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 result in dismissal from the University. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 L161— O-1096 
 
THE FAITH OF THE GOSPEL 
 
The Faith of the Gospel 
 
 ^ iilanual of (ii:{)ristian i^octdne 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR JAMES MASON, B.D. 
 
 FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 ' IVith one soul striving together with the Faith of the Gospel" 
 
 THIRD EDITION, REVISED 
 
 E. p. BUTTON AND CO P A N Y 
 
 PUBLISHERS AND IMPORTERS 
 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
 1891 
 
DEDICATED TO 
 
 JOSEPH, 
 
 JSisJjop of IBurfjam, 
 
 AND 
 
 BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT, 
 
 i^fgms ^Proffssor of iBibmitg at (JTambritigf, 
 
 TO WHOM I OWE IT IF I MAY STILL HOPE 
 TO BEGIN TO BE A DISCIPLE. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The writer of this book was drawn to his task in 
 the first instance by his experience in conductinj^ 
 Missions. It has always formed part of his plan on 
 such occasions to give consecutive Instructions on tlie 
 leading doctrines of the Gospel. Twice, especially, in 
 the year 1885, — at S. George's, Hanover Square, and 
 at Stoke Damerel, — it was his privilege to deliver a 
 course of the kind to large audiences of cultivated 
 persons, many of whom desired to l)e directed to some 
 book wdiich would contain such an exposition of the 
 faith as they had listened to. It was difficult to satisfy 
 the demand by suggesting already published works. 
 Tlie modern English books which have dealt with the 
 field of dogma as a whole liave, perhaps, been either 
 too condensed for the ordinary I'cader, or too sliglit 
 for the thouglitful. Many of them have had the 
 disadvantage of appearing in the unattracti\'e guise 
 of Commentaries on the Thirty-Nine Articles, or in 
 some other shape not suited t(^ freedom and breadth 
 of treatment. 
 
viii 
 
 Preface, 
 
 This history of the origin of the present book will 
 explain its form. While attempting to go with fair 
 thoroughness into the various questions raised, it does 
 not profess to deal with them exhaustively, as a book 
 written for the learned would. It assumes little in 
 the reader besides an average English education and 
 a devout mind. Recondite theological language is 
 avoided. Terms are explained as they occur. It is 
 hoped, therefore, that the book may prove useful, 
 not only to Teachers of the Divine Mysteries at the 
 beginning of their studies, but to many private Chris- 
 tians also, who wish to have an intelligent grasp of 
 their faith. 
 
 Dogmatic Theology lies very near, in its purpose, 
 to Apologetics. Its object is not merely to state in 
 orthodox language the sum of what is to be believed, 
 but to commend what it states by shewing its inherent 
 reasonableness. At the same time, it differs from 
 Apologetics inasmuch as it assumes that the student 
 is already a believer, and only needs to have his mind 
 cleared and his faith made explicit. It does not prove 
 every point as it goes along; it suggests, and explains, 
 and connects. If such a word may be used in connexion 
 with a popular handbook, our object in Dogmatics is 
 to exhibit a Christian Philosophy. Mere correctness 
 in tlie use of terms mi^^lit be taucjht in the form of a 
 dictionary; but the dogmatic teacher wishes to shew the 
 beai'ings of things, to displny tln^ unity of trutli, to give 
 
Preface. 
 
 an idea o£ the structure and system in which the lives 
 of men are placed. But in order that it may be truly 
 a Christian Philosophy, and not, like the systems of 
 the Gnostics, a human fabric borrowing elements from 
 the Gospel, it must needs start with faith in Christ, 
 endeavouring purely to arrive at the inward meaning 
 of His words, and to piece together the fragments of 
 truth which it is able to apprehend, in no arbitrary 
 fashion, but in the way in which the Church has 
 always grouped them. 
 
 A work of this nature is only by accident con- 
 troversial. It does not aim at exposing errors, 
 although it does so when contrast with the error 
 serves to elucidate the truth. Controversy is a form 
 of Apologetics in which the opponent, instead of 
 standing outside the faith altogether, claims to be the 
 true representative of it. With such persons the 
 dogmatic teacher is not directly concerned ; he is only 
 concerned with them so far as it may be useful to 
 caution the learner against them. This book is not 
 an appeal to those who differ from the Church, but 
 an attempt to help those who profess allegiance to 
 her. Nevertheless, it would be vain to deny that the 
 writer has had throughout a wider outlook. He is 
 not much disposed to believe in controversy as a 
 means of producing agreement, and inclines to think 
 that the positive statement of belief acts much more 
 convincingly upon honest divergence than any amount 
 
 h 
 
X 
 
 Preface. 
 
 of negative criticism. It is his most earnest hope 
 that this book may contribute something to the cause 
 of Christian unity. If any word is contained within 
 its pages which sounds impatient, or bitter, or in- 
 flammatory, or supercilious, or in any way uncharitable 
 towards those who differ from us, whether Protestants 
 or in the Roman or Oriental Communions, that word 
 is withdrawn beforehand, as belying the deepest 
 feelings of the writer s heart. There are difficulties 
 enough in the way of agreement upon doctrines so 
 mysterious, and covering so wide a field, without 
 cheating fresh obstacles by want of tenderness and 
 sympathy. But yet, if real agreement is ever to be 
 reached, it can only be reached by frank and trustful 
 avowal of the points of difference, not by hushing them 
 up. Unity must be based on a real understanding of 
 one another, and no man can sever those two things 
 which the Prophet joined so closely together when he 
 said, Execute the judgment of truth and peace in 
 your gates, saith the Lord" (Zech. viii. 16). 
 
 If there is an object still more to be sought in a 
 work of this kind than the union of Christians amongst 
 tliemselves, it is to lead souls to a worthier adora- 
 tion of God and a life of trustful obedience. At every 
 moment. Dogmatic Theology touches Ethics. A manual 
 of Christian doctrine is not a volume of sermons ; yet 
 in some ways it ought to answer the same purposes. 
 There is a restfulness in sometimes escaping from the 
 
Preface. 
 
 xi 
 
 thought o£ ourselves, and observing what things are, 
 irrespective of our relations to them. The Christian 
 heart will easily and instinctively deduce comfort 
 and warning, moral direction and devotional attitude, 
 from an intelligent survey of Christian truth. While 
 this book is not written for the purpose of stirring tlie 
 emotions or guiding the will, it is hoped at least that 
 nothing will be found 'in it which chills the spirit of 
 worship, or diverts the ethical intention. 
 
 It would be impossible for the writer to ac- 
 knowledge what he owes to other minds, without 
 composing an autobiography. All the influences of 
 a lifetime combine to form a man's belief. To dis- 
 entangle what has been learned from holy parents, 
 from schoolmasters, in sermons, in intercourse with 
 friends, and in a hundred chance ways, would be an 
 interminable occupation. Nevertheless, the writer 
 would acknowledge once more his paramount obliga- 
 tion to the two great Divines whose names he has in- 
 scribed upon the dedicatory page. Their printed works, 
 their public lectures and instructions, the privilege of 
 private conversation with them, have conveyed to him 
 — or it is his own fault — immeasurably more than he 
 can reproduce in words. He ought to apologize for 
 taking, without leave, such a liberty with their names ; 
 but he hopes that if in anything his conclusions are 
 not what they would wish, at any rate the book is not 
 wholly destitute of their spirit. Students who are 
 
xii 
 
 Preface, 
 
 acquainted with Martensen's Christian Dogmatics will 
 discern in the following pages many reminiscences of 
 that noble book. These last years have been very 
 fruitful of strong and reverent exegesis of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, which is the material for Dogmatics. It would 
 be ungrateful not to name the Commentaries of Pro- 
 fessor Godet as having laid the pi'esent writer under 
 specially deep obligations. For a general view of 
 modern Roman theology he has chiefly used the 
 Theologie Dogmatique of Cardinal Gousset, and for 
 that of the Oriental Church, the work of the Russian 
 Bishop Macarius, bearing a similar title. 
 
 Three dear friends of the author have kindly gone 
 through the labour of reading his proofs. But for 
 their strictures and suggestions, the work would be 
 far more imperfect even than it is. They know how 
 sincerely grateful to them the author is ; but he does 
 not mention who they are, lest he should seem to 
 shelter himself under well-known names from criticism 
 which ought to be borne by himself alone. 
 
 He hopes that it is not necessary to add, that if 
 unwittingly and unwillingly he has misrepresented in 
 anything the doctrine of the Church, he submits him- 
 self unreservedly to correction. 
 
 Aluiallows Bakkino, 
 Octohery 1887. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND 
 EDITION 
 
 It is impossible for the writer of this book to express 
 his thankfulness for the way in which the first edition, 
 with all its blemishes, has been received, by prelates 
 and theologians as well as by simple believers, both 
 in England and in America, and for the tokens of 
 God's blessing upon it. 
 
 In preparing the second edition, he has had the 
 help of careful reviews which have appeared in public, 
 — and also of a great number of private criticisms, from 
 very different points of view — some of them remark- 
 ably full and able. He desires to thank cordially all 
 those who have thus aided him, and hopes that in many 
 instances they will be fairly satisfied with the altera- 
 tions which will be found in the present text of his 
 work. If in any case he has thought it best to retain 
 what was originally written, he trusts that it will not 
 be thought that it is for want of a deferent considera- 
 tion of the arguments of his critics. 
 
 The first chapter of the book has now been re- 
 
xiv 
 
 Preface to the Second Edition. 
 
 arranged and enlarged, so as to be more in proportion, 
 it is hoped, to the subsequent chapters. A table of 
 the references to the Fathers will be found at the 
 end, for the use of any students who may wish to 
 consult the originals. 
 
 Allhallovv^s Catiking, 
 November y 1888. 
 
 NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION 
 
 For the carefully prepared index of Scripture texts 
 referred to in this work, the author is indebted to 
 the kindness of the Rev. John Kitchingman, Rector 
 of Bonsall. Beyond the introduction of this index, 
 and the correction of a few misprints, no other altera- 
 tion has been made in the present edition. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter L 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Existence of God 
 
 (i.) a matter of faith, not of proof (§ i) i 
 
 (ii.) but of reasonable certainty (§2) 3 
 
 Evinced by 
 
 (a) the general consent of men (§ 3) . . • • . 5 
 
 (^) the existence of the world (§4) 7 
 
 (c) the phenomena of matter 8 
 
 of life 9 
 
 of consciousness 11 
 
 of evolution and adaptation . 12 
 
 {d) our mental constitution and moral conscience (§5) 14 
 
 (iii.) confirmed by revelation (§6) 16 
 
 (iv.) verified by Christian experience (§7) 18 
 
 II. The Nature of God 
 
 (i.) as spirit (§8) 20 
 
 (ii.) self-existent (§9) 21 
 
 III. The Attributes of God 
 
 (i.) incomprehensible (§10) 22 
 
 (ii.) one (§ II) 24 
 
 (iii.) infinite (§12) 26 
 
 in knowledge 26 
 
 in regard to space 27 
 
 in regard to time , 29 
 
 in power , 33 
 
XVI 
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IV. The Character of God 
 
 (i.) holiness (§13) 35 
 
 (ii.) love (§14) 39 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 The Athanasian Creed the Church's expression of responsibility 
 
 for the truth (§ i) 41 
 
 Passages of the Scriptures clearly revealing 
 
 (i.) a Unity in Trinity (§2) 43 
 
 (ii.) a Trinity in Unity 44 
 
 I. The True Doctrine oprosED to 
 
 (i.) Tritheism, the notion of three Gods (§ 3) .... 45 
 
 (ii.) Sabellianism, an unreal distinction of Persons (§ 4) . 49 
 (iii.) Arianism, a denial of the Eternal Godhead of the Son 
 
 and Spirit (§ 5) 51 
 
 apparent simpHcity of Arianism, and its real 
 
 difficulty 52 
 
 II. The Idea of God requires 
 
 (i.) an eternal reproduction of Himself (§ 6) .... 56 
 
 (ii.) in a Person equal to Himself 57 
 
 (iii.) bound to Himself in conscious freedom 58 
 
 HI. Such is the Scriptural Doctrine of 
 
 (i.) the Father (§7) 59 
 
 (ii.) the Word 60 
 
 (iii.) the Spirit 62 
 
 IV. Subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Fathek, 
 
 AS the Sole Fountain of Deity (§ 8) . . . . 63 
 
Contents. 
 
 xvii 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity leads to a Right 
 View of the Relation of the World to God 
 (i.) as opposed to Pantheism, by shewing the independence 
 
 ofGod(§i) 70 
 
 His purpose in creation (§2) 71 
 
 (ii.) as opposed to Deism, by giving a starting-point for 
 
 creation (§3) 74 
 
 H. The Place of the Word in the Divine Being 
 
 (i.) the world ideally pre-existent in Him (§ 4) . . . o 75 
 
 (ii.) and made and sustained through Him (§5). . . . 80 
 
 HI. The Angels (§ 6) 
 
 (i.) their relation to nature 81 
 
 (ii.) their relation to man 83 
 
 (iii. ) their relation to each other 85 
 
 (iv.) their power 85 
 
 (v.) their personality 87 
 
 IV. Revelation and Science (§7) 88 
 
 The Mosaic account of creation as a progressive work (§8) 90 
 
 culminating in the production of Man (§9) 92 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Man the created Image of God (§1) 94 
 
 (i.) his body (§2) 95 
 
 (ii.) his spirit (§3) 97 
 
 (iii.) his soul (§4) 97 
 
 H. His Original Righteousness 
 
 to be secured through temptation (§5) 99 
 
 Mystic account of the temptation (§ 6) . , . , . ,101 
 
xviii 
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 III. The Origin of Evil 
 
 Seduction of Man (§7) 103 
 
 The Devil and his history 105 
 
 IV. Th£ Unity of the Human Race (§ 8) . . • • • io9 
 
 (i.) Traducianism and Creatianism (§9) 112 
 
 (ii.) hereditary sin (§10) 114 
 
 (iii.) the slavery of the will (§11) 117 
 
 (iv.) humanity still capable of recovery (§ 12) .... 119 
 
 Chapter V. 
 Wc^i incarnation of tfje TOorb of (Kolr* 
 
 The hope of recovery for the fallen race in Christ (§1) . . . 120 
 
 I. Preparation for the Incarnation (§2) 121 
 
 (i.) of the Word Himself 122 
 
 (ii.) of mankind 
 
 {a) heathen 123 
 
 {b) Jewish .124 
 
 (iii.) Teleology of History (§3) 126 
 
 IT. The Miraculous Conception of Christ (§ 4) . . . 127 
 
 Obscured by doctrine of miraculous conce^Dtion of Mary . 129 
 
 in. The Hypostatic Union 
 
 (i.) as opposed to Nestorianism (§5) 131 
 
 necessitates impersonahty of the manhood (§ 6) . 135 
 
 (ii.) as opposed to the theory of God converted into flesh (§ 7) 138 
 
 (iii.) as opposed to Monophysitism (§8) , 139 
 
 (iv.) as opposed to Eutychianism (§9) 140 
 
 IV. Both Natures perfect in Christ (§10) 145 
 
 V. Accommodation of the Natures to each other 
 
 (i.) of the human to the Divine (§ II) 149 
 
 ii.) of the Divine to the human (^12 . • . . . 152 
 
Contents. xix 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Christ the natural Mediator between God and Man (§ i) 
 
 (i.) as Son of God i6o 
 
 (ii.) as Son of Man i6i 
 
 I. Relation of the Incarnation to the Atonement 
 
 (i.) fittingness of the Incarnation apart from Redemption (§ 2) 162 
 (ii.) Redemption possible by other means (§ 3) . . . . 165 
 (iii.) the benefits of the Incarnation net commensurate with 
 
 Redemption (§4) 167 
 
 (iv.) the Incarnation revealed as the eternal purpose of God 
 
 (§5) 168 
 
 Simplicity of the Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement (§6) . . 171 
 
 II. God's Character revealed 
 
 {a) in Christ's life (§ 7) 173 
 
 {b) in His words (§ 8) 175 
 
 (i.) as reconciling men to Himself (§9) 177 
 
 (ii.) as suffering in His Son's Person (§10) 180 
 
 (iii.) as vindicating His own righteousness thereby (§11) 182 
 
 III. Christ as the Representative Man satisfies the 
 
 Divine Righteousness 
 
 (i.) by His life (§ 12) 183 
 
 (ii.) sinless under temptation (§13) 186 
 
 (iii.) and ideally perfect (§14) 190 
 
 (iv.) obedient under suffering (§15) 191 
 
 (v.) even unto death (§16) . . . 193 
 
 (vi.) and that the death of the Cross (§17) 195 
 
 IV. Christ as the Representative Man satisfies the 
 
 Divine Righteousness 
 (i.) by His death considered as a confession of men's sin 
 
 (§18) 198 
 
 (ii.) by actually enduring the penalty of sin (§ 19) . . . 203 
 (iii.) not as a substitute for us, but as our surety (§ 20) . . 205 
 Our salvation not dependent on holding a right theory of the 
 
 Atonement, but on the fact itself (§21) 208 
 
XX 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 ^f)e Ei'seit 2Lortr, ant( tj^e 61ft of t{)e Spirit. 
 
 r-AGE 
 
 I. (i.) Christ's Death a true Death (§1) 211 
 
 {a) The Descent into Hell 212 
 
 {b) The incorruption of His body 212 
 
 (ii.) His Resurrection (§2) 213 
 
 (^) real 214 
 
 {J)) to a new life 215 
 
 {c) not merely for our sakes 215 
 
 (iii.) His Ascension 216 
 
 (iv.) His Return hereafter 216 
 
 n. His New Work for Men (§3) 217 
 
 (i.) intercession 218 
 
 (ii.) obtaining for us the gift of the Spirit 219 
 
 in. The Holy Ghost (§ 4) 
 
 (i.) His eternal procession . 220 
 
 (ii.) His personality 221 
 
 (iii.) His relation to our Lord as Man (§5) 222 
 
 (iv.) His characteristic work in the world (§ 6) . . . . 225 
 (v.) difference between His work before the Incarnation 
 
 and after (§7) 227 
 
 IV. Formation and Illumination of the Church (§ 8) . 229 
 
 (i.) The Body of Christ (§9) . . ' "^'T*"^.*'-, . . 230 
 
 (ii.) The Communion of Saints (§10) 233 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 ^fje CTfjaracteristics of tljc CTfjuvcfj. 
 
 The Notes of the Church not visible tokens but inward 
 
 characteristics (§1) 237 
 
 I. The Church One by reason of Oneness of Historical 
 
 Life (§2) 238 
 
 Her unity not destroyed by 
 
 (i.) schisms from her ... 239 
 
 (ii.) interrupted Communion within her 241 
 
Contents, xxi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II. The Church Holy by reason of the Holiness of that 
 
 WHICH IS entrusted TO HER (§3) 245 
 
 HI. The Church Catholic (§4) 248 
 
 (i.) by universal adaptation 249 
 
 (ii.) more especially by universality of truth 250 
 
 Her Catholicity secured 
 
 (i.) by Tradition (§5) 251 
 
 (ii.) by Scripture 253 
 
 The Bible (§ 6) 
 
 {a) its Inspiration 254 
 
 {h) its completeness 257 
 
 {c) development of doctrine from it 258 
 
 Freedom of individual investigation and Authority of the 
 
 Church (§7) 259 
 
 IV, The Church Apostolic by reason of her unfailing 
 
 Mission (§8) 263 
 
 The Christian Ministry (§9) 265 
 
 Identity of the Church Militant and Triumphant (§ 10) . . . 270 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 ^fje JHeans of 6race, 
 
 The Object of the Means of Grace both social and individual (§ i) 272 
 
 I. The Word of God (§2) 273 
 
 The underlying principle of the Sacraments (§3) 276 
 
 Their number^ (§ 4) 283 
 
 II. Baptism 
 
 (i.) incorporation into Christ (§5) 285 
 
 (ii.) the washing away of sin (§ 6) 288 
 
 (iii.) regeneration (§7) 291 
 
 Baptism of infants (§8) 295 
 
 Administration of the Sacrament (§ 9) . . • . 297 
 
 III. Confirmation 
 
 (i.) its connexion with Baptism (§10) 298 
 
 (ii.) its distinctive gift . 299 
 
 Administration of it (§ II) 302 
 
xxii 
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IV. The Eucharist 
 
 (i.) The fundamental conception of it (§ 12) .... 303 
 
 (ii.) The Real Presence (§13) 306 
 
 {a) insufficiency of the Calvinistic view of a purely 
 
 spiritual presence 308 
 
 {b) unsatisfactoriness of the Roman doctrine of tran- 
 
 substantiation . 309 
 
 {c) doctrine of the English Church 311 
 
 (iii.) The communion of Christ's Body (§ 14) . . . . 315 
 
 (^) present conditions of Christ's Body . . . . 315 
 
 (h) its connexion with the mystical Body . . . 317 
 
 (c) participation in it impossible except by faith . 319 
 
 (iv.) The Blood of Christ (§15) 320 
 
 Its special connexion with our need as sinners . . 324 
 
 (v.) The Eucharist as a Sacrifice (§16) 325 
 
 (vi.) Christian Prayer as connected with it (§ 17) . . . 331 
 
 V. Penance (§ 18) 
 
 (i.) its connexion with Baptism . 334 
 
 (ii.) the sacramental character of it contained in the 
 
 Absolution 336 
 
 (iii.) public and private Absolution 0 . , . . . . 337 
 
 (iv.) confession 337 
 
 VI. Unction of the Sick (§19) 339 
 
 VII. Ordination (§20) 340 
 
 VIII. Marriage (§21) , , , , 341 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 Grace personal in its mode of operation (§1) 343 
 
 I. Eorkknowledge and Election (§2) 345 
 
 Predestination and human freedom (§3) 349 
 
Contents. xxiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II, Grace and Free-will (§ 4) 
 
 (i.) Man's will free and not free 352 
 
 (ii.) Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian theories . . . » . 353 
 
 (iii.) Grace necessary both to will and to do 354 
 
 (iv ) Grace not irresistible 356 
 
 III. The Christian Course 
 
 (i.) Vocation (§ 5) 357 
 
 (ii.) Repentance and Faith (§6) 359 
 
 (iii.) Conversion (§7) 361 
 
 (iv.) Justification (§ 8) 
 
 (a) its nature 363 
 
 {J}) its grounds 364 
 
 {c) when given 368 
 
 [d) its effect of peace (§9) 369 
 
 (v.) Sanctification (§ 10) 
 
 {a) its nature and working ....... 370 
 
 {})) special development in the Saints . . . .371 
 
 (vi.) Final Perseverance (§ II) 373 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 ^fje East ^!){nss» 
 
 Probation ends with death, but not education (§ I ) .... 375 
 
 Importance of the hour of death ......... 377 
 
 I. Condition of the faithful departed (§ 2) 
 
 (i.) Scriptural names for it 378 
 
 (ii.) its repose 379 
 
 (iii.) its spiritual activity 380 
 
 (iv.) its penitential aspect 381 
 
 (v.) its timelessness , . . 384 
 
 (vi.) their fellowship with each other . . . . . . • 3^.5 
 
 (vii.) and with Christ 3^5 
 
 (viii. ) Prayers for the dead 386 
 
xxiv Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II. Resurrection of the Dead (§3) 388 
 
 (i.) nature of the resurrection body 389 
 
 (ii.) difference between the resurrection of the righteous 
 
 and of the wicked 392 
 
 III. The Second Advent of Christ (§4) 394 
 
 (i.) impossibility of calculating the date 395 
 
 (ii.) new birth of the creation 396 
 
 (iii.) Antichrist 397 
 
 IV. The Final Judgment (§ 5) 
 
 (i.) manifestation of all truth 397 
 
 (ii.) separation of good and evil 399 
 
 (iii. ) Person of the Judge 400 
 
 V. Heaven (§6) 400 
 
 (i.) Salvation 401 
 
 (ii.) Perfection of the Blessed 
 
 [a) in themselves 402 
 
 {h) in relation to God 403 
 
 (c) in relation to the universe 404 
 
 {d) in relation to each other 405 
 
 (iii.) Degrees of blessedness 406 
 
 (iv.) and of authority 407 
 
 (v.) Relation of the Elect to the rest of mankind (§ 7) . . 408 
 
 VI. Hell (§ 8) 
 
 (i.) the opposite of Heaven 410 
 
 (ii.) none punished beyond their deserts 412 
 
 (iii.) the punishment, not of past acts, but of permanent 
 
 character 413 
 
 (iv.) the punishment, not by arbitrary arrangement, but of 
 
 natural sequence 415 
 
 (v.) necessary to God's justice 415 
 
 (vi.) and to His love 417 
 
 (vii.) eternity of the punishment 41S 
 
 The absolute triumph of Divine goodness § 9) 420 
 
Chapter I. 
 
 Zi)t llJciug Kxit) #latuvc of ®ot)* 
 
 T/ic Existence of God a matter of Faith, not of Proof— Its reasonable 
 Certainty — Argument from Cojtsent of Alankind — Argument from 
 the Phenomena of N'ature, from Life, and from Consciousness — 
 Argument from Human Ideals aitd Conscience — Revelation — 
 Ver if cation of the Doctrine by Experience — Nature of God as 
 Spirit — His Absolute Existence — His Incomprehensibleness — His 
 Unity — His Omniscieftce — His Omnipresence — His Eternity— His 
 Omnipotence — His Moral Character — His Love, 
 
 It is no part o£ the duty of one who expounds the 
 Christian doctrine to prove — in the strict sense of that 
 word — the existence of God. Even the attempt to 
 exhibit such a proof belongs by rights to a different 
 department of study. The Christian Church does not, 
 in the first instance, seek to convince men by argument 
 that God is. Her voice is that of a witness, not of an 
 uncertain inquirer. She bears testimony to what she 
 knows; and, instead of speculating how to establish 
 God's existence, she teaches men, on God's authority, 
 what God is. Indeed, if we follow the guidance of 
 Holy Scripture, we shall not be led to expect that 
 God's existence can be demonstrated like a problem in 
 mathematics. Although the Bible is full of appeals 
 
 B 
 
2 God's Existence a Matter of Faith. 
 
 to nature and history and conscience, as evidence both 
 of the being and of the character of God, it teaches 
 also that this evidence needs something besides in- 
 tellect in us, if its force is to be felt. ^' By faith " it 
 says, " we apprehend " — not by logical necessity — " that 
 the worlds have been framed by a word of God (Heb. 
 xi. 3). And again, lest we should suppose that, under 
 an earlier dispensation, men apprehended the exist- 
 ence and presence of God in some more direct and 
 easy way than ourselves, the writer of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews tells us that the same faculties were 
 required and the same difficulties encountered then as 
 now, and that this must always be the case. " By 
 faith Enoch was translated ; for before his translation 
 witness is borne to him that he had pleased God " — 
 so, following the Septuagint, he renders the expression 
 walked Avith God ' — " but without faith," he adds, " it 
 was impossible to please " — or " walk with — " Him ; 
 for he that cometh unto God must begin by an act 
 of believing (TTiarevaat) that He is, and that He is 
 found a Kewarder to them that seek Him out " (Heb. 
 xi. 5, 6). If the logical proof of God's existence were 
 formally complete and self-sufficient, then the doubt 
 or denial of it would be possible only for dull or ill- 
 informed minds. We should in that case look upon a 
 man who would not accept the evidence, as we look 
 upon a man who thinks it still an open question 
 whether the earth is round or flat. His stupidity or 
 liis ignorance would move our pity or amusement. 
 But, as a matter of fact, tlic atlieist is not always dis- 
 tinguished from other men by incapacity for following 
 
Unbelief in it ctUpable. 3 
 
 an argument.^ The fault that is found with him is 
 graver than that. There is nothing culpable in a want 
 of logic ; but the Bible treats as culpable a man who is 
 not convinced of the " everlasting power and divinity " 
 of God by what he sees around him (Rom. i. 20). He 
 ought to have been convinced ; and this implies that 
 conviction is partly the result of moral causes, and 
 not of intellectual considerations only. Not, of course, 
 that doubt or rejection of the belief in God implies 
 base and sinister motives behind ; but it implies a lack 
 of some of those trustful and unsuspicious qualities 
 which lead simple-hearted people to believe. Thus, 
 according to Holy Scripture, we must not look to be 
 led by a process of dry reasoning, with an unmistake- 
 able, inevitable certainty, to the conclusion that God 
 is. There is, intellectually speaking, a leap, an as- 
 sumption to be made, in which the logical faculty is 
 helped out by other faculties in our nature. 
 
 § 2. 
 
 We do not assert, then, that the existence of God 
 is to us on the same footing as the earth's motion 
 round the sun, or the equality of the angles at the base 
 
 ^ The saying of the Psalmist, The fool hath said in his heart, 
 There is no God (Ps. xiv. 1 ; liii. 1), is sometimes quoted as if it 
 asserted the contrary. But in the first place, in the Hebrew concep- 
 tion of wisdom and folly, the intellectual element is subordinated to 
 the moral ; and in the second place the proposition is by no means 
 equivalent to the proposition that " the man who says in his heart, 
 There is no God, is a fool." The Psalmist teaches that when a man 
 is bent upon playing the fool, he is forced to begin by becoming 
 inwardly (however orthodox his outward profession) an atheist; — he 
 must treat God as non-existent. 
 
4 Reasonableness of the Belief. 
 
 of an isosceles triangle — an established and unques- 
 tionable fact of science. But, at the same time, we 
 claim to have evidence for it so strong as to put the 
 matter beyond all reasonable doubt. The proof may 
 not be formally complete, but it is practically certain. 
 If our belief in God's existence rests in any sense upon 
 an assumption, the assumption is more than justified. 
 Reasoning alone does not, perhaps, force us over the 
 last step ; but it carries us all the way up to it, and 
 meets us again when we have taken it. 
 
 It is not as if our conviction were the result of a 
 single, slender thread of argument, where the unsound- 
 ness of one proposition might invalidate the w^hole 
 theory. Indeed, it is not even the result of a number 
 of disconnected arguments, which could be taken and 
 demolished one by one. The weight of the various 
 considerations is not merely the aggregate of their 
 several weights. They grow in importance and 
 cogency by being set side by side, until at last it is 
 felt that the convergence of so many different lines of 
 thought towards a belief in God cannot be misleading, 
 and that the conclusion so naturally and obviously 
 drawn must be true. 
 
 Certainly no other theory satisfies all the demands 
 of reason like tlie Christian theory. If we call it 
 impossible to prove that there is a God, we know it 
 to Ije much more truly impossible to prove that there 
 is not. It is a task which no serious thinker has ever 
 attempted. The utmost that could be maintained is 
 tliat, from the nature of the case, tlie question is 
 incapable of being solved in either direction. Agnos- 
 
Agnosticism ajt ttnworthy thing. 5 
 
 ticism — the doctrine that it is impossible for us to be 
 sure whether God is or not — is the furthest position 
 that logic will admit of ; and to be an agnostic — to 
 give up all hope of settling so weighty a question, to 
 say that the evidence is so scanty or so complicated 
 that no decision can be safely formed, to allow tlic 
 faculty of judgment to be thus completely paralysed — 
 appears unworthy of human nature, an intellectual 
 cowardice, a despair almost amounting to treason, and 
 liable to take the heart out of all noble inquiry. 
 Christians do not deny that there are difficulties in 
 the way of belief, but they hold that the difficulties 
 of unbelief are far greater, and that in Christianity 
 they have the key by which at last every door of 
 thought may be unlocked which unbelief only bars 
 more firmly. 
 
 1 3. 
 
 Most of us, to begin with, believe in the existence 
 of God upon the authority of other men. We are 
 taught it in childhood, as we are taught other facts 
 and theories, by our elders. As we grow up, we have 
 to test the truth of it for ourselves. Unless we are of 
 a specially sceptical turn of mind, we start with a not 
 ungenerous prejudice in favour of the opinion. It is 
 commended to us, in the first instance, by persons 
 whom we are inclined by nature to suppose the wisest 
 and best on earth. We find later on that their belief 
 is shared by almost all the world, and that it is not 
 one of the products of civilization, nor traceable to 
 any known source or to any period of history. Rude 
 
6 Argtunent from the Common 
 
 tribes, in all quarters of the globe, and from the 
 remotest antiquity, are seen to have .been possessed 
 by the belief in some form or other. Upon this fact 
 has been founded the famous argument from the 
 common consent of mankind. It has, indeed, very 
 little logical weight — for, even if there were no tribes 
 which appear to have lost the belief, or never to have 
 had it, few would be found at the present day to 
 argue from the universality of the belief that an idea 
 of God actually forms part of the constitution of 
 human nature. The utmost that can be validly 
 argued is, that human nature is so constituted that 
 the belief instinctively commends itself to men. But 
 if the argument from the common consent is lacking 
 in logical force, there is a moral impressiveness about 
 it, which raises a presumption in favour of belief. 
 We feel it to be unlikely that practically the whole 
 race should be wrong, when, with such an extra- 
 ordinary variety of form and circumstance, it testifies 
 its conviction of the existence of unseen powers. If 
 this universal conviction is a delusion, how did the 
 delusion arise and spread so far ? Its existence is a 
 positive fact, of which the student of the science of 
 humanity is bound to take account; and it cannot 
 ljut be felt how liollow and unsatisfactory are all 
 theories which trace the origin of religious belief to 
 a dread of ghosts, or such like. Whether we imagine 
 some primeval revelation, or whether we suppose the 
 Ijclief in (iod's existence to be tlie natural impression 
 left upon tlie unsophisticated mind of man by wliat 
 lie perceives round him and witlun him, when guided 
 
Consent of Mankind. 
 
 7 
 
 by the Life which was always the Light of men, we 
 cannot refuse to acknowledge that the fact of the 
 belief being so widespread is a weighty fact. This 
 somewhat vague and uncritical concession to the 
 generally received tradition acquires a more solid 
 value when we find all the greatest names in science 
 and philosophy, with scarcely an exception, in all ages, 
 on the same side as the mass of men. It passes into 
 a real conviction when we believe on a deliberate 
 survey of the reasons which have convinced other 
 thoughtful minds. We can then say to parents and 
 teachers, to mankind and to the Church, what the 
 men of Samaria said to the woman in the Gospel, that 
 authority had done its work, and was no longer 
 needed: "Now we believe, not because of thy saying: 
 for we have heard for ourselves, and know" (S. John 
 iv. 42). 
 
 § 4. 
 
 The train of thought which most obviously leads 
 us to believe in the existence of God is that which 
 results from the consideration of the world we live 
 in. Usually the very existence of a world at all 
 has been held to show the existence of a Creator. 
 How, it has been asked, could the world have come 
 into being, if there had been no God to make it ? 
 
 Perhaps in its popular form this argument has 
 not the strength that is often assigned to it. It begs 
 the question. If it can be proved that the world ever 
 came into being, there must, of course, have been a 
 cause ; but apart from revelation, it is not positively 
 
8 Need of a First Cause of the Universe. 
 
 proved that the world, or at least its original elements, 
 ever did come into being. But even had there 
 been no natural indications in the world to make us 
 think of a First Cause of the universe in the physical 
 sense, to start the whole series of physical causation, 
 there would still have been facts to deal with of a 
 more recondite, but perhaps as cogent, a kind. Onto- 
 logical considerations — that is to say, those which are 
 concerned with the inner problems of existence — 
 suggest the need of a First Cause in a totally different 
 sense. We have to ask, not only how the world 
 began, but how it is, and %{:lmi it is. Are these atoms 
 and forces an ultimate fact, or do they represent 
 something behind ? Is not their existence founded on 
 something underlying, which is their cause in the 
 same sort of way as the thinking mind is the cause of 
 thought ? It is acknowledged that material science 
 tells us nothing about things in themselves, but only 
 about our impressions of the things. Is there any 
 reason to suppose that the things themselves have any 
 real existence, except by virtue of relation to intel- 
 ligence ? Even apart from the consideration of the 
 character of the world Ave live in, its very existence 
 gives us metaphysical reason to discern with confidence 
 a Mind beneath it. 
 
 But, if it cannot as yet be said to have been 
 scientifically established that our world had a temporal 
 bemiTninof, it cannot be denicjd that there are facts 
 which point very convincingly in that direction. The 
 investigations of Sir William Thomson, Professor Clerk 
 Maxwell, and otliers, with regard to wliat is called the 
 
Evidences of a temporal Origin in Nahire, 9 
 
 Degradation o£ Energy, tend to show that the universe, 
 even in the most elementary condition which science 
 leads us to conceive of, had a beginning, and that it 
 must have an end. " The theory of heat," it has been 
 said, and the assertion has hardly been challenged, 
 "places us in the dilemma either of believing in 
 creation in an assignable date in the past, or else of 
 supposing that some unexplicable change in the work- 
 ing of natural laws then took place." Even the very 
 molecules of which the world is composed bear the 
 strongest evidence that they are not eternal and self- 
 existent. In the well-known words of Sir John 
 Herschel, each molecule has the essential character 
 of a manufactured article." Professor Clerk Maxwell, 
 in quoting these words, adds, "In tracing back the 
 history of matter, science is arrested when she assures 
 herself, on the one hand, that the molecule has been 
 made, and on the other, that it has not been made by 
 any of the processes we call natural." Before ever we 
 begin to consider what has been made out of the 
 elements, the elements themselves — the atoms which 
 compose material objects, and the forces which act 
 upon them — make us feel that they owe their origin 
 to Another, and say, " It is He that hath made us, and 
 not we ourselves " (Ps. c. 2). 
 
 This feeling is much strengthened when we turn 
 to the phenomena of Life. Supposing that the whole 
 fabric of inorganic matter, with its wonders of 
 light and heat and electricity, with its planetary 
 systems, with the beauties of water, air, and earth, 
 were the result of an accidental play of self -existent 
 
lo Argument from Phenomena of Life, 
 
 atoms, yet life, so far as we can see, cannot be accounted 
 for in the same way. It is as nearly certain as any- 
 thing can be that the conditions of matter were at one 
 time such — the solar system consisting of gases at a 
 white heat — that no kind of organic life such as we 
 are acquainted with was possible in it. Organic life, 
 then, has had a beginning in the world, even if matter 
 and force have not. How did it begin ? Experimental 
 evidence cannot establish a negative ; but the re- 
 searches of men unprejudiced and competent confirm 
 us in supposing that there is no such thing as spon- 
 taneous generation. Science knows of no life which 
 had not a living parent ; and science teaches that once 
 there were no living parents on earth to produce a 
 life. Yet here life is. The chasm between the noblest 
 form of inorganic being and the lowest form of organic 
 — a crystal, for instance, and a cell of protoplasm — is 
 so great that no connecting link can be found. So far 
 as we see, no evolution works gradually up to life. 
 It is a sudden, startling phenomenon, which uses 
 matter and force for its own purposes, but which is 
 not derived from them. Whence was the first life 
 introduced into a world which had once been incapable , 
 of harbouring it, and which seems for ever incapable 
 of producing it ? There seems to be but one answer. 
 If, indeed, it should hereafter be discovered that 
 spontaneous generations take place, or that the pro- 
 duction of life Avas a purely natural outcome of the 
 conditions of the universe at one stage of its history, 
 tlie Clu'istian will not be at a loss. But in the present 
 state of our knowledge the presence ot life in a world 
 
Argument from Self -Consciousness. 1 1 
 
 where once there was no life appears to proclaim 
 unmistakeably the existence of a Lifegiver. 
 
 Furthermore, since the introduction of sentient 
 life into the world, yet another factor has made its 
 appearance, in human Self-consciousness. The bodily 
 constitution of man may without difficulty be supposed 
 to have been evolved out of lower forms of organic 
 life ; but no evolution, no culture, so far as can be as- 
 certained, is able to put even into the highest animals 
 the human power of reflexion. The acuteness, the 
 intelligence, the memory, of an animal never rise any 
 nearer to it. However highly developed, they form 
 but the ground material, so to speak, out of which 
 our human self-consciousness constructs itself a home, 
 just as life constructs for itself a home out of particles 
 of matter. To many thinkers, even the distance be- 
 tween inorganic and organic existence appears not so 
 wide and impassable as that between merely sentient 
 and truly conscious life. Where, then, are we to look 
 for that power which laid hold upon the highest of 
 animal forms, and, by adding the gift of self -con- 
 sciousness, first made of it a man ? Once more we 
 repeat, that if it can be shown that the human mind 
 is only a development from the analogous faculties 
 found in other animals, the Christian, so far from 
 being staggered, will only find fresh matter for 
 adoring the wisdom and power of God. But, so far 
 as we can at present judge, the only reasonable way 
 of accounting for the genesis of the human mind is to 
 suppose a Mind which created it. 
 
 Thus the history of successive stages of the 
 
12 Argument from Order in Naitar. 
 
 course of the natural world, so far as it is set before 
 us by science, seems to indicate clearly some principle 
 of causation, acting upon the world, without belonging 
 to the world itself. Three great beginnings present 
 themselves to view, — a Ijeginning of matter, a begin- 
 ning of life, a beginning of mind. None of these is 
 shown to liave led on to the next as to a purely 
 natural consequence ; j-et, when matter was ready for 
 the reception of life, and life for the reception of free 
 consciousness, life and consciousness came. We are 
 drawn, therefore, to conclude that at these points a 
 directly creative agency was at work. 
 
 And not only so. We conclude at least as 
 strongly that that creative agenc}^ had a deliberate 
 design in its operations. The more closely we examine 
 the evidence of nature, the more it appears that this 
 preparation of the world for its successive enrich- 
 ments was intentional and intelligent. If some 
 imaginable universe might have existed without a 
 Creator, we feel that the universe with which we are 
 acquainted could not. This is not only the sentiment 
 of unscientific piety. Every year new facts are dis- 
 covered which impress the mind more and more with 
 the sense of law in the world ; and although, if we 
 were certain that there was no God, we might resign 
 ourselves wonderingly to the conclusion that it was a 
 property self-existing in the verj^ nature of things, it 
 seems far simpler to believe that the law indicates the 
 presence of guiding thought. Blind forces acting at 
 random upon lifeless matter could not possibh" — or 
 at least the odds against it are infinitely great — have 
 
Conclusion from the Evidence of Naiure. 13 
 
 reduced chaos to cosmos, and produced regularity, order, 
 unity, beauty, and so arranged the whole system and 
 hierarchy of existences, as (with some apparent excep- 
 tions) to subserve the well-being and happiness of 
 each. To many minds the idea of Evolution, which in 
 our time has made such way, so far from militating 
 against the belief in a Creator, is entirely in favour 
 of that belief. It lends itself perfectly to Christian 
 teleology, or the thought of a purpose to which things 
 are directed. An evolution which aims at nothing in 
 particular, or which goes from better to worse, would 
 be against the Christian belief ; but when we hear of 
 an evolution which is an advance from a ruder 
 economy to a more delicate, which adapts things more 
 and more to their surroundings, and the surroundings 
 to the things, then it seems to us that matter and 
 force, and life, and self -consciousness itself, must be 
 instruments in the hands of One who has an object 
 in view. 
 
 It seems impossible candidly to reflect upon these 
 successive steps in the history of nature and to 
 examine in detail the mutual adaptation of the parts 
 of this great whole, especially in the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms, without coming to the conclusion 
 that there is a wise and mighty Will behind it all. 
 John Stuart Mill was not a man who held a brief for 
 Christianity, and few men have felt so bitterly as he 
 did the defects and cruelties of nature ; yet in his last 
 posthumous essay, On Theism," he sums up his cold 
 investigation of the argument from the appearances 
 of design by saying, " I think it must be allowed that 
 
14 Evidence of Hiijuan Ideals. 
 
 in the present state of our knowledge, the adaptations 
 in nature afford a large balance of probability in 
 favour of creation by intelligence/' 
 
 §-^- 
 
 The Imlance of probability Ijecomes gi-eater when 
 wc add tlie e\ idence supplied by our mental and 
 moral C(jnstituti(jn. It is difficult, indeed, to throw 
 this argument into a form as popular as the argument 
 from the adaptations in nature ; for the ordinary 
 mind is not accustomed to follow trains of abstract 
 tliought. It may suffice for our present purpose to 
 ask how the idea of God, as hcM by an enlightened 
 Christian, was ever formed. Man's power of mental 
 creation is very limited. He can only construct out 
 of materials which come to hand. He can coml)inc 
 elements with which he is acquainted into imaginary 
 forms, but he cannot for instance, in any practical 
 way, conceive of a fourth dimension, an additional 
 sense, or a new colour. But man has ideals, which 
 transcend all experience, although suggested by it. 
 The finite leads him up to the infinite, the imperfect 
 to the perfect. His circumscribed powers make him 
 uneasy without the thought of a power not circum- 
 scribed. His fragmentary knowledge makes him 
 demand the existence of a mind to which the sum of 
 truth is present. The artist is unsatisfied by his 
 highest efforts ; the perfection of beauty lies im- 
 measurably beyond him. And this ideal, this infinite 
 perfection, is not man's creation. He has not made it 
 each man does not make it — for hinivself. He feels 
 
Testimony of Moral Conscience. 15 
 
 that it is there. He is but striving to apprehend a 
 reality. He cannot think of himself as inventing the 
 very material of his thought ; he is moving on solid 
 ground, through regions prepared for him before he 
 came thither, and dimly descries still fairer regions 
 beyond, to which he aspires to penetrate. The only 
 way to account satisfactorily for our idea of the 
 perfect Being after whom we aspire is to believe that 
 He is, and that men, by virtue of kinship with Him, 
 catch glimpses of Him. 
 
 And this observation holds true, above all, in the 
 domain of morals. A man's sense of right and wrong 
 may become depraved, like his sense of beauty ; but 
 when men are in a fairly healthy condition of con- 
 science, there is a moral ideal, practically the same for 
 all, which they acknowledge when it is shown to 
 them. This moral ideal lays hold upon them. Con- 
 science evidently speaks, not of itself, but of something 
 else whose authority it recognises. To that moral 
 ideal men find themselves under an unique obligation. 
 They feel an awed sense of responsibility towards it. 
 They are uncomfortable when they have neglected it. 
 Men will think little of a slip in grammar, a lack of 
 artistic perfection; but they will not lightly trifle 
 with their conscience. And when they make any 
 approaches to the moral ideal, they are conscious that 
 they are not creating the ideal which they approach, 
 but that their action corresponds to something* which 
 actually is ; to use the language of Scripture, they are 
 " doing the truth." Intuitively they demand that the 
 moral law, which asserts its mastery over themselves, 
 
1 6 Universaliiy of the Moral Law. 
 
 should assert an universal mastery, and form part of 
 the very constitution of things. While obedience to 
 it conduces both to the happiness of the world in 
 general and to an enlightened self-interest, conscience 
 is not satisfied to consider the moral law as a set of 
 rules which human prudence has collected with a 
 view to such ends. All attempts to make it univer- 
 sally binding break down when any other ethical 
 basis is taken instead of that which makes right to 
 be necessarily right, and the whole world to be framed 
 with a view to it. And as men labour more earnestly 
 to attain in their own lives to moral perfection, which 
 ever seems further from them as they near it, they 
 see with increasing clearness that it is impossible to 
 separate the ideal of sanctity from the ideal of beauty, 
 the ideal of knowledge, the ideal of power ; and they 
 feel that it is no idolatry, no worship of the work of 
 their own hands or of the fiction of their own brains, 
 when they fall down before this Ideal of all perfec- 
 tions, and say, " Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty 
 which waSj and is, and is to corned 
 
 § 6. 
 
 Revelation corroborates and completes the evidence 
 borne by nature and the mind of man. If we Jiad no 
 grounds apart from revelation for thinking tliat God 
 is, there would have been much reason for suspecting 
 the revelation. But ''the sender of the alleged 
 message,'' says John Stuart Mill in the essay to which 
 we have before referred, " is not a sheer invention ; 
 there are grounds independent of the message itself 
 
Testhnony of History, 1 7 
 
 for belief in his reality — grounds which, though 
 insufficient for proof, are sufficient to take away all 
 antecedent improbability from the supposition that a 
 message may really have been received from him." 
 Nay, we may say, there is a strong antecedent prob- 
 ability in behalf of revelation. It would surprise us 
 if such a Creator as we infer from the phenomena of 
 the world and man had not wished to be known by 
 His intelligent creation. And the Church maintains 
 a standing witness that, as a matter of fact, the 
 Creator has made Himself known to her. She affirms 
 that she was gradually prepared for the final and 
 complete revelation by an advancing series of pre- 
 liminary revelations, in many parts and in many 
 manners " receiving from time to time, as the progress 
 of her education enabled her to bear it, more and more 
 of the Divine communication. Few arguments for the 
 belief in God are more convincing than those derived 
 from a study of human history, with its plain traces 
 of moral training and providential discipline, whether 
 we consider the experience of individual lives, or the 
 fashioning of the race for that which it was to receive. 
 At last, the life of Godhead actually presented itself 
 to the sight, and hearing, and touch of men, under the 
 conditions of the life of man. That J esus Christ really 
 lived and died is doubted by none. The historical 
 consequences which have flowed from that life and 
 death are open for all to examine. And the more 
 rigorous the examination is, the more it appears that 
 the account of Jesus Christ given by the Church is 
 rational and straightforward, and alone consistent 
 
 C 
 
1 8 Faith more profitable than Demonstration. 
 
 with all the facts. This carries us, however, some- 
 what beyond our present subject; for the account of 
 Jesus Christ given by the Church is that He was 
 Himself God Incarnate. But even if, for the moment, 
 we leave the question of our Lord's own proper 
 Divinity, we may truly say that the life and work of 
 Christ are inexplicable, are impossible, if the God from 
 whom He professed to come had no existence. Taken 
 in conjunction with the strong cumulative evidence 
 derived from elsewhere, the phenomena presented by 
 the history of J esus Christ and of the Church may be 
 said — not indeed in the logical, but in the judicial, 
 sense — to prove that God is. 
 
 § 7. 
 
 If any one finds it to be a stumbling-block that 
 proof in the stricter sense is still wanting, it is easy 
 to reply that there are many other things of which 
 we are certain, though they lie beyond strict proof. 
 Can we prove to demonstration that such a man as 
 Caesar ever lived ? Can we prove that the world 
 round us is not a dream of ovir own ? or that motion is 
 a reality ? or even that we ourselves are in existence ? 
 The famous solvitur amhidando of Diogenes, and the 
 famous cogitOy ergo sum of Descartes, are appeals 
 from the tyranny of a sophistical logic to tlie good 
 sense of mankind. In like manner, God has not made 
 Himself the subject of prying experiments or of 
 pedantic syllogisms. Perhaps, if His existence had 
 been one of tliose things of which formal proof could 
 
The Belief verified by Experience, 1 9 
 
 be given to the world, the acknowledged fact would 
 have lost its interest. It would have killed indi- 
 vidual inquiry. Few men would have cared to 
 verify what no one would dispute. The tendency 
 would have been to rest upon an intellectual assent to 
 the proposition. When it came to the proof, the poor 
 and simple would have been at too great a disadvan- 
 tage compared with the philosopher. We should have 
 lost all those touching and noble associations which 
 gather round the name of faith, and should have had 
 instead a cold science — common property, and so 
 appropriated by none. As it is, each man has to 
 prove the fact for himself. It is the great adventure, 
 the great romance of every soul — this finding of God. 
 Though so many travellers have crossed the ocean 
 before us, and bear witness of the glorious continent 
 beyond, each soul for itself has to repeat the work of 
 a Columbus, and discover God afresh. And this can 
 indeed be done ; but intellectual argument is not the 
 sole nor the main means of apprehension. At best it 
 prepares the way. Moral purification is equally 
 necessary. Then spiritual efibrt, determined, con- 
 centrated, renewed in spite of failure — calm and 
 strong prayers in the Name of Christ — enable the 
 believer to say, like Jacob after he had wrestled with 
 the Angel, " I have seen God face to face, and my life 
 is preserved." And every soul which has thus proved 
 for itself, by an unmistakeable experience, the exist- 
 ence of God, goes to swell the ever-increasing weight 
 of testimony which draws other men to believe. He 
 is added to the number of those who testify that God 
 
20 Spirihtality of God's N'ahire. 
 
 has not only revealed Himself in the past, but that 
 He is still accessible to all who approach Him rightly. 
 
 § 8- 
 
 Emerging from the dim region of human guess- 
 ^York into the light of an accepted revelation, we 
 desire to understand, by the teaching w^hich God has 
 given us, what He is and what He is like. The 
 nature of God is briefly stated by our Lord, when He 
 says to the woman of Samaria, "God is spirit" (S. 
 John iv. 24). His meaning is somewhat obscured in 
 the English Bible. To say that ''God is a spirit" 
 mioht mean that He belono^s to a class, that He is a 
 specimen of an order comprising other beings besides 
 Himself. Our Lord's Avords — Trvev/Lia 6 Qeog — make 
 no such suggestion. They do not assign God to a 
 class, but simply describe what His nature is — as, in 
 the previous chapter, our Lord had said to Nicodemus, 
 That which is born of the Spirit is spirit : " or as, in 
 a later one, He says to His disciples, "The sayings 
 which I have spoken unto you are spirit " (S. John iii. 
 6 ; vi. 63). Energetic life forms part of the notion 
 which the word conveys; but, beyond that, we can 
 best understand it by negatives. God is not flesli. 
 There is nothing material about Him. The finest and 
 most subtle of ethereal substances, such as some have 
 supposed to invest even angels and disembodied spirits, 
 is as alien from His nature as the coarsest. Not only 
 has He no " shape " or bodily outline, which men 
 might conceivably sec (S. John v. 37), but He lias no 
 extension in spaeo at all, and bears do local relation to 
 
His Absolute Existence, 
 
 21 
 
 anything. Hence it is that neither at Jerusalem nor 
 on the Samaritan mountain could men find Him by- 
 being (so to speak) on the same spot with Him. If 
 they were to find Him there or elsewhere it must be 
 by a purely inward movement. God is spirit ; and 
 they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit 
 and in truth." 
 
 There are, indeed, other spirits besides God, which 
 may, therefore, be said in a sense to belong to tlie 
 same class of beings with Him, inasmuch as, like Him, 
 they are immaterial. But there is this fundamental 
 diflference between God and all other beings, even 
 those whose nature is most like to His — they have an 
 origin ; and that origin is not from themselves ; 
 mediately or immediately it proceeds from Him, and 
 they depend always upon Him. But God, on the 
 other hand, has no origin, and depends upon nothing 
 else. He eternally is. His existence is the final and 
 necessary fact upon which all other facts repose. The 
 mystery of being is beyond our thought ; and we do 
 not deny the reality of other existences when we say 
 that God alone is ; Ave only assert that their being 
 is of an altogether different kind from His. Other 
 things have a true, but only a contingent, being ; but 
 God is, because He is, and for no other reason. No 
 other will but His own contributes to His existence ; 
 and He Himself cannot choose otherwise than to be. 
 Our springs of life are in Him ; but His are nowhere 
 but in the depths of His own being. This is the 
 
22 
 
 God tncomprekensible 
 
 meaning of the revelation made to Moses at the Bush 
 (Ex. iii. 14). We have not exhausted the significance of 
 the name I Am " when we say that it denotes God's 
 attributes of eternity, of having neither beginning 
 nor end, of unchangeableness. All these are natural 
 consequences from the name I Am," but the name 
 itself contains a positive, not a negative, thought. It 
 expresses God's absolute existence. While cutting at 
 the root of every pantheistic conception, by declaring 
 the independent, personal self-consciousness of God, 
 it teaches the infinite fulness of life which God has 
 within His own being. 
 
 §10. 
 
 Before drawing nearer to consider the attributes 
 and character of God, it is wholesome to remind our- 
 selves how imperfect must necessarily be any human 
 setting forth of the subject. Words fail us in 
 attempting to describe even what we are able to 
 perceive ; and what we are able to perceive concerning 
 God falls immeasurably short of the truth. We cannot 
 fully realise even what things are which come closely 
 under our external observation, and whose nature is 
 more limited than our OAvn. "You do not under- 
 stand," says S. Basil, " the nature of the smallest ant, 
 and how can you boast that you can depict to yourself 
 the inconceivable power of God ? " No definition, no 
 description of God can be given ; because no creaturcly 
 Hitelligcncc can form any adequate conception of Him. 
 God is incompreliensiljle. Wlicn, indeed, He is so 
 called in our version of the Athanasian syml)ol, tlie 
 
yei not zvholly ttnknowable. 23 
 
 term is used to express a somewhat different thought : 
 — it there represents the Latin immensits, which is 
 generally taken to mean that God is not bounded by- 
 measures of space. But He is also incomprehensible 
 in the larger meaning o£ the word, as transcending all 
 imaginations and thoughts of Him which can be 
 entertained or framed. However noble the powers 
 with which He has endowed us, they cannot take 
 Him in. " Canst thou by searching find out God ? 
 Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? 
 It is high as heaven ; what canst thou do ? deeper 
 than hell; what canst thou know ?" (Job xi. 7, 8). 
 
 And yet the incomprehensibleness of God must not 
 be so interpreted as to mean that God is altogether 
 unintelligible to man, and that we have no powers by 
 which truly to know Him. It is not even the case 
 that revelation (in the technical sense) was necessary 
 before man could know God at all ; — had it been so, 
 then no revelation could have been made. If man's 
 natural faculties were incapable of any real appre- 
 hension of God's attributes and character, it would 
 have been in vain to send him any message about 
 God, for the message would have found in him 
 nothing to which it could address itself. S. Irenaeus, 
 arguing against some teachers of his time, who mis- 
 quoted Christ's saying that the Father was unknown 
 except through the revelation of the Son, says, The 
 Lord did not say that the Father and the Son could 
 not be known at all. In that case His own coming 
 would have been useless. For why did He come 
 hither ? Was it to say to us, ' Do not seek after God ; 
 
24 Otir Power of knowing God, 
 
 for He is unknown, and you will not find Him ? ' " 
 From that earliest Gospel (as it has been called) 
 which proclaims that man was made in God's image, 
 to the end of the Bible, both Testaments teach that to 
 know God is our very life, and the thing for which 
 we were created. Our knowledge of Him, whether 
 by nature or by grace, can never attain to being an 
 exhaustive knowledge, but it can be a true one never- 
 theless, and a glorious and satisfying one. When we 
 learn that God has intelligence and will, that He is 
 just and tender-hearted, the words are not mere symbols 
 for something that we cannot understand: they de- 
 scribe the actual facts, which we can in some degree 
 appreciate because we share those faculties and try to 
 practise those virtues. We cannot, assuredly, under- 
 stand the inner conditions of the Divine life and action 
 — liow God thinks, and feels, and wills. Theologians 
 are careful to teach that the perfections of God are 
 not found in Him in the identical way in which the 
 like are found in the creatures ; but none the less the 
 perfections which we are taught to adore in Him have 
 their adumbrations and copies in us, by virtue of 
 which, limited as they are, we are enabled to appre- 
 hend Him with an ever-advancing clearness and rich- 
 ness of apprehension, 
 
 % 11- 
 
 God is revealed to us as being One. Hear, O 
 Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord " (Deut. vi. 4). 
 When God is declared in Scripture to be One, tlie 
 object is not usually to warn us from polytheism and 
 
His Unity. 
 
 25 
 
 teach us monotheism instead. Moses does not say, 
 ^^The Lord thy God is the One— the only— Lord/' 
 That truth is indeed often expressed in the Bible. 
 
 Is there a God besides Me ? yea, there is no God ; 
 I know not any (Isa. xliv. 8). But (usually, at least) 
 the unity of God set before us is not numerical, deny- 
 ing the existence of a second ; it is integral, denj ing 
 the possibility of division. God is not made up out 
 of a number of elements into which He might be 
 resolved again. The Schoolmen were accustomed to 
 speak of Him as " pure act," because they would not 
 even allow of a difference in God between what is 
 potential and what is actual, — between what God 
 might do and what He does. His attributes, — the 
 adjectives by which He is set forth to us, — do not 
 represent qualities which He might conceivably be 
 Avithout : they are Himself. His perfections are His 
 very being. Nor are His perfections in reality diverse 
 from each other. Although they necessarily represent 
 different notions to our finite thought, they are in Him 
 finally and fundamentally the same. God has no 
 parts. " If it were so," said one of the prophet-like 
 philosophers of early Greece, "then the component 
 elements would sometimes get the better of each other 
 and sometimes the worse ; and that, in one who is God, 
 is impossible." There can be no conflict within Him, 
 such as there is in us between flesh and spirit. He 
 cannot be at cross-purposes with Himself. He is not 
 moved, as we are, by incompatible impulses. In His 
 singleness of nature there is not one set of feelings 
 prompting Him to work and another to rest, one to 
 
26 His Omniscience, 
 
 punish and another to spare, one to remember and 
 another to forget. However infinite the variety of 
 His action, it is but the manifestation, in varying 
 circumstances, of one and the self-same character and 
 will. And in everything which He does, or thinks, or 
 wills, God is Avholly engaged. His consciousness is 
 undivided, and is entirely present at every point of 
 His working, 
 
 §12. 
 
 For the unity of God is not the unity of a limited 
 Being. God is infinite. In its negative sense, His 
 infinity implies that the bounds which confine us do 
 not confine Him, whether in respect of knowledge or 
 of power, of space or time. In its positive sense, in- 
 finity indicates that God possesses every perfection in 
 its complete and absolute fulness, so as to contain 
 exhaustively all that belongs to the conception of 
 those perfections. 
 
 The infinity of God's knowledge we express by the 
 word "omniscient." By that word we do not mean 
 only that God can, if He chooses, find everything out, 
 that nothing can ultimately be hidden from Hhn, that 
 He has all departments of knowledge open to Him 
 when He is pleased to turn to them. We mean that 
 all objects of knowledge and thought are at all times 
 actually present to His consciousness. Nothing is too 
 minute for Him to be observant of. The humblest 
 forms of life arc under His eye, even after tlicy liavc 
 passed away from their earthly exhibition. Are not 
 five sparrows sold for tw() farthings ? and not one of 
 
His Omniscience and Omnipresence, 2 J 
 
 the five (imXeXtifTjuevov eaTiv) Iifus vanished from the 
 mind of God. Behold;' adds our Lord, " the very 
 hairs of your head are all numbered " (S. Luke xii. 
 6, 7). The laws which regulate so minutely all energy 
 and matter, are but ways of stating this truth as 
 observed by our experience : every particle, molecule, 
 atom, represents a thought of God, and continues to 
 exist because He is still thinking it. His knowledge 
 is exact and searching to the uttermost. 
 
 But the omniscience of God does not consist in 
 an exhaustive perception of ever so many separate 
 things. Were this so, creation would never be any- 
 thing but a confusion ; there would be no unity nor 
 order in it. God's loiowledge is not analytical only ; 
 it is at the same time in the highest degree syn- 
 thetic. God does not become lost and bewildered 
 in a multiplicity of details. His unity enables Him 
 to see all things that are or can be, in all their relations 
 to each other, actual or possible. Being Himself One 
 and at the same time infinite, He has before Him 
 for ever all things and thoughts in every conceivable 
 combination of beauty and wisdom. It is not neces- 
 sary for Him, as for us, to turn His attention from 
 one subject in order to fix it upon another, nor to run 
 His eye backwards and forwards to see the mutual 
 bearings of the various parts of that which is. This 
 power of perfect synthesis makes Him what the Bible 
 calls Him, " the only wise God " (Rom. xvi. 27). 
 
 Thus God's omniscience is very closely connected 
 with what is called His " omnipresence." That word 
 ought not to be taken as a synonym of " ubiquity,'' as 
 
28 
 
 His Presence 
 
 if God were in an immense number of places at once. 
 We must not think of Him as diffused universally 
 everywhere throughout space, a portion of His Being 
 attaching itself to every object in existence. To put 
 Him in any place, or any number of places at once, 
 would reduce Him to being of the same nature as the 
 things among which He would be placed. God is not 
 everywhere; He is nowhere. Rather than speak of 
 God as being in every place, we should say that every 
 place is in God, — that all existing objects, material or 
 immaterial are present to Him, to His one conscious- 
 ness, are in His mind, in immediate contact with Him- 
 self. It is to this spiritual, as distinct from physical 
 or local, omnipresence that the Psalmist points when 
 he says, " Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ? or 
 whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I ascend 
 up into heaven, Thou art there : if I make my bed in 
 hell, behold, Thou art there. . . . Yea, the darkness 
 liideth not from Thee ; the darkness and the light 
 to Thee are both alike'' (Ps. cxxxix. 7, foil.). The 
 presence and the knowledge of God are treated as 
 identical. 
 
 As, however, the presence of God is not merely one 
 of knowledge, but of operation and of manifestation also, 
 tlicrefore it admits of degrees of nearness. He is " in 
 all tilings " (Eph. iv. 6), manifesting Himself by every 
 visible thing which He has made, so that the believer 
 moves with reverence wherever he goes ; but He is 
 more specially present in particular places and par- 
 ticular acts, in wliicli it is His pleasure to manifest 
 Himself more decisively, so that the believer enters 
 
more felt in some Places. 
 
 29 
 
 those places and engages in those acts with an access 
 of solemnity and awe. It is a favourite thought with 
 the Fathers that the ''place" of God was the Incarnate 
 Son ; for there, in and through a bodily organism, was 
 manifested not merely (as in other men) a measure of 
 God's fulness, such as observers were capable of appre- 
 ciating, but the entire sum of God's being. God was 
 in Christ " (2 Cor. v. 19) as in no other place. And 
 this presence of manifestation is not dependent upon 
 being perceived. God is in all things, in the Church, 
 in Christ, whether men recognise it or not. Irreve- 
 rence and unbelief may exclude His presence sub- 
 jectively from themselves; they cannot destroy it 
 objectively out of the things and acts in which it 
 chooses to appear. 
 
 What we have said about the relations between 
 God's omniscience and His presence in space may be 
 applied also to His presence in time. He is not in His 
 own nature subject to the one any more than to the 
 other. Space and time alike are names for certain 
 relations in which finite things, by His appointment, 
 stand to each other; God Himself transcends them. As 
 God is not a being who pervades all places by local 
 expansion, so neither is He a being who pervades all 
 ages by temporal duration. This is the true notion of 
 eternity. Eternity does not mean only a series of 
 successive moments which had no beginning and will 
 have no end. It means that permanent state of exist- 
 ence which is independent of succession altogether. 
 The words '' future " and past " only become realities 
 for God in His dealing with creation. And indeed, 
 
30 
 
 God's Eternity. 
 
 for that matter, so does the word "present" also; 
 for, as God is not to be conceived of as located 
 in one point of space, commanding all other space, 
 which to Him is " here,'' so neither is He to be con- 
 ceived of as dating at one point of time, commanding 
 all other time, which to him is " now/' 
 
 Yet, while He transcends all these links which bind 
 finite things together. He holds them all clearly and 
 feelingly in His one infinite intelligence. It is impos- 
 sible for us to form any idea how temporal succession 
 may look from the standpoint of eternity ; but we may 
 be sure that it is seen to have a true value. If time 
 has no meaning for God, it is an illusion for us. He 
 enters into it, and sympathizes with those creatures of 
 His which are subject to it, for it is part of the order- 
 liness and system that is in the mind of God ; and in 
 a sense He subjects Himself to it by creating a world 
 in which it finds place. It is a law which He has 
 imposed, not upon us only, but upon Himself in His 
 dealings with us ; and we cannot think of it as an 
 arbitrary law. God is not contemptuous of time. 
 His life compared with ours is not like ours compared 
 with that of some ephemeral insect. To the insect 
 tlic interval between sunrise and sundown might 
 appear as long as threescore years and ten to man. 
 TIius Moses says, A thousand years in Thy sight are 
 ]>ut as yesterday," as if the vast total of God's Hfe 
 diminished the significance of any measurable portion 
 of it. But tlie fuller thought of the New Testament 
 brings out the converse side. One day is with the 
 Lord as a tliousand years " (Ps. xc. 4 ; S. Pet. iii. S). 
 
His Foreknowledge. 
 
 31 
 
 He values the infinitesimal in time, even as He does in 
 space ; and thus we can see that the Bible does not 
 use an unmeaning metaphor when it speaks of the 
 patience, the long-suffering, the expectation of God. 
 
 Two main inferences may be drawn from this 
 thought of God's eternity. The first is that the 
 omniscience of God extends to those things which to 
 us are still future, both in general and in detail. He 
 uses this knowledge as a testimony to His sovereign 
 Godhead, when He foretells to men that which will 
 come to pass. I am God, and there is none like Me, 
 declaring the end from the beginning, and from 
 ancient times the things that are not yet done " (Isa. 
 xlvi. 9). From the point of view of absolute eternity 
 such knowledge cannot strictly be called foreknow- 
 ledge. To speak of God's foreknowledge is an accom- 
 modation to human powers of understanding like 
 speaking of God's coming into His temple or going 
 up from Abraham. Yet, since the conditions of time 
 are those under which God is revealed to us and we 
 are assured that that revelation is not an illusory one, 
 we use with confidence the language which speaks of 
 God as foreknowing,- foreseeing, foreordaining. The 
 objection which has been sometimes urged against 
 God's foreknowledge, that it destroys the notion of 
 creaturely liberty, appears to be based upon a con- 
 fusion of thought. God's foreknowledge of events 
 does not in anj^ way bring the events about ; it is not 
 the cause of what is to come, but rather the result. 
 There can be ho question that the thing which will be, 
 will be, and God knows what it will be : but that is 
 
32 
 
 His Iminutability 
 
 a very different thing from saying that what will be, 
 must be, and that God's foreseeing of it fixes it to be. 
 The future is no more necessary because God fore- 
 know^s it than it w^ould be if we could imagine that He 
 did not. The difficulties connected with this matter 
 are grave ; but they appear to attach themselves rather 
 to the thought of God's omnipotence than to that of 
 His omniscience. His w^ill rather than His knowledge. 
 
 The second main inference drawn from God's 
 independence of temporal succession is that He is 
 immutable. I am the Lord, I change not " (Mai. 
 iii. 6). The causes which produce change and disloca- 
 tion in us by the course of time have nothing analogous 
 to them in the life of God. We are one thing to-day 
 and another to-morrow, but God is unvaryingly the 
 same, without progress or falling back, without altera- 
 tion slow or sudden. He does not go through a series 
 of transient phases, like us. This is what is meant by 
 calling God impassible, or exempt from passions. He 
 is so, in the same sense as He might be called exempt 
 from actions. We cannot tell how either actions or 
 passions appear from the position of absolute eternity, 
 since both imply to our minds the transition from 
 state to state ; but with this caution we receive in 
 simple faith what is revealed to us in regard to both. 
 We are compelled to think of God as engaged in a 
 course of action in His relation to the world, and we 
 are compelled to think of Him as reacted upon by it 
 in turn, and, as He follows its development, experienc- 
 ing now satisfaction and now pain. Impassible is not 
 the same as unfeeling. If words mean anytliing, God 
 
and Impassibility, 
 
 is capable of grief and joy, of anger and of gratifica- 
 tion ; though there is nothing which can force such 
 states of feeling upon Him without His being willing 
 to undergo them. It would be a defect in Him, not a 
 perfection, were it otherwise. There is nothing in 
 this thought to conflict with God's revelation of Him- 
 self as eternally happy. He is the blessed God,'* 
 the blessed and only Potentate " (1 Tim. i. 11 ; vi. 15), 
 not merely as the object of His creatures' blessing 
 (eiAoyrjroc)? but as having in Himself every element of 
 perfect bliss {jLLaKapiog). But if God is love, in any 
 sense intelligible to us, He would be without an 
 element ot bliss if He were incapable of suffering. 
 Love, unable to manifest itself through a true self- 
 sacrifice, would be love unsatisfied. Therefore we 
 hold that the phrases in which God speaks of Himself 
 as wounded and wearied by the conduct of His 
 creatures, are not mere metaphors, but substantial 
 truths. Only we must remember that no storms of 
 grief can shake the permanent serenity of God in 
 its inmost deeps, inasmuch as God sees the end from 
 the beginning, and knows Himself to be able to over- 
 come at last all that now causes sorrow to Him and to 
 those whom He loves. 
 
 For the all-knowing and eternal God is revealed 
 as being also an almighty God. By this title He is 
 most frequently described to us, not only in the Church 
 Creeds, but in the Bible, because it sums up all the 
 rest of the Divine attributes. No being could be 
 almighty whose knowledge was limited, who should 
 have to look on to an uncertain future, or move from 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 His Omnipotence. 
 
 place to place at His work, who was irresolute and 
 divided in mind, or who depended for His complete- 
 ness or for very existence upon something outside 
 Himself. God has revealed Himself to us as almighty. 
 In other words. He has entire freedom of action, 
 coupled with unlimited resources. 
 
 Men commonly interpret the word " almighty " to 
 mean " able to do everything." This, however, is not 
 accurate. It gives a false idea about God ; for there 
 are some things which God cannot do. He cannot 
 deny Himself." It is impossible for God to lie " 
 (2 Tim. ii. 13 ; Heb. vi. 18). God is unable to do any- 
 thing bad, or capricious, or irrational, or self-con- 
 tradictory. But the inability is not due to any 
 deficiency of power, or any restriction placed upon 
 God from without. It rises from the fact that He 
 knows all things, and therefore cannot be deceived 
 into preferring that which is less good. God is not 
 tempted of evil things " (S. James i. 13) ; they can 
 have no attraction for Him. He can do whatever He 
 wills ; but these things He cannot, by His very nature, 
 will to do. It is impossible for the perfect to choose 
 to be less than perfect. 
 
 Indeed, the Latin word omnijyotens (as well as the 
 Greek TravroKpanop, which it represents) conveys a 
 different notion from that of power to do anything. 
 The word is of the same class as caelipotens, " master of 
 tlie sky," armipotens, " master of arms," and tlie like. 
 Omnipotens means " master of all." It expresses God's 
 universal sovereignty, His dominion over all things 
 tliat are or that can be. Fo)', on iho one hand, God is 
 
His Omnipotence. 
 
 35 
 
 complete master of Himself. He is not, like the god 
 of the pantheist, blindly struggling forward into self- 
 possession. " God is light, and in Him is no dai'kness 
 at all" (1 S. John i. 5). He is profoundly conscious 
 of all His own fulness. No part of it remains for 
 Him yet to discover. Thus He wields all His infinite 
 powers with an unerring precision, and cannot be 
 blinded with regard to the issues of His action. This 
 being so, it follows that God is complete master of all 
 other things as well. For all things that are not God 
 are creatures of God ; and God cannot have created 
 anything and then lost the control of it. Thus even 
 those things which seem most defiantly and out- 
 rageously in rebellion against Him are still under His 
 hand, and His omnipotence will be proved at length 
 the more strikingly by means of their rebellion. A 
 great but limited power may dispose of things and 
 forces which cannot choose for themselves ; but 
 nothing but omnipotence can create free wills, and 
 give them full play, and remain sovereign over them. 
 
 § 13. 
 
 It was, perhaps, imaginable— though barely so— 
 that these attributes might have been found in a 
 being without any moral character, or even with 
 a character that was immoral. Though a Socrates 
 was able to teach that " virtue is knowledge," yet, in 
 our present fallen condition, we should hardly have 
 known for certain, without revelation, the true nature 
 of virtue and vice, and therefore the necessary alliance 
 between perfect knowledge and perfect holiness. Left 
 
36 God and the Moral Law. 
 
 to themselves, men have worshipped gods of the vilest 
 wickedness. Heathen religions teach that the deity- 
 may do what is evil without suffering contamination, 
 even as light is uncontaminated by shining on a dung- 
 hill. But our God is known to us as a being of perfect 
 and infinite righteousness. Moral light and intellectual 
 light are found to be the same thing in Him who is 
 Light," constituting the glory in which God lives. 
 
 This glory cannot be approached by man (1 Tim. 
 vi. 16) ; but it is everywhere assumed that men are 
 capable of apprehending it aright. From the per- 
 ceptions of our conscience, when our conscience is 
 enlightened by grace and purified by honest striving- 
 after moral truth, we can argue confidently to the 
 moral action of God. The moral law is not, like time 
 and space, a limitation imposed by the Creator upon 
 His creatures while He is Himself independent of it. 
 He gives us clearly to understand that right and 
 wrong are the same for Himself as for us. The rule 
 of justice and purity is not an arbitrary and con- 
 ventional rule which could have been other than it is. 
 Right is not right simply because it is the will of God ; 
 wrong is not wrong merely because God has forbidden 
 it. These names are not an expression for some 
 personal preferences of our Maker. It would have 
 l)een impossible for Him to have made wrong to be 
 right, or right to be wrong, by an exercise of authority. 
 God Himself does right because it is right. 
 
 Yet, at the same time, it must not be supposed 
 that the moral law exists independently of God, or 
 that He finds it imposed upon Him by some external 
 
God's Righteousness. 
 
 37 
 
 necessity, and obeys it as a subject, or even administers 
 it as a governor responsible to the law which He 
 administers. There is no such thing as a moral law 
 apart from God. He is the moral law. That law for 
 us cannot fully be expressed in precepts, not even in 
 the nicest subtleties of directors of the conscience. It 
 is essentially a living ideal. That " perfect law of 
 liberty " (S. James i. 25) by which we are ruled con- 
 sists in nothing else but the imitation of the Divine 
 character. To this it owes its freedom, its infinite 
 depth, and its unity. Be ye therefore perfect,"" so 
 our Lord sums up the new code of His kingdom, 
 " even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect " 
 (S. Matt. V. 48). 
 
 But such terms as "the moral law'' are too cold 
 to be used in connexion with the character of God. 
 He is perfectly calm, it is true, and fulfils His own 
 infinite ideal of moral perfection without a struggle, 
 without an effort, without need of vigilance. It is 
 natural to Him. And yet the whole energy of the 
 Divine Being is in it. For He is not merely pure," 
 as one whom no evil thing has ever sullied (Hab. 
 i. 13). He is not merely "faithful" (1 Cor. x. 13; 
 1 S. Pet. iv. 19), as one who recognises that He owes 
 a duty and who is ready to perform it. He is not 
 merely " righteous " (Ps. vii. 9 ; 2 Thess. i. 6), as one 
 who will see equity all round Him, and will scrupu- 
 lously bring home to all the true nature of their deeds. 
 Purity and faithfulness and righteousness might 
 possibly be found in one who was in some degree 
 apathetic. But God is holy. By that word, all good 
 
38 
 
 God's Holiness. 
 
 moral qualities which we regard separately, like light 
 when broken by a prism, are shown to be one, and 
 that one quality is shown in its beauty and its in- 
 tensity. God is holy. He burns with love of all that 
 is noble, and with hatred of all that is base. " The 
 righteous Lord loveth righteousness " (Ps. xi. '7). It 
 is the idea of His holiness which enables us to under- 
 stand those strange words in which the prophets speak 
 of His vehement transports of wrath against sin. " God 
 is jealous, and the Lord revengeth ; the Lord re- 
 vengeth, and is furious. . , . Who can stand before 
 His indignation ? and who can abide in the fierceness 
 of His anger ? His fury is poured out like fire, and 
 the rocks are thrown down by Him " (Nah. i. 2 — 6). 
 At first sight it might seem as if holiness meant 
 nothing but the absence of evil ; but that is because 
 we have so little acquaintance with positive moral 
 beauty. Even God's hatred of sin is not a full 
 measure of His love of righteousness ; for sin is not 
 an infinite thing, but righteousness is infinite (Ps. Ixxi. 
 15). The holiness of God is that which constitutes 
 His irresistible attractiveness. It is not the sight of 
 God's uncreated eternity, nor of His majestic unity, 
 nor of His exhaustive knowledge, nor of His all- 
 mastering might, nor even of His severe justice, which 
 most moves the hearts of His intelligent creatures to 
 adoration. It is the ever-deepening perception which 
 they have of the steady and awful zeal for that 
 which is morally right which lives within Him. Before 
 tliis, the Seraphim, who for countless ages have had 
 the uninterrupted task of contemplation, hide their 
 
God's Love. 
 
 39 
 
 eyes and cry continually, as i£ " stung with the 
 splendour of a sudden thought," their admiration of 
 fresh glories of His holiness coming into view. And 
 we, who are not, like them, unfallen, serve God with 
 reverence aiid godly fear, acknowledging that " our 
 God is a consuming fire " (Heb. xii. 29). 
 
 But the crowning revelation vouchsafed to us con- 
 cerning the nature and character of God is contained 
 in the words, " God is Love " (1 S. John iv. 8, 16). We 
 know what love is because we are capable of loving. 
 It is no vague general benevolence. Still less is it a 
 hunger for something which will supply a felt want. 
 It is a strong and calm outgoing of the being towards 
 personal objects. Its main exhibition lies in seeking 
 the highest benefit of the beloved, not counting the 
 cost to itself. It cannot, indeed, be contented until it 
 receives love in answer to love ; yet it does not love 
 for the sake of the reward which it expects. It says, 
 with the voice of its great exponent (whatever the 
 true text may be), I will gladly spend and be spent 
 for you, though the more abundantly I love you the 
 less I be loved " (2 Cor. xii. 15). " Love sufFereth long, 
 and is kind ; love envieth not ; love vaunteth not 
 itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
 seeketh not the things which are its own, is never 
 provoked, taketh no account of the evil ; rejoiceth not 
 at unrighteousness, but rejoiceth along with the truth ; 
 beareth with all things, believeth all things, hopeth 
 all things, endureth all things (1 Cor. xiii. 4 — 7). This 
 
40 
 
 GocTs Love. 
 
 is the description of God. Love is His very being ; it 
 is not an attribute which mixes in among the rest and 
 tempers their exhibition. All the other attributes are 
 attributes of love. It is love that is one and indi- 
 visible. The omniscience is the omniscience of love ; 
 love is everywhere present ; love is eternal. Omnipo- 
 tence belongs to love ; righteousness and holiness mark 
 the character of love. Whatever God does, love does, 
 and He does it because He loves. Whatever perfect 
 love would design, God designs and will perform ; for 
 love and God are but two names to express the same 
 meaning. 
 
ClIArTER IL 
 
 T/ie Athanaslan Creed the Church'' s expression of Responsibility for the 
 Truth — Doctrine of the Ty-inity no figjiient — Error of Tritheisvi 
 and of Sabellianisin — Difficulty of Arian teaching f'om point of 
 view of Philosophy — A Trinity of Perso7ts required by the conception 
 of God as self conscious Love — Distinctioit of the Three as revealed 
 in Scripture — Subo7'dination of the Son and Spirit to the Father, 
 
 § 1. 
 
 To many persons, not otherwise prejudiced against 
 Christianity, the doctrine that there are Three Persons 
 in the Godhead is a serious stumbling-block. They 
 imagine that they would find it simpler to believe in 
 a God who should be one person as well as one sub- 
 stance, like the God presented by the Muhammadan 
 or by the modern Jewish religion. It seems to them 
 a needless complication, an arbitrary dogmatic impo- 
 sition, to teach that there is a Father, a Son, and a 
 Spirit, who are all One. If they do not think it an 
 actual contradiction, a sheer impossibility, they think 
 it a metaphysical puzzle, which the brains of ordinary 
 Christians ought not to be troubled with. The diffi- 
 culty felt by such persons is increased by the solemnity 
 with which the Church has insisted upon the impor- 
 
42 Purpose of the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 tance of this doctrine. The Quimmque vidt, by its 
 warnings, even more than by the difficult language of 
 its statements, repels them from assenting to the 
 truths asserted. Whether that psalm is suited in 
 the present state of things for public recitation, may 
 without disloyalty be debated. But it is to be observed 
 that the warnings of the Qwimmqiie are not addressed 
 to the world outside, or to those who have never 
 received the faith. It is the Church's warning to 
 herself and to her own children who anxiously desire 
 to be saved. It is an exhortation to prize the great 
 treasure which is committed to the Church, and to 
 her alone. The Church is the repository of revealed 
 truth. She holds it in trust for mankind, and is 
 responsible to God for keeping it whole and unde- 
 filed," that is, without mutilation and without ad- 
 mixture. False notions having been circulated from 
 time to time by persons who claimed to represent her, 
 she was bound to point out to the faithful where those 
 false notions differed from the truth as she had received 
 it, and to warn those who cared for her judgment of 
 the grave moral fault they would incur if they .should 
 treat the revelation of God irreverently, whether 
 through negligence they allowed the truth to be 
 forgotten, or through presumption defined it amiss. 
 
 The Qiiiciimqiie, in its intention at least, is not 
 an attempt to impose metaphysical subtleties, but to 
 oppose them. It forbids them ; it keeps the ground 
 clear, and will not permit " the Name of the Father, 
 and of tlic Son, and of tlic Holy Ghost " to be reduced 
 l)y tliosc who have been baptized into it to tlic barren 
 
Importance of Doctrine of the Trinity. 43 
 
 unrealities invented by a Sabellius or an Arius. But 
 in thus resisting the aggressions of a profane human 
 speculation, the Church encourages us to study de- 
 voutly the real nature of the threefold Name. We are 
 not to pass it over as if it meant nothing. It is not 
 " a vain thing for us ; (Deui xxxii. 47), which we 
 may safely ignore. We ought to try our best to 
 understand it and so to grow in the knowledge of 
 God. All that the Church insists upon is that we 
 should not approach the subject in the spirit of dis- 
 putants, but with veneration and awe, and the desire 
 simply to be taught of God. " The Catholic faith is 
 this — not that we define, or understand, or assent, or 
 subscribe to anything, but — " that we worship one God 
 in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity." 
 
 §2. 
 
 In order to be assured that the doctrine is not a 
 mere figment — that it cannot be dismissed unheard — 
 two of the passages of Holy Scripture which bear upon 
 the point may be examined. We find our Lord bidding 
 His disciples to baptize all nations into the Name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost " 
 (S. Matt, xxviii. 19). It is obvious that He is not 
 simply dictating a form of words to be used in the 
 administration of Baptism. " Into the Name,'' He 
 says, not " in " it. He sums up, in this brief descrip- 
 tion, the whole revelation which He came on earth to 
 bring. That Name is the Gospel. Every spiritual 
 privilege we enjoy is to be found in it. Our Baptism 
 ushers us into it; for it puts us into a living con- 
 
44 Testimony of the Baptismal Formula. 
 
 nexion with the God who is thus set forth, and who 
 obviously wishes us to understand what the Name 
 means. But we mark that our Lord does not speak 
 of baptizing men into the " Names," as if they were 
 plural. They cannot be dissociated from each other. 
 The Name is one. Now, we could hardly imagine 
 that Christ would use such a phrase, with its preg- 
 nant assertion of the unity of the Name, if " Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost " represented notions so separate 
 as those of God, and a human prophet, and a sancti- 
 fying influence. He must needs, in that case, have at 
 least used the plural, or, as He often did when He 
 would imply a distinction (S. Matt. xvii. 27 ; S. John 
 XX. 17), repeated the word : " baptizing them into the 
 Name of the Father, and into the Name of the Son, 
 and into the Name of the Holy Ghost." By choosing 
 without repetition to say the Name," He teaches that 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one. The 
 revelation of each of the Three is the revelation of the 
 other Two. They cannot be known apart. There are 
 not three names of three separate beings ; but the 
 Name of the one God is, when written out full a 
 threefold Name. 
 
 And yet throughout the New Testament the dis- 
 tinction between the Three is as clearly kept and 
 brought out as Their unity. Thus our Lord at the 
 Last Supper says to His disciples, " I Avill pray the 
 Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that 
 He may be with you tor ever, even the Spirit of 
 truth" (S. Jolm xiv. IG). Here the personal distinc- 
 tions arc clear and sharp. Son praj^s ; the Father 
 
Testimony of the Promise of the Comforter. 45 
 
 hears and gives ; the Holy Ghost comes. The Son is 
 not the same as the Father ; for how could He inter- 
 cede with Himself ? The Father is not the same as 
 the Spirit ; for how could the Father " give Himself 
 in the sense which is here required, and which is 
 afterwards explained by the word send (ver. 26) ? 
 The Spirit is not the same as the Son ; for how could 
 He in that case be ''another Comforter/' a perma- 
 nent substitute for the Comforter whose brief sojourn 
 was ending ? If the Name into which we are baptized 
 leads us to think of the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost as an indivisible unity, this great promise 
 of Christ as clearly sets before us the actions of a 
 distinct Trinity. From the one we learn not to 
 " divide the substance ; " from the other, not to '' con- 
 found the Persons." There are many other such 
 passages in Holy Scripture, and these are only selected 
 as samples in which all the Divine Three are, in a 
 marked way, mentioned together. It will be felt that 
 no other interpretation answers so simply and so 
 deeply to the natural meaning of them as the Catholic 
 interpretation does. 
 
 § 3. 
 
 The Catholic interpretation of these and other 
 passages guards the reader of Scriptvire from two 
 opposite mistakes, either of which might easily be 
 made without impugning the Godhead of the Son and 
 Spirit, and either of which would cloud the clearness 
 of our Christian hope. The first of these mistakes is 
 known by the name of Tritheism, or supposing that 
 
46 Christianity a pure Monotheism. 
 
 there are three Gods. This belief has never been 
 formally maintained; but it is unconsciously the 
 creed of a great many persons who have no wish to 
 dispute the teaching of the Church. They think of 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as three 
 separate Beings, possessed of the same glorious attri- 
 butes, and bound together by mutual love and concord ; 
 accommodating and serviceable in many ways to each 
 others' schemes, but independent of each other, and 
 not necessary to one another's existence or complete- 
 ness. For those whose thoughts take a tritheistic 
 shape, the Son might (imaginably) cease to exist, and 
 the Father still remain the same, intact ' or a period 
 could be conceived of at which no Holy Spirit was, 
 and yet the Father and the Son existed in all their 
 perfection without feeling much difference This is 
 the form of thought and feeling which the Quicumqiie 
 says is forbidden by the Catholic religion.' It 
 would be ''to say, There be three Gods, or three 
 Lords.'' The Catholic religion asserts, with all sin- 
 cerity and earnestness, the purest and loftiest mono- 
 theism. We have no need to explain anything away 
 — we are in no degree juggling with words — when we 
 repeat that God is One. We believe it without 
 qualification or reserve. We rest upon this fact as 
 the one great fundamental truth. We pray to be 
 tauf/'lit it as the highest work of the Spirit — 
 
 " Teach us to know the Father, Son, 
 And Thee, of both, to be but one." 
 
 Polytheism, of any form or kind, is only possible for 
 men whose notions of what is meant by the woi'd 
 
The Divine Substance tmique. 47 
 
 "God'' are entirely unlike ours. The Divine "sub- 
 stance " is not, like creaturely " substances," a sub- 
 stance which admits of being found in modified forms 
 in a number of different beings. Humanity, with its 
 limitations and imperfections, though one and the 
 same substance everywhere, yet appears in countless 
 separate specimens, each of whom is a man. But the 
 very notion of Deity is such that we cannot conceive 
 of it as possessed by more than one being. Two 
 or three or more beings of infinite perfection, but 
 mutually exclusive, cannot co-exist; for they must 
 necessarily be limited by each other, which would be 
 a contradiction in terms. Nothing of the kind is 
 taught by the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 For the threefold personality of God does not 
 contradict His unity in any way ; it shows the manner 
 or condition of it. There are not three independent 
 units side by side, on a level with each other, each 
 almighty, each eternal, each finding in Himself the 
 source of His own life. The unity between the three 
 blessed Persons is not a similarity of character and 
 qualities and powers, not a harmony of wills and 
 purposes between three individuals belonging to the 
 same species — three beings each of whom is a God. 
 It is a true, though inexpressible, unity of Three 
 Persons mutually depending upon each other and 
 completing each other, indivisible, and incapable of 
 existence apart from one another. The life of all 
 Three is one and the same life, and it has but one 
 source, not three. The very titles by which They are 
 known to us imply this. They are not proper names, 
 
48 
 
 Error of Tritheism. 
 
 like those o£ heathen divinities, but titles of relation- 
 ship, which involve each other, and would be meaning- 
 less alone. Fatherhood is impossible without sonship, 
 and sonship without fatherhood ; a spirit (in the 
 sense in which the word is applied to the Holy Ghost) 
 is impossible without one whose spirit it is. The 
 distinction between the Persons of the Trinity consists 
 in this mutual relationship, and in that alone. God is 
 one Being, who is Father, because He eternally finds 
 Himself in a Son and Spirit, begotten of Him and 
 proceeding from Him, not by a mere act of His will, 
 but by the very necessity of His nature ; and yet not 
 by the mere necessity of His nature, but by the act 
 of His loving will. It is He that is in Them, and 
 They are in Him. Instead of being mutually exclu- 
 sive, the Three are in reality mutually inclusive, and 
 contained in each other, though never confused to- 
 gether. The Father never loses His identity in the 
 Son, nor the Son in the Father, nor the Spirit in 
 either ; for if ever such a thing could imaginably take 
 place, it would be the end of all the Three alike, since 
 They only exist, as distinct persons, by virtue of Their 
 relationship ; — but it is numerically one and the same 
 infinite Being whom we adore, whether we adore Him 
 in His primal and original self as Father, or in the Son 
 wlio reveals Him, or in the Spirit who communicates 
 Him. For this reason it is that we are cautioned not 
 to speak of three almighty ones, or three eternal ones, 
 or (according to the teaching of S. Ambrose) even of 
 three holy ones, although each of the Three is holy 
 and eternal and almighty ; because to speak in such 
 
Sabellian Conception of God, 
 
 49 
 
 a manner would imply only a likeness between three 
 separate specimens of a class which might without 
 absurdity be thought more numerous. 
 
 §4. 
 
 The opposite mistake to Tritheism is that which 
 is known to students of history by the name of 
 Sabellianism. That name is derived from an early 
 teacher who hoped to make the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity easier by some such explanation as the follow- 
 ing. We find Divine actions ascribed to a Father, a 
 Son, and a Holy Spirit ; yet, if God is one, all these 
 names must be names for the one God. That one 
 God, accordingly, must be pleased to act sometimes 
 as Father, sometimes as Son, and sometimes as 
 Spirit, sometimes as all three. For example, He acts 
 as Father when He initiates or creates ; He acts as 
 Son when He puts into execution what He has, as 
 Father, willed ; He acts as Spirit when He imparts 
 life and consciousness and moral freedom by infusing 
 Himself into that which, as Father and Son, He has 
 formed. But in Himself He is none of these. He 
 passes from one to the other. The so-called Persons" 
 may come and go ; they have no permanent being. 
 They only express a threefold relation of the one God 
 towards us, as displayed in three manners of dealing. 
 It is but Sabellianism exaggerated to maintain that 
 the persons are only notions of ours ; and that, except 
 in our perception, they would not exist at all — that 
 they are but three phases or aspects of God, names 
 for God as observed from different points of view ; 
 
 E 
 
50 Unsatisfactoriness of Sabellianism. 
 
 God not being conscious of heing Father, Son, and 
 Spirit, but only of being tlioiight so. According to 
 this form of the theory, the difference between the 
 persons only began when there was an intelligent 
 creation to see the difference. But whether the 
 difference depends on our perception, or whether the 
 difference is now a real one to God Himself, in either 
 case, if the creation were to pass away, the difference 
 would pass away also, and only an abstract God be 
 left, neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Spirit. The 
 Unity (or rather, the Unit)," said Sabellius, has come 
 to be a Trinity by expansion." It is not, therefore, 
 the original and eternal condition of God, but only 
 began with the beginning of the world, and the 
 Trinity would relapse into a Unity when no world 
 was left for it to be exhibited in. 
 
 Such is roughly the Sabellian conception of the 
 Trinity. But if it were the real meaning of the 
 language of Scripture, then these names of Father, 
 Son, and Spirit would be mere illusions. They would 
 deceive us. The Scriptures would then be no true 
 revelation of the nature of God ; on the contrary, they 
 would suggest what is actually false. We should be 
 mocked by an appearance of mutual recognition and 
 love between these imaginary — or, at best, transitory 
 ■ — " Persons." Instead of having to do with a real 
 heavenly Father, made known to us in a real in- 
 carnate Son, by the illumination of a real indwelling 
 Spirit, we should find ourselves face to face, after all, 
 with an unintelligible, impersonal God, who had played 
 upon us and confused our understandings for a time 
 
It impairs the Hope of Eternal Life, 51 
 
 by showing Himself to us under three disguises. If, 
 according to the Catholic tradition, the distinction of 
 the Three Persons is an eternal distinction, wc can 
 understand how God is indeed eternally love, within 
 Himself, and not merely love towards us ; but if the 
 Persons are confounded, as Sabellius confounded 
 them, then love can only have begun when there 
 w^as a creation to be loved, and we have no guarantee 
 that it will continue. And indeed, if God's eternal 
 state is higher than any manifestations of Himself 
 can be, we should imagine that the so-called Unity 
 would have to reassert itself some, time or another, and 
 reabsorb the temporary Trinity under which it had 
 been pleased to figure ; and, as creation owes its 
 origin to the act by which the Unity broke out into 
 a Trinity, the return of the Godhead to its original 
 Unity must needs carry with it the annihilation of all 
 creaturely existence. A Sabellian conception of the 
 Trinity weakens the hope of eternal life as much 
 as the Catholic faith assures it. " This is the life 
 eternal, that they may know Thee the only true God, 
 and Him whom Thou didst send, even J esus Christ 
 (S. John xvii. 3). 
 
 §5. 
 
 The two forms of thought which we have now 
 considered agree in this, that they justly acknow- 
 ledge, in Scripture, the Godhead of Father, Son, and 
 Spirit, though Tritheism does so at the expense of the 
 eternal Unity, and Sabellianism at the expense of the 
 eternal Trinity. Arianism, on the other hand, in its 
 
52 Arianisin : its apparent Simplicity 
 
 ancient and modern forms, including an immense 
 range o£ opinions from Socinianism upwards, would 
 cut the knot by denying the Godhead of the Second 
 and Third Persons, and teaching that the Father alone 
 is, in the full sense, God. 
 
 Such a system does not profess — at any rate in 
 the first instance — to be derived from a large and 
 careful study of Scripture. It is a philosophy. It 
 comes to the Scripture already determined that there 
 is but one God, and that the unity of God is incom- 
 patible with a Trinity of Persons. It rejects the 
 Christian doctrine of the Godhead not on the plea that 
 it is unscriptural, but on the plea that it is irrational. 
 The prima facie view of many isolated texts would 
 appear to favour this philosophy, and ingenuity 
 can devise ways of dealing with other texts; but 
 meanwhile the stronghold of the Arian position lies 
 in its supposed logical simplicity. While the Catholic 
 doctrine seems far-fetched and intricate, the Arian 
 doctrine seems obvious and easy. Why cannot we 
 believe, it is asked, in an Almighty Father, a personal. 
 Jiving, loving God, without adding a belief in a co- 
 equal Son and Spirit ? 
 
 Plausible as that theory seems, it involves graver 
 difficulties than the revealed doctrine. Not only is 
 the language of Sci'ipture about the Son and the 
 Holy Ghost unsatisfied by Arian explanations ; but, 
 on serious refiexion, the very notion of a personal 
 God who is but one person becomes, as a philosophy, 
 impossible to rest in intellectually. A man may 
 fancy that he can think of such a thing, but he cannot 
 
inconsistent with God's Self-consciousness. 53 
 
 really. It is, in fact, unthinkable. Sabellianism here 
 lays itself open to the same charge as Arianism. For 
 we are bound to think of God as containing in His 
 own Being all that is needed for His own perfection. 
 He must be self-sufficing. We cannot imagine Him 
 depending upon anj^thing outside of Himself. Creation 
 does not supply a void in the life of God, who must 
 have been all that He now is before the world was, and 
 can undergo no change or modification, for worse or 
 for better, by reason of contact with the world. Now, 
 so far as we can understand, a solitary unit could 
 have no perceptions at all. Suppose a man to be 
 born entirely without communion with the world 
 around him, possessing, indeed, the faculties of sight, 
 hearing, touch, taste, smell, but in some way seques- 
 tered from all objects on which to exercise those 
 faculties, even the other parts of his own body being 
 withdrawn from his sight and feeling ; suppose, 
 further, that no intellectual or spiritual touch from 
 outside were allowed to come near him, although the 
 man was naturally capable of converse with intellectual 
 and spiritual beings; in short, suppose such a one 
 to be absolutely isolated from all other things in 
 existence ; — is it conceivable that he should attain 
 to consciousness of his own being, or, indeed, have 
 any thoughts at all ? We cannot imagine such a 
 one to have even the perceptions of an animal. This, 
 on the Arian supposition, was the condition of God 
 before the worlds were made, or at least before the 
 Son was begotten. 
 
 Still more difficult it is to reconcile the Arian sup- 
 
54 Arianism obscures God's Love. 
 
 position with the doctrine of the love of God. God is 
 Love. That is His essence. And love is not love 
 without exercise. Until it finds an object, there is 
 but a capacity for love, not love itself. If God, there- 
 fore, had no object for His love until He had formed 
 a creation, then God has not always been love — is not 
 love by Himself in His own nature, but only (so to 
 speak) accidentally, through the circumstances in 
 which He finds Himself. And ev^n now, if creation 
 be the sole object of God's love, IJe cannot find in it 
 adequate exercise for the whole of His love. For we 
 have no reason to suppose that creation is, or can be, 
 infinite. It may well be doubted v/hether the total 
 fulness of God's being can ever be expressed in that 
 which God makes. Therefore, although infinite love 
 is at work in every part of creation, yet the exercise 
 of it upon creation is not infinite. There remains 
 behind an infinite reserve of love, which never can be 
 expended to the blessed satisfaction of God upon any 
 existing thing which falls short of Himself. And if 
 we say that before creation was, the infinite love of 
 God was infinitely expended upon Himself, we cannot 
 but feel that such an expression would be shocking to 
 all our best instincts, if God is a single person. A 
 monstrous selfishness is the only picture which such 
 language could suggest. It can only be morally true 
 to say that God loves Himself, if there be eternally 
 within the Divine nature a real distinction of Persons, 
 whereby one Divine Person may lavish the infinite 
 wealth of His love upon another Di\ ine Person, wlio 
 is iuliuitcly wortliy of receiving it. 
 
It makes God unlike Man. 
 
 55 
 
 It may, of course, be said that we are judging from 
 what we know of limited, human, existence ; and that 
 what applies to a limited being neecj not perforce 
 apply to an infinite, a Divine beijig. This is quite 
 true ; but at the same time, if man is made in the 
 image of God, we have some right to form conceptions 
 about His nature from our own, within due and 
 reverent limits. And if, as a matter of fact, we are 
 wrong in this particular conception, and it should at 
 length burst upon us as true that God is a monad, 
 a unit, but aware, before all creation, of His own 
 existence, cognisant of the fulness of His powers, and 
 eternally exercising a patei-nal love, we can only say 
 that such a state of things would not only transcend 
 our experience and thought, but that it would contra- 
 dict it. Assuming the Arian belief to be true, nothing 
 within our reach leads us in the direction of the true 
 belief, or gives us any hint that may afterwards be 
 developed into knowledge. Quite the contiwy. Hard 
 though it may be to understand the Church doctrine 
 of the Trinity, it is much harder to conceive how 
 God could be eternally Love, if He were a solitary 
 unit. 
 
 §6. 
 
 It must not be supposed from what we have now 
 said, or from anything that follows, that the belief in 
 the Holy Trinity is derived from abstract reasonings 
 of men, who found themselves unsatisfied by the 
 notion of a God in one person. On the contrary, it is 
 doubtful whether unaided speculation would ever have 
 
56 God eternally reproduced to Himself 
 
 ascertained the blessed truth which Christ has made 
 kno^yn to us concerning the nature of God. We 
 accept that truth as graciously revealed to us ; and if 
 any of the independent arguments which we use in 
 elucidation of it fail — as well they may — to carry 
 conviction with them, the revealed doctrine remains 
 where it was, secure upon its Scriptural basis. Never- 
 theless, it is a satisfaction, if, when revelation has 
 assured us of the fact, we can discern elsewhere any 
 clues which might, if we had observed them, have 
 guided us towards the fact. 
 
 We may, then, say that unless we are to take 
 refuge in supposing that God is not self-sufficient, but 
 is only, as Pantheism fancies, gradually coming to 
 know Himself by means of the world, it would appear 
 reasonable to postulate that God contains in His own 
 being both subject and object. We human beings find 
 ourselves set off by the world of which we form part ; 
 but we might expect to find that God is set off to 
 Himself by something within His own nature, — that 
 He is presented to His own contemplation. It may 
 be surmised that there is some movement by which 
 eternally He is reflected to Himself. God, we may 
 suppose, must be ever inwardly projected, reproduced; 
 or rather projecting, reproducing, Himself; not by a 
 succession of fresh reproductions, for we have no right 
 to say that with God there is any succession, but by 
 one act of reproduction, complete and abiding, yet ever 
 new, as if the one act were always in the living process 
 of being performed. Thus there would ever confront 
 Him somewliat wliich is at once Himself and not 
 
in One zvho is His equal. 
 
 57 
 
 Himself, which He can regard as embodying His own 
 whole being, while still (in a sense) distinct from, and 
 contrasted with, that which in the first instance is 
 the "I," the "Ego," of God. 
 
 But if there is to be such a reflexion of God to 
 Himself, the reflexion must needs be personal, m the 
 same sense m which God Himself is personal. God 
 would in no true way be represented to Himself by a 
 mere picture or image in a mirror, so to speak, lifeless, 
 and without power to respond to Him. It is incon- 
 ceivable that there should be within the nature of 
 God anything which is not life ; and even if it were 
 conceivable, a lifeless image of God would return to 
 Him, not only an inadequate, but a totally false vision 
 of Himself. That which truly reproduces God must 
 be to Him, not It," but Thou ; " and God in turn 
 must be Thou " to that which reproduces Him. 
 And if God is truly to know Himself, the living Image 
 which is before Him must be in every respect worthy 
 of Him, that is, equal to Him. Any partial repre- 
 sentation of God falls infinitely short of Him ; and 
 no number of finite and partial representations could 
 mount up so as to supply the deficiency. No part of 
 God's perfections and possibilities can at any time be 
 absent from His consciousness; and they cannot be 
 present to it in infinite detail without being present 
 in their complete unity. Therefore of necessity that 
 absolute reproduction by which God is set before His 
 own eyes must be God, because, otherwise, God's self- 
 knowledge would fall infinitely short of the truth. 
 Nothing but God can represent God. 
 
58 Need of Bo7id between Stibject mtd Object. 
 
 Thus we seem led even by reason, apart from reve- 
 lation, to entertain the thought of a duality in the 
 Divine nature. But we are unable to rest here. 
 Although the next step in thought is less easy to 
 express in words, the mind naturally demands a bond 
 between the I and the " Thou," by which they may 
 know themselves as " I " and Thou/' If we have been 
 right thus far, there is in the Godhead the subject and 
 the object ; but how are they related to each other ? 
 Duality gives us only the notion of separation. If 
 there were no other movement in the Divine nature 
 but that whereby the first Person projects Himself 
 into a second, the two might, for all we can see, be left 
 for ever gazing upon each other, without knowing the 
 difference between themselves, without mutual sym- 
 pathy, and therefore without freedom of intercourse. 
 A God whose nature was but dual could hardly, to our 
 thinking, rise to as high a level of intelligence as 
 man's. There miglit be mutual observatioji and attrac- 
 tion ; but not the consciousness either of antithesis 
 or of union. In order that God may be complete and 
 self-sufficing, we feel a desire to see within the unity 
 of His nature a process - which establishes mutual 
 knowledge, and along with mutual knowledge mutual 
 love. We shall expect to find the movement whereby 
 God places Himself before Himself, followed up by a 
 movement whereby He makes Himself fully known, 
 in all His loveableness and wisdom, to the object thus 
 set before Him, and receives back the response of that 
 object. And we may perhaps dimly apprehend how 
 this mediation between the Divine I " and Tliou '' 
 
The Bond itself Personal and Divine. 59 
 
 should itself be fitly the work of a Person. It is not, 
 like will, or intelligence, a faculty of God, which can, in 
 thought, be detached from the Divine essence ; it is a 
 vital process in the very being of God, without which 
 He cannot be conceived of as existing. It involves 
 nothing less than the whole internal relation of God 
 to Himself. And as we saw that the object in which 
 God is reproduced to Himself must be in all points 
 equal with God, so the Person who mediates between 
 the two must be in all points the equal of either, or 
 He could not adequately interpret the one to the 
 other. It seems to put the completing touch to the 
 glory of the Divine life when we see Person and 
 Person eternally made known to each other, in their 
 difference and in their unity, by a Person to whom 
 both are absolutely known, and who is absolutely one 
 with both. 
 
 § 7' 
 
 Such guesses of the natural reason — though we 
 could not safely build upon them without further 
 light — prepare us to receive with adoring reverence 
 the glimpses of the inner life of God accorded to us 
 in Holy Scripture. As might be expected, the Bible 
 speaks most often of the active relations of God 
 towards creation, and shows us what is called by 
 theologians the "economic" or ''practical Trinity,'' 
 that is, the threefold way in which God deals with 
 us. But here and there we are shown (as it were) 
 an opened heaven, and the Godhead is revealed in its 
 " essential Trinity." 
 
6o Revelatio7i of Eternal Fatherhood. 
 
 God is seen to have been eternally and absolutely 
 ''the Father/' before time began. It is not a title 
 given to Him because, as matter o£ history, the life 
 of us all can be traced back to Him. That name 
 belongs to Him, not because He always prospectively 
 had the capacity, the desire, the will, to become 
 Father. In the eternal days before creation He was 
 actually Father, by the true communication of all 
 His own glorious nature to One who was perfect^ 
 the Son." That Son's existence constitutes Him 
 Father ; and it was not when the Son became incar- 
 nate, nor even when the Son began to .fashion the 
 world, that God acquired fatherhood by Him. I 
 glorified Thee upon the earth, having perfected the 
 work which Thou hast given Me that I should do ; " 
 so says the Incarnate Son, looking back upon His 
 earthly life ; and then He continues with a lengthen- 
 ing retrospect : And now glorify Thou Me, O Father, 
 at Thine own side, with the glory which I had, before 
 that the world was, beside Thee (S. John xvii. 4, 5). 
 Long before the Son stooped from heaven to the task 
 of redemption, — long before the immeasurable cycles 
 began through which ihc Son was framing the worlds, 
 — God is shown to us as dwelling in no solitary 
 grandeur. One who calls Him " Father " is in His 
 company, and who establishes the trutli of the title 
 by sharing with Him the full possession of that glory, 
 which created tilings may see," but none but God 
 can '' have." 
 
 No less clear is the witness of the solemn sen- 
 tt'uces at the beginning of S. John's Gospel. The 
 
Revelation of the Wo'/d as Eternal. 6 1 
 
 language is different, though the Persons spoken of 
 are the same. The Son and Father, in the glory 
 of Their common nature, are now described as ''the 
 Word " and " God." " In the beginning was the 
 Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
 was God" (S. John i. 1). A word is a thought 
 launched forth from the thinker's mind, making clear 
 to himself and to others what he thinks. As the 
 name of " Son " brings out more prominently the 
 notion of personality and love, so that of Word " 
 brings out the notion of ordered ideas, distinctly and 
 rationally perceived. God has not many words, but 
 one Word, who is the utterance and expression of the 
 whole mind and will of God. And that whole mind 
 and will of God was already articulate and complete 
 before any single act of creation had taken place. 
 When creation began to be, it found the Word already 
 in existence, and it owed its origin to His agency. 
 "In the beginning the Word was." But it is not 
 enough for us to know that He " was." Had the 
 Evangelist stopped here, we should have been free 
 to fancy that the Word was but some faculty or 
 element in the person of God the Father. But he 
 proceeds to teach us the mystery of a second personal 
 subsistence in active relation to the first : " And the 
 Word was with God." The preposition is not the 
 same as that employed in the last passage under 
 consideration. There the Son was shown to us in 
 simple juxtaposition with the Father. They were 
 together, in the presence of each other. Here we have 
 a further thought. Two may be together without 
 
62 Eternal Fellozvship of the Word with God. 
 
 taking notice of each other; but this preposition 
 shows us, if we may say so, the attitude of the second 
 Person to the first. Quite literally it is, "And the 
 Word was towards God." His face is not outwards, 
 so to speak, as if He were merely revealing, or wait- 
 ino" to reveal, God to the creation. His face is 
 inwards. His whole person is directed towards God, 
 motion corresponding to motion, thought to thought. 
 He appears to find His very being in the intensity 
 of bliss with which He receives all that passes in the 
 mind and heart of God. In Him God stands revealed 
 to Himself in all the inexhaustible possibilities of His 
 wisdom. And lest it should for a moment appear as 
 if this perfect revelation could be found in some being 
 shot forth outside the Divine life itself, of lower nature 
 than that of Him who is revealed, the Apostle adds, 
 " And the Word was God." The self -revelation is 
 completed within the unity of the Godhead by the 
 mutual knowledge and love of more than one Person. 
 
 So again, to take one more instance, another 
 Apostle opens to us a view of the eternal place of the 
 Holy Ghost within the life of God, apart from the 
 created universe. "The Spirit searcheth all things, 
 even the depths of God For who of men knoweth 
 the things of the man save the spirit of the man 
 which is in him ? So also the things of God none 
 hath known save the Spirit of God " (1 Cor. ii. 10, 11). 
 The spirit of the man is his own ultimate conscious- 
 ness, whereby he knows about himself what no one 
 else can know unless he chooses to tell it. So also 
 the Spirit of God is the ultimate consciousness of 
 
Place of the Sph'it in Ete^mal Godhead. 63 
 
 God, whereby He knows Himself. That Spirit is not 
 merely an emanation from the Divine nature, working 
 upon the world, but a movement within the Divine 
 nature, returning upon itself. The distinctness of the 
 Spirit's person is not, indeed, so clearly brought out 
 here as elsewhere ; for if this passage stood alone, we 
 might even, perhaps, have pressed too far the analogy 
 of the place of the Spirit in the Divine subject and in 
 the human. But all the more unmistakeably this 
 passage teaches that the Spirit is of the very essence 
 of the God whose Spirit He is, so one with Him that 
 God cannot be imagined without Him. His perfect 
 Deity is testified to by the infinite reach and range of 
 His activity. The spirit of man has but a limited 
 knowledge of the things of the man, and there are 
 mysteries in his nature and character and career 
 which he cannot now explore, and perhaps never will 
 be able. But the Spirit of God finds nothing even in 
 God which baffles His scrutiny. His " searcTi " is not 
 a seeking for knowledge yet beyond Him \ it is a 
 penetrating, comprehensive cognisance oi all that is 
 in God, even to the depths. If the act of search 
 reveals a personal consciousness in the Spirit, the 
 extent of the search involves His true Godhead. 
 Nothing but God could search the depths of God. 
 
 § 8. 
 
 The manner of the unity of the Three blessed 
 Persons is, and we may well think that it must always 
 be, beyond the reach of our intelligence, although it 
 cannot be contradictory to our reason. The only 
 
64 The Name ^'God'' applied to the Father only. 
 
 approach which we can make to a right understanding 
 of what is revealed Kes in the doctrine of the deriva- 
 tion of the Son and Spirit from the person of the 
 Father. Even careful divines are not always free 
 from ambiguity on this point. Sometimes, from their 
 language, the learner might imagine that there was 
 something still in the background, in which Father, 
 Son, and Spirit alike have the foundation of Their 
 being. One might fancy that they spoke, (somewhat 
 like the Sabellians) of one called "God," behind the 
 Three Persons in which He is known or of which He 
 is composed ; or of an abstract substance called " the 
 Godhead,'' wholly entering, indeed, into all Three 
 Persons, but in thought separable from all Three. 
 
 Such a conception would be contrary to the 
 language of Scripture. In the New Testament the 
 nape "God"— "God" as a Name, "God" with 
 the definite article and nothing else (6 Geoc) — is 
 absolutely identified with the Person of the Father. 
 It is never used of the Son or of the Spirit. It is 
 never used of the blessed Trinity in general, without 
 person specified. While " tlic Lord ' most frequently 
 denotes the Son, but sometimes the Father (S. James 
 iii. 9, KV.), sometimes the Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 17, 18), 
 " God " is always the Father. " To us there is but 
 one God, the Father " (1 Cor. viii. 6). Whenever the 
 word is used of the Son or of the Spirit, it is used as 
 a predicate, or with some descriptive and quaUfying 
 addition. " My Lord and my God " (S. John xx. 28). 
 " TliQ blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our 
 great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus ii. 13). 
 
The Father the sole Fountain of all Being, 65 
 
 The Word was with God (Trpoc roir Geor), and the 
 Word (Geoc nv) was God" (S. John i. 2). "Christ, 
 who is over all, God blessed for ever''^ (Rom. ix. 5). 
 The Son is God, but God is not the Son. The Spirit 
 is God, but God is not the Spirit. The Father is God, 
 and God is the Father. We can speak of God and 
 His Son ; we could never speak of God and His 
 Father. 
 
 Thus the unity of God is not to be looked for in 
 the bare notion of a community of " substance " 
 between the Three Divine Persons. Unity of sub- 
 stance would not of itself exclude Tritheism, any 
 more than it excludes the notion of multitude among 
 us men, who all share the same " substance " and yet 
 are independent units. God's unity is to be found in 
 the relation of the Son and Spirit with the Father, 
 from whom They derive. The Father— God — is the 
 sole Fountain of all being, uncreated as well as 
 created. The well-spring of His life is not in some 
 abstract " Godhead beyond Him ; it is in Himself. 
 The well-spring of the life of the Son and Spirit is 
 not in Themselves, but in Him. There is a sense, 
 indeed, in which They " have life in Themselves ; '' 
 but They have it in Themselves by " gift " from Him 
 (S. John V. 26). Not that, like creatures, They live by 
 a gift that might have been withheld — by a fiat of 
 His will. They are necessary to the very notion of 
 God. The Father would not be Himself without 
 Them ; God would not be the God He is. And yet 
 the existence of the Father — of God, that is — does not 
 depend upon the Son and Spirit in the same way as 
 
 F 
 
66 Stib ordination of Son and Spirit, 
 
 Theirs depends upon Him, The Father is made of 
 none, neither created, nor begotten/' and, it might be 
 added, " nor proceeding." On the other hand, I live," 
 said our Lord, not speaking of His human life only — 
 " I live because of the Father " (S. John vi. 57). 
 
 So the equality of the Son and Spirit with the 
 Father is not a dead parity. " In this Trinity none 
 is afore or after another," indeed, in point of time, for 
 " the whole Three Persons are co-eternal together ; " 
 there never was a moment when God was incomplete, 
 as He would have been without Son or Spirit. " None 
 is greater or less than another," in point of nature, 
 attributes, or character, for " the whole Three Persons 
 are co-equal ; " God would be still incomplete if Son 
 or Spirit were not in everything " such as the Father 
 is." And yet the ancient Greek teachers made no 
 mistake of doctrine when they interpreted the saying 
 of our Lord, " The Father is greater than I " (S. John 
 xiv. 28), to refer to the Father and the Son in Their 
 eternal relations, not to the humiliation of the Son 
 in the days of His flesh. The very fact of the com- 
 parison being made points, as they observe, to the 
 identity of nature in the Two ; but it reveals clearly 
 the subordination of the second Person to the first. 
 That subordination in no way involves (as perhaps an 
 unguarded use of the word might suggest) a posi- 
 tion for the Son resembling that of the creatures ; for 
 we are to " honour the Son even as we honour the 
 Father" (S. John v. 23) ; but within the imapproach- 
 able Godhead the Son takes the second place, not the 
 first. He is " equal to the Father as touching His 
 
Sttbordination consistent with Equality, 67 
 
 Godhead," but He is inferior to the Father/' not only 
 " as touching His manhood/' but also as touching His 
 Sonship. There is nothing in the Father which He 
 does not bestow upon the Son by the very act of 
 begetting Him, for fatherhood is the transmission to 
 another of the parent's own nature ; but there is 
 nothing in the Son which He does not owe to the 
 Father. He has no initiative of His own, either in 
 thought or in action ; nor has the Holy Ghost. The 
 Son's life is a life of eternal obedience, which makes 
 up its joy. The Father alone has the initiative. 
 
 The Son can do nothing of Himself, except He seeth 
 the Father doing it" (S. John v. 19). "As I hear, I 
 judge" (ver. 30). **'The Spirit of truth shall guide 
 you unto all the truth ; for He shall not speak from 
 Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He 
 speak" (S. John xvi. 13). 
 
 Nor may we think that in this way the power or 
 wisdom of the Son and Spirit is limited. Not at all ; 
 these words only explain the mode and condition of 
 Their limitless thought and action ; and they are fol- 
 lowed up by sayings like these : " What things soever 
 He " — the Father — " doeth, these the Son also doeth 
 in like manner ; for the Father loveth the Son, and 
 showeth Him all things that Himself doeth " (S. John 
 v. 19). And again, "All things that the Father hath 
 are Mine ; therefore said I that He " — the Spirit of 
 truth — " taketh of Mine, and shall show it unto you " 
 (S. John xvi. 15). There is but one cogTiition in the 
 Divine Being, although the Father, the Son, and the 
 Spirit partake in the cognition in different ways. 
 
68 Unity of Will in the Trinity. 
 
 There is but one movement of will in whatever the 
 blessed Trinity wills, although each o£ the Three joins 
 in the movement of will in a manner peculiar to Him- 
 self. Whatever any one of the Trinity does, the act is 
 common to all the Trinity, although each does it in a 
 mode incommunicable to the other Two. 
 
 This it is which makes, we may saj^-, the true 
 oneness of the Eternal Trinity. God is Love ; and 
 the union of the Three is not one of barren necessity. 
 It is a free and living union, in which all are bound 
 together by an absolute outpouring of each to other 
 in love. We may think of the joy which the Father 
 has in giving, — in communicating without reserve, to 
 the Son, "all the fulness" (Col. i. 19) of His being, 
 draining Himself, to the very last ray of glory, to 
 bestow it all on Him, and finding it all the more His 
 own because lavished freely on the Only Begotten. 
 And it is the joy of the Son to receive, — to feel the 
 infinite flow of the Fathers love concentrated in 
 Himself ; and, in the gratitude which must always be 
 a part of filial love, we may understand, to some 
 extent, the gladness with which He welcomes most 
 those wishes of the Father which will cost most to 
 Himself, the pure pride with which He reflects that 
 He mixes nothing of His own with what the Father 
 give« Him. The Spirit likewise has His joy in 
 making known, — in perfecting fellowship and keeping 
 the eternal love alive by that incessant sounding of 
 the deeps which makes the heart of the Father known 
 to tlie Son, and the heart of the Son to the Father. 
 None of the Three adorable Persons has, or ever had. 
 
Moral Aspect of the Divine Unity. 69 
 
 or ever could have, or ever could wish to have, any- 
 thing of His own, peculiar to Himself, not common to 
 the whole Trinity, — except, of course, that special 
 relationship to the others which constitutes His dis- 
 tinctive personality. It is the glory of Them all to be 
 One, not by a mere metaphysical identity of nature, 
 but also (if we may dare to say so) by a moral living 
 for and in each other, in a mutual devotion such as 
 serves as an example for men. " The glory which 
 Thou hast given Me I have given them ; that they 
 may be one, even as We are one." "That they all 
 may be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I 
 in Thee, that they also may be in Us " (S. John xvii. 
 22, 21). 
 
Chapter III. 
 
 The Christian doctrine of O'eation contrasted with Pantheism — Gods 
 Ptcrpose in Creation — The Christian doctrine contrasted with Deism 
 — Source of Creation in the Eternal Word — Immaiience of the Word 
 as a principle of Order — Doctri7ie of the Angels — Science and Reve- 
 latioji — The Alosaic account of Creation as a progressive Work — 
 Ma7i the croivn of Creation. 
 
 § 1- 
 
 The doctrine of the Holy Trinity leads in two direc- 
 tions to a true view o£ Creation. In the first place, 
 by helping us to see that God is independent of all 
 external to Himself, and that He already has within 
 Himself all that He needs, for life, for consciousness, 
 for love, for bliss, it makes us perceive that Creation 
 is indeed Creation. The world had once a definite 
 beginning ; at the first beat of time it sprang into a 
 course of historical existence. And the act of Creation 
 is one of pure free-will. There was no outward com- 
 pulsion upon God to create ; no blind instinct from 
 within impelled Him to do it, without His knowing 
 why. It produced no change in His internal life 
 He liad ever been exactly what He is now and ever 
 will be, world without end. No new powers came 
 
No Pantheistic Confiision zuith the Wo7'ld, 71 
 
 to Him through the action, nor was He feehng His 
 way to a more vivid sense of life. The unique 
 language used by S. James, apparently, of the second 
 creation, applies also to the first, when he says, 
 " Because it liked Him {^ov\y\%dq) " — -or rather, by 
 an act of liking " — He brought us forth by a word 
 of truth '\ (S. James i. 18). He knew what He was 
 about, and He need never have created had He not 
 chosen to do so ; it was an exhibition of His sovereign 
 and irresponsible pleasure. And that which He 
 created forms no part of Himself. However closely 
 the Creator may connect Himself with His creature 
 there is no passing of the one into the other. Though 
 God, the Father of all, is through all " and in all," 
 nevertheless He is above all " (Eph. iv. 6). He 
 stands well off from the world, and the world from 
 Him ; and although it is His continual presence in all 
 things which sustains them in being, and without 
 Him they could not be, yet they are not mere phantom 
 existences, wonderful puppets playing in His fancy 
 and made conscious of their own and others' playing ; 
 but He has given to them a real substantive being of 
 their own, a true creaturely dignity which the Creator 
 Himself respects. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity 
 frees us from the confusions of Pantheism, by which 
 in one way or another God and the world are mixed 
 together and identified. 
 
 § 2. 
 
 The motive of God in creation was undouotedly 
 benevolent. As S. Athanasius says, He gi'udged 
 
72 GocTs Purpose in Creating 
 
 existence to nothing." I£ we are the handiwork of 
 God, we are the handiwork of love. God made us 
 because He wished to do us good, and had a magnifi- 
 cent " purpose " for us in view. Knowing the wealth 
 of wisdom and beauty and love that was in Himself 
 and His Son and Holy Ghost, He could not refrain 
 from sharing the pure enjoyment of it with beings 
 other than Himself. In this sense we may even say 
 that God's nature compelled Him to create, for had He 
 not done so, a love could have been imagined more 
 perfect than was displayed. At least it was becoming 
 for a perfect love to create, and what becomes Him, 
 God does. Acute thinkers, indeed, like John Stuart 
 Mill, have doubted whether benevolence towards His 
 creatures was the sole or the main purpose in the 
 Creator's mind. Mill's reason for the doubt was the 
 incidental misery and pain in nature ; but he should 
 have seen that benevolence is very different from love. 
 Love is prepared to take deeper and sterner measures 
 than benevolence, which is, by itself, a shallow thing, 
 it may, however, be conceded that the creation of the 
 world is not due to a love which has no other object 
 besides the world. We are plainly told in one passage 
 that all things exist, not only by means of the Father, 
 but "for His sake" (Heb. ii. 10, g^' Sv). As plainly, 
 though in a somewliat different form, we are told that 
 all things have been created by means of the Son 
 of God's love, " and with a view to Him" (Col. i. 16, 
 ttc avTov). And again, in an ascription where it is 
 difficult to tell whether the Father or the Son is 
 meant, we read, For out of Him, and by means 
 
His own Glory and Love of the CreaHtrc. 73 
 
 of Him, and with a view to Him, are all things" 
 (Rom. xi. 36, avrov). Assuredly God created us 
 for His own glory. We are instruments for the mani- 
 festation of His character. But the two ends are one 
 and the same. If the Father created the world to 
 give it as a kingdom to the Son of His love, over 
 which the Son might reign as its Firstborn, and if the 
 Son did His part in the creation in order to reveal by 
 it the glory of His Father, the interests of the world 
 itself were in no wise neglected, nor could they be. 
 The true glory of God could never have been revealed 
 through a world for which He did not care. There 
 might have been an exhibition of skill and might, but 
 not of love, and love — wise and righteous love — is the 
 true glory of God. The more God loves the world, 
 the more deeply must He reveal Himself to it ; and 
 this, so far as we can see. He could never have done 
 in a government of mere benevolence, from which all 
 pain and suffering were excluded. Nor can we shut 
 off the second creation from the first ; and the second 
 creation leaves no room to doubt our Maker s motive. 
 The Father and the Son glorify each other, and the 
 Holy Spirit glorifies both, by vying as it were with 
 each other to exhibit the love which each bears to the 
 world. It was an act of self-sacrifice when God 
 vouchsafed to give birth to a free universe; and in 
 proportion to the depths of the self-sacrifice was the 
 joy which attended it. " The glory of the Lord — 
 that display of His love for which we were created — 
 " shall endure for ever : the Lord shall rejoice in His 
 works" (Ps. civ. 31), 
 
74 No Deistic Sepm^ation 
 
 % 3. 
 
 At the same time as the doctrine of the Trinity 
 frees us from Pantheism, it frees us also from the 
 difficulties of the opposite error of Deism. Deism 
 (along with modern Judaism and Islam) not only 
 puts a great chasm between the world, as at present 
 existing, and its Maker, but it offers no help towards 
 understanding how the world ever came to be made 
 at all. The problem, when seriously considered, is 
 by no means an easy one. All the early Gnostic 
 systems sprang out of a desire to solve it. However 
 a Supreme Being — presumed to be a unit — could 
 suddenly find himself with a material world under 
 his hand, the Gnostic thinkers could not divine ; nor 
 can any one else. The contrast, they saw, was too 
 violent. Flights of emanations and 8eons were 
 imagined, each in succession coming lower, until one 
 had been produced — at a great distance from the 
 abstract and absolute God — debased enough to be 
 what was called the Demiurge, or the common World- 
 maker. Gnosticism, however, was wrong on two 
 cardinal points. It was wrong in considering the 
 world unworthy to be the work of the Most High ; 
 and it did not see (any more than Arianism) that the 
 very noblest of emanations must, in fact, stand as 
 far beneath the absolute God as any weed or stone. 
 In trying to express the distance between God and 
 the world, it did, in fact, bring God hopelessly down ; 
 for the notion of any sort of demigod can only be 
 entertained by those whose thoughts of God are low. 
 
between God and the World. 75 
 
 The real difference comes in between God and what 
 is not God. The things which are not God may 
 rightly be compared among themselves, and may be 
 arranged in a true hierarchy; but when compared 
 with God Himself, one thing bears the comparison no 
 better than another. Nothing created can, in reality, 
 fill the gap, and the Gnostic fabrications leave but 
 a form of Deism after all. The only doctrine which 
 affords any true help towards connecting God and the 
 world is that same Christian doctrine of the Trinity 
 which makes so sharp a difference between them. 
 
 § 4. 
 
 The teaching of Holy Scripture concerning the 
 Logos, or Word of God, has already been touched 
 upon. Whatever were the sources, Alexandrine or 
 Palestinian, to which S. John's language is histori- 
 cally to be traced, we see in the prologue to his 
 Gospel the truth which gives the starting-point for 
 creation. God is no sterile and motionless unit. He 
 has from all eternity within Himself a rich fulness of 
 life and thought, in which His whole heart finds 
 a satisfying exercise. This fulness of His life and 
 thought is in the Word, and inseparable from the 
 Word, so that, on the one hand, no thought or move- 
 ment of will can take place in God without taking 
 place through the Word, nor, on the other hand, can 
 the Word ever have been an empty, meaningless word, 
 destitute of that fulness of life and thought. God 
 cannot be conceived of as having at any time been 
 silent and mute towards Himself, holding no converse 
 
76 Ideal Pre-existence of Things in the Word. 
 
 with Himself; but this converse He does and must 
 hold by His Word, which is at once spoken and 
 speaking. The Word is spoken, inasmuch as the 
 thought is not primarily the Word's own thought, but 
 springs out of God. The Word is speaking, inasmuch 
 as the thought is appropriated by a true personal 
 energy in the Word that is spoken, and is returned in 
 its fulness to Him who spoke it, by means of that 
 Spirit in whom God and His Word are joined. It 
 seems probable that " Word," spoken and speaking, 
 more truly represents the biblical conception of the 
 Logos " than the more technical term Reason.'' 
 Word is a larger conception than that of " Reason." 
 It gives a more objective reality to the Logos, as 
 truly uttered, and standing in a certain sense outside 
 of Him who utters it. And at the same time the 
 thought of the Word " includes all that the narrower 
 term contains. Speech is not possible without reason. 
 The Word, therefore, is the summing up and, if the 
 metaphor may be allowed, the precipitation of all 
 the infinite multiplicity of the thoughts of God, in 
 a harmonious and logical perfection. That inex- 
 haustible wealth of ideas which God possesses does 
 not float vaguely and disconnectedly — in solution, so 
 to speak — through His mind ; but, in His Word, it is 
 formed into a true cosmos, an ordered kingdom, an 
 ever-replenished and perfectly arranged living treasure- 
 house, which the Holy Ghost eternally uses in every 
 part for the refection of the Father and the Son. 
 The act by which the Father begets the Son is the 
 act l)y which He gains the true grasp of His thought; 
 
The Word the Beginning of the Creation!' 77 
 
 and, conversely, the process by which He realises the 
 total fertility of His resources, gives birth to Him who 
 is "God Only-born" (S. John i. 18, the true reading 
 and translation). 
 
 Thus it is that the Eternal Son is " the Beginning 
 of the creation of God" (Rev. iii. 14), not as being 
 the first thing created, but as being the deep principle 
 by which any creation becomes possible. By Him 
 all things were made." His everlasting birth is the 
 first step towards creation. Among the glorious 
 thoughts which were included before all time in the 
 revelation of God to Himself in the Word, was the 
 thought of an universe of things. He perceived Him- 
 self able to give existence to something which should 
 be not God. The image of a whole world of various 
 beings, linked together in a wonderful order, and all 
 looking to Him as their Author, was ever present to 
 His mind. That " manifold wisdom " (Eph. iii. 10), 
 which has been historically displayed in the world 
 and the Church, was already present as an " eternal 
 purpose in Christ Jesus our Lord." In a tranquil 
 and natural manner the author of the Book of 
 Proverbs runs on describing the activities of Wisdom 
 — which is one aspect of the Word — before and in 
 creation, as if he had scarcely observed the difference. 
 " The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way, 
 before His works of old. I was set up from everlast- 
 ing, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 
 When there were no depths, I was brought forth ; 
 when there were no fountains abounding with water. 
 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, 
 
78 Relation of " Wisdom to Creation. 
 
 was I brought forth : while as yet He had not made 
 the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the 
 dust of the world." Thus far Wisdom is speaking of 
 Her part in the uncreated world. Without Her the 
 " works " cannot be planned ; but in Her they clearly 
 are present as possibilities, and as intended to be 
 produced. They are already contemplated as true 
 ideas, before they become outward realities. Though 
 not yet made, they are ready and waiting to be made. 
 But the point of transition is scarcely marked, as the 
 Speaker continues, " When He prepared the heavens, 
 I was there : when He set a compass upon the face 
 of the depth : when He established the clouds above : 
 when He strengthened the fountains of the deep: 
 when He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters 
 should not pass His commandment : when He ap- 
 pointed the foundations of the earth : then I was by 
 Him, as one brought up with Him : and I was daily 
 His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in 
 the habitable part of His earth ; and My delights were 
 with the sons of men " (Prov. viii. 22 — 31). 
 
 The thoughts of God, as they confront Him in the 
 Eternal World, are not mere imaginations ; they have 
 a true, though not yet a separate, existence. And so 
 the view which is implicitly contained in Solomon's 
 praise of Wisdom is twice set before us in so many 
 words in the New Testament, though hidden from 
 the ordinary English reader behind inferior readings 
 and punctuations. There can be little doubt that we 
 ought, in S. John's prologue, to read, "That which 
 hath been made was life in Him" (S. John i. 3, 4). 
 
Creation not making out of Nothing. 79 
 
 There was no sudden and violent apparition of a world 
 unthought of before and unprepared for. Before it 
 came into a separate existence of its own, that world, 
 which we now observe as having begun to be, was 
 already to be found, completely thought out, in the 
 fulness of the life of the Word. To God it already 
 %ms. It was not strictly made of nothing. It did 
 not come out of a dead nonentity, for already it " was 
 life in the Word.'^ 
 
 In the Apocalypse the same thought is once more 
 expressed. When the elders shall at last witness the 
 completed adoration of the four living things which 
 symbolize the animated creation, they will, it says, 
 fall down before God, saying, " Worthy art Thou, our 
 Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honour 
 and the power : for Thou didst create all things, and 
 because of Thy will they were, and were created" 
 (Rev. iv. 11). Origen was, indeed, wrong when he 
 spoke of creation as an eternal fact, like the genera- 
 tion of the Son, but only because he confounded the 
 two modes of existence together, and so lost the true 
 beginning of the world. '^All things were" because 
 they were present to the mind of God in His Word. 
 It was not by any necessity that they were there, but 
 " because of His will." The thought of God is free. 
 But God was not content to have them exist solely to 
 His own consciousness. In His love and condescension 
 He gave them being, and, when it pleased Him, " they 
 were created." At a word they sprang from the womb 
 of His thought into an actual life of their own. 
 
8o Immanence of the Wo7'd in all Things. 
 
 §5. 
 
 As before time the ideas of things contained in the 
 Word were ranged in due order, so it was also in the 
 actual production of the things. They did not issue 
 forth, all ready-made at once, and at haphazard ; nor 
 were the materials thrown out to fashion themselves 
 for themselves as best they might. The Word, in 
 whom they had been life before, was still present as 
 their guiding principle. Not only were " all things 
 made through Him," but " apart from Him was nothing 
 made, no not one" (S. John i. 3). His immanence, 
 that is, was felt, pervading all, sustaining all, or 
 " bearing the universe along by the utterance of His 
 power " (Heb. i. 3), and giving unity and system to 
 all ; for " in Him the universe consists," or " holds 
 together" (Col. i. 17). The invariable sequences of 
 nature, the regularity and method of all her pro- 
 cesses, the uniformity with which she works, the 
 adaptation of things to their environment, the laws 
 of gravitation, the laws of number and geometry, 
 and all the mysteries which science developes and 
 explores, above all, the progress and rise which have 
 been observed both in the world and in man — inex- 
 plicable if there were no Divine power behind them — 
 are expressions of the presence of that Word, or 
 Wisdom, which " reacheth from one end to another,' 
 both in time and space, " mightily and sweetly ordering 
 all things" (Wisd. viii. 1), and making all nature to 
 be a visible word of God — a true, though partial, 
 revelation of His mind. 
 
Angels the first created Beings. 8i 
 
 §6. 
 
 Holy Scripture would lead us to suppose that the 
 material heavens and earth were not the first product 
 of the creative energy of the Word. A chorus of 
 angelic beings witnesses and salutes the first appear- 
 ance of the newly founded world. Where wast thou 
 when I laid the foundations of the earth ? Who hath 
 laid the measures thereof, or Vv^ho hath stretched the 
 line upon it ? Who laid the corner-stone thereof, when 
 the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 
 God shouted for joy V (Job xxxviii. 4 — 7). It is pre- 
 carious, of course, to press the language of such a 
 poetical apostrophe for purposes of doctrine ; but what 
 we learn elsewhere of the relation of angels to the 
 world makes it seem natural that the purely spiritual 
 creatures should be the first to come into being. For 
 they are not the outcome of the different parts of 
 the universe which they represent and influence — 
 generated by the growth and development of the 
 things. Rather, we may consider them as a kind of 
 spiritual substratum, in which the material things are 
 planted. They form a preparatory creation, to receive 
 what is to follow. It is, perhaps, for this reason that, 
 in the vision of Jacob, and our Lord's interpretation of 
 it, the angels are seen ascending first, and descending 
 after : their natural place is in the world below (S. 
 John i. 51). 
 
 Our knowledge of what angels are must necessarily 
 be very limited. Our sole authoritj^ regarding them 
 is Holy Scripture ; and in endeavouring to group to- 
 
 G 
 
82 Relation of Angels to Nature. 
 
 gether some of the notices of them scattered on the 
 face of the Bible, we do well to remember that much 
 of the Bible language is symbolical, and is not intended 
 for the purpose of teaching us the natural history of 
 spiritual beings, any more than of earthly ones. 
 
 What the numbers of the angels may be we can 
 only guess ; but there seems nothing unreasonable in 
 the suggestion that everything has its spiritual 
 counterpart, so to speak, and that, as Origen felt, not 
 a plant of grass or a fly is without its " angel/' We 
 find operations of nature of greater and of less 
 magnitude spoken of as committed to these spiritual 
 agents. We read of an angel " that hath power over 
 fire " (Rev. xiv. 18), and of angels holding the four 
 winds of the earth " (Rev. vii. 1). The figurative 
 language of the Apocalypse reproduces that of earlier 
 books of the Bible. He maketh winds His angels, a 
 flash of fire His ministers " (Ps. civ. 4). " He rode 
 upon a cherub, and did fly : He came flying upon the 
 wings of the wind " (Ps. xviii. 10). It is but a gloss, 
 but we may believe it to be a true gloss, when the 
 action of an intermittent and healing spring is attri- 
 buted to an angel (S. John v. 4). An angel's descent 
 caused the earthquake on the morning of our Lord's 
 resurrection. The control of diseases, especially of an 
 epidemic sort, is distinctly assigned to angels. An 
 angel smites Herod with his horrible malady ; angels 
 annihilate the hosts of Sennacherib, and are seen with 
 outstretched hand over the plague-threatened city of 
 Jerusalem. They seem, with their native regularity, 
 well fitted to preside over the undeviating course of 
 
Appointed Guardians to Man. 83 
 
 nature, and are inseparably linked to it. Hence, in 
 the mystic throne upon which the Almighty moves 
 in Ezekiel's vision, symbolical of the universe, the 
 winged living creatures are vitally connected with a 
 complicated set o£ wheels, themselves full of eyes, and 
 penetrated by "the spirit of the living creature" 
 (Ezek. i. 20). Later speculations have not hesitated 
 to find an angel of the sun, and angels of the planets ; 
 nor is there anything improbable in the thought that 
 such living agencies regulate the movements of the 
 heavenly bodies, and that they may even have taken 
 an active part in developing both them and the things 
 of earth out of the primordial chaos. 
 
 But it is in connexion with man that their true 
 significance comes out. All nature exists for man ; 
 and the spirits, greater and less, which are so bound 
 up with nature, find their true vocation in ministering 
 to man. It seems probable that each man has his 
 special attendant spirit, representing him before God, 
 and in some ways acting on his behalf among men, so 
 that it is difficult sometimes to distinguish between 
 the man's own self-conscious " spirit or " ghost," and 
 his " angel." " Take heed that ye despise not one of 
 these little ones ; for I tell you that their angels in 
 heaven unceasingly look upon the face of My Father 
 which is in heaven " (S. Matt, xviii. 10). " She ran in 
 and announced that Peter stood before the door ; . . 
 but they said. It is his angel " (Acts xii. 15). How- 
 ever this may be—whether one particular guardian is 
 for life attached to every man, or many guardians at 
 once, or different guardians in succession and in bands. 
 
84 Their Ministrations to Man. 
 
 any of which would fit the language o£ the Bible — it 
 is indubitable that men who are endeavouring to rise 
 to the God-given dignity of human nature are special 
 objects of the uninterrupted care of angels. " Are they 
 not all ministerial spirits, perpetually sent forth on 
 service for the sake of those who are to inherit salva- 
 tion ? " (Heb. i. 14). If the word rendered " minis- 
 teriaF' Q^movfi^iKa) makes us think of their disciplined 
 and regular movements, as of some great temple-ritual 
 in which they bear their several parts, the word for 
 " service " (elc SiaKoviav) brings out their busy and 
 lowly attendance upon the needs of men. They supply, 
 whether unseen or on occasion seen, their bodily wants. 
 They shield them from accident (Ps. xci. 11, 12). They 
 protect them from fire and from Avild beasts (Dan. iii. 
 28 ; vi. 22). They can bring them food (1 Kings xix. 
 6), or turn the darkness into light, or open the iron 
 gates of a prison for them (Acts xii. 7, 10). By what 
 means the spiritual can work such eifects upon the 
 material we cannot tell, not even knowing by what 
 means our own spirits work upon our fleshly frames ; 
 but if it be true, as already suggested, that the 
 ordinary operations of nature are under their super- 
 vision, we need not be astonished at these special acts 
 of power over physical objects. Still, it is, perhaps, 
 easier to understand how they can be the bearers of 
 spiritual messages from God to men — of promise (Gen. 
 xxii. 15; S. Luke ii. 10), of rebuke (Judg. ii. 1), of 
 Avarning (S. Matt. ii. 13), of enlightenment (Dan. viii. 
 10), of comfort (Dan. x. 18) ; and how they can join iu 
 our pu])]ic worsliip witli satisfaction or the contrary 
 
Their Spiritttal Natttre, 85 
 
 (1 Cor. xi. 10), and can carry the aspirations and 
 prayers of men up to God (Rev. viii. 3). 
 
 The angels are pure spirits, without form, though 
 various symbolical shapes express them when they are 
 manifested to the senses : they appear sometimes as 
 young men ; sometimes as horses of fire and chariots 
 of fire (Zech. i. 8 ; 2 Kings vi. 17); sometimes, it 
 may be, as birds (1 Kings xvii. 6). So far as we are 
 aware, they have no manner of propagation. For this 
 reason it is, probably, that they are called sons of 
 God," as owing their existence to Him alone, without 
 the instrumentality of parentage (S. Luke xx. 36). 
 They are not bound together by a unity of substance 
 such as binds together men, or any other race of 
 animals, but stand or fall purely as individuals. 
 They cannot, strictly speaking, be divided into species 
 or kinds. Perhaps, therefore, no distinction other 
 than one of function is contained in the names of 
 Cherubim and Seraphim — the " Forms," which appear 
 to be the most closely allied to the physical creation 
 — and the "Burning ones," whose life appears to 
 be entirely occupied with adoring contemplation, 
 forming, as it were, a body-guard round the immediate 
 Presence, to burn up any evil thing which might 
 approach (Isa. vi. 2). 
 
 The pure spirituality of the angels, by virtue of 
 which they are able to hear and contemplate God, 
 through the Eternal Word, immediately, gives them 
 great power and great dignity (Ps. ciii. 20 ; 2 S. Pet. ii. 
 11). Their terrible and imperious strength is the first 
 thing observable in their apparitions. The prophet 
 
86 
 
 Their Power. 
 
 by the river Hidclekel (Dan. x. 8), and the Roman 
 soldiers at the sepulchre of our Lord, alike swooned 
 at the sight of an angel ; S. John, in the Apocalypse, 
 fell worshipping at the angel's feet. The spiritual 
 might and burning indignation in the face of S. 
 Stephen reminded the guilty Sanhedrin of an angelic 
 vision. Even in their tenderest ministrations, their 
 strength comes prominently into view. Daniel con- 
 fesses that the angel's touch has strengthened him 
 (Dan. X. 19); and when our Blessed Lord was seen 
 to " reel amid that solitary fight " in the garden, the 
 angel which appeared to Him did not merely soothe 
 or encourage Him, but — the word is a remarkable 
 word (fv(crxi5wv)— communicated to Him some inward 
 supporting force. In comparison with the angels, 
 man, in his present state, seems but a feeble creature. 
 He is subject for the time being to their control, and 
 they rule over him. Even the Incarnate Word Him- 
 self, during His earthly sojourn, was " made lower 
 a short space than the angels" (Heb. ii. 7), who 
 governed, in some sense, while they waited upon Him, 
 as they do with other men. In all their communica- 
 tions with men they show that they mean to be 
 believed and obeyed. ''I am Gabriel, that standeth 
 by in the presence of God ; . . . and lo, thou shalt be 
 mute, and not able to speak, until the day that these 
 things shall come to pass, because thou believest not 
 my words" (S. Luke i. 19, 20). They are not to be 
 trifled with, any more than physical nature itself, and 
 cannot leave the authoritative station in which the 
 Eternal Word has ranged tliem. 
 
Their Order. 
 
 87 
 
 The angels are not a mere multitude of isolated 
 spirits. They are camps, hosts, armies — Mahanaim, 
 Sabaoth (Gen. xxxii. 2 ; Ps. xxiv. 10). There are 
 Archangels as well as angels. S. Paul and S. Peter 
 half adopt a still larger nomenclature of angelic ranks, 
 though it is plain that they only borrow the nomen- 
 clature from teachers whose teaching they are in part 
 combating. Principalities and Authorities " is a 
 frequent phrase with them ; and at other times S. 
 Paul adds the titles of Thrones and Dominions and 
 Powers (Eph. i. 21 ; Col. i. 16). The extent of their 
 sway it is impossible to guess ; but they appear in 
 some way to have not only individual persons, but 
 large bodies of men and whole nations, subject to 
 them. There are " Princes " of Persia and Grecia, as 
 well as of the Chosen People (Dan. x. 20, 21) ; and in 
 something of the same way, it may be, the seven 
 Churches of Asia are represented as under the 
 management of seven " angels," whose character is 
 mysteriously one with that of the Churches under 
 them. Their power over men is not such as to destroy 
 human free will and responsibility ; yet it forms one 
 of the many conditions under which our freedom acts. 
 Those great moulding influences of which we speak 
 under such terms as the " spirit of the age " or 
 national character " may well be due to the unseen 
 " Principalities under whom we live. 
 
 Some Christian thinkers go so far as actually to 
 identify these influences with the angelic agencies, at 
 the cost, as it would seem, of the personal conscious- 
 ness and will of the angels. Our acquaintance with 
 
88 Their Personality. 
 
 the nature of pure spirits is so slight that we may 
 hardly deny the theory ; but the personal names given 
 to some of the blessed angels appear to teach that 
 some, at any rate, are more than vague and semi- 
 conscious influences. Besides the apocryphal Kaphael, 
 who guides Tobias, and Uriel, who communes with 
 Esdras, there is Gabriel, who visits Daniel and 
 Zacharias, and heralds the Incarnation to the blessed 
 Virgin. At the head of the whole spiritual hierarchy 
 stands a great being to whom, in a special way, the 
 championship of the Chosen People and its leaders 
 was committed. His name — Michael, "Who is like 
 God ? " — proclaims the unimaginable distance between 
 the mightiest of created essences and the Creator. 
 Though these mighty spirits are true " kings (jSacrt- 
 Xevovrcc)" and "lords (fcupteuovrec) " (1 Tim. vi. 15), 
 yet high above them is that Firstborn of all creation 
 in whom they were created (Col. i. 16) — whom S. John 
 saw riding forth to battle with His name on thigh 
 and garment, " King of kings, and Lord of lords," 
 while a higher title declares Him to be the " Word of 
 God," in whom is made the complete revelation of 
 God to His creatures, and a third name, still more 
 august, is there, expressing, not His office or His 
 work, but His true personal glory — "a name which 
 no man knoweth, but He Himself" (Rev. xix. 16, 
 13, 12). 
 
 §7. 
 
 To gain a knowledge of the liistory of the material 
 " lioavcns and earth/' theology must sit at the feet 
 
Dogma and Science. 
 
 89 
 
 of science. We have to look to man's investigation 
 rather than to God's revelation. Or rather, we look 
 for God's revelation to come to us in a different form. 
 For if the reasoning faculty in man is (as S. Athanasius 
 teaches) " a kind of shadow of the Divine Word," and 
 if the order in nature is also due to the immanent 
 energy of the Divine Word, then whatever human 
 reason truly recognises in the order of the world 
 about us is a true revelation from God. We must 
 not, indeed, too severely blame the timidity of those 
 believers who resist as long as they can a new light of 
 science because it seems at variance with revealed 
 dogma. It is not only natural, but right, that men 
 should refuse to accept new and momentous theories 
 until they have been well tested, and that the apparent 
 sense of Scripture should not be discarded as if it 
 were of no importance. But all that a true believer 
 will require is that the theories of science should be 
 scientifically made good ; and when once this is done, 
 he will accept them with gratitude. He knows that 
 Truth cannot be divided against Itself, that is, Christ 
 against Christ (S. John xiv. 6). The new light may 
 alter his interpretation of a text of Scripture, or of 
 a book of it; it may require a readjustment of his 
 conception of Inspiration as a whole ; it may modify 
 his view of some important doctrine. But he will be 
 certain that nothing can be lost by progress in true 
 knowledge, and that the view so modified of Christ, 
 of the world, of the Bible, of Providence, of man, will 
 result in a richer and more living doctrine, and lead 
 to a more profound adoration of a God whose won- 
 
90 
 
 The Mosaic Account of Creation 
 
 drous works declare His Name to be nearer than we 
 thought. 
 
 § 8. 
 
 This is not the place in which to attempt an ex- 
 haustive reconciliation between the first chapter of 
 Genesis and the discoveries of modern science. The 
 design of the first chapter of Genesis (it has often 
 been pointed out) is not to teach us scientific facts, 
 but the w^ay in which scientific facts are religiously to 
 be regarded. A series of visions passes before the 
 recipient of the revelation, like the visions of Isaiah 
 and Ezekiel, for him to interpret as he may. Selected 
 facts in the history of nature are depicted to him, so 
 grouped and in such an order as to convey to a 
 spiritual intelligence all that is necessary to be known 
 of the history of the relation of the world to its 
 Creator. That any part of the account in Genesis is 
 scientifically inexact does not appear to be proven; 
 but even if it were, the object of an artist is not 
 always to copy line for line what he sees before him. 
 It produces the required effect more livingly, nature is 
 more truthfully portrayed, by following a different 
 method. So it may be with the first chapter of 
 Genesis. The main thing is to produce a true effect 
 by bringing out certain great truths. 
 
 It is there seen, in the first instance, that matter 
 is not eternal, but that it had an historical beginning, 
 and that the sole cause of its beginning was the will 
 of God. Next, we are made to observe that tilings 
 were not in the beginning such as we see them now* 
 
Religions rather than Scientific, 91 
 
 They have only attained to their present condition 
 through a series of acts of Divine power. At first 
 t]iere is but a seething chaos of forces and atoms, 
 " without form and void." This chaos comes step 
 by step to be an organic and harmonious world ; but 
 the transformation is not due to accidental causes, 
 nor to some natural property inherent in the material 
 particles themselves apart from God. It is traced to 
 the action o£ the Creator Spirit. Even if we. were 
 to translate, And a wind of God," — instead of " the 
 Spirit of God/' — "was hovering upon the face of 
 the waters," yet that phrase would not be explained 
 by saying that it was an Orientalism for a " mighty 
 wind." It would testify that our God was not the 
 God of the Deist, making the world and leaving 
 it to itself ; and the Christian would still see, under 
 the figurative description of the rushing mighty wind, 
 the action of the Divine Spirit imparting life and 
 order and beauty. And each new movement of 
 the creation upwards to a more perfect system and 
 a richer differentiation is (in the same way) ascribed 
 to a voice of God, a free utterance of the Divine 
 Word. The days " which mark the stages of 
 development are probably to be taken in their literal 
 sense, not, indeed, as indicating the length of time 
 which the development historically took, but as the 
 symbolical framing of the successive visions to the 
 Seer's eye. Three times over, and only three times, 
 a truly creative act is discerned ; first, in the pro- 
 duction of the primeval atoms out of which the uni- 
 verse is constructed ; second, in the introduction of 
 
92 Nature ciclminates in Man. 
 
 sentient animal life, all else, apparently, even to the 
 growth o£ organic vegetable life, being treated as only 
 an arrangement of what already exists ; and lastly, 
 in the movement by which man is created in the 
 image of God (Gen. i. 1, 21, 27). Thus, while Moses 
 does not enter upon a detailed and scientific account, 
 he at least prepares the believer to hear of an evolu- 
 tion in some form ; and to hear that that evolution 
 all tends, with a Divine unity of purpose, to the 
 genesis of man. All the efforts of nature are bent 
 upon producing a man. When man at last stands 
 upon the earth, the natural development is finished. 
 Then comes the " seventh day," expressive of rest in 
 an accomplished work, ushering in a new and higher 
 kind of progress. 
 
 §9. 
 
 The infinite development of which man is capable 
 makes him the lord and heir of all things, under God. 
 His intelligence enables him even now to rule himself, 
 and to control the animal and the material world. 
 
 The earth hath God given to the children of men " 
 (Ps. cxv. 16). Man is to subdue it (Gen. i. 28) ; and, 
 sometimes by slow steps and sometimes (as of late 
 years) by great strides, science advances towards the 
 fulfilment of the task, although an immensity yet 
 remains to be fulfilled. It is man's kingdom, to be 
 brought under a reign of holy law. But his powers 
 are as yet only in their nonage, nor can he yet work 
 the wonders upon creation which he is destined to 
 work when tlie great regeneration takes place. The 
 
His destined Superiority to Angels, 93 
 
 very angels who now govern the universe are only 
 temporary regents on his behalf — " tutors and 
 stewards " (Gal. iv. 2), — to apply to them what S. 
 Paul himself applies somewhat differently — under 
 whom he and his possessions are, by the Father's 
 will, until the appointed day. They have not man's 
 interminable spring of progress in themselves; and 
 therefore, mighty as they are, it is not to them that 
 God has " subjected the world to come," but to that 
 being whom, even now in his weakness, God deigns 
 to visit so graciously and so richly (Heb. ii. 5, 6). To 
 the great Head of humanity all principalities and 
 powers are already subject, and hereafter they will be 
 so to all the true members. We shall judge angels 
 (1 Cor. vi. 2, 8), as well as the world, not in the sense 
 of acquitting or condemning merely, but in the lai'ger 
 sense of governing and presiding over them. 
 
Chapter IV. 
 
 0im an& j^t^ dFalK 
 
 Man, the created Image of God — His Body a7id its earthly Origin — His 
 Spirit — His Soul— Liability to Teinptatio7i — The Knoivledge oj 
 Good and Evil — The Devil, and the Fall of Man — Unity of the 
 Hitman Race — Tradticianism and Creatianisjn — Hereditary Sin — 
 Enslaveme7it of the Will — Mankind still capable of Restoration, 
 
 §1. 
 
 Looking upon man as we now see him, we are con- 
 scious of looking upon a wreck, but a wreck which 
 still retains enough of the original constitution to 
 enable us to conjecture what he is intended for. Man 
 is intended to be, in the world, what the Eternal Son 
 is above the world. He is the created image of God, 
 as the Word is the uncreated. Other creatures reflect 
 fragments of the mind of God, but in man God is 
 reflected whole. A rock, a tree, an animal, have no 
 meaning by themselves; they only gain a meaning 
 through their connexion with other things, and 
 especially with man. But man, though essentially 
 bound up with the world, has a meaning by himself. 
 He is a complete world in himself. Wc cannot say 
 what special faculties or special grouping of faculties 
 in man constitutes the image of God in him ; for man, 
 
Mosaic Accotmt of his Origin, 95 
 
 with all his complexity, is a single and undivided 
 whole. There is something in him corresponding 
 to everything that is in God. The uncreated Image 
 of God contains explicitly, in one comprehensive con- 
 sciousness, every motion of the Divine life; the 
 created image contains the same implicitly, in a con- 
 sciousness destined to expand for ever, drawing for 
 ever nearer to the Divine fulness, while for ever 
 finding an unexhausted ocean beyond him (Eph. iii. 
 19, residing 7rXi?pw0)?rf). 
 
 §2. 
 
 Man is at once a summing up of that which was 
 before him, and a point of new departure. The say- 
 ing, " Let Us make man in Our image " (Gen. i. 26), 
 is in no way opposed to the modern theory of our 
 development (so far as the animal nature is concerned) 
 out of lower forms of life. Indeed, it would be per- 
 fectly grammatical to translate, Let Us make man 
 into Our image " — at once suggesting that a higher 
 potency was conferred on an already existing thing. 
 This, however, is unnecessary. Man became man, 
 whatever he may have been before, by being made 
 in the image of God. That gift constituted his 
 humanity. Out of what material he was thus made 
 is not mentioned in the verse which we have quoted. 
 In another verse, which by some is supposed to con- 
 tain a different tradition, and has hastily been judged 
 incompatible with the first, we read, " The Lord God 
 formed man, of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life " (Gen. ii. 7). 
 
g6 Mans Body formed of the Dust. 
 
 Without disloyalty to these words, we may, in the 
 light o£ modern discoveries, believe that the dust was 
 already animated dust before the breathing spoken of, 
 and ages may have elapsed between the " forming 
 and the " breathing/' For the object of the sacred 
 writer is to teach the lowly origin of man's physical 
 constitution — that on one side he is composed of 
 mere material particles, " of the earth, earthy ; " 
 and this is equally shown, whether we believe the 
 first man's body to have been fresh formed out of its 
 chemical elements, or produced out of earlier living 
 organisms. But we may see a special fitness in the 
 latter thought if man is indeed to be the meeting- 
 point of heaven and earth. Each human being now, 
 they tell us, in the rudimentary stages of his growth, 
 passes through phases similar to those of the lower 
 animals. In a sense, each of us gathers up and re- 
 capitulates in his own body the forms of life below 
 him. And that which thus takes place in the speci- 
 men may well be true of the genus. We welcome the 
 continuity of physical life which binds us to all that 
 went before us and to all that on earth surrounds us. 
 The body which is the result of that long evolution is 
 one of which we have no need to be ashamed. It is 
 itself a noble thing. It is not yet all that it will be, 
 but even now it has something of the glory of the 
 Image of God, being the true expression in flesh of 
 that which man at present really is. 
 
The human Spirit, 
 
 97 
 
 § 3. 
 
 Upon the bodily side man stands among the 
 animals as the noblest o£ them ; but he has another 
 side by which he holds communion with God and 
 invisible things. He has a spirit as well as a body — a 
 spirit not like that " spirit of the beast which goeth 
 downward to the earth," having but an attraction to 
 the things of sense, and that an unreflecting attrac- 
 tion ; " the spirit of the sons of man is one which 
 is ascending" (Eccles. iii. 21). The spirit is in us 
 the element of self -consciousness and freedom. By it 
 we see our true relation to the things of sense, and are 
 able to claim affinities above them. It is a gift from 
 God (Eccles. xii. 7), and unless it be unfairly tampered 
 with, it must by its very constitution " ascend," and 
 aspire after God and what is Godlike. In it is the 
 seat of the higher, the only true, free, will, as opposed 
 to the random animal impulses of the flesh. There 
 lies the power of conscience, by which we are able to 
 judge our own actions, comparing them with what we 
 see to be the right standard, and condemning our- 
 selves when we have allowed the true will to be 
 mastered by the inferior appetite. Such a spirit is 
 not and cannot be (so far as we can understand) a 
 product of natural evolution, but comes direct from 
 the hand of God. 
 
 §4. 
 
 Man is thus a dual being, living at once in two 
 worlds, not two separate lives, but one life in the two. 
 
 H 
 
98 Difference of Soitl and Spii^it. 
 
 The spirit lives in the body, and acts through it 
 and makes it its vehicle. The meeting-point o£ spirit 
 and body appears to lie in the souL "The Lord 
 God formed man out o£ the dust of the ground'' — 
 there is his body — and breathed into his nostrils the 
 breath of life " — there is his spirit — ''and man became 
 a living soul/' Particular expressions like ''living 
 soul " and " breath of life " might be used of other 
 beings than man; bvit the unique act of the Divine 
 inbreathing gives in this instance a different value to 
 the words. The same tripartite division of man's 
 being is distinctly brought out by S. Paul. " May the 
 very God of peace sanctify you entire, and may your 
 spirit and soul and body be preserved unimpaired 
 unblameably, in the coming of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ" (1 Thess. v. 23). Once more, the difference 
 between soul and spirit is sharply marked in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews. " The word of God is alive 
 and energetic, piercing even to the dividing of soul 
 and spirit, of joints and marrow " (Heb. iv. 12). 
 And a whole array of thoughts gather about the 
 adjectives derived from the two words respectively. 
 " Spiritual " things (Trvevjuarffca), stand in the sharpest 
 contrast with " soul " things (^v\iKa), which latter are 
 represented in our versions by the word " natural " 
 (1 Cor. ii. 14; xv. 44), and even ''sensuar' (S. James 
 iii. 15; S. Jude 19), while the margin of the Revised 
 Version suggests the ambiguous rendering ^' animal." 
 Holy Scripture, therefore, although frequently lusing 
 the word " soul " in a popular sense, eitlier for tho 
 wliolc iirmatei'ial part of man, or for the man himself 
 
Saving and Losing of the SotiL 99 
 
 in the fulness of his individuality, seems, when it speaks 
 with psychological precision, to join the soul more 
 closely with the body than with the spirit. Though 
 capable of exaltation, the soul more naturally gravitates 
 downwards. In this animal, or sensual, or natural, 
 region lies the great struggle of life. The soul is torn 
 by the conflict between flesh and spirit. Math both 
 of which it is so vitally one. It is their debateable 
 ground, and the winning of it is the winning of the 
 man himself. His very life is at stake. The one 
 great business is the acquisition of the soul (Heb. x. 
 39). The "loss of the soul" (S. Mark viii. 36) is the 
 irreparable loss. That loss is (so far as this life is 
 concerned) consistent with very great and valuable 
 acquisitions. The man may not merely have enjoyed 
 sensual pleasures, and the possession of wealth and 
 influence and power, but he may have attained to 
 great intellectual culture, a high degree of learning 
 and scientific knowledge and artistic skill. Yet these 
 things belong, after all, to the lower faculties — the 
 faculties of the " natural," or sensual," or " animal," 
 man ; and unless they have been put at the disposal 
 of the spiritual faculties, to be brought to the service 
 of God, the soul is lost. 
 
 § 5- 
 
 It is this duality which lays man open to tempta- 
 tion. Though the Creator, looking down upon His 
 newly formed image in Eden, pronounces him — or 
 rather, the world and man in it — ''very good," the 
 goodness was not a final and completed goodness. 
 
lOO Mans Original Righteousness 
 
 The original righteousness " in which we were made 
 was the goodness o£ a perfectly fair and noble begin- 
 ning. It was the goodness of holy infancy as com- 
 pared with that of the fully developed saint. It 
 consisted in a perfectly well-ordered constitution, 
 which only needed to be normally exercised that it 
 might reach a true moral as well as natural perfec- 
 tion. But in order that the promise of that first fair 
 start might be realised, it was necessary, so far as we 
 can see, that it should be brought to the test. Good 
 dispositions do not ripen into virtues except by seeing 
 and rejecting their opposites. Though made "in the 
 image of God," it is significantly said that man was 
 made ''after His likeness.'' He was not as yet 
 actually like in character to God, but had the power 
 and tendency to rise into that likeness and to make 
 it voluntarily his own by the proper and harmonious 
 use of his varied faculties. Man had himself to 
 train ; and he had, besides, a duty towards the world, 
 over which he was to rule, as God's representative. 
 To rule over the world in any full sense, he needed a 
 sympathetic appreciation of all that it contained; 
 and to have a sympathetic appreciation of all that 
 the world contained at once involved a possible 
 seduction. One of the great paradoxes of life is this 
 — that the true value of the fiesh and fleshly things 
 is only known to those who, by cultivation of their 
 spiritual n-ature, are able to maintain their indepen- 
 dence of the flesh and their attitude of sovereignty 
 towards it ; while, on the other hand, that is no true 
 spiritual sovereignty or independence which looks 
 
to be made his own by Temptation. loi 
 
 upon the flesh and fleshly thmgs with indifference, or 
 with abhorrence, or with contempt, or with dread. 
 
 If, therefore, man was to bear the character for 
 which he was destined, and if he was to perform the 
 office for which he was. placed in the world, he could 
 not but be tempted to fling himself with too much 
 ardour into the good things of the realm that was put 
 under him, and to make it his own instead of making 
 it God's. But the very attempt to make it his own, 
 irrespective of God, tears it away from himself and 
 God alike. The true link between God and the world 
 is severed, and, instead of " subduing the world, man 
 is himself " subdued by it. No longer standing 
 above it, in the stability of the "free spirit," he 
 becomes engrossed in it, a mere part of it, without 
 true freedom of will, which can only be obtained from 
 communion with God. By selfish grasping at the 
 mastery of things, he makes himself the sport of his 
 surroundings ; and these surroundings have them- 
 selves become disordered by man's desertion of his 
 post, and tend to become more and more disordered, 
 and to exhibit an ever-sharper antagonism towards 
 the Creator's will. Man himself falls into bondage, 
 and " the creature itself also," according to S. Paul, 
 though "not willingly," shares his bondage, and 
 groans for deliverance through and with him (Rom. 
 viii. 19, foil). 
 
 §6. 
 
 The whole account of the Fall of man, in Genesis, 
 is full of difficulties. It contains, doubtless, a record 
 
102 The Knowledge of Good and Evil. 
 
 of true historic facts, though the facts are presented 
 to us under an allegorical shape. Under any other 
 shape we could not have received or understood them. 
 
 Our first parents, in a state of innocence, are set 
 before us as dwelling in a " Garden of Delight," 
 having all that was necessary for their happy develop- 
 ment. Two mystic Trees stand in the garden, of 
 which the first, the Tree of Life, no doubt represents 
 the life of union with God. Of this they were per- 
 mitted to eat, as of the other trees of the garden. 
 The second, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, 
 was submitted to their contemplation, and the Creator 
 Himself forces their attention to it, in the form of a 
 commandment not to eat of it, combined with a warn- 
 ing of the consequences of so doing. By this tree, 
 and the prohibition attached to it, we are to under- 
 stand that God wished man to know evil indeed, but to 
 know it as He Himself knows it — as a thing possible^ 
 but hateful. The thought of evil must, it is admitted^ 
 eternally be present to the mind of God, but present 
 as the contrary of all that God is or can be ; and if 
 man was to ri$e into the likeness of his Creator, he 
 too must know evil, but as a thing external to himself 
 and for ever to be detested. To eat of that Tree of 
 Knowledge of Good and Evil — that is, probably, of 
 tlie difference between good and evil, or, possibly, 
 of the mixture of evil with good — is to become 
 acquainted with the difference, not by contemplation, 
 Imt Ijy experience, to know what evil is hy choosing 
 to do, and suffer, and be, evil. 
 
 It may at first surprise us that the fatal tree did 
 
Form asstinied by Htiinati Temptation. 103 
 
 not appear outwardly repulsive, and thereby of itself 
 guard man against a fall But such a thought ignores 
 the very nature of temptation. Temptation does not 
 and cannot come to man in a bare notional form. 
 Evil, as evil, can grdn no access to him unless it be 
 after a long course of desperate wickedness. It is 
 only as the abuse of that which is jDOsitively good 
 and desirable that it possesses any attractions for 
 him; and so long as man is conscious of having a 
 personality of his own, and of being surrounded by 
 a world of good things, so long the Tree of Knowledge 
 of Good and Evil cannot help looking to him " good 
 for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be 
 desired to make one wise.'' 
 
 §7. 
 
 But although man, from his constitution, could 
 not have failed to feel the temptation — and indeed his 
 rise and progress without it cannot be imagined — ^yet 
 we are allowed to understand that the enticements of 
 the world were not sufficient by themselves to with- 
 draw him from his allegiance to the Creator, without 
 the interposition of a ''seducing spirit,'' which made 
 use of those enticements. The account of the Fall in 
 Genesis sets before us another symbolic figure in the 
 scene, namely, the Serpent. Much speculation has 
 gathered round this figure, and various explanations 
 of it have been proposed. But the common solution 
 seems to be the simplest. Whatever we are to under- 
 stand by the Devil, the same we may understand of 
 this cunning and insinuating figure, which, perhaps 
 
I04 The Genesis of Evil. 
 
 itself in the allegoric picture feeding on the forbidden 
 fruit, suggests the doubt of God's motive in forbidding 
 it. Certainly the Apocalypse appears to identify the 
 two : " The great dragon was cast out, the ancient 
 serpent, he that is called the Devil, and Satan, he 
 that leadeth astray the entire inhabited earth " (Rev. 
 xii. 9). It will be necessary, before proceeding, to 
 dwell for a while upon this unhappy being and his 
 history. In so doing we are brought face to face 
 with the problem of the origin of evil. It is simple 
 enough to narrate, so to speak, the story of its begin- 
 ning ; but it is more difficult — perhaps impossible at 
 present — fully to explain how, in the eternal nature 
 of things, circumstances could arise which admit of 
 such a beginning of moral evil. 
 
 That evil, as the opposite of good, must always 
 have occupied a place in the thoughts of God, we 
 have already seen. But God can neither think, nor 
 do, nor create, nor be in any way drawn towards 
 evil, so as to call it into any positive existence, or 
 give it any historical development. It remains for 
 Him always a hateful conception, but nothing more. 
 Although the utmost excesses of what might be done 
 in the way of evil lie bare to His consciousness, God 
 does not dwell upon it, for He is of purer eyes than 
 to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity (Hab. i. 
 13). The very idea of it is revolting to Him. All 
 His works, as He first made them, were free from the 
 lea»st admixture of it, and from tlic least tendency 
 towards it. It is not (as the ManicluT-ans taught) 
 inherent in matter. It is not involved in tlie creation 
 
Fall of Satan, 
 
 of limited wills. Its existence, as an actual fact, is 
 not necessary to the development of human or angelic 
 excellence. It never ought to have been, and God 
 never designed that it should be. And, in a certain 
 sense, moral evil does not exist now. It is not a thing. 
 It only exists so far as it is adopted and embodied in 
 evil wills ; and if those evil wills were all purged of it, 
 evil would again have no existence. But in order that 
 wills may be truly good and not evil, they must have 
 seen evil, and seen it without sympathy, with no 
 desire to know it by experience, and must have freely 
 chosen to know only God. We can form no idea of a 
 holy will, without evil being presented to it as a 
 possible alternative. Therefore the very creation of 
 beings intended to be holy appears to involve the risk 
 of their choosinsf wronof. 
 
 It would seem that this necessary test had been 
 applied to older spirits than man's. Amongst those 
 angelic beings Avhom God appointed to be His 
 mediators and agents with the lower creation, some 
 made the right choice, and some the wrong. It would 
 be rash and vain to profess to understand in what 
 form the temptation could present itself to pure im- 
 material spirits ; but some light is, perhaps, thrown 
 upon the question by S. Paul's warning to S. Timothy 
 not to appoint a new convert to high spiritual office, 
 "lest, being puffed up with pride, he fall into the 
 condemnation of the Devil " (1 Tim. iii. 6). Though 
 the meanixig of these la^ words is doubtful, it has 
 reasonably been supposed, from S. Pauls language, 
 that the being whom we now know as the Devil fell 
 
io6 All Sin traced to Satan, 
 
 in some way through pride — an undue elation at the 
 position he occupied, and at the wealth of powers 
 which he found within himself. Our Lord's more 
 general, yet more explicit, statement is that " he stood 
 not firm in the truth (S. John viii. 44, qvk eGTrjKev). 
 All forms of sin, according to the teaching of S. John, 
 are departures from " the truth ; and it is clear, from 
 our Lords words, that the Evil One was once "in 
 the truth," but did not maintain his position. The 
 same is taught concerning other condemned spirits : — 
 " Angels which kept not their own beginning " — or, as 
 some would translate, " their own principality " — " but 
 deserted the dwelling-place vrhich belonged to them'* 
 (S. Jude 6). 
 
 At what point of time this fall of angels took place, 
 or whether all fallen angels fell together, is uncertain. 
 There is much ground for thinking that S. Jude 
 identified the fall of the angels, of which he speaks, 
 with the fall of the ''sons of God'' which preceded 
 the Flood (Gen. vi. 2, 4). Not being linked together 
 by that solidarity of species which unites mankind, 
 the fall of one did not necessarily involve the fall of 
 others, and each fell for himself alone. But the first, 
 as well as the greatest, to fall was Satan, if we rightly 
 understand our Lord to say that Satan is not only 
 himself a liar, but "the father of if (S. John viii. 
 44). That is to say, all evil, as an active and existing 
 fact, is to be traced to him. It was he who first gave 
 historical Ijirth to evil, by himself choosing to try it. 
 When and liow this was, we are not told ; we only 
 know that " from the beginning he was a murderer," 
 
Uniqueness of his Case. 
 
 107 
 
 — not, that is, from the outset of his own existence, but 
 from the beginning of history as known to us, from 
 our first experience of his dealings with us, from the 
 day when he induced man to revolt from God, and so 
 murdered " him. 
 It is quite possible to think that Satan did not 
 attain his utmost depth of wickedness at the first 
 bound. The ancient theologians are agreed that he 
 is without foreknowledge, although his vast experience 
 has doubtless given him extraordinary power of fore- 
 casting. If he had known, or believed — as he might 
 have known, and ought to have believed — what it 
 would come to, he would never have taken the first 
 step in his mad and wicked adventure. Having once 
 invented evil as an active principle, and gaining 
 perpetually wider knowledge of its power, he was 
 determined to play it out to the end, and relied upon 
 its force to rival goodness and love. " Lo, this is he 
 that took not God for his strength, but trusted in the 
 abundance of his own resources, and strengthened 
 himself upon his wickedness (Ps. lii. 7). This it is 
 which makes the case of Satan a case of unique hope- 
 lessness. Had his attempt been purely a speculative 
 one, or had it been a mere prank like that of a 
 mischievous child, had he taken care to try the power 
 of evil upon himself alone, had he been frightened 
 when he saw how fearful a force he had set at work, 
 or believed the proofs which were given him that 
 love and goodness were still more powerful, and ac- 
 knowledged, and desisted, then we can imagine that 
 his punishment might have been lessened or re- 
 
To8 The Sedtiction of Man. 
 
 mitted. But, knowing the evil of evil, he chose it 
 just because it was evil, and espoused its cause, and 
 explored it to its depths, and drcAv it all into his life, 
 until evil as a whole became as entirely identified with 
 Satan, as good is with God. He is the Evil One." 
 
 The seduction of man was one stage in his down- 
 ward career. Himself having tasted evil, he per- 
 suaded mankind to do the same, not in the open and 
 direct manner in which himself had done so, but 
 craftily and subtilly, as the serpent-form expresses. 
 He displays and calls attention to the charms of the 
 lower world, as they appeal to the senses, the imagi- 
 nation, and the intellect. What would have tempted 
 silently and almost unheeded without him, becomes 
 through him articulate, a^ggressive, insistent. The 
 special point of assault is as craftily selected as the 
 special engine. It is not the man himself who is 
 first assailed — the authoritative rational head; but 
 the woman, representing the more impulsive and 
 passive element in our nature. Not seeing, though 
 she ought to have seen, what she was about, she 
 yielded to the desire which ought to have been felt 
 and checked; and then, in her turn, became temp- 
 tress. The man, who would have resisted the attrac- 
 tions of sense, and detected the falsehood of the 
 spiritual whisper, was unwilHng to withstand the 
 temptation when he had to choose which he would 
 part company with, his God or his fallen wife, and 
 went open-eyed into the snare. "Adam was not 
 ' beguiled, but the woman being beguiled hath fallen 
 into transgression " (1 Tim. ii. 14). 
 
Punishment of the Fallen, 109 
 
 The words, "Because thou hast done this thing," 
 in the sentence on the serpent, show that Satan's last 
 day o£ grace w^as thus ended. Each actor in the 
 scene receives the natural and condign reward o£ his 
 action. Each must accept the situation in which he 
 has placed himself. The man is to continue his task 
 of subduing the earth, under the new difficulties with 
 which he has surrounded himself; the woman still 
 to crave, and to suffer through her craving ; the evil 
 spirit to remain what for the nonce he had chosen to 
 be — expressed by the serpent-figure, with no power to 
 erect himself any more, unable to rise even into such 
 freedom and happiness as are enjoyed by the brute 
 creation, to find no support for his existence except in 
 dust." And so to this day it is with the Evil One, 
 and will be so long as he continues to exist. Unable 
 any longer to receive the ''food of angels," and 
 having no more power of self-sustenance than any 
 other creature, he is driven, with all the other spirits 
 which have taken his side, to find a life for himself in 
 picking up what he can in the world of living beings 
 — in that lower element out of which man is made — 
 by actual possessions of man or beast when circum- 
 stances allow of it; or by triumphs of sin, petty as 
 well as great; or at least by making himself felt 
 through cruel and harassing temptations. These are 
 his only outlet into real existence. 
 
 §8- 
 
 The position which Adam occupies with regard 
 to the human race makes his fall a matter of moii> 
 
no Unity of the Human Race. 
 
 than personal consequence to himself. Mankind is 
 so bound up together that, even now, what befalls 
 any member of the species affects the fortunes of the 
 whole. "No one of us liveth unto himself, and no 
 one dieth unto himself" (Rom. xiv. 27). But Adam 
 was not a mere individual member of the species, 
 like one of ourselves. He was the whole of young 
 humanity. It was all gathered in his one person. 
 
 It is not needful here to go into the inquiry 
 whether, as a matter of history, the human race 
 emanated from a single pair of progenitors or not. 
 It may suffice to say that, although the fact has been 
 discussed with freedom, no scientific proof has been 
 given to the contrary. The unity of the race would 
 not, indeed, be overthrown by the discovery that 
 several strands of diverse origin had been blent to- 
 gether. If ever such proof is forthcoming, the Church 
 will be guided by the Holy Spirit to see the true 
 bearings of the newly acquired fact. Mankind would 
 still have many points of union. But till then we 
 may, with equal fidelity to science and to Scripture, 
 believe that the acknowledged unity now existing is 
 based upon a unity of origination. Logically, it 
 seems easier to account for the divergence of what 
 was at first one, than for the union of what was at 
 first heterogeneous. And the New Testament, as well 
 as the Old, seems to lay emphatic stress on the one- 
 ness of our source. " God," says S. Paul to the el 'iie 
 of a nation who prided themselves on the tradition 
 tliat their ancestors had sprung out of tlic soil of 
 •j^^ica, and who looked upon tlie Jew as something 
 
Origin of Woman. 
 
 Ill 
 
 not to be classified in the same category of being with 
 themselves — " God made out of one " — not merely 
 "of one blood/' but "by derivation from a single 
 ancestor" — "every nation of men for to dwell upon 
 all the face of the earth " (Acts xvii. 26). 
 
 • So earnestly, indeed, do the sacred writers insist 
 upon this, that they will not allow us to trace our 
 descent to Adam and Eve, and there to stop. Eve 
 herself must be traced to Adam. Woma.n, according 
 to Holy Scripture, owes her origin to a definitely 
 creative act on the part of God, like man himself ; 
 but her creation is not independent of his. It is 
 the man who is created "the image and glory of 
 God; but the woman is the glory of the man" 
 (1 Cor. xi. 7). The man contains within himself 
 all that is, in the moral sense, characteristic of the 
 woman also ; but for his enriching and perfecting, 
 for the emphatic bringing out and development of 
 his ''glory" — that is, of what was best in him — 
 woman is taken out from him and given existence in 
 a separate form. While revealed religion strenuously 
 asserts the spiritual equality of women with men, — 
 as it teaches the equality of barbarian with Greek, 
 or of bond with free, the accidental circumstances of 
 the soul's position making no difference to the soul's 
 intrinsic dignity; — yet it asserts with equal clear- 
 ness that womanhood occupies a subordinate position 
 to manhood in the economy of the race. It has been 
 held that while manhood represents the creative ele- 
 ment, the point of new departure, Vv^omanhood represents 
 rather the traditional element, the abiding groundwork 
 
1 1 2 Position of Woman. 
 
 of human nature. If there be any truth in this, it 
 shows far-reaching significance in S. Paul's saying, 
 "Adam was first formed, then Eve " (1 Tim. ii. 13). 
 Though himself formed from the dust, man did not 
 mingle with the dust again. His bride owed her origin 
 to nothing less than himself — himself in his newly 
 given dignity. " The mother of all living " (Gen. iii. 
 20), took shape from him, her fountain-head. Close 
 and recent as was Adam's cousinship to the lower 
 forms that surrounded him, they gave him no solace 
 or sympathy; but in Eve he recognises at once all 
 that is most loveable in himself set forth before him 
 in a form that he could love with self-sacrifice and 
 without selfishness. "This, at last, is bone of my 
 bones, and fle^h of my flesh: she shall be called 
 Woman, because she was taken out of Man. There- 
 fore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall 
 cleave unto his wife : and they shall be one flesh " 
 (Gen. ii. 23, 24). Thus what seemed to threaten a 
 division in human nature, conduces to a richer unity. 
 
 §9- 
 
 The children born of this union inherit the one 
 common nature, but that nature infinitely diversified. 
 In past years it was a much-debated question whether 
 the soul of the child is derived from its parents, or 
 whether it is a direct creation of God. Tlie former 
 opinion is known as Traducianism, the latter as 
 Creatianism. The truth appears to lie in the union 
 of the two beliefs. 
 
Creation of Individuals, 1 1 3 
 
 Each human personaHty is the direct creation of 
 the Ahiiighty, who has been pleased to call such a> 
 being into existence, and to give it its special and 
 individual characteristics. But these characteristics 
 as well as the common nature that is modified by 
 them, come in no sudden or violent manner. They 
 are the result — we may say, the inevitable result 
 — of the forces at work in the generations before. 
 Human nature is a rich material to work upon ; 
 and the diversities that may be brought out in it 
 through various combinations are endless. God's 
 creative power is as much seen in effecting these 
 combinations, so as to produce the diversities, as 
 in the original act by which He breathed into the 
 nostrils of the thing which he had formed of the 
 dust. Our religion is entirely opposed to the Deistic 
 notion that God at the beginning started the species 
 on its course, and then stood aside and allowed it to 
 develope by mechanical laws or by its own caprice. 
 His providence is incessantly at work even in the 
 smallest details of history, not by a number of 
 arbitrary fiats, but by continuous and orderly pro- 
 cesses of gentle manipulation. As we have shown 
 the immanence of the Divine Word in nature to be 
 the principle which carries nature along without con- 
 fusions or interruptions, so it is with the life of man- 
 kind. Each human being is the vehicle of a special 
 manifestation of the Word, and each has been the 
 object of the special forethought of God. It is not 
 only of great prophets, but of every person on earth, 
 though with a different shade of meaning, that the 
 
 I 
 
114 Creatianism ignores Original Sin. 
 
 saying to Jeremiah holds true : " Before I formed thee 
 in the womb, I knew thee " (J ei\ i. 5). 
 
 § 10. 
 
 This tempering of the Creatianist with the Tradu- 
 cian belief helps us to understand the Church's 
 doctrine of original sin. Upon the Creatianist theory 
 alone, the universality of sin would be inexplicable. 
 If the soul comes entirely fresh from the hands of the 
 Creator, without dependence upon its earthly parent- 
 age, how com.es it to exhibit evil tendencies from 
 earliest infancy ? Is it possible for God to create — 
 in the sense of an entirely fresh origination — a thing 
 which is morally faulty ? Or, on the Pelagian as- 
 sumption that the new-born infant is not morally 
 faulty, how comes it that no single human being, 
 except Christ, has been able to withstand temptation ? 
 On the Creatianist theory pure and simple, every 
 child must come into life v>dth as fair a field as the 
 first man had, except for the prevalence of bad ex- 
 amples all around — for the differences which scholastic 
 theology devised were based upon an unwarranted con- 
 ception of what Adam's state was — and every child 
 must submit to the test for himself, as if it were the 
 first time that any one had been tested. Surely if 
 this had been the case, and human beings had such 
 independence of each other, the " following of Adam " 
 would not have prevailed so universally. Here and 
 there at least we should have expected to see an un- 
 fallen specimen of humanity. Out of a million million 
 of Adams we could not think that all would go wrong. 
 
Truth of Traducianism. 1 1 5 
 
 But in point of fact that theory ignores the unity 
 of the human race. It makes our relation to each 
 other a merely external and fantastic one. If human 
 parentage does nothing more than provide physical 
 organisms into which beings from some other region 
 are introduced, mankind is only a nominal thing ; it is 
 but a temporary classification of spirits accidentally 
 thrown together and united only by transitory 
 interests. The love of parents to children, and of 
 children to their parents, rises up against so unnatural 
 a doctrine. We are bound to think that the inward 
 as well as the outward life of men is one, and is 
 transmitted from generation to generation. And this 
 being so, the father can 'transmit to his son only the 
 life which is his own. He transmits humanity, not 
 in its ideal, but in its actual condition, in the form 
 in which he himself has it. This is significantly 
 brought out in the book of Genesis, where, after 
 saying that Adam was made in the image and after 
 the likeness of God (i. 26), it tells us that Adam, now 
 fallen, " begat in his own likeness, ciftev his image 
 (v. 3). The similarity of character was already there ; 
 it was now the original constitution which was harder 
 to be recovered. 
 
 So in practice we find it. The offspring favours 
 the parent (with the natural differences), not only in 
 feature, and form, and voice, and gait, and little 
 tricks of manner — partly imitated, it may be, yet 
 partly inherited — but also in intellectual parts, in 
 tastes and inclinations, in moral bent. As the son's 
 body inherits ixot, perhaps, his father s consumption 
 
1 1 6 Nature of Original Sin. 
 
 or gout, but the peculiar liability to it, so his soul 
 lies specially open to the sins which were his father s 
 and his grandfather's curse. When drunkenness, or 
 violent temper, or covetousness, have had unre- 
 strained sway in a family for two or three generations, 
 the descendant stands in a much worse position for 
 resisting those forms of temptation than another man 
 might. The natural defences of his soul are broken 
 down. In the language of old theologians, th.QfTeniim 
 ciipiditotiim, the bridle of the desires, is no longer 
 born in him. And that which we see visibly, in 
 special instances, and with regard to particular forms 
 of sin, we are taught to be equally true of sin in 
 general throughout the race. Each soul has its own 
 particular weakness, but all alike are weak. And not 
 weak only, but depraved and distorted and wrong. 
 
 We must not, indeed, mistake. The Church never 
 teaches that the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed 
 to his progeny, as if in some way they were held 
 responsible for it, and deserved punishment for it 
 although themselves innocent of it. Such teaching 
 would be a shocking travesty of the Catholic belief. 
 If we are " by nature children of wrath " (Eph. ii. 3), 
 it is to be referred to no such artificial and unrighteous 
 arrangement, but to the fact of the solidarity of the 
 liuman race. It is vain to speculate whether, if Eve 
 had stood firm, or if Adam had repudiated his wife's 
 action, the race would thereby have been established 
 and secured from danger of subsequent falling, or 
 whether the conflict would liave been renewed over 
 cacli individual with a hope of detaching one here 
 
Reality of Htiman Freedom, 1 1 7 
 
 and one there from the noble species. But the con- 
 verse is certainly true, that the fall of our " first 
 father " (Isa. xliii. 27) was the fall of us all, and that 
 " by the one man's disobedience the many were con- 
 stituted sinners (Rom. v. 19). From that time 
 forth every human being but One has been conceived 
 in sin, and has come into the world with a more or 
 less vitiated and depraved nature, upon which, accord- 
 ingly, God s holiness cannot but look with displeasure, 
 however blent with pity. And that which was by 
 birth our misfortune has become by choice our fault. 
 The tendency which a discerning eye would have seen 
 in us at our very conception has been verified ; and, 
 by embracing and approving the defect of our nature, 
 we have become verily guilty. 
 
 §11- 
 
 The true harmony between Creatianism and Tradu- 
 cianism suggests the lines which must lead eventually 
 to the harmony between necessity and free-will. Our 
 personal freedom is a fact within our cognisance. 
 We are conscious of making acts of choice all day 
 long. We deliberate freely, and take the advice of 
 friends, and feel that we are actually responsible for 
 what we have done or left undone. No sophistica- 
 tion really persuades the conscience to acquiesce in 
 wrong-doing as inevitable ; or, at least, if a man can 
 persuade himself that it is so in his own case, he 
 does not when the wrong-doer is his neighbour and 
 himself the sufferer. We know that we are free. 
 
 Yet the stoutest champion of free-will cannot 
 
1 1 8 Conditions of human Freedom. 
 
 assert that the free-will is unconditioned. It is 
 exerted within limitations, and accurate thought 
 tends to make the limitations more and more close. 
 My freedom is not an absolute freedom, but the 
 freedom proper to me. It is the freedom of a man ; 
 not the freedom of God on the one hand, nor the 
 freedom of an animal on the other. I cannot choose 
 to create a world, nor can I choose to fly. I am only 
 able to choose what lies within the powers of humanity. 
 Nor, indeed, is my freedom as wide as the limits of 
 humanity. It is modified by my being an English- 
 man, of the nineteenth century, a middle-aged man, 
 born in a certain station of life, the son of certain 
 parents, educated after a particular fashion, sur- 
 rounded by my own surroundings, influenced by my 
 own past acts of choice. Both within and without 
 there are forces which give a special direction to my 
 will. 
 
 Some of the very conditions which in a certain 
 sense restrict a man, in another sense heighten and 
 elate his sense of freedom. Praise him for acting 
 like a man and an Englishman ; tell him that he is a 
 man of the day, his fathers true son; and he will 
 feel pleased and flattered, and endeavour to act in the 
 same way again. He reckons himself free from all 
 tliwarting influences Avhen he acts according to the 
 law of his true self. But there is one thing which has 
 come in to qualify his freedom, which ought never 
 to have been there. He does not choose with the 
 lilicrty, however restricted, of a perfect man. It is 
 l)ut tlio liberty of a maimed and paralysed nature. 
 
Mans Fall not irrecoverable, 119 
 
 He naturally wills with a bias towards evil — ^at least 
 in some directions. To act according to the perfection 
 of nature would be the true freedom. And this man 
 has lost. He recognises that he is not his true self. 
 It is only with difficulty that he works towards it 
 again. By the fall of Adam, the will, which before 
 was conditioned but free, is now not only conditioned 
 but enslaved. Nothing but the action of grace can 
 free it. To this subject we must recur when we treat 
 of the doctrine of grace. 
 
 §12. 
 
 All the flood of beings, then, to whom Adam has 
 transmitted his nature are evil and sinful. The evil 
 penetrates their moral fibre, their flesh and blood, 
 their imagination and intelligence, their very con- 
 science and spirit. And yet amidst all this woeful 
 ruin there are signs of hope. Men are not in the 
 condition of devils. Here and there, indeed, some 
 men have attained, as has been terribly said, to " a 
 disinterested love of evil.'' But they are few, and 
 they were not born so. Human nature, though fallen, 
 has not lost its true prerogative and characteristic. 
 Although it no longer naturally developes into the 
 Divine likeness, but the opposite, yet it still retains 
 the Divine image, broken and obscured, but remaining. 
 Even in doing evil, we are sorry for it, and feel it to 
 be unworthy of us. While this remains there is some- 
 thing that can be laid hold of. Man, though lost, is 
 still capable of being saved. 
 
Chapter V. 
 
 "Eijt Incarnation of t^c SKSorti of ffioli, 
 
 I/o/e of Recovoy for the Falle7i Race— Preparation for the Incarnation 
 — Teleology of History — Miraculous Conception of Christ — The 
 Incarnate Word the same Person as before— Imperso7iality of His 
 Human Nature — Union of the Two Natures not effected by Conver- 
 sion of the Godhead into Flesh — nor by Confusion of the Two — 7ior 
 by Absorption of the Human in the Divine — Perfectncss of both 
 Natures — the Human capable of receivi^ig the Divi7ie — the Divi7ie 
 acco77i7nodated to the Hu7?ia7i by Vohmtary Li77iitation, 
 
 §1. 
 
 The fragmentary good which the Fall has left in man 
 is not sufficient to enable man to save himself. His 
 spiritual faculties are not destroyed ; but they are so 
 sprained and weakened that they would be unable to 
 assert their rightful mastery unless aided from with- 
 out. And man's will is not only too much enfeebled 
 to set itself persistently to recover those faculties, but 
 (in varying degrees in different persons and races) it 
 is positively bent in an opposite direction. It natu- 
 rally seeks to make self its centre; and, though it would 
 have no objection to God, if God would acconnnodate 
 Himself to its convenience and keep the place we 
 choose to assign to Him — yet, when it finds the 
 
Mans Need of Divine Help. 121 
 
 nature and extent o£ His claims, man's self-will 
 resents them, and carries the resentment o£ them so 
 far as actually to dislike Him who makes them. The 
 statement of S. Paul proves accurately true, that 
 the carnal mind is enmity towards God, for it does 
 not submit to Gods law, and in fact it cannot'' 
 (Rom. viii. 7). 
 
 To enable it therefore once more to submit to 
 God's law, and so attain the true creaturely freedom, 
 which is salvation, man needs a Saviour. And, if so, 
 there is but one direction to which he can hopefully 
 turn. The inexorable foes who wrought his ruin will 
 take no pity on him, or undo what they have done. 
 No remedy for his plight can be found in a closer 
 observance or better application of the laws of nature. 
 No specimen member of the tainted race rises high 
 enough above his fellows to restore them to their 
 normal condition ; nor can any association of men, 
 on the natural basis, do more than partially restrain 
 the outward activity of evil ; it cannot cure the souls 
 of its members. God alone is able to repair the 
 mischief which man has inflicted on creation and 
 himself. The great message of the Gospel is that 
 God is not only able so to do, but willing also ; and 
 that He has, in fact, done it, in the Person of His Son 
 Incarnate. 
 
 §2. 
 
 S. Paul's favourite expression about ''the fulness 
 of the times " teaches us that the providence of God 
 had long been preparing for the Incarnation. There 
 
122 Preparation for the Incarnation. 
 
 was nothing abrupt and violent in the circumstances 
 of its accomplishment. The whole course of things, 
 however little understood by men, led directly up 
 to it. 
 
 On the one side, a mysterious phrase in the 
 Gospel of S. John teaches us that there was some 
 Divine process by which the adorable Person who was 
 to come was made ready for His mission. " Say ye 
 of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the 
 world. Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son 
 of God ? " (S. John x. 36). What constituted that con- 
 secration and equipment of the Eternal Son remains a 
 secret into which we cannot look. 
 
 But the Word was also f ashionino^ thinp^s on earth 
 for His manifestation — first in those long processes, of 
 which we have spoken, which led up to the formation 
 of man, and then in human history. It might have 
 been thought that the fall of man rendered him 
 incapable of receiving the Incarnation; but it was 
 not so. He w^as still possessed of reason and of 
 conscience and of will, though not in full perfection ; 
 and the mercy which could educate those powers was 
 not withdrawn from him. " The Life," which was 
 observable in the constitution of things, and which 
 came from the immanence of the Word, "was the 
 Light of men ; and the Light shineth in the darkness, 
 and the darkness did not overtake it " (S. John. i. 4, 5). 
 There was a moment, or there were moments, when 
 it seemed as if the light would be wholly quenched. 
 But it never came to pass. " The true Light " still 
 *^ was, wliich enlighteneth every man, as it cometh 
 
Training of the Heathen, 
 
 123 
 
 into the world." No single human being has been 
 left altoofether destitute o£ the illumination. In 
 various degrees, and in a multitude o£ ways, the 
 truth has pressed itself upon all men; and in whatever 
 shape it has come to them, it was a manifestation of 
 that one and the same Eternal Word, and a prophecy 
 ^f His drawing nearer still. 
 
 The heathen — that is, the mass of mankind — had 
 their appropriate discipline. They were left to them- 
 selves. " In the generations gone by," said S. Paul 
 to the Lycaonian pagans, *'God suffered all the 
 nations to walk in their own ways," although He 
 bore such testimony to Himself as they might gather 
 from the bounties of nature (Acts xiv. 16). They 
 knew enough of God to distinguish Him from His 
 works, and to worship Him with thankfulness, if they 
 would (Rom. i. 21, 25). Right and wrong vv^ere 
 familiar notions to them, and the inward verdict of 
 conscience made them feel at ease or not at ease 
 according to their moral conduct, as if by a living 
 code of law (Rom. ii. 14, 15). Their self-invented 
 ritual, and even to a certain extent their mythology, 
 formed a kind of elementary training, preparing them 
 for something better (Gal. iv. 8, 9). Lawgivers and 
 philosophers took them in hand. Here and there a 
 choice and gifted soul among them received some- 
 thing which S. Paul recognises as a form of inspira- 
 tion, and became " a prophet of their own " (Titus i. 
 12). Thus left to their own devices, they found 
 and showed what men could do and what men could 
 not do. Their successes and their hopeless failures 
 
124 
 
 Training of Israel. 
 
 alike witnessed to the possibility and the need of a 
 redemption. 
 
 Meanwhile the way for that redemption was more 
 markedly preparing in the history of the Israelite 
 race. That race was naturally well qualified for its 
 high purpose. It had what has been called a genius 
 for religion. Upon them, therefore, the Divine choice 
 fell ; and from Abraham onwards they were by un- 
 mistakeable signs and wonders singled out and set 
 apart from all other nations to be the medium of 
 God's self-revelation to the world. While mankind 
 in general was left to find its own way, Israel felt 
 himself to be the people of the Lord, and bound to 
 Him in the strictest bonds of duty. But this special 
 nearness to God did not put the Chosen People in any 
 position of moral superiority over others. It did not 
 exclude from them the liability to sin, or even give 
 them much help to overcoming it. Indeed, the object 
 of the Law which was given them was nothing else 
 but this — to bring vividly home to them a sense of 
 their sinfulness and infirmity. They were to learn 
 by it that, beneath their legal observance, their 
 covenanted privilege, their correct belief, the Jew was 
 no better than the Gentile. This was the price 
 which they had to pay for their prerogative. You 
 only have I known of all the families of the earth ; 
 therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities" 
 (Amos iii. 2). They were made to know, on behalf 
 of all mankind, the guilt and shame of sin. An 
 elaborate system of sacrifice inculcated the feeling. 
 Wliether that system was complete from tlie outset. 
 
The Law and the Prophets. 125 
 
 or, according to the risky theories of a modern school 
 of critics, received its full development at a later 
 date, makes no difference to the deep and prophetic 
 suggestiveness of its symbolism. And the spiritually 
 minded Hebrew felt, as he used it, that it disappointed 
 him. It spoke of a release and a restoration which 
 it never accomplished. The worshippers felt it to be 
 an unsubstantial shadow in itself, and yearned for 
 something which should in reality " fulfil what this 
 Divinely instituted ceremonial taught them to think 
 of, but could not supply. 
 
 And what the Levitical worship taught through 
 visible signs, the prophets taught in mysterious words 
 Prophecy was the special glory of the Israelite people. 
 Unlike the heathen nations, who looked back wist- 
 fully to a dim golden age in the past, the whole mind 
 and soul of Abraham's descendants were anchored to 
 the future. Faith — "the assurance of things hoped 
 for, the proof of things not seen (Heb. xi. 1) — was 
 their very life. The nation was forward-bound. 
 Their day was coming. It had been promised to 
 Abraham, and, though it might tarry, it would come. 
 Every partial deliverance, every partial deliverer, 
 became to them — like their religious system itself — 
 a type of the perfect that was to come. Vague and 
 indefinite at first, their conception became richer and 
 clearer with succeeding centuries. Each promising 
 young king, or venerable priest, or woe-stricken 
 prophet, added some detail to the ideal that was 
 gradually forming, and for which at last a name was 
 found. A Messiah — anointed with the Spirit of God 
 
126 Teleology of History. 
 
 beyond all others — would bring all that was looked 
 for. Not that we have reason to suppose that any- 
 consistent and comprehensive set of beliefs had 
 gathered about the name of the Christ. The prophets 
 themselves had not been able fully to grasp their own 
 thoughts. Here and there a touch, a glimpse, a flash, 
 came to them ; but they could not piece it all together. 
 They only felt, with such longing as made Daniel 
 swoon away, that what they uttered was true, -and 
 that in due time others who came after them would 
 see and profit by it (1 S. Pet. i. 10-12). 
 
 §3. 
 
 The more outward preparation of mankind, 
 through the fortunes of empires, belongs, perhaps, 
 rather to history than to theology. We need not 
 now stay to point out the influences of the Egyptian 
 bondage, or the Babylonian captivity, upon the 
 Hebrews; or the effect of Greek conquests and the 
 spread of the Greek language, and of the universal 
 dominion of Rome; or of the dispersion of the Jews. 
 This side of the Praeparatio Evangelica has often 
 been worked out ; and undoubtedly it aftbrds a m^ost 
 impressive testimony to the Christian faith. On the 
 assumption that our Lord was what we believe Him 
 to be, nothing can be more reasonable than to suppose 
 that all these movements on the large scale had a 
 distinct teleological aim, and that they had reference 
 to Him. There was nothing accidental in the fitness 
 of the world's condition when our Lord was born. 
 Though the historical development was perfectly free 
 
MiractUoics Conception of Christ. 1 2 7 
 
 and spontaneous, there was a Providence which knew 
 how to guide it. And yet, with all this perfect adap- 
 tation of circumstances, our Lord was no necessary 
 or merely natural outcome of His time and place. 
 As, in the beginning, the world was made ready for 
 the reception of human life before human Hfe ap- 
 peared, and yet human life was an entirely new 
 factor introduced from without, so, when the fulness 
 of the time came,'* and not before, ''God sent forth. 
 His Son, born of a woman (Gal. iv. 4.), and yet not 
 by the action of simply natural laws. 
 
 §4. 
 
 The new point of departure in history is marked 
 by the miraculous mode of Christ s birth. He was 
 ''conceived by the Holy Ghost" (St. Matt. i. 20). 
 Though the whole office of motherhood was performed 
 by Mary, from the initial consent onwards, there was 
 nothing at all resembling human fatherhood. The 
 act which brought the Godhead into flesh was a 
 purely creative act, like those at the beginning of 
 the world. It was due to the operation of that 
 Divine Spirit, who is the Finger of God, moulding 
 all things as He wills, and imparting life in all its 
 forms. 
 
 This miraculous intervention is not entirely due 
 to the presence of sin in humanity. If there had been 
 no Fall, and the Word had still been pleased to become 
 incarnate by a birth, that birth would fittingly have 
 been of a virgin, because so only would it be clear 
 that a new thing was taking place on earth, and One 
 
128 His Sanctity not dependent on Marys. 
 
 coming into the world who was not simply man. 
 •And the absence of earthly fatherhood appears also 
 to accord well with that impersonal universality of 
 our Lord's human nature of which we shall have 
 to speak. Supposing that the Nestorian notion of 
 Christ's Person were the right one, and Christ had 
 been, in the ordinary sense, " a man," associated 
 with the Word, there would have been little need 
 for the virgin birth, — to secure a sinless father as 
 well as mother might have been enough; but for 
 the true Incarnation no other entrance into the world 
 is imaginable but that which was chosen. 
 
 No manner of sin entered into the movement of 
 will which issued in Christ's holy nativity. That 
 maiden life which gave our Lord birth was entirely 
 holy. It was the flower which sprang out of all 
 the preparatory discipline which mankind — which 
 Israel — had undergone. It was the most beautiful 
 thing which had been seen since the expulsion from 
 Paradise. Yet our Lord's original stainlessness was 
 not absolutely dependent upon the holiness of His 
 sacred Mother, in such a way as to be a purely natural 
 heirloom fron her as sin is from other parents. It 
 was fitting, indeed, that the Mother of the Lord 
 should be the highest specimen of humanity ; she 
 would not have been chosen for the honour had she 
 been otherwise ; but in no case could any taint from 
 her have attached itself to the Divine Person of her 
 Oflspring. It seems, in fact, to be the delight of 
 S. Matthew, in tracing tlie genealogy of Clu'ist, to call 
 attention to the unholy and profane cliannels through 
 
S. Bernard on the Conception of Ma7y. 129 
 
 which, after the flesh, He came. The incestuous 
 Tamar and the harlot Rahab, Ruth the heatheness 
 and " the wife of Urias/' are the only ancestresses 
 whom he mentions. The purity of the last stage in 
 the transmission was not actually more necessary to 
 our Lord's incorruption than that of earlier stages. 
 The Holy Ghost could only take from the maternal 
 substance such elements as were befitting to the 
 Incarnate Son, and would purify them in taking. 
 We have no need, therefore, to assume the immacu- 
 late conception of Mary herself. 
 
 The first objection to pressing that doctrine upon 
 the Church is that it is nowhere taught in Holy 
 Scripture, nor by any ancient Father, — although, as 
 S. Bernard points out, the doctrine is not one 
 which the Fathers could have passed by with unani- 
 mous silence, if the doctrine had been true. It 
 arose at Lyons, in France, in the twelfth century ; 
 and the local festival which was begun in honour 
 of it w^as greeted by S. Bernard as " a presumptuous 
 novelty — mother of rashness, sister of superstition, 
 daughter of frivolity." He complained that so re- 
 spected a Church as that of Lyons should have 
 " allowed itself to be disfigured by such juvenile 
 levity," introducing what "is unknown to Church 
 practice, unapproved by reason, uncommended by 
 ancient tradition." The royal Virgin, he said, had 
 so many genuine honours that she stood in no 
 need of spurious ones. That she was sanctified in 
 the womb, he held in common with most Catholic 
 believers, and that she w^as preserved sinless 
 
 K 
 
130 Objections to Immaculate Conception of Ma7y, 
 
 throughout her life ; but this did not of necessity 
 prove her exempt from original sin. If the acknow- 
 ledged sanctity of her birth depended on the sanctity 
 of the antecedent conception, it would be easy to go 
 still further back, and argue for the immaculate con- 
 ception of her parents, and of her grandparents, and 
 of her great -grandparents. Her conception was con- 
 fessedly in the natural order of things, through the 
 marriage union of her parents, and, as such, could 
 not be free from the sin which now penetrates the 
 whole working of the natural order. Indeed, S. Ber- 
 nard thought it a strange mode of honouring the 
 Blessed Virgin to teach that she was herself immacu- 
 lately conceived, inasmuch as the credit of it Avould 
 belong to another, not to her. It robbed her of the 
 unique distinction wliich she possessed, by extend- 
 ing to her mother also the dignity of motherhood 
 achieved without any compensating loss. Mary was 
 no longer the only woman who had conceived without 
 sin. And wliat was still more contrary to the Chris- 
 tian conscience, this novel doctrine took away a pre- 
 rogative which belonged to Christ alone. " The Lord 
 Jesus alone," says the saint, "was conceived of the 
 Holy Ghost, because He alone was holy before His 
 conception. He alone excepted, it holds true of all 
 the rest of the chiklren of Adam, what one of them 
 confessed with as much truth as humility concerning 
 himself, ' Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin 
 liath my motlier conceived me.' 
 
 So S. Bernard reasoned. However much tlie 
 Catholic miglit be inclined; as S. Bernard says was at 
 
That Doctrine insulates Christ from its. 1 3 1 
 
 first the case with him, to allow as a pious opinion 
 what seemed to be suggested by love of our Lord's 
 Mother, after-reflexion shews that the opinion is not 
 pious, but detracts from the fulness of Christ's i^e- 
 demption. Not only does it make the Blessed Virgin 
 herself exempt from original sin, and therefore exempt 
 from the common need of salvation ; but by so doing 
 it insulates our Lord Himself from direct touch with 
 the sinful world. If it were true, the regeneration of 
 humanity would begin, not with Him, but with her ; 
 and, instead of springing sinless out of the sinful 
 race which He came to save. He would derive His 
 humanity from something not like the rest of us* 
 The doctrine would make His human sanctity; in a 
 way, dependent upon hers, and a consequence of it. 
 Thus the dogma of the immaculate conception of 
 Mary, by its over-refinement, would put Christ at a 
 distance from us, and mutilate the blessed fulness of 
 the truth that He is the Son of Man,'' and that all 
 we are His " brethren." 
 
 §5. 
 
 By the action of the Creator Spirit upon the sacred 
 Virgin, He who existed from all eternity as God with 
 the Father became also Man with men. The Incarna- 
 tion is the union of the Godhead with human nature 
 in the single Person of Christ. It is a totally different 
 thing from what we know as the mystical union of 
 men with God. The mystical union consists in a 
 loving apprehension of God by man, in response to 
 God's apprehension of him, which results in an iden- 
 
132 Hypostatic Union tmlike Mystical. 
 
 tity of will between the two — or, to speak more 
 strictly, in an identity of the things willed — idem 
 velle ac nolle. This mystical union is, indeed, grounded 
 upon the same fact as the Incarnation, namely, that 
 man is made in the Divine image, and therefore can 
 enter into close relationship with Grod. But for all 
 that, the hypostatic (that is, the personal) union is 
 not merely a higher degree of the mystical. However 
 fully developed the mystical union may be, it does 
 not, and cannot, break down the distinction of per- 
 sonality. It would be mere Pantheism to suppose it. 
 The heart may have perfect sympathy with God, the 
 understanding may come to know Him even as He 
 knows us, the will may cease to have a movement 
 but that which He inspires ; and yet the human 
 person remains separate from the Divine. God, in 
 the mystical union, does not become the man, nor the 
 man God. It does not set up a single centre of con- 
 sciousness, — a single " I," — which perceives itself to 
 be identically the same in the two different spheres of 
 its operation, in the Divine and in the human. The 
 two personalities remain unalterably distinct, with 
 free interchange between them. The perfect type of 
 the mystical union, therefore, is rather to be found in 
 the relation between the Father and the Son, than 
 in the relation beween the two natures of Christ. 
 
 To think otherwise is the error which is known to- 
 the Church by the title of Nestorianism. Although 
 Nestorius did not formally maintain that the historical 
 Christ was a combination of two associated persons, 
 one human and the other Divine, the expressions 
 
The Nestorian Idea of Christ. 133 
 
 which he used can bear no other meaning. Revolting 
 from the orthodox title of Theotohos (roughly rendered 
 " Mother of God ") applied to the Blessed Virgin, he 
 maintained that she gave birth to something which 
 was human first, and afterwards was taken into " con- 
 junction " with the Eternal Word. The Eternal 
 Word appropriated that human being which sprang 
 from Mary, and made him His organ and instrument 
 of self-manif estation ; the humanity became His 
 " receptacle ; but it was never personally united with 
 Himself. The man who suffered and was buried was 
 so open to the Divine communication as to become 
 like an embodiment of God to the world ; he was 
 filled with the Divine energy to an infinitely greater 
 extent than any other man; his conjunction with 
 God was so intense as to render him a fit object for 
 worship, and even to make him rank as God : but 
 still it was not the Word Himself who suftered and 
 was buried. If such teaching were true, it is clear 
 that there was never any real Incarnation. There 
 was but an alliance, after all, between a man and 
 God; there was no actual entrance of God Himself 
 into human conditions. Thus God, under the system 
 of Nestorius, remains still at as great a distance from 
 man as ever. 
 
 As against this disheartening fiction, the Church 
 clung and clings firmly to the plain and literal mean- 
 ing of S. John's words, supported by the whole tenor 
 of Scripture : " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
 among us" (S. John i. 14). It is evident that S. John 
 intends to set before us, not the birth of a remarkable 
 
134 Contimtity of Person in the Incarnation. 
 
 man, but a stupendous event in the life of the Eternal 
 Word. S. John is, so to speak, following the history 
 of that Word ; and, after speaking of creation as an 
 incident in it, and giving a summary of His previous 
 dealings with the world, he proceeds to say that that 
 same adorable Person who "was in the beginning 
 with God," Himself "became flesh, and dwelt among 
 us." He did not exhibit Himself through another: 
 He became human Himself. There was no break in 
 the continuity of His personal life. It was one and 
 the same throughout. He who pre-existed " in the 
 form of God " (Phil. ii. 6) took upon Himself another 
 form, and passed through a fresh series of experiences, 
 without any loss of His true identity. In the womb 
 which He did " not abhor," in the cradle and the 
 carpenter s shop, in the baptismal stream and the 
 wilderness of temptation, in the miracles of power, in 
 the still greater miracles of weakness, entreating with 
 " strong crying and tears " in Gethsemane, pouring out 
 His soul unto death upon the Cross, as He lay dead in 
 the sepulchre, and preached to the spirits in prison, 
 rising, and returning to heaven, — His own Person 
 never sank into abeyance, nor became confused with 
 some other, created, person who acted as His earthly 
 embodiment. It was He — the Word — who did and 
 suffered all these things. " He that descended is the 
 same also that ascended up" (Eph. iv. 10) — "Jesus 
 Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever'* 
 (Heb. xiii. 8). 
 
Tmpersonality of the Manhood. 135 
 
 §6. 
 
 In order to guard this inestimable truth, the 
 Church has learned to speak of our Blessed Lord's 
 human nature as impersonal. The expression is 
 a difficult one, and seems at first to imply that His 
 humanity was defective, and not the same as ours. 
 It is, however, but a way of saying what is expressed 
 in the Quicumqite vidt: "He is not two, but one Christ." 
 To assert that our Lord's human nature had a per- 
 sonality of its own, independent of Him, as if it could 
 conceivably have been dissociated from Him and stood 
 alone, and lived out its own life like any other man, 
 occupying some other relation to the Godhead from 
 that which it did occupy, would be to nullify the 
 Incarnation. The purpose of the Incarnation is not 
 solely to exhibit or display the character or power 
 of God to men. Perhaps such an object might have 
 been effected through something like the ''posses- 
 sion '' of a man by the Word. " But if a solid union 
 between God and man is to be brought about, if the 
 Son of God is Himself going to take human nature 
 as His own, if in His own Person He is to be 
 '' the Second Man from heaven (1 Cor. xv. 47), and 
 begin a new departure for the human race, then it 
 is imperatively necessary that we should conceive of 
 the humanity which he assumed as "impersonal" — 
 that is, as having no centre of consciousness or being 
 apart from Him, It was He who became man, who 
 was born and who died, not another person, however 
 closely connected with Him. 
 
136 Analogy of Body and SotiL 
 
 This is all that we mean by the " impersonality " 
 of Christ's human nature. We do not mean by it 
 that His liuman nature was an unreality, a phantom, 
 an automaton, made to go through the semblance of a 
 human life, and worked by a Divine Person outside of 
 it. The Church does not substitute a Docetic figment 
 for a living agent. Better the honest Nestorian man 
 than such a neuter thing. A personal human being 
 would make a worthier medium of communication 
 with the world. The phrase simply betokens the 
 unity of our Lord's Person, not a defect in the nature 
 which He assumed. 
 
 The human nature stands no further off from our 
 Lord's Person than the Divine, though He is Divine 
 first and human after. We count it no defect in our 
 bodies that they have no personal subsistence apart 
 from ourselves, and that, if separated from ourselves, 
 they are nothing. They share in a true personal life 
 because we, whose bodies they are, are persons. 
 What happens to them happens to us. The analogy 
 has from ancient times been applied to the mystery 
 of the hypostatic union in Christ. "As the reason- 
 able soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is 
 one Christ." It would be easy to press the analogy 
 too far ; but it serves its purpose in reminding us 
 that personality is a thing which lies very deep in the 
 background, and reaches forth through various organs, 
 and enters into more than one range of experiences. 
 The relation of soul to body in us is not the same as 
 the relation of the Godhead to the manhood in Christ ; 
 ljut it lielps us to see how the liuman nature of Christ 
 
In what Sense Christ ''a Man!' 137 
 
 possesses personality only by being His, and how He, 
 in it, can live a full human life. 
 
 Indeed, although theologians avoid the word be* 
 cause it is liable to be mistaken, there is nothing 
 untrue in describing our Lord as having, in the Incar- 
 nation, become " a man." So He is called, in Holy 
 Scripture, both in passages where the word may be 
 taken in an adjectival or predicative sense, as in 
 1 Tim. ii. 5, where we could render it " the human 
 Christ Jesus," or '-Christ Jesus who is Himself 
 Man ; " and also in several places which do not admit 
 of such a treatment. Not only is He so called by 
 enemies, or as yet uninstructed disciples, but He 
 calls Himself so : ''Ye seek to kill Me, a Man (avOpti)- 
 TTov) that hath told you the truth " (S. John viii. 40). 
 S. Paul calls Him so, singling Him out from other 
 men; ''the grace of the one Man (dvOpwrrov), Jesus 
 Christ" (Rom. v. 15). Using a still more significant 
 word, S. Peter speaks of Him as "a Man (avdpa) 
 approved of God" (Acts ii. 22), and S. Paul as "a 
 Man (avdpi) whom God ordained" to judge the world 
 by (Acts xvii. 31). 
 
 Such language sets vividly before us the personal 
 fulness of that human life which was lived on earth 
 and is still being lived in heaven; and all that we 
 need is to remember that that " Man " is none other 
 than the Everlasting Son Himself. Men saw a per- 
 sonal human being, and not merely an impersonal 
 nature, when they saw Jesus; but it was because 
 they saw the Word Himself in flesh. Within what 
 met their gaze there were not two persons residing, 
 
138 No Conversion of Godhead into Flesh. 
 
 who could hold dialogue with each other. They be- 
 held an absolute and indivisible unity; and it was 
 the same Person who spoke, whether He said, " Be- 
 fore Abraham was, I am," or whether He said, I 
 thirst." 
 
 § 7. 
 
 The manner o£ this personal union lies beyond 
 our comprehension, and we are not at liberty to make 
 it suit our intelligence by anything which alters the 
 character o£ either nature. Of such false methods 
 perhaps the most elementary would be that con- 
 demned in the Qiiiciimqive vult, by the words, " One, 
 not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by 
 taking of the manhood into God." The Word, when 
 He became Man, did not turn Himself into a man. He 
 did not exchange one nature for another, or cease to 
 be what He was before. We may not thus secure the 
 unity and continuity of His Person at the expense of 
 His Divine nature. Were such a thing possible, 
 although it might prove the kindness and self-sacri- 
 ficing pity of the Son of God, it would destroy all the 
 hopes which the Catholic faith brings us. The " con- 
 version of the Godhead into flesh " would but have 
 added one more man to the number of men — a sin- 
 less one, perhaps, among sinners, but it would have 
 effected no union of God and men. The human 
 nature would not have been appropriated by God, nor 
 the Divine nature communicated to men. If the Son 
 abdicated His Deity to assume humanity, He did but 
 lower Himself, without raising what He came to help. 
 
Error of Monophysitism. 139 
 
 But the very idea is inconceivable. The fantastic 
 language of a myth or a fairy tale can speak of turn- 
 ing one thing into another, but thought refuses to 
 folloAv the process. No continuity could be preserved 
 through such a change as that which would turn 
 Daphne into a bay tree. It would simply mean the 
 cessation of the one existence, and the substitution of 
 another altogether. And if we tried to imagine the 
 cessation of the Son of God, and the substitution for 
 Him of a human being bearing His name, we should 
 find ourselves reduced to a direct absurdity. Such a 
 theory has never found a champion. 
 
 §a 
 
 A more specious appearance is presented by 
 another false theory which the Athanasian symbol 
 proceeds to reject. One, not by confusion of sub- 
 stance," it says, ''but by unity of person." There 
 have been, and still are, large numbers of Christians 
 who, more or less consciously, and with considerable 
 differences among themselves, occupy this heretical 
 position. It is known as Monophysitism. For many 
 hundred years it has been the recognised creed of 
 several ancient Churches. In its coarsest form it 
 would teach that the two natures of which the Christ 
 is composed, though originally distinct, have so run 
 into each other as to be indistinguishable. They 
 not only permeate and interpenetr-ate each other at 
 every point: they are fused and blent into one. It 
 does not suffice to say that Christ is one person ; you 
 must say that He has but one nature. You must 
 
140 Error of Eutychianism. 
 
 attribute both His glories and His limitations indis- 
 criminately to the new whole developed by the 
 Incarnation. 
 
 The Monophysite theory is an improvement upon 
 that o£ the conversion into flesh, inasmuch as it 
 recognises the action o£ both elements in Christ ; but 
 it, too, destroys the true conception o£ an Incarnation. 
 The fusion o£ the two natures, had it been possible, 
 would have produced a tert mm quid which would be 
 neither God nor man. Thus, no less than the theory 
 last considered, it would involve a turning " of one 
 thing into a.nother ; only it would repeat the absurdity 
 twice over. It would necessitate turning, not the 
 Godhead only, but the manhood also, into something 
 foreign — into some nameless nature, betwixt and be- 
 tween, the fabulous nature of a semi-human demigod. 
 
 § 9- 
 
 The most frequent form of Monopliysitism, how- 
 ever, is that which is known by the name of its 
 exponent Eutyches. In our remarks upon it we do 
 not confine ourselves to the language employed by 
 Eutyches himself, but deal with the tendency which 
 he represents. It differs from that which has just 
 been described by virtually making nothing of our 
 Lord's humanity. It may be called the opposite of 
 the doctrine which turns the Godhead into flesh, for 
 it practically turns the flesh into Godhead. Accord- 
 ing to this view, when the two natures become 
 united in the Person of the Incarnate Lord, the 
 limited creaturely nature nmst, to all intents and 
 
It makes the Manhood tmreaL 141 
 
 purposes, disappear amidst the glories of the infinite 
 nature to which it is joined. It becomes absorbed and 
 lost. As a drop of vinegar is swallowed up in the sea, 
 so the humanity of Christ is swallowed up in His 
 Divinity. The illustration is an ancient one. 
 
 Such a doctrine practically reduces the historical 
 life of Christ to an unreality. It offers little more 
 than the earlier Docetism, which boldly maintained 
 that the body of our Lord was a hallucination. 
 Eutychianism would give it as much reality as would 
 fulfil the false though splendid image of Shelley — 
 
 A mortal shape to Him 
 Was as the vapour dim, 
 Which the orient planet animates with light." 
 
 It would agree with that poet in making Him tread 
 the thorns of death and shame ''like a triumphal 
 path/' of which He never truly felt the sharpness. The 
 development of His human nature, according to Euty- 
 chian views, could only take place in appearance and 
 externally ; there could be no expansion and progress 
 which He could observe within Himself. If it could 
 be said that His human soul was at any time ignorant 
 of any fact, such ignorance was altogether impercep- 
 tible amidst the omniscience of His Godhead. To 
 speak of Him as having been unable to do this or 
 that would shock the Eutychian tendency of mind, as 
 seeming to derogate from the truth of His Deity. 
 
 Thus it comes to pass that the sense of His being 
 (in the language of Chalcedon) '' consubstantial with 
 us according to His manhood,'' and really like to us 
 in all things but sin, becomes obscured. Divine 
 
142 ElUychianism ends in Creatnre-worship, 
 
 attributes are bestowed, not upon Him, but upon His 
 sacred humanity. It is made, for instance, to be 
 ubiquitous. Attention is concentrated upon it, as 
 distinct from the Divine nature which is joined with 
 it, and then Divine honours are paid to it. That the 
 humanity of Christ is indeed a fitting object of adora- 
 tion is recognised by all Catholics, but not His hu- 
 manity by itself. The Eutychian tendencj^, which 
 draws the mind's eye away from the Divine Person, 
 to fix it upon the human nature, or even upon the 
 material elements, which that Divine Person has 
 assumed, and w^orships what it thus contemplates, 
 ends in an idolatry, or creature-worship. Unguarded 
 modes of adoring the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar ; 
 the cultus — not harmless because symbolical — of a 
 special portion or aspect of the creaturely nature, like 
 the Sacred Heart ; are an outcome of this wrong deifi- 
 cation of our Lord's humanity. 
 
 And then, by a curious though natural counter- 
 move, that habit of mind which begins by losing sight 
 of the true manhood in the Godhead, follows on to 
 lose the true Godhead in the manhood. An example 
 may be found in the extravagant use of the title — 
 quite correct in itself — of " Mother of God," which is 
 heard in some quarters, as if the Eternal Godhead 
 itself owed its origin, and consequently its obedience, 
 to Mary. The same tendency is observable in the use 
 of language which implies that the Deity in Christ 
 was mortal. In hymns and other devotions there is a 
 fondness for such phrases as " the dying God." People 
 speak of the piercing of God's hands, the marring of 
 
and in the Degradation of Deity. 143 
 
 God s face, and the like.^ Many of those who speak 
 in such terms are well-instructed persons, who do not 
 themselves suppose the Divine nature in Christ to 
 have been merged in the human, or vice versa, and are 
 only led on by a love of paradox. But the love of 
 paradox needs to be narrowly watched. The ignorant, 
 and still more the half-taught, are apt to be misled 
 by what they hear ; and the result of feeding much 
 upon these paradoxes is that men lose on the one side 
 the solace and strength which comes from a right 
 conception of Christ's humanity, and are driven into 
 seeking from His blessed Mother or elsewhere a 
 sympathy which they dare not claim from Him ; and, 
 on the other side, with the inconsistency which has 
 been observed before, they fall into sentimental, 
 sensuous, fondling, modes of addressing our adorable 
 Lord, which both dishonour Him and enfeeble the 
 soul of the worshipper. 
 
 ' An isolated expression in Holy Scripture is, indeed, quoted in sup- 
 port of such language, where S. Paul — if the text be correct — speaks of 
 " the Church of God, which He purchased with His own Blood " (Acts 
 XX. 28). But there is considerable doubt about the original text. It 
 seems not improbable that the author wrote, " with the Blood of His 
 own Son." If we take the text as it stands, it must be observed that, 
 according to all New Testament analogy, " the Church of God (roG 
 @€ov) " must mean the Church of God the Father ; so that any attempt to 
 connect the words in such a manner as would suit an Eutychian view, 
 would be found really to lead further, and to end in Patripassianism. 
 But the words, "His own," stand in so emphatic a position in the 
 Greek that we might well render, " which He purchased with the 
 Blood which is His own." Such a turn at once suggests that it is 
 " His own " in a sense different from the usual sense ; as, for instance, 
 because of the essential unity between Himself and the Son whose 
 Blood it is. Even if we could understand the Son Himself to be 
 intended by the word "God," the very emphasis laid on the words 
 "His own " would preclude an Eutychian interpretation, 
 
144 The Nahtres truly tinited in one Person. 
 
 In order to approach Him aright, and to gain from 
 the approach what He desires to bestow, it is as 
 necessary to be clear from all confusion of the two 
 natures, as to reject all separation into two persons. 
 The Godhead is real, and the manhood is real, as 
 neither could be, if they were in any way mixed and 
 compounded. The Godhead is as pure and un- 
 adulterated as the Godhead of the Father ; the man- 
 hood is as simple and as creaturely as in her from 
 whom He took it, or as in us. The union between 
 the two natures is indeed a union, and not a mere 
 juxtaposition of two disconnected things; but the 
 union is found in the oneness of Christ's Person, and 
 not in any physical combination, nor yet in any 
 metaphysical transubstantiation of either essence into 
 the other. Our own constitution again supplies us 
 with an illustre.tion. Spirit and body in us are not 
 merely put side by side, and insulated from each 
 other. In a great variety of ways they affect and are 
 affected by each other. But each retains its own 
 proper nature. An attack of rheumatism in a man's 
 shoulder has an influence upon his spiritual condition, 
 but it would be absurd to speak of his spirit as 
 liavino: the rheumatism. And the communino^ of a 
 man's spirit with God makes demands upon his body, 
 forcing it to be wakeful, to assume a reverent attitude 
 to weep, and the like ; but it is not his body which 
 thus communes with God. Tlie reason wliy they 
 affect each other is because they are both equally Ids 
 not because of any confusion between themselves. 
 
 In something of the same way we may say it is 
 
The Communicatio IdiomahLm!' 145 
 
 with Christ. Mary is rightly called Theotolws, because 
 her Child was, " from the birth, and from the womb, 
 and from the conception,'' very God ; but she was not 
 the mother of His Godhead. We may legitimately 
 speak of the Blood of God the Son, but it is not as 
 God that He has blood — it is the Blood of One who is 
 God, but the blood belongs to His human nature and 
 not to the Divine. And again, it is true that Jesus 
 Christ came down from heaven, but He was not Jesus 
 Christ before He came down, — that is to say. He had 
 no human nature before His Incarnation. To say 
 that those hands which were tied with swaddling- 
 clothes were the same which made the stars on high 
 may be passed over in poetry among those who 
 understand; but it is not true, except in the sense 
 that He whose hands they are was the Agent in 
 creation. His human nature had no part in that 
 work ; it was as God alone that He did it. The 
 Person is absolutely the same ; but the natures retain 
 their own properties. There is a real and vital union 
 between them* but it is because both are His, the 
 one as much as the other. "Of both natures," says 
 Hooker, " there is a co-operation often, an association 
 always, but never any mutual participation whereby 
 the properties of the one are infused into the other." 
 
 §10. 
 
 We believe, then, that in the Incailiation the two 
 natures were perfectly and inseparably joined in the 
 one Person of the Word, not by conversion of the God- 
 head into flesh, nor by the conversion of the flesh into 
 
 L 
 
146 Christ^ s Godhead perfect. 
 
 CocUiead, nor yet by tlie conversion of botli into an 
 intermediate compound. It remains to be pointed 
 out tliat tlic two natures thus united are not only 
 true, but complete. It is difficult to say what con- 
 stitutes our idea of the completeness of Deity. God 
 cannot be l)roken up or divided. Such a thing as 
 a mutilated or diminished Godhead is an impossible 
 conception. If there was Godhead at all, it was full 
 and perfect Godhead. And the human nature which 
 our Lord assumed was likewise a complete human 
 nature. This is a matter more easily tested. If the 
 component elements of man are spirit, soul, and body, 
 these are all found in Christ ; and the mutual rela- 
 tions of the three are the same in Him as in us, 
 except where sin, in our case, has deranged the 
 normal connexion. 
 
 ^ He had — He has — a ))ody. It gathered shape, 
 like ours, from the maternal substance. It grew ; it 
 -walked; it ate and drank, and needed to be sus- 
 tained by eating and drinking. It hungered and 
 thirsted ; it was weary and slept ; it sweated ; it bled ; 
 it died. Before it rose transformed from the dead, 
 men saw it, gazed upon it, handled it, struck it, 
 embalmed and buried it. They found it to be a solid 
 material thing, subject to the same laws as ours. 
 Though, on occasion, things w^hich most of us cannot 
 do with our bodies were done by it, yet His Body 
 itself was not on that account different from ours ; and 
 if our Lord walked on the water of the lake, so did 
 S. Peter when our Lord bade him. 
 
 And to our Lord s body w^as joined a spiiit. It 
 
Christ's Manhood perfect. 147 
 
 was the organ by which He prayed to His God and 
 Father. In it He took deep note of spiritual facts : 
 ''Jesus knew in His spirit" (S. Mark ii. 8). In it 
 He rejoiced and sorrowed: ''In that hour Jesus 
 rejoiced in spirit " (S. Luke x. 21) ; " He was troubled 
 in spirit and testified'' (S. John xiii. 21). In it He 
 felt the emotion of a moral indication : — " He siofhed 
 deeply in His spirit'' (S. Mark viii. 12) : " He groaned 
 in the spirit" (S. John xi. 33). It was the seat of 
 His inmost human self-knowledge : He " was justified 
 in the spirit " (1 Tim. iii. 16). It was the last retreat 
 of His human life : " Father, into Thy hands I com- 
 mend My spirit" (S. Luke xxiii. 46); "In which 
 also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison " 
 (1 Pet. iii. 19). 
 
 And He had a soul. " My soul/' says Christ, " is 
 exceeding sorrowful, even unto death " (S. Matt. xxvi. 
 38). The heresy of ApoUinaris consisted in a well- 
 meant attempt to explain the unity of Christ's Person 
 by teaching that His humanity had no rational soul, 
 but only the animal soul, and that the Eternal Word 
 supplied its place. The Gospels are against that 
 mode of getting rid of the mystery. Loosely as 
 the word "soul" is sometimes used in the New 
 Testament, it cannot be doubted that Christ had 
 and has a rational soul entirely like ours — except 
 that His is perfect, and ours are not — when we regard 
 the faculties of which He stood possessed. He mar- 
 velled ; He learned. What once He had perceived, 
 He thenceforth knew. He had no opinions, no 
 conjectures; we are never told that He forgot, nor 
 
148 His rational Soul and human Will 
 
 even that He remembered, which would imply a 
 degree of forgetting ; we are not expressly told of 
 His arriving at truths by the process of reasoning 
 them out; but He reasons them out for others. It 
 is not recorded that He took counsel, or formed plans ; 
 but He desired, and He purposed, and He did one 
 thing with a view to another. 
 
 This intelligent aim necessitates also a genuine 
 human will. The Monotheletes, who suppose that 
 there is but one will in Christ — the will which belongs 
 to Him as Son of God — ought logically to go further, 
 and adopt the whole ApoUinarian view, and deny the 
 rational soul. For where there is intelligent percep- 
 tion and free reflexion there cannot fail to be moral 
 choice. Moral choice is the direct outcome of intelU- 
 gent reflexion ; and will is the faculty for making 
 a series of acts of moral choice, self-determined by 
 rational reflexion. If, therefore, there was but one 
 will in Christ, and that the Divine will, it could 
 be guided only by His Divine knowledge, and the 
 human perceptions had no share in its direction. If 
 that were the case, for all moral purposes Christ's 
 humanity was as good as worthless, and His rational 
 soul lacked that which is its true end and object. We 
 are, therefore, forced to believe, in spite of difficulties 
 upon which we must toucli afterwards, that Christ's 
 human nature was possessed of active free-will like 
 our own — except in being truly free, while ours is 
 partially enslaved. In conforming this human will 
 always to the Divine, lay the glory of His human self- 
 sacrifice. When He says, ''I came not to do Mine 
 
Tivo Wills in Christ. 
 
 149 
 
 own will, but the will o£ Him that sent Me " (S. John 
 vi. 38), or, ^'Not My will, but Thine be done" 
 (S. Luke xxii. 42), we may not, indeed, exclude the 
 thought that the Son in His Divine nature is in perfect 
 accord with the Father, but the phrases would have 
 little meaning if He who uttered them were not 
 supremely conscious of making a free creaturely 
 choice. 
 
 But while both natures in Christ are perfect, and 
 unimpaired by contact with each other, they are not 
 unaffected by their union. It does not quite satisfy 
 the mind to be told that the unity of Christ's 
 Person is the key to the mystery of the Incarnation. 
 For, in the first place, it would create a false impres- 
 sion if we made men think that the Person of the 
 Word was incarnate, but not His Nature ; whereas, 
 indeed, the whole point of the great transaction is 
 that it was the Incarnation of the Godhead — the 
 taking of the manhood into God, and the im^partition 
 of the Godhead to man. And, in the second place, we 
 may rightly ask — Was it really 'possihle for the same 
 Person to be at once both God and man ? Hov/ could 
 the two forms of consciousness exist side by side in 
 the same subject ? 
 
 This is the point v/here faith has least to aid it. 
 We can do little more than revere, and wait in silence 
 for the fuller light that is to come. To be sure that 
 Christ is perfect God and perfect Man is the great 
 thing ; and this assurance we have. If we try to in- 
 
1 50 Human Nature akin to the Divine. 
 
 vestigate further the mutual relations between the 
 two natures, it must be in no curious idleness, but to 
 deepen our adoring gratitude. 
 
 But while much is dark to us, the main things 
 which we know about man and God in some measure 
 mitigate the difficulty. As has been stated before, 
 the natures of God and man are not contradictory 
 of each other, as life and death are, or holiness and 
 sin. To conceive of a union between such mutually 
 exclusive terms as those is impossible, but not be- 
 tween God and man. The question was at one time 
 frequently debated whether, if it had pleased Him, 
 God could have become an angel, or a stone, or a 
 vegetable, instead of man. The answer cannot be 
 doubtful. Whatever may be in the abstract the 
 power of God, He could not will to do such a thing, 
 and it would not be possible for the nature of the 
 vegetable or the stone, or even for that of an angel, 
 to receive Him. There is no such affinity between 
 Him and them as to prepare the way for any direct 
 union with Him other than that which they already 
 have. Only through man, the high priest and 
 mediator of creation, can the rest of creation become 
 partaker of God. It would be false to say, as some 
 ancient thinkers did, that Deity and humanity are, at 
 bottom, the same thing ; for in that case there would 
 be no true Incarnation after all, — the Godhead would 
 merely have assumed, in the birth of Christ, one 
 fashion of its own being. But it is true to say that 
 humanity has not attained its perfection, and is like 
 an eye without the light, until it is crowned and ful- 
 
Gradtial Expansion of Chris fs Manhood. 1 5 1 
 
 filled by the Incarnation. It is not Deity itself ; but 
 it is a germ which, by correspondence with God's grace, 
 can grow up into being a true complement or counter- 
 part to Deity. 
 
 Thus there is nothing which outrages our reason 
 in the thought o£ a human nature being personally 
 united with the Divine and assimilated to it. It does 
 not destroy its humanity. Our bodies, even in this 
 life, are brought by discipline under the dominion of 
 the spirit to such an extent that we are not surprised 
 to learn what is their destiny hereafter. They are to 
 become spiritual bodies — bodies, that is, with cha- 
 racteristics of the spirit imparted to them ; but they 
 do not for that reason become spirits, and cease to 
 be bodies. So we may believe the human nature to 
 be capable of such subservience to the Divine as to re- 
 ceive many powers which were quite beyond itself to 
 develope, and yet to remain true human nature from 
 the first stage to the last, never parting with any one 
 of the distinctive features of manhood, yet receiving 
 a progressive conformation to the Divine. This was 
 what took place in Christ. His human nature began 
 at the beginning, and from the very beginning it was 
 the organ of the Divine. As growth is human, it 
 grew. "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and 
 in favour with God and man " (S. Luke ii. 52). One 
 faculty after another, in due order, awoke, and exerted 
 itself, and throve, and gained strength. First came 
 what seems the purely animal life of infancy; and 
 then the dawning and expanding reason ; and then 
 the conscious spiritual life which says, " Wist ye not 
 
152 The Divine Nature made bearable J' 
 
 that I must be in My Father s house ? (S. Luke ii. 
 49). And so the progress went on, physical, intel- 
 lectual, moral, spiritual, up to the Transfiguration, 
 and so to death and through death to resurrection, 
 and from resurrection to ascension, — the whole har- 
 monious human constitution appropriating more and 
 more fully the Nature which dwelt in it, and be- 
 coming a more and more adequate vehicle for the 
 Divine, yet never, even on the throne of heaven, 
 ceasing to be purely human, entirely " consubstantial 
 with us/' 
 
 § 12. 
 
 It is, however, comparatively easy to imagine how 
 the human nature could lend itself to receive the 
 Divine. " The very cause," says Hooker, " of His 
 taking upon Him our nature was to change it, to 
 better the quality, and to advance the condition 
 thereof, although in no sort to abolish the substance 
 which He took, nor to infuse into it the natural forces 
 and properties of His Deity.'*' Far harder it is to 
 reach any intellectual notion of the effect of the 
 union upon His Divine nature. How was it accom- 
 modated to the conditions in whicli it appeared on 
 earth ? How was it made — to use a favourite word 
 of S. Cyril's — bearable " to the inferior nature wliich 
 it assumed ? Perhaps, if the nature which it assumed 
 liad been from tlie first in the full glory of its present 
 heavenly maturity, the wonder would not have seemed 
 so great ; but how could the Son of (iod become an 
 embryo, a babe, a dying and a dead man ? 
 
Self -emptying of the Son of God. 153 
 
 One • great saying of S. » Paul's flashes upon the 
 subject all the light which in this life we are likely to 
 obtain. Exhorting the Philippians not to stand upon 
 their rights, but voluntarily, for love's sake, to give 
 them up to one another as not worth a contest, he 
 adduces the example of " Christ Jesus ; who, being 
 originally in the form of God, deemed it not a prize to 
 be clutched at to be " as He then was " on an equality 
 with God, but " by His own act " emptied Himself, 
 taking the form of a bondman, coming to be in the 
 likeness of men " (Phil. ii. 6, 7). Eound this central 
 statement gather others of a less explicit nature. 
 What infinite suggestiveness lies in the reserve of 
 those similar words to the Corinthians : Ye know 
 the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your 
 sakes He became poor, rich though He was, that ye 
 by His poverty might be rich " (2 Cor. viii. 9) ! The 
 Hebrews are told that He was " made a little " — or, 
 " for a little while " — " lower than the angels '' (Heb. 
 ii. 9). More faintly still, the same thought is con- 
 stantly implied wherever, instead of saying that our 
 Lord " came," or " came into the world,'' we are told 
 that He " came down " {e.g. S. John vi. 38 ; Eph. iv. 
 9). The mystery comes in sight again when our Lord, 
 in His last prayer, prays for the restitution of His 
 original glory as of a thing of which He had for 
 a time been dispossessed : Now glorify Thou Me, 
 Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, 
 before the world was, with Thee " (S. John xvii. 5). 
 
 Perhaps the significance of tliese profound words 
 has as yet Imrdly been so tlioroughlj^ explored in the 
 
1 54 Necessity of this Doctrine. 
 
 Church as it might be, and the doctrine which they 
 contain may be among the things which have yet to 
 be worked out. Elaborate systems of Divinity are to 
 be found which pass them over without examination. 
 We cannot, indeed, hope at present to penetrate deep 
 into the mystery, because the conditions of the Divine 
 consciousness lie so far beyond our apprehension ; but 
 it is possible that a more firm grasp of what has been 
 revealed on the subject may help to dispel some con- 
 fusions. Certainly any refusal to believe in the 
 self-emptying of the Eternal Son, any attempt to 
 minimise it and explain it away, seems to impair the 
 completeness of the Incarnation. Without it, our 
 Lord's earthly life assumes to us an aspect of un- 
 reality. If we avoid the danger of falling into the 
 Eutychian error of attributing Divine omniscience 
 to the human intelligence of the new-born Child of 
 Mary, we are apt to fall into the opposite error of 
 Nestorianism, and to suppose that the new-born 
 Child, with Its natural human ignorance, was not as 
 yet really and truly the Word Himself, but only 
 mysteriously annexed to the Word, while the Word 
 Himself lived on somewhere else, outside, so to speak, 
 of the human being which He had annexed : which 
 would seem to reduce the earthly career of Jesus to 
 an illusion, — the setting in motion of a human-looking 
 thing, not the real living of a human life. 
 
 It has been pointed out before, and it must be 
 borne in mind in all theological investigations, that 
 we Avho live in time are not capable of understanding 
 the relations between time and eternity. We cannot, 
 
Mystery of the Condescension. 155 
 
 therefore, say what may be the aspect of the temporal 
 humiliation of the Son, contemplated from the point of 
 view of His absolute eternity, any more than M^e can 
 say what may be the aspect of the whole history of 
 creation, of which it forms a part. The purely Divine 
 side of the matter is incomprehensible to us. What 
 abiding facts in the Divine life underlie those things 
 which necessarily appear to us as actions on God's part, 
 no human thought can ascertain. But our not under- 
 standing another side of things must not be allowed to 
 throw doubt upon that side which we can understand. 
 We are not afraid to affirm that it was an event in 
 the life of God, when He spake and the world was 
 created. As observed by us, something new then 
 took place, which modified the conditions in which 
 God lives. And when, again, the Redeemer was born 
 at Bethlehem, it does not concern us much to inquire 
 about the supra-temporal side of the event, but we 
 say that, as observed, and truly observed by us, a still 
 greater event took place then in the life of God, by 
 which not only the external conditions of His existence 
 were modified, but the internal also, and He Himself, 
 in the person of the Son, became what He was not 
 before. As, by creation. He accommodated Himself 
 to coexist with finite and free beings, so, in the In- 
 carnation, the Son accommodated Himself to experi- 
 ence, in His own person, the conditions under which 
 we free but finite beings live. The language of the 
 Bible does not set before us the life of Christ as being 
 lived simultaneously upon two parallel planes, with a 
 continuous and unbroken range of consciousness pro- 
 
156 Reality of the Condescension. 
 
 ceeding concurrently upon both.^ That is not the 
 true notion of eternity. It cannot be regai^ded as a 
 succession, moving simultaneously with temporal suc- 
 cession. When, therefore, we are following the life 
 of Christ upon earth, we need not perplex our minds 
 with the notion of His enjoying at the same time a 
 heavenly life of equality with the Father. However 
 an eternal being might describe what was done, it seems 
 as if we, here below, must understand that when the 
 Son " came down from heaven," it was a real coming 
 down ; not one in which the Son merely added to an 
 unchangeable Divine consciousness another, humbler, 
 human consciousness, but a coming down in which 
 the Divine Person actually gave up something which 
 He possessed before, and submitted His whole self to 
 privation and limitation. Instead of imagining a 
 Divine life of Christ lived aloof from the human, it 
 would appear truer to think of the one as completely 
 lodged in the other, and conditioned by it. He left 
 the glory which He eternally had with the Father, 
 to become conscious, in time, of earthly limitations. 
 
 * There is, perhaps, but one passage of the New Testament which 
 seems to lend any direct countenance to this way of looking at things. 
 In the Authorised Version, our Lord says to Nico'demus, " No man hath 
 ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the 
 Son of Man wliicli is in heaven " (S. John iii. 13). The paradox liere 
 seems complete. Ho " came down ; " yet there lie " is." But those 
 wlio have the best riglit to speak tell us that the last clause does not 
 stand in the most ancient text at all. If it is an integral part of the 
 Gospel, it might, perhaps, be interpreted to mean that heaven, although 
 He lias left it, is essentially the home of Ilim who is now Son of Man; 
 or even that, by constant fellowship with (Jod, He lives upon earth an 
 unenrthly life, conversant with heavenly realities, as S. Paul teaches 
 that it i,^ our privih^ge alf-o to do. 
 
Difictdty of tmder standing it, 1 5 7 
 
 This belief involves many mysteries which wc 
 cannot solve. We cannot understand how it was 
 possible for the Son to set bounds in any sense to His 
 own infinity, or to suspend, if we may so speak, His con- 
 sciousness of exercising Divine knowledge and power, 
 in order to enter into earthly conditions. We cannot 
 understand how, in those days of His humiliation, 
 the Almighty Word was still carrying on that work 
 which He performs in nature and history, and how 
 from the new-born Babe still radiated forth (as 
 assuredly they did) those influences which maintain 
 the unity and order of the world. We cannot under- 
 stand how the essential life of the Blessed Trinity in 
 heaven was affected by the coming down of the Son 
 into the created order. It may be a partial answer 
 to one of these difficulties to say that God governs 
 the world, not, as we govern, by consecutive exer- 
 tions of attention and force, but by being to it what 
 He is. And for another we must remember that the 
 coming down of the Son at His Incarnation is always 
 spoken of in Scripture as corresponding to a self- 
 sacrifice on the part of the Father, who " gave Him. 
 But whatever difficulties remain unsolved, and whether 
 or not the account here given of our Lord's humilia- 
 tion be the true one, this, at least, we must believe — 
 that the little Babe which lay in the manger of Beth- 
 lehem, with Its undeveloped mind and spirit, was the 
 Eternal Son, and nothing less. It was the personal 
 Word in all His fulness which was made flesh ; and 
 the Word was all made flesh at once. He Himself 
 "tabernacled among us." ''In Him," says S* Paul, 
 
158 The Self-emptying a Proof of Pozuer, 
 
 ''dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead in bodily 
 wise" (Col. ii. 9), and the saying holds true of His 
 earthly sojourn as well as of His present heavenly state. 
 What men saw and handled during His three and 
 thirty years was the Word Himself. The Word Him- 
 self became subject to time and space, to growth and 
 change. So true was the self -emptying on the part of 
 the Word as to give room for all the experiences of a 
 sinless humanity, from the blind life before birth and 
 onwards. Deity was not laid aside ; it could not be ; 
 but the exercise of some of its attributes was, while 
 the Word moved through the days of His humiliation. 
 The glory of our Lord's redeeming love is obscured if 
 we lose sight of this. ''In those very homely facts 
 and phrases," says an ancient Greek writing formerly 
 assigned to S. Athanasius, " lies exactly the point of 
 Christianity." 
 
 To part in appearance only with the fruition of 
 Divine prerogatives would be to impose upon us with 
 a pretence of self-sacrifice ; but to part with it in 
 reality was to manifest most perfectly the true 
 nature of God. It cannot be said that this view 
 presents to us a spectacle of mutilated or diminished 
 Godhead, such as we have stated to be impossible. 
 None of the Divine powers were lost to Christ while 
 He was upon earth. The very act by which He laid 
 aside the enjoyment of His omnipotence was a proof 
 that He was omnipotent. " He emptied Himself." It 
 was His own doing. If He tlu'cw Himself into the 
 limitations of human knowledge and of human poAver, 
 it was because He chose to do so ; and all the time that 
 
It makes Room to reveal Love, 159 
 
 those Divine powers were (in S. Irenaeus' phrase) 
 quiescent " within Him, they still were His. Had He 
 chosen to revoke His self-emptying, there was nothing 
 outside Himself to hinder Him. The weakness of 
 God/' says the jipostle, is stronger than men (1 Cor. 
 i. 25) ; and, however it might have appeared at the 
 moment, on looking back, at leasts the self-suppression 
 of Christ — that perfect mastery of His glorious 
 attributes, symbolized in the prophetic vision by the 
 horns coming out of His hand " (Hab. iii. 4), and 
 displayed in " the hiding of His power — the mighty 
 powers," as it has been well said, " held under a 
 mighty control " — this is the greatest of His miracles. 
 It was, we may reverently say, the only way to show 
 us the Father. Men are too ready to look upon God 
 as crushing force and cold omniscience. Had Christ 
 appeared on earth with all His splendours about Him, 
 He would have perpetuated our mistake. But He 
 took another way. It is the very essence of the Word 
 to be the Divine expression of the inmost nature of 
 God. The inmost nature of God is love. And when 
 Christ emptied Himself of the exercise of omnipotence 
 and infinite knowledge. He did not empty Himself of 
 love. He divested Himself only of that which would 
 have dazzled and distracted us, in order that we might 
 see His love more perfectly. The self-sacrifice of 
 Bethlehem, leading on to that of Calvary, leaves no 
 room for doubt. The Babe, lying in the manger, is the 
 "sign" (S. Luke ii. 12) which convinces us of a richer 
 theology than w^e could have guessed at, and makes us 
 cry, with the angels, Glory to God in the highest." 
 
Chapter VI. 
 
 Atoning 22Eloi1t of &\)xi^t. 
 
 Christ the natural Mediator between God and Man by reason of His 
 eternal Relations 7vith Both — The Incarnation to have been expected 
 apart Jrorn Redemption — Redemption possible to God by other ineans 
 — Redemption 7wt the only benefit of the Incarnation — Incarnation 
 the eternal Purpose of God — Simplicity of Catholic Doctrine of 
 Atonement — CJirist'^s Life reveals to men the Character of God — Its 
 Meaning made e.xplicit by His Words — The Reconciliation to be 
 effected not a inutnal Reconciliation — // originates with the Father 
 Himself—Sympathy of the Father with the Sufferings of the Son— 
 The Atonement reveals the Divine Hatred of Sin — Atoning Value 
 of Christ'' s Life as that of the Representative Man — Its Sinks sness 
 tested by Temptation — A Life of perfect Obedience — under Suffering 
 — and Death — Unique Character of ChrisCs Death — His Death 
 regarded as a Confession — Penal Nature of the Dereliction on the 
 Cross — No Substitution of Chj'ist for Sinners — Salvation by the 
 Cross itself not by Iheories concerning it. 
 
 % 1- 
 
 Christ is the Mediator between God and the world by 
 no arbitrary act of selection. He is the Mediator by 
 nature, and the only complete Mediator who can be 
 imagined. This arises from the position which He 
 eternally occupies in relation to God on the one hand, 
 and to man on the other. 
 
 The Son of God is, as we have seen, the absolute 
 expression of tlic wliole being and character of God. 
 
Christ the A rchetype and Son of Man, 1 6 1 
 
 He is — even before and apart from creation — God as 
 revealed, the Light as streaming forth from the Source 
 of Lioiit. Whatever communication can be made 
 from God to creation — angelic, human, or inferior — 
 must needs be made through the Son of God ; and 
 whatever approach is made by creation towards God 
 must needs be likewise made through Him, and 
 cannot be made otherwise. This mediation of the 
 Son is as necessary for sinless as for sinful creatures. 
 When Christ says, " I am the Way ; no one cometh 
 unto the Father but by Me" (S. John xiv. 6), He 
 expresses, not a rule of privilege and of conventional 
 arrangement, but an inherent necessity of the case. 
 
 And as He is naturally the expression of God, so 
 is He naturally the Archetype of man, who is made 
 after Him as his pattern. And by the Incarnation the 
 Word became actually, what He always was ideally, the 
 perfect Man. We see Him as " the Son of Man." 
 This title, which He invented and chose for Himself, 
 signifies that He has, by actual derivation from human 
 parentage, everything that is characteristic of hu- 
 manity, even as, by actual derivation from His Father, 
 He has everything that is characteristic of Godhead. 
 He is not merely a man, as one out of many similars ; 
 not merely man, as if in the abstract, and disconnected 
 from the rest of us ; nor the son of a man, as if He 
 obtained His humanity from some partial source ; nor 
 a son of man, as if others might conceivably hold the 
 same sort of position in the race. He is the Son of 
 Man," the supreme production of the human kind, 
 into whom all that is of the essence of manhood is 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Christ the Son of Man. 
 
 fully poured. Though living under true historical 
 conditions, " of the seed of David " (2 Tim. ii. 8), and 
 educated as a Jew, He yet transcends all national 
 peculiarities and all the peculiarities of His age ; and 
 what S. Paul says of the mystical body of Christ is 
 true of Christ's own life, that it has not the exclusive 
 features of Jew or Greek, barbarian or Scythian, bond 
 or free, nor even of male or female (Col. iii. 11 ; Gal. 
 iii. 28). He is the perfect type of them all. Not even 
 any predominant excellences are seen in Him : He is 
 not the poet, or the statesman, or the man of science, 
 or the artist ; He cannot be distinguished by the pos- 
 session of the active or the passive virtues. He is 
 simply man, as man. It was His, through the virgin 
 birth, to gather up and harmonize whatever true con- 
 stituent of human nature is found in fragments in us 
 all, and so to be the fit interpreter of the best side of 
 every one of us. Holding, therefore, as He does, this 
 twofold relation, as the Son of Man and the Son of 
 God, He is the natural Mediator between the two, 
 perfectly representing God to man, and perfectly 
 representing man to God. 
 
 § 2. 
 
 There is no need to think that it was sin which 
 caused the Eternal Son to become man. The media- 
 torial function is essentially His, and it seems as if it 
 could never have been thoroughly fulfilled by any- 
 thing short of an Incarnation. The Church has not 
 pronounced judgment on the question whether Christ 
 would have been incarnate ha<l there been no Fall ; 
 
Affinity of the Word to the Creation. 163 
 
 but the advance of thought in two opposite directions 
 appears to converge upon the belief that it would 
 have been so. The naturalness and fitness of the In- 
 carnation in itself, apart from sin, is brought out by 
 considering alike the source, and the course, of the 
 work of creation. 
 
 In the first place, the source of creation is more 
 clearly seen than perhaps at any previous epoch in 
 the inner relations of the Persons of the Blessed 
 Trinity. We begin to have a richer understanding 
 of the affinity of the Word to the creation, and to 
 feel increasinglj^ how even His existence before the 
 foundation of the world was, in a sense, the basis and 
 beginning of it. His immanence in the world as its 
 guiding principle seems to have pointed forward to 
 a more explicit manifestation of Himself. The very 
 nature of the Son of God contains, we may say, a pre- 
 disposition to enter into the closest connexion with the 
 world and with man. S. Athanasius, after mention- 
 ing with approval the Greek speculation that the 
 universe is a great organic body, goes on significantly 
 to say, " If, therefore, the Word of God is in the world 
 as in a body, what is there strange in affirming that 
 He has also entered into men ? What is there in- 
 credible, if, being in men, He reveals Himself among 
 them ? It is no strange thing if the Word, who orders 
 all things and gives life to all things, and who willed 
 a revelation to come through men, has used a human 
 body for the manifestation of the truth and making 
 known of the Father." 
 
 And, on the other hand, what we know of the 
 
164 Evohction leads up to the Incarnation. 
 
 course of the history of nature leads up to the same 
 expectation. It is true that the doctrine of evolution 
 has not yet attained the consistency of proven fact ; 
 but enough is already certain to convince us that 
 there has been an onward and upward movement 
 in created things. The inorganic, the organic, the 
 sentient, have prepared for the rational. Man re- 
 capitulates them in himself, and takes authority over 
 them. But must the evolution stop there ? Here is a 
 being capable of knowing and loving God — a being 
 like to God, and with a " heart restless until it rests in 
 Him," a being capable (as we know now by blessed 
 experience) of appreciating an Incarnation. Can we 
 imagine that he was not intended to receive it, and 
 was not made for the purpose ? If it were so, it 
 would seem to stultify that upward striving implanted 
 in nature before sin came. It would be like the 
 sudden and unaccountable stopping short of some 
 series in a calculating-machine. The mind which has 
 followed the process of the evolution thus far stands 
 demanding that the final step should be taken. The 
 aptitude of the Word for becoming man, and the 
 aptitude of man for receiving the Word, together 
 claim the Incarnation as their natural result. Instead 
 of being surprised to find the Word made flesh, we 
 might rather have been surprised had it not been so ; 
 and instead of turning to the Fall for an explanation 
 and a cause of the great mystery, we may wonder 
 at tlie imperturbable mercy whicli held on upon its 
 course in spite of man's rebellion. 
 
Some other Form of Redemption cone eiv able, 1 6 5 
 
 §3. 
 
 Neither have we a right so to limit the powers 
 of the Creator as to say that sin could not possibly 
 have been arrested and atoned for without the Incar- 
 nation. It attributes too great a skill to the author 
 of sin, if we try to make out that no resource was left 
 to God, if He wished to be rid of it, but to give His 
 Son to die for it. To have succeeded in reducing God 
 to such straits might well appear like a triumph for 
 Satan, even though the ultimate victory remains with 
 God. Sin can be made too much of. It is, indeed, a 
 vast and terrible factor in the life of the world. Of 
 necessity it occupies a great share of our attention. 
 All our thoughts are affected by its presence, and to 
 fight against it is, in a sense, the main business of 
 our lives. It may easily appear to us, then, as if 
 nothing short of the Divine Sacrifice could have 
 delivered us from it. Men sometimes have even 
 maintained that an infinite ransom for sin was 
 required, on the ground that the offence itself was 
 infinite. But this is not true. Sin is a finite thing, 
 and not an infinite. Those creaturely minds and wills 
 which embody it are themselves limited ; and it has 
 no existence outside of them. It cannot, therefore, be 
 measured and weighed in the balance against God. 
 If God's only object was to make an end of sin, we 
 may conceive of His being able to attain the object 
 without so stupendous an act as the Incarnation. 
 It has been argued that if anything less than the 
 Incarnation could have put an end to sin, God would 
 
1 66 Becomingness of Redemption by Christ. 
 
 not have committed Himself to such a waste of power. 
 But this argument is based on the assumption that 
 to provide a remedy for sin was the sole purpose 
 of the Incarnation. If God had other, greater, 
 objects in view, the argument falls to the ground. 
 Some new start for the human race might, perhaps, 
 have been found on a less exalted footing. The 
 writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews appeals, not to 
 our sense of logical necessity, but to our sense of 
 moral fitness, when he twice says that God's method 
 of redemption was that which in the circumstances 
 "became" Him (Heb. ii. 10; vii. 26). Not to have 
 redeemed at all, but to have left the world, however 
 guilty, to its usurping conqueror, would have been, as 
 S. Athanasius points out, in a high degree " unbe- 
 coming and unnatural." But if it became God to 
 redeem, tliere was no way so becoming as that which 
 He took. And its becomingness is brought out in a 
 peculiarly striking way, if we suppose that the Incar- 
 nation is no afterthought consequent upon the Fall, 
 but the very thing for which man was created. 
 Nothing could be so dignified and so touching as to 
 proceed simply with the Divine plan — not restoring 
 the world first, and then effecting the Incarnation in 
 humanity so restored ; but fully accepting the Fall 
 and its consequences, and triumphing over it, and 
 even turning it to account, by the love which did in 
 spite of it what it had purposed to do independently 
 of it. 
 
Other Benefits of the Incarnation. 167 
 
 §4 
 
 We are permitted, conversely, to perceive that the 
 Incarnation and Death of Christ have actually brought 
 us blessings far wider than the removal of sin. It 
 has often been pointed out that the Nicene Creed 
 itself suggests that the Son's condescension had other 
 purposes in view. " For us men," it says, " and for 
 our salvation He came down from heaven.'' The 
 two clauses do not mean precisely the same thing. 
 Christ had other benefits to bring to " us men " 
 besides our salvation. 
 
 He has united the Godhead and creation in a way 
 in which nothing short of the Incarnation could (so 
 far as we know) have united them. The revelation 
 of God to man which we now possess through Avitness- 
 ing the historical life of Christ is infinitely clearer and 
 closer at hand than anything which we can imagine 
 vouchsafed in any other way. Through that great 
 transaction man is not merely restored to the first 
 estate which Adam occupied, but to one immeasur- 
 ably higher. Though still suffering from the cor- 
 ruption which the first Adam entailed to his 
 descendants, we are at the same time enriched by 
 the communication of the Divine nature in a way 
 which Adam never knew. And the gathering up of 
 the human race in Christ imparts a unity and solidity 
 to mankind, and to the universe through mankind, 
 which, so far as we can judge, was otherwise unat- 
 tainable, much exceeding the unity and solidity which 
 
 I existed before the Fall. 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
i6S 
 
 O felix Ctilpa!'' 
 
 And are we to suppose that these benefits would 
 never have been given to men but for their trans- 
 gression ? Are they indeed a premium upon human 
 disobedience ? Did God intend something less glorious 
 for humanity as He originally designed it, and 
 then, when He saw us in rebellion, devise for us 
 these overwhelming gifts ? In that case the famous 
 apostrophe, " 0 felix culpa ! " — O happy fault ! " 
 expresses a literal truth, and we have not only to 
 thank God for giving us a Redeemer, but to thank 
 Adam for drawing down to us, by his sin, One who was 
 so much more than a redeemer. The facts seem to 
 be against such a theory. We can hardly think that 
 God would have punished the race for loyalty to its 
 Maker by withholding what now He has bestowed, 
 and what He always kncAV Himself able to bestow. 
 Long ages after sin lias disajopeared from existence, 
 and almost from the memory of the saints, creation 
 will be rejoicing more and more in the abiding fruits 
 of the Incarnation; and it seems inconceivable that 
 it should owe them all to its own aberration from the 
 Creator's original design. 
 
 § 5. 
 
 That the Incarnation was not dependent upon the 
 Fall seems to be distinctly involved in more than one 
 passage of Holy Scripture, especially in S. Paul's 
 Epistles of the Captivity. He tells the Ephesians 
 that ''before the foundation of the world" — there- 
 fore certainly before^ the Fall of man— God "elected 
 
The Incarnation eternally purposed. 1 69 
 
 us, having predestined us unto adoption through 
 Jesus Christ unto Himself (Eph. i. 4, 5); and that, 
 at length, He has " made known to us the mystery o£ 
 His will, according to His good pleasure, which good 
 pleasure He purposed before in Christ unto a dispen- 
 sation o£ the fulness of the times/' — that is, He was 
 reserving the announcement of His purpose until the 
 ripe moment should be brought about, — and this good 
 pleasure was "to sum up all things in Christ, the 
 things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in 
 Him'' (Eph. i. 9, 10). And again, S. Paul declares 
 himself commissioned "to divulge what is the dis- 
 pensation of the mystery that has been hidden away 
 since the ages in God who created all things, that 
 now should be made known to the principalities and 
 the authorities in the heavenly places, through the 
 Church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to a 
 purpose of the ages, which purpose He formed in the 
 Christ, Jesus our Lord" (Eph. iii. 9-11). It may be 
 readily acknowledged that these passages, and similar 
 ones in the Epistle to the Colossians and elsewhere, 
 are more or less tinged by thoughts of redemption 
 and suffering, because S. Paul's purpose is rather 
 practical than speculative, and he deals with things 
 as they are; but it is at least clear from them that 
 the Incarnation, and our union with and in the 
 Incarnate Son, was the eternal purpose of God, 
 formed before — that is, independently of — the actual 
 history of creation, and not devised after the event. 
 When the " foundation of the world " was laid, it was 
 laid with a view to the Incarnation. The only 
 
170 The Fall not ptirposed at all. 
 
 question is whether the Fall itself and its reparation 
 was part of the fundamental design. 
 
 Those who hold that without it the Incarnation 
 would not have taken place are bound to consider that 
 the Fall, as an indispensable preliminary to it, was 
 eternally in the Creator's counsels ; and this is hardly 
 possible to maintain. That God foreknew, indeed, 
 the disobedience of His creature cannot be doubted; 
 but that He intended and planned it, with the design 
 of thus repairing it, cannot be asserted without im- 
 piety. It would destroy all the sinfulness of sin, or 
 rather it would make God Himself the author of it 
 and so sinful, if we could believe that His eternal 
 purpose involved sin as a necessary element. And in 
 that case the love also, w^hich is shown in redemption, 
 is emptied of its glory; for its task is wholly self- 
 chosen and self-imposed. However difficult it may be 
 for us to adjust our conceptions of the relation between 
 the two, God's foreknowledge and God's foreordaining 
 are distinct conceptions. In the first place we may 
 repeat what has already been said that God's fore- 
 knowledge in no way determines the future, but is 
 rather determined by it. The future becomes no dead 
 certainty because God foresees it ; it remains still and 
 for ever a living thing. There is alwaj^s room for 
 movement and free play between the Divine will and 
 the creaturely Avill. It may be " is the word which 
 our Lord puts in His Father's mouth (S. Luke xx. 13). 
 The creature does not execute a design laid down for 
 it in detail beforehand, and God does not will before- 
 hand wluit tlie creature does. Pcrmissiveh^, indeed, 
 
Redemption conditionally purposed, 171 
 
 He wills it, or it could not happen, but not actively or 
 as its author. There is no more difficulty in thinking 
 of God s permitting sin in the sphere of His eternal 
 caunsels than in the course of history; but on the 
 other hand it would be no more impossible for Him 
 actively^ to will sin in the course of history than 
 actively to will it in His eternal counsels. Thus we 
 may believe that, while the Atonement was from 
 eternity the conditionaJ purpose of God, the Incarna- 
 tion was His unconditional purpose — that He willed 
 His Son to suffer and die for men if man should fall, 
 but to become man in any case.-^ The drawing of the 
 creation into union with the Creator, in the Christ, 
 Jesus our Lord,'' was contained in the very idea of 
 creation; the circumstances and conditions depended 
 upon the way in which men might choose to act. And, 
 as it proved, men chose to act in that way which 
 served more than any other to manifest the strength 
 and tenderness of God's love. 
 
 §6. 
 
 In considering the redemptive work of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, the human conscience demands that the 
 
 ^ The popular phrase, " the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world " (Rev. xiii. 8), is not rightly quoted. A comparison with Rev. 
 xvii. 8 on the one hand, and Rev. v. 12 on the other, will show clearly 
 that the words, "from the foundation of the world," belong, not to the 
 participial clause, "the Lamb that is slain," but to the main verb, 
 " whose names have not been written." It refers, therefore, to the 
 predestination of those who are saved, not to the eternal nature of 
 Christ's sacrifice. This latter thought is expressed more clearly else- 
 where, as in 1 S. Pet. i. 20, where the words are, " before," — not merely 
 "from"—" the foundation of the world." 
 
1 72 Doctrine of Atonement imist be simple. 
 
 theory of it should be simple. No one can rest with 
 confidence upon what is, on the face of it, an artifice, 
 a scheme. What are called forensic doctrines have 
 seemed to satisfy many hearts, but only so far as they 
 were right metaphors, parables hinting at a fuller 
 truth which was consciously or unconsciously felt to 
 lie behind them. If our Lord's work be regarded as a 
 cleverly devised legal contrivance, it repels instead of 
 attracting; or if it does not actually repel, it invites 
 criticism and admiration rather than worship and 
 devotion. It is only when we strongly apprehend the 
 naturalness of it all that we are able to embrace it 
 with a hearty faith. Our Lord's redeeming work may 
 be infinitely complicated. It 'may have many more 
 aspects and a greater number of effects than we can 
 imagine. It would not be natural were it otherwise . 
 for all that is natural is complex. But its complica- 
 tions must be those which belong to life, capable of 
 being resolved into a simple and majestic unity, and 
 not the complications of a studied mechanism. 
 
 This we firmly believe to be the character of the 
 Catholic doctrine of Kedemption. However deep it 
 goes, however subtle its adaptation to its purposes, 
 however varied its results, the whole of Redemption 
 rises, as it were without an effort, out of the fact that 
 the Redeemer was what He was, and acted always 
 according to His nature. We have already drawn 
 attention to the truth that there was nothing far- 
 fetched in the choice of a redeemer, but that He who 
 undertook it, undertook it because it was His natural 
 place to do so. And in like mannei', His method of 
 
Need of Revelation of God's Character. 173 
 
 doing what He came on earth to do was natural and 
 simple. There was no going out of His way, no 
 straining after bye-ends and cross-purposes. From 
 moment to moment He lived the life which (being 
 what He was) He could not but live ; and it had the 
 infinite effects which (that life being His) it could 
 not help having. When He, to whom everything 
 pointed as the obvious Mediator between God and 
 men, began and carried through to the end His his- 
 toric work, His mode of operation was only this — to 
 be Himself, very God and very Man, and to act 
 becomingly in the circumstances. In the unity of 
 His Person all contradiction was reconciled, and the 
 same things which became Him as Son of God be- 
 came Him as Son of Man, and the very same line of 
 events showed Him throughout as the ideal repre- 
 sentative both of the one nature and of the other. 
 This double aspect of each and all of our Lord's works 
 must never be forgotten. He was not by one series 
 of acts showing Himself as Son of God, and by another 
 as Son of Man. There was in Him no alternation 
 between two parts which were to be played. He was 
 continuously and harmoniously both. Thus we may, 
 for clearness of study, contemplate His whole life and 
 death, first as the manifestation of God to man, and 
 secondly as the representation of man to God. 
 
 § 7. 
 
 The true manifestation of God to man is the first 
 great need in the Atonement. For the main object 
 of the Atonement is a moral not a legal one. It is 
 
1 74 Mens Misconceptions of God 
 
 not only satisfaction for past offences, but the removal 
 of sin for the future. And sin for the future can only 
 be precluded by fully persuading the wills of men to 
 give it up. And the only chance of their being able 
 to give it up lies in their being brought into frank 
 and normal relations with God Himself. This was an 
 impossibility for man as he was. His alienation from 
 God was too deep to be easily got over. He had 
 learned to travestie and caricature to himself the 
 nature and mind of God in a thousand ways. The 
 more unlike to God he became, so much the more he 
 thought wickedly that God was even such an one as 
 himself" (Ps. 1. 21). To the minds of the heathen in 
 general, God was no better than men, and would con- 
 demn Himself if He condemned them ; or He was 
 indifferent to their actions, and, as an early con- 
 troversialist against Christianity affirmed, was " no 
 more angry with men than with apes or flies ; or 
 God was capricious and revengeful and implacable, 
 and the utmost that could be done was to endeavour 
 to keep Him in good temper with fair words and 
 frequent offerings ; or perhaps He appeared, as in 
 some of the higher Gentile systems, and to some 
 amongst the Jews, as a sternly pure being, extreme 
 to mark what was done amiss, who might give a 
 liappier lot in another world in exchange for ascetic 
 self-torture in this, or for rigid observance of a rule 
 more exact than that which He had Himself imposed. 
 But in whichever way the error travelled, mankind 
 at large had lost the true conception of God as a 
 righteous Father; that is, as One who must needs 
 
removed by Christ's Life and Words, 175 
 
 be at Wiir with sin wherever sin was to be found, but 
 who at the same time loved men with an intense and 
 personal affection, and was therefore impelled equally 
 by love and by righteousness to seek to deliver them 
 from sin. 
 
 This was the character displayed in Christ to draw 
 men back to God. Prophets among the Israelites 
 had striven to portray such a character; and more 
 dimly moral philosophers among the Gentiles had set 
 forth fragments of it. But the fullest of inspired 
 descriptions could not have the same effect as the 
 sight of an actual life lived among men, simply and 
 necessarily exhibiting at every turn the mind of God. 
 In all the infinitely varied circumstances of that life, 
 in dealino; with saints and in dealino- with sinners, 
 there was one continuous manifestation of the Father's 
 heart ; so that without a touch of exaggeration Christ 
 could say, ''He that hath seen Me, hath seen the 
 Father " (S. John xiv. 9). For although they did not 
 see the Father in person, they saw One who not only 
 resembled Him exactly, so that there was nothing in 
 the Son unlike that which was in the Father, but He 
 whom they saw was so entirely one with the Father 
 that He could have no imaginable being apart from 
 the Father, nor the Father apart from Him. 
 
 § 8' 
 
 Our Lord's words gave articulate and explicit 
 expression to the message of His life. What He did 
 and was amongst men no doubt proved the most 
 eloquent way of setting forth the truth about God. 
 
176 Christ reveals God's Fatherliness. 
 
 Yet as words without deeds are disbelieved, so deeds 
 Avitliout words are misunderstood. If our Lord had 
 been content to work His miracles and say nothing 
 about the God who had sent Him, or, in His own 
 phrase, if He had " come in His own name " (S. John 
 V. 43), He would have had it all His own way. Men 
 might even have contrasted Him invidiously with the 
 God whom they so misinterpreted. But with the 
 utmost persistence and vigilance He made it His rule 
 to trace every deed of His, and every word, to its 
 source in the Fathers heart, as something "given" 
 Him to do or to say. He claimed to be the absolute 
 and only exponent of the Father s mind. Amidst all 
 the differences between the Fourth Gospel and the 
 others, this great feature stands out perfectly clear in 
 all alike : " No man knoweth the Father save the Son, 
 and he to whomsoever the Son is pleased to reveal 
 Him'' (S. Matt. xi. 27). And the main characteristic 
 of the new revelation is precisely that fatherliness of 
 God towards men. The language was indeed not 
 entirely new to men. Isaiah had said, " Now, O 
 Lord, Thou art our Father'' (Isa. Ixiv. 8); and S. 
 Paul could quote a heathen testimony of like nature, 
 ''We are also His offspring" (Acts xvii. 28). But 
 not only were such expressions rare before; — they 
 were mainly intended to appeal to a fatherhood of 
 origination rather than to a fatherliness of disposition. 
 And while Christ revealed more clearly tlian ever 
 that God was the ultimate source of our being, He 
 revealed in a still more striking and persuasive way 
 tliat the heart wliich is tlie source of our l)eing is 
 
The Reconciliation not nrnttLal. 
 
 truly, and in spite of all our sin, a Father s heart. It 
 is by the perfect way in which He did this, by word 
 and deed, that Christ is to us the ideal Prophet. 
 
 § 9. 
 
 The gift of His Incarnate Son, even prior to the 
 thought of what the Son did for us, was a proof of 
 the Father s good will. It is difficult to understand 
 how, in the teeth of Holy Scripture, some misrepre- 
 sentations of the doctrine of the Atonement, formerly 
 popular, but now fast vanishing away, can ever have 
 come to exist. The expression found in the Anglican 
 Articles, that Christ suffered " to reconcile His Father 
 to us," is one for which a true meaning can indeed 
 be found, but which is not itself scriptural. Often 
 as S. Paul uses the words reconciliation " and to 
 reconcile (/caraXXay?/, KaraXXao-cEfy, aTroKaToKkaauHv) 
 of the work of Christ, he never uses them (nor does 
 any other New Testament writer) of the reconciliation 
 of God to His creature, but always of tlie reconcilia- 
 tion of the creature to God. A different compound of 
 the verb (SiaXXacro-f tv), a slight modification of the con- 
 struction, would have suggested that a mutual recon- 
 ciliation of the two parties was effected through the 
 good offices of Christ, who had the interests of both 
 parties equally at heart. But S. Paul will give no 
 colour to any theory of the kind. Christ's mediator- 
 ship is not of such a sort. He does not occupy a 
 ground of friendly neutrality between contending 
 parties; He is entirely on the side of both. He 
 arranges no compromise or accommodation between 
 
 N 
 
178 God not estranged front Man. 
 
 them ; He exacts to the utmost the full claims of God, 
 while He obtains for man terms infinitely better than 
 man would ever have dreamt of 
 
 For indeed, as S. Paul's language appears studi- 
 ously to convey, the alienation is not a mutual aliena- 
 tion. The estrangement is wholly on one side. It is 
 only the offending party which demurs to a relation 
 of sweet concord. The One who alone has had cause 
 of complaint has never been unwilling to heal the 
 breach. It is true that God has been deeply dis- 
 pleased and grieved and angered, and even, we might 
 say (though the expression is not in the Bible), 
 
 offended." So long as men cleave to their sin. He 
 cannot, of course, deal with them as if they had never 
 done wrong or as if they were penitent for it. But 
 He has never turned away from them, except for 
 purposes of gracious discipline, and has never ceased 
 for an instant to make the most generous advances to 
 them, and to devise ways by which the race, and each 
 individual member of it, may be brought into such 
 conditions that the forgiveness which He longs to 
 bestow may be actually bestowed and accepted. 
 
 If, indeed, the Father had been in any other sense 
 
 offended with men, Christ could not have under- 
 taken to mediate. To imagine it would be to separate 
 the Son from the Father in a way altogether im- 
 possible. There can be no division of will or thought 
 between the Two ; for the Two are not only in moral 
 agreement, but are one in actual essence. What the 
 Son loves, the Father loves, and to the same degree. 
 What the Father hates, the Son hates, and to the 
 
Salvation specially ascribed to the Father. 1 79 
 
 same degree. The one can be no kinder and no 
 sterner than the other. It is the will of the Father, 
 as much as it is the will of the Son, to redeem 
 mankind. 
 
 But more than this. The relation of the Son to 
 the Father is such that the Son cannot be regarded as 
 the originator of the method of redemption. Human 
 imagination has depicted Him as coming forward in 
 the councils of Heaven, and offering to solve the 
 problem by an incarnation and death. It is, however, 
 clear, that the Eternal Word initiates and can initiate 
 nothing in the Divine schemes. So to suppose would 
 be to make two Gods. Our Lord perpetually speaks 
 of Himself as " sent." He speaks of a commandment 
 given to Him, which He obeys. The Father has not 
 accepted a spontaneous offer of self-sacrifice on the 
 part of the Son, but has Himself imposed the self- 
 sacrifice upon Him; while the Son, in that absolute 
 union with the Father which is, by the Spirit, a free 
 and loving union, rejoices to devote Himself to the 
 task which glorifies the holiness and love of the 
 Father. Thus it comes about that the Atonement is 
 constantly spoken of in Scripture as in a special 
 sense the Father's work. In the Pastoral Epistles, 
 which exhibit S. Paul's final and most matured 
 thought, the most frequent title of the Father, not 
 used by him before, is that of " God our Saviour " 
 {e.g. 1 Tim. i. 1). He still, indeed, speaks of Christ 
 also, as is natural, under the title of Saviour (as 
 2 Tim. i. 10) ; but he seems at the same time to 
 delight in tracing our salvation to its yet deeper 
 
i8o Christ's Sufierings prove God's Love. 
 
 origin in the mind of the Father, Avho has saved us 
 through His Son. 
 
 § 10. 
 
 Nor is the good will of the Father towards men 
 displayed in having merely desired their salvation, 
 and willed that His Son should undertake it. Even 
 the nature and extent of the sufferings of Christ are 
 adduced by the sacred writers as a proof and measure 
 of the Father's love towards us. It is not only the 
 love of Jesus Christ Himself which is shown by the 
 Cross. The love of the Father is, in a peculiar 
 manner, credited with it all. If it be true to say of 
 Christ, " He loved me, and gave Himself for me " 
 (Gal. ii. 20), it is no less true to say, " So God loved 
 the world, that He gave His only -begotten Son 
 (S. John iii. 16), and " Herein is love, not that Ave 
 loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to 
 be the propitiation for our sins'' (1 S. John iv. 10); 
 and again, to take the witness of another Apostle, 
 " The love of God hath been shed abroad in our 
 hearts through the Holy Ghost which was given to 
 us. For Christ, while we were yet weak, in due time 
 died for ungodly ones. For scarcely for a righteous 
 man will one die (for the good man, indeed, perad- 
 venture some one may even dare to die) ; but God to 
 us commendetli His own love, because, while we were 
 yet sinners, Christ died for us " (Rom. v. 5, 6). 
 
 There is, indeed, this clement of truth even in 
 Patripassianism. It was, of course, impossible, in tlic 
 nature of things, that the Father Himself should be 
 
The Father ivounded throi{o[h the Son. i8i 
 
 incarnate, and should suffer and die for us, while the 
 Son remained aloof. Any imagination of the kind 
 must spring out of a Tritheistic idea, and ignores the 
 necessary relations of the Blessed Persons. But the 
 Father cannot have been indifferent to the sufferings 
 of His beloved Son. On the contrary, we may with- 
 out irreverence guess from the feelings of earthly 
 parents, which are the imperfect reflexion of His, that 
 the suffering and grief of the Father, in delivering up 
 His Son for us all, was even greater than what He 
 would have endured if He could have borne it all in 
 His own Person. A pious cottager on hearing the 
 text, " God so loved the world," exclaimed, " Ah ! that 
 %ms love ! I could have given myself, but I could 
 never have given my son." If this be true, we may 
 read in the Crucifixion not only the indignation and 
 pain of the Father at men s sin, but the intensity of 
 His love for the sinners, which made Him willing to 
 endure such anguish, a thousandfold the more acute 
 for being inflicted, not on Him, but on One dearer 
 than Himself. 
 
 The prophet foretold this wounding of the Father 
 through the heart of the Son, when he said, ^^Thej^ 
 shall look on Me whom they have pierced, and shall 
 mourn for Him" (Zech. xii. 10). Convinced of the 
 love which we have outraged by our sin, we are 
 forced into an attitude of penitence. Penitence is 
 nothing else but love, convicted of having wronged 
 the beloved. Nothing purges the soul of sin like 
 penitence. No conviction of the abstract righteous- 
 ness of the law, still less any pressure from fear of 
 
1 82 God's Righteottsness cleared by the Cross. 
 
 the consequences of sin to our own souls, would 
 have bred that passion for holiness which springs up 
 naturally when the heart perceives what has been 
 the mind of God towards it throughout. Thus the 
 Cross of Christ reconciles men to God by making 
 them abhor and abjure sin. There is no standing 
 out against it. The love of Christ constraineth us " 
 (2 Cor. V. 14). 
 
 § 11. 
 
 But the doctrine of the Atonement would lose all 
 its meaning for us, if we were to suppose that Christ 
 aimed at nothing else but turning men from sin for 
 the future ; or if we could believe that He aimed only 
 at shewing that God still cared for us. The Atone- 
 ment had also a retrospective side. It revealed the 
 judgment of God upon past sin also. It was most 
 necessarj^ that the character of God should be cleared. 
 The "silence" which God had kept (Ps. 1. 21) in view 
 of men's sins was mercifully designed. He " winked 
 at the sins of men, because they should amend" 
 (Wisd. xi. 23). A premature disclosure of all His 
 burning indignation would have terrified men into 
 despair, and would have frustrated the attempt to 
 rid them of sin. But this reticence on tlie part of 
 God was liable to be misunderstood. It might have 
 been thought tliat, after all, God did not care much 
 about men's sin; that He was easy, good-natured, 
 indulgent ; that on occasion, indeed. He used strong 
 words against sin, but tliat His words were sterner 
 than His deeds. To remove such a misconception 
 
Christ represents the hitman Conscience. 183 
 
 was, to say the least of it, as marked a feature of 
 the Atonement as the demonstration of His love. 
 "God," says S. Paul, "set forth Christ Jesus to be 
 a propitiation, through faith, by His blood, to shew 
 His righteousness, because of the passing over of the 
 sins done aforetime in the forbearance of God, — for 
 the shewing, I say, of His righteousness at this present 
 season : that He might Himself be just, and the justi- 
 fier of him that hath faith in Jesus" (Rom. iii. 25, 26). 
 And, indeed, unless we bear this in mind, the Cross 
 is no very cogent proof of love. It is only in pro- 
 portion as we recognise the hatefulness of sin in God's 
 eyes — His perfect loathing and detestation of having 
 anything to do with it — that we see the magnitude 
 of the sacrifice which He made for us, in not only 
 bearing so long with it, but at last giving His Son 
 to hear it. It was this identifying of His Son for 
 our sakes with all that God most abominates, which 
 shews the depth of His f atherliness : " He made Him 
 to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be 
 made the righteousness of God in Him " (2 Cor. v. 21), 
 
 § 12. 
 
 So far we have considered the atoning work of 
 Christ as a true exhibition of the mind of God to- 
 wards sinful men, both in its stern and in its tender 
 aspect, thus at the same moment wooing them and 
 warning them back from sin to God. But our 
 Redeemer is as truly man as He is God. He repre- 
 sents, therefore, with equal fidelity, the response of 
 the human conscience to the revelation thus made. 
 
184 Redemptive Aspect of Christ's Life. 
 
 He redeemed mankind by the perfectness with which 
 He responded to It. 
 
 We may, perhaps, consider first the response as 
 shewn in His life. It is a loss to the Church when 
 the redemptive character of the life of Jesus upon 
 earth is forgotten, and when His death alone is con- 
 sidered in that light. When this is the case, the three 
 and thirty years of His sojourn come to be regarded 
 as serving only to set an example to men, or as a 
 time of teaching and preaching. If attention turns 
 at all to His life in itself, apart from its didactic 
 effect, the life wears the look of being only a neces- 
 sary preliminary to dying, or at best of qualifying for 
 a work of atonement at the close. 
 
 We do not mean to deny that such views of our 
 Lord's life are true, but to assert that they are only 
 partial. It is most important, for instance, to con- 
 sider our Lord as the Example and Pattern whom we 
 are to imitate. He revealed to men in His life the 
 true ideal of manhood, as well as the true conception 
 of God. The one revelation was as necessary as the 
 other, for both had been equally obscured. Mankind, 
 as S. Athanasius says, was made to be a picture of 
 the Eternal Son ; but the picture was become so 
 blurred and begrimed, that it could not be restored 
 without the appearance of Him whose portrait it was 
 intended for. He shewed us by example what is the 
 true relation of the creature to tlie Creator. He 
 shewed us what sonship is, and iii His conduct to- 
 wards men He shewed us also wliat 1)rotherliood is. 
 
 But His life was far more than an example for ns. 
 
Christ's Life fttlfils the Ideal for Man. 185 
 
 As such, it would have daunted us at least as much 
 as it would have stimulated, because Christ did not 
 start with our disadvantages. Christ's life had a 
 value on our behalf quite independent of its moral 
 effect on us. It had a value on our behalf towards 
 God. He lived, as He died, the true Representative 
 Man. He displayed before the eyes of the Creator 
 His own ideal for mankind perfectly realised. Once 
 more there was something in mankind upon which 
 the regard of God could rest with satisfaction. One 
 generation of men after another had come and gone 
 since the first Fall, and all had been sinful. Some 
 men had been better than others, and ofiered points 
 of hope ; but all had proved faulty. It was a series 
 of disappointments and failures. There was nothing 
 which came up to the requirements of God, nothing 
 which did not in some degree move the Holy One to 
 displeasure and abomination. It seemed as if Satan's 
 triumph over the race was complete and irreversible, 
 and that all men must necessarily sin. But such an 
 induction w^ould have been hasty- It w^ould have 
 ignored a fundamental fact in the conception of 
 humanity. The members must not be reckoned 
 without the Head. Humanity without Christ is not 
 humanity. It is, as an able writer has pointed out, 
 the mistake of the Positivist Religion to think so, and 
 to worship humanity to the exclusion of Christ. But 
 if it is a mistake to exclude Christ and worship w^hat 
 remains of humanity, so is it a mistake, by the exclu- 
 sion of Christ, to reckon humanity as lost. Even if 
 we could consider Christ as a private individual 
 
1 86 Christ necessarily impeccable, 
 
 human being, yet, if He is really human, there is at 
 least one sound spot in human nature. But Christ 
 is not, and cannot be, a private, casual, human being. 
 He occupies the unique position of the Second Adam, 
 the necessary " Head of every man " (1 Cor. xi. 3). 
 Therefore, until Christ be fallen, humanity is not 
 wholly lost. Christ's perfect life offers a firm rallying- 
 point for all that is human to gather round. In spite 
 of the defection of many, God sees in Him what He 
 desired to see; and as at the first bright beginning 
 of human life in Eden, He could say that it was 
 very good " (Gen. i. 31), so, looking down again upon 
 human life in Jesus, He could bear testimony, " This 
 is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" 
 (S. Matt. iii. 17). 
 
 §13. 
 
 The Second Adam, no less than the first, had to 
 pas^ through His probation. That probation of the 
 Incarnate Son is by no means easy to understand. 
 Any firm grasp of the facts of the case makes it clear, 
 to begin with, that Christ could not sin. To suppose 
 Him peccable, however sinless, or fallible, however 
 free from actual error, betrays a Nestorian conception 
 of His Person ; it shews that He is thought of as pos- 
 sessed of a doul)le personalit}^— a Divine Being lodged 
 in a man. 
 
 Christ is a single Person, and tliat Person is a 
 Divine Person. In that accommodation of Himself 
 to human limitations wliich S. Paul speaks of as 
 ''emptying Himself (Phil. ii. 7), He by no means 
 
yet ftdly liable to Temptation. 187 
 
 emptied Himself of His essential holiness ; He only 
 caused that holiness, like His love, of which it is a 
 part, to manifest itself under new conditions. But 
 the conditions under which this indefeasible holiness 
 was manifested were those of a real and a progressive 
 human nature. The Divinity of His Person did not 
 lift Him up out of the reach of natural human wants 
 and impulses. Quite the contrary. Amongst our- 
 selves, an intellectual man is sometimes so absorbed 
 in his intellectual pursuits as to become oblivious of 
 lower necessities. But with Christ this was not — at 
 least not usually — the case. He was never absent.'' 
 It was part of His perfection to be keenly alive to 
 everything. When we read that on a certain occasion 
 Jesus ''troubled Himself (S. John xi. 33), voluntarily 
 breaking up the serenity that was natural to Him, in 
 order to enter with conscious completeness into the woe 
 with which He was surrounded, we have an illustra- 
 tion of what was habitual to Him. His very Divinity 
 made it possible for Him more fully than for others to 
 taste the ingredients of human life. And although, 
 by His freedom from original sin, He had none of the 
 vicious and depraved desires which are congenital to 
 us, and could only think of such with an instinctive 
 abhorrence, yet, being human. He could not fail to be 
 tempted by the same things which had tempted our 
 first parents. Bodily pains and pleasures found in 
 Him the most exquisitely sensitive nerves to which 
 they had ever appealed. He had a human intellect 
 and imagination, of which Aristotle, Alexander, Dante, 
 Raffaelle, Beethoven, afford feeble and stunted types ; 
 
i88 Christ actually tempted more than others. 
 
 and it carmot have been easy to forgo the prospects 
 opened out by the possession of such powers. His 
 human spirit met its peculiar trial, in the very close- 
 ness of its association with the Divine nature. 
 
 Although, therefore, He could not fall, He could 
 be tempted. There was no risk of His choosing 
 wrong, but He felt the hardship of choosing right. 
 His human nature could not be torn away from the 
 Divine — that is, from Himself ; but it could be racked 
 by the strain of keeping up with it. The very fact 
 that His human nature was healthy, and could only 
 be inclined to things good in their kind, made it all 
 the harder to sacrifice them to a higher purpose. We 
 may truly say that our Lord not only could be tempted, 
 but that He had a greater susceptibility to temptation 
 than any other human being. And at the same time, 
 the crafts and assaults of the Tempter were more art- 
 fully and more persistently concentrated upon Him 
 tlian upon any other. It is a mistake to suppose that 
 He was only tempted during the forty days in the 
 wilderness. Those forty days were a fierce and typical 
 outbreak of new temptations such as He had been 
 incapal)le of l)efore His Baptism ; but we are signifi- 
 cantly told that, at the close of them, the devil 
 departed from Him for a season " (S. Luke iv. 13). 
 It was a short lull, and the storm was but gathering 
 sti*ength to burst upon Him again. 
 
 And as the temptation was true human temptation, 
 so was the victory true human victory. It was not, 
 indeed, the \'ictory of a man overcoming by sheer 
 force of liumau will without the assistance of Divine 
 
Christ conquers l^emptation as Man, i8g 
 
 grace ; but neither was it the victory of a God, over- 
 coming by His Divine force and silencing and ignor- 
 ing His human feelings. It was the victory of One 
 who had thrown His whole self into human conditions, 
 and fought with no weapons but those which are 
 common to men, such as prayer and fasting and 
 vigilance. Christ's life was a life of faith, like that of 
 His brethren (Heb. ii. 13). If His spotless character 
 was appealed to by those who wished to emulate it, 
 He taught them the secret of its spotlessness by point- 
 ing them to the source from which they, as Avell as 
 He, might derive holiness. Why callest thou Me 
 good ? there is none good save One, that is, God 
 (S. Mark x. 18). It was not, we may believe, by 
 drawing upon a reserve of superhuman powers of His 
 own that Christ resisted temptation while on earth, 
 but by a humble and creaturely dependence upon 
 God. That position of dependence He could not have 
 abandoned without ceasing to be Himself, which was 
 impossible ; but His human faculties freely chose the 
 position. 
 
 When the Church teaches that Christ was im- 
 peccable, she teaches no arbitrary dogma. The 
 inability to sin was not a mechanical inability, the 
 result of inherent apathy towards the objects of 
 temptation ; still less was it the result of any sys- 
 tem of special protections. The fulness of Christ's 
 humanity presented an almost infinite frontier to 
 assault ; and there was no spot at which the assault 
 was not attempted. He was in all points tempted 
 like as we are, yet witliout sin " (Heb. iv. 15). 
 
1 90 Christ not only sinless, but perfect. 
 
 % 14. 
 
 But to say that Christ was sinless — " as a lamb 
 without blemish and without spot" (1 Pet. i. 19) — is 
 but one side, the negative side, of His redeeming life. 
 It represents a larger and more positive notion to 
 speak of His life as perfect. It was not only unsullied 
 by gins of commission, but its splendour was undi- 
 minished by any sin of omission. Nothing was lacking 
 to it. Not that it was a perfection stereotyped from 
 the first, and unchangeable. It was a perfection that 
 increased and developed from year to year. Conceived 
 without sin as He was, the initial fashioning of His 
 human nature was a perfect fashioning. He became 
 a perfect Infant, a perfect Boy, a perfect young Man. 
 He would not have been so, had He possessed at three 
 years okb or at thirteen, the mature powers of the 
 man of thirty ; for a perfect childhood must mean a 
 perfect compliance with all the conditions of child- 
 hood. Gradually the holiness which was never absent 
 from Him was absorbed by His human nature, and 
 made more and more consciously its own. The will 
 of the Father, which in infancy had been instinctively, 
 though perfectly, obeyed, became, as He grew older, 
 the freely chosen rule of His life. He not only yielded 
 to it when made known to Him ; in His own pregnant 
 phrase, He " sought " it. " I seek not Mine own will, 
 but the will of Him that sent Me " (S. John v. 30)- 
 He thus ''learned obedience" (Hel). v. 8), not because 
 He was ever in any degree disobedient, but because 
 obedience is not fully obedience so long as it is simply 
 
Christ^ s immense Responsibilities, 191 
 
 a compliance with an external command, but only when 
 it can enter intelligently into the whole counsel of him 
 who commands. When, therefore, the life of Christ is 
 said to be a perfect life, it involves an appalling range 
 of intelligent obedience. The humbler the position is, 
 the more easy it is to be perfect. As men rise in the 
 scale, the relations of life become more complicated, 
 and responsibilities more difficult to meet. And 
 Christ's life was beyond all comparison the most 
 complicated in its relations and responsibilities of all 
 that have ever been lived. It was a simple thing to 
 be a good little child, a simple thing to be a good 
 young man at the carpenter's bench in Nazareth ; 
 but no man, — no emperor with all his political and 
 social power for good or ill, no pontiff with " the 
 care of all the Churches " weighing upon him, — has 
 such a delicate and difficult task to acquit himself of 
 as that of Jesus. He had all mankind, all history, to 
 think of ; and the welfare of every individual human 
 being depended upon each act, word, and thought of 
 His. He was not called upon to live the life of a per- 
 fect man of one restricted type, but the life of a perfect 
 Head of the Eace. And He did it perfectly. The 
 exacting eye of God Himself could find nothing left to 
 desire. At no moment in all that life could a single 
 detail have be^en altered, except for the worse. 
 
 § 15. 
 
 There is one point in our Lord's life of obedience 
 on which it is necessary to enlarge somewhat more. 
 His position was not that of a Head of the Race in the 
 
192 Christ's Obedience tested by Suffering. 
 
 normal condition of the race. The difficulty of the 
 position was aggravated beyond our power of thought 
 by the disordered state of things into which Christ 
 came. The first Adam had been tempted, but he had 
 not been tempted through suffering. Obedience would 
 have cost him nothing but self-restraint. Everything 
 was made easy for him. But for the Second Adam 
 everything was made hard. He " learned obedience 
 by the things vfhicli He suffered" (Heb. v. 8). He 
 was called upon, not only, like the first man, to hold 
 back from an abuse of endowments, but to endure 
 every variety of pain and penalty for His adhesion to 
 the Father s will. The guiltless heir to the throne 
 of David was born an outcast in a stable. In early 
 infancy, a plot against His life drove Him hastily 
 into exile. In youth. He laboured at a trade, amidst 
 the privations of a poor and bereaved home. Then, 
 when He came into public life, after the fasting and 
 afflictions of the wilderness, He became " acquainted 
 with grief (Isa. liii. 8), in every shape which it as- 
 sumes. Besides the homeless state, which His own 
 words shew that He felt acutely — " The Son of Man 
 hath not where to lay His head " (S. Matt. viii. 20) — 
 the subsistence on the uncertain charity of others, tlic 
 bodily hunger and thirst and weariness, the heat and 
 cold, the loss of friends by death. He had the deeper 
 sorrows of failure and rejection, of involving others in 
 His own calamities, of misunderstanding and contempt 
 in His own family, of furious hatred and cruel and 
 wilful misinterpretation from the I'cpresentatives of 
 religious authority, of fickle and insincere attachment 
 
Christ's Joy in Obedience. 193 
 
 on the part of multitudes whom He had benefited 
 in soul and body, of desertion by every one of His 
 followers, of being sold by one and denied with oaths 
 and curses by another, and at last, as it seemed, of 
 being disowned and forsaken by God Himself. It 
 was not only through innocence, it was not only 
 through obedience that Christ redeemed us ; it was 
 through obedience tested and perfected by sufferings 
 so manifold in their character, so ingenious in their 
 combination, and so overwhelming in volume, that 
 no imagination short of His could comprehend them. 
 And the glory of the obedience lies in this — that 
 Jesus, so far from flinching from doing the will of 
 God at such a cost, found joy and happiness and 
 contentment in doing it. Lo, I come (in the volume 
 of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O My 
 God : I am content to do it, yea. Thy law is within 
 My heart " (Ps. xl. 7, 8). " If ye keep My command- 
 ments, ye shall abide in My love ; even as I have kept 
 My Father's commandments, and abide in His love. 
 These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy 
 might remain in you, and that your joy might be 
 full " (S. John XV. 10, 11). 
 
 % 16. 
 
 The obedience of our Lord's life was crowned by 
 the obedience of His death. " Being found in fashion 
 as a Man, He humbled Himself and became obedient, 
 even to the extent of death, yea, the death of the 
 Cross " (Phil. ii. 8). In one sense it was the most 
 fitting, in another sense the most unfitting end to 
 
 o 
 
194 Meaning of the Transfiguration. 
 
 such a career. Man, we are given to believe, had not 
 always been intended to die, like the lower animals. 
 Though his terrestrial life W8.s not designed to be 
 infinitely prolonged, it was designed to lead up to a 
 splendid departure. 
 
 Such a splendid departure was actually, at one 
 moment, as it seems, within the reach o£ Jesus. The 
 Transfiguration was, we can hardly doubt, the begin- 
 ning of that glorious passing away into other con- 
 ditions, which was the appropriate close of our Lord's 
 perfect human development. So far as His own 
 personal probation was concerned, all had by that 
 time been accomplished, and nothing remained but 
 to take the reward. Two saints of the Old Testa- 
 ment, who had themselves passed away by other than 
 the ordinary gates of death, were seen appearing, to 
 welcome Him as " that which was mortal in Him 
 began to be " swallowed up of life," and He drew near 
 to be "clothed upon with His habitation from heaven" 
 (2 Cor. V. 2, 4). But those who heard the colloquy 
 between our Lord and them, heard them, " in glory " 
 themselves, speak of a different kind of " exit (c^oSor) 
 which He should accomplish at Jerusalem " (S. Luke 
 ix. 31). He tore Himself back from the open door, to 
 mix a wliilc longer witli a " faithless and perverse 
 generation," l)idding His disciples to say nothing 
 al)out it, till He should be "risen from the dead." 
 It was part of His duty, as the sinless Head of the 
 sinful Race, to go on as He Iiad begun. He had not 
 demanded exemption from the lesser sufferings which 
 His brethren had brought upon themselves ; nor would 
 
Voluntary Character of Christ^ s Death. 195 
 
 He demand, nor accept, exemption from the greatest 
 He had received such a commandment from His 
 Father — -to lay His life down, and to take it again 
 (S. John X. 18) ; and He did not hesitate to do it. He 
 did not die because He must, but because He chose. 
 
 It was this free renunciation of His right to a 
 triumphal end, prompted by love to men and obedi- 
 ence to the Father, which gave its atoning value to 
 His death. " It was not His death which was well 
 pleasing,'' says S. Bernard in famous words, " but the 
 will by wliich He chose to die.'' His death may not 
 be isolated from His previous life. It was a supreme 
 and concentrated exhibition of that which had all along 
 characterized Him — -joyful and perfect creaturely 
 obedience under the test of the severest suffering. - 
 The Apostle regards the whole life of Jesus, culmina- 
 ting in His death, as a single and undivided act of 
 righteousness, all of one piece, and far outbalancing 
 by its absolute conformity to the Divine will Adam's 
 fatal error. As through one trespass the judgment 
 came unto all men to condemnation, even so through 
 one act of righteousness (SiKaiwiua) the free gift came 
 unto all men to justification of life : for as through 
 the one man's disobedience the many were made 
 sinners, even so through the obedience of the One 
 shall the many be made righteous" (Rom. v. 18, 19). 
 
 § 17. 
 
 Men often wonder why Jesus shrank from death 
 with such horror and repugnance. While a Socrates 
 and a Seneca can move towards death with calm 
 
196 Christ considered as " tasting''' Death. 
 
 composure, Jesus is seen to be " sore amazed and over- 
 whelmed with anguish (eKOajufiHaOaL Koi adr^jULOvdv)'' 
 ''My soul," He says, "is exceeding sorrowful, even 
 unto death " (S. Mark xiv. 33, 34). It is as though 
 He had never fully felt till that moment what death 
 would be, although He had long lived in contempla- 
 tion of it ; and now it almost kills Him even to 
 anticipate it. Why was it so ? 
 
 A striking phrase in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 seems to touch the point. Jesus was made " by the 
 grace of God on behalf of every man to taste death " 
 (Heb. ii. 9). It has been nobly shewn by a modern 
 writer that Jesus alone of all men has truly tasted 
 death. Some men are naturally stolid and apathetic : 
 they lack the imagination requisite for tasting death. 
 Some purposely refuse to contemplate what would 
 unman them, and steadily string their nerves to 
 endure it, whatever it may be. To Christians, the 
 bitterness of death is gone, just because Christ died 
 and rose again ; and they can hardly be said to die at 
 all, but to pass from a less desirable scene of life to 
 a more desirable. But when Christ, in His human 
 spirit and soul and body, confronted death, no one 
 before Him had passed through death victoriously. 
 Its terrors were as yet undiminished ; and Jesus knew 
 that it lay with Him to put an end to them by ex- 
 hausting them. He was not secured against those 
 terrors by any indifference, citlier natural or assumed. 
 He refused the stupefying drauglit, which was offered 
 Him. He resolutely set all His liuman faculties to 
 sound to the depths the dreadfulncss of dying. 80 
 
special Horror of Crucifixion. 197 
 
 far from casting Himself upon His Divine impassi- 
 bility, He lent, we may say. His Divine nature to 
 extend His human consciousness into an infinity of 
 suffering. Not a circumstance was allowed to be 
 wanting which could aggravate the inherent horrible- 
 ness of death. 
 
 Perhaps the world might liave been redeemed, had 
 He died for it in Seneca's comfortable bath, or by 
 Socrates narcotic poison; but S. Paul adds it as a 
 grave factor in Christ's obedience, that He was not 
 only obedient even unto death, but that that death 
 was nhe death of the Cross" (Phil. ii. 8). What 
 the Romans, who inflicted it, thought of crucifixion is 
 well known. ServitiUis extremum smnmumqiie sup- 
 plicium is what Cicero calls it ; and he declares that 
 the Latin language contains no word strong enough 
 to describe the crime of inflicting such a punishment 
 upon a Roman citizen, however bad he might be. 
 But to the Jew, who looked upon everything in 
 a religious light, it was far worse. A peculiar sense 
 of malediction had, in a half superstitious manner, 
 gathered about punishments of this kind, owing, or 
 partly owing, to the variously interpreted words of 
 the Law, "He that is hanged is the curse of God" 
 (Deut. xxi. 23). Any other form of execution, even 
 stoning itself, seemed kindly, when compared with 
 this hoisting up of the naked and pierced body 
 between earth and heaven, as if rejected and abhorred 
 by both. And no element in all this complication of 
 horrors passed untasted by Jesus. The bodily tor- 
 tures, the indignities and shame, the sense of failure, 
 
1 98 Sin the Sting of Death. 
 
 the fear, the hatred with which His love was requited, 
 — all this, and much more, was felt by Him with a 
 sensitiveness which has had no parallel, and which 
 was able both to analyse it into its constituent parts, 
 and to weigh it altogether in its solid completeness. 
 He drained the cup until He had sucked out the very 
 dregs. 
 
 §18. 
 
 The physical and imaginative terrors of death, 
 though acutely felt by our Lord, were a small part of 
 His sufferings in dying. Its connexion with sin is 
 the "sting" of death (1 Cor. xv. 66). Human death 
 is, as we have said, an unnatural thing. For Christ 
 to bear the earlier pains of His life was a great 
 condescension, beca>use pain follows normally upon 
 transgression of the laws of the universe, not upon 
 perfect conformity to them. Being in a disordered 
 world, however, it was impossible that He should 
 escape some pains. But that, after He had cheer- 
 fully borne all else. He should yield up His life itself 
 as a forfeited thing, seems almost more than could 
 liave been expected. Christ, by His perfections, had 
 fully established His right to live ; and God called 
 upon Him to die. It was tantamount to demanding 
 of Him a confession of sin. Perhaps this is the light 
 in which it is easiest for the devout mind to lay hold 
 upon the Atonement made by Christ. 
 
 If we try to imagine, apart from revelation, what 
 would be the necessary elements in an act of repara- 
 tion for past wrong-doing, we can hardly think of 
 
An Atonement necessitates Confession. 199 
 
 anything else besides an adequately contrite acknow- 
 ledgment of it, coupled Avith a perfect and effectual 
 resolve to do the very opposite from tlienceforth. 
 Merely to cease from wrong-doing in the future, while 
 saying nothing about the past, would clearly be 
 insufficient. But it would as clearly be insufficient, 
 if, even along with the cessation of the offi3nce, an 
 external punishment for the past were inflicted. A 
 truly righteous being like God could never be satisfied 
 with exacting penalties which left the mind of the 
 offender unaltered. He must needs require that the 
 offender should come to look upon his offence with 
 the same eyes as Himself. The sinner must be brought 
 to regard the sin in its true light, and to measure it 
 with the true measurement. This once fully done, it 
 is difficult to see what more is wanting to a satisfactory 
 reparation. 
 
 This is just what the sinner is unable by himself 
 to do. He cannot fully confess or feel his sin. The 
 sin itself impedes him. His eyes are blinded by it, 
 and his conscience benumbed. He has lost the ideal 
 of holiness, and therefore cannot appreciate the con- 
 trast between the ideal and the actual. None but a 
 perfectly healthy and pure conscience can adequately 
 take in the heinousness of sin, or adequately give 
 expression to it. But Christ could do this. Having 
 no sin of His own to dull His perceptions. He could 
 feel to the full the demands of a holy law, and 
 acknowledge their unalterable justice ; and therefore 
 He could gauge the extent to which His brethren had 
 fallen short. He would be able to give an absolute 
 
200 Christ's Sympathy with the Divine W^^athy 
 
 and unwavering consent to that wrath of God which 
 went out against sin— not deprecating it, not begging 
 that it might be appeased with anything less than 
 justice, not minimising the sin against which it went 
 out, effecting no kind of composition with it, but going 
 the whole length with it, and sympathizing with its 
 entire reach and range of indignation atid fury. 
 
 This is involved in describing Jesus as a "faith- 
 ful" High Priest (Heb. ii. 17; iii. 2), a "righteous'' 
 Advocate (1 John ii. 1). Such a complete and 
 exhaustive concurrence in the Father's judgment 
 upon sin is even spoken of as sustaining our Saviour 
 through the anguish of His task. He was taking, 
 not only giving, revenge for the outrage done by sin. 
 " The day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year 
 of My redeemed is come. And I looked, and there 
 was none to help " — not one who was able to take the 
 same view of sin as He took — " and I wondered that 
 there was none to uphold ; therefore Mine own arm 
 brought salvation unto Me; and My fury, it upheld 
 Me " (Isa. Ixiii. 4, 5). But it was not the fury of one 
 who assented to the chastisement of some guilty third 
 person. The wrath of which He so deeply felt the 
 justice blazed forth upon Himself. It was this which 
 gave it so terrible a power. On Him was laid "the 
 iniquity of us all " (Isa. liii. 6). He felt Himself to 
 be identified with His brethren for weal and for woe. 
 Though it was no fault of His that they had sinned. 
 He was in a manner lield responsible for them. Their 
 shame was His sliame, their guilt His guilt. Stand- 
 ing to them in the relation in which He stood, He 
 
and with the Shame of His Brethren. 201 
 
 could not disown them; and He would not if He 
 could. He loved them too well for that. He had 
 espoused their cause because He loved them, and 
 therefore He must suffer with them and for them 
 And if His work was to be well and lastingly done, so 
 as to need no repetition and no supplementing. He 
 must, once for all, taste the whole bitterness of sin, 
 even of the sin of all mankind. He must, as repre- 
 senting the conscience of the race, feel a loving, filial 
 submissive sorrow for sin, which should not only be 
 sincere and good as far as it went, but which should 
 cover the whole field which had to be covered. It 
 was His lot to realise to the utmost item in His own 
 Person all that each . individual conscience ought 
 to realise when it is piercingly awakened to the 
 righteous claims of God on the one side, and to 
 the base selfishness with which it has met them on 
 the other. And if such an awakening is bitter to the 
 guilty conscience, how much more to the sinless ! 
 Often a pure-hearted mother will feel the disgrace and 
 wickedness of her son more profoundly than the son 
 himself does even in his most contrite moments. In 
 something of the same way, — though mother and son 
 are not to each other what Christ is to those whom 
 He died to save, — Christ, we may believe, felt the 
 torture more deeply than the whole world of penitents 
 could feel it, when the iniquity of all men was borne 
 in upon His pure human conscience — not indeed as 
 His own, as if He had personally committed it, — but 
 as more than His own, because it was the iniquity 
 of those whom He so loved, and with whom His love 
 
202 
 
 Otir Sins laid tipon Christ. 
 
 so identified Him. There is a kind of selfishness in 
 penitence for sins which we have committed with our 
 own hands, but none in such a penitence as this, where 
 love for the offender and love for the Oftended, in all 
 their combined force, were converted into an agonized 
 sense of the offence. 
 
 And this was not to be done by an act of contem- 
 plation only. All through life Christ had been made 
 to bear the loathsome pressure of other men's sins 
 encompassing Him. But during all that time He 
 stood in some measure aloof from them ; they were 
 kept, so to speak, at arm's length, and regarded as 
 external to Himself, — the sins of others. It was His 
 death which made the union with men complete. In 
 His death, those sins, from which every fibre of His 
 being revolted with indignation and dismay, were 
 Ijrought home to His inmost conscience, in the realisa- 
 tion that He and we are one. It was not for Him to 
 plead calmly and condescendingly for us from His 
 superior height of conscious integrity, but to appro- 
 pricite us and all our vileness, in order to deal with it 
 as it deserved within the very sphere of His OAvn holy 
 being. The last barrier between His Person and ours 
 was borne down in death, and let in upon His soul 
 the wliole flood of our transgression, to be expiated 
 and purged and done away by the satisfactory 
 tlioroughness with Vv^hich Christ's broken heart ad- 
 mitted it, grieved over it, and repudiated it. In sucli 
 a death, voluntarily accepted, Clu'ist made the faithful 
 response of the human conscience in view of the 
 broken law of God. 
 
Christ's Death, in what Sense penaL 203 
 
 § 19. 
 
 That Christ's death was in a true sense penal, is 
 clearly conveyed to us in Holy Scripture, though it 
 has been denied by pious and tender souls of our own 
 time. The chastisement of our peace was upon 
 Him" (Isa. liii. 5). But when it is asked what the 
 penalty was, the answer must be sought in some such 
 considerations as the foregoing, not in anything more 
 outward and adventitious. It was the death itself 
 which formed the penalty — only death realised and 
 tasted. Christ did not bear our sins in addition to 
 dying, or die in addition to bearing our sins. His 
 death — Christ being what He was, and feeling it as 
 He did — was itself the bearing of our sins. Tlius 
 the naturalness and simplicity of the Atonement are 
 preserved. 
 
 But there was one feature in Christ's Passion 
 which deserves a separate mention, because it wears 
 most clearly the penal aspect, although strictly it was 
 an integral part of His "tasting death." The sins 
 which He bore were so completely laid on Him, as to 
 produce upon His personal consciousness the sense of 
 being Himself cut off from God. My God, my God," 
 He cried, in the words of the Psalm, why didst Thou 
 forsake Me ? " It was the hour in which the Son's 
 " self -emptying," spoken of by S. Paul as begun in 
 the Incarnation (Phil. ii. 7), was consummated. Non 
 solvit nnionem, says S. Leo, sed subtraxit visionem. 
 The Divine fellowship between the Father and the 
 Son was not annulled, but for the time, it was not 
 
204 
 
 Mystery of the Dereliction. 
 
 actively enjoyed. It was Christ's own will and the 
 Father s that it should be so. His Godhead seemed 
 to retreat and withdraw itself into His manhood, so 
 that there might be no alleviation to the anguish 
 which the manhood felt, and which the Godhead 
 alone enabled it fully to feel. It was made to bear 
 the weight in absolute isolation. No human sym- 
 pathy reached it from below the Cross, and no Divine 
 sympathy from above. That heart which was dis- 
 tended, even to bursting, with entire love to both, had 
 to endure the sense of estrangement from both, as if 
 all sin were concentrated in His own Person, and 
 were abhorred and disowned by God and man alike. 
 And the sense of estrangement from God is the 
 greatest pain that can be conceived of. Even to feel 
 the active exercise of His wrath, as when it says, 
 "Upon the ungodly He shall rain snares, fire and 
 brimstone, storm and tempest ; this shall be their 
 portion to drink (Ps. xi. 6) — this would be a lesser 
 thing to bear, especially to a holy soul, than the 
 freezing sense of a calm, deliberate, inexorable aban- 
 donment. Indignant punishment is a sign of love 
 that is pained ; but forsaking shews only aversion 
 and dislike. The transport of anger might spend 
 itself and subside ; but there is a hopelessness about 
 God's judicial dereliction of the soul which gives it 
 the appearance of being eternal and irreversible. If 
 S. Paul's description of the penalty of the lost is 
 exact, " eternal perisliing from tlie face of the Lord " 
 (2 Thess. i. 9), tlien it seems as if our Blessed Lord 
 liad even tasted something not unlike it uj)on the 
 
Stibstitution not the Scripture Doctrine. 205 
 
 Cross. It was not, of course, the case that the Father 
 had rejected Him, or was personally wroth with 
 Jesus ; nor did He feign to do so ; but man was 
 under condemnation, and must be made to realise 
 what really the condemnation was ; and J esus was 
 man, and could alone realise for us the extent, and 
 the righteousness, of the condemnation. So it was 
 brought home to Him in dying that He was perfectly 
 identified with us. Our sins rolled like an ocean 
 between Him and God, and out of the deep of it He 
 cried, " My God, My God, why didst Thou forsake Me ? " 
 
 § 20. 
 
 It will be seen that, on this view of the Atonement, 
 there is no need to resort to the language of substitu- 
 tion, which has so often alienated thoughtful minds. 
 That language is neither scriptural nor ancient, and 
 therefore has no special claim upon the adhesion 
 of the Christian conscience. Indeed, it seems to be 
 studiedly excluded from the New Testament. There 
 is but a single saying of our Lord's which appears to 
 teach it, where He says, " The Son of Man came not 
 to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give 
 His soul a ransom instead of many " (S. Matt. xx. 28 ; 
 S. Mark x. 45). But the preposition which is here 
 used, and only here (avri), belongs to the notion of 
 ransom." It cannot now be doubted that the notion 
 of " ransom " in this connexion is metaphorical, and 
 must not be pressed into a dogma. To accept it 
 literally would involve us in the question whether 
 the ransom was paid to God or (according to some 
 
2o6 The metaphorical Idea of Ransofit. 
 
 early exponents) to the devil. If we adopted the 
 former alternative, it would involve us in the further 
 question — what ransom Christ paid instead of us, so 
 that we need not pay it. Not bodily death, for we 
 all die ; not eternal damnation, for (if it is not blas- 
 phemous even to deny such a thought) Christ was not 
 eternally damned. But as a fact, the very idea of 
 ransom is not strongly felt in the metaphor. In the 
 New Testament itself, Moses is spoken of as sent to 
 be " a ransomer (Acts vii. 35) of the Israelites. The 
 word is the same ; but no one would maintain that 
 anything was paid by Moses for the deliverance of 
 the people. Therefore it would not be true to say 
 that the statement, Christ gave His soul a ransom 
 instead of many/' is the same as Christ died instead 
 of many." The preposition is a part of the metaphor. 
 And as if to take away any occasion of misunder- 
 standing, S. Paul, when citing our Lord's expression, 
 alters the form of it : Who gave Himself a ransom 
 on behalf of all (dvTiXvrpov vrrip iravThyv) " (1 Tim. ii. 
 6). He exchanges the unusual preposition, which 
 would denote a substitution, for the usual one, which 
 denotes simply an action in another's cause. 
 
 So far, therefore, as the language of the New 
 Testament goes, there is no reason for supposing our 
 Lord to have been substituted for us in His Passion. 
 But the objection to a tlieory of atonement by substi- 
 tution lies deeper than the meaning of a preposition. 
 If the one object of tlic Divine justice liad been to 
 inflict a condign punisliment, perhaps tlie theory 
 might have been more tolerable. But we have seen 
 
Judicial Stibstitution impossible, 207 
 
 that such was not the case, and that an equivalent 
 penalty could not satisfy God, instead of the removal 
 of the sin. Even had it been otherwise, however, it 
 runs counter to all our best conceptions of justice that 
 penalties should be inflicted in that fashion. We can 
 understand a just penalty being remitted to the 
 offender at the intercession of a powerful friend. We 
 can understand such a friend undertaking any pains 
 and dangers, any obloquy and humiliation, the loss 
 of his property, the loss of life itself, in promoting 
 the cause which he has espoused. The greater his 
 self-sacrifice, the more powerful will his intercession 
 be. The whole world, both of nature and of men, 
 teems with sufferings which are in that sense vi- 
 carious, as borne by one for the sake of another. 
 They constantly move our compassion and our ad- 
 miration. There is nothing contrary to our feelings, 
 if such self-sacrifices, perhaps of a wife or of a father, 
 are taken into account, and the penalty of the offender 
 is mitigated in consequence; especially if there are 
 signs that the offender himself is moved to amend- 
 ment by the love displayed on his behalf. But that 
 a legal tribunal, professing to act on principles of 
 strict justice, and to visit specified offences with fixed 
 penalties, should accept the offer of an innocent party 
 to undergo the penalty in the stead of the guilty, 
 would be totally impossible. 
 
 But, indeed, such vicarious sufferings as we have 
 spoken of point us, not to the thought of a legalised 
 substitution, but to that of something far deeper. 
 They serve as types of the Atonement made by 
 
2o8 Atoneme^tt by Union with Man, 
 
 Christ just because they shew the union, the solidarity, 
 existing throughout the world, and (in all the more 
 marked examples) because they shew love as the 
 great bond of union. There is no bare substitution ; 
 there is vital connexion, free and sympathetic identi- 
 fication. Such is the position of our Redeemer in the 
 world. He cannot be substituted for man; He is 
 Man. One thing cannot be put in the stead of 
 another unless it distinctly is another. But our Lord 
 is not another. He has made Himself one with us. 
 He has gathered us up into Himself. His love binds 
 each one of us to Him so closely that He does not 
 feel Himself to be apart from us. The difference of 
 person, indeed, remains, or there would be no re- 
 ciprocity of love ; but He is " consubstantial with us," 
 even as He is with the Father. In the completeness 
 of the union which His mercy has effected with us, 
 all tliat is ours has become His — our sin included; 
 and all that is His has become ours — even that right- 
 eousness which swallowed up and expiated our sin. 
 On our behalf He sufiered, but not in our stead ; and 
 He undertook for us that Ave too should suffer, that 
 we should share His mind about sin, and should abhor 
 ourselves for it, and die to it, as He died. He made 
 Himself " a Surety " (Heb. vii. 22) for us, laying down 
 His own life as a pledge that we, by faith, should one 
 day become like Him. 
 
 § 21. 
 
 Tins consideration of the Saviours Person gives 
 a majestic unity and consistency to the whole doctrine 
 
Naturalness of the Doctrine. 209 
 
 of the Atonement, and makes it appear, not a strained 
 and artificial transaction, but natural and simple, and 
 in harmony with what we know and with what we 
 feel. It is just in itself, and becoming to God. The 
 Divine purpose is not allowed to be thwarted; the 
 very obstacles placed in its way are made the trophies 
 of its power. Evil is not overborne by violence; 
 there is so much of truth in the old notion of the 
 devil being fairly treated; it is conquered by moral 
 means, by love entering unarmed upon the combat, 
 and inspiring the sinful race with a new determina- 
 tion to be holy. Though God is the author of the 
 Atonement, and without Him fallen humanity would 
 have been unable to offer it, yet it was made by Man, 
 acting in the true conditions of man's nature. Full 
 reparation is made for all that has been done wrong, 
 and security is given for the ultimate extirpation of 
 the sinful principles. 
 
 And yet, however we may labour to set forth in 
 human words the nature and character of the Atone- 
 ment, it is certain that no complete account of it can 
 be given. It is too far-reaching for our understanding. 
 We are, no doubt, intended to inquire about it, to 
 dispel false notions about it, to bring together facts 
 which throw light upon it. But there is a danger in 
 doing so, lest men should rest in a theory of redemp- 
 tion rather than on the fact itself. We are not saved 
 by what we think about the Cross of Christ, but by 
 the Cross itself. It is of great importance that we 
 should adoringly ask of our Lord the meaning of His 
 Passion; but those who understand least of it as a 
 
 p 
 
210 The Atonement a Fact, not a Theory. 
 
 system of philosophy are often those who best know 
 its power by experience. Calvary is not in the first 
 instance a school for theologians, but a refuge for 
 penitents; and S. Paul tells us that he deliberately 
 refused, at least on one scene of his labours, to set 
 forth the Atonement as a doctrine, lest it should lose 
 force as a historical action. ''Christ sent me to preach 
 the Gospel," he says ; and he adds, not in wisdom of 
 words, that the Cross of Christ should not be emptied " 
 (1 Cor. i. 17). 
 
Chapter VI L 
 
 mje iMm aorD auD tje fflift of tjc Spirit* 
 
 Effects of Death upon Chrisfs Spirit and Body — His Rcstwrection and 
 Ascensioji — Nezv Work of the Risen Lord, in Intercession, and iit 
 the gift of the Spirit — Person and Procession of the Holy Ghost— 
 His relation to the Htwian Nature of our Lord — Characteristic 
 Function of the Spirit in the World — Difference between His WorJz 
 before the Incarnatioji and since— Birth and Illumination of the 
 Church — The Church ChrisCs Visible Embodiment — The Com- 
 munion of Saints. 
 
 % 1- 
 
 Our Lord's death was a real and complete death : He 
 "became dead" (Rev. i. IS), and remained so, according 
 to Jewish modes of counting, for three days. During 
 that time. He did not return to heaven and His Father 
 (S. John XX. 17). He condescended to endure all the 
 limitations which are essential to the state of death. 
 The Apostles' Creed, in its latest form, follows out 
 that thought in its twofold consequences, for body and 
 for soul. He was dead, and buried : He descended 
 into hell." It is commonly said that our Lord's 
 Divinity was not withdrawn from either part of His 
 human constitution. This may be implied by the 
 way in which both the Creed and the Scriptures still 
 identify each of the separated parts with Himself, 
 
212 Christ^ s Descent into Hell. 
 
 His body is still in a sense He, and so is His spirit. 
 
 There laid they Jesus " (S. John xix. 42), is as true 
 a statement as that neither was He left in Hades " 
 (Acts ii. 31). I£ we do not believe that He was in 
 this way really and truly dead, we lose the significance 
 of His Resurrection. 
 
 But death did not benumb and paralyse His 
 spiritual faculties. On the contrary, by it He was 
 
 quickened in spirit" (1 Pet. iii. 18), so as to be able 
 to perform a work of mercy and power. Stripped of 
 the bodily integument, but still invested with His 
 human spirit, " He went and preached to the spirits 
 in prison" (1 Pet. iii. 19). Not only did He vouch- 
 safe the blessing of His company to the faithful dead 
 in Paradise (S. Luke xxiii. 43), but, according to S. 
 Peter, He penetrated — assuredly not Himself to suffer 
 there any more — into the place or state where some 
 at least were confined who had died an apparently 
 impenitent death by the visitation of God. What 
 was the exact purport and effect of His activity among 
 them we are not told, but only that He preached 
 to them, a " gospel " (1 Pet. iv. G). The power of His 
 Passion was already being felt in the unseen world, 
 even before His Resurrection. 
 
 And in like manner His dead bodj^, in the world 
 of sense, gave signs of what was to come. The wound 
 which was inflicted by the soldier's spear, was only 
 given because the body was " dead already ; " and 
 if it liad not been dead, the wound would liave caused 
 death. But, as Professor Wcstcott has pointed out, 
 the " blood and water " whicli issued from the wound 
 
Effect of Death on Christ's Body. 213 
 
 were not a sign of death. Blood does not readily flow 
 from an ordinary corpse. The separation of the blood 
 and the water, or seritm, which takes place in such a 
 rupture of the heart as our Lord is thought by some 
 to have died of, would be the beginning of decomposi- 
 tion and corruption ; and the sinless flesh of J esus, 
 though subject to death, was not to be subject to cor- 
 ruption (Acts ii. 31). We ought, therefore, rather to see, 
 in the outpouring of the blood and water, a sign that 
 the dead body of Christ was being prepared for the 
 coming Resurrection. And more than this. What 
 the soldiers did, and what they did not do, were alike 
 full of symbolical import. Unconscious of the signifi- 
 cance of their own action, they were providentially 
 guided to a double fulfilment of prophecy, and set 
 forth mystically the method which redemption was 
 about to follow. The unviolated frame, which had 
 been typified by the Paschal Lamb, of which not a 
 bone was to be broken, taught the undivided unity of 
 the Church which was to be : and the pierced side, with 
 its twofold out-flow, expressed the communication of 
 her Bridegroom's life to that Church, — the blood a true 
 fountain for her sin, and the water for her unclean- 
 ness, — which gifts were to be conveyed to her until the 
 end of the age in the two Gospel Sacraments (S. John 
 xix. 32-37 ; with Ex. xii. 46 ; Zech. xii. 10 ; xiii. 1). 
 
 §2. 
 
 It does not enter into our present scope to examine 
 the historical evidence for the fact of our Lord's 
 resurrection, but to show its doctrinal significance* 
 
2 14 Reality of His Resttrredion. 
 
 The importance of the fact is so great, that the whole 
 structure of the Church, and the whole hope and belief 
 of Christians, rests upon it. " If Christ hath not been 
 raised," says S. Paul, "then is our preaching vain, 
 your faith also is vain " (1 Cor. xv. 14). He goes on 
 to speak of the whole Apostolic message as a grave 
 misrepresentation of the character of God, if it should 
 be found that the Eesurrection never took place. It 
 is therefore of much consequence that the nature of 
 the resurrection of Christ should be rightly appre- 
 hended. 
 
 The Church cannot be satisfied with the theory 
 which, under various forms, has of late years appeared 
 to some minds a sufficient account of the matter, — 
 namely, that the personality of Jesus had so wrought 
 upon His disciples, that after His death they could 
 not resist the impression that He was spiritually alive 
 and near them, and that they saw visions of Him, — 
 whether as the natural result of their exalted state of 
 feeling with regard to Him, or by the special inter- 
 position of God. It is enough to say that the evidence 
 which we have is not of such a character. What the 
 disciples experienced was not a subjective impression, 
 liowcver spiritually correct, — except in the same sense 
 as all our physical perceptions are subjective. They 
 saw, not a ghost, but a body, Avhich they handled, and 
 felt it to be built up of flesh and bones, — which 
 uttered words, — which assimilated the food they 
 offered to it, — which at frequent intervals during six 
 weeks presented itself to them, when assembled, as 
 well as to single persons, and remained with them in 
 
Christ rose to a New Life. 215 
 
 conferences of long duration. The resurrection of 
 our Lord brought Him back into a living relation with 
 material and palpable things. 
 
 But on the other hand it would be as gross a 
 depravation — to say the least of it — of the Gospel 
 teaching, to suppose that our Lord's resurrection 
 was a return to the na^tural and earthly conditions 
 to which He was before subject. The nature of the 
 spiritual body " is a matter which we shall have to 
 consider hereafter. SufSce it to say here, that the 
 resurrection of our Lord Vv^as not merely a proof of 
 His continued existence, nor merely a proof of His 
 being indeed the Son of God, nor merely a proof of 
 the success and acceptance of His atoning death, but 
 it was a revelation, and a most unexpected revelation, 
 of the nature of the ncAV life. It was clearly seen that 
 the new life is not a simple continuation of this, — • 
 like the life to which Lazarus or the child of Jairus 
 returned, — but something far higher. 
 
 Nor was the resurrection of our Lord only an 
 Exhibition for our benefit. By it Jesus Christ Him- 
 self went through a distinct change in the mode of 
 His human existence. It would not have been a true 
 revelation to us, if this were not the case ; it would 
 have been only a feint, like the Docetist notion of 
 the Incarnation. Our Lord's own Person reached a 
 further point by it ; and He gained through death 
 that spiritual condition into which He had looked at 
 His Transfiguration. 
 
 But even in risino; ao^ain from the dead, our Lord 
 had not attained the full reward of His life's work and 
 
2i6 Nature of the Ascension. 
 
 His death s merit. For our sakes He allowed Himself 
 to be for forty days detained on His heavenward way, 
 — in an exalted state indeed, — possibly in one of 
 gradually advancing glory — but not in that of His 
 final exaltation. The Ascension was needed to com- 
 plete what the Resurrection began. By it He passed, 
 not only into a spiritual, but into a glorified condition. 
 It was the great resumption of everything which in 
 His " self-emptying " He had laid aside. He entered 
 once more upon the full enjoyment of all His Divine 
 glories and prerogatives. Every humiliating restric- 
 tion and limitation was for ever at an end. In the 
 figurative language of Scripture He once more " sat 
 down on the right hand of God'' (Heb. x. 12). He 
 sat down Incarnate, not, as before the Incarnation, 
 in His Divine nature alone : but He sat down en- 
 riched by the nature which He had assumed, not 
 clogged and impoverished and weakened by it any 
 more. The humanity which He wore was in no way 
 annulled or dehumanised, though the conditions under 
 which it acts are to our present faculties inconceivable. 
 Every constituent of our nature is still there, and 
 still truly human, only carried into the highest per- 
 fection of which it is capable, and answering with 
 ease and readiness to every demand which is made 
 upon it by that adored Person whose it is. 
 
 That perfection it will not leave when our Lord 
 reappears upon the scene of tliis lower world in His 
 Second Advent. Tlie Second Advent will not, like 
 the first, involve a change in the conditions of His 
 personal life, — at least not in the direction of con- 
 
Effects of Christ's Resttrrection. 217 
 
 descension. We expect Him to become visible again, 
 not to the eye o£ faith only, but to that of unbelief 
 also (Rev. i. 7) ; but He will be seen in glory, not in 
 weakness any more. It will be by removing the veil 
 from men's eyes, so that they may see Him as He is, 
 not by His accommodating Himself to them again 
 and appearing outside the veil. 
 
 § 3. 
 
 It is the doctrine of our Lord that not until after 
 His death and resurrection was He in a position to 
 begin the actual regeneration of the world. " Except 
 the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die," He 
 said, " it abideth itself alone " (S. John xii. 24). Until 
 that epoch, He was Himself only on the natural level, 
 so far as His human nature was concerned. His 
 death became the occasion of exercising a ncAv power 
 upon mankind. It was not only that by the Atone- 
 ment made in His death He removed the obstacles 
 which hindered God's grace from flowing freely out 
 upon us. Nor was it only, on the other hand, that 
 the pathetic story of His death touched the hearts of 
 men, and made them susceptible to better influences. 
 In other words, it was not His death, as death only, 
 which made the difference to the world, but His death 
 as the indispensable mode of entrance upon a new 
 vantage-ground, — the gate to the Resurrection. If 
 we are saved at the present time, — if the centuries 
 since Christ's life on earth are of a loftier character 
 than those before, it is due, not to the simple action 
 upon us of a past event — even the greatest — in the 
 
2i8 His Intercession in Heaven. 
 
 history of Christ ; it is due to Christ Himself, in His 
 continued and heightened activity, still living to 
 apply to us the results of that event. It was this 
 which made Him in an effectual sense the Second 
 Adam, and rendered Him capable of imparting to 
 other men a new life. By His death and resurrection 
 He became, not Avhat the first Adam was, a living 
 soul," but much more, " a quickening spirit " (1 Cor. 
 XV. 45); — a Second Adam not only as once more 
 recapitulating and representing the race, but as an 
 actual father to it, reproducing His own life in it, — 
 and that, not a life " of the ground, earthy," but " of 
 heaven " (1 Cor. xv. 47). 
 
 There are two closely connected ways by which 
 Christ after His glorification began a new work for 
 mankind, the one inward, towards God; the other 
 outward, towards the world. The first is the exercise 
 of an immeasurably increased power of intercession. 
 In the Epistle to the Hebrews we appear to be given 
 to understand that so far from having accomplished 
 and laid aside His priestly function with His death, 
 our Lord was first truly consecrated to His priest- 
 hood on the morning of the Resurrection (Heb. v. 5, 6). 
 The sacrificial task was not at an end when His life 
 was laid down on Calvary, — which answered to the 
 slaughter of the typical victims. The whole point of 
 the sacrifice lies in the presentation of that life, 
 enriched and consecrated to the utmost by having 
 undergone death, and still and for ever living, in the 
 inmost presence of God. Tliis was expressed in the 
 Jewish ritual by the sprinkling of the blood upon 
 
His Gift of the Spirit. 2 1 9 
 
 the mercy seat (Heb. ix. 12, 24). Christ then has 
 passed withm the veil, to complete His merciful work 
 for men, ty pleading for them, not as in the weak life 
 of ea^rth, but ''in heaven itself," appearing for them 
 " in the presence of God," — and by pleading for them 
 in the irresistible power v^hich His perfect discharge 
 of His mission has given Him. What may be the 
 nature and mode of His advocacy is beyond our 
 power to conjecture ; but we can feel it to be reason- 
 able that the needs of the creation should in some 
 such way find representation through Him who is its 
 Firstborn, not only ideally, but by being the first to 
 pass from the natural into the spiritual order, "the 
 First-begotten from the dead" (Col. i. 18). 
 
 The second activity of the glorified Christ is a 
 result of the first. The chief effect of His intercession 
 on behalf of His disciples was to obtain for them the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost. " I will ask the Father, and 
 He will give you another Advocate, that He may be 
 with you for ever" (S. John xiv. 16). Although in 
 one sense that request was fully granted, once for all, 
 ten days after our Lord's Ascension, in another sense 
 our Lord is constantly making the same demand and 
 receiving the same full reply. He is always engaged 
 in sending the Holy Ghost to us from the Father. 
 This was, it seems, a thing impossible before His 
 exaltation. " If I depart not, the Advocate will not 
 come unto you ; but if I go My way, I will send Him 
 unto you" (S. John xvi. 7). Christ had not yet won 
 the Gift by His Passion. He was not yet in a posi- 
 tion to demand it. But even if the Gift could have 
 
2 20 
 
 Divinity of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 been offered, men were not capable o£ receiving it, so 
 long as they had Christ with them in the flesh. The 
 natural presence and the spiritual presence were in- 
 compatible and mutually exclusive. It was necessary 
 that the old state of things should be broken up, 
 before the new and supernatural order could be begun. 
 
 § 4. 
 
 That Holy Ghost, whom the Redeemer won for 
 His brethren, is, as we have shown in an earlier 
 chapter, truly and essentially God, — so entirely so, 
 that God could not be conceived of as existing without 
 Him. Though only manifesting Himself at an ad- 
 vanced date in human history, the Holy Ghost is no 
 late development of Divine activity. His mission, 
 indeed, like the mission of the Son, is of " the last 
 days" (Heb. i. 2; Acts ii. 17); but He Himself, like 
 the Son, is co-eternal and consubstantial with the 
 Father. If creation had never existed, the Holy 
 Ghost would have always existed, and must neces- 
 sarily exist, in the fulness of the Divine Being. 
 
 He is the eternal product of the mutual love of 
 the Father and the Son, the full expression of either 
 to either, the bond whicli makes the two one. In 
 this sense Ave believe that doctrine to be true, which 
 is expressed in the Filioqiie clause of the Creed. A 
 Catholic believer is free to confess that he cannot 
 justify the way in which the clause was inserted 
 by the Western Church, without the consent of the 
 Eastern, into a Creed which was the joint heritage of 
 all. He is bound also to acknowledge that as the 
 
His Procession from Father and Son. ill 
 
 clause stands, it needs guarding and qualifying. Yet 
 it would seem like receding from the truth, if the 
 words which assert the Double Procession of the 
 Spirit were now to be struck out from the Creed. 
 Western theologians agree that the Spirit does not 
 proceed from the Son as from a second fountain 
 independent of the first. Eastern theologians agree 
 that the Spirit does not issue out of the Father with- 
 out coming through the Son. As the Son Himself 
 is perfectly one with the Father, and owes all that 
 He is and has to Him, the Spirit owes ultimately to 
 the Father whatever belongs to Him as being the 
 Spirit of the Son. It is therefore easy to hope that 
 an agreement may be reached on this point, as soon 
 as East and West are in a position to understand one 
 another's language, without adopting the theory that 
 the Holy Spirit owes only His temporal mission to 
 Both, His eternal procession to the Father alone. 
 Such a theory suffers a double disadvantage. The 
 one passage of Holy Scripture which speaks of the 
 " procession " at all (S. John xv. 26), appears certainly 
 to mean by it the temporal mission ; and it refers it 
 only to the Father. Moreover, we must needs suppose 
 that the respective actions of the Three blessed 
 Persons in time are founded upon Their essential 
 relations to each other in eternity ; so that if the Son 
 can be said now to send the Holy Ghost to us from 
 the Father, it must be in view of some deep fact by 
 which the person of the Holy Ghost is subordinated 
 to the Son as well as to the Father. 
 
 All the languag;e of the Bible concerning the Holy 
 
222 
 
 The Holy Ghost a Person, 
 
 Ghost shews that He is as truly a Person as either 
 the Father or the Son, — One who wills (1 Cor. xii. 11), 
 who searches (1 Cor. ii. 10), who intercedes (Rom. viii. 
 26), who is grieved (Eph. iv. 30), who, if that be the 
 correct translation, longs yearningly for the souls in 
 which He is lodged (S. James iv. 5). And yet, 
 although His personality is so clearly marked. His 
 unity w4th the Father and the Son is equally plain. 
 His coming. His abiding presence, is the coming and 
 the presence of Christ, and not of Christ only but of 
 His Father also. " I will not leave you comfortless," 
 says Christ, speaking of the mission of the Spirit, 
 I come to you ; " and immediately after. He adds. 
 If a man love Me, he will keep My word ; and My 
 Father will love him, and We will come unto him, 
 and make Our abode with him" (S. John xiv. 18, 23). 
 
 § 5- 
 
 The Father alone, as we have said, is the ultimate 
 cause of the eternal being of the Holy Ghost; and 
 the Father alone, ultimately, bestows Him upon men. 
 But none the less. He is the gift of Christ, who has 
 received " Him from the Father for that purpose 
 (Acts ii. 33). Indeed, as known to us. He is in a 
 peculiar sense the Spirit of Christ, and not only the 
 Spirit of God. There is a special connexion between 
 Clirist and Him. It is His great function to reveal 
 Christ, who is in turn the revelation of the Father. 
 The glories of the Father ai'c not displayed to us as 
 sucli ; they beccmie intelligible to us as the glories of 
 the Son ; and therefore the Father is glorified when 
 
His Relation to Chris fs Humanity, 223 
 
 the Holy Spirit brings the riches of Christ before our 
 hearts. " He shall glorify Me, for He shall take of 
 that which is Mine, and shall declare it to you. All 
 things that the Father hath are Mine ; therefore said 
 I that He taketh of that which is Mine and shall 
 declare it to you " (S. John xvi. 14, 15). And when 
 He makes known the glory of Christ, it is not only 
 His glory as the Eternal Son of God, but as the 
 Incarnate Son of Man. He interprets and applies 
 Christ's historical work to its proper ends. He is the 
 full Representative of Christ, in His human as well as 
 in His Divine nature. 
 
 It would indeed be a rash innovation upon Catholic 
 teaching to say that by the Incarnation of the Son 
 some corresponding change took place in the mode of 
 the Holy Ghost's existence, or to imply that to His 
 Divine nature was added the nature of the human 
 spirit. It has never been taught that in His own 
 Person the Spirit of God has become humanised. But 
 none the less, His sympathy with the Incarnation is 
 so profound that He is able to express with perfect 
 fidelity all the movements of sanctified human nature, 
 as held by Jesus Christ. It was by His operation 
 that the Word was made flesh. The whole early 
 development of the Incarnate Life was under His 
 control. At the Baptism of Jesus, He descended in 
 a new manner upon Him, and possessed Him, and 
 imparted to His human soul that consciousness of all 
 Divine truth which was typified by the " opened 
 heaven" (S. Matt. iii. 16). The dove-like form under 
 which He was pleased to betoken His coming was 
 
224 
 
 The Spirit of Christ. 
 
 a sign that He was giving Himself, not as to others 
 " by measure " (S. John iii. 34), dealing out particular 
 gifts or graces, but in all His personal plenitude. 
 The life of Christ became thus, we may say, an 
 adequate historical embodiment of all the influences 
 of the Holy Ghost ; and the Holy Ghost became, not 
 indeed confused with the human spirit of our Lord, 
 but so entirely infused into it and so exclusively its 
 animating principle, that thenceforth He bears for us 
 titles which set forth the new relation into which He 
 entered with humanity in Christ. Thus, for instance, 
 when S. Paul says, " Because ye are sons, God hath 
 sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, 
 crying Abba, Father " (Gal. iv. 6), we shall not be far 
 wrong if we suppose him to mean, not only that Spirit 
 by which eternally the Son feels filially toAvards the 
 Father, but that Spirit which marked Him in His 
 Incarnate life. And so, after His Resurrection, our 
 Blessed Lord at once began to impart to His disciples 
 gifts of the Holy Ghost as being His own to give. He 
 breathed upon them, from His human mouth, and 
 said, "Receive ye holy Spirit" (S. John xx. 22). 
 Ascendino; into heaven and receivinof the consumma- 
 tion of His human nature. He, in His human nature, 
 became able still more completely to absorb and 
 assimilate the fulness of the Holy Ghost. Instead of 
 being, as in the days of His flesh, under the direction 
 of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost came, if we may 
 say so, to be under His. As man, He lias made Him 
 His own, and inspires Him into men. His liumanity 
 has become the medium for transmitting Deity to 
 
The Spirit as Finger of God, 225 
 
 creation. Whatever Christ does now in His Church, 
 He does in His glorified humanity; and He does it 
 through His imparted Spirit. And that imparted 
 Spirit acts upon us as the agent of one who is still 
 truly human : He is the Spirit of Jesus " (Acts 
 xvi. 7). 
 
 § 6. 
 
 Since the beginning, it has been the work of the 
 Holy Ghost to educe in creation the order, and the 
 life, which belong eternally to the Word. We read 
 that when the materials, out of which the world was 
 to be formed, lay in undistinguished confusion, the 
 first movement towards arrangement came from the 
 hovering of the Spirit of God upon the face of 
 the waters (Gen. i. 2). He is named by our Lord 
 "the Finger of God" (S. Luke xi. 20). The name ex- 
 presses both the ease and the delicacy with which He 
 moulds and finishes off in detail the designs of God 
 in the Word. We may attribute to His special care 
 that beauty which is the most impressive evidence of 
 the Divine hand in nature, and the faculty by which 
 we appreciate that beauty. And what He does in the 
 domain of nature, He does also in the domain of 
 history. The working out of the Providence of God 
 is His. It was He who prepared the way for the 
 Incarnation. It is He who fashions the character and 
 the destiny both of nations and of individual men in 
 such a way as to conduce to the glory of Clirist, who 
 is the object and purpose of all And He is also the 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 His Fiinction in the Church. 
 
 Spirit of life'' (Rom. viii. 2). By His own incor- 
 ruptible presence in all things (Wisd. i. 7 ; xii. 1), He 
 makes the universe to be not a dead, mechanical 
 contrivance, but instinct with the life of the Word. 
 Especially in the Christian Church, He is seen as the 
 Quickener, both imparting the original spark of the 
 Christian life, and afterwards renewing and reinvigor- 
 ating it, for the Church as a whole, and for the 
 Christians who compose it. The gifts of order and 
 of life which He bestows are, when viewed in their 
 higher aspects, akin to those of holiness and of liberty, 
 which are His most characteristic gifts in the Church. 
 It is His aim to reduce the seething chaos of human 
 life to moral order and beauty, by drawing every man 
 to share the holiness of Christ. He does this, not 
 by imposing restrictions and laws, but by inspiring 
 healthy affections. "Where the Spirit of the Lord 
 is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. iii. 17). In view chiefly 
 of this blessed work of renovation, of applying the 
 redemptive work of Christ, of the inexhaustible 
 energy with which He works His moral miracles, we 
 call Him Creator: — Veni Creator Spiritus. This 
 work of holy emancipation which He carries on, is 
 effected through His inward "teaching'' {e.g. S. John 
 xiv. 26). As it is the power of conscious reflexion 
 which makes the difference between the animals and 
 man, so the heightening of consciousness, or rather 
 the infusion of a new and Divine form of conscious- 
 ness, by the Holy Ghost, produces sanctification. 
 Such teaching, enlightenment, realisation of the trutli, 
 are everywhere spoken of as specially the work of 
 
His Work on Men withottt the Church. 227 
 
 the Holy Spirit. Being the principle o£ consciousness 
 and freedom in God, He becomes so, by impartition, 
 to men. 
 
 § 7. 
 
 When we come to express the difference between 
 the operations of the Holy Ghost upon men before 
 and after the glorification of Christ, — or, which is 
 much the same thing, between His work upon Chris- 
 tians and upon those who are not Christians at the 
 present day, — we find both the poverty of language, 
 and also the difficulty of entering with any fulness of 
 imagination into experiences different from our own. 
 Could we ourselves consciously have passed, like the 
 Apostles, from the earlier stage of His influence to 
 the later, we might have been able better to point the 
 contrast. To them, the coming and presence of the 
 Holy Ghost was a new fact so marked, so perceptible, 
 so insistent, that they could appeal to it without 
 hesitation in testimony of their doctrine. He, then, 
 that supplieth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles 
 among you, doeth He it by works of law'' (Gal. 
 iii. 5) ? " Herein perceive we that He dwelleth in us, 
 by the Spirit which He gave us " (1 John iii. 24). 
 
 We are bound to believe that all good desires and 
 virtuous practice and true teaching among heathen 
 people is the result of the "striving" of the Holy 
 Ghost with their wills (Gen. vi. 3). Amongst the 
 Chosen People under the Old Covenant, His agency 
 was much more observable. The prophets were in- 
 spired by Him : He was in them the Spirit of 
 
2 28 His Mode of Operation in the Church. 
 
 Christ" (1 Pet. i. 11). However slowly the ethical 
 ideas of the people at large were purified, individual 
 saints were formed before Pentecost whose morality 
 could hardly have been improved, had they lived in 
 the later dispensation. Yet broadly speaking it is 
 true that in those days, ''there was no Holy Ghost 
 (in the world), because that Jesus was not yet glori- 
 fied " (S. John vii. 39). Since that event, He not only 
 bestows His grace more abundantly on those who 
 receive it, and extends it to a greater number of per- 
 sons: — the very mode of His operation is changed, 
 both in its outward presentment, and in its inward 
 character. 
 
 The Holy Ghost is nov^ manifested as forming and 
 maintaining a corporate Society of elect men ; and in 
 this society He personally and permanently dwells. 
 Whereas, before. He worked upon isolated beings, 
 raising up single heroic witnesses to His power amidst 
 the great mass of unsanctified humanity, He now 
 works upon the world through the medium of a com- 
 pact and united body of men, who not only respond 
 to His motions when He calls them to advancing self- 
 sanctification, but feel themselves responsible for the 
 redemption of the whole world around them. Where- 
 as, before, the persons who came under His influence, 
 felt it as something external to themselves, — a breath 
 which came upon them and went again, in sweeping 
 and stormy gusts, — it is now felt, both by the Church 
 and by the single Christian as an internal fact, quiet 
 and settled, — sometimes more felt, indeed, and some- 
 times less, } et always there, and always to be relied 
 
Genesis of the Church, 
 
 229 
 
 upon. He gives, now, not a grace only, but His own 
 personal self, to make both the whole Church and 
 each full member of it a " Temple " for His own in- 
 habitation, where He is " at rest for ever " (1 Cor. iii. 
 16, vi. 19; 1 Pet. iv, 14). This could not be, so far 
 as we know, without the Incarnation and Ascension 
 of Christ. Through that glorified humanity alone 
 could the Holy Spirit find an inlet into the very 
 inward parts of men to dwell there ; and through it 
 alone could He unite all those persons in whom He 
 dwells into a living and solid whole. 
 
 § 8. 
 
 It was one of the first acts of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ after He rose from the dead to inaugurate 
 the new departure. He can hardly be said to have 
 formed a Church during His lifetime. The materials 
 for it had been gathered ; and, in separating twelve of 
 His disciples from the rest and giving them a title of 
 office. He had even begun to prepare the structure 
 of His society. But He still spoke of the creation of 
 His Church as a future thing: "Upon this rock I 
 will build My Church" (S. Matt. xvi. 18). In the 
 outset of His Passion, He gave them their bond of 
 union in the first impartition of His Body and Blood. 
 But as yet, it was only like what we may imagine to 
 have taken place at the creation of the first Adam, — 
 the dust of the earth being got ready to receive the 
 Breath which made him a living soul. Then came the 
 Breath. Into the structural unit already prepared, 
 the Risen Lord, on the evening of His Resurrection, 
 
230 The Chttrch Christ's Body, 
 
 breathed His own incorruptible life and made it a 
 Church. The gift was not yet that full gift Avhich 
 He was afterwards to give — not "the Holy Spirit," 
 but ''Holy Spirit" — a gift similar to that which is 
 still bestowed in Baptism, — the gift of new life (S. 
 John XX. 22). There is a gradation in the gifts of 
 God : first life, afterwards that for which life is worth 
 having. This first gift Jesus was already competent 
 by His victory over death to bestow. The second, as 
 we have already said, He gained by His Ascension. 
 Then, upon the regenerate but still infant Church, He 
 poured forth all at once the indwelling Spirit with 
 His mature gifts of power, of holiness, of conscious 
 knowledge, and of world-convincing utterance. 
 
 § 9- 
 
 When the Church is described in Scripture as a 
 Body, and the Body of Christ, the description is more 
 than a metaphor. It is not a case of mere analogy. 
 The Church stands to Jesus Christ in the same 
 relation as a man's body does to his personal self. 
 Of course there are differences in the mode of con- 
 nexion, which it would be easy to point out ; but the 
 connexion is as close and vital as in the case of the 
 natural body. It does not fully explain the phrase to 
 say, that the Church is as dependent upon Christ, as 
 a body upon connexion with its head. As in the 
 animal organism, the relation is not one-sided only ; 
 it is reciprocal. Connexion Avith the Church affects 
 Christ's life as well as hers. Though of course He is 
 not in any way dependent upon her for existence, not 
 
The CImrch as Chris fs Fulness!' 231 
 
 even in His human nature, far less in His Divine, yet 
 the Church is necessary to the fulness of His incarnate 
 life. The union between Christ and her is so real that 
 the two together make up a single entity. He is not 
 His whole self without the many members who are 
 joined to Him. When we speak of " Christ " (though 
 not, of course, in every context) we speak of both in 
 conjunction. For as the body is one, and hath many 
 members, so also is Christ" (1 Cor. xii. 12). A very 
 remarkable and difficult passage of S. Paul brings 
 out this reciprocity of relation. It speaks not only of 
 Christ as a gift to the Church, but of the Church as 
 performing a corresponding function for Christ. After 
 dwelling on the marvellous greatness of the hope held 
 out to us in the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, 
 and His present and perpetual supremacy over all 
 creation, the writer adds : And Him," being what we 
 have now described Him, He gave as Head over all 
 things to the Church, which in fact (r/nc) is His Body, 
 the fulness of Him that fiUeth all in all " (Eph. i. 22, 
 23). So the last clause is usually translated; but 
 there is no reason why the verb should not be con- 
 sidered passive here, as in other similar passages. It 
 will then give an even stronger meaning : " His Body, 
 the fulness of Him who is fulfilled with all things in 
 all." S. Paul is thus seen to say, that the Church is 
 the present and future organ of Christ's complete 
 self -manifestation. He is "fulfilled" in her. In and 
 through her He displays the richness of His own 
 exalted life. 
 
 This is the very meaning of a '"'body." That 
 
232 Christ's oiun^Life lodged m the Church. 
 
 Christ has a heavenly body of His own, apart from 
 other men, we cannot doubt, — in which He is mani- 
 fested to celestial beings. It may, however, be possible 
 to separate too sharply between that Body (sometimes, 
 erroneously, called His natural Body), and the Church 
 which is His mystical Body. But whatever the re- 
 lation may be between His glorified Body and the 
 mystical, it is certain that He has not done with the 
 earth, and withdrawn from it. He still is incarnate 
 not only in heaven, but here also. He wears a bodily 
 presentment upon earth, which expresses Him and is 
 identified with Him. Clothed in it. He acts and 
 speaks among men still. It is a true body, with a 
 clear and visible and well-defined outline, as well as 
 with a strong differentiation of its parts, and an 
 organic bond between them. That body is His Church. 
 It is not enough to say that she represents Him, for 
 a representative has a personal life apart from him 
 who is represented. But the Church, though we 
 legitimately personify her, is not a person, and has no 
 life of her own apart from Him. It is His life which 
 animates her, and which forms the bond between her 
 various members. It is His Sj^irit which inhabits 
 Jier, and creates in her an identity of consciousness 
 with His own, so that the Apostle can say, " We have 
 the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. ii. IG), — that is, we not 
 only have feelings and views of life like those which 
 He entertained {(\y^6vy]}i(x, Phil. ii. 5), but we think 
 His own tliouglits and sliare His inmost intuitions 
 (roue). 
 
 Thus the Church now, as Christ Himself when Ho 
 
The Church an Object of Sight and. of Faith, 233 
 
 was on earth, is an object both of sight and of faith. 
 She is a visible society of men, which all the world 
 can see and observe ; " a city set on an hill (S. Matt. 
 V. 14). Her laws and organization are familiarly 
 known. The most worldly and unbelieving of states- 
 men are obliged to reckon with them as with practical 
 forces. It can be told in an instant whether a man 
 belongs to this body or not. There is nothing hazy 
 or uncertain about its contour. To draw a distinction 
 between a visible and an invisible Church was un- 
 heard of in the apostolic or in primitive days : it was 
 the confusing and sophistical work of an age of 
 schisms. The Church is not called a " mystical " 
 body because of difficulty in ascertaining its form ; 
 nor do we say, " I believe (in the existence of) the 
 the Holy Catholic Church " because we suppose it to 
 consist of an aggregation of devout souls known only 
 to God. Faith comes in for a different reason. It is 
 because faith alone can discern the true nature of the 
 Society which is seen by all. Faith alone, amidst 
 sore trials and perplexities, is able to acknowledge 
 that the life of the Church is indeed the life of her 
 Ascended Head, — that the visible company of men is, 
 in spite of appearances, the home and the embodiment 
 of a Divine principle, which will never leave it, nor 
 suffer it permanently and universally to be prevailed 
 against. 
 
 § 10. 
 
 In thus describing the Body of Christ as a visible 
 structure we are not forgetful of the generations of 
 
234 
 
 The Communion of Saints. 
 
 faithful men who have passed away from this world. 
 They are still members of the mystical Body. Christ, 
 who has " ascended up far above all heavens that He 
 may fill all things" (Eph. iv. 10), presents Himself 
 in due form alike in heaven and in Paradise and on 
 earth ; but the Body in v/hich He does so is the same 
 Body throughout. This is not the place at which to 
 enter on the doctrine of the Intermediate State : but 
 it is impossible to speak of that Body of living souls 
 in which the life of J esus is still lodged, without say- 
 ing that the unseen parts of it are in full and vital 
 connexion with the seen in " the communion of the 
 Holy Ghost " (2 Cor. xiii. 14). The dead act upon the 
 living and are reacted upon by them in ways which it 
 is not easy to state, but which are none the less real. 
 Their recorded lives, their extant writings, the un- 
 dying consequences of what they did Avhile on earth, 
 the tone which they set ; and besides that, their con- 
 tinued intercessions, of Avhich we cannot doubt, and 
 sometimes, it may 1)e, still more direct and active 
 interpositions; in all these ways the faithful dead 
 powerfully affect the living world, — so much so, that 
 one of the latest products of Old Testament inspira- 
 tion, according to the most probable interpretation of 
 it, represents tlic world, with all its political and 
 social forces, as helplessly (though unconsciously) 
 enthralled and swayed by the saints at rest " in their 
 beds" (Ps. cxlix. 5, comp. Isa. Ivii. 1, 2). And in 
 like manner, tliougli wo cannot be sure how far their 
 knowledge of current events on eartli extends, with- 
 out question tliey arc in some way interested in these 
 
Relations of the Living with the Dead. 235 
 
 events, so far as they affect the glory of Christ. The 
 successes and failures of the Church on earth, the 
 hastening or retarding of the final Advent, the revivals 
 of true religion or the sinking into lethargy and 
 falsehood, — probably also the spiritual vicissitudes of 
 individual souls with whom the connexion while on 
 earth was close, — all touch the departed, though we 
 may shrink from affirming how. This lies at the 
 base of those latest additions by which the Apostles' 
 Creed was brought into its present form, — the articles 
 which brought out the descent of our Lord into hell, 
 and which affirmed the Communion of Saints/' 
 By those articles the Christian consciousness made 
 explicit to itself the feeling that death does not break 
 up the community of interests which are eternal. 
 There is so necessary a fellowship between all who 
 are vitally united to Christ that they still, in a sense 
 which was typically shewn forth at Jerusalem in 
 the first ays, "have all things common'' (Acts 
 iv. 32). 
 
 It seems hardly necessary to add, what is within 
 our immediate perception, that the Communion of 
 Saints does not mean only the fellowship of the living 
 with the dead, but the fellowship between the 
 members of those classes amongst themselves also. 
 The welfare of one is the welfare of all. The ancient 
 Stoic philosophy caught a glimpse of this truth when 
 it taught that every "wise man" in the world was 
 benefited by every other wise man's acts of perfection. 
 If the conception had been enlarged so as to include 
 not only a proud aristocracy of philosophers, but 
 
236 The Communion of Saint 3. 
 
 humble and struggling seekers after righteousness, 
 and if the community had been not one between 
 scattered individuals undiscoverable to each other, 
 but between all the members of a well-known and 
 divinely organized Body, the Stoic doctrine would 
 have failed but little of the perfected idea of the 
 Christian fellowship. 
 
Chapter VIIL 
 
 &i)^xatkmtic^ of t^c ®\)nxdj. 
 
 The Notes of the Chtirch not Visible Tokens but Imuard Characteristics— - 
 Unity of the Church dependent on Historical Continuity — Holijiess 
 of the Church — The Church Catholic mainly in respect of her 
 Doctrine — Tradition fixed by Scripture — Inspiration aiid Fulness of 
 the Bible — Freedom of Investigation and Authority of the Church — 
 The Church Apostolic in virtue of her Mission — The Christian 
 Ministry — Identity of the Church Militant and Tritimphant, 
 
 % 1- 
 
 Perhaps the simplest definition o£ the Church is that 
 which will have been gathered from the foregoing 
 chapter. The Church is that organized society of 
 men which was founded by Jesus Christ upon His 
 Apostles, and which received from Him for all time 
 the gift of His indwelling Spirit. 
 
 This society is described in the Creeds by four 
 great epithets. The notes, as they are called, of 
 Christ's Church, are not always borne as visibly upon 
 her front as they ought to be. This must with shame 
 be confessed ; and those who maintain that the true 
 Church is so unmistakably distinguished by them as 
 to be known from false Churches at a glance, are 
 driven to strange interpretations of history. Never- 
 theless, these notes, however they may be outwardly 
 
238 
 
 The Church One. 
 
 obscured, are deeply engraven upon her heart. They 
 are more than a mark at which she aims. Her 
 essential being is bound up in them; and so far as 
 she is true to her own self she exhibits them. Although 
 from time to time, and in particular places, the men 
 who represent her may fail to be impressed with the 
 character described in these four words, the Church 
 herself never loses it. Endowed, as the Bride of 
 Christ, with an imperishable life, the Church, as long 
 as she lives, is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. 
 
 A Church which is the embodiment of the risen 
 life of Christ, and the instrument of His indwelling 
 Spirit, is necessarily marked by unity. The Christian 
 Church is, and can be, but one. Much confusion of 
 thought, however, exists at present upon this point, 
 and earnest inquirers are often perplexed by the 
 conflicting answers given to their question, where this 
 one Church is to be found. The thought which alone 
 offers a hope of clearness is that which is touched in 
 our definition of the Church. The Church is, and 
 can be, but one, because Christ founded but one 
 society, and endowed it with but one life. His 
 Apostles were not sent forth to form separate schools 
 of followers, working in friendly emulation, and eacli 
 school provided with some partial gift of the Holy 
 Ghost. The Apostles were the united cliiefs of a 
 single organization, in which the fulness of the Spirit 
 dwelt. Their watchword was : One Body, One 
 Spirit'' (Eph. iv. 4). By this watchword both her 
 
Classification of Christian Aggregates. 239 
 
 numerical and her integral unity are secured, and we 
 see that there cannot be more than one Church, nor 
 a Church composed of finally severed fractions. A 
 single life cannot build for itself more than a single 
 living domicile ; and a single organism cannot repre- 
 sent more than a single inward principle. The one 
 Spirit is a guarantee for the unity of the Body ; the 
 one Body is a guarantee for the unity of the Spirit. 
 The Church is both outwardly and inwardly one, — 
 one through the whole length of time from the first 
 century to the nineteenth, one all over the world of 
 space, — one (as we have said) in all conditions of 
 human existence terrestrial and ultra-terrestrial. The 
 unity of her origin is our clue. Firmly grasping this 
 thought, of an indestructible and Divine life, once for 
 all imparted to a single historical society, we are able 
 to look at the present divisions of Christendom and 
 yet say that the Church is one. 
 
 If we look at the different groups of Christians in 
 the world, we shall see, in the first place, that they 
 are of two classes. There are those which, in greater 
 or lesser degrees of perfectness, preserve a historical 
 continuity with the original foundation of the Church: 
 and there are those which have a later origin, and are 
 practically new societies. To the former class belong, 
 for example, the Roman, the Coptic, the Scandinavian 
 Churches; to the latter class belonged in old days 
 the Montanists and Novatianists, in modern times the 
 Congregationalists and Irvingites, and many of the 
 sects of Russia. 
 
 With regard to this latter class, the position stands 
 
240 Position of Chidstian Sects. 
 
 thus. The men who compose them are, as individuals, 
 members of the Church, provided that they have 
 received Christian Baptism, though they have pre- 
 ferred to transfer themselves to other bodies, or have 
 been brought up in other bodies from their childhood. 
 They are upon the roll of the Church, but their fellow- 
 ship with her is in a state of suspension. In order to 
 enjoy the full benefits of the Church, they have but 
 to renounce communication with the separate bodies 
 to which they are attached, and they are at once 
 re-admitted (if there be nothing else against them) 
 to active membership in the historical society. But 
 the separate bodies themselves are on a different 
 footing. There can be no question of intercommunion 
 between the historical Church and them. Considered 
 as bodies, they form no part of the Church of Christ, 
 but occupy (even when unintentionally) a position of 
 rivalry and antagonism towards it. They are Chris- 
 tian sects, in so far as they are composed of Christian 
 men; but their Christianity is (so to speak) accidental; 
 they contain no perpetual and pledged inhabitation of 
 the Spirit. Often they abound in graces, which put 
 the Church to shame; but the graces are imported 
 into them from the Church, through the gracious 
 persons who join them : they are not communicated 
 to tlie individuals from the inherent wealth of the 
 separate society. And so it comes to pass that such 
 sects live out their lives; and after performing the 
 work for which the Divine Providence allowed them 
 to rise, and receiving fitting rewards and blessings 
 from God, at length, like otlier liuman institutions, 
 
The Church and the Churches. 241 
 
 they decay and disappear. The good elements in 
 them pass back into the historical Church ; the worse 
 element is hardened into active "evil will at Sion," 
 and like the grass upon the housetops " withers afore 
 it be plucked up" (Ps. cxxix. 5, 6). While the 
 Church, therefore, is unfeignedly thankful for the 
 good which it pleases God to do through such socie- 
 ties, and can join with them in many good works, 
 and loves every devout member of them, she cannot 
 acquiesce in their separate existence. She must 
 always yearn to draw back into her own bosom every 
 choice spirit wdiich adorns them, recognising those 
 spirits as, but for a mistake, her own. Every useful 
 suggestion which the sects can make, she would 
 endeavour to adapt and adopt,- — if for no other reason, 
 at least to take away any semblance of just cause for 
 remaining aloof from her. Meanwhile the unity of 
 the Church herself is clearly not broken up by parties 
 of men withdrawing from her and establishing them- 
 selves outside. 
 
 We turn now to the first class of Christian aggre- 
 gates, — those whose historical existence dates back to 
 the first formation of the Church. These may be 
 called ''Churches." The plural title does not con- 
 tradict the unity of the Church. W^hen the Apostolic 
 writers speak of '' Churches," they do not mean inde- 
 pendent organizations spreading themselves side by 
 side; they mean local branches of the same world- 
 wide organization, the Church. Thus in Scripture we 
 read of the Seven Churches of Asia ; and in modern 
 language we can legitimately speak of the Church of 
 
242 Mutual Relation of the Churches. 
 
 England, the Church of France, the Church of Scot- 
 land. No one of the Churches professes to be the 
 Church/' — except, indeed, the Eoman. The popular 
 exponents of the Roman belief treat " the Church 
 as exactly co-extensive with that group of Christians 
 who admit the claims of the Roman Bishop, and 
 thereby they go near to reduce themselves to a sect, 
 taking that for its basis of separation. All other 
 Churches are ready to acknowledge that they are but 
 parts of a greater whole. They do not consider the 
 gatherings of their bishops to be entitled to speak for 
 universal Christendom ; and for the solution of final 
 difficulties they look on, like Cranmer, to " the next 
 General Council.'' 
 
 Each of these Churches ought, indeed, to display 
 within its limited sphere the four notes of the whole 
 society, and to be inwardly one, as well as holy, 
 catholic, and apostolic. But the failure of any par- 
 ticular Church is not the failure of the whole, nor is 
 it fatal to the doctrine of the unity of Christ's society 
 that men may point to a local branch which suffers 
 from inward dissensions or confusions. 
 
 These various Churches, tracing back their organic 
 life to the one historical source, together compose the 
 Church, not as a mere aggregate, but as indeed a 
 living unit. It is, however, mainly by faith and hope 
 that we perceive their unity at present, and not, as it 
 should be, by sight also. It is plain that all these 
 Churches ought to be in full communion with each 
 other. A schism within the Body is an even sadder 
 spectacle than a separation from it ; and those who 
 
Excomimcmcation, when jttstified, 243 
 
 are responsible for the beginning, or for the perpetua- 
 tion, of such a schism are guilty of the gravest of 
 sins. The different Churches ought to deal with one 
 another in the largest spirit of forbearance and ten- 
 derness, remembering that in the imperfect and pro- 
 bationary stage of existence through which we are 
 passing, errors and misunderstandings cannot fail to 
 arise. They ought to make generous allowance for 
 national and local idiosyncrasies — to welcome, and not 
 only to tolerate, wide divergencies in thought and 
 practice, as all tending to bring out, under the breath 
 of the Spirit of charity, the manifold fertility of the 
 Christian life. Even when a neighbour Church is 
 to blame, and becomes corrupt or m_utilated, it ought 
 not to be excommunicated unless communion with it 
 directly involves partaking in its fault. There are, 
 no doubt, occasions when it is necessary and right to 
 take this extreme step. When sinful terms of com- 
 munion are explicitly imposed, then, but only then, 
 separation is held to be justified. Yet even then, the 
 excommunication ought to be uttered, not in human 
 pride and anger, but in love and meekness, for the 
 sake of correction; and it ought to be removed as 
 soon as possible ; and incessant effbrts should be made 
 to regain the normal relations (2 Thess. iii. 14, 15). 
 To the primitive Christians it would have been im- 
 possible to imagine the situation which to us is 
 familiar, of one Church quietly ignoring the existence 
 of another which has had differences with it, and 
 going on as if it were only concerned with its own 
 internal affairs. Selfish isolation of that kind must 
 
244 Unity not destroyed thereby. 
 
 end at last in the extinction or apostasy of such a 
 branch of the Church ; for the Spirit by which the 
 Church lives is above all things a Spirit of love. 
 
 But unity is only the full expression of love : and 
 where there is love, and a true striving after recon- 
 ciliation, the loss of intercommunion between these 
 branches of the one historical society is only a tem- 
 porary disaster, not a real disruption. It is only 
 impatience and unbelief which thinks that the 
 Church's original unity is lost. Most imperfect it is, 
 — sinfully and calamitously so, — but it is not at an 
 end. The one life, once given, is still flowing on 
 through those apparently divided members, and must 
 one day triumphantly bring them again into a unity 
 made the richer and more precious for having been 
 lost and found again.-^ Even now, we may dwell with 
 thankfulness upon those pledges of unity of which 
 S. Paul speaks, — the unity of the object of the 
 Church's worship, — the substantial unity of the doc- 
 trine received by all her branches, — the unity of her 
 Sacraments (at least the chief of them) which are 
 everywhere the same, — "One Lord, one faith, one 
 
 * It may be observed that in S. John x. 16 the original is not 
 correctly rendered in tlie Englisli Bible. Our Lord says, " They shall 
 become one llock, one Shepherd," not " There shall bo one fold." It 
 must not, however, be inferred that our Lord thought of having many 
 folds, or of doing without a fold at all. It was the custom for the 
 Hocks of several shepherds to be enclosed in the same fold; and our 
 Lord, intending to include in His new Catholic Church both the Jews 
 who were "of this fold," and the Gentiles who were of none, promised 
 that they should not only bo comprised within the samo external 
 system, but should be completely fused into a living unity. Within 
 His one fold there should be not many flocks, but ono, ns being all tho 
 Ehcep of ono Shepherd. 
 
U^iity an Aim, not only a Possession. 245 
 
 Baptism (Eph. iv. 5). And it is a comfort, in our 
 present anomalous condition, to observe that our Lord 
 does not exactly pray for His disciples that they may 
 be kept in such unity as they already had, but that, 
 being kept true to the revelation of God's love which 
 they had received, they might be brought thereby to 
 a diviner unity. "Holy Father, keep them in Thy 
 Name which Thou hast given Me, in order that they 
 may be one, even as We" (S. John xvii. 11). And 
 S. Paul, in the same chapter where he speaks of the 
 Christian unity as a possession to be "kept" by 
 strenuous exertions (o-TrouSa^oirac rrjpnv), goes on to 
 speak of it as a goal of final attainment, not as a fact 
 already realised. All the gifts, which were won for 
 the Church by the Ascension, were, he says, destined 
 " for the full equipment of the saints unto the work 
 of ministry, for the building up of the Body of Christ, 
 until we, — all we, — arrive at the unity of the faith and 
 of the deeper knowledge of the Son of God, at a full- 
 grown man, at the measure of stature which expresses 
 the plenitude of Christ" (Eph. iv. 12, 13). 
 
 § 3. 
 
 The same fact which makes the Church One, 
 makes it also Holy. It could not be otherwise with 
 a society which embodies the life of Christ and is 
 animated by the Holy Ghost. Here again, it is true, 
 the same perplexity encounters us as in considering 
 Church unity. Appearances are often against us. 
 The state of the Church has sometimes been a scandal 
 to the world, and to religious but impatient children 
 
246 Imperfect Men in the Church. 
 
 of her own. Again and again detachments of men, 
 disappointed with the Church, have quitted her com- 
 munion in the vain hope of establishing a pure society 
 outside. But our Lord told us to expect that in its 
 earthly career His Church would contain a mixture 
 of good and bad. He likened it to a field with tares 
 sown among the wheat, awaiting the harvest before 
 disentanglement could be effected. To expect the 
 realisation of perfect holiness throughout the Church 
 on earth is as vain as to expect the realisation of 
 perfect unity or perfect knowledge. Indeed one great 
 aspect of the Church w^ould be destroyed if none were 
 admitted into her fellowship till they were finished 
 saints. She could not in that case act as the organ of 
 redemption in a corrupt world. Like our Lord Him- 
 self when on earth, if she would recover the lost, she 
 must be truly the " friend of publicans and sinners." 
 She is constrained by the very spirit of holiness 
 which animates her, no less than by the spirit of love, 
 to open her arms freely to the most imjoerfect, and to 
 attract and not repel. The Church is a school, for 
 instruction in righteousness, as w^ell as for instruction 
 in doctrine (S. Matt, xxviii. 19; /uiaOrjTevGaTe). All 
 disciples who promise fairly are welcome, and receive 
 a patient education. It is not expected that those 
 who enter the sacred shade will be at once perfectly 
 cured of all sinful impulses and erroneous tendencies. 
 Even among those who in the end repay the care 
 bestowed on them, the struggle is often long, and 
 doubtful to the last. And there are many complete 
 failures. Not all the disciples of the Church turn 
 
Her Holiness 7tot lost through them. 247 
 
 out well, nor all her teachers. Sometimes, in the 
 mysterious ebb o£ the spirit o£ sanctity, ungodliness 
 appears to take possession o£ large tracts of the 
 Church, — as in the vileness o£ the fifteenth century in 
 Italy, — or the deadness o£ the eighteenth in England. 
 But, not to speak o£ the faithful work which even at 
 those worst times is being done in secret, the Church 
 does not lose her character of holiness by these melan- 
 choly lapses. Though in a certain sense even the 
 Church as a whole may be said to have incurred 
 guilt, and to have been defiled, yet the Spirit which is 
 in her shews itself after such times as a spirit of 
 repentance and return, and forgiveness is vouchsafed, 
 and the sin put away, and the Church is seen to be a 
 Holy Church, — not by reason of having never fallen, 
 but by reason of being washed " (Eph. v. 26). 
 
 Nor, indeed, is her holiness only the holiness of 
 a thing forgiven. All along, the sins which have 
 stained her history have been contrary to her own 
 principles. Her better self has protested against them 
 and disowned them. Her bitterest assailants have 
 found no more forcible argument than to expose the 
 inconsistency between her holy professions and the 
 reprehensible conduct which they attributed to her. 
 No deliberate consent of the Church has ever been 
 given to any sinful thing. Every movement towards 
 improved morality has had its origin in her recognised 
 doctrine of right and wrong. However she may have 
 been misrepresented at any given time by the men 
 who publicly stood for her, the aim and intention of 
 the Church was always to maintain and diffuse holi- 
 
248 Meaning of the Word Catholic^ 
 
 ness, and to save men from their sins. This is the 
 object of all her permanent institutions, — the sacra- 
 ments, the ministry, the preaching, the laws, the dis- 
 cipline. If ever anything was done which was false 
 to this fundamental purpose, the healthful action of 
 the infused life of Christ soon reasserted itself ; and 
 in that fellowship one with another," which is estab- 
 lished by the Church's unity, "the Blood of Jesus" 
 cleanses the Church at large, as well as the penitent 
 souls within her, " from all sin " (1 John i. 7). 
 
 % 4- 
 
 The reason why the Church is called Catholic is 
 frequently misconceived. It is supposed that the 
 title refers mainly to her local extension. So, in the 
 Te Deiim, it is roughly rendered " the Holy Church 
 throughout all the world." But any Greek scholar 
 feels at once that much more than this is involved in 
 the very form of the adjective. The Church is not 
 merely r] kuQoXov, that is, the Church in general, as 
 opposed to the Church of a particular place or nation ; 
 but 17 KaQoXiKi], the Church whose inward character is 
 one of universality. Thus in one of the very earliest 
 writings in which the title occurs — the Martyrdom of 
 S. Polycarp — a separate clause is felt to be necessary 
 in order to convey tlie idea of actual extension, " the 
 Catholic Church throughout the world " (rr/c Kara rr/i^ 
 (nKOv/uvr}v kuOoXikTic tfc/cXrjrrmc) ; while on the other 
 liand the title itself is given to a single branch of the 
 Christian Society, and Polycarp is styled — at least 
 accoi-diiig to one form of th(^ t(^xt — ''Bishop of the 
 
The Ckitrch tmiversal in Extension. 249 
 
 Catholic Church in Smyrna " (r?}c S/xujOvy KaQo\i\a\q 
 eKK\r}(j[ag), The fixing of the word to its more out- 
 ward sense seems to be due to Latin writers, not well 
 acquainted with the Greek language, and naturally- 
 prone to think more of practical organization than of 
 ideal characteristics. Oriental teachers, while not 
 excluding the local notion, rightly insisted on the 
 metaphysical notion as well. The Church, says S. 
 Cyril of J erusalem, " is called Catholic because it 
 exists over all the world from one end of the earth to 
 the other ; and because it teaches universally (kciOo- 
 XiK(!jg), and with no omissions, the entire body of 
 doctrines which men ought to know." The real oppo- 
 site of Catholic is not local,'' nor even partial," 
 but heretical." 
 
 It is indeed of great practical importance to 
 remember that the Church is, as a matter of fact, far 
 greater than that fraction of it with which any one of 
 us happens to be acquainted. It enlarges the heart 
 and mind to meditate upon the unity of those widely 
 spreading branches. But the very reason why the 
 Church is thus spread abroad lies in her intrinsic 
 character. It is her nature to penetrate everywhere 
 and to embrace all. Resolutely refusing to be cramped 
 and petrified and stereotyped, by reason of the free 
 Spirit which animates her, she is capable of adapting 
 herself to all circumstances. Our religion, — no longer, 
 like that of the J ews, given under a form suitable to 
 one race only, — is equally at home among all nations 
 and in all climates, in all times, under all forms of 
 government, amidst all Vcarieties of social and intel- 
 
250 The Church tmiversal in Doctrine. 
 
 lectual culture. In fact, like Christ Himself, the 
 Catholic Church is in sympathy with everything that 
 is truly human, and cannot acquiesce in being bounded 
 by anything less large than humanity, being indeed 
 co-extensive with the new humanity inaugurated by 
 Christ. Her mission is to lay hold upon every soul, 
 and — not to force it into some narrovf and uniform 
 mould, but to train and develope it into shewing forth 
 those features of the life of Christ for which it was 
 predestined. 
 
 Nor is this all. If we enquire still further what 
 it is which qualifies the Church thus to deal with all 
 conditions of men, we find that it is the nature of the 
 message which she bears. The Church is a Catholic 
 Church, because her Gospel is a Catholic Gospel. 
 There is no man to whom it is inapplicable. In some 
 respects all mankind are alike. All need to be taught 
 the character of God ; all have sinned, and feel, at 
 bottom, the need of some reparation for their sins; 
 all require Divine assistance for their restoration as 
 individuals and as members of society. These are 
 the needs which are met by the chief elements in the 
 Gospel ; and the Catholic Church does not allow her- 
 self to Idc turned aside from the declaration of tliesc 
 chief elements, — to the right hand or to the left. 
 Wliilc the sects form themselves for the purpose of 
 emphasizing some peculiar view, — it may be a true 
 one, or it may be false, — or for the purpose of pro- 
 moting some peculiar practice, wl\ether right or 
 wrong, — the Catholic Cliurcli liolds on her way, 
 rightly dividing the word of trutli " (2 Tim. ii. 15), 
 
Our Tradition secttres Catholicism, 251 
 
 — or, as S. Paul's word more probably implies, laying 
 down the word of truth like a great road that goes 
 straight ahead, without losing itself in side issues and 
 speculations which lead nowhither. Not that the 
 Church is careless or contemptuous concerning any 
 legitimate subject of inquiry. All truth is sacred to 
 her ; and her Catholicity is displayed both in her 
 vigorous maintenance of the supremacy of the great 
 master-facts, and in the patient orthodoxy with which 
 she works them out in their application to detail. 
 She is, then, Catholic mainly for this reason, because 
 of the doctrine round which she rallies men ; — because 
 she teaches the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 but the truth. It is a mistake to suppose that the 
 Church has any " distinctive doctrines ; " for every- 
 thing that is true is an integral part of her belief, and 
 everything false is under her ban. 
 
 §5. 
 
 It might be feared lest tliis Catholicity of which 
 we have spoken should pass into a vague colour- 
 less, enfeebled complacency towards all persons and 
 parties professing to seek truth, such as passes at 
 the present day for Catholicity in the semi-Christian- 
 ized world. So assuredly it would, were it not for 
 the power of the primitive Tradition within the 
 Church. Respect for her traditions has always been 
 a chief note of the Church, and the great safeguard 
 of her Catholicity. In this she is governed, not 
 merely by principles of human conservatism, but by 
 a sense of Divine responsibility. Knowing herself to 
 
252 Binding Force of Catholic Tradition. 
 
 have no earthly origin, the result of mutual consent, 
 but to have been created and raised up by God for 
 this very purpose, to bear witness to Christ, she has 
 always felt herself bound, as the first of her duties, 
 to deliver from ao^e to ao^e the revelation made to 
 her at the outset, unimpaired, and unadulterated. 
 Voluntary societies, such as the sects, are under no 
 such obligations. To modify the doctrines of their 
 founders is, in them, no crime. But in the Church 
 it would be the gravest of all crimes. She believes 
 that her Founder was Himself " the Truth " (S. John 
 xiv. 6). She knows that He imparted to her, once 
 and for all, " the Spirit of truth " (S. John xvi. 13). 
 It is her conviction that in the first burst of His 
 inspiration. He opened to the earliest generation of 
 believers, the Apostles and those next to them, tlie 
 entire wealth of truth, in the form in which they could 
 apprehend it and set it forth. Through those illu- 
 minated teachers she received the truth, as a sacred 
 trust, for the benefit of humanity to the furthest 
 shores and to the latest posterity. " Keep the deposit " 
 (1 Tim. vi. 20), is the solemn injunction of the depart- 
 ing Apostles. " Contend earnestly for the faith once 
 for all delivered to the saints (S. Jude 3), repeat 
 their immediate associates, who shared their inspira- 
 tion. Let no innovation be made upon the received 
 tradition," is the response of the Eoman chair in the 
 third century. Let the ancient customs hold good," 
 echoes the Nicene Council in the fourth. To this test 
 everything is brought. Is it in accordance with the 
 liistorical belief and practice of tlie Cluirch ? If 
 
Its Relation to Holy Scriptttre, 253 
 
 not, it stands self-condemned. By this test, the 
 Nicene Fathers rejected Arianism. By this test the 
 controversies of modern times must be settled. No 
 new-fangled inventions are to be joined with that 
 sacred heirloom, — not even if, in some quarters, they 
 are now inveterate enough to have gained a look of 
 antiquity ] and if any portion of the heirloom has 
 in any quarter been discarded or ignored, it must be 
 recovered and brought into use again before the claim 
 to the title of Catholic can be made out. 
 
 Holy Scripture, and especially the New Testament, 
 is the anchor of Catholic tradition. It would not, 
 indeed, be true to history to trace back all Christian 
 doctrine and practice to the existing writings of the 
 Apostles, for the Catholic tradition is older than those 
 writings, and there are many phrases in them which 
 we should be much perplexed to explain, but for the 
 Catholic tradition. The scattered notices of the 
 observance of the Lord's day " (Rev. i. 10) may be 
 given as an instance. We know what these mean, 
 not by any explanations in the New Testament itself, 
 but by the practical commentary of Church life. 
 But one chief factor in the value of the New Testa- 
 ment is this, that it preserves for us a historical 
 record of the faith and practice of the first days, to 
 serve as a standard of reference. If it is essential to 
 Catholicity that the last things in the Church should 
 agree with the first, we have here a witness which 
 cannot be tampered with. It might have been 
 possible for the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Church 
 to have secured the permanence of the Church's 
 
254 T^^^^ Holy Scriptures a living Voice. 
 
 doctrine without this means; but as the Church is 
 an aggregate of men who still retain their natural 
 propensities, and as it is the proverbial tendency of 
 oral traditions to gather new touches and to lose 
 some of the old, the Holy Spirit has provided the 
 Church with these written documents, — themselves 
 the gathering up of her own first and best thoughts — 
 as a testimony against later departures. The Holy 
 Spirit within the Church is constantly bearing witness 
 to the Scriptures ; and if the appeal to the Scriptures 
 is ever distasteful to any part of the Church, it is a 
 clear sign that some other spirit is usurping the place 
 of the Spirit of Christ. It has always been one of 
 the proudest boasts of the Church, that she is the 
 "Keeper of Holy Writ." Such a title implies her 
 unalterable fidelity to the tradition with which, under 
 the guidance of the Apostles, she started on her his- 
 torical career. 
 
 §6. 
 
 But while the Holy Scriptures are the great 
 security for the stability of Catholic doctrine, they 
 represent none the less its inexhaustible richness, 
 and therefore the progressive element in it. They 
 are far more than a mine of antiquarian information 
 about the beliefs and practices of the early Christians. 
 No word of God can ever become a dead, obsolete 
 thing. The Scriptures are a living and eternal Voice 
 of God, speaking to all ages as freshly as to those 
 who first received them. We believe that the Bible is 
 inspired. There is no portion of it which does not 
 
Nature of their Inspiration. 
 
 255 
 
 convey, when rightly studied, instruction from God for 
 the guidance of thought and life. Every passage of 
 Scripture is full of Divine inspiration, and profitable 
 for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
 which is in righteousness'' (2 Tim. iii. 16). What 
 S. Paul here says of the Old Testament is at least 
 as true of the New. 
 
 The Church is committed to no mechanical views 
 concerning the mode of the Inspiration. She is 
 satisfied with the conviction that the writers were 
 " moved by the Holy Ghost " (2 S. Pet. i. 21). It was 
 a heretical, and not a Catholic teacher, who first 
 maintained that the human penman or mouthpiece of 
 the Spirit was a passive instrum^ent, lying with his 
 faculties dormant under the celestial impulse, like the 
 lyre under the performer's hand. On the contrary, 
 it seems true to believe that the Holy Ghost, who 
 " distributes to every man severally as He wills " 
 (1 Cor. xii. 11), has selected His own agents for this 
 high task, and has so prepared them that their natural 
 temperament, their circumstances and education, their 
 very frailties and faults, have contributed to the effect 
 which He designed to convey. As He was to speak 
 to men. He made His thoughts first to be the thoughts 
 of men, in order that they might be the more per- 
 suasive and intelligible, and instinct with human life 
 and sympathy. 
 
 Only on the supposition of this freedom of the 
 inspired agent can we understand those little varia- 
 tions and discrepancies, — perhaps mistakes, — which 
 meet us occasionally, for instance, in the Synoptic 
 
256 Infallibility of the Bible. 
 
 Gospels. It would expose the work o£ God to derision 
 to think that S. Matthew was directly inspired to 
 speak of two demoniacs on the coast of Gadara and 
 S. Mark to speak of one ; but to those who have the 
 faith of the Church such things are not difficulties. 
 On the contrary, they lead a reverent and thoughtful 
 mind to a more profound and satisfying conception 
 of inspiration, in which the Holy Ghost is felt to lay 
 hold upon the very roots of the inspired writer's 
 being, and not upon his fingers only Thus the 
 precise form in which the writer s thought clothes 
 itself appears to come more under the head of the 
 Holy Spirit's providence than under that of His 
 special inspiration. It was, we may say without 
 irreverence, the Divine aim rather to breathe a spirit 
 of truth than to secure an infallibility of the letter. 
 Not that the Church abandons the belief that the 
 Scriptures are infallible in that which is of primary 
 importance. The numbers of persons slain in an 
 Old Testament engagement may be wrongly given, — 
 though perhaps by the error of copyists ; a quotation 
 may be assigned by an Evangelist to one prophet 
 which really belongs to another, — although some lost 
 fact might give a different aspect to such phenomena ; 
 — but accuracy upon details of this nature cannot 
 logically be put on the same footing as accuracy in 
 matters of doctrine, and worship, and moral practice. 
 We could understand how a soul like S. Paul's, pene- 
 trated with intense devotion to Christ, might turn 
 with indignant contempt from a learned wrangle 
 over such minutiae of historical criticism, but by the 
 
Its Completeness and Stifficiency. 257 
 
 very same impulse throw himself ardently into con- 
 troversy over a word which might confuse or clear 
 men's minds with regard to the nature of our Lord 
 or His method of salvation. Absolute infallibility of 
 doctrinal statement is found in Holy Scripture, be- 
 cause doctrinal statement is the outcome of a whole 
 inner life of thought and adoration and experience ; 
 in the other kind of cases accuracy is but a matter of 
 memory or of research. 
 
 Infallibility, however, is but one side, — and that 
 the negative side, — of the Scriptural inspiration. It 
 has always been the conviction of the Church that 
 the Scriptures which she has received are not only 
 trustworthy as far as they go, but that they are 
 complete and all-sufficient. Much is to be learned 
 from the history of the formation of the Canon, in 
 which again the general providence of the Holy 
 Ghost co-operates with the instinct imparted by Him 
 to the Church. There is no reason to think that other 
 writings of the Apostles, now lost, were less inspired 
 than those still extant, — any more than unrecorded 
 words and acts of our Lord were less Divine than the 
 recorded ones. But by the Divine will they passed 
 quickly out of sight ; and the Church acquiesced in 
 their disappearance. It was gradually felt by the 
 Christian consciousness that the collection of books 
 which we now possess under the name of the Bible 
 was not only truly, but fully, representative of the 
 teaching first received, and that the preservation of 
 other documents would have swelled the bulk of 
 what the Christian has to master, without adding any 
 
258 Christian Doctrine progressive. 
 
 new element to its richness. Thus " unseriptural 
 becomes synonymous with "novel/' and therefore 
 with false," or at least with " unnecessary." Those 
 "fierce words" (as Jeremy Taylor calls them) of 
 S. Basil well express the feeling of the Fathers on 
 this point, " It is a manifest fall from the faith and a 
 manifest incurrence of the charge of arrogancy, either 
 to make light of anything that is in Scripture, or to 
 introduce in addition anything that is not." 
 
 Yet, while the introduction of anything novel and 
 unseriptural as an article of faith forfeits the title of 
 Catholic, if not of Christian, the eduction and develop- 
 ment of that which is Scriptural and primitive is a 
 mark of Catholic vitality. Fixity in dogmatic expres- 
 sion, the invariable repetition of orthodox formulas, 
 is not a sure sign of the Catholic heart. It may 
 indicate a stagnation of devout thought. The fidds 
 of Holy Scripture, though ploughed over for so many 
 centuries, are still as fertile as if they were virgin soil, 
 and every century teaches the Church how she may 
 expect from them larger and larger harvests. No 
 less than Polycarp and Clement, we sit at the feet of 
 the Apostles theixiselves, — but with our power of 
 understanding them increased by all the labours of the 
 Saints of eighteen hundred years. There cannot fail f 
 to be an advance in the Catholic doctrine, if the : 
 Church is faithful. The only caution needed is that 
 the faith be not altered in the process. S. Vincent 
 of Lerins, so inexorable towards any novelties, has 
 well laid down the lines of doctrinal advance, when 
 he compares it to the growth of a living thing ; never 
 
Authority and Private Jtcdgment, 259 
 
 losing its identity, and always preserving its pro- 
 portions, — only gaining a fuller differentiation of its 
 parts, and an increase of solidity, and strength, and 
 suppleness. 
 
 Thus Catholicity, like unity and like sanctity, still 
 gives us an aim to be aimed at, not an achievement 
 lo congratulate ourselves upon. As yet the Holy 
 Spirit has much to do to " lead us into all the truth " 
 (S. John xvi. 13). It can only be fully accomplished 
 when every particular Church, and each individual 
 Christian, insists upon winning and wearing the 
 Catholic title. " Christian is my name," says S. 
 Pacian, " and Catholic is my surname ; " and no 
 Christian man, and no Christian body, can without 
 shame make any other confession. But the only 
 pledge of Catholicity which the individual or the 
 particular Church can have, lies in dutiful deference 
 to the authority of the Church at large. 
 
 Such deference is not a blind deference, nor 
 opposed to true liberty of thought or to what is 
 called private judgment. There come times when 
 the spirit of error, like that of unholiness, spreads 
 abroad in the Church, and it becomes the duty of the 
 faithful few, or the faithful one, at the cost of 
 whatever isolation, to withstand the prevalent false 
 doctrine of the day. Although the Church is in- 
 fallible, yet at any given moment the truth may be 
 driven into a corner within her, and an Athanasius, 
 expelled and persecuted and anathematized as a 
 
26o 
 
 Duty of Enqtmy. 
 
 heretic by his contemporaries, may be the narrow 
 channel through which the stream of true doctrine 
 passes from the fathers to the children. Each Chris- 
 tian is bound to think for himself. He could not 
 otherwise make a good scholar in the school of our 
 Lord. Neither is doubt and hesitancy, in accepting 
 what is taught, always the sign of a wrong temper. 
 Doubt of the truth is often but the feeling after a 
 more delicate form of truth. Although the sceptical 
 spirit, which can only criticize and never firmly 
 believe, is an unchristian spirit, the spirit of enquiry, 
 which believes the truth to be attainable, and questions 
 in order that it may understand, is a spirit charac- 
 terized in Scripture as a "noble" one (Acts xvii. 11). 
 Indeed, the Apostle's words would justify our believing 
 that " love of the truth," even when entangled among 
 confused and wrong conclusions, may be more pleas- 
 ing to God than the most correct creed held without 
 being loved (2 Thess. ii. 10). The Apostle, also, and 
 our Lord Himself, recognise that there is in men a 
 faculty for discerning truth which may be trusted to 
 act properly if properly handled. Thus S. Paul 
 describes his method as that of one who " by the 
 manifestation of the truth recommends himself to 
 every conscience of men before God " (2 Cor. iv. 2). 
 And Christ, speaking " to those Jews who had believed 
 Him " — that is, who had but taken tlie very first step 
 of faith, and were still far from satisfactory views of 
 things, — said, "If ye continue in My word, ye are 
 truly My disciples, and shall know tlie truth, and the 
 truth shall free you" (S. John viii. 31). 
 
The Voice of the Church. 261 
 
 But the true disciple of Christ will recollect that 
 he has not joined a society of adventurous guessers 
 after the truth, in which he is as likely to guess right 
 as any one else, but a society which is already in 
 possession of the truth, and is divinely commissioned 
 to preach and teach it. And though every man may 
 with great profit verify what he is taught, he will not 
 approach the Scriptures as if nothing in them had 
 yet been made out for certain. Much still remains 
 to be explored ; but on some points the Church has 
 given her testimony with abundant clearness. It is too 
 late, for instance, to expect the Church to reconsider 
 the doctrine of Christ's Godhead. A man may treat 
 it as an open question, if to him it seems so ; but if 
 he does, he sets himself up as a judge of the Church, 
 and therefore of Him who said, "He that clespiseth 
 you, despiseth Me, and he that despiseth Me despisetli 
 Him that sent Me" (S. Luke x. 16). The same 
 holds true of many doctrines which have not received 
 as explicit a declaration from the Church, but on 
 which there has been at all times a practical con- 
 sensus. 
 
 If it be asked where a man may find the authori- 
 tative teaching of the Catholic Church, the answer 
 is Jess simple than human impatience would wish. 
 The Church is divided into ecclesia docens and ecclesia 
 quae docetur, the teachers and the taught. The 
 superior officers of the Society are the accredited and 
 authorised exponents of her doctrine. Yet it is never 
 claimed that the individual priest or bishop is 
 rendered unconditionally infallible by the tenure of 
 
262 Truth estccblished by Conference. 
 
 his office. In the teacher, no less than in the taught, 
 doctrinal accuracy depends on faithfulness to the 
 illuminating Spirit and loyalty to the Church at large. 
 There is no sufficient ground for making an exception 
 in the case of the see of Kome. Nothing but an 
 a ^priori demand for a localised infallibility would 
 have led to such a notion, — and it has been falsified in 
 advance by history. A variety of reasons led the early 
 Christians to pay profound deference to the Church of 
 the city of Rome, and to its Bishop as representing that 
 Church ; but all the great controversies were settled 
 by other methods than a recourse to him as if he 
 were warranted to be right. It is impossible to make 
 out that the Catholic Church is so focussed, — so 
 necessarily focussed,- — in the occupant of one- see, that 
 he always correctly represents her tradition. God 
 has taken a way of speaking through His Church 
 which is more like His usual methods, more vital and 
 less mechanical, than that; — a way which involves 
 more discipline to faith, as well as to intelligence, 
 than the consulting of an external oracle and the 
 submission to ready-made decrees. 
 
 The truth is not finally and in detail defined 
 except by collaboration and conference of the whole 
 Society. To all the bishops of the Church, according 
 to ancient teaching, the guardianship of tlie faith is 
 solemnly committed, individually and collectively. 
 They are jointly, and yet singly and equally, respon- 
 sible for it. What is decided by the universal 
 episcopate may be presumed to be a Catholic decision; 
 but even so, the decision is referred back to the whole 
 
The Chu7'c}is Apostolic Missmi, 263 
 
 body of the faithful, and Councils are not reputed 
 Ecumenical until their decrees have been ratified by 
 the acceptance of all. Neither is a consensus of the 
 entire Church of to-day sufficient, unless it be in 
 harmony with the teaching of other ages also. 
 "What/' asks S. Vincent, "will the Catholic Christian 
 do, if some recent corruption, not content with con- 
 taminating a single branch, proceeds to contaminate 
 the whole Church alike ? At such a time he will see 
 to it that he cleaves to antiquity, which is beyond the 
 reach of modern and seductive fraudulence.'' By 
 such reciprocal action between Church and Church, 
 and between the teachers and the taught, and between 
 age and age, unity and love and mutual confidence 
 are developed ; and that Spirit of Christ, by Avhom 
 the Church is made Catholic as well as One and Holy, 
 is felt to pervade the whole Body both in time and in 
 space. 
 
 § 8- 
 
 The final note of the Church of God is that she is 
 Apostolic. This title belongs to her, not in virtue of 
 her teaching the primitive doctrine, — or aiming at a 
 simplicity of life like that of the Apostles, but in 
 virtue of the unfailing Mission with which she is 
 charged. She is still as truly sent as the first agents 
 in her foundation were, — nay, as Christ Himself was. 
 In fact, her mission may not only be compared to 
 His : — it is historically the same. Every word in our 
 Lord's great sentence, uttered on the night of the 
 Resurrection, brings this out. "According as the 
 
264 Perpetual Youth of the Church. 
 
 Father hath commissioned Me {a-KkcsTokKkv /xt), I also 
 send you {TrifXTrijj vjiaq, S. John xx. 21). Our Lord s 
 mission was not come to an end, to be succeeded by a 
 similar one. His mission was still in force, — we may 
 say rather, was just coming into full force ; and the 
 way in which He exercises it is through His Apostolic 
 Church. Nor is the impulse, by which He first sent 
 the Church out, spent, nor will it ever be spent : it is 
 a continuous sending, — as continuous as that which 
 makes it effectual, namely, the flowing forth of the 
 Holy Spirit into the Church (Rev. xxii. 1). It was 
 much more than a promise of doctrinal infallibility 
 which Christ made when He said, " The gates of 
 Hades shall not prevail against her" (S. Matt. xvi. 
 18). Dogmatic error is only one of the forms in 
 which the life of the Church is threatened ; but she is 
 proof against them all. Particular branches of the 
 Church may decay, and die out, and be exterminated ; 
 but the Church as a whole not only lives, but remains 
 as young as ever. She has the promise of shewing no 
 wrinkle " of old age, as well as that of shewing no 
 " spot of sin (Eph. v. 27). No powers that she once 
 had, have been lost to her by the action of time. If 
 she is tauntingly asked why she does not work miracles 
 now, as she professes to have done in earlier days, she 
 cannot without unfaithfulness say that the power to 
 do them has been withdrawn from her ; the answer 
 is that the circumstances have changed. Our Lord 
 Himself, and the Apostles, did not work miracles 
 except when they perceived tliat circumstances de- 
 manded tliem ; and if circumstances again demand 
 
Her Sense of Mission sometimes zveak. 265 
 
 them, precisely the same " power of the Lord will be 
 present with us that we should do them (S. Luke v. 
 17) ; for it is but one mode of operation of that Spirit 
 who is still and for ever the life and vigour of the 
 Church. 
 
 At times, indeed, she is apt to lose the sense of her 
 Divine mission to mankind, to abandon enterprise 
 amongst the unconverted, and to rest content with 
 looking after herself. Portions of her may lapse into 
 worldly ways, — either by what is called Erastianism, 
 — that is, by putting herself at the disposal of earthly 
 forces, — or on the other hand by an imitation of 
 Imperialism, using her spiritual pretensions to exalt 
 herself into a kingdom like the kingdoms of this 
 world, and mistress of them. But in spite of such 
 unfaithfulnesses, the Lord still uses her as His pleni- 
 potentiary envoy in the world, content even to suffer 
 by her misrepresentation. From age to age she goes 
 on exercising the powers with which He entrusts her, 
 in His Name and with His authority preaching the 
 Gospel and teaching the truth, forgiving sins and 
 retaining them, binding and loosing — that is, laying 
 down regulations for the discipline of her children 
 (S. Matt. xvi. 19), — blessing and interceding and offer- 
 ing the perpetual Sacrifice, administering the means 
 of sanctification, and appointing men to sacred offices. 
 
 § 9- 
 
 Here comes in the doctrine of the Christian 
 ministry. We must plainly recognise at the outset that 
 it is the whole body of the Church which is apostolic, 
 
266 Priesthood of the Laity. 
 
 and not only a particular order within it. No proof 
 is forthcoming that the commission given by Christ on 
 the evening of His Kesurrection was addressed to " the 
 eleven," to the exclusion of " them that were with 
 them " (S. Luke xxiv. 33) ; or that the Holy Ghost, 
 on the day of Pentecost, fell only on the Twelve, to be 
 by them dispensed to the rest. The entire Society 
 received the mission ; the entire Society received at 
 once the inspiration by which it was qualified to 
 perform it. No distinctions that exist within her are 
 such as to break up the Church's unity. Within the 
 apostolic Church all are priests. There is no sacerdotal 
 caste, — as some opponents of Catholic doctrine have 
 imagined the Church to create, — performing religious 
 offices for a secular laity. The contrast between 
 clergy and laity is that between a higher and a lower 
 degree in the priesthood. This is implied in the 
 ancient title of " Ordination," and of Holy Orders," 
 which bear witness to the fact that the difference 
 between clergy and laity is one of function and 
 arrangement and mutual relations, not a difference of 
 fundamental opposites. If wilfully severed from the 
 faithful laity, the clergy would have no right to act 
 in the name of Christ. Their priestly ministries ai'c 
 those of the whole body, performed through them as 
 its natural organs. 
 
 But there are two things which must not be for- 
 gotten. Those who deny the sacerdotal character of 
 the Christian ministry arc too apt tp destroy along 
 with it the sacerdotal character of the Christian laity, 
 and to make the doctrine that we all are priests 
 
Ministry not delegated from below. 267 
 
 equivalent to the doctrine that none are. The true 
 priesthood of Christians contains more than a right of 
 direct approach to God for ourselves. It consecrates 
 us, in our several stations, to be mediators on behalf 
 of others, and lays upon us the responsibilities as well 
 as the privileges of spiritual authority. Promotion in 
 the hierarchy of which we are all members carries 
 with it an intensified power of priesthood. And 
 secondly, the order of the Church is not a thing of 
 conventional polity ; it is an essential. Our Lord, as 
 we have said before, had already given the rudiments 
 of a structure to His society before His Passion. Such 
 the Holy Ghost found it at His coming, and as such 
 He sealed it. It would have been strangely incon- 
 gruous for that Spirit, whose work is universally 
 a work of order, to choose an amorphous and un- 
 organized collection of men to be His apostolic 
 instrument for the redemption of mankind. In order 
 to the welfare of the body, the proper relation of the 
 part to the whole must be preserved, and of the whole 
 to the part; and if the eye cannot see except in its 
 place in the body, no more can the body reject the 
 Divinely appointed eye, and develope some other 
 organ of sight. 
 
 It is sometimes thought that the ministry of the 
 Church derives its authority by delegation from 
 below ; that for convenience' sake some members of 
 the society are deputed to represent the rest, and that 
 the functions which they perform might, but for that 
 deputation, be as well performed by any other 
 Christian. Such a theory is not agreeable to the 
 
268 Orders and Mission given by Bishops. 
 
 mode of ordination prescribed in Scripture and prac- 
 tised from the beginning by the Church. The setting 
 apart of the first deacons may be taken as a case in 
 point. There, the faithful laity are invited to select 
 the men for the office ; for the clergy are not a close 
 corporation, to co-opt among themselves, and to this 
 day the voice of the faithful laity is asked at every 
 Catholic ordination. But their nominees do not 
 become ministers by the act of nomination. It is 
 absolutely reserved to the supreme order in the 
 Church to determine whether they shall be made so 
 or not. The Apostles " appoint the selected persons 
 (Acts vi. 3) — this is the investiture with mission and 
 jurisdiction; the Apostles, with prayer, "laid their 
 hands upon them," — this confers on them the sacred 
 character and spiritual gift, by which they are in- 
 delibly distinguished from the rest of the faithful, and 
 enriched with grace for their duties. These two 
 things are necessary to an apostolic Church, — that its 
 ministry should have ordination proper, — or the 
 sacred character and gift, — and mission, or the 
 authority to execute the office. To these is added, 
 for the sake of order in working, jurisdiction, or the 
 assignment of a sphere of labour. And these are not 
 given by the mass of the faithful, or by their lay 
 representatives. A king, for instance, may appoint to 
 a bishopric, or the ratepayers of a parish elect a 
 clergyman for their incumbent ; but the clergyman 
 only becomes incumbent when the bishop institutes 
 him to the charge of those souls ; and the king's 
 nominee remains what he was before, until the bishops 
 
Necessity of the Episcopal Order. 269 
 
 of the Church have laid hands on. him. If the theory 
 of delegation from below were correct, the ordaining 
 hands would be those of the laity; and on each 
 avoidance of the see, the representatives of the 
 diocese would confer on the man who was to be their 
 bishop the power which had passed back to them at 
 his predecessor s death. But this is unheard of in 
 Scripture or antiquity. The authority to ordain, 
 along with other powers of government, is lodged by 
 S. Paul solely in the hands of a Timothy and a Titus 
 (1 Tim. V. 22 ; Titus i. 5), who are responsible for it 
 to God alone, with the evident intention that they in 
 their turn should provide for a due succession (2 Tim. 
 ii. 2). 
 
 Our scanty materials for the history of the end of 
 the first century, and of the beginning of the second, 
 have caused some doubts about the organization of 
 the Churches of that date ; but the doubt is scarcely 
 a serious one. If in any quarters some little confusion 
 for a while prevailed, it had all passed away within 
 the lifetime of those who had learned from Apostles 
 in person, and it had come to be recognised that no 
 Church could be complete without the three orders of 
 the ministry. Bishops alone could ordain. By whatever 
 steps this conviction may have been established, — 
 whether (as is probable) by direct command of the 
 Apostles, acting on the instructions of our Lord, or by 
 the natural instinct of the Church, — in any case it 
 was the work of the Holy Ghost. The apostolic 
 succession is the guarantee of the continued historical 
 identity of the Church. No Church which has lost 
 
270 Identity of the Chttrch 
 
 it can complain, if the validity of its acts is questioned 
 by those Churches which retain the primitive tradi- 
 tion. 
 
 § 10. 
 
 This One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church 
 will preserve her identity not only to the end of this 
 dispensation, but for ever. The Bride of Christ, and 
 Mother of us all, has a career which resembles in 
 many ways that of any typical child of hers. She is 
 on her probation in this world; and though we are 
 certain that she is indefectible, yet the promise is not 
 one which will allow of the relaxation of vigilance. 
 Holy Scripture warns us of great fallings away, of 
 false doctrines presented under specious appearances, 
 of immoral teaching and practice supported by 
 miracles and made to look like the severity of holi- 
 ness. It is possible that the true Church may at last 
 be but a remnant, as compared in numbers with the 
 apostate mass ; possible also that the apostasy may be 
 fostered by some of the most influential sees in 
 Christendom. There is no positive assurance regard- 
 ing the future of any special Church. But the 
 remnant, if so it must be, will be not only in spiritual 
 sympathy with the Church of the first days, but 
 organically the same with it. The Church which 
 Christ founded will not die, to be succeeded by 
 another. She is now imperfect, in her unity, her 
 holiness, her belief, her sense of mission. Then she 
 will be perfect. But perfect and imperfect she is the 
 same. ''That Cliurcli which now contains an ad- 
 
now and hereafter. 
 
 271 
 
 mixture of bad men/' so the African Catholics main- 
 tained against the Donatists, " is not different from 
 the kingdom of God where there will be no such 
 mixture. It is one and the same Holy Church, 
 existing in one condition now, and in another con- 
 dition hereafter." 
 
Chapter IX. 
 
 0imm of ffivace* 
 
 Object of the Means of Gi^ace at once Social and Individual — The Word 
 of God — Fundamental Principle of the Sacraments — Their Nnmhcr 
 — Baptismal Incoiporation into Christ — Washing azvay of Sin — 
 Regeneration — Baptism of Infants — Administration of this Sacra- 
 vient — Confir7nation — Mode of administering it — Christ our 
 Support the underlying Idea of the Euchai'ist — Doctrine of the Real 
 Presence — Chris fs Body — Christ^ s Blood — The Eucharistic Sacri- 
 fice — Christian Prayer — Absolution — Unction of the Sick — Holy 
 Orders — Marriage. 
 
 § 1- 
 
 The connecting point between the Church and the 
 individual Christian is in the means of grace appointed 
 by Christ and employed by the Holy Ghost. A two- 
 fold work is effected by them. They are at once the 
 means by which the Church is extended and consoli- 
 dated, and also the means by which souls are made 
 partakers of the benefits procured for them by the 
 meritorious work of Christ. It is plain from such an 
 arrangement of Divine wisdom that these two ends 
 are not to be separated from eacli otlier, nor is the one 
 of greater importance than tlie otlier. In Christianity 
 the single soul is at once everything and nothing. On 
 the one hand it is only to be valued in so far as it 
 
The Preachmg of the Word of God. 273 
 
 serves to augment the kingdom o£ God, and contri- 
 butes some special gift to the riches and fulness of the 
 Christian commonwealth. Yet on the other hand, 
 the Church herself would be a mere name, an abstract 
 and barren idea, but for the single souls which com- 
 pose her. Though she is a living thing, and not a 
 piece of formal machinery fitted up for the salvation 
 of souls, yet her very life depends upon the perform- 
 ance of the saving task, and she only gains true 
 existence as the Bride of Christ by actually bringing 
 men forth, and becoming "the Mother of all living" 
 to the New Adam (Gen. iii. 20 ; Gal. iv. 26). 
 
 § 2. 
 
 First amongst the appointed means of grace comes 
 the preaching of the Word of God. The instinct of 
 the Church has led her not to' class preaching among 
 the Sacraments, although there would be much reason 
 for doing so. It was distinctly ordained by Christ 
 Himself. Preach the Gospel," He said, " to the whole 
 creation " (S. Mark xvi. 15). The exterior form in 
 which it is clothed, though not addressed to sight or 
 touch, is addressed to hearing, so that the body also 
 has share in it, as in other sacraments. And it cannot 
 be doubted that there is a truly sacramental grace and 
 power in preaching. The words are not mere words, 
 but vehicles of something beyond words. Christ says, 
 " The sayings that I have spoken unto you are spirit 
 and are life " (S. John vi. 63). Speech altogether is a 
 great mystery ; and no one can pretend to understand 
 or measure the power exerted by mind upon mind by 
 
 T 
 
2 74 Why it is not a Sacrament. 
 
 means of vibrations of sound/ imparting ideas which 
 alter the whole career and character of a man, for 
 good or for evil. Christianity has not overlooked so 
 mighty a force. If preaching is not reckoned among 
 the Sacraments, but parallel with them, it is because 
 it is more, not less, than a sacrament. The gift 
 conveyed through it, indeed, may not be greater, but 
 it more immediately influences the springs of thought 
 and will. Indeed, there is a sense in which all the 
 Sacraments depend for their efficacy upon preaching. 
 Without faith, they are received in vain ; and " faith 
 Cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God 
 (Rom. X. 17). And while there are other ways by 
 which the Word of God can find an entrance into 
 men's hearts, besides the public preaching in the 
 congregation, — as for instance through the reading of 
 books, or the conversation of religious friends, — yet 
 there is a special power in the solemn and authorita- 
 tive utterance of the living voice in the Church. It 
 stands related to the private modes of instruction, as 
 the united prayer of the Church stands to private 
 devotion. A blessing rests on either ; but the former 
 may claim the promise of a peculiar presence of 
 Christ (S. Matt, xviii. 20). 
 
 No doubt another reason why the preaching of the 
 Gospel is not considered a sacrament is because the 
 " outward part '' in it cannot possibly have a fixed 
 and unchangeable form. There is infinite variety in 
 the substance of the preaching, and it needs present- 
 ing in an infinite variety of ways, to suit the needs of 
 many classes of hearers. Much more depends, in the 
 
Divine and hnnian Elements mixed, 275 
 
 ministry o£ the Word, upon the human agent, than 
 in other ministries. Even such adventitious gifts as 
 eloquence and imagination modify the result pro- 
 duced. Still more is this the case with the more 
 valuable inward gifts. The more deeply the preacher 
 feels the reality of his message, the more effect will it 
 have upon his hearers ; and the power of grace is to 
 some extent paralysed, when the word is unbelievingly 
 or unsympathetically delivered. But however much 
 the Spirit may be ''quenched" (1 Thess. v. 19) by 
 the minister s own unfaithfulness, or by the reaction 
 upon him from the apathy of the congregation, all 
 Christian preaching is an operation of the Spirit. 
 Christ still speaks, by the Holy Ghost, wherever His 
 appointed ambassadors, in the exercise of their lawful 
 calling, speak in His Name. They may obscure the 
 Gospel which they preach, by affectations, and errors, 
 and confusions ; but the Divine element is not wholly 
 wanting, and hearers whose hearts God has touched 
 will be able to discover it, in spite of all that overlays 
 it. And in proportion to the minister s singleness of 
 aim, and right conception of his office, v/ill the Divine 
 element come out. A self-conscious ministry, whether 
 it takes the form of apologetic timidity or of boastful 
 display, is a weak ministry; but a minimum of 
 natural endowment may work wonders, if used in 
 accordance with S. Peter's saying, If any man speak, 
 let him speak as an oracle of God" (1 Pet. iv. 11). 
 The Apostle does not mean that the man is to speak 
 what is in keeping with the Bible. He means that 
 each person, whose business it is to speak in the 
 
276 
 
 Duty of Meditation. 
 
 Christian Church, is called upon to be an inspired 
 prophet of God, and ought not to be contented to be 
 less, — like the prophets before Christ, or the prophets 
 mentioned in the Acts. He has but to put his 
 faculties at the disposal of the Holy Ghost, and to 
 exert them faithfully and humbly under His guidance, 
 — and he will be an oracle indeed. 
 
 Like every other ordinance in the Church, the 
 ministry of the Word, to be fruitful, needs to be 
 received in faith, and reflected upon in after-thought. 
 ''A forgetful hearer" (S. James i. 25) carries away 
 no benefit, however plentiful the outpouring of grace 
 may have been at the time of hearing. Hence the 
 Church, even at times when it has timorously kept 
 the written Bible out of the hands of people in general, 
 has always encouraged the practice of meditation, or 
 pondering upon the verities of the Gospel. A close 
 connexion exists between the public ministry of the 
 Word, and private reading and meditating upon it. 
 The public preaching gives guidance and vitality to 
 the private exercise, and a faithful use of the private 
 exercise qualifies the Christian to receive the spoken 
 message with increasing intelligence and appreciation. 
 
 §3- 
 
 The principle on which all Sacraments are based 
 lies deep in the very heart of the Christian faith. It 
 is not a superficial detail, which may be safely 
 neglected. It has its root in nothing less fundamental 
 than the relation wliich subsists from the beginning 
 between cre^ition and the Word, or even in the nature 
 
The Incarnation a Sacrament, 
 
 277 
 
 of the Word Himself. That title of the Divine Son 
 suggests at once that the fulness of God has the 
 tendency to express itself in an objective form. We 
 have already seen that the existence of the Son with 
 the Father was eternally a prophecy and pledge of 
 creation, and that when creation is launched forth to 
 what we may call its furthest point from God, there 
 is still within it an immanent presence of the Word, 
 which by successive stages draws it again towards the 
 Author of its being, until the moment arrives when 
 the Word Himself stands in the midst of the world 
 which was made through Him, visible and tangible, 
 wholly expressed, and fully revealing the nature of 
 God, in a body fashioned out of our own earthly 
 substance. The Incarnation was itself, in the language 
 of the Fathers, a Sacrament. It linked, by no fan- 
 tastic or unreal or conventional union, the Divine life 
 to a material form. The Word was made flesh. And 
 so far from the union thus effected being severed by 
 the Ascension, it was extended and completed. Christ 
 " ascended far above all heavens," not in order to be 
 as far as possible removed from the world, but " that 
 He might fill all things " (Eph. iv. 10), uniting, by 
 His own living contact with both, the height beyond 
 all height to which He rose, with " the earth's lower 
 regions " (Eph. iv. 9) to which He had come down. In 
 His Incarnate Person is now focussed and concentrated 
 the fulness not only of the Godhead, but of creation. 
 Jesus Christ is in living connexion with every part of it. 
 
 An immense advance is thus gained for our religion 
 upon the religion of the Jews. Theirs, like ours, was 
 
278 The Sacraments not Judaic Symbols. 
 
 a religion of symbolism. But with them, the symbol 
 was a symbol and nothing more. A certain resem- 
 blance may be found between their circumcision 
 and our Baptism, between their sacrifices and our 
 Eucharist; but the difference is more profoundly 
 significant than the resemblance. To them, the inner 
 import of the prescribed action was a lesson which 
 might be learned, not a gift which might be appre- 
 hended. Circumcision, for instance, taught the Jews, 
 in a striking figure, that the only way to enter into 
 covenant with a holy God was to put awaj^, even 
 at the price of pain and blood, the corrupt desires 
 of our fallen hearts ; but it oflfered no help towards 
 putting those desires away. The sacrifices, in a 
 multitude of instructive details, pointed on to One 
 who would be able to take away sin, and restore com- 
 munion between man and God ; but they took no sins 
 away, and the man had no actual communion with 
 God by eating of the offering. Yet by such ordinances 
 the principle of symbolism was consecrated, and pre- 
 pared for a higher use. Now, since the glorification 
 of Christ, and the outpouring of His Spirit, we are 
 presented with signs which not only speak of spiritual 
 mysteries, but convey the things which they speak of. 
 Otherwise, the institution of external rites would be 
 unworthy of Christ. His religion is a spiritual re- 
 ligion,— a religion of grace, and not of law. It would 
 have been a retrogression, — the rcintroduction of a 
 modified Judaism, — if Christ, amidst all His high 
 spiritual doctrines, had imposed as an obligation on 
 His Church one or two symbolical acts by which men s 
 
Effectual Signs of Grace. 279 
 
 souls would not be enriched, except so far as it en- 
 riches the soul to profess obedience to His precepts 
 and to keep alive its sense of obligation to Him. If 
 such be our view of the Sacraments, we might do 
 well to follow the Quakers, and to abjure the outward 
 symbol as a piece of mistaken literalism. There is 
 nothing between the position of the Quakers and that 
 of Catholics which makes Christ consistent with Him- 
 self. If the Sacraments were what Zwingli made 
 them, they would not be Christian. Christ could not 
 have devised what the Article calls " only badges or 
 tokens of Christian men s profession.'' If the Sacra- 
 ments are His, we may be sure that " they be certain 
 sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace and God's 
 goodwill towards us, by the which He doth work in- 
 visibly in us, a.nd doth not only quicken, but also 
 strengthen and confirm our faith in Him." 
 
 The last-quoted words in the Article bring out 
 one merciful aspect of the Sacraments, namely, their 
 adaptation to the needs of weak faith. Even if heroic 
 souls could get on without them, the common run of 
 Christians may be grateful for not being permitted to 
 lose blessings by a too universal diffusion of them. 
 A gift to be had anywhere would by most of us be 
 found nowhere. It is a mercy that we are shown 
 where, and when, and how, the spiritual gifts we most 
 need, may be with absolute certainty appropriated by 
 every one for himself. For this very reason it is most 
 important that we should not so interpret the promises 
 which Christ attached to the Sacraments as to make 
 the reality of the grace there offered depend upon the 
 
28o Objectivity of the Grace. 
 
 faith of the worshippers. It is acknowledged on all 
 hands that the measure of grace actually imbibed and 
 taken into the spiritual system is proportioned to the 
 receiver's faith, — that the ill-disposed gains no good, 
 but only harm, from the use of the means of •grace, — 
 that the man whose faith is strong and lively gets 
 more out of them than the man whose faith is inert 
 and half-hearted. But the benefits received are not 
 necessarily the same as the benefits offered. It is not 
 the worshipper's business to create or conjure up a 
 gift which is not there. He has but to take, and 
 use to the best advantage, a gift which is there. We 
 rely upon the honour of Christ to be ready in waiting 
 for us with all that He has engaged Himself to give, 
 and not to hang back until He sees how much faith 
 we bring to meet Him. Nothing could be more 
 daunting to those of weak faith than to imagine that 
 it rests with them not only to receive the grace when 
 there, but in some sense to bring it there also. 
 
 But, in fact, the Sacraments are not merely an 
 accommodation to the needs of the weak, unless the 
 Incarnation itself is to be so regarded. That is a 
 notion which we cannot entertain. Christ did not 
 come in the flesh simply because it made it easier for 
 ordinary men to believe in what He did for them. 
 He came to unite heaven and earth, and to raise the 
 nature which He assumed. In pursuance of the same 
 design He instituted His Sacraments. By them He 
 brings out the true dignity of tlie visible creation, and 
 still furtlier glorifies it. He not only teaclies that the 
 material and corporeal can be made a basis and 
 
Vital Union of inner and outer. 281 
 
 vehicle for the spiritual, but He actually makes it so. 
 It does not satisfy the conception of a Sacrament, 
 when seen by the light of the Incarnation, to say that 
 the sacramental action typifies in the external order 
 a spiritual process taking place "pari passu in the 
 unseen. To think so would be to apply to the Sacra- 
 ments the principle on which Nestorius went in 
 speaking of the Person of Jesus. Neither ought we to 
 fall into an opposite error, analogous to Eutychianism, 
 and confound the outward and the inward. The 
 Sacrament is never the same thing as that of which 
 it is the sacrament. But the inward and the outward 
 are wedded together in a vital union. We find the 
 spiritual grace actually embodied and presented to us 
 in the action or the element which symbolizes it. It 
 is lodged there. It pleases Christ not merely to give 
 covenanted graces along with the faithful performance 
 of prescribed ceremonies, but to make the ceremonies 
 quite literally the means of grace, and to charge with 
 His own fulness the thing which His Church uses or 
 does. In such a sublime consciousness of the living 
 unity of the outward and the inward, S. Paul, for 
 instance, does not scruple to say to Timothy, " I put 
 thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, 
 which is in thee through the imposition of my hands 
 (2 Tim. i. 6). 
 
 Thus the Sacraments are the beginning of the ful- 
 filment of that yearning which Pantheism expresses 
 and distorts. God and the world are not identical, 
 nor ever will be ; but God, through the Incarnation 
 of His Word, is drawing all things into Himself. 
 
282 The Hallowing of Nature, 
 
 " Heaven and earth are full of His glory " even now. 
 Every portion of His creation is a concrete manifes- 
 tation of some fragment of Divine thought, and ought 
 to impress the Christian observer with the sense that 
 he is on holy ground. All nature, it has been said, 
 is sacramental. By the selection of representative 
 materials like water and bread, to be set apart for 
 purposes of stupendous import, Christ emphasizes 
 this thought and gives it point. He thereby hallows 
 all natural substances, as, by the appointment of 
 selected holy days. He consecrates all our time. That 
 greatest of early doctors upon sacramental subjects, 
 S. Irenaeus, fresh from the traditions of S. John, 
 insists with peculiar emphasis upon this line of 
 thought, which was made the more significant to 
 him by the Gnostic disparagement of matter. To 
 him, the Eucharistic Offering is the offering to God of 
 " firstfruits from His creatures " — and that, not as a 
 separate purpose independent of its being the offering 
 of Christ's Body, but in consequence of its being so. 
 He dwells again and again upon the action of the Word 
 in nature, as preparing nature to serve the purposes of 
 grace. " Since we are members of Him," he says, " and 
 arc nourished by the creature, and He Himself provides 
 us with the creature, making His sun to rise, and rain- 
 ing according to His pleasure. He confessed the cup, 
 which the creature supplies, to be His own Blood, with 
 which He infuses our blood, and asseverated the bread 
 supplied by the creature to be His own Body, by which 
 He augments our bodies." It is the vindication of 
 the sanctity of matter, — the condemnation of that false 
 
Number of the Sacraments. 283 
 
 spirituality which sees no value in anything which is 
 not simply spiritual. S. Iren^us is right when he 
 connects the doctrine o£ the Sacraments with the resur- 
 rection o£ the body, as well as with the Incarnation of 
 the Word and with the creation and development 
 of the world through the Word. 
 
 §4. 
 
 It is a matter of small moment how many sacred 
 rites we include under the title of Sacraments. 
 Among the Fathers, the word is very loosely used. 
 When they enum.erate at all, some speak of two 
 Sacraments, some of three, some of four. With the 
 advance of time the perfect number of seven came 
 to be generally recognised. It depends entirely upon 
 the definition ; and as the word is not one taken from 
 Scripture, where its precise significance could be 
 ascertained and must be preserved, the Church is at 
 liberty to define it as she pleases. Nevertheless it 
 is a misfortune that new significations should be put 
 upon terms of long ecclesiastical standing ; and the 
 question whether, for instance, marriage is a sacra- 
 ment, ought never to divide the Church. Clearly the 
 Articles of the English Church intend to suggest an 
 inner distinction among the Sacraments, when they 
 speak carefully of two " Sacraments of the Gospel,'' 
 as marked off from " five, commonly called Sacra- 
 ments,'' which " yet have not like nature of Sacraments 
 with Baptism and the Lord's Supper." And it is to 
 be observed that the Catechism only professes to deal 
 with those Sacraments which " Christ ordained in His 
 
284 
 
 Grouping of them. 
 
 Church ; " it does not deny that there are others, 
 although no others are " generally necessary to salva- 
 tion" — that is, necessary for all men alike, — or, as 
 others interpret the phrase, necessary according to 
 their kind, — "of necessity where they may be had." 
 Those two are generally necessary, inasmuch as with- 
 out them there is no admission into the Church and 
 no active membership in it ; and there is no pledged 
 salvation outside of the Church. The others are 
 properly put on a somewhat different level, because 
 they are ancillary to these. Penance, for instance, is 
 the continued application of a gift already conferred 
 once for all in Baptism. Confirmation is practically 
 one Sacrament with Baptism, completing what Baptism 
 begins. Orders is a special development of the grace 
 given in Confirmation ; and so, perhaps, is the Unction 
 of the Sick. Marriage is not an exclusively Christian 
 institution, though it receives special honour and grace 
 in the bosom of the Church. Thus there is clearly 
 a difference of importance between Baptism (as com- 
 pleted by Confirmation) and the Eucharist on the one 
 hand, and the rest of the Sacraments on the other. 
 But if we are jealous for the dignity of the two great 
 Sacraments, it is not because we hold the others 
 cheap. There is a world of difference between them 
 and those edifying ceremonies in wliicli tlie Church 
 abounds, but to which she does not attach the idea of 
 grace. For example, it has long been the custom to 
 marry people with a ring for " token and pledge ; " 
 but the Churcli would condemn it as a profane 
 superstition to suppose that the grace of marriage is 
 
Necessity of Union zvith Christ. 285 
 
 conveyed by the ring. Sacred symbolism clusters 
 round all the Sacraments, which are themselves 
 Divinely appointed symbols ; but there is no con- 
 fusion between those acts which are means of grace, 
 and those which are only impressive parables. 
 
 §5. 
 
 Union with our Lord Jesus Christ is the first 
 thing absolutely necessary to salvation. There could 
 hardly be a greater departure from Scriptural Chris- 
 tianity than is shewn on this point in much of the 
 popular teaching of the day. According to this 
 modern Gospel, union with Christ would appear not 
 to be the soul's starting-point in its new career of 
 development, but a reward to be attained when the 
 soul has made good Christian progress. When we have 
 been justified by faith in Him, and have lived for some 
 time in accordance with our faith, we may then, it is 
 implied, expect to be drawn into vital union with Christ. 
 This is an inversion of the true order. None of the 
 characteristic blessings of the Gospel, — whether justi- 
 fication, or sanctification, or Divine knowledge, or 
 eternal life, or any other, — are promised to any except 
 " in Christ." A measure of repentance and of faith can 
 be given to us before we are united to Him. We may 
 have a true conversion of heart while still external to 
 Him. But these gifts are not the special gifts of the 
 Gospel. They were enjoyed under the Law as well. 
 They were the chief features in the work of John the 
 Baptist. To become partakers of Christ's righteous- ^ 
 ness, to receive His merits, we need something more 
 
286 Baptism admits to that Union. 
 
 than to stand at a distance and believe. The type of 
 the Brazen Serpent, with all its wonderful teaching, 
 is, after all, but a partial type. It must be supple- 
 mented by such rich statements as these, which abound 
 in the New Testament, "Him that never knew sin^ 
 on our behalf He made to be sin, that we may become 
 Divine righteousness in Him " (2 Cor. v. 21). " Being 
 justified freely by His grace through the redemption 
 which is in Christ " (Rom. iii. 24). " In whom we 
 have our redemption through His Blood, even the 
 remission of our sins" (Eph. i. 7). "Seeking to be 
 justified in Christ'' (Gal. ii. 17). We do not receive 
 these things first, and then become one with Him. It 
 is in Him alone that we gain them. We first taste 
 these privileges when we begin to realise that we 
 have already been made to share in the life of 
 Christ Himself. 
 
 Without faith on our part, our union with Christ 
 remains inoperative, but our faith does not constitute 
 the union. Faith is needed to make the union re- 
 ciprocal, fruitful in all those good things for which 
 the union is established ; but faith, by itself, would 
 be incompetent to put us into that union. It is the 
 act of Christ Himself, not ours. 
 
 Admission into Christ is the great gift of Baptism. 
 All Christians are agreed that Baptism is the act by 
 which we arc visibly incorporated into the historical 
 Church. But if the historical Church is what we have 
 already seen it to be, in no merely figurative sense the 
 Body of Christ, then incorporation into it must carry 
 the blessing of mcmbersliip in Christ. And this is in 
 
Union with Christ a Reality, 287 
 
 fact the constant doctrine of Scripture. S. Paul 
 speaks twice of being " baptized into Christ " (Rom. 
 vi. 3; Gal. iii. 27). His language must not be 
 explained away by paraph rases, as if it were equiva- 
 lent to being baptized into the Christian religion, or 
 into the Christian covenant. It is true that he once 
 also speaks of being baptized into Moses " (1 Cor. 
 X. 2), which might seem to justify such paraphrases. 
 But the Apostle is there expressly comparing the two 
 dispensations, and for that purpose transfers to Moses 
 the language properly applicable only to Christ. He 
 never uses expressions concerning Moses such as he 
 elsewhere heaps up about Christ, — " members of 
 Christ," " in Christ,'' " holding the Head, even 
 Christ,'' "Christ liveth in me." Evidently, to the 
 mind of S. Paul, inspired by the Holy Ghost, union 
 with Christ was infinitely more than a metaphor. It 
 did not mean to him an agreement with the principles 
 of Christ, or sympathetic intercourse with His Person. 
 It meant, literally, a participation in His very self. 
 The Christian was annexed to Him. Christ's own 
 life overflowed him, and took him in, and extended 
 itself by embracing him. And there was a definite 
 moment when this began to be the case. It was the 
 moment of Baptism. Till then, the believer was still 
 being acted upon from without. By that Sacrament, 
 he passed into a new relationship to his Saviour, like 
 a branch grafted into the vine. He was no longer 
 without, but within. 
 
288 Baptism a Washing fi'om Sin. 
 
 § 6. 
 
 Two main blessings flow to the soul as a direct 
 consequence from this admission into union with 
 Christ. Of these, the most universally recognised is 
 the Remission of Sins. The Nicene Creed explicitly, 
 in the words of Scripture, connects it with Baptism. 
 The Apostles' Creed does so by implication, when it 
 names the forgiveness of sins as the first consequence 
 of membership in the Holy Catholic Church. It is 
 implied in the very symbolism of the Sacrament. 
 Baptism is a washing. By the outward application 
 of the cleansing element is typified the inward ablution 
 of the man s moral self which accompanies it. Pro- 
 bably this was present to our Lord's mind when He 
 spoke to Nicodemus of being "born of water and 
 spirit " (S. John iii. 5). The mention of " water " 
 would doubtless recall to His hearer the penitential 
 rite by which John was preparing men for the king- 
 dom of God. At the same time, it would, especially 
 when contrasted with " spirit,'' raise the thought not 
 only of the outward element, but of all that the out- 
 ward element meant. By being " born of water " our 
 Lord seems to have pointed to the cleansing operation 
 of the Holy Ghost, as distinct from the life-giving 
 operation spoken of as being born of spirit." The 
 symbolism of the use of water is the same in Christian 
 Baptism as in that of John. In both, it is the sinner's 
 confession of guilt, and demand for a purification of 
 conscience (tlie probable meaning of 1 Pet. iii. 21). But 
 one great difference between John's baptism and ours 
 
Christian Baptism no mere Symbol. 289 
 
 is this, — that while his penitents had to wait for 
 their inward washing until He should come to whom 
 S. John pointed them, we receive our inward washing 
 at once, by means of the outward. John, in the very 
 act of baptizing, confessed the inadequacy of his rite ; 
 but no sooner was the Atonement of Christ completed 
 and the Holy Ghost come, than the effectual power 
 was added to the significant ceremony, and S. Peter 
 could point convicted consciences to it with unfalter- 
 ing assurance : " Repent, and let each one of you be 
 baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ into the re- 
 mission of your sins (Acts ii. 38). Conviction, con- 
 trition, conversion, did not of themselves remove the 
 burden and stain of guilt, but the Baptism to which 
 these led. Thus the man who was sent by our Lord 
 Himself to the converted Saul, to instruct him in " all 
 the things which were appointed for him to do,'' deals 
 with him as still not cleansed, and shows him the 
 way to obtain the cleansing : " Now, why tarriest 
 thou ? arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, 
 calling upon His Name" (Acts xxii. 16). 
 
 All sin alike is washed away in Baptism, both 
 original and actual. The soul which rightly receives 
 the washing is no longer an object of displeasure and 
 wrath to the holy eyes of God ; because all the guilt 
 which made it so is removed by the passing into union 
 with Christ. Nor is the washing to be considered as 
 only retrospective. Under that mistaken notion, — 
 combined with a riorht sense of the increased heinous- 
 ness of sin after Baptism, — it was a frequent thing in 
 early centuries to defer the Sacrament to advancing 
 
 U 
 
290 Ete7'nal Character of the Washing. 
 
 life, or to the death-bed. Such a practice not only 
 ignored the second and still greater gift of Baptism, 
 by which we are qualified for a holy life as well as 
 for a peaceful death ; it ignored the eternal character 
 of union with Christ, — what is called in the Prayer- 
 book "the everlasting benediction of God's heavenly 
 washing/' Currents catch us which are above and 
 beyond time. Our inmost selves are dealt with, not 
 simply the succession of our acts. The baptized man 
 is not barely forgiven up to that point, but is trans- 
 planted into a region of forgiveness in Christ. 
 Thenceforth, unless he wilfully banishes himself from 
 it again, he lives and moves in it. He is not indeed 
 guaranteed never to sin again; and his sins for the 
 future are more and more inexcusable, in proportion 
 as he drinks more deeply of the experience of life in 
 Christ. But not every sin cuts him off* from union 
 with Christ. Though his sins may weaken the union, 
 yet by penitence and faith he will be preserved from 
 falling altogether away. God has provided His 
 Church with means to keep always fresh the bap- 
 tismal absolution, without any repetition of the bap- 
 tismal act. Indeed, there are few things which the 
 Church regards with such horror as the thought of a 
 repetition of Baptism. Even in this sense there is 
 " one Baptism for the remission of sins." We cannot 
 pass backwards and forwards in and out of the sacred 
 sphere into which we have been brought. Either we 
 arc in Christ, or we arc not. If we are not (after 
 being once baptized), then nothing can put us back in 
 Him. If we arci, then, tliough for our sins we may 
 
Remission comes by Regeneration. 291 
 
 worthily deserve to be punished, we are at least within 
 reach of forgiveness. It is still ours, if we will put 
 forth our hands and take it. 
 
 § 7. 
 
 Forgiveness is the primary need of a guilty being, 
 and any further gift, if it could be bestowed upon one 
 under condemnation, would be to such a one a 
 mockery. Nevertheless the baptismal union with 
 Christ brings with it a blessing out of all proportion 
 greater than forgiveness of sins. We could imagine a 
 guilty person receiving a free pardon, and yet not 
 raised above his original position. This is not what is 
 done with us. Baptism is to us not only a laver, but 
 a " laver of Regeneration " (Tit. iii. 5). The connexion 
 between the two things is very close. They are not 
 companions by accident. According to the pregnant 
 phrase of the Prayer-book, we receive remission of 
 sins hy spiritual regeneration." It might otherwise 
 have seemed as if the order could be reversed, and the 
 man might be said to be born again because he is 
 forgiven, and so starts fair on a future unprejudiced 
 by his past, a new man. But that is not enough. 
 The union with Christ which he has received conveys 
 forgiveness as a kind of inseparable consequence, 
 because it conveys to him a new and higher form of 
 life. We need forgiveness, because we are fallen ; but 
 Regeneration places us on a higher level than that of 
 our unfallen innocence. Adam in Paradise had no 
 such glory as is made ours in Baptism, The Incarna- 
 
292 TVi? are made Children of God. 
 
 tion o£ the Son of God has done far more for us than 
 the taking away of our sins. It has made us " par- 
 takers of a nature which is Divine " (2 Pet. i. 4). 
 " He was made man/' says S. Athanasius, " that we 
 might be made Gods." It is in Baptism that we 
 are made so, through incorporation into the sacred 
 humanity of Christ. 
 
 This is to be understood whenever we are said to 
 be made in our Baptism children of God. Devout 
 thinkers like Frederick Denison Maurice felt the 
 difficulty of such language, because it seemed to deny 
 that we were the children of God before. It does not 
 really deny it, however. All men are children of God, 
 in one sense, by virtue of their humanity ; and though 
 they are justly banished from the filial privileges in 
 consequence of their sins, they still retain a natural 
 kinship with the Divine. But in Baptism we receive, 
 by membership in the Incarnate Son, a new kind of 
 filiation altogether, in comparison with which the 
 unbaptized might rightly be said not to be children 
 of God. It is for this reason that we are said to be 
 " adopted " (Eph. i. 5), — which indicates, not the 
 restoration of forfeited rights, but special admission 
 to rights of sonship beyond anything which nature 
 could have claimed. Our adoption does not give us 
 only tJie privilege of free and bold access to our 
 Heavenly Father ; it brings us into a position where 
 we ourselves are made partakers of Christ s own 
 sonship. What He is by nature, we are made by 
 grace, in Him. It is not by His taking our nature, 
 but by our receiving His in consocpiencc, that He 
 
Regeneration not Conversion, 293 
 
 becomes the Firstborn among many brethren " (Rom. 
 viii. 29). 
 
 We are far from fully grasping the Scripture 
 doctrine of regeneration if we consider it to mean 
 a change in a man's moral attitude or character. 
 When S. John says that " every one that doeth 
 righteousness hath been begotten of God " (1 John 
 ii. 29), it is evident from the context that he does not 
 mean simply to identify moral rectitude with the 
 regenerate life. He is applying a test Avithin the 
 Church, not to Christians and others indiscriminately. 
 Righteousness, love, and the like, when seen among 
 Christians, are, in his eyes, good proof that their 
 regeneration has been successful ; but they do not 
 constitute regeneration. The idea that regeneration 
 was synonymous with conversion was, no doubt, in 
 the mind of Nicodemus, when he suggested that 
 without an actual return to infancj^ a man in years 
 could never take a really fresh start. But his Divine 
 Teacher meant something more profound. However 
 often a man mio-ht be " born ao^ain " in Nicodemus's 
 sense, his nature would not be essentially altered. It 
 might be purified and elevated, but it would still be 
 flesh." Our Lord had come to introduce an entirely 
 new element, unattainable by any natural process. 
 " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that 
 which is born of the Spirit is Spirit " (S. John iii. 6). 
 Flesh may attain a magnificent nobility of character, 
 a sanctity which can hardly be surpassed even in 
 Christianit}^ It did so in the case of S. John the 
 Baptist. Our Lord takes him as the highest type of 
 
 I 
 
294 
 
 Two Nattcres tmite m tcs. 
 
 humanity as it then existed. But He says that S. John, 
 after all, was but of the natural order, " a woman-born 
 thing'' (S. Matt. xi. 11). The least in the new order 
 should be — not better, — but greater than he, — higher 
 in the scale of being, because partaking, not only of 
 human nature at its highest, but of the Divine. 
 
 Baptism is, accordingly, a means whereby the In- 
 carnation of Christ is successively extended to one 
 human being after another. In each baptized person 
 there is something which may be compared to the 
 union of the two natures in Him. He indeed is a 
 Divine Person who has assumed from us the whole 
 of human nature, while we are human persons who 
 through His humanity have received a portion of the 
 Divine. He, by virtue of His Divine personality, was 
 incapable of sin ; and we, because we are still human 
 first, remain liable to it. But in spite of these and 
 other profound differences, we, like Him, are com- 
 posite beings; we have two natures, though each of 
 them only in measure, under one person ; and as He 
 vouchsafed in His Incarnation to become " a Man," so 
 we, by being baptized into Him, become — as He said 
 even of those " to whom the word of God came " under 
 the old dispensation — ''Gods" (S. John x. 35). It 
 requires the eye of faith, however, to discern it. 
 When we are true to our regeneration, the effect is 
 perceptible even to unbelief ; but unbelief does not 
 understand tlie cause. " Tlic wind blowetli where it 
 listeth, and thou hcarcst the sound tliereof, but thou 
 knowest not wliencc it cometh and wliither it goeth ; 
 so is every one that hath been born of the Spirit" 
 
Infancy stct table for Baptism. 295 
 
 ^S. John iii. 8). So it was in the earthly life of Jesus 
 and so it is in ours. Behold, what manner of love 
 the Father hath given us, that we should be called, 
 and are, children of God ! For this cause the world 
 knoweth not us, because it knew not Him (1 John 
 iii. 1). 
 
 § 8. 
 
 All ages are suitable for Baptism ; none more so 
 than infancy. Regarding Baptism as a cleansing, wc 
 cannot think it superfluous for infants, inasmuch as 
 the human heart from the outset contains the germs 
 of sin, however undeveloped. Nor can we suppose 
 that infancy is incapable of receiving grace, or our 
 Lord would not have blessed the infants v/hich were 
 brought to Him. It might be difficult to think of 
 infants receiving some other forms of grace, but not 
 the grace of regeneration. Life, by its very nature, 
 comes as an absolute gift, not by the choice of the 
 recipient. The grown up man, indeed, may ask to be 
 baptized and the new life be granted him ; but on the 
 other hand it is difficult to see how he could refuse it, 
 if it were thrust upon him. If he chooses, he may 
 speedily destroy it out of his soul ; but he has had it, 
 even though but for a moment. Certainly the in- 
 tellectual neutrality of an infant's mind towards the 
 gift can form no obstacle to its entrance. Even in 
 later life it holds good as a general law that the 
 sacramental gifts of God are in advance of our under- 
 standing, and He can say of them all, what He said of 
 one, " What I am doing, thou knowest not now, but 
 
296 Christ sanctifies every Age. 
 
 shalt perceive hereafter" (S. John xiii. 7). And in 
 that case, the sooner it is received the better. Christ 
 considered the praise which came " out of the mouths 
 of babes and suckhngs," to be the perfection of praise 
 (S. Matt. xxi. 16), and, with indignant repudiation 
 of the contrary opinion, claimed the little children as 
 peculiarly fitted to be the subjects, — or possessors, — > 
 of His kingdom of grace (S. Mark x. 14). It was 
 significantly pointed out by S. Irenaeus that the sacred 
 infancy of Jesus Himself proved His desire to lay 
 hold upon human life not only in its later, and sadder, 
 and more self-conscious stages, but from first to last. 
 " He sanctified every age by passing through the like ; 
 for He came to save all men through Himself; all, that 
 is to saj^, who through Him are born again unto God, 
 infants, and young children, and boys, and young 
 men, and elders. Therefore He went through every 
 age, and was made for infants an Infant, sanctifying 
 the infants; among young children, a young Child, 
 sanctifying those of that age likewise, and being 
 made also to them an example of aflfection and good 
 principle and obedience ; among young men, a young 
 Man, becoming an example to young men and sanc- 
 tifying them to the Lord ; and so also among elders, 
 an Elder." 
 
 Mindful of tlie warning of our Lord, not to "give 
 that which is lioly to the dogs " (S. Matt. vii. C), the 
 Church as a rule refuses Baptism to those who have 
 no sponsors. It is the part of the sponsors to give 
 security to tlic Churcli tliat the candidates are 
 properly qualified and likely to make good use of the 
 
Validity of schismatic Baptism. 297 
 
 grace bestowed, and also to see to it that they do so, 
 as far as they reasonably can. 
 
 § 9- 
 
 The proper minister o£ this Sacrament is the 
 priest ; but, in his absence, a deacon is permitted to 
 give it. Indeed, as so much more depends upon 
 admission into union with Christ than upon any 
 subsequent gift, it has always been held lawful, in an 
 emergency, for a layman, or even a woman, to baptize. 
 Furthermore, the Sacrament is held to be valid even 
 if the person who administers it be a heretic or a 
 schismatic. So long as he uses water, and the sacred 
 formula, he baptizes, not into his own sect, but into 
 the Catholic Church. If it were desired to make a 
 person by Baptism a member of a sect, it would be 
 necessary to introduce the name of the sect into the 
 formula, — in which case it would cease to be Christian 
 Baptism. Unless there is genuine doubt whether the 
 right words and the right element were used, condi- 
 tional Baptism ought not to be resorted to in receiving 
 into the Church those who have been baptized else- 
 where. Any irregularity in the Baptism was thought 
 in ancient times to be covered by the Laying on of 
 Hands. How much of the body is touched by the 
 sacramental element makes no difference to the effect 
 of Baptism ; but immersion is the normal and most 
 instructive mode of baptism. The Church of England 
 allows Baptism by affusion, but does not sanction 
 Baptism by aspersion, or sprinkling. 
 
298 Confirmation a Part of Baptism. 
 
 § 10. 
 
 Confirmation ought not to be regarded as a 
 separate Sacrament, but as the second part of the one 
 Sacrament o£ Baptism. It is only a separate Sacrament 
 in the same kind of way as the Eucharistic Chalice 
 might be called a separate Sacrament from the 
 Eucharistic Bread. Christ Himself instituted it, when 
 He said, Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
 them into the name of the Father and of the Son and 
 of the Holy Ghost" (S. Matt, xxviii. 19). Only part 
 of the baptismal grace is bestowed, when the baptized 
 stops short of Confirmation. So S. Peter understood, 
 when he promised to those who, on repentance, were 
 baptized into the remission of sins, that they should 
 "receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts ii. 38). 
 So S. Paul understood, when, on discovering the 
 ignorance of some at Ephesus with regard to that 
 gift, he asked in astonishment, Into what then were 
 ye baptized ? " (Acts xix. 3). From this close con- 
 nexion between the two acts the distinctive gift of 
 Confirmation is frequently attributed, both in Scrip- 
 ture and in early Fathers, to Baptism. It was not 
 tliat the gift was considered to be conveyed by the 
 baptismal water itself, but that the name of Baptism 
 covered the Laying on of Hands as well, — even as the 
 Breaking of the Bread covered also the participation 
 of the Cup. When circumstances forced the separa- 
 tion of the two parts of the Sacrament, the distinction 
 between them was recognised clearly enough. " They 
 prayed for them, with a view to their receiving the 
 
The Spirit not given'' in Baptism. 299 
 
 Holy Ghost ; for as yet He was fallen upon none of 
 them, but they were only in the position of having 
 been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then 
 they laid their hands upon them, and they received 
 the Holy Ghost" (Acts viii. 15-17). While this 
 passage shews unmistakably that the gift of the 
 Holy Ghost was associated with the Laying on of 
 Hands, not with the baptismal Water, the word 
 "only" shews no less unmistakably that Baptism 
 was considered incomplete without it. 
 
 All operations of Christ in His Church are per- 
 formed through the Holy Ghost, and assuredly the 
 act by which we are made a " new creation " is no 
 exception. But to be born of the Spirit is not the 
 same thing as to receive the Spirit. Baptism is 
 related to Confirmation as the breathing of our Lord 
 upon His disciples on the evening of His resurrection 
 was related to the outpouring of Pentecost. If ever 
 the Church speaks of the Holy Ghost being given 
 in Baptism, apart from Confirmation, she expressly 
 defines the extent of the gift : Give Thy Holy Spirit 
 to this infant that he may be born again." It would 
 have been inaccurate to ask for the gift without that 
 limitation. Strict theology, following the language 
 of Scripture, connects such terms as giving, and 
 receiving, and having the Spirit, the Spirit falling on 
 a man, and dwelling in him, and making him His 
 temple, and being shed abroad in his heart, sealing, 
 and anointing him, with Confirmation, not with 
 Baptism by itself. We are quickened into new and 
 eternal and Divine life by the first act which ushers 
 
300 Nature of the Confirmation Gift. 
 
 us into the Body of Christ ; the rudiments of new 
 faculties are imparted to us, which are called ''the 
 powers of the world to come " (Heb. vi. 5) ; we begin 
 at once to be subject to heavenly motions from the 
 Holy Ghost, such as the unbaptized cannot be said to 
 experience; but not immediately does the Spirit of 
 Christ take possession of us and flood our inward 
 selves with His penetrating presence. Even Christ 
 Himself, whose Nativity in some degree corresponded 
 to our regeneration, did not receive the complete 
 unction of the Spirit till many years later. 
 
 Ill-instructed Christians often suppose that the gift 
 of the Holy Ghost, which was at first bestowed by the 
 laying on of hands, consisted in the power to speak 
 with tongues and prophesy, or to work miracles, 
 because we sometimes read that the first effect of the 
 gift was to make the recipients break forth into such 
 actions. Or if it is recognised that a gift of which so 
 much is made could not be of so superficial and poor a 
 nature, men suppose that to receive the Holy Ghost 
 must necessarily involve becoming holy. But this is 
 to confuse the gift with its effects. Startling results 
 at first accompanied the reception of the gift, in order 
 to convince the recipients and others of the reality of 
 what was given. These results are no longer 
 produced, because we believe without them. The 
 absence of miracles and tongues does not make us 
 doubt the presence of the Holy Ghost. Even an evil 
 life is no proof that the Holy Ghost is not there. S. 
 Paul expressly rebukes the Corinthians for living 
 profligate lives while they knew, all the time, that the 
 
Gifts and Fi'tdts of the Spirit. 301 
 
 Holy Ghost was within them (1 Cor. vi. 19). It only 
 shews that the gift, though received, has been thus far 
 received in vain. No gift of God takes away the 
 man's responsibility for using it rightly, and it is quite 
 possible for the Holy Ghost to lie in a man's heart 
 without effect. The simplest account of this matter is 
 really the truest. What we receive in Confirmation 
 is not an operation or influence of God, but the living 
 and personal Spirit Himself. He enters into a new 
 relation with us thereby, and lodges Himself close by 
 the springs of our thought and desire, to make of us 
 what we will allow Him to make. 
 
 Behind all special manifestations of His grace lie 
 the great universally needed gifts. Of these, seven 
 are usually enumerated, all of which are forms of 
 enlightened spiritual and moral consciousness. By 
 this inward teaching, which not only sets the truth 
 before us as an object, but quickens our own faculties 
 to perceive it, the Holy Ghost sanctifies us. The seven- 
 fold gifts should bear fruit in a company of virtues, 
 the various grouping of which in different souls makes 
 the difference of character, and exhibits the manifold 
 artistic skill of the indwelling Spirit. " To every man 
 severally as He wills" (1 Cor. xii. 11), He divides 
 ^ the particular grace appropriate to the man himself 
 and to his function in the society. Those individual- 
 ising features of grace are sometimes called charismata, 
 or bounties in a definite shape. No man who has 
 been confirmed is without some charisma, which 
 becomes his contribution to the general wealth of the 
 Church. 
 
302 
 
 Modes of Confirming. 
 
 Confirmation is often called a Sealing. In all 
 probability this is on account o£ its relation to Holy- 
 Baptism. Sealing is not a first but a second act ; and 
 in Confirmation God's seal is set to what has already 
 been done. It is the Amen " to the already uttered 
 '^Yea" (2 Cor. i. 20-22). But it is more than the 
 ratification o£ an act ; it is the sealing of persons 
 (Eph. iv. 30). We ourselves are thereby indelibly 
 marked as being God's own by a special consecration. 
 That consecration is set forth also under the figure of 
 Unction, because in Confirmation we, in our degree, 
 are consecrated to the same kind of office as our Lord 
 Himself, to be prophets and priests and kings in tlie 
 world, under Him. 
 
 § 11. 
 
 It is a pity that the prominence anciently given 
 to this last thought has been lost in the English 
 Church by discontinuing the use of oil in Confirma- 
 tion. Nevertheless the laying on of hands is certainly 
 an apostolic way of administering the Spirit, and it 
 is not clear that the actual use of oil accompanied the 
 imposition in the very first days, although it soon 
 came to be regarded as an integral part of the 
 Sacrament. We are therefore in at least as good a 
 position with' regard to this ordinance as some other 
 ancient Churches, which have retained unction but 
 liavc lost the laying on of hands. 
 
 Tliis ministration belongs exclusively to the first 
 order in tlie Church. Following the precedent of 
 apostolic days (Acts viii. 14), the Cliurcli permits none 
 
Confirmation precedes Com7mm{on. 303 
 
 but bishops to confirm, altliough local usage has some- 
 times varied upon the point. In the Eastern Church, 
 where unction alone is used, the priest is permitted 
 to confirm, but only with oil specially prepared by the 
 bishop. 
 
 While the East also administers the rite to infants 
 along with Baptism, the West, by an important stretch 
 of authority, separates it from Baptism in the case of 
 infants, and defers it till the recipient has " come to 
 years of discretion." Confirmation is thefi wisely 
 preceded by a previous examination of the candidate 
 touching his baptismal vows, to make sure of his 
 being duly qualified to receive so great a gift. None 
 are admitted, in ordinary circumstances, to Communion 
 until they have been confirmed, because, as S. Basil 
 says, " The man who comes to the Communion Avithout 
 understanding the principle on which the participation 
 of the Lord's Body and Blood is given, derives no 
 benefit from it." The saint is not indeed giving this 
 as a reason for the priority of Confirmation ; but as 
 that which is Christ's can only be shewn to us by the 
 Spirit, who alone searches the depths of God, it is 
 natural that we should first seek the Spirit's enlighten- 
 ment before we approach so deep a mystery as the 
 Sacrament of the Altar. . 
 
 § 12. 
 
 The fundamental idea embodied in the Holy Com- 
 munion is that of our perpetual dependence upon the 
 Incarnate Lord for support. This idea is set forth in 
 the discourses of our Lord at Capernaum, just as the 
 
304 Christ our Meat and Drink. 
 
 fundamental idea of Baptism is set forth in the con- 
 versation with Nicodemus. It is not enough that we 
 have once for all been brought into life, eternal life, 
 by Him. Our eternal life is not so made over to us in 
 our regeneration that we become independent centres 
 of it, thenceforth drawing only upon ourselves. We 
 are still compelled to resort for our nutriment to the 
 same source from which our life was originally con- 
 veyed to us, namely, Christ. The relationship in 
 which we stand to Him, Christ compares to the 
 relationship in which He stands to the Father, 
 Although the Son "has life in Himself" (S. John v. 
 26), not merely the contingent existence of a creature, 
 yet He tells us that even in Him that life is not inde- 
 pendent of its sole and everlasting source : " I live 
 because of the Father " (S. John vi. 57). And as He 
 lives by a perpetual absorbing into Himself of the 
 entire fulness of the Father, so we live by a perpetual 
 absorbing into ourselves of so much of the fulness of 
 the Son as we are capable of receiving. The life of 
 God Himself is beyond our reach, and we cannot draw 
 upon it directly ; but it is stored for us, as in a bound- 
 less reservoir, in the person of the Son, and the Son 
 lias brouf^ht it down to us in His Incarnation, and — 
 because we are fallen — ^lias made a way for us to 
 appropriate it still more surely and copiously in His 
 Passion. 
 
 These thoughts arc set forth to us under the 
 language of eating and drinking. But it must be 
 remembered by those who would g(;t at the heart of 
 the matter, that even the eating and drinking which 
 
Mystery of Eating and Drinking, 305 
 
 supports our natural life is a profound mystery, and 
 that it proceeds from the same Creator who now uses 
 it in the Church for a great spiritual purpose. It is 
 not too much to say that our very constitution has 
 been devised with a view to this great spiritual pur- 
 pose, and that Christ did not merely adapt, as an 
 afterthought, a thing which He happened to find 
 ready to hand. Our natural constitution is such 
 that we cannot subsist in isolation. In order to 
 maintain life, we are compelled to eat, — that is, to 
 take into ourselves and assimilate a substance which 
 is not our own. We are kept in a constant union 
 with surrounding nature. Seeds, and herbs, and 
 animals, yield up their lives, and minister to the 
 sustenance of ours. How it is done, science is unable 
 to explain to us, for, as yet at least, it has no certainty 
 what life is. How the dead material particles, which 
 made up something else, become part of ourselves 
 and instinct with our own life which they have gone 
 to support, is an unexplained wonder, although so 
 common and universal that we seldom pause to think 
 upon it. The eating by which our bodies are kept 
 alive is an enigma in the very framework of nature. 
 It receives its answer in those sayings of Christ in 
 which, in a wonderful progress. He sets forth His own 
 relation to men. " Work for the food which abideth 
 unto eternal life, which the Son of Man will give 
 you; for Him the Father sealed (or solemnly con- 
 secrated to this purpose), even God." "The bread 
 of God is that which cometh down out of heaven and 
 giveth life to the world." " I am the bread of life." 
 
 X 
 
 I 
 
3o6 Chidst truly received in the Eucharist. 
 
 And the bread, moreover, which I will give, is, for 
 the sake of the life of the world. My flesh." " Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the 
 Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have not life in 
 yourselves." " As the living Father sent Me, and I 
 live because of the Father, so he that eateth Me, he 
 also shall live because of Me" (S. John vi. 27, 33, 35, 
 51, 53, 57). 
 
 These words were thrown out by our Lord for 
 faith to ponder ; and then, a year later, " on the same 
 night in which He was betrayed," they were — not 
 indeed explained, for the mystery of them Avas 
 deepened — ^but gathered up, and put into visible 
 form, and commended to the Church, until Christ 
 should come again, in the institution of the most Holy 
 Eucharist. 
 
 §13. 
 
 After what has been said on the nature of Sacra- 
 ments in general, it will not be necessary to state that 
 the Eucharist is no mere repetition of the ideas 
 above set forth, only expressed in symbol instead 
 of language. It is a symbol which actually con- 
 veys to the believer the thing symbolized. To use 
 our Lord's own expression, we " eat Him " in this 
 Divine mystery, — and that, not merely by devout 
 memory and meditation, not merely by a subjec- 
 tive act of faith and love such as might be made 
 at other times and places, but " verily and indeed," 
 because He chooses in this Sacrament "verily and 
 indeed " to bestow His own self upon us. That Ho 
 
Utility of further Investigation. 307 
 
 does so is the main thing which faith requires to 
 know ; and it was the wisdom of Hooker to rest upon 
 this his famous, though insufficient, Eirenikon between 
 contending parties of believers. Eomans, Anglicans, 
 Orientals, Lutherans, even Calvinists, all sincerely 
 maintain that the true-hearted communicant is there- 
 by made really, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, 
 to partake of the living Christ. All these alike are 
 agreed, when they speak with deliberation, that the 
 blessing received by the faithful is no creation of their 
 faith, no image formed within them of something 
 which is after all not there, but a thing truly conveyed 
 into them from without, a movement by which our 
 Incarnate Saviour plants Himself, — His Personal self, 
 — in our most inward parts. Where this is adoringly 
 believed, there ought to be no insuperable hindrance to 
 reunion. All else which we have to say upon the sub- 
 ject is but the working out into detail of this central 
 truth ; and it will be far better for the soul and for 
 the Church that the detail should be forgotten and 
 the central truth firmly held, than that there should 
 be a clear and^exhaustive understanding of the minutiae 
 of the doctrine, equally removed from superstition 
 and from scepticism, without a living grasp of the 
 personal Christ. 
 
 Yet solid unity is never reached by agreeing to 
 inquire no further, but rather by investigating as 
 deeply as possible in a spirit of reverence and charity, 
 and bearing patiently with all who work in a kindred 
 spirit, even where their present conclusions seem 
 erroneous. In svich a spirit we would point out 
 
3o8 The Calvinistic Doctrine Insufficient. 
 
 candidly where others appear to have gone wrong, 
 not for the sake of controversy and criticism, but 
 because the examination of what looks like an error 
 is often the most efiective way of coming to the truth. 
 
 The Church, then, is dissatisfied with the doctrine 
 of the purely Spiritual Presence, as taught by the 
 Calvinists and propagated in England (for example) 
 by Jeremy Taylor. In its reaction from what was 
 felt to be a carnal and materialistic view, this doctrine 
 falls into the error of undervaluing the true con- 
 nexion between the outward and the inward. It 
 appears to forget that our Lord is not only alive from 
 the dead, but is risen again in a glorified body, and 
 that our own future glory is to be one not of naked 
 sj)irituality, but of spirit befittingly embodied. If 
 anything is clear in our Lord's teaching, and in the 
 doctrine of the Incarnation in general, it is that our 
 Lord's humanity is the medium through which men 
 receive His Divinity, and not His Divinity the medium 
 through which they receive His humanity. This is 
 ignored in the Calvinistic doctrine. In its eager- 
 ness to reach that which, assuredly, is^the supreme 
 object, it dismisses with something like disdainful im- 
 patience, both the Sacrament under which our Lord 
 is pleased to clothe His coming, and the sacred 
 Flesh or Body, which in His own language is the 
 special thing signified by the Sacrament ; it looks only 
 to a spiritual action upon our spirits, not to one which 
 deals with our whole complex nature, with its bodily 
 as well as spiritual organization. No real diflference 
 is made between the Eucharistic Presence of Christ 
 
The Doch^iite of 1 7'ansubstantiation. 309 
 
 and the receiving o£ the Holy Ghost. I£ men of this 
 persuasion turn aside to acknowledge that we are 
 made partakers o£ Christ's sacred flesh at all, they 
 acknowledge it only as a consequence o£ our having 
 already been made partakers o£ the still greater gift. 
 In this way the true notion of a Sacrament is lost, 
 and what we have called the Nestorian notion comes 
 in. The doctrine lacks the simplicity of Gospel faith. 
 The connexion between the Sacrament and that of 
 which it is the Sacrament is made purely arbitrary 
 and conventional. The consecration of the Eucharistic 
 elements has no other effect than to set them apart to 
 serve as symbols in a transaction to which they are not 
 actually necessary. All that is of real value, besides 
 a profession of faith and a recognition of Church 
 fellowship, is an act of inward appropriation by the 
 communicant of an invisible grace which is, after all, 
 only nominally attached to the sacramental elements. 
 And if a devout enquirer should ask, what that is 
 which lies upon the altar between the consecration 
 and the act of communion, the answer would hardly 
 be an ex animo quotation of our Lord's words, This 
 is My Body." 
 
 Opposed to this conception of the Eucharistic 
 Presence, as Eutychianism is opposed to Nestorianism, 
 stands the scholastic dogma of Transubstantiation. 
 This, too, as the Article says, overthroweth the 
 nature of a Sacrament." The bread and wine, ac- 
 cording to this theory, at the touch of that more 
 glorious Substance which takes possession of them, 
 pass out of existence and are lost, leaving behind 
 
3IO It rests on a false Philosophy. 
 
 nothing but shadowy appearances of themselves, 
 which serve to indicate the Presence o£ something 
 else instead. Such a doctrine is capable o£ being 
 stated in ravishing terms, and it was indeed first 
 formulated with the best intention. It appeared 
 to guard the true honour of the Sacrament of the 
 Altar, to afford a clear position on which the intellect 
 could repose, and to bring the Presence of Christ into 
 the midst of His people in an indisputable way. But 
 nevertheless it loses, like Eutychianism, some rich 
 elements of truth, and so imperils the rest. Our first 
 objection to the dogma is that it is based upon a 
 discarded philosophy. It is questionable whether 
 any well-instructed thinker of the present day holds 
 the metaphysical theory of substance and accidents 
 which it perpetuates. That theory is not itself defide, 
 even in the Roman communion, apart from the 
 doctrine of the Eucharist. Possibly some assembly 
 of competent scholars from that communion might be 
 given liberty to revise the terms in which their 
 doctrine of the Eucharist is couched, and, while 
 preserving the essential thought which the Councils 
 of Lateran and Trent aimed at expressing, to clothe 
 it in formulas less crude, and therefore more in 
 liarmony with tlie advance of scientific knowledge, as 
 well as with spiritual insight. Meanwhile, even if the 
 philosophy of Transubstantiation were tenable, the 
 miracle which would be involved in it would be unique 
 among Divine actions. God does not usually deceive 
 our senses ; nor is it His method to annihilate what 
 He has made, in the way that — according to the 
 
Transubstantiation tinnecessary, 3 1 1 
 
 Eoman doctrine — the substance of the bread is 
 annihilated. He treasures every atom of His universe. 
 If indeed there were no other way of obtaining as rich 
 and full a meaning from our Lord's words about the 
 Sacrament, such an objection might soon be disposed 
 of ; but if the same meaning can be retained by some 
 other method of interpretation, we shall give the 
 greater glory to God by not discrediting our divinely 
 given senses, and by setting a more reverent value 
 even upon the material creation, with which God has 
 so closely associated us. There is an alternative. 
 Nothing binds us to accept the mediaeval explanation, 
 or evasion, of the mystery. Our Lord's words, This 
 is My Body," do not require us to choose between 
 scholastic Transubstantiation and some figure of speech. 
 The thing which we see can be something more than 
 we see it to be. When S. Thomas bowed down before 
 the Figure whose hands and side he was invited to 
 handle, and cried, " My Lord and my God," he did not 
 deny that what he was bidden to touch was a true 
 substantial human body, nor even that it was a body 
 composed of particles of carbon and hydrogen ; but he 
 felt that it was vitally united with something greater 
 than itself ; it was not an illusory set of " accidents " 
 caught up to serve as the mere symbol of a Presence, 
 but a thing which, with no fear of idolatry, he could 
 fall down and worship, because, though he did not 
 see the Divinity, yet what he saw was his Lord and 
 his God. So may we feel when Christ says to us, 
 " Take, eat ; this is My Body." 
 
 The Church of England is not committed to the 
 
312 Teaching of the Anglican Article. 
 
 opinions of any single doctor, or group of doctors, 
 whether of the sixteenth or of any other century. 
 Nevertheless it is a happy thing that the Providence 
 of God has preserved for us clear evidence of the 
 thoughts which were in the hearts of those who 
 framed our present formularies on this subject. 
 When our Articles were drawn up, Cheney, Bishop 
 of Gloucester — a man who had risked his life under 
 Mary by staying, when others fled, and opposing in 
 his place in Convocation the doctrine of Transub- 
 stantiation, — protested strongly against that which 
 is now the XXVIIIth Article. He disapproved of 
 saying that in the Eucharist the Body of Christ 
 is given, taken, and eaten, only after an heavenly 
 and spiritual manner." He proceeded to allege 
 Guest, Bishop of Rochester, who was then absent, 
 as feeling the same disapproval. Thereupon, Guest 
 wrote to Cecil, " I suppose you have heard how the 
 Bishop of Gloucester found himself grieved with 
 the placing of this adverb, ' only,' . . . because it did 
 take away the presence of Christ's Body in the 
 Sacrament, and privately noted me to take his part 
 therein, and yesterday, in my absence, more plainly 
 vouched me for the same. Whereas, between him 
 and me, I told him plainly that this word ' only ' in 
 the aforesaid Article did not exclude the Presence of 
 Christ's Body from tlic Sacrament, but only tlie 
 grossness and sensibleness in the receiving thereof ; 
 for I said unto him, though lie take Christ's Body 
 in his hand, received it with his mouth, and that 
 coj'porally, naturally, really, substantially, and carnally, 
 
The Doctrine of the Eastern Church. 3 1 3 
 
 as the doctors do write, yet did he not, for all that, see 
 it, feel it, smell it, or taste it. And, therefore, I told 
 him I would speak against him herein, and the rather 
 because the Article was of my own penning. And 
 yet I would not, for all that, deny anything that I had 
 spoken for the Presence." If Bishop Guest's interpre- 
 tation of his own Article may be considered to repre- 
 sent faithfully the teaching of the Eeformed Church 
 of England, it will be evident that Transubstantiation 
 was not rejected because men shrank from a full belief 
 in the Sacramental Presence. It was because the 
 manner of the Presence had been defined in a way not 
 only unnecessary, but liable to be painfully mis- 
 understood. In order to protect, and preserve, and 
 commend, the Catholic belief about the Eucharistic 
 Presence, it was necessary to be rid of the modern 
 definitions which had obscured it. 
 
 It is possible that in this great matter the Eastern 
 Church may be able to mediate between the divergent 
 utterances of the West. The Eastern Church, while 
 accepting (at a late date) the word Transubstantiation, 
 has never imported into it the scholastic metaphysics, 
 with those notions of one substance going and another 
 coming in its place, which often in Roman language 
 suggest something more like human dexterity than 
 the mighty works of God. Eastern theologians are 
 careful to point out, that the word, as they use it, 
 offers no explanation of the mode of change, — which 
 in their judgment would be foolish and irreligious, — 
 and that it is only used to exclude those opinions 
 which would connect the elements with the Body and 
 
314 Teaching of S. Gregory of Nyssa. 
 
 Blood of Christ by nothing more than a link of 
 thought, or (as in the Lutheran view) by local inter- 
 penetration. Perhaps no better general line can be 
 taken. It accords well with the teaching of the 
 Fathers, — among whom, amidst the widest range of 
 expression, there may be said to be at least a consent 
 in the doctrine of S. Justin Martyr, that the Eucharist 
 is no longer "common bread or common drink." 
 When the consecration is accomplished, the bread and 
 wine do not remain simply what they were before. An 
 unspeakable change has come upon them, by the 
 overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. The change 
 cannot be defined in the language of human schools. 
 No metaphysical terms can set it forth. But those 
 elements have been taken into a new relation to the 
 Person of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, even as the 
 substance of our flesh, in the womb of the Blessed 
 Virgin, Avas taken. It does not satisfy the heart to 
 tell us that they serve a new purpose, or have a new 
 meaning for us, or that they have undergone a virtual 
 or even a spiritual change. This language sounds 
 distant and cold. The change is not only spiritual ; 
 it is vital. S. Gregory of Nyssa, though in confused 
 sentences, seems to set forth this thought, when he 
 reminds us that our Lord, when on earth, lived by 
 bread, and that the bread, wliich it pleased Him to 
 partake of, was joined to His Body and became His 
 Body, and that sucli a vital union as He tlien effected 
 with the material elements in one way, He now effects 
 in a liigher way, for our benefit, in tlie Sacrament. 
 There, tlie grace of the Word made for itself a lioly 
 
Christ's Body no longer Natural!' 315 
 
 Body, composed out of the bread which it ate, and so 
 in a kind of way being itself bread ; here, likewise, the 
 bread, as the Apostle says, ' is sanctified by the Word 
 of God and prayer,' not passing into the Body of the 
 Word through eating and drinking, but being directly 
 made what it was not before (evOvc fxeraTrotovjuevog) the 
 Body of the Word, as it hath been said by the Word 
 Himself, ' This is My Body.' " Thus the miracle wrought 
 by the Holy Ghost at the Christian altar is of a kind 
 at once more lofty and more natural than that which 
 the mediaeval schools imagined, and the Real Presence 
 of the glorified Lord is assured to us in all its fulness 
 without need to do violence to any of our faculties. 
 
 § 14. 
 
 This doctrine does not involve the difficulty which 
 has often been alleged (with more or less ignorance) 
 against Roman teaching, namely, that Christ's Body 
 cannot be in heaven and on earth at the same time. 
 The objection has even found its way, by a curious 
 history, to a place within the Prayer-book, in the 
 so-called " Black Rubric," which was not the work of 
 careful theologians, and which has hardly the same 
 authority as other rubrics. Two mischievous falla- 
 cies underlie the objection as there verbally stated, — - 
 although, doubtless, the intended meaning is correct 
 enough. Christ's Body is no longer a natural " body 
 after the fashion of ours. It is a spiritual " body. 
 And heaven is not a distant place, but a Divinely 
 exalted state. To say, therefore, that " Christ's natural 
 Body is in heaven " must be regarded as only a clumsy 
 
3i6 // is received in a Heavenly Marnier. 
 
 way of saying that it has ceased to be a natural body, 
 and has received conditions of freedom and glory 
 which are out of the reach of our knowledge. A man 
 who doubts whether our Lord still has a body, doubts 
 the Christian faith; but it would be rash in the 
 extreme for any one to transfer to that Body in its 
 present state all that is gathered up for us in the 
 notion of place. It is impossible to tell whether a 
 glorified spiritual body is in local relations with any- 
 thing at all, except at the will of him whose body it 
 is. Still less can we tell with how many things at 
 the same time it can enter into local relations, — 
 especially in the case of Him who " fills all things 
 (Eph. iv. 10). If, however, the difficulty thus clumsily 
 put be explained to mean that Christ s Body cannot 
 be at the same time in two states, a heavenly and an 
 earthly, the Church would gladly admit it. Christ's 
 Body is in no way brought down or back from its 
 heavenly condition when set before us in the Sacra- 
 ment. It is certainly not there in such a way as to 
 exclude it from glory in its own present condition. 
 There it is, not as it was when Christ was living upon 
 earth, — still less as it was when He hung dead on the 
 Cross, but as it is at the right hand of God. In this 
 wonderful mystery, we, who arc still pilgrims here 
 below, arc permitted to feed, though with blindfolded 
 eyes, upon that which will openly be our sustenance 
 hereafter, the true Bread of Angels. It is a foretaste 
 of heaven, given upon earth. He who eats it, becomes 
 already possessed of " eternal life ; and the holy and 
 glorified thing which is communicated to his body, 
 
* ' Commttnion',' and ' ' Breaking of Bread!' 3 1 7 
 
 carries with it the assurance of the man s own resur- 
 rection (S. John vi. 54). 
 
 It is much to be observed that this Sacrament is 
 not only our means of maintaining union with Christ 
 but also of maintaining union with one another. The 
 two things necessarily go together. There is no such 
 thing as an attachment of isolated souls to Christ 
 Each soul is indeed — to say the least of it — as directly 
 and personally attached to Christ as if there were no 
 other, and Christ is as wholly and entirely communi- 
 cated to each soul as if none besides were to share the 
 benefit. That is, no doubt, what is meant by saying 
 that the entire Body of Christ, and all the fulness of 
 His Person, is in each fragment of the Sacrament. 
 But none can receive Christ as a kind of private 
 property. We must receive Him in unity and loving 
 fellowship, or not at all. The name of Communion 
 itself implies this fact. When S. Paul asks, "The 
 bread which we break, is it not the communion of the 
 Body of Christ ? " (1 Cor. x. 16) he does not mean 
 that it is an act of communion between the soul and 
 Christ; still less does he mean that the bread is a 
 medium for the communication of Christ's Body (an 
 interpretation which the Greek will not bear) : — he 
 means that it is our joint participation of the Body, 
 our fellowship in it. That is why he refers particu- 
 larly to, the " breaking " of the bread. That most 
 significant action has no reference to the breaking of 
 Christ's Body on the Cross, for — as S. Chrysostom 
 points out in this connexion — S. John emphatically 
 records that it was never broken there. The breaking 
 
3i8 It tinites us in Christ's Body. 
 
 of the bread is done in order that all may receive a share 
 in one and the same whole ; so that S. Paul pursues, 
 "Because we, many as we are, are one bread," — or 
 rather "one loaf,'' — "one body, for we all partake 
 from that one loaf/' If we may reverently conjecture, 
 this was the thought which prompted our Lord to use 
 at the institution of the Sacrament a different word 
 from that which He had used at Capernaum, and to 
 say, " This is My Body," not " This is My Flesh." His 
 Flesh is His human nature, the principle by which He 
 is man. It might conceivably have been imparted to 
 a disconnected aggregate of souls. But His Body is 
 the structural whole, the organism in which He is 
 presented. It is of that that we all partake, and 
 partake together. We not only receive the same 
 substance, but we receive what forms an indissoluble 
 unity. Thus the Eucharist is the great standing 
 Sacrament of the Church. To take the Communion 
 is the only known way of claiming membership in the 
 Church. To be excommunicated is the suspension of 
 membership. It is by no accidental concurrence of 
 metaphors that the Eucharist is Christ's Body and the 
 Church is Christ's Body ; for the whole being of the 
 Church is in the Eucharist. By it the Church is 
 sustained, and filled out, and kept together. By it 
 Christ embodies Himself in the Church for action. 
 And when Christ offers us Himself at the lioly table, 
 saying, " This is My Body," He offers the Cliurcli also ; 
 and if we uncharitably disdain her, we cannot receive 
 Him. However little tliis tliouglit is insisted upon at 
 the present day, it is enshrined in S. Paul's words to 
 
Eating a Vohmtary Act. 319 
 
 the Corinthians above cited, and forms a large element 
 in the teaching of the Fathers. "If you/' says S. 
 Austin, " are the body of Christ, and members, then 
 the Mystery placed on the Lord's table is the Mystery 
 of yourselves. Be what you see, and receive what 
 you are." 
 
 The main purpose and object of the Eucharist is 
 plainly to develope and strengthen our union with our 
 glorified Head and with our fellow members. Great 
 as the baptismal blessing of union with and in Christ 
 is, we must not think of it as a finished and stationary 
 thing. Union with Christ is progressive ; and faithful 
 communions do not only preserve the once-formed 
 bond from being broken, but they make us more and 
 more deeply to dwell in Christ and Christ in us. The 
 last communion of a saint is a much greater thing 
 than his first, — not that what he receives is sub- 
 stantially different, but because each good communion 
 helps to give the next a more penetrating eflfect. The 
 initial union with Christ in regeneration is irrespective 
 of our wills ; not so the development of it. That is 
 why this Sacrament takes the form of eating ; because 
 eating expresses more than nourishment, and more 
 than identification between the eater and his food ; — 
 eating is essentially a voluntary act. To bring out 
 the voluntary nature of our effectual union with Him- 
 self, Christ, in the discourses at Capernaum, gradually 
 substitutes for the ordinary word of eating {eaOUiv) 
 a word which denotes the eating of dainties, the eating 
 of one who relishes what he eats (rpcoyuv). It is truly 
 taught, therefore, that the wicked eat not the Body 
 
320 Commtmion in Two Kinds. 
 
 of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper." The thing 
 offered to them is identical with that which is offered 
 to the faithful, but they lack both the will and the 
 power to assimilate it. Honest faith, however rudi- 
 mentary, and right intention, however weak in 
 practice, may count on receiving the Body of Christ ; 
 but the touch of positive unbelief and contempt and 
 disobedience profanes the Sacrament. The outraged 
 Presence cannot and will not enter where the door of 
 the heart is closed against it, and the impious con- 
 sumer of the desecrated elements receives nothing but 
 an earnest of wrath and woe. 
 
 §15. 
 
 Whenever the Holy Eucharist is treated of, it is 
 instinctively assumed that the Sacrament of the 
 Lord's Body is the chief thing, and the Sacrament 
 of the precious Blood takes, as in order of adminis- 
 tration, so in order of thought, a secondary place. 
 It is not so audacious a departure from Christ's in- 
 stitution to withhold the Cup from the body of the 
 faithful, as it would be to withhold the Bread. 
 Undoubtedly, in ancient days, the first part of the 
 Sacrament was sometimes administered — as to those 
 sick and in prison — without the second. It is needless, 
 however, to point out how different this is from the 
 modern Roman rule. S. Paul liimself disjoins the two 
 in tliought when he speaks of " eating the Bread or 
 drinking the Cup of the Lord " (1 Cor. xi. 27), which 
 has been held to imply tliat tlie one might occasion- 
 ally be received without tlie otlier. If so, however, 
 
We receive the Blood as shed. 321 
 
 it would naturally imply rather that the Cup might 
 be received without the Bread, than the Bread without 
 the Cup, — and no trace of such a custom appears to 
 be found. The very fact of S. Pauls disjunction in 
 language, and still more the emphatic interval which 
 Christ at the Last Supper made between the two 
 parts of the rite, shews that they cannot have one and 
 the same meaning. Our Lord would not have ap- 
 pointed two separate acts, if the second were not to 
 convey a distinct benefit of its own. It is reasonable 
 to suppose that where persons are debarred, without 
 their fault, from receiving the Sacrament of Christ's 
 Blood, some at least of its benefits are conferred 
 through the faithful reception of His Body; but we 
 cannot guess what may, in the long run, be the result 
 to a Church at large, where, on insufficient grounds, 
 the Cup is systematically denied to the entire laity. 
 
 When, in defending a position which would be 
 better frankly abandoned, Roman theologians teach 
 that the Blood of Christ is already contained in the 
 gift of His Body, they not , only make the Chalice 
 superfluous, but they pass lightly over two important 
 truths. Their language too often suggests that our 
 Lord's Body is still a body of " flesh and blood in the 
 same sense as it was on earth, although, according to 
 S. Paul, such a body " cannot inherit the kingdom of 
 God " (1 Cor. XV. 50). And in the second place they 
 treat it as a matter of little moment whether the 
 precious Blood, conceived of in this somewhat physical 
 and material way, is received as still circulating, so to 
 speak, in our Saviour s veins, or whether it is received 
 
 y 
 
322 
 
 Rihial Significance of Blood. 
 
 by itself, as shed forth for a beverage to the faithful. 
 This is the very point. The gift of the Cup is not 
 simply the gift of Christ's Blood, but of Christ's Blood 
 " which is poured out on behalf of many " (S. Mark 
 xiv. 24). It is a difficult thought to follow out, but 
 one which ought to repay devout study. 
 
 The blood, according to the ancient Law, — and it 
 may be added, according to our latest physical research 
 — ' is the life " (Deut. xii. 23) ; or still more strictly, it 
 is the seat and medium of the life : " The life of the 
 flesh is in the blood" (Lev. xvii. 11). Li its course^ 
 through the body, it both carries away impurities 
 and brings into every corner those elements which 
 repair the waste of nature. If this beneficent work 
 of the blood ceases, the body dies. In this way the 
 blood is truly identified with the life of the body. 
 When, therefore, it is drained out of the body, the life 
 goes with it. This was the significance of its sacrificial 
 use. The blood of the victim meant, not the death of 
 the victim, but its surrendered life. It was not con- 
 sidered that the life was extinguished and annihilated 
 by slaughter, but only that it was deprived of its 
 earthly activities and separated from the natural 
 organism in which it had been embodied. The 
 carcase was dead ; but tlie blood was still alive. To 
 have brought any portion of the dead carcase into the 
 inner sanctuary would have seemed to the Israelites 
 a horrible profanation ; but it was the appropriate 
 destination of the life-blood. No other reason could 
 be assigned for the slaughter of the victim, for God 
 has "no pleasure in the death of liim that dieth" 
 
The Blood His Life won through Death. 323 
 
 (Ezek. xviii. 32) ; but He has pleasure in the humble 
 surrender o£ the guilty life, which acknowledges that 
 it has forfeited earthly existence, and presents itself 
 absolutely to Him. 
 
 This is what our Blessed Eedeemer has done for 
 us. Once for all, in acknowledgment of the sins of 
 man, He shed forth His Blood. The act was itself a 
 great Sacrament, for it was the true pouring out of 
 His soul unto death" (Is. liii. 12), clothed in a natural 
 and vivid symbolism, which answered to all the 
 sacrificial types going before it, and appealed to the 
 hearts of men for ever after. But that was not the 
 end. The typical high-priests, when they went into 
 the Holy of Holies, were forced to take with them 
 "blood of others" (Heb. ix. 25), because there was 
 no way of dislodging their own lives and presenting 
 them. It could only be typically done. But Christ, 
 made an High-priest for ever in His Kesurrection, 
 has passed into heaven for us, "through His own 
 Blood" (Heb. ix. 12). He, the Victor Victim (as 
 S. Austin calls Him), is able for ever to shew before 
 the Father — not His death only, nor His life only — • 
 but His own indestructible life as enhanced and en- 
 riched by having once passed through death, and that 
 a violent and voluntary death of sacrifice. We need 
 not, we cannot, picture to ourselves the Blessed Lord, 
 like a Jewish high-priest, sprinkling upon a heavenly 
 mercy-seat some spiritualised substance in which 
 His life still resides, apart from Himself. His life is 
 lodged again and for ever in its proper organism, the 
 glorified body. But just as the glorified Body bears 
 
324 Its special Connexion with Sin. 
 
 in its presentment marks (however we are to conceive 
 of them) of slaughter (Rev. v. 6), so the very principle 
 of the human life which animates it is profoundly 
 modified by its glorious self-effusion upon Calvary. 
 Thus the "Blood of Sprinkling'' — sprinkled both on 
 the mercy-seat and on us, — " which speaketh a more 
 excellent thing than Abel " can, in thought, be singled 
 out as a glory of the Church distinct from "Jesus, 
 mediator of a new testament" (Heb. xii. 24). It is 
 not, indeed, apart from His Person, but it gathers up 
 one vast benefit to be derived from His Person. His 
 Blood contains all the virtue of His Passion. 
 
 We see from this that the second part of the 
 Eucharist is that which meets our peculiar need as 
 sinners. If men had never fallen, and yet the Word 
 had been made flesh, we can believe that something 
 like the Sacrament of the Body might have been 
 given, but not the Sacrament of the Blood. And 
 so our Lord indicates in the words of institution. 
 Over the Bread, He says nothing about suffering or 
 sin. But He expressly connects the Cup with the 
 remission of sins " (S. Matt. xxvi. 28). The gift of 
 His Body, again, stands absolutely, without parallel ; 
 it is more than the reversal of a calamity or the 
 restitution of a forfeited blessing. Tlie gift of His 
 Blood is introduced by a manifest contrast with the 
 covenant which condemned us ; it is " the new Cove- 
 nant in His Blood" (1 Cor. xi. 25; Ex. xxiv. 8). So 
 the two parts of the Sacrament stand related to each 
 other as the Incarnation and the Atonement. And in 
 this view the order in which they come is unspeakably 
 
The Ettcharist a Sacrifice, 
 
 325 
 
 suggestive. We are not first purified from our sins 
 and then incorporated into Christ. When we have 
 been brought into the communion o£ His Body, then 
 we are in a position to receive the cleansing action of 
 His once outpoured Blood. " We have fellowship one 
 with another," — if, that is, we fulfil that condition 
 of the communicant, of " walking in the light,'' — and 
 the Blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin " (1 John 
 i. 7). Having been first raised to partake of His 
 glorified humanity, we are then permitted to drink in 
 those special properties of His life with which His 
 death has charged it. And although the first gift is 
 the wider and further-reaching, no one who has a 
 deep sense of sin will feel that the second is super- 
 fluous or umieeessarily emphasizes the sinner s need. 
 
 § 16. 
 
 From the earliest times the Holy Eucharist has 
 been regarded by the Church as not only the great 
 means by which we are permitted to draw into our- 
 selves our glorified Lord and all His benefits, but also 
 as her one appointed Sacrifice. So universally do the 
 early Christians interpret Malachi's prophecy of a 
 pure and catholic Sacrifice as referring to the Eucha- 
 rist, that we cannot doubt that it was part of the 
 Apostles doctrine (Mai. i. 11). The word does not 
 apply only to the praises and thanksgivings which 
 accompany the oblation — though they form an integral 
 portion of it, and are, indeed, so characteristic of it as 
 to establish its name of Eucharist, or Thanksgiving. 
 Nor does it apply only to the alms which Christians 
 
326 The Church herself offered up. 
 
 have always been accustomed to offer with it, and 
 which come up as a true "memorial before God" 
 (Acts X. 4). Nor does the sacrifice consist only in the 
 presentation o£ the bread and wine which are to be 
 used in the Mysteries, though ancient liturgies invest 
 this presentation with great solemnity. It comes 
 closer to the point when we consider " ourselves, our 
 souls and bodies," as the sacrifice. A hasty reading of 
 S. Austin, for example, might almost lead to the con- 
 clusion that the saint knew of no other sacrifice in the 
 Eucharist. He insists with vehement reiteration that 
 the Church is herself the Body of Christ which is 
 offered. " This," he says, " is the Christian Sacrifice : 
 the many, one body in Christ. This the Church 
 celebrates in the Sacrament of the Altar with which 
 the faithful are familiar, where the Church learns that 
 in that thing which she offers, she is herself offered." 
 It does not explain this Father's meaning to allege 
 that he is using allegorical or metaphorical language. 
 What S. Austin says is a real and substantial fact, 
 and no offering of the Body of Christ can be imagined 
 now, which does not include the offering of all His 
 members in their unity. But if the Body of Christ 
 cannot be offered in sacrifice without the Church, still 
 less can the Church be offered in sacrifice without 
 tliat sacred Thing, the partaking of which makes her 
 to be Christ's Body and renders licr acceptable to God. 
 The sacrifice of ourselves — as well as of our gifts and 
 alms and praises — is the new and additional element 
 in every Eucharist ; but it requires some other more 
 potent and constant Sacrifice on which to rest. 
 
The Sacrifice a MemoriaL 327 
 
 That which gives substance and value to all our 
 other offerings is the continual offering up to God of 
 the Person of Jesus Christ, in His Body and His 
 Blood. Christ empowered and commanded .His 
 Apostles to do this, when He made the Eucharist 
 His own memorial, as the yearly Passover which He 
 was superseding by it was the '^memorial" of the 
 Exodus (Ex. xii. 14). It should be observed, however, 
 that He did not say, " Do this for a remembrance of 
 My Death." The Eucharist was to be connected not 
 merely with one, even the greatest and most touching, 
 of His acts, but with Himself. Now Christ cannot be 
 remembered in His Church as one who is dead and 
 gone. He can only be remembered as living and 
 present, though out of sight ; and His living Presence 
 is guaranteed in the bread and wine which He had 
 already affirmed to be His Body and Blood. Over 
 those sacred elements we remember Him, truly present 
 in them, and gathering up in Himself all that He has 
 done for us. And what direction does our remem- 
 brance of Him take ? Not merely an internal one, as 
 in meditation. S. Paul speaks of it as a proclamation, 
 — a telling from age to age and from shore to shore. 
 The Eucharistic act announces and re-announces " the 
 Lord's death " (1 Cor. xi. 26), — the death endured by 
 One who is more than man, — and of whom the act 
 itself bears witness that He is alive, and that its 
 witness is only needed until He come," when " re- 
 membrance " will pass again into sight. But the 
 Eucharist cannot be regarded as simply an act between 
 man and man ; and if the remembrance is not only in 
 
328 Sacrifice involves no Destruction. 
 
 the heart, no more is it only amongst the members of 
 the Church. It is a remembrance towards God. And 
 this is its primary character. With thanksgivings for 
 all God's mercies, — His ordinary gifts of food and 
 drink, His providential dealings with our race, — we 
 specially give thanks to Him for the mercies bestowed 
 upon us in Christ, and display to Him, and not only 
 to one another, that precious Body and Blood in which 
 all our hopes are centred. Such an act is most truly 
 a sacrifice.^ 
 
 To prevent mistake, however, the first thing which 
 we must clearly apprehend in the Catholic doctrine 
 of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, is that it neither detracts 
 from the perfectness of the Sacrifice of the Cross, nor 
 
 ^ Many have thought that the very words " Do this " are intended 
 to have a sacrificial meaning, and should rather be rendered *' Offer 
 This." In that case, of course, the word " this " will denote the 
 Eucharistic Bread and Cup respectively, and not the Eucharistic 
 action ;— " Offer this Thing," not " Perform this action." The Greek 
 word for " do " {ttoiCiv) is constantly so used in the Old Testament : — 
 for instance, where we are obliged to say, I will offer bullocks and 
 goats" (Ps. Ixvi. 13), the Septuagint has, "I will do bullocks and 
 gnats." The word do " in such a connexion does not point particularly 
 to the slaughter of the animals, but to the whole sacrificial operation. 
 There would therefore be no dogmatic objection to such an interpreta- 
 tion. If our Lord had wished to say, " Offer Tliis," without using a 
 word of slaughter, He could scarcely have used other words than those 
 which lie used. The difficult sentence in 1 Cor. xi. 25, "This do as 
 often as ye drink," would bo much simplified if we could supply tho 
 same object to both verbs. But the rendering " Offer this " has 
 against it the fact that it is of recent origin. All the Greek Fathers, 
 with tlie exception of S. Justin Martyr, treat the words as meaning, 
 *' Perform this action." Altliough they certainly see a sacrificial con- 
 notation in the words as a whole, they do not give so much as a hint 
 that another rendering of the word "this" had occurred to them. 
 Such could hnrdly have been tho case if the Evangelists and Apostles 
 had understood the words so difierently. 
 
Christ endttres no fi^esh Pain, 329 
 * 
 
 in any way subjects the glorified Lord again to pain 
 or death. We cannot follow Bellarmine in thinking 
 that " change and destruction " o£ the thing offered is 
 essential to a sacrifice. In the typical sacrifices — or 
 at least with some portions o£ th^m — this was the 
 case, because, without their being burned or the like, 
 there was no way of expressing that they had passed 
 away from all human utility and were irrevocably 
 given over to God. But the destruction was only 
 necessary because of the inherent weakness of the 
 type. The essential feature of sacrifice is the presenta- 
 tion to God of that which is precious to us and 
 acceptable to Him. If, therefore, we believe that in 
 the Eucharist Christ is offered to God, there is no 
 need to think of Him as still suffering. Although 
 some expressions in the Fathers would literally imply 
 that they thought so, they can readily be paralleled 
 by expressions in authoi'S who certainly did not think 
 so. A S. Chrysostom or a S. Ambrose would have 
 been as much shocked as we are to read in a modern 
 schoolbook of dogmatic theology by a Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop, that in consequence of the " immolation " in 
 the Eucharist, " a change takes place in the Victim : 
 by the consecration, Jesus Christ is reduced to an 
 unnatural condition ; and those sacramental words, 
 ' This is My Body,' ' This is My Blood,' pronounced 
 separately, are like a sword which separates mystically 
 and as far as may be the Body and the Blood of 
 Christ." The whole spirit of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, with its clear and powerful contrast of the 
 daily propitiations of the Law and the majestic single- 
 
330 He is offe^^ed here as in Heaven. 
 
 ness of Christ's self-sacrifice on the Cross, — and all 
 right Catholic feeling as Vv^ell, — rises in judgment 
 against such a perversion, or rather such a contradic- 
 tion, of the Gospel. We have already shewn that the 
 manner of Christ's Real Presence in the Sacrament of 
 the Altar is not such as to drag Him back from His 
 state of glory; nor is the nature of the Christian 
 Sacrifice such as to involve Him in any fresh and 
 perpetual pain. It could be no " Eucharist " to us if 
 it were so. Instead of joyous anthems, our churches 
 would be filled with the wailings, and sobs, and 
 smitings upon the breast, of those whose sins compelled 
 them, day after day, to save themselves, by again 
 summoning the willing Redeemer back, to undergo 
 some new mysterious anguish for them. Many of us 
 would refuse to save our souls at the price. It is one 
 thing to accept with tears of thankfulness what was 
 once effected for us, without our knowledge, by His 
 Sacrifice : it would be quite another, solemnly and of 
 set purpose to repair to the altar, to perpetuate, or 
 renew, any measure of His redeeming pain. 
 
 The way, then, in which the Sacrifice must be 
 conceived of is this. Christ is present with us at the 
 altar in the same manner as in heaven. He allows 
 us at the altar to do with Him what He Himself does 
 in heaven. Although He is for ever seated there, as 
 one whose toils are over, yet He is " a Priest upon 
 His throne" (Zech. vi. 13), and is perpetually engaged 
 in presenting on our behalf the life which He once for 
 all laid down and has taken again, and never needs 
 to lay down from henceforth. By means of that 
 
The Eticharist a Propitiation, 331 
 
 Sacrament which He puts in our hands, we do the 
 same. We do not merely speak o£ the Cross to 
 the Father ; we shew Him the Body and Blood of the 
 living and present Saviour, who died upon the Cross, 
 and who not only once for all made a propitiation for 
 us there, but who " is a propitiation for our sins, and 
 not for ours only but also for all the world (1 John 
 ii. 2). In this sense we may even use language not 
 commonly used in England, and say that the Eucharist 
 is a propitiatory Sacrifice. It is so in the same way 
 as Christ's presentment of Himself in heaven is. There 
 is no iteration of the Sacrifice of the Cross, and no 
 continuation of it, properly so called ; but neither 
 is there the bare remembrance of it. In the living 
 Person of Christ, the eternal Sacrifice of Calvary 
 remains an ever fresh fact, neither needing nor 
 admitting of a renewal. Christ presents Himself in 
 heaven for us in the inexhaustible virtue of His past 
 suffering ; and all the efficacy of the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice is derived from the same. 
 
 § 17. 
 
 All Christian prayer is founded upon the Eucha- 
 ristic Communion and Sacrifice. We acquire the 
 right to pray by union with Christ, and we exercise it 
 by pleading His merits. This is involved in saying 
 "through Jesus Christ our Lord," when we pray. It 
 is called in Scripture, praying " in His name." The 
 solitary prayers of the individual Christian and the 
 united prayers of the Church are alike in this respect. 
 They are only heard by virtue of membership in 
 
332 Prayer in Christ's Name. 
 
 Christ, and only so far as they are in true agreement 
 with His own intercession. Not every prayer is " in 
 the name of Christ" because of His name being 
 mentioned in it, any more than " two or three " are 
 necessarily " gathered together in His name " (S. Matt, 
 xviii. 20) because they call themselves Christians. 
 There must be no admixture of any other principle, if 
 the name of Christ is to be cogently urged. When the 
 basis on which the assembly meets, is Christianity 
 "plus or minus some separate view of its own — such 
 as Unitarian or Irvingite Christianity, for example — 
 then it does not meet purely in the name of Christ, 
 and cannot with confidence count on the special 
 Presence which He promises. None but the Catholic 
 Church of His own foundation meets simply in His 
 name. That is why the validity as it is called, of 
 other than Catholic communions is doubted. No one 
 denies that Christ can give Himself to individual faith, 
 even amidst a schismatic assembly ; but the assembling 
 in a schismatic name gives no security that Christ will 
 be there, but rather tlie contrary. 
 
 Prayer in Christ's name, whether public or private, 
 must be unreservedly in accordance with His revealed 
 character and purpose. " We do not ask in the name 
 of our Master," says S. Austin, " what we ask other- 
 wise than by our Master's rules." Such a caution 
 puts us on our guard in prayer. It makes us ask 
 conditionally for things about wliich we are not 
 clear. At the same time, when we cordially accept 
 tlie name in which we pray, it gives us perfect assur- 
 ance in two directions. It assures us tliat our j^rayer 
 
Prayer not an Act of Resignation, 333 
 
 will not be literally and mechanically answered, how- 
 ever fervently we pray, i£ what we beg would be 
 harmful to ourselves, or to the Church, or to the 
 honour of Christ. And it assures us that if what we 
 ask is good, we shall certainly gain it, in due time. 
 The limitation which is thus placed on Christian 
 prayer by no means unnerves it, or reduces it to a 
 languid fatalism. On the contrary, our Lord encour- 
 ages earnestness and insistence. He Himself used 
 " strong crying and tears " in the Garden, even over a 
 doubtful point ; and we are told that He was " heard 
 in consequence of His careful reverence (Heb. v. 7). 
 The thing which He conditionally asked was not given 
 Him, but the prayer was not fruitless. It procured 
 something better instead. Prayer is thus not merely 
 the human will submitting itself to the will of God. 
 It is a free and filial expression of our desires to the 
 heavenly Father, in the confidence that His wisdom is 
 greater than ours, and His love and power as great 
 as His wisdom. So far from its being an act of 
 passive resignation, it actually sets in motion the 
 Divine activities in directions in which, without it, 
 God would not have worked. As it is in temporal 
 things, so also in spiritual. God allows His operation 
 to be conditioned by ours. The riches with which 
 God has stored a fertile country are left idle or 
 opened out according to the energy and skill of its 
 possessors. And so with the riches of the kingdom 
 of grace. If they are to be made the most of. Chris- 
 tians, both in private and in public, must pray, and 
 pray " in the Holy Ghost " (S. Jude 20). Praying in 
 
334 extirpated by Baptism, 
 
 the Holy Ghost is the correlative to praying in the 
 name of our Lord. It indicates both the fervour and 
 energy with which we must pray (Rom. viii. 26), and 
 also the sanctified purport of our prayer. 
 
 § 18. 
 
 Baptism, considered as a washing, sets us free 
 from the guilt o^nd shame of our original sin ; and, 
 considered as a regeneration, it implants in us a new 
 principle by which to overcome its power. Neverthe- 
 less, the "infection of nature," as the Article says, 
 " doth remain." Baptized men, — even those in whom 
 their regeneration has taken good effect, — are not 
 exempt from sinful movements within; and some- 
 times they fall into actual sins, and into long-con- 
 tinued states of sin. S. John's teaching does not 
 deny this. When he says, "He that hath been 
 begotten of God doeth not sin, because His seed 
 abideth in him, and he is unable to sin, because he 
 hath been begotten of God" (1 John iii. 9), he is con- 
 fronting Antinomian license. He denies that sin is 
 normally compatible with the Divine birth, or can be 
 a matter of indifference to the regenerate. He teaches 
 that so far as the regenerate man is true to his own 
 nature, sin is impossible for him ; and that in so far 
 as he sins, he is acting in opposition to his real self. 
 The sin of the baptized man is made the more ex- 
 ceeding sinful, because to him it is, in the highest 
 sense, unnatural. When, therefore, the baptized have 
 sinned, what provision is there for their recovery ? 
 
 It has already been said tliat Baptism neither can 
 
Ottr Need of renewed Washing. 335 
 
 be, nor needs to be, repeated. The baptismal union 
 with Christ, once given, cleanses the life which de- 
 sires to be cleansed, from end to end, within and 
 without, not in fragments, but as a complete whole. 
 But it is difficult for the mind to grasp this idea as it 
 stands. As we pass through life, we are obliged to 
 deal with it piecemeal, as a matter of day by day. 
 Therefore, since we find ourselves often involved in 
 sin, and our consciences tell us that we are again 
 guilty, we require to have our baptismal washing 
 made a ncAv and present reality to us. Such a blessing 
 our Lord promised us when He said that, though a 
 man would not need to go down a second time into 
 the great bath and wash himself all over, but would 
 know himself as a whole to be clean, ^et he would 
 need to remove the stains upon his feet (S. John 
 xiii. 10). He bade us humbly apply to one another 
 this merciful, if somewhat tedious and unpleasant, 
 ministry : Ye," He said, ought also to wash one 
 another's feet " (ver. 14). In so saying. He instituted, 
 not in form, but in substance, what is sometimes 
 called the Sacrament of Penance.-^ It is the appli- 
 cation of no new element, but the continued and 
 partial application, according to our need, of that by 
 which we were first cleansed. No new gift is con- 
 
 * It is usually alleged that the words spoken on the night of the 
 Kesurrection," Whosesoever sins ye remit," etc. (S. John xx. 23), were 
 the institution of this Sacrament. But it would be truer to say that 
 they conveyed the power of which this Sacrament is a special exercise. 
 The words include the Baptismal remission as well as the post-bap- 
 tismal ; and in themselves they contain no direct command to absolve 
 sins. 
 
336 Absoluti07i trttly Sacramental. 
 
 ferred on us by it, but the baptismal purity from 
 guilt is maintained and renewed. 
 
 It is questionable in what particular act the Sacra- 
 ment of Penance lies. Roman theologians incline to 
 make it consist partly, if not altogether, in the dis- 
 positions and acts of the recipient. His repentance, 
 and the appropriate expression of it, enter, in their 
 judgment, into the very essence of the Sacrament. 
 Such a doctrine shews a true and evangelical sense 
 of the uselessness of a formal absolution pronounced 
 upon an impenitent soul. Nevertheless, it is simpler, 
 and more in accordance with analogy, to consider 
 these things as being rather the necessary qualifica- 
 tions for receiving the grace, and to make the Abso- 
 lution alone truly sacramental. To unburden the 
 heart in confession is a great relief ; but the act of 
 authoritative pardon is the point where the Divine 
 bounty comes into play. Confession is human ; but 
 Absolution is indeed a superhuman thing. The priests 
 to whom, as officers of the Church, Jesus Christ has 
 entrusted the absolving power (S. John xx. 23), exer- 
 cise it as no possession of their own, but ministerially, 
 for Him. They are His ambassadors, offering recon- 
 ciliation on no terms but His; but, on His terms, 
 confidently offering it. And what they offer must 
 not 1)0 coldly reduced to a remission of Church 
 censures ; it is the blessing of a free and bold access 
 again to the living God, who has been justly dis- 
 pleased. Nor is this Absolution a purely subjective 
 thing. There is in it as in Baptism, a real, sub- 
 stantive movement of that cleansing grace which is 
 
Public and private Absolution. 337 
 
 stored in the Church. Whether it takes effect or not, 
 depends upon the disposition of the recipient ; but in 
 any case the grace is there. 
 
 There appears to be no sufficient reason for sup- 
 posing, as some'^do, that Absolution is only sacramental 
 when pronounced in private to single souls. In itself, 
 so far as the movement of grace is concerned, the 
 Absolution is the same, whether public or private. If 
 it were not so, there would be no particular reason 
 for restricting the utterance of the public Absolutions 
 to the priest. The difference lies in the method of 
 preparing to receive it. If souls are able to grasp it 
 for themselves as firmly, it is as valid and full when 
 uttered in a general formula to a thousand together 
 as when uttered to them one by one. It is to be 
 feared that the public Absolutions are as a rule more 
 listlessly given and received than the private : but God 
 is good, and perhaps even a listless faith, — listless at 
 the moment, because ill-instructed, — may suffice to 
 appropriate such a measure of the grace as is positively 
 necessary. 
 
 If the Sacrament of Penance be understood in the 
 narrower sense, as administered in one of its forms, in 
 private, we can lay down no all-embracing rule about 
 its necessity. All who would be saved, must be 
 absolved ; and all who would be absolved, must con- 
 fess to the best of their ability. But Holy Scripture, 
 although it recommends confession to men as well as 
 to God (S. James v. 16), lays down no positive and 
 universal command to make definite confession to 
 a priest as a condition of Absolution. The experience 
 
 z 
 
338 AuricMlar Confession left Free. 
 
 o£ ages has led the Church to provide that method 
 in ease of need ; but without clearer instructions from 
 ancient times, she has no right to prescribe it for all. 
 The Holy English Church vindicates for her children 
 the liberty with which Christ has set us free, — in both 
 directions. If conscience tells them that a full and 
 explicit confession before God alone, joined with the 
 general confession in the public service, would be more 
 beneficial to their advance in holiness than private 
 confession to a priest, no man may compel them to 
 a private confession. If conscience tells them that 
 a private confession would be beneficial, no man may 
 dare to forbid it them. Upon the doctrinal question, 
 indeed, the English Church leaves no doubt whatever ; 
 but the practical question is left to be decided for each 
 soul separately. There are many cases where private 
 confession to the priest would seem to do more harm 
 than good. But it can hardly be doubted that things 
 have gone too far the other way amongst us, and that 
 it would be of great advantage to many, especially of 
 the male sex, if confession (in the technical sense) 
 were considered less exceptional than it is. A Chris- 
 tian man's sin is not a thing between God and his 
 own soul alone, for we all "are members one of 
 another" (Eph. iv. 25). Even sturdy independence 
 and masculine self-reliance can be too dearly pur- 
 chased ; — though the practice of confession by no 
 means necessarily destroys them. 
 
 The use of Confession need not involve Direction^ 
 which is a wholly different thing. 
 
Unction of the Sick. 
 
 339 
 
 § 19. 
 
 The Sacrament of Unction of the Sick is formally 
 in abeyance amongst us, but its place is taken by the 
 solemn Office of Visitation. It would be inexact to 
 ascribe its origin to the directions given by S. James 
 (ch. V. 14). Clearly that Apostle is recommending a 
 practice already in existence. Most probably it sprang 
 from the promise of our Lord ; " They shall lay hands 
 on the sick, and they shall recover" (S. Mark xvi. 18 ; 
 comp. S. Mark vi. 13). Unction and Imposition of 
 Hands are closely connected, and both are strengthened 
 and solemn form^ of blessing. There is undoubtedly 
 something of a sacramental nature in all benedictions ; 
 they are gracious outgoings of the Holy Spirit in the 
 Church towards the persons Vv^ho receive them. Of 
 such benedictions. Confirmation is the greatest; and 
 the Unction of the Sick, or Imposition of Hands upon 
 them, though certainly no repetition of Confirmation, 
 partakes of the same character. There is no rea-son to 
 think that it was miraculous in its intention, except 
 in the same way as all prayer is; but its intention 
 was primarily the restoration of bodily health. The 
 promise attached to it was never unconditional : 
 recovery is given or withheld as is most expedient in 
 the eyes of God. But doubtless, if the lesser blessing 
 is withheld, a greater is given, and the Holy Ghost, 
 instead of quickening the sick body to earthly life 
 again, refreshes the soul to meet death, and so works 
 towards a better resurrection. It would be an undue 
 pressing of the letter of Scripture, especially in view 
 
340 
 
 The Grace of Orders. 
 
 of the uncertain history o£ this rite in early days, to 
 make the visible act either of unction or of laying on 
 of hands essential to the obtaining of the inward 
 grace ; but the latter symbol can be used without 
 any disloyalty in performing the existing Office of 
 Visitation. 
 
 § 20. 
 
 The means of grace already spoken of are the only 
 ones which claim to be for all Christians without 
 exception. Of the two which remain, Ordination has 
 already been dealt with in connexion with the Apostolic 
 nature of the Church. It will only be necessary here 
 to repeat that the act is truly sacramental. It is not 
 only an official recognition of the person promoted to 
 ministerial authority. It conveys a special charisma, 
 or gift, for his work. In the case of those who are 
 consecrated to supreme rule in the Church, S. Paul 
 describes the charisma as " a spirit of power and love 
 and discipline " (2 Tim. i. 7). He teaches in the same 
 passage that this gift does not work unless the 
 recipient diligently cultivates it. But inasmuch as 
 the Word and Sacraments belong to Christ and to the 
 Church, and arc not the private property of those who 
 administer them, no unfaithfulness or wrong intention 
 on the part of the duly appointed agent can vitiate 
 them. He may by his spirituality enhance their 
 actual effect, or l)y his apatliy detract from it ; but he 
 has no power to annul the essential grace, any more 
 than to create it. 
 
Christian Doctrine of Marriage. 341 
 
 § 21. 
 
 Marriage differs from all the foregoing in two 
 ways. The other Sacraments belong solely to the 
 Christian dispensation, and they concern the Church 
 at large. Not so with this. It only concerns the 
 Church in so far as the Church is deeply interested in 
 her children's private welfare and the good of society. 
 And marriage is a primeval institution, a Sacrament 
 of Nature. The Church which blesses it does not 
 make it ; in technical language, the ministers of the 
 Sacrament are the husband and wife. When a hus- 
 band and wife are baptized into the Church from 
 without, no new ceremony needs to be performed; 
 the Church recognises the tie between them as lawful 
 marriage. Of course, in cases where a man has lived 
 under the system of polygamy, the passage into 
 Christ cannot carry with it conjugal relations with 
 more than one wife, for the words " they twain are 
 of the very essence of marriage as known to the 
 Church ; but the one wife who is retained is a true 
 wife already. Nevertheless, the consecration with 
 which Christianity enriches all life profoundly modi- 
 fies marriage. There is nothing necessarily sinful in 
 heathen polygamy ; to recognise it among Christians 
 would be to sanction a regulated adultery. Heathen 
 marriages are not essentially indissoluble ; Christian 
 man and wife can never be anything else to each 
 other, and all the legal divorces in the world can only 
 make a profane pretence of putting asunder those 
 whom God has joined together. Christian marriage 
 
342 Marriage and Virginity. 
 
 is more than a binding contract between two parties 
 still in reality separate. " They are no more twain " 
 (S. Matt. xix. 6). There is, of course, no fusion of 
 personality ; but there is a vital union of personalities 
 for which S. Paul can find no parallel but that between 
 Christ and the Church. Where marriage has its due 
 course, this union goes far beyond what is earthly 
 and physical. The natural element in it is made to 
 serve as the basis and vehicle of Divine grace. By 
 coming within the sphere of the Holy Ghost's opera- 
 tions, marriage conveys the grace of unselfish devo- 
 tion, of perfected and purified outpouring of heart to 
 heart, of living in and for each other. The solitari- 
 ness of the single life is relieved, and its deficiencies 
 more than made good. 
 
 Such being the Scriptural and Catholic doctrine 
 of marria^ge, the Church cannot be accused of Mani- 
 choean asceticism, when she recognises as even higher 
 than the grace of marriage the grace of Christian 
 virginity. While nothing is more selfish and unworthy 
 of a Christian than to abstain from marriage out of 
 dislike of responsibilities or out of cynical indifference, 
 it is a noble thing to feel, and voluntarily embrace, 
 and suffer patiently, the privations of the single life, 
 in order to be more freely at the disposal of God and 
 man. Our Lord spoke of it as a "gift'' given to a 
 few, and challenged those who could, to take up with 
 it (S. Matt. xix. 11, 12). And S. Paul, who at least 
 in widowhood, if not (as is much more probable) in 
 virginity, had received the gift, commends it to the 
 reverent admiration of tlie Church as the "better" 
 thing (1 Cor. vii. 38). 
 
Chapter X. 
 
 ®I)c ^^vocc^^ of ^albatiott* 
 
 Grace personal in its Aim and Method — Elcciio7i according to Fore- 
 knowledge — Predestination and Htcman Freedom — Grace and Free 
 Will — Vocation — Repentance and Faith — Conversion— Jnstificatio7i 
 by Faith — Christian Assurance — Sanctijication — Final Perseve- 
 rance^ 
 
 § 1- 
 
 The faith becomes truly a Gospel when it is seen 
 in its application to individual souls. If we were 
 to stop at the point already reached, we should only 
 have sketched a system, a philosophy, or a polity. 
 But God aims through these things — through the 
 Church and the Sacraments — at reaching individual 
 souls. He does not deal with men only in the mass. 
 Although He desires to lay hold upon them in order 
 to weld them into a perfect unity in Christ, yet they 
 have, singly, a value of their own in His eyes which 
 cannot be exaggerated. The Apostle speaks of the 
 redeeming work of Christ as effected for the whole 
 and for the part in precisely the same terms. " Christ 
 loved the Church, and gave Himself for her," he says ; 
 but in another place, " He loved me, and gave Himself 
 for me " (Eph. v. 25 ; Gal. ii. 20). It requires more 
 
344 
 
 Grace personal in its Aim, 
 
 imagination, as well as more unselfishness, than the 
 run of men possess, to feel from the outset great joy 
 in promises to the world, the race, the Church. The 
 thing which touches hearts is to discover God s interest 
 in their personal needs and trials. This, then, is what 
 makes the Church so evangelical. She seeks men one 
 by one, not for her ov^n good, but for theirs. The 
 love of souls, the longing to bring home to them what 
 God feels with regard to them and what He has done 
 to prove it, is as true a " note " of the Church as any 
 of the four which have been described. It is little 
 comfort, — it is positive pain, — to know what blessings 
 are stored for men in the Church, until they have 
 been brought to realise it for themselves and to rejoice 
 in a conscious experience of those blessings. 
 
 It is, then, one of the main wonders of the Gospel, 
 that God has not only made a bountiful provision for 
 men's needs in Christ, but that He also prepares and 
 leads men to seek, and to find, and to make good use 
 of the provision. God s grace is not simply embodied 
 in an objective form, and despatched into the world, 
 for any one to help himself to it who likes. It both 
 singles out the persons to whom it comes ; and it 
 occupies itself with their inward and most subjective 
 moods and inclinations, aiding them to receive what 
 it brings. In fact we arc accustomed almost to 
 restrict the name of Grace to its internal operation 
 upon souls. That beautiful word denotes in the first 
 instance simply a favour ; and it may rightly describe 
 God's new line of conduct towards humanity at large 
 in the Incarnation. Nevertheless, its characteristic 
 
Summary of the Life of Grace, 
 
 345 
 
 action is to be seen to greatest advantage in relation to 
 men one by one. However widely diffused, the favour 
 of God is never promiscuous and undiscriminating ; 
 and although it moves on principle, without caprice, — 
 or it could not be Divine, — yet it accommodates and 
 adapts itself most tenderly to the personal objects of 
 its choice. The whole history of Christian souls is 
 the history of the dealings of grace with them. There 
 is an endless diversity in the details of operation, and 
 a guide of souls has to beware of substituting a coarse 
 and rough uniformity of experience for the delicacy 
 and flexibility of grace. Souls are not turned out 
 like manufactured articles. Yet the main course of 
 the history is the same for all. S. Paul gathers it up 
 in a famous summary : — " Whom He foreknew, He also 
 predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, 
 that He might be a firstborn among many brethren. 
 Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also 
 called ; and whom He called, them He also justified ; 
 and whom He justified, them He also glorified" 
 (Rom. viii. 29, 30). 
 
 §2. 
 
 This summary shows us how far back the work of 
 grace begins. It does not begin when the man first 
 becomes conscious of it, nor even at his appearance 
 on the stage of life. No Christian emerges unforeseen 
 in the stream of time, to attract on emerging the 
 favourable attention of God. Before the stream began 
 to flow, — before ever God set in motion the forces 
 which ultimately issued in producing the man, the 
 
346 Foreknowledge and Election. 
 
 man was "foreknown." It is not said that all the 
 man's actions were foreknown, — though that would 
 be true enough, — but the man himself. In the eternal 
 play of possible creations before the mind of God in 
 Christ, this character appeared, — this combination of 
 gifts, capable of subserving just this sacred purpose, of 
 exemplifying this special form of truth, of answering 
 to this particular aspect of love. God Imew that 
 character, and was pleased with it, and determined to 
 give it a real existence, and to subject it to the actual 
 discipline of life; and He so ordered things, that in 
 due time we should be born, and should be born 
 again ; and should be set to those " good works which 
 God before prepared that we should vf alk in them " 
 (Eph. ii. 10). 
 
 Foreknowledge, by itself, might be predicated of 
 every human being; for all souls are the creation 
 of God, who cannot be thought of as acting on the 
 spur of the moment. But the foreknowledge which 
 issues in Predestination is not the lot of all. It only 
 holds true of a certain number. Such foreknowledge 
 is the foreknowledge of approval for a particular 
 purpose, and it causes God to make a distinction 
 between those souls and others. They are, in S. 
 Paul's language, " an election of grace " (Rom. xi. 5). 
 It is manifest, upon the face of things, that the grace 
 of God picks and chooses among men. Though all 
 souls are dear to Him, and He " wills all men to be 
 saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" 
 (1 Tim. ii. 4), yet He docs not deal with all alike. 
 As it is with regard to natural gifts — wealth, beauty, 
 
Privileges of the Elect. 347 
 
 intellect, and the like, — so it is in spiritual things. 
 There is great inequality. The elect are on a different 
 footinof from the rest of men. To them has been 
 given, by the predestination of God, what is not the 
 common property of mankind. Whether the numbers 
 who share the privilege with them be large or small, 
 makes no difference to the reality of their election. 
 In some countries and ages, — our own for example, — 
 the elect may form an immense majority of *the 
 population ; but nevertheless, each single soul is as 
 much the object of a deliberate choice of God, dating 
 from all eternity, as if it were one of a little handful 
 in the Ephesus or Eome of S. Paul's time. 
 
 Of course, the difference is not that which Antino- 
 mianism has imagined, — that the elect may do with 
 impunity what is regarded as sin in others, for God 
 ''hath not given any m_an licence to sin" (Ecclus. 
 XV. 20). Nor is the way of holiness made easier for 
 them ; on the contrary, it is often far harder. The 
 difference is wholly one of spiritual privilege. And 
 that privilege is a present privilege, not a future one. 
 According to the general usage of the New Testament, 
 all who are admitted into the Church on ea^rth are the 
 elect. The term (except in a few passages of the 
 Gospels, where the context makes its meaning clear) 
 does not express those who are finally selected to par- 
 take of the joys of heaven. Before that blessing can 
 be theirs, they must, with faithful endeavour, " make 
 their calling and election sure" (2 Pet. i. 10). The 
 thing to which they have been elected, " according to 
 the foreknowledge of God," is described by S. Peter as 
 
348 The Few chosen on behalf of All. 
 
 "obedience and sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus 
 Christ (1 Pet. i. 2) : that is to say, they are 
 Christians. This is already theirs; and if it be 
 rightly used, it is a pledge and an earnest of eternal 
 salvation. 
 
 If it seems at all unfair that God should thus 
 make distinctions among His human creatures, which 
 are not based upon their proven personal merits, nor 
 even upon His prevision of their merits, but upon His 
 own absolute sovereign pleasure, we must remember 
 first that we do not yet see all the issues of this mode 
 of action, and that in the end it may be found to 
 be the best way of benefiting mankind at large, to 
 approach them through a concentrated and united 
 body of highly privileged souls, whose object it is not 
 to exclude others from their privilege, but to extend it 
 to as many as they can reach. The elect people of 
 God, in this dispensation as well as in that which 
 preceded it, are not elected only for their own advan- 
 tage, but for the advantage of all. " Ye are a chosen 
 race,'' says S. Peter, " in order that ye may carry 
 abroad the tidings of His excellencies who called you 
 out of darkness into His marvellous light " (1 Pet. 
 ii. 9). If the salvation of the world was to be effected 
 in a historical manner at all, perhaps no other 
 method was possible. But however this may be, at 
 least tlic harshness of the doctrine of election is 
 softened, wlien we see that the true antithesis to 
 election is not rejection or reprobation, but passing 
 by, and that, perliaps, only for a time. Mankind are 
 not divided into two classes, — the few etci^nally set 
 
Predestination and Freedom. 349 
 
 apart for salvation, — the mass for damnation. The 
 privilege of the few, though real and positive now, is 
 theirs on probation ; and others are to gain it through 
 them. 
 
 §3. 
 
 Attempts have been made, but without much suc- 
 cess, to draw a broad line of distinction between 
 Election and Predestination. Those attempts have 
 been prompted by the desire to reconcile God's 
 eternal purpose with human freedom. Perhaps it 
 is impossible for our present intellectual powers 
 clearly to state how the two things are compatible. 
 It is but one instance of the difficulty of co-ordinating 
 the finite and the infinite. At present v*^e do not see, 
 in the first place, how time and eternity meet. 
 Eternity is commonly thought of as if it were a state 
 or series anterior to time, and to be resumed again 
 when time comes to an end. This, however, only 
 reduces eternity to time again, and puts the life of 
 God in the same line as our own, only coming from 
 further back. And our conceptions of the almighti- 
 ness of God are coarse. It seems as if an almighty 
 being could never be crossed or hindered. Having 
 everything in His own hands, and perfectly knowing 
 His own mind, God must, so men argue, always have 
 His own way in every detail. But they forget that 
 God is not an abstract almightiness, but almighty 
 Holiness and Love ; and that for the sake of holiness 
 and love He may be willing to submit to things 
 which He would rather have had otherwise, confident 
 
350 
 
 Our Freedom certain. 
 
 that His holiness and love will eventually come forth 
 victorious even where He seems to have been most 
 crossed. 
 
 This at any rate is certain, that where two truths 
 seem to us incompatible, one o£ which is beyond our 
 experience, and the other within it, we have no right 
 to magnify the more distant truth at the expense of 
 the nearer. And as we are conscious of freedom, — 
 within limits which we shall proceed to discuss, — we 
 are bound not to interpret God's Predestination in 
 such a manner as to annihilate our freedom. God's 
 elect are not machines, which fulfil of necessity and 
 with exactness a fore-ordained programme. Their 
 liberty is not a semblance a^nd fiction. They are not 
 like chessmen on a board who should attribute to 
 themselves the actions of the mind and hand that 
 moves them. When Holy Scripture appeals to 
 motives of conduct, it recognises in us a power to 
 give heed to such motives, or to ignore them. Com- 
 mandments and promises, warnings and threats, all 
 shew that God Himself regards us as voluntary and 
 responsible agents. If the lives of the predestinate 
 were only the execution of what was perfectly settled 
 and mapped out eternally, God's anger at their falls, 
 o.nd God's joy over their penitence, would become for 
 us unmeaning. 
 
 " It seems plain, therefore, that we must regard 
 God's Predestination as contingent, not absolute, so 
 far as concerns our ultimate destiny. As we have 
 shewn, the Scripture teaching about election, being 
 for practical and not for theoretical purposes, is con- 
 
Comfort of the Doctrine. 351 
 
 cerned with our present position, rather than the 
 future. It rests with us whether the life of grace 
 shall pass into the life of glory. So far as we can see, 
 the Divine Predestination is capable of being defeated. 
 But such a thought, though full of solemnity and fear, 
 does not rob the doctrine of Predestination of all 
 strength and comfort. On the contrary. If w^e could 
 suppose the Divine Predestination to be absolute, then 
 we might live in a fever of uncertainty whether we 
 were among the predestinate or not. Few, especially 
 at the outset of their Christian career, would dare to 
 assume it of themselves; and in many instances it 
 would do more harm than good to do so. But when 
 we follov/ the teaching of S. Peter and S. Paul, and 
 recognise that all the baptized are elect and pre- 
 destinate, then, although the final result is not yet 
 assured to us, we receive unspeakable comfort and 
 hope. The weakest Christian may believe that he 
 is no intruder w^ithin the sacred precinct, brought in 
 by his own presumption or the mistaken kindness of 
 friends. He is where God Himself has placed him, 
 and had eternally determined to place him. His very 
 weaknesses may be a reason why he was thus elected, 
 to shew strikingly the power of Divine grace. And if 
 the discerning choice of God has so favoured him as 
 to translate him into the kingdom of His dear Son, 
 then God will not easily give him up or cast him out 
 again. The Christian sees, represented in the con- 
 crete fact of liis Baptism, the eternal and unchangeable 
 attitude of God towards him. His own personality, 
 now passing through the vicissitudes of an earthly dis- 
 
352 Original Freedom of Mans Will. 
 
 cipline, is linked to the stability o£ the life of God. 
 That God should change His mind towards His 
 servant is inconceivable, unless the servant should 
 altogether throw oft* his allegiance to God. God has 
 set His heart upon him, and will not easily let him go. 
 By gentle means, or by stern. He will use every art to 
 retain him. And thus the man who would soon despair 
 if he thought only of his own weak will, is encouraged, 
 without being made presumptuous, by remembering 
 that there is another, stronger Will, no less deeply 
 interested in his salvation than he is himself. 
 
 § 4. 
 
 The Grace which foreknows and elects us in 
 eternity, actively busies itself with us when, in due 
 time, we come into life. It would go ill with us other- 
 wise. It has been shewn in an earlier chapter that 
 the will of man is not wholly free. Even according to 
 the Creator's intention it was never free in the sense 
 of being unlimited and unconditioned. Adam had 
 freedom of will in Paradise, but his freedom had only 
 the range belonging to man, and to a man in his cir- 
 cumstances. Within that range, however, it was truly 
 free, — by which we mean that there was no unnatural 
 check upon its action, cither from within or from 
 without. For without, everything had been designed 
 for the very purpose of eliciting all his powers healthily 
 and happily ; and witliin, there was no disorder to 
 liinder him from complete correspondence with his 
 environment. But wlien lie abused liis powers, he 
 vitiated his own constitution^ and his relation to all 
 
Mans Will no longer free. 
 
 353 
 
 that surrounded him. He came to be unnaturally 
 under the power of the things that were intended to 
 have ministered to his advancement, and he found 
 himself destitute of the force by which to recover his 
 former footing. The heirs of his fallen nature are 
 still indeed free, in a sense. When they act, that is, 
 they are conscious of never being violently forced to 
 act, against their wills, they themselves repudiating 
 the action continuously and to the last. Strong 
 pressure may be brought to bear upon them, which 
 they feel unable to resist ; but in the end, even if 
 they would have preferred to act otherwise, they act 
 voluntarily. They yield, though it may be reluctantly, 
 to the pressure. In this sense they are free agents. 
 But this does not constitute true freedom. Fallen men 
 have only the freedom of a diseased, not of a healthy 
 subject. What would be repulsive to the human soul 
 in its right state, has a morbid fascination for them 
 which they cannot resist. They act according to their 
 nature when they voluntarily choose it ; for the un- 
 natural has become to them the natural. A pressure 
 of temptation, which Adam in Paradise would have 
 instantly repelled, by the wholesome instinct of his 
 uncorrupted constitution, in concert with ever present 
 grace, overwhelms at once his descendant, as unwilling 
 as he is unable to stem the flood. 
 
 I The Pelagian teaching, which it was the great 
 work of S. Austin to confound, started with an 
 excellent intention. It claimed to enter, in the name 
 of masculine and common-sense morality, a protest 
 against a system which appeared to discourage 
 
 2 A 
 
354 Platisibleness of Pelagianism. 
 
 strenuous effort, and make men only passive in the 
 work o£ sanetification. It did not indeed assert that 
 men might be righteous, i£ they chose, without the 
 grace o£ God ; but it explained grace in such a way 
 as to confuse it with natural endowments. Grace, 
 to the Pelagian, consisted in such gifts as conscience 
 and free will within the man, and the revelation 
 of God's character and law without. Eefusing to 
 recognise the congenital depravity which results from 
 the Fall, this school of moralists called upon men to 
 be up and doing, instead of petitioning God for more 
 grace to do what He had already put well within their 
 power. In this first rough form Pelagianism was not 
 difficult to expose ; but it vf as more difficult to expose 
 the Semipelagianism, as it is called, which succeeded it, 
 and which in various forms continues in the Church 
 to this day. The Semipelagian turn of thought 
 recognises, though it minimises, the disorder of our 
 human nature. It also accepts a true definition of 
 grace. But it clings to the notion that there is at 
 any rate so much good left in man as to enable him 
 to meet God part way. He cannot, so it is said, 
 succeed in his efforts after righteousness without 
 Divine aid, but he can desire to succeed, and do his 
 best, and God will reward his endeavours by a gift of 
 grace. He can put himself in the way to obtain 
 grace, and so practise himself in the lower degrees 
 of goodness that he may (in tlic quaint phrase con- 
 demned by the Anglican Articles) deserve grace of 
 congruity. 
 
 Catholic teaching, on the other hand, in accord- 
 
Our entire Dependence on Grace. 355 
 
 ance with Scripture and with deep observation, insists 
 upon ascribing to God's grace the very earliest germ 
 of a movement in the will towards what is good. The 
 Church does not, it is true, agree with Calvinism in 
 its extravagant estimate of the corruption of our 
 nature. It acknowledges that, in spite of internal 
 discord and of a distinct bent towards selfishness in 
 some form or other, there yet remain in man the 
 elements of a noble being, if only they can be rightly 
 set to work. But without a quickening touch the 
 noble elements have no chance of going rightly to 
 work. The will of man, at best, cannot choose in 
 entire independence of its surroundings, or fall in love 
 with visions which are not suggested by the things 
 it actually sees. If, therefore, it is to desire good- 
 ness, goodness must be presented to it ; and, in the 
 present state of man and his world, goodness must 
 be presented with sufficient vigour and pertinacity 
 to neutralise, at least, the dead set which is being 
 made upon the soul from the other side, and give it 
 a fair field. Grace must bring a counter-pressure 
 to bear upon the will, to save it from being swept 
 away by temptation, and enable it even to wish for 
 what is good. The Semipelagian theory is so far 
 true, that each gift of grace properly utilised becomes 
 a foundation for fresh gifts. God gives "grace in 
 answer to grace " (S. John i. 16). But they are His 
 own gifts which He thus rewards in us. Trace the 
 series back to the very earliest, and the very earliest 
 is as much His as the latest. Man has absolutely 
 nothing by which to purchase or attract even the first 
 
356 Impossibility of meriting it. 
 
 rudiments o£ grace. It would be quite contrary to 
 the fundamental notion o£ grace to think so. There 
 is nothing so opposed to it as the thought o£ debt or 
 o£ merit. I£ by grace/' says Paul, " then no longer 
 as a result o£ works, otherwise grace is no more 
 grace (Rom. xi. 6). It is o£ the very essence of 
 grace that it should be a movement of pure generosity 
 on the part of God, unmixed with any sense of obli- 
 gation or necessity. Thus the grace of God is as 
 much needed to enable us to desire to do what is 
 right, as to do it when we desire it. It is a true, and 
 not a false humility, — the payment of a just tribute, 
 not a hypocritical adulation, — when the soul, on doing 
 well, refuses to take any credit to itself whatever, and 
 passes on the glory with sincere gratitude to God, 
 saying, Thou, Lord, hast wrought all our works in 
 us " (Isa. xxvi. 12), and again, " It is God which 
 worketh in us, both to will, and to work, in fulfilment 
 of His gracious purpose" (Phil. ii. 13). It is His 
 /'preventing (i.e. antecedent) grace" which inspires 
 the holy wish ; it is " accompanying, or co-operating 
 grace " which brings the holy Avish to a good effect. 
 Thus from first to last the performance of every right 
 action, and the building up of every good character, 
 is God's work. 
 
 Yet grace never supersedes the man's self-deter- 
 -mination. It would be totally at variance with its 
 purpose, were it to compel men to act in a certain 
 way, independent of their own choice. For it is not 
 God's object merely to get riglit tilings done, but 
 to get lioly characters estal)lished ; and the only 
 
Grace not irresistible. 
 
 357 
 
 notion we can form of a holy character is that of a 
 being who always freely chooses holiness. Forced 
 sanctity would be but a poor make-believe. Grace 
 may, it is true, sometimes go beyond the bare restora- 
 tion of a moral equilibrium. It may make it, as in 
 the case of Saul of Tarsus, " hard for a man to kick 
 against the pricks " (Acts xxvi. 14). Sovereign grace 
 can be very masterful ; in its benevolent determina- 
 tion it often appears almost overbearing. But there 
 are lengths to which it cannot go. In the very 
 nature of things it dares not be irresistible. The man 
 himself, in the last resort, and on each occasion, 
 must decide on which set of forces he will throw 
 himself, those that make for good, or those that 
 make for evil. 
 
 § 5. 
 
 The first motions of preventing Grace are indis- 
 tinguishable from those of Providence. They take 
 place in that kingdom of nature which needs pre- 
 paring before it can receive the characteristic work 
 of grace. To this fact our Lord has been thought to 
 point when He says, " No man can come to Me, except 
 the Father which sent Me draw him" (S. John vi. 44), 
 — where, however, we must be careful to understand 
 that our Lord is not repelling and discouraging effort, 
 but rather assuring His hearers that if they feel them- 
 selves desirous of coming to Him, it is a proof already 
 of the Father's interest in their salvation. The 
 Father thus draws men naturally towards Christ by 
 causing them to be born of Christian parents, by 
 
358 The Calling of God. 
 
 temperament, by education and discipline, by sorrows 
 and losses, or joys and affections, which make their 
 hearts susceptible, even by permitting falls into sin 
 which create a sense o£ bondage and a desire for 
 liberty. Then, when the soul is ripe for it, God 
 utters His Call to it. The eternal Election expresses 
 itself in time as an actual Vocation. At what moment 
 in the history of the soul the vocation shall be issued, 
 God alone can tell. The man's own behaviour may 
 hasten or delay it, though (as we have said) he can 
 do nothing to cause it. And after being called he 
 may long be unaware of it, or neglect it, or fight 
 against it. In the normal state of things, in a 
 Christian nation, the call of God comes to us in 
 infancy, before we have power to discern its meaning. 
 To many the sense of the call is mixed with the 
 earliest recollections, and has quietly increased with 
 advancing years. Many who received it in infancy, 
 only become conscious of it in later life, and suppose 
 that it never came to them before. There are some 
 to whom it remains through life an unknown thing. 
 Some, it may be, hear it for the first time in the 
 moment of dying. Men to whom it does not come in 
 vain may reply to its summons with very varying 
 degrees of alacrity ; but, although the firstfruits of 
 grace may be given before the call is clearly heard, 
 the soul cannot be said to be living the life of grace 
 until it begins to respond to its vocation. 
 
Repentance and Faith. 
 
 359 
 
 §6. 
 
 To create in the soul a sense of need, and to 
 direct it to the source of supply, is the first marked 
 action of grace. These two things are the beginnings 
 of Repentance and Faith. 
 
 Repentance is not merely a change of conduct, 
 but a change of conduct based upon a change of 
 feeling and mind. It is a repudiation of what is now 
 felt to be sinful. It is not enough to leave off from 
 doing wrong and begin to do right ; there must be 
 a sense of guilt, joined with sorrow for having done 
 v/rong in the past, and for being still tainted by 
 inward evil. And in order that the repentance may 
 be good, the motive for sorrow must be found not 
 solely in the sinner s hopes or fears for himself, nor 
 even in the thought of the injury he has inflicted upon 
 his fellow-men ; but in the knowledge that he has 
 grieved and offended God. The determination to 
 make what amends may be possible (called in techni- 
 cal language, satisfaction), and the readiness to 
 acknowledge to God and (where advisable) to man 
 the whole extent of the v^^rong done (or confession), 
 must be the outcome of a loving and unselfish grief, 
 which bears the name of contrition. These — contri- 
 tion, confession, amendment, — are the three parts of 
 repentance. 
 
 Faith, in like manner, is not the acquiescence of 
 the intellect in a true proposition or propositions. 
 To assent, for instance, to the fact that Christ died 
 for us is insufficient. Saving faith is the reliance 
 
360 Degrees of Repentance and Faith. 
 
 of the soul upon a living Being. Convinced by such 
 facts as it has already apprehended, the soul is assured 
 that the unknown is in keeping with the known, 
 and that it may safely trust its God. Nor is the 
 trust a passive one only. It cannot help influencing 
 action. As repentance springs from the heart and 
 expresses itself in language and in conduct, so does 
 faith. That is not faith which does not prompt men 
 to make confession with the mouth unto salvation " 
 (Rom. X. 10), and " thoughtfully to take the lead in 
 excellent works " (Titus iii. 8). Faith may be de- 
 scribed as an active and outspoken reliance upon 
 God. 
 
 There is no necessary order of precedence between 
 Faith and Eepentance. Sometimes the one makes its 
 conscious appearance first, and sometimes the other. 
 They continue to work side by side throughout life. 
 Repentance is perpetually deepened by the advance 
 of faith, — and faith strengthened in proportion to the 
 increasing purity of repentance. Neither term repre- 
 sents a fixed amount. There is an endless variety 
 of degrees of repentance and faith. No quantitative 
 limit is named in Scripture, as a minimum below 
 which the soul cannot be saved. The thing required 
 is that repentance and faith should be honest and 
 sincere so far as they go. If that be the case, then, 
 however small may be the present amount, it contains 
 the whole future development. When our Lord says 
 to His disciples, " If ye have faith as a grain of 
 mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto you " 
 (S. Matt. xvii. 20), He docs not mean that the very 
 
The Essence of Co7ive7's{on. 361 
 
 smallest measure o£ faith will then and there be able 
 to work miracles, but that it will go on till it becomes 
 able to work them, because a true faith necessarily 
 expands. We are not in a position, therefore, to say 
 whether saving faith must, at si^ny particular moment, 
 be what is called jides formata, — that is, a faith 
 fertilised by love, — or not. In any given case, the 
 answer to that question must depend on the oppor- 
 tunities which the soul has had, 
 
 § 7. 
 
 When repentance and faith reach a point where 
 they become conscious, free, and energetic, the crisis 
 is known as Conversion. Conversion is not quite the 
 same as an awakening to spiritual facts ; for there is 
 sometimes, as in the case of Judas, a real awakening 
 without conversion, and, on the other hand, a true 
 conversion often takes place without much awakening. 
 The essence of conversion is a true movement of the 
 will, turning solidly from self and the world to God- 
 If it is true that all men are born with a bent towards 
 sin, and have their faces set in a wrong direction, then 
 at some point of their lives or another, and in some 
 mode or another, there must come a voluntary change. 
 But it is a fatal mistake to suppose that conversion 
 must be exactly alike in all, and to take as the normal 
 type of it that which comes when a man has grown 
 up to years of discretion in carelessness and sin. It 
 wears different aspects in different men, according to 
 their temperament, and according to their circum- 
 stances. It may take place in infancy, or it may take 
 
362 Conversions, some sndden, some not. 
 
 place on the death-bed. With some the crisis comes 
 unperceived, like the moment when the sun begins to 
 appear above the horizon. With others it comes 
 through agonizing struggles and on a sudden. But 
 in the most sudden cases, there has been a secret 
 preparation ; and in the most quiet, there is a definite 
 point at which the turning begins to be truly volun- 
 tary. God has need o£ all kinds of experience in His 
 kingdom o£ grace, and we cannot assign a higher 
 value to the one form of conversion or to the other. 
 Only we see that, as a rule, the temperaments which 
 are the most vividly and violently awakened to 
 spiritual facts, — such facts as guilt, and pardon, judg- 
 ment to come, and the meaning of the Cross, — are 
 those which are the most effective agents in the 
 evangelization of the world ; while the others arc 
 often the most useful in the work of edifying. 
 
 It has been pointed out elsewhere that Conversion 
 is not to be confounded with Regeneration. There is 
 no necessary connexion between the two. Sincere 
 and deep conversions took place under the Jewish 
 dispensation; we might almost say that they take 
 place under still less perfect systems ; but regenera- 
 tion is the peculiar privilege of Christianity. Con- 
 version may either begin before the act of regenera- 
 tion, as in the life of S. Paul ; or it may follow after, 
 as in that of S. Francis and many others who have 
 been baptized in infancy. Regeneration is a meta- 
 physical change, altering a man's nature: conversion 
 is a moral change, altering a man's character. The 
 one gives him new faculties, and a new sphere in 
 
Conversion and Regeneration, 363 
 
 which to exercise them: the other gives a new 
 direction to wha-tever faculties he has. Though un- 
 questionably regeneration, which makes us children 
 of God, is a higher benefit than conversion, which 
 makes us begin to be good men, yet, unless it be 
 preceded, or accompanied, or followed by conversion, 
 it will avail a man nothing, or rather increase his 
 damnation. Conversion, on the other hand, though 
 through lack of opportunity, or through ignorance 
 and prejudice, it may not be crowned in this life by 
 regeneration, is assured of a true salvation hereafter. 
 Of the two, therefore, the one which is intrinsically 
 the less, is the more essential to the soul's welfare. 
 Conversion without Baptism does not place the soul 
 in the same position as if it had received Baptism ; 
 but Baptism without conversion does not place the 
 soul in the same position as if it had been converted. 
 Allowing to conversion its largest diversity of form 
 and circumstance and degree, we must assert that it 
 is, in the widest acceptation, generally necessary to 
 salvation." Our Lord was not using the term in the 
 special sense which it has acquired in modern systems, 
 but He laid down a principle which may be applied 
 whenever a soul has not yet adopted a right attitude 
 towards God, when He said, Except ye be converted 
 and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven (S. Matt, xviii. 3). 
 
 % 8- 
 
 Justification, according to the strict meaning of 
 the word as used in Scripture, is God s declaration of 
 
364 y ustification : its Definition. 
 
 the souls freedom from guilt. It is both less and 
 more than forgiveness. The word does not contain 
 that touching element of personal love which is felt 
 in forgiveness ; but at the same time it brings out 
 more clearly the abolition and real undoing of sin. 
 It is a forensic word, expressing the view which God 
 takes of the soul in His character of Judge. It is the 
 opposite of condemning. When He justifies, He 
 declares not guilty. If Koman theologians differ from 
 us concerning the grounds of justification, it is mainly 
 because it has become traditional with them to give a 
 different definition of the word itself, which they 
 practically identify with Sanctification. That being 
 so, it could not be expected that they should be in 
 agreement with us about the terms on which it is 
 given. Nevertheless, the most hopeful way of coming 
 to an understanding will be to adhere to the ascer- 
 tainable sense of the word in Scripture, where it has 
 nothing to do with the process by which the soul is 
 made righteous, but with the act, or mental attitude, 
 which recognises the soul as righteous. It must, 
 however, be frankly acknowledged that a righteous 
 Judge cannot possibly recognise a soul as righteous 
 when it is not so. If therefore God justifies any man 
 in the Scriptural sense of the word, it must be because 
 tlie man is previously in course of being justified in 
 the Koman sense, — because, that is, an active prin- 
 ciple of righteousness is infused into him. 
 
 This brings us at once to the terms or grounds of 
 justification. In the New Testament we are said to 
 be justified hy our faith, l)y our works, and by our 
 
The Grounds of it variously stated, 365 
 
 words. These three things correspond to the usual 
 division of human activity into thought, word, and 
 deed. It is obvious that the deepest of the three is 
 that which lies hidden in the secret places of the 
 heart, and that the outward manifestations of word 
 and deed are only of moral value in so far as they 
 truly represent what is passing within. This is best 
 seen in the case of the most superficial of all, namely 
 words. If our Lord says, " Every idle word which 
 men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in 
 the day of judgment ; for by thy words thou shalt be 
 justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned," 
 it is because of the reason alleged a few verses before. 
 For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
 speaketh " (S. Matt. xii. 84, 37). But the same prin- 
 ciple applies to actions also. While action is the best, 
 indeed the only test of inward purpose, it is not — at 
 least so far as men are judges — an infallible one. 
 Men may deceive by deeds as well as by words ; and 
 what are in themselves good works, whether of mercj^ 
 or of piety, or of self-discipline, may be the cloak in 
 which self-sufficiency, and spiritual pride, and schem- 
 ing hypocrisy, array themselves. Clearly if men are 
 justified by their works, as S. James teaches, — or are 
 condemned by them either, — it cannot be purely on 
 account of the intrinsic nature of the works, but on 
 account of the spirit in which they are done. The 
 spirit which must inspire such words and works as 
 will justify a man in God's eyes, is the spirit of faith. 
 By faith alone are we justified, not by faith j)liis 
 something else of a different and an opposite cha- 
 
366 justification by Faith alone. 
 
 racter, such as works o£ law " (Rom. iii. 28) would 
 be. Faith truly lodged in the heart by the grace o£ 
 God cannot fail to produce faithful works and words ; 
 and by such evidence of the vitality of our faith God 
 will try us : but " works of law," done on the Semi- 
 pelagian principle of which we have spoken, — done 
 2JToprio motu with a view of ingratiating ourselves 
 with God, to merit His justifying regard, — these are 
 not only no sign of faith, but an indication of its 
 absence, and therefore invite condemnation, not 
 approval. 
 
 Faith, therefore, is that active principle of right- 
 eousness which, as we have said, must be infused into 
 us before we can be accounted righteous before God. 
 It is the abandonment of the false theory that we can 
 set things right for ourselves, or make our own wills 
 independent and self -supplying fountains of holiness. 
 It casts us upon Him " who of God was made to us 
 righteousness (1 Cor. i. 30), as well as sanctification 
 and redemption. Living communion with God and 
 willing dependence upon Him would have been neces- 
 sary to our justification if we had never fallen. It is 
 at least equally necessary to us now that we are weak 
 through the Fall. But our justification is the justifi- 
 cation of men who are not only weak, but who have 
 actually been guilty. The faith therefore which is 
 required to justify us is not simply a general reliance 
 upon the character of God. It includes a recognition 
 of our sin, and a concurrence in God s judgment upon 
 it ; and it attaches itself with all its force to the 
 Atonement made by Christ. However little the 
 
Its Relation to the Atonement. 367 
 
 sinner may be able to explain the nature of what 
 Christ did for us upon the Cross, he apprehends by 
 faith that Christ died for liim, and that all his hopes 
 lie in that one fact. He knows that, do what he 
 would, he could not have delivered his soul from the 
 guilt which by his own fault he had brought upon it, 
 but that in a way known only to Christ and the 
 Father, and to the Holy Spirit who applies the work 
 of Christ, Christ has indeed done it. He has nothing 
 to plead on his own behalf, — not his sorrow for sin, 
 not his confession of it, not what he has done to make 
 up for it, — but only that Christ has borne it, and shed 
 His Blood for it. And as the thought of Christ's 
 Atonement enters deeper and deeper into his heart, he 
 naturally, without any forcing, dies to sin with Christ, 
 so that sin actually loses its hold upon him, and 
 becomes extinguished. Nor is this all. S. Paul in- 
 cludes as an element in saving faith the conviction 
 " that God raised the Lord J esus from the dead 
 (Eom. X. 9). It is not to a past fact that we cling, 
 not to a dead Christ. It is to One living and trium- 
 phant, who not only thought of us and our sins upon 
 the Cross, but who thinks of us now, and is not only 
 near us, but in us. Such faith has more than the 
 negative virtue of expelling sin ; it has the positive 
 virtue of appropriating the risen life of Christ. 
 Realised union with Him, acquired by no merits of 
 ours, but involving a willing conformity to Him, is 
 assuredly a ground on which a righteous God can 
 justify the greatest of sinners. Nor need He hold His 
 justification in reserve until faith has had its perfect 
 
368 
 
 Its Relation to Baptism. 
 
 work. The earliest beginnings of such a faith are 
 met by a recognition that guilt has completely passed 
 away, because that new principle which is at work in 
 the soul is the pledge of future perfection. 
 
 It will be seen from the foregoing that there is a 
 close connexion between Justification and Baptism. 
 Sometimes, in Holy Scripture, justification is spoken of 
 as a thing still future ; then, it is, of course, in view 
 of the day of final judgment. Sometimes it is spoken 
 of as present, because the lives of true Christians pass 
 continually under review before God, and He con- 
 tinually gives the same sentence upon them. But 
 sometimes it is spoken of as a thing done once for 
 all in the past. In that case it belongs to the moment 
 when the believer first received incorporation into 
 Christ, — the moment when "the old things passed 
 away" (2 Cor. v. 17). After the Apostle has described 
 the vileness of the natural life, he adds, " And such 
 were some of you ; but ye did wash, but ye were 
 consecrated, but ye were justified in the Name of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God " 
 (1 Cor. vi. 11). It is evident that he refers to the 
 period of Baptism. There is no reason to doubt that 
 justification is as freely given in the Baptism of 
 infants as in that of grown men; but of course, on 
 coming to years of discretion, the child must secure it 
 for himself by active faith and obedience, lest it sliould 
 slip from him. 
 
Peace and Assurance, 
 
 369 
 
 §9- 
 
 " The work o£ righteousness/' says the Evangelical 
 Prophet, " shall be peace ; and the effect of righteous- 
 ness quietness and assurance for ever " (Isa. xxxii. 17). 
 This is so in the normal state of things ; but Protes- 
 tant teachers have often confused and troubled con- 
 sciences by identifying the objective and the subjective 
 sides of justification. They speak of it sometimes as 
 if "justification by faith'' meant the soul's con- 
 sciousness of its own justification. This is a great 
 mistake, and has led to the opinion, often harshly 
 insisted on, that no man is justified without knowing 
 it. As we have already pointed out, justification is 
 an act or attitude of God towards the soul ; and it by 
 no means follows of necessity that the soul realises 
 what that attitude is. Thousands of souls are truly 
 justified before God though living in great fear and 
 doubt about their acceptance with Him. Neverthe- 
 less such souls are living beneath their privilege. 
 " Having been justified by faith," says S. Paul, " let 
 us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ " (Rom. v. 1). It gives greater glory to God, 
 and afibrds greater facility for progress in holiness, 
 when the soul can boldly and humbly take God at His 
 word, and rest peacefully upon the work of Christ, 
 and, while grieving over its sins, grieve over them 
 as forgiven and put away, not as a still incumbent 
 burden. Such an assurance about its present state 
 the soul ought to have. Assurance about the future 
 is a very difierent thing. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 Nature of Sandification. 
 
 % 10. 
 
 That infusion of the new principle of righteousness 
 which qualifies us for justification, is the beginning of 
 the lifelong process which we understand by Sancti- 
 fication. Here (as in the case of Conversion) we need 
 not be tied by formal definitions, because the word 
 with which we are dealing has no fixed theological 
 value in the New Testament ; — where it sometimes 
 means an act of consecration, sometimes an act of 
 purification, sometimes a recognition of holiness, as 
 well as the process of which we have to speak. But 
 we take it to mean the actual formation of a holy 
 character, the progressive development of likeness to 
 Christ. As such, the very idea is opposed to those 
 spasmodic efforts by which some sectarians have 
 sought to obtain it, as if it were a second gift like 
 regeneration, a " baptism of the Holy Ghost " as they 
 say, capable of being obtained and fixed in a moment. 
 There are, no doubt, special seasons which serve as 
 crises in the life of grace, when the soul, — as in a 
 Retreat, for instance, — stirs itself up to be completely 
 delivered to the Spirit of God. But character is 
 not formed by isolated and convulsive movements, — 
 though they may give an impetus to the formation, — 
 but by constant practice and habitual exercise. Sanc- 
 tification, therefore, is founded first in a regular and 
 diligent use of the means of grace, whereby the Chris- 
 tian absorbs into himself the riclmess and strength of 
 the life of Christ. Tlicn, the virtues which have thus 
 been taken into the spiritual system, must be put to 
 
Its gradual Advance. 
 
 371 
 
 the proof and called out in the daily trials and duties 
 which Providence appoints. Temptation is the natural 
 way by which the Christian heart is at once tested 
 and educated ; and painful as the struggle with it is, 
 the Apostle bids us count it all joy " when we have 
 to go through such temptation as comes to us by no 
 fault of our own (S. James i. 2), because of the good 
 result which it brings when rightly used. The name 
 of temptation, however, must not be unduly restricted. 
 There is not only a temptation to do wrong, but also 
 to leave right alone; and the development of the 
 Christian character consists equally in mortifying 
 corrupt impulses and in giving free play to all 
 wholesome ones. The talents committed to us must 
 be made good use of, and we must become actively 
 serviceable in the Church of God. 
 
 Sanctification is thus seen to be the deliberate 
 work of the Christian man himself. He cannot be 
 sanctified without his own diligent co-operation. And 
 yet, on any true theory of grace, it is the work of 
 the Holy Ghost upon him all the while. It is only 
 by faith, not by " works,'' that a man is sanctified, 
 inasmuch as any attempt to perfect ourselves inde- 
 pendently of grace can only result in Pharisaism or 
 Stoicism. The Imitation of Christ, therefore, must 
 always be balanced by a living dependence upon Him. 
 
 In some measure the work of Sanctification must 
 be going forward in all who are to be saved. The 
 title of saints belongs in the New Testament to all 
 the baptized, because they have all been set apart 
 and consecrated. But the instinct of the Church has 
 
372 Special Development in the Saints. 
 
 inclined to reserve the title for those who may be 
 called the elect of the elect, — for those in whom the 
 power of grace has been most conspicuously shewn 
 and has been most perfectly responded to. Even 
 amongst the members of the Church, the Holy Ghost 
 appears to find "chosen vessels," in whom He 
 becomes more deeply interested than in the rest, as 
 He sees them capable of a greater external work, or 
 of a more exquisite internal finish. These are, in a 
 vspecial sense, the Saints. Amongst them there have 
 been wide differences in experience and training, and 
 none but the Divine eye is able to discern at the out- 
 set who will become Saints. God takes some of them 
 from among the most apparently hardened sinners, 
 like S. Paul, and S. Mary Magdalene, and S. Austin ; 
 while some are trained from infancy in ways of sweet- 
 ness and purity, like the blessed Virgin herself, and 
 S. Polycarp, and S. Bernard. Not all the Saints 
 have been free from doctrinal errors ; and there have 
 been not a few instances where the grace of God has 
 triumphed even over the obstacles of schism, and 
 made true Saints who were not in visible communion 
 with the Catholic Church. It is a rough and external 
 standard which only reckons as Saints those who are 
 attested to have worked miracles, and which canonizes 
 mainly with a view to invocation. The Church on 
 earth can make no final judgment amongst those 
 that have passed into Paradise, but it is her duty to 
 cherish the memory of those who have in other days 
 borne signal witness ta Christ. 
 
Final Perseverance. 
 
 373 
 
 § 11- 
 
 The theory that a soul once in grace remains 
 always in grace is only practically true and cannot 
 be counted on infallibly. It is true that when the 
 seed of eternal life has once germinated properly in 
 a soul, and has made good growth, the soul itself 
 becomes almost incapable of a final desertion of God. 
 Grace obtains a hold upon it, and brings it into a 
 new slavery, — that service of God which is perfect 
 freedom. The soul is bound to Him by the recollec- 
 tion of such marvellous mercies, not merely heard of, 
 believed in, hoped for, but actually enjoyed, that it 
 cannot escape from their strong grip. They become 
 a powerful factor in that complex setting which con- 
 ditions a man s freedom. The man may be wayward 
 and foolish, may plunge into sin and even abandon 
 religious practices for a time ; but somehow at last he 
 remembers himself and comes back. This is almost 
 invariably the case, — so much so, that wherever it 
 appears to be otherwise, there is some ground for 
 doubting whether the soul ever really knew the love 
 of God, or had only deceived itself when it thought so. 
 Something like a miracle of evil is needed, if a soul 
 which has once truly embraced the Divine promises 
 is to be torn away from them at last. 
 
 So far, as a matter of practical observation, there 
 is truth in what is called the doctrine of final perse- 
 verance, and numbers of passages in Holy Scripture 
 bear it out. But it is just when it passes from a 
 fact of observation into a dogma of necessity that it 
 
374 ^'^^ Doctrine dogmatically insecure. 
 
 becomes false and pernicious. That same conscience 
 which is serenely assured of God's present forgiveness 
 and of God's unfaltering purpose with regard to it, 
 and which cannot seriously think that it is likely to 
 fall away from Him and lose its eternal life, yet bears 
 witness that it might conceivably do so, and must 
 take heed that it does not. The thing is no mechani- 
 cal impossibility. Nay, a fearful experience of Satan's 
 ways — his long sieges, and sudden assaults, and 
 insidious deceits — and of its own repeated falls before 
 them, shews the soul how readily it might be taken an 
 irrecoverable captive. It dares not take things easily. 
 If saved at all, it sees that it will be " scarcely saved " 
 (1 Pet. iv. 18) ; and to the last it stands in fear. 
 When it turns to the Bible, it finds its fears as faith- 
 fully echoed as its hopes. If on one page it reads, 
 ^'They shall never perish, neither shall any pluck 
 them out of My hand" (S. John x. 28), it reads on 
 another, " It is impossible to renew unto repentance 
 those who were once enlightened and tasted of the 
 heavenly gift, and then fell away " (Heb. vi. 4-C). 
 
Chapter XI. 
 
 Sa^t ®§mg^* 
 
 Probation closed by Death — The Intermediate State — The Resurrection 
 of the Body — Chrisfs Second Coming and the Signs of it — Nature of 
 the Last Judgment — The Bliss of Heaven — Relation of the Elect to 
 the Mass of Mankind hereafter — State of the Lost — Final Triumph 
 of Goodness, 
 
 §1. 
 
 This period of the earthly hfe is our time of pro- 
 bation ; and so far as our present knowledge serves, 
 there is no other. The moral bent is sufficiently 
 exhibited here, and we have no warrant for teaching 
 that it can be radically altered elsewhere. S. Austin 
 lays it down, that no sacrifices which the Church can 
 offer are of any avail for those who have departed with- 
 out at least the rudiments of faith and repentance. 
 The thought that impenitent wickedness will have 
 another chance, or series of chances, hereafter, not 
 only weakens the force of fear as a dissuasive from 
 sin, but it appears to ijivolve a loss in the opposite 
 direction as well. If in some future state, men may 
 change from fixed evil to good, it would seem arbitrary 
 to deny that they might change from fixed good to 
 evil. This would be intolerable to the Christia^n heart 
 
376 Death ends Probation. 
 
 and conscience, already sorely taxed. Faith demands, 
 and Scripture gives it a right to demand, that the 
 judgment founded upon conduct in this life should 
 be eternal and final, and that probation should be at 
 an end. 
 
 But this life is far more than a probation; it is 
 an education, a discipline ; and this aspect of existence 
 by no means ceases at death. No unfair strain is put 
 upon S. Paul's language by supposing that he dis- 
 tinctly contemplated a progressive work of grace in 
 the soul between death and judgment. "I am con- 
 fident," he says, " of this very thing, that He who 
 began in you a good work will accomplish it until the 
 day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. i. 6). While, therefore, 
 we must hesitate to affirm that souls are still open to 
 begin conversion in the Intermediate State, we may 
 hope that many, in whom conversion was very imper- 
 fect here, will then be ripened to such a degree of 
 perfection as they are found capable of. There is a 
 wide difference between an unawakened state, and one 
 of wilfully thwarting God's motions, or " doing despite 
 unto the Spirit of Grace" (Heb. x. 29). For this 
 latter unhappy class we are told of no fresh kinds of 
 opportunity, and no ways of retrieving the past. But 
 we may feel confident that those wills which were, at 
 last, on the whole, upon the right side, though with 
 no strong determination, will be saved by being here- 
 after subjected to some purifying and bracing action 
 of God^s love. He cannot cast away even the unde- 
 veloped germs, or the shrunken remains, of goodness. 
 
 In some cases — perhaps in many — where the soul 
 
Death-bed Awakenings. 377 
 
 seems likely to forfeit the grace with which it has 
 trifled, His vigilant Providence sends — when chastise- 
 ment and diseases fail — a hastened and punitive 
 death, "that w^e should not be condemned with the 
 world " (1 Cor. xi. 32). To such a class of spirits, as 
 it appears, our Lord presented Himself in the interval 
 between His death and resurrection, and preached to 
 them His Gospel (1 Pet. iii. 19, 20). Gods outraged 
 patience had at last found no resource, if the men were 
 to be saved in the end, but to sweep them indignantly 
 off the face of the earth. It may be that in the very 
 fears and agonies of death some vital movement of 
 will may have taken place, — some spiritual cry for 
 mercy, — some one long breath of penitence, like that 
 breath which makes the difference between a stillborn 
 babe and one that has had a moment of separate exist- 
 ence. And that single flash of response to grace 
 may have made the men capable of education and 
 discipline in that " prison " to which they were 
 removed. While death-bed repentances are in no way 
 to be counted upon, they are always possible ; and 
 although they may not lead to anything more than 
 the minimum of salvation, they at any rate avert the 
 ultimate loss of the soul. 
 
 It is for this reason that the Church has always 
 laid such stress — sometimes it almost looks like super- 
 stition — upon the moral and spiritual value of the last 
 moments, seeking to stay the dying man's eyes and 
 heart upon the Cross, and, even if the man himself be 
 unconscious of outward things, surrounding him w4th 
 the offices of religion, invoking from God the ministry 
 
378 
 
 Value of the last Moments. 
 
 of angels, keeping intense the intercessions o£ the 
 priesthood and o£ friends, and even appealing by the 
 passing bell to the sympathetic help of strangers. It 
 is not only that the moment of death has its special 
 temptations and dangers, — Satan using what he knows 
 to be his last chance, and the soul itself in many 
 cases becoming sensible of an awful loneliness ; — it 
 is not only that the moment of death, especially for 
 those who have shewn little previous sign of grace, 
 is, as we have said, a moment of unique hopefulness. 
 Death is the last test of the soul's direction. God 
 does not judge us by the way we die, but by the way 
 we live; nevertheless, as any previous crisis in a 
 man's history reveals what the man has been making 
 of himself up to that point, so also, but in a higher 
 degree, does death. The way we have lived is 
 gathered up — not for man s judgment but for God's — 
 in the way we die 
 
 § 2. 
 
 But little is revealed to us concerning the condi- 
 tion of those who die in grace, in the interval between 
 death and resurrection. Much knowledge on the sub- 
 ject would be both impossible and unprofitable for 
 us now. But enough light is vouchsafed us to direct 
 our own conduct, and to give us comfort in thinking 
 of our departed friends. Their state or abode some- 
 times bears the title of Paradise (S. Luke xxiii. 43), 
 carrying us back to the secluded and sinless happi- 
 ness of tlie first beginnings of our race ; sometimes 
 Abraham's bosom (S. Luke xvi. 22), wliich makes us 
 
Names of the Disembodied State. 379 
 
 think of the maintenance of the covenant relation 
 with God, and of the protecting patronage of our great 
 forefathers in the faith. Sometimes, — and mainly in 
 quotations from the Old Testament, — it is simply called 
 Hades, or Hell, answering to the Hebrew Sheol, — a 
 neerative word which would include the state of all 
 departed spirits, both good and bad, but which is 
 never used without a sense of privation and incom- 
 pleteness, easily passing into the darker thoughts of 
 punishment and torment (Rev. xx. 13 ; S. Luke xvi. 
 23). Once, a special class of " souls are described 
 as lodged ''beneath the altar," which is perhaps 
 identical with the Throne (Rev. vi. 9). The descrip- 
 tion appears to indicate the sacrificial nature of their 
 martyrdom, as well as their special nearness to the 
 Lamb ; while it suggests also a kind of confinement 
 from which the souls would be glad to be freed. 
 
 The first characteristic of Christian death is its 
 restfulness. They rest from their labours (Rev. 
 xiv. 13). In one aspect of it, this repose belongs to 
 good and bad alike, and is simply the result of their 
 disembodied condition.^ The body is the instrument 
 
 * It has been argued by some that, although the natural body is 
 in abeyance and the S23iritnal body not yet given, the spirit is clothed 
 meanwhile with some temporary organism which relieves its sense of 
 nakedness. But such is not the meaning of S. Paul in the passage to 
 which reference is made, but rather the opposite. The Apostle is 
 weary of the " tabernacle " life of this w^orld, and, if it must be so, 
 would rather be absent from the body " in order to be present with 
 the Lord." But there was a third alternative, which, if he might, he 
 would choose before either. It was tl^at there should be no need to be 
 stripped at all, no interval between the tabernacle and the heavenly 
 house. He wished that Christ might return before he died, and that 
 instead of putting off his earthly dress, he might be " clothed upon,^ 
 
38o 
 
 The Restfulness of Paradise. 
 
 of moral action ; and when once it is taken away, the 
 man, for weal or for woe, has reached that " night," 
 which our Lord speaks of, " when no man is able 
 to work " (S. John ix. 4). Every one has had his 
 " twelve hours " (S. John xi. 9) to work in upon 
 earth, and now he must rest perforce until the new 
 morning comes, and leave all pi'actical occupation. 
 The whirl of this busy life is at an end. And the 
 body is also the medium of passive impressions. 
 These, too, are left behind. The dead are at rest 
 from the confusing and distracting succession of 
 interests and excitements, of sensuous pains and 
 pleasures. No fresh temptations can assail them. 
 If they cannot break out into new action, nothing can 
 break in, to disturb them with new troubles. It is 
 this absolute stillness of the dead which makes us 
 unable, except in symbols and poetry, to picture to 
 ourselves the life of Paradise. Purely spiritual exist- 
 ence is to us an unimaginable thing. All we can say 
 about it is that every circumstance of life with which 
 we are acquainted is directly reversed. 
 
 But it would be totally at variance with Scripture 
 to suppose that the departed, because they are in- 
 capable of positive commerce with the outer world, 
 must therefore be in a state of swoon or abeyance. 
 No such notion is intended when they are said in 
 the Bible to have fallen asleep, or to have been laid 
 to rest (KoijULYiOrivai). The word is expressive of repose, 
 
 that is, tliat tho now vesture might corao down npon the old and 
 transform it into itself, "in order tliat wliat is mortal maybe swallowed 
 up by life" (2 Cor. v. 1-9). 
 
Its Repose not Unconsciousness. 
 
 381 
 
 but not of vacancy. As Christ, on passing out o£ this 
 world into " Hell," was " quickened in spirit " (1 Pet. 
 iii. 18), so are others. The spirit is set at rest from 
 outward activities and impressions in order that it 
 may be free to develope a whole world of inward 
 consciousness. It is shut up within itself, that it 
 may have no alternative but to contemplate deeper 
 facts. Here, we have had hard work to recall our- 
 selves from what is phenomenal to what is real. 
 But to the dead the task is easy. It is their sole 
 occupation. Having no outlet of escape, such as we 
 have, into the amusements of temporal existence, they 
 sound the things which are eternal. The " breadth " 
 and the " length " which S. Paul speaks of, through 
 which they have roamed before and through which 
 they will roam again more freely hereafter, are now 
 inaccessible to them ; and their range lies in exploring 
 that " depth " which S. Athanasius explained to be the 
 realm of the dead (Eph. iii. 18). 
 
 Now it is impossible to suppose that spirits can 
 be all at once confronted with the essential verities 
 of existence without experiencing emotion. When 
 no veil, no medium, no sacrament is any longer 
 interposed, but things are borne in upon the naked 
 ccinsciousness, just as they are ; Avhen it is no longer 
 possible for the truth to be evaded, or disguised, or 
 misapprehended ; then comes an awakening, which 
 even for the Saints must mingle terror with joy. In 
 proportion, no doubt, as men have lived in the light 
 of the Gospel on earth, there will be less surprise in 
 the revelation which death makes, and the delight 
 
382 Awfuhtess of Paradise. 
 
 of finding tlie trutli of tliose tilings which were 
 believed will overpower the pain of discovering what 
 was before unperceived. Yet the vision must have 
 in it something appalKng even for the holiest. S. 
 Paul had had a foretaste of Paradise (2 Cor. xii. 4) ; 
 and he spoke of that awful "depth/' which must 
 then have opened before him, as a thing formidable 
 enough to make the soul reel, and lose its hold, if 
 it were not for the love of God in Christ which 
 embraces and supports it (Rom. viii. 39). Although 
 he was assured that passing out of the body would 
 bring him home to Christ, yet he shrank from the 
 necessity, and felt that it needed courage (Oappovjuiev) 
 to choose such an exposure in preference to the life of 
 earth (2 Cor. v. 8). 
 
 Among the facts which come most vividly before 
 the consciousness of the departed, are those con- 
 nected with the mystery of their own being. For 
 the first time, the man fully realises what he is, and 
 how he came to be what he is. The whole history 
 of God's merciful dealings with him, and of his own 
 narrow escapes from self-perdition, rises up before 
 him. He learns now what his sins have cost, in the 
 strong light of the Presence of Him who bore them. 
 " Thou hast set our misdeeds before Thee," says the 
 funeral Psalm, " and our secret sins in the light of 
 Thy countenance" (Ps. xc. 8). The fact that that 
 Countenance beams upon the pardoned sinner with 
 love surpassing all previous conception, does not take 
 away from him all remorse for his wrongdoing. On 
 the contrary, it adds poignancy to it. Death ushers 
 
Its Purgatorial Aspect. 383 
 
 the Christian into a state of profound penitence. 
 While he was on earth, his penitence was mixed with 
 alarms for his salvation, which relieved the sense of 
 the intrinsic horribleness of the sin. But when all 
 anxiety about the future is over, the spirit is able 
 disinterestedly to enter into the feelings of the holy 
 Redeemer with regard to the sins which He bore. It 
 then understands the prophetic promise ; " that thou 
 mayest remember, and be confounded, and never 
 open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, 
 when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou 
 hast done" (Ezek. xvi. 68). And whereas on earth 
 penitence was able in som.e measure to appease its 
 cravings by earnest action, it no longer has that 
 resource. S. Bernard well points out, — though he 
 has chiefly the lost in view, — how keen a difference 
 the absence of the body makes; so that the man is 
 forced to taste the hatefulness of his acts without 
 being able to repair them (paenitentiam haberi, non 
 agi). No purgatorial flames that are imagined, could 
 cause such anguish as this sword of penitence which 
 both rends and mends the soul. 
 
 The doctrine of Purgatory as taught in the Roman 
 communion expresses these truths in a parable ; but 
 it also introduces ideas which are quite foreign to the 
 Gospel. There are, no doubt, diversities of discipline 
 to be undergone between death and judgment, suited 
 to the diversities of thos-e who are to be disciplined ; 
 but such a purgatory as Scripture teaches us to think 
 of has nothing retributive in it. It is not different 
 from Paradise. The spirit passes into no more exile 
 
384 The Timelessness of Paradise. 
 
 from the face of Christ, or from His felt grasp. " The 
 souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and 
 there shall no torment touch them " (Wisd. iii. 1). 
 All that is sharp in it is of the spirit's voluntary and 
 natural self -infliction, by the help of grace. There are 
 few good Christians who think that they have had 
 penitence enough in this life. As a rule, they long 
 to have a deeper sense of their forgiven sins, and 
 would desire some space for reflexion and recollec- 
 tion, some leisure for purging and shriving, before 
 presenting themselves for the final judgment. Such 
 an opportunity is given, when our Lord says to the 
 departing faithful, " Come, My people, enter thou into 
 thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide 
 thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be 
 overpast " (Isa. xxvi. 20). 
 
 The life of Paradise being lived in memory on 
 the one hand, and in expectation on the other, can 
 hardly be said to have a present. "Their works 
 follow them ; " so the Apocalypse describes the one 
 aspect of it: — "And they cried with a loud voice, 
 saying, How long, 0 Lord ? " so it describes the 
 other. Where successive actions are impossible, and 
 the seasons of the natural world are not felt, our 
 temporal divisions are unknown. To speak, as in 
 the language of Indulgences, of years or days in this 
 connexion, must be purely figurative, if it has any 
 sense at all. Whatever measurements the spirits of 
 the departed have, must be of a subjective and 
 internal kind. In all probability it is the same to 
 them whether a thousand years have elapsed on 
 
The imttual Fellowship of the Dead, 385 
 
 earth since they left it, or only a few minutes. 
 When, therefore, we speak of their state as a state 
 of progress and education, we do not tie ourselves 
 to an earthly mode of progress, gauged by length 
 of time. There is no reason to suppose that the 
 Saints pass through their intermediate state more 
 quickly, in the temporal sense of the word, than 
 ordinary Christians, or enter the joys of heaven 
 before the end of the world. 
 
 The strange isolation of the dead from all external 
 intercourse with other persons and things does not 
 really make them solitary. It leads them to a far 
 more profound communion with each other and with 
 us. In this life we only guess at the meaning of 
 the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost. They know it 
 by a direct experience. Here, we conjecture one 
 another's meaning through signs and words and 
 looks, and often misinterpret them. There, they 
 read clearly, seeing the truth of things in Christ. 
 The outward events of this world's history do not 
 affect them ; but the spiritual bearings of those events 
 no doubt affect them deeply. 
 
 This is involved in their relations with Christ, the 
 closeness of which is brought out in every passage of 
 Scripture which deals with the subject at all. When 
 the believer dies, he ''goes to rest through Jesus" 
 (1 Thess. iv. 14), because it is Jesus that prepares 
 his place of repose and conducts him to it. He " dies 
 in the Lord " (Rev. xiv. 13), because death does not 
 carry him outside of that sacred union in which he 
 has lived. His parting cry is, ''Lord Jesu, receive 
 
 2 c 
 
386 Their Relationship with Christ. 
 
 my spirit " (Acts vii. 59), because, however grea.t the 
 submission to Christ has been before, the spirit now 
 springs absolutely into His keeping, to have no 
 independent life of its own. Yet it is not lost in 
 Him. It departs to " be with Christ (aOv, Phil. i. 23), 
 as still a separate personality, capable of enjoying the 
 privilege of being in the same place where He is. 
 And He promises that it shall " be with " Him in 
 more than a local sense in Paradise (/uer Ifxov, S. Luke 
 xxiii. 43) : it shall have a sense of companionship 
 with Him, and of sharing His fortunes. Nor does 
 the spirit of the believer feel that its sojourn there 
 in His company is either precarious or unobserved. 
 He is " at home with the Lord (Iv'^^fxnaai irpog, 2 Cor. 
 V. 8), in reciprocal intercourse with Him, in mansions 
 which are his true and native abode, because they are 
 Christ's to begin with. When his stay in that par- 
 ticular " mansion " of the Father's house is ended, 
 "Godwin bring" him, still "with Jesus" (1 Thess. 
 iv. 14), to that more complete state in which body 
 and spirit together will have the fruition of eternal 
 fellowship with Christ. 
 
 No prayers which we can offer for the Christian 
 dead accord better with this view than that which the 
 English Church puts in our lips, that God's kingdom 
 may be hastened, so that they and we alike may have 
 our perfect consummation, botli in body and soul. But 
 any other petitions which we please to offer for them, 
 we may freely ofFer, provided that we offer them sub- 
 ject to those general laws of prayer whicli have been 
 laid down elsewhere. It is a cruel wrong to Christian 
 
Prayers for the Dead. 
 
 387 
 
 mourners when they are deterred from pouring out 
 their hearts in prayer for the dead. God is a Father, 
 and would have us tell Him everything we feel. If 
 there is any desire in our minds which we dare not 
 bring to Him, we ought not to retain it at all. Every- 
 thing that we may legitimately wish for, we may 
 reverently ask. We may not ask for things which 
 God makes it plain that He does not will, — such as 
 the return of the dead to this corruptible life, or 
 communication with them in superstitious and for- 
 bidden ways. Nor ought we to make definite peti- 
 tions based on uncertain knowledge of the facts, or at 
 least we must make them with great reserve. But 
 it is safe, with S. Paul, to ask for the departed 
 ''mercy in that day" (2 Tim. i. 18), or with the 
 Psalmist, that they and their past afflictions may be 
 ''remembered" (Ps. cxxxii. 1). Rest, peace, refresh- 
 ment; light perpetual, the favour of the Divine 
 regard ; a portion with the Saints ; a joyful resurrec- 
 tion and a merciful judgment ; — these are the kind of 
 requests which ancient piety was accustomed to make 
 for them. Nor can it be unavailing and superfluous 
 to offer such prayers. No doubt a disproportionate 
 amount of time and energy has sometimes been 
 devoted to them, and in the fifteenth century the 
 deliverance of the dead from the pains of purgatory 
 seemed to have become the main object of the Mass. 
 The dead do not need the succour of the prayers of the 
 living in the same way as those do who are still liable 
 to temptation, and whose salvation is not yet assured. 
 But our prayers are of use to them in their progress. 
 
388 The Resurrection of the Body. 
 
 To omit the mention of them in the devotions of the 
 Christian Church on earth would imply that all con- 
 nexion between them and us had ceased. Nothing 
 could be more untrue. 
 
 § 3. 
 
 The Church knows no special doctrine of the 
 Immortality of the Soul, such as philosophers have 
 imagined. Her doctrine is that of the future Immor- 
 tality of the Man. Though she teaches the continuous 
 existence and consciousness of the spirit in Paradise, 
 the man, during that period, must be regarded as 
 dead. So our Blessed Lord says of Himself, " I am 
 the living one, and I became dead; and behold, I 
 am living for evermore'' (Rev. i. 18). But as death 
 is not annihilation, so the return to life is not the 
 recovery of anything so unsatisfying as existence 
 without a body would be to men. Life, in Christian 
 language, is a more vigorous and substantial thing. 
 Human life requires an organism for its completion 
 and manifestation ; and therefore any doctrine of 
 human immortality must presuppose a Resurrection 
 of the Body. When arguing with the Sadducees, who 
 rejected the belief, our Lord convicted them of a great 
 and twofold error. They erred concerning "the 
 power of God," not believing that He was able to 
 raise the dead to life, because they had no notion of 
 any bodily life that could transcend this ; and they 
 erred in not knowing the Scriptures." The reasoning 
 of Jesus from the Scriptures is not immediately clear, 
 but the very assumptions which it makes are most 
 
Christ's Argument with the Sadditcees. 389 
 
 instructive. Many years after the death of the 
 Patriarchs, He says, God still speaks of Himself as 
 their God. It might have been supposed that He 
 called Himself so because He was their God while 
 they lived. But deeper reflexion shews that such a 
 bond as had been formed between God and the 
 Patriarchs could not be a momentary and perishable 
 thing. Creatures so made in the image of God as to 
 be capable of friendship with Him, and actually 
 admitted to it, could not pass out of existence and 
 be forgotten. Therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
 were still alive; — indeed it Avas the case with all 
 the dead, "for all live unto Him.'' But this involves 
 a still further thought. If those Patriarchs, though 
 dead, are still alive, not as memories in the retrospect 
 of God, but as personal existences, it must be by virtue 
 of a coming resurrection. The spirit of Abraham by 
 itself is not Abraham, any more than the body of 
 Abraham is. Therefore, if God is Abraham's God, and 
 not a God of the dead but of the living, He must have 
 in reserve for His friend a return to life, certainly not 
 less rich and full than the life of earth, and therefore 
 clothed in a fitting body. 
 
 The nature of the resurrection body is to be 
 learned from the descriptions given us of our Lord's 
 own Body after the resurrection; and by S. Paul's 
 deductions from the same. It was by rising from the 
 dead Himself that Christ " lighted up life and incor- 
 ruption" (2 Tim. i. 10). There are tw^o cautions 
 which must reverently be borne in mind, however, 
 in applying to ourselves what was seen in Him. 
 
3 go A^ature of Christ's Risen Body. 
 
 First, His Body was the Body o£ the Incarnate 
 Word ; and as He was able to do with it, even before 
 death, what other men cannot do, so it may have 
 been afterwards. And on the other hand. His Body, 
 during the forty days, was not seen in the final state of 
 glorification, but only in the initial stage of its return 
 from death. Yet with this twofold reserve we may 
 find an abundance of instruction to gather concerning 
 our own future. His Body was seen, and felt, to be 
 a real body, — He does not say of " flesh and blood," — 
 but of flesh and bones " (S. Luke xxiv. 39). It was 
 still in such relations with this material universe, 
 that His disciples "ate and drank with Him after 
 that He rose from the dead (Acts x. 41). It was 
 undoubtedly the same Body with which He had been 
 born and had lived and died, not a different one. In 
 token of this. He shewed them His hands. His feet, 
 and His side, where there were still traces of the 
 death which He had suffered (S. Luke xxiv. 89 ; S. 
 John XX. 20). Upon this identity of His resurrection 
 Body with His natural Body, He even bases the proof 
 of His own personal identity, — " that it is I Myself," 
 — as if He could not have been Himself, had He 
 appeared in another body. And yet the changes 
 which have taken place in it are no less remarkable 
 than the signs of continuity. It is not always and 
 at once to be recognised, even by those who are 
 familiar with Him, cither by look, or by tones of voice. 
 Some sort of spiritual preparation is required in order 
 to be on a perfect understanding with it. Once we 
 even read of His appearing " in a different form " 
 
^Parable of Seed and Plant, 391 
 
 (S. Mark xvi. 12). Even on an occasion when they 
 were expecting Him, and had been appointed to meet 
 Him, " some were in two minds " when He appeared, 
 not knowing what to make of it (S. Matt, xxviii. 17). 
 I£ still able to draw breath from the air, and to eat 
 the food which was given, and to walk upon the 
 ground, Christ's resurrection Body was not tied to 
 these things. In a chamber where no door is opened. 
 He suddenly starts into view (S. John xx. 26). He 
 no less suddenly " vanishes out of sight " (S. Luke 
 xxiv. 31) when it pleases Him. His Body is able 
 at will to move upwards through the air (Acts i. 9). 
 
 Such are some of the indications which Christ 
 vouchsafed to give us of the relations of the resurrec- 
 tion body to this in which we now are. S. Paul 
 carries our knowledge a little further, by a parable 
 and by a generalisation. He likens the dilference 
 between the present earthly body and that which 
 will develope from it to the difference between the 
 naked grain which is sown and the plant which 
 springs out of it. The seed appears to be hopelessly 
 disintegrated; but it pleases God to re-embody the 
 life which in germ existed in it, and that, after no 
 capricious fashion. An invariable law connects the 
 seed sown with the springing plant, and, although 
 science may be unable to inform us why, the grain 
 of wheat produces wheat and the grain of barley, 
 barley. So the body which a man will wear here- 
 after will be " his own body " (1 Cor. xv. 38), — by no 
 means on account of an identity of component par- 
 ticles, or of similar configuration, but because it is 
 
392 Spirituality of the Risen Body. 
 
 the only one which could issue out of that aggregate 
 of faculties and relations called now his body, so 
 employed as he has employed it. But the organism 
 which is to clothe the man at the resurrection differs 
 far more from the present body than the plant from 
 the seed. Not only is it more beautiful, and stronger 
 " in glory " and " in power ; " — " it is sown in corrup- 
 tion, it is raised in incorruptibility." There is no fear 
 lest it should again droop and decay and die. The 
 man has at length reached true immortality. For, to 
 sum up the whole contrast in a word, the body which 
 was "sown a natural body, is raised a spiritual 
 body " (1 Cor. xv. 44). That is the great distinction. 
 Whereas on earth the man was " in the flesh," and in 
 Paradise "in the spirit," he now finds the perfect 
 union between the two, when the spirit which has 
 learned all that the world of pure spirit has to teach 
 it comes again into a body which never limits or 
 thwarts it, but which absolutely fulfils all its behests 
 without difficulty. Those who are still alive at our 
 Lord's coming will experience the same change with- 
 out passing through death. 
 
 Althouoch "all men shall rise ao^ain with their 
 bodies," yet such a resurrection as this is only given 
 to the faithful. It is the special privilege of those 
 who have learned to make our Lord's flesh their 
 meat (S. John vi. 54). This is that " resurrection 
 from the dead" (e^avaorao-fc v^KpwVy Phil. iii. 11) 
 which saints long and labour to attain. In contra- 
 distinction to them, the wicked, though they return 
 likewise from the merely spiritual state, still remain 
 
Resurrection not alike for all, 393 
 
 among the dead.^ Such bodies as they receive 
 
 correspond to their moral and spiritual condition, 
 
 and therefore contribute nothing to their freedom 
 
 or fulness of life, but on the contrary, bear witness 
 
 to their inward disorganization and decay. If we 
 
 could adopt what appears to be the most direct gram- 
 
 matical translation of one hard text, it would seem 
 
 to suggest that some men, too far gone in natural 
 
 corruption to be capable of the full ''resurrection 
 
 of life," yet not so wilfully wicked as to deserve " the 
 
 resurrection of damnation " (S. John v. 29), would 
 
 be permitted to continue a disembodied existence, 
 
 apart from other men, but not' apart from God (1 Pet. 
 
 iv. 6). Possibly something of a like nature underlies 
 
 our Lord's saying about those who should "enter 
 
 into life maimed, or halt, or having one eye" (S. 
 
 Mark ix. 43-47). Something of the man's history 
 
 must be visible in his very appearance. 
 
 ^ The popular notion that there will be separate resurrections of 
 the faithful and the wicked, at distant times, is founded on a miscon- 
 ception of the figurative language of the Apocalypse. "The first 
 resurrection" (Rev. xx. 5) appears to indicate that rising to new 
 power, by which the saints influence the Church after their death. 
 It has been treated of in this work on p. 234, The study of the 
 lives and teaching of the saints by after generations gives them a 
 share with Christ in His supreme rule over the world now. Another 
 and more usual interpretation is that the ''first resurrection" is the 
 awakening to newness of life which is given to the faithful through 
 their Baptism (comp. 1 Pet. i. 3). But whatever else it may mean, 
 the character of the Apocalypse forbids a literal acceptance of the 
 words. AVhen S. Paul says (1 Thess. iv, 16), ''The dead in Christ 
 shall rise first," it is clear from the original at a glance that he does 
 not contrast them with other dead who shall rise after, but with the 
 quick who are to be transformed : " Then we which are alive and 
 remain." S. Paul is just reversing the opinion w^hicli had gained 
 ground at Thessalonica that " we which are alive and remain . , , 
 should inevent them which are asleep." 
 
394 Christ's Second Coming. 
 
 % 4. 
 
 The general resurrection takes place at the Last 
 Day. It accompanies the coming of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Indeed, it may almost be said to he His 
 coming ; for as we have pointed out elsewhere, the 
 Second Advent of Christ does not mean that He 
 returns to our level, but that we are caught away 
 to His. Instead of subjecting Himself again to our 
 earthly senses, He gives, " in a moment, in the 
 twinkling of an eye,'' to quick and dead alike, those 
 new faculties of the resurrection body by which to 
 apprehend His Presence, — that Presence which ever 
 since His Ascension has been among us, but perceived 
 only by faith. 
 
 That such a Coming awaits the world is one of the 
 clearest revelations of the Gospel. Recently, men 
 have been drawn with much profit to consider, 
 more definitely than before, some less extraordinary 
 facts and events in the Church's life as Comings of 
 our Lord. He comes in the Sacraments, and in His 
 Word. He comes to the soul at death. He comes to 
 the Church in those great moments, like the Fall of 
 Jerusalem, the Conversion of Constantine, the Refor- 
 mation, which we rightly call crises or acts of decision 
 and judgment. But these all are but tentative and 
 preliminary Comings. They form points of transition 
 from one scene in the long tragedy to another. But 
 we still wait for a great denouement ^ which will give 
 an appropriate and artistic close to it all, gathering 
 
Uncertainty of its Date. 
 
 395 
 
 up in one final catastrophe all that the minor Advents 
 have prefigured. 
 
 The date at which the great Advent will take place 
 is entirely unknown to us. It cannot be calculated 
 from the symbolical numbers of S. John ; nor can the 
 most spiritual discernment be sure of reading un- 
 erringly the signs of its approach. If, in reaction 
 from the profane curiosity which delights to make out 
 the day and hour, we hold that it is still far distant, 
 our very thinking so is more of a sign that it is at 
 hand than otherwise ; for the one thing certain about 
 the date is that it will throw out all computations, 
 " for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man 
 Cometh'' (S. Matt. xxiv. 44), Assuredly Christ will 
 not come till the very moment of the " fulness of the 
 times," any more than at His first coming. But if 
 the world does not yet appear ripe for the end, no one 
 can calculate how long or short a time might be 
 needed for the ripening. One day is with the Lord 
 as a thousand years '' (2 Pet. iii. 8) ; and events 
 might move with an appalling rush if it pleased Him 
 to give the impulse. The ingredients are all in the 
 cup; it only needs the addition of some drop to 
 resolve and precipitate them. There is but one 
 lesson which our Lord inculcates on every mention of 
 His Coming, — to be always watching for it, and never 
 to acquiesce in the belief that it is far away. 
 
 It is dangerous to fix too closely the meaning of 
 those warnings which were given by Christ upon the 
 Mount of Olives, and afterwards developed by S. John 
 in PatmoSj but the preparation for the Advent ap- 
 
396 Preparation for it in Nature. 
 
 pears to lie in two main directions, natural and 
 historical. The resurrection of the dead, and the 
 transformation of the still living, will not take place 
 on an unchanged theatre. There is too close a con- 
 nexion between man and the world for that. Christ 
 speaks of " signs in the sun and in the moon and in 
 the stars" (S. Luke xxi. 25), and S. Peter of "fire" 
 and "fervent heat," which will dissolve this present 
 fabric (2 Pet. iii, 7, 10, 12), and prepare the way for 
 a new. Whatever may be the form of those last con- 
 vulsions of the visible order, both revelation and 
 science lead us to believe that as this world had a 
 beginning, so it must have an end. The end, however, 
 is a new and more glorious beginning again. Creation, 
 which has, by no fault of its own, shared in the 
 degradation and misery of man, shares also in the 
 benefits wrought out by Jesus Christ. When "the 
 redemption of our body " comes, then " creation also 
 shall be emancipated from the slavery of decay into 
 the freedom of the glory of the children of God " 
 (Rom. viii. 20-23). The travail in which it now 
 groans shall not be an unfruitful travail. It issues 
 in that "regeneration" which was stated and left 
 without explanation by our Lord (S. Matt. xix. 28). 
 
 And as Nature, through the sins of men on one 
 hand, and their diligence and science on the other, as 
 well as by processes of her own, is working up towards 
 the Advent of her Redeemer and ours, so also is the 
 liistory of man. By the spread of the Gospel among 
 all nations (S. Matt, xxi v. 14), and by the subsequent 
 reassumption of Israel (Rom. xi, 15), the way of 
 
Preparatio7i for it in History, 397 
 
 Christ's Coming is prepared. The Catholic Church 
 refuses to enter into any vain speculations about a 
 Millennium in which Christ is literally and visibly to 
 reign upon earth among Saints already risen from the 
 dead ; but she has reason to expect that before the 
 world is hurried to the final Judgment, wider triumphs 
 will be allowed to her than she has yet seen. Great 
 Oriental nations, as well as the simpler races of the 
 islands and of Africa and America, have still to con- 
 tribute to the fulness of her Catholicity^ Her broken 
 unity must be restored. And then she expects to 
 have one last terrible combat with all the concentrated 
 force which Satan can levy in the world, when good 
 and evil will endeavour to disentangle themselves 
 from each other and gain possession of the earth. 
 Then, when the mysterious Rebel, — the Antichrist 
 who, it may be, pretends to be the Christ, — shall have 
 gathered head, and exhibited the utmost of his impious 
 power, unrestrained, the Lord Jesus will be revealed, 
 and " bring him to nought by the manifestation of His 
 Presence " (2 Thess. ii. 8). 
 
 § 5. 
 
 Impressive pictures of the Final Judgment are 
 drawn for us in the Bible ; and we can only con- 
 ceive of it in a symbolical, apocalyptic form. Never- 
 theless it is as well to recognise that those pictures 
 are not to be interpreted literally, and to endeavour 
 to disengage some of the chief ideas which they 
 represent. 
 
 The first element in a judgment is that of deciding 
 
398 The Jtidgment an Exposure of Truth. 
 
 what has been in dispute. It is a clearing up o£ con- 
 fused and uncertain questions. The matter of debate 
 is examined, the witnesses heard and tested, a lumi- 
 nous review of the cause is given, and an authori- 
 tative conclusion drawn. But, although the principle 
 is the same, there is no need to transfer to the Last 
 Day every detail of human courts. No evidence wil} 
 be called for, and there will be no pleading and 
 counterpleading. In the light of Christ's appearing, 
 all human history, in its most secret and intricate 
 windings, will be made visible at a glance. It will be 
 unnecessary to call attention to this or that fact, to 
 point out circumstances here and there, to discuss 
 and argue. Our Lord tells us that His Coming will 
 be like a flash of lightning. When the lightning 
 bursts out upon the night, it does not move slowly 
 along from feature to feature of the landscape, but 
 reveals the whole, from end to end, and from side to 
 side, at once. So it will be in the Judgment Day 
 (S. Luke xvii. 24). The motives which lay behind 
 words and actions will be as plain as the words and 
 actions themselves. What private and humble per- 
 sonages contributed to the development of the world 
 and the Church will be seen in its true relation to the 
 brilliant achievements of great statesmen, or generals, 
 or ecclesiastics. It is sometimes asked by trembling 
 souls whether repented and forgiven sins will be 
 brought into the judgment. No other answer can be 
 given but that saying of Christ, that There is nothing 
 covered up that shall not be revealed ; and hid, that 
 shall not be known (S. Luke xii. 2) ; and that of S. 
 
The judgment severs Good f^^om EviL 399 
 
 Paul, Make no judgment before the time, until the 
 Lord come, who will both throw light upon the hidden 
 things o£ darkness, and manifest the counsels of the 
 hearts (1 Cor. iv. 5). Everything must come out, 
 good and bad. But penitent souls will then rejoice 
 that it is so. The revelation will do them no harm, 
 nor cause them any uncertainty or fear. The sins 
 disclosed are no longer ilieir sins, and so far as they 
 are concerned God has forgotten the sins. That 
 moment will put the finishing touch to their own 
 penitence, and along with the revelation of their 
 former shame will come the revelation of the glory 
 of Christ's love which it has been made to subserve 
 and of the grace which has been able to turn it to 
 account. Confessed and forsaken sin will be the most 
 powerful evidence against the Accuser, who will find 
 nothing to lay to the charge of God's elect " (Rom. 
 viii. 33). 
 
 Such a judgment, however, is more than a con- 
 vincing exposure of the truth. It does not leave 
 things where it found them. It shapes itself into an 
 effective sentence. There is no more return, after 
 that, to the state of mixture in which we now live. 
 The " eternal judgment " (Heb. vi. 2) not only gives a 
 speculative satisfaction regarding the past, but it is 
 the dawn of a new day altogether, in which good and 
 evil enter no more into conflict, but are finally 
 separated from each other. 
 
 Against the decision then made there will be no 
 appeal, — not simply because there is no higher autho- 
 rity to appeal to, but because the truth will be so 
 
400 
 
 l^he Jttdge a Htmaii Jiidge. 
 
 sel£-evidently shewn that none can dispute it. Those 
 who are condemned will condemn themselves, and 
 those who are justified will see the grounds o£ their 
 justification. For the Judge is not only one who 
 knows all things in their bearings with a Divine 
 omniscience, and weighs them in the scales o£ a 
 Divine righteousness: — the same perfect, representa- 
 tive, once-tempted human nature which qualified Him 
 to be " a merciful High-priest and a faithful " (Heb. 
 ii. 17), qualifies Him also to be a faithful and a merciful 
 Judge. There could indeed be no difference, either in 
 strictness or in tenderness, between the Father's judg- 
 ment and that of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, it is to 
 Him, as the responsible Head of the human race, that 
 all decision affecting the human race is assigned. 
 
 The Father judgeth none, but hath given the entire 
 judgment to the Son, . . . because He is Son of Man 
 (S. John V. 22, 27). 
 
 §6. 
 
 When even S. John the Divine acknowledged that 
 he was unable to guess what the children of God 
 would develope into (1 John iii. 2), it would be worse 
 than idle to dogmatize upon the future state of the 
 blessed. The glory of it infinitely transcends all 
 power of imagination, even when quickened by 
 a life-long experience of the Divine goodness to- 
 wards the saints on earth. To those who have felt 
 wliat it is to be under the guilt and power of 
 sin, it is enough to fill the heart with *'joy un- 
 speakable and full of glory " even to contemplate 
 
Salvation. 
 
 401 
 
 that one aspect of it which is suggested by the word 
 salvation (1 Pet. i. 9). Salvation is a word which 
 draws its splendour from a contrast. It makes us 
 think of the danger we were in, — of the certain per- 
 dition which awaited us, if it had not been for our 
 Saviour. The whole life of grace, indeed, is a life 
 of gradually realised salvation, and throughout our 
 pilgrimage we keep (in S. Peter s language), receiv- 
 ing it ; but it is only when the last trial has been 
 surmounted, and the eternal judgment pronounced, 
 that the soul can be thought of as fully saved. Then, 
 looking back upon the sins of life as purged, and 
 its labours all without damage accomplished, the 
 white-robed and palm-bearing company will acknow- 
 ledge the completeness of what they possess, and to 
 whom they owe it : Salvation unto our God that 
 sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb " (Rev* 
 vii. 10). There is nothing ignoble in the seeking of 
 salvation ; and men who blame Christians for it, as 
 if they were pursuing a sordid and selfish object, 
 can have entered but little into the wholesome fears 
 which the teaching of Christ inspires. An instinct 
 of self-preservation lies in the very springs of life, 
 and must shew itself in spiritual and eternal concerns 
 as much as in earthly. Our Lord and His Apostles 
 constantly appeal to it. It only becomes unworthy, 
 when men seek the salvation of their souls by 
 methods which will never lead to it, namely by 
 neglect of duties and by uncharitable isolation. Yet, 
 in spite of its all-important greatness, salvation de- 
 scribes only the negative side of that which Christ 
 
 2 D 
 
402 
 
 Perfection. 
 
 has procured for His people. The future glory is 
 a positive thing. Salvation is our rescue from the 
 consequences of the Fall. Glory is the destiny for 
 which God created men in Christ without reference 
 to the Fall. 
 
 i Without attempting anything like an account of 
 the heavenly glory of the children of God, it will 
 be safe to say that it must include a fourfold per- 
 fection. Those who attain it will be perfect in 
 themselves, and in perfect relation with God, with 
 the world in which they are, and with their 
 brethren. 
 
 \ To be perfect in themselves, is to have true 
 freedom, so that they may follow out to the full 
 what is natural to them. Their constitution itself 
 will no longer impose an irksome restriction. They 
 could not be happy without some medium through 
 which to act and to be acted upon ; nor with a 
 medium inadequate to their wishes. But the spiritual 
 body will give them all that they require. No conflict 
 will arise, as now, between flesh and spirit. There 
 will be no inertness, or weariness, or weakness, or 
 pain, or disease, or anything connected with decay. 
 Nor will there be any need of vigilance against corrupt 
 desires; for the body being absolutely under the 
 control of the will, and the will itself being perfectly 
 guided by the conscience, and the conscience irradi- 
 ated by the direct light of love, all power of tempta- 
 tion will be at an end. The whole man will move 
 together in all that he does, with an inward unity 
 like the unity of God. Faculties beyond anything 
 
The Beatific Vision, 
 
 403 
 
 which can now be guessed at, will be wielded with- 
 out effort by a central authority, itself sure and 
 sound, with the confident health of a holiness which 
 nothing can seduce. 
 
 Such perfect soundness of the redeemed soul 
 within itself will be at once the condition and the 
 result of a perfect relation to God. " Without sancti- 
 fication no man shall see the Lord " (Heb. xii. 14) ; 
 and yet he cannot attain the sanctification except 
 by seeing Him. ''We know that if He appear, we 
 shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is'' 
 (1 John iii. 2). The Beatific Vision of God in 
 Christ will have the power to transform those who 
 are admitted to it, in proportion to their power of 
 taking it in. As it will be perpetually before their 
 eyes, and they will never for an instant lose sight 
 of it again, their power of taking it in will be per- 
 petually increased; and they, in consequence, will 
 still, in heaven, be more and more " transformed into 
 the same image from glory to glory" (2 Cor. iii. 18). 
 All will not be accomplished at the first glance. It 
 is only true up to a certain point to say that the 
 day of faith and hope will be over, because they 
 are swallowed up in sight (2 Cor. v. 7 ; Rom. viii. 24). 
 Faith and hope, like charity, are among the things 
 which will "abide," even when the saints know as 
 they were known (1 Cor. xiii. 12, 13), because there 
 will always remain an infinity of blessed experience 
 to be drawn from that inexhaustible fountain of good- 
 ness ; and as age passes after age, it will seem 
 to the redeemed as if they were only just beginning 
 
404 The New Heavens and New Earth. 
 
 to appreciate the glory of God, and only just begin- 
 ning to be capable of appreciating it. The eternal 
 life of the saints consists in the knowledge of God, 
 in heaven as on earth, and there is no limit that 
 we are aware of, at which that eternal life will cease 
 to expand and increase in strength. 
 
 Perfect in themselves, and in perfect relation to 
 God, they will live in perfect surroundings. Those 
 " new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth right- 
 eousness" (2 Pet. iii. 13), will give them a never- 
 ending field for enjoyment, and wonder, and thanks- 
 giving. Heaven is not a place, it is true; but it 
 expresses a whole world of things with which the 
 blessed will be connected. The delight which God 
 here accords to the senses will be found there in its 
 glorified and spiritual counterpart. Far as the Chris- 
 tian imagination of heaven is removed from anything 
 sensuous, we are not required to represent it to our 
 minds as so severely spiritual, so unmixedly a king- 
 dom of ideas, that the simple and unintellectual and 
 childlike would find no attraction in thinking of it. 
 There will be transformed objects to correspond with 
 the transformed body ; and the relation to them will 
 be a perfect relation, — of mastery, not subjection, — of 
 free and restful delight, not of bewildered snatching 
 here and there. And, unless we wrongly interpret 
 some passages of the New Testament, our relation to 
 the glorified world will not be one of ethical freedom 
 only, but of direct control and government. We are 
 destined to take that place with regard to nature 
 which is now occupied by the angels. Ourselves 
 
Perfect Union of the Blessed. 405 
 
 made " equal unto angels " (S. Luke xx. 36) in those 
 respects in which now we fall short of them, — in 
 spirituality, in concentration, in reach of understand- 
 ing, in orderliness, in holiness, in devotion, — we shall 
 be able perfectly to fulfil those functions which were 
 contained in the charge given to man at his beginning 
 (Gen. i. 28). It may even be that those faculties 
 which now are employed in artistic interpretation and 
 imaginative invention may become a power of actual 
 creation, and that new realms may be framed through 
 the children of God to the glory of their Father. 
 
 The mutual relations between those who are saved 
 will be no less perfect than their relations to reno- 
 vated nature. Perfected union of all men in Christ 
 is a main part of the glory to which we look forward. 
 But little is told us of special joys for individual souls 
 in heaven ; the teaching of Scripture is mainly occu- 
 pied with what is common to all. It would, indeed, 
 be most false to suggest that the several personalities 
 of men will cease to exist, and that nothing will 
 remain but a general consciousness of tlie race, — 
 whatever that might be. S. Peter will for ever be 
 S. Peter, and S. Paul, S. Paul, each with his own 
 continuous experience, which none can share with 
 him at first hand. This is contained in the promise 
 of the " white stone, and upon the stone a new name 
 written which no man knoweth but he that receiveth 
 it" (Rev. ii. 17). But the joyful experience of each 
 soul will pass on into the joy of all. Even here, 
 Christians are sufiiciently knit into one body to be 
 affected by one another's suflferings and delights. But 
 
4o6 Differences of Character in Heaven. 
 
 the sympathy which is here a matter o£ deHberate 
 and difficult attainment, and most imperfectly real- 
 ised even among those who stand nearest to each 
 other, will then be instinctive and universal. Whereas 
 now the union of Christ's members is a matter of 
 faith and hope, it will then be a matter of realised 
 consciousness and of sight. Love will go out from 
 soul to soul in the same strong and satisfying manner 
 in which it moves in the Blessed Trinity itself. All 
 those peculiarities which in this life repel and hinder 
 confidence will be done away. Hearts will be all 
 open to each other. No false reserve will any longer 
 conceal the motive which prompts every thought and 
 action : " His name shall be upon their foreheads " 
 (Rev. xxii. 4). 
 
 If personality is preserved in heaven, it is evident 
 at once that there will be no dead level of blessedness 
 among the redeemed, but that inequalities will still 
 remain. In the Gospel parable, each labourer receives 
 the same reward, because all receive the salvation of 
 their souls, and all are blessed up to their full capacity 
 of blessedness. But the souls thus saved are still 
 widely different from each other, — not in sinlessness, 
 for all will be sinless, — but in depth of character, in 
 powers, in versatility, in receptiveness. All are glori- 
 fied, and each one will rejoice in his own particular 
 glory without envying another's, but the glory of 
 all cannot be alike (1 Cor. xv. 41). There is, for 
 example, the glory of the innocence which was never 
 lost, remaining eternally distinct from the glory of 
 the cleansed penitent (Rev. xiv. 3, 4). And as with 
 
Permanence of Relationships. 407 
 
 moral characteristics, so also with the intellectual. 
 There will be the glory o£ the simple-minded, and the 
 glory of the scientific. Mere acquirements, indeed, 
 will go for very little, and many that have been first 
 in this life will be last there, and the last first, — if 
 they were last only for lack of opportunity; but 
 natural bent, and diligent self -culture, must assuredly 
 receive their appropriate consecration and perfection. 
 In like manner — although all that is physical and 
 earthly in such distinctions passes away — distinctions 
 like those of sex, and nationality, which enter into 
 the very essence of souls, cannot be utterly obliterated. 
 And ties which have bound souls closely together in 
 this life, like those of husband and wife, mother and 
 son, friend and friend, will retain, in the altered 
 circumstances, all that was inward and of eternal 
 value, and will be glorified with the glory of the souls 
 which they connect. Even on earth, such relation- 
 ships are not stationary, but change their outward 
 features from year to year, and Mary s attitude 
 towards Jesus, and His to her, was not the same on 
 Calvary as it had been at Nazareth; still less is it 
 the same now ; but every instinct of the heart rebels 
 against supposing that Mary in heaven will be no 
 more to Jesus than any other holy woman, and that 
 she will remember her motherhood as only a strange 
 dream of the past. 
 
 Perfect mutual relations among souls so widely 
 different necessitate the ideas of authority and sub- 
 ordination. Such ideas are commended to our minds 
 when the glorified Church is represented to us, not as 
 
4o8 Degrees of Attthority in Heave^t. 
 
 a Garden o£ Eden, with its lonely scenery, but as a 
 City, a ^'new Jerusalem" (Rev. xxi. 2). Our Lord, 
 in figurative language, said that His Apostles should 
 judge, — that is, should rule, — the twelve tribes of 
 His new Israel (S. Matt. xix. 28). He spoke of some 
 being set to govern ten cities, and others five (S. Luke 
 xix. 17, 19), in proportion to the faithfulness with 
 which they had acquitted themselves in a simple 
 office of trust on earth. Thus good work is rewarded 
 by further opportunities of good work. It is alto- 
 gether beyond us to guess in what kind of way such 
 ruling spirits will be able to benefit those who are put 
 under them, in a state where all are blessed beyond 
 fear of failure ; but in whatever way it may be, it is 
 at least certain that the rule will be like that of 
 Christ Himself, — one of loving watchfulness, of meek 
 and unselfasserting serviceableness (S. Luke xxii. 25, 
 26), — one in which priesthood is not forgotten in the 
 organizing work of kingship (Rev. i. 6), 
 
 § 7. 
 
 And here, perhaps, may come in what was observed 
 concerning those who in this life were not among the 
 elect, and yet cannot be classed among the reprobate. 
 There is a special sense in which salvation belongs 
 only to the Church, but the Apostle's language sug- 
 gests that in a different sense it may belong to 
 others also (1 Tim. iv. 10). Christians are regarded by 
 S. James as " a kind of firstfruits of God's creatures " 
 (S. James i. 18). It follows that there must be a 
 harvest of some kind to come afterwards. How ex- 
 
ytidgment of those outside. 409 
 
 tensive that harvest may ultimately be we are not 
 told; but there is no difficulty in supposing that it 
 includes all those who, in the midst of false beliefs 
 and heathen superstitions and heartless philosophies, 
 have endeavoured to live worthy of the human name, 
 with some better and more kindly desires than those 
 which selfishness dictates. Thus our Saviour tells us 
 of the judgment by which He will judge the nations — 
 that is, the mass of mankind, outside the line of the 
 Chosen People, Jewish or Christian. While the test 
 for the elect is of a higher character, as shewn in the 
 Parables of the Virgins and of the Talents, the test 
 for the nations, gathered like unenlightened animals 
 before their Judge (S. Matt. xxv. 32), is that of simple 
 humanity. If they have been actively kindhearted 
 towards those in need, they are saved. Not that such 
 persons, any more than we, have atoned for their 
 faults by their good works, or are " saved by the law 
 or sect which they have professed." Jesus Christ 
 is their Saviour ; and their actions have shewn a 
 rudimentary faith in Him. Though they little knew 
 whom they were befriending, they were befriending 
 Him. They were not yet made partakers of His 
 Nature, but He was already partaker of theirs, — and 
 by thus claiming their place as true human beings, 
 they became without knowing it, eternally attached 
 to Him. They were " of the truth,'' and they learn to 
 their surprise that the Voice which they obeyed was 
 His (S. John xviii. 37). Everything that is really 
 human belongs to Christ, and is saved by Him ; and 
 we may be sure that if any one who was once human 
 
4IO Relations of the Chttrch with them. 
 
 is finally lost, it must be because such an one has 
 finally destroyed in himself that which made him truly 
 a man, refusing the likeness of God and at last ceasing 
 to bear His image. But it is not probable that those 
 whom the inscrutable Providence of God has left in 
 darkness in this life will rise all at once into the 
 full stature of those who were chosen to be His 
 children. There will still be an inner and an outer 
 circle among the saved. The Church will even then 
 have a mission to those who are not yet wholty 
 incorporated into her, but are willing to become her 
 tributaries, her subject allies. And the nations shall 
 walk through her light, and the kings of the earth 
 bring their glory into her " (Rev. xxi. 24). And so, 
 perhaps, through one aeon after another, those who 
 shared the Cross of Christ upon earth may keep 
 ahead of others who follow as they advance, and may 
 be the means of revealing the wonders of the ever- 
 lasting Gospel to world after world. 
 
 § 8. 
 
 When we contemplate the blessedness of those 
 who are saved, we are forced to turn to the terrible 
 contrast of the misery of the lost. Naturally difficult 
 in itself, the subject has been made none the less so 
 by the controversies of recent years. A matter re- 
 quiring the most grave and patient treatment has 
 been made the topic of unguarded rhetoric on the one 
 side and on the other ; and it has almost come to pass 
 that men who arc willing to be disciples of Christ in 
 other things, rebel against His teaching about Hell. 
 
Contrast of the Lost and the Saved, 411 
 
 For, as a matter of fact, the clearest and the most 
 awe-inspiring words which form the Church's doctrine 
 on this point, are words of our Lord Himself, recorded 
 in the Gospels. 
 
 To conceive what the state of the lost will be, it 
 will suffice to mention the opposite of those things 
 which form the bliss of heaven. Instead of complete 
 soundness and inward unity, our Lord speaks of 
 "destroying both soul and body in heir' (S. Matt. 
 X. 28), and quotes the language of Isaiah about the 
 " worm " which preys unceasingly upon their corrup- 
 tion (S. Mark ix. 48; Isa. Ixvi. 24). While the 
 righteous enjoy eternal life by the direct sight and 
 knowledge of Christ, the lost undergo a " second 
 death" (Rev. xxi. 8), which S. Paul describes as an 
 eternal perishing from the face of the Lord and 
 from the glory of His might " (2 Thess. i. 9). It is 
 what our Lord taught, when He said, " Then will I 
 profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from 
 Me " (S. Matt. vii. 23). In contrast with the perfect 
 new world in which the saints move and reign, the 
 only surroundings of the lost which our Lord mentions, 
 are those of " the hell of fire " (S. Matt. v. 22), and 
 "the furnace of fire" (S. Matt. xiii. 42), and "the 
 outer darkness" (S. Matt. xxv. 30). And while the 
 saints are united with each other in the fellowship of 
 unhindered love, the companionship of the lost is 
 of a sadder kind; "Begone from Me, accursed, into 
 the fire, the eternal fire, which hath been prepared for 
 the devil and for his angels" (S. Matt. xxv. 41). 
 "In the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, 
 
412 No7ie staffer beyond their Deserts. 
 
 Gather together first the tares, and bind them into 
 bundles to burn them " (S. Matt. xiii. 30). 
 
 The objections which have been raised against the 
 Gospel teaching on this matter are for the most part 
 generous protests against doctrines which appeared 
 to obscure either the love or the justice of God. 
 They have, however, been mostly directed against 
 language and thoughts to which the Catholic Church 
 was never committed, though some of her ministers 
 may have supposed that she was so. Before Christ's 
 teaching about the eternity of chastisement (S. Matt. 
 XXV. 46) can be cordially accepted, it is necessary to 
 have a clear notion about the personages to whom it 
 is to be applied. We may be absolutely certain, 
 to begin with, that none will suffer it who do not fully 
 deserve it. To decide whether any particular person 
 deserves it or not, does not fall within our province, 
 because we are unable to tell what measure of grace 
 has been given, and how far it has been resisted, and 
 the like. But we may certainly trust Him who died 
 for all men, not to pass condemnation upon any who 
 might have received a different sentence, and when 
 the time comes, every one will understand and concur 
 in the judgment which He gives. The lost may be 
 regarded as " many,'' or as " few ; " for those are 
 relative terms (S. Luke xiii. 23, 24); but, whether 
 many or few, they will be lost, not because they were 
 predestined to be lost, nor because God would not 
 elect them to partake of grace, nor because His Spirit 
 was weary of striving with them and gave them up 
 before they were fully tested, nor because they failed 
 
The Lost perish by their Wickedness. 413 
 
 to comply with a standard which was beyond their 
 reach, nor because they mistook the meaning of the 
 Gospel and under a mistake held back from it. All 
 who are lost will be lost by their own fault, in spite 
 of warnings and assistances. They will be lost, not 
 because they were weak, or unimaginative, or stupid ; 
 but because they were wicked, — because, when con- 
 science appealed to them, they silenced it, — because 
 they wilfully quenched what light they had, — because 
 they chose what was wrong, knowing that it was 
 wrong, and preferring it to the right — and that 
 not once or twice, but persistently, and with increas- 
 ing persistence, and to the end, until they had 
 destroyed in themselves the faculties which might 
 have expanded into faith, hope, and charity, which 
 are the life of the soul. They will be lost because 
 they have fixed and determined their characters for 
 evil ; so that all good that could be offered them 
 further would only be made food for fresh evil. They 
 have become like devils and not like men. 
 
 Here lies the answer to that plea so often urged by 
 tender hearts that a just and merciful God cannot go 
 on for ever and ever punishing men for what they did 
 on earth. Life on earth was short ; and it is an 
 exaggeration to say that the sin of a finite being is 
 itself infinite. How then can it be right to prolong 
 punishment out of all proportion to the deeds of sin ? 
 But that is not really what God does. He is dealing 
 not merely with the past actions of these unhappy 
 beings, but with their present character. The earthly 
 life both shewed what they were, and made them 
 
414 Characters, not Acts, are pttnished. 
 
 what they became ; and God treats them accordingly. 
 God must deal with facts as facts. He cannot pre- 
 tend that things are different from what they are. 
 It is true that, while we are still under probation, He 
 holds His hand, and does not deal with us after our 
 sin nor reward us after our iniquities; because, if 
 He did, we should have no opportunity of amendment. 
 But, when probation has had its w^ork, there is 
 nothing to be gained by continuing an attitude of 
 reserve. Mercy persistently spurned on earth would 
 be equally spurned somewhere else. It would be of 
 no use to give the lost a fresh beginning in a new life 
 of probation ; for before they could really start fair, 
 the whole memory of the earthly life, and all its 
 inv/rought eflfects upon the soul, must be obliterated, 
 in which case the men would not really be the same 
 men, but only nominally the same ; neither can God 
 do anything so capricious as to annihilate the past. 
 Or if, on the other hand, the men were put to begin- 
 life again, on earth, or in paradise, or in heaven 
 with the character which they had formed before 
 death, they would only repeat the same kind of history 
 on the new scene. If, indeed, there were any case, 
 in which character had not had sufficient opportunity 
 of declaring itself in this life, God would undoubtedly 
 give it some other opportunity ; but to His eye, with 
 its unerring observation, this life is trial enough, and 
 in rewarding and punishing alike, God is not reward- 
 ing or punishing Avhat has once for all been done, 
 ljut the being who still is what his act^^ prove and 
 make him. 
 
The Penalty is, to be what they are. 415 
 
 It will now be evident that the punishment of the 
 lost is not of an arbitrary kind, like the penalties 
 of human law. Amongst men, in order to ensure 
 obedience, it is agreed that those who infringe a 
 regulation shall pay a fixed fine, or be imprisoned for 
 a certain length of time, or have so many lashes. 
 The arrangement is simply conventional, and a power 
 is lodged somewhere of remitting the penalty at dis- 
 cretion. But in the moral world it is all different. 
 The penalty of being a drunkard or a hypocrite is not 
 to pass so many days in hell, or to be tortured with 
 so many degrees of heat, the penalty is, to be a 
 drunkard or a hypocrite. It works like a law of 
 physical nature. It adapts itself with the most 
 minute equity to each individual case, making the 
 more hardened offender suffer more, and the less 
 hardened less. These are the things which make 
 the pains of hell. Stripes, and hard labour, and 
 terms of penal servitude may be remitted or relaxed ; 
 but what can remit to a man his being what he is, 
 and what he still chooses to be ? 
 
 Not that the law is so entirely self-acting as to 
 exclude all personal action on the part of God. There 
 is no reason to shrink from the belief, awful though it 
 is, that God Himself applies His own laAv to every 
 condemned soul, even as He applies His salvation to 
 every one that is saved. His breath it is, in the 
 Prophet's language, Avhich kindles the fire for them 
 (Isa. XXX. 33). For, though the most part of their 
 penalty is that which comes to them by an inevitable 
 sequence, — to be what they are, — yet they might con- 
 
41 6 Retribtttive Element in the Penalty. 
 
 ceivably be what they are without knowing it. But 
 this God does not allow. It is not His will that they 
 should go on for ever deceiving themselves, and 
 thinking that sin brings no evil consequences. He is 
 determined to bring home to them the true character 
 of their deeds. I will reprove thee," He says, " and 
 set before thee the things which thou hast done" 
 (Ps. 1. 21). If they would not learn it in penitence, 
 by seeing what it cost their Saviour, they must be 
 made to learn it in some other way. We could not 
 otherwise understand how God could be a righteous 
 God. If indeed men's sins were only a personal 
 offence to Himself, and a crossing of His private 
 wishes, so to speak, then He might mercifully pass 
 them over in silence for ever, and lavish benefits upon 
 the doers, even though they still continued to grieve 
 Him. But sin is an outrage upon the world, and 
 upon men in general, and upon the sinner s own soul, 
 and upon the eternal and unchangeable principles of 
 justice which God is bound to maintain ; and there- 
 fore He cannot but constrain every soul which has 
 transgressed to recognise, one way or another, the 
 majesty and sanctity of the law. This is the ven- 
 geance which He takes. Our conception of righteous- 
 ness, and of the righteousness of God, is not that 
 which is set forth in Holy Scripture, if we exclude 
 from it the idea of retribution. Retribution, the 
 rendering to all men exactly what they deserve, is 
 not the whole of justice, but it is an important 
 element in it ; and where retribution is lost sight of, 
 government is enfeebled and becomes immoral. Our 
 
Love itself inflicts the Penalty. 4 1 7 
 
 Lord, therefore, does not hesitate to say that ven- 
 geance will be taken for the wrongs of the elect 
 (S. Luke xviii. 7) ; and S. Paul says the same 
 (2 Thess. i. 6 foil.); and it is assumed that all 
 healthy souls will be glad that it should be so, and 
 will rejoice to see Babylon treated as she deserves to 
 be treated (Rev. xix. 1-8). 
 
 It conducts us to the same result, if we think of 
 God as love ; for the ends of love and justice can 
 never be opposed to each other. When God is said to 
 be love, it is not for a moment to be thought that He 
 loves everything and every one alike. He can only 
 love what is truly loveable. There is nothing love- 
 able in sin, but the very contrary ; and even because 
 He is love God cannot help hating it. And in so far 
 as any being, angelic or human, voluntarily identifies 
 itself with sin, God cannot help hating that being. 
 Satan, and those who take part with him, put them- 
 selves outside of God's love ; or rather, love, in dealing 
 with them, can only shew itself in the form of hatred. 
 Love does not make an exception in disfavour of the 
 lost ; on the contrary, it acts towards them in its 
 normal way, manifesting its detestation and abhor- 
 rence and fury with them as much for their own 
 sakes as for the sake of others. Hell and its torments 
 are the last resource of love, which it employs with 
 the deepest grief to itself, yet with unhesitating firm- 
 ness and satisfaction, because it knows that, when 
 souls have reached such a point of wickedness, it is 
 the kindest, as well as the most righteous thing to do. 
 Anything else would do them harm; and God does 
 
 2 E 
 
41 8 The Punishment Eternal as the Life. 
 
 not wish them harm, though they may have made it 
 impossible for Him to do them good. Difficult as it 
 seems to imagine it now, the tenderest mother o£ a 
 lost son will in heaven not only acquiesce in the doom 
 which Christ pronounces upon Him, but will be thank- 
 ful for it, and say, " Thou, Lord, art merciful ; for 
 Thou rewardest every man according to his work " 
 (Ps. Ixii. 12). 
 
 If this be true, and hell is the best place (so to 
 speak) for the lost to be in, they are not likely to be 
 set at liberty from it, which would mea^n a transfer- 
 ence to a place less advantageous for them. When 
 the Church is asked if their punishment will endure 
 for ever, she can only reply that God has not told her 
 of any end or limit to it, and that where He has not 
 spoken, she cannot speak. Christ's word, " eternal," 
 is not, indeed, the same as " everlasting." It does not 
 express an interminable succession in time, but some- 
 thing which transcends time. It ihight even be sup- 
 posed in some circumstances to suggest a fixed period, 
 and might be translated " age-long." But the point to 
 be observed is that our Lord used the same epithet, in 
 the same context, to describe the portions of the saved 
 and of the lost alike. If the life is eternal, so is the 
 punishment ; if the word fixes a period to the punish- 
 ment, it fixes a period to the life (S. Matt. xxv. 4C). 
 Perhaps some passages which have been thought to 
 indicate endless time may be otherwise interpreted. 
 For instance, when our Lord says, " Their worm dieth 
 not, and the fire is not quenched " (S. Mark ix. 48), 
 the thought is rather that of unintermittency than 
 
No Indication of Ptmishment ending. 4 1 9 
 
 that o£ interminableness. And again, there are a few 
 sayings which appear to encourage the thought of a 
 limit that may be reached. Such is the saying, Thou 
 shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid 
 the uttermost farthing" (S. Matt. v. 26). But this 
 expression is of the nature of a parable or metaphor, 
 and is used for a very different purpose from that of 
 inspiring hope in the midst of sin. The utmost, then, 
 that can be said is this. We do not know what will 
 answer to temporal succession when we pass out of 
 our present state, and therefore cannot press dog- 
 matically the language which seems to teach an endless 
 duration of punishment. Our knowledge of God's 
 character convinces us that He will punish no one 
 more severely than is necessary, nor for an instant 
 longer than he deserves, and that if at any point some 
 Boul in hell could be found to turn and repent and 
 cease to oppose itself to love and holiness, it would 
 cease to be punished as it had been punished. It may 
 be added that God, who has no pleasure in the death 
 of a sinner, would not be likely to spare any pains to 
 bring the lost round, if it were possible for such a thing 
 to happen, and that no imaginable treatment which 
 they could receive would be more likely to conduce to 
 such an end than the treatment which they will re- 
 ceive in hell. But after all is said, the fact remains, 
 that in Holy Scripture this life is constantly regarded 
 as the time for fixing character, that the judgment of 
 the Last Day is spoken of as absolute and conclusive, 
 and that the condition of those who are then con- 
 demned is set over against the condition of those who 
 
42 o Reconciliation of Things in Heaven. 
 
 are justified without a hint that the one is more 
 transient than the other. 
 
 § 9- 
 
 Here the doctrine of the Church and of the Bible 
 leaves us. It shews us evil absolutely separated from 
 good, and rendered incapable of doing any further 
 mischief, and made to feel — not by force, but by 
 moral means — its inherent weakness and folly. It 
 shews us evil subjugated to good, and acknowledging 
 its subjugation. If any of those great Principalities 
 in heaven, who watch the drama of human life and 
 learn by it (Eph. iii. 10), were uncertain at the outset 
 whether evil would prove stronger than good, they 
 are now convinced. If some were inclined to waver 
 in their allegiance, and to indulge in some degree 
 of sympathy with the revolt of Satan, the moment 
 is come when they make their confession and are 
 reconciled through Christ (Col. i. 20). The sight of 
 the completed salvation of the saints removes the 
 last vestige of a doubt, and they fall before the throne 
 with a heartfelt and adoring "Amen" (Kev. vii. 12). 
 There is no more room for question. Evil has had 
 every chance, and has utterly failed, and has only 
 recoiled upon the heads of those who, in defiance of 
 love and holiness, sold themselves to it. 
 
 This is enough for us to know. If there be any- 
 thing further to come, we are not told of it. The 
 "times of restitution of all the things which God 
 spake by the mouth of His holy prophets" are the 
 times of the return of Jesus from heaven (Acts iii. 
 
The yudgment closes our Vista. 421 
 
 21). There is nothing to indicate an interval between 
 the "coming" o£ Christ and "the end, when He 
 delivers up the kingdom to God, even the Father; 
 when He shall bring to nought every principality and 
 every authority and power/' subjecting even death, 
 the last enemy, to His feet, and then Himself be- 
 coming subject to the Father in whose strength He 
 has triumphed, " that God may be all things in all " 
 (1 Cor. XV. 24-28). The Return, the Resurrection, 
 the Judgment, close the Church's vista for the pre- 
 sent, with Heaven and Hell dimly seen stretching 
 beyond. It may be that in some unrevealed future, 
 evil will no more be exhibited only as inheriting its 
 own reward, but will be put out of actual existence 
 altogether. If it be so, the method is unknown to 
 us. To annihilate beings still clinging resolutely to 
 evil would seem to be no triumph of goodness, but 
 a confession of failure. To cure Satan and those who 
 are his — for it is hardly logical to dissociate them 
 from him — and so reduce evil once more to the purely 
 notional existence out of which Satan called it, — this 
 would be the only way that would satisfy our concep- 
 tions of an abolition of evil. Such a conversion may 
 not be beyond the power of God. It need not neces- 
 sarily involve the admission of the unhappy beings to 
 a bliss for which they are too late. But to teach for 
 a doctrine of faith such a final purging of evil out 
 of all wills would be rash in the extreme. If not 
 opposed to the spirit of Scripture, it can hardly be 
 reconciled with the letter of it. Nor is it necessary 
 to count upon it. It is sufficient for our present 
 
422 
 
 Complete Victory of Good. 
 
 needs to be assured that justice will be done, — that 
 the event o£ the long day o£ time will not be doubtful 
 in the end, — that it will be no indecisive battle between 
 good and evil, or one in which good comes off barely 
 conqueror, and evil with a creditable defeat. The 
 defeat of evil, whatever form it takes, will be a perfect 
 defeat, leaving nothing to be desired, nothing still 
 in the enemy's hands. God will have triumphed in 
 a manner worthy of God, and His redeemed children 
 vf ill see it and be satisfied. 
 
TABLE OF PATRISTIC PASSAGES 
 REFERRED TO 
 
 ^S*. Ambrose — 
 
 p. 48 . . . De Spiritu Sancto, lib. III. cap. xvi. § 109. 
 
 Athanashis — 
 
 p. 71 . . . De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, § 3 E. 
 
 p. 89 . . . ibid. § 3 F. 
 
 p. 163 . ibid. § 41 A, 42 B. 
 
 p. 166 .. . ibid..§ 6 B. 
 
 p. 184 . . . ibid. § 14 F. 
 
 p. 292 . . . ibid. § 54 D. 
 
 p. 381 . . . ibid. § 16 A. 
 
 [PsettdO'A thaiiasius] — 
 
 p. 158 . . . De Incarnatione et contra Arianos, § i. 
 
 S, Augustine — 
 
 p. 271 . . . Collatio cum Donatistis, dies iii. § 10. 
 
 p. 319 . . . Sermo ad Infantes, cclxxii. C, E. 
 
 p. 323 . . . Confessions, lib. X. § 69. 
 
 p. 326 . De Civitate Dei, lib. X. § 6 F. 
 
 p. 332 . . . Tractatus in Joan. Evang., cii. § i. 
 
 p. 375 . . . Enchiridion, § ex. (29). 
 
 6*. Basil— 
 
 p. 22 . . . Epist. xvi. (Ad Eunomium), 
 
 p. 258 .. . De Fide, p. 224 D. 
 
 p. 303 . . . Moralia, reg. xxi. § 2. 
 
 S» Bernard—^ 
 
 p. 129 . . . Epist. clxxiv. 
 
 p. 195 . . . De Erroribus Abaelardi, § 8. 
 
 p. 383 . . . De Conversione, cap. iv. § 6, 
 
424 Table of Patristic Passages referred to. 
 
 S. Chysostom — 
 
 p. 317 • • • In Ep. I. ad Corinth., Horn. xxiv. p. 288 C 
 (Oxford). 
 
 ^S*. Cyril of Alexandria — 
 
 p. 152 . . . e.g. Quod Unus sit Christus, p. 737 B. 
 
 S, Cyril of Jerusalem — 
 
 p. 249 . . . Catech., xviii. 23 (p. 296). 
 
 S, Gregory of Nyssa — 
 
 p. 314 . . . Catech. Orat. Magna, § 37 C. 
 
 S. Irenacus — 
 
 p. 23 . . . Adv. Haer., IV. vi. 4. 
 
 p. 282 . . . ibid. IV. xvii. 5, and V. ii. 2. 
 
 p. 296 . . . ibid. II. xxii. 4. 
 
 S, Justin Martyr — 
 
 p. 314 . . . Apol. I. § 66. 
 
 p. 328 . . . Dial, cum Tryphone, pp. 296, 297. 
 
 Origen — 
 
 p. 79 . . . De Principiis, lib. I. 57 foil. 
 
 p. 82 . . . Horn, in Num. xiv. p. 680 (Migne). 
 
 S, Pad an — 
 
 p. 259 . . . Epist. i. 4. 
 
 S, PolycarJ), Martyrdom of— 
 
 pp. 248, 249 " . cap. 16; 19. 
 
 S. Vincent of Lerins — 
 
 p. 258 . . . Commonitorium I. § 23. 
 
 p. 263 . . . ibid. I. § 2. 
 
 \_T/ie author regrets that he has been unable as yet to verify the saying 
 cited' by memory from S, Leo on p. 203. ] 
 
INDEX OF TEXTS. 
 
 Genesis. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i. 1, 21, 27 92 
 
 i. 2 91, 225 
 
 i. 26.........95» 
 
 i. 26, 27 100 
 
 i. 28 Q2, loi, 405 
 
 i. 31 '....99, 186 
 
 ii. 2 92 
 
 ii. 7 95^ 9^ 
 
 ii. 8, 9 102 
 
 ii. 15-17 102 
 
 ii. 23,24 112 
 
 iii. 1 103 
 
 iii. G 103 
 
 iii. 14 109 
 
 iii. 20 112, 273 
 
 V. 3 115 
 
 vi. 2, 4 106 
 
 vi. 3 , 227 
 
 xxii. 15 84 
 
 xxviii. 1, 2 81 
 
 xxxii. 2 87 
 
 xxxii. 30 19 
 
 Exodus. 
 
 iii. 14 22 
 
 xii. 14 327 
 
 xii. 46 213 
 
 xxiv. 8 324 
 
 Leviticus. 
 
 xvii. 11 322 
 
 Deuteronomy. 
 
 Ti. 4 24 
 
 xii. 23 322 
 
 xxi. 23 197 
 
 xxxii. 47 43 
 
 Judges. 
 
 ii. 1 84 
 
 II. Samuel. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xxiv. 10, 17 82 
 
 I. Kings. 
 
 xvii. 6 85 
 
 xix. 5, G 84 
 
 II. Kings. 
 
 vi. 17 85 
 
 xix. 35 82 
 
 Job. 
 
 xi. 7, 8 23 
 
 xxxviii. 4, 7 ... . 81 
 
 Psalms. 
 
 vii. 9 37 
 
 xi. G 204 
 
 xi. 7 38 
 
 xiv. 1 3j n. 
 
 xviii. 10 . , c. . . . 82 
 
 xxii. 1 203 
 
 xxiv. 10 87 
 
 xl. 7, 8 193 
 
 1. 21 . . 174, 182, 416 
 
 li. 5 130 
 
 Iii. 7 107 
 
 liii. 1 3, 
 
 Ixii. 12 418 
 
 Ixvi. 13 328, 71. 
 
 Ixxi. 15 38 
 
 Ixxviii. 25 109 
 
 xc. 4 30 
 
 xc. 8 . . . 382 
 
 xci. 11, 12 84 
 
 c. 2 9 
 
 ciii. 20 85 
 
 civ. 4 82 
 
 civ. 31 73 
 
 cxv. IG 92 
 
 cxxix. 5, G 241 
 
 Psalms. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 exxxii. 1 387 
 
 cxxxix. 7, 8,12.. 28 
 
 cxlix. 5 234 
 
 Proverbs. 
 
 viii. 22-31 78 
 
 Ecclesiastes. 
 
 iii. 21 97 
 
 xii. 7 97 
 
 Isaiah. 
 
 vi.2 38,^5 
 
 xxvi. 12 356 
 
 xxvi. 20 384 
 
 XXX. 33 415 
 
 xxxii. 17 369 
 
 xliii. 27 117 
 
 xliv. 8 25 
 
 xlvi. 9, 10 31 
 
 liii. 3 192 
 
 liii. 5 203 
 
 liii. G 200 
 
 liii. 12 323 
 
 Ivii. 1, 2 234 
 
 Ixiii. 4, 5. 200 
 
 Ixiv. 8 176 
 
 Ixvi. 24 411 
 
 Jeremiah. 
 
 i. 5 114 
 
 Ezekiel. 
 
 i. 20 83 
 
 xvi. G3 383 
 
 xviii. 32 323 
 
 Daniel. 
 
 iii. 28 84 
 
 vi. 22 84 
 
426 
 
 Index of Texts. 
 
 Daniel. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 viii. 16 84 
 
 ix. 21 88 
 
 X. 8 86 
 
 X. 18 84 
 
 X. 19 86 
 
 X. 20, 21 87 
 
 Amos. 
 
 iii. 2 124 
 
 Nahum. 
 
 i. 2-6 . . , 38 
 
 Habakkuk. 
 
 i- 13 37? 104 
 
 ill. 4 159 
 
 Zecharlah. 
 
 i. 8 85 
 
 vi. 13 . 330 
 
 viii. 16 10 
 
 xii. 10 181, 213 
 
 xiii. 1 213 
 
 Malachi. 
 
 i. 11 325 
 
 iii. 6 32 
 
 II. Esdras. 
 
 iv. 1 0 88 
 
 Tobit. 
 
 xii. 15 88 
 
 Wisdom. 
 
 i. 7 226 
 
 iii. 1 384 
 
 viii. 1 80 
 
 xi. 23 182 
 
 xii. 1 226 
 
 Ecclesiasticus. 
 
 XV. 20 347 
 
 S. Matthew, 
 
 i. 3, 5, 6 129 
 
 i. 20 127 
 
 ii. 13 84 
 
 iii. 16 223 
 
 iii. 17 186 
 
 V. 14 233 
 
 V.22 411 
 
 S. Matthew. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 V. 26 419 
 
 V. 48 37 
 
 vii. 6 296 
 
 vii. 23 411 
 
 viii. 20 192 
 
 viii. 28 256 
 
 X. 28 411 
 
 xi. 11 294 
 
 xi. 27 23, 176 
 
 xii. 34, 36, 37 . . . 365 
 
 xiii. 24-30 246 
 
 xiii. 30 412 
 
 xiii. 42 411 
 
 xvi. 18 229, 264 
 
 xvi. 19 265 
 
 xvii. 20 360 
 
 xvii. 27 44 
 
 xviii. 3 363 
 
 xviii. 10 83 
 
 xviii. 20 . . . 274, 332 
 
 xix. 5 341 
 
 xix. 6 342 
 
 xix. 11, 12 342 
 
 xix. 28 396, 408 
 
 XX. 28 205 
 
 xxi. 16 296 
 
 xxii. 29 388 
 
 xxii. 32 389 
 
 xxiv. 14 396 
 
 xxiv. 44 395 
 
 XXV. 1-13 409 
 
 XXV. 14-30 409 
 
 XXV. 30 411 
 
 XXV. 32 409 
 
 XXV. 41 411 
 
 XXV. 46 412, 418 
 
 xxvi. 26 . . . .309, 311 
 xxvi. 28 324 
 
 xxvi. 38 147 
 
 xxvii. 46 . . . 203, 205 
 
 xxviii. 2 82 
 
 xxviii. 4 86 
 
 xxviii. 17 391 
 
 xxviii. 19 . . . 43, 246, 
 
 298 
 
 S. Mark. 
 
 ii. 8 147 
 
 V. 2 256 
 
 vi. 13 339 
 
 viii. 12 147 
 
 S. Mark. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 viii. 36 99 
 
 ix. 43-47 393 
 
 ix. 48 411, 418 
 
 X. 14 296 
 
 x. 18 189 
 
 X. 45 205 
 
 xiv. 24 322 
 
 xlv. 33, 34 196 
 
 xvi. 12 391 
 
 xvi. 15 273 
 
 xvi. 18 339 
 
 S. Luke. 
 
 i. 19, 20 86 
 
 i. 19, 26 88 
 
 ii. 10 84 
 
 ii. 12 159 
 
 ii. 14 159 
 
 ii. 49 152 
 
 ii. 52 151 
 
 iv. 13 188 
 
 v. 17 265 
 
 ix. 31 J 94 
 
 ix. 41 194 
 
 X. 16 261 
 
 X, 21 . 147 
 
 xi. 20 225 
 
 xii. 2 398 
 
 xii. 6, 7 27 
 
 xiii. 23, 24 412 
 
 xvi. 22 378 
 
 xvi. 23 379 
 
 xvii. 24 398 
 
 xviii. 7 417 
 
 xix. 17, 19 408 
 
 XX. 13 170 
 
 XX. 36 85, 405 
 
 XX. 38 389 
 
 xxi. 25 396 
 
 xxii. 25, 20 408 
 
 xxii. 42 149 
 
 xxii. 43 86 
 
 xxiii. 43 . . . 212, 378, 
 
 3S6 
 
 xxiii. 46 147 
 
 xxiv. 31 391 
 
 xxiv. 33 266 
 
 xxiv. 39 390 
 
 S. John, 
 i. 1 61, 65 
 
Index of Texts. 
 
 S. John. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i. 3 77, 80 
 
 i.3,4 78 
 
 i. 4 79 
 
 i. 4, 5, 9 122 
 
 i. H 133, 157 
 
 i. 16 355 
 
 i. 18 77 
 
 i. 51 81 
 
 iii. 5 288 
 
 iii. 6 23, 293 
 
 iii. 8 294 
 
 iii. 13 156, 
 
 iii. 16 180 
 
 iii. 21 15 
 
 iii. 34 224 
 
 iv. 24 20, 21 
 
 iv. 42 7 
 
 V. 4 82 
 
 V. 19, 20 67 
 
 V. 22, 27 400 
 
 V. 23 66 
 
 V. 26 65, 304 
 
 V. 29 393 
 
 V. 30 67, 190 
 
 V. 37 20 
 
 V. 43 176 
 
 vi. 27, 33, 35, 51, 
 
 53, 57 306 
 
 vi. 38 149, 153 
 
 vi. 44 357 
 
 vi. 54 317, 392 
 
 vi. 57 66, 304 
 
 vi. 63 20, 273 
 
 vii. 39 228 
 
 viii. 31, 32 260 
 
 viii. 40 137 
 
 viii. 44 106 
 
 viii. 58 138 
 
 ix. 4 380 
 
 X. 16 244, n, 
 
 X. 18 195 
 
 X.28 374 
 
 X. 35 294 
 
 X. 36 122 
 
 xi. 9 380 
 
 xi. 33 147, 187 
 
 xii. 24 217 
 
 xiii. 7 296 
 
 xiii. 10 335 
 
 xiii. 14 335 
 
 xiii. 21 147 
 
 S. John. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xiv. 2 386 
 
 xiv. 6 89, 161, 252 
 
 xiv. 9 175 
 
 xiv. 16 44., 219 
 
 xiv. 18, 23 222 
 
 xiv. 26 45, 226 
 
 xiv. 28 66 
 
 XV. 10, 11 193 
 
 XV. 26 221 
 
 xvi. 7 219 
 
 xvi. 13... 67, 252, 259 
 
 xvi. 14, 15 67, 223 
 
 xvii. 3 51 
 
 xvii. 4, 5 60 
 
 xvii. 5 153 
 
 xvii. 11 245 
 
 xvii. 21, 22 69 
 
 xviii. 37 409 
 
 xix. 28 138 
 
 xix. 32-37 213 
 
 xix. 33, 34 212 
 
 xix. 42 212 
 
 XX. 17 44, 211 
 
 XX. 20 390 
 
 XX. 21 264 
 
 XX. 22 224, 230 
 
 XX. 23.... 335, 71., 336 
 
 XX. 26 391 
 
 XX. 28 64, 311 
 
 Acts. 
 
 1. 9 391 
 
 ii. 17 220 
 
 ii. 22 137 
 
 ii. 31 212, 213 
 
 ii. 33 222 
 
 ii. 38 2S9, 298 
 
 iii. 21 420 
 
 iv. 32 235 
 
 vi. 3 268 
 
 vi. 15 86 
 
 vii. 35 206 
 
 vii. 59 386 
 
 viii. 14 302 
 
 viii. 15-17 299 
 
 X. 4 326 
 
 X. 41 -390 
 
 xii. 7, 10 84 
 
 xii. 15 83 
 
 xii. 23 82 
 
 xiv. 16 123 
 
 Acts. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xvi. 7 225 
 
 xvii. 11 260 
 
 xvii. 26 Ill 
 
 xvii. 28 176 
 
 xvii. 31 137 
 
 xix. 3 298 
 
 XX. 28 143, 
 
 xxii. 16 289 
 
 xxvi. 14 357 
 
 Romans. 
 
 i. 20 3 
 
 i. 21, 25 123 
 
 ii. 14, 15 123 
 
 iii. 24 286 
 
 iii. 25, 26 183 
 
 iii. 28 366 
 
 V. 1 369 
 
 V. 5-8 180 
 
 V. 15 137 
 
 V. 18, 19 195 
 
 V. 19 117 
 
 vi. 3 287 
 
 viii. 2 226 
 
 viii. 7 121 
 
 viii. 19-22 loi 
 
 viii. 20-23 396 
 
 viii. 24 403 
 
 viii. 26 222, 334 
 
 viii. 29 293 
 
 viii. 29, 80 345 
 
 viii. 33 399 
 
 viii. 39 382 
 
 ix. 5 65 
 
 X. 9 367 
 
 X. 10 360 
 
 X. 17 274 
 
 xi. 5 346 
 
 xi. 6 356 
 
 xi. 15 396 
 
 xi. 36 73 
 
 xiv. 7 no 
 
 xvi. 27 27 
 
 I. Corinthians. 
 
 i. 17 210 
 
 i. 25 159 
 
 i. 30 366 
 
 ii. 10 222 
 
 ii. 10, 11 62 
 
 ii. 14 98 
 
4^8 Index of Texts. 
 
 I. Corinthians. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ii. 16 232 
 
 iii. 16 229 
 
 iv. 5 399 
 
 vi. 2, 3 93 
 
 vi. 11 368 
 
 vi. 19 229, 301 
 
 vii. 38 342 
 
 viii. 6 64 
 
 X. 2 287 
 
 X. 13 37 
 
 X. 16 317 
 
 X. 17 318 
 
 xi. 3 186 
 
 xi. 7 Ill 
 
 xi. 10 85 
 
 xi. 25 .... 324, 328, 71. 
 
 xi. 26 327 
 
 xi. 27 320 
 
 xi. 32..'. 377 
 
 xii. 11 . .222, 255, 301 
 
 xii. 12 231 
 
 xiii. 4-7 39 
 
 xiii. 12, 13 403 
 
 XV. 14 214 
 
 XV. 24- 28 421 
 
 XV. 38 391 
 
 XV. 41 406 
 
 XV. 42, 43 392 
 
 XV. 44. . . 98, 215, 392 
 
 XV. 45 218 
 
 XV. 47 135, 218 
 
 XV. 50 321 
 
 XV. 52 394 
 
 XV. 56 198 
 
 II. Corinthians. 
 
 i. 20-22 302 
 
 iii. 17 226 
 
 iii. 17, 18 64 
 
 iii. 18 403 
 
 iv. 2 260 
 
 V. 1-9 379, 11. 
 
 V. 2, 4 194 
 
 V. 7 403 
 
 V. 8 382, 386 
 
 V.14 182 
 
 V. 17 368 
 
 V. 19 29 
 
 V. 21 183, 286 
 
 viii. 9 153 
 
 xii. 4 382 
 
 II. Corinthians. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xii. 15 39 
 
 xiii. 14 234 
 
 Galatians. 
 ii. 17 286 
 
 ii. 20 ...180, 287,343 
 
 iii. 5 227 
 
 iii. 27 287 
 
 iii. 28 162 
 
 iv. 2 93 
 
 iv. 4 121, 127, 395 
 
 iv. 6 224 
 
 iv. 8, 9 123 
 
 iv. 26 273 
 
 Ephesians. 
 
 i. 4, 5 169 
 
 i. 5 292 
 
 i. 7 286 
 
 i. 9, 10 169 
 
 i. 21 87 
 
 i. 22, 23 231 
 
 ii. 3 116 
 
 ii. 10 346 
 
 iii. 9-11 169 
 
 iii. 10 77, 420 
 
 iii. 11 77 
 
 iii. 18 381 
 
 iii. 19 95 
 
 iv. 3 245 
 
 iv. 4 238 
 
 iv. 5 245 
 
 iv. 6 28, 71 
 
 iv. 9 153, 277 
 
 iv. 10 ..134, 234, 277, 
 
 316 
 
 iv. 12, 13 245 
 
 iv. 25 338 
 
 iv. 30 222, 302 
 
 V. 25 343 
 
 V. 26 247 
 
 V. 27 264 
 
 Phillppians. 
 
 i. G 376 
 
 i. 23 386 
 
 ii. 5 232 
 
 ii. 6 134 
 
 ii. 6, 7 153 
 
 ii. 7 ... 158, 186, 203, 
 
 216 
 
 Philippians. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ii. 8 193, 197 
 
 ii. 13 356 
 
 iii. 11 392 
 
 Colossians. 
 
 i. 16 72, 87, 88 
 
 i. 17 80 
 
 i. 18 219 
 
 i. 19 68 
 
 i. 20 420 
 
 ii. 9 158 
 
 ii. 19 287 
 
 iii. 11 162 
 
 I. Thessalonians. 
 
 iv. 14 385, 386 
 
 iv. 15-17 .... 393, 
 
 V. 19 275 
 
 V. 23 98 
 
 II. Thessalonians. 
 
 37 
 
 i. 6-10 417 
 
 i. 9 204, 411 
 
 ii- 8 397 
 
 ii. 10 260 
 
 iii. 14, 15 243 
 
 I. Timothy. 
 
 i- 1 179 
 
 i. 11 33 
 
 ii. 4 346 
 
 ii. 5 137 
 
 ii. 6 206 
 
 ii. 13 112 
 
 ii. 14 108 
 
 iii. 6 105 
 
 iii. 16 147 
 
 iv. 5 315 
 
 iv. 10 408 
 
 V. 22 269 
 
 vi. 15 33, 88 
 
 vi. 16 36 
 
 vi. 20 252 
 
 II. Timothy. 
 
 i. 6 281 
 
 i. 7 340 
 
 i. 10 179,389 
 
 i. 18 387 
 
 ii. 2 269 
 
Index of Texts. 
 
 429 
 
 II. Timothy. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ii. 8 162 
 
 ii. 13 34 
 
 ii. 15 250 
 
 iii. 16 255 
 
 Titus. 
 
 i. 5 269 
 
 i. 12 123 
 
 ii. 13 64 
 
 iii. 5 291 
 
 iii. 8 360 
 
 Hebrews. 
 
 i. 2 220 
 
 i. 3 80 
 
 i. 14 84 
 
 ii. 5, G 93 
 
 ii. 7 86 
 
 ii. 9 ... 153, 196, 203 
 
 ii. 10 72, 166 
 
 ii. 13 189 
 
 ii. 17 2O0, 400 
 
 iii. 2 200 
 
 iv. 12 98 
 
 iv. 15 189 
 
 V. 5, 6 218 
 
 V. 7 134,333 
 
 V. 8 190, 192 
 
 vi. 2 399 
 
 vi. 4-6 374 
 
 vi. 5 300 
 
 vi. 18 34 
 
 vii. 22 208 
 
 vii. 26 166 
 
 ix. 12 323 
 
 ix. 12, 24 219 
 
 ix. 25 323 
 
 X. 12 216 
 
 X. 29 376 
 
 X. 39 99 
 
 xi. 1 125 
 
 xi. 3 2 
 
 xi. 5, 6 2 
 
 xii. 14 . 403 
 
 xii. 24 324 
 
 xii. 28, 29 39 
 
 xiii. 8 ......... 134 
 
 S. James. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i. 2 371 
 
 i. 13 34 
 
 i. 18 71, 408 
 
 i. 25 37» 276 
 
 ii. 24 365 
 
 iii. 9 64 
 
 iii. 15 98 
 
 iv. 5 222 
 
 v. 14 339 
 
 v. 16 337 
 
 I. S. Peter. 
 
 i. 2 347» 348 
 
 i. 3 393^ 
 
 i. 8 400 
 
 i. 9 401 
 
 i. 10-12 126 
 
 i. 11 228 
 
 i. 19 190 
 
 i. 20 171, 
 
 ii. 9 348 
 
 iii. 18 212, 381 
 
 iii. 19 147, 212 
 
 iii. 19, 20 377 
 
 iii. 21 288 
 
 iv. 6 212, 393 
 
 iv. 11 275 
 
 iv. 14 229 
 
 iv. 18 374 
 
 iv. 19 37 
 
 II. S. Peter. 
 
 i. 4 292 
 
 i. 10 347 
 
 i. 21 255 
 
 ii. 11 85 
 
 iii. 7, 10, 12 396 
 
 iii- 8 30^395 
 
 iii. 13 404 
 
 I. S. John. 
 
 i. 5 35» 36 
 
 i. 7 248,325 
 
 ii. 1 200 
 
 ii. 2 331 
 
 ii. 29 293 
 
 iii. 1 295 
 
 I. S. John. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 iii. 2 \oo, 403 
 
 iii. 9 334 
 
 iii. 24 227 
 
 iv. 8, 16 39 
 
 iv. 10 180 
 
 S. Jude. 
 
 3 252 
 
 6 106 
 
 19 98 
 
 20 333 
 
 Revelation. 
 
 i. 6 408 
 
 i. 7 217 
 
 i. 10 253 
 
 i. 18 211, 388 
 
 i. 20 87, 241 
 
 ii. 17 405 
 
 iii. 14 77 
 
 iv. 8 16 
 
 iv. 11 79 
 
 V. 6 324 
 
 V. 12 171, 
 
 vi. 9 379 
 
 vi. 10 384 
 
 vii. 1 82 
 
 vii. 10 401 
 
 vii. 12 420 
 
 viii. 3 85 
 
 xii. 9 104 
 
 xiii. 8 171, //. 
 
 xiv. 3, 4 406 
 
 xiv. 13 .... 379, 385 
 
 xiv. 14 384 
 
 xiv. 18 82 
 
 xvii. 8 171, 
 
 xix. 1-3 417 
 
 xix. 12, 13, 16 88 
 
 XX. 5 393, 71. 
 
 XX. 13 379 
 
 xxi. 2 408 
 
 xxi. 8 411 
 
 xxi. 24 410 
 
 xxii. 1 264 
 
 xxii. 4 406 
 
 xxii. 8 86