 
 Numbers 6 : 11, 16, 17 ; 8 : 12 ; 15 : 3, 8, 24 ; 28 : 4, 8, 15, 24, 31 ; 
 29 : 2 ; Deuteronomy 12 : 27 ; Joshua 22 : 23 ; Judges 13 : 16, 19 ; 
 1 Samuel 1 : 24. 
 
 1 Kings 3 : 15; 8: 64; 11: 33. This passage is remarkable. The 
 Greek is "DID to Astarte." The English has " Worshipped 
 Ashtoreth." The Hebrew is the Hithpalel of Shach&h, to bow down 
 or prostrate one's self ; it is the same as in Genesis 22 : 5 : "I and the 
 lad will go yonder and worship" and 1 Samuel 1 : 3, " This man went 
 up yearly to worship" For the Greek rroielv to be used for this word 
 shows how entirely the sense of sacrificial worship had become at- 
 tached to the Greek iroielv. It is used here as intransitive, followed by 
 a dative " offered to Astarte." 
 
 2 Kings 5:17; 10 : 24, 25 ; 17 : 32 ; 2 Chronicles 7:7; Job 42 : 
 8 ; Psalm 66 : 15 ; Isaiah 19 : 21 ; Jeremiah 33 : 18 ; Ezekiel 43 : 25: 
 27 ; 45 : 17, 22, 23 ; 46 : 2, 12, 13, 15. 
 
 The following are instances of nocelv with unbloody sacrifices : 
 
 Exodus 29 : 41 ; Leviticus 2 : 7, 8 (flour), 11 ; 6 : 22 ; Numbers 15 : 
 5 (wine), 6 (flour), 14 ; 28 : 21, 24 ; Ezekiel 46 : 14. 
 
 In the following passages there is no Hebrew to correspond ; 
 
 Numbers 15 : 6 ; 28 : 5 ; 2 Kings 10 : 21 ; Baruch 1 : 10. 
 
 The following are some of the many passages, where the word 
 ■koisIv is used of keeping, or celebrating the Passover. 
 
 Exodus 12: 48 ; 13 : 5 ; Numbers 9:2, 3, 4, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14 ; 
 Deuteronomy 16 : 1 ; Joshua 5 10 ; 2 Kings 23 : 21 ; 2 Chronicles 
 30; 2t, 23 ; 2 Chronicles 35 : 1, 16, 17, 18 19 ; Ezra 6 : 19, 22 ; 1 
 Esdras 1:6; St. Matthew 26 : 18 ; Hebrews n : 28. 
 
 In St. Luke 2 : 27, " When the parents brought in the child Jesus ? 
 to do for Him after the custom of the law," it would be far better to 
 tnnslate as is required, "to offer for Him ;" this is distinctly the 
 meaning of the passage : it is as much a sacrificial word as that trans- 
 lated off<r in 5 : 24, which really means to give. 
 
 Indeed, though the meaning in this connection is not so certain, in 
 St. Mark 14 : 8, to translate, " She offered what she had," is simpler, 
 and gives the grammatical force of the two aorists far better than 
 " she hath done what she could." 
 
 Leaving Scripture, we have the following in the earliest Christian 
 times : 
 
230 APPENDIX. 
 
 St. Clement of Rome, Ep. to Corinthians, § 40, where Bishop 
 Lightfoot translates "■make their offerings" without note. 
 
 St. Justin Martyr uses the word in this sense in three passages, and 
 it is sadly amusing to see to what straits partisans are reduced in 
 the translation. 
 
 Apology I., § lxv., ed. Thirlby, London, 1722, p. 96, 1 8. Here, in 
 Clark's Ante-Nicene Library, the passage is rightly rendered " offers." 
 Here the verb is in the middle voice. 
 
 Dialogue with Trypho, § 41, ed. Thirlby, p. 220. Here Brown in 
 1745 translates accurately, " The offering of fine flour was also a type 
 of that Eucharistical bread which our Lord Jesus Christ has command- 
 ed us to offer" (Reprint, 1846, p. 96). But in Clark's A. N. Library 
 (1867, p. 138) Rev. G. Reith, A. M., throws scholarship and, indeed, 
 sense, to the wind, and renders " the bread of the Eucharist, the cele- 
 bration of which our Lord prescribed. " Now which refers to bread and 
 not to Eucharist ; but this translation leads us to believe that the cele- 
 bration of the Eucharist is said to have been prescribed. This would 
 be sense. But " the celebration of the bread" is pure nonsense. 
 How can any one besides Mr. Reith celebrate bread? 
 
 Dialogue, § 70, ed. Thirlby, p. 290. Here Mr. Brown (reprint, 1846, 
 p. 151) is correct : "That bread which our Christ bath commanded 
 us to offer . . . that cup which He commanded those that celebrate 
 the Eucharist to offer''' But Mr. Reith gets wilder than before (p. 187). 
 He has "the bread which our Christ gave us to eat . . . the cup 
 which he gave us to drink !" Can any scholar (besides Mr. Reith) 
 find one passage anywhere in a reputable Greek author, where ttoleIv 
 can mean to eat, and also to drink, in the same sentence ? 
 
 Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, a.d. 251. His letter about Novatus 
 is given in Eusebius (Ecc. Hist., vi., 43, ed. Heinichen, vol. ii., p. 
 279), " Having offered the oblation." 
 
 This meaning is continued to this day in the Greek Church. In the 
 prothesis, when all is ready for the Liturgy, the Deacon says to the 
 priest : " It is time to offer to the Lord," noir/aai (Euchologion Mega, 
 Venice, 1862, p. 44). See also the rubric on p. 105, " When the priest 
 is about to offer the Prohegiasmene." 
 
 APPENDIX GG. PAGE 182. 
 
 There is no doubt that in Scripture the number seven denotes per- 
 fection or completeness. When St. Paul had written to seven 
 
APPENDIX. 231 
 
 Churches, his message to the whole Church was complete, and no 
 more Epistles of his were inspired. He wrote to the following 
 Churches : Thessalonian, Corinthian, Roman, Galatian, Ephesian, 
 Philippian, Colossian. Even if the Epistle to the Hebrews be as- 
 cribed to him, it is rather to a class of persons within the Church that 
 it is written, than to a Church. 
 
 Similarly, St. John in the Apocalypse was instructed to write to 
 seven Churches, and the message was complete. In the Apocalypse, 
 the seven Candlesticks represent the whole Church ; and the seven Seals 
 and the seven Trumpets and the seven Vials all signify completeness 
 in various ways. Then there are seven weeks ending at Pentecost 
 (Leviticus 23 : 15), seven pillars to the House of Wisdom (Proverbs 
 9 : 1), seven notes in the musical scale, and seven days in the week. 
 The following is from a manuscript, in handwriting about the mid- 
 dle of the fourteenth century, in the writer's possession, and is inter- 
 esting in this connection : 
 
 " Of the seven petitions in the Lord's Prayer, it is to be remarked, 
 that by them 
 
 i. The seven deadly sins are put to flight, 
 ii. The seven. gifts of the Spirit are introduced, 
 iii. The seven Beatitudes are achieved, 
 iv. The seven Rewards are bestowed. 
 " I. The first petition is, ' Hallowed be Thy name.' 
 That is, Thou, O Father, Who art the Father of all by Creation, 
 art ours by special love ; Who art in the natural Heavens by 
 presence and power, in the spiritual Heavens by grace. Of which it 
 is said in the psalm, ' The Heavens declare the glory of God.' Hallozved 
 — that is, may this Thy name of Father be confirmed in us, that we may 
 ever be and be found Thy faithful children by obedience and filial 
 subjection. 
 
 i. Thus the deadly sin of Pride is excluded, which refuses 
 
 subjection, 
 ii. The gift of filial fear is introduced, fleeing from sin on ac- 
 count of its offence to God, and on account of love of our 
 Father ; for the fear of the Lord drives away sin. 
 iii. The first Beatitude is obtained — viz., Poverty of Spirit ; that 
 is, when a man is poor, so far as the spirit of perversity and 
 boasting, of which it is said in Isaiah, * Cease ye from man, 
 whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed lofty.' 
 {Vulgate version.) 
 iv. The first reward is bestowed— viz., the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 
232 APPENDIX. 
 
 ' Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the Kingdom 
 of Heaven.' 
 "II. The second petition is, 'Thy Kingdom come;' that is, I 
 pray that the whole world may come to Thy Kingdom. 
 
 i. Thus the deadly sin of envy is excluded, which does not de- 
 sire the good of others, 
 ii. The gift of true Godliness is introduced, 
 iii. The second Beatitude— viz., Meekness, is obtained, 
 iv. The second reward is bestowed— viz., the possession of the 
 heavenly land ; of which it is said, ' Thou art my portion in 
 the land of the living.' 
 " III. The third petition is, " Thy will be done ; ' that is, that men 
 may be of one mind and tranquil. This prayer, ' Thy will be done,' 
 is that men may be tranquil on earth as the angels are in Heaven. 
 
 i. Thus is excluded the deadly sin of Anger, which prevents a 
 
 man from knowing what the will of God is. 
 ii. Thus is introduced the gift of Knowledge, which teaches us 
 
 what we must do and how we must live, 
 iii. Thus is obtained the third Beatitude — viz., mourning. He 
 who does not know how to live rightly ought to mourn for 
 his sins, 
 iv. Thus is bestowed the third reward— viz., eternal consolation, 
 ' Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted.' 
 " IV. The fourth petition is, ' Give us this day our daily Bread ; ' 
 that is, I ask not merely for bodily food, but food for my soul. 
 
 i. Thus is excluded the deadly sin of sloth ; that is, distaste for 
 
 the word of God. 
 ii. Thus is introduced the gift of Ghostly strength, 
 iii. Thus is ob'ained the fourth Beatitude ; that is, hungeiing after 
 
 Righteousness, 
 iv. Thus is bestowed on man the fourth reward — viz., Satisfaction. 
 ' Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after lighteousness : 
 for they shall be filled.' 
 " V. The fifth petition is, ' Forgive us our debts as we forgive 
 them that are indebted to us ; ' that is forgive us our debts by remit- 
 ting them, and by bestowing on us the gift of grace. As we forgive 
 our debtors — that is, by pardoning their debts and by giving them a 
 gift. 
 
 i. Thus is excluded the deadly sin of avarice, 
 ii. Thus is brought in the gift of counsel, which is, ' Go and sell 
 all that you have and give to the poor.' 
 
APPENDIX. 233 
 
 iii. Thus is bestowed the fifth Beatitude, which is Mercy in this 
 
 present world. 
 iv. Thus is bestowed the fifth reward, which is the obtaining 
 mercy and freedom in the future. ' Blessed are the merci- 
 ful : for they shall obtain mercy.' 
 " VI. The sixth petition is, * Lead us not into temptation ;' that is. 
 that we be not overcome by temptation -e.g., excess of food or drink, 
 i. Thus is excluded gluttony, 
 ii. Thus is introduced the gift of understanding, which is against 
 
 excess, 
 iii. Thus is obtained the sixth Beatitude, which is purity of heart, 
 iv. Thus is bestowed the sixth reward, the beatific vision of God 
 Himself. ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
 God.' 
 "VII. The seventh petition is, ' Deliver us from evil ; ' that is, from 
 the evil of incontinence. 
 
 i. Thus is excluded luxury. 
 
 ii. Thus is introduced the gift of wisdom, giving spiritual taste 
 against the flesh. For when spiritual delights have been 
 perceived, all flesh seems tasteless, 
 iii. Thus is obtained the seventh Beatitude— that is, peace. For 
 he alone has peace at home, who, by subduing the flesh, 
 knows how to taste how gracious the Lord is. 
 iv. The seventh reward is bestowed — viz., divine adopt'on. 
 4 Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called the 
 children of God.' " 
 
 APPENDIX HH. PAGE 186. 
 
 The following passage from St. Augustine is valuable in this con- 
 nection (Ep. ad Sixtum, CXCIV., § 18, Opera, Paris, 1688, Tom. ii., 
 col. 720 F) : 
 
 " Just as no one is wise aright, understands aright, prevails aright 
 in counsel and might, no one is devout in knowledge, no one feais 
 God with spotless fear, unless he have received the spirit of wisdom 
 and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and godli- 
 ness, and the fear of God ; nor has any one true virtue, sincere kve, 
 god-fearing temperance, except by the spirit of virtue and love and 
 temperance ; so also without the spirit of faith no one will believe 
 rightly, nor without the spirit of prayer will one pray profitably. Not 
 
234 APPENDIX. 
 
 that there are so many Spirits, but all this worketh cne and the self- 
 same Spirit, dividing to every one severally as He will ; because 
 the Spirit bloweth where He listeih. But because we must confess 
 that He helps in one way before indwelling, in another way after 
 indwelling. For before He is indwelling He helps men to be faithful ; 
 He helps them when they are faithful by indwelling." 
 
 APPENDIX II. PAGE 194. 
 
 This is manifest in the controversy between St. Cyprian and 
 Stephen of Rome. This brought out the fact that all were agreed 
 that the Holy Spirit was not given outside the Church. 
 
 Hence heretics were admitted to the Church, if they had been 
 validly baptized, only with unction and laying on of hands. In mod- 
 ern times a distinction has been made between Confirmation as a 
 sacramental rite and the reception of converted heretics. But this is 
 really only a difference of name. The words used are the same. 
 Thus the Seventh Canon of the Second General Council (Constanti- 
 nople, I., A.D. 381), speaking of certain heretics whose baptism was 
 regarded as valid, says : " We receive them if they give written 
 renunciation of their errors and anathematize every heresy not of the 
 same mind as the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of God, and 
 being sealed— that is, anointed first with holy unction on forehead, and 
 eyes, and nostrils, and mouth, and ears, and sealing them we fay : 
 ' The seal of the gift of the Huly Ghost.' " 
 
 These are the words used at Confirmation. 
 
 St. Leo the Great continually repeats that heretics cannot com- 
 municate the Holy Spirit, though their Baptism is valid, as the fol- 
 lowing passage will show : 
 
 " They have received the form of Baptism, therefore they are not 
 to be baptized ; but they are to be joined to the Catholics by the 
 imposition of hands ; the virtue of the Holy Spirit being invoked, 
 which cannot be received from heretics" (Ep. ii., Opera, Paris, 1675, 
 Tom. i., p. 411). This is quoted by Auxilius in the tenth century. 
 
 Again, "Their Baptism must not be outraged by repetition, only 
 the sanctification of the Spirit is to be invoked, that uhat no one 
 receives from heretics may be obtained from Catholic Bishops" (Ep. 
 cxxix., § 7, Tom. i., p. 688). 
 
 See also Ep. cxxxv., § 2, i., p. 717. 
 
 This must suffice on this head. 
 
APPENDIX. 235 
 
 APPENDIX KK. PAGE 196. 
 
 When a particular gift or grace of the Holy Spirit is prayed for, it 
 is specially named and thus limited. In Baptism we pray for regen- 
 eration : " Give Thy Holy Spirit to this person, that he may be born 
 again." In ordination it is " /or the work of a Priest or Bishop." 
 There is no such limitation in Confirmation. 
 
 Didymus, the blind marvel of learning, appointed by St. Athana- 
 sius as head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, draws attention 
 to the fact that, sometimes, at all events, the omission of the Article 
 in Greek before " Spirit" shows that an influence or gift is intended, 
 and not the Personal Presence of the Holy Spirit. The treatise of 
 Didymus on the Holy Spirit is preserved in a Latin translation by 
 St. Jerome among his works (Opera, Veronae, 1735, Tom. ii., col. 
 124). The same is referred to by St. Athanasius himself (Ep. ad 
 Serapionem, I., § 4, Opera, Patavii, Tom. i., pars 2, p. 520). Bishop 
 Middleton (on the Article, ed. Rose, 1855, p. 127, on St. Matthew 
 1 : 18) says the same : " The sacred Writers have clearly, and in strict 
 conformity with the analogy of language, distinguished the influence 
 from the Person of the Spirit." 
 
 APPENDIX LL. PAGE 200. 
 
 " The first great distinction between God's gifts to the soul of man 
 divides the ordinary from the extraordinary gifts of grace. The or- 
 dinary gifts of grace are those which are commonly given to each 
 soul for its own particular edification. The extraordinary gifts are 
 those which are only given at certain times and to certain persons for 
 the general good of the Church. The ordinary gifts of grace are 
 those which give spiritual strength and enable us to resist temptation, 
 to conquer sin, to keep our baptismal vows, and generally to lead a 
 Christian life" (Benjamin Webb, " Instructions and Devotions for 
 Candidates for Confirmation" — a very valuable little book). See also 
 " The Spirit of Enthusiasm Exorcised," a sermon by George Hickes, 
 D.D. (afterward a Bishop of the Non-jurors), London, 1680. 
 
 APPENDIX MM. PAGE 200. 
 
 There is now a strong feeling that we must return to the primitive 
 teaching about the truth of the especial grace of Confirmation — viz., 
 
236 APPENDIX. 
 
 what the Archbishop of Canterbury has so well said : " No thread of 
 language and history is more distinct than that which connects 
 Christ's promise of the coming of the Paraclete, to be an indwelling 
 Power in all His chosen ones, with the institute of the laying on of 
 Hands by the Apostles" (" The Seven Gifts," p. 87). This was the 
 primitive teaching, so that Bishop Cornelius could say of the heretic, 
 Novatus, that having received clinical Baptism in danger of death, " he 
 did not receive the completion, which he should have received, accord- 
 ing to the Canon of the Church, nor was he sealed by the Bishop, but 
 not having received this, how could he have received the Holy Ghost?" 
 (Ap. Euseb., His. Ecc, VI., 43). There was only one way recognized 
 by the Church. 
 
 A little essay published in 1880 by Rev. F. W. Puller, "What is 
 the distinctive grace of Confirmation?" (Rivingtons, London) is 
 very valuable. It is full of learning and close argument. 
 
 In the Eastern Church anointing with chrism seems to have 
 superseded the Scriptural rite of laying on of hands at an early date. 
 In the West, too, unction has become regarded as the impertant part 
 of the rite ; though some have argued that the necessary touch of the 
 finger, in the anointing in East and West, is sufficient "laying on of 
 hands." 
 
 In the gossipy and interesting history of St. Gregory of Tours 
 (a.d. 580), he only speaks of anointing in his constant reference to 
 the reconciliation of Arians, on which Ruinart has the following note : 
 " Gregory everywhere speaks of the reconciliation of the Arians by 
 chrism alone ; just as now, in conferring Confirmation, hardly any 
 mention is made of the laying on of hands, which, however, is 
 necessary." 
 
 There seems good evidence that in the English Church the laying 
 on of hands was never dropped. In the seventh century, we find 
 Bishop Cuthbert, in the North of England, "laying his hand on the 
 head of each one." In the eighth century, Bede mentions this without 
 qualification : " He ministered the grace of the Holy Spirit by impo- 
 sition of hands on those who had just been regenerated in Christ" 
 (" Life of St. Cuthbert," XXXII., ed. Giles, vol. tv. , p. 30S). A manu- 
 script service book of the Church of England, written in the eleventh 
 century (preserved in the library of Sidney-Sussex College, Cam- 
 bridge, G. B.), expressly directs the Bishop to lay hands on each can- 
 didate. Two centuries after, Wiclif refers to Confirmation in a 
 manner which implies (or has been held to imply) that laying on 
 of hands was the practice in his day. Two hundred years later " the 
 
APPENDIX. 237 
 
 King's Book," in 1543, shows the same. " The holy fathers of the 
 primitive Church, taking. occasion and founding themselves upon the 
 said acts and deeds of the Apostles, . . . did use and obseive (as it 
 hath been hitherto by succession of ages continued) that all Christian 
 people should, after their baptism, be presented to their bishops, to 
 the intent that by their prayers and imposition of their -hands upon 
 them . . . they should be confirmed." In 1549 tne fi rst Prayer-Book 
 of Edward VI. directs that the Bishop should " lay his hand upon 
 their heads," and this is continued to the present day among us. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the decline of true teaching about 
 Confirmation arose primarily from the carelessness and lack of activ- 
 ity of the Bishops. This carelessness spread to the people and the 
 result was that the sober Philip Melanchthon could call the rite " otiosa 
 caeremonia." But when he said that in primitive times Confirmation 
 was nothing more than a catechizing of those that had been baptized 
 as infants, he made a perfectly groundless statement. He seems to 
 have misunderstood a Canon of the first Council of Aries (a.d. 314) 
 and one of Laodicea (? a.d. 320), both of which are about the re- 
 ception into the Church of converted heretics ; they were to be openly 
 catechized about their errors. Of the modern popular view, that 
 Confirmation is a ratifying of baptismal vows, there is not the 
 
 SLIGHTEST TRACE TO BE FOUND IN CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY ; it must 
 
 therefore be erroneous. What is new is not true, and what is 
 
 TRUE IS NOT NEW. 
 
 In order to help the Student references are here given to writers 
 under the various centuries. 
 
 First Century. (Acts 8 : 17 ; 19 : 6). "Ever after in the 
 letters of the Apostles such is the frequency of verbal and phrase- 
 ological allusion to the custom, that, as a scholar once remarked to 
 me, 'Confirmation seems more present to the earliest Christian 
 habits of thought than Baptism itself " (Archbishop Benson, of Can- 
 terbury, "The Seven Gifts," 1885, p. 87). 
 
 It has been doubted by some whether in the beautiful story of St. 
 John and the young robber, Confirmation is referred to ; but as 
 Eusebius relates the story, and as St. Clement of Alexandria seems 
 to use the word seal of Confirmation, and as the epithet perfect 
 {reketov) is commonly used of Confirmation, there cannot be much 
 doubt that we are not wrong in claiming the passage for Confirma- 
 tion. 
 
 "The Bishop took the young man home, fed, disciplined, fostered 
 him, and at length baptized him. After this he relaxed his excessive 
 
238 APPENDIX. 
 
 care of him, as he had bestowed upon him the perfect preservative, 
 the seal of the Lord "(Eusebius quoting St. Clement of Alexandria, 
 Eccl. Hist., III., 23, ed. Heinichen, 1827, Tom. i., p. 232). 
 
 A fragment referred to St. Clement of Rome probably belongs to 
 him of Alexandria, but even so the reference to Confirmation is 
 doubtful (St. Clement, ed. Lightfoot, i., p. 220). 
 
 Second Century. ''Tne woman begged of him, saying: 
 'Apostle of the Most High, give me the seal, that the foe may 
 not come back upon me again. ' Then he made her come near him, 
 and putting his hand upon her, he sealed her in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," Apocryphal Acts of 
 the Ap. Thomas. This probably refers to Baptism and Confirmation 
 together, as is often the case. The Presbyterian Dr. Dale refers to 
 this and other places as being hand-baptism without water ! {Christie 
 Baptism, p. 115 ; Johannic Baptism, pp. 221, 222). 
 
 A.D. 180. " What work has either ornament or beauty, unless it 
 be anointed and burnished ? The air and all that is under heaven is 
 in a certain sort anointed by light and spirit ; and are you unwilling 
 to be anointed with the oil of God ? We are called Christians on this 
 account, because we are anointed with the oil of God" (Theophilus 
 of Antioch to Autolycus, Clark's A. N. Lib., p. 62). 
 
 A.D. 196. Tertullian has many passages to the point. " Not that 
 in the water (of Baptism) we obtain the Holy Spirit, but in the 
 water, under the influence of the angel, we are cleansed, and thus 
 prepared for the Holy Spirit. ... In the next place hand is laid on 
 u>, invjkingand inviting the Holy Ghost. . . . Then that most Holy 
 Spirit gladly descends from the Father upon our cleansed and blessed 
 bodies. . . . Nor is this without the supporting evidence of a fore- 
 going type. For just as after the waters of the deluge, by which 
 ancient iniquity was purged away, after the baptism (so to speak) of 
 the world, a dove was the herald which announced to the world the 
 peace of heavenly wrath, sent forth from the ark and returning with 
 olive ... so by the law of heavenly effect to earth (that is, our flesh) 
 emerging from the font after its old sins, the dove of the Holy Spirit 
 flies, bringing the peace of God" (De Baptismo, cap. 8., Opera, ed. 
 Oahler, i., p. 627). 
 
 Again, "The flesh is the very hinge of salvation. . . . The flesh 
 is shadowed by the imposition of hand, that the soul may be illumi- 
 nated by the Spirit" (De Resur. Carnis, cap. 8, ed. Oehler, ii., p. 478). 
 
 Third Century t Origen, born a.d. 1S5, died a.d. 254. 
 
 " In the Acts of the Apostles, that the Holy Ghost was given in 
 
APPENDIX. 239 
 
 Baptism by the laying on of the Apostles' hands" (De Principiis, I., 
 111., § 2, Opera, Paris, 1733, Tom. i., p. 61). This is often quoted (see 
 below), A.d. 550, by Primasius, and a.d. 840, by Haymo of Halber- 
 stadt. Here Confirmation is regarded as part of Baptism. So, again, 
 in his Commentary on the Epistle to Romans (Romans 6, Lib. v., 
 Opera, Paris, 1759, Tom. iv., p. 561) : " According to the tradition 
 of the Church we are all baptized in visible water and with visible 
 chrism." 
 
 A.D. 250. St. Cyprian is full of reference to the effect of Confirma- 
 tion, as it is his strongest argument against Bishop Stephen of Rome. 
 One or two passages are quoted and references given to other pas- 
 sages. 
 
 Speaking of the confirming of the Samaritans (Acts 8), he says, 
 that as they had been properly baptized, " that which was lacking was 
 done by Peter and John, that prayer being offered for them, and the 
 hand laid on them, the Holy Spirit should be invoked and poured 
 upon them. Which now also is done among us, that they who are 
 baptized in the Church are presented to those set over the Church, 
 and by our prayer and laying on of hands receive the Holy Spirit, 
 and are perfected with the seal of the Lord" (Ep. Ixxiii., ed. Pdris, 
 1726 p. 132). 
 
 Again, " If they attribute the effect of Baptism to the Majesty of 
 the Name. . . . Why is not, in the name of the same Christ, the hand 
 laid on the baptized that he may receive the Holy Spirit ? , . . More- 
 over, a man is not born by laying on of hands when he receives the 
 Holy Spirit ; but he is born in the Baptism of the Church, that, being 
 already born, he may receive the Holy Spirit, just as was in the case 
 of the first Adam. For first God formed him, and then breathed into 
 his nostrils the breath of life. For the Spirit cannot be received 
 unless the rec.iver first have an existence" (Paris, 1726, pp. 139, 
 140). 
 
 See also Ep. Ixx., Paris, 1726, p. 125 ; lxxii., lxx'ii., pp. 128, 136, 
 etc. 
 
 St. Firmilian, in answer to St. Cyprian, argues precisely in the same 
 manner. His letter is among the Epistles of St. Cyprian (Ep. lxxv., 
 Paris, 1726, pp. 145-47)- 
 
 A.D. 251. St. Cornelius of Rome, in a fibular letter about the 
 heretic Novatus, writes : " He fell into a grievous sickness, and being 
 thought moribund, he was baptized on the bed where he lay. But 
 when he recovered he did not receive the rest which he should have 
 received, according to the Canon of the Church, nor was he sealed by 
 
240 APPENDIX. 
 
 the Bishop. But not having received this, how could he receive the 
 Ho'y Spirit?" (preserved by Eusebius Eccl. Hist., VI. , xliii). 
 
 A. D. 256 (about). In an anonymous tract on the question of reb \p- 
 tism, preserved among the works of St. Cyprian, the following pas- 
 sages occur ; but the whole treatise is valuable and worth reading, 
 and takes for granted that the Holy Spirit is not given in Baptism, 
 but in Confirmation : " Whether in some respect he halts when he is 
 baptized with the baptism of water, which is of less account, provided 
 that afterward a sincere faith in the truth is evidenced in the Baptism 
 of the Spirit, which is undoubtedly of greater account /" i.e., Confirma- 
 tion. " We ought only to help them with the Baptism of the Spirit — 
 that is, by the laying on of the hand of the Bishop, and the supplying 
 the Holy Spirit." " By the laying of the hand of the Bishop the Holy 
 Spirit is given to each believer, as the Apostles did to the Samaritans 
 after Philip's baptism, and by this means conveyed to them the Holy 
 Spirit" (Cypriani, Opera, Paris, pp. 353-55, 361, etc). 
 
 Fourth Century. Very full evidence is to be found in this 
 century. 
 
 A.D. 305. Co. Elvira, Can. xxxviii. In cases of necessity, a faith- 
 ful layman (who is properly baptized and not twice married) may 
 baptize ; but if the man survive, he must bring him to the Bishop, that 
 by laying on of hands he may be perfected (Canones, ed. Brum, ii., 
 p. 7 ; Labbei Gone, Tom. i., col. 974). 
 
 A.D. 314. Co. Aries, I., Can. viii. If any one comes to the 
 Church from heresy, they ask him his creed ; and if they find him to 
 have been baptized in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, only let hand 
 be laid on him, that he may receive the Holy Spirit {Bruns, ii., 10S). 
 See also Co. Laodicea, Can. vii., xlviii. 
 
 A.D. 347. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, like many others of the fathers, 
 often includes Confirmation under Baptism ; as the Benedictine ed- 
 itor points out. 
 
 Catechesis Lect., xviii., § 33. " You shall hear first about what is 
 done directly before Baptism ; and then how you were cleansed from 
 your sins by the Lord, with the washing of water by the Word : and 
 how in priestly fashion ye are made partakers of the title of Christ ; 
 and how the seal was given you of the Communion of the Holy 
 Spirit ; and about the mysteries in the altar of the New Covenant" 
 (Opera, Paris, 1720, p. 301). 
 
 Catechesis Lect., xxi. " You became Christ's when you received the 
 antitype of the Holy Spirit {i.e. , sacred oil or chrism), and all things 
 happened to you in an image, since you are the image of Christ 
 
APPENDIX. 241 
 
 He, indeed, was baptized in the river Jordan ; He ascended out of the 
 waters ; then the descent of the Holy Spirit took place — like resting 
 on like. To you also in like manner, after you have ascended from 
 the fount of sacred streams, chrism is given, the antitype of Him 
 with Whom Christ was anointed, Who is the Holy Ghost . . . and 
 when the body is anointed with visible ointment, the soul is sanctified 
 by the Holy and life-giving Spirit" (Opera, Paris, p. 316). 
 
 A.D. 355. St. Hilary of Poitiers. One passage has been already 
 quoted in the text of Lecture VI., p. 148. 
 
 " For the guerdon and gift of the Holy Spirit was to be given by 
 the laying on of hands to the Gentiles, at the ceasing of the works of 
 the law" (on St. Matthew 19 : 3, Opera, Veronae, 1730, Tom. i., 
 col. 762). 
 
 A.D. 370. St. Optatus of Milevia, in Africa. The striking passage 
 comparing our Lord's Baptism and Confirmation has already been 
 given in Lecture VI., p. 147. 
 
 " Oil when prepared is called chrism, in which there is a sweetness 
 which softens the skin of conscience, shutting off the hardness of sins ; 
 which prepares a throne for the Holy Spirit, so that, invited thither, 
 all roughness being dismissed, He may willingly deign to make His 
 indwelling" (De Schismate Don., VII., § 4, Paris, 1700, p. 106). 
 
 A.D. 370. Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona. 
 
 " Might the Apostles alone bind and loose ? Then they alone might 
 baptize, they alone give the Holy Spirit, they alone purge the sins 
 of the Gentiles, because this command was given to none but 
 Apostles. ... If, then, the power of the font and chrism, by far the 
 greater gifts, has descended to the Bishops, they have also the right 
 of binding and loosing" (ed. Migne, col. 1057). 
 
 See also Sermon on Baptism, Migne, col. 1093. 
 
 A.D. 380. St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. 
 
 " Well, then, you were baptized, and then came to the Bishop, what 
 did he say to you ? God the Father, Who regenerated you of Water 
 and the Spirit, and has given you pardon of your sins, Himself anoint 
 thee to life eternal" (De Sacramentis, II., vii.). 
 
 " Then follows the spiritual seal, which you have read of to-day ; 
 that, after the font ', this remains, that there be perfection when at the in- 
 vocation of the Bishop the Holy Spirit is infused, the Spirit of wisdom 
 and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and Ghostly strength, the 
 Spirit of knowledge and true godliness, the Spirit of holy fear, as if 
 seven virtues of the Spirit" (De Sacramentis, III., ii., § 8, Opera 
 Paris, 1690, Tom. ii., col. 360, 363). 
 16 
 
242 APPENDIX. 
 
 [It will be observed that these two passages cover the prayer of 
 Confirmation, which has come down to us from his time. This is of 
 the essence of Confirmation.] 
 
 See also De Mysteriis, cap. 7, Tom. ii., col. 336 ; De Sancto Spiritu 
 I., viii., § go, Tom. ii., col. 619. 
 
 Ambrosiaster. In Hebrews 6 : 3. 
 
 " Laying on of hands, by which it is believed the Holy Spirit can be 
 received ; which after Baptism is wont to be done by Bishops for the 
 Confirmation of unity in the Church of Christ." 
 
 [This is quoted by Bishop Jeremy Taylor (Works, ed. Eden, vol. v., 
 p. 644) and Bingham (" Antiquities," XII., iii., § 6), by Bishop Charles 
 Wordsworth, of St. Andrew's (" Mending of Nets," p. 15), and by 
 Sainte-Beuve (De Sacramentis, Paris, 1686, p. 130) and some others. 
 I have not been able to verify it.] 
 
 The passage is incorporated in the commentary of Primasius (a.d. 
 550) on Hebrews 6. 
 
 A.D. 379. St. Jerome, priest. 
 
 [It has been said that toward the end of the fourth century trust- 
 worthy tradition in some points was dying out. In arguing against 
 Helvidius, the impetuous Jerome invented his argument, and, as Bishop 
 Lightfoot points out, he is not consistent to his own theory 
 (" Galatians," 6th ed., p. 259). In his treatise against the Luciferians 
 he exhibits much youthful impetuosity, and quotes as Scripture a text 
 of infinitesimal, if any authority, which he has not admitted into his 
 own text, in order to gain a point against his adversary.] 
 
 He introduces the Luciferian, asking, " Don't you know that this is 
 the custom of the Churches, that on the baptized hands are afterward 
 laid, and so the Holy Spirit is invoked ?" 
 
 St. Jerome answers, " I deny not that this is the custom of the 
 Churches, that to those who have been baptized by Priests and 
 Deacons, at a distance from larger towns, the Bishops go out to lay 
 on hands for the invocation of the Holy Spirit." He acknowledges 
 the custom, but, he argues, What of those who die before they are 
 Confirmed ? " Perchance the eunuch must be believed to be without 
 the Holy Spirit, because he was bapiized by Philip the Deacon, of whom 
 the Scripture says, ' They went down both of them into the water. 
 And when they went away from the water the Holy Spirit came on the 
 eunuch.' " 
 
 [This interpolation is clearly to meet a difficulty about which there 
 has been continual discussion ; and the safest determination arrived 
 at is, that while Bishops are bound to do all in their power to confer 
 
APPENDIX. 243 
 
 the grace, and will be held responsible for culpable or careless 
 neglect ; yet we do not believe that God will punish the faithful for the 
 carelessness of His Minister. The difficulty was soon felt ; and this 
 is how the Council of Elvira (a.d. 305) met it : " If a deacon be a 
 Rector and have baptized any in the absence of Bishop or priest, the 
 Bishop must perfect them by benediction ; but if they die first, each 
 may be justified under the faith he professed."] 
 
 A.D. 380. Damasus, Bishop of Rome, the patron of St. Jerome. 
 
 " It is the office alone of the Apostles and their successors to give 
 the Holy Spirit. . . . Not one of the seventy disciples is read to 
 have given the gift of the Holy Spiiit by the imposition of hands" 
 (Ep. v., Labbei, ii., 879). 
 
 A.D. 381. Co. Constant., I., Can. vii. Quoted above, p. 234. 
 
 A.D. 390. St. Chrysostom has several passages, generally rhetori- 
 cal. Here is one. Having spoken of St. Paul's laying hands on the 
 Ephesians, he says : " Hence is displayed a great dogma, that, they 
 who are baptized are perfectly cleansed from sin. For had they not 
 been cleansed, they would not have received the Spirit, they would 
 not have been thought immediately worthy of the gifts." Then with 
 personal application, he says : " We have received remission of sins, 
 sanctification, participation in the Spirit, adoption, life eternal. What 
 more do you wish? Signs? But they are done away. You have 
 faith, hope, charity, which remain : seek these, they are greater than 
 signs" (Horn, in Act., xl., § 2, Tom. ix., 339). 
 
 A.D. 395. Prudentius, the beautiful Spanish poet, has continued 
 reference to the chrism traced with oil on the forehead (Hymn on 
 going to sleep, 1. 125 ; Arevali, Tom. i., 307 ; Apotheosis, i., 447 ; 
 Psychomachia, 358, ii., 619 ; Contra Symmachum, i., 586, ii.. 
 
 75i). 
 
 Fifth Century. A.D. 402. Innocentius I. " But about seal- 
 ing infants, it is clear that it must not be done by any but a Bish- 
 op. For though presbyters are priests, they have not the high- 
 priesthood. But that this should only be done by Bishops, that 
 they either seal or hand on the Holy Paraclete, not only the cus- 
 tom of the Church shows, but also the passage in the Acts of the 
 Apostles which says that Peter and John were directed to hand on 
 the Holy Spirit to those who had been already baptized" (Labbei, ii., 
 1246). 
 
 [This passage is continually quoted and incorporated in the writ- 
 ings of Theodulf of Orleans, Alcuin, Magnus of Sens, etc., in the 
 eighth and ninth centuries.] 
 
244 APPENDIX. 
 
 A.D. 405. St. Augustine. As we should expect, there are many 
 references in many ways to Confirmation. 
 
 " Wno now expects this, that they on whom hand is laid, that they 
 may receive the Holy Ghost, should immediately speak with tongues? 
 No ; but invisibly and secretly the love of God is understood to be 
 inspired in their hearts on account of the bond of peace" (De Bap. 
 Con. Donat., III., xvi., § 21, Tom. ix., col. 116). The same argument 
 is repeated in Ep. Joh., cap. 4, Tract vi., § 10, Tom. iii., pars 2, 
 col. 858. See also De Trim, Lib. xv., § 46, Tom. viii., col. 999, etc. 
 
 A.D. 440. St. Isidore of Pelusium. 
 
 Philip, that converted the Samaritans, was not an Apostle, " for 
 Peter and John, the Apostles, went down from Jerusalem, and con- 
 veyed to them the grace of the Holy Spirit. . . . He baptizes as a 
 disciple, but the Apostles complete the grace, for to them was granted 
 the power to bestow so great a gift" (Ep. i., 450, Paris, 1638, p. 214). 
 
 A.D. 450. Anonymous commentary on St. Matthew in St. Chrys- 
 ostom's works, Tom. vi., p. 770. In this there is the following 
 striking passage : 
 
 "He that has not been so baptized as to be thought worthy to 
 receive the Holy Ghost, has indeed been baptized in body, and his 
 sins have been forgiven, but in soul he is a catechumen. For it is 
 thus written, f He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of His ; ' 
 because the flesh puts forth worse sins afterward, since he has not 
 the Holy Spirit in him, preserving him, but the Temple of his body is 
 empty. Afterward that Spirit finding the house empty and swept 
 with doctrines of faith, as with brooms, he enters there in sevenfold 
 power, and dwells there, since words of faith, which we call brooms, 
 cleanse from ignorance, but not from sins or lusts." 
 
 St. Leo I. has many passages, some of which have been given in 
 Appendix II., page 234. 
 
 A.D. 450. Gennadius, Archbishop of Constantinople. 
 
 " When they believe, they are baptized ; when they have been bap- 
 tized, they submit to the laying on of hands of the Bishop, for the 
 participation of the Spirit. . . . Watch, then ; for if you live care- 
 lessly you may not be baptized again, and again receive the Holy 
 Spirit by the laying on of hands" (preserved in CEcumenius, in Ep. 
 ad Heb., Opera, Parisii?, 1631, Tom. ii., p. 355). 
 
 ISivCli Century. A.D. 550. Primasius, Bishop of Adrumetum, 
 commenting on Hebrews 13 : 25, incorporates the saying of Origen 
 given above, " The gift of the Holy Spirit is given in Baptism by the 
 laying on of hands of the Bishop" (Migne, col. 794). 
 
APPENDIX. 245 
 
 A.D. 590. St. Gregory the Great. 
 
 " By us indeed the faithful come to Holy Baptism, by our prayers 
 are they blessed, by the laying on of our hands they receive the Holy 
 Ghost from God" (Horn, in Evangelia, xvii., Opera, Paris, 1686, 
 Tom. i., col. 1505). 
 
 Seventh Century. A.D. 630. St. Isidore of Seville, born A. d. 
 560, died A.D. 636. 
 
 " Just as in Baptism remission of sins is given, so in Unction the 
 sanctification of the Spirit is applied. The laying on of hands is 
 that the Holy Spirit, invoked by the blessing, may be invited to 
 come. For then that Paraclete willingly descends from the Father 
 after the bodies have been cleansed and blessed" (Origines, vi., 18, 
 Opera, Coloniae, 1617, p. 52). 
 
 This passage is a reminiscence of Tertullian, De Baptismo, quoted 
 above. 
 
 "After Biptism the Holy Spirit is given by the Bishops with 
 laying on of hands" (De Off. Ecc, II., xxvi., Opera, p. 412). 
 
 A.D. 680. Archbishop Theodore, of Canterbury. 
 
 " We believe that none is perfect in Baptism without the Confirma- 
 tion of the Bishop, but we do not despair of their Salvation" (Capi- 
 tula, cap. 4, Labbei, vi., 1875). 
 
 A.D. 685. St. Cuthbert. In Bede's life of St. Cuthbert, as quoted 
 above, p. 236. 
 
 Eighth Century. A.D. 720. Venerable Bede (a.d. 673- 
 
 735). 
 
 " Had Philip been an Apostle he could have laid his hand on, that 
 they might receive the Holy Ghost, for this is the prerogative of 
 Bishops only . . . priests may not seal the forehead, which Bishops 
 alone may do when they hand on the Holy Spirit to those who have 
 been baptized" (Com. on Acts 8, ed. Giles, Tom. xii., 39). 
 
 See also Homily on Octave of Epiphany, Tom. v., 166, 172 ; Com. 
 on St. Luke 22 : 39, Tom. xi., p. 341 ; on Cant, i., Tom. ix., p. 226. 
 
 A.D. 750. Isaac, Bishop of Langres. 
 
 " That all take great care that no one departs this life without being 
 Confirmed by the Bishop, lest he be in danger of losing his soul" 
 (Can. Tit., xi., Can. xii., Labbei, viii., col. 623). 
 
 A.D. 780. Alcuin quotes the saying of Innocent quoted above, A.D. 
 402. Again, in his letter to Charlemagne : " When the white garments 
 are taken from the baptized, it is fitting that they receive the Holy 
 Spirit from the Bishop by the laying on of hand" (Hittorpius, Romae, 
 1591, p. 83, bis). 
 
246 APPENDIX. 
 
 Ninth Century. In this century almost all the statements 
 about Confirmation are little more than the repetition of what has 
 been said before. Theodulf of Orleans (in St. Greg., Mag. Oper., 
 Paris, 1705, Tom. iii., col. 370) writes almost in same words as 
 Magnus, Archbishop of Sens, in his letter to Charlemagne (Maitene 
 de Ritibus, i., 62). 
 
 A.D. S12. Jesse, Bishop of Amiens, writes (Ep. de Baptismo 
 Gallaudi, xiii., p. 400) : " After this let the Bishop confirm him with 
 chrism on the forehead. And laying on of hand is then conferred, 
 so that the Holy Spirit, being invoked and invited by benediction, 
 may descend upon them." 
 
 A.D. 829. Co. Paris, VI., quotes the Homily of St. Gregory the 
 Great, cited above. 
 
 A.D. 830. Jonas, Bishop of Orleans. " The Acts of the Apostles 
 teach us that it appertains to the Bishop alone to give the Holy 
 Ghost to the faithful by the laying on of hands" 
 
 (Lib. I., De Institut. Cleric, cap. 7. Quoted by Drouven, De Re 
 Sacramentaria, i , p. 299). 
 
 Tenth Century. A.D. 907. Auxilius quotes from St. Leo I. 
 as above (Asseman, Codex Liturgicus, Tom. viii., p. 232). 
 
 A.D. 999. Council of Poitiers, Can. ii.: "That no Bishop receive 
 or require fees for absolution, nor for the gift of the Holy Spirit, unless 
 a man make an offering with a willing mind" (Labbei, ix., col. 7S1). 
 
 A.D. 924. Atto, Bishop of Vercellse, quotes the passage from Am- 
 brosiaster, as above. 
 
 Eleventh Century. The teaching begins to weaken. 
 
 A.D. 1050. Ivo, Bishop of Chartres. " By the sign of the Cross 
 those who have been baptized receive gifts of grace by the laying on 
 of hands" (Sermon, Sti. Aug., Opera, Tom. v., Appendix, col. 407). 
 Again : "Ye have received spiritual armor against invisible foes by 
 the laying on of hands" (Opera, 1647, Tom. ii., p. 263). 
 
 A.D. 1057. Peter Damian. " In Baptism the Holy Ghost is 
 given for pardon, in Confirmation for fight" (cit. Sainte-Beuve, De 
 Sacramentis, p. 199). 
 
 A.D. 1070. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. " They must 
 be baptized for the remission of sins, with a view to receive the gifts 
 of the Spirit ; must be perfected by the laying on of hands of the 
 Bishop" (Dupin, vol. ix., p. 12). 
 
 Twelfth Century. A.D. 1135. Rupertus Abbas. 
 
 " This is peculiar to Bishops alone, that they seal and hand on the 
 Spirit Paraclete, which not only does the custom of the Church 
 
APPENDIX. 247 
 
 show, but also the Acts of the Apostles," quoting Acts 8 and 19 
 (Hittorpius, Rom?e, 1591, p. 529). 
 
 A.D. ii-jo. Hugh of St. Victor. 
 
 " Since in Baptism there was given full forgiveness of sins, what 
 does Confirmation give? In Baptism the Spirit is given for forgive- 
 ness, in Confirmation for strength. Without this a man can be saved 
 if he does not decline it through contempt" (De Sacramentis, cap. 
 22 ; Hittorpius, p. 736) 
 
 Thirteenth Century. A.D. 1204. Innocent III. 
 
 " By the anointing of the forehead the imposition of hand is be- 
 tokened, which is also called Confirmation, because by it the Holy 
 Spirit is given for increase and strength. This none but the chief 
 priest (that is, the Bishop) may give ; since we read of Apostles only 
 (of whom the Bishops are Vicars) that the Holy Spirit was given by 
 the laying on of hands" (Decretal, Lib. i., Tit. xv., cap. 1 ; Corpus 
 Jur. Cas., Boehmer, Tom. i., col. 114). 
 
 A.D. T250. Innocent IV. 
 
 " Bishops alone may seal the baptized on the forehead, because the 
 anointing should not be offered but by the Bishop, since the Apostles 
 alone (whose place the Bishops fill) are read to have given the Holy 
 Ghost by the laying on of hand, which Confirmation or anointing of 
 the forehead represents" (Labbei, xi., col. 613). 
 
 A.D. 1270. St. Thomas of Aquinum. 
 
 Confirmation " is to be given even to those who are at the point of 
 death, that in the resurrection they may appear pet feet" (Summa, 
 pars 3, q., Ixxii.. 8). 
 
 A.D. 1280. Durandus, Bishop of Mende. 
 
 "After Baptism there follows the Spiritual seal — that is, Confirma- 
 tion, which is when the Holy Spirit is outpoured at the invoking of the 
 Bishop. . . . In Confirmation, the fulness of the mystery of the Chris- 
 tian Religion is fulfilled. For in Baptism remission of sins is given 
 by the Holy Spirit. Here, however, the Spirit Himself is invited to 
 come, that He may vouchsafe to descend into the heart which He has 
 sanctified, and dwell there, and He is infused at the invocation of 
 the Bishop," (Rationale, VI. lxxxiv., § 1, 2, Lugduni, 15S4, fo. 367). 
 
 A.D. 1281. Archbishop Peckham, of Canterbury. 
 
 " Many neglect Confirmation for want of watchful advisers ; so 
 that there are many who lack the grace of Confirmation, though 
 grown old in evil days. To cure this disastrous neglect, we ordain 
 that none be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood 
 that has not been Confirmed, except at point of death, unless he have 
 
248 APPENDIX. 
 
 a reasonable impediment"|(Constitutions, Johnson's Canons [A.C.L.] 
 ii., 277; Labbei, xi., 1160). 
 
 This Constitution is the origin of the rubric after the Confirmation 
 Service. 
 
 Fourteenth Century. A.D. 1310. William of Paris. 
 
 " When prayer has been offered over those who are to be confirmed, 
 the Sign of the Cross is traced with chrism on their foreheads and 
 hands being laid upon their heads, it is said, ' Peace be with you,' 
 since at the laying on of the hands of the Apostles the Holy Spirit 
 was wont to be given, and He is given now at the laying on of hands 
 of the Bishops" (Lib. de Sacramentis. Quoted in the notes on S:. 
 Gregory's Sacramentary, Opera, Tom. iii., pt. 1, col. 359, Paris, 
 1705). 
 
 A.D. 1330. James of Viterbo, Archbishop of Naples. 
 
 Confirmation " was partly instituted by the Apostles, so far as the 
 laying on of hands is concerned ; partly by the Church, so far as 
 the unction of chrism, which we do not read the Apostles used" 
 (Hist. Occidentalis, cap. 37. Quoted in notes on St. Gregory, as 
 above). 
 
 Fifteenth Century. A.D. 1422. Bishop Lyndewode (Pro- 
 vincial, Oxford, 1679, p. 34) calls Confirmation "a Sacrament of 
 necessity, and, therefore, that which may not be contemned." 
 
 A.D. 1450. Dionysius Carthusianus. " When the Apostles which 
 were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, 
 Philip sent them word, asking that some of them might come to 
 Samaria to lay hands on those who had been baptized, that by the 
 visible sign they might receive the Holy Ghost. For to lay hands 
 on the baptized was the office of the Apostles, as it is now of Bishops, 
 who are their successors" (in Acta" Apost., viii., Paris, 1552, fo. 
 76, b). 
 
 A.D. 1495. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's. 
 
 [Founder of St. Paul's School, the first school founded in England 
 to teach Greek ; he was once nearly burned by Henry VIII., for his 
 reforming tendencies.] 
 
 " Confirmation is the Sacrament of the giving of the Spirit, traced 
 back to and established at the time when one was sent by the Apostles 
 to convey to those who had already been baptized at Samaria the Holy 
 Spirit by the laying on of hands ; otherwise they would not have been 
 reckoned as belonging to the Church" (De Sacramentis Ecclesise, 
 § 9, ed. Lupton, 1867, p. 92). 
 
 " It is to be observed that Dionysius speaks of Confirmation in 
 
APPENDIX. 249 
 
 such a" way as to teach, not that it is a distinct Sacrament, but 
 something for the completion of Baptism, so as for it and Baptism 
 to be one and the same Sacrament" (on works of Dionysius, ed, 
 Lupton, 1869, p. 75). 
 
 Sixteenth Century. The Reformation upheaval. 
 
 A.D. 1530. See answers of Bishops and divines about Confirma- 
 tion (Collier's Eccl. Hist., 1841, vol. ix., p. 195, sq.). 
 
 Queen Elizabeth was confirmed by Archbishop Cranmer when three 
 days old ; Edward the Sixth by the same, soon after birth. 
 
 The Continental Reformers of Europe were greatly at sea about 
 Confirmation, and their utterances infected many English writers, 
 though, thank God, the Confirmation prayer has been retained with 
 but slight variation. 
 
 See George Witzel (1533), Methodus Concordiae, viii. ; Browne's Fas- 
 ciculus Rerum Expetendarum, London, 1690, App., p. 759, and his Via 
 Regia, London, 1690, App,, p. 710. 
 
 A.D. 1597. Richard Hooker. " The ancient custom of the Church 
 was, after they had baptized, to add thereto imposiiion of hands, with 
 effectual prayer for the illumination of God's most Holy Spirit to con- 
 firm and perfect that which the Grace of the same Spirit had already 
 begun in Baptism" (Eccl. Polity, Bk. v., Ixvi., § 1). 
 
 Seventeenth Century. A.D. 1630. Gabriel Albaspinseus, 
 Bishop of Orleans. 
 
 " No one had obtained the name of Christian, no one was thought 
 to be a perfect Christian, who had not been confirmed and gifted with 
 the gift of the Holy Spirit" (quoted by Van Espen, Jus. Eccl. Univ., 
 Lovanii, 1753, Tom. i., 384). 
 
 A.D. 1638. General Assembly of Presbyterians (Scotland). 
 
 " Seeing Episcopacy is condemned, imposition of hands by Bishops 
 falleth to the ground" (Acts of Gen. Assembly, p. 20). 
 
 [This is a new departure.] 
 
 A.D. 1649. Bishop Hal), of Norwich. Work, Oxford, 1837, p. 441, 
 sq.; also Hamon L'Estrange, " Alliance," A. C.L., Oxford, 1846, pp. 
 390, 402, etc. 
 
 After the great rebellion the Bishops' Visitation Articles all insist 
 on Confirmation, 
 
 A.D. 1686. Bishop Pearson, Lect. in Acta Apost., viii. 
 
 Eighteenth Century. A.D. 1750. Bishop Wilson, of Sodor 
 and Man. 
 
 " The effect and blessing of Confirmation is to convey the inesti- 
 mable blessing of the Holy Spirit of God by prayer and the imposition 
 
250 APPENDIX. 
 
 of hands of God's minister, that He may dwell in you. . . . Confirma- 
 tion is the perfection of Baptism. The Holy Ghost descends invisi- 
 bly upon such as are rightly prepared to receive such a blessing, as 
 at the first He came invisibly upon those that had been baptized. By 
 the imposition of the hands of God's minister, God takes, as it were, 
 possession of you as His own peculiar creature ; He sanctifies and 
 consecrates you again to Himself." (Sacra Privata, Oxford, p. 109.) 
 
 A. D. 1710. Archbishop Wake, of Canterbury. 
 
 " Does the Bishop give the Holy Ghost by the imposition of his 
 hands in Confirmation ? 
 
 " That we do not say, nor did the Apostles themselves do it. They 
 laid on their hands, and God gave the Holy Spirit to those on whom 
 theylaid them. And we piously presume that by the fervent prayeis 
 of the Bishop, and the Church, those on whom he now lays his hands 
 shall also receive the Holy Ghost, if they do but prepare themselves 
 for it" (on Church Cateclrsm, 6th ed., 1761, p. 178). 
 
 Nineteenth Century. A - D - lS 3°- Bishop Ravenscroft, of 
 North Carolina, has an excellent sermon on Confirmation (Works, vol. 
 i., p. 495, New York, 1830). 
 
 The view of the present Archbishop of Canterbury has been al- 
 ready given more than once; see p. IQ9. 
 
 As a view of the Greek Church, to a certain extent, the following 
 short extract is given : " Both these mysteries (Baptism and Confir- 
 mation) complete one perfect whole, and having been joined, as now, 
 are fulfilled in the Church before the Liturgy. Both are the door into 
 the Church of Christ and the Kingdom of God, and, in consequence, 
 the commencement of the other mysteries" (Leitourgike, by P. Rhom- 
 potos, Athens, 1869, p. 259). 
 
 See also Mason's " Faith of the Gospel," published by Messrs. 
 Pott & Co., chap, ix., § 10, n. 
 
 In certain Articles on Grace and Freewill, issued in the fifth century, 
 it is said : " Let us have respect to the mysteries of priestly prayers, 
 which have been handed down by the Apostles in the whole world, 
 and are offered uniformly in every Catholic Church, so that the law 
 of prayer determines the law of belief "" — ut legem credendi lex statuat 
 supplicandi (Labbei, ii., 1616). 
 
 St. Augustine has nearly the same idea : " Would that the slow of 
 heart would so hear, that they would the more heed their prayers, 
 which the Church always had, and always will have, from the begin- 
 
APPENDIX. 251 
 
 ning till this world be finished !" (De Bon. Per., § 23)— ut magis in- 
 tuerentur orationes suas. 
 
 In accordance with this we must turn to the special Prayer of Con- 
 firmation and see what we pray for. It is not for any particular 
 grace, not for grace to keep our baptismal vows, not for anything, 
 but for the Holy Spirit Himself in His sevenfold fulness ; 
 
 Almighty and ever-living God, who hast vouchsafed to regenerate 
 these Thy servants by Water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given un- 
 to them forgiveness of all their sins ; Strengthen them, we beseech 
 thee, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost the Comforter, and daily increase 
 in them Thy manifold gifts of grace ; the spirit of wisdom and under- 
 standing ; the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength ; the spirit of 
 knowledge and true godliness ; and fill them, O Lord, with the spirit 
 of Thy holy fear, now and forever. Amen. 
 
 This prayer has been offered in the Western Church from before the 
 time of St. Ambrose. The only variation at the time of the Reforma- 
 tion is that " immitte in eos" is rather paraphrased ' strengthen them 
 with." 
 
 In the Eastern Church the prayer has the same thoughts expressed 
 at much greater length, as is their custom. But wherever the Church 
 exists in the integrity of her ministry, the Confirmation prayer con- 
 tains (i.) a thanksgiving for regeneration and forgiveness already 
 granted, and (ii.) a prayer for the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Anything, therefore, which would exaggerate modern mistakes 
 about the meaning and value and effect of Confirmation is much 
 to be deprecated. 
 
 APPENDIX NN. PAGE 201. 
 
 On the question of the Invocation of the Holy Spirit in the Conse- 
 cration of the Holy Eucharist, reference may be made to the follow- 
 ing books : 
 
 Le Brun, Explication de la Messe, Paris, 1726, Tom. Hi., p. 212, 
 sq. With the attack upon him of the Jesuit, Bougeant, Paris, 1727, 
 and the reply of Le Brun, Defense de l'ancient sentiment sur la 
 forme de la Consecration, Paris, 1727. 
 
 Bishop Brett (the Non-juror), A Collection of the Principal 
 Liturgies, etc., London, 1720, Dissertation 18, p. 122. 
 
 Sir William Palmer, Origines Liturgicae, vol. ii., p. 136, jy., 4th 
 ed., 1845. 
 
252 APPENDIX. 
 
 Freeman, " Principles of Divine Service, " pt. 2, chap, i., § n, 
 p. 196. 
 
 The most complete appeal for the revival of the Invocation is 
 " Primitive Consecration of the Eucharistic Oblation," by Rev. E. S. 
 Ffoulkes, London, 1885. 
 
 APPENDIX 00. PAGE 204. 
 
 It will be objected that only a small part of the work of the Holy- 
 Spirit has here been treated of. This is quite true. The Mission of 
 the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is intermediate between the Advent 
 of the Son in His Incarnation to redeem the world, and His second 
 Advent to judge and condemn. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to 
 complete the first, and to prepare for the second. It has been (rightly 
 or wrongly) thought that it is beyond the scope of these lectures to do 
 more than refer thus to the work of preparation for the judgment. 
 For after all, the chief part of the work of preparation is the com- 
 pletion of the previous work of the Incarnate Son.