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BOSTON LECTDEES. 
 
BOSTON LECTURES, 
 
 1872. 
 
 CnrJSTlANITY AND SCEPTICISM 
 
 EMBRACING A CONSIDERATION OF 
 
 IMIPOR'r-A.INrT Tli^ITS 
 
 OF 
 
 CIIllISTIAN DOCTHINE AND EXPERIENCE, 
 
 AND OF 
 
 LEADING TACTS IN HIE LITE OE CHRIST. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY, 
 
 No. 13 COENHILL. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 
 The Cohgeegational Publishing Society, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. 
 
 boston: 
 
 Stekeottped -and Feinted by Alfeed Mudgb & Sox. 
 

 ao^ 
 
 Qi4LfZ. 
 
 V/.3 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 BY REV. GEORGE. F. MAGOUN, D.D, 
 
 Pag»v 
 
 The Adjustment between the Natural Law of Progress and 
 THE Christian Law 
 
 1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 BY REV. HARVEY D. KITCHEL, D.D, 
 
 Christian Doctrine the Mold of Christian Character ... 49 
 
 LECTURE HI. 
 
 BY REV. WILLIAM F. WARREN, D.D. 
 
 The Christian Consciousness; its Apologetical Value ... 67 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 BY REV. JAMES H. FAIRCHILD, D.D, 
 
 Moral Law as Revelation 95 
 
 LECTURE V, 
 
 BY REV. TRUMAN M. POST, D.D, 
 
 The Incarnation 
 
 . 123 
 
VJ 
 
 COJVTENTS, 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 BY REV. TIMOTHY DWIGHT, D.D. 
 
 The Fourth Gospel, — the Record and Testimony of the Inner 
 
 Life of its Author . • , 152 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 BY REV. ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D, 
 
 The Testimony of the Apostles 200 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 BY REV. KINSLEY TWINING. 
 
 The Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • , , , 223 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 BY REV. WILLIAM E. MERRIMAN. 
 
 The Limitations of the Personal Work of Christ in the World, 254 
 
OnRISTIANITY AND SCEPTICISM. 
 
 LECTURES. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The first ccPnrse of “Boston Lectures” treated mainly of philo- 
 sophical subjects; the second was chiefly taken up with themes of 
 Biblical criticism ; the present enters upon a consideration of certain 
 internal evidences of Christianity. The opening lecture draws an 
 argument from the general character of the Christian system, as a 
 S3^stem not merely suited to our wants, hut necessary to the true 
 progress of the race. The second considers more particularly the 
 connection of Christian doctrine with the progress which is truest 
 and deepest, — namely, toward perfection of character. The third 
 brings to view the traits and the significance of what is peculiar in 
 the. Christian “consciousness”; and the fourth, the divine excellency 
 and authority of the Moral Law. The five remaining lectures are 
 chiefly given up to a consideration of prominent facts in the life of 
 Christ: beginning with the incarnation; then discussing the unique 
 testimony of the Apostle John, in his gospel; then presenting the 
 witness of the other Apostles, and especially of Judas; following 
 this with an array of facts and arguments proving the resurrection; 
 and concluding with a comprehensive review of the whole life of 
 Christ on earth, its most distinctive traits, and its^ total significance. 
 
 June 13, 1872. 
 
I. 
 
 THE ADJUSTMENT BETWEEN THE NATURAL LAW OF 
 PROGRESS AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 LL parties in relation to Christianity now recog- 
 
 nize and affirm a Law of Human Progress of 
 some kind, — its champions and its assailants, and 
 those who ignore it, or profess indifference, as well. 
 It has come to be a test of the Christian religion itself, 
 how it is related to such a law, whether in fellowship or 
 in hostility, — independent, auxiliary, or inclusive of 
 it. If there be a Natural Law of Progress, it must 
 be other than that affirmed in the " Naturalistic ” Doc- 
 trine, controverted by Christian thinkers in these lec- 
 tures and elsewhere, and, as it seems to me, success- 
 fully. There must be a possible adjustment between 
 this Law and the Christian Law, since both are of 
 God. This adjustment will be rational and satisfac- 
 tory, saving the just claims of each. I attempt here 
 to indicate it. But this Natural Law, if found, is not 
 to be found in civilization, or in some element of it, 
 like science or culture, which, in a loose sense of 
 terms, are said to necessitate Progress and dispense 
 with Christianity; for each of these is plainly an 
 effect of the Law, and a part of progress itself, not 
 
 BY REV. GEORGE F. MAGOUN, D.D, 
 
2 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 the Law, nor the cause of it : — a multiform and 
 indeterminate effect, too ; while any cause involved in 
 the Natural Law which we seek, is determinate and 
 one, as that involved in the Christian, or extra -natural. 
 Law is one. It has become the fashion with many, 
 to cover in Christianity under civilization as itself an 
 effect of the advance achieved by mankind twenty 
 centuries ago.^ But I may assume here, that this has 
 been refuted ; and that the Christian Religion plainly, 
 and par eminence^ contains a cause, or it is nothing. 
 Positions as inaccurate, and therefore harmful, have 
 been taken on the other side. Some venture or are 
 betrayed into the extreme and hazardous assertion, 
 that there is no Progress in the world save from 
 Christianity — no other law whatever; which can 
 never be accepted as part of the evidence in its favor 
 by those who do not accept Christianity, nor by the 
 best informed among those who do. 
 
 The multitudinous discussions and varied learning 
 the subject has called out, with the disclosures Pro- 
 gress itself is ever making, ought to render the 
 adjustment proposed easy to patient and careful 
 thought. And it is a necessary part of the internal 
 evidence of our religion, in the wider sense which 
 
 * This is the drift of much that is now said on the Comparative 
 Study of Eeligions. Possibly, some may suppose that even if Christi- 
 anity is treated as a mere result of civilization it may yet be held, 
 of supernatural origin, — civilization itself being so viewed, in the last 
 analysis,— but this would not justify the claim hitherto made for Chris- 
 tianity ; and the argument for that claim must needs be so obscure and 
 subtle as to be worthless, with ninety-nine in a hundred of intelligent 
 men. It is, as supernatural in the immediate' and obvious sense, 
 that its friends vindicate the Christian Ueligion as containing a Law of 
 Progress. 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 3 
 
 that phrase has acquired in our day, not only that it 
 brings into human society and history a Christian 
 Law of Progress, but also that this is adjustable with 
 any Natural Law that may be shown to exist. 
 
 We must start with determining and limiting the 
 meaning of the well-worn phrase "Law of Progress.” 
 It is not employed with any precision. Certain just and 
 necessary distinctions in the use of both of its terms 
 must be established. The very word, " Progress,” 
 and the word " Law ” hardly less, is liable to let us 
 out into a chaos of notions, dogmas, and speculations, 
 swept by currents and counter-currents of thought, on 
 which the likeliest of all things is that we shall lose 
 our way. We sail for port to-day, and not for the 
 open sea. We may not find this or that harbor, which 
 some or others look for expectant through wind and 
 mist, but we can find one, please God, with good 
 guidance, in which we may anchor and ride secure. 
 
 I. We determine and limit, first, the term Pro- 
 gress. (1.) In the sense of the improvement of 
 the whole state of things on earth, a sense often min- 
 gled with the proper one, it offers a theme too large 
 and indefinable for any such handling as is possible 
 here. And the globe on which man dwells might, 
 supposably, be ever growing better ; order, beauty, 
 production, use, in all things increasing; the ele- 
 ments it contains, living, organic, and inorganic, 
 while subject neither to multiplication nor to diminu- 
 tion, coming into ever superior combinations, through 
 rational selection, or some conceived " natural selec- 
 tion,” its vegetable and vital growths assuming finer, 
 richer, and more valuable forms, constantly and uni- 
 
4 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 ver sally ; in a word, everything pertaining to the 
 globe and its other occupants advancing ever from 
 more imperfect conditions to less imperfect in all 
 respects, and going onward toward perfection; but 
 all this would not necessitate progress in man. It 
 may be both philosophic and Christian, to believe in 
 this as the work of God through natural laws. But 
 it does not fall within the present subject. If man 
 knew all this, it would imply his advance in the sin- 
 gle point of knowledge, without question ; if he had 
 a hand in effecting it, in the two points of knowledge 
 and skill. But as the individual man is often sinking 
 while his conditions are rising, so very possibly it 
 might be with the race. Mr. Marsh, in his well-known 
 work on " Man and Nature,” shows the immense 
 waste in the past by human agency^ even to extirpa- 
 tion of organic forms which man cannot consume. lie 
 shows that man alone is an essentially destructive 
 being ; that ” as he advances in civilization he gradu- 
 ally eradicates or transforms every spontaneous pro- 
 duct of the soil he occupies ” ; that another such evil 
 era as can be traced backwards — making the world 
 largely ” an unfit home for its noblest inhabitant,” — 
 would threaten the deprivation, barbarism, and even 
 extinction of the species ; and that the counter-pro- 
 cess of physical improvement in the later centuries 
 gives thus far ” but faint hope that we shall yet make 
 
 *The injuriousness of man makes other agencies injurious that were 
 not such in themselves ; in the condition of barbarism, he begins an 
 indiscriminate warfare on vegetable and animal ; during the two thou- 
 sand years before colonization commenced, conferring no benefit on 
 this continent, he reduced millions of square miles of the fairest and 
 most fertile portions of the other to barren deserts. [See Marsh.] 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 5 
 
 full utoncmcnt for our spendthrift waste of the boun- 
 ties of nature.” 
 
 Now, this might be only the sacrifice of the globe 
 to the dweller upon it, the lower contributing to the 
 improvement of the higher ; and even ineffectual 
 efibrts, through civilizing agencies to save the loss as 
 well as secure the gain, might exhibit Human Pro- 
 gress. Moreover, a supernatural interposition, turn- 
 ins: " a fruitful land into barrenness for the wicked- 
 ness of them that dwell therein,” might be a means 
 of such Progress. And the industrial arts, agricul- 
 tural and mechanical, necessary to the recovery of 
 the world — if only these existed, and if these could 
 exist alone — could not, save by such Progress, have 
 come into being. But the simple enlarging of the oc- 
 cupancy and cultivation of the earth, every land and 
 island of the sea, even, would no more show human 
 improvement than the emigration of farmers into the 
 newer west, and their constant migration there into 
 newer counties with the same implements and pro- 
 cesses as their fathers, would show advance in scien- 
 tific farming. We Americans ever confound mere 
 territorial expansion with progress. ’ Comfort and 
 luxury also may increase, and the men who enjoy them 
 be under a doom of decline ; or the reverse of this as 
 easily be true. Such a doom, the late Dr. Nathan 
 Lord believed to be fixed of God, for both man and 
 the world, while he held that temporary improvement 
 in things is still possible, and is pleasing to God. 
 Mr. Marsh admits, that in the Old World no species 
 of native forest-tree or vegetable is yet known to 
 have been quite extirpated, and also that commerce 
 
6 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 and agricultural industry now depend chiefly on 
 " vegetable and animal products, hardly known to 
 Greek, Roman, and Jewish civilization”; but he 
 indicates the probable fact " that man has intention’- 
 ally transferred fewer plants than he has accidentally^ 
 introduced into countries foreign to them.” What- 
 ever shall yet be done to turn back the decay of even 
 new lands, as the reckless pioneer wastes and harries 
 them, and to restore immense desolated and depopu- 
 lated tracts in Europe, Asia, and Africa, larger, taken 
 together, than all Europe is, and to utilize the yet 
 untouched resources of nature, must bear a certain 
 definite relation to the improvement of man himself, 
 but is not to be confounded with it, as is almost 
 universally done. Neither the Natural Law, nor the 
 Christian, covers any such supposed, and yet future, 
 improvement of the earth, or of the whole state of 
 things.” 
 
 (2.) Nor is what is known as ” development ” in 
 scientific and philosophical circles, the same with Pro- 
 gress, under the Natural Law or the Christian, nor 
 will it help account for either. Three current words 
 are now largely and loosely treated as synonymous ; 
 Progress, Development, Evolution, — but synonymes 
 they cannot be. One of Herbert Spencer’s books 
 confound all three under one title, "Illustrations of 
 Universal Progress,” as his thinking there and every- 
 where confounds them. Development is in idea 
 more than Progress, and Evolution is more than De- 
 velopment. Progress is the advance of any being or 
 
 * “ Man and Nature,* ** p. 63. His illustration is from Thorwaldsen’s 
 
 cases, and seeds conveyed in them. 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 7 
 
 order of beings from original imperfection towards 
 such perfection as it is capable of, — the advance 
 within itself, still remaining its very self, i. e., the 
 same being or order of beings. Development is the 
 supposed transition of a being or order of beings out 
 of itself into another. Evolution is the name for the 
 principle supposed to be behind each, on Tvhich both 
 alike are asserted to take place ; the end being to 
 reach and realize the complex through, or out from, 
 the simple, the heterogeneous from the homogeneous. 
 On this principle, the wing of a bird is alleged to 
 come from the fin of a fish, or a creature having a 
 nervous system from one having none, or a living 
 being from one without life. Development is trans- 
 formation instead of improvement. It is that which 
 Progress is not ; it is not that which Progress is. 
 The heterogeneous, or the complex, is not in itself 
 the more perfect, — at least not in human history, 
 though it is fallaciously so taken here, — for we often 
 reject it as less perfect for our purpose. It may 
 always, not to say must, contain the less perfect : and 
 the simple, the homogeneous, may be perfect in its 
 kind, so far as its nature and function go, diversity not 
 bettering it therefore in the least by any possibility. 
 Even of a new and rude machine, we must know some- 
 thing more than this, that it is more complex than an 
 old one, or we do not buy it. We judge ” differentia- 
 tion” ill all cases by another standard than itself. 
 Development refers to an imagined change of nature 
 in things, — it is nothing to the purpose to say, 
 whether it would, or would not, be a proof of Divine 
 power, skill, or goodness. Progress refers simply to 
 
8 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 improved activity, use of powers, or discharge of 
 functions. A bird is not an improved fish, but a 
 bird in place of a fish ; a man is not an improved 
 ape, but a man in place of an ape. This is true, 
 irrespective of the origin of either. There is no 
 bettering of the thing, as Progress implies, but a 
 displacement and a substitution, — another thing in 
 its stead. 
 
 It is supposable that all things might have been 
 originally heterogeneous, — some more complex than 
 others, some less, — and all subject to Progress by 
 adequate Natural Law, each jprqpno motu in its kind 
 and order, but none leaving its place in creation and 
 passing over into that of another, advancing, all, yet 
 all remaining the same. The hypothesis of Develop- 
 ment (with its principle of Evolution to account for 
 it) , only seems to be a doctrine of Progress by an 
 assumption involved, that higher species are more per- 
 fect than lower ones for the purposes of lower ones, 
 or can only be obtained for higher purposes from 
 lower ones, — as if a bird were more perfect for the 
 ends of a fish than a fish itself, or a man for those 
 of an ape, or as if these could only be got from 
 those, — and by its fellow assumption, that the passing 
 of the lower into the higher is, or propria motu. 
 I am aware that its advocates assume no foresight of 
 greater perfection, prompting the passage of lower 
 species into higher ; but set forth the complex and 
 heterogeneous as evolved simply for their own sake, 
 qua complex and heterogeneous, i. e., blindly, no 
 reason supposed : for complexity cannot have its 
 reason in itself, or account for itself ; and perfection 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 9 
 
 aimed at, is a reason, while complexity is a mere fact 
 to find a reason for. In this the hypothesis is wholly 
 mechanical and irrational. 
 
 Whether God created lower species in any realm 
 of nature for the sake of the further production of 
 higher ones out of them ; whether man, for instance, 
 comes altogether from one animal, as Darwin holds, 
 or possibly from another as to his body alone, but 
 as to his higher powers, from God, as Mivart sup- 
 poses ; whether it is in the Divine plan at all that 
 orders of existence shall ever pass beyond the lines 
 of their class and mix up in kind, as men and anthro- 
 poid apes mix in epochs of time, — is an inquiry 
 entirely distinct from the question, whether He 
 provides for the improvement of everything within 
 its class, and for that of the highest of earthly crea- 
 tures most. This alone touches the doctrine of 
 Progress. The affirmative established, would fur- 
 nish a Natural, but not the " Naturalistic ” Law. 
 Substitute the idea of Development for this, and it 
 logically follows, that some diverse and superhuman 
 form of life and power shall sometime supervene 
 upon the human, as if an invertebrate animal or jelly 
 should transmute itself into a vertebrate, or one sort 
 of protoplasm into another, or cell into cell unlike, 
 and so, by something far beyond a "new departure.” 
 Man, and the question of the Progress of Man, come 
 to an end together ! 
 
 II. In thus distinguishing from Human Progress 
 some things that are constantly confounded with it, I 
 must not omit to note that each has a certain and a 
 
10 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 different relation to it. (1.) The improvement of 
 the earth furnishes a presumption in its favor. That 
 the conditions of the planet should he permanently 
 elevated, and not the activities and functions of its 
 chief inhabitant, to whom these conditions are worth 
 most and mean everything, is incredible ; that this 
 should come to pass, indeed, save as an effect of 
 some sort of improvement in him, is well-nigh impos- 
 sible. Inventions do not altogether, or all, account 
 for human elevation, as is imagined ; some of them 
 do not look that way, but must themselves be 
 accounted for by man’s deterioration; many^ for in- 
 stance, of those that subserve over-estimated lower 
 uses, all of those that subserve vice. But many others 
 render true progress eminently probable. That not 
 only more land constantly is cultivated, but more in 
 proportion to the population of the globe, and better 
 cultivated ; that the fruits of the earth in use have 
 come up, from useless, harsh or acrid originals, to 
 their present healthful and nutritive qualities ; that 
 one of the grasses has been improved into corn, and 
 the flowers, God’s sweet gifts, made sweeter; that 
 the mean temperature of cities and towns is modified 
 from that of the open country ; that whole lands 
 soften sensibly to culture, as North France, since 
 Strabo’s day, and that even Iceland, where inhabited, 
 shows a gentler climate ; that civilized men live bet- 
 ter, on the whole, every decade ; that civilization 
 shows an increasing ascendency over rude nature, are 
 examples at hand. "We now build our barns,” says 
 one, "better than medieval saints and heroes built 
 their houses.” 
 
4 
 
 AND THE CURISTIAN LAW, 11 
 
 (2.) The Development hypothesis, again, is 
 based upon a well-known truth that supports both 
 Laws of Progress — the Natural and the Christian — 
 by analogy. The whole idea, in the rough, is old 
 enough. Aristotle argued that, among animated 
 beings, at least, there is ”a spale of gTadation in 
 which they ascend from lower to higher forms,” and 
 Democritus, two hundred years before,* that crea- 
 tion is mere transmutation of the lower into the 
 higher, 
 
 “Smiles oflife through nature creeping, 
 
 Serial steps progressing ever.” 
 
 Let it be that each order in creation joins on, without 
 a break in time or kind, upon that just before and 
 beneath it ; or let the statement Hugh Miller used 
 to make be correct, that the geologic progression is 
 not from individual to individual, but (in both human 
 and prehistoric ages) from class to class, by leaps, — 
 the earliest varieties of each species being the most 
 perfect in organism and form, though, looking through 
 the whole order, the earliest species are ever the least 
 perfect, or^ — as the Edinburgh Eeview once put it 
 — ” in the great divisions of the procession, the pro- 
 gramme requires that the magnates should walk 
 first,” though there is a procession by divisions ac- 
 cording to rank ; let it be that gaps in the ascending 
 series are never to be filled, to human knowledge, as 
 
 *So, traces of tlie fancy of spontaneous generation, are in Virgil, Lu- 
 cretius and Aristotle, and Sir James Stephen tells us that a Japanese 
 theologian maintained it in dispute with Francis Xavier, as an article 
 of faith. 
 
12 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 Darwin confesses the chasm between man and ape 
 cannot now be, by any species extant or extinct, — 
 there being sometimes no succession or no advance, — 
 species disappearing, degeneracies occurring both in 
 single characteristics and in classes, decay making 
 way for growth, the chain lengthening and growing 
 finer, but dropping certain links ; and you have 
 just such a forward movement from the Paleozoic 
 ages, with occasional breaks and degradations, as 
 forms a fitting analogue — whether meant so or not 
 
 — to the actual progress of mankind. It must be 
 so till the succession in nature is filled up smoothly 
 to our knowledge, without gap or jar, — a solid con- 
 tinuity, something more than that ” higher and imma- 
 terial connection in the Divine plan” which our great 
 Harvard naturalist rests upon ; or else until the suc- 
 cession itself is disproved, as it now never can be. 
 It is against well-settled analogy, if man is a period, 
 a full stop every way in what the Creator has been 
 telling, if the doctrine of ascending order in creation 
 is true in a proper sense, and that of Natural Pro- 
 gress in history, so correlated, is false. There is 
 perceived capacity of indefinite increase in physical 
 life-power along the lower line, removing life, it is 
 thought, from the same category with material force, 
 
 — why not such increase in higher powers ? Even 
 Natural Selection, so far as it goes, not always, con- 
 fessedly, securing "the survival of the fittest” in 
 lower realms, and leaving room for a higher design 
 and energy behind itself, furnishes an analogue for 
 rational selection in human, especially in Clmistian 
 history. It is a bundle of facts and instincts. Spen- 
 
AND THE CimiSTIAN LAW, 
 
 13 
 
 cer’s phrase, just quoted, strips it of the color of 
 intelligence which the term "selection” implies, 
 leaving it in a low, phenomenal sense the analogue I 
 have indicated to that which is higher. And in 
 respect to this. Bishop Butler’s familiar statement ^ 
 of the natural ascendency of reason and virtue in the 
 world under the government of God, anticipated long 
 ago what I am now saying. Moreover, the persist- 
 ence and correlation of forces, shorn of the unproven 
 fancy of the identity of all forces, — mechani- 
 cal, chemical, vital, muscular, physical, — finds a 
 counterpart in the grand and imperishable character- 
 istics of the moral energies that create the march and 
 waymarks of human society in all ages, but pre-emi- 
 nently since Christ. 
 
 ni. We are now to determine and limit the word 
 " Law,” in the phrases " Natural Law ” and " Christian 
 Law,” and herein we shall chiefly find the basis of 
 adjustment between the two. Certain other great 
 confusions of thought meet us here at the threshold. 
 The Doctrine of Progress, — taking for a moment the 
 larger and looser term than even Law, — may mean 
 (1) a prevailing or constant course of fact; or (2) 
 it may mean the method, modus ojperandi ^ — not the 
 ruling facts, but the rule of the facts, — the rationale, 
 
 ^“It may require to be more particularly considered, that power in 
 a society by being under the direction of virtue, naturally increases, 
 and has a necessary tendency to prevail over opposite power, not under 
 the direction of it ; in like manner as power, by being under the direc- 
 tion of reason, increases, and has a tendency to prevail over brute 
 force.” [But. Anal. Parti.., Chap. III., V. — p. 95 seq. Compl. Works, 
 Carter’s Ed. 1812.] 
 
14 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 or principle of order, according to which they occur ; 
 or (3) it may mean the force that produces them, 
 the power that makes them facts. ^ The Doctrine as 
 a whole, be it Natural or Christian, means and affirms 
 all three. In proving it, all three must be proven. 
 And the word "Law” is used in these days for all 
 three. And either term also. Doctrine or Law, for 
 either of the three. Fact, rule or method, and force, 
 are every hour mistaken for each other by men who 
 ought to think more accurately. 
 
 When we say that it is the law of a certain thing 
 to show certain phenomena, we are thinking only of 
 constant or prevailing facts. When we speak of the 
 law of the thing operating to such results or phe- 
 nomena, we mean far more than the facts, the force 
 in the thing that makes the facts apparent. But 
 when we affirm that the law is that these phenomena 
 shall occur, or the force act, thus or so, our language 
 points to something different from both, a method, 
 rationale or principle of order. ^ 
 
 A few illustrations will set this distinction in clear 
 
 * The word “rule’* is sometimes used, aside from its proper sense, 
 for prevailing fact, as opposed to exception. The analysis above differs 
 from that of the Duke of Argyle (“Reign of Law,” pp. 64, 65, Fifth 
 Lond. Ed.), but a little examination will show that his second, third 
 and fourth “secondary senses” can be reduced to one, and coincide 
 with (3) above, and that the first in both analyses coincide ; while his fifth 
 sense, “ abstract conceptions of the mind, deduced from the phenomena 
 as axioms of thought necessary to our understanding of them,” — or, 
 “an order of thought,” — is at bottom the same with (2) here given. 
 I should not answer, however, “ the three great questions which Sci- 
 ence asks of Nature, — the What, the How, and the Why,” — as he 
 does. How? is a question of method, not of cause. Why? is the 
 question of producing force. The question of i>urpose or intention is, 
 Wherefore? 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW, 
 
 15 
 
 light. The word ” gravitation,” properly describes 
 constant terrestrial facts; viz., that bodies of matter 
 disengaged in position move from rest towards the 
 earth’s centre. To name attraction, is to name a 
 force to which every such fact is ascribed. To say 
 that bodies have such a tendency, is to say that such 
 a force permanently resides in them. A molecule or 
 an atom gives you the same distinction between fact 
 and force as any body of matter. But a statement 
 of the manner, proportion, or intensity, in certain cir- 
 cumstances with which this force acts, — involving 
 relations of space,, time, quantity of matter, and 
 velocity, — is a rule, rationale, or principle of order. 
 For example, that attraction acts in direct proportion 
 to the quantity of matter and in inverse proportion to 
 the square of the distance. A rule is behind the facts, 
 and a force, like attraction, is behind the rule or rules. 
 A sentence from Newton* will show how he recog- 
 nized this distinction. " Gravity must be caused 
 by an agent acting constantly according to certain 
 laws.^^ 
 
 Apply the doctrine of gravitation to the universe-, 
 or to a molecule, and you carry the same distinction 
 of fact, rule, and force. Again, the simplest form 
 of motion implies an impulse imparted, a method of 
 proceeding: viz., in the same direction with the 
 impulse, and then the fact of change of position in 
 space. 
 
 Molecular attraction, motion, force, must needs 
 have methods or rules, as well as effects, else nofore- 
 
 * Third letter to Bentley. 
 
16 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 seen constancy in the effects, and no calculable action 
 possible in respect to molecule, matter, or body. 
 Also, if heat is a mode of motion, then behind the 
 phenomena is the same force, and the laws of motion 
 as well. We are taught in mechanics that the result 
 of compound or coefficient forces has also its rational 
 rules. We are never to confound these three with 
 each other. Take an elliptical orbit in the starry 
 heavens as a constant fact, and Astronomy will tell 
 not only of the component forces, centripetal and 
 centrifugal, but of the. laws of sidereal motion, that 
 is, the rules of these forces. If inertia is due to the 
 equilibrium of forces, any explanation that comes 
 between the fact and the forces, — the How that can 
 be rationally placed between the What and the Why, 
 — is a law. When a new set of facts, like those of 
 electricity, gives us a new force, the understanding 
 of the laws of its action is of more moment to the 
 philosopher and to the practical man alike, than all 
 the facts, even if they could know them all. In 
 Chemistry, the strong, mutual affinity of certain sub- 
 stances, the atomic proportions in which they combine, 
 and the compounds they consequently form, are re- 
 spectively force, law, and fact. ” Life adds a new 
 and higher force to Chemistry,” says Dr. Stirling, 
 and at once come in vital laws, and vital facts result- 
 ing. If, as Comte imagined, we could reduce all 
 sorts of phenomena, — or facts apparent, — to the 
 pngle law of atomic action, we should have behind 
 both phenomena and law, atomic force. It is not 
 necessary to a law, however, in the sense of fact, rule 
 or force, that it should be measurable by mathe- 
 
AND THE CIIRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 17 
 
 matics,* or capable of expression in the formula) of 
 any branch of that science. Even in Chemistry, 
 these formulse sometimes fail ; the higher analyses 
 foil or elude them.| And the intellectual and moral 
 energies in human history, or psychical powers in 
 action, must of necessity always evade expression. 
 In the proper sense of law, they are immeasurable 
 by such formulae. 
 
 Neither the word '' law,” however, nor the word 
 " rule,” is used here in its proper or primary sense. 
 Both are moral in their origin, not physical. They 
 are used in physics, necessarily, in a transferred and 
 improper sense. Let me put together here three 
 definitions of three eminent men. " Law, in its most 
 general and comprehensive sense,” says Blackstone, 
 " signifies a rule of action, prescribed by some supe- 
 rior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.” 
 
 ” Law,” says Dr. N. W. Taylor, ” difiers widely 
 from wholesome counsel or good advice ; and one of 
 its essential characteristics is, that it is a rule of 
 action, determining what ought to be done. With- 
 out this conception of a rule of action, that of law 
 cannot be formed.” '' In its primary signification,” 
 says the Duke of Argyle, a ' law ’ is the authorita- 
 tive expression of human Will enforced by Power.” 
 
 * See Pres. F. P. parnard’s Address to the Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci- 
 ence, 1869 (Proceedings, pp. 93-101), where the alleged interchangea- 
 bility of thought-power and physical force is admirably refuted. For 
 convenience and brevity, I use the word “ force’* throughout this lec- 
 ture for power in action. 
 
 t When the attempt is made to put a complex reaction into numer- 
 ical symbols, the equations are apt to express either more than we 
 know or less.” [Qual. Chem. Anal, by Pres. Eliot and Prof. Storer, 
 Int. p. 10.] 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 These definitions contemplate both the sources and 
 the subjects of Law ; their common elements are an 
 intelligent mandate requiring compliance, and intelli- 
 gently received ; an expression of mind, addressed 
 to mind, to be understood,^ considered, and decided 
 upon. Action corresponding thereto, forms no part 
 of the original and true idea of law ; the requirement 
 and the authority with which it is required are all^ 
 force compelling action is expressly excluded. But 
 in physics, on the contrary, action, under pressure of 
 force, is in the very idea of law, and the original moral 
 or governmental meaning, is altogether excluded. 
 The sense is entirely changed and new. The two 
 uses of the word have really nothing in common, or 
 if anything, only an implication that there lies behind 
 each some source, whether it be of action or of a rule 
 of action. 
 
 Contrast, now, with these well-settled definitions, 
 that of Herbert Spencer. Law is ” uniformity of 
 relations among phenomena”! Now, phenomena 
 are mere facts, not rules ; and uniformity is a mere 
 fact, not a rule. Spencer attempts here to confine 
 law to the one meaning of constant facts. The uni- 
 formity, however, may be accidental, so far as reason 
 can see,"' if that is all ; and it is all. But only 
 uniformity of relations between fact and force, through 
 
 * When Blackstone says that the “ most general and comprehensive 
 
 sense ” is “ applied indiscriminately to all kinds of actions animate, or 
 inanimate^ rational or irrational^* ** he does not show discrimination as 
 on other points, or perhaps shows that his age had not learned some 
 very simple and clear distinctions. Can a “rule be prescribed for an 
 inanimate, irrational object, as for a rational, animate one? Is the 
 former, in any proper, intelligible sense, hound to obey ? 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 19 
 
 soni3 intelligible principle of order, i. e., only 
 rational relations, can make more than accident, or 
 give uniformity the meaning of law at all. We can 
 know fact indeed, phenomenal or not, respecting a 
 thine or class of things without discovering the 
 rationale, method, or principle of order through which 
 it becomes fact ; but we cannot escape thinking an 
 adequate force exists. A single physical fact demands 
 force to account for it, though such a fact, sporadic, 
 would not suggest a method, or principle of necessity, 
 i. c., a law in the sense nearest to its primitive mean- 
 ing. For it involves no established rule, as its fre- 
 quent recurrence w^ould. Invariably recurring fact, 
 however, is not indispensable to the suggestion of 
 such a rule ; prevailing or general fact is sufficient. 
 So fact goes before law and force in thought ; but 
 force, before law and fact in things. Force can- 
 not belong to phenomena, or to relations of pheno- 
 mena; to events, or to the method of events; but 
 only to existence. Fact, is matter of observa- 
 tion. Law, is matter of judgment. Force, is.matter 
 of intuition. We state the first in a definition, the 
 second in a formula, the third in a description. We 
 reach the intuition ever and only, in the experience 
 of adequate force, ^. e., cause properly so called, force 
 producing facts ; but the notion of power involved 
 in it once reached, has validity to the mind inde- 
 pendently of facts or laws. Constant facts imply 
 constant forces and constant methods, else they are 
 constant accidents, which is a contradiction in terms 
 and in thought. Change of fact follows change of 
 force, and, if permanent, under some principle or 
 
20 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 rule. Abolish forces, and facts and methods or 
 rules are abolished at the same stroke. 
 
 Now, of these three terms, thus distinguished and 
 illustrated, the two extremes, fact and force, are sel- 
 dom directly compounded, but the middle term, 
 which comes nearest to the true meaning of law, is 
 incessantly compounded, in speech and thought, with 
 the other two. The universal or even general fact 
 concerning a thing or class of things, is called its law, 
 and so is the force that causes it ; or, what is the 
 same thing, its law, rule, method is said to cause it. 
 And thus, through the departure from the meaning 
 of the middle term, the other two, so utterly distinct, 
 are blended, or the word " law” is used to cover all 
 three. 
 
 IV. In recognizing, then, a Natural Law of Pro- 
 gress, I recognize that the Doctrine of Natural 
 Progress includes more than is properly called. Law, 
 viz. : (l)a body of facts ; (2) rules, methods, princi- 
 ples ; and (3) a force, or power in action; and that 
 these are confused in what is called Natural Law. 
 It is needful to establish each distinctively. 
 
 (1.) Of the facts. I may decline to enumerate these, 
 as is often attempted, since justly to represent them 
 would require a library of statements. Nor is it 
 necessary even to exemplify largely ; the facts are 
 patent ; they are ever on the tongue of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The accumulations of all secular science '^according 
 to the law of compound interest,” as Sir William 
 Thompson said the other day from the chair of the 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN iLAW. 
 
 21 
 
 British Association, the decline of a vice like intem- 
 perance in such bodies as the English House of 
 Commons and the Congress of the United States, 
 according to the testimony of the Right Hon. John 
 Bright and the Hon. Henry Wilson, are instances of 
 improvement. The low social conditions of former 
 days, pictured by Mr. Hallam in the ninth chapter 
 of his ” Middle Ages ” and by Lord Macaulay in the 
 third chapter of his ” History of England,” contrasting 
 as they do, with those of our own day, — and, indeed, 
 the mere fact that such books as our histories of civ- 
 ilization and philosophies of history are possible, are 
 illustrations on a still broader scale of the grand 
 progress of mankind. The arts of modern life, their 
 perfection and their multiplication, will occur to 
 every one as other examples ; notwithstanding the 
 fact that some of them are evidences of temporary, 
 partial, or local decline. In the more advanced 
 nations they lap over here and there upon uncivi- 
 lized countries, and show, in this, a native and 
 divinely appointed tendency. That the material good 
 which society achieves and the rights once granted 
 only to individuals or classes, extend to the people at 
 large ere long ; that exchanges grow easier and wider, 
 and franchises more common; that inequalities of 
 privilege, facility, and achievement become less each 
 century ; that the under side of society steadily though 
 slowly rises ; that in property, liberty, and social 
 privilege the equalization among men, is ever going 
 on, — these things are evidence in favor of the 
 beautiful belief, that — 
 
 “Ever through the ages one unceasing purpose runs, 
 
 And the thoughts of men are induced by the process of the suns.” 
 
22 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 " Lost arts ” do not disprove it ; they were less 
 for the general welfare than modern ones, as well as 
 less intellectual. And in most respects we have found 
 better ones than we have lost. Were it clear that 
 the Hanging Gardens of Babylon implied a force and 
 skill beyond those required by either of our Pacific 
 railroads, the public utility, besides the genius 
 involved in the modern work, would place it im- 
 measurably in advance of the ancient. The labor 
 engineered in building the Pyramids sinks beside that 
 of the great enterprises of our day.* And when a 
 recent art like that of making glass, turns up, to our 
 surprise, at Pompeii, it simply shows that the ancients 
 were even with us in one thing, but not on the whole 
 or in most. When a writer of our own day like 
 Fronde, f declares that "the level of comfort in the 
 families of the laboring millions, has in this country 
 been rather declining than rising. The important 
 results have been so far, rather political and social ” ; 
 he writes truly of his own country, but not of ours ; 
 he admits political and social progress, and he dis- 
 closes the fact, that lower progress in a people often 
 waits long upon that which is higher. Often, on 
 the other hand, lower improvement libo?'ates powers 
 that arrest decay, and removes conditions that pre- 
 vent the higher improvement. A single convenience 
 created or universally distributed, comes in this way 
 to have immeasurably more meaning than it has in 
 itself. 
 
 2. Of the methods, rules, rationale, or law of the 
 
 * See Stephenson. 
 
 t Short Studies, 2d series, pp. 245-279, “ On Progress.** 
 
AND THE CimiSTIAN LAW. 
 
 23 
 
 fiicts. We ivaiit besides these facts, some principle 
 or principles of order according to which they occur. 
 Oar knowledge of them must always be fragmentary ; 
 and we seek, in addition, some ground of conviction 
 that they belong to an established plan, some secu- 
 rity for them in some order of thought and life with 
 which they tally. Of course they prove, in them- 
 selves the natural possibility of progress ; for noth- 
 ing occurs which is not possible ; — and so prove it, 
 that historic examples of decline, and ever so many 
 of them, can never disprove it. They show a real 
 capacity in man, against which the worst that can be 
 said is, that it is a capacity at times interfered with. 
 Nothing but universal degeneracy in all things could 
 show the opposite. That the balance may not, 
 however, yet turn against man fatally and forever, 
 depends not on facts, but on laws and powers. Her- 
 bert Spencer comes forward with a law, derived 
 from Von Baer,* which, it is claimed, will explain 
 and assure Progress, as well as what is called 
 Development. It is the law of evolution, or the 
 constant, universal transformation of the simple 
 into the complex, the homogeneous into the hetero- 
 geneous. Is this, if it be true, a rationale or rule at 
 all? does it rise above the realm of fact? Plainly, 
 not. The question of its truth is a question of fact. 
 And it is not entirely unquestionable even as fact. 
 Mr. Spencer himself shows that Science proceeds both 
 ways, sometimes moving from the complex to the 
 simple, f Henri Taine, the art critic of the school 
 
 * After Wolff and Harvey. [See Spencer’s Eecent Discussions, p. 
 134.] 
 
 t Rec. Disc. pp. 181, 182. 
 
24 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 to which Darwin, Huxley, Buckle, Draper, Bain, 
 Lewis, Mauclsley, and Spencer belong, says that 
 the art of the Greeks perfected itself in its simpli- 
 city, and that we of to-day must find our models 
 there, because "the simplicity of their culture 
 kept them within a circle beyond which the com- 
 plexity of our culture has impelled us.’-* And Max 
 Muller shows that from the simple to the complex in 
 religion is just the process of corruption.! I have 
 already pointed out how Spencer confounds evolution 
 as fact, with improvement, which is quite a distinct 
 thing. 
 
 We ask, then, for the reason or rule of evolution, 
 since it is not itself either. If it contains none it is 
 no rationale or Law of Progress. How, then, does 
 Progress come? Thus, answers Mr. Spencer, — 
 " Every active force produces more than one change ; 
 every cause produces more than one effect.^’ He 
 calls this the law of differentiation ; the law of the 
 law of evolution, confounding, however, law and 
 force (or cause) together, for beliind law in the 
 proper sense here the next thing of course, is cause. 
 " I will tell you the cause he says, " of the evolu- 
 tion of the complex from the simple, the more perfect 
 from the less perfect ; it is that the cause (whatever 
 it be) produces a number of effects.” There are two 
 senses here, perhaps, of the word " cause,” but is all 
 this, either cause, or law-j or merely another constant 
 fact; a phenomena of cause, or force in action? 
 
 * Taine, Art in Greece, Amer. Ed. p. 40. Fronde maintains that 
 English life was simpler of yore, and therefore now degenerate. — Short 
 Studies. 
 
 t Science of Language, 2d Series, pp. 442, 443. 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 25 
 
 Plainly, nothing more. According to Mr. Spencer, 
 and all his school, moreover, we know nothing but 
 phenomena or facts apparent. If he is telling us 
 anything he knows, then, he is describing a mere phe- 
 nomenon ! But why, again, is the number of effects 
 differentiated ? They are not in themselves different 
 because plural. There might be more than otie 
 from one cause, yet all of the same kind. And 
 why does this differentiation, which is not itself 
 improvement, result in improvement? Among the 
 multiplex changes produced, if differentiated in some 
 way for which we have yet no rule or reason, may be 
 inferior ones as well as superior, the worst as well as 
 the best, and these may be perpetuated as well as 
 the others. They may be the strongest. So it often 
 happens ; the poorest of seeds are quickened as 
 well as the finest, and 
 
 “ The evil that men do, lives after them, 
 
 The good is oft interred with their bones.” 
 
 In consequence of this logical gap in his hypothe- 
 sis of evolution, Mr. Spencer feels the need of sup- 
 plementing it with that of Natural Selection ; but 
 when he changes the name of this to ” Survival of 
 the Fittest,” — to exclude all color of intelligence, 
 and reduce it to mere blind fact, without a rational 
 element, — he does not rid it of the patent confes- 
 sion that the causes at work in history, both ” natu- 
 ral ” and human, produce the unfittest as well as the 
 fittest. We ask again, how is it that among human 
 products the fittest are selected to survive? He 
 has no answer, though Bishop Butler had one 
 
26 
 
 THE NJ^TURAL LA W OF PROGRESS 
 
 long ago. He knows no reason of things, no ra- 
 tional method even, nothing but phenomena and 
 phenomenal method. In later publications,* he 
 confesses the insufficiency of mere differentiation, 
 and adds, — as a new law of the law, — ” the 
 evolution of the definite from the indefinite,” a 
 very indefinite evolution ! which is, at best, only 
 specific differentiation, and which yields no solution 
 whatever, but only complicates the question, adding 
 to the mesh of elements, and giving us more to solve 
 after a method that solves nothing. We still ask, 
 Why is the movement of man in history, as asserted, 
 from the indefinite to the definite ? — the former being 
 the imperfect, or an element of it, the latter of the 
 perfect. Why does man proceed in that direc- 
 tion? Our philosopher has no answer. ,So much 
 for what is plainly no law, in a correct sense or 
 an incorrect. What is the law ? I can best answer 
 after showing what is the force. For method and 
 rationale are always the method and rationale of 
 force. 
 
 3. Of the cause of Progress, or the force in 
 action. If this famous doctrine, — which is the chief 
 support of current error, and gives us a Naturalistic 
 instead of a Natural Law or a Christian one, — dis- 
 closes the true cause, or any cause at all, it is to be 
 found in what is already before us. Evolution or 
 differentiation, or some supplement to these must 
 contain it. But the whole idea of development, 
 whatever its metaphysical supports, even as worked 
 
 Appleton’s last editions. 
 
AND rilE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 27 
 
 out in respect to the origination of species, is obvi- 
 ously, at the utmost, only an idea of method, leaving 
 the question — the method of what? unanswered. 
 This is why there is cogency in the criticism of Mar- 
 tineau, Mivart, and the Christian respondents in for- 
 eign and American reviews, that the theory rationally 
 requires, and cannot exclude the agency of God. As 
 Dr. Stirling says of the vitality of protoplasm, 
 explain it as we may, we shall never explain it by 
 molecules.” So I affirm of Progress; explain it as 
 we may, we shall never explain it by evolution. For 
 that cannot possibly be an explanation which yields 
 no first origin or cause for what it assumes to explain. 
 Mr. Spencer calls evolution ” an empirical generaliza- 
 tion,” and difierentiation. a "rational” one, — both 
 being evidently mere phenomenal methods and one 
 as empirical, or as truly known only as phenomenon, 
 as the other, — just as if one generalization produced 
 another, and that which has been generalized also. 
 It is much as if we should ask for the forces that 
 produce a very peculiar man’s character, and should 
 be told, "it. is the general man in him”; or, as if 
 one should ask for the cause of such institutions as 
 Harvard College "empirically generalized,” and be 
 told " it is the American college rationally general- 
 ized ! ” Even suppose evolution to be the method 
 by which the complex, the definite, and the fittest 
 appear in the history of God’s world, in every depart- 
 ment, and survive^ it is manifestly no adequate force, 
 or cause, i. e., power in action. It yields simply a 
 supposition how some unnamed power in action 
 works wdien it does work. We have got no true 
 
28 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 laws from the pretentious and empty generalizations 
 of Spencer, — so readily does this noted scheme 
 crumble at the touch of analysis, — we shall get no 
 cause from confounding supposed laws with force, as 
 if they were themselves dynamic and adequate. We 
 must look elsewhere to understand Human Progress 
 at all. 
 
 V. And now, using the term Law ” in the more 
 exact sense which has been extricated from the pre- 
 vailing confusion of speech and thought, and treating 
 together on the positive side what cannot well be 
 kept entirely separate, I deem it idle to look any- 
 where but to the well-established laws of human 
 nature for any Law of Progress. These are its natu- 
 ral laws. The producing force may be one, certainly 
 is one ; but there is no one Law, there must be 
 many. No fact that can be cited is to be referred to 
 one alone. Many blend in every form and phase of 
 human advancement; no one can tell how many. 
 There are no laws of human nature but may be 
 employed in it, — each in improvement of each kind, 
 — those of the body in that which is physical, those 
 of the intellect in that which is intellectual, the social 
 laws in that which is social, the moral and spiritual 
 laws in that which is moral and spiritual. The 
 Divine mechanism of the soul is sufficient — under 
 guidance — for all the secular improvements we see, 
 and possesses powers, even in the savage state, as 
 Mr. Wallace has shown, which are unnecessary and 
 
 * Contra Darwin. 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW, 
 
 29 
 
 less there, and predict a better state. Even in 
 barbarism, man is capable of aversion to it.f Nor 
 could any kind of improvement possibly take place 
 without these natural laws of mind. The rationale or 
 method of each is peculiar to each. Their name is 
 legion. Progress itself is not one, but many. Man’s 
 wants, notions, motives, intelligent choices, have a part 
 in every species of it, at every step ; even imagination 
 and association have their place and play their part, 
 but much more the natural faculty of belief ; and it 
 is idle to attempt to set them aside and put instead 
 an abstract and high-sounding generalization about 
 the way in which force acts as force. We can gen- 
 eralize a little. Progress, in the main, can be referred 
 to human knowing, human feeling, and human doing. 
 It is a law of knowing, that one discovery opens the 
 path for another ; the discoverer is brought into a 
 position to make another, and has individual methods 
 for each of his faculties — among which those of 
 logic are most important — by which proceeding he 
 legitimately and naturally makes further discovery, 
 or others following him make it. This is the way in 
 which Sir William Thompson’s affirmation respecting 
 the accumulations of science is true. It is a law 
 again of feeling that it produces feeling ; every type 
 of sensibility humane, aBsthetic, ethical, builds devel- 
 opment upon development, expression upon expres- 
 sion, throb upon throb, impulse upon impulse. It is 
 a law of doing, also, that what is once done can be 
 easier and better done and something besides, never 
 done before ; facility thus is acquired for completer as 
 
 t Pere Mailla in Englander” for Jan., p. 73. 
 
30 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 well as more finished action. Such laws of discovery, 
 sensibility, habit, are simply modes of the working 
 of powers, belonging to something ; and force, cause, 
 is always power. Facts are never governed by mere 
 laws, as the Naturalistic school teach people to say, — 
 they are governed by powers alone. Laws are sim- 
 ply stated methods, in which powers act and govern. 
 As the laws of language and the laws of science alike 
 are only the laws of mind, so of Progress. It is 
 natural to spirit, it is the original gift of God, to 
 seek improvement. 
 
 “ This sacred hunger marks th’ immortal mind.” 
 
 God seeks it also, but not His own, which is 
 impossible. 
 
 We find the cause of all Progress, then, in mind 
 alone, as we find its laws in the laws of mind alone. 
 So far as we know. Progress is natural to nothing 
 beside. Mr. Spencer’s whole philosophy is an ambi- 
 tious and stupendous attempt to explain the universe 
 without aught but the forces of matter, without re- 
 course to mind or God. Spirit, which we all know best, 
 is to him, indeed, unknowable. It is by the law of 
 parsimony that the architectonic principle of Progress 
 must needs be thought as one, while the laws of it 
 must be thought as many. Therefore, there may be 
 Progress in one de])artment and none in another, as 
 we see there is. Spirit embraces free choice, which 
 may, in fact, reverse Progress at times, as we see it 
 does. If difierentiation in the abstract were the 
 cause, or an adequate force, it would give us invariable 
 results which we nowhere have. If matter were the 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW, 
 
 31 
 
 cause, if all improvements were traceable to a physi- 
 cal basis,” then it would follow that it did not rccpiire 
 mjnd to originate what, when originated, it requires 
 mind to comprehend; which is to do much less. It 
 took more than the simia in Darwin to think out 
 " The Origin of Species.” It required the simia 
 plus Darwin; and you must add Huxley to proto- 
 plasm, to get protoplasm even conceived of ; while 
 it must have taken infinitely more mind still, to pro- 
 duce Huxley and Darwin, and Adam, out of noth- 
 ing, or out of anything. Such and such differentia- 
 tions arose somehow (this is the unsolved problem 
 of the solution) , in the nebulous primeval matter, — 
 so say these philosophers,^ — in the molten planets, in 
 the substance of the earth, in the structure of plants, 
 of animals, of man, and the explanation which they can 
 not or will not give, we supply in one word, GOD. 
 Differentiations also arose somehow in governments, 
 manners, societies, natural religions, labor, language, 
 arts, sciences ; and the explanation so carefully sup- 
 pressed here is MIND. It is like God, and therefore 
 cause. There is nothing dynamic in any of its laws or 
 methods ; the true Sum^ug is in mind itself. All secular 
 Progress is at once both its movement and its monu- 
 ment. For natural or supernatural,. all improvement 
 must be ; that of secular human history is only super- 
 natural, if you choose to call mind supernatural. 
 
 * Since this lecture was delivered, a passage in Dr. Shedd’s History 
 of Christian Doctrine has come to my notice, in which the distinction 
 between development and improvement is recognized. Vol. I., pp. 15-’ 
 18. In his own use of the word “ development’* (historical instead of 
 scientific), it is, however, “synonymous with corruption and decline, 
 as well as with improvement.” Progress is not. 
 
32 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 I mean mind here, of course, as dowered and pre- 
 pared of God for Progress, and especially as 
 possessed of certain intuitions and impulses. Those 
 of order and fitness have their sphere, but that of 
 perfection is the commanding one. Every great form 
 of human action is presided over by one of these 
 royal and inspiring intuitions, as, of justice in the 
 realm of society and government, beauty in that of 
 taste and art, right in that of morals and religion ; but 
 perfection reigns over them all. Each is more than 
 an idea, it is an intuition and an impulse ; it has its 
 realm in the thoughts and also in the active powers. 
 No generalization from experience, external or in- 
 ternal^ ever gave us the idea of perfection, for it 
 could not be generalized from the imperfect; no 
 observed or conscious achievement of the imperfect 
 ever gave us the prompting to attempt the perfect 
 in anything. It is only as standards or models in 
 thought and expression, in act and character, touch 
 (they cannot do more) the Divinely provided and 
 primary notion of the perfect, in man’s soul, that they 
 stimulate it to strenuous and successful imitation. 
 It is only as they disclose that they fall below it, 
 that his own grand and ever unattained ideal moves 
 man to emulate them. He has a tendency to advance., 
 because he has a tendency to realize his ideals. 
 Without that, all his achievements and even his 
 short-comings were inexplicable and impossible as 
 such; not even the theory of their supernatural 
 origin would work. 
 
 And I mean mind, moreover, as placed, circum- 
 stanced, and governed of God ; its intuitions, im- 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 33 
 
 pulses, and laws freely working, and yet within the 
 natural limits of His restriction, correction, stimula- 
 tion, and overruling. In its main direction, society 
 neither drifts nor is driven ; it is guided. Up to a 
 certain point the analogy between creation and human 
 history, a movement onward and upward in both, is 
 bright and clear. The differences between changing 
 flora and fauna become greater with each descending 
 stage of time ; and something like this is discernible 
 in the successive stages of civilization. Whether 
 barbarians can raise themselves out of barbarism at 
 all or not, the analogy may hold. ” The flrst step is 
 the difficulty,” says Archbishop Whatley, arguing 
 that they cannot.* But however the difficulty was 
 surmounted, mind must have been in itself not less at 
 first than it is now, nor less brooded over by God. It 
 seems probable,” says the last volume of ” Smithso- 
 nian Contributions,” " that the progress of mankind 
 was greater in degree, and in the extent of its range 
 in the ages of barbarism, than it has been since in 
 the ages of civilization, and that it was a harder, 
 more doubtful, and more intense struggle to reach 
 the threshold of the latter, than it has been since to 
 reach its present status.” The instinct of perfection, 
 then, the moral impulses, the help of God which 
 joins on to these, must have been as great and as 
 clear to man in the beginning as to-day. The only 
 Natural Law of Progress which we affirm, is God’s 
 Law, — fact, rule, and force, all emanate at last from 
 Him. Both this world and man have their pre-con- 
 
 ^London Y. M. Chr. Assoc. Lect. 1855, ‘‘ On the Origin of Civiliza- 
 tion.” 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 formation to improvement — the one active, the 
 other passive, — from His hand. Even savage tribes 
 attempt to perfect something, handiwork at least, 
 though not all the same. They show the inchoate 
 and partial working of a natural law. To be without 
 this would be more than to be without culture and 
 integrity ; viz., to be without a human nature imag- 
 ing God’s at all. I take this to be the meaning of 
 Dr. McCosh, when he says that ” our advancement in 
 knowledge and refinement is evidently pre-deter- 
 mined by God, for it is probably the result of agen- 
 cies which He has instituted.” It is clearly the 
 thought of Bishop Butler, — " This much is mani- 
 fest, that the whole natural world and government 
 of it is a scheme or system, not a fixed, but a pro- 
 gressive one, — a scheme, the operation of which 
 takes up a great length of time before the ends they 
 tend to can be attained.” Even Archbishop Whate- 
 ly, arguing that man never originated civilization, 
 affirms that ” the tendency towards progressive im- 
 provement ” is ” characteristic of our species.” 
 Human society,” he says, "may be compared to 
 some combustible substances which will never take 
 fire spontaneously, but when once sent on fire, will 
 burn with continually increasing strength. A com- 
 munity of men requires, as it were, to be kindled, 
 but requires no more.” " There is no art that man 
 may not have invented, supposing him to have a cer- 
 tain degree of mental cultivation to start from.” 
 
 VI. It may now be assumed, that the Natural 
 Law of Progress, which is divine, is clearly estab- 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW, 
 
 lislied, and it only needs that the Christian Law be 
 truly and accurately stated, in order to an easy 
 adjustment between them. There is little here to be 
 done, because of the convincing manner in which the 
 Christian Law has been maintained here in former 
 years, by the first lecturer of 1870 and the last of 
 1871. Fact, rule, aiid force, have been established, 
 and I have only to point out what is peculiar to each 
 as Christian. 
 
 But one word, first, on the question. Why is there 
 a Christian Law of Progress at all? Simply for 
 this one reason, that the Natural Law does not work, 
 morally and spiritually. Nothing is plainer in the 
 natural h istory of mankind, than that the improvement 
 it shows elsewhere does not obtain in ethics and reli- 
 gion, aside from Christianity. Mr. Buckle’s much- 
 contested axiom, that morals are stationary, is true 
 enough as natural fact alone, and hardly need have 
 been so disputed; but it is not true as Christian 
 fact. All races go far enough on this side, to prove 
 that they have a moral nature and have the same. 
 Exactly the reverse of what Whately maintains on the 
 secular side is here true ; they have something to 
 start from, but no tendency, to use Lord Bacon’s 
 phrase, "then to make progression.” One word, one 
 phenomenon, explains the ethico-spiritual paralysis 
 of the great Law of Progress, — Sin. Without sin, 
 improvement on that side, instead of being last and 
 least, would have been as obvious as any other. 
 
 " The one obstacle that comes between man and his 
 end,” said Dr. Hopkins last year, "is Sin.” Hence 
 a new Law, with new and unique results. We were 
 
36 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 made originally under one Law, Divinely intended to 
 be both secular and religions ; and just as plainly as 
 we see that it still works on the one side, we see that 
 it does not, save as exceptionally replaced, on the 
 other. Christianity itself silently recognizes its 
 w^orking in secular things, for it does not propose to 
 reinstate it there, else would it be science, art, and 
 all beside, as well as religion. It equally recognizes 
 that the Law has been overthrown in our spiritual 
 nature, by undertaking so to re-establish it there, 
 that it may be said truly : " the righteous shall hold on 
 his way, and he that hath clean hands, grow stronger 
 and stronger ” ; ” the path of the just is as the 
 shining light that shineth more and more unto the 
 perfect day.” 
 
 (1.) And now as to the peculiar facts of Christian 
 Progress. New and beautiful forms of virtue have 
 been created by the Gospel. ” Toleration,” says the 
 '' Westminster Eeview,” denying Buckle’s axiom, ” is 
 the result of something else than mere scepticism, 
 and is a modern idea.” " Humanity,” says Max Mul- 
 ler, " is a word you look for in vain in Plato or Aris- 
 totle, an idea of Christian growth, and the science of 
 Mankind is a science which, without Christianity, 
 would never have sprung into life.” Mr. Fronde 
 mentions the disinterested disposition which devo- 
 tion to science produces, valuing knowledge for its 
 own sake, and asking no reward, as " the only real 
 and undeniable progress ” that we are making through 
 science ; but this is only the shadow of a whole new 
 character supremely consecrate to truth, love, and 
 goodness, which the work of Christ’s religion dis- 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW, 
 
 37 
 
 closes. Or, descending to common facts, Christian 
 experience is an incontestable and patent fact, which 
 not even a Comte could deny, in a community like 
 that of Boston, Avithout risking his reputation for 
 either honesty or sanity ; and Christian believing, 
 Avhich must be either part of it or root of it, and 
 Christian living, which is fruit of both, are also facts, 
 and all three facts, no matter what becomes of Posi- 
 tivism, to be accounted for hy some law and some 
 power in action. It would require exemplary hardi- 
 hood to deny that a statement like that of our learned 
 fellow-countryman, Dr. Henry B. Smith, to the Evan- 
 gelical Alliance at Berlin, of the growth of Protestant 
 Christianity in the world, involves a signal increase 
 of common Christian morality, to say nothing of the 
 higher and finer virtues. So of the statement, — 
 which I am not able to verify, — that our increase of 
 population in the first fifty years of this century was 
 four-and-a-half-fold, while that of Christian persons 
 was nine-fold. '' The Christian church throughout the 
 world,” said the "Westminster Review,” last April, 
 " was never in so advanced and favorable a condition, 
 and never embraced so many elements of hope, as 
 at present.” 
 
 (2.) Of the rule involved in Christian Progress ; 
 the principles of order or method. If the laws of 
 human nature are employed, they clearly are not used 
 in the ordinary way. The new facts imply both new 
 processes and new ends. Christian experience is in 
 some sense a supernatural fact, and it is illogical not 
 to recognize supernatural methods behind it. In it, 
 the laws of human nature, which had been under 
 
38 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 paralysis, are made to work as they never would by 
 nature. We have still the ideal of the perfect, though 
 never spiritually employed ; we have all the intui- 
 tions of natural reason, and the accelerating facility 
 of habit; else no leverage, no basis of operations. 
 The capacity for improvement is no part of that 
 image of God that was lost in the Fall, for God is 
 not improvable. Mind, and moral distinctions must 
 have been from the first, as now, in order to progress 
 on any supposition, by evolution, by primitive reve- 
 lation or by natural law. The Eemedial System is 
 itself proof that there is somewhat in us yet for 
 Progress to hold by, else why sermons inan^ pul- 
 pit, ''to the Natural Man?” It is part of the 
 evidence of a grand original intention, thwarted 
 now in spiritual things, whose failure therefore, 
 has to be remedied. "A true theology is nec- 
 essary to all spiritual improvement at least; and 
 it implies natural faculties, for the discovery and 
 recognition of religious truth, but faculties, that 
 under sin, must be cleansed and quickened and illu- 
 minated. " Holiness to the Lord,” is no word of 
 mere ethics. "Perfect in the will of God,” is never 
 the aim of natural civilization. There are new truths 
 required and disclosed here, in which is the starting 
 point of the new advance of mankind, for with them 
 is the beginning of goodness toward God, and there 
 cannot be a better, until there is first a good. The 
 old selfish, utilitarian uses of even first principles are, 
 under the Christian Law, superseded. Good acquires 
 another and a higher meaning ; even right is another 
 thing under revelation. And with this new furniture 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW. 
 
 39 
 
 of ideas and aims, all the mental laws work in other 
 and higher channels than before. 
 
 (3.) Of the force involved. It is the Spirit of 
 God, as in the Natural Law of Progress it is the mind 
 of man. The principle of parsimony here again admits 
 but one force or power in action ; it must be mind, 
 and it cannot be human. Then, logically, it is God. 
 Or, if you say Christ, that is logically the same 
 thing. "Between man and his end, sin intervenes, — 
 that only,” said Dr. Hopkins. The religion which 
 begins, proceeds, and concludes with the removal of 
 sin, and that sets up an ideal of perfection in goodness 
 which neither philosophy nor religion ever shadowed 
 or hinted before, must be Divine. To improve 
 one’s mere condition may be selfish : to improve one’s 
 character in disinterested righteousness, is itself dis- 
 interested. It must be the law of the spirit of life 
 in Christ Jesus, which can make either the individual 
 or society free from the law of sin and death. Social 
 enthusiasms, in other civilizations, can be ascribed to 
 Natural Law, like that for " wisdom ” among caste- 
 Egyptians, for art or philosophy among certain 
 Greeks, for civil-service qualifications among the 
 Chinese; but not a social enthusiasm for holiness, 
 such as emerges alone in Christian civilization. 
 
 Such is the Christian Law of Progress, — its facts 
 peculiar, its methods peculiar, its force peculiar. 
 Mere secular, i. e., partial progress, under the 
 Natural Law, necessitates it. That is supplemented, 
 not superseded by this. Progress is both qualitative, 
 — as to what sort of capabilities in us are improving, 
 and quantitative, — as to how many. Man may be 
 
40 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 rising in some directions, and yet sinking in only 
 one that is more important; he may be sinking 
 on the whole, his apparent elevation being not really 
 such, any more than that of a body immersed in 
 water, turning upward as it goes down. The Natural 
 Law, however, does not require, as the Naturalistic 
 does, that Progress should be proven of every epoch, 
 of every nation, of every man. The race advances, 
 as armies sometimes do, through an enemy’s country, 
 by sections ; first one division or brigade or regi- 
 ment, and then another. Nor is it necessary, under 
 Natural or Christian Law, to prove that every move- 
 ment is in itself an advance, for many must have 
 for their immediate object only to gain position, as 
 armies do by flank on battle-fields, or ships by tack 
 at sea. But if most things progress, provided they 
 be the highest, all will, ere long. Yet, neither kind 
 of improvement, secular nor spiritual, can take the 
 place of the other, or fail to languish alone. The 
 secular dies, dissevered from the spiritual ; and 
 upward religious movements, separated from thought 
 and cultur^e, lapse into barbarism, and illustrate the 
 truth that there is dead weight enough in barbarism 
 to sink and destroy them. We need both Laws. 
 And as partial Progress must always be lower 
 Progress, the new and supplementary Law must be 
 a higher one for the higher nature. Omnipotent in 
 its own domain, improvement in the man or the 
 masses, can never be complete without it. For 
 he and they whose civilization is not spiritual, 
 must have a spiritual nature uncivilized. As morals 
 cannot produce taste, or taste morals, or culture 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LA W. 
 
 41 
 
 unselfish love, so neither, nor anything beside, can 
 produce religious virtue, which is necessary not only 
 to a ]3erfect being, but to a truly exalted specimen 
 of an imperfect one. Giving all other agencies their 
 due place, of our Keligion we sing 
 
 “ If thou take thy grace away, 
 
 Nothing pure in us shall stay.” 
 
 But Christianity cannot be required to abolish all 
 wrong at any one place or time, — for it takes effect 
 on human character, not on human nature, — or to 
 give us a perfect generation of men ; for each gener- 
 ation has to begin with the rudiments in morals, as 
 with the alphabet in learning, and this under a heri- 
 tage of sin ; while the outrages of Communists and 
 the "Ku Klux,” private assassinations in our cities, 
 and the daily record of violence and treachery, 
 prove man’s nature still depraved. But Chris- 
 tianity has already made some crimes and sins un- 
 known ; and age by age — for this is slow work,— 
 is doing away with others. The signs, every day 
 multiplying, of its becoming the universal morality 
 and religion, are simply signs that Progress will 
 some day reach high-water mark on the shores of 
 time. 
 
 VII. And here, to draw the lines of adjustment 
 closer, observe, that the first fruit of Christianity in 
 society is not a civilization, but a righteousness, 
 growing out of a new principle of personal holiness. 
 I object strongly to the wide and inaccurate sense in 
 which the phrase ” Christian civilization” is used. 
 
42 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 Nothing is correctly classified under it which is not the 
 fruit of Christian righteousness. Also observe that 
 this righteousness always and everywhere naturally 
 produces a civilization, though no civilization, not 
 even the Jewish, has ever yet naturally produced a 
 Christianity; and yet that was the purest civiliza- 
 tion in history, and really religious ; though, as has 
 been said of morality, only the fruit on the lower 
 branches of the Christian tree. 
 
 Implant the new spiritual ideal in man, and it will 
 awaken all other ideals in him. It will revive the 
 Natural Law of Progress in whatsoever it has been 
 suspended. The fountain of ” sweetness and light,” 
 of strength and beauty, it is both complement and 
 ally of all other good agencies, doing for men what 
 they cannot do, setting them all upon the doing of 
 what they can. Again observe, — and this is a rela- 
 tion of Christianity to secular Progress ever over- 
 looked, — it helps all other agencies, byrestraining 
 as well as by stimulating them, by guiding them 
 away from over-action and excess, by fastening upon 
 the refinements and enjoyments of all culture the 
 clog of wholesome self-denial, by severely repressing 
 whatever would overlay and crush its own high ends, 
 and spoil culture itself, by preventing, — to use a 
 Western, Home-Missionary patriarch’s curt phrase, — 
 our being '' civilized to death.” It does more for the 
 commonwealth, to touch the name etymologically, by 
 checking the passion for wealth, than unrestrained 
 avarice ever could. It saves civilization itself from 
 growing thin, and strengthless ; it Leeps the 
 stamen good. There is no element of natural well- 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW, 
 
 43 
 
 bciiiir or character to which a restraining^ hand is 
 not indispensable, and there can be none like that 
 of a Divinely-communicated, ^remedial, merciful 
 religion. If mere civilization is not to run out and 
 become effete on its own line, it must have both spur 
 and check. How far Christianity may go in this 
 direction, of secular benefit, no man can tell ; but 
 neither any other religion nor atheism goes in this 
 direction at all ; and we may say, with reverence, that 
 a true religion would have the marks of just such an 
 influence upon the course of secular things as are 
 shown by Christianity alone. It has already gone so 
 far that in Christendom it is impossible entirely to 
 extricate the workings of its own Law and those of 
 the Law of Nature from each other ; and, while anal- 
 ysis should give us two distinct classes of resulting 
 facts, there is a third in which the two blend inextri- 
 cably, which is — beyond statement, — larger than 
 either. And once more observe, that though itself, 
 in its substance, not a subject of improvement, but 
 complete, — ^yet it is the most progressive religion in its 
 unfolding to, and application by man, of all the ages. 
 In this respect, as in prophecy, it has ” a springing 
 and germinant fulfilment.” In these things, also, is 
 the secret of the notable fact, that nothing beside can 
 so support, “complete, perpetuate or resuscitate civili- 
 zation. It can arrest mortal decay, which nothing 
 else can ; it alone has the power of resurrection after 
 death. All unchristian improvement, being partial, 
 is therefore temporary. The lower faculties can be 
 kept up to their highest mark — even reason itself, 
 only provided the uppermost ones, which are the 
 
44 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 spiritual, are quickened and set forward. Those 
 hang upon these. For, if perfection could exist alone 
 in anything, it could not long, without perfection of 
 character; and this must sustain lower progress while 
 it is reaching perfection, if it ever can. And so 
 necessary is Christianity to give direction and pro- 
 portion to Progress, that unless it is subordinating 
 all else to those elements in man which are highest 
 and grandest, such Progress, whether begun by 
 accident, by genius, by selfishness, or by science, is 
 doomed first to stagnate, then to rot, and then to 
 disappear, and the race with it. In what has just 
 been said lies also the secret of the familiar fact 
 that missions preceding other civilizing agencies in 
 heathen lands are always more powerful and suc- 
 cessful civilizers than they. 
 
 VIII. This adjustment between the two Laws has 
 been shapen expressly and equally to avoid, on the 
 one hand, the speculative theories which resolve 
 all Progress into material necessity — dissipating 
 all rationale and all cause into thin air, and leaving 
 mere physical fact ; and, at the other extreme, those 
 dogmatic theories which deny any Natural Law, and 
 that there is any Progress save through Christianity. 
 Dr. Lord held this last in its most obnoxious and un- 
 tenable form ; viz., that the earth itself has a broken 
 constitution ; all things upon it are disordered, sub- 
 ject to decline and dissolution — particularly man and 
 the animated creatures nearest in order to him — 
 and there are no exceptions ” ; and that God’s deal- 
 ings with all races and ages, our own included, have 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW, 
 
 45 
 
 been ” strictly and universally in accordance with the 
 law of decline and fall.” But as he also held that/ 
 under Christianity, temporary improvements may 
 take place, it is difficult to see how any other sup- 
 position of an exclusively supernatural law differs 
 from his, save in the connected interpretations of 
 prophecy. In any form, it lands its champions in a 
 ludicrous self-contradiction, in that they also contend 
 that literature and art, at least, reached a perfection 
 never to be equalled in Greece and Eome, ^. e., with- 
 out Christianity. If this would show that the mod- 
 ern Christian nations have no law of literary and 
 artistic progress to speak of, it would also imply that 
 some of the ancients had one, and lost it for the race ! 
 Sir William Temple capped the climax of this absurd- 
 ity by maintaining, with great fervor and grace of 
 style, that human degeneracy is constant, and "the 
 oldest books in every kind are the best,” laying him- 
 self out largely on the spurious and worthless letters 
 of Phalaris, as an exquisite and crowning example. 
 If anything could possibly surpass this, it was the 
 position of Dr. Lord, that emancipation was an 
 instance of all sorts of social and moral deterioration, 
 and that slavery has a place somewhere in the moral 
 government of God. The dogmatic theory, in any 
 form, ignores the manifest and noblest characteristics 
 of the hurhan mind, some of the brightest prophecies 
 of its immortality, and one of the choicest proofs of 
 our holy religion. It denies that civilization before 
 or aside from Christianity is civilization, that partial 
 Progress is Progress ; which it is perilous for a 
 scholar, at least, to deny. The adjustment here in- 
 
46 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 dicated, recognizing the Natural Law as of God, 
 accounts for separate and independent civilizations, as 
 in Greece, India, Egypt, and in China, at this moment 
 (a civilization that can no more be classed with oth- 
 ers, than its language can be), for the state of these 
 now, and for the lack of civilization elsewhere. It 
 accounts equally for both the progressiveness and 
 the unprogressiveness of men ; and for the relapses 
 of Christian and heathen nations. It recognizes the 
 unquestionable fact that the stagnant heathen races 
 were once rising and moving forward, and shows 
 why, and how, they came to a dead stop. The Nat- 
 uralistic Law cannot do this at all ; the Christian Law 
 alone, the Natural Law alone, cannot. The true 
 Doctrine of Progress must do justice to both Laws, 
 for both are necessary to human perfection, and both, 
 of God. It is as useless to substitute one for the 
 other, as a pen for a spade in farming, or a gun for an 
 axe in carpentry. It is as useless, to ascribe to the 
 one what is due to the other, as to refer the multi- 
 plication table and the Sermon on the Mount to a 
 common origin, or either to the other. The true 
 Doctrine is neither exclusively natural nor supernat- 
 ural, but inclusively both. Suum cuique. To Caesar 
 the things that are Caesar’s, to God, the things that 
 are God’s. It gives Christianity its proper glorj^, 
 — neither too much nor too little. Possibly as ” the 
 ultimate fact of astronomical science,” in the words 
 of the Duke of Argyle, ”is not the law of gravita- 
 tion, but the adjustment between this law and others 
 which are less known, 'so in the science of man, the 
 basis of harmony now sketched out, is one which ail 
 
AND THE CHRISTIAN LAW, 
 
 47 
 
 parties in relation to the Christian Religion may be 
 tardy in coming together upon. Perhaps all Chris- 
 tian thinkers must come to it first, before Naturalis- 
 tic ones can be expected to do so. The adjustment 
 is not needed, indeed, for the two great Divine Laws 
 themselves, only for our understanding of them. They 
 adjust themselves, facts, methods, and forces, to each 
 other every hour. In Christendom, at least, each 
 leans upon the other. Every Christian person has 
 the direct benefit of the Natural Law; every un- 
 Christian person has much indirect and secondary 
 benefit, at least, of the Christian Law. It is impos- 
 sible to select any examples of secular improvement, 
 in which forces that are Christian may not be 
 blended. 
 
 But I must relieve your exemplary patience with 
 the tardy, but sincere confession of the temerity of 
 discussing a theme so broad and deep, in this centre 
 of Puritan civilization, on the part of one whose home 
 is far from great libraries in Western wilds. I have 
 written in sight of the ruins of a college conflagration, 
 not helpful to close or even hopeful thought, and my 
 manuscript seems to me to carry the smell of fire. 
 But the Doctrine here advanced is certainly the basis 
 of all hope for the good time coming, of ” sweeter 
 manners, purer laws.” It augurs the regeneration 
 of society,- — not its degeneration. It holds, with 
 ”the noblest nations,” as Bunsen expresses it, to ” an 
 immutable, moral order of the world, constituted by 
 Divine wisdom, and regulating the destinies of man- 
 kind,” to nil eternal order,” in which 'Hruth, justice, 
 wisdom, and moderation are sure to triumph ; and 
 
48 
 
 THE NATURAL LAW OF PROGRESS 
 
 that when the contrary appears to be the case, the 
 fault lies in our mistaking the middle for the end.’^ 
 It is both rational and reverent. It traces all real 
 advance, — in the last analysis, — all its laws and all 
 its forces, to the Law-giver and the Force-giver. It 
 finds security for all virtue, learning, piety, and 
 well-being in His stately purpose. He garners the 
 fruits and sows the seeds of all. He keeps His own. 
 '' Civilizations have foundered ; civilization itself, 
 never.” Christian civilization, its truer and bet- 
 ter self, never can. We say with emphasis in the 
 Christian ages, 
 
 “ The drops run past us, but the river stays.” 
 
 Let us look forward. Let even our errors be the 
 errors of Christian progressives, never those of 
 reactionists. They will be fewer, and they will be 
 safer. ” A man may fall forward,” wrote our famous 
 John Robinson, in one of a series of essays worthy 
 to take place beside those of Bacon, " and in so 
 doing, endanger his hands and face ; but in falling 
 backward, the danger is far greater, as we see in old 
 Eli, of whom we read, that he fell backward, and his 
 neck brake ^ and he died.” Let us carry onward the 
 light of virtue and truth as far as we may, for it is 
 like the torch in the hand of the Greek runner, who 
 bore it till he was spent, and then handed it to 
 another, who bore it farther on. It is my faith that 
 it will continue to be so, for it always has been ; and 
 ever 
 
 Glimpses on my sight, 
 
 Through present wrong the eternal right. 
 
 And step by step, since time began, 
 
 I see the steady gain of man.” 
 
II. 
 
 CHRISTIAN DO*CTRINE THE MOLD OF CHRISTIAN 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 T hat which a man holds by the head, and by 
 heart, as the truth, vital to his soul’s want, that 
 properly is his Creed. It is to him the supreme 
 truth, felt to be such, and grasped with a clear com- 
 pleteness of conviction, and held with a trustful hold- 
 ing worthy to be termed in such matter a Faith. It 
 is the truth he has found true to his spiritual needs ; 
 the truth, or scheme of truths, if it be such, that ver- 
 ifies itself to his craving heart, as measuring and 
 answering his sense of trouble and wrong, his felt 
 sin and conscions guilt. He has found and embraced 
 it as the Adequate Truth that opens to his soul the 
 Way and the Life. 
 
 That is the man’s Creed ; and less than this will ever 
 be found to lack somewhat that essentially belongs 
 to the full significance of that term. No man pro- 
 perly has a creed, till in his deepest soul he beholds, 
 owns, welcomes, trusts the truth that meets his want, 
 and delivers himself over, heartily obedient to that 
 truth. He may have had his little experiments at a 
 Faith, his notional admissions of truth, endemic or 
 4 
 
50 
 
 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE THE MOLD 
 
 inherited; he has felt the 'sting of sin, the ache of 
 conscience, the power of an endless life, and so may 
 have speculated quite religiously, and set in order 
 certain wisdoms that his soul has within reach in its 
 serious moods ; some theory of bread, when his hun- 
 ger shall grow too sharp ; his scheme of the infinite 
 when his finite shall fail him ; and he wraps these 
 thin persuasions about him as a religion. But with 
 all these, he has not attained to a Faith. Creed, 
 properly, he has none, and little more than the ele- 
 ments and preparations of one. 
 
 For what truth soever a man heartily entertains, 
 on terms that entitle it to be called his Faith or 
 Creed, is not held simply, but itself holds him as 
 with sovereign power of possession. It receives him, 
 and proceeds to fashion the character and life to its 
 own pattern. What is thus really in the creed passes 
 into the man, holding the heart, and working trans- 
 formingly from that centre. And the much we are 
 wont to say and hear of faiths and creeds, as far less 
 than this, should raise the doubt, whether things, as 
 well as words, are not losing their meaning with us. 
 
 This power of heartily believed truth to mold and 
 stamp the believer with its own image, is very im- 
 pressively recognized and declared in Romans 6 :17. 
 There was, upon this company of Roman disciples, a 
 certain image and superscription of grace, so peculiar 
 and so clearly enstamped, that the Apostle knows 
 them by that manifest token to be children of God. 
 He sees and recognizes upon them the authentic 
 stamp of the genuine believer. ” Fe have obeyed 
 from the heart that form of doctrine which wasdeliv- 
 
OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 51 
 
 ered 7jou” What was this imprint of the Faith, this 
 seal and certificate of grace, so visible and infallible ? 
 And how was it produced ? 
 
 The Apostle rests this confidence that these disci- 
 ples are believers indeed, on a certain evident fact, 
 which he gives us in this passage, but which is very 
 imperfectly reported in our version. Indeed, the 
 failure to give us in this passage the exact utterance 
 of the Spirit is so great and obvious, and the Divine 
 thought is so richly significant, when truly reported, 
 that we may well take it in these juster terms, which all 
 criticism approves and to which interpreters consent : 
 Ye have heartily obeyed that mold of doctrine 
 INTO WHICH YE WERE DELIVERED. This, then, was 
 the distinguishing fact : The Christian Truths, heart- 
 ily believed, had made their own distinctive mark on 
 them. The Christian Doctrine had reeeived these 
 obedient souls, and charactered them with its 
 proper imprint. And, by that mark, he knew them to 
 be believers indeed, and also knew what creed alone 
 could make that mark. 
 
 For, as men fashion a mold, tracing in it the typo 
 of figure and feature which they seek to form, and 
 deliver into this the fused metal that it may obey this 
 model and take from it the very lineaments designed, 
 so in this new creating of sonls after Christ, the 
 Spirit has set in order the things of Christ, the Chris- 
 tian Truths, to be a mold of the Christian character 
 and life — each peculiar Christian fact and doctrine set 
 in its fit place and proportion, each having its own 
 proper stamp to impart, eaeh essential to the com- 
 pleteness of that life and character which shall bear 
 
52 
 
 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE THE MOLD 
 
 throughout the Christly impress and so be distinct- 
 ively Christian — and altogether constituting the 
 exact archetype and mold of what the Christian shall 
 be ; and this not as a mere furniture of opinion which 
 the man has caught or cogitated, but a veritable 
 Creed of his, a scheme of felt and believed Truth, 
 taking possession of him, a receptacle of motives that 
 are quick throughout with the plastic Spirit of Christ, 
 into which the soul is delivered by faith, as the fused 
 metal into the mold, that the very seal and stamp of 
 Christ may be struck all around on the heart and life. 
 
 Such, in formal statement, is the divine thought of 
 this passage ; and it goes to the heart of this whole 
 question of the formation and evidence of the Chris- 
 tian character. It defines very clearly the place and 
 function of the truth in spiritual changes, and the 
 nature and efllcacy of genuine faith. 
 
 That this representation stands in no mere figure, 
 but reports the very method of God in the handling 
 of souls, will be plain from many scriptures. See 
 how in other passages, here and there, every point 
 in this picture is divinely attested. How largely we 
 are taught that the gracious work of the delivering 
 and transforming Spirit, in every stage and aspect of 
 the saving process, is instrumented evermore by the 
 truth — that by the truth, clasped home by faith, the 
 soul lying in sin is first startled, convinced, slain — 
 then begotten anew, quickened, renewed, edified, 
 reconstructed, sanctified, saved. This shaping pres- 
 sure is ever recognized. The passages in proof 
 scarcely need to be recited. Recall only these : 
 God’s perfect law enlightening the eyes, making wise 
 
OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 53 
 
 the simple, converting the soul. Ps. 19 : 7,8. Of 
 His own will begat Pie us by the word of truth. 
 James 1 : 18. We are begotten through the Gospel. 
 1 Cor. 4 : 15. And so, being born again, not of 
 corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word 
 of God, which liveth and abideth forever, ye have 
 purified your souls in obeying the truth through the 
 Spirit. 1 Pet. 1 : 22, 23. Sanctify them through 
 thy truth. John 17 : 17. I am the Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life. John 14: 6. We learn Christ, put- 
 ting off the old man, which is corrupt according to 
 the deceitful lusts, being renewed in the spirit of our 
 mind, and being taught as the truth is in Jesus. 
 Eph. 4 : 21, 24. If ye continue in my word, then 
 are ye my disciples indeed ; and ye shall know the 
 truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8 : 
 31, 32. In all this process the Spirit of truth takes 
 of the things of Christ and shews them to the believ- 
 ing; John 16 : 13, 15 ; and the bearing of the obe- 
 dient soul while so learning Christ and passing over 
 to be a new creature in His likeness, is described as 
 walking in the truth, and abiding in the doctrine of 
 Christ. 2 John : 4, 9. 
 
 We find, then, the representation of this passage 
 to be no mere touch of casual imagery. It lies 
 broadly bedded in the whole body of kindred Scrip- 
 tures. It covers this general result : That the Truth 
 which the soul finds true to its deepest needs, and 
 receives with such hearty belief as deserve's the name 
 of Faith, holds the believer henceforth in its em- 
 brace, as the mold clasps the delivered metal, and 
 characters him with its own impress. 
 
54 
 
 OERISTIAN DOCTRINE THE MOLD 
 
 But it is more than any such general doctrine of 
 the office and power of truth that the Apostle de- 
 clares. He discerns in these disciples a certain 
 unique and remarkable character, not the religious 
 merely, but a singular grace and exaltation of that ; 
 and the mold of doctrine, which alone could strike 
 this shape and stamp, is surely more than the old 
 forms of truth. It is the Christian Doctrine that has 
 wrought this Christian Character, and, at sight, he 
 recognizes in them the new stamp of the new mold. 
 The Law could not do this. Here is more than 
 Pharisaism ever conceived. This is not that abund- 
 ant religiousness which blooms here and there on 
 rare natures, as the fruit of culture, and an exact 
 conscience. A new and higher cast of character is 
 here ; and manifestly it is the Gospel of the Lord 
 Jesus, it is the Christ that has given Himself in 
 new grace and truth to men, that is working this new 
 phase of spirit and life. In that mold these souls 
 have taken this impress. 
 
 No man knew better than did Paul himself, the 
 power of this new and perfecting truth as it is in 
 Christ. He speaks in this whole passage out of his 
 own deep consciousness of the necessity of this 
 Christian molding, and of his own blessed experi- 
 ence of it. All that he had been as the superlative 
 legalist, moral, conscientious, religiously straitened 
 on all sides, — all this had been softened and tem- 
 pered. The Spirit of Truth had been showing him 
 the things of Christ. In vain he had wrestled with 
 the new revelation ever since that day when he stood 
 by, and held the garments of them that stoned 
 
OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER, 
 
 55 
 
 Stephen ; till at length all had been utterly fused 
 by that epiphany of the risen Christ that flamed on 
 him on the way to Damascus. From that hour all 
 that self-competent and most religious Saul that he 
 had been, was delivered into the mold of these new 
 truths of Christ; and there had come forth this 
 Christian Paul as the result. He knew in himself 
 this new creation in Christ Jesus. And out of this 
 experience he speaks now, recognizing in these souls 
 the same spiritual reconstruction, the same Christly 
 stamp, struck only by these Christian Truths on 
 souls divinely tempered and submitted to that 
 shaping. 
 
 The distinctive Christian Truths, then, are de- 
 signed and employed by the Spirit of God as the 
 perfect mold of Christian character and life. 
 
 (1.) Looking now, first, at this Gospel Doctrine, 
 as properly the revelation of grace and truth, in the 
 person and work of Jesus Christ, we recognize it at 
 once as the wisdom and power of God for the deliv- 
 erance and salvation of believing souls. It is fitted 
 and adequate to that effect. The soul that once 
 takes to heart these truths as true and vital to its felt 
 want, and so makes these its veritable creed, and 
 fairly delivers itself to their transforming power, will 
 infallibly be wrought over into just that new crea- 
 ture in Christ which the saved sinner is represented 
 to be. He will surely be renewed after the image 
 of the Christ who thus clasps him all about in the 
 embrace of His truth, being changed into the same 
 image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of 
 the Lord. Given the cause, we know the effect. 
 
56 ^ CHItlSTIAN DOCTRINE THE MOLD 
 
 Inspecting the die, we know the impression it will 
 strike. 
 
 Look now into this mold of Christian Doctrine. 
 Observe these deep lines, these bold reliefs. The 
 supreme facts are all here. Our sin, God’s pity and 
 remedy, divinely ordered and proportioned, besetting 
 us on every side of our need. God manifest in the 
 flesh, — the Incarnate Son of God, in travail of love 
 for us lost, living our human life, dying our death, 
 risen now and throned for us, — the atoning, teach- 
 ing, sympathizing Christ Jesus, who, in this ministry 
 of the divine fulness to all our want, is made unto 
 us wisdom, and righteousness and sanctification and 
 redemption, and so a Savior to the uttermost ! Trace 
 out the design to the last touch that adds grace to 
 virtue. From this perusal of the mold alone, even 
 beforehand, if no Christian had ever been seen by us 
 in actual development, we could forecast with entire 
 assurance what manner of man he must needs be in 
 all holy conversation and Christ-likeness, who should 
 be wrought to this pattern. If these truths take 
 effect, the product will be the Christian character. 
 Each truth will leave its proper mark, its own 
 authentic character, on the believer. The material 
 will be human still, taking and holding the impress 
 with varying degrees of completeness and perfection ; 
 but so far as he obeys this mold of doctrine, the 
 style of the man will be none other than a copy of 
 Christ. 
 
 (2.) We may also reason from the effect to the 
 cause, and infer quite completely for substance the 
 whole Gospel from the character it produces. Given 
 
OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 57 
 
 the Christian man, bearing this evangelical stamp 
 of grace in his spirit and conversation, and we know 
 what he has been heartily believing, what vital, rea- 
 lized and obeyed truths have been fashioning him to 
 that beauty and strength. He is what obedience to 
 those truths through the Spirit has made him. He 
 is the product of his Faith. For the instrumental- 
 ity and motive pressure in all spiritual changes are 
 lodged in the truth. 
 
 As, therefore, from the figure enstamped, we know 
 what must have been the fashion of the die that 
 struck it ; as the casting betrays its mold, so that 
 point by point you refer each feature to the particular 
 configuration of the model that shaped it, — so the 
 Christian man is formed by his Christian creed. We 
 can trace each gracious peculiarity to the truth that 
 wrought it. And none other than this very doctrine 
 of Christ, as given in the Gospel, could form such a 
 character as this. 
 
 It would even be quite possible in this way to con- 
 struct ideally the very mold of motive requisite for 
 the production of a character so unique. At least in 
 its leading elements we could discover the Gospel 
 from the Christian man. This Believer, so stamped 
 with the evangelic virtues — what creed has been 
 his to save him so ? The naturalist derives from a 
 single plant or animal, or even from a single organic 
 part of such, the whole main world of plastic agencies 
 that conditioned and produced it. By the same pro- 
 cess, take this assemblage of characteristic Christian 
 traits, or even any one of them that is vital — take 
 this temper and life of unselfishness, this consecration 
 
58 
 
 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE THE MOLD 
 
 of love, this penitential humility, this joy of pardon 
 and conscious recovery to goodness, this assiduity of 
 loved service toward God and man, this felt personal 
 union to an infinite friend — such a character, or any 
 one trait that is of its substance, reveals again this 
 very Gospel. The marks of the Lord Jesus are on 
 it throughout. And seeing this saved sinner so 
 struck through and printed over with the Cross, we 
 thus judge that One has died for him ; that, once 
 dead, he lives henceforth a redeemed life, not unto 
 himself, but under constraint of His love Who died 
 for him and rose again. To be such as he is, he 
 must have been such a sinner so saved. 
 
 And with insight only a little deeper we might go 
 very far to discover, from inspection of any marked 
 unchifistian life and character, what has been believed 
 instead of the Christian truth — what shape of error, 
 what misbelief the man has been harboring and obey- 
 ing, to make him what he is. For men show their 
 faith by their works, and the character betrays the 
 creed. 
 
 (3.) This process is verified in the experience of 
 believers. The Christian is conscious of this doc- 
 trinal pressure in conforming him to Christ. He 
 feels these influences of precept and principle touch- 
 ing him all round about with gracious compulsions, 
 and sweetly constraining him out of the old into some 
 blessed newness, assimilating him to Jesus. These 
 Christian doctrines warn him, instruct him, correct 
 him in righteousness. By these he is enlightened, 
 guided, strengthened, moved evermore to holy aspi- 
 rations and amendments. He feels, and has all along 
 
OF CURISTIAN CHARACTER, 
 
 59 
 
 felt, this Word of God pressing him on every side, 
 quick, piercing soul and spirit, and discerning the 
 thoughts and intents of his heart. lie is conscious 
 that every spiritual change in him has been by obey- 
 ing the truth through the Spirit. In a word, he finds 
 himself delivered by his faith into the mold of Chris- 
 tian doctrine, and that he can have no rest in it but 
 by heartily obeying it. And so doing, the believing 
 soul takes shape and feature after the likeness of his 
 Lord. 
 
 This view of Christian Doctrine, as holding such 
 place and power in God’s scheme for renewing and 
 saving the lost, invests it with’ a dignity, and 
 demands for it an honor, which it too often lacks in 
 our regard. 
 
 Clearly, this Truth, then, is a quite de^nite and 
 positive matter, standing fast in the radical facts of 
 man’s sin, and God’s movement of grace for our 
 recovery. These are unchanging, true and the same 
 ever and to all, vitally true to every sinning soul of 
 man. They must be believed, trusted, obeyed, in 
 order to salvation, as the multiplication-table must be ' 
 believed and obeyed for just reckoning, or as that fire 
 burns, food nourishes, unsupported bodies fall, must 
 be held and heeded in order to safe living. Believe 
 otherwise than that our sin is so mischievous, 
 criminal and deadly, God so holy and just, and in 
 Christ so gracious, as this Gospel declares, and your 
 fiction though never so sincerely believed, will be a 
 creed of death. We are to be saved by the truth as 
 it is in Jesus, and not otherwise; and Doctrinal 
 Christianity is the clear and authentic revelation 
 
60 
 
 CimiSTIAN DOCTRINE THE MOLD 
 
 of this saving Christ in His Life, Teachings, and 
 Death for us. 
 
 And as this mode of Christian doctrine is so defi- 
 nite and substantive, the Christian character is equally 
 positive and peculiar. The apostolic test is deci- 
 sive : it is a character conformed to the truth of 
 Christ, true to that, marked by it, grace for grace. 
 Genuine religion lies in hearty obedience to the 
 revealed will of God. It is a renovating and 
 transforming energy ever working the soul to this 
 Divine pattern. Does the character answer to the 
 mold, then? In spirit and life, is the man formed 
 anew in the image of the truth ? Do these specific 
 Gospel facts and principles reappear in him, each 
 enstamping its own figure of grace ? Only so is it 
 the Christian character, and only so is it to be surely 
 discerned. 
 
 Of course this peculiar character is substantially 
 one and the same in all believers. The same image, 
 struck with varying degrees of clearness and fulness, 
 is on them all. They are from one mold, and 
 answer to its configuration. They cannot fail to 
 wear certain unmistakable stamps of it. Amid all 
 varieties of temperament, culture, and condition, the 
 same image and superscription will distinguish them. 
 Defective the impression may be*, in the filling up, 
 in some of the finer lines, the material being more 
 or less fiuent and facile. But certain positive char- 
 acteristics, the authentic signatures of the Christly 
 model, will surely be there. 
 
 It deeply concerns us to hold fast this view of the 
 positive and distinctive character in the Christian 
 
OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 G1 
 
 believer. Drifting from this, and accepting any other 
 test than this visible conformity to the Christian 
 Truth, adopting any scheme that liberalizes us away 
 from this Divine Redeeming Christ into natural mo- 
 ralities and pious sentimentalism, we have changed 
 our star and are sailing toward wreck. The broad, 
 clear separateness of the renewed from the unrenewed 
 will be confused and lost. V^ery widely this tendency 
 is working. It has provided this broad, debatable 
 ground of religious equivalents and christianistic 
 indifferences, thronged by a multitude claiming the 
 Christian name, of every variety of opinion and every 
 corresponding shade of nebulous piety. But the 
 twilight of this liberalism ever deepens toward the 
 darkness of scepticism and infidelity ; and he who is 
 once quit of the truth, will be found not far from as 
 Christless in his character as he is in his creed. 
 Surely God’s grace in saved sinners is no such shad- 
 owy and indefinite somewhat, one thing here, another 
 there, to be verified nowhere. The Christian is a 
 marked man. From a single unique feature in a 
 mold, you could declare among a thousand which 
 was the one casting that came of it ; and surely from 
 these deep-cut and distinctive lines of Christian doc- 
 trine, indubitable prints will appear on the soul that 
 has obeyed them. 
 
 And the deliverance of a soul into this embrace 
 and molding power of the truth — the softening of 
 the hard, stiff nature into that plastic state of contri- 
 tion and pliancy to holy motive, in which it yields 
 itself fluently in hearty obedience to the truth — this 
 is the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in that expe- 
 
62 
 
 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE TEE MOLD 
 
 rience wliicli we term conviction of sin. This is the 
 significance of that season, which, however it vary in 
 its fashion, is ever the voice of One crying in the 
 wilderness of sin and preparing the way of God’s 
 grace in the soul. In that furnace the stony heart 
 is melted and the will suppled to divine shaping. 
 Here we learn the knowledge of sin and the depth of 
 our entanglement, and come to cry. Oh, wretched — 
 who shall deliver? and so pass to the no condemna- 
 tion in Christ Jesus. It is an indispensable lesson. 
 For the completeness of this preparatory experience 
 determines not only the genuineness of the conver- 
 sion, but the style of all later developments of gra- 
 cious character. Not only the broad and plenary 
 conversion, but every subsequent stage of grace, will 
 bear witness in the sharp, clear stamp of the mold, 
 how fluent the soul was made under the strivings of 
 the convincing Spirit. 
 
 One great reason of the defective and unshapely 
 character, often seen in real Christians, is to be found 
 in their incomplete and partial views of truth. A 
 full and symmetrical piety requires, for its develop- 
 ment, the intelligent and hearty holding of the Chris- 
 tian truths in their completeness, each in place and 
 proportion. Drop out one, and its mark is missing. 
 One part of the mold is lacking, and its appropriate 
 stamp does not appear. Vague notions of truth can 
 yield only blurred impressions. Pet doctrines, 
 fondly exaggerated, misshape to their own dispro- 
 portion. Error deforms. Hence come distortion, 
 an erring conscience, instability; for there needs the 
 close, full, uniform clasp of the truth, with equable 
 
OF CimmTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 63 
 
 touch and pressure, all round about the soul, to give 
 it symmetry, and completeness in Christ. Only as 
 it is thus broadly bedded in the fulness of truth, can 
 a character attain to the perfect poise of steadfast 
 faith and virtue. And we may see how close we are 
 upon profane implications when we presume to clas- 
 sify God’s revelations of truth, these as essential, 
 those important, others more or less considerable. 
 There is not one of all the doctrines of the Gospel 
 that can be ranked as unimportant, or non-essential. 
 Every one of them has its essential purpose and effi- 
 ciency. God would give no unimportant truths. 
 Each enters as a divine touch into the perfect mold 
 of doctrine, and is essential to the unity of the faith, 
 and the integrity of the Christian man, in the meas- 
 ure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The 
 whole body of character can be fitly joined together 
 and compacted only by that which every joint sup- 
 plieth, according to the effectual working in the meas- 
 ure of every part. All are profitable for doctrine, 
 reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness ; 
 that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur- 
 nished unto all good works. 
 
 How false and pernicious, then, is that sentiment 
 which resents all definitive doctrine, and denounces 
 creeds as logically impertinent to character ! It finds 
 expression in a great variety of forms, and in all the 
 dialects of disbelief and misbelief, uttering, all, this 
 ultimate maxim of liberalism and very creed of 
 infidelity : All faiths are indifferent, all creeds an 
 impertinence ; what signify a man’s beliefs or disbe- 
 liefs, so he but lives well? '^His can’t be wrong. 
 
64 
 
 CimiSTIAN DOCTRINE THE MOLD 
 
 whose life is in the right.” And deeper than they 
 mean or know, it is true after all ; for a little farther 
 down, at the bottom of that well, you reach this cen- 
 tral truth, that, " If any man will do God’s will, he 
 shall know of the doctrine.” But the meaning is that 
 all this notion of an essential orthodoxy, a positive 
 truth, a faith inherently right or wrong, is simply the 
 dream of fanaticism ; that a creed is a speculation, 
 and faith a fancy, having little or nothing to do in de- 
 termining the character and life ; that it matters little 
 whether the truth, if such a thing there really be, or 
 something else than that, be held. And having thus 
 resolved to gather figs of thistles, one has it in order 
 next to doubt, seeing what thistle-fruit it is we get 
 so, whether there be really any such thing as figs, 
 after all. We must even our liberalism all through. 
 Is it not part of the same illusion, that there is any 
 essential good or evil in conduct and character? 
 And so men are adrift, to believe as they please, and 
 to live as they list. Whereas, that order of thought 
 is simply preposterous. It matters all in the world 
 what a man does really believe, and so hold as to 
 bring it vitally home to his soul. What he believes, 
 molds him in spirit and in life. The connection is 
 deeply logical and practical between a man’s real 
 faith and his character. For what the Believer 
 believes, is not to him simply a formulated specula- 
 tion, but a vital power and a formative principle. He 
 is the last man to be trusted with an error ; another 
 might play fast and loose with it, but he will be it and 
 do it, perfecting his faith by his works. The very 
 roots of the character and life run down thus into 
 
OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 65 
 
 the subsoil of a man’s faith. And it were no more 
 preposterons in logic or false to fact to say, No mat- 
 ter about the mold, if the casting only come right, 
 than to say. No matter what a man believes, if only 
 he be right ! The casting is what the mold makes it. 
 The Christian is what the Christian faith makes 
 him. 
 
 How precious, then, is doctrinal knowledge 1 The 
 Christian believer is delivered into the mold of so 
 much truth as he intelligently holds and truly be- 
 lieves. He obeys only so much as he knows, and as 
 he knows it. Only that much can touch the char- 
 acter and order the life. And to yield the true 
 character it must be the very truth, whole and only. 
 So much as he takes home by the intellect and heart 
 as true and vital to his soul’s need, will have him in 
 shaping. Truth unknown cannot influence him. 
 Partial trnth will give partial results, and may even 
 have the mischievous force of error. Every believer, 
 therefore, should seek, as for priceless treasure, to 
 be well and broadly grounded in doctrine, ever veri- 
 fying his creed by the studied Word, intent to know 
 accurately and obey heartily the whole Gospel of 
 trnth. And all the apparatus of culture, provided 
 of God to our need, has its dignity of office and 
 honor and power in its relation to the truth. The 
 Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. The 
 Christian Ministry is a Teaching Ministry, and fills 
 the New Testament idea in heralding, manifesting, 
 rightly dividing the Gospel of Christ. What else 
 can it be, then, than Doctrinal preaching, in the fair 
 breadth of that term ? What other than Doctrinal 
 
66 
 
 miRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 
 
 can be Practical preaching? Doctrine is the basis 
 of duty. Truth has its issues in the life. What 
 else can we hopefully preach, in its length and 
 breadth of application, for shaping the inner and the 
 outer life of men to the mind of God ? 
 
 More than ever, then, let us prize and honor God’s 
 Truth, and give it in our esteem the large place God 
 has given it in His method of salvation. Let us trust 
 it as God’s own power and wisdom, mighty through 
 Him to the pulling down of all strongholds of sin, 
 and to the upbuilding of all Christian grace and good- 
 ness, — the very mold in which Christly character is 
 to be cast. And count those worthy of double 
 honor who labor in the word and doctrine. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; ITS APOLOGETICAL 
 VALUE. 
 
 BY REV. "WILLIAM F. WARREN, D.D., DEAN OF THE BOSTON UNIVERSITY 
 SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY. 
 
 ^ 'ELEMENT of Alexandria, in the curious treatise 
 Vy which he fittingly styled his "Patch-work,” among 
 a multitude of equally suggestive observations, has 
 given us this : " There is a difference between that 
 which one saith of the truth, and that which the truth 
 saith of itself.” His meaning, psychologically stated, 
 is, that there is a wide difference between a clear per- 
 ception that a thing- appears to be true, and a clear 
 perception that it is true. The distinction is as im- 
 portant as it is just. The two mental acts or states 
 are separated by an interval broader than* that 
 bounded by the Sakwala of the Buddhist universe. 
 The difference is not merely that between a " perhaps ” 
 and a " verily,” it is all the difference between ad- 
 mitted ignorance and conscious knowledge. 
 
 Now, just corresponding to this radical antithesis, 
 we find in the field of Christian Apology two drifts 
 of thought, two endeavors, two variant conceptions 
 of the work of the Christian Apologist. The one 
 party aims to produce belief, the other to produce 
 knowledge. The one deals in likelihoods, reasona- 
 
 67 
 
68 ^ THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS! 
 
 blenesses, arguments, evidences ; the other in spirit- 
 ual realities as objects of spiritual cognition. The 
 one appeals to the understanding and asks a judg- 
 ment favorable to the claims of Christianity; the 
 other appeals to the spiritual faculties and to their 
 normal use promises personal knowledge. The one 
 method can never carry a mind beyond a certain 
 favorable poise of the librating judgment, mathemati- 
 cally represented at any given moment by the sum 
 of perceived probabilities in favor of the Christian 
 system, minus the sum of perceived probabilities 
 against it. In this position one new fact may suffice 
 to shift the preponderance of probability and change 
 the favorable judgment. In the other case, there 
 being true knowledge, no further knowledge can 
 make the first untrue. All added facts but enlarge 
 and perfect the original knowledge. Paley is a 
 classical representation of the first of these tenden- 
 cies, Pascal of the second. 
 
 Now, without denying the legitimacy of the purely 
 argumentative school of Apology, or disparaging any 
 real services which it may have rendered in the his- 
 tory of the Church, we certainly may claim for that 
 perpetual vindication of Christianity which proceeds 
 upon the idea of bringing men to Jcnow the truth, a 
 far higher aim and a far superior power. To justify 
 this estimate it is only necessary to look into the 
 distinctive peculiarities of the Christian t3rpe of 
 religious consciousness, and to mentally connect them 
 with the principal functions of Christian Apology. 
 
 What, then, are the distinctive peculiarities of the 
 Christian consciousness ? 
 
ITS APOLOGETICAL VALUE. 
 
 69 
 
 To begin at the bottom, we need to observe, that 
 every man has some sort of a religious consciousness. 
 By virtue of his intellectual constitution, each must 
 have a more or less, distinct realization of personal 
 religious beliefs, impulses, acts. The beliefs may 
 be true or false, the impulses strong or weak, the 
 acts right or wrong; but whatever they are, the 
 mind takes cognizance of them, as clearly and neces- 
 sarily as of any other mental phenomena. What- 
 ever a man believes, he knows he believes ; whatever 
 a man loves or fears, he knows he loves or fears ; 
 whatever a man worships, he knows he worships. 
 No man can be religious or irreligious without know- 
 ing it. Whichever he is, he is it consciously, 
 lieligious consciousness is, therefore, as universal as 
 religion and irreligion. 
 
 The broadest and most fundamental distinction in 
 the religious consciousness of men, is that resulting 
 from their differing conceptions of the universe 
 of being. A theistic conception of the universe 
 produces a theistic type of religious consciousness, a 
 pantheistic conception a pantheistic type, a polythe- 
 istic conception a polytheistic type, ap atheistic con- 
 ception an atheistic type. These types of religious 
 consciousness differ as widely from each other as 
 would four universes answering to the four intellec- 
 tual conceptions. Indeed, they are so incompatible 
 with each other, that it is almost impossible for a 
 man, in whom either type is fully developed, to 
 realize to himself, even in imagination, the world of 
 religious ideas, emotions, and volitions in which a 
 mind ^Dossessed of one or the other types, lives and 
 
70 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 moves. Thus a genuine theist finds almost as great 
 difficulty in entering into the real religious thought 
 and feeling and life-sphere of a genuine pantheist, 
 as he does in entering into the real thought and feel- 
 ing and life-sphere of an elephant.* In like manner 
 the fetish-worshipper has no more idea of the religious 
 consciousness of the theist, than he has of the scien- 
 tific or cosmological consciousness of the modern 
 astronomer, to whom night-fall is the dawn of the 
 true day, and the circling earth itself but the flag- 
 ship of a celestial Coast Survey. 
 
 Less broadly, yet not less clearly distinguished 
 are the sub-types of religious consciousness devel- 
 oped under the influence of the great historic reli- 
 gions of the world. Thus the Jewish, Chidstian, and 
 Mohammedan varieties, while strongly resembling 
 each other in all that distinguishes them as a mono- 
 theistic type, are yet perfectly distinct when com- 
 pared among themselves. Similarly we find that no 
 two polytheistic or pantheistic peoples, or sects, ever 
 developed identical forms of religious consciousness. 
 How different the world of religious realizations in 
 which the ancient Hellenic mind moved, from that in 
 which our pagan ancestors of Northern Europe lived ! 
 What awkwardness would even Spinoza experience 
 in adjusting his God-consciousness to that of the 
 worshipper of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and their three 
 hundred and thirty millions of associate divinities ! 
 
 * “Die altern kritiklosen Zoographen legten dem Elephanten, * 
 Tinter andern loblichen Eigenschaften, auch die Tugend der Religiositat 
 bei ; allein die Religion der Elephanten gehort in das Reich der Fab- 
 eln/’ Feuerbach^ Wesen des Christen thums, S. 24. 
 
ITS APOLOOETICAL VALUE. 
 
 71 
 
 Each consciousness, however, is alike pantheistic. 
 So the atheistic religious consciousness of modern 
 naturalism, represented by such men as Comte, 
 Buchner, and Ilolyoake, differs as radically from the 
 atheistic consciousness of original Buddhism as 
 European science from Asiatic dreams. 
 
 In attempting to set forth the leading characteris- 
 tics of that type of religious consciousness produced 
 under the influence of the Christian religion, it will 
 be manifestly proper to constantly inquire after its 
 ideal or normal manifestation, rather than any defec- 
 tive or perverted ones in this or that individual or 
 sect. For this ideal or normal consciousness, we 
 shall naturally go back to the experiences and teach- 
 ings of the original founders of the religion, as 
 these are reflected in their extant words. In doing 
 this we assume nothing further than that their lan- 
 guage as truthfully mirrors their mind as that of 
 other men is taken to mirror theirs. 
 
 The first distinctive trait of the ideal Christian 
 consciousness, I understand to be, that it includes 
 an immediate knowledge, or feeling, or realization 
 of some kind, of personal communion with God. In 
 such a consciousness there is an immediate realiza- 
 tion, not so much of belief in God, as of the very 
 presence of God. The man is eonscious of dwelling 
 in God, and of God dwelling in him, of loving 
 God, and of being loved and blessed of him in 
 turn. 
 
 ’ This mental realization of personal communion 
 with God, was exemplified in its highest perfection 
 in the religious consciousness of Jesus. He ever 
 
72 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS t 
 
 seems to know himself the beloved Son, in whom 
 the Father is well pleased. With the most unfalter- 
 ing confidence, he affirms, "I do always those things 
 that please him.” He claims that the divine Spirit 
 is given unto him without measure ; that he lives 
 and teaches and heals and suffers in vital, conscious 
 union with his Father. He speaks indeed of having 
 been sent forth by the Father, but to prevent mis- 
 apprehension, he immediately adds, " He that sent 
 me, is with me. The Father hath not left me 
 alone.” 
 
 His consciousness of the Father’s presence amounts 
 to a consciousness of mutual indwelling. Rebuking 
 the dulness of Philip’s spiritual perception, he asks, 
 
 " Believest thou not, that I am in the Father, and the 
 Father in me ? ” His words and works are not his 
 alone, but products of a joint-agency. " The words 
 that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself; but 
 the Father, which dwelleth in me, he doeth the 
 works.” " Believe me,” he concludes, " believe me 
 that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.” 
 This consciousness finds equally explicit expression 
 again and again. 
 
 Nor does it appear that this blessed realization of 
 divine fellowship was regarded by Christ aa a prerog- 
 ative peculiar to himself. Indeed, he promises it to 
 his disciples. He tells them of some mysterious 
 change which is to come over them after he is gone. ' 
 He gives minute directions as to their place of so- 
 journ until this promise shall be fulfilled. " Tany 
 ye at Jerusalem, until ye shall be endued with power 
 from on high.” He leads them to expect, along with 
 
ITS APOLOGETICAL VALUE. 
 
 73 
 
 this mysterious enduement, a better understanding 
 of much he had taught them, a revelation of things 
 they could not at the time of the promise yet " bear.” 
 They are to sustain a new relation to him, to enjoy 
 more of his prerogatives, no more to be called ser- 
 vants, but friends. His peace is henceforth to be 
 given unto them, his Father is to be their Father, his 
 God their God. 
 
 These wonderful promises certainly contemplated 
 a prospective indwelling of God in their souls, and a 
 distinct consciousness on their part of fellowship with 
 him. That they were not delusive, the whole post- 
 pentecostal experience of those disciples abundantly 
 proves. No sooner had they been endued with the 
 fulness of the Holy Ghost, than they betrayed the 
 possession of as lively a sense of God’s presence and 
 love as ever their Master had done. Their confident 
 declaration was, "Hereby know we that we dwell in 
 him and he in us, because he hath given us of his 
 Spirit.” 
 
 But just here we note a peculiarity which forever 
 differentiates the religious consciousness of the disci- 
 ples from that of the Master. Jesus claimed that the 
 Father was ever with him, but to his sorrowing dis- 
 ciples he promises not only the presence of the 
 Father, but also his own. Indeed, he says of all who 
 love him, that they shall enjoy this twofold indwell- 
 ing. "If a man love me, he will keep my words ; 
 and my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
 him, and make our abode with him.” He promises 
 that this shall be not only a fact, but also a fact of 
 consciousness. " In that day ye , shall know that I 
 
74 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” In 
 his high priestly intercession for all that should ever 
 believe on him, he prays, ” That they all may be one, 
 as thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they 
 all may be one in Evidently, Christ’s idea 
 
 was not that his disciples were simply to succeed to, 
 and exactly reproduce his perfect consciousness of 
 the Father’s loving presence ; it was rather that they 
 should be taken up into this joint fellowship of Christ 
 and the Father, and hold communion with them both. 
 
 Exactly corresponding with this, we find the sub- 
 sequent experience of the disciples. One of them 
 speaks for all, when he says, '' Truly, our fellowship 
 is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” 
 Whilst, therefore, Jesus uniformly speaks of con- 
 scious fellowship with the Father, his early disciples 
 speak at least with equal frequency of communion 
 with the Son also. They are as conscious of imma- 
 nence in Him as of immanence in the Father. They 
 are as conscious of his, as of the Father’s indwelling 
 in them. This peculiarity of their consciousness 
 reflects itself constantly in their speech. They habit- 
 ually speak of being " in Christ Jesus,” as a charac- 
 teristic of all believers. At the same time they are 
 equally wont to speak of Christ in them, the hope of 
 glory. So intimate is this conscious intercommunion 
 of life, that one of the most clear-headed and logical 
 of them all, seems in danger at times of almost con- 
 founding his own personality with Christ’s : ” I am 
 crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live, yet not I, 
 but Christ liveth in me.” Saluting one another, these 
 earliest disciples were wont to recognize and asso- 
 
ITS APOLOOETICAh VALUE, 
 
 75 
 
 ciate as sources of all spiritual life and blessing both 
 invisible participants in their spiritual communion. 
 They did it in such language as this. ''Grace be 
 unto you and peace from God our Father, and from 
 the Lord Jesus Christ,” " Grace, mercy, and peace 
 from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.” 
 
 But have we yet exhausted the contents of the 
 apostolic Christian consciousness? Was it simply 
 and solely a consciousness of living fellowship with 
 the Father and with Christ? It certainly seems not. 
 Eeverting once more to Christ’s promises to his dis- 
 ciples, we certainly find that he pledged them another 
 presence more explicitly than he did the Father’s or 
 his own. He calls this third party the Paraclete, the 
 Spirit of truth. He cannot n^ean himself, in some 
 etherialized and glorified form, for he clearly distin- 
 guishes this new party as " another comforter,” given 
 in answer to his prayer, and to take his place. He 
 says of him, "He shall glorify me.” "He shall 
 receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” "He 
 shall testify of me.” "He shall bring all things to 
 your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” 
 Evidently Jesus cannot have been thinking and 
 speaking of himself in some posthumous shape. 
 
 Again, it is hard to see how he could have meant 
 in this promise any prospective form of the Father’s 
 manifestation. He distinguishes this comforter as 
 clearly from the Father as from himself. Fie says : 
 " 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 remembrance, 
 whatsoever I have said unto you.” Here all three 
 
76 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 are mentioned in a way which natnrally implies the 
 distinct personality of each. The Comforter is rep- 
 resented as personal, both by correlation with the 
 other two personalities, and because performing the 
 personal office or work of teaching. Yet he is 
 distinguished from the Father, because sent by him, 
 and from Christ, because sent in his name. In 
 other statements, our Lord repeatedly discriminates 
 between the Comforter and the Father, affirming that 
 the former " proceedeth from ” the latter, and that 
 the latter " gives ” the former. Accordingly, he pre- 
 scribes a formula of initiation into his Church for all 
 coming ages, in which Father, Son and Holy Spirit 
 find each coordinate place and separate mention. 
 " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing 
 them in the name of the Father and of the Son and 
 of the Holy Ghost.” 
 
 Passing now from the Master’s promise to the 
 actual religious consciousness mirrored in the apos- 
 tolic word, we find mention of a " fellowship of the 
 Spirit,” just as we before found mention of a fellow- 
 ship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 
 We find the same idea of mutual immanence. The 
 apostles speak as if consciously in the Comforter, and 
 use such language as this : " If we live in the Spirit, 
 let us also walk in the Spirit.” Anon they speak of 
 the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in them and in 
 their fellow-believers. Then they are temples of 
 the Holy Ghost. This reciprocal indwelling is the 
 real badge of discipleship : "Ye are not in the flesh, 
 but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell 
 in you.” It is the condition and characteristic of 
 
ITS APOLOGETICAL VALUE. 
 
 77 
 
 divine Sonship ; for only as many as are led by the 
 Spirit of God, are the sons of God. It is the source 
 of all filial joy and free utterance toward the Father. 
 If any soul cries out, '' Abba Father,” it is because 
 being a son, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 
 Son into such soul, enabling it thus to cry. They 
 speak of the reception of this Spirit as essential to 
 the full and normal Christian experience ; " Have ye 
 received the Holy Ghost since ye believed ? ” They 
 proffer the precious gift to all penitent and obedient 
 souls ; "Eepent, and be baptized every one of you, 
 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the remis- 
 sion of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost.” Their intensely personal conception of this 
 Spirit betrays itself in such constantly occurring 
 expressions as these : ” the mind of the Spirit ” ; '' the 
 Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groan- 
 ings which cannot be uttered ” ; " the Spirit searcheth 
 all things even the deep things of God ” ; all these 
 worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing 
 to every man severally as he will.” Yet, in their 
 religious consciousness, this intelligent, sympathetic, 
 groaning, searching, and administering Spirit was not 
 identical with, but a gift of, the Father. So far, 
 indeed, is he from being the Father or the Son, that 
 we find access to the Father represented as possible 
 to men only by this Spirit, and through the Son. 
 "Through him [Christ], we both [i. e, Jews and 
 Gentiles] have access, by one Spirit, unto the 
 Father.” 
 
 This, and similar expressions, are striking and 
 noteworthy. They furnish a clew to the right under- 
 
78 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 standing of the spiritual communion enjoyed in the 
 apostolic consciousness. It was not three fellowships 
 of the soul with three other beings called Father, 
 Son and Holy Ghost ; it was rather one fellowship, 
 triply mediated on the divine side. In the Apostolic 
 realization of it, there was no possibility of com- 
 munion with him, whom Jesus had taught them to 
 call the Father, save through the Son, and in or by 
 the Holy Ghost. Christ’s declaration was to them 
 most true ; to wit, that no man knoweth the Father 
 save the Son, and he, to whomsoever the Son shall 
 reveal him. In like manner, to their minds, there 
 can be no right recognition of the Son without the 
 Spirit ; for on the one hand, ” No man speaking by 
 the Spirit of Godcalleth Jesus accursed,” and on the 
 other, " No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but 
 by the Holy Ghost.” To complete the circuit, the 
 Holy Spirit is not the natural possession of any man, 
 but is a gift of the Father, procured by the Son. 
 In the apostolic religious consciousness, therefore, 
 divine communion is not simple and immediate ; with 
 one solitary objective personality, it is rather a com- 
 plex and mediated one, a participation in the inter- 
 communicated love, grace, and fellowship of the 
 Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Hence the apostles 
 sum up their permanent intercessory aspiration for 
 the Christian brotherhood most completely in a tripar- 
 tite formula, exactly parallel to Christ’s baptismal 
 one. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love 
 of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be 
 with you all. Amen.” 
 
 Such a religious consciousness as this was some- 
 
ITS APOLOGETICAL VALUE. 
 
 79 
 
 tiling wonderfully strange and new. It presented an 
 astonishing contrast to every earlier type of which 
 mankind had knowledge. Jt is not remarkable, 
 therefore, that we find the disciples giving great 
 prominence to the newness of their spiritual experi- 
 ence. Especially do we find them contrasting it 
 with the two types of religious consciousness best 
 known to them : first, the earthward and selfward 
 directed, historically expressed in surrounding Gen- 
 tilism ; and second, the Godward directed, histori- 
 cally expressed in genuine Judaism. By nature, 
 according to the apostolic representation, we all 
 inherit the first of these types. By nature, Jew and 
 Gentile are children of wrath, psychical not spiritual, 
 alienated from the life of God, spiritually dead. All 
 sin, and come short of the glory of God. The office 
 of the Spirit of God is to show men this. The first 
 effect of his agency, so far as the consciousness is 
 concerned, is to fill the soul with fear and grief, and 
 a terrible sense of personal sinfulness and just divine 
 displeasure. Here, there is divine operation in the 
 soul, but no divine fellowship. This comes only 
 when the thus awakened soul repents of its sins 
 with a godly sorrow, and believes on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Then, being justified by faith, it can cry out, 
 ” God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love 
 wherewith he hath loved us, even when we were 
 dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, 
 and raised us up together and made us sit together 
 in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Here is instal- 
 lation into a conscious, blessed life-communion with 
 Christ. The old state was death, the new is that of 
 
80 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 perfect resurrection life. Here, with Dante, one can 
 turn a fresh leaf in life’s book, and inscribe upon its 
 centre, in the reddest of letters, 
 
 InCIPIT nova VITA. 
 
 This the apostles everywhere assume and teach to 
 be the normal and usual genesis of the Christian type 
 of religious consciousness in the case of all hitherto 
 heathen and positively God-alienated forms of that 
 consciousness. 
 
 But there was another type, well known to the 
 early disciples of Christ, that generated under the 
 influence of Old Testament piety. This was char- 
 acterized, not by personal hostility to God, but 
 by reverence for his holy name ; not by lawless grati- 
 fications of natural lust, but by beautiful exemplifica- 
 tions of all continent and self-controlling virtues ; 
 not by selfishness, but by self-sacrificing obedience 
 to God. Christ appreciated the beauty and lofty 
 excellence of the genuine Old Testament type of 
 religious consciousness ; he had its noblest exemplifi- 
 cation before his very eyes in the person of his 
 forerunner ; yet, contrasting the inner life of the 
 incoming dispensation with that of the old, he de- 
 clares, "Verily, I. say unto you, Among them that are 
 born of women there hath not risen a greater than 
 John the Baptist ; notwithstanding, he that is least 
 in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” This 
 new life is a new wine, requiring new bottles. As a 
 new life, it cannot be inaugurated, even in devout 
 souls, without affecting their religious consciousness. 
 
ITS APOLOGETICAL VALUE, 
 
 81 
 
 Its obtainment will be like the obtainment of a pearl 
 of great price, yea, like finding life after considering 
 it lost. The grand difference between the genesis 
 of the full Christian consciousness in such souls, and 
 its genesis in souls of the natural and heathenish 
 type is, that in the former case it comes later in the 
 religious development. The crisis which fairly and 
 fully inaugurates the new consciousness may be just 
 as marked and memorable, but it is not associated in 
 their minds with their first conscious act or effort to 
 turn from sin to God. It is rather the hour when, 
 by a special baptism of the Holy Ghost, the faithful 
 servant is made an adopted son, when the Israelite, 
 in whom there is no guile, becomes transformed into 
 a flaming apostle, speaking with tongues, and wield- 
 ing superhuman powers. Thus was it in the experi- 
 ence of the first disciples themselves. Very likely 
 it would have been difllcult, if not impossible, for 
 any of them to fix the exact hour, when, according 
 to the theological phrase, they were converted; 
 nevertheless, all knew the precise day, and hour of 
 the day, when '' suddenly ” the Pentecostal fire lit 
 up within them illuminations which were never more 
 to die. Equal definiteness marked the experience 
 of the three thousand who shared in the mighty 
 baptism. They, too, had enjoyed the preparatory 
 experience of Old Testament piety. They were the 
 faithful Simeons and Annas and Elizabeths of three 
 continents, " devout men,” waiters for the consola- 
 tion of Israel. Many of them were doubtless saints, 
 according to their light and privileges. With them, 
 and all similar converts, in the weeks and months 
 
82 
 
 THE CimiSTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 succeeding, the new religious consciousness had as 
 clearly marked a commencement as in the case of 
 Gentile converts, yet one very diJfferent in its ante- 
 cedents and concomitants. In the one case it was a 
 sudden transit out of Pagan ignorance of God or 
 conscious enmity against God, into the blessedness 
 of loving communion with him; in the other, it was 
 the inbreak of the life and light of God upon a soul 
 which had long devoutly sought him. The subse- 
 quent religious consciousness in the two cases was 
 substantially the same. It was a consciousness of 
 present living communion with the Father, Son and 
 Holy Ghost. So oft as they contrasted it with their 
 Christless past, it caused them to break forth with 
 Paul, " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual 
 blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” Surveying 
 a hostile world, they declared, by its inspiration, 
 " Neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principali- 
 ties, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor .depth, nor any other creature, 
 shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Even at the 
 grave’s mouth, in the edge of the shadows and dark- 
 ness of the Hebrew sheol^ this consciousness only 
 voiced itself in louder peans of exultation, " O 
 Death ! where is thy sting ? O grave ! where is thy 
 victory ? ” 
 
 Now, had this type of religious consciousness for- 
 ever disappeared with the deceas^ of those earliest 
 Christians, what a beautiful thing it would still be 
 for men to contemplate ! How like a perfect ideal 
 
ITS APOLOGETICAL VALUE. 
 
 83 
 
 would it stand out before each questioning, strug- 
 gling soul I How serious-minded philosophers would 
 point to it, and say, "Ah, were we only capable of 
 reproducing those experiences and that conscious- 
 ness, how would all our doubts depart. It would 
 then be ours to know God^ and in that knowledge, 
 to drown forever all tormenting fears and dubi- 
 tations.^’ 
 
 Thank God ! the supposition is inadmissible ! 
 Thank God ! the old apostolic type of religious con- 
 sciousness is, in every essential feature, yet extant. 
 To-day, as eighteen hundred years ago, there are 
 men who know God; who hold conscious com- 
 munion with him, who, through Christ, by his Spirit, 
 have access to the Father. The fact is attested by a 
 far greater number of competent witnesses than ever 
 attested a transit of Venus, or the existence of the 
 Gulf Stream. Thousands of the most intelligent and 
 sober men and women in the world, of the most 
 diverse denominational attachments, bear witness, 
 every week, to the occurrence of just such a transition 
 in their religious consciousness as that which ac- 
 companied the apostle’s preaching. They say that 
 they were once without God, and without hope in 
 the world, but that they now dwell in God, and God 
 dwells in them. Whereas, they once were blind in 
 all spiritual things, now they see. Once they hated 
 God, but now they love him. Once they were out 
 of Christ, but now they are in him. They feel them- 
 selves to be new creatures, and old things are passed 
 away. Behold ! all things are become new. 
 
 The Christian consciousness of these men attests 
 
84 
 
 THE CimiSTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 its genuineness, not only by producing the same 
 supernatural graces of character which adorned the 
 earliest Christians, but also by manifesting the same 
 self-propagative power. To-morrow some such scene 
 as this will transpire in one of these Boston streets. 
 One of these men, possessed of the apostolic Chris- 
 tian consciousness, will accost some consciously 
 wicked man with the question, '' Friend, are you a 
 Christian? ” ''No,” will be the reply, " I cannot say 
 
 that I am.” Then will follow an affectionate invita- 
 tion to the wicked man to repent of his sins, to seek 
 their remission through the blood of Christ, to ask a 
 new heart through the regenerating power of the 
 Holy Ghost. Two, three, four weeks hence, you will 
 find that man, whose heart and lip are to-day foul 
 with cursing, praising God, hastening from friend to 
 friend with the tidings that he is a changed man, 
 that the greatest transformation of his life has passed 
 upon and within him. He will testify that he is now 
 happy in God, a Christian, and, as such, request ad- 
 mission to the Church of Christ. Such scenes are 
 constantly transpiring all around us. Here is simply 
 Apostolic preaching, with the old Apostolic result. 
 In this instance, the genesis of the new religious 
 consciousness will be after the Gentile Christian 
 type. 
 
 Step into yonder " Holiness meeting,” where the 
 one theme is the Higher Christian Life, so called, 
 and you shall find living examples of a Christian 
 consciousness of the other apostolic variety, one 
 commencing, not in conversion, but in a Pentecost 
 at the close of a long Old Testament experience. 
 
ITS APOLOGETICAL VALUE, 
 
 85 
 
 There you shall find men and women, saying, "For 
 ten, twenty, thirty years, I was a professing Chris- 
 tian, but a worshipper in the outer court. All 
 those dreary years I tried to serve God, but could 
 never feel quite sure my service was acceptable. I 
 hoped in God, sometimes believed myself Christ’s, 
 but could never come to the blessed assurance, 'My 
 beloved is mine, and I am his.’ The joyful confi- 
 dence of some Christians about me, even of some 
 just started in the Christian life, staggered me, oh 
 so often ! I said within myself, ' It cannot be that I 
 am a Christian.’ I have never passed through this 
 crisis which others describe. I never have been able 
 to say with them, I know that I am passed from 
 death unto life, or that the Spirit beareth witness 
 with my spirit that I am a child of God.” 
 
 Then the speaker will go on to narrate how, from 
 such a doubting, timorous Old Testament servant of 
 God, he suddenly became a son; how, stimulated 
 by the contrast between his own cold and comfortless 
 condition, and the deep, strong, and blessed con- 
 sciousness of divine communion enjoyed by some 
 happier believer, he was led to study God’s idea of 
 normal religious life, to review his promises, and 
 how, appropriating those promises with a fresh 
 understanding and a quickened faith, on such a day, 
 about such an hour, the baptism of the Holy Ghost 
 fell, the gift of power came, a beatific vision tranced 
 the soul into a sweet sense of God’s all-conquering 
 and everlasting love. Perhaps he will say, as scores 
 of them do say, that the experience contradicted all 
 his previous conceptions, all his life-long beliefs. 
 
86 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 respecting the law and nature of religious life. Pos- 
 sibly he will say, " Twelve months ago I should have 
 received with utter incredulity the statement that 
 any one could utter, mentally or orally, a doxology 
 to Jesus three hundred and sixty-five days long, 
 with no intermission save that of sleep, and that 
 balmy sleep itself would often fiee from the presence 
 of a sweeter delight, the luxury of praise. I find 
 my mistake in 'supposing the witness of the Spirit in 
 its higher manifestations intermittent corrected. The 
 reverse is true. It is intermittent in its lower mani- 
 festations ; in its highest it is constant.” These, 
 indeed, are the ver}’" words of one of these witnesses, 
 penned but a few days ago, upon the first anniver- 
 sary of the beginning of his higher life. The writer 
 is a Christian diviiie, at the head of an American 
 college, who, during the twenty years of public life 
 preceding his pentecostal baptism, was distinguished 
 for nothing so much as for constitutional coolness of 
 temperament, accuracy of Greek scholarship, and 
 hatred of religious pretense. Just such reproduc- 
 tions of primitive Christian experience of the 
 Jewish-Christian tjrpe of origination may be found 
 in many branches of the modern Church, in every 
 branch where Apostolic Christianity is preached • in 
 all its fulness of privilege and promise. 
 
 Undoubtedly, a genuine Christian consciousness 
 may come into being, in modes less sudden and 
 revolutionary than either of the two just mentioned ; 
 but what I am here asserting is the grand fact, that 
 the old Apostolic type of religious consciousness is 
 not extinct ; that we have numberless living examples 
 
ITS APOLOOETICAL VALUE. 
 
 87 
 
 of each of its primitive varieties. In thousands, it 
 may be faint and intermittent, but in other thousands 
 it exists in all its primitive strength and vividness. 
 A revelation of God is still progressing in humanity. 
 Christ is working miracles every day in every part 
 of Christendom. The Holy Ghost is constantly 
 repeating Pentecost in many an upper chamber. 
 Within, in the very soul of the Christian, is found 
 the crowning evidence of Christianity. Here God 
 himself is the demonstrator, and his demonstration 
 is the demonstration of the spirit and of power. 
 
 I spoke, at the outset, of other forms of religious 
 consciousness, atheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, 
 but all these are consciousnesses of belief, not of 
 knowledge. The atheist does not know that there 
 is no God ; he merely thinks so. From the very 
 nature of the case, he cannot know or prove what he 
 asserts. As John Foster has well shown, a man 
 needs to be God in order to know there is none. 
 "Unless he is at this moment in every place in the 
 universe, he cannot know but there may be in some 
 place manifestations of a Deity, by which even he 
 would be overpowered. If he does not know abso- 
 lutely every agent in the universe, the one he does 
 not know may be God.” Thus, unless he is omni- 
 present and omniscient, that is, unless he precludes 
 all other divine existence by being God himself, he 
 cannot know that the being whose existence he 
 denies, does not exist. 
 
 In like manner, in the polytheistic consciousness, 
 there is no direct and immediate knowledge of the 
 gods believed in. The ancient worshippers of Zeus 
 
88 TEE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 and Athene and Apollo and Artemis and Poseidon 
 and Aphrodite never dreamed of conscious commun- 
 ion with these divinities in their own souls. They 
 believed in the existence of such beings, and in their 
 traditional mythological powers and characteristics, 
 but they were not conscious of personal fellowship 
 with any one of them. They viewed them as objects 
 of worship, but not as objects of actual knowledge. 
 So everywhere and always. The polytheist believes, 
 but never knows. He cannot promise to men of 
 other faiths, not even to the sincerest proselyte, 
 certain knowledge that his gods really exist. Only 
 the degraded fetish-worshipper, whose god is a 
 black pebble or a crooked stick or a grotesque 
 lump "of rags or hair, can claim a personal knowledge 
 of the true object of worship. 
 
 In this respect, the predicament of the pantheist is 
 not less embarrassing than that of the atheist. He 
 denies the existence of any and every God save the 
 unconscious totality of all real being. But what 
 does he know about it? How can he know, first, 
 that all real being is, in essence, one? Then, how 
 can he know that the one real being is unconscious, 
 impersonal ? He can know neither of these things 
 without an absolutely complete and perfect knowledge 
 of the entire universe of being. If he knows all 
 beings save one, that one may be the God of Chris- 
 tian Revelation. If he knows every attribute of 
 universal and absolute being, save one, that one may 
 be conscious personality. Omniscience is essential 
 to a denial of omniscience. The simple fact, there- 
 fore is, and remains, that the pantheist knows noth- 
 
ITS APOLOGETIOAL VALUE, 
 
 89 
 
 ing which other men do not know ; ho merely 
 imngines, believes, dogmatises. 
 
 Now, the signal advantage which the Christian has 
 ever had over all atheists, polytheists, pantheists, and 
 even speculative theists is, that while they all merely 
 believe, he knows. He has not only sought God, 
 but found him. He has ascertained that there is 
 an objective reality, answering to his idea of God. 
 Indeed, his present idea of God is itself a product 
 of that reality, just as his idea of a given friend has 
 come from the objective existence and bearing of 
 that friend. By virtue of the conscious, divine com- 
 munion which he has won, he has a faith which stands 
 not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. 
 No fact of consciousness can ever be argued down ; 
 hence, to every possessor of normal Christian con- 
 sciousness, all arguments against the possibility or 
 fact of the existence of a personal God, are simply the 
 dogmatisings of ignorance over against the certainties 
 of personal knowledge. They are as forceless to 
 him as are the old mediaeval arguments against the 
 sphericity of the earth, to one who has himself cir- 
 cumnavigated it. This is the value of the Christian 
 consciousness to its possessor in the field of theistic 
 and anti-theistic speculation. 
 
 In the narrower field of controversy, where theistic 
 naturalism and supernaturalism grapple, the facts of 
 a normal Christian consciousness forever settle for its 
 possessor every speculative doubt and difficulty. Is 
 it suggested that the Scripture miracles are incredi- 
 ble, the Christian is not disturbed. He says, within 
 himself, ”In my own consciousness, I have witnessed 
 
90 
 
 THE CHRIS TIAJSr COJSTSCIOUSHESS ; 
 
 a miracle greater than any of those, a miracle in- 
 cluding all of them, a miracle which was at once an 
 opening of blind eyes, an unstopping of deaf ears, 
 a casting out of devils, a creative production of bread 
 and wine, a healing, yea, a resurrection from the 
 dead. There can be no greater miracle than that 
 which God has wrought in me.” 
 
 Is it alleged that an incarnation is inconceivable ; 
 the Christian heart says. It is no more inconceivable 
 that God should become a partaker of human nature, 
 than that man should become a partaker of the divine 
 nature. If I can become a son of God, God can 
 become a son of man. Ascent is harder than de- 
 scent. If man can achieve a heavenly birth, God 
 surely can an earthly one. If I can become inspirate, 
 he surely can become incarnate. My partial thean- 
 thropic life legitimates, yea, necessitates, the supposi- 
 tion of a perfect one. That perfect one is Christ’s. 
 
 In just this way, the possessor of a normal Chris- 
 tian consciousness meets and dissipates every specu- 
 lative difficulty which deists, of all schools, urge 
 against the great facts of the Christian system, such 
 as Supernatural Revelation, Inspiration, human Sin- 
 fulness, Incarnation, Atonement, Miracles, Super- 
 natural Transformations of character. His own new 
 life has lifted him into a sphere where all these 
 things are as normal and natural as lullabies and 
 patriotic celebrations and police courts and social 
 reforms and monument building are in the sphere 
 of natural human society. 
 
 He sees the natural and the supernatural in their 
 true relation. In his own personal experience both 
 
ITS APOLOOETICAL VALUE. 
 
 91 
 
 meet and blend. He sees these wise philosophers 
 of the natural in their true light ; sees how all their 
 difficulties come, not from knowledge, but from igno- 
 rance ; not from breadth, but from narrowness ; not 
 from a point of vision above the Christian, but one 
 below it. He pities them, but cannot share their 
 intellectual perplexities. He is as far beyond all 
 such perplexities as the grown man is beyond the 
 speculative difficulties of his embryonic period touch- 
 ing possibilities of birth. 
 
 But the Christian consciousness has apologetic 
 value beyond its own subjects. It surpasses all 
 reasonings in bringing pagans and unbelievers to 
 an acceptance of the Christian faith. 
 
 The man who knows God will always impress men 
 who know him not. If they are sincere seekers after 
 the truth, they will eagerly confess their own dark- 
 ness and ignorance, and desire to share his light. 
 Even if averse to truth and righteousness, they will 
 be affected, despite themselves, by the marked con- 
 trast between his peace and calm and blessedness of 
 soul, and their own unrest and gloom and apprehen- 
 sion. They will inevitably covet his manifest supe- 
 riority to the circumstances which make their life a 
 bitterness and mockery. Witnessing his triumphal 
 departure out of this world, they will cry out, with 
 the ancient ethnic prophet of the East, "Let me 
 die the death of the righteous, and let my last end 
 be like his.” 
 
 The proudest, keenest, most subtile and erudite 
 skepticism of the ages is not proof against this silent 
 influence of Christian character. A former disciple 
 
92 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; 
 
 of Strauss and Feuerbach and Baur and Schwegler, 
 thus tells the story of his recovery to the Christian 
 faith : ” What particularly aided me^ was the idea, 
 or rather the reality, of regeneration. I saw before 
 me men whom I was compelled to recognize as 
 regenerate men. From childhood, I had seen such. 
 An inmost voice told me that I too must be born 
 again. But if so, then there must be a superhuman 
 being of whom men can be born again, a living God. 
 And more : what regeneration is to the individual, 
 that is Christ to total humanity, the living principles 
 of the transformation of flesh into spirit. And thus, 
 starting from the inmost centre of my own life, I 
 was led back to the supermundane God and to the 
 historical Christ, the crucified and ascended.” 
 
 The man thus recovered from the negations of 
 Tubingen has given a life-time to the defence and 
 propagation of Christian principles, and become, in 
 his generation, a most honored and successful de- 
 fender of the faith. His experience is but one of a 
 thousand similar ones, where radical and confirmed 
 infidelity has yielded before the silent, unobtrusive 
 influence of simple Christian living. 
 
 But these indirect and unintentional efiects of the 
 Christian consciousness are only the least. The 
 Christian, of normal experience, is of necessity an 
 irrepressible propagandist. He cannot hold his 
 peace. He has found the panacea for all human 
 misery ; the gate from death and darkness to im- 
 mortal life ; the spell which transmutes children of 
 
 * Carl August Auberlen, author of Die Gottliche Offenbarung, and 
 other works. 
 
ITS APOLOGETIC AL VALUE, 
 
 93 
 
 the devil into children of the Highest. Of the 
 mere believer in the Evangelical system, Starr King 
 affirmed, "He must be either a maniac or a mission- 
 ary.” What statement, then, can be strong enough 
 to even hint the aggressive impulse of the man who 
 has passed from the standpoint of mere belief to that 
 of personal spiritual experience ? His conscious 
 union with an almighty Saviour lifts him above all 
 fear, all hesitancy, all calculation of consequences. 
 In dungeons and stocks, and racks and martyr-fires, 
 he shouts aloud for joy, and dies with songs of 
 victory. 
 
 Such enthusiasm is infectious. The half-faith of 
 false religions fall before it ; the coldness of false 
 philosophy is melted ; the hardness of sin-bound 
 hearts vanishes away. One chases a thousand, and 
 two put ten thousand to flight. Here is the philos- 
 ophy of Christian aggression, the secret of all past 
 Christian conquests. If ever the yet remaining 
 heathen are to be reached, and Christianity become 
 the world’s religion, it will not be by argument, or 
 by speculation, or any kind of guess-work, but by 
 the old gospel process of bringing men to God 
 through Christ, and so instating within them the 
 Christian consciousness. 
 
 The guarantee of Christianity’s perpetuity, then, 
 is found in her own supernatural life. The great 
 Defender of the Faith is God. As long as he 
 answers prayer offered in the name of Jesus; as 
 long as, through Christ, he inducts men into con- 
 scious communioq with himself, so long will men 
 believe in Christianity. As long as men show the 
 
94 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 possession of the normal Christian consciousness, so 
 long will other men yearn to possess it also. On 
 the other hand, were this perpetual divine vindica- 
 tion of the system to cease, not all the arguments of 
 all the libraries of Christian apology could keep the 
 faith alive a single generation. 
 
 All history but repeats the scene enacted seven 
 and twenty centuries ago, upon a sea overlooking the 
 hill-top of Northern Palestine. As there and then, so 
 through the age-long life of man, false altars and 
 false priests have stood confronting and opposing 
 God’s. As there and then, however, so always and 
 everywhere, observant humanity has watched and 
 waited for the God " that answereth by fire.” And 
 whensoever on inner or on outer altar, at the prayer 
 of any true prophet, the fire has fallen, even the 
 onlooking world have lifted multitudinous voices 
 with the awed yet glad confession : " The Lord 
 
 He is God, the Lord He is God.” 
 
IV. 
 
 MORAL LAW AS REVELATION. 
 
 M en are naturally both religious and ethical. 
 
 They need truth in reference to God and in 
 reference to duty ; and under the impulse of their 
 own nature and the general movement of Divine 
 Providence, they will feel after God, and inquire for 
 duty and right. Such truth is seen or felt to be a 
 condition of satisfaction and happiness, as food and 
 clothing are essential to physical comfort and well- 
 being. This want might not be distinctly recognized 
 in the consciousness of every man, or there might be 
 no distinct apprehension of the occasion of the 
 uneasiness or the unrest-, which is the instinctive 
 outreaching of the soul for substantial truth and 
 good ; yet, here and there, in almost every com- 
 munity and people, this want finds an utterance. 
 Some soul, moved by a deeper experience than that 
 of others, has felt and expressed the want, and the 
 rest have responded. The utterance is the interpre- 
 tation of their own experience which they had failed 
 to analyze. It is indeed conceivable, that a tribe or 
 people may be so depressed in their life, so occupied 
 with the meaner wants of their nature, as never to 
 have recognized this spiritual want, established forms 
 
 . 95 
 
96 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 of religion, or settled any principles of morality. 
 But such a fact is exceptional, if it exists at all. 
 The general result in human experience is, that 
 there is a struggle after objects of religious faith, 
 and a standard of character, and some attainment in 
 both directions. 
 
 There is no room to doubt, that some knowledge, 
 both of religion and morality, is naturally attainable 
 by men. Paul spoke to the Athenians of the encour- 
 agement to seek the Lord, to feel after him, and 
 fiyid him ; and again, speaking of the light pertaining 
 to God, which is afforded to all men, he says : "For 
 the invisible things of him, from the creation of the 
 world, are clearly seen, being understood by the 
 things which are made, so that they are without 
 excuse ” ; and the corrupt ideas of God, which men 
 have cherished, he attributes to the dishonesty of 
 their own hearts, — their unwillingness to practise 
 the truth they know. This view is sustained by the 
 facts of human experience. In all ages and among 
 all people, some real knowledge of God has found 
 lodgment in the most earnest souls, and has been 
 imparted by them to others ; and since the human 
 soul is naturally adapted to the recognition and 
 acceptance of God, as the child is constituted to 
 know and accept the parent, the wonder is, that the 
 darkness of the world has been so dense, the light 
 so feeble and uncertain. When Socrates presented 
 a few clear and simple thoughts to the Athenians, in 
 reference to God’s being and providence, instead of 
 embracing him as a teacher and prophet, bringing 
 the truth which their souls thirsted for, they put 
 
REVELATION. 
 
 97 
 
 him to death for introducing strange divinities into 
 tlie state. Paul’s experience among the same people, 
 five hundred years later, was less tragic, but scarcely 
 more encouraging. His judgment in reference to 
 the unbelieving world was that ” they did not like 
 to retain God in their knowledge.” 
 
 The latest results of researches into the religious 
 history of man would seem to indicate that the move- 
 ment, among the vast masses of mankind, has been 
 from light, more or less distinct, to darkness, in ref- 
 erence to the being and nature of God ; that far 
 back in the history of the principal races, one God 
 was known and worshipped, — a personal being, of 
 infinite excellence, creator and ruler of men; and 
 that this original monotheistic view gradually gave 
 place to polytheism, pantheism, or atheism. 
 
 The oldest records of the Chinese recognize a 
 personal God, — a supreme intelligence to whom all 
 things are known, who approves of righteousness 
 and hates iniquity. This pure conception lapsed 
 finally into a philosophical abstraction, which repre- 
 sents the primal principle as absolute emptiness. Con- 
 fucianism, which has ruled the Chinese thought for 
 twenty-three hundred years, drops out all thought of 
 God, and proposes Ancestors as the proper object of the 
 natural instinct of reverence and worship. The result 
 is, that Confucius himself, as the most distinguished 
 among these Ancestors, has many hundred temples 
 erected to his name, one of them covering ten acres of 
 ground ; and at the semi-annual festivals, seventy thou- 
 sand animals are offered to his memory, and twenty- 
 seven thousand pieces of silk are burned on his altars. 
 
98 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 The course of religious thought among the Hindoos 
 has been much the same. Their oldest Vedas speak 
 of a supreme Spirit, ” who, through his power, is the 
 only King of the breathing and awakening world, 
 who governs all, both man and beast.’’ This mono- 
 theistic view degenerates at length into Brahminism, 
 an empty and aimless pantheism; and this again, 
 by a reaction, into Buddhism, which knows no God 
 but the Buddha, a deified man; and the grossest 
 idolatry is the result of all. 
 
 In Persia, religious thought, under the hand of 
 Zoroaster, took the form of Dualism, involving the 
 existence and conflict of two powers, of Good and 
 Evil. Yet, there are traces of a Monotheism still back 
 of this, which finally yielded to the worship of the 
 host of heaven and to the fire-worship of later times. 
 
 The Egyptians worshipped a multitude of gods as 
 far back as their distinctive religion can be traced ; 
 and yet there are indications that this gross and all- 
 pervading polytheism was a reaction from Asiatic 
 pantheism ; and this, again, a derivation from an' 
 older Monotheism which characterized the original 
 people of Central Asia. 
 
 The Greeks and Komans, springing from the same 
 Asiatic centre, left behind them the spiritual con- 
 ception of the Deity, and multiplied their gods, to 
 correspond with the forces of nature and with the 
 objects of interest in personal, in social, and in civil 
 life, giving them characters answering to their 
 own, — stern and grave and virtuous, or trifling and 
 gay and wanton, according to their own inclinations ; 
 all this, too, in connection with such attainments in 
 
AS REVELATION. 
 
 99 
 
 philosophy, in literature, and in art, as have made 
 them the admiration of all the later nations. Their 
 philosophy, indeed, carried along, side by side with 
 this polytheism, lofty ideas of God as a personal and 
 spiritual being. Socrates and Plato and Aristotle 
 brought back the true thought of God ; but it was 
 never accepted in the life of the people, and the 
 philosophy itself at length degenerated into the pan- 
 theism of the Stoics and the practical atheism of the 
 Epicureans. These great facts in human experience 
 show what we may expect from the instincts of 
 human nature, however elevated they may be, and 
 correspond with the declarations of Paul in reference 
 to the course of men as to the knowledge of God : 
 ” Because, that when they knew God, they glorified 
 him not as God, neither were thankful, but became 
 vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was 
 darkened ; ” " Who changed the truth of God into a 
 lie, and worshipped and served the creature more 
 than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” 
 
 All this does not prove that the human soul has 
 not, in its nature, a reaching after God the Creator, 
 the infinite Father, in whom we live and move and 
 have our being, and that men do not recognize his 
 claims when he lays his commands upon them. All 
 these vain imaginings must fly, at God’s personal 
 approach, as shadows of the night, when the morning 
 comes. They are only such stuflT as dreams are 
 made of. But these facts do indicate that God must 
 come down to men, and that men will not rise to 
 God. Their religious nature does not guide them 
 to the truth. 
 
100 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 The leading principles of morals would seem to be 
 more fully within the reach of men, in their natural 
 experience, than the great facts of God’s being and 
 government. These principles are strictly rational, 
 apprehended by the human intelligence as truly as 
 the axioms of mathematics. God and our neighbor 
 being known, the obligation to respect their being 
 and regard their welfare cannot be unknown. Every 
 human being must know that he ought to love God 
 and his fellow-men. He may not be able to put his 
 thought into that exact form, but in a thousand ways 
 he shows that he understands the duty. This knowl- 
 edge of the great principle of right and wrong is 
 brought out in all human experience. 
 
 In particular cases and questions of duty, men 
 differ, because judgments differ in reference to the 
 bearing and tendency of particular courses of action. 
 Not only do the enlightened and the thoughtful dis- 
 sent from the unenlightened, but the best-informed 
 and most conscientious, from each other. This va- 
 riance, however, is not in reference to the great 
 principle of duty, — the obligation to regard God 
 and man, — but with respect to what that regard 
 requires in the particular case. The Mohammedan 
 and the Jew alike agree that God’s commandments 
 must be obeyed. The Jew recognizes the duty to 
 observe as sacred the seventh day of the week. 
 The Mahommedan knows no such command, and 
 does not recognize the duty. Either following hon- 
 estly his own light, would meet the divine will. 
 One Christian accepts the command, " Eepent, and 
 be baptized,” as requiring the observance of an out- 
 
.IS REVELATION. 
 
 101 
 
 ward ordinance. Another accepts the command as 
 referring only to an inward and spiritual cleansing ; 
 hut both alike maintain the duty of implicit obedience 
 to God, and each is accepted according to that he 
 hath. One philanthropist holds that human life is 
 too sacred a thing to sacrifice, even for the main- 
 tenance of law. Another holds that human life is so 
 sacred as to call for every safeguard, and to warrant 
 the infliction even of capital punishment for its pro- 
 tection. Neither ever questions the great duty of 
 love to man. All such differences are in entire har- 
 mony with the acceptance of the same fundamental 
 rule of righteousness, — a practical knowledge of the 
 great principles of ethics. 
 
 A full and satisfactory expression of those prin- 
 ciples is entirely a different thing. The knowledge 
 comes by intuition ; the expression, by reflection 
 and discrimination. An elementary knowledge of 
 duty, and a knowledge of the philosophy of duty, 
 are different things, yet both are within the reach 
 of the human understanding. Everywhere upon 
 the face of the earth we find that men not only 
 know essential duty, and hold themselves and others 
 responsible for right conduct, but they have more 
 or less complete expressions of that law of right- 
 eousness. Certainly it should not surprise us to 
 find such expressions coming from the philoso- 
 phers, the thinkers among men in every land and 
 in every age. When Confucius gives us something 
 like the golden rule of our Saviour, it is only 
 what we might expect. That rule commends itself 
 to the human understanding, and it is only natural 
 
102 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 that the human mind, struggling for an expression 
 of our intuitive knowledge of duty, should sometime 
 attain that beautiful utterance. All men have some 
 sense of the beauty of goodness and some aspiration 
 for it ; and it is only human, that this aspiration 
 should now and then find expression in a prayer like 
 that of Zoroaster : " I desire, by my prayer, with 
 uplifted hands, this joy, — the pure works of the 
 Holy Spirit, a disposition to perform good actions, 
 and pure gifts for both worlds, the bodily and the 
 spiritual.” 
 
 The great want of men has never been a knowl- 
 edge of what ought to be done, but a heart to do 
 what they know. There are none so dark in their 
 understanding of duty that they could not do nobly 
 if they would. This was Paul’s infirmity. "I de- 
 light in the law of God after the inward man, but 
 when I' would do good, evil is present with me.” 
 This is the weakness of human nature. If, then, God 
 should give to men a system of ethics, a revelation 
 of right and duty, we might anticipate special pro- 
 vision for this human weakness, — such adaptations 
 in the form of the law and in the conditions of its 
 presentation as should furnish the motives to obe- 
 dience which all men need. The world is suffering 
 not so much for light as for love, — a disposition to 
 welcome the light and walk in it. In the darkest 
 portion of the world, the darkness is not so great 
 that he who comes to the work with an honest and 
 earnest heart, would not find the path of essential 
 duty open to him. Indeed, the maintenance of that 
 honest and earnest and truth-loving heart is the per- 
 
AS REVELATION, 
 
 103 
 
 formance of essential duty. It is the faith, without 
 which it is impossible to please God ; it is the love 
 which fulfils the law. But here lies the grand diffi- 
 culty, — how to persuade these dark-souled men to 
 undertake this honest and truth-loving life. By this 
 test is revealed the weakness of the philosophies, the 
 moral systems, and the religions of the world in 
 general. Our present inquiry is, whether the ethical 
 system of the Christian Scriptures meets those human 
 wants, in such a manner and to such a degree as to 
 indicate an origin other than human? Have we in 
 the Bible the law of God as distinguished from the 
 results of mere human thought ? 
 
 In this inquiry we assume that the Old and the New 
 .Testament present one and the same ethical system. 
 Such is their claim and such is the fact. The Saviour, 
 in his clearest utterances of the law of duty, claims 
 to add nothing to the substance of that law as 
 given by Moses and the prophets. He distinctly 
 announces that his two commandments are only the 
 summary of the older law, and even the very words 
 of the first and great commandment, and of the 
 second, which is like unto it, are given in the books 
 of Moses, Deut. 6:5. ” Thou shalt love the Lord 
 
 the God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
 and with all thy might.” — ^Lev. 19 :18. ” Thou shalt 
 
 love thy neighbor as thyself.” That there should be 
 in the later Scriptures new applications of the law, 
 is a necessity of progress in knowledge and experi- 
 ence among men. Such new applications we are 
 still making, and must continue to make, as our range 
 of thought extends and new lines of action open, 
 
104 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 but the law is forever the same. Nothing can be 
 added or taken away. 
 
 Let us contemplate this law in two particulars, — 
 its matter or content, and the manner of its pfesenta^ 
 tion : and in the light of these, inquire what are the 
 indications as to its origin? Is it the product of 
 human thought in its natural movements, or was it 
 Divinely given? It may not be amiss to suggest, 
 that while this question is one of grave importance, 
 it is not fundamental in the sense that it involves the 
 validity or binding force of the law. If this law car- 
 ries with it evidence that it is according to truth, 
 then it must stand and be accepted, whatever the 
 source from which we obtain it. But if it comes 
 from God, then it is the law of God, and there are 
 new and stronger motives to obedience. 
 
 In its matter^ the law enjoins the respect which is 
 due to God and the respect which is due to man. 
 It contemplates God as having interests and rights 
 which his creatures are to regard. He occupies the 
 place of a ruler and a father, and all the interests 
 and rights of a ruler and a father pertain to him. 
 His honor is valuable to himself, and important to 
 the world. Hence, his creatures must render him 
 the honor which is rightly his. To put another in 
 his place, is a wrong to him, a trespass upon his 
 interests and his rights, as well as an offence against 
 his government, — a weakening of his authority with 
 his creatures. On his own account, and for his own 
 sake, we are to render him our reverence and our 
 loyal. obedience, because such a tribute is a good to 
 him, an element in his blessedness. As a father, 
 
AS ItEVELATION. 
 
 105 
 
 he needs the love and confidence of his children. 
 Such filial regard is a good to him. He asks it on 
 his own- account, as a human father seeks the love 
 and confidence of his children. It is not simply that 
 men may be blessed in rendering it, but that he 
 himself may have the infinite satisfaction and bless- 
 edness of I’eceiving. The^rs^ and great command- 
 ment is. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 might, because God’s enjoyment of the love of his 
 creatures is the highest coneeivable good. The law 
 directs our thought first to God, and places him first 
 and foremost, because he is first and greatest and 
 best ; not because he is in the place of power, and 
 can require such regard, but because he is first by 
 the infinite excellence and greatness of his being. 
 Hence the demand is reasonable and just, — the only 
 proper expression of duty. 
 
 It is unquestionably true, that such honor and love 
 to God are the prime condition of the well-being 
 of the creatures of God, and it is conceivable that 
 the duty might be enjoined on this ground. But love 
 to God is the condition of good to men, because it is 
 in itself so reasonable and just. If there were no 
 natural ground for the duty to God on his own 
 account, it never could be made the essential condi- 
 tion of our well-being. The law is not, place God 
 first and foremost in love and honor because thus 
 only canst thou be blest ; but love and honor him 
 because this is his right and his due. 
 
 In all these declarations and requirements of duty 
 to God, there is no carefulness to guard against the 
 
106 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 idea that he needs our love and delights in it with 
 infinite delight, — no intimation that while it is our 
 duty to render this regard, he is so exalted in his 
 nature that our grateful love cannot reach him. On 
 the contrary, we are led on to the conviction that in 
 the depth of the riches of his being there is complete 
 appreciation of the tribute which his humblest crea- 
 ture brings, and a want when that tribute is with- 
 held. To fail in this duty is a wrong done first to 
 God, and next to our own souls. The first and great 
 commandment has an everlasting basis in the natxire 
 of God, and is sustained and enforced by the reason 
 of man. 
 
 But other beings have their interests, their rights 
 and claims. It would be human to stop with the 
 enunciation of this first and great commandment. 
 God is so great, and his rights and claims so clearly 
 paramount, that all other beings may be forgotten. 
 If God be honored, all is well ; nothing further can 
 be required. Thus human wisdom has often rea- 
 soned. Not so, the law as given to Israel. By the 
 side of this great commandment, there stands the 
 second, like unto it, namely this : " Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbor as thyself.” LiTce unto it, because it 
 rests on the same foundation of natural interests and 
 rights. Our neighbor’s well-being is a good which 
 has its claims upon our regard, — a good as valuable 
 as our own. Hence we are to give him his place by 
 our side on the common platform of humanity. He 
 may be a stranger, or even an enemy ; the obligation 
 stands in all its force, and these extreme cases are 
 presented as a test of the genuineness of neighborly 
 
AS REVELATION. 
 
 107 
 
 love. " Love ye tlie stranger, for ye were strangers 
 in the land of Egypt.” Our neighbor is a brother 
 man ; not one who is agreeable to us by his char- 
 acter, or dear to us by natural ties, but one who 
 shares our humanity, — this breathing, sentient na- 
 ture, with its capacities and its wants. His interests 
 and rights are commended to our regard on account 
 of their own value, and for his sake, — not because 
 Ave bless ourselves in the performance of this neigh- 
 borly duty, or find our own happiness in giving to 
 others their place. Such a result will unquestionably 
 follow; he that loseth his life, shall keep it ever- 
 more ; but it is not losing one’s life to place it ever 
 foremost in the service rendered to others. The law 
 is not, love thyself by loving thy neighbor, but love 
 thy neighbor as thyself. He has his rights, as we 
 have ours, and we are to give them place. On the 
 same ground upon which honor is due to God, rests 
 our duty to man, and God places himself side by 
 side with man in the presentation of his claims. 
 
 Again, the second commandment is like the first, 
 because the same state of heart fulfils them both. 
 The just and honest heart render both to God and 
 to man their dues, and one of these commandments 
 cannot be fulfilled without fulfilling the other. Love 
 to God is even tested by the fact of love to man ; 
 "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
 how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” 
 The love to God which passes by man, is a counter- 
 feit and a delusion, and the love to man which for- 
 gets God, is equally so. This is divine wisdom and 
 insight, — luminous to the human intelligence, when 
 
108 
 
 MOItAL LAW 
 
 once presented ; but when did mere human wisdom 
 ever attain it? Brahminism has stumbled on one 
 side, giving us a piety as empty and soulless as 
 space ; and Buddhism and Confucianism on the other, 
 presenting a powerless and lifeless morality. The 
 Divine Law solves the problem, making genuine 
 piety and morality one and the same thing. Each 
 involves the other. 
 
 Let us remember, too, that obedienee to this law 
 is a spiritual service. " Man looketh on the outward 
 appearanee, but God looketh on the heart.” " Love 
 is the fulfilling of the law.” What God requires is 
 the service of the heart. No ritualistic forms, how- 
 ever elaborate, can meet his will ; no wealth of sac- 
 rifice, no ascetic observance or self-immolation. To 
 the anxious worshipper who inquires. Wherewith shall 
 I come before the Lord and bow myself before the 
 high God ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands 
 of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? 
 Shall I give my first-bom for my transgression ; the 
 fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” The 
 startling answer comes : " He hath showed thee, O 
 man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require 
 of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to 
 walk humbly with thy God?” Thus the meanest, 
 the most ignorant, and the poorest of his creatures 
 may perfectly meet his will. As luminous as the 
 sunlight is this divine law, with the truth, that genuine 
 character is what pleases God ; that " truth in the 
 inward parts” commends the soul to his approval, 
 and that every outward form or inward exercise, 
 apart from this essential righteousness, is vain and 
 
AS REVELATION. 
 
 109 
 
 worthless. In this grand characteristic, the Sacred 
 Scriptures stand alone among the religious systems 
 of the world. Brahminism speaks approvingly of 
 righteousness of character, but places formal obser- 
 vances and ascetic practices foremost in the work of 
 making merit, and bringing the soul to everlasting 
 rest. " Devotion is equal to the performance of all 
 duties.” “ He who has killed a cow, must wait all day 
 on a herd of cows and stand inhaling the dust raised 
 by their hoofs. At night, he must sit near and guard 
 them. He must stand while they stand, follow 
 when they move, and lie down near them when they 
 lie down. By thus waiting on a herd for three 
 months, he atones for his guilt.” " He who can re- 
 peat the whole of the Eig-Veda would be free from 
 guilt even if he had killed the inhabitants of the 
 three worlds.” 
 
 Buddhism represents one of its saints as giving 
 his body for food to a starved tigress, and thus 
 attaining at once the everlasting rest without the 
 necessity of countless transmigrations. The virtue 
 of the act was not so much in the pity for the brute, 
 as in the self-abnegation. Errors like these are 
 human, and Christianity itself, in its actual exhi- 
 bitions, has often been disfigured by this human 
 blunder. But no such darkness dims the heavenly 
 light. The divine law utters no uncertain sound. 
 ” Is it such a fast tl^at I have chosen ? a day for a man 
 to afflict his soul ? Is it to bow down his head like 
 a bulrush, and spread sackcloth and ashes under 
 him? Will ye call this a fast, and an acceptable day 
 to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen. 
 
110 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 to loose the -bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy 
 burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that 
 ye break every yoke ? Is it not to deal thy bread to 
 the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are 
 cast out to thy house ? When thou seest the naked 
 that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself 
 from thine own flesh?” — Isa. 58:5-7. And then, 
 lest the mere outward performance be mistaken for 
 obedience, we read again: "Though I bestow all 
 my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my 
 body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth 
 me nothing.” — ^I Cor. 13 : 3. 
 
 Again, because this law is spiritual, reading the 
 thought and intent of the heart, it is universal, — all 
 comprehensive, embracing all rational beings, in 
 whatever world, and extending to every thought and 
 word and deed. There is no attempt to lay out in 
 detail the duty of any being. The law brings its 
 force to bear upon the very fountain of action, and 
 makes it pure ; then pure streams must flow through 
 all the channels of life. The form of action will 
 vary with varying light and changing relations, but 
 the obedient spirit is always the same. The simplest 
 child that lisps : " Our Father whieh art in Heaven,” 
 and the loftiest angel that bows within the very circle 
 of his glory, are one in spirit, children of the Heav- 
 enly Father, alike approved of him. In the same 
 great law they And the rule of life and action. It 
 meets the want of the least and the greatest, and can 
 never be outgrown. Even God who proelaims the 
 law,' commends himself to his creatures as embody- 
 ing in his action the principle of the law. " Shall 
 
AS REVELATION. 
 
 Ill 
 
 not the Judge of all the earth do right?” ” A God 
 of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” 
 The holiness of God is but the love which he requires 
 of his creatures. Thus, under this law, the universe 
 becomes a kingdom of righteousness and love,- — the 
 Sovereign himself leading the way in the works of 
 love which the law requires, heaven and earth and 
 hell bearing witness to the beneficence of his sway. 
 This conception is too high for the unaided human 
 reason to reach, but it is not too high for the human 
 soul to accept and rejoice in. Such a law can never 
 grow old ; it is as fresh and vital now as when it fell 
 upon the awe-struck tribes at Sinai. It is the abso- 
 lute righteousness, valid for time and for eternity. 
 
 That there were temporary and specific precepts 
 associated from time to time with these great, un- 
 changing principles, rather strengthens than weakens 
 the argument. Out of the great central principle, 
 specific and local applications must always arise. 
 The excellence of the law is, that it is capable of 
 these specific adaptations, and provides for them. 
 Special observances and forms of worship are 
 arranged for those that need them ; but, from first to 
 last, there is care to distinguish between every formal 
 observance and the obedience of the heart. " Hath 
 the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sac- 
 rifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, 
 to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, than 
 the fat of rams.” No ambiguity on this point is ever 
 admitted. From the beginning to the end, a line of 
 heavenly light runs between the essential and un- 
 changing, and the formal and temporary. 
 
112 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 A complete presentation of the case would seem 
 to require an examination of the specific provisions 
 of the law, and an exhibition of the divine wisdom 
 which characterizes them. Such a work lies beyond 
 the limits prescribed by this occasion. Our present 
 view must be general, and therefore less satisfactory. 
 An allusion to a single specific precept must sufloice, 
 that which prohibits the use of images, — a pre- 
 cept appropriate to men in every age and condition, 
 forbidding the worship of God under any form of 
 nature, or any image of "gold or silver or stone, 
 graven by art or man’s device.” Yet the law given 
 to the people of Israel is distinguished from all 
 other ancient religions by this prohibition. The fire- 
 worship of the Persians was still idolatry, though 
 perhaps less degrading than the grosser practices of 
 other nations, "who changed the glory of the uncor- 
 ruptible God into an image made like to corruptible 
 man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping 
 things. To meet the weakness of human nature in 
 its effort to embrace the Infinite Spirit, and to save 
 men from the loathsome degradation of idolatry was 
 the problem solved by the system of worship and 
 of morals prescribed to the children of Abraham. 
 Was the wisdom which devised it simply human? 
 
 In its matter^ then, we find this ancient law satis- 
 factory and complete, — as appropriate to-day as at 
 its first announcement, and never to fail, though 
 heaven and earth pass away. Let us now inquire, 
 what there is in the form and manner of its presenta- 
 tion which distinguishes it from other systems of 
 morality and religion, and which indicates a divine 
 
AS REVELATION, 
 
 113 
 
 origin? In this direction, there are two particulars 
 specially prominent. 
 
 In the first place, the law presents the great ob- 
 jects upon which obligation terminates, in a definite 
 and vital form. The thought is directed to God 
 and to our neighbor, — beings whom we know and 
 whose nature we can understand though we may 
 not comprehend it. All duty, all obligation, finds 
 its object within this circle of our vision. Duty 
 thus takes a definite and tangible form. We are 
 not set upon any vague and uncertain pursuit, 
 left to range the universe to find where the path 
 of duty lies, or where are the objects to which our 
 obligation leads us. We know at once who has 
 claims upon us, and what the nature of that claim 
 must be. Our neighbor is our brother, and God is 
 our Father ; we bear the image of both. In the light 
 of our own nature, we understand our duty to man 
 and to God. What the love is which fulfils the law, 
 — the attitude of soul which is right toward God 
 and toward man, we cannot doubt. 
 
 If human wisdom had framed the precept, it would 
 probably have taken the abstract form : '' Thou art a 
 reasonable being ; obey the law of thy higher nature ; 
 act reasonably; do right for its own sake”; and 
 thus bewildered human creatures would have been 
 left, with introverted gaze, peering into the depths 
 of their own consciousness for light upon the question 
 of the reasonable and the right. All such abstract 
 statements are provided for in the present concrete 
 form of the law. The law embraces every such prin- 
 ciple, and covers every conceivable duty of all 
 
114 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 beings for all time, and makes the way of duty 
 as luminous as the light of heaven. It takes the 
 thought, at once, away from self, first to God and 
 then to man, providing for a true and wholesome 
 activity. 
 
 But beyond this, in the objects presented to our 
 regard, we find the motives to obedience which the 
 human soul requires. The natm-e of these objects 
 appeals to our hearts. Over us bends the Father 
 of Spirits, infinite in his excellence and all-embrac- 
 ing in his love, — the Lord our God, whom we are to 
 love with all the heart. How reasonable and just 
 the duty ! How strong the claim, and what motives, 
 in the excellence and majesty of his being, for a 
 response to that claim ! By our side stands our 
 neighbor, encompassed with all human infirmity and 
 want, — child of the same Father, with a vital, sen- 
 tient nature like our own, calling for our neighborly 
 regard by the significance of his present experience 
 and the reach of his destiny; and again the law 
 comes ; " Love him as thyself.” In the objects thus 
 presented, we have the highest motives to obedience. 
 There is divine wisdom in so shaping the law as to 
 bring these motives in full force upon the soul. How 
 feeble and cold, in comparison, is any abstract utter- 
 ance of human philosophy, — be reasonable, be just, 
 do right, respect every interest, regard all being. 
 Living, vital motives, we have seen, are the great 
 want in any moral system, and the divine law takes 
 hold of the heart by this direct presentation of the 
 objects of duty. 
 
 The second feature in the manner of presentation 
 
REVELATION. 
 
 115 
 
 is, that the principle of obligation is made a divine 
 command, and comes to men not merely as an 
 attainment of human thought, an axiom which the 
 reason intuitively affirms in its own cold light, but 
 as enacted by divine authority, and enforced by 
 the personal power of a present God. Moses and 
 the prophets of Judaism and Christianity do not 
 stand before the people as gifted with a clearer 
 insight, a genius for religion or an ethical inspi- 
 ration, by which they discern the great principle of 
 obligation. They bring to men the law of God’s 
 kingdom, the express will of Jehovah, and it comes 
 with all the force which divine authority can give it. 
 It was not enough that God endowed men with an 
 ethical nature, — reason to understand the principle 
 of duty as they know all necessary truth, — then to 
 leave them to follow their own natural light. It is 
 undoubtedly true, as Paul has announced, that those 
 who have not the law are a law unto themselves, 
 showing the enactments of the law written upon 
 their hearts. But how feeble is this natural sense 
 of duty, compared with the impression which the 
 express will of God conveys, with all the force of 
 his majesty and authority, his fatherly prerogative 
 and his yearning love ! 
 
 Back of this presentation of duty as divine law, 
 there stands the great fact of God’s personality; a 
 fact which was essentially lost to the other nations, 
 but which was the basis of all religious thought 
 among the Hebrews. They are taught to regard 
 God as the Creator, and themselves as the work of 
 his hand ; not an emanation from some uncon- 
 
116 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 scious, sleeping divinity, from whom they sprang 
 without his purpose, as dreams gather about one who 
 sleeps ; not the work of some intermediate power, 
 by which they were separated from the knowledge 
 or regard of the eternal, self-existent God. Of 
 such ideas the wmrld was full. India and Persia 
 and Egypt could have furnished such conceptions of 
 God, and such only. But to the Hebrew thought, 
 God was presented full of active, intelligent, and sen- 
 sitive life. He had " made the heavens and earth and 
 sea and all that in them is,” with a definite and settled 
 purpose ; he still ruled in the kingdom of heaven 
 and in the kingdom of men, and often revealed him- 
 self in mighty displays of his presence ; using the 
 powers of nature as his servants, going before the 
 people- in the pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by 
 night; leading them through the wilderness as the 
 shepherd his flock, — intensely interested in their 
 character and condition, claiming their love as a 
 good to himself, and from his open hand scattering 
 blessings in return. From this Sovereign, Father 
 and Friend, comes the law to them and to mankind, 
 — the will of the high and lofty One who inhabits 
 eternity ; and who dwells, too, with the humble 
 and contrite spirit. Such a law is no mere sys- 
 tem of ethics, no human philosophy, but a divine 
 religion, taking hold of the hearts of men with 
 all the force with which God appeals to our 
 religious nature. Men are naturally religious. 
 The impulse of reverence and worship is stronger 
 and more lasting than any other, except the mere 
 animal instincts and passions. In the world, gen- 
 
AS REVELATION, 
 
 117 
 
 erally, the religious tendency was wholly separated 
 from morality. Men worshipped with costly sacri- 
 fices and painful observances and penances, not with 
 a loving and contrite heart, dutiful to God and 
 benevolent toward man. Duty to God was utterly 
 divorced from the claims of men, so that these 
 claims were rather counteracted than sustained by 
 the claims of religion. It is probably true that re- 
 ligion, even in this impulsive form, with the ethical 
 element wholly eliminated, counteracted, in some 
 degree, the gross animal impulses, and saved from 
 the loathsome degradation of mere animal life ; so 
 that it is reasonable to say that Paganism, with 
 all its idolatry, is better than no religion. 
 
 But it was no mere human thought that bound re- 
 ligion and morality together by an indissoluble bond, 
 placing the claims of God and the claims of man on a 
 common foundation, making religion morality, and 
 morality religion, and enforcing the common duty 
 by all the motives which appeal to man’s religious 
 nature. Eeligion, without morality, is a blind force, 
 working mightily, but not beneficently. Morality, 
 without religion, is feeble and mechanical and hope- 
 less. Combined, they constitute the true human life 
 which pleases God and blesses man. Where, in 
 the history of the race, have they been bound to- 
 gether and made one, as in this perfect law of the 
 sacred Scriptures ; and by what mightier motive 
 could such a law be enforced? ”I am Jehovah, thy 
 God, which brought thee up out of the land of 
 Eg}rpt. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” 
 ” Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against 
 
118 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself: I am Jehovah.” All the power 
 which the thought of God has over the hearts of 
 men, is brought to bear in the enforcement of this 
 common duty, of love to God and love to man. How 
 much stronger is the motive than that which comes 
 with the simple apprehension of the duty by one’s 
 own understanding ! For the child to know by his 
 own judgment what is proper for him to do, is one 
 thing ; to have added to that perception all the force 
 which comes with the personal presence and benign 
 authority of the parent, is a very different thing ; 
 and this only feebly illustrates the power of religious 
 motives over the consciences and the hearts of men. 
 Coming from God, the law naturally arid inevitably 
 takes this form. If it came from man, its form 
 remains without explanation, — it has no natural 
 origin. 
 
 It has sometimes been a matter of surprise that 
 in connection with the law in the Old Testament, 
 so little reference is made, or, as some claim, none 
 at all, to the considerations of a future life, — that no 
 motives to obedience are drawn from the world to 
 come. But let us consider that in God’s personal 
 presence all interests are brought together. The seen 
 and the unseen world are the sarpie to him, — all 
 ” naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we 
 have to do.” To one who realizes God’s presence, 
 the oneness of his kingdom is a simple fact. The 
 people of Israel were taught, in obedience, to expect 
 God’s favor; in disobedience, to dread his frown. 
 That favor meant life, all that men hope for, and 
 
AS REVELATION, 
 
 119 
 
 his frown meant death, all that men dread, wher- 
 ever in the universe his power extends. Under 
 God’s direct eye, as they seemed to be, it would not 
 be natural or important to discriminate between the 
 seen and the unseen world. The law was God’s law, 
 and carried with it all the motives which gather about 
 the relations of men to God. 
 
 We have thus seen, that in its matter the ethical 
 system of the Scriptures involves the absolute 
 morality and the absolute religion; that it was 
 complete in its first announcement, and has been 
 extended in the later Scriptures only by new appli- 
 cations, — not by any addition to its principles. 
 Other systems indicate a struggle of the human soul 
 toward the apprehension of those ideas, and when 
 they make any approximation to this standard, we 
 are led to rejoice that men in the dark places of the 
 earth have had somewhat of the true light ; but this 
 law has stood, and must forever stand, as the model 
 by which all other systems are to be judged. When 
 human philosophy shall have attained to the most 
 catholic expression of the law under which man is 
 placed by his nature and relations, shall have collated 
 and generalized all systems and all forms of thought 
 for the expression of absolute truth, the product 
 can be only that which we have in the Scriptures, 
 and which comes to us as the voice of God, — the 
 first and great commandment, and the second, which 
 is like unto it. 
 
 We have seen that in its manner and form of pre- 
 sentation, this law meets the great human want of 
 motives to obedience, combining and concentrating 
 
120 
 
 MORAL LAW 
 
 all the considerations of religion and humanity, and 
 impressing itself upon the deepest and most perma- 
 nent elements of human nature, thus becoming the 
 law written on the heart. To the full establishment 
 of this law among men, the whole course of divine 
 providence seems to have been directed. The 
 Saviour’s work in the world had this significance. 
 His words, such as man never spake, were a restate- 
 ment of the precepts of the law ; his life was an 
 embodiment of its purity, and his death so reinforced 
 by its power the weakness of the law, that we are 
 permitted to see its righteousness fulfilled in those who 
 walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Well 
 might he say, I came not to destroy the law but to fulfil ! 
 
 Whence, then, is this law? from heaven or of 
 men? If we say, of men, the law will then not 
 be invalidated. It must still stand the complete 
 and perfect expression of duty, — the law for all 
 being and all time. But we propose to ourselves 
 a problem difficult of solution, when we limit our- 
 selves to such conditions. How is it that this mar- 
 vellous combination of religion and humanity sprung 
 up among the people of Israel, at the time of their 
 deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, and held its 
 place from that day on ; and that, to-day, all nations 
 are compelled to accept it as the ultimate and abso- 
 lute truth in morality and religion ? Can we name 
 any human source from which Moses obtained this 
 law, or can we account for any such quickening of 
 the religious and ethical sense of that people as to 
 yield us the marvellous product? This law was 
 not one of the treasures gathered, when the people 
 
AS REVELATION. 
 
 121 
 
 " spoiled the Egyptians/^ Egypt had no sueh treas- 
 ure to give them. What the Egyptians thought 
 and said of God and man for a thousand years 
 before, and a thousand years after, we read to-day 
 upon their temples and their tombs. Moses was 
 learned in all their wisdom ; but the law of Moses is 
 not the wisdom of Egypt. The people set forth the 
 wisdom of Egypt, when they bowed to the Molten 
 Calf, and said : " These be thy gods, O Israel, which 
 brought thee up, out of the land of Egypt. The 
 mummied bulls of Memphis show where the people 
 got that lesson. This was what Egypt gave them. 
 The Vedas and the Zend-avestas of the farther 
 East, giving the concentrated wisdom of India and 
 of Persia, afford no light upon the subject. Those 
 ancient writings exhibit the uncertain feeling after 
 truth which naturally characterizes the human soul, 
 with now and then a flash of light out of the dark- 
 ness ; but no steady luminary to which the nations 
 may look, rises in that eastern sky. The star seen 
 by the Wise Men of the East stood over the manger 
 where He was cradled who was born King of the 
 Jews. 
 
 The law which the Sacred Scriptures embody is 
 beyond all question the law of God. If he should 
 speak to men from heaven to show them their duty 
 and enforce the obligation, he would give us no 
 other law. There is no other law in heaven to be 
 given. When, then, we accept it as God’s law, 
 uttered by his voice and written hj his Anger, we 
 are sustained, not only by the testimony of Moses 
 and the people, but by all the inherent probabilities 
 of the case. 
 
V. 
 
 THE INCARNATION, 
 
 BY TRUMAN M. POST, D. D. 
 
 A ll things are of God. The moral forces of the 
 universe are in Him. To evolve and apply 
 these forces, is its great moral problem ; to bring the 
 creature into sympathy with the Creator, the great 
 measure for its moral restoration and perfection. 
 
 To effect this, God must reveal himself ; and to a 
 race embraced within a world pf sense. He must 
 reyeal himself in the^oklbie-and sfelisible : f- 
 
 There are three ways in which God may disclose 
 himself in the visible and sensible : Firsts In the 
 
 fixed order of nature, or by the system of immutable 
 laws : Second^ By the interruption or transcending 
 
 of those laws, in attestation of a verbal revelation : 
 Thirds By personal representation, attested in like 
 manner. 
 
 Combining with all these, and supplementing or 
 modifying them, is the disclosure of God in our 
 moral consciousness. This, combined with the first 
 above mentioned, or the disclosure of God by fixed 
 laws, makes the religion of nature; and this, per- 
 verted and corrupted by human imagination, passion, 
 and pravity, constitutes that of the heathen world. 
 
 122 
 
THE INGARNATION. 
 
 123 
 
 Its combination with the second gives us the He- 
 brew sptem. Its blending with the third appears 
 in Christianity^/ 
 
 The incarnation of the Son of God, or the revela- 
 tion of the divine nature in a human person, is the 
 peculiar distinction of Christianity. The superior 
 efficiency of that revelation for the moral renovation 
 and perfection,; of man, as demonstrated by history 
 andthe «hilos^K^of mind, goes far to prove the 
 divine original of that religion of whiph it is the 
 ---distinctive and capital characteristic, dhis is the 
 scope of my present argument^ , * ^ ' 
 
 My theme is. The incarnation of the Son of God as 
 ^ the great restorative and conservative moral force of 
 the world. 
 
 I , Christian doctrine of the incarnation has no 
 
 ' talog^ amongst the religions of the world. In 
 C aspect and significance entirely aloof from the 
 
 ^ Avatars or incarnations of Brahminism or Buddhism 
 and the like, it stands in Christianity unique and 
 alone. My argument claims that this is one of those 
 doctrines that both vindicate themselves and the sys- 
 tems to which they belong; one which, not invented 
 or discovered by human reason, yet approves itself, 
 when announced, to our reason, as peculiarly adapted 
 and requisite to accomplish the moral salvation of our 
 race; and that its adaptation to elfect this, the 
 highest aimofa?? religions, is of force to establish the 
 trutl^f that in which alone it is found. 
 
 / . argument assumes the existence of a God, ra- 
 f tional and moral ; and infers, from a perceived fitness 
 ot things to produce rational and beneficent results, 
 
124 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 their origin from Him. It applies this reasoning to 
 the scheme of moral forces in Christianity, and 
 especially to the doctrine of the incarnation. And 
 thus, as the demonstrated adaptation of the law of 
 gravitation to preserve the order of the natural 
 universe argues its reality, so indications of the 
 adaptation of the incarnation to restore and conserve 
 the order of the moral world, may, to the extent they 
 are disclosed, be reasonably regarded as furnishing 
 a presumption of its truth. 
 
 We argue, accordingly, that as presenting the pro- 
 foundest philosophy of the redemption of fallen man, 
 and as being clearly a " wisdom and power unto sal- 
 vation,” as unique as it is requisite, this doctrine 
 proves itself to be of God ; and the more so, as it 
 was first promulgated by those who were not phi- 
 losophers, and who had no consciousness or ambition 
 of philosophic system. 
 
 As already intimated, my argument will regard 
 the incarnation as the veritable revelation of God in 
 a human person. In thus defining, it will essay no 
 sharp adjustment of controverted ontological or 
 hypostatical relations of Christ to the Father. Into 
 questions of correlation between them, or of the 
 duality or singleness of natures in Christ, it is not 
 requisite to my pr^ent aim to enter But, (avoiding 
 philological or herjneneutical controversies y* my argu- 
 ment will be.pred.icated)on that unity of ''Christ with 
 God that the lowest interpretation of common Scrip- 
 ture statements seems to necessitate ; a unity that 
 presents Jesus Christ as veritably in himself a 
 revelation of God. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 125 
 
 f Sudi a unity and such a revelation as seem of 
 ' necessity implied in the declarations of the Evange- 
 ^ chapter of Johil^"]Sro man hath 
 
 seen Grod at any time ; the only begotten Son, which 
 is in the bosom of the Father. He hath declared 
 Him.” And again : " 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.” 
 "And the world was made by Him.” "And the 
 word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and 
 we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten 
 of the Father full of grace and truth.” And again 
 (Matt. 1 : 27) ; "No man knoweth the Son, but 
 the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, 
 save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will 
 reveal Him.” I mean such a personal revelation 
 Grod as seems implied in the declaration that 
 Jesus was " the brightness of his glory and the ex- 
 press image of his person”; that " God hath shined 
 in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of 
 the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ ; ” that 
 " in Him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily ” ; 
 such a revelation as could justify Christ’s own assev- 
 eration that his words and his works were not his 
 own, but truly God’s; and that "he who had seen 
 Him, had seen the Father.” 
 
 Now, language of this description, it seems to me, 
 can imply nothing less than that Christ was, in his 
 own person, in a sense which was true of no other 
 in human form, a veritable revealer of God ; not 
 of Go^ in the inflnitude of his nature, — for the 
 infinite cannot be revealed to or by the finite,— but 
 
126 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 of God in the quality of his mo ral attributes.^ full of 
 grace and truth, of pity, mercy, and love ; such a 
 revelation as would have power to transfigure our 
 moral nature, so that we, "beholding as in a glass 
 the glory of the Lord, should be changed into the 
 same image, from glory to glory Apart from the 
 question of the truth or falsity oniie Christian 
 scheme, the intent of that scheme, it seems to me, 
 unmistakably is, to set forth Christ as, to this extent, 
 a perso^nal revelation of God. To this intent, I shall 
 argue^^-^ 
 
 argument assumes also a moral fall of man; a 
 fact as-]^mt in nature and history, as in Scripture ; 
 and which ^ apart from all controverted dogmas of its 
 origin, its depth or exten^ clearly needs restoration 
 and cure. The actual existence and prevalence of 
 moral evil in our world needs no proof, and hardly 
 more does the natural downward tendency of souls 
 which have once admitted evil within themselves, 
 and the consequent need of deliverance hy a power 
 from without themselves. My aim will be to show 
 the natural efliciency of the revelation of God in a 
 human person to accomplish such a deliverance, and 
 the evidence thus accruing to Christianity, which 
 presents this remedy for the moral malady of man. 
 
 This argument resolves itself into the following 
 propositions : — 
 
 1. In order to salvation, i. e. in order to his 
 highest excellency and bliss, man must be conformed 
 morally to God. 
 
 2. Such conformity can be wrought in the soul 
 only by sympathy with God, or the feeling of his 
 
Tim INOAItNATION. 
 
 127 
 
 conscious personal presence applying itself directly 
 to the soul. 
 
 3. Such sympathy can be created only by God’s 
 revelation of Himself. 
 
 1st. By a person, and 
 
 2d. By a human person, — i. e. one which, while 
 representing truly the divine nature, is exhibited 
 also as living, acting, speaking, feeling, suifering, 
 under human limitations and conditions. 
 
 ^^hese propositions can be proved, both analytically 
 and historically-^ We will consider,-^' 
 
 First, the necessity of conformity to God, mor- 
 ally, in order to salvation. 
 
 That to this end the soul must be in moral accord 
 with God, — with that Being who is the fountain, the 
 very element of its existence, in whom it must for- 
 evjer live, move, and have being; with the ever-pres- 
 ent, all-pervading, all-embracing, eternally regnant 
 spirit that must forever enfold it with its emotion, its 
 will, and its power, — seems a proposition requiring no 
 argument. Discrepancy with Him must inevitably 
 be everlasting jangle and discord with the universe ; 
 a condition as hopeless of happiness as would be that 
 of a man with his present physical nature immersed 
 in the sun. God must, by the laws of being, be to 
 a soul not conformed to Him a " consuming fire.” 
 
 He must be so by the natural efiect of mind acting 
 on mind. 
 
 Mind acting on mind is the mightiest factor we 
 know of in this life, of pleasure or pain; beyond all 
 delights of sense, beyond all tortures of poison or 
 steel or scourge or flame. From human hate or 
 
128 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 scorn, men gladly hide in the very grave. So they 
 exult to pluck the guerdon of love or fame, in the 
 very jaws of death. What then must be the action 
 of the mind of God, forever raying its emotion of 
 love or abhorrence on the soul, but a Heaven or a 
 Hell? 
 
 Moreover, in order to eternal life, man must be 
 conformed to God as the perfect archetype of beauty 
 and right ; else the eternal necessity of our moral 
 being, which unites virtue to happiness and vice to 
 misery, must be broken. 
 
 Heaven is no ,sap|)hire city, no robes of white, no 
 walls of amethyst and gold. It must be found in the 
 soul’s harmony with the All-good, the Almighty and 
 the Everlasting. Else, nearer the blazing throne the 
 worse ; the soul would hurry to hide in the very 
 shadow of death from the blasting beauty of God. 
 
 The light is beautiful, and sweet is it to the eye to 
 behold the sun ; but to the eye diseased, its beauty 
 and sweetness become shafts of flame. Sweet is 
 music ; but to the ear diseased the most delicious 
 strains ever borne on mortal airs grate torturing 
 discord. So it must be to the soul of man in this 
 universe not in accord with its Creator. 
 
 In the second place, the power to secure this conform 
 mity must be sought in the divine nature itself^ 
 vealed to man ; not only as thus disclosing the para- 
 digm to which the soul must be conformed, but also 
 the forces to effect such conformity. God Himself is 
 the mightiest of formative forces applied to the human 
 soul. The God we worship ever forms us to his own 
 image, be he Jehovah or Juggernaut, a Christ or a 
 
- , • Tim INCARNATION. ^ 129 
 
 \ : i ..i) , , "-f 
 
 Belial. The mightiest, certainly, if not the only 
 power to restore the fallen soul, is in( fee e volution 
 of the moral God^ — the power to new-create, in the 
 original creator. This -evolutioa requires a personal 
 revelation. Accordingly, to unfold and apply to souls 
 hiS“Owa4dea throughft revelation in a human person, 
 is the Christian scheme of salvation. 
 
 In accordance with thk aim it is noteworthy, the 
 forces of that scheme are all eminently and character- 
 istically persona? rather than dogmatic. The universe 
 is to be saved by a person, not a precept, a thesis, or 
 a philosophy. Salvation is through faith in a person ; 
 is believing in, being in, abiding in, living or dying 
 in, a person. It is putting on, being baptized 
 into, confessing, serving-, loving a person. The term 
 Christianity is not found in the New Testament. It 
 is faith in Christ. All is Christ. Impersonalities, 
 abstractions, qualities separate from subjects, graces 
 from persons, figure little. Prominent ever, over all 
 its field of vision, is a living form, a face, a person. 
 The whole system, its entire genius, looks person- 
 ward. Everything in ritual and doctrine is adjusted 
 and phrased to bring before the mind a person. This 
 is the objective aim and view. The creed is ever 
 the mere star-glass.; Christ Himself, ever the morn- 
 ing star. Not an intellectual or ethical system, not 
 a scheme of abstract graces and virtues, but a living 
 soul, that wears all graces and virtues as his embodi- 
 ment, and quickens through all with a life, — who 
 is indeed self-styled as Himself " the way, the truth 
 and the life,” — is the Redeemer of the world. 
 
 In this way alone, through a person who is in the 
 
130 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 bosom of the Father, was redemption practicable. 
 For thus only could the saving forces which are in 
 God be brought to apply themselves adequately to 
 man’s soul. God is a person. A person can be 
 properly expressed or revealed only by a person. No 
 abstractions could do it, no mere form of words, no 
 dogma, no system. A soul is so separated from a 
 mere attribute, is of such an entirely different order 
 of existence, that it cannot be represented by it. 
 Abstractions have no life in them, no warmth, no 
 plastic power ; mere unsubstantial phantasms or con- 
 cepts of the mind. A religion consisting of them 
 would be the most shadowy and powerless of things. 
 To the million, the purely spiritual and infinite is 
 simply inconceivable ; and to the sage, equally an 
 impracticable mystery. 
 
 A God attempted to be disclosed simply through 
 these, could be no Saviour, certainly, of the mass ; 
 his gospel no gospel for the poor. They know and 
 feel simply things in the concrete. They require sen- 
 suous imagery or embodiment. No mere philoso- 
 phies or theologies are to them revelations of God, 
 any more than a treatise on optics is light, or an 
 analysis of colors is picture. 
 
 When I claim that God can be adequately revealed 
 only by a person, I mean (as I have premised) the 
 living God, the moral God; something beyond a 
 force, a principle, a dynamic element. 
 
 Those that use the term ” God ” to denote simply 
 these, seem to me to violate the essential idea of the 
 word, to use language nonsensically, and by a misno- 
 mer to convert an attribute into a substance, a predi- 
 cate into a subject. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 131 
 
 God, as a moral person, cannot be revealed by 
 general laws farther than as the mere operator of 
 those laws. Reasoning from the consciousness of 
 our own moral constitution to God as its author, we 
 may believe God is a moral person, and as such dwells 
 behind these laws. But the laws themselves disclose 
 only a fixed order, that turns not aside for pity or 
 love or justice, that never forgives, never relents ; 
 crushing alike whatever comes in its path, the inno- 
 cent and lovely equally with the foul and the guilty. 
 
 It is true, God as a moral person may be evidenced 
 by the visible arrest or interruption of those laws in 
 the interest of truth, justice, or mercy, especially if, as 
 in case of the Jews, such arrest and suspension are 
 associated with voice and vision, authenticating law 
 and verbal enunciation. But still it is God the infi- 
 nite, the incomprehensible, the unapproachable, the 
 ever-veiled ; one tokening himself in signs and 
 wonders, but hiding in the thick darkness or access- 
 less light. 
 
 How dim and feeble such a disclosure ; how inad- 
 equate to the wants and capacities, at least of the 
 millions ; how far beyond their reach of vivid, assim- 
 ilative, conscious sympathy ! They require to this 
 end a visible person exhibiting the divine love and 
 sympathy in life, action, and suflfering. 
 
 No mere verbal predication of attributes suffices ; 
 although, such a revelation through a person, having 
 once been made, words are competent to perpetuate it 
 historically and doctrinally. On the basis of recoi*ded 
 and attested fact, the human mind can call up and 
 '^^ontinue to itself such a revelation, with the power 
 
THE IKCABNATION. 
 
 132 
 
 of present reality. The more especially may it do 
 this with the preternatural aid of the Holy Spirit 
 which the Christian scheme presents ; and it is legiti- 
 mate, in arguing that scheme, to argue from the 
 standpoint of its own provisions. With the preter- 
 natural aid of the Divine Spirit promised to assist the 
 conceptions of the human mind as a perpetual sug- 
 gestion and continuation, so to speak, of the present 
 Christ, our mind is certainly adequate, a personal 
 revelation having been once made, to perpetuate that 
 revelation in its thought and sentiment. But this 
 revelation will tend in each mind to clothe itself 
 with personal embodiment and feature, adapted to 
 the experience, the idiosyncrasies, and the moral 
 tastes and needs of the individual. , 
 
 And here let us note the divine wisdom of the New 
 Testament Kevelation, in that while in Christ the 
 moral God is clearly disclosed, the corporeal Christ 
 is no where delineated. Of the mightiest, most 
 glorious personage that has entered the circle of 
 time, no picture, no statue, no trace, not even a hint 
 historical, is left, whereby to frame a corporeal 
 likeness.* Each mind is left to its own ideal, 
 fashioned as it will be by its own moral taste or pe- 
 culiar spiritual want, so that each human soul sees its 
 own face of Christ ; and while the historical Christ 
 retires behind the darkness of the crucifixion or the 
 ascension-cloud, the personal Christ still walks the 
 earth with forever-open face, and as million-visaged 
 as the ideals of the sons of men. 
 
 * I need not say, I regard the famous epistle of Publius Lentulus as 
 a forgery. 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 133 
 
 And here again we note another of the peculiar 
 moral forces of the Christian scheme. This personal 
 Christ is no mere idealization of a dead sage, saint, or 
 hero, no mere historic memory embodied, as of an 
 Epamiiiondas or a Plato. He is no past personage. 
 We go to no tomb to find Him. He lives evermore, 
 and is conceived of as present, not only in thought, 
 but in reality, to each and every soul, everywhere to 
 the end of time ; revealed to faith and love, though 
 hid the while to sense. 
 
 Thus the glory of God in the face of a Christ, 
 uneclipsed by time or death, is to shine forth on the 
 earth as long as the sun, that face living and present 
 to each and all of the sons of men, and beaming on 
 them with a sympathy assimilating the human to the 
 divine. 
 
 Thus we have what Plato desiderates in his Phsedo ; 
 that very form and face of virtue, which, according 
 to his thought, could it be seen by our bodily eyes, 
 would excite in us a wonderful love, and captivate us 
 with its beauty. But that which thus captivates is 
 no mere abstraction or intellectual conception. Such 
 breed in us no love, no enthusiasm, no assimilative 
 sympathy. But what we have before us is a purely 
 and perfectly virtuous being in which all graces and 
 excellences are but phases of a living soul ; the lofti- 
 est, purest, sweetest, holiest Ideal realized, — the 
 divine beauty incarnate, — the son of God. To draw 
 men, through gazing on that face, into assimilative 
 sympathy which shall transform the fallen soul into 
 the image of its Maker, is the great aim of Christi- 
 anity. 
 
134 
 
 TEE INCARNATION. 
 
 The restorative forces for such a soul evidently 
 must be, as we have already indicated, from without 
 itself. Once admitting sin within itself, it has come 
 within a fatal circle, from which, left to itself, it will 
 not escape. It must be delivered by being drawn 
 into sympathy with a purer mind. 
 
 No theories or definitions of the good, the beauti- 
 ful, the right or expedient, suflice. The great diffi- 
 culty is not in intellect, but soul ; not to define, but 
 to induce pursuit ; to create a loving and a choosing. 
 
 " Video meliora jprohoque. Deteriora sequorf-^ 
 
 “ I see the good, and I approve it too; 
 
 I know the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue,*’ — 
 
 is the self-recorded epitaph of the most brilliant and 
 illumined intellects. " The good I would, I do not ; 
 the evil I would not, that I do,” pictures the malady. 
 Nor is it mere choosing that makes morality. It is 
 the motive of the choice. The essence of virtue is the 
 love of virtue itself. 
 
 This love is kindled in vision of a person, ( not a 
 thesis or a philosophy or a paradigm^/ Life comes 
 from life ; from the action of soul on soul. We need 
 that mysterious power, — earlier born than logic, 
 swifter than induction, irresolvable by analysis, 
 occult amidst the primal and ultimate elements of 
 our being, which we call sympathy, — that wondrous 
 power of life with life, assimilating, through inter- 
 consciousness, souls that are brought into commun- 
 ion ; that makes us grow like to the face we gaze on ; 
 that shapes the infant countenance to the mother’s 
 smile, with almost its earliest look on the light. 
 
THE INCARNATION, 
 
 135 
 
 By this influence, this extension of personality, 
 the Creator transfigures created minds to his own 
 likeness, and binds the moral universe to Himself. 
 It extends, we believe, through all orders of being, 
 a charm from the eternal mind through the lowest 
 rank of ascending souls, drawing up all to himself; a 
 chain, fastening all to his throne which, being sun- 
 dered, the bands of moral order would break, and 
 the moral universe sink to night and chaos. 
 
 This assimilative power of sympathy is mightier in 
 proportion to the greatness and glory of the being 
 into inter-consciousness with which the soul is drawn. 
 Evidently, then, it is mightiest in communion with 
 God. Now, whether or no we are authorized to 
 predicate that no less force could arrest the fall of a 
 soul and new-create it, it is clear that Christianity 
 introduces the mightiest power in the universe for 
 that purpose, in drawing man directly into sympathy 
 with the divine nature. 
 
 But to secure this sympathy, it were not enough 
 that Christianity revealed to us simply a personal 
 God. It might simply disclose almighty, omniscient, 
 and eternal justice watching over a world of sin. 
 The mind that is to draw me into sympathy, must 
 afiect me, not only with a sense of its purity, beauty, 
 and grandeur, but also of its kindness, its pity,^ 
 placableness, its readiness to forgive if I have 
 offended. Terror and despair freeze up all sympa- 
 thy. In order to enter into sympathy with God, I 
 must feel, beyond all questionings, God loves me, 
 pities me, is ready to forgive me on repentance. 
 Such sentiment must therefore be disclosed in the 
 
136 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 person that reveals Him, else all the other attributes 
 that should attract a sinless being will repel me as a 
 sinner. 
 
 I surely need not pause to show how Christianity 
 meets these requisitions ; how the advent of the Son 
 and Revealer of God was inaugurated with the angel- 
 anthem of ” Peace on earth, good will to men ” ; how 
 the gospel opens with the prelude, ” God so loved the 
 worlds that He gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
 soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life ” ; * how '' the word was made flesh,’’ 
 and dwelt among men '' full of grace and truth ” ; how 
 full of gentle, loving, and healing offices his earthly 
 life was, to all classes of earth’s sufferers ; how on 
 the cross He poured out his soul, in ” Father forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do ” ; and how 
 ”He who was the brightness of Jehovah’s glory, and 
 the express image of his person, after He had him- 
 self purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of 
 the Majesty on High,” "where He ever liveth to make 
 intercession for us,^^ 
 
 It is the divine love that draws forth human love. 
 " We love God because He first loved us.” 
 
 Again, not only must the personage in which God 
 is revealed present Him placable, loving, and forgiv- 
 ing, but also, in order to establish full and most 
 potent sympathy between man and God, he must be 
 truly a human person ; that is, he must, while on the 
 one hand presenting^mmanent in himself "the ful- 
 ness of the Godhead bodily,” so that the words 
 spoken and the acts performed are not his, but those 
 
 *John 3: 16. 
 
Tim INCARNATION. 
 
 137 
 
 of Him who sent him, so that "He that hath seen 
 Him hath seen the Father,” in order that in dealing 
 with Him men may feel they are dealing verily with 
 God, — he must also, at the same time, be strictly 
 and truly human and in human conditions. 
 
 God must come out of the infinite and reveal Him- 
 self in the finite. The representative personage must 
 be presented subject to liability to pain, trial, temp- 
 tation, and death, like others of human mold ; else I 
 cannot sympathize because I cannot understand ; else 
 the being is incomprehensible to me, is entirely 
 beyond the range of my experience, and I can know 
 a person only by the interpretation of my own con- 
 sciousness. A person angelic, impassive, untempt- 
 able, is not the revelation I need. The mightiest 
 factors of sympathy certainly were wanting in such 
 an one ; the divinest beauty of love through sufiering, 
 and of forgiveness through dying, were impossible. 
 
 Such a Christ could not have borne my sicknesses 
 or sorrows, or suffered on the cross for me. Such a 
 Christ I could not know, and therefore I could not 
 know God, whom I must know through Him. I 
 must, therefore, fail of eternal life ; for the idea of 
 eternal life without assimilation to God, is the most 
 audacious and stupendous of absurdities. But con- 
 formity to God can be wrought only by sympathy 
 with God, working us to affection and moral senti- 
 ment kindred to His own. But sympathy must be 
 grounded on a conscious community or similarity of 
 being. Only, by being like God, can I know God ; 
 only by having in myself a consciousness and experi- 
 ence interpreting the attributes predicated of God. 
 
138 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 Such, indeed, is the law of all the knowledge of 
 things. No words could ever explain to me the 
 import of beauty or love, but through my previous 
 consciousness of these emotions. Language is a 
 reminder and a revival, not a creator, of ideas. So I 
 can know God only through a consciousness kindred 
 to his own, wrought in me by his embracing me in 
 his sympathy ; and this knowledge and sympathy can 
 come only through a revelation in a human person, 
 like my own. 
 
 Philosophy may postulate an impassive God. Into 
 the awful profound opened by that question, I do not 
 enter. I have no sounding line for its depths. But 
 this is clearly written on my own nature ; the being 
 that is to draw me into sympathy must have emo- 
 tion ; the mediator through whom I am to be drawn, 
 the person who is to represent apd reveal God to 
 my trust and love, must especially the 
 
 Christ that is to win me most mightily to God, that 
 is to enter most profoundly into my adoration, my 
 lov6, my sympathy, must approach me with the 
 divine sweetness of love shown in sacrifice. The 
 captain of my salvation must "5e made perfect 
 through suffering.'” 
 
 It is clear that the idea of God such as philosophy 
 postulates, as cased in adamantine order, working 
 only by inflexible machinery of general laws, looking 
 down from the ever-silent infinite with the face of a 
 Fate, could not save a world like ours. A mind, 
 over whose eternal deep no new emotion, whether 
 of pain or pleasure, of indignation or love or pity, 
 could ever ripple, from eternity to eternity ; that 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 139 
 
 looks down with unchanged feature alike on a Judas 
 or a Christ, a Borgia or a Howard ; such a being is 
 beyond my sympathy, beyond my prayer, above or 
 beneath me by the breadth of a universe. For an 
 assimilative and new-creative sympathy, humanity 
 needs a Heavenly Father, a brother in the skies, and 
 to feel the pulses of our human heart, of our human 
 pity and love, beating from the divine breast. J/ 
 
 Finally, amid the provision for moral force in the 
 Christian system, I point to one which is coronal, 
 and which effectuates all the rest ; which intensifies 
 and perpetuates the application of them to the soul. 
 I mean the condition insisted on as requisite to sal- 
 vation, — FAITH. This is no arbitrary requirement, 
 as is sometimes charged. Its necessity lies in the 
 very nature of things, the nature of mind and of sal- 
 vation. It is the necessary means to the intromission 
 into the soul of the transfiguring beauty of God that 
 has been revealed in the face of Christ. Faith is 
 the steadfast gaze of the soul on that beauty, a gaze 
 intensified by trust and love, an immanent sense of 
 inter-consciousness with the divine mind, mighty to 
 change the soul from glory to glory, in the likeness 
 of that which it looks upon. 
 
 Faith is the most potent applier of the truths of 
 Christianity to minds,' thejjlasp^^t binds the human 
 heart to that of the Creator. 
 
 Such is the schenie of moral forces for the re- 
 covery of fallen minds which Christianity discloses, 
 bound up in the revelation of God in a human per- 
 son. Such the fitness of that wonderful person for 
 the office required, at once revealing to us God the 
 
140 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 Father, and gathering around .that revelation thepro- 
 foundest sympathies of human soids. He comes, 
 who is in the bosom of the Father, to " show us the 
 Father,” " he in whom dwelt the fulness of the God- 
 head bodily, even the fulness of his mercy and love, 
 to draw us, by that love, into a transforming sym- 
 pathy with God. 
 
 He comes from out the infinite to meet the cry of 
 humanity feeling after God, — " O God, Thou hast 
 made us for Thee, and our heart cannot be quiet till 
 it rests in Thee.” He comes " who is the brightness 
 of God’s glory, and the express image of his person,” 
 to show us in himself the image and the glory. 
 
 Again : He comes as a human person, a brother ; 
 
 that he may show the divine beauty set in humanity ; 
 show the divine love through suffering; draw me 
 into sympathy, through an inter-consciousness of 
 temptation, grief, and pain, by bearing my sicknesses 
 and sorrows, going before me through the death- 
 shade, and by presenting that face in which shines 
 the ineffable glory shaded for my sake in mortal 
 agony, and stained with human tears : He, in whom 
 
 the infinite is revealed in the finite ; the inapassible 
 in the passible ; the immortal in the mortal. 
 
 History demonstrates the superiority of this 
 scheme as a means of moral restoration and renova- 
 tion. First, over that of a revelation of God in 
 nature, with its fixed order and immutable general 
 laws, as in case of the ancient heathen world ; and 
 secondly, over that of a revelation of God by signs 
 and wonders interrupting the fixed order of nature 
 and attesting a verbal characterization of God, asso- 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 141 
 
 ciatecl with positive law. and institute, as in case of 
 the Hebrews. 
 
 Firsts history shows the impotency of a disclosure 
 of God in nature, though supplemented and modified 
 by that in the consciousness of the human soul, to 
 create or conserve the moral purity of nations, or of 
 men. Under this system the most gifted and culti- 
 vated races of the ancient world — though by the 
 force of our human nature which cries out for a per- 
 sonal God, they impersonated general laws and 
 abstract qualities, and so peopled the fixed order 
 of nature with personal deities — found no perma- 
 nent moral relief. With genius, culture, and science, 
 philosophy, eloquence, poesy, political sagacity, and 
 empire ministrant to it, — all, on a trial of ages, 
 were found utterly inadequate to heal the moral 
 maladies of humanity, or stay the march of society 
 to the most foul and frightful corruption. 
 
 The brilliancy of their civilization shows speedily 
 as the phosphorescence of decay, the intellectual illu- 
 mination only making the darkness visible, of a 
 movement it could not arrest, toward moral putres- 
 cence and social dissolution. The Greek in the 
 Macedonian era, and the Latin under the Caesars, 
 show the hopeless failure of natural religion associ- 
 ated with the most rich and brilliant culture, as a 
 corrective or conservative of private or social mo- 
 rality. 
 
 Secondly^ In like manner, the Hebrew institute, 
 with God manifesting Himself by special interven- 
 tions amid fixed natural laws, and by the inspired 
 utterances of law-giver, psalmist, and seer, and 
 
142 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 perpetuating his memorial in distinctive social insti- 
 tutes and religious symbolism, was found, after ages 
 of trial, incompetent to save even the chosen race 
 from moral and political decay, much more to master 
 and renovate the world. Save as a preparative and 
 educational scheme, it was a failure. 
 
 But when in Jesus Christ God had revealed Him- 
 self in a human person and a human life, a new and 
 wondrous moral power is clearly recognized by his- 
 tory, as entering the circle of human affairs. The 
 charm of a divine beauty touched the heart of the 
 world. A reformative and new-creative energy 
 pulsated throughout it, from the depths to the 
 heights. 
 
 This pulse still beats down the centuries, ever 
 fresh and young. The outward aspects of the world 
 have changed ; political and social systems have come 
 and gone ; empires and civilizations have passed 
 away ; but the vitalizing, moral impulse then com- 
 municated is still undecayed and unconfined. It has 
 been entangled and hindered by many alien forces ; 
 often mixed up and disguised with foreign elements ; 
 often confounded with dogmas that have grown obso- 
 lete ; with modes of thought, feeling, and action that 
 were adscititious, and have fallen away from the 
 substantive essence ; but the moral life-power that 
 entered the world with the revelation of God in 
 Jesus Christ, still lives, and still energizes more 
 widely and more mightily in more human interests 
 and human souls than at any period since the resur- 
 rection of Christ. On it is no mold of age, no taint 
 of decay. 
 
THE mCARNATIOIT. 
 
 143 
 
 Spite of perversions and misdirections of adverse 
 philosophies and theosophies, and of oppositions of 
 science falsely so called, it has waited on humanity 
 in all its progress, and become more thoroughly and 
 profoundly incorporated with the life of the world, 
 more and more inwrought into the organic and vital- 
 izing forces of civilization. 
 
 ^ The voice that inaugurated it eighteen centuries 
 ago on the hills of Judea, as ushering in an era of 
 peace and good will to men, has since expanded on 
 earth, as it did then in the heavens, to the psalm of 
 an innumerable host, an orchestral symphony of ages 
 and nations, richer as it rolls along, with new-born 
 truths and sciences and charities swelling its choral 
 volume. It is obvious that whatever else may 
 become merely things of the letter and pass away, 
 the vision of the personal God in Christ, with its 
 transfiguring charm, cannot perish from humanity 
 without the perishing of the moral structure of the 
 modern world. yL. 
 
 God’s most glorious gifts lose appreciation through 
 { wantage. Their value comes in the thought of their 
 absence ; that of life in thought of death ; that of 
 the sun in the thought it is never more to rise.y Sup- 
 pose^ then, the fact of the incarnation were blotted 
 out of the history of th^'world, how would it stand 
 with its moral forces ? 
 
 The manifestation of God in Christ vanishes like 
 a strange dream. The ravishing sweetness of divine 
 love, uttered through suffering, is become a beautiful 
 delirium. Narazeth, Capernaum, Olivet disappear 
 from the scenery of history, with that of the garden, 
 
 
144 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 the cross, the city of light and the river of life. The 
 face of inelfable love, the' celestial effulgency softened 
 to human sympathy, fades from the sky. The day 
 grows dark and cold. The sun draws hack his 
 beams. Curtains of solemn and mysterious shadow 
 fall. Humanity stands again under a sky of eternal 
 fixed order — alone ! 
 
 We are relegated to a God disclosed in the order 
 of nature only. This is all our lesson, not only of a 
 God of force, but of pity and love All things run 
 in the eternal groove of law ; no arrest, no turning 
 aside, no remission, no relenting, no forgiveness. 
 A cold, impassive, adamantine order, without a 
 flush or pulse or breath of life from eternity. And 
 behind it, what? The Infinite, the absolute, the 
 unknowable, the alone 1 This is all! With such 
 names man looks after God. But who, and what, 
 and where is He ? A force ? a principle ? a phan- 
 tasm ? a conceit ? Or is there an eternally marble 
 face looking down on us through these skies of dreary 
 order? A God, the mere operator of eternal neces- 
 sity ? Himself meshed in his own laws ? The mere 
 factor of inexorable fate ? 
 
 What moral force ? What life of love or liberty 
 or hope or sympathy, what power unto repentance 
 and renewal in that vision? A universe of soulless 
 force, working through a system of infinite mecha- 
 nism in the lines of everlasting, changeless law, 
 W'here orbs glorious in brightness and grandeur, but 
 voiceless and dead, roll on in never-ernng orbits^ 
 through abysses of eterntd silence and^^hi! 1 
 wander, endlessly, through the shining waste; I 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 145 
 
 shudder, I freeze, in its glittering solitudes. Its 
 infinite order is my infinite despair. For I look, 
 I long for life ; for a token, a pulse of the living 
 God. In vain. No heart beats in its infinite mecha- 
 nism ; no stir of life on its illimitable frozen deeps ; 
 no flush of love in the desolate splendors of its arctic 
 skies. 
 
 — OT'if upon this background of infinite, lifeless 
 order, my guilt or fancy or inference from self- 
 consciousness bodies forth a personal deity, as in 
 the case of the classic nations, what is He? A 
 power of justice, whose moral laws are as relentless 
 as those of nature, and thus shut out all sympathy 
 as they do all hope ? Or is He like myself, the vic- 
 tim of inexorable law ? Is He impassive ? or with 
 passion too much like my own, who may by frail 
 example allure me into conflict with that law, but 
 cannot deliver me from its grasp ? 
 
 I ask of history. She f shows me the heart of 
 humanity ever stirred in its profoundest conscious- 
 ness with the feeling of a God, — its instinct of 
 causality applied to nature and to itself, compelling 
 it to feel after a creator ; in the million, at least, after 
 a God in the concrete, embodied and personal, and 
 reflecting its own self-consciousness. 
 
 This self-consciousness I see stronger than philoso- 
 phy, with its God cased in fate, and prisoned in 
 law, and spite of that system peopling the universe 
 with reflections of itself, with impersonations of sen- 
 suous beauty and might of passion and lust. 
 
 I see it crowding the heavens with myths, chill 
 cloud-forms, beneath which humanity is congealed 
 
146 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 into art, not wanned into virtue ; or with tropic 
 vapors, baleful, pestilential, thunderous, under which 
 it grows palsied and gangrenous, or feverous and 
 delirious. Forms sensual and seductive allure to 
 voluptuous sin, or those malign or vengeful brandish 
 their bolts over the pale nations, while they crouch, 
 cower, and rush, swifter and more desperate to per- 
 dition. But no quickening moral power, no river of 
 life flows from its Olympus ; none to the supersti- 
 tious millions who believed, much less to the sceptical 
 philosophers who sneered at all this personnel volup- 
 tuous or malign as only mockeries called forth by 
 human credulity on a background of eternal necessity. 
 
 Or again, in quest of a power of moral redemption, 
 fly we to a God who arrests or bends the fixed order 
 of nature at the behests of moral law, and by such 
 interventions, and by verbal declaration and ordi- 
 nance attested by them, makes enunciation of Him- 
 self? I am in the presence of the Hebrew insti- 
 tute. I am before Sinai, but the cloud hides Him. 
 I am at the temple ; the Shekinah veils Him. God, 
 self-uttered through creation and law, here breaks 
 through the fixed order of nature to speak to me, but 
 his face is hid. I witness his tokens. I see "the 
 brightness of his skirts.” I hear the voice of the 
 passing God. Through the deft in nature, the 
 Infinite, the Incomprehensible, the Inefiable, is 
 glimpsed, passing before me with the proclamation of 
 his moral attributes, " the Lord, the Lord God, mer- 
 ciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in 
 goodness and truth. I hear this proclamation borne 
 down the ages by psalmists and prophet. " But lo ! He 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 147 
 
 goeth by, and I see Him not. He passeth on also, 
 and I perceive Him not.” To this extent, no more, 
 is the revelation of God. We have simply the word 
 UTTERED, not " the WORD MADE FLESH.” 
 
 We have a verbal characterization, the self-decla- 
 ration of God, just, merciful, and forgiving to the 
 penitent. But the mightiest forces to induce repent- 
 ance are wanting. There is a sense of the presence 
 of the Infinite, the Incomprehensible, the Just One. 
 But the life-power of a revelation in a person, the 
 transforming sympathy of an inter-consciousness with 
 a human person, and that mightiest of all moral forces 
 creative of spiritual renewal, the eloquence of divine 
 
 love shown through suffering — - these, alas, I find not ! 
 I find no sorrow-bearer, no sin-bearer, no Gethsem- 
 ane, no cross, no ever-living presence of a divine 
 sympathizer, a suffering Eedeemer. 
 
 With many beneficent moral issues, quickening the 
 moral sense of men, and presenting the norm of 
 perfect righteousness still to the multitudes cer- 
 tainly little capable of dealing with the abstract and 
 the purely spiritual, this revelation is no redemption. 
 It is a disclosure rather than cure of the moral malady 
 of man ; a creator of terror more than of sympathy. 
 It convicts only, not converts. It shows my guilt 
 and summons me before the All- Just. No more. 
 
 Suppose it clearly offers salvation on repentance. 
 Kemorse is not repentance. Nor is fear of penalty, 
 nor are right convictions of the good and true. It is 
 turning the heart earnestly and lovingly to Him that 
 is the ever good and true. But the mightiest charm 
 to draw me thither, fails. The light of the glory of 
 
148 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 God in the face of Jesus Christ, the radiance of divine 
 love shining out through suffering, is quenched for- 
 ever ! Salvation on repentance; on i^epentance! 
 '' Ay, there’s the rub,” Repent I What can one do, 
 when one cannot repent ? Be drawn into sympathy 
 with God I The attributes which should attract, 
 repel, affright me, conscious of guilt. Tell me not 
 of his holiness. It blasts me I Nor of his justice. 
 That is my despair ! His omnipotence, omniscience, 
 omnipresence, eternity, they make the universe my 
 dungeon. No flight or force avails me, nor the 
 course of eternal ages. There is no hiding-place 
 even in the shadow of death. Tell me not even of 
 his love. That must guard virtue and vindicate its 
 law, and "be it love or hate, to me alike it brings 
 eternal pain.” 
 
 Sympathize with such a God I With a power that 
 destroys me ? with a throne founded on my grave ? a 
 Nemesis that hunts me down eternity ? with the glory 
 and beauty of a God that impends over me like the 
 face of the pitiless Dis ? As well sympathize with the 
 glory and beauty of Niagara as it bears me to the 
 fatal plunge ; with the cruel might of the abysmal 
 ocean ; with the earthquake that swallows me up ; 
 with the lightning that strikes me dead. 
 
 And this, the all of our revelation of God ! of our 
 illumination from Heaven ! A revelation as when the 
 red right hand stretches down through the folding 
 darkness of the storm, and nature shudders beneath ! 
 The illumination of a burning world lit up by its own 
 fires to the eternal judgment ! Terror and despair 
 freeze up all sympathy. A moral God is disclosed, 
 
THE INCARNATION. 
 
 149 
 
 but for me, girt round with consuming cffulgcncy. 
 A Heaven is shown, but to me, its gates, like those 
 of our lost Eden, 
 
 “ With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms.” 
 
 I find myself under a system which of itself, unless 
 supplemented by some further revelation, leaves me 
 with no moral deliverance. My moral nature is still 
 cold and dead. God is glorious, and the universe is 
 beautiful. But I am helpless, hopeless, lost. I sink 
 beneath the glory and the beauty, as the desperate 
 swimmer sinks beneath the splendors of the nightly 
 skies in the depths of ocean. 
 
 But now, as I look around in the very crisis of 
 my despair, lo ! the heavens are open. A wondrous 
 person descends from the bosom of the Father, reveal- 
 ing the beauty of his unspeakable love in a human 
 form, that wears for me mortality, and suffers and 
 dies for me. 
 
 As I behold, a new spiritual power enfolds me. I 
 find myself in a new universe. New life beats through 
 my whole moral being. Divine love stooping to my 
 nature, and proving itself through suffering, is 
 mightier than my guilt, my fear, my despair. It 
 subdues me to repentance, to faith, to hope, to love. 
 It enravishes me, it transforms me. Cloud and dark- 
 ness pass from before the throne. The emerald bow 
 of peace engirds it. The intolerable brightness is 
 shaded into the sweetness of human sympathy. Fiery 
 cherub and flaming sword disappear. Wide flung 
 are the gates of the City of God. Hands that were 
 pierced for me, hold open its portals. One that has 
 
150 
 
 THE INCARNATION. 
 
 redeemed me, and washed me from my sins in his 
 own blood, that cried on the cross, "Father forgive,” 
 bids me come up thither — a saved soul. 
 
 I find, moreover, that the new moral life-power I 
 feel within me, is pulsating through millions and 
 through ages. I see, at the very crisis when history 
 has demonstrated the failure of both schemes, — those 
 of natural religion, or of mere verbal and legal reve- 
 lation, in the most favorable circumstances of trial, 
 — in this very despair of the world, when faith, 
 virtue, ahd civilization seem in hopeless decay, when 
 was least to he expected the ingress of a new moral 
 power, such a power is manifested ; — a power which 
 works on through the eclipse of ancient civilization, 
 and the wreck of the elder world, and, extending its 
 living impulse through centuries of barbaric ruin and 
 spiritual despotism, has become the vitalizing and 
 organic element of modern society ; a power which 
 was never more youthful and potent than now ; never 
 more rapidly extending its new-creating force through 
 barbarous races ; never more deepening and broaden- 
 ing its domain in the intellect and heart of the civil- 
 ized world, than at this hour ; never more operative 
 of social and personal reform and renovation ; never 
 more effective for the removal of vice, wretchedness, 
 and violence within nations, or the establishment of 
 the regimen of honor, truth, and benevolence be- 
 tween them ; never more incorporate with the forces 
 of progress, the life of civilization, and the hopes of 
 humanity for its most illumined future. 
 
 To what can histoiy or philosophy trace the origin 
 of this new and strange moral life-power enteritig the 
 
THE INCARNATION, 
 
 151 
 
 world at such a time ? To what else than '' the word 
 made flesh ” ? — the revelation of God in a human 
 person, touching the world with a sense of Divine 
 love, breaking up its sensuous stupor and the paral- 
 ysis of fear and despair, and throwing over it the 
 plastic, assimilative charm of a Divine sympathy? 
 This seems to me to present the only -philosophical 
 or Jiistorical solution of this phenomenon. Life comes 
 from the perpetual appulse of ILe life of God. From 
 out the desolate infinite, from out the unapproachable 
 glory or the ” ever-during cloud and dark,” a face of 
 Divine love ineffable has looked out on a fallen race. 
 " God who commanded the light to shine out of 
 darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light 
 of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
 Jesus Christ.” ^This is mj^ only explanation of this 
 wondrous phenomeiipn. Take this away, and the 
 oracles of history arij philosophy in the presence 
 of the vastest fact of thb past world are to me dumb. 
 
 I 
 
 7 ,. 
 
 r 
 
 V ■/" j v--'V t-A'-- f 
 
 ( \ j- ■ , Li i> ^ ' 
 
 < v/ ^ 
 
 
 
VI. 
 
 THE FOUKTH GOSPEL, — THE EECOED AND TESTI- 
 MONY OF THE INNEE LIFE OF ITS AUTHOE.* 
 
 BY TIMOTHY DWIGHT, D. D. 
 
 A mong the questions respecting the Fourth 
 Gospel, which may be regarded as having been 
 substantially determined, is that of its main design. 
 Whenever and* by whomsoever it was written, it was 
 not intended to be a mere narrative, nor a work 
 like the earlier or Synoptical Gospels. Its record 
 of the life of Jesus was made, not for its own sake 
 alone, — simply to tell the story of what he said 
 and did and suffered, — but for an end outside 
 of and beyond itself. That end is set forth in the 
 
 * In this lecture the author purposely turns aside from what are 
 called the external evidences of the genuineness of the Fourth Gospel, 
 and also from the evidences w;hich are derived from the indications of 
 the Apostle’s personal (as we may say, outivard) presence and partici- 
 pation in the scenes which he describes, and limits himself to a single 
 line of thought, having reference to the inner life of the writer of the 
 Gospel and the evidence which is drawn from that source. He, there- 
 fore, in some comparatively unimportant points, assumes, as already 
 proved, certain things which, in a more general discussion, he would 
 have felt called upon to establish by argument. There is' no case of 
 this kind, however, as he believes, where the assumption is at all essen- 
 tial, either to the main conclusion of the whole discussion, or to the 
 particular argument in connection with which it is made. In the 
 closing pages, — towards which all the i:>receding ones are made to 
 point, — he calls attention to the argument for the truth of Christianity, 
 which is suggested by the record of this inner life. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 153 
 
 author’s own language, in the closing verses, of the 
 twentieth chapter, as being the production of faith in 
 Jesus as the Son of God, and, thus, the opening of 
 the way of spiritual and immortal life to every reader. 
 It is possible, indeed, that the writer may have 
 wished to add to the statements which he found in 
 the other histories ; or, in some cases, to arrange 
 the events in a more accurate order. Or, again, he 
 may have had in view the errors of certain heretics 
 and opposers, and may have desired to contradict or 
 disprove them. Some have discovered, as they sup- 
 posed, the evidences of these things. We do not 
 care to deny the force of the arguments which they 
 bring forward. The writer, however, — whatever 
 may be said upon these points, — was not a coptro- 
 versialist contending against other opinions than his 
 own, as if engaged in a doctrinal warfare ; nor was 
 he one who merely supplemented the deficiencies of 
 others, or told a well-known story in a somewhat 
 better form. His work has a tendency and aim 
 which is manifest from the beginning to the end, — 
 one which it never loses sight of, — one to which 
 everything else, that may in any measure characterize 
 it, is altogether subordinate, — the one which has just 
 been mentioned. 
 
 Another point, which I think may be regarded as 
 sufficiently settled, is, that, whoever the author was, 
 or at whatever time he lived, he had some reference, 
 in the phraseology of what is called his prologue^ to 
 the philosophical speculations by which he was sur- 
 rounded. That the origin of the term Logos or its 
 associated terms is to be found in the Old Testament 
 
154 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 maybe denied by some, — that they came from the 
 Greek Philosophy may be rejected by others, — while 
 there may be wide variations of views respecting the 
 progress which the discussions of men upon these 
 subjects may be supposed to have already made 
 before the writing of this Gospel. But — without 
 attempting, or considering it important for our pres- 
 ent purpose, to determine the right one among these 
 many opinions — there was, we may be sure, a con- 
 nection between this remarkable introductory passage 
 and the discussions of the time and* place in which 
 the author lived. The people around him — the 
 educated people, at least — were talking, more or 
 less, upon these subjects. The philosophical lan- 
 guage of the day had adopted, to some extent, these 
 forms of expression, and this writer knew them as 
 thus adopted and employed. 
 
 If, now, we take these two points as already 
 established, the bearing of the latter upon the former 
 is such, as to show that the author, in carrying out 
 his main design, was endeavoring to prove, not 
 merely that Jesus was a revelation of God, or the 
 revelation of God, but that he was that revelation 
 of God which his contemporaries were blindly dis- 
 coursing of, and seeking for. He was the Logos in 
 truth, — God manifesting himself in the world. If 
 they could be led to this belief, he was sure that all 
 their questionings would cease, because the truth 
 would then be beaming upon them, and the life of 
 the soul, which their searching had"' never found, 
 would follow in the line of faith. 
 
 But, even when we have gone thus far, as we may. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 155 
 
 under the guidance of past investigation, we have 
 not, as it appears to me, exhausted all that can be 
 justly said. There is a third point, beyond the two 
 already mentioned, to which I would direct especial 
 thought, on the present occasion, and make it the 
 starting-point of all that I have to urge. This 
 Gospel bears within itself the evidence that its 
 author, who either was, or, in the work which he 
 was writing, personated the Apostle John, designed 
 to give his narrative the appearance of having a very 
 peculiar relation to that Apostle’s own experience. 
 I say, a very peculiar relation^ and by this I mean 
 something more than the fact that he was an eye- 
 witness of the events described, or lived among them. 
 There is an abundance of proofs that he intended 
 this to appear to be the case. But there is something 
 more than this. He meant to have his story appa- 
 rently give the account of the way in which the mew 
 religious life of the apostle originated, and developed 
 itself into strength and perfectness. His definite 
 aim was, that his readers should suppose the Apostle 
 himself to be telling them of the influences which had 
 wrought in his own mind the belief that Jesus was, 
 indeed, the Divine Logos. 
 
 The form and plan and method of his work were 
 determined carefully on every side, and separated 
 on every side from such simple narratives as the 
 other evansrelists had ^iven. He wrote with the 
 great purpose of establishing a certain truth. The 
 for7u of presentation of that truth — and, so far 
 forth, this was the occasion of his writing as he did 
 — was due, wholly or partially, to the questionings 
 
156 
 
 Tim FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 and speculations of men around him. The mode of 
 proving to them the truth, which he adopted, was not 
 that of argumentation, as in a doctrinal controversy, 
 hnt that of relating the words and works of one who 
 fulfilled the truth in his own person, and with whom 
 he had himself been associated. The reason for Ms 
 adopting tMs method was because his having been an 
 eye and ear-witness of these works and words had 
 convinced his own mind, and so he thought that the 
 record of what he had known, would convince others 
 also. And thus everything comes, in the last result, 
 from his own personal experience of the truth and 
 of faith in it. In other words, he approaches his 
 fellow-countrymen — who were asking about the 
 Logos, and discussing in this way and in that — with 
 the statement, — I have seen him, who is the Logos 
 indeed. Three years of intimate communion with 
 him have brought to my mind this sure conviction. 
 Come with me to the record of his life. Let me 
 guide your way through it, as I have lived my way 
 through it, from its beginning to its ending. Let 
 me tell you how my faith, from my very earliest 
 interview with him, grew gradually stronger with 
 every new manifestation of his wonderful character 
 and power, until it rose above all possibility of 
 doubting. Let me open it before you till you have 
 seen it all, — and I am sure that, if, by any means, 
 you can be brought to appreciate the truth, or if you 
 have within you any real susceptibility to the truth, 
 you will have the same experience that I have had ; 
 you will believe as I have believed. 
 
 This Gospel loses half of its force without this 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 157 
 
 last-mentioned element ; and its author well knew 
 that it would. He meant that it should appear as the 
 Apostle^ s record of his own faith ^ and of the life of 
 Jesus as producing and continually increasing that 
 faith. Let us look at some of the evidences that this 
 is so. 
 
 I. In the first place, we notice in this. Gospel, in 
 a very remarkable degree, as compared with the 
 other three, a bringing forward into prominence of 
 the personality of its professed author, the Apostle. 
 The earlier evangelists give suflS^cient indications 
 that they were familiar with the events which they 
 narrate. Matthew was an actor in them.^ But 
 neither the others nor even he, notwithstanding the 
 fact that their histories were \^ritten long before this 
 one, present to our view any one of the disciples of 
 Jifesus as the beloved disciple is here presented. He 
 is made a kind of centre, around which, at one stage 
 of the history after another, the actions gather them- 
 selves. The story begins and ends with the record- 
 ing of impressions produced upon his mind. The 
 friendship which he had with the Master is pressed 
 upon the reader’s attention again and again. In the 
 intimate association of the twelve with Jesus and 
 with one another, he stands out conspicuous, as 
 comprehending the truth more deeply, and recogniz- 
 ing the Lord more fully. And, yet, there is no self- 
 glorification in all this. There is, as we may say, no 
 self-manifestation, in any offensive sense of the word. 
 The prominence which he gives to himself is even 
 
 * See note on the first page of this lecture. 
 
158 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSREL. 
 
 more peculiar in its character, than in its degree. 
 He carefully hides his name, as if he would not be 
 discovered, except by those who should determine 
 his personality through gaining from the story the 
 knowledge of his character. He loses himself in 
 his testimony to his Divine teacher as truly as any 
 of the other writers, — as truly, even, as if he had 
 been the humblest and most unknown of that 
 Teacher’s followers. Nay, he even seems to kno^ 
 nothing but Christ, and cares for nothing beside, if 
 so be that Christ is only believed in. 
 
 Now, how can we account for this double or two- 
 sided phenomenon, as we may call it? It certainly 
 is not in accordance with the character of one who, 
 as the opponents of this Gospel claim with regard to 
 its author, was taking up the labored defence of some 
 doctrine which had developed itself after the time of 
 Christ. The defender of a theological dogma or of a 
 school could not have written in this way. Indeed, 
 on the theory that the book is a theological treatise, 
 this whole matter of the apostle’s personality, in all 
 its striking features, is altogether inexplicable. And 
 just in proportion as we bring it, in our conceptions, 
 nearer to such a treatise, just in that proportion do 
 we involve ourselves in difficulties from this source. 
 Nor, again, on the other hand, does it seem like the 
 course of a man who merely repeats, in his old age, 
 the stories of scenes which had a deep interest for 
 him when he was young, or gives his personal testi- 
 mony to what he heard when in the midst of those 
 scenes, because he thinks what he then heard of 
 great importance to mankind. Had this been all, he 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 159 
 
 might have done either of the two things which we 
 have noticed. He might have made himself the all- 
 important person in the narrative, or he might have 
 withdrawn entirely behind the events. Under such 
 circumstances, the impulse of men universally is to 
 take one or the other of these courses. But this 
 author combines them both, or, rather, pursues his 
 pathway between them, in a manner which scarcely 
 finds a parallel in all literature. The ordinary expla- 
 nation given by the advocates of the genuineness of 
 the book, though containing a part of the truth, will 
 not, then, as I am persuaded, meet the peculiar 
 demands of the case. It is reasonable, so far as it 
 reaches, and therefore is not to be wholly rejected 
 like that proposed by its opponents. But it needs 
 supplementing, because it fails to give us complete 
 satisfaction. So soon, however, as we recognize the 
 other element to which we have alluded, and find its 
 presence in the author’s mind and purpose when he 
 writes, the difficulties are at once removed. The 
 most remarkable peculiarity of the book, which dis- 
 tinguishes it from all the other writings even of the 
 apostolic authors, is seen to have a perfectly natural 
 basis ; and in the very fitness of this explanation to 
 make all things plain, is the first evidence of its 
 truth. Adopting it as the truth, we say, with confi- 
 dence, that the additional force which the author, 
 speaking in the person of the apostle, desired to give 
 to his statements through the introduction of himself 
 into the narrative, is not to be found alone in his 
 declaration, ” He who saw it bare record,” but in that 
 other declaration, " He saw and believed.^^ The half- 
 
160 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 concealment of his personality, even where he puts 
 it forward with greatest clearness, was not simply 
 because he shrank from notoriety or modestly depre- 
 ciated himself. But it was because, if he could only 
 show his readers how, through the experience of the 
 things which he was recording for their perusal, the 
 character of that disciple, into whose heart these 
 things had entered most thoroughly, had been trans- 
 formed and elevated into the higher life, it concerned 
 him not at all that they should know his name or who 
 he w^as, except, indeed, so far as he was the disciple 
 whom Jesus loved. The growth of his faith w^as 
 everything to his view, because, with the power of a 
 living illustration^ it would impress the truth which 
 he had to proclaim upon the hearts of those for whom' 
 he wrote. The continuance of the knowledge of 
 himself, on the other hand, was nothing^ because his 
 every thought was upon the truth and the life ; and, 
 while these had come to him, they had not come 
 through him, but through the Divine Messenger of 
 whom he testified. Why, then, should he not have 
 written as he did? How, indeed we may almost say, 
 could he have written otherwise ? 
 
 II. In the second place, all who have examined 
 this Gospel with care, have noticed a marked peculi- 
 arity in the order of arrangement of the narrative, 
 and in the principles of selection which, apparently, 
 determined the author in his choice of what should 
 be inserted. The explanation of this peculiarity is, 
 doubtless, to be found, primarily and mainly, in the 
 fact that he was writing a life of Jesus, not for its 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 161 
 
 own sake, but for the purpose of proving there! >y 
 that he was the Christ, the Son of God. This being 
 his aim, he shapes all things to the end which he has 
 in view. But the more closely we look into the mat- 
 ter, the more must we observe that there are state- 
 ments and records in the book, the ground of whose 
 admission cannot be brought within this general ex- 
 planation. They are not limited to any one place or 
 any section of the Gospel, but are scattered through- 
 out its whole course, appearing, now in some brief 
 passage, and again in a more formal story, but all 
 alike having refei’ence to the apostle’s own inward 
 experience. At the very outset of the whole history, 
 for example, what bearing or value, as related to the 
 author’s main design, has that simple and impressive 
 record of the apostle’s interview with Jesus, when 
 Andrew and himself first passed a few hours in his 
 company,* and, from what they saw of him in that 
 short season, first came to the conviction that he was 
 the Messiah, — what bearing or value as related to 
 the author’s main design, we say, has this record, 
 except as it tells of the effect produced upon the 
 apostle’s mind, and thus gives to his readers the 
 added force of his .own awakened faith ? His faith 
 commenced at that hour and under those influences, 
 and therefore it was that, with that hour, he began 
 his history. 
 
 * John 1: 35-12. That John is the person alluded to in connection 
 with Andrew in vs. li, but not mentioned by name, I regard as suffi- 
 ciently clear. But this is one of the cases referred to in the note at the 
 beginning of this lecture. The supposition that it was John is not 
 essential to the argument, but the evidence in favor of that supposition 
 is strong, and is satisfactory to the ablest writers. 
 
1G2 
 
 TEE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 Or, again, how are we to account for the narrative 
 of the miracle at the wedding-feast in Cana ?* The 
 placing of this story in so prominent a position in the 
 ^ book, or even its introduction at all, can scarcely fail 
 to arrest the attention of the reader and excite his 
 surprise. Indeed, so peculiar is the scene here de- 
 scribed, so different is the character of its miracle from 
 all the others of Jesus’ history, so little does it seem 
 to contribute to the great end to which we have 
 alluded, as compared with a multitude of things which 
 might have been inserted in the space it occupies, that 
 here has been a marked point of contention in the con- 
 troversy about this Gospel : the one party maintaining, 
 with earnestness, that such a passage cannot have 
 been written by an apostolic author ; the other plainly 
 recognizing the difficulties which it presents. We 
 do not begin to escape this controversy, as I believe, 
 we do not reach the true ground of the performance 
 of this miracle, until we get beyond any such purpose 
 as the mere withdrawal of those who had been under 
 John the Baptist’s teaching from their ascetic views, 
 or the proclamation of the Divine blessing as attend- 
 ing upon the more joyous scenes of life. These 
 things may be discoverable in the story, but they are 
 subordinate and secondary. The principal design 
 was another than these. Jesus had just received into 
 his society, for a few days, by accident as it were, 
 five or six of those persons who were afterwards to 
 be chosen as his apostles. They had been drawn 
 towards him, in their affections and confidence, by 
 what they had seen of his character in this brief 
 
 »Johu 2: 1-11. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 1G3 
 
 period. But, in order to the securing these results as 
 the foundation of a permanent life^ it was necessary 
 that some miraculous proof of his divine commission 
 should be given them at this early time. Nothing,* 
 however, was more remote from the custom of Jesus 
 than the seeking after, or going out of his way to 
 find, opportunities for the display of his power. Ho 
 always took advantage of the opportunity which 
 offered. His miracles found their place naturally in 
 the order of his life. They manifested themselves 
 just when and where some human want or necessity 
 called for them. Such a need became known, in this 
 case, in the midst of the feast to which they had 
 directed their course. It was a providential happen- 
 ing. It was the first one that presented itself. It 
 was the one, therefore, which he must avail himself 
 of to accomplish the object which, at this moment, 
 was of more importance to him than all others. He 
 availed himself of it, and the result followed. These 
 men — although they separated from him, probably, 
 after a few days more — had been so strengthened in 
 their faith in him by this exhibition of his superhu- 
 man power, that they were ready, when the divinely 
 appointed hour arrived, to follow his call to the 
 Apostolic office, though it involved the leaving their 
 occupations and their homes at a moment’s notice. 
 ''This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of 
 Galilee, and manifested forth his glory ; and his 
 disciples believed on himJ^ This is the simple state- 
 ment which the author, speaking in the name of 
 John, makes at the close of the story, and in this 
 simple statement is the reason of the miracle ^ — that 
 
1G4 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 reason which underlies all others, and without which 
 it would never have been performed. But, if this is 
 the true account of the scene, its introduction at just 
 this point of the narrative, following so immediately 
 upon the interview of this Apostle with Jesus to 
 which we have already referred, can scarcely fail to 
 point us to the effect of this miracle upon his own faith 
 as the occasion of his recording the scene so care- 
 fully. He was himself that one among the little 
 company, the establishing of whose belief on a 
 stronger foundation, at this time and by this event, 
 he realized most fully; and, as the recollection of 
 the scene was vivid in his own mind for this reason, 
 so, for this reason also, he gives it to others, that that 
 which had affected him might affect them likewise. 
 
 Or, again, if we look at the end of the history, 
 where the account of the resurrection is presented, 
 what can we say of the life-like story of the visit of 
 this apostle and Peter to the sepulchre, on that first 
 Sunday morning?^ The narrative in all its minute 
 points — this is more clear the more we examine 
 them — bears almost irresistible evidence thp-t the 
 scene which it portrays was not a creation of the 
 author’s fancy, but that the Apostle was actually a 
 participator in it. But, even here, we do not find in 
 his personal testimony to the great event of Christ’s 
 rising from the dead the full and satisfactory account 
 of the insertion of this story. That he had himself 
 been led, by what he saw at that moment, to believe 
 that his Master had risen, — that he had, thus, tahen 
 one more step in the progress of his faiths and by this 
 
 * John 20:3-9. 
 
TUE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 165 
 
 step was prepared to understand, soon afterward, 
 that, in the resurrection of his Master, the seal had 
 been put upon His divine mission, herein lay the 
 deepest interest of the scene as he recalled it. This 
 is the most natural explanation of the story, as we 
 first ask for the reason of its insertion ; and, as we 
 look into it more closely, we cannot doubt that it is 
 the true one, because tl\Q fact of the Apostle’s belief 
 and the precise measure and limits of it are so care- 
 fully set forth. The story is made, as it were, to 
 bear towards and terminate in the statement of these 
 things.^ 
 
 Or, again, let us examine the order and progress 
 of the whole history, and the same explanation will 
 suggest itself. We have here two facts to notice. 
 One of them is this frequent breaking out of the 
 apostle’s own participation in the events, and the 
 effect of it upon himself. The other is the steady 
 progress, in the main plot and plan of the work, 
 towards its doctrinal end. The latter must be har- 
 monized with the former. The explanation which 
 we give must run its course through the two things, 
 as they are mingled and intertwined throughout the 
 history. If we account for one of them only, we 
 have done but half of our work. But if we try to 
 explain them both together, there is no other way 
 that opens to us so naturally as this which we have 
 suggested. May we not go further still, and say that 
 there is no other way at all? If the apostle, or the 
 author personating him, proposed to himself to prove 
 to his readers that the person whom he had known 
 
 * John 20: 8-9. 
 
166 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 was the Logos, — if he, also, proposed to prove this 
 by narrating the life and words of this person, — and 
 if he further proposed, in presenting the life for this 
 purpose, so to narrate it as, by setting forth how it 
 had gradually wrought out the proof to his own 
 mind, to give it the most suitable form for impress- 
 ing other minds, — then everything becomes clear. 
 The selection of the events and teachings in such a 
 way as to make the power and character and divinity 
 of Christ appear more fully as the story goes for- 
 ward ; the bringing out of the discourses so much 
 more than the miracles, — just the things which were 
 peculiarly calculated to impress a mind like his ; the 
 omission of so many things recorded in the other 
 Gospels, when similar things, occurring at other 
 times, exhibit the same power or attribute -in the due 
 order of impressiveness, — as, for example, the inser- 
 tion of the remarkable case of the raising of Lazarus 
 and its location in the narrative, while the other 
 miracles of calling the dead to life are not referred 
 to ; the very fundamental division of the book into 
 its two leading parts, carrying the reader, first 
 through the record of what Jesus made known of 
 himself to the unbelieving Jews, and afterwards, 
 through those more tender and richer unfoldings of 
 the truth in his discourses with his chosen friends, — 
 the more outward part of the history, as we may cal I 
 it, leading towards and preparing for the more in- 
 ward part; all these peculiarities of the book are 
 seen, at once, to have a more perfect fitness and a 
 fuller explanation, when we see the whole plan, as it 
 were, under the guidance of the apostle’s own in- 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 167 
 
 creasing faith. The other evangelists simply told the 
 story of the things that happened, in their order, for 
 they were recording only what they had seen or been 
 familiar with. This apostle, on the other hand, was 
 giving the narrative of what he had felt, and, there- 
 fore, he followed the course of his holy feeling and 
 inner life even to the end. In the veiy progress of 
 the record, therefore, he presents the constant deep-- 
 ening of the impression and the due order of the 
 proofs. 
 
 III. In the third place, we are led to the same 
 explanation of the Gospel as we notice the repeated 
 emphatic and distinct statements respecting himself 
 and his companions, that they believed. We cannot 
 doubt that the apostles did actually believe, in a 
 higher degree, at the crucifixion and the resurrection, 
 than they had done three years before. If anything 
 would seem to be manifest with reference to them, it 
 is that there must have been a steady growth as the 
 time passed on. It was like the child’s faith at the 
 outset, as compared with the mature man’s faith at 
 the end. Now, the author describes their faith at 
 every point in the progress, by the same word, be- 
 cause it was, in its essential character, the same thing 
 always. But the word must gain a deeper meaning 
 at each new stage, and gather into itself the added 
 force which the newly-witnessed evidences of divine 
 power and truth had given it. It must enlarge in 
 significance just as the history advances. With every 
 repetition it must be more than it was before. The 
 student of this Gospel cannot fail to appreciate this 
 
168 
 
 TSE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 fact as he follows its course from chapter to chapter.* 
 The disciples believed, when they first saw Jesus ; 
 they believed, as they witnessed his first miracle ; 
 they believed, on the day following the feeding of the 
 five thousand, when the remarkable words which set 
 forth the mysterious union of Christ with his friends 
 had just been heard ; they believed, as the last utter- 
 ance of love, at the supper, faded into the prayer 
 of intercession : they believed, as their Master rose 
 from the dead ; this disciple, who was the most open 
 to faith among them, believed, when he saw the 
 vacant sepulchre; Thomas, who was the most ready 
 to doubt, believed, when he beheld the print of the 
 nails and was pointed by Jesus to his wounded side. 
 This doubting one of the company had risen now, at 
 the latest moment, above the highest reach of even 
 John’s own confidence at the beginning. But the 
 very fulness of the declaration of his faith, at this 
 moment, is a testimony of the growth and greatness 
 which must now have characterized the faith of all 
 his companions. The measnre of his belief as com- 
 pared with that of this beloved disciple,^ indeed, may 
 be indicated by the verses which describe the two, 
 and set forth the proofs already mentioned, that were 
 needed to convince them. 
 
 In the same connection, our thought may be 
 directed to those passages, in which the author, in 
 the person of this Apostle, says of himself and his 
 
 *John 1 ; 42-45. The language here, “We have found the Messias/* 
 is substantially y though not precisely, that of the other passages which 
 are referred to. John 2: 11; 6: 69; 16: 30; 20: 8; 20: 29. 
 
 t John 20: 8-9 comp, with 20: 24-29. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 169 
 
 associates, that, with reference to certain things, they 
 believed only after Jesus had risen from the dead. 
 What is the intimation of these passages, when 
 interpreted in union with the others to which we 
 have referred, unless it be this, — that their faith 
 was a progressive thing, that it had reached out to 
 the attainment of much, and was still reaching out 
 for more ? And how do we account for the intro- 
 duction of this singular phrase again and again, after 
 we have discovered what it indicates, except as we 
 believe that the Apostle draws it forth from his own 
 experience ? 
 
 I cannot but remark, also, that, while this author 
 never uses the word faiths he employs the^erS which 
 expresses the idea of believing^ and which, in so 
 many instances, records the fact that one and another 
 actually believed, almost three times as frequently as 
 all the other evangelists together,* and almost as 
 many times as the whole body of authors whose 
 writings follow his own, even to the end of the New 
 Testament. This very peculiarity in his language — 
 as striking as any other that can be discovered — in 
 itself suggests, that it was the activity of faith, 
 growing experience, enlarging apprehension of the 
 things of Christ, which occupied his thoughts, — not 
 a mere dogma, not a mere testimony, but a life. 
 And, when We join this suggestion to the preceding 
 ones, we see how naturally his fondness for this active 
 
 * The verb occurs ninety-eight times in this Gospel ; thirty-five 
 times in the other three Gospels ; and one hundred and three times in 
 the remaining hooks of the New Testament, exclusive of the first 
 Epistle of John. 
 
170 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 and living word may Lave come from the depths of 
 his own life, and, thus, all the record of believing, 
 which is so constant in his narrative, may have been 
 due to the delightful recollections of his personal 
 progress which seemed to be pictured anew before 
 his mind in the progress of every other believer. 
 
 IV. There are also, in the fourth place, brief 
 narratives in this Gospel, and even sentences in the 
 discourses of Jesus as given by it, which, though 
 they have no direct connection with any record of 
 the Apostle’s growing faith, yet lose a large portion 
 of their significance apart from it. I can only allude 
 to one or two examples, which the reader of the 
 book can multiply for himself. The little story, 
 thrown into the midst of the crucifixion scene, where 
 Jesus commits his mother to the care of John, is one 
 of these.* This story, certainly, has no relation to 
 the main truth which the author was aiming to pre- 
 sent. It has only the slightest connection, if indeed 
 it has any at all, with his personal testimony to the 
 death or the divinity of Christ. It has, we may add, 
 no manifest and immediate bearing, to the view of 
 the ordinary reader, upon the development of John’s 
 religious history. But, as we look more deeply into 
 it, and inquire how it came to be introduced into the 
 narrative ; as we notice its contrast with the record 
 of the soldiers’ heartless conduct, that precedes it, 
 and its immediate union with the picture of the 
 dying moments of Jesus, which follows it in the 
 succeeding verses, — we may see that it has a point- 
 
 * John 19: 25-27. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 171 
 
 ing toward that development. The ground of the 
 action, on the part of Jesus, at this time, has been 
 a subject of inquiry and discussion. He leaves his 
 mother, not in the care of her own children or near 
 relatives, but in the charge of this disciple. What 
 account are we to give of so unwonted a thing in 
 human experience ? The first reason which suggests 
 itself, and the only one which can lie at the founda- 
 tion of an explanation, is, that this disciple was a 
 believer, while the members of her family were not. 
 In the time of his separation from them, Jesus wished 
 that the faithful ones should be associated together, 
 and should care for one another. The one among 
 them who needed the most of sympathy and help ' 
 should not be left to those who were strangers to the 
 faith, even though they might be in the most intimate 
 circle of earthly relationship. But while we admit 
 the full weight which can, by any possibility, be 
 given to this reason, we must remember that these 
 brethren of Jesus were to become believers in a few 
 days after his death. He was to appear to James 
 even within the week following his resurrection,'^^ 
 and this one of his family was to become so earnest 
 and prominent a disciple, as, afterwards, to assume 
 a leadership in the Church. The others, also, were 
 to be the associates of the Apostles and the friendly 
 women, and of Mary herself, at the meeting which 
 
 * That the appearance to James, the Lord’s brother, was within the 
 first week, appears probable to me from I Cor. 15:7, as compared with 
 the accounts in the Gospels and the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 
 of the appearances of our Lord after his resurrection. The precise 
 time, or even the fact, of a special appearance to J ames, is not impor- 
 tant, however, to the main point urged in the text. 
 
172 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 immediately followed the ascension. It would have 
 been but a brief season, had he left his mother with 
 these brethren, before she would have found them 
 bound to her in Christian affection as truly as in 
 family love. Why this singular provision for her, 
 then, unless it had, also, some deeper meaning? It 
 had such a meaning. The hour was a most peculiar 
 one. It was a time when Jesus seems to have risen 
 above all human relationships, and to have fixed his 
 thought only on the higher union with himself. Here 
 stood before him, on the one hand, the woman whom 
 he loved beyond all others, — the one who had seen 
 something of his glory first of all, — the one who 
 was now watching his approaching death with the 
 tenderest feeling, and the most sorrowful outlook for 
 herself upon the future. Here stood, upon the other 
 hand, that one among his disciples who, through the 
 growth of his faith and inner life during the years of 
 their association, had come to be most nearly like 
 himself. It was not strange, surely, in the circum- 
 stances of the hour, that, with the sole thought of 
 the bond connecting him so closely to them both, he 
 gave the one of them to the other for their future 
 life. But the gift implied the growth of which we 
 have spoken, and the story of it tells us not only 
 of what was done in that moment but also of the 
 progress of the months and years before it. Explain 
 it as thus pointing, though indirectly, to the Apostle’s 
 past experience, and the insertion of the story seems 
 like a thankful expression of his faith, as he stands 
 beneath the cross. Endeavor to account for it without 
 this, and, though the record of a touching scene, it 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 173 
 
 docs not so naturally and completely take its place 
 within the plan of the Gospel. 
 
 Or, as another illustration of the point which we 
 have now in mind, let us look at one of the discourses 
 of Jesus. There is no more striking expression of 
 the Lord recorded by this author, as it seems to me, 
 than the one which we find in connection with his 
 promise to the disciples, on the last night of his life, 
 that they should meet him again in heaven. '^In my 
 Father’s house are many mansions,” he says ; '' if it 
 were not so, I would have told you This last brief 
 sentence, standing as it does after the assurance 
 which precedes it, has been cited as forceless or 
 meaningless ; and it is so, when considered as a mere 
 declaration. It adds nothing to the positive state- 
 ment. It is only a negative repetition. Had it been 
 uttered by an ordinary man, we should have placed 
 no greater reliance upon his assertion because of it. 
 
 Had it been uttered even by Jesus, when this disciple 
 and his five associates were journeying in his company 
 toward Cana, three years before, it would have 
 seemed almost like an idle word. But, when we 
 remember all that had passed since then, — when we 
 see that John, even more than the others, had 
 advanced in his faith toward the full comprehension 
 of w^hat Jesus was, — how differently it appears to 
 us ! So far from being meaningless now, it gathers 
 within itself all the force which the apostle’s confi- 
 dence in him could give it, — -a confidence which / 
 had become stronger with the seeing of every mirac- 
 ulous work and the hearing of every miraculous 
 
 * John 14: 2. 
 
174 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 word. It was, now, the testimony of the love of a 
 friend, whose affection and whose knowledge had 
 been thoroughly tried. It Avas, thus, far more than 
 any positive announcement of a truth. Such an 
 announcement might be doubted in a moment of 
 weakness or of darkness, but this testimony never. 
 Nay, even, it grew weightier and more full of conso- 
 lation, the deeper the trial and uncertainty into which 
 the soul might be cast. It said to the soul, in such 
 an hour, you may believe the truth which I open to 
 you — that there is to be a heavenly life and a 
 heavenly meeting — on the best of all evidence, for, 
 if it were not so, I, whose friendship you now know 
 so well, would surely have told you. But, as the 
 words have no significance apart from the experience, 
 their presence where they are bears witness that the 
 experience had been a reality. And when the author 
 records them among these last words of Jesus to the 
 disciples, he assures us that the Apostlds inner his- 
 tory, as well as the history of his Master, was a 
 matter of chief importance in the plan of his work. 
 These incidental statements and expressions, then, so 
 numerous if we could only cite them, point to the 
 same conclusion to which the other suggestions, 
 already presented, had combined to lead us. 
 
 V. I add only, in the fifth place, as bearing to the 
 same end, a brief reference to the inwardness, if I 
 may so call it, which characterizes the entire thought 
 and style of this Gospel. The history of the book, 
 as it has come down to us through the ages, has 
 strikingly exhibited its two peculiarities. No portion 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 175 
 
 of tlie New Testament has been a subject of more 
 earnest theological discussion. It has suggested defi- 
 nitions, and awakened controversy, and divided 
 schools, to so great a degree, that one is almost led, 
 when observing this side of its history alone, to 
 believe it to have been intended only to set forth the 
 formularies of doctrine. But when we enter into the 
 interior life of the Church, and penetrate beneath the 
 warring opinions of hostile parties, we find in all 
 alike the deep conviction, that in this Gospel there is 
 more which enriches the soul, and more which appeals 
 to the believer’s inward experience, than in all the 
 rest of the Apostolic writings. The^most cultivated 
 Christian heart never exhausts the fulness of what it 
 ofiers to its life, any more than the most enlightened 
 Christian mind comprehends, to the utmost, the 
 mystery of its great doctrine. 
 
 This, surely, is no insignificant fact, which asks 
 not for an explanation It is the leading fact which 
 presses itself upon our notice. It must have a 
 ground and a meaning. The reason that this Gospel 
 has awakened doctrinal inquiry and discussion is 
 because it was written to prove that Jesus was the 
 Logos. Just as truly and just as unquestionably may 
 we say, that it has affected the imier life of all Chris- 
 tians, because it was written as a setting forth of the 
 Apostle’s own inner experience. The truth was to be 
 established by the narrative of the life of Jesus. The 
 form in which that narrative was to be made to 
 move forward to the establishment of the truth, was 
 to be determined by the way in which that life had 
 affected himself. The whole record of events and 
 
176 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 words, and everything both great and small, was to 
 be under the direction of this twofold ruling purpose. 
 This was the author’s plan, and because it was so, and 
 only for this reason, the history of his Gospel has 
 been, from the beginning, such a twofold history. 
 The helpfulness of this Gospel to all Christian 
 growth in the soul, which has been manifest in all 
 ages as derived from this peculiarity in its character, 
 is itself the strongest proof that it came from the 
 author’s own inner life as a gift to the world. 
 
 This part of our discussion must be arrested at this 
 point. But enough has been said to establish the 
 assertion made at the beginning. The Fourth Gospel 
 was intended by its author to be a record, not only 
 of the life of Christ and not only of John’s personal 
 observation of Christ, but also of John’s growth in 
 faith, of his Christian experience, which had come 
 out of that personal observation. He desired that his 
 readers should feel, as they perused his book, that 
 this Apostle was giving them his testimony, not alone 
 by itself, but with the emphasis and impressiveness 
 that would be imparted to it by the intimations of 
 what it had accomplished for his own soul. 
 
 We have, thus far, made no attempt to determine 
 whether the author was the Apostle himself, or some 
 other and later person. Our sole object has been to 
 set forth and prove a certain peculiar characteristic 
 of the book, which he wrote. This characteristic, 
 however, having been made clear, the question of 
 the authorship now demands our attention. But it 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 177 
 
 presents itself only in a single point of view, — ask- 
 ing, Who, and who alone, could have been the writer 
 of a book so peculiarly characterized ? At the same 
 time, it naturally suggests to us the mode of inquiry, 
 by means of which we may come to a decision, — 
 namely, by inquiring what are the characteristics of 
 the writer, as made manifest in his writings. Could 
 a man possessed of such characteristics have written 
 such a book, unless he were himself the person who 
 had passed through the inner experience which the 
 book reminds us of, or rests upon ? 
 
 1. There was in the author’s mental character a 
 certain philosophical element. He was not, indeed, 
 a man who patiently investigated the reasons and 
 causes of things, or who deduced from a large collec- 
 tion of facts a rule or principle. The speculations 
 of philosophers strictly so called, even when they 
 were within the sphere of religious inquiry, he per- 
 haps had little sympathy with, though he, appa- 
 rently, entered into them far enough to comprehend 
 what these men were seeking after, and to know their 
 errors. But, in the fact that his mind was occupied 
 with great truths, and that he rose above the lower 
 objects of thought to the highest and noblest, he pos- 
 sessed this element in no ordinary degree. His in- 
 tellectual powers were of the intuitive or perceptive, 
 rather than of the reasoning order, yet he was both a 
 learner and a teacher in the school of truth. Now, 
 with such a character and position as this, if he had 
 lived in the second century, he would have been 
 either, as truly as any of the philosophers, a devotee 
 
178 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 of some particular system who desired to bring others 
 to accept it, or, at least, an ardent lover of the ideas 
 which filled his mind and elevated his character. 
 Had he been the former, we may hold, with greatest 
 confidence, that he would not have written such a 
 book as he has, in any measure. The prologue,* as 
 has been so often said, would have extended itself 
 over the whole Gospel. Its ideas would have 
 appeared continually in the discourses of Jesus, 
 expressed in the phraseology which so peculiarly 
 belongs to it. The relation of all the following chap- 
 ters to this introductory passage, and their develop- 
 ment out of it, would have been set forth by the 
 author in the most distinct language. All the inci- 
 dental allusions to little circumstances, which, having 
 no possible connection with the system taught, would 
 only draw away the reader’s attention from it, would 
 have been omitted. Jesus would have been repre- 
 sented far more in the light of the master of a school , 
 commending to his disciples the study of his system 
 for its own sake. In his last interview with them, 
 even, we should probably have found him committing 
 to them this system more formally as a parting leg- 
 acy, and pointing them to it, rather than so exclu- 
 sively to the presence of the Spirit and a future 
 meeting in the other world, for their consolation and 
 support. But if he were not, thus, the adherent or 
 defender of a particular school, and, therefore, we 
 are unable to say, with confidence, all that we could 
 say if he had been, the existence of this element in 
 his mind, in whatever degree we are compelled to 
 
 * John 1: 1-18. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 179 
 
 admit it, is, iu just that degree, inconsistent with the 
 peculiarity of the Gospel which has been noticed in 
 these pages. If he only loved the truths which had 
 revealed themselves to him, and wished* above all 
 things else to make them known to mankind, this 
 element and tendency in his character would have 
 turned him in another direction. He might, indeed, 
 have undertaken to write the life of Jesus, with some 
 of its incidents as well as of its teachings. But, if he 
 had done so, he would have given even of the inci- 
 dents of Jesus’ outward history only enough to bind 
 the teachings together ; while, as he had not himself 
 had any inner life in connection with those incidents 
 and under the immediate influence of Jesus’ presence 
 with him as a teacher, the undercurrent flowing under 
 all his plan and through all his record would, surely, 
 not have been his own experience. Still less would 
 he have assumed a personality other than his own, 
 and then have fabricated a religious history for the 
 person whose name he adopted, which was as com- 
 pletely unknown to that person as he was himself. 
 His interest vrould have been centred upon the 
 truths and the teacher, and the more thoroughly he 
 had accustomed himself to dwell upon these, the less 
 would any such course have even occurred to his 
 mind. There would have been a far easier as well 
 as nobler method for him to choose for the accom- 
 plishment of his end, and his every impulse would 
 have been to adopt it. The Christ of John has been 
 claimed to be the counterpart of the Socrates of 
 Plato. Could Plato have traced through all the dis- 
 courses and history of Socrates such a line of false 
 
180 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 experience represented as his own ? Would not the 
 tendencies and characteristics of his mind have pre- 
 vented him? Would they not have made anything 
 else mor^ natural to him and less repulsive ? 
 
 2. The author had, also, a poetic element. But 
 the peculiarity of his presentation of this inner life 
 of the Apostle is as inconsistent with the idea of a 
 mere poetic fiction, as is the peculiarity of his record 
 of the outward history. Whatever the Gospel may 
 be, it is not a poem. There is no such peculiar 
 symmetry and completeness in its plot, or roundness 
 and fulness in its minor incidents, as would be the 
 first necessity to the poet’s thought. And so it is 
 with these indications of what was personal and in- 
 ward to himself. All is too incidental, too irregular, 
 too imperfect in the beauty of form, to be the work 
 of poetic imagination. Had the author, years after 
 the death of the Apostle, endeavored to picture to 
 himself his character, and how it developed into what 
 it was at the end by the gradual progress of a life- 
 time, and, then, had he tried to write the history of 
 Jesus with the picture of this growing character con- 
 tinually coloring that history, — and this is what he 
 must have done if we have a poetic fiction of a later day, 
 — then, he must have been more careful of tlieform^ 
 and must have made the Apostle’s growing character, 
 not indeed more really traceable throughout the 
 story, but more openly conspicuous. But the poetic 
 element in the author’s mind, which we discover 
 through the examination of his Gospel, is simply 
 that which, coming into the narrative, elevates it 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 181 
 
 above a mere dry record of facts, and which imparts 
 to it something of the richness of the author’s own 
 thought, and of the fulness of his sense of the truth. 
 It is that which belongs to men of the deepest and 
 noblest order of inner life, — the poetry of such a life^ 
 which, because they possess it, they can impart, in 
 some measure, to the record of their own experi- 
 ence, but never to the experience of another, for the 
 simple reason that it is not their own. It is not 
 developed largely enough in them to make them 
 poets, or to give them the ability to produce a life- 
 like fiction. It leaves them in an entirely difierent 
 class of men, destitute of the power to assume the 
 personality of some one of another age, in a truth- 
 ful way, as the poet or novelist may do. If they 
 attempt to assume such a personality at all, it must 
 be in a manner so imperfect and unskilful as at 
 once to betray its falseness, and, therefore, at once 
 to become abhorrent to their own deepest feelings, 
 as well as to be easily detected by every one else. In 
 one word, the book must have been other than it is, 
 and more than it is in this regard, — the author, also, 
 must have been other than he was, and more than 
 he was on this poetic side of his nature, — if either 
 of them belonged to a later age. The Apostle, and 
 the Apostle alone, could have traced, in this peculiar 
 way, the story of his own faith ; for he only could 
 have had that richness of sentiment and emotion 
 connected with it, out of which springs all the poetic 
 character that the book possesses. 
 
 3. The author, again, was of the contemplative 
 
182 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 and introvertive order. But, in this view of his 
 character, also, we say that the Gospel, as it has pre- 
 sented itself to us, is inconsistent with the supposi- 
 tion that the author lived in the second century. 
 The results, which would be naturally expected either 
 from the contemplation or the introversion of such a 
 man, are not sufficiently manifest. Having nothing 
 but the traditions and accounts within the circle of 
 the Synoptical Gospels before him, he would have 
 mused upon them and received their impressions into 
 his mind. As he thought more and more deeply, he 
 would have felt himself impelled to draw out of them 
 the truths which Jesus taught, and perhaps to give 
 these truths, as he understood them, to the world. 
 He might, indeed, have brought himself, by medita- 
 tion, into some ideas of Jesus beyond those which he 
 found in these early writings, believing that the hints 
 which they contained were suggestive of more than 
 the writers had supposed. The workings of these 
 ideas in his own mind, with their effect upon his 
 character, might have given him greater confidence 
 in them, as well as a deeper sense of their import- 
 ance to mankind. But had all this been so, what 
 would have been the book which resulted from it ? 
 Would it not have contained, not only the formal 
 statements of these ideas, but something of the 
 method by which they had grown out of the Apos- 
 tolic writings ? Would it not, also, have attempted 
 to show, in a formal way, the legitimate and natural 
 influence of these ideas upon the soul of man ? Or, 
 if this author’s desire had been to set forth this 
 latter point by the presentation of an example in 
 
THE FOURTH' GOSPEL. 
 
 183 
 
 human life, would not the presentation have been a 
 less ineidental one? But the apostle, if he were of 
 this eharacter, might most naturally bring out this 
 other side of Jesus’ teachings, which the Synoptical 
 writers had left in the main unnoticed, but which he 
 had meditated upon for so many years. And, while 
 his main design was to give this picture of Jesus as 
 proving him to be the Logos, the very introvertive 
 tendencies of his nature would not only have made 
 it natural for him to do so, but would have almost 
 compelled him to carry through the history the thread 
 of his own Christian experience, precisely as we 
 discover it in this Gospel. He is the person whom 
 all the antecedent probabilities of the case point to 
 as the writer ; for the fadts which we observe pre- 
 cisely correspond with these elements in his character, 
 while, on the other hand, if we suppose a later writer, 
 there is no such correspondence. 
 
 4. If we turn, now, to the moral elements in the 
 author’s nature, the love of truth is one of the most 
 conspicuous. Everywhere in the Gospel and in his 
 other writings we find the evidences of this character- 
 istic. The essential and fundamental thing in the 
 right worship and service of God is made by him to 
 be truths and the sphere in which the great enemy 
 of God’s kingdom and all his followers live is the 
 opposite of truth. The sense of its beauty is so 
 deeply implanted in his nature, that religion becomes 
 to his thought the truths — the word entering into 
 his phraseology so thoroughly as even to mark his 
 style in distinction from that of the other New Testa- 
 
184 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 ment writers. It is needless to dwell upon this point, 
 for it is manifest to every reader who gives even a 
 single thought to what he reads. He who says, Let 
 ns not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in 
 truth ; They that worship him must worship him in 
 truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him ; 
 Thy word is truth ; The only-begotten of the Father, 
 w^ho came into the world, was full of truth ; He came 
 to bear witness of the truth ; If we say we have fel- 
 lowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and 
 do not the truth ; No lie is of the truth ; The devil is 
 a liar and the father of falsehood ; Whosoever loveth 
 and maketh a lie is excluded from the heavenly king- 
 dom, — must have regarded truth as the basis of all 
 right character, and must have valued it as his chief 
 treasure.* How could such a man have placed a 
 falsehood at the very beginning of his work as an 
 author, giving to his readers the impression that he 
 was the disciple whom Jesus loved, when in reality 
 he had never seen Jesus at all? But, if he was of a 
 later age, this is not all that we are compelled to 
 suppose. Not only must he have assumed the per- 
 sonality of the apostle, but he must have assumed it 
 in such a way as would involve the most deliberate 
 
 * The last of the passages here cited is from the Book of Bevela- 
 tion. If the authorship of that hook by the apostle John be not 
 admitted, this passage is, of course, out of place ; but its insertion 
 or omission is a matter of little consequence, when the others are so 
 numerous and clear. The other passages are taken from the first 
 Epistle of John as well as the Gospel, — it being generally admitted 
 that these two books were by the same author, whether he was the 
 Apostle John or not. The point which is urged here, however, is suf- 
 ficiently plain, if we confine ourselves to citations from the Gospel 
 alone. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 185 
 
 and painstaking falsification, for his representation 
 of the apostle’s inner life and growing faith is pre- 
 cisely that which must have been either the truth or 
 a labored imitation of it. It underlies and pervades 
 the whole history, as we have seen, but does not 
 appear as the main end of the writer’s effort, or pre- 
 sent itself as a well-rounded and complete portrayal 
 of character. The more incidentally, however, it 
 manifests itself, the more difficult must it have been 
 for the author to trace out its course, and the more 
 carefully designed must have been the attempt to 
 deceive his readers. We pass by all the other falsi- 
 fications which the book, under the supposition of a 
 later date, would contain, — though they cover a large 
 portion of the history of Jesus, as well as that of this 
 disciple, — and limit ourselves to the one only which 
 our line of thought brings to our notice. How could 
 such a man, more full of truth than almost any other, 
 have purposely made such a falsehood the very frame^ 
 worh of all that he was writing ? It has been well 
 said by one of the most eminent of the recent adver- 
 saries of this Gospel, in view of other difficulties 
 which meet us on the theory that the author was not 
 the one he professes to be, that we have no example 
 of a forgery of this kind in the apostolic age. We 
 may well add, after observing this peculiar element 
 of inner experience, that we have no example, in any 
 age, of such a forgery from such a man. The truth- 
 fulness of his character and the falsehood of his 
 Gospel in this regard are utterly irreconcilable. But 
 the truthfulness of his character shines forth clearly 
 on every page. He must, therefore, have been the 
 apostle himself. 
 
'186 
 
 TUB FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 5. The author of this Gospel was characterized 
 by the strongest love to Jesus. This is so evident 
 as to be admitted by all the leading opponents of the 
 Johannean authorship, and cannot be doubted if we 
 are to believe anything of any author because of his 
 writings. But his affection was not only strong. 
 Its chief peculiarity consisted in the fact that it was 
 a deep and absorbing persona? attachment. He loved, 
 according to the often-quoted remark of Grotius, not 
 so much the Christ, in his official and saving rela- 
 tions to the world, — as Peter loved him, — but 
 Jesus, as an intimate friend of his own. The Gospel 
 professes that this love was developed in the author’s 
 soul through his association with Jesus as the most 
 intimate and confidential one among the company of 
 the apostles. The fact of its development in this way 
 is made to appear throughout the narrative, and the 
 process of its development seems to be the underly- 
 ing personal experience, out of which, at least in one 
 view of it, the whole history springs. Now, that all 
 this is in perfect consistency with the supposition that 
 the apostle J ohn was himself the author, is too plain 
 to be questioned. There is not a difficulty in this 
 regard, which the Gospel presents, if we once accept 
 this view. On the^ other hand, not only does the 
 representation of the matter, as a whole, appear alto- 
 gether natural, but the many little and apparently 
 unpremeditated allusions or suggestions, which seem 
 to mark this affection of the author for J esus as that 
 of a man who had seen him, had talked with him and 
 lived with him, had listened to his teachings and 
 been present at his death, and which distinguish it. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 187 
 
 thus, from the love of any one who, living after- 
 wards, could only have been able to commune with 
 him in thought, fall into their places just where we 
 should expect them, and add to the charm and beauty 
 of the book. 
 
 But if the author was not the apostle, but a man 
 of a later generation, the difficulties that we meet 
 are insuperable. Such an absorbing personal affec- 
 tion for Jesus would either have made him a mystic 
 and filled his Gospel with the outbreakings of rapt 
 emotion, or it would have so deeply felt the want of 
 some more immediate sight of Jesus than had ever 
 been granted to it as to have betrayed this feeling 
 somewhere, in spite of its utmost efforts at conceal- 
 ment. A writer of a depth of love like this, which 
 pervaded his whole being, could scarcely have trans- 
 ferred himself beyond the boundaries and peculiari- 
 ties of his own experience, and represented his love 
 as having grown under entirely different circum- 
 stances, and into a form which, in this respect, was 
 completely other than his own. The more his pecu- 
 liar emotion — that of love for a person whom he had 
 never seen, but the conception of whose character he 
 had gained from reading and from meditation only — 
 became the element of his life, the more, even, would 
 he have found himself fettered and hindered in any 
 attempt of this kind. Paul himself, near as he was 
 to the time of Christ’s life on earth, acquainted as he 
 was with those who had been in his society, blessed 
 as he was with a special manifestation of him on the 
 way to Damascus, attended as he was, again and 
 again, by visions and revelations, — Paul himself, 
 
188 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 we all feel, could not have wiitten a story of such a 
 development of love as we find in this Gospel, as if 
 it were his own. His conceptions could not have 
 overleaped his history so far and so fully, as to have 
 given him power to picture his affection for Jesus 
 with the distinctive character which belongs only to 
 those who live in the bodily presence of a friend. 
 He did not have this feeling towards Jesus ; and he 
 could not, had he tried to do so, have deceived the 
 world into the belief that he had. At some unguarded 
 point in the narrative the mask would have been 
 dropped, if only for a moment, and, in the single 
 sentence or paragraph written before it could be 
 assumed again, a thousand eyes would have discov- 
 ered the falsehood. How much less even than Paul 
 could a writer of another century have done the same 
 thing ! The deeper his love for the unseen Christ, 
 the more impossible would have been the portrayal 
 of it as a love for the seen Christ. The persons on 
 whom a peculiar blessing was pronounced by Jesus, 
 after Thomas had acknowledged him as his Lord and 
 God, because they believe without the evidence which 
 he demanded, know nothing of the peculiar experi- 
 ence that Thomas had. A fundamental element in 
 their believing is the absence of sight, while to his 
 faith sight was essential. What more difficult task, 
 and what one less likely to be undertaken by a Chris- 
 tian of very deep and pervading faith, who lived in 
 Ephesus after the death of John, than that of repre- 
 senting the growth of his own belief as having been 
 due to his sight of Jesus during his earthly life, and to 
 his daily intercourse with him. He would have been 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 189 
 
 trying to describe the inmost springs and secrets of his 
 interior life as the very opposite of what they were. 
 
 But not only may we say, that an author possessed 
 of this peculiar and strong affection for Jesus could 
 not have written this Gospel, if he had never seen 
 him as John had seen him, — much more may we say 
 that he would not. He must have known that his life 
 of Jesus would produce upon his readers the peculiar 
 impression which it was naturally calculated to pro- 
 duce. They would be led to believe that Jesus said 
 many things — many, even, which had a most im- 
 portant bearing upon the character a^nd the soul — 
 which he did not say. The friend whom he most 
 deeply loved would, thus, be presented in a false 
 light. Not only so, but all his own relations to this 
 friend, and the influences of this friend upon his own 
 mind and heart, would be described in a manner 
 utterly at variance with the facts. If, with this 
 knowledge, he wrote as he did, purposely deceived. 
 He deliberately falsified the words of Jesus and his 
 own interior history in connection with him. Such 
 deception and falsification, however, are as contrary 
 to noble friendship as they are to truth. Love to 
 Jesus, like that which he evidently had, would have 
 made him shrink at the very thought of writing such 
 a baseless story of his life. The existence of such 
 love, pervading and controlling his own soul, would 
 have made it, to his feeling, impossible for him to give 
 a false picture of its own peculiar quality and growth. 
 
 View the characteristics of this author, then, as we 
 may, they seem to preclude the possibility of his 
 
190 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 writing the life of Jesus, with the peculiar element of 
 personal inward growth which we find in this Gospel, 
 unless he was the Apostle whom he professes to be. 
 No conception of such a book would have entered his 
 mind had he lived in the second century. Much less 
 would the preparation of it have been tolerable to his 
 thought. 
 
 The same things, we add in a single word, may be 
 urged, and in some respects with even greater force, 
 against the supposition that the Gospel was written 
 at the end of the first century, and was ascribed to 
 the Apostle although he was not the author, or that 
 it was partly his work but was added to and shaped 
 into a harmonious whole by some of his friends or 
 followers. This underlying personal experience is 
 so intimately connected with every portion of the 
 entire history, that it disproves any joint author- 
 ship or any working over of a partial or fragmen- 
 tary narrative into completeness ; while, as for the 
 other supposition, in the year one hundred the 
 character and history of the Apostle were too well 
 known in the re2;ion of his residence to have allowed 
 the possibility of ascribing to him, with success, 
 not only a life of Jesus which was so largely unre- 
 liable in its statements, but also a portrayal of 
 his own inner life which was not founded upon the 
 truth. 
 
 But if the Gospel was, indeed, the work of the 
 Apostle John, we have in it an exhibition of the 
 power of Christianity as it presents itself to men of 
 the most thoughtful and the purest minds. The author 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 191 
 
 of this Gospel, as the world is coming to acknowledge 
 more and more, belonged to this class of men, and 
 was even an exalted one among them. He was not 
 a man of weak and effeminate nature. He had, 
 indeed, the devotion of love that belongs to a woman, 
 but the strength of intellect and the profound thought 
 which characterize the higher order of men. 
 
 How did the Christian truth commend itself to his 
 acceptance? It did so, because it appealed to his 
 consciousness of the great fact of sin, and offered him 
 help in escaping from its power. It did so, thus, on 
 the ground, and the only ground, on which any 
 religious system can fitly commend itself. No one 
 among the New Testament authors had a more 
 thorough realization of sin as the sphere in which the 
 world was living. It was the darkness which shut 
 out the light. It was the bondage in which all were 
 hopelessly involved. It was the evil principle which 
 wrought out the death of the soul. Until this con- 
 sciousness of the great fact of sin is awakened, 
 there can be little power in Christianity to bring 
 a man to itself. He has the blindness which de- 
 clares that it sees, and, therefore, his sin remains 
 immovable, because he will not recognize its exist- 
 ence. But the moment the awakening takes place, 
 the power become a mighty one, and the more 
 honest and thoughtful the soul is, the more firmly 
 does that power lay hold upon it. To a man like 
 this Apostle^ who comes to the realization of sin, 
 it is the main reality of his life. The need of escape 
 from its defiling influence is the greatest of all needs. 
 The way by which escape can be secured is the one 
 
192 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 thing to be searched after, and, if possible, to be 
 found. 
 
 Christianity commended itself to his acceptance, 
 because of the way which it opened. It was a way 
 in which the Divine Being Himself drew near to his 
 soul, with all the tender sympathies and deep 
 thoughts and elevating affections of a personal friend, 
 and offered him His own guidance and help and 
 teaching. The personal power of soul upon soul, 
 this Apostle knew, as every man of deep and noble 
 nature like him knows, — if, by any means, it can 
 pass from God to man, — is the highest conceivable 
 force to transform and elevate the character ; to 
 deliver it from all evil, and fill it with purity and 
 beauty. Having been invited into the society of the 
 man to whom John the Baptist had pointed him, he 
 communed with Him and learned from Him during 
 the whole period of His public ministry ; and, at every 
 successive step of his course, he found himself be- 
 lieving in Him more thoroughly, until at last he felt 
 that he knew, as with the most perfect knowledge, 
 that in Him this personal power was made a reality. 
 The Divine Logos had entered into humanity. God 
 was with his soul. The reason of his confidence was 
 the truths which he had heard, the character which 
 he had seen, the love which had displayed itself, the 
 experience in his own life of the power of this char- 
 acter, and of this love, and of these truths. He 
 placed himself in the light and under the influence 
 of Jesus’ life and words ; and, opening his soul to 
 receive what they might give him, he waited through 
 the years before the crucifixion ; and his opened soul. 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 193 
 
 he says at the end, had received all that it wanted. 
 The deliverance from sin had come, and the begin- 
 ning of a growth in holiness and love which promised 
 to be endless. He waited on through the years after 
 the crucifixion, also, — his every thought upon the 
 same life and words of his Master, — and the highest 
 hope of his soul for the immortal future was, that he 
 might become more perfectly like the Master because 
 he should see him as he is. 
 
 Now, if the Apostle gives this record, we learn 
 from it that the richest life of the richest soul, per- 
 chance, that the world has ever known, came to its 
 earthly perfection through its following of Jesus as 
 the incarnate Son of God, who led it out of the 
 dominion of sin by the power of his own friendly 
 aid. If he was mistaken in his view of Jesus, he, 
 at least, gained a great result from his life with him ; 
 and a similar union with Jesus, so far as it is still pos- 
 sible, must, as it would seem, be away of reaching 
 the same end. If, on the other hand, he was not 
 mistaken, it is the way,, and the only way ; and the 
 Christian system will manifest itself to every soul, 
 deep and genuine and true as his was, to be the 
 truth , — resting upon the consciousness, in the soul, 
 of sin as a reality, and pointing to the incarnation as 
 the personal power of God working upon the soul 
 for its deliverance. But was he mistaken? 
 
 This Gospel, in the view of it which we have 
 taken, suggests to us, at this point, another thought. 
 Here is the record of the impressions which the 
 Apostle declares to have been produced upon his 
 mind by what he had heard and seen of Jesus during 
 
194 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 his life with him. If they were false or iinfounclecl, 
 Jesus himself must have known them to be so. If, 
 then, they were suffered to remain uncontradicted, 
 the responsibility rests upon Jesus himself. But 
 would Jesus, who was so truthful in his character, 
 and so warm in his friendship for all his disciples, 
 and preeminently for this one of them, have allowed 
 them to continue deceived in regard to himself and 
 his mission? Would he have left this most intimate 
 friend exposed, for his whole lifetime, to such error, 
 when a word from himself would have corrected it ? 
 Think of the interview which Jesus had with the 
 disciples on the evening before his death, when all 
 the tenderest emotions of the soul were called forth, 
 — a scene without a counterpart in history, — and 
 if this inner life of the Apostle had not been growing 
 up under the influence of true ideas, if his belief 
 and that of his companions was not the truth, we 
 are forced to hold that the friend who was speaking 
 to them so tenderly was, at the very moment of his 
 apparent friendship, leaving them to a delusion, 
 which they were to extend as widely over the world 
 as they could. Even more than this, he was, at that 
 final hour, intentionally deceiving them in the posi- 
 tive declaration of untruths. Let the man who can 
 persuade himself of such an impossibility, believe it. 
 The world has no virtue in it, and has never seen 
 truth in any soul, if Jesus was untruthful. 
 
 We are compelled, I say, to hold that Jesus was a 
 deceiver of his nearest friends, if the impressions of 
 this author, as he gives them, are unfounded; for 
 the only other suppositions possible in the case are 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 195 
 
 com]3letely untenable. The one is, that Jesus was 
 himself deceived. But the comprehension of the 
 truth and of the human soul which Jesus had, as well 
 as his calm possession of himself, were such that he 
 could not have been carried away by the dreamy 
 vision of a greatness which was far above him. If 
 even in one unguarded moment he indulged such a 
 fancy, he must, as his clearer insight returned to 
 him, have penetrated the self-deception, and seen 
 himself again precisely as he was. If he allowed it 
 to come upon him again and again, or yielded him- 
 self up to its power as it came, he must have done so 
 willingly, and, therefore, must have been one who 
 was not deluded only, but who was something more 
 and worse than this. The most recent and most 
 learned of the adversaries of this Gospel who enter- 
 tain this view respecting Jesus, even in a limited 
 degree, is obliged to admit this, and to confess that 
 he must have, also, consciously assumed what he 
 knew did not belong to him, and thus must have been 
 partially a deceiver. The theory of his being de- 
 ceived is, thus, inseparable from that of his being 
 also untruthful. The former involves, of necessity, 
 in his case some admixture of the latter, and it falls 
 if the latter falls. 
 
 The other supposition is, that, though the apostle 
 records these impressions as those which were made 
 upon him while he was in the society of his Master, 
 they were in fact — so far as they had reference to 
 Jesus’ higher work and divine nature — only the 
 fruit of his subsequent musings after Jesus’ death. 
 He attributed to his Master, thus, what he came him- 
 
196 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL, 
 
 self to believe in only in his own later years. The 
 impossibility of this, we believe, has been already 
 made sufficiently clear by the line of thought which 
 we have followed throughout this discussion. But 
 there is a particular point which we may notice for a 
 moment, and in connection with which we may con- 
 fidently reject this supposition. In three or four 
 instances in this Gospel, we find the statement, which 
 has already been referred to in another connection, 
 that the author, or the disciples, did not come to the 
 right understanding of certain things until after Jesus 
 rose from the dead. These statements are introduced 
 in the most incidental way, and are among the many 
 indications that the book is not a fraudulent one. 
 But, if the apostle is careful in these cases to declare 
 the fact that, with reference to this or that point, he 
 did not comprehend the truth during Jesus’ lifetime, 
 does not this very painstaking in these cases show 
 that, in all other cases, he did gain his knowledge or 
 belief loithin that period? In no more emphatic 
 way, as it would seem, could he have proved that he 
 did not ” muse himself into the ideas which fill his 
 Gospel, or change his conception of his Master with 
 some subsequent change in his own thoughts or sen- 
 timents. It is not too much to say, that these little 
 sentences, so singular as they are, and occurring in 
 the narrative, as they do, with so much simplicity 
 and naturalness, prove beyond any reasonable doubt 
 that John did not attribute to Jesus any ideas or 
 words, except those which were actually found in the 
 discourses that Jesus had himself uttered and John 
 had himself heard. We are reduced, then, to the 
 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 197 
 
 alternative that Jesus was a deceiver, which contra- 
 dicts every characteristic of his nature exhibited in 
 the New Testament, and cannot be true, or that the 
 views which this apostle had of him and of the truth 
 which he taught were the right views, — and, there- 
 fore, as we have already seen, that the way in which 
 the apostle’s life grew toward perfection must be 
 the only way in which any man can obtain the same. 
 The argument which is, thus, derived from the record 
 of this author’s inner life for the truth of Christianity 
 is a powerful one. It is one which rises, as it were, 
 from the deeper recesses of the gospel' history^ and is, 
 for this very reason, of the greater force. 
 
 The Gospel which this apostle has given us, then, 
 is not only his biography of his Master ; in the light 
 in which we have viewed it at this time, it is, also, 
 his defence of the truth. As men, in the region 
 where he lived, had already begun to be involved in 
 the long discussion of the ages respecting God and 
 the way in which he reveals himself to the world, 
 their reasonings had, doubtless, placed many of them 
 in sharp antagonism to the Christian ideas. Some 
 of them, we may believe, had become cavilers and 
 sceptics who rested in their philosophy, and con- 
 ceived of nothing higher or better than their own 
 thoughts. As he looked out from the quiet sphere 
 of his labors, and saw the dangers which were thus 
 threatening the faith which he preached; as he 
 thought how rapidly these dangers might vincrease, 
 and realized how, through the charm of philosophical 
 investigation and disputation, they might in a pecu- 
 
198 
 
 THE FOUBTH GOSPEL. 
 
 liar degree affect men of cultivated minds ; and, 
 especially, as he felt that, with the near ending of 
 his own life, the last of the original witnesses would 
 have passed away from earth, and the church would 
 be left without the power of appealing to apostolic 
 authority still present with it, — we may suppose that 
 he felt impelled to leave behind him some presenta- 
 tion of the Christian truth, which should, if possible, 
 avert these, dangers. The most powerful presenta- 
 tion, however, for this end as well as every other, he 
 felt, would be the story of Jesus^ life. With the 
 delightful recollections of his early experience, there- 
 fore, he wrote the wonderful book which has been 
 the subject of our thought at this time. How strange 
 a thing, those doubters and disbelievers of his own 
 era may have said to one another, as they first 
 chanced to read its pages, — how strange a thing to 
 be thrown into the midst of our learned controver- 
 sies, and to defend the Christian doctrine against our 
 weighty objections ! It may easily have seemed to 
 them like the fond and foolish meditations of an old 
 man who sees an unreal beauty in his childhood, or 
 remembers some teacher of his youthful days as the 
 fountain of truth. What was this against philosophy? 
 But the simple story, which he told, outlived their 
 speculations and their reasonings, and, when they 
 had long been forgotten, it still retained the freshness 
 and fulness of its power. It did so, because it found 
 its way behind and beneath all controversy, — not 
 arguing with the doubter, but drawing his thoughts 
 to the life which had revealed the truths, and leaving 
 him in the contemplation of the effect of those truths 
 as they accomplished their Work in a human soul. 
 
THE FOUItTU GOSPEL, 
 
 199 
 
 The story stands, to-day, as it has always stood — 
 only that the doubters and sceptics now so realize its 
 divine power, if it is once accepted as coming from 
 an immediate disciple of Jesus, that they try to throw 
 doubt upon its truthfulness, and to postpone its 
 authorship to a later generation. By the artlessness 
 of its record, which is beyond the skill of any forger’s 
 art, and by the half-concealed, yet ever-revealed, 
 tracing of its authors Christian faith and feeling, 
 which could only be the work of that one within 
 whose heart these had found their abiding place, it 
 answers their questionings. And when the sceptics 
 of to-day, with all their objections and their philoso- 
 phy, shall have passed out of the world’s reverence 
 as completely as those of the early ages have already 
 passed, it will still give to the thoughtful believer his 
 surest confidence for himself, and his strongest de- 
 fense against his adversaries, in the inner life of 
 John springing out of his communion with the life 
 of his Master. 
 
VII 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 BY ANDREW P. PEABODY. 
 
 R ENAN’S Life of Jesus, which before the Franco- 
 Prussian war had reached in the original its 
 thirteenth edition, besides not a few in its English 
 dress, is now the gospel of the doubting and unbe- 
 lieving on both sides of the Atlantic, and will remain 
 so till some one bolder or more subtle than he shall 
 displace him, as he displaced Strauss. His book is 
 a charming one in its delineations of everybody and 
 everything but Christ. In his chapter on the origi- 
 nal disciples, he gives a very vivid sketch of their 
 respective individualities ; and both in his Life of Jesus 
 and in his work on the Apostles, he acknowledges 
 the authenticity of the accounts we have of them, the 
 miraculous narratives alone excepted. There is in 
 the Introduction to his Life of Jesus, one very ex- 
 traordinary testimony to the truth of the evangelic 
 history, which I cannot forbear quoting. 
 
 " I have traversed in every direction the district 
 where the scenes of the Gospel are laid. I have vis- 
 ited Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria. Almost no 
 site named in the story of Jesus has escaped me. 
 All this narrative, which at a distance seems to float 
 
 200 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 201 
 
 in the clouds of an unreal world, thus assumed a 
 body, a substantial existence, which astonished me. 
 The striking coincidence .of texts and places, the 
 wonderful harmony of the ideal of the Gospels with 
 the country which served as its frame, was for me a 
 revelation. I had before my eyes a fifth Gospel, and 
 thenceforth, through the stories of Matthew and 
 Mark, instead of an abstract being who one might 
 say had never existed, I saw in life and movement a 
 human form that challenged admiration.” 
 
 In fine, Renan treats the entire New-Testament 
 history as an unquestionable record of actual histori- 
 cal personages and events, except where the super- 
 natural element crops out in the narrative ; thus far, 
 at least, showing himself both a clear-sighted and an 
 honest critic. In point of fact, the historical books 
 of the New Testament have at once so many external 
 proofs and internal tokens of their authenticity, as to 
 leave no question concerning the substantial truth of 
 their narrative of ordinary events, however we may 
 dispose of the abnormal incidents they record. 
 
 Resting, then, on the admitted authenticity of this 
 narrative, I propose to draw from the apostles who 
 bear in it so prominent a part, such testimony as they 
 oflfer in behalf of their Lord and Master. 
 
 In the first place, there is not the slightest doubt 
 that of eleven of these apostles, most or all incurred 
 hardships, losses, perils, persecutions, and sufferings 
 of the severest character, in attestation of their belief 
 in the Divine mission and authority of Jesus; that 
 several of them, as itinerant preachers, devoted them- 
 selves for the residue of their lives to the promulga- 
 
202 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 tion of this belief, their zeal carrying them into 
 distant lands, and enabling them to overcome natural, 
 social, and national barriers, insurmountable except 
 to the most ardent and self-forgetting enthusiasm; 
 and that several of them, in the same cause, encoun- 
 tered and bravely endured beheading, crucifixion, 
 and other agonizing and ignominious forms of death. 
 These things attest, at least, the sincerity and the 
 intensity of their belief. Sacrifice and martyrdom 
 always prove as much as this. But they do not prove 
 the truth of a belief, — if they did, there would be 
 no end to the shams, contradictions, and absurdities, 
 which, as sealed by the blood of their believers, we 
 should be compelled to recognize as true. 
 
 There is, however, this peculiarity which distin- 
 guishes the apostles from all other martyrs, even 
 from other early Christian martyrs. The declara- 
 tions which they maintained at the peril and cost of 
 their lives were not dogmatic articles of faith, but 
 statements of alleged facts, of which they professed 
 to have been eye and ear witnesses. Foremost 
 among these facts was the resurrection of Jesus from 
 the dead. That they believed themselves witnesses 
 of the reality of his death and of his reappearance 
 among the living, there cannot be the slightest doubt. 
 This Eenan admits. He maintains that Jesus really- 
 died; that tlie apostles caught eagerly at the first 
 rumor of his resurrection, which grew from the steal- 
 ing of his body (it is hard to say by whom, but more 
 probably by Joseph of Arimathea than by any one 
 else) , and from Mary Magdalene’s mistaking the gar- 
 dener for him in the dim dawn and through the mist 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES, 
 
 203 
 
 of her tears ; that they so firmly believed this story 
 as to imagine that they saw him repeatedly, by day 
 as well as by night, at Jerusalem and in Galilee, the 
 whole eleven of them at a time ; and that this hallu- 
 cination lasted many days, and, on one occasion, 
 extended to the more than five hundred brethren 
 mentioned by St. Paul. He says emphatically that 
 had the apostles possessed less than the strongest 
 assurance of their Master’s resurrection, they could 
 not by any possibility have been the earnest propa- 
 gandists and heroic sufferers that they undoubtedly 
 were. We thank him for this admission ; and indeed 
 no champion of the Christian faith can ask for a 
 firmer basis for his superstructure of argument and 
 evidence than the concessions made all along by this 
 pre-eminently fair and frank, yet for all this only the 
 more captivating and dangerous, Coryplneus of the 
 anti-Christian host. 
 
 But the undoubting belief of professed eye and 
 ear witnesses is not in itself sufficient to inspire con- 
 fidence in their story. If these men were fools or 
 fanatics, their testimony, though blood-sealed, is of 
 no value. The question for us then is, whether they 
 were persons of sufficiently acute perceptions, clear 
 mind, and sound judgment, to be relied on. 
 
 To answer this question, let us look first at their 
 writings. Five of them, Matthew, John, James, 
 Peter, and Jude, are among the reputed authors of 
 the New Testament. As to these writers, we have 
 as good reason for believing in the genuineness of 
 Matthew’s and John’s Gospels, of John’s First 
 Epistle, and of Peter’s First Epistle, as we have for 
 
204 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 believing in the genuineness of Virgil’s Georgies, 
 or of Cicero, de Officiis. We find them, from the ear- 
 liest mention made of them, named and quoted as 
 written by their now reputed authors, without any 
 record or intimation of a doubt or question as to their 
 authorship. 
 
 I am aware, indeed, that rationalistic criticism does 
 not admit that the Gospels came into being as other 
 books do. The development theory is applied to 
 them, as to the whole realm of living nature. Their 
 genesis is like Topsy’s, in Mrs. Stowe’s tale, — "I 
 ’spect I grow’d, don’t think nobody never made me.” 
 But Renan admits that memoranda of our Saviour’s 
 discourses written out by Matthew were the nucleus 
 of the Gospel which bears his name. He thinks, 
 too, that the narrative portions of John’s Gospel, 
 which he regards as singularly truthlike and accu- 
 rate, were derived from that Apostle, and that the 
 whole book was written by his immediate disciples. 
 
 Here let me ofier some considerations with special 
 reference to the authorship of the fourth Gospel. 
 As I have said, the testimony of antiquity that it 
 was written by John, is unanimous and full. As to 
 his having written the Apocalypse, that testimony is 
 less clear and conclusive. Yet the critics of the 
 , Tubingen school maintain that this last book was 
 undoubtedly written by the Apostle John. But it is 
 very certain that the same man wrote the Gospel of 
 John (so-called), the first Epistle bearing his name, 
 and the Apocalypse ; for there are several very strik- 
 ing characteristic conceptions and figures, which are 
 both peculiar and common to these three writings, or 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 205 
 
 to the Gospel and the Apocalypse. For instance, the 
 term Logos (the Word) is applied to Jesus in all 
 three of them, and nowhere else; and again, Jesus 
 is introduced in the Gospel under the figure of a 
 lamb; the same figure reappears in the Apocalypse, in 
 almost every vision of the glorified Redeemer, and 
 he is called by this name nowhere else. These are 
 but two instances, to which several others might be 
 added, of peculiarities common to the Gospel and 
 the Apocalypse, and rendering it very certain, that 
 if the Tubingen critics do not err in ascribing the 
 latter to John, he must have written the former. 
 
 Yet another consideration strikes me very forcibly 
 in favor of the authorship of the fourth Gospel by 
 John. True or false, this is the most remarkable 
 book ever written, and has had more power over the 
 human mind and heart than any other, both in 
 determining belief, and in awakening tender, pro- 
 found, and fervent devotion. The sublimest narrative 
 ever written is that of the raising of Lazarus. The 
 words put into the mouth of Jesus in that scene, ''I 
 am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth 
 in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and 
 whoso liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die,” 
 are the grandest utterance ever heard on earth, and 
 must and wdll be rehearsed in hope and triumph, by 
 the graveside, till the last of the dying shall have 
 put on immortality. The recorded communings and 
 intercessions of the night of the betrayal surpass in 
 every element of pathos all human literature beside, 
 and there at this and at every moment, all the world 
 over, thousands upon thousands of the weary and 
 
206 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 grief-stricken, who, oft as they read these blessed 
 words, feel pillowed on the bosom of Infinite Love. 
 
 Now, there are but two hypotheses possible. One 
 is, that we have the faithful narrative of what was said 
 and done by the Truth and Life incarnate, transmit- 
 ted to us by the hand of one who saw and heard 
 what he vrrote. If this be so, while it makes no 
 manner of difference which of the apostles wrote the 
 book, no one would venture to doubt its having been 
 written by John. The other supposition is, that the 
 author of this Gospel, by his own genius, without a 
 copy, shaped and filled out in those transcendently 
 glorious and beautiful proportions and tints the figure 
 of Jesus Christ, and from his own fertile brain spun 
 those discourses into whose depth none can enter 
 without seeming to listen to the very voice of God. 
 If this be true, then the author of that book deserves 
 the place in human gratitude, reverence, nay, adora- 
 tion, which the Christian Church has assigned to 
 J esus. He towers up above all other writers, all other 
 men of his age ; nay more, as the greatest mind, the 
 greatest soul of his race. The book is, indeed, su- 
 perhuman, if he whom it portrays was not so. How 
 then could the name of such a writer have been lost, 
 and his fame transferred to another ? It was a name 
 too great to perish, a fame too exalted not to have its 
 enduring record. We are then compelled to accept 
 as our only alternative, our first supposition, — the 
 belief resting on unbroken tradition from the earliest 
 times, that this book, great and glorious as it is, was 
 written by an illiterate Galilean fisherman, and that it 
 owes its superiority to all other books, not to any 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 207 
 
 surpassing ability of the author, but to the Divine 
 life in human form, as to which he only related what 
 had been uttered in his presence, or done under his 
 personal knowledge. 
 
 As for the Epistle bearing the name of James, we 
 have evidence that it was generally received as gen- 
 uine, and was from a very early period read in the 
 churches. As of the two apostles bearing that name, 
 the brother of John died early, this letter must be 
 ascribed to James, the son of Alphseus. We have 
 about the same kind and nearly the same degree of 
 evidence, for the genuineness of the epistle called 
 that of Jude, or Judas, — evidence which would 
 be deemed amply sufficient for any book outside of the 
 sacred canon. The epistles of James and Jude have 
 also characteristics of style and sentiment which ally 
 them to the undoubtedly genuine epistles of John 
 and Peter, and show that they belong to the earliest 
 time and the apostolic school, and not to the next suc- 
 ceeding Christian age, whose few extant writings are 
 of quite a different type. 
 
 We have then, undoubtedly, in our hands the 
 writings of some of those men, who, at the risk of 
 everything earthly, professed to have been eye-wit- 
 nesses of what Jesus said and did. How do they 
 write? Like intelligent, sober, credible men? Or 
 do they in their writings show themselves so stupid 
 and foolish, or so wild and fanatical, that they could 
 easily have been the dupes of pretension or impos- 
 ture ? This question would seem to be answered by 
 the regard which has been paid to their writings in 
 every subsequent age by the foremost men in point 
 
208 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES, 
 
 of intelligence, good sense, and culture. These 
 writers Jiave generally been supposed, in Christen- 
 dom, to have been specially enlightened and inspired 
 by God. Whether this be so or not, it is aside from 
 our present purpose to inquire ; but the fact that such 
 an opinion concerning them has been held by a large 
 proportion of the first minds of our race is a sufll- 
 cient proof that their writings are at least free from 
 the tokens of weakness, folly, or infatuation. 
 
 This view of their character is certainly confirmed ' 
 on examination. The books present all the marks 
 of truth, when tried by the usual tests. The Gospels 
 of Matthew and John contain a great many names, 
 dates, local and historical references ; it was a period 
 of very frequent change in the political relations of 
 Palestine, — a period as to which later writers would 
 inevitably have committed gross anachronisms ; yet 
 we find in these books only the closest accordance, 
 in geography, chronology, and history, with all the 
 authorities of the time, especially with the minute 
 and circumstantial history of Josephus. Then, too, 
 we have between the Epistles and the Gospels, just 
 the kind of coincidences which we should expect to 
 trace in genuine works. Thus we find in the Epistles 
 not any formal statement of facts, or set rehearsal 
 of the words of Jesus ; but we detect in them unmis- 
 takable tokens of firm belief in the contents of the 
 Gospels, and what is more, of precisely the condition 
 of mind and character which these contents were 
 adapted to produce. The coincidences between the 
 Gospels and the Epistles are closely analogous to 
 those which we should expect to find betweeji the 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 209 
 
 domestic or friendly letters of statesmen or generals 
 concerned in either war of our independence and 
 authentic histories of the same war. 
 
 Then, again, there are no books in the world that 
 show greater serenity and clearness of mind than 
 these manifest. Their style is simple, artless, free 
 from exaggeration, hyperbole, apostrophe, decla- 
 mation, ambitious rhetoric, outbursts of impetuous 
 feeling. Matthew and John, in describing the mar- 
 vellous life and works of Jesus Christ, write as quietly 
 and dispassionately as if they were narrating ordinary 
 events. They show no fear that they shall not be 
 believed. They use no forms of strong asseveration. 
 In fine, they write as if they had become so accus- 
 tomed to experiences on a higher plane than that of 
 common humanity, as to be unconscious of their 
 position, — just as natives of Switzerland might talk 
 and write calmly and unexcitedly about glaciers and 
 avalanches, and scenes of which the mere thought 
 thrills us with profound emotion. 
 
 The Epistle of James is a very remarkable com- 
 position. Had it come down to us, with such slight 
 verbal changes as might have been necessary, as a 
 treatise of Plutarch, or Epictetus, or Marcus Anto- 
 ninus, it would now be regarded as the finest ethical 
 monument of antiquity, and would hold an unrivalled 
 place as a school and college classic. For common 
 sense, shrewd observation of men and things, deep 
 insight, and practical wisdom of the highest order, 
 it may resign all vantage-ground on the score of any 
 sacred associations, and still retain its prestige unim- 
 paired ; while it is no less remarkable for the sharp 
 
210 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES, 
 
 edge and keen point and brilliant sheen of many of 
 its single maxims and apophthegms. 
 
 I have said enough about these writings for my 
 present argument, — enough to show you that at 
 least those of the apostles whom we know as authors 
 were not feeble, silly, credulous men, who could have 
 been easily deceived by an impostor, or drawn by a 
 self-deluded pretender into the vortex of his fanati- 
 cism ; but that they were clear-headed, sober-minded, 
 intelligent, and in every way competent witnesses of 
 the events which some of them record as from their 
 own personal knowledge, and the others recognize as 
 undoubted facts. 
 
 Let us now take note of the professions of the 
 apostles, so far as they are specified in the New Tes- 
 tament. Six of them, perhaps more, were fishermen 
 on the little lake of Galilee, — not sailors in any 
 large sense of the word (for they were probably 
 never out of sight of land, or in their boats for more 
 than a day at a time) , so that there was nothing in 
 their simple, prosaic life to nurture the imaginative 
 element, or to cherish credulity and superstition, but 
 much that was adapted to educate their perceptive 
 faculties, their powers of observation, and their 
 plain, practical common-sense. Hardy, straightfor- 
 ward, honest men, jostled and jostling on the rough 
 paths of daily life, the weaker sinews of character 
 broken down, the hardier developed by incessant 
 toil, they would have been firm adherents to one 
 who could give them unmistakable credentials of his 
 claims, but not such persons as could be enlisted in 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 211 
 
 the cause of a fanatic, or become the easy dupes of 
 a plausible deceiver. We have in the first chapter 
 of John’s Gospel, in a series of conversations whose 
 life-likeness Eenan (in an Appendix to his last edi- 
 tion) adduces as a token of their authenticity, a very 
 vivid picture of what these men were before they 
 became the disciples of Jesus ; and the picture is that 
 of self-respecting, intelligent, thoughtful men, — 
 such men as the Hebrew theology and the institutions 
 of Moses were adapted to produce among the labor- 
 ing classes, but such as were developed under no 
 other type of ancient civilization, nor have yet been 
 formed, except in comparatively small numbers, 
 under th^ half-Pagan auspices of what I fear we mis- 
 call Christian civilization. 
 
 Of these fishermen, one indeed, Peter, appears to 
 have been ardent and impulsive in his nature. But 
 it is equally manifest that he was testy, petulant, 
 captious, easily offended, and ready sometimes even 
 to find fault with his Master. Such a man as he 
 would have been disgusted with sham and preten- 
 sion. Had there been aught in the works, words, or 
 daily life of Jesus that was not genuine, honest, pure, 
 noble, he was the very man to take umbrage at it, 
 and to transmute his allegiance into implacable 
 enmity. But his attachment flickers only for a few 
 moments under the natural reaction from a foolhardy 
 courage ; a single look from his Master drowns his 
 denial in a passion of tears ; and thenceforward none 
 is more prompt and earnest than he to bear testi- 
 mony, at whatever cost and risk, to the power aad 
 love of God as incarnate in Jesus Christ. 
 
212 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Another of the twelve, Matthew, was a tax-gatherer 
 in the service of the Eoman government, probably a 
 collector of the imposts on the brisk, though petty 
 inland traffic on the Lake of Galilee, — gathering 
 tribute from a people that scorned to pay it, and 
 sought every possible subterfuge to evade it. His 
 office could have been borne only by one who was all 
 eye and ear. He was a detective by the necessity of 
 his profession, — the last man to be duped either by 
 fanaticism or imposture. He, too, had more to lose 
 than the fishermen. The hands of all the fiscal agents 
 of Eome, great and small, had viscous palms ; and 
 we have intimation of diis substantial worldly estate 
 in his making a great feast for the Saviour, — an 
 occasion important enough for the Pharisees to know 
 who the guests were, and to carp at them as below 
 the standard of Jewish gentility and purism. His 
 testimony, then, has a peculiar value, both on the 
 ground of his profession, and on account of the heavy 
 sacrifice which his discipleship made inevitably 
 necessary. As for his Gospel, its entire character 
 accords closely with what we know of him. There is 
 something journal-like in its narrative portions, as if 
 it were written by a man of business. It contains 
 more about the Saviour’s sayings and doings at Caper- 
 naum — Matthew’s post of duty — than either of the 
 other Gospels. Moreover, when he speaks of his 
 own house, he calls it the house, as a man generally 
 does when he has a place of business separate from 
 his home. The uniform tradition of the early church 
 represents his sacrifice for the cause of Christ as life- 
 long, his service as a missionary of the cross having 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 213 
 
 been first, for fifteen years, in Judea, and afterward in 
 remote regions of the East, and perhaps of the South ; 
 for there is some reason to believe that his Christian 
 enterprise carried him as far as Ethiopia. 
 
 Another of the sacred college was Simon, the 
 Canaanite, as he is called by Matthew and Mark, 
 Zelotes (or the Zealot), as Luke styles him, — the 
 former being the Syro-Chaldaie, the latter the Greek 
 designation of a sect of Jewish fanatics, who pushed 
 their loyalty to the Mosaic ritual and economy to 
 absolute frenzy, regarded the Roman power with the 
 intensest hatred, deemed murder and even stealthy 
 assassination justifiable in defence of the national 
 integrity and faith, and were the foremost agents in 
 producing the condition of things which led to the 
 destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Hebrew 
 people, — enormities opposed to the ordinary and else 
 invariable Roman policy, but forced upon Titus by 
 the unparalleled obstinacy of these very ultraists of 
 whom we so strangely find one among the followers 
 of Jesus Christ. The Zealots were literal inter- 
 preters of the prophecies that seemed to promise 
 extended temporal dominion to the Messiah, and 
 were in constant expectation of his advent. We 
 know nothing very definite about this man’s subse- 
 quent life ; but the tradition is, that he was an inde- 
 fatigable propagandist of the new faith, and that he 
 finally suffered death on the cross. 
 
 That a man of this sort should have been among 
 the apostles indicates, as it seems to me, the reality 
 of the coincidence, claimed by the Evangelists, be- 
 
214 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 tween the Messiah of the prophets and Jesns of 
 Nazareth. This man was one of those who were all 
 the time watching the Eastern sky for the dawn of 
 the Messianic day, and that a day, as they imagined, 
 of vengeance and of victory. There was not a pro- 
 phetic sign with which he was not familiar ; but only 
 a convergence of these signs too patent and too full 
 to admit of doubt, could have made a Zealot acknowl- 
 edge a Messiah in every feature so utterly unlike 
 the mailed and harnessed chieftain of his day- 
 dreams. 
 
 This is a point which seems to me deser^diig of 
 more than a passing notice. The evangelists relate 
 numerous circumstances of birthplace, birth, parent- 
 age, condition, and experience, in which prophecy 
 concerning the Messiah was said to be fulfilled in 
 Jesus. Rationalistic critics represent these coinci- 
 dences as in part factitious, and in part fictitious. 
 They allege that Jesus did some things, in order to 
 simulate the Messiah of the prophets ; and that, as to 
 the greater number of those particulars in which he 
 could have had no agency, as about his birth in Beth- 
 lehem and his descent from David, the evangelists 
 coined facts in accordance with predictions. It might 
 seem sufficient to say that, as the coiners of these 
 coincidences risked their lives by coining them, they 
 must, before undertaking thus to deceive the world, 
 have accomplished the more difficult task of deceiv- 
 ing themselves. But here we have a specially strong 
 case. A man pledged at once to the most literal 
 interpretj;ition of prophecy and to a line of conduct 
 utterly opposed to the spirit and character of Jesus 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 215 
 
 is so impressed with the Messianic tokens that meet 
 in Jesus, as to throw aside his old sectarian convic- 
 tions, to renounce his former self, to become a new 
 man, and to adhere in life and death to a Teacher and 
 Leader with whom at the outset he could have had 
 nothing in common except reverence for the Word 
 of God in the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 
 We come next to the case of Thomas. He was 
 evidently sceptical by nature, — I would even say, by 
 the grace and gift of God, who evidently made use 
 of this trait in his mental character for the strength- 
 ening of his own faith, and of that of multitudes who 
 should come after him. The other ten have seen the 
 risen Lord, and have no doubt of his identity. He 
 very naturally thinks it more probable that they have 
 been deceived by some family likeness or casual 
 resemblance in another person than that the Crucified 
 is really alive. He demands to examine the wound- 
 marks, to trace the prints of the nails, the incision 
 made by the spear. He was in the right. His was 
 an honest and reasonable doubt, and we are thankful 
 for it. His name should never be spoken with less 
 than the highest honor, and had he been the type of 
 a larger proportion of those ministers of religion who 
 have been successors of the apostles, there would be 
 much less of infidelity than there now is. Credulity 
 generates unbelief ; and infidelity has no weapons of 
 its own forging that have half the efficacy of those 
 which it picks up among the crazy outworks, built by 
 a fiiith both blind and timid, around the impregnable 
 citadel of everlasting truth. 
 
216 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 There are two kinds of scepticism, — that of the 
 heart and that of the iiltellect. The former is adapted 
 to make unbelievers ; the latter, to make Christians. 
 The former will not look at the hands and the side, 
 because it is determined not to be moved morally and 
 spiritually as they would move the honest soul ; the 
 latter insists on seeing the wound-marks, because it 
 wants to know the precise truth, and therefore avails 
 itself of whatever evidence God has given. The 
 scepticism of the heart hates the light, and will not 
 come to the light,* lest its deeds be reproved. The. 
 scepticism of the mind is that which cannot believe 
 without sufficient evidence. It proves all things, and 
 holds fast that which will stand the test. It examines 
 both sides of a question, and adheres to that which 
 imposes the least strain on its belief. Such a mind 
 needs only to have the evidences of Christianity fairly 
 presented, to yield to it entire and cordial faith. Many 
 of the firmest believers, many of the ablest defenders 
 of the truth as it is in Jesus, belong to this class of 
 minds. In this sense, Lardner, Paley, and Butler, 
 whose contributions to the Christian evidences are 
 invaluable,. and will be so for generations to come, 
 were pre-eminently sceptics. They would not believe, 
 without examining the hands and the side, trying all 
 the witnesses, testing the objections against Chris- 
 tianity with the opposing arguments, weighing coolly 
 and impartially the evidence, real or pretended, on 
 either side ; and the result was a faith in Christ, 
 which sight could hardly have rendered clearer or 
 stronger. 
 
 God has made many such minds, and they are 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 217 
 
 among the noblest and best of his creation. I have 
 known, you probably have, some extreme specimens 
 of this kind among the most loyal and exemplary 
 Christians. Take a case like this, — I paint from 
 life, — an individual as the type of a class. He whom 
 I describe wants for every item of his belief a solid 
 basis of fact, and a superstructure of unanswerable 
 reasoning built upon it; and he will let his faith 
 reach no higher than he can lay this superstructure, 
 as it were, stone upon stone in insoluble cement. 
 He has no relish (and I think him wrong there) for 
 those speculations about spiritual and heavenly 
 things, in which from a mere hint of holy writ, fancy 
 takes her flight in those higher regions of thought, 
 which, I believe, God has purposely left undescribed, 
 that we may have our free range in them. In the 
 house built on Christ as the foundation, he prefers to 
 live in the lower story, where he can test the strength 
 of the floor and the walls. But so firmly has he by 
 careful examination convinced himself of the Saviour’s 
 redeeming mission, sacrificial death, miracles, resur- 
 rection and ascension, that he speaks of them as he 
 would of sunrise, or the phases of the moon, or any 
 of the well-known phenomena of the outward world, 
 as matters long since placed by him beyond question. 
 He conforms his life to these great spiritual facts, as 
 he does to the laws of nature. And when he comes 
 to die, he passes away, not with any glow of ecstasy, 
 but with the quiet confidence of one who knows just 
 where he is going, and has just as firm a belief in 
 the many mansions in the Father’s house as in the 
 several apartments in his own house. This is the 
 
218 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES, 
 
 style of faith that gi’ows from the honest scepticism 
 which insists on always having sufficient reasons for 
 its belief. It often has less unction than might seem 
 edifying ; but if you want valiant soldiers of the cross 
 for times when unbelief is rampant, boastful, and 
 aggressive, these are the men to bear the shock of 
 arms, and come off more than conquerors. 
 
 We care not, then, how many there are of the 
 same order of mind with Thomas. The condition of 
 the Christian evidences is specially adapted to their 
 natures. The infidel has much harder things to 
 believe than the Christian, severer difficulties to 
 encounter, contradictions, inconsistencies and absurd- 
 ities which only a credulous mind could entertain, 
 — from which a natively sceptical intellect is inev- 
 itably drawn into the Christian faith. For, if Chris- 
 tianity be not true, we have to believe in numerous 
 well-known effects without any adequate cause ; in 
 extensive conditions of mind and of conviction for 
 which there was no basis whatever ; in the growing 
 up of confessedly the most perfect system of morality 
 the world has ever seen, in the brain of an illiterate 
 Galilean peasant, in a degenerate nation aind a corrupt 
 age, and not only so, but in the brain of one who 
 was either weak enough to imagine, or wicked enough 
 to feign, himself possessed of supernatural powers ; 
 in the simultaneous illusion of the senses of multi- 
 tudes and bodies of men for many successive days, 
 when it was the interest and the wish of those very 
 men to find that false which they were constrained to 
 recognize as true ; in the imposition of pretended or 
 imagined miracles upon a hostile people, so success- 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 219 
 
 fully that they were compelled to admit their actual 
 occurrence, and (as we have abundant Jewish evi- 
 dence) imputed them to the aid of Beelzebub, the 
 imagined prince of demons ; and in many other things 
 equally incredible and opposed to all recognized laws 
 of belief. The fact is, that not a few of the most 
 noted infidels of modern times have been equally 
 noted for their credulity ; and that at the present 
 moment the superstitions hardly less gross than feti- 
 chism, which are connected with pseudo-spiritualism, 
 are most rife in the very quarters where the miracles 
 and the resurrection of Jesus are thrown aside as 
 unworthy of credence. 
 
 One word more about the eleven, before I pass to 
 the twelfth. These eleven, it must be remembered, 
 were not only witnesses of leading events in the life 
 of Jesus, but were for many months his constant 
 companions, on the road, in the house, on the lake. 
 They knew his whole manner of life, — r his modes of 
 intercourse with all sorts and conditions of men, — 
 the degree to which he embodied his precepts of 
 piety, purity, justice, forbearance, and kindness in 
 his daily walk and conversation. They staked their 
 lives on a body of statements, prominent among 
 which was the alleged fact of his faultless and abso- 
 lutely godlike sanctity and excellence. They must 
 have known whether this was true or not ; and that 
 they suffered and died to attest it, proves that they 
 knew it to be true. 
 
 I have spoken of eleven only. There remains 
 
220 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 D^udas, by far the most important of all, for whom the 
 Church has been slow to own her debt of everlasting 
 gratitude to the God who makes the wrath and guilt 
 of man to praise him. Judas had the same oppor- 
 tunities with the other eleven for knowing everything 
 about his Master that could be known. He was 
 employed in a confidential relation, as custodian of 
 the scanty funds of the apostolic family. He was 
 probably from the first a selfish, greedy, deceitful 
 man ; our Saviour early and repeatedly intimates his 
 recognition of these traits ; and he probably chose 
 him on account of them, that if malice itself could 
 find aught against him, it might have free scope and 
 full swing. 
 
 Judas entered into negotiations with the chief 
 priests and their associates for the ruin of his Mas- 
 ter, and, mercenary as he was, he would certainly 
 have efiectod that ruin in the way most profitable to 
 himself. Now it was only as a last resort that the 
 leading Jews wanted to get possession of the body 
 of Jesus. They felt by no means certain that they 
 could persuade Pilate to kill him, and they dared not 
 kill him themselves. They would have immeasurably 
 preferred to destroy his influence, to detect some im- 
 posture in his alleged miracles, or to find some weak 
 point in his character, some damning incident in his 
 life. They were so doubtful how they could dispose 
 of their prisoner, that they offered a very low price 
 for him. But they had large means at their com- 
 mand, and would have given a much greater reward 
 for a surer service. Could Judas have gone to those 
 men with evidence of jugglery, pretence, or exagger- 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 221 
 
 atioii in the wonderful works reported to have l3ecn 
 wrought by Jesus, or could he have proved a single 
 deed or utterance that would impair the reputation 
 of perfect sanctity which Jesus held among a large 
 portion of the people ; in fine, could he have borne 
 the slightest testimony against his Master’s character, 
 he might as easily as not have made his thirty pieces 
 of silver three thousand, — he might have named his 
 own price, and if there had not been money enough 
 in hand, they would have taken up contributions in all 
 the synagogues to pay it. But there was absolutely 
 nothing secret which could injure Jesus and his cause 
 by being made known. There was nothing for this 
 bad man to betray except the place in the environs 
 of the crowded city where Jesus was going to pass 
 the night, — it being necessary to arrest him by 
 night, on account of the large number of friendly 
 Galileans who would have resisted any attempt to 
 apprehend him by daylight. For this mean and 
 paltry service he had a commensurately pitiful com- 
 pensation. 
 
 But even he repents of what he has done. The 
 power and beauty of that blessed spirit, the majesty, 
 meekness, and love of that holy countenance come 
 over him, but too late to recall his deed. He seeks, 
 as so many do in all times, in our time, to escape 
 the contamination of ill-gotten gain by casting it into 
 the temple-treasury; and finding no relief, in an 
 agony of remorse and despair he goes and hangs him- 
 self, bearing as unequivocal and precious testimony 
 to the truth and purity of his Master in that horrible 
 suicide, as the other apostles bore in their cheerful 
 
222 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 sufferings and martyrdom for the love of their 
 ascended Lord. 
 
 Judas has been strangely overlooked by the Church ; 
 no day is assigned to him in the calendar ; no account 
 is taken of his services ; — yet we could have better 
 spared a better man. We thank God for the life- 
 record of those of the sacred college who followed 
 closest in the footsteps of their Lord ; yet while we 
 have the Master, we might not have missed even 
 James, or Peter, or Nathaniel. But we do need 
 Judas, to learn what aspect the Saviour manifested 
 to a subtle, captious, and treacherous witness, and 
 thus to have the testimony of the vilest avarice, 
 meanness, and malice, alongside with that of God and 
 the holy angels, to the truth of his claims-; the guile- 
 lessness of his spirit, the purity of his life. 
 
 I have thus presented the evidences of our 
 Saviour’s Divine mission and character afforded us by 
 those of whom the Evangelist writes, "He ordained 
 twelve, that they should be with him.” In transmit- 
 ting to us their testimony, he has ordained us also, 
 that we should be with him. This is the place to 
 which Jesus calls us and heaven invites us. Be it 
 our place ; and may it be our blessedness so to con- 
 fess him in our earthly lives and before men, that we 
 may be owned of him in heaven, before the angels 
 of God. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS 
 CHRIST. 
 
 BY REV. KINSLEY TWINING, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
 
 riHHE subject on which I am to address you is the^^ 
 JL evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ* 
 We are, therefore, to occupy, for the time being, ^ 
 position against which the utmost violence of sceptic 
 cal assault has been directed. ' 
 
 It has not escaped the sharp eye of rationalism, 
 that while the great miracle of the resurrection 
 remains unshaken, it would be of small account to 
 throw doubt on the others. They cannot be dis- 
 credited while the principle involved in them all is 
 perfectly upheld bj' the unimpeachable fact which is 
 to pass under our review. Scepticism has therefore 
 omitted no pains to deprive Christianity of this capi- 
 tal fact in its defence ; while believers, with a still 
 deeper sense of its vital importance, have clung to it 
 as the critical fact on which Christianity depends. 
 ''If Christ be not risen,” says Paul, "then is our 
 preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” 
 
 It was therefore to be expected, that here, on this 
 ground, the battle of Christianity would be fought. 
 And here it has been fought : first, against the 
 Pharisees, who admitted that God might raise the 
 
 223 
 
224 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 dead, but denied that he had so raised Jesus of 
 Nazareth ; and next against the Sadducee and the 
 Pagan, who, like the modern school of doubt, op- 
 posed the evidence of such an event having occurred 
 with the a priori dogma of the incredibility of all 
 miracles, and, especially, of such a miracle as the 
 resurrection. 
 
 And it is here, on this ground, that the battle of 
 Christianity against the current infidelity will have 
 to be fought. The resurrection is the great miracle 
 which settles the question for the lesser ones. If we 
 must surrender this fact, nothing remains in Chris- 
 tianity to make it worth a better defence than Judaism 
 or Confucianism deserve. Pressens6 once said, " If 
 the resurrection does not continue an essential part 
 of Christianity, it is no longer worth while to speak 
 of the rest.” But if it does, and cannot be shaken, 
 revelation and the Christian doctrine of miracles have 
 a complete defence ; and we may safely leave the flings 
 at the minor miracles of the Bible, to those who find 
 delight in that kind of petty warfare. 
 
 In discussing this question, much depends on the 
 spirit in which it is approached. The moral axioms 
 with which the inquiry is begun, decide where it is 
 to end. The writers on the sceptical side are care- 
 ful to prepare their readers with elaborate introduc- 
 tions before they admit them to the facts. " To 
 write the history of a religion,” says Renan, '^it is 
 necessary, first, to have believed it (without this, w^e 
 could not understand by what it has charmed and 
 satisfied the human conscience) ; in the second place, 
 to believe it no longer implicitly ; for implicit faith 
 
RESUIUtECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 225 
 
 is incompatible with sincere history.” * Amazing com- 
 bination of a faith which has ceased to be anything, 
 with a doubt which is everything ! 
 
 We protest, in advance, against such pre-judgment 
 of the case. The question of miracles — and pre- 
 eminently the question of the resurrection — is one 
 of evidence. Its elements lie within the scope of 
 observation and of knowledge. There exists what 
 purports to be a body of evidence. We simply insist 
 that this evidence should be heard. We do not 
 object to the appeal to a priori belief in studying 
 such a history as that of the resurrection. It is 
 only the most superficial examiner who finds in the 
 record nothing more than bare facts, and requires 
 nothing more to interpret them. We bring to such 
 investigations certain guiding ideas or presupposi- 
 tions, which, whether they are those entertained by 
 Mr. Hume or by Augustus Neander, are equally 
 metaphysical and theological in their character, and 
 equally important in their bearing on the question. 
 For example, the resurrection of Jesus is the strong- 
 est possible assertion of the continuity and perma- 
 nence of personal existence after death. It is the 
 noblest triumph of spiritual life and power over mere 
 nature, and, as such, comes into fatal collision with 
 the pantheistic presumptions, which have been em- 
 ployed by writers on that side of the question as 
 their chief reliance in the attack on the facts which 
 prove the resurrection to have occurred. But if it 
 can be shown that Jesus rose from the dead, this 
 evidence is not to be ruled out by such a priori 
 * Life of Jesus, introduc. p. 50. 
 
 X 
 
226 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 considerations as these authors may have chosen 
 to adopt. The resurrection of Jesus, if proved to 
 be a fact, would be a standard by which to try the 
 pantheistic belief. The pantheistic belief is not to 
 'test the fact. ' 
 
 Mr. Hume, in his wonderfully astute examination 
 of the theory of miracles, reaches the conclusion that 
 they are loaded with an original improbability too 
 great for testimony to remove ; and around this fatal 
 presumption the German criticism of the last fifty 
 years has revolved. But plausible as it appears in 
 itself, and decisive as it must always be to an athe- 
 ist, what real force does the argument carry with it 
 to one who believes in a personal Deity? What 
 essential improbability is there that such a being 
 should act miraculously ? His divine personality 
 qualifies him to do so. The essence of miraculous 
 power is contained in freedom and in personality ; 
 and when we have seen reason to believe that the 
 world is ruled by a Being who can act out his will, 
 what so great absurdity in the belief that he has done 
 it? If there be any absurdity in such a belief, it 
 attaches originally not teethe miracle, but to the con- 
 ception of a free personality and of God as possess- 
 ing such a nature. The incredibility, if there were 
 any, would lie in theism and not in the miracles which 
 theists have always been so much inclined to believe 
 in. Mr. J. Stuart Mill, with a golden candor, 
 admits that while Hume’s argument is conclusive to 
 an atheist, it fails to a theist, — the power to work 
 miracles if he will, being one of the attributes essen- 
 tial to the conception of a personal God. 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 227 
 
 The criticism which denies the resurrection, enters 
 V the field in general on what is virtually atheistic 
 ground. The resurrection is incredible to it, not 
 only because it considers human nature incapable of 
 such an experience, but because it recognizes no 
 divine being who by any possibility could be the 
 author of such an event as a miracle. Surely the 
 facts in the case, if there are any, are entitled to be 
 examined with at least some little chance left for them 
 to tell on the decision. 
 
 In discussing this question, we put it on the broad 
 ground of theism as. against atheism, and claim for 
 the resurrection just that amount of a priori proba- 
 bility or possibility which the existence of a personal 
 God offers in favor of there being such an event as a 
 miracle. This is the ground on which St. Paul 
 placed the question when he argued it before Festus 
 and Agrippa. ” Why,” he asked, "should it be 
 thought a thing incredible with you that God should 
 raise the dead? ” (Acts 26:8.) To the atheist there 
 is an absolute incredibility in such a thing. But with 
 the belief in God the presumption changes, and the 
 probability that such an event transpired is measured 
 exactly by the strength or weakness of the evidence 
 for the existence of a personal deity. 
 
 It is but just to add that the fact itself, could it 
 be independently proved, would be such an assertion 
 of the doctrine of theism against atheism, of person- 
 ality against impersonality, as could not be refuted 
 in any event, and would carry with it a demonstra- 
 tion of our immortal hope and of the truth of God. 
 
 From this review of preliminary questions, we pa^ 
 
228 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE_ 
 
 to the evidence on which faith in the resurrection 
 reposes. 
 
 This evidence may be collected into three groups. 
 To the first belongs the direct testimony of the Scrip- 
 tures ; to the second, that which can be drawn indi- 
 rectly from the institutions of the church and from 
 the facts of apostolic history ; and to the third, certain 
 corroborative evidence drawn from the history of 
 Christ’s life. We turn first to the direct evidence 
 of Scripture. 
 
 Earliest of all is that furnished by prophecy. The 
 light thrown on the subject from this quarter may 
 not be of a* kind to bring the surest conviction to the 
 sceptic, and yet it has a force which it is not for the 
 believer to overlook. Not all the evidences of Chris- 
 tianity are required for use against rationalism. 
 Some at least are for the joy and confirmation of 
 believers. There is a value in the biblical types and 
 predictions of the resurrection, to which even a sceptic 
 might not be wholly insensible. But the believer can- 
 not willingly forget that his Saviour, when the resur- 
 rection was an accomplished fact, expounded to his then 
 docile disciples the Scriptures concerning it. Both 
 Paul and Peter allude to them, and it is beyond a 
 doubt that this view became an important dogma of 
 the early church, that Jesus both died and rose again 
 '' according to the Scriptures.” It is not possible in 
 so brief an essay as the present, to examine these 
 prophetic passages. They are well known ; and 
 with regard to some of tliem it may be said that 
 although their allusion to the resurrection could not 
 have been determined before the event, at least not 
 
RESURJiECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 229 
 
 by an uninspired mind, yet darkling as they were, 
 they had a considerable infl uence in preparing the way 
 for Christ, and when placed in the reflected rays of 
 the resurrection itself, add a new and increasing light 
 to that which already shone on the subject. The 
 risen Saviour appealed to these predictions, not to 
 establish the fact of his rising (for his own incontes- 
 table presence had removed that point from the region 
 of uncertainties) , but to explain it, and to show that 
 his death and reappearance fell in with the historic 
 plan of redemption. He was thus able to satisfy the 
 disciples that his death and resurrection were not 
 an unforeseen catastrophe. This is the light which 
 prophecy continues to shed on the subject ; not 
 enough to break through the Cimmerian darkness of 
 absolute unbelief, not enough to be visible to an 
 eye dazzled with the splendors of rationalism, but 
 fully enough to startle and comnland the attention 
 of open minds, and to confirm those who believe. 
 
 We meet, next, the direct testimony of the four 
 evangelists. 
 
 The eflforts that have been made to break down the 
 original value of this evidence are well known. The 
 books themselves have been assailed as late and 
 nameless works, written we cannot say when, and 
 given out by what authors it is impossible to decide. 
 They have been studied in all lights and with every 
 possible spirit, but with the general result, as we may 
 fairly claim, of throwing new light on a subject that 
 had grown too obscure, and thus of making believing 
 scholarship more aware of the strength of its case. 
 Whatever else may have been shaken, it is now be- 
 
230 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 lieved that the apostolic origin of the gospels can be 
 maintained as long as the church will keep herself 
 acquainted with the facts which these exhaustive 
 discussions have elicited. The four accounts of the 
 resurrection contained in the Gospels, come, there- 
 fore, before us with this high claim to respect, — that 
 they not only represent and contain the tradition cur- 
 rent among the apostles, but are themselves that tra- 
 dition, and that one of these accounts was written 
 wholly by an eye-witness. 
 
 This external or prima facie argument for the res- 
 urrection, on the ground that the four Gospels assert 
 it, is by no means in so ruinous a condition as some 
 of our liberal friends imagine. Neither Strauss nor 
 Renan will venture to deny that we have here the 
 genuine apostolic belief on this subject ; and who has 
 yet ventured to show that the facts alluded to by St. 
 Paul in the fifteenth chapter of the 1st Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, do not refer to several of the identical 
 reappearances of Jesus named by the evangelists? 
 A notable change has passed over rationalistic criti- 
 cism. Fifty years ago it saw nothing better than 
 worthless rubbish in the four Gospels. Their origin 
 was placed far down in the post-apostolic times and 
 their historical character derided. Criticism is now 
 more respectful, and though it remains denial, it is 
 forced to the reluctant admission that the apostles 
 did believe in the resurrection, and that at a very 
 early day. It is a highly instructive commentary on 
 the results of the controversy to compare Strauss’ 
 first edition with his latest "New Life of Jesus.” 
 The problem before the sceptical critics of the pres- 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 
 
 231 
 
 ent time, is to show how the '' legend ” of the resur- 
 rection arose under the eyes and ears of the apostles 
 themselves and came to be honestly believed by 
 them. In other words, it is to reconcile the honest 
 belief of the apostles with its wholly fictitious char- 
 acter. Accordingly Baur stops short at the admis- 
 sion that the apostles believed in the resurrection, 
 and refuses to go further and show how they could 
 possibly believe in such an event had it not occurred. 
 He tells us he is investigating the origin of Chris- 
 tianity, and that for this purpose the fact of the 
 resurrection is not necessary, — the belief in it is all 
 that is required. Baur deceives himself by a name. 
 The Christianity that requires to be explained is the 
 Christianity of the belief in the resurrection^ and not 
 that which grew out of this belief. If he has ac- 
 counted for the derived or secondary Christianity of 
 later times by tracing it to this belief, let him next 
 attack the real problem and explain the original Chris- 
 tianity of all as it came forth in the belief that Jesus 
 rose from the dead. We still think that this belief 
 will prove to be too closely identified with the objec- 
 tive fact to be detached from it. The external or 
 jprima facie testimony of the Gospels to the resurrec- 
 tion, such as it is, remains, then, an unimpeached 
 witness in the case. 
 
 But the evidence of the Gospels has an internal 
 truthfulness which is much in its favor. 
 
 The rationalistic critics of these accounts have not 
 hesitated to apply to them a severe harmonistic 
 method, the unreasonableness of which in the hands 
 of orthodox expositors they were themselves the 
 first to expose. 
 
232 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 Some inexplicable dilBculties of a minor kind have 
 indeed been found in the comparison of the accounts 
 with each other. It has proved a matter of great 
 uncertainty to arrange the details of the resurrection 
 in a chronological order. It is not easy to figure to 
 our minds the precise movements of the actors in the 
 scene, nor to ascertain how their various meetings 
 with the risen Saviour combine together. There is 
 some obscurity in the appearance and number of the 
 angels and in the words used on several occa- 
 sions. Luke gives no intimation of the appearance 
 in Galilee ; Matthew and Mark are silent about those 
 which took place in Jerusalem. Only John brings 
 out the mediating fact of appearances at different 
 times, both in Galilee and at Jerusalem. The silence 
 and brevity of Mark might lead us into the error of 
 placing the ascension on the same day in which the 
 resurrection occurred. Thus these accounts in com- 
 parison exhibit minor variations, but they all set forth 
 in agreement the really important facts. Why should 
 trivial variation disturb us? It is a corroboration 
 of the honesty of the testimony. It demonstrates 
 that it was brought together independently and was 
 collected naturally. Why are there four to tell the 
 story, if one could introduce nothing omitted in the 
 others ? What if Matthew and Mark omit the appear- 
 ances in Jerusalem. They do not deny them ; and 
 Luke balances the accounts by omitting those in 
 Galilee, while John again harmonizes them by men- 
 tioning those in both localities. What if Mark seems 
 to pass over the forty days of Jesus’ continuance with 
 the disciples, and come at once to the ascension? 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 
 
 233 
 
 There is nothing in this compendious silence to con- 
 tradict the detailed explanations of Lul^e and John ; 
 and moreover there is some reason to suspect that 
 the original ending of Mark has been lost and that the 
 final chapter, as it stands, is only an abridged re- 
 statement of its contents. There is variation in the 
 accounts, and some confusion of details and some 
 inexplicable trifles, but nothing to afiect the absolute 
 agreement of testimony to the main events. Similar 
 variations occur elsewhere in the New Testament, 
 without impairing its. credit. The trilingual inscrip- 
 tion over the cross was written in Hebrew, Greek, 
 and Latin. Each of the four Gospels purports to 
 give the Greek in which it was written, but no two 
 of these transcriptions agree. Matthew says, " This is 
 Jesus the king of the Jews”; Mark, "The king of 
 the Jews ” ; Luke, " This is the king of the Jews ” ; 
 and John, " Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews.” 
 Four variations of the same note, but one. absolute 
 and consentient testimony ! There is no more im- 
 portant disagreement in the accounts of the resurrec- 
 tion. "Estimated at their proper value they never 
 assume the importance of irreconcilable contradic- 
 tions. They are perfectly naturally explained when 
 we remember that only one of the accounts we pos- 
 sess is entirely by the hands of an eye-witness.”^ The 
 strange agitation and confusion of the disciples on 
 rei^eiving the news from the vacant tomb^L is perhaps 
 reflected in the partial disorder of the accounts. And 
 yet amid all, with how grand a consent come forth 
 the great features of the scene I All agree that Jesus 
 
 *Pressense, Life of Christ, p. 496. 
 
2U 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 rose on the morning of the third day, and indicate 
 the time as the earliest dawn. The exact moment 
 may not have been known, and the slight oscillation 
 that appears between the account of John, who 
 describes it as having occurred ” while it was yet 
 dark,” and Mark, who placed it at '' the rising of the 
 sun,” may be due to the fact that no mortal eye beheld 
 the Saviour issue from the tomb, and the exact 
 moment was left to conjecture. The soldiers saw 
 the angel descend in awful brightness, and this has 
 been assumed for the moment of the resurrection. 
 But it may have occurred before. Unseen by mortal 
 eyes, the body which lay within the rock-hewn tomb, 
 watched over by the power of God, resumed its vital 
 force. He who had ''power to lay down his life 
 and power to take it again,” silently rose from the 
 embrace of Death, and with an unhurried ease, of 
 which the napkin that was bound about his head and 
 the cerements of the grave laid away in their place 
 remained a witness, without convulsive effort, with- 
 out "noise ” or "cry,” and with "voice still unheard 
 in the streets,” again issued into the world, not far 
 from that same Bethlehem and beneath the same 
 star-lit sky which three and thirty years before beheld 
 the equally silent and unnoticed beginning of his 
 incarnate life. 
 
 To listen only to Strauss, we might imagine every 
 detail of one gospel neutralized and lost in the con- 
 tradiction of the others, and the whole account 
 reduced by successive disagreements to an impalpable 
 ruin. It is then with no little surprise that we find 
 the ancient picture on which the church has delighted 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 235 
 
 to gaze, so little disturbed by unfriendly criticism, 
 and behold the old elements of it reforming in better 
 order from the facts which survive the pillage of such 
 pens. We still see the disciples utterly dejected in 
 the long hours that preceded the resurrection, — lin- 
 gering on the old scene, assembled perhaps in the 
 same chamber, whose walls still echoed with the 
 parting words of the Crucified, — words which, had 
 they been understood, might have saved them all that 
 deep despair. We still see the women preparing 
 funeral honors, and bringing the spices which, 
 as has been remarked,* "were at once the proof of 
 their aflfection and of their unbelief.” We see these 
 women first at the sepulchre, unable to comprehend 
 the testimony of the vacant tomb and of the angelic 
 messengers. We see them returning with their new 
 wonder to the disciples, who refused to believe them. 
 We see Peter and John running to the sepulchre, and ^ 
 wondering there over the unmistakable evidences that 
 there had been no haste nor violence in the removal 
 of the sacred body. At last we hear the sacred voice 
 of Jesus himself breaking the oppressive silence, and 
 breaking it in the spirit of his whole life, with the 
 simple and tender accent of a disciple’s name. Again 
 we see him with his people in their safe retreat, — 
 with them in Galilee, — with them in Jerusalem, — 
 for forty days, expounding to them the wonderful 
 events that had transpired. For what they needed 
 was not proof that he was dead, and now alive again, 
 — for did they not see him? had they not "held 
 him by the feet and worshipped him ” ? What they 
 
 * Pressens^, Life of Christ, p. 486. 
 
236 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 needed was to comprehend these events, — to see 
 their moral import, — to learn how to connect them 
 with prophecy and promise, and with the ancient cov- 
 enants and the redemption which from of old had 
 been growing up in the world. And then at last we 
 see him in his disciples’ open company, and in his 
 own fully recognized person ascending before their 
 eyes into heaven. 
 
 This is the history which, in spite of all internal 
 and external criticism, the Gospels continue to relate. 
 We may still require other evidence to support it. 
 But it is something that it comes forth from these 
 books one consistent and consentient account. The 
 rationalistic critics would have us believe that the 
 evangelists, as compared together, have no one 
 story at all ; that what is told by one is untold by 
 another, and that every great feature of the scene 
 is lost as soon as the four are brought together. 
 False as these allegations are when applied to the 
 Gospels, they are admirable as unconscious allusions 
 to the hermeneutics of rationalistic criticism. Badly 
 olf as Baur conceives the four Gospels to be, he would 
 probably undertake the harmony of Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John with more hope than that of the 
 rationalistic opinions concerning them. These mod- 
 ern evangelists are a fraternity who sit like Strauss 
 and Paulus back to back, and their opinions, ranging 
 over the whole field of possible variation, seem to have 
 exhausted the final capacities of that great attribute 
 of freedom which was once so much discussed in New 
 England, — ”the power to the contrary.” Meantime 
 the internal examination of the Gospels, conducted in 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 237 
 
 any fair spirit, leads to a consistent result. The tes- 
 timony of the Gospel is not mutilated with destructive 
 self-contradiction, nor impaired by important disa- 
 greements. The main facts are harmoniously related, 
 and as far as four such records can do so, they give 
 the color and the authority of actual history to the 
 miracle of the resurrection. 
 
 The Scriptures have another witness of great 
 weight to introduce into this testimony, in the 
 Apostle Paul. He comes before us with the advan- 
 tage of an acknowledged and undoubted authority. 
 The apostolic origin and genuineness of the four 
 Gospels and of the Book of Acts have been vehe- 
 mently assailed, but it is not too much to say that no 
 respectable author has ventured a doubt that St. Paul 
 wrote the Epistle to the Eomans, the two to the Corin- 
 thians, and that to the Galatians. Those epistles leave 
 us in no doubt what the apostle’s own belief was. " If 
 Christ be not risen,” he writes in one of them, '' then is 
 our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” But 
 Strauss is not content to know that Paul believed in 
 the resurrection. In his "New Life of Jesus,” he 
 demands to see his evidence and to know why he 
 believed it. In common with the critics of the so- 
 called Tubingen school, he will not receive the Book 
 of Acts in evidence at this point, and makes his 
 appeal to the four acknowledged Epistles. Happily, 
 it is easy in this case to be generous. The four 
 Epistles are enough. They give us what light we 
 need as to the character of the evidence possessed by 
 Paul. In the great passage in the First Corinthians, 
 he says (15:3): "He was buried and rose again 
 
238 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 according to the Scriptures, — was seen of Cephas, — 
 then of the twelve, — of above five hundred brethren 
 at once, of whom the greater part remain unto the 
 present, but some are fallen asleep, After that he 
 was seen of James, then of all the apostles, and last 
 of all he was seen of me also.” 
 
 Strauss raises the somewhat ungracious inquiry 
 on what grounds of evidence did Paul make these 
 assertions, and believes he can show that they are 
 only a cupful from the current traditions. In com- 
 menting on the passage, he attacks first the state- 
 ment with which it ends, and inquires when and 
 how the risen Jesus was seen of Paul. In reply he 
 resorts, with a remarkable facility of " remembering 
 to forget ” what he has elsewhere said against the 
 Book of Acts, to the account there given of the con- 
 version of the Apostle. He now finds it for his pur- 
 pose to treat this account as genuine, and to elicit from 
 it evidence that the appearance of Jesus on the way 
 to Damascus was not real but visionary. He is then 
 ready with the critical inquiry, If this appearance to 
 Paul, on which so much turns, was visionary, why 
 may not all the other appearances have been of the 
 same character? 
 
 But who does not see with what a shuffling of evi- 
 dence this result is brought out ? If the Book of the 
 Acts is good for the use Strauss makes of it, it is good 
 for a better use. If the narrative of Pauhs conversion 
 can be appealed to in support of the opinion, that Jesus’ 
 appearance in the way was visionary, it can be ap- 
 pealed to to show that it was not, and that he appeared 
 also to the other disciples in the flesh. If the Acts is 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 239 
 
 received in testimony, the case is soon ended. If it 
 is thrown out, then arc we all, and Strauss with us, 
 thrown back on the unexplained and unimpeached 
 testimony of Paul to the Corinthians, "last of all he 
 was seen of me also.” 
 
 Strauss does not impugn the honesty of Paul. He 
 apparently concurs in the maxim which may now be 
 regarded as fixed, that it is "easier to believe Chris- 
 tianity born of a miracle than of a lie.” He there- 
 fore presses the reasons for suspecting that he mistook 
 visions for revelations. Without the aid of the Acts 
 he makes little progress in such a solution ; and with 
 that aid it is easy to refute him. 
 
 Paul introduces his testimony to the resurrection 
 as something he had "received.” Strauss fastens on 
 this word "received,” connects it at once with the 
 current traditions, and asks if there is any reason to 
 believe that he has transmitted to us anything more 
 credible than the unexamined traditions current 
 among the apostles. 
 
 Here arises a dilemma. Paul was once a persecu- 
 tor. He says so himself in one of the unquestioned 
 epistles. During this hostile period the Christian 
 faith was constantly before him, and the facts on 
 which it was founded ; but he repudiated them. How 
 shall we account for his conversion without having 
 recourse to the Acts? He refers to the change in 
 the unimpeached epistle to the Galatians, in the 
 striking words, " When it pleased God to reveal his 
 Son in me.” At all events, some convincing and 
 overwhelming event occurred which overturned his 
 plans and views, and made it impossible to resist the 
 
240 
 
 TEE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 new faith. Wliat that event was, and what new evi- 
 dence it brought into view, Strauss does not show. If 
 this new evidence was not furnished by a thorough and 
 critical revision of the facts possessed by the other 
 apostles, and to whicji he alludes in the passage 
 before us, — then it must have been contained in some 
 new revelation made to himself, and which was of such 
 a convincing nature as to render further examination 
 of the current traditions unnecessary. The doubter 
 may choose which alternative he pleases. On either 
 hand a mass of solid evidence will confront him. 
 
 In introducing his remarks on this subject, Paul 
 says, ”for I delivered unto you what I also received.” 
 These words may or may not indicate that he trans- 
 mitted, without examination, the current traditions ; 
 but they certainly do indicate that this belief was 
 then current among the apostles. They amount to 
 an absolute proof that Peter and James and all the 
 apostles and above five hundred brethren, excepting 
 those who had died, were ready to offer themselves 
 as eye-witnesses to the reappearance of Jesus after 
 death. 
 
 This testimony carries us back nearer to the begin- 
 ning than would appear at first sight. It is contained 
 in an epistle written about the year of our Lord 57, 
 but refers to matters with which the apostle had 
 been acquainted not less than twenty years. It goes 
 back to his earliest acquaintance with Peter and 
 James at the time of his conversion and, even earlier 
 than that, to the persecution he led against the church 
 on account of this very belief in the resurrection. 
 At that time he beheld, with hostile eyes indeed, the 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 241 
 
 faith of the church. Nevertheless he beheld it. 
 His fury against it is a witness of the faith in 
 the risen Saviour which at that time glorified Stephen 
 in death, and sustained so many others among whom 
 he ” made havoc.” At that early period, within a few 
 years of the resurrection and of the ascension, he first 
 emerges into view from the school of Rabbi Gamaliel, 
 and from that day on, and back to that day, he is 
 an original and unimpeached witness to the fact 
 that the apostles and all the church believed in the 
 resurrection of Jesus. On this point Paul is as 
 good a witness as if he had stood by the vacant 
 tomb of Jesus, and in some respects he enjoys a 
 decided advantage over his brethren. For it must 
 be remembered that he studied Christianity first 
 as an enemy, before he preached it as an apostle. 
 At what age he entered the school of Gamaliel 
 we do not know, nor how long he was there be- 
 fore he led the persecution against the church. 
 Evidently he was there for some time. He was for- 
 eign born, and would not have been admitted to the 
 confidence and possible membership of the Sanhedrim 
 without a considerable residence and acquaintance at 
 Jerusalem. His zeal as a Pharisee could not have 
 been acquired in a Gentile residence. These con- 
 siderations point to a somewhat prolonged domicile 
 in Jerusalem and a continued familiarity with the rise 
 of Christianity from the Jewish point of view. 
 When Renan says that " to write the history of a reli- 
 gion it is necessary first to have believed it . . . 
 and in the second place to believe it no longer im- 
 plicitly,”''^ he writes the unconscious indorsement of 
 ♦ Introduction, Life of Jesus. 
 
242 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 the apostle Paul as a witness to Jesus. To give tes- 
 timony in the great controversy of fact between the 
 Jew and the Christian, Paul was exactly this man. 
 When he states the facts, he does so with a full 
 knowledge of the countervailing evidence possessed 
 by the Sanhedrim. On more than one occasion he 
 alluded to the notorious and uncontradicted character 
 of these facts, and spoke as one who had known the 
 court secrets of the temple and was aware that they 
 contained nothing to rebut what the Christian party 
 put in evidence. As the question between the church 
 and its enemies was one of fact, and was placed in 
 that light by the apostle Paul himself, and made to 
 turn on the evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, 
 his previous acquaintance with the Jewish view of 
 the case gives a truly judicial importance to his 
 summation of the evidence contained in the Epistle 
 to the Corinthians. 
 
 I pass next to the indirect evidence of Scripture, 
 from which it is my intention only to select a few of 
 the more important portions. I appeal first to the 
 evidence of those Christian institutions which have 
 come down from primitive time, — the church, the 
 Lord’s supper, and the Lord’s day. 
 
 Examine first the standing evidence of the church. 
 There is no reason to doubt that the Christian church 
 was founded at the time indicated in the Book of 
 Acts. With all his unwillingness to admit the fact, 
 I understand Strauss to surrender the point, and leave 
 this chronological landmark essentially undisturbed. 
 We are able then to say, with no respectable contra- 
 diction against us, that the Christian church was 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 243 
 
 founded on the day of Pentecost, — fifty days after 
 the crucifixion, and ten days after the time set for 
 the resurrection. 
 
 This was not an unmeaning event. This founded 
 church means something. It is a monument covered 
 with the belief of its members in the great facts of 
 Christian history, and especially that of the resurrec- 
 tion. If we are searching for original evidence of 
 this event, nothing more explicit or more convincing 
 could be desired than such a monument as this, 
 whose very stones are a testimony, and whose founda- 
 tions were laid while the evening dew and the morn- 
 ing glory of the resurrection were yet fresh on them. 
 
 The strain of this argument falls on the question, 
 When was the church founded ? and on a point of so 
 much importance something more requires to be said. 
 
 In the first place, the Book of the Acts assigns 
 this date to the origin of the church, and on a 
 point of this nature the doubts raised by the Tubin- 
 gen school are of no account. Give this book any 
 date which a respectable scholarship would fix, 
 and it still remains the earliest record of apostolic 
 history, and on such a question as the time when 
 the church was founded, could not by any possi- 
 bility be far astray. Tradition, which grows un- 
 trusty in details, can be relied on for landmarks ; 
 and even if the doubts raised by the Tubingen school 
 against the book were well founded, its testimony to 
 the time when the church was founded would remain 
 an evidence of great weight. 
 
 But looking a little beyond the Book of Acts, it 
 is evident that the church was founded somewhere in 
 
244 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 the first century ; but it was impossible that it should 
 be organized at any other time than in that brief 
 period which was so full of the wonder and glory 
 of the reappearance and ascension of Jesus. It is" 
 admitted on all sides that something took place after 
 the crucifixion, and that this something was the origin 
 of the apostles’ belief in the resurrection. What this 
 event was, is in question. Strauss denies that it was 
 the reappearance of the Crucified, and this denial 
 makes it necessary for him to explain the origin of 
 the church which was built on that belief. To do this 
 he resorts to the hypothesis of some second thoughts 
 or intermediate reflections, and supposes that the 
 unknown event, whatever it was, passing through this 
 secondary reflective medium, grew into the sincere 
 belief that Jesus was risen from the dead. But all 
 this machinery of second thoughts about the matter, 
 and of intermediate reflections, is against the philos- 
 ophy of history. The creative force lies in the origi- 
 nal event itself, whatever it was, and not in subsequent 
 thoughts about it. The creative moment is when the 
 passion and the power of the event is yet young. 
 And when that moment has slipped away it cannot 
 be recalled. If the event which Strauss is willing 
 to admit did occur, is not adequate to account for the 
 foundation of the church in the heat of its aboriginal 
 moment, he must find some other which is adequate 
 so to account for it. For the date of the event, what- 
 ever it was, and of the institution that grew from it, 
 must be essentially the same. Suppose our fathers 
 had fought the war of the revolution without founding 
 a government. Suppose they had concluded a peace 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 245 
 
 without framing a constitution, and thus allowed 
 those fiery and formative times to pass into the era 
 of peace ; is it within the possibilities that they could 
 have done the work then ? Great institutions arise in 
 great events. The institutions and the events are 
 young together, and there is absolutely no time in the 
 history of the church when it could have been founded 
 but the creative time of the resurrection and the 
 ascension. 
 
 Turn to another episode in the human history of 
 the early church, — the first persecution; and here 
 we find evidence pointing in the same direction. We 
 are able to assign the date of this outbreak inde- 
 pendently of the book of Acts, and to fix it not later 
 than the beginning of the year 37. At this time 
 the church has grown numerous. Its members are 
 widely dispersed, and Paul is riding through the land 
 as far north as Damascus, persecuting them with the 
 utmost violence. Here is a state of things which 
 could not have come on in a day. In the first place 
 the very numbers of the church prove that some con- 
 siderable time must have elapsed since its organiza- 
 tion. Its members appear already at Damascus and 
 at Antioch. This extension must have been the 
 work of time, and proportionately to its breadth car- 
 ries back the age of the church. 
 
 But there has also been a great change in the atti- 
 tude of the Jewish party. When the crucifixion 
 occurred, there was no disposition to pursue the 
 disciples. The Sanhedrim rated them at their human 
 valuation. Jesus himself was the sole object of 
 their procedures, and they were reassured by his 
 
246 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 death. The disciples were indeed for a time in 
 alarm, hnt it was soon found to be a groundless 
 fear, and they reappeared in Jerusalem with no 
 immediate danger of their lives. The Book of Acts 
 shows this to have been true, and other known facts 
 prove it. How otherwise could Peter and John and 
 James have remained at Jerusalem alive ? For a time 
 they enjoyed the popular favor. A great company 
 of priests and Pharisees were obedient to the faith ; 
 and when the Sanhedrim, aroused by the progress of 
 the church, proceeded to measures of a mild severity 
 against Peter and John, the people were found to be 
 on their side. 
 
 But when Paul appeared a few years later, this 
 state of things was changed and the utmost fury of 
 persecution prevailed. The church was scattered 
 abroad, flying in all directions. Such a change 
 required time and events to produce it, and time and 
 events which, when retraced, carry back the date at 
 which the church must have been founded. A close 
 examination of the Acts will show what these events 
 were. 
 
 First the Sanhedrim allowed matters to take their 
 course, and attempted nothing more than mild 
 repression. The persecution which arose at last was 
 chiefly the work of the Sadducaic party to whom the 
 resurrection was a peculiarly exasperating fact. The 
 Sadducees were never strong enough with the people 
 to carry them alone, and accordingly we find them 
 taking advantage of some commotion raised by the 
 Hellenistic Zealots, the history of which is obscure, 
 and in combination with the extreme wing of the 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 247 
 
 Pharisees, raising the storm of persecution. Such a 
 movement of events implies what in modern society 
 would be called a political change, — the loss of 
 power by one party — the inauguration of new lines 
 of policy and the growth of new facts to alarm the 
 people. The church must have been some years on 
 its way before such a persecution could have arisen 
 a 2 *ainst it. 
 
 Another fact bearing on the same point is the 
 institution of the diaconate. The persecution arose 
 at the death of Stephen, who had just been appointed 
 to the office of deacon. This was a new charge in 
 the church, and arose not from the command of 
 Christ, but from a want which gradually made itself 
 felt in the daily administration. The church must 
 have been already some years on its way, and 
 involved in the exigencies of a growing work, before 
 such a need could be felt. First it had to become 
 numerous, and that to a burdensome degree; then 
 the apostles, who at the outset had the care of every- 
 thing, had to learn that the work was too great for 
 them, — and when we consider that not less than 
 thirteen persons, including James, bore that name at 
 the time, we can conclude how vast the work must 
 have grown in Jerusalem itself before the plan of the 
 diaconate was suggested. Such a measure, when pro- 
 posed, would require deliberation, and all these 
 delays are so much age added to the church, when 
 Paul appears, leading against it the persecution which 
 arose early in the year 37. 
 
 Such considerations as these ingrained into the 
 history — and the more it is studied the more they 
 
248 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 multiply — point unmistakably to the foundation of 
 the church at the time indicated in the Acts, ^ and- 
 the raising then of its since unbroken testimony to the 
 resurrection. 
 
 Similar in character and importance is the testi- 
 mony of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. To 
 avoid disputed ground, we still draw our evidence 
 from the acknowledged epistles of Paul. What he 
 says in regard to the origin of this sacrament is 
 familiar and significant. It carries its institution 
 back beyond the crucifixion, and yet shows that its 
 significance could not be complete until after the res- 
 urrection. A prophecy when first instituted, it was 
 quickly adopted by the church as a testimony and a 
 memorial. Its continuity, as a chain of testimony, 
 cannot be broken. It is the Christian rite in which 
 we behold united in one moment the crucifixion and 
 the resurrection. It is a positive institution which 
 spans the gulf of time, and carries us back to the 
 upper chamber where Christ gave this memorial to 
 his disciples. 
 
 So also the Lord’s day is another witness, bringing 
 to us as often as it occurs with unerring precision 
 and unwearied regularity, tidings from the vacant 
 tomb. 
 
 Tubingen hears Paul. Let, then, Paul speak ; for 
 he tells, of the "first day of the week,” and shows that 
 was the Christian day, — and what but the resurrec- 
 tion made it this ? 
 
 Strauss hears John, — not John in the Gospel, but 
 John in the Apocalypse, and John speaks there of 
 the " Lord’s day,” — that he was " in the spirit on 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 249 
 
 the Lord’s day.” But how could the Apostle John 
 call it the Lord’s day unless in one such day Jesus 
 rose ? 
 
 Strauss would have us believe that at the death 
 of Jesus the disciples fled to Galilee, and there, amid 
 the familiar scenes, peopled with recollections of 
 Jesus, his old form came back, and aided by ecstatic 
 affection formed slowly into the conviction of him as 
 living, and that this belief grew up insensibly on the 
 heights of Nazareth, into the legend of the resurrec- 
 tion; while Eenan, calling to his aid rather more 
 of conscious fraud, describes how in that same re- 
 treat love and hope, brooding over the past, rose into 
 visions, and wrought out at length by purely psy- 
 chological processes the miracle of the resurrection. 
 
 Divine power of love,” he cries. ” Sacred moments, 
 in which the passion of a hallucinated woman gives 
 to the world a resurrected God.”* 
 
 A more truly gossamer web of Action was never 
 spun. Apostolic history begins in Jerusalem, and 
 not in the sacred retreats of Galilee. Before there 
 had been time for the apostles’ minds to cool, we find 
 them at Jerusalem, en;ibodying their faith in the solid 
 matter-of-fact but significant institutions of the church 
 and its sacraments. The date at which these posi- 
 tive institutions, with their testimony to the resur- 
 rection, were going on at Jerusalem, is the best of 
 evidence that there was no time for a retreat to 
 Galilee, for the growth of fantastic speculations and 
 unconscious deception, nor for the formation of a 
 visionary faith. ' 
 
 * Life of Jesus, p. 357. 
 
250 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 Had the apostolic church issued from Galilee, 
 there would be more color to such an hypothesis. 
 But it was planted at Jerusalem, and at a time when 
 the history of Jesus and the circumstances of his 
 death were fresh in the knowledge of all the city. 
 And Jerusalem with its Pharisees and Sadducees 
 and the dreaded Sanhedrim was a disenchantment 
 of dreamers that would not have been lost on the 
 apostles of a visionary faith. The reappearance of 
 the disciples at this city, and their bold proclamation 
 of the faith there, are, when duly considered in all of 
 their bearings, enough of themselves to overthrow 
 the theory of the mythical origin of the Gospels. 
 
 It remains for us to glance at a few significant facts 
 of Christian experience which, without the resurrec- 
 tion to explain them, would be inexplicable and 
 incredible. 
 
 One of these is the sudden and remarkable tran- 
 sition of the disciples from deep despair after the 
 burial of Jesus to high and permanent exultation. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that the picture 
 which the Gospels give of the disciples in those 
 dejected days was overdrawn. They were like 
 men " crushed by the great stone rolled to the 
 door of the sepulchre.” And yet the church was 
 not born of despair, but of hope. It was a grand 
 burst of enthusiasm that laid its foundations. But 
 what raised those bowed heads? What inspired 
 those dejected minds ? A few days pass, and we find 
 this aimless, headless company, without one great 
 original mind among them, without one leader able 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 251 
 
 to originate a plan of action, or even to comprehend, 
 unaided, the significance of what had already trans- 
 pired, reappearing in the temple with an unconquerable 
 courage, overflowing with hope and joy, and full of 
 plans for work. Whence came this? Not from the 
 disciples, — for such plans, such comprehension of 
 the significance of events, was not in them. The only 
 original and constructive mind the apostolic church 
 ever had was Paul, and Paul was at this time a per- 
 secutor. It was not yet time for talents like his. 
 These first days of the church needed simple and 
 childlike minds to utter only what was given them, 
 and to reflect the sacred impression of the Saviour. 
 Whence, then, this sudden hope and joy and com- 
 prehension of redemption through the death of 
 Christ? Whence this sudden starting up of the 
 divine plan of the Gospel, and of an appointed 
 work and order, to those who in losing Jesus had 
 lost the only plan and aim they had ever known ? 
 Strike out the resurrection, and who can reply? 
 Eead the account as it stands, and who feels a sur- 
 prise at these features of the case ? 
 
 Not Ipss remarkable is the sudden fading out, at this 
 time, of the hope in the worldly Messiah. So inefface- 
 able was this hope that when Jesus was risen, the dis- 
 ciples greeted him with the question, ” Lord wilt thou 
 at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel ? ” But 
 this view, which survived the crucifixion and the resur- 
 rection, then died away forever. In its place we find 
 Jesus preached on the day of Pentecost in the char- 
 acter which he has held through all the subsequent 
 history of the church, — of the Saviour of the world 
 
252 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE 
 
 from sin. Faith in his name was no longer a title to 
 nobility in a messianic kingdom, bnt a way of holi- 
 ness and a promise of redemption from sin. This 
 sudden and amazing breaking forth of light from 
 m i nds so blank and dark before, supposes the appear- 
 ance of some great luminous fact in their experience. 
 This change could not be spontaneous ; and, without 
 the resurrection, remains as inexplicable as it is 
 plain with it. Strike out the resurrection, and who 
 can show how Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and tem- 
 poral prince, as the disciples beheld him previous 
 to the resurrection, came to be preached on Pente- 
 cost, in the new and divine character of the world’s 
 Redeemer ? 
 
 I have spoken of the church itself, as a witness to 
 the resurrection. In the continuity of its life and 
 hope and experience in Christ Jesus it furnishes a 
 fact in evidence which is wholly inexplicable and 
 incredible, when torn away from the resurrection and 
 from the ascension gifts of the glorified Redeemer. 
 The risen Saviour is the inner contents of all Christian 
 life, and the essential power and victory of the church. 
 The fact that they exist is a testimony that He rose. 
 The church ascends toward heaven with the rising 
 Lord. The church is, because Christ lives. 
 
 We see this in the first appearance of the apostles 
 at Jerusalem, and we see it in every other moment 
 of true Christian life since. The apostles did not 
 come forward at Pentecost with a doctrine, but with 
 a Saviour. They did not act as discoverers of a new 
 and potent philosophy, but as disciples of an ever 
 living Christ, 
 
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 253 
 
 This original consciousness of life and power in 
 Christ has continued to be the characteristic of the 
 church in all ages. It has bound together the divided 
 sections of its communion ; it has given the continuity 
 of its succession amid all the variations of belief and 
 practice. At the end of our reasonings we return 
 to it, not so much as the rock on which to build, as 
 the pillow on which to rest in peace and hope. 
 "We have found the Messiah” was the first testi- 
 mony which one man ever gave to another that the 
 Son of God was in the world. "We have found the 
 Saviour,” is the testimony in which myriads of con- 
 verted souls continue the testimony to Jesus the risen 
 and ever-living Redeemer. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL WORK OF 
 CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 BT REV. WILLIAM £. MERRIMAM, PRESIDENT OF RIPON COLLEGE, WIS. 
 
 HE doubts and difficulties of many persons about 
 
 Christianity may be included in the question, 
 Is it adequate — adequate to fulfil its own proposals 
 to the world? 
 
 No such proposals are made elsewhere. Christ 
 was heralded as He that taketh away the sin of the 
 world ” ; no other proposes to bear that burden. He 
 declares the object of his mission, '' That the world 
 through him might be saved ” ; no other undertakes 
 that work. And as it appears in his life and teach- 
 ings, it is a work for man, whose divine benevolence, 
 moral grandeur, and blest benefits human thought had 
 never before approached, and has not yet measured. 
 Christ offers to man complete recovery from evil — 
 from sin, which is spiritual and primitive evil, and 
 from all the others, which are its miserable conse- 
 quences. He offers to renovate men, to educate them 
 as children of God, and to give them, thus prepared 
 for it, an everlasting and glorious inheritance in the 
 society of all the holy, called the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 These are not special privileges for a few, but a com- 
 mon benefaction for all ; not a beneficial provision, 
 
 254 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD, 
 
 255 
 
 set within the possible reach of men, but an actual 
 work of recovering them to righteousness and bless- 
 edness, which Christ began in person, and which he 
 proposes to have finally accomplished in the whole 
 world. 
 
 Having now in our view, on the one hand, the 
 world as it is at present, and on the other, the im- 
 measurable good thus proposed to it, all the more 
 reasonable of our doubts and difficulties about it will 
 take form in the solicitous question. Is Christianity 
 adequate to realize its own benevolent designs ? And 
 when a work of such blest beneficence, which, apart 
 from Christianity, the world never thought of, and 
 which the world evidently could not do for itself, is 
 proposed, reason requires proportionate powers and 
 means to accomplish it. A most reasonable faith, 
 therefore, need not hesitate at what is supernatural in 
 those powers and means — neither at mystery in well 
 authenticated truth, nor at miracles in well attested 
 facts ; neither at the incarnation of the Son of God, 
 nor at the regeneration of the soul of man. On the 
 contrary, in view of the ends proposed by Christian- 
 ity, a reasonable faith requires supernatural power to 
 effect them, and some supernatural acts to warrant 
 the promise of their fulfilment. Had this work alone 
 been announced, without any knowledge of Christ, 
 scepticism itself would naturally demand a divine 
 being to do it, — divine excellence in his character, 
 divine truth in his teachings, and miracles among his 
 acts. And now, when we consider what must be 
 done in the soul and the world, if our great Christian 
 hopes for them shall be realized, instead of objecting 
 
256 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PEHSONAL 
 
 to supernatural power in Christianity, we shall rather 
 inquire whether its supernatural power is sufficient ; 
 instead of objecting to supernatural transactions in 
 it, we shall rather be concerned to know whether 
 these are adequate to ensure the completion of its 
 benevolent designs. 
 
 We are thus prompted to compare the personal 
 work of Christ in the world with his designs, — that 
 is, to compare what he actually did, with what Chris- 
 tianity must yet do in order to fulfil his proposals. 
 
 Admitting the records of his life as given by the 
 evangelists, — as the failure of the utmost attempts 
 of sceptical criticism compels us to do, — neither 
 reducing nor multiplying, as we study his work we 
 are almost surprised that we come, in some direc- 
 tions, so soon to its limits. There is, apparently, a 
 great disproportion between the kind, and the extent, 
 of Christ’s personal work, — between his apparently 
 unlimited power, and the very restricted limits of its 
 exercise. Indeed, one of the most wonderful things 
 in the work of Christ, especially considering his 
 designs, is its limitation — that, having entered the 
 world as he did, on such a mission, he left it so soon 
 — that, having said and done what he did, he said 
 and did no more. 
 
 We notice the limiting facts : — Christ lived in the 
 world but about thirty-four years ; he was engaged 
 iu his public work but about three and a half. He 
 confined himself to his own little conntry ; he did 
 nothing in person for any other. He worked mira- 
 cles to authenticate his divine person and mission ; 
 but these proofs were in various ways so limited, 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 257 
 
 that in his own times many denied or doubted them, 
 and many well-disposed inquirers have been perplexed 
 or doubtful in regard to them. He gave to the world 
 a new revelation of God and the future life ; but his 
 teachings were so limited, that on important matters 
 of doctrine and practice his church has always been 
 grievously divided, sincere believers have often been 
 in error, and the most gifted and diligent students 
 have often failed to agree on his meaning. His 
 training of his apostles was so limited, compared 
 with their need of it, that they failed to understand 
 his personal teachings ; they all forsook him at his 
 arrest ; they were surprised and discouraged by his 
 death, and faithless about his resurrection. 
 
 The extraordinary work which Christ did in reliev- 
 ing suffering and promoting the physical welfare of 
 men, was singularly limited. He walked on the sea ; 
 he stilled the tempest that imperilled his disciples’ 
 boat. This is evidence of a power sufficient to per- 
 manently mollify the fury of the elements. Yet 
 storms have been as furious, and the seas as danger- 
 ous, since as before. Even his great apostle to the 
 Gentiles w^as shipwrecked thrice on his missionary 
 journeys, and for a night and a day was floating on 
 the open sea. The infidel with plausibility may say. 
 Human art has done much that is now available for 
 the bodily safety of men, but the omnipotence of 
 their professed Saviour has done nothing. Christ 
 healed many sick people, thousands in all, but 
 in comparison with his healing power, how restricted 
 was its exercise ! How many thousands of the sick 
 were not cured ! How many thousands did not even 
 
258 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 hear of the marvellous Healer ! And those who were 
 healed were doubtless sick again. The power which, 
 with a word, cured fever and paralysis, might have 
 banished these diseases forever from the earth, or made 
 permanent provision for their cure. But Christ abol- 
 ished no disease, gave no panacea; nor can his 
 power now be successfully invoked for such miracu- 
 lous healing. The infidel with plausibility may say. 
 Human art has done much that is always available 
 for the relief of suflfering and cure of disease ; but he 
 who is said to have exercised miraculous healing 
 power as the omnipotent Saviour of the world, has 
 done nothing ; medicine has done more for health tlian 
 miracles. Christ raised the dead; in one case in 
 the chamber of death, in another from the bier, in 
 another from incipient corruption in the grave. Yet 
 those who were raised died again. He had power to 
 give life, yet death prevailed while he was in the 
 world, and has since his resurrection as before. 
 
 His work appears as limited, viewed in relation to 
 its immediate moral and spiritual eflfects. ” The Son 
 of God was manifested that he might destroy the 
 works of the devil ” ; but while thus manifested, 
 though he cast out devils he did not destroy any 
 great iniquity. He was the Prince of Peace, but 
 he did not destroy war. He came as the light of the 
 world, but he left it apparently about as dark as 
 before. He came that the world through him might 
 be saved ; in a few years he went away, before the 
 greater part of the world knew he had been here at 
 all, and he left it about as bad as it was before, — as 
 wicked and as wretched. 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 259 
 
 Why should Christ thus limit his personal work in 
 the world? The question is not too daring. The 
 faith that is most truly Christian, has no fear of rea^ 
 sonable inquiry. The reveyence that is most truly 
 Christian, will never serve as a shelter for intellec- 
 tual timidity. The thorough study of our religion is 
 one of our religious duties, and everything in Chris- 
 tianity is peculiarly provocative of study. This 
 question confronts us early in our inquiries ; it is 
 legitimate and practical ; it vitally concerns our per- 
 sonal faith, and our labors and hopes for the preva- 
 lence of Christianity. 
 
 The limitations of Christ’s personal work cannot 
 be explained by the excellence of his person, or by 
 the value of his revelation. On the contrary, our 
 question sets out from all that can be reasonably 
 claimed on these points. Doubtless he was the one 
 divine and perfect man, — the Son of God and of 
 Man. He came to save men by drawing their faith, 
 love, and hope to his person. Why, then, should 
 he so restrict his personal intercourse with them? 
 He has made a new revelation of God and the life to 
 come ; but, admitting that this is itself sufficient, it 
 requires to be taught, and none can teach it as he 
 who gave it, — " never man spake like this man.” 
 Why, then, should he so limit his personal teaching? 
 Doubtless he has immeasurable benefits for man, but 
 why should he so limit his personal labors in dis- 
 pensing them? We shall not find the explanation in 
 the special gifts bestowed on the apostles, and the 
 special work assigned to them. For no apostle 
 could be what Christ himself was; and besides, 
 
2G0 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 the work of the apostles was subject to similar 
 limitations. 
 
 Admitting the value of his religion, its sufficiency 
 for the soul, its diffusion and transforming power, it 
 may still appear to some that the personal presence 
 and work of Christ were greatly needed in the world 
 when he went away. Why did he not remain to lead 
 the conquests of his kingdom in person? Had he 
 remained half a centnry longer, and visited all the 
 nations in person, we are apt to think he might have 
 left- the world snbstantially Christianized. And at 
 how many times in the history of the church has her 
 great and urgent need appeared to be the personal 
 presence of her Head ? And this appears, to some, 
 to be the great need of the church and the world now. 
 Some think the effect of his presence here, eigh- 
 teen hundred years ago, has been greatly weakened 
 by the lapse of this long time. The world, also, 
 has greatly changed. Hence, there is need, they say, 
 that Christ should manifest himself again, resume his 
 work, and connect his religion with the advanced con- 
 ditions of modern times. They would not have him 
 come again as he came before, bnt come as he left. 
 They would not have the earthly life of Christ re- 
 peated, — they would not have him endure the cross 
 again, — but they would have him teach his gospel in 
 connection with modern thought ; bring his personal 
 life into connection with modern civilization ; and 
 do, in the presence of modern science, some mighty 
 works for the revival of faith and the advancement 
 of his religion. Some argue the necessity of such a 
 further personal work of Christ from the condition 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN TUE WORLD. 
 
 261 
 
 of the world ; but, of course, the necessity, that he 
 should do something more for the prevalence of his 
 religion, arises from the limitations of what he has 
 done ; it implies that he did not do enough, or per- 
 haps that he could not do enough at that time. 
 
 But Christ evidently limited his personal work 
 purposely. His supernatural power did not fail. 
 His mighty works did not weaken nor weary it, for 
 his resurrection and ascension are its most signal 
 manifestations. It was adequate to any amount of 
 similar work, but he confined its exercise to fixed 
 limits. His love did not fail. There is no indica- 
 tion that his benevolent interest in man declined in 
 the least. He was not weary of his work. The 
 glories of Heaven did not allure him away. He 
 evinces no disgust with the world, no impatience in 
 toil or suffering, no haste in departure. On the con- 
 trary, his sympathies evidently increased with all he 
 did and bore. " Having loved his own which was in 
 the world, he loved them unto the end.” His interest 
 for his followers appears most tender, and his con- 
 cern for the world most intense, at the very last. He 
 evidently confined his benevolent activities to the 
 fixed limits given in the facts of his life. 
 
 This limitation of his life-work appears even more 
 remarkable, viewed from the person of Christ, than 
 from the wants of the world. How could such a 
 being, on such a mission, so restrain his love and 
 power ? A very acute and original writer* regards 
 it as one of the most remarkable points in the char- 
 acter of Christ, that, possessing such power, he did 
 * The author of Ecce Homo. 
 
262 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 not resort to force to establish his kingdom. And 
 that he should never employ it, not even against his 
 most wicked opposers, is indeed wonderful. But 
 above the height of this wonder, we may see, a little 
 farther back in the range, another far higher, and 
 that is, that he restrained his power in works of 
 benevolence. It is difficult for good men to restrain 
 their benevolent activities, even when these cannot be 
 well employed, or have ceased to be useful. How, 
 then, could Christ, with his opportunities, forbid his 
 undiminished love and power to do more for men ? 
 The philanthropist or missionary leaves his work 
 reluctantly, even when his strength has failed. How 
 then, could Christ terminate his work as he did, and 
 leave this sinful world so soon ? Did he not weep 
 over J erusalem as he viewed it from Olivet a few 
 days before he died ? Did he not foresee the abomi- 
 nation of desolation standing in the holy place? 
 Could not the Prince of Peace keep the peace be- 
 tween the nations, and prevent the horrible carnage 
 which he then foresaw ? 
 
 But we observe that, as Christ terminated his work 
 without any disgust or impatience, so he did also 
 without any hesitation or regret. He makes the 
 reason evident : He declares that he had finished his 
 work. We have no intimation that his mission 
 included anything more. His charge to the apostles, 
 and through them to the church, assumes that his 
 personal work on earth was done. He promises to 
 return, but he gives no intimation that he would 
 come to resume, at a future time, a work which he 
 then left unfinished. His limitation of his work was 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 263 
 
 a clear purpose ; he defined it, and then fulfilled it ; 
 His wisdom set the limits to the exercise of his love 
 and power. A clear perception of this wisdom is 
 necessary to a worthy confidence in Christianity. 
 
 In any perfect organism or mechanism, the limits 
 of any part are determined exactly by its connections 
 with the others. This is true of all the work of 
 God ; no part comes short, no part overlaps. This 
 is true of the personal work of Christ in the world, 
 arid this explains its limitations — it is limited exactly 
 to its connections. We propose to consider- now the 
 principal lines of its connections. 
 
 I. The supernatural work of Christ was limited, 
 on one side, by its connections with nature. 
 
 His miraculous work was not antinatural nor 
 unnatural, but extranatural and supernatural. He 
 did not undertake to revolutionize nature, but rather 
 to deliver it, as he does men, ” from the bondage of 
 corruption.” He did not make any correction or 
 criticism of nature ; he denounced nothing in it, 
 destroyed none of ^ its forces, amended none of its 
 operations. In doing the work of the Redeemer, he 
 does not, in the least, disturb any of the arrange- 
 ments of the Creator. He honors nature as the per- 
 fect work of God, referring to it freely and frequently 
 in all its departments, for illustration of the truths 
 and operations of his own spiritual kingdom. 
 
 To represent the miracles of Christ as violations 
 or suspensions of natural law is very incorrect. He 
 says, ”I am not come to destroy but to fulfil;” 
 ” Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle 
 shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be ful- 
 
264 
 
 TEE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 filled.” And this, which is true of the law given by 
 Moses, is equally true of all law established by the 
 Creator in the material and spiritual world, in the 
 bodies and souls of men. Christ destroyed no law, 
 he violated none, he suspended none. Gravitation 
 remained the same, while he walked on the sea. The 
 forces and laws of the body remained the same, when 
 he instantly healed the sick and gave sight to the 
 blind. When I raise my hand, I overcome a mate- 
 rial force, but I do not destroy, nor suspend, that 
 force or its law. When I set my clock forward or 
 backward, I introduce a power and perform an act 
 that do not belong to the instrument, but I have not 
 changed the law of its action ; to do that, I must 
 reconstruct it. In his miracles of healing, Christ 
 overcame the forces of the body by a power, mani- 
 festly divine, which wrought the effect ; but he did 
 not displace those forces, nor derange their law ; for, 
 when he withdrew his supernatural power, they 
 resumed their operations, just as before. He per- 
 formed these cures in numerous instances, but, as 
 compared with the amount of disease in the world, 
 then and since, they were very few. Now if, by 
 his supernatural power, he had provided a remedy 
 which should be available and efficacious in every 
 case of disease, he would have defeated the Creator’s 
 arrangements. If he had prevented disease alto- 
 gether, by permanently changing the action of natu- 
 ral forces, he would have so far reformed creation 
 itself ; then we should find the divine power of the 
 Redeemer correcting or improving the divine work 
 of the Creator. But the Creator’s work neither 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 265 
 
 requires nor admits correction or improvement. The 
 most dreadful fact in nature is death. But — so far 
 as the great change is dreadful — death entered the 
 world by sin, — death, with all its precursors and 
 concomitants. This is the natural order ; and this is 
 right. Indeed it is impossible to conceive any order 
 in which these should not be the consequences of sin ; 
 for they are its fruit, growing out of its very nature. 
 To suppose that they did not follow, would be to 
 make sin as good as righteousness, or to identify 
 them. If there be sin, there must be weakness, 
 pain, death; they are inevitable and right. We see, 
 therefore, that Christ could not attempt to change 
 this natural order, nor allow his supernatural power 
 to encroach on it. As well might he weaken the 
 moral law, for this natural order is one of the main 
 supports of that law. 
 
 It is evident that the prime and paramount object 
 of the supernatural work of Christ was not the physi- 
 cal welfare of men. God has allowed to men, in 
 nature, all the physical welfare consistent with the 
 facts of sin ; and while these facts remain, supernat- 
 ural power could not rightly be employed to increase 
 it. The prime and paramount object of his mission 
 was to save from sin. Physical welfare is included 
 incidentally in the process, but completely only as 
 one of the results. And the supernatural work of 
 Christ was in strict accordance with his paramount 
 object. So far as miracles for the physical welfare 
 of men were required as means to this end, though 
 supernatural acts, they were not inconsistent with 
 nature ; though extraordinary, they were not dis- 
 
266 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 orderly; for everything in nature is ordered with 
 reference to the same general end. To this limit, 
 Christ must employ his supernatural power in 
 healing disease, or in other work for the physical 
 good of men, but not further. Beyond this, all such 
 employment of his supernatural power would have 
 been disorganizing and destructive. 
 
 We can show that the work of Christ did not fall 
 short of this limiting line. It was necessary to his 
 mission as the Saviour, that he should fully authenti- 
 cate to men his divine power and love. He must 
 prove his authority to forgive sin, and his ability to 
 give eternal life. This could be done only by some 
 acts, alike supernatural, benevolent, and manifest to 
 the senses, — that is, by miracles for the body, for 
 no others would answer all these conditions. And 
 it is evident that Christ’s miracles for the body were 
 suflS.cient for this purpose. They fully manifested 
 his unlimited power, in the control of the forces of 
 nature, and his unlimited love, in his sympathy with 
 all the miseries of men. Divine power and love, 
 two great qualifications of the Saviour of men, were 
 abundantly evinced in his miracles for the body. 
 
 It is not difficult to show, also, that Christ did not 
 go beyond the limiting line. The obligation to do 
 the greatest amount of good forbade him to go farther 
 than he did in the use of his supernatural power for 
 the physical benefit of men. He, whose word with- 
 ered the fruitless fig-tree, might have destroyed all 
 bad trees ; might have forbidden thorns and thistles 
 to grow any more on the earth. But thorns and 
 thistles were wisely ordered by the Creator to follow 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IK THE WORLD. 
 
 267 
 
 sill, and while sin is in the world, they will always 
 grow in some form ; they will be needed, and Christ 
 would not forbid them. He, whose blessing on a 
 few loaves made them sufficient to feed thousands, 
 might have so blessed the earth, that its spontaneous 
 production should always be sure and abundant for 
 all. Thus he might have prevented hunger, the 
 hardships of labor, and the fear of want. But to do 
 this, while sin prevailed in the world, would be to 
 undo the sentence pronounced against sm at first, 
 and that sentence was most wise and merciful, as 
 well as just. The Eedeemer must not revoke it nor 
 interfere with it. Possibly Christ might have driven 
 all diseases from the world with his rebuke, as he did 
 the fever from Peter’s wife’s mother. But had sin 
 been left, this would have been no benefit ; indeed, 
 sin, and other miserable consequences of sin, such as 
 violence, and suffering in other forms, would have 
 been all the worse for such relief. Christ might have 
 made the seas everywhere safe, the air salubrious, 
 the land fertile ; but, while men were morally 
 unchanged, this would be only ruinous encourage- 
 ment to sin. All the natural arrangements of the 
 world conform to the facts of sin, and this order is'* 
 perfectly wise. Nature is right; thorns and thistles, 
 toil, peril, pain, disease, and death, are right. They 
 are all God’s ministers of discipline and mercy in a 
 world of sin, and Christ would not interfere with 
 their ministry. They are all necessary as monitors, 
 restraints, or correctives. Even death is indispensa- 
 l)le while sin prevails in the world. The early death 
 of wicked men is sometimes the only seasonable 
 
268 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 relief of society from their iniquities. If Christ had 
 employed his supernatural power, without any limi- 
 tation, for the removal of physical evils, the world 
 being still in sin, or had gone beyond the limit which 
 he fixed, even though his objects had apparently been 
 benevolent, and he had been led by his sympathies, 
 he would have misused his power — he would have 
 turned it all to evil, — he would not have been the 
 great Saviour, but a great destroyer. 
 
 Christ evinced his divine power and love, two great 
 qualifications of the Saviour of men, by his miracles 
 for their physical good. He evinced his divine wis- 
 dom, the third qualification, less conspicuously per- 
 haps, but not less certainly, by his limitation of this 
 miraculous work. 
 
 Let it not be objected that this argument, if valid, 
 would prohibit all the sciences and arts of physical 
 good, and forbid all efibrts for human welfare, except 
 such as are directed to moral improvement. For 
 these are not, and never can be, violations of natural 
 law. Nature contains many alleviations and partial 
 remedies for physical evils, and many latent resources 
 for physical good. The study and use of these is 
 every way salutary. But, in all his acts of physical 
 good, man must keep to nature. Whatever his dis- 
 coveries or contrivances, he cannot go beyond her 
 for it; he must take her forces and laws, and no 
 others. Whatever, therefore, man may acquire in 
 science and art, it is certain he never will break, 
 disturb, or escape, the connections, which God has 
 established in nature, between sin and physical evil. 
 Whatever art may do, there will always be perils for 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 2G9 
 
 which it cannot provide. Whatever alleviations or 
 delays it may secure, it will always be finally impo- 
 tent before disease and death. However skilful it 
 may become, it will never exempt the glutton or 
 drunkard from the natural consequences of his vices. 
 Science, if true, is a statement of the work and laws 
 of God; art, if useful, is subordinate to both. We 
 conclude therefore, that the limitation of the personal 
 work of Christ does not logically forbid the studies 
 and arts of physical welfare, but that it logically 
 subordinates them all to man’s higher interests. 
 
 But it may be suggested, that, without making the 
 physical good of men his paramount object, and 
 without interfering with the wise order of nature, 
 Christ might have done far more than he did for this 
 welfare, as means to the higher good that he sought. 
 This is supposable. For instance, his knowledge may 
 have been sufficient to have given to the world, at 
 once, all the useful discoveries and inventions made 
 since his time. But would such work, extraordi- 
 nary though not miraculous, have been wise? 
 Would it have contributed to the paramount object 
 of his mission, which is really inclusive of all human 
 good? Evidently not. Firsts Because the means 
 of physical good cannot wisely be given to men all 
 at once, and apart from the conditions of the re- 
 ceivers. Thus given, they would not be beneficial. 
 There is a divine providence in all man’s material 
 progress. Every discovery and invention, every step 
 in it all, has its preparation, its time, place, and con- 
 nections, in which alone it is fitting and useful. And 
 Christ would not infringe this wise order of provi 
 
270 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 deuce. Secondly, The increase of material means, or 
 of knowledge, does not increase, on the whole, the 
 physical good of men, unless there is also a propor- 
 tionate increase of virtue. In the hands of iniquity 
 they are equally increased means of evil. Firearms 
 serve the invaders quite as well as the defenders of 
 a country ; the assassin quite as well as the police. 
 The mariner’s compass serves piracy quite as well 
 as commerce. Labor-saving machinery, when con- 
 trolled by avarice, becomes machinery for oppressing 
 labor. The increase of a nation’s wealth is no pre- 
 ventive of pauperism, for its pauperism and wealth 
 are sometimes found to increase in the same ratio. 
 Thirdly, The increase of material good alone is not 
 certain to be the means of moral improvement, but 
 is more likely to be the means of deterioration. 
 Some, who labor exclusively to increase it, are 
 indeed great benefactors ; but they are such, only as 
 others labor for the increase of virtue. He who 
 would make bad and miserable people better and 
 happier, by relieving their pains and providing for 
 their wants, may do too much as well as too little 
 for his object, and find himself ministering to selfish- 
 ness, vice, and greater misery. Only as this material 
 service is connected with moral and spiritual work, 
 does it become beneficial. It must, therefore, be 
 limited by that connection. The wise man seeks to 
 observe that limit in his philanthropy ; we have every 
 reason to believe Christ did observe it perfectly in 
 his. 
 
 For we notice specially : That Christ connected 
 all his physical benefits with his teaching, so that 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN TUB WORLD, 
 
 271 
 
 they illustrated it, verified its authority, and re- 
 vealed its great object. He also connected all these 
 physical benefits closely with spiritual acts. Thus 
 he called out the blind men’s faith, as he restored 
 their sight, saying before the act, Believe ye that I 
 am able to do this ? ” and in the act, " According to 
 your faith be it unto you.” In healing the palsied 
 man, he said, ''Thy sins be forgiven thee.” Thus 
 all his miraculous works for the body, besides proving 
 his power, expressing his tender concern for our 
 present interests, and sustaining his doctrine of the 
 resurrection, were also significant of, and tributary 
 to, his paramount spiritual design. 
 
 n. The personal work of Christ in the world was 
 limited, purposely, so as best to engage and foster a 
 worthy faith. 
 
 Christianity is addressed peculiarly and pre-emi- 
 nently to faith. It rouses the intellect, and supplies 
 it abundantly with truth ; it sets before us the end 
 of our being, and the great law of life ; it is related 
 to all our interests. But Christianity is peculiarly 
 the religion of restoration; it brings divine mercy 
 and gracious help for the sinful and lost ; to restore 
 them to spiritual integrity and communion with God, 
 to prepare them for the estate of his children ; and it 
 must, of course, be adefressed to faith as its corre- 
 sponding receptive exercise. Christ presented him- 
 self among men, as their divine and all-sufficient 
 Deliverer, and, actually entering on his work, he 
 called for their confidence. Thousands of believers 
 answered with glad and trusting hearts. But he met 
 
272 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 infidelity; and — always essentially the same — it 
 was as strong, as varied, and as arrogant, when he 
 personally confronted it, as it has ever been since. 
 His biographies record the facts of infidelity that 
 appeared in connection with his personal ministry, as 
 fully as those of discipleship. 
 
 Here we meet a limitation in his work, which is 
 very unexpected, and, at first, may be perplexing. 
 We are apt to suppose, that, when Christ personally 
 met infidelity, he would clear it all away — that, if 
 it could withstand his teaching and the manifestations 
 of his personal excellence, he would overcome and 
 subdue it by special displays of miraculous power. 
 But he did not. He corrected the errors of inquirers, 
 he confuted objections, he argued with opposers, he 
 silenced the questioners that came to entangle or 
 accuse him ; but all this was in the ordinary course 
 of his work. He worked no miracles to overcome 
 and subdue the infidelity that resisted his teachings 
 and personal excellence. The villagers of Nazareth, 
 who were offended at him, notwithstanding his mani- 
 fest wisdom, and whose unbelief was so unreasonable 
 that he marvelled at it, expected him to do such 
 miracles there, as he had done at Capernaum. ''But 
 he did not many mighty Works there because of their 
 unbelief.’’ This did not prevent the possibility, but, 
 in his view, it did prevent^ the propriety, of special 
 miraculous works there ; he would not crush that 
 infidelity with additional miracles for the purpose. 
 When arraigned before the Sanhedrim, he did not 
 call a sign from heaven, to prove to those unbelieving 
 priests and rulers that he was the Messiah. When 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IK THE WORLD: 
 
 273 
 
 presented before Herod, the king hoped he would 
 work a miracle in his presence ; but he did nothing 
 and said nothing. When he was on the cross, the 
 unbelieving people, and even the chief priests, 
 scribes, and elders, who gratified their cruel hostility 
 by gazing on his agonies, derided his weakness and 
 said, ”He saved others ; himself he cannot save. If 
 he be the King of Israel, let him now come down 
 from the cross, and we will believe him.” His whole 
 public life was filled with the most conclusive proofs 
 of his divine mission, which they could not deny, but 
 would not admit; some of which were miracles 
 greater than the act which they then demanded. 
 But just as he was dying, the infidelity of the nation 
 challenged Christ to this definite sign, and pledged 
 faith on its performance. He did not come down 
 from the cross ; he made no answer to the challenge. 
 Did the nails hold him there ? Nay ; rather he held 
 on to the nails. 
 
 Christ was frequently, and sometimes most se- 
 verely, tempted to overcome infidelity by miracles 
 for that special purpose. He was conscious of ample 
 power; his refusal thus to use it exposed him to 
 misrepresentation ; he was anxious that truth should 
 prevail ; he well knew the influence of the unbelief 
 of leading men ; he was taunted with weakness ; he 
 was challenged by his enemies ; but he never con- 
 sented. In this restraint of his power, we find one 
 of the most remarkable facts of his life. And, judg- 
 ing from his life, if he were now in the w^orld again, 
 engaged in the same mission as before, all the infi- 
 delity in the land, with all the modern advantages 
 
274 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 which it claims, with all its boasts of science, with 
 all its taunts of the weakness of Christianity, aided 
 by all the doubts and fears of half-hearted Christians, 
 would not be able to provoke from him any miracles 
 for its special confutation. 
 
 Why did he thus limit himself? Because, beyond 
 a reasonable amount, additional evidence, even 
 though miraculous, has no effect on unbelief except 
 to increase and confirm it. Where unbelief demands 
 more than is reasonable, it can resist all it demands. 
 The labors of Christ were public; all who wished 
 could attend his teachings and witness his mighty 
 works. These had been performed in all parts of 
 the land, in the most public places, in Jerusalem, in 
 the temple itself, before multitudes of people. There 
 were witnesses of them at the crucifixion. The rulers 
 well knew the facts ; many of them were personal 
 witnesses. The empty sepulchre of Lazarus was not 
 very far from the cross. Lazarus himself, and many 
 who were present at his resurrection, were witnesses 
 of his power. But unbelief of Christ was as preva- 
 lent, when he was personally present, engaged in his 
 work, even when he healed the sick and raised the 
 dead in the sight of multitudes, as it has ever been 
 since, as his faithful histories plainly show. He 
 might have silenced its cavilling voice and paralyzed 
 its persecuting hand, for the time, by some special 
 acts ; but it would have been still unchanged in the 
 hearts of unbelievers, and his special work against it 
 would have been no advantage, but rather a disad- 
 vantage to his religion. Had he come down from 
 the cross, his enemies would have crucified him 
 
WOBK OF CURIST IN THE WORLD- 
 
 275 
 
 again. He would have performed a conspicuous, but 
 useless, miracle at the cowardly challenge of an 
 unbelief so perverse as to be nothing different from 
 monstrous wickedness. His refusal to comply with 
 its demand, then, as always, however tempted, was 
 an act far greater than such a miracle. This reveals 
 his transcendent excellence ; it is the unparalleled 
 instance of patience ; it proves that his self-control, 
 wisdom, and fidelity to his mission, were as great as 
 his power ; it proves that his love could not fail in 
 any suffering. This limitation of his work, toward 
 infidelity, is one of those less conspicuous, but really 
 pre-eminent facts, which prove Christ worthy of an 
 unlimited faith. 
 
 While Christ limited his work, on one side, toward 
 unbelievers, so as to deny their unreasonable 
 demands, he limited it also, on the other, toward 
 believers, so as to allow freedom for faith, and to 
 require its vigorous exercise. Where there is faith, 
 there must be room for doubt ; and, till faith becomes 
 perfect, it is opposed by doubt, and grows by over- 
 coming it. Now Christ did not attempt to prevent 
 the possibility of doubt; he left it room enough. 
 He did not conceal the difficulties of his doctrines 
 and precepts ; he did not explain the mysteries that 
 he revealed ; some of his statements were obscure, 
 some paradoxical, many very difficult to be under- 
 stood and believed. His conduct often disappointed 
 or perplexed his followers. But he did not hasten 
 to render them special relief ; he made no attempt 
 to do something for every case of doubt. He was 
 exceedingly gentle and helpful ; but he did not treat 
 
276 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 a sickly faith with effeminate indulgence, not even 
 though his disciples abandoned him. He could nur- 
 ture faith, even though it were small as a grain of 
 mustard seed, but it must he seed, not chaff. He did 
 nothing to exempt believers from the struggles with 
 doubt, which naturally occur in their recovery from 
 sin ; nothing to allow in their faith either carelessness 
 or presumption ; nothing to lessen the necessary ex- 
 posure and exercise by which faith becomes vigorous. 
 
 Christ engaged, and fostered, the faith of men, 
 by presenting himself to them in his proper work as 
 their Saviour. As soon as he presented his person 
 and began his work, he revealed, and at the same 
 time supplied their real need. This called for faith; 
 and for more and more, as he continued to reveal 
 and supply their need. He brought to men divine 
 light, love, and help ; he made these manifest in his 
 person, and in his personal service for those who 
 would receive it. He made it evident that he re- 
 vealed God, that he had authority to forgive sin, and 
 power to give eternal life ; and he claimed a confi- 
 dence proportioned to his powers and benefits. He 
 presented himself as the suflScient object of every 
 man’s unlimited trust and love; and the reasons, 
 evidences, motives, and even the spirit, of the faith 
 that he required, and that every man needs to exer- 
 cise, all appeared in his person and personal work. 
 But, beyond his proper work as the Saviour of the 
 sinful and lost, he made no additional effort, either 
 to remove the difficulties of believers, or to overcome 
 the opposition of unbelievers. Herein he commends 
 himself to every reasonable mind ; indeed, this limi- 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IJST THE WORLD, 
 
 277 
 
 tation of his work, fairly considered, makes one of 
 the strongest elaims to faith. 
 
 If the work of Christ, thus limited, was sufficient 
 for the faith of his eontemporaries, then it is for ours. 
 It appeared only in parts to most of them ; it is a 
 complete whole to us. It appeared sudden and some- 
 times bewildering to them ; it appears to us with all 
 the tests of time, study, opposition, practical benefits, 
 and varied connection with human experience, for 
 eighteen centuries. Nor does this historic distance 
 reduce the evidences. For, of all the clear and 
 strong lines of history running from his times to 
 ours, by far the clearest and strongest spring out 
 of the life of Christ. And present facts show that 
 his life was never more potent with men than it is 
 to-day. 
 
 We walk about and do our business in the light of 
 the sun; we paint our pictures in his rays, with 
 hardly a thought of his distance. But when we do 
 think of it, the light is not less bright and useful, 
 while the distance reveals to us the magnitude and 
 power of that great luminary. So it is with the 
 present influence, and the historic distance, of the 
 life of Christ. 
 
 We conclude that Christ limited his work, pur- 
 posely, and against all temptations to extend it, at 
 the line where it meets, in all times, a reasonable 
 and worthy faith ; and that this limitation itself forms 
 one of his singular and pre-eminent claims to our 
 faith. 
 
 III. In the revelation and statement of truth, 
 Christ limited himself by its connection with the 
 
278 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 study and culture of the individual Christian, and of 
 his church as a whole. 
 
 We do not refer to the boundaries of his revela- 
 tion, beyond which curiosity may go, but beyond 
 which he has given no knowledge, — for, of course, 
 there must be such boundaries somewhere, and we 
 have no reason to complain of these, — : but we refer 
 to those limitations in his truth, which, at first, per- 
 plex us. 
 
 The main truths of Christianity are made so plain, 
 that they may be conveyed by proclamation; the 
 directions are so plain, that any may take them and 
 find the way of life. Yet Christianity is an educat- 
 ing revelation ; it is all in lessons, for study. Those 
 who hear the news and obey the call in the procla- 
 mation, become disciples ; and they never leave the 
 school, never finish the study. The same is true of 
 the whole church. This is the nineteenth century 
 of her schooling in the same Christian lessons. 
 Now these lessons have been remarkably successful 
 in securing study. What infinite exercise of the 
 human soul over Christ’s sayings, ever since he 
 uttered them ! What harvests of thought and spirit- 
 ual excellence from that seed ! And his words are 
 still as engaging as ever; they are not likely to 
 interest less in the future. The attainments, made 
 by the single disciple, or by the whole church, are 
 only steps to the further progress that these teach- 
 ings require. All must admit their unlimited intel- 
 lectual and spiritual fruitfulness. 
 
 But we must also admit, that there have always 
 been among Christians great perplexity and differ- 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 279 
 
 eiices about these truths. The most studious and 
 dovoAt persons have often been in error about them. 
 Sincere and learned teachers have misinterpreted 
 them. The church has always been divided, often 
 distracted, sometimes in bitter controversy about 
 them. And the natural consequences, weakness, infi- 
 delity, fanaticism, and oppression, have been abun- 
 dant. Now it is probably true, that a few additional 
 or explanatory words from Christ might relieve this 
 disciple’s perplexity, or clear away that one’s error, 
 or even settle some great question that has divided 
 the church. A few additional chapters in the New 
 Testament might have prevented many of the diffi- 
 culties, mistakes, and disputes, which have arisen 
 from it as it stands. Why, then, did Christ so limit 
 his teachings ? 
 
 Here, we observe, that Christ anticipated all these 
 troublesome consequences ; indeed the same occurred 
 under his own personal teaching. He, indeed, re- 
 lieved perplexity, corrected error, and settled dis- 
 puted questions, as he taught; but his ^teaching 
 occasioned other perplexities, errors, and disputes, 
 which he did not thus terminate. And now we 
 answer our question : Christ limited his teachings, 
 in the interest of education, so as to connect them 
 best with man’s study and discipline. 
 
 It does not follow, because additional teachings 
 might prevent this or that perplexity or error, that 
 there might be additional teachings enough to prevent 
 all perplexity and error. For the liability to these 
 lies in the conditions of the pupil, and it will remain, 
 whatever the text-book. The attempt, by the teacher. 
 
280 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 to prevent the possibility of their occurrence, would 
 destroy the educational value of his teaching. The 
 New Testament could not be made large enough for 
 this purpose ; and, if it could, it would be good for 
 nothing as the text-book for training the soul. Per- 
 j)lexity, error, and differences of view, are common 
 incidents in the best educational processes ; and, 
 when sinful man becomes the disciple, to be trained 
 to the ends and with the truths that Christ sets before 
 him, they will all certainly appear in the process. 
 And Christ was too wise a teacher to weaken the 
 educating power of the truth he taught, by attempt- 
 ing to prevent any results incidental to its best 
 effects. Let it be remembered, that his object is not 
 to prevent difficulties and mistakes in learning, but 
 to recover man to holiness. The pupil’s factor is as 
 essential to this product as the teacher’s ; and it con- 
 sists of all his mental and spiritual activity. This 
 must not be limijted, because its action is imperfect. 
 The teacher cannot do all the work, because the pupil 
 does imperfect work, because he is from time to time 
 perplexed or mistaken. On the contrary, the teacher 
 must limit his own work to the line of greatest effect 
 on the energies of his pupil^ 
 
 We do not undertake to show, that the actual limi- 
 tations of the teachings of Christ, exactly coincide 
 with this line. It may be impossible, and it is not 
 necessary , to prove this. The truth Christ taught, 
 in the limits and forms in which he left it, has im- 
 mense power on the minds and hearts of men. If 
 they become subject to the truth, this is all most 
 efficient and salutary educating power. We show 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 281 
 
 the wisdom of Christ, in not impairing the educating 
 power of his truth, by any attempts to prevent its 
 incidental effects, however troublesome these may 
 seem to ns to be. This is enough for our purpose. 
 
 But there are abundant special reasons for satis- 
 faction with the limiting forms, in which Christ has 
 given us his truth. We suggest a few : Some disci- 
 
 ples are perplexed on truths or duties, which others 
 see clearly ; the form of Christ’s teaching turns them 
 back to the preliminary lessons, which they have not 
 yet learned. There is much difference among Chris- 
 tians on some points that are plain enough in the 
 New Testament ; the refusal of further explanation is 
 the requirement of closer study, or better spiritual 
 qualification to find the truth. To many of our 
 religious questions, the New Testament refuses to 
 give any positive answers : the refusal leads us to a 
 wholesome criticism of the question, or gives us 
 a lesson in patience, or teaches us not to dogmatize 
 too far, — either of which is doubtless better for us 
 than the answer. We find we cannot formulate all 
 Christian truth satisfactorily ; it is too large for our 
 forms ; our Christian philosophy and theology are 
 always scanty and imperfect enough to make us hum- 
 ble. But our admiration of the design and wis- 
 dom of Christ is increased by the fact that, never- 
 theless, he does not give us a ready-made science of 
 Christianity to repeat by rote, but requires us to 
 make our own, as a part of our culture. 
 
 IV. The personal work of Christ on earth is lim- 
 ited exactly where it connects with his higher rela- 
 
282 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 tions to his people, and his higher services for 
 them. 
 
 All the transactions of his earthly history were 
 necessary to his mission as the Saviour of the world 
 — the manifestation of his divine-human person and 
 perfect character ; his revelation of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven, his mighty works, sinless example, his 
 temptations, shame, pain, death, resurrection, and 
 all the minor acts and incidents of his life, revealing 
 his participation in all common human experiences, 
 and his varied and intense sympathies with men, — 
 all this was necessary, and this was all that was 
 necessary, except the final act, to fulfil his work 
 here. He confined himself strictly to this; he re- 
 mained on earth not a day after this was done. 
 
 The reason is clear and decisive. The final and 
 crowning act of this necessary work of the Saviour 
 was the resumption of his glory, in his ascension to 
 Heaven. What his resurrection was to his death, 
 his ascension was to his whole life on earth. Both 
 prove his self-sacrifice ; his ascension proves his self- 
 sacrifice in his incarnation — that his history was the 
 human life of the Son of God. He refers to it as 
 the consummation of all his acts and evidences. 
 '' What if. ye shall see the Son of man ascend up 
 where he was before?’’ Now this same act, that 
 completes his necessary work on earth, also termi- 
 nates his stay. The ascension must follow, to com- 
 plete the whole, as soon as all the other necessary 
 transactions of his life were finished. The comple- 
 tion of these, therefore, decides the length of his 
 residence. 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 283 
 
 Ilis ascension is, alike, the glorious consummation 
 of his earthly life-work, and his entrance on his 
 higher and permanent relations to all his people. 
 That work being done, his appropriate place, even 
 with reference to his people and cause here, is the 
 throne of his Kingdom in Heaven. Now all his rela- 
 tions to them are complete : his earthly work all set 
 before them ; the benefits of it all available ; his 
 Person, the object of their supreme love, exalted in 
 his supremacy and glory. It is suitable that the 
 Leader should go forward to the land where his fol- 
 lowers are gathering. His ascension draws their 
 affections upward after him ; it lifts their hopes over 
 the darkness of the grave ; it brightens the anticipa- 
 tions of their own departure. It may be easy for a 
 Christian to die, to go to the w^orld where Christ is, 
 in his blessedness and glory ; it would be very hard 
 for him to die, if he must leave Christ here. The 
 apostles could not anticipate his heavenly glory, 
 while Christ was with them in his humiliation and 
 service. His discourses about it, and even the 
 bright special vision of it, which three of them wit- 
 nessed in the Transfiguration, had but a slight effect 
 on them, till after the ascension. But his exaltation 
 kindles in the Christian intense aspiration to see and 
 share his glorious heavenly estate. 
 
 And as Christ is now in the place in which he ful- 
 fils all the need of his people, so he is also in the 
 place of power and advantage for his cause. His 
 ascension and enthronement, where the advance of 
 the Redeemed are gathered, drawing the affections 
 and hopes of his people, in their struggles here, to 
 
284 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 the glories of his kingdom on high, are more to his 
 cause than centuries filled with continued earthly 
 service could have been without them. His ascension 
 to heaven is one of the great transactions for the 
 advancement of his kingdom on earth ; his enthrone- 
 ment is one of the great securities of its success. 
 
 It may, however, be supposed that Christianity 
 lost some advantages, though it gained greater ones, 
 by the termination of his personal service here. Not 
 so, we reply : Those greater advantages were not 
 gained at any such expense. For, 
 
 V. The personal work of Christ on earth was 
 limited just where it connects with that of his fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 After he had accomplished what was essential to 
 his earthly mission as the Saviour, he withdrew from 
 what he might have done in person for the propaga- 
 tion and prevalence of his religion, and left the 
 whole work to his people. At his departure he 
 committed the publication and teaching of his reli- 
 gion, the training of disciples and of the whole 
 church, first to his apostles, and through them to his 
 followers, in every age, till the end of the world. 
 And this, we claim, was an advantage to his cause. 
 
 The simple power of social diffusion in Christian- 
 ity is very strong. But besides this, Christ calls 
 every believer to be, like himself, a minister to 
 others. The believer is prepared for the service by 
 his personal religious experiences, by his gratitude 
 and devotion to Christ, and his interest in his king- 
 dom. The appointment to it is most honorable to 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD, 
 
 285 
 
 the Christian, for the same service is assigned to 
 him, so far as he can take it, that Christ himself per- 
 formed. He shares with Christ in the toils and trials 
 of his kingdom here, and he is appointed to share 
 with him in its future glories. The great cause needs 
 every Christian, and every Christian needs the ser- 
 vice ; it is his employ, discipline, culture, his prepa- 
 ration for the higher services and the rewards of the 
 future kingdom. Besides all that Christ has done 
 for him, every Christian needs to serve and be served 
 by his brethren. So long as any people are not 
 Christians, they will need all the church can do to 
 Christianize them, and the church will equally need 
 to do it. The fellowship of Christian service among 
 believers, for edification and comfort, and for the 
 conversion of unbelievers, is indispensable to the 
 culture of every Christian, and to the unity, purity, 
 and vigorous growth of the whole church. It is not 
 only a wise arrangement, but it is a part of Christi- 
 anity ; without it there would be no adequate fellow- 
 ship with Christ, no church, no Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 And the church is competent to all the work 
 required of it for its own development, and for the 
 propagation and prevalence of Christianity in the 
 world, without any further personal work of Christ, 
 and without any more truths, gifts, or powers, than 
 he has provided. Facts clearly prove this : The 
 church — if it could then be called a church — was 
 never so small and weak as when, having gathered 
 his faithless and disheartened disciples together after 
 his resurrection, he personally committed this whole 
 work to them, and then immediately left it wholly to 
 
286 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 them by his ascension. The apostles were among 
 the company, but, apart from their faith in him, they 
 were very weak and imperfect men. The mii'aculous 
 powers and other special gifts, conferred on them for 
 their peculiar work, were very limited. Yet, in 
 spite of all that Jewish and Pagan opposition could 
 do, in less than three centuries after the Ascension, 
 Christianity was the prevalent religion of the Eoman 
 Empire. There has never been a time when the 
 church, if faithful, was not adequate to all that Christ 
 left it to do for itself and the world. 
 
 But would the followers always he faithful to this 
 great trust? And if they might not be, was it wise 
 to leave wholly to them a work so important? We 
 answer : The fidelity of the church is itself a great 
 part of the end sought. Without this, of course, 
 Christianity cannot prevail, even though Christ 
 should labor here in person for it. And, to secure 
 fidelity, Christ must devolve on the church the whole 
 work which belongs to it, and the doing of which is 
 essential also to its vigor and growth. If he should 
 relieve it of its work in case it should be unfaithful, 
 he would abet itg unfaithfulness. 
 
 The church has been unfaithful, — at times, very 
 unfaithful. Christianity has been perverted and cor- 
 rupted ; its light has gone out in some lands which 
 it once illumined. But his cause similar reverses 
 when he was in the world, and we have no reason to 
 think it would have been otherwise, had he remained. 
 Looking backward, the progress of Christianity 
 seems slow. There have been declensions, reverses, 
 apostasies ; not half the world is even nominally 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 287 
 
 Christian now ; the church is weak ; infidelity is 
 active. The faint-hearted or remiss or impatient 
 Christian may wonder why Christ did not do more 
 for the success of his cause before he went away, or 
 wish he would come again and revive faith by his 
 personal presence, and help on his work with new 
 miracles. All this Christ clearly foresaw; yet he 
 left to his followers all the service that belongs to 
 them. He gave them the greatest motive to faith- 
 fulne-ss, by committing this great interest to their 
 trust. He knew that in their doing this work, lies 
 the actual success of his religion in the world ; and 
 that they might do it all, he, without any hesitation 
 or misgiving, left it all to them to do. The historic 
 vicissitudes of Christianity are revelations of the 
 strength of sin, which it contends against, and of its 
 own innate power. But the appeal of Christ to the 
 fidelity of his followers, made by committing wholly 
 to them their part of his work, the obligation and 
 inspiration of the work itself, the fellowship of all 
 faithful Christians with Christ and each other in it 
 and in its results, are some of the most potent 
 motives of his religion — far more efficacious for its 
 prevalence than any additional work of Christ could 
 be without them. This limitation of his work, where 
 it connects with that of his people, is one of the posi- 
 tive advantages of Christianity. 
 
 VI. The personal work of Christ on earth was 
 limited, so as to connect with the work of the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 What Christ has personally done is all objective ; 
 
288 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 it was done for men, set before them, offered to them. 
 There is in Christianity a corresponding subjective 
 work, — a divine work wrought in the soul, in and 
 with its own activities. This is the work of the 
 Holy Spirit. Now the work for man must be com- 
 plete, that the work in him may be most effective ; 
 the sensible presence of Christ must be withdrawn, 
 that his spiritual presence might be fully realized. 
 He came to the world that he might get near to men ; 
 he went away that he might get nearer still ; the 
 paradox is an accurately stated truth. He came, 
 that he might manifest himself to the senses ; he 
 withdrew this sensible manifestation, that he might 
 present himself spiritually and more directly to the 
 soul. Now that all parts of his work, — of his per- 
 sonal work have been actually fulfilled, now that he 
 has actually taken all the relation of Saviour to 
 them, — his whole work with all its various services, 
 is available, at once, to every man, always, every- 
 where, and in all his various need. Christ is now 
 before every soul, with all he ever did and bore, in 
 all the relations he ever took. The Gospel is not 
 the mere record of what he once said, but his living 
 word. His earthly experiences are not mere history, 
 but the forms which his perpetual grace to sinful 
 men has taken, — forms apt and sufficient for all 
 men, in all times. 
 
 While Christ was sensibly present among men, his 
 presence must be local ; his services for them must 
 be special and temporary ; so he could not serve the 
 need of all. But now that his bodily presence is 
 withdrawn, and all his earthly work is complete, the 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IK THE WORLD, 
 
 289 
 
 Divine Spirit everywhere enters the souls of men, 
 and Christ becomes spiritually ubiquitous and all- 
 sufficient. All that he ever did and bore, all the 
 relations that he ever took, become living spiritual 
 realities, answering always and everywhere the be- 
 liever’s want. Thus the work of Christ was limited, 
 so as to become illimitable ; his outward sensible 
 work was limited, so that his inward spiritual work 
 might be illimitable. 
 
 On this point we need not theorize; we*need not 
 undertake to state the exact relations of the personal 
 work of Christ to that of the Holy Spirit ; the sim- 
 ple facts abundantly answer our purpose. He said 
 to his disciples, ^'It is expedient for you that I go 
 away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not 
 come unto you.” The Spirit’s work could not be 
 done, while the great outward transactions of Re- 
 demption were going on ; these must be outwardly 
 complete, then inwardly realized to men. But as 
 soon as they were complete, it was expedient that 
 Christ should depart. The results prove this. 
 He left the world ; the Spirit came ; then what a 
 change in his disciples ! How timid the apostles 
 before ! how courageous then ! They had forsaken 
 him in his trial, they were disheartened by his death; 
 but when the Spirit came, they publicly charged the 
 rulers and people with his murder, and proclaimed 
 in the temple, that he, whom they with wicked 
 hands had crucified and slain, was risen from the 
 dead, and was their Lord and Messiah. Before, they 
 had been so spiritually obtuse, that they often failed 
 to apprehend his personal teaching. Then, they were 
 
290 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 SO illumined, that all his teachings, and all the old 
 prophecies concerning him, became suddenly clear. 
 Then, their words about him were far more effective 
 than his had been, when he spoke of himself. The 
 moral and spiritual transformation wrought by their 
 ministry, the first work after the Spirit came, was 
 probably greater than had been wrought by the whole 
 personal ministry of Christ. Probably more were 
 converted the first day, than had been during his 
 whole life. He had predicted all this ; he declared, 
 that, because he went away, they should do greater 
 works than his. This was fulfilled, not in their out- 
 ward miracles, for these were not as great as his, 
 but in blessed changes wrought by the Spirit in the 
 souls of men. 
 
 When Christ withdrew from the world, a power 
 appeared in Christianity far greater than his personal 
 presence. When he closed his personal work, a 
 spiritual work began in men, closely connected with 
 his, but far greater than what he had effected among 
 them. The history of his life had far more moral 
 power after he had gone, than its acts and events 
 had when they were transpiring. His truth, taught 
 by very weak, imperfect men, had more spiritual 
 efficiency, than when he taught it originallj^ himself. 
 
 And this power was not temporary. Pentecost 
 has been repeated many times in the history of the 
 Church. Christianity has shown as great spiritual 
 vitality and aggressive vigor, in this nineteenth 
 century, as it did in the first. Its fruits are more 
 manifest, abundant, and blessed, in this than in any 
 other. The Gospel, faithfully preached, has now 
 
WORK OF CHRIST IK THE WORLD. 
 
 291 
 
 more moral and spiritual power, than when Christ 
 preached in person. There are disciples, now, who, 
 by the power of the Spirit, do, as he predicted they 
 would, even greater works than his. 
 
 We conclude that the personal work of Christ on 
 earth was sufficient. For the study of its limitations 
 reveals pre-eminent reasons for our faith, and proves 
 that the powers of Christianity are adequate to its 
 proposals. 
 

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